Anna Grigorievna Dostoevskaya biography. To be Dostoevskaya

“My dear angel, Anya: I kneel down, pray to you and kiss your feet. You are my everything in the future - hope, faith, happiness, and bliss.”

A woman who was a gift of life after much suffering.

Birth

Anna Grigorievna Snitkina - was born on August 30 (September 11), 1846, in St. Petersburg. Her father was an official - Grigory Ivanovich Snitkin. Mother - Maria Anna Maltopeus - Swedish, of Finnish origin. Anya inherited pedantry and accuracy from her mother, which played a role important role in the distant future. My father always respected the work of Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, therefore, Snitkina was already fascinated by the books of the Great writer from the age of 16.

Education

In 1858, Anya decides to give her heart to science and enrolls in St. Anne's School. He successfully graduates and goes on to pedagogical courses, but after a year he quits. He leaves not on a whim, but because his father becomes seriously ill. So, Anna is forced to support her family. Despite her illness, Anya’s father insists that she attend shorthand courses, which, in the future, brought her together with Dostoevsky. Snitkina was such a diligent student that she achieved the status of “best stenographer” with Professor Olkhin.

Getting to know Dostoevsky

On October 4, 1866, Dostoevsky experiences one of the most confusing moments in his life. Then Professor Olkhin negotiates with Anna about the work of a stenographer and introduces her to Fyodor Mikhailovich, who needed a stenographer and, as it turned out later, Anna herself.

After her first meeting with Fedor, Anna said, “At first glance, he seemed quite old to me. But as soon as he spoke, he immediately became younger, and I thought that he was unlikely to be more than thirty-five to seven years old. Her light brown hair was heavily pomaded and carefully smoothed. But what struck me were his eyes: they were different, one was brown, in the other the pupil was dilated over the entire eye and the irises were imperceptible.”

Just when he met Anna, the writer was going through a difficult time. He starts playing roulette, loses, loses his earnings and himself. He was given strict conditions, according to which he must write new novel in a short time. Then the writer resorts to the help of a stenographer. They began working together on the novel “The Player” and in record time (only 26 days), Anya and Fyodor Mikhailovich managed to write the novel and fulfill the strict terms of the contract.

Love for Anna and wedding

This joint work paved a bridge between the young woman Anna and the world famous writer. He opened up his whole life to Anya, trusted him as a person who knew him all his life and decides to confess his feelings to Anna. Fearing refusal, Dostoevsky cunningly approaches this issue, inventing a story about how old artist fell in love with a girl much younger than him. And he asked Anna what she would do in this girl’s place. Anna, either understanding in her heart what she was talking about we're talking about, or Dostoevsky gave himself away, nervously, she said: “I would answer you that I love you and will love you all my life.
Thus, Dostoevsky forever finds his beloved woman, who was faithful to him until the end of her days.
Fyodor Mikhailovich's relatives were against the marriage, but this did not stop either Dostoevsky or Anna. And, almost immediately after the wedding, Anna sold all her savings and took the writer to Germany. Taking everything into your fragile female hands, Snitkina paid off her husband’s debts, together they conquered roulette and began to experience happiness together.

Children of Anna Snitkina and Dostoevsky

In 1868, Dostoevskaya gave her husband her first daughter, Sonechka. “Anya gave me a daughter,” Fyodor Mikhailovich wrote to his sister, “a nice, healthy and smart girl, ridiculously similar to me.” But the happiness was short-lived - after 3 months the daughter dies of a cold.

In 1869, the writer’s second daughter, Lyubov Dostoevskaya, was born. In 1871 - son Fedor and in 1975 - son Alexey. Alexey inherited his father’s illness and died at the age of 3 from an attack of epilepsy.

The series of grief in the Dostoevsky family did not allow any of them to break. Anna is actively involved in her husband’s work - publishing articles, novels and stories. Fedor writes wonderful works, which in the future will be read by the whole world.

