The Diary of a Writer

[Panoptimist]

I've been studying literature, philosophy and lying (journalism) while at university.

I never had (took) the opportunity to read Dostoevsky, though people close to me in the past have mentioned his name, long before I would have been able to situate his name and writing and philosophy in context (it's still hard, as my knowledge of Russian history is shit).

I recently took it upon myself to read his work after he was cited by another author (Poncins) whose work is in this field of study. I have a perfection and purity complex, and if something isn't perfect in my mind, I just shut down. In light of this I've begun by reading his "The Diary of a Writer" to get a general feel for his writing style and attitude. Also, though this book appears at the end of his life, I feel that reading this material will inform me in my reading of his more famous work (including his non fiction). It also contains the infamous "Jewish Question." I haven't read that yet, so please don't spoil it for me.

I'm starting this thread as a repository for quotes on this particular subject. He has many, and though I'm only an eighth of the way through the work, I've already learned much. There's something about this guy that I really like.

I'm going to begin by simply introducing one of the most poetic passages I've ever read, and I believe this passage will reveal much about the literary mode and philosophy of this great writer:

Did you ever see how a peasant whips his wife?--I did. He begins with a rope or a strap. Peasant life is devoid of aesthetic delights--music, theatres, magazines; naturally it has to be enlarged somehow. Tying up his wife, or thrusting her legs into the opening of a floor board, our good little peasant would probably begin--methodically, phlegmatically, even sleepily--with measured blows, not listening to the screams and entreaties ! to be more correct--precisely listening to them, listening with delight, for otherwise what pleasure would he be deriving from the whipping?--Do you know, gentleman, that people are born in different surroundings? Would you not believe that this woman, in her other surroundings, might have been a Juliet or a Beatrice from Shakespeare, a Gretchen from Faust? I do not say that she would be--it would be very silly to make such an assertion--but there might have been in her soul, in embryo form, something noble, possibly something not inferior to what one finds among the noble class, namely, a loving and even lofty heart, a character full of most original beauty.

--------

But let us leave the Westerners alone, and let us suppose that with money everything may be accomplished ; that time itself may be purchaed, and that even independence of life may somehow be steamed up and re-enacted. The question is: where is such money to be found?--Almost half of our present budget is paid for by vodka; in other words, this means that, judging by the present, the whole future of the people  is dependent upon national drunkenness and popular depravity. We are paying, so to speak, with our future for our stately budget of a great European power. We are cutting the tree at its very root, in order to get the fruit as quickly as possible. And who sought this?--It happened involuntarily, of its own accord, as a result of the strict logic of historical events. Our people, liberated by the great word of the Monarch, are inexperienced in the new ways of life ; as yet, they have not lived independently, and they are merely taking their first strides along the new road : this is an enormous and extraordinary break ; it is almost wholly unexpected, almost unheard of in history by reason of its completeness and character. These first, and now independent, steps of the liberated giant along the new path, fraught with great peril, require extraordinary caution. And yet, what did our people encounter at these first steps?--Vacillation among the upper strata of society; the alienation from the people of our intelligentsia which, for centuries, has been in existence (this is the principal thing), and on top of these--trash and the Jew. The people began revelling and drinking--first, from joy; and later, from force of habit. Were they shown anything better than trashiness? Were they diverted, were they taught anything?--At present in some, even in many, localities, pot-houses are so numerous that they exist in the proportion of not only one to hundreds but even to dozens of inhabitants--moreover, to only a few dozens. There are localities with some fifty dwellers, or less, and yet that have a pot-house of their own.

Genuine, sound capital accumulates in a country in no other way than by being based upon a general labor prosperity; otherwise only capital owned by kulaks and Jews can come into existence. And thus it shall be if the people will not come to their senses and the intelligentsia will not help them. If the people should fail to come to their senses, they, as a whole, will find themselves in a very short time in the hands of all sorts of Jews, and in such an event no commune is going to save them : there will be merely uniformly equal paupers, mortgaged and enslaved as a whole commune, while, in their stead, Jews and kulaks will be providing the money for the budget. There will emerge petty, depraved and mean little bourgeois, and a countless number of paupers enslaved by them--such will be the picture! Yiddishers will be soaking up the blood of the people and subsisting on their debauch and humiliation; inasmuch, however, as they--these Yiddishers--will provide money for the budget, they will have to be supported. This is a bad, horrible dream and, praised be the Lord, it is merely a fancy!

[/b]

Passages from work that originally appeared in The Citizen, 1873

[CrackSmokeRepublican]

Excellent topic... Panoptimist...

