The history of the creation of the novel "Crime and Punishment. The creative history of the creation of the novel "Crime and Punishment Dostoevsky Crime and Punishment Conception history of creation

The origins of the work

The origins of the novel go back to the time of F.M.Dostoevsky's hard labor. Initially, Dostoevsky conceived of writing 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 whose influence a change in his former beliefs began.

“In December I will start a novel ... Do you remember, I told you about one confession-novel, which I wanted to write after all, saying that I still have to go through it myself. The other day I completely decided to write it immediately. All my heart will rely with blood on this novel. I conceived it in hard labor, lying on a bunk, in a difficult moment of sadness and self-decay ... "

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

Early summer of 1865. In dire need of money, Fyodor Mikhailovich proposed a novel that had not yet been written, but in fact, just the idea of \u200b\u200ba novel, to the journal Otechestvennye zapiski. Dostoevsky asked for this idea an advance payment of three thousand rubles from the publisher of the magazine 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 idea of \u200b\u200bthe "Drunken". Only a few scattered sketches have survived from 1864. Also preserved is Dostoevsky's letter to the publisher, which contains a description of the future work. It gives serious grounds to believe that the entire storyline of the Marmeladov family was included in Crime and Punishment precisely from the unrealized plan of the Drunkards. Together with them, a broad social Petersburg background, as well as the breath of a large epic form, entered the work. 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 the pictures of families, the upbringing of children in this environment, and so on. and so on. "

In connection with the refusal of A.A.Kraevsky, who was in dire need, Dostoevsky was forced to conclude an onerous contract with the publisher F.T.Stellovsky, according to which, for three thousand rubles, he sold the right to publish the complete collection of his works in three volumes and undertook to write for him a new novel of at least ten sheets by November 1, 1866.

Germany, Wiesbaden (end of July 1865)

Having received the money, Dostoevsky distributed the debts, and at the end of July 1865 he went abroad. But the money drama did not end there. During his five days in Wiesbaden, Dostoevsky played everything he owned at roulette, including his pocket watch. The consequences were not long in coming. Soon the owners of the hotel where he was staying ordered not to serve him meals, and after a couple of days they also deprived him of the light. In a tiny room, without food and without light, "in the most painful 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.

In early August, Dostoevsky abandoned the idea of \u200b\u200b"The Drunken" and now wants to write a novel with a criminal plot - "a psychological account of one crime." Her idea is this: a poor student decides to kill an old money-lender, stupid, greedy, nasty, whom no one will regret. And a student could finish his education, give money to his mother and sister. Then he would go abroad, become an honest man and “atone for the crime”. Usually such crimes, according to Dostoevsky, are committed ineptly, and therefore a lot of evidence remains, and the criminals are quickly exposed. But according to his plan, "in a completely random way" the crime succeeds and the killer spends almost a month at large. But “here,” writes Dostoevsky, “the whole psychological process of crime unfolds. Unsolvable questions arise before the murderer, unsuspecting and unexpected feelings torment his heart ... and he ends up being forced to convey to himself. " Dostoevsky also wrote in his letters that a lot of crimes have recently been committed by developed, educated young people. They wrote about this in contemporary newspapers.

Rodion Raskolnikov's prototypes

Dostoevsky knew about the case Gerasima Chistova... This man, 27 years old, a schismatic by religion, was accused of murdering two old women - a cook and a laundress. This crime took place in Moscow in 1865. Chistov killed the old women with the aim of robbing their mistress, the bourgeois Dubrovina. The bodies were found in various rooms in pools of blood. Money, silver and gold things were stolen from the iron chest. (newspaper "Golos" 1865, September 7-13). Crime chronicles wrote that Chistov killed them with an ax. Dostoevsky also knew about other similar crimes.

Another prototype is A. T. Neofitov, Moscow professor of general history, maternal relative of Dostoevsky's aunt, merchant A.F. Kumanina and, along with Dostoevsky, one of her heirs. Neophytov was involved in the case of forgers of tickets of a 5% internal loan (here Dostoevsky could get the motive of instant enrichment in Raskolnikov's mind).

