“Well, go, love Ivan!”: Ivan Karamazov unveiled and the “Pro and Contra” debate revisited

In his direct comments on The Brothers Karamazov , Fyodor Dostoevsky only refers to Book V (“Pro and Contra”) and VI (“The Russian Monk”) as the novel’s culminating points. These two Books, notoriously polemical, constitute a debate provoked by the representative of Contra values, Ivan Karamazov, wh...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Studies in East European thought Vol. 77; no. 5; pp. 1021 - 1035
Main Author: Yang, Shudi
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Dordrecht Springer Netherlands 01.10.2025
Springer Nature B.V
Subjects:
Debates
Education
History
Novels
Philosophy
Political Philosophy
Political Science
Russian literature
Spirituality
Testimony
Atheism
Children
Dostoevsky
Ivan Karamazov
Love
ISSN:0925-9392, 1573-0948
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:In his direct comments on The Brothers Karamazov , Fyodor Dostoevsky only refers to Book V (“Pro and Contra”) and VI (“The Russian Monk”) as the novel’s culminating points. These two Books, notoriously polemical, constitute a debate provoked by the representative of Contra values, Ivan Karamazov, who seeks responses from the “Pros.” This paper comes to support a more sophisticated reading of the Pros’ arguments, and argues that they do win the debate, since Ivan never intends to convince his counterparts, but on the contrary, wishes to be convinced of Zosima’s doctrines as the solution to his personal existential crisis. In this respect, Ivan, or more precisely his upbringing and early experiences that have been relatively neglected in Dostoevsky scholarship, becomes the key to our understanding of the novel’s ideological core. Such a viewpoint, it will be argued, fits perfectly with the theme of The Brothers Karamazov , namely “the young generation” and “contemporary Russian families,” according to the writer’s own testimony.
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ISSN:0925-9392
1573-0948
DOI:10.1007/s11212-024-09649-y