Line UMK ed. T. F. Kurdyumova. Literature (5-9)

Literature

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

History of the creation of the novel "Crime and Punishment"

Origins of the novel

In 1850, Dostoevsky was sent to hard labor in Omsk. It was this difficult experience that became the moment of the birth of the idea of the novel "Crime and Punishment". Later, Fyodor Mikhailovich wrote to his brother: “Don’t you remember, I told you about one confession-novel that I wanted to write after everyone else, saying that I still had to go through it myself. The other day I made up my mind to write it at once. All my heart with blood will rely on this novel. I conceived it in hard labor, lying on the bunk, in a difficult moment of sadness and self-destruction ... ". Reflecting on the novel, the writer was going to build a narrative in the form of a confessional on behalf of the protagonist. All anxieties, torments, mental rushes, hard labor experience were to become the basis of the work. But the emphasis was placed not only on the deep personal experiences of Rodion Raskolnikov, but also on the behavior and personalities of other characters - strong, who corrected the hero's long-standing convictions.

Illustration by D. Shmarinov

physical fatigue, Difficult life the exiled convict was not allowed to start the work in Omsk. However, the writer has already carefully considered the plot of the future work. Not only a crime, not only a punishment, but the whole life of the people of the nineteenth century in its undisguised and sometimes unsightly reality: “My whole heart will be put with blood into this novel.” Despite the fact that the idea of the book was nurtured for several years, the main idea of an ordinary and extraordinary person was born only in 1863 in Italy.

For six long years, while the novel "Crime and Punishment" was only an idea, Dostoevsky wrote several works: "Humiliated and Insulted", "Notes from the House of the Dead" and "Notes from the Underground". All books told about the fate of the poor and their confrontation with harsh reality. On June 8, 1865, Fyodor Mikhailovich offered his novel The Drunk Ones to the publisher of the Otechestvennye Zapiski magazine, A.A. Kraevsky. It was in this work that the characters of the Marmeladov family appeared. However, the writer was refused. In dire need of money, Dostoevsky entered into an agreement with another publisher on difficult terms for him: he gave the rights to his collected works in three volumes and undertook to write new novel by the first of November of the following year.

"Two giants", "lumps", "giants", "two geniuses of the golden age of Russian culture", " greatest writers throughout the history of culture. So called contemporaries of two great Russian writers - Fyodor Dostoevsky and Leo Tolstoy. And these high ranks are still preserved for them: no one has ever competed with them.

Beginning of work

Having made a deal, Dostoevsky paid off his creditors and went abroad. But, being a gambler, in just five days the writer lost all his money and again found himself in a difficult position. In the place where he then stopped (Wiesbaden, Germany), due to the fact that the guest turned out to be insolvent, the owners of the hotel refused him first meals, and then light. This is where the time came to create a novel: in the absence of light and food, Dostoevsky began to work on a book that would become one of the greatest in world literature.

In order to have time to finish the novel by the deadline, Dostoevsky had to work very hastily. About his work, he writes that it is "a psychological report of one crime." It was here, in the hotel, that the idea of the novel changed - it was no longer just a confession of a person who committed a crime. The writer added the already once invented and described events about the difficult fate of one family - this is how the story of Marmeladov appeared in the novel "Crime and Punishment". As a result, the author himself became the narrator, and not the killer character.

It is believed that the plot about the murder of an old pawnbroker with an ax was suggested to the writer by a real crime. In January 1865, twenty-seven-year-old Moscow resident Gerasim Chistov, a schismatic in his religious beliefs, killed two elderly women with an ax and stole valuables and money. It is known that Dostoevsky was familiar with the report on this case and, apparently, took the history of this crime as a basis. The author explained the reason for the murder committed by Raskolnikov simply: the old woman was stupid and evil, useless to anyone, and her money could save the relatives and friends of the young man.

