Dostoevsky's Works Research Articles

1847 Feuilletons as a Dictionary of the Philosophy of Dostoevsky's Early Works

1847 Feuilletons as a Dictionary of the Philosophy of Dostoevsky's Early Works

In memory of Louis Allain

On January 15, Louis Allain, one of the leading French Slavists, a researcher of F. M. Dostoevsky's work and literature of the Silver Age, honorary professor at the University of Lille, a member of the editorial board of "The Unknown Dostoevsky" journal, passed away after a prolonged illness at the age of 88. Professor Allen's interests centered on Russian literature from Pushkin to Blok, but he is most renowned as the author of works dedicated to the work of Dostoevsky. An evening in memory of Louis Allain will be held at the Institute of Slavic Studies in Paris on April 13. Members of the Editorial Board of our journal express their deepest condolences to the relatives, friends and colleagues of Professor Allain. We grieve together with you for the irreparable loss. May this brilliant and wonderful man, researcher and educator stay in our memory forever!

THE CONCEPT OF LOVE AND THE FORMS OF ITS EMBODIMENT IN THE NOVEL BY F. M. DOSTOEVSKY “THE IDIOT”

In the article, the concept of love, embodied in F. M. Dostoevsky’s novel “The Idiot,” is considered from the point of view of three religious and philosophical types of love identified by V. S. Solovyov, namely, ascending love (amor ascendens), descending love (amor descendens) and balanced love (amor aequalis). This approach allows not only to conceptualize the forms of manifestation of love in “The Idiot” in the context of V. S. Solovyov’s thoughts, but also to identify the readers’ tradition of adequate perception of Dostoevsky's work, associated with the mental and spiritual atmosphere of the era. Seeing the meanings of the novel through the “eyes” of V. S. Solovyov allows to outline the national value code of reading. Each type of love designated by the philosopher in Dostoevsky's novel corresponds to descending love (amor descendens), embodied in parental love (Lizaveta Prokofievna and Ardalion Alexandrovich), sacrificial love (Nastasya Filippovna Barashkina) and Christian love (Lev Nikolaevich Myshkin). The manifestations of selfless children's love (Swiss children) and passionate love (Parfyon Rogozhin) became forms of embodiment of ascending love (amor ascendens). The forms of embodiment of balanced love (amor aequalis) include “brotherly” love (Epanchiny sisters: Aglaya, Adelaide, Anastasia). However, the love of God is the highest form of love in hierarchy (which includes all others), the effective power of which begins with faith: therefore, it is no coincidence that the episode with the painting by Hans Holbein the Younger “Dead Christ in the Tomb” becomes the meaning-generating theoanthropic center of “The Idiot.”

Ф. М. Достоевский в позднем творчестве М.М. Бахтина

The author aims to outline the conceptualization of Mikhail Bakhtin's late works. Their essential moment is Bakhtin's specific attitude to works by Fyodor Dostoevsky and to literature as a special part of culture. In this connection, the author understands Bakhtin's philosophy as a philosophy of literature bordering on philosophical anthropology. In the article, using Bakhtin's writings, as well as a number of studies on his works, as material, the author intends to reconstruct the ontological basis of fiction, in the center of which lies the concept of grotesque Bakhtin developed in his book dedicated to Francois Rabelais. Despite the huge amount of literature on Bakhtin's oeuvre, there are no studies on his later works as a separate research space. This applies both to the corpus of texts, since part of the Bakhtin archive has not yet been published and lies in the manuscripts department of the Russian State Library, and to attempts to show the philosophical significance of Bakhtin's late writings by conceptualizing them and bringing them together into a separate intellectual phenomenon. The article attempts to analyze Bakhtin's later works through the prism of his attitude to Dostoevsky's works. The name of Bakhtin is not just associated with the name of Dostoevsky. The Russian philosopher revealed the ontology of Dostoevsky's works, and, since for Bakhtin Dostoevsky's works are the pinnacle of the development of literature, through Dostoevsky's works Bakhtin unfolds literature in its highest manifestation for us. The author substantiates the thesis that the understanding of Bakhtin's late works is based on the ontologization of grotesque, which Bakhtin himself indicates indirectly, not explicitly. The author also shows that Bakhtin sees literature, the subject matter of his research, as a purpose, as a special part of culture that reflects the ultimate embodiment of the human principle, and not an example in his theoretical constructions. Bakhtin's attitude to Dostoevsky is primarily reflected in his book about Dostoevsky in two editions. However, it would be wrong to reduce this attitude only to this book. In a broad sense, all of Bakhtin's philosophical works can be reduced to a certain hermeneutics of Dostoevsky due to the presence of a close and organic connection between concepts and ideas in Bakhtin's works, as well as the fact that Dostoevsky for Bakhtin is a key figure in his philosophical legacy. However, in the present article, based on a late interview, the author of the article reconstructs Bakhtin's thoughts about Dostoevsky that outline, among other things, an important topic in the field of Bakhtin's hermeneutics - the role of Dostoevsky's reader.

