The Motive/Formula of the “Ticket Returned to God”: From Dostoevsky’s Antinomies to the Antinomies of Symbolism

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Classification – name: Literary studies
Author: Andrey V. Sharavin, Irina L. Startseva, Yaroslav O. Rezakov
Pages: 417-434
Publisher: A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IWL RAS Publ.)
Rights – description: Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 (СС BY-ND)
Rights – URL: Visit Website
Language of the publication: Russian
Type of document: Research Article
Collection: The Antinomic Nature of Russian Modernism Poetics and Modern Humanities Thought
DOI: https://doi.org/10.22455/978-5-9208-0875-2-417-434
EDN:
https://elibrary.ru/DYXIFH
Year of publication: 2026
Place of publication: Moscow
PDF
Sharavin, A.V., Startseva, I.L., Rezakov, Y.O. “The Motive/Formula of the ‘Ticket Returned to God’: from Dostoevsky’s Antinomies to the Antinomies of Symbolism.” Antinomichnost’ poetiki russkogo modernizma i sovremennaia gumanitarnaia mysl’ [The Antinomic Nature of Russian Modernism Poetics and Modern Humanities Thought], ex. ed. Svetlana V. Fedotova. Moscow, IWL RAS Publ., 2026, pp. 417–434. (In Russian) 1 Electronic Optical Disc. Text: Electronic. https://doi.org/10.22455/978-5-9208-0875-2-417-434

Information about the authors:

Andrey V. Sharavin, DSc in Philology, Pro- fessor, Bryansk State University Academician I.G. Petrovsky, Bezhitskaya St., 14, 241036 Bryansk, Russia.

ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1282-4229

E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Irina L. Startseva, PhD in Pedagogy, Associate Professor, Bryansk State Uni- versity Academician I.G. Petrovsky, Bezhiczkaya St., 14, 241036 Bryansk, Russia.

ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0009-0002-7376-8769

E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Yaroslav O. Rezakov, PhD in Philology, Independent Researcher, Shchyolkovo, Russia.

ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2001-3429

E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Abstract:

The aim of the article is to show the motif/formula of the “ticket returned to God”, which is based on a phrase by Ivan Karamazov from Dostoevsky’s novel “The Brothers Karamazov”, and to trace the transition from the writer’s antinomy to the antinomic poetics of Symbolism. The results show that for modernists, the “ticket” becomes not just a quote, but an element of the “inner canon”: a semantic concentrate that is included in the system of oppositions such as “earthly/heavenly,” “fleshly/spiritual,” “beauty/suffering,” and “freedom/predestination”. The article reveals the antinomic duality of the ticket image in 19th-century culture and its interpretation as the limit of theodicy in Dostoevsky’s works. The findings describe the main types of the formula’s functioning and its motivational variations, ranging from theological and existential protest to polemics with utopian and ideological substitutions based on the works of Gippius, Merezhkovsky, Blok, Bely, and Vyach. Ivanov. It has been demonstrated that the motif/formula of “ticket returned to God” became a universal code of Symbolism during the Silver Age.