“You Are Not a Murderer, but You Can Almost Understand Him”

The Non-professional Reader Recognition in Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment

Abstract

The qualitative research of everyday reading experience (with 650 participants) shows that Croatian non-professional readers choose Dostoevsky's novel Crime and Punishment as one of the most influential literary works they have ever read. The aim of this paper is to contextualize and interpret this fact, with special emphasis on recognition as defined by Rita Felski. Felski claims that readers at the same time recognize both the familiar and what they see as different, but comprehensible, which leads them to the change of perspective and ethical reflection. In that sense, Crime and Punishment is very suitable because its protagonist is based on the principles of antinomy (Rowe) and polyphony (Bahtin), thus depicting emotional ambivalence and ethical dilemmas that can be recognized by a wide variety of readers. To conclude, Crime and Punishment is widely read and popular because it has been part of the school curricula for decades and because it is based on familiar patterns of crime fiction. However, recognition and ethical reflection make this reading experience impressive and formative.