The Brothers Karamazov
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50 free The Brothers Karamazov trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Fyodor Dostoevsky finished The Brothers Karamazov only months before he died, and many readers consider it the summit of his work. It is a murder mystery, a courtroom drama and an argument about God, all wrapped around one spectacularly unhappy family in a small Russian town. This quiz follows the story from the disastrous family meeting at the monastery to the verdict and the epilogue. Expect questions on Dmitri, Ivan and Alyosha, on Grushenka and Katerina Ivanovna, on the elder Zosima and the schoolboys, on Ivan's Grand Inquisitor, and on how the novel was written, filmed and admired. It works as a reading check for students, a refresher before book club, or a test for anyone who has just turned the last page. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so a wrong guess still teaches you something about the book.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which kitchen tool does Dmitri Karamazov snatch up as he runs to his father's house that night?
A brass pestle
A brass pestle, little more than six inches long, goes into his pocket as he bolts from Grushenka's kitchen. The maid who sees him grab it is soon telling the whole story.
Q 02In what guise does the devil visit Ivan Karamazov in a feverish hallucination before the trial?
A shabby gentleman
A shabby gentleman of about fifty, in a brownish jacket years out of fashion, turns up on Ivan's sofa. He talks like a poor relation who lives by visiting richer friends.
Q 03Which scandal after the death of the revered elder Zosima shakes the faith of Alyosha Karamazov?
His body quickly decays
His body quickly decays, and a smell rises from the coffin within a day, when the town expected a holy man's remains to stay incorrupt. His rivals in the monastery call it a judgment.
Q 04In Ivan Karamazov's poem The Grand Inquisitor, which city sees Christ return during the Inquisition?
Seville
Seville is where he walks the hot pavements a day after almost a hundred heretics were burned. The crowd knows him at once, and the old cardinal has him arrested.
Q 05How does the silent prisoner answer the Grand Inquisitor's long accusation in Ivan Karamazov's poem?
With a kiss
With a kiss on the old man's bloodless lips, and not one word. The Inquisitor shudders, opens the cell door and tells him to go; Ivan is delighted when Alyosha then copies the gesture on him.
Q 06Which future TV star won his first Hollywood film role in the 1958 version of The Brothers Karamazov?
William Shatner
William Shatner played the youngest brother, Alyosha, eight years before Star Trek reached television. Rumour had Marilyn Monroe in talks to play Grushenka, but the part went to Maria Schell.
Q 07Which physicist, C. P. Snow recalled, rated The Brothers Karamazov the summit of all literature?
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein said so in 1919 and, Snow found, had not changed his mind when the two talked in 1937.
Q 08Which sum does Dmitri Karamazov owe Katerina Ivanovna, the same amount his father offers Grushenka?
Three thousand roubles
Three thousand roubles runs through the whole book: it is the debt of honour, the bait in the old man's sealed envelope and the amount the prosecutor says was stolen.
Q 09What is Alyosha Karamazov, the youngest brother, when the narrator introduces him as the hero?
A novice monk
A novice monk in a cassock is how the hero first appears, a year into life at the local monastery. He is no pale dreamer: the narrator calls him red-cheeked and radiant with health.
Q 10By Ivan Karamazov's most quoted idea, what becomes lawful once belief in God and immortality goes?
Everything
Everything, even cannibalism, is how the idea is first reported in the elder's cell. The servant who idolises Ivan later claims he only put the theory into practice.
Q 11Which punishment follows when the jury convicts Dmitri Karamazov of killing his father?
Hard labour in Siberia
Hard labour in Siberia, twenty years of it, is the price of a murder he did not commit. Dmitri says he is ready to suffer, yet his family is already plotting his escape.
Q 12How does Smerdyakov die on the night before Dmitri Karamazov's trial, soon after confessing to Ivan?
Hangs himself
Hangs himself, leaving a note that he acts of his own will so that no one is blamed. With him goes the only witness who could have cleared Dmitri.
Q 13Which medical emergency does Smerdyakov later admit he faked on the night of the Karamazov murder?
An epileptic fit
Q 21What does the dying elder Zosima tell Alyosha Karamazov to do once the old man is gone?
Go out into the world
Go out into the world is the order, and Zosima adds that Alyosha will have to take a wife too. He blesses him for great service among ordinary people rather than behind walls.
