ABSTRACT
The famous Grand Inquisitor passage in The Brothers Karamazov allows Heitor O’Dwyer de Macedo to establish the importance of taking the unconscious into account to understand world history. He points out the differences between the perspective of the Grand Inquisitor and that of Raskolnikov, before coming back to the discussion of the work involved in constructing the unconscious. This work, central in the treatment of trauma and madness, has been the foundation of clinical experiments and has produced theories used today by certain political experts who are trying to invent processes allowing democratic institutions to continue to exist, or be able to resist attempts aimed at their destruction.
