Dostoevsky's favorite women. Women in the life of Dostoevsky Women of Dostoevsky briefly

Dostoevsky's life was not filled with whirlwind romances or petty affairs. He was embarrassed and timid when it came to women. He could spend hours dreaming about love and beautiful strangers leaning on his chest, but when he had to meet non-imaginary, but real women, he became ridiculous, and his attempts at intimacy invariably ended in real disaster. All novels play out only in his imagination, in life he is timid and lonely: “Exactly, I’m timid with women, I’m completely unaccustomed to women, that is, I never got used to them, I’m alone. I don’t even know how to talk to them.” In all his major works, Dostoevsky depicted the failures of love associated with sacrifice and suffering: he did not know how to describe triumphant, joyful and masculinely confident love. One should not make the erroneous conclusion that Dostoevsky was a virgin at the age of twenty-five. Riesenkampf, who lived in the same apartment with him, recalls Dostoevsky’s great curiosity about the love affairs of his comrades.

This sexuality was probably of a dual nature.

Like most epileptics, he apparently had increased sexual excitability - and along with it there was in him the dreaminess of an idealist. Dostoevsky tried everything in these difficult years - going to taverns and dens, gambling and women - and tried it with shame, with repentance for intemperance, with self-flagellation for debauchery. Many years later, Dostoevsky in “Notes from the Underground” describes his youth like this: “At that time I was only twenty-four years old. My life was already gloomy, disorderly and wildly lonely.

I didn’t hang out with anyone and even avoided talking, and huddled more and more in my own corner. Still, I wanted to move, and I suddenly plunged into dark, underground, disgusting, not debauchery, but debauchery. The passions in me were sharp, burning from my constant painful irritability. The impulses were hysterical, with tears and convulsions. Moreover, melancholy boiled over; a hysterical thirst for contradictions and contrasts appeared, and so I began to debauch.

I was debauched in solitude, at night, secretly, fearfully, with shame that did not leave me in the most disgusting moments and even reached the point of damnation at such moments. I was terribly afraid that they would somehow not see me, would not meet me, would not recognize me. I went to different very dark places. It was very boring, sitting with arms folded, so he indulged in twists and turns.” When Dostoevsky found himself in Semipalatinsk in 1854, he was a mature, 33-year-old man.

He had become so unaccustomed to female society that he dreamed of it as the highest bliss. A few months after his arrival in Semipalatinsk, Dostoevsky met at the apartment of Lieutenant Colonel Belikov with Alexander Ivanovich Isaev and his wife Marya Dmitrievna. Marya Dmitrievna was a rather beautiful blonde of average height, very thin, a passionate and exalted nature, she was well-read, quite educated, inquisitive, and unusually lively and impressionable. She generally looked fragile and sickly, and in this way she sometimes reminded Dostoevsky of his mother. The tenderness of her face, physical weakness and some kind of spiritual defenselessness aroused in him a desire to help her, to protect her like a child. That combination of childish and feminine, which always sharply struck Dostoevsky’s sensuality, even now aroused in him complex experiences that he could not and did not want to understand. In addition, he admired her subtle and unusual, as it seemed to him, nature.

Marya Dmitrievna was nervous, almost hysterical, but Dostoevsky, especially at the beginning of their relationship, saw in the variability of her moods, breakdowns in her voice and light tears a sign of deep and sublime feelings.

When Dostoevsky began to visit the Isaevs, Marya Dmitrievna took pity on her strange guest, although she was hardly aware of his exclusivity. She herself at that moment needed support: her life was sad and lonely, she could not maintain acquaintances because of drunkenness and husband's antics, but there was no money for that.

And although she proudly and resignedly bore her cross, she often wanted to complain and pour out her aching heart. And Dostoevsky was an excellent listener. He was always at hand, he perfectly understood her grievances, he helped her endure all her misfortunes with dignity - and he entertained her in this swamp of provincial boredom. It was not uncommon for Marya Dmitrievna to find herself alone with Dostoevsky, who soon ceased to hide his adoration. Never in his entire life had he experienced such intimacy with a woman - and with a woman from society, an educated one, with whom he could talk about everything that interested him . It is quite possible that Marya Dmitrievna became attached to Dostoevsky, but she was not at all in love with him, at least at the beginning, although she leaned on his shoulder and responded to his kisses.

He fell madly in love with her, and mistook her compassion, affection, participation and easy play out of boredom and hopelessness for mutual feelings.

He was 34 years old - and he had never had a lover or girlfriend. He was looking for love, he needed love, and in Marya Dmitrievna his feelings found an excellent object. She was the first interesting young woman he met after four years of hard labor, and he cast all the spell of unsatisfied desires, erotic fantasy and romantic illusions over her. All the joy of life was embodied for him in this thin blonde. Sensitivity to other people's grief strangely increased his erotic excitability. Sadistic and masochistic desires were intertwined in Dostoevsky in the most bizarre way: to love meant to sacrifice oneself and respond with one’s whole soul and whole body to the suffering of others, even at the cost of one’s own torment. But sometimes loving meant torturing oneself, causing suffering, painfully wounding a beloved being.

This time, the highest pleasure was in the sacrifice, in alleviating the suffering of the one for whom he was ready to do absolutely anything. She understood very well that Dostoevsky was inflamed with real, deep passion for her - women usually easily recognize this - and she willingly accepted his “courtships,” as she called them, without, however, attaching too much importance to them.

Afterwards, Dostoevsky understood quite well the special circumstances under which his feeling for Marya Dmitrievna arose: “the mere fact that a woman extended her hand to me was already a whole era in my life,” he subsequently wrote truthfully. At the beginning of 1885, Marya Dmitrievna finally responded to Dostoevsky’s love.

Whether it was simply a moment of casual intimacy or whether their relationship turned into a real connection is difficult to say. In any case, there was a rapprochement. But just in those days, Isaev was appointed assessor in Kuznetsk. This meant separation - perhaps forever. In the summer of 1885, when the Isaevs set off on their journey, they stopped to say goodbye at the dacha of an acquaintance of Dostoevsky. Champagne was served, and it was not difficult for Wrangel to get Isaev drunk and arrange him for a peaceful sleep in the carriage.

Meanwhile, Marya Dmitrievna and Dostoevsky went to the garden. According to Wrangel, by the time she left, the young woman herself was already captured by her feelings for Dostoevsky. The lovers “hugged and cooed”, held each other’s hands, sitting on a bench under shady trees. After Marya Dmitrievna’s departure, he was very sad, looked like a boy at the bench on which he said goodbye to her, and muttered something under his breath: he had a habit of talking out loud to himself.

Several people from his acquaintances had already heard about his love, and they decided to assist him and arrange a secret meeting with Marya Dmitrievna. At the meeting place, instead of Marya Dmitrievna, he found her letter informing him that, due to changed circumstances, she was unable to leave Kuznetsk. These “circumstances” were Isaev’s death. Dostoevsky no longer had to hide his love. He immediately invited Marya to marry him. In response to passionate letters from her lover, who insisted on a final and immediate decision, she wrote that she was sad, desperate and did not know what to do.

Dostoevsky understood that the main obstacle was his personal instability. And Marya Dmitrievna decides to “test” his love. At the very end of 1885, Dostoevsky receives a strange letter from her. She asks him for impartial, friendly advice: “If only there was an elderly, wealthy, and kind man who proposed to me”... After reading these lines, Dostoevsky staggered and fainted.

When he woke up, he told himself in despair that Marya Dmitrievna was going to marry someone else. After spending the whole night in sobs and agony, he wrote to her in the morning that he would die if she left him. He loved with all the strength of a belated first love, with all the fervor of newness, with all the passion and excitement of a gambler who has staked his fortune on one card. At night he was tormented by nightmares and overwhelmed by tears. His torment continued for a long time. Exhausted by all this correspondence with its alternation of cold and heat, Dostoevsky decided to take an extreme step: a personal meeting with Marya Dmitrievna was necessary.

After much trouble and all sorts of tricks, they meet. But instead of a joyful meeting in Kuznetsk, a terrible blow awaited him. He entered Marya Dmitrievna's room, and she did not throw herself on his neck: crying, kissing his hands, she screamed that everything was lost, that there could be no marriage - she must confess everything: she fell in love with another. Dostoevsky was overcome by an irresistible the desire to give everything to Marya Dmitrievna, to sacrifice her love for the sake of his new feeling, to leave, and not interfere with her arranging her life as she wants.

When she saw that Dostoevsky did not reproach her, but only cared about her future, she was shocked. After he spent two days with her, he left with full hope for the best. But before Dostoevsky had time to return to Semipalatinsk and come to his senses, he received a letter from Marya Dmitrievna: she was again sad, crying, again saying that she loved someone else more than Dostoevsky.

A little time passed and Dostoevsky’s material affairs began to improve. Under the influence of these circumstances or due to the variability of character, Marya Dmitrievna noticeably cooled towards her fiancé. The question of marriage with him somehow disappeared by itself. In her letters to Dostoevsky, she did not skimp on words of tenderness and called him brother. He again had the opportunity to travel to Kuznetsk. A reception awaited him that was very different from what he had received before.

Marya Dmitrievna stated that she had lost faith in her new affection and did not really love anyone except Dostoevsky. Before leaving, he received a formal agreement to marry him in the very near future. Like a runner in a difficult race, Dostoevsky found himself at the goal, so exhausted by the effort that he accepted victory almost with indifference. At the beginning of 1857, everything was agreed upon, he borrowed the required amount of money, rented premises, received permission from his superiors and leave to get married. On February 6th, Marya Dmitrievna and Fyodor Mikhailovich were married.

