Prince Myshkin Prince Myshkin Prince Lev Nikolayevich Myshkin (pre-reform Russian: ; post-reform ) is the protagonist of Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel "The Idiot". Dostoevsky wanted to create a character that was "entirely positive... with an absolutely beautiful nature", someone who is truly 'Christian'. According to Joseph Frank, the character of Prince Myshkin approaches "the extremest incarnation of the Christian ideal of love that humanity can reach in its present form, but he is torn apart by the conflict between the contradictory imperatives of his apocalyptic aspirations and his earthly limitations." Prince Myshkin has been in Switzerland for the last four years, at a
Fyodor Dostoevsky Dostoevsky incorporated religious themes, especially those of Russian Orthodoxy, into his writing. Elements of gothic fiction, romanticism, and satire are observable in some of his books. He frequently used autobiographical or semi-autobiographical details. Dostoevsky's works were often called "philosophical", although he described himself as "weak in philosophy". "Fyodor Mikhailovich loved these questions about the essence of things and the limits of knowledge", wrote Strakhov. Although theologian George Florovsky described Dostoevsky as a "philosophical problem", because it is unknown whether Dostoevsky believed in what he wrote, many philosophical ideas are found in books such as "A Writer's Diary" and "The Brothers