Death of Anna Dostoevskaya

In 1881, when death broke into their family once again and he died Great writer, Anna remained true to her vow, which she made on their wedding day. Until her death, she collected material from her deceased husband and published every sentence he wrote. The Dostoevskys' daughter said that her mother remained alive during the 1870s.
Anna Grigorievna Dostoevskaya died in the summer of 1918 from malaria. Before her death, she wrote the words “...And if fate wills it, I too will find, next to him, a place of my eternal peace.”

A happy turn in the difficult fate of Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky occurred at a time when he was in predicament: in unreal short terms I needed to write a new novel. I had to hire a young but experienced stenographer, Anna Snitkina. It was this woman, Anna Snitkina, who became Dostoevsky’s second wife.

Dostoevsky's assistant successfully completed not only the St. Petersburg stenographer courses, but also the Mariinsky Women's Gymnasium, upon completion of which she received a large silver medal. I had to interrupt my studies at the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of Higher Pedagogical Courses due to the illness of my father, who soon died. Joint daily work a famous writer and a twenty-year-old brilliantly educated girl ultimately led not only to the writing of the novel “The Gambler,” but also to the subsequent family life.

The beginning of the family life of Dostoevsky and Anna Snitkina

The wedding ceremony of Dostoevsky and Anna Snitkina took place in the Izmailovsky Cathedral on February 15, 1867. Exactly ten years ago, also in the month of February, Fyodor Dostoevsky stood in front of the altar of a church in the city of Kuznetsk with another woman whom he had long and passionately pursued - Maria Isaeva. But his first wife died of consumption, and now the writer was destined to go through life with another companion - loving, understanding and very worthy in all respects. So, Anna Snitkina became Dostoevsky’s second wife.

But this marriage was negatively perceived by Dostoevsky’s stepson, so married couple In order to avoid family disagreements and cement their relationships, I had to go abroad.

Even before leaving for Europe, Anna Snitkina had to deal with Dostoevsky’s epileptic seizure. Moreover, this did not happen at home, but while visiting my sister. Dostoevsky's seizure was so terrible and was accompanied by such an inhuman scream that his sister and brother-in-law ran away from the living room in fear. For the first time in their lives, everyone present saw epilepsy with their own eyes, and only Anna Snitkina was not at a loss and provided all possible help to her husband. After bouts of illness, Dostoevsky returned to his home for a very long time. normal condition, he felt depressed and lost. Epilepsy not only darkened family life, but was also inherited by his son Alyosha.

The second shock for Dostoevsky’s young wife was her husband’s unbridled passion for gambling. Still during honeymoon In Dresden, he left Anna Snitkina alone for a week, and he himself went to try his gambling luck in Homburg, from where he constantly sent letters asking for money. This was the beginning of future financial losses, which are simply inevitable with such a destructive passion.

They went to the roulette city of Baden-Baden together. In just a week, Dostoevsky lost all the money he had, so in the future he had to pawn his jewelry. Dostoevsky's wife Anna Snitkina especially regretted the unredeemed wedding gift husband - brooches and earrings interspersed with diamonds and rubies. The money sent from St. Petersburg by Anna’s mother was also spent on the game. Dostoevsky's weakness was that he could not stop at the right moment and played until the last thaler.

Dostoevsky's first wife was Maria Dmitrievna Isaeva, who died of consumption, and with whom family relationships were heavy. Dostoevsky's second wife Anna Snitkina.

In the fall of 1867, this gambling nightmare ended - the couple moved to Geneva, where Dostoevsky began writing the novel The Idiot.

Sorrows and joys alternated, as in any family life, but in 1868 the couple had to experience terrible grief - daughter Sonya, born in Geneva, died three months later. In 1869, a second daughter, Lyuba, was born in Dresden, and two years later the Dostoevsky couple, who had lived in Italy and were completely homesick, returned home. Instead of the planned three months, they spent four years abroad.

In native land

Soon after returning to St. Petersburg, Dostoevsky’s wife Anna Grigorievna Snitkina was happily married to her son Fyodor, and in 1875 the family was replenished with another son, Alyosha. He was not destined to live long; the boy died in three years old during an epileptic attack.

