THE EVOLUTION OF THE CONCEPT OF “GROUND” IN G. I. CHULKOV’S WRITINGS ABOUT F. M. DOSTOEVSKY

Abstract

F. M. Dostoevsky’s ideas and images imbued the entire creative work of a distinguished Silver Age writer and critic G. I. Chulkov: beginning with the article “Dostoevsky and Revolution” (1906) and ending with the book “How Dostoevsky worked” (1939). The works dedicated to Dostoevsky demonstrate the evolution of the literator’s vision of “ground” from denying it in pre-revolutionary years (that was common among the representatives of “New Christian Consciousness”) to accepting it in the 1930’s (that corresponded with the attitude of Dostoevsky, best seen in “The Brothers Karamazov” and with the religious views of Chulkov, who had been already inchurched by that time). The focus of the article is the analysis of the vision of “ground” in Chulkov’s unpublished work Dostoevsky’s Life (1935–1936), whose autograph and typewritten copies are kept in three diff erent Russian archives. In the research Chulkov’s interest to religious philosophy of the Silver Age associated with the names of D. S. Merezhkovsky, V. I. Ivanov and N. A. Berdyaev is evident. However, the concept of “ground”, based on Chulkov’s opposition to “Soviet patriotism” of the 1930s, in general, tends to have the canonical explanation.

Keywords

• whose autograph and typewritten copies are kept in three diff erent Russian archives. In the research Chulkov’s interest to religious philosophy of the Silver Age associated with the names of D. S. Merezhkovsky
• V. I. Ivanov and N. A. Berdyaev is evident. However
• the concept of “ground”
• based on Chulkov’s opposition to “Soviet patriotism” of the 1930s
• in general
• F. M. Dostoevsky
• G. I. Chulkov
• ground
• symbolism
• paganism
• Christianity
• atheism