Dostoevsky and Nietzche: How a Christian Novelist Influenced an Atheist Philosopher

In an 1854 letter to N.D. Fonvisin, Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote the following; " If anyone could prove to me that Christ is outside the truth, and if the truth really did exclude Christ, I should prefer to stay with Christ and not with the truth." (1) In his 1882 work, The Gay Science, philosopher Friedrich Nietzche makes the following statement; "God is dead! God remains dead! And we have killed him." (2) One could not find two men with a more different attitude toward religion, and to Christianity in particular, than Fyodor Dostoevsky and Friedrich Nietzche. Whereas Dostoevsky proclaimed his devotion to Christ so steadfast that it would remain even if Christ were found to be without merit, Nietzche proclaimed that, "... the everyday Christian is a pitiable figure..." (3). Nonetheless, Dostoevsky would influence Nietzche in a very profound way. Through the character of Raskolnikov in his book Crime & Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky would set up the prototype for the keystone of Nietzche's philosophy: the "ubermensch".

The term "ubermensch" is a German term that is best translated as "superman" or "overman," however, due to the fact that there is really no way of getting at the exact meaning in our language, it will be left in the original German for the purposes of this work. The ubermensch is a concept introduced in Nietzche's 1883 magnum opus, Thus Spake Zarahustra. Ubermensch is for Nietzche the ultimate man, a man who exemplifies totally his definition of greatness; what Christ was for Christianity, ubermensch is for Nietzche. As the return of Christ and the establishment of the Kingdom of God on Earth is the aim of history for the Christian, for Nietzche the dawn of the ubermensch and his reign over the Earth is the final aim. Nietzche writes that, "The ubermensch is the meaning of the Earth." (Nietzche(4) p. 6). However, Nietzche is careful to delineate that the ubermensch and his future reign constitute nothing supernatural or religious and is thoroughly this-worldly.

The ubermensch shall be the meaning of the Earth! I conjure you my brethren, remain true to the Earth, and believe not unto those who speak unto you of superearthly hopes! Poisoners are they, whether they know it or not. Despisers of life are they, decaying ones and poisoned ones themselves, of whom the Earth is weary; so away with them! (Nietzche)

This vision of worldliness essentially turns the Christian worldview on its head. Nietzche would take pride in his counter-Christian outlook and later write a work expanding on his anti-Christian outlook and going into further detail about what was wrong with Christianity in his mind; he would boldly title this work The Anti-Christ, implicitly associating himself with the evil being foretold in the Christian Bible.

In its specific incarnation, the ubermensch is in essence that anti-Christ figure (in the non-prophetic sense). Rather than swearing allegiance to God as his master, ubermensch is the sole master of himself and his environment. The ubermensch, not having a god or any supernatural being in dominion over him, he recognizes morality as purely a social construct and therefore is able to break free of its shackles. No longer having human societies petty rules and regulations restraining him from his heart's desire, the ubermensch goes forward with whatever course of action he sees fit. In essence, the ubermensch's happiness is the sole aim of his life; he is an egoist to the core.

In spite of the egoistic nature of the ubermensch, Nietzche does not portray his ideal as a hedonist. Nietzche also introduces the concept of the "last man." If the ubermensch is Nietzche's Christ, the "last man" is Nietzche's Satan in the sense that he stands in contrast to the values of the ubermensch. The last man is portrayed as a hedonist who seeks comfort and security as the only end of existence. In Thus Spake Zarahustra, Nietzche uses the last man as a contrast to ubermensch in order to better delineate what ubermensch is. Ubermensch is not a hedonist, ubermensch is instead a creative being who seeks domination and greatness. German philosopher Rudiger Safranski claims that the ubermensch is a representation of the values of the Renaissance against those of Nietzche's Europe and seemingly modern times; a prideful Machiavellian posture combined with a brilliant, creative mind standing against modern Western man and his pseudo-Christian worldview. (Safranski) In addition, Nietzche portrays both ubermensch and the last man as reactions to his symbolic "dead of God." While Nietzche, as an atheist, did not believe that God had literally died, he did believe that the rise of the scientific worldview would come to show Christianity and other traditional religions to be false and in turn they would collapse in on themselves. Because religion, which had once been the glue that held society together, had disappeared and there was no more overriding supreme world order men would sink into nihilism. In response to nihilism either the last man or the ubermensch would arise, and for Nietzche the ubermensch is the desired goal.

