Arne Melberg: Raskolnikov's ideological knee-jerk reaction follows the Russian instinct
Cornelius Hamelberg
I’m posting Professor Arne Melberg’s literary review of Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment to the forum, mindful of what’s wistfully, often in our minds - in my case, reading Baba Kadiri’s latest, I’m sure that most conscientious readers and observers are distressed to note that even where the cause is blatantly clear, its seldom followed by what we would all like to see as THE EFFECT, namely that for crime, there should be punishment - retributive justice - in this very world, also known by some as “ this vale of tears”.
Arne Melberg uses his review to throw light on the ongoing Russia - NATO-EU- Ukraine imbroglio - and as the DN is quick to point out about this and other political commentaries, the views being expressed are entirely the author’s
With regard to Baba Kadiri’s piece and our anxiously awaiting the further instalments to his “IS NIGERIA A NATION OF DEAF, DUMB, BLIND AND STUPID PEOPLE? “, I can think of the possible use of literary commentation on e.g. Soyinka’s “ Madmen and Specialists" as a springboard for penetrating diagnoses on the current situation ina Naija
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Arne Melberg: Raskolnikov's ideological knee-jerk reaction follows the Russian instinct
In the discussion surrounding Russia's war against Ukraine, a cultural aspect has also made itself felt. The question is how much of the Russian aggression is already inherent in the Russian literary classics. One of these classics is Fyodor Dostoyevsky's novel Crime and Punishment. Arne Melberg has done a rereading.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky wrote "Crime and Punishment" in 1864. It was five years after he returned from his exile to Siberia and marked a decisive step into the world of writers. During his remaining 17 years, he would publish a series of acclaimed novels, short stories, essays and travelogues, in addition to "A Writer's Diary", which he self-published from 1873 to 1881. There he developed a pan-Slavistic ideology characterized by criticism of contemporary Europe. He pitted the modern materialistic West against the traditionally earthbound and spiritual Slavic world—a stylized contrast that was not unusual in Dostoevsky's time and has lived on. In today's Russia, similar lines of thought serve as ideological garnish for the war against Ukraine and against "the West". The authority that exiled Dostoevsky was not convinced;
The first time I read "Crime and Punishment" I was no more than 17-18 years old. The novel made an enormous impression. I think it was its chaos that impressed and above all the character of the protagonist Raskolnikov, his tossing between being indifferent, incendiary, violent, tender, caring, spontaneous and scheming. 30 years later, I got a kind of confirmation of my fascination when I read the great Russian novel historian Mikhail Bakhtin's "Dostoevsky's Poetics". Bakhtin's parade term is "dialogicity": the novel's voices are connected to and condition each other. The chaos that I experienced in my youth as overwhelming is positively evaluated by Bakhtin: "dialogicity" even characterizes the novel as a genre and the history of the novel, and Dostoevsky is the prime example. Bakhtin emphasizes that Dostoevsky's novels can never be called unambiguous or interpreted ideologically;
Dostoevsky seems to think that Raskolnikov and the intelligentsia had strayed into European thought
When I today, after another 30 years, rereading "Crime and Punishment" I can relive its enticing chaos but I also observe that the novel has a distinct structure where the end corresponds to the beginning. It begins with Raskolnikov, a dropout young student, murdering a pawnbroker and her sister and ends with him confessing his crime. The beginning is prepared in a long prelude where we are brought into Raskolnikov's miserable everyday life and get to take part in his confused train of thought where he broods over the thoughts that lead to the murder. And the closing confession is followed by an epilogue, where Raskolnikov finds himself in the penal camp, where he finally finds love and can look forward to a new life. The confession opens with Raskolnikov falling down and kissing the womb; thus ends his wanderings in the streets of Saint Petersburg and his wanderings among ideas and notions.
Raskolnikov belongs to the Russian category which at this time began to be called "intelligentsia". Dostoevsky seems to think that Raskolnikov and the intelligentsia had lost their way in European thought but could be saved by reuniting with the Russian soil and thereby gaining access to the Slavic tradition: the kneeling demonstrates just this. In other words, the novel has an ideological framework as definite as the one within it is filled with contradictory, "dialogic", voices.
Raskolnikov is in a "dialogic" relationship with at least two of the novel's other characters: Marmeladov and Svidrigailov. Marmeladov has gobbled up the family's money and is punished by his wife who drags him to the floor, after which in the next scene he punishes himself by falling to the ground so that he is run over and dies – his repeated kneeling foreshadows Raskolnikov's confession. Svidrigailov is portrayed as a lecherous and dangerous figure, possibly a murderer too. He is constantly on the hunt for a skirt, and when he appears in Saint Petersburg it is to hook up with Raskolnikov's sister Dunya. In a dramatic scene with Dunja, he is not only rejected but also almost shot. Maybe he's looking for death? In the end, he wanders the streets, much like Raskolnikov, stops at a gate guarded by a small soldier on whose face "read the perpetual contemptuous sorrow which leaves such a sour mark on all Jewish faces." And shoots himself.
