The third day of the Literature Festival, organized by the National Library "Radoslav Ljumović", this Wednesday, brought a very interesting lecture about the great Russian literature, Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky.
Although one can continue to talk about Dostoevsky and remain incomplete, this lecture by a psychologist Lidija Pejović It provides insight into Dostoevsky not only as a great writer but also as a forerunner of psychoanalysis, which can be particularly noted in his work “Crime and Punishment”.
Taking this literary work and the protagonist Rodion Raskolnikov as the focus of this lecture represents great potential to better understand the themes of this novel, as well as to see how this book and Raskolnikov himself can reveal something more about ourselves.
Pejović believes that Dostoevsky was among the first to deal with unconscious psychological processes, which makes him in a certain way a forerunner of psychoanalysis, which later had a great influence on Sigmund Freud and other theorists of psychology.
"Dostoevsky was among the first to deal with these unconscious processes, and not only with something that is invisible to the eye, but also with something that is simply inexplicable to us, because that is Freud's idea that in fact our conscious is only the tip of the iceberg, and that how we see ourselves and others and the world we live in is very little based in fact on these conscious processes, that what shapes our lives is often invisible to the eye, and even to ourselves," she said.
She adds that Dostoevsky was brilliant in his art precisely in his revelation of how irrational humans really are, masking their thoughts with behavior.
"He is great because he showed that man is not a rational being. I think his art lies in making us understand how little rational beings we are, and how much some of our thoughts are not actually reflected in our behavior and our emotions," explains Pejović.
Commenting on Raskolnikov's very nature, she concludes that he was deliberately created so that the reader can interpret Raskolnikov's behavior in their own way, which, according to her, is a sign of great intelligence.
"I think that this was done intentionally so that each of us could interpret Raskolnikov in our own way and where he actually got such an idea. He is described as a highly intelligent man and I think that this high intelligence always goes with thinking beyond basic needs and what that thinking is about some higher meaning and some self-creation," Pejović believes.
She points out that one of the central themes of “Crime and Punishment” is precisely the acceptance of our mediocrity and the acceptance of ourselves, our bad and good qualities. According to her, this multi-layeredness makes Dostoevsky a masterful writer.
"That's what Dostoevsky explains to us, that we are all, all people, in fact the same, and that no one is completely good or completely bad. So this idea of some multi-layeredness of man himself is what makes Dostoevsky so masterful because he simply has such great sentences that I remember," the psychologist points out.
Pejović believes that in this novel we can see how the process of making our decisions, and thus our actions, is not based on our understanding of ourselves as adult rational persons, but rather on the primordial and deeper beliefs we have towards ourselves, others, and the world itself.
"Dostoevsky shows that no matter how rational we think we are, in those key moments we are not. Since I also practice psychotherapy, it is about talking about several parts of our personality and we think in particular that we make all our decisions as adults, rational people, and in fact we spend the least of our time and our mental state in that ego of that adult person and in fact it is seen when we take off that mask of an adult person on the basis of which we actually make our decisions, which Dostoevsky shows, on the basis of the beliefs that we have about ourselves, about others and in this world," she said.
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