Brief biography of F. M. Dostoevsky. Fyodor Dostoevsky: a short biography

F.M. Dostoevsky was born on October 30 (November 11), 1821 in Moscow, in the family of a doctor at the Mariinsky Hospital for the Poor. In 1838 he entered the St. Petersburg Military Engineering School. After graduating in 1843, he was enlisted in the engineering department, but a year later he retired, convinced that his vocation was literature.

In childhood and youth, Dostoevsky passionately loved to read - the Bible, the works of N.M. Karamzin, V.A. Zhukovsky, A.S. Griboedov, M.Yu. Gogol. According to the writer, Pushkin's death shocked him almost more than the death of his mother in the spring of 1837. Dostoevsky was also interested in foreign literature - the plays of Shakespeare and Moliere, the novels of E. Xu, C. Dickens, J. Sand, O. Balzac and especially dramas F. Schiller, which he "raved about", memorizing.

The pinnacle of Dostoevsky's work are five socio-philosophical novels written in the last fifteen years of his life: "Crime and Punishment" (1866), "Idiot" (1868), "Demons" (1871-1872), "Teenager" (1875) and "The Brothers Karamazov" (1879-1880). It was in these works that the genius of Dostoevsky was revealed with all its power and depth. Their appearance was preceded by two decades of ideological and artistic searches, the hardest life trials.

In the early 1860s Dostoevsky wrote "A number of articles on Russian literature", where he substantiated his view of modern prose. In his opinion, Russian literature after Pushkin and Gogol was in dire need of updating the socio-historical issues and artistic principles. Writers of the 1850s - 1860s - Turgenev, Goncharov and Tolstoy - developed only one of the lines outlined by Pushkin. They were mostly writers of everyday life of the Russian noble society with its historically established features. According to Dostoevsky, they developed the range of motives that Pushkin in "Eugene Onegin" designated as "traditions of the Russian family."

Dostoevsky believed that modern writers should portray "the Russian man of the majority". The life and soul of this person are complex, unsettled, chaotic. According to Dostoevsky, the actual task of all literature is to discover in a person something more than his class or professional affiliation allows us to see in him: the soul, the inner world, the circle of ideas and moods. Thus, the writer raised the question of a “mass”, democratic hero, but demanded not a simplified, but a psychologically in-depth artistic study of not only the external, social and everyday forms of his life, but also everything “variegated”, contradictory that gave birth to modern life in troubled , disturbed souls of the "heroes of time".

The features of this creative program are found in his works created in the first period of creativity - the 1840s. During these years, the novel "Poor People" (1845), the novels "The Double" (1846), "The Mistress" (1847), "White Nights" (1848) and "Netochka Nezvanova" (1849, not finished) were written.

The beginning of Dostoevsky's literary activity dates back to 1844-1845, when, after retiring, he devoted himself entirely to literature. In May 1845, Dostoevsky read the novel "Poor People" to his only acquaintance, the writer D.V. Grigorovich. VG Belinsky highly appreciated it as the first experience of the social novel in Russian literature. The publication of "Poor People" in the "Petersburg Collection" (1846) strengthened the authority of the "natural school" - an association of young realist writers of the 1840s.

The works that appeared after the debut novel put forward Dostoevsky among the first writers of Russia. Major critics - V. G. Belinsky and V. N. Maikov - compared him with Gogol, although in the stories written after "Poor Folk", the young Dostoevsky did not so much follow the idol of the realists of the 1840s, but rather rethink his creative experience , went his own way, groping for his own method of depicting a person.

Already the novel in the letters "Poor people" from the point of view of the interpretation of the personality of the official Makar Alekseevich Devushkin was a work emphatically "Negolian". It was important for Dostoevsky to show what the "little people" themselves thought of themselves - the poor titular adviser and the addressee of his letters, the seamstress Varenka Dobroselova, torn from Devushkin's hands by a procurer. The writer was primarily interested in the self-awareness of the characters. Devushkin understands that in the social sense he is a “rag” (insignificance), but this does not prevent him from being a thinking and feeling person.

He is not just a "little man", a St. Petersburg official crushed by life, an inhabitant of bad apartments, as was the hero of Gogol's story "The Overcoat" Bashmachkin. Devushkin is a humiliated and insulted creature. He is a "cog" of the bureaucratic machine, but a "cog" with "ambition", with a consciousness of his own dignity. He demands respect for himself, he respects both the poverty of others and the pride of others. For Devushkin, respect for a poor person is more important than material well-being. He even needs new boots "to maintain honor and good name." “In boots with holes,” he remarks, “both are gone ... believe me.”

The goal of Gogol and his followers in the literature of the 1840s. - to awaken in the soul of the reader sympathy, compassion for the "little man". Dostoevsky's goal is different - to give Devushkin and his ilk the opportunity to "confess", to speak out about what humiliates and insults them. At the same time, the word of the hero has a special character: it is the word of a person who has a burning need for communication, dialogue, polemics. Devushkin confesses in his letters, but his confession is addressed not only to Varenka. He seems to feel a strange, unkind, skeptical look on himself, he cannot get rid of the feeling of hostility from the people around him.

The hero always begins with a refutation of the one who is ready to get into his soul, humiliate and insult him. This is the reason for the style of the novel (primarily Devushkin's letters): the hero's word seems to "shrink", "writhing" under someone else's gaze. Devushkin's speech reflects the psychological complex of a humiliated and insulted person: a timid, bashful glance at an imaginary opponent and a muffled challenge - a variant of self-defense. “After all, you walk in an overcoat for people, and, perhaps, you wear boots for them,” Devushkin justifies himself.

The character of a humiliated and offended person is Dostoevsky's main discovery in Poor Folk. A kind of sensation in the literature of the 1840s. became the principle of depicting this literary hero, found by the writer: he analyzed not so much the social status as the psychological phenomenon of an “ambitious” person, fighting with a word for his honor and dignity, who wants to receive from people the same respect as the powers that be.

Dostoevsky by no means idealized his hero. The writer saw well that his personality was ugly deformed, because Devushkin does not strive to live for himself, wanting one thing: that his reflections in the mirrors of other people's opinions look quite “decent”. Both in "Poor People" and in subsequent stories, the motive of the duality of heroes is important. The impulse to dialogue with people and with the world, the need for understanding and confession are combined in them with alienation even from close people, with a painful thirst for conflict with what surrounds them.

