The Presidential Library’s collections illustrate famous contemporaries in the memoirs of the outstanding lawyer Anatoly Koni

February 9, 2021 marks the 177th anniversary of the birth of the famous Russian lawyer, statesman and public figure, writer Anatoly Fedorovich Koni (1844-1927). The Presidential Library’s electronic collections feature materials about the life and professional activities of one of the brightest representatives of the Russian intelligentsia of the late 19th - early 20th centuries, as well as with his brilliant literary works.

“There are many bright, significant moments on the 80-year life path of Anatoly Fedorovich Koni. There are so many beautifully and flawlessly traversed steps of an extremely versatile activity for a short human life. There are so many merits for exceptional judicial activity. The pinnacle of oratory. A ministry to science started from the university bench. A community service full of the best aspirations. A true literary gift. Finally, the meetings: colorful, interesting. Friendship with a whole galaxy of wonderful Russian people", - writes the Soviet writer, historian of Russian literature of the XIX century Lev Samoilovich Utevsky in the 1925 edition Anatoly Fedorovich Koni. 1844-1924.

In addition, outstanding representatives of their time really became the heroes of Koni's literary works. Among them are Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov, Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy, Sergei Yulievich Witte and many others.

Thus, in his book Memories of Anton Chekhov (1925) Anatoly Fedorovich notes: "In my memory, his image stands as if alive - with a sad, pensive, as if looking inwardly, with an attentive and gentle attitude to the interlocutor and with an outwardly calm word, behind which one can feel the beating of a heart that is hot and responsive to human sorrows". As a lawyer and as a person working in the penitentiary system, he especially appreciated Chekhov for his book "Sakhalin Island", which raises the problems of harsh conditions of detention of exiled convicts.

Koni and Chekhov were in constant correspondence. Anatoly Fedorovich visited the writer in Yalta. Most likely, they had long, frank conversations, as evidenced by the following lines: "Chekhov was very interested in my personal memories and psychological observations from the field of witness testimony".

Koni does not mention whether Chekhov used these materials in his works, but it is known for sure that the rich life experience of the famous lawyer was based on one of the novels of another Great Russian writer, Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy. The already mentioned edition Anatoly Fedorovich Koni. 1844-1924 provides a detailed story about their cooperation: "The name of A. F. Koni with the name of L. N. Tolstoy, in addition to many other things, is especially definitely and firmly connected thanks to the novel "Resurrection" - a work that in the diaries and letters of L. N. usually called "Konev's story", because he always remembered that his theme. His main idea was given to him by Anatoly Fedorovich".

On the pages of the 1921 edition “Nekrasov. Dostoevsky”, presented in the Presidential Library’s collections, Koni recalls his first meeting with another Russian classic Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov: “The first time I had to see him at the end of the fifties on Nevsky Prospect, when I met my father. I gazed eagerly into his yellowish face and tired eyes and listened attentively to his deaf voice: at that time his name was already telling me a lot".

The story of the old peasant, transmitted by Koni to the writer, also served as a source of literary inspiration for Nekrasov: “When we parted, he told me: 'I will take advantage of this', - and a year later he sent me a proof sheet, on which it was typed: 'About Yakov the faithful - an exemplary serf“, Asking to inform, “right?”. I replied that some small versions did not change the essence of the matter at all, and a month later I received from him a separate print of the part “Who Lives Well in Russia”, which depicts this prone story in stunning verses".

To his native city of St. Petersburg, which also became a literary hero for Anatoly Fedorovich, he dedicated the book "Petersburg: Memories of an old-timer".

Thanks to this book, as a real time machine, it is possible go back more than a hundred years ago and stroll around old Petersburg: “There are many peddlers with stalls on the streets, freely stopping at intersections to sell toys, pickled pears, and apples. In front of Gostiny Dvor and at the corners of bridges, there are sellers of rolls and saikas, cheap caviar, scars and boiled liver. Some have trays with goods on their heads, large tubs of fish and tubs of ice cream".

The Presidential Library’s collections also present the works of Anatoly Fedorovich Koni concerning his activities in the legal field: Court - science - art: (based on the memoirs of a judicial figure)  in 1923, Fathers and children of the judicial reform in 1914 and many others.