Where did Dostoevsky sit? What did Dostoevsky write? The works of Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky - a brief overview. Useful video: calendar of important dates in the biography of Dostoevsky

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky was born on November 11, 1821 in Moscow. His father Mikhail Andreevich came from the family of nobles Dostoevsky of the Radvan coat of arms. He received a medical education and worked in the Borodino Infantry Regiment, the Moscow Military Hospital, and also in the Mariinsky Hospital for the poor. The mother of the future famous writer, Nechaeva Maria Fedorovna, was the daughter of a capital merchant.

Fedor's parents were not rich people, but they worked tirelessly to provide for their family and give their children a good education. Subsequently, Dostoevsky admitted more than once that he was immensely grateful to his father and mother for their excellent upbringing and education, which cost them hard work.

The boy was taught to read by his mother; she used the book “104 Sacred Stories of the Old and New Testaments” for this purpose. This is partly why in Dostoevsky’s famous book “The Brothers Karamazov” the character Zosima says in one of the dialogues that in childhood he learned to read from this book.

Young Fyodor mastered his reading skills from the biblical Book of Job, which was also reflected in his subsequent works: the writer used his thoughts about this book when creating the famous novel “The Teenager.” The father also contributed to his son's education, teaching him Latin.

In total, seven children were born into the Dostoevsky family. So, Fyodor had an older brother, Mikhail, with whom he was especially close, and an older sister. In addition, he had younger brothers Andrei and Nikolai, as well as younger sisters Vera and Alexandra.

In their youth, Mikhail and Fedor were taught at home by N.I. Drashusov, teacher at the Alexander and Catherine schools. With his help, the eldest sons of the Dostoevskys studied French, and the sons of the teacher, A.N. Drashusov and V.N. Drashusov, taught the boys mathematics and literature, respectively. In the period from 1834 to 1837, Fedor and Mikhail continued their studies at the capital's boarding school L.I. Chermak, which was then a very prestigious educational institution.

In 1837, a terrible thing happened: Maria Fedorovna Dostoevskaya died of consumption. Fedor was only 16 years old at the time of his mother’s death. Left without a wife, Dostoevsky Sr. decided to send Fyodor and Mikhail to St. Petersburg, to the boarding house of K.F. Kostomarova. The father wanted the boys to subsequently enter the Main Engineering School. It is interesting that both of Dostoevsky’s eldest sons at that time were fond of literature and wanted to devote their lives to it, but their father did not take their hobby seriously.

The boys did not dare to contradict their father’s will. Fyodor Mikhailovich successfully completed his studies at the boarding school, entered the school and graduated from it, but he devoted all his free time to reading. , Hoffmann, Byron, Goethe, Schiller, Racine - he devoured the works of all these famous authors, instead of enthusiastically comprehending the basics of engineering science.

In 1838, Dostoevsky and his friends even organized their own literary circle at the Main Engineering School, which, in addition to Fyodor Mikhailovich, included Grigorovich, Beketov, Vitkovsky, Berezhetsky. Even then, the writer began to create his first works, but still did not dare to finally take the path of a writer. Having completed his studies in 1843, he even received the position of second lieutenant engineer in the St. Petersburg engineering team, but did not last long in the service. In 1844, he decided to focus exclusively on literature and resigned.

The beginning of a creative journey

Although the family did not approve of young Fedor’s decisions, he diligently began to pore over the works he had begun earlier and develop ideas for new ones. The year 1944 was marked for the aspiring writer with the release of his first book, “Poor People.” The success of the work exceeded all the author's expectations. Critics and writers highly appreciated Dostoevsky's novel; the themes raised in the book found a response in the hearts of many readers. Fyodor Mikhailovich was accepted into the so-called “Belinsky circle”, they began to call him “the new Gogol”.

The success did not last long. About a year later, Dostoevsky presented the book “The Double” to the public, but it turned out to be incomprehensible to most admirers of the talent of the young genius. The writer's delight and praise gave way to criticism, dissatisfaction, disappointment and sarcasm. Subsequently, writers appreciated the innovation of this work, its difference from the novels of those years, but at the time of the book’s publication almost no one felt this.

Soon Dostoevsky quarreled with and was expelled from the “Belinsky circle”, and also quarreled with N.A. Nekrasov, editor of Sovremennik. However, the publication Otechestvennye Zapiski, edited by Andrei Kraevsky, immediately agreed to publish his works.

Nevertheless, the phenomenal popularity that his first publication brought to Fyodor Mikhailovich allowed him to make a number of interesting and useful acquaintances in the literary circles of St. Petersburg. Many of his new acquaintances partly became prototypes for various characters in the author’s subsequent works.

Arrest and hard labor

Fateful for the writer was his acquaintance with M.V. Petrashevsky in 1846. Petrashevsky organized so-called “Fridays,” during which the abolition of serfdom, freedom of printing, progressive changes in the judicial system and other similar issues were discussed.

During meetings, one way or another connected with the Petrashevites, Dostoevsky also met the communist Speshnev. In 1848, he organized a secret society of 8 people (including himself and Fyodor Mikhailovich), which advocated a coup in the country and the creation of an illegal printing house. At meetings of the society, Dostoevsky repeatedly read “Belinsky’s Letter to Gogol,” which was then prohibited.

In the same year, 1848, Fyodor Mikhailovich’s novel “White Nights” was published, but, alas, he did not manage to enjoy the well-deserved fame. Those same connections with radical youth played against the writer, and on April 23, 1849, he was arrested, like many other Petrashevites. Dostoevsky denied his guilt, but Belinsky’s “criminal” letter was also remembered, and on November 13, 1849, the writer was sentenced to death. Before that, he languished in prison for eight months in the Peter and Paul Fortress.

Fortunately for Russian literature, the cruel sentence for Fyodor Mikhailovich was not carried out. On November 19, the Auditor General considered him not to be guilty of Dostoevsky, and therefore the death penalty was replaced with eight years of hard labor. And at the end of the same month, the emperor softened the punishment even more: the writer was sent to hard labor in Siberia for four years instead of eight. At the same time, he was deprived of his noble rank and fortune, and after completing hard labor he was promoted to ordinary soldier.

Despite all the hardships and deprivations that such a sentence implied, joining the soldier meant the complete return of Dostoevsky’s civil rights. This was the first such case in Russia, since usually those people who were sentenced to hard labor lost their civil rights for the rest of their lives, even if they survived many years of imprisonment and returned to a free life. Emperor Nicholas I took pity on the young writer and did not want to ruin his talent.

The years that Fyodor Mikhailovich spent in hard labor made an indelible impression on him. The writer had a hard time experiencing endless suffering and loneliness. In addition, it took him a lot of time to establish normal communication with other prisoners: they did not accept him for a long time because of his noble title.

In 1856, the new emperor granted forgiveness to all Petrashevites, and in 1857 Dostoevsky was pardoned, that is, he received a full amnesty and was restored to the rights to publish his works. And if in his youth Fyodor Mikhailovich was a person undecided in his destiny, trying to find the truth and build a system of life principles, then already at the end of the 1850s he became a mature, formed personality. The difficult years in hard labor made him a deeply religious person, which he remained until his death.

Creativity flourishes

In 1860, the writer published a two-volume collection of his works, which included the stories “The Village of Stepanchikovo and Its Inhabitants” and “Uncle’s Dream.” About the same story happened to them as with “The Double” - although the works were subsequently given a very high rating, contemporaries did not like them. However, the publication of “Notes from the House of the Dead,” dedicated to the life of convicts and written mostly during imprisonment, helped return readers’ attention to the matured Dostoevsky.

For many residents of the country who have not encountered this horror on their own, the work came almost as a shock. Many people were stunned by what the author was talking about, especially since the topic of hard labor used to be something of a taboo for Russian writers. After this, Herzen began to call Dostoevsky “the Russian Dante.”

The year 1861 was also noteworthy for the writer. This year, in collaboration with his older brother Mikhail, he began publishing his own literary and political magazine called “Time”. In 1863, the publication was closed, and instead the Dostoevsky brothers began publishing another magazine called “Epoch”.

