Literature of the late nineteenth century. Literature of the late 19th - early 20th centuries general characteristics

06.04.2019

Russian literature of the late 19th - early 20th centuries (1890 - 1917).

The last decade of the 19th century opens up in Russian and world culture new stage. Over the course of about a quarter of a century - from the early 90s to October 1917 - literally all aspects of Russian life were radically updated - economics, politics, science, technology, culture, art. Compared to the social and relative literary stagnation of the 80s, the new stage of historical and cultural development was distinguished by rapid dynamics and acute drama. In terms of the pace and depth of changes, as well as the catastrophic nature of internal conflicts, Russia at this time is ahead of any other country.

Therefore, the transition from the era of classical Russian literature to the new literary time was distinguished by the far from peaceful nature of general cultural and intraliterary life, a rapid - by the standards of the 19th century - change in aesthetic guidelines, and a radical renewal of literary techniques. Russian poetry was renewed especially dynamically at this time, again - after the Pushkin era - coming to the forefront of the country's general cultural life. Later, this poetry earned the name “poetic renaissance” or “silver age.” Having arisen by analogy with the concept of the “golden age”, which traditionally denoted the “Pushkin period” of Russian literature, this phrase was initially used to characterize the peak manifestations of poetic culture of the early 20th century - the work of A. Blok, A. Bely, I. Annensky, A. Akhmatova, O. Mandelstam and other brilliant masters of words. However, gradually the term " silver Age"began to define the entire artistic culture of Russia at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th century. today This usage has become entrenched in literary criticism.

What was new compared to the 19th century at the turn of the two centuries was, first of all, man’s perception of the world. The understanding of the exhaustion of the previous era grew stronger, and conflicting assessments of the socio-economic and general cultural prospects of Russia began to appear. Common denominator ideological disputes that flared up in the country towards the end of the last century were defined new era like eras border: the previous forms of life, work, and political organization of society were irrevocably a thing of the past; the system of spiritual values itself was decisively revised. Crisis - keyword era, wandering through magazine journalism and literary critical articles (the words “revival”, “turning point”, “crossroads”, etc., which were similar in meaning, were often used)

Fiction, which traditionally for Russia has not stood aside from public passions, quickly became involved in the discussion of current issues. Her social engagement was reflected in the titles of works characteristic of this era. “Without a Road”, “At the Turning” - V. Veresaev calls his stories; “The Decline of the Old Century” - echoes the title of the chronicle novel by A. Amphitheaters; “At the last line,” M. Artsybashev responds with his novel. Awareness of the crisis of the time, however, did not mean recognition of its futility.

On the contrary, most wordsmiths perceived their era as a time of unprecedented achievements, when the importance of literature in the life of the country increased sharply. That's why it's so great attention began to be paid not only to creativity itself, but also to ideological and public position writers, their connections with political life countries. In the writing community, there arose a desire to consolidate with writers, philosophers, and workers of related arts who were close to them in their worldview and aesthetics. Literary associations and clubs played this game historical period a much more prominent role than in the previous few decades. Typically new literary trends turn of the century developed from the activities of small writers' circles, each of which united young writers with similar views on art.

Quantitatively, the writing community has grown noticeably compared to the 19th century, and qualitatively - in terms of the nature of education and life experience writers, and most importantly - in terms of the diversity of aesthetic positions and levels of skill - has become seriously more complicated. In the 19th century literature had high degree ideological unity; it has developed a fairly clear hierarchy of literary talents: at one stage or another, it is not difficult to identify masters who served as reference points for an entire generation of writers (Pushkin, Gogol, Nekrasov, Tolstoy, etc.).

The legacy of the Silver Age is not limited to the work of one or two dozen significant literary artists, but the logic literary development of this pore is not reducible to a single center or the simplest pattern of alternating directions. This legacy is a multi-tiered artistic reality, in which individual literary talents, no matter how outstanding they may be, turn out to be only part of that grandiose whole, which received such a broad and “lax” name - the Silver Age.

When starting to study the literature of the Silver Age, you cannot do without brief overview social background of the turn of the century and the general cultural context of this period (“context” - environment, external environment, in which art exists).

