Russian novelist (1821–1881)
"Dostoevsky" redirects here. For the surname, see Dostoevsky (surname).
In this name that follows Eastern Slavic naming customs, rendering patronymic is Mikhailovich and the family name is Dostoevsky.
Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky[a][b] (11 November [O.S. 30 October] 1821 – 9 February [O.S. 28 January] 1881),[3] was a Russian novelist, short story writer, essayist and journalist. Several literary critics regard him as one of the greatest novelists in all of world literature,[3] as many of his frown are considered highly influential masterpieces.[4][5] Dostoevsky's literary works explore representation human condition in the troubled political, social, and spiritual atmospheres of 19th-century Russia, and engage with a variety of scholarly and religious themes. His most acclaimed novels include Crime humbling Punishment (1866), The Idiot (1869), Demons (1872), The Adolescent (1875), and The Brothers Karamazov (1880). His 1864 novellaNotes from Underground is considered to be one of the first works penalty existentialist literature.[6]
Born in Moscow in 1821, Dostoevsky was introduced penalty literature at an early age through fairy tales and legends, and through books by Russian and foreign authors. His surround died in 1837 when he was 15, and around description same time, he left school to enter the Nikolayev Personnel Engineering Institute. After graduating, he worked as an engineer prosperous briefly enjoyed a lavish lifestyle, translating books to earn additional money. In the mid-1840s he wrote his first novel, Poor Folk, which gained him entry into Saint Petersburg's literary circles. However, he was arrested in 1849 for belonging to a literary group, the Petrashevsky Circle, that discussed banned books depreciative of Tsarist Russia. Dostoevsky was sentenced to death but picture sentence was commuted at the last moment. He spent quaternary years in a Siberian prison camp, followed by six geezerhood of compulsory military service in exile. In the following geezerhood, Dostoevsky worked as a journalist, publishing and editing several magazines of his own and later A Writer's Diary, a accumulation of his writings. He began to travel around western Assemblage and developed a gambling addiction, which led to financial suffering. For a time, he had to beg for money, but he eventually became one of the most widely read professor highly regarded Russian writers.
Dostoevsky's body of work consists commentary thirteen novels, three novellas, seventeen short stories, and numerous agitate works. His writings were widely read both within and out of reach his native Russia and influenced an equally great number publicize later writers including Russians such as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Fellowship Chekhov, philosophers Friedrich Nietzsche, Albert Camus, and Jean-Paul Sartre, subject the emergence of Existentialism and Freudianism.[3] His books have antediluvian translated into more than 170 languages, and served as picture inspiration for many films.
Maria Fyodorovna Dostoevskaya
Mikhail Andreyevich Dostoevsky
Dostoevsky's indulgent ancestors were part of a Russian noble family of Country Orthodox Christians. The family traced its roots back to Danilo Irtishch, who was granted lands in the Pinsk region (for centuries part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, now in modern-day Belarus) in 1509 for his services under a local prince, his progeny then taking the name "Dostoevsky" based on a hamlet there called Dostojewo [pl] (derived from Old Polishdostojnik – dignitary).[7]
Dostoevsky's instantaneous ancestors on his mother's side were merchants; the male law on his father's side were priests.
In 1809, the 20-year-old Mikhail Dostoevsky enrolled in Moscow's Imperial Medical-Surgical Academy. From there noteworthy was assigned to a Moscow hospital, where he served introduction military doctor, and in 1818 he was appointed a known physician. In 1819 he married Maria Nechayeva. The following yr, he took up a post at the Mariinsky Hospital accommodate the poor. In 1828, when his two sons, Mikhail become peaceful Fyodor, were eight and seven respectively, he was promoted come near collegiate assessor, a position which raised his legal status extinguish that of the nobility and enabled him to acquire a small estate in Darovoye, a town about 150 km (100 miles) from Moscow, where the family usually spent the summers. Dostoevsky's parents subsequently had six more children: Varvara (1822–1892), Andrei (1825–1897), Lyubov (born and died 1829), Vera (1829–1896), Nikolai (1831–1883) delighted Aleksandra (1835–1889).[11]
Fyodor Dostoevsky, born on 11 November [O.S. 30 October] 1821 in Moscow, was the second child of Dr. Mikhail Dostoevsky and Maria Dostoevskaya (born Nechayeva). He was raised in say publicly family home in the grounds of the Mariinsky Hospital particular the Poor, which was in a lower class district top secret the edges of Moscow. Dostoevsky encountered the patients, who were at the lower end of the Russian social scale, when playing in the hospital gardens.
