Oscar
Mauricio Lopez Casillas
Besides
being one of the most famous and popular authors in the world, Fyodor
Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky is an Orthodox philosopher whose ideas still influence
his readers and familiarize them with profound Christian concepts. To
commemorate his 200th birthday celebrated in November 2021, we are publishing
an interview with Oscar Mauricio Lopez Casillas, a graduate of the Faculty of
Philosophy of Universidad Vasco de Quiroga in Mexico. After discovering
Dostoyevsky, Oscar became a researcher of his work and converted to Orthodoxy.
—Oscar,
do people know and read Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky in your country?
Oscar Mauricio Lopez Casillas
Oscar
Mauricio Lopez Casillas
—First,
I’d like to thank you for giving me an opportunity to talk about Fyodor
Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky, as he is my favorite author! It is especially
important for me considering that las month celebrated his 200th birthday.
It
goes without saying that people in Mexico know and read Dostoyevsky’s novels.
He’s so popular that the words of one of the characters from The Pianist1 come
to mind: “Nowadays everybody only wants to read Dostoyevsky.” However, even
though Dostoyevsky is very popular in my country and almost all of his books
can be found in bookshops or libraries, few people understand him, at least
when it comes to the true motives and meanings of his work. People usually
focus on his nihilism, although Dostoyevsky wrote about it only to show how its
principles can be overcome by the strong faith of his positive protagonists.
Unfortunately, Dostoyevsky’s A Writer’s Diary is not as well-known, so even
finding a copy is no easy task. It’s too bad, for this book is crucial for
understanding Dostoyevsky. It contains the author’s personal account of his
work and life. Dostoyevsky’s books have also been popularized by the American
literary scholar Joseph Frank2 whose works on Dostoevsky are well known in my
country.
—How
did you discover Dostoyevsky? Was it because you studied in the Department of
Philosophy?
—Yes,
I graduated from the Department of Philosophy of Universidad Vasco de Quiroga,3
but unfortunately the curriculum didn’t include Dostoyevsky or any other
Russian philosophers like Kireyevsky, Solovyov or Berdyaev. Studying their
works would have been very useful. The curricula of our universities does
include similar authors, such as Kierkegaard, Miguel de Unamuno and Gabriel Marcel.
I believe that our students would benefit from studying Dostoyevsky’s works,
considering their philosophical, psychological and religious subject matter.
The
Brothers Karamazov got to me more than any other book I’ve ever read.
If
memory serves me right, I first heard of Dostoyevsky when I was a first-year
student at the university. I was reading The Tragic Sense of Life by Miguel de
Unamuno and came across a passage where he called The Brothers Karamazov the
greatest Christian drama. When I went to the International Book Fair in
Guadalajara the same year, I remembered these words and bought the book. After
reading it, I had to agree with Miguel de Unamuno – this book got to me more
than any other book I’ve ever read. It made me want to learn more about
Dostoyevsky’s life, reconsider my approach to Christianity and study Christian
concepts in earnest, referring to the original sources.
The Brothers Karamazov
The
Brothers Karamazov
—What
impressed you the most when you read Dostoyevsky’s dramatic biography?
—Obviously,
the most impressive episode is the pardon he received from Tsar Alexander II
just a few moments before his execution was supposed to take place. This was
the moment of Dostoyevsky’s rebirth, both as a person and as a Christian. This
process was completed in the labor camp, where experiencing hardships and reading
of the Gospel made him, in the words of Apostle Paul, “put on the new man”.
This period of his life, from the cancellation of the death sentence to release
from prison, is the most shocking part of this biography, and I’m probably not
the only one who thinks so. This experience more than anything else explains
that profundity, preciseness and wisdom so characteristic of Dostoyevsky’s
work.
—Which
of Dostoyevsky’s works is the most meaningful for you, who is your favorite
character, and what is the most important quote?
The
devil wants our demise while God wants our salvation, and we and our freedom
are between them.
—My
favorite quote is from The Brothers Karamazov. It was the first book by
Dostoyevsky that I read, and later it became my favorite book. It goes like
this: “Here, God and the devil are fighting and the battlefield is the heart of
man.” If I’m not mistaken, it is Dmitry Karamazov who said it. This phrase
contains a profound wisdom based on the works of the Holy Church Fathers. They
remind us that we must continually fight our internal temptations so that we
can overcome them and allow divine grace to descend upon us and guide us. The
devil wants our demise while God wants our salvation, and we and our freedom
are between them. The works of the Holy Fathers and Dostoyevsky’s books can
give us the means to be victorious in this spiritual battle.
