#lebezyatnikov

[rknchan]

coming up with designs for characters i had never drawn before

and sonya <33 just sonya

[syzygythenightwing]

did i just draw dragon lenin? yes, yes i did

and yeah lebezyatnikov of course

(and luzhin :))

a while back when i was imagining what possibly would've happened after the ending of crime and punishment, i was thinking about how lebezyatnkov would react if he knew a few decades later, lenin would come around and perhaps help vindicate some of his "proto-socialist" views

however, wikipedia describes lebez as a "utopian socialist," which isnt quite the same as the hardcore marxist-leninist socialism we think of today when bringing up the ussr

also yeah, his whole communes deal- i actually tried looking online (did some mini-research) on what he was going on about, but all i got from the search results was stuff about agricultural communes. but it didnt feel like the "communes" he was idealizing were actually agricultural ones; they just seemed to be general places where people lived, closer to to the concept of those "socialist utopia town" experiments conducted throughout parts of europe and the US, and not so much of the "soviets" and actual crop collectivization in the ussr

it's clear that over the 50 years since c&p was written, people's ideas of how socialism should be implemented changed

of course i could also be completely wrong here and honestly im not even sure wtf im rambling about. and im not a history or politics major or anything so yeah. these are just the unhinged rambles of a high school student who is slightly too interested in dragons, world history, and russian culture/literature

so yeah. take all of this with a grain of salt

just enjoy the art (if i havent destroyed your enjoyment of it already with this text wall. sorry lmao)

[ginkovskij]

maybe the real punishment was all the acquaintances we made along the way

[deathbypickles]

and they were roommates

[carcinogenical]

figuring out how to draw my favourite chaotic commie capitalist duo 🤨 .. i did luzhin first so the coloring style changed by the time i got to lebezyatnikov...anyway u~u they!

[beklebeni]

[rknchan]

shoutout to andrei semyonovich lebezyatnikov being one of the most underappreciated ruslit characters like... almost no one ever talks about him, neither critics or literature teachers (in our school tho we did discuss lebezyatnikov as "another counterpart of raskolnikov along with luzhin and svidrigailov" but as far as i know he's seldom mentioned and even considered as raskolnikov's counterpart). but he does play a part in the plot??? and is a reflection of social movements and ideas of his time???? to begin with, there was a common trope in russian literature: a character who tries to be "progressive and woke" but is actually not, who is shown as foolish, fake and inconsistent in their beliefs, who criticizes the "rotten society" but actually is a part of it; is often a parody of the protagonist - who is indeed progressive and smart and revolutionary and misunderstood and so on (bonus points if they admire the protagonist and try to copy him) we can see this trope in griboyedov's play "woe from wit" (repetilov - a parody on chatsky), turgenev's novel "fathers and sons" (sitnikov and kukshina - wannabe nihilists as opposed to bazarov though kukshina is a literal queen she slays), and dostoyevsky's later works - "the idiot" (hippolite terentyev's gang) and "demons" (verkhovensky's circle); maybe grushnitsky from "a hero of our time" can be counted too, he fits all the traits but he's obsessed with byronism not politics and is treated more seriously

when we first see lebezyatnikov in p5c1, it's exactly how he is presented like: silly and pathetic, with unattractive features, described with usage of very strong and borderline offensive language (how do you like "half-animate abortion"?), dramatic and self-righteous to the point he looks ridiculous... his surname comes from russian word "лебезить" [lebezit] - "to fawn on somebody" sometimes he has a point but some his takes are harmful (beating a woman with tuberculosis because "he seeks equality in fighting !!!" defending prostitution and saying it is empowerment and protest !!! while not knowing how sonya is suffering); even though he has sincere good intentions his ideology, like that of many 1860s-70s russian nihilists, is based on the ideas of nikolai chernyshevsky and his novel "what is to be done" (and other utopian socialists) but inverted and satirized the part where he defends freedom in marriage and "deceptions" ("Your wife will only prove how she respects you by considering you incapable of opposing her happiness and avenging yourself on her for her new husband...if I were to marry, ...I should present my wife with a lover if she had not found one for herself.") is a reference to "what is to be done" and chernyshevsky's own personal life - in witbd the main heroine tells her husband that she is in love with another man, and her husband pretends to commit suicide so that she would be formally a widow and able to marry her lover the "it’s an insult to a woman for a man to kiss her hand" line is also a direct reference to witbd (sorry for the spoilers btw witbd is quite an underaprecciated book if i ever reread it i ought to make a post about it) - chernyshevsky himself had a complicated relationship with his wife; he worshipped her, always put her interests above himself and let her make all the decisions in their family life, while she saw him only as a friend and a chance to escape from her abusive family; chernyshevsky said that if she liked someone else he'd forgive her and suffer in silence but would always forgive her if she came back SORRY what is to be DONE WITH CHERNYSHEVSKY LET'S GET BACK TO THE POINT. YEAH LEBEZYATNIKOV his description is summed up in this line: "one of the numerous and varied legion of dullards who attach themselves to the idea most in fashion only to vulgarise it and who caricature every cause they serve, however sincerely" but there's one important thing. he takes a step ahead. he protects sonya marmeladova!! and accuses luzhin of slandering her, explaining what actually happened and giving proof of luzhin's vileness!! (and later on he also helps sonya and rodion find katerina ivanovna mad and near death from her illness...) even katerina ivanovna says he was sent by god - for saving sonya's honour. the one who desires to fight for equality but doesn't know how and only makes a fool of himself in other characters' and author's eyes - he actually protects the weak, silent and oppressed. no parody sidekick has ever had such a character development, no trying-to-be-progressive character before had a chance to step out of their stereotype and do something good for another person or for the society this scene makes me so happy, not only because i love seeing someone protecting my beloved sonya but it also has a deeply personal meaning to me

i was also concerned about equality, freedom and perfecting the society and all such things, and ofc had confrontations with others regarding my opinions like all of us probably do, but in the end i always looked stupid, uneducated and worthless as i could never shut up, cried when i lost an argument and did nothing but whine about how things are unfair but never knew what to do to change it and so i thought: i don't deserve to call myself a profeminist and a liberal, i am not good enough i wanted to relate to strong-willed, enlightened, revolutionary characters like chatsky and rakhmetov, but i knew that i was a repetilov, a sitnikov, a lebezyatnikov - an useless caricature who is a shame to their ideology

and when i first read the scene where lebezyatnikov protects sonya, it made me genuinely happy to see how somebody who was viewed as an "useless and fake progressist" could also be a help to somebody and become a better person... it made me feel like i'm not worthless too, like im capable of such a character development and maybe even change someone's life for the better too.... ;;;;;

sorry it ended up too long and too personal and whiny in the end ... :c anyway i hope you did enjoy reading this or find something interesting

have a nice day!! <3

[syzygythenightwing]

the utopian socialist we all know and love

lebezyatnikov moment

i know these images arent exactly the most high quality (neither are the sketches), but ill probably do more detailed studies of him soon, dont worry

probably involving luzhin

hah