Dostoevsky crime and punishment bible. Biblical motives in the novel "Crime and Punishment
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Project structure: 1. Introduction. About our project. 2. Orthodox Dostoevsky. 3. The novel "Crime and Punishment". Sonya Marmeladova and Rodion Raskolnikov are the main characters of the novel. 4. Biblical words and expressions in the novel. 5. Secrets of names. 6. Biblical numbers in the novel. 7. Contact of the plot of the novel with evangelical motives. 8. Conclusion. Conclusions. 9. Applications.
“Reading Dostoevsky is, though sweet, but tiring, hard work; fifty pages of his story give the reader the content of five hundred pages of stories by other writers, and in addition, often a sleepless night of agonizing self-reproaches or enthusiastic hopes and aspirations. " From the book of Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky) "The Prayer of the Russian Soul".
"... Sodom, the ugliest ... um ... yes ..." (words of Marmeladov) "You pigs! The image of the beast and its seal; but you also come! " (from the words of Marmeladov) "... to play a wedding in the present meat-eater ... immediately after the Lady ..." (from Pulcheria Raskolnikova's letter to her son) "It's hard to ascend to Golgotha ..." (from Raskolnikov's reflections) "... two crosses: cypress and copper" “She, no doubt, would have been one of those who would have undergone martyrdom, and, of course, would have smiled when her breasts were burned with hot tongs ... and in the fourth and fifth centuries she would have gone into the Egyptian desert and lived there for thirty years, feeding on roots ... "(Svidrigailov about Duna)
Contact of the plot of the novel with biblical motives Icon Appearance of Jesus Christ to Mary Magdalene after the Resurrection "He who constantly reads the Divine Scriptures (in simplicity of heart) and stands at their streams, even if he did not have any interpretation, as if he absorbs great benefits from his roots." St. John Chrysostom
Conclusion - Outside of Orthodoxy, one cannot comprehend the writer's creations. - Without religion, human life is meaningless and impossible. - The novel shows how faith enables a person to solve moral problems. - The author introduces biblical words and images, which in the novel become symbols-guidelines for the reader.
Essay plan
1. Introduction. The writer's appeal to biblical themes and plots.
2. The main part. Biblical motives in the novel "Crime and Punishment".
- The motive of Cain in the novel.
- The motive of Egypt and its development in the novel.
- The motive of death and resurrection in the novel.
- Biblical motives associated with the image of Sonya.
- The motive of communion associated with the image of Marmeladov.
- The motive of demons and its development in the novel.
- The motive of devilry in the hero's last dream.
- The motive of demons in the creation of the image of Svidrigailov.
- The motive of laughter and its meaning in the novel.
3. Conclusion. The originality of the themes of Dostoevsky's novels.
The man in Dostoevsky's novels feels his unity with the whole world, feels his responsibility to the world. Hence the globality of the problems posed by the writer, their universal nature. Hence the writer's appeal to eternal, biblical, themes and ideas. In his life F.M. often turned to the gospel. He found in it the answers to vital, exciting questions, borrowed from the Gospel parables individual images, symbols, motives, creatively reworking them in his works. Biblical motives can be clearly seen in Dostoevsky's novel Crime and Punishment.
Thus, the image of the protagonist in the novel resurrects the motive of Cain, the first killer on earth. When Cain committed murder, he became an eternal wanderer and exile in his native land. The same thing happens with Dostoevsky's Raskolnikov: having committed a murder, the hero feels alienated from the world around him. Raskolnikov has nothing to talk about with people, “already about nothing, never and with anyone, he can’t talk now,” he “seemed to cut himself off from everyone with scissors,” his relatives seem to be afraid of him. Having confessed to a crime, he ends up in hard labor, but even there they look at him with distrust and hostility, they do not like him and avoid him, once they even wanted to kill him as an atheist. However, Dostoevsky leaves the hero with the possibility of moral rebirth, and, consequently, the possibility of overcoming that terrible, impassable abyss that lies between him and the world around him.
