Who was born in the same year as Dostoevsky. Fyodor Dostoevsky - biography, information, personal life

Dostoevsky Fyodor Mikhailovich (1821-1881)

Great Russian writer. Born in Moscow. Father, Mikhail Andreevich - staff doctor at the Moscow Mariinsky Hospital for the Poor; in 1828 he received the title of hereditary nobleman. Mother - Maria Fedorovna (nee Nechaeva). There were six more children in the Dostoevsky family.

In May 1837 future writer travels with his brother Mikhail to St. Petersburg and enters the preparatory boarding school of K. F. Kostomarov. A literary circle is formed around Dostoevsky at the school. After graduating from college (end of 1843), he was enlisted as a field engineer-second lieutenant in the St. Petersburg engineering team, but already in the early summer of 1844, having decided to devote himself entirely to literature, he resigned and was discharged with the rank of lieutenant. I finished translating the story “Eugene Grande” by Balzac. The translation was the first to be published literary work Dostoevsky. In May 1845, after numerous alterations, he finished the novel “Poor People,” which was an exceptional success.

From March-April 1847, Dostoevsky became a visitor to M.V.’s “Fridays.” Butashevich-Petrashevsky. He also participates in the organization of a secret printing house for printing appeals to peasants and soldiers. Dostoevsky's arrest occurred on April 23, 1849; his archive was taken away during his arrest and probably destroyed in the III department. Dostoevsky spent eight months in the Alekseevsky ravelin Peter and Paul Fortress under investigation, during which he showed courage, hiding many facts and trying, if possible, to mitigate the guilt of his comrades. On December 22, 1849, Dostoevsky, along with others, awaited the execution of the death sentence at the Semenovsky parade ground. According to the resolution of Nicholas I, his execution was replaced by 4 years of hard labor with deprivation of “all rights of state” and subsequent surrender to the army.

From January 1850 to 1854 Dostoevsky was serving hard labor, but was able to resume correspondence with his brother Mikhail and friend A. Maikov. In November 1855, Dostoevsky was promoted to non-commissioned officer, and then to ensign; in the spring of 1857 was returned to the writer hereditary nobility and the right to publish. Police supervision over him remained until 1875.

In 1857, Dostoevsky married the widowed M.D. Isaeva. The marriage was not happy: Isaeva agreed after much hesitation that tormented Dostoevsky. Creates two “provincial” comic stories - “ Uncle's dream" and "The village of Stepanchikovo and its inhabitants." In December 1859 he came to live in St. Petersburg.

Dostoevsky's intensive activity combined editorial work on “other people's” manuscripts with the publication of his own articles. The novel “Humiliated and Insulted” is published; “Notes from House of the Dead».

In June 1862, Dostoevsky traveled 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 was reflected in the novels “The Player”, “The Idiot” and other works.

In October 1863 he returned to Russia. 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 the images of Katerina Ivanovna - “Crime and Punishment” and Nastasya Filippovna - “Idiot”) On June 10, M. M. Dostoevsky died.

In 1866, an expiring contract with a publisher forced Dostoevsky to simultaneously work on two novels - Crime and Punishment and The Gambler. In October 1866, the stenographer A.G. Snitkina came to him, who in the winter of 1867 became Dostoevsky’s wife. The new marriage was more successful. Until July 1871, Dostoevsky and his wife lived abroad (Berlin; Dresden; Baden-Baden, Geneva, Milan, Florence).

In 1867-1868 Dostoevsky worked on the novel "The Idiot".

At Nekrasov’s suggestion, the writer publishes his new novel"Teenager".

In the last years of his life, Dostoevsky's popularity increased. In 1877 he was elected corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences. In 1878, after the death of his beloved son Alyosha, he made a trip to Optina Pustyn, where he talked with Elder Ambrose. He writes “The Brothers Karamazov” - the final work of the writer, in which artistic embodiment received many ideas from his work. On the night of January 25-26, 1881, Dostoevsky’s throat began to bleed. On the afternoon of January 28, the writer said goodbye to the children; in the evening he died.
On January 31, 1881, the writer’s funeral took place in front of a huge crowd of people. He is buried in the Alexander Nevsky Lavra in St. Petersburg.