These magazines, firstly, strengthened the brothers’ position in the literary community. And secondly, it was on their pages that “The Humiliated and Insulted,” “Notes from the Underground,” “Notes from the House of the Dead,” “A Bad Anecdote” and many other works of Fyodor Mikhailovich were published. Mikhail Dostoevsky died soon after: he passed away in 1864.

In the 1860s, the writer began to travel abroad, finding inspiration for his new novels in new places and familiar ones. Including, it was during that period that Dostoevsky conceived and began to realize the idea of ​​the work “The Gambler.”

In 1865, the publication of the Epoch magazine, the number of subscribers of which was steadily declining, had to be closed. Moreover: even after the closure of the publication, the writer had an impressive amount of debt. In order to somehow get out of a difficult financial situation, he entered into an extremely unfavorable agreement for himself to publish a collection of his works with the publisher Stelovsky, and soon after that he began writing his most famous novel, Crime and Punishment. The philosophical approach to social motives received wide recognition among readers, and the novel glorified Dostoevsky during his lifetime.

Fyodor Mikhailovich’s next great book was “The Idiot,” published in 1868. The idea of ​​portraying a wonderful person who tries to make other characters happy, but cannot overcome hostile forces and, as a result, suffers himself, turned out to be easy to implement in words alone. In fact, Dostoevsky called The Idiot one of the most difficult books to write, although Prince Myshkin became his most favorite character.

After finishing work on this novel, the author decided to write an epic called “Atheism” or “The Life of a Great Sinner.” He failed to realize his idea, but some of the ideas collected for the epic formed the basis for Dostoevsky’s next three great books: the novel “Demons,” written in 1871-1872, the work “Teenager,” completed in 1875, and the novel “Brothers.” The Karamazovs", work on which Dostoevsky completed in 1879-1880.

It is interesting that “Demons,” in which the writer initially intended to express his disapproval of representatives of revolutionary movements in Russia, gradually changed during the course of writing. Initially, the author did not intend to make Stavrogin, who later became one of his most famous characters, the key character of the novel. But his image turned out to be so powerful that Fyodor Mikhailovich decided to change the plan and add real drama and tragedy to the political work.

If in “The Possessed,” among other things, the theme of fathers and sons was discussed quite widely, then in the next novel, “The Teenager,” the writer brought to the fore the issue of raising a mature child.

A unique result of Fyodor Mikhailovich’s creative path, a literary analogue of summing up the results, was The Brothers Karmazov. Many episodes, storylines, and characters of this work were partly based on the writer’s previously written novels, starting with his first published novel, “Poor People.”

Death

Dostoevsky died on January 28, 1881, the cause of death being chronic bronchitis, pulmonary tuberculosis and emphysema. Death overtook the writer at the age of sixty.

Crowds of admirers of his talent came to say goodbye to the writer, but Fyodor Mikhailovich, his timeless novels and wise quotes received the greatest fame after the death of the author.

Personal life

Dostoevsky's first wife was Maria Isaeva, whom he met shortly after returning from hard labor. In total, the marriage of Fyodor and Maria lasted about seven years, until the sudden death of the writer’s wife in 1864.

During one of his first trips abroad in the early 1860s, Dostoevsky was captivated by the emancipated Apollinaria Suslova. It was from her that Polina in “The Player”, Nastastya Filippovna in “The Idiot” and a number of other female characters were written.

Although on the eve of his fortieth anniversary the writer had at least a long-term relationship with Isaeva and Suslova, at that time his women had not yet given him such happiness as children. This deficiency was made up for by the writer’s second wife, Anna Snitkina. She became not only a faithful wife, but also an excellent assistant to the writer: she took upon herself the troubles of publishing Dostoevsky’s novels, rationally resolved all financial issues, and prepared her memoirs about her brilliant husband for publication. Fyodor Mikhailovich dedicated the novel “The Brothers Karamazov” to her.

Anna Grigorievna gave birth to her wife four children: daughters Sophia and Lyubov, sons Fyodor and Alexei. Alas, Sophia, who was supposed to be the first child of the couple, died a few months after giving birth. Of all the children of Fyodor Mikhailovich, only his son Fyodor became the successor of his literary family.

Dostoevsky Quotes

• No one will make the first move, because everyone thinks that it is not mutual.
• It takes very little to destroy a person: you just need to convince him that the work he is doing is of no use to anyone.
• Freedom is not about not restraining yourself, but about being in control of yourself.
• A writer whose works have not been successful easily becomes a bitter critic: just like a weak and tasteless wine can become excellent vinegar.
• It's amazing what one ray of sunshine can do to a person's soul!
• Beauty will save the world.
• A person who knows how to hug is a good person.
• Don’t clog your memory with grievances, otherwise there may simply be no room left for beautiful moments.
• If you set off towards your goal and start stopping along the way to throw stones at every dog ​​barking at you, you will never reach your goal.
• He is a smart man, but to act smartly, intelligence alone is not enough.
• He who wants to do good can do a lot of good even with his hands tied.
• Life goes breathless without an aim.
• We must love life more than the meaning of life.
• The Russian people seem to enjoy their suffering.
• Happiness is not in happiness, but only in its achievement.

In 1834, Fedora and his brother Mikhail, after preparatory classes outside the home, were sent to the Chermak boarding school, which at one time was famous in Moscow. The brothers entered there as full boarders and only came home on holidays. Not long before, Fyodor Mikhailovich’s father acquired a small estate in the Tula province, where the family spent the summer and where the boys’ first acquaintance with the peasant people began. These holidays in the village always made the most gratifying impression on Dostoevsky, but did not distract him from reading, which, when he entered the Chermak boarding school, under the influence of literature lessons, took on a more systematic character. Pushkin is in the foreground, then Walter Scott, Zagoskin, Lazhechnikov, Narezhny, Karamzin, Zhukovsky - they were read and re-read constantly.

Fedor Dostoevsky. Portrait by V. Perov, 1872

Early creative attempts date back to the same time. “Poor People” was written by Dostoevsky at night at school. The attraction to literature grew by leaps and bounds, his head was full of a wide variety of plans and literary enterprises, which, in the opinion of Dostoevsky, who was impractical in organizing his financial affairs, should have brought him fame, a secure position, a guarantee from creditors and annoying little things in life . The service, as he writes, “bored him like potatoes,” and in the fall of 1844 he retired, expecting to “work like hell,” but not yet having a penny for a civilian dress. Continuing to work on “Poor People” and translate George Sand, he wrote to his brother: “I am extremely pleased with my novel. I couldn't be happier. I’ll probably get money from him, but then”...

In the spring of 1845, the novel, at the direction of D. V. Grigorovich, was given to Nekrasov. The poet was delighted with the work of the “new Gogol” and gave the manuscript to Belinsky. She made a very strong impression on the critic. “The truth was revealed and proclaimed to you, as an artist, it was given to you as a gift,” he told Fyodor Mikhailovich. “Appreciate your gift, and remain faithful to it, and you will be a great artist.” This was the most memorable moment of Dostoevsky’s entire youth, which he recalled with emotion even in hard labor. “I left him in rapture,” the writer later said. “I remembered with all my being that a solemn moment had occurred in my life, a turning point forever.”

Fyodor Dostoevsky as a mirror of the Russian soul

In 1849, literary activity was unexpectedly interrupted. On April 22, 1849, Dostoevsky was arrested in the Petrashevsky case, this “conspiracy of ideas,” which, according to Baron Korff, the commission itself found it difficult to judge: “for if facts can be discovered, then how can one convict one of thoughts when they have not yet been realized by any means?” manifestation, no transition into action? However, Dostoevsky was charged with participating in meetings at Petrashevsky's, where on one Friday he read Belinsky's letter to Gogol. Fyodor Mikhailovich was imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress, and 8 months later, after hearing the death sentence and pardon, he was exiled to hard labor, from where 4 years later he was sent as a private to one of the Siberian battalions.

