Nastasya Filippovna is an idiot, where did she live? The Murder of Nastasya Filippovna - unpublished Dostoevsky

Evgeny Lebedev - Rogozhin in the play “The Idiot” (1957)

COMPREHENSION OF ROGOZHIN

If you want to do the role yourself, then do it, but on one condition: you must have your own understanding of the image, the actor, the person. Then don’t listen to anyone, just listen to what they say, what they advise. Other people's judgments can greatly interfere with our work. Especially - I noticed - there are a lot of advisers at the beginning. Everything is clear to everyone. You're the only one who doesn't understand anything. Everyone understands everything - you alone understand nothing. If you listen to others and submit to their will, you may become so confused that nothing will work out. Lack of will is the most dangerous obstacle on the path to the image. Let there be a modest decision, but your own. Then you will not be like others, you will not use expressive means that are unusual for you.

A well-known truth: before you start doing something, you need to know what exactly and why you need to do it. And when you know, decide how you will do it. And take your time. This is a serious question. “How” is a property of form. And the form depends on your imagination. In order to confidently cut off the excess, you need to see and feel the form. In my practice, I made all the mistakes that my teachers warned me about. And through these mistakes I came to the conclusion: comprehending the exact form is already mastery.
School is only an institution where you took the subjects required of an actor. There are a lot of things that are not taught at all in school. Theater is our highest school! Each new role- an exam, and the older you are, the more difficult it is. I want to tell you about my main school, where I learned a lot and comprehended a lot. This is Dostoevsky's school. When G. Tovstonogov decided to stage the play “The Idiot,” I was entrusted with the role of Rogozhin. I worked on it for ten years, that is, as long as the play lasted. Dostoevsky lived for ten years.

I didn’t feel Rogozhin in myself. Like everyone else, I was captivated by the traditional understanding of the image. I had a familiar approach: positive character or negative. Karl Moor, Amalia, Franz (“The Robbers” by Schiller) - positive, positive, negative. Ferdinand, Louise, Wurm (“Cunning and Love”) - the same. And in “The Idiot” there is the same triad: Myshkin, Nastasya Filippovna, Rogozhin. The first of our actors who came to my mind as the future Rogozhin was V.P. Polizeimako. His texture, voice, temperament... It was impossible to imagine a better Rogozhin! That's what we all thought. The only thing that could interfere was Vitaly Pavlovich’s age. Next to Myshkin - Smoktunovsky, Rogozhin - Polizeimako would look like an old man. Once, when we met, I said to him with envy: “I would like your vote!” To which he answered me: “You need not only a voice, but also something else.” And I realized that he really wanted to play Rogozhin. But it happened differently. They appointed me.

This is where the advice came in. Among our old actors there were many who saw great artists in this role. And I listened to endless stories about how others played, what techniques they had, how they tore through passions. After all, only unheard of passion could push Rogozhin to kill Nastasya Filippovna! And I began to capitalize on these passions. That is, I began to lift weights that were completely beyond my strength. And the more I tried to “lift”, the more I pretended to be passionate, the less joy I felt. And my partners didn’t experience it in scenes with me. I rolled my eyes and growled, especially in the first two pictures. So to speak, he justified the surname, in which one hears something rough, primitive - matting! For the first time in my life, my heart ached during a rehearsal. It was he who brought me down, my Rogozhin, this “spider”, “money-grubber”, “son of his father”...

Here is what Ermilov wrote about Rogozhin: “The fourth character laying claim to Nastasya Filippovna is Rogozhin. The father's passion for money became his son's passion for women, but remained the same gloomy possessive passion. Of course, only a great artist could give us such a deep feeling that Rogozhin’s love smelled of the heavy smell of money! Rogozhin wants to outbid Nastasya Filippovna, increasing the price, as at an auction, and offering his own hundred thousand against the seventy-five thousand offered by Totsky.”
That’s the whole biography, that’s the whole character of Rogozhin according to Ermilov, whose articles about Dostoevsky I read then. This is the Rogozhin I set my sights on, this is the Rogozhin I put on myself, although I felt it: uncomfortable, tight. I put on a wig with black curly unruly hair. A small black beard stretched from one ear to the other. I put on a thick jacket to make my shoulders wider, a black sheepskin coat with a huge black collar... I looked in the mirror one day and saw... Sadko! This is how he appeared on stage as a “handsome man”. This is how he was played in the first performances. My partner, as you know, was Smoktunovsky. This artless, this genuine Myshkin amazed everyone from his first appearance on stage until the end of the performance. The actor merged with the image. Everything about Smoktunovsky—the figure, the voice, the hands, and the eyes—was as if specially created for playing the role of Prince Myshkin. And of course, we need to add the main thing - his talent.

And my Rogozhin rode in the carriage next to him, like a character from another work. It's funny to me now. I understand that I then tried to ford the river, which turned out to be deep. And he swam, holding on to Ermilov’s article like a straw. I repeat once again: if you want to do a role yourself, pass it through your own “I”, do not leave your nature, use what is given to you. ...My father loved to sing. I asked him: “Why do you start the romance so quietly, Throwing on a raincoat, with a guitar under the skirt...”? You have a strong voice, don’t you?” “Why yell? - my father answered me. “We are talking about secret, deep feelings, that’s why I begin almost in a whisper... Understand, I seem to be sneaking, hiding, suffocating, overwhelmed with passion.” I try to convey my passion to the one from which it caught fire... And then, it seems to me so, this is how I imagine it, this is how I see it..."

At rehearsals I went against my nature, I violated it. I used devices that were not typical for me. Expressive means, which I used were borrowed, alien; they didn’t touch me, my partners, or the audience. The first thirty performances were spent in self-deception for me. Just imagine, I liked going on stage like this, not belonging to myself. I walked along the same path that many theatrical Rogozhins had walked before me. I didn't violate theatrical tradition. What kept me in this alien guise was a well-known theatrical rule: the audience will always be on Ferdinand’s side. The blacker the deceit, the more the audience will hate Wurm. When playing Rogozhin, I used only black paint. My entire appearance was black. Black hair, black beard, black suit, the same black sheepskin coat, black boots on his feet. Only the face is pale, with thin red lips compressed in an evil grin. I liked that I had broad shoulders, powerful chest, dirty hands with a huge ring on my finger right hand. There is a red bandage around the neck, the color of blood, a hoarse voice... It seems that everything is according to Dostoevsky. I came to the discussion of the play in the hope that I would be praised, I was sure: Rogozhin turned out well.

I had to wait a long time for the critics to get around to my role. Smoktunovsky's birthday was celebrated. All praise and congratulations rained down on him. I was jealous. There is this beast in every artist - envy. The artist who says that he is indifferent to great success comrade, he will lie. Congratulating his friend on his success, the artist kisses him, admires his work, but what does it cost him! In everyone, in everyone, Salieri sits, albeit small, tiny, but he sits. Envy lives not only in artists. I have observed many times how critics listen to their colleague. Critics are bad artists; they don't hide their feelings well. Everything is expressed on their face. When the speaker said the word with which his comrade wanted to amaze the audience, the latter sometimes cannot hide his annoyance. You can see how the little devil of envy jumps in his eyes - his eyes give it away - how he jumps out, twirls his tail, and makes you half-faint. And the new speaker tries to find a word that could defeat the previous speaker and everyone else.

For all my envy of Smoktunovsky’s success, I was happy for him, because it was I who brought him to the theater. We starred with Smoktunovsky in the same film. His serious attitude I liked the job. I noticed his hands - thin, long, limp - Myshkin's hands, face and eyes. He was like no one else. There was strangeness in him. I thought: how strange - he works at the Moscow Lenin Komsomol Theater as a supporting artist, and suddenly he acts so well. Very strange. I told Tovstonogov that I had found Myshkin. Tovstonogov liked Smoktunovsky. He was taken to our theater. At the play “The Idiot” a new great artist was born.
It was easy to play with him. It was difficult at the end of the performance when I realized that the success of the entire performance was in it and that we, the rest of the actors, might not have come out to bow. The viewer wanted to see only him alone.

During the discussion of the play, they finally started talking about me. They said that my Rogozhin is a character from Ostrovsky, not Dostoevsky, especially in the first half of the play, before the scene of the exchange of crosses between Rogozhin and Myshkin. What went on for me went better and they believed my Rogozhin, especially at the end, when he killed Nastasya Filippovna...
In old theater reviews they would write about me like this: “Mr. JI. did not spoil the performance and did not interfere with the main character’s performance.” The devil pulled me to come to this discussion! After all, no one was dragging! I climbed the scaffold myself and got what I deserved. Yes, critics are good when they praise. Then they are your friends... I patiently listened to everything that was said about me, but I could not understand what my mistake was, why I succeeded in Ostrovsky and not Dostoevsky. After all, it seems that I did everything that was required of me, fulfilled everything that my comrades suggested. They said you have a dialect. And this is Ostrovsky! But Rogozhin and Dostoevsky also have a dialect. His speech differs from the speech of Myshkin, Nastasya Filippovna, and the Epanchins. They said there is not enough passion. But I tore it, I roared like a beast! And the chest is wide open, and everything is rude, angry, possessive. I just didn’t carry a “money bag” with me! And a dirty bundle of a hundred thousand, tied with twine, was in my dirty hands. What more do you need?!

