Wassily Kandinsky – Composition 8 (1923).
Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Yevgeny Zamyatin was a born loner and instinctive satirist, whose usual response to collective enthusiasm was to dissent.
Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky – Vasily Perov (1872).
Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Dostoevsky’s sudden recovery from his gambling mania is an example of how a chance happening can change everything
Yevgeny Prigozhin, Ivan the Terrible and Vladimir Putin.
Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP. Valery Sharifulin/AP.
The connection between periods of crisis and autocratic rule is deeply embedded in the Russian consciousness.
A statue of Russian writer Leo Tolstoy in Moscow.
Natalia Kolesnikova/AFP via Getty Images
If Dostoevsky insists that one cannot shy away from horror and tragedy, Tolstoy would contend that people must act upon what they see.
A Trump supporter climbs scaffolding in an effort to breach the U.S. Capitol.
Joseph Prezioso/AFP via Getty Images
What would happen, the Russian novelist wondered, when people lacking any semblance of ideological or moral convictions rise to power?
Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
Dostoevsky’s infamous novel reflected a wave of reaction against economic liberalism, not unlike that which has occurred during 2016.
A doll lies in the ghost town of Pripyat, abandoned since the nearby Chernobyl power plant suffered a catastrophic meltdown in 1986.
Henrik Ismarker/Flickr
The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse has documented heart-rending testimonies and elicited shattering revelations. But how does a society witness itself failing at its most fundamental duty?
Portrait of Fyodor Dostoyevsky, by Vasily Perov (1872).
Vasily Perov/Wikimedia Commons
When penning his novel ‘Demons,’ Fyodor Dostoevsky was influenced by political turmoil in Russia. But his impulsive, crass antagonist bears a striking similarity to the GOP’s candidate for president.
BBC/Robert Viglasky
You don’t need to wade through the whole novel – we’ve done it for you.
BBC/Mitch Jenkins/Kaia Zak
Leo Tolstoy didn’t blush over racy themes.