“…As we were awaiting our future fate in prison”: Dostoevsky in Tobolsk on January 9—20, 1850

The article uses new archival materials, supplemented by a critical analysis of existing printed sources, to analyze Dostoevsky’s 12-day stay in the Tobolsk transit prison on January 9-20, 1850. The authors focus on the meeting of the Decembrists’ wives (N. D. Fonvizina, P. E. Annenkova, etc.) with the Petrashevites in the apartment of the caretaker of the Tobolsk prison castle. According to archival sources, a number of documents that state the name of the prison warden (Ivan Gavrilovich Korepanov) have been published, and his biographical information is provided according to the form list, supplemented by the testimonies of memoirists. In the light of the new data, a number of important clarifications were made to the narrative of the meeting in the apartment of I. G. Korepanov. V. N. Zakharov observed that there is no mention of the transfer of the Gospels to the Petrashevites in the detailed description of this scene, presented in the letter by N. D. Fonvizina. The authors further develop this observation, providing biographical information about the gendarme captain Alexander Smalkov (Smolkov), who performed this mission on behalf of N. D. Fonvizina, by handing Dostoevsky and his comrades copies of the New Testament, and showing how to extract the money glued inside it from the binding and how to hide it again. They cite observations that confirm the assumption that Smalkov assisted N. D. Fonvizina and M. D. Frantseva to negotiate with gendarmes Korolenko and Nasonov. The latter two accompanied Dostoevsky and Durov to Omsk, and arranged for them to meet with the Petrashevites on the winter road, 8 versts from Tobolsk, and to send a letter to I. V. Zhdan-Pushkin asking for help for the exiles upon their arrival in the Omsk prison.