No one could answer my questions or help me figure out what was going on. And then, thank God, the moment came when I began to look for answers from Dostoevsky himself. A merchant on the Volga stabbed to death his mistress. Dostoevsky used this fact in his novel. But he was interested not so much in the fact as in the cause of the crime. What made the merchant kill his beloved? Dostoevsky fought against “sociologists,” “critics,” and cold rationalists. “Such theorists,” he wrote, “will never be able to truly love their people, to feel their kinship with them. The greatness of the artist’s mind, the value of his works lies in how deeply he can join the reality around him, how much he can absorb it and express it in his creations. His reality can become a part historical truth beyond his limited ideology." I began to study the novel “The Idiot”: not to read, but to read into it. I re-read Dostoevsky's letters and diaries. And I saw how shallow the “depth” of my insight into the essence of Rogozhin’s character was.

Now I don’t remember where, in which letters I read that the image of Rogozhin is the most complex of all the images in the novel. This is true. Dostoevsky attaches great importance to chance in a person’s life. He begins the novel with an incident, placing Rogozhin and Myshkin in a carriage opposite each other. Two young men of the same age. One is twenty-six, the other is twenty-seven. Both are traveling light, without belongings. Myshkin has a knot, Rogozhin has nothing. Both are strange, painful. Both are without money. Both of them will later be millionaires. “If they both knew about each other, why they were especially remarkable at that moment, then, of course, they would have been amazed that chance had so strangely placed them opposite each other in the third-class carriage of the St. Petersburg-Warsaw train.” I asked myself why critic Yermilov didn’t like Rogozhin, but Prince Myshkin liked it? And who should I trust more?

Rogozhin has a good human beginning, for he is capable of compassion. The more this human principle manifests itself in him, the more tragic his existence. Rogozhin has God, or rather, fear of God. Since childhood, the naive “science” of Christ has lived in him. He was used to believing and praying, as his father and mother prayed. Rogozhin's father is an uneducated man. I saved money all my life; I believed that money is the most important thing in life. They not only did not take into account the qualities of a person’s soul, but were simply unknown to him. Everything is bought and sold - this is the law by which such people lived and live. At the same time, he regularly prayed, crossed his mouth before dinner, and went to church. In post-reform Russia, greed, acquisitiveness, and the pursuit of rank have increased. These are the circumstances in which Rogozhin’s consciousness was formed. And this consciousness inevitably had to be contradictory. After all, his youth fell on an era when, in the words of V.I. Lenin, “the entire old system was overturned” and when the masses, brought up in this old system, absorbed with their mother’s milk the principles, habits, traditions, beliefs of this system , does not and cannot see what the “new system is taking shape,” what social forces are and how exactly they are “laying it in,” what social forces are capable of bringing deliverance from the innumerable, especially acute disasters characteristic of eras of “breaking” (Lenin V. I. Poli. collected works, vol. 20, p. 102).

This breakdown passes through Rogozhin’s heart. It really was all mixed up. He lives at the mercy of money, but in the depths of his soul there are “beginnings, habits, traditions, beliefs” of the patriarchal way of life... Having met Myshkin, Rogozhin felt something kindred in him. What? It is unclear to him: “Prince, I don’t know why I fell in love with you. Maybe because at that moment I met...” But what kind of minute is this? “He was dressed warmly, in a wide sheepskin black covered sheepskin coat, and did not feel cold during the night... The dark-skinned young man yawned, looked aimlessly out the window and was looking forward to the end of the journey. He was somehow absent-minded, something very absent-minded, almost alarmed, he even became somehow strange: sometimes he listened and did not listen, he looked and did not look, he laughed and sometimes he himself did not know and did not understand why he was laughing.” .

This is something I should have thought deeply about. There is no bragging or courage here in Rogozhin. He intuitively senses in the prince an exhausted, destitute person, feels that fate has laughed at the prince, just like at him, Rogozhin. And it is characteristic that Rogozhin has no doubt that Myshkin is a prince. Clothes mean nothing to him. He himself is one of the rich, and now he is riding home in the carriage almost without boots. Parfen feels the nobility of his new acquaintance. Rogozhin “rebels” and does not accept his life. That’s why he runs, leaves, wanders around taverns, drowns out his melancholy... By asking Myshkin questions, Parfen wants to understand how similar their destinies are.
- Why, Prince, did you study various sciences there, from a professor?
“Yes... I studied,” the prince answers.
- But I never learned anything...

This is his first problem. He does not value himself highly, although his humiliation is indeed greater than his pride. “Do you know the Rogozhins?” Like, everyone knows the Rogozhins. Before the hereditary honorary citizen, millionaire Semyon Parfeny, everyone reveres, trembles, and bulges their eyes. Everyone knows the Rogozhin house. This house is a scary house. “This house was large, gloomy, three floors, without any architecture, dirty green in color... They [such houses - E.L.] were built solidly, with thick walls and extremely rare windows; on the lower floor the windows are sometimes with bars... Both outside and inside it is somehow inhospitable and dry, everything seems to be hidden and hidden... The staircase was dark, stone, of a rough design, and its walls were painted red paint... The walls were like marble,” with a piece of oak flooring and furniture from the twenties, rough and heavy, and some small cells were passing by, making hooks and zigzags. If she weren’t sitting in complete sanity (she’s sick), but after the death of her parent she became just like a baby, without talking: she sits without legs and only bows to everyone she sees...” Parfen Rogozhin grew up in such a house. He was given a hereditary, grandfather's name. And suddenly - a meeting with Nastasya Filippovna. And suddenly - a feeling, huge, inevitable. Of course, Dostoevsky attaches fatal significance to this meeting.

“That’s how it burned me here,” Rogozhin says about himself. The word I chose was “burned through.” It didn’t ignite, didn’t strike, but burned right through. The burn is irreparable, the burn is incurable!
Parfen Rogozhin’s feeling is stronger than the fear of his father: “For us, as a parent, try to go to the ballet - one reprisal will kill you! However, I quietly ran away for an hour and saw Nastasya Filippovna again; I didn’t sleep all that night... What was under my feet then, what was in front of me, what was on the sides - I don’t know and don’t remember any of it.” The feeling pushed Rogozhin to take an extreme action. With his father's money, received from two five percent notes (five thousand each), he buys diamond pendants to give them to Nastasya Filippovna. And note that he does not give them himself, but asks a friend. And at the same time he hides nearby. “I’m small in stature, and dressed like a lackey, and I’m standing, silent, staring at her, because I’m ashamed...” Nastasya Filippovna smiled, and Rogozhin instantly experienced great joy. “But somehow you will now give a report to Semyon Parfenych?” - asks his friend.

Rogozhin knew what terrible punishment he would suffer for his act. But his feeling is stronger than reason. “True, I wanted to get into the water right then, without going home,” says Rogozhin, “but I thought: “It doesn’t matter,” and like a damned person I returned home.” He was beaten half to death by his father. Then he fled to Pskov, “and there he was in taverns, and in a fever, he forcibly woke up.” That's what it cost him to meet Nastasya Filippovna. It is no coincidence that, having learned how much the pendants cost Rogozhin, she says: “... they are now ten times more expensive for me, since Parfen got them from under such a thunderstorm.” Did Rogozhin want to “buy” Nastasya Filippovna with pendants? A stupid thought, although Rogozhin is flesh of his father’s flesh. Chance (fate!) awakened in Rogozhin the human element given to him by nature. The first time something happened to him that he could not cope with. What price could he pay for what was revealed in him, except own life?! And he is ready to give her up for the sake of the one who brought him such unbearable torment and at the same time unbearable joy.

He intuitively felt that Nastasya Filippovna cannot be bought with money, this is not Arman, not Coralli - whatever you want for money... Two different Parfens: one - before meeting Nastasya Filippovna, the other - after. Love and passion awoke in him. He can't suppress it. Nature has spoken! He realized the humiliation in which his life had passed before the fateful meeting. Parfen is an extraordinary person, not stupid, not insensitive, not a villain. This is not some arithmetic mean - “merchant”, “tyrant” and “money-grubber”. He is a man among animals, he has a beautiful beginning. Only it is muffled, strangled by the circumstances of life and by those who taught him how to live, what standard to use when capital began to develop. It is from them, the “teachers”, the “lawyers”, that everything is bought and sold. They don't have God. God is only for the poor and humiliated, for people like Parfen Rogozhin, while he has no capital. In this life, everything beautiful and genuine perishes, this life leads to the illness in which both Myshkin and Rogozhin are. Both of them are disadvantaged. Different in class, but with the same pain in the soul.