Be that as it may, Dostoevsky returned to literature 5 years after his arrest and remained faithful to it until his death. But circumstances were difficult in the second era of his life. In 1857 he married a widow and took upon himself the upbringing of her son. Funds were needed, but there were none; Dostoevsky was supported by the hope of literary talent, but for some time he languished in uncertainty as to whether he should be allowed to publish. “If they don’t allow me to print for another year, I’m lost,” he writes about this. “Then it’s better not to live!” Permission to print was given around 1858, and new torments began for Dostoevsky: he had to write too much, constantly rush, and before he had time to finish one work, he started on the second. (See Dostoevsky in Semipalatinsk.)

Prophecies of Dostoevsky. Read by Lyudmila Saraskina

Around mid-1859, Dostoevsky was allowed to leave Siberia, and then, after several months in Tver, settle in St. Petersburg. Here he found a circle of close people, began to work a lot and soon became the de facto editor of the magazine “Time,” founded in 1861 by his brother Mikhail. The magazine business was in full swing in his hands, and in the third year of its existence, Vremya had four thousand subscribers - a fairly large figure for that time. Dostoevsky perked up, but not for long. In April 1863, an article was published in the magazine Strakhova The "fatal question" caused by the Polish uprising. Due to some strange misunderstanding, this article, which promoted the idea that “the Poles should be fought not only with material, but also with spiritual weapons,” seemed ill-intentioned, and “Time” was banned.

The ban on the magazine had a hard impact on the Dostoevsky brothers. For Fyodor Mikhailovich, the old ordeals began - worries about loans, selling work that had not yet begun. His wife was slowly dying, he himself was ill, but he had to write, write to the deadline, exhausting every page. “My situation,” he wrote on April 5, 1864, “is so difficult that I have never been in such a situation.” The wife died soon after. Eight months after the cessation of Vremya, Mikhail Mikhailovich Dostoevsky was allowed to publish a new magazine called Epoch (the previously proposed titles Pravda and Delo were considered inconvenient). But subscriptions were sluggish, and the magazine barely reached February 1865, introducing Fyodor Mikhailovich, following the death of his brother, into significant troubles and debts.

In the same year, Dostoevsky created one of his most important works. - “Crime and Punishment”, which immediately occupied one of the most prominent places in Russian literature. After 2 years, he entered into a second marriage, which brought him family happiness, but after that, pressed by creditors who threatened to put him in debtor’s prison, Dostoevsky went abroad, where he spent four years of painful wanderings, ending only at the end of 1871 with his return to St. Petersburg . “Crime and Punishment” appeared in 1868 in the “Russian Bulletin”; “Idiot” and “Demons” were also published there. How he lived abroad during these years can be seen from his letters. “Couldn’t he (the publisher of Zarya) realize after my two letters that I don’t have a penny of money, literally not a penny! If only he knew how I got two thalers to telegraph to him. Can I write at this moment?”... “I am again in such need that I could at least hang myself,” he writes in another letter. Irritability and suspiciousness alternate in his letters; he is tormented by the disrespect for his letters from editors and publishers, it seems to him that the police are opening his letters, that they are ordered to wait for him at the border in order to search him most strictly.

With his return to Russia, the calmest period of his life begins for Dostoevsky; material affairs are significantly improving, since both the publication of works and the sale of individual works are increasingly successful: the last sale was made in 1878 in the editorial office of the Russian Messenger, and since then it has become possible not only to live without debt, but also to think about providing for children. Since 1873, the journalistic streak began to speak again in Dostoevsky: this year, at the suggestion of Prince. V.P. Meshchersky edited the magazine “Citizen” with extreme care, but then, for unknown reasons, he refused. From 1876, his “Diary of a Writer” began to be published, under preliminary censorship (due to the lack of a deposit for uncensored publications), which began three years ago in “Citizen”. It consisted of a series of articles where the author touched on a variety of social and literary issues. During the two years of publication, “The Diary” was a great success with the public, touching on the most important aspects of Russian life in a lively, passionate tone. He discovered a significant turn in Dostoevsky's worldview. In the early 1860s, the writer still expressed respect for Belinsky, who once took part in the young author. Now, in the person of Belinsky, before Dostoevsky “there was the most stinking, stupid and shameful phenomenon of Russian life,” a weak and powerless “talent,” a man constantly hovering in dreams divorced from life. Dostoevsky now called the future reference book for all Russians “ Russia and Europe» N. Danilevsky- and prophesied about the impending capture of Constantinople by the Russians.

Two major events in Dostoevsky's life date back to 1880: his passionate speech at the Pushkin festival in Moscow, which delighted the public and sold thousands of copies - and the appearance of The Brothers Karamazov. Dostoevsky's literary fame reached its apogee. The Pushkin holiday, which put him in first place among the writers of that time, brightened up the decline of his life, but Fyodor Mikhailovich’s days were already numbered. At the end of January next year he passed away. Dostoevsky's grave is located in the Alexander Nevsky Lavra.

The writer’s work had a huge impact on all world literature; many philosophers and writers subsequently recognized the influence of Fyodor Mikhailovich’s work on their worldview. Hardly anyone else could so skillfully reveal and show the mysterious human soul.

Childhood and youth

Fyodor Dostoevsky was born on November 11 (October 30), 1821, into the family of a doctor at the Moscow Mariinsky Hospital for the Poor, who had the title of staff physician, Mikhail Dostoevsky and Maria Nechaeva. The future writer and his brothers and sisters spent their childhood in Moscow, in the very hospital where the head of the family served. And although the Dostoevskys lived more than modestly, Fyodor Mikhailovich himself called childhood the best time in his life. In the evenings, the family often held readings of various works: from “History of the Russian State” to Zhukovsky’s poems, and nanny Alena Frolova told the children fairy tales of the peoples of the world, which engendered a love for literature in Fedor’s young heart. And after Mikhail Dostoevsky received the right to hereditary nobility, the family acquired a small estate in the Tula province and spent the summer there.

Particular attention in raising children was given to education. The father personally taught his children Latin, and hired teachers taught Russian literature and French, arithmetic, geography, and the Law of God. In addition, Fyodor and his older brother Mikhail studied at a prestigious Moscow boarding school for several years. After Fyodor Dostoevsky lost his mother in 1837, he and his brother were sent to study in St. Petersburg - at the Main Engineering School. But Fyodor Mikhailovich himself already understood then that his future would not be connected with the exact sciences; his soul gravitated towards poetry and literature.

The future writer graduated from college in 1843 and was immediately enlisted as a field engineer-second lieutenant in the St. Petersburg engineering team. But service in his specialty lasted only about a year, finally deciding that this was “not his” path, Fyodor Dostoevsky resigned and took up literature.

The beginning of a creative journey

During this period of his life, the future luminary of Russian literature read a lot, he especially liked the works of Honore de Balzac, Victor Hugo, William Shakespeare, Johann Schiller and Homer. Among domestic authors, Dostoevsky preferred poems by Gabriel Derzhavin and, as well as works by Nikolai Karamzin.

In the spring of 1845, Fyodor Dostoevsky completed work on his first novel, Poor People. The work of the young talent was enthusiastically received by the St. Petersburg public. and did not skimp on laudatory epithets addressed to Dostoevsky. The latter even published the work in his almanac “Petersburg Collection”. But the assessment of the next creation - the story “The Double” - was much more restrained. Readers found this literary work too drawn-out and boring, and the author had to rework the plot. However, this circumstance did not cool Dostoevsky’s literary fervor at all; he continued to write actively.

Hard labor

In 1847, Dostoevsky, like many young people of that time, became interested in politics. At meetings of the Petrashevsky circle, he discussed with like-minded people the problems of Russian reality, and entered one of the most radical secret societies in its views. At the end of April 1849, the writer, along with others, was arrested and spent 8 months in the Peter and Paul Fortress. The court's sentence was extremely harsh for the literary genius - execution. But fate had mercy and the Petrashevites had their sentence commuted shortly before the execution, but the writer himself learned about this only at the last moment, on the day of the execution. Fyodor Dostoevsky was sent to hard labor in Omsk for 8 years, which was reduced to 4 years, followed by service as a private in Semipalatinsk. After his coronation in 1856, the emperor signed a pardon.

