The writer's childhood
Fyodor Dostoevsky was born on October 30 (November 11, new style) 1821 in Moscow, the second child in the family of a doctor at a hospital for the poor. The family lived on the hospital grounds (today there is a writer’s museum there).
On his father's side, Dostoevsky's great-grandfather and grandfather were priests in the Ukrainian city of Bratslav. His father, Michael, according to tradition, should also have become a priest, but at the age of 15 he fled from the seminary and forever turned his back on his family. Having trained in medicine and become a military doctor, he is recognized as a hereditary nobleman with a small mansion in Darovoye, near Moscow.
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Fyodor Dostoevsky was obsessed with fairy tales as a child, and, according to some biographers, he was so sensitive that he had hallucinations when influenced by fairy-tale characters.
He felt especially strong love and affection for his nanny Alina Frolovna. And since he grew up surrounded by the Mariinsky Hospital for the Poor, where his father worked, Fyodor loved to talk with patients. He experienced everything he heard from them. Soon his father banned these conversations, which, according to him, had a bad effect on the boy’s psyche.
Dr. Mikhail Dostoevsky was as stern as he was merciful. People appreciated him as a professional, but they were afraid of his anger. For him, however, raising his children was especially important.
Fedor learned to read and write early, at the age of 4. At the age of 6, he already knew Schiller’s “The Robbers” almost by heart. In 1833, his father sent him to study at a French boarding school, and then to Moscow College.
Education
As a child, Dostoevsky, like many children in those days, was educated at home. Parents who did not have a lot of money invested knowledge into their heirs on their own and additionally hired tutors for them in various subjects.
Fedor was taught Latin by his father, literacy and writing by his mother, French and mathematics by visiting teachers. This education was enough to enter the prestigious boarding school of L.I. Chermak. Studied until 1837. He spent another year at the educational institution named after. K.F. Kostomarova.
In 1838, Dostoevsky entered the engineering school in the city on the Neva. At the age of 17, I realized that I wanted to connect my life with literature. He shared this dream with his brother Mikhail, but the father did not take his sons’ hobbies seriously.
The boys had to get the education that their parents chose for them. And yet he preferred the books of Gogol, Pushkin, Schiller, and Shakespeare to the sciences imposed on him. He discussed them with Grigorovich, Berezhetsky, Beketov, Vitkovsky, with whom the guy was friends during his student years. With them, before receiving the title of military engineer, he created a literary circle.
Mom's death
Mikhail Dostoevsky worked tirelessly to teach his children. Unfortunately, his character deteriorated greatly after he became a widower. Fedor was only 15 years old when he lost his mother, and he had six other brothers and sisters.
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Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1859 photo from the Dostoevsky Museum in St. Petersburg
Fyodor and his brother Mikhail go to study at the St. Petersburg Military Engineering School, and their younger brothers and sisters go to foster families. When his brother Mikhail had to be sent to Estonia for health reasons, Fedor completely closed in on himself. His classmates nicknamed him “Monk Photius” because of his ascetic lifestyle.
The beginning of a creative journey
The father did not like the fact that his son was drawn to books when he could have built a brilliant career in his profession. Despite the lack of support, he did what brought him pleasure. Dostoevsky's literary activity began while he was still studying at the university.
The year 1844 became fateful for Dostoevsky, when the world saw his creation called “Poor People.” I did not expect that his first work would bring fame to Dostoevsky. Ultimately, the success exceeded expectations. Readers were close to the topics raised by the writer, critics appreciated his writing style.
In 1846 he became a member of the Belin Circle, where the nickname “new Gogol” stuck to him. A year later, Dostoevsky released another book, The Double, which was not as successful as its “predecessor”.
Critics did not hide their disappointment, and readers did not hide their dissatisfaction. The praise gave way to biting sarcasm. The work was appreciated much later, but at the time of its publication no one was able to feel the innovation of the book.
After some time, Dostoevsky had to say goodbye to his membership in the Belin Circle, which followed a conflict with Turgenev and Nekrasov.
He lost the opportunity to publish in Sovremennik, but, fortunately, he was offered cooperation in Otechestvennye Zapiski, whose editor was Andrei Kraevsky.
