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The Rise of Crime and Punishment from the Air of the Media

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Konstantine Klioutchkine
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Abstract

The rapid expansion of the Russian press at the turn of the 1860s had a profound effect on how literary texts were written and read. Fedor Dostoevskii was among the writers most closely involved in the changing discursive environment. The vicissitudes of his precarious position in the field of letters put him under pressure to adopt the most successful discursive strategies and to open his work to the popular genres (feuilleton, local news, courtroom reports), themes (crime, the identity of the new man), and characters (struggling university students, who are also writers or translators) that were enjoying the greatest popularity in the Russian press of the time. By opening his text to the press, Dostoevskii became the first Russian writer to investigate die effects of the media on the personal identity of writer and reader in the new context of uncontrolled discursive proliferation.

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Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 61 , Issue 1 , Spring 2002 , pp. 88 - 108
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 2002

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References

1 Vertinskii, N. S., Gazeta v Rossii i SSSR (Moscow, 1931), 44.Google Scholar

2 All translations are mine. Quoted in Librovich, S. F., Na knizhnom postu: Vospominaniia, zapiski, dokumenty (St. Petersburg, 1916), 446.Google Scholar

3 Watt, Ian, in his founding work, The Rise of the Novel (Berkeley, 1984),Google Scholar pays this topic special attention. For a recent treatment, see Kevin McLaughlin, Writing in Parts: Imitation and Exchange in Nineteenth-Century Literature (Stanford, 1995).

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5 In 1836, Honore de Balzac’s La vieillefille appeared serially in La Press. See, for example, Barberis, Pierre, Balzac et le mat du siecle, 2 vols. (Paris, 1970), 2:940.Google Scholar

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7 The methodological framework of my project is best defined through references to several key figures whose influence will, no doubt, be apparent in the article. My approach to texts relies on die poststructuralist version of explication du texte practiced by Riffaterre, Michael (esp. in his Text Production [New York, 1983]).Google Scholar My perspective on nineteenth- century culture owes most to Walter Benjamin’s essays on Baudelaire, Charles and The Arcades Project (Cambridge, Mass., 1999).Google Scholar My view of the media was influenced by the work of Marshall McLuhan and Jean Baudrillard. Finally, my understanding of the (post)modern epistemological condition is indebted to Lyotard’s, Francois The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge (Minneapolis, 1984).Google Scholar

8 Lisovskii’s, N. M. founding work Russkaia periodicheskaia pechat', 1703-1900 (St. Petersburg, 1915)Google Scholar formed the basis for later historical studies, including, Vertinskii, Gazeta v Rossii i SSSR; Bokhanov, A. N., Burzhuaznaia pressa Rossii i krupnyi kapital (Moscow, 1984);Google Scholar Esin, B. I., Kratkii ocherk razvitiia gazetnogo dela v Rossii XVFII-XIX vekov (Moscow, 1967).Google Scholar Major recent works include: Todd III, William Mill, ed., Literature and Society in Imperial Russia, 1800–1917 (Stanford, 1978);Google Scholar Brooks, Jeffrey, When Russia Learned to Read: Literary and Popular Literature, 1861–1917 (Princeton, 1985);Google Scholar McReynold, Louises, The News under Russia’s Old Regime: The Development of a Mass Circulation Press (Princeton, 1991);CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Reitblat, A. I., Ot Bovy k Bal'montu: Ocherki po istorii chhteniia v Rossii (Moscow, 1991).Google Scholar

9 The anonymous author of “Literaturnye melochi,” Sovremennik, 1864, no. 12, pt. 2: 123–24, quoting from Gobs, 1864, no. 293: “Mondily journals have lost their importance and are giving in to daily newspapers.” Among others, Dostoevskii recorded this dynamic several times. See F. M. Dostoevskii, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii v tridtsati tomakh (Leningrad, 1972–1990; hereafter PSS), 20:60,140.

10 Vertinskii, Gazeta v Rossii i SSSR, 50.

11 Quoted in Esin, Kratkii ocherk, 36.

12 “Vnutrennee obozrenie,” Sovremennik, 1864, no. 8, pt. 2:332-33; “Literaturnye melochi,” 1865, no. 6, pt. 2:291.

