Dostoevsky's Romantic Relationships
Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky (11 November 1821 – 9 February 1881[1]) was married twice and is known to have had numerous confirmed and unconfirmed romantic affairs. This page briefly catalogs his known and alleged romantic relationships, but may not be comprehensive.
Marriages
Marya Dmitrievna Dostoevskaya
Marya Dmitrievna Dostoevskaya (née Isaeva) was Dostoevsky's first wife, wed in the city of Semipalatinsk (now Semey) on the 7th of February, 1857.[2] They remained wed for just over 7 years until her death in March of 1864. It is widely accepted that their relationship was generally unhappy[3] and he remarried less than 3 years later.[4]
Anna Grigoryevna Dostoevskaya
Anna Grigoryevna Dostoevskaya (née Snitkina) was Dostoevsky's second wife, wed in Trinity Cathedral, Saint Petersburg on the 15th of February, 1867.[5] At the time of their wedding she was 20 years old, they would remain married until Dostoevsky's death on February 9th, 1881. They took an interest in one another while Dostoevsky was writing The Gambler, he had hired the newly graduated Anna Grigoryevna to be his stenographer in an effort to write his novel in under a month's time. Whilst working on this novel together Dostoevsky wrote a romance plot between the characters of an old artist (Dostoevsky was 45 at the time of their marriage) and a young woman. In an effort to ascertain whether his feelings of infatuation toward Anna were reciprocated he asked her about the young woman in his story: "Consider for a minute yourself in her place, imagine that this artist is me, and I acknowledged to you that I love you and asked you to be my wife. Tell me, how would you answer?", she allegedly replied "I would answer that I love you and I will love you all my life!".[6]
Affairs
Avdotya Yakovlevna Panaeva
Avdotya Yakovlevna Panaeva (née Bryanskaya) was an author born on August 12, 1820 in St. Petersburg. At age 17 she was married to author Ivan Panaev. She and Dostoevsky met years later through her husband's literary circle and he soon became a frequent visitor of her literary salon. Dostoevsky certainly found her extremely attractive[7] and she was known to have had affairs with other authors, but it is unknown whether the attraction was reciprocated.[8] As of 2022-03-29 Wikipedia claims this relationship to be Dostoevsky's "first known affair",[9] but this is not corroborated with a proper citation and may well be speculative.
Aleksandra Ivanovna Schubert
Aleksandra Ivanovna Schubert was an actress and the wife of Stepan Dmitrievich Yanovsky, Dostoevsky's doctor until his arrest due to involvement in the Petrashevsky Circle. [10] Dostoevsky was close with both his doctor and the doctor's wife, and he stayed in contact after his time in Siberia. Aleksandra and her husband's relationship deteriorated during Dostoevsky's marriage to Marya Dmitrievna and it is speculated he and Aleksandra had an affair around this time, in 1860 he sent a letter to Aleksandra Ivanovna stating "Seems he (Yanovsky) is absolutely certain that we write to each other all the time, that you follow all my advice... I think he is a little bit jealous, perhaps, he thinks I'm in love with you".[11]
Apollinaria Prokofyevna Suslova
Apollinaria Prokofyevna Suslova was born in 1839 and is known mostly for her affair with Dostoevsky, possibly the best documented affair he had was with her. The two met in 1861 when she attended a class he was teaching, they began an affair shortly after.[12] It is speculated that she served as the basis for several of Dostoevsky's female characters, most notably Nastasya Filippovna in The Idiot. She held a great deal of manipulative power over Dostoevsky and attempted to convince him to divorce his dying wife Marya Dmitrievna.[13] Many articles claim that after his first wife's death he proposed to Apollinaria Prokofyevna Suslova and she rejected him, the claim is believable however the citation is tenuous at best.[14] There is a wealth of writings from Apollinaria Prokofyevna Suslova herself regarding the affair, in one excerpt dated August 27, 1863 she details rejecting him in an almost torturous way, gleefully telling him she is in love with another man and adding that the other man is not in love with her. She writes that in response to this turn of events he "clutch[ed] his head with both his hands in despair".[15] Their affair certainly ended on poor terms, later she wrote about Dostoevsky "I simply hate him".
References
- ↑ https://www.britannica.com/biography/Fyodor-Dostoyevsky Retrieved 2022-03-29.
- ↑ Frank, Joseph. Dostoevsky: a writer in his time. Princeton, NJ: Princeton U Press, 2010.
- ↑ Frank, Joseph. Dostoevsky: a writer in his time. Princeton, NJ: Princeton U Press, 2010.
- ↑ Slonim, Marc. Three Loves of Dostoevsky. New York: Rinehart, 1955.
- ↑ https://bloggerskaramazov.com/2017/02/20/anna-grigorievna-2/ Retrieved 2022-03-29.
- ↑ https://bloggerskaramazov.com/2017/02/20/anna-grigorievna-2/ Retrieved 2022-03-29.
- ↑ Kjetsaa, Geir. Fyodor Dostoyevsky: A Writer's Life. Pennsylvania State University: Fawcett Columbine, 1989.
- ↑ https://ik-ptz.ru/en/dictations-on-the-russian-language--grade-4/analiz-stihotvoreniya-my-s-toboi-bestolkovye-lyudi-analiz.html Retrieved 2022-03-29.
- ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fyodor_Dostoevsky#Extramarital_affairs Retrieved 2022-03-29.
- ↑ http://www.croquis.ru/2481.html Retrieved 2022-03-29.
- ↑ Saraskina, Lyudmila. Достоевский. Young Guard JSC, 2013.
- ↑ Dostoevskaya, Lyubov. Dostoejewski geschildert von seiner Tochter. Ernst Reinhardt, 1920.
- ↑ http://dostoevsky-bts.com/blog/fyodors-femme-fatale/ Retrieved 2022-03-29.
- ↑ http://www.kiosek.com/dostoevsky/chronology.html Retrieved 2022-03-29
- ↑ Sekirin, Peter. The Dostoevsky Archive: Firsthand Accounts of the Novelist from Contemporaries' Memoirs and Rare Periodicals, Most Translated into English for the First Time, with a Detailed Lifetime Chronology and Annotated Bibliography. Jefferson, N.C: McFarland & Co, 2013.