The concept ‘tea’ in the novels ‘The house of the dead’ and ‘Crime and punishment’ by Fyodor Dostoevsky

The article deals with the concept ‘tea’ in two works by Fyodor Dostoevsky - the novels The House of the Dead (1860-1861) and Crime and Punishment (1865-1866). In these works, the concept ‘tea’ includes both traditional representations - ‘tea as an element of everyday life’, ‘tea as part of a meal’, ‘tea as an attribute of friendship and communication’ - and new ones created by Dostoevsky, such as ‘tea for thought’, ‘tea as medicine and a source of strength’, ‘tea as a source of spiritual balance’). An important representation for the psychological line of the works is ‘tea as a chronometer’ - when the heroes check their internal clock with the tea time, as well as with the temperature of tea as it is becoming cold. The paper gives particular attention to the representation ‘tea as a marker of wealth’. In the novel The House of the Dead it is presented through the scenes where guests are being entertained to tea and through descriptions of the quality of the drink, in the novel Crime and Punishment - through the representation ‘tea as luxury’. The paper establishes the role of the concept ‘tea’ in conveying the main author's idea in the works by Dostoevsky. Along with other concepts presented in the text, such as wine, tobacco, food, cards etc., tea in The House of the Dead is intended to show readers the contrast between freedom and prison, contributes to the translation of the idea of freedom as absolute value. Meant to depict a special state of life - on the border of the light and darkness, life and death, wealth and poverty, the representations of the concept ‘tea’ in Crime and Punishment greatly contribute to the depiction of Raskolnikov's mental state, fit into the semantics of St. Petersburg of Dostoevsky.