Notes from Underground: Popular Penguins

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky was born in Moscow in 1821, the second of seven children. His mother died in 1837, and his father was murdered a little over two years later. After leaving his private boarding school in Moscow, he studied at the Military Engineering College in St. Petersburg from 1838 to 1843, graduating with officer’s rank. His first published story, ‘Poor Folk’ (1846), was a great success.

In 1849, he was arrested and sentenced to death for participating in the “Petrashevsky circle.” He was reprieved at the last moment but sentenced to penal servitude, and until 1854, he lived in a convict prison at Omsk, Siberia. In the decade following his return from exile, he wrote The Village of Stepanchikovo (1859) and The House of the Dead (1860). While the latter draws heavily on his prison experiences, the former is filled with comedy and satire.

In 1861, he began the review Vremya (Time) with his brother. In 1862 and 1863, he traveled abroad, where his anti-European views strengthened, he met Mlle Suslova (who served as the model for many of his heroines), and indulged his passion for gambling. He fell deeply into debt in the following years, but in 1867, he married Anna Grigoryevna Snitkina (his second wife), who helped him escape his financial difficulties. They lived abroad for four years. In 1873, he was invited to edit Grazhdanin (The Citizen), to which he contributed his Diary of a Writer. From 1876, the Diary was issued separately and achieved a large circulation. In 1880, he delivered his famous address at the unveiling of Pushkin’s memorial in Moscow. He died six months later in 1881.

Most of his important works were written after 1864: Notes from Underground (1864), Crime and Punishment (1865-6), The Gambler (1866), The Idiot (1869), The Devils (1871), and The Brothers Karamazov (1880).

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