Why did Dostoevsky write Crime and Punishment? The concept and history of the creation of the novel “Crime and Punishment”

Dostoevsky hatched the idea for his new novel for six years. During this time, “The Humiliated and Insulted,” “Notes from the House of the Dead,” and “Notes from the Underground” were written. main theme which were the stories of poor people and their rebellion against existing reality.

Origins of the work

The origins of the novel go back to the time of F. M. Dostoevsky's hard labor. Initially, Dostoevsky intended to write “Crime and Punishment” in the form of Raskolnikov’s confession. The writer intended to transfer the entire spiritual experience of hard labor to the pages of the novel. It was here that Dostoevsky first encountered strong personalities, under the influence of which a change in his previous beliefs began.

“In December I will start a novel... Don’t you remember, I told you about one confessional novel that I wanted to write after everyone else, saying that I still had to experience it myself. The other day I completely decided to write it immediately. My whole heart and blood will pour into this novel. I conceived it in hard labor, lying on a bunk, in a difficult moment of sadness and self-destruction...”

As can be seen from the letter, we are talking about a small work - a story. How then did the novel come about? Before the work appeared in the final edition that we are reading, author's intention changed several times.

Early summer of 1865. In dire need of money, Fyodor Mikhailovich proposed an unwritten novel, but in fact, just an idea for a novel, to the journal Otechestvennye zapiski. Dostoevsky asked for an advance of three thousand rubles for this idea from the magazine publisher A. A. Kraevsky, who refused.

Despite the fact that the work itself did not exist, a name had already been invented for it - “Drunken”. Unfortunately, little is known about the concept of Drunken. Only a few scattered sketches dating from 1864 have survived. A letter from Dostoevsky to the publisher has also been preserved, which contains characteristics of the future work. It gives serious reasons to believe that all story line The Marmeladov family was included in “Crime and Punishment” precisely from the unrealized plan of “The Drunken Ones.” Together with them, the broad social background of St. Petersburg entered into the work, as well as the breath of a large epic form. In this work, the author initially wanted to reveal the problem of drunkenness. As the writer emphasized, “not only the question is analyzed, but all its ramifications are presented, mainly pictures of families, raising children in this environment, etc. and so on.”

In connection with the refusal of A. A. Kraevsky, who was in dire need, Dostoevsky was forced to enter into an enslaving agreement with the publisher F. T. Stellovsky, according to which he sold the right to publish for three thousand rubles full meeting of his writings in three volumes and undertook to write for him new novel of at least ten sheets by November 1, 1866.

Germany, Wiesbaden (end of July 1865)

Having received the money, Dostoevsky paid off his debts, and at the end of July 1865 he went abroad. But the money drama didn't end there. During five days in Wiesbaden, Dostoevsky lost everything he owned, including his pocket watch, at roulette. The consequences were not long in coming. Soon the owners of the hotel where he was staying ordered him not to serve him dinner, and a couple of days later they deprived him of light. In a tiny room, without food and without light, “in the most difficult situation,” “burned by some kind of internal fever,” the writer began work on the novel “Crime and Punishment,” which was destined to become one of the most significant works of world literature.

At the beginning of August, Dostoevsky abandoned the plan for “The Drunken Ones” and now wants to write a story with a crime plot - “a psychological report of a crime.” Its idea is this: a poor student decides to kill an old pawnbroker, stupid, greedy, nasty, whom no one will regret. And the student could finish his education, give money to his mother and sister. Then he would go abroad, become an honest man and “made amends for the crime.” Usually, such crimes, Dostoevsky believes, are committed ineptly, and therefore a lot of evidence remains, and the criminals are quickly exposed. But according to his plan, “completely by chance” the crime is successful and the killer spends almost a month at large. But “it is here,” writes Dostoevsky, “that the whole psychological process crimes. Unsolvable questions arise before the killer, unsuspected and unexpected feelings torment his heart... and he ends up being forced to denounce himself.” Dostoevsky wrote in letters that there are a lot of crimes in Lately It is precisely developed, educated young people who do this. This was written about in contemporary newspapers.

