Alexey Smirnov's blog

After watching the performance of Idiot in Espoo theater and concluding that actors do not understand the great Russian writer Dostoevsky I decided to try to explain how I understand Dostoevsky myself. To start with, I think that Espoo theater has done a great job because they at least tried to interpret Dostoevsky even though I think that their interpretation was not correct. With the following explanation I would only like to deepen their interest in studying our culture and Dostoevsky in particular. Basically, they need to read other works that Dostoevsky has written even though they are probably not translated into Finnish.

Dostoevsky is one of the most controversial writers in Russian literature. The following saying of Annensky characterizes him:

Read Dostoevsky. Love Dostoevsky if you can, if you cannot – curse him, but READ and only him if possible.

I got to know Dostoevsky not through his books but through a movie Idiot by Bortko which I saw in 2004 or 2005. At that time my interpretation of Idiot was also limited to the relationship between Myshkin and Nastasya Filipovna. Such a love story with a tragic end. But after reading other works of Dostoevsky, in particular his diary I think there is a deeper interpretation of Idiot.

Dostoevsky saw a deep division between noble Russians and ordinary people. These were opposite classes of our society in the end of 19th century. They were not able to tolerate each other, thus Dostoevsky was predicting revolution long before it happened in 1917. Of course, he blamed noble people for their betrayal of traditional Russian values in favor of modern European values. This has occurred because in the 19th century it became obvious that Russia was far behind Europe in its industrial development. Noble Russians did not want to identify themselves as such because Russian became a synonym of barbarian.

But Dostoevsky was saying that traditional Russian values were good. Those were the values of kindness, love to every human, Christianity. According to Dostoevsky, only ordinary Russian people possessed those qualities because educated Russians were trying to follow Europeans in every aspect of life and despised everything that looked like Russian.

The main point of Dostoevsky Idiot is that there were noble Russians who also admired traditional Russian values which in this case is Prince Myshkin. This is very unusual and controversial, this is why nobody likes him. If you read the complete version of Idiot, not the abbreviated one that was sold in the theater before the performance you will see lots of Idiot’s monologues in which he shares his values. With relation to people he says that everybody is worth forgiveness. During the performance Idiot often talks to Jesus Christ. But Dostoevsky did not mean that. Idiot doesn’t admire Jesus, he probably does not know all this theological stuff because he is an idiot. But he admires every ordinary human, a fallen woman for example, every sinner. He is the bearer of Christian values even though he cannot explain this.

The actor who plays Prince Myshkin should show that he represents Jesus during this performance. He should convey this message to the audience but do not show the image of Christ! Make the audience think of Idiot’s role in this drama. This actor will succeed only if the audience becomes convinced that he is Christ.

With relation to Europe Prince Myshkin says that Russia will surprise Europe. But not with aggression which there was a lot in this performance, but again with love to every human. He thinks of Russia as a more Christian country than Europe. Russian people who have adopted European views do not have those good qualities such as mercy and ability to forgive.

To summarize, the Epanchin family is visually very respectable. They are Europeans in the best sense of this word, very noble people. They would not shout at each other as they did during this performance. They do not drink vodka or smoke. They are very polite. But they despise traditional Russian values. And here comes Idiot, the true bearer of traditional Russian values and Christian values. He brings the joy with him, the universal love to human beings. He is ready to forgive everybody despite that he is a Prince. He behaves like ordinary people – he is joyful and sincere. And this is why Epanchin family hates him. He reminds them of traditional Russian life that they have betrayed.

This Saturday I went to see Dostoevsky’s Idiot in Espoo theater. Even though I don’t understand what the actors are saying because the performance is in Finnish I am always trying to check out Russian authors performed in Finland because this allow us to understand how Finns perceive us, the Russians.

I should say that Dostoevsky’s Idiot is no different from Gogol’s Revizor which I saw one year ago in Tampere Workers theatre. Russians are presented as wild barbarians. They are drinking vodka all the time, smoking cigarettes and punching each other. It reminds me of a Hollywood gangster movie when cowboys of the Wild West are trying to decide who is the best to represent the nascent United States of America. The movies are different but the play is the same. But this time the music made me laugh. Most of the time it was Tchaikovsky’s Illness of a Doll. So I guess Nastasya Filipovna was that doll. And she was sick and eventually died because prince Myshkin the Idiot did not marry her. Or she has actually died because she was waiting for too long. She thought that she would get too old before Idiot would drag her to bed. So the moral is that if there is a pretty girl it is your responsibility to sleep with her otherwise she will get sick and die. I wonder whether the great thinker, the theorist of Russian greatness Dostoevsky ever had this in his mind.

