Mark Uralsky, Henrietta Mondry. Dostoevsky and the Jews

Abstract

The review is concerned with a book that explores F. Dostoevsky’s attitude to the ‘Jewish question.’ The author of the frst eight chapters, M. Uralsky lays out his concept through an extensive corpus of already published material that has ofen remained unnoticed by Russian scholars of Dostoevsky, for example monographs and articles in English, German and Italian. Uralsky’s main objective appears to be to explain Dostoevsky’s paradoxical treatment of Jews. In the book’s fnal three chapters, their author, H. Mondry, interprets the depictions of Jews in The House of the Dead [Zapiski iz myortvogo doma], Crime and Punishment [Prestuplenie i nakazanie] and The Possessed [Besy], and also proposes a new perspective on the ‘Jewish theme’ in A Writer’s Diary [Dnevnik pisatelya]. The reviewer believes that the book will prove useful for humanities scholars who hunger for a comprehensive view of the ‘Jewish theme’ in Russian and European history and wish to learn about the historical and literary context that defned Dostoevsky’s treatment of Jews.