Fjodor M. Dostojevski

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky (1821–1881), a Russian novelist, short story writer, and publicist, was born on November 11, 1821, in Moscow and died on February 9, 1881, in Saint Petersburg. He is one of the most significant figures of world literary realism, a pioneer of the modern psychological novel, and a precursor to literary existentialism.

He grew up in a physician's family and was educated at the Military Engineering Academy in Saint Petersburg. He gained literary acclaim with the novel Poor Folk (1846), followed by the publication of The Double (1846) and the novella White Nights (1848). Due to his involvement in the Petrashevsky Circle, he was arrested in 1849 and sentenced to death. His sentence was commuted to four years of penal servitude in Siberia, after which he served in the army. His experiences of imprisonment, epilepsy, poverty, and a propensity for gambling profoundly shaped his life and literary work. Among his most important works are The Insulted and Humiliated (1861), The House of the Dead (1861–1862), Notes from Underground (1864), Crime and Punishment (1866), The Gambler (1866), The Idiot (1868–1869), Demons (1871–1872), The Adolescent (1875), and The Brothers Karamazov (1879–1880). A significant part of his body of work also includes the journalistic A Writer's Diary.

At the heart of his creative work lie moral dilemmas, guilt, redemption, free will, faith, suffering, and the contradictions of human nature. Through complex psychological characterization, philosophical dialogues, and the polyphonic structure of his novels, he shaped a unique literary world.

His work profoundly influenced 20th-century literature, philosophy, and psychology—particularly the thought of Nietzsche, Freud, Camus, and Sartre. Dostoevsky remains an essential figure for understanding human conscience, freedom, and existential anxiety.