Analysis of the novel by F. M. Dostoevsky "The Brothers Karamazov"

The action of the novel by F.M. Dostoevsky "The Brothers Karamazov" (1878-1879) takes place in the provincial town of Skotoprigonyevsk, in noble family Karamazov. In terms of the breadth of coverage of life, the significance of the images drawn and the depth of the questions posed, this novel belongs to the most outstanding works writer. The Brothers Karamazov was conceived as a series of novels; only the first one was written, which is “almost not even a novel, but only one moment from the first youth of my hero” (Dostoevsky) - the “early philanthropist” Alyosha Karamazov, called to fulfill the precepts of his monastic mentor Father Zosima in life.

For Dostoevsky, the Karamazov family is Russia in miniature. Each of the characters embodies a certain "idea". The clash of these attitudes determines the action of the novel.

Disgusting in his cynicism and depravity, the old man Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov is, as it were, a symbol of the death and decay of Russian society in the 60s, which must nevertheless give rise to something new. The eldest son, Dmitry, is a natural, “broad” nature, good is mixed with evil in him. He gets entangled in his passions, comes to a moral impasse, but the wonderful "new man" that lives in his soul is a guarantee of a future resurrection to a different, righteous life. Dmitry is attracted to Alyosha, who embodies the true "living life". And with Ivan, who embodies the power of denial, the charm of evil, he has nothing in common, their relationship is purely external. It is Ivan who is the real, "in theory", the killer of his father. Smerdyakov - a pathetic figure - is only the executor of his evil will.

In the preface to the novel, Dostoevsky immediately distinguishes Alyosha from all actors. He calls him his hero. In the introductory story about Alyosha, Dostoevsky gives a "biography" of the third son of Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov. The author notes those features of his hero that distinguish him from others, attract the attention and sympathy of everyone who had to deal with Alyosha.

After his mother's death, "Alyosha suddenly announced ... that he wanted to enter a monastery and that the monks were ready to admit him as a novice." Alyosha went to the monastery, but did not stay there long. After the death of the elder Zosima, and by his will, Alyosha returned to worldly life, to its joys and anxieties. The elder realized that in the family younger son necessary, there it can bring a lot of benefits. Alexei himself feels that the brothers need him. Yes, not only brothers - his father, Grushenka, Katerina Ivanovna, children - everyone needs him. Because only Alyosha has such a kind, loving and forgiving heart. In difficult times, everyone turns to him for help, and he willingly helps people find themselves in this complex and confusing world.

The most passionate, the most unrestrained and the most quick-tempered of the Karamazovs, Mitya, sincerely rejoices when he meets Alyosha, and tells him his secret, "because the time has come." Alexei thinks a lot about his brothers, and thinks of them with love. And he is tormented because he cannot understand anything in "all this confusion." He cannot understand whom he needs to feel sorry for, what to wish each of the brothers. He already knew a little about Mitya and tried to help him as much as possible. And Ivan was a mystery to Alyosha. But thanks to the “acquaintance” of the brothers at dinner in a tavern, Alyosha realized that Ivan was also needed, needed to help him. The riddle gradually began to unravel. Ivan spoke frankly with Alyosha, he "wanted to get along" with him, because he had no friends. Ivan entrusted his innermost thoughts and theories, which he had long and painfully nurtured in his heart.

Ivan does not accept the world created by God, because this world is unfair and cruel. He does not talk about adult suffering because adults are not without sin. But why should children suffer, pure, not guilty of anything? After all, the tears of a child speak of the imperfection of this world. And Ivan does not accept the statement that children suffer for their future sins. He also does not understand the idea that evil on earth is necessary in order to better show good. Ivan doubts the omnipotence of God. In response to Alyosha, that Christ can forgive everyone and for everyone, Ivan tells the legend of the Grand Inquisitor. And he goes further than the inquisitor. He does not believe in man, he denies not only the world. Ivan denies morality and proclaims the principle "everything is allowed." And here he comes to a contradiction. He denied the god who creates harmony for the "teardrop" of a child. And I came to the principle “everything is allowed”, which entails only tears and blood.

Ivan says that he will not refuse "everything is allowed". Alyosha kisses him, to which Ivan remarks to him that this is literary theft. Alexey really repeats the act of Christ. And the conversation between the two brothers is similar to the scene of the conversation between Christ and the inquisitor. And here and there the “inquisitors” spoke, the “Christs” were silent. “And only at the end they gave an answer in their own spirit: I feel sorry for you, I forgive you and thus set an example for you ... I showed you that your initial attempt is false, that’s not how a person is, he is more complicated and better. The inquisitors did not understand that God must be inside, not outside. Denying God, they thereby showed not that there is no god at all, but only that there is no god in them.

Ivan did not kill his father. But the idea of ​​the permissibility, permissibility of parricide was first formulated by him. Dmitry also did not kill Fyodor Pavlovich, but in a fit of hatred for his father he was on the verge of a crime. Smerdyakov killed his father, but only bringing to its logical conclusion the thoughts thrown by Ivan.

In Karamazov's world it is impossible to restore the clear moral boundaries of crime: everyone is to blame for what happened, crime reigns in an atmosphere of mutual hatred and bitterness. Each person individually and collectively is to blame.

"Karamazovism", according to Dostoevsky, is the Russian version of the disease of European humanity, the disease of civilization. Its reasons lie in the fact that civilized mankind has lost moral values. There comes a crisis of humanism, which in Russia takes frank and defiant forms. Renunciation of higher spiritual values ​​leads a person to indifference, loneliness and hatred of life. Therefore, it was not for nothing that Dostoevsky made Alyosha Karamazov a man indispensable for everyone. Helping people in their troubles and alleviating their torment and suffering, Alyosha goes through an excellent school, he is more and more convinced of the idea that the most important thing in life is a feeling of love and forgiveness. Dostoevsky always faced the problem of overcoming pride, as the main source of disunity among people. He tries to resolve this theme in every novel. The Brothers Karamazov is no exception. Alexei renounced pride, which means that he forgave the pride of others, forgave “his grief and his misfortune” and accepted forgiveness himself.

F.M. Dostoevsky believed that the personality of a person is immortal, because it lives in others. But in order to become a person, you need to independently approach reality, have the meaning of life and focus not on “having”, but on “being”, and have a high moral responsibility. It is difficult, but without it there is no personality.

Analyzing in 1873 the canvases of Russian artists exhibited in St. Petersburg before being sent to the Vienna World Exhibition, Dostoevsky highly appreciated I. E. Repin's Barge Haulers and other works of the Wanderers (V. G. Perov, V. E. Makovsky and others ), he stated that "our genre is on a good road".

But at the same time, the novelist called on contemporary Russian artists, without stopping there, to conquer for Russian painting also the area of ​​the historical, “ideal” and fantastic, for “the ideal is also a reality, just as legitimate as the current reality.”

This call, indirectly addressed not only to Russian painting, but also to the literature of the 70s, can be regarded as an aesthetic expression of those new searches that led the author to create his last, final novel, The Brothers Karamazov (1879-1880), where the "current reality" appears in a complex alloy with historical and philosophical symbolism and is framed by "fantastic" elements dating back to medieval hagiographies and Russian spiritual verse.

By the time Dostoevsky began work on The Karamazovs, new trends were emerging in literature. In the 50-60s. in the Russian novel, story, themes and images dominated modern life, recreated in all its inherent concreteness and completeness of outlines.

Since the second half of the 70s and in the 80s. Russian realistic literature again often begins to turn to "eternal" themes and images, also prompted by reflections on modernity, but often developed in the form of a legend, allegory, "folk story" - using the appropriate range of traditional poetic motifs, which are saturated with a wide and capacious symbolic meaning. This general trend of the time in the 70-80s. manifested itself differently in Turgenev, Saltykov-Shchedrin, Garshin, L. Tolstoy, Korolenko.

It is no coincidence that in The Karamazovs, unlike Dostoevsky's previous works, high, poetic and tragic, "eternal" images not only serve for the novelist as symbolic landmarks designed to illuminate for the reader the deep meaning of the situations drawn by the novelist (as was already the case in Crime and Punishment). with images of Napoleon or Mohammed, in The Idiot with the image of Christ, in Possessed with a symbolic epigraph), but they also have a special - extensive - place in the climactic books and chapters of the novel, which form a special philosophical and symbolic "superstructure" over the chapters , which are devoted to social conflicts and types of "current" reality.

Just as in Possessed, Dostoevsky transfers the action of The Brothers Karamazov from Petersburg to the provinces, this time not to the provincial, but to the small county town of Skotoprigonyevsk, far from the center.

But he chooses the Russian province as the scene of action, not in order to oppose the strength and brightness of the patriarchal way of life preserved here, which has the features of a peculiar nationality, to the deadly formalism of feudal-bureaucratic orders and that painful social processes, which caused the capitalist development of Russia.

The writer leads his reader from St. Petersburg to the provinces in order to show that the painful socio-psychological processes that he depicted in the novels of the 60s have ceased to be the “privilege” of St. Petersburg, that they have covered, to a greater or lesser extent, the whole country.

Under the influence of the disruption of the habitual way of life, the ferment that has engulfed many hundreds and thousands of "random" families, not only in St. Petersburg, but also hundreds of miles from the capital, Russian people, as Dostoevsky shows, can no longer live unconsciously, spontaneously obeying the established order.

The novelist clearly sees that in Russia in the late 70s. there was not a single quiet corner left where the hidden struggle of passions did not boil and the tension of the existing state of affairs, the acuteness of the questions posed by it, were not felt with greater or lesser force.

Even in a provincial monastery, where calmness and “beautifulness” reign on the surface, in reality there is a persistent hidden struggle between the “old” and the “new”, wild, ignorant fanaticism and the sprouts of a different, more humane understanding of life, a harsh, oppressive formalism and a growing sense of personality.

Ordinary, ordinary at first glance, the crime is woven together with eternal problems beings over which the greatest minds of mankind have fought and are fighting for centuries. And in a provincial tavern, unknown Russian youths - almost still "boys", - putting aside all their current affairs and worries, argue about "world" issues, without the solution of which - as they realize - not a single one can be resolved. private question their personal existence.

The Karamazov family placed at the center of the novel and the other families described in it - the Khokhlakovs, the Snegirevs - represent different social and psychological points view of the variants of the type of family, which Dostoevsky described as a "random family". In all of them there is no “beauty”, there is a deaf, hidden or open struggle between generations.

In the Karamazov family, it leads to the murder of the father. This murder is symptomatic, from the point of view of the novelist, not only in the sense that it serves as evidence of the "unseemly" life of the landowner, the disintegration of the family in the new, post-reform, bourgeois era. It represents outward manifestation also another, deeper socio-psychological drama.

Along with the inevitable and natural collapse of the old moral norms in the conditions of the post-reform era, among various social strata, according to the observations of the novelist, the consciousness of the relativity of any morality grew, destructive, predatory, anti-social aspirations, expressed by the anarchist formula "everything is allowed", intensified.

