WHAT WE CAN LEARN FROM A LIBRARIAN

“Compassion was the most important, perhaps the sole law of human existence.”   

Dostoevsky THE IDOT

first published 1868 - 1869  in serial form

a moral tale, a very personal work by Dostoevsky

The story of Prince Myshkin, whose pure goodness and kindness and understanding is interpreted by all whom he encounters as lacking intelligence or even common sense, i.e., is an idiot. 

Dostoevsky's protagonist is a person of the highest ideal, a paragon of Christian virtue, a man of compassion, who is subjected to the judgment and disdain of contemporary Russian society.

first published 1879 - 1880 in serial form

his last work, his greatest novel, completed just before his death

a magnificent philosophical and theological novel

deals with God, faith, free will, love, compassion, temptation and more

centered around the lives of three Russian brothers and their father

The brother Alyosha (the affectionate form of Alexei) is a novice monk, learning from the Elder Zosima. Zosima presented compassion as a conscious choice to actively extend love to the other. He enlightened Alyosha with the understanding that active love was the requisite choice of being genuine in following Jesus. He advised Alyosha that there was transformation in serving the other. Active love brings us closer to the other and in the process heals and transforms us and brings us closer to God. Zosima felt so strongly in that regard that he suggested to Alyosha that he might better serve God among the people.

Within this amazing novel is a story within the story that carries the deepest message with the themes of human nature and the essence of freedom.

The brother Ilya tells the story of The Grand Inquisitor to his brother Alyosha, a novice monk. Alyosha interrupts from time to time, leading to dialogue and debate between the two brothers. 

The basis of the story is the return of Jesus Christ (the second coming) at the time of the Inquisition in Spain. The old, wizened Grand Inquisitor interrogates an imprisoned Jesus Christ and insist that His return will interfere with the mission of the Church. The Grand Inquisitor tempts Jesus three times, as did the devil in the desert. The Inquisitor maintains that Jesus, by giving man free will, has doomed mankind to suffer and that there is no hope of redemption and salvation. Dostoevsky uses the character of the Grand Inquisitor to show the all-too-common  expression of a distorted ideology that denies Christ's true spiritual and historical significance and, ironically, affirms the opposite of Christ’s true message of love. 

Solovyov was a mystic and an aesthetic, who was friends with the older Dostoevsky. They met when Solovyov moved from Moscow to St. Petersburg in 1877.  The two greatly influenced each other. Solovyov was a philosopher and theologian, not a novelist. Dostoevsky, a philosophical novelist, embraced many of the concepts, which Solovyov presented. 

Solovyov commenced his Lectures on Divine Humanity in St. Petersburg in January 1878. They continued into 1881. Dostoevsky and Tolstoy were among the many great minds in the audience. The consensus was that the experience was of great importance to philosophy. Solovyov gave a clear sense of intellectual expression to the evolution of consciousness and religion. Solovyov's "Divine Humanity" or Godmanhood was his sense that the divine and human natures are not separate but can be united, as exemplified by Jesus Christ. 

THE MEANING OF LOVE (1894)

THE JUSTIFICATION OF THE GOOD (1897)

WAR, PROGRESS AND THE END OF HISTORY (1900) 

“True spiritual love is not a feeble imitation and anticipation of death, but a triumph over death, not a separation of the immortal form from the mortal, of the eternal from the temporal, but a transfiguration of the mortal into the immortal, the acceptance of the temporal into the eternal. False spirituality is a denial of the flesh; true spirituality is the regeneration of the flesh, its salvation, its resurrection from the dead.” - V. Solovyov

“The meaning and worth of love, as a feeling, is that it really forces us, with all our being, to acknowledge for ANOTHER the same absolute central significance which, because of the power of our egoism, we are conscious of only in our own selves. Love is important not as one of our feelings, but as the transfer of all our interest in life from ourselves to another, as the shifting of the very centre of our personal life. - V. Solovyov

Love is important not as one of our feelings, but as the transfer of all our interest in life from ourselves to another, as the shifting of the very centre of our personal life - V. Solovyov

best known for his epic masterpiece novels War and Peace (1864 - 1869) and Anna Karenina (1873 - 1877), as well as for his shorter Death of Ivan Ilyich (1882 - 1886).

