From editorial correspondence between “Vremya” and “Epokha”: the brothers Dostoevskys, Ardalion Zimenko, Iliya Salov

Letters are the texts in which an aesthetic aspect is not so important to the reader as the cognitive one. These letters need critical analysis and meaningful review, the identification of names and dates, the revelation and interpretation of the events described in them. The article studies a letter of one of F. M. Dostoevsky's correspondents, A. V. Zimenko. On December 19 1864 he wrote to the writer acting as the editor of the Journal “Epokha” with a request to pay him the rest of the fees for the short novel “Butuzka”, published in the journal “Vremya” (“The Time”) (1863, No. 2 and 3). Dostoevsky entered into correspondence with him. But the real author of “Butuzka” was writer I. A. Salov. The article presents archival and memoir evidence of professional life of Zimenko in “Russkiy Vestnik” (“The Russian Bulletin”) and other journals, reconstructs the history of relationships of Zimenko and Salov. The appeal of Zimenko to Dostoevsky in the given letter should be considered as the request of the mediator Salov...