Dostoevsky as a tourist (1862): the discovery of Europe or a secret visit to Iskander?

Dostoevsky's first foreign trip in the summer of 1862 has both visible and hidden aspects. Having visited the "land of holy miracles," the author of “Winter notes on summer impressions " focuses his attention on two world capitals. Both cities are symbols of the victorious bourgeois civilization: its material (London) and moral (Paris) triumphs. It is with this "brave new world" that Russia’s potential historical prospects are correlated. At the same time, England acts as a "testing ground" for some future novel collisions, and France — as an example of a police state. The question is raised about the formation of Dostoevsky's comprehensive concept of the West. The work carefully reconstructs the previously little-known details of Dostoevsky's secret visit to the London exile — A. I. Herzen, the subject and nature of their communication, the mutual interest they demonstrated. For the first time, this meeting is examined in a broad historical context-in close connection with the events in Russia. The latter include the St. Petersburg fires, the "Young Russia" proclamation, the arrests of D. I. Pisarev and N. G. Chernyshevsky (and with Dostoevsky’s visit to the latter on the eve of his departure abroad), a police search in Yasnaya Polyana, the suspension of the Contemporary and Russian Word, and the upcoming repression against Time. All of the above are connected by a single "typographic plot" (attempts to create an uncensored free press), which was founded by Dostoevsky (1849) and realized by Herzen in 1853. based on unknown archival documents, the details of Dostoevsky's search on the Russian border (Verzhbolovo) after his return from Europe, the sealing of his papers and the subsequent interrogation at the Investigative Commission in St. Petersburg are examined.