Davydov, A. P. The Poetry is Above Morals (Alexander Pushkin’s ‘Egyptian Nights’ Fedyor Dostoevsky’s Comments Thereto)

Abstract: The author of the present research article disproves of Fedyor Dostoevsky’s evaluation of Pushkin’s poem ‘Egyptian Nights’ shared by Dostoevsky in his ‘speech on Pushkin’ on June 8, 1880. Pushkin’s call for humanism is the main value for Dostoevsky but Pushkin’s personal ideology is the main ideological opponent of Dostoevsky. So when praising Pushkin for his humanity Dostoevsky destroys the grounds of Pushkin’s ideology. His interpretation of ‘Egyptian Nights’ is an attempt of the ideologist of Pochvennichestvo to destroy ‘personality’ in order to clear a space for ‘God’ and ‘people’ as grounds of the Russian culture and thereby using Pushkin’s ‘Egyptian Nights’ for proving the idea of Narodnichestvo and religiosity as the grounds of Dostoevsky’s own concept of humanity. From this point of view Dostoevsky’s ‘speech on Pushkin’ is objectively ‘anti-Pushkin’. The researcher applies the comparative socio-cultural analysis of Pushkin’s poem ‘Egyptian Nights’ and Dostoevsky’s comments on it. The analysis is carried out from the point of view of values that are dominating for the author and Dostoevsky. For the first time in studies of Dostoevsky the researcher proves the failure of Dostoevsky’s point of view on Pushkin’s series of ‘Egyptian Nights’. Therefore the conclusion about Dostoevsky’s misinterpretation of the meaning of ‘Egyptian Nights’ can be considered to have been proved. This allows to progress in our understanding of the speech on Pushkin as an objectively anti-Pushkin speech.

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