V

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Dostoevsky

FEDOR M. DOSTOEVSKY and Pobedonostsev were close acquaintances from late 1871 until January, 1881, when Dostoevsky died, not long before the assassination of Alexander II elevated Pobedonostsev to great prominence as the “grey eminence” of Alexander III. This relationship and the influence each of these men exercised has led many scholars to make careless comparisons of their ideas and, in particular, to compare the Dostoevsky of the 1870’s with the Pobedonostsev of the 1890’s. Moreover, scholars have also been fascinated concerning the influence these men may have exerted upon each other, particularly because of the great role Pobedonostsev played in Russian history between 1880 and 1905 and because of claims he made after Dostoevsky’s death concerning his responsibility for some of Dostoevsky’s achievements, especially his last novel, The Brothers Karamazov. Thus, within two days after Dostoevsky’s death, Pobedonostsev wrote to Ivan Aksakov that Dostoevsky frequently spent his Saturday evenings with him, that the novelist “conceived his Zosima according to my instructions,” and that they had been in complete agreement since they had worked together on the journal, Grazhdanin (The Citizen) in 1873. Late in his life, Pobedonostsev twice wrote in letters to Dostoevsky’s widow that Dostoevsky had discussed the novel with him as he wrote it. Finally, just after he had finished The Brothers Karamazov and returned to The Diary of a Writer, Dostoevsky himself wrote to Pobedonostsev, “Then I shall again run to you, as I came to you in other days, for instructions, which I am sure you will not refuse me.”¹

These claims and data have led some scholars, especially several Soviet scholars in the periods when Dostoevsky has not been viewed sympathetically by the Soviet authorities, to assert that Dostoevsky had been powerfully influenced by the man who after 1881 served as the symbol for reaction in Russia. Leonid Grossman, who has published careful and valuable collections and analyses of Dostoevsky materials, even asserted in 1934 that Pobedonostsev “directed Dostoevsky’s work” and that Dostoevsky would have exerted a powerful influence through Pobedonostsev on Russian state policy in the 1880’s, if he had lived.²

Scholars interested in Dostoevsky or in Pobedonostsev, or in both, have not been able to determine the degree to which they influenced each other, or indeed to describe with confidence the entire relationship between them during the 1870’s, in spite of the masses of material they both published and in spite of the quantities of letters and other documents which have been made public. However, now that the Soviet government has allowed foreign scholars to study the immense mass of unpublished Pobedonostsev material and to review published material not available outside the Soviet Union, such as Grazhdanin, edited by Dostoevsky in 1873–74, to which Pobedonostsev contributed twenty-two articles, it is possible to assess the relationship with some accuracy.³

Some questions still remain unsolved, but may approach solution when Dostoevsky materials not now available are published. Others, in particular that concerning any influence Pobedonostsev may have exerted upon Dostoevsky in the last year of Dostoevsky’s life, are probably beyond satisfactory solution, because of the virtual impossibility of determining to what degree one man has influenced another, particularly in the field of literature. After careful analysis of all the evidence, I have concluded that the ideas or philosophies of the two men were in many ways similar, but that there were also basic differences. The two men were close acquaintances for almost ten years, but they were profoundly different in personality and interests. Each had a different definition or concept of the West, which powerfully affected all of his thinking. In addition, both men had defined their fundamental philosophical positions before they met, and their general agreement during the months they each wrote for Grazhdanin demonstrates that neither influenced the other appreciably. Finally, while Dostoevsky’s last novel “contains many echoes of Dostoevsky’s conversations with Pobedonostsev,” Dostoevsky’s basic ideas were “apparent in Dostoevsky’s work earlier,” and The Brothers Karamazov is the product solely of Dostoevsky’s genius.⁴

