Return of the Idiot: "The Idiot" by F.M. Dostoevsky and "Return of Buddha" by G. Gazdanov

The paper is devoted to the proof of the hypothesis about the influence of Dostoyevsky's novel "The Idiot" on G. Gazdanov's novel "Return of Buddha", finding out motifs and leitmotifs common for these works, the characters and ideas correlation. The author reveals the coincidence of the following motifs, leitmotifs, and motive complexes: the hero's mental disease; inability to marry his beloved as a result of this illness; pseudo death; pseudo generosity; religious teacher and non-canonical works of art depicting it; accidental inheritance; an unsuccessful attempt to kill the main character, which is accompanied by seizure of his illness; the Apocalypse; begging; metamorphosis; death penalty; hypnosis; theft resulting in death; resurrection; the right death; a random book. There are also considered the correlations of characters and of character pairs: Myshkin - narrator; Myshkin - Kalinichenko; Myshkin / Rogozhin - narrator / Amar; Myshkin / Rogozhin - narrator / Ertel-Rosenblatt; Aglaia / Nastasya Philippovna - Catherine / Lida; Belokonskaya - Belokonnikov; Vilkin - Wilkins; Lebedev - Voronov; Totsky - Voronov; Myshkin / Ivolgin - narrator / Mishka; the following correlating ideas have also been compared: self-destruction, state violence, the "natural" crime. Such number of "coincidences" (though some of them are quite disputable) gives an opportunity to make a conclusion about the ''presence'' of the considered Dostoevsky's work in Gazdanov's novel. Taking into consideration well-known explicit "reference" of Gazdanov's characters and of the writer himself to Dostoevsky's personality and implicit ''attraction'' to him makes it possible to conclude that one can observe a classic occurrence of ''supplanting'' (and ''rewriting'') and / or hidden polemics. The author's opinion is that in the given case it is, first of all, polemics. Considering ''The Return of Buddha'' as a novel-polemics with Dostoevsky, we pay attention to two points of this dispute. First, the point of view of the main character of ''The Return of Buddha'' on the strict social conditionality, "prescriptiveness" of the criminal Amar's life is treated as the "answer" of Gazdanov the sociologist to Dostoevsky on behalf of the positivist ''Bernard'', who was so much despised by Dmitry Karamazov as well as by his creator. Second, the position of the main character of Gazdanov's novel also seems to be polemical towards the ''humble and abused'' female character: when Myshkin (and Dostoevsky's man in general) does not see the vice in Nastasya Filippovna (in a ''fallen woman''),who retains, from his point of view, inner purity, and refuses to blame her, Gazdanov's character, whose chivalry and willingness to help ''fallen'' Lida accounts for, chooses an absolutely different position - that of a rigorous judge, honest but severe, not that sympathizing but showing research interest in human ''carrion''.

Keywords

Authors

References