While it is certainly true that much of Nietzche's work is original, the prototype of the idea for the ubermensch is clearly found within the pages of Crime & Punishment through the ideas of its main character, Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov. In Crime & Punishment Raskolnikov - a young, unemployed, poor student living in St. Petersburg, Russia - is forced by his circumstances to do some business with an elderly pawnbroker by the name of Alyona Ivanovna. In the early part of the story, Raskolnikov kills the pawnbroker and her sister, Lizaveta, who Raskolnikov killed due to the fact that she had witnessed him killing her sister. The majority of the book is spent focusing on Raskolnikov's psychological state and above all his justifications for the murder of Alyona Ivanovna.

It is quite clear that the author intends his audience to look upon the murder as an unjust act; though the pawnbroker was portrayed as an immoral character herself, Dostoevsky seeks to show that Raskolnikov's act was not excused by his economic condition. Crime & Punishment was written in a third-person omniscient narrative mode and gives much insight into the thoughts of the characters. Dostoevsky, getting into Raskolnikov's head, shows that he has problems of conscience for his act and therefore tries to secure his own psychological state by theorizing that his act was justified because her profession was widely disliked and because from a utilitarian standpoint it benefited the greatest number of people (his original plan was to redistribute the goods that had been pawned to her to people although he ends up burying them in a vacant lot). However, Raskolnikov also theorizes further that he is a great individual and that for his noble purposes, murder is justified. He compares himself to Napoleon and others, and concludes that there are two classes of men; those who are bound by conventional morality and those who, due to their greatness, rise above it and for whom acts like murder are permissible in light of the greater good. (Dostoevsky)

Dostoevsky originally intended his work to be an attack on several of the secular worldviews that were creeping into Russia; atheism, utilitarianism, socialism, and egoism were his favorite targets. The four belief systems mentioned above were often found among the younger intelligentsia, often with all or several of them combined into a package. Dostoevsky, though generally remembered for his ardent support of Orthodox Christianity and his reactionary social and political views, had at one time embraced the atheistic/socialistic/utilitarian worldview so common at the time.

Dostoevsky had come to early literary success with Poor Folk, published in 1846 when he was twenty-four. Dostoevsky found himself briefly the golden boy of the literary crowd; however, his success fizzled out and a few short years later Dostoevsky found himself struggling financially. In the late 1840s, Dostoevsky was highly politically involved in socialism and had long since rejected the Orthodox Christianity ingrained in him by his ultra-strict and conservative father. In 1848 a series of revolutions swept Western Europe, and in response the Tsar began cracking down on socialistic and other politically dangerous groups. In 1849 the police broke up the socialist group known as the Petrashevsky Circle, of which Dostoevsky was part. Dostoevsky found himself in prison and sentenced to death. One day, the group was led out into the snow for their execution, however, at the last minute the sentence was commuted to hard labor and Dostoevsky found himself at the start of a ten year exile in Siberia, part of which included a stint in the gulag. (Frank) In the gulag, Dostoevsky read the New Testament and the Gospel of John in particular; he soon became a devout Christian and when his literary career resumed in the 1860s his constant theme was the supremacy of Christianity over the values he once held. In some sense then, the character of Raskolnikov is in essence a representation of Dostoevsky's younger self.

