"Profane Challenge and Orthodox Response in Dostoevskys" Crime and Punishment presents for the first time an examination of this great novel as a work aimed at winning back target readers, young contemporary radicals, from Utilitarianism, nihilism, and Utopian Socialism. Dostoevsky framed the battle in the context of the Orthodox Church and oral tradition versus the West. He relied on knowledge of the Gospels as text "received orally," forcing readers to react emotionally, not rationally, and thus undermining the very basis of his opponents arguments. Dostoevsky saves Raskolnikov,...