Vladimir Nabokov complained about the number of Dostoevsky's characters 'sinning their way to Jesus.' In truth, Christ is an elusive figure not only in Dostoevsky's novels, but in Russian literature as a whole. The rise of the historical critical method of biblical criticism in the 19th century and the growth of secularism it stimulated made an earnest affirmation of Jesus in literature highly problematic. The writers at the heart of this book understood that to reimage Christ for their age, they had to make him known through indirect, even negative ways, lest what they say about him be mistaken for cliché, doctrine, or naïve apologetics.