Posted on Apr 23, 2019
Fyodor Dostoevsky Biography - life, family, story, death, history, wife, school, mother, young,...
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On April 23, 1849, Russian writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky and members of the Petrashevsky Circle were arrested in St. Petersburg. From the article:
"Fyodor Dostoevsky Biography - life, family, story, death, history, wife, school, mother, young, son
Born: November 11, 1821
Moscow, Russia
Died: January 28, 1881
St. Petersburg, Russia
Russian novelist and author
The Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky was well known in his country during his life and has since been praised around the world as a writer. He is best known for writing novels that had a great understanding of psychology (the study of how the human mind works), especially the psychology of people who, losing their reason, would become insane or commit murder.
The young man
Fyodor Dostoevsky was born in Moscow, Russia, on November 11, 1821, the son of a doctor. His family was very religious, and Dostoevsky was deeply religious all his life. He began reading widely when he was a youth. He was first educated by his mother, father, and tutors, but at thirteen years old he was sent to a private school. Two years later his mother died. His father, a cruel man, was murdered in 1839, when Dostoevsky was eighteen and attending school in St. Petersburg, Russia. Dostoevsky was trained to be a military engineer, but he disliked school and loved literature. When he finished school, he turned from the career he was trained for and devoted himself to writing. His earliest letters show him to be a young man of passion and energy, as well as somewhat mentally unstable.
Early writings
Dostoevsky began his career writing fiction about poor people in harsh situations. In 1843 he finished his first novel, Poor Folk, a social tale about a down-and-out government worker. The novel was praised by a respected critic. Dostoevsky's second novel, The Double (1846), was received less warmly; his later works in the 1840s were received coldly. The Double, however, has come to be known as his best early work, and in many ways it was ahead of its time.
The lack of success of The Double troubled Dostoevsky. From 1846 to 1849 his life and work were characterized by 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.
Dostoevsky's life showed some of the same pattern of uncertain experimenting. In 1847 he joined a somewhat subversive (antigovernment) group called the Petrashevsky Circle. In 1849 the members were arrested. After eight months in prison, Dostoevsky was "sentenced" to death. In reality, though, this sentence was only a joke. At one point, however, Dostoevsky believed he had only moments to live, and he never forgot the feelings of that experience. He was sentenced to four years in prison and four years of forced service in the army in Siberia, Russia.
Years of change
Dostoevsky returned to St. Petersburg in 1859 with an unhealthy wife, Maria Issaeva, whom he had married in Siberia. Their marriage was not happy. To support himself, Dostoevsky edited the journal Time with his brother Mikhail and wrote a number of fictional works. In 1861 he published Memoirs from the House of the Dead, a work of fiction based on his experiences in prison. By and large his writings during this period showed no great artistic advance over his early work and gave no hint of the greatness that came forth in 1864 with his Notes from the Underground.
Dostoevsky's life during this period was characterized by poor health, poverty, and complicated emotional situations. He fell in love with the young student Polina Suslova and carried on a frustrating affair with her for several years. He traveled outside the country in 1862 and 1863 to get away from the people to whom he owed money, to improve his health, and to gamble.
Notes from the Underground is a short novel. In this work Dostoevsky attempts to justify the existence of individual freedom as a necessary part of humankind. He argues against the view that man is a creature of reason and that society can be organized in a way that guarantees the happiness of humans. He insists that humans desire freedom more than happiness, but he also sees that unchecked freedom is a destructive force, since there is no guarantee that humans will use freedom in a constructive way. Indeed, the evidence of history suggests that humans seek the destruction of others and of themselves.
The great novels
Dostoevsky's first wife died in 1864, and in the following year he married Anna Grigorievna Snitkina. She was practical and even-tempered, and therefore she was the very opposite of his first wife and his lover. There is very little doubt that she was largely responsible for introducing better conditions for his work by taking over many of the practical tasks that he hated and handled badly.
In 1866 Dostoevsky published Crime and Punishment, which is the most popular of his great novels, perhaps because it is appealing on different levels. It can be read as a serious and complex work of art, but it can also be enjoyed as a gripping detective story. The novel is concerned with the murder of an old woman by a student, Raskolnikov, while he is committing robbery in an attempt to help his family and his own career. The murder occurs at the very beginning of the novel, and the rest of the book has to do with the pursuit of Raskolnikov by the detective Porfiry and by his own conscience. In the end he gives himself up and decides to accept the punishment for his act.
