Pictures from the story crime and punishment. Illustrations by P. Boklevsky* for F. M. Dostoevsky’s novel “Crime and Punishment”
F. M. Dostoevsky. 1956
“Wide-eyed artist”, “non-portrait artist”, “Russian genius” - this list of definitions can be continued. Ilya Glazunov is equally loved, criticized and underestimated by audiences. However, no matter how polar the opinions, the halls of the Glazunov art gallery on Volkhonka are never empty. And this unabated interest in his work for fifty years speaks of Glazunov as a phenomenon of modern Russian art.
DREAMER. 1970
NASTENKA 1970
Illustration for F. M. Dostoevsky's story "White Nights"
MEETING 1970
F. M. DOSTOEVSKY. NIGHT. 1986
Part of a triptych
Illustration for F. M. Dostoevsky's story "White Nights"
F. M. DOSTOEVSKY. WHITE NIGHT.1983
NOTOCT UNCALLED. 1970
MAD MUSICIAN 1970
Illustration for F. M. Dostoevsky's story "Netochka Nezvanova"
AT THE ICE PILE. 1970
Illustration for F. M. Dostoevsky's story "Netochka Nezvanova"
F. M. DOSTOEVSKY IN ST. PETERSBURG. 1956
NASTASYA FILIPOVNA. 1956
ROGOZHIN'S HOUSE. 1983
ROGOZHIN. 1956
Illustration for F. M. Dostoevsky's novel "The Idiot".
NASTASYA FILIPOVNA. 1983
Illustration for F. M. Dostoevsky's novel "The Idiot".
PRINCE MYSHKIN. 1956
Illustration for F. M. Dostoevsky's novel "The Idiot".
AGLAYA. 1982
Illustration for F. M. Dostoevsky's novel "The Idiot".
IN THE SUMMER GARDEN. 1983
Illustration for F. M. Dostoevsky's novel "The Idiot".
DEATH OF NASTASYA FILIPPOVNA. 1983
Illustration for F. M. Dostoevsky's novel "The Idiot"
PRINCE MYSHKIN AFTER THE DEATH OF NASTASYA FILIPOVNA. 1966
Illustration for F. M. Dostoevsky's novel "The Idiot".
F. M. DOSTOEVSKY IN ST. PETERSBURG. AUTUMN 1985
RASKOLNIKOV. 1961
YARD. 1983
Illustration for F. M. Dostoevsky’s novel “Crime and Punishment.”
NELLIE 1982
Illustration for F. M. Dostoevsky’s novel “The Humiliated and the Insulted.”
YARD. 1983
Illustration for F. M. Dostoevsky's story "Notes from Underground".
ALMS. 1983
Illustration for the work of F. M. Dostoevsky "Notes from the House of the Dead".
MAKAR IVANOVICH DOLGORUKOV 1984
Illustration for F. M. Dostoevsky's novel "Teenager".
GRUSHENKA. 1983
Grushenka.
Illustration for F. Dostoevsky’s novel “The Brothers Karamazov”. 1983
ALOSHA. 1983
Illustration for the novel by F. M. Dostoevsky "The Brothers Karamazov".
IVAN KARAMAZOV 1978
Illustration for the novel by F. M. Dostoevsky "The Brothers Karamazov".
SKIT. 1983
Illustration for the novel by F. M. Dostoevsky "The Brothers Karamazov".
PORTRAIT OF A MONK. 1977
From the series "Images of F. M. Dostoevsky. The novel "The Brothers Karamazov".
GRIROGRY VASILIEVICH KUTUZOV - SERVANT OF THE KARAMAZOVS. 1983
Illustration for the novel by F. M. Dostoevsky "The Brothers Karamazov".
OPTINA PUSTIN. 1983
Illustration for the novel by F. M. Dostoevsky "The Brothers Karamazov".
LISA LEAVES. 1983
Illustration for the work of F. M. Dostoevsky "Notes from Underground".
TROUBLE AT THE BALL 1983
Illustration for F. M. Dostoevsky's novel "Demons".
TRIPTYCH. (fragment) 1983
Based on F. M. Dostoevsky's "The Brothers Karamazov".
THE LEGEND OF THE GREAT INQUISITOR. 1985
"The Brothers Karamazov".