13 Esin, Kratkii ocherk, 40; Bokhanov, Burzhuaznaiapressa Rossii, 29–30.

14 Bokhanov, Burzhuaznaia pressa Rossii, 28-40; Esin, Kratkii ocherk, 35–37; Vertinskii, Gazeta v Rossii i SSSR, 43–45.

15 Nikolai Mikhailovskii both boasted and complained about writing “two sheets per month.” Mikhailovskii, , Literaturnaia kritika i vospominaniia (Moscow, 1995), 9.Google Scholar Nikolai Strakhov noted that Dostoevskii “was proud of his condition” and “wrote 25–30 sheets per year.” Strakhov, “Vospominaniia o Fedore Mikhailoviche Dostoevskom” [1881], in Tiunkin, K., comp., Dostoevskii v vospominaniiahh sovremennikov, 2 vols. (Moscow, 1990), 1: 417, 518.Google Scholar

16 “Vnutrennee obozrenie,” Sovremennik, 1862, no. 12, pt. 2:36. Vertinskii describes writers’ practice of contributing to several publications simultaneously as widespread. Vertinskii, Gazeta v Rossii i SSSR, 45.

17 Chernyshevskii, N. G., Polnoesobraniesochinenii (Moscow, 1950), 7:724–27.Google Scholar

18 Dostoevskii, PSS, 28, pt. 2:105–6.

19 These duplications received ample discussion in “Literaturnye melochi,” Sovremennik, 1864, no. 8, pt. 2:326 ) and no. 12, pt. 2:153.

20 Dostoevskii, PSS, 19:67–68.

21 Bokhanov, Burzhuaznaia pressa Rossii, 30; Reitblat, Ot Bovy k Bal'montu, 114.

22 G. Lokhvitskii, “Vnutrennee obozrenie,” Sovremennik, 1864, no. 12, pt. 2:240.

23 For a model discussion of die flaneur in the nineteenth century, see Benjamin, The Arcades Project, 416–55; Benjamin, Walter, Illuminations (New York, 1968), 165–74.Google Scholar

24 The program of Peterburgskii listok: Gazeta gorodskoi zhizni i literaturnaia (1864, no. 111 [“Ot redaktsii“]) stated: “our subtitle allows us to publish fiction … we have tried to feature stories from Petersburg life.” While Peterburgskii listok was instrumental to the spreading of this practice, it was becoming common to all newspapers. Reitblat, Ot Bovy k Bal'montu, 114.

25 Peter Fritzsche investigates a similar, although much more pronounced, dynamic in Berlin at the turn of the century in Reading Berlin, 1900 (Cambridge, Mass., 1998).

26 Dostoevskii, PSS, 19:119–38, 300–309. This episode enjoyed remarkable longevity. See, for example, Gippius, Zinaida, Zhivye litsa (Tbilisi, 1991), 2:153;Google Scholar Boborykin, P. D., Vospominaniia (Moscow, 1965), 1:191 Google Scholar

27 The original publication of the novel featvired the version “vek.” F. M. Dostoevskii, Prestuplenie i nakazanie, in Russkii vestnik 64 (August 1866): 745. The editors of the scholarly edition changed it to “Vek.” Dostoevskii, PSS, 6:216.

28 “Zhurnal'naia rugatnia,” Sowemennik, 1864, no. 8, pt. 2:297 and 1864, no. 12, pt. 2:120; “Glasnost', sud i gazety,” Golos, 1864, no. 332.

29 Strakhov, “Vospominaniia o Fedore Mikhailoviche Dostoevskom,” 392.

30 Quoted in “Zapiski sovremennika,” Sovremennik, 1865, no. 8, pt. 2:301. For a similar observation, see Dostoevskii, PSS, 19:58.

31 “Zapiski sovremennika,” 301.

32 Dostoevskii,PSS, 18:39, 203–7; G. M. Fridlender, “U istokov ‘pochvennichestva,’“ Izvestiia Akademii nauk SSSR: Seriia literatury i iazyka, 1971, no. 5:411–16.

33 Dostoevskii, PSS, 18:38 (announcement of Vremia). Dostoevskii, PSS, 28, pt. 1: 376: “Look at others: they have neither talent nor ability … and yet are prospering. I am sure we are more adroit than Kraevskiis and Nekrasovs. “

34 For Grigor'ev’s criticism, see “Vospominaniia ob Apollone Grigor'eve,” Epokha, 1864, no. 9, and “Novye pis'ma Apollona Grigor'eva,” Epokha, 1865, no. 2. For “Pochtovaia kliacha/loshad',” see Strakhov, “Vospominaniia o Fedore Mikhailoviche Dostoevskom,“ 415; Dostoevskii,PSS, 19:133–36.