The closeness of "poor people", their mutual "impenetrability" and alienation from each other, the combination of good and evil in their souls - these problems came to the fore in the stories "Double" and "Mr. Prokharchin". In them, Dostoevsky is as far from the Gogol tradition of depicting the “little man” as in the first novel. The hero of the story "The Double" Golyadkin ventured into some kind of rebellion. Thrown out of "good society", he climbs out of a rut to prove that he, too, is a person to be reckoned with, tries to explain himself to his offenders. But his ridiculous figure and tongue-tied tongue cause them only momentary confusion and uncontrollable laughter. The hero's rebellion, which ended in a lunatic asylum, is absurd and tragicomic.

The most remarkable thing in the story is the appearance of Golyadkin's double, who became his psychological antipode. The hero is timid, honest and naive. His double is arrogant and not averse to snatching someone else's. Golyadkin did no harm to anyone - the double is always ready to spoil his neighbor. The "younger" Golyadkin is the product of the soul of an ambitious official. He appeared because envy, malice and meanness, as it were, separated from the real Golyadkin and began to live an independent life. The hero with horror recognizes himself in the distorted mirror of his double, who turned out to be stronger than himself. The double has everything that the poor official got rid of: flattery, fawning over the authorities, deceit and arrogance.

The hero of the story "Mr. Prokharchin" is the forerunner of the "underground man". Dostoevsky emphasized in him an exaggerated self-esteem. Having made hoarding the meaning of his life (after his death, “capital” was found in a mattress - two and a half thousand rubles), he is proud of the consciousness of his secret wealth. Money became for Prokharchy-na a symbol of unlimited power over people. With painful voluptuousness, he indulges in "Napoleonic" dreams, completely closing himself off from people. Possessed by the fear of life, the first "underground" hero in Dostoevsky's work evokes horror himself: this "rag man" is obsessed with the dream of subjugating the whole world. He revels in the flight of his uninhibited thought, as if pushing the walls of his beggarly closet, dreaming of either subjugating the whole world or benefiting humanity. But behind all the "Napoleonic" plans of Prokharchin, the first "Petersburg dreamer" depicted by the writer, one can guess the broken ties between society and man, the tragic alienation from people and the painful desire to get closer to them not in dreams, but in reality.

The images of the "Petersburg dreamers" were created in a cycle of works written in 1847-1849: "The Mistress", "Weak Heart", "White Nights" and "Netochka Nezvanova". In each of them - the story of the collapse of the "dreamer" and his dreams.

Particularly interesting is the image of Ordynov, the hero of the most fantastic of Dostoevsky's stories - "The Mistress". The action in it takes place on the verge of reality and sleep, and Ordynov is depicted as a man possessed, nervous, on the verge of a mental breakdown. The hero of the story, the first "theorist" in Dostoevsky's work, is busy creating a universal system of knowledge in which he wants to merge art and science.

During one of his walks around St. Petersburg, Ordynov meets the beautiful Katerina, accompanied by a gloomy old man. The intrigued hero "headlong", like any "dreamer" in Dostoevsky, rushes into the maelstrom of everyday circumstances, completely forgetting about his "project". Now he thinks of only one thing: how to snatch Katerina from the hands of a schismatic merchant, but is wrecked. The writer emphasizes the unviability and groundlessness of Ordynov's dreams, the tragic discord between his altruistic impulse and complete ignorance of life and people. It is this contradiction that will largely determine the fate of Raskolnikov later.

The first period of Dostoevsky's work spans about five years. The creative development of the writer was forcibly interrupted in April 1849 by the arrest in the case of Petrashevsky. The fact is that in the second half of the 1840s. Dostoevsky not only actively worked in literature, but was also at the epicenter of the then disputes about the future of Russia, about ways to transform society. The writer was attracted by the ideas of utopian socialism - he was strongly influenced by the ideas of V. G. Belinsky and the views of the French utopian socialists, especially Charles Fourier. Since 1847, Dostoevsky was a member of the circle of M.V. Petrashevsky, a convinced "Fourierist", who considered the phalanstere (a human community organized on the basis of the principles of common property and common labor, freedom from the power of money and family responsibilities) to be the ideal of a harmonious society. Dostoevsky was ironic about the utopias of Petrashevsky and his supporters, but he sincerely dreamed of a "deed", of a just reorganization of society. Being a deeply religious person, the writer believed that the renewal of society was possible on the basis of the union of socialism with Christianity. He placed special hopes, like many of his contemporaries, on the peasant community.

At a meeting with Petrashevsky on April 15, 1849, Dostoevsky read Belinsky's letter to Gogol, banned by the censors, in which the critic gave a sharp assessment of "Selected passages from correspondence with friends." It was for this that Dostoevsky, along with other Petrashevites, was sentenced to death. On December 22, 1849, an execution was staged on the Semyonovsky parade ground in St. Petersburg - at the last minute, Dostoevsky, who was awaiting death, was announced the royal "mercy": the execution was replaced by four years of hard labor, followed by soldiery. The writer experienced an unforgettable emotional drama. On December 24, he was sent to hard labor in the Omsk jail. Since 1854, after the end of the term of hard labor, Dostoevsky served as a soldier in the Siberian linear battalion.

The time of hard labor and soldiery is a long pause in the creative development of the writer. Harder hard labor became for Dostoevsky "penal servitude" of moral torment. Already in the first year of his stay in prison, a moral upheaval took place in the writer: the whole past life seemed to him false, inauthentic. Books and magazines were banned - the only book allowed was the Gospel, a gift from the wives of the Decembrists. It became a constant reading of Dostoevsky, deepening his understanding of the meaning of the gospel images, interpreted by him in the context of his own fate and the fate of mankind.

In hard labor, Dostoevsky, who lived among criminals, in an atmosphere of drunken revelry and stabbing, painfully searched for an answer to the question: is the Russian peasant a bandit, on whom he and other Petrashevites had placed such high hopes? The writer took a fresh look at one of the memorable episodes of his childhood: when he was 9 years old, he was frightened by a wolf, and he rushed to the peasant Marey, who was plowing his field. The peasant stretched out his hand, stroked little Fedya on the cheek and said: “Look, you were frightened ... That's it, my dear ... Christ is with you, goodbye ...” Dostoevsky remembered the kind, gentle, like a motherly smile of the serf Marey. This peasant became for the convict writer a symbol of people's kindness: not only bandits and murderers, but also soft, kind, simple Russian peasants revealed themselves to him in the neighbors in the convict barracks.