Dostoevsky and Pobedonostsev met sometime late in 1871 at the home of Prince Vladimir Meshcherskii, a prominent courtier and author. Meshcherskii had played with the children of Alexander II when they were youngsters and apparently became acquainted with Pobedonostsev in 1863, when Pobedonostsev was a tutor of the heir to the throne and was assisting in preparing the judicial reform of 1864. In 1866, Meshcherskii accompanied the young man who was to become Alexander III and his tutors on a two-week trip, including Tver, Kostroma, and Kazan, and apparently he and Pobedonostsev were close acquaintances by the winter of 1871–72, when Meshcherskii began to think seriously of undertaking publication of a new weekly, Grazhdanin. Dostoevsky and Pobedonostsev were among the “godfathers” of the journal, and they apparently met at the Meshcherskii home to discuss the future of the journal. The first issue appeared in January, 1872, and in December of that year, Pobedonostsev was among the group which decided that Dostoevsky should replace G. K. Gradovskii as editor. The great novelist accepted the post on December 15, for a salary of 3,000 rubles per year (approximately $1,500) and additional payment for each line he contributed. The third section of His Majesty’s Own Chancery approved the appointment three days later, and the change was announced in the January 25, 1873, issue. Apparently, one of the conditions Dostoevsky named was the active participation of the “godfathers” through extensive contributions to the journal, a condition which Pobedonostsev and the others readily accepted.⁵

In 1871, at fifty years of age, Dostoevsky was already recognized as one of the giants of Russian literature, with Notes from the Underground, Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, and other distinguished novels among his most significant achievements. He was also in the midst of writing The Possessed, which was published serially in Katkov’s Russkii vestnik (Russian Herald) between January, 1871, and December, 1872. Moreover, by late 1871 he was clearly one of the most authoritative reactionary and anti-Western voices in Russia. At the same time, he was debt-ridden, and he lacked connections with important political and intellectual circles. In particular, he lacked—and sought—an entrée to the court, which Prince Meshcherskii and Pobedonostsev could provide.

Pobedonostsev in 1871 was forty-four years old. He was recognized as a rising man, particularly because of his close association with the heir to the throne, and he was also considered a scholar of some distinction. Apparently the distinguished conservative novelist, fresh from an unhappy experience in western Europe, and the bureaucrat impressed each other. In any case, by 1873 they were intellectual companions. Pobedonostsev was one of those to whom Dostoevsky read the Stavrogin confession in 1872 and who advised him not to publish it. During 1873, he contributed twenty-two articles to Grazhdanin, a mark of his special friendship for the great novelist, because he rarely wrote for journals such as the one Dostoevsky was then editing.⁶

The mass of material now available indicates that Dostoevsky and Pobedonostsev were close friends between 1873 and January, 1881, when Dostoevsky died, although there is some evidence of a quarrel in December, 1873, and there are no letters between the two men from that month until January, 1876. They frequently met Saturday evenings in Pobedonostsev’s apartment for three or four hours of talk. Dostoevsky had a portrait of Pobedonostsev in his home, and his library contained copies of most of Pobedonostsev’s books. Apparently he was especially impressed by Pobedonostsev’s 1869 translation of Thomas à Kempis, and his admiration of Pobedonostsev as an intellect and a scholar was very high; when Pobedonostsev’s Istoricheskiia izsledovaniia i stat’i (Historical Studies and Essays) was published in 1876, he wrote, “This [book] must be particularly serious, beautiful, and scholarly. I expect something very significant in this book, because he has an enormous mind.” They exchanged cards on birthdays, introduced each other to distinguished friends, visited each other when ill, recommended Russian and foreign books and newspaper articles to each other, and provided materials for each other’s work. When Dostoevsky died, Pobedonostsev arranged for a state funeral and for burial in the Alexander Nevsky monastery, ensured that Dostoevsky’s widow receive a pension of 2,000 rubles a year, and served as executor of Dostoevsky’s will and guardian of his children.⁷

Pobedonostsev also assisted Dostoevsky’s widow from 1881 until he died in 1907. He advised her on business policies with publishers and on arrangements with relatives; he gave her financial advice; he sent her documents and clippings for her collection of materials concerning her husband; he gave advice when others wished to make use of this collection; and he kept important papers for her in the Holy Synod safe. The wives became close friends. Mrs. Dostoevsky had often accompanied the novelist on his Saturday evening visits, and there is some evidence the wives remained friends until Mrs. Dostoevsky died in 1918.⁸