The writing process

In November 1865, Dostoevsky recognized the written material as unusable and destroyed the notes, starting to write again. Now a new idea has been added to the old ideas. Raskolnikov not only wants to kill and rob an old woman, by his act he literally wants to benefit others: “I am not the kind of person to allow defenseless weakness to a bastard. I will intervene. I want to step in."

Since the deadline for submitting the work to the publisher approached, and the novel was not ready, Dostoevsky interrupted to write his other novel, The Gambler. Having thus fulfilled the promise given to the publisher, Fyodor Mikhailovich again returns to Crime and Punishment. A month later, the writer presented the opening pages of the novel to M. Katkov, the publisher of the Russian Messenger magazine, and then sent the novel in parts as it was written. In 1866, the Russian Messenger published the first part of the book.

Illustration by D. Shmarinov

The articles published in the magazine were very popular with the readers. The novel was being written in Russia at the sister's estate near Moscow. By the end of the year, the work was completed. In the workbooks of Fyodor Mikhailovich, there are many entries that make it possible to comprehend the full depth of the author's thoughts and torments. The writer chose whether to leave the duality of character to Raskolnikov or not. Deciding that the hero in his "throws" is more complete, Dostoevsky focused on changing the characters and views of the young man. It was in the final version of the novel that the very Napoleonic idea of \u200b\u200b"trembling creatures" and "lords" appeared. Now Raskolnikov is no longer just a savior, but also a conceited man, hungry for power: “I take power, I get power - whether money, power or not for evil. I bring happiness."

A character like Raskolnikov could not simply end up with self-forgiveness, trial, or suicide. Dostoevsky wanted to create the finale of God's salvation of the repentant sinner. However, the representative of such a higher court was not Christ, but a man - Sonechka Marmeladova. In the last edition of the novel, Dostoevsky wrote: “The idea of the novel. I. Orthodox view, in which there is Orthodoxy. There is no happiness in comfort, happiness is bought by suffering. This is the law of our planet, but this direct consciousness, felt by the everyday process, is such a great joy that you can pay for years of suffering. Man is not born to be happy. Man deserves happiness, and always suffering. There is no injustice here, because the knowledge of life and consciousness is acquired by the experience of "for" and "against", which must be dragged on oneself. And the work was supposed to end with the words: "Inscrutable are the ways in which God finds man." However, as we know, Crime and Punishment ends with completely different lines.

"Two giants", "lumps", "giants", "two geniuses of the golden age of Russian culture", "the greatest writers in the history of culture". So called contemporaries of two great Russian writers - Fyodor Dostoevsky and Leo Tolstoy. And these high ranks are still preserved for them: no one has ever competed with them.

The result of writing a novel for Dostoevsky

The reaction of contemporaries

Dostoevsky's collaboration with Russkiy vestnik began in an unusual way. After the writer sent the outline of the novel to Katkov, the publisher sent an advance payment to Wiesbaden without any clarification. By that time, Dostoevsky had already left the city, never having received the money on time. Further, the writer sent the first sheets of "Crime and Punishment", but did not receive any letters with a response from the editors. Weeks dragged on, and Dostoevsky could not comprehend the fate of his novel. Finally tormented, the writer sent a letter, where he asked, in case of rejection of the work, his manuscript back.

Finally, a response was received from the publisher, in which the editors explained the hitch and said that the beginning had already gone to press. Later, Dostoevsky learned that his novel literally saved the magazine - there was a "lull" in writing, nothing came from either Turgenev or Tolstoy. It was at this very time that the first pages of Crime and Punishment arrived. The editors were afraid of Dostoevsky, but in view of the difficulties they agreed to publish his novel. Unexpectedly, the cooperation became successful for everyone: Dostoevsky received the money he needed so much, and the circulation of the magazine, thanks to interesting work increased sharply.