The third prototype is a French criminal Pierre François Lasener, for whom killing a man was the same as "drinking a glass of wine"; justifying his crimes, Lasener wrote poems and memoirs, proving in them that he was a "victim of society", an avenger, a fighter against social injustice in the name of a revolutionary idea allegedly prompted to him by the utopian socialists (an account of the Lasener trial of the 1830s can be found on the pages Dostoevsky's magazine "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, there is a "creative explosion" in his work. An avalanche-like series of sketches appears in the writer's workbook, thanks to which we see that in Dostoevsky's imagination two independent plans collided: he decided to combine the plot line of "The Drunken" and the form of the murderer's confession. Dostoevsky preferred a new form - a story on behalf of the author - and burned the original version of the work in November 1865. Here is what he writes to his friend A.E. Wrangel:

“... It would be difficult for me now to describe to you all my present life and all the circumstances in order to make you clearly understand all the reasons for my long silence ... First, I am sitting at work like a convict. This is that… big novel in 6 parts. At the end of November a lot was written and ready; I burned everything; now we can admit it. I didn't like it myself. The new form, the new plan carried me along, and I started all over again. I work day and night ... A novel is a poetic affair, requires peace of mind and imagination to fulfill. And creditors torture me, that is, they threaten to put me in prison. I still haven't settled with them and I don't know for sure - will I settle it? … Understand what my concern is. It tears the spirit and heart, ... and then sit down and write. Sometimes this is not possible. "

"Russian Bulletin", 1866

In mid-December 1865, Dostoevsky sent chapters of the new novel to the Russian Bulletin. 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 hard 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 Lublin, Dostoevsky drew up a plan for his new novel, 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 Bulletin at the end of 1866 finished the publication of Crime and Punishment.

Three notebooks with drafts and notes to the novel have survived, in fact, three handwritten editions of the novel, which characterize the three stages of the author's work. Subsequently, they were all published and allowed us to present the writer's creative laboratory, his hard work on every word.

Of course, work on the novel was also carried out in St. Petersburg. Dostoevsky rented an apartment in a large apartment building in Stolyarny Lane. Mainly small officials, artisans, merchants, students settled here.

From the very beginning of its inception, the idea of \u200b\u200ban "ideological killer" fell apart into two unequal parts: the first - the crime and its causes and the second, the main one - the effect of the crime on the soul of the criminal. The idea of \u200b\u200ba two-part concept was reflected in the title of the work - "Crime and Punishment", and on the features of its structure: out of six parts of the novel, one is devoted to crime and five - to the influence of the committed crime on Raskolnikov's soul.

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

In the original concept of the story it is a simple thought: 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, burning with the desire to stand up for the “humiliated and insulted”: “I am not the kind of person to allow the bastard to be defenseless weakness. I will intercede. I want to intervene. " But the idea of \u200b\u200bmurder because of love for other people, murder of a person because of love for humanity, is gradually "overgrown" with Raskolnikov's desire for power, but it is not vanity that drives him. He seeks to gain power in order to fully devote himself to serving people, longs to use power only to perform good deeds: “I take power, I get strength - whether money, power - not for bad. 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 \u200b\u200bmurder for the sake of love for people, power for the sake of good deeds, the strange and incomprehensible "idea of \u200b\u200bNapoleon" - the idea of \u200b\u200bpower for the sake of power, dividing humanity into two unequal parts: the majority is "a creature trembling "and the minority -" masters ", called to govern the minority, standing outside the law and having the right, like Napoleon, to transcend the law for the sake of necessary goals.

In the third, final, edition Dostoevsky expressed the “ripe”, complete “idea of \u200b\u200bNapoleon”: “Can you love them? Can you suffer for them? Hatred of humanity ... "

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 finale of the novel. Raskolnikov is going to shoot himself. " But that was the final only for Napoleon's idea. Dostoevsky, on the other hand, strove to create a finale for the “idea of \u200b\u200blove,” when Christ saves a repentant sinner: “The vision of Christ. He asks the people for forgiveness. " At the same time, Dostoevsky understood perfectly well that a man like Raskolnikov, who combined two opposite principles, would not accept either the judgment of his own conscience, or the judgment of the author, or the legal court. Only one court will be authoritative for Raskolnikov - the "higher court", the court of Sonechka Marmeladova.

That is why the following entry appeared in the third, final edition of the novel: “The idea of \u200b\u200bthe novel. Orthodox view, what is Orthodoxy. There is no happiness in comfort; happiness is bought by suffering. This is the law of our planet, but this immediate consciousness, felt by the everyday process, is such a great joy that can be paid for by years of suffering. Man is not born to be happy. A person deserves happiness, and always suffering. There is no injustice here, because vital knowledge and consciousness is acquired by experience “for” and “against”, which needs to be dragged on oneself ”. In the drafts, the last line of the novel looked like: "Inscrutable are the ways that God finds man." But Dostoevsky ended the novel with other lines that may 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

"Crime and Punishment", the history of the creation of which lasted almost 7 years, is one of the most famous novels by Fyodor Dostoevsky both in Russia and abroad. In this creation, the classic of Russian literature, as never before, revealed his talent as a psychologist and connoisseur of human souls. What prompted Dostoevsky to write a work about a murderer, and this topic is not typical of the literature of that time?

