Dostoevsky: biography, photo, personal life. The story of Anna Dostoevskaya, who made her husband the most famous Russian writer Fyodor Dostoevsky: personal life

Dostoevsky is a classic whose works are studied with interest not only in Russia, but also abroad. This is because Dostoevsky devoted himself entirely to the study of the main riddle of the universe - man. We offer an excursion into the history of the formation of Fyodor Dostoevsky - a writer and cultural figure of the 19th century.

Dostoevsky: biography of the writer

Dostoevsky, whose biography reveals the secrets of the formation of his special literary thinking, is one of the galaxy of the best novelists in the world. A connoisseur of the human soul, a deep thinker, a heartfelt novelist, Dostoevsky wrote about the spiritual and the dark in man. His novels were attracted by criminal plots.

Where did Dostoevsky get his inspiration, whose books still shake the minds of readers, will be answered by the biography of the writer, in which there are many intriguing twists and turns:

Childhood and adolescence

Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881) came from a poor family of a nobleman and a merchant's daughter. Father - heir to the Polish gentry family of the coat of arms of Radvan. His ancestor - boyar Daniil Irtishch - bought the Belarusian village of Dostoevo in the 16th century. This is where the surname of the Dostoevsky family came from.

According to the memoirs of Fyodor Mikhailovich, the parents worked tirelessly to give their children a good education and raise them worthy people. The future writer received his first literacy and writing lessons from his mother. His first books were religious literature, which the devout mother was fond of.

Later in his works ("The Brothers Karamazov" and others), he repeatedly recalls this. The father gave the children Latin lessons. Fyodor learned the French language thanks to Nikolai Drachusov (Suchard), whom he later brought out in the novel "Teenager" under the name Tushar. The teacher's sons taught him mathematics and literature.

At the age of thirteen, Fyodor Dostoevsky entered the boarding school of L. Chermak, and three years later, his father, dejected by the death of his wife, sent his eldest sons to study at the St. Petersburg boarding school of Kostomarov. He prepared for the boys the path of engineers: they graduated from the Main Engineering School, but did not realize themselves in their chosen profession.

The beginning of the creative path

At the engineering school, the writer organized a literary circle and created several theatrical plays in the early 1840s. ("Maria Stuart", "Jew Yankel", "Boris Godunov"). These manuscripts have not survived. After studying in 1843, Dostoevsky was sent to serve in the engineering team in St. Petersburg, but he did not last long in the position. The 23-year-old lieutenant leaves the service, deciding to devote himself to literature.

In 1845 Fyodor Mikhailovich finished his novel Poor People. The first to read this work fell to Nikolai Nekrasov. The reading took one night, after which the author of "Who Lives Well in Russia?" said that a new Gogol had appeared in Russian literature. With the participation of Nekrasov, the novel was published in the almanac "Petersburg Collection".

His second work - "The Double" - the public did not understand and rejected. Criticism defamed the young author, eminent writers did not understand him. He quarrels with I. Turgenev and N. Nekrasov, he was no longer published in Sovremennik. Soon Dostoevsky's works appeared in Notes of the Fatherland.

Arrest and hard labor

Acquaintance with the socialist Petrushevsky radically changed the fate of Fyodor Dostoevsky. He participates in Friday meetings, and eventually entered a secret society led by the communist Speshnev. For the fact that the writer publicly read Belinsky's forbidden letter to Gogol, he was arrested in 1849. He never had time to enjoy the success of White Nights, published a year earlier.

Dostoevsky spent eight months, during which the investigation was conducted, in the Peter and Paul Fortress. A military court passed a sentence - the death penalty. The execution turned out to be a staging: before the execution began, a decree was read out to the writer to change the punishment.

He had to serve out an eight-year Siberian hard labor (a month later this term was reduced by half). In the novel The Idiot, Dostoevsky reflected the feelings he experienced while awaiting execution.

The writer was serving hard labor in the Omsk fortress. He suffered from loneliness and alienation: other prisoners did not accept him because of his noble title. Unlike other convicts, the writer was not deprived of his civil rights.

For four years he read the only book - the Gospel, which was presented to him by the wives of the Decembrists in Tobolsk. This became the reason for the spiritual regeneration of the writer, a change in beliefs. Dostoevsky became a deeply religious person. Memories of hard labor were used by the writer when creating "Notes from the House of the Dead" and other manuscripts.

The accession to the throne of Alexander II brought the novelist a pardon in 1857. He was allowed to publish his works.

The flowering of literary talent

A new stage in the writer's work is associated with disillusionment with the socialist idea. He is interested in the philosophical component of social issues, problems of the spiritual being of a person. He helps his brother Mikhail to publish the almanac "Time", and after its closure in 1863 - the magazine "Epoch". Dostoevsky's novels "The Humiliated and Insulted", "A Bad Joke", "Notes from the Underground" appeared on the pages of these publications.

The writer often traveled abroad in search of new topics, but it all ended with the fact that he gambled huge sums at roulette in Wiesbaden. The dramas and experiences of this period of Dostoevsky's life became the basis for the new novel The Gambler.

Trying to extricate himself from financial problems, the writer concludes an extremely unfavorable contract for the publication of all his works and sits down to write a new creation - the novel Crime and Punishment (1865-1866).

The next work - the novel "The Idiot" (1868) - was born in agony. The main one is Prince Myshkin - the ideal of the writer. A deeply moral, honest, kind and sincere person, the embodiment of Christian humility and virtue, the hero of the novel is similar to the author: their views on life, religiosity and even epilepsy bring them together.

Fyodor Dostoevsky is working on the novel The Life of the Great Sinner. The work was not completed, but its material was used by the author to create "Demons" and "The Brothers Karamazov", where he interpreted the roots of radical and terrorist convictions of the intelligentsia.

Dostoevsky's life path was cut short by chronic bronchitis, which proceeded against the background of tuberculosis and pulmonary emphysema. The writer dies in his sixtieth year of life, in January 1881. The writer's work was appreciated during his lifetime. He was popular and famous, but real fame came to him after his death.

Fyodor Dostoevsky: personal life

Fyodor Dostoevsky is a difficult writer and no less difficult person. He had a passionate, emotional nature, was easily carried away and could not always control his actions and feelings. This was reflected in his personal life. Here is what is known about the beloved women of Dostoevsky:

Maria Isaeva

Maria Isaeva, French by birth, at the time of her acquaintance with Fyodor Mikhailovich at the beginning of 1854 was the wife of the head of the Astrakhan customs district, had a young son.

The twenty-nine-year-old passionate and exalted lady met the writer in Semipalatinsk, where she arrived with her husband. She was well educated, inquisitive, lively and impressionable, but unhappy: her husband suffered from alcoholism, was weak-willed and nervous. Maria loved society, dancing. She was burdened by provincial life and poverty. Dostoevsky became for her "a ray of light in the dark kingdom."

The vulnerability and fragility of the woman awakened the writer's desire to protect and protect her like a child. For some time, Maria kept a friendly distance with Fedor Mikhailovich. Almost two years of separation became a test for their feelings: Isayeva's husband was transferred to serve six hundred miles from Semipalatinsk.

Dostoevsky was in despair. In 1855 he received news of Isaev's death. Maria found herself in a strange city alone, without funds and with a child in her arms. The writer immediately offered her a hand and a heart, but they got married two years later.

