«Montage of Attractions» of Sergei Eisenstein and «Words-Attractors» of Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Sergey Eisenstein suggested the concepts of 'attraction' and 'montage of attractions' to characterise his creative method. In a general sense, by the first he meant any element of theatre or cinema capable of causing emotional shocks in the audience, as well as a unit of measurement of impact in art; by the second he meant the free montage of arbitrarily chosen, independent impacts with a precise focus on a specific final thematic effect. The article attempts to justify the possibilities of using these concepts to analyse Fyodor M. Dostoevsky's creative work, which Eisenstein periodically addressed in his articles and memoirs. The main attention is paid to the functioning of the words almost and suddenly in the works of Dostoevsky's fiction, their connection with such attractions as 'the most (border, limit)' and 'unexpected, surprising (ambiguous)'.