so as not to ultimately degenerate into cosmopolitanism,
the panhumanity of Russian literature cannot but be immersed
again and again into its deepest folk core.
V.V. Kozhinov
Among the most pressing issues modern culture V. Kozhinov calls the problem of “the originality of our literature,” the need for discussion of which has matured in the public consciousness of the 20th century. V. Kozhinov’s ideological position in relation to Russian and Western European literature was reflected in a number of his articles in the 1960s-80s of the 20th century. Thus, in the article “And every language that is in it will call me...” V. Kozhinov, relying on the views of Dostoevsky, develops the Russian writer’s thought about “all-humanity as the essence of our national identity and - as a consequence - the fundamental, decisive quality of Russian literature."
V. Kozhinov confirms his idea about the spiritual priorities of Russian literature and its fundamental difference from Western, including American, in the words of Dostoevsky from “Speech on Pushkin”: “I... am not trying to equate the Russian people with Western peoples in the spheres of their economic glory or scientific. I’m just saying that the Russian soul, that the genius of the Russian people, is perhaps the most capable of all peoples to embrace the idea of all-human unity...” Noting the receptivity of Russian literature and culture in general to the literatures of other peoples, V. Kozhinov forms his ideological position as purely Orthodox and patriotic, associated with folk basis, but at the same time notes the complexity in understanding the originality and the very essence of Russian literature, which does not imply clear and complete conclusions, which makes the issue open to debate. Developing a historical view of Russian literary self-awareness, in the same article V. Kozhinov cites Belinsky’s words about Russian originality, which lies in the ability to “easily imitate” someone else’s life, for “whoever does not have his own interests, it is easy to accept others’.” In contrast to Belinsky, Chaadaev saw in the Russian consciousness and culture “a conscientious court on many litigations” and a great educational mission “to teach Europe an infinite number of things.”
However, "all-humanity" Russian literature V. Kozhinov views it in a double sense: as a positive, “ideal” quality, and “at the same time as an unambiguously “negative” quality.” This ambiguity, according to the critic, lies, on the one hand, in the not always appropriate “versatility with which a Russian person understands other nationalities” (Belinsky), and on the other hand, in this V. Kozhinov agrees with Chaadaev’s judgments, in the absence of “ our life”, “national egoism”, citing as an example a quote from a Russian philosopher: “We belong to those nations that do not seem to be part of humanity, but exist only to give the world some important lesson”, that is, V. Kozhinov concludes, we should talk about a “universal mission” of Russia, called upon to be a “conscientious court” for Europe. Thus, V. Kozhinov, following Chaadaev and Dostoevsky, speaks of the special role of Russian culture, located between “East” and “West”, and its stay in a childish state, or “underdevelopment” (Pushkin) serves as the basis for “future bliss” ( Chaadaev), and therefore the embodiment of the ideal in the future, orientation towards the process of development of this “transcendent” ideal. V. Kozhinov calls “all-humanity” and “universality” the key qualities of Russian literature, which were formed in the process of its entire historical development, that is, “this is not some pre-given, ready-made quality, but precisely the task that determines its development, even the super task<… >, the creative will that animates her entire life...”
Turning to the understanding of this creative will, V. Kozhinov discusses the other side of the universality and versatility of Russian literature, which Chaadaev, Belinsky and Dostoevsky pointed out in their time, namely the seduction of Europe, admiration for Western culture and way of life, and to get out of this humiliating position, Russian literature needs to become world-class, that is, to make works of Russian literature “the property of wide sections of European society” (Chaadaev).
In their critical articles V. Kozhinov forms a historical and religious concept of the development of Russian literature, inseparable from the Orthodox worldview. Russian literature, like the Russian people, Rus' as a state was formed, according to V. Kozhinov, on the basis of a religious foundation supreme authority under the influence of Orthodox Christianity, the adoption of which in the 10th century from Byzantium became an expression of the free will of the state, and thanks to which the union of faith and power occurred. Prince Vladimir chose this principle of building the Russian state, guided by the Byzantine idea of the omnipotence of God, the executor of whose will on earth is the emperor, an absolute monarch, which is where his title arose - authorkrator, executor of God's will on earth. Speaking about its interaction with Byzantium, which is decisive for the fate of Russia, V. Kozhinov traces cultural ties with the Orthodox empire, calling them related, when Rus' does not forcefully, but “completely voluntarily accepts Byzantine culture,” conducting a constant dialogue with it, which contributed to the emergence and development Russian culture in general, including church architecture, icon painting, literature.
V. Kozhinov traces the formation of Russian literature to the time of Metropolitan Hilarion and his “Sermon on Law and Grace,” which he writes about in the article “On the Origins of Russian Literature. The work of Hilarion and the historical reality of his time,” citing the metropolitan’s words: “The light of the moon departed when the sun rose, and so the law gave way to Grace.” Moreover, says the researcher, in the “Word...” the fundamental properties of the Russian Orthodox world and Russian culture are outlined and the paths for its further development are outlined: “... in it [in the “Tale of Law and Grace”. — L.S.] that holistic understanding of Russia and the world, man and history, truth and goodness was already beginning to take shape, which much later, in the 19th-20th centuries, was embodied with the greatest power and openness in Russian classical literature and thought - in the works of Pushkin and Dostoevsky, Gogol and Ivan Kireevsky, Alexander Blok and Pavel Florensky, Mikhail Bulgakov and Bakhtin." Based on Hilarion’s thought that Orthodoxy is addressed to all peoples, eight centuries later Dostoevsky accepted and developed the idea of the ancient Russian writer about the worldwide responsiveness of Russian literature as Orthodox literature, i.e. inspired by God-given “spiritual fire” (Dunaev).
V. Kozhinov characterizes the essence of the Western world and its self-awareness, based on similar judgments of Hegel and Chaadaev, as a purely individualistic, subjective phenomenon, the purpose of which was “the realization of absolute truth as endless self-determination of freedom,” and “all other human tribes ... exist as if with its will”, which made it possible to talk about the insurmountable contradictions and contrasts of Western and Eastern Christianity, which initially shaped not only the culture, but the features of the Western Catholic and Orthodox-Byzantine worldview.
The religious self-awareness of Western culture and literature goes back to the Old Testament Jewish, ancient and Catholic-Protestant doctrine of chosenness and predestination, which became the ideological basis of humanistic values based on the mixing and secularization of various religious categories, the result of which was “self-affirmed individualism” (A.F. . Losev), corresponding to the concept of “man-god”. Anthropocentrism and humanism became the blood and flesh of the Western spirit, the “Faustian soul,” as O. Spengler defined the essence of the Western personality, which “is... a force relying on itself.” This turned out to be the price for the good and likening of a seduced person to God, stated in the Old Testament: “... and you will be like gods, knowing good and evil” (Gen. 3:5). Western European literature turned out to be immersed in the process of individualistic and eudaimonic self-affirmation, the search for a universal existence for one’s “I”, and the Gospel words “what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world, but loses his soul?” (Matthew 16:26) have become relevant for Western people precisely with the thesis of “acquiring the world,” earthly treasures, as opposed to the Orthodox way of saving the soul. The Renaissance accomplished the truly titanic task of the formation of nations and “national self-awareness,” since “it was in this era that literature assimilated the specific diversity of the life of the nation and revealed the element of the people. On the other hand, it is then that literature affirms the sovereign human personality(individual)”, turns into “a thing for oneself,” - this is how V. Kozhinov characterizes the process of formation of Western literary consciousness. It was during the Renaissance, under the powerful influence of ancient paganism, that humanistic individualism was formed, the secularization of the church was activated, which would ultimately lead to the events of the Reformation. Petrarch was the first, according to A.F. Losev, spoke about “bright antiquity, about the dark ignorance that began after Christianity became official religion and the Roman emperors began to worship the name of Christ, and the expected return to the forgotten ancient ideal". Based ancient philosophy Plato and Aristotle, a secular worldview emerges, which creates a titanic man surrounded by “aesthetically understood being” (A.F. Losev). Thus, the philosophical-rational and at the same time sensual-ecstatic character of Western consciousness and literature was determined, based, on the one hand, on the Aristotelian concept of mimesis, and on the other hand, going back to Plato’s mystical theory artistic creativity, according to which the source of creativity is obsession as special kind inspiration given to the artist by higher divine powers, and not by reason. “After all, what you say about Homer,” Socrates says to Jonah, “all this is not from art and knowledge, but from divine determination and obsession.”
The path of Russian literature, according to V. Kozhinov, was completely different, aimed at “igniting and maintaining spiritual fire in human hearts” (Dunaev). On this basis, V. Kozhinov justifies the confrontation between the two literatures: “Comparison or even direct opposition of the peculiar features of Western European and Russian life one way or another runs through all of our literature and, more broadly, public consciousness.” An important factor in comparing the two literatures for V. Kozhinov are the peculiarities of the perception and influence of Western literature on Russian. Western art has always been attractive to national culture, which resulted in worship, sometimes blind imitation, copying, etc. V. Kozhinov traces the fascination with the West as a long historical process in the development of national culture: “... the Russians, like no one else, knew how to appreciate this Western incarnation, sometimes even going overboard, denying their own, Russian “under-incarnation” for the sake of European completeness.” However, it was precisely this “under-embodiment”, “insufficient objectification” that provided the “redundancy of spiritual energy” (Kozhinov), inherent in Russian literature, which allowed Gogol from the “beautiful distance” of Italy to hear a Russian song and see a “sparkling, wonderful, unfamiliar distance to the earth.”
Distinguishing the spiritual values of Russian and Western literature, V. Kozhinov actually characterizes a specific chronotope, within the framework of which spatio-temporal relations result in the categories “Russian world” and “European world”, which have their own key concepts: « individual and nation" for Western literature, "personality and people" for Russian culture.
“Aesthetics of being”, “aesthetics of a thing” as “organic elements of Western European aesthetics” (Kozhinov) and consciousness allow us to talk about the replacement of religious and moral ideas about man and the world with aesthetic-humanistic, anti-Christian ones, which ultimately led Western literature and its hero to “ the absolute completeness of enjoyment of the treasures on earth” (Dunaev) or to the existential experience of one’s death as deliverance from an ugly and vulgar reality. Therefore, with all the shortcomings and disorders of life in Russia, literature “remained a living impulse of man and people,” where the subject of the image was a living soul, turned to the world in a readiness to suffer and sympathize, to atone for its sins and answer for them to its contemporaries and descendants, because in Orthodox understanding “suffering is not evil for a person, sin is evil” (Novoselov).
To trace the specifics of the relationship between Rus' and the West and East, V. Kozhinov turns to the period of emergence Western Europe, emphasizing the aggressive nature of the barbarian Germanic tribes, who built their states on the principles of violence and suppression, which was correctly noted by Hegel, whose statement on this matter is quoted by V. Kozhinov: “The Germans began by... conquering the decrepit and rotten states of civilized peoples” .
Already the first barbarian epics, created on the ruins of Roman antiquity, provided examples of heroic deeds and freedom of spirit of the new European peoples, showing “a lack of holiness and sinful hostility towards God” (Novoselov) (“The Song of Roland”, “The Song of the Nibelungs”). The history of the West, according to V. Kozhinov’s definition, “is a truly heroic exploration of the world.” However, in the heroic assertion of absolute freedom, the hero of Western literature, “satisfied with his moral state” (I. Kireevsky), does not experience repentance and, to paraphrase Dostoevsky, accepts “sin for truth.” These are the heroes of works created in the most seemingly civilized period of the development of European literature from the Renaissance to classical realism of the 19th century by such outstanding writers, like Shakespeare, Byron, Shelley, Kleist, Hoffmann, Hugo, Stendhal, Balzac, Flaubert, Dickens, Thackeray, etc. Thus, the desire for absolute, but individually understood justice pushes both Shakespeare's Hamlet and Kleist's Kohlhaas to bloody crimes. As a result of their heroic deeds, “the world perishes and the truth” of human law triumphs. Horatio calls the content of the future “story” about Hamlet’s deeds “a story of inhuman and bloody deeds, random punishments, unexpected murders, deaths, arranged out of necessity by wickedness...”. Even the ardent hater of human nature, Martin Luther, calls Michael Kohlhaas “a godless, terrible man” (Kleist), although Kohlhaas is a visible result of the Protestant ethic, which removed from man all responsibility for his actions, since his nature is damaged by sin without hope of restoration and the fate of everyone is predetermined the will of God, which gave the Protestant person more freedom of action than the Catholic believer, but at the same time led to despair (S. Kierkegaard). The thirst for absolute freedom without reliance on God turns the Western romantic heroes of Byron, Shelley, Hölderlin into lone rebels calling for “divine equality” (Shelley, “The Rise of Islam”) through the blood of revolutionary rebellion.
Another direction of absolutization of qualities opposite to rebellion, namely good and evil of the heroes of humanist writers Hugo and Dickens, looks like a kind of predestination, as V. Kozhinov believes, they are “weighed and measured,” which, according to the critic, in Russian literature “appears as limitation , complacency, dogmatism”, and contradicts Orthodox ideas about love for one’s neighbor, self-denial, self-sacrifice without expectation of reward. Western literature, even in its desire to preach genuine moral values, absolutizes them, turning them into legally valid virtues that require material rewards and self-exaltation of a virtuous individual. This is how the Protestant idea of active, practical love for people is consolidated, expressed in the realization of the worldly (practical) purpose of Western man in combination with legal law.
