Dostoyevsky, The Man Behind: Memoirs, Letters & Autobiographical Works. Fyodor Dostoyevsky
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by European Utopias, were advancing towards the West, while our people, faithful to the tradition of their ancestors, had set their faces to the East. The Russian Nihilists and Anarchists desired to introduce European atheism into our country, whereas our deeply religious peasantry remained faithful to Christ.
The result of this conflict is now before us. The intellectuals who hoped to reign in Russia in the place of the Tsar, and to govern it according to their fancy, were swept away by our exasperated people as stupid and maleficent beings. Some of them have found shelter in the palaces of our former Embassies, and pretend to govern Russia from the banks of the Thames or the Seine, trying not to notice the sly smiles of the European ambassadors; others gather round the innumerable Russian newspapers, of which some hundred copies a number are printed, and offered gratis to any one who can be induced to read them. Readers, however, become more and more rare. Europeans begin to understand that our intellectuals are dreamers, and that the socialistic and anarchistic moujik of whom they speak in their journals has never existed save in the naive imaginations of " the grandfathers and grandmothers of the Russian Revolution."
Far from being an anarchist, the Russian moujik is on the way to construct a huge Oriental Empire. He is fraternising with the Mongohans, and estabhshing friendly relations with India, Persia and Turkey. He keeps Bolshevism like a scarecrow for sparrows, in order to keep off old Europe, and prevent her from meddling in Russian affairs, and hampering the construction of the national edifice. On the day when it is completed, the Russian moujik will destroy the scarecrow, which will have served its turn, and astonished Europe will see rising before her a new Russian Empire, mightier and more sohd than the old. Our moujiks are good architects, and hke wise men, which they have always been, they have no idea of inviting the intellectuals to be their architects. They have realised that these sick men could destroy the finest civihsation in the world, but that they are quite incapable of constructing anything in its place.
If Dostoyevsky's centenary cannot be celebrated in Russia, I should like to see it commemorated in Europe, for he has long been accepted as a universal writer, one of those beacons which illuminate the path of humanity. I have therefore decided to publish in Europe the biography of my father, which I once hoped to publish in Russia; this is the more expedient, since my entire fortune is in the hands of the Bolsheviks, and I must now work for my living. The new details of my father's life which wiU be found in my book may suggest to his admirers fresh critical studies of his works, and make them more popular among European and American readers. This will surely be the best way in which to celebrate the centenary of the famous writer.
AIMEE DOSTOYEVSKY.
I
ORIGIN OF THE DOSTOYEVSKY FAMILY
" I know our people. I have lived with them in prison, eaten with them, slept with them, worked with them. The people gave me back Christ, whom I learned to know in my father's house, but whom i lost later, when I in my turn became ' a European Liberal.' "—August, 1880.
In reading biographies of my father, I have always been surprised to find that his biographers have studied him solely as a Russian, and sometimes even as the most Russian of Russians. Now Dostoyevsky was Russian only on his mother's side, for his paternal ancestors were of Lithuanian origin. Of all lands in the Russian Empire, Lithuania is certainly the most interesting by reason of its transformations and the various influences it has undergone in the course of centuries. The Lithuanian breed is the same mixture of Slavs and Finno-Turkish tribes as the Russian. Yet there is a very marked difference between the two peoples. Russia remained long under the Tatar yoke, and became mongolised. Lithuania, on the other hand, was nor-manised by the Normans, who traded with Greece by the waterways of the Niemen and the Dnieper. Finding this trade highly profitable, the Normans established vast mercantile depots in Lithuania, and placed them under the guard of sentinels. Gradually these depots were transformed into fortresses, and the fortresses into towns. Some of these towns exist to this day, as, for instance, the town of Polozk, which was governed by the Norman prince Rogvolod. The whole country was divided into a number of small principalities; the population was Lithuanian, the government Norman. Perfect order reigned in these principalities, and excited the envy of the neighbouring Slav peoples.1
1 This envy led the Slavs who inhabited the shores of the Dnieper, and were the ancestors of the Ukrainians and Russians, to desire Norman princes to rule over them in their turn. They sent a deputation to Lithuania to offer Prince Rurik the crown of the Grand Duchy of Kiew. Rurik, probably the brother or the younger son of some Norman prince who was governing a part of Lithuania, accepted the crown and went to Kiew with his Norman retinue. The descendants of Rurik reigned in Russia until the seventeenth century, first under the title of Grand Duke, and later under that of Tsar. When the last descendant of Rurik died at Moscow, Russia passed through a period of anarchy, until the Boyards elected as Tsar MihaU Romanoff, whose family was of Lithuanian origin—that is to say, a strongly normanised Slav family. In their turn the Romanoffs reigned for several centuries, loved and venerated by the Russian people. The curious fact that the Russian nation has twice chosen as princes Normans or normanised Slavs, is readily explained by the disputatious character of my countrymen. Interminable talkers and controversialists, capable of holding forth for a dozen hours on end without uttering a single sensible word, the Russians can never agree. The Normans, clear-headed and practical sparing of words but prolific in deeds, made them live in peace one with another, and kept order in our country.
The Normans did not hold aloof from the Lithuanians; the princes and their followers married readily among the women of the country, and were gradually merged with the original inhabitants. Their Norman blood gave such vigour to the hitherto insignificant Lithuanians that they overcame the Tatars, the Russians, the Ukrainians, the Poles, and the Teutonic Knights, their northern neighbours. In the fifteenth century Lithuania had become an immense Grand Duchy, which comprised all Ukrainia and a large part of Russia. It played a very great part among the other Slav countries, had a brilliant, highly civilised Court, and attracted numerous foreigners of distinction, poets and men of learning. The Russian Boyards who opposed the tyranny of their Tsars fled to Lithuania and were hospitably received there. This was the case of the celebrated Prince Kurbsky, the mortal enemy of the Tsar Ivan the Terrible.2
2 Modern historians who deal with the history of Lithuania and Ulcrainia rarely mention the Normans. On the other hand, they often speak of the Varangians, and assert that the latter played an important part in Lithuania, and even in Ukrainia. Now the Varangians are in fact Normans, for the word Varangian means in old Slav " enemy." As the Normans always beat the Slavs, the latter called them the " enemies." Slavs have as a rule but little curiosity, and are not concerned to know the race to which their neighbours belong; they prefer to give them fancy names. Thus when the Russians began to trade with the Germans they called them " Nemzi," which in old Russian means " the Dumb," because the Germans did not understand their language and could not answer their questions. The Russian people stiU call the Germans " Nemzi." The name German or Teuton is used only by the intellectuals.
The Normans were ruling in Lithuania at the beginning of the Christian era, and perhaps before. We find them still in power in 1392, in the person of the Grand Duke Witold, who, as his name indicates, was a descendant of the Norman princes. It is obvious that Lithuania must have become profoundly normanised in the course of fourteen centuries. To say nothing of the marriages contracted by the princes and the members of their retinue, the numerous merchants and warriors who came to Lithuania from the North readily took to wife young Lithuanians, who, thanks to their Slav blood, are handsomer and more graceful than the women of Finno-Turkish tribes in general. The offspring of these marriages inherited the Lithuanian type of their mothers, and the Norman brains of their paternal ancestors. Indeed, when we examine the Lithuanian character, we recognise its strong resemblance to the Norman character. I recommend to those who wish to study this practically unknown country, Lithuania, Past and Present, by W. St. Vidunas. I shall often have occasion to quote this learned writer, but his excellent study should be read in its entirety. A curious fact in connection with Vidunas's book is that while he describes the Lithuanian character