The 'Eternal Books' of Humanity in Dostoevsky’s Thesaurus

The article explores the significance of the Bible and the Quran as “eternal books” or “books of humanity” in the life and works of Fyodor Dostoevsky. Along with the exceptional role of the Bible, the importance of the “heavenly book” of Muslims for the writer is also shown. From a typological point of view, these books combine the context of “eternity” and “all-humanity,” as well as graphic and lexical (synonymous and periphrastic) features of their categorical functioning both in Dostoevsky’s works and in the studies devoted to them. In this regard, the analogy between the biblical books and the “great Pentateuch” of the novelist is emphasized, in particular, the similarity of their meta-structures, as well as the evolution of the characters of Dostoevsky’s works in relation to the Book. The article also provides additional evidence of Dostoevsky’s thorough knowledge of the Quran. The acquaintance with it took place thanks to the writer’s personal impressions of meeting Muslims in Omsk prison and during the Semipalatinsk exile, reading the Quran in its various translations and editions and biographical books about Mohammed, and especially through the mediation of the eminent Kazakh orientalist Chokan Valikhanov, who, aligned with Russian orientalism, was interested in the history of world religions. Thanks to the interaction with him, Dostoevsky developed an understanding of the genetic relationship of the “heavenly book” with the Bible that was reflected in many of his works, in which the correlation of Quranic images and motifs with the Bible is obvious. One of the most striking examples is the “fantastic story” “The Dream of a Ridiculous Man,” which is an original “imitation of the Quran” by Dostoevsky that does not contradict the spirit of the Gospel. It is concluded that, following Pushkin, Dostoevsky, based on an understanding of the root connection between the Bible and the Quran as equivalent “eternal books” of mankind, came to their conjugation in artistic terms.