Szekspirowskie przywołania w polskiej literaturze kryminalnej (rekonesans)

Taking into consideration the variety of Shakespearean elements both in world and Polish literature, it is hard to resist the impression that it is the phenomenon without which European culture would be impossible to imagine. At the same time, the writer — whose works not only constitute an important part of Western culture and determine its canon, but also have an influence on current, globalised culture — is perceived as a “dangerous trap”. The above-mentioned danger seems to derive, paradoxically, from the ubiquity of Shakespeare’s works, which are used as a point of reference for modern stories and sometimes treated instrumentally as the “culture brand”. However, it is important to determine if the reception of Shakespeare — present in the socio-cultural aesthetics as well as in the area of paratheatrical avant-garde — among Polish audience is followed by the pop-cultural assimilation of his works. The success on the market of crime fiction whose authors relate to Shakespeare’s works implies the reductio ad absurdum question: how much of Shakespeare remains in these Shakespearean inspirations? Are they really inspirations or is Shakespeare only the brand-author who, due to his name, elevates a given text on the cultural level? If that was the case, we would be experiencing the branding after the pattern of culturally imposed stereotypes. They are in turn assimilated by the popular culture and have a significant impact on the everyday behaviours of the readers — including their attitude towards the past. Thus, tracking the Shakespearean traces within this cultural circuit usually remains a “wishful thinking”, while countless Polish stories (or the ones that the readers know from translations into the Polish language) about “crime and punishment” are the exceptions that prove the rule.

Tolstoy and Dostoevsky: Two Images of Finding God

The religious opposition of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky was formalized (or even created) and was significantly widened in the works of Russian religious philosophy. The almost unconditional acceptance (or at least sympathy) for Dostoevsky's religiosity, along with distrust and well-known criticism of Tolstoy's later religious works, was firmly entrenched in the Orthodox and general cultural consciousness for more than a century. However, the confrontation was never taken seriously. We want to outline the insurmountable chasm between two images of finding God using the example of the relationship between Raskolnikov and Sonya Marmeladova on the one hand, and Father Sergius (Stepan Kasatsky) and Pashenka (Praskovya Mikhailovna) on the other. These examples are of a paradigmatic nature and can be extended to other artistic and religious (in Dostoevsky's case, journalistic) works of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. From the legacy of Russian religious philosophy for the consideration of the works selected in the article ("Crime and Punishment" and "Father Sergius"), Bulgakov's "The Man-God and the Man-Beast" has the greatest and characteristic value. The opposition set by Bulgakov between Tolstoy (using the example of later works) and Dostoevsky (using the figure of the elder Zosima) is considered a misunderstanding by us. Bulgakov biasedly understands the religious meaning of Tolstoy's later texts. We offer a different reading of "Father Sergius" and raise the question of different images of the attainment (finding) of God in the texts of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky anew.

The Problem of “Higher Individuals” in the Works of F.M. Dostoevsky

This article deals with the controversial issue of F.M. Dostoevsky’s concept of “Higher Individuals.” The latter are people who rise above other people and have a special influence on society and on history. The authors argue that this concept is most clearly expressed in “The Diary of a Writer” (1876) as well as in the story “The Sentence”, along with Dostoevsky’s commentaries on this story. By means of a detailed analysis of Raskolnikov’s “theory” within the novel “Crime and Punishment”, it is demonstrated that only a superficial version of the concept of “higher individuals” is refuted in the heroes’ argumentations; at the same time, the novel’s characters – Marmeladov, his wife Katerina Ivanovna, and Raskolnikov – can be viewed as examples of different degrees in the personal accomplishment of this “higher personality” state. In conclusion, it is observed how a person must go through three stages of development in order to become a “higher character”: firstly, the experience of an existential crisis and the understanding of the lack of meaning in one’s life; secondly, the “rebellion” against the Creator of the world and its laws along with the rejection of the traditional church faith, whose rejection leads this person on the edge of suicide; thirdly, the acquisition of a new faith, first of all, a faith in one’s immortality, which happens in an unusual, unorthodox form, as is well demonstrated by the character of Svidrigailov in Dostoevsky’s novel. According to Dostoevsky’s doctrine, the meaning ofimmortality lies in the continuation of a person’s existence in a new form in the earthly world or in a “parallel” world similar to the earthly one, and not in the ideal Kingdom of Heaven, as the church claims. Finally, the authors maintain that the process of a character’s transformation into a “higher individual” was consistently and fully described by Dostoevsky in the stories of Raskolnikov and Ivan Karamazov.

The Problem of Positive and Destructive Freedom: The Interpretation of the Arkady Svidrigailov Image

This article examines the problem of the relationship between freedom and self-will on the example of one of the heroes of Dostoevskys novel Crime and Punishment . Attention is focused not only on the canonical text of the novel, but also on the preparatory materials for it. The task is to identify the connection between the above named problem and the suicide problem of Arkady Ivanovich Svidrigailov. The thesis is put forward that for Dostoevskys heroes, self-will often becomes a fetter for their own nature and their own passions. With the help of debauchery, Svidrigailov tries to assert himself, giving his soul to the mercy of willfulness. There is a certain pattern in the fact that such a worldview logical chain ends with the tragic act of suicide. Arkady Ivanovich adores comfort, and therefore, in accordance with his own logic, his murder by Dunya, which did not happen, can be considered, among other things, as an attempt of a comfortable method of suicide. In the preparatory materials for the novel, Svidrigailov protests against cowardly meanness and puts suicide above such a humiliating state, although he understands the entire flaw in such a situation. For all the complexities the problem of freedom and self-will - one of the leitmotifs of religious and philosophical themes in the writers work - Dostoevsky does not see its formal, external solution.