35 For negotiations with publishers, see Dostoevskii, PSS, 7:310 and 28, pt. 2:151, 166–67.

36 These concerns can be traced in his letters: Dostoevskii, PSS, 28, pt. 2:151, 141,156.

37 Strakhov, “Vospominaniia o Fedore Mikhailoviche Dostoevskom,” 404.

38 Dostoevskii, PSS, 7:387–88.

39 On syshchikovskii roman, see V Zaitsev, “Literaturnoe obozrenie,” Russkoe slovo, 1865, no. 7, pt. 3:68-69; see also A. I. Reitblat, “Detektivnaia literatura i russkii chitatel',“ Knizhnoe delo v Rossii vo vtoroi polovine XlX-nachale XX veka, 1994, no. 7; V. A. Viktorovich “Vsevolod Krestovskii: Legendy i fakty,” Russkaia literatura, 1990, no. 2:55; N. M. Sokolovskii, Ostrog i zhizn': Iz zapisok sledovatelia (St. Petersburg, 1866; initially in Vremia, 1862, no. 12, and 1863, no. 2). For the detective as dusha kompanii, see K. Bibikov, Glukhaia ulitsa (St. Petersburg, 1869; initially in Epokha, 1865), 68. Sonia Marmeladova reads Fiziologiia obydennoi zhizni. The seamstress reads about a detective in V. Kliushnikov, Bol'shie korabli (Russkii vestnik, 1866, no. 3).

40 Dostoevskii, PSS, 28, pt. 2:136–37.

41 For a discussion of this case, see ibid., 7:332.

42 “Peterburgskie otmetki,” Golos, 1865, no. 246.

43 Krestovskii, V. V., Peterburgskie trushchoby (Moscow, 1993), 303–21.Google Scholar

44 Rak, V. D., “Istochnik ocherkov o znamenitykh ugolovnykh protsessakh,” Dostoevskii: Materialy i issledovaniia, 1974, no. 1:239–41;Google Scholar Lacenaire, P.-F., Memoirs of Lacenaire (New York, 1951).Google Scholar Lacenaire, who, like Raskol'nikov, had also published an article on law, ideologized his crimes in his memoirs.

45 Dostoevskii, PSS, 19:140–47.

46 Ibid., 7:332–33.

47 Ibid., 7:349–50.

48 Ibid., 29, pt. 1:19. See, for example, Belkin, A. A., “O realizme Dostoevskogo,“ Tvorchestvo Dostoevskogo (Moscow, 1959), 45–53;Google Scholar Linner, Sven, Dostoevski] on Realism (Stockholm, 1967), 54–55.Google Scholar

49 The proximity of the small genres was evident in Peterburgskii listok (for example, 1864, no. 153), which featured a mutant rubric Fiziologicheskii fel'eton. See also Morson, Gary Saul, The Boundaries of Genre (Austin, 1981), 14–32.Google Scholar

50 Danilov, V. V., “K voprosu o kompozitsionnykh priemakh v ‘Prestuplenii i nakazanii' Dostoevskogo,” hvestiia Akademii nauk SSSR: Otdelenie obshchestvennykh nauk, 1933, no. 3:253.Google Scholar

51 Dostoevskii, PSS, 6:39-43. For lovelasnichestvo, see, for example, “Vnutrennoe obozrenie,” Sovremennik, 1864, no. 8, pt. 2:104.

52 “Pristavanie k zhenshchinam,” for example, “Otgoloski peterburgskoi zhizni: Zametki iunogo grazhdanina,” Pelerburgskii listok, 1864, no. 115.

53 Dostoevskii, PSS, 7:368; Danilov, “K voprosu,” 256.

54 M. A. Voronov, Arbuzovskaia krepost', in Povesti i rasskazy (Moscow, 1961), 179; P. Kholmskii, htoriia moego pomeshalel'stva, Sovremennik, 1865, no. 3, pt. 1:165.

55 V. V Krestovskii, “U Spasa na Sennoi,” Peterburgskii listok, 1864, no. 111.

56 “Nashi literaturnye napravleniia,” Sanktpeterburgskie vedomosti, 20 June 1865.

57 Dostoevskii, PSS, 7:146.

58 Ibid., 6:6. Levitov, A. I., hbrannye proizvedeniia (Moscow, 1988), 84.Google Scholar Levitov used the tide of Krestovskii’s story verbatim.

59 “Zametki Literaturnogo Mediuma,” Peterburgskii listok, 1865, no. 166. Strakhov wrote that Dostoevskii “knew full well that entering literature, he stepped into the market, the square.” Strakhov, “Vospominaniia o Fedore Mikhailoviche Dostoevskom,” 523.

60 Dostoevskii, PSS, 6:198.

61 Here is one description of Raskol'nikov’s wandering: “He hurried back to the city, mixed with the crowd, went to pubs, bars, markets, to Sennaia … everything tangled into a kind of clew.” Dostoevskii, PSS, 6:337.