Contemporaries, on the other hand, evaluated the novel differently. Some critics (for example, G. Eliseev) passionately attacked the writer, scolding the writer for excessive anger, unaesthetic description of the area and environment (N. Akhsharumov), condemnation of the existing way of life and students in general. In the Iskra magazine, Dostoevsky was called almost a plagiarist and a writer of caricatures of nihilists. In the work, hints were seen of what the novel did not in any way carry, for example, "The Week" condemned for the parallel between people engaged in natural sciences, but becoming murderers and prostitutes.

Each critic, according to personal convictions, saw something of his own in the novel. For example, D. Pisarev believed that the reason for Raskolnikov's behavior lies only in his financial difficulties. There would be no cramped circumstances - there would be no crazy ideas. The empty pocket has become real reason"infection" of Rodion, and the developed theory and consequences - a disease that has flourished in a violent color.

Despite the claims of critics, "Crime and Punishment" became a great and recognized work during the lifetime of F.M. Dostoevsky. In Europe, the writer was known long before his significant novels. After the release of the novel "about the murder of an old woman", the work was translated into other languages: into German - in 1882, into French - in 1884 and into English - in 1886.

To date, in world literature, Dostoevsky's novels and, in particular, "Crime and Punishment" are recognized as one of the most significant works all times and peoples.

From the textbook you can get detailed information about the works of classical Russian literature XIX century.

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The history of the creation of "Crime and Punishment" by Dostoevsky quite interesting, and before reading the novel it is better to familiarize yourself with it.

"Crime and Punishment" history of creation

In the autumn of 1865, having lost all his money at the casino, unable to pay his debts to creditors, and trying to help the family of his brother Mikhailovich, who died in July 1864, Dostoevsky plans to write a novel with the central image of the Marmeladov family called Crime and Punishment. The case of Pierre-Francois Lacener, a French intellectual murderer who believed that society was to blame for his deeds, prompted the topic of Dostoevsky's murder.

The novel was printed in parts from January to December 1866. Dostoevsky worked hard on the novel, in a hurry to add fresh chapters to each regular book of the magazine. Soon after the end of the publication of the novel in the journal, Dostoevsky publishes it in a separate edition: “A novel in six parts with an epilogue by F. M. Dostoevsky. Revised edition." For this edition, Dostoevsky made significant reductions and changes in the text: three parts of the magazine edition were converted into six parts, and the division into chapters was also partially changed.

Dostoevsky's philosophical thought in the novel "Crime and Punishment" concerns "the problems of good and evil, freedom and necessity, crime and moral responsibility, revolution, socialism, the philosophy of history and the state," writes Corr. Piksanov, Nikolay Kiryakovich.

The idea of the novel "Crime and Punishment"

Researchers of the writer's work suggest that the idea of the novel "Crime and Punishment" originated with F.M. Dostoevsky in hard labor. This is confirmed by his letter to his brother, dated October 9, 1859, in which there are the following lines: “In December I will start a novel (...) All my heart with blood will rely on this novel.

I conceived it in hard labor, lying on the bunk, in a difficult moment of sadness and self-decomposition. In the same letter, the genre of the future work was also announced for the first time: a novel-confession.

Origins of the novel date back to the time of hard labor F.M. Dostoevsky. On October 9, 1859, he wrote to his brother from Tver: “In December I will start a novel ... Don’t you remember, I told you about one confession-novel that I wanted to write after all, saying that I still need to go through it myself. The other day I made up my mind to write it at once. All my heart with blood will rely on this novel. I conceived it in hard labor, lying on the bunk, in a difficult moment of sadness and self-destruction ... "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 the influence of which a change in his former convictions began.

Idea for my new novel Dostoevsky nurtured for six years. During this time, "Humiliated and Insulted", "Notes from the House of the Dead" and "Notes from the Underground" were written, main theme which were stories of poor people and their rebellion against existing reality. On June 8, 1865, Dostoevsky proposed to A.A. Kraevsky for "Notes of the Fatherland" his new novel called "Drunk". But Kraevsky answered the writer with a refusal, which he explained by the fact that the editors had no money. On July 2, 1865, Dostoevsky, who was in dire need, was forced to conclude an agreement with the publisher F.T. Stelovsky. For the same money that Kraevsky refused to pay for the novel, Dostoevsky sold Stelovsky the right to publish the complete works in three volumes and undertook to write for him a new novel of at least ten sheets by November 1, 1866.