But probably I am too strict. I have watched Idiot movie by Bortko. Many great actors were playing there. Of course, it is impossible to avoid comparing them to this small theater. Also I guess Bortko has read every work of Dostoevsky, at least most of them whereas the young actors of this theater probably did not read Idiot completely because it is quite a big piece of literature.

But the fact that Finns are thinking of us as of wild people is actually our problem, not theirs. There is a certain well established cliche that Finns are using whenever they think of us. Despite the proximity of Helsinki to Saint Petersburgh we were unable to change their mind, even though Saint Petersburgh is the cultural capital of Russia. How is it possible that Finns think of us as barbarians when our capital of culture is a 5-hour ride from their capital? What do they think of the remaining parts of Russia? I guess people of Stone Age are inhibiting those areas. How can we change their perception of us? It is big problem. For example, I wonder whether Russian literature has been translated to Finnish language at all.

In the theater an abbreviated version of Idiot was sold in Finnish. It was a small 50-page book. Is it possible to understand Dostoevsky using a small book? Even reading the whole Idiot is not enough. Dostoevsky had his own school of thought with relation to Russian nation. It is not explained in one of his book but rather has been developed through his lifetime. In his diary Dostoevsky explains that Russian noble people have separated from the ordinary people because they admired Europe too much. Then Dostoevsky says that ordinary people have better values, the true values of humanity, kindness than rich people that adopted false idols. But in his other novel Brothers Karamazov Dostoevsky shows that ordinary people are not always right. They actually cannot appreciate the high spirit of noble people, they are narrow-minded.

But understanding Dostoevsky is a different topic which I would not dwelve in right now. I guess I should summarize how I understand Dostoevsky myself in one of the later posts.

I have finished reading this book a few weeks ago. I have been thinking on the lesson that it is teaching us. Now I think it is time to describe what I found.

The goal of the book is to decide on the judging role of Church, on its influence in salvation. Namely, is salvation free or people have to pay for it? The book definitely reflects on Dostoevsky own life. I found out that he was serving term in Siberia for his political views. This is similar of accusing Dmitri Karamazov of murdering his father. The book does not say who killed the father but I think this was not Dmitri. Another similarity between Dostoevsky’s life and the story is Ilyuha’s suffering which is what his son has gone through.

The book provides a mental dialog between Jesus who visits Earth again and the chief general of Earth of our time. They argue on whether it is time to tell people the truth, give them freedom. Will they value this freedom or betray it in sake of cheaper satisfaction? The chief commander says that we should keep people ignorant and select only a few reliable guys and tell them truth. The rest are dismal people that we should neglect. Freedom for everybody is a bad idea because people are unable to appreciate it. They were raised as slaves and they will remain in slavery forever. Jesus walks away. What should the Church do in this case?

To answer this question, Dostoevsky tells us story of three brothers: Dmitri, Ivan, Alexey and their father who was murdered. Dmitri is accused in this crime because he needed father’s fortune. During the trial, he is convincing everybody that he is a honest man and that he wouldn’t kill in sake of money, but nobody believes him.

It is interesting that this was a jury trial. It was introduced in Russia in 1864, not long ago before the book action is taking place. To understand the inappropriability of jury trial in Russia we have to take into account that Russia at that time was under terror threat of looming revolution. Police agents were among ordinary people. Thus, people of jury trial went against panel of judges because they did not like each other, so to speak. Therefore, if the convict was innocent, the jury trial declared him guilty and vice versa.

This is what happened in this trial. Monk Alexey as the representative of Church was able to save Dmitri from spiritual torture. He provided evidence that Dmitri did not need money, thus he had no incentive to murder his father. When it became obvious that Dmitri was innocent, another witness disclosed a Dmitri’s letter in which he promised to get rid of his father. It looked though that Dmitri had an emotional type of personality. Therefore, he declared his intention but he did not commit the murder. I think that at that moment people believed he was innocent. However, the jury trial found him guilty.

I think the reason is his proof of innocence when it became clear that he did not need money. It was monk Alexey who disclosed the evidence, thus making Dmitri an honest man in eyes of many people. However, he had to pay the price for his spiritual freedom as he was found guilty. Dostoevsky is teaching us a lesson: there is no free freedom.

Jury panel people were evil at that time. There were reasons for that. Should not the Church have addressed those issues first before trying to free up individual people?

