Профессора стенографии П. М. Ольхин и Ю.-В. Цайбиг, знакомые Ф. М. и А. Г. Достоевских
P. M. Olkhin and Yu.-W. Zeibig: Professors of Shorthand and Acquaintances of Dostoevsky’s Family

Summary/Abstract: From the autumn of 1866 taking of shorthand notes and further transcribing of those notes became an important stage in Dostoevsky’s creative process. Thanks to his wife and assistant, professional stenographer A. G. Dostoevskaya, the writer got acquainted with the enlighteners who were at the forefront of the development of shorthand in Russia and Germany — P. M. Olkhin and Yu.-W. Zeibig. The role of P. M. Olkhin in life and work of the Dostoevskys was significant: for 20 years he had been engaged in the application of various shorthand systems to the Russian language and had developed his own system on the basis of the German cursive writing of Gabelsberger, that one underlain the works of Dostoevsky and his assistant. It was P. M. Olkhin who introduced the writer and his stenographer to one of the leading German stenographers and a member of the Royal Shorthand Institute in Dresden, Y.-W. Zeibig. A. Dostoevskaya recorded in her diary two short meetings of the writer with the Dresden stenographer Zeibig. She also met him more than once, including at a meeting of the German stenographers’ circle, where she was invited on purpose. There is no documentary evidence of communication between Dostoevsky and Olkhin. In the memoirs of the writer’s wife there are only their opinions about one another as “sullen” people; it is mentioned that the boy who carried the icon during the wedding ceremony of Dostoevsky was the son of Olkhin named Konstantin. The article presents data from church books, clarifying information about the birth of P. M. Olkhin and his son; the documentary evidence of the communication between A. G. Dostoevskaya and the Dresden stenographer Yu.-W. Zeibig is studied.

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