At home, Dostoevsky wrote the most fundamental work of his life - the novel The Brothers Karamazov. The main place of writing was a quiet and cozy place - Staraya Russa, where the writer dictated his novel, and Anna Snitkina habitually took shorthand. Every summer, the writer and his family escaped from the bustle of St. Petersburg to this creative haven.

After returning from Europe, Anna Grigorievna had to fight for 13 years with creditors who threatened to take an inventory of her property and even intended to put the great writer in debtor’s prison. The amount of debt was about 25 thousand rubles, and these were mainly the debts of Dostoevsky’s brother, who died suddenly in 1864. His large family, accustomed to a wealthy life, was left without a livelihood. Until the end of his life, Dostoevsky provided support to his widow and nephews financial assistance, depriving his family in many ways. The question constantly on the agenda was: “Where can I get money?”

Many sad events happened in 1872. Arriving at summer holiday in Staraya Russa, the couple discovered an incorrectly healed fracture of their little daughter’s arm. The next day I had to return to St. Petersburg again to have the operation. At the same time, his infant son Fedya remained with strangers in Staraya Russa. At the same time, the mother of Dostoevsky’s wife Anna Grigorievna severely injured her leg: a heavy chest literally crushed her thumb. A sister Masha, at the age of 30, suddenly died abroad. Anna Snitkina herself almost followed her sister: the abscess that had formed in her throat left little chance of life. But the abscess broke, the patient recovered, and life went on as usual.

In 1873, the novel “Demons” was published, on the creation of which the writer worked for almost three years. Taking an artistic break, Dostoevsky agreed to temporarily become editor of the magazine Citizen, and then began writing the novel The Teenager. Dostoevsky worked on his works at night, and during the day he dictated to his wife what he had written during the night. Heavy writing undermined Fyodor Mikhailovich's health more and more. In 1874, 1875 and 1879 he made trips abroad to the resort of Ems. But the result of the treatment was short-lived.

Anna Snitkina's life without Dostoevsky

All 14 years old life together Dostoevsky's wife Anna Grigorievna Snitkina was worried about the poor health of her brilliant husband; each of his seizures resonated with pain in her soul and left scars on her heart.

In January 1881, after a quarrel with his sister Vera over an inheritance, Dostoevsky’s throat began to bleed. This was a harbinger of the end. A few days later, on January 28, the writer died in the arms of his wife, having managed to say how much he loved her all these years and never cheated on her, even mentally.

For the 35-year-old widow, life has stopped. The trip to Crimea, organized by relatives, was supposed to soften the bitterness of the loss, but Anna Snitkina, on the contrary, plunged into terrible melancholy and despair.

She devoted the next 37 years to preserving the memory of the great writer, publishing his books, letters, collecting manuscripts and photographs, and creating a house-museum in Staraya Russa.

Death overtook Dostoevsky's wife in Yalta in 1918, where she was interred. And only fifty years later, thanks to the efforts of her grandson, she was reburied next to her husband in the Alexander Nevsky Lavra.

You have read the article, which tells about who Dostoevsky’s second wife was and about their family life. You can find more material on these topics in the Blog section. In addition, be sure to visit the Summary section - there in summary you can find and read many of the works of Fyodor Dostoevsky.

On October 16 (4), 1866, the young stenographer Anna Snitkina came to Fyodor Dostoevsky to help him work on his new novel “The Gambler.” This meeting changed their lives forever.

In 1866, Anna was 20 years old. After the death of her father, a minor official Grigory Snitkin, the girl, who graduated from the Mariinsky Women's Gymnasium and shorthand courses with a silver medal, decided to put the knowledge she had acquired into practice. In October, she first met the 44-year-old writer Fyodor Dostoevsky, whose books she had been reading since childhood. She was supposed to help him work on a new novel, which had less than a month left before it was due. In St. Petersburg, in a house on the corner of Malaya Meshchanskaya and Stolyarny Lane, the writer began dictating a plot to his assistant, which she carefully wrote down in shorthand.