Therefore, Rogozhin is imbued with a kindred feeling for Myshkin and offers him his patronage: “Come to me, prince. We’ll take these boots off of you, I’ll dress you in a first-class marten fur coat, I’ll sew you a first-class tailcoat, a white vest or whatever you want, I’ll fill your pockets full of money...” Now, after my in-depth studies of Rogozhin and, more broadly, Dostoevsky, I could Do I still “expose” my Parfen? Dostoevsky the artist puts the three heroes of the novel - Myshkin, Nastasya Filippovna and Rogozhin - in the same attitude towards money as the most terrible evil. Each of the three knows what money is, and each hates it. Money has made them unhappy, but each individual does not know about the other how unhappy he is. Returning from Pskov, Rogozhin finds Nastasya Filippovna no longer the same one who accepted Rogozhin’s pendants and smiled. After that meeting, events occurred in Nastasya Filippovna’s life that shocked her and put her in a feverish state. She learned about seventy

five thousand, for which Totsky wants to sell her, and that Ganka Ivolgin was offered to marry her. Nastasya Filippovna and Rogozhin are placed by Dostoevsky in circumstances where both are already on the verge of insanity. Their feelings are too intense for these two people to understand each other. Their contact causes an explosion. This is natural, despite the fact that their fates are similar: both are humiliated, insulted strongmen of the world this. No, Rogozhin is not a villain, not a murderer. Karandyshev in “The Dowry” kills Larisa out of powerlessness, in a fit of jealousy. In the murder of Rogozhin there is a conscious liberation from the suffering and torment that everyone endures, Rogozhin himself, Nastasya Filippovna, Myshkin, and Aglaya. And there is a “miracle” in everything, even in the fact that the knife entered the very heart, and there was only one drop of blood. This miracle completely drove Rogozhin crazy. He felt that by killing a man, he had killed God himself!

When playing Rogozhin, I didn’t take a lot into account. In the first picture, in the carriage scene, I missed the main circumstance. Parfen is distracted here. He listens and does not hear, he looks and does not see. I missed my father's death. Whatever Rozhin's father was, Parfen's son could not survive his death indifferently. Freed from his father, he finds himself in even more difficult circumstances, and he is aware of this. The act of brother Semyon, who cut off the golden tassels from the bedspread during his father’s funeral, caused him bewilderment. He has a presentiment that the entire Rozhinsky house will now come to complete ruin. Returning home does not bode well for him. He is oppressed by terrible forebodings. He perceives the meeting with the prince as something miraculous. And I made him look like an open, unbelted millionaire merchant. That is why he came out more from Ostrovsky than from Dostoevsky. In Dostoevsky, Parfen is collected, all in himself, scared. That's why I'm distracted. We must also add the most important circumstance that Nastasya Filippovna is engaged to Ganka. And this just can’t fit into Rogozhin’s mind. This event hurries him to St. Petersburg.

Meeting at Ganka Ivolgin's. Dostoevsky brings everyone here characters to this state of mind when only feelings exist - naked, sick, feverish, insulted, proud... Everyone understands that they have reached the limit, that everything that is happening is disgusting, but they cannot cope with the storm. Every word spoken by a character causes a response explosion. Here people are abnormal, red-hot, as if some lids are being torn off, scalding steam bursts out and everyone is screaming and howling from the burns. Satan himself will not understand this. Dostoevsky shows people in a state where each of them is ready to commit a crime. Everyone believes that he is right, everyone has their own sores, their own wounds, their own torments, which no one cares about. Everyone thinks only about themselves, selfishness and egocentrism reign here, after each subsequent event the relationship becomes even more confusing and aggravated. There is a fight going on here in the dark, they are beating no one knows who and no one knows why, they are beating anywhere, anyhow. And they end up in the most painful places.

And Rogozhin here commits an act that is characteristic of his character and, from his point of view, natural: he offers “compensation” to Ivolgin. But for Nastasya Filippovna this bargaining is insulting: “Now the man has spoken!” Rogozhin understands “man” in the sense that eighteen thousand is not enough. This offends him - he can give everything, everything he has. It is not he who gives, but his love! In the scene at Ganka Ivolgin’s, I appeared in an unbridled state along with my company. I entered noisily, again as it could have been at Ostrovsky’s. And here’s how Dostoevsky says: “...Rogozhin walked cautiously at the head of the crowd, but he had some kind of intention, and he seemed gloomily and irritably preoccupied... Obviously, he had no intention of meeting her here, because that her appearance made an extraordinary impression on him; he turned so pale that even his lips turned blue.”
Rogozhin could not come alone to Ganka’s house; he would not have had the courage to do so, which is why he took company with him. He was sure that Nastasya Filippovna was not at Ganka’s. And suddenly...

Previously, I screamed in this scene, screamed and destroyed Ganka Ivolgin in the presence of Nastasya Filippovna. The half-drunk group played along and made noise along with me.
Now I already understood what I was doing wrong, but I still could not exist in this scene otherwise. What was developed in rehearsals and in ongoing performances could not be changed immediately. Now every appearance in The Idiot was torture for me. The first thing I did was take off my thick hair, took off my wig, my head felt easier, but it didn’t help. I remained the same in my actions. How many times have I wanted to rip off my beard, take off my suit and leave the theater! The ethics of the profession did not allow it. I did not consult with anyone, did not share my torment and what I discovered in Rogozhin. But I couldn’t bring myself to play in a new way. Did not work.

One day I was invited to visit a house where a famous doctor, Professor Ryss, visited. An old theatergoer, he knew all the actors and remembered many performances well. We talked with him about Dostoevsky, and in particular about Rogozhin. He said: “No actor has played such roles without doping. You need to drink a hundred grams of cognac before the performance, it will invigorate you and tune you into the wave that is needed in Rogozhin, free you from unnecessary tension, and give free rein to your feelings. The mind slows down the feeling! You can’t play with your mind alone!” I have always been against such dopings, I have never resorted to them in any role. The stage is a sacred place. Exciting your nerves with doping means ruining the art in yourself. However, the more I learned about Rogozhin’s character, the more difficult it became for me to go on stage. The form did not contain the content I discovered.

I began to understand that Rogozhin’s role is all about silence, and not about frantic screaming and unbridled passion. It's all on the surface. But remaining silent on stage, especially in the role of Rogozhin, is the most difficult thing. Inside you there is a frantic process of assessing the circumstances, everything that is happening around. It is not the external that is necessary, but internal action so that in silence everything can be seen. And at the same time, you must not get lost among those characters who have large text. Rogozhin understands who stands on what level here, feels his own insignificant position, despite his millions. The death of his father brought him freedom, but this freedom plunged him into new dependence. In dreams, it is easy to manage your freedom. His naive ideas about the power of millions gave him the right to think that, having received them, he would be able to rise above everyone, he would be able to enter wherever he wanted, and it would be possible to finally make up for lost time. But these illusions dissipated. He met Nastasya Filippovna, and his freedom turned into unfreedom, new torment. The penniless Prince Myshkin, whom he laughed at, turned out to be richer than him and without much difficulty won the love of Nastasya Filippovna, no, he didn’t win - he conquered her, and Aglaya, and everyone he had to meet.

I knew everything about Rogozhin, I could answer many questions and, as Rogozhin’s “lawyer,” I could defend and justify him and all his actions. But only my mind spoke. The feeling was silent, squeezed in the grip of reason. A crisis has arrived. One day, after the first film, “In the Carriage,” I entered my dressing room with the firm intention of taking off my suit, tearing off my beard and running out of the theater. And then I remembered Professor Ryss. Still disappear! "Faith! — I called my dresser Vera Grigorievna. “Go to our spectators’ buffet and buy me two hundred and fifty grams of cognac!” Vera Grigorievna was dumbfounded. Everyone in our theater knows what it means to appear on stage drunk. If it comes to Tovstonogov, the actor has nothing more to do in the theater. I also understood this, but with all my love for the theater and for Tovstonogov, I still decided. I needed to drown out my hatred for myself, for Rogozhin, for my lack of will. Having drunk not a hundred, as the professor advised, but all two hundred and fifty grams, I did not feel the strength of the cognac. But after swallowing everything, I got scared. What I've done? For what?! There is a spectator in front of me... What is he to blame for?

One thing calmed me down: I start singing correctly only when I drink a little. I'm getting hearing. Then I can echo, sing with the choir, even with the magnificent Georgian singers, to find your echo among their polyphony. ... Next picture- Rogozhin’s arrival at Ganka Ivolgin’s apartment. I'm coming. And suddenly inner voice says to me: “Why do you scream when you meet Nastasya Filippovna? She is more precious to you than your life, why do you need to look like a fool in her eyes? And Nastasya Filippovna’s arrival at Ganka’s house amazed you. After all, you know who Ganka is and who Nastasya Filippovna is!” And when I saw Nastasya Filippovna, I suddenly fell silent. And for a long time I could not utter my first words. There was silence on the stage. Nobody expected this. And the viewer? He stopped breathing along with me.

