The Fire Under Fyodor Dostoyevsky, By Tracey Vale

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dostoevsky_1872.jpg

The opening chapter of a book, the name of which I can’t recall, reminds us that we have, on average, a certain number of days left and that we should think of our lives in this way and not waste the time we have left. ‘Carpe Diem’, or ‘Seize the day’ is a quote made particularly famous in the movie Dead Poets’ Society and one that suits this message.

The renowned Russian writer, Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881) was reminded of this in a way that most of us will never experience, a completely jolting, terrifying experience causing him to value his time and talent and compelling him with an incredible drive.

It was December 1849, Dostoyevsky was blindfolded as part of his punishment for the ‘Patrashevsky conspiracy’, believed since to be a primarily harmless group, following his arrest for sedition. The firing squad, under orders from the Russian Czar, had lifted their rifles and prepared to shoot when a messenger ran toward them, yelling “Stop!”, signifying a last-minute reprieve. Instead, he was sentenced to four years imprisonment in Siberia.

“Czar Nicholas had decided to sentence the Petrashevsky radicals to hard labor soon after their arrest. But he wanted to teach them a harsher lesson as well, so he dreamed up the cruel theater of the death sentence, with its careful details—the priest, the hoods, the coffins, the last-second pardon. This, he thought, would really humble and humiliate them. In fact some of the prisoners were driven insane by the events of that day. But the effect on Dostoyevsky was different: he had been afflicted for years with a sense of wandering, of feeling lost, of not knowing what to do with his time. An extremely sensitive man, that day he literally felt his own death deep in his bones. And he experienced his "pardon" as a rebirth.”1

He returned to St. Petersburg with a new motto: to do as much as he could in the shortest possible time, to achieve to the best of his ability. As this attitude was directly the result of his overturned execution, he became angry at those who expressed pity for his time of imprisonment. There was no residual bitterness—only an open view of his future. He pledged to utilise every moment, forcing himself back to that day whenever he felt himself straying from this goal.

“…he would have to write, and not the way other novelists wrote—as if it were a pleasant little artistic career, with all its attendant delights of salons, lectures, and other frills. Dostoyevsky wrote as if his life were at stake, with an intense feeling of urgency and seriousness.” 1

It was a lasting pledge, right up until his death in 1881. He wrote 11 novels, including Poor Folk, Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, The Devils and The Brothers Karamazov, 17 short novels, three novellas and three essays. Acknowledged as an important and relevant psychologist in world literature, his work has influenced such writers as Ernest Hemingway and Sigmund Freud as well as influencing thinkers behind both the French and Russian revolutions.

References

• 1. The 33 Strategies of War by Robert Greene: Cited 4/5/12 at http://www.artblog.net/post/2012/01/dostoyevsky/
• http://www.yamazumiyourlife.com/pivot-points/ Cited 4/5/12
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fyodor_Dostoyevsky Cited 4/5/12
• http://www.utoronto.ca/tsq/DS/01/003.shtml Cited 4/5/12