Among European writers of the nineteenth century Fyodor Dostoevsky is the preeminent novelist of modernity. He explored the far-ranging moral, religious, psychological, social, political, and artistic ramifications of the breakdown of traditional structu...

Russian writer Fedor Dostoevsky represents many things to many people. There is Dostoevsky the existentialist, Dostoevsky the psychologist, Dostoevsky the arch conservative who foretold the repression and tyranny of the Soviet state, Dostoevsky the Ortho...

The Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881) mixed social, Gothic, and sentimental elements with psychological irrationalism and visionary religion. The form of the novel vastly increased in scope and flexibility as a result of his works. Fyodor Do...

WHEN THE WALL went up, I was serving at the British Embassy in Bonn and flew to Berlin with a colleague to take a look. As we stood at the Wall, he told me to wipe the grin off my face. I wasn't aware...

Useful Idiots Book Captures Essence of Communist Dupes The term "useful idiots" has been attributed to Lenin, as a description of those mindless people in the Western democracies who would always find ways to excuse whatever the Soviet Union did. Columnist Mona...

Ed O'Neill's bank account just got a lot bigger, thanks to a co-worker who told him some "idiot" hasn't claimed an $800,000 Powerball lottery prize.O'Neill, 58, who works for the Clinton Chamber of Commerce, bought the ticket for a Jan. 6 Powerball drawing. He told...

At a time when Iran's government is locked in a standoff with the West over its nuclear program, the director of "Persepolis" says her film is a reminder that Iranians are just like everyone else."What we wanted to say is, if these people scare you,...

In the following essay, Slattery considers the spatio-temporal imagery of The Idiot to demonstrate how Dostoevsky mixes fantasy with reality in his novel.

In the following essay, Hollander argues that critics who have commented on the aesthetic failure of The Idiot have not considered that a thematic interpretation of the novel based on the Book of Revelation does indeed bring the characters and events together.

In the following essay, Slattery surveys the impact that Dostoevsky's epilepsy had on his literary career, particularly as seen in The Idiot.

In his classic novel The Idiot, Fyodor Dostoevsky portrayed Prince Lev Nikolayevich Myshkin as a perfect figure who inevitably becomes corrupted by a materialistic society. Throughout Part I of The Idiot, the Prince is a Christ-like figure who projects simple innocence and purity; however, in subsequent parts he becomes a suspicious, corrupted man whose epilepsy worsens and eventually causes his downfall.