After Dostoevsky's release from hard labor, the couple returned to St. Petersburg. In Barnaul, the writer had an epileptic seizure, which frightened Maria. She accused her husband of hiding a serious illness from her, which could end in death at any time. This situation alienated the spouses from each other.

A seven-year marriage did not bring them happiness. Soon Maria moved to Tver, and then returned to St. Petersburg, where she was slowly dying of consumption. The writer was traveling abroad at that time. When he returned, he was amazed at the changes that had happened to his wife. Wanting to alleviate her suffering, he transports his wife to Moscow. She died painfully throughout the year. The character of Mary, her fate and death were embodied in the literary version - in the image of Katenka Marmeladova.

Appolinaria Suslov

The emancipated young lady, memoirist and writer was the daughter of a former serf. The father bought himself freedom and moved to St. Petersburg, where he was able to give his two daughters a higher education. Appolinaria attended a course in philosophy, literature and natural sciences, and Nadezhda became a physician.

Acquaintance with Suslova at Dostoevsky's took place after one of his speeches at a student evening. Appolinaria was a beauty: slender, with blue eyes, an intelligent and strong face, red hair. She was the first to confess her love to the writer. Dostoevsky needed a sincere attitude. The romance began. Appolinaria accompanied Dostoevsky abroad, and he helped the aspiring writer in her creative development - he published her stories in Vremya.

Suslova represented nihilistic youth, she despised the conventions and prejudices of the old world. Therefore, in every possible way she rebelled against outdated foundations and morality. The girl became the prototype of Polina (The Gambler) and Nastasya Filippovna (The Idiot) and others.

Anna Snitkina

Dostoevsky's second wife was 24 years younger than him. She came from the family of an official, had a literary talent and idolized Dostoevsky. She met the writer by chance: after the death of her father, she graduated from stenographic courses and entered the service of Fyodor Mikhailovich as an assistant. Their acquaintance took place two years after the death of the writer's first wife.

The girl helped Dostoevsky fulfill the contract signed with the publisher: in 26 days they jointly wrote and designed the manuscript of The Gambler. While working on Crime and Punishment, Dostoevsky told the girl about the plot of a new novel in which an elderly artist falls in love with a girl. It was a kind of declaration of love. Netochka Snitkina agreed to become the writer's wife.

After the wedding, she had a chance to endure the horror that Maria Isaeva experienced: Dostoevsky had two epileptic seizures during the evening. The woman took this fact as an atonement for the immense happiness that the writer gave her.

After the wedding, the newlyweds went to Europe. Snitkina described her entire journey and life abroad in her diary. She had to deal with the writer's gambling addiction, solve financial issues and raise four children born in a marriage with Dostoevsky: two daughters Sonya (died in infancy) and Lyubov, two sons - Alexei and Fyodor.

She became a Muse for the writer. Left a widow at 35, Anna renounced the world. The woman did not arrange her personal life after the death of the writer, she devoted all of herself to preserving his heritage.

Fyodor Dostoevsky is an addicting nature both in his work and in his personal life. He repeatedly redrawn his novels, burned manuscripts, looked for new forms and new images. His work is full of the search for an ideal world order and spiritual improvement of a person, knowledge of his own soul. The writer was glorified by subtle observations of the psychology of characters, deep knowledge of the dark side of the human "I".

The great Russian writer Dostoevsky Fyodor Mikhailovich (1821 - 1881) made an enormous contribution to Russian literature and became a classic of world literature. Despite any difficulties, he never left literature. He lived by it. And he was able to become a genius writer of his time, who is still remembered and revered. Everyone knows his famous works, such as Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, The Brothers Karamazov and others.

From the biography of F.M.Dostoevsky:

Fyodor Mikhailovich, on his paternal side, came from the noble family of Dostoevsky, which dates back to the beginning of the 16th century. But Dostoevsky himself knew nothing about his genealogy during his lifetime. Dostoevsky was born into the family of a doctor and the daughter of a merchant; his grandfather was a priest in the Ukrainian village of Voytovtsy. But such facts from the life of Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, such as his genealogy from the Polish nobles and their move to the Russian Empire after the partition of the Commonwealth, became known after the death of the writer, when his wife started compiling the genealogical tree of the family.

Dostoevsky was born in October 1821 in Moscow at the Mariinsky Hospital for the Poor. The Dostoevsky family had 6 children. He was the second child. Dostoevsky had a brother-writer who created his own magazine. Dostoevsky's first works were published in his brother's magazine.

Mother taught little Fedya to read from the book "One Hundred and Four Sacred Histories of the Old and New Testaments." This was even reflected by him later in the book The Brothers Karamazov, where Elder Zosima says that he learned to read from this book.

Dostoevsky's father dreamed and even insisted that both of his eldest sons should enter an engineering school and receive the profession of engineers, which could always feed them. But the Dostoevsky brothers themselves, Fyodor and Mikhail, did not want this. They have always been drawn to literature. They both ended up becoming writers.

Dostoevsky became an engineer by profession, but he considered the years spent at the school wasted time. All this time he dreamed of literature and after training, having worked for a year in the Petersburg engineering team, resigned with the rank of lieutenant and began to write. + The writer's mother died of tuberculosis when he was 16 years old. Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky's father was killed by serfs.

The personal life of the writer did not develop for a long time. The first time Dostoevsky married at the age of 36, Maria Dmitrievna Isaeva, who at that time was the widow of his friend. But, apparently, the marriage was not particularly happy because of the betrayal and complex characters of the spouses and lasted only 7 years. Everything was especially aggravated by constant jealousy and betrayal, so Fedor himself spoke about his marriage - "We live somehow." In 1864, Maria died of consumption, but Fedor continued to take care of her son from his first marriage.

The second time Dostoevsky married in 1857 was a young - 20-year-old, sweet and kind stenographer Anna Grigorievna Snitkina. The writer was then 45 years old, but this did not prevent the spouses from loving each other. Fedor Mikhailovich, received conditions in which he could work, without being distracted by the surrounding problems - Anna Grigorievna took over all the housework and financial affairs. Unlike the first marriage, the marriage to Anna was perfect. They really loved each other. At the time of the writer's death, she was only 35 years old, but she was never going to get married again and remained faithful to her husband until the end of her days.

For the first time Dostoevsky became a father at a very mature age. At the time of the birth of his first child, he was already 46 years old.

His second daughter Dostoevsky Luba appeared in Dresden. Dostoevsky had no children from his first marriage, and four remained from the second: Sophia, Lyubov, Fedor and Alexey. True, Sophia died a few months after birth, and Alexei died at the age of 3. And son Fedor continued his father's work and also became a writer.

Dostoevsky's first novel, Poor People, received the most commendable reviews from readers and critics, but no one accepted the second. The "Double" became a disappointment for the admirers of the new genius of literature, because of the quarrels Dostoevsky left the literary circle of V. Belinsky and stopped publishing in Sovremennik.

In 1949, the writer was sentenced to death by a military court for receiving a copy of Belinsky's criminal letter from Pleshcheev, after which he read this letter at various meetings. And on November 13, 1849, Dostoevsky and other Petrashevites, as state criminals, were sentenced to death by firing squad, but a week later the writer was sentenced to 8 years of hard labor, and at the end of the month to 4 years of hard labor, followed by service as a simple soldier. They also took away all rights, fortune, titles, title of nobility.

