THE PRINCIPLE OF DOMINANCE IN THE CHARACTERS OF THE NOVEL “DEMONS” BY F. M. DOSTOEVSKY (IN LIGHT OF THE ETHICAL TEACHINGS OF A. A. UKHTOMSKY)

Abstract

The article reveals the author’s model of the world in F. M. Dostoevsky’s novel “Demons” based on the analysis of the genre content of the work. Appeal to the allusive plan of the novel (allusions to the motifs, images, landscapes in Goethe’s drama “Faust” and I. S. Turgenev’s story “Faust”) allows the reader to engage in a kind of dialogue between Dostoevsky and his predecessors. However, the traditions of ancient Russian literature (traditions of the vision genre, orientation to the church calendar, reliance on the biblical word and Holy Tradition) allow us to draw a conclusion about the national originality of the work. In the hierarchical structure of the novel, the highest place is occupied by the Gospel Word and the patristic heritage, Sacred Tradition. The concept of personality in the novel allows us to reveal the ethical teaching of A. A. Ukhtomsky about the dominant and the chronotope. The article for the first time considers the Ukhtomsky’s concept of the dominant using the material of Stavrogin’s “confession” and the fate of Stepan Trofimovich, and concludes that a new dominant of heroes has been formed. The significance of the novel “Demons” lies not only in the warning about the destructive processes that can occur in society and in man, but also in the depiction of ways out of the crisis and restoring the personality, in particular, Shatov, Stepan Trofimovich and other heroes are helped by conciliar consciousness, faith in the Providence of God, love, and readiness for repentance. The study was carried out on the material of the reconstructed journal edition of the novel, carried out in the Complete Works (canonical texts).