F.M. Dostoevsky’s Prophetism in the Theological Conceptions of V.S. Solovyov and M.M. Tareev

Abstract

The article compares the interpretations of the prophetic role of F.M. Dostoevsky, proposed by the philosopher V.S. Solovyov and the theologian M.M. Tareev. The method of comparison between the writer and the prophet, which came from the literary tradition of romanticism, is transferred to the sphere of cultural studies and religious thought. The article analyzes the works of V.S. Solovyov “Three speeches in memory of Dostoevsky” and M.M. Tareev “Dostoevsky as a religious thinker to clarify the interpretations of the prophetic function of the writer proposed in these texts, other texts of these authors are involved, revealing in more detail their ideas about the place and tasks of the prophet in the New Testament time and about possible carriers of this function in modern the church community. The article attempts to show that the discrepancies in the assessments of the prophetic role of F.M. Dostoevsky between V.S. Solovyov and M.M. Tareev are partly due to their ideas of the relationship between Christianity and culture. (Thus, the limitation of Dostoevsky to the framework of national Christianity, noted by M.M. Tareev, which makes it possible to compare him with the Old Testament prophets, is explained by the idea of the impossibility of combining the religious-moral and cultural-historical spheres in the theological writings of M.M. Tareev). The views of thinkers on the person being able to perform the function of prophet in the modern church community are also examined.