Prototypes of Rodion Raskolnikov

Dostoevsky knew about the case Gerasima Chistova. This man, 27 years old, a dissenter by religion, was accused of murdering two old women - a cook and a washerwoman. This crime occurred in Moscow in 1865. Chistov killed the old women in order to rob their mistress, the bourgeois Dubrovina. The bodies were found in different rooms in pools of blood. Money, silver and gold items were stolen from the iron chest. (newspaper “Golos” 1865, September 7-13). Crime chronicles wrote that Chistov killed them with an ax. Dostoevsky knew about other similar crimes.

Another prototype - A. T. Neofitov, Moscow professor general history, relative maternal line Dostoevsky's aunt, merchant A.F. Kumanina and, along with Dostoevsky, one of her heirs. Neophytov was involved in the case of counterfeiters of 5% domestic loan tickets (here Dostoevsky could glean the motive for instant enrichment in Raskolnikov’s mind).

The third prototype is a French criminal Pierre Francois Lacenaire, for whom killing a person was the same as “drinking a glass of wine”; justifying his crimes, Lacenaire wrote poetry and memoirs, proving in them that he was a “victim of society,” an avenger, a fighter against social injustice in the name of revolutionary idea, supposedly suggested to him by utopian socialists (an account of the Lacenaire trial of the 1830s can be found on the pages of Dostoevsky’s journal “Time”, 1861, No. 2).

"Creative Explosion", September 1865

So, in Wiesbaden, Dostoevsky decided to write a story in the form of a criminal’s confession. However, in the second half of September, a “creative explosion” occurs in his work. IN workbook The writer appears in an avalanche-like series of sketches, thanks to which we see that two independent ideas collided in Dostoevsky’s imagination: he decided to combine the plot line of “The Drunk People” and the form of the murderer’s confession. Dostoevsky preferred a new form - a story on behalf of the author - and burned it in November 1865 original version works. This is what he writes to his friend A.E. Wrangel:

“... It would be difficult for me now to describe to you my entire current life and all the circumstances in order to give you a clear understanding of all the reasons for my long silence... Firstly, I sit at work like a convict. This is the one... great novel in 6 parts. At the end of November a lot was written and ready; I burned everything; Now I can admit it. I didn't like it myself. New form, the new plan captivated me, and I started again. I work day and night... A novel is a poetic matter, requiring calmness of spirit and imagination to be executed. And my creditors are tormenting me, that is, they are threatening to put me in prison. I still haven’t settled things with them and I still don’t know for sure whether I will settle them? … Understand my concern. It breaks your spirit and heart... but then sit down and write. Sometimes this is not possible."

"Russian Messenger", 1866

In mid-December 1865, Dostoevsky sent chapters of a new novel to the Russian Messenger. The first part of Crime and Punishment appeared in the January 1866 issue of the magazine, but work on the novel was in full swing. The writer worked intensely and selflessly on his work throughout 1866. The success of the first two parts of the novel inspired and inspired Dostoevsky, and he set to work with even greater zeal.

In the spring of 1866, Dostoevsky planned to go to Dresden, stay there for three months and finish the novel. But numerous creditors did not allow the writer to travel abroad, and in the summer of 1866 he worked in the village of Lublin near Moscow, with his sister Vera Ivanovna Ivanova. At this time, Dostoevsky was forced to think about another novel, which was promised to Stellovsky when concluding an agreement with him in 1865.

In Lublin, Dostoevsky drew up a plan for his new novel, entitled The Gambler, and continued to work on Crime and Punishment. In November and December, the last, sixth, part of the novel and the epilogue were completed, and the Russian Messenger at the end of 1866 completed the publication of Crime and Punishment.

Three notebooks with drafts and notes for the novel have been preserved, essentially three handwritten editions of the novel, which characterize the three stages of the author’s work. Subsequently, all of them were published and made it possible to present the writer’s creative laboratory, his hard work on every word.

Of course, work on the novel also took place in St. Petersburg. Dostoevsky rented an apartment in a large apartment building in Stolyarny Lane. Mostly minor officials, artisans, merchants, and students settled here.

