The Adolescent: A Complete Character and Relationship Map

Part of: The Deep Reader

Explore: All Fyodor Dostoevsky reading guides, character maps, and essays

Full spoilers: This guide reveals the contents and custody trail of Katerina’s letter, both Prince Sokolskys’ fates, Makar’s death, Liza’s pregnancy and miscarriage, Lambert’s blackmail attempt, Versilov’s shooting, and the relationships at the end of the novel.

Arkady Dolgoruky has two fathers, siblings in two family branches, and a surname that makes strangers mistake him for a prince. The novel adds a second trap in the two Prince Sokolskys: Nikolai Ivanovich is Katerina’s wealthy father, while Sergei Petrovich is the indebted young man involved with Arkady’s sister Liza. Their separate households become entangled through inheritance, courtship, debt, a secret child, and a dangerous letter.

Arkady makes the network harder to read because he narrates it himself. He writes after the main events, remembers some scenes directly, repeats other people’s accounts, and revises his own judgments. This guide therefore separates established relationships from rumor, confession, and Arkady’s interpretation. It begins with the names, then follows the family lines, the Sokolsky households, the documents, and the people who try to turn private knowledge into power.

The novel is also published in English as A Raw Youth. Richard Freeborn’s translation is titled An Accidental Family. This guide uses The Adolescent and familiar modern spellings in its main text; the lookup includes forms used by Constance Garnett and other English editions.

Contents

1. How the names and narration work

2. Name and alias lookup

3. The whole network in one view

4. Arkady’s divided family

5. The Dolgoruky–Versilov household

6. The two Sokolsky lines

7. Katerina’s letter and the other dangerous papers

8. Lambert’s blackmail circle

9. Friends, witnesses, and intermediaries

10. The main action in sequence

11. The places that connect the circles

12. Where the relationships end

13. Sources

How the names and narration work

A Russian patronymic normally identifies a person through a legal father’s first name. Arkady Makarovich and Lizaveta Makarovna are legally Makar’s children, even though Versilov is their biological father. Anna Andreyevna and Andrei Andreyevich are Versilov’s children from his first marriage, so their patronymics come from their father, Andrei Petrovich. Here the patronymics record the split family.

Diminutives can look like new names. Arkasha is Arkady, Liza is Lizaveta, Katya is Katerina, and Petya is Pyotr. Transliteration adds another layer: Makarovich may appear as Makarovitch, Sergei as Sergay, Vasin as Vassin, Dergachev as Dergatchev, and Akhmakova as Ahmakov.

The title prince is a particular hazard. Arkady is “simply Dolgoruky,” not a member of the princely Dolgoruky family. Old Prince Nikolai and young Prince Sergei Sokolsky are also different men. Arkady first describes their families as unrelated namesakes; Sergei later calls them remote collateral branches and says his impoverished line is the older one. The two Sokolsky households remain separate throughout this guide.

Arkady’s narration needs the same caution. A witnessed act is firmer than a motive he supplies later; a confession belongs to the speaker; a rumor stays a rumor. His account of Versilov and Katerina at Ems changes as new testimony arrives, and his final explanation of Versilov’s “second self” is explicitly a theory. Where accounts conflict, the entries say so.

