Dostoevsky's Companion: Shoqan Valikhanov and Their Forgotten Bond

• In Event: Dostoevsky on the Margins

Abstract

"You write me that you love me. I will tell you without ceremony that I have fallen in love with you.” This zealous confession by Fedor Dostoevsky (1821-1881) was not directed towards his wife, but to the young Kazakh ethnographer and scholar Shoqan Valikhanov (1835-1865.) This paper examines their unusual relation, one that pushed the bounds of heteronormativity, shaped by the realities of Russian imperialism. The relationship drew on latent feelings of a protégé and a spellbound teacher, mirroring Imperial Russia and Central Asia. By situating their liaison within the framework of Russian Orientalism, this paper argues that the attraction between the two men stood above Imperialist biases.
While scholars have written about Dostoevsky and Valikhanov, none have attempted an in-depth analysis of their relationship. Currently, there are five letters that have been found, dated from 1856 until 1862, however, we know that their friendship began earlier in 1854 and ended with Valikhanov’s death in 1865. My work is the first to explore the nature and the development of the relationship between the two men with all of its latent homosocial implications within the context of the Central Asian conquests. Based on the letters the pair exchanged as well as Dostoevsky’s other writings, I argue that Dostoevsky saw the young Valikhanov as a genius who both represented the purity of the East and the sophistication of the West, which enthralled the much older writer.

Author

• Alina Ivanova, U of Cambridge (UK)