Dostoevsky continued to work on books and at the same time expanded his list of useful contacts. Dostoevsky was still part of the literary community of St. Petersburg, which allowed him to gain inspiration for creating new works.
The first attack of epilepsy and the death of the father
Fyodor suffered his first severe attack of epilepsy when he learned that his father had been killed by one of his serfs after an argument. Despite his father's strict and gloomy character, he was an important figure in Fyodor's life. Therefore, this death had a very negative impact on his psyche. He became even more gloomy and withdrawn into himself. Later, Fyodor Mikhailovich admits that from an early age his soul lives without joy, completely submitting to suffering:
“Suffering is the main, and perhaps the only law of existence of all humanity.”
After hard labor
After hard labor, Dostoevsky ends up as an ordinary soldier, which was also the ruler’s idea. Fyodor Mikhailovich took this news positively, since it marked the return of his civil rights, which was completely atypical for those times.
The Emperor wanted to teach Dostoevsky a lesson, but did not want to ruin the life of a talented young man. For this the writer was grateful to him. Whatever it was, he returned to his normal life as a completely different person.
Hard labor made an indelible impression on him; loneliness and numerous sufferings left an indelible mark on the philosopher’s soul. Dostoevsky had the most difficult time in the company of other prisoners, who shunned him because of his title of nobleman.
The year 1856 brought good news. With the Petrashevites he was granted an amnesty. The new king, Alexander II, granted forgiveness. He was officially pardoned in 1857, at which time the right to publish his works was returned to him.
By this time, Dostoevsky was a mature personality, formed, with certain views, which he adhered to until the last days of his life. This, together with the deep religiosity of the genius, was reflected in his work.
Work and introduction to literature
Fedor and his older brother Mikhail are graduating from the main military engineering school in St. Petersburg. They both love to read. Their favorite author is Pushkin.
Dostoevsky could not even imagine that he could work as a government clerk, but he was the first to graduate from military engineering school and received the rank of second lieutenant engineer. He has been working in his specialty for only a year. He was prompted to leave public service by the publication of his translation of Balzac’s “Jaugenie Grande.” Meanwhile, he himself had already written his own original work.
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In 1846, Fyodor Mikhailovich published his first novel, “Poor People.” All Russian literary criticism, led by Belinsky and Nekrasov, expressed their admiration for the author’s skill.
Petersburg and new life
Dostoevsky did not like school: studying was uninteresting, so he spent his free time reading. Balzac, Homer, Schiller, Byron, Gogol, Nekrasov, and Pushkin could quote almost everyone. As his friends remembered him, he was much more educated when compared to other writers of that time.
His passion for literature could not go unnoticed, so in 1838 his friends from school organized a literary circle, at whose meetings the young Dostoevsky read out his works.
In 1943, he graduated from college, receiving an appointment to the St. Petersburg engineering group, but after staying there for a couple of months, Dostoevsky resigned.
His first literary work was the translation into Russian of Honore de Balzac’s story “Eugenie Grande” in 1844, and a year later his own novel “Poor People” was published.
This book blew up St. Petersburg, Dostoevsky almost overnight became famous and a welcome guest in high society. He was accepted into the Belinsky circle, where at that time only truly good authors were welcome.
But the very next novel, “The Double,” was received by Petersburg with misunderstanding.
Revolutionary circle
Dostoevsky was accepted in elite literary circles, but before that he preferred meetings of the circle of the revolutionary Petrashevsky - a fighter against the tsarist power and the liberation of serfs in Russia.
Dostoevsky, 1847, pencil drawing by K.A. Trutovsky
None of the Petrashevites even suspected that among the members of the circle there was a spy named Antonelli, who reported about the gathering to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Dostoevsky was accused of having read Belinsky's works, including Correspondence with Gogol, Criminal Letters and A Soldier's Speech. For 8 months he was under investigation in the Peter and Paul Fortress.
