Her-Story and Historicizing Gender in Dostoevsky’s The Idiot: An Interdisciplinary Reading

This article investigates female representation in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novel The Idiot (1869), employing interdisciplinary approaches such as Stuart Hall’s Encoding/Decoding theory and Joan Scott’s feminist historiography. The issue of female subjectivity is situated within the context of the nineteenth-century Russian women’s rights movement and its impact on women’s roles in society. The research relies on qualitative methods, specifically interpretive research and textual analysis. Using Hall’s theory of dominant, negotiated, and oppositional positions, the respective ideological positions of the female characters are examined. Moreover, Scott’s theory is employed to explore the structures and directions of power through which gender subjectivity is constructed and conveyed. Hall’s model of polysemy demonstrates how femininity can be interpreted in multiple ways, while Bakhtin’s theory of polyphony highlights the coexistence of diverse voices and perspectives within the text. The findings suggest that Alexandra, Adelaida, and Varya Ivolgina largely comply with prevailing gender norms, whereas Lizaveta Prokofyevna negotiates between tradition and social change. Aglaya and Nastasya Filippovna, in turn, articulate positions that challenge socially accepted notions of women’s behavior. Thus, the article presents a fresh perspective on The Idiot (1869) through the prism of cultural studies, Bakhtin’s polyphony and feminist historiography, contributing to the broader academic development of gender issues, ideology, and literary representation in nineteenth-century Russian literature.