In 26 days, they together accomplished the impossible - they prepared the novel “The Player,” which previously existed only in drafts. If this had not happened, the writer would have transferred the copyrights and royalties for his publications for 9 years in favor of the enterprising publisher Fyodor Stellovsky, who, according to Dostoevsky, “had so much money that he could buy all Russian literature.”

“I’m ready to kneel before him all my life.”

Working under force majeure conditions brought the writer and Anna closer together. Soon something happened between them frank conversation, which Anna Grigorievna later cited in her memoirs. He invited her to imagine herself in the place of the heroine to whom the artist confessed his love, and asked what she would answer to this.

“Fyodor Mikhailovich’s face expressed such embarrassment, such heartache that I finally realized that this was not just literary conversation, and that I would deal a terrible blow to his vanity and pride if I gave an evasive answer. I looked at the excited face of Fyodor Mikhailovich, so dear to me, and said: “I would answer you that I love you and will love you all my life!” she wrote.

According to her recollections, the feeling that gripped her was like boundless adoration, resigned admiration for the great talent of another person.

“The dream of becoming his life’s companion, sharing his labors, making his life easier, giving him happiness, took possession of my imagination, and Fyodor Mikhailovich became my god, my idol, and I, it seems, was ready to kneel before him all my life.”

And she made her dream come true, becoming a reliable support in the writer’s life.

On February 15, 1867, they got married in the Izmailovsky Trinity Cathedral in St. Petersburg. For Dostoevsky, this was his second marriage (his first wife, Maria, died of consumption), but only in it did he learn what family happiness was.

“I had to atone for my happiness in being close to him.”

After the wedding, which took place just 5 months after they met, Anna began to understand what difficulties they now had to fight together. The terrible attacks of epilepsy that the writer had frightened her and at the same time filled her heart with pity.

"See favorite face, blue, distorted, with engorged veins, to realize that he was suffering, and you could not help him in any way - this was such suffering with which, obviously, I had to atone for my happiness of being close to him...” she recalled.

But not only the fight against the disease lay ahead of them. The young family's budget was fragile. Dostoevsky had accumulated financial debts since the time of the unsuccessful publication of magazines. According to one version, in order to hide from multiple creditors, Anna and Fyodor Mikhailovich decided to leave for Germany. According to another version, the young wife’s conflicting relationship with her husband’s relatives played a role in this.

Dostoevsky himself imagined that the trip would not be like a romantic journey between two lovers. According to him, he left “with death in his soul.”

“I didn’t believe in going abroad, that is, I believed that moral influence It will be very bad abroad. Alone... with a young creature who, with naive joy, sought to share my wandering life; but I saw that in this naive joy there was a lot of inexperience and the first fever, and this confused and tormented me very much... My character is sick, and I foresaw that she would be tormented by me,” he told the poet Apollo Maikov.

Traveling around Europe, married couple I visited the city of Baden in Switzerland. The thought of quick riches, a wild win that would get rid of many problems, took possession of Dostoevsky after he won 4 thousand francs at roulette. After that, the painful excitement did not let him go. As a result, he lost everything he could, even his young wife’s jewelry.

Anna tried to help her husband fight this destructive passion, and in 1871 he gave up gambling forever.

“A great thing has happened to me. The vile fantasy that tormented me for almost ten years disappeared. I kept dreaming of winning: I dreamed seriously, passionately... Now it’s all over! I will remember this all my life and bless you, my angel, every time,” wrote Dostoevsky.

According to historians, a bright period in their lives began upon their return to St. Petersburg. Dostoevsky was absorbed in work, Anna Grigorievna took upon herself all the worries about the house and children (and by that time there were already three of them - approx.). Thanks to her skillful management, financial problems gradually disappeared. She represented her husband’s affairs, communicating with publishers, and published his works herself.


Anna Grigorievna with children.

In 1881, Dostoevsky died. At that time, Anna was 35 years old. After his death, she did not remarry. All the years she continued to take care of her husband’s affairs, collecting manuscripts, documents, and letters.

