Classics and the Western Canon discussion

This topic is for posting general and background information on Dostoevsky,
Crime and Punishment, and other contextual information. (no spoilers, please).

The full Wikipedia pages linked to below contain spoilers.

Crime and Punishment
Written by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, it was first published in the literary journal The Russian Messenger in twelve monthly installments during 1866. Later, it was published in a single volume. It is the second of Dostoyevsky's full-length novels following his return from 5 years of exile in Siberia. Crime and Punishment is considered the first great novel of his "mature" period of writing. Raskolnikov and his crimeis said to be inspired by the case of Pierre François Lacenaire, a French murderer and would-be poet.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_a...

Pierre François Lacenaire
Dostoyevsky read about Lacenaire's case and there are some similarities between his crime and Raskolnikov's crime in Crime and Punishment. In another of his novels, The Idiot, the character Yevgeny Pavlovitch mentions Lacenaire when discussing Hippolite's failed suicide attempt with the prince.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_...

From Columbia University: short descriptions of the historical, political, philosophical contexts as well as St. Petersburg at the time.
Historical Context for Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky

Hay Market
Sennaya Square or Sennaya Ploshchad (Russian: Сeннáя Плóщадь, literally: Hay Square), known as Peace Square between 1963 and 1991, is a large city square in Central Saint Petersburg, located at the crossing of Garden Street, Moskovsky Prospekt, and Grivtsova Lane.

The square was established in 1737 as a market where hay, firewood and cattle were sold. It was built under the extension of the Garden Street, and grew quickly, becoming the cheapest and the most active market in Saint Petersburg. The Hay Market was a place where merchants and farmers could trade. It was there that malefactors were flogged before a large concourse of people.

In 1753, the Church of the Assumption of the Mother of God was built in a sumptuous Baroque style. In the middle of the square is a former guardhouse (1818–20). The square was a venue for the cholera riots of 1831. The surrounding district was known for its infamous slums, which provide the setting for Dostoevsky's novel Crime and Punishment.

In 1961 the church was blown up by Nikita Khrushchev at the height of his anti-religious campaign to make way for a new metro station. Its place is now marked by a chapel. The 17,5 meter high "Peace Column", a gift of France to the tercentenary of St. Petersburg, was dismantled during the heatwave of 2010. The column featured the word "peace" written in 49 languages.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senna...

I am not sure what to make of this evaluation or how far to take it, but I am going to keep it in mind to see how it may manifest itself in C&P.

One of the most repulsive forms of self-righteousness was invented by Dostoevsky, who prided himself on the Christian humility which he derived from committing an unusual number of sins and repenting of them with unusual intensity. He was, in the end, quite persuaded that no man who had committed fewer sins could be as righteous as he himself was, because he could not have experienced such deep penitence. In one way or another self-righteousness is essential to life. When a man is completely deprived of it, there is nothing left to him but to commit suicide.
14 June 1933
Russell, Bertrand, Mortals and Others Volume 16, Routledge Classics

It seems to be consistent with the superior attitude of the the second-born persons towards first born persons as described by William James in The Varieties of Religious Experience; derived from the sense that the second born more deliberately struggle and suffer to attain the healthy-mindedness the first-born seem to have handed to them from birth.

WARNING: THERE ARE SIGNIFICANT SPOILERS CONTAINED IN THIS VIDEO.

Thinking of reading, re-reading, or reviewing Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky? Here is a short,Ted Ed video (4:45) on Why should you read “Crime and Punishment”?
or
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_co...