Information about the author:
Tatiana G. Magaril-Il’iaeva
Tatiana G. Magaril-Il’iaeva, PhD in Philology, Senior Researcher, Research Centre “Dostoevsky and World Culture,” А.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Povarskaya St., 25A, bld. 1, 121069 Moscow, Russia
ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7521-1898
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Abstract: The article analyzes the image of the sun appearing to people/characters and the idea of “new” as interrelated elements of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s artistic world. These themes are examined in both the writer’s early works of the 1840s (The Petersburg Chronicle, The Landlady, White Nights) and his 1866 novel Crime and Punishment. In Dostoevsky’s early works, the connection between the idea of “new” and the image of the sun is explicitly articulated, while in his mature period, their relationship becomes less obvious. This “divergence” may reflect both the semantic evolution of these motifs and their underlying genetic connection, which the reader must reconstruct independently to fully grasp the text’s symbolic layer. By tracing these elements across different creative periods, the analysis expands our understanding of how the writer’s idea of humanity’s ontological purposes and prospects changed over time, since these questions are exactly what Dostoevsky engages with when using these images. The article demonstrates that, starting from the early texts, the sun and the idea of “new” were interpreted by the writer according to the Christian paradigm as symbols of the possible transformation of man and of his connection with the divine plan of existence. It further reveals the changes in Dostoevsky’s understanding of how these phenomena enter a person’s life.
Keywords: Fyodor Dostoevsky, feuilletons, The Petersburg Chronicle, The Landlady, White Nights, The Humiliated and the Insulted, Crime and Punishment, idea of “new,” image of the sun, New Testament.

