DOSTOEVSKY, FEODOR MIXAILOVICH

DOSTOEVSKY, FEODOR MIXAILOVICH (1821–1881). Ranked as one of the greatest-if not the greatest Russian novelist of the 19th c., the journalist and diarist Dostoevsky mastered the dominant artistic literary genre of his time, the long novel. He brought to it an intellect steeped in Orthodox tradition and the aspirations of the radical intelligentsia, as well as an uncanny ability to prophesy the future tumultuous decades of Russia in his characters’ personalities. Among his most compelling themes are personal freedom through love versus self-will, the myth of social utopianism, the religious problematics of human life, and the continuously impending apocalyptic collapse of individuals and society. Although during his lifetime he was known for journal and newspaper literature, subsequently his novels were better known, including (Notes from) The House of the Dead (1862), Notes from the Underground (1864), Crime and Punishment (1866), The Idiot (1869), The Possessed (1872), and The Brothers Karamazov (1880). It has been postulated that the dominant themes of Orthodox theology and 20th-c. philosophical questions can all be found in his works.