GOLGOTHA 1983
Poor family.
Illustration for F. Dostoevsky’s story “Netochka Nezvanova.” 1970
Embankment.
Illustration for F. Dostoevsky’s novel “The Idiot”. 1982
The artist Ilya Sergeevich Glazunov managed to solve the difficult task of illustrating the works of F.M. Dostoevsky, perhaps because Dostoevsky is his favorite writer. For more than 30 years, Glazunov has convincingly revealed the thoughts and images of the great novelist, his spirit and philosophy in all their inconsistency and complexity.
The artist illustrates key moments in the development of the plot of the novel “Crime and Punishment” and portraits of its heroes. The main one, Rodion Raskolnikov, is depicted three times: 1) against the backdrop of a city street, “among the people”; 2) before committing a crime; 3) after the crime.
Dostoevsky, drawing a portrait of Raskolnikov at the beginning of the novel, writes: “By the way, he was remarkably good-looking.” In Glazunov’s illustration, these words about Raskolnikov’s external beauty receive concrete embodiment. Take a closer look: big eyes, straight nose, beautifully defined lips. Before us is a typical romantic hero, a dreamer.
On the pages of the novel, Dostoevsky pays sufficient attention to what Raskolnikov is wearing: the hero’s costume characterizes his social status. Glazunov does not draw Raskolnikov’s clothes with the same care with which he draws his face: he, like Dostoevsky, strives to show, first of all, the inner world, the soul of the hero. However, the artist is limited in his means of depiction by the frames of the picture, and he focuses the viewer’s attention on the hero’s face. It is the face: the expression of the eyes and lips that is the center of the portrait; it is this that “speaks” about the inner state of the hero. The artist was able to convey Raskolnikov’s experiences, his deep thoughtfulness. From the expression on this man’s face we see how difficult it is for him to concentrate on one of his thoughts, which “sometimes get in the way.” Raskolnikov is depicted on one of the streets of St. Petersburg, still “among people,” but already cut off from them, does not notice his surroundings, although he does not yet realize the tragedy of the situation that he is “preparing” for himself.
The second portrait shows Raskolnikov immediately before committing his planned murder of the old pawnbroker. Behind him are the famous thirteen steps leading to his closet. Raskolnikov's appearance is significantly different from the one we saw in the first illustration. The same young man with intelligent eyes is looking at us, but in his gaze we can already feel something animalistic. We can no longer call this face beautiful.
In the third illustration, Raskolnikov appears before us, lying on the sofa in his closet after the murder of the old pawnbroker: “Having entered his room, he threw himself on the sofa, as he was, in oblivion... Pieces and fragments of some thoughts were swarming in his head; but he couldn’t grab a single one, couldn’t stop at a single one... (Part 1, Ch. 7) He lay there for a very long time..."
Here Raskolnikov doesn’t look like himself at all. There is nothing human left in his appearance; rather, he looks like a ghost. This perception is due to the fact that Glazunov outlines the figure of Raskolnikov with light strokes, without clarifying or detailing anything. Here we will not find those expressive eyes that we saw in the first and even in the second illustrations. There are no “talking” lips here either. There is no facial expression at all. You could even say that Raskolnikov’s soul left his body. This illustration helps us understand the hero's internal state after the murder.
“Only then,” writes S. Belov in the commentary to the novel, “when we find out that Raskolnikov was planning a murder, will we understand that it was no coincidence that he was remarkably good-looking. A dreamer, a romantic - and harbors a dirty thought about murder and robbery. The crime of a hero ", disgusting and low, contrasts sharply with his noble appearance, and this, perhaps, is also the key to his resurrection."
Raskolnikov is depicted in his room. The closet is the final touch to his portrait. There is no place for a person with a healthy consciousness here. Dostoevsky alternately compares Raskolnikov’s cramped, narrow closet with a wardrobe, a chest of drawers, a sea cabin and a chest, and Pulcheria Alexandrovna, Raskolnikov’s mother, even with a coffin. This yellow closet is not just a witness to the “terrible, wild and fantastic questions” that matured and accumulated in Raskolnikov’s sick brain and which he himself, lying here on the sofa, more than once “changed his mind, whispered and argued with.” The kennel he hated intensified in him a gloomy feeling of painful, endless alienation and isolation.
