Features of realism in F. Dostoevsky’s novel “Crime and Punishment. The formation of fantastic realism in the works of F.M.
This monograph makes an attempt to determine the features of Dostoevsky's realistic art, including those that distinguish it from the art of his immediate predecessors and contemporaries. The author seeks to explain these special features of Dostoevsky’s realism historically - based, firstly, on clarifying the range of issues of Russian life in the post-reform era that were in the center of the writer’s attention, and secondly, on an analysis of his aesthetic and general ideological position.
Although the author did not set himself specifically polemical goals, his book, as an attentive reader will see, is directed with its edge against the interpretation of Dostoevsky’s work in the works of those bourgeois scientists who deny the realistic nature of the works of the great Russian novelist and strive to interpret their ideas and images in accordance with the needs modern philosophical and political reaction. In contrast to such interpretations, which distort the image of Dostoevsky, the author wanted to show the deep social-critical orientation of his works, their saturation - with all the contradictions of the writer’s thoughts and creativity - with a sharp protest against the principles of life and ideological values of the bourgeois world.
The work of Dostoevsky is examined in the book against the background of the literary and social struggle of the era, in its diverse connections with Russian and world literature. Drawing on unstudied pages of Dostoevsky's notebooks, critical and journalistic materials from the magazines "Time" and "Epoch", the author sought to reveal the complex relationship between the artistic and ideological issues of Dostoevsky's novels and a number of philosophical, legal, artistic and aesthetic discussions in literature and journalism of the 60s and the 70s. Having chosen the main theme of his work to study the method of artistic reproduction, which determined the nature of the reflection of post-reform reality in Dostoevsky's stories and novels, the author did not set himself the task of illuminating the entire creative path of the writer, since this last task had already been partially solved by him within the framework of the academic “History of Russian Literature” "(vol. IX, part 2, Publishing House of the USSR Academy of Sciences, M.-L., 1956). From Dostoevsky's works, the book examines in detail "Poor People" and some stories of the 40s, "Notes from the House of the Dead", "Crime and Punishment", "The Idiot" and "The Brothers Karamazov". Other stories and novels by Dostoevsky (including such significant ones as “The Humiliated and Insulted,” “The Gambler,” “Demons,” “Teenager”) are not specifically analyzed in it, and they are mentioned only incidentally. It should also be borne in mind that the analysis of each of the works under consideration in this work does not have a self-sufficient character: it is subordinated to the task of studying one or several aspects of Dostoevsky’s realistic art - those that received a particularly prominent expression in this work.
The continuation of this monograph should be a work conceived by the author (and based on the same historical principles of research) on Dostoevsky’s poetics, his style and language.
Along with other unpublished autographs of Dostoevsky, the book uses some of the materials prepared for publication by the editors of " Literary heritage"(Dostoevsky's notebooks of 1861-1866 and 1875-1877). The author expresses his gratitude to the editors of Literary Heritage for the opportunity to familiarize himself with these materials.
References in the text are given to the following publications: F. M. Dostoevsky, Complete Collection of Artistic Works, vols. 1-X, GIZ, M.-L., 1926-1927; Writer's Diary (vols. XI-XII). GIZ, M.-L., 1929; Articles (Vol. XIII). GIZ, M.-L., 1930. Letters quoted from the publication: F. M. Dostoevsky. Letters, vols. I-IV. GIZ-Goslitizdat, M.-L., 1928-1959.
Dostoevsky's work made a huge contribution to the development of literature, both Russian and foreign. Dostoevsky was the founder of a new creative method in depicting a person. D. was the first to show that human consciousness is ambivalent (it is based on opposite principles, the principles of good and evil), contradictory.
Dostoevsky's work made a huge contribution to the development of literature, both Russian and foreign.Dostoevsky was the founder of a new creative method in depicting a person. D. was the first to show that human consciousness is ambivalent (it is based on opposite principles, the principles of good and evil), contradictory.
D. stands at the origins of a new philosophical consciousness, the consciousness of religious existentialism (this theory rejects the theory of rational knowledge of the world and affirms an intuitive comprehension of the world). D. defended the position that a person gains insight into his essence in borderline situations.
Dostoevsky’s fame was brought to him by his novels – his “Pentateuch”:
"Crime and Punishment" (1866);
"The Idiot" (1868);
"Demons" (1871);
"The Teenager" (1875);
"The Brothers Karamazov" (1880-188).
Features of Dostoevsky's realism:
1. Dialogism of the narrative. There is always a dispute and defense of one’s position (Ivan and Alyosha Karamazov in “The Brothers Karamazov”, Shatov and Verkhovensky in “Demons”, Raskolnikov and Sonya Marmeladova in “Crime and Punishment”, Prince Lev Nikolaevich Myshkin and the rest of society in “The Idiot”)
2. Connection of a philosophical basis with a detective story. There is murder everywhere (the old pawnbrokers in Crime and Punishment, Nastasya Filippovna in The Idiot, Shatov in The Possessed, Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov in The Brothers Karamazov). For this, critics constantly reproached the writer.
3. Regarding Dostoevsky’s realism, they said that he had “fantastic realism.” D. believes that in exceptional, unusual situations, the most typical appears. The writer noticed that all his stories were not made up, but taken from somewhere. All these incredible facts are facts from reality, from newspaper chronicles, from hard labor, where Dostoevsky spent a total of 9 years (1850-1859, from 1854-59 he served as a private in Semipalatinsk) and where he was exiled for participating in Petrashevsky’s circle. (The plot of “The Brothers Karamazov” is based on real events related to the trial of the alleged “parricide” of the Omsk prison, Lieutenant Ilyinsky)
4. In “The Diary of a Writer,” Dostoevsky himself defined his method as “realism to the highest degree.” D. depicts all the depths of a person’s soul. The most interesting thing is to find the person in the person with complete realism. To show the true nature of a person, it is necessary to depict him in borderline situations, on the edge of the abyss. Before us appears a shaken consciousness, lost souls (Shatov in “Demons”, Raskolnikov in “Crime and Punishment”). In borderline situations, all the depths of the human “I” are revealed. A person is in a world hostile to him, but he cannot live without it.
5. Engelhardt proposed calling Dostoevsky’s novel an ideological novel, because There is a conflict of ideas in his novels. D. himself called this conflict “pro et contra,” meaning “for” or “against” faith. In the artistic space of D.'s novels, there is usually a conflict of two ideas: Raskolnikov - Sonya Marmeladova; Elder Zosima - Ivan Karamazov.
6. Vyacheslav Ivanov, defining a new genre uniqueness of Dostoevsky’s novel, called his works a novel - a tragedy, because his novels show the tragedy of personality, loneliness, alienation. The hero always faces the problem of choice, and he himself must decide which path he will take.
7. Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin, defining the structural feature of Dostoevsky’s novels, talks about polyphony (polyphony). D.'s polyphonic novel is now opposed to the monologue novel that previously dominated Russian literature, where the voice of the author predominated.
The "I am" principle - monologue novel
Hero World
But in Dostoevsky, the author’s voice is not heard; he is on a par with his characters. Only the voices of the characters are heard; the author allows them to speak to the end. The position of the author himself is visible through the statements of his favorite heroes (Alyosha Karamazov, Prince Myshkin). We will not find any author’s digressions here, like those of Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy.
Peace Hero principle “You are” - polyphonic novel
D. depicts not just a person, but his self-awareness; he is interested in the hero as one of the points of view on the world and on himself. In D. the hero says everything about himself.
According to Bakhtin, Dostoevsky's heroes are not internally complete. There is something in a person that only he himself can discover in a free act of self-knowledge. Let us note that Dostoevsky’s favorite form was the form of confession.
Oscar Wilde said that “Dostoevsky’s main merit is that he never explains his characters completely, and Dostoevsky’s heroes always amaze with what they create or do, and conceal within themselves to the end the eternal mystery of existence.” This exactly corresponds to what D. called “realism to the highest degree.”
The work of the prominent Russian writer and scientist Leonid Petrovich Grossman on Dostoevsky, which was published in 1059 in the collection of the ANSSSR “The Work of Dostoevsky,” also deserves attention. Continuing to develop the ideas of Vyach Ivanov and M. Bakhtin about the constructive principle of polyphony, which underlies the composition of Dostoevsky’s novels, Gorossman managed to highlight many more new things. The three parts of Grossman's work reveal three aspects of D.'s narrative system: genre specificity, laws of composition and creative method.
Grossman argues that a special type of novel arose for the young writer back in the 1840s, “when Russian criticism began to develop in depth the theory of narrative genres.” Grossman associates the theory of the novel genre primarily with Belinsky: the genre is the latest epic, combining the realism of “an event with the revelation of its drama and the expression of the author’s lyrical attitude towards it.”
For example, from the very first pages of “Crime and Punishment” we are plunged into the hopeless horror of modernity, which strengthens Raskolnikov in his decision to begin the fight against this world. Before us is a genre picture of a dirty drinking still life of a wretched counter: black crackers, crumbled cucumbers, a stained and sticky table. This is a real physiological sketch with details of the St. Petersburg slum and the types of the innkeeper in a greasy vest and a shiny face, the drunkard official Marmeladov about a tattered tailcoat without buttons.
The description of the room of the retired officer Snegirev from The Brothers Karamazov, who supports the Invalid family and ekes out a miserable existence, can also be cited as an example of a characteristic genre scene.
The description of “hopeless poverty” in “Crime and Punishment” is designed in the characteristic style of the natural school. The capital's statistics are outlined: a titular councilor who was expelled from the department for constant drinking bouts; a daughter living on a yellow ticket; small children wasting away in a dark corner; wife, sick with tuberculosis. This is the latest physiology of post-reform St. Petersburg in the 1860s.
But from these gloomy daguerreotypes Dostoevsky’s human tragedy imperceptibly breaks through and grows. The unrequited Sonya agrees to dishonor in order to save the minors from starvation. An old draped shawl barely hides the sobs of a disgraced girl. Katerina Ivanovna, who sold her stepdaughter, silently kneels in front of her, “and so she stood on her knees all evening, kissed her feet, did not want to get up...”
It seems that the novelist has reached the heights of his tragic art, but he strives higher - to the final generalization. From the everyday torments and sorrows of the capital's corners grows a vision of world justice, a utopia of a wise court, an illusion of the final justification of man. Marmeladov's monologue ends with a poetic myth about a reborn sinner and a beautiful person, this favorite theme of painters and poets, which D. based his favorite novel “The Idiot”. But already in Raskolnikov’s story, the journalistic topic about “drunk people” seems to develop into fairy tale theme about unrealistic justice. The genre writer of the St. Petersburg slums hits the heart with all the force of a great poet.
In any of D.'s novels we will find the same principles for the design of the whole based on the contrast between the fall of man and his spiritual beauty. “The Idiot” unfolds a hopeless biography of a gifted female nature (Nastasya Filippovna) and reveals the sad fate of a sublime dreamer (Prince Myshkin) among the moral scum of society.
D. does not deviate from this compositional law in the novel-pamphlet “Demons”. But here the prose of life, its tragedy and poetry are compared not in an organic fusion, but in a sharp opposition. The background of Stravrogin's confession is the depressing vulgarity of life, debauchery and boredom. Let us recall the episode with eleven-year-old Matryosha, who was raped by Stavrogin and then hanged, which was not included in the final text of the novel. The girl's tragedy takes place in the pitiful atmosphere of a St. Petersburg bourgeois apartment. According to the basic contrasting law of all his compositions, the terrible drama of vice, crime and the death of a child is replaced by a radiant vision of primitive innocence, purity and happiness. Stavroogin remembers in a dream the idyllic landscape of Claude Lorrain “Acis and Galatea” with carefree and beautiful people.
D.'s last novel, The Brothers Karamazov, is also subject to the same constructive laws. The image of Dmitry Karamazov was taken from life; the writer portrayed in him the imaginary “parricide” of the Omsk prison, Lieutenant Ilyinsky.
Dmitry's fate is tragic. A man of high soaring souls, he is unable to escape from the whirlpool of vices that have entangled him. Wrongly accused of parricide, he must atone for someone else's crime with 20 years of hard labor. But even at the moment of catastrophe, a kind of inner enlightenment of his entire being occurs. In a dream he sees a burned-out village, emaciated women with children crying in their arms, he wants to know why they are poor and feel so bad, and he wants to join the fight against this evil, “so that there are no tears at all from this moment...”. Dmitry wants to become the protector of the village inhabitants.
Having established the connection between epic and poetry and drama in the internal structure of D.’s novels, Grossman defines the genre of the writer’s novels as a “philosophical poem.” The definition is not new, because D. himself emphasized the connection artistic idea from the poetic, in “A Writer’s Diary” and “Notebooks” D. more than once called his novels poems. And the writer called himself nothing more than “a poet in the original sense of the word, i.e. creator high style, the singer of the great theme."
According to Grossman, in D.’s novels, a two-dimensional composition is visible. D.'s novels are “huge generalizations of his great novels, in which a harsh judgment on the terrible bourgeois modernity turns into unique ethical systems and paradoxical utopias of the future harmony of mankind.”
D.'s novels are characterized by a multiplicity of action. In Prest. and so on." storylines of Raskolnikov and Sonya Marmeladova, Luzhin and Svidrigailov; in “Demons” - the storylines of Stavrogin, Pyotr Verkhovhansky and his father Stepan Trofimovich, Shatov, Kirillov; in “The Brothers Karamazov” - the story of 3 brothers, like three fateful roads, the life story of Elder Zosima, the position of the old cardinal - the Grand Inquisitor. The development of each theme moves according to the musical law of counterpoint. Following D., Vyach was the first to talk about the law of counterpoint. Ivanov in the work “Dostoevsky and the Tragedy Novel” (1914) and M. Bakhtin in the book “Problems of D.’s Creativity” (1928). Such a constructive system was called polyphony by Bakhtin and hence the term he proposed - polyphonic novel.
The compositional law of counterpoint, according to Grossman, largely dictates the features of the development of plot action. D. does not have a smooth, measured and consistently flowing story; he always gives a rapid movement of the plot, interrupted by unexpected events that break and explode the intended path of the narrative, sharply changing its direction and continuing its development, as if in a new plane and with a different orientation. Sometimes the direction is maintained even after such an explosion, but the pace of movement increases enormously, the conflict intensifies, and the action continues in a heightened atmosphere until a new catastrophe introduces a number of unforeseen complications.
Thus, at the beginning of the novel, Raskolnikov is still just thinking about the possibility of a crime, he hesitates and even renounces his “damned dream.” But an acquaintance with the Marmeladov family, a letter from his mother about the “happiness” of his sister, a drunken girl being pursued by a fat dandy on the boulevard, a conversation with an officer about saving a thousand young lives at the cost of killing one old pawnbroker - all these disparate events are merged by the hero’s thoughts into one psychological a charge of exceptional power. An “explosion” occurs - Raskolnikov’s murder of two women, which radically changes the whole situation, transfers the action to new plan the most complex internal struggle of the hero with his theory and conscience and - externally - with the authorities in the person of a strong opponent - Porfiry Petrovich. A line of the “ideal” investigator arises, who leads the offender to the realization of his guilt. Afterwards, the action rises to its highest plane - hard labor atonement for guilt and the search for new paths to life.
Graphically, the composition represents a horizontal line of the developing plot, which is intersected by the verticals of stormy episodes, sweeping the action upward and transferring it to a new plane, where the plot parallel to the first horizontal line soon explodes again. The result is a stepped line of composition that elevates the concept to its resolution in the final catastrophe or catharsis.
According to Grossman. D. is also characterized by the compositional technique of the conclave. This Latin term denoted in the Vatican the plenary council of cardinals who met to elect a pope. In D.'s novels, these are exceptional meetings with important tasks and unforeseen complications. In Prest. and so on." A motley group gathers for Marmeladov’s wake: the entire family of the deceased, headed by his wife Katerina Ivanovna, and three unknown “Poles.” A drunken provision official, a German landlady, a deaf old man. The mood is alarming, everyone is expecting a quarrel, a squabble arises between Marmeladova and Amalia Lipperwechsel, who mentioned the yellow ticket, and an uproar arises. The screams and cries of children are heard, the general tension is discharged with a terrible blow: Luzhin accuses Sonya of stealing 100 rubles from him. The money was found in her pocket, where it had been cleverly planted. The scandal reached its climax.
But at this moment the vulgar episode turns into the highest pathos. The sobs of a tormented soul are heard. A monologue sounds, hitting the hearts, Katerina Ivanovna, hugging Sonya to her, shouts that she doesn’t believe. Everyone took pity on the unfortunate Katerina Ivanovna with her crying bitterly, with her consumptive face twisted in pain. Raskolnikov also stands up for Sonya. The slandered girl is justified by the general opinion. But the drunken scandal erupts in outbreaks, Katerina Ivanovna runs out into the street in search of immediate and final justice and falls onto the pavement with blood gushing from her mouth. Here she grows into a true tragic heroine.
In the same dynamic and complex law builds the action in The Idiot. The culmination of the first part is Nastasya Filippovna’s birthday. Here one senses a hidden anxious anticipation of a big event - the official engagement of the heroine to Ganya Ivolgin. Everything looks calm, but the internal drama breaks through with unexpected episodes. The prince wants to marry Nastasya Filippovna. He is declared the owner of a million-dollar inheritance. Rogozhin brings a hundred thousand to his “queen”; she throws the money into the fire to test the selflessness and honor of her fiancé Gavrila Ardalionovich. He withstands the test, but faints. Conflicts and scenes are cut through by Nastasya Filippovna's feverish speech. Totsky's concubine, she does not want to destroy the righteous man. Speaks. What does he want Aglaya Epanchin, Totsky sharply ridiculed. Everything ends with a high spiritual rise: “Farewell, prince, I saw a person for the first time!” Among the motley crowd, the heroine's confession sounds pathetic.
We see one of the strongest conclaves in “Demons”. The first part ends with an extraordinary meeting with General Stavrogina. The provincial salon suddenly turns into a trial of Stavrogin. The landowner’s stern question to her son: is the lame woman really his legal wife? Stavrogin leads the holy fool away, rejecting his marriage with her. Intense episodes flash by: the mother’s speech in defense of her son, Pyotr Stepanovich’s denunciation of his father, the expulsion of the old man Verkhovensky from the house of his patroness. It all ends with Shatov slapping Stavrogin. Such an abundance of unheard of disasters reveals the complex character of the hero and determines his future fate.
