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Journal of Undergraduate Research

Keywords

Russian Orthodox, Father Zosima, The Brothers Karamazov

College

Humanities

Department

German and Russian

Abstract

In May I traveled to the Holy Trinity Seminary in Jordanville, New York and interviewed Father Serge Nedelsky about Orthodox doctrine and Dostoevsky’s portrayal of Father Zosima in the Brothers Karamazov. Prior to the interview I had created a list of six questions to use as probes in the discussion to come to understand the Russian Orthodox response to Father Zosima. In Dostoevsky and the Christian Tradition, Pattison and Thompson suggested that we try to understand Dostoevsky’s writings from the perspective of those “who come from within the Orthodox community” and not from that of “outsiders.” I found, though, both as I prepared to conduct the interviews and as I met with Father Serge, that this is more easily said than done. What does it mean to read The Brothers Karamazov through an Orthodox lens? I initially planned to do this by selecting critical points of Zosima’s teachings and asking (both through interviews and other research) how closely his teachings corresponded with those of the Orthodox tradition. Simply, I planned to read Zosima as theology and see how closely Dostoeveky came.

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