Abstract
The article investigates Dostoevsky’s juridical discourse and demonstrates that the apologist of the Russian soul had a genuinely European mind. In his novel The Idiot in particular, in which the death penalty and imprisonment are explored, Dostoevsky unmasks—more radically even than Victor Hugo—the supposedly civilised and lenient forms of modern criminal justice. Dostoevsky’s criticism is ahead of its time; his arguments resemble those subsequently put forward by Foucault. A comparison with Anatoly Pristavkin’s report on post-Communist crime and jurisdiction underscores the topicality of these reflections.
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Notes
Pristavkin (2000a, 419): “Отмена смертной казни возможна в цивилизованном обществе, каковым наше не является.”
On the complementary development of public criminal law and state regulation, with public punishment replacing the old system of fines, cf. Wesel (1997, 333–339).
Beccaria (Dei delitti i delle penne, 1764) argues that prisons allow guilt to be punished according to degree, i.e. measured in time. See Wesel (2004, 239).
On the role of writers in the Russian Presidential Pardons Commission, see Pristavkin (2000a, 63–64). They were appointed to the commission for two reasons: because they hold authority and because they oppose the death penalty.
Date according to the Julian calendar.
The comparison is also apt because Hugo’s narrator, like Dostoevsky, is a member of the upper classes and endowed with a sensitive soul. The reader never learns of his crime. It seems almost certain that he has done nothing wrong at all. His conviction could be due to a miscarriage of justice. See also Knapp (1998, 15).
Merežkovskij’s, Moeller van der Bruck’s and Thomas Mann’s readings of The Devils are analysed by Weiß (2005).
Dostoevsky’s interest in the characterisation of Russianness dates back to his Winter Notes on Summer Impressions (1863). Here, however, his main argument is the concept of character. In his view, the Russian character stands in agreeable contrast to the French individualistic, morally saturated bourgeois consciousness. But even the Winter Notes invite the question whether Dostoevsky himself does not reproduce, in exaggerated terms, the very qualities of the French that he criticises—in style and in perspective. His Winter Notes are conceived as a reckoning with Europe, and yet they are characterised by a highly subjective style and moral reasoning—qualities, in fact, which he himself attributes to the French. Dostoevsky does not appear in the least wild, restive, or patriarchal, as he characterises the Russians, and as a Russian text was thus supposed to be (Dostoevskij 1973b, 56–57, 74–82, 84–85).
Dostoevskij (1981b, 39): “как не любопытно такое явление, что те-то именно русские, которые наиболее считают себя европейцами, называются у нас “западнками” […] скорее всех и примыкают к отрицателям цивилизации, к разрушителям её, к “крайней левой” и что это вовсе никого в России не удивляет […]?
[…] не сказалась ли в этом факте […] протестующая русская душа, которой европейская культура была всегда […] ненавистна и во многом, слишком во многом сказывалась чужой русской душе?”.
Vasenna (2007) cogently identifies the persuasion strategies Dostoevsky uses in the Diary to reach his readers and address their concerns. He is generally successful, with only a few exceptions. The extent to which Dostoevsky’s journalistic writings enter into a dialogue with his readers decreases following his arrest and exile. At the same time, there is an increase in the intentional manipulation of his audience, which largely achieves its ends.
Dostoevskij (1981a, 44): “Однако народ для нас всех—все ещё теория и продолжает стоять загадкой. Все мы, любители народа, смотрим на него как на теорию, и, кажется, ровно никто из нас не любит его таким, как он есть на самом деле, а лишь таким, каким мы его каждый себе представили.”
See also Zink (2005).
Gorjančikov hopes to mediate between the intellectual and common criminals. According to Sergeyev, this strategy of Dostoevsky’s experienced a revival during perestroika, together with its less palatable consequences. “The tradition of Dostoevsky’s man from the underground came back to life. The fight for human dignity in prison was the main theme of a great number of dissident publications. […] The new rationality, supported by the ideology of perestroika, produced a dramatic effect by eradicating the psychological borderline between freethinking and crime, so that a criminal began to be regarded as a hero” (Sergeyev 1998, 94–95).
