Dostoevsky: A Rider in the Desert

«Dostoevsky is as he is, just like Russia, with all its darkness and light. And he is - the greatest contribution of Russia to the spiritual life of the whole world». These are the words of N. Berdyaev, but other researchers of the work of the great writer agree with them, having discovered in the human soul such abysses of good and evil that all preceding world literature could not imagine. In the great works of Dostoevsky, his fate is fully reflected - the mysterious death of his father, years of poverty and spiritual quest, hard labor and military service for participation in a revolutionary circle, a difficult ascent to fame, which made him - both during his lifetime and posthumously - an object of both enthusiastic praise and fierce attacks. The details of the writer's life, up to the most unknown and «inconvenient», are fully reflected in his biography, penned by Lyudmila Saraskina - a well-known literary historian, author of fifteen books dedicated to Dostoevsky and his contemporaries.