(In The Double, the protagonist, Golyadkin senior, is pers...)
In The Double, the protagonist, Golyadkin senior, is persecuted by his double, Golyadkin junior, who resembles him closely in almost every detail. The latter abuses the former with mounting scorn and brutality as the tale proceeds toward its frightening denouement. Characteristic Dostoyevskyan themes of helplessness, victimization, and scandal are beautifully handled here with artistry that qualifies the story as a small masterpiece.
(Dostoyevsky’s The Landlady is a novella that stands apart...)
Dostoyevsky’s The Landlady is a novella that stands apart in its uniqueness from the author’s other works. It tells the story of Vasily Mikhailovich Ordynov, an aimless young man who wanders aimlessly in despair over his life through the streets of Saint Petersburg. When Vasily enters a church he notices an old man, Ilia Murin, with his young wife, Katerina. He quickly becomes infatuated with the woman and contrives a set of circumstances that bring him to lodge at their home. There he begins to uncover the strange and suspicious circumstances of the couple’s past.
(Another Man's Wife and a Husband under the Bed is a humor...)
Another Man's Wife and a Husband under the Bed is a humorous short story by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. The novella looks like a cliché of the vaudeville genre. The theme of the love triangle the ridiculous and pathetic adulterer husbands, the idea that a young wife is necessarily lying, fickle and unfaithful, many misunderstandings which lead to situations, but also plenty of dialogues, improbabilities and unexpected twists of all sorts give this sketch a look of a theater of the boulevard.
(It revolves around two young men, true soul mates, who li...)
It revolves around two young men, true soul mates, who live in each other's pockets, sharing a flat, social and emotional joys and setbacks. They are young professionals of the time contemplating life, happiness, unexplored joys. One of the two friends develops a vision of universal happiness conflicting with his individual pleasures, and preventing him from marrying a beautiful young girl.
(Fyodor Dostoyevsky An Honest Thief is an 1848 short story...)
Fyodor Dostoyevsky An Honest Thief is an 1848 short story that famously tells the tale of Emelyan Ilyitch, the tragic drunk. It begins with our narrator conversing with Astafy Ivanovich, an aged soldier, and a temporary lodger. An unfortunate coat theft leaves Astafy dismayed one day, and a conversation is struck up between the two, who seem to share the same dislike for thieves in general.
(After attending a wedding, a man is reminded of a Christm...)
After attending a wedding, a man is reminded of a Christmas party that he had been invited to years before. At the party, the man found himself isolated from most of the conversation, so he began watching the other guests and the children as he idled. Soon, he witnessed an event that will eventually result in the wedding at which he is to be a guest years later.
(Netochka Nezvanova is a Nameless Nobody that tells the st...)
Netochka Nezvanova is a Nameless Nobody that tells the story of a childhood dominated by her stepfather, Efimov, a failed musician who believes he is a neglected genius. The young girl is strangely drawn to this drunken ruin of a man, who exploits her and drives the family to poverty. But when she is rescued by an aristocratic family, the abuse against Netochka's delicate psyche continues in a more subtle way, condemning her to remain an outsider, a solitary spectator of a glittering society.
(Summoned to the country estate of his wealthy uncle Colon...)
Summoned to the country estate of his wealthy uncle Colonel Yegor Rostanev, the young student Sergey Aleksandrovich finds himself thrown into a startling bedlam. For as he soon sees, his meek and kind-hearted uncle is wholly dominated by a pretentious and despotic pseudo-intellectual named Opiskin, a charlatan who has ingratiated himself with Yegor’s mother and now holds the entire household under his thumb. Watching the absurd theatrics of this domestic tyrant over forty-eight explosive hours, Sergey grows increasingly furious, until at last, he feels compelled to act.
(In this novel, we see a young man madly in love with a gi...)
In this novel, we see a young man madly in love with a girl from a moderately poor family. This girl falls in love with a very aristocratic prince, a man without principles, but charming in his childish egotism, extremely attractive by his sincerity, and with full capacity for quite unconsciously committing the worst crimes toward those with whom life brings him into contact.
(As with a number of the author's other works, this profou...)
As with a number of the author's other works, this profoundly influential novel brilliantly explores his characters' thoughts while probing the depths of the human soul. Describing in relentless detail the physical and mental suffering of the convicts, Dostoyevsky's character never loses faith in human qualities and the goodness of man. A haunting and remarkable work filled with wonder and resignation, The House of the Dead ranks among the Russian novelist's greatest masterpieces.
(Notes From The Underground is considered by many to be on...)
Notes From The Underground is considered by many to be one of the first existentialist novels. It presents itself as an excerpt from the rambling memoirs of a bitter, isolated, unnamed narrator (generally referred to by critics as the Underground Man) who is a retired civil servant living in St. Petersburg.
(The Crocodile is a classic Russian short story by Fyodor ...)