Anna Grigorievna died in 1918 at the age of 71. Currently, her ashes are buried next to her husband’s grave in the Alexander Nevsky Lavra.

Three wives of F.M. Dostoevsky (1821-1881)

(to the 190th anniversary of the writer )

Great literature is the literature of love and great passions, the love of writers for the muses of their lives. Who are they, the prototypes and muses of love? What kind of relationship connected them with the authors of those novels that granted them immortality?!

Maria Dmitrievna - first wife

IN" the most honest, the noblest and most generous woman of all IN"

On December 22, 1849, Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, together with a whole group of freethinkers recognized as dangerous state criminals, was taken to the Semenovsky parade ground in St. Petersburg. He had 5 minutes to live, no more. The sentence was pronounced - "The retired engineer Lieutenant Dostoevsky should be subjected to the death penalty by shooting."

Looking ahead, let's say that in last minute death penalty was replaced by reference to hard labor for 4 years, and then service as a private. But at that moment, when the priest brought the cross for the last kiss, the writer’s entire short life flashed before his eyes. The sharpened memory contained entire years of life and years of love in seconds.

Dostoevsky's life was not crowded 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, but when he had to meet living women, he became ridiculous, and his attempts at intimacy invariably ended in real disaster. Perhaps that is why in all of our major works Dostoevsky depicted the failures of love. And love has always been associated with sacrifice and suffering.

When Dostoevsky found himself in Semipalatinsk in 1854, he was a mature, 33-year-old man. It was here that he met Alexander Ivanovich Isaev and his wife Marya Dmitrievna. Marya Dmitrievna, a beautiful blonde, was a passionate and exalted person. 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.

Dostoevsky saw in the variability of her moods, breakdowns in her voice and light tears a sign of deep and sublime feelings. When he 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 her husband’s drunkenness and antics, and there was no money for it.

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 understood her grievances perfectly, helped her endure all her misfortunes with dignity - and he entertained her in this swamp of provincial boredom.

Maria Dmitrievna was the first interesting young woman he met after four years hard labor. Masochistic desires were intertwined in Dostoevsky in the most in a weird way: to love meant to sacrifice oneself and respond with all one’s soul, one’s whole body to the suffering of others, even at the cost of one’s own torment.

She understood very well that Dostoevsky was inflamed with real, deep passion for her - women usually easily recognize this - and she accepted his “courtships”, as she called them, willingly, without, however, attaching too much importance to them.

At the beginning of 1855, Marya Dmitrievna finally responded to Dostoevsky’s love, and a rapprochement occurred. But just in those days, Isaev was appointed assessor in Kuznetsk. This meant separation - perhaps forever.

After Marya Dmitrievna left, the writer was very sad. Having become a widow, after the death of her husband, Marya Dmitrievna decides to “test” his love. At the very end of 1855, Dostoevsky receives a strange letter from her. She asks his impartial, friendly advice: “If there was an elderly man, and wealthy, and kind, and made me an offer” -

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, the next morning he wrote to her that he would die if she left him.

He loved with all the intensity 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. But there could be no marriage - his beloved fell in love with another.

Dostoevsky was overcome by an irresistible desire to give everything to Marya Dmitrievna, to sacrifice his love for the sake of her new feeling, to leave, and not interfere with her arranging her life as she wanted. When she saw that Dostoevsky did not reproach her, but only cared about her future, she was shocked.

A little time passed, and Dostoevsky’s financial 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. Marya Dmitrievna stated that she had lost faith in her new affection and did not really love anyone except Dostoevsky.

He received formal consent to marry him in the very near future. Like a runner in a difficult race, Dostoevsky found himself at the goal, so exhausted from 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 6, Marya Dmitrievna and Fyodor Mikhailovich were married.

Their moods and desires almost never coincided. In that tense, nervous atmosphere that Marya Dmitrievna created, Dostoevsky had a feeling of guilt, which was replaced by 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 close not through a short embrace of a chance meeting, but through constant marital cohabitation. But she shared neither his voluptuousness nor his sensuality. Dostoevsky had it 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 he had to look after her for a whole year. She died of consumption painfully and difficultly. On April 15, 1864, she died - she died quietly, with full memory, and blessing everyone.

