In October 1821, a second child was born in the family of the nobleman Mikhail Dostoevsky, who worked in a hospital for the poor. The boy was named Fedor. So the future great writer was born, the author of the immortal works The Idiot, The Brothers Karamazov, Crime and Punishment.
They say that the father of Fyodor Dostoevsky was very hot-tempered, which to some extent was transmitted to the future writer. The emotional nature was skillfully "extinguished" by the children's nanny, Alena Frolovna. Otherwise, the children were forced to grow up in an atmosphere of total fear and obedience, which, however, also had some influence on the future of the writer.
Studying in St. Petersburg and the beginning of a creative path
1837 turned out to be a difficult year for the Dostoevsky family. Mom passes away. The father, who has seven children left in his care, decides to send his eldest sons to a boarding school in St. Petersburg. So Fedor, along with his older brother, ends up in the northern capital. Here he goes to study at a military engineering school. A year before his graduation, he begins to translate. And in 1843 he published his own translation of Balzac's work "Eugene Grande".
The writer's own creative path begins with the story "Poor People". The described tragedy of the little man found worthy praise from the critic Belinsky and the poet Nekrasov, already popular at that time. Dostoevsky enters the circle of writers, meets Turgenev.
In the next three years, Fyodor Dostoevsky published the works "Double", "Mistress", "White Nights", "Netochka Nezvanova". In all of them, he made an attempt to penetrate the human soul, describing in detail the subtleties of the character of the characters. But these works were received by critics very cool. Innovation was not accepted by Nekrasov and Turgenev, revered by Dostoevsky. This forced the writer to move away from friends.
in exile
In 1849, the writer was sentenced to death. This was connected with the "Petrashevsky case", for which a sufficient evidence base was collected. The writer was preparing for the worst, but just before the execution, his sentence was changed. At the last moment, the condemned are read the decree, according to which they must go to hard labor. All the time that Dostoevsky spent in anticipation of execution, all his emotions and experiences, he tried to display in the image of the hero of the novel "The Idiot" Prince Myshkin.
The writer spent four years in hard labor. Then he was pardoned for good behavior and sent to serve in the military battalion of Semipalatinsk. Immediately he found his destiny: in 1857 he married the widow of an official Isaev. It should be noted that in the same period, Fyodor Dostoevsky turned to religion, deeply idealizing the image of Christ.
In 1859, the writer moved to Tver, and then to St. Petersburg. Ten years of wandering in hard labor and military service made him very sensitive to human suffering. The writer had a real revolution of outlook.
European period
The beginning of the 60s was marked by turbulent events in the writer's personal life: he fell in love with Appolinaria Suslova, who fled abroad with another. Fyodor Dostoevsky followed his beloved to Europe and traveled with her to different countries for two months. At the same time, he became addicted to playing roulette.
The year 1865 was marked by the writing of Crime and Punishment. After its publication, fame came to the writer. At the same time, a new love appears in his life. She became a young stenographer Anna Snitkina, who became his faithful friend until her death. With her, he fled from Russia, hiding from large debts. Already in Europe he wrote the novel The Idiot.
Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky was born on October 30 (November 11), 1821 in Moscow. There he spent his youth.
In 1837, Fedor went to study in St. Petersburg, at the Engineering School.
After graduating in 1843, Dostoevsky entered the service. His salary was high, but extreme impracticality and an addiction to playing roulette, which at times forced him to lead a half-starved existence. Dostoevsky also did not feel interest in the service, which prompted him to seek satisfaction in literary experiments. Success came quickly: published in 1845, the novel "Poor People" was favorably received by readers and critics. Dostoevsky became famous and immediately said goodbye to the service without regret, intending to deal only with literature.
However, luck turned away from him - the next few stories, including "The Double" and "The Mistress", were regarded as mediocre. A long period of lack of money, despair and tedious petty literary work for pennies led to an exacerbation of mental illness in a young writer. Even the relative success of the stories "Netochka Nezvanova" and "White Nights" did not console their author.
