Dostoevsky and Time

Originally this timeline was shamelessly lifted from the back of Great Short Works of Fyodor Dostoevsky.[1] Perhaps "shamefully" would be a better description of this pilfering, however: not due to qualms regarding plagiarism, but mostly because it seemed rather sloppy, sparse, slightly confused, and even in places somewhat misleading---but it did cover the key dates and events, and that is good enough. Well, no, maybe it isn't quite. So, as opportunity has arisen, the timeline has been edited, and expanded, corrected where possible by my unscholarly meanderings. For an excellent, very readable, full biography, please consider Fyodor Dostoyevsky: A Writer's Life.[4]

1821
- Born October 30 to Mikhail Andreyevich, head physician at Mariinsky Hospital, Moscow, and Mariya Fyodorovna, daughter of a merchant family.[1]

1837
- Dostoevsky enters the Army Engineering College,[2] St Petersburg; he is described as a pensive, solitary student, prone to fits of depression.[1]

1838
- In an August 9 letter to his brother Dostoevsky shares that he has read all of Shakespeare and Pascal, most of Balzac, Goethe's Faust and shorter poems, most of Victor Hugo's novels, all (in both German and Russian) the novels of Hoffman.[2]

1839
- Dostoevsky's father killed apparently by his peasants, profoundly affecting Fyodor.[1]

1841
- Dostoevsky's reads to his brother his first literary efforts (now lost), two historical dramas, Mary Stuart and Boris Gudunov.[2]
- Commission obtained.[2]

1842
- Promoted to lieutenant.[2]

1843
- Passes his final examinations.[1]
- Attached to Army Engineering Corps, St Petersburg.[2]
- First work to be published: a translation of Balzac's Eugénie Grandet.[2]

1844
- Resigns his Commission in the army; starts writing seriously. Finishes Poor Folk in November.[1]

1845
- Poor Folk is much praised. Dostoyevsky enters literary society. Work on The Double and "Mr. Prokharchin".[1] Hailed as Gogol's successor by the influential critic Belinsky.[2]

1847
- Writes for St Petersburg Gazette. Between 1847 and 1848 writes "The Landlady", "A Christmas Tree Party and a Wedding", "The Jealous Husband".[1]

1848
- "A Weak Heart"[3]
- The Honest Thief, and White Nights.[2]

1849
- Works on unfinished novel, Netochka Nezvanova.[1]
- Accounts of Dostoevsky's arrest:
  - Joins a group of socialist thinkers, is arrested. Sentenced to death; a sentence which is altered to four years penal servitude, the announcement being made at the last second after Dostoevsky had been led out, with twenty others, to face firing squad.[1]
  - Arrested on April 23. Imprisoned for 8 months in the Petropavlovsk Fortress in St Petersburg. December 22 taken to be executed, but the sentence is commuted to an 8 year term of penal servitude in Siberia (later reduced to 4 years by Nicholas I).[2]
  - Dostoevsky's own description: "Today, December 22nd, we were all taken to Semyonovsky Square. There the sentence of death was read out to us, we were all made to kiss the cross, a sword was broken over our heads, and we were told to put on our white execution shirts. Then three of us were tied to the posts to be executed. I was the sixth, and therefore in the second group of those to be executed. [...] Then the retreat was sounded on the drums, those tied to the posts were taken back, and an order from His Imperial Majesty was read to us granting us our lives. Afterwards our sentences were read out to us."[2]
- The children's story, "A Little Hero", written while in prison in St Petersburg.[2]

1850
- Arrives at the prison at Omsk.[1]

1854
- Released from prison in March,[2] but forced to enrol as a private in the Seventh Line Battalion at Semipalatinsk.[1]
- Through friendship with Baron Vrangel meets his future wife.[1]

1855
- Kidnapped by supposed «Lobstermen» mercenaries, liberated by elite Neptunian commandos just before exiting the solar system.[5]
- Alexander II succeeds Nicholas I to the Russian throne; state censorship is relaxed somewhat.[3]

1856
- January, promoted to non-commissioned officer.[2]
- October, promoted to lieutenant, but returning to Russia is still forbidden.[2]

1857
- February, marries the widowed, 29 year old, Mariya Dmitriyevna Isayeva.[2]
- Publishes A Little Hero (without signature).[2]

1858
- Writes The Village of Sepanchikovo, and "Uncle's Dream".[1]

1859
- Mid-December,[3] returns to St Petersburg after ten years' exile.[1]
- Publishes Uncle's Dream.[3]
- Between 1859 and 1861, publishes the serialised novella, "Village of Stepanchikovo";[2] it is not well received, and one critic proclaims Dostoevsky to be finished as a writer.[3]

