The influence of Hamlet on Dostoevsky’s character Stavrogin from 'Demons'

This paper addresses the parallels between Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Dostoevsky’s Stavrogin considering the representation of their paradoxical subjectivities. The starting point is that Dostoevsky incorporated his understanding of Hamlet in creating the protagonist of Demons. I approach the comparison of Hamlet’s and Stavrogin’s subjectivities in the scope of the tradition of continental philosophy and focus on the characters’ quest for meaning, both in terms of themselves and the world. Their characters reveal the dynamic of the same problem – that the unified, coherent self is an illusion and a myth, that modern subjectivity is paradoxical, radically split, and alienated from itself. Even though these heroes belong to different genres, periods, and cultures, this common denominator offers a philosophical line of thought that goes beyond restrictions caused by different poetic, cultural, and historical conditions.