Russian Literature of the 19th Century

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Russian Literature of the 19th Century
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Tenth Week

• Writing Assignment due today, 5pm

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Last Thursday

• Fathers and Sons
• Film continued The Idiot (based on novel by
  Dostoevsky)

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Idiot-5

• Money is the focus now
• NF makes her appearance
• NF taunts Ganias father
• Gania driven to the edge (shame, hatred)
• Gania slaps Prince
• All invited to NFs party
• Side trip to meet Ippolit

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Idiot-6

• Truth or dare
• Totsky-NF relationship
• Prince appears
• Prince proposes
• Prince has money
• What will happen?
• Strong emotions!

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Legacy

• Nihilism, nihilists in Russian culture
• Many directions
• Anarchists Bakunin, Nechaev
• Radical critics Chernyshevsky, Dobroliubov,
  Pisarev and numerous others..
• Populists (Ts Virgin Soil)
• Marxists (Plekhanov et al.)
• Peoples Will and other parties

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Opposition

• Slavophiles (variations in 60s-80s)
• Esthetes (1850s-early 1900s)
• Liberals

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Fedor Dostoevsky 1821-81
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Life

• Parents died while he was teenager
• studied engineering
• trouble with authorities penal servitude, exile
  in Siberia in the 1850s
• return from exile journalism, fiction
• Trips to Europe
• Journalism, novels success as novelist
• Death in 1881 widely acclaimed

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Views

• anti-Westernizers
• anti-Chernyshevsky

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Major Works

• Early Poor Folk, The Double
• Notes from the Underground 1864
• Crime and Punishment 1865-66
• The Idiot 1868-69
• The Possessed 1871-72
• Brothers Karamazov 1880
• Legend of the Grand Inquisitor

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Major Ideas

• Atheism bad
• Reason, logic bad
• Human beings bad
• Suffering good
• Freedom good
• Orthodoxy good

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Influential

• Philosophical thought existentialism
• Psychology, criminal psychology
• Literature world famous novels
• Theology volumes of discussions of his ideas
• Passionate proponents and opponents
• Chekhov and Tolstoy critical

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Early works

• Polemic with Gogol
• Dreamers and poor clerks
• Unusual psychology

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Politics

• Involved in discussion groups
• Probably not that radical
• Arrest, mock execution, Siberia and exile
• Notes from the House of the Dead study of
  criminal types published when her returned

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Literary journals

• Conservative political values
• Financial problems
• Personal problems
• Death of wife
• Death of brother
• Journalistic failures
• Gambling

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Literary Works

• Notes from the Underground 1864
• Crime and Punishment 1865-66
• The Idiot 1868-69
• The Possessed 1871-72
• Brothers Karamazov 1880
• Legend of the Grand Inquisitor

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Notes

• Underground Man
• Story
• Views
• Legacy
• Philosophy Existentialism
• Psychology

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Crime and Punishment

• Real places!