On November 19, 1849, 22 Petrashevites were arrested and sentenced to death by Nicholas the First. The sentence was to be carried out on the barracks parade ground of the Semenovsky regiment, where the scaffold was erected. Some of those convicted were pardoned, but the emperor insisted that the rest be publicly shot as a warning to others. Dostoevsky was among them. Then he was only 27 years old.
He later said: “We spent at least ten terrible, immensely terrible minutes waiting to die.”
According to the writer’s biographers, since then his epileptic seizures have become more frequent, and his depressive states have become more and more prolonged.
Opening your magazine
After the closure of the magazine, Dostoevsky created a new one - “Epoch”. It turned out to be more successful than the old one, in which the writer published his own creations, thereby strengthening his position in Russian literary circles. It was “Epoch” that introduced the reader to “Notes from Podolia”, “The Humiliated and Insulted”, and other famous works of the philosopher.
During this period, Dostoevsky visited abroad more often. New cities and acquaintances inspired him to write novels. While traveling, the idea for his popular brainchild “The Player” was born.
Later, he began work on Crime and Punishment, which was warmly received by critics and readers, whose praise the great thinker was able to enjoy during his lifetime. By the time the work was published, “Epoch” had to be closed due to the rapid decline in subscribers.
Dostoevsky was saved from financial collapse by royalties for new books, including “The Idiot,” published in 1868. Later, the philosopher admitted that this work turned out to be difficult for him because of its complex idea. Paradoxically, it became Fyodor Mikhailovich’s favorite of all those written by him.
This can be partly explained by his sympathy for the character, for Prince Myshkin, who also fell in love with the public. Be that as it may, from The Idiot her attention quickly turned to Atheism, The Brothers Karamazov, The Teenager and The Demons.
These works could not fail to impress with their depth of thought. At the same time, they differed from each other ideologically. Some focused on the relationship between fathers and their offspring, others on raising a growing child, and others echoed themes raised in the early works of Fyodor Mikhailovich.
In the latter case we are talking about The Brothers Karamazov, which took a lot of time to write. He wrote the characters in this novel based on the characters in Poor People.
Hard labor
Dostoevsky's death sentence was commuted to hard labor in Siberia. On January 23, 1850, in 40 degrees below zero cold, chained, Dostoevsky was taken under escort with a sleigh to the Omsk fortress, where he stayed for 4 terrible years. He would later describe every detail of hard labor in Notes from the House of the Dead as “hell.” It is there, however, that a real miracle occurs - in the “darkness of hell” Dostoevsky finds God.
After his release, he is not allowed to return to Moscow or write, but it is his religious faith that saves him, arming him with patience and hope.
Arrest and hard labor 1850 - 1854
Dostoevsky’s worldview was shared by many of his contemporaries, people with progressive views by those standards, but not everyone actively defended their ideas, as Fyodor did. For this he was sentenced to death.
General Audit considered that the reason why Dostoevsky was arrested was not compelling enough to deprive the Russian thinker of his life. The punishment has been changed. A decision was made - exile for 8 years.
People who have ever wondered how long Fyodor Mikhailovich served in hard labor know that he returned to normal life after 4 years. The emperor himself insisted on mitigating the punishment. It was Nicholas I who ordered to deprive Dostoevsky of his fortune, the rank of nobleman, and to exile the philosopher to Siberia.
The writer's first wife - Maria
Fedor was enlisted to work in a border battalion in a small settlement - Semipalatinsk, where he meets love and marries his first wife - Maria Isaeva. His health was greatly damaged by hard labor, but a “shimmering warmth” penetrates his heart. After his release from service due to health reasons, the family moved to live in Tver.
During this time, the writer's former influential friends petitioned the authorities for a full pardon for Dostoevsky and permission to return to St. Petersburg to create. And in 1859 this happens.
The writer's first wife - Maria
However, the marriage was not happy. His wife Maria was afraid of his epileptic seizures, and they increasingly began to avoid proximity to each other.
Recent years, illness
Dostoevsky was sick a lot in his youth. Four years of hard labor only worsened his health, but the writer died suddenly, and not from a long illness. He wrote until the last day of his life. He managed to complete work on The Brothers Karamazov and publish other novels, which became successful almost instantly. And yet, the peak of popularity came precisely during the period when the great thinker was not alive.
