When Dostoevsky first conceived of the work that ultimately became Crime and Punishment, he titled it ‘The Drunkards’, and said that it would deal with ‘the present question of drunkenness … [in] all its ramifications, especially the picture of a family and the bringing up of children in these circumstances’ (letter to A. A. Kraevsky, June […]
All posts tagged Crime and Punishment
Re-reading Crime and Punishment: the Drunkards
Posted by Sarah Young on September 6, 2010
https://sarahjyoung.com/site/2010/09/06/re-reading-crime-and-punishment-the-drunkards/
Re-reading Crime and Punishment: mis-naming
My recent posts collating contents pages of Russian journals do not, I will admit, make for very exciting reading. They do have a purpose, though, and are going to be appearing for some time. But I do want to continue writing on other subjects, partly so as not to alienate all my readers, and partly […]
Posted by Sarah Young on August 12, 2010
https://sarahjyoung.com/site/2010/08/12/re-reading-crime-and-punishment-mis-naming/
Russkii vestnik 1866
It’s hard to get beyond the literary contributions to Russkii vestnik for 1866, as it features both the first of Dostoevsky’s major novels, Crime and Punishment, and parts of Tolstoy’s War and Peace. There are also poems by Fet and A. K. Tolstoy, and two works by Boborykin, The World of Success and In a […]
Posted by Sarah Young on August 8, 2010
https://sarahjyoung.com/site/2010/08/08/russkii-vestnik-1866/
Russkii vestnik 1869
Russkii vestnik was published from 1856 to 1906. Founded by Mikhail Nikiforovich Katkov, who edited it until his death in 1887, it became one of the most influential literary-philosophical journals of the second half of the nineteenth century, publishing nearly all the great novels of that period: Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, Demons and […]
Posted by Sarah Young on July 18, 2010
https://sarahjyoung.com/site/2010/07/18/russkii-vestnik-1869/
Russian journals on Google books
There are some amazing resources on Google books, which can really transform the way scholars work and particularly the time spent on locating materials. As a postgrad in the late 1990s, when I wanted to find out about the serial publication of The Idiot, I ended up having to consult the journal in a library […]
Posted by Sarah Young on July 16, 2010
https://sarahjyoung.com/site/2010/07/16/russian-journals-on-google-books/
Re-reading Crime and Punishment: characters
Re-reading Crime and Punishment hasn’t entirely resolved the perennial problem of Sonia, which I’ve mentioned previously, but I do finally seem to have found a way of accepting her as a character, which makes the novel’s denouement less contentious. Or maybe it’s just that I was focusing on the fine details rather than the big […]
Posted by Sarah Young on July 9, 2010
https://sarahjyoung.com/site/2010/07/09/re-reading-crime-and-punishment-characters/
Re-reading Crime and Punishment: Dostoevsky’s spaces
The process of re-reading a novel is simultaneously frustrating and interesting. It’s frustrating because there are too many books out there, and too little time to read them, so returning to ones you’ve already read is always accompanied by a depressing awareness that you’re getting further away from others you’d like to read — I […]
Posted by Sarah Young on July 6, 2010
https://sarahjyoung.com/site/2010/07/06/rereading-crime-and-punishment-dostoevskys-spaces/
Porfiry: a poor pastiche
In response to the disappointment I expressed in my review of Tom Rob Smith’s Child 44, a reader alerted me (please note: not ‘recommended’) to the existence of a series of crime novels by R. N. Morris set in 19th century St Petersburg, and featuring Porfiry Petrovich. The detective from Crime and Punishment is a […]
Posted by Sarah Young on July 1, 2010
https://sarahjyoung.com/site/2010/07/01/porfiry-a-poor-pastiche/
Dostoevsky: not so grim?
The recent stories about the murals at the new Dostoevsky metro station in Moscow, which have led to concerns that it could become a favourite spot for suicides, have made me think about why Dostoevsky is considered such a depressing writer. Is it because he depicts so much poverty and misery? I doubt it, because […]
Posted by Sarah Young on June 24, 2010
https://sarahjyoung.com/site/2010/06/24/dostoevsky-not-so-grim/