But at the same time, V. Kozhinov, defining the specifics of Russian and Western literature, does not set out to deny one for the sake of the other. Both of them go through their own path of search, discovery, understanding of life and man: “Both Russia and the West had and have their own unconditional good and equally unconditional evil, their own truth and their own lies, their own beauty and their own ugliness.” The great spiritual mission of Russian literature was already evident by end of the 19th century centuries, which Western writers began to recognize. Dostoevsky in his “Speech on Pushkin” gave impetus to understanding the role of Russian culture on a global scale: “... the Russian soul,... the genius of the Russian people, perhaps, are most capable, of all peoples, of incorporating the idea of all-human unity...”. One of the reasons for the new look of Western literature on Russian literature is the formulation of pressing problems and the inability to solve these problems. Because in the situation of the “death of God” (Nietzsche), Western European society stopped hearing the “call of God” (Guardini), which was also recognized by Western theologians. Having entered into an alliance with the Unconscious (starting with Jena romanticism), Western aesthetics in subsequent eras, especially in modernism and postmodernism, revalued values, which led to the dehumanization of consciousness and creativity; according to the modern philosopher Ortega y Gasset, “Western man fell ill with a pronounced disorientation, no longer knowing which stars to follow” (Ortega y Gasset).
Considering Russian literature from the position of its inconsistency with the problems of Western aesthetics, V. Kozhinov nevertheless looks for points of contact between opposite sides, turning to the Bakhtinian idea of dialogue, “in which extremely distant voices can equally participate.” The “dialogue of cultures” proposed by V. Kozhinov can serve as a way of mutual understanding as opposed to Hegel’s “monological dialectic,” which will manifest the truly “creative will” of Russian literature—“worldwide responsiveness.” V. Kozhinov repeatedly speaks about the undoubted influence of Russian literature on world literature, emphasizing precisely religious basis such a rapprochement, emanating from the conciliar, liturgical nature of Russian culture, which he writes about in the article “Unified, Integral”: “... a whole series of works on the Orthodox liturgy have been published in the West, which is placed immeasurably higher than Catholic worship.” In the article “Disadvantage or Originality?” he cites the statements of W. Woolf, a classic of English modernism, about the spirituality of Russian literature, which is clearly lacking in Western literature: “It is the soul that is one of the main characters in Russian literature... Perhaps that is why such a great effort is required from an Englishman... The soul is alien to him. Even antipathetic... We are souls, tortured, unfortunate souls who are busy only with talking, opening up, confessing...” It is the “conciliarity”, “collectivity” of Russian literature, as V. Kozhinov believes, citing N. Berkovsky’s statement, that is a model for Western culture, since it “is not always noticeable to him, serves as a means of self-knowledge, tells him about those sources of life, which he also has...”
Back in the 19th century, P. Merimee, who deeply studied the Russian language and literature, spoke about the need to perceive and follow the Russian literary tradition. He considers the main criterion of Russian literature to be the truth of life, which he does not find in French literature: “Your poetry seeks first of all the truth, and beauty appears later, by itself. Our poets, on the contrary, follow the opposite path - they are concerned primarily with effect, wit, brilliance, and if in addition to all this it becomes possible not to offend verisimilitude, then they will probably take this in addition.” " living soul Flaubert saw Russian culture in Turgenev, calling him “my Turgenev” in his letters. He defines the impact of Turgenev’s works as “shock” and “cleansing of the brain.”
However, until now, the pathos of “all-humanity” and “nationality” has not become the spiritual core of Western literature due to its immersion in the search for its individual self-awareness and arrogant self-determination in relation to the “external world - both natural and human - as a “man-god””, which has always served as a way of justifying oneself. On this occasion, V. Kozhinov recalls the statement of I. Kireevsky, who accurately named the fundamental difference between Western man: he is always “satisfied with his moral state<…>, he is completely pure before God and people." While “a Russian person,” notes I. Kireevsky, “always vividly feels his shortcomings.” This “self-criticism” and the need for moral “lynching” are reflected in literature, also becoming its important property, going back to the Christian ideal of overcoming pride and humility. In the “self-criticism” of Russian literature, V. Kozhinov saw its ideal direction, which is not characteristic of Western critical realism, as the critic talks about in the article “Russian literature and the term “critical realism””. In his discussions about the types of realism in domestic and foreign literary traditions, V. Kozhinov sets himself the task of “determining the nature of the Russian historical and literary process.” V. Kozhinov associates the critical trend in Western literature with self-determination and the stable position of the bourgeois system, hence the revealing pathos of Western critical realism, built only on criticism of the negative aspects of bourgeois life in general, and the search for a positive ideal, without which no culture can exist, is limited to the image "the private lives of men" (Dickens). Recognizing the “powerful critical, denying element” in Russian classics, V. Kozhinov does not consider this criticism to be the main and defining quality of Russian literature, the path of which should be aimed at searching for a positive ideal, the need for which Dostoevsky spoke: “An ideal is also a reality, such as legal as current reality.”
The era of the 20th and early 21st centuries is represented, as Vyach puts it. Ivanov, a “critical culture”, which is characterized by “increasing alienation... the inevitable competition of one-sided truths and relative values.” Western literature at the turn of the century, while continuing to develop a mythological and mystical-otherworldly attitude to reality (Proust, Hesse, Joyce, Camus, Sartre, etc.), follows the path of Nietzschean theomachism and the affirmation of the “Faustian spirit” of universal possession (Spengler), that is, desires for world domination. Religious (Christian) consciousness is replaced by artistic aestheticism as a new religion (starting with romanticism), continuing to develop the mythological concept of art. But at the same time, the romantic concept of dual worlds becomes irrelevant in the literature of modernism, since the gravitation towards the divine absolute (the ideal world of art) will be replaced by the categories of a split, fragmented consciousness and world (the heroes of Hesse - Haller, W. Woolf - Orlando, J. Joyce - Bloom, Proust - Marcel, Sartre - Roquentin, etc.). The hero of modern modernist and postmodernist literature receives the status of a “Christian subman” - a superman (Nietzsche). He overcame in himself the feelings of guilt, compassion, shame, moral responsibility, contrasting them with the instinct of self-preservation and the spirituality of the Superego sublimated by instincts (according to Freud), which led to the awareness of “loss of soul”, “decay of the soul” in the absence of religious feelings and spiritual values . Western literature of the 20th century has embarked on the path of “dehumanization,” as noted by European and American critics themselves (O. Spengler, H. Ortega y Gasset, W. Wulff, M. Heidegger, J. Huizinga, H. Bloom, etc.) and in search of spiritual support, Western man still relies on himself, his “Self” (C. Jung), which expresses itself through artistry and in various forms of art; it contains, according to Nietzsche, “the highest dignity, for only as aesthetic phenomenon being and the world are justified in eternity.” Having excluded Christian values from its worldview, Western aesthetic philosophy cultivates an “artistic” assessment of life, where there is only one “carefree and immoral God-artist” (Nietzsche), who is beyond good and evil, free from contradictions for the sake of pleasure. Christian teaching in the era of modernism and postmodernism, it is declared hostile to art, since, says Nietzsche, it is an obstacle to liberated instincts and “with its truthfulness of God, it pushes art into the realm of lies, i.e. denies, curses, condemns him." Modern Western art sees its main task in contrasting the Christian direction of “all-humanity” with the “artistic, anti-Christian” (Nietzsche) image of the “instinct of life,” that unconscious and impersonal that in aesthetic philosophy (thanks to Nietzsche) received the definition of “Dionysianism.” Speaking about modern Western, in particular American, literature in the article “Attention: US literature today. Achievements and failures of Soviet American studies" V. Kozhinov characterizes the main trends of postmodern culture, going back to the Nietzschean-Freudian physiological instincts of complete emancipation of the individual, for which "the only reality of existence is acceptable<…>these are biological and purely psychological, primarily subconscious, impulses and states...” Continuing, as V. Kozhinov believes, to follow the already “hackneyed ideas of the absurdity of existence,” Western literature remains faithful to the immoral values of bourgeois reality, primitive “affects” and myths,” since in the decanonized and desacralized postmodern consciousness, where questions of faith and morality lose their meaning, art itself becomes part of the bourgeois innovation activity providing material profit. Lack of faith and immorality, elevated to the absolute, have become the main criteria for the creative activity of modern Western writers and publicists, both postmodernists and neoconservatives (D. Updike, N. Mailer, N. Podhoretz, S. Sontag, etc.), who set their own “ progressive" creativity in the service of the American ideology of violence and universal subordination, but in reality, as V. Kozhinov argues, citing the words of the American writer P. Brooks, one of the instigators of the idea of a general "rebellion", provoke a postmodernist revolt, that same controlled chaos, "where Anarchist-minded youth will reign on the ruins of an exploded culture, morality and spiritual values now accepted in Western and eastern worlds". In this politicized-ideological struggle between the opposites of true culture, that is, built on traditional Christian values, and the “counterculture” of the avant-garde and neoconservatism, V. Kozhinov sees the main danger for the development and preservation of real literature, which calls not for an anarchic rebellion, but for a holy state of soul, what the Russian classics said, to whom the critic always appeals: “Art must be sacred. The true creation of art has something soothing and conciliatory in itself,” said Gogol.
The exercise of “creative will” in modern era in V. Kozhinov’s view is the ability of literature to “preserve and develop the unity of nationality and pan-humanity”, since, as the critic believes, “pan-humanity” is “not a purely national self-affirmation”, an elevation above other peoples and cultures, but a “national, distinctively folk” trait its basis."
Notes
1.Andreev L.G. How did the history of the second millennium end? // Foreign literature of the second millennium. 1000-2000. - M., 2001.
2.Asmus V. Plato. - M., 1975.
3.Guardini R. The collapse of the world picture of the New Age and the future // Self-awareness of culture and art of the 20th century. Western Europe and the USA: collection. articles. - M., 2000.
4.Gogol N.V. Selected passages from correspondence with friends/In the book: Reflections on the Divine Liturgy. - M., 2006.
5. Dostoevsky F.M. Full collection Op. in 30 vols. T. 21. L.: 1980. P. 75-76.
6. Dunaev M.M. Faith in the crucible of doubt. "Orthodoxy and Russian Literature." Electronic resource: http://sdruzhie-volga.ru/knigi/o_zhizni/m.m-dunaev-vera_v_gornile_somnenij.htm
7. Ivasheva V.V. History of Western European literature of the 19th century century. - M., 1951.
8.Kozhinov V.V. About Russian national consciousness - M., 2004.
9.Kozhinov V.V. Reflections on Russian literature. - M., 1991.
10.Kozhinov V.V. Russia as civilization and culture. - M., 2012.
11.Kozhinov V.V. Sin and holiness of Russian history. - M., 2006.
12. Kleist G. Betrothal in San Domingo. Novellas - M., 2000.
13.Losev A.F. Aesthetics of the Renaissance - M., 1978.
14. Nietzsche F. The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music // Op. In 2 volumes - M., 1990. T.1. P.75.
15. Nietzsche F. Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Essays. - Minsk, 2007.
16.Ortega y Gasset. Theme of our time//Self-awareness of culture and art of the 20th century. Western Europe and the USA: collection. articles. - M., 2000.
17. Flaubert G. On literature, art, writing - M., 1984.
18.Chaadaev P.Ya. Philosophical letters. Electronic resource: http://www.vehi.net/chaadaev/filpisma.html
19. Shakespeare V. Hamlet - Minsk, 1972.
20.Shelley. Selected works - M., 1998.
21. Spengler O. Decline of Europe. Volume 2 // Self-awareness of culture and art of the 20th century. Western Europe and the USA: collection. articles - M., 2000.
INTERACTION OF RUSSIAN AND WESTERN EUROPEAN LITERATURES OF THE END OF THE 15TH AND EARLY 19TH CENTURIES
I.N. Nikitina
The article highlights the main aspects literary interaction Russian and Western European literature at the turn of the 18th-19th centuries. The historical and literary processes that influenced the development of the aesthetics of pre-romanticism in Russian literature are considered.
Keywords: Prose, drama, sentimentalism, pre-romanticism, novel, hero, image
Russian literature of the 18th century developed and enriched itself through wide international communication. The period of transition from classicism to romanticism was characterized by great interest in Western European literature, from which Russian writers took what was necessary and useful for the development of free artistic creativity. The quality of novelty and the depth of originality of national literature largely depended on the interaction of Russian literature with European literatures.
A major role in introducing Russian literature to world ideas, plots and images was played by the dramaturgy of W. Shakespeare, the poetry of E. Jung, D. Thomson, T. Gray, the work of L. Stern, J.-J. Russo, I.V. Goethe, I.G. Herder, F. Schiller.
Of the English prose writers, the most popular was L. Stern, author of the novels “The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy” (1759-1762), “A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy” (1768). Stern was interested as the creator of the genre of sentimental travel, as a writer capable of broadly covering the inner world of a person, able to show the originality of his inner experiences, when the sublime and the ordinary, heroic and base, good and evil are intricately combined in a person and give vent to his passions. Stern's artistic discoveries were adopted by European literature, including Russian literature.
Stern gained the greatest popularity in Russia at the beginning of the 19th century, when “The Beauties of Stern or a collection of the best ego-pathetic stories and excellent observations on life for sensitive hearts” (M., 1801) were published and when numerous imitations of Karamzin and “Travel” appeared. Stern (Shalikov, Izmailov, etc.) and as a rebuff to the extremes of sentimentalism - the comedy of A.A. Shakhovsky “New Stern” (1805). Karamzin was also one of the fans of the English writer. This manifested itself in his first novel, “Letters of a Russian Traveler” (1791-1792) and in the autobiographical story “A Knight of Our Time.”
