Marking Fyodor Dostoevsky’s 200th anniversary: the Presidential Library spotlighted the role of nature in the writer's works

On September 16, 2021, the Presidential Library hosted a video lecture entitled Nature in the Artistic World of Fyodor Dostoevsky as part of the Knowledge of Russia project. The event was the seventh in the series of lectures Fyodor Dostoevsky – the Conversation about the Values, dedicated to the 200th anniversary of the birth of the world-famous writer, which will be celebrated on November 11, 2021.

The video lecture was free. The meeting was broadcasted on the Presidential Library's portal in the Live broadcasts section in accordance with the program of live events, on the institution's YouTube channel and on the VKontakte social network.

Dmitry Bogach, PhD in Philology, teacher of Russian language and literature at the St. Petersburg Radio Engineering College, considered one of the most understudied aspects of Fyodor Dostoevsky's work - the meaning and place of nature in the writer's works. The video lecture participants learned how the minimal landscape sketches used by the author help to understand the inner world of the heroes of his books.

Dmitry Bogach has been researching this aspect of Fyodor Dostoevsky's work for a long time. In 2018, his scientific monograph Nature as a value in the heritage of Fyodor Dostoevsky was published, which is known not only in Russia, but also abroad. At the first lecture of the cycle, Dmitry Bogach presented a copy of his monograph with a dedication to the Presidential Library.

A video presentation by the doctor of theology, professor of Christian anthropology at the University of Saint Bonaventure (Rome), Franciscan monk Emanuele Rimoli also took place at the event. He talked about the symbolic meaning of nature that takes on in Fyodor Dostoevsky's last novel The Brothers Karamazov.

One has an opportunity to learn more about the writer thanks to the materials of the special digital collection of the Presidential Library Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881) [The World of Dostoevsky]. It includes copies of the texts of the writer's works and materials about his life and career.

Interactive lessons and video lectures are regularly held in the Presidential Library. The detailed information is available on the institution's portal in the Multimedia lessons section and in the Video lectures for school section, where records of past lectures and open lessons are presented.