(Epideictic eloquence and a dialog in Russian culture)
3–5 апреля 2020 Cambridge
Introduction
It is no coincidence that the theory of «dialogism» by Mikhail Bakhtin was created on Russian soil. For a long time Russian culture suffered from underdeveloped dialog, while epideictic eloquence has flourished since eleventh century. A high culture of preaching was combined with a low culture of judicial and deliberative rhetoric. A church word and state word looked beautiful and respected. The expression of private interest looked ugly and aroused suspicion. The situation may be critical for the development of democratic institutions. The imbalance of non-polemical and polemical speeches served as brake for introduction of democratic institutions.
Although the situation changed with the development of Russian classical literature.
Literary speech and dialog
Literary speech is a sort of monolog, but it includes dialogs and inspires dialogs in society. On the example of Shakespeare, we see how closely art can be associates with forensic speech. Moreover, literature does not represent private interests, contains moral preaching and meets high aesthetic standards. Thus, fiction retained strong features of the sermon, but overcame its weaknesses, i.e. momologism
The progressive part of Russian society pined all hopes on literature. These were really great expectations. Indeed, literature and literary criticism gave chance for developing of dialog. But… There was a fatal “but”.
Relationship between Russian literature and Russian forensic speech
The need for judicial oratory was in Russia after the reform of 1864, when a jury was introduced. The public began to take an interest in the judicial chronicle. Judicial speakers such as Peter Alexandrov, Anatolii Koni, Nikolai Karabchevski, Plevako and others became famous people.
No doubt, that Russian forensic speaking grew out of the experience of Russian literature. Analyzing the motives of the accused’s actions, both the prosecutors and the defenders relied on the traditions of Russian realistic literature. They talked about the influence of environment. They showed characters in development. In many speeches, we find direct references to Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and other writers. However, the attitude of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky to institution of court and the legal profession is hardly positive.
In the novel “Resurrection,” Leo Tolstoy portrayed the court with the help of his favorite method of “ostranenie” (to make something strange, term coined by Viktor Shklovskii), which Tolstoy used when wanted to disavow a particular social institution. Tolstoy described court through the eyes of a naive person who sees only external side of the case. As a result, trial looks like an action without meaning.
In “Brothers Karamazov”, Dostoevsky gives a parody of the judicial speech. He makes fun of two things: an appeal to Christian values and imitation of writers. Dostoevsky calls lawyers a «hired conscience.» According to Dostoevsky, the lawyer is ridiculous when he appeals to morality. This should be done by a writer only. That’s what Dostoevsky says with his parody.
Thus, preaching is preferred by him to a democratic institution — a jury. He preferred putting the sermon above the real dialogue when your counterpart has free will. In this regard, it is interesting to consider the views of Mikhail Bakhtin on the dialogue and work of Dostoevsky.
Bakhtin and rhetoric
Mikhail Bakhtin is famous for his theory of dialog. According to Bakhtin, Dostoevsky turn to polyphony, which is the highest sort of a dialog. In polyphony, the author’s voice does not drown out the voices of characters who are in constant dialogue.
It is known that Bakhtin strongly spoke against rhetoric. However, it is important to understand what was behind these statements. Can be assumed, that the reason was that rhetoric for him boiled down to epideictic speech. Rhetoric was for him a monologue, an authoritative word that only a carnival could resist — a parody of rhetoric. In the context of Soviet culture, rhetoric was a monologue, propaganda, i.e. extreme form of epideictic speeches. Like Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, Bakhtin pins all hopes on fiction. Unfortunately, Soviet fiction, with few exceptions, was also part of propaganda.
Polyphony or duality (двойничество)?
Despite the Bakhtin’s statement on polyphony shared today by almost all philologists, Dostoevsky was a rather authoritarian person. For instance in the case of Sarah Modebadze Dostoevsky, ignoring arguments and facts, categorically asserted that the girl was killed by Jews. He did not object to the arguments of the defender Aleksandrov, he simply rejected them.
Categorically rejecting other people’s points of view, Dostoevsky, at the same time, suffered from internal doubts. His penchant for duality and his ability to describe a split personality is well known. We can see this from the early story «Double»(Двойник) and ending with the «split Ivan» (раздвоение Ивана) in the «Brothers Karamazov.»
Duality is one of the themes of world literature, specifically, according to Dmitrii Likhachev, characteristic of Russian literature. It seems, the characters of Dostoevsky are not so much in dialogue with each other as they hear one of their inner voices in the other.
Old Russian literature showed that duality is the embryo of sociality, the embryo of dialogue. This is the first step beyond the monologue. But duality cannot replace real social institutions — the court or parliament. Dostoevsky’s world is more like a parade of inner speech than an ordinary society. The outside world in Dostoevsky’s novels is organized with the help of the frequently encountered word «suddenly,» which Bakhtin himself noted. Thus, the outside world is secondary to the internal dialogue of the characters.
The poetics of Dostoevsky is in good agreement with the position of a person who does not see any benefit in a judicial contest, perhaps in a competitiveness at all. This is in good agreement with criticism of the West. In Bakhtin’s theory, I see a reaction to Stalin’s totalitarianism and feeling of hopelessness. These were the times, when the prosecutor’s speeches in political processes turned into an epideictic speech that ignored arguments and facts, and the courts themselves turned into shows.
Conclusion
The success of the literary sermon became a trap for Russian thought, preventing it from appreciating the role of social institutions with their real dialogue. However Russian culture gradually escaped from this trap with the development of judicial speech, journalism, scientific debate, and then from 1906 parliamentary eloquence. Unfortunately, under Soviet rule, old weaknesses took revenge by reducing rhetoric to epideictic speech, and dialog to propaganda. However, the current state of literature, both Russian and world, no longer leaves room for false hopes. Authoritative of fiction fell. This, at least, allows a sober look at life.