essayist journalist novelist philosopher
Fyodor Dostoevsky was born in Moscow, Russian Empire (now Russian Federation) on November 11, 1821; the son of a staff doctor of a Moscow hospital. When he was 15 he lost his mother, whom he was devoted to. His father, a cruel man, was murdered by his serfs in 1839, when Dostoevsky was 18. Sigmund Freud and other psychoanalysts believed that throughout his life Dostoevsky felt secret guilt about his father's murder.
Fyodor attended one of the best boarding schools in the city and a military engineering school in St. Petersburg. But he disliked school and loved literature. When he finished school, he abandoned the career he was trained for and devoted himself to writing.
Dostoevsky began his writing career in the tradition of the "social tale" of the early 1840s, but he transformed the fiction about poor people in abject circumstances into a powerful philosophical and psychological instrument. His entry on the literary stage was brilliant. In 1843 he finished his first novel, Poor Folk, a social tale about an abject civil servant. The novel was praised profusely by the reigning critic, Vissarion Belinsky. Dostoevsky's second novel, The Double (1846), was received less warmly; his subsequent works in the 1840s were received coldly and antagonistically by Belinsky and others, and Dostoevsky's literary star sank quickly. The Double has emerged, however, as his most significant early work, and in many respects it was a work far in advance of its time. Dostoevsky was always sensitive to critical opinion, and the indifferent reception of The Double caused him to back off from the exciting originality of the novel.
From 1846 to 1849 his life and work are characterized by some aimlessness and confusion. The short stories and novels he wrote during this period are for the most part experiments in different forms and different subject matters. He continued to write about civil servants in such tales as Mr. Prokharchin (1846) and The Faint Heart (1847). The Landlady (1847) is an experiment with the Gothic form; A Jealous Husband, an Unusual Event (1848) and Nine Letters (1847) are burlesques; White Nights (1848) is a sentimental romance; and the unfinished novel Netochka Nezvanova (1847) is a mixture of Gothic, social, and sentimental elements. Despite the variety and lack of formal and thematic continuity, one may pick out themes and devices that reappear in the mature work of Dostoevsky.
Dostoevsky's life showed some of the same pattern of uncertain experimentation. Although he had already shown the religious and conservative traits that were to become a fixed part of his character in his mature years, he was also attracted at this time to current revolutionary thought. In 1847 he began to associate with a mildly subversive group called the "Petrashevsky Circle. " In 1849, however, the members were arrested and the circle was disbanded. After 8 months of imprisonment, Dostoevsky was sentenced to death. This sentence was actually a hoax designed to impress the prisoners with the Czar's mercy, when he commuted the death penalty. At one point, however, Dostoevsky believed he had only moments to live, and he was never to forget the sensation and feelings of that experience. He was sentenced to 4 years of imprisonment and 4 years of forced service in the Siberian army.
Dostoevsky returned to St. Petersburg in 1859. To support himself, Dostoevsky edited the journal Time with his brother Mikhail and wrote a number of fictional works. His first published works after returning from Siberia were the comic stories The Uncle's Dream (1859) and The Village Stepanchikovo (1859). In 1861 he published Memoirs from the House of the Dead, a fictionalized account of his experiences in prison. That year he also published The Insulted and the Injured, a poorly structured novel characterized by improbable events and situations. By and large his work during this period showed no great artistic advance over his early work and gave no hint of the greatness that was to issue forth in 1864 with the publication of Notes from the Underground.
Dostoevsky's life during this period was characterized by poor health, poverty, and complicated emotional situations. He went abroad in 1862 and 1863 to get away from his creditors, to repair his health, and to engage in his passion for gambling. His impressions of Europe were unfavorable; he considered European civilization to be dominated by rationalism and rampant with rapacious individualism. His views on Europe are contained in Winter Notes and Summer Impressions (1863).
His journal had been closed down by the censors, and he was fatally pursuing his self-destructive passion for gambling.
In 1866 Dostoevsky published Crime and Punishment, which is the most popular of his great novels, perhaps because it appeals to various levels of sophistication. It can be read as a serious and complex work of art, but it can also be enjoyed as an engrossing detective story.
The Dostoevskys went abroad in 1867 and remained away from Russia for more than 4 years. Their economic condition was very difficult, and Dostoevsky repeatedly lost what little they had at the gaming tables. The Idiot was written between 1867 and 1869, and Dostoevsky stated that in this work he intended to depict "the wholly beautiful man."
Some readers view The Idiot as Dostoevsky's finest creation, while others see it as the weakest of his great novels. It is certainly a less tidy work than Crime and Punishment, but it is perhaps a more challenging novel.
Dostoevsky began The Possessed (also translated as The Devils) in 1870 and published it in 1871-1872.
