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Demons
8.5Fyodor Dostoevsky
Dostoevsky's darkly prophetic 1872 novel foresaw, with uncanny precision, the revolutionary nihilism that would produce the totalitarian horrors of the twentieth century.
GBM Assessment (Score: 8.5/10)
Demons is a darkly prophetic novel about the destructive power of revolutionary nihilism, a work in which Dostoevsky foresaw with uncanny precision the totalitarian horrors that radical ideology would unleash upon the twentieth century. Through its portrait of a group of conspirators who descend into murder, manipulation, and moral chaos, the novel exposes the spiritual void at the heart of political extremism.
Based on the real-life Nechayev affair of 1869, in which a revolutionary cell murdered one of its own members, Demons was published in 1872 and has since been recognized as a prescient works of political fiction ever written. Albert Camus cited the novel as prophetic of the Soviet totalitarian state, a judgment that the twentieth century amply confirmed.
Russia, 1869-1872
Russian literature's titanic decade. Tolstoy completes War and Peace. Dostoevsky publishes The Idiot and Demons. The Franco-Prussian War ends with German unification and the Paris Commune. The Suez Canal opens (1869).
Awards & Adaptations
Camus cited as prophetic.
Recommended Edition
Pevear & Volokhonsky (1994); Garnett (1916, as The Possessed)
