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 (surname) Myshkin (surname) Myshkin (Мы́шкин) is a Russian name, also transliterated Mishkin and commonly Miskin, although the latter two words have other meanings, both in Russian and in other languages. The ancient Jewish temple in Jerusalem in Hebrew is believed to be the root of the name with the Hebrew word pronounced "mishkan". There are people with the surname Miskin around the world who have formed a large user group on Facebook. There are Miskins in Australia, England, India, Indonesia, Canada and the United States including Mormons in Utah. "Myshkin" is the possessive case of the diminutive of the word 'mouse'.