The utilitarian and quasi-socialist outlook with which Raskolnikov justifies his crime was found all over in Dostoevsky's world. Dostoevsky was critical of how they held up the greater good as a way to justify violence and it was this, which he believed an immoral absurdity and thoroughly opposed to the Christian ethic which for Dostoevsky held little room for the ends justifying the means. Dostoevsky, of course, would lose; as the Russian Revolution of 1917 would catapult the values he abhorred into the chair of power and communism would claim nearly one hundred million lives. (Courtois 4) In the end the results of communism would in some sense vindicate Dostoevsky's notion that communism is a bankrupt worldview; to the total of his victory you could add the victims of the Nazis and millions more who perished in the name of utilitarian justifications. However, it is Raskolnikov's theory of a separate set of men that stands above morality that is most intriguing for the purposes of this work.

A reader familiar with Nietzche immediately senses the Nietzchean reverberations throughout the pages of Crime & Punishment. Though there are some key differences in the theory of Raskolnikov and the Nietzchean ubermensch (most notably the fact that Raskolnikov justifies his act in accordance with the pseudo-altruistic morality of utilitarianism whereas Nietzche's ubermensch is thoroughly egoistic and Nietzche himself was ardently anti-utilitarian) the similarities are too great to ignore. The concept of a great man who stands above morality and for whom all things are justifiable toward his noble purposes reeks of the ubermensch. The most poignant similarity is the fact that Raskolnikov sees himself as a part of a dichotomy between two types of men; those bound by conventional morality and those whose greatness excuses them from it (Dostoevsky). Dichotomies are everywhere in Nietzche, whether it is his contrast between the "Apollonian" and "Dionysian" artistic spirits in The Birth of Tragedy, his master and slave moralities in On the Genealogy of Morals, or the ubermensch and the last man in Thus Spake Zarahustra (Hollingdale). The dichotomy present in Raskolnikov's theory is very Nietzchean in its postulate of differing moralities for differing people in addition to the concept of one prototype of man as standing above the other.

The most important question to ask when examining the similarities between Nietzche and Dostoevsky is, "Was this a coincidence or was there more to the story?" The evidence suggests that there was indeed more to the story. Much evidence points to the fact that Dostoevsky in fact profoundly influenced Nietzche in his creation of the concept of the ubermensch, which was in turn the lynchpin of his philosophy. It was Russian philosopher Lev Shestov who first began drawing the dots together in order to link Dostoevsky and Nietzche. Writing in his book Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and Nietzche, Shestov recounts Nietzche's affinity for Dostoevsky, who he never actually met but whose books he was strongly acquainted with. He concluded that Nietzche's affinity for Dostoevsky came from the similarities between the two. Nietzche, like Dostoevsky, was raised in a highly religious background, his father having a Lutheran minister (Hollingdale) and like Dostoevsky he brutally rejected the values he was raised with in his young adulthood. Shestov writes the following.

If we take this circumstance into account, it will probably not seem strange that Nietzsche held such a high opinion of Dostoevsky. Here are his actual words: "Dostoevsky is the only psychologist from whom I was able to learn anything. I rank my acquaintance with him among the most splendid achievements of my life." [F.Nietzsche, Nietzsche's Werke, VIII (Leipzig, 1901), 158]. Nietzsche recognized Dostoevsky as a kindred spirit. Indeed, if it is a similarity of inner experience rather than a common origin, a common place of residence, and a similarity of character that binds people together and makes them kindred, then Nietzsche and Dostoevsky can without exaggeration be called brothers, even twins. (Shestov 1)

However, Shestov mentions the glaring fact that Dostoevsky would in the end return to his convictions whereas Dostoevsky would not, and that given Nietzche's opinions his praise of Dostoevsky, a devout Orthodox Christian, is somewhat hypocritical. Shestov writes, "No one can betray [Nietzche] to such an extent as Dostoevsky," however, he is also quick to add that, "The reverse is also true: much that is obscure in Dostoevsky is clarified in Nietzche's works."