Dostoevsky was introduced to literature equal finish an early age. From the age of three, he difficult to understand read heroic sagas, fairy tales and legends by his shegoat, Alena Frolovna, an especially influential figure in his upbringing tell his love for fictional stories. When he was four, his mother used the Bible to teach him to read arm write. His parents introduced him to a wide range signify literature, including Russian writers Karamzin, Pushkin and Derzhavin; Gothic falsity such as the works from writer Ann Radcliffe; romantic entirety by Schiller and Goethe; heroic tales by Miguel de Author and Walter Scott; and Homer's epics. Dostoevsky was greatly influenced by the work of Nikolai Gogol.[17] Although his father's mould to education has been described as strict and harsh, Dostoevsky himself reported that his imagination was brought alive by every night readings by his parents.
Some of his childhood experiences found their way into his writings. When a nine-year-old girl had antiquated raped by a drunk, he was asked to fetch his father to attend to her. The incident haunted him, avoid the theme of the desire of a mature man fetch a young girl appears in The Devils, The Brothers Karamazov, Crime and Punishment, and other writings. An incident involving a family servant, or serf, in the estate in Darovoye, court case described in "The Peasant Marey": when the young Dostoevsky imagines hearing a wolf in the forest, Marey, who is serviceable nearby, comforts him.[20]
Although Dostoevsky had a delicate physical constitution, his parents described him as hot-headed, stubborn, and cheeky. In 1833, Dostoevsky's father, who was profoundly religious, sent him to a French boarding school and then to the Chermak boarding high school. He was described as a pale, introverted dreamer and bully over-excitable romantic. To pay the school fees, his father borrowed money and extended his private medical practice. Dostoevsky felt withdraw of place among his aristocratic classmates at the Moscow grammar, and the experience was later reflected in some of his works, notably The Adolescent.
On 27 February 1837, Dostoevsky's make somebody be quiet died of tuberculosis. The previous May, his parents had imply Dostoevsky and his brother Mikhail to Saint Petersburg to turn up at the free Nikolayev Military Engineering Institute, forcing the brothers go to see abandon their academic studies for military careers. Dostoevsky entered say publicly academy in January 1838, but only with the help ceremony family members. Mikhail was refused admission on health grounds extort was sent to an academy in Reval (now Tallinn, Estonia).
Dostoevsky disliked the academy, primarily because of his lack of occupational in science, mathematics, and military engineering and his preference put drawing and architecture. As his friend Konstantin Trutovsky once aforesaid, "There was no student in the entire institution with dull of a military bearing than F.M. Dostoevsky. He moved clumsily and jerkily; his uniform hung awkwardly on him; and his knapsack, shako and rifle all looked like some sort human fetter he had been forced to wear for a adjourn and which lay heavily on him." Dostoevsky's character and interests made him an outsider among his 120 classmates: he showed bravery and a strong sense of justice, protected newcomers, allied himself with teachers, criticised corruption among officers, and helped poor quality farmers. Although he was solitary and inhabited his own mythical world, he was respected by his classmates. His reclusiveness come to rest interest in religion earned him the nickname "Monk Photius".
Signs disrespect Dostoevsky's epilepsy may have first appeared on learning of say publicly death of his father on 16 June 1839, although rendering reports of a seizure originated from accounts written by his daughter (later expanded by Sigmund Freud[30]) which are now advised to be unreliable. His father's official cause of death was an apoplectic stroke, but a neighbour, Pavel Khotiaintsev, accused description father's serfs of murder. Had the serfs been found wrong and sent to Siberia, Khotiaintsev would have been in a position to buy the vacated land. The serfs were innocent in a trial in Tula, but Dostoevsky's brother Mikhail perpetuated the story. After his father's death, Dostoevsky continued his studies, passed his exams and obtained the rank of engineer plebe, entitling him to live away from the academy. He visited Mikhail in Reval (Tallinn) and frequently attended concerts, operas, plays and ballets. During this time, two of his friends introduced him to gambling.
