Language:
English
Year of publication:
1997
Titel der Quelle:
Russian Review
Angaben zur Quelle:
56,4 (1997) 487-504
Keywords:
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor,
;
Chekhov, Anton Pavlovich,
;
Antisemitism in literature
;
Russian literature History and criticism
;
Jewish literature History and criticism
Abstract:
Dostoyevsky believed that Jewish ideas of economic self-interest threatened Christian and European civilization, that Jews were on the verge of ruling the world, and that Jews exploited the Russian uneducated peasant masses, particularly of Belarus and Ukraine, after the emancipation of the serfs in 1861. He appears to have had a sense of guilt about his antisemitism. Thus, he answered letters from Jewish readers who complained about antisemitism in his work, and denied personal antipathy toward Jews. Chekhov, never a bitter antisemite, became less antisemitic over time. After 1888 antisemitism no longer stimulated his artistic interests, and in the late 1890s he was a strong Dreyfusard. Both Dostoyevsky and Chekhov expressed unrealistic visions of Russian-Jewish reconciliation in the stories discussed here. Such visions are hardly characteristic of antisemites.
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