Dostoevsky

What I Learned Last Night

In 1879, Fyodor Dostoevsky, gave us "The Grand Inquisitor"-- a poem within The Brothers Karamazov-- widely considered one of the greatest pieces of literature in history. This week, James Inman wrote "If Jesus came back today and saw Notre Dame he'd say, 'Fuck your church. What is this stained glass bullshit? Back in my day we worshipped God out in a field. Oh you saved my crown of thorns?

Dostoevsky Does Dissidents: Treason Of The Soul

“Activists would benefit immeasurably by reading Dostoevsky.”  — Howard Zinn While U.S. citizens — “Americans” — were engaging in the unnecessary bloody Civil War and its horrific aftermath, Feodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky was producing three of his greatest novels and two  of his best novellas more than half a world away. Life didn’t meet Dostoevsky half way, though. During the period[Read More...]

Dostoevsky and what he can tell us about brutal and senseless mass murder near Moscow

 
Contemplating one particular suicide – of a young girl who threw herself from the 4th floor window floor with an icon in her hand–Dostoevsky wrote in his essay, “Two Suicides”: “There are some things which, no matter how simple they seem on the surface, one still goes on thinking about for a long time; they recur in one’s dreams, and it even seems as if one is somehow to blame for them. This meek soul who destroyed herself torments one’s mind despite oneself” (Diary of a Writer, Oct. 1876)