The father of the three Karamazov brothers, Fyodor Pavlovich is a wealthy hanger-on, close to Foma Opiskin, Lebedev and other Dostoevsky's "jesters" we already know.

The features of a “Roman patrician of the era of decline” (according to the author’s description) are combined in him with the features of a wealthy upstart who (although the voice of conscience and religious tenderness sometimes sounds in his soul) cannot forget about his past for a single minute and, shaking from inner malice wants to morally repay others in their old age for the humiliations experienced in their youth.

Even the youngest of the Karamazovs, Alyosha, cannot free himself from contempt for his father and his moral condemnation, despite his evangelical ideals. FROM general attitude brothers Karamazov to the father are connected by the main conflict and moral issues novel.

The eldest of the brothers, Dmitry, is a passionate and enthusiastic person, unable to control his passions, and therefore sometimes reaching ugly deeds, but at the same time generous and noble in his soul. On all the paths of his life, Mitya runs into his father, and this causes him furious irritation: in despair, he declares several times that he cannot vouch for himself, since in anger he can kill Fyodor Pavlovich. However, at the decisive moment, Mitya still manages to keep himself from parricide.

The second of the Karamazov brothers, Ivan is a thinker by nature. This is a person of a cold, abstract mind, an atheist and a skeptic by conviction. Feeling the same contempt for both his father and his older brother for their moral “disgrace”, Ivan has nothing against father and brother mutually exterminating each other, so that “one bastard ate another bastard”.

Neither Mitya nor Ivan commit murder. However, Ivan’s skeptical reasoning, the contempt he preaches for generally accepted moral norms, his assertion that “ smart person“Everything is allowed”, find themselves a grateful ground in the embittered and cowardly lackey Smerdyakov, the fourth, illegitimate son of Fyodor Pavlovich. Considering Ivan his like-minded person, who wants his father's death and, if necessary, will help him hide the traces of the crime, Smerdyakov commits the murder of Fyodor Pavlovich with the expectation that the murder be attributed to Mitya.

Thus, the actual killer is Smerdyakov. But, as Dostoyevsky sternly shows the reader, the moral responsibility for the murder also falls on both elder Karamazovs, and above all on Ivan. Both of them, although they did not commit murder, in their hearts condemned their father and wished for his death.

Ivan was the direct inspirer of Smerdyakov, who instilled in him the idea of ​​a crime and gave silent agreement to murder, if only it was committed by another, and not by himself. Realizing their guilt, each of the brothers can no longer remain the same person.

Proud and rebellious Ivan goes crazy, and Mitya resigns himself, recognizing not only his moral responsibility for the past moral disgrace, but also his guilt for the general grief and suffering of all those whom he had not thought about before.

The consciousness of the responsibility of each person for the suffering of all people symbolically expresses a dream that Mitya has, accused of killing his father and arrested after a preliminary investigation. In a dream, he sees peasant women standing at the outskirts of a burnt Russian village, collecting alms.

One of them has a peasant "child" crying bitterly in her arms. The cry of a hungry peasant child painfully resonates in Mitya's heart, makes him feel his moral guilt before the people, responsibility for the suffering of each person, near and far.

In "Confession of a Hot Heart" (Dmitry's feverish monologue in front of Alyosha), he, executing himself, expresses a pessimistic view of modern man and its moral nature. Modern civilized man - and this is his misfortune, says Mitya - is "too" broad, a voluptuous "insect" lives in his blood, which makes most people vacillate between good and evil, the "ideal of the Madonna" and the "ideal of Sodom".

Therefore, the only way out possible for him is humility, renunciation of his passions, which lead him to chaos, to crime, to torture and humiliation of himself and others in the name of satisfying the whims of his "I". Just as antinomic in its own way is Ivan's thinking, reflected in the chapters "Rebellion" and "The Grand Inquisitor" of the fifth book.

Ivan is the bearer of an abstract, rationalistic, armchair type of thought. Such a mindset, according to Dostoevsky, is not something given from the age: it is generated by the limited conditions of historical life.

The rational, abstract structure of thought characteristic of Ivan is characteristic of a person of an individualistic era, a person whose normal balance between mind and feeling, intellectual and moral principles is disturbed. Strong in decomposition, in analysis, such a mindset, according to the verdict of the novelist, is weak and powerless where we are talking about philosophical and moral synthesis. Hence the historically natural wandering of Ivan's thought in the world of logical antinomies and moral sophisms.

Ivan cannot find a way out of the endless contradictions that open before his mental gaze. The whole universe and the whole life of mankind appear before him under the sign of antinomies insoluble for him, under the sign of the collision of the infinite and the finite, the absolute and the relative principles, good and evil, Christ and the "Grand Inquisitor".

And the point here is not only Ivan's personal weakness. The contradictions that his thought encounters, according to Dostoevsky, are objectively insoluble if one remains within the limits of the type of philosophical culture that Ivan is the bearer of.

Individualistic civilization, tragically separating people and separating them from each other, generates, according to the diagnosis of the author of The Brothers Karamazov, its own, potentially hostile to man, cold and abstract, formal-logical type of thinking, which is its necessary spiritual expression and addition.

The culmination of Ivan's confession is his "rebellion", which gave its name to the corresponding chapter of the novel. Ivan is able to admit that for purposes unknown to man, God could doom people to deprivation and suffering, but he cannot - even if he admits future harmony and bliss beyond the grave - to come to terms with the thought of the suffering of children.

Challenging all religions and all philosophical theodicies since the time of Leibniz, Ivan declares that he refuses with his earthly, "Euclidean" mind to understand a world where not only adults involved in the sins of this world, but also innocent children are doomed to social humiliation, death and suffering. . Therefore, he respectfully returns the “ticket” to the creator, giving a person the right to participate in the earthly representation set by this creator, along with the future “world harmony” crowning him.

Full of despair and stunning atheistic pathos, Ivan's story about the death of a peasant boy hunted by dogs on the orders of the landowner causes not only Ivan, but also Alyosha to realize the impossibility of reconciling with crimes against humanity, gives rise to the latter the idea of ​​the need to avenge them. When asked by Ivan what should be done with the landowner who has persecuted the child, Alyosha, throwing aside his religious ideals, answers without hesitation: “Shoot!”.

In the sixth book of the novel (“The Russian Monk”), as a philosophical antithesis to the ideas of Mitya and Ivan, Dostoevsky sets out the ideals of Zosima - the only answer that humanity, according to the writer, could at that time give to the religious doubts that tormented him throughout his life and put into the mouths of both main characters by the novelist.

Without rejecting the essentially tragic questions put forward by Ivan, Zosima argues that it depends on the person himself whether the world is hell or heaven for him. In any circumstances, he must first of all be pure in soul and live in peace with his conscience.

For the one who is true to this moral ideal, Ivan's theoretical doubts lose their sharpness. Sincere openness to the wonders of the world around him, work, meek and patient loving service to people save him from insoluble questions that torment Ivan, give him the opportunity to find peace of mind, constant clarity of spirit. This is not a theoretical answer (for such an answer, according to the writer, is impossible to give!), but a practically satisfying answer to Ivan's questions.

In spite of great art and the hard work invested by the novelist in the book The Russian Monk, which is an example of fine artistic stylization, did not fully satisfy Dostoevsky. As evidenced by his letters and notes in the notebook of 1880-1881, Ivan, and not Zosima, remained in his mind the most important hero of the novel. The "damned" questions, so sharply formulated on behalf of Ivan, never stopped in his own soul.

The philosophical pinnacle of The Brothers Karamazov is the legend "The Grand Inquisitor" told by Ivan Karamazov to Alyosha in the fifth chapter of the book Pro and Contra.

This fantastic "poem", as Ivan Karamazov defines its genre, reminiscent of medieval mysteries and "visions", represents, according to the author of the novel, Ivan's youthful work - like Raskolnikov's article in Crime and Punishment. At the same time, "Legend" is one of Dostoevsky's most exciting and grandiose works of art, filled with disturbing philosophical thought.

The action of the "Legend" is conditionally referred to the 16th century - to the era of the highest triumph of the Inquisition. On one of those days, marked by tortures and executions, in the city that was considered the stronghold of the Inquisition, Seville, Christ appears - in the form in which he is depicted on the pages of the Gospel.

The people immediately recognize and enthusiastically greet him, but the Grand Inquisitor, who saw Christ, orders him to be imprisoned as a violator of public peace and order. At night, the Inquisitor appears in prison to Christ and addresses him with a speech, to which Christ answers with mournful silence.

Struck by this all-understanding silence, the Inquisitor, according to the ending of the Legend conceived by Ivan, refuses his original intention - to burn Christ publicly as a heretic in the morning - and releases him from prison, so that in the future he "never, never" would come and violate his authority, like the laws of other ecclesiastical and secular authorities - did not come even at the hour announced in the Apocalypse.

This is the summary of the "Legend", the deep, generalizing philosophical and symbolic meaning of which is revealed in the Inquisitor's speech.

Dostoevsky contrasts in the "Legend" the image of Christ depicted in the Gospel and the content of his sermon with all later Western authorities known to him - spiritual and secular. According to the gospel story, Christ rejected the temptations of the evil spirit, refusing to assert his power over people at the cost of violence against their freedom.

The later spiritual and secular authorities of Western Europe, starting with imperial and Catholic Rome, according to the author of the Legend, rejected the testament of Christ and established their dominance on the “miracle”, “mystery” and “authority”. Having corrupted their subjects, they forced them to fear freedom and give it away in exchange for "bread", to sacrifice their human dignity and independence in the name of satiety and material comfort.

Therefore, Dostoevsky's Inquisitor recognizes himself in the "Legend" as a servant not of Christ, but of the devil who tempted him. And at the same time, like any person who builds his power on violence against other people, the Inquisitor is deeply unhappy, because such power, according to the author of the Legend, is not only inhuman and unjust. It inevitably condemns the one who uses it to the torment of loneliness and suffering, separates him from the rest of humanity.

This secret suffering of the Inquisitor is understood by Christ; therefore, in The Legend, before leaving the dungeon, he “quietly kisses him on his bloodless ninety-year-old lips” as one of his most lost, but at the same time unfortunate, astray children, children who voluntarily surrendered to the devil.

As in all his later works, Dostoevsky in The Legend expresses disbelief in the struggle for political freedom, opposing to it the moral freedom of the spirit as an ideal.

And yet, the "Legend", without a doubt, should be considered as one of the manifestations of the highest intensity of the rebellious, protesting moods characteristic of the writer. All forms of political and ecclesiastical power known to him, beginning with the Roman Empire and up to his own time, are here considered by Dostoevsky as related to each other forms of violence against human freedom and conscience. In this respect, they do not differ significantly, according to the severe sentence of the writer, from the medieval Inquisition.

Angrily condemning any manifestation of violence, Dostoevsky inseparably merges the image of Christ dear to him with the idea of ​​his closeness to the people and the idea of ​​freedom, putting them forward as a radiant moral force for the future of the obscure historical forces of coercion, embodied in the image of the fanatic inquisitor, hated by the writer.

