I would like to thank those who have read and commented on previous versions of this article, especially Robert Louis Jackson, Vladimir Alexandrov, Harvey Goldblatt, Irina Paperno, and Ilya Kliger, the two anonymous reviewers for Slavic Review and Diane Koenker.

1. Dostoevskii, F. M., Polnoe sobranie sochinenii v tridtsati tomakh, ed. Bazanov, V G. et al. (hereafter PSS) (Leningrad, 1972-1990), 14:328 Google Scholar. All English translations are mine.

2. Lukács, Georg, Die Theorie des Romans (Berlin, 1920), 68–72.Google Scholar

3. Bakhtin, Mikhail, Problemy poetiki Dostoevskogo (Moscow, 1963), 335.Google Scholar

4. In the first group I have in mind such critics as V. L. Komarovich, B. G. Reizov, and Robert Belknap; in the second Vasilii Rozanov, Nikolai Berdiaev, and a host of contemporary Russian and western critics writing under their influence. Komarovich, V L., F. M. Dostojewskij: Die Urgestalt der Briider Karamasoff: Dostojervskijs Quellen, Entwürfe und Fragmente (Munich, 1928)Google Scholar; B. G. Reizov, “K istorii zamysla Brat'ev Karamazovykh,” Zven'ia 6 (1936): 545-73; Belknap, Robert, The Structure of The Brothers Karamazov (The Hague, 1967)Google Scholar; Rozanov, V V., Legenda o “Velikom inkvizitore” E M. Dostoevskogo (St. Petersburg, 1891)Google Scholar; Berdiaev, N., Novoe religioznoe soznanie i obshchestvennost’ (St. Petersburg, 1907)Google Scholar; Sandoz, Ellis, Political Apocalypse: A Study of Dostoevsky's Grand Inquisitor (Baton Rouge, 1971)Google Scholar.

5. Perlina, Nina, Varieties of Poetic Utterance: Quotation in The Brothers Karamazov (Lanham, Md., 1985)Google Scholar; Thompson, Diane Oenning, The Brothers Karamazov and the Poetics of Memory (Cambridge, Eng., 1991)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6. For previous discussions of the role of hagiography in The Brothers Karamazov, see Vetlovskaia, V. E., Poetiha Romana “Brat'ia Karamazovy” (Leningrad, 1977)Google Scholar; Bortnes, Jostein, “The Function of Hagiography in Dostoevskij's Novels,” Scando-Slavica 24 (1978): 27–33 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Ziolkowski, Margaret, Hagiography and Modern Russian Literature (Princeton, 1988)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Opul'skii, A., Zhitiia sviatykh v tvorchestve russkikh pisatelei XIX veka (East Lansing, Mich., 1986)Google Scholar; and Thompson, Brothers Karamazov, 74-107. On the significance of apocryphal legend, see Murav, Harriet, Holy Foolishness: Dostoevskii's Novels and the Poetics of Cultural Critique (Stanford, 1992), 140-42Google Scholar; and Perlina, Varieties of Poetic Utterance, 82-87. For accounts of Dostoevskii's uses of folk legend in The Brothers Karamazov, see Gibian, George, “Dostoevskii's Use of Russian Folklore,” Slavic Folklore: A Symposium, vol. 6 (1956): 230-45Google Scholar; Lotman, L. M., “Romany Dostoevskogo i russkaia legenda,” Realizm russkoi literatury 60-kh godov XlXveka (Leningrad, 1974), 285-315Google Scholar; Faith Wigzell, “Dostoevskii and die Russian Folk Heritage,” in Leatherbarrow, W.J., ed., The Cambridge Companion to Dostoevskii (Cambridge, Eng., 2002), 21–46 Google Scholar; Thompson, Brothers Karamazov, 108-16; and Shawn Kate Elliott, “The Aesthetics of Russian Folk Religion and The Brothers Karamazov” (PhD diss., University of California, Berkeley, 1997).

7. For a discussion of the sociological and narrative functions of Christian legends, see Delehaye, Hippolyte, Les Legendes hagiographiques (Brussels, 1906)Google Scholar and Jolles, Andre, EinfacheFormen (Halle, 1930)Google Scholar.