The Dostoevskys traveled in 1867 and remained away from Russia for more than four years. Their economic condition was very difficult, and Dostoevsky repeatedly lost what little money they had while gambling. The Idiot was written between 1867 and 1869, and Dostoevsky stated that in this work he intended to portray "the wholly beautiful man." The hero of the novel is a good man who attempts to live in a society gone wrong, and it is uncertain whether he succeeds.
Dostoevsky began writing The Possessed (also translated as The Devils ) in 1870 and published it in 1871–1872. The novel began as a political pamphlet and was based on a political murder that took place in Moscow on November 21, 1869. In The Possessed Dostoevsky raises a minor event to great importance. Many readers see The Possessed not only as an accurate account of the politics of the time, but also as a visionary statement on the future of politics in Russia and elsewhere.
The Brothers Karamazov (1879–1880) is the greatest of Dostoevsky's novels. The psychologist Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) ranked it as one of the greatest artistic achievements of all time. The novel is about four sons and their guilt in the murder of their father, Fyodor. Each of the sons may be characterized by a major trait: Dmitri by passion, Ivan by reason, Alyosha by spirit, and Smerdyakov by everything that is ugly in human nature. Smerdyakov kills his father, but to a degree the other three brothers are guilty in thought and desire.
Dostoevsky sent the last part of The Brothers Karamazov to his publisher on November 8, 1880, and he died soon afterward, on January 28, 1881. At the time of his death he was at the height of his career in Russia, and many Russians mourned his death. He had begun to win praise in Europe as well, and interest in him has continued to increase.
For More Information
Frank, Joseph. Dostoevsky: The Mantle of the Prophet. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002.
Payne, Robert. Dostoevsky: A Human Portrait. New York: Knopf, 1961.
Scanlon, James P. Dostoevsky the Thinker. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2002."
"Fyodor Dostoevsky Biography - life, family, story, death, history, wife, school, mother, young, son
Born: November 11, 1821
Moscow, Russia
Died: January 28, 1881
St. Petersburg, Russia
Russian novelist and author
The Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky was well known in his country during his life and has since been praised around the world as a writer. He is best known for writing novels that had a great understanding of psychology (the study of how the human mind works), especially the psychology of people who, losing their reason, would become insane or commit murder.
The young man
Fyodor Dostoevsky was born in Moscow, Russia, on November 11, 1821, the son of a doctor. His family was very religious, and Dostoevsky was deeply religious all his life. He began reading widely when he was a youth. He was first educated by his mother, father, and tutors, but at thirteen years old he was sent to a private school. Two years later his mother died. His father, a cruel man, was murdered in 1839, when Dostoevsky was eighteen and attending school in St. Petersburg, Russia. Dostoevsky was trained to be a military engineer, but he disliked school and loved literature. When he finished school, he turned from the career he was trained for and devoted himself to writing. His earliest letters show him to be a young man of passion and energy, as well as somewhat mentally unstable.
Early writings
Dostoevsky began his career writing fiction about poor people in harsh situations. In 1843 he finished his first novel, Poor Folk, a social tale about a down-and-out government worker. The novel was praised by a respected critic. Dostoevsky's second novel, The Double (1846), was received less warmly; his later works in the 1840s were received coldly. The Double, however, has come to be known as his best early work, and in many ways it was ahead of its time.
The lack of success of The Double troubled Dostoevsky. From 1846 to 1849 his life and work were characterized by 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.
Dostoevsky's life showed some of the same pattern of uncertain experimenting. In 1847 he joined a somewhat subversive (antigovernment) group called the Petrashevsky Circle. In 1849 the members were arrested. After eight months in prison, Dostoevsky was "sentenced" to death. In reality, though, this sentence was only a joke. At one point, however, Dostoevsky believed he had only moments to live, and he never forgot the feelings of that experience. He was sentenced to four years in prison and four years of forced service in the army in Siberia, Russia.
Years of change
Dostoevsky returned to St. Petersburg in 1859 with an unhealthy wife, Maria Issaeva, whom he had married in Siberia. Their marriage was not happy. To support himself, Dostoevsky edited the journal Time with his brother Mikhail and wrote a number of fictional works. In 1861 he published Memoirs from the House of the Dead, a work of fiction based on his experiences in prison. By and large his writings during this period showed no great artistic advance over his early work and gave no hint of the greatness that came forth in 1864 with his Notes from the Underground.
Dostoevsky's life during this period was characterized by poor health, poverty, and complicated emotional situations. He fell in love with the young student Polina Suslova and carried on a frustrating affair with her for several years. He traveled outside the country in 1862 and 1863 to get away from the people to whom he owed money, to improve his health, and to gamble.
