Impressed by being at hard labor. Dostoevsky
Russian writer Fedor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky(1821-1881) spent four years in the Omsk convict prison (January 1850 - January 1854). In the spring of 1846, Dostoevsky met M. V. Butashevich-Petrashevsky and subsequently began to attend his meetings. In April 1849, arrests were made among the Petrashevites. For eight months Dostoevsky was kept in the Peter and Paul Fortress. Twenty-one members of the Petrashevsky circle, including Fyodor Mikhailovich, were sentenced to death penalty. On December 22, 1849, the Petrashevites were taken to the Semyonovsky Parade Ground to be shot. IN last moment pardon was announced to people already awaiting death. Execution was replaced by other types of punishment. Dostoevsky was sentenced to four years of hard labor followed by recruitment as a soldier.
On January 23, 1850, F. M. Dostoevsky, together with another Petrashevite, S. F. Durov, was taken to the Omsk prison. The time spent in hard labor was very difficult for the writer: shackles and convoys, hellish material and living conditions, constant lack of rights and humiliation. Dostoevsky worked at a brick factory, in an engineering workshop, and cleared snow on the city streets. His epileptic seizures intensified and he was forbidden to write. I had to survive in an atmosphere of evil, among people who deeply hated persons noble origin. But they met Fedor Mikhailovich and good people. Among them is the doctor of the prison, I. I. Troitsky (Dostoevsky was often in the prison hospital, where he managed to secretly create notes - the so-called “Siberian Notebook”). The writer was very lucky with the commandant of the fortress A.F. de Grave, who tried in every possible way to make his existence easier. “If I hadn’t found people here, I would have died completely...” (from a letter from Fyodor Mikhailovich to his brother Mikhail).
Finally, four long years have passed. On January 23, 1854, the shackles were removed, and the happiness of freedom came. For a month, Dostoevsky and Durov lived in the house of second lieutenant K. I. Ivanov (Konstantin Ivanovich was a classmate of the writer at the Main Engineering School and did a lot for him during hard labor; his wife, Olga Ivanovna, was the daughter of the Decembrist I. A. Annenkov and P. Gebl). From the beginning of March 1854, in accordance with the sentence of F. M. Dostoevsky began serving as an ordinary soldier in Semipalatinsk. He returned to St. Petersburg only at the end of 1859.
It is believed that it was the Omsk period of deprivation and suffering that largely influenced Dostoevsky’s character and worldview, laid the foundation for his understanding of the people, and contributed to his emergence as a great writer, whose works are known and read all over the world. He reflected his impressions of hard labor based on the “Siberian Notebook” in “Notes from dead house" In 1983 in Omsk, in the commandant’s house where the writer visited, a Literary Museum named after F. M. Dostoevsky, and in 2004 Omsk state university given his name.
Soon such permission was received, and Dostoevsky was actively involved in literary life Petersburg, together with his brother, he takes on a new business for him - publishing his own magazine. In the first issues of Vremya, Dostoevsky paid tribute to the tragic life experience, gleaned in Siberia: “Notes from the House of the Dead” were printed in full here, embodying the impressions received during 4 terrible years of hard labor. Who is responsible for the hell of the “House of the Dead”: historical circumstances, the social environment, or each person, an individual endowed with the freedom to choose good and evil? Already in Dostoevsky’s first book of the 60s, the scales swung for the first time towards the second answer.
The beginning of the 60s was the time of Dostoevsky’s formation as an Orthodox thinker, a “soiler”, nurturing the idea of Russian identity and pan-humanity. It was 1860-1864 that Dostoevsky would call the time of “rebirth of beliefs.”
The ideology of “soilism” found expression primarily in the journalism of the magazines “Time” and “Epoch”, which were published on own funds F. M. and M. M. Dostoevsky from 1861 to 1865. The social upsurge of the early 60s and the reforms of 1861 gave rise to a general expectation of a “new word” in history from the people themselves. But if the revolutionary democrats of the sixties, led by N. G. Chernyshevsky, called on the people to forcibly change the existing order, then Dostoevsky saw the guarantee of social prosperity in something else: in the peaceful merger of the educated classes and the root people, the “soil.” The new direction emerged not without the influence of Slavophilism. However, ways to achieve social ideal The writer saw, in contrast to the Slavophiles, in introducing Russia to the achievements of civilization and progress, in the education and enlightenment of the masses. This is how the thinker understood the most important duty of the intelligentsia. At the same time, Dostoevsky believed that the educated class should also learn from the people, adopt their original worldview, based on the Orthodox idea of universal brotherhood, on the Christian preaching of humility and suffering.
