Dostoevsky’s Orthodox Political Philosophy

The article discusses the main ideas of F. M. Dostoevsky’s political philosophy and their organic connection with the integrity of his Orthodox worldview. It is shown that the Orthodox monarchism of the writer, his artistic world and his understanding of a person as a spiritual being shared the same higher moral foundations. Dostoevsky’s Orthodox political philosophy, though unappreciated by his readers from “the educated stratum”, at the same time exactly corresponded to the off icial ideological formula of “Orthodoxy. Autocracy. Nationality”. Against the background of the prophetically depicted de-Goded world, which Dostoevsky had already looked into in the 19th century, his vision of the Russian people as “God-bearers” and the Orthodox monarchy as the most Christian and salvatory form of statehood served as the only “sliver of light” in this dying world. The particular value of Dostoevsky’s political philosophy is that it stood as the articulation of the mass peoples’ consciousness, which was no longer represented in fi ction and scientifi c literature of his lifetime due to the prevalent ideology of liberalism and democracy borrowed from Europe. The voice of Dostoevsky expressed “the culture of the silent majority” of the people, which was not refl ected in the secular culture of that period. In A Writer’s Diary and other works by Dostoevsky, this popular Orthodox view of the monarchy received a rational formulation and argumentation. The article highlights the main components of this argumentation, showing the consistency of the writer’s political views and their deeply thought-out and pained nature. Dostoevsky turned out to be equally correct in his predictions about the future revolutionary catastrophe in Russia and the huge number of its victims. He was the one to accurately formulate the essential reason for it as the takeover of Russia by “demons”. He also did not fail to name the last hope for the people — the repentance and the return to the Church. The relevance of Dostoevsky’s political philosophy in the modern era is determined by two factors: it helps to understand the real political thinking of the Russian people, which has existed for many centuries, but has hardly been studied so far; it explains “the archetypes” of Russian political consciousness that have existed at all times up to the present and remain an important factor in Russian history.

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