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Introduction

The Brothers Karamazov (Russian: Братья Карамазовы Brat'ya Karamazovy, pronounced [ˈbratʲjə karəˈmazəvɨ]) is the final novel by the Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Dostoyevsky spent nearly two years writing The Brothers Karamazov, which was published as a serial in The Russian Messenger and completed in November 1880. Dostoyevsky intended it to be the first part in an epic story titled The Life of a Great Sinner,^[1] but he died less than four months after its publication.

The Brothers Karamazov is a passionate philosophical novel that explores deep into the ethical debates of God, free will and morality. It is a spiritual drama of moral struggles concerning faith, doubt, reason and modern Russia. Dostoyevsky composed much of the novel in Staraya Russa, which is also the main setting of the novel.

Since its publication, it has been acclaimed all over the world by thinkers as diverse as Sigmund Freud^[2] and Albert Einstein^[3] as one of the supreme achievements in literature.