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Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov
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Date of death:	unknown
A family:	father Roman Raskolnikov, mother Pulcheria Alexandrovna Raskolnikova, sister Avdotya Romanovna Raskolnikova, younger brother(name unknown, died in infancy)

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Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov- the main character in the novel by Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky "Crime and Punishment".

Raskolnikov in the novel

Raskolnikov is a former student, forced to leave his studies due to lack of funds. Lives in extreme poverty.

“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 at least?” etc. ” .

“Gives four times less than the cost of the thing, and takes five percent and even seven percent a month, etc.” ( ).

However, he does not decide on a crime until he receives a letter from his mother, which refers to the upcoming marriage of his sister with a certain Mr. Luzhin. Realizing that the sister does not love her future husband, but sacrifices herself for the well-being of the family and in more For the sake of Raskolnikov himself, he kills and robs an old woman, simultaneously killing a random witness. Having his theory that people are divided into ordinary people, going with the flow, and people like Napoleon, who are allowed everything, Raskolnikov considers himself to be in the second category before the murder, but after the murder he discovers that he fully belongs to the first category of people.

Appearance

By the way, he was remarkably good-looking, with beautiful dark eyes, dark Russian, taller than average, thin and slender ... He was so badly dressed that a different, even familiar person, would be ashamed to go out into the street in such rags during the day.

Prototypes

1. Gerasim Chistov.

The clerk, a schismatic 27 years old, killed with an ax in January 1865 in Moscow two old women (a cook and a laundress) in order to rob their mistress, the petty bourgeois Dubrovina. Money, silver and gold things were stolen from the iron chest. The dead were found in different rooms in pools of blood (Golos newspaper, 1865, September 7-13).

2. A. T. Neofitov.

Moscow professor world history, a 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 (compare the motive of instant enrichment in the mind of Raskolnikov).

A French criminal 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 (a presentation of the Lacener trial of the 1830s on the pages of Dostoevsky’s journal "Time", 1861, No. 2).

Literary critics about the character

Historical prototypes of Raskolnikov

In the context of the work of Dostoevsky himself, Raskolnikov continues the series of theoretic heroes following the “underground hero” of Notes from the Underground, anticipating the images of Stavrogin, Versilov, Ivan Karamazov. At the same time, there are cute features of "dreamers" early creativity Dostoevsky, the essence of which is sensitivity, compassion for one's neighbor and readiness to help (Ordynov from the story "The Mistress", a dreamer from "White Nights").

see also

• Description in the project “Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky. Anthology of life and work"
• The play "Raskolnikov" by Leo Birinski in German.

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Literature

• Nasedkin, N. N. Raskolnikov // Dostoevsky. Encyclopedia. - Moscow: Algorithm, 2003. - S. 408-412. - 800 s. - (Russian writers). - 5000 copies. - ISBN 5-9265-0100.
• Nakamura Kennosuke. Raskolnikov (Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov) // Dictionary of characters in the works of F. M. Dostoevsky. - St. Petersburg: Hyperion, 2011. - S. 169-176. - 400 s. - 1000 copies. - ISBN 978-5-89332-178-4.

Notes

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An excerpt characterizing Rodion Raskolnikov

“It encourages them to pass quickly,” another said restlessly.
The crowd moved again. Nesvitsky realized that it was the core.
- Hey, Cossack, give the horse! - he said. - Well you! stay away! step aside! road!
He got to the horse with great effort. Without ceasing to scream, he moved forward. The soldiers shrugged to let him pass, but again they pressed him so hard that they crushed his leg, and those nearby were not to blame, because they were pressed even harder.
- Nesvitsky! Nesvitsky! You, Mrs.! - a hoarse voice was heard at that time from behind.
Nesvitsky looked around and saw fifteen paces away from him, separated from him by a living mass of moving infantry, red, black, shaggy, with a cap on the back of his head and a cape valiantly draped over his shoulder, Vaska Denisov.
“Tell them, why, to the devils, to give the dog to the og,” he shouted. Denisov, apparently in a fit of vehemence, gleaming and moving his eyes, black as coal, in inflamed whites, and waving his unsheathed saber, which he held with a bare small hand as red as his face.
- E! Vasya! - Nesvitsky answered joyfully. - Yes, what are you?
- Eskadg "on pg" cannot go away, - shouted Vaska Denisov, angrily opening his white teeth, spurring his handsome black, blooded Bedouin, who, blinking his ears from the bayonets he bumped into, snorting, splashing around him with foam from the mouthpiece, ringing, he beat with his hooves on the boards of the bridge and seemed ready to jump over the railing of the bridge if the rider allowed him. - What is it? like a bug "any! exactly like a bug" ana! Pg "ouch ... give the dog" ogu! ... Stay there! you are a wagon, chog "t! I'll kill you with a saber fromg"! he shouted, really drawing his saber and starting to wave it.
Soldiers with frightened faces pressed against each other, and Denisov joined Nesvitsky.
Why aren't you drunk today? - Nesvitsky said to Denisov when he drove up to him.
- And they won’t let you get drunk! - answered Vaska Denisov. - All day long the regiment is being dragged here and there.
- What a dandy you are today! - looking around at his new mentic and saddle cloth, said Nesvitsky.
Denisov smiled, took a handkerchief from the tashka, which diffused the smell of perfume, and thrust it into Nesvitsky's nose.
- I can't, I'm going to work! got out, cleaned his teeth and perfumed himself.
The imposing figure of Nesvitsky, accompanied by a Cossack, and the decisiveness of Denisov, who waved his saber and shouted desperately, had the effect that they squeezed through to the other side of the bridge and stopped the infantry. Nesvitsky found a colonel at the exit, to whom he had to convey the order, and, having fulfilled his order, went back.
Having cleared the road, Denisov stopped at the entrance to the bridge. Carelessly holding back the stallion, which was rushing towards his own and kicking, he looked at the squadron moving towards him.
Transparent sounds of hooves rang out on the boards of the bridge, as if several horses were galloping, and the squadron, with officers in front four people in a row, stretched out along the bridge and began to go out to the other side.
The stopped infantry soldiers, crowding in the mud trampled by the bridge, looked at the clean, dapper hussars, harmoniously passing by them, with that special unfriendly feeling of alienation and mockery with which various branches of the army usually meet.
- Nice guys! If only to Podnovinskoye!
- What good are they! Only for show and drive! another said.
– Infantry, not dust! - the hussar joked, under which the horse, playing, splashed mud at the infantryman.
“I would have driven you away with a knapsack for two transitions, the laces would have been worn out,” the infantryman said, wiping the dirt from his face with his sleeve; - otherwise it’s not a person, but a bird is sitting!
“It would be better to put you on a horse, Zikin, if you were dexterous,” the corporal joked at the thin soldier, twisted from the weight of the knapsack.
“Take a baton between your legs, here’s a horse for you,” the hussar replied.