Материалы к реконструкции работы А.Ф. Лосева о Ф.М. Достоевском в литературной секции ГАХН

The article deals with one interesting historical and philosophical fact that is still poorly investigated in the field Dostoevsky's studies: the analysis of the work on Fyodor Dostoevsky conducted by the famous Russian philosopher Aleksei Fedorovich Losev while working at the State Academy of Artistic Sciences (GAKhN). The article also provides additional information about Losev's work at GAKhN in the 1920s, based on archival evidence. Particular attention is paid to the activities of the Russian philosopher at GAKhN's Literary Section in 1927-1929 (in the group for the study of ancient literature, in the Commission for the Study of Dostoevsky's work). The author cites numerous evidences of Losev's special attention to the work of Dostoevsky, including the fact that the Russian philosopher took part in discussions with reports on topics devoted to the work of the Russian writer. The author draws attention to the fact that the main point of Losev's analysis of Dostoevsky's work was the symbolism of the writer. Dostoevsky's work attracted Losev throughout his life. This is evidenced not only by youthful memories of his passion for the work of the great novelist, but also references to the Russian writer, which are observed in his works of different periods. The author notes that Losev turned to the study of the problem of the symbol in the works of Dostoevsky already in the 1920s, but the philosopher managed to publish these studies only much later. According to Losev, symbolic images permeate the entire work of the Russian writer. Losev's prose of the 1930-1940s also did not remain devoid of ideological contaminations in the spirit of Dostoevsky: suffice it to mention here such works of the Russian philosopher as Perepiska v komnate (Correspondence in the Room), Vstrecha (The Meeting), the novel Zhenshchina-myslitel' (The Woman-thinker). The same religious pathos of Losev's philosophical discourse is also present in his prose, for example, in the themes of man's estrangement from ideal life and rejection of the religious sphere. Based on a comprehensive analysis of archival sources, primarily the minutes of GAKhN meetings stored in the RGALI archive, and their comparison, the author presents, as far as possible, a picture of the activities and interests of the Russian philosopher, which helps to better represent the range of his scientific interests and significantly expands the possibilities for further research on this period of Losev's life, and also provides new materials for the history of GAKhN.

"Сделать правду правдоподобнее": к проблеме интерсемиотического перевода произведений Ф.М. Достоевского

The paper investigates the peculiarities of meaning-making in multimodal texts as products of intersemiotic translation of Dostoevsky's works. The research aims to analyse key ideas and semiotic means used by the interpreters, reveal the cultural specifics of interpretations and ways to deliver the key ideas to the target audience. The material of the study includes 30 foreign and 4 Russian screened adaptations, as well as comics, animations, operas and ballets based on Dostoevsky's works. The starting point of the discussion is U. Eco's idea about translation as a representation of illusions striving to replace the signs of the original text. The paper discusses different forms of intersemiotic translation; reveals the role of such factors as the choice of the language of the adaptation and the film title in the cinematographic interpretation of the original; as well as the plot modification. The study shows that the leading strategy is domestication that involves three main parameters: time, place and characters' ethnicity. The specifics of intersemiotic translation manifests itself in the asymmetry between the verbal and multimodal texts; peculiar intertextual connections between works belonging to different semiotic systems, historical periods, genres and cultures; the ability of the products of intersemiotic translation to express both significant universal ideas and trivial meanings.

