Prophetic Counterparts in the Brothers Karamázov: A Comparative Literature Monograph by Hovanyi Marton (review)

No few philosophers have found inspiration in the literary works of the Russian writer Fyódor Dostoevsky, and that is especially the case of his last novel, The Brothers Karamázov. Indeed, authors like Russian Nikoláy Berdiáev and Pável Evdokímov, or Henri de Lubac, Romano Guardini and Reinhartd Lauth in the West, have founded part of their theories on the basis of literary interpretations of this great novel. And the reason is simple: The Brothers Karamázov has a philosophical and theological scope of great importance, dealing with important issues and suggesting many others with a mastery that few philosophers throughout history have achieved. In fact, one of the most interesting points that Dostoevsky treats in his novel is the question of prophecy, studied by Reinhardt Lauth in relation to the prophetic dreams and the different kinds of unconscious that make the Russian writer a richer and more profound thinker than Sigmund Freud in this matter. And it is just the question of prophecy that Hovanyi Marton studies in the present book, but he does so through a rigorous philological comparative method, trying successfully to compare prophetic characters of the Bible and the eastern Christian tradition with the main prophetic character of Dostoevsky’s novel—the stárets Zossima.

Marton enters into dialogue with the main philological currents of comparative literary studies of the works of Dostoevsky, such as the intertextuality of Mihail Bakhtin and Kristeva, the typological symbolism of Fabiny and the analytical techniques of his master Árpád Kovács, developed in his book Discursive Poetics, and finally describes the remarkable results of the research on the relationship between The Brothers Karamázov and biblical prophecy.

One of the most important contributions of Marton is the fundamental role that he attributes to the orthodox traditional ideas on prophecies and the continuity that, according to them, exists between biblical Hebrew prophets—particularly Elijah, Elisha and Nathan—and the orthodox Russian spiritual elders known as the startsí. Indeed, he studies that line of continuity traced by Russian theologians that begins with Elijah—or, maybe, even Moses—and arrives at the stárets Amvrosy, the famous spiritual father of Optina Pustyn, the “Russian particular Mount Athos,” whom Dostoevsky and Soloviov met and, according to Dostoyevskaya, who produced a great impression on the author of The Brothers Karamázov. It was John the Baptist, the last of the great biblical prophets, who constitutes the link between Hebrew prophets and the fathers of the desert. Particularly, Saint Anthony the Hermit and Saint Paul the Hermit, the first ones to declare that God himself summoned them to live as hermits. Marton analyzes even the similarities and parallels between the Greek word used to refer to the fathers and the Russian term in order to establish the connection between the two concepts.

If the presence of Byzantine and Slavic orthodox tradition in the works of Dostoevsky is reinforced by the great impression the meetings with father Amvrosy produced in the mind of the great Russian writer, the importance given to prophecy in The Brothers Karamázov can be tracked in the relevant role that eastern Christians attributed to prophets. Particularly, the feast of the prophet Elijah, celebrated on August 2, could make the question of prophecy and the biblical passages read in the mass familiar to Dostoevsky. In this sense, one can argue that he traced the different scenes of Zossima’s life through some passages and symbolic issues drawn in the Scriptures.Marton argues that one can interpret the question of prophecy in The Brothers Karamázov through the parable of the growing seed (Mark 4: 26–29). According to the author, the seed has a prophetic nature. It is just the elder Zossima who put the seed of God’s word in the heart of Alyosha and Mitya Karamázov. The central prophet of the story is Zossima, who is a type of a...