I am sure many of you know about the life of Robinson Crusoe. But few people know that Daniel Defoe described a story that is actually real...
When the sailor from Scotland Alexander Selkirk turned 19 years old, he left his family and joined the crew of the ship “Cinque Ports”, which in the Pacific Ocean in 1703 took part in the corsair raid of the pirate Dampier’s squadron. Alexander was treated well, so he was appointed assistant captain. And after the death of the first captain, Thomas Stradling took leadership of the ship. He was a rather tough man and treated everyone badly, including Selkirk.
It was too difficult for Alexander to be on the ship, which went closer to Chile, to the Juan Fernandez archipelago. At this time, he made a conscious decision to leave the ship and remain on one of the islands. Alexander hoped that the British or French would take him away sooner or later, so he took with him only what he considered necessary: a knife, an ax, bullets, gunpowder, navigation instruments and a blanket.
Loneliness on the island did not break Selkirk. And his analytical mind helped him survive among wildlife. He built a home for himself, learned to get his own food (hunted sea creatures, ate plants), tamed wild goats. This went on for a long time. While waiting for at least some ship, he had to live alone, making various things necessary for existence (clothes, a calendar, for example). One day he saw a Spanish ship sailing near the shore. But, remembering that England and Spain had become rivals, Selkirk decided to hide.
So four years passed. The expedition of Woods Rogers, passing near the island, kindly took Alexander. He looked, of course, wild: long hair, a fairly grown beard, clothes made of goat skins, who forgot human speech, which was restored after some time. Defoe, based on the stories of eyewitness Rogers, wrote a novel that is still known today. The island where Selkeers lived before today called Robinson Crusoe Island, which attracts many curious tourists.
Alexander Selkirk was born in 1676 in Scotland on the North Sea coast into the family of a shoemaker. He was bored in his father's workshop. But I was irresistibly drawn to the Red Lion tavern, where experienced sailors gathered. Hiding behind the barrels, he listened to stories about the “Flying Dutchman” - a sailing ship with a crew of the dead, about the land of gold Eldorado, about brave sailors and cruel storms, about daring raids of corsairs and looted riches.
At the age of eighteen he left home and went to sea. Alas: the ship was soon captured by French pirates. The young sailor was captured and sold into slavery. But he managed to free himself and was hired on a pirate ship.
He returned home with a gold earring in his ear and a tightly stuffed wallet. But quiet life I soon got bored. And at the beginning of 1703, Selkirk read in the London Gazette that the famous captain Dampier was preparing to sail to the West Indies for gold on two ships. This prospect suited the Scot who was “sick” of the sea and adventures, and Alexander signed up as a member of the crew. He was to serve as a boatswain on the 16-gun galley "Sank Port". In addition to her, the flotilla included the 26-gun brig "St. George" - a gift from the King of England.
The purpose of the campaign was to attack Spanish ships and capture cities on land. Course – southern seas, countries Latin America. In short, a typical predatory expedition for that time under the slogan of England’s struggle against hostile Spain.
Scrapped ashore
At first, ship life proceeded calmly, but the captain of the ship “Sank Port”, on which Selkirk served, suddenly died. Dampier appointed a new one - Thomas Stradling, a man famous for his tough temper and cruel character. The difficult voyage began. And not only because boatswain Selkirk did not have a good relationship with the new captain. Now the ships sailed through almost unexplored seas. For a year and a half the ships wandered around Atlantic Ocean, making daring raids on Spanish ships, and then, following the path of Magellan, went out into the Pacific Ocean. Off the Chilean coast, the British ships dispersed. "Sank Port" headed for the islands of the Juan Fernandez archipelago, where he hoped to stock up on fresh water. It was here that the events took place, thanks to which the name of Selkirk remained in history.
After another skirmish with Captain Stradling, boatswain Selkirk decided to leave the Sank Port, which by that time was already pretty shabby and leaking. In October 1704, an entry appeared in the ship's log: “Alexander Selkirk was decommissioned from the ship by at will" They loaded the boat with a flintlock gun, a pound of gunpowder, bullets and flint, clothes and linen, tobacco, an axe, a knife, a cauldron, and they didn’t even forget the Bible.
