Crime and Punishment in the Context of the Reforms of Criminal Law in the 1860s. An Addition to the Commentary

Abstract

The article is devoted to two storylines related to the reflection of the criminal procedure reality of the 1860s in the novel Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky. The first storyline is the working method of Porfiry Petrovich and the second is the conviction of Raskolnikov. Researchers traditionally attribute Porfiry’s method to his personal qualities. The article proposes to look at it from the point of view of the criminal reality of the time. It was previously noted that the sentence was milder than might have been expected. The article attempts to trace exactly how Dostoevsky constructed this judgment. Both storylines show how attentive the writer was to the changes in the judicial and investigative systems and how accurately he tried to reflect their current state in his novel.

Keywords

• dostoevsky
• crime and punishment
• porfiry petrovich
• raskolnikov
• judicial reform