زهینه [زندگی بهینه] by Dr. Mosi

November 27, 2021 کتاب صوتی قمارباز📖داستایفسکی

این رمان نخستین بار در سال ۱۸۶۶ در روسیه منتشرشده، در همان زمانی که داستایوسکی هنوز کابوس اقامت در خارج از کشور و قمار که او را همانند موجودی مستأصل و بیچاره، آس و پاس به روسیه بازگرداند، به فراموشی نسپرده بود

درباره قمارباز (از یادداشت های یک جوان):

قمارباز اثر داستایوسکی برای نخستین بار توسط جلال آل احمد ترجمه شد، از زبان فرانسه در سال ۱۳۲۷، زمانی که هنوز جوانی بیست وپنج ساله بود و تازه فرانسه آموخته بود، نسخه فرانسه رمان را از خانلری امانت گرفته بود و از این بابت اول ترجمه اش از او تشکر کرده است. با توجه به سن و سال آل احمد و میزان فرانسه دانی اش این ترجمه اگرچه در زمان خود غنیمتی محسوب می‎شد، حتی باوجود اصلاحاتی که پس از مرگ او بر این ترجمه اعمال شد، حاصل آن چندان دندان‎گیر نبود. مدتی بعد مهرداد مهرین هم ترجمه دیگری از این رمان منتشر کرد که آن هم اگر بدتر نبود، شرایط بهتری از ترجمه آل احمد نداشت.

سرانجام در دهه هفتاد صالح حسینی قمارباز را مجدداً ترجمه کرد، این بار از انگلیسی که زبان تخصصی او محسوب می‎شود. کیفیت کار به مراتب از ترجمه اول بهتر و ازاین جهت جز این هم از صالح حسینی (که مترجمی حرفه‎ای و توانمند محسوب می‎شود) انتظار نمی رفت؛ او در ترجمه اش مشخصاً برای اصطلاحاتی که سر میز قمار ردوبدل می‎شود، از زبان رایج میان این قشر در ایران بهره برد که در نوع خود جالب توجه بود.

ترجمه حاضر اما توسط سروش حبیبی انجام شده، از نسخه روسی رمان که زبان اصلی آن است و با توجه به احاطه حبیبی بر دیگر زبان‎ها (امکان مقابله با ترجمه‎های دیگر زبان ها) و دغدغه سال های اخیرش که اغلب پیرامون آثار سترگ ادبیات روس بوده انتظار می‎رود کار قابل دفاعی به ثمر رسانده باشد، به‎خصوص بعد از ترجمه‎ صالح حسینی. به ظاهر سروش حبیبی در این زمینه ناکام نبوده و این ترجمه، همانند اغلب ترجمه‎های او سلیس و خوش خوان ازکاردرآمده. اما اینکه از منظر تخصصی صالح حسینی چه کرده و سروش حبیبی این کار کلاسیک ادبیات روس را در جزییات و درآوردن سبک خاص داستایوسکی، چگونه از کار درآورده باید توسط اهلش و در مجالی دیگر سنجیده شود.

حبیبی یادداشت‎ها و توضیحاتی را به ‎عنوان پانوشت متن رمان آورده که اطلاعات خوبی برای درک بهتر رمان به مخاطب می‎دهد که برخی اشاره به پاره‎ای ظرفیت‎های زبانی روسی دارد که داستایوسکی در ارتباط با متن داستان بکار برده است.

از بحث ترجمه که بگذریم خود رمان اما یکی از آثار جذاب و درعین حال مهم داستایوسکی و ادبیات روس به شمار می‎رود. داستایوسکی این رمان را در شرایطی خاص و در مدت زمانی کوتاه نوشته است؛ اما خلاقیت بی پایان و هنرمندانه او در این مدت اندک به خلق اثری جاودان انجامیده.

شرح ماجرای نوشته شدن این رمان و شرط تمام کردن سروقت آن توسط نویسنده که در غیر این صورت ناشر امتیاز آن را برای خود برمی داشته و پیوند خوردن آن با مهمترین رابطه عاطفی زندگی داستایوسکی آن قدر جالب است که به شکل‎های مختلف در سینما دستمایه ساخت فیلم شده است؛ حتی به صورت روایت موازی با متن داستان.

به همین خاطر این بار که مجبور شد برای رهایی از بدهی و به دست آوردن پول رمانی بنویسد، آگاهانه یا ناخودآگاه به سراغ تجربه تلخ خود که حاصل عشق و اعتیاد به قمار بود رفت و به شکلی زنده و تأثیرگذار آن را به ساحت داستان آورد.

راوی رمان قمارباز، آلکسی ایوانویچ است، معلم سرخانه فرزندان یک ژنرال که با آن ها زندگی می‎کند. ژنرال هر وقت به خارج از کشور سفر می‎کند در شهری با عنوان رولتن‎بورگ اقامت می کند (سروش حبیبی در پی نوشت آورده که نام این شهر خیالی درواقع برگرفته از عنوان یکی از آلات قمار یعنی رولت است و چیزی شبیه شهر قمار معنا می دهد).

ماجرا ازآنجا آغاز می‎شود که شخصیت‎های رمان در انتظار رسیدن خبر مرگ پیره‎زنی هستند که قرار است میراثش به ژنرال برسد. ژنرال با این ثروت می خواهد دل زنی فرانسوی بنام مادام بلانش را به دست آورد. شخصیت‎های دیگر داستان نیز هر یک به نوعی با این ثروت و نیازی که به آن دارند به این ماجرا پیوند خورده‎اند.

راوی در طول این اقامت‎ها در دام عشق پولینا ، خواهرزن ژنرال، می‎افتد. زنی بوالهوس که به آلکسی مقداری پول قرض داده و او را سر میز قمار می‎فرستد. برد‎های اولیه کام آلکسی را شیرین می‎کند اما اندک زمانی بعد باخت‎ها و تلخ کامی ها از راه می‎رسند.

داستایوسکی در قمارباز به جنون سیری ناپذیر انسان برای دست‎یابی به منافع مادی زندگی پرداخته و همچون اغلب آثارش با زبردستی شخصیت‎های چند بعدی داستانش را به لحاظ روان شناختی کالبدشکافی می‎کند.

داستان بااینکه افت وخیز دراماتیک بیرونی خاصی ندارد، اما به لحاظ درونی حاصل انبوهی از وقایع است که به یکدیگر خط وربط دارند و چنان در لایه‎های مختلف روابط شخصیت‎ها با جذابیت روایت می‎شود که از این منظر از خواندنی‎ترین آثار داستایوسکی است.

مهم ترین بخش‎های روان پای میز قمار می‎گذرد و داستایوسکی به شکلی تأثیرگذار احساسات متغیر یک قمارباز را در لحظات بردوباخت ترسیم می‎کند. نیچه عقیده داشت آنچه درباره روان‎شناسی آموخته عمدتاً حاصل مطالعه آثار داستایوسکی‎ست؛ رمان قمارباز تأکید دیگری‎ست بر این واقعیت که هیچ نویسنده‎ای در تجزیه وتحلیل روان آدمی به گردپای داستایوسکی نمی‎رسد و خواننده رمان قمارباز درواقع شاگردی‎ست که پای درس روانشناسی استادی همانند داستایوسکی نشسته است.

قمارباز

نویسنده(ها)فیودور داستایفسکیعنوان اصلیИгрок, Igrokبرگرداننده(ها)سروش حبیبیصالح حسینیجلال آل احمدحمیدرضا آتش برآبزبانزبان روسیموضوع(ها)رمانناشر

ناشر فارسی: انتشارات فردوسنشر چشمهتاریخ نشر

۱۸۶۷پس از'جنایت و مکافات پیش از'ابله

قمارباز (روسی: Игрок، Igrok) رمان کوتاهی از داستایفسکی است، رمان نشان دهنده اعتیاد خود داستایفسکی به رولت می‌باشد که الهام بخش نوشتن این کتاب شد، نویسنده در هنگام نوشتن کتاب تحت مهلت سختی برای بازپرداخت بدهی‌اش ناشی از قمار بود.

قمارباز یکی از آثار درخور و ممتاز داستایفسکی است که در سن ۴۵ سالگی وی، تنها در مدت ۲۶ روز نگاشته شده‌است. داستان رمان ماجرای خانواده‌ای روس است که بر اثر تحولات و بی‌لیاقتی‌ها ثروت انبوه خود را از دست داده و مجبور به مهاجرت به کشور دیگری شده‌اند. راوی داستان که معلم فرزندان این خانواده است داستان را در حالی روایت می‌کند که یا از قمارخانه برگشته است یا در راه قمارخانه است. وی که به شانس خودش در قمار اعتقاد راسخ دارد مدام در اندیشه قمار است و آن را تنها راه محقق شدن خواسته‌هایش می‌داند.

فهرست

۱داستان
۲طرح کلی کتاب
۳ترجمه‌های فارسی
۴منابع

داستان[ویرایش]

راوی داستان آلکسی ایوانوویچ فردی دانشگاه رفته و به قول خودش نجیب‌زاده‌است که شغل آموزگاری دارد. داستان از جایی شروع می‌شود که وی به عنوان معلم سرخانهٔ نوه‌های ژنرال در استخدام او است. ژنرال افسر بازنشستهٔ ارتش روسیه است که در ضمن داستان اشاره می‌شود که با درجهٔ سرهنگی بازنشسته شده‌است؛ ولیکن خود را همه جا ژنرال معرفی می‌کند و دیگران نیز او را به این نام می‌خوانند. ژنرال به سبب بدهی سنگین مالی، تمام املاکش را در روسیه گرو گذاشته و حالا همراه خانوادهٔ خود در هتلی در رولتنبورگ اقامت دارد. راوی تعریف می‌کند که جز خانوادهٔ ژنرال و او که به عنوان معلم بچه‌ها ملازم آن‌ها است، چه کسانی در کنار ژنرال هستند: مارکیز دوگریو یک بورژوای فرانوسوی که ژنرال مبلغ زیادی به او بدهکار است، مادمازل بلانش دوکومنژ که ژنرال دل به او بسته همراه با مادرش کنتس دوکومونژ، مستر آسلی یک نجیب زادهٔ انگلیسی که سهام‌دار کارخانهٔ قند است و پرنس نیلسکی که ارتباط خاصی با خانواده ندارد ولی در گردش‌ها آن‌ها را همراهی می‌کند.

راوی عشق جنون آمیزی به پولینا الکساندرونا پراسکوویا، دختر خواندهٔ ژنرال، دارد. این احساس از یک سو و تمایل او برای به چالش کشیدن آدم‌های متظاهر افرادش برای این که نقاب نزاکت و ادب را از چهرهٔ خود بردارند و نیات مادی و پست خود را نمایان کنند، باعث می‌شود بی پروا به بحث‌هایی با ژنرال و دوگریو بپردازد که موجبات خشم و تعجب ایشان را برمی‌انگیزد؛ ولی نکته سنجی‌های رندانهٔ راوی باعث می‌وشود که آن‌دو در بسیاری از موارد از واکنش دادن به حرف‌های او عاجز شوند. مستر آسلی این رفتار راوی را می‌پسندد و لذا با او طرح دوستی می‌ریزد و ضمن گفتگوهایش با او فاش می‌کند که مادمازل بلانش و دوگریو هیچ‌کدام حقیقتاً نسب اشرافی ندارند.

خالهٔ ژنرال که ملاکی پیر در مسکو است، سخت بیمار است. ژنرال به این امید که با مرگ او با ارثی که دریافت خواهد کرد به کارهایش سامانی خواهد داد، به تکاپو می‌افتد و مرتب تلگراف هایی به مسکو می‌فرستد تا از وضعیت سلامتی خاله که او را «مادر بزرگ» خطاب می‌کنند با خبر شود. بلانش و دوگریو که هرکدام به سهم خویش برای این پول‌ها دندان تیز کرده‌اند، مشوق ژنرال در ارسال پی‌درپی تلگرام‌ها هستند.

در همین اثنا پولینا که تنها سلوک پیشینش با راوی خلاصه در ریشخند کردن احساسات او نسبت به خودش می‌شده، نزد راوی می‌آید و پولی به او می‌سپارد و از او می‌خواهد که به کازینو برود و برایش بازی کند. پولینا از گفتن این که انگیزه‌اش از این کار چیست طفره می‌رود و راوی با خودش فکر می‌کند که او حتماً احتیاج مالی قابل ملاحظه‌ای دارد که دست به دامان قمار شده وگرنه بعید است که هدف او صرفاً تفریح باشد. راوی در حالی که سرمایهٔ پولینا را افزایش داده نزد او بازمی‌گردد ولی بار هم با رفتار تحقیرآمیز پولینا مواجه می‌شود. با این همه، می‌پذیرد که به دو شرط دوباره برای او بازی کند: اول این که پولینا انگیزهٔ خودش را از این امر با او در میان بگذارد و دوم این که در صورت برد مبلغ را برای پاداش دادن به راوی نصف نکند. راوی در دفعات بعد در بازی شکست می‌خورد؛ ولیکن این‌طور وانمود می‌کند که آنچه باخته سرمایه خودش بوده تا آبروی پولینا حفظ شود. پولینا بی‌توجه به همهٔ این‌ها مرتب راوی را مسخره می‌کند. خصوصاً به او یادآوری می‌کند که ضمن گردشی که قبلاً در کوهستان داشته‌اند به او گفته‌است که اگر پولینا اراده کند خودش را در دره می‌اندازد. پولینا برای این که جرئت راوی را به چالش بکشد از او می‌خواهد به بارون و بارونسی که در هتل آن‌ها اقامت دارند اهانت کند. راوی در کمال ناباوری پولینا پیش چشمان بارون متلکی که حاکی از علاقهٔ او به بارونس است، به بارونس می‌گوید و در گستاخانه در جواب خشم بارون لهجهٔ برلینی او را با تمسخر تقلید می‌کند.