During the hard labor, the convicts were forbidden to read any literature, but in Tobolsk, from the wives of the Decembrists, Dostoevsky and other Petrashevites secretly received a Gospel, in each of which 10 rubles were pasted. Fyodor Mikhailovich kept the book all his life and bequeathed it to his eldest son.

In 1856, the convict Dostoevsky was transferred from Omsk to Semipalatinsk. From a private he was promoted to a junior officer, and soon he received the title, but only thanks to the amnesty of the Decembrists and Petrashevists, which was announced by Alexander II. Fedor was released in 1854.

In 1862, the writer traveled abroad for the first time. Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky during his life visited Italy, Austria, England, Switzerland, Germany and France.

Hiding from creditors, Dostoevsky fled to Europe, where he lived for 4 years. In the same place he became addicted to gambling, played every penny into roulette, which made him huge debts. The second wife helped the writer get rid of the game. She began to publish and sell her husband's novels, without using the services of intermediaries, earning thousands of rubles on this, but giving everything to creditors.

The death of his brother came as a blow to Dostoevsky.

Dostoevsky died on January 26, 1881. On that day, his sister Vera came to him and tearfully asked Fyodor to give up his share of the inheritance, which they all inherited from their aunt, in favor of the sisters. According to the recollections of the writer's daughter, this scene was very stormy and loud. As a result, Fyodor started bleeding and died a couple of days later. Most likely, it was because of this conversation that his emphysema worsened, which led to death. About 30,000 people accompanied the writer on his last journey. Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky was buried in St. Petersburg.

In the 20-60s of the XX century, the Soviet government did not favor Dostoevsky - his works were not prohibited, but they were not studied in schools and universities, they were not published in full. His books were rehabilitated only when their success in the West outweighed accusations of counter-revolutionary ideas and anti-Semitism. They justified the author with the words that he got confused, stumbled and therefore went the path not bequeathed by Lenin.

Dostoevsky was a very famous writer during his lifetime, but only after his death he received world fame. His books have been translated and are still being translated into many languages \u200b\u200bof the world, most of all translations have been made into German.

In 2007, the eighth translation of The Brothers Karamazov was published in Japan and became a bestseller, which speaks of the relevance of the issues of reason, justice, spirituality and others that Dostoevsky put before himself and society more than 150 years ago.

25 interesting facts from the life and work of Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky:

1. The last 10 years of Dostoevsky's life were the most fruitful.

2. Dostoevsky's life was not easy: he was poor all his life, suffered failures for a long time in his personal life, he was almost executed, but the death sentence was replaced by hard labor, depriving him of everything he had. Despite all the difficulties, the writer never left literature, and the difficulties only honed the understanding of human characters and the circumstances under the influence of which they developed.

3. Contemporaries characterized Fyodor Mikhailovich as an evil, depraved and envious person. He could treat servants with arrogance and contempt, but he considered himself the best of men. But the second wife wrote about him as a generous, kind, disinterested and compassionate person.

4. The peak of fame of this writer came only after his death.

5. Dostoevsky wrote the novel "The Gambler" in 26 days, dictating it to stenographer and future wife Anna Snitkina. The urgency was justified by a contract with the publisher Strellovsky, who obtained the right to print all the writer's works without payment, and demanded that a new novel be submitted by the deadline. Anna remained her husband's stenographer until his death.

6. Facts from the life of Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky passed into the pages of his books, giving vitality, helped his works to become classics of world literature.

7. In the novel "Crime and Punishment", when Raskolnikov hides the stolen from an old woman in one of the courtyards of St. Petersburg, a real-life place was described. As Dostoevsky himself admitted, once he turned into some deserted St. Petersburg courtyard to relieve himself there. And it was this place that he described in his famous novel.

8. The favorite poet of the Writer was Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin. Fedor knew almost all of his works by heart. And a year before his death, he made a speech at the opening of the Pushkin monument in Moscow.

9. Dostoevsky was a deeply religious person, and therefore he and his wife were married in church. His wedding with Dostoevsky's second wife took place in the Izmailovsky Trinity Cathedral in St. Petersburg.

10. Dostoevsky was a rather reckless person. He could have lost his last pennies at roulette. Dostoevsky was helped by his second wife to quit gambling.

11. The first works of Dostoevsky, namely plays for theaters, were lost.

12. Throughout his life, the great writer suffered from epilepsy, and therefore it is impossible to call him a completely healthy person.

13. Dostoevsky's passion did not fade even at the age of 60.

14. Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky was a jealous man. Every little thing could serve as a reason for his jealousy.

15. When Dostoevsky was working, there was always a glass of strong tea next to him, and in the dining room, even at night, a samovar was kept hot for him. The author himself said that even if the light fell through, he would still drink tea.

16. Nietzsche considered Dostoevsky the best psychologist, and therefore he always said that he had a lot to learn.

17.Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky for the first time seriously fell in love in Semipalatinsk.

18. The image of the hero of the novel "The Idiot" Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky wrote from himself.

19. Most often, Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky wrote works at night.

20. Many films have been made based on the works of this writer.

21.Dostoevsky liked the works of Balzac, and therefore he tried to translate "Eugene Grande" into Russian.

22. For his second wife Anna, the writer developed a number of rules that she had to adhere to. Here are a few of them: do not paint your lips, do not let down arrows, do not smile at men.

23. Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky had a tense relationship with Turgenev.

24. Until the end of his life, Dostoevsky's second wife remained faithful to him. After Dostoevsky's death, his wife did not marry again.

25. The second wife devoted her whole life to serving Dostoevsky. She published the complete collected works of Dostoevsky, opened Dostoevsky's school, published her memoirs about him, asked her friends to compile a detailed biography of Fyodor, etc.

Dostoevsky's statements, quotes and aphorisms:

* Nothing to be surprised is, of course, a sign of stupidity, not intelligence.

* Freedom is not in not restraining oneself, but in being in control of oneself.

* Contact with nature is the very last word of all progress, science, reason, common sense, taste and excellent manners.

* Learn and read. Read serious books. Life will do the rest.

* A writer whose works were not successful easily becomes a bilious critic: so a weak and tasteless wine can become an excellent vinegar.

* Very little is required to destroy a person: you just have to convince him that the business he is engaged in is not needed by anyone.

* I do not want and cannot believe that evil was the normal state of people.

* Do not litter your memory with grievances, otherwise there may simply not be room for wonderful moments.

* This is the sign of real art, that it is always modern, vital and useful.

* The main thing in a person is not the mind, but what controls him: character, heart, good feelings, progressive ideas.

* In a truly loving heart, either jealousy kills love, or love kills jealousy.

* The soul is healed next to the children.

* A person who knows how to hug is a good person.

* A fool who confesses that he is a fool is no longer a fool.

* Something is more profitable to have among enemies than among friends.

* He who wants to be useful, even with his hands tied, can do a lot of good.

* Love is so omnipotent that it regenerates ourselves as well. * Without children, it would be impossible to love humanity so much.

* That's what the mind is to achieve what you want.

* One must love life more than the meaning of life.

* Not strong are the best, but honest.

* Honor and dignity are the strongest.

* There is no happiness in inaction.

* The world will be saved by beauty.

* One must love life more than the meaning of life.

* Big people do not know that a child, even in the most difficult case, can give extremely important advice.

