Dostoevsky Went Through Hell

how horrible that time was I have not the strength to tell you it was an

Indescribable unending Agony on the 23rd of April 1849 Theodore

dooi was arrested for subversive activities against the Zar and the Russian government he was initially

condemned to death before finally having his sentence commuted to four years hard labor in a harsh siberian prison camp

this time was a living hell for the writer and yet he also saw it as one of the most important experiences of his

life and some suspect that it was this that gave him a uniquely penetrating

insight into The Human Condition and a Razorsharp analysis of the inner workings of the psyche was it this

imprisonment that transformed dostoevski from a young unrefined genius into a

fullblown profet well that is a huge question but luckily for us dovi pen a

semi-autobiographical work based on his time in prison this book The House of the Dead arguably forms the foundation

for almost all of his later works and is also one of the most profound explorations of human suffering ever put

to Pros get ready to learn the most fundamental human needs where absolute

power corrupts absolutely and how even in the most desperate of situations there is always a glimmer of hope

however irrational that may seem as always before we get started do be aware

that there is so much more to Doo's book than I could possibly cover here I'll also be focusing on the more Timeless or

psychological aspects of the work rather than say its analysis of the Russian class system though that too is very

interesting also spoilers ahead for many of Doo's major novels but with that out

of the way let's begin with perhaps the most obvious consequence of being imprisoned the deprivation of Freedom

Free Will, Freedom, and Rebellion

one fre free will freedom and rebellion

in a letter to his brother dostoevski described his time in prison as Ain to being dead and buried it was for him

like his life had temporarily ended only to reappear upon his eventual release and a lot of this feeling of being shut

in a coffin had to do with the fact that it was so physically and psychologically stifling it was here that dooi cemented

a view that would form a surprisingly large theme in his later works that a feeling of freedom is an almost

fundamental human need the protagonist of the House of the Dead is a sort of fictionalized version of dovi named

Alexander petrovich and the novel follows his own term in a siberian prison and the very first thing we see

in this work is how the freedom of our narrator and protagonist is eroded we

watch him arrive have iron Fetters fixed to his legs and slowly settle into the reality that this prison will be his

world for the next 10 years he he realizes all of the things he will no longer be able to do he will no longer

control his time he will not be by himself for any part of his sentence and most importantly he will not be able to

leave until his term is up his Liberty has been utterly stripped from him as it

had for each and every one of these prisoners and dovi explores at length

the effect this had both on their behavior and their psychology the First

Response of many to this total deprivation of freedom is a sort of pretended resignation dovi describes how

a common coping mechanism among the prisoners was essentially to make sweet lemons out of their situation they would

go through the motions of pretending that things weren't so bad or that this was their deserved place as he himself

put it we're lost men they would say we didn't know how to live our lives in

Freedom so now we have to stand in line to be counted however this acceptance

was only surface deep dooi says that almost no prisoner he met was truly

contrite or truly repentant of whatever crimes they had committed the acceptance was pragmatic rather than moral it

reflects something the philosopher John ster proposed about the inner workings of the human mind when confronted with a

situation we just cannot bear to accept Elsa thinks we have a tendency to modify it in our heads to seem as if it is less

bad either by focusing on its more positive aspects or in this case framing it as just how things should be and much

of Doo's analysis of freedom in this semi fiction concerns the extent to

which this acceptance manages to hold for the prisoners and when it snaps

first it's worth noting that there is an exception to the rule there's one person in prison who is so naturally respectful

of authority and Duty that they did genuinely seem at peace with their situation this was Akim aimit and he was

perhaps the only man in the prison whose meager needs for free were totally satisfied for whatever reason he felt no

compulsion to be more free than this it is perhaps why the protagonist of the novel finds him so unnerving and at the

very least he is in the extreme minority with that exception out of the way dovi

describes the different means by which the prisoners attempted to seize some scrap of Freedom over the course of

their stay the usual way of doing this was to get outrageously drunk for a night simply to show that they could

