The Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb by the work. In 1867, his wife had to drag him away from the panel lest its grip on him induce an epileptic fit. Dostoevsky saw in Holbein an impulse similar to one of his own main literary preoccupations: the pious desire to confront Christian faith with everything that negated it, in this case the laws of nature and the stark reality of death. In his 1869 novel "The Idiot", the character Prince Myshkin, having viewed a copy of the painting in the home of Rogozhin, declares that it has the power to make the viewer lose his faith. The
Demons (Dostoevsky novel) figures like the old Governor Osip Osipovich and the over-zealous policeman Filibusterov, are parodies of a variety of establishment types that Dostoevsky held partially responsible for the excesses of the radical generation. Karmazinov was an openly hostile parody of Turgenev—his personality and mannerisms, his perceived complicity with nihilism, and, in the Gala reading scene, the style of some of his later literary works. Even the most extreme and unlikely characters, such as Kirillov and Shigalev, were grounded in real people or ideas of the time. Kirillov was initially inspired by a Nechayev associate who spoke openly at the trial of