“To Tell the Moment: Stop”. The Poetics of Quotation and Allusion in the Creative History of F. M. Dostoevsky’s Novel “Demons”

The article clarifies the text of Dostoevsky’s draft notes for the novel “Demons,” which have not been published in full and have been inaccurately read by researchers. The establishment of the authentic text of these notes makes it possible to reveal new facts about the creative history of “Demons” and analyze the literary and biblical quotations and allusions used by the author in developing the novel’s concept, as well as biographical motifs contained in the printed text of the novel. The draft entry “To tell the moment: stop” refers to the Faustian theme, which occupied an important place in Dostoevsky’s creative process in the 1870s. The article provides a comparative analysis of the Russian translations of Goethe’s “Faust”, which Dostoevsky could have used in his work on “Demons”, and pinpoints the characteristics of the author’s interpretation of the words about a beautiful moment and their significance for the artistic structure of “Demons” and the image of Stepan Trofimovich Verkhovensky. This image is also considered in the context of the content of the 143rd Psalm about David and Goliath, allusive references to which are found in the draft autograph of “Demons” and have not been previously investigated. The connection of the image of Verkhovensky Sr. with the above-mentioned literary and biblical context determines the specifics of semantic correlations between the draft and the printed text of “Demons,” reflecting at the same time a number of biographical motives, in particular, the writer’s memory of the birth, christening and death of the writer’s daughter Sonya Dostoevskaya.