Name and alias lookup

Name you may meet	Same person	How to place them
Arkady Makarovich Dolgoruky; Arkady Makarovitch; Arkasha; Arkashenka; Arkashka	Arkady Dolgoruky	The narrator, nineteen during the main action; legally Makar’s son and biologically Versilov’s. He is not a prince.
Makar Ivanovich Dolgoruky; Makar Ivanovitch; Makar Ivanov Dolgoruky	Makar Dolgoruky	Sofia’s lawful husband and the legal father whose name Arkady and Liza bear.
Sofia or Sofya Andreyevna; Sonya; Sophie	Sofia Andreyevna	Arkady and Liza’s mother; Makar’s wife and Versilov’s long-term partner.
Lizaveta Makarovna; Liza; Lizochka; Lizok	Liza	Arkady’s full sister and Prince Sergei’s lover. Do not confuse her with Lydia Akhmakova.
Andrei Petrovich Versilov; Andrey Petrovitch	Versilov	Arkady and Liza’s biological father; Anna and the younger Andrei’s father by his first marriage.
Anna Andreyevna Versilova; Anna Andreyevna Versilov	Anna Andreyevna	Versilov’s daughter by his first marriage; Arkady and Liza’s half-sister.
Andrei Andreyevich; Andrey Andreyevitch; the young Versilov; the kammerjunker	Andrei Andreyevich	Anna’s full brother and Arkady’s half-brother. Garnett usually gives only his first name and patronymic.
Tatyana Pavlovna Prutkova; Prutkov in Garnett; “auntie”	Tatyana Pavlovna	The family friend who houses, finances, scolds, and protects several people. She is not Arkady’s aunt.
Katerina Nikolaevna Akhmakova; Ahmakov; Katya; Madame Akhmakova	Katerina Akhmakova	The old prince’s widowed daughter and writer of the compromising letter; she inherits after his death.
Prince Nikolai Ivanovich Sokolsky; Nikolay Ivanovitch; the old prince	Old Prince Nikolai	Katerina’s father and Anna’s much older fiancé. He is not Prince Sergei.
Prince Sergei Petrovich Sokolsky; Sergay Petrovitch; Seryozha; the young prince	Prince Sergei	Liza’s lover and a claimant from the impoverished Sokolsky line.
Lydia or Lidia Akhmakova; Lidya	Lydia Akhmakova	Katerina’s stepdaughter and the mother of Prince Sergei’s surviving infant. She is not Liza.
Baron Björing; Bering; Büring	Baron Björing	Katerina’s expected husband. He is not Baron R., the envoy who answers Versilov on Björing’s behalf.
Vasin; Vassin; Grisha	Vasin	Arkady’s composed acquaintance, Liza’s adviser, and Stebelkov’s stepson.
Kraft	Kraft	Andronikov’s former assistant, who gives Arkady the Stolbyeev letter.
Alexei Nikanorovich Andronikov; Andronikoff	Andronikov	The deceased business manager whose papers once held both central letters.
Stebelkov	Stebelkov	Vasin’s stepfather and the speculator who draws Prince Sergei into the forged-shares affair.
Zhibyelsky	Zhibyelsky	The attorney’s clerk who holds incriminating notes in Prince Sergei’s handwriting.
Lydia and Prince Sergei’s unnamed daughter; “the baby”	The infant	The pair’s surviving child, cared for under Versilov’s protection in a separate flat paid for by Tatyana.
Dergachev; Dergatchev	Dergachev	Host of the radical discussion circle Arkady visits.
Darya Onisimovna	Darya Onisimovna	Olya’s mother and later a caregiver and intermediary.
Olya; Olga	Olya	The young woman whose suicide follows poverty, prior sexual threats, a brothel trap, and a tragic misreading of Versilov’s help.
Maurice Lambert; Lambert	Lambert	Arkady’s former school tormentor and the organizer of the blackmail attempt.
Alphonsine Karlovna de Verdaigne; de Verden in Garnett; Alphonsina	Alphonsine	Lambert’s companion and accomplice.
Pyotr “Petya” Trishatov; Trishatov; the pretty boy	Trishatov	A young member of Lambert’s circle who warns Arkady and helps stop the final violence.
Nikolai Semyonovich, Arkady’s former tutor	Nikolai Semyonovich and Marie Ivanovna	The Moscow tutor who reads Arkady’s manuscript. Do not confuse him with Andreev.
Nikolai Semyonovich Andreev; le grand dadais; the tall man	Andreev	Lambert’s young associate and Trishatov’s friend. He is not Arkady’s tutor.
Semyon Sidorovich; Sidorych; the pockmarked man	Semyon Sidorovich	Lambert’s wary associate, who ultimately warns Björing’s side.
Marie or Marya Ivanovna	Marie Ivanovna	The tutor’s wife and Andronikov’s niece, who gives Katerina’s letter to Arkady. She is not Tatyana’s cook.
Marya, Tatyana’s Finnish cook	Marya the cook	The servant Lambert pays to watch Tatyana’s flat. She is not Marie Ivanovna.

The whole network in one view

Arkady links the circles as son, brother, companion, confidant, debtor, and holder of Katerina’s letter. The detailed maps below separate family ties from disputed claims, document custody, and criminal collaboration.

Arkady’s divided family

Three kinds of connection organize Arkady’s family: lawful marriage, biological parentage, and sustained care. Tatyana Pavlovna belongs to the household through her actions; no blood relationship with Arkady is established.

Sofia remains legally married to Makar while sharing most of her adult life with Versilov. Arkady and Liza are biologically Sofia and Versilov’s children, but they carry Makar’s surname and patronymic. A third son of Sofia and Versilov dies in infancy. Anna and the younger Andrei are Versilov’s children by his deceased first wife, a Fanariotova, and are therefore Arkady and Liza’s paternal half-siblings.

