Misery, tradition, and christianity

Demons, by Dostoevsky, as a historical document of pre-revolutionary Russia

Abstract

This article addresses the sociopolitical tensions experienced by 19th-century Russian society in the face of modernity, using Fyodor Dostoevsky's (1821-1881) novel *Demons* (1872) as a starting point. The aim of this research is to analyze how the social novel contributes to the historicization of this debate, which was led by two generations of intellectuals divided by their differing interpretations of Russia's future in the pre-revolutionary context—a topic little explored by Latin American historiography. Thus, this is a predominantly exploratory bibliographical research whose results demonstrate the possibility of understanding the reverberations of nihilistic radicalism as an intransigent byproduct of the Russian revolutionary movement through the literary representation conceived during that period. It can be concluded that Dostoevsky's work, beyond an attempt to rescue traditional values ​​linked to the Russian peasantry or—an even cruder interpretation—a mere pamphlet against the revolutionary movement whose adherence had already earned the novelist a condemnation, sensitively and masterfully explores the historical context of his time insofar as it evokes historical events considering the context in which they are embedded, reinterprets culturally ingrained ideas and behaviors, and, to some extent, anticipates the consequences of the totalitarian discourses that would follow in the Dantean 20th century.

Keywords: History of Russia. Russian Literature. Modernity.