A lot of articles and books are devoted to Dostoevsky, his life and work. For all 130 years since the day of his death, this man, who tried to penetrate (and penetrated) into the most hidden depths of human relationships, to discern (and in his own way discerned) some higher goal of social development, was in the crosshairs of attention not only of literary critics, philosophers, historians, but also readers, sharply divided into unquestioning admirers and no less categorical deniers. Enviable writer's destiny. But what a price to pay for it! Vladimir Ilyich mercilessly condemned the reactionary tendencies in Dostoevsky's work. At the same time, Vladimir Ilyich said more than once that Dostoevsky was indeed a brilliant writer, who considered the sick sides of his contemporary society, that he had many contradictions, kinks, but at the same time vivid pictures of reality.
From the pages of the Pravda newspaper
2011-02-08 11:31
V.D. Bonch-Bruevich.
A man had to appear who would embody in his soul the memory of all these human torments and reflect this terrible memory - this man Dostoevsky.
M. GORKY.
Russia was drawn to him as one irrepressible boundless soul, as an ocean of boundless contradictions. But it was precisely this barbaric, ignorant country of Peter the Great and the self-burners, trailing at the tail of civilization, that he pictured as the most capable of giving the world something new, bright and great ... It is from its rejection, from its torments, from its chains that the Russian people can endure, according to Dostoevsky, all those necessary highest spiritual qualities that the bourgeois West will never acquire.
A.V. LUNACHARSKII.
Mr. Dostoevsky's talent belongs to the category of those that are not suddenly comprehended and recognized. Many talents will appear in the course of his career, which will be opposed to him, but they will end up being forgotten just at the time when he reaches the apogee of his glory.
V.G. BELINSKY.
In the works of Dostoevsky we find one common feature, more or less noticeable in everything that he wrote: it is the pain of a person who admits that he is not able or, finally, does not even have the right to be a real, complete, independent person, on his own.
ON THE. Dobrolyubov.
The other day I wasn't feeling well and I was reading House of the Dead. I forgot a lot, re-read and I don’t know a better book from all new literature, including Pushkin ... I enjoyed the whole day yesterday, as I had not enjoyed for a long time. If you see Dostoevsky, tell him that I love him.
L.N. TOLSTOY.
(From a letter to N.N. Strakhov).
Since literature became an important factor in the life of peoples, great writers have tried many times to reflect the suffering of living people in their works. In Russia, Dostoevsky and Tolstoy serve as examples of this.
T. DREISER.
I have always loved Dostoevsky with his broad, open heart, more than other Europeans.
F.S. FITZGERALD.
His works not only made a strong impression on me - they captured and shocked me.
G. BÖLL.
The speaker spread his wings
He grew up on the stage, raised his head proudly, his eyes shone on his pale face with excitement, his voice grew stronger and sounded with special power, and his gesture became energetic and commanding. From the very beginning of the speech between him and the whole mass of listeners, that inner spiritual connection was established, the consciousness and sensation of which always make the speaker feel and spread his wings. A restrained excitement began in the hall, which kept growing, and when Fyodor Mikhailovich finished, there was a moment of silence, and then, like a stormy stream, an ecstasy unheard of and never seen in my life broke through. Applause, screams, and the clatter of chairs merged together and, as they say, shook the walls of the hall. Many cried, turned to unfamiliar neighbors with exclamations and greetings; and a young man fainted from the excitement that seized him. Almost everyone was in such a state that, it seemed, they would follow the speaker at his first call, anywhere! So, probably, in the distant past, Savonarola knew how to influence the gathered crowd.
From the memoirs of the historical performance of F.M. Dostoevsky - "Pushkin's speech" - the famous Russian lawyer A.F. Horses.
Einstein read Dostoevsky, Freud argued with him, Nabokov hated him. Director Akira Kurosawa made Prince Myshkin Japanese - and the Japanese fell in love with the books of the great writer. It was rumored that a portrait of Dostoevsky hung in Hitler's office, and the "chief propagandist" of the Reich, Joseph Goebbels
read the novels of this Russian writer, as in his homeland. Today Dostoevsky is one of the most quoted and one of the most translated Russian writers in the world.
Albert Einstein on Dostoevsky
The great scientist spoke of Dostoevsky almost more enthusiastically than many writers. It would seem that the famous physicist should have named the scientists who preceded him among his idols. But Einstein said: "Dostoevsky gave me a lot, an extraordinary lot, more than Gauss." The work of Gauss helped Einstein develop the mathematical basis for the theory of relativity. Perhaps the philosophy of Dostoevsky prompted the physicist to the ideas that he used in his works.