(From the book: Nikitina E.I. Russian speech. Speech development. Elective courses. - M.: Bustard, 2005)
The publication was prepared by Opulskaya L.D., Kogan G.F. Series: Literary monuments. Moscow, Nauka, 1970. 808 p., ill. Hard calico binding with dust jacket according to fig. illustrator, enlarged format. 22.2x18 cm. Circulation 35,000 copies.
In the art of books, Ernst Neizvestny, as well as in sculpture, managed to have his say. For example, he illustrated Dante Alighieri and Samuel Beckett. He began his journey in this area with “Crime and Punishment” by Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, illustrating a publication that was published in the “Literary Monuments” series by the Nauka publishing house. The novel “Crime and Punishment” (1866) is one of the most remarkable creations of human genius. This is a novel about Russia in the mid-19th century, which experienced an era of profound changes and moral upheavals, a novel about a hero who contained in his chest all the suffering, pain and wounds of his time. Numerous versions of text from notebooks and handwritten fragments are provided. Many inserts with illustrations by E. Neizvestny. It's hard to call these graphics "illustrations." These are interpretations. This is something to think about. This is the moment of truth revealed to E. Unknown.
E.L. Nemirovsky cites the then attitude towards the works of Ernst Neizvestny, based, as can be seen from the quote, on principles far from art:
Not everyone liked this work. For example, the famous connoisseur of the art of books, corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences Aleksey Alekseevich Sidorov (1891-1978) did not perceive it.
One day I found him looking at the newly published green volumes of the immortal novel. He put them aside and said:
Zionist exercises!
I did not immediately understand that this referred to the illustrations of Ernst Neizvestny, and noticed:
God be with you, Alexey Alekseevich! How can anything connected with the work of Fyodor Mikhailovich be Zionist?
Ernst Neizvestny is the son of a Moscow rabbi! - explained A.A. Sidorov.
Meanwhile, Alexey Alekseevich was not an anti-Semite. But Ernst Neizvestny had no relation to any rabbis.
And one more evidence:
“The printed book aroused the displeasure of the Press Committee because of the original drawings by E. Neizvestny placed on inserts in it. The publication was delayed, it was handled by the Department of Culture of the CPSU Central Committee, but the illustrations were still preserved, especially since the captions for them were printed on adjacent text pages, so it was not possible to remove them without destroying the set. The book was highly praised in the Russian and foreign press. Meanwhile, responses appeared assessing E. Neizvestny’s illustrations as subjective, modernist, surreal."
"Between the cross and the axe."
The illustration “Between the Cross and the Ax” depicts two states of Rodion Raskolnikov - before (left) and after the murder. Lines run through both faces and converge on the head of the murdered old woman (in the middle). The old woman is a bridge from one spiritual world to another. Deciding to test his theory, Raskolnikov stepped onto this bridge. However, he made a mistake and moved to another world. But after the death of the old woman, this bridge collapsed, and the road back disappeared. Throughout the novel he is looking for a way back. The crime has aged him: there are wrinkles on his right face. After the crime, he ends up in hard labor. Hard labor is a bridge to life back. There Raskolnikov overestimates life values. Raskolnikov's entire path passes between the cross and the ax. The left face has hollows instead of eyes. This means that Raskolnikov entered this path as if blind. He regained his sight in hard labor, after which he could find his way back.
"Arithmetic".
The illustration shows a hand holding people's heads. In the hand in the foreground there is a head with a split skull. Most likely, this is the skull of an old pawnbroker. The hand holding the heads is Raskolnikov's hand. Raskolnikov, having killed the old woman, does not save the world and people, but, on the contrary, kills and ruins lives. In the background after the old woman is the head of Lizaveta, then Nikolka. The illustration shows that Raskolnikov’s idea of saving the world is wrong; by murder, he ruined the lives of himself and others. That's why the illustration is called "Arithmetic". The illustration reflects Raskolnikov’s theory: “In one life, thousands of lives saved from rot and decay... after all, it’s arithmetic!” The man in the foreground is Raskolnikov. And the hand squeezing people is, as it were, in Raskolnikov’s head. The head in the foreground depicts the chosen ones, the extraordinary, and all the rest are insignificant people, “lice”.
