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Article: Dostoevsky in Europe: the political as the spiritual.(Critical Essay)
- Article from:
- Partisan Review
- Article date:
- January 1, 2002
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 Partisan Review, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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On December 22, 1849, only hours after facing Nikolai I's firing squad and receiving a last-minute reprieve commuting his death sentence to nine years of hard labor and military service in Siberia, Dostoevsky wrote to his brother Mikhail: "Now, upon changing my life, I am being born again in a new form." His premonition of rebirth proved true. Dostoevsky dedicated the remainder of his life to repudiating the materialist philosophy behind the French utopian socialism whose appeal for him led to his arrest. He was seized in April 1849 as a member of the Petrashevsky Circle, an association dedicated to advancing views of human nature and society set forth in the works of ...