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History Russia & The Former Soviet Union

Dostoevsky, Grigor'ev, and Native Soil Conservatism

by (author) Wayne Dowler

Publisher
University of Toronto Press
Initial publish date
Dec 1982
Category
Russia & the Former Soviet Union, Russian & Former Soviet Union, Modern, Political, Conservatism & Liberalism, 17th Century
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781442638396
    Publish Date
    Dec 1982
    List Price
    $30.95

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Description

Native soil was a mid-nineteenth-century Russian reaction against materialism and positivism. It emphasized the need for people to live their lives and develop themselves naturally, so that class difference might be reconciled, the achievements of the West fused with the communalism and Christian fraternity preserved by the Russian peasant, and the Russian nation united in the pursuit of common moral ideals. The metaphor 'Russia and the West' summarized much of the intellectual and political debate of the period: how Russia should use its indigenous and its 'borrowed' cultural elements to solve the political, economic, and social problems of a difficult period.

 

Professor Dowler presents a detailed study of Native Soil conservatism from about 1850 to 1880 – its various intellectual facets, its leading thinkers, and its growth and gradual disintegration. In this utopian movement, literary creativity, aesthetics, and education took on special significance for human spiritual and social development. Dowler therefore examines the writings of two of the most gifted exponents of Native Soil – F.M. Dostoevsky and A.A. Grigor'ev – and looks at their circle and the journals to which they contributed in an assessment of their responses to the challenges of the period of Emancipation.

About the author

Wayne Dowler is a professor of History at Scarborough College, University of Toronto.

Wayne Dowler's profile page