Respectable series with good acting and solid portrayal of 19th Russia (as far as I can judge). I wish I saw a production like that 30 or 40 years ago before reading Dostoyevsky's novels. Growing up in Poland I learned Russian at school and at some point decided to improve it, especially that I had a couple of close Russian friends and now live very close to the Eastern frontier of EU. Though I have not become an expert Russian speaker I learned enough to read many books of Russian literature in the original language, including almost all novels by Dostoevsky. I was fascinated by works like "Crime and Punishment", "The brothers Karamazov", "The Gambler" which I think are general and timeless enough to be understood by everyone. Some of Dostoevsky's novels are straightforward but weak (like "Poor folk" or "The Village of Stepanchikovo"). On the other hand I had problems with couple of well known works like "The Idiot" or "The Devils". I found fragments of them fascinating, other boring and some other fragments puzzling. The main problem was that I did not understand enough of the personality of Fyodor Dostoevsky. That knowledge would have helped me to judge those novels objectively. So this TV series was very helpful to me. I didn't realize how much Dostoevsky was preoccupied with some ideas about special predestination of Russian Orthodox Church and Russian people, which is the key for understanding some of his characters like prince Myshkin from "The Idiot". This topic is skillfully handled in "Dostoevskiy" by showing fragments of conversations of Dostoevsky with other members of Russian intelligentsia and his disputes with more open minded and cosmopolitan Ivan Turgenev. So as far as I can judge the director and writer did excellent job in trying to portray Dostoyevsky in an honest and objective way, including his addiction to gambling. The acting was good and all characters credible. Nice glimpse into the atmosphere of Russia too. Sometimes you could feel the snow and frost almost physically, though it was not oppressive and the charm of winter landscapes was shown. My appreciation and respect for all people taking part in this series. I would highly recommend it to anyone intending to read books by Fyodor Dostoevsky.
