Zweig MS 143

Autograph draft. Cyrillic script in a small neat cursive hand. One complete chapter of Dostoevskii’s first full-length novel, headed Глава 6 in the manuscript but published as the second chapter in part 3.

Begins: Онь именно влетель, с каким-то сияющимь лицомь,

Ends: я выскажу все, все!

The chapter describes a tense conversation between Prince Alexei (Alyosha), his father Prince Valkovsky and his lover Natalya Nikolaevna (Natasha) following a visit to Katerina Fedorovna (Katya), whom his father wants Alyosha to marry.

There are autograph corrections and insertions of words or phrases on the manuscript, and ink blots on ff. 1v, 2, and 4. Four and a half lines on f. 3 are struck through for deletion. Paragraphs are indicated in the margin. The leaves are numbered at the top left in the author’s hand. Folio 3 was wrongly numbered 2 and is corrected.

In his Introduction to the Drei Meister publication, Stefan Zweig said that he considered Balzac, Dickens and Dostoevskii the supremely great novelists of the nineteenth century. He went on to claim that no German novelists could be compared with the Russian author. In a letter to Maxim Gorki in March 1928 (See Richard Friedenthal (ed.), Briefe an Freunde, (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch, 1984), p.186), he spoke of the impact of discovering Tolstoi and Dostoevskii whilst at university, although he may not have read their work in the original language.

Inspired to promote Dostoevskii for German-speakers, he encouraged Anton Kippenberg to publish his novels and stories in the Insel Verlag. A twenty-five volume edition appeared in 1921. Meanwhile in November 1915 he had written to Hermann Hesse 'ein Buch über Dostojewski ist ganz fertig, in dem drei Jahre Arbeit und viel Liebe auf hundert Seiten zusammengepreßt sind' (See Richard Friedenthal, p.60).

Whilst in Zurich in 1917/8, Zweig continued to work intensively on Dostoevskii, having asked Friderike to bring him a draft which he felt ready to complete (See Richard Friedenthal, p.82). He gave a public lecture and left behind a manuscript ‘Die deutsche Dostojewski-Ausgabe 1918’, now in the Staatsarchiv des Kantons Zürich (W 30.17). On his visit to Moscow for the Tolstoi centenary celebration in 1928, he made a point of also seeing the Dostoevskii Museum.

The present manuscript is apparently the only Dostoevskii autograph that Zweig owned. He described it in his essay ‘Die Autographensammlung als Kunstwerk’ as 'Ein Unikum im Privatbesitz' and declared he would never part with it (Add. MS 74269, ff. 5-5v). His comments on Dostoevskii’s methods and techniques reflect his interest in the creative processes of great writers, as demonstrated by their manuscripts:

'But Dostoeffsky only allows us to examine his finished work; the outline sketches which might have enlightened us as to his motives have been consumed in 'the fires of creation' '.

'Dostoeffsky writes in a fever, just as he lives and thinks in a fever. He has the nervous and hasty calligraphy of the ardent type of man, and when he sets pen to paper the words flow forth like chains of tiny beads; yet in his wrist, the while, his pulse is beating at redoubled speed'.

‘He loves to the pitch of fanaticism the exquisite and delicate art of finishing and perfecting’ (Quotations from the translation by Eden and Cedar Paul, Master Builders, Vol. 1, (London: Allen & Unwin, 1930), pp. 102, 107, 200).