ABSTRACT
The Brothers Karamazov is an attempt to define its content may well seem almost as inadequate as to describe the Iliad as a poem about the wrath of Achilles. The key of the plot, an afterthought to the original conception of the novel, is the murder of the father of the brothers, a revolting but impressive monster of lust and debauchery. The problems of The Brothers Karamazov are the problems which confront every Christian apologist, the problem of suffering and the problem of sin. The formal religious observances of Dostoevsky childhood passed easily and imperceptibly into the frank agnosticism of his Petersburg years. In Russia, politics and religion are never far apart; and the movement of Dostoevsky towards political orthodoxy implied, at any rate, a strong urge in the direction of orthodoxy of religion. The myth of 'holy Russia' has been responsible for much misunderstanding of the state of religious belief among Russian intellectuals.
