Letters of Anna and Lubov Dostoevsky in the Archive of the National Library of France

Abstract

The article introduces into scientific circulation two letters written by the widow and daughter of F. M. Dostoevsky in 1912 and 1924 and addressed to the famous French director Jacques Copeau. These documents were discovered as a result of archival searches in the J. Copeau foundation in the National Library of France. The two letters are connected by their subject — the debut production of the play “The Brothers Karamazov” by Copeau at the Paris Theater of Arts in 1911. Reviews of the production published in the European and Russian press contain range of opinions: from enthusiastic to sharply critical. In his letter A. G. Dostoevskaya praised Copeau’s drama, however, she familiarized herself with it without seeing the theatrical production itself, by reading the book that the director had sent her. The publication of Copeau’s play, which is based on the novel “The Brothers Karamazov”, is a little-known exhibit of the Memorial Museum of F. M. Dostoevsky, established by the writer's widow in 1889. It is mentioned only in the notebook of A. G. Dostoevskaya 1912–1913. The year of inclusion of published Copeau’s play in the collection of the Memorial Museum of F. M. Dostoevsky is established based on the letter and the notebook of the writer’s widow. The letter from L. F. Dostoevsky contains information about her communication with such famous French writers as Jacques Copeau, Irénée Mauget and Paul Bourgeois, as well as about the attempts of the copyright heiress to receive remuneration for the production undertaken by Copeau. These details augment the currently scarce information about the emigration period in the biography of the writer's daughter. The appendix to the article contains the letters of A. G. and L. F. Dostoevsky in French and in translation.