Izdrastveti, Hi everyone,
I’m Matt. Thank you for watching.
Brothers Karamazov is considered one of the greatest and most profound Russian novels of all
time. But what’s is story? Why is it important? What are the three main philosophies discussed?
What was Dostoevsky’s purpose in writing it? And why Vladimir Putin calls it his favourite novel?
And what are some of its weaknesses? And finally what’s it really about?
This is a summary and analysis of the Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Often called his
magnum opus, Brothers Karamazov was Dostoevsky’s last novel—published one year before his death
in 1881, but it’s also his longest novel, almost twice the length of his other famous novel Crime
and Punishment, which I have already summarised here. First I will give a full summary and then
give a few points of analysis, mainly the three major philosophies that run through the novel. At
the end I will tell you Dostoevsky’s main purpose in writing this novel, which might surprise you.
Summary First let me tell
you that the plot of The Brothers Karamazov is a murder, in which the father is killed but we
don't know which son has killed him. But that’s the surface-level story, it goes much deeper into
religion, philosophy and psychology. These are staple of Dostoevsky’s themes. Before I
go any further let’s meet the Karamazov family, perhaps the most dysfunctional family in Russia.
The father is Fyodor Karamazov who has three kids from two marriages. He’s also got an illegitimate
fourth son who also plays a major role in the plot. Fyodor Karamazov is not the best father in
Russia. He prefers to enjoy life instead of taking care of his kids. His philosophy is that life is
short you might as well enjoy it. As a result of this hands-off approach to raising kids, he has
three very different sons with very contrasting worldviews and personalities. The eldest is
Dmitri who is most similar to his father, he loves alcohol and women so when he grows up he demands
his father for his share of the family’s wealth so he can get married. This father-son conflict
starts off the whole drama of this novel. His second son, Ivan, is an intellectual who questions
why there is so much suffering in this world, so he concludes that the almighty doesn't exist
otherwise he wouldn't allow so much suffering or this god is not good and compassionate that
allows innocent children dying. Ivan is perhaps the young Dostoevsky himself who was drawn to
atheism and western ideas at the time. His third son and the youngest, Alyosha, is the protagonist
of the novel. He is a good-hearted religious boy who spends a lot of time in the church with an old
priest, called Father Zosima. Fyodor Karamazov, the father, also has a fourth son, out of wedlock
Pavel Smerdyakov who is employed as a servant in the family. He’s not considered very bright
so gets easily influenced by the atheist Ivan. So the father and his four sons are the main family
in the novel. I wonder why Dostoevsky didn't give Karamazov a daughter? Perhaps with a female
presence they might have been less dysfunctional, therefore less interesting as a story.
There are so many characters in the novel but the father and his three legitimate sons and one
bastard son are the main characters in the story. Father Zosima is a priest who counter-balances
Ivan’s atheism and also a mentor to Alyosha, the youngest Karamazov. The two main female characters
are two young women, Grusha and Katya who are romantically involved with Dmitri, the eldest
Karamazov. At the end of the novel both women turn somewhat religious thanks to the works by Alyosha.
The main plot of the novel revolves around money. Specifically family inheritance. The eldest son
Dmitri demands his share of the family money so he can get married to his fiancé but his father,
Fyodor, refuses. Why? It turns out the father and his son Dmitri, love the same woman,
Grusha. Grusha on her part plays the two men against each other and enjoys watching them tear
each other apart. It turns out Grusha was hurt by some other men so this is her revenge on men.
But she also gets jealous as Dmitri gets engaged to Katya, another prominent female character in
the novel. Then we have a few very long detours in the novel in which Dostoevsky tells us separate
stories. In fact Dostoevsky wrote these stories in different periods in his life and then patched
them together here. Why? Because he knew it would be his final novel before his death a year later.
The first of this sub-plot stories is about a little boy, Ilyusha—not to be confused
with the main character Alyosha. Ilyusha is bullied by his peers and later dies of
humiliation caused by Dmitri Karamzov attacking the little boy’s father.
I will tell you later why childhood was perhaps the important theme in the novel.
