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Fyodor Dostoevsky Facts & Worksheets

Fyodor Dostoevsky was one of Russia’s greatest writers, whose works are read and discussed all over the world.

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Fyodor Dostoevsky was one of Russia’s greatest writers, whose works are read and discussed all over the world. His writing is steeped in deep psychology and the exploration of human nature, while it also accurately depicts the Russian reality of his time.

See the fact file below for more information on the Fyodor Dostoevsky or alternatively, you can download our 25-page Fyodor Dostoevsky worksheet pack to utilise within the classroom or home environment.

Key Facts & Information

Early Life and Education

  • Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky was the second of seven children born to a staff doctor at Moscow’s Mariinsky Hospital for the poor on November 11, 1821.
  • According to some sources, his father, Mikhail Andreyevich Dostoevsky, may have descended from Belarusian nobles. A well educated and caring family man, he was still rather ill-tempered and distrustful, and brought up his children in the old orthodox fashion, in an atmosphere of fear and obedience.
  • The brightest memories of Fyodor’s childhood were those of life in the countryside, on an estate in the Tula region, where his family spent the summer months.
  • His father was usually not present and the children enjoyed almost complete freedom. Fyodor lived much of his childhood distanced from his frail mother, Maria Nechayeva, and officious father. In these formative years, he formed a close bond with his elder brother Mikhail.
  • It was here that Fyodor acquired the knowledge of peasant life that would add truth to many of his fictional characters later.
  • His mother taught him how to read and write and he developed an interest in religion and French. In 1834, his father sent him to one of Moscow’s best boarding schools, where he was drawn to literature and reading.
  • He came to adore Aleksandr Pushkin, who is widely considered Russia’s greatest poet. Dostoevsky called him a “demigod” and a “prophet.” The author’s death in 1837 was a heavy blow to Dostoevsky, almost as heavy as the death of his mother, who was taken by tuberculosis that same year.
  • Later, in May, he followed his father’s wishes and entered St. Petersburg’s military engineering college, one of the country’s best educational institutions at the time.
  • However, Fyodor was uninterested in the training and fortunately, some of his co-students shared his loathing of military studies and love of literature, which led to the creation of a literary club around him.
  • The death of his father in 1839 provoked a serious nervous fits for young Fyodor, forestalling the future development of epilepsy.
  • He graduated in 1843 and was enrolled as a field engineer to a military engineering team stationed in St. Petersburg. He resigned just half a year later, deciding to live off his literary works alone.

Rising Star

  • His first novel Bednye Lyudi (“Poor Folk” in English) was ready by that time, and he published it in Nikolay Nekrasov’s Peterburgskiy Sbornik (“Petersburg Collection”) to extraordinary success.
  • Dostoevsky remembered this as the brightest time of his youth, which later in life provided him with much needed spiritual strength.
  • The famous literary critic Vissarion Belinsky praised him as a rising star and a future great artist of the Gogol school – the movement for an increasingly realistic and truthful depiction of life and reality in Russia, with criticism of the nobility and city officials and support for the rookie.
  • Belinsky accepted him into the close circle of his associates as an equal, however, the good relations between the group and Dostoevsky didn’t last long. Members of the group continuously insulted Dostoevsky’s vulnerable self-esteem and made fun of his works. Dostoevsky maintained relations with Belinsky, though he was deeply insulted by the criticism.
  • The following years saw Dostoevsky write a number of works: Dvoynik (“The Double” 1846), Hozyaika (“The Landlady” 1847), Belye Nochi (“White Nights” 1848), and Netochka Nezvanova (1849).
  • The works revealed Dostoevsky’s unparalleled realistic style while his deep psychological insight and the uniqueness of his characters distinguished him from other writers of the time.

Life in Detention

  • The work on Netochka Nezvanova was interrupted by Dostoevsky’s arrest on the night of April 23, 1849 because of his connection to the Petrashevsky Circle – a literary discussion group of officials, officers, and other progressive-minded people who were strongly opposed to monarchy and serfdom.
  • Originally intended for self-education and discussion of the theories of French socialists, the club later became a place to discuss the existing flaws in Russia’s system, and even spurred talks of a secret society and a revolution to create a democratic Russia and free the serfs.
  • Dostoevsky was detained for eight months. While in detention, he wrote Malenkiy Geroy (“A Little Hero”), which was published in 1857. He was then sentenced to death, but the Tsar changed the sentence to four years of punitive labor.
  • Dostoevsky, together with other prisoners, was brought to the Semenovsky drill ground in St. Petersburg (known today as Pioneers’ Square), where the death sentence was announced. He did not know until the very last moment that the sentence had been changed. The horror Dostoevsky felt at that moment later echoed in one of his most famous novels, “The Idiot” (1869).
  • He served his sentence in 1850-1854, describing the experience in Zapiski iz Mertvogo Doma (“The House of the Dead”, 1862). Afterwards, he was forcibly enrolled into the Siberian line battalion. During this period he apparently continued reading and wrote letters to his brother, asking him to send him books.
  • He fell in love with Maria Isaeva, the wife of an overseer. The relationship with a married woman was not an easy one for Dostoevsky, but soon her husband died, and in 1857, he married her.
  • Almost a decade of physical and moral suffering seemed to sharpen his perception of the woes of others and his ability to see and analyze their anguish and respond to the social injustice grew more acute.