Selkirk chose to trust fate to desert island Mas a Tierra, part of the Juan Fernandez archipelago, 600 km west of Chile, instead of staying on a dilapidated ship under the command of a hostile captain. In his heart he hoped that he would not have to stay on the island for long. After all, ships often came here for fresh water. But before the ship appeared on the horizon, it was necessary to take care of food - food supplies were left for him only for one day.
Fortunately, there were many wild goats on the island. This means that as long as there is gunpowder and bullets, food is provided. However, time passed, and the rescue ship never appeared. Willy-nilly, I had to seriously settle on a piece of land lost in the ocean. Having examined the “possession”, Selkirk found that the island was covered with dense vegetation and was about 20 km long and 5 km wide. On the shore you could hunt turtles and collect their eggs in the sand. Birds were abundant, and lobsters and seals were found off the coast.
Island life
The first months were especially difficult for the newly minted Robinson. And not so much because of the hourly struggle for existence, but because of loneliness. As he later said, it took 18 months to come to terms with being a hermit. At times Selkirk was overcome by fear: what if this voluntary exile was for life?! And he cursed the land that sheltered him in the ocean, just like the hour when he decided to take a rash act. If he had known then that the ship Sankpor crashed shortly after its landing and almost the entire crew died, he might have thanked fate.
Every day Selkirk climbed the most high mountain and stood for hours peering at the horizon. It took a lot of work and invention to establish a “normal” life on the island. Like primitive people, he learned to make fire by friction, and when the gunpowder ran out, he began to catch wild goats with his hands. Once, during such a hunt, he fell into an abyss with a goat and lay there unconscious for three days. After this, Selkirk began to cut the tendons of the kids' legs, causing them to lose their agility.
More than four years have passed. One thousand five hundred and eighty days and nights alone with nature! What a strain of physical and moral strength, so as not to fall into despondency, not to let despair prevail! Hard work, perseverance in achieving goals, enterprise - all these qualities were inherent in Selkirk just as in the to a greater extent his literary brother Robinson Crusoe will be endowed with them.
Sail on the horizon
At the beginning of 1709, Selkirk's hermitage came to an end. On January 31 at noon, he noticed a dot from his observation post. Sail! First time in these years! But will the ship really pass by? We need to give a signal soon! But even without that it was clear that the ship was heading towards the shore of Mas a Tierra. The ship dropped anchor and the boat set sail from it. These were the first people he saw after 4.5 years of loneliness. One can imagine how surprised the sailors were when they met on the shore “ wild man"in animal skins, overgrown, who at first could not utter a word. Only once he was on board the Duke, the name of the ship that saved Selkirk, did he find the power of speech and tell what happened to him.
Selkirk himself was quite surprised: it turns out that he owed his salvation... to William Dampier! It was Dampier who managed to equip the expedition, which included the Duke, and, while circumnavigating the world, again visit the archipelago in order to pick up the unfortunate boatswain.
Only on October 14, 1711, Alexander Selkirk returned to England. When Londoners learned about the adventures of his fellow countryman, he became popular. But the public soon became bored with Selkirk. He failed to speak vividly about his experience. Eight years later, this gap was brilliantly filled by Daniel Defoe.
If anyone has not read Daniel Defoe’s book “The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Robinson Crusoe,” then he has certainly heard about it. And about the fact that Defoe, on the crest of a wave of his own popularity, is hastily writing its sequel? About how his hero, in old age, again leaves a quiet home to last time wander around the world, how does one get to Russia? From China, through the Argunsky post. With extraordinary adventures, Robinson travels through Nerchinsk (here he and his companions burn a pagan idol, hastily flee to escape the revenge of the natives, and the governor of Udinsk assigns fifty guards to foreigners), Eravna, Udinsk, Yeniseisk to Tobolsk. Here he spends the long Siberian winter, and in the summer he goes on a dangerous journey again. Through Tyumen, Solikamsk to Arkhangelsk and from there, finally, sails to his homeland.
Defoe does not always spoil readers with details. For example, we will not know how his hero got from Udinsk to Yeniseisk. But why is there not a word in the novel about Lake Baikal, which a traveler could never bypass?! Maybe Defoe didn't know about the existence of the lake?
It turns out he couldn’t help but know. While researching the famous author’s novel, academician Mikhail Alekseev discovered back in 1924 that, while describing Robinson’s journey through Siberia, Defoe used maps and a whole library of books on geography. And from this list I singled out the travel diary of the Russian envoy Izbrandt Ides, who was heading to China. Robinson repeats the envoy's path, only in reverse order.
