Between Napoleon and Jesus Christ: The adventures of the "Russian soul" in Dostoevsky's work

Abstract

This is an analysis of the two components of the “Russian soul” highlighted in the Dostoevsky’s novels: Napoleonism and Christology. The origins of both of them can be found in the Western history and civilization. There is a certain paradox in the fact that the evolution of these two lines in the oeuvre of the great Russian writer arrives to an approach of the two types, the Napoleonic one and that of the follower of Christ, especially in The Idiot. A revision of the “Russian soul” under the light of the most recent interpretations of Russian critics discovers new intertexts and opens Dostoevsky’s text to a renewed identity dialogue. This paper is influenced by Bakhtin’s philosophical anthropology and philosophy of language.