A Haymarket Khozhdenie na osliati: Raskolnikov’s Donkey Walk and the Failures of Iconic Performativity

Abstract

In sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Moscow, Orthodox priests and celebrants reenacted Christ’s entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday in a ritual known as the Donkey Walk (Khozhdenie na osliati). Art historian Alexei Lidov has interpreted this reenactment as a “spatial icon,” in which city and inhabitants co-create a dynamic, living “Entry into Jerusalem” icon. This paper reexamines the final chapters of Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment within the context of this ritual, arguing that Raskolnikov’s attempted act of penitence at the Haymarket represents a failed Donkey Walk, in which the city and its inhabitants resist the anticipated transformation, suggesting the impossibility of iconic performativity in Peter’s profane city.