A sea of \u200b\u200barticles and books are devoted to Dostoevsky, his life and work. All 130 years from the day of his death, this man, who tried to penetrate (and penetrated) into the deepest depths of human relationships, to discern (and in his own way discerned) some higher goal of social development, was in the crosshairs of attention not only of literary scholars, philosophers, historians, but also readers, sharply divided into unquestioning admirers and no less categorical deniers. An enviable literary fate. But at what price was paid for it! Vladimir Ilyich mercilessly condemned the reactionary tendencies of Dostoevsky's work. At the same time, Vladimir Ilyich said more than once that Dostoevsky was indeed a genius writer who examined the sore sides of contemporary society, that he had many contradictions, fractures, but at the same time - vivid pictures of reality.

Through the pages of the newspaper "Pravda"
2011-02-08 11:31

V.D. BONCH-BRUEVICH.

A man had to appear who would have embodied in his soul the memory of all these human torments and reflected this terrible memory - this man Dostoevsky.

M. GORKY.

He pictured Russia as one irrepressible immeasurable soul, as an ocean of immense contradictions. But it was precisely this barbaric, ignorant, trailing in the tail of civilization country of Peter the Great and the self-incinerators that he portrayed as the most capable of giving the world something new, bright and great ... It is from its rejection, from its torment, from its chains that the Russian people can endure, according to Dostoevsky, all those necessary highest spiritual qualities that the reimbursed West will never acquire.

A.V. LUNACHARSKY.

The talent of Mr. Dostoevsky belongs to the category of those that are not immediately perceived and recognized. In the course of his career, many talents will appear, which will be opposed to him, but they will end up being forgotten exactly at the time when he reaches the apogee of his glory.

V.G. BELINSKY.

In the works of Dostoevsky, we find one common feature, more or less noticeable in everything he wrote: it is pain about a person who admits that he is not able to, or finally does not even have the right to be a real, complete, independent person, by himself.

ON. DOBROLYUBOV.

The other day I was not feeling well, and I was reading "The House of the Dead". I have forgotten a lot, re-read and I do not know better books from all the new literature, including Pushkin ... I enjoyed the whole day yesterday, as I have not enjoyed for a long time. If you see Dostoevsky, tell him that I love him.

L.N. THICK.

(From a letter to N.N. Strakhov).

Since literature became an important factor in the life of peoples, great writers have tried many times to reflect the suffering of living people in their works. In Russia, Dostoevsky and Tolstoy are examples of this.

T. DRISER.

I have always loved Dostoevsky with his broad, open-hearted heart, I loved more than other Europeans.

F.S. FITZGERALD.

His works not only made a strong impression on me - they captured and shocked me.

G. BELL.

The speaker spread his wings

He grew up on the stage, proudly raised his head, his eyes sparkled on his face, pale with excitement, his voice grew stronger and sounded with special force, and the gesture became energetic and imperative. From the very beginning of the speech, that inner spiritual connection was established between him and the whole mass of listeners, the consciousness and sensation of which always make the speaker feel and spread his wings. A restrained excitement began in the hall, which grew more and more, and when Fyodor Mikhailovich finished, there was a moment of silence, and then, like a stormy stream, an unheard of and unseen in my life delight broke through. Applause, shouts, clatter of chairs merged together and, as they say, shook the walls of the hall. Many cried, turned to unfamiliar neighbors with exclamations and greetings; and a young man fainted from the excitement that seized him. Almost everyone was in such a state that it seemed that they would follow the speaker at his first call, anywhere! So, probably, in a distant time, he knew how to influence the gathered crowd of Savonarola.

From the memoirs about the historical speech of F.M. Dostoevsky - "Pushkin speech" - the famous Russian lawyer A.F. Horses.

Dostoevsky reveals in his works a harmonious and very complete outlook on the world: all the most varied particulars of life and thought, passing in an endless string before his reader, are imbued with one moral idea. In the outline of countless types from the most diverse areas of social life - from the schema-monk to the socialist, from infants and philosophers to the elderly elders, from the pilgrims to the harlots - Dostoevsky does not miss a single picture, not one, one might say, a line tied in one way or another to his idea. The richness of the author's moral content is so abundant, so rapidly in a hurry to pour out that twelve thick volumes and sixty years of work life are not enough for him to have time to express the desired words to the world. Tormented by a thirst for this sermon, he does not have time to improve his stories from the external artistic side, and instead of the usual stretching and chewing of sometimes insignificant ideas on hundreds of pages of different pictures and types, our writer, on the contrary, piles up hastily and concisely an idea for an idea, a psychic law for law; the reader's intense attention does not have time to catch up with his eyes, and he, constantly stopping his reading, turns his gaze again to the re-read lines - they are so meaningful and serious. It is not the incomprehensibility of the presentation of this, not the vagueness of thought, but precisely the overflowing plenitude of the content, which does not know anything similar to itself in all our literature. Reading Dostoevsky is sweet, but tiring, hard work; fifty pages of his story give the reader the content of five hundred pages of stories by other writers, and in addition, often a sleepless night of agonizing self-reproaches or enthusiastic hopes and aspirations.

WHAT DOSTOEVSKY WRITTED ABOUT

... Dostoevsky the psychologist is one and the same at a distance of all his literary activity. Let's say more. He wrote about the same thing all the time. What exactly? Many find it difficult to answer this question; critics admit that there is no area in science or life for which one cannot glean ideas from his creations. All, even the fiercest enemies of the author, recognize his amazingly correct psychic analysis, but I have not met a generalization of his creations and therefore offer my own.

The idea that unites all his works, which many seek in vain, was not patriotism, not Slavophilism, not even religion understood as a collection of dogmas, this idea was from an inner, spiritual, personal life; she was her premise, not a tendency, but simply the central theme of his story, she is living, close to everyone, his own reality. Renaissance - this is what Dostoevsky wrote about in all his stories: repentance and rebirth, the fall and correction, and if not, then fierce suicide; only around these moods the whole life of all his heroes revolves, and only from this point of view is the author himself interested in various theological and social issues in the latest publicistic works. Yes, this is that sacred tremor in the human heart of the rudiments of a new life, a life of love and virtue, which is so dear, so delightful for everyone that it encourages the reader himself, along with the heroes of the stories, to experience almost really exciting feelings; this determination, gradually preparing, but sometimes instantly rising before consciousness, to abandon the service of self-love and passions, those tormenting sufferings of the soul with which it is preceded and accompanied; this cross of a prudent robber or, on the contrary, a robber-blasphemer - this is what Dostoevsky described, and the reader himself deduces from this, if he does not want to resist reason and conscience, that between two different crosses there must certainly be a third, in which one robber trusts and is saved, and the other spews blasphemy and perishes. "Poor People", "Teenager", the hero of the "House of the Dead", the heroes of the "Demons", Raskolnikov and Sonya, the Marmeladovs, Nelly and Alyosha with their ugly father, the Karamazov family and their acquaintances women and girls, monks and numerous types of children - all this mass of good, evil and hesitant people, but equally dear to the author's heart, bursting with love, they put before the question of life and solve it in one form or another, and if they have already solved it, they help others to solve it. Some, for example Netochka Nezvanova and her Katya, Polenka Marmeladova, Little Hero, "The Boy at Christ's Tree", partly Nelly, and especially Kolya Krasotkin and Ilyusha and his comrades, allow it in childhood; others, like "Teenager", Natasha in "Humiliated and Insulted", Raskolnikov with Sonya, Dmitry Karamazov with Smerdyakov, husband of "Meek", and a happy rival of "Eternal Husband", and all almost female types, come across him in his youth or marriage; finally, the same question finds people sometimes in their old age, for example Makar Devushkin, "Funny man", Natasha's parent and his enemy, the prince, the Marmeladovs, Versilov in "Adolescent" and Verkhovensky-father in "Demons". No one can evade this question in life, or at least before death.