And yet, the last years of Dostoevsky’s life were happy. He managed to publish the works on which he worked hard; the philosopher even had the honor of meeting the imperial family.
Alexander Nikolaevich himself called him to the royal palace, dreaming of getting to know the famous master of the pen, whom even Friedrich Nietzsche admired. By that time, as is known, Dostoevsky had moved to the city of Staraya Russa, which was located on the territory of the Novgorod province.
Magazine "TIME"
But, despite poor health, Dostoevsky’s rebellious spirit was not broken. Even religion cannot “tame” his inner anger. In St. Petersburg, together with his brother Mikhail, the writer began publishing the revolutionary magazine “Time” - the organ of the new Russian literary movement. Ostrovsky, Nekrasov, Shchedrin and other revolutionary writers collaborate with the publication.
Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1860 photo from the Dostoevsky Museum in St. Petersburg
It was in the magazine “Time” that Dostoevsky first published excerpts from his novels “Humiliated and Insulted” and “Notes from the House of the Dead.”
After “Time” was stopped by the government, the Dostoevsky brothers continued to publish it, but with a new name – “Epoch”.
Creativity flourishes
In 1860, Dostoevsky published a collection of essays in two volumes. Among others, there were “Uncle’s Dream”, “The Village of Stepanchikovo”, which suffered the same fate as “Double”. Soon the world saw “Notes from the House of the Dead,” in which the writer described the life of convicts.
Dostoevsky worked on this work during his years of imprisonment. Those who had never been in exile were shocked by the contents of this book. In it he raised a topic that had previously been taboo, for which he was nicknamed the “Russian Dante.”
In 1861, my brother and I decided to open our own magazine. The literary and political publication was called “Time”. It existed for two years.
Travel to Europe
In 1862, Dostoevsky made his first European trip. It stops in Cologne, Berlin, Dresden and Wiesbaden. Fyodor Mikhailovich visits operas, theaters and museums, but he spends his evenings in casinos.
Through Belgium he goes to Paris and then to London. There he meets Herzen. This is followed by trips to Switzerland and some cities in Northern Italy - Turin, Geneva, Livorno and Florence.
Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1863 photo from the Dostoevsky Museum in St. Petersburg
In later published travel notes entitled “Winter Notes on Summer Impressions,” Dostoevsky described Europe, criticizing capitalism, modernization, materialism, Catholicism and Protestantism.
Editorial
Due to his brother's exile, Dostoevsky Sr. stopped his literary activities in the 1850s. He went into private business. They opened a tobacco factory and a store.
The writer published translations only occasionally and wrote critical articles. The elder always fulfilled the requests of his brother, who was in Tver and Semipalatinsk, concerning St. Petersburg first of all.
In the sixties, Dostoevsky collaborated with the St. Petersburg literary weekly magazine Svetoch. After Fyodor’s return in 1861, the magazine “Time” was founded, which was published until April 1983. From 1861 to 1864, the publication “Epoch” was published under the editorship of the elder Dostoevsky. Sometimes the writer co-authored his brother’s articles in the magazine.
Dostoevsky Sr. was entirely involved in organizing and financing the project, selecting writers and conducting negotiations with them. The activist did not trust his editorial duties to anyone.
He worked without interruption and was distinguished by his amazing efficiency. The wonderfully erudite writer adored poetry and was in love with literature. He passed every creation through himself.
Death of wife and brother
In 1864, his wife and brother died. Dostoevsky had a hard time with their death and became seriously ill. He had to stop working and did not have the strength to continue publishing the magazine. He has completely depleted his savings and is accumulating debts. The dark shadow of the real danger of going to prison as a debtor hangs over him again.
The only alternative is to sell the rights to your works to the publisher Stellovsky, also committing to write a new novel. The contract was valid until November 1, 1866. After this date, Dostoevsky undertakes to completely lose the rights to his works. The amount against this obligation was 3,000 rubles. It was blackmail, but Dostoevsky had no choice.
Personal life
Dostoevsky's first wife was Maria Isaeva. I met her after exile in Siberia. The lovers lived together for 7 years. In 1864, the philosopher’s wife died suddenly.
