Demons · Characters
Character guide
Key figures in Demons by Fyodor Dostoevsky.
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Pyotr Stepanovitch Verhovensky
major
Also known as Pyotr Stepanovitch, Verhovensky, Pyotr Verhovensky, young Verhovensky, Petrusha
Pyotr Stepanovitch arrives in town and quickly assembles a secret quintet of restless, half-committed men who believe they are serving a great cause. He keeps them deliberately in the dark, issuing orders while dodging every demand for a coherent plan, and his casualness infuriates them even as his will holds them together. His blend of charisma and contempt makes him the engine of the novel's mounting disorder.
Stepan Trofimovitch Verhovensky
major
Also known as Stepan Trofimovitch, Trofimovitch, Stepan Verhovensky, Petrusha! Stepan Trofimovitch
Stepan Trofimovitch has spent two decades as Varvara Petrovna's cherished ornament, a cultivated talker who believes himself a great thinker in exile. He once poured his tears and secrets into the boy Stavrogin, and now drifts between self-pity, genuine warmth, and dread of the son who barely acknowledges him. His faded romanticism stands in comic and tragic contrast to the cold new generation gathering around him.
Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch Stavrogin
major
Also known as Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch, Stavrogin, Nikolay Stavrogin, Vsyevolodovitch, young Stavrogin
Stavrogin returns to his provincial town after years abroad and immediately becomes the gravitational center of every faction, though he claims to want nothing. He endures insults with an eerie self-mastery that unnerves even his admirers, and his cold, reasonable anger is more frightening than any outburst. His presence forces others to reveal what they actually believe, making him the mirror in which the novel's ideas are tested.
Varvara Petrovna Stavrogin
major
Also known as Varvara Petrovna, Stavrogin, dear Varvara Petrovna
Varvara Petrovna has spent twenty-two years coddling Stepan Trofimovitch, defending his reputation as poet and thinker, and expecting slavish gratitude in return. Her adoration of her son Nikolay is even fiercer and more anxious, a passion she cannot express directly. Her pride, jealousy, and capacity for long-held grudges make her both the social anchor of the town and a force that shapes the fates of everyone under her roof.
Ivan Shatov
major
Also known as Shatov, Mr. Shatov, Marya Shatov, Madame Shatov
Shatov was educated on Varvara Petrovna's charity, expelled from university, and drifted through Europe before returning to town sullen and penniless. He abandoned socialism abroad and now clings to a passionate, half-formed faith in Russia and God, becoming morbidly irritable whenever his convictions are touched. His estrangement from Stavrogin, once his idol, gives his rage a personal edge that runs through the novel's central conflicts.
Alexey Kirillov
major
Also known as Kirillov, Mr. Kirillov, that maniac Kirillov
Kirillov speaks to Stavrogin without irony about moments when time stands still, about eternal life here rather than hereafter, and about the suicide he has already decided upon. He is kind to his landlady's crying infant and indifferent to his own death, holding both together in a way no one else in the novel can. His strange, lucid conviction makes him the purest embodiment of the book's obsession with will and self-destruction.
Liputin
supporting
Also known as Mr. Liputin, that rascal Liputin, that beast Liputin
Liputin is a provincial functionary who has insinuated himself into both the governor's circle and the secret revolutionary cell, playing each against the other while collecting gossip like currency. When Stavrogin publicly kisses his wife at a party, Liputin turns the humiliation into a calculated display of wit, sending his servant to Stavrogin with a message that anticipates the reply before it is spoken. His self-serving cleverness makes him a barometer of the town's shifting loyalties and a quiet engine of the intrigue that builds toward catastrophe.
Yulia Mihailovna
supporting
Also known as Mihailovna, Yulia, Yulia Mihailovna's
Yulia Mihailovna arrives in the provincial capital determined to elevate its society through a lavish public fête, but her efforts breed mockery and resentment among the local families she means to impress. She surrounds herself with flatterers and schemers, misreading their attentions as loyalty while her husband, the governor, drifts helplessly toward disaster. Her fête becomes the stage on which the novel's simmering social tensions explode, making her both architect and victim of the scandal everyone has been expecting.
Lizaveta Nikolaevna Tushin
supporting
Also known as Liza, Lise, Lizaveta Nikolaevna, Lizaveta Tushin
Lizaveta Nikolaevna Tushin is a wealthy, headstrong young woman whose childhood lessons with Stepan Trofimovitch left her with a taste for grand ideas and romantic intensity. She is engaged to the steady, devoted Mavriky Nikolaevitch, yet her imagination keeps circling back to Stavrogin, whose dangerous magnetism she cannot fully resist or fully trust. Her struggle between duty and desire places her at the emotional center of the novel's early conflicts, and her choices ripple outward through every circle she touches.
Andrey Antonovitch von Lembke
supporting
Also known as Andrey Antonovitch, Lembke, Von Lembke
Andrey Antonovitch von Lembke governs the province with good intentions and a fatal lack of decisiveness, deferring to his wife Yulia Mihailovna's social schemes while the town's tensions mount around him. He is a man of administrative routine thrust into a moment that demands nerve and judgment, and his anxious attempts to keep order only expose how little authority he truly commands. When the long-expected scandal finally erupts, his helplessness becomes emblematic of a whole order crumbling under pressures it cannot name.
