🇷🇺 Dostoevsky's "The House of the Dead" (Prison Experience) - The Executioner Zherebyatnikov

Dostoevsky's "The House of the Dead." This is a book I was introduced to by my modern society teacher when I was in high school.

Since then, I have read through the complete works of Dostoevsky, but the one I have read the most times and returned to repeatedly is, as expected, the first one I read: "The House of the Dead."

"The House of the Dead" is set up as a story, but it could well be called a "non-fiction" work based on Dostoevsky's own experiences.

Although it is a work depicting the extraordinary world of prison, that very setting serves to expose the true nature of humanity.

I would like to quote a few impressive words and scenes. (*Citations use the Shincho Bunko edition, translated by Seiichiro Kudo)

"If one wanted to crush a man, to punish him so severely that even the most hardened criminal would tremble and shudder at the mere thought of it, one would only need to make his labor completely useless and meaningless."

As an example of something that "completely useless and meaningless" that destroys a person, he cites "moving water from one tub to another and then back again."

Humans likely have an instinctive desire for their labor to be useful to someone. If one thinks of oneself as merely "a drop in the ocean" or a replaceable "cog ⚙️" within an "organization" or "society," perhaps one cannot go on living. There is something here that applies to us as well.

Another impressive scene. This is a passage that reminds me of what is called "power harassment" today. I will summarize it.

Zherebyatnikov is an executioner who carries out "flogging."
At first, he promises a poor man that he will exempt him from the punishment.
As soon as the poor man thanks him politely and starts to walk away, he carries out the flogging.
He brings the whip down with all his might on the poor man, who protests that the promise was different.
This was because, for Zherebyatnikov, carrying out the punishment after saying he would forgive him was even more enjoyable.
He makes the man feel so moved that he is brought to tears, only to torment him afterward.

"Executioner" and "convict." This is a story that could also happen in the modern relationship between a "boss" and a "subordinate."

As you know, Dostoevsky had the experience of being sentenced to death by the Emperor of the time and being pardoned just before the execution was carried out.
The four years in "The House of the Dead" are Dostoevsky's own four years.

Currently, Dostoevsky's "five major novels"—"Crime and Punishment," "The Idiot," "Demons," "The Adolescent," and "The Brothers Karamazov"—were all written after his imprisonment.

Reading his long novels is fine, but it seems to me that the most 🍺 raw Dostoevsky is recorded in "The House of the Dead."

If you are going to read Dostoevsky, this is a book I recommend.