The ‘Golden Age’ is a label applied to the period in Russia’s literary history which saw the rise of and prevalence of the movements of Romanticism, Realism, and Classicism. Beginning in the 19th century and centered in Moscow (Buckler, et al.), the authors of this Golden Age are familiar to Western tongues: Leo Tolstoy, Alexander Pushkin, Nikolai Gogol. In his groundbreaking work on Fyodor Dostoevsky, Dostoevsky: A Writer in His Time, scholar Joseph Frank conducts an exhaustive study of, among other books, The Brothers Karamazov and traces the author’s common themes within his work; themes such as “man lifted up” as well as the “inherent stupidity of man” are common throughout (903). Thematically, the Golden Age addressed moral, ethical, and religious dilemmas, all of which are present in The Brothers Karamazov and Dostoevsky’s other major work, Crime and Punishment.

The ‘Golden Age’ is a label applied to the period in Russia’s literary history which saw the rise of and prevalence of the movements of Romanticism, Realism, and Classicism. Beginning in the 19th century and centered in Moscow (Buckler, et al.), the authors of this Golden Age are familiar to Western tongues: Leo Tolstoy, Alexander Pushkin, Nikolai Gogol. In his groundbreaking work on Fyodor Dostoevsky, Dostoevsky: A Writer in His Time, scholar Joseph Frank conducts an exhaustive study of, among other books, The Brothers Karamazov and traces the author’s common themes within his work; themes such as “man lifted up” as well as the “inherent stupidity of man” are common throughout (903). Thematically, the Golden Age addressed moral, ethical, and religious dilemmas, all of which are present in The Brothers Karamazov and Dostoevsky’s other major work, Crime and Punishment.