X. Prelude to a Collaboration: Dostoevsky’s Aesthetic Polemic with Mikhail Katkov

Abstract

As the editor of the Russian Herald, Mikhail Nikiforovich Katkov was one of the most important figures in the development of the nineteenth-century Russian novel. Fathers and Sons, the first parts of War and Peace, Anna Karenina, and the major novels of Dostoevsky all appeared in the pages of his journal. But it seems impossible for us to evaluate his role without emotional distortion. Our understanding of Katkov’s literary activity and contribution has been greatly complicated by his vigorous political activity. In parallel with his literary efforts, as the editor of the newspaper the Moscow News he was a towering political figure who advocated Russian nationalism and autocracy and agitated vigorously against radical and revolutionary movements. Because of this, seventy years of Soviet-era Russian literary history had to treat him as persona non grata. His literary role was consistently minimized or presented in its most unfavorable light. The situation in the West has been somewhat similar. Throughout the twentieth century, Western literary scholars tried to take a critical, objective approach to the ideologically constrained productions of Soviet scholars while X