CHAOS OF «HORIZONS OF EXPECTATIONS» IN F.M. DOSTOEVSKY'S NOVEL «THE POSSESSED»

The article offers a completely new perspective for Dostoevsky studies of the study of Dostoevsky's artistic creativity, specifically one of the novels of the «great five books» – the novel «The Prossessed». The concept of «horizons of expectations», which is used in the presented study, has received its justification within the framework of the receptive aesthetics of G.R. Jauss. In the works of Jauss, the main attention is paid to the peculiarities of the reader's perception of the text. In our study, we propose to expand the possibilities of this approach. Therefore, the concept of «horizon of expectations» is used by us in relation not only to the level of reader's perception of the text, but also to the «expectations» of the writer and the characters of the novel. For this purpose, draft versions of the text are involved, which help to trace the dynamics of the author's idea and, accordingly, the change of the «horizons of expectations» of the writer. Equally important is the analysis of the «horizons of expectations» of the most important characters, their change, mutual intersection or substitution. This allows, firstly, to rethink the plot roles of the main characters of the novel (Stepan Trofimovich Verkhovensky, Stavrogin, Pyotr Verkhovensky, Shatov, Kirillov), as well as a number of female characters, and, secondly, to expand the ideas available in Dostoevsky studies about the conceptual meaning of each artistic image in the novel as a whole.