Khasieva M.A. Russian 'Humorist': Representatives of the Bloomsbury Group about the Comic Category in Fyodor Dostoevsky's Novels

Abstract: The subject of the present research is the interpretation of Dostoevsky's fiction by literary critics V. Woolf and L. Strachey. The Bloomsbury Group's interest in Dostoevsky's fiction was mainly predetermined by the overall Europe's fancy for the Russian culture and received a considerable impression of the colonial orientalism, however, signified the stage of the true acquaintance of British intellectuals with the Russian literature. Even though Woolf and Strachey had mostly the same evaluation of Dostoevsky's poetics, they had rather different opinions on the comic element of his fiction. The research methodology involves both a review of a number of works written by Woolf and Strachey and hermeneutic analysis of these texts considering historical and cultural environment that influenced the perception of Dostoevsky's fiction by the Bloomsbury Group. The scientific novelty of the research is caused by the fact that humour in Dostoevsky's fiction is an understudied topic in the European criticism of the early XXth century. By reviewing Woolf's and Strachey's articles the author of the present research draws conclusions about differences and similarities in Woolf's and Strachey's interpertation of humour in Dostoevsky's fiction and analyzes the grounds for their critical positions. 

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