Dostoevsky’s ancestry was first mentioned in a number of 15th-century sources. The founder of the family line, the boyar Daniil Ivanovich Irtishch/Rtishchits, was descended from the Russian clan of the Rtishchevs. Documents state that on Oct. 6, 1506, Daniil Ivanovich inherited the village of Dostoevo in Pinsk district, Belarusian Polissia, which gave rise to the Dostoevsky family name. This date and the acquisition of a new name that glorified the Slavic world was the beginning of the Dostoevsky lineage, the 500th anniversary of which we are marking today.
Thus, the Dostoevskys originated in Russia and Belarus. Later, representatives of this line resided in Western Volhynia (Volyn’s Volodymyr-Volynsky and Kovel districts) and then in Podillia. The writer’s father Mikhail, who ended up in Moscow, where he graduated from the Academy of Medical Surgery, closed the 300-year circuit of the Dostoevskys’ migrations.
Fedor Dostoevsky’s genealogy sparks interest because it is not only an undisclosed secret but also an opportunity to trace the deep-rooted sources of his talent and see a particularly creative personality of this genius. But this secret is sunk in the past, which we often treat as a crude and simplified historical pattern devoid of individual human existence. In order to reproduce the living flesh of the past, one should turn not only to crucial facts and events but also to accompanying historical details. Without these essential details, it is impossible to describe the concrete life and spirit of those years, when the Dostoyevsky family tree began to ramify.
Researchers of the Dostoevsky family tree emphasize that it is not possible to extend a single blood line from Dostoevsky the writer to his forefather Daniil Rtishchits because there are few valuable documents identifying the hitherto unknown intermediate links in the Dostoevsky genealogy. Igor Volgin attempted to systematize all the now accessible documents on the origins of the writer’s lineage in his book To Be Born in Russia (Moscow, 1991). “Ironically, knowing the names of Dostoevsky’s 16th— and 17th-century ancestors, we do not have the faintest idea of his closer (in time) kin: the 18th century is a total hiatus in this respect,” the researcher notes bitterly.
But everything is not as hopeless as it may appear at first glance. For example, it is known that Daniil Ivanovich had four sons, the youngest of whom was Fedor. I single him out because a certain Fedor Ivanovich Dostoevsky resided near Volodymyr-Volynsky in the 1570s (proved by documents that call him a “resident of Pinsk District”). It is no less important that these documents also say that Fedor Ivanovich was an “authorized companion” of Andrei Kurbsky (1528-1583), a boyar and prince who fled to Lithuania in 1564, fearing the wrath of the tyrant Ivan the Terrible for being close to the boyars who were executed on the tsar’s orders.
Under the terms of the Union of Lublin (1569) the Grand Duchy of Lithuania merged with Poland to form the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. But what brought Fedor Ivanovich to Volhynia? In all probability, the reason was that his wife Zofja, a rich heiress, failed to defend her inheritance right in a court battle with her relative Macej Wojciechowicz. The latter won the case (perhaps by bribing the judges), and Fedor’s wife lost her property.
Fedor Ivanovich did not inherit anything either: his parents’ property was handed down to his elder brother Sasin. The only legitimate and noble way for the impoverished landlord to survive was to go into the military. By 1565 Fedor was on the payroll of the Polish army. But he had to think of his future, which military service could not guarantee. Thus, it is possible that the main reason behind the penurious nobleman’s move to Volhynia was to find a powerful patron and enter his service. He found this kind of suzerain (supreme ruler of a region) in the person of Kurbsky.
The suzerain-vassal relationship was a routine practice in those times. Kurbsky’s main estates were in Volhynia, not far from Kovel. Fedor Ivanovich’s move from Pinsk district to Volhynia was a rational step in those cruel times. To be closer to one’s protector and, even better, to become his “companion” (which in fact happened) was behavior typical of people like F. I. Dostoevsky. Further events only confirmed this kind of relationship.
