DOSTOYEVSKY, FYODOR (MIKHAYLOVICH)

born Nov. 11 [Oct. 30, old style], 1821, Moscow died Feb. 9 [Jan. 28, O.S.], 1881, St. Petersburg, Russia Dostoyevsky also spelled Dostoevsky Russian novelist, journalist, and short story writer whose psychological penetration into the darkest recesses of the human heart, together with his unsurpassed moments of illumination, have had a profound and universal influence on the 20th-century novel. A brief account of the life and works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky follows; for a full biography, see Dostoyevsky. Dostoyevsky was graduated as a military engineer, but he resigned his commission to devote himself to writing. Poor Folk (1846) was followed by other novels and stories of St. Petersburg life. In 1849, for his participation in a radical intellectual discussion group, Dostoyevsky was sentenced to death. The sentence was commuted to imprisonment in Siberia, and The House of the Dead (186162) is a fictionalized account of these experiences. Released in 1854, he married (1857), travelled in Europe, and, with his brother, founded a magazine, Epokha, in which Notes from the Underground (1864) appeared. Crime and Punishment, the first of his major novels, was published in 1866. In the next year he entered into his happy second marriage to Anna Snitkina. Other novels followed, including The Idiot (186869) and The Possessed (186972). By the time he published his last work, The Brothers Karamazov (187980), often considered his masterpiece, he was recognized in his own country as one of its greatest writers.