Demons

The novel "Besy" occupies a special place in the work of F. M. Dostoevsky. It not only along with "Crime and Punishment", "The Idiot", "The Adolescent" and "The Brothers Karamazov" is included in the so-called "great five books" of the writer, but also in this series stand out in a special way. This novel, devoted to the problem of the confrontation between darkness and light, evil and good, was conceived by Dostoevsky in 1870 after the murder in Moscow by a terrorist group of Sergei Nechaev one of the members of his underground organization - Ivan Ivanov, intending to break with it. The writer shrewdly felt that phenomena of this kind are the result of a whole complex of problems that have been accumulating in the country for centuries. However, "Devils" work is not only about Nechaev and Nechaevshchina, but also about the possibility and necessity of the human soul to overcome all the temptations and doubts, to pass all the tests and find a salvific path, following which you can triumph over the triumphant in the world demonesschina - evil, lies and other vices. At the same time, "The Devils" is a large-scale literary canvas, depicting in original narrative form the life of a provincial town during the fateful events. In this edition, the text of the novel is accompanied by extensive commentary, as well as an introductory article by the famous Russian literary scholar Dr. Philological Sciences B. N. Tikhomirov "Rehearsal of the Russian Apocalypse", which helps to better understand the artistic concept of the novel. The edition is accompanied by illustrations made in the mid-1930s by Sarra Shor (1897-1981), a graduate of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts. The future artist was born in a small district town in Volyn province three years before the beginning of the XX century. It seemed that she was destined for the usual fate of hundreds of thousands of Jewish girls living in the Russian countryside. However, Sarra awoke a craving for drawing. At first Sarra entered the Kiev Art School, where she first became acquainted with the European avant-garde, and then moved to St. Petersburg. In time, she joined a new artistic association - "Kultur-Liga"; Jewish artists who were part of it sought to promote the new art, combining it with national motifs. Sarra Shor's work developed in this direction. She drew sketches for theater productions, and then became interested in book graphics. Books with S. Shor's drawings were printed by leading publishing houses in Moscow and Leningrad. These editions were repeatedly demonstrated at international exhibitions of book art, including abroad: in Cologne, Amsterdam, New York, Berlin and London. An example of such works by Shor are her illustrations for Dostoevsky's "Besy". The novel "Besy" (1871-1872) is one of the most important in the creative legacy of F. M. Dostoevsky. The impetus for its creation was the first political murder in the history of the revolutionary movement in Russia, committed by a group of revolutionary terrorists led by Sergei Nechaev. The depth of philosophical and religious issues, the acuteness of social and moral questions have caused heated debates that have been conducted around this work since its publication. The complex genre nature, the essence of the author's pathos "Besov" traditionally defined in terms of "novel-tragedy" and "novel-warning". The edition is accompanied by extensive commentary. The introductory article "Rehearsal of the Russian Apocalypse" helps to better understand the author's artistic conception of the novel.