Indigenous Siberia in the perception of Fyodor Dostoevsky: From Notes from the House of the Dead to A Writer's Diary

This article attempts to reconstruct the image of indigenous, authentic Siberia in the work of Fyodor Dostoevsky against the backdrop of traditional notions of the penal region in the writer's depiction. The scientific novelty of the research is determined by the examination of the specific issue of Dostoevsky's perception of indigenous Siberia. This established the aim of the work: to identify the strategy of the author's interests and preferences within Dostoevsky's local Siberian text. The research materials are Dostoevsky's 1856 letter to Valikhanov, Notes from the House of the Dead, Crime and Punishment, and the 1881 A Writer's Diary. The study of these materials shows that Dostoevsky's conceptions of indigenous, authentic Siberia formed and developed in the following way. In the 1850s, the geographical specificity of the Siberian region where Dostoevsky had to live - Omsk and Semipalatinsk - shaped his initial impressions of indigenous Siberia as an Asian steppe, inhabited by indigenous Siberian peoples and potentially holding geopolitical significance for Russia, as evidenced by his 1856 letter to Valikhanov. It should be emphasized that the topos of indigenous Siberia in Dostoevsky's works is consistently imbued with a vivid Asian character. The genre aspect of Dostoevsky's Siberian issues deserves special attention. The specific depiction of Siberia for him is closely linked to documentary genres - to "notes" (zapiski), and later to a "diary" (dnevnik). He insistently advises Valikhanov to write "notes" about the indigenous Asian steppe and, as a model, suggests Alexander Pushkin's article "John Tanner," dedicated to the life of Indians as the indigenous people of America. However, Dostoevsky himself, at the same time, creates his own notes about Siberia as a penal colony. Notes from the House of the Dead established a fundamental opposition of Dostoevsky's dual perception and depiction of Siberia simultaneously as a Russian penal colony and as an absolutely free "Kyrgyz steppe," which found its continuation in the "Epilogue" of Crime and Punishment. Therefore, in the 1860s, in Notes from the House of the Dead and Crime and Punishment, the writer creates vivid and polysemantic descriptions of the Asian steppe and the life of the indigenous Kyrgyz population. Nevertheless, they represent only separate episodes within his overall portrayal of Siberia as a penal space. Dostoevsky lived in Siberia for ten years in a state of unfreedom; this became the dominant feature in his depiction of the Siberian region. Consequently, the description of authentic indigenous Siberian culture was largely excluded from the main circle of his writerly interests and themes. In turn, in the 1881 A Writer's Diary, after reflecting on the experience of the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878, Dostoevsky proclaims directly opposite views on the significance of the Asian identity of the Russian person, asserting the special geopolitical and sociocultural role of Siberia and Asia in Russia's future development. The author declares no conflicts of interests.