The mock execution experience
Dostoevsky's own life experienced some of these same turbulent events. In 1847, he joined what was essentially a revolutionary (anti-government) organization called the Petrashevsky Circle, a 'free-thinking group'. In 1849, its members were arrested, and after spending eight months in prison, Dostoevsky was 'sentenced' to death. However, this sentence was commuted to four years of prison followed by four years of forced military service in Siberia. At one point, Dostoevsky felt he had only a few moments left to live, and he never forgot the feeling of that experience.
Dostoevsky tells his wife about that execution experience and the arrival of the commuted sentence of exile, saying:
I was standing in the square, watching with horror the arrangements for the execution that was to be carried out in 5 minutes. We were all in death shirts, distributed into groups of three condemned men, and I was eighth in the count within the third group. They tied the three to the posts, and after two minutes, shots would be fired at the first two groups, and it would be my turn. My God, how great my desire for life was! I remembered all my past that I had wasted and misused, so I longed for life anew and to achieve much of what I had intended to achieve, to live a long life. At the last moment, the suspension of the execution was announced.
And so, the experience of facing death/execution was a pivotal experience in Dostoevsky's life as well as in his literature.
4
