Dostoevsky childhood summary. The life and work of Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky. Brief biography of Dostoevsky. F M Dostoevsky biography, interesting facts. Mikhail Andreevich seeks hereditary nobility

Dostoevsky, Fyodor Mikhailovich - famous writer. Born on October 30, 1821 in Moscow in the building of the Mariinsky Hospital, where his father served as a staff physician.

Father, Mikhail Andreevich (1789-1839), was a doctor (head doctor) at the Moscow Mariinsky Hospital for the Poor, and in 1828 received the title of hereditary nobleman. In 1831 he acquired the village of Darovoye, Kashira district, Tula province, and in 1833 the neighboring village of Chermoshnya. In raising his children, the father was an independent, educated, caring family man, but had a quick-tempered and suspicious character. After the death of his wife in 1837, he retired and settled in Darovo. According to documents, he died of apoplexy; according to the recollections of relatives and oral traditions, he was killed by his peasants.

In contrast to him was his mother, Maria Feodorovna, who dearly loved all her seven children. His nanny, Alena Frolovna, had a great influence on the formation of Dostoevsky’s personality. It was she who told the children fairy tales about Russian heroes and the Firebird.

There were six more children in the Dostoevsky family, Fyodor was the second child. He grew up in a harsh environment, over which the gloomy spirit of his father hovered. Children were brought up in fear and obedience, which influenced the biography of Dostoevsky. Rarely leaving the walls of the hospital building, they communicated with the outside world only through the sick, with whom they sometimes spoke secretly from their father. Dostoevsky’s brightest childhood memories are associated with the village - the small estate of his parents in the Tula province. Since 1832, the family spent the summer months there every year, usually without a father, and the children had almost complete freedom there, which positively influenced the biography of Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky.

In 1832, Dostoevsky and his older brother Mikhail began studying with teachers who came to the house, from 1833 they studied at the boarding house of N. I. Drashusov (Sushara), then at the boarding house of L. I. Chermak. The atmosphere of educational institutions and isolation from family caused a painful reaction in Dostoevsky (cf. the autobiographical traits of the hero of the novel “Teenager”, who experiences deep moral upheavals in the “Tushar boarding house”). At the same time, the years of study were marked by an awakened passion for reading.

1837 is an important date for Dostoevsky. This is the year of his mother’s death, the year of Pushkin’s death, which he and his brother have read since childhood, the year of moving to St. Petersburg and entering the military engineering school, which Dostoevsky will graduate in 1843. In 1839, he receives news of the massacre of his father. A year before leaving his military career, Dostoevsky first translated and published Balzac’s “Eugenie Grande” (1843).

He began his creative career with the story “Poor People” (1846), which was commendably received by N. Nekrasov and V. Belinsky, they liked the tragedy of the little man depicted in it. The story brought popularity to the author; he was compared to Gogol. There was an acquaintance with I. Turgenev. But his following works: the psychological story “The Double” (1846), the fantastic story “The Mistress” (1847), the lyrical story “White Nights” (1848), the dramatic story “Netochka Nezvanova” (1849), were coolly received by critics who did not accepted his innovations and desire to penetrate the secrets of human character. Dostoevsky experienced negative reviews very painfully and began to move away from I. Turgenev and N. Nekrasov.

Shortly after the publication of White Nights, 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 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, 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.”

Dostoevsky spent the next 4 years in hard labor in Omsk. In 1854, for good behavior, he was released from hard labor and sent as a private to the seventh linear Siberian battalion. He served in the fortress in Semipalatinsk and rose to the rank of lieutenant. Here he began an affair with Maria Dmitrievna Isaeva, the wife of a former official on special assignments, who at the time of their acquaintance was an unemployed drunkard. In 1857, shortly after her husband's death, he married a 33-year-old widow. It was the period of imprisonment and military service that was a turning point in Dostoevsky’s life: from a still undecided “seeker of truth in man” in life, he turned into a deeply religious person, whose only ideal for the rest of his life was Christ.

In 1859 he received permission to live in Tver, then in St. Petersburg. At this time, he published the stories “Uncle’s Dream”, “The Village of Stepanchikovo and Its Inhabitants” (1859), and the novel “The Humiliated and Insulted” (1861). Nearly ten years of physical and moral suffering sharpened Dostoevsky's sensitivity to human suffering, intensifying his intense quest for social justice. These years became for him years of spiritual turning point, the collapse of socialist illusions, and growing contradictions in his worldview.

In 1861, Dostoevsky, together with his brother Mikhail, began publishing the magazine "Time". In 1863, the magazine was banned, and in 1864 they created a new publication, “Epoch,” which existed until 1865. This period of Dostoevsky's biography is relatively calm, except for persecution by censorship. He managed to travel - in 1862 he visited France, Great Britain, and Switzerland.

Back in 1862, Dostoevsky fell in love with Appolinaria Suslova, who reciprocated the feelings of the former political exile. She was an ardent and active nature, who managed to awaken in Dostoevsky feelings that he considered long dead. Dostoevsky proposes to Suslova, but she runs abroad with someone else. Dostoevsky rushes after her, catches up with his beloved in Paris and travels with Appolinaria throughout Europe for two months. But Dostoevsky’s irrepressible passion for roulette destroyed this connection - once the writer managed to lose even Suslova’s jewelry.

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. died. Dostoevsky.

In 1864, “Notes from the Underground” was written, an important work for understanding the writer’s changed worldview. In 1865, while abroad, in the resort of Wiesbaden, to improve his health, the writer began work on the novel Crime and Punishment (1866), which reflected the entire complex path of his inner quest.

