Demons (Penguin Classics)

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Varvara Petrovna Stavrogina is a wealthy and influential landowner, residing on the magnificent estate of Skvoreshniki where much of the action of the novel takes place. Michael Katz is an Emeritus Professor of Russian and East European Studies and the translator of over a dozen Russian novels, including Crime and Punishment.

Bishop Tikhon is a monk and spiritual adviser recommended to Stavrogin by Shatov. He only appears in the censored chapter, but he has importance as the person to whom Stavrogin makes his most detailed and candid confession. He is perhaps the only character to truly understand Stavrogin's spiritual and psychological state. [50] He describes the confession as coming from "the need of a heart that has been mortally wounded" and advises Stavrogin to submit his life to an Elder. [51] Dostoevsky's model for the character of Bishop Tikhon was the 18th century monk and writer Tikhon of Zadonsk. [52] The Devils, The Possessed, or Demons, as it’s also known in translation, is Fyodor Dostoevsky’s most political novel but it’s also his bleakest and funniest. It’s a hundred and fifty years since its publication and two hundred years since its author’s birth. The novel tells the story of a group of young revolutionaries who run riot in a small provincial town in Russia, all under the indulgent eye of their elders, the liberal and progressively minded elite. It is a grim prophecy of totalitarian rule in the 20th century in what is a penetrating psychological study of the human consequences of extreme philosophical ideas. Stavrogin's suicide at the end of the novel is only fully understood with reference to the censored chapter. The enormity of his crimes, the desolation of his inner being, the madness born of his "sacrilegious, proto-Nietzschean attempt to transcend the boundaries of good and evil", are hidden realities that only become visible in the confession and dialogue with Tikhon. [69] Despite this 'madness', it is 'rationality' that is emphasized in the narrator's description of the suicide itself. The efficiency of the procedure, the brief, precise note, and the subsequent medical opinion of his mental state emphatically ruling out madness, all point to his 'reasonable' state of mind at the time of the act. Though dismayed, Stepan Trofimovich accedes to her proposal, which happens to resolve a delicate financial issue for him. When in Petersburg Stavrogin had secretly married the mentally and physically disabled Marya Lebyadkina. He shows signs of caring for her, but ultimately becomes complicit in her murder. The extent to which he himself is responsible for the murder is unclear, but he is aware that it is being plotted and does nothing to prevent it. In a letter to Darya Pavlovna near the end of the novel, he affirms that he is guilty in his own conscience for the death of his wife. [32]

Dostoevsky, Fyodor (2008). Ronald Meyer (ed.). Demons. Translator Robert A. Maguire. Introduction by Robert L. Belknap. Penguin Classics. ISBN 9780141441412. The novel is in three parts. There are two epigraphs, the first from Pushkin's poem "Demons" and the second from Luke 8:32–36. I’d also disagree with Lindsay that, when the great passages come, they turn the previous ones into gold. With Devils, I seriously wonder if the bulk of the book really adds much to the bits I most enjoyed (the nihilist/anarchist bits). But that’s not to say it’s without any effect. The main cast of nihilist/anarchists don’t turn up until the end of part one of this three-part novel, but when they do, Dostoevsky’s narrator has had the chance to build them up with rumours and anecdotes, meaning they come loaded with a sort of star quality that instantly sets them apart. When they finally appear, it feels like things are getting underway at last. (And they do — for a bit.) And the representative for the church, thrilled by the confession and completely without pity for the child, tells the murderer that he will be forgiven, if only he suffers enough to please god. First of all, what kind of a god is that, who encourages suffering, even finds delight and pleasure in it, but completely ignores the victim? What if I told my child that it is acceptable to brutally assault somebody as long as I see that he suffers afterwards - that the crime is actually laudable because it gives me a welcome opportunity to watch my child suffer duly? Where is the educational police to arrest me for such parenting?

Escuche. Para empezar provocamos una revuelta —Verjovenski siguió diciendo nerviosamente, agarrando continuamente a Stavroguin de la manga izquierda—. Ya se lo he dicho: llegaremos hasta la plebe. ¿Sabe que ya tenemos una fuerza enorme? Nuestra gente no es sólo la que mata e incendia, la que emplea armas de fuego al estilo clásico o muerde a sus superiores. Ésos sólo son un estorbo. Sin obediencia, las cosas no tienen sentido para mí. Ya ve que soy un pillo y no un socialista. ¡Ja, ja! Escuche, los tengo a todos ya contados: el maestro que se ríe con los niños del Dios de ellos y de su cuna es ya de los nuestros. El abogado que defiende a un asesino educado porque éste tiene más cultura que sus víctimas y tuvo necesariamente que asesinarlas para agenciarse dinero también es de los nuestros. Los escolares que matan a un campesino por el escalofrío de matar son nuestros. Los jurados que absuelven a todo delincuente, sin distinción, son nuestros. El fiscal que tiembla en la sala de juicio porque teme no ser bastante liberal es nuestro, nuestro. Los funcionarios, los literatos, ¡oh, muchos de ellos son nuestros, muchísimos, y ni siquiera lo saben! Además, la docilidad de los escolares y de los tontos ha llegado al más alto nivel; los maestros rezuman rencor y bilis. Por todas partes vemos que la vanidad alcanza dimensiones pasmosas, los apetitos son incr Burnett, Leon (2000). "Dostoevskii". In Olive Classe (ed.). Encyclopedia of Literary Translation Into English. Vol.A–L. Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers. p.66. Robert Maguire was a professor of Slavic languages. He produced translations from Polish and Russian. He was an expert on Gogol. BBC mini-series The Possessed adapted by Lennox Phillips starring Keith Bell; also broadcast on PBS television in 1972.Stepan Trofimovich also has a son from a previous marriage but he has grown up elsewhere without his father's involvement.