“Polzunkov” is a short story by the 19th-century Russian writer Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, written in the second half of 1847 for publication in the “Illustrated Almanac” by Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov and Ivan Ivanovich Panaev. The almanac was banned by Nikolaev’s censorship because of the works of other authors. The story was first published only in 1883, when critic Nikolai Strakhov published Dostoevsky’s complete works.
Concept and creation
The idea for the future work may have occurred to Dostoevsky as early as 1846. In April 1846, the almanac “First of April” was published, the preface to which Dostoevsky wrote together with Dmitry Grigorovich. There, together with Nikolai Nekrasov, they published a joint work “How dangerous it is to indulge in ambitious dreams.” Researchers believe that it was then that the idea arose, which became the central theme of the story’s plot, to make the protagonist’s April Fool’s joke fatal in his life.
On June 25, 1847, Nikolai Nekrasov informed Vissarion Belinsky, Pavel Annenkov and Ivan Turgenev that he was going to publish an “Illustrated Almanac” in the supplement to the tenth or eleventh issue of the Sovremennik magazine. Nekrasov sent out an invitation to several authors, including Dostoevsky, to take part in the almanac.
At the end of August 1847, Dostoevsky promised in a letter to Nekrasov to provide the necessary story by January 1, 1848. But already in mid-December, the writer reported that he had managed to complete the work by the beginning of the month and handed the story over to the editors of the Sovremennik magazine.
An announcement of the forthcoming publication of the Illustrated Almanac in the February 1848 issue of Sovremennik shows that the work was initially planned to be called Plismylkov’s Story. However, in the printed copies, the story was already called Polzunkov. In the correspondence between the publisher and the St. Petersburg Censorship Committee, a possible title was also noted: Shut
Publication History
Initially, the Illustrated Almanac was censored by Ampliy Ochkin, who authorized its publication in the spring of 1848. The publication of Polzunkov was accompanied by four drawings by Pavel Fedotov. Due to delays in the work of the printing house and the engravers who illustrated the almanac, the publication did not take place at that time. At the end of August 1848, Ivan Panayev, Nekrasov’s co-editor, again applied for permission from the censor.
In September, the future almanac was reviewed by censor A. L. Krylov, who banned its publication because of the stories “Lola Montes” by Alexander Druzhinin and “The Talnikov Family” by Avdotya Panaeva. By this time, the censorship requirements had increased due to the revolution in France.
According to the official, because of these two stories, the almanac could have “the most unfavorable influence on the minds of readers”, since it demonstrated “a passion for those ideas that … prepared young France and Germany”. At the same time, Dostoevsky’s story and the other works of the almanac “could in themselves, with perhaps minor changes, provide a fairly flawless reading experience”.
Panaev continued to seek permission to publish the almanac, and on December 14, 1848, the St. Petersburg Censorship Committee allowed him to publish a new collection, in which it was possible to use a number of works written for the “Illustrated Almanac”. Dostoevsky’s story was also among those permitted.
In March 1849, the Literary Collection was published, but Dostoevsky’s story was not published there, as researchers assume, due to the complicated relations between Dostoevsky and Sovremennik. It is also noted that Nekrasov did not like this story from the start. As a result, Dostoevsky’s manuscript accepted by the editors of Sovremennik remained unknown to readers even after the censorship allowed it.
Only a few printed copies of the Illustrated Almanac, permitted by Ochkin, with Dostoevsky’s story have survived. The publisher of Sovremennik, Ivan Panayev, was forced to give a written commitment to the censorship committee not to distribute a single copy of this publication, while stipulating that he was not at fault for several previously distributed issues of the almanac when it was initially permitted by the censor.
As a result, the “Illustrated Almanac” became a bibliographic rarity, and readers learned about the existence of the story “Crawlers” only in 1883 after the publication of the complete works of Dostoevsky by the critic Nikolai Strakhov.