Kindness, justice, participation - the foundations of folk morality - resurrected Dostoevsky, forced, contrary to everything seen in hard labor, to believe in the people, but not in the “ideal” one, invented by utopian dreamers, but in real, cruel and terrible outwardly, but naive and kind people who kept in touch with folk ideas about morality. It was faith in the people, faith in God and in the ultimate triumph of goodness and justice that helped Dostoevsky to endure the test of hard labor and soldiery. Only in 1859 did Dostoevsky receive permission to move to Tver, and then to St. Petersburg.

With the return to the capital, a new period began in the life and work of Dostoevsky, covering 1859-1885. Back in 1858-1859. he wrote the novel "The Village of Stepanchikovo and Its Inhabitants" and the story "Uncle's Dream". These works became "trial": after all, Dostoevsky was forced to determine his place in the new literary environment, which had changed a lot since the 1840s.

For ten years his name did not appear in print, he was thoroughly forgotten, while the writers who started with him in the 1840s, former participants in the "natural school", were at the zenith of their fame (I.S. Turgenev, N. A. Nekrasov, I. A. Goncharov, M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, political emigrant A. I. Herzen), new names appeared (L. N. Tolstoy, N. G. Chernyshevsky), and, most importantly, new reader. At the age of 37, Dostoevsky actually had to start anew, “emerge” from Leta, returning to literature. Note that the situation in which he found himself is unique: none of the Russian writers had to start twice, restoring his literary name.

In the novel The Village of Stepanchikovo and Its Inhabitants, a new Dostoevsky appeared before the readers - a brilliant satirist and at the same time a subtle psychologist. However, the favorite brainchild of the writer, on which he placed special hopes, was not understood and accepted by his contemporaries. This is partly due to the fact that the novel was for Dostoevsky a kind of "calculation with the past": in the main character, Foma Fomich Opiskin, traits of Gogol's character of the last years of his life appeared, the style of his "Selected passages from correspondence with friends" was frankly parodied. The psychological satire of Dostoevsky caused bewilderment. The main question for critics was the question of the direction in which his work will develop. The reader demanded topical stories. Neither skill, nor in-depth psychologism, nor the ironic-parodic manner of writing could compensate for the absence of contemporary issues.

It took five years for Dostoevsky to regain his literary reputation. Two works written in the early 1860s - the novel The Humiliated and Insulted (1861) and the documentary Notes from the House of the Dead (1860-1862) - again made him an active participant in the literary process. Both works are closely connected with the journalistic and publishing activities of Dostoevsky. Together with his brother M. M. Dostoevsky, he published the magazine "Time" (1861-1863), and then its continuation - "The Epoch" (1864-1865). In these publications, the Dostoevsky brothers pursued a program of “pochvennichestvo”, which became the ideological basis of both journalism and F.M. Dostoevsky’s works of art in the 1860s-1870s.

The main point of this socio-philosophical program is the disengagement from the two most authoritative trends in Russian spiritual life: Westernism and Slavophilism. The emancipatory aspirations of the nobility, the "old" sociological and philosophical ideas, Dostoevsky resolutely reconsiders. He considers the Raznochinskaya intelligentsia cut off from the people, from the "soil", and therefore does not express their fundamental aspirations. The Dostoevsky brothers and their supporters, in particular the well-known writer and critic A.A. Grigoriev, also acutely felt their isolation from the people, from the "people's soil". They expected a “new word” from the Russian people themselves, awakened by the peasant reform of 1861. The “pochvenniki” saw their task in spiritual and practical activity: educating the people, the educated strata of society should themselves perceive the primordial foundations of the people’s worldview, morally get closer to it.

In folk morality, Dostoevsky singled out three main points: a sense of organic connection between people; brotherly sympathy and compassion; readiness to voluntarily come to the aid of a suffering "brother" without violence against oneself and restriction of one's own freedom. It is these qualities that determine, according to the writer, the essence of the "socialism of the Russian people." He contrasted this "soil", popular socialism with utopian socialism, and in the 1870s. - "political", that is, revolutionary socialism. From the pages of magazines, Dostoevsky led an active debate on socio-political and literary issues. Publications in Vremya of new works of art, enthusiastically received by readers, were also "remarks" of the writer in his dispute with his contemporaries.

The novel “The Humiliated and Insulted” is close to the tradition of the European “feuilleton novel”, which is also popular in Russia (for example, the huge novel “Petersburg Slums” by Vs. Krestovsky can be attributed to novels of this type). The plot secrets, the intricate relationships of the characters, the compositional and semantic completeness of each part - all these features of the urban "novel-feuilleton" were necessary for Dostoevsky to solve complex socio-psychological problems. The novel continues two themes that were developed in the works of the 1840s - the theme of St. Petersburg and the theme of "humiliated and insulted" (the very title of the work accurately determined the type of hero that was already taking shape in the first works of Dostoevsky). The interpretation of these themes has changed: the St. Petersburg world is shown in the light of “soil” ideals, the morality of the “humiliated and insulted” (Nelli, Natasha Ikhmeneva and her parents, narrator Ivan Petrovich) and those who humiliate and insult (princes Valkovsky) openly clashed in it

“Notes from the House of the Dead” made the impression of a bombshell: no one had written about hard labor and convicts before Dostoevsky - he discovered not only new material, but also the form of its presentation. The theme itself made the book an event: the writer paved the way for a whole literature about hard labor and prisons. Russian writers after Dostoevsky, in the 1880s and 1890s, already knew how to write about these phenomena of social life. And in numerous "camp" novels, stories, "notes" created by prisoners of prisons and concentration camps already in the 20th century, it is easy to detect the features of their literary "prototype". In Notes from the House of the Dead, Dostoevsky created the "canon" of a prison biography: from the appearance of a newcomer in the barracks, going through the experience of punishment and hard labor, communication with the prison environment, to escape or release.

In the artistic and documentary autobiographical narrative, the writer managed to combine the seemingly incompatible: the truth of a fact, a document, and psychological truth. The narrator is a certain Alexander Petrovich Goryanchikov, convicted of murdering his wife, but the fate of the criminal is not at the center of the work. For the first time, a documentary story has become a form of moral and psychological self-knowledge and the formulation of socio-philosophical problems. The writer came to the conclusion that the old system of punishment is not able to correct the offender. "Jail and intensified hard labor" develop in him "only hatred, a thirst for forbidden pleasures and terrible frivolity." Dostoevsky developed his own concept of punishment, which was later implemented in the novel Crime and Punishment: a criminal can be punished not by an official court and hard labor, but only by the court of his own conscience.

