Fyodor Dostoevsky: "Only to Live...! Life, Whatever It May Be!"

17:05, November 23, 2021

200 years since the birth of one of the greatest Russian novelist

On November 11, 1821, the Russian writer Fyodor Dostoevsky, one of the most important writers of the 20th century, was born. 

Albert Camus, who called himself a disciple of Dostoevsky, wrote that, having become acquainted with the works of Fyodor Mikhailovich in his youth, he carried the initial shock through the decades: "He teaches us what we know but refuse to recognize". 

Italian criminologists, including Enrico Ferri and Raffaele Garofalo, also drew attention to Crime and Punishment. Ferri wrote that Dostoevsky's profound understanding of human psychology, as embodied in the novel, enabled Fyodor Mikhailovich to "anticipate many of the conclusions of crime science".

Tea is a luxury 

Dostoevsky loved strong black tea, and drank it so often that a hot samovar was always kept ready for him. In his works tea is associated with prosperity. Tea in those days was indeed an expensive product, because it was transported directly from China by the only overland route. The journey took about a year. Because of transportation costs and high duties, tea in Central Russia was several times more expensive than in Europe.

Untranslatable words

German Wikipedia has an entire article dedicated to the word nadryv (надрыв). This is a key concept in the writings of Fyodor Dostoevsky. The word describes an uncontrollable emotional outburst, when a person releases intimate, deeply hidden feelings.

Moreover, Dostoevsky's nadryv implies a situation in which the protagonist indulges in the thought that he can find in his soul something that may not even exist. That's why the nadryv often expressed imaginary, excessively exaggerated and distorted feelings. One part of the novel, Brothers Karamazov, is called "Nadryvs."

He wrote one of the first existentialist novels in 1864

After Soren Kierkegaard wrote the texts that formed the basis of existential philosophy, it did not take Dostoevsky long to write what many consider to be the first existentialist novel, Notes from Underground. The basic idea of the philosophy is that individuals form the basis of philosophical thinking, and each individual is responsible for endowing life with meaning. Now we can all think of a few existentialist works off the tops of our heads – for example The Trial, The Stranger, or Waiting for Godot, but Dostoevsky started it all off in 1864 with Notes from Underground.

Deadlines and Love

By early November 1866 Dostoevsky had to turn in a new work. Otherwise he could have lost all copyrights and royalties for nine years, those were the terms of the contract. The task was impossible. A friend of the writer introduced Dostoevsky to Anna Snitkina, a stenographer, who helped the writer to put his words on paper for 26 days. When the manuscript was handed over to the publisher, Dostoevsky made Anna his wife. She also became his manager. 

He was a huge inspiration to numerous other writers

Just as Dostoevsky stood on the shoulders of the giants whose work he read as a child, he would eventually turn into one of the giants who would go on to inspire and support myriad other literary luminaries. Franz Kafka called him a “blood relative,” and Dostoevsky’s influences on his work are clear. Masters of prose like Ernest Hemingway and James Joyce hold him up as one of their great idols, and others, like Nietzsche and even Freud appreciated him more for the way he was able to seamlessly weave the deep and dark intricacies of human psychology into his stories.