Putin, Dostoevsky and a Dallas bookstore | Opinion
, launched a public collective read of the nineteenth century classic Russian novel,, Russian troops invaded Ukraine. Undeterred, we proceeded as planned and, beginning March 1, curious readers from several states and as far away as Australia and France joined me in a sixty-day literary discussion, #conquerkaramazov, reading 15 pages each day of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s eight-hundred-page masterpiece, and sharing our impressions and questions on Twitter and our podcast.
Early in the novel, Ivan, the middle Karamazov brother confronts a church elder with the idea that much of humankind has rejected any possibility of immortality and that without hope of life after death, there is no longer virtue. In other words, because nothing is immoral or forbidden, then “everything is permitted.
Another idea from the novel that reverberates in today’s headlines is Russian exceptionalism. In the trial of the eldest Karamazov son for the murder of his father, the prosecutor references a well-known passage from the revered novelDead Souls , Gogol uses the image of a speeding troika that travels faster than anything else, as a metaphor for the Russian nation. Gogol writes that this rushing troika is full of divine inspiration, leaving other nations no option but to stand aside respectfully and make way for her.
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