F.M. Dostoevsky’s Novels

Books in the ‘Rereading the Classics’ series give a modern analysis of the works that form part of school literature curricula. This is the first attempt to provide a detailed insight into the spiritual, moral and religious aspects of the art of 19th and 20th century Russian writers. The series is offered as the basis of modern knowledge about Russian literature, which is necessary for high school students to pass school-leaving examinations and to gain admission to any institution of higher learning. This work is devoted to Dostoevsky’s three novels – ‘Crime and Punishment’, ‘The Idiot’ and ‘The Brothers Karamazov’. In the first chapter (on ‘Crime and Punishment’), the author's attention is drawn to his central character - Rodion Raskolnikov. The contact between the consciousness of the protagonist and that of other characters reveals the basis of the concept of man in Dostoevsky's work: ‘everyone is guilty for everybody and everything’. The second chapter dealing with the novel ‘The Idiot’ also examines the problem of guilt in Dostoevsky’s concept of a personality. The third chapter analyzes the meaning of the poem about the great inquisitor in ‘The Brothers Karamazov’ - the ideological center of the writer's artistic world. The conversation about the three novels is united by one common problem – that of the personality in the work of Dostoevsky as an artist and a thinker.
For teachers of schools, lyceums and gymnasiums, students, high school students, applicants, philologists, and for a wide range of readers.