Regional aspect in Russian classics teaching: Dostoevsky in literature lessons

The purpose of the article is to outline the semantic scope of the term “regional literature” in modern literary criticism; to show the productivity of the regional aspect use when studying the work of F. Dostoevsky at the lessons of the subject area “Native Literature”, revealing the semantic potential of such semiotic units as “flower” and “«sun”. The study combines theoretical (literary), historical and cultural, semiotic and biographical approaches. The use of regional material allows overcoming the tendentious presentation of the Omsk’s role and Omsk’s nature in the writer’s fate, to see the polyphonic complexity of the writer’s responses to the Siberian space. In the course of the analysis of such a semiotic unit “Notes from a Dead House” as “flower”, F. M. Dostoevsky’s creative dialogue with folklore tradition, with classical literature (the elegiac image of a wilted flower) was revealed. In the image of the Siberian sun, the semantics of unbearable heat and, at the same time, the will, the joy of life are accentuated; the saving Omsk’s sun for the narrator becomes a source of love for Siberian nature. In the creative biography of F. Dostoevsky polyphonically juxtaposed polar types of attitudes towards Omsk and Siberian nature: the writer recreates the harsh and salutary image of Omsk in “Notes from a Dead House”; considers the years spent in the Omsk prison to be the time of spiritual death and, at the same time, the time of creative development.