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 CHILDHOOD
Fyodor
Dostoevsky was born on October 30, 1821 in a workhouse hospital of Moscow. His father
Mikhail Dostoevsky was a staff physician who, according to some was a despotic father and
a heavy drinker. His mother Maria Dostoevsky was the daughter of a Moscow merchant, and
unlike his father, was sensible, sentimental and caring. Dostoevsky was second of
their seven children.
Memories
of early childhood include those of his early life in the staff accommodation of Marinsky
Hospital where his father was a staff doctor. In the early childhood of
Fyodor, his father was too busy in his profession. As a child, Dostoevsky remember that, he or his siblings never played any pranks or ran about. Going for walks was a regular practice in the family and these walks were very solemn.
His father always talked about improvement in academics. As a child, he had never left his home town but for a couple of occasions when he joined his family in a pilgrimage.
Fyodor had a confined sort of childhood and so even in later life his novels never focused on the wide expanses of nature. Due to a lack of playmates in early childhood, he grew up to be hypersensitive, excessively demanding and jealous. It would however be paradoxical to talk of an isolated childhood in the midst of his six siblings but still Fyodor was not really capable of ordinary social interaction.
When Dostoevsky was 10, his parents bought the small form of Darovoe in the government of Tulssa, near Moscow. This meant deliverance from confinement for Fyodor and his siblings and his novels carried traces of influence of this.
EDUCATION
Nearly
around the time when these visits to the country began, education was initiated. Maternal
instruction in alphabet began at a very early age. Two visiting teachers – a priest
and a Frenchman, were also appointed. Then father gave them lessons in Latin. In 1834, He along with his brother Michael
went to school by the name L J Tchermark at Moscow. At school Fyodor was familiar with very few people.
DEATH OF MOTHER
Fyodor’s mother was
a sensible and caring woman. Her husband, Fyodor’s father was a heavy drinker and
Fyodor and his brother did not have much financial freedom at home even for their very
basic necessities, father always encouraged Fyodor and his brother to procure money by
their own means.
At home there was always
an atmosphere of monotony and gloom, in which Fyoder’s mother fell ill and died in
early 1837 when Fyodor was 15 years old. Fyodor always carried memories of his mother with
reverence but she can scarcely have played any great part in his life.
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MILITARY COLLEGE
Before the death of their mother it was already decided that Fyodor and Michael would be sent to the Military Engineering Academy at Petersburg in which their father had managed to obtain free seats for them.
The two boys were to stay alone there first time in their lives, the two were left alone at a new place. Later in the entrance examination Fyodor got through while Michael was rejected. Fyodor was a pensive, solitary student prone to fits of depression.
During his college days, he used to regularly write to his father. In one of his letters he mentioned "what terrible examples have I not seen there!" He wrote "I saw young boys who have worked out what their whole life was going to be like, at what particular time they |
would obtain a certain rank, what could be more profitable to their career, what was the best of making money…." During this period he directed his energies towards reading, especially French.
 Also there was one custom of whipping of new boys, or ‘hazel
hens’ as they were called. The new boys were made to crawl on all four, under the
table and would be whipped when they would emerge out from the other side. This was
thoroughly detested by Fyodor who hated every moment at college. To come out of these
frustrations and depressions he started reading Julius Caesar
and found the solace in the world of literature.
DEATH
OF FATHER
Dostoevsky’s father was murdered by
serfs in 1839. At the time of his father’s death, Dostoevsky was a cadet at Military
Engineering Academy.
LIFE
IN ARMY
Dostoevsky and his
brother entered the Military Engineering College at St Petersburg in 1837. True to his
work and service, he obtained the commission in 1841 and was subsequently promoted to the
rank of a lieutenant in 1842.
Dostoevsky attached
himself to Army Engineering Corps. St Petersburg in 1843 where he remained only for a year
and then resigned his commission in 1844 only to start serious career in writing which
started with the writing of Poor Folks.
In January 1856, Dostoevsky was promoted
to a non–commissioned officer. In October the same year, he was promoted to the rank
of a Lieutenant.  |
