Crime and Punishment by Feodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky
- A total given. Not only did Dostoevsky live in this city (there is a small, somewhat-engaging museum located in his last apartment, where he wrote The Brothers Karamazov), but Crime and Punishment takes place in St. Petersburg, throughout the Haymarket District. Most of this area is now known as the Mayakovskaya district (pictured below, and named for another Russian literary giant, Vladimir Mayakovsky, who lived an even more interesting life than Dostoevsky--dozens of love affairs, writing insane poetry to his mistress Lilia, belonging to the Futurist group of poets/rebels, and finally shooting himself at age 37. He now has a metro station named after him, and during Stalinist times his name was revered, and his poetry was taught in all schools.). Mayakovskaya is home to the best market in the city, Kuznechny, as well as plenty of interesting buildings, restaurants, and theatres. Not a lot has changed in the area, and I often imagine the area as being identical to when Dostoevsky walked its streets.
Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov- Although Nabokov left Petersburg during the revolution in 1917 and would spend the rest of his life in Paris, England, America and Switzerland, his memoirs are filled with loving thoughts of his hometown: his family's aristocratic past (Nabokov's father was on the Tsar Nicholas II's cabinet, and employed dozens of servants), and walks with his first love, Tatiana, along Nevsky Prospekt. Russians still count him as their own, although he is not revered to the same extent as someone like Pushkin or even Pasternak, who spent his entire life in this city. But still, there is a small and well-kept museum that houses some of his amazing butterfly collection and some of the index cards from which he crafted his novels.
The Master of Petersburg by J.M. Coetzee
- This novel, written by British Nobel Prize-winner J.M. Coetzee, reimagines the story of Dostoevsky's return to St. Petersburg from Germany after the death of his stepson. His stepson was said to have committed suicide, and it was completely devastating to the author. In the novel, Dostoevsky is remorseful and guilty, although he still manages to get up to some naughty activities, described in sordid detail by Coetzee. Although his wife and stenaugrapher, Anna, was known to have been a very good influence on him, Dostoevsky's gambling was legendary, and he got himself into quite a lot of trouble that way. This novel is an excellent portrait into the imagination of one of Russia's most celebrated.
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