The Reader Suffers The Loss of Dostoyevsky

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According to an officer at the military academy, Dostoevsky was profoundly religious, followed Orthodox practice, and regularly read the Gospels and Heinrich Zschokke 's Die Stunden der Andacht "Hours of Devotion" , which "preached a sentimental version of Christianity entirely free from dogmatic content and with a strong emphasis on giving Christian love a social application. In Semipalatinsk, Dostoevsky revived his faith by looking frequently at the stars. Wrangel said that he was "rather pious, but did not often go to church, and disliked priests, especially the Siberian ones.

But he spoke about Christ ecstatically. Dostoevsky explored Islam , asking his brother to send him a copy of the Quran. Two pilgrimages and two works by Dmitri Rostovsky , an archbishop who influenced Ukrainian and Russian literature by composing groundbreaking religious plays, strengthened his beliefs. Dostoevsky's canon includes novels, novellas, novelettes , short stories, essays, pamphlets , limericks , epigrams and poems.

He wrote more than letters, a dozen of which are lost. Dostoevsky expressed religious, psychological and philosophical ideas in his writings. His works explore such themes as suicide, poverty, human manipulation, and morality. Psychological themes include dreaming, first seen in "White Nights", [] and the father-son relationship, beginning in The Adolescent.

The influences of other writers, particularly evident in his early works, led to accusations of plagiarism , [] [] but his style gradually became more individual. After his release from prison, Dostoevsky incorporated religious themes, especially those of Russian Orthodoxy, into his writing. Elements of gothic fiction , [] romanticism , [] and satire [] are observable in some of his books. He frequently used autobiographical or semi-autobiographical details.

Dostoevsky's works were often called "philosophical", although he described himself as "weak in philosophy". He may have been critical of rational and logical thinking because he was "more a sage and an artist than a strictly logical, consistent thinker". An important stylistic element in Dostoevsky's writing is polyphony , the simultaneous presence of multiple narrative voices and perspectives. Polyphony is a literary concept, analogous with musical polyphony , developed by M. Bakhtin on the basis of his analyses of Dostoevsky's works. Dostoevsky is regarded as one of the greatest and most influential novelists of the Golden Age of Russian literature.

His psychologic sense is overwhelming and visionary. Bakhtin 's analysis of Dostoevsky came to be at the foundation of his theory of the novel. Bakhtin argued that Dostoevsky's use of multiple voices was a major advancement in the development of the novel as a genre.

In his posthumous collection of sketches A Moveable Feast , Ernest Hemingway stated that in Dostoevsky "there were things believable and not to be believed, but some so true that they changed you as you read them; frailty and madness, wickedness and saintliness, and the insanity of gambling were there to know". It was his explosive power which shattered the Victorian novel with its simpering maidens and ordered commonplaces; books which were without imagination or violence.

In an olive-green postage stamp dedicated to Dostoevsky was released in the Soviet Union, with a print run of 1, copies. Coetzee featured Dostoevsky as the protagonist in his novel The Master of Petersburg. The Dostoyevskaya metro station in Saint Petersburg was opened on 30 December , and the station of the same name in Moscow was opened on 19 June , the 75th anniversary of the Moscow Metro. The Moscow station is decorated with murals by artist Ivan Nikolaev depicting scenes from Dostoevsky's works, such as controversial suicides.

Dostoevsky's work did not always gain a positive reception. Several critics, such as Nikolay Dobrolyubov , Ivan Bunin and Vladimir Nabokov , viewed his writing as excessively psychological and philosophical rather than artistic. Others found fault with chaotic and disorganised plots, and others, like Turgenev, objected to "excessive psychologising" and too-detailed naturalism.

His style was deemed "prolix, repetitious and lacking in polish, balance, restraint and good taste". These characters were compared to those of Hoffmann, an author whom Dostoevsky admired. Basing his estimation on stated criteria of enduring art and individual genius, Nabokov judges Dostoevsky "not a great writer, but rather a mediocre one—with flashes of excellent humour but, alas, with wastelands of literary platitudes in between".