From the very beginning of its emergence, the idea of an “ideological killer” fell apart into two unequal parts: the first - the crime and its causes, and the second, main one - the effect of the crime on the soul of the criminal. The idea of a two-part plan was reflected both in the title of the work - “Crime and Punishment”, and in the features of its structure: of the six parts of the novel, one is devoted to crime and five to influence crime committed per Raskolnikov's soul.

The draft notebooks of Crime and Punishment allow us to trace how long Dostoevsky tried to find an answer to main question novel: why did Raskolnikov decide to kill? The answer to this question was not clear even for the author himself.

In the original plan of the story This is a simple idea: to kill one insignificant, harmful and rich creature in order to make many beautiful, but poor people happy with his money.

In the second edition of the novel Raskolnikov is depicted as a humanist, eager to stand up for the “humiliated and insulted”: “I am not the kind of person to allow a scoundrel defenseless weakness. I'll step in. I want to step in." But the idea of killing because of love for other people, killing a person because of love for humanity, is gradually “overgrown” with Raskolnikov’s desire for power, but he is not yet driven by vanity. He strives to gain power in order to completely devote himself to serving people; he longs to use power only to accomplish good deeds: “I take power, I gain strength - whether it’s money or power - not for the worst. I bring happiness." But in the course of his work, Dostoevsky penetrated deeper and deeper into the soul of his hero, discovering behind the idea of killing for the sake of love for people, power for the sake of good deeds, the strange and incomprehensible “idea of Napoleon” - the idea of power for the sake of power, dividing humanity into two unequal parts: the majority - “creatures” trembling" and the minority - "lords" called upon to rule the minority, standing outside the law and having the right, like Napoleon, to transgress the law in the name of necessary goals.

In the third, final edition Dostoevsky expressed the “ripe”, complete “idea of Napoleon”: “Is it possible to love them? Is it possible to suffer for them? Hatred of humanity..."

Thus, in creative process, in comprehending the concept of “Crime and Punishment,” two opposing ideas collided: the idea of love for people and the idea of contempt for them. Judging by the draft notebooks, Dostoevsky was faced with a choice: either leave one of the ideas, or keep both. But realizing that the disappearance of one of these ideas would impoverish the concept of the novel, Dostoevsky decided to combine both ideas, to portray a person in whom, as Razumikhin says about Raskolnikov in the final text of the novel, “two opposing characters alternately alternate.”

The ending of the novel was also created as a result of intense creative efforts. One of the draft notebooks contains the following entry: “The ending of the novel. Raskolnikov is going to shoot himself.” But this was the finale only for Napoleon's idea. Dostoevsky also sought to create a finale for the “idea of love,” when Christ saves a repentant sinner: “The Vision of Christ. He asks for forgiveness from the people." At the same time, Dostoevsky understood perfectly well that a person like Raskolnikov, who combined two opposite principles, will not accept either the court of his own conscience, or the court of the author, or the legal court. Only one court will be authoritative for Raskolnikov - the “highest court,” the court of Sonechka Marmeladova.

That is why in the third, final edition of the novel, the following entry appeared: “The idea of the novel. Orthodox view, what is Orthodoxy. There is no happiness in comfort; happiness is bought through suffering. This is the law of our planet, but this direct consciousness, felt by the everyday process, is such great joy, which can be paid for with years of suffering. Man is not born for happiness. A person deserves happiness, and always suffering. There is no injustice here, because life’s knowledge and consciousness are acquired by the experience of pros and cons, which must be carried on oneself.” In the drafts, the last line of the novel read: “Inscrutable are the ways in which God finds man.” But Dostoevsky ended the novel with other lines that can serve as an expression of the doubts that tormented the writer.

The history of the creation of the novel “Crime and Punishment” by F. M. Dostoevsky

F.M. Dostoevsky nurtured the idea of the novel “Crime and Punishment” for six years: in October 1859 he wrote to his brother: “In December I will begin a novel... do you remember, I told you about one confession - a novel that I wanted to write after everyone, saying that I still have to go through it myself. The other day I completely decided to write it immediately... My whole heart and blood will pour into this novel. I conceived it in hard labor, lying on a bunk, in a difficult moment..." - judging by the writer’s letters and notebooks, we're talking about It is precisely about the ideas of “Crime and Punishment” - the novel initially existed in the form of Raskolnikov’s confession. In Dostoevsky's draft notebooks there is the following entry: “He killed Aleko. The consciousness that he himself is unworthy of his ideal, which torments his soul. This is crime and punishment” (we are talking about Pushkin’s “Gypsies”).

