Dostoevsky’s trip to Darovoye in 1877 (“Holy memories”, “Zipuns” and “Onion”)

The article introduces into scientific circulation a fragment of F. M. Dostoevsky’s workbook, incorrectly read in the writer’s academic edition. It is a kind of diary of Dostoevsky’s visit to his parental estate Darovoye on July 20-21, 1877. The “personal” draft entry includes a number of ideas for subsequent contemplation; they reflect childhood memories and topics of conversations with Darovoye peasants. All of them will be expanded in the “A Writer's Diary” (July-August 1877 and January 1881) and in the novel “The Brothers Karamazov.” Here, Dostoevsky formulated the problematic issues of the reform era, on which, in his opinion, the fate of the country depended: the family issue, the disorganization of landowners’ estates, the weak position of the nobility, the peasants’ bad habits, chaos in agriculture and land ownership, etc. The places familiar since childhood and the landlords and peasants who received him affectionately - all this made it possible to see the causes and motifs of crisis phenomena hidden from outsiders’ eyes. In the end, the writer came out on the topic of preserving the people and the fundamental Christian values that are redemptive for them. It is suggested and argued that Dostoevsky heard the legend of the “onion,” later included in the novel “The Brothers Karamazov,” during this trip, a fact that was recorded in a draft entry indicating the “Russian” specifics of the legend. The trip to Darovoye, therefore, was the realization of the writer’s soil program, his call to the educated class to hear the voice of the people.