The vulgar "double" of Ivan is Smerdyakov, whose figure grows into a deep socio-artistic generalization. The way of thinking of this stupid and prudent lackey in body and spirit, dreaming of opening a profitable restaurant in Paris with the money stolen after the murder and despising the common people for their "stupidity", reflects the pernicious influence of money on the soul of an urban tradesman, poisoned by the "temptations" of civilization.

Just like the parallel between Raskolnikov and Luzhin, the comparison of Ivan and Smerdyakov allows Dostoevsky to establish that for all the difference in their cultural and moral level between the proud individualist Ivan and the lackey Smerdyakov there is a social and psychological commonality, an inner "affinity of souls." Ivan himself is convinced of this, recoiling in horror from the murderer of Smerdyakov.

The idea of ​​a petty and low beginning, hiding at the “bottom” of the soul of an individualistically minded intellectual, no matter how refined he may be, deepens with new side in the penultimate chapter, remarkable in strength and depth, “Damn. Nightmare of Ivan Fedorovich. This is the ideological and artistic culmination of the eleventh book and one of the pinnacles of Dostoevsky's entire work.

Based on the study of the data of contemporary scientific psychology, which he subjects to his artistic interpretation, Dostoevsky uses the scene of Ivan's hallucinations, caused by a sense of his moral bankruptcy, in order to enable the reader to pass Ivan the last, final verdict. Ivan's fantastic interlocutor, the devil who lives at the bottom of his soul, is in the depiction of the author of The Karamazovs a projection of all that petty and low that is hidden in the soul of a refined intellectual cut off from the people, but usually hidden in it under the cover of proud individualistic phrases.

Based on the tradition of Goethe's "Faust", the symbolic devices of medieval legends and mysteries, Dostoevsky combines in the scene of Ivan's conversation with the devil, merciless in his truthfulness and sobriety. psychological analysis and grandiose philosophical symbolism.

The image of Ivan conversing with the devil is ironically correlated by Dostoevsky with Luther and Faust, in order to all the more strikingly show the meagerness of the soul of an intelligent individualist who thinks he is free. late XIX c., the comic and pathetic features of the "tempter" hiding at the bottom of his soul.

A special place in the novel belongs to the "boys" - representatives of the future Russia. Depicting the tragic fate of the loving, selfless and at the same time proud, vengeful Ilyusha Snegirev, revealing his early painful consciousness of social inequality and injustice, depicting an attractive image of the fourteen-year-old "nihilist", intelligent, searching and energetic Kolya Krasotkin, Dostoevsky illuminates those complex and diverse transformations which the child's psychology undergoes in the retort of city life.

But the story about the "boys" allows the author not only to add new bright strokes to his picture of the rearing and shocked Russian city life. The moral unity of Ilyushechka's previously disunited comrades at the bedside of a dying comrade is a kind of ideological conclusion to the novel; it is an artistic attempt to affirm the social-utopian dreams of Dostoevsky.

The "Union", which from now on forever unites Ilyusha's comrades, expresses the writer's dream of the movement of mankind to a brighter future, to a new "golden age", expresses his hope for new generations of Russian youth, who are destined to have their say in the life of Russia and lead humanity to others, bright paths.

Dostoevsky was going to continue the "biography" of Alexei Karamazov, devoting a second novel about him to his life in the "world". Leaving the monastery, Dostoevsky's beloved hero, judging by the memoirs of his contemporaries, had to plunge into the thick of the political passions of the era of Narodnaya Volya, become for a while an atheist and a revolutionary, and possibly reach the idea of ​​regicide. This idea, which the writer was not given the opportunity to realize, is a characteristic reflection of the constant living interaction between the creative thought of the novelist and the turbulent historical reality of his time.

Back in the mid 60s. Dostoevsky developed a view of the newspaper and the current periodical press in general as an indispensable source of knowledge for the artist and psychologist of the present.

“In every issue of the newspapers,” he wrote, “you come across an account of the most real facts and the most intricate ones. Day of our writers they are fantastic; Yes, they do not deal with them; yet they are reality, because they are facts. Who will notice them, explain them and write them down? They are minute and daily, not exceptional.<...>We will skip the whole reality that way past the nose.

History of Russian literature: in 4 volumes / Edited by N.I. Prutskov and others - L., 1980-1983

CHRISTIAN MOTIVES IN THE NOVEL

F.M. DOSTOYEVSKY "BROTHER KARAMAZOV"

Coursework in Literary History

MOSCOW

I. Introduction. Review of critical literature.

II. Christian motives in the novel by F.M. Dostoevsky "Crime and Punishment".

III. Christian motives in the novel by F.M. Dostoevsky "The Brothers Karamazov".

1) Analysis of the influence of Christian sources on the structure of the novel.

2) Analysis of the epigraph to the novel.

3) Analysis of the narrator's style.

4) The problem of responsibility for the crime.

5) The image of Ivan Karamazov. Conversation between Ivan and Alyosha.

6) "The Legend of the Grand Inquisitor".

7) The Devil and Smerdyakov are the “twins” of Ivan Karamazov.

IV. Conclusion.

Introduction

Modern Russian literary criticism has radically reorganized methodologically after many years of stagnation and the undivided domination of vulgar sociological schematism and all sorts of ideological dictates. Now it is attentive to the experience of foreign literary criticism, widely uses the developments of Russian scientists who went into exile and lived in isolation from their homeland, separated from them. iron curtain. Comparative problems are now being solved more boldly and historically more objectively, without sticking labels.

One of the areas forbidden for study until recently was the area of ​​religion, with which supposedly literature has no connection. In literary works, including in the novels of F.M. Dostoevsky, social, psychological, philosophical plans stood out. Any mention of religion and concepts related to it was called "reactionary", "erroneous". Dostoevsky was presented as a propagandist of socialist ideas. An example is the following statement. A.A. Belkin: "It must be emphasized that this [philosophical and political] problem determines both his progressive humanistic sides and his reactionary, religious-idealist ideas" . G. Friedlander: “But even today the works of Dostoevsky the humanist, his angry criticism of serfdom and the proprietary bourgeois world, his confidence in the need for brotherhood and moral unity of people continue to serve the great cause of the social and moral renewal of mankind ...” . Of course, in the works of the writer there is criticism of the capitalist system, a call for the unity of people, but from completely different positions than those of the socialists. One cannot equate the "world system of socialism" with Dostoevsky's "universal brotherhood". Here is how the writer formulates his understanding of socialism: the main idea socialism is mechanism. There man becomes man by mechanics. For all the rules. The person himself is eliminated. A living soul has been taken away." In addition, evidence of Dostoevsky's rejection of socialism is his polemic with N.G. Chernyshevsky and his "theory of rational egoism".

AT recent times a number of interesting, in our opinion, articles devoted to the study of Christian motives in the work of F.M. Dostoevsky. We list just a few of them: D.D. Grigoriev - "Dostoevsky and Religion"; L.G. Krishtaleva - “The moral significance of an act in the novel by F.M. Dostoevsky "The Brothers Karamazov"; BUT. Lossky - "Dostoevsky and his Christian worldview"; R. Lauth - “On the issue of the genesis of the “Legend of the Grand Inquisitor”: notes on the problem of the relationship between Dostoevsky and Solovyov” [Art. and Germany]; I. Mindlin - “Faith or disbelief? Notes on Dostoevsky"; G.B. Kurlyandskaya - “F.M. Dostoevsky and L.N. Tolstoy: to the problem of religious and moral quests. The following articles seemed the most interesting to us, the contents of which we would like to touch on in more detail.

Article by A.M. Bulanova “The patristic tradition of understanding the “heart” in the works of F.M. Dostoevsky" covers both religious and psychological issues of the writer's works. The "mystery of man", which the writer unraveled all his life, contained the secret of the relationship between "mind" and "heart". This is what Crime and Punishment is about. Rational logic enters into a struggle with direct feeling: to step over the blood according to conscience means to exclude the "heart" from one's own "I".

In the novel "The Idiot" an attempt was made to create perfect person, in which harmony would be achieved between the "mind" and the "heart" - this is the "prince of Christ", Prince Myshkin. This image is analyzed by A.M. Bulanov from such positions.

In his latest novel, The Brothers Karamazov, the dialectic of the relationship between the “mind” and the “heart” is deepened by the example of Ivan Karamazov's “rebellion”.

The author, summing up his analysis of F.M. Dostoevsky, concludes that “the movement of the fundamental ideas of Eastern Christian asceticism in the work of the author of The Brothers Karamazov”. One of them was the idea of ​​the unity of "mind" and "heart", expressed by the Russian genius in all its contradictory and transforming power, which is fundamental for Orthodoxy.

In the work of S.V. The head of "Historical and ideological systems: culture, civilization and paganism in the artistic world of Dostoevsky" touches upon the universal problems of Dostoevsky's work. Christianity in the world of the writer has an exceptional ability to create the soil and cultural atmosphere of society. According to the author, representatives of Christian culture (Sonya Marmeladova, Prince Myshkin, Elder Zosima) are the guardians of the purity of the ideal in a society afflicted by pagan passion and permissiveness and the idea of ​​civilization about the need for the primacy of earthly values ​​over spiritual ones in the process of building a secularized paradise on Earth, that is, words of Dostoevsky, Babylon.

Through practical activity, representatives of civilization learn that the Creator is not with them. The rational mindset of Ivan, coming from civilization, was reflected in the poem about the Grand Inquisitor, in the selection of material about the suffering of children, in protest against the world of God. Similarly, representatives of culture through the deed learn the will of God. Alyosha Karamazov becomes such a "figure" in the world.

The author of the article concludes that “only Christianity is culture-forming in the world of Dostoevsky. Culture, civilization and paganism are the main components of the Russian cathedral soul. The personality of an individual hero is just as polystructural in the writer's world as the conciliar soul, but the hypostasis of the conciliar spirit always prevails in it.

CHRISTIAN MOTIVES IN F.M. Dostoyevsky "Crime and Punishment"

In the work of F.M. Dostoevsky, the Christian problematics receives its main development in the novels "Crime and Punishment" and "The Brothers Karamazov". In "Crime and Punishment" many problems were touched upon, which were then developed in "The Brothers Karamazov".

The main idea of ​​the novel "Crime and Punishment" is simple and clear. She is the embodiment of the sixth commandment of God - "Thou shalt not kill." But Dostoevsky does not just declare this commandment. He proves the impossibility of committing a crime in good conscience using the example of the story of Rodion Raskolnikov.