The final plan is formed as a result of the great upheavals that Dostoevsky experienced, and this plan united two initially different creative ideas.

After the death of his brother, Dostoevsky finds himself in dire financial need. The threat of debtor's prison hangs over him. Throughout the year, Fyodor Mikhailovich was forced to turn to St. Petersburg moneylenders, interest-bearers and other creditors.

In July 1865, he proposed a new work to the editor of Otechestvennye Zapiski, A.A. Kraevsky: “My novel is called “Drunken” and will be in connection with the current issue of drunkenness. Not only the issue is examined, but all its ramifications are presented, mainly paintings families, raising children in this environment, and so on... and so on." Due to financial difficulties, Kraevsky did not accept the proposed novel, and Dostoevsky went abroad to concentrate on creative work, but history repeats itself there: in Wiesbaden, Dostoevsky loses everything at roulette, even his pocket watch.

In September 1865, addressing the publisher M. N. Katkov in the magazine “Russian Bulletin”, Dostoevsky sets out the idea of the novel as follows: “This is a psychological report of a crime. The action is modern, this year. A young man expelled from university students, a tradesman in origin and living in extreme poverty, due to frivolity, due to unsteadiness in concepts, succumbing to some strange, “unfinished” ideas that float in the air, he decided to get out of his bad situation at once... He decided to kill one old woman, a titular councilor who gave money for interest. ... in order to make her mother, who lives in the district, happy, to save her sister, who lives as a companion with some landowners, from the voluptuous claims of the head of this landowner family - claims that threaten her with death, to complete the course, go abroad and then be all her life honest, firm, unswerving in the fulfillment of his “humane duty to humanity”, which, of course, will “make amends for the crime”, if only this act against an old woman who is deaf, stupid, evil and sick, who herself does not know why she lives on light and which in a month, perhaps, would have died of its own accord...

He spends almost a month before the final disaster. There is not and cannot be any suspicion against him. This is where the entire psychological process of the crime unfolds. Unsolvable questions arise before the killer, unsuspected and unexpected feelings torment his heart. God's truth, earthly law takes its toll, and he ends up being forced to denounce himself. Forced to die in hard labor, but to join people again, the feeling of isolation and disconnection from humanity, which he felt immediately after committing the crime, tormented him. The law of truth and human nature took their toll. The criminal himself decides to accept torment in order to atone for his deed..."

Katkov immediately sends the author an advance. F. M. Dostoevsky works on the novel all autumn, but at the end of November he burns all the drafts: “... a lot was written and ready; I burned everything... the new form, the new plan carried me away, and I started again.”

In February 1866, Dostoevsky informed his friend A.E. Wrangel: “Two weeks ago, the first part of my novel was published in the January book of the Russian Messenger. It’s called Crime and Punishment. I’ve already heard a lot of enthusiastic reviews. There are brave and new things".

In the fall of 1866, when “Crime and Punishment” was almost ready, Dostoevsky began again: according to the contract with the publisher Stellovsky, he was supposed to present a new novel by November 1 (we are talking about “The Gambler”), and in case of failure to fulfill the contract, the publisher would have the right for 9 years, “for free and as you please,” print everything that is written by Dostoevsky.

By the beginning of October, Dostoevsky had not yet begun to write The Player, and his friends advised him to turn to the help of shorthand, which at that time was just beginning to come into use. The young stenographer Anna Grigorievna Snitkina, invited by Dostoevsky, was the best student of the St. Petersburg stenography courses; she was distinguished by her extraordinary intelligence, strong character and deep interest in literature. "The Player" was completed on time and delivered to the publisher, and Snitkina soon became the writer's wife and assistant. In November and December 1866, Dostoevsky dictated to Anna Grigorievna the last, sixth part and epilogue of Crime and Punishment, which were published in the December issue of the Russian Messenger magazine, and in March 1867 the novel was published as a separate edition.

