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REVIEWSVladimir K. Kantor. "Brat'ja Karamazovy" F. Dostoevskogo. Moskva: Khudozhestvennaja literatura, 1983. 1 90 pp.
In recent years Soviet Dostoevsky scholarship has focused on both style and content of The Brothers Karamazov (see V. E. Vetlovskaja's Poetika romana "Brat'ja Karamazovy". Leningrad: Nauka, 1977 and N. Ja. Berkovskij's "О Братьях Карамазовых", Voprosy literatury, no. 3, 1981). Vladimir Kantor also investigates stylistic and thematic patterns, but does so primarily for the purpose of supporting a Marxist interpretation. He justifies his approach by pointing to the ambiguity and openendedness of the novel, which allows for multiple perspective. In general, Kantor builds on the assumption that The Brothers Karamazov is a metaphor for Dostoevsky's rejection of capitalism in favor of populism guided by the Orthodox Church. Though Kantor in the end disagrees with Dostoevsky's emphasis on religious resolution of ethical problems, he gives generous play to the idea that recognition of selfishness and eventual regeneration must come from individual soul searching and reaching out to others, not from edicts imposed from without.
To support his contention that the major characters in the novel move from a capitalist inspired, self-centered attitude toward concern for the disenfranchised population, Kantor analyzes Fedor Karamazov and his sons along rather selective lines. Dostoevsky's "Karamazov force, " which affects all the Karamazovs in one way or another, is seen by Kantor as a symbol for the major danger confronting Russia in the latter half of the nineteenth century. In its basest form it embodies the inhuman features of serfdom adapted to more modern exploitative ways. Fedor Karamazov is posited as the embodiment of the ex-serf owner turned capitalist. Kantor describes Fedor's patriarchal despotism, subjugation of women, insensitivity to others, shady business practice and accumulation of 100, 000 rubles from a penniless state as a perfect example of how capitalism reinforces negative historical patterns to bring about total corruption. The fact that Fedor received considerable wealth through his first marriage is correspondingly muted in the analysis. Kantor's parallel between Fedor and Ivan IV (pp. 76-77) serves as a good illustration of how he links Dostoevsky's negative characters to Russia's despotic upper class in order to give the novel a wider social dimension. Thus, both Fedor and Ivan IV were humbled in childhood, grew into depraved tyrants given to drunkenness and violent rages, played the fool with their victims, misused women and consequently represent unchecked evil forces in society. For Kantor, even secondary characters and scenes demonstrate Dostoevsky's attempt to depict the unholy alliance between Western capitalism and native predisposition to dissolution, exemplified by Samsonov, Ljagavyj, Trifon Borisovich, the drunken revels in Mokroe, as well as by Rakitin, who prospers by prostituting his writing talents.
In the story of the three legitimate brothers Kantor sees various attempts to escape the evils of the "Karamazov force, " while Smerdjakov's lackey status is a bourgeois rebirth of it. Ivan's hatred of his father and of Mitja are indicative of his concern for justice. Ivan is analyzed as far too removed from ordinary people to find a constructive way of channelling his anger. His "Grand Inquisitor" poem serves to pinpoint his rejection of injustice, though in Kantor's view Ivan remains infected by extreme individualism and therefore subject to failure. He is too weak to effect justice by himself, yet tragically unaware that union with the spiritual force of the downtrodden could render his efforts more fruitful. Kantor sympathizes with Ivan's spiritual sufferings and his attempt to save Mitja at the trial, but interprets Ivan's failure as proof of the latter's insufficiencies. Mitja is described as coming closer to acknowledging the necessity of a social conscience. Kantor first develops Mitja's character portrait along generally accepted lines, then singles out two points: 1) Mitja's reliance on miracles or instantaneous solutions to his problems, which are subsequently never resolved, and his unwillingness to invest honest time and energy in the reform of his personality. 2) The identification of Mitja's dream figure "dite" with the starving peasantry. After the dream, Mitja realizes that resolution of his anguish lies in long term selfless service to the poor, but is unable to make the necessary sacrifices, as is demonstrated by his refusal to give up Grushen'ka. Kantor perceives a glimmer of hope in Mitja's resolve to return from America to become a faceless, ordinary peasant. Kantor's most positive thoughts are reserved for Alesha, but he offers no new insights into that character. Alesha's involvement with the monastery is seen as temporary. Kantor believes that Dostoevsky reserved Alesha's secular odyssey of immersion into popular suffering and protest against social injustice for the never-written second volume of The Brothers Karamazov. In fact, Kantor--noting Zossima's disagreements with institutionalized religion--surmises that Dostoevsky meant to fashion Alesha into a Russian Orthodox socialist and future rebel.
In general, Kantor downgrades Dostoevsky's emphasis on the importance of a religious orientation. For Kantor, the entire novel is proof of Dostoevsky's misplaced trust in religion as defender of social justice. He notes that Alesha is as powerless as Christ in "The Grand Inquisitor" to effect changes and prevent disasters. Lise, Alesha's own evil alter ego, remains un- conquered, and Alesha's final idyllic scene with the twelve young disciples may well be tempered by a Judas among them. The future of the other brothers, too, is clouded and points to failure. The major female figures are not analyzed by Kantor; indeed, they are barely mentioned. Instead, Kantor includes a lengthy analysis of the trial proceedings, which he sees as Dostoevsky's judgment on the inadequacy of the intelligentsia. Since neither prosecutor, defense counsel nor the brothers themselves are able to understand the complexity of their motivations, despite the advantage of superior education, Kantor believes that Dostoevsky entrusted final judgment to the peasant jury, the repository of innate native wisdom (narodnaja pravda). The fact that this jury brings in the wrong verdict in the end seems to contradict such an assumption, but Kantor often introduces Dostoevsky quotes, taken out of context, to support his conclusions. Thus he cites a Dostoevsky remark that although the people are always basically right, they occasionally err in practicing their wisdom (p. 36).
The overall tone of Kantor's treatise is in no way propagandistically tendentious, but politely suggestive. Many of his assertions are credible, especially in regard to Dostoevsky's views about Western capitalism, but the extension of these views to fit a theme in the novel is sometimes labored. Though Kantor disagrees with Dostoevsky's religious emphasis, he sees Dostoevsky's questioning and probing at a critical time in Russia's history as valuable, and gives highest praise to Dostoevsky's artistic transformation of the issues. Kantor's style should be easily accessible to students with graduate level competency in the language. Students and instructors of Dostoevsky courses will find this book informative for the insight it provides into contemporary Soviet Dostoevsky scholarship.