As we know from Raskolnikov's first dream, in childhood the main character believed in God and lived according to his laws, that is, he lived as his conscience told him (and conscience, according to Dostoevsky, figuratively speaking, is a vessel in which the moral law is located , and it is in every person, which is the unshakable basis of being). In his youth, having arrived in St. Petersburg, Rodion saw terrible picture poverty, blatant social injustice, and all this shook his faith in God. In Raskolnikov, a refined, sensitive young man, the existing social system caused a protest, a rebellion, which was expressed in the creation of his own theory explaining the entire course of world history. Thoughts similar to the thoughts of the protagonist were in the air in Russia at that time (evidence of this is a conversation in a tavern heard by the protagonist). These are ideas about killing one spider for the benefit of thousands of people. The right to destruction has a special class of people - "supermen", who are the creators of the new in the world, they are the "engines" of humanity. Examples of such people are Napoleon and Newton. The rest are not able to appreciate the activities of the Napoleons, their discoveries. Raskolnikov calls them "trembling creatures." The consequence of these ideas is the intention of the protagonist to kill the old pawnbroker. The conflict is intensified by the fact that it does not evoke sympathy from either the author or the readers. So Dostoevsky provokes us to agree with Raskolnikov.

At the beginning of the novel, Raskolnikov himself calls the purpose of the murder the benefit of thousands of unfortunate Petersburg poor. However, the true purpose of the crime is formulated by the main character later, during dialogues with Sonya Marmeladova. This goal is to determine whether Rodion belongs to the first or second category of people.

So, Raskolnikov, after long doubts (after all, his conscience is alive in him), kills the old woman. But at the time of the murder, Lizaveta, the pawnbroker's sister, suddenly enters the apartment, a downtrodden, defenseless creature, one of those whose benefit Rodion hides behind. He kills her too.

After committing the murder, the protagonist is shocked but unrepentant. However, "nature", completely drowned out by the mind during the preparation and commission of the murder, begins to rebel again. The symbol of this internal struggle in Raskolnikov is physical ailment. Raskolnikov suffers from the fear of being exposed, from the feeling of being "cut off" from people, and, most importantly, he is tormented by the understanding that "he killed something, but did not cross and remained on this side."

Raskolnikov still considers his theory to be correct, therefore the protagonist interprets his fears and worries about the committed crime as a sign of a committed mistake: he did not aim at his role in world history - he is not a “superman”. Sonya persuades Rodion to turn himself in to the police, where he confesses to the murder. But this crime is now perceived by Raskolnikov not as a sin against Christ, but precisely as a violation of belonging to "trembling creatures." True repentance comes only in hard labor, after an apocalyptic dream, in which the consequences of accepting by all people the theory of "Napoleonism" as the only correct one are shown. Chaos begins in the world: each person considers himself the ultimate truth, and therefore people cannot agree among themselves.

Dostoevsky's final novel. The Brothers Karamazov is a masterpiece of Russian and world literature and the final work of the writer, in which many motifs, plots, images of his previous works were repeated in a new way. The author spent his whole life working towards the creation of this novel. It poses the fundamental problems of human existence: the question of the meaning of the life of each person and of all human history, the question of moral foundations and spiritual foundations of human existence. This book has matured in the national field, has developed on the basis of the common searches of Russian philosophical-religious and artistic-humanistic thought and marks a new stage in its development: the desire to bring together, bring together philosophy and faith, science and religion, which was clearly manifested in the same years in the activities of Pm. Solovyov, in his "Readings on God-manhood", which served as one of the incentives for Dostoevsky's work on his last novel. At the same time, The Brothers Karamazov is based on a long European literary tradition in understanding these issues, enters into a dialogue with the works of Shakespeare, Schiller, Goethe, Hugo, and is included in the broadest cultural context of the era.

In the creative laboratory of the writer, the origins of the novel go back to his large-scale plans - (1868-1869) and (1869-1870). In the spring of 1878, the idea of ​​a novel in two or three volumes arose about the moral ordeals of Alexei Karamazov and his brothers, one of which is a type of Atheist, and the hero himself is a monastic student leaving for the world.

The plot of the novel was formed according to the impressions of the writer's acquaintance with, accused of parricide and serving a sentence in the Omsk jail. Dostoevsky already a few years after leaving prison became aware that Ilyinsky had been convicted for someone else's crime; its history is set out twice in, in chapter I of the first part and in chapter VII of the second part. In the autumn of 1874, the writer decided on the basis of this story to write a psychological “drama” about the crime and moral rebirth of two brothers (“Drama. In Tobolsk ...”), but then this idea was significantly transformed and grew into a grandiose epic novel, created with caution on the epic of L.N. Tolstoy "War and Peace".

The positions of the heroes of the novel - the Karamazov brothers - are extremely generalized: their destinies represent the entire modern intelligentsia in relation to Russia and to humanity as a whole, the future of Russia and humanity is made dependent on the moral and ethical development of the individual. According to one of the plans, “one brother is an atheist. Despair. The other one is all fanatic. The third is the future generation, living force, new people. Three generations are presented in the novel: fathers, children, and future "roaming forces" - boys. But the writer's goal was not to give a historical novel, but pictures and faces of current life, he turned to the recent past, to the events of thirteen years ago, which were supposed to be an introduction to the contemporary activities of Alexei Karamazov.

The novel also became a kind of laboratory in 1876-1877: it posed many problems that became the subject of artistic analysis in the novel: the “Russian idea” is the concept of an original spiritual development Russia, the moral decay of society is a general isolation, social role Russian court, relations between fathers and children, etc.

The implementation of the plan required "hard labor": the novel was created over the course of almost three years and - an unusually long period for Dostoevsky.

Dostoevsky wrote the novel in books representing "something whole and complete" - and more than once it happened that half of the book was already in print, while the other half was still being formed under the writer's pen. The work on book V “Pro and contra” and VI “Russian monk” turned out to be especially laborious for him, which the writer himself defined as culminating in the novel. In the process of work, Dostoevsky gave great importance realistic accuracy of the image, consulted with lawyers and regarding the description of the judicial procedure, with physicians about the illness of Ivan Karamazov. The scene of action - the city of Skotoprigonievsk - reproduces the topography where Dostoevsky wrote his novel and where expensive sights have been preserved: the house of the writer himself (in the novel this is the house of the old man Karamazov), and the house of Grushenka (philistine women), and other places, so that modern reader, which ended up in Russa, can follow the routes of Dmitry Karamazov. But the writer strove for "complete realism" not only in depicting the details of everyday life and mental life characters, but also when recreating the spiritual appearance of the characters. In a letter to K.P. Pobedonostsev dated May 19, 1879, he noted that his Ivan, like all “current business socialists, no longer rejects the existence of God, but denies with all his might "the creation of God, the world of God and its meaning <...>. Thus, I flatter myself with the hope that even in such an abstract topic I have not betrayed realism.

One of the tasks of the novelist was to present new samples of positively beautiful people - ascetics, true heroes of Russian life - and to prove the authenticity of both the elder Zosima and Alyosha Karamazov. Regarding Zosima, the author wrote to N.A. Lyubimov: "Let me confess that a pure, ideal Christian is not an abstract matter, but figuratively real, possible, forthcoming with one's own eyes, and that Christianity is the only refuge of the Russian Land from all evils. Dostoevsky admitted that the prototype of the elder Zosima "was taken from some of the teachings of Tikhon of Zadonsk, and the naivety of the presentation - from the book of the wanderings of the monk Parthenius."

As V.E. Vetlovskaya, the image of Alyosha Karamazov bears the features of a hagiographic hero and reveals similarities with the Life of Alexei the Man of God. However, the main character is also named after him, who died on May 16, 1878 at the age of three. His death shocked the writer. Soon, on the advice of his wife, he went with him to Optina Hermitage, where he stayed on June 25-27, had meetings with the famous, who became one of the prototypes of the image of Zosima.

AT modern writer The novel was not well received by critics. Democratic and populist criticism immediately condemned him. in "Notes of a Contemporary" he saw in Dostoevsky's new novel a manifestation of "cruel talent"; he will then develop the idea of ​​the writer's cruelty in a special article devoted to all his work (Cruel talent // Otechestvennye zapiski. 1882. No. 9, 10). in the article “The Mystical-Ascetic Novel” he saw in Dostoevsky’s religious preaching a departure from humanism, from the protection of the spiritual freedom of man: according to the critic, both the Inquisitor and Zosima preach the enslavement of the will, the subordination of the individual to authority; Antonovich reproached the author for "the complete unnaturalness of his faces and their actions."
The true scope of the novel from the critics of the 1880s. noticed only, who saw in it the formulation of pan-European problems, the connection with Byron's rebelliousness and Schopenhauer's pessimism, and at the same time the "Russian solution to the problem" - the genetic connection of Ivan Karamazov with Turgenev's Bazarov.

But the real study of the novel began only at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries. from the fundamental work of V.V. Rozanov, published in 1891. In one of the central chapters of the novel, Rozanov found the key to understanding Dostoevsky's entire work as artistic and philosophical, mystical and symbolic, turning to the fundamental mysteries of being and the human spirit. Following V. Rozanov, other critics of the religious and philosophical direction are S. Bulgakov, D. Merezhkovsky, Vyach. Ivanov, N. Berdyaev, L. Karsavin, S. Gessen, N. Lossky, S. Frank and others - interpreted the pages of the novel as a discovery of the transcendent nature of man and the tragedy of religious consciousness, facing a choice between "being in God" and "escape from God."

In the 1920-1940s. Literary critics did a great job of studying the history of the novel, its origins (Grossman, Dolinin, Reizov), in the 1980s. this work was continued by the American Slavist R.L. Belnep. In the 1950s-1980s. the novel is studied in the aspect of sociological (Ermilov, Kirpotin), philosophical and ethical (Chirkov, Belkin, Kantor), poetic and mythological (Vetlovskaya, Meletinsky, etc.), in the aspect literary traditions and national identity(Vilmont, Shchennikov).