Dostoevsky's novel was literally suffered by the author and excites the minds of readers to this day. The history of the creation of the novel “Crime and Punishment” is not simple, but very interesting. The writer put his whole soul into this novel, which many thinking and thinking people and now gives no rest.

Birth of a plan

The idea of writing a novel arose from Dostoevsky at a time when the writer was in hard labor in Omsk. Despite the difficult physical work, due to ill health, the writer continued to observe the life around him, people whose characters, under conditions of imprisonment, were revealed from completely unexpected sides. And here, in hard labor, seriously ill, he decided to write a novel about crime and punishment. However, hard hard labor and serious illness were not given the opportunity to start writing it.

“My whole heart and blood will pour into this novel,”

This is how Dostoevsky imagined working on the work, calling it a confessional novel. However, the author was able to start writing it much later. Between the idea and its implementation, “Notes from the Underground”, “Humiliated and Insulted”, “Notes from dead house" Many themes from these works, the problems of society described in them, found their place in Crime and Punishment.

Between dream and reality

After returning from Omsk financial situation Dostoevsky leaves much to be desired, worsening every day. And writing a huge problematic psychological novel took time.

Trying to earn at least a little money, the writer suggested to the editor of the magazine “Otechestvennye zapiski” to publish a short novel “Drunk People”. The author wanted to attract public attention to drunkenness. The plot was supposed to be connected with the Marmeladov family. The head of the family, a former official who was dismissed from service, becomes an alcoholic, and the whole family suffers.

However, the editor insisted on other conditions: Dostoevsky sold all rights to publish the complete collection of his works for a meager fee. In accordance with the requirements of the editor, the author begins to write a novel, which must be submitted as soon as possible. So almost suddenly the writer began working on the novel “Crime and Punishment.”

Start

Dostoevsky suffered from gambler's disease - he could not help but play. And, having received a fee from the magazine, the writer, having improved his affairs a little, again succumbed to the temptation of gambling. In Wiesbaden he had no money to pay for board and light at the hotel. Thanks only to the kindness of the hotel owners towards him, Dostoevsky did not remain on the street.

To get the money, I had to finish the novel on time, so I had to hurry. The writer decided to tell a story about how a poor student decided to kill and rob an old woman. The plot was supposed to be a story about one crime.

The author has always been interested in the psychology of his heroes, and here it was extremely important to study and describe psychological condition of a person who took the life of another, it was important to reveal the “process of the crime” itself. The writer had almost finished the novel, when suddenly he destroyed the manuscript for a completely unknown reason.

Psychology of creativity

However, the novel had to be submitted to the editor according to the contract. And the hasty work began again. The first part was published by the Russian Messenger magazine already in 1866. The period for writing the novel was ending, and Dostoevsky’s plan was only gaining more and more completeness. The student's story is closely intertwined with the story of the drunkard Marmeladov and his family.

The writer was threatened with creative bondage. To avoid it, the author takes a break from “Crime and Punishment” for 21 days and literally writes a new novel “The Player” in three weeks and submits it to the publishing house.

Then he goes back to writing a lengthy novel about the crime. He studies crime chronicles and makes sure of the relevance of the chosen topic. He finishes the novel in Lublin, where he lives at that time with his sister on the estate. The novel was completely finished and published at the end of 1866.

Diary of working on a novel

It is impossible to study the history of writing a novel without studying the writer’s drafts. Sketches and rough notes help to understand how much effort, work, soul and heart, how many thoughts and ideas the author put into his novel. They show how the concept of the work changed, how the range of tasks expanded, how the entire architecture of the novel’s composition was built.

The writer almost completely changed the form of the narrative in order to understand Raskolnikov’s behavior and character as thoroughly and thoroughly as possible, to understand the motives of his actions and deeds. In the final version (the third), the narration is already conducted in the third person.

So the hero begins to live his own life, and completely independently of the will of the author, does not obey him. Reading the workbooks, it becomes clear how long and painfully Dostoevsky himself tries to understand the motives that pushed the hero to commit a crime, but the author almost failed.

And the writer creates a hero in whom “two opposing characters alternately alternate.” It is clearly visible how in Rodion two extremes, two principles are simultaneously present and fighting each other: contempt for people and love for them.