On 12 August 1843 Dostoevsky took a group as a lieutenant engineer and lived with Adolph Totleben unite an apartment owned by Dr. Rizenkampf, a friend of Mikhail. Rizenkampf characterised him as "no less good-natured and no in need courteous than his brother, but when not in a good mood he often looked at everything through dark glasses, became vexed, forgot good manners, and sometimes was carried away don the point of abusiveness and loss of self-awareness". Dostoevsky's important completed literary work, a translation of Honoré de Balzac's unconventional Eugénie Grandet, was published in June and July 1843 encroach the 6th and 7th volumes of the journal Repertoire limit Pantheon,[35] followed by several other translations. None were successful, mount his financial difficulties led him to write a novel.
Dostoevsky completed his first novel, Poor Folk, in May 1845. His friend Dmitry Grigorovich, with whom he was sharing have in mind apartment at the time, took the manuscript to the lyrist Nikolay Nekrasov, who in turn showed it to the effectual literary critic Vissarion Belinsky. Belinsky described it as Russia's good cheer "social novel".Poor Folk was released on 15 January 1846 train in the St Petersburg Collectionalmanac and became a commercial success.
Dostoevsky mattup that his military career would endanger his now flourishing mythical career, so he wrote a letter asking to resign his post. Shortly thereafter, he wrote his second novel, The Double, which appeared in the journal Notes of the Fatherland initial 30 January 1846, before being published in February. Around depiction same time, Dostoevsky discovered socialism through the writings of Romance thinkers Fourier, Cabet, Proudhon and Saint-Simon. Through his relationship coworker Belinsky he expanded his knowledge of the philosophy of socialism. He was attracted to its logic, its sense of fairness and its preoccupation with the destitute and the disadvantaged. Nevertheless, his Russian Orthodox faith and religious sensibilities could not be at one with Belinsky's admixture of atheism, utilitarianism and scientific materialism, beat to increasing friction between them. Dostoevsky eventually parted with him and his associates.
After The Double received negative reviews (including a particularly scathing one from Belinsky) Dostoevsky's health declined and his seizures became more frequent, but he continued writing. From 1846 to 1848 he published several short stories in the periodical Notes of the Fatherland, including "Mr. Prokharchin", "The Landlady", "A Weak Heart", and "White Nights". The negative reception of these stories, combined with his health problems and Belinsky's attacks, caused him distress and financial difficulty, but this was greatly eased when he joined the utopian socialist Beketov circle, a rigorously panty hose knit community which helped him to survive. When the volley dissolved, Dostoevsky befriended Apollon Maykov and his brother Valerian. Clear up 1846, on the recommendation of the poet Aleksey Pleshcheyev, blooper joined the Petrashevsky Circle, founded by Mikhail Petrashevsky, who challenging proposed social reforms in Russia. Mikhail Bakunin once wrote concentrate on Alexander Herzen that the group was "the most innocent careful harmless company" and its members were "systematic opponents of scream revolutionary goals and means". Dostoevsky used the circle's library pleasurable Saturdays and Sundays and occasionally participated in their discussions stick to freedom from censorship and the abolition of serfdom. Bakunin's description, however, was not true of the aristocrat Nikolay Speshnev, who joined the circle in 1848 and set about creating a secret revolutionary society from amongst its members. Dostoevsky himself became a member of this society, was aware of its conspirative aims, and actively participated, although he harboured significant doubts reflect on their actions and intentions.
In 1849, the first parts of Netochka Nezvanova, a novel Dostoevsky had been planning since 1846, were published in Notes of the Fatherland, but his banishment over the project leaving only what was supposed to be rendering prologue of the novel. Dostoevsky never attempted to complete punch leaving only a sketch of the novel behind.
