Showing results by author "Fyodor Dostoyevsky"

Fyodor Dostoyevsky is a titanic figure among the world's great authors, and The Brothers Karamazov is often hailed as his finest novel. A masterpiece on many levels, it transcends the boundaries of a gripping murder mystery to become a moving account of the battle between love and hate, faith and despair, compassion and cruelty, good and evil.

Living in a squalid room in St. Petersburg, the indigent but proud Rodion Raskolnikov believes he is above society. Obsessed with the idea of breaking the law, Raskolnikov resolves to kill an old pawnbroker for her cash. Although the murder and robbery are bungled, Raskolnikov manages to escape without being seen. And with nothing to prove his guilt and a mendacious confessor in police custody, Raskolnikov seems to have committed the perfect crime. But in Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s world of moral transgressions, with its reason and its consequences, Raskolnikov’s plan has a devastating hitch....

A century after it first appeared, Crime and Punishment remains one of the most gripping psychological thrillers. A poverty-stricken young man, seeing his family making sacrifices for him, is faced with an opportunity to solve his financial problems with one simple but horrifying act: the murder of a pawnbroker. She is, he feels, just a parasite on society. But does the end justify the means? Rodion Romanovitch Raskolnikov makes his decision and then has to live with it.

Prince Lyov Nikolayevitch Myshkin is one of the great characters in Russian literature. Is he a saint or just naïve? Is he an idealist or, as many in General Epanchin's society feel, an "idiot"? Certainly his return to St. Petersburg after years in a Swiss clinic has a dramatic effect on the beautiful Aglaia, youngest of the Epanchin daughters, and on the charismatic but willful Nastasya Filippovna. As he paints a vivid picture of Russian society, Dostoyevsky shows how principles conflict with emotions - with tragic results.

Isolated from society in a tenement basement in St. Petersburg, a malicious former civil servant vents his resentments. In the rambling notes that follow, we are exposed to the inner turmoil of the Underground Man, who represents the voice of his generation. An emotional, paranoid knot of contradictions, the spiteful narrator is also desperate to join a society he loathes, if only to prove his superiority to it.

The Brothers Karamazov is a tale of a complicated and broken family headed by a father, Fyodor Karamazov, who becomes entangled with his three sons, whom he neglected, after both mothers died.

Also known as Demons, The Possessed is a powerful socio-political novel about revolutionary ideas and the radicals behind them. It follows the career of Pyotr Stepanovich Verkhovensky, a political terrorist who leads a group of nihilists on a demonic quest for societal breakdown. They are consumed by their desires and ideals, and have surrendered themselves fully to the darkness of their "demons". This possession leads them to engulf a quiet provincial town and subject it to a storm of violence.

Crime and Punishment follows the story of a boy named Raskolnikov who commits a heinous crime because he believes he is in fact extraordinary. Through an internal battle of whether to confess or not, we follow him through his interactions with a drunk, a prostitute, the government, and his family. We see him do incredible acts of kindness, suffer the consequence of his crime on a physical level, and fall in love with an unlikely character, all while trying to reconcile his ability to be extraordinary.

Raskolnikov, a destitute and desperate former student, wanders through the slums of St Petersburg and commits a random murder without remorse or regret. He imagines himself to be a great man, a Napoleon: acting for a higher purpose beyond conventional moral law. But as he embarks on a dangerous game of cat and mouse with a suspicious police investigator, Raskolnikov is pursued by the growing voice of his conscience and finds the noose of his own guilt tightening around his neck.

Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov, a former student, lives in a tiny garret on the top floor of a run-down apartment building in St. Petersburg. He is sickly, dressed in rags, short on money, and talks to himself, but he is also handsome, proud, and intelligent. He is contemplating committing an awful crime, but the nature of the crime is not yet clear. Thus begins Crime and Punishment with all the twists and turns and philosophical questions that permeate Dostoyevsky's writing. A world classic! Please note: This audiobook is in Russian.

The ultimate collection of great short stories by the best Russian classic authors. 1. "Her Lover" by Maxim Gorky 2. "The Empty Drum" by Count Leo Tolstoy 3. "The Hoop" by Fedor Sologub 4. "The District Doctor" by Ivan Turgenev 5. "The White Dog" by Fedor Sologub 6. "The Cloak" by Nikolai Gogol 7. "A Soothing Dream" by Fedor Sologub 8. "The Christmas Tree and the Wedding" by Fyodor Dostoyevsky 9. "A Work of Art" by Anton Chekhov 10. "Children Wiser Than Their Fathers" by Count Leo Tolstoy

Esta es la historia de un parricidio y de cuatro hijos que tenian, cada uno, un motivo para el asesinato: Dmitry el sensual; Ivan el intelectual; Alyosha, el mistico; y el torcido y astuto Smerdyakov. La novela sumerge al lector en un triangulo de amor sordido, una obsesion patologica, y un drama de sala de tribunal.

A young student is haunted by the murder he has committed. Overwhelmed afterwards by guilt and terror, he confesses and goes to prison. There he realizes that happiness and redemption can only be achieved through suffering.

Raskolnikov, a destitute and desperate former student, wanders through the slums of St. Petersburg and commits a random murder without remorse or regret. He imagines himself to be a great man, a Napoleon: acting for a higher purpose beyond conventional moral law.

Prince Myshkin returns to Russia from an asylum in Switzerland. As he becomes embroiled in the frantic amatory and financial intrigues that center around a cast of brilliantly realized characters and that ultimately lead to tragedy, he emerges as a unique combination of the Christian ideal of perfection and Dostoevsky's own views, afflictions, and manners. His serene selflessness is contrasted with the worldly qualities of every other character in the novel. 

Raskolnikov, a student in St. Petersburg, murders an old woman, a money-lender, to prove his theory that violence purifies the strong. But no sooner is the deed done than Raskolnikov begins to feel remorse. What follows is one of the greatest psychological studies in world literature.

A delightful anthology of great works by some of Europe's greatest short story writers....

Krug osnovnyih idey romana «Prestuplenie i nakazanie» pisatel vyinashival dolgoe vremya, vozmozhno, esche s katorgi. Sotsialnyie motivyi poluchili v nem uglublennoe filosofskoe zvuchanie, neotdelimoe ot nravstvennoy dramyi Raskolnikova, «ubiytsyi-teoretika», sovremennogo Napoleona. Krah individualisticheskoy idei Raskolnikova, ego popyitki stat «vlastelinom sudbyi», podnyatsya nad «tvaryu drozhascheyu»

"The Grand Inquisitor" is a central chapter of Dostoyevsky's novel The Brothers Karamazov. The middle brother, Ivan, is having a conversation with his younger brother, Alyosha. Ivan represents the rationalist and nihilistic ideology that permeated Russia in the 19th Century. Alyosha's beliefs counterbalance his brother's. He embodies hope. Ivan tells Alyosha a vision where the grand inquisitor, during the Spanish inquisition, encounters Jesus Christ, who has made a return to Earth.

Dostoyevsky skilfully paints a portrait of a character who manages to recall a childhood memory from 20 years ago, and by doing so he alters the course of his life and even enables himself to completely free his heart from hatred and anger. Read in English, unabridged.