The rest of the infantry hurried across the bridge, vortexing at the entrance. Finally the wagons all passed, the crush became less, and the last battalion entered the bridge. Some hussars of Denisov's squadron remained on the other side of the bridge against the enemy. The enemy, visible in the distance from the opposite mountain, from below, from the bridge, was not yet visible, since from the hollow along which the river flowed, the horizon ended with the opposite elevation no further than half a verst. Ahead was a desert, along which in some places groups of our traveling Cossacks were moving. Suddenly, on the opposite elevation of the road, troops in blue hoods and artillery appeared. These were the French. The Cossacks' troop moved off downhill at a trot. All the officers and people of Denisov's squadron, although they tried to talk about strangers and look around, did not stop thinking only about what was there, on the mountain, and incessantly peered into the spots that appeared on the horizon, which they recognized as enemy troops. The weather cleared up again in the afternoon, the sun set brightly over the Danube and the dark mountains surrounding it. It was quiet, and from that mountain occasionally came the sounds of horns and cries of the enemy. There was no one between the squadron and the enemy, except for small sidings. Empty space, three hundred fathoms, separated them from him. The enemy stopped firing, and the more clearly felt that strict, formidable, impregnable and elusive line that separates the two enemy troops.
“One step beyond this line, reminiscent of the line separating the living from the dead, and - the unknown of suffering and death. And what's there? who's there? there, behind this field, and a tree, and a roof lit by the sun? Nobody knows, and one wants to know; and it’s scary to cross this line, and I want to cross it; and you know that sooner or later you will have to cross it and find out what is there, on the other side of the line, just as it is inevitable to find out what is there, on the other side of death. And he himself is strong, healthy, cheerful and irritable, and surrounded by such healthy and irritably lively people. So if he does not think, then every person who is in sight of the enemy feels, and this feeling gives a special brilliance and joyful sharpness of impressions to everything that happens at these moments.
The smoke of a shot appeared on a hillock near the enemy, and the ball, whistling, flew over the heads of the hussar squadron. The officers who had been standing together dispersed to their places. The hussars diligently began to straighten the horses. Everything in the squadron went silent. Everyone looked ahead at the enemy and at the squadron commander, waiting for the command. Another, third core flew by. It is obvious that they fired at the hussars; but the cannonball, whistling evenly quickly, flew over the heads of the hussars and hit somewhere behind. The hussars did not look back, but at every sound of a flying cannonball, as if on command, the entire squadron with its monotonously diverse faces, holding its breath while the cannonball flew, rose in the stirrups and lowered again. The soldiers, without turning their heads, squinted at each other, curiously looking for the impression of a comrade. On each face, from Denisov to the bugler, one common feature struggle, anger and excitement. The sergeant-major frowned, looking at the soldiers, as if threatening punishment. Junker Mironov stooped down with each passage of the core. Rostov, standing on the left flank on his touched but visible Grachik, had the happy look of a student called before a large audience for an exam, in which he was sure that he would excel. He looked around clearly and brightly at everyone, as if asking them to pay attention to how he calmly stands under the cannonballs. But in his face, too, the same feature of something new and strict, against his will, was shown near the mouth.
- Who bows there? Yunkeg "Mig" ons! Hexog "oh, look at me" ite! - shouted Denisov, who could not stand still and who was spinning on a horse in front of the squadron.
The snub-nosed and black-haired face of Vaska Denisov and his whole small, knocked-down figure with his sinewy (with short fingers covered with hair) hand, in which he held the hilt of a drawn saber, was exactly the same as always, especially in the evening, after drinking two bottles. He was only redder than usual, and, throwing his shaggy head up like birds when they drink, ruthlessly pressing his spurs into the sides of the good Bedouin with his small feet, he, as if falling back, galloped to the other flank of the squadron and in a hoarse voice shouted to inspect pistols. He drove up to Kirsten. The staff captain, on a broad and sedate mare, rode towards Denisov at a pace. The captain's staff, with his long mustaches, was as serious as ever, only his eyes shone more than usual.
– Yes what? - he said to Denisov, - it will not come to a fight. You'll see, let's go back.
- Chog "does not know what they are doing," grumbled Denisov. "Ah! G" skeleton! he shouted to the cadet, noticing his cheerful face. - Well, I waited.
And he smiled approvingly, apparently rejoicing at the junker.
Rostov felt completely happy. At this time, the chief appeared on the bridge. Denisov galloped up to him.
- Your pg "elevation! Let me attack! I'll throw them at them."
“What kind of attacks are there,” the chief said in a dull voice, wincing as if from an annoying fly. "And why are you standing here?" See, the flankers are retreating. Lead the squadron back.
The squadron crossed the bridge and got out from under the shots without losing a single person. Following him, the second squadron, which was in the chain, also crossed, and the last Cossacks cleared that side.
Two squadrons of Pavlograd residents, having crossed the bridge, one after the other, went back to the mountain. Regimental commander Karl Bogdanovich Schubert drove up to Denisov's squadron and rode at a pace not far from Rostov, not paying any attention to him, despite the fact that after former collision for Telyanin, they now saw each other for the first time. Rostov, feeling at the front in the power of a man to whom he now considered himself guilty, did not take his eyes off the athletic back, blond nape and red neck of the regimental commander. It seemed to Rostov that Bogdanich was only pretending to be inattentive, and that his whole goal now was to test the courage of the cadet, and he straightened up and looked around merrily; then it seemed to him that Bogdanich was deliberately riding close to show Rostov his courage. Then he thought that his enemy would now deliberately send a squadron into a desperate attack in order to punish him, Rostov. It was thought that after the attack he would come up to him and generously extend to him, the wounded man, the hand of reconciliation.
The figure of Zherkov, familiar to the people of Pavlograd, with high shoulders (he had recently retired from their regiment), drove up to regimental commander. Zherkov, after his expulsion from the main headquarters, did not remain in the regiment, saying that he was not a fool in the front to pull the strap when he was at the headquarters, doing nothing, would receive more awards, and knew how to settle down as an orderly to Prince Bagration. He came to his former boss with an order from the head of the rearguard.
“Colonel,” he said with his gloomy seriousness, turning to the enemy of Rostov and looking around at his comrades, “it is ordered to stop, to light the bridge.
- Who ordered? the Colonel asked sullenly.
“I don’t even know, colonel, who was ordered,” the cornet answered seriously, “but only the prince ordered me: “Go and tell the colonel that the hussars return soon and light the bridge.”
Following Zherkov, a retinue officer drove up to the hussar colonel with the same order. Following the retinue officer on a Cossack horse, which carried him by force at a gallop, fat Nesvitsky rode up.

A philologist who teaches in high school, of course, is well aware of S.V. Belov to "Crime and Punishment". Having survived several editions, it has not lost its practical value to this day and is indispensable in preparing for lessons on analysis. famous novel. Particular weight is given to the book by S.V. Belova attaches high mark, which was awarded to his work by Academician D.S. Likhachev (who also acted as the scientific editor of the commentary). However, this does not mean, of course, that all the provisions expressed in the "book for the teacher" are indisputable, which, I am sure, its author did not even intend to claim. The following notes are devoted to one such controversial, in my opinion, place.

In the preface to the commentary by D.S. Likhachev rightly points out that in "Crime and Punishment" "literally everything matters: numbers, names, surnames, and St. Petersburg topography, and time of action, and various situations, and even individual words, - only slow reading novel gives the reader the opportunity to comprehend his whole idea and appreciate the rarest art of Dostoevsky's thought. At the same time, it is remarkable that the academician cites the following as an example of one of such significant details: “In this spiritual world, it matters ... different position an ax during the murder by Raskolnikov of the old pawnbroker and Lizaveta ... ". And indeed it is. However, the interpretation of this detail given by the commentator does not seem convincing enough. Here is what S.V. writes in connection with this. Belov: "During the entire scene of the murder the ax blade was turned to Raskolnikov and looked menacingly into his face, as if inviting to take the place of the victim. Not the ax in the power of Raskolnikov, but Raskolnikov became the tool of the ax. The situation was completely different in the unplanned murder of the kind and meek by nature Lizaveta: “The blow fell right on the skull, with a point.” The ax brutally took revenge on Raskolnikov. This impotence to cope with the murder weapon was the beginning of the collapse of Raskolnikov. Was it really so?

Let's follow the advice of the academician and slowly read the text "Crime and Punishment" - read: "...<Раскольников>he released the ax from the loop, but did not yet take it out completely, but only held it with his right hand under his clothes.<...>
- Yes, what did he do here! the old woman exclaimed in annoyance and moved in his direction. There was not a single moment to be lost. He took out the ax completely, waved it with both hands <...>and almost effortlessly<...>put it down on his head.<...>
<...>The blow fell on the very top of the head, which was facilitated by her small stature.<...>Bending down and examining her again closer, he clearly saw that the skull was crushed and even folded a little to the side ... "

So what does the text say?
1. Until the very blow, the ax is under the coat, while Raskolnikov holds it with one hand - by the upper, i.e., the thick part of the ax handle, located closer to the hand: this is both more convenient and easier (as we remember, “ his arms were terribly weak; <...>they<...>more and more numb and stiff. He was afraid that he would release and drop the ax..."). Therefore, preparing for the strike, Raskolnikov only touches ax but does not see his.
2. Did Raskolnikov see the ax when he took it out from under his coat? Reading: " Not a single moment could be wasted. He took out the ax completely, waved it with both hands ... ”Taking it out and swinging it is a matter of an instant. This is actually one movement - there was simply no time to look at the ax. By the way, we note that even if the time for such a look at Raskolnikov somehow miraculously appeared, see the point pointed at his face, he still couldn't. The fact, where there was an axe. Recall: “... the loop was assigned to the ax.<...>if [the ax] was hidden under the coat, then all the same it was necessary to hold it with your hand, which would be noticeable. Now, with a noose, it only costs put an ax blade in it, and he will hang calmly, under the arm from the inside... "The blade, therefore, is pressed against the left side. Now let's mentally repeat Raskolnikov's movement. Where is it directed? Up and a little to the left - so that it would be more convenient, more dexterous and faster (both because it was impossible to hesitate, and because the hands do not obey and Raskolnikov is afraid to drop the murder weapon) was to pick up the ax handle with his left hand. And then - swing. In the dictionary of V.I. Dalia wave interpreted as follows: raise waving, swinging; swing - lifting something in one go up. Thus, neither the ax in the face of Raskolnikov, nor Raskolnikov "in the face" of the ax could "look" at that moment. It seems to me that the commentator was let down here by the peculiarity of the narrative as such that he did not take into account: simultaneous actions or an action consisting of several successive elements, one way or another, can be reproduced only in the form of a sequence of words.
3. But maybe Raskolnikov saw the ax blade just before the blow or at the very moment of the blow? Also no! The answer is again contained in the text: Dostoevsky absolutely unambiguously talks about how what exactly the hero sees what his attention is focused on. More precisely, not how, and on com- on the old woman (hence the seemingly incredible detailed description Alena Ivanovna's hairstyles: “The old woman, as always, was simple-haired. Her blond, grizzled, thin hair, oiled as usual, was plaited into a rat's pigtail and tucked under a fragment of a horn comb that stuck out at the back of her head. The blow fell on the very crown of the head ... "). And this is easy to explain not only psychologically (the killer, of course, is watching the victim - it’s not for nothing that he strikes at the moment when the old woman “moved in his direction”), but also logically. fantasy realist, Dostoevsky was first and foremost a realist as such. Anyone who at least once in their life tried to work with an ax, using it, for example, for chopping firewood, knows perfectly well that the gaze both in preparation for the blow and at the moment of the blow itself (especially on a grand scale) is directed at the object being cut / split - otherwise no wonder to miss.
Thus, it is clear that "throughout the murder scene"(emphasis mine. - A.K.), as the commentator tries to assure, the blade of the ax could not be turned to Raskolnikov. An attempt to interpret this detail as a kind of invitation to the hero “to take the place of the victim” also looks doubtful. Raskolnikov, of course, can deny his involvement in the world of the “humiliated and insulted” - the world of victims as much as he likes, but the indisputability of this fact is completely obvious to the reader, while the reasons why “kind and meek by nature» Lizaveta was killed “on the skull, with a point”, remain contrary to the statement of S.V. Belov is completely unclear. “The ax brutally took revenge on Raskolnikov,” the commentator concludes. Why, I would like to know, is the ax so unfavorable to the poor student?

