L’“Impero” di Stavrogin: motivi tacitiani nel romanzo I demòni di F.M. Dostoevskij

The aim of my work is to show the results of my research about the influence exerted by the Tacitus' Annals on the composition of Dostoevsky's novel The Devils. This research is part of the debate on the relations between Dostoevsky and Classical literature raised by V. Ivanov, L. Shestov, S. Bulgakov, N.Berdjaev. This field of study has been recently renewed, among the others, by T. Molchukova and Hyung Goo Lee as regards the passion of the novelist to the Homeric epics, by T. Popovich and G. Rosenshield on the similarities with Aeschilean and Sophoclean tragedy, by V. Dudkin on the similarities with Aristophanean comedy and by D.H.Larmour concerning Orpheus' myth and Foma Fomich. An aspect which has not been really taken into account by the critics is the connection between Latin historiography, in particular Tacitus, and the works of Dostoevsky. However, in his Diary of a writer (1876) Dostoevsky draws an immediate link between lawyer V. Spasovich (the model for the character of Fetyukovich) and the Tacitean Vibulenus. The passion of the Russian writer for Tacitean historiography derived not only from a direct reading of Tacitus in French translation with facing Latin text, but also from the mediation of N. Karamzin’s and A.S. Pushkin’s works. This work proposes an analysis of The Devils highlighting how Dostoevsky's style reveals the influence of the Annals in the narrator's delineation of characters and plot development, in order to address fundamental issues such as the role of the usurper and suicide. My purpose is to demonstrate that the dialogue between the Russian intelligentsia and Tacitus, begun by Karamzin and Pushkin, finds in Dostoevsky its ultimate fulfillment.