Darovoe Estate and Its Owner (According to New Archival Documents)

The Dostoevsky family acquired the Darovoe estate in the Kashirsky uyezd of the Tula province on August 7, 1831. Here the future writer and his brothers and sisters spent the happy summer months in 1832–1836. The estate included the manor house (“seltso”) of Darovoye, the village of Darovaya, and land in the Nechaeva, Tripolye, Harina, Shelepova, and Chertkova wastelands. From the late 18th century to 1829, the listed territories belonged to the Kashirsky uezd landowner Vasily Khotyaintsev, then to his sons Peter, Nikolai and Vasily, and subsequently to their grandsons Pavel and Ivan Khotyaintsev. The latter owner sold the estate to O. A. Glagolevskaya in 1829, and she, in turn, sold it to the mother of the writer F. M. Dostoevsky. In February 1833, her husband, M. A. Dostoevsky, expanded the estate by purchasing the neighboring village of Cheremoshnya with the namesake wastelands. In 1840, after the death of their parents, the Dostoevsky brothers and sisters: Mikhail, Fyodor, Varvara, Andrey, Vera, Nikolai and Alexandra became the owners of the Darovoe estate. In 1852, the estate was bought from them by the writer’s younger sister, Vera Mikhailovna Ivanova (nee Dostoevskaya). After her, Darovoe and Cheremoshnya were owned by her children. The authors analyzed the documents from the Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts, The State Archive of the Tula region, The Central State Archive of the City of Moscow, and the Department of Manuscripts of the Russian State Library. The archival materials revealed the circumstances of the change of ownership of the hamlet and the village of Darovoe and the incident changes from the late 18th century to 1852. It also revealed the details of the purchase of the village of Darovoe by M. F. Dostoevskaya and the exact date of acquisition of the village of Cheremoshnya by M. A. Dostoevsky (February 16, 1833). The study revealed the circumstances of the transfer of the estate to V. M. Ivanova and date of transaction (October 20, 1852), and named the participants of the division. F. M. Dostoevsky, who previously refused his share of the inheritance, did not participate in it. This article is the first to publish the mortgages on Darovoe and Cheremoshnya in 1833, the plan of the hamlet of Darovoe with the manor house dated 1847 (the closest in time to the memorial period), as well as the 1852 act of division, which specifies the conditions for the acquisition by V. M. Ivanova of the parental estate, its size and composition.