“You can’t live in Sarajevo”: The Sarajevo text vs The Petersburg text on the example of the poetry of Abudalah Sidran

Unlike the Petersburg text, the genesis and structure, the language and authors of which are well studied and theoretically substantiated thanks to the works of the Tartu-Moscow school and the fundamental research of V. N. Toporov, the Sarajevo text and its theoretical basis are still in their infancy. Despite the fact that an incredible number of texts have been written about Sarajevo as a city, its architecture, history, culture, streets, etc., and the fact that it is also present in the oral tradition, the Sarajevo text as a term that could unite the texts about this city in their semantic and semiotic connection is still not generally accepted. The article deals with the Sarajevo text and the poetry of A. Sidran: his three central collections (Sarajevska zbirka, Sarajevski tabut, Morija) describe the city as a space of history, culture, memory and testimony. Sidran’s opus prompted researchers to realize the importance of studying the genesis and structure of the Sarajevo text, which indicates the need to define this term in a broader sense. Consequently, the poetics of the city of Sidran for the Sarajevo text is the same as the works of Dostoevsky are for the Petersburg one, according to Toporov.

«ГЛАВНЫЙ НЕРВ ЭПОХИ»: И.И. ГАРИН О Ф.М. ДОСТОЕВСКОМ

Subject of the article: "The main nerve of the era": I.I. Garin about F.M. Dostoevsky. Object of the article: the experience of reading the monograph by I.I. Garin "The Many Faces of Dostoevsky". The goal of the project: to actualize for the scientific and educational world the versatility and multi-vision of Garin of the personality and work of Dostoevsky. Methodology of work: the phenomenon of Dostoevsky, as well as the phenomenon of Garin, are unique, inimitable and significant. This context of the study became possible with the help of cultural-philosophical and comparative-historical approaches, as well as cultural and literary methods of analysis. Results of the work: consideration of Garin's work about Dostoevsky, his ideas, thoughts, approaches and research methods as new, adequate to the content and worldview of the author of the style and genre, the peculiarities of the structure of the text (aphorism and mosaicism of fragments "charged with the power of human emotions"), unique meanings of biographical chronicles of Dostoevsky. This made it possible for Garin to fix the dominant literary and cultural-philosophical characteristics, to reveal the specifics of Dostoevsky's thinking and the ideas dominating in his work, in his own language, unlike the traditional one. Field of application of the results: dialogue, reflecting a new multi-level way of researching the writer's work, which becomes the basis for the formation of a new scientific paradigm that stimulates Garin's interest in comprehending innovative phenomena in the study of Dostoevsky's world and his personality. Conclusion: the scientific novelty of the project represents Garin's unique attempt to combine the seemingly incompatible: intellectual depth with artistry in revealing the image of the great writer. “Individually-special” style today, in the XXI century, manifests itself so multifaceted that it creates its own Garin world, which attracts scientists from different directions by revealing new facets of its own consciousness and the depth of the universal. Therefore, the study of the semantic context of Garin's work about Dostoevsky is important and significant, contributes to the enrichment of scientific and creative thought. The conclusions presented in the scientific review are reasoned and logical.

Representation of artistic images of the heroes of Fyodor Dostoevsky's works in the graphics of the masters of book illustration

Representation of artistic images of the heroes of Fyodor Dostoevsky's works in the graphics of the masters of book illustration

