Dostoyevsky is a major figure in world literature on account of his exploration of characters’ psychology across four monumental novels, published between 1866 and 1880, but to date he is not well commemorated philatelically.
In Crime and Punishment (1866) a tale of rebirth and redemption, the poor student Rodion Raskolnikov is sent to a Siberian prison for committing what he considers to be a justifiable murder but his beloved Sonya waits for him and in due course he reaches his salvation. Dostoyevsky himself had endured four years of hard labour at a penal colony in Siberia for discussing French socialist theories, forbidden by the Tsarist regime. This experience influenced his writing and his health for the rest of his life.
The central protagonist of The Idiot (1868-9) Prince Lyov Mishkin—who suffered from epilesy, as did Dostoyevsky— a sort of Christ figure tries to do his best by radiating compassion and humility but has his spirit broken by the hatred and distrust of those he seeks to help. The Possessed, published in parts between 1871-2. exposes in great detail the terrible talent for destruction of its sociopathic central character Nikolai Stavrogin.
The Brothers Karamazov (1879-80) is possibly Dostoyevsky’s masterpiece, full of the author’s insight into what goes in men’s minds. In a gripping mystery of patricide, the reader is exposed to the different temperaments of the brothers—Ivan the intellectual, the emotional Dmitri and the saintly Alyosha and is posed questions about how humans should live their lives.
Dostoyevsky also wrote many stories and novellas, again not referenced in stamps, though one appears on Russian postal stationery.
White Nights is first person narrative about a loner and dreamer who wanders the streets of St Petersburg at night and meets a young girl standing crying against a railing and then saves her from a man who is stalking her. On subsequent nights he encounters her and learns more of her personal story but eventually she breaks his heart.
Leave A Comment
You must be logged in to post a comment.