One of the most renowned of Russian intellectuals, the man who brought the world the psychological crime thriller Crime and Punishment (still used as a text in some criminal psychology courses) was himself condemned as a criminal subversive and sentenced to execution for his role in the Petrashevsky Circle radical group. Dostoevsky began participating in the discussions on socialism and regicide under the watchful gaze of Tsar Nicholas I. When the group was broken up by the Tsar’s security, Dostoevsky and 20 others received the harshest sentence.

On this day, December 22, in 1849, after six months in prison Dostoevsky was led out before the firing squad and at the last minute was told he was granted a reprieve.

The author’s sentence was commuted to hard labor in Siberia soon after the sentence was pronounced, but instructions were to let Dostoevsky know that only at the last possible minute. The next four years the author spent in Siberia, and upon his release he went to the Mongolian frontier as a soldier. Crime and Punishment was written in 1867, its profound insight into the criminal mind perhaps the result of having confronted it at the highest levels of power.