In January 1866, the novel “Crime and Punishment” began to be published in the Russian Messenger. This was the long-awaited world fame and recognition. During this period, the writer invited a stenographer to work - a young girl, Anna Grigorievna Snitkina, who in 1867 became his wife, becoming his close and devoted friend. But due to large debts and pressure from creditors, Dostoevsky was forced to leave Russia and go to Europe, where he stayed from 1867 to 1871. During this period the novel “The Idiot” was written.

Dostoevsky spent the last years of his life in the city of Staraya Russa, Novgorod province. These eight years became the most fruitful in the writer's life: 1872 - "Demons", 1873 - the beginning of the "Diary of a Writer" (a series of feuilletons, essays, polemical notes and passionate journalistic notes on the topic of the day), 1875 "Teenager", 1876 - "Meek ", 1879-1880 - "The Brothers Karamazov". At the same time, two events became significant for Dostoevsky. In 1878, Emperor Alexander II invited the writer to introduce him to his family, and in 1880, just a year before his death, Dostoevsky gave a famous speech at the unveiling of a monument to Pushkin in Moscow.

Beginning of 1881 - the writer talks about his plans for the future: he is going to resume “The Diary”, and in a few years write the second part of “The Karamazovs”. But these plans were not destined to come true. The writer’s health deteriorated, and on January 28 (February 9, n.s.) 1881, Dostoevsky died in St. Petersburg. He was buried in the cemetery of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra.

Biography of Dostoevsky F.M.: birth and family, Dostoevsky’s youth, first literary publications, arrest and exile, flowering of creativity, death and funeral of the writer.

Birth and family

1821, October 30 (November 11) Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky was born, in Moscow in the right wing of the Mariinsky Hospital for the Poor. There were six more children in the Dostoevsky family: Mikhail (1820-1864), Varvara (1822-1893), Andrei, Vera (1829-1896), Nikolai (1831-1883), Alexandra (1835-1889). Fyodor grew up in a rather harsh environment, over which the gloomy spirit of his father, a “nervous, irritable and proud” man, hovered. He was always busy caring for the well-being of his family.

Children were brought up in fear and obedience, according to the traditions of antiquity, spending most of their time in front of their parents. Rarely leaving the walls of the hospital building, they had very little communication with the outside world. Perhaps only through the sick, with whom Fyodor Mikhailovich, secretly from his father, sometimes spoke. There was also a nanny, hired from among Moscow bourgeois women, whose name was Alena Frolovna. Dostoevsky remembered her with the same tenderness as Pushkin remembered Arina Rodionovna. It was from her that he heard the first fairy tales: about the Firebird, Alyosha Popovich, the Blue Bird, etc.

Father, Mikhail Andreevich (1789-1839), is the son of a Uniate priest, a doctor (head doctor, surgeon) at the Moscow Mariinsky Hospital for the Poor, in 1828 he received the title of hereditary nobleman. In 1831 he acquired the village of Darovoye, Kashira district, Tula province, and in 1833 the neighboring village of Chermoshnya.

In raising his children, the father was an independent, educated, caring family man, but had a quick-tempered and suspicious character. After the death of his wife in 1837, he retired and settled in Darovo. According to documents, he died of apoplexy. However, according to the recollections of relatives and oral traditions, he was killed by his peasants.

Mother, Maria Fedorovna (née Nechaeva; 1800-1837) - from a merchant family, a religious woman, annually took her children to the Trinity-Sergius Lavra. In addition, she taught them to read from the book “One Hundred and Four Sacred Stories of the Old and New Testaments” (in the novel “” memories of this book are included in the story of Elder Zosima about his childhood). In the parents’ house they read aloud “The History of the Russian State” by N. M. Karamzin, the works of G. R. Derzhavin, V. A. Zhukovsky, A. S. Pushkin.

In his mature years, Dostoevsky recalled with particular animation his acquaintance with Scripture. “In our family, we knew the Gospel almost from our first childhood.” The Old Testament “Book of Job” also became a vivid childhood impression of the writer. Fyodor’s younger brother Andrei wrote that “brother Fedya read more historical works, serious works, as well as novels that came across. Brother Mikhail loved poetry and wrote poems himself... But at Pushkin they made peace, and both, it seems, then knew almost everything by heart...”

The death of Alexander Sergeevich by young Fedya was perceived as a personal grief. Andrei Mikhailovich wrote: “brother Fedya, in conversations with his older brother, repeated several times that if we did not have family mourning (mother Maria Feodorovna died), then he would ask his father’s permission to mourn for Pushkin.”

Dostoevsky's youth

Since 1832, the family annually spent the summer in the village of Darovoye (Tula province), purchased by their father. Meetings and conversations with men were forever etched in Dostoevsky’s memory and later served as creative material. An example is the story “” from the “Diary of a Writer” for 1876.

In 1832, Dostoevsky and his older brother Mikhail began studying with teachers who came to the house. From 1833 they studied at the boarding house of N. I. Drashusov (Sushara), then at the boarding house of L. I. Chermak, where astronomer D. M. Perevoshchikov and paleologist A. M. Kubarev taught. Russian language teacher N.I. Bilevich played a certain role in Dostoevsky’s spiritual development.

Museum "Estate of F.M. Dostoevsky in the village of Darovoye"

Memories of the boarding school served as material for many of the writer’s works. The atmosphere of educational institutions and isolation from family caused a painful reaction in Dostoevsky. For example, this was reflected in the autobiographical traits of the hero of the novel “,” who experiences deep moral upheavals in the “Tushara boarding house.” At the same time, the years of study were marked by an awakened passion for reading.

In 1837, the writer’s mother died, and soon his father took Dostoevsky and his brother Mikhail to St. Petersburg to continue their education. The writer never met again with his father, who died in 1839 (according to official information, he died of apoplexy; according to family legends, he was killed by serfs). Dostoevsky's attitude towards his father, a suspicious and morbidly suspicious man, was ambivalent.