Dostoevsky loved her for all the feelings that she awakened in him, for everything that he put into her, for everything that 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.”

Apollinaria Suslova

After some time, Dostoevsky again longed for “female society”, and his heart was free again.

When he 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 fate. 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.

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 his sexual fantasies to young girls. He perfectly understood and described the physical passion of a mature man for teenagers and twelve-year-old girls.

Dostoevsky was her first man. He was also her first strong attachment. But too much upset and humiliated the young girl in her first man: he subordinated their meetings to writing, business, family, and 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 divorce his 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. But 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.

Dostoevsky came to terms with the fact that he had to arrange the affairs of the heart of the very woman who had cheated on him, and whom he continued to love and desire. She had mixed feelings towards the writer. 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 intensified from her betrayal. In the wrong game of love and torment, the places of the victim and the executioner have changed: the vanquished has become 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.

After the death of Marya Dmitrievna, Dostoevsky writes to Apollinaria to come. But she doesn't want to see him. 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 seems to be 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. Since then, his love has been fueled 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 not necessary 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, and it took him a long time to recover from this state.

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. 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.

IN" The sun of my life IN" - Anna Grigorievna Dostoevskaya

On the advice of his very good friend, Dostoevsky decided to hire a stenographer to carry out 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 sheets of large format - 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.

At the first meeting, the writer slightly disappointed her. 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 - 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 having 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 “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 ending of Crime and Punishment. He was clearly delighted to see her. 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 realized this and was ready to marry Anna Grigorievna “for convenience.” She agreed.

On February 15, 1867, in the presence of friends and acquaintances, they were married. But the beginning turned out to be bad: they did not understand each other well, he thought that she was bored with him, she was offended that he seemed to be avoiding her. A month after the marriage, Anna Grigorievna fell into a semi-hysterical state: there is a tense atmosphere in the house, she barely sees her husband, and they don’t 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, in the end, 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.

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 traveling abroad, and he completely lost heart, hesitated and was about to refuse.

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 has now turned into a close, happy and lasting community.

They stayed for some time in Berlin, then, having passed through Germany, settled in Dresden. It was here that their mutual rapprochement began, which very soon dispelled all his worries and doubts. They were completely various people- by 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 did she become lively and show what he called “hastiness.” 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, reassured him and dispelled his inferiority complexes and self-abasement.

Usually, in marriage, we become intimately familiar with each other's shortcomings, and therefore slight disappointment arises. The Dostoevskys, on the contrary, opened up from closeness best sides their nature. 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 “guardian angel”, and friend, and support. Anna Grigorievna passionately loved Dostoevsky as a man and a human being, she loved with the mixed love of wife and mistress, mother and daughter.

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 illness, 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.

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 rapprochement intensified, 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 found themselves in Dresden again, and there their second daughter was born, they named her Lyubov. Her parents shook over her, and the girl grew up to be a strong child.

But financial situation it was very difficult. Later, when Dostoevsky completed The Idiot, they had money. They lived in Dresden throughout 1870. But they suddenly decided to return to Russia. There were many 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 the 14 years of her life with Dostoevsky, Anna Grigorievna experienced a lot of 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, most peaceful and, perhaps, the happiest in his life.

Improved 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 50 when he calmed down somewhat - at least outwardly - and began to get used to family life

His ardor and suspicion have not diminished over the years. He often amazed strangers in society with his angry remarks. At 60, he was just as jealous as in his youth. But he is 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 always loved you dearly and never betrayed you, even mentally.” By evening he was gone.

Anna Grigorievna remained faithful to her husband beyond the grave. In the year of his 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.

Anna Grigorievna Dostoevskaya ( maiden name Snitkina) - Russian memoirist. Wife; publisher of it creative heritage. The book “Memoirs” (published in 1925) is a valuable biographical, historical and literary source. Known as one of the first philatelists in Russia.

