Crimen and Punishment. Crimen and Punishment (1866) considered by critics to be Dostoevsky's first masterpiece, is a profound psychological analysis of its protagonist, the young student Raskolnikov, whose firm belief that humanitarian goals justify evil leads him to the murder of a Petersburg usurer. But , since he commits the crime, guilt will be a constant nightmare with which the student will be unable to live. Dostoevsky's feverish and compassionate style follows with unique mastery the recesses of the student`s contradictory emotions and reflects the extreme struggle he wages with his conscience while wandering the streets of Saint Petersburg. REVIEW It is a dense book, which places us in 19th century Russia, and in which the author emphasizes not insistently on the crime committed by the protagonist nor on the official punishment given, but on the internal struggle that he and that we can go through pages after pages, making it clear that his greatest punishment and ...