Cp Dosteo Bio

8/14/2019 Cp Dosteo Bio

1/10

The following biographical sketch emphasizes those aspects of Dostoevsky's life that most influenced his great

masterpieces. This sketch is compiled from well-known facts about Dostoevsky, but also makes liberal use of the

canonical biographies by Joseph Frank and Leonid Grossman.

Dostoevsky's Early Years

Before the man comes the child, and before the child comes the parents. Russia's greatest novelist, Fyodor

Mikhailevich Dostoevsky, was born in Moscow on October 30, 1821, to parents of remarkably different

character. Dostoevsky's father was a stern man who held his son to rigorous standards. His mother was a

generous woman who provided her son unconditional love. This tension - between harsh judgment and

forgiving love - would be his life's theme, recurring throughout his major works.

Dostoevsky's father, Mikhail Andreevich Dostoevsky, was born into the clergy and was expected to

become a clergyman himself. But after graduating from the seminary at fifteen, the senior Dostoevsky ran

off to Moscow and enrolled in the Imperial Medical-Surgical Academy. He graduated in 1812, and for

many years served as a surgeon at various military posts. Though his medical career was successful, years

of performing hopeless operations and gruesome amputations embittered the doctor, further twisting a

nature that was already subject to despair.

Biographers presume that Dr. Dostoevsky suffered from an undiagnosed nervous disorder. Bad weather

gave him excruciating headaches and threw him into fits of drinking, bad temper, and despondency.

Exacerbating his physical problems was a profound religious temperament - Dr. Dostoevsky believed

absolutely that he was one of God's chosen ones, and that all of his trials carried special significance. His

sufferings were therefore not merely physical; they were profoundly spiritual as well.

In contrast to his father was Dostoevsky's mother, Maria, who was warm and loving. Dostoevsky's mother

had a different orientation to her religion: she was moved not by the trials of her religion, but by the

generosity and joyfulness of Christ. Dostoevsky's education was from the start infused by Maria's religiousspirit - it was she who taught her son to read using the stories of the Old and New Testaments. Still, it's

interesting to note that the young Dostoevsky's favorite story was the story of Job - a man who suffered

terrible trials in order to be obedient to the will of his God. We can imagine that the young Dostoevsky saw

his father's character reflected in this story. But in the soothing sounds of his mother's gentle tutoring, this

hard lesson of suffering was complemented by the promise and fulfillment of love.

The relationship between Dostoevsky's parents was complicated. Publicly, they seemed a respectable

couple. Indeed, documents exist that illustrate a very strong and passionate love. Dr. Dostoevsky found it

difficult to be parted from his wife, and wrote loving, longing letters to her when she was absent. But

longing has its darker sides, and Dr. Dostoevsky's love was marked by jealousy, possessiveness, and a

strong desire to control. At one point his jealousy became so fierce that he irrationally challenged the

paternity of one of his children - causing the pious Maria to burst into a tearful plea in her own defense.

Dr. Dostoevsky was not only a controlling and demanding husband; he was a controlling and demanding

father as well. He required the highest standards of his children, and he was cruel when these standards


2/10

were not met. His despotism was so intense that it influenced even the most banal household routines. For

example, every afternoon the doctor would return home for a nap. While he was napping, the children had

to be absolutely silent. They were punished severely for the slightest of sounds. In summer months, they

would take turns standing by their father for the duration of his nap, swatting away the flies.

Even a loving mother would find it difficult to counter the sense of oppression that surrounded Dostoevsky

as a child. His physical environment did little to lift the sense of gloom. The hospital sat in a neighborhood

of squalor, one of the worst areas in Moscow. The landmarks included a cemetery for criminals, a lunatic

asylum, and an orphanage for abandoned infants. The hardships of this urban landscape made a lasting

impression on the young Dostoevsky, whose interests in and compassion for the poor and oppressed

tormented him. Though his parents forbade it, Dostoevsky liked to wander out to the hospital garden, where

the suffering patients sat, devouring any small bit of sun. The young Dostoevsky loved to spend time with

these patients. Their sad stories were living examples of human suffering.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Though his time in Moscow marked him, urban life was not the whole of Dostoevsky's childhood world. In

1827, Dostoevsky's father was promoted to a rank that permitted him to own land and serfs. In 1831, he

purchased the village of Darovoe, and a year later he bought the hamlet of Cheremoshna - 1400 acres of

land and 100 "souls." For four months every year, Dostoevsky would go with his mother and brother to the

country - a journey that liberated him from the moods of his father. In Darovoe, Dostoevsky experienced

what he would later call "a happy and placid childhood."

