A striking epigraph to the entire work of Nikolai Semenovich Leskov is his own words: “Literature should seek the highest, not the lowest, and the goals of the Gospel for it should always be more valuable than the goals of the Charter on Prevention. We are given a clear instruction: “A voice cries, Make straight the paths wherein salvation cometh.” Salvation is common to all “in love, in forgiveness of insults, in mercy to everyone - to one’s own and to the Samaritan,” and the goal and joy is that with a general softening of hearts, “swords will be reforged into plowshares, and the peace of God will be established in hearts.” all people".
Writers and thinkers of the Russian diaspora of the first wave of emigration (I. Ilyin, B. Zaitsev, P. Struve) rightly called Leskov “ greatest Christian among Russian writers". “I.A. Ilyin, who called Leskov a “profound artist and philosopher,” believed that Russian literature - “in an expanded sense” - “can be called ... moral theology.” And this is moral theology, in other words Christian teaching about morality is the spiritual core of Nikolai Semenovich’s works. It is the basis of his creativity. Modern Explorer Orthodox foundations Russian literature M.M. Dunaev expresses a similar point of view: “We can directly say that in our higher manifestations Russian literature was no longer simply the art of words, but theology in images.” “The coming revival of Russia was never questioned by Leskov, who managed in his works not only to show the national characters of the “righteous heroes”, to create his own artistic “iconostasis” of the saints of the Russian land, but also to recreate the very spirit of the nation.”
It is impossible to understand Leskov’s artistic world outside the religious context, religious and moral thoughts, aspirations and achievements of the artist in the same way as to comprehend the true originality Russian literature. The spiritual charm of the majority goodies Leskov is that they are tightly connected with the Orthodox worldview, which was then at the same time predominantly Russian. History testifies that the Russian people not only accepted Orthodoxy, but it was through it that they gained and established their national identity. Without this truth, it is impossible to understand either Leskov’s heroes, or their selfless love for people and Russia, or the pathos of his work.
The writer created his works about the “righteous” in the post-reform era, when people were partly “lost” in the new social circumstances that had developed. How F.M. Dostoevsky and L.N. Tolstoy, Leskov tries to protect human values which gradually begin to collapse.
His works reveal to us many characters, innumerable shades of movements of the Russian soul. He, like no one else, realized that the deep essence of this soul, its root, was the Christian faith. And no matter how our holy Rus' was trampled, no matter how the formidable enemies of God took up arms against it, they could not break it, break this Christian faith. For Leskov himself, this faith instilled love for man, even the most fallen one. All his works are inspired by this love. With love and faith, he penetrated the hearts of the people and reflected it in his creations. All of Leskov’s work is imbued with the spirit of Christian love and compassion for man as the image of God, albeit sometimes very clouded. This faith, love and compassion determined the character of his writings. He saw what others do not see, but which is life itself. After all, the inner life inner work, the state of the soul is the area in which God Himself deigns to reveal Himself, to choose as an abode.
The author affirmed, propagated, justified, defended life according to the word of Christ, defended from the storms of time, from various false and contrary to the human spirit teachings. The Orthodox faith, the Christian faith is revealed in his works in all its strength, truth, authenticity and beauty. How closely she intertwined with the Russian soul, how closely she entered her life. The author reveals it in his heroes, the author shows it in their destinies, and lives their souls with it.
Christianity in Rus', in turn, was closely intertwined with ancient pagan culture, which even today influences the formation of people’s mentality. Without taking into account the factor of Orthodox-pagan syncretism, it is impossible to understand either Orthodoxy, which is different from the Byzantine prototype, or achievements in various fields national culture with its characteristic features of explicit and implicit dual faith, and, finally, the origins of those internal spiritual traits and qualities that distinguish the Russian person. Where, for example, does he get the “breadth of soul” known throughout the world?
ON THE. Berdyaev wrote that there is a correspondence between the immensity of the Russian land and the Russian soul: “In the soul of the Russian people there is the same immensity, boundlessness, aspiration to infinity, as in the Russian plain.” This unwritten law of “correspondence between earth and soul” operates with amazing constancy at all times of Russian history and carries within itself the light of the search for Truth, Goodness and Beauty. All this received the most complete and perfect embodiment in the amazing language created by the Russian people, inimitable folklore, and most importantly in art - great Russian literature, music, painting, architecture.