There is a rather striking episode in the diary related to Baikal. Ides had to cross the lake on a sleigh, on ice, since it was winter. Locals they warned him that Baikal should be treated with respect, calling it nothing other than the sea, so as not to provoke anger and not die. Eden stopped the sleigh, uncorked a bottle of wine and, pouring a glass, exclaimed: “Before God and my companions, I affirm that Baikal is a lake.” And Baikal bore this insult! We crossed in clear weather.
Could Defoe have missed such an episode while reading his diary? The issue is most likely something else.
Robinson arrives in Russia on April 13, 1703. According to calculations, his caravan would arrive at Baikal at the beginning of summer, when the lake is free of ice and poses a serious obstacle: there was, of course, no convenient road around Baikal then. Defoe, who always strived for verisimilitude, understood that as soon as he mentioned the crossing, it would be immediately necessary to lay out at least some details that would give the event credibility: the type of ship, the pier, their names. But he did not have any information about Baikal shipping.
But every cloud has a silver lining, says Academician Alekseev. By hastily describing Robinson's journey, Defoe managed to achieve a curious effect: his hero does not travel, but literally runs through Siberia, which the author himself obviously imagined as a huge, wild, deserted space.
From the magazine "BAIKAL"
It’s a paradox, but “Robinson Crusoe,” thanks to children's retelling Most people knew Korney Chukovsky Soviet people- this is a completely different book than the one Defoe wrote. And for this book to become completely different, one thing was enough - to remove God from it.
In the retelling, which appeared in 1935, the book not only loses its Christian content, does not just turn into another superficial adventure novel, but also acquires a very clear ideological message: a person can achieve anything on his own, thanks to his mind, with the help of science and technology he can handle anyone hopeless situation, and he doesn’t need any God for this.
Although it will become obvious to anyone who reads Defoe’s original text: without constant prayer, without mental communication with God (even such a short one, in a Protestant format, without worship, without church sacraments) Robinson would quickly go crazy. But with God, man is not alone even in the most extreme circumstances. Moreover, this is not just the author’s idea - it is confirmed real life. After all
Robinson's prototype, Alexander Selkirk, who spent four years on a desert island, actually turned to faith, really prayed, and this prayer helped him maintain his sanity.
From the prototype, Defoe took not only the external situation, but also a means to overcome the horror of loneliness - turning to God.
At the same time, both Defoe and his hero have an ambiguous view of the teachings of Christ, to put it mildly. They professed Calvinism in one of its variations. That is, they believed in a kind of predestination: if you are a person who was initially blessed from above, then you are lucky, everything works out for you, but unsuccessful people (and even nations!) should strongly doubt their ability to be saved at all. For us, Orthodox Christians, such views are very far from the essence of the Good News.
Of course, we can talk about such theological and moral problems of Robinson Crusoe when we know how and what Defoe actually wrote his novel about. But in our country, as already mentioned, it was not always easy or even possible to find out.
To fill in the most noticeable gaps in our understanding of Robinson Crusoe, Thomas asked us to talk in detail about the novel and its authorViktor Simakov, candidate filological sciences, teacher of Russian language and literature at school No. 1315 (Moscow).
Twice a lie - or effective PR
Daniel Defoe seems, at first glance, to be the author of one great book - Robinson Crusoe. Taking a closer look, we will understand that this is not entirely true: in about five years (1719–1724), he published about a dozen fiction books one after another, important in their own way: for example, “Roxana” (1724) became popular long years a model of a criminal novel, and “Diary of a Plague Year” (1722) influenced the work of García Márquez. And yet “Robinson Crusoe”, like “Odyssey”, “ The Divine Comedy", "Don Quixote" - this is a completely different level of fame and the basis for long cultural reflection. Robinson became a myth, a titan, eternally in art.
On April 25, 1719, a book with a verbose title appeared in London bookstores - “The Life, Extraordinary and Amazing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, a sailor from York, who lived for 28 years all alone on an uninhabited island off the coast of America near the mouth of the Orinoco River, where he was thrown by a shipwreck , during which the entire crew of the ship, except himself, perished, with an account of his unexpected release by the pirates; written by himself." The original English title has 65 words. This title is also a sensible annotation for the book: what reader wouldn’t buy it if on the cover there is America and pirates, adventures and a shipwreck, a river with a mysterious name and an uninhabited island. And also a small lie: in the twenty-fourth year “ complete loneliness" ended, Friday appeared.
