Excessive Drinking as a Moral Transgression in the Work of F. M. Dostoevsky

The article studies the topic of excessive drinking in the works of

F. M. Dostoevsky in the light of the tradition of the ancient feast, or symposium. The wine offered at a symposium did not merely incline people to philosophi­ cal conversations and discussions about eternal questions, but also revealed the inner human essence, thoughts and intentions. There is ancient understand­ ing of wine as a means of forgetting sorrows and attaining temporary joys. Excessive drinking is associated with the ancient Dionysian idea — excessive drinking at the festival of Dionysus, and the concept of metamorphosis — people lose their human essence and begin to resemble animals. In the fates of the heroes of Dostoevsky’s Poor Folk, Humiliated and Insulted, Notes from Underground, Crime and Punishment, Demons, The Brothers Karamazov, the ancient tradition is combined with the Christian understanding of a feast as reveling, and amusements at a feast, and excessive drinking as a moral trans­ gression. On the pages of Dostoevsky’s magazine Citizen excessive drinking is equated to a serious illness, a flood, a fire, an enemy invasion, that is, to a ca­ tastrophe that affects the Russian people. The ancient tradition allows to reveal additional meanings in Dostoevsky’s interpretation of the topic of excessive drinking.