Fyodor Dostoevsky - master of the psychological novel

The writer was born on November 11, 1821 in the city of Moscow. His father, Mikhail Andreevich, was a nobleman, court counselor, and his mother, Maria Fedorovna, came from a merchant family.

There was everything in the life of Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky: loud fame and poverty, dark days in the Peter and Paul Fortress and long-term hard labor, addiction to gambling and conversion to the Christian faith. Even during the life of the writer, such an epithet as "genius" was applied to his work.

Dostoevsky died at the age of 59 from pulmonary emphysema. He left behind a huge legacy - novels, poems, diaries, letters, etc. In Russian literature, Fyodor Mikhailovich is assigned the place of the chief psychologist and expert on human souls. Some literary critics (for example, Maxim Gorky), especially of the Soviet period, called Dostoevsky an "evil genius" because they believed that the writer defended "incorrect" political views in his works - conservative and even monarchist at some point in his life. However, one can argue with this: Dostoevsky's novels are not political, but they are always deeply psychological, their goal is to show the human soul and life itself as it is. And the work "Crime and Punishment" is the most striking confirmation of this.

The history of the creation of the novel "Crime and Punishment"

Fyodor Dostoevsky in 1850 was sent to hard labor in Omsk. "Crime and Punishment", the story of which began there, was first published in 1866, and before that the writer had to go through not the best days in his life.

In 1854, the writer was freed. Dostoevsky wrote in a letter to his brother in 1859 that the idea of \u200b\u200ba certain confession novel came to him when he was lying on a dirty bunk back in the 50s and was experiencing the most difficult moments in his life. But he was in no hurry to start this work, because he was not even sure that he would survive.

And so, in 1865, Dostoevsky Fyodor Mikhailovich, in dire need of money, signs an agreement with one publisher, under which he undertakes to submit a new novel by November 1866. Having received a fee, the writer improved his affairs, but his addiction to roulette played a cruel joke on him: he lost all the remaining money in Wiesbaden, the hotel owners did not evict him, but they stopped feeding and even turned off the light in the room. It was in these conditions that Dostoevsky began Crime and Punishment.

The story of the creation of the novel was nearing completion: the deadlines were running out - the author worked in a hotel, on a steamer, on his way home to St. Petersburg. He practically finished the novel, and then ... took and burned the manuscript.

Dostoevsky began his work anew, and while the first two parts of the work were being published and the whole of Petersburg was being read by them, he was rapidly creating the remaining three, including the epilogue.

"Crime and Punishment" - the theme of the novel is clearly visible already in the title of the work.

The main character, Rodion Raskolnikov, decides to murder and rob an old usurer. On the one hand, the young man justifies his action by the fact that he and his family are in need. Rodion feels responsible for the fate of loved ones, but in order to help his sister and mother with at least something, he needs a large amount of money. On the other hand, murder remains an immoral and sinful act.

Rodion successfully commits the intended crime. But in the second part of the novel, he faces a problem more serious than poverty - his conscience begins to torment him. He becomes nervous, it seems to him that everyone around him knows about his action. As a result, Rodion begins to get seriously ill. After recovering, the young man seriously thinks about surrendering to the authorities. But his acquaintance with Sonya Marmeladova, as well as the arrival of his mother and sister in the city, for a while make him abandon this venture.

Three suitors are claiming the hand of Rodion's sister, Dunya, at once: court councilor Pyotr Luzhin, landowner Svidrigailov and Rodion's friend Razumikhin. Rodion and Razumikhin manage to upset the planned wedding of Dunya and Luzhin, but the latter leaves angry and thinks about

Rodion Raskolnikov becomes more and more attached to Sonya Marmeladova, the daughter of his late friend. They talk with the girl about life, spend time together.

But a black cloud hangs over Rodion - there were witnesses who confirmed at the police station that recently Raskolnikov often went to the murdered usurer. The young man is still released from the police station, but he remains the main suspect.

The most important events of the novel "Crime and Punishment" in chapters fall on the 5th part of the work and the epilogue.

The offended Luzhin tries to frame Sonya Marmeladova, passing her off as a thief and thus quarreling with Raskolnikov. However, his plan fails, but Rodion does not stand up and confesses to Sonya in the perfect murder.

An outsider takes the blame for Raskolnikov's crime, but the investigator is sure that it was Rodion who committed the crime, therefore he visits the young man and tries to convince him to confess again.

