APOPHATIC CONFLICT OF THE DIALOGUE OF THE FATHER AND SON IN THE NOVEL «TEENAGER» BY F. M. DOSTOYEVSKY: FROM THE «TENWORD», THE GENRE «QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS» TO THE AUTHOR’S CONCEPT OF THE WORK

Abstract

In the article, as part of the dialogue between son and father, a complex of ideas that developed around the concept  of «Russian European» is discussed. In literature, the general interpretation of Verzilov’s views often turns into a concept of «Russian idea», within which the Europeancentric position of the hero turns out not to be the sign, but the meaning that the writer operates. This substitution of phenomena, passing into their identification, is actualized by the theme  of generations to which the writer’s novel refers. However, it is precisely those forms, the «language of culture» chosen  by F.M. Dostoevsky to embody the dialogue between son and father, that point to the unliveable, «inanimate» nature  of the concepts which Versylov uses in his conversations with Arkady. The analysis of these forms, reflecting the very essence of views, allows to open the contained in them apophatic impulse, which is the soughtafter meaning of the dialogues of heroes, explaining the final formula for defining the «Russian European» in his relation to the «earthly» writer: «only half of the former Versylova». The activity in the consciousness of the hero of «tenword» reveals in him a certain historical type of «borderline», rising to the essential problems of the relationship between Russian and European cultures.