Memoirist L. F. Panteleev - publisher and creditor of F. M. Dostoevsky

The topic of financial relations of F. M. Dostoevsky with his numerous creditors has not been yet exposed to a comprehensive study. Neither the exact total amount of the writer’s debt, nor the amount of his debts to particular individuals or to what extent those were repaid by him, are known for certain. A detailed study of Dostoevsky’s heavy debt obligations in the mid-1860s as well as their weigh on the writer for almost all his life, may become promising for future researchers. This article presents the analysis of the letters of one of the writer’s creditors, a publisher and public figure L. F. Panteleev, as well as of his father-in-law V. N. Latkin, industrialist and researcher of the Russian North. These documents, dating back to the mid-1860s, make it possible to clarify some data on the numerous debt obligations of Dostoevsky at that time, to consider the relationship (both personal and financial) between two contemporaries - L. F. Panteleev and F. M. Dostoevsky, and also to make more clear the involvement of Latkin. Despite the fact that the communication between the publisher and the writer in the mid-1860s was not durable, the relationship between them can be described as completely trusting and friendly. The facts obtained from their letters to the writer, correlated with information from Dostoevsky’s extant account books and notebooks of that time as well as Panteleev’s memoirs, supplement the general picture of the financial situation of the writer in the mid-1860s.