The atmosphere of the stage is fraught with explosions. But I didn't explode. I began to destroy Ganka in the eyes of Nastasya Filippovna, not with the power of my voice, not with a scream, but with a whisper, without taking my eyes off her. My life depended on her. I stood lost and quietly comprehended the incomprehensible, comparing my life with the life of the scoundrel Ganka, who would crawl on his hands and knees to Isaac for three rubles.
At that moment, a fighter for his right to be called a man, and not a “lack,” awakened in Rogozhin. Rogozhin does not buy Nastasya Filippovna, but rescues her from the trouble into which Totsky, Epanchin and Ganka are dragging her. I cannot describe in detail now what I did in this scene. But when the curtain closed, my comrades, my partners said to me: “You played so much today that we were all scared.” Professor Ryss turned out to be right: such roles require super-liberation, complete inner freedom. I brought cognac with me to each subsequent performance. Nobody had any idea about “doping.” I wasn't drunk. You had to feel such a cry from your soul in yourself for the viewer to hear this cry in silence. The waste of nervous energy was such that the hops were completely evaporated.

Dostoevsky talks a lot about Rogozhin's eyes. It seems to Myshkin that they are following him everywhere. You can’t look into Rogozhin’s eyes without fear. They reflect his feelings, all his pain. What kind of hellish patience does he need to endure this? unbearable pain and still find an excuse for her! Parfen finds justification for his patience in Holbein’s painting. Christ, beaten and covered in bruises, is depicted on it as a man who is no different from other people. “He” endured and ordered us! He is a man and I am a man. Dostoevsky specially hung Holbein’s “Christ” in Rogozhin’s house. He believed that only through torment and suffering can one come to compassion and understanding of another person. I don’t remember in which museum I saw this painting, but it made a huge impression on me.

I remember my visit to the children's hospital. I saw the children's eyes. They still look at me, asking for help. I came out of curiosity: to look at the child lying under a glass bell. The boy was covered in needles with thin rubber tubes attached to them. It suddenly seemed to me that the child’s eyes understood everything that he knew, why I had come. His eyes looked condemning. The children in the hospital did not cry. They probably weren't in pain. Having been born sick, they perceived pain as a natural human condition. I felt ashamed. Why did I come? Why did you ask your friend to show me his clinic? Then, that people of my profession should know and see everything that can be known and seen, and experience it for themselves...

Telling spaces
What Fyodor Mikhailovich and Lev Nikolaevich kept silent about

What do Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky’s novel “The Idiot” and Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy’s play “The Living Corpse” have in common? Of course, “The Idiot” is Dostoevsky’s most “Tolstyan” novel, while “The Living Corpse” is Tolstoy’s most “Dostoyevsky” work. It’s funny that Prince Myshkin’s name, like Tolstoy’s, is Lev Nikolaevich, and the hero of “The Living Corpse” is Fedor.

These parallels are too superficial. We must go deep into the core. And there, in the core, there is calm, the Bermuda Triangle, a donut hole. The dynamic first part of “The Idiot” ends with the prince throwing himself after Nastasya Filippovna - into the night, into a blizzard, into the abyss. Between the first and the other three parts of the novel there is a gap six months wide. The entire action throughout the four parts of the book takes at most a month. The action gap takes six times as long. But the most interesting thing is that the prince who emerged from this abyss-gap is a different person.

It seemed to be slightly extinguished, slightly... burnt, like a wad of money first thrown into the fireplace by Nastasya Filippovna, and then taken out by her. Like a parrot, the prince constantly repeats: “She’s crazy... She’s crazy...”, finding almost no other words to describe Nastasya Filippovna. Over the course of the last four hundred pages of the novel, he categorizes her as “crazy” five times, “crazy” four times, “crazy” three times, and “damaged”, “crazy”, and “out of her mind” once each. What a difference with the ecstasy of the first part - “everything is perfect in you”, “I will die for you”, “I will not allow anyone to say a word about you”!

Maybe Nastasya Filippovna, like every femme fatale, has the properties of a mirror, and everyone sees their reflection in her? This is partly confirmed by her in your own words: “...I almost don’t exist... God knows what lives in me instead of me.” Then it is clear that the prince sees in her, first of all, madness, Rogozhin - passion and betrayal, Totsky - the subject of harassment.

The version is good, but not sufficient. The prince is too reminiscent of a zombie, temporarily released by the owner to take a walk - until the calling signal. Rogozhin and Nastasya Filippovna also look like zombies - each with their own “program”. The prince and Parfen Rogozhin are afraid of Nastasya Filippovna, she is afraid of both of them. Myshkin is afraid of Rogozhin, who (in his own way) is afraid of the prince. And at the same time all three are attracted to each other in the most bizarre combinations. There is something left unsaid here, the answer to which should be sought in the gap separating the first and subsequent parts of the novel.

What happened during these six months, silenced by Dostoevsky? The information that can be found in the text is fragmentary, meager, and sometimes contradictory. But they also form a kind of, albeit incomplete, mosaic.

The prince, grabbing the first cab driver he came across, rushes after Nastasya Filippovna and Rogozhin to Ekateringhof. The day after the “terrible orgy at the Ekateringofsky station,” Nastasya Filippovna secretly flees to Moscow. A day later, the prince leaves after her. In a week, Rogozhin is also heading to Moscow.

At the same time, let’s pay attention to amazing fact: none of Dostoevsky’s works take place in Moscow! But Moscow was not a stranger to Fyodor Mikhailovich! It is all the more significant that the gap in the narrative falls precisely on this city.

So, Nastasya Filippovna was discovered by Rogozhin in Moscow, but after some time she disappeared again. Rogozhin looks for her again and receives Nastasya Filippovna’s consent to marry him. All this time the prince is nearby - he almost lives with them. This lasts for about two months, after which Nastya Filippovna Once again flees from Rogozhin - this time somewhere in the province. Prince Myshkin runs with her, whom Nastya Filippovna asks to save her.

Evidence regarding their provincial life is contradictory. Myshkin himself tells Rogozhin that they “lived there separately and in different cities.” However, later the prince recalls that “that month in the province, when he saw her almost every day, had a terrible effect on him.” And the well-informed Aglaya says to Myshkin: “You then lived in the same rooms for a whole month with that vile woman with whom you ran away.” Nastasya Filippovna leaves the prince “with tears, with curses and reproaches” in the company of a certain landowner, whom, according to Myshkin, “she only laughed at.”

Myshkin remains in the province, while Nastasya Filippovna returns to Moscow, to Rogozhin. Their relationship is accompanied by scandals and assault, even to the point of Rogozhin baiting Nastasya Filippovna with a dog - “all along the street, like a greyhound bitch.” In response, Nastasya Filippovna “shames” Rogozhin with officer Zemtyuzhnikov and - possibly - with Keller. After some time, she flees to St. Petersburg, where Rogozhin overtakes her again. Three weeks after Rogozhin, the prince also returns to St. Petersburg.

This is a reconstruction of the facts relating to the six-month gap in the narrative. But the real key to understanding the Moscow events is the apotheotic final scene of the novel.

After Nastasya Filippovna escapes from the wedding ceremony, Rogozhin takes her to his home. At four o'clock in the morning, he kills Nastasya Filippovna with a stab in the heart and begins to create an installation that is transcendental in its monstrosity, or more precisely, a still life. Rogozhin fences off the alcove in which Nastasya Filippovna lies on the bed with a green silk curtain. He covers the naked body of the murdered woman headlong with American oilcloth and a sheet on top of it. In the corners, Rogozhin places four uncorked “glasses” with Zhdanov liquid (a chemical compound of iron used for disinfection). “There was a mess all around on the bed, at the feet, on the armchairs right next to the bed, on the floor even scattered off clothes, a rich white silk dress, flowers, ribbons. On a small table at the head of the room, the removed and scattered diamonds glittered. There was some kind of lace bunched up at the legs, and on the white lace, peeking out from under the sheet, the tip of a naked leg was visible; he seemed as if he had been carved from marble...”

The still life created by Rogozhin is terrible and unbearably erotic, but the installation is not yet completed. Rogozhin looks for the prince and takes him to him. On the way, an incoherent conversation takes place between them, full of silences and understanding of each other without words. This strange dialogue continues near the body of the murdered woman. Rogozhin is worried about how he and the prince can lie down together next to Nastasya Filippovna: “We will spend the night together... next to the bed, both you and me, so that together... let her now lie here, next to us, next to me and you..."

Next, Rogozhin talks in ritual detail about the structure of his still life - about oilcloth, sheets, Zhdanov’s liquid... The prince interrupts him with a strange question: “What is it like there... in Moscow?” Rogozhin continues to talk about his own things, as if not noticing the question. At first glance, the prince's question seems meaningless. Since the conversation between the prince and Rogozhin is chaotic and full of subtexts, it can be assumed that the question refers not to sheets, bottles and oilcloth, but to lying down together - as in Moscow.

But this version is shattered by a careful reading of Nastasya Filippovna’s letters to Aglaya Epanchina. In her last letter, she writes about Rogozhin: “... he... has a razor hidden, wrapped in silk, like... a Moscow murderer; he... tied the razor with silk to cut one throat... it seemed to me that somewhere... the dead man was hidden and covered with oilcloth, like the one from Moscow, and also surrounded by bottles with Zhdanov’s liquid...” Apparently, we are talking about the details of a crime committed by a certain killer in Moscow. Rogozhin recreates these details with scrupulous accuracy in his still life.

