Christian Fiction and Religious Realism in the Novels of Dostoevsky by Wil Van Den Bercken

Christian Fiction and Religious Realism in the Novels of Dostoevsky by Wil Van Den Bercken

This study offers a literary analysis and theological evaluation of the Christian themes in the five great novels of Dostoevsky - 'Crime and Punishment', 'The Idiot', 'The Adolescent', 'The Devils' and 'The Brothers Karamazov'. Dostoevsky's ambiguous treatment of religious issues in his literary works strongly differs from the slavophile Orthodoxy of his journalistic writings. In the novels Dostoevsky deals with Christian basic values, which are presented via a unique tension between the fictionality of the Christian characters and the readers' experience of the existential reality of their religious problems.

‘[This] sparklingly written book […] is a refreshing exception […] by its departure from an original literary analysis and struggle against biased interpretations […Van den Bercken] has with verve succeeded in demonstrating the importance that theology – if practiced in a selfcritical way – can have for the science of literature’ —Pieter Boulogne, ‘Tijdschrift voor Theologie’

‘A gift to Dostoevskii scholars [that enriches] our understanding of the essential religious dimension of Dostoevskii’s work.’ —Paul J. Contino, ‘Slavic Review’

‘Van den Bercken’s monograph impresses with the breadth of fictional and critical material analysed, and the huge amount of analytic work which such a mammoth task entails.’ —Slobodanka Vladiv-Glover, ‘The Dostoevsky Journal: An Independent Review’

Wil van den Bercken is a Slavist and professor of the history of the Russian Orthodox Church at the Radboud University in Nijmegen (The Netherlands). His publications include 'Ideology and Atheism in the Soviet Union' (1988), 'Holy Russia and Christian Europe: East and West in the Religious Ideology of Russia' (1999) and 'Aesthetics as a Religious Factor in Eastern and Western Christianity' (ed., 2005). He is editor-in-chief of the 'Journal of Eastern Christian Studies'.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780857289766
ISBN 10	0857289764
Title	Christian Fiction and Religious Realism in the Novels of Dostoevsky
Author	Wil Van Den Bercken
Series	Anthem Nineteenth-Century Series
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Anthem Press
Year published	2011-01-01
Number of pages	164
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.