Dostoevsky as Performer Essay -- Russian Literature Christianity Relig

Dostoevsky as Performer Storytelling and reading aloud played a valuable part in young Fyodor's life, influencing his own later successful writing endeavors as well as his performance of literature. His nanny and wet nurse introduced the Dostoevsky children to folklore and lives of the saints through the stories they told. Nanny Alyona Frolovna "told the children stories of ancient Russia, of Saint Sergey of Moscow subduing a bear by the power of his holiness, of heroes and legends and folk tales, Christianity and Russian myth intertwined"; the stories were so vivid and frightening that the children had trouble sleeping (Gunn 10). During the winter their former wet nurses would make a ceremonial visit to the Dostoevsky family, staying two or three days and spending the afternoons telling stories. Such is the power of the spoken word that these women, according to Leonid Grossman, "awakened the boy's interest in the oral poetry of his people and at the same time fostered the development of that beautiful lan guage--freeflowing, emotionally charged, profoundly Russian and memorably expressive--in which, in time, his worldfamous books would be written" (10). Joseph Frank attributes these storytellers' tales of the saints with feeding "Dostoevsky's unshakable conviction that the soul of the Russian peasant was imbued with the Christian ethos of love and selfsacrifice" (1976, 49). The Dostoevsky children were also entertained and educated with oral readings by their parents, especially during the long evenings of the Russian winter. As the family gathered in the parlor, the physician father would read aloud before dinner when he was not occupied with his patients, and the children often went to sleep with the sound of one of th... ...Indianapolis and New York: BobbsMerrill, 1975. Gunn, Judith. Dostoyevsky: Dreamer and Prophet. Oxford: Lion, 1990. Hingley, Ronald. Dostoyevsky; His Life and Work. London: Paul Elek, 1978. Kjetsaa, Geir. Fyodor Dostoyevsky, A Writer's Life. Trans. Siri Hustvedt and David McDuff. New York: Viking, 1987. Levin, Iurii. "Dostoevskii and Shakespeare." Dostoevskii and Britain. Ed. W.J. Leatherbarrow. Oxford and Providence, RI: Berg, 1995. 3981. Magarshack, David. Dostoevsky. New York: Harcourt, Brace, & World, 1963. Miller, Robin Feuer. "Dostoevskii and the Tale of Terror." Dostoevskii and Britain. Ed. W.J. Leatherbarrow. Oxford and Providence, RI: Berg, 1995. 13958. Mochulsky, Konstantin. Dostoevsky; His Life and Work. Trans. Michael A. Minihan. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1967. Seduro, Vladimir. Dostoyevski in Russian Literary Criticism