The high dignity of the writer, depicting the torment and joy of the spiritual rebirth of a person, lies precisely in the fact that, through his all-pervading analysis, he determined both those most important spiritual properties and movements in the conditions of which moral rebirth takes place, and those external, that is, received from outside, vital impulses , by which a person is called to self-deepening. If we reduce to general concepts all the parts of Dostoevsky's stories that consider this subject, or, more precisely, all the stories of the author, for they are all examining this subject entirely, then we get a completely clear and highly convincing theory, in which, although almost and there are no words: "grace", "Redeemer", but where these concepts are constantly required by the very logic of things.

From this it is clear what a lively interest Dostoevsky's works should arouse from the point of view of moral theology and especially pastoral theology. Why pastoral? Namely because Dostoevsky, not limiting himself, as has been said, to a description of the inner life of those who are being reborn, with particular strength and artistic beauty describes the character of those people who contribute to the rebirth of their neighbors. The mood of his own creative spirit when describing life is exactly what a pastor needs to have, that is, an all-encompassing love for people, a fiery, suffering jealousy about their appeal to goodness and truth, a tearing grief about their stubbornness and malice, and with all that - bright hope for the return to goodness and to God of all the fallen sons. This hope for the all-conquering power of Christian truth and Christian love, confirmed by the paintings written by the author, in which the most bitter lawlessness bows before the invincible weapon of Christ, is truly a holy, apostolic hope. It is especially important that this hope does not live in the mind of a child or a sentimental darling of life, but in the soul of a victim who has seen a lot of sin and a lot of unbelief. We will talk about Dostoevsky's rebirth from the point of view of pastoral and not moral theology, that is, about the reviving influence of one will on another, and we will only touch on the description of the subjective process of rebirth itself to the extent necessary for this first task. The first question is: what should a regenerator be like? Second, who can contribute to the revival and how much? Third, how does the likeness of one or the other pass?

MINISTRY OF RENAISSANCE

Through what properties of the spirit does a person become a participant in this highest service? The writer either gives the answer to this question on his own behalf, for example, in The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, or he confesses on behalf of his heroes the general impulses that cause the chosen one to preach revival.

Knowledge of the truth and compassionate love are the main motives for preaching. The writer seemed to see God's paradise and contemplated in it revived people, pure and blessed, freed from all the contradictions of life completely, quickly and simply. From these heights of general spiritual bliss, he looks at the sinful and sorrowful world and in a swift outburst of love and word tries to lift it to heaven: this love and faith are so strong that all human ridicule is powerless before them: “... They call me crazy. .. But now I'm not angry, now everyone is dear to me, and even when they laugh at me ... I myself would laugh with them - not just at myself, but loving them, if I were not so sad, on looking at them. It's sad because they don't know the truth, but I know the truth. Oh, how hard it is for one to know the truth! But they will not understand this, no, they will not understand. " It is agonizing to know the truth when you love people who do not know it, but this torment, this sinful darkness of the world further increased the love for people.

Dostoevsky returns to the last thought often and with special force, contrasting the present sinful state of the world with the represented innocent state. “… Unhappy, poor, but dear and eternally beloved and the same painful love that gives birth to itself in the most ungrateful even of its children, like ours! ..” I cried, shaking from irrepressible, enthusiastic love for that dear old land, which I left "(" The Dream of a Ridiculous Man "). “On our land, we can truly love only with torment and only through torment! We don’t know how to love otherwise and we don’t know any other love. I want torment in order to love. I want, I thirst at this very minute to kiss, shedding tears, only that one land that I left, and I do not want, I do not accept any other life! "

“The righteous appeared who came to these people with tears and told them about their pride, about the loss of proportion and harmony, about the loss of shame. They were laughed at or stoned to death. Holy blood poured on the thresholds of the temples. But people began to appear who began to invent: how to reunite for everyone so that everyone, without ceasing, loves himself more than anyone else, at the same time does not interfere with anyone else and live in this way all together, as it were, in a harmonious society. Whole wars have been raised over this idea. All the warriors firmly believed at the same time that science, wisdom and a sense of self-preservation would finally force a person to unite in a harmonious and reasonable society, and therefore for the time being, in order to speed up things, the “wise” tried to quickly exterminate all the “unwise” and did not understand their idea, so that they did not interfere with her triumph. But the sense of self-preservation began to quickly weaken, arrogant and voluptuous appeared, who directly demanded everything or nothing. To acquire everything, they resorted to villainy, and if they did not succeed, they resorted to suicide. Religions appeared with a cult of non-existence and self-destruction for the sake of eternal rest in insignificance. Finally, these people got tired of meaningless work and suffering appeared on their faces, and these people proclaimed that suffering is beauty, for in suffering there is only thought. They sang suffering in their songs. " This love, the author's tender love for the sinful land, is expressed, among other things, in the fact that he always knows how to dress in a pretty costume the most prosaic setting of the most prosaic city in Russia, about which another poet speaks:

The vault of heaven is pale green,
Boredom, cold and granite.

When Dostoevsky describes the dirty St. Petersburg courtyards, janitors, cooks, housewives, the premises of the intelligent proletariat and even fallen women, then the reader not only does not form a contemptuous disgust for all these people, but, on the contrary, some kind of especially compassionate love, some kind of the hope for the opportunity to announce all these wretched dens of poverty and vice with praising hymns to Christ and in this very atmosphere create a warm atmosphere of tender love and joy. Here is an explanation for the fact that, without closing his eyes from the gloomy reality, the writer so deeply loves life for the bright hope of its revival, the life of a person: not devoid of love for nature, he simply does not have time to talk about nature and prefers pictures of urban life to all others ...

