The Russian-Japanese war and a new understanding of Dostoevsky's legacy

The article examines the influence of the Russian-Japanese War of 1904-1905 on the reception of F. M. Dostoevsky’s legacy in religious-philosophical and symbolist circles, which in these years acquired a qualitatively new character. It is established that at the beginning of the 20th century in Russia there were three tendencies in relation to the war: Orthodox-patriotic, or historiosophical (associated with the names of F. I. Tyutchev, F. M. Dostoevsky, V. S. Solovyov, etc.), anti-state-pacifist (backed by the authority of L. N. Tolstoy) and vitalist-apologetic (following F. Nietzsche), - which were difficult to combine with each other in the statements of Russian symbolists. The article focuses on the evolution of views on Dostoevsky’s work by D. S. Merezhkovsky and S. N. Bulgakov in 1904-1906. If at the beginning of hostilities in the Far East in 1904 both stood on similar patriotic positions to Dostoevsky, then with the aggravation of the political situation in the country in 1905-1906, associated with military defeats, disappointment in Russian statehood and the growth of the revolutionary movement, these religious philosophers drew closer to Tolstoy’s anti-government pacifism in categorically condemning the Russo-Japanese War. Coupled with the discrediting of Orthodoxy in the context of the “new religious consciousness”, such dynamics led to distrust of Dostoevsky’s historical and political views and criticism of the “mistakes” and “delusions” of the author of the “Writer’s Diary”, part of whose legacy was now declared unacceptable.