“My Past & Thoughts” by A. I. Herzen as the source for “The Writer’s Diary” by F. M. Dostoevsky

The issue of the relations between A. I. Herzen and F. M. Dostoevsky in literary criticism has been raised for a long time, but it is still relevant. The purpose of the work is to consider the connection between the poetics of the two most prominent mature works of both authors i.e. “My Past and Thoughts” and “The Writer’s Diary”. Herzen’s autobiographical works are considered as the sources for Dostoevsky’s novel prose and for his “Writer’s Diary” as well. The comparative analysis of these works given in the article is based on the methodology for the study of philosophical prose proposed in the works of A. E. Eremeev, E. A. Akelkina, M. S. Stern. The article considers topical ways of comparative literary analysis of the works of A. I. Herzen and F. M. Dostoevsky. The connection of idea and image – what allows to see the original creative style of the artist, expresses the content of a certain way of thinking, most relevant for both Russian thinkers. Choosing a free form of storytelling, setting for the search for truth, moving from analytical fragments to dialogues, anecdotes, parables, creating figurative parallels, generalizing the conscious in symbols and metaphors — all this allows us to see how important the experience of generalizing life meaning was for two authors. Herzen’s “My Past & Thoughts” and Dostoevsky’s “Writer’s Diary” are final work, they allow to see what a complex synthetic experience Herzen and Dostoevsky collected. A detailed comparative analysis of these works, in our opinion, will clarify the solution to the question of genre-style ties in the literary tradition of the XIX century, the interaction of artistic and aesthetic systems of Russian writers of the second half of the XIX century, finally, will clarify the methodology for analyzing such works.