Nabokov complains that the novels are peopled by "neurotics and lunatics" and states that Dostoevsky's characters do not develop: Dostoevsky's books have been translated into more than languages. French, German and Italian translations usually came directly from the original, while English translations were second-hand and of poor quality. Dostoevsky's works were interpreted in film and on stage in many different countries. Dostoevsky did not refuse permission, but he advised against it, as he believed that "each art corresponds to a series of poetic thoughts, so that one idea cannot be expressed in another non-corresponding form".

His extensive explanations in opposition to the transposition of his works into other media were groundbreaking in fidelity criticism. He thought that just one episode should be dramatised, or an idea should be taken and incorporated into a separate plot. After the Russian Revolution , passages of Dostoevsky books were sometimes shortened, although only two books were censored: Demons [] and Diary of a Writer.

Dostoevsky's works of fiction include 15 novels and novellas, 17 short stories, and 5 translations. Many of his longer novels were first published in serialised form in literary magazines and journals. The years given below indicate the year in which the novel's final part or first complete book edition was published.

In English many of his novels and stories are known by different titles. Poor Folk is an epistolary novel that describes the relationship between the small, elderly official Makar Devushkin and the young seamstress Varvara Dobroselova, remote relatives who write letters to each other. Makar's tender, sentimental adoration for Varvara and her confident, warm friendship for him explain their evident preference for a simple life, although it keeps them in humiliating poverty. An unscrupulous merchant finds the inexperienced girl and hires her as his housewife and guarantor.

The Place Where the Laugh Laughs at the Laugh

He sends her to a manor somewhere on a steppe, while Makar alleviates his misery and pain with alcohol. The story focuses on poor people who struggle with their lack of self-esteem. Their misery leads to the loss of their inner freedom, to dependence on the social authorities, and to the extinction of their individuality.

Dostoevsky shows how poverty and dependence are indissolubly aligned with deflection and deformation of self-esteem, combining inward and outerward suffering. Notes from Underground is split into two stylistically different parts, the first essay-like, the second in narrative style. The protagonist and first-person narrator is an unnamed year-old civil servant known as The Underground Man. The only known facts about his situation are that he has quit the service, lives in a basement flat on the outskirts of Saint Petersburg and finances his livelihood from a modest inheritance.

The first part is a record of his thoughts about society and his character. He describes himself as vicious, squalid and ugly; the chief focuses of his polemic are the "modern human" and his vision of the world, which he attacks severely and cynically, and towards which he develops aggression and vengefulness. He considers his own decline natural and necessary. Although he emphasises that he does not intend to publish his notes for the public, the narrator appeals repeatedly to an ill-described audience, whose questions he tries to address.

In the second part he describes scenes from his life that are responsible for his failure in personal and professional life and in his love life. He tells of meeting old school friends, who are in secure positions and treat him with condescension. His aggression turns inward on to himself and he tries to humiliate himself further. He presents himself as a possible saviour to the poor prostitute Lisa, advising her to reject self-reproach when she looks to him for hope. Dostoevsky added a short commentary saying that although the storyline and characters are fictional, such things were inevitable in contemporary society.

The Underground Man was very influential on philosophers. His alienated existence from the mainstream influenced modernist literature. Crime and Punishment describes Rodion Raskolnikov 's life, from the murder of a pawnbroker and her sister, through spiritual regeneration with the help of Sonya a " hooker with a heart of gold " , to his sentence in Siberia.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Strakhov liked the novel, remarking that "Only Crime and Punishment was read in " and that Dostoevsky had managed to portray a Russian person aptly and realistically. Grigory Eliseev of the radical magazine The Contemporary called the novel a "fantasy according to which the entire student body is accused without exception of attempting murder and robbery". The novel's protagonist, the year-old Prince Myshkin , returns to Russia after several years at a Swiss sanatorium.