Notes from the Underground is a short novel. In this work Dostoevsky attempts to justify the existence of individual freedom as a necessary part of humankind. He argues against the view that man is a creature of reason and that society can be organized in a way that guarantees the happiness of humans. He insists that humans desire freedom more than happiness, but he also sees that unchecked freedom is a destructive force, since there is no guarantee that humans will use freedom in a constructive way. Indeed, the evidence of history suggests that humans seek the destruction of others and of themselves.
The great novels
Dostoevsky's first wife died in 1864, and in the following year he married Anna Grigorievna Snitkina. She was practical and even-tempered, and therefore she was the very opposite of his first wife and his lover. There is very little doubt that she was largely responsible for introducing better conditions for his work by taking over many of the practical tasks that he hated and handled badly.
In 1866 Dostoevsky published Crime and Punishment, which is the most popular of his great novels, perhaps because it is appealing on different levels. It can be read as a serious and complex work of art, but it can also be enjoyed as a gripping detective story. The novel is concerned with the murder of an old woman by a student, Raskolnikov, while he is committing robbery in an attempt to help his family and his own career. The murder occurs at the very beginning of the novel, and the rest of the book has to do with the pursuit of Raskolnikov by the detective Porfiry and by his own conscience. In the end he gives himself up and decides to accept the punishment for his act.
The Dostoevskys traveled in 1867 and remained away from Russia for more than four years. Their economic condition was very difficult, and Dostoevsky repeatedly lost what little money they had while gambling. The Idiot was written between 1867 and 1869, and Dostoevsky stated that in this work he intended to portray "the wholly beautiful man." The hero of the novel is a good man who attempts to live in a society gone wrong, and it is uncertain whether he succeeds.
Dostoevsky began writing The Possessed (also translated as The Devils ) in 1870 and published it in 1871–1872. The novel began as a political pamphlet and was based on a political murder that took place in Moscow on November 21, 1869. In The Possessed Dostoevsky raises a minor event to great importance. Many readers see The Possessed not only as an accurate account of the politics of the time, but also as a visionary statement on the future of politics in Russia and elsewhere.
The Brothers Karamazov (1879–1880) is the greatest of Dostoevsky's novels. The psychologist Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) ranked it as one of the greatest artistic achievements of all time. The novel is about four sons and their guilt in the murder of their father, Fyodor. Each of the sons may be characterized by a major trait: Dmitri by passion, Ivan by reason, Alyosha by spirit, and Smerdyakov by everything that is ugly in human nature. Smerdyakov kills his father, but to a degree the other three brothers are guilty in thought and desire.
Dostoevsky sent the last part of The Brothers Karamazov to his publisher on November 8, 1880, and he died soon afterward, on January 28, 1881. At the time of his death he was at the height of his career in Russia, and many Russians mourned his death. He had begun to win praise in Europe as well, and interest in him has continued to increase.
For More Information
Frank, Joseph. Dostoevsky: The Mantle of the Prophet. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002.
Payne, Robert. Dostoevsky: A Human Portrait. New York: Knopf, 1961.
Scanlon, James P. Dostoevsky the Thinker. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2002."
Fyodor Dostoevsky Biography - life, family, story, death, history, wife, school, mother, young,...
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This video includes an analysis of the finer literary works by Fyodor Dostoevsky and discusses major recurring themes that appear within them. This video and...
Thank you, my friend SGT (Join to see) for making us aware that Russian writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky and members of the Petrashevsky Circle were arrested in St. Petersburg on April 23, 1849.
My favorite books authored by Fyodor Dostoyevsky are his last book The Brothers Karamazov [1880] and The Idiot [1868]
Image: Fyodor Dostoevsky. Portrait by Vasily Perov, 1872
Fyodor Dostoevsky Documentary by Brett Pernsteiner - Published on Dec 14, 2013
"This video includes an analysis of the finer literary works by Fyodor Dostoevsky and discusses major recurring themes that appear within them. This video and its content are for instructional purposes only. All dialogue within this video is considered the intellectual property of myself and should be properly cited."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcIcI5ImXEs
Background from dostoevsky.fandom.com/wiki/The_Biography_of_Fyodor_Dostoevsky
"The Biography of Fyodor Dostoevsky
_______________________________________
Fyodor Dostoevsky (November 11, 1821 - February 9, 1881) was perhaps the greatest writer ever produced by Russia. His works have had a profound impact on literature and, almost without exception, the authors of the twentieth century credit him as a major influence. His books are coated with religous and political overtones, espousing the power of the love of God and warning against the radical ideologies seething into Russia.
