Russian Estate in Dostoevsky’s Novel Crime and Punishment

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Author: Olga A. Bogdanova
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DSc in Philology, Leading Researcher, Department of Russian Literature of the Late 19th – Early 20th Centuries, А.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Povarskaya 25 a, 121069 Moscow, Russia.

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7004-498X

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Bogdanova, O.A. “Russian Estate in Dostoevsky’s Novel Crime and Punishment.” Dostoevsky and World Culture. Philological journal, no. 4 (20), 2022, pp. 136–162. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.22455/2619-0311-2022-4-136-162
Received: 16 Aug. 2022
Published: 25 Dec. 2022
Issue: 2022 no. 4 (20)
Department: POETICS. CONTEXT
Pages: 136-162
DOI: https://doi.org/10.22455/2619-0311-2022-4-136-162
EDN:

https://elibrary.ru/ZGCMQT
UDK: 821.161.1.0
BBK: 83.3(2=411.2)+86.2
Keywords: Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment, Russian estate, “estate text”, “estate habitus”, Arcadia, ontological dimension, pagan topos, reception in the Silver Age.
Abstract: The article analyzes for the first time in the history of research on Dostoevsky the image of the Russian rural estate in the novel Crime and Punishment, in the context of the whole problematic of the book, with an emphasis on plot-compositional and semantic-semiotic aspects. The author previously clarifies the outstanding role of the rural estate as an ideal of life-settlement in the writer’s biography from childhood (Darovoye) to the end of life (the lawsuit about the Ryazan estate in the “case of the Kumanin inheritance”). The appearance of the estate of the Svidrigailovs, the structure of their life, the characters and lifestyle of both spouses are reconstructed according to the details scattered in the text of the novel. The semantics of their names is considered: Arkady and Marfa. It is shown that the name Arkady, used by Dostoevsky in three different works (“A Weak Heart”, Crime and Punishment, The Adolescent) actualizes the idyllic topos of Arcadia from ancient mythology, with which Russian landowner’s estate was traditionally associated. However, the destruction of the “culture of the estates” during the years of liberal reforms (the 1860s) strengthens the socio-critical pathos in the representation of the “estate topos” in Russian literature, which is noticeable in Crime and Punishment. The peculiarity of Dostoevsky’s “estate text” in contrast with I.S. Turgenev, I.A. Goncharov, N.A. Nekrasov, L.N. Tolstoy, etc. is that it is given an ontological dimension. On one hand, the Svidrigailov estate is a pagan topos, a place to satisfy the hedonistic needs of its owners, on the other, it is the locus of Marfa Petrovna’s spiritual growth in repentance, prayer, and posthumous convergence with the New Testament Martha, the sister of Lazarus, resurrected by Christ. In turn, Arkady Ivanovich, being by nature a good person, without the help of Christ he rejected, perishes because of the lustful passion that seized him. The concept of the estate as a pagan topos, embodied by Dostoevsky in Crime and Punishment, was understood and continued in the Silver Age by N.A. Berdyaev, G.I. Chulkov, A.N. Tolstoy, N.S. Gumilev, etc.

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