The Brothers Karamazov

First published in serial form between 1879 and 1880, Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov is a searching exploration of faith, freedom and the moral weight of human existence. At its centre are the three Karamazov brothers: Dmitri, passionate and impulsive; Ivan, fiercely intellectual and tormented by the problem of suffering; and Alyosha, whose gentleness and spiritual devotion offer a different response to a troubled world. Their lives are entangled with those of their dissolute father, Fyodor Pavlovich, and a circle of figures drawn into a family drama of resentment, rivalry and violence, set against the spiritual and social tensions of nineteenth-century Russia. When a shocking crime fractures the family, the question of guilt extends far beyond the search for a single culprit.

Dostoevsky’s final novel brings together the psychological intensity of Crime and Punishment and the philosophical questioning that runs throughout his mature work, probing the conflict between reason and faith, the freedom to choose and the responsibility we bear for one another. Its unforgettable encounters, philosophical arguments and intimate portraits of suffering culminate in a vision of moral life shaped not by certainty, but by compassion, humility and human connection. Widely regarded as one of the great achievements of Russian literature, The Brothers Karamazov stands as Dostoevsky’s most expansive inquiry into the possibilities of belief and the consequences of living without it.

From the book

“Above all, don’t lie to yourself.”

— Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

On The Brothers Karamazov

“The Brothers Karamazov is the most magnificent novel ever written.”

— Sigmund Freud, “Dostoevsky and Parricide” (1928)