But for a long time he was also addicted to gambling, which he only quit 24.4.1871 after he lost his last Taler at the casino in Wiesbaden. He wrote to his wife Anna that he will never again set a foot into a casino because has become „a new person“:
„Anja, my guardian angel! Great things have happened to me. Gone is the vile delusion (fantazija) that tormented me for almost ten years. For ten years (more precisely since the death of my brother, when I was suddenly crushed by debt) I constantly dreamt of winning at the game. I dreamed about it seriously and passionately. But now that's all over. This was FINALLY the last time. Believe me Anja, my hands are free now. The game tied my hands. I was captivated by the game. But now I will think about work and no longer spend nights dreaming about the game like I used to. And as a result, the work will also progress faster and better, and God will bless it.“ (letter to Anna. Dating from the 29th of April 1871).
By the way: the meaning of the English word „addiction“ has changed of the last centuries - from
„To speak to,’ its earliest meaning, is explained by legal and augural technical usage (5th cent. BCE). As addicere and addictus evolved in the Middle and Late Roman Republic, the notion of enslavement, a secondary derivation from its legal usage, persisted as descriptive and no longer literal. In the Early Modern period, the verb addict meant simply ‘to attach.’ The object of that attachment could be good or bad, imposed or freely chosen. By the 17th century, addiction was mostly positive in the sense of devoting oneself to another person, cause or pursuit. We found no evidence for an early medical model. Conclusion: Gambling appears to be the only behavior that could satisfy both original uses; it had a strongly positive meaning (its association with divination), and an equally negative, stigmatizing one. Historically, addiction is an auto-antonym, a word with opposite, conflicting meanings. Recent applications are not a corruption of the word but are rooted in earliest usage.“ see https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/16066359.2018.1543412#abstract
Thanks for this bitter-sweet excursion into Dostoevsky‘s smoking habits. He was not only addicted to tobacco but also for a long period of his life a gambler
Indeed, his gambling addiction makes for a far more compelling subject—he wrote extensively about it, whereas smoking wasn't a topic that particularly interested him as a writer. I plan to write about his gambling addiction someday, but it should be discussed in conjunction with his novel "The Gambler".
I’m a smoker and I’ve sought the same reasons cited here. I smoke when I drive, some long days saw four packages of cigarettes smoked. If I look at pictures of me from 18 years old to my current 55, chances are I have a cigarette or my pipe (which I selectively smoke at times when I’m either poor or I want to stand apart from the cigarette smokers, like Dostoevsky’s cigars), it has been a part of my life I’m not willing to give up yet. I love smoking when it fills the hunger, I hate it when it’s just an addictive staple of my hour.
That said, I’m fully in tune with Dostoevsky however I never saw the same allure to gambling that he did, thankfully. And whenever I’ve read about his life, I’ve never seen this extreme addiction written out and I thought I’d read (often) that he died of “consumption”, which was commonplace then.
He suffered an acute episode—pulmonary emphysema was the final condition that led to his death. At the time, he was already battling chronic bronchitis and pulmonary tuberculosis, in addition to his epilepsy.
My dad smoked while he wrote. It’s still a vivid memory—Dad with a cigarette between his index and middle finger, pecking away at a keyboard, hacking out words for articles.
I detested the smell of smoke growing up. I made it to fifteen before peer pressure got the better of me, taking my first puffs from a friend’s Benson & Hedges.
I’ve since quit, but throughout my twenties, writing, reading, and smoking seemed to belong together. Whether ruminating on words or editing them, smoking became an inseparable part of the process.
Smoking is indeed often associated with a pensive writer in front of a keyboard, typewriter, or sheet of paper. Such romanticization. Many writers (artists) are photographed exactly this way. It's a shame there are no photographs of Dostoevsky smoking.
Everyone around me always smoked, and that's exactly why in my rebellious years I chose not to do it, to avoid being like everyone else. But more likely, I just felt sorry about spending money on cigarettes.
Thank you for such an interesting article. Thirteen years to pay off his brother's debts! And how is it that he was so aware of the dangers of smoking back then but in the twentieth century in North America people were believing doctors that were recommending the various health benefits of the habit? (How people can rationalise making money off such a poison is beyond me.) And I must read "A Writer's Diary".
Dostoevsky should have stuck with the expensive chocolates! (Do we know anything more about those, Dana?)
