Fyodor Dostoevsky is one of the most important writers of the XNUMXth century.. He is considered a universal writer due to the dimension of his work, since despite being the author of Russian authors, his work has also reached Western culture, thought and literature. Along with him, there are also the great Russian authors of the 1828th century: Leo Tolstoy (1910-1860), Anton Chekhov (1904-1799) or Aleksandr Pushkin (1837-XNUMX). All of them, although they also developed other genres, were great storytellers.
Along with Dostoevsky, they managed to open the imagination of readers with characters that seemed almost made of flesh and blood. Dostoevsky transformed nineteenth-century literature with his great novels framed in realism, a movement that spanned much of the second half of that century in European countries. His thought and his work were closely linked to the times he lived during the great Russian empire that would gradually come to an end.
Tsarist Russia: context
In the XNUMXth century the Romanov dynasty continued who had acceded to the throne in the XVII. During Dostoevsky's lifetime, two great tsars ruled the empire: Nicholas I (reign: 1825-1855) and Alexander II (reign: 1855-1881).
Nicholas I had to fight against those who accused him of being too liberal and to assert itself by taking a tight control over the population with harsher measures (especially of an educational nature with persecutions in the university and the press).
Your son, Alexander II, faced the end of the Crimean War, a war that began during the reign of his father and ended with a defeat for Russia against various European countries. Although he promoted different reforms during his term, this ended with his assassination., carried out by leftist movements after several attempts.
Therefore, as in so many other European countries, the climate in Russia during the XNUMXth century was ideal for confrontation. Despite the marked absolutist character of the Russian monarchy, Alexander II supported various reforms and tried to promote another more liberal type of governance, but it would not be enough. The revolution of 1917 finds its origin in this century.
Society was also very tired of the model in which it had traditionally remained. The majority of the Russian population in the XNUMXth century was peasant and with the reign of Alexander II serfdom was ended, with which the people of the countryside could begin to have a little more dignity and not be treated as simple objects by the landowners. However, the estate society was already obsolete and this climate would be the preamble to the end of tsarism.
Fyodor Dostoevsky: biography
Fyodor Dostoevsky was born in Moscow in 1821.. His father, a doctor and owner of land, was a despot and authoritarian with him and with his mother during his childhood. When she died soon, Fyodor was abandoned before a father of turbulent character who soon sent him to study at the School of Military Engineers in St. Petersburg, where he would graduate as an officer.
Technical knowledge and the Army did not discourage him from embarking on his literary path, and after a translation of Balzac he continued writing. Nevertheless, after the success of his first novel in 1846 (Poor people) experienced very mixed reviews in his next works so he gave up writing for the next few years. To which should be added his problems with gambling and alcohol that would generate continuous debts for the rest of his life.
At that time Dostoevsky he interfered in groups of liberal and intellectual tendency that meant a death sentence (remember the persecution to which these groups were subjected during the reign of Nicholas I). But the death sentence was commuted to forced labor in the cold lands of Siberia. However, after benefiting from an amnesty he was forced to serve as a private. During his time in Siberia he met his first wife whom he married in 1857, although she would die years later.
After completing his sentence he returned to literature with Memories of the house of the dead (1862). From then on he would do nothing but write and play. He lived his best years as a writer, but his addiction to gambling would lead him to a life of misery, coming to play the rights of his work.
In relation to his gambling addiction, he wrote one of his best works, The player (1866). And after a trip through Europe he returned to Russia and in St. Petersburg he wrote what is his best known work, Crime and Punishment (1866).
Dostoevsky married again in 1867 with the typist who helped him transcribe his texts. He needed to be on time for her scheduled deliveries so he wouldn't lose intellectual property on his work. He had four children with her and died in 1881 in Saint Petersburg from a pulmonary haemorrhage linked to the epilepsy he suffered throughout his life.
Fyodor Dostoevsky: work
He was inspired by the thought and work of Voltaire, Kant, Hegel, Bakunin, Pushkin, Nikolai Gogol, Shakespeare and Cervantes, Victor Hugo and Dickens, to name a few. Philosophy was a constant in his life, although Dostoevsky did not see himself as a philosopher. But perhaps an interest in this field would help him develop extremely deep characters capable of coming to life in his novels. So much so that the psychology of his characters has been related to the theory of psychology later expounded by Sigmund Freud. Let us not forget that Dostoevsky carried the weight of a cruel and tyrannical father.
Precisely, although Dostoevsky was always prone to social equality, perhaps the fact that his father was killed by a peasant mob influenced his orthodox Christian ideology, being resistant to the socialism of the time. Likewise, the Russian author was debating personally and in his work between Russian Orthodoxy and the new changes that were coming in Western Europe. This duality is found in his thought and in his work.
Dostoevsky and the Russian novel
Dostoevsky wrote a short story, although it is his novels that elevated him. Many of them were published by fascicles in different publications that he himself would be in charge of editing.
With the advance of the XNUMXth century came realism. This was the Golden Age for Russian literature, a particularly splendid time for the novel and great narratives. Extremely long stories, full of descriptions and with characters with complex personalities. Dostoevsky was a master at writing these kinds of stories. He knew how to weave the historical context with his characters and the conflicts that afflicted them.
He built realistic paintings of immense wealth that broke with Romanticism. His texts within realism are circumscribed in the novel of ideas. These are novels that tell a story and, at the same time, make deep reflections on the great human themes, with seriously drawn characters.
Main works
- Poor people (1846). His first novel, an epistolary work.
- Memories of the house of the dead (1862). Novel in which reminiscences of his time as a prisoner in Siberia are found.
- Memories of the subsoil (1864). It is mainly an interior monologue of a character apart from everyone. His conception came at a time of great weakness for Dostoevsky after the death of his first wife and his brother.
- Crime and Punishment (1866). It is his best-known work and his most influential. The protagonist, Raskólnikov, is a student who lives in misery and who decides to kill an old loan shark. The central themes of this work revolve around guilt, the search for honesty and moral rectitude and, finally, forgiveness and compassion.
- The player (1866). A novel linked to the author's personal experiences with his gambling addiction.
- The idiot (1868). It is the story of a moron whose moral dilemmas are similar to those faced by the protagonist of Crime and Punishment.
- The demonized (1872). Novel that collects political reflections.
- Diary of a writer (1873-1881) It was an informative publication in which Dostoevsky developed thought, spiritual introspection and political criticism, all within the framework of his time.
- The Karamazov brothers (1880). The work of which he felt most proud and perhaps the most thoughtful. A novel of ideas that deals with the conflict between parents and children, something that he was always obsessed with. It is also a perfect portrait of XNUMXth century Russian society.
We invite you to discover or rediscover this genius of universal literature by saying goodbye with a quote from him: «The secret of human existence is not only to live, but also to know what one lives for».