Dostoevskij y “El viaje por Icaria” de Etienne Cabet

Abstract

The present study is devoted to the influence on Dostoevsky of the works by a well-known French utopian socialist Etienne Cabet (1788-1856), and first of all of his very popular novel “Voyage en Icarie” (1840). It doesn’t consist in the direct Dostoevsky’s references to Cabet in his “Winter Notes on the Summer Impressions” (1863), “The Devils” (1871-1872) and “The Writer’s Diary”. It is shown that Dostoevsky’s “Stepanchikovo Village and its Inhabitants” (1859) is in fact a crypto-parody of “Voyage en Icarie”. That is why Dostoevsky’s work has some features of anti-utopia which were felt and described by some researchers. The writer had s strong interest to Cabet’s life as well. Dostoevsky’s outlook was shaped by his reaction to Russian and French socialism, Cabet’s socialism including.