Socio-political features of the era.

By the end of the 19th century, the crisis in the Russian economy intensified. The roots of this crisis are in the too slow reform of economic life, which began back in 1861. A more democratic post-reform order, according to the government's plans, was supposed to intensify the economic life of the peasantry, make this largest group of the population mobile and more active. This is how it gradually happened, but the post-reform processes had a downside: from 1881, when the peasants had to finally pay off their debts to their former owners, the rapid impoverishment of the village began. The situation became especially acute during the famine years of 1891-1892. The inconsistency of the transformations became clear: having freed the peasant in relation to the landowner, the reform of 1861 did not liberate him in relation to the community. Up to Stolypin reform 1906, the peasants were never able to separate from the community (from which they received land).

Meanwhile, the self-determination of the largest political parties that emerged at the turn of the century largely depended on one or another attitude towards the community. The leader of the liberal Cadet Party, P. Milyukov, considered the community a kind of Asian mode of production, with the despotism and over-centralization it generated in the political structure of the country. Hence the recognition of the need for Russia to follow the pan-European path of bourgeois reforms. Back in 1894, the prominent economist and political figure P. Struve, who later also became a liberal, concluded one of his works with the famous phrase: “Let’s admit our lack of culture and let’s go to school for capitalism.” It was a program for the evolutionary development of the country towards a European-style civil society. However, liberalism did not become the main program of action for the numerically expanded Russian intelligentsia.

The position that was more influential in the public consciousness went back to the so-called “legacy of the 60s” - the revolutionary democratic ideology and the revolutionary populist ideology that was successor to it. N. Chernyshevsky, and later P. Lavrov and N. Mikhailovsky considered the role of the Russian community to be positive. These supporters of a special, “Russian socialism” believed that the community with its spirit of collectivism was the real basis for the transition to a socialist form of economic management. Important in the position of the “sixties” and their spiritual heirs were a sharp opposition to autocratic “tyranny and violence”, political radicalism, and a focus on decisive changes in social institutions (little attention was paid to the real mechanisms of economic life, which is why their theories acquired a utopian overtones). For most of the Russian intelligentsia, however, political radicalism has traditionally been more attractive than a thoughtful economic program. It was the maximalist political tendencies that ultimately prevailed in Russia.

By the end of the century, the “railroads” for the development of capitalism in the country had already been laid: in the 90s, industrial production tripled, a powerful galaxy of Russian industrialists emerged, and industrial centers grew rapidly. Mass production of industrial goods was being established, and telephones and cars were part of the everyday life of the wealthy. Huge raw material resources, a constant influx of cheap labor from the countryside and free access to the capacious markets of the economically less developed countries of Asia - all this foreshadowed good prospects for Russian capitalism.

Relying on the community in this situation was historically short-sighted, as Russian Marxists tried to prove. In their struggle for socialism, they relied on industrial development and the working class. Marxism since the mid-90s. quickly wins the moral support of various groups of intellectuals. This was reflected in such psychological traits of the Russian “educated layer” as the desire to join the “progressive” worldview, distrust and even intellectual contempt for political caution and economic pragmatism. In a country with extremely heterogeneous social structure As Russia was then, the tilt of the intelligentsia towards the most radical political trends was fraught with serious upheavals, as the development of events showed.

Russian Marxism was initially a heterogeneous phenomenon: in its history, sharp divisions clearly prevailed over convergence and consolidation, and factional struggle almost always overwhelmed the framework of intellectual discussions. The so-called legal Marxists initially played a significant role in giving Marxism an attractive appearance. In the 90s, they polemicized in the open press with the populists (among the talented polemicists was the above-mentioned P. Struve). They professed Marxism as primarily an economic theory, without global claims to planning the destinies of all mankind. Believing in evolutionism, they considered it unacceptable to deliberately provoke a revolutionary explosion. That is why after the revolution of 1905 - 1907. The former legal Marxists finally separated themselves from the orthodox wing of the movement, which, despite the external anti-populist position, absorbed many of the deep-seated attitudes of revolutionary populism.

