Baudrillard's Philosophy ofSimulacrum and Religion in "The Grand Inquisitor" from Dostoevsky's "The Brothers Karamazov:" A sociological analysis of ritual change

This paper is concerned with the illustration of the Simulacrumas a philosophical concept that was coined by Jean Baudrillard (1929-2007) in his critical essay Simulacra and Simulation(1981).Baudrillard claims that our present society has supplanted all reality and importance with images and signs, and that human experience is a simulation that means reproduction of the real world. The study aims to prove the idea of Simulacrum was localizedin The Grand Inquisitor (a poetic poem was narrated by Ivan to his brother Alyosha in book V of Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov).It proceeds with the hypothesis thatThe Grand Inquisitoris responds to Jean Baudrillard's theory of Simulacrumas both of Baudrillard and Dostoevsky looking to religion under the sign of simulacra. The study is rounded up with concluding verdicts.