Hard labor did not pass without a trace for Dostoevsky; based on this life experience, he wrote “Notes from the House of the Dead,” where he talked about the life of convicts. The work was dominated by real facts and characters, but there were also fictional ones. Nevertheless, the harsh realities of such correctional labor came as a shock to the St. Petersburg public, returning literary recognition to Dostoevsky.

Mature years

In subsequent years, the writer published the novel “Humiliated and Insulted,” the story “Notes from the Underground,” and the story “A Bad Joke.” However, Dostoevsky’s political views continued to play a significant role; in the 1860s, he and his brother published the magazines “Time” and “Epoch”, based on the ideology of “soilism”. Since 1862, the writer has traveled a lot. He visited Germany, Italy, France, Switzerland, Austria and Britain. While abroad, Dostoevsky became addicted to playing roulette, lost large sums, and the result of this life experience was the famous novel “The Gambler.”

In the next two decades, Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote the main novels of his life, they are also called the “great pentateuch” - “The Idiot”, “Crime and Punishment”, “Demons”, “The Brothers Karamazov” and “The Adolescent”. These novels have become classics of world literature and are among the most famous and widely read literary works.

The novel “The Brothers Karamazov” was the last in the writer’s life; he finished work on it in November 1880, and on February 9 (January 28), 1881, the great Dostoevsky passed away. The writer was buried at the Tikhvin cemetery of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra in St. Petersburg. Many people came to say goodbye to him; the funeral procession stretched for more than a kilometer.

During his early childhood, Fyodor Dostoevsky was raised by his personal nanny, Alena Florovna. After Fedor grew up, she lived with the family as if she were her own. From an early age, Alena Florovna “fed” the young writer’s imagination with fabulous stories about the exploits of the brave Alyosha Popovich, about the miracles of the Firebird, about Bluebeard, etc. After some time, Fyodor learned to read, and was already reading fairy tales and short stories on his own. Most of all, young Dostoevsky was struck by the book “History of the Old and New Testaments,” published in 1819.

At the age of 14, Fedor was sent to the Chermak boarding school - one of the best private educational institutions in Moscow. At the end of the boarding school, Fedor’s parents send him to study in St. Petersburg. On January 16, 1838, Fyodor Dostoevsky was enrolled in the Main Engineering School. This school was located on the territory of the Mikhailovsky Castle, the former palace of Paul I. At the beginning of his studies, Fedor, like all newcomers, or “Ryabtsy,” succumbed to the impudent torture of high school students. In this cruel environment, Dostoevsky, a boy from a loving family, withdraws into himself. The isolation and solitude of the future poet is facilitated by the terrible news that the serfs killed his father. This terrible news shocked Fyodor, because his beloved mother had recently died. The young man was left an orphan. Dostoevsky's life at the military school becomes more painful every day.

On August 12, 1843, Fyodor Dostoevsky completely completed the course of science in the upper officer class. Nikolaev reality met the young man unfriendly. Due to his passion for his creative ideas, Fedor graduated from college far from being in the forefront. After completing his studies, he was sent to serve in one of the first-class defensive fortresses of the state, where large-scale military defense work was to be carried out. The future writer was appointed to a modest post “with use in the drawing room.” The higher authorities trust Dostoevsky only with small works that do not exceed an office scale. These are mainly field cartography and descriptive geometry. This state of affairs does not bother the young builder at all; his head has long been occupied with other tasks.

The service absolutely does not meet Fedor’s needs; he feels like a writer and poet, and not a builder or engineer. However, he still very much doubts whether literature is his calling. For about two months, Dostoevsky lived in extreme poverty, as he spent all his salary on playing billiards.

In 1844, Fyodor Dostoevsky received a business trip to one of the distant fortresses located in Orenburg or Sevastopol. At that time, the writer already held the rank of department engineer. Such a long trip required significant financial expenses. In addition, one of Dostoevsky’s literary works could be interrupted. After thinking a little, Fyodor nevertheless decides to leave the service and devote himself entirely to writing literary works. On October 19, 1844, at his own request, he was expelled from service.

October 30, 1821 - Fyodor Dostoevsky was born into the family of a doctor practicing at the Moscow Mariinsky Hospital for the poor.

1838 - 1843 - studied at the military engineering school located in St. Petersburg. After graduating from college, Dostoevsky entered the drafting department of the engineering department.

1844 - retirement, beginning of literary activity.

1846 - the first story “Poor People” was published. The emergence in other works (“Double”, “White Nights”) of the theme of the psychological duality of people, characteristic of his late work.

1847 - fascination with the ideas of utopian socialism, entry into the revolutionary circle of M. V. Petrashevsky.

1849 - arrest, sentenced to death. The execution was later commuted to 4 years of hard labor.

1850 - 1854 - serving a sentence in the Omsk convict prison.

1859 - return to St. Petersburg, resumption of literary activity.

1860 - 1870 - creation of the largest novels: “Crime and Punishment”, “Idiot”.

1875 - creation of the novel “The Teenager”.

1879 - 1980 - writing the novel “The Brothers Karamazov”.

Turning points in the life of F.M. Dostoevsky

Dostoevsky saw a lot of injustice as a child; his father was a vicious drunkard, a retired military surgeon who worked in a hospital located in one of the poorest areas of Moscow, as well as prisons and insane asylums.

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky studied at the Military Engineering Academy in St. Petersburg, where he studied literature and began a career as a writer after graduating from the academy in 1844. He was 24 years old. In 1849 he decided to turn his life around. He was a member of the Petrashevtsy liberals, at a time when the Tsar decided to suppress any hint of rebellion. He and other members of the Petrashevtsy liberals were arrested and subsequently sentenced to death. Later that year, he was subjected to a mock execution. It was a devastating moment in his life and the psychological scars have not healed.

His sentence was then commuted to 4 years of hard labor in Siberia. It was a real hell for him, people were crowded and lived in neighborhoods that he compared to a coffin. He was released in 1854 and was sent to serve in the Siberian Regiment for five years.

The time spent in prison and in the military regiment significantly changed his political and religious views. He began to despise Western culture, which flowed irreversibly into his native Russia, whose traditions Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky highly valued. Prison strengthened his Russian Orthodox faith, and he began to write serious works in which he described themes of "mental anguish, religious awakening and psychological confusion."

Arrest of Dostoevsky and hard labor

Arrest

Dostoevsky's arrest occurred on April 23, 1849; his archive was taken away during his arrest and probably destroyed in the III department. Dostoevsky spent 8 months in the Alekseevsky ravelin of the Peter and Paul Fortress under investigation, during which he showed courage, hiding many facts and trying, if possible, to mitigate the guilt of his comrades. He was recognized by the investigation as “one of the most important” among the Petrashevites, guilty of “intent to overthrow existing domestic laws and public order.” The initial verdict of the military judicial commission read: “... retired engineer-lieutenant Dostoevsky, for failure to report the dissemination of a criminal letter about religion and government by the writer Belinsky and the malicious writing of lieutenant Grigoriev, to be deprived of his ranks, all rights of state and subjected to the death penalty by shooting.” On December 22, 1849, Dostoevsky, along with others, awaited the execution of the death sentence on the Semyonovsky parade ground. According to the resolution of Nicholas I, his execution was replaced by 4 years of hard labor with deprivation of “all rights of state” and subsequent surrender to the army.

Hard labor

On the night of December 24, Dostoevsky was sent from St. Petersburg in chains. On January 10, 1850 he arrived in Tobolsk, where in the caretaker’s apartment the writer met with the wives of the Decembrists - P.E. Annenkova, A.G. Muravyova and N.D. Fonvizina; they gave him the Gospel, which he kept all his life. From January 1850 to 1854, Dostoevsky, together with Durov, served hard labor as a “laborer” in the Omsk fortress. In January 1854, he was enlisted as a private in the 7th Line Battalion (Semipalatinsk) and was able to resume correspondence with his brother Mikhail and A. Maikov. In November 1855, Dostoevsky was promoted to non-commissioned officer, and after much trouble from prosecutor Wrangel and other Siberian and St. Petersburg acquaintances (including E.I. Totleben) to warrant officer; in the spring of 1857, the writer was returned to hereditary nobility and the right to publish, but police surveillance over him remained until 1875.

