‘The Discovery of Europe: Dostoevsky in the “Land of Holy Miracles”’

Abstract

The article examines Dostoevsky’s first foreign trip to Europe (1862), which was reflected in his essay prose — “Winter Notes on Summer Impressions”. The formation of the image of the West in the creative mind of Dostoevsky is traced. During this journey, the writer’s attention is focused on two world capitals — London and Paris. In them Dostoevsky tries to examine (in various ontological versions) the face of the victorious bourgeois civilization. But in the “subtext” of all his reflections — anxiety about the immediate destinies of Russia, about the historical dangers and
temptations awaiting her.