Author Fyodor Dostoyevski

"You don't believe my words now,

but you'll come to it of yourself.

For suffering . . . is a great thing."

~Raskolnikoff, Crime and Punishment~

(11 November 1821 – 9 February 1881)

While standing before a firing squad and ready to be executed, Russian writer Fyodor Dostoyevski was informed that he was exiled for ten years to Siberia instead. He refers to this sickening ordeal, with horror, throughout his numerous writings. At his arrival in Siberia he was slipped a copy of the New Testament by two women.

His daughter Aimee tells us, in her book about her father titled Fyodor Dostoyevski: A Study, that his only comfort during his exile was that little copy of the New Testament. She further said that:

He studied the precious volume from cover to cover, pondered every word; learned much of it by heart; and never forgot it. All his works are saturated with it, and it is this which give them thier power. Many of his admirers have said to me that it was a strange chance during the most important and formative years of his life. But was it a chance? Is there such a thing as chance in our lives? The work of Jesus is not finished; in each generation He chooses His disciples, beckons to them to follow Him, and gives them the same power over the human heart that He gave to the poor fishermen of Galilee . . . Throughout his life he would never be without his old prison Testatment, the faithful friend that had consoled him in the darkest hours of his life. He always took it with him on his travels and kept it in a drawer in his writing-table, within reach of his hand. He consulted it in all the important moments of his life.

Dostoyevski, himself stated, while writing from Siberia:

"One sees the truth more clearly when one is unhappy, and yet God gives me moments of perfect peace; in such moments I love and believe that I am loved; in such moments I have formulated my creed, wherein all is clear and holy to me. This creed is extremely simple: here it is. I believe that there is nothing lovelier, deeper, more sympathetic, more rational, more manly, and more perfect than the Savior. I say to myself with jealous love that not only is there no one else like Him, but that there could be no one."

He died February 9th, 1881 and over forty thousand mourners attended his funeral. The last book he wrote was one of his more greatest novels called, "The Brothers Karamazov" from which the the phrase at the beginning of the book is also the verse inscribed on his tombstone; "Verily, Verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. ~John 12:24~