The reception of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy and the German semantic "Sondenweg". Culture and civilisation as patterns of reception at the beginning of the 20(th) century

The article focuses on "culture" and "civilisation" as topoi of the left an d conservative German reception of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy between 1900-1924 . The leading chiffre of the reception is Dostoevsky and/or Tolstoi. Conser vatives prefer Dostoevsky Tolstoy. Both writers are seen as political proph ets while the left reception pur: the accent on Tolstoy and interprets both Russian authors as social prophets. The different interpretations has a pr ospective political character. The Russian authors are used for variants of exclusive definitions of German culture and to strengthen the difference t o the west. The differentiation between culture an civilisation on the left side is primarily temporally, whereas right authors take culture and civil isation mainly as spatial distinctions. In both cases, the German reception is based on an emphatic understanding of culture, which is at the same tim e polemical and integrative; polemical as far as other nations or social sy stems (like capitalism) are concerned and integrative as far as the own nat ion is concerned.