Mikhail Rakitin
Audio text — Mikhail Osipovich Rakitin — Misha (Михаил Осипович Ракитин — Миша)
Given name — Mikhail (Михаил)
Diminutive form of the name: Misha (Миша)
Patronymic —
Osipovich (Осипович) — the son of Osip (Осип)
Family name — Rakitin (Ракитин)
A career-minded seminarian. Like Alexei, he lives in the monastery. Alexei considers him a close friend. Although he knows that "his friend Rakitin is dishonest and decisively unaware of it himself; on the contrary, knowing that he wouldn't steal money from the table, he considered himself a person of the highest integrity. In this case, not only Alyosha but nobody could do anything about it."
For now, I'll only say that his surname comes from a special type of tree - rakita (ракита) — Salix Caprea, which is kind of willow. In Orthodox Christianity, there is a holiday called Вербное воскресение (Goat willow Sunday) - a week before Easter. In many countries, this holiday is called Palm Sunday, but in cold Russia where palm trees are not common, the palm branch is replaced with a willow (rakita) branch. We'll discuss later why Dostoevsky chose this surname for him.