On the verge of death. About the last days of the writer's life

There is a simple, truthful story about the last days of Dostoevsky’s life by his faithful, beloved wife Anna Grigorievna.

On the night of January 25, Dostoevsky suffered a pulmonary hemorrhage. At about 5 o'clock in the afternoon the bleeding recurred. Alarmed Anna Grigorievna sent for the doctor. When the doctor began to listen and tap the patient’s chest, the bleeding repeated and was so severe that Fyodor Mikhailovich lost consciousness.

“When he was brought to his senses,” writes Anna Grigorievna in her “Memoirs,” his first words addressed to me were: “Anya, please invite a priest immediately, I want to confess and take communion!” “Although the doctor began to assure that there was no particular danger, but in order to reassure the patient, I fulfilled his wish. We lived near the Vladimir Church, and the invited priest, Fr. Megorsky was already with us half an hour later. Fyodor Mikhailovich calmly and good-naturedly met the priest, confessed for a long time and took communion.

When the priest left and the children and I entered the office to congratulate Fyodor Mikhailovich on receiving the Holy Sacraments, he blessed me and the children, asked them to live in peace, to love each other, to love and take care of me. Having sent the children away, Fyodor Mikhailovich thanked me for the happiness that I had given him, and asked me to forgive me if he had upset me in any way...

The doctor came in, laid the patient on the sofa, forbade him the slightest movement and conversation, and immediately asked to send for two doctors, A.A. Pfeiffer and Professor D.I. Koshchlakov, with whom my husband sometimes consulted...

The night passed peacefully. I woke up around seven o'clock in the morning and saw that my husband was looking in my direction. "Well, how are you feeling, my dear?" - I asked, leaning towards him. “You know, Anya,” said Fyodor Mikhailovich in a half-whisper, “I haven’t slept for three hours and I’m still thinking, and only now I clearly realize that I’m going to die today...” “My dear, why are you thinking this,” I said in terrible anxiety, - after all, you are better now, you are no longer bleeding... For God’s sake, do not torment yourself with doubts, you will still live, I assure you...” “No, I know, I have to die today, Anya. , and give me the Gospel." He himself opened the holy book and asked to read it: the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 3, art. 14-15. ("John restrained Him and said: I need to be baptized by you, and are you coming to me? But Jesus answered him: leave it now; for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness" ...) "You hear - "not hold, “that means I will die,” said the husband and closed the book...” At about 7 o’clock in the evening the bleeding resumed and at eight o’clock thirty-eight minutes F.M. Dostoevsky died (January 28, 1881).

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky was one of the few writers who left us an autobiography. Dostoevsky conveyed a brief history of his life in words to A.G. Dostoevskaya, who carefully documented them and published them in the journal “Diary of a Writer.”

Numerous contemporaries of Fyodor Mikhailovich say that the writer did not like to talk about his life. However, Dostoevsky still left a short story about himself to his descendants.

In the “Diary of a Writer,” the famous classic talks about how, until the age of 16, he grew up under the strict guidance of his parents in Moscow. Having reached the age when it was time to decide on a place for further education, Fyodor Mikhailovich, on the instructions of his parents, went to take exams at the Engineering Institute. Having successfully passed the exam, Dostoevsky studied at the institute until 1842, after which he went into the army. After his retirement, Dostoevsky became a victim of circumstances that determined his future activities. In 1849, he was arrested for associating with traitors to the country who were trying to seize power in the country. He was sent to hard labor, where he lost all his rights as a Russian citizen.

Dostoevsky and anti-Semitism

The Electronic Jewish Encyclopedia claims that anti-Semitism was an integral part of Dostoevsky’s worldview and was expressed both in novels and stories, as well as in the writer’s journalism. A clear confirmation of this, according to the compilers of the encyclopedia, is Dostoevsky’s work “The Jewish Question”. However, Dostoevsky himself in “The Jewish Question” stated: “... this hatred never existed in my heart...”.

In “A Writer’s Diary” in 1873, Dostoevsky wrote: “This is what will happen if things continue, if the people themselves do not come to their senses; and the intelligentsia will not help him. If he doesn’t come to his senses, then the entirety of him, in a very short time, will end up in the hands of all kinds of Jews, and no community will save him...<…>The liquids will drink the blood of the people and feed on the depravity and humiliation of the people, but since they will pay the budget, it follows that they will have to be supported.”

Writer Andrei Dikiy attributes the following quote to Dostoevsky: “The Jews will destroy Russia and become the leaders of anarchy. The Jew and his kahal are a conspiracy against the Russians.” A similar quote, with reference to a letter in response to Nikolai Epifanovich Grishchenko, a teacher at the Kozeletsky parish school in the Chernigov province, is given by Nasedkin: “But a Jew and his kahal are the same as a conspiracy against the Russians!”

Dostoevsky’s attitude to the Jewish question is analyzed by literary critic Leonid Grossman in the article “Dostoevsky and Judaism” and the book “Confession of a Jew,” dedicated to the correspondence between the writer and the Jewish journalist Arkady Kovner. The message to the great writer sent by Kovner from Butyrka prison made an impression on Dostoevsky. He ends his response letter with the words “Believe the complete sincerity with which I shake the hand you extended to me,” and in the chapter on the Jewish question in “The Diary of a Writer” he extensively quotes Kovner.

According to the critic Maya Turovskaya, the mutual interest of Dostoevsky and the Jews is caused by the embodiment in the Jews (and in Kovner, in particular) of the quest of Dostoevsky’s characters.

According to Nikolai Nasedkin, a contradictory attitude towards Jews is generally characteristic of Dostoevsky. It should be noted that Dostoevsky's hostility towards Jews may have been related to his religious beliefs.

Soon after the publication of White Nights, the writer was arrested on charges of connections with the Petrashevsky case. The court, despite denying the charges, finds him guilty. The death penalty was scheduled for December 22, 1949, and at the last moment a pardon and the imposition of hard labor were announced. Dostoevsky put all the terrible feelings before his execution into the mouth of Prince Myshkin, the hero of “The Idiot.”

The writer's hard labor lasted four years and took place in Omsk; after his release, he was sent to the seventh linear Siberian battalion as a private. During his service, he met Maria Isaeva, with whom he married in 1857 in Kuznetsk. On February 20, 1857, Dostoevsky and his wife returned to Semipalatinsk and lived there until in 1859 he received a temporary ticket giving him the right to travel to Tver.

Dostoevsky in the Russian Revolution

If Gogol is not immediately visible in the Russian revolution and the very presentation of this topic may raise doubts, then in Dostoevsky one cannot help but see the prophet of the Russian revolution. The Russian revolution is imbued with those principles that Dostoevsky saw and to which he gave a brilliantly sharp definition. Dostoevsky was given the opportunity to reveal to the depths the dialectics of Russian revolutionary thought and draw the final conclusions from it. He did not remain on the surface of socio-political ideas and constructions, he penetrated into the depths and exposed the metaphysics of Russian revolutionism. Dostoevsky discovered that Russian revolutionism is a metaphysical and religious phenomenon, and not a political and social one.

This is how he managed to religiously comprehend the nature of Russian socialism. Russian socialism is concerned with the question of whether there is a God or not. And Dostoevsky foresaw how bitter the fruits of Russian socialism would be. He exposed the elements of Russian nihilism and Russian atheism, completely original, not similar to Western ones. Dostoevsky had a brilliant gift for revealing depth and discovering the final limits. He never remains in the middle, does not stop at transitional states, always leads to the last and final. His creative artistic act is apocalyptic, and in this he is truly a Russian national genius. Dostoevsky's method is different from Gogol's. Gogol is a more perfect artist.