Literary Works

  • It wasn’t until 1859 that he was allowed to retire. At first, he was only permitted to move to the city of Tver. That same year, he published two novels, Dyadushkin son (“Uncle’s Dream”) and Selo Stepanchikovo i ego obitateli (“The Village of Stepanchikovo”).
  • However, he longed to return to St. Petersburg, the country’s literary capital, and in 1860, he managed to secure a permit to travel there. At the time, Dostoevsky was in great need of money. His wife was ill with tuberculosis and writing did not earn them a lot. In 1861, he started to publish the magazine Vremya (“Time”) together with his elder brother.
  • The magazine quickly garnered great popularity and provided a decent living for both of them. In it, Dostoevsky published his novels “The Insulted and Humiliated”, “The House of the Dead”, and the short story “A Nasty Story”.
  • In “Time” and its successor magazine Epokha, Dostoevsky expressed his views on the political situation in Russia, which he developed during his years in exile.
  • He thought the country should unite every social layer and class under the wise leadership of a monarch and the Orthodox Church. He deemed the way of Western Europe ruinous for Russia.
  • In June 1862, Dostoevsky went abroad for the first time, visiting Germany, France, Switzerland, Italy, and England. In Paris, he met Apollinaria Suslova. His dramatic relationship with her was later reflected in “The Idiot”, “The Gambler”, and his other works. She is believed to be the main inspiration for Dostoevsky’s female characters.
  • Dostoevsky returned to Russia in 1863. The year that followed, he suffered a great loss when his wife died of tuberculosis in April and his brother passed in June.
  • After that, Dostoevsky took upon himself the publishing of Epoch, which was heavily in debt and had skipped three issues. Business improved for a short while, but plummeting circulation forced him to close the magazine down.
  • In 1865, he went to the resort town of Wiesbaden in Germany to improve his health. There, in 1866, he started work on one of his best-known novels, “Crime and Punishment”, centered on a psychological effect of one crime.
  • In the novel, St. Petersburg is shown in great detail with its multifaceted life and its multiple social layers. Philosophical discussions, ominous dreams, confessions, nightmares, grotesque, and caricature scenes flowing seamlessly into tragic situations, all work to show the writer’s deep vision of his epoch and the social and psychological turmoil of his characters.
  • In 1866, Dostoevsky’s expiring contract with his publishing house forced him to work on two novels simultaneously – “Crime and Punishment” and “The Gambler,” based on the impressions of his trip to Europe.
  • He also tried a new approach to work, employing the stenographer Anna Snitkina, whom he married in 1867. That same year, the couple went abroad, living first in Germany, then in Italy. Dostoevsky worked on the novels “The Possessed” and “The Idiot.”
  • “The Possessed” was centered on the nascent social-democratic movement in Russia in which Dostoevsky drew a vivid picture of the country’s political life of the 1860s-1870s, including a parallel to the social-democratic group of Sergey Nechaev, a formation known for its terrorist methods of working towards a revolution at all costs.
  • The idea of “The Idiot” was described by Dostoevsky himself as his favorite. He said that his goal was “to show a positively splendid person” and that “nothing in the world was more difficult than that, especially in these times.”
  • In 1878-1879, he wrote Bratya Karamazovy, popularly known as “The Brothers Karamazov”, a novel that summed up his views on life in Russia at the time. He described it as a “summarized depiction of contemporary reality, of the educated modern Russia” written in the form of a family chronicle.
  • It explores matters of faith, reason, spirituality, and morality. The novel has found acclaim with some of the world’s major thinkers, from Sigmund Freud, who ranked it among the best literature of all time alongside “Hamlet” and Sophocles’ “Oedipus the King,” to Pope Benedict XVI.

Last Years

  • In the last years of his life, Dostoevsky’s popularity grew. In 1877, he was elected a member of the Academy of Sciences. In 1879, he was invited to an international literary congress in London, where he was elected a member of the Honorary Committee of the International Literature Association and attended literary gatherings, reading excerpts from his own works and Pushkin’s poems.
  • In 1881, he decided to restart publishing the “Writer’s Diary” and began working on the first new issue. However, it was never published.
  • His health had been deteriorating and on the night of January 26, 1881 his throat started bleeding. In the afternoon on January 28, he was able to say his last goodbyes to his children and in the evening he died.
  • Fyodor Dostoevsky has left a legacy of literature that makes him one of the world’s – not just Russia’s – greatest writers of the 19th century. His works have been translated into numerous languages. They are still popularly read and assigned in schools and universities.
  • He explored and captured the depth of the human soul, surfacing emotions and feelings in times both dark and happy. And though his writing was inspired by what he saw in Russia or experienced himself, those feelings rang out as part of universal inner struggles facing readers from every part of the globe.

Fyodor Dostoevsky Worksheets

This is a fantastic bundle which includes everything you need to know about Fyodor Dostoevsky across 25 in-depth pages. These are ready-to-use Fyodor Dostoevsky worksheets that are perfect for teaching students about Fyodor Dostoevsky who was one of Russia’s greatest writers, whose works are read and discussed all over the world. His writing is steeped in deep psychology and the exploration of human nature, while it also accurately depicts the Russian reality of his time.

Complete List Of Included Worksheets

  • Authors Online
  • Pop Quiz
  • What’s In A Name?
  • Fyodor’s Journey
  • Library Hunt
  • Judge By The Book
  • Fyodor’s Fans
  • Dostoevsky Speaks
  • An Honest Thief
  • Crime and Exemption?

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is Fyodor Dostoevsky famous?

Dostoyevsky is most popular for his novella Notes from the Underground as well as four longer novels which are Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, The Possessed, and lastly The Brothers Karamazov.

How long was Dostoevsky jailed?

Dostoyevsky was imprisoned for 8 months. Then, one day in December, the prisoners were led out to Semyonovsky Square. There, a sentence of death by firing squad was pronounced on them. They were offered last rites and three prisoners were led out to be shot first.

Why are Dostoevsky’s books so long?

The people in the stories feel real, and readers can relate to their life experiences, anxieties, triumphs, and emotions.

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