Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky (1821-1881)
Russian Novelist and Founder of Existentialism
Nov 13, 2008
Dostoevsky is an acclaimed writer, not only in Russia but also throughout the world and love or hate his work, is still recognised as one of the greatest writers of all time.
Dostoevsky’s Personal Life
Dostoevsky was one of seven children. His father was a doctor and an aggressive alcoholic. Despite many accounts, which detail the ill treatment of Dostoevsky and his siblings by his father, personal correspondence shows that they enjoyed an amicable relationship.
Dostoevsky’s experiences of living at the Markinsky Hospital for the Poor in Moscow would have a profound effect on his life and writings. It was here he would mix with the poor, exploited and distressed patients and listen to their stories. Dostoevsky was an epileptic, a condition that would eventually contribute to his death, and again he would use these personal experiences of illness and suffering in his later writing.
He married twice, firstly to a widow of an associate of his, Maria Dmitrevana Isaeva. Devastated by her death seven years later and that of his brother around the same time, Dostoevsky developed severe depression. He also began gambling in response to his financial ruin, compounded by his obligation to support the families of those he had lost. His second marriage was to a young stenographer, Anna Grigorevena Snitkina, his proposal followed his rejection by a previous lover.
Dostoevsky Early Literary Career
Dostoevsky initially studied at the St Petersburg Academy of Military Engineering and soon received a commission. It was here that the young writer would experiment with his ‘daydreams’ and write plays. After he left the Army he began to write fiction and published his first successful short story,’ Proud Folk’. This however, would only bring him short-lived literary status and the initial acclaim he enjoyed cooled considerably following the publication of further works.
Dostoevsky’s Exile
Dostoevsky was arrested in 1849 for his membership of the Petrashevsky Circle, a liberal intellectual group that was considered a threat to autocracy. He was sentenced to death along with other members of the group, but this was reduced at the very last minute to fours years of hard labour in a Siberian prison. Here he would experience much suffering, both physically and emotionally, and following his release, he was required to serve in the Siberian Regiment for a number of years. These political and military experiences, along with a religious ‘crisis’ during his imprisonment, would provoke Dostoevsky to re-evaluate his values and convictions. He became more anti-European, rejecting Western approaches and focussed his attention towards traditional Russian morals. This along with a growing confidence in his literary ability would influence his writing in his later life.
Dostoevsky’s Literary Success
It was during Dostoevsky’s later life as a writer, that he would experience the acclaim that had been predicted in his youth. During this time, he published his famous novel ‘Crime and Punishment’. It is believed that he finished this work in a hurry to support his dire financial situation following the death of his wife and the production of two unsuccessful literary journals. Around this time, he also contributed to the development of existentialism, a philosophical movement that emphasises the individual as a free and self-determining agent. Later, he would also complete The Gambler, which he dictated to his second wife and would successfully publish ‘The Writers Diary’, a monthly journal full of short stories, sketches and observations.
Dostoevsky had a troubled and somewhat erratic literary journey to success, but following his death in 1881, over forty thousand mourners attended his funeral. His works continue to have a weighty and eternal impact on the literary stage and are still relevant now to the development of intellectual debate.
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