Russians In Joseph Conrad's Novels

Joseph Conrad,a famous British immigrant writer at the end of the 19 th century and the beginning of the 20 th century,was born in Poland and later joined in Britain.With his third foreign language-English,he has become one of the most important writers in the history of English literature in the 20 th century.Conrad not only ignited the light of modernism,but also continued the moral tradition of British literature and defended the social ethics of the Victorian era.Because of his strong belief in the moral effect of novels and his deep thinking on the issue of human nature,the critic F.R.Leavis put him,together with Henry Fielding and George Eliot,into “the great tradition” of British novels.In addition to “morality”,“ocean”,“politics” and “modernism”,the words bound with Conrad's image in literary history also include his nightmare – “Russia”.In the research history of Conrad,the writer's “anti-Russia” psychology has almost become a rigid literary label.However,whether to analyze the cultural imagination of the cultural space he lived in,or to apply close reading to the Russian image in his works,we can find that “anti-Russia” could not completely cover Conrad's attitude towards Russian culture.Conrad's tough life and the collective psychology of “Russophobia” of the Polish nation result in the dark background of the Russian image in his works.Yet after his immigration to Britain,the overall imagination of Russia by the new social collective also affected Conrad's writing mode of the Russians.On the one hand,the communication between Britain and Russia provided rich material for Conrad's literary creation.On the other hand,with the thawing of the relationship between Britain and Russia,the elements of stereotypes such as barbarism,rudeness and insidiousness temporarily gave way to a fascinating exotic myth,which changed Conrad's flat writing of the Russians in his previous works to a certain extent.The cultural analysis from the original place to the receiving country shows the influence of the change of cultural environment on the writing of the Russian image,which also overthrows the “absolutely anti-Russia” argument in the research history of Conrad.According to the specific text,Conrad conveyed his thinking about the chronic disease of Russian culture by shaping several main Russian images: the violent cycle caused by autocracy made it difficult for the Russians to find a bright way out,and the conspiracy of autocracy and religion enslaved the Russian people both physically and mentally,even the Russian intellectuals who carried the national hope were trapped in the great vision of salvation generated by the messianic culture.In order to overthrow the Russian political and religious myth,Conrad intentionally rewrites the image of the reformed sinner and the redeemer in crime and punishment,to show his sharp ideological clashes with Dostoevsky who was considered “too Russian”.However,various textual details evidence that Conrad's attitude towards Russian culture is probably more complicated than he realized.The ironic context constructed in Under Western Eyes cancels the dominant position of the Western narrator,and even reverses the temperament of the East and the west at some point;“The Warrior's soul” rarely shows the elevation of the renunciation and moral self-examination ability of the Russian;while the unfinished novel “The Sisters” reveals Conrad's implicit identification with the marginal mentality of the Slavs who were exiled in Western Europe.To sum up,there is no doubt that Conrad's “anti-Russia” psychology is an overall fact,but “anti-Russia”should not be regarded as a literary label solidified in the research history,which might cover up the writer's complex mentality.In addition to hatred and exclusion,there may be a temptation for Conrad to Russia that even the writer himself is not aware of.