'The Meaning and Significance of Duality in the Works of F. M. Dostoevsky' — Report by Nikolay Ryabchinskiy

On June 29, 2021, within the framework of the seminar "Dialogue between Russia and Europe: the View of Young Researchers", a report was made by Nikolay Ryabchinsky, a research assistant of the Laboratory

The phenomenon of duality was first developed and declared by F. M. Dostoevsky in the novella The Double, published in 1846 with the subtitle The Adventures of Mr. Golyadkin. Despite the inspiration of Dostoevsky himself (“this will be my chef-d'oeuvre”; “Golyadkin was a perfect success for me”), The Double was not properly received by critics and the public, and the idea of ​​duality, stated in the story, remained not understood by the writer’s contemporaries. Reflecting on this failure, which befell The Double, 30 years later Dostoevsky wrote in his Diary of a Writer for 1877: "This story did not work out positively for me, but its idea was rather bright, and I have never carried anything more seriously than this idea in literature. But the form of this story did not work out for me at all <...>, and if I now set about this idea and set it out again, I would take a completely different form; but in 1846 I did not find this form and did not master the story". According to D. I. Chizhevsky, this idea was not abandoned by Dostoevsky, but was implemented by him in his subsequent works in various versions. Duality, therefore, turns out to be not only the most serious idea (according to the writer himself), but also the main problem that permeates almost all of Dostoevsky's work. The report was an attempt to reveal the meaning of the idea of The Double and trace its development in Dostoevsky's later works.

Watch the video on YouTube.