this day in history...

On this day in 1849, a Russian court sentences Fyodor Dostoevsky to death for his allegedly anti-government activities linked to a radical intellectual group.

On December 22, 1849, Dostoevsky was led before the firing squad but received a last-minute reprieve and was sent to a Siberian labor camp, where he worked for four years. *

*Source: http://www.history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&displayDate=11/16&categoryId=literary

Had that reprieve not been granted the literary world would be without some of its greatest works.

Works that would not have been completed had he been executed include:

"Crime and Punishment" (1866)

"The Idiot" (1868)

"The Possessed" (1872)
"The Brothers Karamazov" (1880)