Russian novelist, journalist, short-story writer whose psychological penetration into the human soul had a profound influence on the 20th century novel. Dostoevsky's novels have much autobiographical elements, but ultimately they deal with moral and philosophical questions. He presented interacting characters with contrasting views or ideas about freedom of choice, Socialism, atheisms, good and evil, happiness and so forth. Dostoevsky's central obsession was God, whom his characters constantly search through painful errors and humiliations.

Fyodor Dostoevsky was born in Moscow, as the second son of a staff doctor at the Hospital for the Poor - later he acquired an estate and serfs. His first novel, 'Poor Folk' (1846) gained a great success with the critics. It was followed by 'The Double' (1846). It depicted a man who was haunted by a look-alike who eventually usurps his position. The book was considered a failure.

In 1846 Dostoevsky joined a group of utopian socialists. He was arrested on April 23 in 1849 during a reading of Vissarion Belinsky's radical letter 'Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends,' and sentenced to death. With mock execution the sentence was commuted to imprisonment in Siberia. Dostoevsky spent four years in hard labor in a stockade, wearing fetters. During the years in Siberia Dostoevsky became a monarchist and a devout follower of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Dostoevsky returned to St. Petersburg in 1859 as a writer with a religious mission. He published three works that derive in different ways from his Siberia experiences: 'The House of the Dead' (1861-62), a fictional account of prison life, 'The Insulted and Injured' (1861), which reflects the author's refutation of naive Utopianism in the face of evil, and 'Winter Notes on Summer Impressions' (1863), his account of trip to Western Europe.

From the turmoil of the 1860s emerged Notes from Underground (1864), a psychological study of an outsider. The book marked a watershed in Dostoevsky artistic development. Notes from Underground was followed by Crime and Punishment (1866), an account of an individual's fall and redemption, 'The Idiot' (1868-69), depicting a Christ-like figure, Prince Myshkin, through whom the author revealed the spiritual bankruptcy of Russia, and 'The Possessed' (1872), an exploration of philosophical nihilism.

An epileptic all his life, Dostoevsky died in St. Petersburg on February 9, 1881. His second wife, Anna Grigoryevna devoted the rest of her life to cherish the literary heritage of her husband.see also: * Beauty is such a terrible thing [phrases]