№ 1, 2026 year

The article examines the formation of the aesthetic and ethical ideal of beauty in the works of Fyodor Dostoevsky. Based on the methodology proposed in the works of Toyofusa Kinoshita, the author traces the evolution of Dostoevsky’s understanding of the category of beauty — from his early fascination with the aesthetics of Chateaubriand and Schiller to the development of his own mature concept. The article analyzes how the writer reinterprets the philosophical tradition, particularly Friedrich Schiller’s ideas. Dostoevsky’s polemic with Schiller is reflected in the article “Mr. -bov and the Question of Art” (1861). While Schiller views beauty and freedom as harmonious ideals, for Dostoevsky freedom is an ambivalent gift, carrying both the possibility of moral ascent and the risk of sinful fall. It is an ideal that can only be endlessly strived for under the conditions of earthly existence, which explains why Dostoevsky’s artistic world focuses not on depicting harmony, but on the tragic search for a lost ideal. Central attention is paid to the writer’s polemic with the utilitarian approach to art and materialist anthropology, in particular with Nikolai Chernyshevsky’s theory of “rational egoism.” Dostoevsky’s concept is revealed in “Notes from Underground,” where irrational freedom is contrasted with the rational egoism formulated in Nikolai Chernyshevsky’s article “The Anthropological Principle in Philosophy” (1860) and artistically embodied in the novel “What Is to Be Done?” (1863). As a result, beauty is understood by Dostoevsky as a human need leading to the ideal embodied in Christ, and ethics, aesthetics, and religion merge in his later formula of ideal beauty: “The world will be saved by the Beauty of Christ.”Dostoevsky, Schiller, Hegel, Chateaubriand, Chernyshevsky, aesthetics, ethics, beauty, ideal, freedom

The article examines the principle of F. M. Dostoevsky’s poetics that determines it its unique character. In 1929, M. M. Bakhtin proposed that this principle be defined as “polyphony,” understanding it as a multiplicity of independent and unmerged voices and consciousnesses, where the author’s “voice” and the “voices” of his characters are equal and equivalent. Bakhtin’s concept contained a number of interesting observations on the structure of Dostoevsky’s works, but it raised many questions related to the author’s role in the process of creating a literary work. Nevertheless, Bakhtin’s approach pointed to the existence of a universal artistic principle uniting various art forms. This idea probably reflected the general trend of scientific thought in the early 20th century, since even before the concept of polyphony emerged, there was a hypothesis regarding of the symphonic principle underlying the construction of Dostoevsky’s novels. Subsequently, it was theoretically substantiated by a number of Russian and foreign researchers and acquired the status of an independent scientific theory. According to this theory, symphonism is the highest principle for organizing artistic material in all forms of art, taking into account their specific characteristics being taken into account. The symphonic construction lies in its ability to subjugate all minor forms of expression, including polyphony and homophony, and to orchestrate the harmonious interaction of a wide variety of artistic means in order to achieve the primary goal (that of expressing the author’s idea). And, just as music reached its heights in the symphonic works of Mozart, Beethoven, and Tchaikovsky, the epic literary work reached its highest development in the works of Dostoevsky. Research has shown that the principle of symphonism is represented in various genres of the writer’s work, but most completely and comprehensively represented in his novels. In them, as in a symphony, the author’s central idea is revealed through the artistic means common to music and literature that are employed. The analysis of these means makes it possible to explain the unique character of Dostoevsky’s poetics fully, clearly, and consistently.Fyodor Dostoevsky, Mikhail Bakhtin, poetics, novel, polyphonism, symphonism, realism in the highest sense

Dostoevsky’s epistolary legacy is distinguished by a variety of genres and subgenres. Among them, the writer’s letters from abroad in 1867–1870 occupy a special place, above all his correspondence with the poet A. N. Maykov. By force of circumstances, the concept of “Russia” became key in Dostoevsky’s life and work in the last decades of his life. The word “Russia” itself is stylistically neutral, soviet and postsoviet lexicographers exclude it from dictionaries. Under the guise of scholarly expertise, dictionary entries are subjected to political censorship, although it is obvious that thesauruses should be complete and include all words in their direct and figurative meanings. The concept of “Russia” is polysemantic in the thesaurus of the Russian language. The word has an ontological meaning. It carries both geographical and political significance. The name of Russia is based on ethnonyms and toponyms: rus’, Rus’, Russkaya Zemlya (the Russian Land), and later russkiy (Russian), Rusiya/Rossiya (Russia). Under Peter the Great, Russia became an Empire. A thousand years of history have formed Russian civilization. Beginning in the 1860s, Dostoevsky insisted that Russia must be studied as a science, that Russians must become Russian, and strive for an intensified knowledge of Russia; this idea should be the task of national education and enlightenment. One of the key episodes in the correspondence between Maykov and Dostoevsky was their discussion of a cycle of stories from Russian history (1869). Dostoevsky conceived this cycle as a “great national book,” a “science,” a “sermon,” a “feat,” a “new word.” He expressed the idea of Russia, its “all-Orthodox” and “all-Slavic” significance, and the renewal of Christianity. Russia is a “Sphinx”; its mystery was prophetically guessed by Dostoevsky and unraveled by many, including the Venerable Nestor the Chronicler and Justin (Popović): the strength of Russia is concentrated in Orthodoxy. Politicians still reject this truth. For how long? Dostoevsky’s idea is embodied by an eternal ideal.Fyodor Dostoevsky, Apollon Maykov, criticism, polemics, epistolary, pochvennichestvo, Slavophilism, history, Russia, Moscow, nostalgia

