Dostoyevsky Underground: In der Strafkolonie

Abstract

I think it right that the Dostoyevskian material presented here should be shown to have some relevance to this quality of ‘das Peinliche’, the unbearable, painful, and awkward character of the times and especially of Kafka’s time. It may seem superfluous to go in search of literary models in which ‘das Peinliche’ is prefigured when one reflects that Kafka embarked on this story only a few weeks after the outbreak of the First World War, but there is no contradiction here between literature and reality, and no escapism in turning to literature. The fact that the story draws specific inspiration from a number of literary sources, one of whom is Dostoyevsky, does not mean that it has little to do with the reality of 1914. On the contrary, In der Strafkolonie is intimately connected with that reality, and contains, in parabolic and condensed form, Kafka’s reflections on the unfolding European conflict and the culture which it fostered and on which it fed.