because drink and money was scarce prisoners would save up for these binges for months and then blow it all on vodka

and strut around the barracks like they own the place part of the reason they did this was expressly because it was

against the prison rules their Disobedience was a way of saying I am still free in some ways you cannot

control my drinking despite your best efforts and thus I remain an agent one

prisoner gazin who dooi said was despised by almost everyone used to regularly become drunk and violent as

his Conquest for his own little slice of Freedom each and every time this would

result in him being viciously beaten into unconsciousness by the other prisoners and yet he would embark on

exactly the same course of action in a few months so precious were these tiny

moments of autonomy we also see this Yearning For Freedom in the prisoners imaginations when there is a temporary

Escape by two convicts the other men live vicariously through them they root for them and praise them and say they

are sure the authorities will never catch them and yet when they are eventually recaptured and brought back

to the compound they are met with derision and Scorn because by their failure they not only dashed their own

chance at freedom but also prevented all the other prisoners from escaping into the outside world via their imagination

put a pin in this as we'll be revisiting this theme later when we discuss the concept of Hope in the novel however the

most Stark attempts to reclaim Freedom were through obviously self-destructive

Behavior dovi says the guards would wonder at how a prisoner could be well behaved for years not showing the

slightest bit of irritation with the authorities and yet one day snap and attack an officer knowing that they

would be beaten severely for it one man Petrov even attempts to kill the major

in charge of the prison despite the fact that if he succeeded it would almost certainly back fire on him in Doo's opin

opinion this reaction is a little bit like a tiger lashing out when it's backed into a corner but in this case

it's not just a physical corner but a psychological one when a prisoner becomes acutely aware that they truly

are unfree and that this lack of freedom is a threat to their very Humanity any physical punishment will pale in

comparison to the torture they feel at this loss of agency at least that's his

theory as dostoevski will further explore in Notes From The Underground the self-destructive of the rebellious

action is not in fact a negative but an integral part of the strategy after all

anyone can act in their own interests the entire prison system is constructed so that compliance is in the best

interests of the prisoners so in order to affirm their radical Liberty as agents there is only one thing left to

do something so self-destructive and irrational that no simple machine or

honic automatan would ever commit it but this tortured cry is also in vain

in one poignant scene a prisoner only has his fets removed after he dies of

consumption reflecting that the only real route to freedom without official releases or permanent Escape was death

and it may have been observing how much the prisoners valued what little Freedom they could achieve which solidified in

dostoevsky's mind that a feeling of Liberty was one of the most significant philosophical needs of mankind I suspect

this is one reason he was so opposed to the philosophy of mechanistic determinism later in life he thought

that if people were to truly believe they were unfree then they would fall into despair just like many of the

prisoners in his novel and indeed in his experience this begins what will become

a theme of dostoevsky's time in prison in each of the physical conditions of his imprisonment he spots philosophical

conditions that are by no means limited to those Wars but could follow us out into the world turning that into a

coffin as well and this idea continues in the next aspect of the House of the

debt because of course the lack of freedom is only one side of the equation

there is also the inevitable flip side of imprisonment the enforcement of power

if you want to help me make more videos like this then please consider becoming one of my wonderful patrons for access to occasional exclusive content the link

is in the description and I would really appreciate it two power and its

Power and Its Abuses

abuses if there were one figure who could be called the villain of the House of the Dead it would be the major in

charge of the prison dovi describes him as follows this man was frightening

because he had almost unlimited power over 200 souls in himself he was just a

man of Spite and impropriety nothing more this is genuinely one of my

favorite lines in all of dooi writings because it is unbelievably rich in meaning first the reference to 200 Souls

draws a subtle analogy with the system of serfdom in Russia where surfs were often referred to as Souls hence why

goal's novel is called Dead souls and secondly there is the direct contrast

between the extreme outer power of the major wields but also the incredibly meager inner power this mixture of the

two seems to be what causes him to be so vicious to the Prisoners the abuse es of

the major are frequent and shocking he has prisoners beaten simply for sleeping

on the wrong side of their beds or just to reassure himself of his power he ruled with an iron fist wielded his

authority seemingly arbitrarily and above all he refused to acknowledge the

humanity of the convicts he saw them as fundamentally beneath him not merely

people who required Reformation or punishment but those whose Souls had been carried and as a result a permanent