Anna Dostoevskaya was born on September 12 (August 30, old style) 1846, in St. Petersburg, in the family of a minor official Grigory Ivanovich Snitkin. Since childhood, I have been engrossed in the works of Dostoevsky and attended shorthand courses.

From October 4, 1866, as a stenographer-scribe, she participated in the preparation for printing of the novel “The Gambler” by F. M. Dostoevsky.

On February 15, 1867, Anna Grigorievna became the writer’s wife, and two months later the Dostoevskys went abroad, where they remained for more than four years (until July 1871). On the way to Germany, the couple stopped for several days in Vilna. On the building located on the site where the hotel where the Dostoevskys stayed was located, a memorial plaque was unveiled in December 2006 (sculptor Romualdas Quintas).

Traveling south to Switzerland, the Dostoevskys stopped in Baden, where Fyodor Mikhailovich won 4,000 francs at roulette, but could not stop and then lost everything he had, including his dress and his wife’s belongings. For almost a year they lived in Geneva, where the writer worked desperately, and sometimes needed the bare necessities.

On March 6 (February 22, O.S.), 1868, their first daughter, Sophia, was born; but on May 24 (May 12, O.S.), 1868, at the age of three months, the child died, much to the despair of the parents. In 1869, the Dostoevskys gave birth to a daughter, Lyubov, in Dresden (died in 1926).

Upon the couple's return to St. Petersburg, their sons Fedor (July 16, 1871 - 1922) and Alexey (August 10, 1875 - May 16, 1878) were born. The brightest period in the life of the novelist began, in a beloved family, with a kind and intelligent wife, who took into her own hands all the economic issues of his activities (financial and publishing affairs) and soon freed her husband from debt. In 1871, Dostoevsky gave up roulette forever. Anna Grigorievna arranged the life of the writer and did business with publishers and printing houses, and she herself published his works. Dedicated to her last novel writer "The Brothers Karamazov" (1879-1880).

In the year of Dostoevsky's death in 1881, Anna Grigorievna turned 35 years old. She did not remarry. After the writer’s death, she collected his manuscripts, letters, documents, and photographs. In 1906 she organized a room dedicated to Fyodor Mikhailovich in the Historical Museum in Moscow. Since 1929, her collection moved to the museum-apartment of F. M. Dostoevsky in Moscow.

Anna Grigorievna compiled and published in 1906 “Bibliographical index of works and works of art relating to the life and work of F. M. Dostoevsky” and the catalog “Museum in memory of F. M. Dostoevsky in the Imperial Russian historical museum named after Alexander III in Moscow, 1846-1903." Her books “The Diary of A. G. Dostoevskaya 1867” (published in 1923) and “Memoirs of A. G. Dostoevskaya” (published in 1925) are an important source for the writer’s biography.

Book publishing

Anna Dostoevskaya was very successful in publishing and distributing her husband’s books, becoming one of the first Russian women of his time in the field of entrepreneurship. At the same time, she conducted market research and delved into the details of book publishing and book trading.

Philately

Anna is one of the first famous women Russia, who were fond of philately. Her collection began in 1867 in Dresden. The reason for this was a dispute between Anna Grigorievna and Fyodor Mikhailovich about feminine character. The writer once, during a walk, expressed doubt about a woman’s ability to exert herself long and persistently to achieve her goal:

What really outraged me about my husband was that he rejected in women of my generation any self-control, any persistent and long-lasting desire to achieve the intended goal.

For some reason, this argument provoked me, and I announced to my husband that I would prove to him by my personal example that a woman can pursue an idea that has attracted her attention for years. And since at the moment I don’t see any big task before me, I’ll start at least with the activity you just indicated, and with today I'll start collecting stamps.