The split shapes Arkady’s search for a father. He comes to Petersburg wanting recognition from Versilov, who has dominated his imagination from a distance. Makar, whom he barely knows, later gives him another form of fatherhood: lawful, spiritual, and unpossessive. Tatyana Pavlovna supplies much of the practical care that neither branch manages consistently.

The Dolgoruky–Versilov household

Arkady Dolgoruky

Arkady Makarovich Dolgoruky is nineteen during the main action and in his twenty-first year when he writes. He has finished school, postponed university, and come from Moscow to Petersburg after Versilov offers him work. He arrives with two private projects: to judge and perhaps rescue the father he has idealized, and to preserve the independence expressed in his plan to become “a Rothschild.” For Arkady, wealth promises freedom from dependence.

His position makes him both the network’s center and one of its least reliable readers. He hides Katerina’s compromising letter, lies that Kraft destroyed it, and imagines that secrecy gives him control. He moves through Dergachev’s discussion circle, Prince Sergei’s gambling world, confidential meetings with Katerina, Anna’s scheme, and Lambert’s criminal circle while continuing to tell himself that he can withdraw whenever he chooses.

Arkady remains conflicted at the conclusion. His account records his vanity, cruelty, loyalty, credulity, and capacity to change. He is closer to Versilov, Anna, and Tatyana; he corresponds with Katerina; and he is considering university, though he has not yet decided to attend.

Andrei Petrovich Versilov

Versilov is Arkady and Liza’s biological father and the father of Anna and the younger Andrei by his first marriage. A nobleman who has spent several fortunes, he moves between religious exaltation, European skepticism, social elegance, generosity, humiliation, and destructive impulse. Arkady alternately treats him as an ideal, a fraud, a rival, and a suffering father.

His relationship with Sofia begins within the coercive structure of serfdom: Versilov is the landowner, and Sofia is an eighteen-year-old serf who has been married to Makar for six months. Arkady admits that he cannot reconstruct exactly how the relationship begins. The later history shows that Versilov pays Makar and shortly afterward leaves with Sofia. Their bond lasts for decades; at the novel’s end, Versilov lives tenderly beside her, though they are still not married.

Conflicting testimony leaves Versilov’s relationship with Katerina at Ems uncertain. In Petersburg, his actions show renewed obsession. During the final trap he initially works with Lambert, then attacks him when Katerina is threatened. He aims Lambert’s revolver at Katerina; when Arkady and Trishatov restrain him, he turns it on himself. Arkady pushes his arm upward, and the bullet wounds Versilov in the shoulder rather than the heart.

Sofia Andreyevna

Sofia Andreyevna is Arkady and Liza’s mother, Makar’s lawful wife, and Versilov’s long-term partner. She repeatedly makes her attachment clear. When Arkady urges her to leave Versilov, she refuses.

Makar has died and Versilov remains beside Sofia, but Arkady says that marriage has not been discussed. Sofia speaks to Versilov more directly, while he treats her with a tenderness Arkady had rarely seen before.

Makar Dolgoruky

Makar Ivanovich Dolgoruky is Sofia’s husband and the legal father of Arkady and Liza. A former serf who worked on the estate connected to Versilov’s family, he accepts money from Versilov before Versilov leaves with Sofia, becomes a wandering pilgrim, and maintains a ceremonious correspondence with Sofia and the children. He neither denies them nor tries to reclaim the household by force.

When Makar comes to stay with the family, his stories, biblical language, humor, and attention to mystery give Arkady a form of authority unlike Versilov’s brilliance. Arkady grows attached to him during his final illness. Makar dies suddenly in the family’s rooms, apparently from a rupture of the heart, leaving Arkady with an experience of fatherhood grounded in Makar’s presence.

Liza (Lizaveta Makarovna)

Liza is Arkady’s full sister. She grows up in Sofia and Versilov’s household and sees through her brother more quickly than he sees himself. At Luga she meets Prince Sergei, and their relationship remains concealed from Arkady until she is pregnant and has agreed to marry him.

Sergei’s confession complicates the relationship: while involved with Liza, he had considered proposing to Anna for money and position. Liza forgives him before he turns himself in over the forged shares. He dies in the hospital before trial and before their marriage. Liza later falls down three steps, miscarries, and remains physically weakened and withdrawn at the end.

Anna Andreyevna Versilova

Anna Andreyevna is Versilov’s daughter by his first marriage and Arkady’s paternal half-sister. She and her brother grow up within the Fanariotov family rather than Sofia’s household. Anna becomes close to Liza and eventually a close friend of Arkady, but her most consequential actions concern old Prince Nikolai.

