Nastasja Filipovna

KPGT

NASTASJA FILIPOVNA Nina Plavanjac in the novel THE IDIOT by F. M. Dostoevsky90’Is the Christ-like Prince Myshkin truly the key to understanding Christianity as Dostoevsky envisions it possible in an impossible world? Is Nastasya Filippovna the Mary Magdalene whom only an idiot, like this prince who is the best of all men in the worst of all worlds, can understand and accept? For the ancient Greeks, an idiot is a man who is not interested in public affairs. Can one, according to Dostoevsky, be similar to Christ only by being fully immersed in personal suffering, happiness, love, and the misfortune of others? Are the prostitute Sonya Marmeladova and the kept woman Nastasya Filippovna the only saints worthy of love in Fyodor Mikhailovich's pantheon? Will Raskolnikov kill the old woman as an unreasonable act of André Gide or as an act of freedom of Charles Manson, will Rogozhin kill Nastasya Filippovna - instead of killing Prince Myshkin who would anyway resurrect like every Christ or Lazarus whom the Son of God will call from the underworld where sinners burn in eternal fire? It seems that the questions, as always, are more important than the answers and that the world inevitably ends in insanity and holy madness like all the heroes of the Dostoyevskian singing and thinking.