Information about the author:
Tatiana A. Kasatkina, DSc in Philology, Director of Research, Head of the Research Centre “Dostoevsky and World Culture”, A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Povarskaya 25A, bld. 1, 121069 Moscow, Russia.
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0875-067X
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Abstract:
This section contains both new articles and old pieces of research on the novel The Adolescent, published by the author in different years, now amended, extended, and united by common provisions that could be revealed only considering all the work of these years in its entirety. It is shown how in Dostoevsky’s works the author’s idea is revealed through the idea of the hero, developing directly in the words spoken by him, by means of the contexts which the character does not consider, but the author does. The gnostic layer
of the novel The Adolescent, through which Dostoevsky creates different perceptions and interpretations of reality by the characters, is revealed. It is shown the meaning and significance of the system of the characters’ names, created as a system of double references: on the one hand, to the story of the House of
David and Solomon’s Book of Wisdom, on the other hand, to the Gnostic myth of the fall of Sophia. The role of the image of the sun in the novel is explored, considering the author’s thought that a profound idea, symbol, perception, and, ultimately, the world can, at any moment, while remaining the same, become quite different — a thought that also gives form to the plot of the novel. The icon created by Dostoevsky in the epilogue of The Adolescent is described. The meaning of the syntactic technique of “only opening quotation marks” in the novel The Adolescent is explored. Versilov’s image is analyzed from the point of view of emotional and value orientations, his place as a human character in Dostoevsky’s historiosophic system is outlined. The role of the Book of Job in Dostoevsky’s worldview is investigated and its persistent presence in the story of Makar Dolgoruky about the merchant Skotoboynikov is explained. The answer offered by the novel to the old prince Sokolsky’s question about the abode of God is described.