The Demons

Author: Dostoevsky

Translated by: Sami Al-Durubi

In 1871, Dostoevsky published the first part of this novel. That period was one of divisions and conflicting ideas, where socialist ideas were growing, along with ideas advocating liberation from the authority of the Church, and where state authority seemed weaker, with Russia viewing itself as inferior to Germany and the rest of Europe.

We have lost our way, what shall we do?

The devil drags us hither and thither

And turns us in all directions

With these lines from Pushkin, and a passage from the Gospel of Luke about the demons entering the swine, Dostoevsky opens his novel, which he titles "The Demons".

The demons are those who contend for Russia, not for its sake.

When Dostoevsky published these "Memories," he spoke little about his journey itself, but rather used this journey to present his views on Russia's history and situation, and to mock the countries he passed through. He mocked Germany and England, and especially France, where he began speaking about it with a sentence uttered by Von Fehrin, which was that "the Frenchman is deprived of reason, and if he were given reason, he would consider that the greatest misfortune that could befall him." Then he mentioned Italy or Switzerland neither for good nor ill.

The novel "A Gentle Creature" is one of Dostoevsky's most famous works, in which he delves into the human psyche of a man standing before the corpse of his wife. He takes us back to the past of the relationship between a man who acted cruelly towards his wife, until his unannounced retraction became useless, and she committed suicide.