For Pobedonostsev, friendship with Dostoevsky must have been a most stimulating and challenging experience, if only because in 1865 he had abandoned his beloved Moscow and his scholarly career for life in the high bureaucracy and court of St. Petersburg in an atmosphere which he never came to like. The number of his acquaintances and friends among Russian intellectuals was not great, because of his reserved nature, his official position, and the wide gap between his views and those of most writers and artists on the most critical issues facing Russia. He enjoyed talking with the distinguished historian, Sergei Soloviev, when he was in Moscow, and he was fascinated by the lectures of Vladimir Soloviev on the philosophy of religion in the winter of 1878. Indeed, he often wrote that his favorite evening was one spent with two or three able and lively writers. Such discussions refreshed him, revived memories of earlier literary circles, and illuminated the most basic issues Russia faced.

Even so, Pobedonostsev knew few Russian intellectuals. The poets Maikov and Polonskii were among his associates, and he had a slight acquaintance with Goncharov, but the other leaders of his generation were unknown to him. In spite of his long concern over the ideas and influence of Leo Tolstoy, he apparently never met the great writer. In fact, he read War and Peace for the first time in Salzburg in September, 1875. Pobedonostsev must therefore have welcomed and especially enjoyed close association with one of Russia’s most distinguished novelists, particularly when their views on many issues were similar.⁹

For Dostoevsky, friendship with Pobedonostsev brought a number of advantages, of which the most obvious, but perhaps the least important, was introduction into high bureaucratic and court circles. Dostoevsky’s history was considerably different from that of Pobedonostsev, and the novelist welcomed access to the kind of society which often annoyed Pobedonostsev. Dostoevsky was born into the lower middle class, his father had been an unsuccessful army doctor, and his early life had been marked by poverty, misfortune, and poor health. Poor Folk in 1846 made Dostoevsky a literary celebrity almost overnight, but he was arrested in 1849 because he was a member of the Petrashevtsy Circle, and he spent ten years in Siberia, after his sentence of execution had been halted at the last minute. He lived much of the period between 1862 and 1871 in western Europe, particularly in Germany, and he was not well known to Russian leaders and intellectuals, in spite of his achievements.

In this situation, because of his influence and because of his acquaintance with some of the most interesting and competent bureaucrats and intellectuals in St. Petersburg, Pobedonostsev was able to provide some protection for Dostoevsky as an editor, to attract subscribers, and to introduce him into the principal social circles. Prince Meshcherskii remarked in his Memoirs that Pobedonostsev had been made a consultant or “godfather” to Grazhdanin in order to provide advice and assistance with the censors; apparently, Pobedonostsev by writing for Grazhdanin in 1873, even though anonymously, by advising Dostoevsky on editorial problems, and by interceding with government officials at critical times did help shield the new journal from the censor. Even so, the October 10, 1873, issue was barred from sale because of comments concerning education and the zemstvos; trouble was barely avoided in January, 1874, over comments concerning Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna; and a warning was issued after the March 11, 1874, issue commented on the Baltic-German problem.¹⁰

Grazhdanin had only one thousand subscribers when it was launched early in 1872, and Pobedonostsev devoted much effort to persuading important friends, especially among the clergy, to subscribe, and to persuading some intellectuals to write for it. When Meshcherskii applied to the heir, Grand Duke Alexander Alexandrovich, for a subsidy for Grazhdanin, Alexander turned immediately to Pobedonostsev for advice, as Meshcherskii must have assumed he would. Apparently Alexander decided in 1873 not to provide a subvention for the journal, but Witte noted in 1892 and 1893 that Meshcherskii was then receiving 80,000 rubles a year for Grazhdanin, at a time when the ruble was valued at approximately fifty cents and long before the waves of inflation which have swept the world in the twentieth century.¹¹

Pobedonostsev wrote a number of letters to the future tsar recommending Dostoevsky’s articles very strongly. He sought also to have other members of the imperial family subscribe to and read Grazhdanin, and, later, The Diary of a Writer, which Dostoevsky published as a monthly in 1876 and 1877, with other issues in August, 1880, and January, 1881.

