Letters of Fyodor Michailovitch Dostoevsky to His Family and friends, Fyodor Dostoevsky

Letters of Fyodor Michailovitch Dostoevsky to His Family and friends

Contents
I. To his Father: May 10, 1838
II. To his Brother Michael: August 9, 1838
III. To his Brother Michael: October 31, 1838
IV. To his Brother Michael: January 1, 1840
V. To his Brother Michael: September 30, 1844
VI. To his Brother Michael: March 24, 1845
VII. To his Brother Michael: May 4, 1845
VIII. To his Brother Michael: October 8, 1845
IX. To his Brother Michael: November 16, 1845
X. To his Brother Michael: February 1, 1846
XI. To his Brother Michael: April i, 1846
XII. To his Brother Michael: September 17, 1846
XIII. To his Brother Michael: Undated, 1846
XIV. To his Brother Michael: November 26, 1846
XV. To his Brother Michael: Undated, 1847
XVI. To his Brother Michael: Undated, 1847
XVII. To his Brother Michael: July 18, 1849
XVIII. To his Brother Michael: August 27, 1849
XIX. To his Brother Michael: September 14, 1849
XX. To his Brother Michael: December 22, 1849
XXI. To his Brother Michael: February 22, 1854
XXII. To Mme. N. D. Fonvisin: Beginning of March, 1854
XXIII. To Mme. Maria Dmitryevna Issayev: June 4, 1855
XXIV. To Mme. Praskovya Yegorovna Annenkov: October 18, 1855
XXV. To Apollon Nikolayevitch Maikov: January 18, 1856
XXVI. To General E. I. Totleben: March 24, 1856
XXVII. To the Baron A. E. Vrangel: April 13, 1856
XXVIII. To his Brother Michael: May 31, 1858
XXIX. To his Brother Michael: May 9, 1859
XXX. To Frau Stackenschneider: May 3, 1860
XXXI. To Mme. V. D. Constantine: September 1, 1862
XXXII. To N. N. Strachov: September 18 [30], 1863
XXXIII. To A. P. Milyukov: June, 1866
XXXIV. To Apollon Nikolayevitch Maikov: August 16 [28], 1867
XXXV. To his Niece, Sofia Alexandrovna: September 29 [October 11], 1867
XXXVI. To Apollon Nikolayevitch Maikov: October 9 [21], 1867
XXXVII. To his Stepson, P. A. Issayev: October 10 [22], 1867
XXXVIII. To his Sister Vera, and his Brother-in-Law Alexander Pavlovitch Ivanov: January 1 [13], 1868
XXXIX. To his Niece Sofia Alexandrovna: January 1 [13], 1868
XL. To his Stepson, P. A. Issayev: February 19 [March 3], 1868
XLI. To Apollon Nikolayevitch Maikov: May 1 8 [30], 1868
XLII. To Apollon Nikolayevitch Maikov: June 10 [22], 1868
XLIII. To Apollon Nikolayevitch Maikov: October 7 [19], 1868
XLIV. To his Niece Sofia Alexandrovna: October 26 [November 7], 1868
XLV. To Apollon Nikolayevitch Maikov: December 11 [23], 1868
XLVI. To his Niece Sofia Alexandrovna: January 25 [February 6], 1869
XLVII. To Nikolay Nikolayevitch Strachov: February 26 [March 10], 1869
XLVIII. To his Niece Sofia Alexandrovna: March 8 [20], 1869
XLIX. To Nikolay Nikolayevitch Strachov: March 18 [30], 1869
L. To his Niece Sofia Alexandrovna: August 29 [September 10], 1869
LI. To Apollon Nikolayevitch Maikov: October 16 [28], 1869
LII. To Apollon Nikolayevitch Maikov: February 12 [24], 1870
LIII. To Nikolay Nikolayevitch Strachov: February 26 [March 10], 1870
LIV. To Nikolay Nikolayevitch Strachov: March 24 [April 5], 1870
LV. To Apollon Nikolayevitch Maikov: March 25 [April 6], 1870
LVI. To his Sister Vera, and his Niece Sofia Alexandrovna: May 7 [19], 1870
LVII. To Nikolay Nikolayevitch Strachov: June 11 [23], 1870
LVIII. To his Niece Sofia Alexandrovna: July 2 [14], 1870
LIX. To his Niece Sofia Alexandrovna: August 17 [29], 1870
LX. To Nikolay Nikolayevitch Strachov: October 9 [21], 1870
LXI. To Apollon Nikolayevitch Maikov: December 15 [27], 1870
LXII. To Apollon Nikolayevitch Maikov: December 30 [January 11], 1870-71
LXIII. To Apollon Nikolayevitch Maikov: March 2 [14], 1871
LXIV. To Nikolay Nikolayevitch Strachov: April 23 [May 5], 1871
LXV. To Nikolay Nikolayevitch Strachov: May 18 [30], 1871
LXVI. To Mme. Ch. D. Altschevsky: April 9, 1876
LXVII. To Vsevolod Solovyov: July, 1876
LXVIII. To Mlle. Gerassimov: March 7, 1877
LXIX. To A. P. N.: May 19, 1877
LXX. To N. L. Osmidov: February, 1878
LXXI. To a Mother: March 27, 1878
LXXII. To a Group of Moscow Students: April 18, 1878
LXXIII. To Mlle. N. N. : April 11, 1880
LXXIV. To Frau E. A. Stackenschneider: July 17, 1880
LXXV. To N. L. Osmidov: August 18, 1880
LXXVI. To I. S. Aksakov: August 28, 1880
LXXVII. To Doctor A. F. Blagonravov: December 19, 1880
Recollections of Dostoevsky by his Friends
From the Reminiscences of D. V. Grigorovitch 1837-1846
From the Reminiscences of A. P. Milyukov 1848-1849
From the Memoranda of P. K. Martyanov, at the House of the Dead 1850-1854
From the Reminiscences of Baron Alexander Vrangel 1854-1865
From the Reminiscences of Sophie Kovalevsky 1866
Dostoevsky in the Judgment of His Contemporaries
I. R. P. Pobyedonoszev to I. S. Aksakov: January 30, 1881
II. I. S. Aksakov to R. P. Pobyedonoszev: February, 1881
III. Turgenev on Dostoevsky: 1861-1882
IV. Leo Tolstoy on Dostoevsky: September 26, 1880