Dostoevsky is first of all a great psychologist and metaphysician. He reveals evil and evil spirits from within a person’s mental life and from within his dialectics of thought. All of Dostoevsky’s work is an anthropological revelation, a revelation of human depth, not only mental, but also spiritual depth. Those human thoughts and those human passions are revealed to him, which no longer represent psychology, but the ontology of human nature. In Dostoevsky, unlike Gogol, the image of a person always remains and the fate of a person is revealed from the inside. Evil does not completely destroy the human image. Dostoevsky believes that through internal catastrophe, evil can turn into good. And therefore his work is less creepy than Gogol’s work, which leaves almost no hope.

Women in the life of Dostoevsky: Russian “Marquis de Sade”

To say that Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky had heightened sexuality means to say almost nothing. This physiological property was so developed in him that, despite all efforts to hide it, it involuntarily broke out - in words, looks, actions. This, of course, was noticed by those around him and... ridiculed him. Turgenev called him “the Russian Marquis de Sade.” Unable to control his sensual fire, he resorted to the services of prostitutes. But many of them, having once tasted Dostoevsky’s love, then refused his proposals: his love was too unusual, and, most importantly, painful.

His sexuality was sadomasochistic in nature. He liked to turn a woman into his toy, and after that he wanted to feel like he was her thing... Not everyone could endure this.

Neither pouring cold water nor working up a sweat helped to calm the sexual heat.

"Beauty will save the world." This could only be said by a person who himself was deprived of beauty and did not hope to ever enjoy it. Feeling like a kind of Quasimodo, Dostoevsky reacted extremely emotionally to all beauty. But first of all - on female beauty. Of course: what kind of beauty would agree to be next to such a nonentity and a freak?! And this is exactly how he realized himself for a long time. That’s why his reaction to any beautiful face and especially... beautiful female legs was so impressionable.

Oh those legs! If he sees a piece of a slender ankle from under a coquettishly raised dress, he will faint. He sees a stocking with a garter on a lady's mannequin in the window and looks for a bench to catch his breath and not lose consciousness. He will end almost every letter to Anna Grigorievna with a mental kiss of her feet: “I kiss five toes on your foot, I kiss your leg and heel, I kiss you without kissing you, I keep imagining it...”, “I kiss you every minute in my dreams all, every minute, passionately. I especially love what it says about: “And he is delighted and intoxicated with this lovely object.” I kiss this object every minute in all forms and intend to kiss it all my life,” “Oh, how I kiss you, how I kiss you! Anka, don’t say that this is rude, but what should I do, that’s who I am, you can’t judge me... I kiss your toes, then your lips, then what “I am delighted and intoxicated with.”

His impressionability clearly went beyond the norm. When some street beauty told him “no,” he would faint. And if she said yes, the result was often exactly the same.

In bed with Dostoevsky

To speak of a great writer, a world-class classic, one of the greatest masters of thought as a lover, a husband and a man with “sexual oddities” is, to put it mildly, not easy. Firstly, it is incredibly difficult to overcome piety. And secondly, the topic itself is too “dangerous” - when you call a spade a spade, the words become ponderous and rude, and it is difficult to observe the measure if we are talking about such a brilliant and sick individual as Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky.

Singer of monstrous erotica?

Many of his character traits and life events continue to remain mysterious and inexplicable. Only a few friends knew the real truth about him. In his novels and stories, he spoke so excitedly about the secrets, failures and madness of sex, so persistently brought out sensualists, molesters and debauchees, so soulfully painted “infernal” (fatal) and sinful women, that the question quite naturally arises: where did his exceptional knowledge of the heavy, sometimes monstrous eroticism of his incensed heroes and heroines? Did he create this whole world of passions, crimes and retribution, upsurges of the spirit and the madness of the flesh from observations, fantasies or his own experience? Who and how did he love and what was Dostoevsky like as a husband and lover? Perhaps some things in this story will seem implausible or unlikely to you, but Dostoevsky was much more complex than any of his heroes. A brilliant epileptic who went through the terrible trials of death, hard labor, poverty and loneliness, a pathological lover and a restless seeker of holiness, he lived a unique, fantastic life.

First love

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky grew up in a family over which his despot father had unlimited power. Hot-tempered, gloomy and suspicious, he reached pathological exaggerations in his grievances and fantasies. Mikhail Andreevich was capable of accusing his wife of infidelity in the seventh month of pregnancy, and then painfully experiencing his doubts. His outbursts of anger were almost equally painful. All the signs of duality and neurosis, which later appeared in his son, are clearly visible in Doctor Dostoevsky. It is likely that they became the cause of the terrible disease - epilepsy. His mother died when Fedor was not yet sixteen years old. That same year, he and his older brother were sent to the St. Petersburg Engineering Military School. The teenager Dostoevsky was withdrawn and timid, he had neither “manners”, nor money, nor a noble name. If his peers boasted about their knowledge of the secrets of love, gained in the arms of serf girls and St. Petersburg prostitutes, then Fyodor could only remain silent. After graduating from school with grief, Dostoevsky immediately resigned and took up writing. This was the only way to earn a living: at eighteen he was left an orphan with a bunch of younger brothers and sisters. At the age of 24, with the success of the story “Poor People,” the doors of St. Petersburg salons opened for Dostoevsky. At the writer Ivan Panaev's place, he meets his wife, Avdotya Yakovlevna, and falls head over heels in love. Three months later, Dostoevsky writes to his brother: “I am seriously in love with Panaeva... I am sick with nerves and am afraid of a fever or a nervous fever.” The first love was painful and ended humiliatingly. The 22-year-old brunette beauty Panaeva did not pay any attention to the thin, blond, nervous young man with a sickly complexion, but became the mistress of Nikolai Nekrasov, who was more persistent, richer, and more famous. Well, she can be understood... Nevertheless, one should not think that the unhappy lover was a complete virgin. By his own admission, Fyodor did not refuse to participate in friendly revels, and noisy evenings usually ended in brothels. At the age of 24, Dostoevsky wrote: “I am so dissolute that I can no longer live normally, I am afraid of typhus or fever, and my nerves are bad,” and also: “Minushki, Klarushka, Marianna, etc. have become extremely prettier, but they cost terrible money “The other day Turgenev and Belinsky scolded me to dust for my disorderly life.”

But literary success very quickly gave way to failure. Neither the public nor the critics liked the next work, “The Double.” Dostoevsky "went to the bottom." Nikolai Strakhov, a biographer and close friend of Dostoevsky, said that the description of the youth of the hero of “Notes from Underground” is very autobiographical: “At that time I was only 24 years old. My life was gloomy, chaotic and wildly lonely... At home I am most of all I read, but at times I got terribly bored... I wanted to move, and I suddenly plunged into dark, underground, disgusting not debauchery, but debauchery... The outbursts were hysterical, with tears and convulsions... I debauched myself alone, at night, in secret , fearfully, with shame that did not leave me in the most disgusting moments... I was terribly afraid that they would somehow not see me, would not recognize me... I walked through the darkest places..."

By the age of 28, Dostoevsky became interested in utopian socialism, ended up in Petrashevsky’s circle, and from there, after a terrible torture with an imaginary execution, he went to hard labor, where he met his first wife.

Dostoevsky's wife is an angel sent from heaven

At the end of the last century, English scientists told the world about what a simply ideal wife should be like. According to a man, this is a woman who knows how to agree with her husband on all issues and do it in the sweetest and most pleasant manner - “Yes, dear!”, “I agree with you, dear,” and the like.

The famous Russian writer Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky was certainly lucky in this sense. His second wife was former stenographer Anna Grigorievna Snitkina. This was exactly the woman the writer needed - an angel who descended from heaven and became his guardian in life. Even Leo Tolstoy said about Anna Grigorievna that she is the woman that any writer needs. Although at the same time, Tolstoy’s wife was also always an example of an ideal wife.

Dostoevsky's quarrelsome character and habits could easily lead him to a madhouse or even to prison. But his salvation from all these possible ups and downs of life was Anna Grigorievna, who always knows how to pacify the “demons” that sometimes play out in the writer’s head.

