The subject of research in the article is the image of the Dry Valley in Bunin’s short novel and its possible sources. The author believes that the main precedent texts for Bunin’s short novel and the concept of national life and national character embodied in it, are the novels by Fyodor Dostoevsky The Brothers Karamazov (as the researchers have already noted) and The Silver Dove by Andrey Bely. Bunin both argues with the writers and develops their ideas about the essence of the Russian character and the Russian life.
The article considers indirect plot allusions, V. Nabokov’s explicit and disguised references to the topic related to the terrible characters of Dostoyevsky, to the new embodiments of Pushkin’s and Dostoyevsky’s images.
