“Do you know, I have thought of giving up the world to the Pope…”: the anti-Catholic layer of the novel by F.M. Dostoevsky “Demons”

Abstract

We analyzed the anti-Catholic discourse of the novel by F.M. Dostoevsky “Demons” (1872). The object of the study is the religious and confessional views of F.M. Dostoevsky in the aspect of the writer’s polemics with Catholicism and the papacy. The research methodology is based on the principles of comparative and contextual analysis. The interdisciplinary nature of the study is due to the appeal to theological, philosophical, religious-confessional and socio-political issues. The materials of the study were the text of the novel “Demons”, handwritten editions and draft notes to the novel, as well as external to F.M. Dostoevsky’s sources are historiosophical, polemical, historical literature, etc. In the course of an ideological content of “Demons” consistent review, the author identified three areas of anti-Catholic polemics implemented by the writer on the novel pages: anthropotheistic, Christological and socio-political. All three aspects are concentrated in the complex image of Nikolai Vsevolodovich Stavrogin – a demon, a man-god, an antichrist and novel world impostor. The motive of the worldwide Catholic conspiracy threatening Russia is displayed in the political constructions of Pyotr Stepanovich Verkhovensky. The practical significance of the results of the study lies in the possibility of their further use in a comprehensive study of F.M. Dostoevsky’s religious and historiosophical system of views, as well as by introducing the results obtained into the educational process for conducting seminars on the history of Russian literature.