#fyodor fyodorovich karamazov

[possessedbydevils]

Guess who started reading TBK!!!! Loving it so far and l had to draw some characters, l wish Dosto gave more information about them but it's fine (also: designs inspired by @gegengestalt)

[plutorine]

little something i made today

[sasperine]

it's interesting how dostoevsky will exclusively name the worst characters after himself (fyodor karamazov, fedka the convict) he's like a reverse jane austen

[mikhailrakitin]

an ivan just fer you!!

[sadeyedlady-writes]

Chapter two of my Grushenka-POV retelling is now live on ao3! (Does this chapter count as a meet-cute? Perhaps)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/55044976/chapters/139767196 

If you read it, please let me know what you think!

[incorrectlit]

Mitya: You can trust me, Ivan! Let’s not forget who pulled you out of the river four years ago!

Ivan: Let’s not forget WHO PUSHED ME IN.

[karamazovanon]

another tbk meme i forgot to add to the first post! ivan & the bestie

[theinsomniacindian]

I recently finished reading Crime and Punishment and now I want to see Raskolnikov and Ivan Karamazov interact

[rafasbiscuits]

“-how dare he not know me after all that has happened?”

“I want to save him forever.”

The Brothers Karamazov; Fyodor Dostoevsky

[ivan-fyodorovich-k]

Father said earlier that I paid out several thousand on seducing girls. That’s a phantom, and a pig of one too, and there wasn’t any of that, and as for what there was, for “that” in particular money was not necessary.

from The Brothers Karamazov

[strangebrew]

karamazov family line up! yes im a freakishly tall alyosha truther im right abt this

[possessedbydevils]

How asking for 3k roubles got mfs feelin

[plutorine]

alyosha karamazov as weeping mother mary

[hapless-raining]

Alyosha

[mikhailrakitin]

rakyosha in color

[sadeyedlady-writes]

Undoubtedly the worst thing about Fyodor Pavlovich is that there is absolutely nothing which he holds as sacred, holy, untouchable, worthy of reverence or respect. Everything is a joke to him.

The very worst way this is exemplified is his alleged (but come on, we all know it was him) crime against the “holy fool” Lizaveta Smerdyashchaya, which for him was yet another distasteful joke. Lizaveta’s innocence and vulnerability are recognised by the community of Skotoprigonyevsk, both young and old, and we are given paragraphs and paragraphs to show how she is widely adored by the townspeople and how attempts are made to shelter, protect, and care for her.

When Fyodor Pavlovich violates her, he violates something that the community holds as sacred.

That, to me, is the core difference between someone like him and someone like Mitya. Even though Mitya has done a lot of “dirty things” and may on the surface appear to be following in his father’s footsteps, his heart is a noble one, or at least one with noble intentions. One that is filled with reverence and genuine emotion and a hatred for what is abhorrent—even when he himself is doing things that are abhorrent.

And even though we can fully understand his hatred of his father for his loathsomely mocking, irreverent, dishonourable, ignoble attitude toward everything, once his father is dead, he still feels sorry for that hatred. He still regrets the relationship he never had with the father who neglected him as a child and possibly swindled him as a young man. That alone speaks to the kind of heart that he has.

“It is a noble man you are speaking with, a most noble person; above all—do not lose sight of this—a man who has done a world of mean things, but who always was and remained a most noble person, as a person, inside, in his depths, well, in short, I don't know how to say it ... This is precisely what has tormented me all my life, that I thirsted for nobility, that I was, so to speak, a sufferer for nobility, seeking it with a lantern, Diogenes’ lantern, and meanwhile all my life I've been doing only dirty things, as we all do, gentlemen ... I mean, me alone, gentlemen, not all but me alone, I made a mistake, me alone, alone ... ! Gentlemen, my head aches,” he winced with pain. “You see, gentlemen, I did not like his appearance, it was somehow dishonorable, boastful, trampling on all that's holy, mockery and unbelief, loathsome, loathsome! But now that he's dead, I think differently.”

“How differently?”

“Not differently, but I'm sorry I hated him so much.”

“You feel repentant?”

“No, not really repentant, don't write that down. I'm not good myself, gentlemen, that's the thing, I'm not so beautiful myself, and therefore I had no right to consider him repulsive, that's the thing. Perhaps you can write that down.”

- The Brothers Karamazov, 3.9.3 (Pevear & Volokhonsky translation)

There is no beauty to be found in anything about Fyodor Pavlovich, and though Mitya contests that the same is true of himself, I argue differently. There is something beautiful in the struggle of an imperfect human toward nobility, despite being doomed to always fall short. To again and again slip into one’s baser impulses, and yet again and again stand back up and trudge onwards.

Both are human, but Fyodor Pavlovich is all of the very worst things about humanity, while Mitya is the worst things mingled with much of the very best.