Aspiration for Independence

This article analyzes Anna Dostoevskaia’s (1846–1918) publication work on the basis of new evidence drawn from hitherto unpublished archival materials. Dostoevskaia’s contribution to the world of publishing has never before been the subject of a special investigation; the documents testifying to her massive work, such as her memoir, correspondence and notebooks, all kept in archives, have never been published. Anna Dostoevskaia was not only the wife of the great Russian author Feodor Dostoevsky, but also one of the first female publishers and book-sellers in Russia. In the second half of the nineteenth century, when women were struggling for economic independence and equal rights to take up “men’s jobs,” Dostoevskaia managed to start out and successfully handle a publishing business. The article expands on Dostoevskaia’s educational and professional development, the history of her publishing and book-selling business, and the difficulties she encountered in the process. Her most outstanding achievement was Dostoevsky’s Complete Works which underwent seven editions (1882–1906). Anna Dostoevskaia had an immense contribution to the publishing business of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and played an important role in the enhancement of the cultural life and feminist movement in Russia

Art history · Development economics · Economic independence · Economics · Independence (probability theory) · Library science · Memoir · Political science · Publishing · Sociology · Subject (documents) · Wife · Classics · Computer Science · Eastern European Communism and Reforms · Education, Literature, Philosophy Research · History · Law · Russian Literature and Bakhtin Studies