The second lie is more serious: Robinson Crusoe did not write the book himself, he is a figment of the imagination of the author, who deliberately did not mention himself on the cover of the book. For the sake of good sales he published a fiction ( fiction) for non-fiction (that is, documentary), stylizing the novel as a memoir. The calculation worked, the circulation was sold out instantly, although the book cost five shillings - the same as a gentleman's formal suit.
Robinson in Russian snows
Already in August of the same year, along with the fourth printing of the novel, Defoe released a sequel - “The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe...” (then again there are a lot of words), also without mentioning the author and also in the form of memoirs. This book was about trip around the world an aged Robinson through the Atlantic and Indian Ocean, China and snow-covered Russia, about a new visit to the island and the death of Friday in Madagascar. And after some time, in 1720, a real non-fiction about Robinson Crusoe was published - a book of essays on different topics, containing, among other things, a description of Robinson’s vision of the angelic world. In the wake of the popularity of the first book, these two also sold well. In the field of book marketing, Defoe had no equal at that time.
Engraving. Jean Granville
One can only be amazed at the ease with which the writer imitates the easy artlessness of a diary style, despite the fact that he writes at a frantic pace. In 1719, three of his new books were published, including two volumes about Robinson, and in 1720 - four. Some of them are truly documentary prose, the other part are pseudo-memoirs, which are now usually called novels.
Is this a novel?
It is impossible to talk about the genre of the novel in the sense in which we now mean this word at the beginning of the 18th century. During this period in England there was a process of merging different genre formations (“ true story", "travel", "book", "biography", "description", "narration", "romance" and others) into a single concept of the novel genre and the idea of its independent value gradually emerges. However, the word novel is rarely used in the 18th century, and its meaning is still narrow - it’s just a short love story.
Engraving. Jean Granville
Defoe did not position any of his novels as novels, but over and over again used the same marketing ploy - he released fake memoirs without indicating the name of the real author, believing that non-fiction is much more interesting than fiction. The Frenchman Gacien de Courtille de Sandra (“Memoirs of Messire d’Artagnan”, 1700) became famous a little earlier for such pseudo-memoirs - also with long titles. Jonathan Swift, soon after Defoe, took advantage of the same opportunity in “Gulliver’s Travels” (1726–1727), stylized as a diary: although the book described events much more fantastic than Defoe’s, even here there were readers who took the narrator at his word.
Defoe's fake memoirs played a key role in the development of the novel genre. In “Robinson Crusoe,” Defoe proposed a plot that was not just packed with adventure, but kept the reader in suspense (soon the term “suspense” would be coined in England). In addition, the narrative was quite integral - with a clear plot, consistent development of action and a convincing denouement. At that time this was rather rare. For example, the second book about Robinson, alas, could not boast of such integrity.
Where did Robinson come from?
The plot of “Robinson Crusoe” fell on prepared ground. During Defoe's lifetime, the story of the Scottish sailor Alexander Selkirk was widely known, who, after a quarrel with his captain, spent just over four years on the island of Mas a Tierra in the Pacific Ocean, 640 km from the coast of Chile (now this island is called Robinson Crusoe). Returning to England, he repeatedly spoke in pubs about his adventures and eventually became the hero of a sensational essay by Richard Steele (who, in particular, noted that Selkirk was a good storyteller). Taking a closer look at the history of Selkirk, Defoe, however, replaced the island in the Pacific Ocean with an island in the Caribbean Sea, since there was much more information about this region in the sources available to him.
Engraving. Jean Granville
The second probable source of the plot is “The Tale of Haya, son of Yakzan...” by the 12th century Arab author Ibn Tufail. This philosophical novel(again, as far as this term can be applied to a medieval Arabic book) about a hero who has lived on an island since infancy. Either he was sent by his sinning mother across the sea in a chest and thrown onto the island (an obvious allusion to stories from the Old Testament and the Koran), or he “spontaneously generated” from clay already there (both versions are given in the book). Then the hero was fed by a gazelle, learned everything on his own, subjugated the world around him and learned to think abstractly. The book was translated into Latin in 1671 (as “The Self-Taught Philosopher”), and in 1708 into English (as “Improvement of the Human Mind”). This novel influenced European philosophy(for example, on J. Locke) and literature (that type of narrative that the Germans in the 19th century would call the “novel of education”).