Scorned by Saint Petersburg society for his trusting nature and naivety, he finds himself at the center of a struggle between a beautiful kept woman, Nastasya, and a jealous but pretty young girl, Aglaya, both of whom win his affection. Unfortunately, Myshkin's goodness precipitates disaster, leaving the impression that, in a world obsessed with money, power and sexual conquest, a sanatorium may be the only place for a saint.

Myshkin is the personification of a "relatively beautiful man", namely Christ. Coming "from above" the Swiss mountains , he physically resembles common depictions of Jesus Christ: Like Christ, Myshkin is a teacher, confessor and mysterious outsider. Passions such as greed and jealousy are alien to him. In contrast to those around him, he puts no value on money and power. He feels compassion and love, sincerely, without judgment. His relationship with the immoral Nastasya is obviously inspired by Christ's relationship with Mary Magdalene.

He is called "Idiot" because of such differences. It was influenced by the Book of Revelation. Stepan's son Pyotr is an aspiring revolutionary conspirator who attempts to organise revolutionaries in the area. He considers Varvara's son Nikolai central to his plot, because he thinks that Nikolai lacks sympathy for mankind.

Pyotr gathers conspirators such as the philosophising Shigalyov, the suicidal Kirillov and the former military man Virginsky. He schemes to consolidate their loyalty to him and each other by murdering Ivan Shatov, a fellow conspirator. Pyotr plans to have Kirillov, who is committed to killing himself, take credit for the murder in his suicide note.

Kirillov complies and Pyotr murders Shatov, but his scheme goes awry. Pyotr escapes, but the remainder of his aspiring revolutionary crew is arrested. In the denouement, Nikolai kills himself, tortured by his own misdeeds. At nearly pages, The Brothers Karamazov is Dostoevsky's largest work. It received both critical and popular acclaim and is often cited as his magnum opus.

The first books introduce the Karamazovs. The main plot is the death of their father Fyodor, while other parts are philosophical and religious arguments by Father Zosima to Alyosha.

Instead of answering him, Christ gives him a kiss, and the Inquisitor subsequently releases him, telling him not to return. The tale was misunderstood as a defence of the Inquisitor, but some, such as Romano Guardini , have argued that the Christ of the parable was Ivan's own interpretation of Christ, "the idealistic product of the unbelief". Ivan, however, has stated that he is against Christ. Most contemporary critics and scholars agree that Dostoevsky is attacking Roman Catholicism and socialist atheism, both represented by the Inquisitor. He warns the readers against a terrible revelation in the future, referring to the Donation of Pepin around and the Spanish Inquisition in the 16th century, which in his view corrupted true Christianity.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. For the surname, see Dostoevsky surname. This name uses Eastern Slavic naming customs ; the patronymic is Mikhailovich and the family name is Dostoevsky. Portrait of Dostoevsky by Vasily Perov , Military engineer novelist journalist. Maria Dmitriyevna Isaeva m. Anna Grigoryevna Snitkina m. Sonya Lyubov — Fyodor — Alexey — Themes in Fyodor Dostoyevsky's writings. Vremya and its successor Epokha expressed the philosophy of the conservative and Slavophile movement Pochvennichestvo , supported by Dostoevsky during his term of imprisonment and in the following years.

According to biographer Joseph Frank, Dostoevsky took that as a sign not to gamble any more. Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary. Handbook of Russian Literature. Retrieved on 27 December The Dostoyevsky Encyclopedia in Russian. Retrieved 5 November Dostoyevsky Literary Memorial Museum. Archived from the original on 25 March A Human Portrait , Knopf, , p. Selected Letters of Fyodor Dostoevsky. Cambridge Studies in Russian Literature. Dostoyevsky and the Process of Literary Creation.

Edited and translated by Caryl Emerson. University of Minnesota Press. Einstein and Soviet Ideology. Hemingway's A Farewell To Arms: Conversations with James Joyce. Archived from the original on The Russian Point of View". Archived from the original on 13 June Written at the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures.

