命运对陀思妥耶夫斯基是残酷的, 他总是在痛苦中受煎熬: 不久前, 他的妻子去世, 他都没赶上安葬她, 如今, 他的弟弟又离开了人间．他欠下一身债, 连房租都交不起, 家里值点钱的东西都变卖了, 一个投机出版商斯切尔洛夫斯基乘人之危, 逼迫陀思妥耶夫斯基与他签订合同: 限定陀思妥耶夫斯基在２６ 天内, 也就是１１ 月１ 日之前交出一部小说的文稿, 如不能按时交出, 斯切尔洛夫斯基就有权将这位作家今后九年的全部作品无偿地出版, 稿费分文不给．除去这一切灾难, 陀思妥耶夫斯基还经受着感情的磨难: 他全身心地爱着的波里娜·苏斯洛娃离开了他, 爱上了别人．

Twenty-Six Days in the Life of Dostoyevsky was entered on February 16th at the 1981 Berlin Film Festival to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Dostoyevsky's death on February 9th, 1881, and won a "Best Actor" award for Anatoly Solonitsyn as Dostoyevsky. Solonitsyn was a favorite actor in Andrei Tarkovsky's films, and this was to be his penultimate role. This brief imaginary period in the famed Russian writer's life encapsulates one of his darker moments in 1866. At that time he was still a relatively unknown writer whose first widely acclaimed work, Crime and Punishment, was just on the horizon. His life was at a very low ebb as he struggled with debts he could not pay, and as he fought depression over the loss of his wife to tuberculosis, and the death of his brother, who was very close to him. His first literary journal had to be scrapped because of political reasons, and the second venture needed funding.

Осень 1866 года. Великий Достоевский, находящийся под надзором полиции, в ужасном положении: менее чем за месяц он должен завершить роман «Игрок», в противном же случае он на многие годы попадет в кабалу к издателю. В эти дни судьба сводит Достоевского с юной Анной Сниткиной, которая становится добрым гением писателя, его помощницей, спасительницей, женой.