The old prince has favored Anna since childhood. After the projected match between Anna and Prince Sergei fails, Anna becomes engaged to the old prince himself. Her motives remain mixed and partly hidden: practical security, resentment of Katerina, concern for the prince, pride, and self-interest all enter Arkady’s account. She collaborates with Lambert and brings the frightened old prince to rooms beside Arkady’s in the hope that Katerina’s letter will secure her position. The plan collapses without a wedding.

After the old prince’s death, Katerina offers Anna sixty thousand rubles in accordance with his witnessed oral instruction. Anna refuses it, ending with neither the marriage nor the money after manipulating the prince’s fears.

Andrei Andreyevich, the young Versilov

Andrei Andreyevich is Anna’s full brother and Arkady’s half-brother. Garnett usually calls him by his first name and patronymic rather than printing a surname. He holds the junior court title kammerjunker and belongs to the aristocratic world in which Arkady remains an outsider.

He assists Anna’s operation around the old prince but stays emotionally distant from Arkady. By the conclusion he has quarreled with Anna over her refusal of the sixty thousand rubles. The names are easy to confuse: Andrei Petrovich is the father, while Andrei Andreyevich is the son.

Tatyana Pavlovna

Tatyana Pavlovna Prutkova is called “auntie,” but she is not Arkady’s aunt. A neighboring landowner and old family friend, she helped educate Sofia, cared for Arkady at crucial moments, arranged lodgings, and supports the household financially. She can move between the Dolgoruky, Versilov, Sokolsky, and Akhmakov circles when almost no one else can.

Her rooms become neutral ground for meetings with Katerina and the site of the final blackmail attempt. She also pays for the flat in which Lydia and Sergei’s infant is cared for. Arkady once speculates that she has long loved Versilov, but her distressed reaction does not confirm a romance. What he directly observes is her fierce protection and sustained practical care.

The two Sokolsky lines

The shared title and surname do not make the two princes father and son. Arkady first calls the families unrelated; Sergei later calls them remote collateral branches. They remain separate households.

The quickest rule is simple: old Prince Nikolai is Katerina’s father; young Prince Sergei is Liza’s lover. Versilov’s inheritance lawsuit involves Sergei’s impoverished Sokolsky family, not Katerina’s inheritance from her father. Old Prince Nikolai takes an interest in the poorer namesakes, allowing the circles to overlap without merging them.

Old Prince Nikolai Ivanovich Sokolsky

Prince Nikolai Ivanovich is a wealthy widower, Katerina’s father, and Versilov’s former friend. After a reported fit while traveling—called insanity by some and a nervous attack by Versilov—he is taken abroad to recover. He becomes acutely afraid that others consider him incapable. That fear gives Katerina’s old letter its power: she had asked Andronikov whether her father could be placed under guardianship or declared unable to manage his affairs.

The old prince employs Arkady as a young companion, favors Anna, and later becomes engaged to her. His judgment and emotions fluctuate; the novel does not settle whether any particular wish should outweigh the others. Anna’s attempt to isolate him collapses, and he spends his final month reconciled with Katerina. He dies from a stroke about a month after the crisis. His will omits Anna, but he separately instructs Katerina before witnesses to reserve sixty thousand rubles for her.

Katerina Nikolaevna Akhmakova

Katerina is the old prince’s daughter and the widow of General Akhmakov. Her husband’s gambling consumed her first dowry, making her materially dependent on her father. During his earlier illness, she wrote to Andronikov to ask whether legal guardianship could be imposed without public scandal. The inquiry went no further, but the letter survived and could make an anxious contingency plan look like an attempt to seize control of her father and his fortune.

Katerina initially cultivates Arkady partly to discover where that letter is. Their calculated conversations grow more trusting, but Arkady’s intense infatuation is not proof of a mutual romance. He imagines the document as a means to protect her, expose her, or compel her attention even when he does none of those things directly.

Hostile and contradictory reports shape Arkady’s account of Katerina and Versilov at Ems. In the present, Versilov’s obsession is clear, while Katerina’s feelings change and resist a single label. She plans to marry Baron Björing for stability, then ends the match after he reproaches her over the scandal. At the end she is unmarried, wealthy after her father’s death, abroad with the Pelistchevs, and corresponding with Arkady.

Prince Sergei Petrovich Sokolsky

Prince Sergei belongs to the poor Sokolsky family that contests the Stolbyeev estate with Versilov. After the court favors Versilov, Versilov renounces the fortune in favor of Sergei’s side. Sergei promises him a substantial payment, which remains unsettled.

