Semiotics of the “middle” and “center” in the works of F.M. Dostoevsky: typological aspect

“Middle” and “center” are considered in the article both as iconic structural elements in Dostoevsky’s work, and as categories of his conceptual language. Based on the study of the functionality of these categories, type-forming models of the human and social structure are built. In Dostoevsky’s artistic anthropology, a person is comprehended in the categorical paradigm of “middle”, “top” and “bottom” (or other extremes). All the characters of the writer are divided into those who have a “middle” and those who do not. The first type in this classification can be described as a person of the “middle” (that is, not knowing the extremes), and the second - a person “without a middle” (that is, not knowing the “middle”). Each of these types has varieties, each of which receives a detailed characteristic. In another part of the article (where the category of “centef’ is in the center of attention), it is shown that Dostoevsky’s “organization of spiritual and earthly life” directly depends on who will be in the center. This place can be occupied by someone like Foma Opiskin, and someone like Stavrogin, and someone like Prince Myshkin or the teenager Arkady Dolgoruky. When comparing the statements of the writer (taken from his various texts), such a syntagmatic series is built: the ancient world was organized by Homer, the new world was organized by Christ, the Russian world was organized by Pushkin, and the world (according to the “Speech about Pushkin”) was organized by the Russian man, endowed with “universal responsiveness”. If “universal humanity” is formed on the basis of universal worship of an idol, then “universal humanity” is formed on the basis of universal striving for an ideal.