Crimean Scientific School of Dostoevsky Studies

The development of communication technologies today is erasing distances in the large-scale scientific polylogue of researchers of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s work. However, in the recent past, the explorations of scientists from remote corners of the post-Soviet space often remained either out of sight of the Russian Dostoevsky studies community, or represented only sporadically, in isolation from the regionally developed theme. The oldest Crimean university deserves special attention in this context. Since the 1920s, researchers at this university have been examining the issues related to Fyodor Dostoevsky’s work and introducing archival additions to his biography into scientific circulation. The “Crimean period” in the destinies of Dostoevsky’s descendants also reveals their contacts with the staff of the Simferopol Pedagogical Institute, who were the first to evaluate the literary abilities of the writer’s younger grandson. During the Ukrainian period of the peninsula’s history, Candidate of Philological Sciences, Associate Professor Galina Zyabreva initiated Dostoevsky studies at the Department of Literature of the M. V. Frunze Simferopol State University (V. I. Vernadsky Tavrida National University), which have been actively developed since. From 1992 to 2014, six applicants received academic degrees for their work on the study of Dostoevsky under her scientific supervision. In these dissertations, the Orthodox worldview of the writer was taken into account. This period was marked by the strengthening of scientific ties between Crimean researchers and the Russian Dostoevsky studies community. In 2011, International scientific readings “The Word of Fyodor Dostoevsky in the modern cultural dialogue: National and Universal (towards the 190th anniversary of the writer’s birth)” were held in Crimea for the first time. Based on the materials of scientific readings, a homonymous collection of articles was published in 2012. This article provides an insight into the history of Crimean Dostoevsky studies from the 1920s to the present time. This insight is a practical necessity that will allow to fill the bibliographic gaps both in modern scientometric Internet databases and in specialized indexes of literature about Fyodor Dostoevsky with information about the works of Crimean researchers.