Mavriky Nikolaevitch Drozdov
supporting
Also known as Mavriky Nikolaevitch, Mavriky, Nikolaevitch
Mavriky Nikolaevitch Drozdov is a modest, dutiful officer engaged to Lizaveta Nikolaevna Tushin, a match that seems settled until Stavrogin's return unsettles everything. He is neither clever nor ambitious, but his integrity is absolute: he sends half his pay to his invalid mother and would follow any cause he believed in to the end. His steadfastness throws the moral chaos of the other characters into sharp relief, and his quiet presence becomes one of the few fixed points in a world where almost nothing holds.
Captain Lebyadkin
supporting
Also known as Mr. Lebyadkin, Lebyadkin, Ignat Lebyadkin, this Lebyadkin
Captain Lebyadkin is a disgraced former officer living in squalid circumstances with his sister Marya Timofeyevna, surviving on borrowed money and self-aggrandizing monologues. He claims to possess a secret about Stavrogin's past, a claim that makes him both a nuisance and a potential threat to the powerful men who would prefer him silent. His drunken bravado and pathetic dignity mask a genuine fear, and his presence in the novel keeps a buried history alive that others are desperate to forget.
Marya Timofyevna Lebyadkin
supporting
Also known as Timofyevna, Lebyadkin, Marya, Marya Timofyevna Lebyadkin
Marya Timofyevna drifts through the town as Captain Lebyadkin's invalid sister, prone to ecstatic outbursts and strange endearments. Her claim to a secret bond with Nikolay Stavrogin turns polite gatherings into scenes of dread and pity, exposing the hidden machinery beneath provincial manners. Her presence forces the novel's central secret into the open long before anyone is ready to name it.
Karmazinov
supporting
Also known as Cher ami, Karmazinov, Mr. Karmazinov, Cher M. Karmazinov
Karmazinov arrives in town trailing admirers and self-regard, forever polishing his reputation and his French phrases. His need for aristocratic approval and his fussy condescension make him both comic and quietly sinister as a mirror of the older generation's self-satisfaction. His upcoming reading becomes a social event the whole town anticipates, and his presence sharpens the novel's satire of fashionable ideas.
Darya Pavlovna
supporting
Also known as Darya, Dear Darya Pavlovna, Dasha
Darya Pavlovna, called Dasha, occupies an ambiguous place as both servant and intimate of the Stavrogin household, entrusted with errands no one else will touch. Accused of stealing money meant for Lebyadkin, she answers with a calm that unnerves her accusers and hints at reserves of feeling she never displays. Her steadiness makes her a still point amid the town's hysteria, and her entanglement with Stavrogin's secrets pulls her toward the novel's darker currents.
Praskovya Ivanovna Drozdov
supporting
Also known as Praskovya Ivanovna, Praskovya, Drozdov
Praskovya Ivanovna Drozdov moves through provincial society as a woman of means and nerves, alternately doting on her beautiful daughter Liza and trading in the rumors that swirl around the Stavrogins. Her impulsiveness and social anxiety make her easy to manipulate and quick to take offense, especially where Liza's future is concerned. Her maneuvering over her daughter's betrothal helps set the social clock ticking in the novel's middle stretch.
Sofya Matveyevna Ulitin
supporting
Also known as Sofya Matveyevna, Matveyevna, Poor Sofya Matveyevna
Sofya Matveyevna Ulitin travels the roads selling scriptures, a figure of modest faith in a town full of posturing and conspiracy. When she encounters Stepan Trofimovitch, her simple compassion meets his lifelong craving for grand gestures and self-dramatization, drawing out both his vanity and his latent tenderness. Her presence marks the beginning of his long-delayed reckoning with what sincerity might actually cost.
Mr. Gaganov
minor
Also known as Gaganov, this Gaganov, Artemy Pavlovitch Gaganov
Landowner insulted by Stavrogin's ear-bite, seeks satisfaction.
Lyamshin
minor
Also known as Mr. Lyamshin, Lyamshin mechanically
Nervous and cowardly telegraph clerk in the revolutionary group.
Virginsky
minor
Also known as Virginsky, Madame Virginsky, Mr. Virginsky
Idealistic but weak-willed civil servant and revolutionary member.
Shigalov
minor
Also known as Shigalov, Mr. Shigalov, Comrade Shigalov
Theorist who proposes a radical system of total control.
Fedka
minor
Also known as Fedka, the convict Fedka
Escaped convict and murderer, used as a tool by Pyotr.
Ensign Erkel
minor
Also known as Erkel, Lieutenant Erkel, II Erkel, This Ensign Erkel
Young and devoted army officer, fanatically loyal to Pyotr.
Von Blum
minor
Also known as Von Blum, Blum, This Blum
Strict German official serving under the governor.
Alexey Yegorytch
minor
Also known as Alexey Yegorytch, Alexey, Yegorytch
Ceremonious butler in the Stavrogin household.
