Imagine a world in which everyone coexists with ease and respects one another. A world in which everyone aims to learn from and appreciate different cultures, opinions, body types, races, and religions. It is a world founded on positivity in which everyone aims to find the good in every situation. Everyone living in this world is happy, content, healthy, and kind to one another. The environment is strong and pollution free. There is no negativity, war, or destruction, as all evil and bullying ceases to exist. It is a harmonious world in which everyone is equal, self-fulfilled, and balanced. This idea of the perfect world is generally what people think of when hearing the word, “utopia.”
At first thought, the word “utopia” may seem to be synonymous with a perfect world. In reality, utopias are imaginary societies created to raise questions about our current society and the world in which we live. This means that utopias are not necessarily perfect. Rather, they are a tool used to spark thought about the negative and positive aspects of our society, and perhaps the foundation that is the necessary first step in creating change in the world. Russian writers Nikolai Chernyshevsky and Fyodor Dostoyevsky explore the idea of a utopia in their writings, both having contradictory views of what a utopia is.
In his writing, What is to be done?, Russian philosopher Nikolai Chernyshevsky tells a story of the female character Vera Pavlovna. A woman of radiant beauty takes Vera through a dream; a dream in which Vera jumps through various scenes and analyzes women at various times in history. She sees women as slaves, women having no rights, women tending to men, and finally jumps to a futuristic scene and discovers a utopia in which women are equal to men and just as successful. She is presented with Chernyshevsky’s idea of a utopia: a vast glimmering field covered in flowers with a few scattered buildings of cast iron and “crystal.” Chernyshevsky has created a rural utopia and references the Crystal Palace, an innovative building of glass and steel erected by Sir Joseph Paxton for the Great Exhibition in London in 1851. At the time this story was written, the idea of glass and steel buildings was a futuristic concept, as it was still an up and coming and innovative technology that was still very new. Chernyshevsky is describing what would be considered a progressive utopia, as he believes everything that has happened over time had to happen in order for people to learn from their mistakes and to reach a prosperous enough society in which everyone can achieve their greatest potential. In this utopia he has created in the story, Chernyshevsky has thought up a futuristic society in which everyone works together and is able to achieve self-actualization while also acting in others’ best interest. After years of inequality and faults we have experienced such as war and crime, this society has learned from their mistakes and has created a society that is not only harmonious, but one in which women are equal to men on every level: domestic, economic, and political.
Chernyshevsky is a rational egotist, while in contrast, Dostoyevsky is a conservative irrationalist. In Dostoyevsky’s story, Dream of a Ridiculous Man, the main character and narrator falls asleep as he contemplates suicide. He dreams of another planet, one in which everyone living on it lives harmoniously. It is an eden-like paradise, as the people are happy and sinless. In this story, the narrator ends up disrupting this unflawed, perfect society as he accidently teaches them how to lie. As people begin lying, organized religion is formed, the first murder occurs, wars begin, and the ridiculous man realizes he has corrupted this society. Dostoyevsky’s idea of this utopia is nostalgic. This planet was completely “new,” having no past negative history like we have today. To the reader, this appears to be nostalgic as this society has yet to be corrupted with the flaws and negative happenings that have occurred on our earth and influenced the way our society is today.
The fundamental difference between these two author’s ideas of utopias is how they have been formed. Chernyshevsky describes a utopia that is progressive, a futuristic utopia in which goals have been reached for every individual and our flaws have been fixed after learning from our negative historical events. Interestingly, Chernyshevsky goes into much more details about what the utopia physically looks like. Vera Pavolva is presented with a rural scene with only a few of the scattered crystal palaces. It can be gathered that the people of this utopia have learned to take care of the environment and live simply in this idyllic landscape. In contrast, Dostoyevsky describes a nostalgic utopia, as he looks to the past “pure” world by creating a planet with no negative history and flaws. His idea of a utopia is not in the future, but is in the past before humans were corrupted and sinful. The description he gives it much like the world we live in today, but is an idyllic image of the world before any sin and any corruption happened.
While Chernyshevsky and Dostoyevsky have different ideas about how utopias are formed, there are some clear similarities in how they present their ideas of utopias in their writing. As utopias are fictional societies, both Vera in What is to be Done? and the narrator in Dream of a Ridiculous Man discover these utopias while dreaming. This idea of dreaming up a utopia can also be viewed as a metaphor, as utopias are desirable and it is human nature to dream of living in a perfect, harmonious society. Both also raise questions about the impossibility of perfect societies. Dostoyevsky does this more obviously in Dream of a Ridiculous Man, as the main plot twist is the narrator corrupting the society and all perfection is lost moving forward. But is a society truly perfect prior to any sort of corruption? Chernyshevsky challenges this idea as he believes that a perfect society can only be formed after all the corruption and people are able to make the necessary change and learn from their mistakes. This raises a question about Dostoyevsky’s society: are these people well-rounded enough to truly be perfect? It can be argued, based on Chernyshevsky’s idea of a utopia, that the people of Dostoyevsky’s utopia have not experienced enough in order to truly be perfect as they would not be knowledgeable enough to know how to prevent corruption.
All in all, Chernyshevsky and Dostoyevsky explore the ideas of progressive and nostalgic utopias in their writings. To the general mind, the “utopia” may seem to be synonymous with a “perfect world.” As Chernyshevsky and Dostoyevsky discuss, the basis on which utopian societies are formed can be different. Dostoyevsky writes about a nostalgic utopia, creating a brand new planet with no corruption and sin. Nostalgic utopias look to the past rather than accepting our flaws and moving towards the future. Chernyshevsky, in contrast, writes about a progressive utopia in which the society has learned from the corruption and sins to create a well-rounded world in which people are all successful and happy. By creating these imaginary societies, the readers of these stories begin to raise questions about or current society and if utopian societies are even possible. To create an ideal, perfect society, one can consider erasing our societies history and starting fresh with no knowledge of sin and corruption, while one can also consider embracing the past and looking forward to a new, progressive future.