What drives someone to kill in cold blood?

What goes through the murderer’s mind?

And what kind of a society breeds such people?

Over 150 years ago

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky took these questions up

in what would become one of the best-known works of Russian literature:

"Crime and Punishment."

First serialized in a literary magazine in 1866,

the novel tells the story of Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov,

a young law student in Saint Petersburg.

Raskolnikov lives in abject poverty,

and at the start of the story has run out of funds to continue his studies.

Letters from his rural home only add to his distress

when he realizes how much his mother and sister have sacrificed for his success.

Increasingly desperate

after selling the last of his valuables to an elderly pawnbroker,

he resolves on a plan to murder and rob her.

But the impact of carrying out this unthinkable act

proves to be more than he was prepared for.

Though the novel is sometimes cited as one of the first psychological thrillers,

its scope reaches far beyond Raskolnikov’s inner turmoil.

From dank taverns to dilapidated apartments

and claustrophobic police stations,

the underbelly of 19th century Saint Petersburg is brought to life

by Dostoyevsky’s searing prose.

We’re introduced to characters such as Marmeladov,

a miserable former official who has drank his family into ruin,

and Svidrigailov, an unhinged and lecherous nobleman.

As Raskolnikov’s own family arrives in town,

their moral innocence stands in stark contrast

to the depravity of those around them,

even as their fates grow increasingly intertwined.

This bleak portrait of Russian society

reflects the author’s own complex life experiences and evolving ideas.

As a young writer who left behind a promising military career,

Fyodor had been attracted to ideas of socialism and reform,

and joined a circle of intellectuals to discuss radical texts

banned by the Imperial government.

Upon exposure,