Even the town aristocrats are intent on standing “on the right side of history,’” right next to the anarchists. Unnamed students preach revolution and bearded men shout nonsense. Meanwhile, his cynically rebellious son Pyotr spreads rumors from the comfort of the governor’s mansion.

Stepan Trofimovich, the old liberal, spends his days in sentimental reveries over the brotherhood of man, shedding tears over bottles of wine. No summary can convey the confused context, which teems with agitated would-be radicals of every persuasion. The novel centers on a gang of conspirators who scapegoat one of their own, killing him in cold blood. The improvised masterpiece that emerged from three years of painful composition is as profound as it is unsettling.ĭemons took shape in response to a murder that shocked Russia in 1869. Dostoevsky only intended to make Demons a short broadside against nihilism, but the plot ran away from him. Yet while the novel is often billed as a work of political prophecy, politics may be the least interesting thing about it. Its biting prose tears into the many ‘isms’ that haunt the modern world. The novel’s flailing revolutionaries are not caricatures of archaic belief systems but embody the very structure of human conflict.ĭark, funny, and frenetic, Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Demons is a startlingly accurate portrayal of possession by ideology. Dostoevsky’s “Demons” remains relevant more than a century after it was written as it invites readers to a melancholy symphony of self-reflection.

Fyodor dostoyevsky demons