French in Dostoevsky’s Demons: tout le monde, un lac, and bonnet de coton

Abstract

The article examines the methods and aims of studying foreign-language phrases in Fyodor Dostoevsky's texts. It draws attention to a problem arising from translations of French expressions that appeared in the twentieth century, in which expressions not intended by the author were introduced. As a result, not only do readers encounter a text that is not the author's own, but some scholars now also rely exclusively on these translations.In the present study, French phrases and words are considered meaningful artistic elements that, in each particular context, are used by the author as the most appropriate means of introducing an additional semantic field and/or establishing connections between elements within the work that lie beyond the framework of its overt plot. The article examines two examples in which French expressions are quotations from the French Bible. It demonstrates that the semantic aura of the pond and the lake as significant loci in the artistic world of Demons is determined by the French translation of Sacred History. The article also considers the expression bonnet de coton, used by Stepan Trofimovich. Its meaning is elucidated in its historical context, and the expression also serves to establish a connection with Balzac's novel Modeste Mignon.