№ 3, 2025 year

In recent years, numerous attempts have been made to somehow “embed” Dostoevsky’s axiological principles into the theory and practice of socialist construction in our country. At the same time, the cardinal differences between these principles, which are based on an Orthodox foundation, and the atheistic (anti-God) views of the leaders and ideologists of the socialist state are leveled. Using the writer’s fiction and journalistic texts, the article reveals the opposition between the Orthodox worldview and outwardly different, but deeply similar deviations from it. It also demonstrates that the “concept of socialism” attributed to Dostoevsky by some post-Soviet philosophers, which they directly integrate with Soviet state practice, is erroneous. The reason is that the latter not only dispensed without Christ, but also, as the records of contemporaries of such practices (M. A. Bulgakov, A. F. Losev, I. R. Shafarevich) show, was so openly anti-Christian (with violent state suppression of Christian human freedom) that it allowed to draw radical conclusions about the embodiment of the Satanic spirit. However, militant de-Christianization is what brings together both Western “capitalism” and Soviet “socialism.” This return of humanity to the pre-Christian (and after the advent of Christianity in the world — anti-Christian) state was prophetically predicted by Dostoevsky. The article argues that both are in fact opposed to Dostoevsky’s “Russian idea” and his cherished convictions.Dostoevsky, socialism, Catholicism, atheism, collectivism, conciliarity, axiology

F. M. Dostoevsky’s “Foreign Events” cycle of articles published in the weekly “Grazhdanin” (“The Citizen”) from 1873–1874 remains one of the writer’s least studied works. Its understanding is possible only through contextual analysis, that is, by comparing it with other publications in this periodical on current events in Europe and their historical background. The proposed research methodology assumes the collective nature of editorial work. In this case, Dostoevsky acts as both the author and the editor, coordinating the formation of the publication’s overall position. The foreign policy stance of “Grazhdanin” was built, as shown in the article, by publications by S. A. Nikolaevsky, V. P. Meshchersky, F. I. Tyutchev, K. P. Pobedonostsev, and N. N. Strakhov, and then condensed in Dostoevsky’s “Foreign Events” series. As a result, “The Citizen” led its reader to an understanding of the true roots of the political crisis unfolding at that time in European countries. The destructive processes in France, Italy, Germany, Spain, and Austria (the rupture between power and people, the secession of political parties, the triumph of the state over the church, the exhaustion of national unity, which escalated into chaos and turmoil, the loss of traditional values), as the publication’s authors and then the editor himself demonstrate, stem from an ongoing mental breakdown, expressed primarily in Europe’s growing alienation from Christianity. For the first time, the sense of an ongoing civilizational upheaval, interpreted by Dostoevsky as the manifestation of an anti-Christian “evil spirit,” was expressed so acutely and openly in journalism.Grazhdanin, The Citizen, journalism, foreign reviews, history of Europe, the fate of Christianity, the crisis of civilization, the position of Russia, Dostoevsky’s prognosis

In 2024, the State Museum of A. S. Pushkin hosted the exhibition “Prince Myshkin, A. S. Pushkin’s Nephew: The Literary Character and the Prototype,” dedicated to the 190th anniversary of L. N. Pavlishchev, where documents and relics from the Pavlishchev family archive were presented for the first time, providing authentic evidence of the Pavlishchevs’ and Dostoevskys’ interactions and family ties. Certain facts from L. N. Pavlishchev’s biography confirm his presumed involvement in shaping the image of Prince Myshkin. The article describes the history of studying Pavlishchev’s archive in the context of creating an exhibition project. From the very beginning, this research required unconventional approaches based on establishing family and friendship ties, followed by the compilation of a family tree (genealogical chart and generation list) of the Pavlishchev noble family. It was important to verify and compare genealogical and biographical information from published and unpublished sources, which allowed us to discover previously unknown facts and eliminate widespread misconceptions. As part of the research, archival documents and memorial items were searched for in museum and archival institutions, and two main parts of the Pavlishchev archive were identified: the “Moscow” part, which belonged to the Slonimsky family of Pushkin scholars, and the “St. Petersburg” part, which belonged to L. N. Pavlishchev. When creating the exhibition, we wanted to demonstrate the diversity of materials stored in museums and archives, focusing on objects and archival documents that are directly or indirectly related to the history of the creation of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novel “The Idiot.”Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Pavlishchev, Pavlovsk, prototype, Prince Myshkin, The Idiot, museum, Kostygov, illustration, archive