I found little about chocolate. Dostoevsky himself hardly wrote about his culinary preferences. Therefore, thanks to Anna, his wife, we learn some details. It is said that Dostoevsky generally loved various sweets: jam, pastila, chocolate, nuts with honey and so on. He drank a lot of tea and snacked on sweets.
Yes, his habits weren't the healthiest and shortened his life, but they gave him strength and enthusiasm to write. Due to his debts, he wrote novels and didn't abandon them because he needed the money. Perhaps if he had given up smoking and gambling, he might have written even less - who knows?!
Very well elaborated description of Dostoevsky’s life long personal history and habit ,when it is done knowing the harmful affects & specially young children adopting the same habit ,I have seen the affects of second hand smoke at home the kids are exposed to ,being pediatrician for past 47 years have had children with chronic bronchitis & asthma,the sad part is even if telling parents of second hand smoking many of them still continue their habit.Some how smoking in USA is considerably down.
Thank you for sharing your medical perspective on the effects of smoking. It's encouraging to hear that smoking rates have decreased in the USA, though it remains troubling that many parents continue the habit despite being informed of the risks to their children.
Some medical background that may be of interest to folks.
So emphysema today is more commonly called COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) today although sometimes the more antiquated term is used. Unfortunately it’s still quite prevalent and cigarettes are the main culprit. Delicate lung tissue is gradually destroyed. Imagine a hyperinflated balloon but flaccid that has lost its elasticity and can’t expel air. Try taking a deep breath in and then, while holding your breath, try breathing in and out. Patients experience this panic to breath which is called air hunger. In the end stages, the disease is horrible.
COPD patients are predisposed to recurrent infections so Dostoyevsky’s story fits.
The acute episode could be so many different things, though. Coughing up blood (hemoptysis) has a vast differential, including TB, pulmonary embolism, cancers, lung abscesses, bronhciectasis, bronchitis etc. We’ll never know for certain. However, cigarettes most likely would have contributed to the disease process.
Thank you very much for the medical details. As I understand it, there was no way to cure this at that time. With such symptoms, Dostoevsky had no chance of survival.
But for a long time he was also addicted to gambling, which he only quit 24.4.1871 after he lost his last Taler at the casino in Wiesbaden. He wrote to his wife Anna that he will never again set a foot into a casino because has become „a new person“:
„Anja, my guardian angel! Great things have happened to me. Gone is the vile delusion (fantazija) that tormented me for almost ten years. For ten years (more precisely since the death of my brother, when I was suddenly crushed by debt) I constantly dreamt of winning at the game. I dreamed about it seriously and passionately. But now that's all over. This was FINALLY the last time. Believe me Anja, my hands are free now. The game tied my hands. I was captivated by the game. But now I will think about work and no longer spend nights dreaming about the game like I used to. And as a result, the work will also progress faster and better, and God will bless it.“ (letter to Anna. Dating from the 29th of April 1871).
By the way: the meaning of the English word „addiction“ has changed of the last centuries - from
„To speak to,’ its earliest meaning, is explained by legal and augural technical usage (5th cent. BCE). As addicere and addictus evolved in the Middle and Late Roman Republic, the notion of enslavement, a secondary derivation from its legal usage, persisted as descriptive and no longer literal. In the Early Modern period, the verb addict meant simply ‘to attach.’ The object of that attachment could be good or bad, imposed or freely chosen. By the 17th century, addiction was mostly positive in the sense of devoting oneself to another person, cause or pursuit. We found no evidence for an early medical model. Conclusion: Gambling appears to be the only behavior that could satisfy both original uses; it had a strongly positive meaning (its association with divination), and an equally negative, stigmatizing one. Historically, addiction is an auto-antonym, a word with opposite, conflicting meanings. Recent applications are not a corruption of the word but are rooted in earliest usage.“ see https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/16066359.2018.1543412#abstract
Thanks for this bitter-sweet excursion into Dostoevsky‘s smoking habits. He was not only addicted to tobacco but also for a long period of his life a gambler
Indeed, his gambling addiction makes for a far more compelling subject—he wrote extensively about it, whereas smoking wasn't a topic that particularly interested him as a writer. I plan to write about his gambling addiction someday, but it should be discussed in conjunction with his novel "The Gambler".
I’m a smoker and I’ve sought the same reasons cited here. I smoke when I drive, some long days saw four packages of cigarettes smoked. If I look at pictures of me from 18 years old to my current 55, chances are I have a cigarette or my pipe (which I selectively smoke at times when I’m either poor or I want to stand apart from the cigarette smokers, like Dostoevsky’s cigars), it has been a part of my life I’m not willing to give up yet. I love smoking when it fills the hunger, I hate it when it’s just an addictive staple of my hour.