Having received the money, Dostoevsky distributed the debts and at the end of July 1865 went abroad. But the monetary drama did not end there. During five days in Wiesbaden, Dostoevsky lost everything he had at roulette, including his pocket watch. The consequences were not long in coming. Soon the owners of the hotel where he stayed ordered not to serve him dinner, 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 position", "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 submit his new story to the Russky Vestnik magazine. In a letter to the publisher of this magazine, the writer said that the idea of his new work would be "a psychological report of a crime": due to the shakiness 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 adviser who gives money for interest. The old woman is stupid, deaf, sick, greedy, takes Jewish interest, is evil and seizes someone else's eyelids, torturing her younger sister in her working women. “She is good for nothing”, “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, to go for border and then all his life to be honest, firm and unswerving in the fulfillment of his "humane duty to mankind" - which, of course, "will make amends for the crime", if only this act against an old woman, deaf, stupid, evil and sick, who herself does not knows why he lives in the world, and who in a month, perhaps, would die of herself ... "

According to Dostoevsky, in his work there is a hint of 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 a goal to visually express this idea on the example of a young man - a representative of a new generation. Materials for the story underlying the novel "Crime and Punishment", according to the author, could be found in any newspaper published at that time. Dostoevsky was sure that the plot of his work partly justified modernity.

The plot of the novel "Crime and Punishment" was originally conceived by the writer as a short story of five or 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 an "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 a two-part plan was reflected both in the title of the work - “Crime and Punishment”, and in the features of its structure: out of the six parts of the novel, one is devoted to the 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, later on a steamboat, when he returned from Copenhagen, where he was staying with one of his Semipalatinsk friends, to St. Petersburg, and then to St. Petersburg itself. In the city on the Neva, the story imperceptibly grew into big romance, and Dostoevsky, when the work was almost ready, burned it and decided to start over. In mid-December 1865, he sent the chapters of the new novel to Russkiy Vestnik. 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 go 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 the 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 at the end of 1866 the Russian Messenger completed the publication of Crime and Punishment. Three notebooks with drafts and notes to the novel have been preserved, in fact, 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.

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 "Drunk" was poured into the confession and the plan became more complicated, the former form of confession on behalf of the murderer, who actually cut himself off from the world and deepened into his "fixed" idea, became too cramped for a new psychological content. Dostoevsky preferred a new form - a story on behalf of the author - and in 1865 burned the original version of the work.

In the third, final, edition, an important note appeared: “The story is from myself, and not from him. If it's confession, then it's too extreme, you have to clarify everything. So that everything is clear every moment of the story ... "The draft notebooks" Crimes and Punishments "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 original plan of the story, this 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 defenseless weakness to a scoundrel. I will intervene. 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 seeks to gain power in order to fully devote himself to serving people, he longs to use power only to perform good deeds: “I take power, I get power - whether it’s money, or power - not for evil. 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 “Napoleon’s idea” - the idea of power for the sake of power, dividing humanity into two unequal parts: the majority is “a creature trembling" and the minority - "rulers" who are called to govern the minority, standing outside the law and having the right, like Napoleon, to overstep the law in the name of necessary goals. In the third, final, edition, Dostoevsky expressed the "ripened", complete "Napoleon's idea": "Can one love them? Can you suffer for them? Hatred for humanity..."