Goal: to familiarize students with the general characteristics and originality of Russian literature of the 19th century V. from the point of view of history and literature; give an idea of the main trends in literature of the late XIX - early XX centuries; show the significance of Russian literature of this period in the development of Russian and world literary process; to cultivate a sense of belonging and empathy for the history of Russia, love for its culture. equipment: textbook, portraits of writers and poets of the turn of the century.

Projected

Results: students know the general characteristics and originality of Russian literature of the 19th century. from the point of view of history and literature; have an idea of the main trends in literature of the late 19th - early 20th centuries; determine the significance of Russian literature of this period in the development of the Russian and world literary process. lesson type: lesson on learning new material.

DURING THE CLASSES

I. Organizational stage

II. Updating basic knowledge Checking homework (frontal)

III. Setting the goals and objectives of the lesson.

Motivation for learning activities

Teacher. The twentieth century began at zero o'clock on January 1, 1901 - this is its calendar beginning, from which it counts its history and world art XX century From this, however, it does not follow that at one moment a general revolution took place in art, establishing a certain a new style XX century Some of the processes that are essential for the history of art originate in the last century.

Last thing decade XIX V. opens a new stage in Russian and world culture. Over the course of about a quarter of a century - from the early 1890s to October 1917 - literally every aspect of Russian life changed radically: economics, politics, science, technology, culture, art. Compared to the social and, to some extent, literary stagnation of the 1880s. The new stage of historical and cultural development was distinguished by rapid dynamics and acute drama. In terms of the pace and depth of changes, as well as the catastrophic nature of internal conflicts, Russia at that time was ahead of any other country. Therefore, the transition from the era of classical Russian literature to the new literary time was accompanied by far from peaceful processes in general cultural and intraliterary life, which were unexpectedly fast by the standards of the 19th century. - a change in aesthetic guidelines, a radical update of literary techniques.

The legacy of the turn of the 19th–20th centuries. is not limited to the work of one or two dozen significant literary artists, and the logic of literary development of this time cannot be reduced to a single center or the simplest scheme of successive directions. This heritage is a multi-tiered artistic reality in which individual literary talents, no matter how outstanding they may be, are only part of a grandiose whole. When starting to study the literature of the turn of the century, one cannot do without a brief overview of the social background and general cultural context of this period (“context” is the environment, the external environment in which art exists).

IV. Working on the topic of lesson 1. teacher's lecture

(Students write theses.)

Literature of the late XIX - early XX centuries. existed and developed under the powerful influence of a crisis that gripped almost all aspects of Russian life. The great artists managed to convey their sense of the tragedy and disorder of Russian life at that time with enormous artistic power. realist writers XIX century, finishing their creative and life path: l. N. Tolstoy and A. P. Chekhov. Continuers of the realistic traditions of I. a. Bunin, A. I. Kuprin, l. N. Andreev, A. N. Tolstoy, in turn, created magnificent examples of realistic art. However, the plots of their works became more and more disturbing and gloomy from year to year, the ideals that inspired them became more and more unclear. Life-affirming pathos, characteristic of Russian classics of the 19th century c., under the weight of sad events, gradually disappeared from their work.

At the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th century. Russian literature, which previously had a high degree of ideological unity, became aesthetically multi-layered.

Realism at the turn of the century continued to be a large-scale and influential literary movement.

The most brilliant talents among the new realists belonged to the writers who united in the 1890s. to the Moscow circle “Sreda”, and in the early 1900s. who formed the circle of regular authors of the publishing house “Znanie” (one of its owners and actual leader was M. Gorky). In addition to the leader of the association in it, different years included l. N. Andreev, I. a. Bunin, V.V. Veresaev, N. Garin-Mikhailovsky, a. I. Kuprin, I. S. Shmelev and other writers. With the exception of I. a. There were no major poets among Bunin's realists; they showed themselves primarily in prose and, less noticeably, in drama.

Generation of realist writers of the early 20th century. received as an inheritance from A. P. Chekhov's new principles of writing - with much greater authorial freedom than before, with a much wider arsenal artistic expression, with a sense of proportion obligatory for the artist, which was ensured by increased internal self-criticism.

In literary criticism, it is customary to call, first of all, three literary movements that declared themselves in the period 1890–1917 as modernist. These are symbolism, acmeism and futurism, which formed the basis of modernism as a literary movement.