Достоевский как художник обезбоженного мира

The article offers a view of Dostoevsky as an artist of a godless world. The author distingueshes Dostoevsky's Christian worldview from the artistic image of the world that the writer created in his works. In Dostoevsky's artistic world, Christianity is only a dream and a hope, not real life. Only a few of Dostoevsky's characters aspire to it, but the vast majority of them live as if Christ did not exist. The Christian reality is transcendent to Dostoevsky's godless world and only occasionally touches it from outside as a kind of revelation. In this world the external must be overcome by the internal, but this is only possible as a result of experiencing this "external" within oneself, with all its sins and temptations. This is why Dostoevsky's world is even more godless and fearful than the world in which he lived was in fact. And this is also natural, because the only way to find a way out of it is to reach the last depths of Satanism. Dostoevsky's texts are originally addressed to secular people, to religiously ignorant intellectuals, but not to convinced Christians. This is also the reason for the perception of Dostoevsky's works by various types of readers. The article proposes the notion of a "gnostic myth" about Dostoevsky, the creation of which is characteristic of modern intellectuals. It is shown that for the adherents of the "gnostic myth", immersion into the world of Dostoevsky creates the illusion of "spiritual life" and intellectual chosenness, replacing the religious life with an artistic illusion. Dostoevsky is a man shaped by a millennium of Russian Christian culture, abandoned in the godless world of the 19th century intelligentsia.  The godless world prophetically depicted by Dostoevsky is the world of the twenty-first century, in which "demons" rule, and this is his main artistic achievement.

Образ femme fatale в творчестве Достоевского сквозь призму структурного психоанализа Жака Лакана

The interest of psychoanalysis to Dostoevsky's work is due to the consonance of theoretical and literary discourses in the interpretation of unconscious motives that determine human behavior. The most vivid embodiment of Freud's ideas, which influenced modern philosophy, we find in Jacques Lacan, whose concepts of the subject absorbed in language and pleasure allow us to explicate the construction of femme fatale, which can describe a number of female characters of Dostoevsky. In fact, we can talk about Freud's discovery of a hysterical subject, which will later be described by Lacan no longer as a mental pathology, but as one of the structures of the psyche, along with psychotic and perverse. Removing the veneer of simplifying biologism from Freud's ideas, Lacan gives them a new sound in the light of structural linguistics, which fits them into the mainstream of the linguistic turn of philosophy. The interpretation of a number of female images of Dostoevsky carried out in this article through the prism of the Lacanian categorical apparatus allows, on the one hand, to explicate one of the constructs of his novels, and on the other - to draw parallels between the writer's intuitive insights and theoretical findings of the second half of the XX century. The phenomenon of femme fatale is considered on the material of two female characters of Dostoevsky (NastasiaFilippovna and Grushenka), whose obvious hysterical and narcissistic character traits most fully correspond to the image of femme fatale. In addition, the authors argue that femme fatale is primarily a phenomenon of language, that is, the more people talk about it, the more fatal it becomes in the eyes of others. Femme fatale realizes the enjoyment of speech and the capture of the subject by language. The authors consider the aspect of enjoying speech to be an obligatory structural component of this construction. Femme fatale is one of the faces of a Beautiful lady, who, as Lacan writes, is inaccessible to male desire, so the only pleasures that he can afford are fantasy and the enjoyment of speech. However, when he speaking about a woman, a man puts his subjectivity on the line, since the pleasure of the fullness or the pleasure of Another is outside the field of the imaginary and symbolic, and only in them can the subject exist. The desired meeting according to Lacan ends with madness or death, which Dostoevsky demonstrates to us with virtuosity in the scene after the murder of NastasiaFilippovna by Rogozhin. In his heroines, Dostoevsky, with the flair of a psychoanalyst, fixes the mechanism that triggers the utterance of a symptom and the enjoyment of speechwhich provoke the desire to possess and at the same time do not allow its realization, forcing the male heroes to circle around the object of desire in endless repetition and involving more and more victims in this circle. Signifiers cling to signifiers, finding the axis of rotation in the symbolic phallus - the femme fatale.