Dostoevsky tells us what the Church should do in Ilyusha’s story. The boy got very sick because he was feeling guilty of killing a dog. He gave it a needle and it swallowed it. The dog disappeared then. The boy tried to find the dog but it was lost. The boy thought it was dead and got very frustrated. After that, he did a lot of bad things, like biting monk Alexey. This is because there was a reason for his evilness. However, after the dog was found, the boy became happy again. In other words, every evil has a cause. Addressing it returns people to normal lives.

To summarize, Dostoevsky point is that Church of that time should have addressed causes of evilness in the society as a whole. Trying to salvage individual people like monk Alexey tried to save his brother Dmitri is impossible because there are many evil people around.

F. Dostoevsky. The Brothers Karamazov, books 6,7,8,9,10.

It is very interesting indeed. My initial guess that this book will describe the role of Church in people’s lives was mostly correct. However, the goal is to allow people to return to their normal lives, that is to save them rather than to judge them. Dostoevsky lays out his vision of the hell and the role of Jesus in salvation.

Most people are kind in their soul. Of course, they are evil from time to time, but they want to do good rather than evil. It is their inherent desire to do good things and they are feeling bad if they are unable to. Dostoevsky says that the hell is the place where people are deprived of ability to do good and therefore they feel endlessly guilty for not being able to fix their sins:

Of Hell and Hell Fire, a Mystic Reflection
Fathers and teachers, I ponder “What is hell?” I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love…
For he sees clearly and says to himself, “Now I have understanding and though I now thirst to love, there will be nothing great, no sacrifice in my love, for my earthly life is over…
Moreover, that spiritual agony cannot be taken from them, for that suffering is not external but within them. And if it could be taken from them, I think it would be bitterer still for the unhappy creatures. For even if the righteous in Paradise forgave them, beholding their torments, and called them up to heaven in their infinite love, they would only multiply their torments, for they would arouse in them still more keenly a flaming thirst for responsive, active and grateful love which is now impossible

The role of Jesus is to restore the ability to love in people:

you see, sir, when the Son of God was nailed on the Cross and died, He went straight down to hell from the Cross, and set free all sinners that were in agony. And the devil groaned, because he thought that he would get no more sinners in hell. And God said to him, then, ‘Don’t groan, for you shall have all the mighty of the earth, the rulers, the chief judges, and the rich men, and shall be filled up as you have been in all the ages till I come again.’

F. Dostoevsky. The Brothers Karamazov, book 5.

F. Dostoevsky. The Brothers Karamazov, book 4.

After reading this book for a while I think I have figured out what the author is conveying to the audience. In the preface, the author states that this book will describe lives of sinful human beings which are barely worth describing. Thus he warns the reader that (s)he might get bored.

However, in the first few chapters Dostoevsky lays out his vision of the role of Christian church in the society. One of the Karamazov brothers is to become a priest whereas the others are getting more sinful. I predict that during the rest of the book Dostoevsky will show how the church affects sinful members of the society. Dostoevsky raises a very important question of the judging role of church. To the best of my knowledge the church is trying to stay away from judging people as this is what the devil likes to do. Thus, Dostoevsky makes a very controversial statement:

if the jurisdiction of the Church were introduced in practice in its full force, that is, if the whole of the society were changed into the Church, not only the judgment of the Church would have influence on the reformation of the criminal such as it never has now, but possibly also the crimes themselves would be incredibly diminished. And there can be no doubt that the Church would look upon the criminal and the crime of the future in many cases quite differently and would succeed in restoring the excluded, in restraining those who plan evil, and in regenerating the fallen.

This positioning of the church sheds light on my own perception of its role when Yeltsin was in power. To a great surprise of many people, priests were among few people who were driving luxury cars. Thus, they looked not trustworthy to me as honest people did not have money in Russia at that time. Now it looks like they were trying to stay close to the most dangerous members of our society, mafia in other words. Staying in touch with them have likely saved a lot of lives due to the ability of Church to prevent those people from wrongdoing.

Dostoevsky describes interaction between church and a criminal:

all these sentences to exile with hard labour, and formerly with flogging also, reform no one, and what’s more, deter hardly a single criminal, and the number of crimes does not diminish but is continually on the increase. You must admit that. Consequently the security of society is not preserved, for, although the obnoxious member is mechanically cut off and sent far away out of sight, another criminal always comes to take his place at once, and often two of them. If anything does preserve society, even in our time, and does regenerate and transform the criminal, it is only the law of Christ speaking in his conscience. It is only by recognising his wrong-doing as a son of a Christian society—that is, of the Church—that he recognises his sin against society—that is, against the Church. So that it is only the Church, and not against the State, that the criminal of to-day can recognise that he has sinned.

F. Dostoevsky. The Brothers Karamazov, book 1.