Russian writer. Fyodor Mikhailovich, the second son in the family, was born on November 11 (Old Style - October 30) 1821 in Moscow, in the building of the Mariinsky Hospital for the Poor, where his father served as a stacker. In 1828, Dostoevsky’s father received hereditary nobility; in 1831 he acquired the village of Darovoye, Kashira district. Tula province, in 1833 - neighboring village Chermoshnya. Dostoevsky's mother, née Nechaeva, came from the Moscow merchant class. Seven children were raised according to the traditions of antiquity in fear and obedience, rarely leaving the walls of the hospital building. The family spent the summer months on a small estate purchased in the Kashira district of the Tula province in 1831. The children enjoyed almost complete freedom, because They usually spent time without their father. Fyodor Dostoevsky began to study quite early: his mother taught him the alphabet, French - in half board N.I. Drashusova. In 1834 he and his brother Mikhail entered the famous boarding school of Chermak, where the brothers were especially fond of literature lessons. At the age of 16, Dostoevsky lost his mother and was soon named one of the best educational institutions that time - the St. Petersburg Engineering School, where he acquired a reputation as an “unsociable eccentric.” I had to live in cramped circumstances, because... Dostoevsky was not accepted into the school at public expense.

In 1841 Dostoevsky was promoted to officer. In 1843, upon completion of the course at the St. Petersburg Military Engineering School, he was enlisted in the service of the St. Petersburg engineering team and sent to the drawing engineering department. In the fall of 1844 he resigned, deciding to live only literary work and “work like hell.” First try independent creativity, the dramas “Boris Godunov” and “Mary Stuart” that have not reached us, date back to the early 40s. In 1846, in the “Petersburg Collection” N.A. Nekrasov, published his first essay - the story "Poor People". As one of equals, Dostoevsky was accepted into V.G.’s circle. Belinsky, who warmly welcomed the newly minted writer as one of the future great artists of the Gogol school, but a good relationship the circle soon went bad, because... members of the circle did not know how to spare Dostoevsky’s painful pride and often laughed at him. He still continued to meet with Belinsky, but he was very offended by the bad reviews of new works, which Belinsky called “nervous nonsense.” Before the arrest, on the night of April 23 (old style) 1849, 10 stories were written. Due to his involvement in the Petrashevsky case, Dostoevsky was imprisoned in the Alekseevsky ravelin of the Peter and Paul Fortress, where he stayed for 8 months. He was sentenced to death, but the sovereign replaced it with hard labor for 4 years, followed by assignment to the rank and file. On December 22 (old style) Dostoevsky was brought to Semenovsky Parade Ground, where a ceremony was held over him to announce the death penalty by firing squad, and only at the last moment the real sentence was announced to the convicts, as a special mercy. On the night of December 24-25 (old style), 1849, he was shackled and sent to Siberia. He served his sentence in Omsk, in " House of the Dead"During hard labor, Dostoevsky's epileptic seizures, to which he was predisposed, intensified.

On February 15, 1854, at the end of his term of hard labor, he was assigned as a private to the Siberian linear 7th battalion in Semipalatinsk, where he stayed until 1859 and where Baron A.E. took him under his protection. Wrangel. On February 6, 1857, in Kuznetsk, he married Maria Dmitrievna Isaeva, the widow of a tavern supervisor, whom he fell in love with during the life of her first husband. The marriage increased Dostoevsky's financial needs, because... He took care of his stepson for the rest of his life; he more often turned for help to friends and his brother Mikhail, who at that time headed a cigarette factory. On April 18, 1857, Dostoevsky was restored to his former rights and on August 15 received the rank of ensign (according to other sources, he was promoted to ensign on October 1, 1855). He soon submitted his resignation and was fired on March 18, 1859, with permission to live in Tver, but soon received permission to live in the capital. In 1861, together with his brother Mikhail, he began publishing the magazines “Time” (banned in 1863) and “Epoch” (1864 - 1865). In the summer of 1862 he visited Paris, London, and Geneva. Soon the magazine "Vremya" was closed for an innocent article by N. Strakhov, but at the beginning of 64 "Epoch" began to appear. On April 16, 1864, his wife died, having suffered from consumption for more than 4 years, and on June 10, Fyodor Dostoevsky’s brother, Mikhail, unexpectedly died. Blow after blow and a mass of debts finally upset the business, and at the beginning of 1865 “Epoch” was closed. Dostoevsky was left with 15,000 rubles in debt and moral duty support the family of his deceased brother and his wife’s son from her first husband. In November 1865 he sold his copyright to Stellovsky.

