A Monument as a Text, or The Message of the Brothers Dostoevsky

• Main Author: Vladimir Zakharov
• Format: Article
• Language: Russian
• Published: Petrozavodsk State University 2014-12-01
• Series: Neizvestnyj Dostoevskij
• Subjects: the Dostoevskys; Maria Dostoevskaya; Fyodor Dostoevsky; memory; a monument as a text; the idea of creativity; Easter motive
• Online Access: http://unknown-dostoevsky.ru/files/redaktor_pdf/1436875931.pdf

The article considers the circumstances of the creation of a monument to the writer's mother Maria Fyodorovna Dostoevskaya. Mikhail Andreevich, father of the brothers Dostoevsky, asked Mikhail and Fyodor to compose the text for the monument. In March and April of 1837 the brothers worked out the idea and conception of the monument, wrote the text of the first and fourth epigraphs, chose evangelic verses and an epitaph of N.M. Karamzin. This was their first collective act of creative work embodied in stone. The monument is not only a symbol of love and sorrow for their mother’s death but also hope for her salvation and future resurrection. The brothers’ words and those chosen from the Gospel as well as the Karamzin’s ones have one more meaning. These convey a sense of beingness and an Easter idea of individual creative work. It is necessary to renew the tomb of Maria Fyodorovna Dostoevskaya and bring the monument back to Lazarevskoye cemetery in Moscow.