Advanced Russian literature has always spoken out in defense of the people, always strived to truthfully illuminate the conditions of their life, to show their spiritual wealth - and its role in the development of self-awareness of Russian people was exceptional.
Since the 80s. Russian literature began to widely penetrate abroad, amazing foreign readers with its love for man and faith in him, with his passionate denunciation of social evil, with his ineradicable desire to make life more just. Readers were attracted by the tendency of Russian authors to create broad pictures of Russian life, in which the depiction of the fate of the heroes was intertwined with the formulation of many fundamental social, philosophical and moral problems.
By the beginning of the 20th century. Russian literature began to be perceived as one of the powerful streams of the world literary process. Noting the unusualness of Russian realism in connection with Gogol’s centenary, English writers wrote: “...Russian literature has become a torch shining brightly in the darkest corners of Russian national life. But the light of this torch spread far beyond the borders of Russia - it illuminated the whole of Europe.”
Russian literature (in the person of Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenev, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy) was recognized as the highest art of speech due to its unique attitude to the world and man, revealed by original artistic means. Russian psychologism, the ability of Russian authors to show the interconnection and conditionality of social, philosophical and moral problems, the genre looseness of Russian writers who created the free form of the novel, and then the short story and drama, were perceived as something new.
In the 19th century Russian literature adopted a lot from world literature, now it generously enriched it.
Having become the property of foreign readers, Russian literature widely introduced them to the little-known life of a huge country, to the spiritual needs and social aspirations of its people, to their difficult historical fate.
The importance of Russian literature increased even more on the eve of the first Russian revolution - both for Russian (which had grown significantly in number) and for foreign readers. The words of V.I. Lenin in the work “What to do?” are very significant. (1902) about the need to think “about the worldwide significance that Russian literature is now acquiring.”
AND literature XIX century, and the latest literature helped to understand what exactly contributed to the maturation of the explosion of popular anger and what was the general state of modern Russian reality.
L. Tolstoy’s merciless criticism of the state and social foundations of Russian life, Chekhov’s depiction of the everyday tragedy of this life, Gorky’s search true hero new history and his call “Let the storm blow stronger!” - all this, despite the difference in the writers' worldviews, indicated that Russia found itself at a sharp turning point in its history.
The year 1905 marked the beginning of the “end of the “eastern” immobility” in which Russia was, and foreign readers were looking for an answer to the question of how all this happened in the most accessible source - Russian literature. And it is quite natural that creativity has now begun to attract special attention modern writers, reflecting the mood and social aspirations of Russian society. At the turn of the century, translators fiction They pay great attention to which works are most successful in Russia, and rush to translate them into Western European languages. Released in 1898–1899 three volumes of “Essays and Stories” brought Gorky all-Russian fame, in 1901 he was already a European famous writer.
At the beginning of the 20th century. there was no doubt that Russia, which had learned a lot from the historical experience of Europe, was itself beginning to play a huge role in the world historical process, hence the increasingly increasing role of Russian literature in revealing changes in all areas of Russian life and in the psychology of the Russian people.
Turgenev and Gorky called the liberated Russia “teenager” in the European family of nations; Now this teenager was turning into a giant, calling to follow him.
V. I. Lenin’s articles about Tolstoy show that global significance his work (Tolstoy was already recognized as a world genius during his lifetime) is inseparable from the global significance of the first Russian revolution. Viewing Tolstoy as an exponent of the sentiments and aspirations of the patriarchal peasantry, Lenin wrote that Tolstoy with remarkable power reflected “the features of the historical originality of the entire first Russian revolution, its strength and its weakness.” At the same time, Lenin clearly outlined the boundaries of the material subject to the writer’s depiction. “The era to which L. Tolstoy belongs,” he wrote, “and which was reflected in remarkable relief both in his brilliant works of art, and in his teaching, there is an era after 1861 and before 1905.”
The work of the greatest writer of the new century, Gorky, was inextricably linked with the Russian revolution, who reflected in his work the third stage of the liberation struggle of the Russian people, which led him to 1905, and then to the socialist revolution.
And not only Russian, but also foreign readers perceived Gorky as a writer who saw a true historical figure of the 20th century. in the person of the proletarian and who showed how the psychology of the working masses changes under the influence of new historical circumstances.
Tolstoy depicted with amazing power a Russia already receding into the past. But, recognizing that the existing system is becoming obsolete and that the 20th century is the century of revolutions, he still remained faithful to the ideological foundations of his teaching, his preaching of non-resistance to evil through violence.
Gorky showed Russia as it replaced the old one. He becomes the singer of young, new Russia. He is interested in the historical modification of the Russian character, the new psychology of the people, in which, unlike previous and a number of modern writers, he looks for and reveals anti-humble and strong-willed traits. And this makes Gorky’s work especially significant.
Confrontation of two great artists in this regard - Tolstoy, who has long been perceived as the pinnacle realistic literature XIX century, and young writer, reflecting the leading trends of modern times in his work, was caught by many contemporaries.
K. Kautsky’s response to the novel “Mother” he had just read in 1907 is very characteristic. “Balzac shows us,” Kautsky wrote to Gorky, “more accurately than any historian, the character of young capitalism after the French Revolution; and if, on the other hand, I managed to understand Russian affairs to some extent, then I owe this not so much to Russian theorists as, perhaps, back in to a greater extent, Russian writers, especially Tolstoy and you. But if Tolstoy teaches me to understand the Russia that was, then your works teach me to understand the Russia that will be; understand the forces that bear new Russia».
Later, saying that “Tolstoy, more than any other Russian, plowed and prepared the ground for a violent explosion,” S. Zweig will say that it was not Dostoevsky or Tolstoy who showed the world the amazing Slavic soul, but Gorky allowed the amazed West understand what and why happened in Russia in October 1917, and will especially highlight Gorky’s novel “Mother”.
Having highly appreciated Tolstoy’s work, V.I. Lenin wrote: “The era of preparation for revolution in one of the countries oppressed by the feudal owners, thanks to Tolstoy’s brilliant illumination, appeared as a step forward in artistic development of all humanity."
A writer who covered with great artistic power pre-revolutionary moods of Russian society and the era of 1905–1917, Gorky became, and thanks to this illumination the revolutionary era, which ended with the October Revolution socialist revolution, in turn, was a step forward in the artistic development of mankind. By showing those who walked toward this revolution and then carried it out, Gorky opened a new page in the history of realism.
Gorky’s new concept of man and social romanticism, his new coverage of the problem of “man and history,” the writer’s ability to identify the sprouts of the new everywhere, the huge gallery he created of people representing old and new Russia - all this contributed to both the expansion and deepening of artistic knowledge of life. New representatives of critical realism also made their contribution to this knowledge.
