Dostoievski

About Fyodor Dostoyevsky:

Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoyevsky^[1] (Russian: Фёдор Михайлович Достоевский; IPA: [ˈfʲodər mʲɪˈxajləvʲɪtɕ dəstɐˈjefskʲɪj] ( listen); November 11, 1821 – February 9, 1881^[2]) was a Russian writer of novels, short stories and essays. He is best known for his novels Crime and Punishment, The Idiot and The Brothers Karamazov.
Dostoyevsky's literary works explore human psychology in the troubled political, social and spiritual context of 19th-century Russian society. With the embittered voice of the anonymous "underground man", Dostoyevsky wrote Notes from Underground (1864), which has been called the "best overture for existentialism ever written" by Walter Kaufmann.^[3] He is often acknowledged by critics as one of the greatest and most prominent psychologists in world literature.^[4]

Early life

Childhood

Fyodor Dostoyevsky was born on 30 October 1821 (11 November 1821, according to the Gregorian Calendar) as the second child of Mikhail Dostoyevsky and Maria Nechayeva. His father, who descended from a Lithuanian noble family, resided nearby in the Belarussian city of Pinsk. Like his father, Mikhail was a clergyman but when he refused to join a seminary, his family divorced. Subsequently Mikhail escaped from home. When he unsuccessfully searched for his family, he gave up and at the age of 20 then went to the Moscow Medical Surgical University, where he was appointed senior physician in 1818. In 1819 he married the eleven-years younger Maria. One year later he resigned from military service to move to a hospital. After the birth of Mikhail and Fyodor, Mikhail was able to retrieve his lost title and acquire a manor 150 verst of Moscow. Maria Nechayeva descended from a family of Russian merchants.^[5]
Dostoyevsky was raised near the hospital—it was neither a wealthy nor a poor home. In his childhood, Fyodor often went with his family to summer visits in Darovoye. At the age of three he discovered heroic sagas, fairy tales, legends and a deeply ingrained piety from nannies. He was soon obsessed with tales. The nanny Alina Frolovna, who helped the family when their manor burnt down, and the serf and farmer Marei from Darovoye, who helped to fight his early hallucinations, possibly caused by the terrible tales, were influential for his childhood. Fyodor also discovered the miserable hospital garden, which was separated by a large grid from their civil and protected private garden. His parents forbade him the contact with the other side, as they intended to shield their children from uncontrollable influences. Fyodor, however, ignored their warnings and often talked with the reconvalescent people. There he also encountered a crime between a nine-year-old girl, who was found raped in the garden. He never forgot this traumatic experience.^[6]
Fyodor's parents placed value on a thorough upbringing. At the age of four he learned reading and writing by his mother from the Bible. One of the day's highlights were the evening readings by his father and mother. His parents introduced him at an early stage to Russian literature, such as Karamzin's Russian Tales, Pushkin, Derzhavin, as well as English literature of Ann Radcliffe and German literature of Friedrich Schiller. Fyodor was impressed by the latter's play "Räuber", which he saw at the age of 10. Fyodor and Mikhail both enjoyed Pushkin's poems, which they learned for the most part by heart; Pushkin's death was a shock for the whole family. Fyodor's father placed also value on a good education. He sent Fyodor first to a French boarding school and then to the best private high school in Moscow, the "College for Noble Male Children". As the school was too expensive, he had to make loans, take advances and extend his private practice. When the thirteen-year-old Fyodor arrived to this famous college, he experienced an inferiority complex towards his more polite classmates. This feeling was often documented on his works, especially The Adolescent.^[7]

Youth

In 27 September 1837 his mother died of tuberculosis. Fyodor contracted a serious throat disease.^[8] Subsequently, Fyodor and his brother Mikhail were sent around May to St Petersburg to attend the Nikolayev Military Engineering Institute, while their younger siblings were sent to different families. Fyodor and Mikhail had to abandon the academic education at the Moscow college, as their adoptive parents were not able to pay for the schoolfee. Fyodor's career, however, seems to be apparent, as his father expected a space at the academy for his sons, and the political propensity under Nicholas I allowed them a good military professional career. On the way to St. Petersburg, Fyodor became a witness of a violence on violence situation in a posting house; one member of the military police beat the carter's neck, and the carter subsequently passed his pain to the horse through a whiplash; Fyodor betook to this situation on his book A Writer's Diary. At the academy he was separated from his brother, who was later sent to Reval, Estonia due to his poor health and the better studying conditions.^[8] Fyodor passed the entrance exam and entered the academy in 16 January the next year, but only with the help of godmothers, who paid the schoolfee for the unaware Fyodor.^[9]
Fyodor did not enjoy the academy, primarily because of his lack of interest in the subjects science, mathematics and military application, as he rather preferred drawing and architecture, and the atmosphere. The academy was a former castle built for the tsar Paul I, who was murdered shortly after his accession to the throne. Among the 120 classmates, mainly from Polish or Baltic-German descent, he was an outsider due to his different character; Fyodor was brave and had a strong sense of justice as against to the clownish and brutal class fellows. He protected newcomers, aligned oneself with teachers, criticized the corruption among officers and helped poor farmers. Although he was a loner and lived in his own literary world, his classmates showed respect for him. Fyodor was called "Monk Photius" because of his reclusive way of life and his interest in religion.^[10][8]
The first strong presence of epilepsy occurred on Fyodor after receiving a message of the death of his father. Mikhail was murdered in 1839 by his adscript peasant; the cause was one of Mikhail's irascibility attacks. Fyodor continued the disliked study. When he passed the exams and obtained the rank as ingenieur cadet, he was given the right to live off-site.^[10] After his short visit to brother Mikhail in Reval, Fyodor often went to concerts, operas, theatres and balletts, and discovered gambling by two friends. His independence was responsible for the financial troubles.^[8] In August 1843 he received an employment as a draftsman. In the meantime, Fyodor lived in an apartment of German-Baltic Dr. A. Riesenkampf, a friend of his brother Mikhael. Like in his childhood at the hospital, he showed interest in the ill people from the lower class.^[10] Aside this, he began to translate George Sand's La dernière Albini and Balzac's Eugénie Grandet, and upon the advice Schiller's Räuber, Don Carlos among others.^[8] With the help of his translations, he could obtain some money. His job became more and more humiliating. After quitting a duty travel, he was released in 19 October 1844 as a lieutenant. Fyodor was in financial troubles, so he decided to write his own novel.^[10]

Death

Dostoyevsky died in St. Petersburg on 9 February [O.S. 28 January] 1881 of a lung hemorrhage associated with emphysema and an epileptic seizure. The copy of the New Testament given to him in Siberia sat on his lap. He was interred in Tikhvin Cemetery at the Alexander Nevsky Monastery in Saint Petersburg. Forty thousand mourners attended his funeral.^[22] His tombstone is inscribed with the words of Christ, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. (from the Gospel According to John 12:24) – which are also the epigraph of his final novel, The Brothers Karamazov.)
The rented apartment where Dostoevsky spent the last few years of his life and wrote his last novel, The Brothers Karamazov, and where he died is situated at 5 Kuznechnyi pereulok. It has been restored, by reference to old photographs, as it looked when he lived there, and opened in 1971 as the Dostoyevsky House Museum. It is a popular tourist attraction in Saint Petersburg.^[23]


Source Material: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fyodor_Dostoyevsky

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