Biography
Fyodor was the second of seven children born to Mikhail and Maria Dostoevsky. Shortly after his mother died of tuberculosis in 1837, he and his brother Mikhail were sent to the Military Engineering Academy at St. Petersburg, and they lost their father, a retired military surgeon who served as a doctor at the Mariinsky Hospital for the Poor in Moscow, in 1839. While not known for certain, it is believed that Mikhail Dostoevsky was murdered by his own serfs, who reportedly became enraged during one of Mikhail's drunken fits of violence, restrained him, and poured vodka into his mouth until he drowned. Another story was that Mikhail died of natural causes, and a neighboring landowner invented this story of a peasant rebellion so he could buy the estate cheaply. Regardless of what may have actually happened, Sigmund Freud focused on this tale in his famous article, Dostoevsky and Parricide (1928).
Dostoevsky was arrested and imprisoned in 1849 for engaging in revolutionary activity against Tsar Nicholas I of Russia. On November 16 that year he was sentenced to death for anti-government activities linked to a liberal intellectual group, the Petrashevsky Circle. After a mock execution in which he was blindfolded and ordered to stand outside in freezing weather waiting to be shot by a firing squad, Dostoevsky's sentence was commuted to a number of years of exile performing hard labor at a katorga prison camp in Omsk, Siberia. The incidences of epilepsy, to which he was predisposed, increased during this period. He was released from prison in 1854, and was required to serve in the Siberian Regiment. Dostoevsky spent the following five years as a corporal (and latterly lieutenant) in the Regiment's Seventh Line Battalion stationed at the fortress of Semipalatinsk in Kazakhstan.
This was a turning point in the author's life. Dostoevsky abandoned his earlier liberal sentiments and became deeply conservative and extremely religious. He later formed a peculiar friendship with another archconservative, Konstantin Pobedonostsev. He began an affair with, and later married, Maria Dmitrievna Isaeva, the widow of an acquaintance in Siberia.
In 1860, he returned to St. Petersburg, where he ran a series of unsuccessful literary journals with his older brother Mikhail. Dostoevsky was devastated by his wife's death in 1864, followed shortly thereafter by his brother's death. He was financially crippled by business debts and the need to provide for his brother's widow and children. Dostoevsky sank into a deep clinical depression|depression, frequenting gambling parlors and accumulating massive losses at the tables.
Dostoevsky suffered from an acute gambling compulsion as well as from its consequences. By one account Crime and Punishment, possibly his best known novel, was completed in a mad hurry because Dostoevsky was in urgent need of an advance from his publisher. He had been left practically penniless after a gambling spree. Dostoevsky wrote The Gambler simultaneously in order to satisfy an agreement with his publisher Stellovsky who, if he did not receive a new work, would have claimed the copyrights to all of Dostoyevsky's writing.
Motivated by the dual wish to escape his creditors at home and to visit the casinos abroad, Dostoevsky traveled to Western Europe. There, he attempted to rekindle a love affair with Apollinaria (Polina) Suslova, a young university student with whom he had had an affair several years prior, but she refused his marriage proposal. Dostoevsky was heartbroken, but soon met Anna Snitkina, a twenty-year-old stenographer whom he married in 1867. This period resulted in the writing of his greatest books. From 1873 to 1881 he vindicated his earlier journalistic failures by publishing a monthly journal full of short stories, sketches, and articles on current events — the Writer's Diary. The journal was an enormous success. Dostoevsky is also to have known to influence and been influenced by famous Russian Philosopher Vladimir Solovyov, some state Solovyov was the prototype of the character Alyosha Karamozov .
In 1877 Dostoevsky gave the keynote eulogy at the funeral of his friend, the poet Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov, to much controversy. In 1880, shortly before he died, he gave his famous Pushkin speech at the unveiling of the Pushkin monument in Moscow.
In his later years, Fyodor Dostoevsky lived for a long time at the resort of Staraya Russa which was closer to St Petersburg and less expensive than German resorts. He died on January 28, 1881 of a lung haemorrhage associated with an attack of epilepsy and was interred in Tikhvin Cemetery at the Alexander Nevsky Monastery, St. Petersburg, Russia. Forty thousand mourning Russians attended his funeral.[1]
[1] Dostoevsky,Fyodor; Introduction- The Idiot, Wordsworth Ed. Ltd, 1996.