No sooner said than done. I dragged Fyodor Mikhailovich to the first writing instruments store I came across and bought (“with my own money”) a cheap album for gluing stamps. At home, I immediately made stamps from the three or four letters I received from Russia, and thus marked the beginning of a collection. Our hostess, having learned of my intention, rummaged among the letters and gave me several old Thurn-Taxis and the Saxon Kingdom. This is how my collection began postage stamps, and it has been going on for forty-nine years now... From time to time I boasted to my husband about the number of added marks, and he sometimes laughed at this weakness of mine. (From the book “Memoirs of A. G. Dostoevskaya”).

Anna Grigorievna expanded her collection of postage stamps throughout her life. As she noted in her Memoirs, she did not buy a single stamp with money, but only used those that were taken from letters or given to her. Unfortunately, further fate unknown to this collection

Literature

Grossman L. P. A. G. Dostoevskaya and her “Memoirs” [Introduction. Art.] // Memoirs of A. G. Dostoevskaya. - M.-L., 1925.

Dostoevsky A.F. Anna Dostoevskaya // Women of the world. - 1963. - No. 10.

Dostoevsky, Fyodor Mikhailovich // Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron: In 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional ones). - St. Petersburg, 1890-1907.

Brief literary encyclopedia in 9 volumes. - M.: “Soviet Encyclopedia”, 1964. - T. 2.

Kisin B. M. Country Philately. - M.: Communication, 1980. - P. 182.

Mazur P. Who was the first philatelist? // Philately of the USSR. - 1974. - No. 9. - P. 11.

Nasedkin N. N. Dostoevsky. Encyclopedia. - M.: Algorithm, 2003. - 800 p. - (Series “Russian Writers”). - ISBN 5-9265-0100-8.

Strygin A. Women's theme in philately. Some thoughts on stamp collecting // NG - Collection. - 2001. - No. 3 (52). - March 7.

Anna Grigorievna Dostoevskaya died on June 9, 1918, in Yalta, during the hungry war year of 1918. 50 years later, in 1968, her ashes were transferred to the Alexander Nevsky Lavra and buried next to her husband’s grave.

Anna Grigorievna Dostoevskaya - quotes

The sun of my life is Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky.

Indeed, I loved Fyodor Mikhailovich limitlessly, but it was not physical love, not a passion that could exist among persons equal in age. My love was purely cerebral, ideological. It was rather adoration, admiration for a man so talented and possessing such high spiritual qualities. It was a soul-grabbing pity for a man who had suffered so much, who had never seen joy and happiness and who was so abandoned by those close to him who would have been obliged to repay him with love and care for him for everything that he had done for them all his life. The dream of becoming a companion in his life, sharing his labors, making his life easier, giving him happiness, took possession of my imagination... Fyodor Mikhailovich became my god, my idol, and I, it seems, was ready to kneel before him all my life.

At first it seemed strange to me how Fyodor Mikhailovich, who with such courage endured so many varied sufferings in his life (imprisonment in a fortress, scaffold, exile, death of his beloved brother, wife), how he did not have enough willpower to restrain himself, to stop at known share of loss, do not risk your last taler. It even seemed to me like a kind of humiliation, unworthy of his exalted character, and it was painful and insulting for me to admit this weakness in my dear husband. But I soon realized that this was not a simple “weakness of will,” but an all-consuming passion for a person, something spontaneous, against which even a strong character cannot fight. It was necessary to come to terms with this, to look at the passion for gaming as a disease for which there were no remedies. The only way fight is flight.

Neither before nor since have I seen a person who was as able as my husband to enter into the worldview of children and interest them so much in his conversation. During these hours, Fyodor Mikhailovich himself became a child.

Indeed, my husband and I were people “of a completely different structure, of a different make-up, of different views,” but “we always remained ourselves,” not in the least echoing or imitating each other, and did not get entangled with our souls—I—in his psychology, he - into mine, and thus mine good husband and I - we both felt free at heart. Fyodor Mikhailovich, who thought so much and so alone about deep issues human soul, probably appreciated my non-interference in his spiritual and mental life, and therefore sometimes told me: “You are the only woman who understood me!” (that is, what was most important to him). His relationship with me always constituted some kind of “solid wall, against which (he felt it) that he could lean on it, or, rather, lean against it. And it would not drop and would warm him.”