Another biblical motif in the novel is that of Egypt. In dreams, Raskolnikov imagines Egypt, golden sand, a caravan, camels. Having met a tradesman who called him a murderer, the hero again recalls Egypt. "If you look at a hundred thousandth line, there is evidence of the Egyptian pyramid!" Rodion thinks in fright. Talking about two types of people, he notices that Napoleon forgets the army in Egypt, Egypt for this commander becomes the beginning of his career. Svidrigailov also recalls Egypt in the novel, noting that Avdotya Romanovna has the nature of a great martyr, ready to live in the Egyptian desert. This motive has several meanings in the novel. First of all, Egypt reminds us of its ruler, Pharaoh, who was overthrown by the Lord for pride and hard-heartedness. Aware of their “proud power”, Pharaoh and the Egyptians strongly oppressed the people of Israel who came to Egypt, not wanting to reckon with their faith. Ten Egyptian executions, sent by God to the country, could not stop the cruelty and pride of the Pharaoh. And then the Lord crushed the "pride of Egypt" with the sword of the king of Babylon, destroying the Egyptian pharaohs, and the people, and cattle; turning the land of Egypt into a lifeless desert. The biblical tradition here recalls the judgment of God, the punishment for willfulness and cruelty. Egypt, which appeared in a dream to Raskolnikov, becomes a warning for the hero. The writer seems to remind the hero all the time how the “proud power” of the rulers, the mighty of this world, ends. Svidrigailov's mention of the Egyptian desert, where the Great Martyr Mary of Egypt, who was once a great sinner, stayed for many years, also becomes a warning. Here the theme of repentance and humility arises, but at the same time - and regret for the past. At the same time, Egypt reminds us of other events - it becomes a place where the Mother of God with the baby Jesus hides from the persecution of King Herod (New Testament). And in this aspect, Egypt becomes for Raskolnikov an attempt to awaken his humanity, humility, magnanimity in his soul. Thus, the motive of Egypt in the novel also emphasizes the duality of the hero's nature - his excessive pride and hardly less natural generosity.
The gospel motif of death and resurrection is associated with the image of Raskolnikov in the novel. After he committed a crime, Sonya reads to Rodion the Gospel parable about the deceased and resurrected Lazarus. The hero tells Porfiry Petrovich about his faith in the resurrection of Lazarus. The same motive of death and resurrection is realized in the very plot of the novel. After the murder, Raskolnikov becomes a spiritual corpse, life seems to be leaving him. Rodion's apartment looks like a coffin. His face is deathly pale, like that of a dead man. He cannot communicate with people: those around him, with their care, vanity, cause anger and irritation in him. The deceased Lazar lies in a cave, the entrance to which is littered with stone - Raskolnikov, however, hides the loot in Alena Ivanovna's apartment under the stone. In the resurrection of Lazarus, his sisters, Martha and Mary, take an active part. They lead to the cave of Lazarus Christ. Dostoevsky's Sonya gradually brings Raskolnikov to Christ. Raskolnikov returns to normal life, discovering his love for Sonya. This is Dostoevsky's resurrection of the hero. In the novel, we do not see Raskolnikov's remorse, but in the finale he is potentially ready for this.
Other biblical motives in the novel are associated with the image of Sonya Marmeladova. The biblical motive of adultery, the motive of suffering for people and forgiveness, the motive of Judas is associated with this heroine in Crime and Punishment. Just as Jesus Christ took suffering for people, in the same way Sonya takes suffering for her loved ones. Moreover, she is aware of all the abomination, the sinfulness of her occupation and is experiencing hard her own situation. “After all, it would be fairer,” exclaims Raskolnikov, “a thousand times fairer and wiser it would be to head straight into the water and end it all at once!
- And what will happen to them? - asked Sonya weakly, looking at him with suffering, but at the same time, as if not at all surprised by his proposal. Raskolnikov looked at her strangely.
