'Dostoyevsky Reminiscences' by Anna Dostoyevskya

My final read of January was another really first rate book. I just loved this.

In 1866 a young St Petersburg trainee stenographer called Anna Snitkina was sent by her tutor to visit the novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky to give him some assistance completing the novel he was working on. It was called 'the Gambler' and he had to complete it really quickly in order to avoid losing a lot of money thanks to an ill-advised publishing deal he had got himself into. It had been established that he could rapidly speed up if rather than writing it all out in longhand, he instead dictated his prose to someone who could take the words down in shorthand and transcribe them for him while he set his brain to work on the next passage.

Anna was twenty years old, Dostoyevsky just shy of his forty-fifth birthday. Within a few weeks 'the Gambler' was completed and the couple were engaged to be married. The marriage lasted for fourteen years until Dostoyevsky's death in 1881.

This is Anna's memoir of their life together and her many subsequent years as his widow, during which she supervised the publication of all his works. It was written in old age, but drawing on notes, letters and diaries. Anna died in 1918 and the book was not published in Russia until 1925. This English translation by Beatrice Stillman was published in the UK fifty years ago in January 1976. I found it compelling and charming.

I have no idea, as I have yet to read a full biography of Fyodor Dostoyevsky, how accurate her portrayal of him in her memoir is. She was clearly completely devoted to the point of idolising him somewhat, and takes the opportunity to settle some scores with people such as Peter, his stepson from his earlier marriage, who she considered treated him disrespectfully or took advantage of him during his lifetime.

It is also clear that some of the other memoirs of her husband written by friends and acquaintances displeased her hugely. Many praised his literary ability to the nines, while portraying him unflatteringly as being rather like some of the nastier characters in his novels. So her main aim here seems to have been to rescue his reputation, providing a portrait of a man who was a wonderful husband and father, invariably kind and generous, sometimes shy but terrifically talented, and if anything almost too saintly for his own good. She is extraordinarily forgiving when writing about his poor business decisions and propensity to lose vast amounts of money playing roulette.

The marriage was challenging because the family were always short of money. Two of their four children died in infancy, while Dostoyevsky suffered both from chronic emphysema and epilepsy. They spent four years abroad soon after they married, partly it would seem to avoid creditors. But after they returned to Russia in 1871 very gradually Anna was able to take control of the family finances and put their lives back on an even keel. She was clearly a formidable personality, and a very effective assistant and business manager as well as a devoted wife.

The book also provides many passing glimpses of life in mid-late nineteenth century Russia. Autocracy is weakening, but censors still operate and there is a great deal of political division. Dostoyevsky apparently had plenty of enemies in the literary world who were unimpressed by his politics which, like Tolstoy's (who he never met) were not at all revolutionary and heavily informed by his faith. The extent of corruption, double-dealing and dishonesty - including among state officials - is a recurring theme too.

The final chapters concerning Dostoyevsky's final months, his death and its aftermath are hard to read but very tenderly written. When an exceptional and much admired person dies it is inevitably always going to be something of a public event and that can be very hard for the grieving family to handle. Anna's memoir deals with this challenge particularly effectively, while also discussing the kinds of emotional turmoil and adjustment that all bereaved families go through and which have near universal resonance:

I should add that this inexplicable forgetfulness went on for at least a month or two after my husband died. Either I would hurry home so as not to keep him waiting for dinner, or I would buy sweets for him, or, hearing some news or other, I would think to myself that I must tell him about it right away. The next moment, of course, I would remember that he was dead, and I would feel and inexpressible pain.

The book is very candid indeed and hugely enjoyable to read as it has a novel-like quality. There is some repetition, and it is perhaps a touch syrupy at times, but overall it manages to be extremely interesting, as well as sympathetic and charming.

An absolutely first rate intimate and personal memoir.