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

Povarskaya 25A, bld. 1, 121069 Moscow, Russia
fedor@dostmirkult.ru

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

"What Time Is It?": Ippolit's "My Necessary Explanation" in the Structure of the Novel The Idiot. Article 1

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  • Author: Tatiana A. Kasatkina
  • Information about the author:

    DSc in Philology, Director of Research, Head of the Research Centre “Dostoevsky and World Culture,” A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences,

    Povarskaya St., 25A, bld. 1, 121069 Moscow, Russia.

    https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0875-067X

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

    The research was carried out at IWL RAS with a grant from the Russian Science Foundation, project no. 25-18-00009 “Characters’ Writings, Languages, and Readings in Dostoevsky’s Mature Works (1859–1881).”
  • For citation:

    Kasatkina, T.A. “‘What Time Is It?’: Ippolit’s ‘My Necessary Explanation’ in the Structure of the Novel The Idiot. Article 1.” Dostoevsky and World Culture. Philological journal, no. 3 (31), 2025, pp. 32–57. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.22455/2619-0311-2025-3-32-57
  • Received: 15 Jul. 2025
  • Approved after reviewing: 21 Aug. 2025
  • Published: 25 Sept. 2025
  • Issue: 2025 no. 3 (31)
  • Department: HERMENEUTICS. SLOW READING
  • Pages: 32-57
  • DOI: Visit Website
  • EDN:

    https://elibrary.ru/PMATMU
  • UDK: 821.161.1.0+821.112.2.0+82.0
  • BBK: 83.3(2Рос=Рус)+83.3(4Гем)+83
  • Publication Type: Research Article
  • Keywords: Dostoevsky, The Idiot, two natures of man, Ippolit, Prince Myshkin, “My Necessary Explanation,” complex of quotations, Gospel, Apocalypse, Goethe, Faust.
  • Abstract: The article addresses the difference in perspectives arising from the two natures of man on the same problems and fatal questions of human existence. Dostoevsky's novel The Idiot is entirely built upon collisions, comparisons, and attempts at interaction between these two human natures. One such ideological and ontological confrontation is the treatment of the same questions at the beginning of Part One of the novel, in Myshkin's conversations with the Epanchins, and at the beginning of Part Three, in Ippolit's "My Necessary Explanation." It becomes evident that the questions which Ippolit views from the outside, Myshkin perceives and experiences from within — and vice versa. This reveals something quite counterintuitive for a reader accustomed to reverence and admiration for the sublime: the higher nature, when seen from the standpoint of the lower, appears frightening, repulsive, disgusting, and death-bearing. From the standpoint of non-belonging — in which both Myshkin and Ippolit find themselves at certain moments — the lower nature likewise appears frightening, repulsive, unaccepting, and destructive. As a result, readers and scholars often confuse and fail to distinguish between the images of higher and lower nature in the novel — as well as between the different qualities of Myshkin's first and second epileptic fits. The article also analyzes the complex of Gospel and liturgical quotations, as well as quotations from Goethe's Faust, that Dostoevsky placed at the "threshold" of "My Necessary Explanation." These intertexts support, deepen, and unfold — through their references to donor texts — the discursive problematic developed in the novel.

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Reference list of internet sources:
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