Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky

„The Brothers Karamazov” is a passionate philosophical novel set in 19th century of Russia that enters deeply into the ethical debates of God, free will, and morality. It is a spiritual drama of moral struggles concerning faith, doubt, and reason, set against a modernizing Russia. The plot of the novel revolves around the murder of perhaps one of the most despicable characters ever created, Fyodor...

Aleksandr Petrovich lives through a spiritual re-awakening that culminates with his release from the prison camp. The narrator has been sentenced to penalty deportation to Siberia and ten years of hard labor for murdering his wife. Published in 1861, „House of the Dead” is a semi-autobiographical work based upon Dostoevsky’s exile to Siberia where he was punished with „hard labor” after he was initially...

A predecessor to such monumental works such as „Crime and Punishment” and „The Brothers Karamazov”, „Notes From Underground” represents a turning point in Dostoyevsky’s writing towards the more political side. In this work, we follow the unnamed narrator of the story, who, disillusioned by the oppression and corruption of the society in which he lives, withdraws from that society into the underground....

„Uncle’s Dream” is a somewhat comic small-town society tale. It satirizes Petersburg society with an emphasis on the evils of gossip. When the aging Russian Prince, Prince K., arrives in the town of Mordasov, Marya Alexandrovna Moskaleva, a doyenne of local society life, takes him under her protection, with the aim of engineering his marriage with her 23 year old daughter Zina. Yet with many rivals...