| Abstrakt: |
Abstract: This study is an analysis and evaluation of the contradictory dynamic of Masaryk’s relation with the intellectual world of F. M. Dostoevsky. In his introduction the author considers Masaryk’s conception of the so-called Russian question in the early 20th century. The central point of the paper is an attempt to verify the capacity of Masaryk’s conception of Russian philosophical history (revolution-nihilism-religion-morality) as expressed in his monography Russia and Europe (1913). Masaryk departed from the assumption that the "Russian question” can be decoded through the religious philosophy of F. M. Dostoevsky, in which he found the concentrated expression of the "Russian soul”. In the first volume of his book on Russia and Europe, Masaryk stressed that with his religious orientation Dostoevsky showed a way out of the "Russian crisis". In the second volume of this work, however, the image of Dostoevsky underwent radical modification. Instead of the awaited explanation of the thesis of the efficiency of Dostoevsky’s "battle against nihilism" Masaryk turned his attention instead to a critique of the foundation of his antinihilistic philosophy. With allowances for this shift of opinion the author concentrates on an detailed study of Masaryk’s reflexes to Dostoevsky’s “manifest” and “"immanent” religiosity. In conclusion he stresses that by a detailed diagnosis of Dostoevsky’s religiosity, Masaryk came close to realising that a "clean" world view belongs to the "realm” of unsustainable schemes and fiction. In the closing passage of Masaryk’s study of the "Russian question” there is a gleam of the consciousness that morality cannot be identified with religion. The choice between good and evil leads comes the world view and can have religious and non-religious implications. |
