Attualità dostoevskiana. Le ragioni di un classico.

Dostoevskian topicality. The reasons for a classic. If it is true that a classic is a classic when it represents a work of art regardless of time and history, it is also true that the idea that the message conveyed retains its validity through time and history, thus becoming a highly topical element, belongs to this concept. The aim of this study is to answer the inner question that grips the readers of Dostoevsky, prompting them to search for the reason why they feel so deeply about the text. To this end, the method expounded in Francesco Orlando's Freudian theory of literature is particularly productive because, in allowing the so-called ‘return of the repressed’, it allows the reader to confront the message in a dialogical manner, while at the same time allowing him or her to be close to the message itself (whether moral or amoral, correct or incorrect, whether it offends the common sense of collective values or even betrays them). Freedom of opinion is determined by the absence of fear of judgement or proof, as the artistic text guarantees the anonymous and, so to say, inactive participation of the reader in the reception of the code. Stefano Brugnolo's study on the subject, applied here to Dostoevsky's work, allows us to identify certain constants that characterise classical texts in such a way that they flow into a canon that can be defined as universal (Brugnolo 2023). Of these constants, ambivalence and topicality are the foundations from which the investigation stems.