Author: Nikolay Neychev
Paisii Hilendarski University of Plovdiv
Published in Slavyanski dialozi, 2022, 30
Abstract: This article is an attempt to reveal the most primal and deep patterns which the artistic
interpretаtion of the spiritual world in the works of F. M. Dostoevsky reaches. It turns out that the Russian writer perceives the main “parameters” of the afterlife (such as: movement, change and spatiality) from the point of view of the biblical Judeo-Christian tradition. According to this theological tradition, time turns out to be a problematic category in the spiritual world — one that is not related to either movement or change. Dostoevsky’s understanding that in the heavenly (eonic) world the soul after death is active and undergoes changes is also confirmed by numerous testimonies from the mystical experience of Orthodox ascetics. As for the phenomenon of time, it arises from the fall of Adam in complicity with the devil. In this sense, time is just another name for death. But after the Apocalypse there will be a “new heaven” and a “new earth” where there will be “no more time.”
Key words: The Bible, Dostoevsky, chronos, eternity, theology of the spiritual world, The Brothers Karamazov, The Idiot