Dostoyevsky’s Gospel showcased at book exhibition in Minsk News

Facsimile edition, the agency explained BELTA Svetlana Kozhemyako, head of the National Library sector, was donated to the book depository six years ago by Russian partners. She recalled that this relic had been presented to Dostoyevsky by the wife of the Decembrist Mikhail Fonvizin.

This happened, as is known, after the announcement of the verdict against the Petrashevites in Tobolsk, where the convicts were waiting to be sent to the Omsk prison. The wives of the Decembrists managed to obtain permission from the head of the transit prison to visit the prisoners, during which they each presented a New Testament. Dostoyevsky then corresponded with Natalia Fonvizina. The well-known words of the writer that it is better “to remain with Christ than with the truth” are also addressed to him.

But at the beginning of his time in prison, Kozhemyako said: “Dostoyevsky had no pencil or pen to take notes. And he made them with a fingernail. Later the marks are applied with a dry pen and a pencil Most of the notes are on the texts of John the Theologian.

< p class="">Scholars of Dostoevsky's work note that it was the Gospel that provided the impetus for the development of the plot of "Crime and Punishment". For the Evangelist's story about Lazar alone, scientists have found more than a dozen notes.

But how to reproduce the Gospel, in which the writer scratched something with his fingernail? It took time, “new technologies – and thanks to high-precision scanners, it was possible to fully replicate every bend and gap he made,” Kozhemyako clarified. Over the years of painstaking work, 1426 notes taken by Dostoyevsky’s hand have been identified. In a word, specialists have created a new scientific direction – optoelectronic textology.

By the way, comments on the writer’s notes are attached to the facsimile edition of the exhibition. Two other volumes are collections of scientific and research documents.