Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Biography

Fyodor Dostoyevsky was born in Moscow on the 30th of October, 1821 in the Moscow Mariinkskii Hospital. His father, Mikhail Andreevich Dostoevsky was a retired military surgeon at this hospital (Murav). Dostoyevsky's father enrolled him at Military Engineering School in St. Petersburg. As well as engineering he also studied parade and drill. He left the academy in 1843 with the rank of lieutenant (Carr 7). He then served as a draftsman in the St. Petersburg Engineering Corps as a civil servant; however, he soon resigned because he "feared being transferred to the provinces when his writing was discovered" (1250). He then went on to pursue a literary career.

Besides Russian authors, of whom his favorites were Pushkin and Gogol, he read a variety of foreign writers: Homer, Shakespeare, Corneille, Racine, Rousseau, Goethe, Byron, and Shiller, the last with an enthusiasm he never lost (Schiller and the Schlegels contributed much to his later aesthetic theorizing) (Simmons 6). In 1847, he became a member of the revolutionary reunions. Here Dostoyevsky and his colleagues would discuss issues such as literature, economics, socialism, and freedom of the press (Murav). However, these gatherings were forbidden by law, and in 1849 he was incarcerated (Berdyaev 18). While in confinement he wrote A Little Hero; which was not published for another decade. Dostoyevsky and other group members were condemned to death by a court appointed by Czar Nicholas I; however, “the death sentence was commuted, and in Dostoevsky’s case the punishment was reduced first to eight years and then to four years of hard labor, to be followed by service in the army with a restoration of civil rights” (Murav). He served his hard labor time at a stockade in Omsk, which was then followed by six years of service in Semipalatinsk (Murav). He wrote about his experiences in Recollections of a Dead House.

Dostoyevsky was enlightened after spending time with Russia's worst criminals leading him to write Crime and Punishment. He settled down in 1865 in St. Petersburg and became successful as a journalist. His success fell short due to his severe problem with gambling. He took flight from Russia because he could not pay his debts and landed in Germany and Italy. During this time of his life he was plagued with epileptic seizures, only inspiring him to work harder. He finally returned home in the 1870s as director of The Russian World. His final time was spent in St. Petersburg where he died on February 9, 1881 "from a hemorrhage in his throat" (Fyodor).

Major Works

Historical Context

Resources

Works Cited

Berdyaev, Nicholas. Dostoyevsky. Colorado: Meridian Hill, 1957.

Carr, Edward. Dostoyevsky (1821-1881): A New Biography. Australia: Allen and Unwin, 1931.

Dostoevsky, Fyodor. Notes from Underground. The Norton Anthology of Western Literature. Vol. 2. 8th Ed. Trans. Martin Greenberg. Sarah Lawall, et al, eds. New York: W.W. Norton, 2006.

"Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoyevsky." 12 Mar 2006. Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoyevsky

Murav, Harriet. "Fyodor Dostoevsky." 12 Mar 2006. Fyodor Dostoevsky

Simmons, Ernest. Feodor Dostoevsky. New York: Columbia University Press, 1969.