Classics of Russian Literature | Second Wife and a Great Crime Novel Begins (Chapter 12)

Lecture 12: In the 1860s, Dostoevsky got himself out of a dangerous snare with his publisher, thanks to the help of a young woman stenographer, Anna Grigor’evna Snitkina, who took not only his dictation but also his proposal for marriage. Subsequently, she played no small role in the production of the world’s greatest novels. Dostoevsky was long fascinated by human foibles, especially the habit of alcoholism. He decided to deal with this problem in a novel called P’ianen’kie (The Dear Little Drunkards), but his main character, a certain Marmeladov (notice the jelly in the man’s name) met a young, troubled student named Raskol’nikov (literally, “from among the schismatics”). The resulting murderous and inflamingly introspective journey became the world-famous Crime and Punishment. In the beginning, we see a St. Petersburg quite far from Pushkin’s glorious creation of Peter. We see a crowded tenement, whose banisters are covered with sticky eggshells, and canals that stink when their levels go down in an unusually hot summer.

Suggested Reading:
Fedor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment, Norton Critical Edition of the novel, with commentary by critics espousing different points of view.