Having had a hard time surviving the death of her mother, which coincided with the news of the death of A.S. Pushkin (which he perceived as a personal loss), Dostoevsky in May 1837 traveled with his brother Mikhail to St. Petersburg and entered the preparatory boarding school of K. F. Kostomarov. At the same time, he met I. N. Shidlovsky, whose religious and romantic mood captivated Dostoevsky.

Dostoevsky's first literary publications

The Main Engineering School, where F.M. Dostoevsky studied.

Even on the way to St. Petersburg, Dostoevsky mentally “composed a novel from Venetian life,” and in 1838 Riesenkampf spoke “about his own literary experiences.”

From January 1838, Dostoevsky studied at the Main Engineering School, where he described a typical day as follows: “... from early morning until evening, we in classes barely have time to follow the lectures. ...We are sent to military training, we are given lessons in fencing, dancing, singing...we are put on guard, and this is how the whole time passes...”

The difficult impression of the “hard labor years” of the training was partially brightened by friendly relations with V. Grigorovich, doctor A. E. Riesenkampf, duty officer A. I. Savelyev, and artist K. A. Trutovsky. Subsequently, Dostoevsky always believed that the choice of educational institution was wrong. He suffered from the military atmosphere and drill, from disciplines alien to his interests and from loneliness.

As his schoolmate, the artist K. A. Trutovsky, testified, Dostoevsky kept himself aloof. However, he amazed his comrades with his erudition, and a literary circle formed around him. The first literary ideas took shape at the school.

Konstantin Aleksandrovich Trutovsky, Russian artist, genre painter, friend of Dostoevsky F.M.

In 1841, at an evening organized by his brother Mikhail, Dostoevsky read excerpts from his dramatic works, which are known only by their titles - “Mary Stuart” and “Boris Godunov” - giving rise to associations with the names of F. Schiller and A. S. Pushkin, according to apparently the deepest literary passions of the young Dostoevsky; was also read by N.V. Gogol, E. Hoffmann, W. Scott, George Sand, V. Hugo.

After graduating from college, having served for less than a year in the St. Petersburg engineering team, in the summer of 1844 Dostoevsky retired with the rank of lieutenant, deciding to devote himself entirely to literary creativity.

Among Dostoevsky’s literary passions at that time was O. de Balzac: with the translation of his story “Eugenia Grande” (1844, without indicating the name of the translator), the writer entered the literary field. At the same time, Dostoevsky worked on translating the novels of Eugene Sue and George Sand (they did not appear in print).

The choice of works testified to the literary tastes of the aspiring writer. In those years, he was not alien to romantic and sentimentalist styles; he liked dramatic collisions, large-scale characters, and action-packed storytelling. For example, in the works of George Sand, as he recalled at the end of his life, he was “struck ... by the chaste, highest purity of types and ideals and the modest charm of the strict, restrained tone of the story.”

Dostoevsky informed his brother about his work on the drama “The Jew Yankel” in January 1844. The manuscripts of the dramas have not survived, but the literary hobbies of the aspiring writer emerge from their titles: Schiller, Pushkin, Gogol. After the death of his father, the relatives of the writer's mother took care of Dostoevsky's younger brothers and sisters. Fedor and Mikhail received a small inheritance.

After graduating from college (end of 1843), he was enrolled as a field engineer-second lieutenant in the St. Petersburg engineering team. However, 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.

Novel "Poor People"

In January 1844, Dostoevsky completed the translation of Balzac's story "Eugene Grande", which he was especially keen on at that time. The translation became Dostoevsky's first published literary work. In 1844 he began and in May 1845, after numerous alterations, he finished the novel ““.

The novel “Poor People,” the connection of which with Pushkin’s “The Station Agent” and Gogol’s “The Overcoat” was emphasized by Dostoevsky himself, was an exceptional success. Based on the traditions of the physiological essay, Dostoevsky creates a realistic picture of the life of the “downtrodden” inhabitants of the “St. Petersburg corners”, a gallery of social types from the street beggar to “His Excellency”.

Dostoevsky spent the summer of 1845 (as well as the next) in Reval with his brother Mikhail. In the fall of 1845, upon returning to St. Petersburg, he often met with Belinsky. In October, the writer, together with Nekrasov and Grigorovich, compiled an anonymous program announcement for the almanac “Zuboskal” (03, 1845, No. 11), and in early December, at an evening with Belinsky, he read the chapters “” (03, 1846, No. 2), in which for the first time gives a psychological analysis of split consciousness, “dualism.”

In Siberia, according to Dostoevsky, his “convictions” changed “gradually and after a very, very long time.” The essence of these changes, Dostoevsky formulated in the most general form as “a return to the folk root, to the recognition of the Russian soul, to the recognition of the folk spirit.” In the magazines “Time” and “Epoch” the Dostoevsky brothers acted as ideologists of “pochvennichestvo” - a specific modification of the ideas of Slavophilism.

“Pochvennichestvo” was rather an attempt to outline the contours of a “general idea”, to find a platform that would reconcile Westerners and Slavophiles, “civilization” and the people’s principles. Skeptical about the revolutionary ways of transforming Russia and Europe, Dostoevsky expressed these doubts in works of art, articles and announcements of Vremya, in sharp polemics with the publications of Sovremennik.

The essence of Dostoevsky's objections is the possibility, after the reform, of a rapprochement between the government and the intelligentsia and the people, their peaceful cooperation. Dostoevsky continues this polemic in the story “” (“Epoch”, 1864) - a philosophical and artistic prelude to the writer’s “ideological” novels.

