The Grand Inquisitor (dramatic reading)

LibriVox recording of The Grand Inquisitor , from The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, translated by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky. The Grand Inquisitor is a parable told by Ivan to Alyosha in Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel The Brothers Karamazov (1879–1880). Ivan and Alyosha are brothers; Ivan questions the possibility of a personal, benevolent God and Alyosha is a novice monk. The Grand Inquisitor is an important part of the novel and one of the best-known passages in modern literature because of its ideas about human nature and freedom, and because of its fundamental ambiguity. In the tale,