So, for the literature of the early 20th century. The simultaneous development of critical realism, which at the turn of the century was experiencing a time of renewal, but without losing its critical pathos, and socialist realism, became characteristic. Noting this remarkable feature of the literature of the new century, V. A. Keldysh wrote: “In the context of the revolution of 1905–1907. for the first time, that type of literary relationship arose, which was later destined to play such a significant role in the world literary process XX century: “old”, critical realism develops simultaneously with socialist realism, and the appearance of signs of a new quality in critical realism is largely the result of this interaction.”
Socialist realists (Gorky, Serafimovich) did not forget that the origins of the new image of life go back to the artistic quests of such realists as Tolstoy and Chekhov, while some representatives of critical realism began to master creative principles socialist realism.
Such coexistence would later be characteristic of other literatures during the years of the emergence of socialist realism in them.
The simultaneous flowering of a significant number of great and dissimilar talents, noted by Gorky as the uniqueness of Russian literature of the last century, was also characteristic of the literature of the new century. The creativity of its representatives develops, as in the previous period, in close artistic relationships with Western European literature, also revealing its artistic originality. Like the literature of the 19th century, it enriched and continues to enrich world literature. Particularly significant in in this case works of Gorky and Chekhov. Under the sign of the artistic discoveries of the revolutionary writer, Soviet literature will develop; his artistic method will also have a great influence on the creative development of democratic writers in the foreign world. Chekhov's innovation was not immediately recognized abroad, but starting in the 20s. it found itself in the sphere of intensive study and development. World fame first came to Chekhov the playwright, and then to Chekhov the prose writer.
The work of a number of other authors was also noted for innovation. Translators, as we have already said, paid attention in the 1900s. attention to both the works of Chekhov, Gorky, Korolenko, and the works of writers who came to prominence on the eve and during the years of the first Russian revolution. They especially followed the writers grouped around the publishing house “Znanie”. L. Andreev’s responses to the Russo-Japanese War and the rampant tsarist terror (“Red Laughter,” “The Tale of the Seven Hanged Men”) became widely known abroad. Interest in Andreev's prose did not disappear even after 1917. The trembling heart of Sashka Zhegulev found an echo in distant Chile. A young student of one of the Chilean lyceums, Pablo Neruda, will sign his first great work“Holiday Song”, which will receive a prize at the “Spring Festival” in 1921.
Andreev’s dramaturgy, which anticipated the emergence of expressionism in foreign literature, also gained fame. In “Letters on Proletarian Literature” (1914), A. Lunacharsky pointed out the overlap between individual scenes and characters in E. Barnavol’s play “Cosmos” and Andreev’s play “Tsar Hunger.” Later, researchers will note the impact of Andreevsky drama on L. Pirandello, O’Neill and other foreign playwrights.
Among the features of the literary process of the early 20th century. The extraordinary variety of dramaturgical searches and the rise of dramatic thought should be attributed. At the turn of the century, Chekhov's theater appeared. And before the viewer had time to master the innovation of Chekhov’s psychological drama that amazed him, a new one appeared, social drama Gorky, and then the unexpected expressionist drama of Andreev. Three special dramaturgies, three different stage systems.
Simultaneously with the enormous interest shown in Russian literature abroad at the beginning of the new century, interest in old and new Russian music, the art of opera, ballet, and decorative painting is also growing. A major role in arousing this interest was played by the concerts and performances organized by S. Diaghilev in Paris, the performances of F. Chaliapin, the first trip of the Moscow Art Theater abroad. In the article “Russian Performances in Paris” (1913), Lunacharsky wrote: “Russian music has become a completely definite concept, including the characteristics of freshness, originality and, above all, enormous instrumental skill.”
Literature of the period under review was closely connected with the previous period. The literary movement continues to exist naturalism (biologism), in the works of E. Zola, acquiring new features in "Physiological Essays" in Rudyard Kipling, for whom reportage becomes a literary device in his stories about India, and soldier's slang makes his ballads accessible to millions. Lives out his last days symbolism.
Literary figures at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries were concerned not only with creative problems, but also with social injustice, imperialism, colonialism, militarism and war - the complexity and contradictory nature of life. Criticism of injustices social order, human relations, fate creative personality In bourgeois society, writers of a realistic direction worked.
Critical realism receives further development in the works of major European writers:
- Anatole France,
- Romain Rolland,
- Bernard Shaw and others
At this time, the creativity of remarkable US writers was developing:
- Mark Twain (1835-1910; “Pamphlets”, etc.),
- Jack London (1876-1916; "The Iron Heel", "Martin Eden"),
- Theodore Dreiser (1871-1945; "Sister Carey", "Trilogy of Desire"),
- E. Sinclair ("The Jungle"),
- F. Norris ("Octopus"),
- Thomas Mann (1875-1955; "Buddenbrooks", 1900; "Death in Venice", 1911),
- Heinrich Mann (1871-1950; "Empire", 1900s; "Loyal Subject", 1914),
- Boleslav Prus,
- Eliza Ozheshko,
- Maria Konopnitskaya,
- Jan Neruda, etc.
Significant changes are also taking place in Western European novel. Along with traditional literary genres(psychological, everyday novel, everyday drama, etc.) writers of the 20th century. are developing genre philosophical novel (A. France “On the White Stone”, T. Mann), giving new features to the art of everyday realism.
In an effort to sum up the development of bourgeois relations, writers create works telling about the fate of several generations of their heroes, developing the genre of the novel in the form of a family chronicle ("Buddenbrooks" by T. Mann, "The Forsyte Saga" by D. Galsworthy).
John Galsworthy(1867-1933) “The Forsyte Saga” was written over 40 years and created a brilliant work of literature of critical realism.
Each author, exposing the ugly forms of social life, had his own creative style. So, Anatole France(1844-1924) in anti-bourgeois novels-pamphlets - “Penguin Island”, “The Gods Thirst”, “Rise of the Angels” - condemned violence, wars, religious fanaticism, and the hypocrisy of bourgeois morality. At the same time, France's work is permeated with love for man, nature and beauty. English writer G. Wells wrote famous science fiction novels: “The Time Machine”, “The Invisible Man”, “War of the Worlds”, etc. Great place The theme of art occupies the works of the mentioned writers. The tragedy of the artist in the bourgeois world is captured in the novels of J. London ("Martin Eden"), Dreiser ("Genius"), and in the short stories and novels of T. Mann. In the most full form The artist’s conflict with the bourgeois world is revealed in R. Rolland’s multi-volume novel “Jean-Christophe.”
At the turn of the century it happened renewal of dramaturgy. During these years, the English playwright B. Shaw brought English drama out of an ideological and artistic impasse. His play "Pygmalion" had already performed on the stages of all the leading theaters in the world.
The Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906) was also an innovator, who gave the drama a problematic character.
