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The following is a look at the life of Fyodor Dostoevsky. I recently wrote a review of his book Crime & Punishment, however, this piece focuses more on the character of the man himself and discusses his ideas and how they worked their way into Crime & Punishment. This is, unlike my other work, not a book review. Instead, it is an analysis and contains spoilers. Fyodor Dostoevsky is best known to the world as a novelist but this is an inaccurate title for such a man; Fyodor Dostoevksy was instead a philosopher who used novels as the vehicle for his message. His work consists of larger than life characters who are symbolic personifications for various philosophical ideas set against the realistic backdrop of 19th century Russia and borrows storylines from his own autobiography; his aim was to present the Orthodox Christian worldview and traditional Russian values as superior to the corrupt modernistic and largely Western worldviews that were coming into vogue in his country at the time. His own life story was itself a tale of his transformation from an adherent of atheistic socialist positivism to the Christian Orthodox worldview that would be so prevalent in his books; for Fyodor Dostoevsky life did indeed imitate art. Born on November 11, 1821 in Moscow, Russia, Dostoevsky's childhood was made traumatic by the presence of his abusive father. Mikhail Dostoevsky was a doctor at a hospital for the poor in Moscow, and Fyodor often liked to spend time reading to the patients within. At home Fyodor and his siblings were subjected to a strict religious upbringing under the tutelage of their fanatical father in addition to his peculiar methods of cruel treatment for his wife and children. For instance, Fyodor and his siblings were forced to stand perfectly still next to their father each day as he napped, swatting away flies when they came close to his head lest they be subjected to his abuse. Eventually the elder Dostoevsky attained enough rank to move up from his job as a doctor and purchased land and serfs and his family began spending more of their time in the countryside. The younger Dostoevsky began to hold a place in his heart for the plight of the serfs and resented the poverty and harsh treatment they faced at the hands of his father. In addition, he became more angry at the cruel behavior that his father perpetrated to his mother, who he loved. After his mother's death when he was fifteen, young Dostoevsky went to attend school at the Academy of Military Engineers in St. Petersburg. While he was in St. Petersburg but a year after his mother's death, Fyodor Dostoevsky and his siblings were orphaned after his father died, most likely having been murdered by his own serfs. (Gocsik). Dostoevsky began his literary career while living in St. Petersburg during the early 1840s, publishing a translation of a novel by French author Honore de Balzac into Russian. Having retained a military commission due to his time at the Military Engineer's Academy for the past few years, Dostoevsky decided to move onto literature full time and left the military. He wrote his first book in 1844, a novella called Poor Folk, which received great praise from Vissarion Belinsky, then Russia's top literary critic. Dostoevsky was initiated into Belinsky's social circle and began spending time among the Russian literati, who at that time held staunchly left-wing and atheist views which Dostoevsky himself soon became enamored in and adopted the guise of a political radical. (Magarshack 602) Dostoevsky became an advocate of the utopian socialist ideals of French philosopher Charles Fourier and rejected his Christian upbringing entirely (Meyer xviii). Finding Belinsky not radical enough for his taste and growing angry at his negative reviews of his further literary work, Dostoevsky left Belinsky's circle and began associating with the even more radical socialist Mikhail Petrashevsky. By 1849 Dostoevsky was on the skids and dedicating almost all his time to advocating radical politics, feeling that his days as a writer were on the wane. After decimating illegal political materials, the entire Petrashevsky Circle was arrested in April of '49 and the poor young writer with a single success in the distant past would began a transformation that would affect his work for the rest of his life, most importantly Crime and Punishment. Dostoevsky was accused of being the ringleader of the group, perhaps due to his status as a minor literary influence. Whatever role he ultimately played, he found himself facing a death sentence in late 1849 and would have most likely have gone down as yet another in a long line of executed radicals if it were not for a truly extraordinary event. On December 22 of that year he and his comrades were chained up waiting to be executed when they were issued a last-minute commutation of their death sentence and instead would find themselves transferred to Siberia for hard labor. (Magarshack 603) It was at this turn that Dostoevsky's life truly began to imitate that of his main character in Crime and Punishment, a book he would not write for sixteen more years. In Crime and Punishment the main character, Raskolnikov, a down and out student, murders a pawnbroker and her sister. Raskolnikov, like Dostoevsky, was raised Russian Orthodox but moved away toward a socialist perspective and came to question his religion. He attempts to justify his act on utilitarian grounds and the idea that he is so gracious in his desire to redistribute her wealth to the poor that he theorizes that he is above morality. To make a long story short Raskolnikov