From those details of life in hard labor in the book, a symbolic image of the House of the Dead grows, which has several meanings that go beyond the limits depicted in the Notes ... This is not only an image of a hard labor prison, but also an image-symbol of the "dead" a symbol of any society, "in which the legal system becomes a soulless machine, rolling around a person, not correcting, but crippling his soul, depriving him of hope for humanity and justice. It is noteworthy that one of the cross-cutting problems of the book was the problem of alienation of educated, noble Russia from the Russian Not abstract reasoning, but the fate of the narrator and his comrades, who remained for other convicts representatives of the hated nobility, confirm Dostoevsky's favorite idea about the need to return the educated "tops" of Russian society to the people's "soil".

One of the topical problems of the 1860s is polemically sharply posed in Notes from the House of the Dead. - the problem of the social environment. Without denying the role of the socio-cultural environment in the formation of personality, Dostoevsky rejected the popular at that time explanation of the personality and behavior of people by the fact that "the environment is stuck." The last instance that determines the actions and psychology of a person, the writer considered the person himself, his moral "I". According to Dostoevsky, the influence of the environment does not free a person from moral responsibility before God and people. Any attempt to shift responsibility from a particular person to the environment is a trick of bourgeois jurisprudence, necessary to justify crimes. This is one of the fundamental beliefs of Dostoevsky, artistically embodied in all his novels of the 1860s and 1870s.

In 1862 -1864. Dostoevsky created two works that were, as it were, two prologues to his five great novels. "Zimina's Notes on Summer Impressions", written under the impression of the first trip abroad in 1862-1863, is a journalistic "prologue". In a series of journalistic essays, an image of European civilization was created, which seemed to Dostoevsky a new kingdom of Baal - a mythological monster devouring people. According to the writer, in the West, whose spirit is destroyed by "possessiveness", there are not even prerequisites for achieving human brotherhood. The ethical ideal of Dostoevsky is the ability of the individual to freely, without any violence against himself, expand his “I” to understand the needs of other people and other peoples, to “all-humanity”, “universal responsiveness”, He connected his hopes for the coming unity of people with the Russian people,

"Notes from the Underground" is a philosophical and psychological "prologue". Dostoevsky explores the soul of the modern individualist, the "underground man", concentrating the action to the utmost in time and space. In a few hours, he makes his hero go through all the phases of moods: humiliation, proud complacency and suffering, leading him in the end to an understanding of his own insignificance.

From the social point of view, the "underground" hero is of little interest - this is an ordinary Petersburg official. The attention of the writer is riveted not to the social status, but to the consciousness of this person. His consciousness is like a malignant tumor: the "underground" hero is possessed by a painful, pathological thirst for self-affirmation. He is able to establish himself only by suppressing and humiliating other people. The need for psychological "tyranny" is developed in him, and not only the unfortunate and gullible prostitute Liza, but also himself becomes the object of this "tyranny". The meaning of self-torture is that the hero subjects his every thought, any deed or impulse to a merciless "anatomy". As a result, he almost goes crazy with contradictions: it seems to him that he knows everything about himself, then a terrible truth suddenly opens up before him - the hero is drowning in his own paradoxes, doubting the sincerity of any of his words. He recognizes only personal whim as the only law for himself and the whole world. To refuse to satisfy him means, in the opinion of the hero, to become like a "pin" or a "piano key" pressed by someone else's hand.

Dostoevsky's "anti-hero" rebels against "naked" rationalism, against life's arithmetic, arguing that "twice two makes four is still an obnoxious thing." This rebellion of the individual, who demands unlimited freedom for himself, from the point of view of the writer, is immoral and leads him to self-destruction. The "underground paradoxicalist" becomes isolated in his "desire", plunging into the evil infinity of the "sick consciousness". The new, individualistic "arithmetic" turns out to be no better than the old, rejected one.

In Notes from the Underground, Dostoevsky the psychologist used two principles that allowed him to penetrate deeply into the individualistic consciousness, into the nature of evil. The first principle is the confession of the “anti-hero”. Confession became one of the most important forms of psychological analysis in Crime and Punishment, Possessed, A Teenager and The Brothers Karamazov. The second principle - the absence of the author's word about the hero, the author's commentary on his thoughts - did not find application in later works. Dostoevsky preferred not to leave his "anti-heroes" alone with the reader. A counterbalance to the "orgy" of thoughts and feelings of "underground" people in the novels of the 1860s - 1870s. always serve the judgments of the writer and the heroes-reasoners, reflecting the author's point of view.

The last period of Dostoevsky's work (the end of the 1860s - 1881) was the time of creating masterpieces. The first of the novels that brought world fame to the writer was the novel Crime and Punishment - the result of all the previous development of Dostoevsky as a thinker and artist and a search, innovative work that opened the final stage of his work.

In the novels written in the last period of creativity, the main features of the artistic world of Dostoevsky were especially clearly manifested. Let's characterize some of them.

Dostoevsky pushed the boundaries of "social" realism, for the first time forcing literature to speak about philosophical problems not in the language of philosophical and illustrative, but in the language of artistic images. If before Dostoevsky the antithesis "artist - thinker" was quite common, then in it the artist and the thinker organically merged, which led to the emergence of a new type of artistry. Through the eventful and social content of his works, the writer leads the reader to their philosophical core.

Dostoevsky's realism is philosophical, psychological. The writer's artistic method is based on a heightened attention to the most intricate and contradictory forms of life and social consciousness of his era. In the most complex (“fantastic”, by his definition) facts of the spiritual life of his contemporaries, he reflected universal (“universal”) problems. Dostoevsky's heroes are people of the "age of industry". In his novels, ideas generated by bourgeois relations struggle. Dostoevsky became one of the first critics of the ideas of individualism and anarchism, self-will and permissiveness, which for many of his contemporaries were more attractive than the "old" humanistic morality. Contrasting these destructive ideas with his faith in God, his belief in the indestructibility of the ideals of Christian philanthropy, the writer created an original concept of personality: in his novels, “anti-heroes” are opposed by people inspired by faith in good, striving for justice, rejecting the possibility of achieving universal! harmony at the cost of suffering (Sonya Marmeladova, Prince Myshkin, Alyosha Karamazov).

