Who is the author of the editorial “Zhelanie” (“Desire”) in the first issue of Grazhdanin (Citizen) for 1873?

Two editors, namely editor-owner V. P. Meshchersky and editor-publisher F. M. Dostoevsky, wrote the editorials in the weekly Grazhdanin in 1873-1874. The article is devoted to the attribution of the editorial article “Zhelanie” (“Desire”), published in the first issue of the weekly Grazhdanin in 1873. Researchers B. V. Tomashevsky, V. V. Vinogradov, V. A. Viktorovich attributed this article to F. M. Dostoevsky. The editorial board of the academic “Complete works in thirty volumes” argued that the note was penned by V. P. Meshchersky. I. Zohrab believes that “Desire” was written by V. P. Meshchersky and edited by F. M. Dostoevsky. The article conducts an examination based on stylistic and mathematical statistics methods. As a result of the comprehensive analysis of the text, both at the ideological (content) and linguistic level, the version of F. M. Dostoevsky’s authorship was rejected. A comparative analysis of “Desire” with the texts of Dostoevsky and Meshchersky and the conclusions made using statistical attribution methods allow us to recognize V. P. Meshchersky as the author.