Therefore, it was very difficult for the author to write the ending of the novel. Dostoevsky first wanted to end with how the hero turned to God. though final version ends completely differently. And this makes the reader think, even after the last page of the novel is turned.

“, like all the works of Dostoevsky, is full of ideas “floating in the air”, facts drawn from reality itself. The author wanted to “search through all the questions in this novel.”

But the theme of the future work did not immediately become clear, and the writer did not immediately settle on a specific plot. On June 8, 1865, Dostoevsky wrote to the editor of the magazine “ Domestic notes"To A.A. Kraevsky: "My novel is called “Drunk People” and will be in connection with the current issue of drunkenness. Not only the question is examined, but all its ramifications are presented, mainly pictures of families, raising children in this environment, etc. and so on. There will be at least twenty sheets, but maybe more.”

Fedor Dostoevsky. Portrait by V. Perov, 1872

However, after some time, the concept of the work, central character which should have become, obviously, Marmeladov, began to occupy the writer less, as he had the idea of writing a story about a representative younger generation. Dostoevsky sought to portray modern youth with its broad public interests, noisy debates on pressing ethical and political issues, with her materialistic and atheistic views, which he characterizes as “moral instability.” In the first half of September 1865, Dostoevsky informed the editor of the Russian Messenger, M. N. Katkov, that he had been working for two months on a story of five to six pages, which he expected to finish in two weeks or a month. This letter outlines not only the main storyline, but also ideological plan works. The draft of this letter is in one of those notebooks that contain rough drafts of Crime and Punishment.

“The idea of the story cannot... contradict your magazine in any way; On the contrary, Dostoevsky tells Katkov. – This is a psychological report of one crime. The action is modern, this year. A young man, expelled from the university students, a philistine by birth and living in extreme poverty, due to frivolity, due to unsteadiness in concepts, succumbing to some strange “unfinished” ideas that were floating in the air, he decided to get out of his bad situation at once. He decided to kill one old woman, a titular councilor who gave money for interest. The old woman is stupid, deaf, sick, greedy, takes Jewish interest, is evil and eats up someone else’s life, tormenting her own workers younger sister. “She’s no good”, “what does she live for?”, “Is she useful to anyone?” etc. – These questions are confusing young man. He decides to kill her, rob her, in order to make his mother, who lives in the district, happy, to save his sister, who lives as a companion with some landowners, from the voluptuous claims of the head of this landowner family - claims that threaten her with death, to finish the course, go abroad and then throughout your life be honest, firm, unswerving in the fulfillment of your “humane duty to humanity,” which, of course, will “make up for the crime.”

Crime and Punishment. Feature Film 1969 1 episode

But after the murder, writes Dostoevsky, “the entire psychological process of the crime unfolds. Unsolvable questions arise before the killer, unsuspected and unexpected feelings torment his heart. God's truth, earthly law takes its toll, and it ends up forced bring it on yourself. Forced to die in hard labor, but to join the people again; the feeling of isolation and disconnection from humanity, which he felt immediately after committing the crime, tormented him. The law of truth and human nature have taken their toll... The criminal himself decides to accept torment in order to atone for his deed...

In my story there is, in addition, a hint of the idea that the imposed legal punishment for a crime frightens the criminal much less than legislators think, partly because he himself his morally demands».

Dostoevsky in this letter emphasizes that under the influence of materialistic and atheistic views (this is what he meant when he spoke of “strange “unfinished” ideas that float in the air”) Raskolnikov reached the point of crime. But at the same time, the author points out here the extreme poverty and hopelessness of the hero’s situation. In the early draft notes there is also the idea that Raskolnikov was pushed to commit a crime by the difficult living conditions of NB. Let's see why I did this, how I decided, here evil spirit. NB (and this is where the analysis of the whole matter begins, anger, poverty) the way out is necessary, and it turns out that I did it logically.”