Widely known in the world at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th century. acquired the plays of the German playwright Gerhart Hauptmann (1862-1946). From naturalism ("Before Sunrise", 1889) to themes social significance("Weavers", 1892), to convention and symbolism ("The Sunken Bell") and satirical comedy morals (“Red Rooster”, “Rats”) - that’s his creative path. By known reasons during this period is born socialist direction in art, the founder of which is considered to be the poets of the Paris Commune, primarily Eugene Potier, author of the famous "Internationale". In 1905-1909 In Denmark, Martin Andersen-Neske creates the epic Pelle the Conqueror. During the First World War, A. Barbusse’s novel “Fire” (1916) appeared, which truthfully reveals the essence of the war of 1914-1918. It should be noted that during this difficult period, moods of disappointment, disbelief, despair and death were widespread. We remember that the phenomenon is called decadence ("decadence" - "decline"). Decadence ideas were reflected in all literary movements and affected the creativity of many writers of that time, including the most important ones (Maupassant, G. Mann, M. Maeterlinck, R. Rolland, etc.). Many artists, hiding from harsh reality, retreated into a narrow personal world in their work, and human personality depicted in decline and destruction, stooping to unprincipledness, to admiration for vice. During this period, the process of mutual exchange of experience between artists from various countries of Europe, America and Asia significantly intensified. Recognition of the value of the civilization of the East was the awarding of the Nobel Prize in 1913 to the outstanding thinker and writer of India Rabindranath Tagore.
The 20th century brings new events, new phenomena, new discoveries, new names. Considered the most modern and fashionable avant-garde art:
- Italian futurism (Tommaso Marinetti),
- German expressionism (Bertolt Brecht, Johannes Becher),
- French Cubism (Guillaume Apollinaire, 1880-1918)
- and surrealism (Paul Eluard, Louis Aragon).
The fragile rain holds the tiles
In balance. Ballerina
Will never learn
To flow and jump
Like rain.
Your orange hair in the emptiness of the Universe,
In the emptiness of the numbing glasses of silence
And the darkness where my naked your hands looking for a reflection.
Your heart is chimerical in shape,
And your love is similar to my departed desire.
O fragrant sighs, dreams and glances.
But you weren't always with me.
My memory
Keeps a dejected picture of your appearance
And care.
Time, like love, cannot do without words.
The cubist Apollinaire was fond of formal searches, striving for a form freed from reality. He cultivated automatic creativity - the recording of associations that randomly arise in the poet's mind. But in his best poems the poet managed to express the bitterness of the era of the approaching world war.
The expressionists demanded "revolution of the spirit"- liberation of the soul from “self-oppressive matter” (bourgeois life). They depicted modern reality in flashy forms. The courage of denunciation was combined with a mood of despair. And innovation, divorced from tradition, often turned out to be external and empty.
It was enough propaganda literature, aimed at processing public consciousness in preparation for world war. But works filled with the ideas of chauvinism and aggressive colonialism were on the margins of the literary process.
To get a clearer picture of the literature of this period, it makes sense to dwell on the work of individual writers. We chose R. Rolland ( Nobel Prize awarded in 1915), R. Kipling (Nobel Prize 1907), R. Tagore (Nobel Prize 1913).
Rudyard Kipling (1865 - 1936)
Rudyard Kipling- prose writer, children's writer, poet, essayist, was born in 1865 in India, where his father, an unsuccessful decorator and sculptor, went with his young wife in search of permanent income, a quiet life and a solid position in society. Until the age of 6, the boy grew up in the circle of a friendly family, in home. Indian nannies and servants pampered their charges. The world of idyll collapsed when he and his younger sister were sent to England in the care of distant relatives, in their private boarding school. The hostess of the boarding house did not like the independent boy. For Kipling, years of moral and physical torment began: interrogations with passion, prohibitions, sophisticated punishments, beatings, bullying. Rudyar thoroughly studied the science of hatred and learned the powerlessness of the victim. Revenge for humiliation will take place only in literary works (the novel “The Light Has Gone Out”, the story “Black Sheep”). After a humiliating punishment (for some insignificant offense the boy was forced to go to school with the inscription “liar” on his chest), he became seriously ill, completely lost his sight for several months and was on the verge of insanity. He was saved by the arrival of his mother, who decided to take the children from the boarding school. After his mother left for India, Kipling continued his studies at a boys' school. Here he encountered the violence of the organization. Teachers achieved the desired results with severity, and, if necessary, with flogging, the elders mercilessly oppressed the younger, the strong - the weak; independence of behavior was punished as sacrilege. In his stories, Kipling justified the system of cane education ("Stokes and Company", 1899), since, from his point of view, it accustoms the individual to perform the task assigned to him. social role, instills a sense of public duty, without which it is impossible to serve higher goals (in the West it is sometimes called one of the forerunners of totalitarianism).
After 5 years, Kipling graduated from school as a mature man beyond his years, with an established value system. At the age of 17, he had already firmly decided to become a writer (his military career was closed due to poor health, and there was no money to continue his education). He returns to India and gets a job as a correspondent in a newspaper in Lahore. The nomadic life of a colonial newspaperman brought him into contact with hundreds of people and situations, throwing him into the most incredible adventures, forced me to risk my life. He wrote reports about wars and epidemics, wrote “gossip chronicles”, conducted interviews, and made many acquaintances. He turned into an excellent expert on local life and customs; even the British commander-in-chief, Earl Roberts of Kandahar, was interested in his opinion.
Kipling discovers a multifaceted, multi-structured India, where two great cultures, “West and East,” come into contact. His essays are written by an astute observer, an unnamed reporter who relays what he heard and saw with protocol precision.
Glory "national poet" comes to Kipling after the release of his Barracks Ballads. His poems are original, they contain Kipling's "iron" style with a consistent "prose" of the verse. Kipling's ballads are " simple stories"from life, told by a dispassionate reporter, or from a folk background. These are monologues addressed to an invisible interlocutor, built on folklore and song models.
Ford through Kabul.
Kabul became at the waters of Kabul...
Saber out, sound the trumpet!..
Here half the platoon drowned,
The ford cost a friend his life,
When there is a spill, when the squadron is wide, they will come out sideways
This ford through Kabul and darkness.
...
We were ordered to occupy Kabul...
Saber out, sound the trumpet!..
But tell me - is it really
The ford will replace my friend,
Ford, ford, ford through Kabul,
Ford through Kabul and darkness.
Swim and swim
Do not sleep in the grave of those who were destroyed
Damn ford through Kabul and darkness.
Why the hell do we need Kabul?
Saber, sound the trumpet!..
It's hard to live without those who are friends,
I knew what to take, damned ford.
Ford, ford, ford through Kabul,
Ford through Kabul and darkness.
Oh Lord, don't let me stumble,
It's too easy to choke
Here, where there is a ford through Kabul and darkness.
