Information about the author:
Yulia V. Yukhnovich, PhD in Philology, Head of the Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Museum in Staraya Russa (Branch of the Novgorod State United Museum-Reserve), Dostoevsky 42/2, Staraya Russa 175200, Russia.
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Abstract:
The article considers the key aspects connected with a denunciatory judgment on the judicial system of the 1860s-1870s and its main organ, the Advocacy, as reflected in Dostoevsky’s novel The Adolescent. At the time of its creation, the writer has turned to a large number of lawyers in connection with his involvement in the complex and tangled case of obtaining the inheritance of his Moscow aunt Aleksandra F. Kumanina. Almost all of them were found to have committed fraud, which harmed the outcome of the proceedings. His unfortunate experience with the lawyers in the Kumanin estate case led Dostoevsky to develop a new theme that shows the writer’s ambivalent attitude towards the judicial system in general and the legal profession in particular. This critical stance found expression not only in the pages of his journals and letters but also in the creative works of this period, including The Adolescent.