Despite his tendency to pose "eternal" philosophical questions, Dostoevsky is an acutely topical writer, possessed, in his words, by "longing for the current." In modern events and in the characters of his contemporaries, he sought to see both a generalizing, final meaning, and a prologue to a new era of social and cultural development in Russia and Europe. All Dostoevsky's novels of the 1860s - 1870s. can be called “forecast” novels, “prophecy” novels, the significance of which was fully revealed in the 20th century.

Dostoevsky is an urbanist writer who created a terrible portrait of a big city, an “octopus” city that subjugates and depersonalizes a person (primarily, of course, Petersburg). But he did not limit himself to depicting a mercantile and inhuman urban "civilization". Dostoevsky is convinced that the more "fantastic" and hostile the world that surrounds people, the stronger their longing for the ideal, the more important it is for the artist to "find a person in a person." In the language of the writer, this formula meant a search for a way out of a chaotic and ugly world, which, however, must be depicted "with complete realism", objectively, without idealization. Dostoevsky saw his moral duty in discovering the "hidden in the human soul" impulse towards beauty and harmony. Like Schiller, the idol of his youth, Dostoevsky believed that it was “beauty that would save the world” and help restore “a dead person, unjustly crushed by the yoke of circumstances, the stagnation of centuries and social prejudices.”

There are no passive and impersonal "victims of circumstances", environment or upbringing in Dostoevsky's works. Even the most robbed by life person - "rag", "brad", "piano key", criminal, outcast - is portrayed as a person with "ambition", with his own view of people and himself. The personal principle, violating class forms of behavior and thinking, elevates even the most “insignificant” hero.

The artistic world of Dostoevsky is a world of thought and intense moral and philosophical searches. People from various classes are drawn into this complex process: a former student; the nobleman Raskolnikov, the landowner Svidrigailov and the house painter Mikolka (“Crime and Punishment”), the “righteous” Prince Myshkin, the kept woman Nastasya Filippovna and the merchant’s son Rogozhin (“The Idiot”), even children (for example, the teenager “nihilist” Kolya Krasotkin from the novel “ Brothers Karamazov"),

Psychologism is the most important feature of all Dostoevsky's works. Already in the 1840s. he paid more attention to the description of the inner world of the characters than to its social characteristics. This singled him out among the writers of the "natural school" and displeased its head, V. G. Belinsky. In contrast to the "sociologist" realists, the "fantastic" realist Dostoevsky did not shift responsibility for people's actions and their results to the "environment" and circumstances. In the early 1860s he ironically remarked that he had “started a process” with all Russian literature, declaring in a loud voice that every person is “respondent” for all the disorder of life and its “abomination”. According to Dostoevsky, the “global man” (that is, all mankind) will come to the “golden age” only when people understand and overcome their own imperfections. The writer defined his creative method as "fantastic realism", since, in his opinion, there is nothing more fantastic than the soul of a person experiencing his conflict with the world.

Dostoevsky created the genre of the "polyphonic" novel (M. M. Bakhtin's term). Starting with Crime and Punishment, his novels become grandiose artistic "laboratories" in which ideas, theories, concepts are tested by the practice of life. In them, ideological systems, types of people's behavior collide, there is a struggle of opinions. Each person in Dostoevsky represents some kind of life position, a view of the world, becoming a “hero-ideologist”, a living embodiment of an idea. But not a single voice, including the voice of the author himself, is decisive. The meaning of the tense “dialogues of ideas” that take place in the novels is the acquisition of moral truth, which cannot belong to one person: it is the property of all and is revealed to each person in the experience of his suffering and painful spiritual quest, in his movement towards moral perfection, towards God.

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky is rightfully considered one of the greatest and most talented literary figures, not only at home, but also abroad. The influence he had on world literature and the minds of millions is undeniable. The most diverse people call his name among their favorite authors. Among them are the current Prime Minister of the Russian Federation, Dmitry Medvedev, Colombian writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez, French actor Gerard Depardieu and many others.

Theatrical performances based on the works of Dostoevsky can be seen on the stages of almost all European capitals. Meanwhile, the average reader knows little about the life of a recognized genius, whose words and thoughts do not lose their relevance even after a century. And he's been through a lot of trials...

Fyodor Mikhailovich in Moscow on October 30, 1821 in the family of Mikhail Andreevich and Maria Fyodorovna Dostoevsky. The father of the future writer was a staff doctor, an excellent doctor, but a rather strict person. The mother was kind and understanding, who put up with the complex of her beloved husband.

Fedor was the second child in a family of eight in total. Despite the fact that the Dostoevsky family was quite friendly, the children more than once had to become unwitting witnesses to quarrels between their parents. And, perhaps, it was the nature of his father that led to the fact that at the age of 16, young Fedor had to endure the first tragedy in his life - his mother died. By that time, Fedor and his brother Mikhail, in one of the private boarding houses in Moscow, having graduated from which in 1838, became students of the St. Petersburg Military Engineering School.

In 1839, grief again struck the Dostoevsky family - the father of the family, Mikhail Andreevich, died of apoplexy. Meanwhile, persistent rumors circulated that the peasants themselves had dealt with him, for the master, , behaved indecently with young girls. True or not - who can now answer us? But the stroke suffered affected Fedor: Dostoevsky for the first time had an attack of epilepsy, which pursued the future writer.

After graduating from college, Dostoevsky got a job in the drawing room of the engineering department, but in 1844 he retired, deciding to devote himself to literary work. And in 1846 there was the first story of Fyodor Mikhailovich - "Poor people". In many ways, this was facilitated by Dmitry Grigorovich, a writer with whom Dostoevsky had known since school. It was he who took the work of the beginning writer to Nekrasov, who published it in his journal.

After the publication of "Poor People", the public started talking about the young writer as the hope of Russian literature. Belinsky himself appreciated Dostoevsky's work. It seemed that this is it, a wonderful beginning of a serene creative path, but she prepared new tests for the share of genius.

The novels of the writer that came out after the "Poor People" did not have the same success. In addition, Dostoevsky became a frequent guest of Mikhail Petrashevsky, an employee of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who possessed a very outstanding collection of literature prohibited at that time. Petrashevsky gladly provided the opportunity to read it to his like-minded people, who considered themselves the successors of the Decembrists and supporters of utopian socialism.

