On the Legend of the High Inquisitor

Author: Liu Xiaofeng
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2007-01-01
Features: This book is an interpretation of the key chapter "The Grand Inquisitor" from the last major novel of the great Russian writer Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov. The Brothers Karamazov is a grand-scale novel with profound social philosophical content. The ideas in the work are highly complex, and the author's creative intentions are also profound. Dostoevsky wanted to summarize his life in this work and explore the "cosmic questions" he believed were the most significant in life and society: "Does God exist? Is there immortality of the soul?" He delved into themes such as good and evil, socialism and anarchism, and explored how to "reform all of humanity in a new way." In a letter in 1869, he wrote clearly: "The main problem that runs through this book—the one that has tormented me consciously and unconsciously all my life—is the existence of God." He wanted to express his faith and doubts through artistic figures and let the world judge. And these issues are mostly reflected in the chapter "The Grand Inquisitor." Unlike other interpretations, as Liu Xiaofeng pointed out in the preface to his translation, here we can also see similarities in spirit between Dostoevsky and Plato. Both were devoted to a pure idea, and their works share similarities in major themes, such as the legal issues of "the criminal," the problem of philosophy and desire, and so on. The fundamental question is: after the Enlightenment modernity, what kind of "eschatological" judgment will humanity face?!