ABSTRACT
In this study I have attempted to show correspondences and points of
engagement between Dostoevsky’s works and key aspects of Slavophile thought.
Focusing on the concepts of sobornost¡ and tsel¡nost¡ has enabled me to identify unity, brotherhood and freedom as fundamental to Dostoevsky’s world view, and
to trace the development and interconnecting relationship of these notions in his
œuvre. I have used Slavophilism as a lens with which to gain a new perspective
on these ideas and to place them at the forefront of Dostoevsky’s concerns. By
doing this I have shown that Dostoevsky’s ideas derive from a distinct strand of
nineteenth-century Russian thought and stand as a natural successor to the
philosophies of Khomiakov and Kireevsky. Although he did not choose to accept
the precepts of Slavophilism wholesale or declare allegiance to it, he used his
engagement with it and his awareness of its cultural background to define and
develop his own set of ideas and beliefs. By concentrating initially on views
found in Dostoevsky’s non-fiction, letters and notebooks, and by deliberately
leaving aside the issue of the complexities of establishing authorial opinion, I
have offered a picture of what Dostoevsky may be reasonably assumed to have
believed with regard to Slavophile thought. I have shown how Dostoevsky drew
from the ideological environment of his time and defined his own position. By
examining his active engagement with Slavophile figures and his pronounce-
ments on issues with which they were commonly concerned, I have established
with a new degree of precision where the writer stood in relation to both
Slavophiles and Westernizers, and the thinkers that succeeded the proponents of
these movements.
