The Colonel’s household is a veritable haven for a variety of extraordinary individuals, and the scene in which most of them are introduced, Chapter 4, ‘At Tea’, is electric with their combined eccentricities. Prominent amongst them is old Yezhevikin, Nastenka’s father — a truly original portrait of a proud man, crushed by circumstances and forced to play the jester, yet perversely revelling in his abject misery and always ready to throw down the gauntlet to society. Significantly, he has not taken up abode in the Colonel’s house, and by maintaining his personal independence is not a prizhivalshchik or hanger-on in the sense that Opiskin is, or any of the minor characters such as the scheming poseur Mizinchikov, the rapacious Mme Obnoskin and son, the venomous spinster Miss Perepelitsyna, or the nameless, indigent gentlewomen, dependants and companions, who are all sheltering in the Colonel’s house. The pathetic heiress Tatyana Ivanovna, also a prizhivalshschitsa, plays a role extraneous to the main plot, but for one moment she is allowed to occupy the centre of the stage when attention is focussed on her amorous misadventure in which Obnoskin junior and Mizinchikov are involved. The moment in question is her elopement — which as Ronald Hingley has observed,** can be traced to that of Jingle and the middle-aged heiress Miss Wardle in Pickwick Papers.

  In the early part of the novel, narrative predominates. As the atmosphere builds up towards the first appearance of Opiskin, however, dialogue takes over from narrative, and the pace quickens under apparently effortless self-propulsion. D. S. Merezhkovsky has observed that everything of moment in Dostoyevsky’s works is communicated by way of the spoken word: ‘we see, because we hear.’†† And the early Soviet critic V. F. Pereverzev agreed that each of Dostoyevsky’s characters has his or her own verbal image. ‘Take … The Village of Stepanchikovo: Opiskin, Rostanev, Yezhevikin, and even the subsidiary characters, as for instance Bakhcheyev and the servants Grigory and Vidoplyasov, all speak their own, individually memorable language.’‡‡ In their discussion and argument, often in trivial terms, which heightens the absurdly comical effect, the characters touch on the most sensitive aspects of Russian life from several sides at once, no one character clearly representing the author’s view. It is thus that we hear Opiskin holding forth on the need of the house-boy Falaley to know the French language at a time when serfs were generally debarred from all forms of education; the petulant Bakhcheyev desperately clinging to his feudal privileges with emancipation of the serfs just around the corner; and the naive and totally ignorant Colonel Rostanev gasping in awe at the very mention of the words ‘science’ and ‘learning’ in a setting where no pursuit of knowledge has ever been undertaken. But debate is always motivated by deeply felt personal convictions, which enable the play that Dostoyevsky set out to write to sprout vigorously within the novel. This sense of life and spontaneity carries the work far beyond the stylized beginnings which critics have located in both plot and characterization of Molière’s Tartuffe.

  Schematically there is much in common between Molière’s play and The Village of Stepanchikovo: the plot, the broad lines of the two chief characters and of a number of the minor ones. But it is in the psychology and motivation of Opiskin/Tartuffe that the vital difference is to be found. To quote A. Arkhipova once more: ‘The situations of Tartuffe seem to be deliberately put forward by the author as likely motivations, but are then rejected.’§§ Whereas Molière’s hero is a calculating crook pursuing a premeditated plan of action in order to take possession of his host’s wife and money, Opiskin’s moves are quite irrational and without any practical end-result in mind. He does not maintain improper relations with the General’s Lady, however much she might worship him, he has no designs on Nastenka, and he rejects the offer of a substantial sum of money from Rostanev. Mizinchikov describes him as ‘an artist’. He certainly acts intuitively. He persists in his grand act not for material gain but in response to irrepressible inner compulsions to dominate, to bluster and to oppress, deriving satisfaction from the very act of inflicting suffering. In the words of N. Mikhaylovsky, writing in 1882, Opiskin ‘needs the unnecessary’, and, paraphrasing Coleridge’s words ‘motiveless malignity’ with reference to Iago, the critic typifies him as a case of ‘unnecessary cruelty’.

