Fyodor Dostoevsky

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky was a towering figure in Russian literature and one of the greatest psychological novelists in world literature. After early work like Poor Folk, he was arrested in 1849 for political activism, sentenced to death, and reprieved moments before execution—then spent four years in Siberian exile. His experiences shaped major novels including Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, Demons, and The Brothers Karamazov. Dostoevsky’s works probe free will, guilt, faith, and moral conflict, pioneering psychological realism and influencing existentialism, modern literature, and philosophical thought.