Memory, Resurrection, and Filial Piety in Dostoevsky and Fyodorov

• In Event: Intersections of Philosophy and Literature: Approaches to the Concept of Memory

Abstract

The Russian philosopher Nikolai Fyodorov once asked, “If sons have love for their fathers, can pale memories of their fathers really be enough for them?” For him, the answer is negative, because the sons will want to see and touch their fathers, and each will await his father’s response. In order for this to happen, Fyodorov believes, as is well known, that we must literally resurrect the dead. In a sense, resurrection renders our memories irrelevant: we can talk directly to our ancestors. Fyodorov was working these ideas in the second half of the 1870s, when Dostoevsky was also investigating the roles that memory and conceptions of resurrection play in filial relations, and Dostoevsky actually encountered some of Fyodorov’s thought in 1876 and 1877. Viewed in relation to Fyodorov’s thought, Dostoevsky’s fiction at this time can be seen as an attempt to investigate by means of the novel what Fyodorov investigates through the means of philosophy: the relationship between memory, resurrection, and filial piety. The aim of this paper is to articulate these competing investigations using Dostoevsky’s "The Adolescent," which was written prior to his encounter with Fyodorov’s thought.

Author

• Brian Arthur Armstrong, Augusta U