Especially strong impact Karamzin was influenced by German literature. The poetry of Schiller, Goethe and representatives of Sturm und Drang, in originals and translations, was well known in Russia in the second half of the 18th century. German writers F.M. Klinger and J. Lenz lived and worked in Russia. Living threads stretch from German pre-Romanticism to Russian. Preferring German literature to French, Karamzin began to get acquainted with it back in Moscow, in the late 70s. thanks to the “Friendly Scientific Society” N.I. Novikova. Karamzin learned a lot about cultural and literary life Europe thanks to his travels in 1789-1790 through Germany, Switzerland, France and England. Of the German writers of that time, H.M. had a great influence on him. Wieland (“History of Agathon”) and G.E. Lessing (“Emilia Galotti”).
Pre-romantic tendencies in Karamzin’s worldview and creativity appeared in the late 80s. As a pre-romantic, he at that time lost faith in sentimentalist concepts of world harmony and the “golden age” of humanity. In the writer’s worldview, nature turns from one that sympathizes with humanity into a fatal, sometimes creative, sometimes destructive force; man is just a toy of terrible elemental forces. The laws of society are no longer in harmonious combination with the laws of nature; they now oppose them. Karamzin tried to show all this in his story “The Island of Bornholm” (1794), steeped in the romance of the Ossian North. One of the essential signs of pre-romanticism is a refined sense of nature and, as a consequence of it, “ landscape painting"in works of art. Under the influence of Rousseau, Stern, Jung, Thomson and Gray, “landscape painting” also appears in the works of Karamzin (“Letters of a Russian Traveler”, “Spring Feeling”, “To the Nightingale”, “Lily”, “Proteus, or the Disagreement of the Poet”, “ Village"). Unlike the hero of works of sentimentalism, the hero of pre-romanticism literature does not accept the order of things in life as it is. This hero is a rebel by nature, the heroic and the ordinary, the good and the evil are intricately combined in him, as in the heroes of Schiller's dramas. New hero for Russian literature was discovered in the pre-romantic poetry and prose of Karamzin 1789-1793. In the novel “Letters of a Russian Traveler”, in the stories “ Poor Lisa"", "Natalia, the Boyar's Daughter", "Bornholm Island", "Sierra Morena", "Julia" Karamzin significantly expanded the possibilities of Russian literature, turning to the disclosure of a rich spiritual life inner world a person, his “I”. By the mid-90s. Karamzin changes his ideological and artistic positions: he moves away from pre-romanticism and turns to sentimentalism.
A.N. also experiences the influence of Western European literature. Radishchev. During his investigation
Bulletin of Bryansk State University. 2016(1)
the writer admitted that the creation of “Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow” was influenced, in addition to Herder and Reynal, by Stern in German translation[Babkin, 1957, 167]. The images of Yorick and the Traveler are similar in their humane mood and warm sympathy for the disadvantaged; The episode of the Traveler's meeting with the blind singer at the Klin station is reminiscent of the episode of the meeting of the Traveler Yorick with the monk Lorenzo. Radishchev argues with Stern, rejects the deistic moral system of English sentimentalist writers, which is clearly manifested in the chapter from “Travel” called “Edrovo”.
The differences between Stern's and Radishchev's Travels are much greater than the similarities. They are completely different in genre. Radishchev's "Journey" is closer to satire, a political pamphlet. Stern’s laughter, which, in the words of T. Carlyle, is “sadder than tears,” did not find a response from A.N. Radishcheva.
The influence of Herder’s ideas on the literary process in Russia is absolutely obvious. Radishchev was the first to mention Herder in his “Travel from St. Petersburg to Moscow” in the chapter “Torzhok”; assessments of Russians also went back to Herder folk songs and the origins of the Russian character in the chapters “Sofia” and “Zaitsovo”, as well as opinions on the role of language in society in the chapter “Kresttsy”. The organic assimilation of Herder's ideas by Radishchev is confirmed by the entire work of the author of "Travel", in which the philosophy of history is inseparable from the theory of popular revolution. Both Derzhavin and Karamzin, who met with Herder and translated some of his works in 1802-1807, turned to Herder, but did not agree with the German thinker on everything.
Did not go unnoticed in Russia and creative activity classics of German literature Goethe and Schiller. Until 1820, Goethe was known in Russia primarily as the author of “The Sorrows of Young Werther,” a typically pre-Romantic work, translated for the first time into Russian in 1787. At the end of the 18th - beginning of the 19th centuries. Werther was often remembered, this work was often quoted, he was imitated (for example, Radishchev in the chapter “Wedge” of his “Journey”, Karamzin in “Poor Liza”). Goethe's lyric poetry was also popular.
They learned about F. Schiller and his work in Russia in the second half of the 1780s. Schiller's dramas “The Robbers”, “The Fiesco Conspiracy”, “Cunning and Love”, “Mary Stuart”, “Don Carlos”, “William Tell” played a significant role in the formation of the new “romantic” theater in Russia. Along with other phenomena of pre-Romanticism, everything new that Schiller’s drama brought with it was also perceived. Schiller was widely read in Russia.
The consideration of the interaction of Russian literature with European literatures can be continued further. Their influence on Russian literature is undeniable.
The article covers the main aspects of literary interaction of Russian and West European literatures at the turn of the 18th-19th centuries. The historico-literary processes which influenced the development of the esthetics of Preromanticism in Russian literature are considered.
Keywords: Prose, dramatic art, Sentimentalism, Preromanticism, novel, hero, image
Bibliography
1. Berkov P.N. Basic questions of studying Russian enlightenment // Problem of Russian enlightenment in the literature of the 18th century. M., Leningrad, 1961. P. 26.
2. History of Russian literature: In 10 volumes. T. 4, M.-L., 1947
3. Babkin D.S. Process A.N. Radishcheva. M.-L., 1957
4. Lukov V.A. Pre-romanticism. M., 2006
6. Pashkurov A.N., Razzhivin A.I. History of Russian literature of the 18th century: Textbook. for higher education students educational institutions: at 2 o'clock - Yelabuga: Yerevan State Pedagogical University. -2010. - Part 1.
7. Makogonenko G.P. Radishchev and his time. M., 1956
Nikitina I.N. - candidate philological sciences, Associate Professor of the Department of Russian, Foreign Literature and Mass Communications, Bryansk State University named after Academician I.G. Petrovsky, [email protected]
STRUCTURE OF THE INITIATION MOTIF IN PROSE ABOUT THE FIRST AND SECOND WORLD WARS
O.E. Pokhalenkov
The article is devoted comparative analysis structures of the initiation motive in works about the First and Second World Wars. The nuclear-peripheral motive model in the works of Erich Maria Remarque, Richard Aldington, Ernest Hemingway and Viktor Nekrasov is identified and considered. The movement of the motif from the core to the periphery and vice versa allows us to talk about the plot-forming function of the motif in the works of writers. Certain typological convergences also appear at the spatiotemporal level. The presence of common features of different levels of text (compositional, motive-thematic and spatio-temporal) among writers of German, American, English and Russian literature allows us to draw a conclusion about the typological commonality of the motivic structures of the structures under consideration. Key words: motive of initiation, comparative literature, military prose, composition, plot, artistic space.
The initiation motive and its role in the structure literary text reviewed by V.Ya. Propp in his book “Morphology of the Fairy Tale”. Propp argued that the structure of the plot of a fairy tale reflects the process of initiation (he turned to totemic initiations as an example). However, this motif lies not only at the heart of the tale's plot. When considering the motive structure of military prose, we identified a set of motives similar to those analyzed by Propp in his “Morphology”.
This article examines the motive of initiation in the structure of military prose1.
In the traditional sense, initiation is a rite relating to a particular stage of culture. In the psychological sense, initiation2, as M. Eliade puts it, is “an ahistorical archetypal behavior of the psyche.” In many cases, initiations are accompanied by difficult psychological and physical tests. At the end of initiation, purification rites are performed. As a rule, the newly initiated receives certain insignia that emphasize the social distinction between initiates and non-initiates.
Our model is based on the traditional (three-part) initiation scenario, according to which the initiate moves away from people, undergoes death-transformation, and is reborn as a different person. The material was prose about the First World War: three novels about the First World War (“All Quiet on the Western Front” by E.M. Remarque, “Death of a Hero” by R. Aldington and “A Farewell to Arms!” by E. Hemingway), as well as the story V. Nekrasov “In my native city” about the Second World War.
So, the first stage, moving away from people, corresponds to the stage of growing up, or the preparatory stage. The second is about everyday life at the front and the third is about revival. Each of the stages has own characteristics at different levels of the text: compositional, motive-thematic and spatiotemporal. Let's look at the first stage in more detail.
I. Compositional level.
It should be noted that this stage is presented in different ways in the text. Most full picture we can find growing up and education in Remarque and Aldington. Both authors describe growing up in detail central character, his spiritual world, family relationships, friends, etc. An explanation for this can be the task that the writers themselves set for themselves when writing their works. After all, both Remarque and Aldington did not just create a text about the First World War - they tried to discover and explain the causes of the tragedy. Hemingway (like Nekrasov), unlike Remarque and Aldington, gives extremely scant information about the hero’s young years (childhood and adolescence). This can be interpreted as follows. If Remarque and Aldington need to show the development of the hero’s worldview - from support for government policy and war to complete denial, then Hemingway and Nekrasov had a completely different task. America neither acted as an aggressor, like the German Empire, nor was it an active participant in hostilities from the first days, like England. Therefore, Hemingway's Frederick Henry is a solitary hero, he is not one of many, like Remarque's Paul Bäumer or Aldington's George Winterbourne. His participation in hostilities is his personal choice, which is dictated by his inner convictions. That is why it is not so important for the reader to know about his past: about the hobbies of childhood and youth, about family and friends. The main thing is to realize the trauma that the war itself caused, to understand the motives for his refusal to fight at the front and his deliberate flight from the front line. Kerzhentsev fulfills his duty, acts as a defender of his homeland, so Nekrasov focuses on the real hero, giving only rare allusions to his past.
1 It is worth noting that war poetry about the Second World War has already been analyzed from the point of view of the rite of passage [see: 2]. The work of Remarque and Aldington was also analyzed [see: 8, 9].
2 Of particular interest is the article by R. Efimkina, “Three initiations in “women’s” fairy tales,” which presents an interpretation of the ritual from a psychological aspect.
The leading artistic movement in the literature of Western Europe at the beginning of the 19th century is romanticism, which replaced classicism and educational realism. Russian literature responds to this phenomenon in a unique way.
It borrows a lot from Western European romanticism, but at the same time solves the problems of its own national self-determination. Compared to Western European romanticism, Russian romanticism has its own specifics, its own national-historical roots. What are the similarities between Russian romanticism and Western European romanticism and what are its national differences?
The end of the 18th century in the history of Christian Europe was marked by a deep social cataclysm that blew up the entire public order and questioned faith in human reason and world harmony. The bloody upheavals of the Great French Revolution of 1789-1793, the era of the Napoleonic Wars that followed them, the bourgeois system established as a result of the revolution with its selfishness and commercialism, with the “war of all against all” - all this forced the intellectual layer of European society to doubt the truth of the Enlightenment teachings XVIII century, who promised humanity the triumph of freedom, equality and fraternity on a reasonable basis.
In Melodore’s letter to Philletus, published in 1794, the Russian writer N.M. Karamzin noted: “We considered the end of our century to be the end of the main disasters of mankind and thought that it would entail an important, general combination of theory with practice, speculation with activity, that people, having become morally confident in the elegance of the laws of pure reason, will begin to fulfill them in all accuracy and, under the shade of peace, in the shelter of silence and tranquility, will enjoy the true blessings of life. O Philalethes! Where is this comforting system now?.. It has collapsed at its foundation! ...The Age of Enlightenment! I don’t recognize you - in the blood, in the flame, but I recognize you, among the murders and destruction, I don’t recognize you! ...Let your philosophy perish!” And the poor, deprived of a fatherland, and the poor, deprived of shelter, and the poor, deprived of a father, or a son, or a friend, repeat: “Let him perish!” AND kind heart, torn apart by the spectacle of cruel disasters, repeats in his grief: “Let him perish! »
The collapse of faith in reason led European humanity to “cosmic pessimism,” hopelessness and despair, and doubt about the value of modern civilization. Starting from the imperfect earthly world order, the romantics turned to eternal and unconditional ideals. A deep discord arose between these ideals and reality, which led to the so-called romantic duality.
In contrast to the abstract mind of the enlighteners of the 18th century, who preferred to extract the general, typical from everything and treated the “particular” and “personal” with disdain, the romantics proclaimed the idea of the sovereignty and self-worth of each individual person with the richness of her spiritual needs, the depth of her inner world. They focused their main attention not on the circumstances surrounding the person, but on his experiences and feelings. The Romantics revealed to their readers a complexity and richness previously unknown to them. human soul, its inconsistency and inexhaustibility. They had a passion for depicting strong and vivid feelings, fiery passions, or, on the contrary, the secret movements of the human soul with its intuition and subconscious depths.
At the same time, romanticism discovered the individual uniqueness of not only an individual, but also an individual nation at one time or another in history. If classicism, with its belief in the universal role of reason, extracted universal human categories from life, dissolving in general everything private and individual, then romanticism turned to depicting the national uniqueness of world cultures, and also assumed that this uniqueness is subject to irreversible historical changes.
For example, classicism perceived antiquity as eta-chop. Kik is a role model. Romanticism saw in the intimate culture of Greece or Rome an individually unique and historically transitory stage in the development of Greek or Italian national culture. Antiquity here received a completely different interpretation: such features as the pagan spirit, joy, hedonism hostile to sacrifice, the fullness of individual existence, and a proud sense of human dignity were emphasized. In search of national identity, the Romantics paid great attention to oral folk art, folk culture, and the folk language.
