The prototype of a German scientist in the story “Uncle's dream” of F. M. Dostoevsk

The article makes an attempt to identify a prototype of the image of an entomologist in the novel “Uncle's Dream” by F. M. Dostoevsky. According to the author's observations, it was F. V. Gebler, the founder of the systematic entomology in the Altai region, the author of scientific papers on insects “Insecta Sibiriae rariora, descripsit” (= Rare insects of Siberia, description) and the “Notes on the insects of Siberia, especially of the Altai”. In addition, the image of the entomologist assumed some features of A. von Humboldt, who also visited Barnaul, and a friend of the writer P. Semyonov, who during the expedition to the Tien Shan in 1856-1857 spent winter in Barnaul (the mining capital of the Altai). Dostoevsky mentions in the novel “a particular species of worm with horns”. The writer chooses the object of the researcher's irony a very rare insect Leptura altaica, living in the vicinity of Barnaul, parody plays the facts and urban legends and creates allusions, clearly referring to Barnaul.