Editing Fyodor Dostoevsky (section)

== Childhood (1821–1836) ==
Fyodor Dostoevsky, born on {{OldStyleDate|11 November|1821|30 October}} in Moscow, was the second child of Dr Mikhail Dostoevsky and Maria Dostoevskaya ([[née]] Nechayeva). He was raised in the family home in the grounds of the Mariinsky Hospital for the Poor, which was in a lower class district on the edges of Moscow.{{sfnp|Bloom|2004|p=9}} Dostoevsky encountered the patients, who were at the lower end of the Russian social scale, when playing in the hospital gardens.{{sfnp|Breger|2008|p=72}}

Dostoevsky was introduced to literature at an early age. From the age of three, he was read heroic sagas, fairy tales and legends by his nanny, Alena Frolovna, an especially influential figure in his upbringing and his love for fictional stories.{{sfnp|Leatherbarrow|2002|p=23}} When he was four, his mother used the [[Bible]] to teach him to read and write. His parents introduced him to a wide range of literature, including the Russian writers [[Nikolay Karamzin|Nikolai Karamzin]], [[Alexander Pushkin]] and [[Gavrila Derzhavin]]; [[Gothic fiction]] such as the works from the English novelist [[Ann Radcliffe]]; [[Romantic literature|romantic]] works by [[Friedrich Schiller]] and [[Johann Wolfgang von Goethe]]; heroic tales by [[Miguel de Cervantes]] and [[Walter Scott]]; and [[Homer]]'s [[epic poetry|epics]], the ''[[Iliad]]'' and the ''[[Odyssey]]''.{{sfnp|Kjetsaa|1989|pp=6–11}}{{sfnp|Frank|1979|pp=23–54}} Dostoevsky was greatly influenced by the work of [[Nikolai Gogol]].<ref>{{cite web| date = 1968| url = http://www.hrono.ru/organ/rossiya/natur_scol.php|title = Natural School (Натуральная школа)| publisher = Brief Literary Encyclopedia in 9 Volumes. Moscow| access-date = 1 December 2013}}</ref> Although his father's approach to education has been described as strict and harsh,{{sfnp|Mochulsky|1967|p=4}} Dostoevsky himself reported that his imagination was brought alive by nightly readings by his parents.{{sfnp|Breger|2008|p=72}}

Some of his childhood experiences found their way into his writings. When a nine-year-old girl had been raped by a drunk, he was asked to fetch his father to attend to her. The incident haunted him, and the theme of the desire of a mature man for a young girl appears in ''The Devils'', ''The Brothers Karamazov'', ''Crime and Punishment'', and other writings.{{sfnp|Lantz|2004|p=61}} An incident involving a family servant, or [[Serfdom in Russia|serf]], in the estate in Darovoye, is described in "[[The Peasant Marey]]": when the young Dostoevsky imagines hearing a wolf in the forest, Marey, who is working nearby, comforts him.<ref>{{cite book |last=Ruttenburg |first=Nancy |date=4 January 2010 |title=Dostoevsky's Democracy |url={{google books|plainurl=y|id=MLKbtdvf2fUC|page=76}} |publisher=[[Princeton University Press]] |pages=76–77}}</ref>

Another memory that Dostoyevsky referred to in his prose was summer trips to his father's estate in the [[Kashirsky District]] of the [[Tula Governorate]], which was purchased between 1831 and 1833.<ref>{{Cite web |title=ДОСТОЕВСКИЙ ФЁДОР МИХАЙЛОВИЧ |url=https://w.histrf.ru/articles/dostoevskiy-fedor-mihaylovich |access-date=2025-02-15 |website=w.histrf.ru}}</ref>

Although Dostoevsky had a delicate physical constitution, his parents described him as hot-headed, stubborn, and cheeky.{{sfnp|Kjetsaa|1989|p=6}} In 1833, Dostoevsky's father, who was profoundly religious, sent him to a French boarding school and then to the Chermak boarding school. He was described as a pale, introverted dreamer and an over-excitable romantic.{{sfnp|Kjetsaa|1989|p=39}} To pay the school fees, his father borrowed money and extended his private medical practice. Dostoevsky felt out of place among his aristocratic classmates at the Moscow school, and the experience was later reflected in some of his works, notably ''[[The Raw Youth|The Adolescent]]''.{{sfnp|Kjetsaa|1989|pp=14–15}}{{sfnp|Frank|1979|pp=23–54}}