Staraya Russa realia in Dostoevsky's novel “The brothers Karamazov”

In the novel “The Brothers Karamazov” the town of Skotoprigonyevsk appears as a generalized image. On the one hand, it involves prototypical details of various city texts: Kozelsk and the Hermitage of Optina, Moscow and Darovoye, Chermoshnya and Mokroye, Omsk, Tobolsk and Semipalatinsk. On the other hand, it is an image caused by impressions of Staraya Russa. The article underlines the peculiarities of depicting a country town by Dostoevsky, specifies the routes of the main characters, defines some topographical and toponymic features of the novelistic town of Skotoprigonyevsk in correlation with Staraya Russa realities, establishes a connection between the heroes and their prototypes. The analysis of the repercussion of Staraya Russa realities in Dostoevsky's novel “The Brothers Karamazov” allows us to raise in a new fashion the question of how the artistic fiction and the real, documentary materials relate to each other in literature.