A study by V. S. Pritchett , produced by Stephen Potter
In 1849 Dostoevsky was arrested on a trivial charge of conspiracy and sentenced to death. The sentence was commuted into four years' imprisonment among common criminals in Siberia,' followed by four years in the army. Thenceforward he saw all men and women as prisoners in the cage of mortal life, dragging the chains of vice and doubt after them. And in the spiritual hunger of Russia he saw a force that would crack the materialism of Western Europe and convince the world of the brotherhood of man. Against this representative of the ' Russian Soul ' stands ' the cultivated figure of Turgenev. The conflict of these two opposites is the theme of this programme.