Telling good from evil: The Dream of a Ridiculous Man [Son smeshnogo cheloveka] in Dostoevsky’s A Writer’s Diary [Dnevnik pisatelya]

Abstract

The April issue of Dostoevsky’s A Writer’s Diary [Dnevnik pisatelya] in 1877 was focused on the topic of differentiating between good and evil which linked the discussion of the latest Russo-Turkish War and the idea of preaching the truth in the writer’s fantastical story The Dream of a Ridiculous Man [Son smeshnogo cheloveka]. Hoping for Russia’s victory, Dostoevsky aimed harsh criticism at its opponents, pro-European liberals, branding their ideas as intrinsically evil and antagonistic to the national spirit. In his historiosophical view, the liberation of South Slavs from the tyranny of non-Christians was supposed to strengthen the union of the peoples with brotherly love, with more nations joining in and Russia taking its place as the leader of the future ‘panhuman’ European unity. As for the story, the article argues that it is built around the communicative paradoxalism of the hero, whose idea of the difference between good and evil is unconscious and displaced. The author finds that both A Writer’s Diary in general and the two chapters in the April issue specifically can be viewed as Dostoevsky’s own attempt at ‘preaching the truth.’