Sergei is Arkady’s friend, gambling companion, lender, and source of humiliation. At Luga he begins a secret relationship with Liza, who becomes pregnant. He also considers a financially useful marriage to Anna. His earlier history is equally important: he is the father of Lydia Akhmakova’s premature daughter. Versilov, who offered to marry Lydia, later takes the child under his protection; he is not her biological father.

Sergei’s legal danger comes from forged railway shares. He helps Stebelkov reach a forger, accepts money, and later gives inconsistent accounts of what he knew. When Stebelkov and Zhibyelsky use papers in his handwriting as leverage, he considers buying the papers back and tries to raise the money by gambling. He also confesses to Liza that he had meant to propose to Anna, writes to his former regiment to vindicate Cornet Stepanov, and then turns himself in; he dies in the hospital before any judicial verdict.

Lydia Akhmakova, General Akhmakov, and the infant

Lydia is General Akhmakov’s daughter by his first wife and Katerina’s stepdaughter. She is consumptive, though accounts differ on how ill she is during the earlier affair. She becomes attached to Versilov at Ems and speaks of marrying him. The novel reveals that she is pregnant by Prince Sergei. Versilov offers a protective marriage and eventually brings the infant back to Russia with Sofia’s consent, under an agreement that Sergei will not visit.

Lydia dies shortly after the premature birth. Some characters believe she attempted suicide with phosphorus matches, but Arkady explicitly says that detail is uncertain; Versilov later says she died of consumption. General Akhmakov, who had opposed the proposed marriage and squandered Katerina’s dowry, dies a few months later. The unnamed baby remains alive under Versilov’s protection in a separate Petersburg flat paid for by Tatyana; her later fate is not given.

Baron Björing and Baron R.

Baron Björing is Katerina’s socially suitable prospective husband. He retrieves the old prince from Anna’s operation and reaches Tatyana’s flat only after the shooting. When he later reproaches Katerina for the circumstances around the scandal, she ends the match immediately.

Baron R. is a different man: Björing’s envoy, who responds to Versilov’s provocative letter and refuses to recognize him as Björing’s equal for a duel. Confusing the two turns an indirect social rebuff into a face-to-face exchange that never occurs.

Katerina’s letter and the other dangerous papers

The Stolbyeev letter and Katerina’s letter are different documents. The first tests Versilov’s conscience in an inheritance case; the second becomes leverage over Katerina. The novel does not state who finally takes or destroys Katerina’s letter after Lambert leaves it on the table.

Paper	What it contains	Custody or use	What it changes
Stolbyeev’s private letter	The deceased man’s wishes favor the poor Sokolsky claimants, though the letter has no decisive legal force against Versilov’s claim.	Stolbyeev → Andronikov → Kraft → Arkady → Versilov	Arkady makes Versilov face the moral question. Versilov later renounces the fortune in favor of the Sokolsky claimants.
Katerina’s letter to Andronikov	A legal inquiry about placing her father under guardianship or having him declared incapable.	Katerina → Andronikov → Marie Ivanovna → Arkady (letter sewn into his coat pocket) → Alphonsine and Lambert → Tatyana’s table	It drives Katerina’s approach to Arkady, Anna’s scheme, Lambert’s extortion, and the final confrontation. Custody after the table is unstated.
Prince Sergei’s notes	Two papers in Sergei’s handwriting connected to the forged-shares arrangement.	Sergei writes the notes → Zhibyelsky holds them → Stebelkov and Zhibyelsky use them as leverage	They expose how compromised Sergei is. He first tries to buy them back, then turns himself in; their later custody is not stated.
Vasin’s manuscript	A French translation intended as groundwork for an article.	Vasin → Liza for safekeeping → Sergei → prosecutor	Sergei submits it; Arkady attributes the act to jealousy. The manuscript proves innocuous, and Vasin is cleared after giving his explanation.

The forged-shares notes are last stated to be with Zhibyelsky and are used as leverage; only Vasin’s manuscript is explicitly sent to the prosecutor. It later proves to be an innocuous French translation, while Vasin’s own explanation clears him.

Katerina’s letter moves because several people mistake possession for control. Marie Ivanovna entrusts it to Arkady in Moscow, and it is sewn into his coat. Arkady carries it to Petersburg, lies that Kraft destroyed it, and eventually tells Lambert both that it exists and where it is hidden. Later he boasts that he will return it at Tatyana Pavlovna’s flat, giving Lambert the place as well as the object.

