Dostoevsky in Jacob Wasserman's Works

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Author: Alexander B. Krinicyn

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Doctor of Philology, senior lecturer in Lomonosov Moscow State University. Lives in Moscow.

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Issue: 2018 no. 1

Department: COMPARATIVE STUDIES

Pages: 168-183

DOI: https://doi.org/10.22455/2619-0311-2018-1-168-183

UDK: 821.161.1

Keywords: Wasserman, Dostoevsky, modernism, a philosophical novel, national agenda, religion, ideology, psychological insight.

Abstract: The article analyses the reception of Dostoevsky’s works by Wasserman. Comparison of the writers’ ideologies shows that they both protested against the suppression of human individuality by society and shared the concept of every person’s responsibility for the whole humanity. Yet, Dostoevsky’s Christian philosophy was alien to Wasserman, who, due to his negative attitude to religion, puts nature and “the truth of life” in Russo’s sense in the first place. In “Kaspar Hauser” Wasserman uses Dostoevsky’s character of “the positively good and beautiful man” from “The Idiot”. The article looks at convergence between Dostoevsky and Wasserman both in the novel poetics (lengthy dialogues, confessionary monologues, detective plot combined with philosophical content) and typology of characters. A character-ideologist is easily recognized in many of Wasserman’s characters, who are possessed by some idea (like Etzel Andergast, Mauricius-father, Kaspar Hauser, Agathon Geyer) or inspired by images of their grandeur (Alexander the great, Nothaft, Varemme, Ervin Reiner). At the same time Wasserman continues to depict the “humiliated and insulted” poor folk, which is another convergence with one of Dostoevsky’s types.