Vol 9, No 3 (2022)
Articles
Problems of Attribution of Anonymous Articles in Dostoevsky’s Publications
Abstract
A large volume of anonymous articles that may have been written by Dostoevsky was published in the “Vremya” and “Epokha” journals, and in the weekly “Grazhdanin”. Their significance is great: in feuilletons, criticism and polemical articles, the writer developed a new ideological direction — “pochvennichestvo”. Over the past fifty years, the corpus of texts that are attributed to Dostoevsky with confidence has significantly expanded. Extensive trial and error experience has been accumulated in their attribution, which allows to pose and solve a number of methodological problems. An almost indisputable criterion of belonging is the author’s literary signature, however, in journalistic practice, the signed text is not always composed by the person who signed it — sometimes the authorship belongs to the editor or editorial staff. Dostoevsky himself published a number of his articles under the name of M. M. Dostoevsky, “the family of M. M. Dostoevsky,” A. U. Poretsky, V. P. Meshchersky. Anonymity was a condition for the publication of numerous articles. The editors bought the text, adapted it to the journal’s vector, corrected the beginning and end, made inserts and notes, the editor often rewrote someone else's text, sometimes worked on compilations. Currently, a new stage of discussion of attribution problems has begun. Previously unpublished sources have been introduced into scientific circulation — in particular, handwritten income-expense and fee books of the 1860s—1865s, which were initially kept by M. M. Dostoevsky, and then F. M. Dostoevsky. Their study expands the researchers’ arguments. The use of mathematical methods is of great importance in determining authorship. Most of the existing mathematical attribution techniques are untenable; first and foremost, they do not even convince mathematicians themselves. There are proven methods, which allow to substantiate with a high degree of persuasiveness the authorship and co-authorship of Dostoevsky in writing anonymous and pseudonymous articles, and to reveal his editing of other authors’ texts. Further improvement of statistical methods in determining authorship is required.
5-24
Attribution Problems in Dostoevsky’s “Grazhdanin” (“The Citizen”): Debate and Arguments
Abstract
After Dostoevsky’s death, it became necessary to collect all his texts for the publication of the Complete Works. There was a difficulty connected to the anonymous and pseudonymous materials published by the writer. Anna Grigorievna gathered a meeting to discuss the inclusion of such articles in the corpus of the writer’s texts. As a result, a decision was made to reject materials not signed by Dostoevsky. This was the first experience of compiling a posthumous collection of the writer’s works. The question of anonymous and pseudonymous articles in publications edited by Dostoevsky remained open and required further study. For the first time, anonymous texts were included in the publication dedicated to Dostoevsky by L. P. Grossman. He insisted on the importance of all the materials that the writer was working on. In the future, the publishers had the task of forming a complete corpus of Dostoevsky’s texts. Over more than a hundred years, a lot of work has been carried out to identify the authors of the materials published in “Grazhdanin” (“The Citizen”): active discussions and discussions of attributions continue, new hypotheses of text authorship are put forward, unknown authors of publications published under pseudonyms are revealed, information about the employees of “Grazhdanin” and the writer’s correspondents is supplemented, the features of Dostoevsky’s editorial work are studied. The result of the great work of I. Zohrab and V. A. Viktorovich were the prepared chronological listing of “Grazhdanin” of 1873—1874, indicating the authors of anonymous and pseudonymous articles. This article provides an overview of studies on the attribution of materials from “Grazhdanin.” The problem of attribution in “Grazhdanin” has not yet been resolved. It is necessary to look for new ways to solve it, because this will help to fully appreciate Dostoevsky’s contribution to the concept and editorial policy of the publication.
25-53
Graphic Aspects of Textual Interpretation of Dostoevsky’s Handwritten Text
Abstract
The article discusses the issues of textual interpretation of Dostoevsky's handwritten text using the writer's graphics as research materials. It presents the results of the analysis of Dostoevsky's 1868–1869 workbook (“The Idiot”) and later entries. It became clear that without reference to handwritten sources, it is impossible to solve certain tasks that include the correction of research errors in reading Dostoevsky's manuscripts and determination of the author's original text. Methodologically significant conditions of textual work with autographs are a combination of linguistic (that is grammatical, spelling, punctuation) analysis of Dostoevsky's drafts and the study of letter and non-letter graphics. Previously, researchers had to depend on isolated, accidentally discovered examples of similar spellings and, in general, on their accumulated experience of reading Dostoevsky's handwriting. This method did not ensure the representativeness of the result, because there was no large-scale continuous sampling of each letter’s handwriting in different positions or summary tables or databases. Non-automated, “manual” analysis did not always allow to quickly find an unambiguous and reliably articulated solution. Today a graphics database on the “Archive of F. M. Dostoevsky” portal has become an important tool for the textual research of the writer's manuscripts, which significantly increases work efficiency. This is a digital archive of images of the writer's notebooks and their interpretation in authentic and modern language versions. Based on this archive, a replenishable “Library of graphic samples” is also being created. It contains samples of different types of the writer's handwriting and non-verbal graphics (drawings, figures, author's signs, editing marks). The electronic catalog of graphic samples allows to systematize the writing, find typical and atypical samples among them. This is an additional important criterion for the argumentation of certain research readings when interpreting Dostoevsky's handwritten text. Technical tools have been developed specifically for the database, that is: marker fields that describe the individual parameters of each lexeme and allow conducting an advanced search in the “Library of Graphic Samples.” With its help, it is possible to quickly find all patterns of the same type for their further analysis. Thus, this resource will become an important tool in the complex graphic and linguotextological analysis of the writer's handwritten material.