In "The Teenager" the action is unusually fast, without speeches and without confessions. With Lambert's brazen extortion, Akhmakova's fainting, Versilov's attempted murder of the blackmailer, with an attempt to shoot the heroine, with the hero's sudden madness, a revolver, blood, fights, spitting in the face. This is a whole bunch of criminality and outrages, which should serve as the denouement of a novel about one “random” family.
The Brothers Karamazov combines everything compositional techniques. The novel is built on a sharp contrast of persons and events: on one pole there are moral monsters - Fyodor Pavlovich, Smerdyakov, on the other - the “angels”, Alyosha and Zosima. Skotopigonievsk is opposed by a monastery, the voluptuous person is opposed by a Russian monk. Antithesis remains to the end the main principle of D.’s architectonics.
Meetings of all the heroes take on a new scope here. The meeting in the monastery of the father and sons of Karamazov ends with a scandal in the elder’s cell, and then in the abbot’s refectory, Fyodor Pavlovich quarrels with Dmitry, the atmosphere becomes tense to the limit. But at this moment a sudden turning point occurs - Elder Zosima kneels before Dmitry. This is the transition of a quarrel into drama.
Episode in Mokroye. During the orgy, Grushenka declares her love for Dmitry. The hero is dawning a moral renaissance, but then government officials accuse him of murdering his father.
And finally everyone meets in court. The whole of Russia is watching the process. The orderly flow of the process is immediately interrupted by the speech of Ivan, who declares: That Smerdyakov killed, and he taught him to kill. Ivan is carried out of the hall in a fit, then Katerina, imagining that her beloved Ivan ruined himself with this testimony. He gives the court a letter from Mitya incriminating him. Katerina Ivanovna is carried out in hysterics.
All components of the conclave were observed, but on the scale of all-Russian resonance, tragic vicissitudes and psychological battle.
Regarding the writer’s philosophical views, it should be noted that Dostoevsky saw two ways of human improvement:
1) bloody revolutionary (Raskolnikov, Ivan Karamazov, Pyotr Verkhovensky). This is the path of the abyss, of atheism, Dostoevsky rejects it. Each of these heroes is a man-god, he assigns to himself the function of God, they imagine themselves to be Napoleons (like the Grand Inquisitor in The Brothers Karamazov). This is a destructive path.
2) the path of love. To change the world you must refuse to change the world. It is not society that needs to be changed, but the individual. People must become brothers. The world cannot be invaded with sword and blood; a person must himself come to the need for love, but this is not an easy path. People must bow before God, become a God-man (and not a man-god) through humility and patience.
Many critics and literary scholars paid attention to the study of Dostoevsky’s work.
The first “discovery” of Dostoevsky occurred in the 40s. XIX century, when the writer developed the theme of the “little man”. Belinsky then said that a second Gogol had come to literature. In the 80s XIX century Mikhailovsky noticed that D. has “cruel talent,” he is a brilliant psychopathologist.
In the beginning. 20s XX century (1921 was the 100th anniversary of the birth of D.) Dostoevsky was studied by Bulgakov, Berdyaev, Struev, Merezhkovsky, Volynsky, Rozanov, Vyach. Ivanov, Blok, Bely. It was then that the deep processes of psychology in D.’s work were discovered. They began to talk about him as religious writer, who managed to penetrate the depths of human psychology.
Komarovich, Grossman. Chulkov, Vinogradov, and Tynyanov studied D. as an artist in the historical and literary aspect.
These numerous studies helped to clarify the genesis (origin) and the law of construction of Dostoevsky’s novels, the poetics, technique and style of the writer’s narration were studied, the reader was introduced to aesthetic world novels.
Crime and Punishment (analysis outline)
The novel is written in the form of a confession; the dialogism of the narrative and polyphony are clearly visible. The dialogue is already in the title + the dialogue between two ideas of Rodion Raskolnikov and Sonya Marmeladova.
Vyach. Ivanov called this novel a “tragedy novel.”
The novel consists of 6 parts. 1st part – crime, 5 parts – punishment.
Raskolnikov is the compositional and spiritual center of the novel. Raskolnikov - schism, Rodion - homeland, Romanovich - association with the Romanov dynasty, i.e. we have speaking surnames, which is a sign of classicism, plus 5 unities are observed.
The setting is “the most fantastic city in the world” - Art. Petersburg. Raskolnikov is a typical product of this city, where all ideas from the West found soil.
The principle of contrast is implemented - Raskolnikov commits a crime because of a higher goal, he wants to test himself, conduct an experiment (“Am I a trembling creature or do I have the right”). His theory of two classes of people fails.
Bakhtin called the end of the novel a “monological makeweight.”
Idiot
A novel about the God-man, about the man – Christ. D. tried to create an absolutely wonderful person. D. came to the image of Prince Myshkin through the image of Aley from “Notes from the House of the Dead” and Sonya Marmeladova.
Prince Lev Nikolaevich Myshkin. The surname is telling; it reflects the type of hero in Russian literature, a hero with a sick consciousness. The patronymic name refers to Tolstoy. The scene of action is St. Petersburg, but as an aristocratic city.
The novel also raises the theme of money, usury, and trading. The idea of a “random family” is developing. This is the first attempt to embody the image of a bourgeois-noble family, where family relationships are torn apart and moral degradation reigns.
The characters show ambivalence of consciousness; there is a struggle between the dictates of the heart and the voice of reason.
The idea of fighting against God is expressed in the novel by Ippolit Terentyev (a young man who is sick with consumption). He rebels against God, says that a person is born in sin and is not asked whether he wants to live in this world. Ippolit is sure that when he wants, he will leave this world. But he couldn’t kill himself, but in “Demons” Kirillov will be able to.
The idea of desecrated beauty is embodied in the image of Nastasya Filippovna, who is maintained by the landowner Totsky. (Everyone is in love with her).
The idea of Christ is embodied in Prince Myshkin. The scene of his fraternization with Rogozhin in front of the body of the murdered Nastasya Filippovna is one of the main scenes of the novel; the idea of fraternity is realized in it. The scene described is deeply realistic, according to Dostoevsky.
The problem of a person cut off from his native soil is raised; the question arises of how to return to native land.
Demons
The novel was based on real events. In 1869, student Ivanov was murdered by members of the “People’s Retribution” circle, whose leader was Sergei Nechaev, a revolutionary anarchist who wrote the “Catechism of a Revolutionary,” which states that “our cause is terrible, complete, widespread and merciless destruction.” Nechaev is the embodiment of the ideas of revolutionaries.
Nechaev became the prototype of Peter Verkhovensky, who comes from abroad to organize one of the cells (the so-called five) of the future secret society.
This is a monologue novel. D. criticizes revolutionary activities. Using the example of the activities of Verkhovensky, his “five” and those who - willingly or unwillingly - help them, D. showed the nightmares that the revolutionary movement will lead to: bloody terror, the extermination of millions of innocent people, general surveillance, merciless suppression of dissidents.
Teenager
The main character, Arkady Dolgoruky, chooses a different path to benefit humanity: through persistent accumulation and a hermit’s life he will acquire a huge fortune, enjoy the “solitary and calm consciousness of his strength” and power over the world, and then give his millions to people - let them “distribute”. Arkady himself proudly retired “into the desert.” But the main thing for the hero is not the future gift to people, but namely strength, power and superiority over millions of “ordinary” people. However, under the influence of “living life,” which in the purity of his heart he cannot and does not want to isolate himself from, under the spiritual influence of Elder Makar, Arkady abandons his idea. Those. the power of money can be overcome. For Russian teenagers, denying God is much more dangerous. You can truly accept and love God only by loving people, and those who do not love and despise others will inevitably come to rebel against God.
"Fantastic realism"
Individual style Dostoevsky is largely due to the special nature of this writer’s realism, the main principle of which is the feeling of a different, higher being in real life. It is no coincidence that F.M. himself Dostoevsky defined his work as “fantastic realism.” If, for example, for L.N. For Tolstoy there are no “dark”, “otherworldly” forces in the surrounding reality, then for F.M. Dostoevsky, these forces are real, constantly present in Everyday life anyone, even the simplest, ordinary person. For a writer, it is not so much the events themselves that are depicted that are important, but rather their metaphysical and psychological essence. This explains the symbolism of the scenes and everyday details in his works.
D. believes that in exceptional, unusual situations, the most typical appears. The writer noticed that all his stories were not made up, but taken from somewhere. All these incredible facts are facts from reality, from newspaper chronicles, from hard labor, where Dostoevsky spent a total of 9 years (1850-1859, from 1854-59 he served as a private in Semipalatinsk) and where he was exiled for participating in Petrashevsky’s circle. (The plot of “The Brothers Karamazov” is based on real events related to the trial of the alleged “parricide” of the Omsk prison, Lieutenant Ilyinsky
With topographical accuracy, Dostoevsky recreates the realities of the city where his heroes live and suffer. This journalistic specificity comes from the traditions of the “natural school”. Dostoevsky, internally close to this trend, forever retained a special socialized view of reality and its contradictions. But there was something in the “natural school” that Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky categorically did not accept and considered a harmful delusion. We are talking about the absolutization of the role of the environment, the social factor in the development of the individual. Remember how indignant Razumikhin is with the “socialists”: “They have one explanation for everything: the environment is stuck. Nature is not taken into account, nature is expelled, nature is not relied upon!” Not everything, according to Dostoevsky, is predetermined by environment, position, or upbringing. A person himself is capable of answering for what happens to him, and must answer.
But the absolutization of the role of the environment was not initially inherent in the “natural school”: let us remember how alien such a view was to Gogol. It is to Gogolian realism that Dostoevsky returns the “natural school,” removing the husks of later layers. In general, Dostoevsky’s artistic world is akin to the fantastic reality created by Gogol; Dostoevsky's Petersburg is in many ways Gogol's Petersburg...
In St. Petersburg - modern, present - the houses where Raskolnikov and the old money-lender, Svidrigailov and the family of the unfortunate Marmeladov, born of the writer’s fantasy, lived, those bridges and squares where, as in the scenery, the action of the novel takes place. And you can be sure: the authenticity of the details is extreme; despite all the phantasmagoric nature, the city from “Crime and Punishment” is the Petersburg that you can walk through now. For Dostoevsky needed all the realities of the text to be recognizable, so that the reader was relentlessly haunted by the feeling: here and now, in this city, on this street. And an amazingly powerful effect of participation in what is happening arises.
But at the same time, the author creates a strange, almost incredible atmosphere of half-dream, half-waking, into which the reader plunges after the hero: the sense of reality and its boundaries is lost. Raskolnikov ceases to feel himself and even the “act of eating” seems alien and violent to him. He feels only the beating of his thought, which has become life for him. The world depicted in the novel exists in the inflamed consciousness of a person who has almost lifted himself off the ground and does not feel gravity; before the reader is an extremely subjective picture, passed through Raskolnikov’s oppressed consciousness and serving only as an argument in the dispute that he wages with everyone and with himself.
Petersburg in the novel is not an objective reality, but part of the hero’s inner world. Nothing exists outside the world of his offended soul. Naturally, reality acquires all the features and contradictions of the protagonist’s consciousness and changes as part of his world, moves depending on his state, and even time itself can speed up or slow down its pace. Dostoevsky allows Raskolnikov to plunge to the bottom into the abyss of loneliness, into the infinity of a secret world unknown to anyone.
And one more technique that creates the effect of presence. Here the point is in the author’s peculiar style of narration, where the narrator-chronicler seems to be hidden from the reader. The reader feels his presence, feels that someone’s will is leading him through this fantastic labyrinth of human life, that there is practically no distance between him and what is happening. In addition, the author has almost merged with the hero, trying to see the world through his eyes, to imagine him like this - strangely stopped, as if on the edge of a terrible abyss, where he must inevitably collapse.
The biblical basis of the novel by F.M. Dostoevsky "Crime and Punishment".
Orthodoxy, brought to Rus' back in the 10th century, profoundly influenced the mentality of the Russian people and left an indelible imprint on the Russian soul. And, in addition, Orthodoxy brought with it writing, and therefore literature. Christian influence can be traced in one way or another in the work of any writer. The deepest inner conviction in Christian truths and commandments is carried, in particular, by such a titan of Russian literature as Dostoevsky. His novel “Crime and Punishment” is proof of this.
The writer's attitude towards religious consciousness shocks with its depth. The concepts of sin and virtue, pride and humility, good and evil - this is what interests Dostoevsky. Raskolnikov, the key character of the novel, bears sin and pride. Moreover, sin absorbs not only direct actions, but also hidden thoughts (Raskolnikov is punished even before the crime). Having passed through himself the obviously powerful theory about “Napoleons” and “trembling creatures,” the hero kills the old money-lender, but not so much her as himself. Having followed the path of self-destruction, Raskolnikov nevertheless, with the help of Sonya, finds the key to salvation through suffering, purification and love. As you know, all these concepts are the most important and important in the Christian worldview. People deprived of repentance and love will not know the light, but will see a dark afterlife, terrible in its essence. Thus, Svidrigailov already during his lifetime has a clear idea of the afterlife. He appears before us in the form of a “black bath with spiders and mice” - in the Christian view, this is a picture of hell, for sinners who know neither love nor repentance. Also, when mentioning Svidrigailov, “devil” constantly appears. Svidrigailov is doomed: even the good that he is about to do is in vain (dream about a 5-year-old girl): his good is not accepted, it is too late. A terrible satanic force, the devil, is also pursuing Raskolnikov; at the end of the novel he will say: “The devil led me to commit a crime.” But if Svidrigailov commits suicide (commits the most terrible mortal sin), then Raskolnikov is cleared. The motif of prayer in the novel is also characteristic of Raskolnikov (after a dream he prays for a horse, but his prayers are not heard, and he commits a crime). Sonya, the landlady's daughter (preparing herself for a monastery), and Katerina Ivanovna's children constantly pray. Prayer, an integral part of the Christian, becomes part of the novel. There are also such images and symbols as the cross and the Gospel. Sonya gives Raskolnikov the Gospel that belonged to Lizaveta, and, reading it, he is reborn to life. At first Raskolnikov does not accept Lizaveta’s cross from Sonya, since he is not ready yet, but then he takes it, and again this is associated with spiritual cleansing, rebirth from death to life.
The Christian in the novel is enhanced by numerous analogies and associations with biblical stories. There is a reminiscence from the Bible about Lazarus, a parable that Sonya reads to Raskolnikov on the fourth day after the crime. Moreover, Lazarus from this parable was resurrected precisely on the fourth day. That is, Raskolnikov is spiritually dead these four days and, in fact, lies in a coffin (“coffin” is the hero’s closet), and Sonya came to save him. From the Old Testament the novel contains the parable of Cain, from the New - the parable of the publican and the Pharisee, the parable of the harlot (“if anyone is not sinful, let him be the first to throw a stone at her”), the parable of Martha - a woman who has been focused on vanity and missing the most important thing (Marfa Petrovna, Svidrigailov’s wife, fusses all her life, deprived of the main principle).
Gospel motifs in the names are clearly visible. Kapernaumov is the surname of the man from whom Sonya rented a room, and Mary the Harlot lived near the city of Capernaum. The name “Lizaveta” means “who worships God,” a holy fool. The name of Ilya Petrovich includes Ilya (Ilya the prophet, thunderer) and Peter (hard as a stone). Let us note that it was he who was the very first to suspect Raskolnikov." Katerina is “pure, bright.” Numbers that are symbolic in Christianity are also symbols in “Crime and Punishment.” These are numbers three, seven and eleven. Sonya gives Marmeladov 30 kopecks, the first since she brings 30 rubles “from work”; Martha buys Svidrigailov also for 30, and he, like Judas, betrays her, making an attempt on her life. Svidrigailov offers Duna “up to thirty”, Raskolnikov rings the bell 3 times and the same number of times hits the old woman on the head. Three meetings take place with Porfiry Petrovich. Number seven: at the seventh hour he learns that Lizaveta will not be there, commits a crime “at the seventh hour.” But the number 7 is a symbol of the union of God with man; by committing a crime, Raskolnikov wants to break This union therefore endures torment.In the epilogue: 7 years of hard labor remain, Svidrigailov lived with Marfa for 7 years.
The novel contains the theme of voluntary martyrdom for the sake of repentance, recognition of one’s sins. That is why Mikolka wants to take Raskolnikov’s blame upon himself. But Raskolnikov, led by Sonya, who carries Christian truth and love, comes (albeit through the barrier of doubt) to popular repentance, for, according to Sonya, only popular, open repentance in front of everyone is real. Reproduced the main idea Dostoevsky in this novel: a person must live, be meek, be able to forgive and have compassion, and all this is possible only with the acquisition of true faith. This is a purely Christian starting point, so the novel is tragicomic, a novel-sermon.
Due to Dostoevsky’s talent and deepest inner conviction, Christian thought is fully realized, produces a strong impact on the reader and, as a result, conveys to everyone the Christian idea, the idea of salvation and love.
6. The philosophical beginning in the novel by F.M. Dostoevsky "Crime and Punishment". The relationship between good and evil.
7. The artistic originality of the novel by F.M. Dostoevsky “Crime and Punishment”: internal monologue and dialogue, “magic of numbers”, color, light, dreams, etc.
8. Artistic calendar of the era in the novel by F.M. Dostoevsky "Demons".
9. Demons as an artistic image. Its diversity and artistic embodiment.
10. An unfulfilled plan in the novel “Demons”: Lame Leg, chapter “At Tikhon’s”.
11. The originality of the artistic characterology of the novel by F.M. Dostoevsky "Demons".
12. “Beauty will save the world” (F.M. Dostoevsky’s novel “The Idiot”).
