The Omsk context. New realities and findings

The article analyzes the results of the search conducted by a group of young researchers at the Russian State Military Historical Archive. As part of a scientific project led by the author of the article, M. Kalinin, E. Ogorodnikova, A. Podryabinkina discovered previously unknown archival documents associated with the period of Dostoevsky’s penal servitude in Omsk, to the actual historical context of the Notes from a Dead House. The article contains a number of observations and assumptions related to the prototypes of certain characters, the details of their biographies and the possible influence of this “biographical factor” on Dostoevsky’s fate. The author also offers a critical assessment (issue of authorship, degree of reliability, etc.) of fragments from the memoirs of Jozef Boguslavsky, which are published in Russian for the first time.