“It was a dark story, one of those dark and painful stories that so often and imperceptibly, almost mysteriously come true under the heavy St. Petersburg sky, in the dark hidden corners of a huge city, amidst the extravagant boil of life, dull selfishness, conflicting interests of street debauchery, secret crimes , in the midst of all this pitch hell of meaningless and abnormal life. " Defining life so gloomy, he, however, then looks at all its evil as a misunderstanding and writes an article "That we are all good people." Is it because “good people” are so easy to convert to the truth? No, it is difficult to convert them, but truth itself is so beautiful, love itself is so attractive that no matter how hard the feat of its preacher, the one who understood the mystery of life, who loved children, will not want another feat, another content for life. In this story, the author presents this high mood of the preacher as the fruit of mystical insight, in another case it visits a young man dying of consumption, and finally, this mood is fully revealed in the conversations of Elder Zosima. The chosen one of heaven is so imbued with his vocation, so closely merges his life with the work of preaching and reviving people, that he considers all the shortcomings, all their sins as his own, as proving his insufficient zeal, lack of wisdom and holiness in him, and that is why he considers himself guilty for everyone and in everything, he is even ready to consider himself the original tempter and seducer of humanity, as the hero of "The Dream of a Ridiculous Man" is ready to accept torment for everyone, as Elder Zosima explains. Such is the lofty meaning of Dostoevsky's often repeated thought about the common guilt for everyone and in everything, a thought, alas, so grossly misunderstood and vulgarized by some of his many unsuccessful interpreters. But let's summarize what has been said about the gift of spiritual rebirth: this gift is achieved by those who: 1) having learned by inner experience the sweetness of truth and communication with God, 2) loved life so much with sorrow and hope that 3) completely lost the thread of their personal life and died himself, 4) not through artificial preaching, but through confession, through the opening of his heart and through his whole life, calls the brethren to repentance and love. Such is Dostoevsky's elder Zosima, and such is his disciple Alyosha, who in his life so rich in content does not seem to have any life of his own and does not know today what he will do tomorrow, but everywhere he instills peace, repentance and love around him: brothers, children and women - everything is humbled in the presence of his love, like animals to the sounds of the Orpheus harp, and his whole life merges into the wonderful unity of Christ's work. Such is also Makar Ivanovich in "Teenager" - an old wanderer and at the same time a moralist-philosopher, who passionately loves people and cares about common salvation; mentioned about such a person (living in retirement Bishop Tikhon) and in the novel "Demons".

MINISTERS OF RENAISSANCE AND LOVE

Who are these ministers? We have just seen that to depict them, the type is given not only religious, but also directly ecclesiastical; it is understandable not only from a dogmatic point of view, but also from a purely psychological point of view: so that, living in the midst of a vale of sin and suffering, to know another life with the experience of your own heart, you need to know it not only as a mystical distraction, but as really acting and existing apart from me, and consequently, a continuous historical force, that is, you need to know the Church, which teaches you to believe in your invincibility by the gates of hell, you need to live in the Church. But what to say about those people who are involved in one of these properties of the called preacher, but did not manage to develop to the full, harmonious development of the rest?

The answer is that such people are, in part, destined to have an influence on their neighbors, although far from being so complete and not so wide. Even those creatures who, not possessing the positive properties of a chosen one, are free, at least from the vices opposite to them, but inherent in every natural person, that is, first of all, pride and cold self-isolation, or, as the author puts it, isolation, are not devoid of it. These are primarily children and even babies. Yes, Dostoevsky's children always acquire the meaning of involuntary missionaries. Dostoevsky reproduces this idea so often in various stories that he could be accused of repetition, if he did not know how to put a new feature in every, so to speak, version of this idea, like a new pearl in a magnificent tiara. The foundling child compels the "teenager" to abandon his proud idea for the sake of compassion for his defenselessness, the child softened the evil, callous heart of the Pharisee merchant in the story of Makar Ivanovich ("Teenager"). The child Nelly reconciles the insulted father with the fallen daughter, the child Polenka softens the murderer of Raskolnikov, etc. Finally, in the last minutes of the life of the godless suicides, when their spirit finally rebelled against the Lord, Providence puts before them in reality, or even in feverish delirium, the images of innocent suffering babies, who sometimes for a while tear them away from their evil plan, then completely return them to repentance and life. Such is the meeting of a beggar child in The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and the same meeting in the delirium of the suicide Svidrigailov (Crime and Punishment) or Shatov's newborn child in Demons.

Purity, humility of children, and especially with their defenselessness and suffering, awaken temporary love even in villains. Unbelievers, like Ivan Karamazov, see children's sufferings as reasons for pessimistic bitterness, and believers, on the contrary, for reconciliation and forgiveness, like Ilya's father (in "The Brothers Karamazov"), who forgave the enemy of Dimitri for the suffering of the dying baby whom he loved most in the world. The author himself, in the story "The Boy at Christ's on the Tree", obviously reveals the following idea: if even innocent children suffer here, then, of course, there is another, better world. But what practical meaning can pointing to children have for us? What do children mean for pastoral theology? They mean the same as Christ's words: "if you do not turn and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 18: 3). Children have purity and lack of pride, this reason for general isolation, they have no difference between internal and external life. Not wanting to consciously influence others, they unconsciously achieve greater influence than adults who are alien to purity and openness. A detached, perishing person seeks among his neighbors such a heart with which he could immediately associate, merge, which would not be a stranger to him: such is the heart of children - these eternal cosmopolitans.

But don't adults have the same properties - direct humility, purity, openness and heartfelt availability? All this is found among people from the people, and then they are missionaries even the strongest: such a person immediately becomes close, dear to everyone and can freely pour the content of his soul into him, without fear from the learned proud rivalry, - such is the "man of Morey", Makar Ivanovich, Lukerya (in "Meek") and others. “First of all, what attracted him (in Makar Ivanovich), as I already noted above, was his extraordinary sincerity and lack of the slightest pride; an almost sinless heart was felt. There was "joy" of the heart, and therefore - "goodness." He was very fond of the word "joy" and often used it. True, sometimes a kind of morbid enthusiasm was found on him, a kind of soreness of emotion — partly, I suppose, because the fever, really speaking, did not leave him all the time; but this did not interfere with goodness. There were also contrasts: next to his amazing innocence, which sometimes did not notice irony at all (often to my annoyance), there was some cunning subtlety in him, often in polemical errors. And he loved polemics, but sometimes he only used it in a peculiar way: it was evident that he traveled a lot in Russia, listened a lot, but, I repeat, most of all he loved tenderness, and therefore everything that was suggestive of him; and he himself loved to tell entertaining things. "

In pointing out this ability of the representatives of the people, we must protect our great writer from those accusations of preaching ignorance and superstition, which were very persistently and just as insincerely thrown at him by literary enemies. His teachers from the people or from monks are always lovers of science, and even worldly sciences, and do not humiliate the dignity of the latter: Makar Ivanovich even knows a telescope. Dostoevsky himself says in his “Diary of a Writer” about education and the need to spread it among the people: “Education even now occupies the first stage in our society. Everything is inferior to her; all class advantages, one might say, melt in it ... In the intensified, in the speediest development of education - all our future, all our independence, all strength, the only conscious way forward, and, most importantly, the peaceful way, the way of harmony, the way to real strength ... Only education can we fill up the deep ditch that now separates us from our native soil. Literacy and its intensified dissemination is the first step of any education ”. This is what he writes to the “teenager” -the idealist in the hand of his teacher: “The thought of your entering the university is extremely beneficial for you. Science and life will undoubtedly open even wider horizons of your thoughts and aspirations in three or four years, and if after university you want to turn to your idea again, then nothing will prevent that. " Obviously, Dostoevsky does not boast of the ignorance of the people, but the freedom of his best people from deceitful self-isolation and painful pride, these worst enemies of our revival, alas, not noticed by the cultured public and cultural education. Appreciating science and education, Dostoevsky ordered to learn from the people, but not in the sense of complete isolation of Russian life from Europe, but for purposes, firstly, moral, and secondly, general cultural, world goals. European culture, imbued with the motive of pride, does not bring together, but separates, internally alienates people and peoples. The ability to truly spiritually unite with everyone is possessed only by those who are humble in heart. And since humility in Russia is not only a trait of individuals, but a folk trait, that is, it is introduced into individuals by a folk culture that grew out of Orthodoxy, from Orthodox asceticism, the entire Russian people has the ability to communicate spiritually. The latter was expressed in the genius of Pushkin, who knew how to artistically transform into all nationalities, which neither Shakespeare nor Schiller could do. This is the content of Dostoevsky's famous "Pushkin speech" and, in general, his teaching on the all-human mission of the Russian people. We will not talk about it, but we will mention it to confirm the idea that Dostoevsky's social and philosophical views follow from moral and psychological observations and facts, and do not precede them. Let's return to the consideration of personal life. Before proceeding to describe how humility and love, according to Dostoevsky, can convert sinners and plant the Kingdom of God, let us finish another review of the character of his missionaries: after the ministers of the Church, children and peasants, he calls women to this cause. A woman who is loving but also humble is a great strength.