In Russia, romantic trends also arose under the influence of the events of the Great French Revolution, strengthened during the years of liberal politics at the beginning of the reign of Alexander I, who came to the Russian throne after a palace conspiracy and the murder of his father, Emperor Paul I, on the night of March 11, 1801. These trends were fueled by the rise national identity during the Patriotic War of 1812.
The reaction that came after the victorious war, the refusal of the government of Alexander I from the liberal promises of the beginning of his reign led society to deep disappointment, which became even more aggravated after the collapse of the Decembrist movement and in its own way fueled the romantic worldview.
These are the historical background of Russian romanticism, which was characterized by common features that brought it closer to Western European romanticism. Russian romantics are also characterized by a heightened sense of personality, aspiration to “the inner world of a person’s soul, the innermost life of his heart” (V.G. Belinsky), increased subjectivity and emotionality of the author’s style, interest in Russian history and national character.
At the same time, Russian romanticism had its own national characteristics. First of all, unlike Western European romanticism, he retained historical optimism - hope for the possibility of overcoming the contradictions between the ideal and reality. In Byron's romanticism, for example, Russian poets were attracted by the pathos of love of freedom, rebellion against an imperfect world order, but Byronic skepticism, “cosmic pessimism,” and the mood of “world sorrow” remained alien to them. Russian romantics also did not accept the cult of a smug, proud and selfishly minded human personality, contrasting it with the ideal image of a patriotic citizen or a humane person, endowed with a sense of Christian love, sacrifice and compassion.
The romantic individualism of the Western European hero did not find support on Russian soil, but was met with severe condemnation.
These features of our romanticism were associated with the fact that Russian reality early XIX century concealed hidden possibilities for radical renewal: the peasant question was on the agenda, the prerequisites for great changes were maturing, which took place in the 60s of the 19th century. Significant role The thousand-year-old Orthodox Christian culture with its desire for general agreement and a conciliar solution to all issues, with its rejection of individualism, with its condemnation of selfishness and vanity, also played a role in the national self-determination of Russian romanticism. Therefore, in Russian romanticism, unlike Western European romanticism, there was no decisive break with the culture of classicism and the Enlightenment.
Let's return to Philalethes' response letter to Melodor Karamzin. Philaletus seems to agree with his friend: “...We overly magnified the eighteenth century and expected too much from it. The incidents have proven what terrible delusions the minds of our contemporaries are still susceptible to!” But, unlike Melodorus, Philalethes does not become despondent. He believes that these errors lie not in the nature of the mind, but in mental pride: “Woe to that philosophy that wants to solve everything! Lost in a labyrinth of inexplicable difficulties, it can drive us to despair...”
The portal offers readers a series of conversations about Russian literature and culture with Professor Alexander Nikolaevich Uzhankov, theorist and historian of literature and culture of Ancient Rus', teacher, vice-rector of the Literary Institute. Maxim Gorky.
– Alexander Nikolaevich, you talked about the importance of classical works of Russian literature for the development of a young person’s consciousness. Are there any classical works world literature that would help a person understand his place in life, strengthen himself morally and spiritually?
– Well, I’m not such a big specialist in foreign literature, I want to say right away. I focused my attention more on Russian literature. Most likely, precisely because I realized for myself that Russian literature is more moral than European literature. Of course, in the university course, at the philology department, we studied literature from antiquity to the present day. We were very well acquainted with the monuments of antiquity and the Middle Ages - there was in-depth study and so on, but our souls did not accept much. Yes, there is more rational there, we have more spirituality. These are two different types of crops, and we need to pay attention to this.
The Russian person is no longer concerned material well-being, and the spiritual world, that is, the salvation of the soul
The Western European type of culture is a eudaimonic type. Eudaimonia is the construction of earthly happiness, earthly well-being. Hence, in fact, the apotheosis of this is, as it were, American films with their happy ending - a happy ending, that is, he and she find each other, they receive a million, or some kind of inheritance, and finally, they acquire a 5-story house there somewhere on Cote d'Azur and so on - so they lived happily. That is the finale of all human stories- live well, strive for well-being. To some extent, Protestant culture, in fact, and religion prepare for this. Russian culture, based on Orthodoxy, is soteriological. Soteriology is the doctrine of the end of the world and the salvation of the soul. This means that a Russian person is more concerned not with material well-being, but with the spiritual world (like the writer, the ancient Russian writer), that is, the salvation of the soul. This is the basis of ancient Russian literature, and, in general, in the 19th century, as we said, works also contribute to the spiritual or moral development of the individual. This is the first one. Second: let’s say, if we take, again, Western European culture, it tends, let’s say, more towards the Christmas type of culture. The main holiday in the West is the coming of Christ into the world. That is, he focuses again on the earthly. If we look Orthodox culture, Russian culture - we also love Christmas very much, but we have an Easter type of culture. Easter is more important to us. Why? Because this is precisely the resurrection in the future life. And here it is, this direction: if the Savior has risen, then we also have hope for salvation. Again, this is hope for spiritual transformation and preparation for this future - the future century, imperishable life, as Hilarion said - this is what will happen after the Last Judgment. Therefore, the main thing is not what is here, but the main thing is what will be there. And a person must approach this (why all the Russian saints were so prepared for this), this is clearly shown in the lives of the Russian saints. Therefore, when we talk about literary works, I showed the difference. That is, of course, I’m talking in general, there we can already talk about some various works, but we will see that, say, their approach will be the one I outlined. Russian literature is more important, much more important, than European literature. It is no coincidence that the 19th century of Russian literature in the world context is considered the “golden age”, because no literature in the world has given as much as Russian literature in the 19th century. But if they still knew and understood Old Russian, then, of course, the attitude would be completely different.
No literature in the world has given as much as Russian literature in the 19th century.
– It turns out that both understanding and perception of deep and hidden thoughts in Russian classics depend on worldview. At the same time, the richness and breadth of our horizons and artistic perception depend on the works we read. That is, some kind of vicious circle. Can you name a specific, small number of works that a young person who wants to acquire initial depth of perception and expand his horizons could start with? For example, it seems to me that Dostoevsky’s works are too deep in this regard; they are for adults who have experienced and thought about their lives a lot, life experience other people. But for a young man...
– Well, to some extent, your question already contains the answer, the answer lies. Look, we have a difference from the Western European model of education, when the work of a writer or even one work is studied, in isolation from the work of other writers and other works, and the result is a truly one-sided perception of this work. We have always built the history of Russian literature. That is, chronologically, I don’t want to say, from simpler to more complex, no, not at all, but, let’s say, Dostoevsky came out of Pushkin, but to a greater extent even from Lermontov. This duality is also in the heroes, in the splitting of heroes, and here, undoubtedly, we need to pay attention to the heroes of Lermontov and the heroes of Dostoevsky. A very important point is that Dostoevsky knew both of them well, he knew Gogol too, you see, his work is based on the work of his predecessors. To some extent, it may be polemical in relation to them, this needs to be understood. Two contemporaries lived - Tolstoy and. They didn’t know each other personally, but they were well acquainted with each other’s work, and to some extent, their works were a polemic with both the worldview and the way of life of one and the other, do you understand?
Now, if we tear apart, examine, as if through a magnifying glass, or under a microscope, only one thing, then, of course, we will not see the world, so we certainly need to consider it in context. This is the first, but very important rule. Secondly, in the work of the writer himself, more simple themes to more complex ones - this is a must. Start with the “basics” - where the writer started, yes, what he paid attention to, and what he came to. Even in Dostoevsky, so to speak, we look - there is “Poor People”, we look - there is “Crime and Punishment” or “The Brothers Karamazov”. Why is this pinnacle achieved, and how? What does he refuse, and what does he pay more attention to?
“The Captain's Daughter” is Pushkin’s literary and spiritual testament. Because there is that mercy that we so lack in life
Pushkin has the same plot in two works. Now, if I say this: a young man, about 18 years old, goes by mail to his destination, and when he arrives there, some young lady falls in love with him, and then there will be a duel... What is this? Some will say that this is “Eugene Onegin”, and others will say that it is “The Captain’s Daughter”. Why does he use the same plot twice, especially since the original plan for “The Captain's Daughter” was completely different? Because there were real events there, which he learned about when he traveled to the Orenburg province to collect materials about the Pugachev uprising. This means that it was very important for Pushkin to argue even with himself, because “Eugene Onegin” did not completely satisfy him. Although it is a complex work, a wonderful work, everyone admires it, but Pushkin does not. Well, really, he exclaimed after writing it, when he read it, but then he thought about it and said no. Now, if we take the consciousness of Pushkin, try to look into this consciousness, the consciousness of an Orthodox man, can he justify himself before God with this work? Because “every gift from above is,” right? So, does he have the gift of writing and composing from God? Did he serve God with his talent in Eugene Onegin? No. Why? Because everyone there is passionate. And "The Captain's Daughter"? – And this is completely different. It is no coincidence that literary scholars say, this is Pushkin’s literary testament, this is the spiritual testament of a secular man. This means that he has already risen to this level of perception. Why? Because there is that mercy that we so lack in life. “Be merciful, like your Father in heaven.” “By the way you judge, you will be judged.” Do you understand? And look, in this work everyone loves each other. There is simply love spilled throughout the entire work. There is only one person who does not love anyone - this is Shvabrin. Why? But he’s a murderer and doesn’t believe in God—that’s all. "God is love". This is what Pushkin came to. A simple work, one hundred pages. Pushkin once wrote such things in a month. And this, meanwhile, writes almost three s more than a year. Why? Because it was important to him. But then that’s all, everything doesn’t matter: this work has been written, Pushkin’s spiritual testament. Do you understand?
When they removed essays from school and replaced them with the Unified State Exam, children stopped thinking, and not only figuratively
Now “The Captain’s Daughter” is being thrown out of the school curriculum. "Eugene Onegin" remains, but "The Captain's Daughter" is discarded. What does this mean? Is this the half-educated Pushkin? Why did he write then? He wrote, in general, for us. Why? Because he wanted to direct us along a certain path, to give us spiritual development, do you understand? School, unfortunately, emasculates all this. When they removed essays from school and replaced them with Unified State Examinations and exams, children stopped thinking, and not only figuratively. To connect their thoughts, that is, to explain what they read, to recreate these images verbally - this is now given to them with great, great difficulty. I'm not even talking about those ridiculous questions that are asked in the Unified State Exam. Now, thank God, composition is returning to school, now they will write it, because the clip consciousness is developing in children, they cannot compose full-fledged and coherent texts now.
This is one problem, the second problem is that we are having a film adaptation. What is screen adaptation? A film adaptation is, in essence, the same reading of a work, but only by one person, the director. Why do I always tell my students: before watching this film, be sure to read the work, so that you form your own images, your attitude towards this work, so that you try to reveal the idea of this work, and then watch what they show you. This is a different reading, you compare yours with another. And then, perhaps, determine what the meaning of this work is. Maybe you can get a hint there, no doubt, but maybe vice versa. I remember the Soviet-era adaptation of Anna Karenina. There are wonderful actors there, but, let’s say, when I watched Karenin, he was played in such a way (albeit by a very talented actor), that he evoked some kind of certain, if not disgust, then, in any case, antipathy, to put it mildly. This is some kind of shuffling old man. I ask the students: how old is Karenin? What is forty-two years, old man? You see, this is already beginning to be perceived in a completely different way.
Or I ask students a question: how old was Tatyana Larina when she wrote a letter to Onegin? Because when we watch an opera or a film, we see such portly women, especially in the opera. And the answer is that Tatyana is only fourteen years old, so how does Eugene Onegin (and he is twenty-eight) look at her? Dismissively and condescendingly, for which she is grateful to him, which she herself speaks about at the end of the novel. You see, these are the very details that we don’t pay attention to, because no one, not a single audience has yet told me how old the characters are. The question is, what are you reading? It is no coincidence that the author writes out this age, and draws attention to it several times. The point is that a work of art is insidious. Why? Because it gives flow to our imagination. We build our own images, we think out many things for the writer, and, naturally, we develop certain ideas. And when you draw the attention of the same directors to this, they are surprised: how did I not notice this? Because I read it that way, because my personal perception... This is good, yes, but then you need to say that this is my perception. It wasn’t Pushkin who wrote it that way (or Lermontov, or Dostoevsky, or Tolstoy), it’s the way I see them. So that's great.
– Alexander Nikolaevich, you once touched upon the topic of the complexity and danger of contact, even within theatrical productions, of contact with evil spirits, when a person tries to enter into the image of evil spirits, pretend to be one, or become close to them. And these words were confirmed by the words of one of the priests who is giving us a course of lectures on the practice of pastoral ministry. He is personally familiar with examples from the lives of actors whose lives were shattered after participating in such scenes, participating in works where they assumed the role of evil spirits. Relatives died, something completely out of place and inexplicable happened from the point of view of a non-believer. Some - he said so directly - after such events in their lives, they considered it a great joy and help to be baptized. That is, people came to understand that faith and God are necessary in life, but through such difficulties. The question arises: how would you explain to yourself and to young people the danger of such advances? It would seem that this is an ordinary theatrical production, because man himself does not define himself as having departed from God and having come to Satan. At the same time, there is an unconditional influence of such roles and such experiments in a person’s life.
– You can build the history of the Russian theater, or the theater, probably, in Russia - this way, perhaps, it will be more correctly said. In the 17th century, in the second half of the 17th century, it appears. Initially, only foreigners were actors. Why? Because in Rus' theater has always been perceived as anti-church. understood this perfectly. Red Square is a temple under open air, and where the Historical Museum is now, Peter I planned to create a theatrical temple in which some actions were to take place. Well, instead of Peter, now they are also organizing events, essentially on Red Square, essentially in an open-air church, as it was perceived in the 17th and even at the beginning of the 18th century.