8. “Legenda,” Tolhovyi slovar’ velikogo russkogo iazyha (Moscow, 1881); Max Vasmer, “Legenda,“Etimologicheskii slovar'russkogo iazyka (Moscow, 1964).

9. Chernykh notes an early attribution to Aleksandr Pushkin, in a letter to Petr Pletnev, in which Pushkin suggests that Pletnev should encourage Zhukovskii to read the Chet'i Minei, “especially the legends [legendy] about the Kievan wonderworkers.” “Legenda,” in P. Chernykh, ed., Istoriko-etimologicheskii slovar’ (Moscow, 1993).

10. Pamiatniki starinnoi russkoi literatury, 4 vols., vols. 1, 2, and 4 ed. N. Kostomarov, vol. 3 ed. A. Pypin (St. Petersburg, 1860-1862).

11. Ziolkowski, Hagiography, 19.

12. This period also saw the publication of Vasilii Kliuchevskii's ground breaking work on the historical importance of hagiography, Drevnerusskiie zhitiia sviatikh hak istoricheskii istochnik (Moscow, 1871), as well as Nikolai Kostomarov, Russkaia istoria v zhizneopisaniiakh ee glavnykh deiatelei (St. Petersburg, 1874), and Ignatii, Archimandrite, Kratkie zhizneopisaniia russkikh sviatykh (St. Petersburg, 1875)Google Scholar.

13. Izbrannye zhitiia sviatykh, kratko izlozhennye po rukovodstvu Chet'ikh-Minei (Moscow, 1860-61). See Grossman, Leonid, BibliotekaDostoevskogo (Odessa, 1919)Google Scholar. This work is number 185 of Grossman's inventory.

14. Tikhonravov, N., ed., Pamiatniki otrechennoi russkoi literatury (St. Petersburg, 1863)Google Scholar, A. Pypin, ed., “Lozhnye i otrechennye knigi russkoi starinnoi,” Pamiatniki starinnoi russkoi literatury, vol. 3.

15. See, for instance, Pypin, A., “Drevniaia russkaia literatura. I, Starinnye apokrify. II, Skazanie o khozhdenii bogoroditsy po mukam,” Otechestvennye zapiski 115 (1857)Google Scholar; I. I. Sreznevskii, “Khozhdenie bogoroditsy po mukam,” Izvestiia II imperatorskoi Akademii nauk za 1863god (1863); I. Smirnov, “Apokrificheskie skazaniia o Bozhiei Materi i deianiiakh apostolov,.“ Pravoslavnoe obozrenie (1873); F. Kerenskii, “Drevnerusskie otrechennye verovaniia i kalandar'Briusa,” ZhurnalMinisterstvo narodnogoprosveshcheniia (1874).

16. Afanas'ev, A. N., Narodnye russkie legendy, sobrannye Afananasievym (Moscow, 1859).Google Scholar

17. Haney, Jack V., “Legends,” An Introduction to the Russian Folktale, vol. 1 of The Complete Russian Folktale (Armonk, N.Y., 1999), 106-8.Google Scholar

18. See, for instance, the variants of the folk legend, “Soldat i smert',” Afanas'ev, Narodnye russkie legendy, 122-30.

19. Buslaev, Fedor, Istoricheskie ocherki russkoi narodnoi slovesnosti i iskusstva (St. Petersburg, 1861), 172.Google Scholar

20. Veselovskii, A., “Opyti po istorii razvitiia khristianskoi legendy,” Zhurnal Ministerstva narodnogoprosveshcheniia (St. Petersburg, 1875-1877).Google Scholar

21. Veselovskii, A., “Pamiatniki literatury povestvovatel'noi,” in Galakhov, A., ed., Istoriia russkoi slovesnosti, drevnei i novoi, 2d ed. (St. Petersburg, 1880).Google Scholar

22. Veselovskii, A., “Istoriia ili teoria romana?” and “Iz istorii romana i povesti,” Izdanie otdeleniia russkogo iazyka i slovesnosti (St. Petersburg, 1886, 1880).Google Scholar

23. Mikhail Bakhtin, “Iz predystorii romannogo slova,” Voprosy literatury i estetiki (Moscow, 1975), 408-46. Its subtitle, “Towards a Historical Poetics,” itself seems to invoke Veselovskii's work. Of all the Russian philologists of the previous generation, only Veselovskii was capable of impressing Bakhtin. See I. Shaitanov, “Aleksandr Veselovskii's Historical Poetics: Genre in Historical Poetics,” New Literary History 32 (2001): 429-43.

