Twenty-Six Days in the Life of Dostoyevsky was entered on February 16th at the 1981 Berlin Film Festival to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Dostoyevsky's death on February 9th, 1881, and won a "Best Actor" award for Anatoly Solonitsyn as Dostoyevsky. Solonitsyn was a favorite actor in Andrei Tarkovsky's films, and this was to be his penultimate role. This brief imaginary period in the famed Russian writer's life encapsulates one of his darker moments in 1866. At that time he was still a relatively unknown writer whose first widely acclaimed work, Crime and Punishment, was just on the horizon. His life was at a very low ebb as he struggled with debts he could not pay, and as he fought depression over the loss of his wife to tuberculosis, and the death of his brother, who was very close to him. His first literary journal had to be scrapped because of political reasons, and the second venture needed funding.

Feeling taunted by the success of an inordinately fortunate nobleman, an officer decides to challenge him to a duel.

...People living in the future have comfortable cars, obedient robots, beautiful houses. There are only books missing in these houses. Books are declared enemies, subject to extermination...

The nobleman des Grieux falls in love with the mysterious and attractive girl of humble origin Manon Lescaut. The girl seems to love the young man, but at the same time commits unworthy acts, seducing rich noblemen and involving des Grieux himself in a dissolute life.

A.N. Ostrovsky recalls the first period of his creative work (1849–1859), when he began collaborating with the Maly Theatre and with masters of the Russian stage such as L.P. Kositskaya, M.S. Shchepkin, and P.M. Sadovsky. Almost every character in this film is a real historical figure.

In an attempt to get away from his work problems at the circus, Makhmut travels to the North Caucasus to visit his relatives. Little does he know that his sister has her own set of problems, albeit in the matters of the heart.

The basis of the play is the eponymous poem and the poems of Alexander Blok.