Dostoyevsky studied from 1838 to 1843 at the Academy of Military Engineers in St. Petersburg, graduating with officer's rank. In 1849, he was arrested and sentenced to death for participating in the 'Petrashevsky circle'; he was reprieved at the last moment but sentenced to penal servitude, and until 1854 he lived in a convict prison at Omsk, Siberia.