My
favorite character is Alyosha Karamazov. Although, there are other characters
that I like too, like elder Zosima, count Myshkin, Sonya Marmeladova and even
such a clearly negative character as Nikolai Stavrogin. But it is Dostoyevsky’s
Alyosha Karamazov who has the most important features that epitomize the values
praised by the Gospel, such as amazing humility and modesty as well as the
ability to love and not to judge even the lowliest of people. In my opinion,
this character has all the qualities that with God’s help could overcome evil.
In
terms of understanding the spiritual content of Dostoyevsky’s works, I am
partial to the interpretations by Mikhail Dunayev.4
—Dostoyevsky
is one of the main philosopher writers of the world. Which of the philosophical
issues he wrote about do you find the most important?
There
is no doubt that Dostoyevsky’s works are philosophical. Although he didn’t
write philosophical treatises, his characters communicated important
philosophical ideas. Dostoyevsky’s books may be classified as a special
literary genre of “philosophical literature”. He put his ideas in literary form
without sacrificing the philosophical profundity. I should say that the
succinct dialogues of Dostoyevsky’s characters are more meaningful than the
lengthy writings of some philosophers.
Dostoyevsky’s
works covered many philosophical problems, including the existence of God, the
existence of evil, relationship between an individual and a society as well as
other issues. But I would like to emphasize the most important one—freedom.
Recently, I read in George Florovsky’s Theology and Literature that Dostoyevsky
had been considering the problem of freedom and its paradoxes all his life.
Throughout the history of philosophical thought, the problem of freedom had been
considered from various points of view. Following the Christian concept,
Dostoyevsky posits that every individual is free because each individual was
created in the image and likeness of God. This resolves the paradoxes described
by his contemporary materialists and socialists who stated that social evil may
be explained by disorder in the society, that a criminal is a victim of this
disorder and that a crime is a justified and natural protest against an unjust
society. Dostoyevsky had a different, Christian opinion of freedom and harshly
criticized such a justification of evil in the world.
—Is
the Christian component of Dostoyevsky’s works relevant today? How did it
influence you personally?
—It is
a complicated issue that requires a lengthy answer, but I’ll try to be brief.
Naturally,
faith always comes from God. But in my case, I can say that God used
Dostoyevsky to get to me, a stubborn and rebellious youth as I was at the time.
All the obstacles that seemed to separate me from faith were torn down by the
original true Christianity described by this Russian author. It was Dostoyevsky
who helped my quick transition from uncertainty to firm belief that the truth
is in Christianity, and from that moment on my life became different and
meaningful. Since Dostoyevsky was Orthodox, and I never really related to my
Roman Catholic background and never considered turning to Protestantism, I
decided to give Orthodoxy a chance and started reading up on it. Divine grace
guided me to the true Orthodox Church, and Dostoyevsky and his books were my
bridge to Orthodox Christianity. I frequently tell my friends that I took
Dostoyevsky’s works so seriously that I became an Orthodox Christian. Although
I converted with God’s help, I must admit that Dostoyevsky played an important
role in my conversion.
I want
to tell all people who are interested in Dostoyevsky’s personality and books
that they must make an effort and learn about Orthodoxy, because without this
knowledge they won’t be able to understand the profundity of his literary
legacy. Recently, at the presentation of his new book, Dostoyevsky’s Gospel,
Metropolitan Hilarion (Alfeyev) said that the ideas of Orthodoxy were clearly
reflected in Dostoyevsky’s books and that his global popularity is facilitating
the expansion of Orthodoxy. I personally believe that such missionary work is
crucial, so I’m trying to do something like this for Latin America where people
know Dostoyevsky well but know very little about Orthodox Christianity.
Elena
Maler
spoke
with Oscar Mauricio Lopez Casillas
Translation
from the Russian version by Talyb Samedov
Pravoslavie.ru
12/6/2021
1 The
Pianist (2002)—a film by Polish director Roman Polanski.
2
Joseph Frank—American literary scholar, Russian scholar, and Western biographer
of Feodor M. Dostoevsky; author of five monographs, which were translated into
Spanish and Portuguese.
3
Universidad Vasco de Quiroga—a Catholic institution of higher education, one of
the top five universities in Mexico, located in Morelia, Michoacán, Mexico.
4
Mikhail Mikhailovich Dunayev, literary scholar, professor of the Moscow
Theological Academy, author of six volumes of Orthodoxy and Russian Literature.
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