The Brothers Karamazov

A Family Torn Apart by Faith, Doubt, and Desire

Братья Карамазовы

In a provincial Russian town, the vulgar and wealthy Fyodor Pavlovitch Karamazov is locked in a bitter struggle with his three remarkable sons — the passionate, reckless Dmitri, the brilliant, tormented intellectual Ivan, and the gentle, spiritual Alyosha — each embodying a different answer to the question of how to live. When the old man is found murdered, suspicion falls on Dmitri, but the true guilt runs far deeper, entangling the household's illegitimate servant Smerdyakov and Ivan's own dangerous philosophy that 'everything is permitted.' Dostoevsky's final and greatest novel is a seismic exploration of faith and doubt, free will and moral responsibility, the existence of God and the problem of evil — all wrapped in a gripping murder mystery that builds to one of literature's most devastating courtroom scenes.