Works and influence
Dostoevsky's influence cannot be overemphasized—from Herman Hesse to Marcel Proust, William Faulkner, Albert Camus, Franz Kafka, Henry Miller, Yukio Mishima and Gabriel García Márquez —virtually no great twentieth century writer escaped his long shadow (rare dissenting voices include Vladimir Nabokov, Henry James, Joseph Conrad and, more ambiguously, D.H. Lawrence). American novelist Ernest Hemingway also cited Dostoevsky in his autobiographic books, as a major influence on his work. Essentially a writer of myth (and in this respect sometimes compared to Herman Melville), Dostoevsky has created an opus of immense vitality and almost hypnotic power characterized by the following traits: feverishly dramatized scenes (conclaves) where his characters are, frequently in scandalous and explosive atmosphere, passionately engaged in Socratic dialogues à la Russe; the quest for God, the problem of Evil and suffering of the innocents haunt the majority of his novels; characters fall into a few distinct categories: humble and self-effacing Christians (prince Myshkin, Sonya Marmeladova, Alyosha Karamazov), self-destructive nihilists (Svidrigailov, Smerdyakov, Stavrogin, the underground man), cynical debauchers (Fyodor Karamazov), rebellious intellectuals (Raskolnikov, Ivan Karamazov); also, his characters are driven by ideas rather than by ordinary biological or social imperatives.
Dostoevsky's novels are compressed in time (many cover only a few days) and this enables the author to get rid of one of the dominant traits of realist prose, the corrosion of human life in the process of the time flux — his characters primarily embody spiritual values, and these are, by definition, timeless. Other obsessive themes include suicide, wounded pride, collapsed family values, spiritual regeneration through suffering (the most important motif), rejection of the West and affirmation of Russian Orthodoxy and Tsarism. Literary scholars such as Mikhail Bakhtin have characterized his work as 'polyphonic': unlike other novelists, Dostoevsky does not appear to aim for a 'single vision', and beyond simply describing situations from various angles, Dostoevsky engendered fully dramatic novels of ideas where conflicting views and characters are left to develop unevenly into unbearable crescendo.
By common critical consensus one among the handful of universal world authors, along with Dante, Shakespeare, Goethe, Miguel de Cervantes, Victor Hugo and a few others, Dostoevsky has decisively influenced twentieth century literature, existentialism and expressionism in particular.
Major works
Бедные Люди (Poor Folk) (1846)
Двойник: Петербургская Поэма (The Double: A Petersburg Poem) (1846)
Неточка Незванова (Netochka Nezvanova) (1849)
Село Степанчиково и его обитатели (The Village of Stepanchikovo or The Friend of the Family) (1859)
The Insulted and Humiliated (or The Insulted and the Injured) (1861)
Записки из Подполья (The House of the Dead) (1862)
A Nasty Story (1862)
Записки из Подполья (Notes from Underground or Letters from the Underworld) (1864)
Преступление и Наказание (Crime and Punishment) (1866)
Игрок (The Gambler) (1867)
Идиот (The Idiot) (1868)
Бесы (The Possessed or Demons or The Devils) (1872)
Подросток (The Raw Youth or The Adolescent) (1875)
Братья Карамазовы (The Brothers Karamazov) (1880)
Short stories
Dostoyevsky's short stories are often overshadowed by his epic novels, but are equally powerful.
"White Nights" (1848)
"A Christmas Tree and a Wedding" (1848)
"An Honest Thief" (1848)
"The Dream of a Ridiculous Man" (1877)
"The Peasant Marey" (1876)
Cultural references
The rock band British Sea Power directly references Dostoevsky in the song "Apologies to Insect Life", which is loosely based on Notes from Underground.
The band Protest the Hero has stated that Dostoevesky was the main influence for their concept album Kezia. They have also written and performed a song entitled "I am Dimitri Karamazov and the World Is My Father" on their EP A Calculated Use of Sound.
Brian Griffin reads Crime and Punishment in an episode of Family Guy.
Sam Weir reads Crime and Punishment in the episode "Tricks and Treats" on the TV show Freaks and Geeks.
Yhe Machinist also seems to be influenced by Dostovsky's The Double, in that the main character of the story is both the antagonist and the protagonist. The DVD commentary for The Machinist names The Double as a source of inspiration. The main character in The Machinist is also depicted at one point reading Dostoevsky's The Idiot.
In the British television series The Office, season 1 episode 3, David Brent attempts to boost his ego by displaying a knowledge of Dostoevsky's life and works.
