Dostoevsky’s Three Hypostases [Review of:] Ivanov V.I. Dostoevsky. Tragedy-Myth-Mysticism. Ed. by A. B. Shishkin and O.L. Fetisenko. Saint Petersburg: Pushkin House Publisher, 2020. 476 p.

Abstract

This review presents an analysis of the new edition of the classic book on Dostoevsky written by the Russian modernist poet and thinker Vyacheslav Ivanov, who was the last representative of an entire era of Dostoevsky’s interpreters. At first, a brief description of each of the three sections of Ivanov’s book is offered. In these sections, Dostoevsky is interpreted as a tragic poet, a myth-maker, and a religious thinker. Along with it, some features concerning M.Yu. Koreneva’s new translation from German are also analyzed. Special attention is then paid to a number of extensive comments on Ivanov’s book, which often become separate studies concerning Ivanov’s most significant ideas, symbols and mythologies (for example, Ahriman, Lucifer, Psyche, transcensus, “You are”). Furthermore, an overview of the appendices included in the publication is given. Among these, the most significant are: the transcript of a text that S.N. Bulgakov discussed in the Moscow Religious and Philosophical Society “Russian tragedy”; some notes concerning the lectures on Dostoevsky Ivanov gave at the Baku University in 1921–1923; the text on Dostoevsky and Nietzsche which A. Kruchenykh discussed at the Baku University in 1921; some reviews in German on Ivanov’s book; the chronicle “Dostoevsky in the Life and Thoughts of V.I. Ivanov (1883–1949)” compiled by A.B. Shishkin and A.L. Sobolev. In conclusion, a review of a number of articles written by modern Ivanov scholars (A. B. Shishkin, M.B. Plyukhanova), which are also included in the appendices to the book, is presented.