13. The image of a “positively beautiful person” in the novel by F.M. Dostoevsky's "Idiot".
Idiot.1868. In the novel “The Idiot,” D. decided to “portray a positively beautiful person.” Many believe that Prince Myshkin was the embodiment of the image of Christ. But D. did not set himself the task of showing in his work. Humanize. God, but I wanted a show. person, living according to Christ's ideals of self-sacrifice. From the first pages of the novel, the author draws the unusual character of his hero. This is a very open person, he confidentially tells everyone about himself, does not react to insults, tries to prove that between people of different classes there are actually very many points of contact. This worldview was instilled in his childhood. He suffered from mental illness since childhood, but later recovered. He felt himself between life and death. He considered his illness to be spiritual death, and recovery to be the reversal of the sentence. He opposes the entire society presented in the novel. Everyone worships and chases money, but he gives away his inheritance to his enemies and offenders. He has his own ideology - helping the fallen with the help of love. This is exactly what he proves in a small village, showing that one should not hate the fallen Marie, but surround her with his help and love.D. constantly tests his hero, encroaching first on his love, sometimes on his honor. But the prince remains true to himself and his ideals. D. in her work she tries to show the destructive power of human pride. Nastasya Filippovna is trying to do a good deed by uniting the prince and Aglaya. But her letters to Aglaya reveal selfishness and cruelty. She says that Aglaya is an angel, but she owes her happiness to the bad and dirty Nastasya. Thus, she showed immense pride, which destroyed her. It is worth noting that for the prince, the night spent over the heroine’s corpse became a test. He was overcome by spiritual darkness. The hero followed the commandment of the Lord to the end - to lay down his soul for others.” The center of all recklessness, inciting male pride, causing a whole storm of condemnation from the female half, is the victim of evil herself - SF. The best image of an exalted, infernal woman. A victim of crowded fans and cynics. The tragic outcome of her life is inevitable. But only for Myshkin the sacrifice is obvious her nature, he does not take into account at all what others say about her. As he defended Marie, so now does NF. Spoiled life: at the beginning - Totsky, at the end - Rogozhin. Myshkin - the possibility of a happy life, but it doesn’t work out, because .To. loves her not with love, but with pity, and the NF wants her to be valued not for her suffering, but for herself. D. brought out in a parodic tone a group of vulgar progressives led by a certain Burdovsky. He wants to show that the direction of the young minds of the socialist radicals is fruitless. First they blackmailed Myshkin, then they started talking to him about lofty matters.
Elder Zosima is the embodiment of the search for a “positively beautiful” person. Dostoevsky was influenced by his trip to Ambrose Optinsky in Optina Pustyn. Externally, Zosima is similar to Ambrose, and internally, he is similar to Tikhon of Zadonsk. Zosima is distinguished by the beauty of life, faith, and love for people. Zosima is not a portrait of a canonical elder, he is a hero of Dostoevsky. Zosima's teaching about man and the world prevails over the teaching about God. This is a literary image of an old man. Slope in earthly life makes the image of Zosima joyful. It is no coincidence that the religious and philosophical problem of theodicy, which runs through Dostoevsky’s entire work, in the artistic world of The Brothers Karamazov allegorically centers on the name of the Old Testament Job. This biblical character is assessed differently in the theological and philosophical (existential) traditions: as an exponent of long-suffering and desperate questioning of God, Ivan emphasizes Job’s “dispute” with God, his sharp questions, his daring. Elder Zosima thinks differently about Job. He accepts God not as an external force, but as the inner foundation of man. Zosima, who understands the power of religious doubts, is a conscious preacher of Christian principles and the ideology of self-sacrifice, and also a preacher of monasticism in the Russian world. He orders Alyosha, who was thinking of going to a monastery, to transform life through himself, while in the world - in an ordinary human community. But the entire system of voices in the novel leads the reader to the conclusion that the author seeks to discern the true truth about the world in the position of Elder Zosima, his student Alyosha, the “Russian boys” and all those heroes of the novel, genuine Christians who are ready to selflessly serve goodness and brotherly love.
The tragic fate of a woman in the novels of F.M. Dostoevsky (Sonya Marmeladova, Nastasya Filippovna and etc.).
In Dostoevsky's novels we see many women. These women are different. With “Poor People,” the theme of a woman’s fate begins in Dostoevsky’s work. Most often, they are not financially secure, and therefore defenseless. Many of Dostoevsky’s women are humiliated (Alexandra Mikhailovna, with whom Netochka Nezvanova, Netochka’s mother, lived). And women themselves are not always sensitive towards others: Varya is somewhat selfish, the heroine of “White Nights” is unconsciously selfish, there are also simply predatory, evil, heartless women (the princess from “Netochka Nezvanova”). He does not ground them or idealize them. The only women Dostoevsky does not have are happy ones. But there are no happy men either. No and happy families. Dostoevsky's works expose the difficult life of all those who are honest, kind, and warm-hearted.
In Dostoevsky's works, all women are divided into two groups: women of calculation and women of feeling. In “Crime and Punishment” we have a whole gallery of Russian women: the prostitute Sonya, Katerina Ivanovna and Alena Ivanovna killed by life, Lizaveta Ivanovna killed with an ax.
The image of Sonya has two interpretations: traditional and new, given by V. Ya. Kirpotin. According to the first, the heroine embodies Christian ideas, according to the second, she is a bearer folk morality. Embodied in Sonya folk character in her undeveloped “childish” stage, and the path of suffering forces her to evolve according to the traditional religious scheme - towards the holy fool - it is not for nothing that she is so often compared with Lizaveta.
Sonya, who in her short life had already endured all imaginable and unimaginable suffering and humiliation, managed to maintain moral purity, clarity of mind and heart. No wonder Raskolnikov bows to Sonya, saying that he bows to all human grief and suffering. Her image absorbed all the world's injustice, the world's sorrow. Sonechka speaks on behalf of all the “humiliated and insulted.” It was precisely such a girl, with such a life story, with such an understanding of the world, who was chosen by Dostoevsky to save and purify Raskolnikov.
Her inner spiritual core, which helps preserve moral beauty, and her boundless faith in goodness and in God amaze Raskolnikov and make him think for the first time about the moral side of his thoughts and actions.
But along with her saving mission, Sonya is also a “punishment” for the rebel, constantly reminding him with her entire existence of what she has done. “Is it really possible that a person is a louse?!” - these words of Marmeladova planted the first seeds of doubt in Raskolnikov. It was Sonya, who, according to the writer, embodied the Christian ideal of goodness, could withstand and win the confrontation with the anti-human idea of Rodion. She fought with all her heart to save his soul. Even when at first Raskolnikov avoided her in exile, Sonya remained faithful to her duty, her belief in purification through suffering. Faith in God was her only support; it is possible that this image embodied the spiritual quest of Dostoevsky himself.
Thus, in the novel “Crime and Punishment” the author assigns one of the main places to the image of Sonechka Marmeladova, who embodies both world grief and divine, unshakable faith in the power of good. Dostoevsky, on behalf of the “eternal Sonechka,” preaches the ideas of kindness and compassion, which constitute the unshakable foundations of human existence.
In “The Idiot” the woman of calculation is Varya Ivolgina. But the main focus here is on two women: Aglaya and Nastasya Filippovna. They have something in common, and at the same time they are different from each other. Myshkin believes that Aglaya is “extremely” good-looking, “almost like Nastasya Filippovna, although her face is completely different.” In general, they are beautiful, each with their own face. Aglaya is beautiful, smart, proud, pays little attention to the opinions of others, and is dissatisfied with the way of life in her family. Nastasya Filippovna is different. Of course, this is also a restless, rushing woman. But her tossing is dominated by submission to fate, which is unfair to her. The heroine, following others, convinced herself that she was a fallen, low woman. Being captive of popular morality, she even calls herself a street person, wants to appear worse than she is, and behaves eccentrically. Nastasya Filippovna is a woman of feeling. But she is no longer capable of love. Her feelings have burned out, and she loves “only her shame.” Nastasya Filippovna has beauty, with the help of which you can “turn the world upside down.” Hearing about this, she says: “But I gave up the world.” She could, but she doesn't want to. Around her there is a “commotion” in the houses of the Ivolgins, Epanchins, Trotsky, she is pursued by Rogozhin, who competes with Prince Myshkin. But she's had enough. She knows the value of this world and therefore refuses it. For in the world she meets people either higher or lower than her. She doesn’t want to be with either one or the other. She, in her understanding, is unworthy of the former, and the latter are unworthy of her. She refuses Myshkin and goes with Rogozhin. This is not the end yet. She will rush between Myshkin and Rogozhin until she dies under the latter’s knife. Her beauty did not change the world. “The world has ruined beauty.”
Sofia Andreevna Dolgorukaya, Versilov’s common-law wife, mother of the “teenager,” is a highly positive female image created by Dostoevsky. The main quality of her character is feminine meekness and therefore “insecurity” against the demands placed on her. In the family, she devotes all her strength to caring for her husband, Versilov, and her children. It doesn’t even occur to her to protect herself from the demands of her husband and children, from their injustice, their ungrateful inattention to her concerns about their comfort. Complete self-oblivion is characteristic of her. In contrast to the proud, proud and vindictive Nastasya Filippovna, Grushenka, Ekaterina Ivanovna, Aglaya, Sofia Andreevna is humility incarnate. Versilov says that she is characterized by “humility, irresponsibility” and even “humiliation,” referring to Sofia Andreevna’s origins from the common people.
What was sacred for Sofia Andreevna, for which she would be willing to endure and suffer? What was holy for her was that highest thing that the Church recognizes as holy - without the ability to express church faith in judgments, but having it in her soul, holistically embodied in the image of Christ. She expresses her beliefs, as is typical of ordinary people, in short, specific statements.
Firm faith in the all-encompassing love of God and in Providence, thanks to which there are no meaningless accidents in life, is the source of Sofia Andreevna’s strength. Her strength is not Stavrogin’s proud self-affirmation, but her unselfish, unchanging attachment to what is truly valuable. Therefore, her eyes, “rather large and open, always shone with a quiet and calm light”; the expression on her face “would even be cheerful if she didn’t worry often.” The face is very attractive. In the life of Sofia Andreevna, so close to holiness, there was a grave guilt: six months after her wedding with Makar Ivanovich Dolgoruky, she became interested in Versilov, surrendered to him and became his common-law wife. Guilt always remains guilt, but when condemning it, one must take into account mitigating circumstances. Getting married as an eighteen-year-old girl, she did not know what love was, fulfilling her father’s will, and walked down the aisle so calmly that Tatyana Pavlovna “called her a fish then.”
In life, each of us meets holy people, whose modest asceticism is invisible to outsiders and is not sufficiently appreciated by us; however, without them, the bonds between people would fall apart and life would become unbearable. Sofia Andreevna belongs precisely to the number of such uncanonized saints. Using the example of Sofia Andreevna Dolgorukaya, we found out what kind of woman Dostoevsky had feelings for.
“Demons” depicts the image of Dasha Shatova, ready for self-sacrifice, as well as the proud, but somewhat cold Liza Tushina. In fact, there is nothing new in these images. This has already happened. The image of Maria Lebyadkina is not new either. A quiet, affectionate dreamer, a semi-or completely crazy woman. New in something else. For the first time, Dostoevsky brought out the image of an anti-woman here with such completeness. Here Maye Shatova arrives from the west. She knows how to juggle words from the dictionary of deniers, but she has forgotten that the first role of a woman is to be a mother. The following stroke is characteristic. Before giving birth, Maye says to Shatov: “It has begun.” Not understanding, he clarifies: “What started?” Answer to Maya: “How should I know? Do I really know anything here?” A woman knows what she might not know, and does not know what she simply cannot not know. She has forgotten her job and is doing someone else's. Before giving birth, with the great mystery of the appearance of a new creature, this woman shouts: “Oh, damn everything in advance!”
Another anti-woman is not a woman in labor, but a midwife, Arina Virginskaya. For her, the birth of a person is the further development of the organism. In Virginskaya, however, the feminine has not completely died. So, after a year of living with her husband, she gives herself to Captain Lebyadkin. Has the feminine won? No. I gave up because of a principle I read from books. This is how the narrator says about her, Virginsky’s wife: his wife, and all the ladies, were of the latest convictions, but it all came out somewhat rudely to them, it was here that there was “an idea that found its way onto the street,” as Stepan once put it Trofimovich has a different point. They all took books and, according to the first rumor from the progressive corners of our capital, they were ready to throw anything out the window, as long as they were advised to throw it away. Here, too, during Maya’s birth, this anti-woman, apparently having learned from the book that children should be raised by anyone other than their mother, tells her: “Yes, and tomorrow I’ll send you the child to an orphanage, and then to the village to be raised, that's the end of it. And then you get better and get to work doing reasonable work.”
These were women who were sharply contrasted with Sofia Andreevna and Sonechka Marmeladova.
All Dostoevsky's women are somewhat similar to each other. But in each subsequent work, Dostoevsky adds new features to the images already known to us.
This work is devoted to the problem of forming the tradition of fantastic realism in the works of F.M. Dostoevsky, defining the meaning and scope of this term, considering the main features of the writer’s creative method and highlighting this problem in critical and research literature.
The question of what creative method F.M. followed. Dostoevsky, still remains unresolved. Contemporary criticism of Dostoevsky excluded him from the sphere of realism, denying him artistry and even psychologism: the author “does not know how to catch and describe the character’s soul in its objective manifestations” Markov E. Critical conversations // Russian Speech, 1879, No. 12.p. 269. In addition, researchers, including N. Strakhov, noted the lack of substantive details characteristic of the realistic method. They compared Dostoevsky's novels with Russian and Western European prose. Novels by O. Balzac, G. Flaubert, I.S. Turgeneva, L.N. Tolstoy were full of everyday life, their heroes were recognizable, “implanted” into the real course of life, while in Dostoevsky the details are sporadic, and they serve not so much to revive the picture and the character, but to something else, acting as an independent semantic element, significant for the entire artistic integrity of the work (Raskolnikov’s ax or a knife with deer handles in “The Idiot”), or enhancing the emotional tone of the episode (Katerina Ivanovna’s scarf and stockings, which Marmeladov drank away).
In this regard, they argued that Dostoevsky is nothing more than a romantic (or partly a romantic), arguing that the action in his works does not develop slowly and calmly, unlike the novels of Turgenev and Tolstoy, but “is accomplished feverishly, zigzag... unexpectedly for the characters" Friedlander G. M. Dostoevsky's realism. M.-L., 1964. p. 126, in that the central characters of the novel and their actions for a long time remain a mystery to the reader, and, finally, by the fact that “fantastic”, “fatal” passions and crimes are brought to the center stage, which is very typical for romantic novelists. Dostoevsky commented on such statements as follows: “I have completely different concepts about reality and realism than our realists and critics. My idealism is more real than theirs. Lord! Tell me sensibly what we all, Russians, have experienced in the last 10 years in our spiritual development , - but won’t the realists shout that this is a fantasy! And yet this is primordial, real realism!<…>Their realism cannot explain a hundredth part of real, happened facts. And we even prophesied facts with our idealism. It happened!" Letter to A.N. Maikov from Florence, December 11/23, 1868, A. 28(II). p. 329 One way or another, most literary scholars still classified Dostoevsky’s work as realistic method, although noting the “specialness” of his realism. To determine the originality of the writer’s work, researchers even introduced new terminology: “ideal - realism” (Vyacheslav Ivanov), “Experimental” or “experimental realism” (D.N. Ovsyaniko - Kulikovsky) and, finally, “fantastic realism”. In our work we will use this term.
The question of the meaning and scope of this concept is currently debatable in scientific literature. No researcher can give a clear, complete definition of this concept. The current situation is largely explained by the contradictory nature of the term itself. It itself contains an antithesis. If you turn to the dictionaries of Ozhegov, Dahl, the Literary Encyclopedic Dictionary, the Great Encyclopedic Dictionary, you will notice that when explaining the word “fantastic” they use definitions such as “unreal”, “surreal” or “supernatural”. It follows that the meaning of the word “fantastic” in this usage here has a completely special, individual meaning. Apparently, it was this discrepancy that caused such different interpretations of the term fantastic realism in critical and research literature. A conversation about different views on this problem should begin with the words of F.M. himself. Dostoevsky: “I have my own special view of reality (in art), and what most call almost fantastic and exceptional, for me sometimes constitutes the very essence of reality<…>Isn’t my fantastic “Idiot” reality, and even the most ordinary one!” Letter to N.N. Strakhov from Florence, February 26/March 10, 1869, A. 29 (I). p. 19. F. M. Dostoevsky denies the fantastic nature of his realism - in the Diary of a Writer (1873, “Something about Lies”) he writes: “In Russia, truth almost always has a completely fantastic character.” It is this idea that Malcolm Jones develops in his book “Dostoevsky after Bakhtin.” He writes about that sometimes the essence of the real must be sought in the fantastic and exceptional: “In Russia, the fantastic is often not an exception at all (in the sense of rarity), but a common occurrence. As soon as people break away from their native traditions (soil), they become more fantastic, and the depths of the human soul become easier to discern." Dostoevsky F. M. Something about lies // Writer's Diary 1873, 15. A. 21. p. 119. Exploring fantastic realism of Dostoevsky, Jones identifies several key features characteristic of this direction. The author notes, firstly, the closeness of Dostoevsky's fantastic realism to espressivism, which lies in the fact that the essence of each organism, according to Dostoevsky, lies deep in the unconscious spiritual life, and in the fact that the author looks at feelings as a form of awareness; secondly, the abnormal, extreme, romantic-melodramatic situations characteristic of Dostoevsky’s novels, a special place in the dreams and visions of the heroes, which often provide access to reality. Frequent “balancing” of characters on the verge of life and death, special position the narrator, disorienting the reader, confusing him, the state of mental darkness, the emotional impulses of an individual - all this characterizes the features of the writer’s creative method.
V.G. Odinokov gives a very clear and concise definition of fantastic realism: the combination of two worlds (material, petty, random and the spiritual, eternal world) creates a new aesthetic “quality”, which in terms of artistic method can be called “realism in the highest sense” or “fantastic realism” , combining the real and the ideal and creating a third “unobservable reality” Odinokov V. G. Russian writers of the 19th century and spiritual culture. Novosibirsk, 2003. p. 166, in the artistic atmosphere of which the idea of eternity is embodied. Thus, Dostoevsky, with topographical accuracy, recreates the realities of the city where his heroes live and suffer; Arriving in St. Petersburg, you can see the houses where Raskolnikov, the old pawnbroker and the Marmeladov family lived, the bridges and squares described in the novel, and make sure that the accuracy of the details is extreme. But at the same time, the author creates a strange, almost incredible atmosphere of “half-asleep - half-awake”, into which the reader plunges after the hero. Both the hero and the reader lose their sense of reality and its boundaries. The world depicted in the novel exists in the inflamed consciousness of a man who has almost lifted himself off the ground. Thus, we are presented with an extremely subjective picture, passed through the oppressed consciousness of the hero.
