Достоевский в "Отчаянии" Владимира Набокова

Abstract

This work is an attempt to prove the unwanted connection between Nabokov and Dostoevsky, using Nabokov’s novel "Despair" as an example. Author also tried to show, how strong was Dostoevsky’s influence on Nabokov’s writing. The protagonist of the novel is regarded as a distorted image of Raskolnikov, as well as the combination of everything, that Nabokov denied in Dostoevsky’s heroes: madness, the inability to commit a perfect crime. Moreover, Nabokov was interested in all typical “Dostoevsky’s topics”: crime, punishment, psyche and motivations for a murderer, ambiguity, underground and again, madness. The author compare not only similarities of both writers, but also differences. In the end of the work it is shown, that the biggest hater in his numerous attempts to “debunk” Dostoevsky, becomes the greatest of his fans. As far as an act of absolute devotion and respect is to compare someone’s works with others.