The name of Russia’s greatest writer is Tolstoevsky—or so goes an old, and still popular, academic joke. The joke does, however, have a point. It satirizes a certain vague idea about Russian literature that is shared by many American readers: the idea that Russian literature is a confusing and exotic, if not entirely alien phenomenon, a tantalizing exposure to the “mysterious Russian soul,” perpetually centered on what used to be known as “the ultimate problems of human existence”—those problems, at any rate, that are beyond the reach of our everyday cares and concerns. This stereotypical perception allows for little difference between the individual authors, be they Ivan Turgenev or Boris Pasternak, and accounts for a telling comment made by one of my acquaintances: “Why don’t all these guys [he meant typical characters from a Russian novel] just start looking for a job?”
As for the joke about “Tolstoevsky,” it certainly would have offended the author of The Brothers Karamazov. While it is true that Fyodor Dostoevsky and Leo Tolstoy were both impassioned idealists engaged in a religious quest, they privately distrusted and disliked each other. Dostoevsky, for example, once called Tolstoy “a sugary talent” and complained that his characters “are uninteresting to the point of strangeness.”
As for the joke about “Tolstoevsky,” it certainly would have offended the author of The Brothers Karamazov.
At the same time, a jocular amalgamation of the two authors into one “Tolstoevsky” points to an additional problem, less philosophical,
