The Prison Worlds of Dostoevskii, Tolstoi, and Chekhov Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Gregory Ormiston, M.A. Graduate Program in Slavic and East European Languages and Cultures The Ohio State University 2017 Dissertation Committee: Alexander Burry, Advisor Angela Brintlinger Helena Goscilo Copyrighted by Gregory Ormiston 2017 Abstract It may be unsurprising that in nineteenth-century Russia, under a politically sensitive tsarist regime notorious for sending some of the country’s most famous writers into exile, prison became a conspicuous topic in literature. In the second half of the century, the works of three of Russia’s best realist authors - Fedor Dostoevskii, Lev Tolstoi, and Anton Chekhov – prominently featured prison, and even prisoners as heroes. Nevertheless, critical treatment of these prison-related works tends to isolate them to the context of each individual writer. This dissertation explores the carceral connections between these authors to see how prison, as a common theme, played a larger role in the development of nineteenth-century Russian literature than has previously been recognized. My study focuses especially on how prison influences the creation of the three authors’ literary worlds. Specifically, through close reading and analysis of selected texts, I show how the realists use the time and space of prison to produce the themes and forms of their fiction. Thus prison becomes foundational in the works of Dostoevskii and Chekhov, and revelatory in Tolstoi’s late period. Theoretical support for this analysis comes mainly from Mikhail Bakhtin, whose notion of the “chronotope” aids in the investigation of prison-like settings, and Michel Foucault, who tracks the changing nature of prison and its increasing effect on society leading into the era of the Russian realists. ii The works of Dostoevskii, Tolstoi, and Chekhov have common origins in the modern penal system Foucault describes, which shifts its focus from the crime to the criminal, and from the body to the soul. The Russian realists, I conclude, engaged with prison in a way that not only drove their own thematic and formal innovations, but also provided a framework for subsequent generations of Russian “prison writers.” iii Acknowledgments Thank you to the faculty of the Department of Slavic and East European Languages and Cultures at Ohio State, as well as to my graduate colleagues, for your support and valuable insight over the years. In particular, I would like to thank Dr. Alex Burry, Dr. Angela Brintlinger, and Dr. Helena Goscilo for their encouragement and help. iv Vita 2011................................................................B.A., Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies, Miami University 2013................................................................M.A., Slavic Literature, Film, and Cultural Studies, The Ohio State University 2011 to present ...............................................Graduate Teaching Associate, Department of Slavic and East European Languages and Cultures, The Ohio State University Fields of Study Major Field: Slavic and East European Languages and Cultures v Table of Contents Abstract ...................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgments ...................................................................................................... iv Vita ............................................................................................................................. v Introduction ................................................................................................................ 1 Theoretical Foundation and Methodology ........................................................................... 2 Overview of Primary and Critical Sources ............................................................................ 6 Overview of Chapters ........................................................................................................ 10 Chapter 1: Dostoevskii’s Prison Time and Space........................................................ 14 Dostoevskii and Foucault ................................................................................................... 17 Critics on Dostoevskian Space ............................................................................................ 25 Siberian Prison and the Origin of Dostoevskian Space ........................................................ 28 The Stifling City of Crime and Punishment .......................................................................... 33 The Pressure-Relief Pattern of Space in The Brothers Karamazov ...................................... 46 The Pressure Space of the Court ........................................................................................ 65 The Prison of Skotoprigon’evsk .......................................................................................... 67 The Karamazov Prisoners ................................................................................................... 70 Chapter 2: Prison, Poriadok, and the Late Tolstoian Hero ......................................... 78 vi Prison as Catalyst of Spiritual Transformation .................................................................... 82 Tolstoi and Foucault .......................................................................................................... 91 Prison and the Return to Life ............................................................................................. 99 Resurrection and Nekhliudov the Advocate ..................................................................... 108 Interiority and Acceptance ............................................................................................... 112 Nekhliudov’s Turn Outward and Change Through Action ................................................. 117 Resurrection’s End ........................................................................................................... 137 Tolstoi’s Advocacy and Community Activity ..................................................................... 149 Tolstoi’s Attack on the Penal System ............................................................................... 154 Chapter 3: Chekhov’s Dead Zone ............................................................................ 166 Before Sakhalin ............................................................................................................... 172 “A Malefactor” (1885) ........................................................................................................ 172 “The Bet” (1889) ................................................................................................................ 175 Journey to Sakhalin ......................................................................................................... 178 The Dead Zone ................................................................................................................. 184 The Dead Refrain ............................................................................................................. 188 The Space and Time of Chekhov’s Dead Zone .................................................................. 192 Prison and Nature’s Hostility ........................................................................................... 199 After Sakhalin .................................................................................................................. 205 “Gusev” (1890) ................................................................................................................... 206 “In Exile” (1892) ................................................................................................................. 215 Ward No. 6 (1892) .............................................................................................................. 223 vii Conclusion ............................................................................................................... 236 The Return of Prison in Soviet Literature ......................................................................... 236 Dostoevskii and Solzhenitsyn ........................................................................................... 239 Chekhov and Shalamov ................................................................................................... 243 Tolstoi’s Prisons in the Soviet Era ..................................................................................... 246 References .............................................................................................................. 249 viii Introduction Why did three of Russia’s greatest realist authors all turn to the topic of prison? Unfortunately, the general relationship between the writer and the penal system in Russia is not difficult to establish. The penal system was especially culturally significant in nineteenth-century Russia, as the Siberian exile system continued to expand along with its roster of famous inmates. Of the many political prisoners, the Decembrists were probably the most widely mythologized and admired by the writers of their century. Their unsuccessful revolt against Nicholas I in 1825, in which they demanded a constitutionally-bound government, resulted in the execution of five people and the exile of many others. The Decembrists