Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky
(11 November 1821 ? 9 February 1881) was a
Russian
novelist
.
[1]
[2]
[3]
His most popular novels are
Crime and Punishment
,
The Idiot
and
The Brothers Karamazov
. He is regarded as one of the greatest authors of all time.
[4]
In his 20s he joined a group of radicals in
St Petersburg
. They were into
French
socialist
ideas. A police
agent
reported the group to the authorities. On 22 April 1849, Dostoyevsky was arrested and imprisoned with the other members. After months of questioning and investigation they were
tried
. They were found guilty of planning to distribute
subversive
propaganda
and
condemned to death
by
firing squad
.
[5]
The punishment was changed to a sentence of
exile
and
hard labour
, but not before they were forced to go through a
mock
execution.
[5]
In 1859 a new
tsar
allowed Dostoyevsky to end his
Siberian
exile. A year later he was back in St Petersburg. The experience had cost him ten years of his life. It is the root of all his writing.
[5]
- Dostoyevsky's experience had altered him profoundly... He was particularly scornful of the ideas he found in St Petersburg when he returned from his decade of Siberian exile. The new generation of Russian intellectuals was gripped by European theories and philosophies [which] were melded together into a peculiarly Russian combination that came to be called '
nihilism
'.
[5]
Raised in an educated and religious family, Dostoyevsky's beliefs changed through his life. In prison, he focused intensely on the figure of
Christ
and on the
New Testament
, the only book allowed in prison.
[6]
In a letter to the woman who had sent him the
New Testament
, Dostoyevsky wrote that he was a "child of unbelief and doubt up to this moment, and I am certain that I shall remain so to the grave". He also wrote that "even if someone were to prove to me that the truth lay outside Christ, I should choose to remain with Christ rather than with the truth".
[6]
From an analysis of religious ideas in
Crime and Punishment
,
The Idiot
,
The Demons
(
The Possessed
), and
The Brothers Karamazov
, James Townsend thinks Dostoyevsky held
orthodox
Christian beliefs except for his view of
salvation
from
sin
. According to Townsend, "Dostoevsky almost seemed to embrace an in-this-life
purgatory
", in which people suffer to pay for their sins, rather than the Christian doctrine of salvation through Christ.
[7]
Malcolm Jones sees elements of Islam and
Buddhism
in Dostoyevsky's religious convictions.
[6]
Colin Wilson
in
The Outsider
describes him as a "tormented half-atheist-half-Christian".
[8]
Many scholars see Dostoyevsky as one of the greatest psychologists in
literature
.
[9]
His works have had a big effect on
twentieth-century
fiction
. Very often, he wrote about characters who live in poor conditions. Those characters are sometimes in extreme states of mind. They might show both a strange grasp of human
psychology
as well as good
analyses
of the
political
,
social
and
spiritual
states of Russia of Dostoevsky's time. Many of his best-known works are
prophetic
.
[10]
He is sometimes considered to be a founder of
existentialism
, most frequently for
Notes from Underground
, which has been described as "the best overture for existentialism ever written".
[11]
He is also famous for writing
The Brothers Karamazov
, which many critics, such as
Sigmund Freud
, have said was one of the best novels ever written.
His attack on nihilism is in his great novel
Demons
, or
The Possessed
. Published in 1872, it is a "dark
comedy
, cruelly funny in its depiction of high-minded intellectuals toying with revolutionary notions without understanding anything of what revolution means in practice".
[5]
The plot is a version of actual events at the time. A former teacher of
divinity
turned
terrorist
,
Sergei Nechaev
, had written a pamphlet,
The Catechism of a Revolutionary
, which argued that any means (including
blackmail
and murder) could be used to advance the cause of
revolution
. Nechaev planned to
kill
a student who questioned his ideas.
[5]
[12]
One of the characters in
Demons
confesses: "I got entangled in my own data, and my conclusion contradicts the original idea from which I start. From unlimited freedom, I conclude with unlimited
despotism
". This suggests that the result of abandoning
morality
for the sake of an idea will be
tyranny
more extreme than any in the past.
[5]
English versions of titles come after the Russian title.
