Centenary of F. M. Dostoevsky's birth in the Soviet Russian press

This article considers the attitude towards F. M. Dostoevsky in Soviet Russia during the celebration of his centenary based on materials published in the periodical press. Articles from newspapers and magazines of that era (Trud, Petrogradskaya Pravda, Izvestiya Petrogradskogo sovetа rabochikh i krasnoarmeyskikh deputatov, Narodnoe prosveshcheni, Krasnyy voin, Krasnyy komandir, Krasnaya Nov’, Pechat’ i revolyutsiya, Zhizn’ iskusstva, Sarrabis, Vestnik literatury, Artel’noe delo, Nachala, etc.) were used. Many of these texts have not been previously analyzed by scholars of Dostoevsky’s work. Numerous attempts were made in the Soviet press to interpret the work and ideas of F. M. Dostoevsky in the spirit of socialism. The writer’s negative view of revolutionary ideology was either rejected or distorted by Socialists, however, they were attracted by the image of a former convict and a defender of the “humiliated and insulted”. Certain magazines (Artel’noe delo, Nachala) that appeared in Petrograd during the NEP period, published religious and philosophical articles about F. M. Dostoevsky. The ambivalence of the attitude towards the writer, the presence of socialist and Christian interpretations of his work in the press were a sign of a transitional historical period.