myshkins:

“The fact is that this book in my novel is the culminating one, it’s called “Pro and Contra”, and the point of the book is blasphemy and the refutation of blasphemy. […] I have taken, as I myself sense and realized, very strong blasphemy, that is, precisely as it occurs among us now in our Russia with the whole (almost) upper stratum, and primarily with the young people, that is, the scientific and philosophical rejection of God’s existence has been abandoned now, today’s practical socialists don’t bother with it at all (as people did the whole last century and the first half of the present one). But on the other hand God’s creation, God’s world, and its meaning are rejected as strongly as possible. That’s the only thing that contemporary civilization finds nonsense in. Thus I flatter myself with the hope that even in such an abstract theme I have not betrayed realism. The refutation of this (not direct, that is, not from one person another) will appear in the last words of the dying elder (Zosima). Many critics have reproached me for generally taking up in my novels themes that are allegedly wrong, unreal, and so forth. I, on the contrary, don’t know anything more real than precisely these themes.”

Source: Letter to Konstantin Pobedononstsev, May 1879

“The day before yesterday I mailed the Russian Herald office the continuation of The Karamazovs for the June issue (the conclusion of Book 5, “Pro and Contra”). It finishes up what the “mouth speaking great things and blasphemies“ says. A contemporary negator, one of the most ardent, comes right out and declares himself in favor of what the devil advises, and asserts that that’s more reliable for people’s happiness than is Christ. That’s an indication, and I think,  an energetic one, for our stupid Russian (but terrible socialism, because our young people are in it): loaves of bread, the Tower of Babel (that is, the future reign of socialism), and the total enslavement of freedom of conscience—that’s what our desperate negator and atheist comes to. The difference is that our socialists (and they’re not just underground nihilists, you know that) are conscious casuists and liars who do not admit that their ideal is that of violence to man’s conscience and the bringing down of humanity to the level of a herd of cattle, while my socialist (Ivan Karamazov) is a sincere person who comes right out and admits that he agrees with the Grand Inquisitor’s view of humanity and that Christ’s faith (allegedly) elevated man to much higher than where he stands in actuality. The question is stated in its baldest form: “Do you despise humanity or admire it, you, its future saviors?”

Source: Letter to Nikolai Lyubimov, June 1879

(Source: blagdaddy, via outofthedarkness)