Russian dystopian tradition (Fyodor Dostoevsky, Yevgeny Zamyatin) and Aldous Huxley: The problem of Nikolai Berdyaev’s receptive mediation

In the article, we analyze the connection of Huxley’s Brave New World with the Russian anti-utopian tradition. One can note the significant proximity of Huxley’s dystopia and the “Grand Inquisitor” from The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky, and, in another aspect, the relationship with the novel We by Zamyatin. The Grand Inquisitor shows the unusual ambivalence of the culprits of total enslavement: they take away freedom (in this sense, they are undoubtedly villains), but there is also a special self-sacrifice in this situation. By deceiving humanity, they give people infantile happiness, while they themselves know the truth and are deprived of this feeling. This is what we see in Huxley. Nowadays there are many works that use this outline on the basis of Dostoevsky and Huxley materials (from Fahrenheit 451 (1953) by Ray Bradbury to Prisoners of Power (1969) by the Strugatsky brothers). But by the time Brave New World was written, this model could only be found in The Grand Inquisitor. Zamyatin’s and Huxley’s dystopias are similar in the general theme of sameness and standardity, sexual “mutual use”, and much more. At the same time, it is impossible to prove the fact that Huxley read this Dostoevsky’s text (despite the fact that the influence of other works of the Russian writer is confirmed), and Huxley directly denied reading Zamyatin’s novel. The article proposes methods for studying such a comparative collision. The connection of Brave New World with the above-mentioned Russian works can be considered as an objective fact, taking into account the intermediary - Nikolai Berdyaev. Huxley’s novel begins with an epigraph from one of Berdyaev’s articles included in the Novoe srednevekov’e [New Middle Ages] collection. Berdyaev published this work in Berlin in 1924, Huxley quoted the Paris edition of 1927 in a French translation. An analysis of the texts of this book by Berdyaev allows us to see what ideas of Russian literature could reach Huxley through this mediation. The ideas of systematic deception and an infantilization of society are very important in the line of Dostoevsky - Berdyaev -Huxley. In the triangle of Zamyatin - Berdyaev - Huxley, antinomies of statics and dynamics, the wild and the civilized are essential. Berdyaev’s historiosophical context shows that Huxley connects what is happening in his novel with issues of the end of the historical era of the Modern Times and the onset of the New Middle Ages. The dystopia becomes a summary of the results of one of the apical eras of the whole European civilization that gave birth to utopian dreams of a happy future rather than a pamphlet or a satire on a hostile social ideology or a specific unfriendly country (this context is important for Berdyaev, too). Russian dysutopias are usually connected with the internal historical experience. But Dostoevsky addresses the utopism of the Modern Times externally, as spiritual aspirations alien to Russia. Searches of the Modern Times express mainly processes that happen in European civilization, and Russia is marginalized in relation to them. Huxley looks at utopian dreams from the outside, because he is already in a different era, and Dostoevsky because he belongs to a different cultural tradition. Zamyatin, on one hand, is persecuted for his novel as an anti-Soviet writer (i.e., dystopia turns out to be an event of intra-national struggle); on the other hand, We directly continues Zamyatin’s “English” novels, i.e., reflects his European experience and is opposed to Russian “skifstvo”. The authors declare no conflicts of interests.

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