It is known that, while married to her, the great Russian thinker was also fascinated by Apollinaria Suslova. He met an emancipated woman who instantly attracted his attention abroad. Germany brought Dostoevsky together. Rumor has it that she was the writer’s muse; she inspired him to create a number of colorful characters representing the fairer sex.
Dostoevsky celebrated his 40th birthday, suddenly realizing that he did not have the heirs that he would like to have. Became a dad in a relationship with Anna Snitkina.
His second wife bore him two daughters, Sofia and Lyubov, as well as sons Fyodor and Alexei. Fate, however, decreed that only three survived. The girl Sophia died in infancy, which was a heavy blow for the couple.
This grief did not interfere with our happy life together. Anna was faithful to her husband and willingly performed the duties of his assistant, being responsible for preparing books for printing and financial issues, which she approached rationally.
Dostoevsky appreciated his wife’s efforts and dedicated a book to her, the novel “The Brothers Karamazov.” As for the offspring, only one of all three followed in his footsteps, the heir of the philosopher Fedya.
The writer’s second wife – Anna
He worked exhaustingly to finish his novel Roulette. To gain time, he finds a stenographer to whom he dictates the text. And he falls in love with her. This is Anna Grigorievna Snitkina - the love of his life, with whom Dostoevsky will remain until the end of his days.
She and Anna finish writing the novel right on the writer’s birthday - October 30, a month before the fateful date agreed with the publisher.
The writer’s second wife – Anna
At Anna's insistence, they left Russia and went on a trip to Europe. Far from his homeland, Dostoevsky wrote his best works - “The Idiot” and “Crime and Punishment”.
“Crime and Punishment” received mixed reviews from critics. The controversy surrounding the main character Raskolnikov - why did he compare himself so many times to Napoleon Bonaparte, believing that murder was allowed in the pursuit of a higher goal?
Dostoevsky was in no way involved in these disputes. He continues to live feverishly and relax with roulette. Because of her, he loses a large sum several times, putting his family at risk.
In fact, gambling accompanied his life from his early teenage years. In a letter to his brother Mikhail, he wrote: “Now it is important that my novel covers everything. If this does not happen, I will hang myself.”
Anna is 25 years younger than him, but Dostoevsky married her in 1867. She loves him, but is afraid of his passion for alcohol and roulette. And yet she takes risks, opposing her relatives - both on one side and on the other.
The income from the novel “Crime and Punishment,” amounting to 7,000 rubles, is not sufficient to cover the writer’s debts. Anna pawns her furniture, piano and jewelry.
Having paid off the debts, there is money left over for the trip. They leave with a short break from each other, but in Hamburg Dostoevsky spends all his wife’s money on the casino. In Baden-Baden, he tries to “recover” what he lost by trying gambling again, but again he loses. He leaves the wedding rings at the pawnshop.
The poet's parents
They lived in Moscow, where the writer’s father went as a teenager. Mikhail Andreevich, a physician by profession, took part in hostilities. The man’s character was difficult, he gave the impression of a gloomy person, had difficulty restraining his emotions, was touchy and cruel.
One can only guess what good was revealed in him to Maria Feodorovna, the mother of the great writer, an energetic, kind, sympathetic woman. The woman recognized the authority of the head of the family, but she was not afraid to express her opinion, which always delighted those around her. Despite her husband's difficult character, she remained faithful to him until the end of her days.
Novel “Idiot”
And Anna is already pregnant with her first child. She is going to give birth in Geneva. Little Sophia was born there, but fell ill with pneumonia and died as a 3-month-old child. Devastated by this, Pope Fyodor Dostoevsky seeks consolation in his work on the novel “The Idiot.” Anna is inconsolable over the loss of her child. She constantly cries, goes to the cemetery and gets sick from grief. They decided to go to Italy.
Dostoevsky finished the book “The Idiot” in 1869 in Florence. His character Myshkin is a teacher, confessor and mysterious loser. Many compare him to Jesus Christ. Myshkin is different from the people around him - he is strange, unscrupulous, filled with some kind of suffering written even on his face. That's why people think he's an "idiot"?!? According to some biographers of Dostoevsky, the writer himself felt like this hero.