بارون شکایت راوی را به ژنرال می‌برد و ژنرال که از یک سو نگران موقعیت اجتماعی سخت متزلزل خود است و از سوی دیگر از طرف بلانش که سال قبل با بارون در همین شهر اصطکاکی داشته و مایل نیست خاطرهٔ ماجرا زنده شود، تحت فشار قرار می‌گیرد و بی‌درنگ عذر آلکسی ایوانوویچ را می‌خواهد و او را به خاطر عدم نزاکتش شماتت می‌کند. راوی با خون‌سردی در توجیه رفتارش آسمان و ریسمان می‌بافد و در نهایت می‌گوید بارون با این کارش به او توهین کرده‌است. چرا که او را آن‌قدر صغیر و وابسته دانسته که نتواند مسئولیت کارهایش را برعهده گیرد و شکایت او را به ژنرال برده. راوی ژنرال را تهدید می‌کند که حتماً از بارون در این زمینه به واسطهٔ مستر آسلی توضیح خواهد خواست و اگر توضیح لازم و عذرخواهی او را دریافت نکند، وی را به دوئل دعوت می‌کند. ژنرال از این بی‌باکی راوی به وحشت می‌افتد و سعی می‌کند با تطمیع او را آرام کند؛ ولی میل شیطنت آمیز راوی به رسوایی به بار آوردن باعث می‌شود که او لج کند. دوگریو برای این که راوی را از تصمیمش منصرف کند واسطه می‌شود و چون سرسختی او را می‌بیند، دست‌خطی از پولینا به او نشان می‌دهد که از او می‌خواهد ماجرا را تمام کند. راوی به خواست پولینا تن می‌دهد؛ ولی سخت به رابطهٔ او و دوگریو مشکوک می‌شود و حدس می‌زند که پولینا از جانب او و ژنرال تحت فشار بوده که این نامه را نوشته.

چندی بعد در میانهٔ حیرت همگان مادربزرگ با خدم و حشم خود به رولتنبورگ می‌آید. او نه تنها در حال احتضار نیست، بلکه برای تکمیل معالجات خود و استفاده از آب معدنی شفابخش به رولتنبورگ آمده‌است. مادربزرگ به ژنرال می‌گوید که از تلگرام‌هایی که او به مسکو فرستاده آگاه است و می‌داند که آن‌ها در آرزوی مرگ او بوده‌اند. مادربزرگ در حالی که راوی را مأمور می‌کند که شهر را نشان او بدهد، به کازینو می‌رود و با اصرار عجیبش به شرط بستن روی عدد صفر ۱۳۰۰۰ فردریک طلا معادل حدود ۸۰۰۰ روبل برنده می‌شود. مادربزرگ سرمست از پیروزی خودش شب را به بذل و بخشش می‌گذارند و فردا دوباره به کازینو بازمی‌گردد؛ ولی این‌بار سخت می‌بازد. کار به جایی می‌کشد که پول نقدی برای مادربزرگ باقی نمی‌ماند. یک بنگاه مالی و اعتباری اسناد و اوراق بهادار مادربزرگ را به ثمن بخس از او می‌خرد و مادربزرگ با پول نقد حاصل بازی می‌کند و باز می‌بازد. ژنرال و دوگریو وحشت‌زده از این که مادربزرگ تمام اموالش را بر باد دهد، سعی می‌کنند با تهدید او را از ادامهٔ قمار منصرف کنند؛ ولی این‌ها هیچ‌کدام افاقه نمی‌کند. در حالی که راوی دیگر با مادربزرگ در کازینو همراهی نمی‌کند، او با راهنمایی لهستانی‌های شیادی که دورش را گرفته‌اند آخرین پول‌هایش را می‌بازد و در حالی که فقط به اندازهٔ بازگشت به مسکو برایش پول باقی مانده، رولتنبورگ را به مقصد مسکو ترک می‌کند. قبل از رفتن، از رفتار خودش ابراز ندامت می‌کند و به پولینا پیشنهاد می‌دهد به مسکو بیاید و با او زندگی کند. پولینا که می‌داند ژنرال چنان مفتون عشق بلانش است که کاملاً فرزندخوانده‌هایش را فراموش کرده‌است، از ترس سرنوشت خواهر و برادر کوچکش، درخواست مادربزرگ را مؤدبانه رد می‌کند. بلانش که می‌بیند ژنرال آه در بساط ندارد، او را ترک می‌کند و با پرنس نیلسکی گرم می‌گیرد. ژنرال ضربه روحی شدیدی می‌خورد و تقریباً دیوانه می‌شود. عمر رابطهٔ بلانش با پرنس هم چندان به طول نمی‌انجامد.

در همین اثنا راوی شبی در بازگشت به اتاقش در هتل، پولینا را آن‌جا می‌یابد. پولینا در حالی که سخت مشوش است، اعتراف می‌کند که معشوقهٔ دوگریو بوده‌است. پولینا نامهٔ دوگریو را به راوی نشان می‌دهد که حاکی از آن است که با وجود بدهی سنگین ژنرال به او حاضر است ۵۰۰۰ فرانک به تلافی محبت‌های پولینا به او بدهد. پولینا با نفرت می‌گوید که کاش ۵۰۰۰ فرانک داشت تا آن را در صورت دوگریو می‌کوبید و بی‌مهری او را تلافی می‌کرد. راوی در حالتی نامتعادل و نشئت‌زده از هتل به کازینو می‌رود و بعد از ساعت‌ها بازی با مبلفی عظیم از بردهایش چنان‌که جیب‌هایش مملو از اسکناس و طلا است و نمی‌تواند راه برود به هتل بازمی‌گردد. پولینا در ابتدا فکر می‌کند که راوی مانند دوگریو می‌خواهد او را با پول بخرد ولی بعد از آن به راوی محبت می‌کند و در صحبت‌های هذیان گونه‌اش اشاره می‌کند که او همان شب با آسلی قرار داشته و چه بسا آسلی همین الان پشت پنجره هتل منتظر او باشد. صبح، پولینا ۵۰۰۰ فرانک از راوی طلب می‌کند و وقتی راوی تقاضای او را اجابت می‌کند، پولینا پول‌ها را با تحقیر به صورت او می‌کوبد و از اتاقش می‌گریزد. راوی که مطمئن شده سلامت عقل پولینا زائل گشته‌است، در جستجوی او نزد مستر آسلی می‌رود. آسلی سربسته می‌گوید که پولینا نزد او است و گو این که از سرنوشت محتوم راوی آگاه باشد پیش‌بینی می‌کند که آلکسی ایوانوویچ همان روز رولتنبورگ را به مقصد پاریس ترک خواهد کرد. وقتی راوی بازمی‌گردد، بلانش با عشوه او را برای این که در سفر به پاریس همراهی‌اش کند، اغوا می‌کند. راوی می‌پذیرد که همراه بلانش به پاریس برود.

در پاریس، بلانش پول‌های آلکسی ایوانوویچ را به نحوی افسارگسیخته در راه امور تجملی مثل اسب و کالسکه مجلل، مهمانی‌های رقص شبانه و آپارتمان‌های گران‌قیمت خرج می‌کند. او در این میانه از پول‌های خود راوی به او خرجی می‌دهد و نه تنها رابطهٔ عاطفی با او ندارد، بلکه مرتب با معشوق خود، آلبر، دیدار می‌کند. وقتی بلانش متوجه می‌شود که بی‌توجهی راوی به کارهای او نه از سر ساده‌لوحی، که برخاسته از درویش مسلکی و مناعت طبع ذاتی او است، به او ابراز علاقه می‌کند؛ ولی راوی وقعی به او نمی‌نهد. ژنرال در تعقیب بلانش به پاریس می‌آید و بلانش که حالا با پول‌های راوی ظاهر زندگی خود را ساخته، برای مستحکم کردن جایگاه اجتماعی خودش با ژنرال سرانجام ازدواج می‌کند و خرج عروسی را از آخرین اموال باقی‌ماندهٔ آلکسی ایوانوویچ می‌پردازد.

راوی پاریس را ترک می‌کند و در سفرهای پی دی پی در شهرهای اروپایی بیش‌تر و بیش‌تر در باتلاق اعتیاد به قمار فرومی‌رود. کار به جایی می‌کشد که به دلیل عجز از پرداخت مبلغ باختش به زندان می‌افتد، ولی ناشناسی که تا پایان داستان مشخص نمی‌شود کیست، قرض او را پرداخته و از حبس خارجش می‌کند. بعد از آزادی در سمت منشی برای یک آلمانی فرومایه کار می‌کند و چون صاحب‌کارش بی‌پول می‌شود، مقرری او را تا حقوق یک نوکر ساده کم می‌کند. روای در یک قمار پول زیادی برنده می‌شود و صاحب کارش را ترک می‌کند تا به هامبورگ برود؛ ولی درست نیم ساعت قبل از سوار شدن به قطار، عمده پولش را در کازینو می‌بازد. چندی بعد در هامبورگ در پارکی مستر آسلی را می‌بیند و از او احوال پولینا را می‌پرسد. آسلی با اکراه تعریف می‌کند که مادربزرگ در مسکو مرده‌است و مبلغی برای پولینا به ارث گذاشته‌است. پولینا در حال حاضر با خانوادهٔ خواهر آسلی در سوئیس به سر می‌برد. ژنرال از ارثیهٔ مادربزرگ بی‌نصیب نمانده، ولی خود او هم چندی پیش قالب تهی کرده و اموالش همه به بلانش رسیده‌است. راوی اکراه آسلی در حرف زدن دربارهٔ پولینا را حمل بر این می‌کند که او نیز مانند خودش مورد بی‌مهری پولینا قرار گرفته‌است. از همین رو با یادآوری رابطهٔ پولینا با دوگریو نطق قرایی در این باب که دن ژوئن‌های فرانسوی همانند دوگریو همواره گوی سبقت را در دلبری از دوشیزگان روس از امثال خودش و آسلی خواهند ربود، می‌کند. آسلی از حرف‌های راوی به خشم می‌آید و فاش می‌کند که علت حضور او در هامبورگ این است که پولینا برای آگاهی از احوال راوی او را به آن‌جا فرستاده و پولینا به راوی علاقه‌مند است. راوی با شنیدن این حرف منقلب می‌شود. آسلی هنگام خداحافظی ۱۰ لویی پول به راوی می‌دهد و به او می‌گوید که اگر ایمان داشت او قمار را ترک می‌کند ۱۰۰۰ لیره به او می‌داد تا کاری جدید برای خودش راه بیندازد؛ ولی در شرایط کنونی فکر می‌کند که ۱۰ لویی و ۱۰۰۰ لیره برای راوی فرقی ندارد. راوی با آسلی روبوسی می‌کند و از او خداحافظی می‌کند. او با شنیدن مهر پولینا به خودش برای ترک قمار انگیزه پیدا کرده‌است و در اندیشه است که هامبورگ را به مقصد سوئیس ترک کند. او به یاد می‌آورد که چگونه یک روز در حالی که فقط یک گلدن در جیب داشت، شکست خورده از کازینو بیرون آمده بود، ولی با اراده بازگشته بود و با سرمایه‌ای چند برابر کازینو را ترک کرده بود. او با خود می‌اندیشد که باز هم می‌تواند بعد از شکست برخیزد، بعد از مرگ زنده شود و همه چیز را عوض کند.

طرح کلی کتاب[ویرایش]

دربرگیرنده مناسبات و روابطی است که تمامی انسان‌ها در زندگی روزمره با آن مواجه هستند و مشغلهٔ شخصیت‌های داستان نیز از نوع مشغله‌های ذهنی تمامی انسان‌ها است. دغدغه‌هایی همچون، ثروت، شهرت و… بدین ترتیب ما با یک روایت کاملاً رئال مواجه هستیم.

زندگی در نظر داستایوفسکی همچون یک بازی قمار است که انسان در آن وجود دارد تا فقط انتخاب کند و گردانه را بچرخاند، و اینکه «این انتخاب آیا موفقیت و پیروزی دربردارد یا خیر؟» چیزی فرای دستان قدرت بشریت است. نکته جالب و ظریفی که در قمارباز داستایوفسکی به چشم می‌خورد همزمانی اتفاقات و رویدادهای غافلگیرکننده داستان با خارج شدن از قمارخانه است. یعنی تمام اتفاقات که داستان را می‌بافند زمانی رخ می‌دهد که یکی از شخصیتهای داستان از بازی قمار فارغ شده و در حال بازگشت از قمار خانه به مسافرخانه هستند. بطوریکه گویی آنان به هنگام وارد شدن به قمارخانه گردانهٔ زندگی را به حرکت درمی‌آورند و هر بار بر روی عددی -شرایطی- خاص نشانهٔ گردانه می‌ایستد و چگونگی ادامه زندگی شان را رقم می‌زند.

ترجمه‌های فارسی[ویرایش]

همانند بسیاری از آثار کلاسیک ادبیات روسیه این اثر هم ابتدا نه از زبان اصلی خودش، بلکه از فرانسه به فارسی برگردانده شد. ترجمهٔ جلال آل‌احمد از این اثر از مشهورترین کارهای وی در حوزهٔ ترجمه به‌شمار می‌رود که توسط انتشارات فردوسی منتشر شده‌است. سروش حبیبی این اثر را مستقیماً از زبان روسی به فارسی برگردانده است و ترجمهٔ وی توسط نشر چشمه منتشر شده‌است.

