Fyodor Dostoevsky
Born in 1821, he was the second child born of seven siblings. His early education was in army engineering but was bored with the dull life this offered. He then began to enter the literary field to the point of obsession. Once his father was killed by serfs on his families estate, he began his obsession with death in his literary works. this is predominant in his works Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamov.
Dostoevsky started his literary career with his first novel Poor Folk. Soon after, he was embroiled in the revolutionary movement in Russia and wrote various articles concerning the political questions in Russian society with knowledge that it was illegal to do so. He and other revolutionaries were later imprisoned for nine months and condemned to the firing squad. Although the Tsar only used this to teach Dostoevsky and his friends a lesson, this traumatized him as he was only seconds away from death when rescued from the firing squad by a messenger from the Tsar.
He was sent to Siberia after the commutation of his death sentence and there he changed his outlook on life. Due to the horrid conditions of the prison and his re-examination of his values, he began to believe that Russia would dominate the world and began to theorize that suffering was necessary for a man's salvation.