He read everything in one glance. So she really had this thought herself. Perhaps, many times and seriously she pondered in despair how to end it all at once, and so seriously that now she was almost not surprised at his proposal. Even the cruelty of his words did not notice ... But he fully understood to what monstrous pain tortured her, and for a long time, the thought of her dishonorable and shameful position. What, what could, he thought, still stop the resolve to end it all at once? And then he fully understood what these poor, little orphans and this pathetic half-mad Katerina Ivanovna, with her consumption and banging her head against the wall, meant to her. We know that Katerina Ivanovna pushed Sonya down this path. However, the girl does not blame her stepmother, but, on the contrary, defends, realizing the hopelessness of the situation. “Sonechka got up, put on a handkerchief, put on a burnusik and left the apartment, and at nine o'clock she came back. She came straight to Katerina Ivanovna and silently laid thirty rubles on the table in front of her. " There is a subtle motive of Judas selling Christ for thirty pieces of silver. It is characteristic that Sonya also takes out the last thirty kopecks to Marmeladov. The Marmeladov family, to a certain extent, "betrays" Sonya. This is how Raskolnikov considers the situation at the beginning of the novel. The head of the family, Semyon Zakharych, is helpless in life like a little child. He cannot overcome his pernicious passion for wine and perceives everything that happens fatally as an inevitable evil, without trying to fight fate and resist circumstances. However, Dostoevsky's motive of Judas does not sound distinctly: the writer blames the misfortunes of the Marmeladov family rather on life itself, on capitalist Petersburg, indifferent to the fate of the “little man”, rather than on Marmeladov and Katerina Ivanovna.
Marmeladov, who had a pernicious passion for wine, introduces the motive of communion into the novel. Thus, the writer emphasizes the original religiosity of Semyon Zakharovich, the presence in his soul of genuine faith, which is what Raskolnikov lacks so much.
Another biblical motive in the novel is the motive of demons and demons. This motive is already set in the landscapes of the novel, when Dostoevsky describes the unbearably hot Petersburg days. “The heat was unbearable on the street again; even a drop of rain all these days. Again dust, bricks, lime, again the stench from the shops and taverns ... The sun flashed brightly in his eyes, so that it hurt to look, and his head was completely dizzy ... ”. Here the motive of the midday demon arises, when a person falls into a rage under the influence of the scorching sun, an overly hot day. In Dostoevsky's novel, Raskolnikov's behavior often reminds us of the behavior of a demoniac. So, at some point, the hero seems to realize that the demon is pushing him to kill. Unable to find an opportunity to take an ax from the hostess's kitchen, Raskolnikov decides that his plans have collapsed. But quite unexpectedly, he finds an ax in the janitor's room and again strengthens his decision. "Not reason, so devil!" He thought, grinning strangely. Raskolnikov resembles a demoniac even after the murder he committed. “One new, irresistible sensation took possession of him more and more almost every minute: it was some kind of endless, almost physical, disgust for everything that met and around, stubborn, spiteful, hateful. Everyone he met was disgusting - their faces, gait, movements were disgusting. I would just not give a damn about anyone, would bite, it seems, if someone spoke to him ... "
The motive of demons arises in Raskolnikov's last dream, which he saw already in hard labor. It seems to Rodion that "the whole world is condemned as a sacrifice to some terrible, unheard-of and unprecedented plague." In the bodies of people, special spirits, gifted with mind and will, - trichines - entered. And people, becoming infected, became possessed and crazy, considering the only true, true only their truth, their beliefs, their faith and neglecting the truth, beliefs and faith of another. These disagreements led to wars, famines, and fires. People abandoned their crafts, agriculture, they "pricked and cut," "killed each other in some senseless rage." The ulcer grew and moved on and on. All over the world could be saved only a few people, pure and chosen, destined to start a new kind of people and a new life, to renew and cleanse the earth. However, no one has ever seen these people.