In fact, educated young people gathered at Petrashevsky's, who liked to indulge in discussions on pressing topics, nothing more. Yes, and Dostoevsky was mostly alien to the ideas they propagated, and it can rightly be assumed that soon Fyodor Mikhailovich would calmly change his circle of friends ... but fate decreed otherwise. The Petrashevites were accused of reading the forbidden "Letter of Belinsky to Gogol", which the authorities attributed to the list of revolutionary literature, and Nicholas I, who was afraid of a repetition of the events of 1825, sentenced the freethinkers to be shot.

On December 22, 1849, nine convicts were raised to the scaffold. After the priest walked around, the first trinity of the condemned were tied to a pole, caps were pulled over their eyes, and their guns were raised, preparing to open fire and fulfill the order. A moment - and everything will happen. And then the convicts were announced about the change of punishment: the execution was replaced by 4 years of hard labor and a settlement in Siberia.

In January 1850, Dostoevsky was taken to the Omsk fortress, where the writer served his sentence until 1854. Years of hard labor gave him invaluable experience and the opportunity to learn human types and destinies. The writer will dedicate the book “Notes from the Dead House” to this period of his life, which will later become a classic of literature.

At the end of hard labor, Dostoevsky is enrolled as a private in the Siberian line battalion and serves there, at the same time petitioning for his restoration of rights, and in 1856 he received the rank of officer. In 1859, he left Semipalatinsk, where he served, and went to Tver, and then to St. Petersburg, where he finally received permission to live. Here, together with his older brother Mikhail, Fyodor founded the magazine "Vremya", on the pages of which "The Humiliated and Insulted", as well as "Notes from the Dead House" will soon be published.

In 1864, after the magazine was closed due to problems with censorship, the Dostoevskys opened the Epoch magazine. But the new brainchild of the brothers was not destined for a long existence: in April of the same year, Mikhail dies, and a little over a year later the last issue of Epoch comes out. Dostoevsky travels to European cities, which he dreamed of for so long, to rest and see the light. Although there was certainly another reason for this.

As in the life of any person, love experiences had an undeniable influence on the work of Fyodor Mikhailovich. The writer experienced his first strong feelings in 1854, immediately after the end of hard labor. While serving in Semipalatinsk, Dostoevsky met Maria Dmitrievna Isaeva (nee Constant), the wife of an official on special assignments. Despite all the blows of fate (Isaeva's husband was an alcoholic, and she was forced to raise a young child alone), Maria Dmitrievna, who was ill with consumption, had an outstanding (in addition, French blood flowed in her). Dostoevsky gave the features of Maria Dmitrievna to his heroines: Katerina Marmeladova, Katerina Verkhovenskaya from the Brothers Karamazov, Nastasya Filippovna.

In 1855, Maria Dmitrievna's husband was transferred to Kuznetsk. In August of the same year, Isaev dies. But an obstacle appears again on the way: in Kuznetsk, the young widow quickly got a new gentleman - a teacher named Vergunov, having met whom, Dostoevsky was ready to retreat for the sake of the happiness of his beloved. But Isaeva chose him. Meanwhile, Dostoevsky was by no means happy in this marriage: they had no children with his wife, besides, Maria Dmitrievna was not at all his work. All this led to the fact that another woman appeared in the life of the writer.

In 1861, after one of the writer's speeches to students, a young lady approached Dostoevsky, calling herself his talent. She turned out to be 22-year-old Appolinaria Suslova, a volunteer at St. Petersburg University. Polina's father (as her household was called) was a peasant who bought himself and himself from the landowner. He sought to give his children a good education, therefore, he did not spare the education of his daughters.

Erupted feelings led to a stormy romance, which soon turned into torture for both. Appolinaria did not like the fact that Dostoevsky did not want to divorce his wife because of her illness.

A year before Maria Dmitrievna, Dostoevsky and Suslova decided to visit Paris. Polina left Russia first, since Fyodor Mikhailovich had urgent business to do in his homeland. When he finally arrived in France, it turned out that Appolinaria had found herself a new lover. It turned out to be a young Spaniard.

The news of a new passion for his mistress shocked Fyodor Mikhailovich, but he continued to stay close to her. The affair with the Spaniard ended in a quick breakup (he left Suslova), and Polina's life did not work out with Dostoevsky either. Trying to annoy him, Appolinaria refused to become his wife, while keeping the writer near her. Many years later, Polina will once again show her whole essence, this time in a relationship with the critic Rozanov, whom she will be 20 years older than and to whom she will not give a divorce for 20 years.

Dostoevsky was pulled out of the vicious circle of ties with Appolinaria by the second wife of the great writer, the young stenographer Anna Snitkina. We can say that she was sent to the writer by fate - at the moment when Dostoevsky did not have time to pass the "Player" (by the way, guess who was the prototype of Polina?), A young admirer of his work came to the rescue. The novel was dictated to her in 26 days. Since then, he and the writer have been inseparable.

Anna Snitkina can rightly be called the wisest of the three fatal women in Dostoevsky's life. She created the writer all the conditions for creativity, forgave him his passion and sometimes excessive jealousy, gave him children and family comfort, thanks to which Fyodor Mikhailovich was able to forget about Suslova. It was during his second marriage that Dostoevsky wrote The Idiot, Demons, The Teenager, and The Brothers Karamazov. For Dostoevsky, Anna was an angel, and he never ceased to admire her until his last day.

Fedor Mikhailovich died on January 23, 1881 from emphysema. He spent his last moments in the company of people close to him. Anna survived him for 37 years, without ceasing to serve her husband: she published collections of his works, helped biographers in their work. Half a century after her death, the ashes of Anna Grigorievna were transported from Yalta to the Alexander Nevsky Lavra and buried next to the grave of Dostoevsky. As she always dreamed.

Brief biography of Fyodor Dostoevsky, a famous classic of Russian literature and one of the best novelists of world significance, is presented in this article.

Fyodor Dostoevsky short biography

Fedor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky(1821-1881) was born in Moscow, in the family of a doctor.

1838-1843 - studied at the St. Petersburg Military Engineering School, after graduating from which he entered the drawing room of the engineering department.
1844 - retired and took up literary activity.

For the first time in 1846 published the novel "Poor People", then the story "Double". Since 1847, he became a member of the revolutionary circle of M. V. Petrashevsky, was fond of the ideas of utopian socialism. In 1849 he was arrested and sentenced to death, which was commuted to 4 years hard labor.

Subsequently, he wrote several works about hard labor, the largest of which were Notes from the House of the Dead (1861-62).

In the second half of the 50s, together with his brother M.M. Dostoevsky published the magazines Vremya and Epoch.