Dostoevsky wrote: “I am proud that for the first time I brought out the real man of the Russian majority and for the first time exposed his ugly and tragic side. Tragedy lies in the consciousness of ugliness. I alone brought out the tragedy of the underground, which consists in suffering, in self-punishment, in the consciousness of the best and in the impossibility of achieving it and, most importantly, in the vivid conviction of these unfortunates that everyone is like that, and therefore there is no need to improve!”

Novel "Idiot"

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 (1861-1866) was reflected in the novel ““, “” and other works.

In Baden-Baden, carried away by the gambling nature of his nature, playing roulette, he loses “all, completely to the ground”; This long-term hobby of Dostoevsky is one of the qualities of his passionate nature.

In October 1863 he returned to Russia. Until mid-November he lived with his sick wife in Vladimir, and at the end of 1863-April 1864 in Moscow, traveling to St. Petersburg on business. 1864 brought heavy losses to Dostoevsky. On April 15, his wife died of consumption. The personality of Maria Dmitrievna, as well as the circumstances of their “unhappy” love, were reflected in many of Dostoevsky’s works (in particular, in the images of Katerina Ivanovna - “ ” and Nastasya Filippovna - “ “).

On June 10, M.M. died. Dostoevsky. On September 26, Dostoevsky attends Grigoriev’s funeral. After the death of his brother, Dostoevsky took over the publication of the magazine “Epoch”, which was burdened with a large debt and lagged behind by 3 months; The magazine began to appear more regularly, but a sharp drop in subscriptions in 1865 forced the writer to stop publishing.

He owed creditors about 15 thousand rubles, which he was able to pay only towards the end of his life. In an effort to provide working conditions, Dostoevsky entered into a contract with F.T. Stellovsky for the publication of collected works and undertook to write a new novel for him by November 1, 1866.

In the spring of 1865, Dostoevsky was a frequent guest of the family of General V.V. Korvin-Krukovsky, whose eldest daughter, A.V. Korvin-Krukovskaya, he was very infatuated with. In July he went to Wiesbaden, from where in the fall of 1865 he offered Katkov a story for the Russian Messenger, which later developed into a novel.

In the summer of 1866, Dostoevsky was in Moscow and at a dacha in the village of Lyublino, near the family of his sister Vera Mikhailovna, where he wrote the novel “ ". “A psychological report of a crime” became the plot outline of the novel, the main idea of ​​which Dostoevsky outlined as follows: “Unsolvable questions arise before the murderer, unsuspected and unexpected feelings torment his heart. God's truth, earthly law takes its toll, and he ends up being forced to denounce himself. Forced to die in hard labor, but to join the people again...”

Novel "Crime and Punishment"

The novel accurately and multifacetedly depicts Petersburg and “current reality,” a wealth of social characters, “a whole world of class and professional types,” but this is reality transformed and revealed by the artist, whose gaze penetrates to the very essence of things.

Intense philosophical debates, prophetic dreams, confessions and nightmares, grotesque caricature scenes that naturally turn into tragic, symbolic meetings of heroes, an apocalyptic image of a ghostly city are organically linked in Dostoevsky’s novel. The novel, according to the author himself, was “extremely successful” and raised his “reputation as a writer.”

In 1866, the expiring contract with the publisher forced Dostoevsky to simultaneously work on two novels - "" and "". Dostoevsky resorts to an unusual way of working: on October 4, 1866, stenographer A.G. comes to him. Snitkina; he began to dictate to her the novel “The Gambler,” which reflected the writer’s impressions of his acquaintance with Western Europe.

At the center of the novel is the clash of a “multi-developed, but unfinished in everything, distrustful and not daring not to believe, rebelling against authority and fearing them” “foreign Russian” with “complete” European types. The main character is “a poet in his own way, but the fact is that he himself is ashamed of this poetry, for he deeply feels its baseness, although the need for risk ennobles him in his own eyes.”

In the winter of 1867, Snitkina became Dostoevsky's wife. The new marriage was more successful. From April 1867 to July 1871, Dostoevsky and his wife lived abroad (Berlin, Dresden, Baden-Baden, Geneva, Milan, Florence). There, on February 22, 1868, a daughter, Sophia, was born, whose sudden death (May of the same year) Dostoevsky took seriously. On September 14, 1869, daughter Lyubov was born; later in Russia July 16, 1871 - son Fedor; Aug 12 1875 - son Alexey, who died at the age of three from an epileptic fit.

In 1867-1868 Dostoevsky worked on the novel ““. “The idea of ​​the novel,” the author pointed out, “is my old and favorite one, but it is so difficult that I did not dare take on it for a long time. The main idea of ​​the novel is to portray a positively beautiful person. There is nothing more difficult in the world than this, and especially now...”

Dostoevsky began the novel "" by interrupting work on the widely conceived epics "Atheism" and "The Life of a Great Sinner" and hastily composing the "story" "". The immediate impetus for the creation of the novel was the “Nechaev case.”

The activities of the secret society “People’s Retribution”, the murder by five members of the organization of a student of the Petrovsky Agricultural Academy I.I. Ivanov - these are the events that formed the basis of “Demons” and received a philosophical and psychological interpretation in the novel. The writer’s attention was drawn to the circumstances of the murder, the ideological and organizational principles of the terrorists (“Catechism of a Revolutionary”), the figures of the accomplices in the crime, the personality of the head of the society S.G. Nechaeva.

In the process of working on the novel, the concept was modified many times. Initially, it is a direct response to events. The scope of the pamphlet subsequently expanded significantly, not only Nechaevites, but also figures of the 1860s, liberals of the 1840s, T.N. Granovsky, Petrashevites, Belinsky, V.S. Pecherin, A.I. Herzen, even the Decembrists and P.Ya. The Chaadaevs find themselves in the grotesque-tragic space of the novel.

