The article is devoted to the analysis of the philosophical worldview of F. M. Dostoevsky and traces the influence of European (primarily German) romanticism, on the early worldview of Dostoevsky. It is proved that it is from the works of O. Balzac, F. Schiller, E.T.A. Hoffmann Dostoevsky borrowed the idea of “higher personalities”, which played a big role in his early work. Romantic “higher personalities” have a mystical ability to dominate others, and more often this leads to evil than to good. Only in his later works did Dostoevsky receive from Romanticism a peculiar interpretation of Christianity and the image of Jesus Christ. The influence of romanticism is associated with the formation of a special form of Dostoevsky’s realism, which the writer called “realism in the highest sense” and “fantastic realism”; such realism is aimed at understanding the deep essence of man. It is shown that his prototype can be found in the work of Dante, and the most important predecessor of Dostoevsky in this tradition is