IN 1855 In the year he wrote a poem dedicated to the widow of Nicholas I, in the hope of amnesty and promotion to the next rank, which he received.

IN 60-70- e gg. the most outstanding books of Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky were created: Crime and Punishment (1866), The Idiot (1868), Demons (1871-72), Teenager (1875) and The Brothers Karamazov (1879-80).

He was born into a noble family. His father wanted his son to become a military man. But he longed for fame as a writer. When he was already an accomplished prose writer, he ended up in Siberia, in hard labor. After that, I started a new life from scratch. He was considered a preacher, and his works still seem topical. You will learn briefly about the life and work of Dostoevsky from our story. This is a truly brilliant writer and thinker... Dostoevsky's work (we will briefly describe it in the article) became most famous after his death. But first things first.

First shock

Fyodor Dostoevsky, whose biography and work became the subject of our review, was born in the capital in a larger family. The year was 1821. His father was a doctor, and seven years after the birth of the writer he was given the title of hereditary nobleman. As for the mother of the future prose writer, she grew up among the Moscow merchants.

Dostoevsky received an excellent education. At first, his mother taught him to read. Actually, in the parental home, the works of famous authors were very often quoted aloud, among which were N. Karamzin, G. Derzhavin, V. Zhukovsky and, of course, A. Pushkin.

Since the mother of the future writer was a very religious woman, every year she tried to take the children to the Trinity-Sergius Lavra. According to Dostoevsky's memoirs, he was shocked by the reading of Scripture. But most of all he liked the Old Testament Book of Job.

In a boarding house

In 1831, the writer's father acquired a small village near Tula, and every summer the whole family spent in it.

Dostoevsky believed that his childhood was the best time in his life. He constantly met and talked with the peasants. And these conversations later became the creative basis for future novels.

Meanwhile, his father taught Latin to his eldest sons Fedor and Mikhail. Then this home schooling was continued. For the writer's father hired professional teachers who taught Dostoevsky French, literature and mathematics.

Over the next four years, the brothers Mikhail and Fedor studied at a prestigious Moscow boarding school. However, the atmosphere of these institutions, as well as isolation from the family, caused a painful reaction in the future writer.

In 1837, Dostoevsky's mother died of consumption. And after that, the father sent the elder brothers to the northern capital to continue their education. They studied at the boarding school K. Kostomarov. The teachers prepared them for admission to one of the engineering schools. The brothers never met their father again. He died in 1839.

Studying at an engineering school

Even in the Kostomarovsk boarding school, the brothers expressed a desire to engage in literature. But the father believed that writing would not be able to secure their future. That is why he insisted that his sons enter the engineering school.

As a result, the brothers began their studies at this institution. The service weighed heavily on them. According to the memoirs of the writer, he hated drill and disciplines alien to him. He tried to keep himself closed, but at the same time he impressed his colleagues with his erudition. In his spare time, he continued to read and knew by heart almost all of Pushkin's works.

In addition, at night, young Dostoevsky himself began to write. And after some time, he and his friends organized their own literary circle.

When the future writer graduated from college, he literally immediately decided to resign. Thus, being a lieutenant, in 1844 he completely devoted himself to creativity. You will read briefly about Dostoevsky's work below.

First success

The writer entered the literary field with the translation of the work "Eugene Grande" by Balzac. In parallel, he translated the books of J. Sand and Eugene Sue. True, these novels were not published.

At the same time, Dostoevsky began working on his first book, Poor People. Subsequently, Nekrasov admired her. He claimed that the young author was the new Gogol. The poet also gave the manuscript to the famous critic V. Belinsky, who also liked the novel very much.

As a result, the book was published in 1846 and caused lively discussions. Reviewers noted the miscalculations of the young author, but at the same time recognized his great talent. And Belinsky predicted a great future for the writer.

By the way, critics correctly noticed a certain connection between "Poor People" and Gogol's "Overcoat". With the young Fyodor Dostoevsky, the theme of the “little man” found completely new twists.

First defeat

Dostoevsky's early work did not find much recognition. Having entered Belinsky's circle, the writer got acquainted with prominent authors of that era, among whom were I. Turgenev, V. Odoevsky, I. Panaev.

At the end of 1845, Dostoevsky presented a new story called The Double. At first, Belinsky was more than interested in this work, but later he was very disappointed with it. There was a cooling in relations between them.

In addition, Turgenev and Nekrasov openly ridiculed the morbid suspiciousness of the novice writer.

As a result, Dostoevsky was forced to agree to almost any literary work, which he experienced greatly. He also had the very first symptoms of epilepsy, which subsequently tormented him all his life.

In the circle "Petrashevtsev"

In 1847, the writer became close to M. Petrashevsky and his entourage. He regularly visited the so-called. "Fridays" of the leader of this movement. The meetings were clearly political in nature. "Petrashevites" touched upon issues related to the liberation of the peasants, judicial reform and censorship. In addition, members of the society distributed the works of the French socialists and a number of articles by the disgraced A. Herzen.

The following year, F. M. Dostoevsky, whose work was still not recognized, became a member of a special secret society. It was organized by one of the most radical Petrashevists, N. Speshnev. In addition, the ideologist of this organization had a tremendous influence on the writer. The main goal of the society was a coup d'état.

In 1849, the plot was uncovered, and all the Petrashevites, including Dostoevsky, were arrested and imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress.

We note right away: the vast majority of researchers believe that one of the main characters of the novel "Demons" Verkhovensky is endowed with obvious features of M. Petrashevsky ...

Siberian Golgotha

Dostoevsky spent eight months in the fortress. During this time, he was even able to write a story called "Little Hero".

When the trial ended, the writer was found guilty and sentenced to death. But already on the scaffold, the execution was replaced by a four-year penal servitude. At the same time, Dostoevsky was deprived of all rights and subsequently he should be handed over to the soldiers.

The writer served his term in Omsk. His emotional upheavals and reflections in prison became the basis for a new biographical work. We are talking about the novel "Notes from the House of the Dead". This tragic book struck all readers with the fortitude and courage of the prose writer.

Return

In 1854, Dostoevsky began to serve as an ordinary soldier, but a year later he was promoted to non-commissioned officer, and then to ensign. After some time, he was returned to the title of nobleman and given the opportunity to publish officially. During this period, he wrote two books, among which - "The village of Stepanchikovo and its inhabitants." In fact, in this work, the main features of future famous novels were already outlined, where there was a tragic course of events, a complex psychological pattern and theatricalization of the action itself.

