Beyond the boundaries of sin – The Karamazov Brothers

V. Honour thy father and mother

VI. Thou shalt do no murder

Exodus 20, 7 – 8

Sergei Rachmaninoff – Piano concerto no. 2, mov. 1 – Moderato

When entrapped in the sinister province of human mind, Dostoyevsky’s sovereign work field, multiple questions are bound to arise during and after the process of probing this dark abyss full of dangerous passions suppressed and unleashed, agonies of spiritual and physical suffering, shadows of madness looming large over sparse neurons of sanity. With bated breath one stands aside and watches as one is helplessly pulled into this terrifying roller-coaster ride only to finish spitted out exhausted in feeling and rational thinking onto the shores of empty confusion. The Karamazov Brothers is a philosophical walk through fire, a test of courage and personal convictions, a meeting with all the forces of Heaven and Hell clashing together in stormy encounter, the furious rattling of the steely kisses of enemy swords ringing in one’s head as the mad swirl of drums preceding a criminal’s execution.

One human. Thousand faces. Thousands of passions. Thousands of conflicts.

Family, honour, passion, piety, religion, atheism, politics, justice, crime, guilt, violence, suffering, mysticism. The bricks that make this philosophical monument a lasting prophesy of a genius mind, standing strictly opposed to each other, yet firmly entwined in what seems to be a kaleidoscope of a dark complexity. Moral, social, political, psychological and spiritual crises are blended in various shades of grey in between the sharp contrast of black and white, good versus evil.

Standing as the final accomplishment among the masterworks of the great Russian triumvirate, Tolstoy, Turgenev and Dostoyevsky, The Karamazov Brothers presents an extremely fertile field for exploring human nature, and consequently also the world as a reflection of the innermost, intimate working of human mind. For what else is world, if not a reflection of who we are?

Body, mind and spirit – three brothers divided by elements of fundamental difference, brought together by bloodshed, united by a sense of guilt. Dimitri, the representation of passionate sensualism, Ivan, the embodiment of ever-sceptic intellectualism, and Alyosha, the innocence of firm spiritual devotion. And lastly Smerdyakov, the offspring of malice, cunning and contempt.

Rather than elaborating on the nature of each of the leading figures in this dramatic epopee, I cannot but declare how in awe I was of the dexterity with which Dostoyevsky works with these pulsating fibres of human intricacy, interweaving and pulling them apart on the precipices of their irreconcilable differences. Intriguing and complicated set of minds is presented to the reader as the brothers’ natural impulses come to inevitable conflict, starting with Dimitri’s irrepressible urge to kill because of jealousy fuelled by a passionate love for a woman, continuing with Ivan’s staunch undermining of God and religion by presenting a profound discourse on injustice and suffering, finished by Alyosha’s pious and peaceful, gentle love for God and humanity.

One could easily take the three brothers as a united model of the inner construction of human nature in general. In each human being, there are the germs of the Karamazov attributes scattered in different proportions, their prevalence depending on the inclination, maturity and life experience of the individual.

Moving from character traits and inner impulses to a higher dimension, the eternal struggle of faith with reason unfolds on the backdrop of a highly dysfunctional family, for me by far the most complex and intriguing of the palette of struggles presented by Dostoyevsky, culminating in Ivan’s descent into madness. The Grand Inquisitor, standing in grim contrast to Father Zosima’s exhortations, was a reflection of the fundamental questions every spiritually-minded person will pose to themselves over again during their lives – if there is God, and God is eternal love, why is there suffering on earth? Is free will truly a gift, or a curse to the human race? Is it not better for us helpless mortals to be led and shown the right way, instead of being generously given the opportunity to inflict deep wounds on each other? Shall one take as a sin solely the transformation of thoughts into actions, or the thought itself already? Is there an eternal life, a reality beyond the grasp of our mind with which we are tightly bound by the inherent, ceaseless longing for something transcendental?

On earth we are as it were astray. Much on the earth is hidden from us, but to make up for that we have been given a mysterious hidden longing for our living bond with the other world, and the roots of our thoughts and feelings are not here but in other worlds. That is why the philosophers say that we cannot apprehend the reality of things on earth.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky – The Karamazov Brothers

Part of the answer to Dostoyevsky’s crucial questions of spiritual doubting can be found in Ivan’s precarious conviction that everything is lawful, which ultimately leads to a turning point in the story, causing a stormy downward spiral to hell. Everything is lawful – a clue to the author’s prophesy about a world without faith, God and morality which stands merely on the tottering pillars of atheism, socialism and materialism.

What made an everlasting impression on my mind from this impassioned philosophical monument was the scene of the Devil visiting Ivan in his nightmare. From all chapters, this one I found the cornerstone, the key to Dostoyevsky’s philosophy.

Le diable n’existe point.

The mirroring sentence to everything is lawful is a clue to the tragedy of the essential crime of The Karamazov Brothers, just as it is, in my mind, a clue to the tragedy of the evil committed in the world in such wild abundance. If one does not believe in evil itself, what can condemn crime and criminality as amoral? If one does not believe in moral laws, what else is there to prevent one from causing harm, pain and injustice?

The Karamazov Brothers is a metaphysical argument embedded in a world of ruthless sensuality that poses questions vital to the survival of human morality by shedding different light on progressing secularity that is increasingly set on eclipsing the existence of a higher, spiritual dimension of human race; questions valid for this age because of the polemics of human mind they encompass, creating an ever-repeating struggle of the variability of our essence.