In such a morbid state, in 1849, Dostoevsky joined the circle of the revolutionary anarchist Petrashevsky. His role in this organization was very modest, but the court, which took place after the arrest of the members of the circle, called him a dangerous criminal. Along with other revolutionaries, in April 1849 Dostoevsky was disenfranchised and sentenced to death. At the last moment, the condemned were announced that the execution would be replaced by four years of hard labor, followed by military service. The feelings experienced by the condemned, Dostoevsky later reproduced in the novel "The Idiot" through the mouth of Prince Myshkin.
The years from 1850 to 1854 the writer spent as a convict in a prison in the city of Omsk. The misadventures of those years became the basis of his story Notes from the House of the Dead. From 1854 to 1859 Dostoevsky served in the Siberian line battalion, rising from private to ensign. Living in Siberia, he published the stories "The Village of Stepanchikovo and Its Inhabitants" and "Uncle's Dream". There he experienced the first love feeling for Maria Dmitrievna Isaeva, whom he married in 1857 in the city of Kuznetsk.
In 1859, Dostoevsky and his wife were able to leave for St. Petersburg. Together with his brother Mikhail, the writer became the publisher of the popular Vremya magazine, where his Humiliated and Insulted and Notes from the House of the Dead saw the light of day. In 1863, the magazine was liquidated by censorship, which marked the beginning of another black streak in the life of Fyodor Mikhailovich: in search of money for the revival of the magazine, the brothers ran into debt, Dostoevsky's short-lived passion for the femme fatale Apollinaria Suslova devastated him morally and financially, he returned to the ruinous game of roulette . In April 1864, his wife died, and three months later, his brother Mikhail, who left his impoverished family in the care of Fyodor Mikhailovich. Dostoevsky again took possession of a deplorable state of mind, illness, and the demands of creditors. An attempt to revive the magazine brought only new financial problems, the writer could not even solve them profitably by selling his novels Crime and Punishment and The Gambler. However, work on these works brought him an acquaintance with the stenographer Anna Grigoryevna Snitkina. Their relationship led to marriage in 1867.
Having escaped from creditors, the Dostoevskys spent the next four years abroad, in Germany and Switzerland. Trying to pay off his debts, the writer worked hard, publishing one major novel a year. This is how “Idiot”, “Eternal Husband”, “Demons” appeared, but there was no significant improvement in the financial situation of the family.
Only in June 1878 Dostoevsky with his wife and children returned to St. Petersburg. Anna Grigoryevna took up financial affairs - having wisely disposed of the reprinting of her husband's works, for several years she was able to pay off her debts and even provide prosperity. Dostoevsky continued his fruitful literary activity: in 1875 he wrote A Teenager, in 1876 a Meek One, and began a Writer's Diary.
In the last years of his life, Dostoevsky received long-awaited recognition as a writer. He edited the magazine "Grazhdanin" and completed the main novel of his life - "The Brothers Karamazov".
Photo from 1879
K.A. Shapiro
Fedor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky(1821-1881) - Russian writer.
Father - Mikhail Andreevich Dostoevsky (1787-1839) - from the family of a priest, a military doctor, then a doctor in a hospital for the poor.
Mother - Maria Fedorovna Nechaeva (1800-1837) - from a merchant's family, died of tuberculosis at the age of 37.
First wife - Maria Dmitrievna Isaeva (1824-1864). After the death of her first husband in 1855, she remarried Fyodor Mikhailovich in 1857. There were no children from marriage with Dostoevsky. She died of tuberculosis in 1864.
The second wife is Anna Grigoryevna Snitkina (1846-1918). They signed with Fedor Mikhailovich in 1867. Married to Dostoevsky had four children. The first daughter Sophia died at the age of three months. Children: Sophia (February 22, 1868 - May 12, 1868), Love (1869-1926), Fedor (1871-1922), Alexei (1875-1878).
Fedor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky was born on October 30 (November 11 according to a new style) in 1821 in the city of Moscow. The writer spent his childhood in his native city and in the estate of his parents, which they acquired in 1831. Parents from childhood were engaged in the education of Fedor Mikhailovich. His mother taught him to read, and his father taught him Latin. Then the training was continued by the teacher of one of the schools with his sons. They taught Dostoevsky French, mathematics and literature. From 1834 to 1837, Fedor Mikhailovich studied at a prestigious Moscow boarding school.