Despite the fact that Dostoevsky was the greatest representative this direction, he was not its creator. K. Mochulsky notes: “It cannot be denied that all great Russian literature came from under a cloak - from under Gogol’s “The Overcoat.” Without Gogol, perhaps there would have been balance, an anthology, well-being: the endlessly lasting Maikov, and behind him infertility ; after Gogol, “complete trouble,” world scope and world fame” Mochulsky K. Gogol. Soloviev. Dostoevsky. M., 1995. p. 37. IN " mystical realism" Gogol is the basis of his worldview. It is somewhat akin to the Middle Ages: “an unhappy human consciousness hanging between two abysses - the abyss of the world, owned by the devil, and the abyss of the soul, corrupted by conscious and unconscious sins. Below is the flame of hell, above is the incorruptible Judge” Mochulsky K. Gogol. Soloviev. Dostoevsky. M., 1995. p. 31. The motif of God and the Devil is constantly repeated in Gogol’s letters and works. For example, in a letter to Yazykov, Gogol writes that illness should be looked at as a battle with the Devil, a motive of good and evil: “I have contained within me a collection of all possible nasty things, a little of each, and in such a multitude that I have never encountered before not in a single person... If... they had opened suddenly and all at once before my eyes... I would have hanged myself... Since then, I began to endow my heroes, in addition to their own disgusting things, with my own rubbish... If only someone had seen those monsters that came out of- under my pen... he would definitely shudder" Gogol N.V.. Selected passages from correspondence with friends. Four letters to different persons regarding “Dead Souls”. Third letter // Collected works in eight volumes. M., 1984. Volume 7. p. 261. Very often in his works the boundaries between fantasy and reality are blurred, thereby creating a second, parallel reality, coexisting with the one we are used to seeing (“Overcoat”, “Nose”, “Portrait”). All of Gogol’s internal struggles and internal contradictions were directly reflected in his works, especially in his main novel “Dead Souls”. And in conclusion, I would like to quote the words of K. Mochulsky, characterizing the contribution of N.V. Gogol into Russian literature: “With his hysteria, his foolishness, his “sacred madness,” he broke the harmony of classicism, disrupted the aesthetic balance miraculously achieved by Pushkin, mixed everything up, confused everything, muddied it up; he picked up Russian literature like a whirlwind and rushed it to unknown distances. turned out to be the Russian cosmos; chaos, shackled by Pushkin's galaxy, reigned again. After Gogol's heartbreaking "spiritual cry" in Russian literature, "sweet sounds and prayers" became impossible in Russian literature" Mochulsky K. Gogol. Solovyov. Dostoevsky. M., 1995. p. 37
Thus, we examined the origins of Dostoevsky’s realism, the coverage of this problem in criticism, and decided on the scope of the concept “fantastic realism.” The next part of our work will be devoted to the analysis of Dostoevsky’s novels in order to prove and demonstrate, using specific examples, all the features listed above.
As mentioned above, F.M. Dostoevsky was one of the first creators of such a movement as fantastic realism; his experience in many ways served as an example for realists of the 20th century. The peculiarity of his realism lies in the fact that the writer creates in his works a new, “unobservable”, kind of absurd reality that exists according to its own laws in order to highlight and most truthfully depict reality against its background. Dostoevsky achieves this with the help of details more typical of fantastic literature. This is a violation of the natural proportions and shapes of the depicted objects, and incredible plot structures, many intertwining narrative lines, and the special role of images and symbols in the work, and a violation of real connections and patterns, the grotesqueness of situations and characters. The most sustainable method for losing the boundaries of the fantastic and the real are dreams, rumors, hallucinations, and the madness of the heroes. In addition, the “idea” and its influence on the fate of the heroes play a huge role in Dostoevsky’s realism.
Of course, fantastic realism in Dostoevsky’s work did not take shape immediately. Back in the forties, he adhered to the tradition of the natural school, so his earlier works, such as “Poor People”, “Netochka Nezvanova”, “Double” are more specific, down-to-earth and even naturalistic. Later, the time spent in the fortress, in penal servitude, forced Dostoevsky to reconsider his views; it was there that many ideas were born that were later embodied in his work. “Crime and Punishment” became a kind of turning point in the writer’s creative path. This is a new stage that marked Dostoevsky’s departure from the traditions of the natural school and the transition to a new method of fantastic realism. In this book, the writer depicts the everyday, everyday life of a bourgeois city, which gives rise not only to material poverty and lawlessness, but also “sows” in the brains of the novel’s heroes various kinds of “fantastic” ideas and ideological illusions, no less oppressive, oppressive and nightmarish than the external side of life in the capital. Dostoevsky's attention to this more complex, "fantastic" side of the life of a big city allowed him to combine in "Crime and Punishment" and in his subsequent novels meager and accurate pictures of everyday, "prosaic", everyday reality with such a deep sense of its social tragedy, such the philosophical scale of the images and the power of penetration into the souls of the heroes. The author recreates in great detail the realities of St. Petersburg and its influence on the hero of the novel, Rodion Raskolnikov: “The heat on the street was terrible, and also stuffy, crowded, there was lime everywhere, forests, bricks, dust and that special summer stench, so known to every St. Petersburger - everything This immediately unpleasantly shocked the already upset nerves of the young man. The unbearable stench from the drinking establishments, of which there are especially many in this part of the city, and the drunks who were constantly encountered, despite the weekday time, completed the disgusting and sad coloring of the picture. A feeling of deepest disgust flashed for a moment in fine lines young man<…>. But so much malicious contempt had already accumulated in the young man’s soul that he<…>least of all ashamed of his rags" Dostoevsky F. M. Crime and Punishment. M., 1973. p. 40. For Dostoevsky, such smallest, almost naturalistic details are very important, because it is precisely the atmosphere of a stuffy, drunken tavern, a room resembling a coffin, dirty , the stinking streets of St. Petersburg, and an absolutely monstrous, anti-humanistic and almost “fantastic” idea is formed in the head of Raskolnikov (an unusually kind, loving son and brother, capable of giving his last money to the family of a person he barely knew and taking a very active part in the fate of a girl he accidentally met). , disgusting and low, has as accomplices the slums, basements, taverns and brothels of the capital. It seems that the poisonous fumes of the big city, its infected and feverish breath, have penetrated the brain of the poor student. Drunkenness, poverty, vice, hatred, malice, debauchery - the whole dark bottom of St. Petersburg leads the murderer to the victim's house." Mochulsky K. Gogol. Solovyov. Dostoevsky. M., 1995. p. 362 One gets the impression that Raskolnikov found himself in a dead end, everywhere he is surrounded by disgusting pictures of metropolitan life. The situation of the crime, the quarter and the house in which the pawnbroker lives, evokes in the hero no less “disgust” than his “ugly dream.” He goes to make a test along the stuffy and dirty streets of St. Petersburg, approaches the old woman’s house , with one wall facing the ditch: “It stood entirely in small apartments and was filled with all sorts of industrialists - tailors, mechanics, cooks, various Germans, girls living on their own, petty officials, etc. "Dostoevsky F.M. Crime and Punishment. M., 1973. p. 42. After the “test” Raskolnikov exclaims: “Oh God! How disgusting all this is." Dostoevsky F. M. Crime and Punishment. M., 1973. p. 45 He is overcome by a feeling of endless disgust and melancholy. Sennaya Square with its girls and drunkards and the idea of crime are two images of the same state of mind. Another example “the embodiment of the spirit and the spiritualization of matter” Mochulsky K. Gogol. Solovyov. Dostoevsky. M., 1995. p. 362 - this is a description of Raskolnikov’s room: “It was a tiny cell, six steps long, which had the most pitiful appearance with its yellow, dusty and everywhere there was wallpaper peeling off the wall, and so low that it was barely tall man it became creepy in there, and it seemed as if you were about to hit your head on the ceiling. "Dostoevsky F.M. Crime and Punishment. M., 1973. p. 63 The author compares this room with a closet, a chest and a coffin. This is the material shell of Raskolnikov’s “idea”.
Other important feature Dostoevsky’s fantastic realism is a shift in the boundaries of the real and the fantastic, the impossibility at times of separating reality from “dreams, fantasies, half-asleep states, letters, articles, books, theories, true, false and distorted statements, Holy Scripture, conflicting and dissonant voices of others, all echoes..." Jones M. Dostoevsky after Bakhtin. St. Petersburg. 1998. p. 102 In Crime and Punishment, a very important role is given to dreams, visions, painful hallucinations of the heroes. The first dream, about the beating old nag, Raskolnikov sees on the eve of the murder. In this dream, all the hero’s compassion, all his pain and horror of the world’s evil are concentrated. Mikolka hits the horse in the eyes with shafts, finishing it off with a crowbar. The hero sees himself as a child: “He is crying. His heart rises, tears flow... with a cry, he makes his way through the crowd to Savraska, covers her dead, bloody muzzle and kisses her, kisses her on the eyes, on the lips." Dostoevsky F. M. Crime and Punishment. M., 1973. p. 93 A mystical horror of the crime covers him. He realizes that he will kill like Mikolka... sticky, warm blood will flow. After this dream, Raskolnikov renounces his plan: “Lord! After all, I still won’t make up my mind. Lord, show me my path, and I will renounce this damned... dream of mine." Ibid. p. 94 All the other dreams and visions of the hero are so closely and inextricably intertwined with reality that neither the hero himself nor the reader until the last moment know whether this is really happening or whether it is born in Raskolnikov’s inflamed brain. From the moment of the test, the hero was not himself, he was sick, nightmares and suspicions haunted him everywhere. His fears began to take unusual forms. The morning after the murder, Raskolnikov “woke up in complete twilight from a terrible scream... In horror, he rose up and sat down on his bed, freezing and suffering every moment. But the fighting, screaming and swearing became stronger and stronger<…>But no, he hears too clearly! But, therefore, they will come to him now, if so, “because... it’s true that all this is from the same thing... because of yesterday... Lord!” He wanted to lock the key, but his hand did not rise..." Ibid. p. 145, only from Nastasya’s surprised reaction Raskolnikov understands that all this was just a bad dream or a figment of his imagination. Panic fear, illness, disappointment in himself - all this led him to a mental crisis that ended in a terrible dream. This state of Raskolnikov is perceived as a monstrous, fantastic reality: “He forgot himself, it seemed strange to him that he did not remember how he found himself on the street.” Ibid. With. 298 and only when the situation takes the most incredible turn, the reader understands that it was just a dream: “he wanted to scream and woke up.” Right there. With. 299 Raskolnikov dreams that he hits the old woman on the crown of the head with an ax, and she bows her head and “bursts into quiet, inaudible laughter” Dostoevsky F. M. Crime and Punishment. M., 1973. p. 299. The victim laughs at the killer: she is alive. He hits her again and again, but she only laughs harder. “She cannot be killed: she is immortal. This is also how Raskolnikov recently said goodbye to her forever: “Enough, mother, it’s time to rest!”, and now all the people around him are like dead people, and the dead one is alive. He cut himself off from the living<…>, and he cannot part with her: forever connected... by blood." Mochulsky K. Gogol. Solovyov. Dostoevsky. M., 1995. p. 370. He wakes up from a terrible dream: Svidrigailov is standing in front of him. “Is this really a continuation of the dream?” - Raskolnikov thinks when he sees the guest. Svidrigailov is the same Raskolnikov, but already freed from all prejudices. He embodies one of the possibilities of the hero’s fate. “We are birds of a feather.” F. M. Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment. M., 1973. p. 310, he says to Raskolnikov. They follow the same path, but Svidrigailov is freer and bolder, he reaches the end. He is a voluptuous man; he has terrible crimes on his conscience: the murder of his wife, the suicide of his servant Philip and the fourteen-year-old girl he insulted. “Svidrigailov is placed next to Raskolnikov as his dark double; it is generated by the hero’s nightmare, comes out of his sleep. The hero asks Razumikhin: “Did you really see him - did you see him clearly? Hm... that’s it. And you know, I thought, it still seems to me that this might be a fantasy.” Likewise, Ivan Karamazov, after a nightmare, asks Alyosha if he saw his visitor. Svidrigailov is Raskolnikov’s “devil” Mochulsky K. Gogol. Solovyov. Dostoevsky. M., 1995. p. 370. This hero goes further than anyone: he steps over other people’s lives, he also steps over own life, that is, it fully corresponds to Raskolnikov’s idea of strong personalities. But instead of the expected triumph of the idea, in the dislocated world of Svidrigailov it suffers a complete collapse. "Arithmetic", according to which you can kill one harmful old woman, and then, having done a hundred good deeds, atone for this sin, is refuted by Svidrigailov's experiments: on his account good deeds more than all the heroes of the novel, but, firstly, all the good he has done cannot in any way justify the crimes of the past, and, secondly, it is not capable of reviving his sick soul. The conscience, driven into the subconscious, is eventually released and bursts into the sphere of the conscious, giving rise to suffocating nightmares in which reality and unreality fantastically continue in each other and merge into a single continuous hallucination. Already on his first visit, Svidrigailov tells Raskolnikov that his late wife and his servant Filka are visiting him. The last night in Svidrigailov’s life was nightmarish and painful. "A Nightmare All Night" Dostoevsky F. M. Crime and Punishment. M., 1973. p. 522, he thought when he woke up. That night, after the final refusal of Dunya, who was his last hope for spiritual rebirth, his conscience finally burst out. She haunted him either in the form of an annoying mouse, which could not be gotten rid of, then in the form of a five-year-old girl with a sly and depraved look, and, finally, as a drowned woman with wet hair lying in a coffin, ruined by him.
Dreams and visions of the heroes are very important for Dostoevsky’s fantastic realism, often difficult to separate from reality; they seem to open the door to another world. The key words, in my opinion, are uttered by Svidrigailov: “ghosts,” he says, “are scraps and fragments of other worlds, their beginning. A healthy person, of course, has no need to see them, because healthy man there is the most earthly person, and therefore, he must live only this life, for completeness and for order. Well, the moment you get sick, the normal earthly order in the body is slightly disrupted, the possibility of another world immediately begins to take its toll, and the more sick you are, the more contacts with another world there are, so that when a completely human person dies, he will directly pass on to another world.” Dostoevsky F. M. Crime and punishment. M., 1973. p. 309
It is very important to note the role of symbols in Dostoevsky’s work, which are an integral part of his realism. Everyday details are not so frequent in Dostoevsky and they do not serve to authenticate the realities described, but carry a special semantic load. The natural and material world does not have an independent existence in Dostoevsky; it is completely humanized and spiritualized. “The environment is always shown in the refraction of consciousness, as its function. The room where a person lives is the landscape of his soul” Mochulsky K. Gogol. Soloviev. Dostoevsky. M., 1995. p. 363.
Raskolnikov's room - a coffin, a "yellow closet", symbolizes demonic, envious isolation; the old woman's apartment is a neat spider's web; Sonya's room is an ugly barn. Sonya’s mutilated fate is symbolized by an uninhabited room with ugly corners. Thus, Raskolnikov, disconnected from the world, lives in a cramped coffin. Sonya, on the contrary, faces the world - in a room with three windows.
The smallest details are scattered throughout the text, having their own special symbolic meaning. The symbolism of numbers is very important for Dostoevsky. S.V. Belov notes the symbolic meaning of the number 4 (The victim’s apartment is on the 4th floor, Raskolnikov hides stolen things in the courtyard where a four-story house is being built, Marmeladov’s room is on the 4th floor, the police office is on the 4th floor and Raskolnikov heads to the 4th room; after the crime, Raskolnikov 4 he is delirious for days, in the story of the resurrection of Lazarus, he was dead for 4 days, this story is dedicated to the 4th gospel, Raskolnikov sees 4 dreams). This four-member vertical structure is semantically associated with the motives of narrowness, horror, violence, and poverty. Belov S.V. Roman F.M. Dostoevsky “Crime and Punishment.” A comment. M., 1984. p. 51 The symbolism of Dostoevsky’s numbers goes back to folklore and biblical number symbolism; therefore, a significant place in the novel is given to the numbers “3”, “7”, “11”. The number three is very common in the novel (Marfa Petrovna left Duna 3 thousand rubles, Sonya gives Marmeladov 30 kopecks, Katerina Ivanovna 30 rubles, Marfa Petrovna bought Svidrigailov for 30 thousand Serebrenikov, Svidrigailov offered Duna 30 thousand, Raskolnikov rang the bell 3 times, 3 hit her on the head 3 times, Raskolnikov meets with Porfiry Petrovich 3 times, Dunya shoots three steps away, Svidrigailov hands Sonya 3 tickets, Razumikhin waits 3 hours for Raskolnikova, Marfa Petrovna appears to Svidrigailov 3 times, etc.). It is also no coincidence that the number “7” is often used. The novel itself consists of 7 parts (6 parts and an epilogue), the first two chapters consist of 7 chapters each, the fatal time for Raskolnikov is 7 pm, the number 7 literally haunts Raskolnikov. The number 7 is considered the number of holiness, health and intelligence. Theologians call the number 7 the “truly holy number,” since the number 7 is a combination of the number 3, symbolizing divine perfection, and the number 4, the number of world order. Thus, the number 7 itself is a symbol of the “union” of God with man. Belov S.V. Roman F.M. Dostoevsky “Crime and Punishment.” A comment. M., 1984. p. 96
In addition to the symbolism of numbers, something should be said about the symbolism of color in Crime and Punishment. As noted by S.M. Soloviev, the novel has a fantastic yellow background. The yellow color itself creates, evokes, and complements the atmosphere of ill health, disorder, anguish, pain, and sadness. The color itself is dirty - yellow, sad - yellow, painful - yellow evokes a feeling of internal oppression, psychological instability, and general depression. Solovyov S. M. Visual media in the works of F. M. Dostoevsky. M., 1979. p. 439
Thus, having examined “Crime and Punishment” from the point of view of Dostoevsky’s “special realism,” we can say with confidence that this novel fully fits the definition of fantastic realism given above. In the novel we have highlighted almost all the main features of this direction. This is the fundamental role of a fantastic idea in the fate of the hero, and the imagery and symbolism of many details, and the atmosphere of half-dream - half-reality masterfully created by the author, the painful state of the hero, and many intertwining storylines, etc.
Many realists of the 19th century set themselves the task of creating an image of a positive hero who would organically combine the real, vital and high, ideal, moral principles. The novel “The Idiot” was the fulfillment of Dostoevsky’s dream: to create the image of an individualized, living and at the same time “positively beautiful” person.
