The Brothers Karamazov

The Brothers Karamazov» (1879–1880), the last, the most voluminous, and one of the most famous novels by F. M. Dostoevsky, addresses the reader with timeless moral and philosophical questions about sin, retribution, compassion, and mercy. The book, which the author himself described as «a novel about blasphemy and its refutation», was an attempt to «resolve the question of man», «unravel the mystery» of man, which, according to Dostoevsky, meant «to resolve the question of God». Through the lens of an almost detective story about the brutal murder of the head of the provincial Karamazov family, the author narrates the eternal struggle of the Divine and the devilish in the human soul. One of the deepest reflections of Christian consciousness in world literature, «The Brothers Karamazov» became, in the 20th century, the object of paradoxical philosophical and psychoanalytical interpretations.