Here's  topic from a few months ago on Dostoevsky:
viewtopic.php?f=41&t=11315

Also one on Russian Freemasonry:
viewtopic.php?f=41&t=8633

If you ever listened to VOR's Matt Johnson, he covers a wealth of Russian writers and history...I highly recommend it.

The Ukrainians/Russians have dealt with "Jewish Question" for centuries while here America, we are just "waking up" to the full ramifications of it.

http://reasonradionetwork.com/?p=3624

[Panoptimist]

On the universal habit of regularly lying/exaggerating in speech without knowing anything but to make a better impression to the listener, The Citizen No. 35, 1873

But take, for instance, natural sciences ! Did you not discuss natural sciences or bankruptcy cases and escapes over the border by different Petersburg, and other, Jews, understanding nothing about them and not knowing the A B C of natural sciences? ... Briefly, if to all this anyone should answer me with a nay, namely, that he did not relate the anecdotes, did not touch upon Botkin, did not lie about Jews, did not shout on the staircase about auntie's health, and that nothing of the kind ever happened to him--I would simply not believe it.

[Panoptimist]

You have to love a writer who will call out the Jews alongside the idiots forming the subversive societies, in the same journal entry, same paragraph at that. Really, you've got to be at least somewhat learned in occult history and religion to understand basically everything that is on the planet.

And the sages and ringleaders merely cater to them--some of them for fear of the Jews (why not, they argue, let him go to America?--isn't it liberal to run away to America?); others--simply to make money on them. And thus fresh energies perish. I may be told that these are but two or three facts which mean nothing, and that, on the contrary, everything is consolidating itself and uniting even closer than hitherto; that banks, companies and associations are being formed. But, would you really, and in truth, point at this mob of triumphant Jews and Yiddishers who have sprung upon Russia?--Triumphant and enraptured--for in our day there have appeared even enraptured Jews of Hebrew and Orthodox faiths. And imagine, even about them, it is stated in our newspapers that they go into retirement and that, for instance, the foreign press is making great fun of the conventions of representatives of our Russian agricultural banks, on account of "the secret meetings of the first two conventions, asking not without irony : how and by what right have the Russian agricultural credit institutions the nerve to expect to gain public confidence if they, at secret meetings held behind the Chinese wall which carefully protects them, are concealing everything from the public, thereby hinting to it that, in fact, something suspicious is taking place..."

And, note a general trait: our whole problem resolves itself into the first step--to practice--whereas everybody, to the last man, is shouting and busying himself about principles; and practice, willy-nilly, has slipped into the hands of Jews alone.

[Panoptimist]

The following sentiment I found particularly interesting because it relates to this topic: http://theinfounderground.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=13143

Dostoievsky wrote this in his June 1876 Diary entry titled "My Paradox [p. 355]":

Now Jews are becoming landowners--and everywhere people write and shout that Jews are draining the soil of Russia; that a Jew, after having invested a certain amount of capital in the purchase of an estate, in order to retrieve the capital plus interest, promptly exhausts all productive forces of the purchased land. Yet try to say something against this and people will immediately start vociferating about the violation of the principle of economic freedom and civil equality. But what kind of equality is this if we have here an obvious Talmudic status in statu--above all and in the first place; if this is not only the exhaustion of the soil but also the future exhaustion of our peasant, who, having been liberated from the landowners, unquestionably and very soon will be driven--as a commune in corpore--into a much worse slavery of far more pernicious landowners--those same landowners who have already rained the sap out of the peasant in Western Russia; those who are now purchasing not only estates and peasants, but who have begun to buy liberal opinion, and who continue to do so quite successfully.

[Panoptimist]

If you ever listened to VOR's Matt Johnson, he covers a wealth of Russian writers and history...I highly recommend it.

Oh man, brilliant suggestion. Thank you much for this.  

[CrackSmokeRepublican]

He just had a show this past week which was really well-done. It had coverage of Dostoevsky as well.  He covered Dostoevsky's writings on "Baal" and what it stood for.

A must listen IMHO...this one especially is highly recommended.  

--------------------
The Orthodox Nationalist: Nikolai Berdyaev

November 18, 2010 · Print This Article
Nikolai Berdyaev

Matt Johnson discusses:

    * Dostoevsky and Berdayev;
    * Modernity and materialism;
    * The critique of the bourgeois.

13 MB / 32 kbps mono / 0 hour 51 min.

http://reasonradionetwork.com/_archive/MRJ_20101118.mp3

[Panoptimist]

A must listen IMHO...this one especially is highly recommended.  

Coincidentally this is the first and only one of his shows I've heard so far and I was blown away. As you can see, I added to my signature - I too feel it is a must listen. I actually added it to my signature before I read you post. Heh. Kudos to that! What a GREAT show! Again, thanks for pointing me in that direction!

Peace!