№ 1, 2022 year

Based on a cross-analysis of the memoir testimony of V. V. Timofeeva (O. Pochinkovskaya) and the materials of Dostoevsky’s creative laboratory, the article establishes the fact of the writer’s prayerful veneration of The Sign, the miraculous icon of the Mother of God, located at the St. Petersburg Znamenskaya (Entrance to Jerusalem) Church on Nevsky Prospect, as well as Dostoevsky’s intention (not realized in one of the episodes of the novel “A Raw Youth”) to portray the main character, Arkady Dolgoruky, at prayer before this miraculous image. When commenting on the draft entry of “The Dark Face of the Virgin at the Znamenskaya Church,” it was discovered there were not one, but two venerated icons of the Sign of the Mother of God in the temple on Nevsky Prospect in the 1870s, Both were replicas of the 12th-century miraculous Novgorod icon of the Sign. One of the replicas dates back to 1175 in the church historical literature, the second — to 1744. Based on an analytical review of the information about these two icons, the article substantiates the assumption regarding which of the two icons is mentioned in the drafts of “A Raw Youth,” as well as which one of them was the object of Dostoevsky’s fervent prayer. The current location of one of these icons is indicated.Dostoevsky, Znamenskaya Church, The Sign icon of the Mother of God, miraculous replica, icon painter Christopher Semyonov, preparatory materials for “A Raw Youth”, Historical and statistical information of the St. Petersburg diocese

The article presents the facts that contradict A. S. Syrovatko’s statement, which claims that the current territory of the Museum is not related to the Dostoevsky estate (The Unknown Dostoevsky. 2021. No. 4). When studied objectively, the objects found during the excavations do not contradict the presence of “traces of Dostoevsky.” The so-called memorial period of estate ownership by the writer’s parents, which lasted only seven years, was unable to leave too many traces, and the objects found by archaeologists in the 18th — early 19th centuries could have been used by the Dostoevsky family up to 1830s. Additional arguments are introduced to resolve the dispute: the result of the dendrological examination and written sources (previously known and recently discovered), namely, boundary plans, memoirs and diaries of A. M. Dostoevsky, family correspondence. The proposed comprehensive approach and a comparison of all the currently available sources, allows us to attribute the location of the Dostoevsky manor house to the preserved wing where the museum was recently opened. In connection with the problem of identification of the museum house, the hypotheses of other authors are considered (T. N. Dementieva and L. A. Tarasova, L. A. Voronkina) about the cardinal changes that took place in the architecture of the manor Darovoe at different times. Sources indicate, on the contrary, a certain continuity in the development of the estate under all three of its owners: the Khotyaintsev, Dostoevsky and Ivanov families. The key factor is the location of two “mounds” under the lime trees as “green canteens” tied to the manor house, and on the other side, the border between the landowner’s estate and peasant homesteads remained unchanged (as confirmed by archival documents and the boundary wall and moat preserved). Conservative localization is characteristic of the life in a noble estate, once and forever inscribed in the surrounding landscape. Taking into account the experience of their predecessors, the Dostoevskys and Ivanovs did not make radical changes to the space inhabited before them, and their house did not change its location.Dostoevsky’s Darovoe Manor, interdisciplinary research, archeology, interpretation, comprehensive analysis of sources

For the first time in Dostoevsky studies, the article analyzes closely and comprehensively the visit of the Silver Age aspiring poet, novelist and critic D. S. Merezhkovsky to the St. Petersburg apartment of the great writer in Kuznechny Lane, which took place at the end of 1880. Dostoevsky’s own testimony about this event is missing. All the sources known to date are reviewed and compared: “secondary memoirs” by N. S. Leskov (1888), memoirs by V. Mikulich (L. I. Veselitskaya) (1899) and “Autobiographical note” by Merezhkovsky (1913). The biographical, historical and literary context of the event has been recreated, and a more precise date of the visit has been established. As a result of the conducted research, it is concluded that the fragment from Merezhkovsky’s “Autobiographical note” dedicated to the 1880 meeting with Dostoevsky contains a bright, vivid, memorable image of the great writer and religious prophet, but it requires caution when viewed as a memoir testimony. The first reason is the “exculpatory” polemical message in regard to the interpretations of Leskov and Mikulich. The second is Merezhkovsky’s involvement in the general strategy of life-creating “self-creation.” Finally, the portrait of Dostoevsky presented here is not authentic, but is developed as a mythical artistic image based on a number of reliable empirical details, which has absorbed the ambiguous attitude of the symbolist writer to his great predecessor.F. M. Dostoevsky, D. S. Merezhkovsky, St. Petersburg, apartment in Kuznechny Lane, N. S. Leskov, V. Mikulich, L. I. Veselitskaya, Silver Age, life creation, mythologization

The article is devoted to Dostoevsky's participation as postmaster Shpekin in a charity performance of the comedy by N. V. Gogol “The Inspector,” staged on April 14, 1860 by amateurs in the hall of Maria Ruadze's house on the Moika embankment near the Polizeisky Bridge. Along with Dostoevsky, 25 amateur actors were engaged in the performance. Their names are known from the showbill published as an appendix to P. I. Weinberg’s memoirs of this event. Dostoevsky interacted with the participants of this production during several rehearsals that began on March 31, 1860, and directly during the performance. However, fewer than half of the participants of this performance are registered in S. V. Belov's encyclopedic dictionary F. M. “Dostoevsky and his entourage,” and most of them are engaged in stage episodes without Shpekin-Dostoevsky. The article contains biographical data about amateur actors who participated in the production of “The Inspector,” who interacted with Dostoevsky in the collective creative process, went on stage together with him, but who have not been previously mentioned in the biographical literature about the writer.F. M. Dostoevsky, N. V. Gogol, comedy “The Inspector”, postmaster Shpekin, charity performance, showbill, Ruadze Hall, P. I. Weinberg, amateur actors, encyclopedic dictionary “F. M. Dostoevsky and his entourage”