National identity, “own-historicity”, its own form of development, “taken from our soil, taken from the national spirit and folk principles” - these are the qualities that, according to Dostoevsky, are ignored by the Westernizing intelligentsia, but in fact do not contradict the pan-humanity of Russian culture . The Russian person “sympathizes with all humanity”; the Russian people are destined to be imbued with the ideas and aspirations of other peoples, to carry everyone along with them, to “rush into a new, broad, activity still unknown in history.” Dostoevsky will preach the idea of a special, messianic role for the Russian people until the end of his life.
1 The Messiah is the conductor and organizer of the will of God, the messianic is the conductor of the will of God.
In this article we will describe the life and work of Dostoevsky: we will briefly tell you about major events. Fyodor Mikhailovich was born on October 30 (old style - 11) 1821. An essay on Dostoevsky's work will introduce you to the main works and achievements of this man in the literary field. But we will start from the very beginning - with the origin of the future writer, with his biography.
The problems of Dostoevsky's creativity can be deeply understood only by becoming acquainted with the life of this man. After all fiction always in one way or another reflects the features of the biography of the creator of the works. In the case of Dostoevsky this is especially noticeable.
Origin of Dostoevsky
Fyodor Mikhailovich's father was from the Rtishchev branch, descendants of Daniil Ivanovich Rtishchev, defender of the Orthodox faith in Southwestern Rus'. For his special successes, he was given the village of Dostoevo, located in the Podolsk province. The Dostoevsky surname originates from there.
However, by the beginning of the 19th century, the Dostoevsky family became impoverished. Andrei Mikhailovich, the writer’s grandfather, served in the Podolsk province, in the town of Bratslav, as an archpriest. Mikhail Andreevich, the father of the author we are interested in, at one time graduated from the Medical-Surgical Academy. During Patriotic War, in 1812, he fought with others against the French, after which, in 1819, he married Maria Fedorovna Nechaeva, the daughter of a merchant from Moscow. Mikhail Andreevich, having retired, received a position as a doctor in an office open to poor people, which was popularly nicknamed Bozhedomka.
Where was Fedor Mikhailovich born?
The apartment of the future writer's family was located in the right wing of this hospital. In it, set aside as a government apartment for a doctor, Fyodor Mikhailovich was born in 1821. His mother, as we have already mentioned, came from a family of merchants. Pictures of premature deaths, poverty, illness, disorder - the boy’s first impressions, under the influence of which the future writer’s very unusual view of the world took shape. Dostoevsky's work reflects this.
The situation in the family of the future writer
The family, which grew over time to 9 people, was forced to huddle in only two rooms. Mikhail Andreevich was a suspicious and hot-tempered person.
Maria Feodorovna was of a completely different type: economical, cheerful, kind. The relationship between the boy's parents was based on submission to the whims and will of the father. The nanny and mother of the future writer were revered sacredly religious traditions country, raising future generations to respect the faith of their fathers. Maria Feodorovna died early - at the age of 36. She was buried at the Lazarevskoye cemetery.
First acquaintance with literature
The Dostoevsky family devoted a lot of time to education and science. Also in early age Fyodor Mikhailovich discovered the joy of communicating with a book. The very first works with which he became acquainted were folk tales Arina Arkhipovna, nannies. After that there were Pushkin and Zhukovsky - Maria Fedorovna’s favorite writers.
Fyodor Mikhailovich became acquainted with the main classics at an early age foreign literature: Hugo, Cervantes and Homer. His father arranged for him in the evenings family reading works of N. M. Karamzin "History of the Russian State". All this instilled in the future writer an early interest in literature. The life and work of F. Dostoevsky were largely influenced by the environment from which this writer came.
Mikhail Andreevich seeks hereditary nobility
Mikhail Andreevich in 1827 was awarded the Order of the 3rd degree for diligent and excellent service, and a year later he was also awarded the rank of collegiate assessor, which at that time gave a person the right to hereditary nobility. The father of the future writer understood well the value higher education and therefore sought to seriously prepare his children for entry into educational institutions.
Tragedy from Dostoevsky's childhood
Future writer in early years experienced a tragedy that left an indelible mark on his soul for the rest of his life. He fell in love with children sincere feeling the cook's daughter, a nine-year-old girl. One summer day a cry was heard in the garden. Fyodor ran out into the street and noticed her lying in a white tattered dress on the ground. The women bent over the girl. From their conversation, Fyodor realized that the culprit of the tragedy was a drunken tramp. After that, they went for their father, but his help was not needed, since the girl had already died.
