Crime and Punishment or Turgenev Reads Dostoevsky

Two great Russian writers: Dostoevsky and Turgenev. As everyone knows, their relationship was... complicated. Which is precisely what this painting depicts.

Turgenev (left) – visibly shocked (and frankly, we understand why). He’s the only bright, luminous presence in this entire story. Emphasis on this story, because the artist’s general view of the classic isn’t so unequivocally positive.

Center: Fyodor Mikhailovich himself (the yellow-gold mass) – a veritable octopus, whose tendrils have ensnared the world for centuries. Flanking him Raskolnikov (blue), the pawnbroker (purple) and, naturally, blood.

A tangled, Dostoevskian mess – just as it should be.

Other elements:


Top right: Demons

Top left (near Turgenev): The Brothers Karamazov

The Idiot, Notes from Underground, House of the Dead – their placements should be self-explanatory.


Key details:

A serpent (need we mention Dostoevsky was born in the Year of the Snake?)
Scorpio at the center (both Dostoevsky and the artist’s zodiac)

Virgo and Ursa Major hovering over St. Petersburg (their significance left deliberately cryptic)


As a famed Soviet sports commentator once said: «Nothing more to add – you’ve seen it all»!

The work «Crime and Punishment, or Turgenev Reads Dostoevsky» is the right panel of the diptych Chimeras. The left panel is «Chernyshevsky: Vera Pavlovnas Fourth Dream».

From the series Dasha Weisbrem: Rereading Russian Classics