At this time, Svidrigailov is trying to get Dunya's favor by force, a frightened girl shoots him with a revolver. When the weapon misfires, and Dunya convinces the landowner that she does not love him, Svidrigailov lets the girl go. Having donated 15 thousand to Sonya Marmeladova and 3 thousand to the Raskolnikov family, the landowner commits suicide.

Rodion confesses to the murder of the usurer and receives 8 years of hard labor in Siberia. Sonya goes into exile after him. The former life for a former student is over, but thanks to the girl's love, he feels like a new stage in his life begins.

The image of Rodion Raskolnikov

In the novel "Crime and Punishment", the characterization of Rodion Raskolnikov and the assessment of his actions by the author himself is ambiguous.

The young man is handsome, smart enough, one might say, ambitious. But the life situation in which he found himself, or rather the social situation, does not allow him not only to realize his talents, but even to finish his studies at the university, find a decent job. His sister is about to "sell herself" to an unloved person (marry Luzhin for the sake of his fortune). Raskolnikov's mother is in poverty, and her beloved girl is forced into prostitution. And Rodion sees no way to help them and himself, except to get a large amount of money. But the idea of \u200b\u200binstant enrichment can only be realized with the help of robbery (in this case, it also entailed murder).

According to morality, Raskolnikov had no right to take the life of another person, and reasoning that the old woman did not have long to live anyway, or that she had no right to "Jew" on the grief of other people is not an excuse and not a reason for murder. But Raskolnikov, although he is tormented by his act, considers himself to be innocent to the last: he explains his actions by the fact that at that moment he thought only about how to help loved ones.

Sonya Marmeladova

In the novel "Crime and Punishment", the description of Sonya's image is as contradictory as that of Raskolnikov: the reader immediately recognizes them

Sonya is kind and in a sense selfless, this is evident from her actions in relation to other people. The girl reads the Gospel, but at the same time is a prostitute. A devout prostitute - what could be more paradoxical?

However, Sonya is engaged in this trade not because she has a craving for debauchery - this is the only way for an uneducated attractive girl to earn a living, and not only for herself, but also for her large family: her stepmother Katerina Ivanovna and her three half-brothers and sisters. As a result, Sonya is the only one who went to Siberia after Rodion to support him in difficult times.

Such paradoxical images are the basis of Dostoevsky's realism, because in the real world things cannot be only black or only white, like people. Therefore, a girl with a pure soul in certain life circumstances can engage in such a dirty trade, and a young man of noble spirit can decide to kill.

Arkady Svidrigailov

Arkady Svidrigailov is another character in the novel (a 50-year-old landowner) who literally duplicates Raskolnikov in many aspects. This is not an accident, but a technique chosen by the author. What is its essence?

“Crime and Punishment” is filled with ambiguous images, perhaps to show that many people have equally positive and negative traits, can walk the same paths in life, but they always choose the outcome of their lives.

Arkady Svidrigailov is a widower. Even with his wife alive, he harassed Raskolnikov's sister, who was in their service. When his wife, Marfa Petrovna, died, the landowner came to ask for the hand of Avdotya Raskolnikova.

Svidrigailov has many sins behind him: he is suspected of murder, violence and debauchery. But this does not prevent the man from becoming the only person who took care of the family of the late Marmeladov, not only in a financial sense, but even placed the children in an orphanage after the death of their mother. Svidrigailov in a barbaric way tries to win over Dunya, but at the same time he is deeply wounded by the girl's dislike and he commits suicide, leaving Raskolnikov's sister an impressive amount of inheritance. Nobility and cruelty in this man are combined in their bizarre patterns, as in Raskolnikov.

P.P. Luzhin in the system of images of the novel

Pyotr Petrovich Luzhin ("Crime and Punishment") is another "double" of Raskolnikov. Raskolnikov, before committing a crime, compares himself to Napoleon, and so Luzhin is the Napoleon of his time in its purest form: unprincipled, caring only about himself, striving to amass capital at any cost. Perhaps that is why Raskolnikov hates a successful fellow: after all, Rodion himself believed that for the sake of his own prosperity, he had the right to kill a person whose fate seemed less important to him.

Luzhin (Crime and Punishment) is very straightforward, like a character, caricatured and devoid of the inconsistency inherent in Dostoevsky's heroes. It can be assumed that the writer deliberately made Peter just like that, so that he became a clear personification of the bourgeois permissiveness that played such a cruel joke with Raskolnikov himself.

Publications of the novel abroad

"Crime and Punishment", the history of which took more than 6 years, was highly appreciated by foreign publications. In 1866, several chapters from the novel were translated into French and published in the Courrier russe.

In Germany, the work was published under the name "Raskolnikov" and by 1895 its published circulation was 2 times more than any other work of Dostoevsky.