  Dostoyevsky wrote to Mikhail in May 1859 of The Village of Stepanchikovo: ‘I have put my soul, my flesh, my blood into it … It contains two colossal and typical characters that I’ve spent five years conceiving and recording … characters wholly Russian, and poorly represented before in Russian literature.’ To the figure of Opiskin Chekhov was to respond in Uncle Vanya, exploring and developing still further the curious combination of parasite, poseur, clown and domestic tyrant in the person of his Professor Serebryakov.

  Opiskin is the irresistible, satanic force, dominating and moulding his domain in a totally unreasonable way. Long before we meet him, reports of his outrageous behaviour serve to whet our appetites and to build up his character to a degree only possible in the absence of contact, and above all to create suspense and a sense of deepening tension within the Rostanev household. Drawing complex and shifting reactions from the other characters, he is a threat to the established order of life in ‘the blessed village of Stepanchikovo’, a force of social upheaval rather than a mere villain. He continually sparks off fresh alliances and shifts of ground in the other characters as he develops and extends his own position.

  Rostanev by contrast seems passive and even feeble. Pereverzev called him ‘a palm in the snow’,¶¶ because he is not a typical representative either of the landowning class or the military. His need for Sergey’s presence and his absurd regard for the passing vagrant Korovkin, and even for Opiskin, can be explained in terms of his deep-seated feeling of inferiority and urge to hero-worship. Kindly, obliging and unwilling to see faults in others, he is at the same time the archetype of the reasonable man being pushed beyond all reasonable limits by the excessive demands both of Opiskin and members of his own family. But if Foma Fomich is not a simple villain, nor is Rostanev merely a weak hero. Whereas Opiskin lays claim to sensibilities and deep concern over the whole range of human activities down to the most absurd trivia, Rostanev’s protective instincts operate over a relatively small area of life: protection of the weak and the innocent, and the ultimate requirements of honour. His defence of these is, however, absolute, and the oppressor’s undoing is to push him to the point where that absolute is invoked.

  Within this major struggle, which develops on Rostanev’s side from a vague sense of unease to ruthless action, the minor characters play out their individual dilemmas between the force of tyranny on one side and the only potential power of resistance on the other. Rostanev’s mother, the General’s Lady, for example, finds a new and mystical sense of purpose in the shadow of Opiskin, who, like Tartuffe, is ready to don the mantle of a guru and play on the religious sensibilities of his admirers. Family conflict is set up and the mother brands her son as a base and egotistical detractor from a great man. Rostanev’s nephew, a shadowy figure who provides the early narrative and later, after becoming dramatically redundant, serves to mark what may be supposed to be the author’s general position, is Rostanev’s main supporter. Bakhcheyev, an idle windbag whose kindliness is as rough and unconscious as his cruelty, starts out as an unreasoning devotee of the Colonel and manages, just as irrationally, to transfer his loyalties to Opiskin. Nastenka (one of Dostoyevsky’s stock ‘virtuous girls’) preserves the emotional balance between herself and her intended by embracing her erstwhile tormentor. The accommodations made by these and by other members of the household are a kind of microcosm of the complex and diverse reactions seen in any society faced with major disruptive forces.

  After the climactic clash in the major skandal scene of the novel, Dostoyevsky does not flinch from the logic of his own argument. When Rostanev casts out Opiskin and emerges as the most decisive and valiant of heroes, this could be the end of the story. Dostoyevsky’s sense of reality and purpose will not allow this, however, and instead he accepts the implications of his own characterization by letting Opiskin’s fate and his future relationship with Rostanev develop naturally out of the action. The oppressor overthrown and the Colonel triumphant, the sheer force of habit and the dull prospect of life without the tyrant persuade everyone to give up the fruits of freedom by urging the Colonel towards clemency and reinstatement for Opiskin. The characters’ knowledge even as they ask this that he is in no way likely to be reformed is a most telling image of Russian docility. The novel ends with the forgiving victor and the unrepentant vanquished living in bizarre equilibrium with Opiskin elevated almost to priestly status by a household which he continues to abuse. Interpreting Opiskin’s reinstatement in terms of the philosophy of Ivan Karamazov’s devil, it is the whole of humanity which would find his, the devil’s, absence intolerable.