We are being taken away from Kabul...
Saber out, sound the trumpet!..
How many of ours drowned?
How many lives did the ford cost?
Ford, ford, ford through Kabul,
Ford through Kabul and darkness.
The rivers will become shallow in the summer,
But friends will not emerge forever,
We know this, both the ford and the darkness.
Translation by S. Kapilevich
In his works Kipling called on his contemporaries to action, since in action he saw the only salvation from the meaninglessness of the world. The action must be purposeful and sanctified by the idea. Kipling’s idea was the idea of a higher moral law, that is, a system of prohibitions and permissions dominating a person, the violation of which is strictly punishable ( "Law of the jungle"). Kipling saw the British Empire as such an idea, a law, a concentration of sanctioning truth; in it he discovered a legislator and leader leading the “chosen people” to salvation. Imperial messianism became his religion. To promote these ideas, he uses the high syllable of an ode, epistle, panegyric, parable, stylizing the verse as a church hymn.
Hymn before the battle
The earth trembles with anger
And the ocean is dark,
Our paths were blocked
Swords of hostile countries:
When the stream is wild
We will be pushed back by our enemies, Jehovah,
Heavenly thunder, God of Sich, help!...
From pride and revenge,
From the low way
From fleeing the field of honor
Protect invisibly.
Let him be unworthy
Cover of grace,
Without anger and calmly
Let me accept your death!...
Translation by A. Onoshkovich-Yatsyn
But life differed from the legend. The poet was afraid that the Empire would not fulfill the mission entrusted to it, therefore, in political poems of the 90s. he called on the country not to revel in easy victories, but to soberly look at its own weaknesses and understand its destiny as selfless and selfless service to the “great goal.” Kipling saw the “white burden” in the conquest of lower races for their own good, not in robbery and reprisals, but in creative work, not in arrogant complacency, but in humility and patience.
White's Burden
Your lot is the Burden of the Whites!
Like in exile, let's go
Their sons to serve
To the dark tines of the earth;
To hard labor
She has no love,
Rule the stupid crowd
Either devils or children.
Your lot is the Burden of the Whites!
Bear with it patiently
Threats and insults
And don’t ask for honors;
Be patient and honest
Don't be lazy a hundred times
So that everyone can understand
Repeat your order.
...
Your lot is the Burden of the Whites!
But this is not a throne, but work:
Oily clothes
And aches and itching.
Roads and piers
Set it up for the descendants,
Put your life on it
And lie down in a foreign land.
...
Your lot is the Burden of the Whites!
Forget how you decided
Achieve quick fame,
You were a baby then.
In a merciless time,
During the dark times
It's time to step up as a man
Appear before the judgment of men!
Translation by V. Toporov
Thus, being mistaken, clinging to outgoing ideals and values, to historically doomed forms of statehood, Kipling nevertheless sincerely sought to serve the “common man”, sought to help him overcome suffering and loneliness, horror and despair, to teach him courage and perseverance in the face of the impending apocalypse.
Kipling's epitaphs expose the inhumanity of World War I:
Former clerk:
Do not Cry!
The army gave
Freedom for the timid slave.
Dragged by the collar
From the office to fate,
Where is he, found out what death means,
Got the courage to love
And, having fallen in love, he went to his death,
And he died.
Fortunately, maybe.
Coward:
I did not dare to look at death in an attack in broad daylight,
And the people, blindfolded, took me to her at night.
Newbie:
They quickly gave up on me
On the first day, the first bullet to the forehead.
Children love to jump up from their seats in the theater
I forgot that this is a trench.
Two:
A - I was rich, like a Rajah.
B - And I was poor.
Together:
- But to the next world without luggage
We're both going.
Translation by K. Simonov
In England in the 20th century, Kipling was considered the personification of everything retrograde and inhumane. After the First World War, others became the rulers of thought; “he is a laureate without laurels, a forgotten celebrity,” they sneered at him then. In 1936, not a single major person attended Kipling's funeral in Westminster Abbey. English writer- for culture, his death occurred several decades earlier.
Only during the 2nd World War, in Hard times for England they remembered him: his poetry in praise of the British Empire turned out to be in tune with wartime.
Concluding the conversation about Kipling, it is necessary to note the enormous popularity of his work in the 20-30s. in Soviet Union. Many of the best poets and writers of that time were fond of his prose and poetry: Issak Babel, Eduard Bagritsky, Vladimir Lugovskoy, Yuri Olesha, Konstantin Simonov. In 1922, Nikolai Tikhonov wrote his best ballads, in which the intonations and rhythms of the “iron Rudyard” are clearly heard.
The Western world abandoned the model that made voluntary submission to the “higher law” a moral obligation; the senseless massacre on the fronts of World War I completely discredited the idea of service in the name of the fatherland, the state. But this was relevant for a country that wanted to implement the great idea of creating a new type of state based on collectivism.
It is possible that it was precisely the Kipling principle in the poems of the young Soviet poets fascinated readers. I liked him “for his manly style, his soldierly severity, elegance and clearly expressed masculinity, masculine and soldierly,” recalled K. Simonov. (Kipling was mainly published in the 2nd half of the 30s.) During the Great Patriotic War the image of the “iron Rudyard” quickly collapsed, military reality quickly destroyed the “romantic” illusions of the young Soviet writers and poets. “On the very first day at the front in 1941, I suddenly fell out of love with some of Kipling’s poems once and for all,” wrote K. Simonov, “Kipling’s military romance in 1941 suddenly seemed distant, small and deliberately tense, like a broken boy’s bass.”
IN post-war years In our country, Kipling was recognized only as the author of wonderful children's fairy tales and stories about Mowgli. IN Lately, when many prejudices about Kipling's work have been dispelled, interest is again shown in him and it is again recognized that in both his prose and his poetry there are many successes that have stood the test of time.
Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941)
Rabindranath Tagore(1861-1941) - the most outstanding and influential personality of the 1st half of the 20th century. in India. He is a great humanist and literary genius of India. He was primarily a poet, but also a major prose writer and playwright. He is an original painter whose paintings have been exhibited in many countries around the world. He is a musician-composer whose songs are still sung in India. Tagore is a moral philosopher and political publicist, teacher and educator.
How creator-artist Tagore is deeply intimate, as a thinker - he is all citizenship. “He was not a political figure,” Jawaharlal Nehru wrote about Tagore, “but he took the fate of the Indian people too close to his heart and was too devoted to their freedom to be forever locked in his ivory tower with his poems and songs... Despite In the normal course of development, as he grew older, he became more radical in his views and views."