At the beginning of the XX century. the novel Crime and Punishment has been translated into Polish, Czech, Italian, Serbian, Catalan, Lithuanian, etc.

Adaptation of the novel

The heroes of the novel "Crime and Punishment" are so colorful and interesting that they have often taken on the adaptation of the novel both in Russia and abroad. The first film - "Crime and Punishment" - appeared in Russia in 1909 (directed by Vasily Goncharov). This was followed by film adaptations in 1911, 1913, 1915.

In 1917 the world saw a picture of the American director Lawrence McGill, in 1923 the film Raskolnikov was released by the German director Robert Wienet.

After that, about 14 more adaptations were filmed in different countries. The most recent Russian work was the 2007 multi-part film Crime and Punishment (directed by Dmitry Svetozarov).

Romance in popular culture

In the movies, Dostoevsky's novel often flickers in the hands of the heroes serving imprisonment: in the movie The Incredible Adventures of Wallace and Gromit: A Haircut to Zero, TV Movie The Wolf, Desperate Housewives, etc.

In the computer game "Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishments" in one of the episodes, the book with the title of Dostoevsky's novel is clearly visible in Sherlock Holmes's hands, and in the game GTA IV "Crime and Punishment" is the name of one of the missions.

Raskolnikov House in St. Petersburg

There is an assumption that Dostoevsky Fyodor Mikhailovich settled his hero in a house that actually exists in St. Petersburg. The researchers made such conclusions, since Dostoevsky mentions in the novel: he is in the "S-m" lane, next to the "K-m" bridge. At Stolyarny Lane-5, there really is a house that could well serve as a prototype for the novel. Today this building is one of the most visited tourist spots in St. Petersburg.

The concept of the novel

Objective reality, the living conditions of people living in the first half of the nineteenth century, are closely related to the history of the creation of Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. In the work, the writer tried to present his reflections on the urgent problems of contemporary society. He calls the book a novel - a confession. “My whole heart will rely with blood on this novel,” the author dreams.
The desire to write a work of this kind appeared in Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky in hard labor in Omsk. The hard life of a convict, physical fatigue did not prevent him from observing life and analyzing what was happening. Being convicted, he decided to create a novel about a crime, but he did not dare to start work on the book. A serious illness did not allow making plans and took away all moral and physical strength. The writer managed to bring his idea to life only after a few years. Over the years, several other well-known works were created: "Humiliated and Insulted", "Notes from the Underground", "Notes from the House of the Dead".

The problems raised in these novels will be reflected in Crime and Punishment.

Dreams and cruel reality

Life unceremoniously interfered with Dostoevsky's plans. The creation of a great novel took time, and the financial situation deteriorated every day. To earn money, the writer suggested that the Otechestvennye Zapiski magazine publish a short novel, Drunken. In this book, he planned to draw public attention to the problem of drunkenness. The storyline of the narrative was to be connected with the stories of the Marmeladov family. The main character is an unfortunate drunken official, dismissed from service. The editor of the magazine put forward other conditions. The hopeless situation forced the writer to agree to sell the rights to publish the complete collection of his works for a negligible price and, at the request of the editors, write a new novel in a short time. So, all of a sudden, the rushed work on the novel Crime and Punishment began.

Getting started on a work

Having signed the contract with the publishing house, FM Dostoevsky managed to improve his affairs at the expense of the fee, relaxed and succumbed to temptation. A keen gambler, he failed this time to cope with his illness. The result was disastrous. The remaining money is lost. Living in a hotel in Wiesbaden, he could not pay for the light and table, he did not find himself on the street only by the mercy of the hotel owners. To finish the novel on time, Dostoevsky had to hurry. The author decided to briefly tell the story of one crime. The main character is a poor student who decided to murder and rob. The writer is interested in the psychological state of a person, the "process of crime."

The plot moved to a denouement when, for some unknown reason, the manuscript was destroyed.

Creative process

The feverish work began anew. And in 1866 the first part was published in the journal "Russian Bulletin". The time allotted for the creation of the novel was coming to an end, and the writer's plan was only expanding. The life story of the protagonist is harmoniously intertwined with the story of Marmeladov. To satisfy the customer's requirements and avoid creative bondage, F.M.Dostoevsky interrupts work for 21 days. During this time, he creates a new work called "The Gambler", gives it to the publisher and returns to the creation of "Crime and Punishment". The study of criminal chronicles convinces the reader of the urgency of the problem. “I am convinced that my subject partly justifies the present,” Dostoevsky wrote. Newspapers reported that there were more cases when young educated people like Rodion Raskolnikov became murderers. The printed parts of the novel were a great success. This inspired Dostoevsky, charged him with creative energy. He is finishing his book in Lublin, on his sister's estate. By the end of 1866, the novel was completed and published in the Russian Bulletin.