Another major subplot is the story of the Grand Inquisitor who is visited by Jesus to tell him to
curb his brutality against non-Christians. As you know in the 15th century during the inquisition
in Europe, thousands of Jews and Muslims were forced to convert to Christianity and those who
refused were burnt alive or killed in horrific ways. So Dostoevsky tries to answer whether force
is justified in putting people in line. So here Jesus returns to tell the Grand Inquisitor that
his actions are not justified. You cannot kill or torture people to make them Christian. But the
Grand Inquisitor turns the table and imprisons Jesus to teach him that Jesus is too idealistic
and has no understanding of human nature. He tells Jesus that force is needed to turn humans into
good humans. If left to their own device as in free will, humans turn nasty. I guess this might
be due to Dostoevsky reading Darwin that humans are basically beasts and it was society, mainly
religion, that civilised them. Without force they cannot find the right path, so free will
is not the answer, but social force is necessary to make people become good. Here it’s a good time
for me to tell you that the Brothers Karamazov is Vladimir Lenin’s, oops, I mean Vladimir
Putin’s favourite novel. You might ask why? First Dostoevsky disliked the west for corrupting the
Russian soul. So does Putin. Second, Dostoevsky leaves the question of authority and free will
somewhat ambivalent. So sometimes to safeguard a society, free will must be crushed. Putin as
an authoritarian ruler himself believes in force to discipline bad behaviour. Just like the Grand
Inquisitor, Putin believes in strongman’s rule. He doesn't care about free will or
freedom of speech. Okay, back to the story. This story is told to Alyosha but it is meant to teach
Ivan the atheist that rationality cannot beat love. Jesus represents love and Grand
Inquisitor is the symbol of rational thinking. Love triumphs over science and reason so to speak.
A third sub-plot is the story of Father Zosima who was a young rebel but was saved by his Christian
faith. Later in the novel when he dies, his followers expect his body not to decay due to his
religious piety, but soon the smell is so terrible that shakes everyone’s faith in his holiness
but also religious faith as a whole. Nobody is more devastated than his protégé, Alyosha,
the young Karamazov. But then he meets Grusha, Dmtri’s romantic interest who restores his faith.
A little female touch I suppose helps Alyosha to continue in spreading his message of love.
Nothing sexual but more a religious connection. This is the same in Crime and Punishment when
Raskolnikov meets Sonia he feels unburdened and ultimately agrees to confess his crime.
I think Dostoevsky believed that women in general healed troubled men. So now we know that Karamazov
family was dysfunctional precisely because there was no female presence in the family.
Now let’s return to the main plot. Dmitri is tired of dealing with his father and decides to run away
with his lover Grusha. But she has disappeared. Here Dmitri panics, thinking that she might have
chosen his father as a lover instead. Why? The father has all the money while Dmitri is broke.
Dmitri goes to his father’s house with a pestle as a weapon to attack his father. Dostoevsky here
plays a trick where the story is suddenly stopped. So the next time we see Dmitri, he attacks
a servant who tries to stop him from fleeing the house. The servant also accuses him of killing his
father, Fyodor Karamzov. Soon the police arrest Dmitri and charges him for the murder of his own
father. What’s the evidence? A witness seeing him flee the house and a pestle as a weapon. But the
damning evidence is that a lot of money is missing and Dmitri suddenly has a huge stack of cash with
him. He tries to explain that this money belongs to his fiancé but the police are not convinced.
Meanwhile Alyosha, the youngest Karamzov continues to spread his goodness and love.
He meets Kolya a young boy who is westernised and radicalised without really understanding
these western philosophies like atheism, socialism and nihilism.
On the other hand we have the atheist Ivan who is depicted as having a negative influence on
those around him. One person in particular. Pavel Smerdyakov,
his bastard brother who confesses to Ivan that he actually killed his father and stole the money.
So Dmitri is innocent. Ivan asks Smerdyakov why kill his father?
He says because earlier Ivan had told him that in the absence of god anything was permissible.
So in a sense Ivan is also implicated in the murder of his own father. Here we see Ivan
turning into Raskolnikov, terrorised by his own demons, delirium and insanity because deep down
he knows he is responsible for the murder too by influencing Smerdyakov that there was no god and
any act was permissible. Later Ivan learns that Pavel has committed suicide, which relieves him
that now he cannot be implicated in the murder. Dmitri is tried and found guilty in court. The
whole trial exposes the nastiness and resentment of those involved. Dostoevsky shows how irrational
human beings really are when it comes to justice system. It’s not about justice but revenge. The
justice system is also corrupt because it sends, Dmitri, an innocent man to prison.