One of the most notable literary textual critics of the XX century is Elizaveta Nikolaevna Konshina (1890-1972), who studied and published A. P. Chekhov’s, and subsequently F. M. Dostoevsky’s notebooks and books. "Notebooks of F. M. Dostoevsky" were published in 1935 under her editorship. The article presents the main facts of the professional path of E. N. Konshina, analyzes the part of her considerable archive that is associated with the preparation of Dostoevsky's notebooks for publication, and notes the unique features of the researcher’s textual work. In the 1920s and 30s, E. N. Konshina used her own method of studying autographs in an attempt to understand the workings of the writer's creative thought. Her techniques include reproducing manuscripts and simultaneously reconstructing Dostoevsky’s text editing process. In addition to deep interpretations of the works of Pushkin, Chekhov, Bryusov, and Ibsen, few of which were published in Konshina's articles, her textual experience provides modern researchers with unique opportunities to understand the work of Dostoevsky and Chekhov.F. M. Dostoevsky, A. P. Chekhov, writers’ notebooks, E. N. Konshina, Russian State Library, biography, prose rhythm, writer

The wife of F. M. Dostoevsky was one of the first female collectors in Russia. The article examines her collecting activities, which included collecting postage stamps and autographs of world historical figures, based on archival sources. The motivation and support for this undertaking were provided by the writer himself, and the "suppliers" were his correspondents and acquaintances. The article focuses on autographs in Italian in the collection of A. G. Dostoevskaya, which are stored at the department of manuscripts of the Russian State Library. These are five undated letters of famous Italians received from A. N. Jacobi (Peshkova-Toliverova), who lived in Italy in the 1860s and had a wide social circle there. A. N. Jacobi had been familiar with the Dostoevskys since the mid-1870s, and continued to communicate with Anna Grigorievna even after the writer's death. Among the documents handed over to A. N. Jacobi are a letter from the poet Aleardo Aleardi to the artist Guglielmo de Sanctis, a letter addressed to her from the Italian opera singer Elisa Volpini, politician Ricciotti Garibaldi (son of J. Garibaldi) and two letters from the Italian actor Ernesto Rossi. The sixth autograph in Italian in the collection of A. G. Dostoevsky is a letter to her from a fan of Dostoevsky’s work by the Sardinian writer Grazia Deledda in 1912. In this letter, the future winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature expressed her admiration and love for the "powerful genius" Dostoevsky. Grazia Deledda not only communicated in writing with Dostoevsky's widow, but also met with his daughter Lyubov in Italy in the 1910s. The article introduces unique letters in Italian from the collection of A. G. Dostoevskaya into scientific circulation for the first time, and provides their translation into Russian. These documents are of double value: as autographs of famous historical figures and as collection items of Dostoevsky's wife.F. M. Dostoevsky, A. G. Dostoevskaya, L. F. Dostoevskaya, Italy, collection, autograph, archive, A. N. Jacobi, A. N. Peshkova-Toliverova, Ricciotti Garibaldi, Eliza Volpini, Aleardo Aleardi, Guglielmo de Sanctis, Ernesto Rossi, Grazia Deledda

Russian Academy of Sciences presents a number of books published by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research competition “Sources and Methods in the Study of the Legacy of F. M. Dostoevsky in Russian and World Culture.” They are Viktorovich V. A., Zakharova O. V. “F. M. Dostoevsky in Russian Criticism. 1845–1881”; “Dostoevsky’s Darovoe. Materials and Research” (edited by A. S. Bessonova); “Unknown and Little-Known Sources of the Biography of F. M. Dostoevsky in the Collection of the State Museum of the History of Russian Literature Named After V. I. Dahl: A Collective Monograph” (P. E. Fokin, A. V. Petrova, E. M. Varentsova and others); “New Archival and Printed Sources of the Scientific Biography of F. M. Dostoevsky. Collective Monograph” (edited by B. N. Tikhomirov); and “The Handwritten Legacy of F. M. Dostoevsky” (edited by I. S. Andrianova). The review presents the main topics and problems raised by the researchers, indicates the new archival documents and sources used by the researchers, the significance of the research undertaken by the authors for studying the biography and creative work of F. M. Dostoevsky and creating his new scientific biography.F. M. Dostoevsky, archival and printed sources, scientific biography, manuscript heritage, textual criticism, biography, criticism

On January 15, Louis Allain, one of the leading French Slavists, a researcher of F. M. Dostoevsky's work and literature of the Silver Age, honorary professor at the University of Lille, a member of the editorial board of "The Unknown Dostoevsky" journal, passed away after a prolonged illness at the age of 88. Professor Allen's interests centered on Russian literature from Pushkin to Blok, but he is most renowned as the author of works dedicated to the work of Dostoevsky. An evening in memory of Louis Allain will be held at the Institute of Slavic Studies in Paris on April 13. Members of the Editorial Board of our journal express their deepest condolences to the relatives, friends and colleagues of Professor Allain. We grieve together with you for the irreparable loss. May this brilliant and wonderful man, researcher and educator stay in our memory forever!Louis Allain (1933-2022), obituary, International Dostoevsky Society, University of Lille, France