The Crocodile is a classic Russian short story by Fyodor Dostoevsky. This work by the great Russian bard is an unusual but amusing tale about a man swallowed by a crocodile with a serious message about economics and communism. The story relates to the events that befall one Ivan Matveich when he, his wife Elena Ivanovna, and the narrator visit the Arcade to see a crocodile that has been put on display by a German entrepreneur. After teasing the crocodile, Ivan Matveich is swallowed alive. He finds the inside of the crocodile to be quite comfortable, and the animal's owner refuses to allow it to be cut open, in spite of the pleas from Elena Ivanovna.
(This anthology is a thorough introduction to classic lite...)
This anthology is a thorough introduction to classic literature for those who have not yet experienced these literary masterworks. For those who have known and loved these works in the past, this is an invitation to reunite with old friends in a fresh new format.
(During a stifling St Petersburg summer, the rich landowne...)
During a stifling St Petersburg summer, the rich landowner Velchaninov is haunted by the figure of a man he keeps glimpsing in the street. When he receives a surprise visit from him late at night, he realizes he is an old friend, Trusotsky, whose late wife, Natalya, was his secret lover. As the two men renew their acquaintance, Velchaninov becomes aware that Trusotsky's child is, in fact, his own daughter. From then on, the destinies of the two old friends become intertwined as they engage, at turns repelled and attracted by each other, in a dangerous game of cat and mouse that will lead to a final dramatic confrontation.
(Inspired by the true story of a political murder that hor...)
Inspired by the true story of a political murder that horrified Russians in 1869, Fyodor Dostoevsky conceived of Demons as a novel-pamphlet in which he would say everything about the plague of materialist ideology that he saw infecting his native land. What emerged was a prophetic and ferociously funny masterpiece of ideology and murder in pre-revolutionary Russia.
(Bobok is presented as the diary of Ivan Ivanovitch, a wri...)
Bobok is presented as the diary of Ivan Ivanovitch, a writer who goes to a funeral where he falls into deep contemplation. After a while, he begins to hear the voices of the recently dead, listening to their conversations about card games and political scandals. Our eavesdropper also learns that it is the inertia of consciousness that enables them to communicate in the grave, which they can do for up to a year. However, what he goes on to hear leaves him with a great sense of sadness and disappointment.
(A poor boy freezing to death on Christmas Eve finds himse...)
A poor boy freezing to death on Christmas Eve finds himself before Christ's Christmas tree, among the spirits of other children who have died and gone to heaven.
(The Peasant Marey is considered an autobiographical work,...)
The Peasant Marey is considered an autobiographical work, set during a period in the 1830s when author Fyodor Dostoyevsky was incarcerated in a Siberian prison camp.
(The story opens with the narrator wandering the streets o...)
The story opens with the narrator wandering the streets of St. Petersburg. He contemplates how he has always been a ridiculous person, and also, how recently, he has come to the realization that nothing much matters to him anymore. It is this revelation that leads him to the idea of suicide. The narrator of the story reveals that he had bought a revolver month previous with the intent of shooting himself in the head. Despite a dismal night, the narrator looks up to the sky and views a solitary star. Shortly after seeing the star, a little girl comes running towards him. The narrator surmises that something is wrong with the girl's mother.
(As in many of Dostoyevsky's novels, the plot centers on a...)
As in many of Dostoyevsky's novels, the plot centers on a murder. Three brothers, different in character but bound by their ancestry, are drawn into the crime's vortex, Dmitri, a young officer utterly unrestrained in love, hatred, jealousy, and generosity; Ivan, an intellectual capable of delivering impromptu disquisitions about good and evil, God, and the devil and Alyosha, the youngest brother, preternaturally patient, kind, and loving. Part mystery, part profound philosophical and theological debate, The Brothers Karamazov represents the culmination of Dostoyevsky's life's work and ranks among the greatest novels of all time.
(One of the supreme masterpieces of world literature, Crim...)
One of the supreme masterpieces of world literature, Crime and Punishment catapulted Dostoyevsky to the forefront of Russian writers and into the ranks of the world's greatest novelists. Drawing upon experiences from his own prison days, the author recounts in feverish, compelling tones the story of Raskolnikov, an impoverished student tormented by his own nihilism, and the struggle between good and evil.
Fyodor Dostoevsky was a Russian novelist, short story writer, essayist, journalist and philosopher. He mixed social, Gothic, and sentimental elements with psychological irrationalism and visionary religion.
Background
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.
Education
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.
Career
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.
Dostoyevsky 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.
Politics
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.
Views
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."
Personality
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."
Connections
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.
Father:
Mikhail Andreyevich Dostoyevsky
Mother:
Maria Fyodorovna Dostoyevskaya
Spouse:
Anna Dostoyevskaya
Daughter:
Sofiya
Daughter:
Lyubov Dostoyevskaya
Son:
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Brother:
Mikhail Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky
Son:
Alexey Dostoevsky
late-spouse:
Maria Dmitrievna Isaeva
Friend:
Konstantin Trutovsky
References
Fyodor Dostoyevsky: A Writer's Life
Traces the dramatic life of the Russian novelist, attempts to depict his complex personality, and assesses the influence of his life on his work.