Einstein said that works of art give him a feeling of supreme happiness. In order to catch this feeling, to understand the greatness of the work, he does not need to be an art or literary critic. He admitted: “After all, all such studies will never penetrate into the core of such a creation as The Brothers Karamazov.”
Friedrich Nietzsche: philosopher who studied with Dostoyevsky
The famous philosopher said that acquaintance with the work of Dostoevsky "belongs to the happiest discoveries" in his life. He considered Dostoevsky a genius, consonant with his worldview, "the only psychologist" from whom he had something to learn.Nietzsche especially admired Notes from the Underground. He wrote that when reading this book, the instinct of kinship immediately spoke in him.
However, admiring, Nietzsche testified that Dostoevsky was not close to “Russian pessimism” and even called the writer a champion of the “morality of slaves”, and many of the writer’s conclusions contradicted his “secret instincts”.
Franz Kafka - Dostoevsky's "blood relative"
Another gloomy author who felt a "kinship" with Dostoevsky. Kafka wrote to his beloved woman, Felicia Bauer, that the Russian writer was one of only four authors in the world with whom he felt "kindred by blood." True, in the letter he tried to convince Felicia that he was not created for family life. After all, of the four writers he mentioned (Dostoevsky, Kleist, Flaubert, Grillparzer), only Dostoevsky married.
Kafka enthusiastically read excerpts from the novel The Teenager to his friend Max Brod. He noted in his memoirs that it was the fifth chapter of the novel that largely predetermined the peculiar style of Kafka.
The "father of psychoanalysis" did not limit himself to mentioning Dostoevsky. He wrote a whole work about him - "Dostoevsky and parricide." Freud was interested not so much in the artistic merits of the Russian classic's novels as in his ideas. As a writer, Freud ranked Dostoyevsky on a par with Shakespeare, calling The Brothers Karamazov the greatest novel ever written. And a masterpiece within a masterpiece - "The Legend of the Grand Inquisitor" from the same novel, "one of the highest achievements of world literature."
But as a moralist, Dostoevsky the thinker, according to Freud, is much inferior to Dostoevsky the writer. Freud emphasized that Dostoevsky could become the "Teacher and Liberator" of people, but chose to join "their jailers."
An outstanding Japanese director made Dostoevsky a cult among the Japanese. His film The Idiot takes the action of the novel to Japan and demonstrates that the issues raised by Dostoevsky are relevant for all peoples and cultures.
Kurosawa admitted that he loved Dostoevsky since childhood because he honestly wrote about life. The writer attracted the director with special compassion for people, participation, kindness. Kurosawa even declared that Dostoevsky transcended "the boundaries of the human" and that there is a "divine trait" in him. The director himself shared the views of the writer and, of all his heroes, he singled out Myshkin in particular. Therefore, the film "The Idiot" he called among his favorite creations. As Kurosawa said, making this film was not easy - Dostoevsky seemed to be standing behind him.
The director, who gave his idea a lot of energy, even fell ill shortly after the end of the work. But he appreciated the film as an attempt to convey the "spirit" of Dostoevsky and bring it to the Japanese audience. Kurosawa succeeded - he never received so many responses for one job.
Largely thanks to Kurosawa, the Japanese fell in love with the Russian classic. In 1975, the famous Japanese critic Kenichi Matsumoto wrote that the Japanese were obsessed with Dostoevsky. Now in Japan there is another “boom” of Dostoevsky: for example, in 2007 a new translation of “The Brothers Karamazov” was published and immediately became a bestseller.
Ernest Hemingway: how to respect Dostoevsky and not love his books
Peru of this writer belongs to perhaps the most controversial assessments of Dostoevsky. In the novel A Holiday That Is Always With You, Hemingway devoted an entire episode to a conversation about Dostoevsky.
Hemingway, like most famous foreign figures, read novels in translation. Thus, the translator Constance Garnett instilled in America a “taste for Dostoevsky”. There was even a joke that Americans love not Russian classics, but Constance.
Hemingway's hero, who has an autobiographical basis, admitted that even a "ennobled" translation does not save the style of novels: "how can a person write so badly, so incredibly badly." But at the same time, the idea, the spirit remains - the texts have an incredibly strong effect on the reader.
But Hemingway refused to re-read Dostoevsky, despite the strong influence. He described a certain journey in which he had with him the book Crime and Punishment. But he preferred to study German, read newspapers, just not to take on a great novel. However, The Brothers Karamazov was still included in the list of the most important books for Hemingway.
In the life of the writer himself there was his painful love story -.
Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky was born on November 11, 1821 in Moscow. His father, Mikhail Andreevich, came from the family of the Dostoevsky gentry of the Radvan coat of arms. He received a medical education and worked in the Borodino Infantry Regiment, the Moscow Military Hospital, and the Mariinsky Hospital for the Poor. The mother of the future famous writer, Maria Fedorovna Nechaeva, was the daughter of a metropolitan merchant.
