The article deals with a school work of Osip Mandelstam “Crime and Punishment in ‘Boris Godunov’ ” written during his studying under the supervision of the famous specialist in N.M. Karamzin – V.V. Gippius. Comparing the Tenishev school programmes and pedagogical views of the teacher one reveals the historical and literary connections, on the basis of which the original concept of the young Mandelstam was formed not only in relation to “Boris Godunov” of A.S. Pushkin, but also to the article of Rodion Raskolnikov, the hero of “Crime and Punishment”. It turns out that the reason for the controversy with the great critics was the Introduction to the publication of Pushkin speech by Dostoevsky in “The Diary of the Writer”. Also some discourses of the hero of “Crime and Punishment” go back to the view of Karamzin at Napoleon as a genius, who ignores moral laws.