In Barnaul, Dostoevsky had a seizure. With a dead face and a wild groan, he suddenly fell to the floor in terrible convulsions and lost consciousness. Dostoevsky’s seizure made a stunning impression on Marya Dmitrievna. What he did not write about was of much greater significance. The seizure in Barnaul probably occurred at the very moment when the newlyweds were left alone. It, of course, caused a number of shocks and even a number of traumatic consequences in the purely sexual area.

Perhaps this is where we need to look for clues as to why Dostoevsky’s marriage to Marya Dmitrievna was unsuccessful, primarily from the physical side. In Semipalatinsk they tried to improve their married life. Their moods and desires almost never coincided. In the tense, nervous environment that Marya Dmitrievna created, Dostoevsky had a feeling of guilt, giving way to explosions of passion, stormy, convulsive and unhealthy, to which Marya Dmitrievna responded with either fear or coldness.

They both irritated, tormented and exhausted each other in constant struggle. Instead of a honeymoon, they experienced disappointment, pain, and tedious attempts to achieve elusive sexual harmony. For Dostoevsky, she was the first woman with whom he was intimate, not through the brief embrace of a chance meeting, but through permanent marital cohabitation. He soon became convinced that she could not become his friend in a purely sexual sense, that she did not share either his voluptuousness or his sensuality.

After some time they move to Tver. And it was there that Dostoevsky’s marriage suffered a final collapse - they were unhappy together. Dostoevsky had his own life, to which Marya Dmitrievna had nothing to do. She wasted away and died. He traveled, wrote, published magazines, he visited many cities. One day, upon his return, he found her in bed, and for a whole year he had to look after her. Marya Dmitrievna had consumption.

She died painfully and difficultly; already in February it became clear that Marya Dmitrievna would not survive spring. On April 14, Marya Dmitrievna had a seizure, blood rushed into her throat and began to flood her chest. And on April 15, 1864, in the evening, she died - she died quietly, with full memory, and blessed everyone. Dostoevsky loved her for all the feelings that she aroused in him, for everything that he put into her, for everything , what was connected with her - and for the suffering that she caused him.

As he himself said later: “she was the most honest, noblest and most generous woman I have known in my entire life.” After some time, Dostoevsky again longed for “female society,” and his heart was free again. When Dostoevsky settled in St. Petersburg, his public readings at student evenings were a great success. In this atmosphere of uplift, noisy applause and applause, Dostoevsky met someone who was destined to play a different role in his destiny.

After one of the performances, a slender young girl with large gray-blue eyes, regular features of an intelligent face, with her head thrown back proudly, framed by magnificent reddish braids, approached him. Her name was Apollinaria Prokofyevna Suslova, she was 22 years old, she attended lectures at the university. There is nothing surprising or implausible in the fact that Apollinaria was the first to offer her heart to Dostoevsky: in all countries, at all times, young girls “adore” famous writers and artists and make confessions to them - in writing and orally. True, both in terms of age and character, Apollinaria seemed unable to belong to the sect of enthusiastic fans.

Dostoevsky answered her, and they began to see each other - first in the editorial office of the magazine, then in the house of his brother Mikhail and, finally, alone. Of course, Dostoevsky, first of all, had to feel the charm of her beauty and youth. He was 20 years older than her, and he was always attracted to very young women. Dostoevsky always transferred, “objectified,” his sexual fantasies to young girls. Regardless of how fair it is to assume that he himself knew such temptations, he perfectly understood and described the physical passion of a mature man for teenagers and twelve-year-old girls.

Judging by various indications in her diary and letters, she “waited” until she was 23 years old. In other words, Dostoevsky was her first man. He was also her first strong attachment. The final rapprochement between her and Dostoevsky occurred after his return from abroad.

At the beginning of 1863 they were already lovers, at that time Marya Dmitrievna was still alive. Too much upset and humiliated the young girl in her first man: he subordinated their meetings to writing, business, family, all sorts of circumstances of his difficult existence. She was jealous of Marya Dmitrievna with a dull and passionate jealousy - and did not want to accept Dostoevsky’s explanations that he could not get a divorce with a sick, dying wife.

She could not agree to inequality in position: she gave everything for this love, he gave nothing. Taking care of his wife in every possible way, he did not sacrifice anything for Apollinaria. Of course, for Dostoevsky it was very tempting to subjugate just such a woman as Apollinaria; it was more interesting than owning a silent slave, and the rebuff only intensified the pleasure. The adventure grew into a real passion. In the spring of 1863, he was already so captivated by Apollinaria that he could not spend a day without her. She was everything that brightened his life outside the home. He now lived a double existence, in two dissimilar worlds.

Later, they decide to go abroad together in the summer. Apollinaria left alone, he was supposed to follow her, but could not get out until August. Separation from Apollinaria only inflamed his passion. But upon arrival, she said that she loved someone else. Only then did he realize what had happened. So that’s why he rushed to Paris! The next day Apollinaria came to him and they talked a lot.

She said that her lover was avoiding her and did not love her. From that moment on, she consults Dostoevsky about everything, of course, without thinking about what it was like for him! She asks how to take revenge on Salvador (her beloved), reads a draft letter that should hurt him, discusses, curses... In these ridiculous days, when she cried on Dostoevsky’s chest about her desecrated love for another, and he gave her friendly instructions on how to to extinguish the offense, and it was decided that both would still go on the very trip they had dreamed of, hoping to live together in freedom. Although Dostoevsky had come to terms with the fact that he had to manage the affairs of the heart of the very woman who had cheated on him and whom he continued to love and desire, he undoubtedly hoped that during the trip he would be able to bring her back to him, especially since sexual intercourse she was quite strong with Apollinaria: he had been her lover for several months now - and her first man.

By promising her to be “like a brother” in order to get her consent to the trip, he, of course, hid his true intentions.

She apparently understood this well, but she had no intention of satisfying his desires. She had mixed feelings about Dostoevsky. In St. Petersburg he was the master of the situation, and ruled, and tormented her, and, perhaps, loved her less than she did. And now his love not only did not suffer, but, on the contrary, even strengthened from her betrayal. In the wrong game of love and torment, the places of the victim and the executioner changed: the vanquished became the winner. Dostoevsky was to experience this very soon.

But when he realized this, it was too late for resistance, and besides, the whole complexity of the relationship with Apollinaria became a source of secret sweetness for him. His love for a young girl entered a new, burning circle: suffering because of her became a pleasure. Daily communication with Apollinaria physically inflamed him, and he really burned in the slow fire of his unsatisfied passion. And Apollinaria’s behavior confused and worried him, because it did not help him in the least to overcome bad instincts and curb his impulses. On the contrary, she caused them, teased him and refused him in physical proximity with caustic pleasure.

Sometimes, although very rarely, pity for her tormented companion actually awoke in her, and she stopped tormenting him. Later they went to Rome and from there he writes to a friend, asking for money, but he does not write anything about his relationship with Apollinaria. They suddenly decided to separate when Dostoevsky needed to return to Russia. Dostoevsky ended up in Hamburg, where he again plunged into gambling game and lost my last money.

He sends a letter to Apollinaria with a plea for help. But she has no desire. After the death of Marya Dimitrievna, Dostoevsky writes to Apollinaria to come. But she doesn't want to see him. He constantly doubted her feelings and moods and could not clearly read in the heart of his own beloved. Was she really going to leave him? Was this the end or a break after which she would belong entirely to him? Everything was unsteady and incomprehensible in Apollinaria, as if he were wandering through a swamp, risking every minute of falling into a fatal quagmire.

But while she was throwing away everyday well-being and trying in vain to dispel her melancholy, Dostoevsky was exhausted under the double burden of worries and loneliness, and was looking for the most fantastic ways out of the situation. Soon a crisis arose in his attitude towards Apollinaria. At first he tried to distract himself by taking whatever came to hand. Some random women again appear in his life.

Then he decided that his salvation lay in marrying a good, clean girl. Chance introduces him to a beautiful and talented 20-year-old young lady from an excellent noble family, Anna Korvin-Krukovskaya, she is very suitable for the role of a savior, and Dostoevsky thinks that he is in love with her. A month later, he is ready to ask for her hand in marriage, but nothing comes of this idea, and in those very months, he intensively visits Apollinaria’s sister and openly confides his heartfelt troubles to her. The intervention of Nadezhda (Apollinaria's sister) apparently influenced her obstinate sister, and something like a reconciliation took place between them.

Soon Dostoevsky left Russia and went to Apollinaria. He didn't see her for two years. From then on, his love was nourished by memories and imagination. When they finally met, Dostoevsky immediately saw how she had changed. She became colder and more distant. She mockingly said that his high impulses were banal sensitivity, and responded with contempt to his passionate kisses.

If there were moments of physical intimacy, she gave them to him as if they were alms - and she always behaved as if it was unnecessary or painful for her. Dostoevsky tried to fight for this love, which had crumbled into dust, for the dream of it - and told Apollinaria that she should marry him. She, as usual, answered sharply, almost rudely. Soon they began to quarrel again.

She contradicted him, mocked him, or treated him like an uninteresting, casual acquaintance. And then Dostoevsky began to play roulette. He lost everything he and she had, and when she decided to leave, Dostoevsky did not hold her back. After Apollinaria's departure, Dostoevsky found himself in a completely desperate situation. Then he had a seizure; it took him a long time to recover from this state. Apollinaria arrived in St. Petersburg, and immediately what was inevitably going to happen happened.

Dostoevsky even more decisively invited her to marry him. But she did not change her decision: not only did she not intend to unite her fate with Dostoevsky, but in four months she led their relationship to an irrevocable break. In the spring of 1866, Apollinaria went to the village to visit her brother. She and Dostoevsky said goodbye, knowing full well that their paths would never cross again. In St. Petersburg, she dealt the final blow to the past, breaking with Dostoevsky, from whom, in her opinion, all the troubles came. But freedom brought her little joy.

