I started to read this book called Crime and Punishment but I must confess I am very bothered by the excess of xenophobia displayed against foreigners who lived in Petersburg at the time in the book (though fictional, of course it's based in reality).
While I am not making a point that Germans are saints without sins, why does a book have to have so much overt discrimination, prejudice and bigotry thrown at foreigners? I don't fancy the book is putting it in an educational manner, but in a demeaning manner, but I'm not sure. It's still appalling anyway.
Well maybe this my introduction of the question was not passion-free, so I encourage less passionate takes on the book from better points of view than mine.
Thanks for participating.
This is an important question. Hate speech should not be published, especially when someone generalizes judgment about all people, a specific group, or all the residents of a country. It would be helpful for a German citizen to answer your question, as they would express how they feel when they sense that the speech is directed at them.
Jose R. Sousa I don't know about Germans in particular, however there had been clearly less than flattering portrayal of Polish in Crime and Punishment. In Polish translation that I've read it was pointed out in footnote that it has been a general pattern in his works, though simply as information on what had been Dostoyevski's hardline nationalist and religion views, simply for reader to get the context. No one made big deal out of it, the book is even in core reading assignment for secondary schools in Poland. (Though in our core reading assignment are also books describing fight against Russian occupation in XIXth and XXth century)
Marcin Piotr Walkowiak Thank you for the reply. It seems you are very much alike, the Russians and Polish, in your looks and the way you speak. Yes, the book also portrays the Polish in the same way, not too flattery Lol. Maybe nobody took offense. At the time, times were rough, so being gentle to everybody was probably not the priority.
Jose R. Sousa "It seems you are very much alike, the Russians and Polish, in your looks and the way you speak." Dostoevsky merely presented there some Polish episodic characters as thugs, nevertheless he did not dare to be that offensive to suggest that we're similar to Russians. ;) More seriously, it did not look even that bad as face value, as it whole novel background looked as clearly dysfunctional society, so there had been no reasons why foreigners should be immune to that decay.
"At the time, times were rough, so being gentle to everybody was probably not the priority." I'd opt towards interpretation that times are rough, just in recent decades high SES Americans create culture which uniquely try to isolate them from that.
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