What was Fyodor Dostoevsky’s patronymic?

Fyodor Dostoevsky’s patronymic was Mikhailovich.

His full Russian name was Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky. In Russian naming conventions, a patronymic is derived from a person’s father’s given name. “Mikhailovich” means “son of Mikhail,” identifying Dostoevsky as the son of Mikhail Dostoevsky, a physician who worked at Moscow’s Mariinsky Hospital for the Poor.

The patronymic is part of Dostoevsky’s formal name rather than a middle name in the usual English-language sense. Russian names commonly combine a given name, patronymic, and family name, especially in official or respectful usage. Readers may therefore encounter him as Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky in biographies, library catalogs, and scholarly works.

Dostoevsky was born in Moscow in 1821 and became one of nineteenth-century Russia’s most influential novelists. His major works include Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, Demons, and The Brothers Karamazov. His younger brother was also named Mikhail, a detail that can cause confusion when biographical sources discuss the family.