Unknown belongs to the first generation of nonconformists and dissidents in the culture of the post-Stalin period. The images and style of Neizvestny’s works more than once aroused dissatisfaction with the authorities, since his work contradicted the spirit of socialist realism, the canons and the official understanding of “art for the people.” A manifestation of this conflict was the dispute between Neizvestny and N. Khrushchev at the notorious exhibition “30 years of Moscow Union of Artists” in Manege (Moscow, 1962). At the same time, Neizvestny remained an officially recognized sculptor. His personal exhibitions were held not only in the Soviet Union, but also abroad: London (1964, 1965), Vienna (1965, 1975), Paris (1966, 1970, 1976), Chicago (1967), New York (1967, 1968) , 1975), Rome (1968, 1971, 1972), Florence (1969), Stockholm (1970), Tel Aviv (1972), West Berlin (1975), etc. The unknown person received official orders in the Soviet Union. In 1959, he won the all-Union competition for a monument to the Victory over Nazi Germany, which was to be installed near Moscow, but the project was not implemented. In 1966 he installed the decorative relief “Prometheus” in the Artek pioneer camp in Crimea. In 1968, he won the competition for the “Friendship of Peoples” monument for the Aswan Dam in Egypt (project of the “Lotus Flower” monument). In 1974 he created a decorative relief at the Institute of Electronics and Technology in Moscow. In the same year, he made a tombstone on the grave of N. Khrushchev at the Novodevichy cemetery in Moscow, and in 1975 he designed the facade of the building of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Turkmenistan in Ashgabat. In 1976, Neizvestny left the Soviet Union, lived in Sweden, and since 1977 has lived in New York. He continues to participate in group and solo exhibitions in America, Europe, and Japan since the late 1980s. - and in Russia. He lectured at various US universities and at Moscow State University (1989). In Neizvestny’s work, realistic forms are combined with elements of abstraction; the artist resorts to deformation to enhance expressiveness, which aesthetically brings him closer to P. Picasso, G. Moore, O. Zadkine. The main object of Neizvestny's work is the human body, which, according to the artist, does not become obsolete, unlike any artificial structure. In some of Neizvestny's works, mangled, broken bodies or body parts have a particularly shocking expressiveness. Many of Neizvestny’s sculptures are carved from stone, but Neizvestny loves bronze more than other materials. The use of volumes and cavities allows one to combine monumentality and dynamism in one work. Unknown often turns to themes of war, life and death (“Dead Soldier”, 1953–54; “Soldier Pierced by a Bayonet”, 1956; “Suicide”, 1958), to religious, mythological and erotic subjects: “Adam” (1962– 63); "Orpheus" (1962–64); “Centaur without Arms” (1989), etc. Among Neizvestny’s works are sculptural portraits (“Dmitri Shostakovich”, 1976, “Kennedy Center”, Washington). An unknown person created a monument to the memory of the victims of Stalin’s repressions in Magadan (project “Mourning Mask”, 1990). In 1995, in Odessa, in honor of the 700th anniversary of the city, his monument “Golden Child” was erected. Neizvestny’s main monumental project, the grandiose “Tree of Life” (1956–76), embodies the author’s main creative ideas. A bronze model of the monument was donated by the Russian government to the United Nations in honor of its fiftieth anniversary in 1995. The paintings painted by Unknown are exhibited in many museums around the world. An unknown person created illustrations for the works of Dante, F. Dostoevsky, S. Beckett and others. In 1996, the book “Ecclesiastes. Ya Kumok. Black Sun of Kohelet" with his illustrations. Neizvestny is the author of the book “On Synthesis in Art” (1982), “Unknown Speaks” (1984), “Centaur: Ernst Neizvestny about art, literature and philosophy” (1992). In 1987, the Tree of Life Museum, dedicated to the works of the Unknown, was opened in the city of Uttersberg (Sweden); in 1990, the sculptor's museum was founded in Sverdlovsk. Unknown - Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Arts and Humanities; European Academy of Arts (Paris) and New York Academy of Sciences.
