The Brothers Karamazov Author:Fyodor Doeteovsky The famous French writer Andre Gide declares: "Dostoevsky paints like Rembrandt, and his portraits are artistically so powerful and often so perfect that even if they lacked the depths of thought that lie behind them, and around them. I believe that Dostoevsky would still be the greatest of all novelists." — 'The Brothers Karamazov&... more »#39; first appeared as a serial in Russky Vistnik, a Moscow magazine, during 1879 and 1880. It created a sensation inside Russia, and in the decades following, it was translated into all principal languages and hailed as one of the most significant works of fiction of modern times.
The story is a chronicle of the lives of a Russian father and his sons, each of them differently notable in personality, character and motivation. Bernard Grevanier, in 'Essentials of European Literature', persuasively argues that Dostoevsky seems to be epitomizing his Russian father land in the three sons:
"Dmitri is open and violent. He symbolizes ancient Russia without culture or intellect. Ivan is well educated at the University, a product of the Nihilist movement. He symbolizes the 19th century westernized Russia, the creation of skeptics and intellectuals. Alexei, the youngest, is religious, gentle, sweet-tempered, a lover of his kind. He symbolizes Russia of the future, when the people will have cleansed themselves of the spiritual sickness represented by the other two."« less