Fate, Illness, or Deception?

Welcome to Celebrate Creativity – Episode 444 - Fate, illness, or Deception?

This is the first podcast episode in a three part series dealing with a fascinating individual - the Russian writer Fydor Dostoevsky and his literary treatment of seizure disorders.  His works are rich with recurring themes such as morality, free will, nihilism, faith, and the nature of good and evil.

Dostoevsky himself suffered from epilepsy - so it could be argued that his reaction to the condition it's quite different from most Siri set an alarm for five minutes writers - largely because he suffered so many seizures.  He he even went out of his way to portray some of his characters - note that I said some of his characters - having seizure disorders and being exemplary people.  Today they might be called role models.  This is perhaps most true of one of the leading characters of his novel, The Idiot - a character known as Prince Myshkin.

Dostoevsky's Life and Historical Context

Dostoevsky's life was marked by extreme highs and lows, which directly influenced his writing. 

Transcript

Welcome to Celebrate Creativity – Episode 444 - Fate, illness, or Deception?

This is the first podcast episode in a three part series dealing with a fascinating individual - the Russian writer Fydor Dostoevsky and his literary treatment of seizure disorders.  His works are rich with recurring themes such as morality, free will, nihilism, faith, and the nature of good and evil.

Dostoevsky himself suffered from epilepsy - so it could be argued that his reaction to the condition it's quite different from most Siri set an alarm for five minutes writers - largely because he suffered so many seizures.  He he even went out of his way to portray some of his characters - note that I said some of his characters - having seizure disorders and being exemplary people.  Today they might be called role models.  This is perhaps most true of one of the leading characters of his novel, The Idiot - a character known as Prince Myshkin.

Dostoevsky's Life and Historical Context

Dostoevsky's life was marked by extreme highs and lows, which directly influenced his writing. 

Early Life: Born in Moscow in 1821, Dostoevsky's childhood was shaped by a strict and often difficult father. His early literary career showed promise, but he struggled financially.

Mock Execution and Exile: In 1849, Dostoevsky was arrested for his involvement in a radical literary group. He was sentenced to death by firing squad. At the last minute, the sentence was commuted to four years of hard labor in Siberia, followed by military service. This traumatic experience, which he later described in detail, profoundly changed his perspective on life and faith.

Return from Exile: After his release, Dostoevsky resumed his writing career, producing some of his most famous works. However, he continued to struggle with financial problems, a gambling addiction, and his epilepsy.

The Golden Age of Russian Literature: Dostoevsky's life and work were part of a period of immense literary and intellectual ferment in Russia. He was a contemporary of other literary giants like Leo Tolstoy and Ivan Turgenev, and his works were in dialogue with the social and political debates of the time.

His Personal Struggle: Dostoevsky himself suffered from epilepsy, with seizures starting in his mid-20s. He often experienced an ecstatic aura before a seizure, a feeling of intense spiritual and intellectual clarity, which he described as a moment of supreme harmony. This is a very unique and personal aspect of his condition.

Literary Portrayal: He channeled his personal experience into his work, most famously through the character of Prince Myshkin in the novel The Idiot. Myshkin is a compassionate and kind man whose seizures are often a source of both spiritual insight and social misunderstanding. Dostoevsky's portrayal is one of the most accurate and empathetic depictions of epilepsy in literature.

Influence on Creative Process: His epilepsy wasn't just a theme; it may have been a catalyst for his creativity. The periods of heightened awareness he experienced before a seizure could have inspired the profound philosophical and psychological depth in his novels.

But before I get too far ahead, let's go back to the writer’s beginnings.

A Difficult and Religious Upbringing
Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky was born on November 11, 1821, in Moscow. He was the second of seven children born to Mikhail Andreevich Dostoevsky, a staff doctor at the Mariinsky Hospital for the Poor, and Maria Dostoevskaya. The family's living quarters were on the hospital grounds, which exposed the young Dostoevsky to a world of suffering and poverty from a very early age, a stark contrast to his own comfortable, though far from luxurious, upbringing. This experience would later find its way into his writing, particularly his first novel, Poor Folk.

His family life was dominated by two powerful, and contrasting, forces: his father's strict, often tyrannical, nature and his mother's gentle, pious influence.

His Father: Mikhail Andreevich Dostoevsky was a religious and hard-working man, but he was also known for his volatile temper and cruel disposition. He demanded strict discipline and order in the household. Family life was organized along strict religious lines, with daily prayers and church attendance. His father's harshness and possible alcoholism have led some scholars to speculate that he was murdered by his own serfs in 1839, though this remains an unproven rumor. The traumatic death of his father is believed by some to have been a contributing factor to the onset of Dostoevsky's epilepsy.

