Demons (Penguin Classics)

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The main participants seclude themselves, with the exception of Pyotr Stepanovich who actively insinuates himself into the social life of the town.

This Hamlet-like indecision also affects another character who considers defecting – Liputin – who loathes the sect leader, Pyotr Stepanovich Verkhovensky, and his domineering attitude, but is so frightened by what he perceives as Verkhovensky’s power (a fear buttressed by the convenient and mysterious murder of Fedka the convict, who is in Verkhovensky’s employ) that he goes along with the plot to kill Shatov. His strength of will in breaking with the false cause of revolutionary nihilism is admirable, but his cringing attempts to become a devout Orthodox Christian, when he doesn’t even truly believe in God (as Stavrogin forces him to admit), are less so. The idealistic, Western-influenced intellectuals of the 1840s, epitomized in the character of Stepan Verkhovensky (who is both Pyotr Verkhovensky's father and Nikolai Stavrogin's childhood teacher), are presented as the unconscious progenitors and helpless accomplices of the "demonic" forces that take possession of the town. The book, also known in English as The Devils and The Demons, is a reflection of Dostoyevsky’s belief that revolutionists possessed the soul of Russia and that, unless exorcised by a renewed faith in Orthodox Christianity and a pure nationalism, they would drive his country over the precipice.They indulge in tasteless escapades, clandestinely distribute revolutionary propaganda, and agitate workers at the local Spigulin factory. By flattery, surrounding her with a retinue and encouraging her exaggerated liberal ambition, he acquires a power over her and over the tone of her salon. The nihilist Pyotr Verkhovensky is in love with the cynical, amoral, power-seeking side, while Shatov is affected by the ardour of the feeling, spiritually-bereft side.

A 'literary quadrille' has been especially choreographed for the occasion, but it is vulgar and stupid and merely bemuses the onlookers.That night Stavrogin leaves Skvoreshniki in secret and makes his way on foot to Fillipov's house, where Shatov lives.

For von Lembke, it is the duty of people like him, who are in a position of authority, to encourage the young radicals to condemn everything that is backward in the old Russia, but stop them from going too far. Julia Mikhaylovna, who has somehow managed to reconcile Andrey Antonovich, is at the summit of her ambition. BBC Radio 4 mini-series Devils adapted by Melissa Murray starring Joseph Arkley, Jonathan Forbes, Georgia Henshaw and Jane Whittenshaw. Introducing this grandiose attitude into the membership is a very good way of conning them into thinking that their efforts are having a real-world impact.The enormity of his crimes, the desolation of his inner being, the madness born of his "sacrilegious, proto-Nietzschean attempt to transcend the boundaries of good and evil", are hidden realities that only become visible in the confession and dialogue with Tikhon. News arrives from Skvoreshniki that Nikolai Vsevolodovich is there and has locked himself away without saying a word to anyone. By this time it is known that it is Stavrogin's wife who has been murdered, and Liza is recognized as 'Stavrogin's woman'.

The first person narrator is a minor character, Anton Lavrentyevich G—v, who is a close friend and confidant of Stepan Verkhovensky. The character is Dostoevsky's rendering of an archetypal liberal idealist of the 1840s Russian intelligentsia, and is based partly on Timofey Granovsky and Alexander Herzen. Darya Pavlovna receives a disturbing letter from Nikolai Vsevolodovich, which she shows to Varvara Petrovna. Lenin even went so far as to refuse to read Demons – no doubt he would have recognised himself and his comrades in it, and this was too much to bear. They agree that Shatov will have to be killed and a plan is made to lure him to the isolated location where he has buried the society's printing press.Paranoia grips the town, but all is revealed when Lyamshin, unable to bear it, makes a groveling confession to the authorities. BBC mini-series The Possessed adapted by Lennox Phillips starring Keith Bell; also broadcast on PBS television in 1972. News begins to spread of a strange and terrible murder: a certain Captain, his sister and their serving maid have been found stabbed to death in their partially burned down house on the edge of town. All the same, we must accept that this triumph will come one day, even though none of those who at present steer the world's fate have any idea about it at all.