Братья Карамазовы

The Brothers Karamazov

C2 · Proficient · fiction · 1400 scenes · Premium story

Dostoevsky’s last novel, unabridged: a father, his three sons, and the murder that pulls a whole Russian town into the courtroom. Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov is found dead; Dmitri is arrested; Ivan argues that everything is permitted; Alyosha, the youngest, tries to hold a family and a faith together. At the centre are the elder Zosima, the Grand Inquisitor, and the question of whether a single kind act can answer a world of suffering.

Read Братья Карамазовы in Russian

Characters

Alyosha (Алёша) — The youngest son
Mitya (Митя) — The eldest son
Ivan (Иван) — The intellectual son
Fyodor Pavlovich (Фёдор Павлович) — The father
Smerdyakov (Смердяков) — The servant
Grushenka (Грушенька) — The woman at the centre
Katerina Ivanovna (Катерина Ивановна) — Mitya's fiancée
Zosima (Зосима) — The elder
Rakitin (Ракитин) — The seminarian
Ilyusha (Илюша) — The schoolboy
Kolya Krasotkin (Коля Красоткин) — The schoolboy
Madame Khokhlakova (Хохлакова) — The widow

Vocabulary from this story

карамазовщина — the Karamazov streak
сладострастник — sensualist
сладострастие — sensuality, lust
надрыв — wrenching strain
безобразие — outrage, scandal
скандал — scandal
наследство — inheritance
имение — estate
помещик — landowner
приживалка — hanger-on
барин — master, gentleman
лакей — lackey