A thoroughly incomplete list of ways to scratch your Dostoyevsky itch ahead of his 200th birthday.

Russia and Ukraine have a long history of disputes over beloved territory, to say the least… But this time, it’s Gogol.

"In connection with the incident, the State Hermitage was forced to apply to the prosecutor's office of St. Petersburg with a statement to conduct a prosecutor's check and assess the actions of a citizen for possible violations of the legislation of the Russian Federation, including in terms of public insult to the memory of the Defenders of the Fatherland.”

– Press Service of the St. Petersburg Hermitage, announcing it would be reviewing an artist’s behavior for potentially insulting the veterans of the Patriotic War of 1812.

An excerpt from To Break Russia’s Chains: Boris Savinkov and his Wars Against the Tsar and the Bolsheviks, recently published by Pegasus Books.

On December 12, 1801, 23-year-old Tsar Alexander I issued an ukaz. This particular decree was not something historians have considered extremely significant in the scheme of Alexander’s reign, but it merits attention for a few reasons.

Empress Elizabeth Petrovna breathed her last in December of 1761, in her St. Petersburg palace. By any standard, Peter the Great’s second daughter had lived an unusual life.

People often ask me what lies ahead for Russia. This question always surprises me. It suggests that people think historians are part prophet, as if knowing a lot about the past means you can predict the future.

In which we say goodbye to a longtime editor and look toward the future by looking back.

On the occasion of Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky’s 200th anniversary, we visit his adopted city to consider the imprint he left behind.

Dostoyevsky’s chance visit to a museum led to a chilling, life-changing encounter with an artist long dead, but whose work was very much alive. It would make an appearance in the writer’s next novel. 

The salacious and derogatory myth surrounding the death of Catherine the Great has its roots in her detractors and successors, both at home and abroad.

If, for some reason, you ever find yourself in the small town of Staraya Russa, be sure to check out Dostoyevsky's summer house.