In the fall of 1866, Anna Grigorievna Snitkina was invited to take shorthand notes for “The Player,” and on February 15, 1867, she became Dostoevsky’s wife. In order to get married and leave, he borrowed 3,000 rubles from Katkov for the novel he had planned (“The Idiot”). But of these 3000 rub. hardly even a third of them moved abroad with him: after all, the son of his first wife and the widow of his brother with their children remain in his care in St. Petersburg. Two months later, having escaped from creditors, they went abroad, where they stayed for more than 4 years (until July 1871). Heading to Switzerland, he stopped in Baden-Baden, where he lost everything: money, his suit, and even his wife’s dresses. I lived in Geneva for almost a year, sometimes needing the bare necessities. Here his first child was born, who lived only 3 months. Dostoevsky lives in Vienna and Milan. In 1869, in Dresden, a daughter, Lyubov, was born. The brightest period in life begins upon returning to St. Petersburg, when the smart and energetic Anna Grigorievna took financial affairs into her own hands. Here, in 1871, son Fedor was born. From 1873, Dostoevsky became the editor of Grazhdanin with a salary of 250 rubles per month, in addition to the fee for articles, but in 1874 he left Grazhdanin. 1877 - corresponding member St. Petersburg Academy Sci. Last years the writer suffered from emphysema. On the night of January 25-26 (old style) 1881, the pulmonary artery ruptured, and was followed by an attack of his usual illness - epilepsy. Dostoevsky died on February 9 (according to the old style - January 28) 1881 at 8:38 pm. The writer’s funeral, which took place on January 31 (according to other sources, February 2 according to the old style) was a real event for St. Petersburg: in funeral procession 72 deputations took part, and 67 wreaths were brought to the Church of the Holy Spirit in the Alexander Nevsky Lavra. He was buried in the Necropolis of Masters of Arts of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra. The monument was erected in 1883 (sculptor N. A. Lavretsky, architect Kh. K. Vasiliev).

Among the works are stories and novels: “Poor People” (1846, novel), “Double” (1846, story), “Prokharchin” (1846, story), “Weak Heart” (1848, story), “Someone else’s Wife” ( 1848, story), "Novel in 9 letters" (1847, story), "Mistress" (1847, story), " Jealous husband" (1848, story), "Honest Thief", (1848, story published under the title "Stories of an Experienced Man"), "Christmas Tree and Wedding" (1848, story), "White Nights" (1848, story), "Netochka Nezvanova "(1849, story), "Uncle's Dream" (1859, story), "The Village of Stepanchikovo and its Inhabitants" (1859, story), "Humiliated and Insulted" (1861, novel), "Notes from the House of the Dead" (1861- 1862), "Winter Notes on summer impressions"(1863), "Notes from the Underground" (1864), "Crime and Punishment" (1866, novel), "The Idiot" (1868, novel), "Demons" (1871 - 1872, novel), "Teenager" (1875 , novel), "The Diary of a Writer" (1877), "The Brothers Karamazov" (1879 - 1880, novel), "The Boy at Christ's Christmas Tree", "The Meek One", "The Dream of a Funny Man".

In the USA, the first translation of Dostoevsky into English (“Notes from the House of the Dead”) appeared in 1881 thanks to the publisher H. Holt; in 1886, a translation of the novel “Crime and Punishment” was published in the USA. The attitude towards Dostoevsky in the USA was much more restrained than, for example, towards I.S. Turgenev or L.N. Tolstoy, many prominent American writers did not understand and did not accept his work. In the USA, interest in it increased after its publication on English language 12-volume collected works (1912 - 1920), however characteristic feature statements of many American writers, which included E. Sinclair and V.V. Nabokov, the rejection remains. Dostoevsky's work was highly appreciated by Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, Eugene O'Neill, Arthur Miller, Robert Penn Warren, Mario Puzo Puzo).

Information sources:

• "Russian biographical dictionary" rulex.ru
• Encyclopedic resource rubricon.com (Big Soviet encyclopedia, Encyclopedic reference book "St. Petersburg", Encyclopedia "Moscow", encyclopedic Dictionary Brockhaus and Efron, Encyclopedia of Russian-American Relations)
• Project "Russia Congratulates!"

In Moscow.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In 1863, the writer, during his second trip abroad, met Apollinaria Suslova, their difficult relationships, and gambling Roulette in Baden-Baden provided material for the future novel "The Gambler".

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

In 1867-1868, Dostoevsky wrote the novel “The Idiot,” the task of which he saw in “depicting positively wonderful person".

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In January 1983 it received its first visitors Literary Museum them. F.M. Dostoevsky in Omsk.

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

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

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

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

The writer had no children from his first marriage to Maria Isaeva. In their second marriage, the Dostoevskys had four children, two of them - the eldest Sophia and the youngest Alexei - died in infancy. Daughter Lyubov Dostoevskaya (1869-1926) became a writer, author of the book “Dostoevsky in the Portrayal of His Daughter”; died in northern Italy. The writer's son, Fyodor Dostoevsky (1871-1921), having graduated from the law and natural faculties of Dorpat University, became a major expert in horse breeding. In the last years of his life, fulfilling the will of his mother, he continued to collect and store Dostoevsky’s archive.