F.M. Dostoevsky lived in Bremmer’s apartment on the top floor of the three-story Shil building on the corner of Malaya Morskaya Street and Voznesensky Prospekt, 7 (modern address building 8). The building has retained its appearance to this day. Raskolnikov lived in a similar house, but Dostoevsky gives him a different address. The writer lived here for two years, from the spring of 1847 to April 1849. Voznesensky Prospekt ends at one end of the Fontanka and at the other to the Admiralty, crossing the Moika and the Catherine Canal. In the middle of the 19th century, this area was quickly built up with apartment buildings “for tenants.”
Voznesensky Prospekt is often mentioned in the works of F.M. Dostoevsky. The action of "Crime and Punishment" is closely connected with Voznesensky Prospekt. It housed Miller’s confectionery, the description of which begins the novel “Humiliated and Insulted”: “The visitors to this confectionery are mostly Germans. They gather here from all over Voznesensky Prospekt - all the owners of various establishments: mechanics, bakers, dyers, hat makers, saddle makers - all people patriarchal in the German sense of the word." At the corner of Glukhoy Lane and Voznesensky Prospekt there was also a courtyard of the house where Raskolnikov hid the things stolen from the old money-lender. This is confirmed by the memoirs of A.G. Dostoevskaya: “Notes to the works of F.M. Dostoevsky” (“Voznesensky Prospekt.” In the first weeks of our marriage, F.M., while walking with me, took me into the courtyard of a house and showed me a stone under which his Raskolnikov hid the things stolen from the old woman. This yard was located on Voznesensky Prospekt, the second from Maximilianovsky Lane; a huge house was built in its place, where the German newspaper office is now." A number of events from “Crime and Punishment” take place on the Voznesensky Bridge, and here the narrator from “The Humiliated and Insulted” meets Nellie at the decisive moment. This bridge is also mentioned by “the gentleman in the raccoons” (“Someone else’s wife and husband under the bed”).
Almost all of Dostoevsky's addresses have two features: Dostoevsky always settled opposite the church and certainly in a corner house.
Based on the book: Antsiferov N.P. “The Incomprehensible City...” – St. Petersburg: Lenizdat, 1991
Internet resources: M. Moshkov Library. A. G. Dostoevskaya "Memoirs"
Petersburg by Dostoevsky
![](https://i0.wp.com/literatura5.narod.ru/dostoevsky2.jpg)
Poor people
(excerpt)<...>There was no rain, but there was fog, no worse than good rain. Clouds moved across the sky in long, wide stripes. There was an abyss of people walking along the embankment, and as if on purpose there were people with such terrible, depressing faces, drunken men, snub-nosed Chukhonka women, in boots and bare-haired, artel workers, cab drivers, our brother for some need; boys; some apprentice mechanic in a striped robe, worn out, frail, with a face bathed in smoked oil, with a lock in his hand; a retired soldier, a fathom tall, that’s what the audience was like. There were times, apparently, that there could not have been any other audience. Fontanka shipping canal! Baroque is such an abyss that you don’t understand where all this could fit. There are women sitting on the bridges with wet gingerbread and rotten apples, and all such dirty, wet women. It's boring to walk along the Fontanka! Wet granite underfoot, on the sides there are tall, black, smoky houses; There is fog under your feet, and there is also fog above your head. It was such a sad, such a dark evening today.<...>
(1845)
White Nights. Sentimental novel.