Nevertheless, questions remain: where was the ax blade turned at the time of the murder of Alena Ivanovna and why did the meek Lizaveta get hit with a point? Agree, the author of "Crime and Punishment" is unlikely to accidentally pedal this terrible detail in its significance: "... [Raskolnikov] lowered [the ax] on his head butt. <...>he hit with all his might once and twice, all butt and all in the dark...

In addition, it is probably worth reflecting on why the ax was chosen as the murder weapon, since the explanation given in the text of "Crime and Punishment" is clearly not enough, because it refers exclusively to outside event and does not affect its spiritual or, if you like, symbolic essence. Here is how the narrator says about it: “That work must be done with an ax, they decided a long time ago. He also had a folding garden knife; but he did not hope for a knife, and especially for his own strength, and therefore settled on an ax finally».
We can safely say that this detail is extremely important. semantic load(by the way, the very word axe used in the novel more than 60 times) - which one, we will try to find out now. Note that the first time the ax appears in Raskolnikov's nightmare: Ax her[mare], what! End her together”, - advises Mikolka onlookers. And in last- in the epilogue of the novel: “Were you walk with an ax; not a bar business at all”, - the convicts mock Raskolnikov. I will comment on the highlighted places a little lower, but for now let's continue the quote:
“In the second week of Great Lent, it was his turn to fast along with his barracks. He went to church to pray with others.<...>there was once a quarrel; all at once attacked him with a frenzy.
- You are an atheist! You don't believe in God! they shouted at him. - You need to be killed. He never told them about God and faith but they wanted to kill him like atheist; he was silent and did not object to them».
And now the promised comment, although I am almost sure that the reader has already seen a lot himself and felt a lot. In the context of "Crime and Punishment" axe, on the one hand, is associated with the theme of murder and acts as a sign of violent death, and on the other hand (in all key episodes of the novel) - with the theme unbelief, manifested through objects symbolizing involvement in Christianity: a cross, an icon, a small icon, a church, etc.
And here we come to the answer to the question: where is the tip of the ax directed at the time of the murder of the old money-lender. To do this, we must remember what the room looked like in which Alena Ivanovna accepts mortgages: “The small room into which the young man went, with yellow wallpaper, geraniums and muslin curtains on the windows, was at that moment brightly lit by the setting sun.<...> In the corner in front of a small image a lamp burned". It seems clear where the image was located: you can place the icon in this room in the only place - far from the window and from the entrance to another room corner. Now let's remember: in order to untie the "mortgage" brought by Raskolnikov, the old woman goes to the window and turns her back to him and ... to the image.

So the tip looked into what is located behind the back Raskolnikov - in that "small image" in the corner, in front of which "the lamp was burning." After all, Raskolnikov's crime, according to Dostoevsky, consists not so much in murder as such, but in rebellion against Christ, in which he does not believe.
It is worth noting here that the placement of the ax in the hut of a Russian peasant was strictly regulated: it is always opposite to the position of the icon. So, parallel riddles about an ax are known: face(sharp end) to Wall, a back(butt) to the hut- and icon: back to the wall, and facing the hut(to turn the icon facing the wall was considered and is still considered a terrible blasphemy). D.N. Sadovnikov believed that such a position of the ax - under the bench (face) - to the wall, and (back) - to the hut, was caused solely by security considerations: "so as not to injure the leg, as a precaution." However, it seems that “security” here was of a different kind, “protective”: the icon and the ax, obviously, according to the binary mythological model, personified, respectively, “top”, “light”, “space” (“red corner”, in plain sight, on a dais). ) and “bottom”, “darkness”, “chaos” (an ax is an instrument of destruction, crushing - under a bench, in a dark place - out of sight). By the way, the hero of "Crime and Punishment" finds the murder weapon under the bench, where he "lyed between two logs." It is difficult to judge how consciously and intentionally Dostoevsky follows here folk tradition, but the fact remains.

But there are two more interesting details, which, it seems to me, directly confirm the hypothesis put forward. The first is a “mortgage” specially prepared by Raskolnikov for affairs: “... just a wooden, smoothly planed plank<...>he added to the board a smooth and thin iron strip<...> ...iron was smaller than wood he tied them together firmly, crosswise, thread; after<...>wrapped them in clean white paper and tied them with a thin ribbon, also crosswise". The elements of the "mortgage" reproduce ... the constituent parts ax: the larger part is wood (= ax handle), the smaller but heavier part is iron (= axe). At the same time, the "mortgage" twice as if overshadowed by the "cross"! In fact, in this way, the “mortgage” turns out to be a kind of sign, symbol, model - if you like, a prediction, a real “prophecy” of a future crime.
And the second detail: “He tried to pull out [the string] so<...>, but something got in the way <...>... he waved it again with an ax to chop by cord right there, over the body, from above, but did not dare, and with difficulty, having soiled his hands and an ax, after two minutes of fuss, he cut the cord, without touching the body <...>On the cord were two crosses, cypress and copper, and, in addition, an enamel scapular; and immediately hung with them<...>purse, with steel rim and ring.<...>Raskolnikov put it in his pocket<...>, crosses dropped on the old woman's chest and, this time capturing an ax rushed back to the bedroom. It turns out that this terrible detail “sounded” in the “mortgage” - strong cord on which hang two crosses(= double-criss-crossed "mortgage"), cypress and copper and scapular: metal, wood and icon!

Now it is worth returning to the question of choice murder weapon, which has not yet received a sufficiently substantiated answer.
The most possible, in my opinion, are the following reasons.
1. An allusion to the dream of Pyotr Andreevich Grinev, the hero of " captain's daughter» A.S. Pushkin. Recall: “... the man jumped out of bed, grabbed the ax from behind his back and began to swing in all directions. I wanted to run... and I couldn't; the room is filled dead bodies; I stumbled over bodies and slid in bloody pools.” The ax here is an integral attribute and symbol of the peasant rebellion. Moreover, here the main contradiction of Russian history of the 18th-19th centuries is clearly indicated, lapidarily expressed by Pushkin in “Remarks on the Revolt” (an appendix to the “History of Pugachev”): “All the black people were for Pugachev. The clergy favored him, not only priests and monks, but also archimandrites and bishops. One nobility was open on the side of the government. Pugachev and his accomplices wanted at first to persuade the nobles to their side, but their benefits were too opposite.
2. In this regard, it is possible and, it seems, necessary to assume an allusion to the call contained in the proclamation, the authorship of which was attributed to Chernyshevsky and his inner circle: “Call Rus to the ax!”
3. And a more complex association, which is provoked by the name of the protagonist, which goes back to split, split- prick, fraction, divide, cut down by blow or other force. Wed: shatter, shatter- crush or to divide, divide; separate little things, by shares; cut, cut, cut, crush, grind; discord. Of course, the point is not only and not so much in the method of committing the crime - this method is only materialization, the reification of the murderous (and suicidal) "theory", according to which the human race shatters, crumbles into two unequal parts: mass trembling creatures and the elect, doing something, according to Raskolnikov, monumental. This idea is fundamentally opposed to the Christian, unifying beginning. Note that Dostoevsky directly connects the motive of division with the motive of power: the starting point of Raskolnikov's "theory" is the "classification" of the human race, the final one is the right to command. Formally, this construction can be traced back to the classical Roman principle: "Divide et impera" - divide and conquer. Fragmentation/separation how the violation of ontological integrity/completeness always correlates with the theme of death. Life is always a restoration of wholeness/beauty. And in this essential meaning Eucharist - taking communion The believer demonstrates his involvement with God. It seems that it is in this vein that one of the final phrases novel: “[Raskolnikov] could not think about something for a long time and constantly, concentrate on something with thought; yes, he would not have allowed anything now consciously; he only felt. Instead of dialectics, life has come...". Word dialectics used only once in the novel, but as an antonym life, which is directly related to death. And this is not accidental: the basis of dialectical knowledge is analysis, dissection for the purpose of subsequent synthesis, reunification. However, rational synthesis leads only to the mechanical connection of dead particles, at best - to the creation of surrogate forms, only superficially resembling living things. In a religious rite, restoration - miracle performed by the priest at the will of the Lord, manifested through sacred texts - prayers. The wonderful thing is that it revives former dead, destructured. The Divine principle also brings Life. There is no miracle - there is no Life. Dostoevsky saw one of the main ideas of Orthodoxy precisely in the unification of the human race, while the writer connected the idea of ​​division, separation, fragmentation with the West in general and with the Petrine reforms in particular: “... with children, and with descendants, and with ancestors, and with everything Mankind is a single integral organism. And laws are written, dividing everything and dividing it into constituent elements. The Church does not divide; “God is the idea of ​​a collective humanity, the masses, all(highlighted by Dostoevsky. - A.K.)"; “With the Petrine reform, with European life, we accepted the bourgeoisie into ourselves and separated from the people, as in the West”; “... the first dogma of Christianity is the generality of the law for all, commonality ideal, all brothers. “Go teach all the tongues” and so on. ”; "Our atheism is only disconnection with the people detachment from the earth". The patronymic of the hero naturally gives rise to an association with the dynasty Romanovs. Recall that Raskolnikov, on his way to do a “test”, some drunk suddenly shouted: “Hey you, Deutsch hatter!" “This hat was tall, round, Zimmermann’s, but all already worn out, completely red, all with holes and spots, without brim and buckled to the side in the most ugly angle.” As a rule, commenting on this place, they point to the owner of a hat factory and a hat shop on Nevsky Prospekt Zimmerman, who really existed in St. Petersburg. At the same time, however, they do not associate another fact with this fact: the store was located in church of st. Petra. Coincidence? Let's say. But here's another fact: the name of one of the first teachers of the reformer tsar was also Zimmerman. Another coincidence? Good. Let's give the floor to the commentator: "For Raskolnikov's residence, Dostoevsky chose the most drunken street - Stolyarny Lane". The connection between the hat and the hero's place of residence is the most direct: German surname Zimmermann means a carpenter. Let us recall Pushkin's characterization of Peter:

That academician, then hero,

Now the navigator a carpenter...