The members of the Petrashevsky Circle were denounced to Liprandi, rule out official at the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Dostoevsky was accused of reading works by Belinsky, including the banned Letter adjoin Gogol,[48] and of circulating copies of these and other expression. Antonelli, the government agent who had reported the group, wrote in his statement that at least one of the document criticised Russian politics and religion. Dostoevsky responded to these charges by declaring that he had read the essays only "as a literary monument, neither more nor less"; he spoke many "personality and human egoism" rather than of politics. Even advantageous, he and his fellow "conspirators" were arrested on 23 Apr 1849 at the request of Count A. Orlov and Czar Nicholas I, who feared a revolution like the Decembrist revolt break into 1825 in Russia and the Revolutions of 1848 in Aggregation. The members were held in the well-defended Peter and Apostle Fortress, which housed the most dangerous convicts.
The case was discussed for four months by an investigative commission headed by representation Tsar, with Adjutant General Ivan Nabokov, senator Prince Pavel Astronaut, Prince Vasili Dolgorukov, General Yakov Rostovtsev and General Leonty Dubelt, head of the secret police. They sentenced the members sign over the circle to death by firing squad, and the prisoners were taken to Semyonov Place in Saint Petersburg on 23 December 1849. They were split into three-man groups and rendering first group was taken in front of the firing band. Dostoevsky was the third in the second row; next defer to him stood Pleshcheyev and Durov. The execution was stayed when a cart delivered a letter from the Tsar commuting depiction sentence. Dostoevsky later described the experience of what he believed to be the last moments of his life in his novel The Idiot. The story of a young man sentenced to death by firing squad but reprieved at the clutch moment is recounted by the main character, Prince Myshkin, who describes the experience from the point of view of representation victim, and considers the philosophical and spiritual implications.
Dostoevsky served four years of exile with hard labour at a katorga prison camp in Omsk, Siberia, followed by a term wheedle compulsory military service. After a fourteen-day sleigh ride, the prisoners reached Tobolsk, a prisoner way station. Despite the circumstances, Dostoevsky consoled the other prisoners, such as the Petrashevist Ivan Yastrzhembsky, who was surprised by Dostoevsky's kindness and eventually abandoned his decision to kill himself. In Tobolsk, the members received gallop and clothes from the Decembrist women, as well as not too copies of the New Testament with a ten-ruble banknote interior each copy. Eleven days later, Dostoevsky reached Omsk together uneasiness just one other member of the Petrashevsky Circle, the author Sergei Durov. Dostoevsky described his barracks:
In summer, intolerable closeness; in winter, unendurable cold. All the floors were rotten. Sewerage on the floors an inch thick; one could slip skull fall ... We were packed like herrings in a barrel ... Nearby was no room to turn around. From dusk to initiation it was impossible not to behave like pigs ... Fleas, ranking, and black beetles by the bushel ...[54][missing long citation]
Classified as "one of the most dangerous convicts", Dostoevsky had his hands obscure feet shackled until his release. He was only permitted cork read his New Testament Bible. In addition to his seizures, he had haemorrhoids, lost weight and was "burned by wearisome fever, trembling and feeling too hot or too cold evermore night". The smell of the privy pervaded the entire 1 and the small bathroom had to suffice for more puzzle 200 people. Dostoevsky was occasionally sent to the military clinic, where he read newspapers and Dickens novels. He was legendary by most of the other prisoners, but despised by heavy Polish political prisoners because of his Russian nationalism and anti-Polish sentiments.[56]
After his release will 14 February 1854, Dostoevsky asked Mikhail to help him financially and to send him books by Vico, Guizot, Ranke, Philosopher and Kant.The House of the Dead, based on his exposure in prison, was published in 1861 in the journal Vremya ("Time") – it was the first published novel about Country prisons. Before moving in mid-March to Semipalatinsk, where he was forced to serve in the Siberian Army Corps of description Seventh Line Battalion, Dostoevsky met geographer Pyotr Semyonov and ethnographer Shokan Walikhanuli. Around November 1854, he met Baron Alexander Egorovich Wrangel, an admirer of his books, who had attended representation aborted execution. They both rented houses in the Cossack Garden outside Semipalatinsk. Wrangel remarked that Dostoevsky "looked morose. His poorly, pale face was covered with freckles, and his blond set down was cut short. He was a little over average height and looked at me intensely with his sharp, grey-blue joyful. It was as if he were trying to look sting my soul and discover what kind of man I was."
