On the Hereditary Nobility of the Dostoevsky Family (from Materials for the Scientific Biography of the Writer)

The publication introduced into scientific circulation documents related to the elevation to hereditary nobility in 1828 of the writer’s father Mikhail Andreevich Dostoevsky, his sons Mikhail, Fyodor, and Andrei, and his daughter Varvara, which were extracted from the archive file entitled “Evidence of the Nobility of Dostoevsky. 1828,” discovered by the author in the Central State Archive of Moscow (TSGA Moscow), in the fund of the Chancellery of the Moscow Noble Deputies’ Assembly. The publication of the documents is accompanied by a description of the procedure for the review and approval of M. A. Dostoevsky’s request for him and his children to be entered into the third part of the noble genealogy book of the Moscow province. Adjustments are being made to the traditional ideas about the chronology of this event. Documents from the case “On the Nobility of the Dostoevsky Family,” stored in the Russian State Historical Archive (RGIA), in the fund of the Department of Heraldry of the Senate, are also being introduced into scientific circulation. The internal connection of the documents of the two archival files is established. Additionally, the resolution of the Moscow Noble Deputies’ Assembly dated September 12, 1881 about the inclusion of the writer’s widow Anna Grigorievna Dostoevskaya and the children Lyubov and Fyodor in the family tree is published.