Raskolnikov's last dream echoes the Gospel of Matthew, where the prophecies of Jesus Christ are revealed that “the people will rise against the people and the kingdom against the kingdom”, that there will be wars, “famines, pestilence and earthquakes”, that “love will grow cold in many”, people they will hate each other, "they will betray each other" - "he who endures to the end will be saved." Here the motive of the Egyptian execution also arises. One of the plagues sent by the Lord to Egypt to humble Pharaoh's pride was a plague. In Raskolnikov's dream, a pestilence ulcer receives, as it were, a concrete embodiment in the form of Trichines that have infiltrated the bodies and souls of people. Trichinas here are nothing but demons who have entered people. We find this motive quite often in biblical parables. For Dostoevsky, devilry becomes not a physical disease, but a disease of the spirit, pride, selfishness and individualism.
The motive of the demon is also developed in the novel by Svidrigailov, who seems to be tempting Rodion all the time. As Yu. Karjakin notes, Svidrigailov is "a kind of devil of Raskolnikov." The first appearance of this hero to Raskolnikov is in many ways similar to the appearance of the devil to Ivan Karamazov. Svidrigalov appears as if out of delirium, he seems to Rodion a continuation of a nightmare about the murder of an old woman.
Throughout the story, Raskolnikov is accompanied by a motive of laughter. So, the hero's feelings are characteristic during his conversation with Zametov, when both of them are looking in the newspapers for information about the murder of Alena Ivanovna. Realizing that he is suspected, Raskolnikov, however, is not afraid and continues to "tease" Zametnov. “And in an instant he remembered, with extreme clarity of sensation, one recent moment, when he stood outside the door with an ax, the lock jumped, they swore and broke outside the door, and he suddenly wanted to scream at them, swear at them, stick out his tongue, tease them , laugh, laugh, laugh, laugh! ". And this motive, as we noted above, is present throughout the entire novel. The same laughter is present in the hero's dreams (a dream about Mikolka and a dream about an old woman-pawnbroker). B.S. Kondratyev notes that laughter in Raskolnikov's dream is "an attribute of Satan's invisible presence." It seems that the laughter that surrounds the hero in reality and the laughter that sounds in him has the same meaning.
Thus, in the novel we find a synthesis of the most diverse biblical motives. This appeal of the writer to eternal themes is natural. As V. Kozhinov notes, "Dostoevsky's hero is constantly turned to the entire immense life of mankind in its past, present and future, he constantly and directly correlates himself with it, all the time measures himself with it."
1. Bible. Books of the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. M., 1994, p. 1012.
2. Bible. Books of the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. M., 1994, p. 1121.
3. Bible. Books of the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. M., 1994, p. 1044
4. Karjakin Y. Raskolnikov's self-deception. M, 1976., p. 37.
5. Kondratyev B.S. Decree. cit., p. 79.
6. Kozhinov V. Decree. cit., p. 174.
What is the role of the Gospel story about the resurrection of Lazarus in understanding the idea of Dostoevsky's novel "Crime and Punishment"?
This plot in the novel takes place in part 4, chapter 4 on the 4th day after the murder, while in the Gospel it is also in the 4th volume. After such a coincidence of numbers, it becomes obvious that this plot is clearly not accidental, especially since Dostoevsky does not give anything just like that.
As I read this episode, the atmosphere of insanity thickened. All this made Rodion Raskolnikov throw a phrase in Sonya's face about the goal of destroying, crushing and gaining power ... in Raskolnikov two mutually exclusive traits merge: kindness and pride, so Sonechka and Polechka evoke tenderness and contempt in him.
He also awakens a desire to take power and destroy everything around him. The resurrection of Lazarus did not become a miracle for Raskolnikov, it did not become his "resurrection". He thought that there should be some kind of breakdown, but nothing ... there was a simple breakdown (that's why a monologue about power was called forth).
This shows that Raskolnikov's path to the miracle is long and thorny (first, repentance on the square, which did not give him anything, then with the investigator, and then in hard labor).
Under the pillow he found the very book (already in hard labor) from which this passage was read to him ... he reads it again ... this fracture finally occurs in his soul, and he is "resurrected." The path of repentance is the only correct path that a person can follow, according to Dostoevsky.
