bīchārigān: Persian 1401

"Poor Folk", a short novel in the form of correspondence, was written and rewritten in the winter of 1844-45. In May, Dostoyevsky lent Grigarovich a handwritten copy of the novel. Grigarovich took the manuscript to his friend Nekrasov. They both began to read the manuscript together and finished it at dawn, leaving at 4 a.m. to wake Dostoevsky and congratulate him on the masterpiece he had created. Nekrasov took it to Belinsky with the news that "a new Gogol has appeared", and that famous critic, after a moment's hesitation, approved Nekrasov's verdict. The next day, when Belinsky met Dostoevsky, he shouted: "Young man, you don't know what you wrote? At twenty years old, it is not possible for you to know by yourself." Thirty years later, Dostoevsky called this scene "the happiest moment of his life."