Dmitri is sentenced to 20 years of hard labour in…you guessed it, Siberia. Siberia is a place
where bad people are corrected in Russia. Good people stay in the city and bad people are sent to
the cold. If you do something bad in Russia, just be prepared to live in the cold of Siberia for a
few years. Dmitri has a plan to escape to America and then years later return to Russia under
different name. But we don't know if he manages to do that or not. Alyosha still continues to spread
his religious love, mostly among young boys. Ivan, the atheist, goes mad and is taken to hospital.
So to conclude the Brothers Karamazov, the father, Fyodor Karamazov, the rich pleasure-seeker
is murdered. His eldest son Dmitri also a pleasure seeker is found guilty despite the fact that he is
innocent. Here Dostoevsky shows that we suffer no matter whether we are guilty or not because life
is suffering. Poor people around the world live in terrible conditions, not of their own fault.
His second son, Ivan, the rational atheist goes insane. Irony there. His bastard son,
Pavel, the real murderer commits suicide. For Dostoevsky, the guilty brother is Ivan the atheist
as it was he who influenced Pavel that anything is permissible including murder. His youngest son,
the protagonist of the novel, Alyosha continues to spread his religious message of love.
Dostoevsky wanted to show him as his ideal reader as he is young and somewhat innocent and naïve,
as he watches different ideologies and outlooks collide so he can learn how to live his life,
which is to love everyone, no matter if you’re guilty or innocent, poor or rich,
bad or good. At the end of the novel, the young kids who bullied a child,
attend the funeral of the young victim to show remorse. This shows that no matter how small
an action of bullying or even insulting words, can have huge consequences in someone’s life.
One must take responsibility for their actions, no matter how trivial it may seem.
Analysis:
The writing is very fluent, conversational and improvised. But also messy, perhaps
telling us that Dostoevsky had a cluttered mind, with many philosophies and ideas in
some titanic battle inside his head. You don't want to be in Dostoevsky’s head.
Dostoevsky shows his love for the ordinary people here. Dmitri despite chasing women,
money and alcohol has an honesty that Dostoevsky admires. He finds the intellectual Ivan secretive,
dishonest and coward. Today we see those negative traits in bankers, politicians,
clever people who play the system so well that they never get caught and usually the ordinary
people who pay the price for the actions of those smart but selfish people. Dmitri gets
sent to jail, not Ivan who masterminded the whole thing. So usually the innocent pays the price.
I think for Dostoevsky, reason and rational thinking doesn't make your life
easier. Psychologically speaking of course. Materially speaking,
rationality makes life easier by inventing tools and techniques for an easier life. But when it
comes to psychological happiness, Dostoevsky prefers less rationality but more naivety.
Why? Guilt only comes when you knowingly do something. Intelligence makes your life more
complicated and smart people are less happy than those who are naive. It’s simplistic to
say that Dostoevsky agrees that ignorance is bliss. But he definitely thinks knowing too
much makes your life harder. This runs in his other novels too. Most clearly in The Idiot.
Dostoevsky famously said that consciousness was a disease. So according to Dostoevsky we should
curb our intelligence, curb our knowledge and have faith and trust in people and the world around us.
Don't question everything. The only thing you should question is… western ideologies.
150 years later, now it’s the west that questions Russia. Putin on the other hand doesn't ask too
many question. He simply does. No matter what. He even wrestles a bear. Or a tiger.
Life’s tough in the cold of Russia, so you need a strong leader to lead you in a perilous
world. A survivor’s mentality is that you need food and shelter. Free speech is meaningless.
Stomach first, before freedom.
Philosophies: Three main philosophies are present in the novel.
First, on the left we have Ivan who is an atheist and represent western Enlightenment philosophy of
rationalism. He believes that everything should be scientifically proven before he can trust it. His
main question is why there is so much suffering in the world, especially innocent children dying.
Either god doesn't exist or if he does exist he is not a good god to allow so much pain. Dostoevsky,
by depicting Ivan going insane at the end of the novel, believes rationalism ultimately leads
to nihilism. Around the same time Nietzsche the German philosopher had the same conclusion, but
Nietzsche offers art as an answer to the problem of nihilism. Dostoevsky has love as an antidote.
The second philosophy is hedonism, which is a middle ground for Dostoevsky.
