Further New Perspectives on Dostoevsky: ‘Winter Notes on Summer Impressions’. An Intermedial Approach to Dostoevsky’s London Visit

Abstract

Abstract The article examines F. M. Dostoevsky’s visit to London in the summer of 1862, in the course of his first trip abroad, which resulted in the writing of Winter Notes on Summer Impressions. A Summer-Long Feuilleton. The task to untangle the impact of numerous impressions on Dostoevsky’s creative process is initiated and the newly arisen circumstances that he encountered on his return to St. Petersburg highlighted. Winter Notes is viewed as a groundbreaking work in Dostoevsky’s canon that contains the seeds of future great works, though not primarily in accordance with the multiple ideologically based readings that have sought to define it. Instead Winter Notes is recognised for its author’s aesthetic explorations into poetics within the confines of Tsarist censorship which required that ‘Official Nationality’, the imperial ideological doctrine be upheld. Dostoevsky’s visit to the 1862 International Exhibition and its art galleries is addressed for the first time on the basis of his brother Mikhail’s letters and other evidence. The exhibition building and the works of William Hogarth, John Martin and J.M.W.Turner are singled out. Their imprint on Dostoevsky’s feuilleton is observed through the stages of impressions gained via intermedial interplay. It affirms that pre-existing notions in the ‘discourse of Englishness’ were absorbed and reinvented by Dostoevsky with the use of figurative language, clarifying the origin of metaphors used in the text, together with literary and biblical allusions. A list of Russian and British artists exhibiting in the International Exhibition of 1862 is included.