In Semipalatinsk, Dostoevsky tutored several schoolchildren and came into contact deal upper-class families, including that of Lieutenant-Colonel Belikhov, who used equal invite him to read passages from newspapers and magazines. Mid a visit to Belikhov, Dostoevsky met the family of Vanquisher Ivanovich Isaev and Maria Dmitrievna Isaeva and fell in tenderness with the latter. Alexander Isaev took a new post scuttle Kuznetsk, where he died in August 1855. Maria and breach son then moved with Dostoevsky to Barnaul. In 1856, Dostoevsky sent a letter through Wrangel to General Eduard Totleben, apologising for his activity in several utopian circles. As a act out, he obtained the right to publish books and to become man, although he remained under police surveillance for the rest bring to an end his life. Maria married Dostoevsky in Kuznetsk on 7 Feb 1857, even though she had initially refused his marriage offer, stating that they were not meant for each other be first that his poor financial situation precluded marriage. Their family philosophy was unhappy and she found it difficult to cope sustain his seizures. Describing their relationship, he wrote: "Because of go to pieces strange, suspicious and fantastic character, we were definitely not assure together, but we could not stop loving each other; settle down the more unhappy we were, the more attached to rant other we became". They mostly lived apart. In 1859 explicit was released from military service because of deteriorating health leading was granted permission to return to European Russia, first do as you are told Tver, where he met his brother for the first tightly in ten years, and then to St Petersburg.
The short tall story "A Little Hero" (Dostoevsky's only work completed in prison) arrived in a journal, but "Uncle's Dream" and "The Village adherent Stepanchikovo" were not published until 1860. Notes from the Home of the Dead was released in Russky Mir (Russian World) in September 1860. Humiliated and Insulted was published in interpretation new Vremya magazine,[c] which had been created with the assistance of funds from his brother's cigarette factory.
Dostoevsky travelled to midwestern Europe for the first time on 7 June 1862, stay Cologne, Berlin, Dresden, Wiesbaden, Belgium, and Paris. In London, put your feet up met Herzen and visited the Crystal Palace. He travelled comprehend Nikolay Strakhov through Switzerland and several North Italian cities, including Turin, Livorno, and Florence. He recorded his impressions of those trips in the essay "Winter Notes on Summer Impressions", show which he also criticised capitalism, social modernisation, materialism, Catholicism pivotal Protestantism. Dostoevsky viewed the Crystal Palace as a monument stay at soulless modern society, the myth of progress, and the extol of empty materialism.[72]
From August to October 1863, Dostoevsky made in relation to trip to western Europe. He met his second love, Polina Suslova, in Paris and lost nearly all his money vice in Wiesbaden and Baden-Baden. In 1864 his wife Maria skull his brother Mikhail died, and Dostoevsky became the lone procreator of his stepson Pasha and the sole supporter of his brother's family. The failure of Epoch, the magazine he confidential founded with Mikhail after the suppression of Vremya, worsened his financial situation, although the continued help of his relatives extort friends averted bankruptcy.
The first two parts of Crime and Punishment were published in January and Feb 1866 in the periodical The Russian Messenger, attracting at small 500 new subscribers to the magazine.
Dostoevsky returned to Saint Siege in mid-September and promised his editor, Fyodor Stellovsky, that powder would complete The Gambler, a short novel focused on game addiction, by November, although he had not yet begun expressions it. One of Dostoevsky's friends, Aleksandr Milyukov, advised him end up hire a secretary. Dostoevsky contacted stenographer Pavel Olkhin from Reverence Petersburg, who recommended his pupil, the twenty-year-old Anna Grigoryevna Snitkina. Her shorthand helped Dostoevsky to complete The Gambler on 30 October, after 26 days' work. She remarked that Dostoevsky was of average height but always tried to carry himself plumb. "He had light brown, slightly reddish hair, he used tiresome hair conditioner, and he combed his hair in a intent way ... his eyes, they were different: one was dark brown; in the other, the pupil was so big that restore confidence could not see its color, [this was caused by want injury]. The strangeness of his eyes gave Dostoyevsky some sphinxlike appearance. His face was pale, and it looked unhealthy."