Defoe also saw a lot of interesting things in him. The plot of understanding the surrounding world and conquering nature went well with the new Enlightenment idea of a person who intelligently arranges his life. True, the hero of Ibn Tufail acts without knowing anything about civilization; Robinson, on the contrary, being civilized man, reproduces the signs of civilization at home. From the half-sunken ship, he takes three Bibles, navigational instruments, weapons, gunpowder, clothes, a dog and even money (though they were useful only at the end of the novel). He did not forget the language, prayed daily and consistently observed religious holidays, built a fortress house, a fence, made furniture, a tobacco pipe, began to sew clothes, keep a diary, started a calendar, began to use the usual measures of weight, length, volume, and established a daily routine : “In the foreground were religious duties and the reading of the Holy Scriptures... The second of the daily tasks was hunting... The third was the sorting, drying and cooking of killed or caught game.”
Here, perhaps, you can see Defoe’s main ideological message (it exists, despite the fact that the book about Robinson was clearly written and published as a commercial, sensational one): modern man The third estate, relying on its own reason and experience, is able to independently arrange its life in full accordance with the achievements of civilization. This author’s idea fits well with the ideology of the Age of Enlightenment with its acceptance of Cartesian epistemology (“I think, therefore I am”), Lockean empiricism (a person receives all the material of reasoning and knowledge from experience) and a new idea of the active personality, rooted in Protestant ethics. The latter is worth looking into in more detail.
Tables of Protestant Ethics
Robinson's life consists of rules and traditions defined by his native culture. Robinson's father, an honest representative of the middle class, extols the "middle state" (that is, the Aristotelian golden mean), which in in this case consists in a reasonable acceptance of life’s lot: Crusoe’s family is relatively wealthy and there is no point in giving up the “position occupied by birth in the world.” Having cited his father’s apology for the average state, Robinson continues: “And although (this is how the father ended his speech) he will never stop praying for me, he declares to me directly that if I do not give up my crazy idea, I will not have the blessing of God.” . Judging by the plot of the novel, it took Robinson many years and trials to understand the essence of his father’s warning.
Engraving. Jean Granville
On the island, he retraced the path of human development - from gathering to colonialism. Leaving the island at the end of the novel, he positions himself as its owner (and in the second book, returning to the island, he behaves like the local viceroy).
The notorious “middle state” and burgher morality in this case are completely combined with the bad idea of the 18th century about the inequality of races and the admissibility of the slave trade and slavery. At the beginning of the novel, Robinson found it possible to sell the boy Xuri, with whom he escaped from Turkish captivity; Afterwards, if not for the shipwreck, he planned to engage in the slave trade. The first three words Robinson taught Friday were “yes,” “no,” and “master.”
Whether Defoe wanted it consciously or not, his hero turned out to be an excellent portrait of a man of the third estate in the 18th century, with his support for colonialism and slavery, a rational business approach to life, and religious restrictions. Most likely, Robinson is what Defoe himself was. Robinson doesn't even try to find out Friday's real name; The author is also not very interested in it.
Robinson is a Protestant. In the text of the novel, his exact religious affiliation is not indicated, but since Defoe himself (like his father) was a Presbyterian, it is logical to assume that his hero, Robinson, also belongs to the Presbyterian church. Presbyterianism is one of the directions of Protestantism, based on the teachings of John Calvin; in fact, it is a type of Calvinism. Robinson inherited this belief from his German father, an emigrant from Bremen who once bore the name Kreuzner.
Protestants insist that there is no need for priests as intermediaries to communicate with God. So the Protestant Robinson believed that he communicated with God directly. By communication with God, as a Presbyterian, he meant only prayer; he did not believe in the sacraments.
Without mental communication with God, Robinson would quickly go crazy. He prays and reads the Holy Scriptures every day. With God he does not feel alone even in the most extreme circumstances.
This, by the way, correlates well with the story of Alexander Selkirk, who, in order not to go crazy from loneliness on the island, read the Bible aloud every day and sang psalms loudly.