Dostoevsky loved the countryside, with its sweeping landscapes and open air. He spent most of his time

wandering in the forest around his family's estate. In fact, he spent so much time in the woods that his

family referred to the forest as "Fedka's Wood." During his ramblings Dostoevsky discovered not only the

majesty of the nature, but also the simple dignity of the peasants who inhabited countryside. The young

Dostoevsky was enchanted by the way the peasants lived. He romanticized their simple poverty, admired

the power of their faith, and developed a deep sympathy for their hardships.

In the spring of 1833, an event occurred that would underscore these hardships for the young Dostoevsky: a

fire broke out and destroyed both of his father's villages, leaving the landscape charred and the serfs

homeless. This event would have a strong effect on the young Dostoevsky, whose heart bled at the sight of

desolation and suffering. Many years later, Dostoevsky would recall the burnt landscape in Dmitri's dream

in Brother's Karamazov.

The peasants' suffering inspired an almost religious feeling in Dostoevsky. He came to idealize the peasant

as capable of spiritual understanding purer than any that might be achieved by the overly intellectual

members of his own class.


3/10

Dostoevsky's mother shared her son's sympathy for the peasants, but her husband did not. This difference

was a source of division between the couple. Maria refused to treat her serfs with cruelty, even when her

husband insisted that she beat them to keep them in their place. Nor would she berate her children for not

mastering their lessons - something that her husband would frequently do. Maria's small rebellions became

a great source of irritation to her husband, who became increasingly demanding of her. The devoted Maria,

who had been delicate to begin with, was exhausted by her husband's relentless need to control her.

The exhaustion took its toll. The last several years of Dostoevsky's life in Moscow were colored by his

mother's slow decline as she was diagnosed with, and then suffered from, consumption. In the final months

the illness grew aggressive, ravaging her until she lost consciousness. And then, one morning, when her son

was only 15 years old, Maria Dostoevskaya regained consciousness, called her family together, asked for

an icon to kiss, wept, and then died. She was 35 years old. The family was devastated. It had lost its center.

After the death of his wife, Dr. Dostoevsky went into seclusion with his younger children in Darovoe,

sending Mikhail and Fyodor to boarding school. In seclusion he became more bitter and more cruel. Dr.Dostoevsky often took his unhappiness out on his serfs, beating them on a whim. This brutality would

prove to be fatal. One day in early June, 1838, the doctor left Darovoe for his other property, Cheremoshna

and did not return. He was later found murdered on the road between the two villages, suffocated by a

cushion from the carriage. His driver was missing. So were his horses. Several of his serfs had also

disappeared.

No trial was held for this murder; no conclusive motive was determined. Some say that the murder resulted

from a fight that had broken out spontaneously between landowner and serf. Others believe that the senior

Dostoevsky was ambushed as revenge for having dishonored some young girls in his household. Still

others believed that the doctor had been punished for his cruelty.

Whatever the case, at the age of 16 Dostoevsky was orphaned. His family life had come to an end.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Politics and Punishment

According to Dostoevsky's biographers, Petrashevsky first approached Dostoevsky with great fanfare on

Nevsky Prospekt and asked him what the subject of his next story would be.

Petrashevsky was a tremendously influential figure. He had a "circle" of young followers who met at his

house off of Potrovsky Square to discuss the overthrow of the current social order. Petrashevsky

aggressively criticized the reign of Nicholas I, calling for the abolition of serfdom, the reformation of the

courts, and freedom of the press. Petrashevsky's views were extreme: "We have sentenced the present

social order to death," he is often quoted as saying. "Now we must carry out that sentence."


4/10

Petrashevsky was a follower ofFourier, the anti-capitalist, French utopian philosopher who proposed a

romantic solution to social problems. Key to Fourier's utopia was the concept of the "phalanx" - a joint

agrarian/industrial association for community life, where concerts, dances, and readings would be held.

Fourier argued that such a center would teach people of all walks of life to live together in harmony. A

strong sense of community would bring people to love their work and their fellow man.

Dostoevsky never had revolutionary aspirations - that is, he never wanted to overthrow, in bloody fashion,

the existing government. Fourier's ideas were not a threat to Russia's political structure; rather, they

inspired a revolution of the mind and spirit. This sort of revolution interested Dostoevsky very much.