These details point to the connection with the “state carpenter”. By the way, I note that in Dostoevsky's notebooks there is such an entry about Peter the Great: “This aristocrat was an eminently Russian aristocrat, that is, he did not disdain an ax. True, he took an ax in two cases: both for ships and for archers.

It remains to answer last question: why Lizaveta was killed in a different way than Alena Ivanovna. Elizabeth (Heb. honoring God / God is an oath her or, in another way, close, but more accurate interpretation, my God- the words of the oath) also called one of the most revered Christian saints (often "rival" in popularity, and sometimes confused with the Virgin) - the mother of John the Baptist. Elizabeth was a relative of the Blessed Virgin Mary (and the first to greet her Blessed in women and Mother of the Lord), Sonya and Lizaveta are cross sisters (such kinship was considered no less, and often more important, than blood). T.A. Kasatkina convincingly showed that the image of Sonya in the finale of "Crime and Punishment" was created not without the influence of iconographic tradition, more precisely, the icon of the Mother of God "The guarantor of sinners"; you can pay attention to several typological features, bringing together the image of Sonya with the Mother of God and Christ - for example, her desire to go to hard labor with Raskolnikov seems to be inspired by the apocryphal "Walking of the Virgin through the torments": "I want to suffer with sinners ...".
It should be noted that the name of the hero may be derived from Herodium. It is impossible not to notice the sounding in it that has become in the Russian language common noun Herod. This king of the Jews was "famous" for his ferocity: he arranged a beating of babies (including his own son) in Bethlehem, hoping to destroy the God-child Christ among them. No wonder in the face of Sonya Raskolnikov "as if he saw face Lizaveta. He vividly remembered the expression faces Lizaveta, when he then approached her with an ax, and she moved away from him to the wall, putting her hand forward, with a completely childish fright in face, face to face how Small children when they suddenly begin to be frightened of something, look motionless and uneasily at the object that frightens them, step back and, stretching their little hands forward, are preparing to cry ”(cf .:“ ... children are the image of Christ: "These is the kingdom of God." He ordered them to be honored and loved, they are the future of humanity ... ”- says Raskolnikov to Sonya). Let's pay attention to the explicit pedaling of the word face in this context. Let's remember: "Seeing him ran out(from the bedroom. - A.K.), she (Lizaveta. - A. K.) trembled ... and all over face she went into convulsions...<она>began to move away from him into a corner(to the side image under which a lamp is lit. - A.K.) ... her lips twisted so plaintively, like those of very young children ... the ax was directly raised above her face". At this moment in front of Raskolnikov face (scapular, given to Lizaveta Sonya) and child's face . Thus, the murder of Lizaveta is in fact the murder of the image of Christ...

Pushkin considered the most fascinating science to be "following the thoughts of a great man." Reading Dostoevsky, once again you are convinced of the truth of these words.

Ax Raskolnikov

(Slow reading experience)

Three years before the outbreak of World War II, a rather large and diverse community of Russian-speaking French diplomats and professors, Russian émigré writers, thinkers, theologians, former judicial figures and officers gathered in Paris at the hospitable hosts in the house. At a party, when many of those gathered for the first time meet each other, they usually drink, eat, play cards and do not touch on serious issues. So this time it was about this and that, and nothing else. Accidentally and casually, the conversation touched on some features of the Russian language, outdated turns, uncommon forms, and someone, as an example of dissonance and incorrect word formation, cited a couplet of a poet, generally known for impeccable literacy, who is fluent in verse:

And Raskolnikov the old woman Kills with an axe.

Everyone agreed that "hacking" sounds bad in every way. But, I remember, it struck me then why no one noticed another, immeasurably more important oversight in the couplet. And among those present were almost all the best, very famous, recognized by all connoisseurs of Dostoevsky, who published many articles and books about his work at different times. Still, frankly speaking, I was surprised that evening only by Remizov, the most subtle connoisseur of art, who rightly saw in Dostoevsky not a philosopher and psychologist, as it is now customary to think through a sad misunderstanding, but before and after all the greatest artist, writer of higher realities. However, quite acceptable, Remizov remained silent, like me, not wanting to deepen a superficial conversation, to cause a useless argument. I do not know if my guess is correct, and I regret that I never spoke to him about it later. But at the same time, Nietzsche's well-known statement came to my mind that it is extremely rare in the world to come across people who master the art of slow reading.

A real reader never remains passive, he co-creates with the artist, vigilantly following the development of the theme and plot, comparing all the details, not missing anything. It is extremely difficult to realize this even when reading a realistic novel that reigned over hearts and minds in the last century and whose prime master must be considered Leo Tolstoy. But when studying tragedy novels, Dostoevsky's mystery novels, especially "Crime and Punishment", where literally every detail, every gesture, every cursory hint is full of bottomless meaning, the slightest mistake of the reader threatens to bring down the building being erected by him, following the author. .

In a realistic narrative, it is not always important for the reader to remember exactly who and from whom sat to the right or left, who and with whom changed places, and for what particular internal reasons such and such a character is brought, say, by the brother and uncle of such and such a heroine. A realistic writer is not obliged to substantiate metaphysically why certain events are presented in his work in this way and not otherwise. We have the right to demand from him only concrete, everyday justifications for the phenomena he depicts. He creates human characters, but does not know the personality of a person, in the spiritual Christian sense of the word. For him, his own creativity develops spontaneously, almost unconsciously, to some extent irresponsibly. He thinks and depicts, thinks, but does not think. Creative consciousness and, consequently, the full responsibility of a servant of art arise where artistic thinking begins, by the way, in every possible way far from any philosophical abstractions. According to Dostoevsky, using his own expression, a thought, good or evil, "pecks like a chicken out of an egg." And if it is born from goodness, then it becomes a particle of higher being and must be organic, like everything existential. Unlike philosophical dead abstractions, living thought is clothed in its own special spiritual body. The artist of thought possesses the only true art of thought, and therefore his creations are spiritualized.

A realistic novel depicts the earthly three-dimensional world of human characters and nature, while Dostoevsky's novels depict no one and nothing, but reveal the secrets of the human spirit and, knowing them, touch other worlds. The artist of thought has nothing in common either with realistic trends in art, or with the so-called fashionable existential philosophy today, not only a frivolous and harmful model invented, for example, by Sartre, but also a conscientious, German one. The thought of true artists of thinking, creatively embodied in the word, coincides with the underlying, deepest existential processes and becomes their living prototype. You can call various methods and branches of philosophy whatever you like, because of this philosophical thought, including the one called existential, will not become an otherness of existence - a true symbol of true being. Such an opportunity was granted by the Creator only to the church cult, inextricably fused with the religious rite, and to the highest spiritual stages of artistic creativity. And philosophy is doomed to abstraction. It builds its next abstract construction around and about the existence of religion and art, but is unable to join them, to become their living reflection.

Where everything artistic is felt and, moreover, imbued with living direct thinking, there the embodied thought clings to thought, gesture to gesture, deed to deed, event to event, meeting to meeting, like link to link, and to break one of the links means to bring down everything. . Therefore, one must know and firmly remember that Raskolnikov did not hack the usurer, but, finding himself behind her, broke her skull with the butt of an ax. And the killer was much taller than his victim. Thus, when the ax swung down on the old woman's head, its blade looked Raskolnikov straight in the face. What, in this case should be taken out of this situation? Yes, absolutely everything, the whole course, the whole idea of ​​the novel. In a work of art created by an artist of thought, the focus is everywhere, the circumference nowhere. An artistic creation imbued with thought - a living spiritual organism - was comprehended as a whole through any of its details. Thus, using one bone joint, a scientist can, without fear of making a mistake, mentally restore all the bones of an animal that appeared millions of years ago, and imagine it in the flesh.

