Scholarly record

MYTHOLOGY OF POWER IN WORKS OF M.Y. SALTYKOV-SHCHEDRIN AND F.M. DOSTOEVSKY

E. Postnikova, V. Volkova, V. Tsurkan, N. Kozko

Abstract

In the history of Russian literature names of F.M. Dostoevsky and M.Y. Saltykov-Shchedrin stand side by side and at the same time opposing each other. One of the painful issues, points of attraction and repulsion, points of consolidation and confrontation between the artistic worlds of the writers is their understanding of the phenomenon of power. They got their first impressions about the type of power relations predominating in Russian society at about the same time, in their youth, when they both took first steps in their social life and creative work. In the mid 40’s they were greatly influenced by the ideas of V. Belinsky, they both attended the literary group “pyatnica” by Petrashevsky where they enjoyed works of French utopian socialists. The starting point, some dominant that determined their future relationship with power and interpretation of the power phenomenon, in both cases is the reign of Nicholas I. This Russian ruler sent one of them into exile and the other to penal servitude that replaced capital punishment at the last moment. 1848-49 were the point of bifurcation, some kind of a dividing line after which the lives of the writers went in different directions. One of them had to overcome penal servitude and exile; the other became a high-ranking government official. Being so drastically different, their personal experience formed their in many ways opposite world outlooks. One of the writers made history of Russian literature of this period as the creator of the most cutting satire on Russian autocracy – “The History of a Town”, and the other as the author of a biting anti-nihilistic novel, almost a pamphlet - “Demons”. The paradox of the situation consists in the fact that the former vice-governor and, actually, the governor Shchedrin creates ugly images of representatives of the official power – pompadours and silly governors, and the old revolutionist Dostoevsky scourges young representatives of “bright-red liberalism”. It’s worth mentioning a kind of paradoxical, in our opinion, regularity or a regular paradox. F.M. Dostoevsky who started his public activity participating in the literary society by Petrashevsky and read Letter to Gogol by V. Belinsky with delight and thrill acts like a dedicated monarchist, almost a guard being mature. At the same time there is a question: how did it happen that the government official, the vice-governor M.Y. Saltykov-Shchedrin who took an active part in the development of the Emperor Alexander II reforms worked all his mature life as a leading journalist and editor of revolutionary democratic periodicals “Souvremennik” and “Otechestvennye Zapiski” that were in opposition to power, came to conclusion at the end of his life that Russian historical progress is the progress “with continuously moving bastards” [1, s.273]. In the fates of both writers there is a point of overcoming experience of the youth as being negative. Shchedrin’s personal experience who was luckily given a chance to get accustomed to the archetype of the Ruler, feel power and try his hand in it resulted in his further negative comprehension of the role and functions of the Russian power being unlimited, tyrannical, running a constant war with its people. Dostoevsky’s personal experience, who himself experienced what it meant to go against power, to be accused of conspiracy, of attempting against existing forms of government and traditional foundations of society, led him through penal servitude, repentance, experiencing the situation of the prodigal son to ardent faith in the unity of the Tsar and the common people, to the belief that the people will never go against their Ruler’s will. F.M. Dostoevsky and M.Y. Saltykov-Shchedrin being in many ways ahead of time managed to come close to the phenomenon of the contemporary political myth. Being sensitive to different processes happening in the mass consciousness and in the collective consciousness the leading men of letters and journalists of the 60’s and 70’s of the 19th century F.M. Dostoevsky and M.Y. Saltykov-Shchedrin acted as mythfighters and mythmakers of Modern history. These writers examined the phenomenon of power, social-political and power relations in society inside different mythological-political systems. Dostoevsky was more attracted to the conservative part of social-political discourse (his work in the conservative magazine “Grazdhanin”), at the same time a lot of constants of political mythology of revolutionary democracy (“Souvremennik”, “Otechestvennye Zapiski”) found expression in Shchedrin’s works. Both F.M. Dostoevsky and M.Y. Saltykov-Shchedrin were always interested in the nature of power and in the patters of its establishment, representation and functioning in Russia.

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