The Idiot, a soap opera

It turns out that Dostoyevsky’s mature novels provide excellent material for soap operas. However, one might conclude from such a show that noble and/or educated 19th-century Russians spent most of their time conversing — philosophizing, quarreling, gossiping, searching each other’s souls etc., but isn’t it what, spiced with love affairs, makes up the ideal soap opera?

A TV series based on Dostoyevsky’s The Idiot has been on Russian Channel 2 since May 12. And for the most part, it is quite good, even though the content of the series technically fits into the “soap opera” category! But then, aren’t Crime and Punishment and The Karamazov Brothers detective novels?

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