On 22 December 1848, Dostoyevsky was sentenced to "death" for having associated with a circle which met to talk of socialism and to criticize conditions in Russia, for having circulated a letter by the journalist Belinsky to Gogol which was extremely critical of the Orthodox Church, and for having attempted to circulate antigovernment writings with the aid of a private press. Although the sentence was in fact eight years of penal servitude, this was later commuted to four years in jail and four as a private soldier. Dostoyevsky served his full sentence and dropped out of Russian literature for some nine years.¹