Vol 8, No 2 (2021)

The article refutes the opinion found in some biographical studies, which states that Dostoevsky disliked the Latin language and showed nointerest in it. An appeal to the writer’s letters, his journalistic and artistic works, surviving working notes suggests the opposite: Dostoevsky not only speaks positively of the Latin language, but also uses it in the process of creating his texts. An analysis of published works and surviving work notes revealed 67 Latin words and expressions. Many of the Latin insertions are encountered more than once, some have a distinct practical nature (for example, the NB anagram and its varieties). In terms of use, the Latin expressions used by Dostoevsky are from to medicine, jurisprudence, and Catholic church rhetoric, but for the most part they are common aphorisms and speech clichés. The article draws attention to the fact of Dostoevsky’s work with Latin text as a commentator and translator and proves that the fragment of the prophecy from the book of Johann Lichtenberger cited in the 1877 A Writer’s Diary was translated by Dostoevsky. Liberty (modified composition, insertion of additional words) and relative grammatical correctness (only two grammatical inaccuracies were found in the translation) testify to a fairly fluent command of Latin, which allowed Dostoevsky not only to translate the medieval religious text, but also to interpret it to illustrate his sociopolitical views.

This study is a contribution to the research of the extensive topic of Dostoevsky and Garibaldi and is an analysis of two fragments from Dostoevsky’s texts, where he addressed the image of the Italian hero. This image is reflected in the artistic, journalistic and epistolary texts by Dostoevsky, his name is calligraphically printed on the pages of two of the writer’s notebooks. The article analyzes an episode from the novel The Idiot: the story of the liar and braggart General Ivolgin about his wound during the Crimean War that was treated by two outstanding surgeons — the Frenchman O. Nelaton and the Russian N. I. Pirogov. It is shown that the subtext of Ivolgin’s story refers to the story of Garibaldi’s wound in the battle of Aspromonte and the treatment of his leg by O. Nelaton and N. I. Pirogov, which Dostoevsky and his hero learned about from the newspapers. The European and Russian press, which closely followed the political events in Italy and Europe in the 1860s, created a heroic image of this man. The second reference to Garibaldi is from Dostoevsky’s Geneva letter to his niece S. A. Ivanova dated January 1 (13), 1868. It presents a parody sketch of contemporary political events and figures in Italy (Cardinal Antonelli, General Kanzler, the defeat of Garibaldi’s army at the Battle of Mentana). They are allegorically transferred to the games and amusements of the younger generation of the Ivanov family, with whom the writer spent the summer of 1866. The article corrects the error made by the publishers of Dostoevsky’s letters: the title of «general kanzler» (this is how this phrase was published) never existed — in the Battle of Mentana, the supreme commander of the papal troops, which defeated Garibaldi, was General Hermann Kanzler, who had a German origin and surname. The cases considered indicate a significant interest of the writer in the heroic personality of Giuseppe Garibaldi, his activities and fate.

The notebooks of F. M. Dostoevsky contain personal names and titles of works, many of which were left without comment or were reproduced incorrectly from the manuscript. The article examines the names of real persons from the “first” notebook of Dostoevsky in 1864–1865 (presently at The Russian State Archive of Literature and Arts. F. 212.1.3), the attribution of which was problematic for preceding researchers. In addition to academic publications, such as the Complete Works in 30 volumes or the series of Literary Heritage (vol. 83), the same issues arise in some modern electronic publications. Sometimes there is a confusion of names in the comments, for example, Panteleev / Panteleeva / the Panteleev brothers; we observe a similar confusion is observed with the Filippov brothers. Some names suggest a different reading: Blagosvetlov instead of Blagoeva, Voronov instead of Voronin. Dostoevsky often indicated the names of works instead of the names and surnames of the authors. This applies primarily to the entries in the Epoch magazine. Many of these works have never been published anywhere, thus, establishing the identity of the authors is difficult for the researcher. Within the framework of this study, individual entries from the “first” notebook of Dostoevsky were read with regard to the typical features of the writer’s handwriting, and new explicatory comments to them were proposed, the failed authors of the Epoch magazine were identified (B. A. Pavlovich, V. A. Sleptsov, V. M. Sikevich, N. A. Neklyudov). The interpretation and attribution of personal names from Dostoevsky’s notebook of 1864–1865 presented in the article are of a debatable nature and require further elaboration.

This paper is the first to analyze the typewritten copies of D. S. Merezhkovsky’s famous article “Prophet of the Russian revolution (For Dostoevsky’s anniversary)” (1906) with the author’s notes. The article is believed to have been written at the request of A. G. Dostoevskaya for the anniversary edition of F. M. Dostoevsky’s complete works (to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the writer’s death). After having read it and heard the opinions about D. S. Merezhkovsky’s lecture, given on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the writer’s death, A. G. Dostoevskaya turned down the article. D. S. Merezhkovsky immediately published it in the Vesy magazine, and subsequently as a separate brochure and then in both editions of his complete works. However, an examination of the article’s typewritten copies reveals that D. S. Merezhkovsky was working simultaneously on two versions of it: a short one for A. G. Dostoevskaya and an extended one for journal publication. Judging by the author’s notes, he intended to edit the article’s short version in accordance with A. G. Dostoevskaya’s comments, but she was unsatisfied with the result. Instead, the writer’s widow included S. N. Bulgakov’s biographical essay in the complete works. A textual analysis of the variants and revisions of D. S. Merezhkovsky’s article leads to conclusions about the evolution of his intent, the genre and semantics of the titles of the article, written under the influence of the events of the first Russian revolution as a polemically oriented journalistic text.