Из неизвестных мемуаров. Анна Достоевская о старце Амвросии (по рассказам Ф. М. Достоевского и Ф. Н. Орнатского)
From Unknown Memoirs. Anna Dostoevskaya about Elder Ambrose of Optina (based on the stories of Fyodor Dostoevsky and F. N. Ornatsky)

Summary/Abstract: The visit of Dostoevsky to the Optina Hermitage in became one of the main events of his spiritual life. An informative aspect of that trip – his meeting with Elder Ambrose - came to our notice mainly thanks to the notes of A. G. Dostoevskaya (in the final manuscript of her memoirs and a marginal note to "The Brothers Karamazov"). The given article considers an unpublished testimony about Dostoevsky’s stay in the Optina Hermitage – a record "About Elder Ambrose", made by the widow in the address register of subscribers for the writer’s literary works in the early 1900s. This record consists of two parts. The first part, which is considered the most valuable as a source of the theme "Dostoevsky and the Optina Hermitage", refers to the writer’s trip, his conversation with Elder Ambrose about the death of his son Alyosha and the guidance for the father in mourning. Father Ambrose’s words of guidance for Dostoevsky are a spiritual lesson to all parents who have lost their children in the period of infancy. The second part of the record tells a legend about an "irreverent son" who violated the fifth commandment of the Law of the Lord that says "Honour thy father and thy mother…", and about insightfulness of Father Ambrose of Optina learnt by Anna Grigorievna of the priest Philosopher Nikolaevich Ornatsky. This is another people’s testimony about the famous comforter and prescient. Supplement 1 to the article contains the record of A. G. Dostoevskaya "About Elder Ambrose"; Supplement 2 contains A. G. Dostoevskaya’s comment to the letters of Ph. N. Ornatsky about their acquaintance and meetings, his speeches on death-days of F. M. Dostoevsky. The notes to the supplements are provided with short biographical information about relatives and friends of the Dostoevskys: M. M. Bobryshcheva-Pushkina, the Leper, Karbasnikov nad Savostyanov families.

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