Diary of hard work

The study of the history of the creation of the novel "Crime and Punishment" is impossible without the writer's rough notes. They make it possible to understand how much labor and painstaking work on the word has been invested in the work. The creative concept changed, the range of problems expanded, the composition was rebuilt. In order to better understand the character of the hero, in the motives of his actions, Dostoevsky changes the form of the narrative. In the final third edition, the story is told from the third person. The writer preferred "a story from himself, not from him." It seems that the main character lives his own independent life and does not obey his creator. Workbooks tell how painfully long the writer himself is trying to understand the motives of Raskolnikov's crime. Not finding an answer, the author decided to create a hero in which "two opposite characters alternately change." In Raskolnikov, two principles are constantly fighting: love for people and contempt for them. It was not easy for Dostoevsky to write the finale of his work. “Inscrutable are the ways in which God finds man,” we read in the writer's draft, but the novel itself ends differently. It keeps us thinking, even after the last page has been read.

The origins of the novel go back to the time of F.M. Dostoevsky. On October 9, 1859, he wrote to his brother from Tver: “In December I will start a novel ... Do you remember, I told you about one confession-novel that I wanted to write after all, saying that I still have to go through it myself. The other day I completely decided to write it immediately. All my heart will rely with blood on this novel. I conceived it in hard labor, lying on a bunk, in a difficult moment of sadness and self-decomposition ... ”Initially, Dostoevsky conceived 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 whose influence a change in his former beliefs began.

Dostoevsky nurtured the idea of \u200b\u200bhis 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, the main theme of which was the stories of poor people and their rebellion against existing reality. On June 8, 1865, Dostoevsky proposed to A.A. Kraevsky for the "Notes of the Fatherland" his new novel called "Drunken". But Kraevsky answered the writer with a refusal, which he explained by the fact that the editorial office had no money. On July 2, 1865, in dire need, Dostoevsky was forced to conclude an agreement with the publisher F.T. Stellovsky. For the same money that Kraevsky refused to pay for the novel, Dostoevsky sold Stellovsky the right to publish the complete collected works in three volumes and undertook to write for him a new novel of at least ten pages by November 1, 1866.

Having received the money, Dostoevsky distributed the debts and at the end of July 1865 went abroad. But the money drama did not end there. During his five days in Wiesbaden, Dostoevsky played everything he owned at roulette, including his pocket watch. The consequences were not long in coming. Soon the owners of the hotel where he was staying ordered not to serve him meals, and after a couple of days they also deprived him of the light. In a tiny room, without food and without light, "in the most painful 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.

In September 1865, Dostoevsky decided to offer his new story to the Russian Bulletin magazine. In a letter to the publisher of this magazine, the writer said that the idea of \u200b\u200bhis new work would be “a psychological account of one crime”: “The action is modern, this year, a young man expelled from university students, a philistine by origin and living in extreme poverty, out of frivolity, because of instability in concepts, succumbing to some strange, "unfinished" ideas that are in the air, he decided to get out of his bad situation at once. He decided to kill an old woman, a titular counselor who gives money for interest. The old woman is stupid, deaf, sick, greedy, takes Jewish interest, evil and seizes someone else's age, torturing her younger sister in her workers. "She's useless for anywhere", "what does she live for?", "Is she useful to at least someone?" and so on - these questions confuse the 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 in companions with some landowners, from the voluptuous claims of the head of this landowner family - claims that threaten her with death - to complete the course, to go for border and then all my life to be honest, firm and unswerving in the fulfillment of the "humane duty to humanity" - which, of course, will "ameliorate the crime", if only one can call this act of a deaf, stupid, evil and sick old woman knows why he lives in the world, and which in a month, perhaps, would have died by itself ... "

According to Dostoevsky, in his work there is an allusion to the idea that the imposed legal punishment for a crime frightens the criminal much less than the guardians of the law think, mainly because he himself morally demands this punishment. Dostoevsky set the goal of clearly expressing this idea using the example of a young man - a representative of a new generation. According to the author, materials for the history underlying the Crime and Punishment novel could be found in any newspaper published at that time. Dostoevsky was sure that the plot of his work in part justified the present.

