“A Rare Creature, in Mind, in Heart, in Character” (a Relative of Dostoevsky From Siberia)

The article presents the unknown facts in the biographies of people in the family circle of F. M. Dostoevsky: his sister-in-law Olga Kirillovna Snitkina and her mother Nadezhda Ivanovna Obraszhova. His first acquaintance with them belongs to the Dresden period of the writer's life (1869–1870). The sparse information that is currently available about their lives was drawn mainly from Dostoevsky's correspondence with his wife and belongs to a later period. Based on a systematic analysis of the preserved correspondence of the Snitkin family (relatives of the writer's wife), memoirs of contemporaries, genealogical and local history materials, as well as archival searches, their biographies were reconstructed, several unknown documentary sources were introduced into scientific circulation (stored in the Fund of the Department of Heraldry of the Russian State Historical Archive and in the Fund of the St. Petersburg Spiritual Consistory of the Central State Historical Archive of St. Petersburg), the exact date (May 17, 1873), and the place of birth of one of Anna Grigoryevna Dostoevskaya's nephews — Vanya Snitkin, as well as the maiden name of his mother Olga Kirillovna (née Maryina) were established. The study showed that the lineage of O. K. Snitkin and N. I. Obraszhovoy descends from Siberia and includes representatives of several famous merchant dynasties of the mid-XIX сentury. A brief textual description of the surviving correspondence between this branch of the Snitkin family and the Dostoevsky family is attached to the article.