This is a story about the fates of the rejected, whom Dostoevsky met in penal labor.
The novella “Notes from the House of the Dead” is based on the author’s recollections of the years he spent in the Omsk prison. According to critics, it is precisely this work that marks the beginning of the true Dostoevsky—with his psychological depth and the power of his images.
In “Notes from the House of the Dead,” the reader is shown a world where violence against a human person takes on an ordinary, everyday character. Guilty and innocent, murderers and smugglers, bold thieves and educated counterfeiters, nobles and peasants… Each resident of the prison’s “House of the Dead,” created by Dostoevsky’s pen, remains in memory forever.