Mark of inferiority in his mind and while the major is singled out for

special attention he is only emblematic of a wider phenomenon to do with power and those who wield it at least in the

prison to use dostoevsky's own words tyranny is a habit I submit that habit

May cson and Stupify the very best men to the level of brutes such power is

Temptation we see this this pattern all through the novel from the leftenant to raises flogging to almost an art form

tormenting the prisoners psychologically before he broke them physically to the individual guards who took it as a

personal affront when the prisoners did not beg for mercy enjoying and accepting

their role as subjugator clearly for dooi it took a very special Constitution

to receive power and not have this turn into a sense of misplaced spiritual or

moral superiority and this link between power a sense of superiority and bonafed

brutality emerges in Doo's later novels Ras konikov kills a porn broker partly

out of the sense that he is superior and so it is his right to exert power over her this is what allows him to commit

this murderous act in demons the leader of a revolutionary group P stanovich

sees in his own power the ability to just do whatever he wants including throwing his own allies under the bus

and committing a senseless and needless killing it is surprisingly rare that we

find kind wielders of power in Doo's novels there is the elder Zoser in the

brothers karamazov the inspector in crime and punishment and one left tenant in this very volume but on the whole

dov's works are replete with abuses of power big and small and the arrogance

that often comes along with it it's worth noting here that this thought did not just stem from his time in prison as

we see a similar theme in his first major work poor folk but it was clearly significantly refined there the

particular idea that cruelty in power comes from some inner lack or inner weakness is also found in this work and

arguably prefigures NE who made quite a similar observation for instance there is a convict named aristov based on one

of dov's real life Barrack mates whom he describes as almost uniquely cruel having killed every moral feeling in

himself and aristov in particular is very hungry for power becoming an informant for the major in order to gain

some influence over the prison authorities yet at the same time dooi

sees this as stemming from his lack of inner depth he views Aristo as pretty

much devoid of any higher concerns and ruled purely by his physical appetite

his lust for power is thus judged both as repellent but also vaguely pitiable

it's worth mentioning that this is the person dovi would base the sadistic and nihilistics fidov on who eventually ends

his own life in crime and punishment however this suspicion of external power is contrasted with the extreme reverence

given throughout the work for internal power for example a Polish prisoner known as Zed the rest of his name is

censored is a very notable character he was a devoutly religious man and was also seen as fairly unassuming and

respected among the prisoners if not overly liked in one incident he was

beaten by the major as punishment and he laid down to take it without even flinching despite being a man of

advanced years his strength of character was so great that the major even felt compelled to apologize to him it is not

quite right to call him happy as like many of the other prisoners it's insinuated he is deeply troubled but

through it all he managed to maintain his inner sense of meaning it is a bit

like the attitude of Victor Frankle during his time in a concentration camp in Hell mere endurance is superhuman and

endure Zed did we'll be coming back to this theme of meaning in the next section the other contrast between inner

and outer power is found in the Persistence of that power towards the end of the work the major is finally

dismissed on the basis of all of his abuse and at that moment all of his

gravitas and might dissolves and we get the following description all his

Charisma had vanished along with his uniform in his frock coat he suddenly became a complete non- entity whereas

the Polish prisoner retains his dignity even in powerlessness the Major's power is all derived from contingent external

things and so vanishes in an instant in the dark of prison where dostoevski had

nowhere to turn and no power of His Own It is not surprising that he made this same observation that beus did over a

thousand years earlier when he was rotting in his own prison cell and boning his own fate and I think this

sophisticated analysis of power its varieties and its effects is seen scattered through dostoevsky's later

works principally this idea of internal or moral-spiritual power reaches its

apotheosis in alosha from the brothers karamazov a young man beloved by all and

who ends up with a surprising amount of insight and influence for his age primarily because of the extreme

reserves of inner strength and purpose he can call upon and his total lack of the kind of avarice pride and faux

superiority which characterizes someone like the major and as becomes clear in the rest of his Works dostoevski thinks

that true inner power however ridiculous it may seem comes from an indiscriminate

