The Premier Site for Russian Culture
Writer, journalist. Born in Moscow (1821) in the family of physician Mikhail Dostoyevsky (1789–1839) and Maria Nechayeva (1800–1837). Studied at the Central School of Engineering in St Michael’s Castle in St Petersburg (1838–43). Resigned with the rank of lieutenant (1844). Joined the circles of Vissarion Belinsky (1845–47), Mikhail Petrashevsky (1847) and Nikolai Speshnev and Sergei Durov (1849). Arrested and imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress (1849). Sentenced to death, commuted to four years hard labour in Omsk. Served in the Siberian Seventh Line Battalion. Resigned and returned to St Petersburg (1859). Published such periodicals as The Time (1861–63) and The Epoch (1864–65). Wrote a series of novels set in mid-nineteenth-century St Petersburg, including The Double (1846), The White Nights (1848), Netochka Nezvanova (1849), Crime and Punishment (1866) and The Idiot (1868). Rented an apartment at 5/2 Kuznechny Lane (1846, 1878–81), later turned into a memorial museum (1971). Died of a lung hemorrhage in St Petersburg and buried at the St Alexander Nevsky Monastery (1881).