فهرستی از مترجمان این اثر به فارسی در زیر آمده‌است.

جلال آل احمد
صالح حسینی
سروش حبیبی
مهرداد مهرین
حمیدرضا آتش برآب

فیودور داستایفسکی

از ویکی‌پدیا، دانشنامهٔ آزاد

فیودور داستایفسکی

چهره‌نگار اثر واسیلی پروف، ۱۸۷۲

زادهفیودور میخایلوویچ داستایِفسکی

۱۱ نوامبر ۱۸۲۱

مسکو، مسکووسکی یوِزد، فرمانداریمسکو، امپراتوری روسیهدرگذشته۹ فوریهٔ ۱۸۸۱ (۵۹ سال)

سن پترزبورگ، امپراتوری روسیهپیشهمهندس نظامی رمان‌نویس روزنامه‌نگار
ملیتروستحصیلاتدانشگاه مهندسی نظامی-تکنینی، سن پترزبورگسبک نوشتاریرمان داستان کوتاه روزنامه‌نگاری
جنبش ادبیواقع‌گراییکار(های) برجستهیادداشت‌های زیرزمینی (۱۸۶۴)
جنایت و مکافات (۱۸۶۶)
ابله (۱۸۶۸–۱۸۶۹)
جن‌زدگان (۱۸۷۱–۱۸۷۲)
برادران کارامازوف (۱۸۷۹–۱۸۸۰)
سال‌های فعالیت۱۸۴۶–۱۸۸۰همسر(ها)ماریا دمیتریفنا ایسایوا (ا. ۱۸۵۷–۱۸۶۴)
آنا گریگوریونا سنیکتینا (ا. ۱۸۶۷)
فرزند(ان)سونیا (۱۸۶۸–۱۸۶۸)
لیوبوف (۱۸۶۹–۱۹۲۶)
فیودور (۱۸۷۱–۱۹۲۲)
آلکسی (۱۸۷۵–۱۸۷۸)

فیودور میخایلوویچ داستایِفسکی (روسی: Фёдор Михайлович Достоевский[الف]؛ IPA: [ˈfʲɵdər mʲɪˈxajləvʲɪdʑ dəstɐˈjɛfskʲɪj] (

شنیدن) یا داستایِوسکی؛ زادهٔ ۱۱ نوامبر ۱۸۲۱ – درگذشتهٔ ۹ فوریهٔ ۱۸۸۱[۱][ب])، نویسندهٔ مشهور و تأثیرگذار اهل روسیه بود. ویژگی منحصر به فرد آثار وی روانکاوی و بررسی زوایای روانی شخصیت‌های داستان است. بسیاری او را بزرگترین نویسنده روان‌شناختی جهان به حساب می‌آورند. سوررئالیستها مانیفست خود را بر اساس نوشته‌های داستایِفسکی ارائه کرده‌اند.

اکثر داستان‌های وی همچون شخصیت خودش سرگذشت مردمی‌ست عصیان زده، بیمار و روان‌پریش. او ابتدا برای امرار معاش به کار ترجمه پرداخت و آثاری چون اورژنی گرانده اثر بالزاک و دون کارلوس اثر فریدریش شیلر را ترجمه کرد. در اکثر داستانهای او مثلث عشقی دیده می‌شود، به این معنی که خانمی در میان عشق دو مرد یا آقایی در میان عشق دو زن قرار می‌گیرد. در این گره افکنی‌ها بسیاری از مسایل روانشناسانه که امروز تحت عنوان روانکاوی معرفی می‌شود، بیان می‌شود و منتقدان، این شخصیت‌های زنده و طبیعی و برخوردهای کاملاً انسانی آن‌ها را ستایش کرده‌اند.

فهرست

۱نام
۲زندگی
۲.۱اوایل زندگی
۲.۲نویسندگی
۲.۳زندان
۲.۴آزادی و ازدواج
۲.۵سفر به اروپا
۲.۶درگذشت
۳دیدگاه
۴آثار
۵منابع
۶جستارهای وابسته
۷پیوند به بیرون

نام[ویرایش]

مترجمان مختلف نام این نویسنده را به اشکال متفاوتی در فارسی نوشته‌اند: «داستایوفسکی»، «داستایِفسکی» و «داستایِوسکی» که مورد دوم تلفظ صحیح نام اوست. خشایار دیهیمی در ترجمهٔ زندگینامهٔ داستایِفسکی نوشتهٔ ادوارد هلت کار نام او را به شکل «داستایِفسکی» آورده‌است. نام کوچک او نیز در متون ترجمه‌شده به اشکال «فیودور» و «فئودور» آمده‌است. با توجه به تلفظ روسی نام او، «فیودور داستایِفسکی» صحیح است. در بین عامه فارسی زبانان به داستایوفسکی معروف است.

واقعاً نمی‌دانم چرا در ایران به داستایوفسکی شناخته می‌شود. بکار بردن چنین تلفظی تنها به دلیل اشتباه مترجمان و ترجمه از زبان‌های واسطه رخ داده‌است. حرف «о» پیش از تکیه در زبان روسی تلفظی شبیه به «a» کوتاه پیدا می‌کند و به همین علت نام Dostoevsky به صورت «داستایِفسکی» تلفظ می‌شود، نه «داستویفسکی» یا «دوستویفسکی».

— آبتین گلکار، [۲]

زندگی[ویرایش]

داستایِفسکی سال ۱۸۵۸

اوایل زندگی[ویرایش]

فیودور میخایلاویچ فرزند دوم خانواده داستایِفسکی در ۱۱ نوامبر۱۸۲۱ به دنیا آمد. پدرش پزشک بود و از اوکراین به مسکو مهاجرت کرده بود و مادرش دختر یکی از بازرگانان مسکو بود. در ده‌سالگی والدینش مزرعه‌ای کوچک در حومه شهر تولا در نزدیکی مسکو خریدند که از آن به بعد تابستان‌ها را در این مکان می‌گذراندند.

در ۱۸۳۴ همراه با برادرش به مدرسهٔ شبانه‌روزی منتقل شدند و سه سال آنجا ماندند. در پانزده‌سالگی مادرش از دنیا رفت. در همان سال امتحانات ورودی دانشکدهٔ مهندسی نظامی را در سن پترزبورگ با موفقیت پشت سر گذاشت و در ژانویهٔ ۱۸۳۸ وارد دانشکده شد. در تابستان ۱۸۳۹ خبر فوت پدرش به او رسید.

نویسندگی[ویرایش]

در ۱۸۴۳ با درجهٔ افسری از دانشکدهٔ نظامی فارغ‌التحصیل شد و شغلی در ادارهٔ مهندسی وزارت جنگ به دست آورد. تا تابستان ۱۸۴۴ سهم ارث پدری‌اش به خاطر ولخرجی‌های مختلف به اتمام رسید. اوژنی گرانده اثر بالزاک را ترجمه کرد و در همین سال از ارتش استعفا کرد. در زمستان ۱۸۴۴–۱۸۴۵ رمان کوتاه بیچارگان را نوشت که بدین وسیله وارد محافل نویسندگان رادیکال و ساختارشکن بزرگ در سن پترزبورگ شد و برای خود شهرتی کسب کرد. طی دو سال بعد داستان‌های همزاد، آقای پروخارچین و زنِ صاحبخانه را نوشت.

یک جاسوس پلیس در این محفل رخنه کرد و موضوعات بحث این روشنفکران را به مقامات امنیتی روسیه گزارش داد. پلیس مخفی در روز ۲۲ آوریل ۱۸۴۹ او را به جرم براندازی حکومت دستگیر کرد.

زندان[ویرایش]

نقاشی پرتره فیودور داستایِفسکی اثر واسیلی پرو، ۱۸۷۲ میلادی

دادگاه نظامی برای او تقاضای حکم اعدام کرد که در ۱۹ دسامبر مشمول تخفیف شد و به چهار سال زندان در سیبری و سپس خدمت در لباس سرباز ساده تغییر یافت اما برای نشان دادن قدرت فائقه حکومت تزاری این زندانیان را در برابر جوخه‌های آتش نمایشی قرار دادند. در نمایشی که با دقت طراحی شده بود بامداد روز ۲۲ دسامبر ۱۸۴۹ داستایِفسکی و سایر زندانیان را به میدان رژه یک پادگان بردند. در آن‌جا چوبه‌های اعدام و داربست‌هایی برپا شده بود و روی آن را با پارچه‌های سیاه پوشانده بودند. جرایم و مجازات آن‌ها قرائت شد و کشیشی ارتدکس از آن‌ها خواست به خاطر گناهانشان طلب بخشش کنند. سه نفر از این زندانیان را به چوبه‌ها بستند تا برای اعدام حاضر شوند. در آخرین لحظات این مراسم اعدام ساختگی طبل‌های نظامی با صدای بلند به نواختن درآمد و جوخه آتش تفنگ‌های خود را که به سوی آن‌ها نشانه رفته بود بر زمین گذاشتند. تجربه شخصی او از قرار گرفتن در آستانه مرگ باعث شد که به تاریخ و آن زمانه مشخص از منظر ویژه‌ای بنگرد. سال‌ها بعد او در جایی گفت: «به خاطر ندارم که در هیچ لحظه دیگری از عمرم به اندازه آن روز خوشحال بوده باشم.»[۳] در زمان تبعید و زندان حملات صرع که تا پایان عمر گرفتار آن بود بر او عارض گشت.

آزادی و ازدواج[ویرایش]

داستایِفسکی در ۱۵ فوریه ۱۸۵۴ از زندان بیرون آمد تا دورهٔ بعدی مجازاتش را در لباس سرباز عادی طی کند. به عنوان مأمور خدمت در گردان هفتم پیاده‌نظام سیبری به سمی (سمیپالاتینسک) اعزام شد. در ۶ فوریه ۱۸۵۷ بعد از دو سال عشق جانفرسا با «ماریا دیمیتریونا» بیوهٔ یک کارمند گمرک ازدواج کرد. در بهار ۱۸۵۹ استعفایش از ارتش پذیرفته شد و توانست به نزدیکی مسکو نقل مکان کند. دو داستان خواب عموجان و دهکدهٔ ستیپان چیکاوا را نوشت و به چاپ رسانید. در سال ۱۸۵۹ عرض‌حالی برای الکساندر دوم که تازه بر تخت نشسته بود فرستاد و بدین وسیله اجازه یافت به سن پترزبورگ برود. یک سال بعد او به جمع ادیبان و روشنفکران شهر سن پترزبورگ ملحق شد.[۳] در نشریه‌ای که برادرش منتشر می‌کرد ‐ «ورمیا» ‐ شروع به روزنامه‌نگاری کرد. از ژوئن تا اوت ۱۸۶۲ به اروپا سفر کرد. داستانی به نام ماجرای بی‌شرمانه را در «ورمیا» به چاپ رسانید. در ماه ژوئن ۱۸۶۳ «ورمیا» تعطیل شد. قسمتی از تابستان و پاییز ۱۸۶۳ را با معشوقش در اروپا گذراند. در ۱۰ ژوئیه ۱۸۶۴ «میخاییل داستایِفسکی» برادر بزرگش درگذشت. در ۱۶ آوریل ۱۸۶۴ ماریا دیمیتریونا درگذشت. در فاصله سال‌های ۶۴–۱۸۶۲ کتاب‌های خاطرات خانه اموات و آزردگان را به چاپ رسانید.

سفر به اروپا[ویرایش]

۱۸۶۳

در ۱۸۶۶ جنایت و مکافات را نوشت و در اکتبر همان سال رمان قمارباز را در ۲۶ روز نوشت این کار با تندنویسی «آنا گریگوریونا» انجام شد. در ۱۵ فوریه ۱۸۶۷ با آنا ازدواج کرد و در آوریل همان سال با همسرش به اروپا سفر کرد و تا تابستان ۱۸۷۱ به روسیه بازنگشت. در این سفر بارها پول خود را در قمار از دست داد. سال اول سفر را در سوئیس و سال دوم را در ایتالیا و دو سال آخر را در دِرِسدِن گذراند.

در فوریهٔ سال ۱۸۶۸ دخترش «سوفیا» به دنیا آمد که بیشتر از سه ماه زنده نماند. نوشتن ابله را در ژانویهٔ ۱۸۶۹ در فلورانس به پایان رسانید و همیشه شوهر را در پاییز همان سال در درسدن نوشت. در ماه سپتامبر ۱۸۶۹ دختر دومش به نام «لیوبوف» به دنیا آمد. در ژوئیهٔ ۱۸۷۱ نوشتن جن‌زدگان را به پایان رسانید. در تابستان همان سال پسرش به نام «فدیا» به دنیا آمد. در آغاز سال ۱۸۷۳ سردبیر مجلهٔ «گراژ دانین» شد و تا ماه مارس سال بعد به این کار ادامه داد. جوان خام را در زمستان ۷۵‐۱۸۷۴ نوشت که در طول سال ۱۸۷۵ در مجله «اوتچستیه زابیسکی» انتشار یافت. «آلیوشا» آخرین فرزندش در ماه اوت ۱۸۷۵ به دنیا آمد که در سه سالگی بر اثر حمله صرع در گذشت. دفتر یادداشت روزانه یک نویسنده را طی سال‌های ۷۷‐۱۸۷۶ به همین نام در روزنامه منتشر کرد. برادران کارامازوف در طول سال‌های ۷۹‐۱۸۸۰ به تدریج در «روسکی وستنیک» منتشر شد

درگذشت[ویرایش]

نقاشی پرتره داستایِفسکی در تابوت، اثر ایوان کرامسکوی، ۱۸۸۱ میلادی

داستایِفسکی سرانجام در اوایل فوریهٔ سال ۱۸۸۱ در اثر خون‌ریزی ریه درگذشت.

