The surname of the protagonist in Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Idiot is Myshkin. His full name is Prince Lev Nikolayevich Myshkin, and he is usually called Prince Myshkin throughout the novel.
Myshkin returns to Russia at the beginning of the story after spending four years in a Swiss sanatorium receiving treatment for epilepsy. His openness, compassion, innocence, and lack of worldly cunning lead other characters to mistake him for an idiot. The title is therefore ironic: Myshkin is not unintelligent, but possesses unusual psychological insight and moral sensitivity.
The novel was first published serially in The Russian Messenger in 1868 and 1869. Readers sometimes confuse Myshkin with Raskolnikov, the protagonist of Crime and Punishment, or with the Karamazov family from Dostoevsky's later novel. Those are different characters and works.