The “Special Charm” of Arkady Ivanovich Svidrigailov

Abstract

The article attempts to unravel what the special “charm” of Svidrigailov, the hero of the F. M. Dostoevsky’s novel “Crime and Punishment,” suggested in the article by B. N. Tikhomirov, is for the modern reader. As he develops the “characterology and psychology of a new type” with inspiration (B. N. Tikhomirov), the writer reveals the “prototype” of the modernist and postmodernist hero in the image of Svidrigailov. The techniques include the creation of “novel within a novel” within the work in the form of a “Svidrigailov text.” The article shows that Svidrigailov’s “charm” is revealed as the charisma of a hero who stepped from the 19th into the 20th century. Dostoevsky not only influenced the literature of postmodernism, but also created a prototype of a postmodern novel, in which the narrative is structured as that of the hero, rather than the author, and where the laws of cryptopoetics, fragmentary composition, shifting narrative plans — from real reproduction of events to illusory-dreamlike, and even delusional associations of the hero prevail. The article concludes that Dostoevsky’s hero is close to the contemporary hero of modernism and postmodernism with his attitude to the game and mythologization, his irony, cynicism, lack of faith, theatricalization of life collisions, integration of the levels of being and non-being.