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Fyodor Dostoevsky Biography & Works

Fyodor Dostoyevsky was born on the 11th of November 1821, in Moscow. He was raised by Russian Orthodox parents, Mikhail Andreyevich and Maria Fyodorovna Dostoevsky. His father was a military surgeon, and an alcoholic who was slain in 1839 by his own serfs. Dostoyevsky attended military engineering school in St. Petersburg and upon graduation entered government service as a draftsman. But soon thereafter he gave up his career to pursue writing. Dostoyevsky's first published work, Poor Folk (1846), brought him almost immediate critical as well as public recognition.

Dostoevsky was arrested and imprisoned in 1849 for engaging in revolutionary activity against Tsar Nikolai I. Having been linked to the Petrashevsky Circle, a liberal intellectual group, he was sentenced to death on the 16th of November the same year. He was subjected to a mock execution his sentence was commuted to some years of hard labor in a Siberian prison. The frequency of epileptic seizures, to which he was predisposed, increased during this period, and eventually was released into service in the Siberian regiment in 1854. He spent five years as a corporal in Kazakhstan.

After his return to St. Petersburg in 1860, he unsuccessfully ran a series of literary journals with his older brother Mikhail. His professional failure was compounded exponentially by the death of his wife in 1864, followed shortly thereafter by his brother's. His financial situation deteriorated due to his business debts and the need to provide for his brother's widow and children. Exacerbating this debt were the losses at the gambling parlors.

Dostoyevsky was left practically penniless after a gambling binge. Dostoevsky wrote Crime and Punishment and The Gambler simultaneously in order to fulfill an agreement with his publisher. If he had failed to deliver as promised he would have lost the copyrights to all of his writing.

Dostoyevsky did see artistic as well as financial success towards the end of his career. He was also able to give lectures as he had gained a reputation as a speaker. His health further deteriorated in 1880. He died on the 28th of January 1881, and was buried in the Alexander Nevsky monastery.

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