In general, Russian culture of the late XIX - early XX centuries. amazes with its brightness, wealth, and abundance of talents in various fields. And at the same time, it was the culture of a society doomed to destruction, a premonition of which could be seen in many of her works.

2. familiarization with the textbook article on the topic of the lesson (in pairs)

3. Heuristic conversation

Š What new styles and trends have appeared in Russian culture at the turn of the 19th–20th centuries? How were they related to a specific historical setting?

♦ Which historical events late XIX - early XX centuries. influenced the destinies of Russian writers, were reflected in works of literature?

♦ What philosophical concepts had an impact on Russian literature at the turn of the 19th–20th centuries? what explains the special interest of writers in the philosophy of a. Schopenhauer, F. Nietzsche?

♦ How did the craving for irrationalism, mysticism, and religious quest manifest itself in Russian literature of this time?

♦ is it possible to say that at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries. Is realism losing the role of the dominant literary process that belonged to it in the 19th century?

♦ How do traditions compare in turn-of-the-century literature? classical literature and innovative aesthetic concepts?

♦ What is unique? late creativity A. P. Chekhov? How justified is judgment a. Bely that a. P. Chekhov “most of all a symbolist”? What features of Chekhov's realism allow modern researchers to call the writer the founder of absurd literature?

♦ What character did the literary struggle take at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries? Which publishing houses, magazines, almanacs played a particularly important role in the development of Russian literature?

♦ How is the problem of the relationship between man and the environment solved in Russian literature at the turn of the century? What traditions of the “natural school” were developed in the prose of this time?

♦ What place did journalism occupy in the literature of this period? What problems were especially actively discussed on the pages of magazines and newspapers during these years?

V. Reflection. Summing up the lesson

1. “Press” (in groups)

The teacher’s general word - thus, the deep aspirations of the modernist movements that conflicted with each other turned out to be very similar, despite the sometimes striking stylistic dissimilarities, differences in tastes and literary tactics. That's why the best poets eras were rarely confined within a certain literary school or currents. Almost a rule of their creative evolution has become the overcoming of directional frameworks and declarations that are narrow for the creator. That's why real picture literary process at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries. is determined to a much greater extent by the creative individuals of writers and poets than by the history of trends and movements.

Page 1 ]

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, push 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 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 mythology different nations Symbolists found universal philosophical models with the help of which it is possible to comprehend the deep foundations of the human soul and solve the spiritual problems of our time. WITH special attention representatives of this trend also related to the heritage of 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 the culture names 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 - the highest degree of 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 artistic form works have become picturesque clarity of images, verified and precise composition, stylistic balance, precision of details. The most important place in aesthetic system Acmeists assigned 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 an atmosphere of outrageousness, a challenge to public taste, and 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 Futurism poetry were the renewal of the meaning of many words, word creation, the rejection of punctuation marks, special graphic design of poems, 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 the 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 the “Green Lamp” and “Arzamas”, “Society of Lovers of Russian Literature”, etc. At the beginning of the new century, exactly a hundred years later, the situation practically repeated itself. The Silver Age replaced the Golden Age, maintaining and preserving the connection of times.

As a result of studying this section, the student should:

– know the originality of this period as an era of affirmation of the global significance of Russian literature; the role of artistic geniuses in the historical and literary process of this time; the dialectical nature of the writer's search: the truth of the artistic depiction of life and the highest spirituality, elitism and democracy, the religious and moral aspirations of writers, etc.;
– be able to determine general patterns characteristic of a given literary period; justify the analysis of the artistic specificity of the work; indicate examples of innovative solutions of writers in the field of form;
– own a conceptual apparatus associated with the study of the historical and literary process of the era and the change of its genre guidelines; the ability to differentiate in specific analyzes of works of truth from life and truth fiction; methods of studying the poetics of an author or a separate work.

When applied to the history of Russian classical literature, “end of the century” is a somewhat arbitrary concept. Firstly, this is not just a chronological definition, i.e. the last two or three decades, but rather the temporary space of the literary process, marked general laws, covering the period 1860–1890s. Secondly, this literature generally goes beyond XIX century, taking into its orbit a whole decade of the new, 20th century.

