“St. Idiot” is the title of the book by the philosopher Cezary Wodziński which he wrote in 2000. It is also the title of Janusz Opryński’s play, an adaptation of Fiodor Dostoyevsky’s “The Idiot”. Dostoyevsky, it seems to like the Russian yurodivys and we find the characteristics of these sacred hooligans in many of his protagonists.

Reading “The Idiot” in the context of our knowledge about the Holy Madmen makes us ponder upon our condition and our world order. Many characters and events in the novel bare the traits of provocation and scandal that the Holy Madmen have developed a liking for. Hence, when Prince Lev Myshkin, returns from therapy in Switzerland at the beginning of the story, Rogozhin (his “gloomy brother”) recognises the holy fool in him; “You come out as a holy madman, Prince, and God loves your kind!” In that moment, an insane dance starts, a carnival dance, which makes the world spin for us. The Prince infects the world, the world starts to share his epilepsy, his trembling…

The entire world shakes. It shakes when we look at Hans Holbein’s Dead Christ painting in Rogozhin’s house, but it shakes even stronger, when we watch the “Dead Nastasya” in that same house. This last quake bends the world – its axe divides it diagonally. And not even the noble Lizavéta Prokófyevna Jepasin is able to save the world in her belief that the old order shall save us once again.