Dostoevsky's Crime Research Articles

The Image of the Russian People in F. M. Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment

The Image of the Russian People in F. M. Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment

Louse in the Hay Market: The relationship between the Urban Space and the Consciousness of "Man" in Crime and Punishment

In literary works, the construction of urban space serves as both a canvas for the subjective perceptions of the novelist towards society and a mirror reflecting the objective social order of a particular era. Within Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, the city of St. Petersburg in the 19th century emerges as a central backdrop, with the bustling Hay Market serving as a focal point. Dostoevsky adeptly captures the city's darkness and oppressive atmosphere, presenting it as a microcosm of societal complexities. This essay delves into the lives of St. Petersburg's lower-class denizens as depicted in the novel, using Dostoevsky's portrayal of the city's "dark panorama" to examine its broader implications. Rather than merely serving as a backdrop, the city becomes a reflection of human consciousness, encapsulating the author's nuanced understanding of social dynamics and psychological intricacies. Through an analysis of urban space in Crime and Punishment, this paper aims to elucidate Dostoevsky's exploration of the interconnectedness between societal structures and individual psyches.

Raskolnikov as a Transformed Character: Aki Kaurismäki's Adaptation of “Crime and Punishment” (1983)

How do motion pictures transpose the characters from a well-established literary work into a cinematic narrative, replete with their own narrative potential? Can the resulting film be regarded as an entirely new creation? To explore these questions, we have selected Aki Kaurismäki's 1983 cinematic adaptation of Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. The primary objective of this study is to ascertain whether the characters from a literary work undergo a transformation into new personas, enriched by the narrative possibilities inherent to cinema. Kaurismäki's adaptation of Crime and Punishment transposed the narrative to a more contemporary era and streamlined the cast of characters, with the film director imparting his distinctive touch to their transformation. In Kaurismäki's rendition of Crime and Punishment, a metafictional dimension emerges, blurring the boundaries of narrative levels. The film's characters comport themselves as if intimately acquainted with the original novel's story and characters. While maintaining fidelity to the foundational narrative, a novel artistic creation takes shape, wherein the characters exhibit a profound awareness of their origins within the original literary work.

Teaching the Virtue of Kindness through Using Art Works

Abstract Art works provide a unique and influential way to teach human virtues because they can place individuals (or particular artistic expressions) within the ambiguities, complexities, and forces of the human experience. I use four art works to teach about the virtue of kindness: Giotto di Bondonie's Scene 2: St. Francis Giving His Mantle to a Poor Man; Bishop Charles Francois in Victor Hugo's Les Misérables; Adam in William Shakespeare's As You Like It; and Sonya in Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. In these four examples, we see necessary characteristics of being a kind person: supererogatory behavior, altruistic behavior, a display of the way the world ought to be, and the presence of a kind soul.

The Dilemma of Lawful Obedience in Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment

The Dilemma of Lawful Obedience in Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment

Press in the Works of Russian Literature

Russian classical literature of the 19th and early 20th centuries constitutes the whole with the finest Russian journalism of the same period. Almost all famous authors started their careers by releasing their first works of literature in magazines and even in newspapers. Nevertheless, even when gaining popularity, they continued to cooperate with periodicals, offering them their masterpieces. Thus, Leo Tolstoy published his novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina in the Russkiy Vestnik [Russian Herald] magazine, while his novel Resurrection was published in Niva, the most popular Russian magazine aimed at mass reader. The writer wanted to reach as many ordinary people as possible. Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, Demons, and The Brothers Karamazov first appeared in the same Russkiy Vestnik, along with Ivan Turgenev’s novel Fathers and Sons. This list is long indeed. Russian authors actively employed material published in press in their works. Therefore, the characters of Anna Karenina passionately discussed the events highlighted by the newspapers and magazines of that time. The references to certain periodicals, their brief description made it possible to understand better the mood and to expose the nature of their characters for the readers. During Soviet times, the attitude of the characters to certain newspapers and magazines displayed the role of media in public relations and their place in the political system of the country. Finally, thanks to the media subscriptions of the characters in novels and short stories, the reader could better understand their worldview, hobbies, and dreams. The authors set themselves the task of studying the specifics of the use of references to certain media as an artistic detail in literary works. They attempt to identify the role of such details in creating the artistic character, as well as in recreating the atmosphere and ideology of the era. They also examine references to journal articles read by the characters of a literary work from the perspective of intertextuality theory, as well as the task of revealing the peculiarities of the interaction of artistic and journalistic texts in the context of the era. The authors also raise the question of the possibility of using texts of literary works as a source for the study of media history.