Pobedonostsev was especially effective in putting Dostoevsky’s novels and other writings into the hands of the tsar and the members of the imperial family. He forwarded copies of Dostoevsky’s latest books to various grand dukes, and he arranged in December, 1880, for Dostoevsky to meet the heir and his wife and to present them an autographed copy of The Brothers Karamazov. Indeed, the Grand Duchess Maria Fedorovna attended a reading of a part of The Brothers Karamazov. In addition, Pobedonostsev introduced the great novelist into the important salons, particularly after 1876. Through Admiral Arseniev, Pobedonostsev had Dostoevsky introduced to the tsar’s youngest sons, the Grand Dukes Sergei and Paul. He also persuaded the tsar’s brother, Grand Duke Constantine, to invite Dostoevsky to serve as a tutor in contemporary history and literature for his two sons, Constantine and Dmitrii. The Grand Duke Dmitrii attended Dostoevsky’s funeral, while Sergei, Paul, and Constantine, who were abroad, sent telegrams of condolence to the widow.¹²

Pobedonostsev also provided Dostoevsky with information which was incorporated, directly or indirectly, into his work. He frequently sent Dostoevsky newspaper clippings which illustrated principles on which they were in general agreement. He forwarded clippings on Russian education, the intelligentsia, anarchists, anticlericalism, the decline of Protestantism and Catholicism in western Europe, Turgenev, relations between Germans and Slavs, and Russian qualities. He probably suggested Dostoevsky visit Father Amvrosii, a monk in Optina monastery, whom Dostoevsky did visit in 1878 and who served as a kind of model for Zosima in The Brothers Karamazov. In February, 1879, he gave Dostoevsky a book on the funeral of monks for use in the description of the Zosima funeral, which was published in Russkii vestnik in September of that year. In August, 1880, he forwarded an article attacking Russian courts to supplement annotated material he had sent earlier from his three-volume Kurs grazhdanskago prava (Course on Civil Law). Perhaps the most explicit illustration is the data he forwarded to Dostoevsky in June, 1876, concerning the tragic suicide of Herzen’s daughter: this information was published by Dostoevsky in the October, 1876, issue of The Diary of a Writer.¹³

Pobedonostsev also served Dostoevsky as a critic, a function for which he was well prepared by the nature of their friendship, by his wide knowledge of Russian and Western literature, and by his acute critical sense. Dostoevsky had a very high regard for Pobedonostsev’s critical acumen. Indeed, on several occasions he wrote that Pobedonostsev was “a person whose opinion I value very highly.”

Dostoevsky and Pobedonostsev worked very closely together when the novelist was editor of Grazhdanin, from January, 1873, until April, 1874, and Pobedonostsev was a constant critic of the columns Dostoevsky wrote in The Diary of a Writer. He persuaded Dostoevsky not to incorporate materials and opinions he thought might damage their cause; thus, in 1876, he persuaded the novelist not to describe his experiences in a séance with a renowned medium. He commented in letters, and presumably even more in their extended conversations, concerning the style and the substance of the columns, and his interest and encouragement had some influence in Dostoevsky’s decision to continue to write these essays. It is apparent that Dostoevsky’s famous memorial address for Pushkin in June, 1880, reflected much discussion with Pobedonostsev concerning the general theme of the lecture and the reaction it would create, although it is also clear that Pobedonostsev had not read the speech before it was given. Referring to his draft of the speech, Dostoevsky wrote that he and Pobedonostsev were of the same spirit and were in complete agreement.¹⁴