“I didn’t kill the old woman, I killed myself,” says Rodion. But the path to this resurrection will be long. This is the role of these two episodes with the mention of the biblical story about the resurrection of Lazarus.
The Bible belongs to everyone, atheists and believers alike. This is the book of humanity.
F.M.Dostoevsky
The ideas of Christianity are permeated with the work of many outstanding writers. The works of L.N. Tolstoy, F.M. Dostoevsky. This tradition continues in the works of Bulgakov, Mandelstam, Pasternak, Akhmatova, Aitmatov and other writers of the twentieth century. Biblical issues are common to all mankind, because the Bible deals with good and evil, truth and falsehood, about how to live and die. No wonder it is called the Book of Books. The novels of F.M. Dostoevsky are filled with various symbols, associations and reminiscences. A huge place among them is occupied by motives and images borrowed from the Bible. They are subordinate to certain ideas and are grouped mainly around three themes: eschatology, rebirth and utopia.
Eschatology. Reality, the world around him, Dostoevsky perceived as some prophecies from the Apocalypse, which have already become or are about to become reality. The writer constantly correlated the crises of bourgeois civilization with apocalyptic forecasts, and transferred images from the Bible into the visions of his heroes. Raskolnikov “dreamed of illness, as if the whole world was condemned as a victim of some terrible, unheard-of and unprecedented pestilence plague coming from the depths of Asia to Europe ... Some new trichines appeared, microscopic creatures that infested the bodies of people. But these creatures were spirits, gifted with intelligence and will. People who took them into themselves immediately became possessed and insane. ”Dostoevsky F.M. Collected cit .: In 12 volumes - M., 1982. - T. V. - S. 529). Compare with the Apocalypse, which says that at the end of time, the army of Abaddon will appear on earth: “ And it was given to her not to kill them (people), but only to torment them for five months; and the torment from her, like the torment from a scorpion, when he stings a man "(Apoc. IX, 5). Dostoevsky uses apocalyptic motives in order to warn humanity: it is on the verge of a global catastrophe, the Last Judgment, the end of the world, and this is the fault of the bourgeois Moloch, the cult of violence and profit.
The writer considered the propaganda of hatred, intolerance and evil in the name of good to be a disease of the world, demoniac possession. This idea finds expression both in the novel "Demons" and in the novel "Crime and Punishment". Dostoevsky showed that the theory of violence, which took possession of Raskolnikov's mind, leads to the extermination of the human in man. “I’m not an old woman, I killed myself!” The main character exclaims in despair. The writer believes that the murder of one person leads to the suicide of mankind, to the domination of evil forces on earth, to chaos and death.
Revival. The theme of the spiritual resurrection of the personality, which Dostoevsky considered the main one in the literature of the 19th century, permeates all his novels. One of the key episodes of Crime and Punishment is the one in which Sonya Marmeladova reads to Raskolnikov the Biblical story about the return of Lazarus to life: “Jesus said to her: I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in Me, even if he dies, will live; and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this? " (JohnXI, 25-26). Sonia, reading these lines, thought about Raskolnikov: “And he, he, too, is blinded and unbeliever - he too will hear now, he will also believe, yes, yes! Now, now ”(V, 317). Raskolnikov, who committed an atrocity, must "believe" and repent. This will be his spiritual cleansing, figuratively speaking, the resurrection from the dead, trembling and growing cold, Sonya repeated the lines from the Gospel: “Having said this, he called with a loud voice: Lazarus! Get out. And the dead man went out ... ”(John.XI, 43-44). This symbolic scene has a symbolic and artistic continuation: at the end of the novel, Raskolnik the convict, repented, is reborn to a new life, and this is the significant role of Sonya's love: “Both of them were pale and thin; but in these sick and pale faces the dawn of a renewed future, a complete resurrection into a new life, was already shining. They were resurrected by love, the heart of one contained endless sources of life for the heart of another ”(V, 532).