Gradually, the novel develops into a critical depiction of the common “disease” experienced by Russia and Europe, a clear symptom of which is the “demonism” of Nechaev and the Nechaevites. At the center of the novel, its philosophical and ideological focus is not the sinister “swindler” Pyotr Verkhovensky (Nechaev), but the mysterious and demonic figure of Nikolai Stavrogin, who “allowed everything.”

In July 1871, Dostoevsky with his wife and daughter returned to St. Petersburg. The writer and his family spent the summer of 1872 in Staraya Russa; this city became the family's permanent summer residence. In 1876 Dostoevsky purchased a house here. In 1872, the writer visited the “Wednesdays” of Prince V.P. Meshchersky, a supporter of counter-reforms and publisher of the newspaper-magazine “Citizen”. At the request of the publisher, supported by A. Maikov and Tyutchev, Dostoevsky in December 1872 agreed to take over the editorship of “Citizen”, stipulating in advance that he would assume these responsibilities temporarily.

Dostoevsky is a classic whose works are studied with interest not only in Russia, but also abroad. This is because Dostoevsky devoted himself entirely to studying the main mystery of the universe - man. We offer an excursion into the history of the formation of Fyodor Dostoevsky, a writer and cultural figure of the 19th century.

Dostoevsky: biography of the writer

Dostoevsky, whose biography reveals the secrets of the formation of his special literary thinking, is among the galaxy of the best novelists in the world. An expert on the human soul, a deep thinker, a soulful novelist - Dostoevsky wrote about the spiritual and dark in man. His novels attracted people with crime plots.

Where did Dostoevsky, whose books still shake the minds of readers, get his inspiration from, the writer’s biography, which contains many intriguing twists, will answer:

Childhood and adolescence

Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821–1881) came from a poor family of a nobleman and a merchant's daughter. The father is the heir of the Polish noble family of the Radwan coat of arms. His ancestor, boyar Daniil Irtishch, bought the Belarusian village of Dostoevo in the 16th century. This is where the surname of the Dostoevsky family came from.

According to the memoirs of Fyodor Mikhailovich, parents worked tirelessly to give their children a good education and raise them to be worthy people. The future writer received his first literacy and writing lessons from his mother. His first books were religious literature, which his devout parent was keen on.

Later, in his works (“The Brothers Karamazov” and others), he repeatedly recalls this. The father gave the children Latin lessons. Fyodor learned French thanks to Nikolai Drashusov (Sushard), whom he later introduced in the novel “Teenager” under the name Tushar. The teacher's sons taught him mathematics and literature.

At the age of thirteen, Fyodor Dostoevsky entered the boarding school of L. Chermak, and three years later his father, dejected by the death of his wife, sent his eldest sons to study at the St. Petersburg boarding school of Kostomarov. He prepared for the boys the path of engineers: they graduated from the Main Engineering School, but did not realize themselves in their chosen profession.

The beginning of a creative journey

At the engineering school, the writer organized a literary circle and created several theatrical plays in the early 1840s. (“Mary Stuart”, “Jew Yankel”, “Boris Godunov”). These manuscripts have not survived. After studying in 1843, Dostoevsky was sent to serve in the engineering team in St. Petersburg, but he did not last long in the position. The twenty-three-year-old lieutenant leaves service, deciding to devote himself to literature.

In 1845, Fyodor Mikhailovich completed the novel “Poor People”. Nikolai Nekrasov was the first to read this work. The reading took one night, after which the author of “Who Lives Well in Rus'?” said that a new Gogol has appeared in Russian literature. With the participation of Nekrasov, the novel was published in the anthology “Petersburg Collection”.

His second work, “The Double,” was not understood by the public and was rejected. Criticism defamed the young author; eminent writers did not understand him. He quarrels with I. Turgenev and N. Nekrasov, they stopped publishing him in Sovremennik. Soon Dostoevsky's works appeared in Otechestvennye zapiski.

Arrest and hard labor

Meeting the socialist Petrushevsky radically changed the fate of Fyodor Dostoevsky. He participates in Friday meetings, and over time he entered a secret society headed by the communist Speshnev. Because the writer publicly read Belinsky's forbidden letter to Gogol, he was arrested in 1849. He never had time to enjoy the success of the novel White Nights, published a year earlier.

Dostoevsky spent eight months, during which the investigation was carried out, in the Peter and Paul Fortress. The military court pronounced the sentence - death penalty. The execution turned out to be a staged act: before the execution began, the writer was read a decree on changing the punishment.

He had to serve eight years of Siberian hard labor (a month later this term was reduced by half). In the novel “The Idiot,” Dostoevsky reflected the feelings he experienced while awaiting execution.

The writer served hard labor in the Omsk fortress. He suffered from loneliness and alienation: other prisoners did not accept him because of his noble title. Unlike other convicts, the writer was not deprived of his civil rights.

For four years he read the only book - the Gospel, which was given to him by the wives of the Decembrists in Tobolsk. This became the reason for the writer’s spiritual rebirth and change of beliefs. Dostoevsky became a deeply religious man. Memories of hard labor were used by the writer when creating “Notes from the House of the Dead” and other manuscripts.

The accession to the throne of Alexander II brought the novelist a pardon in 1857. He was allowed to publish his works.

The flowering of literary talent

A new stage in the writer’s work is associated with disappointment in the socialist idea. He is interested in the philosophical component of social issues, problems of human spiritual existence. He helps his brother Mikhail publish the almanac “Time”, and after its closure in 1863, the magazine “Epoch”. Dostoevsky’s novels “The Humiliated and the Insulted,” “A Bad Joke,” and “Notes from the Underground” appeared on the pages of these publications.

The writer often traveled abroad in search of new topics, but it all ended with him losing huge sums at roulette in Wiesbaden. The dramas and experiences of this period of Dostoevsky’s life became the basis for the new novel “The Player”.