Freud, the Mind of the Moralist 3rd ed. University of Chicago Press. Archived from the original on 17 January Retrieved 20 April Archived from the original on 10 March Lectures on Russian Literature. Archived from the original on 29 October Moral Dilemmas in Modernist Fiction. It went to his head and he soon became insufferable, alienating all his new literary "friends", who revenged themselves when he published his second novel, The Double.

Not merely trashed, the book was denounced.

Dostoevsky became a bad joke. What I didn't know until now was the length of time between his moment of glory and terrible downfall. Authors then wrote much more quickly than they do today, and some of those impossibly fat 19th-century mega-books were composed in a quarter of the time it takes Milan Kundera to crank out a boring late novella. Bearing that in mind, take a guess: The correct answer is: Cue the reputation apocalypse.

Now that has to be some kind of record. Thirteen years later he did emerge from exile to score a comeback with his novel-memoir House of the Dead, but according to Mochulsky, Dostoevsky never recovered his confidence. Even as he was writing some of the greatest books in world literature he remained consumed with anxiety that he had not yet "established his reputation".

Anyway, this led me to wonder: Nobody has experienced such a resurrection, that's for sure. The first author to pop into my head was Martin Amis. Critics loved his early books, but giving his recent efforts a vigorous kicking has become a national sport. But it took decades for Amis to reach that point, and he's pompous enough to believe he will be vindicated by posterity.

These two genetic factors would have provided the basis for organic epilepsy. However, as Lennox points out, "an emotionally precipitated attack may be the person's initial one, but this does not justify the appellation of psychogenic origin. These could have had two sources. On one hand, as we shall see later, Dostoevsky had a number of clashes with authority figures. On the other hand, each of his novels could be regarded as a rebellion or a need to rebel against an authority figures, whether that figure is the personal father, the state, or God. It is noteworthy that only after Dostoevsky had completed The Brothers Karamazov where he came to terms with his father did his seizures end.

Thus a series of emotional disturbances in his life and in his work - emotional disturbances centering on parricide - engendered the hysterical component of his seizures. First, the dispute between Freud and the epilepsy experts if not the Slavic scholars comes to a happy end for both parties: Dostoevsky's epilepsy was both organic and hysterical. Second, certain problems connected with the seizures can now be easily resolved. As we noted before, the symptoms of these seizures pointed definitely to a diagnosis of organic epilepsy, and critics took this to mean that Freud was refuted.

But if organic and hysterical elements combine with each other, or succeed each other, then Freud's theory remains just as valid as the diagnosis of organic epilepsy. There is also the vexing question of Dostoevsky's ecstatic aura. The experience of almost all other epileptics is that at the beginning of a seizure they feel fear, terror, or anxiety. Dostoevsky's ecstatic aura was considered so unique that Gastaut thought Dostoevsky was engaged in "unconscious mythologizing," that is, he was deceiving himself. In this case the patient, who suffered from temporal lobe epilepsy, was not religious but loved music, and he compared the bliss of his aura with sensations evoked by music.

This led the authors of the Bologna report to suggest that "the pesonality and the fantastic world of the patient may certainly deeply affect the 'ecstatic experience' during seizures. An elderly, pious woman with temporal lobe epilepsy, who had been converted to a new religion, claimed that at the beginning of a seizure she had a "revelation of god and all creation glittering under the sun. The sun became bigger and engulfed me. My mind, my whole being was pervaded by a feeling of delight. Could it not be that, as in the case of Dostoevsky, the ecstatic aura - which was so deeply subjective - was the product of hysterical epilepsy?

The subjective element is also important in another aspect of Dostoevsky's seizures - his feeling of guilt at the end of a seizure. Freud, of course, seized upon this as proof that Dostoevsky felt guilty of parricide. It is curious that none of Freud's critics call attention to this feeling of guilt, even though Dostoevsky refers to it in his notebooks: Confused agitation [ smutno ], depression [ grustno ], pangs of conscience [ ugryzeniia ], and sense of unreality [ fantastichno ].

