"I DEMAND ATTENTION AND LOVE"
THE STORY OF ONE BOOK: FROM A DREAM TO A PRINT RUN
Boris Grigoriev's graphic series for Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov
Exhibition and album launch marking the 140th anniversary of the artist's birth
14–26 March 2026
Fabergé Museum, St. Petersburg
Press release
"The Link of Times" Cultural and Historical Foundation and the Fabergé Museum present an exhibition and publishing project devoted to Boris Grigoriev's graphic series for Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel The Brothers Karamazov. The series of 58 sheets will be on display from 14 to 26 March 2026 in the White Column Hall of the Fabergé Museum, and will also be published as a separate album accompanied by texts from the novel.
The new edition is available at the museum shop on the ground floor and in the online store, with delivery within Russia.
The project pays tribute to the artist and fulfils his cherished dream of seeing his works published — a dream realised by "The Link of Times" Foundation in the year marking the 140th anniversary of Grigoriev's birth.
Researchers believe that Grigoriev began work on the series in 1916 and continued it for more than a decade. In 1933 the cycle was shown twice in the United States. Grigoriev hoped to publish the illustrations as a separate edition and entered into negotiations to that end. In the end, the works were bought for a private collection, and the book was never published.
In 2007 the works came up for auction at Sotheby's, where they were acquired by "The Link of Times" Foundation. They were brought to Russia and first shown to the public at the Fabergé Museum in St. Petersburg, in the 2023 exhibition "The First Master in the World".
In the Karamazov cycle, Grigoriev proves to be a close reader of Dostoevsky, attentive not only to the setting and the appearance of the characters but also to the emotional intensity of individual scenes and the nature of the relationships between them. Alexandre Benois called these works "congenial to Dostoevsky". According to the journalist Leonid Severny, Grigoriev himself said that he "did not paint illustrations. The Brothers Karamazov are my brothers. This is not Dostoevsky, this is Russia".
The drawings in the cycle, made in gouache, watercolour and graphite, are nervously expressive and impulsive, almost careless in their execution. This style also marks other works of the early 1930s devoted to the theme of Russia: the celebrated cycles Raseya and The Faces of Russia, created over many years, brought the artist well-deserved fame. A defining feature of Grigoriev's artistic vision was his combination of "two realms of art": he saw himself as both an artist and a writer. Perhaps this is precisely why these works seem to transcend the literary text.
As part of the project, from 17 to 24 March the Fabergé Museum will host a series of lectures on The Brothers Karamazov and its interpretations. Lecturers will include scholars from the Department of Philology at St. Petersburg State University and from the St. Petersburg Literary and Memorial Museum of F.M. Dostoevsky.
Address: 21 Fontanka River Embankment, St. Petersburg
Opening hours: daily 10:00–20:45; on lecture days (17, 19, 24 March) 10:00–17:45.
All ages welcome
