Федор Достоевский и деконструкция русской классики в украинском контексте

Abstract

The article focuses on issues of the deconstruction of the Russian classics, a subject that has become increasingly prominent in the contemporary discourse and academic research, particularly in the context of the Russo‑Ukrainian war. To illustrate this point, the article presents the history of the deconstruction of the work of Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821–1881) among Ukrainian intellectuals and writers. This deconstruction, that is, a critical understanding of the ideology proposed by the Russian writer, began during his lifetime, as evidenced by the memoirs of Khrystyna Alchevska. The ideology of F. Dostoevsky, his negative attitude towards the values of the European culture and his chauvinism were the subject of criticism by the prominent 19th and early 20th‑century Ukrainian intellectuals, including Ivan Franko, and especially Ukrainian émigrés such as Evhen Malanyuk and Dmytro Dontsov. The article also analyses the concept of “Dostoevshchina” and emphasises that not only Ukrainian but also Russian authors criticised F. Dostoevsky and his paradoxical worldview, which combines prophecies about the terror and totalitarianism of the Bolsheviks (the novel Demons), with the Christian values, but also the hatred of the Western culture and criticism of the Western society.