In the 1870s, Tolstoy, a wealthy man, underwent a spiritual transformation and never looked back. He pondered the meaning of life. He renounced his wealth and fame. His great literary masterpieces no longer meant anything to him. 

Tolstoy wrote of his moral crisis and his spiritual journey in A Confession (1870 - 1882). He published three theological volumes in the early 1880s. He summarized the second volume in The Gospel in Brief. Volume 3 (1882) was titled What I Believe (My Religion). Tolstoy embraced the wisdom of Jesus Christ and focused on the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7). His 1886 book What Shall We Do Then? addressed the appalling conditions of the millions of Russian peasants and proposed approaches to correct the appalling conditions. 

This book, first published in Germany in 1894, was banned in Russia. The Russian Orthodox Church and the Czar were intimately bound. The title derives from Luke 17:21. This was the result of decades of intensive reading, thinking and writing. The book was a philosophical and theological treatise on Tolstoy's religion, which is characterized as Christian anarchism (hence, the vehement opposition of the Russian Orthodox Church). The foundation of Tolstoy's religion was the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7). In fact, that should be the spiritual foundation for any Christian (which, unfortunately, it is not). If that was a radical interpretation, it was because Jesus Christ was a radical. 

Tolstoy became an internationally known advocate for non-violence, which went hand-in-hand with pacifism, but also for social justice for the disadvantaged.  

Many Christians balked on the nonviolence espoused by Tolstoy, the pacifist. A young Hindu intellectual was profoundly influenced. Gandhi wrote in his autobiography that Tolstoy's book overwhelmed him and was one of the three most important modern works in his life. Tolstoy's The Kingdom of God is Within You also impacted young Martin Luther King Jr., as did the incorporation of Tolstoy's nonviolence leanings by Gandhi in securing Indian independence.  

Leo Tolstoy did not have a sudden mystical experience, as did Vladimir Solovyov (who actually had three in his lifetime). Tolstoy pondered the meaning of the Sermon on the Mount and other lessons offered by Jesus Christ. He read voraciously and spent endless hours thinking and praying. His transformation was no less profound.

Tolstoy maintained, as did others, that Christianity was to be lived out in daily life. The rituals were of little interest to Tolstoy. Compassion, active love, was the act of a Christian.

Chekhov was not a philosopher, nor did he consider himself an existentialist. He was a medical doctor. Nonetheless, his works (plays, novels and memoirs) explored the meaning of life, its purpose and man's effort to deal with the futility of life and a sense of purpose.  As a writer, he portrayed the human existence and its challenges.  portraying the struggles and even suffering of his characters.

Chekhov's works influenced his readers, most significantly such prominent thinkers as Albert Camus (who rejected the definitive term of existentialist, but was one).

Others influenced by Chekhov include fellow Russians Maxim Gorky, Mikhail Bulgakov, Ivan Bunin and Vladimir Nabokov. But also Bob Dylan, Truman Capote, Ernest Hemingway, Virginia Woolf and many others. 

Compassion was a core theme for Chekhov's works. He showed deep concern for the vulnerable of society. He specifically wrote a book Rules for Civilized People in an effort to better society,  

In 1890, Chekhov, a medical doctor, decided to leave the comforts of St. Petersburg and travel over 4,000 miles across the Asian continent to the Czarist prison colony on Sakhalin Island on the Pacific Coast. Much of the travel was by horse-drawn carriage and train. He spent three months on Sakhalin, caring for the many imprisoned on that island. He witnessed appalling conditions there. Upon his return, he shipped two thousand books to Sakhalin Island for the children living there.

The Cherry Orchard

The Seagull

Uncle Vanya

Three Sisters

The Bishop

The Bride

The Lady with the Little Dog

Kashtanka

On Official Duty