However, there is no evidence to indicate that Dostoevsky was influenced significantly by Pobedonostsev in writing his last and probably best novel, The Brothers Karamazov. Dostoevsky started writing the novel in 1878, and it began to appear serially in January, 1879; however, the first reference to it in the Dostoevsky-Pobedonostsev correspondence, or in any of the Pobedonostsev material, is a letter Dostoevsky wrote on May 19, 1879, to Pobedonostsev. Pobedonostsev wrote detailed, perceptive, and appreciative critical comments on the Grand Inquisitor sketch and on Ivan Karamazov’s denial of God, particularly the powerful section on the sufferings inflicted upon children. He also pointed out to Dostoevsky that the novel needed a counterpart to the Ivan Karamazov denial of God, and he did provide material for the Zosima funeral section. However, while Dostoevsky sometimes talked about the novel to “cure his spirit,” there is no evidence in these letters that the two men had discussed these parts of the novel before they were written or while they were being composed. Indeed, Pobedonostsev’s comments always reveal that he had not seen the material before publication, as he did see or hear part of The Possessed in 1872. Moreover, it is almost certain that Dostoevsky had the Russian monk section in mind as early as 1878, when he visited Father Amvrosii in his monastery. Thus, while the two men were in general agreement, and while the writings of Dostoevsky may reflect in some ways his correspondence and conversations with Pobedonostsev, it is also clear that Pobedonostsev was not a political-spiritual advisor for this great novel. In particular, there is no foundation for the charge made in 1955 by a Soviet scholar, Vladimir Ermilov, that Dostoevsky in writing his last novel was “toadying to the oily-unctuous advice of the chief lackey of the tsar” and that the “fading” of Dostoevsky’s talent was due to the influence of Pobedonostsev, particularly through their evening discussions.¹⁵

Pobedonostsev’s most obvious contributions to Dostoevsky’s work and welfare were the twenty-two articles he contributed to Grazhdanin in 1873. These articles are of particular value for the analysis of the relationship between the two men, because they are the clearest kind of evidence concerning cooperation between them and concerning the similarities in their ideas. They are of especial use to the student of Pobedonostsev because they constitute one of the main sources concerning his ideas between 1865 and 1876, when his correspondence with the future Alexander III and with his associates became especially rich. The significance of these articles is demonstrated by the fact that Pobedonostsev only very rarely wrote for popular journals such as Grazhdanin; the essays he wrote for Dostoevsky were the product of special friendship and cooperation. Dostoevsky on three occasions sought to call especial attention to articles Pobedonostsev had contributed. Moreover, the two men made great efforts to ensure the anonymity of these publications, a very important issue for Pobedonostsev. Dostoevsky told no one the name of the author and gave the draft articles to a different clerk in his office each time for copying before the material was taken to the printer; Pobedonostsev used a variety of pseudonyms and was not asked to do proofreading.¹⁶

Of the twenty-two essays Pobedonostsev wrote for Grazhdanin in 1873, thirteen dealt with religious problems, or more accurately, with the significance of religious life and with the position of organized religion in the nineteenth century; seven of these described religious life and traditions in England, of the evangelical sects in particular; three, the Kulturkampf in Germany; one, anticlericalism in France; one, the prospects for Christian unity; and one, Darwinism and other systems of thought “subversive of Christianity.” Pobedonostsev’s concern with the position of religion in the contemporary world and with the problems raised by political and intellectual developments in western Europe was one shared by Dostoevsky, as demonstrated by the publication of these articles and by the central issues which Dostoevsky considered in his greatest novels.

Pobedonostsev not only had a powerful interest in religious life and in antireligious developments in western Europe, but he also described them in such a way as to demonstrate to Russians that Orthodoxy represented the only true way for them if not for all Christians. Strangely enough, he had particular respect for the English evangelical sects. Indeed, his essays on them in Grazhdanin glorify genuine religious feeling and emotion in precisely the same way the Dostoevsky novels do. There is a great parallel between the point of view reflected in the pages about Zosima in The Brothers Karamazov and these essays. Moreover, Pobedonostsev’s comments in all of these essays, and indeed in most of his writing, concerning Roman Catholicism are identical with those of Dostoevsky, as represented, for example, in the famous section concerning the Grand Inquisitor, although Pobedonostsev did not see the connection between Catholicism and socialism which Dostoevsky believed existed.¹⁷

Dostoevsky and Pobedonostsev also agreed in their analysis of Bismarck’s Kulturkampf and its significance. Pobedonostsev devoted three essays in 1873 to this subject, which he defined as “one of the most interesting and important political events of our time.” Dostoevsky, in calling attention to one of these articles, noted that “it touches upon the main, fundamental point upon which the political future of Europe in our time will be decided.”¹⁸