Later she got married, but life together did not work out. Those around her suffered greatly from her domineering, intolerant character. She died in 1918, at the age of 78, hardly suspecting that next door to her, on the same Crimean coast, in the same year, the one who, fifty years ago, had taken her place in her heart, had passed away. loved one and became his wife - Anna Grigorievna Dostoevskaya. On the advice of his very good friend, Dostoevsky decided to hire a stenographer to implement his “eccentric plan”; he wanted to publish the novel “The Player”. Shorthand was a new thing at that time, few people knew it, and Dostoevsky turned to a shorthand teacher.

He offered work on the novel to his best student, Anna Grigorievna Sitkina, but warned her that the writer had a “strange and gloomy character” and that for all the work - seven large-format sheets - he would pay only 50 rubles. Anna Grigorievna hastened to agree not only because earning money through her own labor was her dream, but also because she knew the name of Dostoevsky and had read his works.

The opportunity to meet a famous writer and even help him in his literary work delighted and excited her. It was extraordinary luck. Having received Dostoevsky's address from the teacher, she did not sleep well all night: she was frightened that tomorrow she would have to talk with such a learned and intelligent person, she was trembling in advance. The next day she appeared at the address.

When Dostoevsky entered the room where Anna Grigorievna was waiting for him, the young girl noticed his different eyes. Although he looked much younger than she had expected, he was a little disappointing. In general, her first impression of Dostoevsky was difficult. However, it dissipated when she came to him for the second time. He said that he liked the way she behaved at their first meeting. Only later did she understand how lonely he was at that time, how much he needed warmth and participation.

She really liked his simplicity and sincerity - but from the words and manner of speaking of this smart, strange, but unfortunate creature, as if abandoned by everyone, something sank in her heart. She then told her mother about the complex feelings Dostoevsky had awakened in her: pity, compassion, amazement, uncontrollable craving. He was offended by life, a wonderful, kind and extraordinary person, it took her breath away when she listened to him, everything in her seemed to have turned upside down from this meeting.

For this nervous, slightly exalted girl, meeting Dostoevsky was a huge event: she fell in love with him at first sight, without realizing it. From then on, they worked several hours every day. The initial feeling of awkwardness disappeared, they talked willingly in between dictations. Every day he got more and more used to her, called her “darling, darling,” and these affectionate words pleased her. He was grateful to his employee, who spared neither time nor effort to help him. They loved heart-to-heart conversations so much, they got so used to each other during the four weeks of work that they were both scared when “The Player” came to an end.

Dostoevsky was afraid of ending his acquaintance with Anna Grigorievna. On October 29, Dostoevsky dictated the final lines of The Player. A few days later, Anna Grigorievna came to him to come to an agreement about working on the completion of Crime and Punishment. He was clearly delighted at her arrival. And he immediately decided to propose to her.

But at that moment when he proposed to his stenographer, he did not yet suspect that she would occupy an even greater place in his heart than all his other women. He needed marriage, he was aware of this and was ready to marry Anna Grigorievna “for convenience.” She agreed. During the short grooming, both were very pleased with each other. Dostoevsky came to the bride every evening, brought her sweets... And finally, everything was ready: the apartment was rented, things were transported, dresses were tried on, and on February 15, 1867, in the presence of friends and acquaintances , they were married.

In the first days after marriage, cheerful turmoil reigned. Relatives and friends invited the “young people” to evenings and dinners, and in their entire lives they had never drunk as much champagne as during these two weeks. But the beginning turned out to be bad: they did not understand each other well, he thought that she was bored with him, she She was offended that he seemed to be avoiding her. A month after the marriage, Anna Grigorievna fell into a semi-hysterical state, since there was a tense atmosphere in the house, she barely saw her husband and they did not even have the spiritual closeness that was created when working together.

And Anna Grigorievna suggested going abroad. Dostoevsky really liked the project of a trip abroad, but in order to get money, he had to go to Moscow, to his sister, and he took his wife with him. In Moscow, Anna Grigorievna faced new trials: in the family of Dostoevsky’s sister, she was received with hostility. Although they soon realized that she was still a girl who clearly adored her husband, and they accepted a new relative into their bosom.

The second torment was Dostoevsky’s jealousy: he made scenes for his wife over the most trivial reasons. One day he was so angry that he forgot that they were in a hotel, and screamed at the top of his voice, his face was distorted, he was scary, she was afraid that he would kill her, and burst into tears. Then only he came to his senses, began to kiss her hands, began to cry and confessed his monstrous jealousy. Scenes and difficulties did not hide one fact from the spouses: in Moscow their relationship improved significantly, because they stayed together much more than in St. Petersburg .

This consciousness strengthened Anna Grigorievna’s desire to go abroad and spend at least two or three months in solitude. But when they returned to St. Petersburg and announced their intention, there was noise and commotion in the family. Everyone began to dissuade Dostoevsky from going abroad, and he completely lost heart, hesitated and was about to abandon the trip abroad. And then Anna Grigorievna unexpectedly showed the hidden strength of her character and decided to take an extreme measure: she pawned everything she had - furniture, silver, things, dresses, everything that she chose and bought with such joy.

And soon they went abroad. They were going to spend three months in Europe, and returned from there after more than four years. But during these four years they managed to forget about the unsuccessful beginning of their life together: it had now turned into a close, happy and lasting community. They spent some time in Berlin, then, having passed through Germany, they settled in Dresden.

It was here that their mutual rapprochement began, which very soon dispelled all his worries and doubts. They were completely different people - in age, temperament, interests, intelligence, but they also had a lot in common, and the happy combination of similarities and differences ensured the success of their married life. Anna Grigorievna was shy and only when alone with her husband she became lively and showed that... what he called "quickness." He understood and appreciated this: he himself was timid, embarrassed with strangers and also did not feel any embarrassment only when alone with his wife, not like with Marya Dmitrievna or Apollinaria.

Her youth and inexperience had a calming effect on him, encouraging him and dispelling his inferiority complexes and self-abasement. Usually, in marriage they become intimately aware of each other’s shortcomings, and therefore slight disappointment arises. For the Dostoevskys, on the contrary, the best sides of their nature were revealed from closeness.

Anna Grigorievna, who fell in love and married Dostoevsky, saw that he was completely extraordinary, brilliant, terrible, difficult, and he, who married a diligent secretary, discovered that not only he was the “patron and protector of the young creature,” but she was his “angel.” guardian," friend and support. Anna Grigorievna passionately loved Dostoevsky as a man and a person, she loved his wife and mistress, mother and daughter with mixed love. When marrying Dostoevsky, Anna Grigorievna was hardly aware of what awaited her, and only after marriage did she understand the difficulty of the questions facing her .

There was his jealousy and suspicion, and his passion for the game, and his illnesses, and his peculiarities and oddities. And above all, the problem of physical relationships. As in everything else, their mutual adaptation did not come immediately, but as a result of a long, sometimes painful process. Dostoevsky was happy with her because she gave a natural outlet to all his inclinations and strange fantasies. Her role was liberating and cleansing.

She therefore removed the burden of guilt from him: he ceased to feel like a sinner or a debauchee. Their marriage developed physically and morally. This process was facilitated by the fact that they found themselves together and alone for a very long time. In essence, their trip abroad was their honeymoon: but it lasted four years. And by the time Anna Grigorievna began to have children, the spiritual, mutual and sexual adjustment of the spouses was completed, and they could safely say that their marriage was happy.

Then they had to go through a lot, and especially her. Dostoevsky started playing in the casino again, and lost all his money; Anna Grigorievna pawned everything they had. After that, they moved to Geneva and lived there on what Anna Grigorievna’s mother sent them. They led a very modest and regular lifestyle. But despite all the obstacles, their closeness grew stronger, both in joy and in sorrow. In February 1868, their daughter was born. Dostoevsky was proud and pleased with his fatherhood and passionately loved the child. But little Sonya, “sweet angel,” as he called her, did not survive, and in May they lowered her coffin into a grave in the Geneva cemetery.

They immediately left Geneva and moved to Italy. There they rested for a while and set off again. After some time, they again ended up in Dresden, and there their second daughter was born, they named her Lyubov. Her parents were shaking over her, but she was a strong child. But the financial situation was very difficult.

Later, when Dostoevsky finished The Idiot, they had money. They lived in Dresden for the entire year of 1870, and during this time their marriage became established and took on complete forms - both physically, as a cohabitation of two close people, and as a family organism. But suddenly they decide to return to Russia. There were a lot of reasons for this. On June 8, 1871, they moved to St. Petersburg: a week later, Anna Grigorievna’s son Fedor was born. The beginning of life in Russia was difficult: Anna Grigorievna’s house was sold for next to nothing, but they did not give up.

During her fourteen years of life with Dostoevsky, Anna Grigorievna experienced many grievances, anxieties and misfortunes (their second son, Alexei, born in 1875, soon died), but she never complained about her fate. It is safe to say that the years spent with Anna Grigorievna in Russia were the calmest, peaceful and, perhaps, happiest in his life. The well-ordered life and sexual satisfaction, which led to the complete disappearance of epilepsy in 1877, did little to change Dostoevsky’s character and habits.

He was well over fifty when he calmed down somewhat - at least outwardly - and began to get used to family life. His ardor and suspicion did not diminish at all over the years. He often startled strangers in society with his angry remarks. At sixty he was just as jealous as in his youth. But he was also just as passionate in his expressions of love. In his old age, he became so accustomed to Anna Grigorievna and his family that he absolutely could not do without them.

