Russia and Europe: Yuly Aykhenvald on Fyodor Dostoevsky’s historiosophy

Abstract

The paper discusses the perception of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s work by Yuly Aykhenvald (1872–1928), a famous literary critic of the first quarter of the twentieth century. It shows that Aykhenvald’s attitude toward Dostoevsky had undergone a certain evolution from a rejection via demands to “overcome” him to his recognition as one of the “spiritual leaders” of the thinking Russia alongside Pushkin and Leo Tolstoy. Yet Aykhenvald still had some controversy with Dostoevsky, above all over philosophy of history. The ques­tion of Russia’s destiny and its relation to the West is addressed by Aykhenvald following the same algorithm that is used in the article by Thomas G. Masaryk (to which Aykhen­vald was reacting), namely through the prism of and in dispute with Dostoevsky. The pa­per proves that Aykhenvald focuses not on interpreting or analyzing Masaryk’s ideas, but on refuting the views of the Eurasianists and that Eurasian ideas are the very philosophi­cal context that serves as a background for his argument with Dostoevsky. In refuting Dostoevsky’s views on Europe and justifying his own historiosophic view of the entire world as a unified Europe, Aykhenvald eventually comes to the paradox that Dostoevsky, being the “denier of Europe”, is the “intercultural cross-link” that ties Europe and Russia even more closely together. In this way, Dostoevsky’s work turns out to be a starting point for Aykhenvald’s own historiosophic framework, which brings him closer to both Russian interpreters of the Silver Age (Vikentii V. Veresaev) and the European philosoph­ical and political tradition (Thomas G. Masaryk).