Crime and Punishment. Feature film 1969 Episode 2

Dostoevsky is working on the story with enthusiasm, hoping that it will be “better than everything” that he wrote. By the end of November 1865, when much had already been written, Dostoevsky felt that the work needed to be structured differently, and he destroyed the manuscript. “I burned everything... I didn’t like it myself,” he wrote on February 18, 1866 to Baron A.E. Wrangel. – The new form, the new plan captivated me, and I started again. I work day and night, and yet I work little” (ibid., p. 430). " New plan“- this is obviously the final plan of the novel, in which not only the theme of Marmeladov (the supposed novel “Drunk”) and the theme of Raskolnikov (the story of the “theoretical crime”) are intertwined, but also Svidrigailov and especially Porfiry Petrovich, which is not mentioned at all in the earliest notebooks.

Dostoevsky at first intended to tell the story on behalf of the hero, to give Raskolnikov’s diary, confession or memories of the murder he committed. In the notebooks there are fragments in which the narration is told in the first person - either in the form of a confession or in the form of a diary. The drafts of Crime and Punishment also contain passages written in the first person, with corrections from the first person to the third. The writer was embarrassed that “confession at other points would be unchaste and difficult to imagine why it was written,” and he abandoned this form. “The story is from myself, not from him. If confession is too much to the last extreme, we need to clarify everything. So that every moment of the story is clear.” “One must assume the author is a being omniscient And infallible, exposing to everyone one of the members of the new generation.”

The novel “Crime and Punishment” was first published in the magazine “Russian Messenger” for 1866 (January, February, April, June, July, August, November and December).

The first was published in 1867 separate edition: "Crime and Punishment. A novel in six parts with an epilogue by F. M. Dostoevsky. Corrected edition." Numerous stylistic corrections and cuts were made in it (for example, Luzhin’s monologue at the wake was significantly shortened, an entire page of Raskolnikov’s arguments about the reasons that prompted Luzhin to slander Sonya was thrown out). But this edit did not change anything ideological content novel, nor the main content of the images.

In 1870, the novel, without additional corrections, was included in Volume IV of Dostoevsky's Collected Works. The last one was published in 1877 lifetime edition novel with minor stylistic corrections and abbreviations.

The manuscript of the novel has not reached us in its entirety. In Russian State Library Small fragments of the manuscript “Crimes and Punishments” are stored, among them there are both early and late versions, the text of which is approaching the final edition.

Dostoevsky's notebooks are kept at TsGALI. Three of them contain notes about the idea and construction of Crime and Punishment, sketches of individual scenes, monologues and remarks of the characters. These materials were partially published by I. I. Glivenko in the magazine “Red Archive”, 1924, volume VII, and then completely in 1931 in a separate book: “From the archive of F. M. Dostoevsky. "Crime and Punishment". Unreleased materials." The earliest entries date back to the second half of 1865, the latest, including a self-commentary to the novel, to the beginning of 1866, that is, by the time the novel was printed.

Birth of a plan

The idea of writing a novel arose from Dostoevsky at a time when the writer was in hard labor in Omsk. Despite the hard physical work and poor health, the writer continued to observe the life around him, people whose characters, under conditions of imprisonment, were revealed from completely unexpected sides. And here, in hard labor, seriously ill, he decided to write a novel about crime and punishment. However, heavy hard labor and serious illness did not make it possible to begin writing it.

“My whole heart and blood will pour into this novel,”

This is how Dostoevsky imagined working on the work, calling it a confessional novel. However, the author was able to start writing it much later. Between the idea and its implementation, “Notes from the Underground”, “Humiliated and Insulted”, “Notes from the House of the Dead” were born. Many themes from these works, the problems of society described in them, found their place in Crime and Punishment.

Between dream and reality

After returning from Omsk, Dostoevsky's financial situation leaves much to be desired, worsening every day. And writing a huge problematic psychological novel took time.

Start

The author was always interested in the psychology of his heroes, and here it was extremely important to study and describe the psychological state of a person who took another’s life, it was important to reveal the “process of the crime” itself. The writer had almost finished the novel, when suddenly he destroyed the manuscript for a completely unknown reason.

Psychology of creativity

Diary of working on a novel

Therefore, it was very difficult for the author to write the ending of the novel. Dostoevsky first wanted to end with how the hero turned to God. However, the final version ends completely differently. And this makes the reader think, even after the last page of the novel is turned.