The novel develops two narrative plans in parallel. The first is social: in the center are two general families - the Ivolgins and the Epanchins, standing at different levels of the social ladder. Depicting these families, “Dostoevsky shows those processes of social and moral degradation, the growth of bourgeois wealth of some and the impoverishment of others, the destruction of the “pretty” of the noble family” Friedlander G.M. Realism of Dostoevsky. M. - L. 1964. p. 225. In parallel with it, there is a religious plan, the center of which is Prince Myshkin.
From the first pages, the prince appears before the reader as a person opposing the other hero of the novel. He combines naivety and the highest internal harmony. Dostoevsky, by his own admission, considered Christ to be the ideal prototype of such a harmonious personality. Developing the image of his hero, Dostoevsky sought to embody in him some of the features of that ideal of a harmonious, human personality, the expression of which, in his opinion, was Christ. Wanting to create an image of a “normal” ideal person, Dostoevsky isolates him from the influence of society, transferring the prince during the years of formation of his character to Switzerland, into an environment of semi-wild, untouched nature, introducing him to the life of children and peasants.
The suffering experienced by Myshkin, who remained an orphan, weak-minded, abandoned child in childhood, according to Dostoevsky, alienated him from the noble environment and thereby sharpened his sensitivity to the suffering of others. His ability to understand the suffering of other people and sympathize with them. This responsiveness of Myshkin, his ability to sensitively respond to the grief of every person, his selfless, brotherly attitude towards all people - regardless of class and property differences - constitutes the strongest and most attractive side of the image created by Dostoevsky, his charm.
The “two-dimensionality” of the novel’s action is emphasized by the fact that major events Dostoevsky shows it as if in double perception. For example, the prince’s perception of Nastasya Filippovna’s beauty is sharply contrasted in the novel with the perception of her by those around her. So, General Epanchina examines the portrait with a “tinge of disdain” and casually remarks that she is “good, very good indeed.” F. M. Dostoevsky Idiot. Novosibirsk 1980. p. 81, and her daughters see in him an expression of self-confidence and imperious beauty: “Such beauty is strength, with such beauty you can turn the world upside down!” Ibid.p.82 The prince in the person of Nastasya Filippovna reads “pride and contempt, almost hatred, ... and at the same time something trusting, something amazing and simple-minded” Ibid.p.81. “In this face... there is a lot of suffering...” says the prince, just looking at her portrait. Only he sees in this woman a wonderful person, endowed with enormous spiritual wealth, but at the same time humiliated, desecrated and suffering from his own baseness: “Oh, don’t disgrace her, don’t throw a stone. She has tormented herself too much with the consciousness of her undeserved shame!” Ibid.s. 383, while the rest of the novel's characters consider her a fallen woman, "unscrupulous" and unworthy. The Ivolgin family doesn’t even want to hear about her engagement to Ganya. The general declares: “This woman will be brought into the house where my daughter is and where my wife is! But as long as I live, she will not enter! I will lie down on the threshold and let her step over me!” Ibid.s. 97, Varya calls her shameless. They all perceive her words and actions through the prism of everyday norms of society and take them for a manifestation of irritated and painful pride, but the true tragic meaning of Nastasya Filippovna’s experiences, her internal suffering and spiritual duality during her visit to the Ivolgins are understandable only to Myshkin.
Also “two-dimensional” is the prince’s acquaintance with Rogozhin, which is both an everyday episode and the beginning of the future tragic collision between the two named brothers, whose brotherhood and enmity symbolize the relations between people in the society that Dostoevsky portrays.
In the carriage, random companions - Rogozhin and Lebedev - laugh at the "fool", he does not understand the ridicule and laughs with them. Epanchin drives him away, the prince is not offended at all and is about to leave; Aglaya and Adelaide call him a donkey, he just laughs merrily with them. When he is insulted, he always blames himself and makes excuses for the offender. When Ganya slaps him, he covers his face with his hands and says: “Oh, how ashamed you will be of your action.” Dostoevsky F. M. Idiot. Novosibirsk 1980. p.119. With infinite humility, the prince endures Aglaya’s despotic arrogance; Rogozhin responds to jealousy and hatred with brotherly love; Nastasya Filippovna's maddened pride is tamed by compassion. Everyone worships money, he arrives with a bundle and penniless, and, having received an inheritance, distributes the money to enemies and offenders. Thus, Lev Nikolaevich’s perception of the world contradicts common sense, from the point of view of society.
Thus, having told about such dramatic events of the novel as Nastasya Filippovna’s departure from Totsky, her flight from the aisle, or about the actions of Aglaya and Ippolit, which most clearly reflect their deep confusion, the strength of the tragic passions overwhelming them, Dostoevsky reports with deep irony that , how these events were refracted in philistine rumors and gossip.
fantastic realism Dostoevsky creativity
Probably the most symbolic scene is the murder of Nastasya Filippovna; like other dramatic and tragic scenes in the novel, it is realized on two levels: social, everyday and religious. From point of view everyday life- this is simply a murder out of jealousy, in a fit of passion, unwillingness to yield to an opponent. In a religious context, Nastasya Filippovna Barashkova is only an innocent sacrifice that Rogozhin makes. The heroine's surname already hints to us about her role in the novel.
On the one hand, judging by her position in society, the reputation of Totsky’s concubine, a depraved and fallen woman, it is difficult to talk about her innocence and purity, but the prince tells her: “I am nothing, and you have suffered from such hell clean came out, and that's a lot. "Dostoevsky F. M. Idiot. Novosibirsk. 1980. p. 167, it is the prince, who is the prototype of Christ himself, who carries the main idea of the novel, who calls this woman “pure”, the main thing for him is that her soul is pure, she repented, she suffered , and through suffering comes purification.
Rogozhin in the novel - main demon, he goes not only against moral laws, but also against religious commandments. His jealousy, hatred, his rebellion oppose Myshkin’s Christian humility.
The prince, as mentioned above, is sharply contrasted with all the other heroes of the novel. Having arrived in Russia, he enters some kind of dark world, alien and incomprehensible to him. But he does not fight evil forces, does not judge or denounce, but his very appearance causes a tragic conflict. “One personality is opposed to the whole world; the dynamic construction of the novel is based on this contrast. The internal law of the individual turns out to be directly opposite to the law of the dark world.” Mochulsky K. Gogol. Soloviev. Dostoevsky. M., 1995. p. 403 Thus, into the kingdom of human greed, pride, hatred and sensuality comes a person eager to give his soul for his neighbor, devoid of not only self-love, but self-esteem, selfless, humble, compassionate and chaste.
Thus, the prince, being a superman, a prototype of Christ, the only sensitive and insightful person, is perceived by society as a simpleton, a “fool,” whom everyone can call to his face an “idiot” or “donkey.”
In this work, Dostoevsky creates two parallel developing realities, one of which is the surrounding, external reality, the second is the symbolic perception of this reality by Prince Myshkin. This dual perception of reality is one of the main features of Dostoevsky's fantastic realism.
The next work by F.M. Dostoevsky, which I would like to focus on is the novel “Demons,” written in 1872.
The novel is based on a specific historical event- the so-called “Nechaev case”: murder by five members of the secret society “People’s Retribution” - S.G. Nechaev, P.G. Uspensky, A.K. Kuznetsov, I.G. Pryzhov, N.N. Nikolaev - student of the Petrovsky Agricultural Academy I.I. Ivanova. Dostoevsky was very interested in the personality of the leader and inspirer of “People’s Retribution” - S.G. Nechaev, who served as the prototype for the hero of the novel by Pyotr Verkhovensky. But the idea of the novel is not limited to depicting a specific event in Russian history; Dostoevsky is interested not so much in the historical side of the uprising as in its invisible, “fantastic” reasons. These two layers: the real-historical and the religious-fantastic are intertwined in the novel so closely that they are often simply inseparable from each other. Dostoevsky shows Russia possessed by demons: “These demons coming out of the sick man and entering the pigs are all the ulcers, all the miasmas, all the uncleanness, all the demons and all the imps that have accumulated in our great and dear sick man, in our Russia, over the centuries , for centuries!" Dostoevsky F. M. Demons. Novosibirsk, 1989. With. 614 This thought, fundamental in the novel, is formulated by the weak and insignificant “fifty-year-old baby” Stepan Trofimovich Verkhovensky, being in a semi-delirious state. It is to this hero that Dostoevsky will entrust his most intimate thoughts about the fate of Russia. Thus, Russia appears in the novel as infected with a terrible, supernatural disease; it is in the power of demons.
At the center of the story are two main “demons”. They are spirits of denial and destruction, they are mysterious and cannot be fully explained. They are the ones who decide the fate of people and the fate of the country. Nikolai Stavrogin is an inexplicable and mysterious figure. He enters the novel as a living dead man, longing for Sunday and not believing in it. “His spiritual struggle becomes a social movement, embodied in conspiracies, riots, fires, murders and suicides. This is how ideas turn into passions, passions into people, people express themselves in events. Internal and external are inseparable. Disintegration of personality, unrest in the provincial city, "The spiritual crisis experienced by Russia, the entry of the world into a catastrophic period in its history - such is the symbolism of "Demons". Stavrogin's personality is universal and all-human." Mochulsky K. Gogol. Soloviev. Dostoevsky. M., 1995. p. 436 Next to him is Pyotr Verkhovensky. “He is not just a “villain from melodrama”, not only a “petty demon” of nihilism - he has “sacred madness”, the rapture of a “dark abyss on the edge”, demonic inspiration, the idea of universal destruction. The powerful and formidable spirit of nothingness speaks through his lips. Nihilism, anarchism, atheism are ghosts rising from the metaphysical abyss of “nothing.” Mochulsky K. Gogol. Soloviev. Dostoevsky. M., 1995. p. 446 Stavrogin and Verkhovensky are surrounded by small demons, sent around the world by the “great and terrible spirit of denial”: the Virginskys, Liputin, Lebyadkin, Erkel, Lyamshin and several inhabitants of the provincial city.
Dostoevsky shows the life of the province before it was infected with demons, that is, before the arrival of Stavrogin and Verkhovensky from St. Petersburg. Everyone here is preoccupied with the arrival of the new governor with his family, discussing new gossip concerning Yulia Mikhailovna and her beautiful relative Liza Tushina, making visits, discussing the famous writer Karmazinov with reverent awe and having conversations on literary topics. Ordinary social life.
But one mention of the arrival of Nikolai Vsevolodovich was enough to turn the entire usual course of life in the province upside down: “At first she turned pale, but suddenly her eyes sparkled. She straightened up in her chair with an air of extraordinary determination. And everyone was amazed. The completely unexpected arrival of Nikolai Vsevolodovich, "who was expected with us in perhaps a month, was strange not only because of its surprise, but precisely because of some fatal coincidence with the present moment. Even the captain stopped like a pillar in the middle of the room, with his mouth open and looking at the door with a terribly stupid look." Dostoevsky F. M. Demons. Novosibirsk, 1989. p.168 Thus, on this “significant day,” Sunday, all the main characters in the novel “by chance” find themselves in Varvara Petrovna’s living room. Such fatal accidents are the law in Dostoevsky's world. This day marked the beginning of a number of disasters. Demons destroy society from the inside, they break ties between people, and casually break and destroy human lives. Already on this fateful Sunday, the twenty-year relationship between Varvara Petrovna and Stepan Trofimovich breaks, his engagement to Dasha, Nikolai Stavrogin publicly renounces his wife, Stepan Trofimovich realizes that he has lost his son, Shatov hits Stavrogin in the face.
The city finds itself completely in the power of Pyotr Verkhovensky, who, having secured the support of the governor’s wife, prepares meetings of the secret society, sows disturbing rumors, scatters proclamations, agitates among the workers, etc.
Political disaster breaks out at a festival in honor of governesses. Lebyadkin performs here. Karmazinov, Stepan Trofimovich and some maniac; this loud scandal follows huge scandal balls and "literature quadrilles". All this ends with a fire in the district and unrest. Political catastrophe is followed by personal ones; almost all the heroes of the novel die: Marya Timofeevna and Lebyadkin are killed by Fedka, a convict, Liza Tushina dies near their burning house, Fedka is killed by Fomka, Shatov is killed by Pyotr Verkhovensky, Kirillov and Stavrogin commit suicide, Stepan Trofimovich dies in an inn, von Lembke goes crazy .
It is difficult to imagine that all these tragedies are the work of one person, who in one way or another became their culprit. F.M. Dostoevsky discovered obsession, demonic possession in Russian revolutionaries. He felt that in the revolutionary element it was not man himself who was active, that he was possessed by inhuman spirits. At the center of the revolutionary madness is the image of Peter Verkhovensky. This is the main demon of the Russian revolution. “He may have a more handsome appearance. But Dostoevsky tore off his veils and exposed his soul. Then the image of revolutionary madness appeared in all its ugliness. He is shaking all over from demonic possession, drawing everyone into a frenzied whirlwind. Everywhere he is in the center, he behind everyone and for everyone. He is a demon that inhabits everyone and takes possession of everyone." Berdyaev N.A. Spirits of the Russian Revolution // “Demons”: An Anthology of Russian Criticism. M., 1996.p. 516 Peter Verkhovensky is, first of all, a completely devastated man. The demons finally took possession of him and made him their tool. Obsession with a false idea made Peter Verkhovensky a moral idiot. He was obsessed with the idea of world reconstruction, world revolution, he succumbed to seductive lies, allowed demons to take possession of his soul and lost the elementary difference between good and evil. In the image of Pyotr Verkhovensky we meet an already disintegrated personality. Dostoevsky shows that a false idea, which has gripped a person completely and driven him into madness, leads to non-existence, to the disintegration of personality. The idea that has captured Verkhovensky is “the same basic idea of Russian nihilism, Russian socialism, Russian maximalism<…>the same rebellion against God in the name of the universal happiness of people, the same replacement of the kingdom of Christ with the kingdom of the Antichrist" Berdyaev N. A. Spirits of the Russian Revolution // “Demons”: An Anthology of Russian Criticism. M., 1996. p. 516.
The heroes of the novel are in a state of “torment for Christ, who torments the spirits of evil and those possessed by them.” Bulgakov S. N. Russian tragedy // “Demons”: An Anthology of Russian Criticism. M., 1996.p. 492. “God has tormented me all my life,” says Kirillov, and in fact, not only about himself, but also about Shatov, Stavrogin, Fedka and other heroes of the novel, who are assigned the role of an instrument of evil power. Obsession is indeed one of the main traits of the characters in "Demons". All of them are in a painful paralysis of personality, it is as if it is absent, and instead of personality there is a guise, a mask. The face of Stavrogin, the central character of the novel, not only resembled a mask, but, in essence, was one. “Stavrogin is the hero of the tragedy... and at the same time he is not, scary, ominous, hellishly not, not at all, not because the author failed, but precisely because he succeeded. Dostoevsky knew what he wanted, or rather, he knew his mystical and artistic genius. Stavrogin does not exist because he is possessed by the spirit of non-existence. And he himself knows about himself that he does not exist, hence all his torment, all the strangeness of his behavior, these surprises and eccentricities with which he seems to want to dissuade himself of his non-existence; as well as the death that he inevitably and inexorably brings to the creatures associated with him." Bulgakov S. N. Russian tragedy // “Demons”: An Anthology of Russian Criticism. M., 1996.p. 492 After all, it is Stavrogin who directly or indirectly destroys Liza, and Shatov, and Kirillov, and even Verkhovensky, and, indeed, it is not he who destroys, but it, that which acts in him, through him, but besides him. Each of those who submit to his influence is deceived by his mask, but all these masks are different and not one is his real face. He simultaneously stirs up a spiritual storm in Shatov, instills in Kirillov his delusions, knightly and capriciously marries a lame woman and participates in a sadistic society, corrupts children, not to mention the rest. But none of the heroes finds complete healing at the feet of Jesus, although some strive for this (Shatov, Kirillov). Shatov goes towards this, but does not have time to complete his spiritual path. Just when Shatov began to hope to begin new life next to his wife and child, Erkel comes for him and takes him to the park in Skvoreshniki. The transition from birth to death, from the light of Sunday to the darkness of death shocks with mystical horror. Before the story of the murder, Dostoevsky gives a detailed description of the park in Skvoreshniki. The landscape in this tragic scene only enhances the drama of the events. Landscape in Dostoevsky appears only in moments of catastrophe, when the slowing down of the tempo increases the tension. Here are descriptions of the place of Shatov’s murder: “It was a very gloomy place, at the end of the huge Stavroginsky park... huge century-old pines were outlined in the darkness as gloomy and unclear spots. The darkness was such that it was almost impossible to see each other two steps away... It is unknown why and when in time immemorial, some rather funny grotto was built here from wild unhewn stones...” Dostoevsky F. M. Demons. Novosibirsk, 1989. p.559
In “The Possessed” there is not yet that division of light and darkness that we will later see in “The Brothers Karamazov”; here there are only demoniacs, only darkness, but it is condensed to such an extent “that this sharpness of it, its unbearability makes it pre-dawn, not that darkness of indifference and chaos, but that “shadow of death” in which the “great light” is born." Bulgakov S. N. Russian tragedy // “Demons”: An Anthology of Russian Criticism. M., 1996.p. 494.
The kingdom of light is outlined here with a few strokes, in the image of Bishop Tikhon (however, not included in the novel by the author) and the things of the lame man, one of the most amazing creatures creativity of Dostoevsky. The lame woman is clairvoyant, but she does not entirely belong to the positive heroes of goodness, the bearers of the courageous principle of religion. By the purity of her heart and under the shield of her foolishness, ugliness and dementia, she is inaccessible to the power of evil and is open to good. However, Marya Timofeevna’s sight is more akin to clairvoyance, but not to religious inspiration. She is a sibyl, but not a prophetess. Through dreams she finds her way to reality. From her dreams she learns a terrible secret about Stavrogin, that he is an impostor, a mask, a shell, that he does not exist. The lame woman does not belong to this world, so she will not be deceived by the mask, she will not mistake the mask for a face and will not believe the impostor. And the court of Lamefoot, or higher power, speaking through her lips, finally decides the fate of Stavrogin.
