Demons

The highly political book Demons is a testament to life in Imperial Russia at the end of the 19th century. As revolutionary democrats rise in Russia, various ideologies begin to clash. Dostoevsky criticizes both radical idealists, portraying their ideas and their ideological foundations as the incompetence of both the evil and conservative order in combating these ideas and their social consequences. This form of intellectual conservatism associated with the Slavophile movement of the Dostoevsky era, called the "Science of Soil", apparently maintained its modern manifestation in personalities such as Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Dostoevsky's novels focus on the idea that utopias and positivist ideas, while utilitarian, are not realistic and open. There are five main characters in the book who represent different ideologies. Researching his various philosophies, Dostoevsky describes the political chaos observed in 19th-century Russia. [Introduction to the plot] The novel takes place in a provincial Russian setting, especially on the estates of Stepan Trofimovich Verkhovensky and Varvara Stavrogina. Pyotr Verkhovensky, the son of Stepan Trofimovich, is an avid revolutionary conspirator who is trying to organize a knot of revolutionaries in the region. Varvara sees Stavrogina's son Nikolai as the center of his plot, because he believes that Nikolai Stavrogin has no sympathy for humanity. Verkhovensky brings together conspirators such as the philosopher Shigalev, Kirillov's suicide and his former soldier Virginian, and plans to strengthen his loyalty to himself and each other by killing Ivan Shatov, a conspirator. Verkhovensky plans to get credit for the murder in the death note of Kirillov, who is forced to kill himself, but his plan is foiled.

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