Aesthetic ideas by B. Christiansen and Russian science about Dostoevsky in the 1910-1920's. (M. M. Bakhtin, B. M. Engelhardt, V. L. Komarovich, Y. A. Nikolsky)

The process that described in the article shows forming of Dostoevsky studies as a science at the turn of 1910-1920s in the context of the general methodological literary criticism, that was formed under the influence of neo-Kantian difference between “cultural sciences” and “sciences of nature”, where the first group have not only separate with the subject of research, but also independent “individualizing” method. The article deals with the ways of penetration of B. Christiansen’s neo-kantian aesthetics ideas in the Russian scientific community: reviews of the German edition in Russian periodicals, Russian translation of his books, articles and notes in “Logos” journal, trainings and seminars for Russian future scientists in foreign centers and student societies at the University of Petrograd. The early Russian Dostoevsky studies owe Christiansen’s aesthetics the appearance of its methodological arsenal of concepts such as the personal nature of the art form and the teleological unity of art, and such categories as an aesthetic object, and the dominant part polyphony.