In 1837, after the death of his mother, his father sent Fedor and his brother Mikhail to study in St. Petersburg, at the Main Engineering School. In his free time, he was fond of reading. I read many authors, and knew almost all of Pushkin's works by heart. Here, he took his first literary steps.
In 1843, after graduating from college, he was enrolled in the St. Petersburg engineering team. But military service did not appeal to him, and in 1844 he received a dismissal in order to devote more time to literature.
In 1846, Dostoevsky was accepted into Belinsky's literary circle for his work Poor People. In the same year, Poor People was published in Sovremennik. By the end of 1846, due to his second work, The Double, due to a conflict with Turgenev, he left Belinsky's mugs and then, due to a quarrel with Nekrasov, ceased to be published in Sovremennik. And until 1849 he was published in Otechestvennye Zapiski. During this period, Dostoevsky wrote many works, but the novel "Poor People" is considered the best.
In 1849 he was sentenced to death by firing squad in the Petrashevsky case. But on the day of execution, the sentence was changed to four years of hard labor and further stay in the soldiers. From 1850 to 1854 Dostoevsky spent in hard labor in Omsk. After his release from hard labor, he was sent as a private to the 7th Siberian linear battalion in Semipalatinsk (now the city of Semey in the East Kazakhstan region in the Republic of Kazakhstan). Here he meets his future wife, Maria Dmitrievna Isaeva (maiden name Constant), who at that time was married to a local official Isaev. In 1857, Fyodor Mikhailovich and Maria Dmitrievna got married. In 1857 he was pardoned and by the end of 1859 he returned to St. Petersburg.
Since 1859, he helped his brother Mikhail publish the magazine Vremya, and after its closure, the magazine Epoch. Since 1862, he began to often visit abroad. I got really into playing roulette. It so happened that he lost everything he had, down to things. Dostoevsky was able to cope with this passion. Since 1871, Fedor Mikhailovich never played roulette again. In 1864, his wife died of consumption. After the death of his brother in 1865, Dostoevsky assumes all debt obligations under the Epoch magazine. In the same year, he began work on the novel Crime and Punishment. In 1866, to speed up work on the novel The Gambler, Dostoevsky used the stenographer Anna Grigorievna Snitkina. In 1867, Fedor Mikhailovich and Anna Grigorievna got married. From 1867 to 1869 he worked on the novel The Idiot, and in 1872 he completed work on the novel The Demons. In 1880 he completed his last novel, The Brothers Karamazov.
Fedor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky died in St. Petersburg on January 28, 1881 from tuberculosis and chronic bronchitis. On February 1, 1881, Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky was buried at the Tikhvin cemetery of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra in St. Petersburg.
[around 8 (19) November 1788, p. Voitovtsy of Podolsk province. - June 6 (18), 1839, p. Darovoe, Tula province.]
Writer's father. He came from a large family of the Uniate priest Andrey in the village of Voytovtsy, Podolsk province. On December 11, 1802, he was assigned to the theological seminary at the Shargorod Nicholas Monastery. On October 15, 1809, already from the Podolsk Seminary, to which the Shargorod Seminary had been attached by that time, he was sent, after completing the rhetoric class, through the Podolsk Medical Council to the Moscow branch of the Medical and Surgical Academy for state support. In August 1812, Mikhail Andreevich was sent to a military hospital, from 1813 he served in the Borodino Infantry Regiment, in 1816 he was awarded the title of staff physician, in 1819 he was transferred as an intern to the Moscow military hospital, in January 1821 after his dismissal in December 1820 from military service, he was appointed to the Moscow hospital for the poor as a “doctor at the department of incoming patients with women<ого>gender." On January 14, 1820, Mikhail Andreevich married the daughter of a third guild merchant. On October 30 (November 11), 1821, their son Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky was born. (For more on the biography of Mikhail Andreevich before the birth of Dostoevsky, see: Fedorov G.A."Landlord. Father was killed...”, or the Story of one fate // Novy Mir. 1988. No. 10. S. 220-223). On April 7, 1827, Mikhail Andreevich was awarded the rank of collegiate assessor, on April 18, 1837 he was promoted to collegiate adviser with seniority, and on July 1, 1837 he was dismissed from service. In 1831, Mikhail Andreevich bought an estate in the Kashirsky district of the Tula province, consisting of the village of Darovoye and the village of Cheremoshna.