در ۷ فوریه (مطابق تقویم سبک قدیم: ۲۶ ژانویه) ۱۸۸۱ خواهرش نزد وی آمد، و از او خواست تا سهم خودش از املاک به ارث رسیده از عمه‌شان را به خواهرانش بدهد. ممکن است که این مکالمه ناخوشایند باعث تشدید بیماری وی (آمفیزم) شده باشد. پس از ۲ روز، در ۹ فوریه (مطابق تقویم سبک قدیم: ۲۸ ژانویه) ۱۸۸۱ در شصتمین سال از زندگی خود، داستایِفسکی در گذشت. تشخیص، سل ریوی، برونشیت مزمن و بیماری مزمن انسدادی ریه بود.

دیدگاه[ویرایش]

اتاق مطالعهٔ داستایِفسکی

داستایِفسکی در آثار خود شخصیت‌هایی را حلاجی می‌کرد که حتی آدمکشی را زیر لوای مرام و اعتقادات ایدئولوژیک خود موجه می‌دانستند. به همین خاطر آثار این نویسنده در تمام سال‌هایی که از آن می‌گذرد، چه در دوران قدرت‌گیری حکومت‌های تمامیت‌خواه قرن بیستم و چه امروزه که «کارزار علیه ترور» در جریان است، با چالش‌های زمانه تناسب دارند. او به خصوص به افکار و ایده‌هایی که پس از ده سال تبعید و بازگشت به سن پترزبورگ در میان روشنفکران رواج یافته بود به دیده شک می‌نگریست.[۳]

مخالفت و اعلام جرم داستایِفسکی علیه نهیلیسم روسی در کتاب او با عنوان تسخیرشدگان (جن زدگان) به خوبی منعکس شده‌است. این کتاب که در سال ۱۸۷۲ چاپ شد به خاطر زبان آمرانه و نصیحت گونه آن مورد انتقاد قرار گرفته ولی بدون تردید او می‌خواست نشان دهد که افکار مرسوم در میان روشنفکران آن نسل می‌توانند خطرناک باشند. داستانی که داستایِفسکی در این کتاب نقل می‌کند در قالب یک طنز سیاه و گزنده، روشنفکران هم دوره خود را به خاطر بازی کردن با ایده‌های انقلابی بدون آنکه بدانند انقلاب در عمل به چه معنایی است به نقد می‌کشد. داستان کتاب را در واقع می‌توان نسخه‌ای از حوادث واقعی دانست که در زمانی که داستایِفسکی مشغول نگارش کتاب بود اتفاق می‌افتاد. داستایِفسکی در داستان تسخیر شدگان استدلال می‌کند که فراموش کردن موازین اخلاقی و انسانی به خاطر افکار آزادیخواهانه به نوعی تمامیت‌خواهی و استبداد بدتر از گذشته منجر می‌شود.[۳]

مارشال برمن در کتاب تجربه مدرنیته برای توضیح مدرنیزاسیون از بالا و توسعه نیافتگی دوران تزاری در روسیه، شهر سن پترزبورگ و بلوار معروف نووسکی را مثال زده و برای توضیح آن از آثار فئودور داستایِفسکی استفاده کرده‌است.[۴]

شاید بتوان گفت مشهورترین دیدگاه داستایِفسکی که از زبان یکی از شخصیت‌های رمان برادران کارامازوف بیان می‌شود، این جمله باشد که «اگر خدایی وجود نداشته باشد، همه‌چیز مجاز است». ژیل دلوز و ژاک لاکان، متفکران معاصر فرانسوی خلاف این عقیده را دارند. لاکان معتقد است دقیقاً وجود منع الهی است که زمینهٔ گناه را فراهم می‌سازد. به باور دلوز نیز قضیه کاملاً برعکس چیزی است که داستایِفسکی می‌گوید، زیرا به واسطهٔ وجود خداست که همه‌چیز مجاز است.[۵]

آثار[ویرایش]

مقاله اصلی:کتاب‌شناسی فیودور داستایفسکی

رمان‌ها و رمان‌های کوتاه

(۱۸۴۶) بیچارگان (رمان کوتاه)
(۱۸۴۶) همزاد(رمان) (رمان کوتاه)
(۱۸۴۷) خانم صاحبخانه (رمان کوتاه) (بانوی میزبان)
(۱۸۴۹) نیه توچکا (ناتمام)
(۱۸۵۹) رؤیای عمو (رمان کوتاه)
(۱۸۵۹) روستای استپانچیکو
(۱۸۶۱) آزردگان (تحقیر و توهین شدگان)
(۱۸۶۲) خاطرات خانه اموات
(۱۸۶۴) یادداشت‌های زیرزمینی (رمان کوتاه)
(۱۸۶۶) جنایت و مکافات
(۱۸۶۷) قمارباز (رمان کوتاه)
(۱۸۶۹) ابله
(۱۸۷۰) همیشه شوهر (رمان کوتاه)
(۱۸۷۲) جن‌زدگان
(۱۸۷۵) جوان خام
(۱۸۸۰) برادران کارامازوف

داستان‌های کوتاه

در پانسیون اعیان
(۱۸۴۶) «آقای پروخارچین»
(۱۸۴۷) «رمان در نُه نامه»
(۱۸۴۸) «شوهر حسود»
(۱۸۴۸) «همسر مردی دیگر»
(۱۸۴۸) «همسر مردی دیگر و شوهر زیر تخت» (تلفیقی از دو داستان قبلی)
(۱۸۴۸) «نازک‌دل»
(۱۸۴۸) «پولزونکوف»
(۱۸۴۸) «دزد شرافتمند»
(۱۸۴۸) «درخت کریسمس و ازدواج»
(۱۸۴۸) «شب‌های روشن (داستان کوتاه)»
(۱۸۴۹) «قهرمان کوچولو»
(۱۸۶۲) «یک داستان کثیف» یا «یک اتفاق مسخره»
(۱۸۶۵) «کروکدیل»
(۱۸۷۳) «بوبوک»
(۱۸۷۶) «درخت کریسمس بچه‌های فقیر»
(۱۸۷۶) «نازنین»
(۱۸۷۶) «ماریِ دهقان»
(۱۸۷۷) «رؤیای آدم مضحک»
() «دلاور خردسال»

مجموعه مقاله

Winter Notes on Summer Impressions (۱۸۶۳)
یادداشت‌های روزانه یک نویسنده (۱۸۷۳–۱۸۸۱)

ترجمه

(۱۸۴۳) یوژینی گرانده (انوره دو بالزاک)
(۱۸۴۳) La dernière Aldini (ژرژ ساند)
(۱۸۴۳) Mary Stuart (فریدریش شیلر)
(۱۸۴۳) Boris Godunov (الکساندر پوشکین)

نامه‌های شخصی

(۱۹۱۲) Letters of Fyodor Michailovitch Dostoevsky to His Family and Friends by Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky (Author), translator Ethel Colburn Mayne Kessinger Publishing, LLC (۲۶ مه ۲۰۰۶) ISBN 978-1-4286-1333-1

نوشته‌های منتشر شده پس از مرگ

(۱۹۲۲) Stavrogin's Confession & the Plan of the Life of a Great Sinner – English translation by ویرجینیا وولف and S. S. Koteliansky

Fyodor Dostoevsky

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"Dostoevsky" redirects here. For the surname, see Dostoevsky (surname).

In this name that follows Eastern Slavic naming conventions, the patronymic is Mikhailovich and the family name is Dostoevsky.

Fyodor Dostoevskyم

Dostoevsky in 1872, portrait by Vasily Perov

BornFyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky

11 November 1821

Moscow, Moskovsky Uyezd, Moscow Governorate, Russian EmpireDied9 February 1881 (aged 59)

Saint Petersburg, Saint Petersburg Governorate, Russian EmpireOccupationMilitary engineernovelistjournalist
EducationMilitary Engineering-Technical University, St. PetersburgGenreNovelshort storyjournalism
SubjectPhilosophyChristianityTheology
Literary movementRealismNotable worksNotes from Underground (1864)
Crime and Punishment (1866)
The Idiot (1868–1869)
Demons (1871–1872)
The Brothers Karamazov (1879–1880)

Years active1846–1880SpouseMaria Dmitriyevna Isaeva

(m. 1857; died 1864)Anna Grigoryevna Snitkina

(m. 1867)

Children4, including Lyubov DostoevskayaSignatureن

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky[a] (UK: /ˌdɒstɔɪˈɛfski/,[1] US: /ˌdɒstəˈjɛfski, ˌdʌs-/;[2] Russian: Фёдор Михайлович Достоевский[b], tr. Fyódor Mikháylovich Dostoyévskiy, IPA: [ˈfʲɵdər mʲɪˈxajləvʲɪdʑ dəstɐˈjefskʲɪj] (اlisten); 11 November 1821 – 9 February 1881[3][c]), sometimes transliterated as Dostoyevsky, was a Russian novelist, short story writer, essayist, and journalist. Dostoevsky's literary works explore the human condition in the troubled political, social, and spiritual atmospheres of 19th-century Russia, and engage with a variety of philosophical and religious themes. His most acclaimed novels include Crime and Punishment (1866), The Idiot (1869), Demons (1872), and The Brothers Karamazov (1880). His 1864 novella Notes from Underground is considered to be one of the first works of existentialist literature.[4] Numerous literary critics rate him as one of the greatest novelists in all of world literature, as many of his works are considered highly influential masterpieces.[5]

Born in Moscow in 1821, Dostoevsky was introduced to literature at an early age through fairy tales and legends, and through books by Russian and foreign authors. His mother died in 1837 when he was 15, and around the same time, he left school to enter the Nikolayev Military Engineering Institute. After graduating, he worked as an engineer and briefly enjoyed a lavish lifestyle, translating books to earn extra money. In the mid-1840s he wrote his first novel, Poor Folk, which gained him entry into Saint Petersburg's literary circles. Arrested in 1849 for belonging to a literary group that discussed banned books critical of Tsarist Russia, he was sentenced to death but the sentence was commuted at the last moment. He spent four years in a Siberian prison camp, followed by six years of compulsory military service in exile. In the following years, Dostoevsky worked as a journalist, publishing and editing several magazines of his own and later A Writer's Diary, a collection of his writings. He began to travel around western Europe and developed a gambling addiction, which led to financial hardship. For a time, he had to beg for money, but he eventually became one of the most widely read and highly regarded Russian writers.

Dostoevsky was influenced by a wide variety of philosophers and authors including Pushkin, Gogol, Augustine, Shakespeare, Scott, Dickens, Balzac, Lermontov, Hugo, Poe, Plato, Cervantes, Herzen, Kant, Belinsky, Byron, Hegel, Schiller, Solovyov, Bakunin, Sand, Hoffmann, and Mickiewicz.

Dostoevsky's body of work consists of 12 novels, four novellas, 16 short stories, and numerous other works. His writings were widely read both within and beyond his native Russia and influenced an equally great number of later writers including Russians such as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Anton Chekhov, philosophers Friedrich Nietzsche and Jean-Paul Sartre, and the emergence of Existentialism and Freudianism.[6] His books have been translated into more than 170 languages, and served as the basis for many films.