Thoughts fragmentary, moving into other years, dreaminess, guilt [ vinovnost' ]. The guilt that followed his depression, however, is unique; at least, I have not come across it in the literature of epilepsy. Yet Dostoevsky has the prosecutor in The Brothers Karamazov discuss this reaction at length in connection with Smerdyakov: Persons severely afflicted with epilepsy, according to the experience of the greatest psychiatrists, are always [my italics] prone to continual and, needless to say, morbid self-accusation.

They are tormented by their "guilt" about something and toward someone, they are tormented by pangs of conscience, often entirely without cause; they exaggerate and even invent all sorts of faults and crimes against themselves. If Dostoevsky had read as widely in the literature of epilepsy as has been claimed for him, he would surely have realized that the feeling of guilt is rare and perhaps unique. I would argue that either he did not bother to read this literature since he did not believe his disease was curable or if he did, he was so terribly oppressed by his guilt, by its overwhelming reality for him, that he was certain others must have it as well.

It is only fair to mention a different explanation offered by James Rice, who thinks that Dostoevsky did read widely in the literature of epilepsy and therefore knew that his feeling of guilt was rare or unique. Rice believes that Dostoevsky was satirizing the ignorance of the prosecutor in this matter, just as the whole judicial process in T he Brothers Karamazov is satirized.

Yet the prosecutor seems to have consulted authorities - "the experience svidetel'stvo of the greatest psychiatrists"; he speaks with the authority of knowledge. To return to Dostoevsky's own strong sense of guilt: Neither his guilt nor his aura can be explained by a diagnosis of organic epilepsy, but they can both be easily explained in psychological, Freudian terms.

And the symptoms of his seizures can only be explained by a diagnosis of organic epilepsy. Both diagnoses fit comfortably and peacefully in our theory. However, no matter how persuasive a theory may be, it needs to be confirmed by Dostoevsky's own words and acts, by events in his fiction and in his life. And if the theory is valid, it should call attention to those events and illuminate them.

This is precisely what I propose to do by examining in detail a case of epilepsy in Dostoevsky's novels and certain decisive moments in his life. The only two lengthy descriptions of epilepsy in the novels occur in The Idiot and The Brothers Karamazov. Myshkin's seizures have been a favorite quarry for epilepsy experts since much is said about the ecstatic aura.

Yet the description of Myhskin's epilepsy is incomplete; we do not know the origin of his disease; we know hardly anything about his parents; and his relapse into idiocy at the end is determined more by his problems with women than by the progress of his disease. Smerdyakov, on the other hand, is almost a perfect study of an epileptic. We have detailed portraits of his parents; we learn of his traumatic birth; we know exactly when and how his first seizure originated.

And Dostoevsky attributed to him various characteristics of his own epilepsy. Only one characteristic is missing: His moment of ecstasy probably is the actual killing of the father, which is followed by the most violent and prolonged seizure he has ever had. For all these reasons Smerdyakov's epilepsy can tell us more than Myshkin's does. Dostoevsky goes into much detail on Smerdyakov's ancestry and birth. His father was an alcoholic, his mother an idiot, and in the nineteenth century such a heritage was regarded as predisposing a child to epilepsy. His mother was Stinking Lizaveta Smerdyashchaya , an idiot peasant girl who could barely speak.

She was raped by Fyodor Karamazov in a drunken spree. When her time for delivery came, she escaped from the kind woman who watched over her, walked to Fyodor Karamazov's garden, climbed with difficulty over the high fence, fell on the ground, and died as she gave birth to Smerdyakov. As often happens during such a violent birth, Smerdyakov's brain could have been injured, resulting in epilepsy.

Although something happened then that triggered his seizures, the psychological groundwork had been laid in the previous twelve years. Smerdyakov was obsessed with his illegitimate origin.

Fyodor Dostoevsky

He built up his ego by despising others especially the Karamazovs, except for Ivan ; he mistrusted a world that had unjustly condemned him to be a The famous Karamazov sensuality - an intensified force of life - was missing in him; he wished that he had never been born. He was indifferent to women and even looked emasculated, as if something vital had been taken from him. In his childhood "he was very fond of hanging cats, and burying them with great ceremony.