Translating Cain: Emotions of Invisibility through the Gaze of Raskolnikov and Bigger by Samantha Joo

Reviewed by: Translating Cain: Emotions of Invisibility through the Gaze of Raskolnikov and Bigger by Samantha Joo Jeffrey H. Pulse samantha joo, Translating Cain: Emotions of Invisibility through the Gaze of Raskolnikov and Bigger (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books/Fortress Academic, 2020). Pp. xii + 187. $100. Samantha Joo approaches the narrative of Cain and Abel using a method designed to translate the emotional connotations of this ancient text. Since the author of the story wants to convey these emotional realities and the subsequent connotations of these emotions, the solution is to "recontextualize" the event in order to evoke similar emotions from the reader. J. argues for the story's transference of an emotional attitude to the reader because the power of the narrative resides in its ability to stir the emotions, not to stimulate the mind. In order to accomplish this, J. focuses on the issue of "invisibility" in the story of Cain and Abel using two classic examples from modern literature that contain this mythic plot: the character of Raskolnikov in Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment and Bigger Thomas in Richard Wright's Native Son. Raskolnikov is a poor, young, ex-university student in nineteenth-century Russia, while Bigger Thomas is a poor, young, black man in Chicago in the 1940s. Both stories, while different in context and time, exhibit the same [End Page 304] mythic plot as seen in the Cain and Abel narrative—invisibility. (1) The character becomes invisible; (2) the character is emotionally distraught at being invisible; and (3) the character kills to find visibility. Thus, J. argues that seeing Cain's story through the characters of Bigger and Raskolnikov, characters who seek visibility through violence, even murder, will lead the reader to look at this ancient story differently. J. is interested in how invisibility molds and affects the character's emotions that then lead to violence. This approach does not try to discern authorial intent or consider the reader's response. Joo structures the book in five sections. In the first, she lays out the theoretical model and then explains the need for analogies. Section 2 is an analysis of the narrative of Cain and Abel, highlighting the social invisibility of Cain, which is implied in Cain's Kenite identity. Then, section 3 is an analysis of Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment and the character Raskolnikov, while section four treats Wright's Native Son and the character Bigger Thomas. Finally, in section 5, J. compares and contrasts the portrayals of Cain, Raskolnikov, and Bigger. The book is laid out to accomplish three distinct purposes. J. states, "On the theoretical level, I will provide a model that will convey emotional connotation of biblical stories via analogies. On the analytical level, I will highlight the Kenite identity of Cain that will explain the reason for the violence. On the social level, I will examine the phenomena of social invisibility and its violent consequence" (p. 6). I believe that J. accomplishes this quite well. The motivation for the murder of Abel is found in Cain's need to be "seen." He felt invisible/ignored by God as Abel and his sacrifice were preferred. To gain the attention of God, therefore, Cain killed his brother. But, as J. argues, this goes far deeper than personal rejection; it is the effect of social marginalization. Working beneath the surface is Cain's Kenite identity. The Kenites were a marginalized group of nomads, and so Cain is the ancestor who represents the Kenites' existence as an "invisible" group, alienated from the more established community. Thus, the rejection of Cain and his offering is a reflection of the social invisibility of the Kenites. J. argues that this Kenite identity is lost on the modern Western reader who is unfamiliar with the agropastoral background of Syro-Palestine; therefore, the intended meaning of the story is lost. Similar stories from modern literature provide an analogy that restores intended meaning to the text. Joo's example of this method of translating emotional connotations of an ancient text using modern literature as analogy is fascinating and useful. However, is it the only way to connect the modern reader to the text? Is it a valid method? Placing...

