The Idiot three prisoners were tied to stakes facing the firing squad: Dostoevsky was among the next in line. Just as the first shots were about to be fired, a message arrived from the Tsar commuting the sentences to hard labor in Siberia. The experience had a profound effect on Dostoevsky, and in Part 1 of "The Idiot" (written twenty years after the event) the character of Prince Myshkin repeatedly speaks in depth on the subject of capital punishment. On one occasion, conversing with the Epanchin women, he recounts an anecdote that exactly mirrors Dostoevsky's own experience. A man of 27, who
Myshkin (town) Myshkin (town) Myshkin () is a town and the administrative center of Myshkinsky District in Yaroslavl Oblast, Russia, located on the steep left bank of the Volga. Population: A settlement at this location has existed since at least the 15th century. Town status was granted to it in 1777. It was demoted in status to that of an urban-type settlement in Soviet times, but was granted town status again in 1991. Within the framework of administrative divisions, Myshkin serves as the administrative center of Myshkinsky District. As an administrative division, it is incorporated within Myshkinsky District as the town of