The large family of the Moscow doctor of the hospital for the poor (four brothers and three sisters in the family of children) was not at all rich, but only very modestly provided with the most necessary things and never allowed himself any luxuries and excesses. Mikhail Andreevich, strict and demanding of himself, was even stricter and more demanding of others, and above all, of his children. He can be called a kind, wonderful family man, a humane and enlightened person, which he talks about, for example, in his son.
Mikhail Andreevich loved his children very much and knew how to educate them. The writer owes his enthusiastic idealism and striving for beauty most of all to his father and home education. And when his older brother wrote to his father already as a young man: “Let them take everything from me, leave me naked, but give me Schiller, and I will forget the whole world!” He knew, of course, that his father would understand him, since he, too, was no stranger to idealism. But after all, these words could have been written to his father by Fyodor Dostoevsky, who, together with his older brother, raved in his youth, I.F. Schiller, who dreamed of everything sublime and beautiful.
This characterization can be transferred to the entire Dostoevsky family. The father not only never applied corporal punishment to children, although the main means of education in his time were rods, but he also did not put children on their knees in a corner and, with his limited means, still did not send anyone to the gymnasium just because they were flogged there. .
The life of the Dostoevsky family was full, with tender, loving and beloved matter, with a caring and demanding (sometimes overly demanding) father, with a loving. And yet, much more important is not the actual situation in the Mariinsky hospital, accurately reproduced in A.M. Dostoevsky, but the perception of this situation by the writer and the memory of it in his work.
Dostoevsky's second wife said that her husband loved to remember his "happy and serene childhood", and, indeed, all his statements testify to this. Here is how, for example, Dostoevsky subsequently, in conversations with his younger brother, Andrei Mikhailovich, spoke about his parents: family men, such fathers, we will not be with you, brother! ..” Dostoevsky noted: “I came from a Russian and pious family. Ever since I can remember, I remember my parents' love for me. We in our family knew the Gospel almost from the first childhood. I was only ten years old when I already knew almost all the main episodes of Russian history from Karamzin, which my father read aloud to us in the evenings. Each time visiting the Kremlin and Moscow cathedrals was something solemn for me.
The father forced the children to read not only N.M. Karamzin, but also V.A. Zhukovsky, and the young poet A.S. Pushkin. And if Dostoevsky, at the age of 16, experienced the death of the poet as a great Russian grief, then to whom does he owe this if not to his family, and above all to his father, who early instilled in him a love of literature. It is in childhood that one should look for the origins of that amazing admiration for the genius of A.S. Pushkin, which Dostoevsky carried through his whole life. And the inspired, prophetic word about him, said by Dostoevsky six months before his death, in June 1880, at the opening of the monument to A.S. Pushkin in Moscow, is rooted in the childhood of the writer, and is associated with the name of his father.
Dostoevsky kept a bright memory of his childhood for the rest of his life, but even more important is how these memories were reflected in his work. Three years before his death, having begun to create his last ingenious, Dostoevsky invested in the biography of the hero of the novel, the elder Zosima, echoes of his own childhood impressions: parental home, and this is almost always the case, even if in the family there is at least a little love and union. Yes, even precious memories can be preserved from the most bad family, if only your soul itself is capable of searching for the precious. In addition to my family memories, I also include memories of sacred history, which in my parental home, although as a child, I was very curious to know. Then I had a book, a sacred history, with beautiful pictures, called "One Hundred and Four Sacred Histories of the Old and New Testaments," and I learned to read from it. And now I have it here on the shelf, as I preserve a precious memory.
This trait is truly autobiographical. Dostoevsky really studied, as A.M. testifies in his “Memoirs”. Dostoevsky, to read from this book, and when, ten years before his death, the writer got exactly the same edition, he was very happy and kept it as a relic.
“The Brothers Karamazov” ends with Alyosha Karamazov’s speech addressed to his fellow schoolchildren, at the stone after the funeral of the boy Ilyushechka: “Know that there is nothing higher, and stronger, and healthier, and more useful from now on for life, like some good memory , and especially taken from childhood, from the parental home. You have been told a lot about your upbringing, but some sort of beautiful, holy memory preserved from childhood, perhaps, is the best upbringing. If you take a lot of such memories with you into life, then a person is saved for life. And even if only one good memory remains with us in our hearts, then even that can someday serve to save us ”(Memories of a serene childhood helped Dostoevsky later move the scaffold and hard labor).