Brotherly Love of All In The World perhaps he saw the dark antithesis of

this idea in the major and in aristov but next I want to examine perhaps the

most fundamental observation dovi made about our philosophical needs while he

was in prison and how it links with his Fierce loyalty to Faith

Hope, Hopelessness, and Humanity

itself three hope hopelessness and

Humanity in the ancient Greek legend of Pandora's Box all the evils of Life are

Unleashed from their container and Rampage through the world and yet alongside all those nightmares like

pestilence and famine there is hope a tiny glimmer of it to console Mankind in

its troubles n famously toyed with the idea that hope was another evil in the

Box simply one that disguised itself as a friend but dooi took a far different

view during his stay at prison he became convinced that hope was absolutely indispensable to the thriving of the

human spirit and its very ability to Bear the torments of life but first what

is hope well according to the philosopher Calhoun hope comes in two main varieties the first is intentional

hope that is hopes about particular things I might hope that my channel grows well next year or that cheese is

on offer at Tesco and so on but the second is basil hope and this is a far

more General and almost existential attitude it is the background view which

says my life is worth preserving for the future Michael Molina Compares this to

the difference between being happy about something thing and simply being in a cheerful mood whereas the first is tied

to some particular thing the second forms part of the backdrop against which we perceive the rest of the world I

might be happy if this video does well but if I have a cheerful attitude then anything I see is far more likely to

make me happy this may be one reason why n wished us to have a dancing attitude to life he wanted a certain likeness of

spirit to pervade how we saw reality throughout the work dostoevski draws a

subtle distinction between between the prisoners in Siberia who have hope and those who do not this hope comes in a

variety of forms both physical and spiritual there is the straightforward hope prisoners had looking towards their

release but even for those imprisoned for Life there is the hope that a new major might run the prison or that there

might be some better food or that things can in some sense improve or get better

there are even some prisoners who hope Against All Odds that they will one day have their sentences commuted and indeed

this does happen to one person alongside this there is also theological hope for

example one older man who is devoutly religious is often found weeping in the night and dooi describes him as

tormented by a profound incurable Melancholy but something keeps him going

and this seems to be his faith despite his sadness this allows him to eliminate

any hatred in his heart and find a measure of Solace despite the almost unbearable conditions and the family

he's Left Behind even with his misery he remained unbroken and filled with the

kind of Basil hope that lends him a laugh of clearness and simplicity in

which there was something of the child above all it is hope that allows some

prisoners to genuinely undergo a transformation in their suffering however temporary it might be this idea

perhaps comes out most clearly in the chapter focusing on a Christmas show that the prisoners are putting up while

the General Air of the prison was almost always filled with despair cynicism and a sheer absence of Hope the performance

gave them something to look forward to and to invest their sense of meaning it it fulfilled a similar function as the

private projects dostoevski said prisoners often worked on in their Barracks but with this added aspect of

community when the curtain Rises on the performance even the most hardened prisoner is cheering and whooping for

them in that show there was however fleetingly the Essence of Hope the general attitude that life can get

better and that despite what anyone said and how anyone treated them the prisoners were still human for

dostoevski this sense of humanity seems closely tied to a kind of Basil hope

when someone is deep in despair or desperation he thinks they'll respond by viewing themselves as something inhuman

and even sometimes behaving as such in one notable passage dostoevski talks

about a type of prisoner who had snapped and committed a murder only for this totally abolish his sense of hope dooi