Russian spirituality has shaped Russian culture for centuries, which, in turn, shapes current spirituality. A huge layer of Russian culture and spirituality is connected with Orthodoxy. Creativity of Slavophiles I.V. Kireevsky (1806-1856) and A.S. Khomyakov (1804-1860) was an attempt to develop a system of Christian worldview. They came to the idea that Russian education should be based on the perception of “integral knowledge,” combining reason and faith, and true philosophy should be the philosophy of “believing reason.” The ideas of Buddhism and esoteric philosophy had a significant influence on the spiritual world of Russians. There is also the influence of Muslim culture.
What are the characteristic features of Russian spirituality? Ideas about spirituality as the highest expediency were manifested in the reflections of Russian thinkers about the fate and destiny of Russia, and in the belief in the special mission of Russia: “Moscow is the third Rome”, “the worldwide responsiveness of the Russian person”, spiritual, mental and everyday originality.
One can agree with P.E. Astafiev, who wrote: “If there is not and cannot be a Russian national philosophy, then there is not and cannot be a Russian national identity, for philosophy, in contrast to the knowledge of objects, is precisely the self-consciousness of the whole spirit.”
“Religious and moral thoughts of “the most original Russian writer” - especially in the final period of his creative biography- are not just a testament, but a message, a testament to modern consciousness. About this gift of messenger from Leskov, which allows him to convey in the images of art the highest truth, wrote Daniil Andreev soulfully. In relation to Leskov, he also pointed out the bitter biblical truth that “there is no prophet in his own country”: “Talented messengers, like Leskov or Alexei Konstantinovich Tolstoy, remained isolated units; they, so to speak, rowed against the tide, without meeting among their contemporaries either proper understanding or fair assessment.”
Modern philologist V.I. Kuleshov writes: “A return to religion, to spiritual and moral principles is perhaps one of the most striking features of the modern worldview. This is especially relevant for the entire spiritual situation in Russia today, which is on the path to self-restoration. The elimination of many ideological restrictions stimulated scientific research in the field of studying ethical, philosophical and religious foundations historical and literary process. Now that our literary criticism is freeing itself from atheistic cliches and the pressure of all kinds of ideological dogmas, the task of reading Russian classics in line with the cross-cutting problem of the interaction of literature and Christianity is not only of undoubted interest, but is becoming urgently relevant. Awareness of the “Christian (namely Orthodox) subtext of Russian literature as a special subject of study” becomes one of the most important tasks of literary criticism.”
Spiritual culture is a set of spiritual values, as well as the process of their creation, distribution and consumption. Spiritual values are designed to satisfy the spiritual needs of a person, i.e. everything that contributes to its development spiritual world(the world of his consciousness). And if material values, with rare exceptions, are fleeting - houses, machines, mechanisms, clothing, vehicles, etc., etc., then spiritual values can be eternal as long as humanity exists. Let's say, the philosophical judgments of the ancient Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle are almost two and a half thousand years old, but they are still the same reality as at the time of their expression - just borrow their works from the library or get information via the Internet.
Speaking about spiritual culture, we should note its diversity. Spiritual values include philosophy, science, religion, morality, and art. Philosophy is essentially the basis of spiritual culture. It contributes to the formation in each person of a certain view of the world and of his place in this world, what is usually called a worldview. It gives a person the opportunity to think about the meaning of his life, thereby allowing him to carry out a kind of general orientation in the reality around us.
Other spheres of spiritual culture are moral, aesthetic and artistic. The very concept of “morality” comes from the word “character”, which means the mental and volitional qualities of a person. The main purpose of moral culture is to regulate human relations.
In Leskov, even the description of nature carries a moral and philosophical charge. Moreover, all this is written in magnificent artistic language. That is why Russian literature was the pinnacle of our spirituality, that is why the works of Russian classical writers not only had a huge influence on the development of Russian culture, but also left a deep mark on the spiritual development of mankind.