Dasha is also noted for her courageous and positive traits, and one of all those gathered at Varvara Petrovna’s is noted by Lame: “Only Dasha is an angel” Dostoevsky F. M. Demons. Novosibirsk, 1989. p.258. Only she is not afraid of Stavrogin and knows his worth: “You can never, in any way, destroy me, and you yourself know this better than anyone... If not to you, I will go to be a nurse, a nurse, to take care of the sick, or a bookseller, Gospel sell." Dostoevsky F. M. Demons. Novosibirsk, 1989. p.275 She knows that sooner or later he will come to her, and she will become his nurse, but she cannot revive Stavrogin either. Her virtue is too boring, insipid, elementary and limited for him. Moreover, in her very feeling, in the nature of her attachment to Stavrogin, there is something unworthy, reminiscent of a dog’s devotion. But Stavrogin, indeed, called Dasha when the ground beneath him was finally crumbling, but he did not receive the strength to live from her, and therefore did not use her services. However, female love could no longer save Stavrogin.
Since we consider the novel “Demons” as realistic, it should be noted that much in it is implausible and does not correspond to reality, but, on the other hand, all of Dostoevsky’s novels are implausible, they are all written about depth that cannot be seen on the surface of reality, all of them were a prophecy. “Dostoevsky saw with spiritual vision that the Russian revolution would be exactly what it could not be. He foresaw the inevitability of demonic possession in the revolution. Russian nihilism cannot help but be possessed, frenzied and vortex whirling. This frenzied whirlwind whirling is described in “Demons.” Berdyaev N. A. Spirits of the Russian Revolution // “Demons”: An Anthology of Russian Criticism. M., 1996. p. 514 Dostoevsky foresaw that the revolution in Russia would be joyless, terrible and gloomy, that there would be no national revival in it. He knew that Fedka the convict will play a significant role in it and that Shigalevism will win in it.
Shigalevschina is a kind of continuation of Raskolnikov’s theory, which will come to its logical conclusion and reach its apogee in the legend of the Grand Inquisitor in The Brothers Karamazov, the most complex novel in its ideological content and artistic structure. The Brothers Karamazov sums up the writer's various aspirations and achieves the broadest and most versatile synthesis of his creative quests and achievements. This novel reflected, on the one hand, the rise of the “sense of personality” that was characteristic of broad democratic strata of Russian society in the post-reform era, and which was accompanied by the growth of consciousness of an awakened personality, and on the other hand, deformations of this consciousness, those difficult, often painful and the fantastic paths along which the thoughts of tens and thousands of declassed representatives of “random” families, forcibly torn away from the previous patriarchal conditions of life and thrown into the whirlpool of the big city. This duality of philosophical content, inherent to one degree or another in all of Dostoevsky’s novels, is most clearly and artistically depicted in his last novel.
Of particular importance in the novel is the inserted legend about the Grand Inquisitor, told by Ivan Karamazov. The hero of the legend - the Grand Inquisitor - is not a simple atheist, not a “petty demon” like Peter Verkhovensky. Old Cardinal is a majestic and tragic face. He gave his life in selfless service to Christ - and suddenly, at the end of his days, he lost his faith. “Not believing in God, he takes upon himself lies and deception and accepts this suffering “out of love for people.” The author neglects the publicly available way of fighting atheism: he does not portray his hero as a villain and a monster. The Inquisitor is an ascetic, sage and philanthropist. "This concept is Dostoevsky's brilliant insight. The Antichrist stands against Christ in the name of Christ's covenant of love for others, posing as His disciple, as the successor of His work" Mochulsky K. Gogol. Soloviev. Dostoevsky. M., 1995. p. 532 The author of "The Karamazovs" presents the fight against God in all its demonic greatness: The Inquisitor denies the commandment of love for God, but becomes a fanatic of the commandment of love for one's neighbor. His mighty spiritual powers, which were previously spent on the veneration of Christ, are now turned to serving humanity. But godless love inevitably turns into hatred. Having lost faith in God, the Inquisitor must also lose faith in man. By denying the immortality of the soul, he also denies the spiritual nature of man. And immediately the person turns into a pitiful, weak and vile creature for him. The Inquisitor proves that without faith in God it is impossible to love a person; he began with love for humanity and ended with turning people into pets. To make people happy, he took away everything human from them. Like Shigalev in “The Possessed,” the hero of the legend ended up with the idea of “limitless despotism.”
So, Ivan Karamazov, like the Grand Inquisitor, must follow the path of apostasy and atheism to the end. His idea of “everything is permitted” is realized in the parricide of Smerdyakov, the spirit of “self-destruction and non-existence” is embodied in a trait in the scene of Ivan’s nightmare. At the beginning of the novel, Elder Zosima says that the question of faith has not yet been resolved in his heart. The duality of consciousness between faith and unbelief is shown in the dialogue between the hero and the devil. The mocking visitor makes every effort to force the atheist to accept his reality: once he believes in the supernatural, his positive worldview is destroyed. Ivan is desperately struggling with the “nightmare”, in a rage he shouts to the devil: “I don’t accept you for a single minute as the real truth. You are a lie, you are my illness, you are a ghost. You are the embodiment of myself, only one side of me, however.” ... my thoughts and feelings, only the most disgusting and stupid ones." Dostoevsky F. M. The Karamazov Brothers // Collected Works in ten volumes. M., 1985. T. 9. Thus, reality eludes a person who has lost the highest reality - God. Reality merges with delirium, there is nothing, everything just seems. The author reproduces with extraordinary skill this indistinguishability of the fantastic and the real. The devil is a hallucination, and Ivan is on the eve of delirium tremens, but at the same time, the devil is reality: he says what Ivan could not say, reports facts that he did not know about. In the “nightmare” scene, Dostoevsky develops the theme of ghosts outlined in “The Possessed.”
Thus, in The Brothers Karamazov, his last novel, Dostoevsky not only does not deviate from the tradition of fantastic realism, but develops it and improves it. In this novel, the author conveys all the main thoughts and images outlined in previous works to their logical conclusion. In The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky reaches the pinnacle of his creativity.
In conclusion, it should be noted that in this work we tried to solve all the tasks assigned to us. The introduction examined the points of view of various literary scholars on the features of F.M.’s creative method. Dostoevsky. Here we came to a common opinion about the scope and meaning of the concept “fantastic realism”, which was customary to designate the writer’s direction.
Using the example of four novels by F.M. We have proven that Dostoevsky’s realism is indeed characterized by such features as the close interweaving of fantastic and real elements in the novel, two-dimensionality, dual perception of the same event, the use of small details, an abundance of hints and accidents more characteristic of fantastic literature. Violation of the natural proportions and shapes of the depicted objects and incredible plot structures, many intertwining narrative lines, and the special role of images and symbols in the work, the grotesqueness of situations and characters - all these are integral features of Dostoevsky’s “special realism”. The boundaries of the fantastic and the real in his novels are often erased, shifted so much that they cannot be restored. Dostoevsky achieves this effect by introducing dreams, rumors, hallucinations, and the madness of the characters into the work.
In addition, it should be noted the primacy of the idea over the heroes in Dostoevsky’s novels; his heroes are obsessed with ideas and are in their unlimited power. Raskolnikov, Verkhovensky, Shatov, Kirillov - they all turn out to be victims of their own ideas, which consumed them. Such dominance of the idea is also one of the ways of creating in readers and characters the impression of “loss of reality”, its inseparability from the sphere of dreams, visions and their own fantasies.
Thus, in this work we examined the stages of formation of the writer’s creative method and its origins. In addition, we tried to isolate and confirm with specific examples the main features of this direction.
Bibliography
- 1. Dostoevsky F.M. Demons. Novosibirsk, 1989
- 2. Dostoevsky F.M. The Brothers Karamazov // collected works in ten volumes. M., 1985. Volume 9, 10
- 3. Dostoevsky F.M. Idiot. Novosibirsk, 1980
- 4. Dostoevsky F.M. Crime and Punishment. M., 1973
- 5. Dostoevsky F.M. Diary of a Writer.1873
- 6. Belov S.V. Roman F.M. Dostoevsky "Crime and Punishment". A comment. M., 1984
- 7. Berdyaev N.A. Spirits of the Russian Revolution // “Demons”: An Anthology of Russian Criticism. M., 1996
- 8. Bulgakov S.N. Russian tragedy // “Demons”: An Anthology of Russian Criticism. M., 1996
- 9. Vetlovskaya V.E. Poetics of the novel "The Brothers Karamazov". L., 1977
- 10. Gogol N.V. Selected passages from correspondence with friends. Four letters to different persons regarding "Dead Souls". Third letter // Collected works in eight volumes. M., 1984. Volume 7
- 11. Jones M. Dostoevsky after Bakhtin. Saint Petersburg. 1998
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- 13. Markov E. Critical conversations // Russian Speech, 1879, No. 12
- 14. Mochulsky K. Gogol. Soloviev. Dostoevsky. M., 1995
- 15. Odinokov V.G. Russian writers of the 19th century and spiritual culture. Novosibirsk, 2003
- 16. Letter to A.N. To Maikov from Florence, December 11/23, 1868, A.28 (II). p.329
- 17. Letter from N.N. Strakhov from Florence, February 26/March 10, 1869, A.29 (I). With. 19
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- 19. Friedlander G.M. Realism of Dostoevsky. M. - L, 1964
UNKNOWN TO STOEVSKY
DOI 10.15393/10^.2017.3341
Yulia Vyacheslavovna Yukhnovich
senior researcher at the F. M. Dostoevsky House Museum (Staraya Russa, Russian Federation)
OLD RUSSIAN REALITIES IN F. M. DOSTOEVSKY’S NOVEL “THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV”
Annotation. In the novel The Brothers Karamazov, the town of Skotoprigonyevsk appears as a generalized image. On the one hand, it absorbs prototypical details of various urban texts: Kozelsk and Optina Pustyn, Moscow and Darovoe, Chermoshnya and Mokroe, Omsk, Tobolsk and Semipalatinsk. On the other hand, this is an image that was formed under the influence of impressions from Staraya Russa. The article notes the features of Dostoevsky's depiction of a provincial town, identifies the routes of the main characters, identifies some topographical and toponymic features of the novel town of Skotoprigonyevsk in relation to old Russian realities, and establishes a connection between the characters and their prototypes. An analysis of the reflection of old Russian realities in Dostoevsky’s novel “The Brothers Karamazov” allows us to pose in a new way the question of how they relate in literary work fiction and real, documentary material.
Key words: “The Brothers Karamazov”, F. M. Dostoevsky, Staraya Russa, city, provincial, realities, topography, prototypes, loci, names, routes, landscape, proto-details
Researchers of the works of F. M. Dostoevsky have repeatedly pointed out the connection between Staraya Russa and Skotoprigonyevsk from the novel The Brothers Karamazov. In our opinion, the works of L. M. Reinus and G. I. Smirnov most fully reveal this topic, although N. P. Antsiferov, G. M. Friedlender, V. A. also wrote about the correlation between Skotoprigonyevsk and Staraya Russa. Bachinin, S. A. Skuridina (Korotkikh); , K. P. Smolnyakov.
However, it is known that there are some other cities that can lay claim to becoming components of the prototype of Skotoprigonyevsk. V.N. Zakharov believes that behind the literary image of Skotoprigonyevsk lies not only Staraya Russa, but also the city of Kozelsk, in the vicinity of which Optina Pustyn was located: “In the novel, their contamination occurred: Staraya Russa gave the passionate history of the Karamazovs, Kozelsk in the person of the Optina elders - spiritual hope. And everything came together in the name of the novel city - Skotoprigonyevsk, in which both the existence of a cattle slaughterhouse in Staraya Russa and the internal form of the word “Kozelsk” are played out. I. D. Yakubovich connects the “Karamazov history” with the city of Tobolsk. L.V. Dmitrieva, exploring the parallel Skotoprigonyevsk - Tobolsk, writes: “Tobolsk<...>can be considered among the prototypes of artistic images of F. M. Dostoevsky, who, along with
© Yu. V. Yukhnovich, 2017
with Omsk, Semipalatinsk, Staraya Russa brought his colorful shades to the collective image of the Russian province - the city of Skotoprigonevsk."
The image of Skotoprigonyevsk also reflects the Moscow memories of F. M. Dostoevsky, which, first of all, are associated with the writer’s childhood and with family trips to the village of Darovoye.
In the summer of 1877 (the beginning of work on the novel “The Brothers Karamazov”), Fyodor Mikhailovich visited his parents’ estate and his favorite childhood grove, Chermoshnya, located in the Kashira district of the Tula province. Speaking about Dostoevsky’s trip to Darovoe, G. A. Fedorov states: “There are no Darovsky impressions in The Brothers Karamazov.” However, overwhelmed with emotions after visiting his parents’ estate, Dostoevsky writes to his wife: “... if you deny yourself these impressions, then how and what can a writer write about after that!”1.
On the pages of The Brothers Karamazov we are faced with a number of signs of Dostoevsky's Moscow world. The Chermoshnya estate mentioned in the novel, which Fyodor Pavlovich asks Ivan to visit, is a real-life village that belonged to the writer’s parents (see about this:); The name of the town of Mokroye, where Mitya Karamazov is carousing, was borrowed from a village located not far from Darovoy and Chermoshni. French writer D. Arban, in a book about Dostoevsky’s childhood, wrote that “The Brothers Karamazov” reflected the fire that happened in Darovoy in 1833. Dostoevsky’s younger brother Andrei Mikhailovich described this event in his memoirs as follows: “The entire estate seemed like a wasteland, with burnt pillars sticking out here and there. The picture was unattractive. To top it all off, our old dog Zhuchka greeted us, wagging his tail, but howling loudly.”2 In the novel “The Brothers Karamazov” we meet both the stray dog Zhuchka, whom the schoolboy Ilyusha Snegirev treats so cruelly, throwing her a crumb of bread with a pin on Smerdyakov’s orders, and a picture of a fire from Mitya’s famous dream about the “child”.
In the memoirs of A. M. Dostoevsky there is a mention of the holy fool:
In the village we had a fool who did not belong to any family; She spent all her time wandering around the fields, and only in severe frosts in winter was she forcibly sheltered in some kind of hut. She was already 20-25 years old then; she spoke very little, reluctantly, incomprehensibly and incoherently<...>. She, it seems, was a fool from birth and, despite her such condition, suffered violence against herself and became the mother of a child, who soon died. Later reading the story of Lizaveta Stinking in the novel by my brother, Fyodor Mikhailovich, “The Brothers Karamazov,” I involuntarily remembered our fool Agrafena3.
These important remarks made by Dostoevsky's brother indicate that the writer in his last novel largely turned to his childhood impressions.
The purchase of a house in Staraya Russa in 1876, where Dostoevsky finally felt the much-needed unity with his family, wife and children, becomes a kind of return to childhood memories. Moscow memories merge with old Russian impressions, transforming into a specific author's plan, which is embodied in the image of the town of Skotoprigonyevsk. For Dostoevsky, the creation of such a syncretic image becomes fundamentally significant, because the Moscow world and Staraya Russa turn out to be the spiritual sources from which the writer draws ideas for creating his latest novel.
In The Brothers Karamazov we can easily detect signs of Old Russia. These are individual realities, loci, topographical features, names of characters, proto-details (for example, landscape descriptions, interior elements, correlation of the writer’s real life in Staraya Russa with the novel, “Skotoprigonyevsk” life, etc.), which the writer uses to create the image of Skotoprigonyevsk .
According to S. A. Korotkikh (Skuridina), “Skotoprigonyevsk is a literary double of Staraya Russa, where Dostoevsky spent quite a lot of time and saw the market where cattle were brought for sale, although the cattle yard is a reality not only of Staraya Russa, but also any city of the 19th century. (in Moscow there was also a street with a similar name - Skotoprogonnaya). But the drive (drive) of cattle for Dostoevsky became an obsessive spectacle precisely in Staraya Russa due to the fact that animals were driven into the city not only for sale and slaughter, but also so that they could restore the salt balance, because Staraya Russa was famous for its stone deposits salt and in the XIII-XV centuries. was an important salt making point."
K. P. Smolnyakov, pointing out the connection of the two cities with Holy Jerusalem, noted: “Dostoevsky tried in every possible way to identify Skotoprigonyevsk, i.e. the symbol of all Russia (Old Russia, as its source, or the second Palestine) with Jerusalem a description of the events in The Brothers Karamazov, including topographically linking the cities named here.”
The idea that in Dostoevsky’s novel Staraya Russa is presented as a prototype national peace, expressed in the work of M. S. Stern: “...in The Brothers Karamazov the real topography of Staraya Russa is encrypted and transformed into a symbolic landscape expressing the spirit of a provincial city as a prototype of the national world. The gloomy, truly eschatological image of the city in “The Possessed” is replaced in “The Brothers Karamazov” by a universal image that includes all the elements of urban space (tavern, temple, house, street, garden, square, park, grove, etc.), everything spheres (social, cultural, everyday, spiritual, economic).
All components of space with its symbolic projections, from the dark and remote Karamazov “alleys”, “back streets” to the “clean house” of the widow Krasotkina, from the elder’s cell to the “Capital City” tavern (a symptomatic name!) are presented to us as a single landscape of historical mystery.” .
G.I. Smirnov wrote: “Karamzin’s idea that Staraya Russa is the oldest city in Rus' was well known to Fyodor Mikhailovich from his early childhood from the History of the Russian State and, in all likelihood, had a serious influence on the choice of place for panoramic exhibition of "The Brothers Karamazov"".
In the house in Staraya Russa, which became a “cozy nest” for the writer, he worked comfortably and calmly. The unhurried, secluded life of a provincial town turned out to be useful for the implementation of Dostoevsky’s literary plans. The Old Russian periods of his life (mainly the summer months of 1872-1880 and the winter of 1874-1875) were marked by powerful creative upsurges. At this time, Chapters III-V of Part III of the novel “Demons” were created; Parts I and II of “The Teenager”; more than half of the novel “The Brothers Karamazov” (book one “The Story of a Family”, book two “Inappropriate Meeting”, book five “Pro and Contra” and book six “Russian Monk”, the last two chapters of the seventh book “Alyosha”, book eleven “ Brother Ivan Fedorovich" and book twelfth "Judicial Miscarriage"). Issues of the “Writer's Diary” for June, July, August 1876, as well as for August 1880, were written here.