One of the original key concepts of the novel is "Karamazovism", a term that characterizes the psychological complex inherent in the Karamazov family, and, above all, its head Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov, and which has become the same household word as "Oblomovism" or "Khlestakovism". Karamazovism is unrestrained passions, spiritual chaos, "disintegration of the soul." This phenomenon reflects both the social and moral degradation of the Russian nobility (the point of view of V. Ermilov, A. Belkin), and biological, cosmic and ontological decay (the point of view of N. Chirkov, E. Meletinsky), the idea that “life in its own expansion gives rise to the denial of itself” (Chirkov).
M. Gorky saw in Karamazovism a brilliant generalization of the "negative properties of the Russian national character." In our opinion, Karamazovism is a manifestation of mass spiritual nihilism, it is “the penetration of godlessness into the very way of life of a Russian person, the defeat of the entire order of existence” (“corruption of the spirit”); This is most clearly manifested in Father Fyodor Pavlovich, whose ostentatious voluptuousness is a challenge to the moral ideal, hidden theomachism in the name of falsely understood truths: “naturalness” and “human rights”.
The epidemic of unbelief, in the image of Dostoevsky, is a very dangerous disease that causes an escalation of the base instincts of the “crowd” (predation, rudeness, licentiousness), and most importantly, complete liberation from internal prohibitions and the assertion of extreme egoism: “Burn the whole world with fire, it would be only me Good". Karamazov's unrestraint is interpreted as a self-destructive force. The propensity of a Russian person to renounce the saint is presented as a consequence of the eternal restlessness of a Russian person - "forgetfulness of any measure in everything", "the ability to go over the edge" - and all this is caused by a deep need for an inner anchor - a sense of the strength of social and moral foundations. Such destructive impulses arise at the moments of a sharp break in the stable national way of life.
But Russian passion is represented in the novel by a force that is not only destructive, but also creative. All the events in the novel take place in the interval between two trials - the monastic court, created by the elder, and the trial of Dmitry Karamazov - the scene of the lawsuit between the old man Karamazov and his son Dmitry in the cell of the old man Zosima and the trial on accusation of Dmitry of parricide. Both in Zosima's speeches and in the final trial, the trial of the Russian person in general is carried out and the deep reasons for his disorder, the problematic nature of his fate are revealed. A Russian person suffers from the fact that he often finds himself in the thrall of false value orientations, ostensibly humanistic ideas dressed up in the clothes of truth and justice. Elder Zosima captures in the souls of visitors a deep split, a need for religious faith, a thirst for life according to the "law of Christ" and, at the same time, a constant inclination to lie, which protects the egoistic claims of man. The fate of each character is determined by the nature of these contradictions, the moral and ethical positions of a person. The artfully constructed composition of the novel serves as a systematic comparison and opposition of these positions.
The novel consists of 12 books. After the first two books - the exposition "History of a Family" and the outrageous "Inappropriate Meeting" - in the 3rd book "The Voluptuous" presents confessors and defenders of primitive unbelief and demonstrative godlessness (Fyodor Pavlovich and his unrecognized son Pavel Fedorovich Smerdyakov), in 4- The book "Tears" contains characters (Katerina Verkhovtseva, Father Ferapont, Ms. Khokhlakov, Snegirevs), striving to act nobly and morally, but whose virtue is strained, built on inveterate and vain pride or painful ambition, whose behavior is self-centered: they there is no sense of inner connection with the world as a whole. In books 5 "Pro and contra" and 6 "Russian monk" the main characters come to the fore: Ivan, Zosima, Alyosha (still formerly Dmitry); they put their credo in connection with universal laws, comprehend in the light of a certain ontology. Then the positions of each of the brothers are tested in a critical situation: first, Alexei's faith is tested (Book 7 "Alyosha"), then Dmitry's human potential (Book 8 "Mitya" and Book 9 "Preliminary Investigation") and finally - Ivan (Book 11 "Brother Ivan Fedorovich"). Book 10 "Boys", dedicated to the theme of the future generation, stands apart. Finally, in the final 12th book, The Error of Judgment, all the heroes are once again brought together and all positions are put on public trial.
The image of Dmitry Karamazov is connected with the problem of the moral and religious revival of man - the main one in the novel. This personality is indefatigable, in no way knowing measures socially dangerous. At the same time, it is the trembling Russian soul, stricken by its own disintegration, yearning to "collect" itself as a human being. Dmitry sees in his fall a manifestation of the general law of life - the ethical duality of modern man, rushing between the ideal of the Madonna and the ideal of Sodom. This consciousness does not console him as an underground person, but causes pain and despair. Mitya is a "broad Russian nature", a type repeatedly varied by the writer. A deep religious feeling lives in him: he truly believes in God, but moral consciousness he often does not anticipate actions, but appears after the fact as a remorse of conscience. He beats his father and threatens him with reprisals, but at the “opportune moment” he is unable to raise his hands against him - and explains this by the saving intercession of God. His rebirth began even before his arrest, with a change in attitude towards Grushenka, but only important point moral resurrection of Dmitry is his dream about the peasants who suffered fires, about a crying child in the arms of a withered mother - an implicitly emerging thought about responsibility to the people. Mitya is reborn through spiritual ordeals, through torment and suffering - this is a passive way of knowing the laws of the human spirit and himself, corresponding to the program of human self-salvation, bequeathed by the elder Zosima. As a spiritually seeking person, Mitya does not fit into the usual typology of Russian truth-seekers-intellectuals - the heroes of Turgenev and L. Tolstoy, who are preoccupied with the search for truth, a life goal. His faith does not need to be tested, his task is different - the religious purification of the soul, repentance for what he has done, gaining integrity. Dmitry is closer to heroes from the popular environment like Lyubim Tortsov or Ivan Severyanovich Flyagin. In the finale, it turns out that moral harmony is still only a dream of the hero, that he is hardly capable of carrying his hard labor cross all his life and therefore is preparing to escape to America; however, he believes that he will run away not for joy, but for "another penal servitude, no worse, perhaps, this one." He does not imagine his existence outside his native land, apart from its soil, without the "Russian God". With the fate of Dmitri, Dostoevsky expresses his cherished idea that the ineradicable need to live according to conscience is the most important Russian unrestraint.
Dmitry's intuitionism is contrasted with the rationalism of his brother Ivan. Ivan is the heir to the educational ideology, which established the cult of reason as the highest criterion of truth, legality, truth. At the same time, the story of Ivan, like that of Dostoevsky's other ideologists, reflects the tragedy of the mind—its enormous destructive power and inability to be the only firm support for man. For the first time, an artistic analysis of "woe from wit" was given by W. Shakespeare in the tragedy "Hamlet". By the fate of his Hamlet, Shakespeare showed that power over human soul boundlessly probing reason, one-sided criticism is heavy, painful: it turns a person into a hostage of his own reflection, it leads him to the recognition of the nonsense, the futility of human life. In The Brothers Karamazov, references to Hamlet are repeated and Shakespearean hero is always remembered in a context that provokes a comparison of a Russian person with Europeans: “There are Hamlets, but we still have Karamazovs.” Ivan Karamazov raises the question of the meaninglessness of being on a different plane than Hamlet: he is concerned about the unjustification not of individual existence, but of the entire human history from the point of view of the highest and “ultimate” goals of mankind. He affirms the absurdity of God's world, in which there are unjustified and unredeemed sufferings of children. If Hamlet was shocked by the omnipresence of evil, then Ivan Karamazov constantly declares something else - the rootedness of evil in human nature. It is difficult to determine what is more in Ivan's rebellion: whether compassion for a person or indignation at him. But the logic of his rebellion leads to the conclusion that the existence of evil in the world proves the absence of God, and atheism leads to the assumption of evil, to the principle "everything is allowed." Ivan understands that Christianity is attractive as a great, unifying creed, and tries to discredit its unifying power in his poem "The Grand Inquisitor". Christianity seems to Ivan not wise enough: a different way of integrating people, proposed by the "powerful and intelligent" spirit, the devil, who tempted Christ, seems to him real, corresponding to human nature - the path not of conscience, but of forcible unity - by the power of the sword, mystery and authority - the tools of the totalitarian church state.
Dostoevsky reflected in Ivan's poem the eschatologism characteristic of the Russian intelligentsia of the last century - the aspiration to the "future city". What did the “Russian boys” like to talk about? “About world questions,” says Ivan, “not otherwise: is there a God, is there immortality? And those who do not believe in God, well, they will talk about socialism or anarchism, about the reorganization of all mankind according to a new state, so the same hell will come out, all the same questions, only from the other end. Not only the intelligentsia, but also the mass of people of the 20th century, lived their lives with the belief in the remaking of "the whole of humanity in a new state." Ivan's fantasies were a prediction of the grandiose social hoaxes of the 20th century: the ideology of National Socialism, the theory of victorious socialism and the coming communism, the ideas of Maoism, etc.
Ivan's thesis “everything is allowed” is a philosophical postulate that implies a new status of a free person who has cast off the shackles of religion. Ivan wrote about this in another poem - "Geological Revolution", which he was reminded of by the devil who appeared in a nightmare; in it, Ivan Karamazov dreams of a society of people who have completely renounced God: “Man will be exalted with the spirit of divine, titanic pride, and a man-god will appear.”
The idea of ​​"everything is allowed", once on the street, among primitive people, turns out to be a deadly weapon. Smerdyakov acts according to this theory, killing his father against Ivan's conscious will, but guessing his secret desire for "one bastard to eat another bastard." Dostoevsky showed the weakness of Ivan's atheistic mind, which reveals amazing blindness and helplessness in a collision with the intrigues of Smerdyakov, subordinating him to his desires. Ivan only realizes his greatest mistake towards the end of the novel, having learned from Smerdyakov's confession that in his eyes he, Ivan, was the main killer, and Smerdyakov himself recognized himself only as his henchman.
In The Brothers Karamazov, just as in Goethe's tragedy Faust, the union of the thinker with the devil is depicted. In Dostoevsky's novel, the devil appears in two faces: this is Ivan's real, living double Smerdyakov - the embodiment of everything diabolical in Ivan's soul, and the devil, who appears to him in a nightmare, at the moment of an attack of delirium tremens, is the fruit of his sick imagination. The devil, the "hawker" from the nightmare, is the same casuist, chisel-maker and paradoxist as Smerdyakov and Fyodor Pavlovich. Along with external signs, words and deeds, Dostoevsky's traits resemble Goethe's Mephistopheles and seeks to evoke association with him himself. Mephistopheles in "Faust" appears as a tempter of man. The devil is in Ivan's nightmare and the tempter, who dissuades him from turning himself in to the court, and at the same time the provocateur, pushing Ivan to faith in God. Ivan's furious dispute with the devil is evidence of the painful struggle of faith and disbelief in the soul of the hero-ideologist. Therefore, here, as in Faust, the devil is sent to man by Providence in order to awaken the human in him.
But the union of Faust with Mephistopheles is a symbol of the aspiration of the German spirit to boundless knowledge and wide activity, located on the other side of good and evil; as a tragic national gift, it will be noted by K.G. Jung and revealed in T. Mann's novel Doctor Faustus. Ivanov's alliance with the devil is a sign of the struggle for unlimited freedom, which in fact turns into a defense of "limitless despotism" and personal slavery. And the most terrible consequence of such a union for a Russian person is the inability to believe with a passionate thirst for it, which is convincingly shown in the finale of the novel.
tragic fate Ivan Karamazov is a warning and strong personality, and the whole people, risking for the sake of asserting their power and broad life tasks to transgress the laws of humanity, conscience and truth. In the affirmation of the ideal of the highest responsibility, national and universal (everyone is "to blame for everyone and for everything"), the national and cultural specificity of Russian Faust manifested itself.
