Skip to main content

Primary sourceBook1862

Winter Notes on Summer Impressions

Fyodor Dostoyevsky · 1862

Dostoevsky's travel essay on his 1862 trip to Europe, criticizing Western materialism and foreshadowing his Slavophile views.

This travel essay shows Dostoevsky forming the Slavophile and anti-Western ideas that shaped his later philosophy.

Ask Fyodor Dostoevsky about this sourceView the original(opens in new tab)
Title page of an 1866 Russian edition of Dostoevsky's Winter Notes on Summer Impressions. Cyrillic title text reads Зимние заметки о летних впечатлениях, with the author's name, a double-headed eagle emblem, publisher details, and the place and year S. Petersburg 1866 at the bottom. A library call number is handwritten in the top left corner.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Winter Notes on Summer Impressions, title page of 1866 edition.

About this source

What it is

Winter Notes on Summer Impressions is an essay by Fyodor Dostoevsky, first published in the magazine Vremya, which he edited himself. It records his impressions from a trip to Europe in 1862.

Why it matters

In it, Dostoevsky criticizes Western European culture, including English and French society and both Protestant and Catholic religion, while beginning to argue for the superiority of Russian Orthodoxy and Pan-Slavism. Critics see it as an early, rougher version of ideas he developed more successfully in Notes from Underground.

Look closer

  • Why might a writer's own travel notes reveal more about his beliefs than a novel?
  • What does Dostoevsky's criticism of Western Europe tell you about the political debates of his time in Russia?
  • Why might even sympathetic critics find his style here weak?

This book is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of Fyodor Dostoevsky on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.

More Fyodor Dostoevsky sources

Meet the AI Fyodor Dostoevsky →
Title page of the 1867 Russian edition of Crime and Punishment, volume 1, on tan paper with ornate black borders. Large Cyrillic title reads Преступление и наказание, with Роман, Ф. М. Достоевского, Издание исправленное, Том I, and Петербург, published by A. Bazunov, E. Prats and Ya. Veidenshtraukh, 1867.Book

Primary source

Crime and Punishment

Fyodor Dostoyevsky · 1866

Scan of the title page of the first edition of The Brothers Karamazov in Russian. Large heading reads 'Братья Карамазовы', below it 'Роман', then an epigraph from the Gospel of John chapter 12 verse 24, then the heading 'От автора' and the opening paragraphs of the author's preface in Cyrillic print.Book

Primary source

The Brothers Karamazov

Fyodor Dostoyevsky · 1879-1880

Book

Primary source

The Grand Inquisitor

Fyodor Dostoyevsky · 1879

Title page of the 1866 Russian edition of Notes from Underground by F. M. Dostoevsky, printed in Cyrillic with a double-headed eagle emblem, publisher F. Stellovsky, St. Petersburg, 1866.Book

Primary source

Notes from Underground

Fyodor Dostoyevsky · 1864

Title page of the 1862 first separate edition of Dostoevsky's Записки из мертвого дома (Notes from a Dead House), in Russian Cyrillic. Printed title reads Записки из мертвого дома, Ф. М. Достоевскаго, Часть первая, Петербургъ, в типографии Эдуарда Праца, 1862. Yellowed paper with faint stains.Book

Primary source

The House of the Dead

Fyodor Dostoyevsky · 1860-1862

Ready when you are

Start chatting with Fyodor Dostoevsky now.

20 messages free · No credit card · Available in 50+ languages.

Trial Humy for freeGet a quote for institutions