Fedor's parents were not rich people, but they worked tirelessly to provide for their families and give their children a good education. Subsequently, Dostoevsky more than once admitted that he was immensely grateful to his father and mother for the excellent upbringing and education that 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 Testament" for this. This is partly why in Dostoevsky's famous book "The Brothers Karamazov" the character Zosima in one of the dialogues says that in childhood he learned to read precisely from this book.
Young Fyodor also mastered reading skills on the biblical Book of Job, which was also reflected in his subsequent works: the writer used his thoughts on this book when creating the famous novel "Teenager". The father also contributed to the education of his son, teaching him Latin.
In total, seven children were born in the Dostoevsky family. So, Fedor 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 his youth, Mikhail and Fedor were taught at home by N.I. Drashusov, teacher of the Alexander and Catherine's 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 boys mathematics and literature, respectively. In the period from 1834 to 1837, Fedor and Mikhail continued their studies at the L.I. Chermak, which was then a very prestigious educational institution.
In 1837, a terrible thing happened: Maria Fedorovna Dostoevskaya died of consumption. Fedor at the time of his mother's death was only 16 years old. Left without a wife, Dostoevsky Sr. decided to send Fyodor and Mikhail to St. Petersburg, to the boarding house K.F. Kostomarov. The father wanted the boys to subsequently enter the Main Engineering School. Interestingly, 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 passion seriously.
The boys did not dare to contradict the will of their father. Fedor 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, together with 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 devote himself exclusively to literature and resigned.
The beginning of the creative path
Although the family did not approve of the young Fyodor's decisions, he diligently began to pore over the works he had begun earlier and develop new ideas. The year 1944 was marked for the beginning writer by the release of his first book, Poor People. The success of the work exceeded all expectations of the author. Critics and writers highly appreciated Dostoevsky's novel, the topics raised in the book resonated 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 book "Double": the first and modern edition 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 enthusiasm and praise of the writer were replaced by criticism, dissatisfaction, disappointment and sarcasm. Subsequently, writers appreciated the innovation of this work, its dissimilarity to the novels of those years, but at the time the book was published, 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 contacts in the literary circles of St. Petersburg. Many of his new acquaintances partly became the prototypes for various characters in the author's subsequent works.
Arrest and hard labor
Fateful for the writer was the acquaintance with M.V. Petrashevsky in 1846. Petrashevsky arranged the so-called "Fridays", during which the abolition of serfdom, freedom of printing, progressive changes in the judicial system and other issues of a similar nature were discussed.
During the 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 for the creation of an illegal printing house. At meetings of the Society, Dostoevsky repeatedly read Belinsky's Letter to Gogol, which was then banned.
In the same 1848, Fyodor Mikhailovich's novel "White Nights" was published, but, alas, he did not manage to enjoy the well-deserved fame. Those very connections with the 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 to him, on November 13, 1849, the writer was sentenced to death. Prior to 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 audience general considered him to be inconsistent with Dostoevsky's guilt, in connection with which the death penalty was replaced with an eight-year hard labor. And at the end of the same month, the emperor softened the punishment even more: the writer was exiled 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 at the end of hard labor he was promoted to ordinary soldiers.
Despite all the hardships and hardships that such a sentence entailed, joining the soldiers meant the full 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 after 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 enduring suffering and loneliness. In addition, it took him a long 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 man undecided in his fate, 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 hard years in hard labor made him a deeply religious person, whom he remained until his death.
The heyday of creativity
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". Approximately the same story happened to them as with the "Double" - although later the works were given a very high rating, their 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 his imprisonment, helped to return the attention of readers to the matured Dostoevsky.
Novel "Notes from the Dead House" For many residents of the country who did not encounter this horror on their own, the work was almost a shock. Many people were stunned by what the author was talking about, especially considering that the topic of hard labor for Russian writers used to be something of a taboo. After that, Herzen began to call Dostoevsky "Russian Dante".
The year 1861 was also noteworthy for the writer. This year, in collaboration with his older brother Mikhail, he started publishing his own literary and political magazine called Vremya. In 1863, the publication was closed, and instead of it, the Dostoevsky brothers began to print another magazine - called Epoch.
These magazines, firstly, strengthened the positions of the brothers in the literary environment. And secondly, it was on their pages that “Humiliated and Insulted”, “Notes from the Underground”, “Notes from the House of the Dead”, “Bad Anecdote” and many other works of Fyodor Mikhailovich were published. Mikhail Dostoyevsky soon died: he passed away in 1864.
