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Fyodor Dostoevsky

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Background

• Dostoevsky born in hospital for the poor in

Moscow on October 30, 1821

• 2nd of 7 children

• Father, despotic and hot-tempered, murderedby his own serfs

• Mother, tender and sensitive, died when

Fyodor was only 15• Graduated 1843 from St. Petersburg’s

Academy of Military Engineers

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The Criminal Mind

• Dostoevsky experiencedfirsthand the irrationalityand evil of the criminalmind

• Ceased to believe thatcriminal solutions couldredeem a corrupt soul

• From New Testament,found that salvationcomes not from politicalor institutional change butfrom internal religioustransformation

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Return from Siberia

• Dostoevsky returnedin December of 1859with religious mission

• Believed strongly inprofound spiritualresources of ordinarypeople

•  Also believed insuperiority of Russiancultural and moralvalues

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Crime and Punishment II

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Themes

• After death of Tsar Nikolay I, Aleaxander II’s reign wasmore liberal

• C&P published during flowering of intellectual andphilosophical pursuit

• Focus is on psychological landscape of hero’s mind • Insists on spiritual side to man, refutes enlightenment

notion of complete rationality• St. Petersburg a metaphor for hero’s mind 

• Narrative structure experimented with fluid structure ofsubjective experience• Tension between social and private selves

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Diary of a Writer

• Founded two journals, Time and Epoch • Struggled with constant debt and epilepsy• Married twice, faced death of his beloved

brother, 1st wife, and two children• Gambled constantly and was forced to

pawn belongings

• Died January 28, 1881. 50,000 peopleattended his funeral where he was hailedas the ―prophet of Russia.‖ 

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Schiller

• Referenced in the text:―Schiller -like souls‖ 

• Johann ChristophFriedrich von Schiller  (Marbach am Neckar ,November 10, 1759  – May 9, 1805 in Weimar )was a German poet,philosopher , historian,and dramatist.

• Criticized socialcorruption and affirmed ofproto-revolutionaryrepublican ideals

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More Schiller!

• He developed the concept of the Schöne

Seele (beautiful soul), a human beingwhose emotions have been educated by

his reason, so that Pflicht und Neigung  (duty and inclination) are no longer inconflict with one another; thus "beauty," for

Schiller, is not merely a sensualexperience, but a moral one as well: theGood is the Beautiful

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 And yet more Schiller!

• Schiller wrote two important essays on thequestion of the Sublime (das Erhabene),entitled "Vom Erhabenen" and "Über das

Erhabene"; these essays address oneaspect of human freedom as the ability todefy one's animal instincts, such as the

drive for self-preservation, as in the caseof someone who willingly dies for abeautiful idea.

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Quotations

• "Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain."— Maid of Orleans 

• "The voice of the majority is no proof of justice."

• "Deeper meaning resides in the fairy tales told to me inmy childhood than in any truth that is taught in life."

• "Eine Grenze hat die Tyrannenmacht", which literallymeans "A tyrant's power has a limit" - — Wilhelm Tell  

• "It is not flesh and blood but the heart which makes usfathers and sons."

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St. Anne’s Ribbon 

• The Order of St. Anna (or "Order of Saint Ann"; Russian: Орден святой Анны) wasa Holstein and then Russian order of

chivalry established by Karl Friedrich,Duke of Holstein-Gottorp on 14 February 1735, in honour of his wife Anna Petrovna,daughter of Peter the Great of Russia. The

motto of the Order was "AmantibusJustitiam, Pietatem, Fidem" ("To thosewho love justice, piety, and fidelity").