The material was prepared based on information from RIA Novosti and open sources

In October 1821, a second child was born into the family of nobleman Mikhail Dostoevsky, who worked in a hospital for the poor. The boy was named Fedor. Thus the future was born great writer, author immortal works"The Idiot", "The Brothers Karamazov", "Crime and Punishment".

They say that Fyodor Dostoevsky’s father was distinguished by a very hot-tempered character, which to some extent was passed on to the future writer. The children’s nanny, Alena Frolovna, skillfully extinguished their emotional nature. Otherwise, the children were forced to grow up in an atmosphere of total fear and obedience, which, however, also had some impact on the future of the writer.

Studying in St. Petersburg and the beginning of a creative path

1837 turned out to be a difficult year for the Dostoevsky family. Mom passes away. The father, who has seven children left in his care, decides to send his eldest sons to a boarding school in St. Petersburg. So Fedor, together with his older brother, ends up in northern capital. Here he goes to study at a military engineering school. A year before graduation, he begins translating. And in 1843 he published his own translation of Balzac’s work “Eugenie Grande”.

The writer’s own creative path begins with the story “Poor People.” Tragedy described little man found worthy praise from the critic Belinsky and the already popular poet Nekrasov at that time. Dostoevsky enters the circle of writers and meets Turgenev.

Over the next three years, Fyodor Dostoevsky published the works “The Double,” “The Mistress,” “White Nights,” and “Netochka Nezvanova.” In all of them he made an attempt to get inside human soul, describing in detail the subtleties of the characters’ character. But these works were received very coolly by critics. Nekrasov and Turgenev, both revered by Dostoevsky, did not accept the innovation. This forced the writer to move away from his friends.

In exile

In 1849, the writer was sentenced to death. This was connected with the “Petrashevsky case”, for which sufficient evidence was collected. The writer prepared for the worst, but just before his execution his sentence was changed. IN last moment the condemned are read a decree according to which they must go to hard labor. All the time that Dostoevsky spent awaiting execution, he tried to portray all his emotions and experiences in the image of the hero of the novel “The Idiot,” Prince Myshkin.

The writer spent four years in hard labor. Then he was pardoned for good behavior and sent to serve in the military battalion of Semipalatinsk. Immediately he found his destiny: in 1857 he married the widow of the official Isaev. It should be noted that during the same period, Fyodor Dostoevsky turned to religion, deeply idealizing the image of Christ.

In 1859, the writer moved to Tver, and then to St. Petersburg. Ten years of wandering through penal servitude and military service made him very sensitive to human suffering. The writer experienced a real revolution in his worldview.

European period

The beginning of the 60s was marked by stormy events in the writer’s personal life: he fell in love with Appolinaria Suslova, who fled abroad with someone else. Fyodor Dostoevsky followed his beloved to Europe and traveled with her for two months different countries. At the same time, he became addicted to playing roulette.

The year 1865 was marked by the writing of Crime and Punishment. After its publication, fame came to the writer. At the same time, appears in his life new love. She was the young stenographer Anna Snitkina, who became his faithful friend until her death. With her, he fled from Russia, hiding from large debts. Already in Europe he wrote the novel “The Idiot”.

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

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

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

Reading Skills young Fedor mastered and biblical book Job, which was also reflected in his subsequent works: the writer used his thoughts about this book when creating the famous novel “The Teenager”. The father also contributed to his son's education, teaching him Latin.

A total of seven children were born into the Dostoevsky family. So, Fyodor had an older brother, Mikhail, with whom he was especially close, and an older sister. Moreover, he had younger brothers Andrey and Nikolay, as well as younger sisters Vera and Alexandra.

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

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

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

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

The beginning of a creative journey

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

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

Soon Dostoevsky quarreled with and was expelled from the “Belinsky circle”, and also quarreled with N.A. Nekrasov, editor of Sovremennik. However, the publication “ Domestic notes"edited by Andrey Kraevsky.

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

Arrest and hard labor

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

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

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

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

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

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

In 1856, the new emperor granted forgiveness to all Petrashevskyites, 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 destiny, trying to find the truth and build a system life principles, then already at the end of the 1850s he became a mature, fully formed personality. The difficult years in hard labor made him a deeply religious person, which he remained until his death.

Creativity flourishes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A peculiar result creative path Fedor Mikhailovich, literary analogue summing up the results, became “The Brothers Karmazov”. Many episodes storylines, the characters in this work were loosely based on the writer's previously written novels, starting with his first published novel, Poor People.

Death

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

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

Personal life

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

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

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

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

Dostoevsky Quotes

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