Prototypes of official authority figures in F. M. Dostoevsky's The house of the dead (based on archival materials)

The reported study was funded by RFBR, project number 18-012-90021 Dostoevsky (“Dostoevsky: Life and Legacy. Biographical Lacunae. Perception of His Life and Work in the Russian National Consciousness (1881-1921)”). Abstract. The article introduces new archival materials into scientific discourse, i. e., the service records of the identified prototypes of official authority figures in “The House of the Dead” by F. M. Dostoevsky. The archival documents provided an opportunity to fill in the gaps in the biographies of those who held military and medical posts during the writer’s Siberian exile: major Krivtsov, field engineer Gladyshev, head physician Troitsky and resident physician Lovchinsky. It also allowed us to see which of the officials’ traits were depicted in the novel’s characters. A number of events and details were revealed thanks to the memories of the exiled Pole Joseph Boguslavsky. Thus, the prototypical nature of the characters in “The House of the Dead” was clarified as new facts were revealed and the already known details were revised.