  Suspense is the key factor in maintaining the pace of the novel, and each of the chapters concludes with a ‘cliff-hanger’ ending. Only once does Dostoyevsky presume rather too heavily on the reader’s goodwill, and that is where, having announced Opiskin to be entering the room for our first encounter, the author then inserts an entire chapter in parenthesis. A more successful stratagem is the suspense and expectation built up regarding Korovkin’s intended visit. As the Colonel’s need for Korovkin’s presence increases, so the prospects for his arrival seem to become more uncertain. Having been mentioned from time to time throughout the story, the mysterious guest begins to take on a significance which anticipates Godot. Unlike Godot, however, Korovkin does turn up, and with devastating effect.

  Korovkin’s arrival coincides with a display of Dostoyevsky’s most effective and masterful structural device, the ensemble scene, which is often a skandal scene too. In The Village of Stepanchikovo there are plenty of opportunities here; some six of the eighteen chapters are devoted to gatherings of one sort or another (Chapters 4, 5 and 7 in Part I, and 3, 4 and 5 in Part II), with the participants revealing in spontaneous outbursts their inner preoccupations and the most startling and telling facets of their personalities. The early Soviet critic M. Bakhtin observed that on these occasions there is a pervading sensation of the Dostoyevskian unreality of life, a carnival atmosphere — ‘life with all stops out.’||| Such scenes serve not only as firework displays for Dostoyevsky’s brilliance as a writer of dialogue, but equally act as crucibles in which the next stage of the action is poured forth and compounded. It is here also that Dostoyevsky’s comic gifts are most strikingly revealed. Pereverzev observed that in Dostoyevsky there are no funny people, only funny situations. ‘Dostoyevsky does not concentrate on delineating portraits, but tries to depict movement and that spiritual state which is conveyed by the movement.’## In these ensemble scenes, and the way in which the tensions and

  conflicts they contain move the action step by step towards the final climax, lies the structural dynamic of ‘the Dostoyevskian novel’, and it is in The Village of Stepanchikovo that Dostoyevsky first substantially employs the method. The final clash is preceded by significant minor clashes and their reverberations: in Chapter 5 of Part I, where Rostanev’s daughter Sashenka bursts out against Opiskin before the assembled company; and in Chapter 7 of Part I, where the servant Gavrila also explodes, this time to Opiskin’s face, and where shortly afterwards the narrator observes to Opiskin that he is drunk. The last incident, for example, brings the brooding hostility that has hitherto existed between Opiskin and the narrator into the open, and ‘fixes’ their relationship for the rest of the novel.

  Richard Freeborn has pointed out that this work’s ‘most important innovation’ in Dostoyevsky’s technique ‘is its concern for exhibiting private contentions in a public form.’ He continues:

  For Dostoyevsky this was the principle upon which he constructed the dramatic form of his greatest novels. The revelation of the private conflict through subjecting it to group scrutiny and analysis involves the many in the single experience and in this most simple sense ‘dramatizes’ it. A drama demands spectators who do not know the truth about the private conflict, and the darker the object of revelation the more dramatic is the analysis. His skandal scenes enshrine this principle.***

  Besides the dynamic principle of its action, The Village of Stepanchikovo contains further prototypes for future development in certain of its characters. Rostanev is the direct precursor of Prince Myshkin in The Idiot; unlike the latter, he has no intellectual viewpoint, however vaguely formulated, to support his stance of meekness and humility, and he clings to others for moral support. The lackey Vidoplyasov is an early version of the lackey Smerdyakov in The Brothers Karamazov, the tones of the sinister moralist already present in Vidoplyasov’s utterance, with its constant emphasis on ‘refinement’. The orphan Tatyana Ivanovna, lost in her dream-world, is an early version of the ‘holy fool’ Marya Timofeyevna in Devils.

  Konstantin Stanislavsky, a founder-director of the Moscow Art Theatre, adapted The Village of Stepanchikovo for the stage in 1891; he also directed it as well as acted the part of Rostanev. Before the play could be staged, however, both the title and the names of the characters had to be altered for the benefit of the censor. Nor was the name of the author to be mentioned.††† Ten years after his death Dostoyevsky was still a controversial figure in the eyes of the guardians of the Russian Empire. Much against his will Stanislavsky was thus obliged to pass off the play for official purposes as his own. However, not surprisingly, he refused to present himself to the public as its author, and consequently no author’s name appeared on the programme notes.‡‡‡ Subsequently, the novel was again prepared for the stage to open the Moscow Art Theatre’s 1917–18 season. Work began in January 1916 and went on for just under two years. The dramatization promised to be an important part of the repertoire. Stanislavsky saw Dostoyevsky not in the traditional reading of the ‘cruel genius’ morbidly probing the spiritual ulcers of humanity, but on the contrary, as the genial and witty author of a comedy with an enlightened perception of reality. In Stanislavsky’s eyes the novel was uplifting in its assertion of the divine principle of love and humility against the satanic principle of egoism and false pride.

