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Abstract:

The article conducts the first analysis in the history of Dostoevsky studies of the image of Russian rural estates in Crime and Punishment, examining it within the framework of the whole problematic of the novel, with an emphasis on plot-compositional and semanticsemiotic aspects. The author first establishes the significant role of the rural estate as an idealized place of settlement in the writer’s biography — from his childhood (Darovoe) to the end of his life (the lawsuit over the Ryazan estate in the “Kumanin inheritance case”). The depiction of the Svidrigailovs’s estate, its structure, and the characters and lifestyle of both spouses are reconstructed from details scattered throughout the novel. The semantics of their names (Arkady and Marfa) are analyzed. It is shown that the name “Arkady,” used by Dostoevsky in three different works (“A Weak Heart,” Crime and Punishment, The Adolescent) evokes the idyllic topos of Arcadia from ancient mythology, a concept traditionally linked to Russian landowners’ estates. However, the decline of the “estate culture” during the liberal reforms of the 1860s intensifies the socio-critical tone in the portrayal of the “estate topos” in Russian literature, as evident in Crime and Punishment. The distinctiveness of Dostoevsky’s “estate text” — in contrast to those of Ivan Turgenev, Ivan Goncharov, Nikolay Nekrasov, Lev Tolstoy, etc. — lies in its ontological dimension. On one hand, the Svidrigailov estate functions as a pagan topos, a place to satisfy the hedonistic needs of its owners; on the other, it serves as the locus of Marfa Petrovna’s spiritual growth through repentance, prayer, and posthumous alignment with the New Testament Martha, sister of Lazarus, whom Christ resurrected. Conversely, Arkady Ivanovich, being by nature a good person, having rejected Christ’s help, perishes because of the lustful passion that seized him. Dostoevsky’s conception of the estate as a pagan topos in Crime and Punishment was interpreted and expanded during the Silver Age by Nikolay Berdyaev, Georgy Chulkov, Aleksey Tolstoy, Nikolay Gumilev, etc.

Keywords: Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment, Russian estate, “estate text,” “estate habitus,” Arcadia, ontological dimension, pagan topos, Silver Age reception.