Unfortunately, readers did not like Dostoevsky's idea in "The Village of Stepanchikovo". Interest in this work arose much later.

In 1859, the writer was allowed to live in Tver, and he retired from the service. Soon he returned to the northern capital. With his brother Michael, he began to engage in publishing activities. They created the magazine "Time", and then - "Epoch". Dostoevsky both edited and wrote. From his pen appeared polemical notes, journalistic articles and, of course, works of art.

Also on the pages of the publication, the writer began to print his new novel called "Humiliated and Insulted." Alas, because of the abundance of mystery and randomness of the composition, critics gave this work a low rating. But when he wrote the story "Notes from the Underground", readers put him on a pedestal.

Under the yoke of debt

In the mid-1960s, Mikhail Dostoevsky died suddenly. The writer decided to take on all the obligations and debts associated with the work of his journal. After some time, the subscription to the publication was also reduced. Then Fyodor Dostoevsky concluded an unfavorable contract for him to publish his collected works. In addition, he promised to write a completely new work by a certain date. It means "Crime and Punishment".

Dostoevsky's work is associated with this novel by modern readers. He nurtured the circle of the main ideas of this book for a long time. The work, in fact, summed up the work of those years. The author decided to make the killer and the sinful woman the main characters of his creation. As a result, the book was a huge success.

In addition, in parallel, Dostoevsky worked on another work - "The Gambler". The fact is that he, living at that time in Europe, accumulated a huge amount of debt while playing roulette. And in order to pay off his creditors, he must write a novel in record time. The most amazing thing: he completed the book in 21 days!

The era of brilliant novels

In the late 70s of the XIX century, Dostoevsky wrote another novel, The Idiot. According to him, the main task of the work is to portray an exceptionally ideal person, to reveal his image as deeply as possible. Dostoevsky's work, in particular this novel, interested readers. In the work, the main character, Prince Myshkin, personified mercy and forgiveness, but at the same time he himself could not withstand the encounter with the anger and hatred of society. In fact, this work is one of the most difficult novels of the writer.

After that, Dostoevsky published another book - "Demons". According to the author's memoirs, he was impressed by the terrorist activities of S. Nechaev and his society "People's Punishment". Critics believed that the novel was an ordinary anti-nihilistic work. However, they did not notice its tragic meaning and prophetic depth.

In 1875, The Teenager was also published. Creation was written in the form of a young man's confession. Well, the lifetime fame of the writer reached its apogee after the release of The Brothers Karamazov...

Last work

Since 1873, the writer headed the publication "Citizen". In addition to the immediate duties of the editor, he began to publish his own essays and feuilletons. So the so-called. "A Writer's Diary" On its pages, he talked about his impressions of the most important events in the country. This work was a great success. A number of readers began to correspond with the author.

Perhaps the apogee of his fame was his performance at the opening of the monument to A. S. Pushkin in 1880. This speech caused a huge resonance. In fact, it was the testament of the great writer.

The death of a genius

In early January 1881, Dostoevsky shared a familiar premonition that he would not be able to survive this winter. Three weeks later, his emphysema worsened, and two days later the brilliant writer was gone.

According to eyewitnesses, the funeral procession stretched for a mile to the cemetery. And the coffin with the body of the writer was carried in his arms.

He was buried in the graveyard of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra in the northern capital.

And although Dostoevsky gained fame during his lifetime, real fame came to him only after his death. But we'll talk about this a little later.

In the bosom of the family

The writer was married twice. The first marriage lasted seven years. They didn't have children. After some time, Dostoevsky married again. He had just completed his novel The Gambler. His chosen one was a twenty-year-old stenographer Anna. Dostoevsky at that time experienced serious financial difficulties. He paid off debts, supported his stepson and helped the family of his brother Mikhail. But at the same time, he did not know how to handle money at all. And Anna began to manage financial affairs.

When Dostoevsky died, she began to collect all the documents related to her husband's activities, and was engaged in the publication of his writings.

The namesake of the writer, the son of Fyodor, became the successor of the Dostoevsky family.

Posthumous glory

As mentioned above, Dostoevsky was recognized during his lifetime, but the greatest success came a few decades after his death. He became a classic of Russian literature. The stages of Dostoevsky's work are studied by modern schoolchildren, literary critics are interested in them. His legacy has always been valued differently. So, Nietzsche believed that the writer was the only author-psychologist. Freud put him on the same level as Shakespeare. Einstein admitted that the writer's work gives him more than any scientist.

On the other hand, the leader of the October Revolution, Vladimir Lenin, called Dostoevsky "archivic", and the Nobel laureate Ivan Bunin also echoed these words. Maxim Gorky believed that the writer is a real "evil genius". And N. Mikhailovsky did argue that the characters of the prose writer are mentally ill people, and all his works have absolutely no artistic value.

Such assessments of the writer's work continue to exist to this day.

At the same time, the analysis of Dostoevsky's novels was carried out by many well-known critics and researchers. Such first works were made in the 20s of the last century. In 1929, the brilliant culturologist and philosopher M. Bakhtin published a book entitled "Problems of Dostoevsky's Creativity." He believed that the writer created a completely new artistic model of the world. In a word, the number of admirers of the prose writer grew every year. And in the 70s, the International Dostoevsky Society began to function at all. By the way, it still exists...

One can talk about the life and work of Dostoevsky for a long time. In order to understand and comprehend his brilliant ideas, it is worth getting acquainted with his works. Happy reading!

Essay

Life and work of F.M. Dostoevsky

Completed by: Buryanova A.I.
Checked by: Kotova E.V.
2011
Content

Introduction
The life and work of Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky
Conclusion
Bibliography

Introduction

I chose this topic for my essay because I am interested in the biography of F.M. Dostoevsky. He lived a bright, eventful life and his work is recognized as one of the best. Yes, the writer's work cannot be called rosy, but at the same time, Dostoevsky deeply believed in good beginnings in a person. From his works it is clear that he had been nurturing the idea of ​​a future perfect and just society all his life. This wonderful, humanistic idea is preached by his heroes - Prince Myshkin from The Idiot and Alyosha Karamazov from The Brothers Karamazov. This idea runs like a red thread in the diaries and letters of the great writer. The writer saw the realization of his dream in the transformation of a person. He believed that a person should improve his own nature, realize responsibility to other people, and work unselfishly for the common good.