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| Fyodor
Dostoevsky (1821-1881) Fyodor Dostoevsky was born on October 30, 1821 in Moscow. Throughout his life, a number of remarkably painful experiences that pushed him to the brink of life and death would have enormous impact on his career as a writer, and on his interpretations of the characters in his work. In 1849 he was arrested by the government of Tsar Nicolas I for being a member of a movement of “radical” thinkers, and forced to undergo a horrifying mock execution. He was sentenced to four years in a Siberian labor camp—an experience that would mark the beginning of a life-long struggle with epileptic seizures—and was completely unknown upon his eventual return to St. Petersburg. At the time of the publication of Notes from Underground, the pseudo-ideology of “rational egoism” prevailed among much of the Russian intelligentsia and bourgeoisie: the notion that rational man cannot but act in his own self-interest (which somehow corresponds to the interests of others), and that he lacks the free will to change. Dostoevsky wrote Notes partially as an attack on the idea of “rational egoism”, illustrating how the behavior of an “egoist” corresponds to little more than the constant, spiteful degradation of Self and Others. 1864, the year the novel was completed, Dostoevsky's wife Maria Isaeva, and brother Mikhail both died. The pain of this experience undoubtedly impacted the author's rendering of his characters—the Underground Man's grim and futile digressions and the complete acuteness of his misery recall to his readers their own moments of tortuous emotional pain, allowing them to relate in more ways than one. The same psychological complexity of the Underground Man is witnessed in many of Dostoevsky's other characters throughout his oeuvre. Dostoevsky would go on to complete works such as Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, and The Brothers Karamazov. He died in St. Petersburg on January 28, 1881, at the age of fifty-nine. Sources: 1) Notes From Underground & The Grand Inquisitor, ed. Ralph E. Matlaw (New York: Meridian, 1991). 2) “Fyodor Dostoevsky, Russian Author, Genius of Literature” http://www.unitel.cc/Dostoevsky.htm |
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