Love, but devoid of humility, produces family torment and gope, so that the stronger this love, not only for the husband, but also for the children, the more evil it is from it - if there is no humility in it. From proud love, betrayal and binge of husbands, suicide of grooms and suffering of children: the love of Katerina Ivanovna - the bride ("The Brothers Karamazov") and Katerina Ivanovna - the mother and wife ("Crime and Punishment"), the love of Liza - the daughter and the bride, the love of Grushenka, "Meek", or Nelly ("Humiliated and Insulted"), Katya ("Netochka Nezvanova"), Shatov's wife ("Demons") and all generally proud natures are a source of evil and unnecessary suffering. On the contrary, the love of the humble and self-humiliated is the source of peace and repentance. Such are the mother of Raskolnikov and Sonya, whom even the prisoners began to adore, guessing in her a humble and contrite heart, such is Natasha's mother ("The Humiliated and Insulted") and the mother of "Teenager", the legless sister of Ilyusha ("The Brothers Karamazov"), "Netochka Nezvanova" , the mother of Alyosha Karamazov and many others. They do not strive to forcefully insist on their own, but with love, tears, forgiveness and prayer, they almost always achieve repentance and conversion of their beloved husbands, parents and children. At the difficult step of renouncing their former life, their favorites and favorites are inspired by the example of this constant self-denial, as if they absorb the power of self-denial, and the love of a creature filled with humility makes the very feat of the former proud man sweet.

The fifth missionary for Dostoevsky is himself reborn in his sufferings.

“He who suffers from the flesh stops sinning,” said the apostle (1 Pet 4: 1). Almost all cases of conversion and repentance of Dostoevsky's heroes occur during either severe loss or illness. We will not explain the thought that “if our outer man is smoldering, then the inner one is renewed from day to day” (2 Cor 4:16), we will not, for it is too familiar to all who have read the Divine Scripture. The practical conclusion from this, for the pastors proper, is that one does not need to look with horror and murmur at the sufferings of others, others and their own. This thought generally reconciles a person with life, calms him at the sight of the perseverance of triumphant anger, which nevertheless once in his sufferings will give access to repentance, and according to the word of the apostle: “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase; therefore, he who plants and he who waters is nothing, but God who returns everything ”(1 Cor. 3: 6-7).

To be continued...

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“Feeling must be handled with care so that it does not break. There is nothing more valuable in life than love. You should forgive more - look for guilt in yourself and smooth out roughness in others. Choose God once and for all and irrevocably and serve him throughout life. I gave myself to Fedor Mikhailovich when I was 18 years old. Now I am over 70, and I still only belong to him with every thought, every deed. I belong to his memory, his work, his children, his grandchildren. And everything that is at least partly his is entirely mine. And there is and there was nothing for me outside of this service, ”wrote Anna Grigorievna Dostoevskaya shortly before her death.

We are in website we believe that A.G. Dostoevskaya was the very great woman who stood behind the great man. However, not for. Nearby.

early years

Anna Snitkina in the 1860s.

Anna Grigorievna Snitkina - Netochka, as she was affectionately called in the family - was born on August 30 (September 11 in a new style), 1846 in St. Petersburg, in the family of the official Grigory Ivanovich Snitkin and his wife Anna Nikolaevna Miltopeus, Finnish women of Swedish origin.

From her mother, Anna inherited pedantry and accuracy, which helped her graduate from St. Anne's School among the best, and the Mariinsky Women's Gymnasium - with a silver medal. The girl decided to devote her life to teaching children and entered pedagogical courses. However, Netochka had to part with this dream: due to her father's serious illness, she was forced to quit her studies. But Grigory Ivanovich insisted that his daughter go to study stenography, and she, thanks to her inherent diligence, became the best among her fellow practitioners.

In 1866, Anna's father died and the family's financial situation deteriorated markedly. Her stenography teacher, P.M. Olkhin, offered the girl a job: she was supposed to write stenographers for the writer F.M.Dostoevsky, who, by an amazing coincidence, was her father's favorite writer. Having received a note from Olkhin, which read: “Stolyarny lane, corner of M. Meshchanskaya, Alonkin's house, apt. No. 13, ask Dostoevsky, ”she went to the indicated address.

Meeting with Dostoevsky

“I didn't like him and left a heavy impression. I thought that I would hardly get along with him at work, and my dreams of independence were threatening to crumble to dust. "

F.M.Dostoevsky in 1863.

By the time he met Netochka, Fyodor Mikhailovich was in a very deplorable financial situation. After the death of his brother, he took over the remaining promissory notes, because of which creditors were about to threaten to take away all the writer's property, and send him to a debt prison. In addition, Dostoevsky was in charge of not only the family of his deceased elder brother, but also the younger, Nikolai, as well as the 21-year-old stepson - the son of his first wife, Maria Dmitrievna.

To pay off his debts, the writer entered into an onerous contract for 3,000 rubles with the publisher Stellovsky, according to which he was supposed to publish a complete collection of works and write a new novel at the expense of the same fee. The publisher set a clear deadline for Dostoevsky - the novel must be ready by November 1, otherwise he would have to pay a forfeit, and the rights to all the works would be transferred to a cunning businessman for several years.

Carried away by his work on Crime and Punishment, the writer completely forgot about the deadlines, and The Gambler - the same novel that was supposed to be ready by early November - existed only in the form of sketches. Dostoevsky, who always wrote with his own hand, had to use the services of a stenographer to meet the deadline. 26 days before the deadline, Anna Grigorievna Snitkina appeared on the doorstep of his apartment.

The title page of the first edition of The Gambler.

And she did the almost impossible: on October 30, 1866, The Gambler was finished. The publisher paid 3,000 rubles, but all the money went to the creditors. After 8 days, Anna again came to Fyodor Mikhailovich to agree on work on completing Crime and Punishment. However, he spoke to the girl about a new romance - the story of an old artist who experienced a lot of suffering, who meets a young girl named Anna.

Years later, she recalled: “'Put yourself in her place,' he said in a trembling voice. - Imagine that this artist is me, that I confessed my love to you and asked to be my wife. Tell me, what would you answer me? "<...> I looked at the worried face of Fyodor Mikhailovich, so dear to me, and said: “ I would answer you that I love you and will love you all my life!“»

Travel to Europe

Anna Dostoevskaya in 1871.

