Dostoievski și alternativa identităților ficționale
Dostoevsky and the Alternative of Fictional Identities

Summary/Abstract: Contemporary literature witnesses the revival of the biographical fiction, sometimes mixed with autobiographical insertions. In most cases, the purpose of this kind of literature is not simply to present the life of a certain historical figure, but to shed light on the problems of nowadays society, as seen through the eyes of a superior personality in terms of morality, faith or awareness of the perennial problems of humanity. Such is the case of the two works, Leonid Tsypkin’s Summer in Baden Baden and John Maxwell Coetzee’s The Master of Petersburg, which share the main character, the writer Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky. The legendary writer becomes the literary artifice which allows the authors to tackle timeless issues such as the internal mechanisms of revolution, racial hatred, the fate of the artist and his complicated relationship with society, and moreover to discuss such personal issues as the death of the dear ones and the impossibility of living life the way one wishes to. In this study, we intend to contrast the mechanisms behind the fictionalization of Dostoevsky and to suggest what might lie behind such a choice.

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