Forgotten Memoirs About F. M. Dostoevsky in the Collection of A. G. Dostoevskaya

Abstract

In the 140 years that have passed since the death of F. M. Dostoevsky, almost all of his contemporaries’ memoirs about the writer have been published (in separate books and collections). To date, we can assume that the main corpus of Dostoevsky’s contemporaries’ accounts of him is publicly available. However, this does not mean that it is completely exhausted. A review of newspaper clippings collected by A. G. Dostoevskaya allowed us to identify several notes that were previously unaccounted for and missed by the publishers. For the most part, these are small fragments included by their authors in articles on other topics, nevertheless, they are also of interest to the biographers of F. M. Dostoevsky. The article publishes and comments on the memoirs of A. A. Sokolov, S. Atava, Vogue, V. G. Avseenko, V. F. Putsykovich. They are related to the final years of Dostoevsky's life, capturing distinct features of his everyday behavior, specific phrases and statements. Of interest is the story related by V. G. Avseenko about Dostoevsky's attitude to the political events in Europe, as well as Dostoevsky's commentary on his “The Grand Inquisitor,” was recorded by V. F. Putskovich after a meeting in Berlin in 1879.