Trying to get out of financial problems, the writer enters into an extremely unfavorable contract for the publication of all his works and sits down to write a new creation - the novel “Crime and Punishment” (1865–1866).

The next work - the novel "The Idiot" (1868) - was born in agony. The main one is Prince Myshkin - the writer's ideal. A deeply moral, honest, kind and sincere person, the embodiment of Christian humility and virtue, the hero of the novel is similar to the author: they are brought together by their views on life, religiosity and even epilepsy.

Fyodor Dostoevsky is working on the novel “The Lives of a Great Sinner.” The work was not completed, but the author used its material to create “Demons” and “The Karamazov Brothers,” where he comprehended the sprouts of radical and terrorist beliefs of the intelligentsia.

Dostoevsky's life path was cut short by chronic bronchitis, which occurred against the background of tuberculosis and emphysema. The writer passed away at the age of sixty, in January 1881. The writer's work was valued during his lifetime. He was popular and famous, but real fame came to him after his death.

Fyodor Dostoevsky: personal life

Fyodor Dostoevsky is a complex writer and an equally complex person. He had a passionate, emotional nature, was easily carried away and could not always control his actions and feelings. This affected his personal life. Here's what we know about Dostoevsky's favorite women:

Maria Isaeva

Maria Isaeva, a Frenchwoman by origin, at the time of her acquaintance with Fyodor Mikhailovich at the beginning of 1854, was the wife of the head of the Astrakhan customs district and had a small son.

A twenty-nine-year-old passionate and exalted lady met the writer in Semipalatinsk, where she arrived with her husband. She was well educated, inquisitive, lively and impressionable, but unhappy: her husband suffered from alcoholism, was weak-willed and nervous. Maria loved society and dancing. She was burdened by provincial life and poverty. Dostoevsky became for her “a ray of light in a dark kingdom.”

The woman’s defenselessness and fragility aroused the writer’s desire to protect her and protect her like a child. For some time, Maria maintained a friendly distance from Fyodor Mikhailovich. Their feelings were tested by almost two years of separation: Isaeva’s husband was transferred to serve six hundred miles from Semipalatinsk.

Dostoevsky was in despair. In 1855, he received news of Isaev's death. Maria found herself in a strange city alone, without funds and with a child in her arms. The writer immediately proposed marriage to her, but they got married two years later.

After Dostoevsky's release from hard labor, the couple returned to St. Petersburg. In Barnaul, the writer had an epileptic seizure, which frightened Maria. She accused her husband of hiding from her a serious illness that could result in death at any time. This situation alienated the spouses from each other.

The seven-year marriage did not bring them happiness. Soon Maria moved to Tver, and then returned to St. Petersburg, where she was slowly dying of consumption. The writer was traveling abroad at that time. When he returned, he was amazed at the changes that had occurred in his wife. Wanting to ease her suffering, he transports his wife to Moscow. She died painfully over the course of a year. The character of Maria, her fate and death were embodied in the literary version - in the image of Katenka Marmeladova.

Appolinaria Suslova

The emancipated young lady, memoirist and writer was the daughter of a former serf. The father bought his freedom and moved to St. Petersburg, where he was able to give his two daughters a higher education. Appolinaria took a course in philosophy, literature and natural sciences, and Nadezhda became a physician.

Dostoevsky met Suslova after one of his speeches at a student evening. Appolinaria was a beauty: slender, with blue eyes, an intelligent and strong-willed face, and red hair. She was the first to confess her love to the writer. Dostoevsky needed a sincere attitude. The romance began. Appolinaria accompanied Dostoevsky abroad, and he helped the aspiring writer in her creative development - he published her stories in Vremya.

Suslova represented nihilistic-minded youth; she despised the conventions and prejudices of the old world. Therefore, she rebelled in every possible way against outdated foundations and morality. The girl became the prototype of Polina (“The Player”) and Nastasya Filippovna (“The Idiot”) and others.

Anna Snitkina

Dostoevsky's second wife was 24 years younger than him. She came from the family of an official, had literary talent and idolized Dostoevsky. She met the writer by chance: after her father’s death, she completed shorthand courses and entered the service of Fyodor Mikhailovich as an assistant. Their acquaintance occurred two years after the death of the writer’s first wife.

The girl helped Dostoevsky fulfill the contract signed with the publisher: in 26 days they jointly wrote and designed the manuscript of “The Player.” While working on Crime and Punishment, Dostoevsky told the girl about the plot of the new novel, in which an elderly artist falls in love with a girl. This was a kind of declaration of love. Netochka Snitkina agreed to become the writer’s wife.

After the wedding, she had to experience the horror that Maria Isaeva experienced: Dostoevsky had two epileptic seizures during the evening. The woman accepted this fact as atonement for the immense happiness that the writer gave her.

After the wedding, the newlyweds went to Europe. Snitkina described her entire trip and life abroad in her diary. She had to deal with the writer's gambling addiction, solve financial issues and raise four children born in marriage with Dostoevsky: two daughters Sonya (died in infancy) and Lyubov, two sons - Alexei and Fyodor.

She became the writer's muse. Left a widow at 35, Anna renounced the world. The woman never settled her personal life after the writer’s death; she devoted herself entirely to preserving his legacy.

Fyodor Dostoevsky is an enthusiastic person both in his work and in his personal life. He repeatedly redrew his novels, burned manuscripts, looked for new forms and new images. His work is filled with the search for an ideal world order and the spiritual improvement of man, his knowledge of his own soul. The writer became famous for his subtle observations of the psychology of characters and his deep knowledge of the dark side of the human “I.”

Fedor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky born October 30 (November 11), 1821. The writer's father came from an ancient family of Rtishchevs, descendants of the defender of the Orthodox faith of Southwestern Rus', Daniil Ivanovich Rtishchev. For his special successes, he was given the village of Dostoevo (Podolsk province), where the Dostoevsky surname originates.