Contents

1Ancestry
2Childhood (1821–1835)
3Youth (1836–1843)
4Career
4.1Early career (1844–1849)
4.2Siberian exile (1849–1854)
4.3Release from prison and first marriage (1854–1866)
4.4Second marriage and honeymoon (1866–1871)
4.5Back in Russia (1871–1875)
4.6Last years (1876–1881)
5Death
6Personal life
6.1Extramarital affairs
6.2Political beliefs
6.3Ethnic beliefs
6.4Religious beliefs
7Themes and style
8Legacy
8.1Reception and influence
8.2Honours
8.3Criticism
8.4Reputation
9Works
9.1Major works
9.2Bibliography
10See also
11References
11.1Notes
11.2Citations
11.3Bibliography
12Further reading
13External links

Ancestry[edit]

Maria Fyodorovna Dostoevskaya

Mikhail Andreyevich Dostoevsky

Dostoevsky's paternal ancestors were part of a noble family of Russian Orthodox Christians. The family traced its roots back to Danilo Irtishch, who was granted lands in the Pinsk region (for centuries part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, now in modern-day Belarus) in 1509 for his services under a local prince, his progeny then taking the name "Dostoevsky" based on a village there called Dostoïevo (derived from Old Polish dostojnik – dignitary).[7]

Dostoevsky's immediate ancestors on his mother's side were merchants; the male line on his father's side were priests.[8][9]

In 1809, the 20-year-old Mikhail Dostoevsky enrolled in Moscow's Imperial Medical-Surgical Academy. From there he was assigned to a Moscow hospital, where he served as military doctor, and in 1818 he was appointed a senior physician. In 1819 he married Maria Nechayeva. The following year, he took up a post at the Mariinsky Hospital for the poor. In 1828, when his two sons, Mikhail and Fyodor, were eight and seven respectively, he was promoted to collegiate assessor, a position which raised his legal status to that of the nobility and enabled him to acquire a small estate in Darovoye, a town about 150 km (100 miles) from Moscow, where the family usually spent the summers.[10] Dostoevsky's parents subsequently had six more children: Varvara (1822–1892), Andrei (1825–1897), Lyubov (born and died 1829), Vera (1829–1896), Nikolai (1831–1883) and Aleksandra (1835–1889).[11][8][9]

Childhood (1821–1835)[edit]

Fyodor Dostoevsky, born on 11 November [O.S. 30 October] 1821 in Moscow, was the second child of Dr. Mikhail Dostoevsky and Maria Dostoevskaya (born Nechayeva). He was raised in the family home in the grounds of the Mariinsky Hospital for the Poor, which was in a lower class district on the edges of Moscow.[12] Dostoevsky encountered the patients, who were at the lower end of the Russian social scale, when playing in the hospital gardens.[13]

Dostoevsky was introduced to literature at an early age. From the age of three, he was read heroic sagas, fairy tales and legends by his nanny, Alena Frolovna, an especially influential figure in his upbringing and his love for fictional stories.[14] When he was four his mother used the Bible to teach him to read and write. His parents introduced him to a wide range of literature, including Russian writers Karamzin, Pushkin and Derzhavin; Gothic fiction such as the works from writer Ann Radcliffe; romantic works by Schiller and Goethe; heroic tales by Miguel de Cervantes and Walter Scott; and Homer's epics.[15][16] Dostoevsky was greatly influenced by the work of Nikolai Gogol.[17] Although his father's approach to education has been described as strict and harsh,[18] Dostoevsky himself reported that his imagination was brought alive by nightly readings by his parents.[13]

Some of his childhood experiences found their way into his writings. When a nine-year-old girl had been raped by a drunk, he was asked to fetch his father to attend to her. The incident haunted him, and the theme of the desire of a mature man for a young girl appears in The Devils, The Brothers Karamazov, Crime and Punishment, and other writings.[19] An incident involving a family servant, or serf, in the estate in Darovoye, is described in "The Peasant Marey": when the young Dostoevsky imagines hearing a wolf in the forest, Marey, who is working nearby, comforts him.[20]

Although Dostoevsky had a delicate physical constitution, his parents described him as hot-headed, stubborn, and cheeky.[21] In 1833, Dostoevsky's father, who was profoundly religious, sent him to a French boarding school and then to the Chermak boarding school. He was described as a pale, introverted dreamer and an over-excitable romantic.[22] To pay the school fees, his father borrowed money and extended his private medical practice. Dostoevsky felt out of place among his aristocratic classmates at the Moscow school, and the experience was later reflected in some of his works, notably The Adolescent.[23][16]

Youth (1836–1843)[edit]

Dostoevsky as a military engineer

On 27 September 1837 Dostoevsky's mother died of tuberculosis. The previous May, his parents had sent Dostoevsky and his brother Mikhail to St Petersburg to attend the free Nikolayev Military Engineering Institute, forcing the brothers to abandon their academic studies for military careers. Dostoevsky entered the academy in January 1838, but only with the help of family members. Mikhail was refused admission on health grounds and was sent to an academy in Tallinn (then known as Reval), Estonia .[24][25]

Dostoevsky disliked the academy, primarily because of his lack of interest in science, mathematics, and military engineering and his preference for drawing and architecture. As his friend Konstantin Trutovsky once said, "There was no student in the entire institution with less of a military bearing than F.M. Dostoevsky. He moved clumsily and jerkily; his uniform hung awkwardly on him; and his knapsack, shako and rifle all looked like some sort of fetter he had been forced to wear for a time and which lay heavily on him."[26] Dostoevsky's character and interests made him an outsider among his 120 classmates: he showed bravery and a strong sense of justice, protected newcomers, aligned himself with teachers, criticised corruption among officers, and helped poor farmers. Although he was solitary and inhabited his own literary world, he was respected by his classmates. His reclusiveness and interest in religion earned him the nickname "Monk Photius".[27][28]

Signs of Dostoevsky's epilepsy may have first appeared on learning of the death of his father on 16 June 1839,[29] although the reports of a seizure originated from accounts written by his daughter (later expanded by Sigmund Freud[30]) which are now considered to be unreliable. His father's official cause of death was an apoplectic stroke, but a neighbour, Pavel Khotiaintsev, accused the father's serfs of murder. Had the serfs been found guilty and sent to Siberia, Khotiaintsev would have been in a position to buy the vacated land. The serfs were acquitted in a trial in Tula, but Dostoevsky's brother Andrei perpetuated the story.[31] After his father's death, Dostoevsky continued his studies, passed his exams and obtained the rank of engineer cadet, entitling him to live away from the academy. He visited Mikhail in Reval and frequently attended concerts, operas, plays and ballets. During this time, two of his friends introduced him to gambling.[32][28]

On 12 August 1843 Dostoevsky took a job as a lieutenant engineer and lived with Adolph Totleben in an apartment owned by Dr. Rizenkampf, a friend of Mikhail. Rizenkampf characterised him as "no less good-natured and no less courteous than his brother, but when not in a good mood he often looked at everything through dark glasses, became vexed, forgot good manners, and sometimes was carried away to the point of abusiveness and loss of self-awareness".[33] Dostoevsky's first completed literary work, a translation of Honoré de Balzac's novel Eugénie Grandet, was published in June and July 1843 in the 6th and 7th volumes of the journal Repertoire and Pantheon,[34][35] followed by several other translations. None were successful, and his financial difficulties led him to write a novel.[36][28]

Career[edit]

Early career (1844–1849)[edit]

Dostoevsky, 1847

Dostoevsky completed his first novel, Poor Folk, in May 1845. His friend Dmitry Grigorovich, with whom he was sharing an apartment at the time, took the manuscript to the poet Nikolay Nekrasov, who in turn showed it to the renowned and influential literary critic Vissarion Belinsky. Belinsky described it as Russia's first "social novel".[37] Poor Folk was released on 15 January 1846 in the St Petersburg Collection almanac and became a commercial success.[38][39]

Dostoevsky felt that his military career would endanger his now flourishing literary career, so he wrote a letter asking to resign his post. Shortly thereafter, he wrote his second novel, The Double, which appeared in the journal Notes of the Fatherland on 30 January 1846, before being published in February. Around the same time, Dostoevsky discovered socialism through the writings of French thinkers Fourier, Cabet, Proudhon and Saint-Simon. Through his relationship with Belinsky he expanded his knowledge of the philosophy of socialism. He was attracted to its logic, its sense of justice and its preoccupation with the destitute and the disadvantaged. However, his relationship with Belinsky became increasingly strained as Belinsky's atheism and dislike of religion clashed with Dostoevsky's Russian Orthodox beliefs. Dostoevsky eventually parted with him and his associates.[40][41]

After The Double received negative reviews, Dostoevsky's health declined and he had more frequent seizures, but he continued writing. From 1846 to 1848 he released several short stories in the magazine Annals of the Fatherland, including "Mr. Prokharchin", "The Landlady", "A Weak Heart", and "White Nights". These stories were unsuccessful, leaving Dostoevsky once more in financial trouble, so he joined the utopian socialist Betekov circle, a tightly knit community which helped him to survive. When the circle dissolved, Dostoevsky befriended Apollon Maykov and his brother Valerian. In 1846, on the recommendation of the poet Aleksey Pleshcheyev,[42] he joined the Petrashevsky Circle, founded by Mikhail Petrashevsky, who had proposed social reforms in Russia. Mikhail Bakunin once wrote to Alexander Herzen that the group was "the most innocent and harmless company" and its members were "systematic opponents of all revolutionary goals and means".[43] Dostoevsky used the circle's library on Saturdays and Sundays and occasionally participated in their discussions on freedom from censorship and the abolition of serfdom.[44][45]

In 1849, the first parts of Netochka Nezvanova, a novel Dostoevsky had been planning since 1846, were published in Annals of the Fatherland, but his banishment ended the project. Dostoevsky never attempted to complete it.[46]

Siberian exile (1849–1854)[edit]

A sketch of the Petrashevsky Circle mock execution

The members of the Petrashevsky Circle were denounced to Liprandi, an official at the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Dostoevsky was accused of reading works by Belinsky, including the banned Letter to Gogol,[47] and of circulating copies of these and other works. Antonelli, the government agent who had reported the group, wrote in his statement that at least one of the papers criticised Russian politics and religion. Dostoevsky responded to these charges by declaring that he had read the essays only "as a literary monument, neither more nor less"; he spoke of "personality and human egoism" rather than of politics. Even so, he and his fellow "conspirators" were arrested on 23 April 1849 at the request of Count A. Orlov and Tsar Nicholas I, who feared a revolution like the Decembrist revolt of 1825 in Russia and the Revolutions of 1848 in Europe. The members were held in the well-defended Peter and Paul Fortress, which housed the most dangerous convicts.[48][49][50]

The case was discussed for four months by an investigative commission headed by the Tsar, with Adjutant General Ivan Nabokov, senator Prince Pavel Gagarin, Prince Vasili Dolgorukov, General Yakov Rostovtsev and General Leonty Dubelt, head of the secret police. They sentenced the members of the circle to death by firing squad, and the prisoners were taken to Semyonov Place in St Petersburg on 23 December 1849 where they were split into three-man groups. Dostoevsky was the third in the second row; next to him stood Pleshcheyev and Durov. The execution was stayed when a cart delivered a letter from the Tsar commuting the sentence. Dostoevsky later alluded to his experience of what he believed to be the last moments of his life in his 1868–1869 novel, The Idiot, where the main character tells the harrowing story of an execution by guillotine that he recently witnessed in France.

Dostoevsky served four years of exile with hard labour at a katorga prison camp in Omsk, Siberia, followed by a term of compulsory military service. After a fourteen-day sleigh ride, the prisoners reached Tobolsk, a prisoner way station. Despite the circumstances, Dostoevsky consoled the other prisoners, such as the Petrashevist Ivan Yastrzhembsky, who was surprised by Dostoevsky's kindness and eventually abandoned his decision to kill himself. In Tobolsk, the members received food and clothes from the Decembrist women, as well as several copies of the New Testament with a ten-ruble banknote inside each copy. Eleven days later, Dostoevsky reached Omsk[49][51] together with just one other member of the Petrashevsky Circle, the poet Sergei Durov.[52] Dostoevsky described his barracks:

In summer, intolerable closeness; in winter, unendurable cold. All the floors were rotten. Filth on the floors an inch thick; one could slip and fall ... We were packed like herrings in a barrel ... There was no room to turn around. From dusk to dawn it was impossible not to behave like pigs ... Fleas, lice, and black beetles by the bushel ...[53]

Classified as "one of the most dangerous convicts", Dostoevsky had his hands and feet shackled until his release. He was only permitted to read his New Testament Bible. In addition to his seizures, he had haemorrhoids, lost weight and was "burned by some fever, trembling and feeling too hot or too cold every night". The smell of the privy pervaded the entire building, and the small bathroom had to suffice for more than 200 people. Dostoevsky was occasionally sent to the military hospital, where he read newspapers and Dickens novels. He was respected by most of the other prisoners, and despised by some because of his supposedly xenophobic statements.[54][55]

Release from prison and first marriage (1854–1866)[edit]

After his release on 14 February 1854, Dostoevsky asked Mikhail to help him financially and to send him books by Vico, Guizot, Ranke, Hegel and Kant.[56] The House of the Dead, based on his experience in prison, was published in 1861 in the journal Vremya ("Time") – it was the first published novel about Russian prisons.[57] Before moving in mid-March to Semipalatinsk, where he was forced to serve in the Siberian Army Corps of the Seventh Line Battalion, Dostoevsky met geographer Pyotr Semyonov and ethnographer Shokan Walikhanuli. Around November 1854, he met Baron Alexander Egorovich Wrangel, an admirer of his books, who had attended the aborted execution. They both rented houses in the Cossack Garden outside Semipalatinsk. Wrangel remarked that Dostoevsky "looked morose. His sickly, pale face was covered with freckles, and his blond hair was cut short. He was a little over average height and looked at me intensely with his sharp, grey-blue eyes. It was as if he were trying to look into my soul and discover what kind of man I was."[58][59][60]

In Semipalatinsk, Dostoevsky tutored several schoolchildren and came into contact with upper-class families, including that of Lieutenant-Colonel Belikhov, who used to invite him to read passages from newspapers and magazines. During a visit to Belikhov, Dostoevsky met the family of Alexander Ivanovich Isaev and Maria Dmitrievna Isaeva and fell in love with the latter. Alexander Isaev took a new post in Kuznetsk, where he died in August 1855. Maria and her son then moved with Dostoevsky to Barnaul. In 1856 Dostoevsky sent a letter through Wrangel to General Eduard Totleben, apologising for his activity in several utopian circles. As a result, he obtained the right to publish books and to marry, although he remained under police surveillance for the rest of his life. Maria married Dostoevsky in Semipalatinsk on 7 February 1857, even though she had initially refused his marriage proposal, stating that they were not meant for each other and that his poor financial situation precluded marriage. Their family life was unhappy and she found it difficult to cope with his seizures. Describing their relationship, he wrote: "Because of her strange, suspicious and fantastic character, we were definitely not happy together, but we could not stop loving each other; and the more unhappy we were, the more attached to each other we became". They mostly lived apart.[61] In 1859 he was released from military service because of deteriorating health and was granted permission to return to European Russia, first to Tver, where he met his brother for the first time in ten years, and then to St Petersburg.[62][63]

