Fyodor Dostoevsky

(1821-1881) Fyodor Dostoevsky was born on November 11, 1821, in Moscow. His father was a doctor, of noble birth; and Fyodor was one of eight children. Dostoevsky was sent to boarding school when he was 16, and his mother died the next year. He used his traumatic experiences at boarding school in Notes for the Underground and A Raw Youth.

Fyodor Dostoevsky was sent to military school, where he studied engineering. While Dostoevsky was at military school, his father was murdered by serfs, who had been abused and mistreated.

Fyodor Dostoevsky joined a utopian society, and was one of the group to be arrested. He was sentenced to four years of imprisonment at Omsk, in Siberia, and then service as a soldier. His memories of his time there came together in Memories from the Dead House, which portrays prison life in vivid detail. In 1859, he was finally allowed to leave Siberia, and he was allowed to publish.

Fyodor Dostoyevski died on February 9, 1881, of an apparent hemorrhage, though the stories about the cause of his malady vary, as to whether he was aggravated by a family quarrel, or by moving furniture. His death may even have had to do with his epileptic seizures, which he'd experienced all of his life. He was buried in the Aleksandr Nevsky monastery, in St. Petersburg. Dostoevsky's funeral was a major event, with thousands of people in attendance.

Fyodor Dostoevsky first married Marya Dmitrievna Isayeva, a widow, who was adversely affected by tuberculosis and hypochondria. He later fell in love with Polina Suslova, though it never developed into anything. After his wife's death in 1864, Dostoevsky married his secretary, Anna Grigorievna Snitkina.

"The is no subject so old that something new cannot be said about it."
- A Diary of A Writer

"I am a sick man... I am a spiteful man. I'm an unattractive man. I think there is something wrong with my liver."
- Notes from the Underground

"But he was one of those senseless persons who are very well capable of looking after their worldly affairs, and, apparently, after nothing else."
- The Brothers Karamazov

"Man is a creature who can get used to anything, and I believe that is the very best way of defining him."

"It is very difficult to know a man thoroughly, even after long years."

"Some people say that the most exalted love for ones' neighbor is at the same time the greatest egotism. What egotism there could be here is more than I can understand."

"Longing to be his own self..."

"I was always astonished at the extraordinary good nature and lack of malice with which men... spoke of their beatings."

"Why am I going there now? Am I capable of that? Is that serious? It is not serious at all. It's simply a fantasy to amuse myself; a plaything!"

"Why am I to be pitied, you say? Yes! There's nothing to pity me for! I ought to be crucified, crucified on a cross, not pitied!"

"Life is real! Haven't I lived just now? My life has not yet died with that old woman!"

"Actions are sometimes performed in a masterly and most cunning way..."

"They wanted to speak, but could not; tears stood in their eyes."

(1821-1881) Russian writer. Fyodor Dostoevsky was one of the greatest and most influential Russian writers of the 19th century. Dostoevsky was famous for Crime and Punishment (1866), though his first popular work was Poor People (1846).

Dostoevsky's years in Siberia were harsh. He only began publishing books again in 1859, when he was allowed to return to Russia. Dostoevsky also was the co-editor of Time and The Epoch, with his brother. Upon his brother's death, he accepted the debts, which placed him in a precarious financial situation.

After traveling through Europe, Dostoevsky returned to Russia in 1859. He published The House of the Dead (1861), The Insulted and Injured (1861), Winter Notes on Summer Impressions (1863), Notes from Underground (1864), Crime and Punishment (1866), The Idiot (1868), The Possessed (1872), The Diary of a Writer (1876), and The Brothers of Karamazov (1879).

Dostoevsky's final years were the time when he was most well-known, with a reputation and influence that touched writers of his day. His works influenced Thomas Mann, Gide, Wasserman, Kafka, and many others. He has been called the father of the psychological novel because of the depths to which some of his greatest novels are able to reach into the human psyche.