7 Comments
Nov 1Liked by Dana • Dostoevsky Bookclub

Love these special essays. With those kind of motives, very likely he was done in.

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Nov 4Liked by Dana • Dostoevsky Bookclub

Thank you so much for this article! Your writing ALWAYS makes me want to go find every journal and diary of those in the Dostoevsky family circle and read each perspective firsthand. It makes me sad to read the various accounts of abuse at the hand of Dostoevsky’s father, and I wonder what his own upbringing was like.

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author

I'm delighted you enjoyed the article. 🙌🏻

Describing Dostoevsky's childhood is challenging, as he rarely discussed it, especially regarding his father. However, accounts from family members and friends suggest his father was extremely strict. Fyodor feared him and avoided any contradiction. The relationship likely involved psychological and verbal abuse, though it's difficult to make claims about physical violence. This experience profoundly shaped Fyodor's life, leaving him with low self-esteem and difficulty asserting himself.

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Nov 3Liked by Dana • Dostoevsky Bookclub

Thank you for this essay, which was so interesting to read. Whatever happened to.him, he sounds like a very horrible man It's extraordinary the power these landowners had over their serfs, able to beat them and taking young girls for themselves.

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Fascinating to know something about Dostoyevsky's childhood as it must have informed his writing.

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I don’t understand why Dostoevsky’s father's death is mysterious. None of Dostoevsky's family members started the process if I remember correctly. I have to open his Notebooks. But what is in my memory: His father bought a small estate with the serfs when he stopped working at the hospital and left Moscow. He took a serf woman as his lover, began to drink, and went to seed. A male serf who loved that woman became very jealous and started a fight. The other peasants joined, and it was impossible to prove who exactly was guilty of killing. Besides, the serfs collected money to bribe somebody in the trial.

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It's mysterious because the circumstances of death don't align with official documents and later accounts. Facts were concealed, and several possibilities exist—including murder. However, if they simply couldn't prove who committed the murder, as you suggest, they wouldn't change the cause to a natural one like apoplexy. They would still indicate murder, which wasn't done right away.

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