Fyodor Dostoevsky graduated from the Nikolayev Military Engineering Institute in 1843.
Dostoevsky entered the military engineering school in Saint Petersburg after the death of his father. The institution provided technical and military training, but literature increasingly occupied his attention while he was a student.
After graduating, he briefly worked in the Engineering Department and held the rank of lieutenant. He soon decided to leave government service and devote himself to writing, a choice that led to his literary debut with Poor Folk in 1846.
The institute is sometimes confused with the Main Engineering School, where Dostoevsky had earlier studied. Both names appear in accounts of his education, but 1843 marks his graduation from the Nikolayev Military Engineering Institute.