“Slavophilism” is a polysemantic research term that characterizes one of the key trends in Russian philosophy, politics, and literary criticism. Having emerged in the Russian terminological thesaurus in the early 19th century, the word was initially used by the Karamzinists to refer to the Shishkovites, and was later transferred to the Moscow’s “samobytniki” (advocates of native culture) — Alexei Khomyakov, the Kireevsky brothers, the Aksakovs (father and sons), Yuri Samarin, and others. The Slavophiles themselves, so named by the Westernizers, were skeptical of this designation, preferring to call themselves the “Moscow party.” Their stronghold was Moscow University, Moscow newspapers, magazines, and literary salons. A characteristic feature of the Slavophiles was the localization of their movement within the historical chronotope of Moscow. In 1873, the editors and contributors of “Grazhdanin” (“The Citizen”) — Fyodor Dostoevsky, Mikhail Pogodin, Vladimir Meshchersky, Ivan Nekrasov, Tertius Filippov, Konstantin Pobedonostsev, and others — undertook a revision of the established concept of Slavophilism. According to Mikhail Pogodin, Alexander Pushkin was a Slavophile, and Slavophile ideas were shared by many, including the Pochvenniki — the authors of the St. Petersburg publications “Zarya” (“Dawn”) and “Grazhdanin”. Following Pogodin, Dostoevsky reassessed Slavophilism and Pochvennichestvo. In his Pushkin Speech, he recognized the poet as “Russia’s foremost Slavophile,” identifying himself with Pushkin, Khomyakov, Samarin, and the Aksakovs, and publicly declared himself a Slavophile in print. In Ivan Aksakov’s newspaper “Rus’”, Pochvennichestvo was defined as “St. Petersburg Slavophilism.” The followers of the Slavophiles preferred a broad interpretation of their ideas, presenting Slavophilism as a living, internally contradictory, yet integral phenomenon of Russian history whose significance extended beyond the original tenets. Their dispute marked the beginning of a new stage in the history of the Slavophilism in the 19th — 21st centuries.Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Meshchersky, Pogodin, “Grazhdanin”, “The Citizen”, Westernisms, Slavophilism, Pochvennichestvo, Moscow, Saint Petersburg

In February 1833, Mikhail Andreevich and Maria Fedorovna Dostoevsky acquired the village of Cheremoshnya, located adjacent to Darovoe. Spending his childhood summers in Darovoe, Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky frequently visited Cheremoshnya and interacted with its inhabitants. Cheremoshnya is also connected with the tragic death of the writer’s father in the summer of 1839. After his father’s death, the estate passed into the joint ownership of the Dostoevsky children; the revision list (revizskaya skazka) of 1850 dates from this period. In 1852, Cheremoshnya, like the entire Dostoevsky estate, passed to the possession of the writer’s younger sister, V. M. Ivanova. In July 1877, Dostoevsky visited his sister in the countryside, during which he made his final visit to Cheremoshnya. Childhood impressions associated with Cheremoshnya are reflected in many of his works. His interactions with the peasants who lived in the village at that time shaped the worldview of the future writer, and the peasants themselves served as prototypes for his literary characters. During the years when the village was owned by the Dostoevsky and Ivanov families, three revisions (censuses) were conducted: the Eighth (1834), the Ninth (1850), and the Tenth (1858). This article presents the first analysis of the revision lists from the Eighth to Tenth Revisions for Cheremoshnya. The data from the Eighth Revision are compared with a chronologically close source published by V. S. Nechaeva — the “List of Peasants of Darovoe and Cheremoshnya from the Church Register of 1835” — as well as with entries from parish registers for the region. These materials make it possible to clarify the composition of the serf population at the time the Dostoevskys acquired the estate and to trace the demographic changes that occurred there over a period of twenty-four years. The appendix contains a complete transcription of the Eighth Revision, conducted the year after the purchase of Cheremoshnya.Cheremoshnya village, Darovoe village, revision lists, confession lists, parish registers, memoir, Mikhail Andreevich Dostoevsky, Maria Fedorovna Dostoevskaya, Vera Mikhailovna Ivanova, serfs, household serfs, Dostoevsky’s childhood, prototype