That said, I’m fully in tune with Dostoevsky however I never saw the same allure to gambling that he did, thankfully. And whenever I’ve read about his life, I’ve never seen this extreme addiction written out and I thought I’d read (often) that he died of “consumption”, which was commonplace then.
He suffered an acute episode—pulmonary emphysema was the final condition that led to his death. At the time, he was already battling chronic bronchitis and pulmonary tuberculosis, in addition to his epilepsy.
My dad smoked while he wrote. It’s still a vivid memory—Dad with a cigarette between his index and middle finger, pecking away at a keyboard, hacking out words for articles.
I detested the smell of smoke growing up. I made it to fifteen before peer pressure got the better of me, taking my first puffs from a friend’s Benson & Hedges.
I’ve since quit, but throughout my twenties, writing, reading, and smoking seemed to belong together. Whether ruminating on words or editing them, smoking became an inseparable part of the process.
Smoking is indeed often associated with a pensive writer in front of a keyboard, typewriter, or sheet of paper. Such romanticization. Many writers (artists) are photographed exactly this way. It's a shame there are no photographs of Dostoevsky smoking.
Everyone around me always smoked, and that's exactly why in my rebellious years I chose not to do it, to avoid being like everyone else. But more likely, I just felt sorry about spending money on cigarettes.
Thank you for such an interesting article. Thirteen years to pay off his brother's debts! And how is it that he was so aware of the dangers of smoking back then but in the twentieth century in North America people were believing doctors that were recommending the various health benefits of the habit? (How people can rationalise making money off such a poison is beyond me.) And I must read "A Writer's Diary".
Dostoevsky should have stuck with the expensive chocolates! (Do we know anything more about those, Dana?)
I found little about chocolate. Dostoevsky himself hardly wrote about his culinary preferences. Therefore, thanks to Anna, his wife, we learn some details. It is said that Dostoevsky generally loved various sweets: jam, pastila, chocolate, nuts with honey and so on. He drank a lot of tea and snacked on sweets.
Such a tragic consequence of heavy smoking. Had he kicked the habit and stayed away from gambling, he might have gone on to write more great works.
Yes, his habits weren't the healthiest and shortened his life, but they gave him strength and enthusiasm to write. Due to his debts, he wrote novels and didn't abandon them because he needed the money. Perhaps if he had given up smoking and gambling, he might have written even less - who knows?!
Very well elaborated description of Dostoevsky’s life long personal history and habit ,when it is done knowing the harmful affects & specially young children adopting the same habit ,I have seen the affects of second hand smoke at home the kids are exposed to ,being pediatrician for past 47 years have had children with chronic bronchitis & asthma,the sad part is even if telling parents of second hand smoking many of them still continue their habit.Some how smoking in USA is considerably down.
Thank you for sharing your medical perspective on the effects of smoking. It's encouraging to hear that smoking rates have decreased in the USA, though it remains troubling that many parents continue the habit despite being informed of the risks to their children.
Wonderful article, Dana. Ty.
Some medical background that may be of interest to folks.
So emphysema today is more commonly called COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) today although sometimes the more antiquated term is used. Unfortunately it’s still quite prevalent and cigarettes are the main culprit. Delicate lung tissue is gradually destroyed. Imagine a hyperinflated balloon but flaccid that has lost its elasticity and can’t expel air. Try taking a deep breath in and then, while holding your breath, try breathing in and out. Patients experience this panic to breath which is called air hunger. In the end stages, the disease is horrible.
COPD patients are predisposed to recurrent infections so Dostoyevsky’s story fits.
The acute episode could be so many different things, though. Coughing up blood (hemoptysis) has a vast differential, including TB, pulmonary embolism, cancers, lung abscesses, bronhciectasis, bronchitis etc. We’ll never know for certain. However, cigarettes most likely would have contributed to the disease process.
Thank you very much for the medical details. As I understand it, there was no way to cure this at that time. With such symptoms, Dostoevsky had no chance of survival.
Yes, it's still a chronic, irreversible disease even now and the only thing that benefits survival is...you guessed it...smoking cessation
Tobacco took down C S Lewis too
Oh, there are so many connections between them...
I quit smoking about 15 years ago. It's the best thing I've ever done for myself.
Great writer , deep philosopher and his family history is Lithuanian, what a wonderful story 🇷🇺☦️