Place
Russia
Also known as all Russia, Young Russia, holy Russia, Russia as she was before 1772, all over Russia, our mother Russia, orthodox Russia.
Russia first surfaces as the country Fyodor Pavlovitch abuses while drunk: peasants, birches, forests, vice, and his own Russian traits become targets of contempt and jokes. At this horizon it is less a map than a contested moral homeland, invoked by a man who belongs to it while sneering at it. The word carries soil, faith, class anger, and provincial self-disgust into the family room.
V-II. Smerdyakov With A Guitar
Smerdyakov uses Russia as the country he despises, folding national shame into his talk with Marya Kondratyevna.
V-V. The Grand Inquisitor
In Ivan's preface to the Grand Inquisitor, Russia is imagined as the land once blessed by the wandering Heavenly King.
VI-III. Conversations And Exhortations Of Father Zossima
Father Zossima's teaching makes Russia's renewal depend on the people, the monk, and humble responsibility rather than on clever contempt.
VIII-VII. The First And Rightful Lover
At Mokroe, Dmitri toasts Russia before the Polish guests answer in a way that turns the feast into a national as well as personal rivalry.
XII-VI. The Prosecutor’s Speech. Sketches Of Character
The prosecutor turns Dmitri's case into a national parable, describing the Karamazov family as a small, distorted image of Russia's moral disorder.
XII-XIII. A Corrupter Of Thought
The defense answers with another national vision, asking the jury to make Russian justice merciful, rational, and saving rather than merely punitive.
Epilogue II. For A Moment The Lie Becomes Truth
By the epilogue, Russia becomes the homeland Dmitri already longs for even as he speaks of leaving it.
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