№ 2, 2015 year

F. M. Dostoevsky met N. P. Vagner in the summer of 1875. The evolution of their relations found reflection in the letters of 1875—1877. The letters predominately touch upon the issue of seances, there are also some personal letters. The writer’s interest to Vagner was determined by an unusual passion of the latter for spiritualism that captured Dostoevsky’s interest too. The writer himself wanted to make sense of a new hobby of Russian society that aroused spread in the 1870s. One of the seven known letters of the writer to the spiritualist has not been published in all parts till now, namely that one of January 1, 1876. This letters (along with the unpublished letters of Vagner to the writer’s wife and Anna Grigorievna’s letter to him) allows us to have in a new look at the relations between Dostoevsky and a famous apologist for spiritualism of that time.Fyodor M. Dostoevsky, Nicolai P. Wagner, Anna G. Dostoevskaya, correspondence, biography, spiritualism

This article systematizes and provides information about the manuscripts of F.M. Dostoevsky put up for the auctions "Sotheby’s", "Stargardt", "Christie’s" and others. From the late 1960s up to the present day a limited number of the writer's letters were exposed (letters to V. F. Putsykovich, N. P. Vagner, Kh. D. Alchevskaya, A. N. Kurnosova). Some of them appeared at one auction and within a given period at another one. The article spots the letter of F. M. Dostoevsky to V. F. Putsykovich. This valuable document was sold in 1990 at "Stargradt" auction, and then came in the archive of the British National Library in 1993. Dostoevsky’s letters have not been yet exposed at Russian auctions. In the recent years, his unknown autographs and letters have been found by researches in Russian archives, acquired by the Museum in St.Petersburg at a collector. In the long term auctions may become one of the important sources of the updating of Dostoevsky’s body of work.Fyodor M. Dostoevsky, manuscripts, auctions, epistolary heritage

Dostoevsky stayed in Tobolsk from January 9th till January 20th of 1850. It was here where the wives of the Decembrists gave him and other members of the Conspiracy of Petrashevsky the Gospel that became a source of his speculations and inspirations. The reminiscence of this event became a literary fact that found expression in documents, epistolary exchanges, memoirs and literary texts. Later recollections, narratives and interpretations comprise various inaccuracies, mistakes, errors and omissions which do not correspond to the facts. The article provides a critical analysis of sources, substantiates the facts and chronology of Dostoevsky’s stay in the Tobolsk prison castle. In his memoirs the writer revealed a symbolic meaning of the historic meeting between the Decembrists and the Petrashevtsy but he did not tell what it was like. The course of the event may be traced basing on N.D. Fonvizina’s letter of May 18-22, 1850 to I.A. Fonvizin. A "Secrete rendezvous" could have occurred on January 15, while the books with money in their covers could have been handed over on any of the days from January 16th till January 19th. As it appears from the letter of Natalia Dmitrievna Gendarme Captain Smolkov whom she involved in the tendance of the prisoners delivered the books and unveiled a secret of their covers to each prisoner. Nobody refused aid: Christian affection and mercy consolidated different people, were above suspicion and aroused human compassion and solidarity. It appears that there was no Gospel presenting ceremony that one can imagine when reading "A Writer’s Diary" of 1873. In this episode Dostoevsky created an image, emblem, picture that was essentially true but whose some factual aspects differed. It resulted in a symbolic scene that embodies specific traits of creative mind and poetics of Dostoevsky.Dostoevsky, the Gospel, Tobolsk, Decembrists, Natalya Dmitriyevna Fonvizina, memoirs, creative memory

The article makes assumptions concerning the attribution of drawings in the notebooks of Dostoevsky that represent physiognomic interpretations of the appearance of Voltaire, W.Shakespeare, V. G. Belinsky, N. Malebranche, I. Kant. A supposition about an auto-communicative character of the drawing process that accompanied writer’s creative search is made. The approach to exploring these materials is based on the idea that portrait drawings created by Dostoevsky in the course of his work should be interpreted not only in relation to the accompanying text but to one another as well – in the form of an integral ideographic text. Depicted in different periods of time they had a common purpose: to create an image of the exponent of the idea which underlies the plot of a literary work the writer was working on during that time period, or to comprehend better the nature and ideology of a historical figure the writer was thinking about during his work on a new literary project.Fyodor M. Dostoevsky, drawings in manuscripts, ideography, physiognomy, creative process