pavel?

[nickymosk]

hello out there

i'm recently reading 'the master of saint petersburg' by JM cotzee.  it talks a lot about dost's step-child, pavel.  i've been looking around trying to find mention of him or his first wife, but can't.  

does anyone know if pavel is a fictional character?  also, i'm curious about dost's children..how many did he have?  from which wife?  

thank you so much, apologies is this has been covered before

nicky

[lerik]

Dostoevsky had two children from his second wife: a boy called Vanya(I think) and a girl called Luba.Two of his children died when they were still young.His first child,a daughter called Sofia or Sonya died in Switzerland

[julia_boechat]

Pavel was the only son of Dostoevsky's first wife, Maria Dmitrievna. The character is real, but his death is not - the real Pavel outlived Dostoevsky.
The murder in Coetzee's book is fictional, but is strongly based on the death of the student I. Ivanov, matter that fascinated Dostoevsky (he wrote about a similar murder in The Devils", also known as "The possessed").
Dostoevsky had four children with his second wife, Anna Grigorievna. Their daughter Sofia died in Switzerland, and their son Aleksei died in Russia, at the age of 3. They also had a daughter named Lubov, and another son, named Fiodor.