Fyodor Dostoevsky

Russian novelist (1821-1881) · Russia · Writers · Died at 59

Fyodor Dostoevsky is read about 13,242 times a day, in 186 languages.

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Dostoevsky mapped the darkest corridors of the human psyche - guilt, obsession, faith collapsing under pressure - in novels that read like philosophical crime scenes. Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov still set the terms for how fiction handles consciousness in crisis.

Writers Writer / Author Poetry Fiction Philosophy Literature 19th Century

A life in dates

1914The Gambler and Other StoriesBook published after his deathMore about this, short story collection by Fyodor Dostoyevsky1881Died28 January 18811873“I think that the principal and most basic spiritual need of the Russian People is the need for suffering, incessant and unslakeable suffering, everywhere and in everything.”In their wordsA Writer's Diary, Vol. 1: 1873-1876 (1994), pp. 161-162Read the whole statement

“A great many people were put down as mad among us last year. And in such language! "With such original talent" ... "and yet, after all, it appears" ...”In their words"Bobok: From Somebody's Diary" (1873), as translated by Constance Garnett in Short Stories (New York: Books, Inc, 1900)Read the whole statement

1868“All writers, not ours alone but foreigners also, who have sought to represent Absolute Beauty, were unequal to the task, for it is an infinitely difficult one.”In their words1 January 1868Letter to his Niece Sofia Alexandrovna, Geneva, January 1, 1868. Ethel Golburn Mayne, Letters of Fyodor Michailovitch Dostoyevsky to HisRead the whole statement

1862“Money is coined liberty, and so it is ten times dearer to the man who is deprived of freedom.”In their wordsThe House of the Dead (1862) ch. 1; as translated by Constance Garnett (1915), p. 16Read the whole statement

1850“Russia was a slave in Europe but would be a master in Asia.”In their wordsAs quoted in "Dilemmas of Empire 1850-1918: Power, Territory, Identity" by Dominic Livien in Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 34, No.2Read the whole statement

1839“To study the meaning of man and of life - I am making significant progress here. I have faith in myself.”In their wordsPersonal correspondence (1839), as quoted in Dostoevsky: His Life and Work (1971) by Konstantin Mochulski, as translated by Michael A.Read the whole statement

1821Born30 October 1821

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Photos 12

Dostoevsky, 1847

A sketch of the Petrashevsky Circle mock execution

Dostoevsky as a military engineer in 1858 or -59,[59] portrait by Solomon Leibin (Соломон Лейбин)

Dostoevsky in Paris, 1863

Memorial plaque to Dostoevsky in Baden-Baden

In their own words 10

Fyodor Dostoevsky

10 statements, newest first

Neither a person nor a nation can exist without some higher idea.
1873, A Writer's Diary, Vol. 1: 1873-1876, ed. Kenneth Lantz (1994), p. 734, Own words
I think that the principal and most basic spiritual need of the Russian People is the need for suffering, incessant and unslakeable suffering, everywhere and in everything.
1873, A Writer's Diary, Vol. 1: 1873-1876 (1994), pp. 161-162, Own words
A great many people were put down as mad among us last year. And in such language! "With such original talent" ... "and yet, after all, it appears" ...
1873, "Bobok: From Somebody's Diary" (1873), as translated by Constance Garnett in Short Stories (New York: Books, Inc, 1900), Own words

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Born in Moscow in 1821, Dostoevsky entered literature young and broke through with Poor Folk in the mid-1840s. Then in 1849 he was arrested for discussing banned books, sentenced to death, and reprieved at the execution ground - followed by four years in a Siberian labour camp and six more in military exile. He returned to write The House of the Dead, then spent the 1860s and '70s churning out The Idiot, Demons, and The Brothers Karamazov while editing magazines, gambling away money across Western Europe, and begging for cash. Notes from Underground became a template for existentialism; Nietzsche called him the only psychologist he could learn from. He died in 1881, translated into over 170 languages, with a claim on every writer who came after.

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Russia