Art Criticism Commentary on the Fragment fro m the “Diary of a Writer” by F.M. Dostoevsky for 1873

Abstract

The article draws attention to F. M. Dostoevsky’s meditation about people’s suffering in the “Diary of a Writer” (1873). We are not talking about the suffering of some abstract people, but about the suffering of the Russian peasant of the 19th century. This profound and visionary observation of Dostoevsky allows us to look with different eyes at the phenomenon of the “Suffering Christ” — a sculpture showing the Savior with wounds of torment, in chains, awaiting the Crucifixion, that is, a painful death on the cross of Calvary. The cult of the Suffering Christ in the 19th century is characteristic of the peasant population of Russia. Dostoevsky’s intuition very accurately determined the very foundations of the peasant’s worldview, which are the meaningful coordinates of the aforementioned artistic phenomenon, which defies art criticism to the end.