Dostoevsky in Germany
The Russian writer Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote a large part of his work in Germany
In no other country outside Russia did the writer Fyodor Dostoevsky live so long as in Germany. In 1862, at the age of 41, he embarked on his first trip to Western Europe, which besides short sojourns in Italy, Switzerland and France would take him above all to many German cities. From 1869 to 1871, he lived in Dresden and spent four spa stays from 1874 to 1879 in Bad Ems, where he wrote his novel The Raw Youth.
Dostoevsky’s stays, however, were overshadowed by the great adversities of his severe epileptic disorder, gambling addiction and large debts. In Wiesbaden Dostoevsky wrote the first chapter of Crime and Punishment, and his experiences in the casinos of Wiesbaden, Bad Homburg und Baden-Baden were incorporated in the novel The Gambler. The cities compete for the honour of which served as the model for “Roulettenburg”. In Dresden, Dostoevsky wrote large parts of The Possessed.
Dostoevsky has influenced numerous German-language writers such as Franz Kafka, Hermann Hesse, Alfred Döblin and Martin Walser, and his work continues to fascinate German readers today. To this fascination five spectacular new translations by the now deceased translator Swetlana Geier have certainly contributed. Her tremendous achievement of 5,000 translated pages made an entirely new reading experience available to the German public.
Start of the Year of Russian Language and Literature in Germany, 6 June 2014. Parallel to this is planned a Year of German Language and Literature in Russia.
