Letters by Lyubov Dostoevskaya to Her Mother: Commentary on Personalities

The article describes and comments on the letters of Dostoevsky’s daughter Lyubov Fyodorovna to her mother in 1881–1917. Together with the replies of Anna Grigor’evna Dostoevskaya, the correspondence includes about 700 letters in which mother and daughter often discuss the issues related to the preservation of Dostoevsky’s legacy: publishing the Complete Works, staging performances based on his works, replenishing the writer’s Memorial Museum, erecting a new monument on his grave for the 30th anniversary of his death, issues of preserving documents and books. The persons and events mentioned in the letters make the epistolary of Dostoevsky’s widow and daughter a valuable historical and literary source. In combination with archival and memoir sources, Lyubov Fyodorovna’s epistolary can be used to study and comment on the biography and correspondence of Dostoevsky’s entourage. The article includes a letter from a reader from the editorial archive of “The Unknown Dostoevsky” journal, which is a response to an earlier published article and is dedicated to Ekaterina Vladislavovna Yachevskaya, the granddaughter of Faddeus Venediktovich Bulgarin, and one of L. F. Dostoevskaya’s correspondents. The Appendix contains excerpts from Lyubov Fyodorovna’s letters dedicated to representatives of related families (Bulgarins, Olkhins, Engelhardts, Tyrtovs, Rokossovskys).