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DOI 10.52172/2587-6945_2021_16_2_105

Abstract

In the article the influence of A. S. Griboyedov's comedy on the work of F. M. Dostoevsky is analyzed in terms of comparative studies. The method of intertextual analysis is used for revealing Griboyedov's traditions in Dostoevsky's art world. The author claims that A. S. Griboyedov's comedy "Woe from Wit" is a profound pretext of Dostoyevsky's novel world, but mainly focuses on the analysis of the novel "The Demons". It shows that many of Griboyedov's ideas, motifs, images and even words and phrases were taken, reinterpreted by Fyodor Mikhailovich and received a new life in his works, in particular, in "The Possessions". Special attention is paid to the theme of the confrontation of the individual with the crowd, which is always relevant for Russian literature. Certain overlaps are observed in the way the authors comprehend the themes of "madness" and "wit". Griboyedov was the first to show how the psychological law of uniting human society into a "crowd" works to expel the "outsider" from it. Women play a special role in the story of the expulsion of the "outsider”. Griboyedov's comedy already contains two types of "lodgers", which were later developed in detail by F.M. Dostoyevsky: the lodger "from bread" (Molchalin) and the lodger "from an idea" (Repetilov). There are also certain intertextual overlaps between Griboedov and Dostoevsky. The pair of Chatsky and Repetilov foreshadows the appearance of the pair of Stavrogin and Verkhovensky in Dostoevsky's "The Possessions". As a result, it is proved that "Woe from Wit" already contains condensed forms of domesticity and duplicity, which Dostoevsky would later decipher so ingeniously in the text of Griboyedov's "Woe from Wit", the ideas that Dostoevsky later "suffered" are encrypted and guessed.

Key words

Intertextual dialogue, traditions, F. M. Dostoevsky, A. S. Griboedov.