Editing Fyodor Dostoevsky (section)

==== ''Crime and Punishment'' ====
{{Main|Crime and Punishment}}

The novel ''Crime and Punishment'' has received both critical and popular acclaim. It remains one of the most influential and widely read novels in [[Russian literature]],<ref>{{cite web |title=Greatest Russian Novels of All Time |website=Goodreads |url=https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/17853.Greatest_Russian_Novels_of_All_Time |access-date=21 July 2020 }}</ref> and has been sometimes described as Dostoevsky's magnum opus.<ref>{{cite book |last=Arntfield |first=Michael |date=2017 |title=Murder in Plain English |location=New York City |publisher=Prometheus |page=42 |isbn=9781633882546 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3l9xDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA42 }}</ref>

''Crime and Punishment'' follows the mental anguish and moral dilemmas of [[Rodion Raskolnikov]], an impoverished ex-student in [[Saint Petersburg]] who plans to kill an unscrupulous pawnbroker, an old woman who stores money and valuable objects in her flat. He theorises that with the money he could liberate himself from poverty and go on to perform great deeds, and seeks to convince himself that certain crimes are justifiable if they are committed in order to remove obstacles to the higher goals of 'extraordinary' men. Once the deed is done, however, he finds himself racked with confusion, paranoia, and disgust. His theoretical justifications lose all their power as he struggles with guilt and horror and confronts both the internal and external consequences of his deed.

[[Nikolay Strakhov|Strakhov]] remarked that "Only ''Crime and Punishment'' was read in 1866" and that Dostoevsky had managed to portray a Russian person aptly and realistically.{{sfnp|Kjetsaa|1989|p=183}} In contrast, [[Grigory Eliseev]] of the radical magazine ''[[The Contemporary]]'' called the novel a "fantasy according to which the entire student body is accused without exception of attempting murder and robbery".{{sfnp|Frank|1997|p=45, 60–182}} The ''[[Encyclopædia Britannica]]'' describes ''Crime and Punishment'' as "a masterpiece" and "one of the finest studies of the psychopathology of guilt written in any language."<ref>{{cite encyclopedia | last1=Cregan-Reid |first1=Vybarr |last2=Bauer |first2=Pat |authorlink1=Vybarr Cregan-Reid |title=Crime and Punishment |encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Crime-and-Punishment-novel | access-date=21 July 2020 }}</ref>