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Dostoevsky was a devout Eastern Orthodox Christian. He was prasied as a "prophet" in Soviet Russia due to religious propoganda rather than artistic qualities, for which he was heavily criticized. One of his critics was Vladmir Nabokov, who claimed "he is a rather mediocre writer who produced wastelands of literary platitudes". For all his flaws, however, he was highly respected by the literary community. Frederic Nietzsche called him "The only psychologist from whom I have anything to learn" in 1887. Thousands attended his funeral in 1881, hailing him as a "significant literary hero".

Dostoevsky wrote Crime and Punishment after returning from five years exile in Siberia. H e was sent to a Tsarist forced labour camp known as "Katorga" - equivalent to the Soviet "Gulag". Unlike most prisoners, though, he did very little manual labour, spending most of the time working for the prison chancery and infirmary.

Although sentenced to death in Katorga for outspoken opposition to the Tsar, Dostoevsky's sentence was lowered to four years in prison and four years of military service. Despite being raised comfortably and attending boarding school, Dostoevsky's post-imprisonment life was a far cry from his affluent adolescence. He lived now among the poor in urban St. Petersburg. At the end of his service and imprisonment in 1858, he began a 14 year period (his "mature" period) of writing. During this time, he produced five of his greatest novels; The House of the Dead (1862), Notes From The Underground (1864), Crime and Punishment (1866), The Idiot (1868), Devils (1871).

Dostoevsky's mother died while he was a teenager, and he became distant from his domineering father. He did, however, develop a close relationship with his brother, Mikhail, although they went to separate boarding schools later on (Dostoevsky was originally educated to become an engineer). His tragic hero in Crime and Punishment, Rodion "Royda" Romanovich Raskolnikov, is likely based on himself towards the end of his life. Upon returning to St. Petersburg following his prison sentence, his life was in disarray; He had lost his brother whom he had grown so close to in 1864, and his first wife in that same year. come 1865, he also, very similarly to Raskolnikov, owed many people a lot of money and could not afford his bills or meals. This was the same time he created the concept for Crime and Punishment, so it is not at all surprising that the character was created the way he was.