His Mother: Dostoevsky's mother, Maria, was a loving and deeply religious woman. She was a source of comfort and warmth for her children, and her piety had a profound and lasting impact on Dostoevsky's own faith. It was from her that he learned to read and write, and she introduced him to the Bible and Russian folk tales. Her death from tuberculosis in 1837, when Dostoevsky was just 15, was a devastating loss for him.

Education and Literary Ambition
Despite his father's authoritarian nature, Dostoevsky's parents were dedicated to their children's education. He was first educated at home with tutors and then attended a private boarding school in Moscow. However, his father was determined that Dostoevsky and his older brother, Mikhail, would pursue practical careers. In 1837, after their mother's death, both were sent to Saint Petersburg to attend the Nikolayev Military Engineering Institute.

Now, this was a difficult time for Dostoevsky. He had no interest in military engineering and felt isolated and out of place among his classmates, who were largely from wealthy noble families. He was frail, un athletic, and often found himself alone. However, this period also solidified his true calling. He and his brother Mikhail, who was refused admission to the institute for health reasons, were both voracious readers and dreamed of becoming writers. Dostoevsky devoured the works of great authors like Pushkin, Gogol, Schiller, and Homer, and he began to write his own stories and plays.


After graduating in 1843, he briefly worked as a military engineer but resigned after only a year to dedicate himself entirely to literature. It was a bold move that set the stage for the rest of his turbulent and brilliant life. His first novel, Poor Folk, published in 1846, was a critical success and launched his literary career.

In 1849, he was arrested for his involvement with the Petrashevsky Circle, a group of intellectuals who discussed liberal and socialist ideas, which were considered subversive by the Tsarist regime of Nicholas I. 

After spending eight months in prison, Dostoevsky and 20 other members of the group were sentenced to death by firing squad. On December 22, 1849, they were taken to a public square in St. Petersburg for the execution. The entire event was a meticulously orchestrated piece of psychological torture. The men were read their death sentences, given a cross to kiss, and a priest offered them their last rites. They were then dressed in white death shrouds. The first three prisoners were tied to stakes in front of the firing squad. Dostoevsky was in the second group of three, with only minutes to live. He described feeling a frantic, almost hyper-aware state of mind, noticing every small detail around him and thinking about how he had wasted his life.

At the very last second, just as the soldiers were about to fire, a messenger arrived with a supposed note from the Tsar. The guns were lowered, and the men were informed that their sentences had been commuted to hard labor in Siberia.

This experience of staring death in the face and then being granted a second chance became a central theme in his later works. He explored the psychological anguish and spiritual transformation of a person on the brink of death, most notably in Prince Myshkin's description of an execution in The Idiot.

“It was just a minute before the execution,” began the prince, readily,
carried away by the recollection and evidently forgetting everything
else in a moment; “just at the instant when he stepped off the ladder
on to the scaffold. He happened to look in my direction: I saw his eyes
and understood all, at once—but how am I to describe it? I do so wish
you or somebody else could draw it, you, if possible. I thought at the
time what a picture it would make. You must imagine all that went
before, of course, all—all. He had lived in the prison for some time
and had not expected that the execution would take place for at least a
week yet—he had counted on all the formalities and so on taking time;
but it so happened that his papers had been got ready quickly. At five
o’clock in the morning he was asleep—it was October, and at five in the
morning it was cold and dark. The governor of the prison comes in on
tip-toe and touches the sleeping man’s shoulder gently. He starts up.
‘What is it?’ he says. ‘The execution is fixed for ten o’clock.’ He was
only just awake, and would not believe at first, but began to argue
that his papers would not be out for a week, and so on. When he was
wide awake and realized the truth, he became very silent and argued no
more—so they say; but after a bit he said: ‘It comes very hard on one
so suddenly’ and then he was silent again and said nothing.

“The three or four hours went by, of course, in necessary
preparations—the priest, breakfast, (coffee, meat, and some wine they
gave him; doesn’t it seem ridiculous?) And yet I believe these people
give them a good breakfast out of pure kindness of heart, and believe
that they are doing a good action. Then he is dressed, and then begins
the procession through the town to the scaffold. I think he, too, must
feel that he has an age to live still while they cart him along.
Probably he thought, on the way, ‘Oh, I have a long, long time yet.
Three streets of life yet! When we’ve passed this street there’ll be
that other one; and then that one where the baker’s shop is on the
right; and when shall we get there? It’s ages, ages!’ Around him are
crowds shouting, yelling—ten thousand faces, twenty thousand eyes. All
this has to be endured, and especially the thought: ‘Here are ten
thousand men, and not one of them is going to be executed, and yet I am
to die.’ Well, all that is preparatory.

