The lineage of Crime and Punishment (Prestupleniye i nakazaniye)

Following one thread, 3 works from Crime and Punishment (Prestupleniye i nakazaniye) to The Overcoat (Shinel'). Back to all 27 works

1. 1864

   Notes from Underground (Zapiski iz podpolya)

   Fyodor Dostoevsky

   Russian Golden Age. Russia. written in Russian.

   The monologue of a spiteful, hyperconscious retired clerk who attacks rational egoism and recounts his humiliations.

   What it handed down

   To Crime and Punishment (Prestupleniye i nakazaniye) (1866)

   Thematic kinship, well documented.

   Written two years earlier, Notes from Underground created the isolated, hyperconscious Petersburg rebel who argues against rational egoism. Raskolnikov inherits that voice and its oscillation between pride and self-abasement, now tested in action rather than talk.

   Where it came from

   • What Is to Be Done? (Chto delat'?), Nikolai Chernyshevsky 1863 follow this thread
   • Confessions (Les Confessions), Jean-Jacques Rousseau 1782 (written 1765–70) follow this thread
   • The Overcoat (Shinel'), Nikolai Gogol 1842
   • The Robbers (Die Räuber), Friedrich Schiller 1781 follow this thread

   Find “Notes from Underground (Zapiski iz podpolya)” on Amazon