By the beginning of the 19th century, the Dostoevsky family became impoverished. The writer's grandfather, Andrei Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, served as an archpriest in the town of Bratslav, Podolsk province. The writer's father, Mikhail Andreevich, graduated from the Medical and Surgical Academy. In 1812, during the Patriotic War, he fought against the French, and in 1819 he married the daughter of a Moscow merchant, Maria Fedorovna Nechaeva. After retiring, Mikhail Andreevich decided to take the position of doctor at the Mariinsky Hospital for the Poor, which was nicknamed Bozhedomka in Moscow.

The Dostoevsky family's apartment was located in a wing of the hospital. In the right wing of Bozhedomka, allocated to the doctor as a government apartment, Fyodor Mikhailovich was born. The writer's mother came from a merchant family. Pictures of instability, illness, poverty, premature deaths are the child’s first impressions, under the influence of which the future writer’s unusual view of the world was formed.

The Dostoevsky family, which eventually grew to nine people, huddled in two rooms in the front room. The writer's father, Mikhail Andreevich Dostoevsky, was a hot-tempered and suspicious person. Mother, Maria Fedorovna, was of a completely different type: kind, cheerful, economical. The relationship between the parents was built on complete submission to the will and whims of father Mikhail Fedorovich. The writer's mother and nanny sacredly honored religious traditions, raising their children with deep respect for the Orthodox faith. Fyodor Mikhailovich's mother died early, at the age of 36. She was buried at the Lazarevskoye cemetery.

The Dostoevsky family attached great importance to science and education. Fyodor Mikhailovich at an early age found joy in learning and reading books. At first these were folk tales of nanny Arina Arkhipovna, then Zhukovsky and Pushkin - his mother’s favorite writers. At an early age, Fyodor Mikhailovich met the classics of world literature: Homer, Cervantes and Hugo. My father arranged in the evenings for the family to read “The History of the Russian State” by N.M. Karamzin.

In 1827, the writer’s father, Mikhail Andreevich, for excellent and diligent service, was awarded the Order of St. Anna, 3rd degree, and a year later he was awarded the rank of collegiate assessor, which gave the right to hereditary nobility. He knew well the value of higher education, so he strove to seriously prepare his children for entering higher educational institutions.

In his childhood, the future writer experienced a tragedy that left an indelible mark on his soul for the rest of his life. With sincere childish feelings, he fell in love with a nine-year-old girl, the daughter of a cook. One summer day, a scream was heard in the garden. Fedya ran out into the street and saw that this girl was lying on the ground in a torn white dress, and some women were bending over her. From their conversation, he realized that the tragedy was caused by a drunken tramp. They sent for her father, but his help was not needed: the girl died.

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky received his primary education in a private Moscow boarding school. In 1838 he entered the Main Engineering School in St. Petersburg, which he graduated in 1843 with the title of military engineer.

The Engineering School in those years was considered one of the best educational institutions in Russia. It is no coincidence that many wonderful people came from there. Among Dostoevsky's classmates there were many talented people who later became outstanding personalities: the famous writer Dmitry Grigorovich, the artist Konstantin Trutovsky, the physiologist Ilya Sechenov, the organizer of the Sevastopol defense Eduard Totleben, the hero of Shipka Fyodor Radetsky. The school taught both special and humanitarian disciplines: Russian literature, national and world history, civil architecture and drawing.

Dostoevsky preferred solitude to the noisy student society. His favorite pastime was reading. Dostoevsky's erudition amazed his comrades. He read the works of Homer, Shakespeare, Goethe, Schiller, Hoffmann, and Balzac. However, the desire for solitude and loneliness was not an innate trait of his character. As an ardent, enthusiastic nature, he was in a constant search for new impressions. But at the school, he experienced first-hand the tragedy of the “little man’s” soul. Most of the students in this educational institution were children of the highest military and bureaucratic bureaucracy. Wealthy parents spared no expense for their children and generously gifted teachers. In this environment, Dostoevsky looked like a “black sheep” and was often subjected to ridicule and insults. For several years, a feeling of wounded pride flared up in his soul, which was later reflected in his work.

However, despite ridicule and humiliation, Dostoevsky managed to gain the respect of both teachers and schoolmates. Over time, they all became convinced that he was a man of outstanding abilities and extraordinary intelligence.

During his studies, Dostoevsky was influenced by Ivan Nikolaevich Shidlovsky, a graduate of Kharkov University who served in the Ministry of Finance. Shidlovsky wrote poetry and dreamed of literary fame. He believed in the enormous, world-transforming power of the poetic word and argued that all great poets were “builders” and “world creators.” In 1839, Shidlovsky unexpectedly left St. Petersburg and left for an unknown direction. Later, Dostoevsky found out that he had gone to the Valuysky monastery, but then, on the advice of one of the wise elders, he decided to perform a “Christian feat” in the world, among his peasants. He began to preach the Gospel and achieved great success in this field. Shidlovsky, a religious romantic thinker, became the prototype of Prince Myshkin and Alyosha Karamazov, heroes who have occupied a special place in world literature.

On July 8, 1839, the writer’s father died suddenly from an apoplexy. There were rumors that he did not die a natural death, but was killed by men for his tough temper. This news greatly shocked Dostoevsky, and he suffered his first seizure - a harbinger of epilepsy - a serious illness from which the writer suffered for the rest of his life.