Dostoevsky wanted to form a different kind of circle - one whose concern was art, not politics. He asked

his friend Speshnev to help him create the new circle. The two men had in common a belief in the power of

language. Dostoevsky wanted to use that power to inspire utopia, not revolution. Speshnev, on the other

hand, wanted to use language to spread "socialism, atheism, and terrorism - everything good in the world."

Though he disagreed with Speshnev's ideas about the use of language, Dostoevsky shared with Speshnevthe belief that freedom in language was essential to Russia's future. Accordingly, Dostoevsky agreed to

establish, with Speshnev, an underground press. This relationship with Speshnev would prove to be

Dostoevsky's undoing.

Scholars continue to debate Dostoevsky's involvement in the plottings of Speshnev and his circle. What is

clear is that Dostoevsky declared that he'd found himself in a kind of devil's deal with Speshnev. For

several months at the end of 1848 and the beginning of 1849, Dostoevsky was especially melancholy and

agitated - so much so that he visited his doctor to see if there was some organic source for his malaise. His

doctor found nothing, but was concerned for Dostoevsky and asked him what was troubling him so.

Dostoevsky told the doctor that he had borrowed some money from his friend Speshnev - and in doing so

he had "a Mephistopheles" of his own. He went on to tell the doctor that he could not repay the debt. And

even if he could, Speshnev was not the sort of man to accept the repayment.

Joseph Frank believes that this final remark indicates that Dostoevsky's debt to Speshnev was more than

financial. Frank believes that Dostoevsky had become involved in Speshnev's plot to revolt against the Tsar

and did not know how to extricate himself. Perhaps he wasn't sure that he wanted to extricate himself. At

this time Dostoevsky was overheard arguing bitterly with his brother Mikhail, who was committed to

Fourier's view that the new social order should be achieved through peaceful means. In the argument,

Dostoevsky told his brother that he should read a book by Louis Blanc, which advocated using force to

implement social change. From this conversation, Frank concludes that Dostoevsky had broken with

Fourier's views and was preparing to join Speshnev in his plot against the tsar. However, in the view of

other scholars, Dostoevsky's extreme agitation over the very mention of Speshnev indicates that it's likely

that he was ambivalent about how far he was willing to go.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


5/10

The decision would never need to be made. Unbeknownst to the Petrashevsky Circle, Tsar Nicholas had

been watching them for fourteen months. Events in Europe - in particular, the political uprisings in France-

had made Nicholas nervous. He mobilized troops but never sent them. Instead, Nicholas turned his energies

to his own country, putting intellectuals and revolutionaries under surveillance. Arrests began. In April

1849, Nicholas called for the arrest of all of the members of the Petrashevsky Circle. Dostoevsky's name

was on that list.

A little after four in the morning, on April 22, 1849, an officer burst into Dostoevsky's room to tell him that

he was under arrest. A dazed Dostoevsky was taken immediately to the Peter and Paul Fortress, where he

was to be imprisoned while awaiting trial. Conditions at the fortress were severe. The dim cells were damp

with mould. Each cell was far from the other, so that in solitary confinement prisoners would feel utterly

and entirely alone.

Oddly, Dostoevsky claimed that his time in Peter and Paul Fortress was marked more by boredom than by

anxiety or despair. For three days he felt that his life was over; then a feeling of calm descended on hissoul. Some biographers say that the certainty of the upcoming trial was preferable to the uncertainty of the

general paranoia that he had been feeling before his arrest. Others believe that his calm indicated that he

had embraced his suffering and found strength in it.

In any case, Dostoevsky used his time in prison to read, write letters, and make notes for books to come. He

read voraciously whatever books were sent him. He particularly requested the Bible, in several translations;

he rejoiced over a collection of Shakespeare; he admired a serial publication of Jane Eyre. And he spent a

good deal of time writing his defense.

Dostoevsky was accused of four different charges:

1) As a former army office, he had listened to a story criticizing the army without objection;

2) He had read a letter to the circle, from Belinsky to the famous writer Gogol, which criticized the church

and government;

3) He was in possession of an illegal printing press;

4) He was part of a plot to murder the Tsar.

