Dostoevsky: The Stir of Liberation, 1860-1865

Begins with the writer's return to St. Petersburg, after a ten-year Siberian exile. Having met with sudden fame as the highly praised young author of Poor Folk in 1845, Dostoevsky was abruptly forgotten after his arrest and exile for political conspiracy. He came back to the capital determined to reestablish his literary reputation. Now as the editor of and writer for two literary journals that joined in the cultural and social ferment of Russia in the early 1860s, Dostoevsky was to discover the themes that would underlie his mature masterpieces.