The Petrashevites After the Semyonovsky Parade Ground Events, Commandant Nabokov and Emperor Nicholas I (New Details in the Biography of Mikhail and Fedor Dostoevsky)

The publication is based on the documents discovered by the authors in the Russian State Historical Archive, which are preserved in the Repository of the Commandant’s Office of the St. Petersburg Fortress, in the case “Regarding the prisoners under investigation for malicious intent in 1849”. Most of the documents date back to the period between December 22, 1849 (the staging of the mock execution of the Petrashevites on the Semyonovsky parade ground) and January 9, 1850 (arrival of Dostoevsky, Durov and Yastrzhembsky in Tobolsk). The latest document is dated February 4, 1850. The article contains three parts, each of which sheds new light on the biography of the brothers Fedor M. and Mikhail M. Dostoevsky in the aforementioned period. The first section incorporates the documents that reveal the circumstances prior to the meeting of the brothers Dostoevsky on December 24, 1849, before Fedor was sent to Siberia, a meeting which was initially refused to them. Specifically, these documents are the request made by the Commandant of the Peter and Paul Fortress Nabokov and addressed to the War Minister, to allow relatives of the members of the Petrashevsky circle to meet with them before departure for the place of punishment, and the most gracious permission of Nicholas I on the matter, following the most humble report of the Minister. The second section introduces into scientific circulation the documents presenting the emperor’s initiative to provide monetary assistance to the families of convicted Petrashevites, as well as to Petrashevites with families (including multi-child families), who were temporarily imprisoned in the fortress during the investigation. In the context of these documents, suspicions about the “immodest behavior” of M. M. Dostoevsky during the investigation that were previously expressed by certain researchers (Dolinin, Grossman), are removed. The third section introduces a receipt issued to “criminal Dostoevsky,” according to which 100 rubles of his money were appropriated during the prison transfer, and a document confirming the reception of this amount in the Tobolsk directive regarding convicts. The question of the origin and subsequent fate of this money is examined.