During his stay in Staraya Russa, Dostoevsky regularly took walks around the city: he often visited resort park, Trade Square, the shop of the merchant Plotnikov, I went to visit my old Russian acquaintances. The image of Skotoprigonyevsk - the city of the Karamazov brothers - emerged thanks to such a consistent, largely philistine acquaintance of the writer with the way of life provincial life. The allegorical meaning of the name of the city, where the events of Dostoevsky’s last novel unfold, contributes to the actualization of the theme of animality of morals and cruelty that reigns in society. It is interesting that the author informs the reader of this telling title only at the end of the work, thereby emphasizing the importance of his creative task - to show the entire Russian reality with its problems and contradictions through the prism of one, separate city. It is no coincidence that the novel is narrated from the perspective of a resident of this provincial town. According to V. E. Vetlovskaya, “the stylization of the narrator of The Brothers Karamazov as a hagiographic narrator allowed Dostoevsky to speak in the name of God and the people - the people not only in the sense in which Tolstoy said this word, but in the broader sense in which it was said by Dostoevsky, that is, on behalf of all classes. It is no coincidence that the author does not define either the social or professional affiliation of his fictional narrator
and with a meager indication of the conditions of his life (the provincial) only motivates his possible closeness to all conditions.”
The name Skotoprigonyevsk also contains a direct reference to reality: as mentioned above, in Staraya Russa during the time of Dostoevsky there was a livestock market located not far from Torgovaya Square, where the main life of the city was concentrated. In the third chapter of the tenth book of the novel “The Brothers Karamazov”, high school students Krasotkin and Smurov go towards the house of Staff Captain Snegirev to visit his son and their comrade Ilyusha, who is suffering from consumption. They cross the market square and talk to the merchants. It is quite possible that this scene is based on Dostoevsky’s old Russian impressions:
They walked along the Market Square, where this time there were many visiting carts and a lot of driven birds. City women sold bagels, threads, etc. under their awnings. In our town, such Sunday gatherings are naively called fairs, and there are many such fairs a year (14, 473).
Dostoevsky introduces a small detail into this episode: “...the cathedral clock struck half past twelve” (14, 477). The Resurrection Cathedral, the main temple of Staraya Russa, was located not far from Torgovaya Square and was connected to it by a bridge. The cathedral was built in 1692-1696. Its bell tower was erected in 1801, and in 1811 a unique mechanical striking clock made by the famous masters the Polutin brothers was brought from Tula to Staraya Russa. Dostoevsky repeatedly heard the chime of these cathedral clocks while walking along Trade Square (see:).
One of Fyodor Mikhailovich’s letters notes that he attended services at the Resurrection Cathedral4. Note that at that time in this temple there was a copy of the Old Russian Icon of the Mother of God of the 18th century, now kept in the St. George Church. According to M.I. Polyansky, the dimensions of the list are 3 arshins 14 vershoks (“2.75 m) in height and 2 arshins 14 vershoks (“2 m”). They coincide with the dimensions of the original icon, brought to the city in the 10th century from Greece and lost forever. While visiting the Resurrection Cathedral, Dostoevsky saw a copy of the Old Russian Icon.
Mention of the icon of the Mother of God is found in the novel “The Brothers Karamazov” in the chapter “The Old Jester”, when the heroes come to the cell of Elder Zosima:
The whole cell was very small and had a kind of lethargic appearance. Things and furniture were rough, poor, and only necessary. There are two pots of flowers on the window, and in the corner there are many icons - one of them is the Virgin Mary, huge in size and painted, probably long before the schism (14, 37).
The story of parricide, which forms the plot of the novel, is based on a real not only Tobolsk (see also:), but also an Old Russian fact. When in Staraya Russa they started talking about the case of Pyotr Nazarov, an Old Russian tradesman who killed his father, Dostoevsky, leaving for St. Petersburg, asked his Old Russian friend Alexandra Orlova to see to the end of this high-profile trial. After some time, Orlova, in a letter to Anna Grigorievna, reported the following: “At that time, on the occasion of the arrival of the district court, I left home - I sat almost the whole day when the parricide was tried. Andryushkevich undertook to defend himself, but the jury did not heed his cries, they awarded: “Yes, guilty,” and this villain was exiled to hard labor for eternity” (quoted from:). The outcome of the Nazarov case, reported by A.P. Orlova by Dostoevsky, influenced the development of the detective storyline in the novel The Brothers Karamazov.
Lyubov Fedorovna wrote about other old Russian realities, obviously manifesting themselves in the text of the novel, recalling the life of her father in Stroy Russ:
He moved the action of The Brothers Karamazov to this city; reading them later, I easily recognized the topography of Staraya Russa. The house of old man Karamazov is our country house with minor changes; the beautiful Grushenka, a young provincial girl whom my parents knew in Staraya Russa; Plotnikov's shop was my father's favorite supplier. Coachmen Andrei and Timofey are our favorite coachmen, who all the years took us to the shore of Lake Ilmen, where steamships stopped in the fall5.
Lyubov Fedorovna also described some features of the interior of her Old Russian dacha:
A house in the taste of the Germans of the Baltic provinces, full of surprises, secret wall cabinets and drop-down doors leading to dark and dusty spiral staircases. Everything in this house was small in size; the low and cramped rooms were filled with old Empire furniture, greenish mirrors reflected the distorted faces of those who dared to look into them6.
Let’s compare this evidence with the descriptions of Fyodor Pavlovich’s house in “The Brothers Karamazov”: “There were many different closets, different hide-and-seek places and unexpected stairs in it” (14, 85); “The furniture was ancient, white, with red, shabby semi-silk upholstery. Mirrors in elaborate frames with ancient carvings were inserted into the walls between the windows” (14, 113). And these are not all the realities that are reflected in Dostoevsky’s last novel.
A significant episode in the novel is the meeting of Ivan and Alyosha in one of the city taverns. The tavern where the brothers talk has the unusual name “Capital City”.
G.I. Smirnov noted: “In reference publications about Staraya Russa for the 70s of the 19th century, the names of some hotels are indicated, but there are no names of taverns, of which there were 26 in the city by the end of the 70s. It is difficult to imagine that any tavern owner would give it such a vague and loud name - “Capital City”. And yet the tavern on Market Square existed and had a more specific name - “Belgrade”. An old-timer and respected mathematics teacher in the city, Ivan Petrovich Chikov, told the author of these lines that when he first arrived in Staraya Russa in 1910, he entered this tavern. He remembered the buffet with a counter in the first room and tables covered with tablecloths in the second room, from where the sounds of music could be heard.”
Dostoevsky described the tavern in Skotoprigonyevsk as follows:
Ivan, however, was not in a separate room.<.>This was the entrance room, the first, with a buffet against the side wall.<...>Of the visitors there was only one old man, a retired military man, drinking tea in a corner. But in the other rooms of the tavern all the usual tavern fuss was taking place, calls of invitation were heard, the opening of beer bottles, the knocking of billiard balls, and the hum of the organ (14, 208).
However, the Belgrade tavern, which, according to G.I. Smirnov, is the prototype of the “Capital City,” appeared in Staraya Russa only in 1910. V.A. Yadryshnikov writes: “In the 19th century, here, in a prestigious area, on at the corner of Staro-Gostinnodvorskaya and Bulina streets there was a stone two-storey house. According to data from 1901, it housed the apartment of the merchant Andrei Semenovich Semenov, a bakery and a pub.<...>In 1910, the house burned down, and soon, apparently, by order of A. S. Semenov, a new, several large sizes, other architecture and other purpose (hotel)". The Belgrade Hotel was located on the second floor, the first was dedicated to a tavern of the same name.
L. M. Reinus suggested that by the “Capital City” tavern the writer could mean the “Hermitage” tavern: “In Staraya Russa, at the end of the building adjacent to the Cattle Market, there was the “Hermitage” tavern, owned by the merchant I. D. Zemskov ( now Dostoevsky embankment). According to the 1901 inventory, the establishment was listed as a beer shop - a common trick by the owners to pay less tax. Wine was served from under the counter." But we also don’t know when the Hermitage was opened.
Thus, neither Belgrade nor the Hermitage can be considered prototypes of the tavern from the novel The Brothers Karamazov, since, according to available information, they existed in Staraya Russa at the beginning of the 20th century, later than the time when Dostoevsky lived in the city.
The above examples confirm that Skotoprigonyevsk is not a direct copy of Staraya Russa, but is a living literary
image existing in space work of art and combining many proto-details associated not only with the author’s Old Russian observations. However, if you pay attention to the topographical and landscape characteristics of Skotoprigonyevsk, you can say that the image of this fictional city is literally woven from old Russian realities. According to S.V. Belov, “if “Demons”, “Teenager” and “A Writer’s Diary” reflected the writer’s individual Old Russian impressions, then “The Brothers Karamazov” is all permeated with Old Russia.”
During Dostoevsky's stay in Staraya Russa, the balneological resort became very famous. According to G.I. Smirnov, “the resort was not directly reflected in the novel. It is quite clear that its display would violate the integrity of the image of “Skotoprigonyevsk”. And yet Dostoevsky could not exclude him from the ideological plan of his last spiritual epic.” In addition, according to the researcher, “The Starorussky resort with its healing mud and waters was at that time most useful for patients with articular rheumatism. This feature of the resort will be indirectly reflected in the subtext of the novel by the unusual number of characters suffering from leg ailments. Opposite the house of F.P. Karamazov lives an old woman “legless,” that is, suffering from rheumatism; Liza Khokhlakova lives on Mikhailovskaya Street with sore legs, and the widow Khokhlakova herself has a “sore leg”, for which Rakitin “composes his own poems”; Snegirev’s wife and his daughter live on Ozernaya Street with sore legs; and finally, in Ivan’s hallucinations, even the devil “grabbed rheumatism.” Such a number of characters suffering from rheumatism cannot be accidental for Dostoevsky’s last novel.” In one of the episodes of the novel “The Brothers Karamazov”, Staff Captain Snegirev, talking with Alyosha Karamazov, recalls how the local doctor advises him to treat his wife and daughter, who suffer from leg disease, with mineral water, recommending taking foot and regular baths every day. Here, of course, there is a clear hint of Old Russian mineral waters.
Let us turn to some topographical features of the city of the Karamazov Brothers. In ancient times, Staraya Russa was divided into several “ends”: Seredka, Rogov, Pesiy, Erzovsky, Mininsky. This division persisted until the 20th century. Since three rivers flowed through the territory of Staraya Russa, the city had several large bridges and an impressive number of wooden crossing bridges. Large streets were connected by a mass of secluded, back alleys. Therefore, it could well seem that Staraya Russa, despite its small size, had the appearance of a rather scattered city. This is exactly what it looked like during Dostoevsky’s time. And now let us remember how Fyodor Mikhailovich characterized the town of Skotoprigonyevsk: “Our small town is extremely scattered, and the distances in it are quite large” (14, 94). Those same bridges, fences, grooves,
the neighbors' vegetable gardens, through which the heroes of the novel “The Brothers Karamazov” make their way, are the realities of Staraya Russa:
Due to all these considerations he<Алеша>and decided to shorten the path by walking backwards<...>. Backwards meant almost no roads, along deserted fences, sometimes even climbing over other people's fences, bypassing other people's yards. (14, 94-95).
In the first chapters of the novel, Dostoevsky gives a brief biography of the main characters. The main action takes place from the moment they meet in a suburban monastery. The heroes' walks around the town begin after a meeting in the cell of Elder Zosima. Leaving the monastery, each of them makes his own journey along a strictly specified route.
So, the starting point is the monastery. Alyosha Karamazov makes the longest journey. First, he goes to the house of Katerina Ivanovna, who apparently lives near the center of the town, but he is stopped by Mitya, hiding in the gazebo of the neighbor’s garden, next to Fyodor Pavlovich’s house. Let’s try to determine the location of this house, which “stood far from being in the very center of the city, but not quite on the outskirts either. It was rather shabby, but had a pleasant appearance.” (14, 85). Let us recall that the writer’s daughter Lyubov Fedorovna noted in her memoirs: “The house of old man Karamazov is our house with minor changes.”7. Indeed, the Dostoevsky dacha was located in one of the secluded places of Staraya Russa - on the embankment of the Pererytitsa River, in Mininsky Lane (currently Pisatelsky Lane). However, the house was not far from the city center: along Georgievskaya Street one could get to the central shopping area. It is along this road that Alyosha passes to Bolshaya Street, where Katerina Ivanovna Verkhovtseva lives:
It was already seven o'clock and it was getting dark when Alyosha went to see Katerina Ivanovna, who occupied a very spacious and comfortable house on Bolshaya Street (14, 132).
In Staraya Russa under Dostoevsky there was no street called “Bolshaya”. But Velikaya Street existed and still exists today: it is located near the city center, starts from the Dostoevsky embankment, near the bridge over the Pererytitsa River, crosses Georgievskaya Street, ending at the old bed of the Porusya River. M.V. Gorbanevsky and M.I. Emelyanova give the following explanation for the name of the street: “In modern Russian, the word “great” means “outstanding in its meaning” and “very large.” In the Old Russian language this word had the meaning “big.” Accordingly, one can imagine the toponym Velikaya meaning “big”.
So, Alyosha goes to Bolshaya (Great) Street, to the house of Katerina Ivanovna Verkhovtseva. Let us note that the name Verkhovtsev appears in the correspondence of the Dostoevsky spouses. In one of her letters to her husband, Anna Grigorievna, mentioning her next visit to the Rumyantsevs’ house, said: “It turned out that they were celebrating the birth of Sonechka and there were many guests. By the way, the Verkhovtsevs, whom I met.”8. The notes to the Dostoevsky letters note that the Verkhovtsevs are “residents of Staraya Russa, friends of I. Rumyantsev.”
Leaving Katerina Ivanovna, Alyosha goes to the monastery, which is located outside the city: “From the city to the monastery it was no more than a little over a mile” (14, 141). The next morning, Alyosha again goes to his father's house, and then to Mrs. Khokhlakova to see Ivan.
In the novel there is a mention that the house of landowner Khokhlakova is located on Mikhailovskaya Street:
As soon as he passed the square and turned into an alley to exit into Mikhailovskaya Street, parallel to Bolshaya, but separated from it only by a ditch (our entire city is riddled with ditch), he saw a small group of schoolchildren below in front of the bridge. (14, 160).
If we take into account the fact that Dostoevsky’s Bolshaya Street is Velikaya Street, which actually exists in Staraya Russa, we can say that by Mikhailovskaya Fyodor Mikhailovich meant Pyatnitskaya Street, on which, by the way, was the house of the priest Rumyantsev, where he spent his first Old Russian summer Dostoevsky. The historical name of Pyatnitskaya Street is associated with the Church of St. Paraskeva Pyatnitsa, which by the beginning of the 19th century no longer existed. In its place, in 1804, a temple was built in the name of the apostles Peter and Paul with chapels of teachers. Nil Stolobensky and St. martyrs Paraskeva, also not preserved to our time9. Indeed, this street, parallel to Velikaya and running from the gates of the resort to the embankment of the Pererytitsa River, has a steep descent. Even in the time of Dostoevsky, there was a wooden bridge over the Malashka River, called Nikolsky (after the name of the nearby Church of St. Nicholas of Myra). The real name of the river is Porusya. People also call her Stinking (in the novel the name of the holy fool is Liza-veta Stinking). In ancient times, this river was even navigable, but then it became shallow. One of the legends associated with the origin of Malashka tells that once on the banks of this river there lived a merchant known throughout Ruse. He liked one maid named Malanya, and he encroached on her honor. Unable to bear the shame, the girl threw herself into the river flowing under the windows and drowned. Since then, the river was named after her. In the second half of the 19th century (during Dostoevsky’s stay in Staraya Russa), Malashka was already shallow. In The Brothers Karamazov Fyodor Pavlovich
and a company of “revelry gentlemen” see the sleeping Liza Veta Stinking near the bridge:
On both sides of the alley there was a fence, behind which stretched the vegetable gardens of the adjacent houses; the lane opened onto a bridge across our long, smelly puddle, which we sometimes call a river. Near the fence, in the nettles and in the burdock, our company saw the sleeping Lizaveta (14, 91).
The chapter “Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov” also mentions the story of a girl who drowned herself because of unhappy love:
After all, I knew one girl, back in the last “romantic” generation, who, after several years of mysterious love for one gentleman<...>ended, however, by inventing insurmountable obstacles for herself and on a stormy night she threw herself from a high bank, like a cliff, into a rather deep and fast river and died in it entirely from her own whims, solely because she looked like Shakespeare's Ophelia<...>. This fact is true, and one must think that in our Russian life, in the last two or three generations, many similar or similar facts happened (14, 8).
In the chapter “Contacted with Schoolchildren,” Alyosha Karamazov’s first meeting with the high school boys and Ilyusha Snegirev took place near the Malashka River, near the Nikolsky Bridge. N.P. Antsiferov noted: “In The Brothers Karamazov the city of Staraya Russa is depicted. A.G. Dostoevskaya testified that the place of the massacre of the boys was known to the writer’s family” (see also: .
In one of the chapters of the novel, Alyosha Karamazov learns from the landowner Khokhlakova a story about the miserable existence of the Snegirev family and goes to them to transfer two hundred rubles from Katerina Ivanovna Verkhovtseva. The location of the Snegirevs' house in the novel is Ozernaya Street. Under Dostoevsky, there was no street with that name in Staraya Russa. Ozernaya Street appeared in the city much later, already in the 20th century. It turns out that this name is the writer’s invention. However, most likely, under the name Ozernaya lies Ilyinskaya Street (currently Mineralnaya), on which a resort with mineral lakes and springs was located.
Walking a little further from the gates of the resort park along Ilyinskaya Street, you could find yourself at the chapel of the Prophet Elijah. It is known that in the winter of 1875, while working on the novel “The Teenager,” having arrived in Staraya Russa, Dostoevsky rented six rooms in the house of Major General Leontyev on Ilyinskaya Street. This old Russian toponym undoubtedly took hold in the writer’s mind. Perhaps the name of the street - “Ilyinskaya” - resurrects in the memory of Fyodor Mikhailovich the story of a young warrant officer that once amazed him
Dmitry Ilyinsky, who killed his father. Dostoevsky learned about this story during his stay in hard labor. Subsequently, it was presented in “Notes from the House of the Dead.” Having published the first part of the novel, Dostoevsky received a letter from Siberia, which reported that the patricide of the nobles “suffered ten years of hard labor in vain; that his innocence was discovered in court, officially” (4, 195). This fact was not forgotten by the writer. Simultaneously with the work on “The Teenager,” the writer is already beginning to comprehend the plot of the future novel “The Brothers Karamazov” (see about this: ;), individual events and images of which seem to be connected, among other things, with the famous Old Russian toponym. Thus, he gives one of the young heroes of the novel, Ilyusha Snegirev, a name consonant with the toponym.
