What I've noticed is that Russian authors are disproportionately mentioned among anglos, and Dostoevsky is himself disproportionately mentioned among those authors.
My hypothesis is that it's not just the orientalist appeal of the "Russian soul" you mentioned but its combination with Christian themes which means it is still familiar and easy to understand for Westerners. A bit like the equivalent of a rockstar: titillating but not deeply challenging.
> What I've noticed is that Russian authors are disproportionately mentioned among anglos, and Dostoevsky is himself disproportionately mentioned among those authors.
On the Internet perhaps, but 19th Russian literature had and still has a literary impact in formerly Communist countries, India, and Japan. Maybe a certain kind of American is prone to over-stating Dostoyevsky's importance, but personally I would argue Tolstoy is more disproportionately mentioned.
> My hypothesis is that it's not just the orientalist appeal of the "Russian soul" you mentioned but its combination with Christian themes which means it is still familiar and easy to understand for Westerners. A bit like the equivalent of a rockstar: titillating but not deeply challenging.
Oddly enough, what appealed to me was the discussion of morality without the overt Christian proselytization. No hackneyed metaphor for Jesus or salvation. Just man, his actions in the real world, and how he and the audience must examine them.
If there is any "orientalist" familiarity to these works that I enjoy, it's how self-examination is presented as a knight's/bogatyr's quest rather than a self-pitying confession of weakness and sin.
My hypothesis is that it's not just the orientalist appeal of the "Russian soul" you mentioned but its combination with Christian themes which means it is still familiar and easy to understand for Westerners. A bit like the equivalent of a rockstar: titillating but not deeply challenging.