Medical Latin of F. M. Dostoevsky

Abstract

In F. M. Dostoevsky’s works and working notes there are medical terms and expressions written in Latin. The article provides a textual description of these foreign language inserts and analyzes their stylistic and ideologically meaningful functions. The Latin names of diseases used by Dostoevsky denote fever, feverish states and act more as stylistic means. Terminological inserts are also used in relation to the image of a doctorresident from the story “Notes from the House of the Dead”. On one hand, the inserts mark the hero’s professional affiliation, and on the other, they graphically mark the boundaries of the prisoner’s “rest” in the hospital. The use of a Latin aphorism, which goes back to the dictum of Hippocrates, in the novel “The Adolescent” is noteworthy. It is known that Dostoevsky relied on the published protocols of the trial of N. A. Dolgushin’s secret society. One of the protocols contained the saying of Hippocrates written on the wall of Dolgushin’s room, but in Russian translation. In his working notes, Dostoevsky always writes an aphorism in Latin. This gives grounds to assume that through an appeal to the Latin primary source, the writer shows the transformation of humanistic values in modern society at the substantive and stylistic levels.