The last of the four accusations Dostoevsky denied, but to no avail. In his written defense, he explained

eloquently to his judges that though he believed in free speech and the abolition of serfdom, he was not

seeking revolution. He further stated that Petrashevsky's idol, Fourier, was not revolutionary; rather,

Fourier claimed that art, not revolution, held the power to bring a universal harmony to man. Though he

himself now believed that Fourier's ideas were outdated and impossible to achieve, Dostoevsky continued

to feel that socialism - of a particularly Russian character - might be the answer. He offers his own vision of

what Russia might become:


6/10

All around us today, all whom life has trampled, all the worn-out women and starving

children, all the alcoholics, the dying villages, and the cities' horrible poverty and

diseases - all will disappear into one jubilant hymn of unknown, unprecedented, universal

and boundless happiness! [Leonid Grossman,Dostoevsky: A Biography, trans. Mary Mackler

(London:Bobbs-Merrill, 1974) 146]

His eloquence got him nowhere. The judges remained unmoved. They wanted two things of their prisoners:

1) a sense of remorse, and 2) some new information about other subversive movements. Dostoevsky gave

them neither. He did not renounce his convictions, and he was very concerned with protecting others. In the

end, the judges sentenced all of the members of the Petrashevsky circle to death by firing squad. The

prisoners were taken back to their cells to await their execution.

On the 22 of December, 1849, a 28-year-old Dostoevsky was marched out to face his death with the other

members of the Petrashevsky Circle. The morning was cold; the wind was howling so fiercely that

Dostoevsky could barely hear as each man's name was called and his sentence read. The first three werecalled up to the line: Petrashevsky and two others. Dostoevsky was in the second group and stood watching

as his three friends faced their executioners. The order was given for the soldiers to load their guns. A

second order was given - which Petrashevsky refused - to lower the hoods on the prisoners' eyes. A third

order was given to take aim. And then came a long silence.

At first, Dostoevsky did not understand what was happening - or not happening. And then, by the order of

Tsar Nicholas, the death sentence was commuted, and the prisoners were instead sentenced to prison in

Siberia. The prisoners accepted the news differently. Some were resentful; others rejoiced; one, Grigoryev,

lost an already tenuous grip on his sanity. As for their leader, Petrashevsky: when the guards put on his

chains, Petrashevsky grabbed the hammer and began to rivet the shackles with his own hands, mutilating

himself in the process.

For Dostoevsky, the moment of reprieve was a resurrection. Having stood face to face with death, he was

ready to embrace life - even life in exile. Dostoevsky related his feelings about the ordeal in the often-

printed letter to his brother:

Life is a gift, life is happiness, every minute will be an eternity of happiness! Si jeunesse savait!

[If youth only knew!]...My brother, I do not feel despondent and have not lost heart. Life is life

everywhere. Life is in ourselves and not outside us. There will be men beside me [in prison], and

the important thing is to be a man among men and to remain a man always, whatever the

misfortunes, not to despair and not to fall - that is the aim of life, that is its purpose. I realize this

now. The idea has entered into my flesh and my blood. Yes, that is the truth! ...I have still got my

heart and the same flesh and blood which can love and suffer and pity and remember, and that is

also life. Never before have I felt such abundant and healthy reserves of spiritual life in me as

now...


7/10

[Joseph Frank, The Years of Ordeal(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990) 62-63. Quoted

from Dostoevsky'sPisma, I: 129 - 131.]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Life in Exile

After a long journey across the Urals, in which the sledges were stalled in the snow and the cold bit

brutally at the travelers, Dostoevsky arrived at the Omsk Fortress, in Siberia. It was a cold, hopeless,

brutal place. Upon arrival, all prisoners had half of their heads shaved and were sent to a convict's hut,

which Dostoevsky describes as an "old, dilapidated wooden construction":

In summer, intolerable closeness; in winter, unendurable cold. All the floors were rotten. Filth on

the floors an inch thick; one could slip and fall...We were packed like herrings in a barrel...There

was no room to turn around. From dusk to dawn it was impossible not to behave like

pigs...Fleas, lice, and black beetles by the bushel...

[Frank 76. Quoted fromPisma, I: 135-137]

But the prison's most threatening vermin was Major Krivtsov, the despot who ran it. Krivtsov believed it

was his mission to break the prisoners' spirits. He humiliated them, terrified them, flogged them.

Dostoevsky became obsessed with a fear of being flogged. He would linger around prisoners who had

experienced the whip and ask them to describe the pain to him in minute detail. He wanted to determine

whether he, himself, could endure it. The hardships of prison proved to be a strain on his already-weak

nerves, and Dostoevsky found himself often in the prison hospital, suffering fits of epilepsy.