Before the theft, Lambert pays Tatyana’s cook twenty rubles to watch the flat and report Katerina’s appointment. He then gets Arkady drunk. While Arkady sleeps, Alphonsine opens the seam, removes the genuine letter, inserts a same-sized blank sheet, and resews the pocket. After the theft, Lambert renews the arrangement with the cook and promises another two hundred rubles. He displays the original and demands a thirty-thousand-ruble IOU. Katerina refuses, signs nothing, pays nothing, and spits in his face. After the violence, Lambert recovers and leaves the letter on Tatyana’s table.

Lambert’s blackmail circle

Lambert organizes the extortion, but the circle is unstable. Anna wants the letter for leverage over the old prince; Versilov joins without a settled aim; Trishatov and Semyon Sidorovich break ranks in different ways.

Maurice Lambert

Lambert is Arkady’s former schoolmate at Touchard’s and one of his childhood tormentors. When Arkady encounters him again, Lambert quickly recognizes that the hidden letter can be sold, used to coerce a marriage, or turned into direct blackmail. He cultivates Arkady’s resentment while treating him as a source to be robbed.

Lambert’s final demand is specific: Katerina must sign an IOU for thirty thousand rubles and produce the money within a week. He adds a sexual insinuation and brandishes a revolver. Versilov strikes him unconscious with the weapon. Lambert soon recovers, leaves the letter behind, and flees; Arkady later hears that he has gone to Moscow and encountered other trouble, but no prosecution follows from this affair.

Alphonsine de Verdaigne

Alphonsine is Lambert’s companion and active accomplice. After Arkady falls asleep in Lambert’s rooms, she unpicks his coat, steals the letter, substitutes blank paper, and sews the pocket closed again. During the final maneuver she pretends to betray Lambert and lures Arkady and Tatyana away from the flat. Trishatov recognizes the deception and redirects Arkady. Alphonsine’s later fate is not stated.

Petya Trishatov

Trishatov belongs to Lambert’s social circle but ultimately refuses Lambert’s scheme. He forms a quick friendship with Arkady, warns him that a betrayal is imminent, sees through Alphonsine’s false alarm, helps restrain Versilov, fetches the doctor, and brings Sofia to the wounded man.

Trishatov is friends with Nikolai Andreev. After Andreev dies by suicide, Trishatov disappears, and Arkady is still trying to find him at the end.

Nikolai Andreev and Semyon Sidorovich

Nikolai Semyonovich Andreev is the tall young former ensign in Lambert’s orbit. Trishatov describes him as a friend ruined by dissipation and the loss of his sister’s dowry. He later shoots himself. His identical first name and patronymic do not make him Arkady’s older tutor.

Semyon Sidorovich, the pockmarked man, is an older and more calculating associate whose exact arrangement with Lambert remains unexplained. He ultimately warns Björing’s side, expecting more safety or advantage there than in Lambert’s scheme. He should not be confused with the smallpox-marked lodger displaced when Anna rents rooms beside Arkady.

Marya the cook and Pyotr Ippolitovich

Marya, Tatyana’s Finnish cook, accepts twenty rubles from Lambert before the theft. Afterward, Lambert renews the arrangement and promises two hundred more. She reports Katerina’s appointment and admits Lambert and Versilov to the flat.

Pyotr Ippolitovich is Arkady’s landlord. He and his wife spy on Arkady and help Anna install the old prince in their adjoining rooms. Arkady does not know whether they were paid. Pyotr Ippolitovich is not Petya Trishatov.

Friends, witnesses, and intermediaries

Vasin

Vasin is Stebelkov’s stepson but not his accomplice. His composure fascinates and irritates Arkady. He knows Liza and Prince Sergei from Luga, corrects the false story that Versilov fathered Lydia’s baby, and becomes Liza’s adviser during Sergei’s crisis. Vasin proposes that Liza leave Sergei and marry him; she refuses.

Sergei later gives Vasin’s manuscript to the prosecutor; Arkady interprets the act as jealousy. Vasin is arrested with members of Dergachev’s circle, but the manuscript proves to be a French translation intended for an article. He is cleared and is in an unnamed province at the end.

Kraft

Kraft is Andronikov’s former assistant and an associate of Dergachev’s circle. He gives Arkady the Stolbyeev letter and carefully distinguishes evidence, rumor, and conjecture in the Ems story. He then dies by suicide, leaving a notebook that tries to make his despair into a logical conclusion.

Arkady invokes Kraft to support a lie: he tells Katerina that Kraft destroyed her compromising letter. Kraft never possessed that letter. He handled the separate Stolbyeev document.

