The Brothers Karamazov
Nekrasov, “Song to Yeryomushka” (1856)
They beat the horse across its gentle eyes.
It keeps on pulling, pulling,
And the drivers keep on lashing,
Harder and harder still.
Don’t pity him, Yeryomushka,
Don’t pity yourself, dear one:
What fate has set out for you
You cannot escape anyway.
Pull a little more, Yeryomushka,
Pull just one more time:
It’s not for you to live in freedom,
Not for you to roam at will.
They beat the horse, and he endures in silence,
Without complaint, without a cry;
So you, too, Yeryomushka, endure,
So you, too, keep silent for now.
Nekrasov, “Yesterday, at about six o’clock…” (1848)
Yesterday, at about six o’clock,
I wandered into the Haymarket;
There they were flogging a woman with a knout,
A young peasant woman.
Not a sound from her chest,
Only the lash whistled, playing…
And I said to the Muse: “Look!
Your own sister!”
Dostoevsky’s novel The Brothers Karamazov is very similar to his earlier work, Crime and Punishment. It seemed to me that the latter is still the better book, for several reasons I want to go through below. But first I want to say honestly that The Brothers Karamazov finally revealed the author’s philosophy to me and led me to realize that I do not intend to read his works any more. I will try to explain that decision as well.
So what is the main idea of The Brothers Karamazov? It seems to me that the reader is meant to see that violence and crime are the collective responsibility of society, and are produced by it. Society does not seek the truth; it seeks atonement, in order to restore moral order. The Brothers Karamazov develops this idea fully, showing both society and its victim, whereas Crime and Punishment shows only the psychology of the victim of society. It is interesting that Nekrasov’s poem appears in both novels, but in the first it is mentioned directly, while in the second it is reworked into a dream. Mitya and Raskolnikov became that “nag,” that “scapegoat,” taking on the guilt of the world so that it would stop being shared.
For a long time I wondered why all of Dostoevsky’s protagonists are religious. Is it because he saw religion as a unifying force? I knew he was a believer himself, so perhaps in his worldview faith stood for virtue. Now, though, it seems to me that he puts another meaning into religion. He wants to show that a person without an external, absolute prohibition will sooner or later decide that a sacrifice may be made for the sake of an idea, of justice, or of happiness.
“If you take upon yourself the right to judge and remake the world, you will become an executioner.”
That is why, in his view, Ivan is the unhappiest of the brothers. He does not believe in God, and so he is capable of murder. But society, too, though outwardly religious, is essentially unbelieving, and therefore especially cruel. It is ritually religious and ethically empty. Isn’t that a double-edged sword?)
“If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.”
Personally, I think Ivan was not guilty of the parricide at all. Smerdyakov killed him, and Smerdyakov was not stupid, just full of anger at the world. His claim to Ivan that he had planted the idea, that Ivan had given him the notion to carry out, is not very convincing to me. I see it as a shifting of responsibility. Dostoevsky, though, wanted to leave Ivan guilty, to show once more that unbelief had made him an executioner. Ivan is not the cause, but the justification of Smerdyakov’s idea. This is exactly why it is hard for me to accept Dostoevsky as an ideologist: he is literally saying that if you want to change the system, you are already a potential executioner. In a general sense that may even be true, since every revolution has brought bloodshed along with a change of system. But it is just a convenient formula. It rules out changing the system by a long, peaceful, step-by-step path, which requires far greater moral and ethical strength. It is an ethics of minimal risk, not of maximal justice. It seems to me that Dostoevsky did not believe in collective maturity, and I cannot reproach him for that. But his ideas produced an inability to stand up even for one’s own freedom and ideals, which led to the total inaction and helplessness of Russian society.
“For the humble soul of the Russian common man, worn out by labour and grief, and above all by constant injustice and constant sin, both his own and the world’s, there is no stronger need or comfort than to find a holy thing or a holy man, to fall down before him and worship him: ‘If we have sin, falsehood and temptation, still there is, somewhere on earth, a holy and exalted one; he has the truth, he knows the truth; so it does not die on earth, and therefore it will one day pass to us and reign over the whole earth, as was promised.’”
I have to admit that I myself became a victim of society while reading The Brothers Karamazov. Strangely, during the passage describing Mitya’s visit to his father’s house on the night of the murder, I was not fully attentive and, as it seemed to me, I missed the murder scene. I was surprised that I did not remember a detailed description of the crime itself, as is so often the case with Dostoevsky, but I decided to simply keep reading. When Mitya was questioned in Mokroye, I badly wanted to believe him and to acquit him. More than that, I wanted to blame society itself for the murder, no matter who had actually committed it. After all, at the moment when Mitya so desperately needed money and went around begging his so-called “friends” to lend him three thousand, no one agreed to help him. People spoke to him only when he had money, but as soon as he was in need, suddenly no one was there.
I understand that Mitya had a certain reputation, but it seems to me there are moments when help is necessary even at the risk of being deceived. At that point I was especially reminded of the episode of the beating of the nag and the complete inaction of the onlookers. When all the witnesses had been questioned and each of them pointed to the falseness of Mitya’s words, I suddenly came to believe in his guilt myself. I remember hoping very much for Grushenka, that she would lie and say she knew about those fifteen hundred roubles, but she knew nothing either. And then I learned that the murderer was not Mitya, and I felt ashamed of myself. Now, however, I think that this is perhaps even a good thing, because it means I still have much to learn. I was especially struck by Kalganov, who wept when Dmitri was taken away. It seems to me that he became my reflection in this novel.
“…He wept like a little boy, not like a young man of twenty. Oh, he believed in Mitya’s guilt almost completely! ‘What kind of people are these, what kind of people can there be after this!’ he exclaimed incoherently, in bitter dejection, almost in despair. He did not even want to go on living in that moment. ‘Is it worth it, is it worth it!’ exclaimed the grieved youth.”
I think the real problem was shown in the novel but missed on a larger scale. In the conversation at Fyodor Pavlovich’s house, Smerdyakov said that a person should not be punished for sins. He proves logically why this is so, showing that formal logic, cut off from moral feeling, is capable of justifying any evil. It seems to me that the problem lies precisely in the absence of morality, not in godlessness or unbelief. Ivan did not believe in God either, but, as I see it, he was a moral person, if only because in the end he felt guilt, even though it was not his own, and was ready to make amends and organize Mitya’s escape.