In Woody Allen's feature film Match Point, the lead character is depicted reading Dostoevsky and often discusses him.
Indie band Kind of Like Spitting recorded the song "Dostoyevsky Gets Mugged Outside a Donut Shop in Jersey" for their album Old Moon in the Arms of the New.
American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis begins with a quote from Notes from Underground.
In The X-Files episode "Talitha Cumi," much of the dialogue between the Cigarette Smoking Man and Jeremiah Smith is based on passages from The Grand Inquisitor in The Brothers Karamazov.
The British post-punk band Magazine references Dostoyevsky in "Philadelphia" and "Song from Under the Floorboards" on their album The Correct Use of Soap.
Nietzsche said of Jesus: "it is regrettable that no Dostoevsky lived near him"
Nietzsche also stated that Dostoevsky was the only psychologist from whom he had anything to learn and that "finding Dostoevsky by accident was a pivotal point of change in his life". He is also reputed to have said that Notes from the Underground "cried truth from the blood". An investigation on the source of this statement may be found here
Martin [Scorsese] drew from Dostoevsky's body of work in specifically "Crime and Punishment" and "Notes from the Underground" to create the movie Taxi Driver. .geocities.com/jnyby83/ScorseseandDostoevsky.html
FYI Maj William W. "Bill" Price Capt Seid Waddell Capt Tom Brown 1stSgt Eugene Harless CW5 John M. MSG Andrew White SSG James J. Palmer IV aka "JP4"SCPO Morris Ramsey SGT Michael Thorin SGT Robert George SGT John " Mac " McConnell SP5 Mark Kuzinski SP5 Robert Ruck SPC Margaret Higgins Maj Marty Hogan SSgt Brian Brakke Sgt Arthur Caesar SFC Joe S. Davis Jr., MSM, DSL
My favorite books authored by Fyodor Dostoyevsky are his last book The Brothers Karamazov [1880] and The Idiot [1868]
Image: Fyodor Dostoevsky. Portrait by Vasily Perov, 1872
Fyodor Dostoevsky Documentary by Brett Pernsteiner - Published on Dec 14, 2013
"This video includes an analysis of the finer literary works by Fyodor Dostoevsky and discusses major recurring themes that appear within them. This video and its content are for instructional purposes only. All dialogue within this video is considered the intellectual property of myself and should be properly cited."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcIcI5ImXEs
Background from dostoevsky.fandom.com/wiki/The_Biography_of_Fyodor_Dostoevsky
"The Biography of Fyodor Dostoevsky
_______________________________________
Fyodor Dostoevsky (November 11, 1821 - February 9, 1881) was perhaps the greatest writer ever produced by Russia. His works have had a profound impact on literature and, almost without exception, the authors of the twentieth century credit him as a major influence. His books are coated with religous and political overtones, espousing the power of the love of God and warning against the radical ideologies seething into Russia.
Biography
Fyodor was the second of seven children born to Mikhail and Maria Dostoevsky. Shortly after his mother died of tuberculosis in 1837, he and his brother Mikhail were sent to the Military Engineering Academy at St. Petersburg, and they lost their father, a retired military surgeon who served as a doctor at the Mariinsky Hospital for the Poor in Moscow, in 1839. While not known for certain, it is believed that Mikhail Dostoevsky was murdered by his own serfs, who reportedly became enraged during one of Mikhail's drunken fits of violence, restrained him, and poured vodka into his mouth until he drowned. Another story was that Mikhail died of natural causes, and a neighboring landowner invented this story of a peasant rebellion so he could buy the estate cheaply. Regardless of what may have actually happened, Sigmund Freud focused on this tale in his famous article, Dostoevsky and Parricide (1928).
Dostoevsky was arrested and imprisoned in 1849 for engaging in revolutionary activity against Tsar Nicholas I of Russia. On November 16 that year he was sentenced to death for anti-government activities linked to a liberal intellectual group, the Petrashevsky Circle. After a mock execution in which he was blindfolded and ordered to stand outside in freezing weather waiting to be shot by a firing squad, Dostoevsky's sentence was commuted to a number of years of exile performing hard labor at a katorga prison camp in Omsk, Siberia. The incidences of epilepsy, to which he was predisposed, increased during this period. He was released from prison in 1854, and was required to serve in the Siberian Regiment. Dostoevsky spent the following five years as a corporal (and latterly lieutenant) in the Regiment's Seventh Line Battalion stationed at the fortress of Semipalatinsk in Kazakhstan.