According to Dostoevsky, man invariably finds himself in the center of the universe. For the young author of "Poor Folk" it was so for rather naive reasons, just humanistic, but for the creator of "Crime and Punishment", for Dostoevsky, who was reborn in hard labor into an ardent Christian, a person forever and in all respects becomes the center of the universe. From his life, fate and inner will the animal world, all nature, with all its phenomena, climate and weather depend; in particular, the products of human hands are subject to him. The ax of Raskolnikov, the knife of Rogozhin, the knife of Fedka convict, the purse lying in Stavrogin's pocket, are permeated with the vibes of their owners. But only the holy fool in Christ, the clairvoyant lame Maria Timofeevna Lebyadkina, who lives in the world as a hermit, is able to expose the mania of objects galvanized by evil human will. In the same way, the good will of a person animates the things that surround him. Such is the Marmeladovs’ family drapedam shawl, such is the gingerbread cockerel that the drunken Marmeladov carried to his children when he was crushed in the street by horses: “Imagine, Rodion Romanovich, they found a gingerbread cockerel in his pocket: he walks dead drunk, but he remembers about the children!”

Everything implicitly and clearly taking place in Crime and Punishment around the ax is tortuous and complex. The black obsessions of this demonic gift cannot be expressed in a nutshell. It is from him, for the time being, modestly lying in the janitor's closet under the bench and suddenly flashing into Raskolnikov's eyes, that the collapse of an overly proud person is for the first time outlined in the novel.

According to Dostoevsky, it seems that he who finally decides on an evil deed immediately, from the first step, loses his self-reliance, loses his inner primordial freedom. Then it is no longer he who controls himself, but someone else controls him. One has only to conscientiously allow oneself to shed blood, as this other, colloquially referred to as the devil, plunges us into the cycle of fatal meetings, situations and events and slightly leads to crime. One must not forget for a moment, reading "Crime and Punishment", "Demons" and "The Brothers Karamazov", that in his mature years, after spiritual insights that visited him in hard labor, Dostoevsky, in a medieval way, like Gogol, believed in the real existence of the devil . A person is responsible before people and God not for the murder actually committed by him, but for the thought that, in conscience, justified the crime that has not yet been carried out. Crime and Punishment should have been epigraphed with a quatrain by Baratynsky, a direct predecessor of Dostoyevsky:

Great is the Lord! He is kind but right. There is no insignificant moment on earth. He forgives the madness of fun, But never feasts of malevolence.

According to the conjecture of both Baratynsky and Dostoevsky, God punishes us not for a crime, but for malicious intent. There is no insignificant, in other words, random moment, and everything that happens in the world is predetermined in our spiritual depths. No wonder Innokenty Annensky, who understood Dostoevsky's work more deeply than anyone else, argued that the author of Crime and Punishment not only always shared a man and his crime, but was not averse even to opposing them to each other. It is not the man himself, but through his fault that the evil otherworldly force that has entered into him commits a crime. Dostoevsky insists on this stubbornly, repeatedly. After all, having already sharpened, like a razor, his casuistry, his justification of sin, in conscience allowing himself to go and finish off "a harmful old money-lender who seizes someone else's age," Raskolnikov still does not believe that he will now get up, go and really kill her. “He simply did not believe himself,” writes Dostoevsky, “and stubbornly, slavishly sought objections from side to side and groped, as if someone was forcing him and pulling him to it. mechanically: as if someone took him by the hand and pulled him along, irresistibly, blindly, with unnatural force, without objection. It was as if he had hit a piece of clothing in the wheel of a car and began to be drawn into it.

Raskolnikov "composed" his murderous theory in blind isolation from people, lying in a beggarly closet. But "it is not good for a man to be alone." Dostoevsky fully learned the indisputable truth of these biblical words on himself when, in his early youth, going through an underground experience, he perished in his loathsome loneliness. The deadly sin of pride, the sin of affirming oneself outside of God, overtakes us in solitude. And with all his creations, Dostoevsky tells us: "Live with people, be with them always. It is better to live in beggarly corners in crowded and dark places, to be at enmity with each other, to put up and be at enmity again, than to remain alone." The devil most easily seduces singles. Rejected from catholicity, a lonely person loses faith and falls into the terrible sin of self-deification, because, according to Dostoevsky's dialectic, if there is no God, then I am God. But disbelief does not in the least prevent one from being superstitious. On the contrary, atheism inevitably leads us to superstition. At first glance, this sounds strange and extremely paradoxical, but for Dostoevsky, superstition is not at all a vain faith directed past God into the void. No, it is a denunciation of evil realities, it is nothing but faith in the devil and his minions. In The Possessed, to Stavrogin's question whether it is possible, without believing in God, to believe in the existence of demons, Bishop Tikhon replies: "It is very possible, and even very often it happens."

Enslaved by his casuistry, Raskolnikov became superstitious, he began to notice that someone's dark mysterious will was taking possession of him. “And in all this business,” says Dostoevsky, “he was always inclined to see some kind of strangeness, mystery, as if the presence of some special influences and coincidences.

However, these evil influences and coincidences do not happen at all in a straightforward and comprehensive way: the bright angelic forces come into conflict with them, sent down by God, who never leaves us even in our lowest falls. Attracted to crime by an unknown power, tormented by a conflicting struggle with his own conscience, in his depths not accepting the justification of sin, Raskolnikov returned home after an aimless, or rather, not reaching his goal, walk. When he reached Petrovsky Island, he stopped exhausted, turned into the bushes, fell on the grass and fell asleep at the same moment. He had a terrible dream about a horse being tortured by drunken peasants. This creature that he saw in a dream, beaten to death, innocent of anything, personified the soul of Raskolnikov, trampled by him, crippled by his own evil decisions. It was she - the soul of Raskolnikov - who tried to throw off the fetters of the mental theories imposed on her, dead abstractions. The mind, torn from the heart, destroys us. He then indulges in spiritual rebellion and rises to the image of God, which was placed in us by the Creator. Cut off from the life of the heart, the abstract idealistic mind turns into an envious lackey seeking the death of its master. Therefore, by the way, the abstract, philosophical approach to Dostoevsky's works does not distinguish the most important thing in them, namely: the highest spiritual pneumatological stage of art, which has nothing in common with philosophy and is alien, at times even hostile to everything psychological, mental and bodily.

Waking up from a terrible dream, Raskolnikov felt that he had thrown off the dead burden of criminal fabrications "and his soul suddenly became light and peaceful. Lord," he prayed, "show me my way, and I renounce this accursed ... my dream ".

This is the moment of divine intervention, a sign given from above! But the infernal will does not sleep. Raskolnikov's spiritual rebellion has gone too far, he has taken root too deeply in his soul, and there is no turning back! We must now inevitably go through a bloody experience. Yet the ultimate last depth of the human soul, its core, created in the image and likeness of God, remains unaffected by sin. That is why the final repentance of the criminal is possible.

Innokenty Annensky in his “First Book of Reflections” says: “The devil entered Crime and Punishment only occasionally, but in his thoughts his place was apparently central and, in any case, significant. This is undoubtedly.” It would be strange to doubt the deepest fidelity of this remark, when Dostoevsky himself puts the fatal words into Raskolnikov's mouth: "I myself know that the devil was dragging me ... The devil killed this old woman, not I ..."

This is not an empty excuse, not a naive attempt to lay the blame at least on someone who does not really exist, this is a genuine testimony of a person who went directly through a criminal experience, crossed over a forbidden threshold and came to know the power of a dark otherworldly, but absolutely real creatures. And as a final explanation, as a conclusion from this truthful testimony, response words Sonya Marmeladova: "You departed from God, and God struck you, betrayed you to the devil."

When studying a work of art, one must first of all not tear oneself away from the text, one must merge with the author, co-create with him, putting aside the concern for criticism, because where there is criticism, there is also a criterion - a prefabricated artificial measure applied to art, not leading, in any case to the realization of creativity.

The theory composed by Raskolnikov, with reference to Napoleon, is worth little in itself; it's just "une theorie comme une autre" fabricated to justify a lonely, arrogantly proud lying in a squalid kennel. “He was very young,” Dostoevsky writes about his hero, “and, therefore, distracted.” From Raskolnikov's young abstraction is his soulless attitude towards people as papier-mâché figures, which can be rearranged on the board or brought down at will. Raskolnikov's affection for his sister and mother is far from the love for one's neighbor, bequeathed to us by the Gospel. This attachment, not sanctified by religious consciousness, is almost completely biological, mental and bodily. Kindred blood ties do not lead us to spiritual enlightenment, but, on the contrary, block our path to it. Isn't that why the Savior said: "And the enemies of a man are his household."

The letter from his mother, received by Raskolnikov the day before he killed the usurer, not only did not keep him from killing, but also contributed to the crime. He did not draw maternal tenderness from the letter, but malice and hatred for everything and everyone because it reminded him of the poverty in which his sister and mother lived. He took out of it an extra argument to justify his evil intentions. By the way, his mother wrote that she was sending him thirty-five rubles - an amount on which one could modestly live in those days for a whole month. Thus, in the course of life itself, Raskolnikov was deprived of the opportunity to refer to at least an urgent material need. He seemed to be standing in front of free choice between light and darkness. But the evil he had cherished had already penetrated too deeply into his heart. And so, upon receiving the letter, and immediately after the dream sent down from above about the tortured horse, the "deaf and dumb spirit" takes possession of it.

Fatal meetings and coincidences began for Raskolnikov, conceived in his unexplored, inaccessible to consciousness, spiritual depths, prepared for implementation in his life, infected with mortal sin, latent will. But it was no longer he who controlled himself, but an unknown, inevitable force that entered him, controlled events for him, manipulated coincidences and gave rise to meetings. “Subsequently,” writes Dostoevsky, “Raskolnikov was superstitiously struck by one circumstance, although, in essence, not very unusual, but which constantly seemed to him then, as it were, some kind of predestination.”

