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Abstract:

Two articles consistently developing a single topic argue for the need to conceptualize the “dark” nature of man, as presented in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novel Crime and Punishment and Ivan Bunin’s short story “Loopy Ears.” While affirming the truth in God, the writers also reveal the “darkness” within man. Dostoevsky employs Raskolnikov’s words about the right of the “extraordinary” individual, “according to the law of nature” to murder, while Bunin, through a detailed description of the “born criminal,” outlines another—not biblical— image of the “crown of Creation.”

The subject of the first article is Raskolnikov’s claim about the right to commit a crime. This is considered in the light of philosophical and religious sources: it is shown how stable prerequisites for the emergence of “schismatic” views were formed in European science; the plot motifs of the “sixth day” of creation, the “second” creation from “nothing,” and the “return” of Cain are examined in connection to this. Dostoevsky, remaining “with Christ” in his explanation of man, does not simplify his understanding of the anthropological problem: there are not only “people” who fill history with atrocities, but also Cain, who always returns in the “wickedness” of the “wicked tribe”—and perhaps returns to “ourselves.” Dostoevsky leads the reader to the “sixth” day of Creation (“apophaticism in reverse”), illuminating his path both with the love of Christ and with his experience and knowledge of humanity. For Dostoevsky, the anthropological question remains open—not because of faith (“I would rather stay with Christ”) but because of historical facts and the modern understanding of man, who appears as “split,” as described in Raskolnikov’s article. The actualization of the ontological and anthropological problems in the novel reveals the opportunity to evaluate Crime and Punishment in the words of the Apostle Paul: “...written down as warnings for us, on whom the culmination of the ages has come.” The second article examines the thesis of marginal anthropology as represented by Fyodor Dostoevsky in the novel Crime and Punishment and creatively reinterpreted by Ivan Bunin in the short story “Loopy Ears,” under the influence of the achievements of the Italian school of criminal law. “According to the law of nature,” people are divided into ordinary men and “natural criminals,” the latter identifiable by the atavistic “mark” of Cain. Dostoevsky and Bunin conceptualize the image of the “extraordinary man” differently. Dostoevsky, aiming to show the transformative effect of the “law of Christ” on the individual, nevertheless does not completely debunk the marginal anthropological reality, leaving it “free” in public spaces, thereby potentially “allowing” it to manifest, and it can find its practical and historical confirmation in criminals “by nature” (as in The House of the Dead). Bunin, without doubt or reservations, introduces a “dangerous reality” in the story—a “born criminal”, and endows him with characteristic signs, “stigmata,” recognizable in the light of criminal anthropology. His appearance in historical life is due not to social circumstances, as researchers claim, but to the laws of atavism. Unlike Dostoevsky, Bunin does not lead his hero to renewal and transformation, but instead, within the narrative, releases the “born criminal” to freedom, leaving him without punishment. On the other hand, the identification of the “Old Testament code” associated with the “Cain complex” in the works of Dostoevsky and Bunin makes it possible to actualize the eschatological motif of the “second” creation. Historically, the act of the “second” creation is incomplete: culture repeatedly seeks to correct the onto-anthropological result of the sixth day because Cain comes back again and again to the history of humanity, or maybe he never left. It is necessary to discuss not only Bunin’s polemic with Dostoevsky, but also their detailed exploration of the acute anthropological problem that concerned both writers as they sought to unravel the mystery of man, hierarchically related to God and various emerging evolutionary and social anthropic “impurities.”

Keywords: Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment, Bunin, “Loopy Ears,” “the law of nature” in Cain and in Christ, marginal anthropology, physiognomy, atavism, degeneracy, “a born criminal.”