The main character
The image of a poor buffoon first appeared in Dostoevsky’s May 1847 feuilleton in the Petersburg Chronicle. Polzunkov is a development of this image. Out of servility, this character is ready to look like a buffoon. However, under the buffoon’s mask, Polzunkov’s resentment and bitterness from the feeling of his humiliation are hidden, which ultimately leads to anger towards others. Polzunkov’s speech is tense, full of puns and interrupted by nervous pauses.
Polzunkov’s aspirations are contradictory. He is characterized by ambition and a sense of humiliated human dignity. According to Dostoevsky, ambitious suspiciousness and painfully heightened pride are characteristic of self-loving people who are humiliated due to social inequality.
Commentators suggest that this topic, among others, could have been discussed by Dostoevsky at the Petrashevsky meetings, since his testimony to the investigative commission contains the following evidence: “I wanted to prove that there is more ambition between us than real human dignity, that we ourselves are falling into self-deprecation, into the crushing of personality from petty vanity, from egoism and from the aimlessness of activities.”
Plot
Osip Mikhailovich Polzunkov, at a crowded meeting of St. Petersburg official society, attracts everyone’s attention with his expressive manners, desire to be in the center of what is happening and an unusually buffoonish appearance, which contrasts with his almost exquisite attire.
He invites the society to listen to his story about a high-ranking official, Fedosey Nikolaevich, for which he climbs onto a chair and begins a verbose narrative, interrupted by his own puns and caustic remarks from the listeners about the narrator himself.
From Polzunkov’s story, it can be understood that he wooed Fedosey Nikolaevich’s daughter Marya Fedoseyevna, but, not becoming the heir of a wealthy cadet relative, he was dismissed by Fedosey Nikolaevich and his wife Marya Fominishna. In revenge for this, Polzunkov caught his boss, who was Fedosey Nikolaevich, in bribes and wrote a denunciation of him.
Fedosey Nikolaevich decided to regain the favor of his employee: in exchange for a promise to remain silent, Polzunkov received one and a half thousand silver rubles from his boss, after which the doors of his desired home and the path to the heart of his bride were once again opened to him. Preparations for the wedding began, but Polzunkov decided to play a cruel joke on his future father-in-law: as an April Fool’s joke, he submitted a resignation letter, which was perceived by the future father-in-law as a continuation of Polzunkov’s attempts to discredit him.
The misunderstanding was soon cleared up, and after a new reconciliation, Fedosey Nikolaevich, under a plausible pretext, took back Polzunkov’s fifteen hundred rubles, and then finally fired the confused young man from service, using his joke request for resignation for this. By this time, Polzunkov had no compromising materials left for Fedosey Nikolaevich, and as a result of his April Fool’s joke, he lost his job, his fiancée, and the fifteen hundred rubles.
Thus, the plot of the story is a typical farce or vaudeville, interspersed with many puns: “my grandmother was quite withdrawn: she was blind, dumb, deaf, stupid – anything you like! …”, “lived on a grand scale, because his arms were long”, “he died by God’s will, but he put off making a will to do everything for a long time; it turned out that it was not found in any drawer later…” etc.
Genre features
The story “Polzunkov” is close to the “physiological essay”, such works as “The Petersburg Organ Grinders” by Dmitry Grigorovich, “The Grave Master” by Alexander Bashutsky or “The Petersburg Feuilletonist” by Ivan Panaev. However, in this work Dostoevsky does not examine any stable social or professional type, but rather individual moral properties, psychology and character of a person who does not fit into the usual social framework.
Influence on other works
Self-abasement and self-mockery, together with the bitterness from the awareness of his unsightly role, cause in Polzunkov a class-based hostility towards his superiors and higher-ranking officials. This character trait is manifested in Dostoevsky’s later works in the images of Ezhevikin and Foma Opiskin from the story “The Village of Stepanchikovo and Its Inhabitants”, Marmeladov from the novel “Crime and Punishment”, the hero of “Notes from the Underground”, Captain Snegiryov and Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov from the novel “The Brothers Karamazov”. Karamazov Sr. interpreted his role as follows: “It always seems to me that they take me for a jester, so let me really be a jester, I’m not afraid of your opinions! That’s why I am a jester out of malice, out of suspiciousness. I go berserk out of suspiciousness.”
