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Abstract:

The article compares the metaphysical works of Fyodor Dostoevsky and the Dutch artist Hieronymus Bosch (c. 1450–1516), known for his depictions of surreal scenes of a world steeped in sin and filled with fantastical chimeras, often combining elements of the living and the inanimate. This characteristic of the artist immediately catches the eye when reading the first chapters of Crime and Punishment, in which several characters are described through Raskolnikov’s painful perception in the spirit of Bosch’s hybrids. For example, it is noted that the thin and long neck of the old pawnbroker “resembles a chicken leg”; the face of the tavern owner, where the hero enters after conducting his “test,” is described as “looking as if oiled, like an iron lock” in Raskolnikov’s eyes, etc. Earlier, similar attempts to discover Boschian motifs in 19th-century Russian literature have been made by researchers studying the works of Alexander Pushkin and Nikolay Gogol, but this is the first dedicated article to explore such a connection in Dostoevsky’s work. In this study, the argument is not about any proven influence of Bosch on Dostoevsky, since it is unlikely (though not impossible) that the writer was even familiar with his paintings. The purpose of the study is to demonstrate, using the novel Crime and Punishment and the Haywain Triptych that both Dostoevsky and Bosch, using pan-European Christian symbols and allegories, depicted in their works a spiritual reality beyond time, that remains constant for people of different nations and epochs, united by common ideas about the relationship between humanity and God or the devil, and what happens to a person who completely surrenders to the power of evil. The article analyzes in detail the concepts of “haywain” and “hay” in the novel in connection with Bosch’s triptych, revealing amazing similarities between the worlds of Dostoevsky and the Dutch visionary artist.

Keywords: Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment, allegory, Bosch, The Haywain Triptych, Rodion Raskolnikov, the Fall, demons.