All three knew in detail about this Moscow murder: Rogozhin - as the creator of the still life, the prince who asked the question: “What is it like there... in Moscow?” and Nastasya Filippovna, who mentioned the killer in her letter. Therefore, this was discussed between them, therefore, a kind of rehearsal for the murder took place - albeit on a mental level. After Moscow, each of them knows their role, and the throwings of the prince and Nastasya Filippovna are just fruitless attempts to evade fate. Without the prince and Rogozhin, Nastasya Filippovna is a bridge from nowhere to nowhere, without her they are worthless legs, fragments of a triangle.

Here the three of them lie, having found the only possible moment of harmony for them. A dead woman and two half-crazed men form a flawed but momentarily stable universe. This is their highest freedom, and this is a moment of otherworldly, transcendental happiness. And is Nastasya Filippovna dead? If it is dead, it will be with the deadness of a butterfly pierced by a collector’s needle. She can no longer fly away, but she is still beautiful. Living Dead...

We were extremely carried away by Fyodor Mikhailovich and completely forgot about Lev Nikolaevich. About Lev Nikolayevich not a prince - as the crazy Ivan Bezdomny would write - but a count. In Tolstoy's play everything is both simpler and... more criminal. It should be noted that the play is considered unfinished, since it was not finally edited by the author. But we will focus on the existing text - there is no other.

Like Dostoevsky's novel, the play falls into two unequal parts. The location of the action is not named, but for some reason you get the feeling that this is Moscow. Tolstoy in general is a Moscow writer. In an unnamed city (Moscow?) the beginning of the play (the first four acts) and its denouement (the last two) take place. Between the fourth and fifth acts there yawns the already familiar abyss-gap, in which all the most intriguing things happen.

The hero of the play, Fedya Protasov, left home after falling in love with the gypsy Masha. He disappears into taverns, squandering the rest of his money. His wife Lisa favorably accepts the advances of Viktor Karenin. Fedya agrees to the divorce, but for a number of reasons the divorce process is inconvenient for Lisa and especially for Victor and his mother. The latter sends her confidant, Prince Abrezkov, to talk with Fedya. In a conversation full of hidden hints, Protasov promises the prince to “resolve the issue” within two weeks. Considering suicide the best way out, Fedya tries to shoot himself. At this moment Masha comes in to him. Having instantly understood everything, she calmly advises the suicide to be staged. “But this is a hoax!” - Fedya tries to protest. In response, Masha offers him... herself: “...then we will leave and live for glory.” Fedya is unable to resist. He writes a letter to Lisa about his predetermined suicide and secretly runs away with Masha.

Next comes a gap of about a year. It is easier to reconstruct than the gap in The Idiot. If our assumption about Moscow as the setting of the play is correct, then the geography of the escapes in the novel and play is unidirectional - from west to east. Rogozhin, Prince Myshkin and Nastasya Filippovna move from St. Petersburg to Moscow, Protasov and Masha pick up this movement - from Moscow to Saratov, to the “steppe”, to the “tenth century”, to “freedom”. We don’t know what happens between Masha and Protasov in Saratov (except for Fedya’s drunken confessions of the innocence of their relationship), but in the end Masha and Fedya break up. Protasov returns to Moscow, where the action of the play resumes.

In a tavern, a drunken Fedya tells his story to the artist Petushkov, calling himself a “corpse.” Their conversation is overheard by a certain Artemyev and suggests that Fedya blackmail Lisa and Victor, who managed to get married. Protasov refuses. An angry Artemyev “surrenders” Fedya to law enforcement agencies.

During the ongoing investigation, it is revealed that every month money transfers come from the newly minted Karenin couple to Saratov through some Simonov.

Let's try to find the links in this chain. So, who is the money from? It's easy to find out. During the investigation, Lisa replies: “My husband sent this money. And I cannot say about their purpose, since this is not my secret. But they were not sent to Fyodor Vasilyevich.” Perhaps Lisa is telling the truth. The investigator asks the same question to Karenin: “Where did you send monthly money to Saratov after the false news of Protasov’s death?” Victor refuses to answer this question. Next, the investigator interrogates Protasov: “Did you receive money sent to you in Saratov through Simonov?” Fedya is silent. Despite the investigator's threats, he does not answer questions about money transfers and then moves the conversation to something else.

None of those interrogated denies the fact of transferring money. It is clear that Victor sent the money. But then the mystery begins. Who was this money intended for? At first glance - Fedor Protasov. Who else? But this completely contradicts his image depicted in the play - honest, conscientious. In addition, Fedya several times refuses money offered to him. The remarks of Lisa’s sister Sasha also serve in his defense: “... he never took strangers... he gave all his fortune to his wife.” No, Protasov is not a blackmailer, we need to look for another recipient of the money transfers.

Is there a character in the play who is privy to the secret of an imaginary suicide? Yes, I have! This is Ivan Petrovich Alexandrov, who supplied Fedya with a revolver in the courthouse. This is a good-for-nothing man and is quite suitable for the role of a suspect. But circumstances prove that he is not guilty. The blackmailer will not return the revolver to Fedya, since he needs Protasov alive. In addition, the blackmailer must be in Saratov, and Ivan Petrovich is in Moscow.

The only option left is that the gypsy Masha blackmailed Viktor Karenin and received money from him! In fact, she not only knows about the imaginary suicide, but is also the author of its staging. Every appearance of Masha in the play is accompanied by the theme of money. She openly extorts them from Fedya - to be convinced of this, just re-read the text. But the main proof of Mashina’s guilt is her disappearance from the play immediately after Protasov’s alleged suicide. That's right, what should she do in Moscow? As already mentioned, the blackmailer must be located in Saratov, where money regularly arrives.

True, at the very end of the play some mysterious Masha flashes. In the court corridor, Fedya takes out a revolver and shoots himself in the heart. Everyone rushes to him. Having fallen, he calls Lisa... After this, the author’s remark follows: “Spectators, judges, defendants, witnesses are running out of all the doors. Lisa is ahead of everyone. Behind are Masha and Karenin and Ivan Petrovich, Prince Abrezkov.” There is a short farewell dialogue between Fedya and Lisa. Last words Protasova (and plays): “...Victor, goodbye. And Masha was late... (Cries.) How good... How good... (Ends.)"

It seems that here she is, the gypsy Masha. Although she was late, she still showed up for the trial. This is how the directors stage the play - the gypsy looms on the stage like a wordless ghost throughout the entire second scene of the sixth act. But is this Masha? Let's try to figure it out in more detail.

The suicide takes place in the court corridor. Who in this case should first of all be near the fallen Fedya? That's right, those who are there.

At the moment of the shot, in addition to Fedya, the courier (an official), Ivan Petrovich, the artist Petushkov, Lisa and Viktor Karenin are present in the corridor. No Masha. To be fair, we note that Prince Abrezkov was not in the corridor. However, Abrezkov's appearance in court is described in some detail. He was late for the start of the meeting, and the lawyer he met in the corridor advised: “There’s a free chair on the left now.” This means that Prince Abrezkov is sitting somewhere near the entrance, to the left of the door. This is probably what allowed him to quickly find himself next to the dying Protasov.

If Masha is also present in the front row, then why doesn’t Fedya say anything to her? Fyodor bids farewell to Lisa, who is closest to him, and says goodbye to Karenin. As the stage directions indicate, Masha is standing next to him. But Fedya does not address her directly, but somehow strangely, in the third person, says: “And Masha was late...” - and cries. His words can only be understood in this way - “but Masha didn’t come.” Everything is correct, the gypsy Masha should be in Saratov. Besides, it’s quite strange to imagine a blackmailer so blithely standing nearby with the blackmailed.

What kind of Masha is so silently present at the death of Protasov? Since the play is considered unedited by the author, it is possible that Tolstoy simply did not cross out this name from the text of the stage directions. Or - what is more likely - Masha means Marya Vasilievna Kryukova, Lisa’s friend. This guess is supported by the fact that earlier in the author’s manuscript Marya Vasilievna is called Masha. The correction to Marya Vasilievna was made by the editor of the play.

So, the true picture of events looks like this. Gypsy Masha, having seduced Fedya with the offer of a joint escape, forces him to stage suicide. Protasov and Masha flee to Saratov, from where Masha begins to blackmail Karenin. Having learned about this, Fyodor is horrified and begins to reproach Masha. They break up. Protasov returns to Moscow, and Masha remains in Saratov, where money continues to flow.

Or even more cynical and simpler. There was no joint escape to Saratov. Convinced that the suicide was staged properly, Masha deceives Fedya and leaves for Saratov without him. If Fedya really fled with Masha to Saratov, then why did he need to return from there? After all, he can be easily identified in Moscow. No, Fyodor Protasov never left Moscow. Hanging around taverns, secretly looking at the curtains of his former apartment...