Dostoevsky in Paris, 1863

"A Little Hero" (Dostoevsky's only work completed in prison) appeared in a journal, but "Uncle's Dream" and "The Village of Stepanchikovo" were not published until 1860. Notes from the House of the Dead was released in Russky Mir (Russian World) in September 1860. "The Insulted and the Injured" was published in the new Vremya magazine,[d] which had been created with the help of funds from his brother's cigarette factory.[65][66][67]

Dostoevsky travelled to western Europe for the first time on 7 June 1862, visiting Cologne, Berlin, Dresden, Wiesbaden, Belgium, and Paris. In London, he met Herzen and visited the Crystal Palace. He travelled with Nikolay Strakhov through Switzerland and several North Italian cities, including Turin, Livorno, and Florence. He recorded his impressions of those trips in Winter Notes on Summer Impressions, in which he criticised capitalism, social modernisation, materialism, Catholicism and Protestantism.[68][69]

From August to October 1863, Dostoevsky made another trip to western Europe. He met his second love, Polina Suslova, in Paris and lost nearly all his money gambling in Wiesbaden and Baden-Baden. In 1864 his wife Maria and his brother Mikhail died, and Dostoevsky became the lone parent of his stepson Pasha and the sole supporter of his brother's family. The failure of Epoch, the magazine he had founded with Mikhail after the suppression of Vremya, worsened his financial situation, although the continued help of his relatives and friends averted bankruptcy.[70][71]

Second marriage and honeymoon (1866–1871)[edit]

The first two parts of Crime and Punishment were published in January and February 1866 in the periodical The Russian Messenger,[72] attracting at least 500 new subscribers to the magazine.[73]

Dostoevsky returned to Saint Petersburg in mid-September and promised his editor, Fyodor Stellovsky, that he would complete The Gambler, a short novel focused on gambling addiction, by November, although he had not yet begun writing it. One of Dostoevsky's friends, Milyukov, advised him to hire a secretary. Dostoevsky contacted stenographer Pavel Olkhin from Saint Petersburg, who recommended his pupil, the twenty-year-old Anna Grigoryevna Snitkina. Her shorthand helped Dostoevsky to complete The Gambler on 30 October, after 26 days' work.[74][75] She remarked that Dostoevsky was of average height but always tried to carry himself erect. "He had light brown, slightly reddish hair, he used some hair conditioner, and he combed his hair in a diligent way ... his eyes, they were different: one was dark brown; in the other, the pupil was so big that you could not see its color, [this was caused by an injury]. The strangeness of his eyes gave Dostoyevsky some mysterious appearance. His face was pale, and it looked unhealthy."[76]

Memorial plaque to Dostoevsky in Baden-Baden

On 15 February 1867 Dostoevsky married Snitkina in Trinity Cathedral, Saint Petersburg. The 7,000 rubles he had earned from Crime and Punishment did not cover their debts, forcing Anna to sell her valuables. On 14 April 1867, they began a delayed honeymoon in Germany with the money gained from the sale. They stayed in Berlin and visited the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden, where he sought inspiration for his writing. They continued their trip through Germany, visiting Frankfurt, Darmstadt, Heidelberg and Karlsruhe. They spent five weeks in Baden-Baden, where Dostoevsky had a quarrel with Turgenev and again lost much money at the roulette table.[77] At one point, his wife was reportedly forced to pawn her underwear.[78] The couple travelled on to Geneva.

In September 1867, Dostoevsky began work on The Idiot, and after a prolonged planning process that bore little resemblance to the published novel, he eventually managed to write the first 100 pages in only 23 days; the serialisation began in The Russian Messenger in January 1868.

Plaque for baby Sofya

Their first child, Sofya, had been conceived in Baden-Baden, and was born in Geneva on 5 March 1868. The baby died of pneumonia three months later, and Anna recalled how Dostoevsky "wept and sobbed like a woman in despair".[79] Sofya was buried at the Cimetière des Rois (Cemetery of Kings), which is considered the Genevan Panthéon. The grave was later dissolved but in 1986 the International Dostoevsky Society donated a commemorative plaque.[80]

The couple moved from Geneva to Vevey and then to Milan before continuing to Florence. The Idiot was completed there in January 1869, the final part appearing in The Russian Messenger in February 1869.[81][82] Anna gave birth to their second daughter, Lyubov, on 26 September 1869 in Dresden. In April 1871, Dostoevsky made a final visit to a gambling hall in Wiesbaden. Anna claimed that he stopped gambling after the birth of their second daughter, but this is a subject of debate.[e]

After hearing news that the socialist revolutionary group "People's Vengeance" had murdered one of its own members, Ivan Ivanov, on 21 November 1869, Dostoevsky began writing Demons.[85] In 1871, Dostoevsky and Anna travelled by train to Berlin. During the trip, he burnt several manuscripts, including those of The Idiot, because he was concerned about potential problems with customs. The family arrived in Saint Petersburg on 8 July, marking the end of a honeymoon (originally planned for three months) that had lasted over four years.[86][87]

Back in Russia (1871–1875)[edit]

Dostoevsky (left) in the Haymarket, 21/22 March 1874

Back in Russia in July 1871, the family was again in financial trouble and had to sell their remaining possessions. Their son Fyodor was born on 16 July, and they moved to an apartment near the Institute of Technology soon after. They hoped to cancel their large debts by selling their rental house in Peski, but difficulties with the tenant resulted in a relatively low selling price, and disputes with their creditors continued. Anna proposed that they raise money on her husband's copyrights and negotiate with the creditors to pay off their debts in installments.[88][89]

Dostoevsky revived his friendships with Maykov and Strakhov and made new acquaintances, including church politician Terty Filipov and the brothers Vsevolod and Vladimir Solovyov. Konstantin Pobedonostsev, future Imperial High Commissioner of the Most Holy Synod, influenced Dostoevsky's political progression to conservatism. Around early 1872 the family spent several months in Staraya Russa, a town known for its mineral spa. Dostoevsky's work was delayed when Anna's sister Maria Svatkovskaya died on 1 May 1872, from either typhus or malaria,[90] and Anna developed an abscess on her throat.[88][91]

Dostoevsky, 1876

The family returned to St Petersburg in September. Demons was finished on 26 November and released in January 1873 by the "Dostoevsky Publishing Company", which was founded by Dostoevsky and his wife. Although they accepted only cash payments and the bookshop was in their own apartment, the business was successful, and they sold around 3,000 copies of Demons. Anna managed the finances. Dostoevsky proposed that they establish a new periodical, which would be called A Writer's Diary and would include a collection of essays, but funds were lacking, and the Diary was published in Vladimir Meshchersky's The Citizen, beginning on 1 January, in return for a salary of 3,000 rubles per year. In the summer of 1873, Anna returned to Staraya Russa with the children, while Dostoevsky stayed in St Petersburg to continue with his Diary.[92][93]

In March 1874, Dostoevsky left The Citizen because of the stressful work and interference from the Russian bureaucracy. In his fifteen months with The Citizen, he had been taken to court twice: on 11 June 1873 for citing the words of Prince Meshchersky without permission, and again on 23 March 1874. Dostoevsky offered to sell a new novel he had not yet begun to write to The Russian Messenger, but the magazine refused. Nikolay Nekrasov suggested that he publish A Writer's Diary in Notes of the Fatherland; he would receive 250 rubles for each printer's sheet – 100 more than the text's publication in The Russian Messenger would have earned. Dostoevsky accepted. As his health began to decline, he consulted several doctors in St Petersburg and was advised to take a cure outside Russia. Around July, he reached Ems and consulted a physician, who diagnosed him with acute catarrh. During his stay he began The Adolescent. He returned to Saint Petersburg in late July.[94][95]

Anna proposed that they spend the winter in Staraya Russa to allow Dostoevsky to rest, although doctors had suggested a second visit to Ems because his health had previously improved there. On 10 August 1875 his son Alexey was born in Staraya Russa, and in mid-September the family returned to Saint Petersburg. Dostoevsky finished The Adolescent at the end of 1875, although passages of it had been serialised in Notes of the Fatherland since January. The Adolescent chronicles the life of Arkady Dolgoruky, the illegitimate child of the landowner Versilov and a peasant mother. It deals primarily with the relationship between father and son, which became a frequent theme in Dostoevsky's subsequent works.[96][97]

Last years (1876–1881)[edit]

In early 1876, Dostoevsky continued work on his Diary. The book includes numerous essays and a few short stories about society, religion, politics and ethics. The collection sold more than twice as many copies as his previous books. Dostoevsky received more letters from readers than ever before, and people of all ages and occupations visited him. With assistance from Anna's brother, the family bought a dacha in Staraya Russa. In the summer of 1876, Dostoevsky began experiencing shortness of breath again. He visited Ems for the third time and was told that he might live for another 15 years if he moved to a healthier climate. When he returned to Russia, Tsar Alexander II ordered Dostoevsky to visit his palace to present the Diary to him, and he asked him to educate his sons, Sergey and Paul. This visit further increased Dosteyevsky's circle of acquaintances. He was a frequent guest in several salons in Saint Petersburg and met many famous people, including Countess Sophia Tolstaya, Yakov Polonsky, Sergei Witte, Alexey Suvorin, Anton Rubinstein and Ilya Repin.[98][99]

Dostoevsky's health declined further, and in March 1877 he had four epileptic seizures. Rather than returning to Ems, he visited Maly Prikol, a manor near Kursk. While returning to St Petersburg to finalise his Diary, he visited Darovoye, where he had spent much of his childhood. In December he attended Nekrasov's funeral and gave a speech. He was appointed an honorary member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, from which he received an honorary certificate in February 1879. He declined an invitation to an international congress on copyright in Paris after his son Alyosha had a severe epileptic seizure and died on 16 May. The family later moved to the apartment where Dostoevsky had written his first works. Around this time, he was elected to the board of directors of the Slavic Benevolent Society in Saint Petersburg. That summer, he was elected to the honorary committee of the Association Littéraire et Artistique Internationale, whose members included Victor Hugo, Ivan Turgenev, Paul Heyse, Alfred Tennyson, Anthony Trollope, Henry Longfellow, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Leo Tolstoy. Dostoevsky made his fourth and final visit to Ems in early August 1879. He was diagnosed with early-stage pulmonary emphysema, which his doctor believed could be successfully managed, but not cured.[100][101]

Dostoevsky's funeral

On 3 February 1880 Dostoevsky was elected vice-president of the Slavic Benevolent Society, and he was invited to speak at the unveiling of the Pushkin memorial in Moscow. On 8 June he delivered his speech, giving an impressive performance that had a significant emotional impact on his audience. His speech was met with thunderous applause, and even his long-time rival Turgenev embraced him. Konstantin Staniukovich praised the speech in his essay "The Pushkin Anniversary and Dostoevsky's Speech" in The Business, writing that "the language of Dostoevsky's [Pushkin Speech] really looks like a sermon. He speaks with the tone of a prophet. He makes a sermon like a pastor; it is very deep, sincere, and we understand that he wants to impress the emotions of his listeners."[102] The speech was criticised later by liberal political scientist Alexander Gradovsky, who thought that Dostoevsky idolised "the people",[103] and by conservative thinker Konstantin Leontiev, who, in his essay "On Universal Love", compared the speech to French utopian socialism.[104] The attacks led to a further deterioration in his health.[105][106]

Death[edit]

Dostoevsky on his bier, drawing by Ivan Kramskoi, 1881

Dostoevsky's grave in Saint Petersburg

On 6 February [O.S. 25 January] 1881, while searching for members of the terrorist organisation Narodnaya Volya ("The People's Will") who would soon assassinate Tsar Alexander II, the Tsar's secret police executed a search warrant in the apartment of one of Dostoevsky's neighbours.[citation needed] On the following day, Dostoevsky suffered a pulmonary haemorrhage. Anna denied that the search had caused it, saying that the haemorrhage had occurred after her husband had been looking for a dropped pen holder.[f] After another haemorrhage, Anna called the doctors, who gave a poor prognosis. A third haemorrhage followed shortly afterwards.[110][111] While seeing his children before dying, Dostoevsky requested that the parable of the Prodigal Son be read to his children. The profound meaning of this request is pointed out by Frank:

It was this parable of transgression, repentance, and forgiveness that he wished to leave as a last heritage to his children, and it may well be seen as his own ultimate understanding of the meaning of his life and the message of his work.[112]

Among Dostoevsky's last words was his quotation of Matthew 3:14–15: "But John forbad him, saying, I have a need to be baptised of thee, and comest thou to me? And Jesus answering said unto him, Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness", and he finished with "Hear now—permit it. Do not restrain me!".[113] His last words to his wife Anna were: "Remember, Anya, I have always loved you passionately and have never been unfaithful to you ever, even in my thoughts!"[114] When he died, his body was placed on a table, following Russian custom. He was interred in the Tikhvin Cemetery at the Alexander Nevsky Convent,[115] near his favourite poets, Nikolay Karamzin and Vasily Zhukovsky. It is unclear how many attended his funeral. According to one reporter, more than 100,000 mourners were present, while others describe attendance between 40,000 and 50,000. His tombstone is inscribed with lines from the New Testament:[110][116]

Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it dies, it bringeth forth much fruit.

