Fyodor Dostoevsky: The expediency and inexpediency of war

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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

Russian writers on peace and war

Fyodor Dostoevsky: Selections on war

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Fyodor Dostoevsky
From his correspondence
Translated by Ethel Golburn Mayne

1867: The sky is so overcast. Napoleon has declared that already he perceives several black marks on his horizon. To settle the Mexican, the Italian, and, chiefest of all, the German questions, he will have to divert public attention by a war, and win the French to himself by the old method: a successful campaign. But though the French of to-day are probably not thus to be beguiled, a war is nevertheless very likely….But if war does break out, artistic wares will fall considerably in price. This is a very important contingency, which of itself makes me thoughtful. With us in Russia, indeed, there has lately been apparent, even without war, a great indifference to artistic things.

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What will happen now in politics? In what will all our anticipations end? Napoleon seems to have something up his sleeve. Italy, Germany….

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Yesterday I read, in an extra-edition, that at any moment there may be war between France and Prussia. So much combustible material has accumulated everywhere, that the war, so soon as it begins, must assume formidable dimensions. God grant that Russia may not be mixed up in any of the European entanglements; we have enough to do at home.