Dostoevsky’s complex and ambivalent criticism of Western forms of justice is examined in Rosenshield (2005). In his discussion of the jury trial in the Brothers Karamazov, Rosenshield demonstrates that it is in particular his own psychological methods, which he had applied to real trials in Diary of a Writer, that Dostoevsky is questioning here. In his last novel, Dostoevsky struggles to find a form of Russian justice independent of this psychology.
Work on the novel was fuelled by Ivan Turgenev, whose Western manners and arrogance towards Russia had made a poor impression on Dostoevsky in Baden-Baden. On this background, see Knapp (1998, 232–235). Dostoevsky was already engaged in the critique of civilisation at this time. However, he still had great hopes that the judicial reform would have a positive impact on the people. See Knapp (1998, 229).
Dostoevskij (1973a, 190): “В руссую душу, прочем, он [Мушкин] начинал страстно верить. О, много, много вынес он совсем для него нового в эти шесть месяцев, и негаданного, и неслыханного, и неожиданного!
Но чужая душа потёмки, и русская душа потёмки, для многих потёмки. Вот он долго сходился с Рогожиным, “близко” сходились, братски сходились,—а знает ли он Рогожина? А впрочем, какой иногда тут, во всём этом хаос, какой сумбур, какое безобразие!”.
Wolff (1994) draws similar conclusions with respect to Eastern Europe, with the difference that, from a Western perspective, Eastern Europe can still develop. It is only half-wild, half-foreign, much like a child.
See also Pristavkin (2000a, 296): “в прошлом, XIX веке, обозначенном как жестокой, в течение ста лет было казнено что-то трёхсот человек.”
Tolstoy witnessed a beheading in Paris in 1857 and fled, horrified, to Switzerland. And when the mass murderer Troppmann was executed, also in Paris, Turgenev was among the numerous spectators. The Russian intelligentsia could only shake their heads at the gross excesses of the genteel French. It is conceivable that Prince Myškin’s first name and patronymic, Lev Nikolaevič, may derive from Tolstoy’s shock, and thus underscore the importance of the subject of the guillotine in The Idiot. On Dostoevsky’s reaction to Tolstoy’s and Turgenev’s experiences, see Jackson (1993, 29–74). The Tolstoy connection is reinforced by Myškin’s affinity to Pierre Bezukhov (see Miller 1998, 66).
Dostoevskij (1973a, 20–21): “Подумайте: если, например, пытка; при этом страдания и раны, мука телесная, и стало быть, всё что от душевного страдания отвлекает, так что одними только ранами мучаешься, вплоть пока умрёшь. А ведь главная самая сильная боль, может, не в ранах, а вот что вот знаешь, наверно, что вот через час, потом через десять минут, потом через полминуты, потом теперь, вот сейчас—душа из тела вылетит, и что человеком уже больше не будешь, и что это наверно; главное то, что наверно. Вот как голову кладёшь под самый нож и слышишь, как он склинет над головой, вот эти-то четверть секунды всего и страшнее. Знаете ли, что это не моя фантазия, а что так многие говорили? […] Об этой муке и об этом ужасе и Христос говорил. Нет, с человеком так нельзя поступать.”
Dostoevskij (1973a, p. 20): “—Хорошо ещё вот, что муки немного,—заметил он [камердинер], когда голова отлетает.”
Spierenburg’s argument goes hand in hand with that of Norbert Elias in The Civilizing Process (Elias 1978–1982).
This is Foucault’s position in Discipline and Punish. The Birth of the Prison (Foucault 1991).
This ambivalence is typical of the nineteenth century and is emphasised by Martschukat (2006, 106).
In conversation with the Epanchin sisters, Myškin speculates at length about the mind of the criminal in the moments before his execution (Dostoevsky 2003, 62–66; Dostoevskij 1973a, 54–57). The voyeuristic aspect is particularly apparent in this passage. This is also examined by Wagner (1995, 101–103).