Dergachev, Efim, and the discussion circle

Dergachev hosts the radical gathering that Arkady attends through his former schoolmate Efim Zverev. Kraft, Vasin, Tikhomirov, and others enter the discussion around political commitment, Russia, and action. The circle is not a unified conspiracy, and the later arrests do not prove that every person present shares one plan.

As Arkady’s peer, Efim sees through his theatrical impulses and is physically and socially more grounded than Arkady wants to admit. Tikhomirov’s role stays within the gathering, where he is a forceful speaker.

Olya and Darya Onisimovna

Olya is an impoverished young woman living with her mother, Darya Onisimovna, beside Vasin. A merchant has propositioned her, and a false offer of teaching work has lured her into a brothel where she is assaulted and thrown out. Versilov then visits respectfully, promises to find work, and offers a loan. Olya already reads the help as another sexual insult; Stebelkov then feeds her a false account of Versilov’s motives, reinforcing her suspicion. She returns the money in front of Versilov’s family and later dies by suicide. The sequence resists a single-cause explanation: poverty, earlier abuse, manipulation, trauma, and misinterpretation all bear on it.

Darya later becomes a caregiver to Lydia and Sergei’s infant and an intermediary for Anna. She carries messages, helps manage the old prince’s movements, and allows Arkady to overhear Versilov’s interview with Katerina.

Andronikov

Alexei Nikanorovich Andronikov is dead before the present action, yet both central letters pass through his papers. He had managed business for Versilov and the Akhmakovs, employed Kraft, and raised his niece Marie Ivanovna. His files connect the inheritance lawsuit to Katerina’s private legal inquiry without making the two documents the same.

Nikolai Semyonovich and Marie Ivanovna

Nikolai Semyonovich is Arkady’s former Moscow tutor and host. At the end, Arkady sends him the completed manuscript; his reply closes the novel by treating the record as evidence of a disordered family and generation. He is not Nikolai Semyonovich Andreev.

Marie Ivanovna, the tutor’s wife and Andronikov’s niece, gives Katerina’s letter to Arkady in Moscow. Arkady first says that he sewed it into his coat himself, later attributes the sewing to Marie, and then again says that he did it.

Touchard

Monsieur Touchard runs the boarding school where Arkady is humiliated and beaten as a child. Lambert is another pupil there. Touchard’s school helps explain why Arkady can fear Lambert and still seek him out: their reunion revives an old entanglement of humiliation, intimacy, and dependence.

The main action in sequence

When	Relationship changes
About twenty-one years before the main action (twenty-two before Arkady writes)	Sofia has been married to Makar for six months when Versilov begins a relationship with her and takes her away. Arkady is born about a year later, Liza about a year after him.
Arkady’s childhood and school years	Arkady is raised largely apart from his parents, suffers at Touchard’s school, meets Lambert, and later lives with Nikolai Semyonovich and Marie Ivanovna in Moscow.
About a year and a half before the main action	At Ems, Lydia is pregnant by Prince Sergei; Versilov offers marriage; a daughter is born prematurely; Lydia dies; Sergei later strikes Versilov. Accounts of Versilov and Katerina conflict.
Before the Petersburg action	Liza meets Sergei at Luga. Vasin knows them there, and Lydia’s infant is cared for in the same wider orbit. Marie gives Katerina’s letter to Arkady.
Part One begins — 19 September	Arkady has recently arrived in Petersburg and is already working for the old prince. He meets Katerina, Kraft, Vasin, and Dergachev’s circle; receives the Stolbyeev letter; and reveals that he already carries Katerina’s letter.
Part Two begins — 15 November	Nearly two months have passed. Arkady is gambling with Sergei; Liza’s pregnancy, Sergei’s contemplated courtship of Anna, the forged shares, and Katerina’s search for the letter converge. Arkady collapses after a night involving Lambert.
Nine days later — early Part Three	Arkady wakes after nine days of unconsciousness. Makar has arrived during his illness and later dies. Sergei has already turned himself in and is later hospitalized; Liza remains loyal to him; Anna’s plan and Lambert’s interest in the letter intensify.
The final three-day crisis	Versilov smashes Makar’s icon; Arkady overhears his meeting with Katerina; Alphonsine steals the letter; Anna installs the old prince beside Arkady; Björing removes him; Lambert and Versilov exploit Arkady and Tatyana’s absence to ambush Katerina at her prearranged appointment in Tatyana’s flat; Versilov turns the revolver on himself, and Arkady deflects the shot into his shoulder.
Retrospective coda, dated mid-May	Arkady gives inconsistent intervals: an earlier passage says that a year has passed, while the coda says almost six months. Versilov has recovered; Katerina is abroad; old Prince Nikolai and Prince Sergei are dead; Liza has miscarried; Anna has refused the money; Arkady is considering university and finishing his manuscript.

