DOI 10.52172/2587-6945_2022_22_4_13
Abstract
Despite the sufficient research of F. M. Dostoevsky's works, the problem addressed by the authors of the article has not yet become the focus of philologists' attention. The work is devoted to the question related both to the biography (personal fate) of the writer and to his literary heritage – this is the question of the motif of "officership" in Dostoevsky's works. In almost all of his works – essays, novellas and novels, from "Poor People" to "The Brothers Karamazov" – characters having a military rank appear. The authors tentatively classify the characters of the writer related to the officer environment into two categories – accidental (or "passing") and essential (defining the characteristic of the system of images in his works). The first category includes unnamed heroes-officers from "Poor People", «The Double", their role in the works is small. The authors of this article believe that the characters of the so-called "comic stories" of Dostoevsky are in transition from the first to the second category. The changing (in the imagery, plot and ideological spheres) role of the heroes-officers in the post-prison stories "Notes from the Underground" and "A Gentle Creature" is revealed. A naturally uneven rhythm of the realization of the motif of "officership" in the Great Pentateuch has been revealed. After considering the specifics of the participation of hero-officers in the circumstances of the life and fate of the main characters in the novels "Crime and Punishment", "Demons" and "Adolescent", it is concluded that the apparent randomness of the appearance of officers is actually deceptive. In "The Idiot" and "The Brothers Karamazov", on the contrary, as shown in the work, Dostoevsky emphasizes the conceptual significance of the "officer" element in the history and personalities of certain characters.
Keywords
F. M. Dostoevsky, artistic creativity, motif, officers, heroes-officers, the Great Pentateuch.