The article presents the results of archival searches devoted to the family of F. M. Dostoevsky’s middle sister, Vera Mikhailovna Ivanova, whom, according to the testimony of the writer’s wife, her husband loved especially much. Twenty-four metric certificates of birth, wedding and death of the members of the Ivanov family are being introduced into scientific circulation, and the birth records of all thirteen children of V. M. and A. P. Ivanov are presented with exhaustive completeness. For the first time the exact dates of birth and death are indicated for Dostoevsky’s three nieces. The case discovered by the authors in the Central State Archive of Moscow (CGA of Moscow), “On the Inclusion in the Genealogy Book of the Actual State Councilor Alexander Pavlovich Ivanov, with His Family,” which includes previously unknown versions of the formulary lists of Vera Mikhailovna’s husband and their son Alexander, has also been put into scientific circulation. Based on new archival documents, a critical analysis of previously published biographical data on representatives of this branch of the Dostoevskys’ family tree was carried out and adjustments were made to eliminate errors and inaccuracies that occurred in printed publications, including the memoirs of A. M. Dostoevsky. The published archival materials fill in the significant shortage of sources in the lineage records of the genealogical branch of Vera Mikhailovna Dostoevskaya-Ivanova, which was published in the fundamental “The Chronicle of the Generations of Dostoevskys” (2012), which was a revised and supplemented reprint of the classic work of M. V. Volotskoy “The Chronicle of the Generations of Dostoevsky” (1933). The article also lists ten Moscow addresses where the Ivanovs lived in 1846–1868, with special attention paid to the addresses where F. M. Dostoevsky visited his sister and her family more than once in 1859–1867. A separate aspect of the research was the development of a methodology for using archival materials in genealogical research, demonstrating the need to be critical of a certain type of data contained in historical documents (for example, the age of persons indicated in confessional lists, wedding and death records, revision tales, etc.) using specific examples.family tree, V. M. Dostoevskaya-Ivanova, Ivanovs, Khmyrovs, Proferansovs, Central State Archive of Moscow, metric book, confession list, formulary list, revision tale, M. V. Volotskoy, The Chronicle of the Generations of Dostoevsky, The Chronicle of the Generations of Dostoevskys

The article is devoted to the publishing activities of the writer’s wives — A. G. Dostoevskaya and S. A. Tolstaya. Based on documentary sources, the article analyzes the history of their acquaintance and business communication. A study of A. G. Dostoevskaya’s selected subscription books for her husband’s Complete Works confirmed that by the mid-1880s, when she met S. A. Tolstaya, the St. Petersburg publisher had developed an effective system for printing and selling books, which she willingly shared with Tolstoy’s wife, an aspiring book publisher. However, S. A. Tolstaya’s publishing activities had their own specific features: unlike A. G. Dostoevskaya, she had to repeatedly overcome censorship restrictions. The article suggests that the publication of Tolstaya’s husband’s literary works created before 1881, on the one hand, and the publication of Tolstaya’s banned texts outside of Russia, on the other, laid the foundation for the formation of two distinct images of the writer in the culture of the late 19th and 20th centuries: Leo Tolstoy as an artist and Leo Tolstoy as a religious thinker, public figure, and rebel. The authors hypothesize that one of the main reasons for the conflict between Leo Tolstoy and his wife, which began in the second half of the 1880s, was not her publishing activities , but their phenomenal commercial success. Indirectly, the meeting between the two businesswomen played a significant role in Tolstaya’s rapid adoption of Dostoevskaya’s publishing expertise, which allowed her to successfully navigate the book market and, in turn, led to a confrontation with her husband. The article’s appendix includes two letters from S. A. Tolstaya to A. G. Dostoevskaya, dated October 17 and November 26, 1885 (with the correct dating of the second letter, which was incorrectly dated by A. G. Dostoevskaya), as well as two letters from T. A. Kuzminskaya, S. A. Tolstaya’s sister, to Dostoevsky’s widow, which require accurate dating.Anna Dostoevskaya, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Sofia Tolstaya, Leo Tolstoy, book publishing, book trade, collected works, heritage