62 Dostoevskii, PSS, 6:7 (nemetskii shliapnik).

63 “When the rain falls not on a Zimmerman hat but on an oil-cloth cap, left over, so to speak, from the summer season.” Levitov, Krym, in hbrannye proizvedeniia, 168. In Crime and Punishment, the Zimmerman hat also stands in opposition to “an old cap of sorts.” Dostoevskii, PSS, 6:7.

64 Dostoevskii, PSS, 6:55. Balzac, Honore de, LePere Goriot (Paris, 1900), 168–69.Google Scholar

65 Dostoevskii, PSS, 6:79. For misbehavior by writers, see Burenin, V., Kriticheskie ocherki ipamflety (St. Petersburg, 1884), 12;Google Scholar Bobrovskii, “Iz dnevnika peterburzhtsa,” Sanktpeterburgskie vedomosti, 8July 1975.

66 “Sines': Nashi domashnie dela,” Vremia, 1861, no. 4, pt. 2:13.

67 For instance, the author of “Zapiski sovremennika” wanted “osvezhit’ nravstvennuiu dukhotu.” Sovremennik, 1865, no. 8, pt. 2:303.

68 Dostoevskii, PSS, 6:336, 339, 352.

69 N. Akhsharumov, Mudrenoe deb: Ocherk iz istorii russkoi shvesnosti (St. Petersburg, 1895; originally in Epokha, 1864), 6.

70 Alternately, the verb sUmiat'sia was also used. V. V. Krestovskii, , Peterburgskie trushchoby (Moscow, 1990), 2:411.Google Scholar

71 “Fel'eton: Vsednevnaia zhizn'” Golos, 1865, no. 189.

72 “Chto ia, nu chto ia takoe?” V. V. Krestovskii, Pogibshee no miloe sozdanie, Vremia, 1861, no. 1:202. N. G. Pomialovskii, Molotov, in Izbrannoe (Minsk, 1980), 143. Voronov, Arbuzovskaia krepost', 169.

73 Dostoevskii, PSS, 6:79, 264.

74 Ibid., 6:6.

75 Honore de Balzac, Un grand homme de province a Paris, in La Comedie humaine (Paris, 1843), 8:306.

76 Dostoevskii, PSS, 6:322: “Back then I had to find out and as fast as possible … I only wanted to test myself.” For a discussion of diis passage, see Holquist, Michael, Dostoevskii and the Novel (Princeton, 1977), 92.Google Scholar For “assez cause,” see Dostoevskii, PSS, 20:54.

77 For a discussion of the relationship between journalism and The Human Comedy, see McLaughlin, Writing in Parts, 23–77.

78 “I was so sick, so sick of all the talk. I wanted to forget and start again and stop blabbering,” explains Raskol'nikov. Dostoevskii, PSS, 6:321.

79 Holquist, Dostoevskii and the Novel, 93–94.

80 Dostoevskii, PSS, 6:410. “Protsess Lasenera,” Vremia, 1861, no. 1, pt. 2:22.

81 Dostoevskii, PSS, 6:377.

82 “Literaturnaia letopis',” Otechestvennye zapiski, 1865, no. 10, pt. 2:42.

83 Grossman, L. P., Dostoevskii (Moscow, 1962), 348;Google Scholar Fridlender, G. M., Realizm Dostoevskogo (Moscow, 1964), 143;Google Scholar Kirpotin, V. D., Razocharovanie i krushenieRodiona Raskol'nikova (Moscow, 1970), 67;Google Scholar Tikhomirov, B. N., “K voprosu o ‘prototipakh obrazov idei’ v romanakh Dostoevskogo,“ Dostoevskii: Issledovaniia i materialy, 1996, no. 12:44–54.Google Scholar

84 See, especially, Dostoevskii, PSS, 6:373-76.

85 Simmel, Georg, “The Metropolis and Mental Life,” in Sennett, Richard, Classic Essays on the Culture of Cities (New York, 1969), 48, 52 Google Scholar

86 Dostoevskii, PSS, 28, pt. 2:73:399. Dostoevskii’s own work was discussed in die same vein: “His novel is no more dianjust rich raw material for real novels.” V. S. Solov'ev, “Vospominaniia o F. M. Dostoevskom,” in Tiunkin, comp., Dostoevskii v vospominaniiakh sovremennikov, 2:216.

87 Meshcherskii, V. P., “Mysli vslukh,” Grazhdanin, no. 19 (7 May 1873).Google Scholar