In 1879 and early 1880, Dostoevsky's health deteriorated greatly. In January, his pulmonary artery ruptured due to excitement, and two days later bleeding began. They intensified, the doctors were unable to stop them, and he fell into unconsciousness several times. On January 28, 1881, he called Anna Grigorievna to him, took her hand and whispered: “Remember, Anya, I have always loved you dearly and have never betrayed you, even mentally.” By evening he was gone. Anna Grigorievna remained faithful to her husband beyond the grave. In the year of her death, she was only 35 years old, but she considered her female life over and devoted herself to serving his name.

She died in Crimea, alone, far from family and friends, in June 1918 - and with her went to the grave the last of the women whom Dostoevsky loved.

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Dostoevsky was a “sensualist” who listened with great interest to the love affairs of his comrades (Riesenkampf, who lived with him in the same apartment, spoke about this.)

At the same time, he was characterized by a strange duality:

On the one hand, he was strangely timid and embarrassed whenever he started talking about women. Basically, he dreamed of a woman's love, but as soon as he met a woman in person, he behaved eccentrically, became ridiculous, and attempts to communicate ended disastrously.

On the other hand, Dostoevsky appears before us - a reveler and a visitor to brothels. They say that prostitutes refused to spend time with him again, due to the perversity of the desires of Lieutenant Dostoevsky.
He himself later wrote in a letter to Mikhail: “I am so dissolute that I can no longer live normally, I am afraid of typhus or fever and my nerves are bad. Minushka, Klarushka, Marianna, etc. They have gotten a lot prettier, but they cost a lot of money. The other day Turgenev and Belinsky scolded me to dust for my disorderly life.”
Turgenev once even called Fyodor Mikhailovich the Russian De Sade.

Sofya Kovalevskaya, who knew Dostoevsky, wrote in her personal diary: “After a riotous night and egged on by drunken friends, he raped a ten-year-old girl...”
Strakhov also mentioned in his letter to Tolstoy: “he boasted that... in the bathhouse with a little girl who was brought to him by the governess.”
This case has not yet been confirmed, and causes controversy among biographers, but it is worth noting that in Dostoevsky’s works, a man’s attraction to teenagers is revealed more than once.

First hobby

Soon after the publication of the novel “Poor People,” the doors of literary salons opened for Dostoevsky. There Fyodor Dostoevsky met Avdotya Panaeva, a 22-year-old married woman.
From a letter to Mikhail - “Yesterday I visited Panaev for the first time, and, it seems, I fell in love with his wife. She’s smart and pretty, and on top of that, she’s kind and downright straightforward.”
But the girl rejected him; she later described him in “Memoirs” as a small, nervous man who was egged on by everyone.
Dostoevsky, not having the opportunity to amaze Avdotya with her appearance and courage, decided to amaze her with her talent. But the written “Double” was weak, perhaps because it was written in a hurry, the writer was criticized, and stopped going to the literary salon.

Soon after this there were Petrashevichs, execution and exile.

Dostoevsky's first wife

Maria Isaeva became the first love of Fedor, who had just served hard labor and arrived in Semipalatinsk. Maria was the wife of Alexander Isaev, an incorrigible drunkard who could get drunk to delirium tremens. Dissatisfied with her marriage, Maria found an educated interlocutor in Dostoevsky, and gradually they became close. Dostoevsky begins to spend a lot of time with the Isaevs.

To the writer’s credit, it is worth noting that he did not try to become intimate with Maria while she was married.
And then there was separation. The Isaevs moved to Kuznetsk, to a new place of service. This was a big blow for the writer; he cried when they parted, and was saved only by correspondence with her.
Maria's husband died in August. Dostoevsky, gathering his courage, proposed to her, but she was in no hurry to answer. The low rank of an exile and small income made her think. Not least of all, the young teacher who taught her son, Pavel, played a role in the reasons for her doubts.
After Dostoevsky became an officer (in 1856), Maria made up her mind and agreed to marry him. It’s unlikely that it was a matter of love for him, but rather of debts left over from her husband and the need to support her son, while the teacher was even poorer than Fedor.
The wedding took place on February 6, 1857. On his very first wedding night, the writer had an epileptic seizure, which caused him to turn Maria away from him forever.

They lived together for seven years, but the marriage was not happy.

A painful romance

In 1860, Dostoevsky received permission to move to St. Petersburg. Soon after this, he and his brother began publishing the magazine “Time”. It was thanks to this that I met Appolinaria Suslova. The girl brought her story to the Journal, Dostoevsky became very interested in the author, and they began to communicate. (According to another Version, Suslova was at the writer’s lecture, and approached him after it. Afterwards, she wrote a letter in which she confessed her love for him).
Passion ignited in Dostoevsky; with all the fervor left over from a dysfunctional marriage, he plunges into a relationship with a young girl (the writer was 20 years older than Polina). They were completely different people, both in character and in their views, and this could not but affect the relationship. He was her first man, and giving in to her feelings, she demanded more time, demanded to divorce her wife (Maria was already sick with consumption and was slowly dying).

The planned trip to Paris turned tragic. Fedor was unable to go due to problems with the magazine, and Polina went alone. When the writer finally arrived, the girl had already started an affair with a new lover - a Spanish student.

They traveled further as “Friends”. It was a strange friendship, however. The writer found many reasons to stay with her longer; she allowed herself to be caressed, teased, but did not enter into intimacy with him. Dostoevsky suffers, begins to frequent the casino and, having completely lost, leaves for Russia.
After the death of his wife, Fyodor writes to Polina, inviting her to come and marry him. But she doesn't want to see him anymore.
He tries to find salvation in meeting a pure and innocent girl, and even proposes to Anna Korvin-Krukovskaya, but nothing comes of it.

Love of Life

Happiness for Dostoevsky came from adversity. Being bound by a debt guarantee, and not having time to finish a novel that must be submitted on time, the writer hires a stenographer.
She was Anna Snitkina. With her help, the novel was delivered on time, and it seemed time to part ways.
And then Dostoevsky realizes that he has become attached to the girl. Remembering Polina’s bullying, he is afraid to tell her about it, and makes up a story. The story is about an old artist who fell in love with a young girl. He asked Anna what she would do in the girl’s place. And the future wife said: I would answer you that I love you and will love you all my life.

The wedding took place in February 1867.

Anna will have many challenges ahead:

• Husband's debts
• Passion for gambling
• stepson's dislike
• Dostoevsky's jealousy
• emigration abroad
• death of children
• and much more.

But she went through all this, and in spite of everything she made Fyodor Dostoevsky happy, bore him children, and remained faithful to her husband even after his death. And to questions about marriage she answered: “It would seem to me like blasphemy. And who can you follow after Dostoevsky? - perhaps for Tolstoy! So he's married."

First love

Creativity completely absorbed Fyodor Dostoevsky, and the young man’s personal life faded into the background. And in 1845, friends - Nekrasov and Grigorovich - introduced him to the Panayevs’ house. It was one of the centers of St. Petersburg artistic life. Here Dostoevsky experienced his first love - spiritual, ideal, poetic and, above all, aesthetic.
Ivan Ivanovich Panaev, a good-natured, frivolous person, an entertaining but shallow short story writer, was married to the famous beauty Avdotya Yakovlevna Bryanskaya, the daughter of a famous tragedian from the times of Pushkin’s youth. She grew up in an atmosphere of theatrical art and was preparing to become a dancer. The flexibility of her figure, the grace of her movements, her face with a matte dark complexion and her marble forehead framed by smoothly combed black hair - everything delighted the young writers. Panaeva was not happy with her husband, who devoted himself to continuous hobbies. They had no children. She loved life, festivities... A few years later, Panaeva would become Nekrasov’s wife, write several novels and a book of famous memoirs, “Russian Writers and Artists.”

To familiarize literary St. Petersburg with an unpublished novelty - the story “Poor People” - Panaev hosted a special evening. Dostoevsky himself read the work and made a stunning impression on everyone with his reading.
Kind and sympathetic Panaeva treated the young writer with her usual warm attention, not realizing the role she would play in his life.

Dostoevsky was captivated by the beauty of this twenty-five-year-old woman, her sympathetic heart and deep mind.
“Yesterday I visited Panaev for the first time and, it seems, I fell in love with his wife,” Dostoevsky wrote to his brother on November 16, 1845. – She is famous in St. Petersburg. She is smart and pretty, in addition she is kind and straightforward to the core.” And a few weeks later: “I was seriously in love with Panaeva, now it’s passing...”

Soon Dostoevsky stopped visiting the Panayevs' house. But this hobby did not pass without leaving a mark on his work. Twenty years later, Dostoevsky in his favorite creation - in "The Idiot" - will immortalize this beauty, marked by internal pain and disturbing thoughts.

“It was as if there was immense pride and contempt, almost hatred, in this face, and at the same time something trusting, something surprisingly simple-minded; these two contrasts even seemed to arouse some kind of compassion when looking at these features...”
Beauty in Dostoevsky’s depiction becomes spiritual, degenerates into a moral principle, and becomes the basis of the problem of kindness.
“Is she kind?” - asks Prince Myshkin, looking at the photograph of Nastasya Filippovna.

Marriage

In Semipalatinsk, the exiled writer experienced a great feeling associated with unrest and suffering, but which gave him unforgettable moments of the highest fullness of being.
Here he met the Isaev family. The husband, an official who is unable to work regularly, an alcoholic who condemned his wife and son to acute poverty, will partly serve as Dostoevsky’s prototype for Marmeladov in Crime and Punishment. Isaev’s wife Maria Dmitrievna often had to protect the child from a violent father, who, when drunk, reached the point of insanity. She bore her fate proudly and resignedly. Dostoevsky characterizes her as “intelligent, educated, graceful, with a generous heart.” She seems to him to be a restless, impetuous, original, inspired, sublime and courageous nature. At that time, Maria Dmitrievna was twenty-six years old. This is how A. Wrangel, a friend of Dostoevsky, describes her: “Even then, an ominous blush played on her pale face, and a few years later, consumption took her to the grave. She was well-read, quite educated, inquisitive, kind and unusually lively and impressionable!”
With all the fervor of his youth, Dostoevsky fell in love with Maria Dmitrievna, and on her part there was more pity and compassion than love for the exile.

