Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Vintage, New York, 1994, English; originally published in Russian, 1873
Fiction
ISBN: 9780679734512

From the Publisher. Inspired by the true story of a political murder that horried Russians in 1869, Dostoyevsky conceived of Demons as a “novel-pamphlet” in which he would say everything about the plague of materialist ideology that he saw infecting his native land. What emerged was a prophetic and ferociously funny masterpiece of ideology and murder in pre-revolutionary Russia. Previously translated under the title “The Possessed.”

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Cleto Munari

Demons combines two separate novels that Dostoyevsky was working on. One was a commentary on the real-life murder in 1869 by the socialist revolutionary group “People’s Vengeance” of one of its own members (Ivan Ivanovich Ivanov). The other novel eventually merged into Demons was originally a religious work. Through Dostoyevsky’s imagination I’m able to plunge into a totally new atmosphere to take a stand against any form of dictatorship that threatens personal freedom. My wife has written a book on this incomparable writer and I am particularly grateful to her for helping me get into some of his memorable characters.

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