Parents have long thought about the future of their eldest sons, they knew about the literary hobbies of Fedor and Mikhail and encouraged them in every possible way. After studying at one of the best boarding schools in Moscow, famous for its "literary bias", Mikhail and Fyodor Dostoevsky were supposed to enter Moscow University, but the death of their mother and material need changed these plans.
After the thirty-seven-year-old died of consumption, seven children were left in her husband's arms. The death of his wife shocked and broke Mikhail Andreevich, who passionately, to the point of madness, loved his wife. Still not old, forty-eight years old, referring to the shaking of his right hand and deteriorating eyesight, he finally refused the promotion offered to him with a significant salary. He was forced to resign before reaching his twenty-fifth birthday and leave an apartment at the hospital (they did not have their own house in Moscow). Then, somehow suddenly, the material crisis of the family is realized; it's not just about poverty - ruin is foreseen. One of their small estates, more valuable, was mortgaged and remortgaged; now the same fate awaits another estate - completely insignificant.
Moscow University gave education, but not position. For the sons of a poor nobleman, a different path was chosen. Mikhail Andreevich decided to appoint Mikhail and Fedor to the Main Engineering School in St. Petersburg, and in mid-May 1837, his father took the brothers to St. Petersburg.
Dostoevsky would never see his father again. Two years later, a letter from his father will come about the impending ruin, and after the letter - the news of his untimely death. Dostoevsky “... Now our condition is even worse<...>Are there any more unfortunate brothers and sisters in the world than our poor brothers and sisters?
In the image of Dostoevsky's father Varenka Dostoevsky, the features of Mikhail Andreevich are seen, and the style of Makar Devushkin's letters is akin to the manner of the letters of the writer's father. “I feel sorry for the poor father,” Dostoevsky wrote from St. Petersburg to Revel to his elder brother Mikhail. — A strange character! Oh, how many misfortunes he endured. It is bitter to tears that there is nothing to console him with.”
Dostoevsky's isolation and seclusion in the Engineering School was facilitated not only by an earlier premonition of his writing destiny, but also by the terrible news he received in the summer of 1839: the serfs of the estate in Darovoye killed Mikhail Andreevich in the field on June 6, 1839 for their cruel treatment. This news shocked the young man. After all, his mother had recently died. He remembered how she loved her father with a real, ardent and deep love, remembered how her father loved her endlessly, remembered his serene childhood, his father, who instilled in him a love for literature, for everything high and beautiful (A.M. Dostoevsky writes that his father them was "always hospitable in the family, and sometimes cheerful"). No, he could not believe in the violent death of his father until the end of his days, he could never come to terms with this idea, for the news of the massacre of his father, a cruel serf-owner, contradicted the image of his father, a humane and enlightened man, which Dostoevsky forever preserved in your heart. That is why on March 10, 1876, in a letter to his brother Andrei, Dostoevsky spoke so highly of his parents: words) was the main idea of both our father and mother, despite all their deviations ... ”, and the husband of sister Varvara P.A. Karepin Dostoevsky: "...Be sure that I honor the memory of my parents no worse than you do yours..."
On June 18, 1975, an article by G.A. Fedorov "Conjectures and the Logic of Facts", in which he showed, on the basis of archival documents found, that Mikhail Andreevich Dostoevsky was not killed by peasants, but died in a field near Darovoye by his own death from "apoplexy."