Letters of Fyodor Michailovitch Dostoevsky to his Family and Friends

I. To his Father

May 10, 1838.

MY DEAR GOOD FATHER,

Can you really think that your son is asking too much when he applies to you for an allowance? God be my witness that not for self-interest, nor even in actual extremest need, could I ever wish to despoil you in any way. How bitter it is to have to ask my flesh and blood a favour which so heavily oppresses them! I have my own head, my own hands. Were I but free and independent, I should never have asked you for so much as a kopeck — I should have inured myself to the bitterest poverty.

I should have been ashamed to write from my very death-bed, asking for support. As things are, I can only console you with promises for the future; however, that future is no longer a distant one, and time will convince you of its reality.
At present I beg you, dearest Papa, to reflect that in the literal sense of the word — I serve. I must, whether I wish it or not, conform to the obligations of my immediate environment. Why should I set up as an exception? Such exceptional attitudes, moreover, are often attended by the greatest unpleasantnesses. You will readily understand this, dear Papa. You have mixed enough with men to do that. And therefore consider, please, the following points: Life in camp, for every student of the Military Academy, demands at least forty roubles. (I write this, because I am addressing my father.) In that sum are not included such necessities as tea, sugar, etc.

Yet all those things I must have as well — assuredly not only as comforts, but as sheer indispensables. When one has to sleep in a canvas tent during damp and rain, or when, in such weather, one returns weary and chilled from practice, one may easily fall ill for want of tea, as I have frequently experienced in former years at these times. But I want to consider your difficulties, and so I will give up tea altogether, and ask you only for the barest necessary of all — sixteen roubles for two pairs of ordinary boots. Again: I must keep my things, such as books, footgear, writing materials, paper, etc., somewhere or other. I need for that a trunk, for in camp there is no kind of shelter but the tents.

Our beds are bundles of straw covered with sheets. Now I ask you where, without a trunk, am I to keep my things? You must know that the Treasury does not care in the least whether I have one or not. For the exams will soon be over, and then I — shall need no books; and as it is supposed to look after my uniform, I ought not to require boots, etc. But how can I pass the time without books? and the boots with which we are supplied are so bad that three pairs scarcely see one through six months, even in the town. —

[Here follows a further catalogue of necessary purchases.]

From your last remittance I have laid by fifteen roubles. So you see, dear Papa, that I need at least twenty-five more. We break up camp in the beginning of June. If you will stand by your son in his bitter need, send him this money by the first of June. I dare not insist upon my petition: I am not asking too much, but my gratitude will be boundless.

II. To his Brother Michael

PETERSBURG,

August 9, 1838.

[The letter begins with explanations of why Dostoevsky has not written to his brother for so long: he has not had a kopeck.]

It is true that I am idle — very idle. But what will become of me, if everlasting idleness is to be my only attitude towards life? I don’t know if my gloomy mood will ever leave me. And to think that such a state of mind is allotted to man alone — the atmosphere of his soul seems compounded of a mixture of the heavenly and the earthly.

What an unnatural product, then, is he, since the law of spiritual nature is in him violated…. This earth seems to me a purgatory for divine spirits who have been assailed by sinful thoughts. I feel that our world has become one immense Negative, and that everything noble, beautiful, and divine, has turned itself into a satire. If in this picture there occurs an individual who neither in idea nor effect harmonizes with the whole — who is, in a word, an entirely unrelated figure — what must happen to the picture? It is destroyed, and can no longer endure.

Yet how terrible it is to perceive only the coarse veil under which the All doth languish! To know that one single effort of the will would suffice to demolish that veil and become one with eternity — to know all this, and still live on like the last and least of creatures…. How terrible! How petty is man! Hamlet! Hamlet!

When I think of his moving wild speech, in which resounds the groaning of the whole numbed universe, there breaks from my soul not one reproach, not one sigh…. That soul is then so utterly oppressed by woe that it fears to