Speransky or Karamzin: the Dilemma in Dostoevsky’s Novel “Demons”

F. M. Dostoevsky associated the name of N. M. Karamzin with his childhood memories. In 1862, after Dostoevsky discovered the “Note on Ancient and New Russia in Its Political and Civil Relations,” he connected the historiographer’s name with Slavophile ideas about the unification of the “Russian lands.” The figures of the court historiographer N. M. Karamzin and the statesman M. M. Speransky occupied a special place in F. M. Dostoevsky’s reflections on the spiritual and historical path of Russia. Dostoevsky heeded attention to Speransky in 1861 owing to the M. A. Korf’s book “The Life of Count Speransky.” M. M. Dostoevsky commissioned its review by M. I. Vladislavlev and the journal “Vremya” published it. The names of Speransky and Karamzin appeared together only once — in a June 1870 entry in the preparatory materials for the novel The Demons: “Who: Speransky or Karamzin?” The rough draft demonstrates that in the novelist’s mind considered the positions of these historical figures ideologized and diametrically opposed, similarly to the polemics between Westernizers and Slavophiles, respectively: the names of Karamzin and Speransky signified the idea of two possible paths of Russia’s subsequent development. While from Dostoevsky’s point of view the Slavophiles (“conservatives”) affirmed the pre-Petrine ideal and were merely abstract dreamers, the Westernizers (“nihilists”) continued the work of Peter the Great, i.e., the destruction of traditional foundations. According to Dostoevsky, the “dreamy” nature of the Slavophiles was overpowered by virtue of Karamzin’s idea of the dialectical connection between the old and the new. The well-known formula about universality, all-humanity, all-understanding and all-response embodies the novelist’s reflections. According to Dostoevsky, A. S. Pushkin possessed these qualities.