The Eschatological Chronotope of Fyodor Dostoevsky

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15826/qr.2019.4.429

Keywords:

F. Dostoevsky; eschatology; thanatological discourse; Apocalypse; binary oppositions; retribution; punishment

Abstract

Issues of otherness and the discovery of the meaning of life in the face of death, the central themes of Russian literature since its emergence, were especially relevant for the characters of Fyodor Dostoevsky. He revived the medieval idea of a mysterious combination of the human and the transcendental and demonstrated that the experience of death throughout life determines the nature of man’s activity: the meaning of life is acquired in the face of death. It is from these methodological positions that an analysis of the thanatological meanings of Dostoevsky’s texts should be carried out, as they function as the most important regulators of the worldviews and behaviour of his characters, whose psychological ideas regarding death play a significant role in the artistic system of his works. This article presents an analysis of the ideas of characters from Poor Folk, The Idiot, and The Brothers Karamazov about death and otherness. An analysis of this thanatological discourse shows the evolution of the characters of Dostoevsky’s later works to a transcendental analysis of non-existential subjects and the themes of posthumous retribution and rebirth of the soul.

Author Biography

Irina Dergacheva

Dr. Hab. (Philology), Head of the Department of Linguistics, Moscow State Institute of Culture.

7, Bibliotechnaya Str., 141406, Khimki, Moscow Region, Russia.

ORCID 0000-0002-4878-2027

krugh@yandex.ru

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Published

2019-12-21

How to Cite

Dergacheva, I. (2019). The Eschatological Chronotope of Fyodor Dostoevsky. Quaestio Rossica, 7(4), 1143–1159. https://doi.org/10.15826/qr.2019.4.429

Issue

Section

Problema voluminis