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@ppoli611674629039 · 08 Dec 2020

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Fedor Dostoevskij "Two Suicides"

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In 1873, Fëdor Dostoevskij (1821-1881) takes over the direction of the magazine Graždanin (The citizen) where he publishes “The diary of a writer”, a work that contains a series of articles, distributed weekly and then collected in volumes. The writings focus on issues of culture and current affairs, such as crime news, anti-Semitism, materialism.
The one published by Damocle Edizioni is an extract called "Two suicides", written in October 1876. It takes its cue from two news stories, the suicide deaths of two young women, one accompanied by a cynical note, the other from a prayer and an icon held in her hands. Two similar yet opposite deaths, one dictated by boredom, the other by need, one born out of disillusionment, the other of despair.
End of life and suicide are two themes deeply felt by the author, especially after his death sentence on the gallows was revoked, an experience that marked him throughout his life. Both in "The Idiot" and in "Crime and Punishment", he affirms that living, even in precarious conditions, even for just another five minutes, is the only desire of those close to death.
The intellect is the enemy of man, it is what torments because it tends to give order to nature and events. But chaos is opposed (it is no coincidence that Dostoevsky is called the "artist of chaos"), it prevents the mind from giving shape to things, from being placated. Intelligence tortures, it does not make you live as relaxed as animals, it makes you understand that, if the soul is destined to die with the body, then there is no point in cultivating ideals and fighting for them.
The first girl committed suicide by breathing chloroform. It belonged to a house of thinkers, of the Enlightenment. She believed blindly in what they had instilled in her and died of boredom, of an "animalistic and irrational suffering". She died of "linearity", of simplicity, yearning for something more complicated, less logical, more spiritual.
The second girl, a poor jobless dressmaker, threw herself out of the window with a holy card in her hands. She died of necessity, with humility, entrusting her soul to God after praying.
In the end, there are only two paths: Nietzsche's nihilism or spirituality, religion, the need to believe in the immortality of the soul. There are two creatures, two torments, two suicides.