Here the reservations - "although, in essence, not very unusual" and "as if somehow" - are made by Dostoevsky only for the artistic softening of his insistent thought about the undoubted, absolutely real presence of the devil in the world and in us.

The dream of a horse managed to reason with Raskolnikov only for a moment. Not he, but that other, invisible and terrible, now predetermined the development of further circumstances, carried out his evil desires. Raskolnikov later could not understand and explain to himself why - tired, exhausted - he returned home from a walk not the shortest road, but made an extra detour, "obvious and completely unnecessary." "He always asked himself afterwards," says Dostoevsky, "why such an important, so decisive for him and, at the same time, such now, at such an hour, at such a moment in his life, precisely at such a mood of his spirit and at precisely such circumstances, under which only this meeting could produce the most decisive, most final effect on his whole fate? was she waiting for him?

Here, under "such a mood of his spirit," Dostoevsky means Raskolnikov's appeal to God with a request to show him true path. Why, then, did such a “highly random meeting” come to this moment? Because, first of all, this meeting is not accidental in the highest degree, just as it is not at all accidental that it came up immediately after Raskolnikov’s appeal to God. All this is connected with Dostoevsky's statement, as immovable as the truth itself, once for all justified: "The soul of man is the arena of the struggle between God and the devil."

In essence, "Crime and Punishment" is reduced as a whole to the most complex evidence and justification for this assertion. Behind the tide is the ebb, behind the heavenly host are demons, and their name is legion.

I repeat, it is necessary to follow the development of Dostoevsky's narrative with tireless, exceptional vigilance. He is often content with a seemingly accidental remark. It is necessary to reckon very much in his creations, even with punctuation marks. Sometimes some ellipsis covers unknown worlds, bottomless in their meaning possibilities. But if Dostoevsky suddenly delays the rapid growth of incidents and begins, as it were, to mark time, persistently explaining this or that situation, then all thoughts and feelings must be strained in order not to miss anything. And in the end it always turns out that what seemed to us insignificant is not at all insignificant. Moreover, we do not leave the will of God, even when, according to Sonya Marmeladova, He betrays us to the devil for sins. But then we are deprived of the inner freedom granted to us by Heaven, and, since we persist in evil, we lose power over events, we become the plaything of fate, fate. Here I want to emphasize once and for all that, in my opinion, the most important, main, valuable and unique feature of the genius of Dostoevsky is his ability to fearlessly unfold before us the scroll of our conscience, which, according to Innokenty Annensky, only imagines Pushkin (in " Memories", in "Boris Godunov", in "The Miserly Knight", in "Mermaid"). Another, no less important ability of Dostoevsky is to creatively show that in the rolled up scroll of conscience, which resides in the depths of the human spirit, everything that then happens, or rather, inevitably happens to us in life, is planned in advance by your thoughts, dreams and desires. In a word, everything that happens to us is found in us, and therefore there is no place for just grumbling against God and people in the scroll of our conscience.

Reaching up to Sennaya Square, Raskolnikov saw a tradesman and a woman selling small goods here. They were talking to a woman who had come up. It was Lizaveta, who had long been known to Raskolnikov, the younger sister of the same old pawnbroker, whom he had visited only yesterday under a plausible pretext, in order to, if possible, look out for the situation before the murder. “When Raskolnikov suddenly saw Lizaveta,” writes Dostoevsky, “some strange feeling, similar to the deepest amazement, seized him, although there was nothing amazing in this meeting.”

Yes, if you look at phenomena with everyday, one-dimensional eyes, you will not find anything surprising in this. Lizaveta gave for sale linen and dresses of her own sewing to the townspeople who traded not far from the quarter in which both she and Raskolnikov lived. Why be so surprised? But for Dostoevsky the world is not only three-dimensional, as for the artists of the mental and bodily warehouse - Turgenev, Leo Tolstoy, Flaubert, Maupassant, Chekhov - but also three-dimensional.

Dostoevsky, as an artist, grows organically out of living life, perceived by him simultaneously in three, as it were, through, mutually permeable planes: in the obvious earthly, in the heavenly angelic and, finally, in the ordeal infernal. These three planes, being in constant mutual communication, mutual influence, are not speculative categories, not irresponsible science fiction in the style of the German writer Hoffmann, but a kind of three-faced universal process, an all-encompassing, triply reflected, spiritual-bodily fermentation, a higher reality, a super-manifest being, the spokesman of which the author of "Crime and Punishment" rightfully revered himself. No wonder he entered in his notebook: "My name is a psychologist. It's not true! I am a writer of higher realities."

Dostoevsky - pneumatologist, visionary, visionary. He caught in human soul secret movements, breaths, inaccessible to the perception of a psychologist and psychiatrist. Raskolnikov, when meeting with Lizaveta, experienced the deepest amazement, not understanding its terrible significance. This was done for Raskolnikov by Dostoevsky.

Lizaveta was thirty-five years old by that time. “She worked for her sister day and night, was in the house instead of a cook and a laundress, and, in addition, sewed for sale, even washed the floors and gave everything to her sister.” In a word, she was meek, submissive and completely unrequited. It is precisely such humble beings who are destined by God to become a prototype of the Sacrifice. Immersed in our regular deeds, we simply do not notice such prototypes of the Calvary Sacrifice surrounding us. But the extreme tension of all nervous and mental forces on the eve of the all-deciding day opened a certain door in Raskolnikov's soul, leading, if not to comprehension, then at least to the emergence of a lightning-fast perception of timeless entities. Having met with Lizaveta, Raskolnikov suddenly felt her radiant noumenal face, created in the image and likeness of God, behind her everyday, turned to people and familiar to him appearance of a petty-bourgeois woman. Raskolnikov could not but feel it, and not only because it was the last warning sign given to him from Heaven, but also because our inner spiritual and evil-spiritual decisions are ahead of earthly events and phenomena. Truly real accomplishments take place there, in the depths of the soul; here, on the surface, only their reflections and confirmations. In the failures of his gloomy, gloomy soul, Raskolnikov, without realizing it, had already doomed Lizaveta to death.

Who has not happened, entering an apartment unknown to him until then, to suddenly feel that he has already seen these same rooms somewhere. Just like Alexei Tolstoy:

All this was once But I just don't remember when.

Now psychologists have ready-made answers to such feelings, based on a rather vague game of concepts of consciousness and subconsciousness. But no psychological interpretations would have satisfied Dostoevsky, who believed that it was possible, going in the opposite direction, from the external environment around us, from the reflection to the essence, to comprehend this or that spiritual state of a person. So, the cubicle, closet, closet, cabin in which Raskolnikov lived is just a photograph of his spiritually burned out and burned-out rebellion against God. It is not a beggarly kennel that brings Raskolnikov to atrocities, but the malevolence brewing in him leads him to live in it. Pulcheria Alexandrovna - Raskolnikov's mother - involuntarily and unconsciously sums up all the names given to her son's little room: "What a bad apartment you have, Rodya, like a coffin." And it is highly significant that it is the mother who, as if by chance acquired a word, in fact, by intuition, exposes the close dominion of her criminal offspring. Pride, which in the inscrutable period of adolescence took possession of Raskolnikov, gradually separates him from the sun of the living, envelops his soul in a trial cocoon. This evil-spirited, impenetrable cover of a demonic product is projected outward, reflected in the world of phenomena by Raskolnikov's life in a lonely closet. He was given to him by sin in exchange for a blessed mother's womb for a second dead birth, leading the criminal to hard labor - to the house of the dead. Such an evil parody of birth makes Raskolnikov a murderer, plunges him into the dark realms of unbearable ordeals, interrupted only occasionally, for separate moments, by the intrusion of the Divine will, the angelic light sent down to the sinner as a pledge of possible salvation through intermediaries and guides of transcendent paradise entities: small adult children, poor in spirit, without guilt suffering victims, sacrificed to atone for the sins of a perishing neighbor. But the underworld is vigilant, and, in contrast to heavenly intervention, it spews out its intermediaries and minions in the form of people like Raskolnikov himself, his evil counterparts, of which the main one is Svidrigailov, stunned by sin, magnetized by hell, and without knowing it, is fighting against Heaven for the possession of the killer, by his mere presence and example helping the criminal to unrepentantly establish himself in evil.

Here it is impossible not to ask those who, contrary to the evidence, see Dostoevsky as a psychologist: what does such a multi-layered, mystical edifice erected on three planes have to do with psychology? Is it generally permissible to attribute Dostoevsky to this or that category of artists or, even better, philosophers, without once taking into account his own opinion, clearly and categorically expressed? He called psychology a double-edged sword: you grab one end and hit yourself hard on the forehead with the other.

