This study concentrates on The Devils, but also places this novel in the total context of Dostoevsky’s work. Also considered is the life and work of T.N. Granovsky, who is satirised along with Turgenev in the novel, and thus offers a useful basis on which to delineate the contours of Dostoevsky’s thought. First published in 1991, the book begins from the belief that his "genius embodies much of what is typical of Russian life: his boundless vitality, his extremism, his lack of empiricism and economy. To understand Dostoevsky is therefore somehow to understand Russia." The author concludes that Dostoevsky badly misunderstood Western liberalism, but grappled very well with the psychology of the radical terrorist. This is explained with reference to his intellectual revolution, which is seen as consisting of six stages from his early works of the 1840s.

This study concentrates on The Devils, but also places this novel in the total context of Dostoevsky’s work. Also considered is the life and work of T.N. Granovsky, who is satirised along with Turgenev in the novel, and thus offers a useful basis on which to delineate the contours of Dostoevsky’s thought. First published in 1991, the book begins from the belief that his "genius embodies much of what is typical of Russian life: his boundless vitality, his extremism, his lack of empiricism and economy. To understand Dostoevsky is therefore somehow to understand Russia." The author concludes that Dostoevsky badly misunderstood Western liberalism, but grappled very well with the psychology of the radical terrorist. This is explained with reference to his intellectual revolution, which is seen as consisting of six stages from his early works of the 1840s.

Recognized as one of the greatest novelists of all-time, Fyodor Dostoevsky continues to inspire and instigate questions about religion, philosophy, and literature. However, there has been a neglect looking at his political thought: its philosophical and religious foundations, its role in nineteenth-century Europe, and its relevance for us today. Dostoevsky’s Political Thought explores Dostoevsky’s political thought in his fictional and nonfictional works with contributions from scholars of political science, philosophy, history, and Russian Studies. From a variety of perspectives, these scholars contribute to a greater understanding of Dostoevsky not only as a political thinker but also as a writer, philosopher, and religious thinker.

One of the greatest writers of all time, Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881) is best known for such masterpieces as Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov. His works are widely read and studied today, and he has received much biographical and critical attention. Like many other writers of enduring literature, he engages timeless moral and theological issues. His writings and ideas are complex and reflect the swirling political and intellectual controversies of his time. This encyclopedia is a convenient and comprehensive guide to his life and writings. Through more than 200 alphabetically arranged entries, this reference details his life and career. Each of his fictional works is discussed, as are his major pieces of journalism. There are also entries for his family members, close friends and associates, places where he lived, literary movements with which he is associated, and journals or newspapers in which he published. Also included are entries for major writers and thinkers who influenced his works, and for ideas and themes that figure prominently in his writings. The entries cite works for further reading, and the encyclopedia closes with a selected, general bibliography of major works.

For all his distance from philosophy, Dostoevsky was one of the most philosophical of writers. Drawing on his novels, essays, letters and notebooks, this volume examines Dostoevsky's philosophical thought.

This volume explores the Russia where the great writer, Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821–81), was born and lived. It focuses not only on the Russia depicted in Dostoevsky's works, but also on the Russian life that he and his contemporaries experienced: on social practices and historical developments, political and cultural institutions, religious beliefs, ideological trends, artistic conventions and literary genres. Chapters by leading scholars illuminate this broad context, offer insights into Dostoevsky's reflections on his age, and examine the expression of those reflections in his writing. Each chapter investigates a specific context and suggests how we might understand Dostoevsky in relation to it. Since Russia took so much from Western Europe throughout the imperial period, the volume also locates the Russian experience within the context of Western thought and practices, thereby offering a multidimensional view of the unfolding drama of Russia versus the West in the nineteenth century.

The history of ideas has played a central role in Russia's political and social history. Understanding its intellectual tradition and the way the intelligentsia have shaped the nation is crucial to understanding the Russia of today. This history examines important intellectual and cultural currents (the Enlightenment, nationalism, nihilism, and religious revival) and key themes (conceptions of the West and East, the common people, and attitudes to capitalism and natural science) in Russian intellectual history. Concentrating on the Golden Age of Russian thought in the mid-nineteenth century, the contributors also look back to its eighteenth-century origins in the flowering of culture following the reign of Peter the Great, and forward to the continuing vitality of Russia's classical intellectual tradition in the Soviet and post-Soviet eras. With brief biographical details of over fifty key thinkers and an extensive bibliography, this book provides a fresh, comprehensive overview of Russian intellectual history.