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Alexei Fyodorovich Karamazov

Alexei Fyodorovich (often referred to as Alyosha) is, at age 20, the youngest of the brothers. He is the second child of Fyodor Pavlovich's second wife, Sofya Ivanovna, and is thus Ivan's full brother. The narrator identifies him as the hero of the novel in the opening chapter, as does the author in the preface. At the outset of the events, Alyosha is a novice in the local Russian Orthodox monastery. His faith is in contrast to his brother Ivan's atheism. The Elder, Father Zosima, who is a father figure and spiritual guide to Alyosha throughout the book, sends him into the world, where he becomes involved with the extreme personalities and fraught relationships in his family and elsewhere. At all times he acts as a compassionate and insightful peace maker, and is loved by virtually everyone.

In creating the character of Alyosha, Dostoevsky was in large part addressing himself to the contemporary Russian radical youth, as a positive alternative to the atheistic approach to justice and attainment of the good. Alyosha embodies the same aspiration to a society governed by goodness and compassion that is contained in the Socialist ideal, but not divorced from faith in God, from faith in the immortality of the soul in God, or from the Orthodox Christian tradition in Russia.