Next, Alyosha returns from the Snegirevs to the house of Mrs. Khokhlakova (Mikhailovskaya Street). If we correlate this distance with the location of Ilyinskaya and Pyatnitskaya streets (in the novel, topographically coinciding with the location of Ozernaya and Mikhailovskaya), we notice that Alyosha makes a very short journey, since Pyatnitskaya Street was located next to Ilyinskaya, or rather, literally abutted against it.
From Mrs. Khokhlakova, Alyosha ends up in a gazebo next to Fyodor Pavlovich’s house in the hope of finding Mitya (let us recall that we correlated the place where the head of the Karamazov family lives with Mininsky Lane, in which the Dostoevskys’ dacha was located). And then Alyosha visits the Capital City tavern in the center of Skotoprigonyevsk, where he meets Ivan, after which he hurries to the monastery to see the dying elder Zosima.
Having learned about the death of Zosima, and that, contrary to all expectations, his body exudes a corruptive spirit, Alyosha, together with his friend, seminarian Rakitin, go to the city and visit Grushenka, who lives in the house of the widow Morozova, next to Cathedral Square. And this place can also be correlated with a specific old Russian reality - Torgovaya (Market) Square. G.I. Smirnov wrote: “This square in the 19th century was the center of the city and was called “Bazarnaya”. It still occupies a central place in the city's layout, but it has lost its former purpose and is now called Revolution Square. Its market view with a noisy crowd, shouts and laughter of people, carts, arcades of city shops is magnificently depicted in the 11th chapter of the 10th book of the novel.”
Fyodor Mikhailovich, in his daily walks around Staraya Russa, could not pass Torgovaya Square, since it was there that the shop of the merchant P.I. Plotnikov was located, which he regularly visited to buy delicacies for his children. In the novel The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky does not even change the last names of the shop owners:
The Plotnikovs' shop was located almost one house away from Pyotr Ilyich, on the corner of the street. It was the most important grocery store in
our city, rich merchants, and in itself very good. There was everything that would be found in any store in the capital, all kinds of groceries: wines from the Eliseev brothers’ bottle, fruits, cigars, tea, sugar, coffee, etc. (14, 364).
The next point on Alyosha Karamazov’s path is the house of the widow Morozova, where Grushenka lived:
Grushenka lived in the busiest place in the city, near Cathedral Square, in the house of the merchant widow Morozova, from whom she rented a small wooden outbuilding in her yard. Morozova’s house was large, stone, two-story, old and very unsightly in appearance. (14, 310).
L.M. Reinus noted that Agrippina Ivanovna Menshova, who became the prototype of Grushenka Svetlova (see:), “she lived on the Cathedral side, in the middle of the alley stretching along the bank of Pererytitsa. The house was registered in the name of his mother, Daria Kuzminichna, a rich bourgeois woman, a stern and stingy Old Believer.” The Menshovs' house has survived to this day. It is located near the city center, on the embankment along the left bank of the Pererytitsa River (now Glebov embankment). According to a long-established tradition, the residents of Staraya Russa call it “Grushenka’s house.”
The young years of A.I. Menshova were overshadowed by an unsuccessful love for Lieutenant of the Caspian Regiment I. Korovaykin, who left Staraya Russa and stopped maintaining relations with her. A.G. Dostoevskaya learned about this from Grushenka and her friend A.P. Orlova. Agrippina Ivanovna herself addressed in one of her letters to the writer’s wife:
Dear Anna Grigorievna! Knowing your kind disposition towards me, I turn to you, my dear, with a request, the point is this. Upon arrival from St. Petersburg, I was very ill and during the course of my illness I received only one piece of news from my fiancé, and the news was also sad - he was also sick, he peed in his bed, he also said that he would have to move to the hospital, and after that I didn’t care. I don’t know what happened to him, and whether he’s alive, I don’t even know that.<.>So, my dear, do it for me, find out, if possible, what happened to him, the most bitter truth for me will be better than the unknown. (quoted from:).
Menshova's lover never returned to Staraya Russa. Subsequently, Grushenka married an officer of the Vilmanstrand regiment and became Agrippina Cher. Her husband died a few years later. Dostoevsky was familiar with the story of Agrippina Ivanovna, which, obviously, formed the basis for the image of Grushenka Svetlova from The Brothers Karamazov. The novel says the following about this heroine:
There were only rumors that when she was still a seventeen-year-old girl, she was deceived by someone, allegedly by some officer, and then immediately abandoned by him.
The officer left and got married somewhere later, but Grushenka was left in shame and poverty (14, 311).
L. F. Dostoevskaya, the daughter of the writer, characterizes Agrippina Menshova in her memoirs as a very beautiful woman. Let us remember how Dostoevsky described Grushenka’s appearance:
True, she was very, very good - Russian beauty is passionately loved by so many. She was a rather tall woman<.>full, with soft, seemingly inaudible body movements, as if also pampered to some special sweetness, like her voice.<...>She was twenty-two years old, and her face expressed exactly that age. She was very white in complexion, with a high, pale pink tint of color. The outline of her face seemed to be too wide, and her lower jaw protruded even a little bit forward. The upper lip was thin, and the lower, somewhat protruding, was twice as full and seemed to be swollen. But the most wonderful, abundant dark brown hair, dark sable eyebrows and lovely gray-blue eyes with long eyelashes would certainly make the most indifferent and absent-minded person, even somewhere in a crowd, on a walk, in a crush, suddenly stop in front of this face and for a long time remember it (14, 136-137).
In one of the episodes of the novel, Grushenka tells Alyosha Karamazov the story of her unhappy love and the legend of the onion. In a letter to the editor of the magazine “Russian Messenger” N.A. Lyubimov, Dostoevsky reports the following fact: “Dear Nikolai Alekseevich, I especially ask you to thoroughly correct the legend about the onion. This is a treasure, I wrote it down from the words of one peasant woman and, of course, it was written down for the first time. At least I’ve never heard of it before” (301, 126-127). This letter was sent by Dostoevsky on September 16, 1879, when the writer was in Staraya Russa. It is likely that he could have heard the legend from one of the Old Russian residents.
After visiting Grushenka's house, Alyosha returns to the monastery again, where he spends three days and then leaves, hoping to learn to live outside the monastery walls, as Elder Zosima advised him. This is where the hero’s “wanderings” end. Thus, the monastery turns out to be the starting and ending point in Alyosha’s wanderings. In the novel, the monastery is located outside the city. During Dostoevsky’s stay in Staraya Russa, there were several large monasteries in the vicinity of the city, which the writer could have heard about. First of all, this is the Kosinsky St. Nicholas Monastery, located three miles from Staraya Russa. Its domes were visible from the windows of the Dostoevskys' old Russian dacha. The history of this monastery dates back to 1220. At this time, the students of Varlaam Khutynsky, Konstantin and Kosma, built a small monastery on the peninsula,
surrounded by dense forests and water, close to the city of Rusy. The Kosinsky monastery existed continuously for more than 500 years. Its history was closely connected with the fate of Staraya Russa10. It is known that on May 29, 1878, the day when the restored temple was solemnly consecrated, Dostoevsky was in Staraya Russa. And, knowing his interest in the events of Old Russian reality, we can assume that he was present at the consecration of the Kosinsky temple or, at least, heard about it from his Old Russian acquaintances. With some degree of probability, we can say that the so-called monastery chapters were created by Dostoevsky, including under the influence of the history of this temple, without detracting from the undoubted significance for the writer of his visit to Optina Hermitage in June 1878 (see: ; ). Already at the end of August of the same year, Dostoevsky began writing the second book of The Brothers Karamazov - “An Inappropriate Meeting.”
In addition to the Kosinsky monastery, next to Staraya Russa there were Leokhnovsky and Krechevsky monasteries, the existence of which Dostoevsky could also have known. The Old Russian Spaso-Preobrazhensky Monastery (1192-1919) was also known for its holiness and antiquity.
In the novel “The Brothers Karamazov” there is another “traveling” hero - Alyosha’s older brother, Mitya. Dostoevsky describes in some detail his route, which prepares one of the key scenes novel. On the night of the murder of Fyodor Pavlovich, Mitya, tormented by jealousy, goes to Grushenka’s house (house of A.I. Menshova, embankment of the Pererytitsa River). However, not finding her there, he runs across to the opposite bank of the river and heads straight to Fyodor Pavlovich’s house (Mininsky Lane), hoping to find Grushenka there:
He had another intention: he ran around in a large detour, through the alley, to Fyodor Pavlovich’s house, ran through Dmitrovskaya Street, then crossed the bridge and straight into a secluded alley in the back, empty and uninhabited, fenced on one side by the fence of a neighbor’s garden, and on the other - a strong, high fence that went around Fyodor Pavlovich’s garden (14, 352-353).
The lane through which Mitya gets to Dmitrievskaya Street actually existed under Dostoevsky and was called Dmitrievsky. The street of the same name was located in the same part of the city where the writer lived. On it was the ancient temple of Demetrius of Thessaloniki (XV century). It is no coincidence that Dostoevsky directs the hero to Dmitrievskaya Street, in this case Mitya runs past the temple of his patron - St. Demetrius of Thessaloniki (probably this saves him from committing a crime), after which he finds himself at the gates of his father's house (see:).
Thus, the routes of the brothers Alyosha and Mitya Karamazov pass through the area of Staraya Russa, where he lived and loved to take walks
Dostoevsky. Usually the writer from his dacha went either to Plotnikov’s shop on Torgovaya Square (for this he had to walk along Georgievskaya Street, where the St. George Church was located, and cross Velikaya Street), or went to the resort park along Pyatnitskaya Street, passing the Nikolsky Bridge and meeting at along the St. Nicholas Church and Vladimir Church, or along Dmitrievskaya Street - the location of the Church of St. Demetrius of Thessalonica.
Features of urban life and the landscape of Staraya Russa were also reflected in The Brothers Karamazov, becoming another characteristic feature of the image of the city in the novel. The image of Skotoprigonyevsk is syncretic, incorporating many prototypical details associated with various urban texts. The landscape becomes not only a unique expression of the spiritual aspirations of the heroes (see, for example: ;) - it creates the background of the entire work and functions as a plot-forming category.
In some topographical descriptions of Skotoprigonyevsk we find similarities with the realities of old Russian life. The Old Russian landscape in The Brothers Karamazov is represented by specific everyday details, by which one can determine that the city where the novel takes place is provincial, commercial, inhabited by people of various classes and incomes. Descriptions of the houses where the heroes live are of great importance for the landscape of Skotoprigonyevsk. For example, the Snegirevs’ house on Ozernaya Street is depicted as follows:
A dilapidated house, lopsided, with only three windows facing the street, with a dirty yard, in the middle of which a cow stood alone (14, 179).
The house of the wealthy lady Mrs. Khokhlakova, seen by Alyosha, is described as follows:
He soon came up<.>to a stone house, his own, two-story, beautiful, one of the best houses in our town (14, 164).
The very location of this town tells us that the landscape features of Skotoprigonyevsk are largely correlated with those of Old Russia. Dostoevsky, without communicating it directly, makes it clear with the help of certain touches that this is a rather damp area: the streets are separated from each other by ditches; the windows in the houses are “green and moldy” (14, 180). Note that some toponyms found in the novel confirm this: Ozernaya Street, Mokroe Village. However, it should be noted that Mokroe is a common name for Russian villages and villages. One of the districts of old Omsk, where Dostoevsky spent several years, was also called Mokry and was designated as such on old maps of the city11. Staff Captain Snegirev, in a conversation with Alyosha, mentions that “it’s snake season now, sir” (14, 189), and the presence of snakes, as you know, is one of the signs of a damp, swampy area. In one of the scenes of the novel, Mitya waits for Alyosha under a “solitary willow tree”, where their conversation takes place (14, 142). In Staraya Russa, on the embankment
of the Pererytitsa River, where the writer’s dacha was located, there were always a lot of spreading willows. These plot details tell us not only about the nature of the depicted area - the town of Skotoprigonyevsk, but also at the same time refer us to the realities of old Russian reality.
In the Staraya Russa letters of the Dostoevsky spouses and the memoirs of their daughter, we find descriptions regarding unfavorable weather conditions in Staraya Russa: the streets are damp, it rains almost constantly, accompanied by gusty winds, and floods occur. L. F. Dostoevskaya wrote in her memoirs that their old Russian dacha and the garden adjacent to it were often subject to floods:
Behind the house there was a garden with funny little flower beds filled with flowers. In this garden, intersected by small ditches, there were all kinds of fruits. Colonel Gribbe himself dug these ditches to protect the raspberries and currants from the spring flood of the treacherous Pererytitsa, on the banks of which this small house was built12.
A.G. Dostoevskaya wrote about the garden at their Old Russian estate:
Mr. Gribbe's dacha was not a city house, but rather was a landowner's estate, with a large shady garden, vegetable garden, sheds, cellar, etc.<.>My husband liked our shady garden and large paved courtyard, along which he took healthy walks on rainy days, when the whole city was buried in mud and it was impossible to walk along the unpaved streets13.
The memories of Lyubov Fedorovna and Anna Grigorievna can be correlated with the description of the garden in the novel:
The garden was the size of a tithe or a little more, but it was planted with trees only all around, along all four fences - apple trees, maple, linden, birch.<...>There were also ridges with raspberries, gooseberries, currants, also all near the fences; beds with vegetables near the house. (14, 96).
In The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky built a whole system of urban text, in which one symbolic component is related to reality. existing city Staraya Russa (for example, Torgovaya or Cathedral Square, Plotnikov’s shop, Dmitrievskaya Street); the other was invented by the writer and is of a symbolic nature (the tavern as the place of confession of Ivan Karamazov with the famous phrase about the tear of a child; the temple located next to the cemetery where Ilyusha Snegirev is buried; the monastery; the stone at which Alyosha Karamazov speaks his last words about Ilyusha). It is not by chance that Dostoevsky introduces these sacred signs into the text of the novel, comprehending the idea of the moral purification of man. Thus, the provincial town in The Brothers Karamazov appears as a special world with its own symbolic content, which is aimed at expressing the author’s concept.
Thus, creating the chronotope of the novel, Dostoevsky, willingly or unwillingly, includes in it numerous realities of Staraya Russa, although behind the literary image of Skotoprigonyevsk, as most researchers admit, Optina Pustyn in the vicinity of Kozelsk is hidden. Old Russian realities can include the features of the depiction of a provincial town, the routes of the main characters, and the topographical and toponymic features of the novel town of Skotoprigonyevsk. The prototypes of some of the characters in The Brothers Karamazov were Old Russian residents, whose names were preserved in the novel: Grushenka Svetlova (prototype - Agrippina Ivanovna Menshova), coachmen Andrei and Timofey (Dostoevsky often used their services), Plotnikov (an Old Russian merchant whose shop he loved to visit writer). IN artistic image Skotoprigonyevsk is also reflected in the landscape features of Staraya Russa.
NOTES
1 See letter from F. M. Dostoevsky to A. G. Dostoevskaya dated July 17, 1877: Dostoevsky F. M. Complete. collection cit.: in 30 volumes. M.: Nauka, 1986. T. 29. Book. 2. P. 171. Further references to this publication are given indicating the volume, book (subscript) and page in parentheses.
2 Dostoevsky A. M. Memoirs. L.: Publishing house of writers in Leningrad, 1930. P. 61.
3 Ibid. pp. 62-63.
5 Dostoevskaya L. F. Dostoevsky in the image of his daughter. St. Petersburg: Publishing house "Andreev and Sons", 1992. P. 136.
6 Ibid. P. 135.
7 Ibid. P. 136.
8 Dostoevsky F. M., Dostoevskaya A. G. Correspondence. M.: Nauka, 1979. P. 298.
9 Nowadays this street is called Svarog and is associated with the name of the famous Old Russian artist Vasily Semenovich Svarog (real name - Korochkin, 1883-1946).
10 The monastery, like the city itself (called Rusa until 1552), suffered in 1611-1617, when the Swedes occupied Novgorod and Staraya Russa. In 1692 it was restored. Then it suffered from a fire, but at the end of the 18th century it resumed its activities again. However, the ancient temple in the name of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker was restored only in 1877. On May 29, 1878, the restored temple was solemnly consecrated.
11 The biographical information about Dostoevsky’s close friend, Chokan Valikhanov, compiled by G.N. Potanin, says: “Chokan lived at that time in the center of the city (Omsk), in that part of it called Mokroe.<...>The Wet was then the dirtiest part of the city in the summer; when it rained, there were puddles in its streets as wide as they were. It was located on the right bank of the Om, on the lower terrace, which was sometimes flooded into deep water" (Notes of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society for the Department of Ethnography / edited by N. I. Veselovsky. St. Petersburg, 1904. T. 29: Works of Chokan Chingisovich Valikhanova, p. 19).
12 Dostoevskaya L. F. Dostoevsky in the image of his daughter. P. 135.
13 Dostoevskaya A.G. Memoirs. M.: Pravda, 1987. pp. 334-335.
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Yulia V. Yukhnovich
Senior Scientist Researcher of F. M. Dostoevsky Memorial House-Museum (Staraya Russa, Russian Federation) [email protected]
STARAYA RUSSA REALIA IN DOSTOEVSKY'S NOVEL "THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV"
Abstract. In the novel "The Brothers Karamazov" the town of Skotoprigonyevsk appears as a generalized image. On the one hand, it involves prototypical details of various city texts: Kozelsk and the Hermitage of Optina, Moscow and Darovoye, Chermoshnya and Mokroye, Omsk, Tobolsk and Semipalatinsk. On the other hand, it is an image caused by impressions of Staraya Russa. The article underlines the peculiarities of depicting a country town by Dostoevsky, specifies the routes of the main characters, defines some topographical and toponymic features of the novelistic town of Skotoprigonyevsk in correlation with Staraya Russa realia, establishes a connection between the heroes and their prototypes. The analysis of the repercussion of Staraya Russa realia in Dostoevsky's novel "The Brothers Karamazov" allows us to raise in a new fashion the question of how the artistic fiction and the real, documentary materials relate to each other in literature.
Keywords: "The Brothers Karamazov", F. M. Dostoevsky, Staraya Russa, city, provincial, realia, topography, prototypes, loci, names, routes, landscape, proto-details
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