480 rub. | 150 UAH | $7.5 ", MOUSEOFF, FGCOLOR, "#FFFFCC",BGCOLOR, "#393939");" onMouseOut="return nd();"> Dissertation - 480 RUR, delivery 10 minutes, around the clock, seven days a week and holidays
Zenkevich Svetlana Igorevna. The genre of the Christmas story in the works of N. S. Leskov: Dis. ...cand. Philol. Sciences: 10.01.01: St. Petersburg, 2005 224 p. RSL OD, 61:05-10/958
Introduction
Chapter 1. “Yuletide” theme in Leskov’s early works (1860s - early 1870s) 21
1. “The Life of a Woman” 22
2. “Nowhere” 29
3. "Islanders" 35
4. “At Knives” 47
5. “Soborians” 53
Chapter 2. The man in Leskov's Christmas story 58
1. Man and the world in Leskov’s Christmas story 60
2. “The Righteous Man” in Leskov’s Christmas story 87
3. Cross-cutting images in Leskov’s Christmas stories (“The Beast” and “Hidden Heat”) 102
Chapter 3. A Christmas story in the light of Leskov’s literary contacts with contemporary writers 123
1. Christmas story by N. S. Leskov and F. M. Dostoevsky: “Christ visiting a peasant” and “The boy at Christ’s Christmas tree” 126
2. The problem of the Christmas story in the dialogue between N. S. Leskov and A. S. Suvorin 144
3. A Christmas story in the context of the creative dialogue between N. S. Leskov and L. N. Tolstoy 169
Conclusion 194
Literature 198
Appendix 212
Publications by S. I. Zenkevich on the topic of the dissertation 224
Introduction to the work
The creative legacy of Nikolai Semenovich Leskov (1831-1895), who worked during the period of revaluation and rethinking of conventional forms in Russian realistic literature - turning them “into a system of mobile, changeable, constantly developing and updating types and genres” 1 , - rich and varied. The writer contributed to the development of the novel, was one of the discoverers of the chronicle and the “prologue” legend, tried his hand at drama and the lyric-epic genre (arabesque), created a large number of diverse stories, while remaining a brilliant publicist all his life. Emphasizing the unique appearance of his works, Leskov, as is known, often provided them with original subtitles 2.
Among the diversity and diversity of small epic forms in the writer’s creative heritage, a special place belongs to the Yule/Christmas story.
The total number of Leskov's Christmas stories is, according to our data, twenty-five works. Leskov discovered interest in the “Yuletide” theme back in the early 1860s, systematically introducing episodes dedicated to Christmas and Yuletide into his early novels and stories. The first work with the subtitle “A Christmas Story” - “The Sealed Angel” - appeared in 1873, the last yuletide story“Idle Dancers” was created two years before his death, in 1893. In December 1885, Leskov combined twelve stories into a special Christmas collection.
The Christmas story has more than once become an object of theoretical reflection for the writer. Leskov’s thoughts were reflected in articles and letters, as well as directly
1 Friedlander G. M. Poetics of Russian realism: Essays on Russian literature of the 19th century. L.,
1971. From 166.
2 Numerous and varied subtitles of Leskov’s works were brought together by D.S.
Likhachev. Cm.: Likhachev D. S. Peculiarities of the poetics of N. S. Leskov’s works // Leskov and
Russian literature. M., 1988. pp. 13-14.
3 V chronological sequence these stories are presented in the Appendix at the end
specifically in the text of many works of art (this fact has made it possible for modern researchers to see in Leskov the first theorist of the Christmas story 5). So, for example, in a letter to I.S. Aksakov dated December 9, 1881, Leskov indicates that he created “an ordinary Christmas story.” The story “The Darner,” revised for the Christmas collection, begins like this: “This is a stupid wish to promise everyone new happiness in the new year, but sometimes something like that comes. Let me tell you a small event on this topic that has a very festive character.” The genre canon is discussed in the first paragraph of the unfinished Christmas story “Malanya’s Wedding”: “I will tell you, honorable readers, a small story that follows all the rules of a Christmas story: it has a very sad beginning, a rather confusing intrigue and a completely unexpected, cheerful ending.” 8 . Leskov defines the plot of the story “An Ear Without a Fish” (1886) in a few words as “a simple matter of a Christmas pattern, with virtue” 9 .
According to Leskov, a Christmas story “is a type of literature in which the writer feels like a slave of a form that is too tight and properly limited.<...>the author is forced to invent himself and compose a plot suitable to the program” 10. Therefore, the writer is required to show “such an event”
In general, Leskov left a whole series of theoretical reflections on his works. Widely known, for example, is the description of the chronicle form of the novel from the first chapter of the 1874 story “Childhood. (From the memoirs of Merkul Forefathers)”: “I will not truncate some and inflate the significance of other events: I am not forced to do this by the artificial and unnatural form of the novel, which requires rounding out the plot and concentrating everything around the main center. This doesn't happen in life. Life man is walking like a charter developing from a rolling pin, and I will simply develop it like a ribbon in the notes I offer.” (LeskovN.S. Collection cit.: In 11 volumes. M, 1956. T. V. P. 279).
