E. N. Opochinin and his diary notes about F. M. Dostoevsky: known and unknown

Taking an active part in the cultural life of Russia of the late 19th and early 20th centuries E. N. Opochinin was acquainted with lots of his famous contemporaries — P. P. Vyazemsky, A.N. Maikov, A. P. Milyukov, D. V. Grigorovich, V. V. Krestovsky, Ya. P. Polonsky, I. S. Turgenev, F.M. Dostoevsky and others — and depicted their portraits in his notes. The article for the first time envisages Opochinin’s diary notes of 1879—1880 about F. M. Dostoevsky, entitled “My Conversations with Dostoevsky”, from the viewpoint of the spiritual and moral reference points that defined the worldview of the late Dostoevsky. In his notes Opochinin specified the issues Dostoevsky was occupied with during his work on the novel “The Brothers Karamazov”. In his conversations with the novice man of letters Dostoevsky thought about peculiarities of the infant soul and world, about the construction of a religious family as a way out of the spiritual crisis of the society and the crisis of “gender relations”, about repentance as a way to the restitution of harmony of Man with conscience and with God, about the writer’s attitude to his nation and Motherland, about the veneration of God’s image by Russian people. Dostoevsky’s spiritual and moral ideas turned to be familiar to Opochinin’s ones. Thus, following them allowed the young contemporary of the great writer to take a rightful place in life, journalism and history of Russian literature.