Impavidi progrediamur! DIACRONIA essay © 2021 Te Authors. Publishing rights belong to the Journal. Te article is freely accessible under the terms and conditions of the CC-BY Open Access licence. Diacronia 13, June 13, 2021, A185 (1–6) doi:10.17684/i13A185en ISSN: 2393-1140 www.diacronia.ro In the name of the father. A personal dostoevskian myth Călin-Horia Bârleanu ˚ Faculty of Letters and Communication Sciences, “Ștefan cel Mare” University, Str. Universității 13, 720229 Suceava, Romania Article info History: Received February 26, 2021 Accepted April 1, 2021 Published August 18, 2021 Key words: psychocritics paternal fgure hero complex Abstract Dostoevsky’s name is already linked to an almost equal number of myths con- cerning his works, as his life. Tis fact does not, however, take away from his resplendence, since the true dimension of his great works is still revealing its secrets and meanings. Focused in many of his masterpieces on the paternal fgure (manifestly projected or, sometimes, expressed in a latent register), the writer remains captive to his own abyss, from which he derives his creativity, un- doubtedly distilling his torment – a torment, it seems, he experienced constantly throughout his life. Te symbolic weaving of his work reveals a true thematic network in which the image of the father dominates akin to a god – usually an indiferent and absent one. It was Charles Mauron’s psychocriticism which opened, beyond Freudian psychoanalytic suggestions, in 1962, the path to a new formula for reading and understanding both the text and its creator. Te proposal of the French essayist and critic aroused, in a much more tolerant cultural space, the most vivid reactions, especially against the background of a sustained campaign, led by Jaques Lacan, on the dimensions and applicability of psychoanalysis. In comparison, in the year in which there appeared in Romania Mihail Eminescu fom a psychoanalytic point of view (Vlad, 1932), he reactions went far beyond the limits of academic or research-specifc discourse. Without anchors which could have narrowed or limited, in any way, the horizon of knowledge of the literary work, especially since psychoanalysis has demonstrated the ability to discover through its tools, new ways of interpretation, perspectives and concepts (such as the existence of an instinctual life, failed acts or the infuence of the unconscious on the communication pro- cess), psychocritics enjoyed a fertile context, waiting for a new language which would ultimately provide a voice to those interested in the deep dimensions of the work of art. Obviously, a psychocritical approach in any literary work must be supported, precisely for the efective realization of the overlapping of texts and the revelation of obsessive fgures that build the personal myth, through a form of access to the writer’s life, where creation remains project and fnds itself in a permanent embryonic state. In Dostoevsky’s case, an important advantage comes through the translation work of Leonte Ivanov (Dostoevsky, 2018), a researcher and professor from Iasi. Letters I (1837–1859), covering perhaps the most important period in the life of the adolescent and young man who would become the most famous and infuential Russian writer, show an ideological pattern which places the father fgure in an area where communication is done through pre-established brands which evoke a strong paternal authority. Almost without exception, the young Feodor Mihailovici’letters end in the same note, through which we should see both a specifc social pattern of the time, but also a form of dependence which the adolescent felt as a pressure. For example, a letter from 1837, when Dostoevsky was sixteen, concludes, “With sincere respect and flial afection, we have the honor to be your children” (Dostoevsky, 2018, p. 43) (referring to his brother Mikhail) or, in another letter, from the same year “With deep respect and kind regards, always yours, Mikhail and Feodor Dostoevsky, who sincerely love you.” (p. 46). Te economic reasons, to which the letters most ofen refer, the young people having diferent needs specifc to the school, frame the epistolary style destined for the father in a very rigid mold, which disap- pears completely in any other letter. So striking is the diference between the letters that Feodor Pavlovich ˚ Email address: calin.barleanu@gmail.com.