The plot of the novel "Crime and Punishment" was originally conceived by the writer as a short story of five to six printed sheets. The last plot (the story of the Marmeladov family) eventually entered the story of Raskolnikov's crime and punishment. From the very beginning of its inception, the idea of \u200b\u200ban "ideological killer" fell into two unequal parts: the first, the crime and its causes, and the second, the main one, the effect of the crime on the soul of the criminal. The idea of \u200b\u200ba two-part concept was reflected in the title of the work - "Crime and Punishment", and on the features of its structure: out of six parts of the novel, one is devoted to crime and five - to the influence of the committed crime on Raskolnikov's soul.

Dostoevsky worked hard on the plan for his new work in Wiesbaden, and later on the ship, when he was returning from Copenhagen, where he was staying with one of his Semipalatinsk friends, to Petersburg, and then in Petersburg itself. In the city on the Neva, the story imperceptibly grew into a large novel, and Dostoevsky, when the work was almost ready, burned it and decided to start over. In mid-December 1865, he sent chapters of a new novel to the Russian Bulletin. 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 hard 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 leave for 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 at the conclusion of an agreement with him in 1865. In Lublin, Dostoevsky drew up a plan for his new novel, 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 Bulletin at the end of 1866 finished the publication of Crime and Punishment. Three notebooks with drafts and notes to the novel have survived, essentially three handwritten editions of the novel, which characterize the three stages of the author's work. Subsequently, they were all published and allowed us to present the writer's creative laboratory, his hard work on every word.

The Wiesbaden "story", like the second edition, was conceived by the writer in the form of a confession of a criminal, but in the process of work, when the material of the novel "Drunken" was added to the confession and the plan became more complicated, the old form of confession on behalf of the murderer, who actually cut himself off from the world and deepened into his "immobile" idea, became too close for a new psychological content. Dostoevsky preferred a new form - a story on behalf of the author - and burned the original version of the work in 1865.

An important note appeared in the third, final edition: “The story is from oneself, not from him. If it’s a confession, then it’s too extreme, you need to understand everything. So that every moment of the story is clear ... "The draft notebooks" Crime and Punishment "allow us to trace how long Dostoevsky tried to find the answer to the main question of the novel: why did Raskolnikov decide to kill? The answer to this question was not unambiguous for the author himself. In the initial idea of \u200b\u200bthe 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 the scoundrel to be defenseless weakness. I will intercede. I want to intervene. " But the idea of \u200b\u200bmurder because of love for other people, murder of a person because of love for humanity, is gradually "overgrown" with Raskolnikov's desire for power, but it is not vanity that drives him. He seeks to gain power in order to fully devote himself to serving people, longs to use power only to perform good deeds: “I take power, I get strength - whether money, power - not for bad. 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 \u200b\u200bmurder for the sake of love for people, power for the sake of good deeds, the strange and incomprehensible “idea of \u200b\u200bNapoleon” - the idea of \u200b\u200bpower for the sake of power, dividing humanity into two unequal parts: the majority is “a creature trembling "and the minority -" masters ", called to govern the minority, standing outside the law and having the right, like Napoleon, to transcend the law for the sake of necessary goals. In the third, final version, Dostoevsky expressed the “ripe”, complete “Napoleon's idea”: “Can you love them? Can you suffer for them? Hatred of humanity ... "

Thus, in the creative process, in comprehending the concept of "Crime and Punishment", two opposite ideas collided: the idea of \u200b\u200blove for people and the idea of \u200b\u200bcontempt for them. Judging by the draft notebooks, Dostoevsky faced a choice: either to keep one of the ideas, or to keep both. But realizing that the disappearance of one of these ideas would impoverish the plot of the novel, Dostoevsky decided to combine both ideas, to depict a person in whom, as Razumikhin says about Raskolnikov in the final text of the novel, “two opposite characters alternately change”. The ending of the novel was also created through intense creative efforts. One of the draft notebooks contains the following entry: “The finale of the novel. Raskolnikov is going to shoot himself. " But this was the final only for Napoleon's idea. Dostoevsky, on the other hand, strove to create a finale for the “idea of \u200b\u200blove,” when Christ saves a repentant sinner: “The vision of Christ. He asks the people for forgiveness. " At the same time, Dostoevsky understood perfectly well that a person like Raskolnikov, who combined two opposite principles, would not accept either the judgment of his own conscience, or the judgment of the author, or the legal court. Only one court will be authoritative for Raskolnikov - the "higher court", the court of Sonechka Marmeladova, the very "humiliated and insulted" Sonechka, in whose name he committed the murder. That is why the following entry appeared in the third, final edition of the novel: “The idea of \u200b\u200bthe novel. I. Orthodox view, what is Orthodoxy. There is no happiness in comfort; happiness is bought by suffering. This is the law of our planet, but this immediate consciousness, felt by the everyday process, is such a great joy that can be paid for by years of suffering. Man is not born to be happy. A person deserves happiness, and always suffering. There is no injustice here, because vital knowledge and consciousness is acquired by experience "for" and "against", which must be dragged on oneself. " In the drafts, the last line of the novel looked like: "Inscrutable are the ways that God finds man." But Dostoevsky ended the novel with other lines that could serve as an expression of the doubts that tormented the writer.

