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 A.M.GORKY INSTITUTE OF WORLD LITERATURE
OF THE RUSSIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

Povarskaya 25A, bld. 1, 121069 Moscow, Russia
fedor@dostmirkult.ru

ISSN 2619-0311 (Print)
ISSN 2712-8512 (Online)

Letters about Dostoevsky (From the Correspondence of Anna Seghers with the Soviet Writers' Union)

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  • Author: Anna V. Dobryashkina
  • Information about the author:

    PhD in Philology, Senior Research Fellow, A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Povarskaya St., 25A, bld. 1, 121069 Moscow, Russia.

    https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9654-4744

    E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
  • For citation:

    Dobryashkina, A. V. "Letters about Dostoevsky (From the Correspondence of Anna Seghers with the Soviet Writers' Union)." Dostoevsky and World Culture. Philological journal, no. 2 (34), 2026, pp. 317-347. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.22455/2619-0311-2026-2-317-347
  • Received: 30 Dec. 2025
  • Approved after reviewing: 28 Jan. 2026
  • Published: 25 June 2026
  • Issue: 2026 no. 2 (34)
  • Department: DOSTOEVSKY IN THE 20TH AND 21ST CENTURIES
  • Pages: 317–347
  • DOI: Visit Website
  • EDN:

    https://elibrary.ru/SYTERW
  • UDK: 821.161.1.0+821.112.2.0
  • BBK: 83.3(2Рос=Рус)+83.3(4Гем)
  • Publication Type: Research Article
  • Keywords: Dostoevsky, Anna Seghers, Soviet Writers’ Union, Foreign Com- mission, V. Stezhensky, Heinrich Böll, A. Dostoevsky
  • Abstract: The article is devoted to the history of the composition of Anna Seghers's collection of theoretical essays "On Tolstoy. On Dostoevsky" (1963). Anna Seghers was the most prominent writer of the GDR, who not only visited the USSR more frequently than other German authors, at the invitation of the Union of Soviet Writers, but also maintained constant correspondence with her Soviet colleagues, most notably with V.I. Stezhensky, consultant on German literature. Seghers could always count on the support and assistance of the Union of Writers, even when working on topics and subjects that were not popular in Soviet culture of the 1950s. One of the recurring topics in Seghers's correspondence with the Union of Writers was the work of Fyodor Dostoevsky, whom the German writer had considered her favourite Russian author since her youth. While the influence of Fyodor Dostoevsky on Anna Seghers's artistic imagery has been well covered in Russian German studies, the history of the creation of theoretical works on Dostoevsky, reflected in the surviving letters, has received no scholarly attention until now. The letters of 1954-1961 not only reflect the particular character of the era but also show how the correspondents' attitude toward Dostoevsky's work evolved, and add an important detail to our understanding of the German writer. The correspondence of these years is also important because Seghers's public statements about Dostoevsky in interviews began to appear only in the late 1960s, in connection with the upcoming anniversary of the Russian writer. The article is written on the basis of archival documents (RGALI).

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