In addition, Pobedonostsev’s 1873 essays on European political thought, especially his three long review articles on Sir James F. Stephens’ Liberty, Equality, Fraternity and on John Stuart Mill, reflect complete agreement with the views of Dostoevsky in The Possessed, which was published serially in 1871 and 1872, and with the point of view Dostoevsky revealed in his own articles in Grazhdanin in 1873. Both men were highly critical of democratic government, of the political theory upon which it was based, and of the concept of the nature of man which it reflected.¹⁹

Their agreement concerning the dangers to Russia’s system developing within the West were also reflected in their articles on Spain. Their analyses of the reasons for the decline of Spain were substantially identical, and they both saw Spain as the main center for anarchist ideas and for the Third International. Finally, their identity of views was revealed in their description and analysis of political developments in France, which fascinated and alarmed them both. Dostoevsky and Pobedonostsev were equally impressed by the effort to build Sacré Coeur on Montmartre and by the pilgrimages to Lourdes and other shrines; both saw lessons for Russia in the history of France since the Revolution, in the divisions among the monarchists, and in the failure of Chambord to assume his position as Henry V. Pobedonostsev wrote that the French situation taught that “the first and most fundamental benefit for the people [narod] is the stability of the ruling dynasty and, together with that, clarity and firmness on the part of the legal government. . . . This must be a fact, not just an idea,” and must be “beyond quarrel, clear as the sun in heaven.” While not quite so clear and forthright, Dostoevsky at the same time in his articles on France emphasized the virtues of autocracy, and ascribed the troubles and confusion from which France was then suffering to the overthrow of the monarchical system.²⁰

Dostoevsky and Pobedonostsev apparently were in general agreement about the judicial system created by the great reform of 1864, particularly on trial by jury. Pobedonostsev had been a prominent participant in the reform campaign. However, by the time they become close acquaintances, both were severe critics of the court system. This is shown by their articles in Grazhdanin, by their letters, and by the critique of the courts in Dostoevsky’s novels. Thus, Grazhdanin in 1873 published three Pobedonostsev articles on the courts and on the zemstvo institutions. One of these was a direct attack upon the jury trial system in Russia, which Pobedonostsev charged worked effectively only in England, where it had a long and popular tradition. A second article was a bitter attack upon a congress of jurists planned at Moscow University. Pobedonostsev urged Dostoevsky to make a particular effort to ensure the anonymity of this article, because he criticized his former colleagues and his close friend of reform days and fellow Senator, Kalachov, who helped organize the meetings and gave the opening and concluding addresses.²¹

Dostoevsky was just as critical in his Grazhdanin articles, although he did not emphasize that trial by jury and public trial should be abolished. He indicated he thought most Russian lawyers were unscrupulous and dishonest, he ridiculed distinguished lawyers such as Spasovich, for particular defense pleas, and he attacked the courts for their leniency. Both became more critical of the court system as the 1870’s wore on. There is some evidence that the trial of Dmitrii Karamazov reflects the discussions of Dostoevsky and Pobedonostsev, materials concerning Russian law and the judicial system Pobedonostsev sent to Dostoevsky, and the general atmosphere of the government-sponsored critique of the courts, particularly for the decision concerning Vera Zasulich, whose trial Dostoevsky attended.²²

Dostoevsky and Pobedonostsev were also in agreement concerning national minorities in Russia, particularly the Jews and the Poles. Antisemitism was powerful and popular in many strata of Russian society at this time. Many government officials, intellectuals, and other leaders in society were strongly antisemitic; Dostoevsky and Pobedonostsev in their corrosive comments on the Jews were quite typical. Their charges were the common ones: cosmopolitanism, materialism, financial power and corruption, responsibility for liberalism and socialism, influence over the press and publishing, and the creation of anti-Russian feeling in other countries. Pobedonostsev used the term “Jewish [evreiskii] organ” as a synonym for liberal or progressive, while Dostoevsky was dismayed to find that half the people in German resorts were Yids (zhidi). Dostoevsky’s articles in Grazhdanin, his last novels, and The Diary of a Writer are studded with antisemitic comments and characters in the general tradition.²³

Poles were an especial target for Pobedonostsev, because of his belief that all inhabitants of the Russian Empire should be Orthodox Christians and because of his conviction that the Catholic Poles, agents of both the Vatican and Austria-Hungary, were a threat to this internal unity. Dostoevsky was just as nationalistic, but even more aggressive. He believed that Christianity had been perverted by Rome. Catholicism, in his view, was one of the principal enemies of Russia and of Orthodoxy, and The Brothers Karamazov and The Diary of a Writer in particular are marked with anti-Catholic and anti-Polish sentiment. Some of Dostoevsky’s most unpleasant characters are Poles.

