On Malaya Podyacheskaya, wife's illness

The address is indicated in Gaevsky's letter to Dostoevsky dated August 1, 1864: “In Malaya Podyacheskaya, in the house of Thomas,” the modern address being Malaya Podyacheskaya Street, No. 2/96, the house still stands. In a draft letter to Rodevich, Dostoevsky calls the apartment in this house “my apartment.” At this address, since July 1863, when Dostoevsky was absent from Petersburg traveling through Europe, the writer’s stepson Pavel Isaev lived there—initially together with the tutor Rodevich, and later alone—when the writer was in Moscow with his dying wife Maria Dmitrievna. The writer’s belongings (linen, books, etc.) remained in this apartment. Repeatedly visiting the capital at the end of 1863 and the beginning of 1864, Dostoevsky stayed in his stepson’s apartment. And having returned to Petersburg at the end of April 1864, he did not rent a separate apartment until August 20, 1864, but lived in the Thomas house with Pavel Isaev.

In local history literature, there has been a widespread erroneous indication that in “April 1864” Dostoevsky lived at the address: “Corner of M. Meshchanskaya St. and Stolyarny Lane, Yevreinov’s house.” From the beginning of 1864 until the last days of April, the writer lived in Moscow. Here already arises an inaccuracy in the indication that he lodged “in April” in Yevreinov’s house. And then? Where did he live until August 20, 1864, when he settled in Alonkin’s house? Complete confusion! And where did this address come from at all?

In the autumn of 1863 (or even earlier), the retired actual state councilor Alexey Petrovich Yevreinov’s house at the corner of Malaya Meshchanskaya Street No. 9 and Stolyarny Lane No. 11 was occupied by Dostoevsky’s elder brother Mikhail Mikhailovich, who moved there from Astafyeva’s house (also on Malaya Meshchanskaya, No. 1). Dostoevsky mentions this address, for example, in a letter to Turgenev dated October 6/18, 1863. Having sent his wife to Vladimir (as the Petersburg climate was contraindicated for her) and having arranged for his stepson to live with tutor Rodevich in the apartment in the Thomas house, Dostoevsky, leaving for Europe in early August 1863, also moved out of his apartment in Astafyeva’s house. Returning to Petersburg around October 21, he almost immediately went to Vladimir upon learning of the worsening of Maria Dmitrievna’s illness. Having transferred his sick wife to Moscow (under the care of relatives), he lived there with her until November 25, when he left for Petersburg. In the last days of December or the first days of January 1864, he again left for Moscow and returned only after his wife’s death. As already noted, during brief stays in Petersburg, he lived in his stepson Pavel Isaev’s apartment.

But on December 5, 1863, in a letter to Wilhelm Wolfson in Dresden, the writer gives him the following address for correspondence: “My address just in case: to Mikhail Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, in Petersburg, at the corner of Malaya Meshchanskaya and Stolyarny Lane, Yevreinov’s house, to be forwarded to Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky.” This is the only precedent when the writer gives his correspondent the address in Yevreinov’s house (not knowing exactly where he himself would be in the coming weeks), but although Dostoevsky writes: “My address…” — this is unequivocally the address of his elder brother (and moreover, it concerns not April 1864, but December 1863). There are no other data that could be interpreted as evidence of Dostoevsky living in Yevreinov’s house.

Sources:

Boris Nikolaevich Tikhomirov: DOSTOEVSKY’S ADDRESSES IN PETERSBURG: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF SOURCES AND AN EXPERT REVIEW OF LOCAL HISTORY PUBLICATIONS