The uniqueness of this period lies in a number of phenomena. First of all, it should be noted intensity historical and literary process at different moments of its formation. This process had two waves, two powerful bursts. At the beginning of the century - Pushkin, in whom, according to A. N. Ostrovsky, Russian literature grew for a whole century, since he brought it to a new level, synthesizing in his creative impulse the previous eras of its development. The second wave came at the end of the century and was associated with three names: Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov. This great trinity, completely in the Russian spirit, with enormous, amazing concentration, condensation of creative energy The end of the century and the highest rise of the Russian genius were marked.

Domestic literature first received at this time worldwide confession. Half-impoverished, “barbaric” Russia, without a single civilized drop of blood in its veins, as they talked condescendingly about it, suddenly put forward a literature that lit up as a star of the first magnitude and forced people to reckon with itself, dictating the highest aesthetic and spiritual standards to the writers of the world. It began with Tolstoy and Dostoevsky and was a huge conquest of Russian culture, then Chekhov followed, but not only with prose, but also with drama, which made a whole revolution in this type of creativity.

Previously, Russian literature sometimes attracted favorable attention (for example, Turgenev), but such universal, enthusiastic worship never existed. In February 1886, a witty genre sketch by Maurice Barès appeared in the French magazine Revue illustree, indicating a change in the opinions of Europeans: “Everyone knows that for two months now a man of good taste and knowledge has been exclaiming from the first steps greetings: “Oh, monsieur, do you know these Russians?” You take a step back and say: “Oh, that Tolstoy!” The one who is pressing on you answers: “Dostoyevsky!” World recognition was conquered precisely by the literature of the end of the century. Only five years passed after Dostoevsky's death, and Tolstoy continued his writing in Yasnaya Polyana, preparing to create a third novel, “Resurrection.”

However, this phenomenon was only consequence the efforts of several generations of Russian writers. In 1834, Gogol, while Pushkin was still alive, published an article about him (in Mirgorod), noting: “Pushkin is a Russian man in his full development, as he will be in two hundred years.” A little more than 30 years have passed since a book was published in Moscow that attracted everyone's attention, and it soon became clear that another genius of the Renaissance type had appeared, born, like Pushkin, in Russia. This book was the novel "War and Peace", the author was Count L.N. Tolstoy. It was also significant - and not accidental - that all, without exception, the luminaries of the classics of the 19th century. They considered Pushkin their forerunner. In other words, Russian literature of this period could take such a place and play such a significance in world culture because it was based on tradition previous literature.

Another feature of the literary process is energy manifestations of creative efforts that united the most diverse literary personalities in an intense artistic flow. For example, in 1862, the Russian Messenger published simultaneously “Crime and Punishment” by Dostoevsky and “1805” by L. N. Tolstoy (a magazine version of the beginning of the future “War and Peace”), i.e. two great novels under one magazine cover. Even earlier, in the late 1850s. An agreement was concluded by a number of writers to publish their works in the Sovremennik magazine. The parties to the agreement were authors who two or three decades later became recognized as great and brilliant masters - Turgenev, Ostrovsky, Goncharov, Nekrasov, Tolstoy. In the 1880–1890s. The journal "Severny Vestnik" published works by Turgenev, Tolstoy, Korolenko, and Chekhov.

A characteristic feature of the literary process under consideration can also be traced in its vertical slice. This coordinate system gives an idea of extraordinary brightness and surprise mates when writers develop similar themes, ideas, images. Early 1860s marked by the appearance of “anti-nihilistic” works: the novels “Nowhere”, “On Knives” by N. S. Leskov and “The Troubled Sea” by A. F. Pisemsky, the unfinished comedy “The Infected Family” by L. N. Tolstoy. In 1868, A. N. Tolstoy’s drama “Tsar Feodor Ioannovich” and F. M. Dostoevsky’s novel “The Idiot” were written: both there and here are heroes of the same type, both in their worldview and in the nature of their influence on others. In 1875, when Nekrasov, struggling with excruciating physical and moral suffering, wrote his “Last Songs,” L. N. Tolstoy worked hard on “Anna Karenina,” already knowing tragic ending, who was waiting for the heroine of the novel.

