29 January: Boreham on Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The Artist of the Steppes
On this day, the day after the anniversary of his death, there will steal into the hearts of every Russian, a grateful thought of Fyodor Dostoyevsky, one of the most passionate patriots and one of the most powerful novelists of all time. Dostoyevsky's influence was phenomenal. When, he passed away, he was accorded such a funeral as his country people had never before witnessed. The entire nation mourned; loftiest and lowliest alike lamented; the cities were in tears. Forty thousand men followed the body to the grave. Tolstoy declared that the death of Dostoyevsky darkened the sky of Europe. Alike by his personality and his pen, he stirred the souls of millions. He stands in a class by himself, one of the world's outstanding originals. There is nobody, in any country or in any age, with whom one can reasonably compare him. His novels are still being published in the best popular libraries. For sheer tremendousness they are without parallel. His emotional intensity is at times overpowering, his dramatic splendour terrific. For versatility of sentiment he is peerless. He can be unutterably horrible and exquisitely tender. In his own line he blazes in solitary grandeur.

Dostoyevsky cuts an uncouth and singularly unattractive figure as he shuffles across the stage of Russian history. "Just look at his countenance," exclaims Dr Georg Brandes, the Danish traveller, "Half the face of a Russian peasant and half the physiogomy of a criminal." Of small piercing eyes, flattened nose, long, thick, untidy beard, and singularly ungainly figure, he was a thing of strange fancies and weird hallucinations. He gave the impression of having been cowed by torture into a mood of indelible gloom. A being so unusual and so complex must necessarily be self-contradictory. Dostoyevsky certainly was. We catch sight of him in European drawing rooms surrounded by distinguished men and women eager to see the man who has produced such masterpieces of imagination and psychology. In such a framework Dostoyevsky is shy, taciturn, and extremely awkward, he looks half-ridiculous and half-revolting. But in another setting he appears very differently.

A Prophet Who Was Inspired By Torture
We see him, as Necrassov saw him, an exile in Siberia, surrounded by his fellow-convicts, and he appears almost sublime. He moves among the most depressed and most degraded with his New Testament in his hand, reading to them its words of comfort and grace. With a witchery and a charm that are indescribable, he recites the parable of the Prodigal Son, the story he regarded as the most perfect gem in any literature, the story he wove into most of his own novels, and that he begged his wife to read to him once more on his deathbed. In this environment Dostoyevsky seems a reincarnation of some ancient prophet, solacing his fellow-prisoners in their sufferings, eagerly encouraging their attempts at goodness, gently rebuking their excesses, and speaking earnestly to them of poetry, of science and of God. His career is as romantic as his novels; indeed, his novels are, in the main, a reflection of his adventurous career. As a small boy, he revels in historical fiction, particularly that of Sir Walter Scott, and he enters so vividly into the thrilling experiences of the various characters that he is often found in a swoon, clasping the volume in his hands.

As a young fellow he interests himself in the welfare of his country, he joins a society that meets to discuss public questions, and at the age of 28 is arrested for meddling with such high matters. With 33 others he is charged with conspiracy and sentenced to death. On a bitter morning, with the temperature many degrees below freezing point, they are led to the scaffold and compelled to stand nearly naked for half-an-hour facing the soldiers with their muskets. A pile of coffins is suggestively stacked up in the corner of the yard. At the last moment, with the muskets actually at the shoulders of the Guards, a white flag is waved and it is announced that the Tsar has commuted the sentence to 10 years' exile in Siberia. Several of the prisoners lost their reason under the strain, and several others died shortly afterwards. Dostoyevsky bravely survived the ordeal but it affected his nerves. He never recalled the experience without a shudder and he refers to it with horror in several of his books.

Dire Extremity Produces A Rich Romance
This is the most painful incident in his life story. The most pleasant is his meeting with his second wife. By the time he had reached the age of 45 he had indulged in two unhappy love affairs, one of which had led to his marrying a perfect fury. Then, through voluntarily taking over the debts of his dead brother, his finances had become involved. Moreover, he had fallen into the clutches of an unscrupulous publisher, for whom he had contracted to write a novel on the understanding that, if it was not ready by a certain date, all the author's copyrights were to fall into the publisher's hands. As the date approached the impossibility of the task became evident. As a last desperate resort, Dostoyevsky resolved to engage a stenographer, but no stenographer could be found. There was, it is true, a girl of 19 who knew shorthand, but female stenographers were then unknown and the girl doubted if her parents would consent to her taking the appointment.

Dostoyevsky's fame, however, allayed the parents' scruples, and the girl set to work. At first the novelist frightened her. Gradually, as she understood his hopeless situation, she came to pity him. Working literally day and night to get the manuscript finished, she wrote the last sheets in the very nick of time. Although he was more than twice her age, they married and lived happily. From that day the fortunes of Dostoyevsky suffered neither collapse nor eclipse. As a sincere patriot, as a brilliant novelist and as a trusted teacher, his authority steadily grew, and when he died at the age of 60 the whole world lamented his passing.

F W Boreham

Image: Fyodor Dostoyevsky