Thus, in the creative process, in comprehending the concept of Crime and Punishment, two opposite ideas collided: the idea of love for people and the idea of contempt for them. Judging by the draft notebooks, Dostoevsky faced a choice: either keep one of the ideas, or keep both. But realizing that the disappearance of one of these ideas would impoverish the idea of the novel, Dostoevsky decided to combine both ideas, to portray a man in whom, as Razumikhin says about Raskolnikov in the final text of the novel, "two opposite characters alternate in turn." The finale 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 this was the finale only for Napoleon's idea. Dostoevsky, on the other hand, sought to create an ending 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 such a person as Raskolnikov, who combined two opposite principles in himself, would not accept either the court of his own conscience, or the court of the author, or the court of law. Only one court will be authoritative for Raskolnikov - the “highest court”, the court of Sonechka Marmeladova, the very “humiliated and insulted” Sonechka, in whose name he committed the murder. That is why in the third, final, edition of the novel, the following entry appeared: “The idea of the novel. I. Orthodox view, in which there is Orthodoxy. There is no happiness in comfort, happiness is bought by suffering. This is the law of our planet, but this direct consciousness, felt by the everyday process, is such a great joy that you can pay for years of suffering. Man is not born to be happy. Man deserves happiness, and always suffering. There is no injustice here, because the knowledge of life and consciousness is acquired by the experience of "for" and "against", which must be dragged on oneself. In the drafts, the last line of the novel looked like: "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.

Dostoevsky nurtured the idea of his new novel for six years. During this time, "Humiliated and Insulted", "Notes from the House of the Dead" and "Notes from the Underground" were written, the main theme of which was the history of poor people and their rebellion against the existing reality.

The origins of the work

The origins of the novel date back to the time of F. M. Dostoevsky's hard labor. Initially, Dostoevsky conceived the idea 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 the influence of which a change in his former convictions began.

“In December, I will start a novel ... Do you remember, I told you about one confession-novel that I wanted to write after everyone else, saying that I still have to go through it myself. The other day I made up my mind to write it at once. All my heart with blood will rely on this novel. I conceived it in hard labor, lying on the bunk, in a difficult moment of sadness and self-destruction ... "

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 that we are reading, the author's intention changed several times.

Early summer of 1865. In dire need of money, Fyodor Mikhailovich offered a novel that had not yet been written, but in fact, just an idea for a novel, to the Otechestvennye Zapiski magazine. Dostoevsky asked for an advance payment of three thousand rubles for this idea from the publisher of the magazine A. A. Kraevsky, who refused.

Despite the fact that the work itself did not exist, the name “Drunken” had already been invented for it. Unfortunately, little is known about the intention of the Drunks. Only a few scattered sketches dated 1864 have survived. Also preserved is a letter from Dostoevsky to the publisher, which contains a description of the future work. She gives serious reason to believe that the entire storyline of the Marmeladov family entered Crime and Punishment precisely from the unfulfilled plan of the Drunks. Along with them, the wide 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 pictures of families, the upbringing of children in this environment, and so on. etc."

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

Germany, Wiesbaden (late July 1865)

Having received the money, Dostoevsky distributed the debts, and at the end of July 1865 he went abroad. But the monetary drama did not end there. During five days in Wiesbaden, Dostoevsky lost everything he had at roulette, including his pocket watch. The consequences were not long in coming. Soon the owners of the hotel where he stayed ordered not to serve him dinner, 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 position", "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 plan for The Drunk Ones and now wants to write a story with a criminal plot - "a psychological report of one crime." Her idea is this: a poor student decides to kill an old pawnbroker, stupid, greedy, nasty, whom no one will regret. A student could finish his education, give money to his mother and sister. Then he would go abroad, become an honest man and "make amends for the crime." Usually such crimes, according to Dostoevsky, are committed ineptly, and therefore there is a lot of evidence, and the criminals are quickly exposed. But according to his plan, “quite randomly” the crime succeeds and the killer spends almost a month at large. But “here,” writes Dostoevsky, “the whole psychological process of the crime unfolds. Unresolvable questions arise before the killer, unsuspected and unexpected feelings torment his heart ... and he ends up being forced to report on himself. Dostoevsky wrote in his letters that a lot of crimes in recent times are being committed by developed, educated young people. This was written about in contemporary newspapers.

