«BOBOK» BY F. M. DOSTOEVSKY: TO THE PROBLEM OF THE GENRE

Тhe article raises the problem of the genre of the work of F. M. Dostoevsky «Bobok», actualized by M. M. Bakhtin, but still of scientific interest. The purpose of the article is to clarify the understanding of the genre of the «Bobok» work existing in literary criticism. The objectives of the research are related to the identification in the «Bobok» story of the signs of the genres of vision and anecdote and the definition of their role in the formation of the genre specificity of the work and its semantic organization. The article uses an integrated approach to the analysis of the «Bobok» story, including the philological and structural analysis of the text. As a result of the study, the conclusion is drawn: the consideration of the «cemetery history» in the «Bobok» story from the standpoint of the medieval genre of vision – more precisely, the vision-test as a variety of the genre of vision – and the anecdote characteristic of the cultural tradition of the time of F. M. Dostoevsky and his work the structural and synthetic nature of the genre of this work. The vision and anecdote are inserted genres in the «Bobok» story reinforcing its versatility. The vision and the anecdote interact with each other. The appeal to these genres allows F. M. Dostoevsky to combine in his story the traditions of Christian literature of the past, folklore and the literary tradition of the present. The presence of the genres of vision and anecdote in the «Bobok» story allows us to define the positions of the author of the story and his hero: the genre of vision accentuates the position of the author, who creates a situation of spiritual and moral test for the hero; the genre of the joke accentuates the position of the hero, who demonstrates his inner ideological, spiritual and moral paradox. The synthesis of genres within the framework of one literary work forms a complex, multi-focus, optics of seeing the world and man.