The Presidential Library marking the 200th anniversary of Fyodor Dostoevsky

November 11, 2021, marks the 200th anniversary of Fyodor Dostoevsky, the great Russian writer, one of the most popular classics of world literature, thinker, philosopher and publicist. Russia celebrates this event at the state level. President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin signed an Executive Order "On the Celebration of the 200th Anniversary of the Birth of Fyodor Dostoevsky". There are festive events in the writer's honour.

The Presidential Library joins the celebration of such a prominent event in the history of Russian literature. This year, the institution provides a series of lectures devoted to the 200th anniversary of the great writer. The Presidential Library's collection Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881) features digitized copies of rare publications: A Writer's Diary for 1877 (1878), Memoirs of Anna Dostoevskaya (1925), his wife's letters, studies of the writer's oeuvre, modern author's thesis and video materials.

Fyodor Dostoevsky was born on November 11, 1821, in Moscow. His father was a doctor of the Mariinsky Hospital for the Poor of the Moscow Orphanage. Anna Dostoevskaya, the writer's wife, wrote in her memoirs: "Fyodor Mikhailovich eagerly recalled his serene childhood and spoke fervently about his mother". Parents liked to spend their time with children and were delighted to read books together in the evenings. However, sometimes, the idyll of family life was disturbed by the father's gloomy mood. His wife and mother of the family, Maria Fyodorovna, tried to calm all troubles. The children were afraid of their father and obeyed him. "The head of the family was contrary, testy and exacting. He turned his brilliant son into an introvert with weak life ambitions...", stated Mikhail Volotskoy in his book Chronicle of Dostoevsky's Family (1933).

The harsh and monotonous way of life of the Dostoevsky family had a great impact on Mikhail and Fyodor, the elder brothers. They opened the dreamworld of literature. As a child, Fyodor Dostoevsky read a lot. It was not just a child's curiosity but a passion for literature. The future writer studied not only at home. He also attended a privileged boarding school with the best Moscow professors. Afterwards, his father sent him to the Engineering School in St. Petersburg. After completing his studies and short working practice, Dostoevsky decides to resign from his service and become a writer.

Dostoevsky's creative career began in St. Petersburg. It was a way of searching for the limits of humanity. Petersburg of that time was an ideal city for him. It was full of human suffering and hardship on the one hand but abundance and luxury on the other. Since then, Dostoevsky had been inextricably connected with Petersburg, a city that often became not just a gloomy decoration for the writer's novels but also an acting hero.

Having chosen a literary career that brought no constant income, the writer lacked money all his life. The writer's royalties were rather small. We can read in the book Memoirs of Anna Dostoevskaya: "...Having debts, Fyodor Mikhailovich had to offer his work to magazines and, of course, received much less than prosperous writers like Turgenev or Goncharov...". A significant role played Fyodor Dostoevsky's inability to spend money rationally. Also, he had a destructive passion for gambling. In the publication by Mikhail Volotskiy Chronicle of Dostoevsky's Family (1933), we read: "In one of the letters to his brother Mikhail, he says about himself: "As for money, alas! I have nothing. The devil knows where they disappeared''. The Gambler, an autobiographical novel, was written in 1866 within a month because of the publisher's demand. It was not only an attempt to comprehend the nature of addiction and demonstration of human failure under the influence of gamble. It was also an opportunity to improve his financial position.

Dostoevsky faced many difficult trials. However, his literary way began with undoubtedly brilliant success. Nikolay Nekrasov read the manuscript of the novella Poor Folk, brought by Dmitry Grigorovich for the Peterburgsky Sbornik (Petersburg Collection). He liked Dostoevsky's talent and said to the famous Russian critic Vissarion Belinsky: "Belinsky! The new Gogol is born! ". This episode is described in Alexander Koni's book Nekrasov. Dostoevsky: Memoirs (1921). The contemporaries highly appreciated Dostoevsky's first work Poor Folk. Belinsky described it as Russia's first "social novel".

