Dostoevsky was an Anti-Semite

Dostoevsky was an Anti-Semite

Literary anti-Semitism is as old as Western culture itself. A full listing of writers who have expressed hostility toward Jews and/or Judaism--from Shakespeare to T.S. Eliot, from Pushkin to Pasternak, etc.--would add up to a Who's Who of Western literature.1 Undoubtedly, Dostoevsky follows in this tradition.

It is disparaging, however, that as the true novelist of ideas and Christian love, Dostoevsky could harbor such ill will towards the Jews. Does this not discredit everything he has written? This paper will address Dostoevsky's anti-Semitism through an examination of Isay Fomitch Bumstein in The House of the Dead, the Messianic idea in The Devils, and 'the little demon' in The Brothers Karamazov. Furthermore, this paper will question the moral implications of Dostoevsky's Christian message given his anti-Semitic posture. It will suggest that while he was indeed an anti-Semite, one can continue to read Dostoevsky's work without feeling that his message was a complete sham.2

Until The House of the Dead, Jews were practically absent from Dostoevsky's writings.3 But beginning with this book in 1862, the Jew and the Jewish question assume a place of growing importance in Dostoevsky's thought. The eight years of military and penal servitude in Siberia expose Dostoevsky to both criminals and Jews alike. Unlike Gogol, who in his native Ukraine had observed firsthand the hostility between the Ukrainians and Jews, Dostoevsky did not have any direct experience with Jews, because there were few Jews living in St. Petersburg.4

It is in the House of the Dead that Dostoevsky, for the first time, depicts a Jewish character: Isay Fomitch Bumstein (IV, 61). Dostoevsky pays considerable attention to ...

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...id., pg. 30.

8 Goldstein, pg. 50.

9 Ibid., pg. 55.

10 Ibid, pg. 50.

11 Goldstein, pg. 56.

12 Ibid., pg. 51.

13 Goldstein, pg. 155.

14 Goldstein, pg. 156.

15 Joseph Frank, xi.

16 David Singer, pg. 21.

17 Joseph Frank, xii.

18 Ibid., pg. xiv.

Bibliography:

1. Dostoevsky, Fyodor, The Brothers Karamazov. The Garnnet Translation, revised by Ralph E. Matlaw. W.W. Norton & Company, New York. 1976.

2.Dostoevsky, Fyodor, Devils. New translation by Michael R. Katz. Oxford University Press. Oxford. 1992.

3. Dostoevsky, Fyodor, The House of the Dead. The Garnet Translation. The MacMillan Company, New York, 1950.

4. Goldstein, David I. Dostoevsky and the Jews, with forward by Joseph Frank. University of Texas Press, Austin. 1981.

5. Singer, David, "An Anti-Semitic Genius." Book Review in The New Leader. May 18, 1991, volume 64.