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FM Dostoevsky nurtured the idea of \u200b\u200bthe 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 all, saying that I still have to go through it myself. The other day I completely decided to write it immediately. All my heart will rely with blood on 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 are talking precisely about the ideas of" Crime and Punishment "-

The novel originally existed in the form of Raskolnikov's confession. Dostoevsky's rough notebooks contain the following entry: “Aleko killed. The awareness that he himself is not worthy of his ideal, which torments his soul. Here is a crime and punishment ”(we are talking about Pushkin's“ Gypsies ”).

The final plan is formed as a result of the great upheavals that Dostoevsky went through, and this plan combined two originally different creative ideas.

After the death of his brother, Dostoevsky finds himself in dire material need. The threat of a debt prison hangs over him. All year Fyodor Mikhailovich was forced to turn to St. Petersburg

Usurers, interest holders and other creditors.

In July 1865, he offered the editor of Otechestvennye zapiski, AA Kraevsky, a new work: “My novel is called“ Drunken ”and will be in connection with the current question of drunkenness. Not only the question is sorted out, but all its ramifications are presented, mainly the pictures of families, the upbringing of 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 away from creditors, but even there history repeats itself: in Wiesbaden, Dostoevsky loses everything at roulette, right down to his pocket watch.

In September 1865, addressing the publisher MN Katkov to the Russian Bulletin magazine, Dostoevsky expounded the novel's intention as follows: “This is a psychological account of one crime. The action is modern this year. A young man expelled from university students, a philistine by birth and living in extreme poverty, out of frivolity, out of shakiness in concepts, succumbing to some strange, "unfinished" ideas that are floating in the air, decided to get out of his bad situation at once. He decided to kill an old woman, a titular counselor who gives money for interest. in order to make her mother, who lives in the district, happy, to save her sister, who lives in companions with some landowners, from the voluptuous claims of the head of this landlord family - claims that threaten her with death, to finish the course, go abroad and then be honest, firm all my life , unswerving in the fulfillment of “humane duty to humanity”, which will, of course, “obliterate the crime”, if you can only call this act a crime against an old deaf, stupid, evil and sick woman, who herself does not know why she lives in the world and who in a month, perhaps, she would have died of herself.

He spends almost a month before the final disaster. There is no suspicion of him and cannot be. This is where the entire psychological process of crime unfolds. Unsolvable questions rise up before the killer, unsuspecting and unexpected feelings torment his heart. God's truth, the earthly law takes its toll, and he ends up being forced to convey to himself. Compelled, though to die in hard labor, but to join people again, the feeling of openness and separation from humanity, which he felt immediately after the crime was committed, tortured him. The law of truth and human nature took their toll. The offender himself decides to accept torture in order to atone for his cause. "

Katkov immediately sends the author an advance. FM Dostoevsky has been working on the novel all autumn, but at the end of November he burns all the drafts: “. much has been written and ready; I burned everything. a new form, a new plan carried me away, and I started over again. "

In February 1866, Dostoevsky informs his friend AE Wrangel: “About two weeks ago the first part of my novel was published in the January book of the Russian Bulletin. It is called "Crime and Punishment". I've heard a lot of rave reviews already. There are bold and new things there. ”

In the fall of 1866, when Crime and Punishment is almost ready, Dostoevsky begins again: under a contract with the publisher Stellovsky, he was supposed to submit a new novel by November 1 (we are already talking about The Gambler), and in case of failure to fulfill the contract, the publisher will be entitled for 9 years “for free and as it pleases” to publish everything that will be written by Dostoevsky.

By the beginning of October, Dostoevsky had not yet begun writing The Gambler, and his friends advise him to turn to the help of shorthand, which at that time was just beginning to enter life. The young stenographer Anna Grigorievna Snitkina, invited by Dostoevsky, was the best student of the St. Petersburg stenography courses, she was distinguished by an outstanding intelligence, a strong character and a deep interest in literature. The Gambler was completed on time and handed over to the publisher, and Snitkina soon becomes the wife and assistant of the writer. In November and December 1866, Dostoevsky dictated to Anna Grigorievna the last, sixth part and the epilogue "Crime and Punishment", which were published in the December issue of the magazine "Russian Bulletin", and in March 1867 the novel was published as a separate edition.

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