The novel ‘Crime and punishment’ in the socio-cultural context of China of the 1920s

The article is devoted to the study of the reception of Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel Crime and Punishment in China in the 1920s. At that time, China was undergoing a period of political, social, and cultural upheaval in which nationalism, the New Culture Movement, and Marxist thinking intertwined with each other, exerting a significant influence on public perception and cultural values. Against this background, the way in which Dostoevsky's works were interpreted, commented on, and disseminated is crucial for understanding the ideological changes and cultural development of Chinese intellectuals of the period. This study employs the methods of empirical research, comparative literary studies and analytical methods of historiography and modern communication studies. The article deals with documentary evidence and provides historical analysis of Dostoevsky's works in the socio-cultural context of China of the 1920s. It analyzes the reasons for the special attention to the novel Crime and Punishment in China and its wide influence on Chinese readers, traces the way of distribution and the reception of Dostoevsky's works in the country in the 1920s. By examining the views on the novel of famous Chinese scholars such as Mao Dun, Sun Fu Xi, Wang Tong Zhao, Hu Yu Zhi, Zhen Zheng Duo, Zhou Zuo Ren, Jiang Qi Fan, Qu Qiu Bai, and others, we understand how they evaluated the plot and the moral issues raised in the novel and how the literary ideas of these scholars echoed or contradicted Dostoevsky's ideas. Studying these issues contributes to the analysis of discussions and debates that Crime and Punishment provoked in the Chinese literary world at the time, as well as of the impact that the novel had on the development of Chinese literature.