The image of the third brother - Alyosha - is the last experience of the writer in solving the problem of a "positively beautiful person". This is the type of the new Russian ascetic, the religious truth seeker. For the first time in new Russian literature, a positive hero appears in the cassock of a monastic novice. Dostoevsky was the first to show the fundamental difference between the patriot-ascetic and the fighter-atheist, he presented the antithesis of the Ascetic and the Hero. The substantiation of the character of Alexei Karamazov in the very first chapters of the novel is given on the basis of the principle "by contradiction"; he is not at all like the Heroes. Among the leading heroes of Russian literature, their conscious life began with a sharply critical attitude towards close circle and internal separation from it - Alyosha's life begins with the realization of himself as a worldly person: he is open to the world, easily converges with people, unconditionally trusts everyone. He is able to get along with a depraved father with an acute rejection of depravity, because he knows how to see in any person the bearer of the face of God. According to the writer, the faith of Alexei is akin to the faith of the Russian people, and he unconditionally believed in his monastic mentor, the elder Zosima, because he saw in him the guardian of the people's faith.
Alexei's character trait is comparable with the personalities of Christian ascetics - the heroes of hagiographic literature. According to V.E. Vetlovskaya, in Alexei the qualities of an ascetic who overcomes worldly temptations predominate - and it is in this respect that his fate is comparable to the canonical plot of the Life of Alexis - God's man and with spiritual verses about him. However, Alyosha is endowed with the ability for indiscriminate love from the very beginning - and in this he is akin to the Russian saints Theodosius of the Caves, Stephen of Perm, Sergius of Radonezh. Already with the blessing of his mother, who gave him under the protection of the Mother of God, he was carried away “on some new, unknown, but already inevitable road” - and it was not by chance that he met the extraordinary elder Zosima on it. And Zosima sends him into the world not as a probationary novice, for ascetic education, but as a fighter of Christ's army, already ready to reconcile and unite people, transform them, warn them from evil thoughts and criminal deeds. Alyosha also experiences sinful temptations, especially when he rebels against God because the body of his elder began to give away corruption. But his temptations are insignificant in comparison with the self-torture of Christian ascetics: he does not torture himself with fasting, prayer, or chains. And most importantly, he is not at all afraid of the world, does not suffer from its temptations. In it, Dostoevsky portrays a new type of monastic student who did not seek to hide in holy walls from worldly passions. His behavior corresponds to the doctrine of internal asceticism, directed not to personal, but to common salvation, to righteousness in the world. This doctrine was formed in the bowels of the Russian monastery, Optina Hermitage, and was consistently developed by its elders - Leonid, Macarius and Ambrose. Optina Pustyn played a significant role in the spiritual life of Russian writers: N.V. Gogol, I.V. Kireevsky, Dostoevsky, L.N. Tolstoy, K.N. Leontiev and others. Even Alyosha’s statement that Karamazov’s passions lurk in him is, in essence, not a confession of vices, not a description of his own condition, but a gesture of inner rapprochement with the world, which is fundamentally important for a Russian monk. The feeling of unity of the righteous with the world has a Christian-ontological basis, comes from a special experience of the world as a kind of integrity, beauty and joy, a feeling of being a particle of the divine universe. In draft sketches for the novel, the author writes about Alexei: “Are you a mystic? Never! Fanatic? By no means! In the final text, this idea is provided with reservations. A modern scholar sees in these statements a defense against the stereotyped attacks of liberals "in an age when mysticism was viewed with suspicion, and fanaticism was recognized only in politics" (Balknap). Alyosha experiences a strong mystical experience in the chapter "Cana of Galilee", after he dreamed of a dead beloved elder sitting next to Christ in a dream. Already at the moment of awakening, he felt the contact of the soul with the other world, and it was as if the threads from all these worlds of God converged at once in his soul, and it all trembled, in contact with the other world. This moment of divine revelation became decisive in his fate: "He fell to the ground as a weak young man, but he stood up as a fighter for life and realized and felt it suddenly ...". From that moment on, something “solid and unshakable” was added to Alexei’s Christian softness and humility, which descended into his soul and was necessary in the matter of spiritual healing of people.
In relations with the brothers, Alexei acts not only as a trusting listener - a "confidant", but also as a spiritual healer, a conscientious judge, and in some cases a mentor. It is noteworthy that in this capacity, Alexei often recognizes himself as an executor of the will of God, a messenger of God; for example, when he convinces Ivan to believe that he, Ivan, is not a murderer: “God sent me to tell you this<...>. And it was God who placed it on my soul to tell you this.”
Dostoevsky considered Alexei Karamazov the first hero of his novel, but the main book about him was supposed to be his second volume (see the preface "From the Author"), but it remained unwritten. There is evidence of one of the writer's intentions: “He wanted to take him [Alyosha] through the monastery and make him a revolutionary. He would commit a political crime. He would be executed. He would search for the truth, and in this search, naturally, he would become a revolutionary. Suvorin A.S. A diary. M., 1992. S. 16). Some researchers take this evidence as a real plan<...>. It is known, however, how often and quickly the writer's intentions changed. The implementation of such a “plan” raises serious doubts: Alexei is too far from a revolutionary, moreover, he is decisively opposed to him. He could do only one murderous act - to sacrifice himself, like Christ. The novel outlines a different perspective of Alyosha's activities: here he, like Christ, instructs his disciples - twelve teenage boys (by association with the twelve apostles of Christ) - to a life faithful to the ideals of Christian love and brotherly love.
The spokesman for the author's program in the novel is the elder Zosima, Ivan's main ideological opponent. A preacher of the Christian brotherhood, Zosima also acts as a denouncer of the ideals of the era - a civilization for which personal rights and needs and “bread questions” turn out to be decisive: “... the world says:“ You have needs, and therefore saturate them, for you have the same rights, like the noblest and richest people ... "<...>Understanding freedom as an increase and quick satisfaction of needs, they distort their nature, because they generate in themselves many senseless and stupid desires, habits and the most absurd inventions. They live only for envy of each other, for carnality and swagger. Zosima is most concerned about the fact that “in the world, the thought of serving humanity, of the brotherhood and integrity of people, is becoming more and more extinct.” The period of human separation can end, in his opinion, only when people stop looking for improvements in life on the path to achieving new rights and enjoying benefits, and turn their efforts towards personal self-improvement: “In order to remake the world in a new way, it is necessary that people themselves psychically turned to the other side. Before you really become every brother, there will be no brotherhood.”
The novel "The Brothers Karamazov" is very close to the epic of V. Hugo "Les Misérables" (1862) in terms of "the main idea Art XIX century”, which Dostoevsky considered V. Hugo to be a forerunner: “This is the restoration of a dead person, crushed unjustly by the yoke of circumstances, the stagnation of centuries and social prejudices.” Both novels affirm the idea of ​​the inevitable national and worldwide unity of mankind, of the restoration of spiritual and moral ties lost by people at the dawn of bourgeois civilization. And these ideas are expressed in both novels by righteous heroes: Miriel and Jean Valjean in Les Misérables, Elder Zosima and Alexei in The Brothers Karamazov.
In Miriel, the ideal traditions of European Christian chivalry and, at the same time, the latest aspirations of social Christianity in the 19th century appeared. In Zosima, the features of the so-called. Russian, non-statutory, unofficial monasticism, to which hundreds, if not thousands of ascetics, elders, holy fools, wanderers belonged (Zander). Their service to people is oriented towards different goals: for Miriel, this is a desire to soften social contrasts, eliminate envy, corporate and personal, anger, kindle in the souls of the fallen love for the world and the will for peace; Zosima's intention is to awaken in people the need for personal transformation and readiness to love their neighbor.
Very important for Hugo and Dostoevsky is the clash of Christian righteousness, and more broadly, of absolute, divine moral norms with civil law, public legislation and unspoken public morality. Hugo's novel reflects the European reverence for legal law as a shrine and the writer's faith in the improvement of law on the basis of science and reason. Dostoevsky consistently holds the idea that the law of morality, the law of conscience, the law of religiosity is immeasurably higher than the legal law. Therefore, Dostoevsky believes in the morally organizing principle of the Church, and even expresses the idea of ​​the inevitable transformation of civil society into a single universal Church. Hugo, on the other hand, considers the Church and the monastery to be the archaic beginnings of the harsh Middle Ages, although he proposes to use the social principles of the monastery: the social equalization of people, the renunciation of the blood family for the sake of a fraternal spiritual community. In a word, Hugo, in his interpretation of religious asceticism, follows the traditions of utopian socialism, and Dostoevsky follows the concept of Russian religious renewal, one of the variants of the “Russian idea”.
The final trial of the novel in the case of Dmitry Karamazov (and at the same time the moral trial of his brothers) is recognized by both the participants in the debate and all those present as a phenomenon of an all-Russian scale. Here the final assessments of the moral maturity of both the Russian educated society and the Russian common people are made. In the trial of Russia, taking place in Skotoprigonievsk, two points should be distinguished: criticism of moral decay, reproducing the real picture public life, and the assessment of this picture by the prosecutor Ippolit Kirillovich and the lawyer Fetukovich. There is a lot of justice in the prosecutor's speech: he considers the main evil to be in an unprecedented outburst of individualistic energy. But the prosecutor, following the Inquisitor in Ivan's poem, argues that the only obstacle to Russian unrestraint can only be a cruel bridle, severe punishment, merciless punishment of criminals. At the same time, the prosecutor appeals to national traditions, assuring that individualism is a consequence of early corruption from European enlightenment. Lawyer Fetyukovich also appeals to national roots, “to our cordiality,” but he also offers a temptation that is very dangerous for a Russian person: to accept as truth the idea of ​​moral relativism, the idea of ​​the relativity of the concepts of good and evil; agree that Dmitry killed his father, but not recognize such a crime as parricide, since Fyodor Pavlovich was a bad father and person. The danger of such a temptation is not far-fetched: Russian people will have to experience it more than once in the civil wars of the 20th century. The narrator records the fact that the false pathos of the lawyer's speech was perceived by the public "as a shrine." Fetyukovich's appeal to accept his conclusion: "He killed, but not guilty" - was met with enthusiasm: "The women cried, wept, and many of the men, even two dignitaries, shed tears."
Another variant of the false confusion of law and truth is the decision of the jurors. They (petty officials, merchants and peasants) are "soil Rus'" here. Their emphasized meaningful silence, contrasted with the talkativeness of the competing parties, is like a “sign” of genuine honesty and truth. However, the jury also makes a “mistake of justice” by passing a guilty verdict on Dmitry Karamazov. By their decision, they only confirm the inviolability of the people's concepts of morality: that patricide is always a crime. And as a sacrifice to this truth, they sacrifice the fate of innocent Dmitry. In the final assessment of their verdict, which is given in the final polyphony of the crowd, irony is heard:
“Yes, sir, our peasants stood up for themselves.
“And they finished off our Mitenka!”
The moral truth in the final book of the novel is truly manifested only in the position of Dmitry Karamazov, in the fact that he, contrary to the lawyer’s conclusion: “he killed, but is not guilty,” defends the exact opposite idea: “He did not kill, but he is guilty.” Mitino's self-condemnation affirms the priority not of law, but of truth, as Dostoevsky understood it, the inexorable thirst for religious transformation that lives in the Russian people, which will lead them to the path of national salvation.
Dostoevsky understood that the performance of this cherished dream will not come soon, no economic prerequisites will provide it - the birth of a New Man is necessary: ​​“You cannot buy people in any market and with any money, because they are not sold or bought, but<...>only made for centuries<...>long independent life of the nation, its great long-suffering labor ... ".