Creative path Tagore originates at the turn of the 70-80s. XIX century, when India was just beginning to emerge from the Middle Ages, and English colonial power seemed unshakable. Tagore was destined to see the formation and rise of the national liberation movement, which, with his participation, grew from small top national liberal organizations into a powerful popular force. He wanted to see the Indian people free and happy. He called for unity of all the peoples of India against the colonialists. He did a lot to educate Indians; he condemned religious fanaticism, national and caste hatred.
He did not focus only on Indian problems, maintained wide international contacts, traveled to many countries of the East and West with public speeches about Indian culture and called for the rapprochement and mutual enrichment of cultures of different countries and peoples. At the age of seventy he came to the USSR in 1930. His Letters on Russia were banned in India by the British authorities.
Tagore is perhaps the most widely read and popular writer of the East. His works have been translated into dozens of languages around the world. In Tagore’s own poetic work, with all the diversity of themes, motives and moods, it is easy to detect two main and opposing themes. The predominant and leading theme is the theme of acceptance of life in all its fullness, the theme of irrepressible admiration for the beauty of the world, the lofty and lyrical glorification of happiness, love and good human feelings.
I contemplated the illuminated face of the world without closing my eyes,
Marveling at his perfection.
The second theme of dissatisfaction, protest and suffering was generated by reality.
We'll stop at love lyrics poet. Tagore's poetry is characterized by a special penetration into the depths of human feelings, combining artistic vision With philosophical understanding. His love lyrics are sometimes emotionally intense, sometimes subtly melodious, and sometimes it is a very simple story of the poet about falling in love and love experiences, but the poet always easily and freely rises to high generalization and comprehension of beauty. He knows how to show love as a rushing whirlwind that swoops in and merges lovers together and carries them beyond the boundaries of everyday life:
Go wild on the swing, elemental!
Swing again!
My friend is with me again, I can’t take my eyes off her.
Wake her up, storm a frantic voice...
Come, hurricane, crush, stun.
Tear off all the clothes, all the veils from the soul!
Let her stand naked without shame!
Rock us!...
I found my soul, today we are together
Let's get to know each other again without fear.
We are now united in a mad embrace.
Rock us!
Here's a simple story about lovers:
The woman who was dear to me
I once lived in this village.
The path to the lake pier led,
To the rotten walkways and shaky steps...
Without the close participation of a friend,
who lived there in those years,
I probably wouldn't know in the area
No lake, no grove, no village.
She took me to the Shiva temple,
Drowning in the dense forest shadow.
Thanks to meeting her, I
I remember the village fences.
I wouldn't know the lake, but this backwater
She swam across.
She loved to swim in this place,
In the sand are traces of her nimble feet.
Peasants wait on the shore of the ferry
And they discuss rural affairs.
I wouldn't be familiar with the crossing
If only she didn't live here.
The poet can coin his thought with masterful aphorism:
One thing is always one thing, and nothing more.
But two create the beginning of one.
High humanity love lyrics Tagore is revealed with particular brightness in the image of a woman in love and beloved.
Woman,
You are not only the creation of God, you are not a product of the earth,
Men create you from their spiritual beauty.
For the poet, O woman, a dear outfit was woven,
The golden threads of metaphors on your clothes are burning.
Painters have immortalized your feminine appearance on canvas.
In unprecedented grandeur, in amazing purity.
How many different incense and colors were brought to you as a gift,
How many pearls are from the abyss, how much gold is from the earth.
How many delicate flowers are torn off for you on spring days,
How many insects have been exterminated to color your feet.
In these saris and bedspreads, hiding my shy gaze,
You immediately became more inaccessible and a hundred times more mysterious.
Your features shone differently in the fire of desires.
You are half creature, half imagination - you.
Literary heritage Tagore’s work is great and multifaceted, it proves the global significance of the culture of the peoples of the East.
Romain Rolland (1866-1944)
Romain Rolland(1866-1944) - great French writer, born in Clamcy (Burgundy) in the family of a notary. He received an excellent, varied education, studying philosophy, art history, and literature. Already on historical department At the Higher Normal School he dreamed of becoming a writer and made his first attempts at writing. In 1887, he plucked up courage and wrote to L.N. Tolstoy and received a detailed answer. Rolland admired Tolstoy's literary genius and listened to his thoughts about the people of art. The humanist and realist Romain Rolland began his literary activity from several plays about the Great French Revolution and a series of biographies of great people - titans in art ("The Life of Beethoven", "The Life of Michelangelo", "The Life of Tolstoy"). The main work of the initial period of creativity is a 10-volume novel "Jean-Christophe"(1904-1912). This is a biography of the German composer Jean-Christophe Krafft; in his image, the author conveyed some of the features of the innovator-rebel Beethoven. The action of the novel covers the last decades of the 19th - early 20th centuries. until the eve of the 1st World War. Jean-Christophe grew up in the family of a court musician in a provincial German town and throughout his life retained true democracy and sympathy for the common people.
Wilhelm's Germany ceased to be the Germany of the great Goethe and Beethoven. Works of the humanist composer does not find recognition, and he comes into conflict with the environment, not wanting to subordinate his work to the tastes of the bourgeois public. Christophe feels lonely, breaks with German philistinism and leaves for Paris. In Paris it’s the same, but there he finds lone humanists just like him.
The strength of the novel lies in its merciless criticism of the bourgeois system, the creation bright image positive hero, protesting against him with his art.
After a monumental narrative unfolding in several countries over several decades, Rolland created a small work - its entire action fits within the framework of one year and one small town Clumsy is a story by Cola Breugnon (1914, published 1919). An epic novel about Rolland's contemporaries, "Cola Brugnon" about the distant past. In "Jean-Christophe" a gloomy coloring predominates, in "Cola Brugnone" there are bright, light colors. It's hard to believe that both of these works were written by the same author. The action takes place back in 1616, Cervantes and Shakespeare are no longer there, this is the decline of the Renaissance, in France it is a time of senseless, cruel bloodshed.
The middle-aged Burgundian Cola is one of the few, but at the same time the only one. He is not only a craftsman, but also an artist; he not only works, but also thinks. In difficult conditions, he does not lose his sense of humor and self-esteem. The image of Kol, at first glance uncomplicated and unambiguous, turns as events unfold different faces. It is full of internal contrasts - and at the same time harmonious. Many sorrows befall Kol: soldiers of a hostile feudal lord attack the town of Klamsi and rob the inhabitants, the city is visited by a plague that almost carried away Kol himself, Kol’s wife, a grumpy but faithful life friend, the mother of his children, dies, all of Kol’s property perishes together. with the house burned during the epidemic, the most precious thing he had perishes - wooden sculptures. But, despite these disasters, Kola never loses optimism and faith in the future. Thus, Kola is the embodiment of the writer’s faith in a people capable of enduring all difficulties and preserving an eternally living, vigorous soul.