Flirting with spiritual forces is not just a game, a transformation, it is the perception in your soul of who the actor is going to play
So, what is theater? This is acting, as they said in Ancient Rus'. The author behind the guise, that is, behind the mask, hides his own face and begins to play with passions. A person in his life must get away from passions, and in the theater he must even play other people’s passions, being, perhaps, completely moral person. Naturally, passions can captivate both the actor himself, who plays the actor, and those sitting in the audience. It is no coincidence that Alexei Mikhailovich immediately went to the bathhouse after the theater to wash away, outwardly, so to speak, these sins that seemed to cover his whole body. Why? Because he saw the passions that were raging on stage and, naturally, somehow joined them. Maybe without your own will, although - one wonders - why were you sitting, what were you watching, and so on. Not only he, but the entire retinue went to wash away these sins. You see, the form is correct, right? Maybe they didn’t understand the content. Why? Because I’ve already joined anyway. Then Russian troupes appeared, but, what is important (in imitation, of course, European ones) - the actors were who - free people or serfs? All our theaters were mostly serfs. Do you understand why? Because the landowner there, or the owner, forced them to play. If a nobleman was going to play in the theater, then he took a pseudonym so as not to discredit his surname, the honor of his noble class and noble family. He or she played on stage under a pseudonym (in general, there were such things in the 19th century, we see examples of this). As for when a person is not just playing reincarnation, but is already flirting with spiritual forces, everything is more complicated, much more complicated. Why? Because this is not just a game, a reincarnation, but this is the perception in one’s soul of who he is going to play - Gogol perfectly showed this in the example of an unnamed artist who painted a portrait. Why? Because the artist reflects what he absorbs into his soul - it must be digested inside, he must get used to it, and then, so to speak, it spills out on the canvas. It’s the same with an actor - he must first absorb it into himself, and then throw it out on stage, because he, too, an artist, will certainly let everything pass through himself. And when all this happens, when a person absorbs it, what is the danger? The fact is that he may not get rid of it. What was needed for the nameless artist? Lose your wife, lose your children, go to a monastery and atone for your sin through long fasting, prayers, and hermitage. All for just one portrait of a moneylender, right? And then he was able to transform internally, and then he was able to paint a fresco of the Nativity of Christ. The same is true for an actor who plays: again, is he flirting, is he acting, or is he really taking it into his own hands? I just know too, I am personally acquainted with some actors who themselves told me, and since she told me publicly, I can probably say about Natalya Varley - a Komsomol member, an athlete, a beautiful girl who played - her student role - a lady in "Vie". She says: “Even then I had no idea what I would face in my life.” She was indeed baptized later, and now she is a deeply religious person, a churchgoer, she says: “Now, if they had told me then what would happen to me, to my destiny in the future, I would never have agreed to this role.” So there really can be a lot of such examples. This taboo topic, a person should not transgress it.
CHAPTER 3
A. S. PUSHKIN: RUSSIAN “WORLDNESS”
(on the issue of perception of European literature)
Above, several examples of Pushkin’s dialogue with a “foreign” word were considered, which becomes “our own”, be it the mastery of the works of Shakespeare or Moliere, which happened with the literature of the whole world, or Cornwall, forgotten even in his homeland. However, these are only partial manifestations of a more general phenomenon that arose in Russian literature precisely with the arrival of Pushkin, which can be designated as Russian “universality.” Its origins lie in Russian classicism XVIII century, which, following European classicism, was focused on imitation of ancient authors, but was even more dependent on models, since it also adopted the experience of the European classicists themselves. Of course, some semblance of double imitation is also found in Western literature, but there the imitation of new models, oriented towards ancient models, acted primarily as epigonism and had little to do with great writers. In Russia, the greatest writers bore the double burden of imitation, thereby reflecting the student period of new Russian literature. Pushkin, already in “Ruslan and Lyudmila” surpassing his immediate teacher V.A. Zhukovsky (“To the victorious student from the defeated teacher” - the great poet greeted the young Pushkin, who through his translations introduced the Russian reader to Homer and Pindar, La Fontaine and Pope, Thomson and Gray, Goethe and Schiller, Burger and Uhland, Southey and Byron, with fifty other writers different countries and eras, and these translations formed the bulk of his work), overcame imitation, apprenticeship, and entered into dialogue with the geniuses of world literature on equal terms. And this dialogue covered such a wide range of phenomena in world literature that it was then that the phenomenon of Russian “universality”, the responsiveness of the poetic (in the broad sense) soul to a word - written or oral, sounded for everyone or only for a select few, arose and became entrenched in Russian literature. in a temple, a secular salon or in a field, a hut, on a square or in the recesses of the heart - in different countries, in many languages, in different eras. Such an immense field of dialogue is created by a literary thesaurus specific to Russian writers (and readers) starting from Pushkin’s time (an area of the general cultural thesaurus associated with literature). No less significant is the way in which information entering the thesaurus from outside literary information processed to become part of it. Pushkin also determined the main direction here.
It clearly appears in Pushkin’s dialogue with Shakespeare. Having deeply studied this problem, N.V. Zakharov in his monograph “Shakespeare in the Creative Evolution of Pushkin” resorted to the term middle XIX century "Shakespeareanism". But today in science the term “Shakespeareanization” is much more often used to designate what seems to be the same phenomenon. However, the researcher appears to be completely correct in his choice of word. Shakespeareanization means not only admiration for the genius of the English playwright, but also the gradual expansion of the influence of his artistic system on world culture. This is one of the principles-processes. Principles-processes are categories that convey an idea of the formation, formation, development of the principles of literature, the strengthening of a certain trend. Their names are built on a similar linguistic basis, emphasizing the moment of formation or growth of a certain distinctive quality of an artistic text against the background of a literary paradigm (the dominant system of relationships and accents in literary discourses): “psychologization”, “historicization”, “heroization”, “documentaryization”, etc. . d. Shakespeareanization clearly manifested itself in Western European culture already in XVIII century, primarily in the pre-romantic (and in XIX century - romantic) literature. It was also characteristic of Russian literature, including Pushkin. However, the scale of approval of this principle-process in Russia cannot be compared with the grandiose Shakespeareanization of Western culture. Shakespeareanization presupposes the introduction into the general cultural heritage of images, plots, artistic forms Shakespearean heritage. In Pushkin it is present in “Boris Godunov”, and in “Angelo”, and in numerous reminiscences.
But this is not the main thing that Pushkin took from Shakespeare. He seemed to rise above the visible particulars in order to reach the invisible but tangible realm of the “philosophy” of the work of the great English playwright, moved from “tactics” to “strategy” of Shakespeare’s artistic thinking and directed the entire dialogue of Russian literature with Shakespeare in this direction. This is logical to define by the concept of “Shakespeareanism”. From this point of view, the work of L. N. Tolstoy, the author of the pogrom article “On Shakespeare,” turns out to be one of the highest incarnations of Shakespeareanism, and there is no contradiction here: Tolstoy’s images, plots, and artistic forms of Shakespeare’s works (the sphere of Shakespeareanization) are subject to criticism, but not the scale of the worldview, not the strategy of Shakespearean artistic thinking (the sphere of Shakespeareanism).
Hundreds of works are devoted to the characteristics of Pushkin’s literary thesaurus (although such a term, of course, was not used). It is almost impossible to consider this problem in full, and even its most general outlines, presented in a recently published experiment special dictionary edited by the major Pushkin scholar V.D. Rak, they demanded a very solid volume.
We will limit ourselves to a selection of several names of writers, philosophers, orators, representatives of salon culture - creators of words, representatives of European literature and culture of different periods, contemplators and figures acceptable and not acceptable to Pushkin, writers of different directions, brilliant, major, insignificant, sometimes forgotten , with whom he entered into dialogue in a variety of forms, which will make it possible to clearly imagine the nature of this dialogue, which gave rise to such a characteristic property of Russian literature as Russian “universality”.
From the Middle Ages to the beginning XVIIIcentury
Villon ) Francois (1431 or 1432 - after 1463) - French poet , largest representative Pre-Renaissance, in which talent was combined with a riotous lifestyle. In one of Pushkin’s first poems “The Monk” (1813) there is an appeal to I. S. Barkov: “And you are a poet, cursed by Apollo, // Who stained the walls of taverns, // Falling into the mud with Villon under Helikon, // Can’t you can you help me, Barkov? This is a free translation of Boileau’s words about the libertine poet Saint-Amant, a characterization that is hardly too negative from Pushkin, who is close to libertineism.
Margeret ) Jacques (Jacob) (1560 - after 1612) - French military man, served in Henry's troops IV , then in Germany, Poland. In Russia he was captain of a German company under Boris Godunov, later he went into service with False Dmitry I . In 1606 he returned to France, in 1607 he published the book “The current state of the Russian state and the Grand Duchy of Muscovy, with what happened the most memorable and tragic from 1590 to September 1606.” This book, which provided material for some episodes of “Boris Godunov,” was in Pushkin’s library; it was also quoted by Karamzin in “History of the Russian State.” Margeret was introduced as a character in “Boris Godunov” (he is called “the overseas frog” there). The rude French expressions put into the mouth of this character by the author aroused censorship objections.
Molière , present surname Poquelin, Poquelin ) Jean-Baptiste (1622–1673) - the largest French playwright, actor, director. In the comedies “The School for Husbands” (1661) and “The School for Wives” (1662), he began to develop the genre of classicist high comedy. The pinnacles of his dramaturgy were the comedies “Tartuffe” (1664 - 1669), “Don Juan” (1665), “The Misanthrope” (1666), “The Miser” (1668), and “The Tradesman in the Nobility” (1670). Many of the names of the characters created by Moliere have become household names (Tartuffe to denote a hypocrite, Don Juan - a frivolous lover, Harpagon - a stingy one, Jourdain - a commoner who imagines himself an aristocrat). In the image of Alceste (“Misanthrope”) he anticipated the “natural man” of the Enlightenment.
In Russia, Moliere was played during his lifetime in the court theater of Alexei Mikhailovich. “The Reluctant Doctor” was translated by Princess Sophia, Peter’s elder sister I . F. G. Volkov and A. P. Sumarokov, who created the first permanent Russian theater, relied on Moliere’s comedies in shaping the tastes of the theater public.
Pushkin became acquainted with the work of Moliere even before the Lyceum. P.V. Annenkov, with reference to the testimony of Pushkin’s sister Olga Sergeevna, wrote: “Sergei Lvovich encouraged a disposition to read in children and read selected works with them. They say that he was especially skillful in conveying Moliere, whom he knew almost by heart... The first attempts at authorship, which generally appear early in children addicted to reading, were found in Pushkin, of course, in French and echoed the influence of the famous comic writer of France.” In “The Town” (1814), Pushkin, listing his favorite writers, calls Moliere a “giant.” The most significant facts of Pushkin's appeal to the works of Moliere are his work on the “small tragedies” “The Miserly Knight” and “The Stone Guest” (1830). They contain almost direct borrowings of individual phrases, images, and scenes. Wed. Cleanthe's remark in Molière's "The Miser": "This is what our fathers bring us to with their damned stinginess" and Albert's phrase in "The Stingy Knight": "This is what stinginess brings me to // My own father." A large fragment of “The Stone Guest”, where Don Juan invites the statue of the commander, is very close to a similar scene in Moliere’s “Don Juan”. However, Pushkin’s interpretation of Moliere’s plots is fundamentally different: comedy turns into tragedy. Later in " Table-Talk “Pushkin revealed the essence of this confrontation, comparing Shakespeare’s close to him and Moliere’s alien approaches to depicting a person in literature: “The faces created by Shakespeare are not, like Moliere’s, types of such and such passion, such and such vice; but living beings, filled with many passions, many vices; circumstances develop before the viewer their diverse and multifaceted characters. In Moliere the stingy is stingy - and that’s all; in Shakespeare, Shylock is stingy, shrewd, vindictive, child-loving, and witty. In Moliere, the hypocrite drags after the wife of his benefactor, the hypocrite; accepts the estate for safekeeping, hypocrite; asks for a glass of water, a hypocrite. In Shakespeare, the hypocrite pronounces the judgment with vain severity, but fairly; he justifies his cruelty with the thoughtful judgment of a statesman; he seduces innocence with strong, fascinating sophisms, an unfunny mixture of piety and red tape.”
Rousseau ) Jean Baptiste (1670 or 1671 - 1741) - French poet, who came from the lower classes. In 1712 he was permanently expelled from France for slandering his literary competitors. He became famous for his collections of “Odes” and “Psalms”, the creation of the cantata genre (“Cantata of Circe”, etc.), and epigrams. It was Rousseau’s epigrams that attracted the greatest attention of Pushkin, who repeatedly mentioned his name in his works (starting with the poem “To a Poet Friend,” 1814: “Poets are praised by everyone, fed only by magazines; // The wheel of Fortune rolls past them; // Born naked and naked steps into Rousseau's coffin..."). Pushkin freely translated one of them, entitled “Epigram (imitation of French)” (1814) (“I was so captivated by your wife...”). In general, for romantic poets, Rousseau became the embodiment of epigone classicism.
Age of Enlightenment and Rococo
Locke ) John (1632–1704) - English philosopher. In “An Essay on the Human Mind” (1690), he argued that experience is the basis of all human knowledge. Locke developed the theory of natural law and social contract, having a huge influence on the socio-political thought of the Enlightenment. Pushkin in drafts VII The chapter of “Eugene Onegin” names Locke in the ranks of enlighteners and ancient writers whose works Onegin read, judging by the books Tatyana found in his house.
