Problems of Theatrical and Cinematographic Reception of Demons by Fyodor Dostoevsky

The theatrical and cinematic fate of the novel Demons is largely determined by the historical context in which the work on a particular play or film about it was carried out. This article examines the key events in the novel’s non-literary life, as well as presents the critical reception of contemporaries who often engage in polemics. Among other things, it attempts to understand what makes a theatrical or cinematic adaptation of Dostoevsky’s novel artistically successful or not. Starting with the first theatrical production of Demons in 1907, the review ends with the performance of the St. Petersburg theatre “Masterskaya” staged in the bicentenary of the writer’s birth. The interest of directors in Dostoevsky’s novel increased in the decisive historical periods. One of the most successful productions of Demons in the 1990s was Lev Dodin’s play at the Theatre of Europe (MDT). Demons has also been successful in new forms of theatre, such as immersive theatre. The review also includes the foreign creative reception of the novel. Demons is of interest both to the directors of the French “new wave,” who use Dostoevsky’s novel in their sharply political works, and to authors such as the Polish director Andrzej Wajda, who try to understand their own national identity through the prism of Russian literature. It is also possible to identify two directorial approaches to the novel: some authors try to divide the Demons into separate components (conditionally “romantic” and “political”), while others try to embrace Dostoevsky’s text in its entirety.