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Nikolai Vsevolodovich Stavrogin Nikolai Vsevolodovich Stavrogin, the Nicolas of drawing-room talk, is the only son of Varvara Petrovna Stavrogina, a rich woman, and of a frivolous general who already lived apart from her, and was educated from the age of eight by Stepan Trofimovich... Pyotr Stepanovich Verkhovensky Pyotr Stepanovich Verkhovensky, Pietrucha to his father, is the son of Stepan Trofimovich Verkhovensky and of his first wife. He was sent as a child to his aunts in Russia, whose estate is under the father's guardianship and trusteeship, and whose small farm,... Stepan Trofimovich Verkhovensky Stepan Trofimovich Verkhovensky is the provincial professor whom the chronicler introduces in the first chapter as an idealistic liberal, talented and much revered, who played a civic role in the town and loved him to the point of passion (Part One, Chapter... Alexei Kirillov Alexei Nilych Kirillov is an engineer of about twenty-seven, thin, dark, with dull black eyes, who speaks haltingly and scrambles the order of his words, newly arrived in the town (Part One, Chapter III). He lives in a pavilion in the courtyard of Filippov's... Ivan Shatov Shatov was born a serf of Varvara Petrovna Stavrogina, the son of one of her servants, and was a pupil of Stepan Trofimovich Verkhovensky in childhood. Expelled from university, he preferred to be a tutor to a merchant rather than write to his benefactress... Varvara Petrovna Stavrogina Varvara Petrovna Stavrogina is the widow of a lieutenant general, very rich, owner of the Skvoreshniki estate and of a house in town, mother of Nikolai Vsevolodovich Stavrogin and patroness of Stepan Trofimovich Verkhovensky, whom she has supported for more... Lizaveta Nikolaevna Tushina Lizaveta Nikolaevna Tushina, Liza, is nearly twenty-two when the novel puts her on horseback. She is the only daughter of Praskovya Ivanovna Drozdova, widow of General Drozdov, boarding-school friend and rival of Varvara Petrovna Stavrogina, and she inherited... Marya Timofeyevna Lebyadkina Marya Timofeyevna Lebyadkina is the sister of Captain Ignat Lebyadkin, the lame and mad woman of the Filippov house, and the lawful wife of Nikolai Vsevolodovich Stavrogin: they married in Petersburg, nearly five years before the party, with Alexei Kirillov... Darya Pavlovna Shatova Darya Pavlovna Shatova, Stavrogin's "Dacha of the diminutives," is the sister of Ivan Shatov and the ward of Varvara Petrovna Stavrogina, raised in her house with a governess, tutors, and music, with a capital set aside since she was twelve so that the girl's... Liputin Liputin is a stingy minor official, a liberal taken for an atheist and a gossip, punished more than once for it, whom everyone likes for his wicked wit. He is one of the three figures that Stepan Trofimovich's circle raises (ch. I, Part One). He dreams of... Ignat Lebyadkin Captain Ignat Lebyadkin is the brother of Marya Timofeyevna Lebyadkina, the lame and visionary woman whom Nikolai Vsevolodovich Stavrogin married in secret, and he is the man who lives off what he supposes he knows about that marriage. A fat, curly, red... Shigalyov Shigalyov is the brother of the wife of the official Virginsky, a guest in town for about two months when the book introduces him, and the author of a thick notebook in small handwriting in which he proposes the final organization of society. The chronicler,... Fedka Fedka Katorzhny, Fyodor Fyodorovich by baptism and the Convict by nickname, is a former household servant of Stepan Trofimovich Verkhovensky, handed over for conscription fifteen years earlier and later sentenced to hard labor, from which he fled to town (ch.... Tikhon Tikhon is the retired bishop who lives in retreat, for reasons of health, in the Spaso-Efim monastery at the edge of town, and he is the man to whom Nikolai Vsevolodovich Stavrogin brings a confession. Tall, thin, about fifty-five, in a plain cassock, with a... Yulia Mikhailovna von Lembke Yulia Mikhailovna von Lembke is the wife of the province's governor, Andrei Antonovich von Lembke, a relation of the Drozdovs and of Karmazinov, and the hostess who opens the town to new ideas and to Pyotr Stepanovich Verkhovensky. She married, past forty, a... Andrei Antonovich von Lembke Andrei Antonovich von Lembke is the province's governor, of German descent, a graduate of a higher school for the sons of well-connected families, and the husband of Yulia Mikhailovna von Lembke. He replaces the gentle Ivan Ossipovich, removed from office,... Karmazinov Karmazinov is the great writer, in Liputin's phrase, a relation of Yulia Mikhailovna and an old acquaintance of Stepan Trofimovich, who has lived for seven years in Karlsruhe and returns to Russia to sell his property and take his leave. The chronicler, who... The chronicler The chronicler is Anton Lavrentyev G-v, a young civil servant whom Liputin presents as classically educated, with connections in the highest society, and who claims to be himself a friend and confidant of Stepan Trofimovich Verkhovensky (ch. III, Part One;...

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