M. Gorky called “Brunion’s Cola” an “excellent purely Gali poem”, having read it in its first, less successful translation. The unique originality of the story into Russian was able to be reproduced in 1932 by M. L. Lozinsky. Cola Brugnon's aphorisms and comparisons sounded rich and unforgettable. “...As soon as you find yourself in a crowd, you immediately lose your senses. A hundred wise men will give birth to a fool, and a hundred sheep will give birth to a biruku”; "We danced; I was as graceful as a pole"; “...for the sake of the spirit, one should not forget the belly”; “How I pity the poor, destitute people who do not know the pleasure of books!”; “Godfather, you see someone else’s eye, but you don’t see your own,” etc. In the language of the story, one can feel the influence of Renaissance literature (F. Rabelais “Gargantua and Pantagruel”) and French folklore.
Throughout his life, Romain Rolland remained a humanist; during the 1st and 2nd World Wars, he was one of the first to condemn the horrors of war. The anti-war theme was also reflected in his works.
I. Early 1890s – 1905 1892 Code of laws of the Russian Empire: “the obligation of complete obedience to the tsar,” whose power was declared “autocratic and unlimited.” Industrial production is developing rapidly. The social consciousness of a new class, the proletariat, is growing. The first political strike at the Orekhovo-Zuevskaya manufactory. The court recognized the workers' demands as fair. Emperor Nicholas II. The first political parties were formed: 1898 - Social Democrats, 1905 - Constitutional Democrats, 1901 - Social Revolutionaries
Genre: story and short story. Weakened story line. He is interested in the subconscious, and not in the “dialetics of the soul”, the dark, instinctive sides of the personality, spontaneous feelings that are not understood by the person himself. The author’s image comes to the fore; the task is to show one’s own, subjective perception of life. No direct author's position– everything goes into subtext (philosophical, ideological) The role of detail increases. Poetic devices turn into prose. Realism (neorealism)
Modernism. Symbolism of the year. In the article by D.S. Merezhkovsky “On the causes of the decline and new trends in modern Russian literature,” modernism receives a theoretical justification. The older generation of symbolists: Merezhkovsky, Gippius, Bryusov, Balmont, Fyodor Sologub. Young Symbolists: Blok, A. Bely Magazine “World of Art” Ed. Princess M.K. Tenisheva and S.I. Mamontov, eds. S. P. Diaghilev, A. N. Benois (St. Petersburg) K. Balmont V. Bryusov Merezhkovsky D
Symbolism Focuses primarily through symbol on intuited entities and ideas, vague feelings and visions; The desire to penetrate into the secrets of existence and consciousness, to see through visible reality the supra-temporal ideal essence of the world and its Beauty. Eternal Femininity World Soul“Mirror to mirror, compare two mirror images, and place a candle between them. Two depths without a bottom, colored by the candle flame, will deepen themselves, mutually deepen each other, enrich the candle flame and unite with it into one. This is the image of the verse." (K. Balmont) Dear friend, don’t you see that everything we see is only a reflection, only shadows From what is invisible with our eyes? Dear friend, don’t you hear that the crackling noise of life is only a distorted response of triumphant harmonies (Soloviev) A pale young man with a burning gaze, Now I give you three covenants: First accept: do not live in the present, Only the future is the domain of the poet. Remember the second thing: don’t sympathize with anyone, love yourself infinitely. Keep the third: worship art, only it, undividedly, aimlessly (Bryusov)
1905 is one of the key years in the history of Russia. This year the revolution took place, which began with “Bloody Sunday” on January 9, the first royal manifesto, limiting the power of the monarchy in favor of its subjects, proclaiming the Duma to be the legislative body of government, approving civil liberties, the creation of a council of ministers headed by Witte, an armed uprising in Moscow, which was the peak of the revolution, an uprising in Sevastopol, etc.
Years. Russo-Japanese War
III – 1920s
Crisis of symbolism year. Article by A. Blok “On the current state of Russian symbolism” 1911. The most radical direction appears, denying all previous culture, the avant-garde - futurism. In Khlebnikov, V. Mayakovsky, I. Severyanin.
Futurism is the desire to create “the art of the future”, the denial of the heritage of the “past” - cultural traditions. language experimentation “zaum” Estate at night, Genghis Khan! Make noise, blue birches. Dawn of the night, dawn of dawn! And the sky is blue, Mozart! And, dusk of the cloud, be Goya! You at night, cloud, roops!.
A slap in the face to public taste Reading our New First Unexpected. Only we are the face of our Time. The horn of time blows for us in the art of words. The past is tight. The Academy and Pushkin are more incomprehensible than hieroglyphs. Abandon Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, etc. from the Steamship of Modernity. Whoever does not forget his first love will not know his last. Who, gullible, will turn his last Love to Balmont's perfume fornication? Is it a reflection of a courageous soul? today? Who, the coward, would be afraid to steal the paper armor from the black coat of the warrior Bryusov? Or are they the dawns of unknown beauties? Wash your hands that have touched the dirty slime of the books written by these countless Leonid Andreevs. To all these Maxim Gorkys, Kuprins, Bloks, Sollogubs, Remizovs, Averchenks, Chernys, Kuzmins, Bunins and so on. and so on. All you need is a dacha on the river. This is the reward that fate gives to tailors. From the heights of skyscrapers we look at their insignificance!... We order to honor the rights of poets: 1. To increase the vocabulary in its volume with arbitrary and derivative words (Word-innovation). 2. An insurmountable hatred of the language that existed before them. 3. With horror, remove from your proud brow the wreath of penny glory you made from the bath brooms. 4. Stand on the rock of the word “we” amid a sea of whistles and indignation. And if the dirty stigmas of your “common sense” and “good taste” still remain in our lines, then for the first time the Lightnings of the New Coming Beauty of the Self-Valuable (Self-Valuable) Word are already fluttering on them. D. Burliuk, Alexander Kruchenykh, V. Mayakovsky, Viktor Khlebnikov Moscow December
Features of the “Silver Age” 1. Elitism of literature, designed for a narrow circle of readers. Reminiscences and allusions. 2. The development of literature is connected with other types of art: 1. Theatre: its own direction in the world theater - Stanislavsky, Meyerhold, Vakhtangov, M. Chekhov, Tairov 2. Painting: futurism (Malevich), symbolism (Vrubel), realism (Serov), acmeism (“World of Art”) 3. The enormous influence of philosophy, many new world trends: N. Berdyaev, P. Florensky, S. Bulgakov, V. Solovyov; Nietzsche, Schopenhauer. 4. Discovery in psychology - Freud's theory of the subconscious. 5.Primary development of poetry. Discovery in the field of verse. – Musical sound verse. – Revival of genres – sonnet, madrigal, ballad, etc. 6. Innovation in prose: novel-symphony (A. Bely), modernist novel (F. Sollogub) 7. Isoteric teachings (spiritism, occultism) – elements of mysticism in literature.