In Thus Spake Zarathustra Nietzsche writes: “Verily, I like them not, the merciful ones, whose bliss is in their pity: too destitute are they of bashfulness” (Nietzsche 2009, 80). Cf. Dostoevsky: “… if I hate anyone here […] you, you Jesuitical, treacly little soul, idiot, millionaire-benefactor, I hate you more than anyone or anything in the world! […] It was you who drove me into a fit! You’ve driven a dying man to shame […]! I’d kill you, if I stayed alive!” (Dostoevsky 2003, 298–299; Dostoevskij 1973a, 249: “… если я кого-нибудь здесь ненавижу […] вас, вас, иезуитская, паточная душонка, идиот, миллионер-благодетель, вас более всех и более всего на свете! […] Это вы меня довели до припадка! Вы умирающего довели до стыда […]! Я убил бы вас, если б остался жить!”)
Dostoevskij (1973a, 326): “Да эта Мейерова стена может много пересказать! Много я на ней записал. Не было пятна на этой грязной стене, которого бы я не заучил. Проклятая стена!”
This close connection between imprisonment and writing (often emphasised by ekphrasis, the description of paintings and photographs) is also true of Nastas’ja Filippovna’s portrait (Dostoevsky 2003, 349–350; Dostoevskij 1973a, 289). Myškin sees in the portrait a woman imprisoned, emotionally confused; it stirs in him a deep sense of pity.
Dostoevskij (1973a, 338–339): “На картине изображён Христос, только что снятый с креста. […] это в полном виде труп человека, вынесшего бесконечные муки ещё до креста, […] и наконец крестную муку в продолжение шести часов (так по крайней мере по моему расчëту): Правда, это лицо человека только что снятого со креста, то есть сохранившее в себе очень много живого, тёплого; ничего ещё не успело закостенеть, так что на лице умершего даже проглядывает страдание, как будто бы ещё и теперь им ощущаемое (это очень хорошо схвачено артистом); но зато лицо не пощажено нисколько; тут одна природа. […] Природа мерещится при взгляде на эту картину в виде […] какой-нибудь громадной машины новейшего устройства, которая бессмысленно захватила, раздробила и поглотила в себя, глухо и бесчувственно, великое и бесценное существо.”
Ippolit’s terminal illness is also an allusion to Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, specifically to Charles Bovary’s botched operation on Hippolyte’s clubfoot which results in the amputation of the leg (Knapp 1998, 35).
Numerous texts by Derrida support this idea. They argue against the preeminence of the present in Western metaphysics and hence, also, against the preeminence of the phonetic. Instead, Derrida accords a prominent position to the written word, the absent, the space between the characters. Two now-classic examples of this are: Jacques Derrida, ‘Freud et la scène de l’écriture’ (Derrida 1967); and Jacques Derrida, ‘La différance’ (Derrida 1972).
Ippolit also underscores this isolation (Dostoevsky 2003, 408; Dostoevskij 1973a, 339). It is caused not least by the fact that all of the spectators pitying and mourning Christ on the cross, and who are normally included in representations, are absent from Holbein’s version. On Myškin’s loneliness, which corresponds to the solitude of the dead Christ, cf. also Benjamin (1977, 238).
Dostoevsky himself practised calligraphy while writing the novel. Calligraphy is a key motif linked to the hero Myškin and one of the few themes that Dostoevsky had planned from the novel’s inception (Miller 1998, 60).
The English translation cited here suggests that the individual Latin letters were simply converted to Cyrillic. The Russian original refers to the French disposition, the French character itself, being conveyed in the Russian letters.
Dostoevskij (1973a, 29): “Потом я вот тут написал другим шрифтом: это круглый французский шрифт прошлого столетия, […] шрифт публичных писцов […]. Взгляните на эти круглые д, а. Я перевёл французский характер в русские буквы, что очень трудно, а вышло удачно.”
Akakij’s talent derives from the life of a saint (Seemann 1967). So it is no coincidence either that Myškin takes on the role of the monk Pafnutij.
