The Hypertexts of “Crime and Punishment” in Russian Literature of the End of 19th – Beginning of 21st Centuries

Abstract

Dostoevsky’s novel “Crime and Punishment” gave birth to the whole series of its hypertexts in foreign and Russian literatures of the end of 19th – the first half of the 20th centuries. A great part of them are hypertexts of the main character’s story. Exactly this case represent Chekhov’s novel “Drama at Hunting” (1884-1885), Fyodor Sologub’s novel “Heavy Dreams” (1895), Maxim Gorky’s novel “The Three” (1900), Leonid Andreev’s tale “The Idea” (1902), Alexey Tolstoy’s story “The Blue Cities” (1925), Daniil Kharms’s tale “The Old Woman” (1939), Ivan Bunin’s story “The Loopy Ears” (1916), Mikhail Kozakov’s tale “Petty Boorgeois Adameyko” (1927), Mark Aldanov’s novel “The Beginning of the End” (1936—1942), Evgeniy Zamyatin’s story “The Flood” (1929), Vladimir Nabokov’s novel “Despair” (1934), Vladimir Makanin’s novel “Underground, or the Hero of Our Time” (1998), and some others.
There are in Russian literature a sort of Svidrigaylov’s hypertexts (e.g. Bunin’s story “Kazimir Stanislavovich”, 1916) and Svidrigaylov-Stavrogin’s ones (Nabokov’s novel “Lolita”, <1955>) and, perhaps, even Sonya Marmeladova’s hypertexts as well (Valentine Rasputins’ tales “Live and Remember”, 1984 and “Ivan’s Daughter, Ivan’s Mother”, 2003). All these hypertexts can be subdivided into primary and secondary hypertexts. However, the majority of Russian hypertexts of “Crime and Punishment” combine its elements with elements of other Dostoevsky’s works of literature.