Undoubtedly, this period was a triumph of realism, shunned, however, literal verisimilitude. Fidelity to life was affirmed as an unconditional law of creativity; deviation from it, even in details, was confirmation, from the point of view of the masters, of either weakness of talent or hasty, rough work. L.N. Tolstoy expressed this idea in a paradoxical form, noting that art is more objective than science itself, in which there is the possibility of gradually approaching the truth in formulations that clarify this or that pattern. In art this is impossible, because for the artist there is no choice: what he creates is either true or false, there is no third option.

However, with the indispensable requirement of fidelity to life, the literature of this time went to daring experiments, looking far ahead and anticipating the innovations of avant-garde art. The truth of life was often violated in the name of artistic truth. For example, a moment could unfold into a disproportionately cumbersome, vast narrative space (the death of Staff Captain Praskukhin in Tolstoy’s story “Sevastopol in May” and the episode of the wounding of Prince Bolkonsky in “War and Peace”) or a contradiction arose between the author’s view and the perception of the hero (an obvious discrepancy exposition "Ward No. 6" with the ending, where Ragin sees what the author-narrator should have said when describing the neglected hospital yard in front of the field, where the ominous building he saw rose - a prison, but did not say, thereby creating an unexpectedly powerful emotional and a dramatic splash at the conclusion of the story). Often it was not just the verisimilitude of life that was destroyed, but also the laws of the genre. For example, the objective manner of novel narration was replaced by demonstrative intrusions of the author, who, taking advantage of the right of the demiurge-creator, often left the plot movement, the story of fictional persons and directly addressed the reader, explaining in detail himself and his characters (a favorite novel technique of Dostoevsky and L.N. . Tolstoy).

Ultimately, this was a manifestation of the demand for creative freedom, “freedom in the choice of inspiration,” as Dostoevsky said, and opened up scope for artistic innovation.

Finally, characteristic historical-literary process - of course, in its highest manifestations - was that the cult dominated the realistic method spirit, spirituality.“Art,” noted L.N. Tolstoy in one of his diary entries, “is a microscope that the artist points at the secrets of his soul and shows these secrets common to all people.” Deciding fate literary works The scale of ideas and the perfection of their implementation grew, which was demonstrated by the luminaries of this time.

Representatives of other literary movements developing at the same time did not reach a similar level. From fiction democratic directions (N.V. Uspensky, N.G. Pomyalovsky, F.M. Reshetnikov, V.A. Sleptsov, A.I. Levitov), writers populist orientation (the most striking among them was G.I. Uspensky), from literature that captures the acuteness "of the current moment" V public life(in fiction - P. D. Boborykin, I. N. Potapenko, in drama - V. A. Krylov, who was also incredibly prolific), nothing has survived or individual works have remained as vivid documents of the era and outstanding literary phenomena (stories and essays G.I. Uspensky, V.M. Garshin, novels by D.N. Mamina-Sibiryak); at best, they became the subject of special research.

At the same time, literature of the late 19th century. marked by its inherent special drama, to some extent even tragic. The rise of her success coincided with the passing of great writers. Turgenev, as if sensing the approaching end of the road, turned to “Poems in Prose” and managed to prepare the carefully corrected “Notes of a Hunter” for publication. Others were snatched from life in the midst of the implementation of creative plans. Dostoevsky, who almost simultaneously created The Brothers Karamazov and a speech about Pushkin, which brought him enormous popularity, continued The Diary of a Writer, which enjoyed great success in recent years. Chekhov, who achieved world fame as a prose writer and playwright, died in the prime of his life - at 44 years old.

Thus, the highest wave of literary growth turned out to be marked by losses. At the end of the 19th – beginning of the 20th centuries. There is not just a change of generations: artistic achievements remain, but their creators pass away one by one. A new time is coming for the development of the historical and literary process - the era of Russian literature, but already the 20th century.