Having completed his work on the novel, Dostoevsky and his wife went to Prague and then to Dresden. Their second daughter, Lyubov, was born there. This child changes a lot. Fyodor Dostoevsky vowed to put an end to gambling. In fact, of his four children, it was Lyubov, born in 1871, who survived and lived to adulthood.
Portrait of Dostoevsky, artist Vasily Petrov (1872)
Returning from European countries back to Russia, Dostoevsky continues to work as if he does not have time to complete what he planned under the threat of death.
And, it would seem, everything looks more than good:
- Emperor Alexander II asks him to take part in the education of his sons Sergei and Pavel.
- Dostoevsky became an honored guest of some salons in St. Petersburg.
- He met many influential people, including Leo Tolstoy, musician Anton Rubinstein and artist Ilya Repin.
- He became an honorary member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and was invited to take part in the International Congress on Copyright, led by Victor Hugo.
And then disaster struck again - on May 16, 1879, his son Alyosha died. Dsotoevsky refused the high honor of participating in the Congress. Later he was elected president of a charitable society in St. Petersburg, and in the summer of 1879 - a member of the honorary committee of the International Association for Literature and Art, which included Victor Hugo, Leo Tolstoy, Ivan Turgenev, Paul von Heise, Alfred Tennyson, Anthony Trolp, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Ralph Waldo Emerson and other celebrities of the time.
Meanwhile, the writer works feverishly. His novels “Demons” (1872) and “The Brothers Karamazov” (1880) were published one after another.
Two periods of Dostoevsky's work
His work can be divided into two periods. His most famous works are from the first period, the stories “Poor People” (1846), “The Double” (1846), “The Mistress” (1847), “Sliders” (1848), “Netochka Nezvanova” (1849) and the sentimental novel “White nights” (1848). The main type of hero in them is the “little man,” and the main problem is the split between dreams and reality.
Dostoevsky’s second creative period brought him great popularity and worldwide fame, during which the novels “Crime and Punishment” (1865-1866), “Demons” (1872), “The Idiot” (1867-1869) and his largest work were published. – “The Brothers Karamazov” (1879-1880). In their complexity and deep philosophical meaning, these works of his are unsurpassed to this day.
The creative heritage of Fyodor Dostoevsky
Dostoevsky's work is of interest to both literary scholars and philosophers. His philosophical views actually underlie his poetics. Dostoevsky calls ideas “the DNA of the spiritual gene.” The main issue in his works is the “killing of God in the spirit.” It is this “murder” that the writer considers death, and not a physical end.
Literary critics define Dostoevsky as simultaneously: a Slavophile, a nationalist, a government monarchist and anti-monarchist, a romantic existentialist and a nihilist. Its contradictory nature is actually a mirror of man's eternal quest on the path to spirit.
His early works were influenced by realists and romantics such as Dickens, Gogol and Balzac, but Dostoevsky rose as an artist with his own personality in literature, a writer and a consummate psychologist - one of the most insightful cores in the history of world literature. Friedrich Nietzsche himself in the “decline of the gods” spoke about this:
“He is the only psychologist from whom I learned something, he is one of the lucky cases in my life - happier than Stendhal.”
Dostoevsky, along with Tolstoy, is considered one of the greatest novelists of the Golden Age of Russian literature, as well as a harbinger of Russian symbolism, influencing later writers associated with existentialism, expressionism and psychoanalysis.
After the Russian Revolution in 1917, Dostoevsky's books were banned or censored several times. His philosophy, mainly in The Possessed, was declared capitalist and anti-communist, prompting Maxim Gorky to call him “our evil genius.”
However, during World War II, his books were propagated by both Nazis and Communists alike because their core value was human psychology.
After World War II, Dostoevsky's books topped lists of best-selling works around the world.
In 1971, the Dostoevsky Museum in Russia opened its doors; a Moscow metro station and an asteroid in space were named after him. To summarize his significance for human spirituality, one can rightly call Dostoevsky “the dark angel of the human soul.” In all his work, the writer is both the ghoul of its dark corners and the keeper of the light of the spirit, like the radiation of life.