Arina Prohorovna
minor
Also known as Arina Prohorovna, Arina
Virginsky's wife, a midwife and radical feminist.
Nastasya
minor
Also known as Nastasya
Servant in the Shatov household.
Ivan Ossipovitch
minor
Also known as Poor Ivan Ossipovitch
Local doctor who attends to various characters.
Anisim Ivanovitch
minor
Also known as Anisim, Anisim Ivanov
Minor official or servant in the town.
Pyotr Pavlovitch Gaganov
minor
Also known as Pyotr Pavlovitch, the affronted Pyotr Pavlovitch
Father of Artemy Gaganov, offended by Stavrogin.
General Ivan Ivanovitch Drozdov
minor
Also known as Ivan Ivanovitch, General Drozdov, General Ivan Ivanovitch Drozdov
Deceased general, father of Liza and Mavriky.
Anton Lavrentyevitch
minor
Also known as Anton Lavrentyevitch
Minor character, possibly a clerk or narrator figure.
Semyon Yakovlevitch
minor
Also known as Father, Father Semyon Yakovlevitch
Holy fool and mystic visited by townspeople for blessings.
Tolkatchenko
minor
Also known as Meantime Tolkatchenko
Revolutionary member who helps recruit Fedka.
Agafya
minor
Also known as Agafya, prime Agafya
Servant in the Verhovensky household.
Doctor Salzfish
minor
Also known as Salzfish, Doctor Salzfish
German doctor who treats Stepan Trofimovitch.
Nikon Semyonitch
minor
Also known as Nikon Semyonitch
Minor character, possibly a priest or official.
Zemirka
minor
Also known as Zemirka
A dog belonging to the Drozdov household.
Count K.
minor
Also known as Count K., Count
Wealthy aristocrat and former patron of Stepan.
Filipov
minor
Also known as Filipov
Owner of the house where Shatov and Kirillov lodge.
Andreev
minor
Also known as Andreev
Minor character, possibly a tradesman.
Councillor Kubrikov
minor
Also known as councillor Kubrikov
Minor official in the town administration.
Ilya Ilyitch
minor
Also known as Ilya Ilyitch
Minor character, possibly a police or court official.
Berestov
minor
Also known as Berestov
Minor landowner mentioned in passing.
Alyosha Telyatnikov
minor
Also known as Alyosha, Telyatnikov
Minor character, possibly a clerk or officer.
Fomka Zavyalov
minor
Also known as Fomka Zavyalov, Fomka
Convict and associate of Fedka.
Avdotya Petrovna Tarapygin
minor
Also known as Tarapygin, Avdotya Petrovna
Minor female character, possibly a widow.
Father Pavel
minor
Also known as Father Pavel
Local priest who interacts with the characters.
Tikhon
minor
Also known as Tikhon
Monk or bishop whom Stavrogin visits for confession.
Flibusterov
minor
Also known as Flibusterov
Nickname for a boastful or swaggering character.
Agasha
minor
Also known as Agasha
Servant in the Stavrogin household.
Polenka Saxe
minor
Also known as Polenka Saxe, Saxe
Minor character, possibly a governess or companion.
Avdotya Sergyevna
minor
Also known as Avdotya Sergyevna
Minor female character mentioned in the narrative.
Fyodor Matveyevitch
minor
Also known as Fyodor Matveyevitch
Minor character, possibly a servant or clerk.
Dmitri Dmitritch
minor
Also known as Dmitri Dmitritch
Minor character, possibly a doctor or official.
Nikifor
minor
Also known as Nikifor
Servant in the Verhovensky household.
Amalia
minor
Also known as Amalia
Minor female character, possibly a German governess.
Egrenev
minor
Also known as Egrenev
Minor character, possibly a landowner.
Ivan Filipovitch
minor
Also known as Ivan Filipovitch
Minor character, possibly a relative of Filipov.
Pyotr Ilyitch
minor
Also known as Pyotr Ilyitch
Minor character, possibly a police officer.
Prohoritch
minor
Also known as Prohoritch
Minor character, possibly a servant or tradesman.
Christopher Ivanovitch
minor
Also known as Christopher Ivanovitch, Ivanovitch
Minor character, possibly a German doctor or official.
Lyov Kambek
minor
Also known as Lyov Kambek
Minor character mentioned in passing.
Makar
minor
Also known as Makar
Minor character, possibly a peasant or servant.
Alyona Frolovna
minor
Also known as Alyona Frolovna
Servant in the Stavrogin household.
Fyodor Fyodorovitch
minor
Also known as Fyodor Fyodorovitch, Fyodor
Minor character, possibly a relative of a main character.
Korovayev
minor
Also known as Korovayev
Minor character, possibly a tradesman or official.
Ernestine
minor
Also known as Ernestine
Minor female character, possibly a foreigner.
Kapfig
minor
Also known as Kapfig
Minor character, possibly a German name mentioned.
Prohorovitch
minor
Also known as Prohorovitch
Minor character, possibly a relative of Arina Prohorovna.
Myasnitchiha
minor
Also known as Myasnitchiha
Minor female character, possibly a peasant woman.
