Nastasya Filippovna Barashkova: biography, character characteristics and interesting facts

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Everyone who read "The Idiot" knows who Nastasya Filippovna Barashkova is. This is the heroine around whom the main plot knots are tied. Nastasya Filippovna's monologue can be considered the culmination of Dostoevsky's novel. In the words that she addresses either to herself or to Prince Myshkin, one can see incredible despair, disbelief in the happy outcome of her own life. What is the tragedy of Nastasya Filippovna? Does this character have prototypes?

Prince Myshkin

Once, in a train car heading from Switzerland to Russia, Parfyon Rogozhin meets a young man, rather strange, but causing boundless sympathy and trust - Prince Myshkin. A distant relative of the general's wife Yepanchina is very ill, he spent many years abroad, but the treatment did not completely rid him of the illness. It is from Rogozhin that Myshkin hears for the first time about a womannamed after Nastasya Filippovna.

The most famous hero of Dostoevsky is free from the passions that destroy the human soul. He is like a child. His gaze on those around him is uncomplicated. That's why they call him an idiot. He is the only one who sees in Nastasya Filippovna not a fallen fatal beauty, but just an unfortunate woman - a woman deprived of love and understanding. He pities her, perhaps he truly loves her. However, he is unable to endure the intrigues that the millionth inheritance, which has fallen like snow on his head, generates.

The author endowed Prince Myshkin with autobiographical features. The hero suffers from epilepsy, just like his creator. And it was Myshkin who told readers about the psychological state of a person before the death pen alty - about what Dostoevsky knew from his own experience. Let us return to the image of Nastasya Filippovna. What role did the story of the "fallen woman" play in the fate of the unfortunate Prince Myshkin?

Characteristic

Nastasya Filippovna - the heroine is rather controversial. The characters in the novel characterize her in different ways. What kind of woman does Myshkin see? When he first looks at her portrait, he is amazed. However, he is not struck by beauty, but rather by the terrible combination of pride and contempt that can be read in her eyes. A pale face, slightly sunken cheeks, a strange fire in the eyes - all this the prince sees in the portrait of a 25-year-old woman. At this moment, he seems to guess the former and future fate of Nastasya Filippovna. Then, becoming a millionaire, he tries to save her. But in vain. This woman is experiencingcontempt not only for others, but also for oneself.

Childhood of Nastasya Filippovna

Dostoevsky created this female image under the weight of his own love experiences. But about who served as the prototype of Nastasya Filippovna, we will tell later. First, it is worth setting out the biography of this extraordinary woman.

Nastasya Filippovna was born into the family of a nobleman, a retired officer. When the girl was seven years old, her mother died. The father after the death of his wife went mad, and soon died in a fever. Nastasya was left alone in the world. The neighboring landowner Afanasy Totsky took an active part in her fate. The orphan grew up in his manager's house.

The girl has grown up. Totsky saw in her a future beauty. He hired tutors who taught Nastasya the French language, music and the rules of conduct in a secular society. When she was 16 years old, he made her his kept.

Ganya Ivolgin

Only Prince Myshkin could see the suffering, vulnerable soul in Nastasya Filippovna. For others, it was the subject of bargaining. Upon learning that Totsky is going to marry one of the daughters of General Yepanchin, Nastasya arrives in St. Petersburg. And now the landowner sees: in front of him is not a touching, defenseless creature that he ruined, but a woman ready to take revenge. She has a terrible, infernal charm that attracts new fans. Ganya Ivolgin is among them.

This young nobleman is rich, has a decent appearance, and is not badly educated. He is not stupid, butat the same time, he has neither talent nor ability, he does not have a single idea of his own. Ganya Ivolgin "decisively like everyone else." He serves as a secretary to General Yepanchin, and it is in him that in one of the first chapters Prince Myshkin sees a portrait of Nastasya Filippovna, which strikes him so much.

Parfyon Rogozhin

After the first meeting with Nastasya Barashkova, the son of a rich merchant is seized with a fatal passion. He gives her ten thousand worth of diamond pendants. Meeting with this woman knocks Rogozhin out of his usual rut. He commits a series of crazy deeds - all in order to win Nastasya Filippovna. When Parfyon becomes the heir to a millionth fortune, just like Totsky, he tries to buy it. However, he is not stupid and understands that he will never get a reciprocal feeling. Nastasya Filippovna has not valued herself for a long time. Communication with Rogozhin for her is a form of suicide.

Love triangle

In one of the scenes, Prince Myshkin proposes to Nastasya Filippovna. She refuses him and delivers a long speech full of bitterness and suffering. Once, being Totsky's kept woman, she dreamed of someone like Myshkin - kind, honest, "stupid". But then society imposed a pattern on her that she had to follow.

Nastasya Filippovna understands how terrible marriage to a "fallen woman" can affect Myshkin's fate. And therefore she marries Parfen Rogozhin, who respects the prince, but invariably sees him as a rival. Nastasya Filippovna destroys both herself and those who love her. Rogozhin kills her in a fit of jealousy, then goes insane. No less sad is the fate of Prince Myshkin.

The image of the heroine in other works

The characteristic features of Nastasya Filippovna can be seen in other characters of Dostoevsky. For example, in Agrafena Svetlova from The Brothers Karamazov, Polina from The Gambler. The heroine of the novel "The Idiot" has become one of the brightest literary images. The story of a young woman with a broken fate is also found in the works of later prose writers. Pasternak's novel "Doctor Zhivago" shows the fate of a girl from a poor family, the mistress of a rich and cynical lawyer. We are talking about Larisa, who became a victim of the villain Komarovsky. We do not know whether Pasternak, while creating this female image, was influenced by the novel by Fyodor Dostoevsky. But the heroines of these two Russian writers undoubtedly have common features.

In 2016, Natalia Mironova's book "The Syndrome of Nastasya Filippovna" was published. There is no such term in psychiatry. The writer herself created it. The heroine Mironova became a victim of violence, after which she experienced serious psychological problems for several years. They were expressed in illogical hatred towards the representatives of the stronger sex, the desire to be desirable, but inaccessible and unattainable.

Apollinaria Suslova

That was the name of the woman whom Dostoevsky loved for many years. ApollinariaBorn into a we althy merchant family, she received a good education. Her older sister, Nadezhda, became the first Russian female doctor. And this suggests that Suslov's daughters were brought up in a rather favorable environment.

Apollinaria was 20 years younger than Dostoevsky. A romance began between them. Polina (that's what her friends and relatives called her) demanded that the writer divorce his wife. In addition, she wrote novels and stories that had no literary value, and demanded assistance in publishing. One of her works once nevertheless appeared on the pages of Dostoevsky's magazine. After the death of his wife, the writer proposed to Polina. However, the girl refused him. Their relationship has always been torturous, nervous, unclear.

Many literary scholars who study the life and work of Fyodor Dostoevsky believe that it is Apollinaria Suslova who is the prototype of Nastasya Filippovna.

Actresses who played the famous heroine

Dostoevsky's novel has been filmed many times. In 1910, a picture of Pyotr Chardynin appeared on the screens. Nastasya Filippovna was played by Lyubov Varyagina. In 1958, Ivan Pyryev made a film that is recognized as one of the best film adaptations of Dostoevsky's novel. The main female role was played by Yulia Borisova. In 2003, a television serial film by Vladimir Bortko was released. This time Lydia Velezheva played Nastasya Filippovna.

In the image of the famous heroine, such actresses as Asta Nielsen, Edwige Feuer, Lyudmila Maksakova, Zhanna Balibar appeared on the screen at different times. True, more than once foreignfilmmakers gave the famous character a different name.