Dostoevsky F. M. (1821-1881), writer

Categories / Literature. Book Publishing/Personalia
Categories / Press. Mass Media/Personalia
DOSTOEVSKY Fedor Mikhaylovich (1821-1881, St. Petersburg), writer, corresponding member of the Petersburg Academy of Sciences (1877). In 1837 came to St. Petersburg. Upon graduating from the Military Engineering Academy (1843) served in the Petersburg Engineering Brigade (assigned to the Civil Engineering Department), in 1844 resigned. Dostoevsky"s first narrative Poor People was published in 1846 in the Petersburg Collection. From this point the image of St. Petersburg as an inhabitance for the poor merges with the fate of its characters. The appearance of streets and canals of St. Petersburg outskirts, episodes of their every day life, dismal yards, staircases, corners, revealing unfolding human dramas, — this is a description evoking the image of the most fantastic of all Russian cities (The Double, Mr. Prokharchin, The Landlady, The Weak Heart, The White Nights). In the 1840s most of the time Dostoevsky resided at 11/10 Vladimirsky Avenue (1842-46, memorial plaque) and 8/23 Voznesensky Avenue (1847-49, memorial board). In 1849 was arrested for participating in the M. V. Petrashevsky"s Fridays (liberal intellectual circle), and imprisoned in the Alexeevsky ravelin of the St. Peter and Paul Fortress, sentenced to death, which was commuted to four years of exile with a further enlistment to military service as a soldier (his feelings while standing on the Semenovsky parade ground during a mock execution after the announcement of a death sentence were described in the novel Idiot). In 1859 he returned to St. Petersburg. From 1861 to 1865 was actively involved in the activities of the Literature Fund, published the Vremya and Epokha journals. During a long period rented flats in the vicinity of the Sennaya Square, which he precisely (in topographic terms) described in the works written in the 1860s (Netochka Nezvanova; The Insulted and Humiliated) and especially in the novels Crime and Punishment (Raskolnikov lived at the corner of the Stolyarny Lane and Srednyaya Meshchanskaya Street [presently 19 Grazhdanskaya Street] ; Sonya Marmeladova — at Ekaterininsky Canal, today 73 Griboedova Canal; Raskolnikov murdered the old woman pawnbroker, Alena Ivanovna, in the house situated at 104, Catherine Canal Embankment) and the Idiot (Myshkin lived in a shabby hotel at Liteiny Avenue, and the house at 41 Gorokhovaya Street is considered Rogozhin"s House). In 1873-74 Dostoevsky edited the Grazhdanin journal. In 1875 in the Otechestvennye Zapisky journal Dostoevsky"s last Petersburg novel Raw Youth was published, with the events taking place in the aristocrats’ luxurious apartments and canary rooms and taverns of Peterburgskaya Side and Vasilievsky Island. In 1873-81 Dostoevsky published the The Writer"s Diary. During the last three years of his life he resided at 5 Kuznechny Lane (the corner of the Yamskaya Street, presently Dostoyevskogo Street; memorial plaque; from 1971 Dostoevsky Literary-Memorial Museum). Dostoevsky"s image of the ideally mystical, catastrophically phantasmal and prosaically nightmarish St. Petersburg, interpreting in its peculiar way Pushkin"s and Gogol"s traditions of Petersburg text, greatly affected the development of Russian literature. Buried at Tikhvinskoe cemetery of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra (monument — 1883, sculptor N. А. Lavretsky, architect K. K. Vasilyev). Dostoevsky"s funeral became a significant event in St. Petersburg"s life. A metro station, a street in Strelna are named after Dostoevsky. There is a monument to Dostoevsky on Bolshaya Moskovskaya Street, near Vladimirskaya Square (1997; sculptor L. Kholina, Peter Ignatyev and Pavel Ignatyev, architect V. Spiridonov). In 1990 Dostoevsky Children"s Foundation was established in Leningrad. .

References: Анциферов Н. П. Петербург Достоевского. Пг., 1923; Гроссман Л. П. Жизнь и труды Ф. М. Достоевского: Биография в датах и документах. М.; Л., 1935; Саруханян Е. П. Достоевский в Петербурге. Л., 1972; Холшевников В. Е. Федор Михайлович Достоевский // Литературные памятные места Ленинграда. 3-е изд., испр. и доп. Л., 1976. С. 368-398; Статьи о Достоевском, 1971-2001. СПб., 2001; Белов С. В. Петербург Достоевского. СПб., 2002.

A. B. Muratov. Dostoevsky Fedor Mikhailovich
Ignatyev Pavel Petrovich
Ignatyev Peter Alexandrovich
Kholina Lyubov Mikhailovna
Laveretsky Nikolay Akimovich
Petrashevsky (Butashevich-Petrashevsky) Mikhail Vasilievich
Spiridonov Vadim Leonardovich
Vasilyev Khrisanf Konstantinovich
Gorokhovaya St./Saint Petersburg, city, house 41
Grazhdanskaya St./Saint Petersburg, city, house 19
Griboedova Canal Embankment/Saint Petersburg, city, house 104
Griboedova Canal Embankment/Saint Petersburg, city, house 73
Kuznechny Lane/Saint Petersburg, city, house 5
Liteiny Ave/Saint Petersburg, city
Vladimirsky Ave/Saint Petersburg, city, house 11/10
Voznesensky Ave/Saint Petersburg, city, house 8/23
Анциферов Н. П. Петербург Достоевского. Пг., 1923
Гроссман Л.П. Жизнь и труды Ф.М. Достоевского: Биогр. в датах и док. М.; Л., 1935
Статьи о Достоевском, 1971 - 2001. СПб.
Белов С. В. Петербург Достоевского. СПб., 2002
Холшевников В.Е. Федор Михайлович Достоевский // Литературные памятные места Ленинграда. 3-е изд., испр. и доп. Л., 1976
Саруханян Е.П. Достоевский в Петербурге. Л., 1972 Russian Academy of Sciences
St. Peter and Paul fortress
St. Peter and Paul fortress
Literary Fund
Vremya (The Time), journal
Epokha (The Epoch), journal
Grazhdanin (Citizen), journal newspaper, 1872-1914
Otechestvennye Zapiski (Notes of the Fatherland), journal
Dostoevsky Literary Memorial Museum
1846
1848
1861
1864
1866
1881
1971
1997