Dostoevsky and Vladimir Soloviev: The continuous dialogue

A comparative analysis of the work of Dostoevsky and Soloviev is important for many reasons and touches upon four areas of scholarly interest: the philosophical, the literary, the historical, and the religious. This dissertation offers an interpretation of their work on three levels: the universal, reflecting metaphysical questions; the local, reflecting the typical pressing problems for Russia of the late nineteenth century; and the particular, reflecting their own intellectual and spiritual originality. The investigative task does not come down to intertextuality or to questions of influence and borrowing. In order to ascertain the fundamental affinities in the writings of Dostoevsky and Soloviev it is above all essential to penetrate the spiritual and intellectual ambience of their activity and to interpret the subjects that occupy them with the help of their own verbal and conceptual means. This conditions the necessity of addressing certain specifically religious and theological issues whose importance might not be so obvious in a study of the work of other Russian writers. The first chapter offers a parallel treatment of biographical questions connected with the period of Dostoevsky and Soloviev's personal contact. The second chapter starts with the conception of God-manhood found in Soloviev's writings and proceeds to an examination of the dynamic antinomy between the God-man and the man-god as artistically developed by Dostoevsky in his succession of great novels. The third chapter deals with the matter of theocracy: its theoretical foundation by Soloviev and its role in The Brothers Karamazov as regards both the form and the content of the novel. The chapter concludes with an analysis of how the theocratic ideal is reflected in Soloviev's and Dostoevsky's views on the history and policies of Russia. Chapter Four inquires into the ethical principles of Soloviev's and Dostoevsky's philosophical ethics. It demonstrates the interaction of rationalist and metaphysical ethics in Dostoevsky's novels, including the problem of theodicy, and explicates Soloviev's and Dostoevsky's individual insights into the nature of Good and Evil. In the conclusion I address the impact of Soloviev's works on Dostoevsky and indicate the need to undertake a special study of Soloviev's legacy in the field of literary criticism.