An easier way to pronounce his name is to say ‘toy’ in the name, dos-toy-ev-ski. Fyodor Dostoyevsky was born in 1821 and grew up on the outskirts of Moscow to a successful doctor and enjoyed a middle class upbringing. As his house was in the hospital complex, the young Fyodor was exposed to experiences from which other children of his background were usually sheltered. Religion was a strong part of the family, as both his parents were devout orthodox Christian. Literature came early in his life through fairy tale and legends, and through books by Russian as well as foreign authors. At age twelve he was sent to school first in Moscow; two years after that his mother died of tuberculoses during her ninth pregnancy. And then his father, a cruel man, was murdered in 1839 when Fyodor was eighteen and attending school at St. Petersburg, where he found it difficult to adjust with his aristocratic classmates.
The Russian....