Nowhere throughout the play did Fedya say a word about his stay in Saratov. That is why his confessions to Petushkov are so confusing and full of inconsistencies. When asked by the artist where Masha is now, Protasov replies: “I don’t know. And I wouldn't want to know. It was all from another life.”

Now we know the name of the Saratov blackmailer and can answer Petushkov’s question. Masha is in Saratov! The chain of money transfer looks like this: Victor Karenin (Moscow) - Simonov (unknown where) - Gypsy Masha (Saratov).

Rogozhin Parfen Semenovich in the novel “The Idiot” is a young man with a decisive and dark character, who always seems to remain in the shadows and waits for his prey. He was always alone and made no friends. Therefore, his facial expression and manner of communication demonstrate a mocking and insulting challenge, which hides anxiety and an inferiority complex. As often happens with young people with a lonely and gloomy nature, Rogozhin at first sight falls in love with the beautiful Nastasya Filippovna, whom he accidentally noticed on the street. And since then, his heart has been given only to her, he passionately desires to get this incomparable “trophy”.

Rogozhin in the novel “The Idiot” undoubtedly belongs to the younger generation mid-19th century. But this is some kind of dark world that is poorly visible to us. It is completely different from the one in which the Epanchin family of aristocrats lives, where there is “ new woman"Aglaya and down-to-earth Galya Ivolgin.

Rogozhin’s family is Old Believer, he is the son of a rich merchant. His father died suddenly, leaving him a huge inheritance of two and a half million rubles. But before his death, his father treated him like a servant. He was raised in such a way that he did not know the joys of life that exist beyond the threshold of his own home. His father was a real dictator. Rogozhin gives Nastasya Filippovna a diamond necklace bought with his father’s money, and is afraid that he will really kill him.

In the image of Rogozhin - not knowledgeable about life and a fearful father - in an exaggerated form, the strict orders of the then merchant families. Russian merchant community of the 19th century. was perfectly described in the play “The Thunderstorm” by A. N. Ostrovsky (1823-1886) and “The Power of Darkness” by L. N. Tolstoy (1828-1910). This world was little receptive to Western trends; it stood apart, protected the traditional way of life, and was closed.

A contemporary of Dostoevsky, landscape artist Alexei Savrasov (1830-1897), best known for his painting “The Rooks Have Arrived,” was a merchant’s son. When he said as a child that he wanted to become an artist, by order of his father he was locked in the attic, and only the help of his neighbors could free him from imprisonment. IN art school he was able to do the same only with the help of friends. Having received an inheritance, the merchant's son Rogozhin became a millionaire. But those around him still stubbornly call him a “man.” From the point of view of the Western-educated aristocracy, merchants are dark and uneducated people who live in a dungeon where the light of enlightenment does not penetrate. So they looked down on them. Indeed, among the merchants there were many illiterate people. So Rogozhin has never heard of Pushkin.

Nastasya Filippovna treats Rogozhin like a servant; she does not hide the fact that she does not consider him a worthy groom. She was brought up in a landowner environment, and no matter how rich a merchant is, for her he is still a creature of a lower order. Myshkin is poor, but he is a prince. The fact that only he treats Rogozhin on an equal footing (pitying him and, at the same time, opposing him) in the eyes of others looks like unthinkable “democracy”, therefore, in relation to the philanthropist Myshkin, who does not pay attention to social differences and demonstrates his friendship, Rogozhin, appreciating this, reacts with exaggerated ardor.

When Rogozhin finds himself in the living room with General Elanchin or landowner Totsky, he always takes a defensive stance. The “man” is in the same room with the “gentlemen” - and this cannot but affect his nerves. He is in the same space with them, but keeps his mouth shut.

When Rogozhin is alone in the novel “The Idiot,” he seems to be hiding in the shadows, he is immersed in his thoughts and busy tracking down his enemies. At other times, he appears surrounded by henchmen and companions and performs eccentric antics with which he hopes to impress others. If he had opened his peasant sheepskin coat, a deep complex of social inferiority would have been revealed underneath. His money can provide him with the company of hangers-on, but at heart he remains a lone wolf. And he completely lacks the ability and desire to open his soul.

Rogozhin is afraid to appear in a brightly lit living room in front of people who are accustomed to social interaction. He grew up in a dark house, and darkness became part of his nature; he has a presentiment that parting with the darkness threatens him with disaster. This is probably why he wants to kill Myshkin, who is dragging him to the light. He wants to marry Nastasya Filippovna, but marriage for him means only one thing: to drag his prey into his dark world and imprison her there.

Since Poor People, when Dostoevsky analyzes social or professional groups, his urban white-collar heroes have almost always been good-for-nothing petty officials. But Rogozhin in the novel “The Idiot” belongs to a completely different world. Of course, in “The Mistress” we meet Murin, in “Crime and Punishment” - with a hairy artisan, that is, with people who do not belong to the service people, but among these types there are no such bright characters as Rogozhin possesses. Having barely met him, the reader feels that he is dealing with a completely different type of hero.

Rogozhin is not at all a new type who is rapidly entering the arena after the liberation of the peasantry and who is associated with foreign capital, railways and the stock exchange. A new hero for Dostoevsky is an “old” hero, who came from the closed merchant class, a hero who was not touched by Westernization. And in this old Russia the traditional religious element is strong.

In the large, dark and gloomy family house of the Rogozhins, a family of eunuchs has lived since the time of Parfyon’s grandfather. At that time, not all residents of Russia belonged to the official Orthodoxy. In addition to him, there was a large group of Old Believers, and there were many small sects. Among the merchants there were especially many Old Believers. And Dostoevsky already paid attention to this common people’s Russia with its “strange” and unsystematic beliefs and ideas - an example is Lizaveta and Mikolka from Crime and Punishment. Similar manifestations include the lame Maria Lebyadkina (“Demons”), the “stinking” Lizaveta and her son Smerdyakov. And this numerous and “dark” Russia is visible through Rogozhin. We feel that from the Russia of officials, students and moneylenders, Dostoevsky’s attention moves inland - to those people who rarely appear in “cultural” Russia. And in this Russia there are no longer only young people who are raving about borrowed ideas and imitating Napoleon - in this Russia there is also a place for ordinary people who profess a faith that has nothing to do with scientific logic and book knowledge. Seeing Rogozhin, one cannot help but feel that Dostoevsky is pushing the “borders” of his Russia.

Dostoevsky believes that in the Russian people living far from European culture, there are also huge opportunities hidden. In particular, he believed that the schismatics who “left” official Orthodoxy were superior to this Orthodoxy in terms of their energy for searching for truth, and someday they would be able to see this truth.

Considering the above, it is easier to understand why Rogozhin, who represents the Russia of schismatics and eunuchs in the novel, appears on its pages. Myshkin believes: “Isn’t Rogozhin capable of light?<...>...he has a huge heart that can both suffer and be compassionate.” Myshkin dreams that Rogozhin will get out of his lonely and dark world and rush to a better future, to life together with other people.

But at present, the “man” Rogozhin in the novel “The Idiot” is afraid of the light, he is incapable of normal communication and sympathy. Moreover, he even wants to kill Myshkin, who calls him to “brotherhood.” He kills the “sufferer” Nastasya, who is an object of compassion for Myshkin, and hides the corpse in his dark house. And this act brings him peace. Until now, scientists have been inclined to define Rogozhin as a complete sensualist, a passionate seeker of pleasures, a beast in human form, etc., but it seems to me that this is not at all a young man who is full of vitality. He grew up in dark kingdom"of the merchant world together with the eunuchs, he is afraid of the light, he suffers from his “castrated” and vain desires.

The huge, dark and gloomy house of the Rogozhins smells of death. When Ippolit visits him, this house strikes him in an unpleasant way; it reminds him of a cemetery, but Ippolit concludes that Rogozhin himself likes this house. “His house amazed me; looks like a cemetery, but he seems to like it.” According to academic full meeting works of Dostoevsky, the surname Rogozhin comes from the name of the Moscow Rogozhinsky cemetery, where Old Believers were buried.

The hero himself resembles a cemetery watchman who likes all these graves. And in this Rogozhin there are features that make him similar to the cemetery watchman Quasimodo from Hugo’s “Notre Dame Cathedral,” beloved by Dostoevsky.

In the Rogozhin house, which resembles a catacomb, hangs a copy of Hans Holbein the Younger’s painting “The Dead Christ.” Dostoevsky saw this painting in 1867 at the Basel Museum in Switzerland. It depicts a corpse in horrifying detail. Dostoevsky’s wife Anna Grigorievna, who was with him at that moment, testifies in her “Memoirs”: “I was not able to look at the picture: the impression was too heavy.” And it was this painting that Dostoevsky decided to hang in Rogozhin’s house.

At the end of the novel, on her wedding day with Myshkin, Nastasya Filippovna (let’s not forget that “Anastasia” means “resurrected”) escapes from under the aisle into this house, where Rogozhin kills her with a knife, she turns into a corpse. The name Barashkov turns out to be prophetic.

Researchers of the Old Believers and fans of symbolic interpretations can find in these events deep meanings. Rogozhin lives among the eunuchs, his house is saturated with death and resembles a cemetery; it can be interpreted as an altar on which a sacrificial creature lies.

