Is it true that Dostoevsky was a pedophile?

It is widespread that the Russian classic experienced a sexual attraction to little girls. We decided to check how justified such accusations are.

In recent years, one of the main popularizers of the point of view that Dostoevsky was attracted by minors, became publicist Alexander Nevzorov. For example, June 30, 2023 in his Telegram channel he reportedthat the Russian Orthodox Church allegedly offered to “remove from sale” toys in the form of heroes of American comics and replace them with “figures of Suvorov and Dostoevsky”. Although the Russian Orthodox Church did not put forward such an initiative, but only in the person of the head of the Synodal Department for the relationship between the Church with the Society and the Media of the Media Vladimir Legoyda supported The idea of ​​the Association of manufacturers of children's goods and services about the creation of toys “promoting large children”, Nevzorov commented on the news as follows: “Dostoevsky toy” will be incomplete without the set of small peasant girls in easily starring sundresses. After all, Dostoevsky Oh, how he loved to order in a bathhouse for shameful pleasures "a baby-peasant of the age of five or seven". " The post of publicist scored more than 574,000 views by the time of writing this analysis.

Nevzorov is not the first to declare pedophilia the classic of Russian literature. So, at the end of 2017, in his video on his YouTube channel, he Commented The news that Dostoevsky was offered to be considered saints (the corresponding messages of the media could not be “verified” for that period). “The icon -painting image of the new saint will undoubtedly become a hit. The prophet Fedor can be portrayed by Nagim in a steam room with a naked peasant girl of ten years, delivered there for his bath fun, ”the publicist argues on a video who scored 265,000 views. In 2013, in an article for the Moscow Komsomolets Nevzorov He wrote About the "little peasant girls, whom the generator of Orthodox spirituality (Dostoevsky. - Approx. Ed.) They took to the bathhouse for pedophilian fun".

In all three cases (although they are a list of such statements of Nevzorov Not limited) the publicist refers to the letter of the insurance; In a recent post, Telegram and the article for the Moscow Komsomolets specify that this is Dostoevsky’s biographer, and the letter was sent to Leo Tolstoy in 1883.

What was told in the letter of the insurance?

The letter of publicist Nikolai Orthodov to Tolstoy, which reported on the alleged pedophile inclinations of Dostoevsky, really exists. At the same time, the author refers to another contemporary - a historian of literature and professor of Derpt University Pavel Viskovatov. “He (Dostoevsky. - Approx. Ed.) Drawn to the tricks, and he boasted with them. Viskovatov began to tell me how he boasted that he was noted in a bathhouse with a little girl, whom the governess brought him, ”wrote Strakhov. No other details (and even more so evidence) of the writer's vicious preferences in the text were contained.

This letter was written in 1883, and for the first time Published In the magazine "Modern World" only in 1913, three years after the death of Tolstoy and 17 years after the death of the insurance.

What do biographers and literary critics say?

Most researchers engaged in this story tend to consider it not true.

The first zealous defender of the honest name of the writer was his widow Anna Dostoevskaya. In 1914 she I wrote My husband’s nephew: “I can’t get rid of the oppressive state into which I was unlocked by the slander of the insurance, this became some kind of nightmare for me.” Later in his memoirs, Dostoevskaya reasoned: “If Nikolai Nikolaevich were alive, despite my advanced years, I would immediately go to him and hit him in the face for this baseness.”

On the initiative of the widow of the writer in 1914, he was drawn up and published open lettersigned by many famous people of that time, in defense of the scolded name of the writer.

The story of the molestation of a young girl called a literary critic, the honorary president of the International Society of Dostoevsky Vladimir Zakharov. “Both“ rumors ”and“ jokes ”are not wealthy, they do not withstand critical verification by facts. This is an ordinary slander of literary enemies and enemies of Dostoevsky, ”he wrote in his work“ Problems of the Study of Dostoevsky ”, published in 1978.

Writer and literary critic Igor Volgin in the book “Born in Russia” (1991), dedicated to the life and work of Dostoevsky, also calls The story of sexual contact with a little girl is a reservation. “Bashlessly jubilant rumor will accuse him of molesting the young. The act of Nikolai Stavrogin, who remained unknown to the general public (this episode of Dostoevsky will be forced to exclude from the "demons") will be charged to the author. Russian writers are not used to reservation. But no one of them has been honored with such an abomination, ”Volgin wrote.

Poet and literary critic Leo Oborin in 2016 He wrote About this story as a false in its column on the portal The Question. In particular, he drew attention to the fact that the Viskovatov, who allegedly told the Dostoevsky’s addictions, was not any close acquaintance of the writer.

