Vyacheslav Ivanov and the Nietzschean trace in Dostoevsky studies

Poet and religious philosopher Vyacheslav Ivanov borrowed from Nietzsche the myth of the new Aeschylus. Such a Dionysian artist, called upon to make a historical turn from the era of Socrates to the revival of the ancient tragedy-mystery, the predecessor saw Richard Wagner. The maitre of symbolism assigned this role to Dostoevsky, to whom he dedicated several works built on the principle of palimpsest. In these works a mythological plot consisting of many components is hidden behind the external level. The mythological plot includes the mystical initiation of the writer, numerous threads connecting him with antiquity, the term «novel-tragedy» and even the image of Soul-Earth waiting for the heavenly liberator. Nevertheless the myth of the new Aeschylus was so skillfully hidden in Ivanov’s texts that its structural components were not perceived as a single whole. The reader saw in them either poetic images or independent scientific ideas sanctified by the authority of the poet- philosopher. Therefore, following Ivanov, Marya Lebyadkina began to be perceived as a symbol of the Soul-Earth, and the term «novel-tragedy» has firmly entered philology. This is how the Nietzschean trace appeared in Dostoevsky studies.