F. M. Dostoevsky’s Siberian Text: Problems and Perspectives

Abstract

The review article is devoted to the analysis of studies of the Siberian period of F. M. Dostoevsky’s life and work. The main trends in the study of the author’s Siberian text are described. The entire variety of sources may be subdivided into four groups: memoirs and epistolary testimonies; journalism, biographical novels, essays, novellas, etc.; biographical studies; interpretations of Siberian works. One of the main issues is the problem of their reliability. Close to the memoir fraud remain biographical novels, biographical chronicles, documentary novels are close to being memoir falsifications, and so they often contain factual errors or free interpretation of events. They sometimes include home-grown myths about Dostoevsky's stay in Siberia, that were created by local residents. Some of these myths have already been exposed by the scientific approach. The article analyzes the biographical research of V. N. Zakharov, M. M. Gromyko, N. I. Levchenko, V. S. Vainerman, A. S. Shadrina, E. D. Trukhan, V. F. Grishaev and others. These studies are peculiar in that they are usually localized and represent research not into the Siberian text as a whole, but into its constituent parts: those related to Omsk, Kuznetsk, Tobolsk, Barnaul or Semipalatinsk. The article describes both fairly well-known and new biographical materials that have been published recently and significantly enriched the understanding of the Siberian period of the writer's biography and work, and provides an overview of interpretations of Dostoevsky's Siberian works. The paper identifies problems and outlines the perspectives of studying the Siberian text, and determines the archival collections where new documents about Dostoevsky and his environment can be discovered.