Konstantin Sergeevich Stanislavsky Key concepts of his famous system: the stages of an artist’s work on a role, the method of transformation into a character, playing by an “ensemble” under the direction of a director who plays a “role” similar to a conductor’s in an orchestra, a troupe as a living organism going through different stages of development; and most importantly, the theory of cause-and-effect relationships of character. An actor, going on stage, performs a certain task within the framework of the logic of his character. But at the same time, each character exists in the general logic of the work laid down by the author. The author created the work in accordance with some purpose, having some main idea. And the actor, in addition to performing a specific task related to the character, must strive to convey the main idea to the viewer, try to achieve the main goal. the main idea a work or its main goal is a super task. Acting is divided into three technologies: - craft (based on the use of ready-made cliches, by which the viewer can clearly understand what emotions the actor has in mind), - performance (during long rehearsals, the actor experiences genuine experiences, which automatically create a form of manifestation of these experiences , but during the performance itself the actor does not experience these feelings, but only reproduces the form, the ready-made external drawing of the role). -experience (the actor experiences genuine experiences during the play, and this gives birth to the life of the image on stage).
Alexander Yakovlevich Tairov The idea of a Free Theater, which was supposed to combine tragedy and operetta, drama and farce, opera and pantomime. The actor had to be a true creator, not constrained by other people's thoughts or other people's words. The principle of “emotional gesture” instead of figurative or everyday authentic gesture. The performance should not follow the play in everything, because the performance itself “ valuable work art." The main task of the director is to give the performer the opportunity to liberate himself, to free the actor from everyday life. An eternal holiday should reign in the theater, it doesn’t matter whether it’s a holiday of tragedy or comedy, just so as not to let everyday life into the theater - “theatricalization of the theater”
Vsevolod Emilievich Meyerhold Craving for line, pattern, for a kind of visualization of music, turning the acting into a phantasmogorical symphony of lines and colors. “Biomechanics strives to experimentally establish the laws of movement of an actor on the stage, working out training exercises for acting on the basis of the norms of human behavior.” (the psychological concept of W. James (about the primacy of the physical reaction in relation to the emotional reaction), on the reflexology of V. M. Bekhterev and the experiments of I. P. Pavlov.
Evgeniy Bagrationovich Vakhtangov searches " modern methods to allow the performance in a form that would sound theatrical" the idea of the inextricable unity of the ethical and aesthetic purpose of the theater, the unity of the artist and the people, acute feeling modernity, corresponding to the content of the dramatic work, its artistic features, defining the unique stage form
Introduction
In Russia at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries. During the period of “unheard-of changes” and “unprecedented revolts”, scientific and technological progress and acute political cataclysms, deep and serious changes took place in art, which determined new and unique paths for its development.
On the one hand, the art of that time was a rejection of old artistic traditions, an attempt to creatively rethink the heritage of the past. Never before has an artist been so free in his creativity - creating a picture of the world, he received a real opportunity to focus on his own taste and preferences.
The culture of the late 19th and early 20th centuries is multifaceted. Sometimes it seems like a continuous jumble of styles, trends, movements and schools, simultaneously interacting and opposing each other. Experienced shocks, wars, changes in social structure, the trends of new values and aspirations of the West, the increasing interest of society in the sciences and art - all this greatly influenced the development of the culture of that time. A surge of creative energy, the emergence of new genres, changes and complications in the themes of works became the beginning of a new era, which is called the Silver Age.
This period is still of great interest to both professionals and ordinary art lovers. My goal is to review the literature in as much detail as possible. art, architecture and theatrical art of that era, since these areas of culture provide the most accurate understanding of the essence of the Silver Age. I would like to consider and classify the main movements, highlight specific genres from them and describe their most striking features. Also, my task is to list the main cultural figures who contributed to the development of a particular type of art.
Literature of the late 19th and early 20th centuries
Symbolism
The Silver Age began with the Symbolists; Symbolism became the first significant modernist movement in Russia. All changes in literature, new schools and movements are partly under his influence, even those created in contradiction to him. There is no unity of concepts in Russian symbolism; it did not have a single school, nor a single style; it was expressed in an abundance of ways of self-expression. What united the Symbolists was a distrust of the ordinary and banal, a desire to express their thoughts through symbols and allegories, be it fine art or literature; the desire to give his creation an even more vague, ambiguous coloring.
Initially, Russian symbolism has the same roots as Western - “a crisis of positive worldview and morality.” The desire to replace morality and logic with aesthetics, the position that “beauty will save the world” became the main principle of the early Russian symbolists, as opposed to the ideology of populism. At the end of the 19th century, the intelligentsia and bohemians, looking with some alarm at a future that did not promise anything good, took symbolism as a breath of fresh air. It became more and more popular, involving more and more talented people, who, each with their own unique view of things, made symbolism so multifaceted. The symbolists became an expression of longing for spiritual freedom, a tragic premonition of future changes, a symbol of trust in proven centuries-old values. A feeling of trouble and instability, fear of change and the unknown united people who were so different in philosophy and attitude to life. Symbolism is an amazing collection of many individuals, characters, intimate experiences and impressions that are stored deep in the soul of a poet, writer or artist. Only a feeling of decline, nostalgic moods, and melancholy unite many faces into one.
At the origins of symbolism in St. Petersburg were Dmitry Merezhkovsky and his wife Zinaida Gippius, in Moscow - Valery Bryusov. The motives of tragic isolation, detachment from the world, and strong-willed self-affirmation of the individual can be traced in the works of Gippius; social orientation, religious and mythological stories- at Merezhkovsky; the balance of the opposite, the struggle for life and humility before death permeate Bryusov’s work. The poems of Konstantin Balmont, who declared the “search for correspondences” between sound, meaning and color, characteristic of symbolists, are becoming very popular. Balmont's passion for sound writing, colorful adjectives displacing verbs, leads to the creation of almost “meaningless” texts, according to his ill-wishers, but this phenomenon later leads to the emergence of new poetic concepts.
A little later, a movement of younger symbolists developed, creating romantically colored circles in which, exchanging experiences and ideas, they honed their skills. A. Blok, A. Bely, V. Ivanov and many others paid great attention moral and ethical ideals, trying to combine the interests of society with their own.
Literature and art at that time were experiencing a rapid rise, old styles were reborn, new ones appeared, and it was impossible to determine exactly where one ended and the other began, the boundaries were ethereal and foggy, everything was in the air.
The history of symbolism is very tragic, as is the history of many other genres. At first, the symbolism was met more than coldly - the works, unadapted to Russian society, having no relation to the land and people, were incomprehensible to the broad masses, and were practically ridiculed. After a short period of heyday, in defiance of the Symbolists, innovative movements with more down-to-earth and rigid principles began to form. In the last decade before the revolution, symbolism experienced crisis and decline. Some Symbolists did not accept the 1917 revolution and were forced to immigrate from the country. Many continued to write, but symbolism inexorably faded away. Those who remained in the country were faced with a rethinking of previous values. The symbolist had nothing to earn a living in post-revolutionary Russia.