In the 1860s, the writer began to travel abroad, finding inspiration in new and familiar places for his new novels. In particular, it was during that period that Dostoevsky conceived and began to realize the idea of the work "The Gambler".
In 1865, the Epoch magazine, which was steadily declining in subscriber numbers, had to be shut down. 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 contract for the publication of 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 was widely recognized among readers, and the novel glorified Dostoevsky during his lifetime.
Prince Myshkin performed The next great book by Fyodor Mikhailovich was The Idiot, published in 1868. The idea of portraying a beautiful person who tries to make other characters happy, but cannot overcome the hostile forces and, as a result, suffers himself, turned out to be easy to translate into words only. In fact, Dostoevsky called The Idiot one of the most difficult books to write, although Prince Myshkin became his favorite character.
Having finished 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, however, some of the ideas collected for the epic formed the basis of the next three great books of Dostoevsky: the novel "Demons", written in 1871-1872, the work "Teenager", completed in 1875, and the novel "Brothers Karamazov”, which Dostoevsky completed in 1879-1880.
It is interesting that "Demons", in which the writer initially intended to express his disapproving attitude towards representatives of revolutionary movements in Russia, gradually changed in 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 idea and add real drama and tragedy to the political work.
If in "Demons", among other things, the theme of fathers and children was widely disclosed, then in the next novel - "Teenager" - the writer brought to the fore the issue of raising a grown-up child.
A peculiar result of the creative path of Fyodor Mikhailovich, a literary analogue of summing up, was The Brothers Karmazov. Many episodes, storylines, 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 was chronic bronchitis, pulmonary tuberculosis and emphysema. Death overtook the writer in the sixtieth year of his life.
Grave of Fyodor Dostoevsky Crowds of admirers of his talent came to say goodbye to the writer, but Fedor 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 Fedor 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 charmed by the emancipated Apollinaria Suslova. It was from her that Polina was written in The Gambler, Nastastya Filippovna in The Idiot, and a number of other female characters.
Although on the eve of his fortieth birthday, the writer had at least a long relationship with Isaeva and Suslova, at that time his women had not yet given him such happiness as children. This shortcoming was filled by the second wife of the writer - Anna Snitkina. She became not only a faithful wife, but also an excellent assistant to the writer: she took on the chores of publishing Dostoevsky's novels, rationally solved all financial issues, and prepared her memoirs of a brilliant husband for publication. The novel "The Brothers Karamazov" Fyodor Mikhailovich dedicated to her.
Anna Grigoryevna gave birth to her wife of four children: daughters Sofya and Lyubov, sons Fedor 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's quotes
- No one makes the first move because everyone thinks it's not mutual.
- It takes very little to destroy a person: one has only to convince him that the business he is engaged in is of no use to anyone.
- Freedom is not in not restraining oneself, but in being in control of oneself.
- A writer whose works have not been successful easily becomes a bilious critic: so a weak and tasteless wine can become an excellent vinegar.
- It's amazing what a single ray of sunshine can do to a person's soul!
- Beauty will save the world.
- A person who can hug is a good person.
- Do not litter your memory with insults, otherwise there may simply not be room for wonderful moments.
- If you go to the goal and stop along the way to throw stones at every dog that barks at you, you will never reach the goal.
- He is a smart person, but in order to act smartly, one mind is not enough.
- Whoever wants to be useful, even with his hands tied, can do a lot of good.
- Life goes breathless without an aim.
- One must love life more than the meaning of life.
- The Russian people, as it were, enjoy their suffering.
- Happiness is not in happiness, but only in achieving it.
Fedor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky- one of the most significant and famous Russian writers and thinkers in the world, whose work is known and studied in literature classes all over the world. Fyodor Mikhailovich had a huge impact on the development of literature around the world and the spiritual development of mankind as a whole.
In his works, the characters often live as if on their own, not obeying the law of cause and effect or the movement of the story as a whole. And the author does not describe, but only empathizes with the tragedy of the heroes. For this, he was called the most deeply moral writer, a real "psychologist of the pen" and an explorer of the human soul.
Dostoevsky is dead, - said the citizen, but somehow not very confidently.
- I protest! - hotly exclaimed Behemoth. - Dostoevsky is immortal!
© Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita
We have selected 25 outstanding quotes from the great thinker about happiness, love and life:
- We must love life more than the meaning of life.
- Freedom is not in not restraining oneself, but in being in control of oneself.
- In everything there is a line beyond which it is dangerous to cross; for once crossed, it is impossible to turn back.
- Happiness is not in happiness, but only in achieving it.
- No one makes the first move because everyone thinks it's not mutual.
- The Russian people, as it were, enjoy their suffering.