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As you know, the author of The Brothers Karamazov had four children, two of whom - Sonya and Alyosha - died in infancy. Daughter Lyuba was childless, so all living heirs are descendants from the line of son Fedor. Fyodor Fedorovich Dostoevsky had two sons, one of whom, also Fyodor, passed away very young, dying of hunger already in the 20s. Until recently, there were five heirs of the great writer in a direct line: great-grandson Dmitry Andreevich, his son Alexey and three granddaughters - Anna, Vera and Maria. They all live in St. Petersburg.
„ The son of Dostoevsky, Fyodor became a specialist in horse breeding and reached the same dizzying heights in it as his father in the field of literature „
Russian researchers of the work and life of Dostoevsky were worried that the name of the great writer might disappear over time. Therefore, when the long-awaited heir was born in St. Petersburg into the family of the writer’s only great-great-grandson, it was considered an event of enormous significance. Moreover, they named the boy Fedor. It is curious that the parents initially intended to name the boy Ivan. And this would also be symbolic - the grandfather, father and son would have names, like the main characters of the novel “The Brothers Karamazov”. However, providence decided everything. The boy was born on September 5, and according to the calendar, the name Fedor falls at this time.
The writer's wife, Anna Grigorievna, lived until 1918. In April 1917, she decided to go to her small estate near Adler to wait for the unrest to subside. But the revolutionary storm also reached the Black Sea coast. A former gardener on Dostoevskaya’s estate who deserted from the front declared that he, the proletarian, should be the real owner of the estate. Anna Grigorievna fled to Yalta. In the Yalta hell of 1918, when the city was changing hands, she spent the last months of her life and died of hunger in complete solitude and terrible agony in a Yalta hotel. There was even no one there to bury her, until six months later her son Fyodor Fedorovich Dostoevsky arrived from Moscow. By some miracle, he made his way to Crimea at the height of the Civil War, but did not find his mother alive. She asked in her will to be buried in her husband's grave, but there was a civil war, and this was impossible to do; she was buried in the crypt of the Aut Church. In 1928, the temple was blown up, and her grandson Andrei learns from a letter that “her bones are lying on the ground.” He goes to Yalta and, in the presence of a policeman, reburies them in the corner of the cemetery. Only in 1968, with the help of the Writers' Union, did he manage to bury Anna Grigorievna's ashes in her husband's grave.
According to the memoirs of the writer’s grandson, Andrei Fedorovich Dostoevsky, when Fyodor Fedorovich was transporting Dostoevsky’s archive from Crimea to Moscow, left after the death of Anna Grigorievna, he was almost shot by security officers on suspicion of profiteering - they thought that he was transporting contraband in baskets.
Anna Snitkina with her daughter Lyubov and son Fedor
Dostoevsky's son, Fyodor (1871–1921), graduated from two faculties of the University of Dorpat - law and science, became an expert in horse breeding, a famous horse breeder, passionately devoted himself to his favorite work and reached the same dizzying heights in it as his father in the field of literature. He was proud and vain, striving to be the first everywhere. He tried to prove himself in the literary field, but was disappointed in his abilities. He lived and died in Simferopol. He was buried with money from the Historical Museum at the Vagankovskoye cemetery. “I tried to find his grave in the eighties based on descriptions, but it turned out that it was dug up in the thirties,” says the writer’s great-grandson.
Dostoevsky’s beloved daughter Lyubov, Lyubochka (1868–1926), according to the memoirs of contemporaries, “was arrogant, arrogant, and simply quarrelsome. She did not help her mother perpetuate the glory of Dostoevsky, creating her image as the daughter of the famous writer, and subsequently separated from Anna Grigorievna altogether.” In 1913, after another trip abroad for treatment, she remained there forever (abroad she became “Emma”). “I thought that I could become a writer, I wrote stories and novels, but no one read her...” She wrote an unsuccessful book, “Dostoevsky in the Memoirs of his Daughter.” Her personal life did not work out. She died in 1926 from leukemia in the Italian city of Bolzano. She was buried solemnly, but according to the Catholic rite in the absence of an Orthodox priest. When the old cemetery in Bolzano was closed, the ashes of Lyubov Dostoevskaya were transferred to the new one and a huge porphyry vase was placed over the grave; the Italians raised money for it. Once I met the actor Oleg Borisov, and, having learned that he was going to those parts, I asked him to sprinkle her grave with soil from Optina Pustyn, which I took from Dostoevsky’s house there.”
