The story of Dostoevsky and Turgenev slandering one another.
It's not really a quote, but still I think this will be interesting for many people to learn what I found on the subject.
The dislike between Dostoevsky and Turgenev starts, when the famous literary critic Belinsky praised Dostoevsky's first works in his article, resulting in Fyodor's arrival to the Russian grand literary circles.
At first the young author was met there with love and he would be praised everywhere, but unfortunately Dostoevsky's difficult personality started bringing problems to him and fellow writers from love switched to annoyance.
They started seeing him as this edgy man, who liked to show off and looked down on the people, because of his success. And because the society always liked gossips, some false rumours were spread about new writer.
One of the people who was annoyed with Fyodor the most was another young author named Ivan Turgenev (plus he unfortunately heard too many rumours). Sources say that whenever Ivan talked with him he tried to troll the latter every time possible.
And Turgenev together with his best friend Nekrasov also wrote this poem about Dostoevsky...
(I'm not good with rhymes, so I tried to translate it to the original meaning as close as possible)
'Belinsky's message to Dostoevsky'
Dostoevsky, you cute pompous man,
On the nose of literature
You shine like a new pimple.
Even though you're a young author
Everyone loose their mind around you:
The emperor already knows you,
Leuchtenberg respects you,
Will send visirs after you.
But when on the noble meeting
Right in front of the crowd of princes,
Already a myth and a mystery,
You fell like falling star
And showed your snub nose
Oh how tragically motionless
At the dawn of your years*.
From such big height to be envied
Look with your ashy eyes,
Look, oh great one, at me!
For the sake of future praises
(There's no end, as you may see)
I will act, like a scoundrel
I will put you in the frame**,
I will put you in the end.
*Alludes to that one time when during the celebration of high society a gorgeous noblewoman came to Dostoevsky to talk to him and he fainted from worrying too much.
**It comes from a false rumour, which was unfortunately too popular among literary men, that Fyodor thought of his works so highly, that he asked the publisher to print frames on the pages around his texts.
Turgenev and Nekrasov were really terrible to Dostoevsky here :(
(The funny thing is that some sources claim that the original version was more offensive and Nekrasov actually convinced Turgenev to edit it a little to make it less so)
However, after Dostoevsky was sent to Siberia for hard labor works and returned after spending 4 years there, it seemed that their relationship had a fresh start.
Dostoevsky liked Turgenev's works, Turgenev liked Dostoevsky's works.
They even wrote some nice letters to one another! For example, take a look at the beginning of this letter from Fyodor.
"My dearest and most respected Ivan Sergeevich,
please forgive me for God's sake, that I haven't been answering on your last letter from Baden. And even more, I am terribly at fault at you to the point of awful feelings of my conscience, cause I hadn't been answering on your two previous letters as well. But the thing is, that your last letter arrived at a very busy and hard time, meaning the banning of our journal..."
Or at this letter from Ivan.
"My dear Fyodor Mikhailovich,
I arrived today from Moscow and brought to you 600 rubles in silver from Osnovsky, which are in my house at the moment and I have to ask You to come here to take them, as I'm feeling sick right now and cannot go out.
I shake your hand like a friend and remain loyal to you
Everything was nice. Until it wasn't.
It all went wrong after Turgenev published his infamous novel "Smoke", a satire on many so called liberals and as well as some of the Slavophile beliefs.The work proudly showed his beliefs and ideas as a Westerner. Unfortunately, Dostoevsky was a Slavophile and had a burst of outrage after reading the story. Their love for Russia was so huge, but their ideas on how to build its future were so, so different. Plus, Fyodor was a devout Christian and he couldn't stand the fact, that Ivan took pride in being an atheist. During the final meeting in the city of Baden-Baden after a long argument, that lasted for several hours, they started to dislike one another as never before. Dostoevsky asked Turgenev to burn the novel to the ground as well as buy a telescope, so the latter could look at Russia, since it's too far for him to see and understand. That's how Dostoevsky described Turgenev from now on:
"... Turgenev turned into German from Russian, that's how a scoundrel is recognised..."
"You write about Turgenev and Germans. Turgenev lost all his talent abroad, even journal "Voice" noticed that..."
"...and all that modern cheap liberalism, that many use for the sake of profit (starting with that pig Turgenev and ending with that thief Palm)..."
You can also add to that his caricature of Ivan in his novel "Demons" under the name Karmazinov.
Turgenev himself wrote about Dostoevsky from now on this: "...In all newspapers it is said, that I was personally enchanted by Dostoevsky's speech and fully support it. But it's not true, and I still haven't screamed: you won, Galilean! That smart, brilliant and very cunning speech in spite of all its passion is built on a lie...".
He would also compare Crime and Punishment with "a long pain from cholera".
And that's what he wrote after the death of his rival: "I also read an article of Mikhailovsky about Dostoevsky ("The Cruel talent"). He noted his main style of works well. He could also remember, that in the French literature there was a similar example of this, and I mean the terrible marquis de Sade".
Those two were so unfair to one another 🥲
It's a shame they didn't find common ground, but at least, it's very interesting for us to study such literary conflicts.
(if anyone knows on the subject more or saw any mistakes, my biggest apologies. I'm a relative newbie on the subject)
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