Fyodor Dostoevsky’s “A Little Hero” as an Initiatory Text

Download:

Author: Tatiana G. Magaril-Iliaeva

Information about the author:

Associate Researcher, Centre “Dostoevsky and World Culture”, A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Povarskaya 25 a, 121069 Moscow, Russia.

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7521-1898

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

For citation:

Magaril-Iliaeva, T.G. “Fyodor Dostoevsky’s ‘A Little Hero’ as an Initiatory Text.” Dostoevsky and World Culture. Philological journal, no. 2 (18), 2022, pp. 18–39. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.22455/2619-0311-2022-2-18-39

Received: 21 Mar. 2022

Published: 25 June 2022

Issue: 2022 no. 2 (18)

Department: HERMENEUTICS. SLOW READING

Pages: 18-39

DOI: https://doi.org/10.22455/2619-0311-2022-2-18-39

EDN:

https://elibrary.ru/OHGASV

UDK: 821.161.1.0

BBK: 83.3(2=411.2)

Keywords: Dostoevsky, “A Little Hero”, initiatory text, the hero’s path, true nature of man, memories, Goethe, Tasso, Titian.

Abstract: The article analyses Dostoevsky’s short story “A Little Hero”, the only literary work written during the author’s imprisonment in the Peter and Paul Fortress. The article shows how the essence of this work is to be an initiatory text, describing the hero’s step-by-step journey to gain his true spiritual nature. The main character of the story starts his path as a child for whom there is no place, with whom anyone can play as if he was a doll, and eventually becomes the one that is recognized as a knight who gained is place in the world, the one who has the power to revive the heart of the main female character, m-me M., and what is more important, the one who as a result of all his deeds has seen into his own true nature. The article demonstrates that through architectonics and carefully chosen details and images Dostoevsky relates his story to several European texts where the path to acquiring man’s spiritual nature is told symbolically, i.e. texts, that are in essence initiatory: Goethe’s novel Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship and Tasso’s poem Jerusalem Delivered. The article also identifies several semantic and symbolic coincidences with Titian’s painting Sacred and Profane Love.

References

1. Goethe, J.W. Polnoe sobranie sochinenii: v 10 tomakh [Complete Works: in 10 vols]. Trans. by N. Kasatkina. Moscow, Khudozhestvennaia literatura Publ., 1976−1980. (In Russ.)

2. Dostoevskii, F.M. Polnoe sobranie sochinenii: v 30 tomakh [Complete Works: in 30 vols]. Leningrad, Nauka Publ., 1972–1990. (In Russ.)

3. Karleil, T. Geroi, pochitanie geroev i geroicheskoe v istorii [Heroes, Hero Worship, and the Heroic in History]. Moscow, Eksmo Publ., 2008. 864 p. (In Russ.)

4. Kasatkina, T.A. “Ispoved’ otritsaniia” [“Confession of a Denial”]. Uchebnoe posobie po kursu “Religiia, kul’tura, iskusstvo” [Textbook for the Course “Religion, Culture, Art”]. URL: http://www.verav.ru/common/mpublic.php?num=440 Accessed 19 Jan. 2022. (In Russ.)

5. Kasatkina, T.A. “Obraz prostranstva: rai i ad v proizvedeniiakh F.M. Dostoevskogo 1860- kh godov” [“Image of Space: Heaven and Hell in Dostoevsky’s Works in 1860s”]. Sviashchennoe v povsednevnom: Dvusostavnyi obraz v proizvedeniiakh F.M. Dostoevskogo [The Sacred in the Ordinary: The Two-Folded Image in the Works of F.M. Dostoevsky], Moscow, IWL RAS Publ., 2015, pp. 114−148. (In Russ.)

6. Kasatkina, T.A. “Zhanrovoe naimenovanie kak kliuch k khudozhestvennoi real’nosti” [“The Definition of Genre as a Key to Artistic Reality”]. O tvoriashchei prirode slova. Ontologichnost’ slova v tvorchestve F.M. Dostoevskogo kak osnova “realizma v vysshem smysle” [On the Poietic Nature the Word. The Ontology of the Word in the Work of F.M. Dostoevsky as the Fundament of “Realism in a Higher Sense”], Moscow, IWL RAS Publ., 2004, pp. 94–131. (In Russ.)

7. Kempbell, Dzh. Tysiachelikii geroi [The Thousand-Faced Hero]. St. Petersburg, Piter Publ., 2018. 352 p. (In Russ.)

8. Magaril-Il’iaeva, T.G. “'Malen’kii geroi': vospominanie, kak put’ k prozreniiu sobstvennoi prirody” [“'A Little Hero': Memory as a Way to Insight into One’s Own Nature”]. Dostoevskii i mirovaia kul’tura. Al’manakh, 2018, no. 36, pp. 32–46. (In Russ.)

9. Tasso, T. Osvobozhdennyi Ierusalim [Jerusalem Delivered]. Trans. by V.S. Likhachev. St. Petersburg, Nauka Publ., 2007. URL: http://az.lib.ru/t/tasso_t/text_0020.shtml Accessed 19 Jan. 2022. (In Russ.)

10. Goethe, J.W. Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre. URL: http://www.digbib.org/Johann_Wolfgang_von_Goethe_1749/Wilhelm_Meisters_Lehrjahre Accessed 19 Jan. 2022. (In German)

11. Jérusalem délivrée: Poëme, Traduit de l’italien, Nouvelle edition revue et corrigée, Enrichie de la Vie du Tasse. Vol. II. Paris, 1803. URL: https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_wM_wt22g5mkC Accessed 19 Jan. 2022. (In French)