("Crime and Punishment")

Main character Romana, former student; son and elder brother of the Raskolnikovs. In the draft materials, the author said about Raskolnikov, emphasized: “In his image, the thought of exorbitant pride, arrogance and contempt for society is expressed in the novel. His idea is to take over this society. Despotism is his trait ... ". But, at the same time, already in the course of action, this hero in relation to individual people often acts as a true benefactor: from the last means he helps a sick fellow student, and after his death and his father, saves two children from a fire, gives the Marmeladov family all the money that his mother sent him, stands up for, accused of theft ...
sketch it psychological portrait On the eve of the crime, he is given on the very first page of the novel, when explaining why he does not want to meet the landlady when leaving his “coffin” closet: “It’s not that he was so cowardly and downtrodden, quite the contrary; but for some time he had been in an irritable and tense state, resembling hypochondria. He was so deep in himself and retired from everyone that he was afraid of even any meeting, not only a meeting with the hostess. He was crushed by poverty; but even the cramped position ceased to recent times weigh him down. He completely stopped his urgent business and did not want to do it. In essence, he was not afraid of any hostess, no matter what she plotted against him. But to stop on the stairs, listen to all sorts of nonsense about all this ordinary rubbish, which he doesn’t care about, all these pestering about payment, threats, complaints, and at the same time dodge, apologize, lie - no, it’s better to slip somehow cat up the stairs and sneak away so that no one sees ... ". A little further on, the first sketch of appearance is given: “A feeling of the deepest disgust flashed for a moment in thin features young man. By the way, he was remarkably good-looking, with beautiful dark eyes, dark blond, taller than average, thin and slender.<...>He was so badly dressed that another, even a familiar person, would be ashamed to go out into the street in such tatters during the day.<...>But so much vicious contempt had already accumulated in the soul of a young man that, despite all his sometimes very young ticklishness, he was least of all ashamed of his rags on the street ... ". Even further, it will be said about Raskolnikov during his student days: “It is remarkable that Raskolnikov, being at the university, had almost no comrades, kept aloof from everyone, did not go to anyone and received it hard at home. However, they soon turned their backs on him. Neither in general gatherings, nor in conversations, nor in fun, did he somehow take part in anything. He studied hard, not sparing himself, and for this he was respected, but no one loved him. He was very poor and somehow arrogantly proud and uncommunicative; as if he was hiding something to himself. It seemed to some of his comrades that he looked down on them all, as if they were children, from above, as if he had outstripped them all in development, and knowledge, and convictions, and that he looked at their convictions and interests as something lower. ..". At that time he got along more or less only with Razumikhin.
and gives and draws the most objective portrait of Raskolnikov at the request of his mother and sister: “I have known Rodion for a year and a half: gloomy, gloomy, arrogant and proud; lately (and perhaps much earlier) hypochondriacal hypochondriac. Magnanimous and kind. He does not like to express his feelings and will sooner do cruelty than the heart will express in words. Sometimes, however, he is not a hypochondriac at all, but simply cold and insensitive to the point of inhumanity, really, as if there were two opposite character are changed in turn. Terribly taciturn sometimes! He has no time for everything, everyone interferes with him, but he himself lies, does nothing. Not mocking, and not because there was not enough wit, but as if he did not have enough time for such trifles. Doesn't listen to what they say. Never interested in what everyone is interested in at the moment. He values ​​himself terribly highly and, it seems, not without some right to do so ... ".
The novel life of Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov begins with the fact that he, a young man of 23 years old, who three or four months before the events described, left his studies at the university due to lack of funds and who for a month had almost never left his closet room from the tenants, who looked like a coffin, he went out into the street in his terrible rags and, in indecision, went through the July heat, as he called it, “to test his enterprise” - to the apartment of the usurer. Her house was exactly 730 paces from his house - before that he had already walked and measured. He climbed up to the 4th floor and rang the bell. “The bell clanged out weakly, and as if it was made of tin, not copper ...” (This call is a very important detail in the novel: later, after the crime, it will be remembered by the killer and beckon to him.) During Raskolnikov gives “samples” for a pittance (1 rub. 15 kopecks) the silver watch inherited from his father and promises to bring a new mortgage the other day - a silver cigarette case (which he did not have), and he carefully conducted “intelligence”: where is the hostess holds keys, location of rooms, etc. The impoverished student is completely at the mercy of the idea that he endured in an inflamed brain over the past month of lying in "underground"- to kill a nasty old woman and thereby change her life-fate, to save her sister Dunya, who is bought and wooed by the scoundrel and horse-dealer Luzhin. Following the trial, even before the murder, Raskolnikov meets the impoverished man in a pub, his entire family and, most importantly, his eldest daughter Sonya Marmeladova, who became a prostitute in order to save her family from final death. The idea that sister Dunya, in essence, does the same thing (sells herself to Luzhin) in order to save him, Rodion, was the last push - Raskolnikov kills the old money-lender, and at the same time, it happened, he hacked to death the old woman's sister, who became an unwitting witness. And that ends the first part of the novel. And then five parts with the "Epilogue" follow - punishments. The fact is that in Raskolnikov's "idea" in addition to its, so to speak, material, practical side, for a month of lying and thinking, the theoretical, philosophical component has finally increased and matured. As it turns out later, Raskolnikov once wrote an article called "On Crime", which two months before the murder of Alena Ivanovna appeared in the newspaper "Periodical speech", which the author himself did not suspect (he gave it to a completely different newspaper), and in which held the idea that all mankind is divided into two categories - ordinary people, "trembling creatures", and extraordinary people, "Napoleons". And such a "Napoleon", according to Raskolnikov, can give permission to himself, his conscience, "to step over the blood" for the sake of big goal, that is, has the right to crime. So Rodion Raskolnikov posed the question to himself: “Am I a trembling creature or do I have a right?” Here, mainly, to answer this question, he decided to kill the vile old woman.
But the punishment begins even at the very moment of the crime. All his theoretical reasoning and hopes at the moment of "stepping over the line" to be cold-blooded fly to hell. He was so lost after the murder (several blows with the butt of an ax on the crown of the head) of Alena Ivanovna that he was not even able to rob - he began to grab ruble mortgage earrings and rings, although, as it turned out later, thousands of rubles in cash lay in the chest of drawers in plain sight. Then there was an unexpected, absurd and completely unnecessary murder (with the tip of an ax right in the face, in the eyes) of the meek Lizaveta, which at once crossed out all excuses before her own conscience. And - begins from these minutes for Raskolnikov's nightmare life: he immediately falls from the "superman" into the category of a persecuted beast. Even his external portrait changes dramatically: “Raskolnikov<...>was very pale, absent-minded and gloomy. Outwardly, he looked like a wounded person or enduring some kind of strong physical pain: his eyebrows were shifted, his lips were compressed, his eyes were inflamed ... ". The main "hunter" in the novel is the bailiff of investigative affairs. It is he who, exhausting Raskolnikov's psyche with conversations similar to interrogations, all the time provoking a nervous breakdown with hints, juggling facts, hidden and even outright mockery, forces him to turn himself in. However, main reason Raskolnikov’s “surrender” is that he himself understood: ““ Did I kill the old woman? I killed myself, not the old woman! Here, all at once, he slapped himself, forever! ..». By the way, the thought of suicide obsessively haunts Raskolnikov: “Or give up life completely! ..”; “Yes, it’s better to hang yourself! ..”; "... otherwise it's better not to live ...". This obsessive suicidal motive sounds constantly in Raskolnikov's soul and head. And many of the people around Rodion are simply sure that he is overcome by a craving for voluntary death. Here the simple-minded Razumikhin naively and cruelly frightens Pulcheria Alexandrovna and Dunya: “... well, how is it (Raskolnikov. - N.N.) to release one now? Perhaps drowning ... ". Here meek Sonya is tormented by fear for Raskolnikov “at the thought that maybe he really will commit suicide” ... And now the cunning inquisitor Porfiry Petrovich first hints in a conversation with Rodion Romanovich, they say, after the murder of another faint-hearted killer sometimes “It makes me want to jump out of Ali’s window from the bell tower,” and then directly, in his disgusting servile-serving style, he warns and advises: “Just in case, I also have a request to you<...>she is ticklish, but important; if, that is, just in case (which, however, I do not believe and consider you completely incapable), if, in case - well, just in case - hunting would come to you in these forty or fifty hours somehow end differently, in a fantastic way - raise your hands like that (an absurd assumption, well, you will forgive me for it), then leave a short but detailed note ... ". But (Raskolnikov's double in the novel) even suddenly (suddenly?) Suggests to the student killer: “Well, shoot yourself; what, al don’t want to? .. ". Already before his own suicide, Svidrigailov continues to think and reflect on the finale of the life and fate of his novel double. Transferring money to Sonya, he pronounces a sentence-prediction: “Rodion Romanovich has two roads: either a bullet in the forehead, or along Vladimirka (i.e., to hard labor. - N.N.)...". In practice, as in the case of Svidrigailov, the reader, at the behest of the author, should suspect and guess long before the finale that Raskolnikov might commit suicide. Razumikhin only suggested that his comrade, God forbid, drown himself, and Raskolnikov at that time was already standing on the bridge and peering into the "dark water of the ditch." It would seem that this is special? But then, before his eyes, a drunken beggar woman rushes from the bridge (), she was immediately pulled out and saved, and Raskolnikov, watching what was happening, suddenly admits to himself suicidal thoughts: “No, disgusting ... water ... not worth it .. .". And soon, completely in a conversation with Dunya, the brother openly admits his obsession: « — <...>you see, sister, I finally wanted to make up my mind and many times walked near the Neva; I remember it. I wanted to end there, but... I didn't dare...<...>Yes, in order to avoid this shame, I wanted to drown myself, Dunya, but I thought, already standing above the water, that if I considered myself strong until now, then let me not be afraid of shame now ... ". However, Raskolnikov would not have been Raskolnikov if, after a minute, he had not added with an “ugly grin”: “Don’t you think, sister, that I was just afraid of water? ..”.
In one of the draft notes for the novel, Dostoevsky outlined that Raskolnikov should shoot himself in the finale. And here the parallel with Svidrigailov is quite clear: he, like his double, having abandoned the shamefully “female” way of suicide in dirty water, would most likely have to, just as accidentally as Svidrigailov, get a revolver somewhere .. The psychological touch that the author “given” to the hero from his own life impressions is very characteristic - when Raskolnikov finally refuses to commit suicide, what is happening in his soul is described and conveyed as follows: “This feeling could be like the feeling of a person sentenced to death penalty who is suddenly and unexpectedly announced forgiveness ... ". The echo of Svidrigailov's dying thoughts and Raskolnikov's convict thoughts about each other is quite logically justified. The murderous student, like the suicide landowner, does not believe in eternal life, does not want to believe in Christ. But it is worth remembering the scene-episode of Sonya Marmeladova and Raskolnikov reading the gospel parable of the resurrection of Lazarus. Even Sonya was surprised why Raskolnikov so insistently demanded reading aloud: “Why do you need it? You don't believe, do you?" However, Raskolnikov is painfully persistent and then "sat and listened motionless", in essence, to the story of the possibility of his own resurrection from the dead (after all - "I killed myself, not the old woman!"). In penal servitude, he, along with other shackled companions, goes to church during Great Lent, but when all of a sudden some quarrel broke out - “everyone attacked him with frenzy” and with accusations that he was “a godless” and he “should be killed "One convict even rushed at him in a decisive frenzy, however, Raskolnikov "waited for him calmly and silently: his eyebrow did not move, not a single feature of his face trembled ...". At the last second, the escort stood between them and the murder (suicide?!) did not happen, did not happen. Yes, almost suicidal. Raskolnikov, as it were, wanted to repeat the suicidal feat of the early Christians, who voluntarily accepted death for their faith at the hands of the barbarians. In this case, the convict-murderer, by inertia and formally observing church rites, and out of habit, from childhood, wearing a cross around his neck, for Raskolnikov, as if a newly converted Christian, is to some extent, indeed, a barbarian. And that the process of conversion (return?) to Christ in the soul of Rodion is inevitable and has already begun - this is obvious. Under his pillow on the bunk is the Gospel given to him by Sonya, according to which she read to him about the resurrection of Lazarus (and, it is worth adding, what lay in hard labor under the pillow of Dostoevsky himself!), thoughts about his own resurrection, about the desire to live and believe - already don't leave him...
Raskolnikov, regretting at first living in prison that he did not dare to execute himself following the example of Svidrigailov, could not help but think that it was not too late and even preferable to do it in prison. Moreover, hard labor, especially in the first year, seemed to him (and, presumably, to Dostoevsky himself!) completely unbearable, full of "unbearable torment." Here, of course, Sonya and her Gospel played a role, kept him from committing suicide, and pride-pride still controlled his consciousness ... But one should not discount the following circumstance, which extremely struck Raskolnikov (and, first of all, Dostoevsky himself in his initial days and months of hard labor): “He looked at his hard labor comrades and was surprised: how they all loved life, how they valued it! It seemed to him that in prison she was even more loved and appreciated, and cherished more than in freedom. What terrible torments and tortures did not endure some of them, for example, vagabonds! Can a single ray of the sun really mean so much to them, a dense forest, somewhere in an unknown wilderness a cold spring, marked since the third year and about a meeting with which the tramp dreams, as about a meeting with his mistress, sees him in a dream, green grass around him, a singing bird in the bush? ..».
The final return of Raskolnikov to the Christian faith, the rejection of his "idea" occurs after the apocalyptic dream of the "trichins", which infected all people on earth with the desire to kill. Saves Rodion and the sacrificial love of Sonya Marmeladova, who followed him to hard labor. In many ways, she, the Gospel she gave, infect the student-criminal with an irresistible thirst for life. Raskolnikov knows that "he does not get a new life for nothing", that he will have to "pay for it with a great future feat ...". We will never know what great feat Raskolnikov, who refrained from suicide and resurrected to a new life, did in the future, because there was no “new story” about his future fate, as the author hinted at in the final lines of the novel.