The theme of faith is persistently voiced in the novel. She is associated with the images of Raskolnikov and Sonya Marmeladova. Sonia believes, she lives according to the biblical laws of love for one's neighbor, self-sacrifice, faith, humility. God will not allow that which is "impossible to be." The parable of the harlot forgiven by Christ is typologically connected with the life story of Sonya Marmeladova. There is a legend about how Christ reacted to the decision of the Pharisees and scribes to punish a woman guilty of adultery in the temple: "He who is without sin among you, throw a stone at her first." Let us recall the words of Sonya's father: “Now I am forgiven your sins, because I have loved much ...” And he will forgive my Sonya, I already know that he will forgive ... ”(V, 25). An interesting detail: the evangelical Mary Magdalene lived not far from the city of Capernaum, which was visited by Christ; Sonya rents an apartment from the Kapernaumovs. It was here that she read the legend of the resurrection of Lazarus.
Raskolnikov turns to the Gospel and must, according to Dostoevsky, find there answers to the questions tormenting him, must gradually be reborn, pass into a reality that is new to him, but this, as the author wrote, is already the history of a new story. And in the novel "Crime and Punishment" the main character, who has departed from the faith, from the biblical commandments, bears the seal of Cain, also a biblical character.
The biblical story about the first murderer and his punishment correlates with the crime and punishment of Raskolnikov. In the Bible, after the murder, the Lord asks Cain about his brother: "And the Lord said to Cain: where is your brother Abel?" What is the meaning of this question? Obviously, the crime of Cain was followed not by punishment, but by a call to repentance, because “ God does not want the death of the sinner, but - in order to turn to him and be alive. " Cain has not yet been punished by anything, but his state is the same as before the murder - a darkening of the mind, for only madness can explain that, answering to the omniscient God, Cain is lying: "Do not know; Am I my brother's keeper? " From God - a call to repentance, from man - his insane rejection.
Dostoevsky shows that the darkening of the mind is an indispensable condition for a crime and persists after it has been committed. So, Raskolnikov's consciousness in details, fragments, in individual truths is distinct and true, but on the whole this consciousness is painful. Having conceived murder, the hero decided that "reason and will will remain with him, inherently, solely for the reason that what he has conceived is not a crime." When he woke up after the crime in his closet, “suddenly in an instant he remembered everything! For the first moment he thought he would go crazy. " He recalled that after the crime he did not hide obvious evidence (did not lock the door on the hook, left traces of blood on his dress, did not hide his wallet and money). All his further attempts to cover up their tracks are tinged with madness, "even memory, even a simple consideration leaves him ... the mind is darkened" He confesses to himself, "Truly the mind leaves me!" (part 2, chapter 1)
For Raskolnikov, a call to repentance sounds in the events of his life: he receives a message - a summons from the police demanding to appear. Two thoughts are fighting in him. The first thought is to hide the evidence, the second - let it be caught. Raskolnikov was ready to open up. But no one is forcing him to confess. According to the author, repentance, an act of free will and a change of thought are required of him. Raskolnikov committed an ideological crime, deliberate, a person demands his "right to blood", and his repentance could not be a painful impulse, it must be deliberate, a real change of thought. Therefore, in the course of the plot narration, Raskolnikov's impulse to confess stops: the police "suddenly" begin to discuss yesterday in his presence.