“At the scaffold there is a ladder, and just there he burst into
tears—and this was a strong man, and a terribly wicked one, they say!
There was a priest with him the whole time, talking; even in the cart
as they drove along, he talked and talked. Probably the other heard
nothing; he would begin to listen now and then, and at the third word
or so he had forgotten all about it.
“At last he began to mount the steps; his legs were tied, so that he
had to take very small steps. The priest, who seemed to be a wise man,
had stopped talking now, and only held the cross for the wretched
fellow to kiss. At the foot of the ladder he had been pale enough; but
when he set foot on the scaffold at the top, his face suddenly became
the colour of paper, positively like white notepaper. His legs must
have become suddenly feeble and helpless, and he felt a choking in his
throat—you know the sudden feeling one has in moments of terrible fear,
when one does not lose one’s wits, but is absolutely powerless to move?
If some dreadful thing were suddenly to happen; if a house were just
about to fall on one;—don’t you know how one would long to sit down and
shut one’s eyes and wait, and wait? Well, when this terrible feeling
came over him, the priest quickly pressed the cross to his lips,
without a word—a little silver cross it was—and he kept on pressing it
to the man’s lips every second. And whenever the cross touched his
lips, the eyes would open for a moment, and the legs moved once, and he
kissed the cross greedily, hurriedly—just as though he were anxious to
catch hold of something in case of its being useful to him afterwards,
though he could hardly have had any connected religious thoughts at the
time. And so up to the very block.

“How strange that criminals seldom swoon at such a moment! On the
contrary, the brain is especially active, and works
incessantly—probably hard, hard, hard—like an engine at full pressure.
I imagine that various thoughts must beat loud and fast through his
head—all unfinished ones, and strange, funny thoughts, very
likely!—like this, for instance: ‘That man is looking at me, and he has
a wart on his forehead! and the executioner has burst one of his
buttons, and the lowest one is all rusty!’ And meanwhile he notices and
remembers everything. There is one point that cannot be forgotten,
round which everything else dances and turns about; and because of this
point he cannot faint, and this lasts until the very final quarter of a
second, when the wretched neck is on the block and the victim listens
and waits and _knows_—that’s the point, he _knows_ that he is just
_now_ about to die, and listens for the rasp of the iron over his head.
If I lay there, I should certainly listen for that grating sound, and
hear it, too! There would probably be but the tenth part of an instant
left to hear it in, but one would certainly hear it. And imagine, some
people declare that when the head flies off it is _conscious_ of having
flown off! Just imagine what a thing to realize! Fancy if consciousness
were to last for even five seconds!

Now getting back to Dostoevsky.  His reprieve did not mean freedom. Dostoevsky was sentenced to four years of hard labor in a prison camp in Omsk, Siberia, followed by military service in exile. His time in Siberia was a period of immense hardship and spiritual change.

Harsh Conditions: The camp was overcrowded and filthy. Dostoevsky, a man from an educated, upper-class background, was forced to live among hardened criminals, murderers, and thieves. This direct exposure to the darker aspects of human nature and the suffering of the common people deeply influenced his writing.

Spiritual Awakening: While in prison, Dostoevsky had a profound spiritual reawakening. The only book he was allowed to read was the New Testament, which he studied intensely. He rejected his former radical ideas and became a fervent believer in Russian Orthodoxy, believing that redemption and salvation came through suffering.

Literary Impact: Dostoevsky's exile experience became the basis for his semi-autobiographical novel, The House of the Dead (1862). He wrote about the brutal conditions, the complex psychology of the inmates, and the deep-seated human need for freedom and dignity. The experience gave him a unique and unparalleled insight into the human psyche, which he would later explore in his great novels like Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov.

Now, Dostoevsky’s return from exile was not a simple homecoming. It was a gradual re-entry into society, marked by new struggles, personal tragedies, and a renewed, profound literary career.

Release and Military Service
After four years of hard labor in the Omsk prison camp, Dostoevsky was released in 1854. However, his sentence was not over. He was required to serve an indefinite term as a private in a Siberian military garrison. It was during this period that his life began to take a different turn.
A New Life in Exile: While still in exile, Dostoevsky was able to resume his social and intellectual life. He tutored the children of an officer and eventually married Maria Dmitrievna Isaeva, a widow. Their relationship was complicated and often unhappy, but she provided him with some stability during this difficult time.

