Feódor Mikhaïlovitch Dostoyevsky’s father was a doctor. The boy, who
was one of a large family, grew up pale and thin. He had a nervous and
impressionable nature, with some tendency to hallucination. He was very
fond of the woods. He tells in his recollections of his childhood,
that his “special delight was the forest, with its mushrooms and wild
cherries, with its beetles and birds, its porcupines and squirrels,
with its delicious damp of the flying leaves.” He had all the books
that he desired. By the time that he was twelve, he had read all of
Sir Walter Scott’s and Cooper’s novels, besides some Russian authors,
including Karamzin’s great history. At fifteen, Dostoyevsky was
sent to Petersburg, where he entered the main engineering school.
Notwithstanding his passion for literature, which was shared by many
of his school-mates, he distinguished himself in mathematics, and
graduated number three in a class of thirty. About this time he was
deprived of both father and mother.
“While he was living in Petersburg,” says Mr. S. S. Skidelsky, “he
visited all the slums and haunts of poverty, for the sake of collecting
materials for his future literary work.” Dostoyevsky tells in his
recollections, quoted by Polevoï, that in the winter of 1845 he began
his first story, “Poor People” (_Byédnuié Liudi_). “When I finished
the tale, I did not know what to do with it, or where to place it. I
had no literary acquaintances, except possibly Grigoróvitch, who at
that time had written nothing except ‘Petersburg Organ-grinders,’ in
a magazine.... He came to me one day in May, and said, ‘Show me the
manuscript: Nekrásof is going to publish a magazine next year, and I
want to show it to him.’ I took it over to Nekrásof. We shook hands;
I became confused at the thought that I had come with my writing,
and I quickly beat a retreat without saying another word. I had very
little hope of success; for I stood in awe of the party of ‘the
Country Annals,’ as the literary men of that day were called. I read
Byélinsky’s criticisms eagerly, but he seemed to me too severe and
cruel; and ‘he will make sport of my “Poor People,”’ I used to think at
times, but only at times. ‘I wrote it with passion, almost with tears.
Is it really possible that all these minutes spent with pen in hand
over this story, that all this is falsehood, mirage, untrue feeling?’
But I had these thoughts only now and then, and immediately the doubts
returned again.
“On the evening of the very day that I handed him the manuscript, I
went a long way to see one of my former classmates. We talked all
night about ‘Dead Souls,’ and we read it again,--I don’t know how many
times it made. At that time it was fashionable, when two or three
young men met, to say, ‘Hadn’t we better read some Gogol, gentlemen?’
and then to sit down and read late into the night.... I returned home
at four o’clock, in the white Petersburg night, bright as day. It was
a beautiful warm time; and when I reached my room I could not go to
sleep, but opened the window, and sat down by it. Suddenly the bell
rang: it surprised me greatly; and in an instant Grigoróvitch and
Nekrásof were hugging me in a glory of enthusiasm, and both of them
were almost in tears. The evening before they had returned home early,
took up my manuscript, and began to read it for a trial: ‘By ten pages
we shall be able to judge.’ But after they had finished ten pages they
decided to read ten more. And afterwards, without budging, they sat
the whole night through till early morning, taking turns in reading
aloud when one got tired. ‘He read about the death of the student,’
said Grigoróvitch, after we were alone; ‘and suddenly I noticed, that,
when he reached the place where the father runs after his son’s coffin,
Nekrásof’s voice broke once, and a second time, and all at once it
failed entirely. He pounded with his fist on the manuscript: “_Akh_,
what a man!” That was said about you; and so we spent the whole night.’
“When they finished the manuscript, they exclaimed, simultaneously,
‘Let us go and find him right away. Suppose he is asleep, this is more
important than sleep.’... They staid half an hour. For half an hour we
talked about, God knows what, understanding each other by half words,
by exclamations, so eager were we. We talked about poetry, about prose,
about the ‘situation of affairs,’ and of course about Gogol, quoting
from the ‘Revizor’ and ‘Dead Souls,’ but chiefly about Byélinsky....
Nekrásof took the manuscript to Byélinsky that very day. ‘A new Gogol
has appeared,’ shouted Nekrásof, entering with ‘Poor People.’ ‘Gogols
with you spring up like mushrooms,’ remarked Byélinsky severely; but
he took the manuscript. When Nekrásof returned that same evening,
Byélinsky met him in perfect enthusiasm. ‘Bring him, bring him as soon
as you can!’”
On the next day an interview took place between Dostoyevsky and the
great Russian critic. Dostoyevsky thus describes it: “He began to speak
with me ardently, with flashing eyes. ‘Do you understand yourself what
you have written?’ he shouted at me several times, in his own peculiar
way. ‘Only by your own unassisted genius as an artist, could you have
written this. But have you realized all the terrible truth which you
have presented before us? It is impossible that you, at the age of
twenty, could understand it.... You have touched the very essence of
the matter, you have reached the most vital inwardness. We journalists
and critics only argue; we try to explain it with words: but you are an
artist, and with a single stroke put the very truth into shape so that
it is tangible, so that the simplest reader can understand instantly.
Here lies the secret of the artistic, the truth of art. Here is the
service that the artist performs for truth. The truth is revealed and
imparted to you; it is your gift as an artist. Value your talent, and
be true to it, and you will be a great writer.’