Dostoevsky was having a hard time with his separation from Maria Dmitrievna, who was leaving with her husband for the Siberian town of Kuznetsk. According to Wrangel, Dostoevsky walked around like a madman, sobbing bitterly like a child.
A correspondence ensues. Maria Dmitrievna complains of hardships, illness, and a painful feeling of loneliness. Soon her husband dies.

Dostoevsky gives himself over to Maria Dmitrievna's device. He gets money for her from Wrangel and is trying to get eight-year-old Pasha into the corps. And suddenly - a letter from Isaeva, in which she reports that she fell in love with the young teacher Vergunov and, obviously, will marry him.
Dostoevsky writes letters to his friend full of despair: “It’s difficult to convey how much I have suffered... I tremble so that she does not marry... Oh, don’t let me. Lord, no one needs this terrible menacing feeling! The joy of love is great, but the suffering is so terrible that it would be better to never love!”

Dostoevsky is worried about Isaeva’s complete financial instability with her poor teacher. And he writes a letter to Wrangel, in which he asks him to lobby for an increase in Vergunov’s salary. This letter is an indicator of the height that the writer’s soul, ardent and unstoppable in its flight, could reach in life.
Soon Dostoevsky was promoted to ensign. And he dreams of seeing Maria Dmitrievna. “I don't think about anything anymore. If only I could see her, if only I could hear her! - he writes to Wrangel. - I'm a miserable madman! Love in this form is a disease. I can feel it!" And to his brother: “The one I loved, I adore to this day... This is the angel of God who met me on the way, and suffering bound us together.”

The writer goes to Kuznetsk, tells Maria Dmitrievna about his constant undying feeling, and hopes for a return to literature. And he encounters a split in a woman’s heart. Maria Dmitrievna rushed and languished in search of salvation from the whirlpool of desires: the writer Dostoevsky - or a half-impoverished, but young and handsome teacher. The deep psychologist Dostoevsky believes that an intelligent woman will make a choice in his favor. He explains to the teacher. The latter gives way. Dostoevsky again begs Wrangel to arrange the fate of the hapless Vergunov. Brotherly rivals are one of the main themes of the future “The Idiot.”
Dostoevsky showed insatiable energy in arranging his home. Letters to relatives in St. Petersburg, Moscow, and local loans helped him dress his poor bride and pay for the wedding.
The Kuznetsk wedding of 1857 unfolds into a stunning picture of Prince Myshkin’s wedding night in the novel “The Idiot.” This work is a consequence of the writer’s mental turmoil during his stay in Semipalatinsk.

Unfortunately, Dostoevsky did not find the desired happiness in his marriage. Maria Dmitrievna was often sick, capricious and jealous. Scenes of jealousy gradually undermined family harmony. The fire of love was dying out. And in one of the letters the writer stated: “My life is hard and bitter.” Creativity distracted him from the sorrows of family life. Then he worked on two stories: “Uncle’s Dream” and “The Village of Stepanchikovo”.

Three letters

The comedian Alexandra Ivanovna Schubert left an indelible mark on Dostoevsky’s memory. The daughter of serfs, she was distinguished by her democratic views and sympathy for the common people. Her second husband was the doctor S.D. Yanovsky, a friend of the writer who treated him in the 40s. Alexandra Ivanovna was twenty-three years old, but she was already considered one of the best actresses of her time. Shchepkina's favorite student inherited from her teacher an aversion to routine effects and a desire for artistic truth. Thick black hair framed the face of a small, thin girl, on which her extremely lively eyes stood out. She was attracted to writers. In Odessa she met with Gogol. And Dostoevsky and his fate were very interesting to her. Fyodor Mikhailovich then felt in full bloom of his creative powers. In his letters, he informs her about his work on “The Humiliated and Insulted,” about the planned magazine, about his dramatic plans: “If I had even the slightest talent to write a comedy, even a one-act one, I would write for you. I want to try it. If I succeed, I will present it to you as a sign of my deepest respect..."

The writer openly confesses to Alexandra Ivanovna his sincere respect:
“I would very much like to earn your friendship. You are very kind, you are smart, you have a nice soul, friendship with you is a good thing. And your character is charming: you are an artist; Sometimes you laugh so sweetly at everything prosaic, funny, arrogant, stupid that it becomes nice to listen to you.”

The lines excitedly fall onto the paper: “Farewell. I kiss your hand once again and sincerely from the bottom of my heart I wish you everything, all the brightest, most carefree, clear and successful in life. Yours, F. Dostoevsky, who respects you endlessly.”
In her memoirs, Alexandra Ivanovna avoids describing in detail her relationship with Dostoevsky. But it is known that at one point in her life she decided to break up with her husband, went to Moscow, where she openly met with a person close to her...
But soon life forces the situation to change, and Dostoevsky carefully, precisely acts to interrupt this romance.

“Will I see you, my dear?..,” he writes to the actress. – Wouldn’t we be able to talk to you about our hearts? How happy I am that you trust me so nobly and tenderly. I tell you frankly: I love you very much, so much so that I myself told you that I am not in love with you, because I valued your correct opinion... I am so glad that I am confident in myself, that I am not in love with you! This gives me the opportunity to be even more devoted to you, without fearing for my heart. I will know that I am selflessly devoted...”
For about half a century, Alexandra Ivanovna kept three letters from Dostoevsky to her and only parted with them shortly before her death. She died in Moscow in 1909 at the age of eighty-two.

Deep passion

In the early 60s, Dostoevsky experienced a deep passion for Apollinaria Suslova. The girl was born into the family of a serf peasant, who later managed to pay off his landowner, settle in St. Petersburg and give his children a higher education. The eldest, Apollinaria, listened to public lectures by famous professors at St. Petersburg University, and attended readings by two recent political exiles - Shevchenko and Dostoevsky.
The author of “Notes from the House of the Dead” evoked applause from the “new people” with his passionate reading. He struck her imagination, blinded her with his martyrdom and glory, aroused the desire to devote herself to the great and heroic. In a letter to Dostoevsky, Apollinaria expresses admiration for him. It excited the writer with its sincerity. And Fyodor Mikhailovich went towards the ardent young feeling.

Dostoevsky turned 40. Suslova was 22 at the time. The elongated oval of her face and the outline of her light forehead were striking in their impeccable purity. Dark hair, piled high in a tight braid that wrapped around her head, shimmered like silk fabric in the sun. Huge, thoughtful eyes looked surprised and slightly naive. The features show subtle spirituality of intense thought and hidden suffering. And only in the lips there is something common, even peasant.
Dostoevsky is her first deep passion. In her diary, Apollinaria writes: “I gave myself to him lovingly, without asking, without counting.”

In Dostoevsky she saw a spiritual titan and was happy. And he opened Suslova’s literary field by publishing her story in his magazine next to the novel “Humiliated and Insulted.”
But soon Apollinaria’s feeling weakens. She cannot accept some aspects of the writer’s character that reduced the ideal image. Their opposing views on life also led to disagreement. Suslova denied the “old world” with its art, religion, national culture, that is, everything that was dear to Dostoevsky. Ardent and decisive, she aligned herself with extreme political movements and even prepared herself for regicide.

The connection between people of different beliefs continued for seven years with interruptions and separations. And although the lovers argued and debated a lot, Dostoevsky highly appreciated this happiness in life, given to him by fate.
“Your love came to me like a gift from God, unexpectedly, unexpectedly, after fatigue and despair. Your young life next to me promised so much and has already given so much, it resurrected in me faith and the remnants of my former strength,” says Dostoevsky in Suslova’s story “Stranger and Our Own,” in which she truthfully portrayed their relationship.
A trip to Europe with Apollinaria served Fyodor Mikhailovich as material for one of his best stories, “The Gambler.”

An unforgettable feeling
Among the women who captivated Dostoevsky, Anna Vasilyevna Korvin-Krukovskaya was one of the most outstanding and gifted. This aspiring writer, sister of the later famous Sofia Kovalevskaya, was distinguished by her beauty and proud character.
Tall, slender, with delicate features, long blond hair, radiant green eyes, she was accustomed to being the queen at all children's balls almost from the age of seven.

Her father, a lieutenant general, a wealthy landowner, a man of strict rules, never thought of seeing a poor writer as his daughter’s life partner. Therefore, a storm of indignation was caused in the Krukovsky family castle by the act of Anna, who, having become interested in literature, began to send her stories to the editors of “Epoch” and receive fees from Dostoevsky. And later, having learned about the writer’s sympathy for his daughter, the general significantly hastened to remind her: “Remember: Dostoevsky is not a person of our society.”
Nevertheless, Dostoevsky did not stop visiting the house of Anna’s Moscow relatives, where the Krukovsky family arrived. He became very interested in his older sister and unexpectedly became the object of the first love of the younger one, teenager Sonya, who forever retained a feeling of deep friendship for the first brilliant person she met on her way. Later, Sofya Kovalevskaya, a professor at Stockholm University, a laureate of numerous academies around the world, will devote more than one page to this feeling in her “Childhood Memoirs and Autobiographical Sketches.”

