RUSS 367 - Dostoevsky in Translation

Dostoevsky lived an extraordinary life. After achieving instant fame with the publication of Poor Folk, he languished in near obscurity for many years. He was sentenced to death for participation in a political society and was reprieved by the tsar just minutes before his scheduled execution. He served four years of hard labor in prison and another five years in exile in Siberia. He suffered from debilitating epilepsy and a compulsive gambling habit, and he struggled with massive debt. Yet by the end of his life the Russian public hailed him as a prophet and Russia’s greatest living writer. Like his life, his novels are extraordinary. They plumb the dark depths of the human soul, confronting the reader with issues of life and death, good and evil, and the presence of evil in God’s universe. In this course we will read Dostoevsky’s four great novels Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, Demons, and The Brothers Karamazov, as well as the misunderstood anti-nihilist work Notes from Underground. Taught in English. Alternate years. (4 Credits)