Dostoyevsky: His life and work

by Ronald Hingley

Dostoyevsky's was a life rich in paradoxes, sudden reversals, and smoldering obsessions. His first published work was enthusiastically hailed and then reviled by Russia's greatest critic, Belinsky; condemned to death by firing squad for subversive activities against the tyrant Nicholas II, he spent ten years in Siberian prison and exile instead; he swung from early socialism and atheism to reactionary right0wing attitudes, extreme patriotism, and religious fanaticim; he was constantly in debt and saw gambling as the only way out; in the young stenographer, half his age, o whom he dictated many of his works in frantic attempts to meet deadline after deadline, he found a devoted wife; he died celebrated and worshipped as a national seer.

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction

222 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1978

About the author

Dr. Ronald Francis Hingley (1920-2010) was a scholar, translator and historian of Russia, specializing in Russian history and literature.

Hingley was editor of the nine-volume collection of Chekhov's works published by Oxford University Press between 1974 and 1980. He also wrote numerous books including biographies of Chekhov, Dostoyevsky, Stalin and Boris Pasternak. He won the James Tait Black Award for his 1976 biography A New Life of Anton Chekhov . He also translated several works of Russian literature, among them Alexander Solzhenitsyn's classic One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich which Hingley co-translated with Max Hayward.

He was a Governing Body Fellow of St Antony's College, Oxford from 1961 to 1987 and an Emeritus Fellow from 1987 onwards.

His son is the musician Tom Hingley.

Reviews

[Nick · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a very good and highly readable biography of Dostoyevsky. It is older, and may be out of print these days, but worth seeking out. I read a library copy. It was a good level of detail for what I wanted to know.

[Luiz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Picked this up from a used book store a while back and said I would read it when I had read demons and the Brothers Karamazov. Finished TBK this year and made it about ½ way through demons a couple years ago but having little kids got in the way.

This is a quick overview of his major works and having read most of them was a fascinating insight into how much of his own lived experience and how much of the news and real situations he put in his books. Liked how the author put himself in the book and defended Dostoyevsky from Freud. Will try to finish demons and maybe the diary of a writer and reread the idiot/crime and punishment/notes from the underground before tackling Joseph Frank's biography.

[Alex Pearl · Rating 4 out of 5]

On December 22nd 1849, Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoyevsky was taken from his prison cell in the Petropavlovsky Fortress in St Petersburg to Semyonovsky Square, and informed that for his crime of treason against the Russian Imperial State, he had been sentenced to immediate death by firing squad. The ‘crimes’ of Dostoyevsky and his 21 comrades amounted to little more than debating judicial reform, socialism, the emancipation of serfs and the transformative power of revolution. Nevertheless, here he stood, facing the imperial guns and his own mortality. At the last minute, the sentences were ‘commuted’ to hard labour in Siberia where despite the brutal march through the Russian and Siberian winter, and 10 long years of hard labour, Dostoyevsky seemed to flourish. This interesting quirk of being most effective and creative when in turmoil, marked the entire life of Dostoyevsky. He was, in everything, a man of extremes. Wild success followed by public derision, great tomes of Russian Literature interspersed with years of comparative floundering.

Writing to his friend the Russian poet Apollon Maykov, Dostoyevsky described his ‘base and excessively impetuous nature. Everywhere and in all things I go to the limit. All my life I’ve overstepped the mark.’ In political views, professional success, religious belief, sexual appetites and mood, Fyodor swung from from one polarisation to another. He transitioned from left-wing socialist reformer and atheist, to staunch right-wing nationalist, and religious fanatic.

Ronald Hingley serves up an accessible portrayal of a life peppered with intrigues and conflicts; the eloquent summary of a man most comfortable when in torment.

[Rat Boy Hedonist · Rating 3 out of 5]

Poor Fedya!!