The story of Dostoevsky Pedophile is also considered by Sergey Kibelnik, literary critic and professor of St. Petersburg State University. In 2018, he published article Under the name “To the unraveling of one writer's diplomaticium: why did N. N. Strakhov slandered Dostoevsky?”, In which he suggested that Strakhov hid the insult at Dostoevsky because he recognized himself in Rakitin-not the most pleasant character of the novel “Brothers Karamazov”.

Philologist, chief researcher at the Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences Leah Rosenblum assumedThat Strakhov, who, after the death of Dostoevsky in 1881, dismantled his archive to prepare collected works, could find a very negative review of himself in the writer's notebook. Understanding that this record, like Tolstoy's correspondence, will be published in the future, the critic decided on a “long -term sabotage”, the researcher admits. As a result, a notebook was published only in the 1970s, and for more than half a century it was believed that insurance had no motive to slander Dostoevsky.

Has anyone else accused Dostoevsky from contemporaries, besides the insurance?

In addition to the “insurance” version of the origin of the hearing, there is also “Turgenevskaya”. It was written, for example, the above Vladimir Zakharov and a biography researcher of Dostoevsky Vitaly Svintsov. Both considered the story of the girl’s molestation fiction, but tried to figure out for what reasons she was born.

That's what It is said In the article by Svintsov “Dostoevsky and Stavroginsky sin” (1995): “The rumor that the Stavroginsky plot for Dostoevsky is biographical arose during his lifetime. Turgenev became one of the primary sources of hearing. He said that Dostoevsky himself admitted to him in the molestation of the girl. Distributing the details, the hearing for some time existed in the form of near-litigative folklore, which did not go beyond the narrow circle. His first breakthrough in print applies, apparently, by 1908. Several St. Petersburg periodicals ("St. Petersburg newspaper", "Russian word", "Rus'"), discussing the sensational material that came into the field of vision, regarded it as a gossip. It seemed that the rumor of the Stavrogin sin of Dostoevsky would be forever forgotten. However, in 1913 this story was continued. "

It is worth noting that neither Svintsov nor before Zakharov is quoted by Turgenev himself (it seems that he did not leave a colleague in writing about pedophilia), but again they refer to the retelling of third parties, which makes the “Turgenev” version even less reliable than “Strachovskaya”.

“The enmity was especially aggravated after writing“ demons ”, where Turgenev easily guessed in the image of a miserable Karmazinov. According to Zakharov, the spread of the hearing of the Stavrogin sin of Dostoevsky and was a kind of Turgenev’s response. Probably, Turgenev repeatedly and in different versions spoke about Dostoevsky’s self -recognition. One of these stories in the details was reproduced in the memoirs [writer, journalist and critic of Jerome] Yasinsky, who believed that Dostoevsky himself was to blame for the circulation of rumors about his "sweetness", - wrote Svintsov.

Who else believed in the authenticity of this story?

The molestation of a minor girl as a possible fact of Dostoevsky’s biography casually spoke in Sigmund Freud in article “Dostoevsky and edemature” (1928): “The question arises - where does the temptation of Dostoevsky’s attitude towards criminals come from? Answer: Due to the choice of his plots, these are mainly rapists, killers, egocentric characters, which indicates the existence of such inclinations in his inner world, as well as because of some facts of his life: his passion for gambling, perhaps the sexual molestation of an immature girl. "

In addition, Sergei Kibelnik in the article mentioned above wrote about “many philosophers and writers who believed this slander,” including Leo Shestova And Victor Erofeev.

***

Thus, the story of Dostoevsky Pedophile is based on two very unreliable evidence. The first of them is the statement of the publicist of the insurance, referring to the oral story of the historian of the literature of Viskovatov, and nothing but this, not supported. The second is the rumors that went in near -litigation circles during Dostoevsky’s lifetime and mention of which have survived to our days thanks to meticulous researchers (they, in turn, did not believe these rumors consistently).

Literary scholars have many versions of what exactly these reasons have caused these rumors: they also call the personal hostility of the insurance and Turgenev, and too naturalistic descriptions of “Stavroginsky sin” in “demons”, and the writer's possible oral statements, caused by either the desire to shock, or the author’s alignment in the personality of his character.

As for the real crime, the consensus assessment of the literary community for many decades is that the story of the molestation of Dostoevsky of the young girl is unreliable.

By the way, neither in the "Strachovskaya" nor in the "Turgenev" version is the age of the alleged victim of Dostoevsky. Apparently, Nevzorov, who wrote in his recent publication about the “peasant baby about five or seven”, and previously spoke about the “peasant girl of ten years”, simply composed these figures.

Photo on the cover: Wikimedia Commons

Most likely not true

What do our verdicts mean?

Read on the topic:

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2. Did Dostoevsky say that the level of civilization of society can be judged by his prisons?
3. Is it true that UN experts recommended legalizing pedophilia?