Crime and punishment in times of pandemics

How should we think about crime deterrence in times of pandemics? The economic analysis of crime tells us that potential offenders will compare the costs and the benefits from crime and from innocence and then choose whichever option is more profitable. We must therefore ask ourselves how this comparison is affected by the outbreak of a pandemic and the policy changes which may accompany it, such as governmental restrictions, social distancing, and responses to economic crises. Using insights from law and economics, this paper investigates how the various components in the cost-benefit analysis of crime might change during a pandemic, focusing on Covid-19 as a test case. Building on classical theoretical models, existing empirical evidence, and behavioral aspects, the analysis reveals that there are many potentially countervailing effects on crime deterrence. The paper thus highlights the need to carefully consider which aspects are applicable given the circumstances of the pandemic, as whether crime deterrence will increase or decrease should depend on the strength of the effects at play.

Ideological Foundations of the Provisions of the Criminal Code on Crime and Punishment

The article examines the ideological foundations of modern criminal legislation, in the aspect of crime and criminal punishability of socially dangerous acts. The author examines the influence of conservative and liberal approaches on the formation of the criminal law, its consistency, as well as the content of individual institutions and provisions. The degree and quality of such an impact of the liberal approach on the essential properties and substantive aspects of criminal legislation is thoroughly studied. In this regard, the author gives illustrative examples of negative manifestations of liberal views, argues argumentatively about the need to reflect the conservative value approach in the current criminal law. Similarly, the question of the manifestations of the liberal idea in the aspect of the formation of the penalization component of the Criminal Code is considered. It is argued that the rejection of the punitive concept of punishment led to the desystematization of the list of criminal penalties.

The Natural Meaning of Crime and Punishment: Denying and Affirming Freedom

The article discusses the link between freedom, crime and punishment. According to some theorists, crime does not only cause a person to have less freedom; it constitutes, in and of itself, a breach of the freedom of others. Punishment does not only cause people to have more freedom, for instance by preventing crimes; it constitutes, in and of itself, respect for mutual freedom. If the latter claims are true, crime and punishment must have certain meanings that make them denials/affirmations of freedom irrespective of their consequences. My aim is to show that such an immanent connection between crime/punishment and freedom exists. I do so by explicating the “natural meaning” of crime and punishment. This way of addressing the topic is inspired by Jean Hampton’s use of H. P. Grice’s concept of natural meaning. Expanding on Hampton’s theory, drawing on both H. L. A. Hart and Kant, I argue that crime has the natural meaning of denying freedom, and punishment has the natural meaning of affirming freedom. The paper presents an ideal theory, not a justification for actual criminal justice practices, which in most countries unfortunately fail to instantiate the value of mutual freedom.

"The transfomation of the novel Crime and punishment in the V. Pietzuch’s remake The new Moskow philosophy (axiologisation of Russian classics) "

The idea of literariness of Russian culture, of the impact of literature on Russian life, is an axiom of Russian cultural consciousness, which however doesn’t cease to draw the attention of researchers. Russian literature itself, from the 19th century on to this day, manifests this idea, altering the semantics of the life-literature relationship. In Pietzuch’s story the attention is drawn to the metatextual commentary about the role and value of Russian classics (and literature in general), and about the literariness of Russian consciousness – a commentary close to scientific discourse. The writer conceptualises literature as an invariant embodying the spiritual experience of humanity, and reality as an imitation of literature, deprived of structure and meaning. He creates an image of contemporary Soviet reality, which is a travestied variant of the world of Dostoevsky in the novel “Crime and punishment”. The conclusion refers to the development of similar axiologisation of Russian classics in the post-modernist remakes from the 1990s to this day.

The specific features of the narrative structure of the epilogue to F. M. Dostoevsky’s novel "Crime and Punishment" (to the 200th anniversary of the birth)

The paper examines the narrative structure of the epilogue to the novel "Crime and Punishment" by F. M. Dostoevsky. The aim of the study is to describe the techniques employed by the author of the novel to actualise his final speech. The principal methods the research employs include general scientific methods (observation, comparison, and others), general philological methods (contextological, compositional, structural, and others), proper linguistic methods (semantic-stylistic, comparative stylistic, intertextual, and others). To reveal the specific features of the epilogue, the peculiarities of the author’s narration in the main body of "Crime and Punishment" were taken into consideration. In the first place, they are the "telling", dialogical nature, the presence of the author’s final speech. The comparative-contrastive study of the two parts of the epilogue in contrast to the rest of the novel facilitates the determination of the narration uniqueness in the epilogue. The subjective and chronotopic organisation of the final part of "Crime and Punishment" makes the tale move to a different level: the Christian system of coordinates becomes the world view basis of both the author-narrator and the protagonist (lifetime is measured in terms of church holidays, the "mundane" chronotope is replaced by the "Christian" one). The author’s voice in the epilogue is expressed both indirectly and directly, with the help of ironic and dialogic contexts. The author’s stand is manifested in the choice of words as well as in various symbolic details, and numerous references to the preceding contexts, and in the intertextual links of the novel.