Archival documents on the death of Mikhail Andreevich indicate that the natural nature of death was recorded by two doctors independently of each other - I.M. Shenrock from Zaraysk, Ryazan province, and Shenknecht from Kashira, Tula province. Under pressure from a neighboring landowner, who expressed doubts about the fact of the natural death of Mikhail Andreevich, after a while, retired captain A.I. turned to the authorities. Leybrecht. But the additional investigation also confirmed the initial conclusion of the doctors and ended with the “suggestion” of A.I. Leibrecht. Then a version appeared about bribes that "smeared" the case, and it was necessary to bribe many different authorities. A.M. Dostoevsky considers it impossible that impoverished peasants or helpless heirs could influence the course of affairs. There was only one argument left in favor of concealing the murder: the verdict would have entailed the exile of the peasants to Siberia, which would have a negative impact on the Dostoevskys' poor economy, which is why the heirs hushed up the case. However, this is not true either. No one hushed up the case, it went through all the instances. Rumors about the massacre of the peasants were spread by P.P. Khotyaintsev, with whom Dostoevsky's father had a land dispute. He decided to intimidate the peasants so that they would be submissive to him, since some households of the peasants P.P. Khotyaintsev were placed in Darovoye itself. He blackmailed the writer's grandmother (maternal), who came to find out about the reasons for what happened. A.M. Dostoevsky points out in his Memoirs that P.P. Khotyaintsev and his wife "were not advised to bring cases about it." Probably, this is where the rumor started in the Dostoevsky family that with the death of Mikhail Andreevich, not everything was clean.
The incredible assumption of the writer's daughter that "Dostoevsky, creating the type of Fyodor Karamazov, probably remembered the stinginess of his father, which caused his young sons such suffering and so outraged them, and his drunkenness, as well as the physical disgust that it inspired him children. When he wrote that Alyosha Karamazov did not feel this disgust, but felt sorry for his father, he probably recalled those moments of compassion that struggled with disgust in the soul of the young man Dostoevsky, which gave impetus to the appearance of a number of Freudian works, falsely and tendentiously playing on this the fact of the imaginary similarity between the writer's father and the old man Karamazov; see for example: Neufeld I. Dostoevsky: Psychological essay. L., 1925), published, by the way, under the editorship of the famous psychiatrist and, finally, the sensationally absurd article "Dostojewski un die Vatertotung" in the book "Die Urgestalt der Bruder Karamazoff" (Munchen, 1928) by Sigmund Freud himself, proving that Dostoevsky himself wished for the death of his father (!).
Critic V.V. Weidle rightly remarks on this subject: “Freud said clearly: “We have no other way to overcome our instincts than our reason”, what place is left here for such an anti-rational thing as transfiguration? However, there is no art without transformation, and it cannot be created by instincts or reason alone. The darkness of instinct and rational "enlightenment", only Tolstoy saw this when he wrote "The Power of Darkness", but his artistic genius nevertheless prompted him in the end to Nikita's unreasonable, although not instinctive repentance. Art lives in the world of conscience rather than consciousness; this world is closed to psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis only knows that hunting for instincts, groping in the darkness of the subconscious is the same universal mechanism.<...>. In one of his recent works, Freud not only attributed to Dostoevsky the desire for parricide, carried out through Smerdyakov and Ivan Karamazov, but also the prostration of the elder Zosima<...>explained as unconscious deceit, as malice pretending to be humility. Of these two "revelations", the first, in any case, does not explain anything in Dostoevsky's intentions as an artist, the second reveals a complete misunderstanding of the deed and the whole image of the elder Zosima. Psychoanalysis is powerless against The Brothers Karamazov" ( Veidle V.V. Dying of Art: Reflections on the Fate of Literary and Artistic Creativity. Paris, 1937, pp. 52-53).
To this absolutely correct remark by V.V. Weidle can only add that psychoanalysis is generally powerless against the Christian spirit, against Christian art, which is the whole art of Dostoevsky. A.M. Dostoevsky wrote in his diary: “Father is buried in the church fence [in Monogarovo], next to Darov. On his grave there is a stone without any signature, and the grave is surrounded by a wooden lattice, rather dilapidated. At present, the grave has not been preserved and the church has been destroyed (see: Belov S.V. Five travels in the places of Dostoevsky // Aurora. 1989. No. 6. P. 142). There is an assumption that the character of Varenka's father in "Poor People" resembles the character of Mikhail Andreevich, and the antagonism between Varenka's father and Anna Fedorovna reproduces the real relationship between Mikhail Andreevich and his wife's sister A.F. Kumanina.
