Crime and Punishment

A mysterious crime is being plotted in a tiny garret above a dilapidated apartment building in St Petersburg in Russia. The plotter, Rodion Raskolinikov, is a poor student who has delusions of ridding the world of “worthless vermin” and counter balancing these crimes with good deeds. He commits a murder to test his own theories and prove that crime comes naturally to the human species.

Crime and Punishment is a path-breaking novel of ideas that changed the course of novel writing in the 20th century. The intense insights into the workings of the human mind had seldom been attempted by any writer anywhere in the world till then. The author, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, was the so...

The Idiot

The extraordinary child-adult Prince Myshkin, confined for several years in a Swiss sanatorium suffering from severe epilepsy, returns to Russia to claim his inheritance and to find a place in healthy human society.
The teeming St Petersburg community he enters is far from receptive to an innocent like himself, despite some early successes and relentless pursuit by grotesque fortune-hunters. His naive gaucheries give rise to extreme reactions among his new acquaintance, ranging from anguished protectiveness to mockery and contempt.
But even before reaching the city, during the memorable train journey that opens the novel, he has encountered the demonic Rogozhin, the son of a ...

White Nights

Белые ночи (”White Nights”) by Fyodor Dostoevsky [read in Russian]. In this small 100kb story (though author states this is a sentimental novel) author describes in his traditional and particular way the internal world of one young lonely person.
The hero’s 26 years old man, who is oriented into his internal world, who’s rather shy, and thus is in real demand of a soulful conversations and love. The action take place in the city of a real and deep sentiments and romance — Saint Petersburg, the most romantic and European city in Russia. Not only the location is important, but also a time of a day: all actions in the story take place in evening and night time — the famous time of wh...

Notes from the Underground

One of the earliest polished examples of existential literature, Notes from the Underground follows the life of a recluse and depicts his antagonistic attitude toward society. Written in two parts with a first person narration, the novella explores various themes expressing the misleading notion of rationalism and utopianism, existentialism, alienation and human inaction.

The psychological novel begins with a monologue in which the protagonist introduces and characterizes himself. Referred to as the Underground Man and remaining unidentified throughout, the protagonist portrays himself as a bitter and misanthropic individual living in isolation and distancing himself ...

The Grand Inquisitor (dramatic reading)
The Grand Inquisitor is a parable told by Ivan to Alyosha in Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel The Brothers Karamazov (1879–1880). Ivan and Alyosha are brothers; Ivan questions the possibility of a personal, benevolent God and Alyosha is a novice monk. The Grand Inquisitor is an important part of the novel and one of the best-known passages in modern literature because of its ideas about human nature and freedom, and because of its fundamental ambiguity. In the tale, Christ comes back to earth in Seville at the time of the Inquisition. He performs a number of miracles (echoing miracles from the Gospels). The people recognize him and adore him, but he is arrested by Inquisition leaders and sentenc...
The Brothers Karamazov

Set in 19th century Russia, The Brothers Karamazov (Russian: Братья Карамазовы) is the last novel written by the illustrious author Fyodor Dostoyevsky who died a few months before the book's publication.

The deeply philosophical and passionate novel tells the story of Fyodor Karamazov, an immoral debauch whose sole aim in life is the acquisition of wealth. Twice married, he has three sons whose welfare and upbringing, he cares nothing about. At the beginning of the story, Dimitri Karamazov, the eldest son who is now a twenty-eight year old war veteran, returns to his home town to claim the inheritance left to him by his dead mother. Fyodor is none too pleased to see h...

Um club da má língua

O nome do autor é ocasionalmente grafado como Dostoievsky – foi um escritor russo, considerado um dos maiores romancistas da literatura russa e um dos mais inovadores artistas de todos os tempos.

Nesta obra, que lembra uma peça de teatro, é feita uma sátira à hipocrisia das relações sociais na "sociedade" de Mordassov, e às personagens dessa sociedade que se baseiam em intrigas e mentiras para sustentar o seu nível social.

Publicada em português em 1908. (Resumo adaptado da Wikipédia por Vicente)

Weiße Nächte
Erzählt wird diese Petersburger Geschichte von einem jungen, einsamen Träumer, der aus seiner selbst geschaffenen Welt durch eine unerwartete Begegnung gleichsam herausgeschleudert wird: Er trifft auf das unglückliche Mädchen Nastenka, und zwischen ihnen entsteht eine besondere Freundschaft.... (Zusammenfassung von Hermann)

House of the Dead
The House of the Dead is a novel published in 1861 by Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky, which portrays the life of convicts in a Siberian prison camp. Dostoyevsky himself spent four years in exile in such a camp following his conviction for involvement in the Petrashevsky Circle. This experience allowed him to describe with great authenticity the conditions of prison life and the characters of the convicts. The narrator, Aleksandr Petrovich Goryanchikov, has been sentenced to penalty deportation to Siberia and ten years of hard labour. Life in prison is particularly hard for Aleksandr Petrovich, since he is a "gentleman" and suffers the malice of the other prisoners, nearly all of whom...