Some aspects of Christianity in Russian literature

This article by Marie Sémon, professor of Russian literature and daughter of the theologian Vladimir Lossky, examines the deep connections between Orthodox Christianity and the great Russian literature of the nineteenth century, on the occasion of the millennium of the baptism of Russia in 988. Adopting both a historical and analytical approach, the author shows how the Russian novel — from Gogol to Dostoevsky and Tolstoy — is structurally marked by the Gospel, the liturgical calendar, sobornost', and the theme of redemption. The article highlights the religious vocation of a secular art that questions the mystery of man in the light of Christian salvation, thereby distinguishing Russian literature from Western realism. Its contribution lies in a coherent theological and cultural reading of this literary tradition, extended into the twentieth century by witnesses of the Gulag such as Akhmatova and Solzhenitsyn.