The generation and suspension of meaning in Dostoevsky’s Demons

This paper examines the relationship between the generation and suspension of meaning in Dostoevsky’s Demons with reference to Bakhtin’s thesis that one’s meaning is defined by someone else’s answer. By generation I mean both the generational conflict between fathers and children and the generative...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Studies in East European thought Vol. 77; no. 5; pp. 1013 - 1019
Main Author: Bamba, Satoshi
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Dordrecht Springer Netherlands 01.10.2025
Springer Nature B.V
Subjects:
Authorship
Confession
Counterfeiting
Dialectics
Education
Fathers
Generations
History
Meaning
Philosophy
Political Philosophy
Political Science
Spirituality
Suspension
Confession
Bakhtin
Dostoevsky
Meaning
Signature
ISSN:0925-9392, 1573-0948
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:This paper examines the relationship between the generation and suspension of meaning in Dostoevsky’s Demons with reference to Bakhtin’s thesis that one’s meaning is defined by someone else’s answer. By generation I mean both the generational conflict between fathers and children and the generative power of language. It is the division between what one says and what one means that troubles Stavrogin. He has his authorship usurped by others and is not in control of his own discourse. Although the document headed “From Stavrogin” in the unpublished chapter “At Tikhon’s” has traditionally been called a confession by critics, that is misleading, for, as the narrator points, the pages look very much like a political tract, and what is at stake in his dialogue with Tikhon is the very question: is it a confession or not? This document also raises questions about the authenticity of signatures, as does Prince Myshkin’s counterfeiting of someone else’s signature in The Idiot .
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ISSN:0925-9392
1573-0948
DOI:10.1007/s11212-024-09644-3