Pavel Isaev

“Pavel Alexandrovich Isaev (1848 – 1900) – Dostoevsky’s stepson from his first marriage. Pasha
was something of a thorn in Dostoevsky’s side, and despite the latter’s strenuous efforts to raise
the boy and provide him with a good education, he became a wastrel. After Dostoevsky married
Pasha’s mother, he managed to have his new stepson admitted to the Siberian Cadet Corps in
Omsk where he studied from 1857 to 1859. When Dostoevsky’s exile ended in 1859, Pasha
accompanied him and his mother to St. Petersburg. There he entered high school but was soon
expelled and received tutoring at home. He was left with little supervision through the early
1860s as his mother lay dying and Dostoevsky was either in Europe or heavily engaged in
keeping his journals afloat. When Dostoevsky left on his first trip to Europe, he placed Pasha in
the care of the tutor with progressive pedagogical views (he and Pasha shared an apartment) who
was to prepare his charge for admission to a high school. But the tutor, Rodevich, could do little
with Pasha, and Dostoevsky and Rodevich had a rancorous break. Dostoevsky wrote his stepson
regularly but received only occasional replies to his constant admonitions to avoid bad company,
apply himself to his studies, and write each week without fail. In the summer of 1866, for
instance, after Dostoevsky received no reply from Pasha to his invitation to join him in Liublino,
he wrote, “I have asked you, ordered you, and implored you (to write), but you have spat upon
all my heartfelt anxieties. There is cholera now in Petersburg, and I am tormented by the thought
that you may be ill, because I can’t believe that you are such a monster that you won’t reply to
my letters. Did I not order you no matter what to write me every Sunday and not to wait for my
replies? … If I don’t receive a few more letters from you, I shall drop all my business here and
go to Petersburg myself. What are you doing to me?”

Dostoevsky’s wife Anna took immediate dislike to Pasha. She described him in her memoirs:
“From close up he looked even less attractive than at a distance. He had a sallow, almost yellow
face, dark eyes with yellowish whites, and teeth yellowed with tobacco stains.” Pasha, in turn,
expressed his hostility to his new stepmother through insolence and by trying to undermine her
authority in the household. While living in Europe, Dostoevsky continued sending Pasha money
from his meager resources, much to Anna’s resentment, and regularly asked his friends and
relatives to watch over the boy. With their help, Pasha obtained two clerical positions, but soon
quit both, claiming his superiors had insulted him. Even when Dostoevsky was lying on his
deathbed, and Pasha arrived to bid farewell, his main concern was his stepfather’s will.”

From The Dostoevsky Encyclopedia by Kenneth Lantz, 2004