“I went from him in a state of rapture. I stopped at the corner of his
house, looked up at the sky, at the bright sun, on the passing people,
and all; and with my whole body I felt that a glorious moment had come
into my life,--a most important crisis; that a new life had begun,
such as I had never anticipated in my most passionate dreams (and at
that time I was a great dreamer). ‘Is it really true that I am so
great?’ I asked myself, full of shame, full of timid glory.--Oh, do not
laugh!--Never again did I have an idea that I was great. But at that
time was it possible to bear it calmly? Oh! I will be worthy of this
praise.”
His name from this time began to stand with Turgénief’s, Byélinsky’s,
Iskander’s (Herzen’s), and others, in the pages of the Russian
magazines. This period, which began so auspiciously, was clouded by
a catastrophy which greatly affected his whole life. In 1849 he was
arrested and imprisoned on the charge of being engaged in a secret
political society. His older brother, a married man, the father of
three children, was also arrested on the same charge. Dostoyevsky
knew that his brother’s family was almost penniless, that his brother
had taken no active part in the Petrashevsky Society, and had only
borrowed books from the general library. The brother, however, was
soon released by the interposition of the Emperor Nicholas. While he
was in prison, Feódor Mikhaïlovitch wrote his beautiful story, “The
Little Hero.” He was condemned to death; but the sentence, without
his knowledge, was commuted to transportation to the mines. He wrote
his brother on the 3d of January, 1850: “To-day we were taken to the
Semyónovsky Place. Here the sentence of death was read to us, we were
given the cross to kiss, the sabres were broken over our heads, and
our death-toilet was prepared,--white shirts. Then three of our number
were placed at the ‘disgraceful post,’ ready for execution. I was the
sixth. Three were summoned at a time: consequently my turn came next,
and I had only a second to live. I remembered thee, my brother, and all
of thy household; at the last moment thou alone wert in my mind; here,
only, I learned how I loved thee, my dear brother!... At last the drums
sounded a retreat. Those who were fastened to the ‘disgraceful post’
were taken down, and it was announced that his Imperial Majesty had
granted us our lives.”
“Dostoyevsky, as a thoroughly religious and highly moral man,” says
Polevoï, “endured all the deprivations of his life in the mines
with remarkable firmness and undisturbed equanimity. His faith was
strengthened, not by the Bible alone, which was the only book allowed
him in prison, but by his love for ‘Poor People,’ to whom he had sworn
to be true till he died.”
After he spent a number of years in the mines, he entered the military
service, and was quickly promoted to be an officer. He says, “I
remember that soon after leaving the Siberian prison, in 1854, I
began to read all the literature written during the five years since
my imprisonment. The ‘Annals of a Sportsman’ had just begun to be
published; and Turgénief’s first stories I read at one draught. The sun
of the steppe shone upon me, spring began, and with it an entirely new
life, an end to prison,--freedom!”
His passion for literature, so long restrained, broke out with energy
and strength; and even before he quitted military service and returned
to Petersburg, he wrote a few little trifles. In Petersburg he took
part in the journal, “The Times” (_Vremya_), edited by his brother
Mikhaïl Mikhaïlovitch. In 1860 appeared the first collection of his
works, and shortly after appeared his great novel, “The Degraded and
Insulted” (_Unizhónnuie i Oskorblonnuie_). At this time Turgénief,
Gontcharóf (author of “Oblómof”), Grigoróvitch, and Count Lyof Tolstoï
were in the full bloom of production, and Dostoyevsky’s book was not
warmly received. But the most antagonistic critics were silenced when
“The Recollections of a Dead House” appeared. It immediately gave him
the reputation as one of the greatest lights of Russian literature.
In 1863 Dostoyevsky’s wife died; and in the following year he lost
his beloved brother, whose journal, “The Times,” passed into his
hands. But he was entirely unused to business, and was placed in
a very embarrassing situation, which was intensified by a strange
public impression that it was the novelist who was dead. Consequently
its circulation was greatly reduced, and Feódor Mikhaïlovitch had to
give it up. As a distraction for all these tribulations, Dostoyevsky
devoted himself to literary work, and wrote his great story, “Crime
and Punishment,” which established his reputation as a psychological
analyst. In 1867 he married again, and lived abroad for four years. He
also, looking from the “beautiful distance” upon the pitiful side of
Russian social life, wrote his two stories, “Idiot” and “Devils.” After
he came back he wanted to analyze the abnormal relationship between the
rising generation and the older writers; and he founded a new journal,
and wrote a novel entitled “Podrostok” (The Adult). The journal was
given up at the end of 1877; but Dostoyevsky, who had new novels in
view, promised ultimately to continue the journal at some future time.
He died on the 9th of February, 1881; and on the day of his funeral
the first number of the long-looked-for journal, which he did not live
to see, was issued. All Petersburg escorted the beloved remains to
the tomb; tens of thousands of people were counted in the procession.
Dostoyevsky’s faith in humanity is summed up in his own words: “I never
could understand the reason why one-tenth part of our people should
be cultured, and the other nine-tenths must serve as the material
support of the minority and themselves remain in ignorance. I do not
want to think or to live with any other belief than that our ninety
millions of people (and those who shall be born after us) will all be
some day cultured, humanized, and happy. I know and I firmly believe
that universal enlightenment will harm none of us. I also believe that
the kingdom of thought and light is possible of being realized in our
Russia, even sooner than elsewhere maybe, because with us, even now,
no one defends the idea of one part of the population being enlisted
against the other, as is found everywhere in the civilized countries of
Europe.’