February 9 1881 – Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky dies

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Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky, the well-known Russian writer and philosopher, and author of the renowned novels Bratya Karamazovy (The Brothers Karamazov – 1880) and Prestupleniye i nakazaniye (Crime and Punishment – 1866) died on February 9, 1881 at the age of 59 at St. Petersburg in the Russian Empire. Dostoyevsky has often been called one of the greatest writers in the world. The profound psychological and psychological insights in Dostoyevsky’s works seem to foretell the most important developments of the 20th century including the growing interests in existentialism and psychoanalysis. The writer’s own disturbed but eventful life had a profound impact on his works and his poignant depiction of the downtrodden echelons of society came from his own experiences. His powerful grounding in Orthodox Christian values led him to vividly depict the conflict between traditional Christian ideals and economic realities and social norms. Dostoyevsky deeply influenced an entire generation of Russian writers and thinkers who built on his themes and spread his philosophy far and wide. Fyodor Dostoyevsky was born in Moscow on November 11, 1821, the second of the seven children of Mikhail and Maria Dostoyevsky. His father, a doctor, worked with the Mariinsky Hospital for the Poor and the family lived in the hospital premises. While his mother, a gentle woman came from a comparatively affluent background and brought softness to his upbringing, Dostoyevsky’s interaction with the poorest of the poor, the criminals, and the orphans of Moscow shaped his understanding of social values and life. At the age of 9, Dostoyevsky started to experience epileptic seizures. He described this in detail in his later works. At the age of about sixteen Dostoyevsky joined the Nikolayev Military Engineering Institute due to his father’s pressure. With his brothers he moved to Saint Petersburg. In 1837 Dostoyevsky’s mother died of tuberculosis. Within a couple of years his father died too. It was later suggested that his father was murdered by his own serfs. The murder was a violent one – his father had been bound and drowned in vodka. Later on, in Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Notes from the Underground, this suggestion seems to have found endorsement in his own belief. Sigmund Freud later suggested that a number of tyrannical patriarchs from the author’s works reflect his strained relations with his father and his guilt. At school, Dostoyevsky studied some of the best-known literary figures such as E. T. A. Hoffman, Blaise Pascal, William Shakespeare, Victor Hugo, and Friedrich Schiller. While initially he seemed to be a great fan of Schiller’s work, he later started to ridicule the author. He successfully completed school in 1841 and was award a military commission; the following year he became a lieutenant. Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s literary career took off in 1843 when he published a Russian translation of Honore de Balzc’s novel Eugenie Grandet. The translation did not find much success with the Russian audience. The following year, Dostoyevsky gave up his military service to pursue a full time career in literature. In 1846, Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s first novel Poor Folk was published by A Petersburg Collection. The book earned him great praise from the Russian literary critic Vissarion Belinsky. Belinsky is believed to have exclaimed to the renowned poet, Nikolay Nekrasov, “A new (Nikolai) Gogol has arisen!” Dostoyevsky’s journey to fame had begun. Despite this initial success, Dostoyevsky’s reputation suffered much due to the poor reception of his following novel, The Double, published in 1846. Critics were disappointed with Dostoyevsky’s lack of addition to social values and many started to write off his potential to achieve celebrity status in Russia’s literary circles. By 1847, Dostoyevsky had started associating with members of the Petrashevsky Circle – a group of Russian intellectuals who supported the rise of utopian socialism – and his participation in the Circle’s activities had become well known. He also went on to associate with several members of a secret organization that promoted revolution. By 1848, Tsar Nicholas I had started his crackdown on organizations that did not support his autocracy and tried hard to arrest the spread of the revolutionary ideals from Western Europe. In 1849, Fyodor Dostoyevsky and several other members of the Petrashevsky Circle were arrested and by November they were condemned to death. Just as they were about to face the firing squad, news came in that their execution had been commuted to a four-year exile of rigorous labor in Siberia. These events had an immense impact on Dostoyevsky who lost health and started to sink into depression. The horrors and cruelty he witnessed in prison are captured in his work Zapiski iz myortvogo doma (The House of the Dead, 1861–62). Fyodor Dostoyevsky was then asked to take up service in the Siberian Regiment and add five more years in military service. In Siberia, Fyodor Dostoyevsky met Maria Dmitrievna Isayeva who would become his wife in 1857. The turns of his life started to take Fyodor Dostoyevsky back to the spiritual ideologies of his early life. Fyodor Dostoyevsky became increasingly involved in the Slavophile cultural movement and started to endorse Orthodox Christian ideals. His later works, such as The Possessed and The Diary of a Writer, have often been criticized for showcasing such orthodoxy and for coming up with complex environments which are challenging to the human psyche. In 1859, Fyodor Dostoyevsky returned Saint Petersburg. With his brother Mikhail he started to take the publication business seriously. At this time they started to publish Time and Epoch; the former was discontinued by an order from the government in 1863. Fyodor Dostoyevsky started to travel across Europe at this time and started to gamble quite heavily, incurring many debts. In the next five years, dwindling finances and his wife’s death took a tool on his mental health and Dostoyevsky started to sink into depression. Fyodor Dostoyevsky hurried through the writing of Crime and Punishment in order to get it published quickly. In 1867, Fyodor Dostoyevsky married again. Between 1873 and 1881, he started to write a series of articles and stories called Writer’s Diary which earned him much fame. Fyodor Dostoyevsky died on February 9, 1891 bringing to end a famous but turbulent life and a literary career that would earn him much fame in the century to come. 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