La leggenda del grande inquisitore e il suo autore Ivan Karamazov

From the Nineteenth century to the present, literary scholars, theologians and philosophers have continued to analyze “Velikij inkvizitor”, fascinated by its evocative meaning. Nevertheless, they often forget the context in which the poem is inserted. Dostoevsky is the author of Brat’ja Karamazovy, but the inquisitor’s vision of the world is a creation of one of his tormented characters. In addition, in this novel, the poem is not a written text, but simply something which Ivan Karamazov imaged and which he develops by telling it to his only adressee, his brother Aliosha. In this paper I will analyze “Velikij inkvizitor”, beginning with Ivan’s questions and arguments, which prepare for the inquisitor’s monologue. As we shall see, the extremely frequent biblical quotations are essential for understanding the meaning of this episode. The answers to Ivan’s questions on the meaning of evil and the suffering in the world, as well as the answers to the inquisitor’s mologue, are provided by the tale of the life of the starec Zosima and by the context of the second part of the novel, through the analysis of two interconnected levels: the lives of the characters and the biblical references which explain them.