We have Fyodor the father and Dmitri represent a more hedonistic philosophy of life where the
focus is more on pleasures of life, that life is short, you have got to enjoy it.
But this also brings violence in the mix as you are less careful and less responsible.
Romanticism in Europe grew in response to industrial revolution and the Enlightenment
philosophy of rationalism. They focused on the emotions and passions which is
creative but also can be volatile and even violently destructive.
And finally, the third philosophy is religious faith on the right,
as we have Alyosha and Father Zosima who believe in religious faith. A bit dogmatic but also
they believe in love as the only way to treat others. Dostoevsky leans towards religion here.
He was on his deathbed so it was perhaps his way of redeeming himself. Somewhat similar to
George Orwell, who also turned religious at the end of his life, which I discussed in my
video 10 lessons from Orwell. Having said that Dostoevsky also questions religious absolutism
so there are many scenes where religious faith as dogma is robustly questioned.
The most famous scene is Father Zosima’s body putrefying much to the dismay of his followers.
So Dostoevsky didn't believe in saints, nor in pure evil. He thought every human
being was capable of both, and one has to constantly battle to keep the balance.
Both on the left and right human idealism is the main theme. Atheism and religious faith are
human idealised views, thus less practical. In the middle you have a more animalistic
pleasure seeking people who don't fight their carnal desires. For Dostoevsky idealism is not
the answer but being responsible towards fellow human beings matters the most. The responsibility
to act well. In a way Dostoevsky promotes naivety or innocence and love for everyone.
Weaknesses: My biggest criticism is
that the Brothers Karamazov is not focused enough. There are too many subplots so this can make the
reading a bit tough for today’s readers. If you condense the main story, you would probably get
about 500 pages, not the current 1000 pages. As I said, several of the stories were written years
earlier and he patched them together here as he knew it would be his last novel. He died a year
after its publication. In the same way, 2666 by Roberto Bolano puts five novels into one.
Another thing that most people miss is that Dostoevsky wrote this as a childhood novel,
which is not clearly elaborated until the very end so this can make those early children’s sections a
bit tedious to read. Another weakness might be its religious tone for those who are not religious.
If you’re a Christian reader, you might enjoy but readers who are not religious,
may find the Grand Inquisitor section a bit tedious. Having said that, the novel is very
deep and nuanced and the plot very intriguing. Another big pain in the butt is Russian names.
This is not only in Brothers Karamazov but in all old Russian novels. Each character has like
4-8 different names depending who is calling them. For example Alyosha whose name is Alexei is called
Alyoshka, Alyoshenka, Alyoshechka, Alexeichik, Lyosha, and Lyoshenka. Also the more names a
character has the more important they are in the novel. Alyosha has 8, Dmitri 5, and Ivan 4.
Final words: The ultimate message
of Brothers Karamazov is this. It’s better to be naïve or even stupid but good than smart,
successful but bad. In a way Dostoevsky didn't like how capitalism’s focus on ruthlessness and
material success was ruining the innocence that permeated in the simple lives of Russian peasants.
Now as promised at the beginning is this video, I will answer what the Brothers
Karamazov is really about. In this final novel, Dostoevsky was looking back at his own childhood,
the innocence of 1820s, 200 years ago, away from the messy world of adulthood, western ideas and
Siberian experience, gambling and tons of other shitty things that grownups get involved in.
Dostoevsky knew he was dying soon so he wanted to tell others Russians that life is too short to
do stupid revolutionary ideas to tear each other apart for money. A simple life is all you need. He
wanted to take Russians to those good old days of simplicity and naivety. So the Brothers Karamazov
is a novel of childhood. And Dostoevsky wrote it to preserve the childhood innocence that we lose
when we grow up and learn the sinister world of adulthood and we spent the rest of our lives to
restore that childhood naivety but never manage. In other words, once you see it, you cannot unsee
it. That’s it. So Dostoevsky tells us not to see everything. Not to question everyone. Blind trust
can cause suffering but it’s good in the long term. In a way, it is similar to Proust’s novel
In Search of Lost Time, in which Proust went back to his magical world of his childhood wonders.
To recapture the lost time. The magic of not knowing the cynicism of this world. The magic
of simplicity. So the Brothers Karamazov is a novel about the magic of childhood.
Next watch my summary of Crime and Punishment is here. 8 Lessons from Dostoevsky here.