An ordeal by “practical philisophy” or two teachers of Elena Stakenschneider

Based on the diaries, memoirs and letters of E. A. Stakenschneider we have revealed a kind of an ideologic novel with the plot concerning spiritual evolution of E. A. Stakenschneider from the revolutionary radicalism of P. L. Lavrov to the Christian conservatism of F. M. Dostoevsky. The problem of “teaching”, spiritual leaders for the young generations of the 1860s and 1870s is evoked. Two “Thought Leaders”, who appreciated the spiritual beauty of a “smart hunchback”, became her life teachers. She shared Lavrov’s opposition attitude, she was carried away by his uncensored poetry and learned the “practical philosophy”, she critically thought about his amazing width of views, about the combination of faith and scepticism, but the spiritual father of Lavrov considered “him to be a devoted Christian”. An aesthetic insight of the young reader manifested itself in her comment made in 1861 about the originality of Dostoevsky’s style: “naturalness of unnaturalness”. The experience of a handicapped taught her to deeply empathize with the misfortunes of others and rejoice in happiness of others. Having experienced the “truth” of atheism, she met “A Writer’s Diary” with enthusiasm, when the time of Dostoevsky came, who proclaimed the beginning of Christian anthropology. The article also puts forward a proposal that Elena Andreevna Stakenschneider could have become an archetype of Lisa Khokhlakova in the novel “The Brothers Karamazov”.