Raskolnikov expects not only illness, but also punishment. We often perceive punishment as punishment, retribution, torment ... Not so with God. "Punishment" is a "indication of" something, as well as a command on what to do, what not to do. At the same time, something is "told" to you: openly, openly, now you can do it or not. And even when you have transgressed the "punished", the "punishment" remains with you as an act of God's mercy. We read about this in the Bible: how Cain begged God to give himself a punishment - Cain's seal. " And (the Lord said to Cain): What did you do? The voice of your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground. And now you are cursed from the earth, which has turned away its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. When you cultivate the land, it will no longer give you strength; you will be groaning and shaking on the ground. "
Cain is the first of the people to be cursed. But no one cursed Cain ... The Lord never curses anyone ... Cain was cursed from the earth, he became " groaning and shaking on the ground. " In the ancient Hebrew language, “punishment” and “sin” are designated in one word: sin is the punishment for the criminal. Cain found himself outside the world of God. The Lord does not drive Cain away from himself, but Cain does not understand this : “And Cain said to the Lord: my punishment is greater than it can be borne. Behold, now you are driving me off the face of the earth, and I will hide from Your face, and I will be an exile and a wanderer on earth ... " Cain is fleeing from God. Nobody wants to take revenge on him. Nobody is chasing him. But, as stated in the Holy Scriptures "The wicked one flees when no one pursues (after him)." Cain himself hides from the face of the Lord, but he is afraid of one thing - to be killed. And the Lord gives the first murderer protection, which will become his "punishment". “And the Lord said to him: for this, everyone who kills Cain will be avenged sevenfold. And the Lord set a sign for Cain, so that no one who met him would kill him. And Cain departed from the presence of the Lord ... And he built a city; and named the city after the name of his son. "
The "Sign", which the Lord gave to the first murderer at his request, protects the murderer from punishment other than exile and loneliness. The theme of the Cain seal becomes dominant in the punishment of Raskolnikov. He is punished not so much by pangs of conscience as by the double-digit seal of Cain: Raskolnikov is completely protected from persecution and excommunicated from the society of people. Only three people see this seal on him: the investigator Porfiry Petrovich (confident of Raskolnikov's crime, he leaves him for a while); Sonya (she is also a criminal, and the schismatics are trying to break through to her from their terrible loneliness) and Svidrigailov ("We are one with you a field of berries," he says at the first meeting).
Utopia. Dostoevsky considered the second coming of Christ to be the key to the formation of a world of love and justice. It is this motive that sounds in the novel "Crime and Punishment". The official Marmeladov is convinced that "the one who felt sorry for everyone and who understood everyone and everything, he is one, he is the judge, will pity us." The timing of the second coming of Christ is unknown, but it will take place at the end of the world, when lawlessness, wars and worship of Satan will reign on earth: “And he will stretch out his hand to us, and we will fall ... and weep ... and we will understand everything! Then we will understand everything! ... and everyone will understand ... Lord, your kingdom will come! " The second coming of Christ, Dostoevsky believed, would be the cause of the descent of New Jerusalem to the earth. Raskolnikov, who confessed his faith in New Jerusalem, means future socialism. In the Bible, New Jerusalem is “a new faith and a new earth”, where people “God will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death will no longer be; there will be no more crying, no outcry, no sickness, for the former things have passed away ”(Apoc. XXI, 4). Raskolnikov sees the life of the future: “There was freedom and other people lived there, completely different from the local ones, there seemed to be time stopped, as if the ages of Abraham and his flocks had not yet passed” (V, 531). And one more utopian vision is the hero of the novel: “He dreamed everything, and all these were strange dreams: more often than not it seemed to him that he was somewhere in Africa, in Egypt, in some kind of oasis. The caravan is resting, the camels are quietly lying; all around the palm trees grow in a whole circle; everyone is having dinner. He still drinks water, right from the stream, which flows and murmurs right there, at the side. And so cool, and such wonderful blue water, cold, runs over multi-colored stones and over such pure sand with golden sheen ... ”(V, 69). These “visions” suggest that Dostoevsky was close to the mythological utopia of the “Blessed Islands”, where people live in complete isolation from the whole world, without a state and laws that oppress a person.
The spiritual rebirth of a person through compassionate love and activity, the improvement of society through the preaching of morality and total unity - this is the philosophical concept of Dostoevsky. The theme of the end of the world and time, eschatology, the death of the world and man, the subsequent revival and the structure of the new world (the golden age) constantly touch each other, intertwine, making up a single utopian plan of the writer to remake the Universe. One of the sources of this plan (apart from Russian and European folklore) were motives borrowed by Dostoevsky from the Bible.