describes the sinking sensation in his heart which is caused by his own

apprehension of himself he cuts himself off from humanity and tries to celebrate

his own wickedness but to no avail eventually he becomes a shell of himself

and a slobbering sniveling abject creature just as a sense of hope and

Humanity transform the prisoners from unhappy and hostile to joyous friendly a

lack of Hope could turn a previously upstanding person into something more bestial both in his actions and in his

own view of himself we see this idea in many of his characters like how grushenka in the brothers karamazov

manages to recover her own hope in the reassurance by alosha that she has the dignity afforded to all people whatever

she has done and it is here where dovi undergos one of the most profound transformations in his attitude to Faith

and to Christianity whereas in his younger years he had flirted with atheism and materialism it

was in this most desperate of circumstances that he observed the strange ability religion had to restore

the sense of the human even in the most despairing of prisoners when the convicts attend a service at Easter dooi

notes the simple faith and repentance that was suddenly shown in each of these people who had previously seemed so

cynical and rebellious how they realized that they too were men and that before

God we are all equal these experiences may have underpinned his later faith in

the ability of religion and Orthodox Christianity in particular to both be a comfort in the most dire of situations

and also to genuinely affect change in someone's heart we don't need to be religious to consider this point I don't

personally believe in God but I do find this psychologically fascinating and it helps clarify why dovi was so firm in

the power of Faith right to the end of his life because in many ways dov's

views on religion were forged and defined in this Crucible his unwavering belief in the transformative power of

faith is an extreme view as it was created in extreme circumstances to endure the extreme without acknowledging

this a vital component of the foundation of his thought is just lost it is partly

why for him faith hope and recognized Humanity form the pillars of the

development undergone by so many of his characters these prisoners were men in

deep despair but dostoevski found himself truly believing that their souls

were not lost and lastly I want to continue down this theme of humanity

because I think it is in the house of the dead and dov's experiences in prison more generally that we begin to make

sense of his own radical perspective on the potential of mankind four the best and worst of the

The Best and Worst of The Soul

Soul if there is one thing dovi is known for in his writings it is his almost

unique ability to explore the Heights and depths of the human mind a character like raskolnikov in crime and punishment

is capable of incredibly Noble sentiment helping those in need defending the honor of the nearly defenseless Sonia

and loving at a very deep level yet he is just is able to act terrifically he

kills two people in Cold Blood lashes out in anger and some sometimes genuinely believes he is superior to all

others and has the right to treat them as he wants in rasov as in many of dv's

characters there are the seeds of the best and worst Humanity has to offer other times he simply displays the

extremes to which man can be pushed characters like smov or the underground man are resentful and hateful in the

extreme to the point where some even find them unrealistic by contrast Sonia

or the elder zosa or alosha often so kind self-sacrificial and honest that

they become ideals for many readers I think this is one reason his work is sometimes described as fantastic realism

there is this he mix of ordinary human qualities pushed to their end points and yet I think that with the backdrop of

his time in prison this view of humanity as capable of a kind of true hyperbole

really comes into Focus compare the characters dovi met in prison and the wide Gulf between them there are those

like aristov or the major who were genuinely repulsive in their personalities and their demeanor who

would happily trample over other men to achieve their aims and who had fallen to a level that almost seems demonic we

also see how their attitude flows Out Among the other prisoners turning them even more cynical hardened and heartless

than they were before we observe how they rob others of their Humanity without a thought we meet prisoners like

Garen who is said to have done horrible things to children and who often became violent with others and we are told just

how unrepentant many were about even the most brutal of crimes however we also

meet people like the faithful old man who manages to remain compassionate honest and kind even in the face of

these unimaginable conditions we see the young prisoner Ally who was there because he was swept up in his brother's

crimes and was too respectful of them to refuse to partake dostoevski describes him as possessing a childlike innocence

even in hell and one that was greatly appreciated by those around him there were the women from the nearby Town who

aided the prisoners by bringing them small gifts or money there were the other Town's People Who provided our

protagonist with books in his final years of captivity there was baklin who despite being imprisoned for Life still

