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= Reality or Dream: on the Function of Oneiric Symbolism in Vladimir Nabokov’s Short Story "Terror"

Slavia Orientalis | 2018 | vol. LXVII | No 3 | 477-488

Keywords Vladimir Nabokov Terror oneiric symbolism Dostoyevsky Pushkin demonism of laughter

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Abstract

The article portrays the motif of dream and its symbolic meanings in Vladimir Nabokov’s short story Terror, what has not been the subject of detailed research so far. It has been determined that the experience of dream in the analysed story denotes the protagonist’s attempt to escape from the surrounding world and a shift into the sphere of the unconscious (mysterious anaesthesia). Thus the topos of dream/dream fantasy in Terror implies the existence of a hero in a particular kind of chronotope, and is connected with the semantics of the passage – from demonic chaos and metaphysical terror to restoration of cosmic (microcosmic) order and to “becoming oneself” (Ricoeur). Moreover, dream in Nabokov’s text is intrinsically linked with the problem of compatibility/ incompatibility of the two worlds: the real and the oneiric one, existing in reality and reflected in a mirror, and also with the motif of a doppelganger which bears references to Dostoyevsky’s writings. Also, an oneiric image of a laughing woman is analysed in detail in the article. It has been proven that laugter (giggle) of the story’s heroine unveils ambivalent and demonic dimension of femininity and is a reference to Pushkin’s The Queen of Spades.

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Authors and Affiliations

Małgorzata Ułanek

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Lidiya Zinov’yeva-Annibal and F. Dostoyevsky: Echos of The Idiot in the Drama The Wedding Rings (Selected Aspects)

Agnieszka Gozdek

Slavia Orientalis | 2022 | vol. LXXI | No 2 | 277-292 | DOI: 10.24425/slo.2022.142178

Keywords Lidiya Zinov’yeva‑Annibal Fyodor Dostoyevsky intertextuality The Idiot The Wedding Rings

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Abstract

The article is devoted to demonstrating the presence of F. Dostoyevsky’s thought in the drama The Wedding Rings by Lidiya Zinov’yeva‑Annibal. Dostoevsky occupied an important place in the lives and works of the Russian symbolists (including L. Zinov’yeva‑Annibal), as reflected by their diaries and articles, as well as contemporary studies. In the Russian poet’s drama the intertextual relationships with the novel The Idiot are especially visible. First of all they are manifested in the construction of the protagonist, who has the same name as that of The Idiot), but also in conceptualizing such motifs as: love (the love triangle), beauty, good, sacrifice, devoting oneself to others. The presented studies lead to the conclusion that in spite of the fact that the creation of the drama protagonist reveals certain features in common with Dostoyevsky’s heroines, the very conceptualizing of this figure is different: in the case of Lidiya Zinov’yeva‑Annibal it is based on the “logic of triplicity” and in the symbolist thinking about Eros.

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Authors and Affiliations

Agnieszka Gozdek

1

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Lublin, Uniwersytet Marii Curie‑Skłodowskiej

Mephistopheles à rebours. Commentary to Ivan Karamazov’s Nightmare

Leszek Augustyn

Slavia Orientalis | 2023 | No 4 | DOI: 10.24425/slo.2023.148582

Keywords Fyodor Dostoyevsky Russian philosophy philosophy of literature literary demonology

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Abstract

The article is an attempt to formulate a philosophical interpretation of the figure of Ivan Karamazov’s “devil” or to explicate the theoretical and conceptual connotations associated with the demonic motif in Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s novel The Brothers Karamazov. The reasoning follows the line: the author of the novel – the hero of the novel – the figure of the devil. The questions explored in the article are related to the duality of Ivan, a character depicted in the novel (this issue is discussed within a broader anthropological context), to the conceptual and – most importantly – ideological background for “Ivan Karamazov’s nightmare”, to the intellectual and ethical conflicts unfolding in him, and finally to the ambiguous relationship between Christianity and socialism (theological and political contexts).

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