- Life goes breathless without an aim.
- To stop reading books means to stop thinking.
- There is no happiness in comfort, happiness is bought by suffering.
- In a truly loving heart, either jealousy kills love, or love kills jealousy.
- It takes very little to destroy a person: one has only to convince him that the business he is engaged in is of no use to anyone.
- A writer whose works have not been successful easily becomes a bilious critic: so a weak and tasteless wine can become an excellent vinegar.
- He is a smart man, but to act smart - one mind is not enough.
- If you go to the goal and stop along the way to throw stones at every dog that barks at you, you will never reach the goal.
- It's amazing what a single ray of sunshine can do to a person's soul!
- Here you need to speak eye to eye ... so that the soul is read on the face, so that the heart is expressed in the sounds of the word. One word spoken with conviction, with complete sincerity and without hesitation, face to face, means much more than dozens of sheets of scribbled paper.
- The soul is healed next to the children.
- Whoever wants to be useful, even with his hands tied, can do a lot of good.
- Beauty will save the world.
- In fact, people sometimes express themselves about the “brutal” cruelty of man, but this is terribly unfair and insulting for animals: a beast can never be as cruel as a person, so artistically, so artistically cruel.
- Big ones do not know that a child, even in the most difficult task, can give extremely important advice.
- Do not litter your memory with insults, otherwise there may simply not be room for wonderful moments.
- I want to talk about everything with at least one person, as with myself.
- A person who can hug is a good person.
- My friend, remember that silence is good, safe and beautiful.
Biography of Dostoevsky F.M.: birth and family, Dostoevsky's youth, first literary publications, arrest and exile, flourishing of creativity, death and funeral of the writer.
Birth and family
1821, October 30 (November 11), Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky was born in Moscow in the right wing of the Mariinsky Hospital for the Poor. The Dostoevsky family had six more children: Mikhail (1820-1864), Varvara (1822-1893), Andrei, Vera (1829-1896), Nikolai (1831-1883), Alexandra (1835-1889). Fedor grew up in a rather harsh environment, over which the gloomy spirit of his father hovered - a “nervous, irritable, proud” person. He was always busy looking after the welfare of the family.
Children were brought up in fear and obedience, according to the traditions of antiquity, spending most of their time in front of their parents. Rarely leaving the walls of the hospital building, they communicated very little with the outside world. Is it only through patients with whom Fyodor Mikhailovich, secretly from his father, sometimes spoke. There was also a nanny hired from Moscow bourgeois women, whose name was Alena Frolovna. Dostoevsky remembered her with the same tenderness as Pushkin remembered Arina Rodionovna. It was from her that he heard the first fairy tales: about the Firebird, Alyosha Popovich, the Blue Bird, etc.
Father, Mikhail Andreevich (1789-1839), the son of a Uniate priest, doctor (head doctor, surgeon) of the Moscow Mariinsky Hospital for the Poor, in 1828 received the title of hereditary nobleman. In 1831 he acquired the village of Darovoe in the Kashirsky district of the Tula province, in 1833 the neighboring village of Chermoshnya.
In terms of raising children, the father was an independent, educated, caring family man, but he had a quick-tempered and suspicious character. After the death of his wife in 1837, he retired and settled in Darovoe. According to the documents, he died of apoplexy. However, according to the recollections of relatives and oral tradition, he was killed by his peasants.
Mother, Maria Fedorovna (nee Nechaeva; 1800-1837) - from a merchant family, a religious woman, annually took children to the Trinity-Sergius Lavra. In addition, she taught them to read from the book “One Hundred and Four Sacred Stories of the Old and New Testament” (in the novel “” memories of this book are included in the story of the elder Zosima about his childhood). In the house of parents, they read aloud the History of the Russian State by N. M. Karamzin, the works of G. R. Derzhavin, V. A. Zhukovsky, A. S. Pushkin.
In his mature years, Dostoevsky recalled with particular enthusiasm his acquaintance with the Scriptures. “We in our family knew the Gospel almost from the first childhood.” The Old Testament "Book of Job" also became a vivid childhood impression of the writer. The younger brother of Fyodor, Andrei, wrote that “brother Fedya read more historical, serious works, as well as novels that came across. Brother Mikhail loved poetry and wrote poetry himself ... But they put up at Pushkin, and both, it seems, then knew almost everything by heart ... ”.
The death of Alexander Sergeevich by young Fedya was perceived as a personal grief. Andrei Mikhailovich wrote: “Brother Fedya, in conversations with his older brother, repeated several times that if we didn’t have family mourning (his mother, Maria Fedorovna, died), he would ask his father’s permission to mourn for Pushkin.”
