Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics by Mikhail Bakhtin and Vasily Rozanov

Abstract

The article analyses the causes that sparked Mikhail Bakhtin’s interest in Vasily Rozanov, a fact we know thanks to the memories of Pyotr Palievsky. Bakhtin did not have the time to write about Rozanov, even if he suggested his visitors to read him. The reasons of Bakhtin’s interest in Rozanov can be found in the tight spiritual link between Rozanov and Dostoevsky, and the book Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics can help to understand it better. Contemporaries tried to reproach Rozanov by comparing him to Smerdyakov, but Rozanov was not embarrassed by such parallels and has himself repeatedly pointed to his kinship with Dostoevsky’s heroes. The articles follows how the features of Dostoevsky’s poetics highlighted by Bakhtin are the bases of Rozanov’s art as well: the relationship between the author and the hero, ideologemes in the roles of the actors, the equality of the words of the others, reflected in Rozanov’s constant use of letters by others as a way to characterize the addressee, the decision of publishing in his books articles polemizing with his ideas, and the discussion of them; polyphony and dialogue were peculiarities of his work. The book Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics becomes the key to the innovative nature and structural peculiarities of the world of Rozanov, who looked at himself as the last writer of a literature based on fiction.

Keywords

• mikhail bakhtin
• rozanov and dostoevsky
• exchange of thoughts
• concepts of problems of dostoevsky’s poetics
• author and hero
• word of the other
• ideas and ideologemes
• polyphony
• dialogue as a peculiarity of rozanov’s work