Dostoevsky loved Gothic works - Radcliffe, Balzac, Pushkin's " Queen of Spades", "Portrait" by Gogol. He himself was also prone to the occult and gothic, studied the connection between the phases of the moon and epileptic seizures, and was fond of dream interpretation. Therefore, it would be appropriate to assume that the “ dead house"Rogozhin was a conscious invention.

When visiting him, Hippolytus experiences a real shock and says that he is terribly tired. And Hippolytus, as we remember, is a hopelessly ill man who balances on the brink of life and death.

Both Ippolit and Myshkin vividly feel that the Rozhinsky house belongs to “that” dead, cemetery, posthumous world; this house makes them exhausted and confuses their feelings. This house can be compared with the vision of eternity that Svidrigailov experiences in Crime and Punishment, which is terrible to him - spiders in a smoky village bathhouse. Rogozhin's house is an image of death.

From a deathly pale face young man by the surname Rogozhin in the novel “The Idiot” emanates male inability and love for the dead.

What woman could Prince Myshkin be happy with? Why did Sonechka Marmeladova become a prostitute? At the request of TASS, a psychologist and lawyers commented on the actions of the heroes of three novels by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Our experts are a psychologist, a specialist at the Center for Medical Prevention in the city of Dolgoprudny Elena Shalashugina; lawyer at the Moscow Region Bar Association, member of the Russian Bar Association Veronica Polyakova; lawyer, managing partner of the law office "Zabeyda, Kasatkin, Saushkin and Partners" Alexander Zabeyda;member of the Moscow Bar Association Petr Kazakov and ex-chief of the criminal police lawyer Evgeny Kharlamov.

"Idiot"

About Prince Myshkin

The main character of the novel is Prince Lev Nikolaevich Myshkin. At the beginning of the book, he returns to Russia from Switzerland, where he was sent “for some strange nervous illness, like epilepsy or Witt’s dance, some tremors and convulsions” (Myshkin is sick with epilepsy). By his own admission, he was never fully treated in Switzerland. He is considered an eccentric, out of this world.

Before, I really was so unwell that I really was almost an idiot; but now I have long since recovered, and therefore it is somewhat unpleasant for me when they call me an idiot to my face

Prince Myshkin

From the novel "The Idiot"

As psychologist Elena Shalashugina says, in fact the prince is in awe of his illness. Strictly speaking, throughout the novel, readers do not see him healthy.

About Nastasya Filippovna

In the novel, the prince loves two women: Nastasya Filippovna and Aglaya Epanchina. He feels sorry for Nastasya. This beauty, the daughter of a bankrupt landowner, was made his mistress by the wealthy aristocrat Afanasy Totsky (a man much older than her, she was raised on his estate). Nastasya hated him and was ready to “destroy herself, irrevocably and ugly, with Siberia and hard labor, just to abuse the man for whom she had such inhumane disgust.”

And then this one comes: he stayed for two months a year, he will disgrace, offend, inflame, corrupt, leave - so I wanted to throw myself into the pond a thousand times, but she was mean, she didn’t have enough soul

Nastasya Filippovna

From the novel "The Idiot"

As the psychologist explains, Nastasya Filippovna is a real victim of family violence, despising herself first and foremost. "The feeling that she feels for her seducer is in fact a crippled, disabled love. In the language of psychoanalysis, disgust is a reactive feeling, a werewolf feeling that arose under the influence of powerful cultural prohibitions out of "unclean" love. It was precisely the fact that she unconsciously still loved her molester, the heroine, and could not forgive herself,” says Elena Shalashugina. According to her, Nastasya Filippovna’s desire to punish Totsky is projected onto all men in general. “In relation to them, she knows and is accessible only two models of behavior (and, in fact, these are two sides of one phenomenon): the one where she humiliates, and the one where they humiliate her,” explains the psychologist.

Lawyers' comments

• The main question is whether Nastasya was 16 years old when Totsky first became intimate with her (it follows from the novel that, apparently, she was). If not, then his actions fall under an article of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation and can be punished by imprisonment for up to four years.
• If the heroine is already 16, everything depends on her consent: if there is consent, there is no corpus delicti in Totsky’s actions.
• Otherwise, Totsky’s actions fall under the article on coercion to acts of a sexual nature through blackmail, threats and use of the financial or other dependence of a minor victim. For this, the character could be imprisoned for up to five years.

​About Rogozhin

The merchant Parfen Rogozhin is in love with Nastasya Filippovna. In one scene, he “trades” her, offering her a lot of money if only she would leave with him. Then Myshkin proposes to her, but she refuses and leaves with the merchant.

I may be proud myself, there is no need, what a shameless thing! You called me perfect just now; it’s good perfection that from one boast that she trampled a million and a principality, she goes into a slum! Well, what kind of wife am I to you after this?<...>And now I want to go for a walk, I’m a street person!

Nastasya Filippovna

From the novel "The Idiot"

According to Elena Shalashugina, Rogozhin’s passion is bright illustration codependent, toxic relationships. “Rogozhin is clearly a man broken by life with deep contempt for himself: a man who “buys” the company (not even love!) of a woman makes it clear that it is absolutely impossible to be with him “for nothing”,” explains the psychologist. In her opinion, such relationships are not at all uncommon in our world, and violence - physical and moral - is their constant companion.

About the final

In the novel, Myshkin refuses his wedding to Aglaya for the sake of Nastasya Filippovna, and she runs away from him from under the aisle to Rogozhin, who kills her. In the final scene, Myshkin and Rogozhin are sitting near the body of their beloved woman. Rogozhin falls into unconsciousness. Myshkin returns to his previous state - he becomes the “idiot” he was before treatment in Switzerland.

He no longer understood anything of what they were asking him about, and did not recognize the people who entered and surrounded him. And if Schneider himself now came from Switzerland to look at his former student and patient, then he, remembering the state in which the prince was sometimes in the first year of his treatment in Switzerland, would now wave his hand and say, as then: “ Idiot!"

From the novel "The Idiot"

According to the psychologist, what happens in the finale indicates the return of Myshkin’s illness. But now his illness is devoid of any romantic aura; it is only a severe organic pathology. Rogozhin, after the murder, goes into a state of shock. “And then a powerful defense mechanism is launched, leading him away from the terrible reality: the onset of hysteria flows into delirium, and then into acute psychosis,” explains Elena Shalashugina. Did Myshkin do the right thing by leaving Aglaya for Nastasya Filippovna? And what kind of woman would really suit him? “The one who would have the courage not to feel sorry for him. I don’t think this applies to Nastasya Filippovna or Aglaya,” the psychologist concludes.

Rogozhin subsequently confessed to the murder, was convicted and received 15 years of hard labor.

Lawyers' comments

• In a modern Russian court, Rogozhin would most likely be declared insane and sent for compulsory treatment to a closed psychiatric hospital.
• If Rogozhin were nevertheless declared sane, then taking into account full recognition guilt and the presence of mitigating circumstances, he would have faced six to eight years in a maximum security colony.

"Crime and Punishment"

About Rodion Raskolnikov

Even those who have not read the novel probably know about the idea of ​​the main character of the novel, Rodion Raskolnikov. Having dropped out of school due to poverty, he decided to commit murder and test whether some people can kill others for the sake of “higher” goals. As a result, he kills and robs the old pawnbroker and her sister, but subsequently surrenders to the police and receives eight years of hard labor.

The old woman was only sick... I wanted to get over it as quickly as possible... I didn’t kill a person, I killed a principle! I killed the principle, but I didn’t cross, I stayed on this side... All I managed to do was kill

Rodion Raskolnikov

“In real life, Adolf Hitler dared to undertake such an experiment,” comments Elena Shalashugina. According to her, Raskolnikov’s philosophy is an explosive mixture of high intelligence and extremely low self-esteem. “Such conclusions (about “trembling creatures” and “having the right”) follow from a dualistic worldview, where the positions of good and evil are not categories that structure unified system, but exist as if by themselves. If a person with such a worldview turns out to have high intelligence, then he is awarded only the role of a slave: he rationalizes the conclusions of the primitive core of personality and does not in any way affect the quality of thinking as a whole,” says the psychologist.

Lawyers' comments

• Raskolnikov’s actions in the novel fall under two articles of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation: “Murder of two or more persons” and “Robbery causing grievous harm to the health of the victim.”
• Under the first article, the character could be imprisoned for life, under the second - for a period of 8 to 15 years.
• Confession, active contribution to the detection and investigation of the crime, and the fact that Raskolnikov did not use the stolen things can be recognized as mitigating circumstances and taken into account when sentencing.
• To say what kind of punishment Raskolnikov would have received according to the laws modern Russia, pretty hard. Would be taken into account in court various factors, including the impact of the imposed punishment on the correction of the convicted person and on the living conditions of his family.

About Sonya Marmeladova

​ This heroine is an example of sacrifice. In the novel, her stepmother Katerina Ivanovna persuades her to go to the panel to earn money for the family.

