Abstract
<jats:p>The most characteristic feature of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s artistic world is that virtually all the major characters in his works read, discuss, translate, interpret and analyze, buy and sell, give, borrow and lend to each other, and write various books themselves. At the same time, the mention of a book in Dostoevsky’s texts is never accidental or random, but inevitably introduces an additional dimension to the main stories, which can thus expand and deepen in an extraordinary way, incorporating the complexly interpreted meanings of the book that was mentioned, as well as its genre form, ranging from the everyday and historical anecdote, the feuilleton, the magazine and newspaper article, to the evangelical parable and the apocalyptic prophecy. However, even against the background of Dostoevsky’s oeuvre, the novel The Idiot stands out in terms of the number of books it contains. The collective monograph offered to our readers is devoted to exploring the reasons and purposes, the modes and nature of the presence of such an abundance of artistic, historical and sacred books in the writer’s most mystical novel, demonstrating how the books included in it influence its poetics, ethics, aesthetics and metaphysics. For readers who love Dostoevsky, as well as for philologists, philosophers, and theologians.</jats:p>