Is Conrad Anti-Russian? [Volume: 7(1988), pp. 231-249]

IS CONRAD ANTI-RUSSIAN?
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psychoanalysis, led to inartistic arrogance, and what's worse, to a conformism with doctrines and psychoanalytical beliefs, as if proving their
truth with medical cases, and thus in the end to a pseudo-complicated
shallowness. It wants to know too much and too easily about its heroes,
yet Conrad never wanted to know too much about them, and he knew
that it was not possible. For how can one know? Therefore he searched
for seemingly authentic paths, both secret and open, to the human heart.
In this case, he uses the Western observer, whom he introduces where he
can, and also Razumov's diary in order to make the reality of his heart
closer to us. He is guessing and showing the reader the psychic landscape
rather than the author's calculations and claims. But you are right that it
is too little for the organic, and thus artistic, unity. And that's why Conrad,
although he wants to provide evidence and unite, over all renders the novel
chaotic. For this hidden unity is the unity of Conrad himself; it is not
for the reader or, at best, it is for a very peculiar reader. But about this
later, for in any case, I interrupted Mr. C's attack on Conrad.
C: Yes, because I am not concerned only with the weak artistry of
this novel, but am even more concerned with the fact that although Conrad
draws from his spiritual heritage of religious features and tones, he seems
to have deserted what he knew; he abandoned it and did not want to probe
it deeply. He knew, because if he had not known, he could not have become
a renegade. This statement, I realize, may seem to be a terrible accusation
in "Western" Poland. But I will say in addition that he even deserted for
the sake of something unworthy of him. For his situation resembles that
of those "disgusting" Russians in his novel, except that he voluntarily
gives up and accepts defeat, c'est cela que me revolte contre lui. He is a
spiritual defeatist who maybe sometimes suspects that he is not on the
winning side and that his position, being untrue, cannot endure.
A: But, the quotes that were recently cited from the book indicate
sufficiently that he did not "desert," as it might appear, in favor of some
kind of "West."
C: Let us consider what he returns to in the author's preface from
1920. Let us not treat this preface too lightly, and in any case, let us not
overlook it entirely, as Mr. A seems to be doing. On the contrary! In such
a reversion, soberly and even after making the discoveries of which we
spoke, Conrad's defeatism is exposed. Because what does this naturalistic
and almost racist fatalism mean, this saying, which is unworthy of him,
about tigers and leopards? Can it be that this so-called "soul of the people"
was some kind of impenetrable monad, enclosed forever by fences and
bars? And even if there were something in this, should it be fixed like this?
Probably only out of helplessness does Mr. A refer to "a projection into