Aufzeichnungen aus dem Kellerloch (Notes from Underground)

Is it even possible to "live according to one's own imagination"? Or is that in the end only something for the "happy few" in a world that has long since been calculated and sold? The gulf between a society's moral claim and the deep grievance of those who do not feel considered by it leads straight into an ominous sensibility that can seemingly be met only with difficulty other than anger, indignation and self-abasement. In a reckoning and approach alike that is self-empowerment and profession of faith, Dostoevsky's protagonist attempts to find himself and back to the community.

Considered one of the first existentialist writings, Fyodor Dostoyevsky's novel Notes from the Cellar Hole was published in 1864 and found admiration from Friedrich Nietzsche as well as Albert Camus. In his "psychological study," the author, who had just been released from prison in Siberia, plagued by epileptic seizures and heavily indebted to his gambling addiction, explores no lesser questions than those concerning human freedom and the search for community.

(Program in German)