Shestov himself throughout the course of Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and Nietzche refers mainly to the connection that the two share within existentialist thought. Existentialism is a loosely defined philosophical school that tends to focus on the absurdity and irrationality of life. It tends to place an emphasis on choice and free will as being something which man is condemned to exercise whether he wants it or not. Existentialism's groundwork was laid in the 1800s as a reaction to Enlightenment modernism and would later come to be defined in its golden age in post-World War II France; it is associated with philosophers as varied as Soren Kierkegaard, Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Martin Heidegger, not to mention both Dostoevsky and Nietzche (11). Dostoevsky's statement that, "I should prefer to stay with Christ and not with the truth," (1) is broadly existentialist in that it sees faith as a leap and choice rather than a decision made after lengthy study into the rationality of religion; Nietzche's emphasis on man carving his own destiny apart from predefined divine plans and morals is also broadly seen as existentialist. Most existentialist philosophers tended to either embrace Christianity or atheism, albeit unlike the path of most other philosophers with rational "proofs" for their ideals. Dostoevsky's faith was largely existentialist, whereas Raskolnikov was in essence embracing the atheistic existentialism of Nietzche in his desire to be "great" and break free of morality.

The great paradox of the relationship between Dostoevsky and Nietzche is found within their relation to existentialism. Their huge divergence on religion and morality makes them polar opposites, however, their existential outlook on the world and their rejection of Enlightenment rationalism essentially placed them on two sides of the same coin. Dostoevsky and Nietzche are in a sense simultaneously opposed to each other and in agreement. Dostoevsky seeks to promote Christianity and in so doing sets up its antagonist as Nietzche's ubermensch. However, Dostoevsky would by no means have recognized the ubermensch as Nietzche's, as the ubermensch is in fact an idea most likely borrowed by Nietzche from Crime & Punishment.

Dostoevsky died in 1881 and wrote Crime & Punishment in 1866. Nietzche, born in 1844, did not actually publish Thus Spake Zarahustra; the origin of the ubermensch concept is not published until four years after Dostoevsky's death. Nietzche began his publishing career in 1874 with The Birth of Tragedy and though it is possible that Dostoevsky may have heard of Nietzche at some point, it is highly unlikely. It is virtually impossible for Dostoevsky to have known of Nietzche as a college student when he wrote Crime & Punishment and Nietzche had not likely even begun formulating the ideas he would write down twenty years later. Dostoevsky, though he pilloried the ideas of many, simply could not have been referencing the ideas of Nietzche in Raskolnikov.

Peter Kroeker and Bruce Ward wrote an entire book on the subject of Dostoevsky's role as a prophet for the modern world entitled Remembering The End: Dostoevsky as a Prophet to Modernity in which they regularly reference Dostoevsky's works as including a foreshadowing of the Nietzchean worldview and mention the Grand Inquisitor of The Brothers Karamzov as another possible prototype of the ubermensch within Dostoevsky in addition to Raskolnikov's vision of himself. They focus more heavily on this example as a direct influence on Nietzche (Kroeker and Ward 141). In his work Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical, Chris Matthew Sciabarra in the midst of tracing the history of the philosophical underpinnings of the controversial Russian-American philosopher, cites the work of Soviet dissident and literary researcher Mihajlo Mihajlov who claimed that the evidence of Dostoevsky's direct influence of Nietzche is to be found within some of the notes that Nietzche wrote within the 1880s in which he cross-references his own work to Dostoevsky's and wrote abstracts of many of Dostoevsky's books (Sciabarra 35).

In light of Nietzche's constant references to Dostoevsky and in light of his stated admiration, not to mention the uncanny similarities in many areas of the philosophy of the two men, it is without a doubt that Dostoevsky was a profound influence on Nietzche and that in at least a rudimentary sense the theory of Raskolnikov in Crime & Punishment lays out the groundwork for what Nietzche would expand into his concept of the ubermensch, which would be the keystone of his philosophy.

