50 Fun Facts About Fyodor Dostoevsky

In which city was Dostoevsky born in 1821?

He grew up on the grounds of the Mariinsky Hospital for the Poor, where his father was a doctor.

Crime and Punishment was first published in twelve monthly instalments in what year?

It ran in The Russian Messenger and was his first great novel after Siberian exile.

Whom does Raskolnikov kill in Crime and Punishment?

He convinces himself that extraordinary men may commit crimes in pursuit of higher goals.

What weapon does Raskolnikov use in Crime and Punishment?

He gains entry by pretending he has something to pawn.

Which detective investigates the murders in Crime and Punishment?

Raskolnikov senses at once that the man knows he is the killer.

In Crime and Punishment, who is Sonya, the young woman who guides Raskolnikov toward confession?

She has turned to prostitution to feed her family; the book treats her with great tenderness.

The Brothers Karamazov was serialised from 1879 to 1880 in which journal?

Dostoevsky died less than four months after the final instalment.

The plot of The Brothers Karamazov revolves around what crime?

Dostoevsky composed much of it in the spa town of Staraya Russa.

Which Karamazov brother tells the prose poem "The Grand Inquisitor"?

In it a Spanish cardinal arrests a returned Christ for burdening mankind with free will.

Who is the rumoured illegitimate Karamazov son who serves as his father's servant?

His name means "son of the reeking one", after his mute mother, Reeking Lizaveta.

Which elder monk is Alyosha Karamazov's spiritual guide?

Parts of his life story were based on a text Dostoevsky found at the Optina Monastery.

Dostoevsky named Alyosha Karamazov after whom?

The boy died of epilepsy, inherited from his father, in May 1878 while the novel was being written.

Who called The Brothers Karamazov "the most magnificent novel ever written"?

He ranked Dostoevsky second only to Shakespeare as a creative writer.

Who is the guileless prince at the centre of The Idiot?

Dostoevsky set out to depict "the positively good and beautiful man".

Which painting erodes Rogozhin's faith in The Idiot?

Dostoevsky saw in it his own urge to confront faith with everything that negated it.

Which novel did Dostoevsky consider his favourite among his own works?

He admitted much of it was written hurriedly but said he stood behind the idea.

Notes from Underground was first published in 1864 in which journal?

Dostoevsky had founded the magazine with his brother Mikhail after Vremya was suppressed.

Notes from Underground is often cited as one of the first works of which movement?

Its narrator, a retired civil servant, attacks the idea that life reduces to two times two makes four.

Which Chernyshevsky novel does the Underground Man attack?

The novella as a whole is read as an assault on determinism.

Dostoevsky's first novel, published in 1846, is titled what?

Critic Vissarion Belinsky hailed it as Russia's first "social novel".

Dostoevsky was arrested in 1849 for belonging to which discussion group?

Members read banned works, including Belinsky's Letter to Gogol.

What happened at Dostoevsky's scheduled execution by firing squad in December 1849?

A cart arrived with a letter from the tsar commuting the sentence as the first group stood before the rifles.

Dostoevsky served four years of hard labour at a prison camp in which Siberian city?

The only book he was allowed was the New Testament.

Which novel drew on Dostoevsky's years in the Siberian prison camp?

It was the first published novel about Russian prisons, and Tolstoy admired it greatly.

Which chronic medical condition did Dostoevsky suffer from throughout his life?

He gave the affliction to Prince Myshkin in The Idiot.

Dostoevsky's ruinous addiction was to which casino game?

He first played at Wiesbaden in 1863 and kept losing until about 1871.

Dostoevsky dictated The Gambler in 26 days to which stenographer, later his wife?

Had he missed the deadline, publisher Stellovsky would have owned his works for nine years.

Which composer turned The Gambler into a 1929 opera?

The novel is set in a German casino town called Roulettenburg.

Demons was inspired by the real murder of Ivan Ivanov by the followers of which agitator?

Dostoevsky vowed to write a political novel about "the most important problem of our time".

Constance Garnett's 1916 translation popularised Demons under which English title?

Later translators rejected it, arguing the Russian Bésy means possessors, not the possessed.

Who is the master conspirator who plunges the town into chaos in Demons?

His father Stepan, a Western-leaning 1840s liberal, is cast as the unwitting progenitor of the chaos.

Who called Dostoevsky "the only psychologist from whom I had something to learn"?

The remark appears in Twilight of the Idols.

Dostoevsky's first completed literary work was a translation of which Balzac novel?

It appeared in 1843 in the journal Repertoire and Pantheon.

Dostoevsky's schoolmates at the engineering academy nicknamed him what?

His reclusiveness and religious interest earned it; he had no interest in military engineering.

What did Dostoevsky's wife reportedly have to pawn during their Baden-Baden stay?

He lost heavily at the tables and quarrelled with Turgenev there.

Dostoevsky's first wife Maria Isaeva married him in 1857 in which Siberian town?

She initially refused, saying his finances ruled marriage out; they mostly lived apart.

Dostoevsky's honeymoon abroad, planned for three months, ended up lasting how long?

They fled creditors, buried a daughter in Geneva and returned to Saint Petersburg in July 1871.

Which manuscripts did Dostoevsky burn on a train to Berlin in 1871 for fear of customs?

He was returning to Russia after four years abroad.

Dostoevsky delivered a famous 1880 speech at the unveiling of a memorial to which poet?

Even his rival Turgenev embraced him after the thunderous applause.

Which parable did the dying Dostoevsky ask to have read to his children?

Joseph Frank read it as his ultimate statement on transgression, repentance and forgiveness.

Dostoevsky is buried in the Tikhvin Cemetery at which Saint Petersburg monastery?

He lies near his favourite poets Karamzin and Zhukovsky; some reports put the funeral crowd above 100,000.

Which Russian tsar asked Dostoevsky to help educate his sons?

The tsar had summoned him to the palace to present A Writer's Diary.

In what year did Dostoevsky die?

A pulmonary haemorrhage killed him days after police searched a neighbour's flat.

Which literary theorist built his idea of the "polyphonic novel" on Dostoevsky?

Polyphony means multiple narrative voices present at once with no final word.

Where did Dostoevsky's father work as a doctor, with the family living on the grounds?

The family lived on the hospital grounds, and the boy met patients while playing in the gardens.

Dostoevsky's brother Mikhail funded their magazine Vremya with money from what business?

Vremya means Time; it published The House of the Dead in 1861.

Into roughly how many languages have Dostoevsky's books been translated?

His output runs to thirteen novels, three novellas and seventeen short stories.

Which London landmark did Dostoevsky view as a monument to soulless modern materialism?

He recorded the 1862 trip in Winter Notes on Summer Impressions.

Dostoevsky's second wife Anna was a pioneer in Russia of which hobby?

She was also one of the country's first stenographers and wrote two memoirs of him.

How did Dostoevsky propose to his stenographer, according to her memoirs?

He asked whether a young girl could love an old painter, then told her to imagine he was the painter.