Allusions as a form of the reception of F. M. Dostoyevsky's artistic experience in Heinrich Boll's short novel The train was on time

The article presents the results of a comprehensive comparative analysis of the images of the central female characters (Olina and Sonya) of the short novel The Train Was on Time and the novel Crime and Punishment, which has not been attempted before in the Russian literature studies. This led to the novelty and relevance of the study. The process of comparing the heroines revealed a series of correlations at the level of the character disclosure and the performed functions, indicating that for Heinrich Böll the image of Sonya Marmeladova was one of the artistic prototypes in creating the image of Olina. However, the character of this heroine in the German author’s story is not revealed as diversely as that of Marmeladova in the novel of the Russian writer. These female characters, in the first place, are knit together by their belonging to the type of a suffering person, their status of hostages of the adverse social circumstances, and their desire to save their loved ones from death. The significant difference is the final of their destinies. While Sonya ultimately succeeds in resurrecting Raskolnikov’s heart with her love, Olina’s attempts to change her fate and Andreas’s fate fail and end with the death of both heroes. The reported correspondences indicate that Böll took into account Dostoevsky’s traditions in the aspect of developing the problem of the “humiliated and insulted”.