Dostoevsky and Pobedonostsev were also ardent panslavs, particularly in the exciting year 1877, when Russia and Turkey went to war. Dostoevsky, who was vice-president of the panslav organization just before his death, was convinced that European civilization was in decline and that the future belonged to Russia. He had great faith in the Russian people and thought that the Russian state and people had a mission to free the Balkan Slavs. Thus, The Diary of a Writer in 1877 was a long glorification and justification of war against Turkey, and Dostoevsky “firmly pronounced that Russia fought the Turks in order to preserve the life and liberty of the oppressed Southern Slavs. . . . His country was fighting not only for the unity of its Slav brothers, but for a spiritual alliance of all those who believed that Russia, at the head of a united Slavdom, would bring by its self-sacrifice a message of universal service to mankind.” When the Congress of Berlin reduced the gains of Russia and its allies and in particular established another barrier to Russian control over Constantinople and the straits, Dostoevsky urged expansion in the Far East and a regrouping of Russian strength in preparation for a later drive into the Balkans and toward Constantinople.²⁴

As the next chapter will demonstrate in some detail, Pobedonostsev was an enthusiastic panslav for a brief time from the early summer of 1876 into the early fall of 1877, and even before that he had sought to educate the heir to the throne concerning the Balkan Slavs and their relationship with Russia and with Orthodoxy. Both he and the heir were strong supporters of war with Turkey, until Russian losses grew great, particularly at Plevna, and until both realized that the panslav movement, as a popular force, might easily get out of government control and even turn against the government. Moreover, they discovered, “As Russians, we can always find allies in Europe; as Slavs, we can find only enemies.”²⁵

Consequently, even with regard to panslavism, Pobedonostsev differed from Dostoevsky in two significant ways. First, Pobedonostsev had a static view of the world and of relations among societies and peoples; consequently, except for the brief period when he was carried away by war fever, he did not accept the thesis that Russia had a mission to free the Slavs or to carry her peculiar form of civilization beyond the borders of the empire. Second, he did not support Dostoevsky when the latter advocated expansion into Asia and a rebuilding process, in preparation for another drive into the Balkans.

These differences are only two of many which separate Dostoevsky and Pobedonostsev. Some of the differences or disagreements are only minor or temporary, such as Dostoevsky’s affection for the zemskii sobor (territorial assembly), which Pobedonostsev abhorred, or Dostoevsky’s lack of enthusiasm for persecuting the Stundists. Others were more basic.

To begin with, Dostoevsky and Pobedonostsev were quite different in personality and interest. Dostoevsky, who had suffered for almost a decade in Siberia and who did not attain the status or security he wished, was a vital, original genius, one of the world’s great novelists. He was a man of powerful passions, who gambled recklessly until the late 1860’s, and who demonstrated a fierce interest in the sensual side of life. Moreover, he was torn by his instincts, some of which were strongly conservative, and others of which were powerfully revolutionary; he is almost a caricature of one of his own “doubles” in his ambivalence. Finally, his attitude toward the Russian Orthodox Church, or, more specifically, his own personal religious beliefs, are subject to question and dispute. Many scholars are convinced that Dostoevsky was in fact not a believing Christian, though he had a driving concern about religion and though on occasion he may have tried desperately to accept Christianity.

Pobedonostsev was quite a different type of person, almost the impersonal bureaucrat incarnate. Cold, sober, simple, neat, almost miserly, Pobedonostsev was the very model of the proper gentleman. Unmarked by any passions—even his hatreds were cold and harsh— he was a man of balance, a self-controlled but unoriginal scholar who loved the ivory tower and whose principal pleasures were long evenings with books. His travel writings contain excellent descriptions of landscapes and of buildings, especially churches, but very rarely mention people. Moreover, he had a positive dislike and distaste for any kind of enthusiasm or liveliness, and he lacked a sense of humor. He was a believer in painful, slow growth, and he was suspicious generally of grandeur, eloquence, and striking ability. Finally, while there was a strong note of cynicism hidden deep in his make-up, growing deeper as he grew older, he was profoundly religious, and his life was marked by a deep personal belief in God and by considerable private charities.