Knapp also points out that Dostoevsky’s longing for a God-bearing Russian people only developed when he was in exile, and can accordingly be found, as a hope, in the novel he wrote in exile, The Idiot (Knapp 1998, 23). Dostoevsky is much more explicit about this desire in the Brothers Karamazov.
Dostoevsky (2003, 96–97): “‘My father died while he was on trial,’ the prince observed again, ‘though I could never find out precisely for what. He died in the hospital.’” Dostoevskij (1973a, 82): “—Отец мой ведь умер под судом,—заметил князь снова,—хотя я и никогда не мог узнать, за что именно; он умер в госпитале.”
Christ is initially surrounded by his disciples before being betrayed following his arrest. In the same way, Myškin is courted by various Petersburg families, only to ultimately return to Switzerland alone (Miller 1998, 88).
A view also held by Rosenshield.
The fact that criminals are known among the populace as “unfortunates” has led Dostoevsky, Alexander Herzen and other so-called Westerners or Slavophiles to identify a unique quality of the Russian people, a typically Russian attitude towards crime. While they interpret this in different ways, they agree that it is not a matter of an abstract sense of justice. Dostoevsky uses the term frequently in The House of the Dead; Herzen in his famous letter to Michelet 1851: “Les déportés, les foréats se nomment dans la langue du peuple les malheureux.” (Gercen 2010).
Pristavkin (2000a, 177): “самым страшным преступником оказывается народ, убивающий сам себя.” (“The most terrible criminal of all turns out to be the people itself, which is killing itself.”).
Pristavkin (2000a, 160): “Пили двое… Некий Герасимов […] и его приятель. A когда последний отказался продолжать пить, встал и пошёл, Герасимов, обидевшись, нанёс ему удар ножом в спину, но лишь тяжело поранил […].
Так вот она, загадочная, у русского человека душа. Но правда, кто-то однажды на Кoмиссии к этой фразе добавил: «И тело».”
“Two men were drinking together, a certain Gerasimov […] and his friend. When his friend did not want to drink any more, he stood up and left. Gerasimov was offended and stabbed him in the back with a knife, injuring him seriously. […]
So there we have it, the mysterious Russian soul. But, to tell the truth, someone in the Commission added once: ‘And body’.”
Pristavkin (2000b, 234): “даже на ремонт корпусов нет денег, продукты питания по рациону не получаем уже третий год… Даже зубного врача своего не имеем!
Не стыдитесь себя и своего народа, так хоть постыдитесь мирового сообщества, и прежде всего Совета Европы.”
This prisoner believes that death itself is preferable to a sentence in the appalling Russian prisons, a view which lent itself to the title of the German translation of Pristavkin’s 3-volume Russian treatise (Ich flehe um Hinrichtung, ‘I implore you, execute me’). Another prisoner also describes Russian prisons as institutions of vengeance and not of punishment, because of their condition! (Pristavkin 2000b, 358) This view suggests that Russian prisons have effectively taken over the function of the death penalty.
Mikhail Barševskij is one of those who argue in this vein (Argumenty 2009, 9).
See also Pristavkin (2000a, 381).
This is the position of Vitalij Kvašis: “Для человека гораздо труднее—психологически—узнать, что он никогда не выйдет из заключения. Тем более что в российских тюрьмах весьма суровые условия содержания.” (“It is much harder—psychologically—for a person to know that he will never be released from jail. Especially as conditions in the Russian prisons are extremely severe.”) (Argumenty 2009, 8.) This view is reflected in the title of Barševskij’s article: “Пусть гниют в тюрьме!” (“Let them rot in jail!”) (Argumenty 2009, 9).
This is Jurij Antonjan’s argument in Argumenty (2009, p. 8).
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Translated from German by Joy Titheridge.
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Zink, A. The culture of justice: reflections on punishment in Dostoevsky’s The Idiot . Stud East Eur Thought 62, 413–429 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11212-010-9123-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11212-010-9123-x