Married Dostoevsky? The History of Relations between V.V. Rozanov and A.P. Suslova

The article examines in detail the history of the relationship between A.P. Suslova and V.V. Rozanov in connection with the notion existing in the historical and literary science that Rozanov’s marriage to Suslova was based on his deep interest in the work of F.M. Dostoevsky and his desire in such an unusual way to penetrate deeper into the secrets of the life and work of the author of The Idiot and The Brothers Karamazov. However, an appeal to various documentary evidence shows that Rozanov’s marriage motives came from the warehouse of his nature and constituted a complex of rather complex reasons, among which the human, and not literary, research principle still dominates. The desire for a benevolently objective study of the life history of A.P. Suslova makes it possible to clarify at the modern scientific level the important facts of the biography of F.M. Dostoevsky and V.V. Rozanov, to free them from the stratifications of legends and myths.