Anna Grigorievna Dostoevskaya

Anna Grigorievna Dostoevskaya (nee Snitkina) is the second wife of F. M. Dostoevsky, the mother of his four children.

Born in St. Petersburg, in the family of a minor official Grigory Ivanovich Snitkin. Since childhood, I have been engrossed in the works of Dostoevsky.

From October 4, 1866, as a stenographer-scribe, she participated in the preparation for printing of the novel “The Gambler” by F. M. Dostoevsky. On February 15, 1867, Anna Grigorievna became the writer’s wife, and two months later the Dostoevskys went abroad, where they remained for more than four years (until July 1871).

On the way to Germany, the couple stopped for several days in Vilna. On the building located on the site where the hotel where the Dostoevskys stayed was located, a memorial tablet was unveiled in December 2006 (sculptor Romualdas Quintas). Heading south to Switzerland, the Dostoevskys stopped in Baden, where Fyodor Mikhailovich first won 4,000 francs at roulette, but could not stop and lost everything that was with him, not excluding his dress and his wife’s belongings. For almost a year they lived in Geneva, where the writer worked desperately, and sometimes needed the bare necessities. There their first daughter, Sophia, was born, but at the age of three months the child died, to the indescribable despair of the parents. In 1869, the Dostoevskys' daughter Lyubov was born in Dresden.

Upon the couple's return to St. Petersburg, their sons Fyodor and Alexey were born. At the same time, the brightest period in the life of the novelist began, in a beloved family, with a kind and intelligent wife, who took into her own hands all the economic issues of his activities (financial and publishing affairs) and soon freed her husband from debt. In 1871, Dostoevsky gave up roulette forever. Anna Grigorievna arranged the life of the writer and did business with publishers and printing houses, and she herself published his works. The writer's last novel, The Brothers Karamazov (1879-1880), is dedicated to her.

In the year of Dostoevsky's death (1881), Anna Grigorievna turned 35 years old. She did not remarry. After the writer’s death, she collected his manuscripts, letters, documents, and photographs. In 1906 she organized a room dedicated to Fyodor Mikhailovich in the Historical Museum in Moscow. Since 1929, her collection moved to the museum-apartment of F. M. Dostoevsky in Moscow. Anna Grigorievna compiled and published in 1906 “Bibliographical index of works and works of art relating to the life and work of F. M. Dostoevsky” and the catalog “Museum in memory of F. M. Dostoevsky in the Imperial Russian Historical Museum named after Alexander III in Moscow, 1846— 1903". Her books “The Diary of A. G. Dostoevskaya 1867” (published in 1923) and “Memoirs of A. G. Dostoevskaya” (published in 1925) are an important source for the writer’s biography. Anna Grigorievna died in Yalta during the wartime famine of 1918.

Appolinaria Suslova

Bright, talented, unforgettable, scandalous, arrogant Apollinaria Suslova went through the life of Fyodor Dostoevsky. Love that brought only suffering to both.

Having studied at a boarding school for noble maidens, Polina - as Suslov's relatives called her - after the family moved to St. Petersburg, she began attending university lectures, where Dostoevsky was one of the popular lecturers among young people. 1861 - first meeting, the young student is 21 years old, the venerable writer is already forty.

However, she was not a diligent student, attending lectures only out of a desire to be in the thick of things. Polina flirted with students, took an active part in political demonstrations, attended balls and literary student evenings, and diligently courted Dostoevsky, trying to please him in everything. Fyodor Mikhailovich seemed not to notice what was happening, then she declared her love to him in an ardent letter. After some time, they began an affair.

Appolinaria's selfishness and pride quickly began to oppress Dostoevsky. His help in the literary field was not crowned with success for Suslova; her story, published in the Dostoevsky family magazine “Time,” was frankly weak.

Secret meetings, constant reproaches, demands for divorce from his sick wife. Appolinaria played with the writer’s feelings; at the slightest suspicion of the possible end of their romance, she threatened to commit suicide. Meanwhile, she herself did not refuse meetings with other men. This exhausting relationship depressed Dostoevsky, however, after the death of his wife, he proposed to Suslova, but was refused.

It is surprising that for Appolinaria Dostoevsky was just one of his admirers; she did not appreciate his writing talent and did not read his books. Submissive service to a genius could not become her lot; she was too proud and willful for that.

Critics often find traits of Suslova in the images created by Dostoevsky. This painful love is reflected in many of his works.

The most famous museum of Dostoevsky F.M. is his memorial museum. Dostoevsky lived in this six-room apartment from October 5, 1878 to January 28, 1881. The interiors of the writer’s office, Anna Grigorievna’s room, the nursery, the living room and the dining room are faithfully reproduced in the memorial apartment. Here you can see furniture from those years and personal belongings of both Dostoevsky himself and his loved ones. Famous St. Petersburg writers of those years often gathered in the writer’s living room, staying up late. Fyodor Mikhailovich himself spent many hours in this room, thinking about his future works. Museum visitors have the opportunity to familiarize themselves with the writer’s personal documents and notes.

No less famous is the house-museum of F.M. Dostoevsky in Staraya Russa. In Staraya Russa, the writer at one time purchased a house in which he hoped to find peace and family happiness. Now this house has been turned into a museum, telling us about the life of the writer and his family in Staraya Russa. In this house, Dostoevsky wrote his famous works “The Brothers Karamazov”, “Demons” and “Teenager”.

The interior of the house was recreated almost completely, which allows museum visitors to experience the atmosphere in which our great compatriot worked. Every year the museum organizes readings “Dostoevsky and Modernity,” which attracts fans of the writer from Russia and the CIS countries, Canada and Japan.

About the museums F.M. Dostoevsky

The most famous museum of F.M. Dostoevsky is, of course, the “House-Museum of F. M. Dostoevsky” in Staraya Russa. However, this is not the only museum in the world dedicated to the life of the great Russian writer.

There are seven such museums in the world. Of these, all but one are located on the territory of the Russian Federation. The remaining museum is located on the territory of the Republic of Kazakhstan.

The three museums are united by a common name - "Literary and Memorial Museum of F. M. Dostoevsky." One of them is located in the northern capital of our Motherland - St. Petersburg, the second in Novokuznetsk, and the third is exactly the one museum that is located in Kazakhstan, in the city of Semipalatinsk.

In Omsk, where Fyodor Mikhailovich spent years of hard labor, a fourth museum was opened called “Omsk State Literary Museum of F. M. Dostoevsky.”

The fifth museum on our list is the most famous museum of the writer, located in Staraya Russa.

The sixth museum is located in Dostoevsky’s homeland - Moscow. This is the "Museum-apartment of F. M. Dostoevsky."

Finally, the seventh museum is the “Museum-Estate in the Village of Darovoye”. The house where it is located once belonged to the writer’s parents.

Novels:

Poor people

Brothers Karamazov

Teenager

Crime and Punishment

Humiliated and insulted

Novels and stories:

White Nights

Eternal husband

Mr. Prokharchin

Two suicides

Uncle's dream

Christmas tree and wedding

Notes from the Underground

Crocodile

Little hero

Boy at Christ's Christmas tree

Netochka Nezvanova

Petersburg dreams in verse and prose

Sliders

A Novel in Nine Letters

The village of Stepanchikovo and its inhabitants

Bad joke

Weak heart

Funny man's dream

Honest Thief

Someone else's wife and husband under the bed

Correspondence and speeches:

Pushkin speech

Books of essays and criticism:

Notes from a Dead House

Winter notes about summer impressions

Petersburg Chronicle

Sentence

Pushkin F.M. Dostoevsky, D.V. Grigorovich, N.A. Nekrasov.

How dangerous it is to indulge in ambitious dreams

Writer's Diary:

Writer's Diary. 1873

Writer's Diary. 1876

Writer's Diary. 1880

Writer's Diary. 1881

Writer's Diary. September - December 1877.

Writer's Diary. January - August 1877.

- If you want to conquer the whole world, defeat yourself.

— A smart wife and a jealous wife are two different things.

“You can’t love what you don’t know!”

- Many people are honest because they are fools.

- Justify, do not punish, but call evil evil.

