Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky was born on 11 November 1821 in Moscow in the family of a doctor of the Mariinsky Hospital for the Poor of the Moscow Educational Home and was the second son out of eight of his children. The boy received an excellent upbringing: he was taught to read by his mother from the book "One Hundred and Four Sacred Stories of the Old and New Testament".

In 1831 his father bought the small village of Darovoye in Kashirsky uyezd, Tula province, and in 1833 - and the neighbouring village of Cheremoshnya, where in 1839 he died of an apoplectic stroke. Two years earlier his mother died of consumption.

Fyodor studied at the prestigious Moscow boarding school Cermak, after which he transferred to the boarding school Kostomarov in St. Petersburg to prepare for admission to the Main Engineering School, which was insisted on by his father, who believed that writing, which attracted Fyodor, to provide him with a trouble-free life will not be able to. Studying in a place that he chose not of his own free will, Dostoevsky only did that read Homer, Corneille, Racine, Balzac, Hugo, Goethe, Hoffmann, Schiller, Shakespeare, Byron, Derzhavin, Lermontov, Gogol, Pushkin, and at night and tried to write - working on the drama "Mary Stuart" and "Boris Godunov.

After graduating from school, Dostoevsky still tried to execute his father's decree and in 1843 began to work as a field engineer-sub-lieutenant in the St. Petersburg engineering team, but already 19 October 1844 he resigned in the rank of lieutenant.

Fyodor Dostoevsky: first steps in literature

At the beginning of the same year, Dostoevsky worked on the novel "Poor People", and completed it at the end of May 1845. Nekrasov and Belinsky got acquainted with the manuscript and were delighted: a genius was born. Dostoevsky began to spend a lot of time in Belinsky's circle until he created a new work - "Doppelganger", the innovation of which almost no one appreciated. At the end of 1846, the author finally quarreled with the editorial board of "Contemporary" in the person of Nekrasov and went to "Otechestvennye zapiski" Kraevsky. And since the late winter of 1846, Dostoevsky became a member of the literary and philosophical circle of the Beketov brothers, where he later found real friends and again believed in himself, thanks to which in the future he wrote a number of works in various genres:

"A novel in nine letters"

"Petersburg Chronicle"

"Mr Proharchin"

"Sliders"

"The Honest Thief"

"The Stranger's Wife"

"Jealous Husband"

"The Christmas Tree and the Wedding"

"Mistress"

"Faint of Heart"

"The Little Hero"

"Uncle's Dream"

"The village of Stepanchikovo and its inhabitants"

Fyodor Dostoevsky: death sentence

Since the end of January 1847 Dostoevsky began to attend meetings of Petrashevsky, advocating freedom of printing, change of legal proceedings and the liberation of peasants. And in the autumn of 1848, he met with Speshnev, around whom soon rallied seven of the most radical Petrashevsky, who formed a secret society, whose purpose was to organise the work of an illegal printing house and to carry out a coup in Russia.

And soon, after the publication of "White Nights", 23 April 1849 Dostoevsky was arrested and sentenced to four years imprisonment followed by military service as a private. It is interesting that at first the Military Judicial Commission sentenced the writer to deprivation of all rights of state and "death by firing squad". But on November 19, 1849 the death sentence was cancelled by the conclusion of the General Auditorium "in view of the inconsistency with the guilt of the condemned". At the end of November Emperor Nicholas I approved this decision. However, the Petrashevtsy themselves were told about it only on the day appointed for execution, 22 December 1849. First they were read the sentence of "capital punishment by firing squad" with breaking of the sword over their heads, and then they were notified about the pardon. One of the condemned went mad. The feelings that Dostoevsky experienced at that moment are reflected in one of Prince Myshkin's monologues in the novel The Idiot. And the impressions of his stay in the prison were later reflected in the story "Notes from the Dead House".

At the end of February 1854 Dostoevsky was sent as a private to the Siberian Line Battalion in Semipalatinsk. On 18 February 1855 he was promoted to non-commissioned officer. And on the day of the coronation of Alexander II, 26 August 1856, the former Petrashevtsy was announced forgiveness. On 20 October Dostoevsky was promoted to ensign. Full amnesty with the return of the rights of a nobleman and permission to publish the writer received 17 April 1857. It is worth noting that the periods of imprisonment and military service were pivotal in Dostoevsky's life: from a man in search of ideals, he was transformed into a deep believer, the only worthy of worship for whom for the rest of his life was Jesus Christ.

Fyodor Dostoevsky: a literary revolution

In 1861, Dostoevsky published "Notes from the Dead House" in the magazine "Vremya", which stunned the Russian public with a frank depiction of the life of convicts, which no one had ever done before. Thanks to this work, the author gained a foothold in world literature. In the same year, Dostoevsky began to help his brother Mikhail in the publication of the magazine "Epokha", where the following works were subsequently printed:

"Humiliated and Insulted"

"A nasty anecdote"

"Winter Notes on Summer Impressions"

"Notes from the Underground"

But in February 1865, six months after Michael's death, the publication of "Epoch" ceased. And Dostoevsky's subsequent brilliant works were published elsewhere:

"Crime and Punishment"

"The Idiot"

"Demons"

"The Teenager"

"The Brothers Karamazov"

In early January 1881, Dostoevsky shared with a comrade a premonition that he would not survive the winter.On 26 January his sister Vera Mikhailovna came to ask him to give up his share of the Ryazan estate.During the quarrel the writer's throat bled - exacerbated his emphysema. 28 January in his sixtieth year of life Dostoevsky died of tuberculosis, chronic bronchitis and emphysema of the lungs. On 1 February he was buried in the Tikhvin cemetery of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra in St. Petersburg.