Abstract
The research is dedicated to the screen adaptations of Fyodor Dostoevskys The Idiot made in Russia in different cultural and historical periods. Films produced from 1910 to 2003 are analyzed in chronological order, with the aim of showing the transformation of the image of Prince Myshkin (Prince Christ), one of the key images of Russian culture1 within Russian national consciousness.
 The essay analyzes the following films:
 
 The Idiot (1910), directed by Pyotr Chardynin
 Idiot (Nastasya Filippovna) (1958), directed by Ivan Pyryev
 Idiot (1981), directed by Vladimir Tumaev
 Down House (2001), directed by Roman Kachanov
 Idiot (TV series, 2003), directed by Vladimir Bortko
 
 The essay reveals gradual trivialization of the image of Prince Myshkin. The first step down was from the divine child of Pyotr Chardynin to the angel of Ivan Pyriev. God placed man above angels, so Chardynin shows Myshkin as a pure child of the Garden of Eden, the highest among the analyzed screen images of the novels main character. The second step was made from Pyriev's angel to Vladimir Tumaev's fallen Adam. In Tumaevs 1981 adaptation, the image of Prince Myshkin is still characterized by evangelical parallels but they are absent in the characters created in the 2000s by Roman Kachanov and Vladimir Bortko. Ordinary people with varying degrees of mental disorders become substitutes for Prince Christ.
 
 1 Dostoevsky calls Prince Myshkin "Prince Christ" in drafts to the The Idiot. The writer accentuates the evangelical parallels of this image are
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