Early in life, both Dostoevsky and Pobedonostsev had been radical reformers. However, Pobedonostsev after the mid-1860’s was a consistent conservative, even a reactionary. On the other hand, Dostoevsky, after his conversion, wanted desperately to be a conservative, but had a profound, innate understanding of and interest in the forces behind revolution. While Dostoevsky’s knowledge of the intelligentsia in particular may have been inaccurate and warped, his novels are studies of the conflict between conservatism and revolution among them.

Pobedonostsev had grown up in a Slavophil circle in Moscow and wished to be considered in the Slavophil tradition. His most important book, published in 1896 on the fiftieth anniversary of his entry into government service, was given the title of a famous Slavophil publication of 1846, Moskovskii sbornik (Moscow Collection) . However, in many ways Pobedonostsev represents the dusty death of Slavophilism, for he lacked the spontaneity, the youthful vigor, the lively affection for Russia’s past, and the romanticized knowledge of Russia’s institutions which the Slavophils had. He was spiritually a descendant of Nicholas I and Uvarov, and his motto or slogan should have been Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationality. He believed that the Church should be a part of the state and that all inhabitants of the empire should belong to the Orthodox Church. He emphasized the autocracy, and he sought to strengthen the absolute power of a patriarchic, functional monarchy. This is revealed most clearly in the mass of his writings concerning the nature of man and his attacks on the tendency of Western thought to “exalt” individualism. With regard to the nationalities, Pobedonostsev again believed in Russification, with his particular enemies, in order, the Jews, the Poles, and the Baltic Germans. Under this triple arch, he installed the family as the most significant conservative institution in a society where status was frozen and where each should know and accept his own place.

It is as difficult to outline Dostoevsky’s political and social ideas briefly as it is those of Pobedonostsev. While similarities exist, the contrasts are striking. To begin with, Dostoevsky was not a consistent or instinctive conservative. The Slavophil mark upon him was weak. While he might not have criticized Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationality as a slogan, he would not have categorized his thinking under those headings. He glorified the Orthodox Church, or more accurately, Orthodoxy, on occasion, but it is evident that he thought survival and salvation came through personal suffering, not through the Church. He accepted autocracy, and he was as bitterly opposed to Western concepts of constitutional and democratic government as Pobedonostsev. However, perhaps because he had suffered much under the autocracy and perhaps because of the nature of his interests and abilities, he placed more emphasis upon harmony and submission, as a general principle, than upon acceptance of a form of government or a political system. Moreover, the so-called liberals were not the enemy for him that they were for Pobedonostsev. Dostoevsky, after all, had a belief in the natural goodness of man and in the power of love which Pobedonostsev could never have accepted. In addition, Dostoevsky thought that the socialists and the revolutionaries were the enemy; Pobedonostsev barely recognized the socialists, and the liberals and rationalists were his favorite targets.

This difference derives in large part from the different view of the West each held. Dostoevsky was profoundly affected by his years of residence in the West, especially among the Germans. He was powerfully influenced by the slums, the selfishness, and the moneygrubbing he saw and from which to some degree he suffered. On the other hand, while Pobedonostsev spent many summers in Salzburg and Wiesbaden and while he visited England several times and other parts of western Europe on occasion, the West to him consisted of publications and ideas. Pobedonostsev enjoyed what he saw of the West, and he had an especial affection for life in England, but he was convinced that the greatest menace to Russian stability and survival came from Western ideas, particularly those deriving from the French Revolution and those which exalted individualism and constitutional government. Dostoevsky and Pobedonostsev were both bitterly hostile to Catholicism, to the Jews as dissolvents of Russian qualities, and to the Poles as bearers of various kinds of Western infections, but each of them had a different West in mind when he sought to shield Russia from its influences.