Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881) was one of the great Russian writers, author of "The Brothers Karamazov" and "Crime and Punishment," masterpieces of world literature. His novels address existential questions and themes related to humiliation, guilt, suicide, madness, and pathological states of the human being. Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky was born in Moscow, Russia, on November 11, 1821. The son of Mikhail Dostoevsky and Maria Fyodorovna Netchaiev, he was orphaned of his mother on February 27, 1837. In that same year, he was sent to St. Petersburg, where he studied at the School of Military Engineering. In 1839, his father, who was a doctor, was murdered by settlers on the estate where he lived. This event caused great upheaval in Dostoevsky's life, who experienced the first epileptic seizures upon learning of his father's death.