In A Writer's Diary for 1877 Dostoevsky states: "I clearly remember that delight, success, and most importantly - my personal feeling". He joined Belinsky's circle. This friendship contributed to the glory of Dostoevsky. It also was one of the indirect reasons for his arrest. Dostoevsky, who was fond of socialist ideas, began to attend secret meetings of the Petrashevsky Circle. One of the motives for his arrest was the public reading of the banned atheistic letter from Belinsky to Gogol. Much later, in the novel Demons, Dostoevsky returned to the revolutionary theme. He revived his memories and previous ideas. The writer described his consciousness, shock caused by Nechaev's ideas and the murder of student Ivan Ivanov. It all formed the plot of the novel.

After the arrest, Dostoevsky and other members of the revolutionary circle got a verdict - the death penalty. The execution was replaced by exile and hard labour. This sentence was cancelled at the very last moment. It is difficult to describe all the cruelty of such a "release". One of the defendants went crazy. Fyodor Mikhailovich remembered this terrible moment all life and described it in the novel The Idiot.

Hard labour in Siberia completely changed the writer's worldview. Fyodor Dostoevsky considered this severe time as salvation. The faith in Christ fostered the writer's "rebirth". Dostoevsky read the Holy Bible in early childhood and learned it almost by heart. It assisted him in this way of changes in former beliefs and spiritual rebirth. Until the last days, he kept a little Gospel, which he received from the wives of the Decembrists. From this moment on, the religious theme would always exist in Dostoevsky's oeuvre. It determined the religious and philosophical trends in Russian literature.

Upon his return to St. Petersburg from exile, Dostoevsky immediately began to write. He published magazines, wrote the novel Humiliated and Insulted. He issued the Notes from the Dead House based on the impressions of his hard labour. Notes from Underground represented the idea of the impossibility of comprehending human nature and the possibility of depriving suffering by reason. Realizing all the variety of human nature, Dostoevsky sees the ways of understanding it with the help of religion. This idea is present in the five great Dostoevsky's novels: Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, Demons, The Adolescent, The Brothers Karamazov. Dostoevsky became an exceptional psychologist, unique in the literature world. The great Friedrich Nietzsche, who was undoubtedly familiar with the work of the Russian writer and showed interest in him, found valuable psychological material in his novels and called Dostoevsky the only worthy psychologist. The philosopher Lev Shestov tried to find the similar features of ideological and philosophical views of both thinkers in his work Dostoevsky and Nietzsche: (The Philosophy of Tragedy) (1903).

Critics rightfully recognized Fyodor Dostoevsky as one of the greatest innovators in art form. He succeeded the tradition of literary realism and went beyond its borders, creating a brand new type of artistic thinking. Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote in the novel The Brothers Karamazov about the limitlessness of human nature. This idea made the writer develop various plots and characters of heroes. Vasily Rozanov, the Russian religious philosopher, writes in the book The Legend of the Grand Inquisitor Fyodor Dostoevsky (1894) about Dostoevsky's perfect analysis of the human soul.

The highlight of Dostoevsky's oeuvre and the crown of his religious and philosophical thought was the last novel The Brothers Karamazov. Alexander Zakrzhevsky in the book Karamazov Ideas. Psychological Parallels. Dostoevsky. Valery Bryusov. Vasily Rozanov. Mikhail Artsybashev (1912) calls this novel one of the incarnations of Dostoevsky's soul.

Fyodor Dostoevsky died on February 9, 1881. Despite frequent criticism, people recognized Dostoevsky's genius during his life. Its evidence is the reaction of the contemporaries to the news of his death. All outstanding representatives of Russian literature who appreciated Dostoevsky's talent were at his funerals.

The role of Dostoevsky's oeuvre is great both for Russian and world literature. Brilliant works by Dostoevsky will be forever relevant. Keen interest in his oeuvre, as history shows, does not fade away and becomes more vivid. We keep on declaring: "Dostoevsky is immortal!"