Known, written jointly with the brothers (of which 3 were by Dostoevsky, the rest were written by M. M. Dostoevsky) and 6 letters to him by Dostoevsky himself for 1832-1839, as well as two letters from Mikhail Andreevich to Dostoevsky for 1837 and 1839. - one to both eldest sons, the other separately to Dostoevsky.
There are many examples where people probably foresaw the day of their death. One of these visionaries was the brilliant Russian writer Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky. He died on the evening of January 28 (February 9), 1881. Two days before, the author of the great novels felt bad. At night, as usual, he worked in his office. I accidentally dropped a pen, which rolled under the bookcase. Fyodor Mikhailovich decided to get it and tried to move the whatnot. She was surprisingly heavy. The writer tensed, and then he became ill. Blood flowed from his mouth. He wiped it with the back of his hand. Later, the state of health improved, and he did not attach serious importance to this episode. He did not call for help and did not wake his wife. In the morning his condition became even better. By dinner Dostoevsky was cheerful. He was waiting for the arrival of his sister from St. Petersburg. At dinner, the writer laughed, joked, reminisced about his childhood, about the time when they lived in Moscow. But sister Vera did not come with good intentions.
family scene
The Dostoevsky family had an estate near Ryazan. By that time, all their relatives had quarreled over this estate. Vera was sent by the sisters. She did not support her brother's carefree conversation at dinner, but started talking about part of the inheritance. The sister asked him to give up his share in favor of the sisters.
During the conversation, the woman became inflamed, spoke sharply, and, in the end, accused the writer of cruelty towards relatives. Her conversation ended in tears and almost hysteria. Being an emotional person, Fyodor Mikhailovich was very upset and left the table without finishing the meal. In the office, he again felt a taste on his lips. The writer screamed, his wife Anna Grigorievna Snitkina ran up to the sound. The doctor was urgently called. But by the time he arrived, the bleeding had passed, Fyodor Mikhailovich's health had returned to normal. The doctor found him in a good mood. The father, along with the children, read a humorous magazine. But soon the bleeding resumes. It is very strong and cannot be stopped. After a great loss of blood, Dostoevsky loses consciousness.
“There will be one room there, sort of like a village bath, smoky, and spiders in all corners, and that’s all eternity” F. Dostoevsky But everything turned out not so bad. Gradually, the bleeding stops and the patient falls asleep. In the morning, well-known doctors come to the ruler of thoughts: Professor Koshlakov and Dr. Pfeifer. They carefully examine the patient and reassure the wife:
Everything will be fine, he will recover soon.
And indeed, the next morning, Fedor Mikhailovich wakes up cheerful and charged to work. On his desk lies the proofreading of the "Diary of a Writer" and he starts editing. Then he has lunch: he drinks milk, eats some caviar. Relatives calm down.
Anna Snitkina - Dostoevsky's wife
And at night he calls his wife. She approaches the patient's bed in alarm. Fyodor Mikhailovich looks at her and says that he has not slept for several hours, because he realized that he would die today. Anna Grigorievna freezes in horror.
Anna Snitkina In the afternoon everything was so good, things were on the mend. And suddenly such a statement. The wife does not believe him, tries to dissuade him, says that the bleeding has ended, and that he will live for a long time. But Dostoevsky is sure of an imminent death. Where did this knowledge come from? Where does this confidence come from? No answer! It even seems that he is not very upset, in any case, he holds himself courageously. He asks his wife to read the Gospel. She doubtfully takes the book, reads: "But Jesus said to him in answer: do not hold back ...". The writer smiled prophetically, repeated: "Do not hold back, you see, do not hold back, then I will die."
But to the joy of Anna Grigoryevna, he soon falls asleep. Unfortunately, the dream was short-lived. Fyodor Mikhailovich woke up abruptly and the bleeding resumed. The doctor arrives at eight o'clock. But by this time the great writer is already in agony. Half an hour after the arrival of the doctor, the last breath escapes from Dostoevsky's mouth. He dies without regaining consciousness.
Dr. Wagner
Soon after the death of her husband, a certain doctor Wagner comes to Anna Grigoryevna. This is a professor from St. Petersburg University, at that time a well-known and popular spiritist in Russia. He has a long conversation with Anna Grigorievna. The essence of his request is to evoke the spirit of a great writer. The frightened woman categorically refuses him.
But that very night the dead husband comes to her