Dostoevsky’s Draft Plan “Envy”: How Did Demons Begin? (Dostoevsky, Arthur Benni and Nechaev Court Case)

Abstract

The article is devoted to issues of the creative history of the novel Demons at the initial stage of the conception. The initial stage of work is considered to be the notes of the plan “Envy”, which include some motifs reflected in the novel. These rough sketches are analyzed in textual and thematic aspects, from the point of view of their correlation with subsequent notes in the materials for Demons and with the final text. The first part of the article raises the question of decrypting the cryptonym “A. Б.”, which is contained in the plan “Envy”, the second part of the work examines the story of journalist and translator Arthur Benni, who came to Russia from abroad in order to participate in the revolutionary movement. The details of his stay in Russia in the 1860s were described by Leskov, first in the novel No Way Out (1864), then in the essay The Mysterious Man (1870, book edition 1871), published at the time when Dostoevsky began work on Demons. When comparing these sources with drafts and the final text of Demons, a commonality of characteristics and motives is established, which makes it possible to explain how Dostoevsky could have predicted the nature of the activities of “nashy” even before familiarizing himself with the materials of the Nechaev court case. The text of the article includes four letters from Benny to Dostoevsky (1864–1865).

Keywords

• dostoevsky
• leskov
• demons
• “envy”
• nekuda (no way out)
• the mysterious man
• arthur benni
• nechaev’s trial
• creative history