Writer's education
Fyodor Mikhailovich received his initial education at a private boarding school in Moscow. In 1838 he entered the Main Engineering School located in St. Petersburg. He graduated in 1843, becoming a military engineer.
In those years, this school was considered one of the best educational institutions in the country. It is no coincidence that a lot of people came from there famous people. Among Dostoevsky's comrades at the school there were many talents, which later turned into famous personalities. These are Dmitry Grigorovich (writer), Konstantin Trutovsky (artist), Ilya Sechenov (physiologist), Eduard Totleben (organizer of the defense of Sevastopol), Fyodor Radetsky (hero of Shipka). Both humanitarian and special disciplines were taught here. For example, global and National history, Russian literature, drawing and civil architecture.
The tragedy of the "little man"
Dostoevsky preferred solitude to the noisy society of students. Reading was his favorite pastime. The future writer’s erudition amazed his comrades. But the desire for loneliness and solitude in his character was not an innate trait. At the school, Fyodor Mikhailovich had to endure the tragedy of the soul of the so-called " little man". After all, in this educational institution The students were mainly children of the bureaucratic and military bureaucracy. Their parents gave gifts to their teachers, sparing no expense. In this environment, Dostoevsky looked like a stranger and was often subjected to insults and ridicule. During these years, a feeling of wounded pride flared up in his soul, which later reflected the work of Dostoevsky.
But, despite these difficulties, Fyodor Mikhailovich managed to achieve recognition from both his comrades and teachers. Over time, everyone became convinced that this was a man of extraordinary intelligence and outstanding abilities.
Father's death
In 1839, Fyodor Mikhailovich’s father suddenly died from an apoplexy. There were rumors that it was not natural death- the men killed him for his tough temper. This news shocked Dostoevsky, and for the first time he had a seizure, a harbinger of future epilepsy, from which Fyodor Mikhailovich suffered all his life.
Service as an engineer, first works
Dostoevsky in 1843, having completed the course, was enrolled in the engineering corps to serve with the engineering team of St. Petersburg, but did not serve there for long. A year later he decided to take up literary creativity, a passion for which I have had for a long time. At first he began to translate classics, such as Balzac. After some time, the idea for a novel arose in letters entitled “Poor People.” This was the first independent work, from which Dostoevsky’s work begins. Then came the stories and stories: “Mr. Prokharchin”, “The Double”, “Netochka Nezvanova”, “White Nights”.
Rapprochement with the Petrashevites circle, tragic consequences
The year 1847 was marked by a rapprochement with Butashevich-Petrashevsky, who held the famous “Fridays”. He was a propagandist and admirer of Fourier. At these evenings, the writer met the poets Alexei Pleshcheev, Alexander Palm, Sergei Durov, as well as the prose writer Saltykov and scientists Vladimir Milyutin and Nikolai Mordvinov. At meetings of Petrashevites, socialist teachings and plans for revolutionary coups were discussed. Dostoevsky was a supporter of the immediate abolition of serfdom in Russia.
However, the government found out about the circle, and in 1849, 37 participants, including Dostoevsky, were imprisoned. Peter and Paul Fortress. They were sentenced to death, but the emperor commuted the sentence, and the writer was exiled to hard labor in Siberia.
In Tobolsk, at hard labor
He went to Tobolsk in the terrible frost on an open sleigh. Here Annenkova and Fonvizina visited the Petrashevites. The whole country admired the feat of these women. They gave each condemned person a Gospel in which money was invested. The fact is that the prisoners were not allowed to have their own savings, so this softened the harsh living conditions for some time.
While in hard labor, the writer realized how far the rationalistic, speculative ideas of the “new Christianity” were from the feeling of Christ, whose bearer is the people. Fyodor Mikhailovich took it from here new basis it is folk type Christianity. This subsequently reflected further creativity Dostoevsky, which we will tell you about a little later.
Military service in Omsk
For the writer, four years of hard labor was replaced after some time by military service. He was escorted from Omsk under escort to the city of Semipalatinsk. Here Dostoevsky's life and work continued. The writer served as a private, then receiving the rank of officer. He returned to St. Petersburg only at the end of 1859.
Magazine publishing
At this time it began spiritual search Fyodor Mikhailovich, which in the 60s culminated in the formation of the writer’s pochvennik beliefs. The biography and work of Dostoevsky at this time were marked by the following events. Since 1861, the writer, together with Mikhail, his brother, began publishing a magazine called "Time", and after it was banned - "Epoch". Working on new books and magazines, Fyodor Mikhailovich developed his own view of the problems public figure and the writer in our country is Russian, a unique version of Christian socialism.
