The Brothers Karamazov

The Brothers Karamazov

The first page of the first edition of The Brothers Karamazov
Author	Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Original title	Братья Карамазовы (Brat'ya Karamazovy)
Country	Russia
Language	Russian
Genre	Philosophical Novel
Publisher	The Russian Messenger (as serial)
Publication date	1879–1880; separate edition 1880
Preceded by	A Gentle Creature
Followed by	A Writer's Diary

The Brothers Karamazov (Russian: Бра́тья Карама́зовы, Brat'ya Karamazovy, pronounced [ˈbratʲjə kərɐˈmazəvɨ]), also translated as The Karamazov Brothers, 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 from January 1879 to November 1880. The author died less than four months after its publication.

The Brothers Karamazov is a passionate philosophical novel set in 19th-century Russia, that enters deeply into the ethical debates of God, free will, and morality. It is a spiritual drama of moral struggles concerning faith, doubt, judgment, and reason, set against a modernizing Russia, with a plot which revolves around the subject of patricide. Dostoyevsky composed much of the novel in Staraya Russa, which inspired the main setting. Since its publication, it has been acclaimed as one of the supreme achievements in world literature.

Although Dostoyevsky began his first notes for The Brothers Karamazov in April 1878, he had written several unfinished works years earlier. He would incorporate some elements into his future work, particularly from the planned epos The Life of a Great Sinner, which he began work on in the summer of 1869. It eventually remained unfinished after Dostoyevsky was interested in the Nechayev affair, which involved a group of radicals murdering one of their former members. He picked up that story and started with Demons. The unfinished Drama in Tobolsk (Драма. В Тобольске) is considered the first draft of the first chapter of The Brothers Karamazov. Dated 13 September 1874, it tells about a fictional murder in Staraya Russa committed by a praporshchik named Dmitry Ilynskov (based on a real soldier from Omsk), who is thought to have murdered his father. It goes on noting that his body was suddenly discovered in a pit under a house. The similarly unfinished Sorokoviny (Сороковины), dated 1 August 1875, is reflected in book IX, chapter 3–5 and book XI, chapter nine.