This was a turning point in the author's life. Dostoevsky abandoned his earlier liberal sentiments and became deeply conservative and extremely religious. He later formed a peculiar friendship with another archconservative, Konstantin Pobedonostsev. He began an affair with, and later married, Maria Dmitrievna Isaeva, the widow of an acquaintance in Siberia.
In 1860, he returned to St. Petersburg, where he ran a series of unsuccessful literary journals with his older brother Mikhail. Dostoevsky was devastated by his wife's death in 1864, followed shortly thereafter by his brother's death. He was financially crippled by business debts and the need to provide for his brother's widow and children. Dostoevsky sank into a deep clinical depression|depression, frequenting gambling parlors and accumulating massive losses at the tables.
Dostoevsky suffered from an acute gambling compulsion as well as from its consequences. By one account Crime and Punishment, possibly his best known novel, was completed in a mad hurry because Dostoevsky was in urgent need of an advance from his publisher. He had been left practically penniless after a gambling spree. Dostoevsky wrote The Gambler simultaneously in order to satisfy an agreement with his publisher Stellovsky who, if he did not receive a new work, would have claimed the copyrights to all of Dostoyevsky's writing.
Motivated by the dual wish to escape his creditors at home and to visit the casinos abroad, Dostoevsky traveled to Western Europe. There, he attempted to rekindle a love affair with Apollinaria (Polina) Suslova, a young university student with whom he had had an affair several years prior, but she refused his marriage proposal. Dostoevsky was heartbroken, but soon met Anna Snitkina, a twenty-year-old stenographer whom he married in 1867. This period resulted in the writing of his greatest books. From 1873 to 1881 he vindicated his earlier journalistic failures by publishing a monthly journal full of short stories, sketches, and articles on current events — the Writer's Diary. The journal was an enormous success. Dostoevsky is also to have known to influence and been influenced by famous Russian Philosopher Vladimir Solovyov, some state Solovyov was the prototype of the character Alyosha Karamozov .
In 1877 Dostoevsky gave the keynote eulogy at the funeral of his friend, the poet Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov, to much controversy. In 1880, shortly before he died, he gave his famous Pushkin speech at the unveiling of the Pushkin monument in Moscow.
In his later years, Fyodor Dostoevsky lived for a long time at the resort of Staraya Russa which was closer to St Petersburg and less expensive than German resorts. He died on January 28, 1881 of a lung haemorrhage associated with an attack of epilepsy and was interred in Tikhvin Cemetery at the Alexander Nevsky Monastery, St. Petersburg, Russia. Forty thousand mourning Russians attended his funeral.[1]
[1] Dostoevsky,Fyodor; Introduction- The Idiot, Wordsworth Ed. Ltd, 1996.
Works and influence
Dostoevsky's influence cannot be overemphasized—from Herman Hesse to Marcel Proust, William Faulkner, Albert Camus, Franz Kafka, Henry Miller, Yukio Mishima and Gabriel García Márquez —virtually no great twentieth century writer escaped his long shadow (rare dissenting voices include Vladimir Nabokov, Henry James, Joseph Conrad and, more ambiguously, D.H. Lawrence). American novelist Ernest Hemingway also cited Dostoevsky in his autobiographic books, as a major influence on his work. Essentially a writer of myth (and in this respect sometimes compared to Herman Melville), Dostoevsky has created an opus of immense vitality and almost hypnotic power characterized by the following traits: feverishly dramatized scenes (conclaves) where his characters are, frequently in scandalous and explosive atmosphere, passionately engaged in Socratic dialogues à la Russe; the quest for God, the problem of Evil and suffering of the innocents haunt the majority of his novels; characters fall into a few distinct categories: humble and self-effacing Christians (prince Myshkin, Sonya Marmeladova, Alyosha Karamazov), self-destructive nihilists (Svidrigailov, Smerdyakov, Stavrogin, the underground man), cynical debauchers (Fyodor Karamazov), rebellious intellectuals (Raskolnikov, Ivan Karamazov); also, his characters are driven by ideas rather than by ordinary biological or social imperatives.
Dostoevsky's novels are compressed in time (many cover only a few days) and this enables the author to get rid of one of the dominant traits of realist prose, the corrosion of human life in the process of the time flux — his characters primarily embody spiritual values, and these are, by definition, timeless. Other obsessive themes include suicide, wounded pride, collapsed family values, spiritual regeneration through suffering (the most important motif), rejection of the West and affirmation of Russian Orthodoxy and Tsarism. Literary scholars such as Mikhail Bakhtin have characterized his work as 'polyphonic': unlike other novelists, Dostoevsky does not appear to aim for a 'single vision', and beyond simply describing situations from various angles, Dostoevsky engendered fully dramatic novels of ideas where conflicting views and characters are left to develop unevenly into unbearable crescendo.