Hume ) David (1711–1776) - an English philosopher who formulated the basic principles of agnosticism in his Treatise on Human Nature (1748), denied the objective nature of causality. Hume is mentioned in the drafts of Eugene Onegin in the list of authors that Onegin read (probably his History of England from the Conquest of Julius Caesar to the Revolution of 1688).
Saint-Pierre ) Charles Irene Castel, abbot de (1658–1743) - French thinker, member of the French Academy (expelled for disrespectful comments about Louis XIV ), author of the "Project eternal peace"(1713), briefly retold and commented by J.-J. Rousseau (1760). Pushkin became acquainted with the “Project” (as presented by Rousseau) during the period of southern exile and led discussions on the issue of eternal peace in Orlov’s house in Chisinau, the nature of which is evidenced by Pushkin’s note “ Il est impossi ble..." (XII , 189–190, cond. name "On Eternal Peace", 1821).
Grécourt ) Jean Baptiste Joseph Villar de (1683–1743) - French poet, abbot, representative of free-thinking poetry in the spirit of Rococo, replete with frivolity and light in style. For the poem “Philotanus” (1720) he was condemned by the church and deprived of the right to preach. Grécourt's poems were published only posthumously (1747). Pushkin became acquainted with Grecourt's poetry early on. In “The Town” (1815) he noted: “Raised by Cupid, // Vergier, the Guys with Grekur // took refuge in a corner. // (More than once they go out // And take sleep away from their eyes // in the winter evening" ( I, 98).
Gresset ) Jean Baptiste Louis (Greset, 1709–1777) - French poet, member of the French Academy (1748). Representative of “light poetry” in the spirit of Rococo. Author of poetic short stories ridiculing monks. For the short story “Ver-Ver” (1734) about the cheerful adventures of a parrot raised in a nunnery, he was expelled from the Jesuit order. Pushkin called Gresse “a charming singer” ( I , 154), repeatedly mentioned and quoted his works - “Ver-Ver”; poetic message “Abode” (1735); comedy " Evil person"(1747) - "a comedy that I considered untranslatable" ( XIII, 41).
Crebillon Sr. ( Crébillon ) Prosper Joliot (1674–1762) - French playwright, father of Crebillon the Younger, member of the French Academy (1731). His tragedies, in which the sublime gives way to the terrible, anticipating the transition from classicism to pre-romanticism (Atreus and Thyestes, 1707; Radamist and Zenobia, 1711), were staged in St. Petersburg during Pushkin’s lifetime. It is believed that in Pushkin’s letters to Katenin (1822) and Kuchelbecker (1825) there are ironic hints at the ending of the tragedy “Atreus and Thyestes”.
Crebillon Jr. ( Crébillon ) Claude-Prosper Joliot de (1707–1777) - French novelist who wrote works in which, in the spirit of Rococo, the decline of the morals of the aristocracy was outlined ("Deceptions of the Heart and Mind", 1736; "Sofa", 1742; etc.). Mentioned by Pushkin (as “Cribilion”, VIII, 150, 743).
Bouffler-Rouvrel ( Boufflers - Rouvrel ) Marie-Charlotte, Countess de (d. 1787) - court lady of the court of the Polish king Stanislaus in Lunéville, one of the brightest representatives of the Rococo salon style, sparkling with wit, adhering to epicurean views and not too strict morality. Pushkin mentions it in the article “On Mr. Lemonte’s preface to the translation of I. A. Krylov’s fables” (1825), speaking about the French classicists: “What brought a cold gloss of politeness and wit to all the works of the 18th century? Society M - es du Deffand, Boufflers, d'Espinay , very nice and educated women. But Milton and Dante did not write for a supportive smile fair sex».
Voltaire ) (real name Marie François Arouet - Arouet ) (1694–1778) - French writer and philosopher, one of the leaders of the Enlightenment. Starting with lyrics of light, epicurean content, he became famous as a poet (the epic poem “Henriad”, finished 1728; the heroic-comic poem “The Virgin of Orleans”, 1735), playwright (wrote 54 dramatic works, including the tragedy “Oedipus”, 1718 ; “Brutus”, 1730), prose writer (philosophical stories “Candide, or Optimism”, 1759; “The Simple-minded”, 1767), author of philosophical, historical, journalistic works that made him the ruler of the thoughts of several generations of Europeans. The collected works of Voltaire, published in 1784–1789, took up 70 volumes.
Pushkin fell in love with the works of Voltaire as a child, before entering the Lyceum, which he later recalled in poetry ( III , 472). The study of passages from Voltaire was part of the Lyceum program in French rhetoric. Voltaire is Pushkin's first poetic mentor. The appeal to the “Fernay old man” opens Pushkin’s earliest (unfinished) poem “The Monk” (1813): “Voltaire! Sultan of French Parnassus...// But just give me your golden lyre, // With it I will be known to the whole world.” The same motives are heard in the unfinished poem “Bova” (1814). In Voltaire's descriptions, Pushkin obviously relies on the popular XVIII century, the poetic genre “portrait of Voltaire” (a later such example is in the message “To the Nobleman,” where Voltaire is depicted as “a gray-haired cynic, // Leader of Minds and Fashion, crafty and brave”). Initially, Voltaire for Pushkin is, first of all, a “singer of love”, the author of “The Virgin of Orleans”, which the young poet imitates. In the poem “Town” (1815) and the poetic passage “Dream” (1816) a mention of “Candide” appears. In “The Town,” Voltaire is characterized in contrast: “...Fernay’s evil screamer, // The first poet among poets, // You are here, gray-haired naughty!” During his lyceum years, Pushkin translated three poems by Voltaire, including the famous stanzas “To Madame du Châtelet.” In “Ruslan and Lyudmila”, “Gavriliad” and other works of the early 1820s, the influence of Voltaire’s style is clearly felt, energetic, intellectually rich, based on the game of the mind, combining irony and very conventional exoticism. Pushkin sees himself as a successor to the traditions of Voltaire. His contemporaries perceive him the same way. In 1818, Katenin first called Pushkin “ le jeune Monsieur Arouet "("young Mr. Arouet", i.e. Voltaire), then such a comparison becomes common (for example, in M.F. Orlov, P.L. Yakovlev, V.I. Tumansky, N.M. Yazykov).
In later years the situation changes somewhat. Pushkin leaves most mentions of Voltaire only in drafts or letters. So, they disappear from Eugene Onegin. Attempts to translate "The Virgin of Orleans" and "What Ladies Like" have been abandoned. Pushkin distances himself from his idol of youth, notes his misconceptions regarding the enlightenment of Catherine’s reign II : “It was forgivable for the Ferney philosopher to extol the virtues of Tartuffe in a skirt and a crown, he did not know, he could not know the truth” ( XI , 17). Interest in Voltaire's brilliant style is increasingly being replaced by interest in his historical and philosophical works. Thus, while working on “Poltava” (1828), Pushkin widely used materials from “The History of Karl XII " and "Stories Russian Empire under Peter the Great" by Voltaire. The researchers noted that the very way of covering historical events by comparing the leaders - Peter as a creator and Charles as a destroyer - was formed under the influence of Voltaire.
While working on an essay on the French Revolution (1831), Pushkin, in order to outline the distant prehistory of revolutionary events, carefully studied 16 of the 138 chapters of Voltaire’s major work “Essay on Morals.” Pushkin used a number of Voltaire’s historical works in his work on “The History of Pugachev” and the unfinished “History of Peter”. Having secured the personal permission of Emperor Nicholas I , Pushkin was the first Russian cultural figure to gain access to Voltaire’s library, purchased by Catherine II and located in the Hermitage. Here he found a lot of unpublished materials about the era of Peter.
In his unfinished article of 1834, “On the insignificance of Russian literature,” Pushkin highly appreciates Voltaire as a philosopher and at the same time sharply criticizes his drama and poetry: “For 60 years he filled the theater with tragedies, in which, without caring either about the credibility of the characters or the legality of the means, , he forced his faces to express, appropriately and inappropriately, the rules of his philosophy. He filled Paris with charming trifles in which philosophy spoke in a generally understandable and humorous language, differing only in rhyme and meter from prose, and this lightness seemed the height of poetry" ( XI , 271). V.G. Belinsky, analyzing Pushkin’s poetry, revealed the unity of its mood, which he defined as bright sadness. This conclusion sheds light on Pushkin’s cooling towards Voltaire the poet: as soon as Pushkin overcame the influence of Voltaire’s poetic style and found his own, different intonation, he began to look skeptically at Voltaire’s poetic legacy, even at his beloved “The Virgin of Orleans,” which he now condemned for "cynicism".
It is significant that one of latest performances Pushkin's publication in print was the publication of his article “Voltaire” (Journal of Sovremennik, vol. 3, 1836), written in connection with the publication of Voltaire’s correspondence with President de Brosse. Having wonderfully outlined the content and characterized the style of correspondence, Pushkin, after quoting a short poem by Voltaire that ended up in the published papers, notes: “We admit rococo our belated taste: in these seven verses we find more syllable, more life, more thought than in a dozen long French poems written in the current taste, where thought is replaced by distorted expression, Voltaire’s clear language by the pompous language of Ronsard, his liveliness by intolerable monotony, and wit by vulgar cynicism or sluggish melancholy.” Referring to Voltaire's hardships in life, Pushkin expresses perhaps the most serious reproach to the philosopher: “Voltaire, throughout his long life, never knew how to maintain his own dignity.” And it is this example that allows him to come to the final conclusion of the article, which contains a remarkably deep generalization: “What can we conclude from this? That genius has its weaknesses, which console mediocrity, but sadden noble hearts, reminding them of the imperfection of humanity; that the real place of a writer is his academic office and that, finally, independence and self-respect alone can raise us above the trifles of life and above the storms of fate.”
D'Alembert ) Jean Le Ron (1717–1783) - French philosopher, writer and mathematician, one of the editors of the Encyclopedia (together with Diderot, from 1751), which united the forces of the Enlightenment. Member of the French Academy (1754, from 1772 - its permanent secretary). Pushkin repeatedly mentions D’Alembert and quotes, slightly changing, his aphorism: “Inspiration is needed in poetry, as in geometry” ( XI, 41).
Rousseau ) Jean-Jacques (1712–1778) - French writer and philosopher who had a huge influence on European and Russian culture. Born in Geneva, in the family of a watchmaker, he experienced all the hardships of the fate of a commoner trying to realize his talent in a feudal society. Rousseau found support for his ideas in Paris, among educators. By order of Diderot, he writes articles for the music section of the Encyclopedia. In his treatise “Discourse on the Sciences and Arts” (1750), Rousseau first expressed the idea that civilization is harmful to the moral life of mankind. He prefers the natural state of savages, merged with nature, to the position of civilized peoples, who, thanks to the sciences and arts, become just “happy slaves.” Rousseau’s treatises “Discourse on the origin and foundations of inequality between people” (1754), “On the social contract” (1762), in which the complex of ideas of Rousseauism are finally formalized, are devoted to the defense of a fair social order and the development of the idea of “natural man”. Rousseau is the largest representative of French sentimentalism, the author of the novel “Julia, or New Heloise” (1761) - the most popular work in France XVIII century. Rousseau's innovative pedagogical ideas, which constituted a whole stage in world pedagogy, were outlined by him in the novel-treatise “Emile, or On Education” (1762). Rousseau stands at the origins of one of the most influential branches of European pre-romanticism. With his monodrama Pygmalion (1762, 1770), he laid the foundations of the melodrama genre. Persecuted by the authorities, condemned by the church, Rousseau embodied the story of his life in “Confession” (1765–1770, published posthumously, 1782, 1789). Leaders of the Great French Revolution They considered Rousseau their harbinger. The Romantics created a real cult of Rousseau. In Russia, Rousseau was quite famous back in XVIII century, his works influenced Radishchev, Karamzin, Chaadaev and other figures of Russian culture at the turn of the century XVIII – XIX centuries.
For Pushkin, Rousseau is “the apostle of our rights.” He shared the Rousseauist idea happy life in the lap of nature, far from civilization, an idea of the deep feelings of the common man, the cult of friendship, a passionate defense of freedom and equality.
Pushkin became acquainted with the work of Rousseau early. Already in the poem “To my sister” (1814), he asks the addressee a question: “What do you do with your heart // In the evening? // Are you reading Jean Jacques…”, which, by the way, emphasizes the fact that Rousseau’s works entered the reading circle of young people of those years. Obviously, already at the Lyceum, Pushkin became acquainted with the novel “Julia, or the New Heloise” and, perhaps, with some other works, so far superficially. In the early 1820s, he again turned to Rousseau (“Discourse on the Sciences and Arts”, “Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality”, “Emile, or On Education”, “Confession”), in particular, he re-read the project in his presentation of the Perpetual Peace of Abbot Saint-Pierre (1821) and began working on a manuscript about the idea of perpetual peace. Citing Rousseau’s words that the path to this world will be opened by “cruel and terrible means for humanity,” Pushkin noted: “It is obvious that these terrible means that he spoke about are revolutions. Here they are" ( XII , 189, 480). Pushkin rereads Rousseau at the end of his southern exile, working on the poem “The Gypsies” and the first chapter of “Eugene Onegin.”
