Il «tarlo» e il «proverbio inglese»: Dostoevskij e i dubbi di Gramsci in carcere

Starting from a very short note by Gramsci in his Prison Notebooks, which has not yet been thoroughly studied or commented on, the article proposes to identify its source in a precise Italian translation of Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment. This allows for an autobiographical and, at the same time, political reading of the note, and provides an opportunity to shed further light on Gramsci’s obsessive fears of a supposed «betrayal» by his own party.