Youth of Dostoevsky
From 1832, the family annually spent the summer in the village of Darovoe (Tula province), bought by the father. Meetings and conversations with the peasants were forever deposited in Dostoevsky's memory and served as creative material in the future. An example is the story "" from the "Diary of a Writer" for 1876.
In 1832, Dostoevsky and his older brother Mikhail began to study with teachers who came to the house. From 1833 they studied at the boarding school of N. I. Drashusov (Sushara), then at the boarding school of L. I. Chermak, where the astronomer D. M. Perevoshchikov and paleologist A. M. Kubarev taught. The Russian language teacher N. I. Bilevich played a certain role in the spiritual development of Dostoevsky.
Museum "Manor of F.M. Dostoevsky in the village of Darovoye"
Memories of the boarding house served as material for many of the writer's works. The atmosphere of educational institutions and isolation from the family caused a painful reaction in Dostoevsky. For example, this was reflected in the autobiographical features of the hero of the novel "", who is experiencing deep moral upheavals in the "Tushar boarding house". At the same time, the years of study were marked by an awakened passion for reading.
In 1837, the writer's mother died, and soon his father took Dostoevsky and his brother Mikhail to St. Petersburg to continue their education. The writer did not meet his father again, who died in 1839 (according to official information, he died of apoplexy, according to family legend, he was killed by serfs). Dostoevsky's attitude to his father, a suspicious and painfully suspicious man, was ambivalent.
It was hard to survive the death of his mother, which coincided with the news of the death of A.S. Pushkin (which he perceived as a personal loss), Dostoevsky traveled with his brother Mikhail to St. Petersburg in May 1837 and entered the preparatory boarding school of K. F. Kostomarov. At the same time, he met I. N. Shidlovsky, whose religious and romantic mood fascinated Dostoevsky.
The first literary publications of Dostoevsky
The main engineering school, where Dostoevsky F.M.
Even on the way to St. Petersburg, Dostoevsky was mentally “composing a novel from Venetian life,” and in 1838 Riesenkampf told “about his own literary experiences.”
From January 1838, Dostoevsky studied at the Main Engineering School, in which he described an ordinary day as follows: “... from early morning until evening, we barely have time to follow lectures in classes. ... We are sent to fencing training, we are given lessons in fencing, dancing, singing ... they put us on guard, and all the time passes in this ... ".
The heavy impression of the “hard labor years” of the teachings was partially brightened up by friendly relations with V. Grigorovich, doctor A. E. Rizenkampf, officer on duty A. I. Saveliev, artist K. A. Trutovsky. Subsequently, Dostoevsky always believed that the choice of an educational institution was erroneous. He suffered from the military atmosphere and drill, from disciplines alien to his interests and from loneliness.
As his colleague at the school, the artist K. A. Trutovsky, testified, Dostoevsky kept himself closed. However, he impressed his comrades with his erudition, and a literary circle formed around him. The first literary ideas took shape in the school.
Konstantin Alexandrovich Trutovsky, Russian artist, genre painter, friend of Dostoevsky F.M.
In 1841, at an evening hosted by his brother Mikhail, Dostoevsky read excerpts from his dramatic works, which are known only by their names - "Mary Stuart" and "Boris Godunov", - giving rise to associations with the names of F. Schiller and A. S. Pushkin, apparently, the deepest literary passions of the young Dostoevsky; was also read by N. V. Gogol, E. Hoffmann, V. Scott, George Sand, V. Hugo.
After graduating from college, having served less than a year in the St. Petersburg engineering team, in the summer of 1844 Dostoevsky retired with the rank of lieutenant, deciding to devote himself completely to literary creativity.
Among the literary predilections of Dostoevsky of that time was O. de Balzac: the translation of his story "Eugene Grande" (1844, without indicating the name of the translator) the writer entered the literary field. At the same time, Dostoevsky worked on the translation of novels by Eugene Sue and George Sand (they did not appear in print).
The choice of works testified to the literary tastes of the novice writer. In those years, he was not alien to romantic and sentimentalist style, he liked dramatic collisions, large-scale characters, and action-packed narration. For example, in the works of George Sand, as he recalled at the end of his life, he was "struck ... by the chaste, the highest purity of types and ideals and the modest charm of the strict restrained tone of the story."
Dostoevsky informed his brother about the work on the drama The Jew Yankel in January 1844. The manuscripts of the dramas have not been preserved, but their titles already reveal the literary passions of the novice writer: Schiller, Pushkin, Gogol. After the death of his father, the relatives of the writer's mother took care of Dostoevsky's younger brothers and sisters. Fedor and Mikhail received a small inheritance.