By 1823, Pushkin had matured a critical attitude towards a number of positions of Rousseauism, which was reflected in the poem “The Gypsies,” which expressed disappointment in the Rousseauian thought of happiness in the lap of nature, far from civilization. The differences with the philosopher on issues of education are very noticeable. If Rousseau idealizes this process, then Pushkin is interested in its real side, primarily in relation to the peculiarities of education in the conditions of Russian reality. In the article “On Public Education” (1826), Pushkin does not name Rousseau, but speaks out against the Rousseauist idea of home education: “There is no need to hesitate: private education must be suppressed at all costs” ( XI , 44), for: “In Russia, home education is the most insufficient, the most immoral...” ( XI , 44). These statements shed light on the ironic portrayal of education according to Rousseau in Eugene Onegin: “ Monsieur l'Abbé , poor Frenchman, // So that the child would not be exhausted, // Taught him everything jokingly, // Didn’t bother him with strict morals, // Scolded him a little for pranks // And took him for a walk in the Summer Garden.” Revealing the irony of Rousseauist education explains here such details as the nationality of the teacher (in the draft version it is even clearer: “Monsieur the Swiss is very smart” - VI , 215), his name (cf. Abbe Saint-Pierre), teaching method, forms of punishment (cf. “method of natural consequences” by Rousseau), walks in the Summer Garden (education in the lap of nature according to Rousseau). Irony, although not evil, is also present in the presentation of an episode from Rousseau’s “Confession” (Pushkin quoted this passage in French in his notes to the novel): “Rousseau (I note in passing) // Couldn’t understand how important Makeup // Dared brush your nails in front of him, // An eloquent madman. // Defender of liberty and rights // In this case, completely wrong.” “An eloquent madman” is an expression that belongs not to Pushkin, but to Voltaire (in the epilogue “ Civil War in Geneva"). Rousseau's struggle with fashion stemmed from his idea of the original virtue of man, which is destroyed by the achievements of civilization. Pushkin, speaking as a defender of fashion, thereby objects both to the Rousseauian interpretation of civilization and, to an even greater extent, to the Rousseauian view of man. Stanza XLVI The first chapter of the novel (“Whoever lived and thought cannot // In his soul not despise people...”) is devoted to criticism of Rousseau’s idealism in understanding the essence of man.
The dispute with Rousseau is also present in Pushkin’s interpretation of the plot of Cleopatra, which he first addressed in 1824. As Yu.M. Lotman showed, the impetus for the development of this plot was the reading of the 3rd book of “Emil”, where it is mentioned with reference to Aurelius Victor.
However, “Eugene Onegin” shows what an important role the ideas and images of Rousseau played in the minds of Russian people in the early XIX century. Onegin and Lensky argue and reflect on the subjects to which Rousseau dedicated his treatises (“Tribes of past treaties, // Fruits of science, good and evil...”). Tatyana, who lives by reading novels, in love “with the deceptions of both Richardson and Rousseau,” imagines herself Julia, and among the heroes with whom she associates Onegin is “Julia’s lover Volmar.” Certain expressions in the letters of Tatiana and Onegin directly go back to “Julia, or the New Heloise” (by the way, in Pushkin’s story “The Snowstorm” there is a direct indication that the characters quite consciously use the letters of this novel as an example of a declaration of love). The plot of “Eugene Onegin” - the final explanation of the characters (“But I was given to another; // I will be faithful to him forever”) - also goes back to the turning point of Rousseau’s novel. Pushkin, polemicizing with the ideas of Rousseau, does not lose touch with the images he created.
Helvetius ) Jean-Claude-Adrian (1715–1772) - French philosopher-educator, one of Diderot’s colleagues in the publication of the Encyclopedia, author of the treatises “On the Mind” (1758), “On Man” (1773), which were popular in Russia . In the drafts of Eugene Onegin, Helvetius is named among the philosophers whom Onegin read. In the article “Alexander Radishchev” (1836), Pushkin calls Helvetius’ philosophy “vulgar and sterile” and explains: “Now it would be incomprehensible to us how the cold and dry Helvetius could become the favorite of young people, ardent and sensitive, if we, Unfortunately, they did not know how tempting new thoughts and rules, rejected by law and legends, are for developing minds.”
Grimm ) Friedrich Melchior, baron (1723–1807) - German publicist, diplomat. Having settled in Paris in 1748, he became close to educators and other famous people. In 1753–1792 published a handwritten newspaper “Literary, Philosophical and Critical Correspondence” about news in 15–16 copies cultural life France (some issues written by Diderot), whose subscribers were the crowned heads of Poland, Sweden, and Russia. Was in St. Petersburg twice, corresponded with Ekaterina II , carried out her diplomatic assignments (and then Paul I ). Sainte-Beuve emphasized the value of this publication as a historical source and noted the subtle, insightful mind of its author. On the contrary, the enlighteners said almost nothing about him, with the exception of Rousseau, who in his Confessions wrote with contempt that he was “caught cleaning his nails with a special brush.” It was in this connection that Pushkin’s ironic lines appeared in “Eugene Onegin”: “Rousseau (I’ll note in passing) // Couldn’t understand how important Grim // Dared to brush his nails in front of him (...) You can be a practical person // And think about the beauty of nails..."
Beaumarchais ) Pierre-Augustin Caron de (1732–1799) - French writer. He became famous as the creator of the comedies The Barber of Seville (1775) and The Marriage of Figaro (1784), which affirmed the dignity of the common man. Pushkin in the poems “To Natalya” (1813) and “The Page or the Fifteenth Year” (1830) mentions the heroes of the first of them - Rosina, her guardian and young Cherubino. Beaumarchais is the author of the comedy-ballet in the oriental style “Tarar” (1787), based on the text of which Salieri wrote the opera of the same name. In Pushkin’s little tragedy “Mozart and Salieri” (1830) it is spoken of by Mozart: “Yes, Beaumarchais was your friend. // You composed “Tarara” for him, // A glorious thing. There is one motive, // I keep repeating it when I’m happy.” Beaumarchais lived a turbulent life, having been a watchmaker, a prisoner of the Bastille, and a teacher of Louis' daughters XV , without losing your presence of mind in the most difficult situations. Salieri in “Mozart and Salieri” speaks about this: “Beaumarchais // Said to me: listen, brother Salieri, // As dark thoughts come to you, // Uncork a bottle of champagne // Or re-read “The Marriage of Figaro.” Pushkin’s assessment of Beaumarchais was given in his poem “To the Nobleman” (1830), where the “prickly Beaumarchais” is named along with encyclopedists and other celebrities XVIII centuries: “Their opinions, talk, passions // Forgotten for others. Look: around you // Everything new is boiling, destroying the old.”
Chamfort ) Nicolas Sebastien Rock (1741–1794) - French writer, member of the French Academy (1781). The notes and aphorisms collected after his death were included in the 4th volume of his works (1795) entitled “Maxims and Thoughts. Characters and anecdotes." Pushkin knew this book well. In “Eugene Onegin” Chamfort is named among the writers whom Onegin reads (chap. VIII, stanza XXXV ). Probably, the line “But the days of the past are anecdotes...” is connected with Chamfort’s aphorism: “Only free peoples have a history worthy of attention. The history of peoples enslaved by despotism is just a collection of anecdotes.” Pushkin attributed the “solid Chamfort” to the “democratic writers” who prepared the French Revolution.
Orators and writers of the era of the French Revolution
Lebrun ) Pons Denis Ekuchar, nicknamed Lebrun-Pindar (1729–1807) - French classicist poet, follower of Malherbe and J.-B. Rousseau, author of odes (“Ode to Buffon”, “Ode to Voltaire”, “Republican Odes to the French People”, “National Ode”, etc.), elegies, epigrams. Supporter of the Great French Revolution. He was well known in Russia (starting with Radishchev) and translated (Batyushkov, Vyazemsky, etc.). Pushkin highly valued Lebrun, the “sublime Gaul” ( II , 45), quoted his poems ( XII, 279; XIV, 147).
Marat ) Jean Paul (1743–1793) - French revolutionary, one of the leaders of the Jacobins, an outstanding orator. Since 1789 he published the newspaper “Friend of the People”. He was killed by Charlotte Corday. His brother de Boudry was one of Pushkin's teachers at the Lyceum. Pushkin, like the Decembrists, had a negative attitude towards Marat, seeing in him the embodiment of the elements of revolutionary terror. In the poem “The Dagger” (1821), he calls him “the fiend of rebellion,” “the executioner”: “The apostle of death, to tired Hades // He appointed victims with his finger, // But the highest court sent him // You and the maiden Eumenides.” The same is in the elegy “Andrei Chenier” (1825): “You sang to the Marat priests // The dagger and the Eumenides maiden!”
Mirabeau ) Honoré-Gabriel-Victor Riqueti, Count (1749–1791) - figure in the French Revolution. In 1789, he was elected as a deputy from the Third Estate to the Estates General and became the de facto leader of the revolutionaries. He became famous as a speaker who denounced absolutism. Expressing the interests of the big bourgeoisie, he took more and more conservative positions, and from 1790 he was a secret agent of the royal court. Pushkin considered Mirabeau as the leader of the first stage of the revolution (there is his drawing depicting Mirabeau, next to Robespierre and Napoleon). In his mind, Mirabeau is a “fiery tribune”; his name and works (in particular, memoirs) are mentioned in poetry, prose, and correspondence of Pushkin. In the article “On the insignificance of Russian literature” (1834), Pushkin noted: “The old society is ripe for great destruction. Everything is still calm, but already the voice of the young Mirabeau, like a distant storm, thunders dully from the depths of the dungeons through which he wanders...” But since for Pushkin’s circle Mirabeau was also a symbol of secret betrayal, Pushkin’s enthusiastic tone refers only to the young Mirabeau.
Rivarol Antoine (1753–1801) - French writer and publicist. From a monarchical position he opposed the French Revolution and emigrated. He became famous for his aphorisms, which were appreciated by Pushkin and Vyazemsky. Thus, in the plan for “Scenes from the Times of Knights,” Faust is shown as the inventor of printing, and Pushkin notes in parentheses: “Découvert de l"imprimerie, autre artillerie” (“The invention of printing is a kind of artillery,” and this is a modified aphorism of Rivarol about ideological reasons French Revolution: “L"imprimerie est artillerie de la pensée" (“Printing is the artillery of thought”).
Robespierre ) Maximilien (1758–1794) - French politician, orator, leader of the Jacobins during the French Revolution. Having become the de facto head of the revolutionary government in 1793, he fought counter-revolution and opposition revolutionary forces using terror methods. Was guillotined by the Thermidorians. If Pushkin had a clearly negative attitude towards Marat, who for him embodied the “rebellion”, then the attitude towards the “incorruptible” Robespierre was different. It is no coincidence that Pushkin wrote: “Peter I simultaneously Robespierre and Napoleon. (Revolution Incarnate).” There is an assumption (though disputed by B.V. Tomashevsky) that Pushkin gave Robespierre, drawn by him on the back of a sheet with III and IV stanzas of the fifth chapter of “Eugene Onegin”, their own features.
Chenier ) André Marie (1762–1794) - French poet and publicist. He welcomed the Great French Revolution (ode “The Oath in the Ballroom”), but condemned the terror, entered the liberal-monarchist Club of Feuillants, in 1791–1792. published anti-Jacobin articles, was imprisoned in Saint-Lazare prison in 1793 and executed two days before the collapse of the Jacobin dictatorship. His poetry, close to pre-romanticism in general trends, combines classical harmony of form with the romantic spirit of personal freedom. Published only in 1819, Chenier’s “Works,” which included odes, iambs, idylls, and elegies, brought the poet pan-European fame. Chenier occupied a special place in Russian literature: more than 70 poets turned to his work, including Lermontov, Fet, Bryusov, Tsvetaeva, Mandelstam. Decisive role Pushkin played a role in the development of Chenier in Russia. His brother L. S. Pushkin noted: “Andre Chenier, a Frenchman by name, but, of course, not by talent, became his poetic idol. He is the first in Russia and, it seems, even in Europe he appreciated it adequately.” Pushkin made 5 translations from Chenier (“Listen, O Helios, ringing with a silver bow,” 1823; “You wither and are silent; sadness consumes you...”, 1824; “O gods of peaceful fields, oaks and mountains...”, 1824; “Near places where golden Venice reigns...", 1827; "From A. Chenier ("The Veil, soaked in caustic blood")", 1825, final edition 1835). Pushkin wrote several imitations of Chenier: “Nereid” (1820, imitation of the 6th fragment of the idylls), “Muse” (1821, imitation of the 3rd fragment of the idylls), “As I was before, so am I now...” (final edition - 1828, independent poem based on 1 fragment of elegies, elegy XL ), “Let's go, I'm ready; Where would you go, friends..." (1829, based on fragment 5 of the elegies). Most bright image Chenier himself appears in Pushkin’s poem “Andrei Chenier” (1825). Contrasted with another idol of Pushkin - Byron with his glory (“Meanwhile, how the amazed world // looks at Byron’s urn ...”), Chenier appears as an unknown genius (“To the singer of love, oak forests and peace // I carry funeral flowers. // The unknown sounds lyre"). Pushkin associates himself with Chenier (as in the letters of these years), 44 lines of the poem are prohibited by censorship, which sees in them hints of Russian reality, Pushkin is forced to explain himself about the spread of illegal copies of these lines, the matter ends with the establishment of secret supervision over the poet in 1828 . Chenier is one of the sources of the image of the “mysterious singer” (“Conversation between a bookseller and a poet,” 1824; “The Poet,” 1827; “Arion,” 1827). Chenier's lyrics largely determined the prominent place of the elegy genre in Russian romantic poetry. However, Pushkin emphasized: “No one respects me more, no one loves this poet, - but he is a true Greek, a classic of the classics. (...) ... there is not a drop of romanticism in him yet" ( XIII , 380 - 381), " French critics have their own concept of romanticism. (...)...Andrei Chenier, a poet imbued with antiquity, whose even shortcomings stem from the desire to give forms of Greek versification in French, became one of their romantic poets" ( XII , 179). The greatest influence of Chenier is noted in the anthological lyrics of Pushkin (noted by I. S. Turgenev). Poets are also brought together by their similar spiritual evolution in a number of ways.