(From the memories of a dreamer)
(excerpt)
It was a wonderful night, the kind of night that can only happen when we are young, dear reader. The sky was so starry, such a bright sky that, looking at it, you involuntarily had to ask yourself, could all sorts of angry and capricious people really live under such a sky? This is also a young question, dear reader, very young, but the Lord send it to you more often for your soul!<...>From the very morning I began to be tormented by some amazing melancholy. It suddenly seemed to me that everyone was abandoning me, alone, and that everyone was abandoning me. Of course, everyone has the right to ask, who are they all? Because I’ve been living in St. Petersburg for eight years now and I haven’t been able to make almost a single acquaintance. But why do I need acquaintances? I already know the whole of St. Petersburg; That’s why it seemed to me that everyone was leaving me when the whole of St. Petersburg rose up and suddenly left for the dacha. I became afraid to be alone, and for three whole days I wandered around the city in deep melancholy, absolutely not understanding what was happening to me. Whether I go to Nevsky, whether I go to the garden, whether I wander along the embankment - not a single face from those whom I am accustomed to meeting in the same place at a certain hour for a whole year. They, of course, don’t know me, but I know them. I know them briefly, I have almost studied their faces - and I admire them when they are cheerful, and I mope when they become misty.<...>I am also familiar with the houses. When I walk, everyone seems to run ahead of me into the street, looks at me through all the windows and almost says: “Hello; how is your health? And thank God I’m healthy, and they will add a floor to me in the month of May.” Or: “How is your health? I’ll be repaired tomorrow.” Or: “I almost got burned and at the same time I was scared,” etc. Of these, I have favorites, there are short friends; one of them intends to undergo treatment this summer with an architect. I will come in every day on purpose so that they don’t heal somehow, God forbid!.. But I will never forget the story with one very pretty light pink house. It was such a cute little stone house, it looked so friendly at its clumsy neighbors that my heart rejoiced when I happened to pass by. Suddenly last week I was walking down the street and as I looked at a friend, I suddenly heard a plaintive cry: “And they’re painting me yellow!” Villains! Barbarians! They spared nothing: neither columns, nor cornices, and my friend turned yellow as a canary.<...>
(1848)
Crime and Punishment
(excerpts)
<...>The heat outside was terrible, and also stuffy, crowded, everywhere there was mortar, scaffolding, brick, dust and that special summer stench so familiar to every St. Petersburger who does not have the opportunity to rent a dacha - all this at once unpleasantly shook already frayed nerves young men. The unbearable stench from the taverns, of which there are especially many in this part of the city, and the drunks who were constantly encountered, despite it being a weekday, completed the disgusting and sad coloring of the picture. A feeling of deepest disgust flashed for a moment in the thin features of the young man.<...>(part 1, chapter 1)
<...>When he again, shuddering, raised his head and looked around, he immediately forgot what he was thinking about and even where he was passing. In this way he walked the entire Vasilyevsky Island, came out onto the Malaya Neva, crossed the bridge and turned to the Islands. The greenery and freshness at first pleased his tired eyes, accustomed to city dust, to lime and to huge, crowding and oppressive buildings. There was no stuffiness, no stench, no drinking establishments here. But soon these new, pleasant sensations turned into painful, irritating ones. Sometimes he stopped in front of some dacha decorated with greenery, looked at the fence, saw in the distance, on balconies and terraces, dressed-up women and children running in the garden. He was especially interested in flowers; he looked at them the longest. He also met magnificent carriages, riders and riders; he followed them with curious eyes and forgot about them before they disappeared from sight.<...>(part 1, chapter 5)
<...>Before, when he happened to imagine all this in his imagination, he sometimes thought that he would be very afraid. But he wasn’t very afraid now, he wasn’t even afraid at all. Even some extraneous thoughts occupied him at that moment, but not for long. Passing by the Yusupov Garden, he was even very busy thinking about the construction of tall fountains and how well they would freshen the air in all the squares. Little by little, he came to the conviction that if the Summer Garden were extended to the entire Field of Mars and even connected with the palace Mikhailovsky Garden, it would be a wonderful and most useful thing for the city. Then he suddenly became interested: why exactly, in all big cities, people are not only out of necessity, but somehow especially inclined to live and settle in precisely those parts of the city where there are no gardens or fountains, where there is dirt and stench, and all sorts of nasty things. Then he remembered his own walks along the Haymarket, and he came to his senses for a minute. “What nonsense,” he thought. “No, it’s better not to think anything at all!”<...>(part 1, chapter 6)
<...>The heat outside was unbearable again; at least a drop of rain all these days. Again dust, brick and mortar, again the stench from the shops and taverns, again the constantly drunk, Chukhon peddlers and dilapidated cab drivers. The sun flashed brightly in his eyes, so that it became painful to look at and his head was completely spinning - the usual feeling of a feverish person who suddenly goes out into the street on a bright sunny day.<...>(part 2, chapter 1)
<...>He clutched the two-kopeck piece in his hand, walked ten steps and turned to face the Neva, in the direction of the palace. The sky was without the slightest cloud, and the water was almost blue, which rarely happens on the Neva. The dome of the cathedral, which is not better outlined from any point than when looking at it from here, from the bridge, not twenty steps from the chapel, was shining, and through the clear air one could clearly see even every one of its decorations. The pain from the whip subsided, and Raskolnikov forgot about the blow; One restless and not entirely clear thought now occupied him exclusively. He stood and looked into the distance long and intently; this place was especially familiar to him. When he went to university, it usually happened - most often, when returning home - that he would stop, maybe a hundred times, at this very same place, gaze intently at this truly beautiful panorama, and each time he would almost be surprised by one unclear and insoluble impression of his. . An inexplicable chill always blew over him from this magnificent panorama; This magnificent picture was full of a mute and deaf spirit for him...<...>(part 2, chapter 2)
(1866)
Notes:
We can highlight about 20 works by F.M. Dostoevsky, in which St. Petersburg acts as a backdrop for the development of the plot: “Poor People”, “The Double”, “Mr. Prokharchin”, “A Novel in Nine Letters”, “The Mistress”, “Weak Heart” , “Someone else’s wife and husband under the bed”, “Christmas tree and wedding”, “Netochka Nezvanova”, “Bad joke”, “Notes from the underground”, “Crocodile”, “Humiliated and insulted”, “Eternal husband”, “Idiot” , “Crime and Punishment”, “Teenager”, “Bobok”, “Meek”.
