STORY SATURDAY
On the Edge of Life
A Story About Dostoevsky
Do you know what in Dostoevsky’s life significantly affected his way of thinking?
His own execution scene…
You did not read it wrong.
I learned this story about Dostoevsky from a post online, and I also did a little research. It is a very short but impactful story.
Although I found the story to be written with slight differences in different sources, I want to share what I’ve learned with you here today, hoping that it will give you the main message of the story.
Let’s go…
During the Tsar’s period of oppression, Dostoevsky had formed a chat group with his friends. They believed that the slavery system and the regime would change. They were holding meetings and reading articles from time to time.
However, at the age of 28, Dostoevsky and his friends were arrested for reading a book that was banned at the time.
Dostoevsky started waiting for the verdict of the trial.
The arrested youths were brought to a military court, and the secret trial lasted for 8 months.
One night, he was taken from his cell, and the death sentence was read to his face.
Later, the priest made him confess, and he and his friends were taken to the area where they were to be shot.
He was tied to a pole with his eyes closed and made to face the detachment.
While waiting for the
“Fire!…”
order, something he never expected happened…
The retreat horn had sounded. The soldiers untied those tied to the pole and read out the real verdict, saying that the Tsar had spared their lives.
Actually, the court had given him eight years in prison, and the Tsar had reduced it to five years of hard labor, but such a show was planned to teach him a lesson.
So, Dostoevsky met “death”…
However, what he really discovered in this miserable show was “life”.
According to Stefan Zweig, when they removed the chains from his wounded fingers five years later, his health had deteriorated and his fame had decreased significantly. Still, there was only one thing that emanated brighter than ever from his unhealthy body:
The joy of living…
This event was a turning point in Dostoevsky’s life…
The following words are said by the character Raskolnikov in his novel “Crime and Punishment”. However, it conveys exactly Dostoevsky’s experience at the moment of execution.
“Even if I had to live on a high and steep cliff, on a narrow ledge where only my two feet can fit, surrounded by precipices, oceans, an endless night, an endless loneliness, and a never-ending storm, and even if I had to stand on that inch of land for the rest of my life, for a thousand years, even forever, living that way would be much better than dying in half an hour right now.”
With Love🙏