Shchennikov G.K. The Brothers Karamazov // Dostoevsky: Works, letters, documents: Dictionary-reference book. SPb., 2008. S. 34-45.

On November 8, 1880, referring to The Brothers Karamazov as an epilogue, Dostoevsky wrote to the editor of the journal N.A. Lyubimov: “Well, my novel is over! He worked for three years, printed two - a significant minute for me.
Thus, according to the writer himself, the beginning of work on one of greatest novels world literature dates back to the end of 1877. But for three years only the final stage continued - artistic expression images and ideas. Dostoevsky nurtured these images and ideas all his life. Everything experienced, rethought and created by the writer finds its place in this work.
Difficult human world it incorporates many philosophical and artistic elements previous works of Dostoevsky: the line of the old man Pokrovsky from the very first work of the writer goes into the line of staff captain Snegirev in The Brothers Karamazov, the motif of a split personality (Ivan Karamazov and the devil) goes back to youthful, the main idea of ​​the "Legend of the Grand Inquisitor" grows out of, the old man Zosima is preceded by St. Tikhon, Alyosha is preceded by Prince Myshkin, Ivan is preceded by Raskolnikov, Smerdyakov is preceded by a footman Vidoplyasov in the story, Grushenka and Katerina Ivanovna are Nastasya Filippovna and Aglaya in The Idiot.
The immediate predecessor of The Brothers Karamazov, one might even say - creative laboratory, appeared, in it Dostoevsky accumulated and analyzed facts, observations, reflections and notes for his latest creation. But only when the idea of ​​"The Brothers Karamazov" already completely takes over creative imagination, he informs readers in the October 1877 issue of The Writer's Diary of his decision to stop publishing for a year or two, and in the last, December issue, he admits that he wants to do one "artistic work." On March 16, 1878, Dostoevsky wrote to the teacher V.V. Mikhailov: “... I have conceived and will soon begin a big romance, in which, among others, children will participate a lot, and especially minors, from about 7 to 15 years old. Many children will be brought out. I study them and have studied them all my life, and I love them very much and have them myself. But the observations of such a person as you, for me (I understand this) will be precious. So, write to me about the children what you yourself know ... ".
In April 1878, the first entries about the novel were entered into a draft notebook. "Memento [remember - lat.] (about the novel)” – this is the title of one page of notes to “The Brothers Karamazov”, referring to approximately the same time as the letter to V.V. Mikhailov, and mainly related to the same topic - about children.
“To find out if it is possible to lie between the rails under the wagon,” Dostoevsky continues his notes in a rough notebook, “when he has gone through the entire quarry? Handle: wife convict in hard labor can she immediately marry another? Does an Idiot have the right to keep such a horde of adopted children, to have a school, etc.? Inquire about children's work in factories. About gymnasiums, to be in a gymnasium. Ask about: can a young man, a nobleman and a landowner, for many years be confined to a monastery (at least with his uncle) as a novice? (NB. Regarding Filaret, who stinks.) In an orphanage. Bykov. Alexander Nikolaevich. Mikhail Nikolaevich. (Brings up<ательный>house). S. Bergman. About Pestalozzi, about Frebel. Leo Tolstoy's article on modern school education in "From<ечест- венных>zap<исках>» (75 or 74). Walks along the Nevsky with crutches. If you knock out a crutch, then how the process will go court and where and how? Take part in the Froebel walk. See "New Time", Wednesday, April 12, No. 762...”.
The first drafts of the novel are connected with the "children's theme". Dostoevsky carefully studies the latest pedagogical writings, gets acquainted with the followers in Russia of the German teacher, the creator of "kindergartens" Friedrich Froebel, learns from the newspaper "New Time" (1878, April 12) about the intention of St. Petersburg supporters of Froebel to arrange "educational private walks" for young children , carefully studies the works of the famous Swiss teacher Johann Pestalozzi.
The image of Alyosha Karamazov also arises, however, like Prince Myshkin, he is also called an “idiot”. Dostoevsky plans to “imprison” him for many years as a novice in a monastery. The note about the "stinking Filaret" refers to the idea of ​​the chapter "The Corrupting Spirit". Kolya Krasotkin has already been conceived, and the story of how he lay between the rails under the car.
Dostoevsky intends to visit orphanage and an orphanage, where his wife's cousin A.G. worked as a pediatrician. Dostoevskaya, wants to consult on a children's issue with her other cousin, a gymnasium teacher, thinks to make, obviously, inquiries on the history of monasteries from an archaeologist and historian, is going to talk with a friend of A.G. Dostoevskaya, who had a very sickly child.
The writer reads an article by L.N. Tolstoy "On public education" (Domestic notes. 1874. No. 9), where L.N. Tolstoy defends those methods of primary education that do not require large expenditures and can be introduced in public schools. Dostoevsky is also interested in the legal consequences of the “boys” possible prank: “if you knock out a crutch,” and “with crutches” is perhaps the first sketch of the sick Lisa Khokhlakov in the novel.
And although not all the planned themes and episodes were included in the final text of the novel (for example, the theme of factory labor of juveniles was not developed, there is no episode “with crutches”), but on the whole, the program outlined by Dostoevsky was realized in the novel.
In the very first notes, the image of Mitya Karamazov, who was sentenced to hard labor, appears. Dmitry Karamazov in rough notes bears the name. That was the name of the parricide, whose story is described twice in. “I especially remember one parricide,” Dostoevsky writes in Notes from the House of the Dead. “The other day the publisher of Notes from the House of the Dead received a notification from Siberia that the criminal was really right and suffered for ten years in hard labor in vain; that his innocence was discovered in court, officially, ”the writer testifies.
Dostoevsky was shocked by the fate of the imaginary parricide. For twenty-five years this terrible memory lived in his memory and "responded" in The Brothers Karamazov.
But work on The Brothers Karamazov was unexpectedly interrupted by a tragic event in the writer's personal life: on May 16, 1878, at the age of three, he died of an epileptic seizure. youngest child, . The wife of the writer A.G. Dostoevskaya describes the writer’s grief: “Fyodor Mikhailovich went to see the doctor off, returned terribly pale and knelt by the sofa, on which we shifted the baby, so that it would be more convenient for the doctor to look at him. I also knelt next to my husband, I wanted to ask him what exactly the doctor had said (and he, as I found out later, told Fyodor Mikhailovich that the agony had already begun), but he forbade me to speak with a sign.
... And what was my despair when suddenly the baby's breathing stopped and death came. Fyodor Mikhailovich kissed the baby, crossed him three times and burst into tears. I also sobbed, and our children wept bitterly, who loved our dear Lesha so much.
Strongly fearing that Alyosha's death would affect Dostoevsky's already shaky health, A.G. Dostoevskaya makes the only right decision to save her husband for creativity, to allow him to calmly create The Brothers Karamazov. She asks the philosopher, who charmed the writer with both his personal charm and his lectures in St. Petersburg, to persuade Dostoevsky to go with him to Optina Pustyn, a monastery near Kaluga (according to legend, it was founded by the repentant robber Opta); about the elder Ambrose from this monastery, legends were made up among the people as an ascetic, miracle worker and healer.
Calculation of A.G. Dostoevsky turned out to be absolutely accurate: after a trip to Optina Pustyn in June 1878 and meetings with the elder Ambrose, Dostoevsky returned comforted and with extraordinary inspiration began to work on his latest work. Dostoevsky and his wife were destined to survive this terrible grief - the death of their son Alyosha, so that the "Brothers Karamazov" made their love and torment immortal. A.G. Dostoevskaya reports that in the chapter "Believing Women" Dostoevsky captured "many of her doubts, thoughts and even words", and in the complaints of a woman from the people who lost her son and came to seek consolation from Zosima (it is not difficult to find many features of Ambrose in him), one can hear his own voices of Dostoevsky and A.G. Dostoevskaya: “It’s a pity for my son, father, he was three years old, only three months away and he would be three years old. I am tormented by my son, father, by my son ... And even if I only looked at him just once, just once I would look at him again, and I would not go up to him, not say, I would lurk in the corner, if only for a minute to see him alone, to hear him playing in the yard, he would come, used to shout in his little voice: "Mother, where are you?" If only I could hear how he would walk around the room with his legs once, if only just once, with his legs knock-knock, but so often, often, I remember how he used to run to me, screaming and laughing, only I would have heard his legs, heard, recognized!
Maternal love, as it were, resurrects the dead boy, and the description of the death of Ilyushechka and the grief of his father, retired staff captain Snegirev in The Brothers Karamazov, in which the personal torment of Dostoevsky and A.G. Dostoevskaya, so pierces the heart with enduring pain that, it seems, there was no more stunning depiction of family grief in world literature.
During the days of his visit to Optina Hermitage, according to a legend that exists among the inhabitants of the city of Kozelsk, Dostoevsky met a friend of his youth, a Petrashevite, on his estate in the village of Nizhnie Pryski, which was located between Kozelsk and the monastery.
In the atheistic judgments of Ivan Karamazov, one can also find echoes of N.S. Kashkin in the 1840s At one of the evenings, as follows from the investigation file of the Petrashevites, N.S. Kashkin read "a speech of criminal content against God and the social order, proving that the suffering of mankind proclaims the malice of God much more than His glory."
The first two books of The Brothers Karamazov were finally ready at the end of October 1878. In January 1879. In the November issue of the magazine for 1880, the printing of the last chapters was completed.
The Brothers Karamazov is not only a synthesis of Dostoevsky's entire work, but also the completion of his entire life. Even in the very topography of the novel, childhood memories are combined with impressions. recent years: the city in which the action of the novel takes place reflects the appearance of Staraya Russa, and the surrounding villages (Chermashnya, Mokroe) are associated with the estate of the writer's father Darovoye in the Tula province.
Dmitry, Ivan and Alyosha Karamazov - three stages of biographical and spiritual path Dostoevsky himself. claims that Ivan Karamazov, “according to our family tradition, is Dostoevsky in his early youth. There is also a certain similarity between my father, as he was probably in the second period of his life, between penal servitude and a long stay in Europe after his second marriage, and Dmitri Karamazov. Dmitry reminds me of my father with Schiller's sentimentalism and romantic character, naivety in relations with women.<...>But most of all, this similarity is manifested in the scenes of the arrest, interrogation and trial of Dmitry Karamazov. Obviously, the court scene occupies so much space in the novel because Dostoevsky wanted to describe the suffering he experienced during the Petrashevsky trial and which he will never forget.
Some similarity also exists between Dostoevsky and the elder Zosima. His autobiography is essentially a biography of my father, at least as far as childhood is concerned. The father places Zosima in the province, in an environment more modest than his. Zosima's autobiography is written in the peculiar, somewhat old-fashioned language spoken by our clergy and monks. Despite this, there are all the essential facts from Dostoevsky's childhood: love for his mother and older brother, the impression made on him by church services, which he attended in childhood<...>his departure to a military school in the capital, where, according to the story of the elder Zosima, he was taught French and the art of social behavior, and along with so many false concepts.<...>So, probably, the father appreciated the upbringing he received in the Engineering Castle.
The novel "The Brothers Karamazov" is a spiritual biography of Dostoevsky, his ideological and life path from atheism in the circle of Petrashevists (Ivan Karamazov) to a believer (Alyosha Karamazov). But, as always with Dostoevsky, his creative and life biography becomes history. human personality in general, the universal and all-human destiny. Dmitry, Ivan and Alyosha not only have one ancestral root (a common father, Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov), but they also have a spiritual unity: one tragedy and common guilt for it. All of them are responsible for the murder of their father by Smerdyakov.
However, Dostoevsky connects the disintegration of feudal-serf Russia and the growth revolutionary movement with disbelief and atheism. That is why, the writer believes, the main culprit in the murder of his father is Ivan Karamazov. It was he who preached that there is no God, and Smerdyakov drew the conclusion from this: if there is no God, then everything is allowed. But Dmitri with his unbridled passions, and even the “man of God” Alyosha, are also to blame for the death of their father: Ivan and Dmitry are actively to blame, Alyosha semi-consciously, passively. Alyosha knew that a crime was being prepared, and yet he allowed it, he could have saved his father and did not. The common crime of the brothers entails general punishment: Dmitry atones for his guilt by referring to hard labor, Ivan - by the disintegration of his personality, Alyosha - by a severe moral crisis. As a result, all three brothers through suffering are reborn to a new life.
But the moral idea of ​​the novel, the struggle of faith with disbelief (“the devil fights God, and the battlefield is the hearts of people,” says Dmitry Karamazov), Ivan and Alyosha (to the question of Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov “Is there a God or not?” Ivan replies: “ No, there is no God,” and Alyosha: “There is a God”) goes beyond the Karamazov family. Ivan's denial of God gives rise to the sinister figure of the Inquisitor. In the novel "The Brothers Karamazov" the "Legend of the Grand Inquisitor" by Ivan Karamazov organically appears - greatest creation Dostoevsky, the pinnacle of his work, his hymn to Christ and His work.
Christ comes to earth again. This time he appears in Seville, at the worst time of the Inquisition. "The Legend of the Grand Inquisitor" has an anti-Catholic character (see: Evnin F. Dostoevsky and Militant Catholicism in the 1860s-1870s (On the Genesis of the "Legend of the Grand Inquisitor") // Russian literature. 1967. No. 1. S. 29-42). In the Western theocratic idea, the writer saw the triumph of the "Roman idea" of the pagan empire, an idea that strives for the worldwide unification of people by violence. Dostoevsky saw the same "Roman idea" in atheistic socialism and saw in it a vice of the proud Western spirit.
Christ appears among the crowd, and the people recognize Him. He radiates all light, stretches out his hands, blesses, works miracles. The Grand Inquisitor, "an old man of ninety, tall and straight, with a withered face and sunken eyes," orders the guards to imprison him. At night, he comes to his prisoner, "stops at the entrance and for a long time, a minute or two, peers into his face." Then he starts talking. "Legend" is the monologue of the Grand Inquisitor, and Christ remains silent throughout the entire monologue. The entire long monologue of the Grand Inquisitor is directed against Christ and His teachings, but by accusing Him, he thereby justifies his betrayal of Christ.
The Grand Inquisitor has finished his monologue, but his captive is still silent. “The old man would like him to say something to him, even bitter, terrible. But He suddenly silently approaches the old man and softly kisses him on his bloodless, ninety-year-old lips. That's the whole answer. The old man winces. Something moved at the ends of his lips: he goes to the door, opens it and says to him words that are more terrible even than the nails of Golgotha: "Go, go and don't come again. Don't come at all... Never! never!"
Ivan finished telling Alyosha the legend of the Grand Inquisitor, and Alyosha unraveled, understood the "secret" of the Grand Inquisitor: "Your Inquisitor does not believe in God, that's his whole secret." The Grand Inquisitor did not understand that the silence of Christ is the best refutation of all his arguments. He does not need to justify himself, since all the arguments of the Grand Inquisitor are refuted by His mere presence, the very fact of His appearance.
But in the kiss of Christ the Grand Inquisitor there is truth and there is a lie. Dostoevsky is in him, and Ivan Karamazov is in him. What is the meaning of this kiss of Christ? There is truth in this kiss, because Dostoevsky himself is in it, but also untruth, because Ivan Karamazov is also in it. The truth of this kiss is that Christ loves any person, including those who do not love Him and do not want to love. Christ came to save sinners. And humanity needs for its salvation just such a higher love, just as the biggest child needs the biggest maternal love. The kiss of Christ is such a call to the highest love, the last call of sinners to repentance! This is the idea of ​​Dostoevsky himself. However, the kiss is also the work of Ivan Karamazov: he made the truth kiss the lie.
Never in all of world literature has there been such a striking hymn to Christ and spiritual freedom as in The Legend of the Grand Inquisitor in Dostoevsky's last brilliant novel, The Brothers Karamazov.