The development of communication technologies today is erasing distances in the large-scale scientific polylogue of researchers of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s work. However, in the recent past, the explorations of scientists from remote corners of the post-Soviet space often remained either out of sight of the Russian Dostoevsky studies community, or represented only sporadically, in isolation from the regionally developed theme. The oldest Crimean university deserves special attention in this context. Since the 1920s, researchers at this university have been examining the issues related to Fyodor Dostoevsky’s work and introducing archival additions to his biography into scientific circulation. The “Crimean period” in the destinies of Dostoevsky’s descendants also reveals their contacts with the staff of the Simferopol Pedagogical Institute, who were the first to evaluate the literary abilities of the writer’s younger grandson. During the Ukrainian period of the peninsula’s history, Candidate of Philological Sciences, Associate Professor Galina Zyabreva initiated Dostoevsky studies at the Department of Literature of the M. V. Frunze Simferopol State University (V. I. Vernadsky Tavrida National University), which have been actively developed since. From 1992 to 2014, six applicants received academic degrees for their work on the study of Dostoevsky under her scientific supervision. In these dissertations, the Orthodox worldview of the writer was taken into account. This period was marked by the strengthening of scientific ties between Crimean researchers and the Russian Dostoevsky studies community. In 2011, International scientific readings “The Word of Fyodor Dostoevsky in the modern cultural dialogue: National and Universal (towards the 190th anniversary of the writer’s birth)” were held in Crimea for the first time. Based on the materials of scientific readings, a homonymous collection of articles was published in 2012 This article provides an insight into the history of Crimean Dostoevsky studies from the 1920s to the present time. This insight is a practical necessity that will allow to fill the bibliographic gaps both in modern scientometric Internet databases and in specialized indexes of literature about Fyodor Dostoevsky with information about the works of Crimean researchers.Dostoevsky, Crimea, university, Dostoevsky studies, researchers, scientific school, scientific direction, regional science, history of science, bibliography

The publication is dedicated to the life and work of Boris Nikolaevich Tikhomirov (1952–2025), an outstanding researcher of F. M. Dostoevsky’s scientific biography and work. With his death, Russian philological science suffered a huge, irreparable loss. The scientist’s biography is full of amazing, yet not accidental events and meetings, incredible discoveries and outstanding achievements in philology. B. N. Tikhomirov’s great self-sacrificing work in studying Dostoevsky’s legacy is not limited to his innovative scientific works and the organization of exhibitions at the writer’s Literary Memorial Museum in St. Petersburg. He actively worked to popularize Dostoevsky’s work in the global cultural space: he gave open lectures to museum visitors, advised screenwriters and directors who made films about Dostoevsky and his family, and made presentations at national conferences and international symposiums. On October 6, 2025, the fortieth day after the researcher’s death, his colleagues discussed the ways to preserve the memory of the president of the Russian Dostoevsky Society, his works and activities. Memorial activities include compiling a bibliography of B. N. Tikhomirov’s works and electronic library, preparing reviews of his books, publishing unpublished materials, systematizing his commentary from various publications of Dostoevsky, videos of his speeches at lectures and conferences, continuing to study Dostoevsky’s Moscow, the writer’s genealogy and the archive of A. G. Dostoevskaya, and organizing the 50th anniversary conference “Dostoevsky and World Culture” dedicated to the memory of the scientist (November 9–11, 2025). The publication uses personal correspondence between I. S. Andrianova and B. N. Tikhomirov, as well as materials from his social media page.B. N. Tikhomirov, F. M. Dostoevsky, Vladimir Vysotsky, Elena Borisovna Chernova- Pokrovskaya, Ya. S. Bilinkis, A. I. Herzen Leningrad State Pedagogical Institute, F. M. Dostoevsky Literary and Memorial Museum, “The Unknown Dostoevsky”, Memory

Boris Nikolaevich Tikhomirov left a significant mark in the study of textual criticism, biography, and Dostoevsky's creative work. He possessed encyclopedic knowledge, an original methodology for heuristic research, extensive editorial experience, and was dedicated to finding new sources, documents, and publishing Dostoevsky's autographs. His activities were diverse, encompassing roles as a teacher, university professor, scholar, museum worker, editor, and author of captivating books and articles. He devoted a lot of effort to publishing manuscripts, notebooks, and diaries, as well as current issues of the journal "The Unknown Dostoevsky" and volumes of the Complete Works of Dostoevsky in the author's original spelling and punctuation, as well as books published by “Vita Nova” and others. The need for a program to preserve B. N. Tikhomirov's legacy is evident. It is necessary to publish an electronic library of the scholar's works. His comments and marginalia are particularly significant. Marginalia is an original genre of research. For him, books were not only a source of knowledge but also a tool for exploration. His notes, comments, and remarks are on their pages. They are worthy of publication. Boris was ready to comment on the entire works of Dostoevsky. Several volumes remain to be completed. His comments on Dostoevsky's “Gospel” should be published as a separate edition. Boris Tikhomirov's work should be continued.Dostoevsky, Tikhomirov, legacy, Dostoevsky's Petersburg, obituary, memory, heuristics, comments, marginalia, sources, method