Crime And Punishment 2

Crime And Punishment – Russian History Essay, Research Paper

Fyodor Dostoevsky s novel, Crime and Punishment, is a reflection of life in St. Petersburg, Russia, during the rule of Czars Nicholas I and Alexander III. Though this topic only accounts for the reigns of Tsars Nicholas I and Alexander III, the reformative Alexander II also falls within the time period, 1800 s, so he will also be covered. Tsars Nicholas I and Alexander III showed no concern and elicited little progression for the condition of the poverty stricken in St. Petersburg. There are many parallels between the religious, political, and social aspects of Russian life during this period that directly correlate the setting and events of the novel.

Tsar Nicholas I (in full Nikolay Pavlovich), Russian emperor from 1825 to 1855, was often considered the personification of classic autocracy; for his reactionary policies, he has been called the emperor who froze Russia for 30 years. Autocracy meant the affirmation and maintenance of the absolute power of the sovereign, which was considered the indispensable foundation of the Russian state. His impulse was always to strike and keep striking until the object of his wrath was destroyed. Aggressiveness, however, was not the Emperor’s only method of coping with the problems of life. He also used regimentation, orderliness, neatness, and precision, an enormous effort to have everything at all times in its proper place. His regime became preeminently one of militarism and bureaucracy Corruption and confusion, however, lay immediately behind this facade of discipline and smooth functioning.

Nicholas disliked serfdom (poverty), but there were political hazards in eliminating it. He was determined to avoid public discussion of reform, even within the upper class. The poverty stricken people of Russia, St. Petersburg in particular, did not progress during the reign of Nicholas I. It seems ironic that a character in the novel has his name, Nikolay, and be disliked, just like the Tsar was in real life. The prisoner Nikolay has been brought, some one answered. He is not wanted! Take him away! Let him wait! What’s he doing here. How irregular! Nicholas made a futile attempt to improve the conditions in St. Petersburg, but it was, after his reign, still horrible.

The heat in the street was terrible: and the airlessness, the bustle and the plaster, scaffolding, bricks, and dust all about him, and that special Petersburg stench, so familiar to all who are unable to get out of town in summer–all worked painfully upon the young man’s already overwrought nerves. The insufferable stench from the pot-houses, which are particularly numerous in that part of the town, and the drunken men whom he met continually, although it was a working day, completed the revolting misery of the picture. An expression of the profoundest disgust gleamed for a moment in the young man’s refined face.

There are few places where there are so many gloomy, strong and queer influences on the soul of man as in Petersburg. The mere influences of climate mean so much. And it’s the administrative centre of all Russia and its character must be reflected on the whole country.

Although it is unlikely that Nicholas committed suicide, as several historians have claimed, death did come as liberation to the weary and harassed Russian emperor. He came down with a bad case of pneumonia, and died in the bitter knowledge of general failure.

Tsar Alexander II (In full Aleksandr Nikolayevich) was the emperor of Russia from 1855 to 1881. Though he is a complete opposite of his predecessor, Nicholas I, and his successor, Alexander III, it is necessary to mention him to prove the need for change in Russian society. His liberal education and distress at the outcome of the Crimean War, which had demonstrated Russia’s backwardness, inspired him toward a great program of domestic reforms, the most important being the emancipation (1861) of the serfs. In 1861 and 1862 revolutionary leaflets were distributed in St. Petersburg, ranging from the demand for a constituent assembly to a passionate appeal for insurrection. Alexander II met these demands. A period of repression after 1866 led to a resurgence of revolutionary terrorism and to Alexander’s own assassination, at the height of the Crimean War. The war had revealed Russia’s glaring backwardness in comparison with more advanced nations like England and France. Russian defeats, which had set the seal of final discredit on the oppressive regime of Nicholas I, had provoked among Russia’s educated elite a general desire for drastic change. It was under the impact of this widespread urge that the Tsar embarked upon a series of reforms designed, through “modernization,” to bring Russia into line with the more advanced Western countries. Their aim and results were the reduction of class privilege, humanitarian progress, and economic development. Moreover, Alexander, from the moment of his accession, had instituted a political “thaw.”

Political prisoners had been released and Siberian exiles allowed to return. The personally tolerant emperor had removed or mitigated the heavy disabilities weighing on religious minorities, particularly Jews and sectarians. Restrictions on foreign travel had been lifted. Barbarous medieval punishments were abolished. Yet, notwithstanding these measures, it would be wrong, as is sometimes done, to describ