Death of Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Fyodor Dostoyevsky died on 28 January 1881 in Saint Petersburg, aged 59. A Russian novelist, Dostoyevsky began his career with the novel Poor Folk and in 1849 was arrested for taking part in a circle of young intellectuals, sentenced to death and reprieved at the last moment before the firing squad. He spent four years in a Siberian prison camp and then served in the army. His later novels, including Notes from Underground, Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, Demons and The Brothers Karamazov, explore guilt, faith, freedom and the psychology of extreme characters. He struggled with epilepsy, debt and gambling. His work influenced existentialism, psychology and twentieth-century literature.

Open on the timeline