Fyodor Dostoevsky spent five years (from 1838 to 1843) within the walls of the Mikhailovsky Castle as a student of the Engineering School, and then served for almost a year in the drawing team. This place, memorable for the biography of the writer, is one of the best in St. Petersburg for showing an exhibition dedicated to his 200^th anniversary. The jubilee exhibition project will present Dostoevsky and his work in conjunction with Russian and European culture.

The exhibition is based on paintings from the imaginary "ideal museum of the writer", which were especially significant for Dostoevsky throughout his life. He did not miss a single exhibition in St. Petersburg, in Europe he got acquainted with the main museums and galleries, he knew the Dresden Gallery, the Pitti Palace, the Uffizi almost by heart. He considered Raphael's Sistine Madonna one of the greatest masterpieces, admired the landscapes of Claude Lorrain, the gates of the Florentine Baptistery, Saint Agatha by Sebastiano del Piombo, Penitent Magdalene by Batoni, this list is pretty extensive.

It is impossible to imagine the “Dostoevsky's choice” in full: most of his favorite works are in European museums. At the exhibition, some of them are presented in copies made by outstanding master copyists of the 19th century. Visitors will get acquainted not only with those works that Dostoevsky saw and knew well, but also with paintings consonant with his artistic world or the world of his heroes.

Dostoevsky’s attitude towards art, his art criticism articles about painting, as well as his reflections on how an artist should convey feelings from what he saw, help to understand the creative laboratory of the writer himself. The purpose of the exhibition is to give a visual, meaningful idea of the creative and spiritual life of the writer through his perception of fine arts.

At the exhibition you can see items that belonged to Dostoevsky, rare exhibits will be presented by the Literary Museum of the Pushkin House and the St. Petersburg Literary-Memorial Museum of Dostoevsky.

In addition, for the first time in St. Petersburg, it will be possible to see Dostoevsky's main book - the Gospel, which was presented to the writer in Siberia. He carefully kept this book during all his life, and eventually this very Gospel became the last book in his hands before his death.

The exhibition will be accompanied by an audio performance played on behalf of Dostoevsky, where he comments on the images presented. Actors: Alexander Kudrenko, Ilya Del.

Project participants:

Literary-Memorial Museum of F.M. Dostoevsky
State Russian Museum
The National Library of Russia 
State Tretyakov Gallery
State Hermitage Museum
Literary Museum (Pushkin House) of IRLI RAS
Scientific-research Museum of the Russian Academy of Arts
State Museum of the History of St. Petersburg
Vladimir Dahl Russian State Literary Museum
Moscow Museum of Modern Art

Exhibition curator - Vera Biron

Exhibition designer - Yuri Suchkov