Stawrogin – personifikacja zła

Characters such as Stavrogin in the novel Demons by Fyodor Dostoyevsky reveal the writer’s deep and astute knowledge of demonology. It has long been known that in his novels the writer contained considerations about not only the philosophical but also theological aspects of life, including Christology. His novel Demons is a literary tractate about the destructive influences of nihilistic and communist ideologies, both on society and on the human condition. The central character of the novel is Nikolai Vsevolodovich Stavrogin, the son of Varvara Petrovna, and he is the most demonic hero of Dostoyevsky’s. Ever one of the people whom he encountered fell under his charm, and they would then become be spiritually and morally depraved and ruined. Among the characters that come into contact with Stavrogin are those who then eventually committed suicide. We are dealing with a hero who has become separated and isolated from society, and who comes across as being amoral and demonised. Dostoyevsky was very keen to show a society that creates their rights and the principles of social co-existence without God. Undoubtedly, the novel Demons is in the history of world literature one of the most discerning analyses of a civilization built without God.