Eighteen-year-old Anna soon realized that Dostoevsky’s wife should devote herself entirely to him. They often argued, the main subject of disputes being nihilism. The nervous, demanding Dostoevsky captured her, depriving her of the opportunity to be herself. But Fyodor Mikhailovich’s passionate whisper one evening remained unforgettable for her for many years: “My dear, Anna Vasilievna, understand, I loved you from the first minute I saw you; Yes, I already had a presentiment from letters before. And I love you not with friendship, but with passion, with my whole being...”

The fascination with the nihilist aristocrat left a mark on the writer’s memory: “She is extremely smart, developed, literary educated, and she has a wonderful, kind heart. This girl is of high moral character; but her beliefs are diametrically opposed to mine, and she cannot give in to them, she is too straightforward. This is hardly why our marriage could be happy...”

Second marriage.

In 1866, according to the contract concluded with the publisher, Dostoevsky had to present a new novel with at least ten printed pages by November. The deadlines were pressing, the novel had not yet been written. A stenographer was needed.
In October, twenty-year-old Anna Grigorievna Snitkina, a student of a shorthand teacher, one of the writer’s acquaintances, entered Dostoevsky’s house. Work has begun. The first dictations were tense, but his secretary’s precise transcripts brought a little calm. Soon the novel was ready. In 26 days, ten printed sheets of “Notes of a Young Man” were created. With their end, the threat that weighed on Dostoevsky was eliminated: the prospect of loneliness, the danger of continuing his intense writing life without the proximity of a loving person.

Young, pretty Anna Grigorievna had a peculiar attractiveness: beautiful gray eyes, intelligent and radiant, an open forehead, an energetic chin. Soon this sweet girl and witty interlocutor felt that Fyodor Mikhailovich willingly shared his plans, memories with her and every day treated her more attentively and more cordially. Could she have imagined that for another fourteen years she would be taking shorthand notes of Dostoevsky’s works?

The daughter of one of the employees of the court department and a Swedish mother, she received as a dowry a large house, the apartments of which she rented out. This generated significant annual income. The young housewife developed such qualities as everyday efficiency, an understanding of financial relationships as the basis of her contemporary society, the ability to easily understand legal incidents, and clear practicality. This was her preparatory school for life, which soon forced her to enter into a struggle with creditors, bill buyers, and moneylenders.

Dostoevsky tells his friends: “I noticed that my stenographer sincerely loves me, although she never said a word to me about it, but I like her more and more... I asked her to marry me. She agreed, and so we got married. The age difference is terrible (20 and 44), but I am more and more convinced that she will be happy. She has a heart, and she knows how to love.”

He was not mistaken in this. Dostoevsky found great dedication, readiness to give all his means to free a loved one from the terrible burden of other people’s and his own debts, tolerance, understanding, moral support and true love in his new life partner.

Dostoevsky's wife, having lived to an old age, in her memoirs reveals unknown and unexpected traits in her husband's personality. Fyodor Mikhailovich, cradling the children, arranging a Christmas tree for them, dancing a waltz, quadrille, and mazurka with his wife to the accompaniment of a children's organ; a thinker and psychologist who displays a subtle understanding of ladies' attire, and who has a general passion for elegant things: crystal, vases, artistic objects - all this complements the writer's life image.
“He was the kindest, most gentle, most intelligent and generous person I have ever known,” writes Anna Grigorievna. “The sun of my life is Fyodor Dostoevsky.”

He is recognized as a classic of literature and one of the best novelists of world significance. It is 195 years since the birth of Dostoevsky.

First love

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky was born on November 11, 1821 in Moscow and was the second child in a large family. His father, a doctor at the Moscow Mariinsky Hospital for the Poor, received the title of hereditary nobleman in 1828. Mother is from a merchant family, a religious woman. From January 1838, Dostoevsky studied at the Main Engineering School. He suffered from the military atmosphere and drill, from disciplines alien to his interests and from loneliness. As his college friend, the artist Trutovsky, testified, Dostoevsky kept himself aloof, but amazed his comrades with his erudition, and a literary circle formed around him. After serving for less than a year in the St. Petersburg engineering team, in the summer of 1844 Dostoevsky resigned with the rank of lieutenant, deciding to devote himself entirely to creativity.

In 1846, a new talented star appeared on the literary horizon of St. Petersburg - Fyodor Dostoevsky. The young author’s novel “Poor People” creates a real sensation among the reading public. Dostoevsky, hitherto unknown to anyone, in an instant becomes a public person, for the honor of seeing whom famous people fight in their literary salon.

Most often, Dostoevsky could be seen at the evenings at Ivan Panaev’s, where the most famous writers and critics of that time gathered: Turgenev, Nekrasov, Belinsky. However, it was not the opportunity to talk with his more venerable fellow writers that drew the young man there. Sitting in the corner of the room, Dostoevsky, holding his breath, watched Panaev's wife, Avdotya. This was the woman of his dreams! Beautiful, smart, witty - everything about her excited his mind. In his dreams, confessing his ardent love, Dostoevsky, because of his timidity, was even afraid to speak to her again.

Avdotya Panaeva, who later left her husband for Nekrasov, was completely indifferent to the new visitor to her salon. “At first glance at Dostoevsky,” she writes in her memoirs, “it was clear that he was a terribly nervous and impressionable young man. He was thin, small, blond, with a sallow complexion; his small gray eyes somehow moved anxiously from object to object, and his pale lips twitched nervously.” How can she, the queen, pay attention to such a “handsome man” among these writers and counts!

Petrashevsky circle

One day, out of boredom, at the invitation of a friend, Fyodor dropped in for the evening at Petrashevsky’s circle. Young liberals gathered there, read French books banned by censorship and talked about how good it would be to live under republican rule. Dostoevsky liked the cozy atmosphere, and although he was a staunch monarchist, he began to come to “Fridays.”

But these “tea parties” ended badly for Fyodor Mikhailovich. Emperor Nicholas I, having received information about the “Petrashevsky circle,” gave an order to arrest everyone. One night they came for Dostoevsky. First, six months of imprisonment in solitary confinement in the Peter and Paul Fortress, then the sentence - the death penalty, commuted to four years in prison with further service as a private.

The years that followed were some of the hardest in Dostoevsky's life. A nobleman by birth, he found himself among murderers and thieves who immediately disliked the “political”. “Every new arrival in the prison, two hours after arrival, becomes like everyone else,” he recalled. - Not so with a noble, with a nobleman. No matter how fair, kind, smart he may be, he will be hated and despised by everyone for years, by the whole mass.” But Dostoevsky did not break. On the contrary, he came out a completely different person. It was during penal servitude that knowledge of life, human characters, and the understanding that a person can combine good and evil, truth and lies, came together.

In 1854, Dostoevsky arrived in Semipalatinsk. Soon I fell in love. The object of his desires was the wife of his friend Maria Isaeva. This woman has felt deprived of both love and success all her life. Born into a fairly wealthy family of a colonel, she unsuccessfully married an official who turned out to be an alcoholic. Dostoevsky, who for many years had not known the affection of a woman, thought that he had met the love of his life. He spends evening after evening at the Isaevs', listening to the drunken eloquence of Maria's husband just to be near his beloved.

In August 1855, Isaev dies. Finally, the obstacle was removed, and Dostoevsky proposed to the woman he loved. Maria, who had a growing son and debts for her husband’s funeral, had no choice but to accept her admirer’s offer. On February 6, 1857, Dostoevsky and Isaeva got married. On the wedding night, an incident occurred that became an omen of the failure of this family union. Dostoevsky suffered an epileptic attack due to nervous tension. The body convulsing on the floor, the foam flowing from the corners of his mouth - the picture she saw forever instilled in Maria a shade of some kind of disgust for her husband, for whom she already had no love.

Conquered peak

In 1860, Dostoevsky, thanks to the help of friends, received permission to return to St. Petersburg. There he met Apollinaria Suslova, whose features can be seen in many of the heroines of his works: in Katerina Ivanovna and Grushenka from The Brothers Karamazov, and in Polina from The Player, and in Nastasya Filippovna from The Idiot. Apollinaria made an indelible impression: a slender girl “with large gray-blue eyes, with regular features of an intelligent face, with her head thrown back proudly, framed by magnificent braids. In her low, somewhat slow voice and in the whole demeanor of her strong, tightly built body there was a strange combination of strength and femininity.”

Their romance, which began, turned out to be passionate, stormy and uneven. Dostoevsky either prayed to his “angel”, lay at her feet, or behaved like a brute and a rapist. He was either enthusiastic, sweet, or capricious, suspicious, hysterical, shouting at her in some nasty, thin woman's voice. In addition, Dostoevsky’s wife became seriously ill, and he could not leave her, as Polina demanded. Gradually, the lovers' relationship reached a dead end.

They decided to leave for Paris, but when Dostoevsky arrived there, Apollinaria told him: “You’re a little late.” She fell passionately in love with a certain Spaniard, who, by the time Dostoevsky arrived, abandoned the Russian beauty that had bored him. She sobbed into Dostoevsky's vest, threatened to commit suicide, and he, stunned by the unexpected meeting, calmed her down and offered her brotherly friendship. Here Dostoevsky urgently needs to go to Russia - his wife Maria is dying. He visits the sick woman, but not for long - it’s very hard to watch: “Her nerves are extremely irritated. The chest is bad, withered like a matchstick. Horror! It’s painful and hard to watch.”

His letters contain a combination of sincere pain, compassion and petty cynicism. “My wife is dying, literally. Her suffering is terrible and resonates with me. The story drags on. Here's another thing: I'm afraid that my wife's death will happen soon, and then a break from work will be necessary. If it weren’t for this break, I think I would have finished the story.”