  The Return to St. Petersburg
In 1859, Dostoevsky was finally granted permission to return to European Russia. He first settled in the city of Tver before being allowed to move back to St. Petersburg in 1860. This was a critical moment for him, because he was returning to the city where he had been a promising young writer, but now he was an older man, a former convict, and a different person entirely.

Re-establishing a Career: Dostoevsky's return to the literary scene was not easy. He was no longer the darling of the radical intellectuals he had once been. He and his brother Mikhail launched a new literary magazine, Vremya (Time), which became a vehicle for Dostoevsky to publish his own works and to engage in public debate.

The House of the Dead: His first major work after returning was Notes from the House of the Dead (1862). This semi-autobiographical novel, which recounted his experiences in the Siberian prison camp, was a sensation. It offered a raw, unflinching look at prison life that had never been seen before in Russian literature. The book solidified his reputation as a major writer and gave him the financial footing he desperately needed.

A New Chapter
The years following his exile were incredibly productive but also full of personal turmoil. Dostoevsky continued to struggle with his epilepsy and a crippling gambling addiction. His wife, Maria, died in 1864, followed shortly after by the death of his beloved brother Mikhail. These tragedies left him in a state of deep mourning and financial ruin.
Despite these hardships, it was during this post-exile period that he wrote his most celebrated and enduring novels:

Notes from Underground (1864)
Crime and Punishment (1866)
The Idiot (1869)
Demons (1872)
The Brothers Karamazov (1880)

Dostoyevsky’s time in Siberia had given him a new perspective. He no longer held the utopian and socialist views of his youth. Instead, he became a fierce critic of Western ideologies, materialism, and rationalism. His later works are deeply psychological and philosophical, grappling with themes of faith, free will, morality, and suffering—all of which were forged in the crucible of his exile. His return to society wasn't just a physical journey; it was a spiritual and creative rebirth that led to some of the greatest works in world literature.  I'd like to conclude this episode with the passage from the idiot by Dostoevsky where are Prince Myshkin reflects on his epileptic seizures in an almost positive light -  

This must be thought out; it was clear that there had been no
hallucination at the train station then, either; something had actually
happened to him, on both occasions; there was no doubt of it. But again
a loathing for all mental exertion overmastered him; he would not think
it out now, he would put it off and think of something else. He
remembered that during his epileptic fits, or rather immediately
preceding them, he had always experienced a moment or two when his
whole heart, and mind, and body seemed to wake up to vigour and light;
when he became filled with joy and hope, and all his anxieties seemed
to be swept away for ever; these moments were but presentiments, as it
were, of the one final second (it was never more than a second) in
which the fit came upon him. That second, of course, was inexpressible.
When his attack was over, and the prince reflected on his symptoms, he
used to say to himself: “These moments, short as they are, when I feel
such extreme consciousness of myself, and consequently more of life
than at other times, are due only to the disease—to the sudden rupture
of normal conditions. Therefore they are not really a higher kind of
life, but a lower.” This reasoning, however, seemed to end in a
paradox, and lead to the further consideration:—“What matter though it
be only disease, an abnormal tension of the brain, if when I recall and
analyze the moment, it seems to have been one of harmony and beauty in
the highest degree—an instant of deepest sensation, overflowing with
unbounded joy and rapture, ecstatic devotion, and completest life?”

Dostoyevsky goes on to write - Vague though this sounds, it was perfectly comprehensible to Myshkin, though he knew that it was but a feeble expression of his sensations.

That there was, indeed, beauty and harmony in those abnormal moments,
that they really contained the highest synthesis of life, he could not
doubt, nor even admit the possibility of doubt. He felt that they were
not analogous to the fantastic and unreal dreams due to intoxication by
hashish, opium or wine. Of that he could judge, when the attack was
over. These instants were characterized—to define it in a word—by an
intense quickening of the sense of personality. Since, in the last
conscious moment preceding the attack, he could say to himself, with
full understanding of his words: “I would give my whole life for this
one instant,” then doubtless to him it really was worth a lifetime. For
the rest, he thought the dialectical part of his argument of little
worth; he saw only too clearly that the result of these ecstatic
moments was stupefaction, mental darkness, idiocy. No argument was
possible on that point. His conclusion, his estimate of the “moment,”
doubtless contained some error, yet the reality of the sensation
troubled him. What’s more unanswerable than a fact? And this fact had
occurred. The prince had confessed unreservedly to himself that the
feeling of intense beatitude in that crowded moment made the moment
worth a lifetime.

Sources include The Idiot and The Brothers Karamazov both by Fydor Dostoevsky

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