The titular advisor as a concept construct in Dostoevsky's novella “The double”

The article deals with the ideological and thematic plan of Dostoevsky’s novel “The Double”, taking into account the contextual meanings of the image of a titular advisor, which, thanks to the Gogol's “Overcoat”, became one of the main discoveries in the Russian literature of early realism. Associated with it meanings such as “nominal”, “ready”, “borderline”, “insignificant” will be important not only for “The Double”, but also for the semantic structure of Dostoevsky’s works as a whole. And this circumstance partially explains what Dostoevsky had in mind when he spoke of the special significance of the concept of this work for him. A better understanding of it is provided by revealing the differences between Dostoevsky’s protagonist and the protagonists of the novels “The Overcoat” and “A Madman' Diary”. The article draws attention to the fact that in the reflections of Poprishchin and Golyadkin, the feeling of their own insignificance is built on fundamentally different grounds: for Gogol’s protagonist - for belonging to the axiological bottom of social life, and for Dostoevsky’s protagonist - for belonging to the middle. Therefore, his initial psychological attitude is different: not to be zero (Poprishchin is repelled from this), but not to be like everyone else. In fact, in “The Double”, contours of Dostoevsky’s theme of ordinariness are already outlined, especially presented in the novel “The Idiot”. Indistinguishability as a condition and, at the same time, a consequence of ordinariness under certain conditions, according to Dostoevsky, becomes a fertile ground for the formation of the “Napoleonic” complex designated by Pushkin. The desire not to be oneself conditioned by this complex will become the main modality of Golyadkin’s existence, and after him in a special way also of that of Raskolnikov. In both cases, this leads Dostoevsky’s characters to the loss, although in different ways, of themselves. Golyadkin’s double has a double actant role as an assistant and a wrecker. As a wrecker, the double displaces Golyadkin the senior from his living space, as an assistant, he gives him the opportunity, if not to realize, at least to feel the value of a separate existence.