The fundamental influence of the ideological content of F.M. Dostoevsky's works on the philosophy of law. Review-presentation of the monograph by A.I. Bastrykin, R.F. Ismagilov, V.P. Salnikov "The idea of goodness in the works of F.M. Dostoevsky and its influence on the development of the philosophy of law" (On the 200th anniversary of F.M. Dostoevsky)

The fundamental influence of the ideological content of F.M. Dostoevsky's works on the philosophy of law. Review-presentation of the monograph by A.I. Bastrykin, R.F. Ismagilov, V.P. Salnikov "The idea of goodness in the works of F.M. Dostoevsky and its influence on the development of the philosophy of law" (On the 200th anniversary of F.M. Dostoevsky)

Образовательная практика чтения (на материале изучения творчества Ф.М. Достоевского в средней общеобразовательной школе)

The relevance of the research is determined by finding the reasons for modern schoolchildren's decline in the motivation for reading in general and classical literature, in particular. According to the authors, the change in the semiosis of culture (change of the verbal code by a visual one), as well as the rigidity of the organization of reading practices in teaching, can be named among the circumstances that cause the reading crisis. In this context, the “golden pool” of the Russian literature is facing the threat of losing its culturegenerating potential. Goal: a critical analysis of the practice of organizing the reading of Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel “Crime and Punishment” in secondary schools; highlighting its basic constituents and hidden actions that program the students' perception; identifying the directions of re-actualization of a classical literary text potential in school teaching. Objectives: the reconstruction of student and pedagogical discourse positions that objectify a literary work; a comparative analysis of educational dispositions; highlighting the discursive constituents of educational reading practices; identifying the directions of their renovation that make students' interest in reading a literary text more active. Methods of research: a critical discourse analysis; a conversion analysis; a pragmatic interpretation; survey methods (interviews, a focus group, experts' opinions). There have been found significant gaps in the dispositions of participants in educational reading, the presence of which is masked by common procedures of compulsion to communicative consent. Established were the key constituents of these practices (authorization, decontextualization, deactualization), which reduce the text of a literary work to the teacher's statements and the text in the textbook, which substitute the reading activity by a pseudo-literary replication. Substantiated is the didactic necessity of limiting the range of students' everyday experience actions of their educational interaction with an artifact text, alongside with developing a set of readers' new competencies based on the activation of perceptual-figurative parameters of a literary work perception and students' independent comprehension of the text. There have been established discursive operations of educational recontextualization (transformation into an academic subject) of the Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky's literary works, the objectification and reorganization of which will contribute to the growth of the generativeness of educational relations and increase their cultural-generating effectiveness based on links with the text-artifact. The general orientation of the subject “Russian Literature” towards the assimilation of methodologically codified material by students, which produces both the unification of the literary works being studied and the despecification of the cultural contributions of their authors, as well as the leveling of the individual character of the perception literary works by students, was critically assessed. Particular attention is drawn to the compulsion to communicative agreement (given the pedagogical perspective) in an educational interaction, which hampers a critical analysis of the text by school students, as well as the formation of a variety of reading practices. The optimization of the situation in teaching is consistent with the limitation of the literary component in studying the classical literary heritage, as well as with the expansion of the intermediary resource of visualization in relations with the text-artifact, and, above all, the activation of the ecphrasic dimension of reading a literary work.

A Confessional Monologue in “The Brothers Karamazov” by F. M. Dostoevsky and “Imaginary Values” by N. V. Narokov

The article explores a confessional monologue as a form of ideological expression of the main characters in the novels “The Brothers Karamazov” by Dostoevsky and “Imaginary Values” by Narokov. In the course of comparative analysis, the distinctive features of this form are established, the criteria are formulated to differentiate the confessional self-expression from other psychological methods used to depict the characters, the types of confidants are identified. As a result of the undertaken research, the existing academic ideas about the literary succession of Narokov in relation to the work of Dostoevsky are clarified; the statement about the innovation of the emigre writer in the development of a confessional monologue in creating the images of the Chekists is substantiated; the ways to further study the forms of confession in the work of Narokov, who is a prominent representative of the second wave of Russian emigration, are outlined.

