In Photos: 200 Years Of Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Dostoyevsky at age 26, in a drawing by Konstantin Trutovsky
Dostoyevsky was born in Moscow on November 11, 1821. He was introduced to literature very early and attended boarding schools but was sent to the Nikolayev Military Engineering Institute after his mother died in 1837.
"Let us not forget that the causes of human actions are usually immeasurably more complex and varied than our subsequent explanations of them." -- Dostoyevsky, The Idiot
Dostoyevsky's father wrote his name in Ukrainian, Mykhaylo, before the War of 1812, where he served as a military surgeon. From then on, he wrote it in Russian, as Mikhail. His family traced its roots to the Pinsk region in modern-day Belarus.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky in St. Petersburg in 1861
Dostoyevsky worked as a military engineer until leaving the profession after publishing his first novel in 1845. In 1849, he and other members of a literary circle were accused of reading banned political works. He was sentenced to death by firing squad.
"People speak sometimes about the 'bestial' cruelty of man, but that is terribly unjust and offensive to beasts, no animal could ever be so cruel as a man, so artfully, so artistically cruel." -- Dostoyevsky, Crime And Punishment
In the city of Semei, Kazakhstan, the Dostoyevsky Literary Memorial Museum includes a wooden building in which Dostoyevsky lived in exile from 1857-59 in what was then known as Semipalatinsk.
His execution was stayed at the last minute by a letter from the tsar commuting the sentence. Dostoyevsky served four years of exile with hard labor at a prison camp in Omsk, followed by compulsory military service.
"The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons." -- Dostoyevsky, Notes From The House Of The Dead
Dostoyevsky in 1863
Dostoyevsky married Maria Isayeva in Semipalatinsk in 1857. He was released from military service soon after because of deteriorating health and allowed to move to St. Petersburg.
"The awful thing is that beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and the devil are fighting there and the battlefield is the heart of man." -- Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
Dostoyevsky in 1872
In 1864, Dostoyevsky's wife, Maria, and brother Mikhail died, leaving him to support his stepson and also his brother's family. This and the failure of a magazine he founded with Mikhail left him in dire financial straits.
"Man is a creature that can get accustomed to anything, and I think that is the best definition of him." -- Dostoyevsky, Notes From The House Of The Dead
Dostoyevsky in 1876
In 1867, Dostoyevsky married Anna Snitkina, whom he had hired as a secretary to help him finish a novel. She would later manage his business affairs.
"Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love." -- Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
Dostoyevsky's daughter Lyuba (seated)
Dostoyevsky's first child, Sofya, was born in Geneva in March 1868 but died of pneumonia three months later. His daughter Lubya was born in September 1869 in Dresden. His two sons, Fyodor (1871) and Aleksei (1875), were born in Russia.
"I like revisiting, at certain times, spots where I was once happy; I like to shape the present in the image of the irretrievable past." -- Dostoyevsky, White Nights
Dostoyevsky in St. Petersburg in 1879
In his later years, Dostoyevsky's health began to decline. He moved for a time to Staraya Russa, known for its mineral spas. He was advised to seek cures abroad and was diagnosed in 1874 with acute catarrh. He also had a long history of epileptic seizures.
"It seems, in fact, as though the second half of a man's life is made up of nothing but the habits he has accumulated during the first half." -- Dostoyevsky, The Devils
Dostoyevsky's grave in St. Petersburg
Dostoyevsky died on February 9, 1881, after a series of pulmonary hemorrhages. He was buried in the Tikhvin Cemetery at the Aleksandr Nevsky Convent.
"God is necessary, and therefore must exist.... But I know that he does not and cannot exist.... Don't you understand that a man with these two thoughts cannot go on living?" -- Dostoyevsky, The Devils