Dostoevsky and World Culture Dostoevsky and World Culture 2619-0311 2712-8512 IWL RAS https://doi.org/10.22455/2619-0311-2026-2-83-112 Research Article Articles The Landlady by Fyodor Dostoevsky and Mysteries of Sleep and Magnetism by Auguste Debay Podosokorsky Nikolay N. fedor@dostmirkult.ru 25 06 2026 1 2 83 112 Fyodor Dostoevsky Auguste Debay The Landlady theory of dreams nightmares somnambulism “Otechestvennye Zapiski ” magnetism hypno- tism mesmerism E.T.A. Hoffmann “The Magnetizer” Copyright © 2026, IWL RAS 2026 The article substantiates the need to study the works of Fyodor Dostoevsky in the context of literary journals in which they were first published. The academic significance of this approach is demonstrated by comparing the mystical story The Landlady by the great Russian writer and the book Mysteries of Sleep and Magnetism: An Explanation of the Wonders Produced by This State of Human Life by French military doctor Auguste Debay (the second part of the Russian adaptation and translation of Debay's work appeared in the same tenth issue of the Otechestvennye Zapiski in 1847 as the first part of Dostoevsky's short story). Special attention is paid to the strange dreams and visions that the "artist in science" Vasily Ordynov painfully experiences in Koshmarov's house. The figure of Ilya Murin, the owner of the apartment, is interpreted as the artistic representation of a powerful mesmerist who subordinated young Katerina to his power and exerted influence over his lodger Ordynov. The study complements the existing historical and cultural commentary on Dostoevsky's short story and, among other things, addresses the history of the ideas of mesmerism in Russia and Europe in the first half of the 19th century.