The polyphony principle.

Bermúdez's "rational framing effects" are consequences of a counterintuitive phenomenon that I call "normative polyphony": the reality that a single action may, with logical consistency, sustain diverse positive and negative judgments. I show that normative polyphony emerges from "ontological polyphony" - that is, diverse possible framings of relevant details - and illustrate this "polyphony principle" through a reading of Dostoevsky's (1993) Crime and Punishment.

Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment: Philosophical Perspectives. Ed. Robert Guay. Oxford Studies in Philosophy and Literature. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019. xvi, 220 pp. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $24.95, paper.

Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment: Philosophical Perspectives. Ed. Robert Guay. Oxford Studies in Philosophy and Literature. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019. xvi, 220 pp. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $24.95, paper. - Volume 80 Issue 1

On the Sources of Nihilism in Dostoevsky's "Crime and Punishment"

It is well known that Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment reflects the intellectual milieu of the period of its conception. More specifically, the motivation of Raskolnikov's crime is rooted in the nihilism of the radical intelligentsia of the period. In this article, the ideology of Raskolnikov is identified with the ideology of the representatives of the radical intelligentsia, namely Nikolai Chernyshevsky and Dimitri Pisarev. It also traces the continuity and discontinuity of the ideas of these thinkers. Finally, argues that Dostoevsky perceived the evolution and radicalization of the intelligentsia's ideas through the lenses of the evolution and radicalization of the Left Hegelians, namely Feuerbach and Stirner, whose ideology influenced the Russian radical intelligentsia. Thus is brought to the fore the intellectual origins of the Russian radical intelligentsia's nihilism, which was seminal to Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment.

Perpetration of Crime in Dostoevsky's Crime and punishment: Revealing Interior Conflict of Criminal mind and Punishment as Salvation

Perpetration of Crime in Dostoevsky's Crime and punishment: Revealing Interior Conflict of Criminal mind and Punishment as Salvation

Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment: Philosophical Perspectives ed. by Robert Guay (review)

Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment: Philosophical Perspectives ed. by Robert Guay (review)

Guay, Robert , ed. Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment: Philosophical Perspectives. Oxford University Press, 2019, xi + 230 pp., $24.95 paper.

Guay, Robert <scp>,</scp> ed. Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment: Philosophical Perspectives. Oxford University Press, 2019, xi + 230 pp., $24.95 paper.

Девочка на коленях. Из истории русского руссоизма

The concept of romantic love directed towards a young bride is an ideological construction in the history of European culture as manifested in works of Rousseau, Novalis, and Edgar Allan Poe. Any given author's modification of this form of love is an important indication of his religious, ethical, and aesthetic beliefs, which are in turn indicative of his cultural trend and which reflect the fears and ideals of the given author's contemporary society. Here, I will trace the transformation of this topic in the late work of Vasily Zhukovsky in its intersection with the Rousseauist topos of the last or "twilight" love. I will also analyze the transformation of the image of the girl-bride, previously canonized by the patriarch of Russian Romanticism, in the poetry of Pyotr Vyazemsky, Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, and Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita - works which represent different literary-ideological programs which respond in different ways to Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Confessions (1769, published 1782).

Moral Injury in Literature

This essay seeks to introduce moral injury to the field of literary trauma studies. Moral injury, a term coined by Jonathan Shay and elaborated upon by Brett Litz, is best understood as the psychic pain that sometimes follows a perceived moral breach. It is related to but distinct from trauma, and it manifests with a unique set of symptoms. The essay goes on to identify salient examples of moral injury in Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment (1866), Albert Camus's The Fall (1957), and Kevin Powers's The Yellow Birds (2012), and to trace some of the ways manifestations of moral injury might affect the form and style of literary texts.