The surname of the protagonist is ambiguous: on the one hand, the split is like a bifurcation; on the other hand, a schism as a schismatic. This surname is also deeply symbolic: it is not without reason that the crime of the "nihilist" Raskolnikov is taken over by the schismatic.

A multifaceted romance

Leafing through the first pages of the book, we begin to get acquainted with the image of Raskolnikov in Dostoevsky's novel Crime and Punishment. Telling the story of his life, the writer makes us reflect on a number of important questions. It is difficult to determine what type of novel the work of F. M. Dostoevsky belongs to. It raises issues relating to various areas human life: social, moral, psychological, family, moral. Rodion Raskolnikov is the center of the novel. It is with him that all the others are connected. storylines great classic work.

The protagonist of the novel

Appearance

The description of Raskolnikov in the novel begins with the first chapter. We meet a young man who is in a painful condition. He is gloomy, thoughtful and withdrawn. Rodion Raskolnikov is a former university student who abandoned his studies at the Faculty of Law. Together with the author, we see the meager furnishings of the room where the young man lives: “It was a tiny cell, six paces long, which had the most miserable appearance.” We carefully examine the details of worn clothes. Rodion Raskolnikov is in an extremely distressed situation. He does not have money to pay off debts for an apartment, to pay for his studies.

Character traits

The characterization of Raskolnikov in the novel "Crime and Punishment" is given by the author gradually. First, we get acquainted with the portrait of Raskolnikov. “By the way, he was remarkably good-looking, with beautiful dark eyes, dark-haired, taller than average, thin and slender.” Then we begin to understand his character. The young man is smart and educated, proud and independent. Humiliating financial situation, in which he found himself, make him gloomy and withdrawn. He hates interacting with people. Any help from a close friend of Dmitry Razumikhin or an elderly mother seems humiliating to him.

Raskolnikov's idea

Exorbitant pride, sick pride and a beggarly state give rise to a certain idea in Raskolnikov's head. The essence of which is to divide people into two categories: ordinary and those with the right. Thinking about his great destiny, “Am I a trembling creature or do I have a right?” The hero prepares for a crime. He believes that by killing the old woman, he will test his ideas, he will be able to start new life and make humanity happy.

Crime and Punishment of the Hero

In real life, things turn out differently. Together with the greedy pawnbroker, the wretched Lizoveta perishes, having harmed no one. The robbery failed. Raskolnikov could not bring himself to use the stolen goods. He's disgusted, sick and scared. He understands that in vain he counted on the role of Napoleon. Having crossed the moral line, depriving a person of life, the hero avoids communication with people in every possible way. Rejected and sick, he is on the verge of insanity. Raskolnikov's family, his friend Dmitry Razumikhin, are unsuccessfully trying to understand the state of the young man, to support the unfortunate. A proud young man rejects the care of loved ones and is left alone with his problem. “But why do they love me so if I'm not worth it!

Oh, if I were alone and no one loved me, and I myself would not love anyone! he exclaims.

After a fatal event, the hero forces himself to communicate with strangers. He takes part in the fate of Marmeladov and his family, giving money sent by his mother for the funeral of an official. Saves a young girl from corruption. Noble impulses of the soul are quickly replaced by irritation, annoyance and loneliness. The life of the hero seemed to be divided into two parts: before the murder and after it. He does not feel like a criminal, does not realize his guilt. Most of all, he worries about the fact that he did not pass the test. Rodion is trying to confuse the investigation, to understand whether the smart and cunning investigator Porfiry Petrovich suspects him. Constant pretense, tension and lies deprive him of his strength, devastate his soul. The hero feels that he is doing wrong, but does not want to admit his mistakes and delusions.

Rodion Raskolnikov and Sonya Marmeladova

The rebirth to a new life began after Rodion Raskolnikov met Sonya Marmeladova. The eighteen-year-old girl herself was in extremely distressed condition. Shy, modest by nature, the heroine is forced to live on a yellow ticket in order to give money to her starving family. She constantly suffers insults, humiliation and fear. “She is unrequited,” the author says of her. But this weak creature has good heart and a deep faith in God, which helps not only to endure oneself, but also to support others. Sonya's love saved Rodion from death. Her pity at first arouses protest and indignation in the proud young man. But it is Sonya who confides his secret and it is from her that he seeks sympathy and support. Exhausted by the struggle with himself, Raskolnikov, on the advice of his girlfriend, admits his guilt and goes to hard labor. He does not believe in God, does not share her beliefs. The idea that happiness and forgiveness must be suffered is incomprehensible to the hero. The patience, care and deep feeling of the girl helped Rodion Raskolnikov turn to God, repent and start living anew.

The main idea of ​​the work of F. M. Dostoevsky

A detailed description of the crime and punishment of Raskolnikov form the basis of the plot of the novel by F. M. Dostoevsky. Punishment begins immediately after the murder is committed. Painful doubts, remorse, a break with loved ones turned out to be much worse years hard labor. The writer, subjecting Raskolnikov to a deep analysis, tries to warn the reader against misconceptions and mistakes. Deep faith in God, love for one's neighbor, moral principles should become the basic rules in the life of every person.

The analysis of the image of the protagonist of the novel can be used by students of grade 10 in preparation for writing an essay on the topic "The image of Raskolnikov in the novel" Crime and Punishment "".

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