Once again on “Bezobrazov the fool”: several touches to the creative history of F.M. Dostoevsky's novel “The possessed”

The article explores a short fragment from Dostoevsky’s draft notes for “The Possessed”, dating back to the first third of 1870 (RSL, f. 93, I.1.4, p 76). In these notes Dostoevsky compares the Prince (Stavrogin’s prototype) with a certain “arrogant fool Bezobrazov”. We acknowledge here R.G. Nazirov’s critical claim as valid. According to Nazirov, it was not the well-known economist Vladimir Bezobrazov (as it was stated in the notes to the Complete Works in Thirty Volumes), but his namesake Nikolai Bezobrazov - one of the idea-mongers of a so-called “aristocratic party”. We offer a close analysis of such epithets as “an arrogant fool” and “as stupid as Bezobrazov”, which are both applied to one of the brightest editors of the “Vest’” newspaper. The anecdotal reputation of Nikolai Bezobrazov seems to be based mostly on his publications on the peasants’ reform, as well as on the scandal involving the conflict between Bezobrazov and the Saint-Petersburg City Duma. The latter almost resulted in the resignation of N.A. Milyutin. Nikolai Bezobrazov was the dedicated opponent of the communal ownership of land and land-lords privelges.In the article we suppose that in the preliminary draft of the plot N. Bezobrazov was meant to be the main prototype of Nikolai Stavrogin, and the clash between Stavrogin and Shatov - the central storyline for the book. Although Dostoevsky resigned this plan later, he gave some of N. Bezobrazov’s personal and ideological features to another character - Artemy Pavlovich Gaganov, the mastermind of the local villeinage opposition coterie. This hypothesis develops M. Dolbilov’s supposition. At the end of the article, we map out avenues for further research.