How and Why Read Dostoevsky?

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Author: Tatiana A. Kasatkina

Information about the author:

DSc in Philology, Director of Research, Head of the Research Centre “Dostoevsky and World Culture,” A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Povarskaya 25 a, 121069 Moscow, Russia.

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0875-067X

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For citation:

Kasatkina, T.A. “How and Why Read Dostoevsky?” Dostoevsky and World Culture. Philological journal, no. 1 (21), 2023, pp. 27–37. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.22455/2619-0311-2023-1-27-37

Received: 12 Feb. 2023

Published: 25 March 2023

Issue: 2023 no. 1 (21)

Department: HERMENEUTICS. SLOW READING

Pages: 27-37

DOI: https://doi.org/10.22455/2619-0311-2023-1-27-37

EDN:

https://elibrary.ru/WVKDQD

UDK: 821.161.1.0

BBK: 83.3

Keywords: Dostoevsky, Russian secondary and higher education programs, stereotypes of perception, myths about the author and his writing style, meaning of culture, purpose of reading.

Abstract: To some people Dostoevsky opens the real dimension of their human being, allows them to grow up to sanctity, while others feel that the writer casts them into depression, violates their balance, because in order to reach one’s real dimension transitional boundaries should be destroyed and ontologically delusive anchorages should be left, even when they permit to act effectively on a certain level of reality for a short period of time. Dostoevsky is necessary for those who constantly see the perspective of their own death, and not for those who try by all means to shield themselves from it, even when death is drawing nearer. He is necessary for those who look for the sense of experience in every circumstance of life, for those who understood the difference between the aims of life and the circumstances in which it is lived (comfort or misery, social inclusion or exclusion, etc.). Dostoevsky’s greatest gift to those who can and want to accept it is the idea that got into him after the unfulfilled execution: the main goal for people on earth is to remain human in every circumstance, constantly becoming a bit more human, overcoming obstacles to this both inside and outside the self.

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