At the beginning of the 20s, several centers of Russian emigration were formed, including in Paris, Prague, Berlin, Harbin, and Sofia. Taking into account the conditions of a particular country, the foundations were formed here cultural life Russian diaspora. The culture of Russian emigration was based on the traditions of classical culture. These people considered their task to be the preservation and development of Russian culture. Russian newspapers played a significant role in establishing the spiritual life of the emigration; about a hundred of them were published. Countries such as Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria have opened educational establishments Russian diaspora. In Berlin there were good conditions for the publication of works by emigrant authors. Among the foreign intelligentsia, various ideological and political movements arose, which reflected the search for ways to revive Russia and its culture; one of these movements was Eurasianism.
Complication international situation in the 30s, it contributed to the resumption of disputes among emigrants about the fate of Russia and the possibility of returning to their homeland. Writer A. Kuprin and poetess M. Tsvetaeva returned to the USSR. But the strengthening totalitarian system forced many to abandon the idea of returning home.
At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, all aspects of Russian life were radically transformed: politics, economics, science, technology, culture, art. There are different, sometimes directly opposite, assessments of the socio-economic and cultural prospects for the country's development. What becomes common is the feeling of the onset of a new era, bringing a change in the political situation and a revaluation of previous spiritual and aesthetic ideals. Literature could not help but respond to the fundamental changes in the life of the country. There is a revision of artistic guidelines and a radical renewal of literary techniques. At this time, Russian poetry was developing especially dynamically. A little later, this period will be called the “poetic renaissance” or the Silver Age of Russian literature.
Realism at the beginning of the 20th century
Realism does not disappear, it continues to develop. L.N. is still actively working. Tolstoy, A.P. Chekhov and V.G. Korolenko, M. Gorky, I.A. have already powerfully declared themselves. Bunin, A.I. Kuprin... Within the framework of the aesthetics of realism, a bright manifestation was found creative individuals writers of the 19th century, their civic position and moral ideals- realism equally reflected the views of authors who share a Christian, primarily Orthodox, worldview - from F.M. Dostoevsky to I.A. Bunin, and those for whom this worldview was alien - from V.G. Belinsky to M. Gorky.
However, at the beginning of the 20th century, many writers were no longer satisfied with the aesthetics of realism - new aesthetic schools began to emerge. Writers unite in various groups, put forward creative principles, participate in polemics - literary movements are established: symbolism, acmeism, futurism, imagism, etc.
Symbolism at the beginning of the 20th century
Russian symbolism, the largest of the modernist movements, arose not only as a literary phenomenon, but also as a special worldview that combines artistic, philosophical and religious principles. The date of emergence of the new aesthetic system is considered to be 1892, when D.S. Merezhkovsky made a report “On the causes of the decline and on new trends in modern Russian literature.” It proclaimed the main principles of future symbolists: “ mystical content, symbols and the expansion of artistic impressionability." The central place in the aesthetics of symbolism was given to the symbol, an image with the potential inexhaustibility of meaning.
The symbolists contrasted the rational knowledge of the world with the construction of the world in creativity, the knowledge of the environment through art, which V. Bryusov defined as “comprehension of the world in other, non-rational ways.” In the mythology of different peoples, symbolists found universal philosophical models with the help of which it is possible to comprehend the deep foundations human soul and solving spiritual problems of our time. Representatives of this trend paid special attention to the heritage of the Russian classical literature- new interpretations of the works of Pushkin, Gogol, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Tyutchev were reflected in the works and articles of the symbolists. Symbolism gave culture the names of outstanding writers - D. Merezhkovsky, A. Blok, Andrei Bely, V. Bryusov; the aesthetics of symbolism had a huge influence on many representatives of other literary movements.
Acmeism at the beginning of the 20th century
Acmeism was born in the bosom of symbolism: a group of young poets first founded the literary association “Poets Workshop”, and then proclaimed themselves representatives of a new literary movement - acmeism (from the Greek akme - highest degree something, blossoming, peak). Its main representatives are N. Gumilev, A. Akhmatova, S. Gorodetsky, O. Mandelstam. Unlike the symbolists, who strive to know the unknowable, to comprehend the highest essences, the Acmeists again turned to the value human life, the diversity of the bright earthly world. The main requirement for the artistic form of the works was the pictorial clarity of images, verified and precise composition, stylistic balance, and precision of details. Acmeists assigned the most important place in the aesthetic system of values to memory - a category associated with the preservation of the best domestic traditions and world cultural heritage.
Futurism at the beginning of the 20th century
Derogatory comments about previous and modern literature given by representatives of another modernist movement- futurism (from Latin futurum - future). A necessary condition for the existence of this literary phenomenon its representatives considered the atmosphere shocking, a challenge to public taste, a literary scandal. The Futurists' desire for mass theatrical performances with dressing up, painting faces and hands was caused by the idea that poetry should come out of books onto the square, to sound in front of spectators and listeners. Futurists (V. Mayakovsky, V. Khlebnikov, D. Burliuk, A. Kruchenykh, E. Guro, etc.) put forward a program for transforming the world with the help of new art, which abandoned the legacy of its predecessors. At the same time, unlike representatives of other literary movements, in substantiating their creativity they relied on fundamental sciences - mathematics, physics, philology. The formal and stylistic features of the poetry of Futurism were the renewal of the meaning of many words, word creation, the rejection of punctuation marks, a special graphic design of poems, the depoeticization of language (the introduction of vulgarisms, technical terms, the destruction of the usual boundaries between “high” and “low”).
Conclusion
Thus, in the history of Russian culture, the beginning of the 20th century was marked by the emergence of diverse literary movements, various aesthetic views and schools. However, original writers, true artists of words, overcame the narrow framework of declarations, created highly artistic works that outlived their era and entered the treasury of Russian literature.
The most important feature of the beginning of the 20th century was the universal craving for culture. Not being at the premiere of a play in the theater, not being present at an evening of an original and already sensational poet, in literary drawing rooms and salons, not reading a newly published book of poetry was considered a sign of bad taste, unmodern, unfashionable. When a culture becomes a fashionable phenomenon, this is a good sign. “Fashion for culture” is not a new phenomenon for Russia. This was the case during the time of V.A. Zhukovsky and A.S. Pushkin: let's remember " Green lamp" and "Arzamas", "Society of Lovers of Russian Literature", etc. At the beginning of the new century, exactly one hundred years later, the situation practically repeated itself. The Silver Age replaced the Golden Age, maintaining and preserving the connection of times.