— John 12:24

Personal life[edit]

Extramarital affairs[edit]

Dostoevsky had his first known affair with Avdotya Yakovlevna, whom he met in the Panayev circle in the early 1840s. He described her as educated, interested in literature, and a femme fatale.[117] He admitted later that he was uncertain about their relationship.[118] According to Anna Dostoevskaya's memoirs, Dostoevsky once asked his sister's sister-in-law, Yelena Ivanova, whether she would marry him, hoping to replace her mortally ill husband after he died, but she rejected his proposal.[119]

Dostoevsky and Apollonia (Polina) Suslova had a short but intimate affair, which peaked in the winter of 1862–1863. Suslova's dalliance with a Spaniard in late spring and Dostoevsky's gambling addiction and age ended their relationship. He later described her in a letter to Nadezhda Suslova as a "great egoist. Her egoism and her vanity are colossal. She demands everything of other people, all the perfections, and does not pardon the slightest imperfection in the light of other qualities that one may possess", and later stated "I still love her, but I do not want to love her any more. She doesn't deserve this love ..."[61] In 1858 Dostoevsky had a romance with comic actress Aleksandra Ivanovna Schubert. Although she divorced Dostoevsky's friend Stepan Yanovsky, she would not live with him. Dostoevsky did not love her either, but they were probably good friends. She wrote that he "became very attracted to me".[120][121]

Through a worker in Epoch, Dostoevsky learned of the Russian-born Martha Brown (née Elizaveta Andreyevna Chlebnikova), who had had affairs with several westerners. Her relationship with Dostoevsky is known only through letters written between November 1864 and January 1865.[122][123] In 1865, Dostoevsky met Anna Korvin-Krukovskaya. Their relationship is not verified; Anna Dostoevskaya spoke of a good affair, but Korvin-Krukovskaya's sister, the mathematician Sofia Kovalevskaya, thought that Korvin-Krukovskaya had rejected him.[124]

Political beliefs[edit]

In his youth, Dostoevsky enjoyed reading Nikolai Karamzin's History of the Russian State, which praised conservatism and Russian independence, ideas that Dostoevsky would embrace later in life. Before his arrest for participating in the Petrashevsky Circle in 1849, Dostoevsky remarked, "As far as I am concerned, nothing was ever more ridiculous than the idea of a republican government in Russia." In an 1881 edition of his Diaries, Dostoevsky stated that the Tsar and the people should form a unity: "For the people, the tsar is not an external power, not the power of some conqueror ... but a power of all the people, an all-unifying power the people themselves desired."[125]

While critical of serfdom, Dostoevsky was skeptical about the creation of a constitution, a concept he viewed as unrelated to Russia's history. He described it as a mere "gentleman's rule" and believed that "a constitution would simply enslave the people". He advocated social change instead, for example removal of the feudal system and a weakening of the divisions between the peasantry and the affluent classes. His ideal was a utopian, Christianized Russia where "if everyone were actively Christian, not a single social question would come up ... If they were Christians they would settle everything".[126] He thought democracy and oligarchy were poor systems; of France he wrote, "the oligarchs are only concerned with the interest of the wealthy; the democrats, only with the interest of the poor; but the interests of society, the interest of all and the future of France as a whole—no one there bothers about these things."[126] He maintained that political parties ultimately led to social discord. In the 1860s, he discovered Pochvennichestvo, a movement similar to Slavophilism in that it rejected Europe's culture and contemporary philosophical movements, such as nihilism and materialism. Pochvennichestvo differed from Slavophilism in aiming to establish, not an isolated Russia, but a more open state modelled on the Russia of Peter the Great.[126]

In his incomplete article "Socialism and Christianity", Dostoevsky claimed that civilisation ("the second stage in human history") had become degraded, and that it was moving towards liberalism and losing its faith in God. He asserted that the traditional concept of Christianity should be recovered. He thought that contemporary western Europe had "rejected the single formula for their salvation that came from God and was proclaimed through revelation, 'Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself', and replaced it with practical conclusions such as, 'Chacun pour soi et Dieu pour tous' [Every man for himself and God for all], or "scientific" slogans like 'the struggle for survival.'"[125] He considered this crisis to be the consequence of the collision between communal and individual interests, brought about by a decline in religious and moral principles.

Dostoevsky distinguished three "enormous world ideas" prevalent in his time: Roman Catholicism, Protestantism and (Russian) Orthodoxy. He claimed that Catholicism had continued the tradition of Imperial Rome and had thus become anti-Christian and proto-socialist, inasmuch as the Church's interest in political and mundane affairs led it to abandon the idea of Christ. For Dostoevsky, socialism was "the latest incarnation of the Catholic idea" and its "natural ally".[127] He found Protestantism self-contradictory and claimed that it would ultimately lose power and spirituality. He deemed (Russian) Orthodoxy to be the ideal form of Christianity.

For all that, to place Dostoevsky politically is not that simple, but: as a Christian, he rejected atheistic socialism; as a traditionalist, he rejected the destruction of the institutions; and, as a pacifist, he rejected any violent method or upheaval led by either progressives or reactionaries. He supported private property and business rights, and did not agree with many criticisms of the free market from the socialist utopians of his time.[128][129]

During the Russo-Turkish War, Dostoevsky asserted that war might be necessary if salvation were to be granted. He wanted the Muslim Ottoman Empire eliminated and the Christian Byzantine Empire restored, and he hoped for the liberation of Balkan Slavs and their unification with the Russian Empire.[125]

Ethnic beliefs[edit]

Many characters in Dostoevsky's works, including Jews, have been described as displaying negative stereotypes.[130] In a letter to Arkady Kovner from 1877, a Jew who had accused Dostoevsky of antisemitism, he replied with the following:

"I am not an enemy of the Jews at all and never have been. But as you say, its 40-century existence proves that this tribe has exceptional vitality, which would not help, during the course of its history, taking the form of various Status in Statu ... how can they fail to find themselves, even if only partially, at variance with the indigenous population – the Russian tribe?"[131]

Dostoevsky held to a Pan Slavic ideology that was conditioned by the Ottoman occupations of Eastern Europe. In 1876, the Slavic populations of Serbia and Bulgaria rose up against their Ottoman overlords, but the rebellion was put down. In the process, an estimated 12,000 people were killed. In his diaries, he scorned Westerners and those who were against the Pan Slavic movement. This ideology was motivated in part by the desire to promote a common Orthodox Christian heritage, which he saw as both unifying as well as a force for liberation.[132]

Religious beliefs[edit]

The New Testament that Dostoevsky took with him to prison in Siberia

Dostoevsky was an Orthodox Christian[133] who was raised in a religious family and knew the Gospel from a very young age.[134] He was influenced by the Russian translation of Johannes Hübner's One Hundred and Four Sacred Stories from the Old and New Testaments Selected for Children (partly a German bible for children and partly a catechism).[135][134][136] He attended Sunday liturgies from an early age and took part in annual pilgrimages to the St. Sergius Trinity Monastery.[137] A deacon at the hospital gave him religious instruction.[136] Among his most cherished childhood memories were reciting prayers in front of guests and reading passages from the Book of Job that impressed him while "still almost a child."[138]

According to an officer at the military academy, Dostoevsky was profoundly religious, followed Orthodox practice, and regularly read the Gospels and Heinrich Zschokke's Die Stunden der Andacht ("Hours of Devotion"), which "preached a sentimental version of Christianity entirely free from dogmatic content and with a strong emphasis on giving Christian love a social application." This book may have prompted his later interest in Christian socialism.[139] Through the literature of Hoffmann, Balzac, Eugène Sue, and Goethe, Dostoevsky created his own belief system, similar to Russian sectarianism and the Old Belief.[139] After his arrest, aborted execution, and subsequent imprisonment, he focused intensely on the figure of Christ and on the New Testament: the only book allowed in prison.[140] In a January 1854 letter to the woman who had sent him the New Testament, Dostoevsky wrote that he was a "child of unbelief and doubt up to this moment, and I am certain that I shall remain so to the grave." He also wrote that "even if someone were to prove to me that the truth lay outside Christ, I should choose to remain with Christ rather than with the truth."[141]

In Semipalatinsk, Dostoevsky revived his faith by looking frequently at the stars. Wrangel said that he was "rather pious, but did not often go to church, and disliked priests, especially the Siberian ones. But he spoke about Christ ecstatically." Two pilgrimages and two works by Dmitri Rostovsky, an archbishop who influenced Ukrainian and Russian literature by composing groundbreaking religious plays, strengthened his beliefs.[142] Through his visits to western Europe and discussions with Herzen, Grigoriev, and Strakhov, Dostoevsky discovered the Pochvennichestvo movement and the theory that the Catholic Church had adopted the principles of rationalism, legalism, materialism, and individualism from ancient Rome and had passed on its philosophy to Protestantism and consequently to atheistic socialism.[143]

Themes and style[edit]

Main article: Themes in Fyodor Dostoevsky's writings

Manuscript of Demons

Dostoevsky's canon includes novels, novellas, novelettes, short stories, essays, pamphlets, limericks, epigrams and poems. He wrote more than 700 letters, a dozen of which are lost.[144]

Dostoevsky expressed religious, psychological, and philosophical ideas in his writings. His works explore such themes as suicide, poverty, human manipulation, and morality. Psychological themes include dreaming, first seen in "White Nights",[145] and the father-son relationship, beginning in The Adolescent.[146] Most of his works demonstrate a vision of the chaotic sociopolitical structure of contemporary Russia.[147] His early works viewed society (for example, the differences between poor and rich) through the lens of literary realism and naturalism. The influences of other writers, particularly evident in his early works, led to accusations of plagiarism,[148][149] but his style gradually became more individual. After his release from prison, Dostoevsky incorporated religious themes, especially those of Russian Orthodoxy, into his writing. Elements of gothic fiction,[150] romanticism,[151] and satire[152] are observable in some of his books. He frequently used autobiographical or semi-autobiographical details.

An important stylistic element in Dostoevsky's writing is polyphony, the simultaneous presence of multiple narrative voices and perspectives.[153] Kornelije Kvas wrote that Bakhtin's theory of "the polyphonic novel and Dostoevsky’s dialogicness of narration postulates the non-existence of the 'final' word, which is why the thoughts, emotions and experiences of the world of the narrator and his/her characters are reflected through the words of another, with which they can never fully blend."[154]

Legacy[edit]

Reception and influence[edit]

Dostoevsky monument in Dresden (Germany)

Dostoevsky is regarded as one of the greatest and most influential novelists of the Golden Age of Russian literature.[155] Leo Tolstoy admired Dostoevsky's works and considered his novels magnificent (correspondingly, Dostoevsky admired Tolstoy as well).[156] Albert Einstein put him above the mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss, calling him a "great religious writer" who explores "the mystery of spiritual existence".[157] Sigmund Freud ranked Dostoevsky second only to Shakespeare as a creative writer.[158] Friedrich Nietzsche at one point called Dostoevsky "the only psychologist ... from whom I had something to learn; he ranks among the most beautiful strokes of fortune in my life." [159][160] Hermann Hesse enjoyed Dostoevsky's work and cautioned that to read him is like a "glimpse into the havoc".[161] The Norwegian novelist Knut Hamsun wrote that "no one has analyzed the complicated human structure as Dostoyevsky. His psychologic sense is overwhelming and visionary."[162] The Russian literary theorist Mikhail Bakhtin's analysis of Dostoevsky came to be at the foundation of his theory of the novel. Bakhtin argued that Dostoevsky's use of multiple voices was a major advancement in the development of the novel as a genre.[153]

In his posthumous collection of sketches A Moveable Feast, Ernest Hemingway stated that in Dostoevsky "there were things believable and not to be believed, but some so true that they changed you as you read them; frailty and madness, wickedness and saintliness, and the insanity of gambling were there to know".[163] James Joyce praised Dostoevsky's prose: "... he is the man more than any other who has created modern prose, and intensified it to its present-day pitch. It was his explosive power which shattered the Victorian novel with its simpering maidens and ordered commonplaces; books which were without imagination or violence."[164] In her essay The Russian Point of View, Virginia Woolf said, "Out of Shakespeare there is no more exciting reading".[165] Franz Kafka called Dostoevsky his "blood-relative"[166] and was heavily influenced by his works, particularly The Brothers Karamazov and Crime and Punishment, both of which profoundly influenced The Trial.[167] Sigmund Freud called The Brothers Karamazov "the most magnificent novel ever written".[168] Modern cultural movements such as the surrealists, the existentialists and the Beats cite Dostoevsky as an influence,[169] and he is cited as the forerunner of Russian symbolism,[170] existentialism,[171] expressionism[172] and psychoanalysis.[173] In her essay What Is Romanticism?, Russian-American author Ayn Rand wrote that Dostoevsky was one of the two greatest novelists (the other being Victor Hugo).[174] Argentinian writer Julio Cortázar also mentions Dostoevsky in his novel Hopscotch.

Honours[edit]

Soviet Union stamp, 1971

In 1956 an olive-green postage stamp dedicated to Dostoevsky was released in the Soviet Union, with a print run of 1,000 copies.[175] A Dostoevsky Museum was opened on 12 November 1971 in the apartment where he wrote his first and final novels.[176] A crater on Mercury was named after him in 1979, and a minor planet discovered in 1981 by Lyudmila Karachkina was named 3453 Dostoevsky. Music critic and broadcaster Artemy Troitsky has hosted the radio show "FM Достоевский" (FM Dostoevsky) since 1997.[177] J.M. Coetzee featured Dostoevsky as the protagonist in his 1997 novel The Master of Petersburg. The famous Malayalam novel Oru Sankeerthanam Pole by Perumbadavam Sreedharan deals with the life of Dostoevsky and his love affair with Anna.[178] Viewers of the TV show Name of Russia voted him the ninth greatest Russian of all time, just after Dmitry Mendeleev, and just ahead of ruler Ivan IV.[179] An Eagle Award-winning TV series directed by Vladimir Khotinenko about Dostoevsky's life was screened in 2011.