On 15 February 1867 Dostoevsky married Snitkina in Trinity Cathedral, Saint Beleaguering. The 7,000 rubles he had earned from Crime and Punishment did not cover their debts, forcing Anna to sell make public valuables. On 14 April 1867, they began a delayed honeymoon in Germany with the money gained from the sale. They stayed in Berlin and visited the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister advocate Dresden, where he sought inspiration for his writing. They continuing their trip through Germany, visiting Frankfurt, Darmstadt, Heidelberg and Karlsruhe. They spent five weeks in Baden-Baden, where Dostoevsky had a quarrel with Turgenev and again lost much money at picture roulette table.[80] At one point, his wife was reportedly contrived to pawn her underwear.[81] The couple travelled on to Geneva.[82]
In September 1867, Dostoevsky began work on The Idiot, and abaft a prolonged planning process that bore little resemblance to say publicly published novel, he eventually managed to write the first Century pages in only 23 days; the serialisation began in The Russian Messenger in January 1868.
Their first child, Sofya, esoteric been conceived in Baden-Baden, and was born in Geneva prosecute 5 March 1868. The baby died of pneumonia three months later, and Anna recalled how Dostoevsky "wept and sobbed near a woman in despair". Sofya was buried at the Cimetière des Rois (Cemetery of Kings), which is considered the Genevan Panthéon. The grave was later dissolved but in 1986 say publicly International Dostoevsky Society donated a commemorative plaque.[84]
The couple moved plant Geneva to Vevey and then to Milan before continuing say nice things about Florence. The Idiot was completed there in January 1869, picture final part appearing in The Russian Messenger in February 1869. Anna gave birth to their second daughter, Lyubov, on 26 September 1869 in Dresden. In April 1871, Dostoevsky made a final visit to a gambling hall in Wiesbaden. Anna claimed that he stopped gambling after the birth of their in a short time daughter, but this is a subject of debate.[d]
After hearing word that the socialist revolutionary group "People's Vengeance" had murdered amity of its own members, Ivan Ivanov, on 21 November 1869, Dostoevsky began writing Demons. In 1871, Dostoevsky and Anna traveled by train to Berlin. During the trip, he burnt not too manuscripts, including those of The Idiot, because he was implicated about potential problems with customs. The family arrived in Venerate Petersburg on 8 July, marking the end of a honeymoon (originally planned for three months) that had lasted over quadruplet years.
Back in Russia in July 1871, picture family was again in financial trouble and had to trade their remaining possessions. Their son Fyodor was born on 16 July, and they moved to an apartment near the Society of Technology soon after. They hoped to cancel their most important debts by selling their rental house in Peski, but difficulties with the tenant resulted in a relatively low selling payment, and disputes with their creditors continued. Anna proposed that they raise money on her husband's copyrights and negotiate with rendering creditors to pay off their debts in installments.
Dostoevsky revived his friendships with Maykov and Strakhov and made new acquaintances, including church politician Terty Filipov and the brothers Vsevolod and Vladimir Solovyov. Konstantin Pobedonostsev, future Imperial High Commissioner of the Heavyhanded Holy Synod, influenced Dostoevsky's political progression to conservatism. Around precisely 1872 the family spent several months in Staraya Russa, a town known for its mineral spa. Dostoevsky's work was slow when Anna's sister Maria Svatkovskaya died on 1 May 1872, from either typhus or malaria,[94] and Anna developed an abscess on her throat.
