Crime and Punishment
A Russian book that everyone should read at least once is Преступление и наказание (Crime and Punishment) by Fyodor Dostoevsky. As Jordan Peterson also says ( here and here), along with many others, though perhaps less eloquently.
Summary
For those who don’t want to read the entire book, there are summaries. With a lively narrator (2019, 13 m), in brief English (2018, 3 m), or illustrated Russian (2017, 9 m), and also with Playmobil (2015, 11 m). And/or see Wikipedia.
Audiobooks
For those who don’t want to read at all, just listen. Available at Audio Books Classic: part 1 (583 m), part 2 (684 m), part 3 (338 m). Also at Greatest AudioBooks: parts 1-3 (682 m), parts 4-6 (643 m). And on Spotify. In Russian via Популярные аудиокниги: part 1 (258 m), part 2 (300 m).
Reading and translation
There are several Dutch translations of Преступление и наказание (1866). Initially titled Schuld en boete ( pdf), and later Misdaad en straf. On the occasion of the latest version (2019), translator Hans Boland appeared on Radio 1 ( Met het Oog op Morgen) and on De Wereld Draait Door.
See/read Even after three readings, ‘Misdaad en straf’ remains a masterpiece (NRC, 2019), ‘Misdaad en straf’ is not just intense existential brooding (Trouw, 2019), and an interview with the translator on Karakters.nu (2019).
Reading in Dostoevsky’s original language remains, of course, the best. It’s free and easy, with the text (and English translation) available on RussianLessons.net. A simplified version can be found at Adapted Russian Books; part 1 here (2020, 12 m). For those who prefer (only) English, here’s a pdf.
Also on
Why You Should Read Crime and Punishment: An Animated Introduction to Dostoevsky’s Moral Thriller (Open Culture, 2019) and the page on
TED-Ed.
Почему стоит прочитать “Преступление и наказание”? is the Russian version.
More
- 8 Things You Didn’t Know About ‘Crime And Punishment’ (The Culture Trip, 2017)
- ‘Crime and Punishment’ 150 years on (Russia Beyond, 2016)
- What Crime and Punishment can teach you that the internet can’t (New Statesman, 2013)
More
Country
The Netherlands holds a unique place in the Russian imagination. This is how our country, and we, are viewed through Russian eyes.
An interview becomes legendary when it gets its own page on
Wikipedia. On February 6, 2024, Tucker Carlson spoke with Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin. The report (127 minutes) offers a good, or at least broad, opportunity to hear the Russian perspective on the war against Ukraine.
What we would call ’tokkies’ or ‘gabbers’, and what elsewhere might be referred to as white trash or hooligans – in Russia, these are called gopniki. Folk culture in a tracksuit.
Since the age of sixteen, Игорь Мухин (1961) has been taking photographs. Armed with a
Смена-8М camera, he started his journey. So, when he found himself among artists and musicians in the 1980s, he already had a trained eye – and a better camera. Mukhin (sometimes Moukhin) witnessed major changes and began documenting them.
Freedom of speech is decreasing everywhere, though the reasons vary by region. Meanwhile, Big Tech’s power is growing, along with its interference. In this new era, a nearly forgotten Soviet answer is reemerging: samizdat, the underground DIY press and distribution network.
Every country has a flag and a coat of arms. The Netherlands has a lion, France has a rooster, New Zealand has a kiwi, and the United States has a bald eagle. In Russia, it’s an eagle with two heads and three crowns, and a man on a horse who has just killed a dragon with a spear.
