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Napoleon's Piles: How Footnotes Changed History: Ronnie of The Commies?
Napoleon's Piles: How Footnotes Changed History: Ronnie of The Commies?
On 22 December, the execution was under way – the first three, not including Dostoevsky, had
already been tied to pillars in readiness – when a royal reprieve arrived. They were instead
despatched to Siberia for four years hard labour. Accounts disagree whether in fact it was simply
a mock execution laid on to scare the young minds. Whichever it was, the trauma of the episode
had a lasting creative effect on Dostoevsky, which emerged later in his mature novels whose
dark themes were commonly built around intense human suffering and despair. We are left with
the conclusion that either way, this narrowly avoided event was pivotal for Dostoevsky. If the
execution was real, he was lucky to have escaped; if it was a set-up, it seems that it left on him a
vital and lasting impression that guided the best of his writings.