is eventually apprehended and sent to Siberia for punishment and eventually is "redeemed" to Eastern Orthodoxy. Dostoevsky would begin a return to his old views while in prison, much as his character later would. On his way to Siberia Dostoevsky would be given a copy of the New Testament by the wife of an exiled political radical, a book which would be the only reading material he was allowed while in prison. While he was there, Dostoevsky made a radical transformation and converted to Christianity. (Freeborn 38-40). After his release he served in the Siberian regiment, married, and returned to St. Petersburg where he resumed his literary career. By this time Dostoevsky had firmly rejected the views of the Petrashevsky Circle in both religion and politics, becoming a conservative advocate of Russian nationalism and defender of Tsarism whose views would grow more reactionary as time went on. (Magarshack 603). Dostoevsky's work began to take on the theme that would become dominant, which is the affirmation of the Orthodox worldview and traditional Russian values against utilitarianism, atheism, socialism, and other Western, positivistic values. Indeed, I read Crime and Punishment in particular as almost a parable against the positivist view of life and in favor of Orthodoxy. Dostoevsky, ever the social advocate, was using his works more as a vehicle for philosophy than for literature. Crime and Punishment falls clearly into the category of philosophical novel. It is inarguable that the character of Raskolnikov is not so much a representation of the early Dostoevsky as it was his early ideas. There is also little doubt that Sonia, a religious prostitute who leads Raskolnikov back to Orthodox Christianity is not a character so much as she is a living representation of the worldview she holds. Raskolnikov's symbolism is revealed in his name; the term "raskolnik" meaning "schismatic" and represents his fealty to Western values rather than Russian ones, indeed his middle name "Romanovich" is often taken to be an allusion to the City of Rome, seat of Catholicism, a tradition that to Dostoevsky must have represented the fount of Western thought. (Meyer) In spite of the unrealism of his characters, Dostoevsky sets the stories in a fairly realistic representation of St. Petersburg, nonetheless spliced with surreal sequences. Dostoevsky goes to great pains to show the amoral nature of ideals like utilitarianism, socialism, and atheism. He also keeps the reader on edge and does not surmise the story until the Epilogue, where in a clear parallel to the writer's own life, Raskolnikov spends his days in prison reading the Bible and regenerating back to Christianity. As I said, the characters are living personifications of ideas, and I personally would interpret Crime and Punishment as a work that is more or less an allegory for what was going on in Dostoevsky's brain. Though Dostoevsky never wrote a literary manifesto or anything of the sort, it is axiomatic to me that his goal was to redeem Russia from the direction its people were taking in moving toward socialism and positivism and way from Christianity. He would have no doubt have been horrified had he been along to see the Socialist Revolution that took place about forty years after his death in 1881. The great irony in Dostoevsky is that his work would come to influence people whose worldviews he would have almost certainly have been against. Friedrich Nietzsche was, for instance, a radical atheist and rejected Christian values, yet in the character of Raskolnikov he found the prototype for his ubermensch. Nietzsche in seeking to create an archetype that was above morality effectively copied Dostoevsky's Raskolnikov and it is quite clear that Nietzsche was quite familiar with Dostoevsky and held him in high regard, writing that, "Dostoevsky is the only psychologist from whom I was able to learn anything. I rank my acquaintance with him among the most splendid achievements of my life." (Shestov) Dostoevsky himself would enter into the pantheon of such few names as Tolstoy in being a Russian novelist who successfully crossed over into the West. It is another great irony in Dostoevsky that he wrote so clearly in rejection of the West and in favor of Russian values and yet it was he who would become part of the few Russian novelists who actually was embraced by the West. All in all, Dostoevsky did not write mainly for popularity or money, but for his values. He was, as I have said, more of a philosopher than a novelist and simply conveyed philosophic ideas in his own way. The uniqueness of his work is so fitting in that Dostoevsky was a truly complex man who had many different philosophical struggles throughout his life. His ultimate return to Christianity is his most profound moment, if there is but one thing Dostoevsky stands for it is the triumph of Christianity over all else. Though his views may be considered reactionary and controversial in our day and age, they are certainly worth our civilization taking a second look at. SOURCES Dostoevsky, Fyodor. Crime and Punishment 1. New York: Fine Creative Media, Inc. 2007. Freeborn, Richard. Dostoevsky: Life and Times. 1. London: Haus Publishing, 2003. Gocsik, Karen. "Biography of Dostoevsky," The Brothers Karamazov. April 9, 2003 Dartmouth College. 18 Feb 2009 . Magarshack, David. "Dostoevski, Fyodor Mikhailovich."Encylopaedia Britannica. 1st ed. 1965. Meyer, Priscilla. Crime and Punishment Introduction 1. New York: Fine Creative Media, Inc. 2007. Shestov, Lev. "Dostoevsky and Niezsche." Lev Shestov. 2007. 19 Feb 2009 . |
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