The places that connect the circles

Place	Why it matters
Tula province	Site of the Versilov estate and the beginning of Versilov and Sofia’s relationship while Sofia is Makar’s wife.
Moscow	Arkady’s childhood, Touchard’s school, Lambert’s early abuse, the tutor’s household, and Katerina’s letter entering Arkady’s coat.
Ems and the Rhine	The disputed backstory involving Lydia, Sergei, Versilov, and Katerina. Most of it reaches Arkady through competing testimony.
Luga	The earlier meeting place for Liza and Sergei, Vasin’s connection to them, and part of the infant’s care history.
Semyonovsky Polk, Petersburg	The poor wooden lodge occupied by Sofia, Liza, and Versilov; Arkady joins it, Makar dies there, and Versilov later recovers there.
The old prince’s house and Tsarskoe Selo	Arkady’s early employment and the old prince’s later semi-isolation before Anna brings him back to Petersburg.
Vasin’s Fontanka lodging	Olya and Darya live next door; Stebelkov and the radical circle’s legal troubles enter Arkady’s immediate world here.
The three-room infant flat	Tatyana pays for the rooms in which Lydia and Sergei’s daughter is cared for. Versilov identifies the child’s parents here, and Arkady later overhears Versilov and Katerina.
Lambert’s Cross Alley rooms	Arkady meets Lambert’s associates and later gets drunk; Alphonsine steals the letter here.
Arkady’s separate lodging	Anna installs old Prince Nikolai in the landlord’s rooms; the plan collapses when Björing removes him.
Tatyana Pavlovna’s flat	Katerina’s confidential meetings and the final blackmail, gun struggle, and shooting all occur here.

Where the relationships end

Relationship or figure	Position at the close
Arkady and Versilov	Biological son and father, closer and more affectionate than before. Arkady still treats Versilov’s motives as an interpretive problem.
Versilov and Sofia	Living tenderly together after his recovery; no marriage has taken place.
Versilov and Katerina	Their relationship is violently ruptured. She is abroad; he never mentions her. Arkady’s belief that the obsession is cured remains his belief.
Arkady and Katerina	They exchange letters after her departure. The content and future of the relationship are withheld; they are not established as lovers.
Arkady and Anna	Half-siblings who have become close friends, though they avoid some subjects.
Liza and Prince Sergei	Their intended marriage never occurs. Sergei dies before trial; Liza later miscarries and remains unwell.
Lydia and Sergei’s infant	Alive under Versilov’s protection in a separate flat paid for by Tatyana when last mentioned. No later fate is supplied.
Old Prince Nikolai and Katerina	Reconciled during his final month. Katerina carries out his instruction to offer Anna sixty thousand rubles.
Old Prince Nikolai and Anna	Their projected marriage never occurs. Anna refuses the money he intended for her.
Katerina and Björing	Katerina ends the match immediately after his insinuation.
Anna and her brother	Estranged after he quarrels with her over refusing the sixty thousand rubles.
Lambert and Alphonsine	Their plot fails. Lambert flees; Alphonsine’s later fate is not given.
Trishatov and Andreev	Andreev dies by suicide; Trishatov disappears, and Arkady continues to look for him.
Vasin and Stebelkov	Vasin is cleared and released; Stebelkov remains imprisoned as the case expands.
Katerina’s letter	Lambert leaves it on Tatyana’s table. Its later custody or destruction is not stated.

The novel closes its legal and criminal threads more firmly than its emotional ones. Neither Sokolsky marriage occurs: Anna’s operation collapses before the old prince’s death, and Prince Sergei dies before he can marry Liza. The blackmail fails. Versilov has renounced his claim to the Stolbyeev inheritance; Anna refuses the sixty thousand rubles old Prince Nikolai intended for her. Arkady’s two forms of fatherhood remain distinct, Sofia and Versilov remain together without marriage, Liza’s future is open, and Arkady will not tell the reader what he and Katerina write to each other. The map ends where his knowledge ends.

Sources

• Fyodor Dostoevsky, A Raw Youth, translated by Constance Garnett (London: William Heinemann, 1916), Project Gutenberg Australia.

• Fyodor Dostoevsky, A Raw Youth, translated by Constance Garnett (William Heinemann; scanned 1956 impression), Wikimedia Commons.

• Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Adolescent, translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky (Vintage, 2004).

• Fyodor Dostoevsky, An Accidental Family, translated by Richard Freeborn (Oxford University Press, 1994).