Isn't that Columbo?

Peter Falk is beloved by millions for Columbo, the TV series about an apparently shambling and forgetful detective with a mind like a steel trap. In his trademark grimy overcoat (Falk's own), Columbo and his dog puttered through the decades from 1968 to 2003, solving murders and picking up Emmy Awards. The series' radical innovation is the way it splurges information most detective dramas hold back: the audience knows who the murderer is from the get-go. The pleasure is in watching Falk's detective, cigar in hand, with a seemingly innocent question always at the ready, circle his unsuspecting prey while regaling them with anecdotes about his beloved Mrs Columbo. Or, as Falk himself put it in his memoir Just One More Thing, being investigated by Columbo is like “being nibbled to death by a duck.” The series gave Stephen Spielberg and Jonathan Demme early work, and drew its howcatchem (not whodunit) structure from Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment.

Victims of the City in Novels of Zola and Dostoevsky

In her article Victims of the City in Novels of Zola and Dostoevsky Marta L. Wilkinson argues that urbanity in its nineteenth-century setting functioned as the culpable agent in criminal behavior found in Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment and in several of Zola's Rougon-Macquart novels. Wilkinson presents an analysis of the novels based on Merlin Coverly's concept of psychogeography which supports the extension of the cityscape as an integral part of the novels' characters. Further, Wilkinson illustrates how in Zola's and Dostoevsky's novels the city reigns triumphant as characters fall victim to disease, drink, or are left with desperate choices: in Dostoevsky's novel suicide or banishment to Siberia and in Zola's novels the acceptance of inhuman life in the complicit city. Marta L. Wilkinson, Victims of the City in Novels of Zola and Dostoevsky page 2 of 8 CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 14.4 (2012):

Crime is in the Eye of the Beholder: Petr Petrovich Luzhin as a Distorting “Puddle-Mirror” in Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment

AbstractThis study demonstrates how conceptualizations ingrained in our linguistic consciousness help us realize the full semantics that an author com municates to his reader through a “speaking name”; this kind of name, together with the character's behavioral profile create a multidimensional psychological portrait.The examples are taken from Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, specifically the “puddle-name” Luzhin. The speaking name of Petr Petrovich Luzhin evokes a number of cognitive conceptualizations that are rooted in human experience, as well as in the history, mythology, and culture of the Russian people and that are in dialogical relationships with the other characters in the novel through their speaking names. The analysis, based on cognitive stylistics and, more specifically, cognitive metaphor theory in the Lakoff tradition, underscores the significance of the cultural water metaphor when applied to the human domain. It also confirms that the “speaking name” is a major device in Dostoevsky's poetics.