24. Though there is no concrete evidence to show that Dostoevskii read the works of Buslaev, Veselovskii, and Pypin, one work in his library does show similar concerns and preoccupations, namely P. V Evstaf'ev, Drevniaia russkaia literatura: Do-Petrovskii period: Ustnaia narodnaia slovesnost’ (St. Petersburg, 1877). This work is no. 115 in Grossman, Biblioteka Dostoevskogo. Evstaf'ev's survey discusses the unique cross-breed of medieval oral literature, engendered by the fertile verbal culture of dvoeverie, nourished alike by the narrative traditions of Christianity and of pre-Christian beliefs. He draws a line to the oral literature of the nineteenth century, the folk legends and religious poetry still being narrated in villages all across the Russian empire. He discusses the heterogeneous nature of folk legend, quoting at length from one of Afanas'ev's legends. The academic discussion in Evstaf'ev's book may well have resonated with Dostoevskii's own sense of the rich artistic and spiritual sensitivity of the Russian peasantry, and their innate feeling for their own religious and cultural heritage.

25. Vasmer's definition highlights this aspect of the legend: “a collection of liturgical extracts for the daily service.” Vasmer, “Legenda,” Etimologicheskii slovar'.

26. See the discussion of the appropriation and reworking of Christian legend in folkloric contexts in Anichkov, E. V., “Khristianskie legendy v narodnoi peredache,” Istoriia russkoi literatury, 2 vols. (Moscow, 1908)Google Scholar.

27. See Bakhtin's discussion of the novel's emergence from the low parodic versions of high literary genres. Bakhtin, “Iz predystorii romannogo slova,” 424-32.

28. On the breadth of die novel's intertextual references, see Robert Belknap, The Genesis of The Brothers Karamazov: The Aesthetics, Ideology, and Psychology of Text Making (Evanston, 1990), and Reizov, “K istorii zamysla Brat'ev Karamazovykh,” 559-73.

29. Tikhonravov, ed., Pamiatniki otrechennoi literatury, 18, 173, 193, 197; Pypin, ed., “Lozhnye i otrechennye knigi russkoi starinnoi,” 109, 113.

30. A. Pypin, “Legendy i apokrify v drevnei russkoi pis'mennosti,” Vestnik Evropy (1894): 314, 325.

31. Murav, Holy Foolishness, 139-40. Also see Pypin, “Drevniaia russkaia literatura.“

32. Dostoevskii, P55, 14:225.

33. Tikhonravov, ed., Pamiatniki otrechennoi literatury, 23; Pypin, ed., “Lozhnye i otrechennye knigi russkoi starinnoi,” 18.

34. See Vetlovskaia, V. E., “Apokrif ‘Khozhdenie bogoroditsy po mukam’ v Brat'iakh Karamazotjykh Hostoevskogo,” Dostoevskii i mirovaia kul'tura 11 (1998): 35–47.Google Scholar

35. In fact Tikhonravov includes two apocryphal accounts of the temptation narrative in his collection “God's Debate with the Devil,” and several of the other apocrypha make reference to the same events: Tikhonravov, ed., Pamiatniki otrechennoi literatury, 282.

36. The bogomils, medieval dualistic dissenters, believed that the material world was the creation of the devil himself. On the role of the bogomil heresy in the development of Slavic apocrypha, see Mil'kov, V., Drevnerusskie apokrify (St. Petersburg, 1999), 92.Google Scholar

37. For a strikingly different analysis of the significance of hagiography in the generic hierarchy of the novel, see Thompson, Brothers Karamazov, 74-106.

