Product Description

In June 1862 Fyodor Dostoevsky left Petersburg on his first excursion to Western Europe. Ostensibly a trip to consult Western specialists about his epilepsy, Dostoevsky also wished to see firsthand the source of the Western ideas he believed were corrupting Russia. Over the course of his journey he visited a number of major cities, including Berlin, Paris, London, Florence, Milan and Vienna. He recorded his impressions of everthing he saw, and published them as "Winter Notes on Summer Impressions" in the February 1863 issue of "Vremya" ("Time"), the periodical he edited.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #643673 in Books
• Published on: 1997-09-30
• Original language: Russian
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 78 pages

Customer Reviews

Gripping portrait
This book relates the author's vivid impressions during his travels all over Europe in the second half of the 19th century. His main targets are France (Paris) and England (London).
Dostoyevsky gives us a biting and cynical portrait of the French: parvenus and bourgeois who make a mockery of 'liberté, égalité, fraternité'.
In England, he is confronted with child prostitution in London's Haymarket: a most terrible and moving scene of a child of only six, black and blue beaten, barefoot, who tries to lure him to have sex with her. On the other side of the social spectrum, the Anglican clerics preach a religion for the wealthy and don't even hide it. A most pregnant sketch of the fat and the meagre.

Highly recommended.