In 2021, to mark the 200th anniversary of the writer's birth and the 50th anniversary of the museum, the Dostoevsky Museum opened a new literary exhibition, "Fyodor Dostoevsky. Life and Work: Pro et Contra". It is the fourth permanent exhibition since the museum's founding.
The writer's world and fate are presented as a constant struggle against external trials and inner contradictions: Pro et Contra. The first hall covers Dostoevsky's life and work from his birth to 1864 — a turning point that preceded the creation of Dostoevsky's five great novels. The second hall spans 1864–1881, an exceptionally intense period in the writer's creative life: here the focus shifts from biography to literary work — above all the five novels Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, Demons, A Raw Youth, and The Brothers Karamazov — alongside his A Writer's Diary.
The exhibition is complemented by multimedia materials: programmes "Dostoevsky's Petersburg" (addresses associated with Dostoevsky and his characters), "Dostoevsky's Travels Abroad", and "The Image of Dostoevsky in Photography, Painting, Graphics and Sculpture". An audio guide is available in Russian and several other languages. The exhibition is grounded in rigorous scholarly and documentary research, combined with vivid visual imagery designed to offer deep immersion in the material presented. It features exhibits from the Dostoevsky Museum's own collection, as well as reproductions of images and documents kindly provided by other museums, archives, and research centres.
Exhibition concept: Natalia Ashimbaeva, Boris Tikhomirov
Art direction: Arkady Opochansky
Illustrations for selected sections: Mikhail Bychkov
Exhibition photography: Timur Yegorov, Arkady Opochansky