By common critical consensus one among the handful of universal world authors, along with Dante, Shakespeare, Goethe, Miguel de Cervantes, Victor Hugo and a few others, Dostoevsky has decisively influenced twentieth century literature, existentialism and expressionism in particular.
Major works
Бедные Люди (Poor Folk) (1846)
Двойник: Петербургская Поэма (The Double: A Petersburg Poem) (1846)
Неточка Незванова (Netochka Nezvanova) (1849)
Село Степанчиково и его обитатели (The Village of Stepanchikovo or The Friend of the Family) (1859)
The Insulted and Humiliated (or The Insulted and the Injured) (1861)
Записки из Подполья (The House of the Dead) (1862)
A Nasty Story (1862)
Записки из Подполья (Notes from Underground or Letters from the Underworld) (1864)
Преступление и Наказание (Crime and Punishment) (1866)
Игрок (The Gambler) (1867)
Идиот (The Idiot) (1868)
Бесы (The Possessed or Demons or The Devils) (1872)
Подросток (The Raw Youth or The Adolescent) (1875)
Братья Карамазовы (The Brothers Karamazov) (1880)
Short stories
Dostoyevsky's short stories are often overshadowed by his epic novels, but are equally powerful.
"White Nights" (1848)
"A Christmas Tree and a Wedding" (1848)
"An Honest Thief" (1848)
"The Dream of a Ridiculous Man" (1877)
"The Peasant Marey" (1876)
Cultural references
The rock band British Sea Power directly references Dostoevsky in the song "Apologies to Insect Life", which is loosely based on Notes from Underground.
The band Protest the Hero has stated that Dostoevesky was the main influence for their concept album Kezia. They have also written and performed a song entitled "I am Dimitri Karamazov and the World Is My Father" on their EP A Calculated Use of Sound.
Brian Griffin reads Crime and Punishment in an episode of Family Guy.
Sam Weir reads Crime and Punishment in the episode "Tricks and Treats" on the TV show Freaks and Geeks.
Yhe Machinist also seems to be influenced by Dostovsky's The Double, in that the main character of the story is both the antagonist and the protagonist. The DVD commentary for The Machinist names The Double as a source of inspiration. The main character in The Machinist is also depicted at one point reading Dostoevsky's The Idiot.
In the British television series The Office, season 1 episode 3, David Brent attempts to boost his ego by displaying a knowledge of Dostoevsky's life and works.
In Woody Allen's feature film Match Point, the lead character is depicted reading Dostoevsky and often discusses him.
Indie band Kind of Like Spitting recorded the song "Dostoyevsky Gets Mugged Outside a Donut Shop in Jersey" for their album Old Moon in the Arms of the New.
American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis begins with a quote from Notes from Underground.
In The X-Files episode "Talitha Cumi," much of the dialogue between the Cigarette Smoking Man and Jeremiah Smith is based on passages from The Grand Inquisitor in The Brothers Karamazov.
The British post-punk band Magazine references Dostoyevsky in "Philadelphia" and "Song from Under the Floorboards" on their album The Correct Use of Soap.
Nietzsche said of Jesus: "it is regrettable that no Dostoevsky lived near him"
Nietzsche also stated that Dostoevsky was the only psychologist from whom he had anything to learn and that "finding Dostoevsky by accident was a pivotal point of change in his life". He is also reputed to have said that Notes from the Underground "cried truth from the blood". An investigation on the source of this statement may be found here
Martin [Scorsese] drew from Dostoevsky's body of work in specifically "Crime and Punishment" and "Notes from the Underground" to create the movie Taxi Driver. .geocities.com/jnyby83/ScorseseandDostoevsky.html
FYI Maj William W. "Bill" Price Capt Seid Waddell Capt Tom Brown 1stSgt Eugene Harless CW5 John M. MSG Andrew White SSG James J. Palmer IV aka "JP4"SCPO Morris Ramsey SGT Michael Thorin SGT Robert George SGT John " Mac " McConnell SP5 Mark Kuzinski SP5 Robert Ruck SPC Margaret Higgins Maj Marty Hogan SSgt Brian Brakke Sgt Arthur Caesar SFC Joe S. Davis Jr., MSM, DSL
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