On August 12, 1843, Dostoevsky completed a full course of science in the upper officer class and was enlisted in the engineering corps of the St. Petersburg engineering team, but he did not serve there for long. On October 19, 1844, he decided to resign and devote himself to literary creativity. Dostoevsky had a passion for literature for a long time. After graduating, he began translating the works of foreign classics, in particular Balzac. Page after page, he became deeply involved in the train of thought, in the movement of images of the great French writer. He liked to imagine himself as some famous romantic hero, most often Schiller's... But in January 1845, Dostoevsky experienced an important event, which he later called “the vision on the Neva.” Returning home from Vyborgskaya one winter evening, he “cast a piercing glance along the river” into the “frosty, muddy distance.” And then it seemed to him that “this whole world, with all its inhabitants, strong and weak, with all their dwellings, beggars’ shelters or gilded chambers, in this twilight hour resembles a fantastic dream, a dream, which, in turn, immediately will disappear, disappear into steam towards the dark blue sky.” And at that very moment, a “completely new world” opened up before him, some strange “completely prosaic” figures. “Not Don Carlos and Poses at all,” but “quite titular advisers.” And “another story loomed, in some dark corners, some titular heart, honest and pure... and with it some girl, offended and sad.” And his “heart was deeply torn by their whole story.”

A sudden revolution took place in Dostoevsky’s soul. The heroes, so dearly loved by him just recently, who lived in the world of romantic dreams, were forgotten. The writer looked at the world with a different look, through the eyes of “little people” - a poor official, Makar Alekseevich Devushkin and his beloved girl, Varenka Dobroselova. This is how the idea of ​​the novel arose in the letters of “Poor People,” Dostoevsky’s first work of fiction. Then followed the novellas and short stories “The Double”, “Mr. Prokharchin”, “The Mistress”, “White Nights”, “Netochka Nezvanova”.

In 1847, Dostoevsky became close to Mikhail Vasilyevich Butashevich-Petrashevsky, an official of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a passionate admirer and propagandist of Fourier, and began to attend his famous “Fridays”. Here he met the poets Alexei Pleshcheev, Apollon Maikov, Sergei Durov, Alexander Palm, prose writer Mikhail Saltykov, young scientists Nikolai Mordvinov and Vladimir Milyutin. At meetings of the Petrashevites circle, the latest socialist teachings and programs for revolutionary coups were discussed. Dostoevsky was among the supporters of the immediate abolition of serfdom in Russia. But the government became aware of the existence of the circle, and on April 23, 1849, thirty-seven of its members, including Dostoevsky, were arrested and imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress. They were tried by military law and sentenced to death, but by order of the emperor the sentence was commuted, and Dostoevsky was exiled to Siberia for hard labor.

On December 25, 1849, the writer was shackled, seated in an open sleigh and sent on a long journey... It took sixteen days to get to Tobolsk in forty-degree frosts. Remembering his journey to Siberia, Dostoevsky wrote: “I was frozen to my heart.”

In Tobolsk, the Petrashevites were visited by the wives of the Decembrists Natalia Dmitrievna Fonvizina and Praskovya Egorovna Annenkova - Russian women whose spiritual feat was admired by all of Russia. They presented each condemned person with a Gospel, in the binding of which money was hidden. The prisoners were forbidden to have their own money, and the insight of their friends to some extent at first made it easier for them to endure the harsh situation in the Siberian prison. This eternal book, the only one allowed in the prison, was kept by Dostoevsky all his life, like a shrine.

At hard labor, Dostoevsky realized how far the speculative, rationalistic ideas of the “new Christianity” were from that “heartfelt” feeling of Christ, the true bearer of which is the people. From here Dostoevsky brought out a new “symbol of faith”, which was based on the people’s feeling for Christ, the people’s type of Christian worldview. “This symbol of faith is very simple,” he said, “to believe that there is nothing more beautiful, deeper, more sympathetic, more intelligent, more courageous and more perfect than Christ, and not only is there not, but with jealous love I tell myself that it cannot be... »

For the writer, four years of hard labor gave way to military service: from Omsk, Dostoevsky was escorted under escort to Semipalatinsk. Here he served as a private, then received an officer rank. He returned to St. Petersburg only at the end of 1859. A spiritual search began for new ways of social development in Russia, which ended in the 60s with the formation of Dostoevsky’s so-called soil-based beliefs. Since 1861, the writer, together with his brother Mikhail, began publishing the magazine “Time”, and after its ban, the magazine “Epoch”. Working on magazines and new books, Dostoevsky developed his own view of the tasks of a Russian writer and public figure - a unique, Russian version of Christian socialism.

In 1861, Dostoevsky’s first novel, written after hard labor, was published, “The Humiliated and Insulted,” which expressed the author’s sympathy for the “little people” who are subjected to incessant insults from the powers that be. “Notes from the House of the Dead” (1861-1863), conceived and begun by Dostoevsky while still in hard labor, acquired enormous social significance. In 1863, the magazine “Time” published “Winter Notes on Summer Impressions,” in which the writer criticized the political belief systems of Western Europe. In 1864, “Notes from the Underground” was published - a kind of confession by Dostoevsky, in which he renounced his previous ideals, love for man, and faith in the truth of love.

In 1866, the novel “Crime and Punishment” was published, one of the writer’s most significant novels, and in 1868, the novel “The Idiot” was published, in which Dostoevsky tried to create the image of a positive hero opposing the cruel world of predators. Dostoevsky's novels “The Demons” (1871) and “The Teenager” (1879) became widely known. The last work summing up the writer’s creative activity was the novel “The Brothers Karamazov” (1879-1880). The main character of this work, Alyosha Karamazov, helping people in their troubles and alleviating their suffering, becomes convinced that the most important thing in life is a feeling of love and forgiveness. On January 28 (February 9), 1881, Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky died in St. Petersburg.

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. This is how the future great writer was born, the author of the 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 the 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.” The described tragedy of the 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 penetrate into the 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. At the 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 hard labor 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 to different countries for two months. 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, a new love appears in his life. 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”.