— Happiness is not in happiness, but only in its achievement.

“Love is so omnipotent that it regenerates us too.”

— Humor is the wit of deep feeling.

— There are moments when people love crimes.

— The fantastic is the essence of reality.

— The measure of a people is not what it is, but what it considers beautiful and true.

“You have to love life more than the meaning of life.”

- In a truly loving heart, either jealousy kills love, or love kills jealousy.

— The Russian people seem to enjoy their suffering.

— A writer whose works have not been successful easily becomes a bilious critic: just like a weak and tasteless wine can become an excellent vinegar.

— Money is minted freedom.

- Knowledge does not regenerate a person: it only changes him, but changes him not into one universal, official form, but in accordance with the nature of this person.

— Arousing compassion for the beautiful that is ridiculed and does not know its worth is the secret of humor.

- The more national we are, the more we will be Europeans (all people).

- Only having mastered the initial material, that is, our native language, to the possible perfection, will we be able to master a foreign language to the possible perfection, but not before.

In Moscow.

He was the second child of six in the family of a doctor at the Moscow Mariinsky Hospital for the Poor, the son of the Uniate priest Mikhail Dostoevsky, who in 1828 received the title of hereditary nobleman. The future writer's mother came from a merchant family.

Since 1832, Fyodor and his older brother Mikhail began studying with teachers who came to the house; from 1833 they studied at the boarding school of Nikolai Drashusov (Sushara), then at the boarding school of Leonty Chermak. After the death of their mother in 1837, their father took them and their brother to St. Petersburg to continue their education. In 1839, he died of apoplexy (according to family legends, he was killed by serfs).

In 1838, Fyodor Dostoevsky entered the Engineering School in St. Petersburg, from which he graduated in 1843.

After graduating from college, he served in the St. Petersburg engineering team and was assigned to the drawing room of the Engineering Department.

In 1844 he retired to devote himself to literature. In 1846 he published his first work - the story "Poor People", enthusiastically received by the critic Vissarion Belinsky.
In 1847-1849, Dostoevsky wrote the stories “The Mistress” (1847), “Weak Heart” and “White Nights” (both 1848), and “Netochka Nezvanova” (1849, unfinished).

During this period, the writer became close to the circle of the Beketov brothers (among the participants were Alexey Pleshcheev, Apollo and Valerian Maykov, Dmitry Grigorovich), in which not only literary, but also social problems were discussed. In the spring of 1847, Dostoevsky began to attend the “Fridays” of Mikhail Petrashevsky, and in the winter of 1848-1849 - the circle of the poet Sergei Durov, which also consisted mainly of Petrashevsky members. At the meetings, problems of the liberation of peasants, court reforms and censorship were discussed, treatises by French socialists and articles by Alexander Herzen were read. In 1848, Dostoevsky entered a special secret society organized by the most radical Petrashevist Nikolai Speshnev, which set as its goal “to carry out a revolution in Russia.”

In the spring of 1849, along with other Petrashevites, the writer was arrested and imprisoned in the Alekseevsky ravelin of the Peter and Paul Fortress. After eight months of imprisonment, where Dostoevsky behaved courageously and even wrote the story “The Little Hero” (published in 1857), he was found guilty “of intent to overthrow ... the state order” and was initially sentenced to death. Already on the scaffold, he was told that the execution had been replaced by four years of hard labor with the deprivation of “all rights of fortune” and subsequent surrender as a soldier. Dostoevsky served his hard labor in the Omsk fortress, among criminals.

From January 1854 he served as a private in Semipalatinsk, in 1855 he was promoted to non-commissioned officer, and in 1856 to ensign. In 1857, his nobility and the right to publish were returned to him. At the same time, he married the widow Maria Isaeva, who took part in his fate even before marriage.

In Siberia, Dostoevsky wrote the stories “Uncle’s Dream” and “The Village of Stepanchikovo and Its Inhabitants” (both 1859).

In 1859 he retired and received permission to live in Tver. At the end of the year, the writer moved to St. Petersburg and, together with his brother Mikhail, began publishing the magazines “Time” and “Epoch”. On the pages of Vremya, in an effort to strengthen his reputation, Dostoevsky published his novel “Humiliated and Insulted” (1861).

In 1863, during his second trip abroad, the writer met Apollinaria Suslova; their complex relationship, as well as a gambling game of roulette in Baden-Baden, provided material for the future novel “The Gambler.”

After the death of his first wife in 1864, and then the death of his brother Mikhail, Dostoevsky assumed all the debts for publishing the Epoch magazine, but soon stopped it due to a drop in subscriptions. After traveling abroad, the writer spent the summer of 1866 in Moscow and at a dacha near Moscow, working on the novel Crime and Punishment. At the same time, Dostoevsky was working on the novel “The Gambler,” which he dictated to stenographer Anna Snitkina, who became the writer’s wife in the winter of 1867.

In 1867-1868, Dostoevsky wrote the novel “The Idiot,” the task of which he saw as “depicting a positively beautiful person.”

The next novel, “Demons” (1871-1872), was created by him under the impression of the terrorist activities of Sergei Nechaev and the secret society “People’s Retribution” organized by him. In 1875, the novel “The Teenager” was published, written in the form of a confession of a young man, whose consciousness is formed in an environment of “general decomposition.” The theme of the disintegration of family ties was continued in Dostoevsky’s final novel “The Brothers Karamazov” (1879-1880), conceived as a depiction of “our intelligentsia Russia” and at the same time as a novel-life of the main character Alyosha Karamazov.

In 1873, Dostoevsky began editing the newspaper-magazine "Citizen". In 1874, he abandoned editing the magazine due to disagreements with the publisher and deteriorating health, and at the end of 1875 he resumed work on A Writer's Diary, which he began in 1873, which he continued intermittently until the end of his life.

On February 7 (January 26, old style), 1881, the writer began bleeding from the throat, and doctors diagnosed a ruptured pulmonary artery.

On February 9 (January 28, old style), 1881, Fyodor Dostoevsky died in St. Petersburg. The writer was buried at the Tikhvin cemetery of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra.

On November 11, 1928, on the occasion of the writer’s birthday, the world’s first Dostoevsky Museum was opened in Moscow in the northern wing of the former Mariinsky Hospital for the Poor.

On November 12, 1971, in St. Petersburg, in the house where the writer spent the last years of his life, the F.M. Literary Memorial Museum was opened. Dostoevsky.

In the same year, on the 150th anniversary of the writer’s birth, the Semipalatinsk Literary and Memorial Museum of F. M. Dostoevsky was opened in the house where he lived in 1857-1859 while serving in a line battalion.

Since 1974, the Dostoevsky estate Darovoye, Zaraisk district, Tula region, where the writer vacationed in the 1830s, acquired the status of a museum of republican significance.

In May 1980, in Novokuznetsk, in the house that the writer’s first wife Maria Isaeva rented in 1855-1857, the F.M. Literary and Memorial Museum was opened. Dostoevsky.

In May 1981, the Writer's House-Museum was opened in Staraya Russa, where the Dostoevsky family spent the summer.

In January 1983, the Literary Museum received its first visitors. F.M. Dostoevsky in Omsk.

Among the monuments to the writer, the most famous is the sculpture of Dostoevsky at the State Library named after V.I. Lenin on the corner of Mokhovaya and Vozdvizhenka in Moscow, a monument to Dostoevsky in the park of the Mariinsky Hospital near the writer’s memorial museum in the capital, a monument to Dostoevsky in St. Petersburg on Bolshaya Moskovskaya Street.

In October 2006, a monument to Fyodor Dostoevsky in Dresden, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Federal Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel.

Streets are named after the writer in Moscow and St. Petersburg, as well as in other Russian cities. In December 1991, the Dostoevskaya metro station was opened in St. Petersburg, and in 2010 in Moscow.

After his death, the writer's widow Anna Dostoevskaya (1846-1918) devoted herself to republishing her husband's books and perpetuating his memory. She died in 1918 in Yalta; in 1968, her ashes, according to her last wish, were reburied in Dostoevsky’s grave.