One can ask the question, "Why does it matter whether or not Nietzche was influenced by Dostoevsky?" It matters in the sense that Nietzche, while no clear body of thought descended directly from him, has had a profound influence on the ideas that are shaping our world today. Today we live in a postmodern world; postmodernism as a movement shares many similarities to Nietzche, most notably in its challenging of absolute values and embrace of relative moralities. (15) While what is "Nietzchean" and what is "postmodern" is broad, the similarities in the general ethics of both are notable. Clayton Koelb writes the following in the introduction book Nietzche as Postmodernist.

It is difficult to discuss postmodernism without invoking Nietzchean themes and it is difficult to discuss Nietzche without involving issues now widely associated with postmodernity. (Koelb 9)
It can thus be concluded that while Nietzche cannot be fully defined as "postmodern" there is at the very least a hidden influence present.

If indeed Nietzche's ideas are shaping the ideas that are shaping our world, it is important to know where they came from. It is additionally important to understand where Dostoevsky fits into the picture, due to the fact that Dostoevsky is regarded as one of the most influential novelists of all time. To let the connection between an influential philosopher and an influential novelist lie would be letting lie an important piece in the puzzle that makes up the history of ideas. Whatever one may think of Dostoevsky or Nietzche, love them or hate them, they are simply too big to ignore and in light of this the connection between them is also too big to ignore.

The final conclusion stands that Dostoevsky had a profound influence on Nietzche. Not only did Dostoevsky influence Nietzche's quasi-existentialist view of the world but he also laid out the groundwork for the concept of the ubermensch that Nietzche would expand on. The ubermensch connection is found within the character of Raskolnikov in Dostoevsky's book Crime & Punishment, in which his justification for his crime and his vision of himself as a great man not bound by the morality that binds others has broad Nietzchean overtures and indeed Nietzche would come to define his ubermensch with nearly identical language to Raskolnikov. Even if Dostoevsky, as a devout Christian, would have never embraced Nietzche's concept of the ubermench, their similarities would in the end link them together in a transfer of ideas that would help delineate their differences. No philosopher is totally original in his work, after all, but at the same time it remains surprising that the preeminent Christian novelist would have such an impact on the preeminent atheist philosopher; surprising albeit true.

SOURCES CITED IN THIS WORK (IN ORDER OF INTRODUCTION)

(1) Dostoevsky, Fyodor. "Letter to N.D. Fonvisin."The Letters of FyodorDostoevsky to His Family and Friends. 1914. Print.

(2) Nietzche, Friedrich. The Gay Science. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Print.

(3) Nietzche, Friedrich. Human, All Too Human . Chicago: C.H. Kerr & Co., 1915. Print.

(4) Nietzche, Friedrich. Thus Spake Zarahustra. 1. New York: Macmillan, 1911. Print.

(5) Safranski, Rudiger. Nietzche: A Philosophical Biography. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2001. Print.

(6) Dostoevsky, Fyodor. Crime & Punishment. New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 2007. Print.

(7) Frank, Joseph. Dostoevsky: The Years of Ordeal. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987. Print.

(8) Courtois, Stephen. "Introduction." The Black Book of Communism. 1997. Print.

(9) Hollingdale, R.J.. Nietzche. New York: Routledge Publishing, 1973. Print.

(10) Shestov, Lev. Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and Nietzche. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 1969. Print.

(11) "Existentialism." Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2004. Stanford University. Web.20 Apr 2009. existentialism/>.

(12) Kroeker, Peter, and Bruce Ward. Remembering The End: Dostoevsky as a Prophet of Modernity. 2. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2001. Print.

(13) Dostoevsky, Fyodor. The Brothers Karamazov. New York: W.W. Norton, 1976. Print.

(14) Sciabarra, Chris. Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical. 1995. UniversityPark, PA: Penn State Press, Print.