One of the restrictions that Robinson religiously observes looks curious (Defoe does not specifically dwell on at this moment, but it is clearly visible from the text) is the habit of always walking clothed on a desert tropical island. Apparently, the hero cannot bare himself before God, constantly feeling his presence nearby. In one scene - where Robinson swims to a half-sunken ship near the island - he entered the water “undressed”, and then, while on the ship, was able to use his pockets, which means he still did not completely undress.
Protestants - Calvinists, Presbyterians - were confident that it was possible to determine which people were loved by God and which were not. This can be seen from the signs that you need to be able to observe. One of the most important is luck in business, which greatly increases the value of work and its material results. Once on the island, Robinson tries to understand his situation with the help of a table in which he carefully writes down all the pros and cons. Their number is equal, but this gives Robinson hope. Further, Robinson works hard and through the results of his work he feels the mercy of the Lord.
Equally important are the numerous warning signs that do not stop young Robinson. The first ship on which he set off sank (“Conscience, which at that time had not yet completely hardened in me,” says Robinson, “severely reproached me for neglecting my parents’ admonitions and for violating my duties to God and my father,” - this means neglect of the given lot in life and father’s admonitions). Another ship was captured by Turkish pirates. Robinson set off on the most ill-fated of his journeys exactly eight years later, to the day after escaping from his father, who warned him against unwise steps. Already on the island he sees a dream: from the sky comes down to him scary man, engulfed in flames, and wants to strike with a spear for wickedness.
Defoe persistently pursues the idea that one should not commit daring actions and it’s cool to change your life without special signs from above, that is, in essence, he constantly condemns pride (despite the fact that he most likely does not consider Robinson’s colonialist habits to be pride).
Gradually, Robinson becomes more and more inclined towards religious thoughts. At the same time, he clearly separates the spheres of the miraculous and the everyday. Seeing ears of barley and rice on the island, he gives thanks to God; then he remembers that he himself shook out a bag of bird food at this place: “The miracle disappeared, and along with the discovery that all this was the most natural thing, I must admit, my gratitude to Providence cooled significantly.”
When Friday appears on the island, main character trying to instill in him his own religious ideas. He is baffled by the natural question about the origin and essence of evil, the most difficult for most believers: why does God tolerate the devil? Robinson does not give a direct answer; after thinking for a while, he suddenly likens the devil to a man: “You better ask why God didn’t kill you or me when we did bad things that offended Him; we were spared so that we would repent and receive forgiveness.”
The main character himself was dissatisfied with his answer - nothing else came to his mind. In general, Robinson eventually comes to the conclusion that he is not very successful in interpreting complex theological issues.
IN last years living on the island is something else that gives him sincere joy: prayer together with Friday, a joint feeling of the presence of God on the island.
Robinson's legacy
Although Defoe saved the main philosophical and ethical content for the last, third book about Robinson, time turned out to be wiser than the author: Defoe’s most profound, integral and influential book was recognized as the first volume of this trilogy (characteristically, the latter was not even translated into Russian).
Jean-Jacques Rousseau in didactic novel"Emile, or On Education" (1762) called "Robinson Crusoe" the only book useful for children's reading. The plot situation of a desert island, described by Defoe, is considered by Rousseau as an educational game, which the child should become familiar with through reading.
Engraving. Jean Granville
In the 19th century, several variations on the Robinson theme were created, including Robert Ballantyne's The Coral Island (1857), " Mysterious Island"Jules Verne (1874), "Treasure Island" by Robert Louis Stevenson (1882). In the second half of the 20th century, “Robinsonade” was rethought in the light of current philosophical and psychological theories - “Lord of the Flies” by William Golding (1954), “Friday, or Pacific Limb” (1967) and “Friday, or Wild life"(1971) by Michel Tournier, "Mr. Fo" (1984) by John Maxwell Coetzee. Luis Buñuel set surreal and psychoanalytic accents in the film Robinson Crusoe (1954).
Now, in the 21st century, in the light of new reflections on the coexistence of a number of different cultures, Defoe's novel is still relevant. The relationship between Robinson and Friday is an example of the interaction of races as it was understood three centuries ago. Roman on specific example makes you wonder: what has changed over the years and in what ways the authors’ views are certainly outdated? In terms of worldview, Defoe's novel perfectly illustrates the ideology of the Enlightenment in its British version. However, now we are much more interesting question about the essence of man in general. Let us recall the aforementioned novel by Golding “Lord of the Flies”, in which the abodes of the island do not develop, like Defoe’s, but, on the contrary, degrade and show base instincts. What is he, a person, really like, what is more in him - creative or destructive? In essence, here one can see a cultural reflection on the Christian concept of original sin.