In the spring of 1864 there was a “break in work” - Masha died. Looking at her withered corpse, Dostoevsky writes in his notebook: “Masha is lying on the table... It is impossible to love a person as yourself according to the commandment of Christ.” Almost immediately after the funeral, he offers Apollinaria his hand and heart, but is refused - for her Dostoevsky was a conquered peak.

“For me, you are lovely, and there is no one like you”

Soon Anna Snitkina appeared in the writer’s life; she was recommended as Dostoevsky’s assistant. Anna perceived this as a miracle - after all, Fyodor Mikhailovich had long been her favorite writer. She came to him every day, and sometimes deciphered shorthand notes at night. “Talking to me in a friendly manner, every day Fyodor Mikhailovich revealed to me some sad picture of his life,” Anna Grigorievna would later write in her memoirs. “Deep pity involuntarily crept into my heart when he talked about difficult circumstances from which he, apparently, never came out, and could not come out.”

The novel "The Gambler" was completed on October 29. The next day Fyodor Mikhailovich celebrated his birthday. Anna was invited to the celebration. As he said goodbye, he asked permission to meet her mother to thank her for her magnificent daughter. By that time, he had already realized that Anna had fallen in love with him, although she expressed her feeling only silently. The writer also liked her more and more.

The few months from engagement to wedding were pure bliss. “It was not physical love, not passion. It was rather adoration, admiration for a person so talented and possessing such high spiritual qualities. The dream of becoming his life partner, sharing his labors, making his life easier, giving him happiness - took possession of my imagination,” she would later write.

Anna Grigorievna and Fyodor Mikhailovich got married on February 15, 1867. The happiness remained, but the serenity was completely gone. Anna had to use all her patience, perseverance and courage. There were problems with money, huge debts. Her husband suffered from depression and epilepsy. Convulsions, seizures, irritability - all this fell upon her in full. And that was only half the story.

Dostoevsky's pathological passion for gambling is a terrible passion for roulette. Everything was at stake: family savings, Anna's dowry, and even Dostoevsky's gifts to her. Losses ended in periods of self-flagellation and ardent repentance. The writer begged his wife for forgiveness, and then it all started all over again.

The writer’s stepson Pavel, the son of Maria Isaeva, who actually ran the house, was not distinguished by a meek disposition, and was dissatisfied with his father’s new marriage. Pavel constantly tried to prick the new mistress. He sat firmly on his stepfather’s neck, like other relatives. Anna realized that the only way out was to go abroad. Dresden, Baden, Geneva, Florence. It was against the backdrop of these divine landscapes that their real rapprochement took place, and their affection turned into a serious feeling. They often quarreled and made up. Dostoevsky began to show unreasonable jealousy. “For me, you are lovely, and there is no one like you. And every person with a heart and taste should say this if he takes a closer look at you - that’s why I’m sometimes jealous of you,” he said.

And while staying in Baden-Baden, where they spent their honeymoon, the writer lost again in a casino. After that, he sent his wife a note at the hotel: “Help me, send me an engagement ring.” Anna meekly complied with this request.

They spent four years abroad. Joys gave way to sorrows and even tragedies. In 1868, their first daughter, Sonechka, was born in Geneva. She left this world three months later. This was a big shock for Anna and her husband. A year later, their second daughter, Lyuba, was born in Dresden.

Returning to St. Petersburg, they spent a significant part of their time in the romantically secluded Staraya Russa. He dictated, she took shorthand. The children were growing up. In 1871, a son, Fedor, was born in St. Petersburg, and in 1875, a son, Alyosha, was born in Staraya Russa. Three years later, Anna and her husband again had to endure a tragedy - in the spring of 1878, three-year-old Alyosha died of an epileptic seizure.

Returning to St. Petersburg, they did not dare to stay in the apartment, where everything reminded them of their deceased son, and settled at the famous address - Kuznechny Lane, building 5. Anna Grigorievna’s room turned into the office of a businesswoman. She managed everything: she was Dostoevsky’s secretary and stenographer, was involved in the publication of his works and the book trade, managed all financial affairs in the house, and raised children.

The relative calm was short-lived. Epilepsy has subsided, but new diseases have appeared. And then there are family disputes over inheritance. Fyodor Mikhailovich's aunt left him the Ryazan estate, stipulating the payment of sums of money to his sisters. But Vera Mikhailovna, one of the sisters, demanded that the writer give up his share in favor of the sisters.

After a stormy showdown, Dostoevsky's blood started pouring down his throat. The year was 1881, Anna Grigorievna was only 35 years old. Until recently, she did not believe in her husband’s imminent death. “Fyodor Mikhailovich began to console me, spoke sweet, affectionate words to me, thanked me for the happy life he lived with me. He entrusted the children to me, said that he believed me and hoped that I would always love and take care of them. Then he told me the words that a rare husband could say to his wife after fourteen years of marriage: “Remember, Anya, I have always loved you dearly and have never cheated on you, even mentally,” she will remember later. Two days later he was gone.

Eroticism of Dostoevsky

We find vivid manifestations of Dostoevsky's eroticism in his love dramas, in the intensity of the passions of his intimate relationships, in his successes and defeats with women, as well as in the depiction of heroines and heroes in novels and stories. In all his works, Dostoevsky depicted the failures of love, associated with sacrifice and suffering. At the same time, he could not or did not want to describe love as triumphant, joyful and confident as a man. The intensity of his eroticism and sexual tension are explained by his unfettered imagination and forced periods of abstinence from communicating with women. Abstinence occurred, for example, during the period of hard labor, due to illness, suspiciousness, and melancholy.

By temperament, Dostoevsky was a man of great passions, deep sensuality and insatiable voluptuousness. After a long accumulation of intimate relationships with women, he came to the conclusion that the power of sex over a person is very great and that a person’s will can be subordinated to the physical arousal of passion, and the mental incitement of sexual desire (in our time - masturbation) is worse than the “sin” itself. , i.e. intimate relationships. This can be explained by the fact that in his youth Dostoevsky was well aware of this mental (mental) kindling of the flesh, this game of erotic imagination, and he also knew the direct satisfaction of sexual need, which, having accumulated experience in intimate relationships with women, he called “sin.”

The combination in a woman’s character of childish and feminine principles, fragility and grace in the figure aroused in Dostoevsky an acute physical attraction, awakened his erotic fantasy, and then such a woman seemed extraordinary and desirable to him. Moreover, if this woman suffered, then this attracted his attention even more, struck his imagination and evoked a sensual impulse, which led to complex experiences that Dostoevsky could not and did not always want to understand. This is explained by the fact that sensitivity to someone else’s grief, a woman’s, increased his erotic excitability.

Therefore, in Dostoevsky’s eroticism, sadistic and masochistic desires were intertwined in the most bizarre way: to love meant to sacrifice oneself and respond with one’s whole soul and whole body to the suffering of others, even at the cost of one’s own torment.

But to love also meant for Dostoevsky to torment oneself, to cause suffering, to painfully wound a beloved being. Not every woman could share with Dostoevsky either his voluptuousness or his sensuality, given his heightened sexuality, his complexes of masochism and sadism. As in life, so in love, he was a difficult and strange person. His love was not easy - with contradictions of tenderness, compassion, thirst for physical attraction, fear of causing pain and an uncontrollable desire for torment. He didn't know simple feelings. His love tore both body and soul apart. At the same time, the great writer, who knew how to unravel and imagine all the twists of the mind and heart of his numerous and complex heroes, did not find words when he had to talk about his own experiences.

Dostoevsky had a special kind of erotic quality - a feeling that both men and women sometimes experience in relation to those who had intimate relations with their partners. Dostoevsky had this feeling towards the teacher Vergunov, the constant lover of his first wife Marya Dimitrievna. He took care of him even after marriage and said that Vergunov “is now dearer to me than my own brother.”

Dostoevsky's eroticism is built on the fact that in his imagination, feelings and dreams, voluptuousness is inseparable from torment. For all his heroes, as the main motive of their sexuality, the thirst for power over sex or the thirst for victimization of sex comes to the fore. This eroticism of Dostoevsky survived him for many, many years. Today we see in American films about love that the basis of their plots is Dostoev’s sexuality, i.e. “the thirst for power over sex or the thirst for the victim of sex.” Let’s compare the love drama in an American film with the words of the hero of Dostoevsky’s “The Gambler”:

“And wild, unlimited power - even over a fly - is also a kind of pleasure. Man is a despot by nature and loves to be a tormentor.”

Scenes of violence and physical sadism are found in almost all of Dostoevsky's novels. In the novel “Demons,” Stavrogin, with bated breath, watches as a girl is flogged with rods because of him: he will then rape her.

More than a hundred years have passed since the death of Dostoevsky, and today the best detective novels and action films are only built on “scenes of violence and physical sadism.”

Pain, suffering, as an undivided part of love, physical torment associated with sexual intercourse, and mental torment associated with the entire sensual sphere of intimacy between a man and a woman - such was Dostoevsky’s eroticism in the years of his maturity.

It was not only beauty and charm that attracted Dostoevsky in the women he loved or desired, they excited and captivated him with something else. This was different - absolute defenselessness, which promised complete submission, humility and passivity of the victim, or, on the contrary, sharp power, which promised humiliation and pleasure from the pain caused by the woman he loved. Between these two poles lay all the fluctuations and contradictions in Dostoevsky’s relations with all his lovers.

Much of Dostoevsky’s sadistic and masochistic inclinations confused him, although he was sure that cruelty, love of torment, as well as the voluptuousness of self-abasement are in human nature, and therefore natural, like other vices and instincts of people.

Dostoevsky was always attracted to very young women, and he transferred his sexual fantasies to young girls. And in his works, he repeatedly described various loves of a mature or old man with a young girl. Regardless of how fair it is to assume that Dostoevsky himself knew such temptations, he perfectly understood and masterfully described the physical passion of a mature man for teenagers and girls.