After graduating from college (end of 1843), he was enlisted as a field engineer-lieutenant in the St. Petersburg engineering team. However, already at the beginning of the summer of 1844, having decided to devote himself entirely to literature, he resigned and retired with the rank of lieutenant.
Novel "Poor people"
In January 1844, Dostoevsky completed the translation of Balzac's Eugene Grande, which he was then particularly fond of. The translation was Dostoevsky's first published literary work. In 1844, he begins and in May 1845, after numerous alterations, finishes the novel "".
The novel "Poor Folk", whose connection with Pushkin's "Station Master" and Gogol's "Overcoat" was emphasized by Dostoevsky himself, was an exceptional success. Based on the traditions of the physiological sketch, Dostoevsky creates a realistic picture of the life of the "downtrodden" inhabitants of "Petersburg corners", a gallery of social types from a street beggar to "His Excellency".
Dostoevsky spent the summer of 1845 (as well as the next) in Revel with his brother Mikhail. In the autumn of 1845, upon his return to St. Petersburg, he often met with Belinsky. In October, the writer, together with Nekrasov and Grigorovich, draws up an anonymous program announcement for the almanac "Zuboskal" (03, 1845, No. 11), and in early December at the evening at Belinsky's he reads the chapters "" (03, 1846, No. 2), in which for the first time gives a psychological analysis of the split consciousness, "duality".
In Siberia, according to Dostoevsky, "gradually and after a very, very long time" his "beliefs" changed. The essence of these changes, Dostoevsky in the most general form formulated as "a return to the folk root, to the recognition of the Russian soul, to the recognition of the spirit of the people." In the magazines Vremya and Epoch, the Dostoevsky brothers acted as the ideologists of "pochvennichestvo" - a specific modification of the ideas of Slavophilism.
"Pochvennichestvo" was rather an attempt to outline the contours of the "general idea", to find a platform that would reconcile Westerners and Slavophiles, "civilization" and the people's beginning. Skeptical about the revolutionary ways of transforming Russia and Europe, Dostoevsky expressed these doubts in works of art, articles and announcements of Vremya, in a sharp polemic with the publications of Sovremennik.
The essence of Dostoevsky's objections is the possibility, after the reform, of a rapprochement between the government and the intelligentsia and the people, of their peaceful cooperation. Dostoevsky continues this controversy in the story "" ("The Age", 1864) - a philosophical and artistic prelude to the "ideological" novels of the writer.
Dostoevsky wrote: “I am proud that for the first time I brought out the real man of the Russian majority and for the first time exposed his ugly and tragic side. The tragedy consists in the consciousness of ugliness. Only I brought out the tragedy of the underground, which consists in suffering, in self-punishment, in the consciousness of the best and in the impossibility of achieving it, and, most importantly, in the vivid conviction of these unfortunate people that everyone is like that, and therefore, it’s not worth it to improve!
Roman Idiot
In June 1862 Dostoevsky went abroad for the first time; visited Germany, France, Switzerland, Italy, England. In August 1863 the writer went abroad for the second time. In Paris, he met with A.P. Suslova, whose dramatic relationship (1861-1866) was reflected in the novel "", "" and other works.
In Baden-Baden, carried away, by the gambling of his nature, by playing roulette, he loses "all, completely to the ground"; this longstanding hobby of Dostoevsky is one of the qualities of his passionate nature.
In October 1863 he returned to Russia. Until mid-November, he lived with his sick wife in Vladimir, and at the end of 1863-April 1864-in Moscow, visiting St. Petersburg on business. 1864 brought heavy losses to Dostoevsky. On April 15, his wife died of consumption. The personality of Maria Dmitrievna, as well as the circumstances of their "unhappy" love, were reflected in many of Dostoevsky's works (in particular, in the images of Katerina Ivanovna - "" and Nastasya Filippovna - "").
On June 10, M.M. died. Dostoevsky. On September 26, Dostoevsky attends Grigoriev's funeral. After the death of his brother, Dostoevsky took over the publication of the periodical Epoch, burdened by a large debt and lagging behind by 3 months; the magazine began to appear more regularly, but a sharp drop in subscriptions in 1865 forced the writer to stop publishing.
He owed creditors about 15 thousand rubles, which he was able to pay only towards the end of his life. In an effort to provide conditions for work, Dostoevsky signed a contract with F.T. Stellovsky for the publication of the collected works and undertook to write a new novel for him by November 1, 1866.
In the spring of 1865, Dostoevsky was a frequent guest of the family of General V.V. Korvin-Krukovsky, whose eldest daughter, A.V. Korvin-Krukovskaya, he was greatly infatuated with. In July, he left for Wiesbaden, from where in the autumn of 1865 he offered Katkov a story for Russkiy Vestnik, which later developed into a novel.
