ABSTRACT
History matters. Nothing can be fully understood without an appreciation of its past. From where did it arise? To what blistering caldron or lighthearted musing can we trace its origins? History seems self-evidently relevant in the formation of individual psyches. What was it that made Dimitri an intemperate sensualist, his brother Ivan a tortured intellectual, while the youngest, Alyosha, grew into a pious, compassionate Christian? Forcing subtle variants in Karamazov DNA to bear the entire explanatory burden for these personality differences is untenable. Instead (and we would venture to guess that Dostoevsky would noddingly approve) it must have been how that DNA responded to and was molded by the life experiences of each brother – most notably their relationship (or lack thereof) with their father, Fyodor. To understand the individual psyche, one must unravel ontogenetic history. Psychologists (and novelists) have acknowledged this fact for a long time.
