Factual Sources in Research on the Biography of Fyodor Dostoevsky: From Documents to Facts and Interpretation

The article contains new facts that clarify or complete some particulars in the biographies of 13 persons from Dostoevsky’s milieu. Some facts derive from documentary sources discovered through archival research: Aleksandr Isaev’s metric records, the birth and death in Darovoe of the infant Simeon, the illegitimate son of Mikhail Dostoevsky, the first marriage and divorce of Dostoevsky’s son Fyodor Fedorovich, the death of the writer’s sister-in-law Sof’ia Constant, and an excerpt from the memoirs of Ekaterina Alexandrovna, wife of Konstantin Pobedonostsev, about her acquaintance with Dostoevsky. The combination of archival research and textual analysis of the writer’s manuscripts and correspondence allowed us to suppose his possible acquaintance with Fyodor Bychkov, the founder of the grammar school for boys in St. Petersburg where the writer’s son was later enrolled, and with the aspiring writer Lydia Lamovskaya. Finally, the article investigates the name “Lizaveta Kuzminichna” recurring three times in different Dostoevsky’s autographs. The name works as a code for the writer’s unidentified personal associations going back to his childhood in Moscow, and is linked to his parents’ friends, the Shchirovsky family. These examples show that even today, archival work, search for new factual sources, and “small observations” over the texts remain fruitful and promising methods for research of both biographical and interpretative nature.