In The Possessed Dostoevsky raises a minor contemporary event to dimensions of great political and philosophical importance. The novel is a satire of liberalism and radicalism.
Many readers see The Possessed not only as an accurate portrayal of certain tendencies of the politics of the time but also as a prophetic commentary on the future of politics in Russia and elsewhere.
During the 1870s Dostoevsky became increasingly interested in contemporary social and political events and increasingly concerned about liberal and radical trends among the youth. Except for his brief flirtation with liberal movements in the 1840s, Dostoevsky was a staunch conservative. The novel A Raw Youth (1875) grew out of his interest and concern about the youth of Russia, and the theme of the novel may be described as a son in search of his father. The novel is something of a proving ground for The Brothers Karamazov but is not generally considered to be on the same level as the four great novels.
The Brothers Karamazov (1879-1880) is the greatest of Dostoevsky's novels and the culmination of his life-work. Sigmund Freud ranked it with Oedipus Rex and Hamlet as one of the greatest artistic achievments of all time.
Dostoevsky sent the epilogue to the The Brothers Karamazov to his publisher on November 8, 1880, and he died soon afterward, on January 28, 1881. At his death he was at the height of his career in Russia, and mourning was widespread. His reputation was beginning to penetrate into Europe, and interest in him has continued to increase.
Fyodor Dostoevsky is considered one of the greatest novelists of the Golden Age of Russian literature, and his works have been translated into more than 170 languages.
His most acclaimed works include Crime and Punishment (1866), The Idiot (1869), Demons (1872) and The Brothers Karamazov (1880).
Literary modernism, existentialism, and various schools of psychology, theology, and literary criticism have been profoundly shaped by his ideas.
(Inspired by the true story of a political murder that hor...)
1872(One of the supreme masterpieces of world literature, Crim...)
1986(Netochka Nezvanova is a Nameless Nobody that tells the st...)
1849(As with a number of the author's other works, this profou...)
1862Dostoyevsky was an Eastern Orthodox Christian, was raised in a religious family and knew the Gospel from a very young age. He attended Sunday liturgies from an early age and took part in annual pilgrimages to the St. Sergius Trinity Monastery.
Dostoyevsky was critical of serfdom and skeptical about the creation of a constitution, which would simply enslave the people. He advocated removal of the feudal system and a weakening of the divisions between the peasantry and the affluent classes. Dostoevsky claimed democracy and oligarchy to be poor systems, and political parties ultimately led to social discord. He rejected Europe's culture and contemporary philosophical movements, such as nihilism and materialism, as a supporter of Pochvennichestvo movement.
Later in life Dostoevsky embraced the ideas of Nikolai Karamzin's History of the Russian State, which praised conservatism and Russian independence.
Dostoevsky considered European civilization to be dominated by rationalism and rampant with rapacious individualism. Although he had already shown the religious and conservative traits that were to become a fixed part of his character in his mature years, he was also attracted at this time to current revolutionary thought. He argues against the view that man is a rational creature and that society may be so organized as to assure his happiness.
Quotations:
"Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The really great men must, I think, have great sadness on earth."
"The best way to keep a prisoner from escaping is to make sure he never knows he's in prison."
"Nothing in this world is harder than speaking the truth, nothing easier than flattery."
"People speak sometimes about the "bestial" cruelty of man, but that is terribly unjust and offensive to beasts, no animal could ever be so cruel as a man, so artfully, so artistically cruel."
"Learning to love is hard and we pay dearly for it. It takes hard work and a long apprenticeship, for it is not just for a moment that we must learn to love, but forever."
Quotes from others about the person
Konstantin Trutovsky: "There was no student in the entire institution with less of a military bearing than F. M. Dostoyevsky. He moved clumsily and jerkily; his uniform hung awkwardly on him; and his knapsack, shako and rifle all looked like some sort of fetter he had been forced to wear for a time and which lay heavily on him."
Dostoevsky married a widow, Maria Dmitrievna Isaeva in 1857. The marriage was a complicated affair due to the complex nature of both the individuals involved. Even though the marriage was not happy, they loved each other too much to part ways. Maria Dmitrievna died seven years after their marriage.
In 1867 Dostoevsky married Anna Grigoryevna Snitkina. They had four children, of whom two survived to adulthood.
Though married, he had been romantically involved with several other women as well.
Anna Grigoryevna Dostoevskaya (née Snitkina) was a Russian memoirist, stenographer, assistant. She was also one of the first female philatelists in Russia.
She was born in 1868 and died the same year.
She was a Russian writer, memoirist and the second daughter of famous writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky and his wife Anna.
He was a Russian short story writer, publisher, literary critic.
Konstantin Aleksandrovich Trutovsky (9 February 9, 1826, Kursk – March 29, 1893, Yakovlevka, Belgorod Oblast) was a Russian genre painter and illustrator.
