Laughter and the comical in F.M. Dostoevsky's works: on some features of the writers aesthetics

The problem of the comical for modern Dostoevsky studiesis extremely topical, as it allows putting and solving key questions of aesthetics, poetics and, in the end, world-view and worldmodellingof the writer. But for this reason at today's stage of development of Dostoevsky studies it is required to concentrate on moreexact and more special message of differentiation of separate aesthetic categories, which are responsible for fulfilment of comical functionsin the creativity of the writer. The given research is devoted to it. The purpose of the article is the revealing and differentiating ofsuch categories of the writer's aesthetics and poetics as the comical and laughter. The question on the correlation of the comical andlaughter, their interaction, primacy and generalizing character of each of these categories in literary criticism remains open till present.In turn, Dostoevsky studies have not discussed this question yet; there still is no uniform approach to studying these categories. So, forexample, R.G. Nazirov designates his reflections on the comical in Dostoevsky's works by the common concept "Dostoevsky's Humour";A.E. Kunilsky enters a more general name, "Laughter in Dostoevsky's world", etc. Dostoevsky distinguished between laughterand the comical, never mentioning the domination or generalized character of any of the indicated categories. For the writer they weretwo essentially different concepts with diverse functions and properties. Laughter is a physiological, psychological, social concept; thisquality is congenitally peculiar to the person. In turn, the comical is an aesthetic category, a product of a developing culture. Dostoevsky's laughter is a complex phenomenon. It is very difficult to find its borders as laughter in the writer's works frequently occurswhen concentrating versatile, often contradictory phenomena; quite often laughter of Dostoevsky's heroes does not bear anything comical,it does not make a comical effect. Almost every Dostoevsky's book has laughter in it, though, undoubtedly, not always explicit.Laughter in Dostoevsky's works has diverse expression means: from ruthless mockery to good and sympathetic laughter. Dostoevsky'scomical and its tasks are quite the reverse. We will emphasise that for him it is an aesthetic category resulting from the development ofcultures and civilization. Certainly, there are no impenetrable borders between laughter and the comical; after all, the primary functionof the latter consists in causing laughter. The present research is about the features of functioning of the comical and laughter in Dostoevsky'spoetics.

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