Belov S.V. F.M. Dostoevsky. Encyclopedia. M.: Education, 2010. S. 119-127.

Lifetime publications (editions):

1879—1880 — M .: In the University type. (M. Katkov).
1879: January. pp. 103-207. February. pp. 602-684. April. pp. 678-738. May. pp. 369-409. June. pp. 736-779. August. pp. 649-699. September. pp. 310-353. October. pp. 674-711. November. pp. 276-332.
1880: January. pp. 179-255. April. pp. 566-623. July. pp. 174-221. August. pp. 691-753. September. pp. 248-292. October. pp. 477-551. November. pp. 50-73.

1881 — SPb.: Type. br. Panteleev, 1881. T. I. 509 p. T. II. 699 p.

The idea to create a "psychological drama" about the opposition of the brothers came from Dostoevsky in 1874, although characters of the novel he started designing much earlier. It is easy to see parallels in the characters of various works author: Alyosha Karamazov and Grushenka with Prince Myshkin and Nastasya Filippovna ("The Idiot"), Ivan Karamazov with Raskolnikov ("Crime and Punishment"), Elder Zosima with St. Tikhon ("Demons").

The storyline of the work took shape more clearly after meeting in prison with the convicted Ilyinsky, who was mistakenly sent to hard labor for the murder of his father. In the first drafts of the novel, Dmitry also bears the surname Ilyinsky.

"The Brothers Karamazov"- the result, the understanding of the whole life of Dostoevsky. Childhood memories here are combined with thoughts and impressions of recent years, and images Dmitry, Ivan and Alexei symbolize the three stages of the spiritual development of the author himself. The novel has a complex, multifaceted structure, its genre difficult to define. Events take place over two weeks, but this a short time contains so many stories, disputes, conflicts, ideological clashes that would be enough for several works of detective, philosophical and family drama.

The action of the novel is concluded between two trials: the trial of the elder Zosima and the criminal trial of Dmitry Karamazov. And this sequence symbolic. Dostoevsky reliably showed that the moral fall of the heroes, their deviation from morality, neglect of spiritual truths leads to crime.

The novel consists of twelve parts (books). The first two are introductory. The third book presents negative characters - the father of the family, Fedor Pavlovich, and the footman Pavel Smerdyakov. In the fourth book, the reader gets acquainted with those who lead a “decent” lifestyle (Katerina, the Snegirevs, Father Ferapont), but their “righteousness” is dictated not by deep convictions, but by the benefit of observing decency. Only in the fifth and sixth books do the main characters appear - Ivan, Dmitry, Alyosha, Zosima. Dostoevsky then puts the brothers to the test, which tests each one's life credo. In the seventh book - Alexei, the eighth and ninth - Dmitry, in the eleventh - Ivan. In the final twelfth book, the judgments and moral foundations of the characters are evaluated by society.

Dostoevsky seeks to penetrate deeply into inner world their characters, layer by layer to expose their soul, to understand motives contradictory actions, moral torments, doubts and delusions. He achieves this with a wide range means of expression: from confessional monologues to ideological disputes, scandals and insults. Sharp plot twists, conflicts of interests and opinions, a genuine whirlpool of various passions keep the reader in constant suspense.

But the main task the author is not an intrigue. Dostoevsky portrayed in The Brothers Karamazov a generalized formula of the "mysterious Russian soul" with its aspiration "forgetfulness of every measure in everything" both destructive and creative at the same time. Duality, the conscious denial of faith and the need for it as a saving anchor, a mixture of selfishness and self-sacrifice, eternal wandering in captivity of false values ​​- this is how the Russian man appears to the writer.

The social and moral degradation characteristic of Dmitry, Ivan, Smerdyakov and Fyodor Pavlovich was called “Karamazovism”. The condemnation of this phenomenon, the healing from it, is, according to Dostoevsky, the path to the moral rebirth of the Russian people. And in the realm of "Karamazovism", in an atmosphere of permissiveness, cruelty and selfishness, crime is inevitable. And everyone is guilty of it.

Retired officer Dmitry, a devout believer, is guilty. But this does not prevent him from beating his father and threatening to kill him. Mitya did not commit such a terrible crime, but he allowed it in his mind, he plotted against a loved one. And he cannot forgive himself for this. Dmitry accepts the unfair verdict of the court, seeking to purify his soul through repentance and suffering.

Guilty and the middle brother - an intellectual, atheist and philosopher Ivan. It is his preaching about the absence of God, about the indestructibility of evil in man and permissiveness that guides Smerdyakov's hand. Ivan recognizes himself as the main killer. His image is a warning to the Russian intelligentsia, which, in the era of Dostoevsky and more later times the idea of ​​human development was extremely popular new way, by liberation from religious shackles. The introduction of this idea into illiterate, spiritually undeveloped minds has led the world to the greatest destructive theories.

Alyosha, the youngest of the brothers, is a type of new religious truth seeker. At the very beginning of the work, Dostoevsky emphasizes the exclusivity of this image, its significance. Before goodies opposed themselves to the negative environment, sought to fight and destroy it ideologically, and even physically. Alexei Karamazov does not oppose himself to the world. On the contrary, he goes to people, admonished by the spiritual mentor, the elder Zosima.

Alyosha seeks to understand and forgive everyone: the cunning depraved father, the quick-tempered Dmitry, the theomachist Ivan. He feels that they all need him. Without his love and support, the Karamazov family is doomed to death, and the souls of those close to them are doomed to eternal wandering in the darkness of delusions.

Alexey believes with all his heart that there is a lot of good in people. Following Zosima, he sees the future of mankind in the spiritual perfection of the individual: “In order to remake the world in a new way, it is necessary that people themselves ... mentally turn to the other side”.

Is Alyosha guilty of his father's death? Indirectly, yes, because he knew about Dmitry's intentions, about Ivan's mood, but did nothing to stop the trouble.

AT images of three brothers the writer depicted three main trends in the development of Russian society. It is symbolic that they have a common root - the decaying and dying nobility of the 60s ( father image), as well as common guilt. And everyone gets their payback. Fyodor Pavlovich is killed, Smerdyakov commits suicide, Ivan goes mad, Dmitry goes to hard labor. And Alexei? He has to live with all this.

Three generations are presented in the novel: fathers, children and "boys" - Ilyusha's classmates. This is a new, emerging Russia. It is not for nothing that The Brothers Karamazov ends with a scene where 12 boys, gathered around Alyosha, take an oath to serve good.