- 1846 -
Bednye lyudi
(Бедные люди);
Poor Folk
- 1846 -
Dvojnik
(Двойник. Петербургская поэма);
The Double: A Petersburg Poem
- 1849 -
Netochka Nezvanova
(Неточка Незванова);
Netochka Nezvanova
(this is a feminine name)(Unfinished)
- 1859 -
Dyadushkin son
(Дядюшкин сон);
The Uncle's Dream
- 1859 -
Selo Steanchikovo i ego obitateli
(Село Степанчиково и его обитатели);
The Village of Stepanchikovo
- 1861 -
Unizhennye i oskorblennye
(Униженные и оскорбленные);
The Insulted and Humiliated
- 1862 -
Zapiski iz mertvogo doma
(Записки из мертвого дома);
The House of the Dead
- 1864 -
Zapiski iz podpolya
(Записки из подполья);
Notes from Underground
- 1866 -
Prestuplenie i nakazanie
(Преступление и наказание);
Crime and Punishment
- 1867 -
Igrok
(Игрок);
The Gambler
- 1869 -
Idiot
(Идиот);
The Idiot
- 1870 -
Vechnyj muzh
(Вечный муж);
The Eternal Husband
- 1872 -
Besy
(Бесы); various English titles:
The Possessed
;
The Devils
;
Demons
- 1875 -
Podrostok
(Подросток);
The Raw Youth
- 1881 -
Brat'ya Karamazovy
(Братья Карамазовы);
The Brothers Karamazov
- 1846 -
Gospodin Prokharchin
(Господин Прохарчин);
Mr. Prokharchin
- 1847 -
Roman v devyati pis'mah
(Роман в девяти письмах);
Novel in Nine Letters
- 1847 -
Hozyajka
(Хозяйка);
The Landlady
- 1848 -
Polzunkov
(Ползунков);
Polzunkov
- 1848 -
Slaboe serdze
(Слабое сердце);
A Weak Heart
- 1848 -
Chestnyj vor
(Честный вор);
An Honest Thief
- 1848 -
Elka i svad'ba
(Елка и свадьба);
A Christmas Tree and a Wedding
- 1848 -
Chuzhaya zhena i muzh pod krovat'yu
(Чужая жена и муж под кроватью);
The Jealous Husband
- 1848 -
Belye nochi
(Белые ночи);
White nights
- 1849 -
Malen'kij geroj
(Маленький герой);
A Little Hero
- 1862 -
Skvernyj anekdot
(Скверный анекдот);
A Nasty Story
- 1865 -
Krokodil
(Крокодил);
The Crocodile
- 1873 -
Bobok
(Бобок);
Bobok
- 1876 -
Krotkaja
(Кроткая);
A Gentle Creature
- 1876 -
Muzhik Marej
(Мужик Марей);
The Peasant Marey
- 1876 -
Mal'chik u Hrista na elke
(Мальчик у Христа на ёлке);
The Heavenly Christmas Tree
- 1877 -
Son smeshnogo cheloveka
(Сон смешного человека);
The Dream of a Ridiculous Man
The last five stories (1873-1877) are included in
A Writer's Diary
.
- ↑
Old style date
: 30 October 1821 ? 28 January 28.
- ↑
Russian
:
Фёдор Миха?йлович Достое?вский
,
Fedor Mihajlovi? Dostoevskij
, sometimes
transliterated
Dostoevsky
listen
(
help
·
info
)
- ↑
"185 лет со дня рождения Федора Достоевского"
.
Voice Ukraine
(in Russian). 1 December 2006.
- ↑
Lauer, Reinhard (2003).
Geschichte der russischen Literatur: von 1700 bis zur Gegenwart
(in German). Beck.
ISBN
978-3-406-50267-5
.
- ↑
5.0
5.1
5.2
5.3
5.4
5.5
5.6
Gray, John 2014. A point of view: The writer who foresaw the rise of the totalitarian state.
BBC News
Magazine
.
[1]
- ↑
6.0
6.1
6.2
Jones, Malcolm V. 2005.
Dostoevsky and the dynamics of religious experience
. Anthem Press, p6/9; p68/9.
ISBN
978-1-84331-205-5
- ↑
Townsend, James (1997).
"Dostoyevsky and his theology"
.
Journal of the Grace Evangelical Society
. 10:19. Grace Evangelical Society
. Retrieved
13 April
2013
.
- ↑
Wilson, Colin 1956.
The outsider
. London: Gollancz, p175 (Pan edition).
- ↑
"Russian literature"
. Encyclopædia Britannica
. Retrieved
2008-04-11
.
In
The Idiot
and
The Brothers Karamazov
Dostoyevsky, who is generally regarded as one of the supreme psychologists in world literature, sought to demonstrate the compatibility of Christianity with the deepest truths of the psyche.
- ↑
Nabokov, Vladimir. “Lectures on Russian Literature”. Harcourt, 1981, p. 104
- ↑
Kaufmann, Walter (ed) 1989.
Existentialism: from Dostoyevsky to Sartre
. Penguin Books, p. 12.
ISBN
0452009308
- ↑
Greig, Ian 1973.
Subversion: propaganda, agitation and the spread of people's war
. Letchworth, Hertfordshire: Tom Stacey, p8.
ISBN
0-85468-495-6
Wikisource
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