Dostoevsky was born in 1821 in Moscow. His was the second of seven children. His mother died in 1837 and Dostoevsky and his brother were sent to a military academy in St. Petersburg.
His father was a retired military surgeon. He also served as a doctor in a hospital for the poor in Moscow. Given to immense drunken rages, he died in 1839. It is believed that he was murdered by his serfs who held him down and poured vodka down his throat until he drowned. His death was the subject of an article by Sigmund Freud in 1928, entitled ” Dostoevsky and Patricide”.
Dostoevsky began writing and espousing radical sentiments. In 1849, he was arrested for engaging in revolutionary activity against Tsar Nicholas I. In November he was sentenced to death and was subjected to what turned out to be a mock execution by firing squad.
His sentence was commuted to a number of years in exile and he was sent to Siberia to perform hard labor at a prison camp. His periodic epilepsy increased during this difficult period.
He was released in 1854, but was required to serve in the Siberian Regiment, first as a corporal and later as a lieutenant. Her served in Kazakhstan for five years.
This whole episode had a significant impact on Dostoevsky. He abandoned his radicalism and he became very conservative and deeply religious. He began an affair with, then married Maria Dmitrieneva, who was the widow of an acquaintance in Siberia.
In 1860, he returned to St. Petersburg. He ran a string of unsuccessful literacy journals with his older brother. The death of his wife in 1864 was devastating to him. It was followed shortly thereafter by the death of his brother.
He was financially crippled by large business debts. He also felt the need and duty to provide for the widow of his brother and their children. He sank into a deep depression and began to gamble heavily.
He traveled to Western Europe to escape his creditors. He tried to restart a romance with a young university student with whom he had an affair some years previously. She refused him, but he soon met Anna Smitkina, a young nineteen-year-old stenographer. They were married in 1867.
He had written a number of novels, articles and short stories before this time, and had been editor of a magazine called “Time”. Notable works prior to his second marriage include “House of the Dead” in 1860, “The Insulted and Injured”, “Winter Notes on Summer Impressions”, and “Notes from the Underground (1864). Many of these reflected on his life in prison and in Siberia.
The period from 1866 forward marked a highly prolific and successful time. He published a monthly journal full of short stories, sketches, and articles on current events. The journal was a huge success.
He also wrote some of his greatest novels during this time. They were deeply reflective of the human condition and what he saw as the soul of Russia, “Crime and Punishment” (1866) was very highly regarded and brought him back to the mainstream of Russian literature.
This was followed by the “The Idiot” in 1868 and “The Possessed” in 1871. He worked hard on his journal during the years following, but in 1879 and 1880 published his epic “The Brothers Karamazoo” In 1880, he gave his famous Pushkin speech at the unveiling of the Pushkin monument in Moscow.
By the time he died in February of 1881, Dostoevsky had become a major literary figure in Russia. He was beloved and immensely popular, a vindication of his earlier years.
His influence on other major literary figures over the years was immense. From Hesse to Proust to Faulkner to Camus to Gabriel Garcia Marquez, virtually no 20th century writer was uninfluenced. By common critical consensus, Dostoevsky was one among a handful of authors who could be considered a universal author.
