The Brothers Karamazov · Book XI: Brother Ivan Fyodorovich · Chapter 9: The Devil. Ivan Fyodorovich’s Nightmare
Fyodor Dostoevsky
In the throes of existential questioning, Dostoevsky's devil in Ivan's nightmare insists on the primacy of the soul's immortality. This was an audacious claim in a Russia that was increasingly flirting with both nihilism and materialism. Dostoevsky saw the soul's immortality as the foundation upon which all meaningful human endeavors rest. Without it, higher ideals become unsustainable scaffolds, collapsing under the weight of their own logic.