Q 22As a young officer, the future elder Zosima of The Brothers Karamazov walks away from which contest?
A duel
A duel is under way when he lets his rival fire first, then hurls his own pistol into the wood and asks forgiveness. The night before, he had beaten his orderly bloody and could not bear the memory.
Q 23Which Gospel story is being read over Zosima's coffin when Alyosha Karamazov dozes and dreams of him?
An epileptic fit on the cellar steps puts him in bed with a ready alibi, and because he suffers real ones nobody doubts it. He had hinted to Ivan a day earlier that he might take just such a fall.
Q 14Where on Fyodor Karamazov's property is Smerdyakov born to the homeless Stinking Lizaveta?
In the bathhouse
In the bathhouse by the garden gate, where an old servant finds her after hearing groans in the night. She dies at dawn, and Fyodor later builds the boy's surname out of her nickname.
Q 15Which instrument does Alyosha Karamazov overhear Smerdyakov playing for a neighbour's daughter?
Guitar
Guitar in hand, he sings to Marya Kondratyevna in a falsetto and tells her he hates all Russia. The scene gives a chapter its title.
Q 16What does the elder Zosima suddenly do to Dmitri Karamazov at the family meeting in the monastery?
Bows down at his feet
Bows down at his feet until his forehead touches the floor, and gives no reason. He later tells Alyosha he was bowing to the great suffering in store for Dmitri.
Q 17In Grushenka's fable for Alyosha Karamazov, which gift to a beggar is a wicked woman's one good deed?
An onion
An onion is what her guardian angel holds out to pull her from the lake of fire. It snaps the moment she starts kicking away the other sinners clinging to her.
Q 18Which loyal old servant does Dmitri Karamazov strike down while fleeing his father's garden?
Grigory
Grigory had looked after the neglected little Dmitri when nobody else would even change the boy's shirt. Dmitri jumps back to check on him, and the blood on his hands follows him all night.
Q 19In which village is Dmitri Karamazov arrested after a night of wild feasting with Grushenka?
Mokroe
Mokroe is where he had already thrown away a small fortune on Grushenka a month earlier. The officials walk in just after she has told him she loves him.
Q 20What tie binds Dmitri Karamazov to the proud Katerina Ivanovna while he pursues Grushenka?
They are engaged
They are engaged, a match that began after he rescued her father from a scandal over missing army funds. Pride and gratitude hold her to him more than love does.
The wedding at Cana
The wedding at Cana, where water became wine, turns into a dream in which Zosima sits happily among the guests. Alyosha wakes, runs outside and throws himself down on the earth in tears.
Q 24Which nationality is the first lover who returns to claim Grushenka in The Brothers Karamazov?
Polish
Polish and pompous, he is caught playing with marked cards on the very night of their reunion. A few hours in his company cure Grushenka of five years of longing.
Q 25Which piece of evidence does Katerina Ivanovna suddenly produce in court against Dmitri Karamazov?
A drunken letter
A drunken letter in which Dmitri wrote that he would kill his father. She hands it over moments after Ivan's own testimony collapses in delirium.
Q 26Where does Dmitri Karamazov claim he carried half of Katerina Ivanovna's money for a whole month?
Around his neck
Around his neck, sewn up in a rag, he says, and he tore it open only for his last spree. The investigators never find the rag and do not believe him.
Q 27What does the schoolboy Ilyusha do to Alyosha Karamazov the first time the two of them meet?
Bites his finger
Bites his finger to the bone and clings on for ten seconds. Alyosha later learns the boy was avenging his father, whom Dmitri had humiliated in public.
Q 28How does Dmitri Karamazov drag the poor Captain Snegiryov out of a tavern and down the street?
By his beard
By his beard, a thin tuft the town's schoolboys then mock as a wisp of tow. The captain's small son ran alongside, begging Dmitri to let his father go.
Q 29What does Captain Snegiryov first do with the two hundred roubles Alyosha Karamazov brings him?
Tramples them underfoot
Tramples them underfoot in the sand, crying that he does not sell his honour. A minute earlier he had been dreaming aloud of what the money could buy, and he does accept it later.
Q 30Which dare wins the schoolboy Kolya Krasotkin a fearless reputation in The Brothers Karamazov?
Lying under a passing train
Lying under a passing train, flat between the rails, wins him a two-rouble bet with older boys. He admitted long afterwards that he had fainted as it rolled over him.