Publications in the Literature section
Figures in the fields. Drawings by Dostoevsky for his manuscripts
Fyodor Dostoevsky often drew in the margins of his manuscripts and in notebooks. Who and what did the writer portray? We look at sketches and guess famous philosophers and characters in novels, look at Gothic arches and the unusual handwriting of a Russian writer.
Characters of works
Drawing for the manuscript “Idiot”
Group portrait
Drawing for the manuscript “The Brothers Karamazov”
Dostoevsky drew with a stylus, sometimes with ink. The first sketches in his drafts appeared in the margins of Notes from the House of the Dead, but Dostoevsky spent most of his energy on Crime and Punishment. He painted Rodion Raskolnikov, Arkady Svidrigailov, Sonya Marmeladova, Porfiry Petrovich and other heroes of the novel.
The images of the heroes did not take shape right away. In the drafts of the novel, next to descriptions of Raskolnikov, his sister and mother, there were, for example, portraits of Dostoevsky himself, the writer’s mother and sister.
There are many drawings in other manuscripts: the novel “The Idiot”, “The Brothers Karamazov”, “Demons”. Researchers are still arguing about some of them: it is not clear whether the characters in the works or one of Dostoevsky’s acquaintances are depicted in the margins.
Belinsky and Napoleon
Peter the First
Shakespeare and "Demons"
Rene Descartes
The writer drew not only the characters of his works. He made sketches for portraits of his contemporaries - Belinsky, Turgenev, and his favorite writers - Balzac and Cervantes. Dostoevsky also painted rulers: Peter I and Nicholas I. Napoleon III and Napoleon Bonaparte.
Portraits of philosophers appeared in manuscripts: while thinking through the image of each character, the writer thought about different ideas. So on the pages of “Crime and Punishment” a portrait of Kant appears, who discussed the moral law. Some descriptions of Prince Myshkin are similar to the images of Rene Descartes, who owned the phrase “I think, which means I exist.” Among the descriptions of the hero of “The Teenager” one can find a portrait of Voltaire, and the pages of “Demons” are replete with images of Shakespeare. However, one can only guess which of the heroes Dostoevsky represented in the image of the English poet.
"Demon" Gothic
Drawings on the margins of “Demons”
Drawings on the margins of “Demons”
Drawings on the margins of “Demons”
In addition to portraits in his “notebooks,” Fyodor Dostoevsky painted city landscapes and architectural elements: spiers, turrets, and especially often lancet windows. In the writer’s drawings you can recognize the arrow-shaped arches and stained glass windows of Notre Dame, Cologne, Milan and other Gothic cathedrals in Europe. Dostoevsky saw them when he traveled through Europe. There are especially many similar drawings in the margins of “Demons,” although the novel takes place in a small provincial town.
In his youth, Fyodor Dostoevsky graduated from the Main Engineering School of St. Petersburg. Here the future writer made the first sketches of buildings and studied the history of architecture. Dostoevsky retained his love for the art of construction throughout his life, and especially for