Jews and Germans thus represent the European influence that seeped into Russia via Petersburg.
Maybe you should think himself Svidrigailov as a negative variant of Raskolnikov while his end marks that, unlike Raskolnikov, he can expect no mercy. The fact that he meets the Jewish soldier for no reason is probably a reminder that he is as hopeless a case as the Jew - according to the religion that Dostoevsky celebrates, suicides and Jews cannot be reached by grace. Another Jew in the novel is Dunja's fiancé Lushin: a calculating and insidious type. The Jewish soldier is also German, as is evident from his refraction. Germans were attracted to Saint Petersburg in the 18th century to help modernize Russia. Jews and Germans thus represent the European influence that seeped into Russia via Saint Petersburg. In the novel we meet some Germans: all of them are characterized by being narrow-minded and greedy.
The novel's ideological profile thus becomes disturbingly clear in the light of today's Russian politics. Russia is allegedly threatened by "the West" and its modernity - represented in the novel by Jews and Germans. These not only stand for "the West" but also for a monetary regime. The same was done by the pawnbroker whom Raskolnikov murders and whom he also seems to regard as an "unworthy creep" after the confession. However, he regrets that the pawnbroker's sister went along with the deal: she was innocent. Dostoevsky actually seems to think that the murder of the pawnbroker was in order. It was, so to speak, the Russian response to the economic aggression associated with "the West". While the murder of the sister was reprehensible. Already in the double murder, Raskolnikov's Western inspiration mixes with his Russian instincts.
Photo: Fine Art Images
The same duplicity shows itself not least in his handling of money. One reason, among many, for murdering, is that he is destitute and needs money to fulfil his Western-inspired grandeur fantasies. He also seizes a stock market and some jewellery but does not open the stock market but hides the loot. When he otherwise has a penny in his pocket, he gives it away. His mother scrapes together a sum for him which he immediately gives away to pay for Marmeladov's funeral.
Perhaps this can also be read into the novel's ideological framework: money is something coming from outside that threatens the Russian identity of the characters in the novel - the true Russian of course needs to support himself, but preferably not with the help of money.
Marmeladov super up the family money. Also it is a way to dispose of the money that is available. Svidrigailov is presented as a man possessed, but in all the scenes in which he appears, he squanders and gives money away. Perhaps you could say that these figures shadow the protagonist Raskolnikov but with a difference. When Raskolnikov falls to his knees and confesses his crime, it means that he begins a new life: he consigns himself to the penal camp. And he doesn't need money there.
Sonja is the good harlot – a figure who must be called a literary template in the European tradition
Raskolnikov has lost his way with delusions of grandeur but he is rescued back to his Russian identity with the help of Marmeladov's daughter Sonja. Raskolnikov and Sonja, the murderer and the prostitute, are both "condemned" but both can look forward to a new life together. Sonja is the good harlot – a figure who must be called a literary template in the European tradition. She is probably inspired by Balzac's "courtesans" but differs from them by being shy and reticent. She walks the streets as a prostitute but also as something of a "holy fool": a figure who in the Russian tradition was considered to carry a higher truth. When she invites Raskolnikov to kiss the womb in order to seek mercy, it is a prayer (or command) that in the Russian tradition was associated with the "holy fool".
In the figure of Sonja, too, components from the ideological horizons that Dostoevsky otherwise opposes are thus mixed. She is as composed as Raskolnikov, but as a woman and "holy fool" she can save him from the fate that befell Marmeladov and Svidrigailov. Interestingly, none of these are corrupted by Western ideas. Rather, they are victims of traditional Russian weaknesses: arrogance, illusions, lasciviousness, drunkenness.
With the woman's help - and in the novel's extension - Raskolnikov can look forward to a new life. He is - according to the ideology that forms the framework of the novel - spiritually dead as long as he clings to the grandeur fantasies that come from the "West". Unlike the dead he leaves behind, however, Raskolnikov can bow to the womb, acknowledge the authority of the Bible, and escape love. He is constantly both Western and Russian, but he can expect the resurrection that will make him whole: completely Russian.
That this transformation lies beyond the novel also shows that the world of the novel is just as contradictory and complex and as "dialogic" as it has to be. It also means that the novel is still worth reading - despite the fact that it rests on an ideological framework that is also repeated in today's Russian aggression. What makes it worth reading from the ideological perspective that I have set up here is that it portrays a split: it wants nothing more than to take a stand against "the West". But Dostoevsky cannot escape this terrible "west". If he had been completely Russian, he would not have written novels. His first literary work was a translation of Balzac and when he began to write novels he entered a European tradition.
Arne Melberg is a writer, translator and professor emeritus in literary studies.
Read more essays in DN Kultur, such as Oksana Zabuzjko: Russian literature has always praised the perpetrator .
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Cornelius Hamelberg
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