Polina Suslova | |
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Polina Suslova c. 1890
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Born | 1839 Panino, Nizhny Novgorod Governorate |
Died | 1918 Sevastopol |
Other names | Apollinaria Prokofyevna Suslova |
Education | Saint Petersburg State University |
Occupation | writer |
Years active | 1861—? |
Home town | Saint Petersburg |
Spouse(s) | Vasily Rozanov (1880—) |
Apollinaria Prokofyevna Suslova (Russian: Аполлина́рия Проко́фьевна Су́слова; 1839–1918), commonly known as Polina Suslova (Поли́на Су́слова), was a Russian short story writer, who is perhaps best known as a mistress of writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky, wife of Vasily Rozanov and a sister of Russia's first female physician Nadezhda Suslova. She is considered to be the prototype of several female characters in Dostoyevsky's novels, such as Polina in The Gambler, Nastasya Filipovna in The Idiot, Katerina Ivanovna Marmeladova in Crime and Punishment, Lizaveta Nikolaevna in The Possessed, and both Katerina and Grushenka in The Brothers Karamazov. Suslova has often been portrayed as a femme fatale. Fyodor Dostoyevsky called her one of the most remarkable women of his time.
Her own works include a short story Pokuda, published in Mikhail Dostoyevsky's Vremya magazine in 1861, Do svadby (1863), and the autobiographical Chuzhaya i Svoy, published in 1928.
Polina Suslova was born in Panino, Nizhny Novgorod guberniya. Polina's father, Prokofiy Suslov, was a serf of the Sheremetevs, but was able to succeed as a merchant and manufacturer. He decided to provide proper education for his daughters, Polina (a diminutive form of the given name Apollinaria) and Nadezhda. The girls had a governess, and a dancing teacher.