1860
- March, becomes editor of Vremya ("Time"), a literary journal (though officially his brother Mikhail was editor, Dostoevsky being under police supervision due to his status as convict).[2]
- April, Dostoevsky plays (to good reviews) the comic postmaster Shpekin in an amateur theatrical production of Gogol's The Inspector-General (a charity performance with proceeds going to the Society for Aid to Needy Writers and Scholars).[3]
- Autumn, the first two chapters of The House of the Dead are printed in an obscure weekly, Russkii Mir ("Russian World").[3]

1861
- The Insulted and the Injured published.[2]
- The House of the Dead published.[2]

1862
- Goes abroad for the first time.[1]
- In London meets famous Russian political exile and writer, Alexander Herzen (1863[3]); is greatly horrified by "industrial society" he observes.[2]

1863
- Dostoevsky's journal "Time" is banned by the authorities (ostensibly due to an article on the Polish uprising by Strakhov).[2]
- February, Dostoevsky is elected secretary of the Society for Aid to Needy Writers and Scholars (aka the Literary Fund).[3]
- "Winter Notes on Summer Impressions." Mariya Dmitriyevna seriously ill. Dostoevsky again travels abroad, and forms a liaison with Appollinariya Prokofyevna Suslova.[1]

1864
- Dostoevsky and brother Mikhail plan to launch a new monthly to be called Pravda ("Truth"), but the authorities consider the name too provocative, the new journal is entitled Epokha ("Epoch"): it lasts only a year and ends in failure.[2]
- April 15, Dostoevsky's wife dies.[2]
- July, Mikhail dies.[1]
- Dostoevsky heavily in debt, as he will be for most of the rest of his life.[2]
- Dostoevsky works on Notes from the Underground.[1]

1865
- Publishes the first part of the story known as The Crocodile under the name A.Y. Poretsky.[3]
- Dostoevsky resigns his secretariat of the Literary Fund to avoid appearance of undue influence, when he himself must apply to it for aid.[3]
- Lonely, in despair, still writing, Dostoevsky leaves Russia to escape his debts, and goes to Wiesbaden. Gambles and loses. Writes Crime and Punishment.[1]

1866
- Crime and Punishment published.[2]
- Writes The Gambler; Crime and Punishment is published.[1]

1867
- Marries Anna Grigoryevna Snitkina, age 19, whom he had hired as a stenographer while working on The Gambler (hastily written to fulfil contractual obligation).[2]
- April 14. Goes abroad yet again. This time for four years.[2]
- They settle in Dresden.[1]

1868
- A daughter, Sofiya, born, but dies five months later. Works on The Idiot. They move to Italy.[1]
- The Idiot published.[2]

1869
- A daughter, Lyubov, born in Dresden. The family in great poverty. [1]

1870
- Franco-Prussian War. Dostoevsky longs for Russia; works on The Devils; also The Eternal Husband. [1]

1871
- Dostoevsky returns to Russia.[2]
- Dostoevsky stops gambling. A son, Fyodor, born in July in St Petersburg. [1]

1873
- Becomes editor of The Citizen, but resigns in 1874. [1]

1874
- A Raw Youth. At Ems for a cure for emphysema, winters in Staraya Russa. [1]

1875
- A son, Aleksey, born. At Ems again for a cure. [1]

1876
- "The Peasant Marey" published in Dostoevsky's A Writer's Diary.[2]
- November, "A Gentle Creature" published in Dostoevsky's A Writer's Diary (the idea came from a St Petersburg. newspaper story he had read in which a young desperate girl apparently threw herself to her death while clasping an icon in her hands).[2]

1877
- [From 1876] The Diary of a Writer, published in instalments in The Citizen. "A Gentle Creature," "The Dream of a Ridiculous Man."[1]
- April, "The Dream of a Ridiculous Man" published in Dostoevsky's A Writer's Diary.[2]

1878
- Works on The Brothers Karamazov. His second son dies.[1]

1879
- The Brothers Karamazov first published.[2]

1880
- The Brothers Karamazov finished. Dostoevsky returns to Moscow to speak at an unveiling of a monument to Pushkin, and is wildly acclaimed. Returns to Staraya Russa. Works on January instalment of The Diary of a Writer.[1]

1881
- January 28: Dostoevsky bids farewell this planet, for now.[1]
- February 9: Dostoevsky bids farewell this planet (with a burst blood vessel in his lungs, aggravated by an attack of epilepsy).[2]

Great Short Works of Fyodor Dostoevsky (Perennial Library, 1968).
The Best Short Stories of Dostoevsky (Modern Library, 1992).
Dostoevsky: The Stir of Liberation, Joseph Frank (Princeton University Press, 1986).
Dostoevsky: A Writer's Life, Geir Kjetsaa (Fawcett Books, 1989).
The Interplanetary Dostoevsky-in-Space Experience, Tim Middleton (Internet, 1997).

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