About the author:
Kseniia R. Andreichuk, PhD in Philology, Senior Researcher, A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Povarskaya 25 a, 121069 Moscow, Russia.
ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8906-9607
E-mail:
Abstract:
Notes from Underground became a relevant text for Sweden only in the second half of the 20th century, primarily due to the appearance of translations and criticism, but also in connection with the construction of a ‘the people’s home’ (‘folkhemmet’), which is what a Swede thinks about when reading about Crystal Palace. However, it is not only social ideas that attract Swedish writers in Notes from Underground; the problems of the human isolation, the desire and inability to love another person more than yourself, as well as the whole vision of the world through the eyes of a paradoxalist are also relevant to them. The multi-layered text of Notes from Underground by F.M. Dostoevsky suggested that his literary reception would have several lines that go back to the problems lying on different levels of the story. The article considers several kinds of the reception of Notes from Underground in Swedish literature, namely the social and philosophical (Sven Delblank, Lars Ahlin), socio-religious (Birgitta Trotzig), existentialist (Lars Gyllensten) reception and reception of the artistic method (Lars Ahlin). It is worth mentioning that even when referring to Dostoevsky’s work in social debates, Swedish writers almost do not lose the philosophical context, do not narrow down universal human issues to momentary and purely social ones.