BOOK REVIEWS

Books reviewed in this issue.Literature and Fine ArtsDinesman, T. G., ed. A. A. Fet i ego literaturnoe okruzhenie.Tucker, Janet G. Profane Challenge and Orthodox Response in Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment.Kornblatt, Judith Deutsch. Divine Sophia: The Wisdom Writings of Vladimir Solovyov.Du Quenoy, Paul. Stage Fright: Politics and the Performing Arts in Late Imperial Russia.Croskey, Robert. The Legacy of Tolstoy: Alexandra Tolstoy and the Soviet Regime in the 1920s.Dorontchenkov, Ilia, ed. Russian and Soviet Views of Modern Western Art, 1890s to Mid‐1930s. Translated by Charles Rougle.Seifrid, Thomas. A Companion to Andrei Platonov's “The Foundation Pit.”Stilwell, Robynn J. and Phil Powrie, eds. Composing for the Screen in Germany and the USSR: Cultural Politics and Propaganda.Ericson, Edward E., Jr., and Alexis Kimoff. The Soul and Barbed Wire: An Introduction to Solzhenitsyn.Van Baak, Joost. The House in Russian Literature: A Mythopoetic Exploration.Kuznetsov, Il'ia. Istoricheskaia ritorika: Strategii russkoi slovestnosti.Parshina, Lana. Svetlana about Svetlana.HistoryPahomov, George, and Nickolas Lupinin, eds. The Russian Century: A Hundred Years of Russian Lives.Davies, Brian L. Warfare, State and Society on the Black Sea Steppe, 1500–1700.Ruane, Christine. The Empire's New Clothes: A History of the Russian Fashion Industry, 1700–1917.Smilovitskii, Leonid. Evrei v Turove: Istoriia mestechka Mozyrskogo Poles'ia.Friesen, Leonard G. Rural Revolutions in Southern Ukraine: Peasants, Nobles, and Colonists 1774–1905.Mironenko, S. V., and L. G. Zakharova, eds. Perepiska tsesarevicha Aleksandra Nikolaevicha s Imperatorom Nikolaem I, 1838–1839.Verhoeven, Claudia. The Odd Man Karakozov: Imperial Russia, Modernity and the Birth of Terrorism.Khachaturian, Lisa. Cultivating Nationhood in Imperial Russia: The Periodical Press and the Formation of a Modern Armenian Identity.Horowitz, Brian. Jewish Philanthropy and Enlightenment in Late Tsarist Russia.Palmer, James. The Bloody White Baron: The Extraordinary Story of the Russian Nobleman Who Became the Last Khan of Mongolia.Lazarski, Christopher. The Lost Opportunity: Attempts at Unification of the Anti‐Bolsheviks, 1917–1919; Moscow, Kiev, Jassy, Odessa.Budnitskii, Oleg. Den'gi russkoi emigratsii: Kolchakovskoe zoloto, 1918–1957.Odom, Anne and Wendy R. Salmond, eds. Treasures into Tractors: The Selling of Russia's Cultural Heritage, 1918–1938.Geyer, Michael, and Sheila Fitzpatrick, eds. Beyond Totalitarianism: Stalinism and Nazism Compared.Khlevniuk, Oleg V. Master of the House: Stalin and His Inner Circle. Translated by Nora Seligman Favorov.Hagenloh, Paul. Stalin's Police: Public Order and Mass Repression in the USSR, 1926–1941.Slepyan, Kenneth. Stalin's Guerillas: Soviet Partisans in World War II.Conroy, Mary Schaeffer. Medicines for the Soviet Masses during World War II.Estraikh, Gennady. Yiddish in the Cold War.Fink, Carole and Bern Schaefer, eds. Ostpolitik, 1969–1974: European and Global Responses.Radchenko, Sergey. Two Suns in the Heavens: The Sino‐Soviet Struggle for Supremacy, 1962–1967.Davis, Donald E. and Eugene P. Trani. Distorted Mirrors: Americans and Their Relations with Russia and China in the Twentieth Century.Zubok, Vladislav. Zhivago's Children: The Last Russian Intelligentsia.Social Science, Contemporary Russia, and OtherCzaplicka, John, Nida Gelazis, and Blair A. Ruble, eds. Cities after the Fall of Communism: Reshaping Cultural Landscapes and European Identity.Combs, Dick. Inside the Soviet Alternate Universe: The Cold War's End and the Soviet Union's Fall Reappraised.Graney, Katherine E. Of Khans and Kremlins: Tatarstan and the Future of Ethno‐Federalism in Russia.Pervoic, Jeronim, Robert W. Orttung, and Andreas Wenger, eds. Russian Energy Power and Foreign Relations: Implications for Conflict and Cooperation.

Profane Challenge and Orthodox Response in Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. By Janet G. Tucker Studies in Slavic Literature and Poetics, vol. 52. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2008. 285 pp. Notes. Bibliography. Index. €58.00, paper.

Profane Challenge and Orthodox Response in Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. By Janet G. Tucker Studies in Slavic Literature and Poetics, vol. 52. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2008. 285 pp. Notes. Bibliography. Index. €58.00, paper.