The historical and cultural concept “Italy” in F.M. Dostoevsky's works

The article examines the content of the historical and cultural concept of “Italy”, identified in the works of F.M. Dostoevsky. In the creative literary heritage of the writer, this concept is presented from the two main angles: as an expression of his interest in and his attitude to Italian art, reflected in his fiction, publicism and letters, especially, in his novel “The Idiot”, as well as his historiosophical and political views on Catholicism and political unification of Italy. The content of the concept reflects Dostoevsky’s criticism of Roman Catholicism, which he associated with the ancient Roman idea of world domination. In addition, in the content of the concept the author reveals the writer’s reproaches against Catholics who, in his opinion, betrayed Christ “for the kingdoms of the earth” and followed the Antichrist in their thirst for acquiring earthly goods. The dissonance between Dostoevsky’s sympathy for J. Garibaldi as a national hero of the Italian Risorgimento and skepticism about the political unification of Italy contained in the concept is explained by the writer’s complex views on the role of Italy as a state designed to unite the peoples of the world on the basis of the principles of beauty traditionally embodied in its art. A special place in the content of the concept “Italy” belongs to Florence, the “pearl” of the Renaissance, which Dostoevsky associated with the image of paradise and was an image of beauty destined to unite the world on the principles of universal love for Christ and thereby to save the world.