Poor Folk (Bednye lyudi) (1846)
Debut epistolary novel, hailed by the critic Belinsky
Literature · Novelists
Fyodor Dostoevsky
1821–1881 · Russian
Realism; psychological and philosophical novel
Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky was a Russian novelist whose works probe guilt, faith, freedom and suffering with intense psychological insight. Arrested with the Petrashevsky Circle in 1849, he survived a mock execution and served four years' hard labour in Siberia. His major novels, Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, Demons and The Brothers Karamazov, influenced existentialism and modern fiction.
How to spot them
- ▸Crime and Punishment: Raskolnikov, the axe murder of a pawnbroker, Sonya Marmeladova, Porfiry Petrovich
- ▸The Brothers Karamazov: Dmitri, Ivan, Alyosha, Smerdyakov and 'The Grand Inquisitor'
- ▸Mock execution on Semyonovsky Square (1849) and Siberian prison camp at Omsk
- ▸Prince Myshkin, 'the Idiot'; the Underground Man
- ▸Epilepsy and compulsive gambling; The Gambler dictated to his future wife in under a month
Key works
Notes from Underground (1864)
Monologue of a bitter, isolated ex-official; a founding text of existentialism
Crime and Punishment (Prestupleniye i nakazaniye) (1866)
Impoverished student Raskolnikov murders a pawnbroker to prove himself 'extraordinary' and is consumed by guilt
The Gambler (1866)
Novella of roulette addiction in the fictional spa town of Roulettenburg
The Idiot (1868–1869)
The saintly Prince Myshkin is destroyed by the passions of St Petersburg society
Demons (Besy; also The Possessed or The Devils) (1871–1872)
Satire of revolutionary nihilists, inspired by the Nechayev affair
The Brothers Karamazov (Bratya Karamazovy) (1879–1880)
Parricide and faith among the brothers Dmitri, Ivan and Alyosha; his final novel
Notes from the House of the Dead (1860–1862)
Semi-fictional account of life in a Siberian prison camp
Key ideas
- Ivan Karamazov's 'Grand Inquisitor' parable questions whether humanity can bear the freedom Christ offered
- The idea often summarised as 'if God does not exist, everything is permitted' is associated with Ivan Karamazov
- Suffering and confession as a path to redemption, as with Raskolnikov and Sonya
- Mikhail Bakhtin described his novels as 'polyphonic', giving independent voice to competing ideas
Quick-fire facts
- •Born in Moscow, son of a doctor at the Mariinsky Hospital for the Poor
- •Arrested in 1849 for membership of the Petrashevsky Circle; sentenced to death, reprieved at the last moment on Semyonovsky Square
- •Served four years of hard labour at Omsk, then compulsory military service in Semipalatinsk
- •Dictated The Gambler in 26 days to the stenographer Anna Snitkina to meet a contract deadline; she became his second wife
- •Suffered from epilepsy, which he gave to characters such as Prince Myshkin and Smerdyakov
- •His Pushkin Speech of 1880 was a celebrated public triumph
- •Buried in the Tikhvin Cemetery at the Alexander Nevsky Lavra, St Petersburg
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Sources
- Joseph Frank — Dostoevsky: A Writer in His Time