And the The Welcome to Russian History

Russian History Retold, episode 152, the life of Fyodor Mikhailich Tostoyevsky.

Last time, we began a new series celebrating the cultural history of Russia by going over the life of Pjodar Tchaikovsky.

This time we go from music to writing with the life of Fyodor Dostayevsky.

He was born on November 11, 1821, the second child of Dr. Mikhail, Dostevsky, and Maria Nechaiba.

He had seven siblings and all but two, the Yubov who died in infancy and his brother

Mikhail, but outlive him. He grew up on the grounds of the Morinsky Hospital for the Poor,

which was in a lower class district on the edges of Moscow. There he would come across many of the patients, some of whom would be the basis of

characters in his literary works over the span of his life.

One character was created in his mind after getting his father to attend to a young

nine-year-old girl who had been raped by a drunk. The older man was the basis of

people in his works, the devils and the brothers katamasov, were a mature man would desire young girls.

Part of his incredible gift was taking personal experiences and sharing them in his writings. At an early age his parents would read to

him from a variety of works like heroic sagas and fairy tales. When he turned

four his mother began to teach him how to read using the Bible.

His father was a strict disciplinarian who pushed his children towards advanced education

through literature. He was exposed to writers like Goethe, Schiller,

Pushkin, Radcliffe, Servantes and Homer. A small and gangly boy, Dosteevsky grew to be only 5 foot 3, or 1.6 meters.

When he and his one brother were sent to the Nikolayev Military Engineering Institute in 1838 shortly after his mother died the year before.

He was obviously not the military type.

His brother was actually turned away due to poor health.

So there he went alone.

...