shades of creative failure
The paper examines the phenomenon of creative failure in the aspect of publishing practices
and the author’s self-awareness. The situation of literary rivalry, dialogue and non-dialogue of
F. M. Dostoevsky and N. D. Akhsharumov is modelled. Having appeared in the literary field in
the same year, then “having fallen out” of literary life for a decade (1850−1858), the writers
would become rivals in the early 1860s, when the magazine “Vremya” would begin to publish the
novel “Humiliated and insulted” and the literary journal “Russky Vestnik“ − the “Alien Name.”
The two novels, feuilleton and adventurous one, precisely focused on the genres of mass litera-
ture, would bring ambiguous fame to their creators and determine their reputation in the early 60s.
Our attention is focused on the reviews of Russian criticism of Akhsharumov’s novel
(Dobrolyubov, Grigoryev, Khvoshchinskaya). Due to having been comprehensively studied, the
articles and comments on the perception of the “Humiliated and insulted” are not taken into account.
The research has revealed the specific shades of creative failure for the career of writers.
The failure, recognized by Dostoevsky himself, is subsequently considered in the general context
of the author’s evolution. However, for Akhsharumov, as “a writer without a biography,” his novel becomes synonymous with a dead end, a false path that determined his place in the periphery
of cultural history.
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shades of creative failure // Сибирский филологический журнал. 2020. № 1. Pp. 85–101. DOI: 10.17223/18137083/70/6.