Prototypes of Rodion Raskolnikov

Dostoevsky was aware of the case Gerasim Chistova. This man, 27 years old, a schismatic, was accused of killing two old women - a cook and a laundress. This crime took place in Moscow in 1865. Chistov killed the old women in order to rob their mistress, the petty bourgeois Dubrovina. The bodies were found in different rooms in pools of blood. Money, silver and gold things were stolen from the iron chest. (newspaper "Voice" 1865, September 7-13). Criminal chronicles wrote that Chistov killed them with an axe. Dostoevsky also knew about other similar crimes.

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

The third prototype is a French criminal Pierre Francois Lacener, for whom killing a person was the same as "drinking a glass of wine"; justifying his crimes, Lacener 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 utopian socialists (an account of the Lacener 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 confession of a criminal. However, in the second half of September, a "creative explosion" occurs in his work. An avalanche-like series of sketches appears in the writer's workbook, thanks to which we see that two independent ideas clashed in Dostoevsky's imagination: he decided to combine the storyline of The Drunk Ones and the form of the killer's confession. Dostoevsky preferred a new form - a story on behalf of the author - and in November 1865 burned the original version of the work. Here is what he writes to his friend A.E. Wrangel:

“... It would be difficult for me now to describe to you my whole present life and all the circumstances in order to give you a clear understanding of all the reasons for my long silence ... Firstly, I am sitting at work like a convict. It's that... big novel in 6 parts. At the end of November much was written and ready; I burned everything; now you can admit it. I didn't like it myself. New form, the new plan carried me away, and I began again. I work day and night… The novel is a poetic thing, it requires peace of mind and imagination to be fulfilled. And creditors torment me, that is, they threaten to put me in jail. I still haven't settled with them and I still don't know for sure - will I settle it? … Understand what my concern is. It breaks the spirit and heart, ... and then sit down and write. Sometimes it's impossible."

"Russian Messenger", 1866

In mid-December 1865, Dostoevsky sent the chapters of the new novel to Russkiy Vestnik. 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 the 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 at the end of 1866 the Russian Messenger completed the publication of Crime and Punishment.

Three notebooks with drafts and notes to the novel have been preserved, in fact, 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 was also carried out in St. Petersburg. Dostoevsky rented an apartment in a large apartment building in Stolyarny Lane. Small officials, artisans, merchants, and students mainly settled here.

From the very beginning of its inception, the idea of a "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 a two-part concept 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 the 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 intention of the story it 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, burning with the desire to stand up for the “humiliated and insulted”: “I am not the kind of person to allow defenseless weakness to a scoundrel. I will intervene. 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 fully devote himself to serving people, he longs to use power only to do good deeds: “I take power, I get power - whether money, power or not for evil. 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 - "creature trembling" and the minority are "rulers" who are called to govern the minority, standing outside the law and having the right, like Napoleon, to overstep the law in the name of necessary goals.

In the third, final, edition Dostoevsky expressed the “ripened”, finished “idea of Napoleon”: “Can one love them? Can you suffer for them? Hatred for humanity...

The finale 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 this was the finale only for Napoleon's idea. Dostoevsky, on the other hand, sought to create an ending 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 such a person as Raskolnikov, who combined two opposite principles in himself, would not accept either the court of his own conscience, or the court of the author, or the court of law. 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, in which there is Orthodoxy. There is no happiness in comfort, happiness is bought by suffering. This is the law of our planet, but this direct consciousness, felt by the life process, is such a great joy that you can pay for years of suffering. Man is not born to be happy. Man deserves happiness, and always suffering. There is no injustice here, because the knowledge of life and consciousness is acquired by the experience of "for" and "against", which must be dragged on oneself. In the drafts, the last line of the novel looked like: "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