The article reconstructs the routes Fyodor Dostoevsky and his family took on their annual trips from St. Petersburg to Staraya Russa in 1872–1876 and 1878–1880. Drawing on published and unpublished letters from the Dostoevsky archive, memoirs, notebooks, notes by the writer’s widow, and travel guides from the second half of the 19th century, the authors provide a comprehensive account of the family’s travels. The main routes are traced in detail: by rail (St. Petersburg — Chudovo — Volkhovskaya) and by water (steamboats along the Volkhov River and across Lake Ilmen to Staraya Russa), as well as alternative routes taken when the rivers became too shalow — through the villages of Ustrika, Zvad, and Krivoye Koleno. Anna Dostoevskaya’s notes to her husband’s letters are introduced into scholarly circulation for the first time. These notes reveal, for example, that in February 1875 Dostoevsky crossed the frozen Lake Ilmen in winter, and that he departed from Staraya Russa for the Pushkin celebrations on May 22, 1880, at seven in the evening, arriving in Moscow a day later. The study demonstrates how everyday travel experiences were transformed in the writer’s work. Observations of passengers on trains and steamships formed the basis for the essay “Little Pictures (on the Road),” and the ancient village of Ustrika became the prototype for Ustyevo in the novel “Demons” — the place where Stepan Trofimovich Verkhovensky died. The episode of the protagonist’s delay in Ustyevo not only reveals the novel’s evangelical subtext but also helps date Dostoevsky’s actual journey through Ustrika to 1872. Even after the opening of the Staraya Russa — Novgorod railway in 1878, the Dostoevsky family did not completely abandon water travel, but it was the train that took the writer to Optina Monastery and the Pushkin Festival — events that would prove pivotal to his later work (“The Brothers Karamazov,” his Pushkin Speech). Dostoevsky’s phrase “the age of steamships and railways” is understood not only as a metaphor for the era, but also as a reflection of his personal experience, in which technology and faith, separations and reunions defined the writer’s creative and family biography.Fyodor Dostoevsky, Anna Dostoevskaya, Staraya Russa, steamship, railway, Lake Ilmen, Volkhov River, “Demons”, “Little Pictures (on the Road)”, Pushkin Festival, Optina Pustyn, “The Brothers Karamazov”, epistolary legacy, archive, notes, historical reconstruction, scientific biography

Using the example of a letter to Dostoevsky from M. Papkov — the holder of three promissory notes, including Panteleeva’s note — the article presents a step-by-step methodology for dating (redating) undated letters from Dostoevsky’s archive and for attributing little-known correspondents and mentioned persons. It proved impossible to establish the date of this letter based solely on its content. More productive proved to be not an isolated analysis of the document, but its immersion into context: either into the epistolary dialogue with Dostoevsky, or into the body of letters united by a common chronology or a specific theme (correspondence with relatives, publishers, printers, booksellers, authors, or subscribers). It was the second approach that helped to convincingly redate the letter of Mikhail Nikolaevich Papkov — assistant to the attorney-atlaw, manufacturer, publisher, and bookseller Evgeny Petrovich Pechatkin, who represented the financial interests of his elder brothers. It was through Papkov that Pechatkin presented to Dostoevsky, in late autumn 1872, three overdue promissory notes that the writer had issued in 1864–1865 while publishing the journal “Epokha” (“Epocha”). Both letters turned out to be linked by a single occasion and time of writing. In the course of the research, the erroneous dating of the autograph (“in the course of 1865”) adopted in the previous scholarly tradition was corrected, as well as the erroneous attribution of the sender in reference works (“L. Papkova”), which led to the inclusion of incorrect information in her biography. As a result, new biographical data were obtained about two persons from Dostoevsky’s milieu in the 1860s–1870s: M. N. Papkov and the writer’s creditor from the mid-1860s, Panteleeva, and the corpus of correspondence for the period under study (1867–1875) was supplemented by another letter by M. N. Papkov, written between November 19 and 22, 1872.Fyodor Dostoevsky, Michael Papkov, L. Papkova, Evgeny Pechatkin, Loggin Panteleev, Panteleeva, epistolary heritage, epistolary cycle, correspondent, notebook, promissory note, biography, historical and real commentary, attribution, dating