DOSTOYEVSKI’S SOUL, AS FAR as we know it, seemed predestined to be the victim of the movements now in progress. They appealed to his generous sympathies as well as to his offended and rebellious temperament. Years after he tells us, in the Notes of a Scribe, how Belinsky, his literary patron, had corrupted him, drawn him towards socialism, and had attempted to make him an Atheist. Those pages, penned in 1873, are written in a bitter and exaggerated vein, and were in so far a mistake that they were published too late – after death had sealed the lips that might have moved in protest.
Mikhail Petrashevsky
The author of Poor Folkssoon became an assiduous member of the meetings inspired by Petrashevsky. It is beyond dout that he took his place among the moderates, or to be more correct, the “independent visionaries.” The only political matters that interested him were those connected with mysticism and compassion. His incapacity for any active participation made him a mere harmless metaphysician. The specific offenses with which he was afterwards charged were : participation in meetings, discussing “the severity of censorship,” the “reading of or listening to” unlawful pamphlets, the “promise” of future contributions to a proposed newspaper. These crimes, at most mere errors of judgments, appear very light, especially if they are placed in the balance against the rigorous punishment which they provoked. The police at that time were so imperfect that for two years they ignored what was going on in these assemblies of “malcontents.” Eventually a “false friend” betrayed them. Petrashevsky and his comrades finally committed themselves at a banquet given in honour of Fourier.
On this occasion speeches were made in the style current at the time, on the destruction of the family tie, of property, of kings, and the gods – but this did not prevent the same people meeting again at other banquets where the teachings of the “Founder of Christianity” would be extolled. Dostoyevsky never joined in any of these “love-feasts.”
This banquet took place – and it is important to remember this in view of what follows – soon after those days in June which had terrified Europe, and just a year after those similar banquets which had led to the overthrow of a throne.