The writer's first works after hard labor
Dostoevsky's life and work changed greatly after Tobolsk. In 1861, the first novel of this writer appeared, which he created after hard labor. This work (“Humiliated and Insulted”) reflects Fyodor Mikhailovich’s sympathy for the “little people” who are subjected to powerful of the world this incessant humiliation. We bought a big one public importance also “Notes from the House of the Dead” (years of creation - 1861-1863), which were started by the writer while still in hard labor. In the magazine "Time" in 1863, "Winter notes about summer impressions". In them, Fyodor Mikhailovich criticized the systems of Western European political beliefs. In 1864, Notes from Underground was published. This is a kind of confession of Fyodor Mikhailovich. In the work he renounced his previous ideals.
Further work of Dostoevsky
Let us briefly describe other works of this writer. In 1866, a novel entitled “Crime and Punishment” appeared, which is considered one of the most significant in his work. In 1868, The Idiot was published, a novel in which an attempt was made to create positive hero, which confronts a predatory, cruel world. In the 70s, the work of F.M. Dostoevsky continues. Novels such as “Demons” (published in 1871) and “The Teenager,” which appeared in 1879, became widely known. "The Brothers Karamazov" is a novel that became last work. He summed up Dostoevsky's work. The years of publication of the novel are 1879-1880. In this work main character, Alyosha Karamazov, helping others in trouble and alleviating suffering, is convinced that the most important thing in our life is a feeling of forgiveness and love. In 1881, on February 9, Dostoevsky Fyodor Mikhailovich died in St. Petersburg.
The life and work of Dostoevsky were briefly described in our article. It cannot be said that the writer was always interested in the problem of man above all others. Let's write about this important feature, which Dostoevsky’s work had, briefly.
Man in creative writing
Fyodor Mikhailovich throughout his entire creative path reflected on the main problem of humanity - how to overcome pride, which is the main source of separation between people. Of course, there are other themes in Dostoevsky’s work, but it is largely based on this one. The writer believed that any of us has the ability to create. And he must do this while he lives; it is necessary to express himself. The writer devoted his entire life to the topic of Man. The biography and work of Dostoevsky confirm this.
Why Dostoevsky, famous writer ended up in hard labor? For connections with the Petrashevites - a circle of freethinking socialists who had “revolutionary sentiments.”
Where did Dostoevsky serve hard labor? In the Omsk fortress - a fortress.
Read more about the reasons for arrest and exile.
Hard labor in dates:
- December 24, 1849 – departure from St. Petersburg
- January 9, 1850 - Dostoevsky arrived in Tobolsk, a transit prison
- January 23, 1850 – arrival in Omsk prison
- January 23, 1854 - end of hard labor
- February 1854 - Dostoevsky leaves the Omsk fortress and goes into exile.
STAGE
Soon after the “execution,” Dostoevsky was exiled from St. Petersburg to the Omsk fortress, which, by that time, was a military prison. So, Dostoevsky went on his first long trip around Russia.
Later he would write: “I was frozen to my heart. It was a sad moment crossing the Urals. The horses and wagons got stuck in the snowdrifts. There was a snowstorm. We got out of the carts, it was at night, and stood waiting for the carts to be pulled out. There is snow and blizzard all around; the border of Europe, ahead of Siberia and the mysterious fate in it, behind and everything that had happened - it was sad, and tears filled me.”
A few days later they arrived in a convoy to a temporary casemate in Tobolsk. The prisoners were put in a dirty, cold cell. One of Petrashevsky’s members, Yastrzhembsky, in despair decided to commit suicide, but Dostoevsky, showing an unbroken nature, supported his comrade.
"In a friendly conversation we had most nights. Dostoevsky’s handsome, sweet voice, his tenderness and softness of feeling, even a few of his capricious outbursts, completely feminine, had a calming effect on me...” Yastrzhembsky would later remember.
One of the most memorable events in Tobolsk was the meeting with the wives of the Decembrists: Annenkova, her daughter, Fonvizina and Muravyova. The Decembrists came to support the prisoners and fed them lunch. Also, everyone was given a “gospel” book (this is the only book that could be kept with you in hard labor) and given 10 rubles. Dostoevsky kept his copy of the book until his death.
Anenkova's daughter, Olga Ivanovna, later moved to Omsk, and maintained a relationship with Fyodor Dostoevsky, who called her his own sister.