EndXVIIIcenturies andXIXcentury
La Harpe ) Jean François de (1739–1803) - French literary theorist and playwright, member of the French Academy (1776). As a playwright, he was a follower of Voltaire (the tragedies “The Earl of Warwick”, 1763; “Timoleon”, 1764; “Coriolanus”, 1784; “Philocletus”, 1781; etc.). He opposed the revolution and condemned the Enlightenment theories that prepared it. The most famous work, thoroughly studied by Pushkin, is “The Lyceum, or the Course of Ancient and Modern Literature” (16 volumes, 1799–1805), which is based on lectures given by La Harpe at Saint-Honoré (1768 - 1798). In the Lycée, La Harpe defended the dogmatically understood rules of classicism. In his youth, Pushkin considered Laharpe an indisputable authority (cf. in “Gorodok”, 1815: “... the formidable Aristarchus // Appears bravely // In sixteen volumes. // Although it’s scary for the poet // Lagarpe to see the taste, // But often, I admit, / / I spend time on it”). However, Pushkin later mentioned him as an example of a dogmatist in literature. In a letter to N.N. Raevsky the son (second half of July 1825), criticizing the principle of verisimilitude, he noted: “For example, in Laharpe, Philocletus, after listening to Pyrrhus’s tirade, says in the purest French: “Alas! I hear the sweet sounds of Hellenic speech” and so on.” (the same - in the drafts of the preface to "Boris Godunov", 1829; this line from "Philocletus" became - with minor changes - the first line of the epigram on Gnedich's translation of Homer's "Iliad": "I hear the silent sound of the divine Hellenic speech" - III , 256). Pushkin also mentions La Harpe as proof of the unpoeticism of the French: “Everyone knows that the French are the most anti-poetic people. Their best writers, the most glorious representatives of this witty and positive people, Montaigne, Voltaire, Mon tesquieu , La Harpe and Rousseau himself, proved how alien and incomprehensible the sense of grace was to them” (“Beginning of an article on V. Hugo”, 1832). But Pushkin pays tribute to La Harpe as one of the founders of literary criticism, which did not receive proper development in Russia: “If the public can be content with what is called criticism in our country, then this only proves that we still have no need either for the Schlegels, or even for Laharpakh" ("Works and translations in verse by Pavel Katenin", 1833).
Genlis ) Stéphanie Felicite du Cres de Saint-Aubin, Countess (1746–1830) - French writer, author of books for children written for the children of the Duke of Orleans (she was a teacher, including the future king Louis-Philippe) and pedagogical works in which developed the ideas of Rousseau (“Educational Theatre”, 1780; “Adele and Theodore”, 1782; etc.). She taught Napoleon “good manners,” and during the Restoration she wrote sentimental novels (“Duchess de La Vallière,” 1804; “Madame de Maintenon,” 1806; etc.), which were immediately translated in Russia, where Genlis’s work was very popular. No less famous in Pushkin’s time were her “Critical and Systematic Dictionary of Court Etiquette” (1818) and “Unpublished Memoirs of XVIII century and about the French Revolution from 1756 to the present day" (1825). In Pushkin, her name appears for the first time in the poem “To My Sister” (1814): “Are you reading Jean-Jacques, // Is Zhanlisa in front of you?” Subsequently, Pushkin repeatedly mentions Zhanlis ( I, 343; II, 193; VIII, 565; and etc.).
Arnault ) Antoine Vincent (1766 - 1834) - French playwright, poet and fabulist, member of the French Academy (1829, permanent secretary from 1833). In 1816, for his commitment to the revolution and Napoleon, he was expelled from France, returned to his homeland in 1819. Author of tragedies (“Marius at Minturn,” 1791; “Lucretia,” 1792; “Blanche and Moncassin, or the Venetians,” 1798; and etc.), who developed the ideas of the French Revolution and Napoleonism. He became famous for the elegy “Leaf” (1815), translated into all European languages (in Russia - translations by V. A. Zhukovsky, V. L. Pushkin, D. V. Davydov, etc.). Pushkin wrote in the article “French Academy”: “The fate of this little poem is remarkable. Before his death, Kosciuszko repeated it on the shores of Lake Geneva; Alexander Ispilanti translated it into Greek...” Arno, having learned about the translation of “The Leaf” made by D.V. Davydov, wrote a quatrain, the beginning of which Pushkin used in a message to Davydov (“To you, the singer, to you, the hero!”, 1836). Pushkin translated Arno's poem "Solitude" (1819). In this article, dedicated to Scribe’s replacement of the academic chair after Arno’s death, Pushkin sums up his attitude towards the poet: “Arno composed several tragedies, which at one time were a great success, but are now completely forgotten. (...) Two or three fables, witty and graceful, give the deceased more right to the title of poet than all his dramatic creations.”
Béranger ) Pierre Jean (1780–1857) - French poet, an outstanding representative of the song and poetic genre, which he equated with the “high” genres of poetry. Pushkin (as opposed to Vyazemsky, Batyushkov, Belinsky) did not highly value Beranger. In 1818, Vyazemsky asked Pushkin to translate two songs by Beranger, but he did not respond to this request. He undoubtedly knew the freedom-loving, satirical poems of Beranger, in particular, the song “Good God” (mentioned in a letter to Vyazemsky in July 1825). Giving an ironic portrait of Count Nulin, Pushkin laughs at secular people coming to Russia from abroad “With a supply of tailcoats and vests, // With bons-mots French court, // With Bérenger’s last song.” Pushkin’s poem “My Genealogy” (1830) was inspired not only by Byron, but also by Beranger’s song “The Commoner,” from which Pushkin took the epigraph to the poem. Pushkin also has sharply negative reviews of Beranger. An article about Hugo (1832) begun by Pushkin says about the French: “Their first lyrical poet is now revered as the obnoxious Beranger, a composer of strained and mannered songs that have nothing passionate or inspired, and in gaiety and wit are far behind the charming pranks of Kolet” ( VII , 264). At the end of his life, Pushkin valued the song “King Iveto” more than other works by Beranger, but not for its freedom-loving motives. In the article “French Academy” (1836) it was noted: “... I confess, it would hardly have occurred to anyone that this song was a satire on Napoleon. It's very sweet (and almost the best of all the songs of the vaunted Béranger ), but, of course, there is no shadow of opposition in it.” Nevertheless, Pushkin encouraged the young D. Lensky to continue translating Beranger, which indicates the ambiguity of his assessment of the French songwriter.
Fourier ) François Marie Charles (1772–1837) - French utopian socialist, in his “Treatise on the Household and Agricultural Association” (vols. 1–2, 1822, in the posthumous edition the name “The Theory of World Unity”) outlined a detailed plan for organizing the society of the future. Pushkin was familiar with Fourier's ideas.
Vidocq ) François Eugene (1775–1857) - French adventurer, first a criminal, then (from 1809) a policeman, who rose to the post of chief of the Parisian secret police. In 1828, Vidocq's Memoirs (obviously a hoax) were published. Pushkin published a review of them, full of sarcasm (“Vidocq is ambitious! He becomes furious when reading unfavorable reviews from journalists about his style (...), accuses them of immorality and freethinking...” - XI , 129). Pushkin scholars rightly believe that this is a portrait of Bulgarin, whom Pushkin shortly before in an epigram called “Vidocq-Baggarin”.
Lamennais ) Felicite Robert de (1782–1854) - French writer and philosopher, abbot, one of the founders of Christian socialism. Starting with a critique of the French Revolution and materialism XVIII century, the establishment of the idea of a Christian monarchy, in the late 1820s he switched to the position of liberalism. In “Words of a Believer” (1834), he announced a break with the official church. Pushkin repeatedly mentions Lamennais, including in connection with Chaadaev (“Chedaev and the Brothers” - XIV, 205).
Scribe ) Augustin-Eugene (1791–1861) - French playwright, member of the French Academy (1834), became famous as a master of “a well-made play”, wrote over 350 plays (vaudeville, melodrama, historical plays, opera librettos), among them “Charlatanism” (1825), “A Reasonable Marriage” (1826), “The Lisbon Luter” (1831), “Partnership, or the Ladder of Glory” (1837), “A Glass of Water, or Cause and Effect” (1840), “Adrienne Lecouvreur” (1849 ), libretto of Meyerbeer’s operas “Robert the Devil” (1831), “The Huguenots” (1836), etc. Pushkin in a letter to M.P. Pogodin dated July 11, 1832, has the expression “we, the cold northern spectators of Scribe’s vaudevilles” , from which follows his not very flattering assessment of Scribe’s dramaturgy. The censorship ban on the performance of Scribe's historical comedy "Bertrand and Raton" in St. Petersburg was noted by Pushkin in his diary (entry in February 1835). In the article “The French Academy” (1836), Pushkin cites almost completely (with the exception of the ending, which he gave in a retelling) Scribe’s speech upon joining the Academy on January 28, 1836 and Vilmain’s response speech with detailed description Scribe's contribution to French culture. Pushkin calls the speech “brilliant”, Scribe - “that Janin in his feuilleton ridiculed both Scribe and Villemain: “In this witty speaker,” but slyly mentions the fact that all three representatives of French wit were on stage.”
Mérimé P Rosper (1803–1870) - French writer, entered literature as a representative of the romantic movement (“Theater of Clara Gasul”, 1825; “Gyuzla”, 1827; drama “Jacquerie”, 1828, novel “Chronicle of the Reign of Charles IX", 1829 ), became famous as a writer-psychologist, one of the creators of realistic short stories (the collection “Mosaic”, 1833; short stories “Double Fault”, 1833; “Colomba”, 1840; “Arsena Guillot”, 1844; “Carmen”, 1845; etc. .). Member of the French Academy (1844). Pushkin told his friends: “I would like to talk with Merimee” (according to “Notes” by A. ABOUT. Smirnova, possibly unreliable). Through S. A. Sobolevsky, a friend of Merimee, Pushkin became acquainted with the collection “Gyuzla”. In “Songs of the Western Slavs” Pushkin included 11 translations from “Gyuzly”, including the poem “Horse” - the most famous of them. These are fairly free translations. INin the preface to the publication of the cycle (1835), Pushkin mentionshoaxes of Mérimée, who appeared in Güzl as an unknown collector and publisher of South Slavic folklore: “This unknown collector was none other than Mérimée, a sharp and original writer, author of the Clara Gazul Theater, Chronicles of the Times of Charles IX , Double Fault and other works extremely remarkable in the deep and pitiful decline of the present French literature." Mérimée introduced French readers to Pushkin’s work, and he translated “ Queen of Spades", "Shot", "Gypsies", "Hussar", "Budrys and his sons", "Anchar", "Prophet", "Oprichnik", fragments from "Eugene Onegin" and "Boris Godunov". In the article “Literature and slavery in Russia. Notes of the Russian hunter Iv. Turgenev" (1854) Mérimée wrote: "Only in Pushkin do I find this true breadth and simplicity, amazing precision of taste, which allows me to find among thousands of details exactly the one that can amaze the reader. At the beginning of the poem “Gypsies,” five or six lines are enough for him to show us a gypsy camp and a group lit by a fire with a tamed bear. Every word of this brief description illuminates an idea and leaves a lasting impression.” Mérimée dedicated a long article to the poet, “Alexander Pushkin” (1868), in which he places Pushkin above all European writers.
Karr ) Alphonse Jean (1808–1890) - French writer, publicist, published in 1839–1849. magazine "Wasps" (" Les Guê pes "), which was very popular in Russia. In 1832 he published the novel “Under the Linden Trees” (“ Sous les tilleurs "). In the same year, Pushkin, in a letter to E.M. Khitrovo, exclaimed (letter in French): “Aren’t you ashamed to speak so disparagingly about Carre. You can feel his talent in his novel ( son roman a du g é nie ), and it's worth the pretentiousness ( marivaudage ) your Balzac."
It is quite obvious that the Russian “universality”, so noticeable already in Pushkin (where we demonstrated it with just a few examples of the poet’s relationship with European literature), is strikingly different from the seemingly similar approach presented in the so-called “professorial literature” - a peculiar phenomenon of the literary life of the West. Let us explain this still rarely used term. Since the writer's fee is unstable, many writers create their works in their spare time, working, as a rule, as teachers at universities and engaging in scientific activities (usually in the field of philology, philosophy, psychology, history). Such is the fate of Murdoch and Merle, Golding and Tolkien, Eco and Ackroyd, and many other famous writers. The teaching profession leaves an indelible imprint on their work; their works reveal broad erudition and knowledge of the schemes for constructing literary works. They constantly resort to open and hidden quotation of classics, demonstrate linguistic knowledge, and fill their works with reminiscences designed for equally educated readers. A huge array of literary and cultural knowledge has pushed aside the direct perception of the surrounding life in “professorial literature”. Even fantasy acquired a literary sound, which was most clearly manifested by the creator of fantasy, Tolkien, and then by his followers.
Pushkin, on the contrary, is not at all a professional philologist, as later L.N. Tolstoy and F.M. Dostoevsky, A.P. Chekhov and A.M. Gorky, V.V. Mayakovsky and M.A. Sholokhov, I.A. . Bunin and M. A. Bulgakov, many other outstanding representatives of Russian “universality”. Their dialogue with world literature (and above all with European literature) is determined not by the level of intertextuality, but by the level (let us allow ourselves a neologism) of interconceptuality and psychological and intellectual responsiveness to someone else’s feelings and thoughts, perceived in the process of their “Russification” (in other words: integration into Russian cultural thesaurus) already as “ours”.