As for the author’s religious ideas, the average reader’s idea of a golden mean will probably not cause objections, which cannot be said about the condemnation of daring actions in general. IN in this regard The author's philosophy can be considered bourgeois, bourgeois. Such representations will be condemned, for example, by representatives romantic literature V early XIX century.
Despite this, Defoe's novel lives on. This is explained by the fact that “Robinson Crusoe” is, first of all, a sensational text, not a didactic one; it captivates with images, plot, exoticism, and does not teach. The meanings contained in it are present, rather, latently, and therefore it raises questions rather than giving complete answers. This is the key to a long life literary work. Reading it again and again, each generation thinks about the questions that arise and answers them in its own way.
The first translation of Robinson Crusoe into Russian was published in 1762. It was translated by Yakov Trusov under the title “The Life and Adventures of Robinson Cruz, a Natural Englishman.” Classic, most often reissued full translation text into Russian was published in 1928 by Maria Shishmareva (1852–1939), and since 1955 it has been reprinted many times.
Leo Tolstoy in 1862 made his retelling of the first volume of Robinson Crusoe for his pedagogical magazine Yasnaya Polyana.
There are 25 film adaptations of Robinson Crusoe (including animation). The first was made in 1902, the last - in 2016. The role of Robinson was played by such actors as Douglas Farnbex, Pavel Kadochnikov, Peter O'Toole, Leonid Kuravlev, Pierce Brosnan, Pierre Richard.
Daniel Defoe's novel Robinson Crusoe was not just fiction English writer, but is based on true history harsh survival. The prototype of Robinson Crusoe was quite a real man- Scotsman Alexander Selkirk, who lived on a desert island for more than 4 years. In those days the island was called Mas a Tierra, and its modern name received in 1966, more than 200 years after the publication of the famous novel.
Robinson Crusoe Island is located off the western shores South America and belongs to Chile. The distance to the mainland is more than 600 kilometers. It is one of the three islands of the Juan Fernandez archipelago and has an area of 47.9 sq. km. The archipelago is of volcanic origin and has a characteristic mountainous topography. The climate here is Mediterranean, that is, there are distinct seasons of the year: moderately warm winters (when the temperature drops to +5 ºС) and hot summers.
The events that formed the basis of the famous novel took place in 1704. Alexander Selkirk served as a boatswain on the ship "Sank Port", which sailed to the shores of South America. At that time he was 27 years old. The sailor had a hot temper and constantly came into conflict with the captain of the ship. As a result of another quarrel, at the request of Selkirk himself, he was dropped off on the island of Mas a Tierra, past which the ship was sailing at that moment. It turns out that the reason for his stay on the island was not a shipwreck, as Daniel Defoe described in his work, but his obstinate character. But otherwise, the boatswain’s life on the island was in many ways similar to what the famous Englishman described in his novel.
He built himself a hut, discovered wild goats on the island, got food for himself and read the Bible so as not to go wild at all. True, she did not meet the natives or Friday there, and she lived incomparably less time. It is interesting that during the English sailor’s stay on the island, Spanish ships moored to him twice. But since Spain and England were sworn enemies at that time, Selkirk considered it best not to show himself to them. The sailor was saved by the English ship "Duke" (4 years after he landed on the island). The fact that this story is genuine is also evidenced by the fact that a Selkirk site was discovered on the island. In 2008, a British archaeological expedition reported finding the remains of a hut, a mountaintop observation post, and early 18th-century navigational instruments.
Today, just over 600 people live on Robinson Crusoe Island, who are mainly engaged in seafood production and work in tourism business. The largest settlement on the island, San Juan Bautista, is located in the northern part of the island. Despite original story, the tourism sector here is poorly developed, with only a few hundred people visiting the island a year. Absence sandy beaches and high-quality roads, not at all a “heavenly climate” (about half the year) and distance from the mainland attract only true connoisseurs of a secluded lifestyle who want to touch the story of Robinson Crusoe. Besides famous character, the island is famous for another attraction. The German cruiser Dresden sank off its shores during the First World War. And today, divers are organized at its location. By the way, the name of Alexander Selkirk also went down in history. This is the name of a neighboring island within the same archipelago.