Sonya<...>says: “Well, Katerina Ivanovna, should I really do such a thing?”<...>“Well,” Katerina Ivanovna answers, laughing, “what should we take care of? Eco treasure!”

Semyon Marmeladov, Sonya's father

From the novel "Crime and Punishment"

As the psychologist explains, Sonechka demonstrates the behavior of a person with the “psychology of a victim.” And it was not poverty that pushed her into prostitution, but the fear of losing the last crumbs of human warmth and participation that she received in her family. “Katerina Ivanovna simply found an easy way to self-affirmation and a relatively safe way to take revenge on her husband for bad marriage“: she humiliated not him, but his daughter,” believes Elena Shalashugina. According to her, such relationships in families are not uncommon even now. And the most difficult thing in these situations is for children: in schools, children from such families can become victims of bullying.

CM. Telegin
About the meaning of the ending of the novel by F.M. Dostoevsky's "Idiot"
Efim Kurganov in the book “Roman F.M. Dostoevsky's "Idiot". The reading experience (St. Petersburg, 2001) states: “If it weren’t for Myshkin, Rogozhin would have had neither reason nor reason to kill Nastasya Filippovna. The paradox is that it was because of the prince that Nastasya Filippovna’s blood was shed in the first place…” (p. 33). At the same time, he refers to the opinion of Mikhail Gus, who in the book “Ideas and Images of F.M. Dostoevsky" (Moscow, 1971, 2nd ed.) notes: "Rogozhin kills Nastasya Filippovna. But the true culprit of her death was Myshkin!” (p. 369). This leads to the conclusion that “Myshkin not only did not defeat evil with his own methods, not only did he not bring happiness to people, but he also destroyed both these people and himself” (p. 384). After this, Myshkin, as Kurganov assures, “had no choice but to go crazy” (p. 38). The idea that since Nastasya Filippovna died “through the fault” of Myshkin has deeply entered into our science, then, consequently, he did not realize himself as a “positively beautiful” hero and savior, and suffered a complete failure of his mission.
However, if you carefully read the text of the novel, this logic will turn out to be false, and the conclusion itself will be deeply erroneous. The question of the ending of the novel “The Idiot” itself should be divided into three independent problems: 1) the death of Nastasya Filippovna, 2) the question of the collapse of Myshkin’s mission, 3) the ending of Myshkin himself.
It is known that many literary critics, both before and now, hold Myshkin responsible for the death of Nastasya Filippovna. He allegedly intervened in her fate and provoked Rogozhin to kill the heroine out of jealousy. Is it so? It is known that in many novels Dostoevsky uses the same technique: at the beginning of his work he places some inconspicuous scene or phrase that motivates or explains the meaning of the ending. This technique is also used in the novel "The Idiot". Having seen a photograph of Nastasya Filippovna in General Epanchin’s house, Myshkin speaks of her possible marriage to Rogozhin: “... he would get married, and in a week, perhaps, he would kill her.” So, Myshkin has not yet seen Nastasya Filippovna, has not communicated with her, has not influenced her fate in any way, but he already knows the secret of her relationship with Rogozhin and predicts her future. These words, spoken at the beginning of the novel, mean that Myshkin is not at all to blame for the fact that Rogozhin stabbed Nastasya Filippovna. This is her fate, and no responsibility for tragic ending Myshkin does not bear it. The fate of the heroine is that Rogozhin must kill her in any case. Nastasya Filippovna was initially doomed to death, to slaughter, to sacrificial death. But if it is doomed from the very beginning, then what does Myshkin have to do with it, what is his fault?
They say, however, that he should have saved her, but could not, and in this matter of salvation he was completely defeated. In the novel, however, this problem takes on a completely different meaning. Myshkin, being a believer and Orthodox man, understands perfectly well that he himself, as a person, cannot save anyone, and that to think about saving another person only with one’s own strength means to fall into the sin of pride. He really wants to save Nastasya Filippovna, but to do this he must bring her to church. This is what happens in the novel. To save Nastasya Filippovna, Myshkin takes her to church to get married. Dostoevsky wants to say that, firstly, there is no salvation outside the church, secondly, Myshkin does everything to save Nastasya Filippovna (takes her to church and wants to marry her), thirdly, it is impossible to save someone who he himself does not want to be saved. Nastasya Filippovna must die (she sees in the mirror that she is “pale as a dead man”), she wants to die, and Myshkin is not at all to blame for her tragic ending.
It is believed, finally, that Myshkin did not realize himself as a “positively beautiful” hero and suffered a complete collapse, since at the end of the novel he “goes crazy.” Again, Dostoevsky himself in his novel reveals a solution to this problem. Just as the fate of Nastasya Filippovna is determined in the novel, so is the fate of Myshkin. The matrix of Myshkin’s fate turns out to be Pushkin’s poem “The Poor Knight”. In the novel we read the following lines from the poem, which completely coincide with the ending of Myshkin’s story:
Returning to his distant castle (the return of the prince to Switzerland)
He lived as a strict prisoner (placement of the hero in a hospital)
Everything is silent, everything is sad (Myshkin’s hesychasm)
He died like a madman.
As we can see, Pushkin’s poem gives a complete and accurate prediction of the hero’s fate. The most important is the last line (“Like a madman he died”). Here we are not talking about madness, but only about the semblance of madness (like a madman). Not being a madman, he was taken for a madman and died not of madness, but of grief, having dedicated last days the feat of hesychasm, silent prayer (silent and sad). Indeed, the opinion about Myshkin’s madness is based only on the conclusion of the attending physician in Switzerland. Meanwhile, the writer’s very ironic attitude towards the Swiss doctor who treated Myshkin (Schneider) is known. His methods of treatment seem wild to the writer; Schneider himself appears as a person who completely does not understand either other people or the essence of Myshkin’s “disease”. It is no coincidence that at the beginning of the novel the hero recovers not thanks to Schneider’s treatment, but in spite of him. The death of Nastasya Filippovna leads the hero not to collapse, not to illness, but to the fact that out of grief he completely immersed himself in himself, withdrew into himself, indulging in the feat of hesychasm. His love has died, so what else should he talk about and with whom, what should he rejoice at? Only “silent prayer” can help in this grief. In general, such “madness” should be understood in the light of the words of the Apostle Paul: “... if any of you thinks to be wise in this age, let him be foolish, that he may be wise” (1 Cor. 3:18). This is not madness, but wisdom. There is only apparent madness here, not Myshkin’s madness, but the blindness of those around him and the complete incompetence of “learned philologists.”
Dostoevsky, being a great psychologist, knew that there would always be short-sighted and superficial readers who would perceive the ending of the novel as the collapse of Myshkin. For them he puts in the novel important hint– Holbein the Younger’s painting “The Dead Christ”. As you know, it depicts a body dead person in the stage of decomposition (according to legend, the picture was painted from the corpse of a drowned man). This is the body of a dead person, there is nothing divine in it, and there is no possibility of resurrection here. Such a body cannot be resurrected. This is Christ without resurrection. However, according to the Apostle Paul, “if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain, and your faith is also in vain” (1 Cor. 15:14). Hence Myshkin’s words that “someone else may lose faith from this picture!” The meaning of this scene in Rogozhin's house is directly transferred to the fate of Myshkin. Those readers and critics who believe that Myshkin did not save anyone, but, on the contrary, was defeated and “went crazy,” are like people who see only the dead body of Christ and do not believe in His resurrection. If Myshkin failed, then Christ also failed and died on the cross as a simple man. But if you believe in the resurrection of Christ, then it means that Myshkin did not die, did not suffer defeat.
The ending of the novel “The Idiot” is, without a doubt, both tragic and tragic. However, the meaning of tragedy is catharsis through the depiction of a terrible event. The point is not that Myshkin could not save Nastasya Filippovna. The meaning of the ending is that tragic fate Myshkin (and Nastasya Filippovna) must shake the reader’s imagination and save not one of the heroes of the novel, but the reader himself. The ending of the novel is open and directed directly to the reader. Here the Myshkin-Christ parallelism arises. If Christ sacrificed Himself and atoned for the sins of humanity with His suffering, then Myshkin, immersed in silence (hesychasm), does not suffer defeat and does not die. If Christ did not die on the Cross, but saved humanity, then Myshkin, having become “the madman of this world,” did not die himself and was not the cause of the death of other heroes of the novel. The sight of the hero at the end of the novel should evoke catharsis in the reader and a desire to directly continue Myshkin’s work in his real life. The hero sacrifices himself to save the readers. There is neither the hero’s defeat, nor his guilt, nor his death, but there is self-sacrifice, salvation and catharsis - for the reader.
In conclusion, it is worth noting that the ending of the novel is strictly motivated, deeply thought out by Dostoevsky and directed towards the reader, with the goal of changing life and influencing the soul of the reader, and not of any of the characters in the novel.
Literature:
Telegin S.M. The passion and abyss of Parfen Rogozhin // Literature (Supplement to the newspaper “First of September”). 1994. No. 37.
Telegin S.M. Dictionary of mythological terms. M., 2004. P. 27.