Imagination played a large role in Dostoevsky's eroticism. Just as in creativity one cannot assume that the writer depicts in his works only what really happened to him, so in Dostoevsky’s eroticism one cannot see only his personal experience. In the creative imagination one should distinguish between thoughts and deeds and experience. Unfulfilled desires and thoughts also feed artistic imagination. In his eroticism, Dostoevsky has many sexual fantasies - torture, rape and others that did not happen to him in reality, but were described by him with stunning realism. And this fantasy already seems like a reality to anyone who has entered the world of voluptuousness and perversion created by the imagination of Dostoevsky - this brilliant tormentor and martyr.

In Dostoevsky's eroticism, an insatiable curiosity for all the tricks and varieties of vice, for variations and combinations of passions, for the deviations and oddities of human nature found its place. This curiosity explained why he showed interest in “fallen creatures”, became friends with street women and among them with hardened, cynical professionals - their crude eroticism had an irresistible effect on him. However, Dostoevsky’s intense interest in his youth in “lost personalities” and the St. Petersburg slums dwindled in the mid-sixties, and he rarely visited nightlife establishments. By 1865, after a love drama with the young girl Apollinaria, his passions had noticeably subsided and a lot of things in him had burned out. His erotic characteristics and desires of these years did not become a habit for the rest of his life, at some point they reached their maximum height, then burned out, and others were reborn - they lost their intensity, the heat of the blood subsided and most of them surrendered to the heavy burden of memories that manifest themselves in sexual fantasies. By this time - by 1865, Dostoevsky's masochism and sadism, his complexes associated with minors, his sexual fervor and curiosity, that is, the entire pathological side of his erotic life, lose the character of frenzy and mania, become dulled, and he consciously strives for to what might be called the “normalization of his sexual activity.” Perhaps this is where his dreams of marriage and his attraction to young girls of marriageable age intensify. He knew his nature well: only in the company of young girls did he have the joy of being and hope for happiness. In a young girl, the combination of childishness and femininity for Dostoevsky turned into a source of erotic attraction. Youth excited him and promised physical pleasure. He found all this in his second wife of twenty years, Anna Grigorievna. The Dostoevskys, from intimate intimacy, revealed the best sides of their nature, and Anna Grigorievna, who fell in love and married the author of “The Gambler,” saw that he was a completely extraordinary, brilliant, terrible, difficult person, and he, who married his secretary-stenographer, discovered that not only is he “the patron and protector of the young creature,” but she is his friend and support.

At sixty years old, Dostoevsky was just as jealous as in his youth, but he was also just as passionate in the manifestations of his love for Anna Grigorievna. Sexual tension was explained not only by the sexual habit of marriage with a young wife, but also by the intensity of Dostoevsky's eroticism and his imagination and the consciousness that the young woman, who had already lived with him for a whole decade, not only loved him, but was also physically satisfied. Dostoevsky's sensuality remained as heightened as in his youth; the years of old age changed little in his character and temperament. Towards the end of his life he was unusually thin and emaciated, tired easily, suffered from his emphysema and lived solely on his nerves.

Dostoevsky's eroticism knew no bounds, and one can only imagine all the indomitable passions in the fire of which this extraordinary, frantic and mysterious man burned.

DOSTOEVSKY AND WE

Dostoevsky and we are modern people of human society at the end of the twentieth century. In what connection do Dostoevsky’s ideas affect us, modern people? Do we live “according to Dostoevsky”, do we experience the same feelings, do we have the same thoughts as his heroes of the 19th century?

Dostoevsky, by his own admission, spent his whole life studying the “secret of man” - he explored the spiritual life of man. He wrote:

“They call me a psychologist, which is not true, I am only a realist in the highest sense, that is, I depict all the depths of the human soul.” There are no landscapes or pictures of nature in Dostoevsky's novels. He depicts only man and the human world. Its heroes are people of modern urban civilization who have fallen out of the natural world order and have become disconnected from “living life.” And the people of the late twentieth century, that is, we, moved even further away from nature and became even more detached from “living life.”

In his works, Dostoevsky plunged into the depths of the subconscious and explored the mental life of children and adolescents; he studied the psyche of madmen, maniacs, fanatics, criminals, murderers and suicides.

Modern people mainly read detective books, watch thriller films, where the main characters are those whose souls Dostoevsky studied - murderers, criminals, madmen and maniacs. And modern man himself in his life increasingly experiences the hardships of life created by Dostoevsky’s heroes - maniacs (for example, Hitler), criminals and murderers.

Dostoevsky, as we have seen, gravitated towards young girls. His first love - Apollinaria and his wife Anna - were young innocent girls. In the company of a young girl, he perked up, “soared in spirit,” and forgot about his age.

The phenomenon, so to speak, of Dostoevsky’s “young girl” was that, on the one hand, she, a girl, has a stronger and deeper effect on a person, on the other, on her face, in her figure, gestures, words, exclamations, Laughter conveys her feelings, moods, and movements of the soul faster and more clearly, more accessible to strangers. And in this case, Dostoevsky, as a very sensitive nature, preferred to deal with girls than with mature women, in whom, due to their experience, silent voice and sometimes a thick layer of fat on their bodies, it is difficult to discern sincere emotional impulses.

In the 19th century, Dostoevsky loved and communicated with young girls. Now, at the end of the twentieth century, we all “love” young girls - advertising takes full advantage of young girls. We see them in almost all commercials, on television screens, etc. Why isn’t life “according to Dostoevsky”?

Dostoevsky, a single man, had an increased interest in young children, in their spiritual life, in their psyche. This phenomenon has become noticeable in our time: many publications are devoted to child molestation. There are many reports of girls being raped by their fathers in their families. Child prostitution has developed in the countries of Southeast Asia, especially in Thailand, where there are many children's brothels. Underage child sex work is developed in the United States. And this “phenomenon” is growing.

What explains it? If Dostoevsky had heightened sensitivity, and he used it to explore the area of ​​\u200b\u200bmental life, as a means of understanding the human spirit in order to protect the dignity, personality and freedom of man, then modern man has dulled sensitivity, he has the consciousness of a “hunted mouse”, and In order to get out of it, he molests a minor or “shows off” a minor prostitute for money, feeling like a “strong personality” to whom “everything is allowed.”

All of Dostoevsky's works are dedicated to crimes and punishments. When he wrote them, he was addressing us, the people of the late twentieth century. It seems that humanity after Dostoevsky and up to the present day has been busy inventing more and more new crimes, and not only against an individual, but also against humanity (fascism, for example).

Dostoevsky individualized and dissected the external influence on a person - on his soul, in order to understand it deeper and better. And in this we follow him. But today we do not strive to understand the human soul, but strive to influence it in order to receive greater profit from this influence.

An example of this is modern music (pop music, ensembles, all kinds of groups, recording discs), which affects listeners not with the content of the songs, not with the melody, but with the sound - low, high, percussive, sharp. Thus, if earlier one talent, one genius (Dostoevsky) achieved the highest results of influencing a person’s soul, today his experience is transformed and used as an instrument of influence on the human psyche through advertising (young girls), through modern pop music, erotic films and so on.

Dostoevsky passionately believed in the “great general harmony,” “the unity of humanity.” Humanity in our time has already come close to this milestone. People have become almost identical both in appearance and in the development of their souls. Dostoevsky wrote that if people are only natural beings, if their souls are not immortal, then they should settle down most happily on earth, submitting to the principles of profit and reasonable egoism. Hence, according to Dostoevsky, the “herding” of humanity or the transformation of people into a “human herd” and the destruction of the human soul.

And in this Dostoevsky turned out to be right for our time. All this has already happened, and not because man has only submitted to the “principles of profit and reasonable egoism,” but because man in our time lives “in the crowd.” In other words, there are a lot of people, so many that we live, as it were, “in a crowd”

And this “crowd” affects every person, his state of mind, his desire to “grab his piece of life” as soon as possible. The “crowd” increases crimes, lowers the threshold of morality, and crowds out such spiritual concepts as kindness, mercy, decency, sincerity, and honesty from life.

And “herding” in these conditions is not the physical state of the “crowd”, but its way of behavior. We are all exposed to advertising and buy the same things. “What the neighbor has, I should have.” This is the most immutable law of our “crowd”. Hence the destruction of spiritual values.

Dostoevsky was wrong about one thing. The theme of parricide in his works today has most likely transformed into “maticide.” In Russia, children are more likely to hate and kill their mothers. Fathers leave their families - children blame their mother for all troubles, and it comes to killing her.

And lastly, there can no longer be a writer like Dostoevsky in our time. Compared to Dostoevsky, modern writers have a very poor inner world. It’s barely enough for simple everyday writing. For example, there were writers who went through Stalin’s concentration camps, but none of them wrote a work like Dostoevsky’s Notes from the House of the Dead. All of them limited themselves to writing about everyday life, albeit terrible, but writing about everyday life. Why is this happening? There are no new ideas in the souls of the writers; they suffered physically and mentally, but they could not convey it. Not the same feelings, not the same emotions today that Dostoevsky had before. Nowadays, a writer writes more or less interesting works when he is influenced by a strong external impulse (for example, war). The meager inner world of a modern writer blocks his path to a work of genius.

The international public organization "Club of Rome", uniting several hundred people who are part of the elite of the modern world, has come to the conclusion that in its development, humanity has entered the final part of its existence. In other words, if previously it was developing, now it is moving towards its death. It is difficult to say how long this stage will last, but one thing is certain - a person’s feelings, emotions, and sensuality are reduced and dulled in this process of dying. This also prevents the emergence of a new Dostoevsky among us modern people.