Which Dostoevsky work is subtitled “A Petersburg Poem”?

The Dostoevsky work subtitled “A Petersburg Poem” is The Double.

The Double was published in 1846, shortly after Dostoevsky’s debut with Poor Folk. Its protagonist, Yakov Petrovich Golyadkin, is a nervous government clerk whose social insecurity intensifies when a second man with the same name and appearance enters his life.

The subtitle “A Petersburg Poem” connects the work with Saint Petersburg’s literary tradition of stories about isolated officials, bureaucratic absurdity, and unstable identity. Dostoevsky transforms those themes into a disturbing psychological fantasy in which the protagonist’s sense of reality steadily breaks down.

The novella’s publication was not received with the same enthusiasm as Poor Folk. Later critics, however, recognized it as an important precursor to Dostoevsky’s mature interest in divided personalities, humiliation, and unreliable perception. The title should not be confused with the separate novella White Nights, also set in Saint Petersburg.