He used to dress up in a sheet as though it were a surplice, and sing, and wave some object over the dead cat as though it were a censer. All this he did on the sly, with the greatest secrecy. The Karamazov sensuality has been diverted and transformed into rage and hatred of the world around Smerdyakov.

Unable to direct his rage at anyone, Smerdyakov chooses to express his pent-up violence in hanging cats, celebrating violence in a grotesque religious ceremony. Dostoevsky underlines this meaning by having Grigory catch Smerdyakov in one of these acts. Grigory beat him soundly, after which Smerdyakov "shrank into a corner and sulked there for a week" - "He doesn't care for you or me, the monster," Grigory used to say to Martha, "and he doesn't care for anyone.

You're not a human being. You grew from the mildew in the bathhouse. That's what you are. This episode prepares us for what immediately follows - the crucial emotional crisis that triggered Smerdyakov's first seizure. Grigory taught [Smerdyakov] how to read and write, and when he was twelve years old, began teaching him the Scriptures. But this teaching came to nothing. At the second or third lesson the boy suddenly grinned.

God created light on the first day, and the sun, moon, and stars on the fourth day. Where did the light come from on the first day? The boy looked sarcastically at his teacher. There was something positively condescending in his expression. Grigory could not restrain himself. We should observe, first of all, that the incident begins with a question about cosmic origins.

Smerdyakov is so obsessed with his own origin that it affects every other question he thinks about. Second, he is proud of his reasoning ability which is clearly superior to Grigory's. Third, he uses his rationality to point out a contradiction in the Bible, with the obvious intention of debunking the authority of a sacred text and, at the same time, to humiliate Grigory - his foster father.

Grigory, fully realizing the challenge to his and God's authority, has no answer except the time-honored prerogative of fathers: Smerdyakov silently withdraws into himself and a week later has his first epileptic seizure. What caused this seizure? Smerdyakov's constant repressed rage over his destiny led him to hanging cats and to a mystique of violence. Now his rage has a focus in Grigory, who has taken advantage of superior physical strength and the power of his authority as a father to slap the twelve-year old boy violently on the cheek. Smerdyakov would like to hit back, to hit hard, but is too weak to do so.

His rage, unable to turn outward, recoils upon himself in an act of self-destruction: According to Anna Grigorevna, Dostoevsky always said that the cause of his disease was his fiery strastnyi temperament, which in the course of four years of imprisonment could never be allowed to express itself ni razu ne mog byt' iudovletvoren because he feared being beaten with rods. I am sure that no one - not even Gastaut - would dispute this.

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But the similarities go further. In Smerdyakov's case, the hysterical seizure triggered the organic epilepsy to which he was predisposed as we have already seen by a bad heredity and a traumatic birth. I would like in closing to quote two authoritative medical descriptions of this kind of epilepsy: A given person may suffer from both of these disorders hysteria and epilepsy , separately or perhaps as a hybrid phenomenon.

Epilepsy and an hysterical reaction may co-exist as two separate aetiologically unrelated entities in the one individual. Sutherland and Mervyn J. Eadie This, then, is the nature of Smerdyakov's epilepsy, and it describes Dostoevsky's epilepsy as well. The disease is both hysterical and organic. Freud and his critics are both right.

And Freud was correct in assuming that Dostoevsky's epilepsy was meaningful, and that parricide - Dostoevsky's repressed feeling about his father - was the key to it. Part II of this article, which will appear in a later issue, examines the charge made by Joseph Frank and other scholars that Freud misinterpreted Dostoevaky's biographical data.

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Basic Books, , III: The Seeds of Revolt, Princeton: Princeton University Press, , 1: For a larger background to the article see James L. Ardis, , pp. I wish to express my gratitude to James Rice for letting me draw, time and again, on his inexhaustible knowledge of Dostoevsky and the literature of epilepsy. He has always been a stimulating, helpful, and patient friend. Maurice Charlton, an epilepsy specialist at Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester, has helped me with professional advice and I thank him.

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