Numerous memorials were inaugurated in cities and regions such as Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Omsk, Semipalatinsk, Kusnetsk, Darovoye, Staraya Russa, Lyublino, Tallinn, Dresden, Baden-Baden and Wiesbaden. The Dostoyevskaya metro station in Saint Petersburg was opened on 30 December 1991, and the station of the same name in Moscow was opened on 19 June 2010, the 75th anniversary of the Moscow Metro. The Moscow station is decorated with murals by artist Ivan Nikolaev depicting scenes from Dostoevsky's works, such as controversial suicides.[180][181]

In 2021, Kazakhstan celebrated the 200th anniversary of Dostoyevsky's birth.[182]

Criticism[edit]

Dostoevsky's work did not always gain a positive reception. Some critics, such as Nikolay Dobrolyubov, Ivan Bunin and Vladimir Nabokov, viewed his writing as excessively psychological and philosophical rather than artistic. Others found fault with chaotic and disorganised plots, and others, like Turgenev, objected to "excessive psychologising" and too-detailed naturalism. His style was deemed "prolix, repetitious and lacking in polish, balance, restraint and good taste". Saltykov-Shchedrin, Nikolay Mikhaylovsky and others criticised his puppet-like characters, most prominently in The Idiot, Demons (The Possessed, The Devils)[183] and The Brothers Karamazov. These characters were compared to those of Hoffmann, an author whom Dostoevsky admired.[184]

Basing his estimation on stated criteria of enduring art and individual genius, Nabokov judges Dostoevsky "not a great writer, but rather a mediocre one—with flashes of excellent humour but, alas, with wastelands of literary platitudes in between". Nabokov complains that the novels are peopled by "neurotics and lunatics" and states that Dostoevsky's characters do not develop: "We get them all complete at the beginning of the tale and so they remain." He finds the novels full of contrived "surprises and complications of plot", which are effective when first read, but on second reading, without the shock and benefit of these surprises, appear loaded with "glorified cliché".[185] The Scottish poet and critic Edwin Muir, however, addressed this criticism, noting that "regarding the 'oddness' of Dostoevsky's characters, it has been pointed out that they perhaps only seem 'pathological', whereas in reality they are 'only visualized more clearly than any figures in imaginative literature'.[186]

Reputation[edit]

Dostoevsky's books have been translated into more than 170 languages.[187] The German translator Wilhelm Wolfsohn published one of the first translations, parts of Poor Folk, in an 1846–1847 magazine,[188] and a French translation followed. French, German and Italian translations usually came directly from the original, while English translations were second-hand and of poor quality.[189] The first English translations were by Marie von Thilo in 1881, but the first highly regarded ones were produced between 1912 and 1920 by Constance Garnett.[190] Her flowing and easy translations helped popularise Dostoevsky's novels in anglophone countries, and Bakthin's Problems of Dostoevsky's Creative Art (1929) (republished and revised as Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics in 1963) provided further understanding of his style.[191]

Dostoevsky's works were interpreted in film and on stage in many different countries. Princess Varvara Dmitrevna Obolenskaya was among the first to propose staging Crime and Punishment. Dostoevsky did not refuse permission, but he advised against it, as he believed that "each art corresponds to a series of poetic thoughts, so that one idea cannot be expressed in another non-corresponding form". His extensive explanations in opposition to the transposition of his works into other media were groundbreaking in fidelity criticism. He thought that just one episode should be dramatised, or an idea should be taken and incorporated into a separate plot.[192] According to critic Alexander Burry, some of the most effective adaptions are Sergei Prokofiev's opera The Gambler, Leoš Janáček's opera From the House of the Dead, Akira Kurosawa's film The Idiot and Andrzej Wajda's film The Possessed.[193]

After the 1917 Russian Revolution, passages of Dostoevsky books were sometimes shortened, although only two books were censored: Demons[194] and Diary of a Writer.[195] His philosophy, particularly in Demons, was deemed anti-capitalist but also anti-Communist and reactionary.[196][197] According to historian Boris Ilizarov, Stalin read Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov several times.[198]

Works[edit]

Dostoevsky's works of fiction include 15 novels and novellas, 17 short stories, and 5 translations. Many of his longer novels were first published in serialised form in literary magazines and journals. The years given below indicate the year in which the novel's final part or first complete book edition was published. In English many of his novels and stories are known by different titles.

Major works[edit]

Poor Folk[edit]

Main article: Poor Folk

Poor Folk is an epistolary novel that describes the relationship between the small, elderly official Makar Devushkin and the young seamstress Varvara Dobroselova, remote relatives who write letters to each other. Makar's tender, sentimental adoration for Varvara and her confident, warm friendship for him explain their evident preference for a simple life, although it keeps them in humiliating poverty. An unscrupulous merchant finds the inexperienced girl and hires her as his housewife and guarantor. He sends her to a manor somewhere on a steppe, while Makar alleviates his misery and pain with alcohol.

The story focuses on poor people who struggle with their lack of self-esteem. Their misery leads to the loss of their inner freedom, to dependence on the social authorities, and to the extinction of their individuality. Dostoevsky shows how poverty and dependence are indissolubly aligned with deflection and deformation of self-esteem, combining inward and outerward suffering.[199]

Notes from Underground[edit]

Main article: Notes from Underground

Notes from Underground is split into two stylistically different parts, the first essay-like, the second in narrative style. The protagonist and first-person narrator is an unnamed 40-year-old civil servant known as The Underground Man. The only known facts about his situation are that he has quit the service, lives in a basement flat on the outskirts of Saint Petersburg and finances his livelihood from a modest inheritance.

The first part is a record of his thoughts about society and his character. He describes himself as vicious, squalid and ugly; the chief focuses of his polemic are the "modern human" and his vision of the world, which he attacks severely and cynically, and towards which he develops aggression and vengefulness. He considers his own decline natural and necessary. Although he emphasises that he does not intend to publish his notes for the public, the narrator appeals repeatedly to an ill-described audience, whose questions he tries to address.

In the second part he describes scenes from his life that are responsible for his failure in personal and professional life and in his love life. He tells of meeting old school friends, who are in secure positions and treat him with condescension. His aggression turns inward on to himself and he tries to humiliate himself further. He presents himself as a possible saviour to the poor prostitute Lisa, advising her to reject self-reproach when she looks to him for hope. Dostoevsky added a short commentary saying that although the storyline and characters are fictional, such things were inevitable in contemporary society.

The Underground Man was very influential on philosophers. His alienated existence from the mainstream influenced modernist literature.[200][201]

Crime and Punishment[edit]

Main article: Crime and Punishment

The novel Crime and Punishment has received both critical and popular acclaim, and is often cited as Dostoevsky's magnum opus.[202][203][204][205][206] To this date, Crime and Punishment remains one of the most influential and widely read novels in Russian literature.[207]

The novel describes the fictional Rodion Raskolnikov's life, from the murder of a pawnbroker and her sister, through spiritual regeneration with the help and love of Sonya (a "hooker with a heart of gold"), to his sentence in Siberia. Strakhov liked the novel, remarking that "Only Crime and Punishment was read in 1866" and that Dostoevsky had managed to portray a Russian person aptly and realistically.[208] In contrast, Grigory Eliseev of the radical magazine The Contemporary called the novel a "fantasy according to which the entire student body is accused without exception of attempting murder and robbery".[209] Richard Louire, writing for The New York Times, praised the book and stated that the novel changed his life.[210] In an article for the Encyclopaedia Britannica, Patricia Bauer argued that Crime and Punishment is both "a masterpiece" and "one of the finest studies of the psychopathology of guilt written in any language."[211]

The Idiot[edit]

Main article: The Idiot

The novel's protagonist, the 26-year-old Prince Myshkin, returns to Russia after several years at a Swiss sanatorium. Scorned by Saint Petersburg society for his trusting nature and naivety, he finds himself at the center of a struggle between a beautiful kept woman, Nastasya, and a jealous but pretty young girl, Aglaya, both of whom win his affection. Unfortunately, Myshkin's goodness precipitates disaster, leaving the impression that, in a world obsessed with money, power and sexual conquest, a sanatorium may be the only place for a saint. Myshkin is the personification of a "relatively beautiful man", namely Christ. Coming "from above" (the Swiss mountains), he physically resembles common depictions of Jesus Christ: slightly larger than average, with thick, blond hair, sunken cheeks and a thin, almost entirely white goatee. Like Christ, Myshkin is a teacher, confessor and mysterious outsider. Passions such as greed and jealousy are alien to him. In contrast to those around him, he puts no value on money and power. He feels compassion and love, sincerely, without judgment. His relationship with the immoral Nastasya is obviously inspired by Christ's relationship with Mary Magdalene. He is called "Idiot" because of such differences.[86][212]

Demons[edit]

Main article: Demons (Dostoevsky novel)

The story of Demons (sometimes also titled The Possessed or The Devils)[183] is based largely on the murder of Ivan Ivanov by "People's Vengeance" members in 1869. It was influenced by the Book of Revelation. The secondary characters, Pyotr and Stepan Verkhovensky, are based on Sergei Nechayev and Timofey Granovsky respectively.[213] The novel takes place in a provincial Russian setting, primarily on the estates of Stepan Verkhovensky and Varvara Stavrogina. Stepan's son Pyotr is an aspiring revolutionary conspirator who attempts to organise revolutionaries in the area. He considers Varvara's son Nikolai central to his plot, because he thinks that Nikolai lacks sympathy for mankind. Pyotr gathers conspirators such as the philosophising Shigalyov, the suicidal Kirillov and the former military man Virginsky. He schemes to consolidate their loyalty to him and each other by murdering Ivan Shatov, a fellow conspirator. Pyotr plans to have Kirillov, who is committed to killing himself, take credit for the murder in his suicide note. Kirillov complies and Pyotr murders Shatov, but his scheme goes awry. Pyotr escapes, but the remainder of his aspiring revolutionary crew is arrested. In the denouement, Nikolai kills himself, tortured by his own misdeeds.

The Brothers Karamazov[edit]

Main article: The Brothers Karamazov

At nearly 800 pages, The Brothers Karamazov is Dostoevsky's largest work. It received both critical and popular acclaim and is often cited as his magnum opus.[214] Composed of 12 "books", the novel tells the story of the novice Alyosha Karamazov, the non-believer Ivan Karamazov, and the soldier Dmitri Karamazov. The first books introduce the Karamazovs. The main plot is the death of their father Fyodor, while other parts are philosophical and religious arguments by Father Zosima to Alyosha.[215][216]

The most famous chapter is "The Grand Inquisitor", a parable told by Ivan to Alyosha about Christ's Second Coming in Seville, Spain, in which Christ is imprisoned by a ninety-year-old Catholic Grand Inquisitor. Instead of answering him, Christ gives him a kiss, and the Inquisitor subsequently releases him, telling him not to return. The tale was misunderstood as a defence of the Inquisitor, but some, such as Romano Guardini, have argued that the Christ of the parable was Ivan's own interpretation of Christ, "the idealistic product of the unbelief". Ivan, however, has stated that he is against Christ. Most contemporary critics and scholars agree that Dostoevsky is attacking Roman Catholicism and socialist atheism, both represented by the Inquisitor. He warns the readers against a terrible revelation in the future, referring to the Donation of Pepin around 750 and the Spanish Inquisition in the 16th century, which in his view corrupted true Christianity.[217][215][216]

Bibliography[edit]

Main article: Fyodor Dostoevsky bibliography

Novels and novellas[edit]

(1846) Poor Folk (novella)
(1846) The Double (novella)
(1847) The Landlady (novella)
(1849) Netochka Nezvanova (unfinished)
(1859) Uncle's Dream (novella)
(1859) The Village of Stepanchikovo
(1861) Humiliated and Insulted
(1862) The House of the Dead
(1864) Notes from Underground
(1866) Crime and Punishment
(1867) The Gambler (novella)
(1869) The Idiot
(1870) The Eternal Husband (novella)
(1872) Demons (also titled: The Possessed, The Devils)[183]
(1875) The Adolescent
(1880) The Brothers Karamazov

Short stories[edit]

(1846) "Mr. Prokharchin"
(1847) "Novel in Nine Letters"
(1848) "Another Man's Wife and a Husband Under the Bed" (merger of "Another Man's Wife" and "A Jealous Husband")
(1848) "A Weak Heart"
(1848) "Polzunkov"
(1848) "An Honest Thief"
(1848) "A Christmas Tree and a Wedding"
(1848) "White Nights"
(1849) "A Little Hero"
(1862) "A Nasty Story"
(1865) "The Crocodile"
(1873) "Bobok"
(1876) "The Heavenly Christmas Tree" (also titled: "The Beggar Boy at Christ's Christmas Tree")[218]
(1876) "A Gentle Creature" (also titled: "The Meek One")
(1876) "The Peasant Marey"
(1877) "The Dream of a Ridiculous Man"

Essay collections[edit]

Winter Notes on Summer Impressions (1863)
A Writer's Diary (1873–1881)

Translations[edit]

(1843) Eugénie Grandet (Honoré de Balzac)
(1843) La dernière Aldini (George Sand)
(1843) Mary Stuart (Friedrich Schiller)

Personal letters[edit]

(1912) Letters of Fyodor Michailovitch Dostoevsky to His Family and Friends by Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky (Author), translator Ethel Colburn Mayne Kessinger Publishing, LLC (26 May 2006) ISBN 978-1-4286-1333-1

Posthumously published notebooks[edit]