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 A.M.GORKY INSTITUTE OF WORLD LITERATURE
OF THE RUSSIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

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fedor@dostmirkult.ru

ISSN 2619-0311 (Print)
ISSN 2712-8512 (Online)

The Reception of Crime and Punishment in the Works of Vladimir Nabokov

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  • Author: Elena V. Zaitseva
  • Information about the author:

    Senior lecturer of the Department of Russian and World Literature, Federal State Budgetary Educational Institution of Higher Education Lugansk State Pedagogical University, Oboronnaya St., 2, 291011 Lugansk, Russia.

    https://orcid.org/0009-0008-2584-7634 

    E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
  • For citation:

    Zaitseva, E.V. “The Reception of Crime and Punishment in the Works of Vladimir Nabokov.” Dostoevsky and World Culture. Philological journal, no. 1 (29), 2025, pp. 244–265. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.22455/2619-0311-2025-1-244-265
  • Received: 27 Sept. 2024
  • Approved after reviewing: 15 Dec. 2024
  • Published: 25 Mar. 2025
  • Issue: 2025 no. 1 (29)
  • Department: DOSTOEVSKY IN THE 20TH AND 21ST CENTURIES
  • Pages: 244-265
  • DOI: Visit Website
  • EDN:

    https://elibrary.ru/UUSLDS
  • UDK: 821.161.1.0
  • BBK: 83.3(2Рос=Рус)
  • Publication Type: Research Article
  • Keywords: Dostoevsky, Nabokov, analysis, play, creativity, aesthetics, Crime and Punishment.
  • Abstract: The article examines the presence of Fyodor Dostoevsky in the novels of Vladimir Nabokov. The points of intersection of the artistic world of the author of Lolita with Dostoevsky’s works are identified; the peculiarities of the reception of Crime and Punishment in the novels The Defense of Luzhin, Invitation to Execution, Despair are explored. The attitude of Vladimir Nabokov to the works of Fyodor Dostoevsky is ambiguous and requires careful and deep analysis. At the same time, one should rely not on the writer’s loud statements, given his love of hoaxes and penchant for shocking, but on his artistic creativity, in which one can catch echoes of his true attitude. In The Defense of Luzhin Nabokov’s artistic world “intersects” with the work of Fyodor Dostoevsky on three levels at least (the themes of the game, psychiatry as a source of poetics, and images of heroes). The novel can be considered polemical and parodic, but still “pro-Dostoevsky.” If we turn to the origins of the parody and consider that initially everything that was most sacred was parodied, then we can assume that the intertext is a manifestation of Nabokov’s hidden sympathy to the poetics of F.M. Dostoevsky. The novel Invitation to Execution, which is full of references to Dostoevsky, most clearly, according to researchers, illustrates the method of fantastic realism, the origins of which should be found in Dostoevsky, and the theme of crime and punishment in it is, as it were, inverted. “A grin from Dostoevsky” also appears in the novel Lolita. Parody mimicking, playing “in Dostoevsky” turn Lolita into a travesty-inverted Crime and Punishment. In the novel Despair Nabokov contrasts the gloomy thinker and “neurasthenic” Raskolnikov with the false thinker and “neurotic scoundrel” German Karlovich, who can be called a parodic-reduced transformation of Raskolnikov, his “vile mimicry.” Other characters in Crime and Punishment also undergo transformation. It is obvious that, despite the declared rejection, Nabokov was still captivated by the creative influence of his famous predecessor. The writer develops an extensive polemic with the classic in his work. The figure of Dostoevsky, images, themes and motifs of his works are manifested in different ways in Nabokov’s works: as characters, as parodies, as a riddle or a game with the reader.

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