Tolstoy's place in literature history in Dostoevsky's perception: imagological reconstruction

Dostoevsky always repeats that Tolstoy’s works are not a new word in Russian literature but they develop Pushkin’s prosaic discoveries. Interpreting this statement generalized vision of Pushkin is often used not scientifically (as usual, it is because a researcher has ideas determined by some general contemporary conception). A methodologically correct approach is expected to distinguish our images of Pushkin and Tolstoy from ones peculiar to Dostoevsky. The imagological reconstruction of Dostoevsky’s understanding of Tolstoy’s role in the Russian literature history was made in this article on the basis of Dostoevsky’s letters and publicist statements. This means rehabilitation of the "image", the entire model of Dostoevsky’s perception of this problem which is determined by time conditions and Dostoevsky’s creative searches. The writer believes that Tolstoy’s artistic world is totally based on Pushkin’s discoveries. The risk of unhistorical substitution of Dostoevsky’s conception by our understanding of Pushkin and his influence on L. Tolstoy is very high in this issue. That is why the imagological reconstruction is necessary, for it could restore the conception relevant for Dostoevsky’s creative perception. In the article the author reveals that the writer means the model of the value architectonics of a conventional type which he discovered in Pushkin’s prose (first of all in The Belkin Tales). He detects this model in Tolstoy’s works and that is why he regards him as Pushkin’s successor. In many Dostoevsky’s works (especially in Poor Folk, Humiliated and Insulted and The Adolescent, where the Belkin theme is directly specified) Pushkin’s model of the value system of reality is inventively interpreted (rather Belkin’s, not Pushkin’s model because in Pushkin’s world there are other variants of value architectonics). The field of value exertion is organized in the following way: axiology is not given by the Other, the living I in the acts provides material for possible evaluation of the people around (i.e. a value system in respect to the Other). Everything is done taking into account the existing ideas of what is good and bad using which the act will be evaluated. The life is based on conventional, generally accepted and recognized axiological object-related substances. The crisis of the traditionalistically conventional axiological system is shown in Dostoevsky's novels. Looking after one's honor (from "The Captain's Daughter" epigraph) when one is young by simple following the decency rules as it was in Pushkin's model is impossible. Destinies of Varenka Do-broselova in Poor Folk, mother of Nelly and Natasha Ihmeneva in Humiliated and Insulted literally realize this idea and this problem, one way or another, is part of other characters' destinies. The article shows that Dostoevsky sees the influence of this very axiological model in Tolstoy's works.

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