Variations on a meme: Fyodor Dostoevsky's Grand Inquisitor in science fiction and popular culture

Abstract

Fyodor Dostoevsky's "The Legend of the Grand Inquisitor" in The Brothers Karamazov creates a virulent set of ideas which has been replicated through the media of culture, literature, and history so that it can be found in many works of science fiction. This study shows not only that Dostoevsky's Grand Inquisitor appears in science fiction, but that writers of science fiction have in some ways improved upon the original. The adaptations of the Legend that occur in science fiction are more concrete than Dostoevsky's tale because they are more probable.