Making matters worse for Dostoevsky was the class hostility between prisoners. The serf prisoners hated

the gentlemen and took advantage of every opportunity to seek revenge for the wrongs done to them in

the outside world. Dostoevsky describes the class hatred:

They [the peasant convicts] were coarse, ill-natured, cross-grained people. Their hatred for the

gentry knew no bounds, and therefore they received us, the gentlemen, with hostility and

malicious joy in our troubles. They would have eaten us alive, given the chance... {The peasants

accused the gentry:] "You are noblemen, iron beaks that used to peck us to death. Before, the

master used to torment the people, but now he is lower than the lowest, has become one of us."

[Frank 76. Quoted fromPisma, I: 135-137]

This revelation - that the peasants hated the gentry - challenged Dostoevsky's earlier idealization of the

"simple peasant." It also challenged his belief that man is essentially good. In prison, Dostoevsky

witnessed the abuse of the prisoners by the guards; he also saw prisoners abusing one another. They stole

from each other, beat each other, cheated each other, and even raped each other. But worst of all, they

seemed not to feel any remorse. Dostoevsky had believed that the peasants were spiritually superior to

the intelligentsia. He also believed in the redeeming social power of remorse. Now he understood that he


8/10

had misunderstood human nature altogether.

Even worse, he had misunderstood himself. Dostoevsky was surprised at the revulsion he felt towards his

fellow man. In a letter, he says:

There were moments when I hated everybody I came across, innocent or guilty, and looked at

them as thieves who were robbing me of my life with impunity. The most unbearable misfortune

is when you yourself become unjust, malignant, vile; you realize it, you even reproach yourself -

but you just can't help it.

[Frank 105. Quoted from a letter to Mme. Fonvizina,Pisma, I: 143]

Still, in the midst of abuse, corruption, and cruelty, Dostoevsky experienced a change of heart. It was

during Pascha, a holiday very important to Orthodox Christianity, that Dostoevsky found that he did

indeed share something with his inmates -Russian Orthodoxy. Dostoevsky writes about this moment in

the "fictionalized memoir" he wrote after his return from exile, Notes from the House of the Dead:

The convicts took their prayers very seriously, and each time they came to church each one of

them would...buy a candle or contribute to the collection. "I'm somebody, too," was what they

thought or felt as they gave it up - "everyone's equal before God..." We took communion at early

mass. When, with the chalice in his hand, the priest cam to the words "...receive me, O Lord,

even as the robber," nearly all the convicts fell kneeling to the ground with a jangling of fetters,

apparently interpreting these words as a literal expression of their own thoughts.

[Fyodor Dostoevsky,House of the Dead, trans. David McDuff (London: Penguin Books, 1985)

275]

This moment illustrates the beginning of Dostoevsky's conversion. Once he saw the peasants as brothers

in Christ, he came to believe once again that criminals were spiritual beings, worthy of care and capable

of redemption:

Men, however, are everywhere men...Believe me, there are deep, strong, beautiful characters

among them, and what a joy it was to discover the gold under the coarse, hard surface. And not

one, not two, but several. It is impossible not to respect some of them, and some are positively

splendid...I have lived closely with them, and so I think I know them thoroughly. How many

stories of tramps and bandits, and in general or the dark and miserable milieu! ... What a

wonderful people ...

[Frank 77-78. Quoted fromPisma, I: 138-139]

Despite his conversion, however, Dostoevsky's belief in Russian Orthodoxy would never be complete. As

he wrote to a friend, he would always suffer as:

...a child of disbelief and doubt...and will remain so until the grave. How much terrible torture


9/10

this thirst for faith has cost me and costs me even now, which is all the stronger in my soul the

more arguments I find against it.

[Frank 160. Quoted from a letter to Mme. Fonvizina,Pisma, I: 142]

Dostoevsky's prison days -- and, indeed, the whole of his life -- would be a struggle to retain his faith

both in God and in the goodness of man

Summarize your assigned section into FOUR essential points to share with the class:

1

2

3

4

Write TWO questions based on your section: (1) A question about something your group

would like clarified or something your group wants more information on and (2) A

question which would generate a class discussion.

1

2


10/10

Cp Dosteo Bio

Documents

Transcript of Cp Dosteo Bio