My “Anti-Bakhtin”: (on the Issue of Interpretation of Dostoyevsky’s Story “The Dream of a Ridiculous Man”)

The article demonstrates in detail the numerous inaccuracies allowed by Mikhail M. Bakhtin in his interpretation of Dostoevsky’s “fantastic story”. The stress on the role of the “menippea” and consequently on the ambivalence of “The Dream of a Ridiculous Man” makes him overlook the main import of the story. The meaning of the story might be grasped only by taking into account Dostoevsky’s artistic use of a set of Christian ideas. Striving – though rather inaccurately – to account for auto-intertextuality of “The Dream” in relation to many other previous and subsequent works of Dostoevsky, Bakhtin fails to recognize the specifically Dostoevskian formulation of the theme. And, accordingly, he skips the motives of the ruinous universal “indifference” (Russ. “ravnodushiye”), the impossibility of preserving the “integrity” (Russ. “tselostnost’”) of consciousness in the modern world and all the consequent imperfections of man. Meanwhile, a detailed tracing of the inner affinity of Zosima, Alyosha and even Ivan with the “ridiculous man” makes it possible to point out some recurring motives and, accordingly, the key stages of formation of the late Dostoevsky’s concept of the renewal of the world and the techniques of its artistic embodiment. The work also shows how the shortcomings of the Bakhtinian approach to Dostoevsky occasionally surface in modern Dostoevsky studies impacting the interpretation of “The Dream of a Ridiculous Man”.

Толстой и Достоевский: два образа обретения Бога

The religious opposition of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky was formalized (or even created) and was significantly widened in the works of Russian religious philosophy. The almost unconditional acceptance (or at least sympathy) for Dostoevsky's religiosity, along with distrust and well-known criticism of Tolstoy's later religious works, was firmly entrenched in the Orthodox and general cultural consciousness for more than a century. However, the confrontation was never taken seriously. We want to outline the insurmountable chasm between two images of finding God using the example of the relationship between Raskolnikov and Sonya Marmeladova on the one hand, and Father Sergius (Stepan Kasatsky) and Pashenka (Praskovya Mikhailovna) on the other. These examples are of a paradigmatic nature and can be extended to other artistic and religious (in Dostoevsky's case, journalistic) works of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. From the legacy of Russian religious philosophy for the consideration of the works selected in the article ("Crime and Punishment" and "Father Sergius"), Bulgakov's "The Man-God and the Man-Beast" has the greatest and characteristic value. The opposition set by Bulgakov between Tolstoy (using the example of later works) and Dostoevsky (using the figure of the elder Zosima) is considered a misunderstanding by us. Bulgakov biasedly understands the religious meaning of Tolstoy's later texts. We offer a different reading of "Father Sergius" and raise the question of different images of the attainment (finding) of God in the texts of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky anew.

The Reflection of Dostoevsky’s Underground Man in Faulkner’s Sartoris

This article is devoted to the comparative typological research related to the ‘Underground Man’, as featured in the works of F. Dostoevsky and W. Faulkner. Based on the study of the phenomenon of moral alienation – the “underground” embodied in the character of the storyteller in Dostoevsky’s novella, Notes from Underground – we identify its reflection in Faulkner’s novel, Sartoris. The relevance of this study is due to the importance of the “underground”, which has not lost its significance in either Russia or the West. The character of the Underground Man, admittedly archetypal, has become part of the vocabulary of modern culture, and the novella Notes from Underground is rightly called the prologue to twentieth-century literature. The novelty of the present study is that, despite the existence of a number of works focused on the study of the “underground” in the literary world of Dostoevsky, and the wide scope for a comparative analysis of the works of Dostoevsky and Faulkner, the problem of the “underground” has not previously been considered from this perspective. This study draws on a number of methodologies alongside the comparative typological, including the doctrine of archetypes originated in late antique philosophy, the theory of archetypes first developed by C. G. Jung, and the archetypal approach found in literary criticism. As the results of the study show, in the archetypal character of the Underground Man, the model of “underground” consciousness is clearly expressed (Man-god consciousness, one’s own inconsistencies with the ideal, cruel self-punishment and aesthetization of it, estrangement, and spiritual decay) and may be defined – in a broad sense – at the stage of the formation of an “underground” worldview; and in a narrower sense – when complete moral alienation results in a state of “underground”. Idealization of the past, depicted in Sartoris (the “heroism” of young Bayard, the symbolic “deafness” of old Bayard, the “serenity” of Narcissa, the infantilism and desire to hide from life in a house surrounded by cedars demonstrated by her brother Horace), is functionally similar to the feeling of “sublime and beautiful” by the Underground Man of Dostoevsky and reflects the Man-god consciousness leading the characters of the novel to moral estrangement (“underground” in the broad sense). In the character of young Bayard, the “underground” matrix is fully realized, which allows us to define him as the actual Underground Man (“underground” in the narrow sense).