“I realized that this is not a simple 'weakness of will', but an all-consuming passion for a person, something spontaneous, against which even a strong character cannot fight. We must come to terms with this, look at it as a disease against which there are no means. "

A. G. Dostoevskaya. Memories

Anna Grigorievna and Fyodor Mikhailovich were married on February 15, 1867. The first months of their married life were difficult for the young woman: as you know, the writer suffered from epilepsy all his life, and Anna was tormented by the realization that there was nothing she could help him. Doubts also tormented her: it seemed to her that her husband would suddenly be disappointed in her and stop loving her. In addition, the numerous relatives of Dostoevsky, with whom she had to live under the same roof, treated her with disdain, and her husband’s stepson openly mocked her.

To change the situation and prevent the marriage from collapsing, Anna Grigorievna invited her husband to go on a trip to Europe, for which she had to pawn the jewelry she received as a dowry. Fyodor Mikhailovich himself was poor: as soon as even the smallest fee appeared, relatives resorted to various requests, which he could not refuse. In general, he was a very kind and naive person: the writer was ready to give up the last, not even noticing the obvious deception.

The couple set off on the journey with a heavy heart, as Dostoevsky was afraid that the passion for roulette that had arisen in previous trips abroad would reappear. For the first time in her life, 21-year-old Anna found herself far from her mother, whom she consoled by the fact that she would return in 3 months (in fact, they returned to Petersburg after 4 years). The girl promised her mother to write down everything that would happen in a notebook - this is how the unique diary of the writer's wife was born, in which many details of their then life were described.

In 1867, during a trip, Anna found a hobby that remained with her throughout her life - collecting postage stamps - and became one of the first philatelists in Russia.

Here is what she writes in “Memoirs”: “I was very indignant in my husband that he rejected in the women of my generation any restraint of character, any persistent and prolonged striving to achieve the intended goal.<...>

For some reason, this argument provoked me, and I announced to my husband that I would prove to him by my own example that a woman could pursue an idea that had attracted her attention for years. And since at the present moment<...> I don’t see any big task before me, then I’ll start at least with the lesson you just indicated, and from today on I’ll start collecting stamps.

No sooner said than done. I dragged Fyodor Mikhailovich into the first stationery store I came across and bought (with my own money) a cheap album for sticking stamps. At home, I immediately blinded stamps from three or four letters I received from Russia and thus laid the foundation for the collection. Our hostess, having learned of my intention, rummaged between the letters and gave me some old Thurn-y-Taxis and the Kingdom of Saxon. Thus began my collecting of postage stamps, and it has been going on for forty-nine years ... "

Lyuba Dostoevskaya, the daughter of a writer.

Dostoevsky's fears about roulette were not in vain: once in Europe, he began to play again, sometimes even laying a wedding ring and his wife's jewelry. But Anna humbly endured and consoled him when he sobbed on her lap, asking for forgiveness, because every time after another loss he sat down to work and wrote without rest for long hours.

During the trip, the Dostoevsky couple had two children. Their first-born, Sophia, lived only three months: “I cannot depict the despair that overcame us when we saw our dear daughter dead. Deeply shocked and saddened by her death, I was terribly afraid for my unfortunate husband: his despair was violent, he sobbed and cried like a woman, ”wrote Anna Grigorievna.

Their second daughter, Love, was born in Dresden in 1869. But life away from their native Petersburg in conditions of constant lack of money became more and more painful, and in 1871 the Dostoevskys decided to return to their homeland. In the same place, in Germany, the writer played his last game of roulette - the quiet non-resistance of his wife did the trick:

« A great deed has been accomplished for me, the vile fantasy that tormented me for almost 10 years has disappeared.<...> Now it's over! It was quite the last time. Do you believe, Anya, that now my hands are untied; I was bound by the game and now I will think about business and not dream about the game for whole nights, as it used to be.<...> Anya, save me your heart, do not hate me and do not fall out of love. Now that I am so refreshed, let's go together and I will make you happy!»

And Dostoevsky kept his word: until the end of his life he never gambled again.

Return to St. Petersburg

“I loved Fyodor Mikhailovich infinitely, but it was not physical love, not passion that could exist among persons of equal age. My love was purely head, ideological. It was rather adoration, admiration for a man so talented and possessing such high spiritual qualities. "

A. G. Dostoevskaya. Memories

Anna Grigorievna with children Fedor and Lyubov, Petersburg, 1870s.

Most of all, in St. Petersburg, Fedor Mikhailovich was expected by creditors. But long living away from home and numerous hardships turned the modest and quiet Anna into an energetic and enterprising woman who took over all her husband's financial affairs. She always treated her husband as a big, naive and simple-minded child - even though he was a quarter of a century older than her - who must be protected from all pressing problems. Soon after her return, she gave birth to a son, Fedor, but, despite the hassle with the newborn, Anna Grigorievna decided to deal with the creditors herself.

She agreed with them about a deferred payment and began to do something that no Russian writer had ever done: prepare the novel "Demons" for independent publication without the help of publishers. With her characteristic pedantry, Dostoevskaya figured out all the intricacies of publishing, and The Demons sold out instantly, bringing in a good profit. And since then, the writer's wife independently published all the works of her genius husband.

In 1875, another joyful event happened in the family - a second son, Alexei, was born. But, unfortunately, Fyodor Mikhailovich's illness, epilepsy, was transmitted to him, and the very first attack that happened to the boy at the age of 3 killed him. The writer was beside himself with grief, and Anna Grigorievna insisted that he go to Optina Pustyn, and she herself was left alone with her misfortune. “My usual cheerfulness disappeared, as did my usual energy, which was replaced by apathy. I lost interest in everything: to the housework, business and even to my own children, ”she wrote in her“ Memoirs ”years later.

"Walking behind Fyodor Mikhailovich's coffin, I vowed to live for our children, I vowed the rest of my life to devote, as much as I could, to glorifying the memory of my unforgettable husband and spreading his noble ideas."

Life after the death of Fyodor Mikhailovich

“All my life it seemed a kind of mystery to me that my kind husband not only loved and respected me, as many husbands love and respect their wives, but almost bowed before me, as if I were some kind of special being, just for him created, and this is not only in the first time of marriage, but in all other years until his death. But in reality I was not distinguished by beauty, did not possess either talents or special mental development, and I had a secondary education (gymnasium). And in spite of this, she has earned deep reverence and almost worship from such an intelligent and talented person. "

Anna Grigorievna outlived the writer by 37 years and devoted all these years to his memory: only the complete works of the genius husband were published 7 times during her lifetime, and individual books were published in even greater numbers. At the end of the 19th century, many years later, she began to transcribe the stenographic notes of 1867, which, like their letters with her husband and "Memoirs", were published after Dostoevskaya's death, since she herself considered their publication immodest. In memory of Fyodor Mikhailovich, she organized in Staraya Russa - where the spouses had a dacha - a school for poor peasant children.

The last year of Anna Grigorievna's life, which she spent in the revolution-ridden Yalta, was very difficult: she suffered from malaria and was starving. On June 8, 1918, the writer's widow died and was buried at the city's Polikurovsky cemetery. Half a century later, Dostoevsky's grandson, Andrei Fedorovich, reburied her ashes in the Alexander Nevsky Lavra - the place where she was once born - next to the grave of her beloved husband.

Their marriage lasted only 14 years, but it was at this time that Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky wrote all his most famous and significant novels: Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, The Brothers Karamazov. And who knows, if Anna Grigorievna had not been with him, Dostoevsky would have become the main Russian writer, whose works are read and loved in all corners of the world?