38. For a discussion of the conflict between kairotic and chronological time and its significance for novelistic narrative, see Kermode, Frank, The Sense of an Ending (Oxford, 1967), 46–54.Google Scholar

39. Dostoevskii, PSS, 14:20.

40. Caryl Emerson sees the episode with the mysterious stranger as a powerfully unresolved moment in the “Life” and a key stage in the transposition of hagiographic to novelistic discourse. Caryl Emerson, “Zosima's ‘Mysterious Visitor': Again Bakhtin on Dostoevsky, and Dostoevsky on Heaven and Hell,” in Jackson, Robert Louis, ed., A New Word on The Brothers Karamazov (Evanston, 2004), 155-79Google Scholar.

41. Dostoevskii took the corruption motif from Monk Parfenii's travelogue, as he indicates in a letter to Nikolai Liubimov, his editor: Dostoevskii, PSS, 30.2:126. See Pletnev, R., “Dostojevskij und der Hieromonach Parfenij,” Zeitschrifi fur slavische Philologie 14 (1937): 30–46 Google Scholar.

42. Afanas'ev, “Khristov bratets,” Narodnye russkie legendy, 130-31. Whether consciously or unconsciously, Dostoevskii hides the origins of the legend. Grushenka calls the onion narrative a tale (basnia), and, in a letter to Liubimov, Dostoevskii claims that it was told to him by a peasant woman: Dostoevskii, PSS, 14:319, 30.1:126-27. His claim to have heard it for the first time is not backed up by any evidence, and the similarities with Afanas'ev's version are undeniable.

43. Gary Saul Morson makes a similar point in “The God of Onions: The Brothers Karamazov and the Mythic Prosaic,” in Jackson, ed., A New Word on The Brothers Karamazov, 107-24. Also see Sara Smyth, “The ‘Lukovka’ Legend in The Brothers Karamazov,” Irish Slavonic Studies 7 (1986): 41-51.

44. Dostoevskii, PSS, 14:24-25.

45. Morson coined this term in an essay on Fathers and Sons, but he uses it in relation to Alesha's role in The Brothers Karamazov. Although all of the Karamazov brothers can be seen as refugees from other kinds of legends, I feel that this description is particularly appropriate for Mitia. Morson, “The God of Onions,” 112,123, see also Morson, “Genre and Hero/Fathers and Sons: Intergeneric Dialogues, Generic Refugees, and the Hidden Prosaic,“ in Brown, Edward J., Fleishman, Lazar, Freidin, Gregory, and Schupbach, Richard, eds., Literature, Culture, and Society in the Modern Age, Stanford Slavic Studies 4, no. 1 (1991): 336-81.Google Scholar

46. Dostoevskii, PSS, 14:98.

47. Ibid., 14:103.

48. Ibid., 14:355.

49. Ibid., 14:372.

50. Ibid., 15:575.

51. Pypin, ed., “Lozhnye i otrechennye knigi russkoi starinnoi,” 109,106.

52. The folk poetry mentioned is one of the “Dream of the Virgin” prototypes, of Christ's dialogue with hell. The “Visit of the Mother of God through the Torments” can also obviously be seen as another variant of the “harrowing of hell” narrative.

53. Afanas'ev, Narodnye russkie legendy, 53.

54. Pypin, ed., “Lozhnye i otrechennye knigi russkoi starinnoi,” 51-71; Tikhonravov, ed., Pamiatniki otrechennoi literatury, 254-72. The inclusion of motifs from many different types of apocrypha in folk legends is very characteristic. Old and New Testament apocrypha provided the inspiration for a significant number of the legends recorded by Afanas'ev.

55. In fact Dostoevskii's notebooks for 1877 testify to the fact that one of his creative projects was a poema on the subject of the sorokovina, these forty days of torments. Dostoevski PSS, 17:14.

56. Dostoevskii, PSS, 14:444.

57. For a fuller discussion of the cloth bag narrative and its context in the novel, see Kate Holland, “The Legend of the Ladonka and the Trial of the Novel,” in Jackson, ed., A New Word on The Brothers Karamazov, 192-200.