The last decade of the 19th century opens a new stage in Russian and world culture. Over the course of about a quarter of a century - from the early 1890s to October 1917 - literally every aspect of Russian life changed radically - economics, politics, science, technology, culture, art. Compared to the social and, to some extent, literary stagnation of the 1880s, the new stage of historical and cultural development was distinguished by rapid dynamics and extreme drama. In terms of the pace and depth of changes, as well as the catastrophic nature of internal conflicts, Russia at that time was ahead of any other country.

Therefore, the transition from the era of classical Russian literature to the new literary time was accompanied by a far from peaceful nature of general cultural and intraliterary life, an unexpectedly rapid - by the standards of the 19th century - change of aesthetic guidelines, and a radical renewal of literary techniques. Russian poetry developed especially dynamically at this time, again - after the Pushkin era - coming to the forefront of the country's general cultural life. Later, the poetry of this time was called the “poetic renaissance” or “silver age.” Having arisen by analogy with the concept of the “golden age,” which traditionally denoted the Pushkin period of Russian literature, this phrase was initially used to characterize the peak manifestations of poetic culture of the early 20th century - the work of A. Blok, A. Bely, I. Annensky, A. Akhmatova, O. Mandelstam and other brilliant masters of words. However, gradually the term “Silver Age” began to define that part of the entire artistic culture Russia at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries, which was associated with symbolism, acmeism, “neo-peasant” and partly futuristic literature. Today, many literary scholars have made the definition of “Silver Age” synonymous with the concept of “culture of the turn of the century,” which, of course, is inaccurate, since a number of significant phenomena of the turn of the century (primarily associated with revolutionary theories) can hardly be compared with what was originally called art of the Silver Age.

What was new compared to the 19th century at the turn of the two centuries was, first of all, man’s worldview. The understanding of the exhaustion of the previous era grew stronger, and directly opposite assessments of the socio-economic and general cultural prospects of Russia began to appear. The common denominator of the ideological disputes that flared up in the country towards the end of the 19th century was the definition of the new era as a border era: the old forms of life, work, and political organization of society were irretrievably becoming a thing of the past, and the very system of spiritual values was being decisively revised. Crisis is the key word of the era, roaming the pages of journalistic and literary-critical articles (words similar in meaning to “revival”, “turning point”, “crossroads”, etc. were often used).

She quickly joined the discussion of current issues fiction, traditionally for Russia, has not stood aloof from public passions. Her social engagement was manifested in the titles of her works that were characteristic of that era. “Without a Road”, “At the Turning” - V. Veresaev calls his stories; “The Decline of the Old Century” - echoes the title of the chronicle novel by A. Amphitheaters; “At the last line” - M. Artsybashev responds with his novel. Awareness of the crisis of the time, however, did not mean recognition of its futility.

Despite all the differences in positions and views, there was something in common in the worldview of the writers of the turn of the century, which was brilliantly captured in his time by the outstanding literature connoisseur Professor Semyon Afanasyevich Vengerov in the preface to the three-volume “History of Russian Literature of the 20th Century” (1914) that he conceived. The scientist noted that uniting the social activist M. Gorky and the individualist K. Balmont, the realist I. Bunin, the symbolists V. Bryusov, A. Blok and A. Bely with the expressionist L. Andreev and the naturalist M. Artsybashev, the pessimist-decadent F. Sologub and the optimist A. Kuprin was a challenge to the traditions of everyday life, “aspiration to the heights, to the distance, to the depths, but only away from the hateful plane of gray vegetation.”

Another thing is that development paths new literature writers imagined it differently. In the 19th century, Russian literature had a high degree of ideological unity. It has developed a fairly clear hierarchy of literary talents: at one stage or another, it is not difficult to identify masters who served as reference points for an entire generation of writers (Pushkin, Gogol, Nekrasov, Tolstoy, etc.). Here's the legacy turn of XIX-XX centuries is not limited to the work of one or two dozen significant literary artists, and the logic of literary development of that time cannot be reduced to a single center or the simplest scheme of successive directions. This heritage is a multi-tiered artistic reality in which individual literary talents, no matter how outstanding they may be, are only part of a grandiose whole.

When starting to study the literature of the turn of the century, one cannot do without a brief overview of the social background and general cultural context of this period (context - the environment, the external environment in which art exists).