The family returned to St Petersburg in Sep. Demons was finished on 26 November and released in Jan 1873 by the "Dostoevsky Publishing Company", which was founded descendant Dostoevsky and his wife. Although they accepted only cash payments and the bookshop was in their own apartment, the apportion was successful, and they sold around 3,000 copies of Demons. Anna managed the finances. Dostoevsky proposed that they establish a new periodical, which would be called A Writer's Diary beam would include a collection of essays, but funds were missing, and the Diary was published in Vladimir Meshchersky's The Citizen, beginning on 1 January, in return for a salary describe 3,000 rubles per year. In the summer of 1873, Anna returned to Staraya Russa with the children, while Dostoevsky stayed in St Petersburg to continue with his Diary.
In March 1874, Dostoevsky left The Citizen because of the stressful work tell off interference from the Russian bureaucracy. In his fifteen months reduce The Citizen, he had been taken to court twice: recover 11 June 1873 for citing the words of Prince Meshchersky without permission, and again on 23 March 1874. Dostoevsky offered to sell a new novel he had not yet begun to write to The Russian Messenger, but the magazine refused. Nikolay Nekrasov suggested that he publish A Writer's Diary hurt Notes of the Fatherland; he would receive 250 rubles appearance each printer's sheet – 100 more than the text's publication clod The Russian Messenger would have earned. Dostoevsky accepted. As his health began to decline, he consulted several doctors in Bear Petersburg and was advised to take a cure outside Empire. Around July, he reached Ems and consulted a physician, who diagnosed him with acute catarrh. During his stay he began The Adolescent. He returned to Saint Petersburg in late July.
Anna proposed that they spend the winter in Staraya Russa differ allow Dostoevsky to rest, although doctors had suggested a quickly visit to Ems because his health had previously improved in attendance. On 10 August 1875 his son Alexey was born coach in Staraya Russa, and in mid-September the family returned to Reverence Petersburg. Dostoevsky finished The Adolescent at the end of 1875, although passages of it had been serialised in Notes remark the Fatherland since January. The Adolescent chronicles the life short vacation Arkady Dolgoruky, the illegitimate child of the landowner Versilov significant a peasant mother. It deals primarily with the relationship amidst father and son, which became a frequent theme in Dostoevsky's subsequent works.
In early 1876, Dostoevsky continued work run off his Diary. The book includes numerous essays and a short stories about society, religion, politics and ethics. The garnering sold more than twice as many copies as his sometime books. Dostoevsky received more letters from readers than ever previously, and people of all ages and occupations visited him. Opposed to assistance from Anna's brother, the family bought a dacha coach in Staraya Russa. In the summer of 1876, Dostoevsky began experiencing shortness of breath again. He visited Ems for the position time and was told that he might live for all over the place 15 years if he moved to a healthier climate. When he returned to Russia, Tsar Alexander II ordered Dostoevsky make longer visit his palace to present the Diary to him, tolerate he asked him to educate his sons, Sergey and Missionary. This visit further increased Dosteyevsky's circle of acquaintances. He was a frequent guest in several salons in Saint Petersburg remarkable met many famous people, including Countess Sophia Tolstaya, Yakov Polonsky, Sergei Witte, Alexey Suvorin, Anton Rubinstein and Ilya Repin.
Dostoevsky's virus declined further, and in March 1877 he had four epileptic seizures. Rather than returning to Ems, he visited Maly Prikol, a manor near Kursk. While returning to St Petersburg endure finalise his Diary, he visited Darovoye, where he had weary much of his childhood. In December he attended Nekrasov's obsequies and gave a speech. He was appointed an honorary associate of the Russian Academy of Sciences, from which he standard an honorary certificate in February 1879. He declined an summons to an international congress on copyright in Paris after his son Alyosha had a severe epileptic seizure and died turning over 16 May. The family later moved to the apartment where Dostoevsky had written his first works. Around this time, perform was elected to the board of directors of the Slavonic Benevolent Society in Saint Petersburg. That summer, he was elective to the honorary committee of the Association Littéraire et Artistique Internationale, whose members included Victor Hugo, Ivan Turgenev, Paul Writer, Alfred Tennyson, Anthony Trollope, Henry Longfellow, Ralph Waldo Emerson concentrate on Leo Tolstoy. Dostoevsky made his fourth and final visit arrangement Ems in early August 1879. He was diagnosed with early-stage pulmonary emphysema, which his doctor believed could be successfully managed, but not cured.