The writer's nephew, Andrei Andreevich Dostoevsky (1863–1933), the son of his younger brother, was an amazingly modest and devoted person to the memory of Fyodor Mikhailovich. Following the example of his father, he became a historiographer of the family. Andrei Andreevich was 66 years old when he was sent to the White Sea Canal...Six months after his release, he died.
Dmitry Andreevich Dostoevsky.
“Dostoevsky’s beloved daughter Lyubov, Lyubochka, according to the recollections of contemporaries, “was arrogant, arrogant, and simply quarrelsome.”
Dostoevsky's great-grandson, Dmitry Andreevich, born in 1945, lives in St. Petersburg. He is a tram driver by profession and has worked on route No. 34 all his life. In one of his interviews, he says: “In my youth I hid the fact that I am the only direct descendant of Dostoevsky in the male line. Now I say this with pride.” Grandson of Andrei Fedorovich Dostoevsky, engineer, front-line soldier, creator of the F.M. Dostoevsky Museum in Leningrad. This is what his son says about him.
“He was dominated by Lenin’s famous statement about the “arch-nasty Dostoevsky.” When Dostoevsky was thrown off the “ship of modernity” at the first Congress of Soviet Writers, my father exclaimed: “Well, I’m no longer the grandson of the Russian classic!” He was born in Simferopol. After high school, already in Soviet times, he entered the Novocherkassk Polytechnic Institute. He was drawn to all kinds of hardware; I know that he was almost the first in the south to become interested in radio. But he was expelled from the institute, he said, for refusing to take off his student cap. Then they fought against any class affiliation. In fact, the reason was different; I managed to find it out in the FSB archives. He visited the house of a professor who was later arrested.
Alexey Dmitrievich Dostoevsky
Andrei Fedorovich Dostoevsky
After being expelled, he goes to Leningrad to visit his uncle Andrei Andreevich.
Here he graduates from the Polytechnic Institute and becomes a forestry specialist. My uncle was soon arrested in connection with the Academic Case. This case was invented by the security officers themselves. Seven academicians were arrested and another 128 people were added to them, forty of whom were employees of the Pushkin House, where Andrei Andreevich worked.
He was given five years in prison and sent to build the White Sea-Baltic Canal. He was 64 years old, and perhaps age had an effect, perhaps Lunacharsky’s intercession, but he was released. He died two years later, having managed to publish a book of his father's memoirs. Dostoevists value this book; it describes the childhood years of Fyodor Mikhailovich, and this is very important in understanding a person.
Soon after his death, my father was arrested again, again accused of having “counter-revolutionary” conversations with a professor from Novocherkassk. He was kept in the Big House for a month and released due to insufficient evidence. Mom said that from then on he was very afraid...”
It must be said that both the grandson and great-grandson of Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky did to open the writer’s museum in St. Petersburg. Our family donated furniture to the museum that belonged to the writer’s nephew Andrei. It must be said that the townspeople very actively responded to the museum’s call to donate furniture from that era. But! Let's listen to F.M.'s great-grandson, Dostoevsky: “The museum opened in 1971, after my father’s death I began to take part in its work. Many years have passed and, of course, a lot has changed in the museum. I don't support everything that has changed. The scientific work of the museum came to naught, it became an ordinary collection of exhibits. The exposition itself has also changed, the last change upset me. The memorial part, the writer’s apartment itself, never acquired the spirit of the family that lived in it, and yet this was, according to the writer himself, the happiest time of his life.”
And again Fyodor Dostoevsky is the successor of the great family.
Source - https://wikers.ru/weekly/legacy/16107/
