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The Gospel in F. M. Dostoevsky's Life and Work (Optical-Electronic Reconstruction of Marginaliain Dostoevsky's Copy of the New Testament)
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The Gospel in F. M. Dostoevsky's Life and Work (Optical-Electronic Reconstruction of Marginalia in Dostoevsky's Copy of the New Testament) v. F. Molchanov "Evangelie v sud'be i tvorchestve F. M. Dostoevskogo (Resul'taty optikoelektronnoi rekonstruktsii avtorskikh marginalii)." This article appears w ith some minor changes as "Evangelie Dostoevskogo: Optiko-elektronnaia rekonstruktsiia avtorskikh marginalii," in Evangelic Dostoevskogo: Lichnyi ekzel11pliar Novogo Zaveta 1823 goda izdaniia, podarennyi F.M. Dostoevskol11u v Tobol'ske v ianvare 1850 goda, T. 2: Issledovanie i kOl11l11entarii (Moscow: Russkii mir", 2010), 36-43. Dostoevsky's works continue to attract attention from scholars and readers in Russia and abroad. The writer's archival legacy represents the collective labor of many people: his relatives and friends, inspired readers, and their heirs and successors. Scholar V. S. Nechaeva writes: "The circumstances of the writer's life between the 1840s and 1860s were extremely unfavorable for the preservation of his archive, and only during his last decade did the relative comfort and stability of his domestic life and the character and concern of his wife Anna Grigorevna ensure that his manuscripts were treated with the care they deserved1 Over the course of several decades Dostoevsky's manuscripts moved frequently from place to place, and were held by many different people and organizations2 Currently tl1e archive of Dostoevsky and his family is held primarily in the Manuscript Research Section of the Russian State Library (Fond No. 93), the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art (Fond. No. 212), the Institute of Russian Literature (Pushkin House) (Fonds No. 56 and 100), the Russian National Library (Fond No. 262), and the State Literary Museum 1 V. S. Nechaeva, Opisal1ie rukopisei F. M. Dostoevskogo (Moscow: Biblioteka SSSR im. V. I. Lenina-Tsentr. Gas. Arkhiv literatury i iskusstva SSSR- Institut Russkoi literatury, 1957),3. 2 For more detail, see ibid., 3-12. Carol Apollonio, ed., The New Russian Dostoevsky: Readings for the Twenty-First Century, Bloomington, IN: Siavica Publishers, 2010, 37-42. 38 v. F. MOLCHANOV (Fond No. 91); it comprises a total of some 3500 units3 The majority of the archive (2029 units) is held in the Manuscript Research Section of the Russian State Library (NIOR RGB). During their work studying and cataloging these manuscripts and preparing publications and facsimile editions, scholars at the NIOR RGB encountered a serious problem . A significant number of manuscripts could not be read and studied using the naked eye. Some fifteen percent of the textual content could not be made available to scholars, even in scholarly editions, due to deletions by the author or by censors, various marks, faded print, stains, corrections, and damage caused during restoration efforts. New technology has offered a solution to this difficult problem, and has given scholars access to previously unknown aspects of Dostoevsky's intellectual labor. Modern optical electronic methods and information technology have allowed us to study manuscripts in the NIOR RGB without causing damage to the originals. The equipment we used allowed us to examine texts in reflected visible and infrared rays (including luminescent analysis), as well as in oblique and transient light. Images were obtained using digital and analog stationary and video cameras, with subsequent computer processing. Our work was funded by grants from the Russian Foundation for the Humanities (RGNF, Project No. 03-01-1000lb, 04-04-00235a). The problem of marginalia that has been damaged by the ravages of time or as a consequence of restoration efforts is particularly relevant to Dostoevsky's edition of the Gospel (NIOR RGB, F. 93, k. 5v, ed. khr.l).4 Throughout his life, during bad times and good, and until his final hour, Fyodor Mikhailovich never parted with his copy of the New Testament of Our 3See Lichnye arkhivnye fondy v gosudarstven nykh khranilishchakh SSSR (Moscow: Soviet Union-Glavnoe arkhivnoe upravlenie, 1962), 1: 244. 4 The importance of Dostoevsky's Gospel has long been recognized. L. Grossman, R. Pletnev, R. Belknap, and others have written insightfully on the topic. For more detailed information, see the preface to the first volume of the eighteen-volume edition of Dostoevsky's works: V. N. Zakharov, "Vechnaia pravda Dostoevskogo," in F. M. Dostoevskii, PolllOe sobranie sochinenii v 18-i tomakh (Moscow: "Voskresen'e," 2003), 1: 371-377. G. Kjetsaa described Dostoevsky's personal copy of the 1823 edition of the New Testament in his Dostoevsky and His New Testament (Solum Forlag, Norway: Humanities Press, 1984), 82. This edition has become canonical in the scholarship, although Kjetsaa only focused on notes made in...