Dostoevsky in the drafting office of the engineering department (new materials for the biography, 1843-1844)

The article presents new details of the biography of F. M. Dostoevsky in the period of 1843-1844, when after finishing the Main Engineering School the future writer was enrolled into St. Petersburg Engineering team at the Drafting Office of the Engineering Department. Up to now that one-year period in his official activities was an absolutely blind-spot in Dostoevsky’s biography. The Conduit List of company - and field-officers/engineers registered in St. Petersburg Engineering team and assigned to the Drafting Office of the Engineering Department allows introducing into scientific use the data about fifteen colleagues of Dostoevsky. This list represents an annual document used to be composed in the Military Department until the 1860s and contained both official data and information on the behaviour, intellectual capacities etc of the officers of certain unit. These data of the Conduit List after being analyzed and commented, based on the printed sources of the epoch and other biographical reference books, notably enrich our knowledge about Dostoevsky’s relationships in 1843-1844.