In 1861 Dostoyevsky stayed with Alexander Herzen in London. It was during his stay there that he got the inspiration for Chapter 5 of the second part of The Brothers Karamazov: the legend of the Grand Inquisitor. Dostoyevsky’s proposed interpretation of the three temptations of Christ in the desert is a pretext for examining the moral basis of a mass society in which people are, or appear to be, possessed by an inner strength which determines collective and individual behaviour, eliminating all possibility of rejection or revolt.
In Liberi servi, Gustavo Zagrebelsky takes Dostoyevsky’s text as the starting point for an analysis in terms of anthropological theory, the theory of the government of mass societies and the theory of power. Why do people obey power? he asks.

«The Inquisitor and, with him, inquisitors of all times and species say of us that, because of our psychic constitution, we are refractory to freedom and so they justify – for our sake – the Inquisition. For the Inquisitor, this is an observation. For us who read his words, it is a provocation to acquiescence or resistance. Therefore, we are confronted with a choice that presupposes a work of self-awareness.»

The author’s literary gifts and his probing analysis of the ethical questions implicit in this clash between contrasting world views make the book a particularly absorbing read.