Fyodor Dostoevsky
1821 – 1881 · 60 years · Saint Petersburg · Eastern Europe & Russia
Author of Crime and Punishment, The Idiot and The Brothers Karamazov, novels of deep psychological and moral inquiry.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 19th century
Portrait: Vasily Perov · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Charles Darwin — naturalist, author of evolutionary theory, 12 years older
- Karl Marx — philosopher and economist, 3 years older
- Queen Victoria — Queen of the United Kingdom, 2 years older
- Vincent van Gogh — painter, 32 years younger
- Marie Curie — physicist and chemist, twice Nobel laureate, 46 years younger
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe — German poet and thinker, 72 years older
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Leo Tolstoy — novelist, 7 years younger
- Dmitri Mendeleev — chemist, creator of the periodic table, 13 years younger
- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky — composer, 19 years younger
- Alexander Pushkin — Russian poet, 22 years older
- Vladimir Lenin — revolutionary, head of the Soviet government, 49 years younger
- Alexander II of Russia — Emperor of Russia, 3 years older
Middle East
- Abdul Hamid II — the 'Red Sultan' who dissolved the first parliament, 21 years younger
- Abdulmejid I — sultan of the Tanzimat reforms, 2 years younger
- Mehmed VI — last Ottoman sultan, 40 years younger
- Mahmud II — sultan who destroyed the Janissaries, 36 years older
- Abdulaziz — first sultan to visit Western Europe, 9 years younger
- Mehmed V Reşad — sultan under whom the empire entered World War I, 23 years younger
Africa
- David Livingstone — explorer of Africa and missionary, 8 years older
- Menelik II — Emperor of Ethiopia, 23 years younger
- Muhammad Ali of Egypt — ruler of Egypt, 52 years older
- Samori Ture — founder of the Wassoulou Empire, 7 years younger
- Moshoeshoe I — founder of Lesotho, 35 years older
- Yaa Asantewaa — Queen Mother of Ejisu, war leader, 19 years younger
Asia
- Mahatma Gandhi — leader of the Indian independence movement, 48 years younger
- Tokugawa Yoshinobu — last shogun, who handed power back to the emperor, 16 years younger
- Emperor Meiji — Emperor of Japan, 31 years younger
- Katsushika Hokusai — Japanese artist, 61 years older
- Tokugawa Ienari — longest-serving shogun, for half a century, 48 years older
- Rabindranath Tagore — poet and writer, Nobel laureate, 40 years younger
Americas
- Abraham Lincoln — 16th President of the United States, 12 years older
- Thomas Edison — inventor and businessman, 26 years younger
- Nikola Tesla — inventor and electrical engineer, 35 years younger
- Ulysses S. Grant — 18th US president, commanding general of the Union Army, 1 year younger
- Benito Juárez — President of Mexico, 15 years older
- Mark Twain — writer and humorist, 14 years younger
Oceania
- Ernest Rutherford — physicist who discovered the atomic nucleus, 50 years younger
- Henry Parkes — Premier of New South Wales, 'Father of Federation', 6 years older
- Truganini — Aboriginal Tasmanian woman, 9 years older
- Liliʻuokalani — Queen of Hawaii, 17 years younger
- Kate Sheppard — suffragist, 26 years younger
- Ned Kelly — bushranger and Australian folk hero, 33 years younger
The world in their lifetime
- 1822 Independence of Brazil — aged 1, Americas
- 1828 Treaty of Turkmenchay — aged 7, Middle East
- c. 1831 Hokusai's Great Wave off Kanagawa — aged 10, Asia
- 1833 Abolition of slavery in the British Empire — aged 12, Europe
- c. 1835–1846 The Great Trek — aged 14, Africa
- 1835 Darwin in the Galápagos — aged 14, Americas
- 1838–1839 Trail of Tears — aged 17, Americas
- 1839–1842 First Opium War — aged 18, Asia
- 1839 Birth of photography: the daguerreotype — aged 18, Europe
- 1839 The Edict of Gülhane opens the Tanzimat — aged 18, Middle East
- 1839–1842 First Anglo-Afghan War — aged 18, Middle East
- 1845–1852 Great Famine in Ireland — aged 24, Europe
- 1846 First public demonstration of ether anaesthesia — aged 25, Americas
- 1846–1848 Mexican–American War — aged 25, Americas
- 1847 Liberia declares independence — aged 26, Africa
- 1848–1849 Revolutions of 1848 — aged 27, Europe
- 1848 The Communist Manifesto — aged 27, Europe
- 1851 The Australian gold rushes — aged 30, Oceania
- 1853–1854 Commodore Perry's Black Ships — aged 32, Asia
- 1853–1856 Crimean War — aged 32, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1859 Darwin's On the Origin of Species — aged 38, Europe
- 1861 Unification of Italy — aged 40, Europe
- 1861 Emancipation of the serfs in Russia — aged 40, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1861–1865 American Civil War — aged 40, Americas
- 1863 Emancipation Proclamation — aged 42, Americas
- 1864–1870 Paraguayan War — aged 43, Americas
- 1867 Alaska Purchase — aged 46, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1867 Canadian Confederation — aged 46, Americas
- 1868 Meiji Restoration — aged 47, Asia
- 1869 Opening of the Suez Canal — aged 48, Africa
- 1869 Tolstoy's War and Peace — aged 48, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1869 First transcontinental railroad — aged 48, Americas
- 1870–1871 Franco-Prussian War — aged 49, Europe
- 1871 Unification of Germany — aged 50, Europe
- 1871 Paris Commune — aged 50, Europe
- 1874 First Impressionist exhibition — aged 53, Europe
- 1876 Invention of the telephone — aged 55, Americas
- 1876–1878 Great Famine in India — aged 55, Asia
- 1876–1878 The first Ottoman constitution — aged 55, Middle East
- 1879 Edison's incandescent lamp — aged 58, Americas