In this 2nd episode of The History Geek’s Reading Companion, I go back to Crime and Punishment, a book I first read as a miserable teenager coming off Pride and Prejudice, armed with bad instant coffee and a highlighter. What started as a survival exercise turned into the first time a book really demanded work from me, and I’ve been circling back to it ever since.

I'm really interested in answering the question: what kind of Russia creates someone like Raskolnikov? I look at how his psychology is shaped by history...by centuries of serfdom, a messy emancipation that freed people on paper but left them indebted and unmoored, and the rise of the 19th-century intelligentsia: overeducated and underemployed.

This is the first part of a 3 part series where I explore specifically the beginning of serfdom and how it evolved up to the 19th-century. I hope you learn something new and feel free to discuss your thoughts in the comments!