In 1572 Fedor was not only Kurbsky’s “companion” but also his “defense attorney.” According to Mykola Teodorovych (1856-1914?), a historian of Volyn, Dostoevsky won a court action against Prince Dmitri Kurtsevich- Puliga, who in a state of drunken fury had killed “with atrocious outrage” Kurbsky’s devoted associate Ivan Kelemet, the manager of his estates. Teodorovych found out that “Kurbsky personally appeared at the government offices of Volodymyr [Volynsky] with his attorney Fedor Dostoevsky” (N. I. Teodorovich, Volhynia in a Description of Cities, Towns, and Villages, vol. 5. Kovel District, Pochaev, 1903, p. 155 — in Russian).
The probable cause of the murder stemmed from Kelemet’s independent mindset and his disrespectful attitude to certain powerful but not always wise people of this world. A loyal vassal of Kurbsky, Kelemet refused to acknowledge royal power over himself. “I do not serve the king, I serve the prince, my overlord,” he would say haughtily. If he dared say this and show such a scornful attitude to the king himself in those cruel times, then what is there to say about a certain local princeling, a brash and vain owner of human souls? To these kinds of indigenous nobles, a man, especially a defiant one, was nothing more than a pesky fly that must be swatted. Honor was paramount. Disrespecting a distinguished individual was tantamount to shaking the foundations of the earth.
This is precisely what the furious Kurtsevich-Buliga could not tolerate. Before escaping Russia together with Kurbsky, Kelemet hurled defiance at none other than Ivan the Terrible. It may be assumed that Kelemet was a straightforward and fearless person. After his death, the village of Sekun in Kovel district was bequeathed to Mikhail, a cousin of the murdered Kelemet, in keeping with Kurbsky’s wish. According to Teodorovych, Mikhail Kelemet, “Kurbsky’s treasurer,” was married to Yekaterina, “daughter of Matis Troszkowski, the reeve of Kovel.” In 1589 Mikhail Kelemet willed the Sekun estate to his only daughter Anna.
Igor Volgin believes that Sekun became the Dostoevsky family estate in 1664. But the facts presented by Teodorovych partially contradict this claim. A rural court heard a case on Aug. 13, 1664, in which the villagers of Sekun, now owned by the “nobleman Dostoevsky,” had forcibly seized the harvest and cattle of peasants from the neighboring village of Butsyn. This fact leads one to conclude that Sekun belonged to Dostoevsky even before 1664. But who was that Dostoevsky? Russian researcher Nikolai Chulkov believes that Fedor Ivanovich’s son entered into a marriage with Anna Kelemet. This version explains why Sekun became the Dostoevsky family estate.
It is highly unlikely that Anna’s legacy could have become the property of the Dostoevskys in some other way. After all, the Kelemets and the Dostoevskys had more than just friendly relations. Volgin believes that later descendants of Fedor Ivanovich and the Kelemets could also have intermarried. In the researcher’s view, they did so “in memory of their common benefactor, Prince Kurbsky (as well as for their personal benefit).” So “benefit” also mattered, especially if it was a question of protecting mutual interests.
What happened next to the Dostoevsky line in Volhynia? In the 1880s-1890s the writer’s grandfather Andrei had come from parts unknown and settled on the outskirts of the city of Bratslav in Podillia. His place of birth, father’s name, and the family’s social status is not known. In 1781 Count Vikentij Potocki sent a letter to Kyiv’s Uniate metropolitan recommending that he appoint a new priest for the village of Voitivka in the Bratslav area. This is the only documented reference to Andrei Dostoevsky.
In recent times the Russian researcher Nikolai Bogdanov has made a breakthrough in locating information about the writer’s immediate ancestors. Some recently uncovered documents prove that the writer’s grandfather Andrei may have been born in 1756 into the family of a minor Polish nobleman named Grzegorz (Grigorii) Dostojewski. This means that the writer’s grandfather was Andrei Grigorievich, not Mikhailovich. His birthplace is the village of Klechkovychi (according to these documents) or, to be more exact, Klychkovychi, Kovel district (now Turiiske raion). This fact caused a real sensation among contemporary Volyn residents.
In conclusion, it should be said that in terms of genealogy the literary genius Fedor Dostoevsky belongs not only to the Russians but also the Ukrainians and Belarusians, i.e., all the Eastern Slavs. The Slavic spiritual world should recognize this objective historical truth, take pride in it, and immortalize it.
