Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky (1821-1881) is regarded as one of the greatest novelists in both Russian and world literature. Dostoevsky's literary works explore with deep psychological insight the human condition in all its myriad aspects and engage with a variety of philosophical and religious themes.
In his lecture Professor Igor Ruzhitsky will be discussing the way in which the phenomena of ‘fear’ and ‘laughter’ are treated in Dostoevsky’s works, including in particular in his four greatest novels: Crime and Punishment (1866), The Idiot (1869), Demons (1872) and The Brothers Karamazov (1880).
Dostoevsky had considerable experience of fear in his own life – not least the mock execution to which he was subjected in December 1849 after being found guilty of membership of the Petrashevsky Circle conspiracy.
So it is hardly surprising that Dostoevsky’s interest in fear in all its various manifestations finds expression in his creative work. In his lecture Professor Ruzhitskty will show us the different ways in which fear as an emotion is experienced by Dostoevsky’s characters.
Professor Ruzhitsky will also demonstrate that the phenomenon of ‘laughter’ occupies no less than ‘fear’ an important place in Dostoevsky’s creative works and that the two phenomena are often inter-related, particularly in Crime and Punishment and Demons.
He will note that many writers have recognised the humoristic element in Dostoevsky’s work, Thomas Mann, a particularly perceptive reader of Dostoevsky, spoke of him as a ‘great humorist’ and described the Russian writer’s creative works as being filled with the ‘unbridled element of the comic’.
Professor Ruzhinsky will show how Dostoevsky’s sensitive and masterly treatment of the two very different but inter-connected phenomena of ‘fear’ and ‘laughter’ both heightens the dramatic tension in many of the scenes and enriches our understanding of the characters in the novels and their psychological motivation.
Igor Vasilievich Ruzhitsky, who holds the degree of Doctor of Sciences (Philology), has for the last year-and-a-half been the Leading Researcher of the FGBUN Russian Language Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, working in the Experimental Lexicography Department. Before that he served as a Professor of the Department of Russian as a Foreign Language in the Faculty of Philology at Lomonosov Moscow State University. He supervises the research project “A Dictionary of Dostoevsky’s Language” and is the author of numerous articles and books linked to the study of Dostoevsky’s literary works.