  The part of Colonel Rostanev had a deep emotional appeal for Stanislavsky, and he claimed total spiritual identification with Dostoyevsky’s character. ‘… this rôle enabled me to become Uncle, whereas in all previous rôles to a greater or lesser extent I merely aped, copied or mocked other people’s images or my own.’ But Stanislavsky’s involvement with the play was to end on a deeply unhappy note, for in striving to interpret the nature of Rostanev’s motivating force, he was unable to reconcile within himself the benign, submissive, pacifist element with the belligerent, aggressive strain needed to wage war on tyranny as epitomized by Opiskin. The numerous rehearsals in which Stanislavsky attempted to come to terms with the rôle dragged on, holding up other productions, and yet he did not appear to be anywhere near a satisfactory artistic solution. Finally, Nemirovich-Danchenko, who had by this time taken over the directorship, asked Stanislavsky to step down from the rôle of Rostanev — a devastating blow to his morale.§§§

  The production itself in September 1917 was a critical sensation and a popular success. Critics saw in Opiskin the archetype of degenerate Russian tyranny, of which the most recent example had been that arch-prizhivalshchik Rasputin, who had been disposed of only the previous year. The gentle-hearted Rostanev, on the other hand, was taken to epitomize Mother Russia — inactive (except in extremis), gullible, and totally defenceless against its never-ending succession of Opiskins. The critic I. Zhilkin, writing in Russkoye slovo, pointed to the gravity of Dostoyevsky’s message in the context of contemporary events. ‘Is it not strange,’ he asked, ‘how Dostoyevsky seems to revive every time our way of life dissolves in a fiery ferment? Dostoyevsky appeared prophetically fresh in 1905–06, and now his voice resounds again.’

  Stanislavsky’s lifelong fascination with The Village of Stepanchikovo, and such reactions as these, argue strongly against contemporary and present-day suggestions that it is light-weight or trivial. It is for the reader to judge where this unusual tale will eventually stand in relation to Dostoyevsky’s other works.

  * L. Grossman, Dostoyevsky, Allen Lane, 1974.

  † Hamish Hamilton, 1962.

  ‡ Dostoyevsky 1821–1881, 1931; reprinted Unwin Books, 1962, p. 65.

  § Up to the time of his arrest he had written the short novels Poor Folk and The Double, the unfinished ‘novel’ Netochka Nezvanova (actually three linked stories), and some ten short stories. Poor Folk, his first work, published in January 1846, had been enthusiastically praised and established his reputation overnight; but The Double is considerably its superior.

  ¶ Quoted in K. Mochulsky, Dostoyevsky, translated by M. A. Minihan, Princeton University Press, 1967, p. 156.

  || The Rise of the Russian Novel, Cambridge University Press, 1973, p. 168.

  # F.M. Dostoyevsky: Collected Works in 30 volumes, vol. 3, edited by G. M. Fridlender and others, Leningrad, 1972, p. 503.

  ** The Undiscovered Dostoyevsky, p. 35.

  †† Collected Works, vol. 7, M. O. Wolf, St Petersburg-Moscow, 1912, p. 234.

  ‡‡ Gogol, Dostoyevsky, Issledovaniya, Moscow, 1982, pp. 210–11.

  §§ F. M. Dostoyevsky: Collected Works, vol. 3, p. 502.

  ¶¶ Op. cit., p. 305.

  ||| Quoted in F. M. Dostoyevsky: Collected Works, vol. 5, p. 504.

  ## Op. cit., p. 215.

  *** The Rise of the Russian Novel, p. 169.

  ††† See, K. Stanislavsky, Collected Works in Eight Volumes, Moscow, 1954: Vol. 1, p. 138 and Ibid. Letter to Kisselevsky in vol. 7, p. 106.