Dostoevsky and England: F.M. Dostoevsky's Editorship of the Weekly Newspaper The Citizen (1873-1874) with Special Reference to Its Discourse of Englishness and the Insight This Offers to His Subsequent Writing

Abstract

This thesis provides a summary and evaluation of the material relating to Britain in the weekly literary‐political St Petersburg newspaper-journal. The Citizen during Dostoevsky's editorship in 1873-74. This material is viewed as a separate discourse of Englishness within the overall context and hierarchy of discourses in The Citizen. Currently there is an acknowledged gap in Dostoevsky studies in relation to his editorial work and non­‐fictional writing, and its venue of journalistic print culture. There is an even greater gap in Dostoevsky studies relating to the impact of British culture on the writer and his work. An attempt will be made to fill these gaps by considering those features of Englishness reflected in the material that was selected, edited, compiled and in some instances written by Dostoevsky for The Citizen. A further aim of this thesis is to locate the complex relationship between Dostoevsky's selection of this material focusing on Britain and its use as a source and inspiration for his subsequent writing. Thus the discourse on Englishness is examined in relation to Dostoevsky's two novels published following his editorship: The Adolescent (1875) and The Brothers Karamazov (1880). Dostoevsky's approach to editorship is usually viewed as a form of cultural production. The Citizen's editorial policy was embedded in the paper's very name, enshrining its concept of responsible citizenship. Hence, Dostoevsky was engaged in the process of fashioning the cultural construct of Russian citizenship as mediated through the discourse of Englishness. This discourse is considered from four main perspectives: religion and the church; politics; education, including the publication of the popular 'juvenile' text Tom Brown’s Schooldays as a Supplement to The Citizen; and social philosophy in combination with the natural sciences that played such an important role in the Victorian debate between religion and science. The critical methods used are in large part empirical, combining the traditional foreground/background and reflection/record models with a more modern view of the press within the multidisciplinary terrains of cultural and media studies. In accordance with this approach The Citizen is viewed as an interactive medium of culture that was instrumental in shaping opinion and identity, while Dostoevsky's input as editor is viewed not simply as reflecting or recording reality but as producing or manufacturing consensual reality. The interpretative practice adopted here is that of New Historicism that integrates historical and literary interpretations. Some account is taken of recent Cultural Mobility studies that demonstrate that even traditional cultures are fluid and unstable, and shaped by numerous phenomena including random events. The conclusions are intended to demonstrate the significance of the British influence on Dostoevsky, adding a new dimension to our understanding of the writer. Indirectly this study may also contribute to our understanding of Dostoevsky's position in the East-West dialogue.