54-77
Dostoevsky and Hindenburg: a Literary Text in a Biographical Context
Abstract
The article systematizes the known and forgotten facts about the life and work of Vasily (Wilhelm) Danilovich Hindenburg, a doctor from Minsk, a German by birth. The lifestyle and fate of this man were important for Dostoevsky in understanding such fundamental issues as the meaning of life, the role of a person in history, and the search for solutions to interethnic conflicts. Dostoevsky learned about Dr. Hindenburg from a letter from his friend Sophia Efimovna Lurie, a girl from a Jewish family, the daughter of a Minsk banker, a student of St. Petersburg Women’s Pedagogical Courses. Later, the writer devoted two sub-chapters of the Writer’s Diary from March 1877 to the description of the doctor's story. The feat of Hindenburg, who has saved human lives during epidemics, childbirth, in prisons for 58 years, was seen by Dostoevsky as an example of Christian humility, a pledge of harmony and unity. The doctor's funeral united all residents of Minsk, destroying age, class and ethnic borders. The Appendix contains a republication of R. V. Pletnev’s article “Dostoevsky and Hindenburg,” published in the emigrant newspaper “Rudder” (Berlin, February 6–7, 1931). This publication presents new information about the Minsk doctor from the memoirs of a witness to the events, his niece Sabina Samoilovna Daniel (nee Hindenburg). Pletnev also was the first to suggest that the image of the doctor Herzenstube in the novel “The brothers Karamazov” was created by Dostoevsky by combining the story of the Moscow doctor Нaaz and the story of Hindenburg. Author of the article, develops Dostoevsky’s ideas, also telling the story of Hindenburg’s friend, the Jewish philanthropist Zeldovich, to whom the doctor at his deathbed bequeathed to take care of all the poor. The doctor's active and ascetic life became an example of true service to man and humanity for Dostoevsky.
78-115
F. M. Dostoevsky at the Stackenschneider Salon (How and Thanks to Whom the St. Petersburg Relics Ended Up in Omsk)
Abstract
Based on archival sources, the article examines and introduces into scientific circulation the biographic facts about the family members of the famous St. Petersburg architect A. I. Shtakenshneider — M. V. Dolinino-Ivanskaya and her closest relatives who lived in St. Petersburg, Omsk and Riga. Dolinino-Ivanskaya became the last keeper of family heirlooms associated with F. M. Dostoevsky, who was a frequent guest in the house of her ancestors. Her mother Maria Andreevna (married name Popova) was the seventh child in the family of Shtakenshneider, and she preserved some of the furniture from the famous literary salon owned by her sister Elena Andreevna. Currently, the pieces of furniture from the salon living room are in the permanent exhibition of the Omsk Literary Museum named after F. M. Dostoevsky. Another part of the collection, which comprises an album of E. A. Shtakenshneider, a death mask of A. S. Pushkin and a table lamp, is kept in the funds of the Omsk Museum of Local History. M. V. Dolinino-Ivanskaya’s letters to A. F. Palashenkov, which traces the history of the donation of these objects to the Omsk Museum of Local History, and as well as provides information about their existence are published and commented on for the first time in the appendix to the article.
116-135
Dostoevsky’s Siberian Letters
Abstract
The article examines the scientific publication “F. M. Dostoevsky. "The Rebirth of My Beliefs,"” prepared for the 200th anniversary of the great writer by the Tyumen Regional Public Charitable Foundation “Rebirth of Tobolsk” in cooperation with scientists from Petrozavodsk State University and the Department of Manuscripts of the Russian State Library. It is an edition that contains commentated letters by F. M. Dostoevsky from Siberia to his brother M. M. Dostoevsky, dated January 30 — February 22, 1854, N. D. Fonvizina (a letter written in the second decade of February 1854) and A. N. Maykov, dated January 18, 1856 in pre-revolutionary and modern orthography; their facsimile is attached to the publication of letters. This example of Dostoevsky epistolary work is of interest as the most important evidence of the profound shifts in the writer’s worldview during the years of Omsk penal servitude: the transition from the fascination with French theoretical socialism of the 1830s and 1840s to the soil-based Orthodoxy. The painstaking work of textual specialists contributed to the clarification of many incorrect readings of the published letters. For the first time, several fragments of the Siberian epistolary deleted by Dostoevsky have been correctly restored in the publication. The merits of the anniversary edition should include its experimental, highly artistic design (designed by graphic artist V. E. Valerius).
136-147