In the summer of 1866, Dostoevsky was in Moscow and at his dacha in the village of Lyublino, close to the family of his sister Vera Mikhailovna, where he wrote the novel " ". “Psychological account of one crime” became the plot outline of the novel, the main idea of which Dostoevsky outlined as follows: “Insoluble questions arise before the murderer, unsuspected and unexpected feelings torment his heart. God's truth, earthly law takes its toll, and he ends up being compelled to denounce himself. I was forced to die in hard labor, but to join the people again ... ".
Novel "Crime and Punishment"
St. Petersburg and “current reality”, the richness of social characters, “the whole world of estate and professional types”, are accurately and multifacetedly depicted in the novel, but this is reality transformed and discovered by the artist, whose gaze penetrates to the very essence of things.
Intense philosophical disputes, prophetic dreams, confessions and nightmares, grotesque caricature scenes that naturally turn into tragic, symbolic meetings of heroes, the apocalyptic image of a ghostly city are organically linked in Dostoevsky's novel. The novel, in the words of the author himself, "was extremely successful" and raised his "reputation as a writer."
In 1866, the expiring contract with the publisher forced Dostoevsky to simultaneously work on two novels - "" and "". Dostoevsky resorted to an unusual way of working: on October 4, 1866, the stenographer A.G. Snitkin; he began to dictate to her the novel The Gambler, which reflected the writer's impressions of his acquaintance with Western Europe.
In the center of the novel is the clash of the "multi-developed, but in everything unfinished, distrustful and not daring not to believe, rebelling against authorities and fearing them" "foreign Russian" with "finished" European types. The protagonist is "a poet in his own way, but the fact is that he himself is ashamed of this poetry, for he deeply feels its baseness, although the need for risk ennobles him in his own eyes."
In the winter of 1867 Snitkina becomes Dostoyevsky's wife. The new marriage was more successful. From April 1867 to July 1871 Dostoevsky and his wife lived abroad (Berlin, Dresden, Baden-Baden, Geneva, Milan, Florence). There, on February 22, 1868, a daughter, Sophia, was born, whose sudden death (May of the same year) Dostoevsky was very upset. September 14, 1869 daughter Love was born; later in Russia on July 16, 1871 - son Fedor; Aug 12 1875 - son Alexei, who died at the age of three from a fit of epilepsy.
In 1867-1868 Dostoevsky worked on the novel "". “The idea of the novel,” the author pointed out, “is my old and beloved, but so difficult that for a long time I did not dare to take on it. The main idea of the novel is to depict a positively beautiful person. There is nothing more difficult than this in the world, and especially now ... "
Dostoevsky started the novel "", interrupting work on the widely conceived epics "Atheism" and "The Life of a Great Sinner" and hastily composing a "tale" "". The immediate impetus for the creation of the novel was the “Nechaev case”.
The activities of the secret society "People's Reprisal", the murder by five members of the organization of a student of the Petrovsky Agricultural Academy I.I. Ivanov - these are the events that formed the basis of "Demons" and received a philosophical and psychological interpretation in the novel. The writer's attention was drawn to the circumstances of the murder, the ideological and organizational principles of the terrorists ("Revolutionary's Catechism"), the figures of accomplices in the crime, the personality of the leader of the society, S.G. Nechaev.
In the process of working on the novel, the idea changed many times. Initially, it is a direct response to events. The framework of the pamphlet subsequently expanded significantly, not only the Nechaevs, but also the figures of the 1860s, the liberals of the 1840s, T.N. Granovsky, Petrashevites, Belinsky, V.S. Pecherin, A.I. Herzen, even the Decembrists and P.Ya. Chaadaev find themselves in the grotesque-tragic space of the novel.
Gradually, the novel develops into a critical depiction of the common “disease” experienced by Russia and Europe, a vivid symptom of which is the “demonic” of Nechaev and the Nechaevites. In the center of the novel, in its philosophical and ideological focus, there are placed not the sinister "swindler" Pyotr Verkhovensky (Nechaev), but the mysterious and demonic figure of Nikolai Stavrogin, who "allowed himself everything".
In July 1871 Dostoevsky with his wife and daughter returned to St. Petersburg. The writer and his family spent the summer of 1872 in Staraya Russa; this city became the family's permanent summer residence. In 1876 Dostoevsky bought a house here. In 1872, the writer visits the Wednesdays of Prince V. P. Meshchersky, a supporter of counter-reforms and publisher of the newspaper-magazine Grazhdanin. At the request of the publisher, supported by A. Maikov and Tyutchev, Dostoevsky in December 1872 agrees to take over the editing of The Citizen, stipulating in advance that he takes on these duties temporarily.