Approximately, on January 20, Dostoevsky, together with his comrade-in-arms Durov, was sent to the Omsk fortress.
Omsk Fortress.
At the end of January, Fyodor Dostoevsky arrived at hard labor, his head was shaved and he was given a prisoner's uniform. On the same day, he met the head of the prison, Krivtsov, who made a depressing impression on him - Krivtsov was drunk, cursed the new arrivals and threatened with violence.
Since Fyodor Mikhailovich did not master any of the crafts, he was sent to any menial work.
He managed to visit:
- Helper with the grinding wheel
- Brick bearer
- Unloaded barges while standing in icy water
- And etc.
At first, Dostoevsky had a hard time experiencing hard labor. Partly because of the alienation and hatred with which the other prisoners treated the nobles. Thus, only high-born people managed to avoid the stigma - the rest were branded (the indelible inscription KAT was placed on their faces).
But later, the writer will write: “After all, this people were an extraordinary people. After all, this may be the most gifted, the most powerful people of all our people. But mighty forces died in vain, died abnormally, illegally, irrevocably. And who is to blame? ... So who is to blame.”
It was there, in penal servitude, that the new Dostoevsky was born: according to him in my own words There he lived through his entire life, reevaluated all his actions and radically changed his worldview.
“Lonely at heart, I reviewed all past life mine, went over everything to the last detail, thought about my past, judged myself inexorably and strictly, and even at other times blessed fate for sending me this solitude, without which neither this judgment on myself nor this strict review would have taken place former life."
The writer was arrested (1849) in connection with the “Petrashevsky case.” Although Dostoevsky denied the charges against him, the court recognized him as “one of the most important criminals.”
The military court finds the defendant Dostoevsky guilty of the fact that, having received in March of this year from Moscow from the nobleman Pleshcheev ... a copy of the criminal letter of the writer Belinsky, he read this letter in meetings: first with the defendant Durov, then with the defendant Petrashevsky. Therefore, the military court sentenced him for failure to report the dissemination of a criminal letter about religion and government from the writer Belinsky... to deprive him, on the basis of the Code of Military Resolutions... of ranks and all the rights of the state, and to subject him to the death penalty by shooting.
Hard labor and exile
The trial and harsh sentence to death (December 22, 1849) on the Semenovsky parade ground was framed as a mock execution. At the last moment, the convicts were given a pardon and sentenced to hard labor. One of those sentenced to execution, Nikolai Grigoriev, went crazy. Dostoevsky conveyed the feelings that he might experience before his execution in the words of Prince Myshkin in one of the monologues in the novel “The Idiot”.
During a short stay in Tobolsk on the way to the place of hard labor (January 11-20, 1850), the writer met the wives of the exiled Decembrists: Zh. A. Muravyova, P. E. Annenkova and N. D. Fonvizina. The women gave him the Gospel, which the writer kept throughout his life.
Dostoevsky spent the next four years in hard labor in Omsk. The memoirs of one of the eyewitnesses of the writer’s hard labor life have been preserved. The impressions from his stay in prison were later reflected in the story “Notes from the House of the Dead.” In 1854, Dostoevsky was released and sent as a private to the seventh linear Siberian battalion. While serving in Semipalatinsk, he became friends with Chokan Valikhanov, a future famous Kazakh traveler and ethnographer. Here he began an affair with Maria Dmitrievna Isaeva, who was married to a gymnasium teacher, Alexander Isaev, a bitter drunkard. After some time, Isaev was transferred to the place of the assessor in Kuznetsk. On August 14, 1855, Fyodor Mikhailovich received a letter from Kuznetsk: the husband of M. D. Isaeva died after a long illness.
Emperor Nicholas I died on February 18, 1855. Dostoevsky wrote a loyal poem dedicated to his widow, Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, and as a result became a non-commissioned officer. On October 20, 1856, Dostoevsky was promoted to ensign.
On February 6, 1857, Dostoevsky married Maria Isaeva in Russian Orthodox Church in Kuznetsk. Immediately after the wedding, they went to Semipalatinsk, but on the way Dostoevsky had an epileptic seizure, and they stopped for four days in Barnaul. On February 20, 1857, Dostoevsky and his wife returned to Semipalatinsk.
Period of imprisonment and military service was a turning point in Dostoevsky’s life: from a “seeker of truth in man” who had not yet decided in life, he turned into a deeply religious person, whose only ideal for the rest of his life was Christ.
In 1859 in " Domestic notes» Dostoevsky published his stories “The Village of Stepanchikovo and Its Inhabitants” and “Uncle’s Dream”.
