ЂАВО КОД ДОСТОЈЕВСКОГ: ИЗМЕЂУ СТВАРНОСТИ И ИЛУЗИЈЕ
THE DEVIL IN THE WORKS OF DOSTOEVSKY: BETWEEN REALITY AND ILLUSION

Summary/Abstract: In the paper an overview of the concepts of the Devil is given till the works of Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky appeared. The author then analysed how Dostoevsky dealt with the Devil in his work, and particularly in his novel The Brothers Karamazov, in book 5, chapters 4 and 5 („Rebellion“, and „the Grand Inquisitor“), and in book 11, chapter 9 („The Devil. Nightmare of Ivan Fyodorovich“). Special emphasis was put on the fact that there was a simultaneous reality and elusiveness of the Devil in the interpretation and nightmares of Ivan Karamazov. That is seen as an expression of an ambivalent attitude of Dostoevsky himself who was a deep believer and a great sceptic at the same time. For Dostoevsky the inner world of his heroes became the place of the Devil. In that way, „the Prince of this world“ was transformed from his external personifications into an inner daemon. Even in the inner world this kind of Devil is dual. He is both concrete and illusionary, he is a part of reality, but he also resembles a dream. The Devil of Dostoevsky is seen as an introduction to the medicalised Devil of European psychiatry defined in the works of Jean-Martin Charcot, Pierre Janet and Sigmund Freud. The development of the concept of Inquisitor is also followed in the work of Zamyatin in his dystopian rationalistic polis which denounced religion, emotions and the concepts of God and the Devil. The author considers as particular contribution of Dostoevsky his interpretation of the Devil in fluid terms, since it escapes any essentialisation of the term. Thus, the Devil in Dostoevsky’s interpretation even today makes an equally contemporaneous impression as it had made originally.

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