Epistolary Affair of F. M. Dostoevsky and Adventurer Marfa Brown

Abstract

Seven letters by a certain Marfa Brown written to F. M. Dostoevsky between October 1864 and January 1865 were preserved in the writer’s archive. There are disputes over their relationship among the researchers of Dostoevsky’s creative work and life. The article considers the letters of Marfa Brown and her future spouse, writer and essayist, employee of the Vremya and Epokha journals, retired staff captain Pyotr Nikitich Gorsky to Fedor Mikhailovich, and clarifies the nature of their relationship. The purpose of this article is to systematize the known but disparate information about Marfa Brown (aka Martha Brown, Marfa Petrovna Panina, Elizaveta Andreevna Khlebnikova), identify new materials about her life, define the role that Dostoevsky played in the lives of M. Brown and P. N. Gorsky. The question is raised about a possible reflection of the relationship between M. Brown and P. N. Gorsky in Dostoevsky’s novel Crime and Punishment.Seven letters by a certain Marfa Brown written to F. M. Dostoevsky between October 1864 and January 1865 were preserved in the writer’s archive. There are disputes over their relationship among the researchers of Dostoevsky’s creative work and life. The article considers the letters of Marfa Brown and her future spouse, writer and essayist, employee of the Vremya and Epokha journals, retired staff captain Pyotr Nikitich Gorsky to Fedor Mikhailovich, and clarifies the nature of their relationship. The purpose of this article is to systematize the known but disparate information about Marfa Brown (aka Martha Brown, Marfa Petrovna Panina, Elizaveta Andreevna Khlebnikova), identify new materials about her life, define the role that Dostoevsky played in the lives of M. Brown and P. N. Gorsky. The question is raised about a possible reflection of the relationship between M. Brown and P. N. Gorsky in Dostoevsky’s novel Crime and Punishment.