ABSTRACT
Dostoevsky's early years were a complex and contradictory formative period. Personal, political, philosophical, religious, and literary influences can be traced and investigated. The political and intellectual history of the Russian Empire will form a background, and will not be directly treated, except where it is necessary to explain the context of Dostoevsky's life and work. Dostoevsky combined social-political criticism and romanticism in a way which was not mutually exclusive: For the Tsarist authorities were equally wary of political radicals and unhappy young men whose disaffection might turn to protest. The debate about art had become central to Dostoevsky and he began to react against Belinsky's prescriptions, opposing the view that literature should be reduced to a political weapon. Under the influence of Herzen, Dostoevsky deplores the submissive self-denial of Russia's myriad 'small men' and the serf mentality of the system. Dostoevsky emerges as a psychologist rather than a social theorist.
