This dissertation addresses two questions fundamental to Russian nineteenth-century intellectual history: 1) Why does literature about paranoid psychosis figure so centrally in the nineteenth-century canon? and 2) How did the absence of an epistemological tradition of reflexive self-consciousness influence the development of Russian ideas of subjectivity? I propose that the presence of paranoia in Russian fiction extends beyond the medical or psychoanalytic aspects of character traits or themes. I argue that literary representations of paranoia perform fundamental philosophical gestures and function as "epistemological speech acts." Russian narratives of paranoia (e.g., Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Garshin, Sologub) constitute a means of exploring the operations of a self-reflexive consciousness, familiar in the West through the Cartesian Cogito. In other words, the theme of paranoia in nineteenth-century Russian fiction actively responds to the regnant philosophical discourse and functions as a praxis for the exploration of philosophical questions. However, this is done in an alternative discourse to the propositional language generally favored in philosophical texts; as a result, the philosophical function of the fictions of paranoia has gone unrecognized, and the genre has been "exiled" from philosophical discourse. I argue that Russian texts of paranoid psychosis should be reconceived as venues for the play of the transcendental ego outside social or communal axes. Paranoia emerges as the Jakobsonian “dominant” within these texts, in that it is paranoia that engages with other narrative components and transforms them. Further, as prose fiction, these texts had the discursive and social capacity to resonate and divagate in ways impossible to philosophical texts. Ultimately, these narratives of paranoia are meta-epistemologies that interrogate their own discursive function and status. They raise critical questions not only about the ways in which we represent truth but about the ontological status of truth itself. / Slavic Languages and Literatures

La tesi propone la vicenda umana e letteraria di Fedor Sologub (1863-1927) con un’analisi dell’opera fondamentale dello scrittore, il romanzo Melkij bes (Il demone meschino), scritto tra il 1892-1902. Si ripercorrono la storia della pubblicazione, i giudizi dei contemporanei, si pongono le basi per una definizione del romanzo. Per l’analisi sono stati scelti alcuni tra i temi principali dell’opera che Sologub interpreta secondo la propria visione del mondo e sviluppa in un costante dialogo con la letteratura russa del passato (in particolare Puškin, Gogol’, Dostoevskij, Čechov). Si esamina il tema del demoniaco, a partire dal titolo Melkij bes e dalla creatura maligna chiamata Nedotykomka; si analizzano poi la figura del “piccolo uomo” e il tema della follia. Una sezione è dedicata anche alla figura di A.S. Puškin così come presentato dal protagonista del romanzo Peredonov, ma anche dallo stesso Sologub attraverso alcuni scritti degli stessi anni o successivi. Un ultimo sguardo va al ruolo dell’intreccio parallelo alla vicenda di Peredonov, la storia di Ljudmila e Saša, che propone soltanto in apparenza un mondo alternativo alla peredonovščina. L’ultimo capitolo è dedicato alla fortuna critica del Melkij bes in Russia e all’estero, con un approfondimento sulle prime traduzioni italiane del romanzo. / The dissertation focuses on the human and literary journey of Fedor Sologub (1863-1927), and particularly on the writer’s masterpiece, the novel Melkiy bes (The Petty Demon), written between 1892 and 1902. This work traces the story of the publication, the reactions of Sologub's contemporaries, and lays the basis for a definition of the novel. It analyzes some of the main themes of Melkiy bes, that Sologub interprets according to his own vision of the world, and develops in a constant dialogue with the Russian literature of the past (especially Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Chekhov). It examines the theme of the devil, starting from the title Melkiy bes and the evil creature called Nedotykomka; then it analyzes the figure of the "little man" and the theme of madness. A section is also dedicated to the figure of A.S. Pushkin, as presented by the protagonist of the novel Peredonov, and followed by Sologub's conception of the greatest poet of Russia. A reflection is devoted also to the role of the parallel plot of Melkiy bes, the story of Lyudmila and Sasha, that offers only apparently an alternative to the evil world of peredonovščina.