Dostoevsky’s Demons

Abstract

Among Russian writers, hardly anyone involved himself so intensively with demons and the demonic as Feodor Dostoevsky. His exploration of the theme culminates in his novels Demons and The Brothers Karamazov. In these novels, Dostoevsky constructs the demonic imagery by both the convergence and dismantling of several traditions of diabolic representation: the Christian tradition, the tradition of European Romanticism, and Russian folk demonology. Moreover, these novels border on subverting some of Dostoevsky’s own ideas: for example, his perception of the West as the source of the demonic contamination of Russia, as well as his belief that healing elements of the Russian nation were preserved by the ordinary Russian folk. The major question with which Dostoevsky struggles, however, is whether the source of the demonic is intrinsically psychological, or whether it should be ascribed to external ideological or even metaphysical factors. This struggle, as well as Dostoevsky’s construction of the demonic at a crossroad of multiple traditions, makes his novels foreshadow several discourses of European modernity.