had such passion and care for the convict's performance and who was reportedly unparalleled in his

friendliness but perhaps most interestingly there are those in the work who are capable of the extreme s of

good and of evil of kindness and of Cruelty of compassion and of violence

there is Petro a prisoner who became totally devoted to our protagonist innocently asking him questions about

history yet at the same time capable of the most horrific violence and who everyone else regards with unmistakable

fear at the Easter Service we see how even the most Hardy of prisoners is capable of humility and of tender

feeling we notice them having moments of sympathy with one another moments of community and moments of genuine

selfless care dooi openly admits he was mistaken in his initial assessment that

these were irrevocably Fallen men incapable of goodness as much as they

fight and insult they also joke and help even in this state and even having

committed some truly awful crimes these are still people fully capable of Love

kindness and true friendship another prisoner susho weeps at as our

protagonist is freed saying how will I ever manage without you Alexander

Petrovic who'll be left for Me When You're Gone by his own admission dovi

went into his imprisonment convinced that he would be dwelling with people who had lost their Humanity only to see

how it endured burning in murderers Cutthroats and more and even where he

did not find kindness he still found remarkable complexity in the ruthless Bandit olov who was able to kill without

feeling and simply did not seem to understand the concept of morality dooi still found a remarkable courage and

strength of will that left an indelible impression on him he saw Killers tremble in fear at an officer wielding a birch

he saw the supposedly morally upright guards indulge in cruelty beyond that shown by the convicts he saw how power

could turn someone brutal and how it could be wielded skillfully for the greater good of all he saw how sometimes

it was the mere knowledge that someone trusted them cared for them and had faith in them that turned some of the

most cynical convicts into showing real compassion for others and discovering depth in themselves he describes how he

found extreme spiritual achievement in those who at first seemed animalistic and a profound brutal callousness in

even the most learned and supposedly developed men it may have been here that

dostoevski took up the same view held by the medieval Christian Mystic Meister echa that a spark of divinity can be

sought in each and every one of us and never truly leaves no matter how hard we

try to smother it with the right conditions it might be nurtured into a

new life dovi describes with penetrating Precision the way in which each

prisoner's or guard's Behavior was like a pebble in a pond Rippling outwards to affect everyone else's conduct as well

here we see the germs of his later view that mankind will either stand stand or fall together we will either slowly

learn to regard one another with a universal Brotherly Love or we will degrade into ever worsening hatred

suspicion and mistrust given this his idea that we are responsible not just

for our own sins but for the sins of every other man woman and child on this Earth becomes much more comprehensible

by the time dooi and our protagonist leave the prison this is what they have to say and I want to read this in full

because it is just so tragically beautiful how much youth had been buried

in vain Within These Walls How much power and strength had perished here for

nothing for the whole truth must be told all these men were quite remarkable

these were perhaps the most gifted the strongest of all our people but Mighty

Powers had perished in vain perished abnormally unlawfully

irrevocably yeah yet who is to blame that was the question who was to

blame having been confronted with some of the worst life has to offer seen some of its

cruestv skki could have easily become a dismissive kind of cynic but that did

not happen rather he left with the spark of this almost unique mix of pessimism

and idealism that is part of what makes his later writing so wondrous to read

dooi became keenly aware of the depths to which Humanity can sink to just how

far into hell we can travel simply on our own steam but he also left with the

unshakable belief that there is innocence kindness and love within

everyone later in one of his final public addresses the Pushkin speech he expresses his firm faith that if we

nurse this germ of goodness to the point of universality we can truly make this world not just better

but a genuine Paradise just like his God dostoevski too descended Into the Dead

and yet somehow managed to emerge on the other side with his hope in mankind not just restored but carved in stone it is

no wonder he describes his release as not just freedom but as

Resurrection but if you want to watch perhaps my favorite video that I've ever made then click here to see my analysis

of dostoevsky's brilliant novel the idiot I hope you enjoyed this video and have a wonderful day

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