Russian Idea" of F.M. Dostoevsky: from Soilness to Universality

The author reveals Fyodor Dostoevsky's works main features, his importance for Russian and world philosophy. The researcher analyzes the concept of "Russian Idea" introduced by Dostoyevsky, which became a study subject in Russian philosophy's subsequent history. The polemics that arose regarding the characteristics of Dostoevsky's soilness ( Pochvennichestvo ) ideology and his interpretation of the Russian Idea in his Pushkin Speech and subsequent comments in A Writer's Diary are unveiled. The author concludes that Dostoevsky overcomes the limitations of soilness and comes to universalism. The universal for him does not have a rootless cosmopolitan character but is born from the national's heyday. Diversity adorns the truth, and national diversity enamels humankind. People's real unity is in that all-human value that is found in the highest examples of each national culture. The truth is not in rootless cosmopolitanism or nationalism - it is in the "golden mean," which, in our opinion, the writer-philosopher sought to express. Dostoevsky wanted to rise above the dispute, to recognize the points of view of the Slavophiles and Westernizers as one-sided, to get out of any particularity to universality.

Dostoevsky - Strakhov - Tolstoy: Toward to the Story of One Conflict

The well-known epistolary conflict between Fyodor Dostoevsky and Nikolai Strakhov over the latter's slander of the great Russian writer's terrible sins is considered in the article from the point of view a philosophical anthropology and relations not two but between three participants of this story: Dostoyevsky, Strakhov and Tolstoy. This conflict is presented through anthropological, existential, and class prisms of description, based on a reconstruction of Strakhov's concept of man as a controversial, dual, and undefined being reflected in Dostoevsky's work. A direct relation between the definition of the dual nature of man in the works of Strakhov and Dostoevsky and interpersonal conflicts within "boundary forms of literature" is substantiated. Special attention is paid to the class of seminarians, the object of Dostoevsky's targeted criticism. He saw their worst characteristics in Strakhov personality. Tolstoy plays the role of an arbiter in this controversy, assessing the situation both in terms of literary, existential and religious thought. In the course of his examination of this conflict, his unexpected closeness to Dostoevsky was discovered in regard to assessment of Strakhov. The point of their coincidence was the "pink Christianity" of the writers, who justify man in a quite similar manner, in terms of their religious consciousness.

A.F. Losev on F.M. Dostoevsky. About Losev's Activity in the Literary Section of the GAKhN

The researcher scrutinizes one peculiar historical and philosophical fact which has been generally overlooked when studying Dostoevsky. The analysis of the writer's works was carried out by the outstanding Russian philosopher Aleksei Losev at the Russian Academy of Artistic Sciences (GAKhN). The article also provides further information on Losev's work at the Academy in the 1920s. Special regard is paid to the Russian philosopher's activities in the Literary Section in 1927-1929 (in the group on Ancient Literature, in the Commission for the Study of Dostoevsky). The author provides ample evidence of the special treatment Losev paid to Dostoevsky, including numerous discussions of reports on the Russian writer's oeuvre. The article draws attention to the fact that the main focus of Losev's analysis of Dostoevsky was the writer's symbolism. It is noted that Losev turned to the study of such as early as in the 1920s. However, the philosopher managed to publish his findings much later. According to Losev, symbolic images pervade all of Dostoevsky's works. Based on the comprehensive evaluation of archival sources (recorded in the minutes of meetings, preserved at the Academy) and their comparison, the article unveils a picture of the Russian philosopher's activity and agenda. That helps us better grasp the range of his scholarly interests, significantly expands the opportunities for further research into this period of Losev's life and provides new data for the GAKhN history.