Cm.: Dushechkina E. V. Russian Christmas story: The formation of a genre. St. Petersburg, 1995. P. 181; Kretova A. A.“Be perfect...” (religious and moral quest in the Yuletide works of N. S. Leskov and his contemporaries). M.; Orel, 1999. P. 162.
6 Leskov N. S. Collection cit.: In 11 volumes. M, 1956. T. XI. P. 256.
7 LeskovN. WITH. Collection Op.: In 11 volumes. T. VII. P. 93.
8 Literary heritage. T. 101: Unpublished Leskov. Book 1. M., 1997. P. 466.
9 Nov. 1886. T. VIII. No. 7. P. 352.
10 Leskov N. S. Collection Op.: In 11 volumes. T. VII. P. 433.
This is from the modern life of Russian society, where both the century and the modern person would be reflected, and yet all this would correspond to the form and program of the Christmas story." Sometimes Leskov complained about the inertia of the form: "The form of the Christmas story has become very worn out.<...>I can’t write in this form at all anymore.” As follows from these brief statements, the writer had a very clear idea of what kind of cutting the material required, highlighted the formal and substantive side of the Christmas story - in other words, he saw in it a genre (in modern sense this term 13).
Thus, the Yuletide story can with good reason be considered one of the genre dominants of Leskov’s work. While creating texts, the writer constantly thought about the tasks of the Christmas story, that is, creative practice went hand in hand with theory. This genre, apparently, fully corresponded to the ethical and aesthetic guidelines of the writer and was well understood by him. Therefore, it seems quite legitimate and relevant to consider one of Leskov’s leading genres in the projection of the writer’s work as a whole. We will be interested in how the Yuletide story originated and developed under Leskov’s pen, how the principles of plot composition and storytelling techniques developed by the writer were refracted in it.
The Yuletide story as a genre of Russian literature has now been fairly well studied 14 . In the works of E. V. Dushechkina, N. N. Starygina, Kh. Baran, O. N. Kalenichenko, the origin and evolution of the Christmas story are traced 15. The contribution of individual writers (primarily
12 Leskov N. S. Collection Op.: In 11 volumes. T. XI. P. 406.
13 According to D. S. Likhachev, “by “genre” Leskov means genre paintings” (Likha
Chev D.S. Peculiarities of the poetics of N. S. Leskov’s works. P. 15).
14 We have included research into the Christmas story in a separate section of the list of references.
15 See: Dushechkina E. V. Russian Christmas story: The formation of a genre. St. Petersburg, 1995; Old
Gina N. N. Yuletide story as a genre // Problems of historical poetics. Vol. 2: Bad
natural and scientific categories. Sat. scientific works Petrozavodsk, 1992. pp. 113-127; Ram X.
Pre-revolutionary festive literature and Russian modernism // Baran X. Poetics of Russian
Leskova and Chekhov) in the development of this genre. In the work of M. A. Kucherskaya, the question of the genre canon of the Christmas story is raised 17. N.V. Samsonova made an attempt to typologically identify the constants of the so-called “birth is virgin text".
Leskov's Christmas stories were studied in relation to the genre tradition (E.V. Dushechkina) and in comparison with other cycles of the writer (N.N. Starygina, P.G. Zhirunov). The sources of Leskov’s religious and ethical quest as the author of Christmas stories are identified, the writer’s works are read in the context of patristic literature (A. A. Kretova). At the same time, the question of the place of the Yuletide story genre in the context of Leskov’s work, in our opinion, still remains open.
The problem of genre in Leskov’s work: history of study
Let us consider in general terms the history of the study of Leskov genres, which dates back more than one decade. Active interest in the genre nature of the writer’s work was largely manifested in the studies of I. P. Vidu-etskaya and I. V. Stolyarova. I. P. Viduetskaya directly posed the problem of the uniqueness of Leskov’s short story genre, which represents “great historical, literary and theoretical interest” 19, and - in accordance with the development of the writer -
Russian literature of the early 20th century. M., 1993. S. 284-328; Kalenichenko O. N. The fate of small genres in Russian literature of the late 19th - early 20th centuries (Yuletide and Easter stories, modernist short story). Monograph. Volgograd, 2000, etc.
16 In addition to the already mentioned works of E. V. Dushechkina and A. A. Kretova, see also: Tol
stoluboe P.N. Christmas stories in Chekhov's works // Study of the poetics of realism:
Interuniversity. Sat. scientific works Vologda, 1990. P. 48-59; Sobennikov A. S.“Between “there is God” and
“there is no God”: (about religious and philosophical traditions in the works of A.P. Chekhov). Irkutsk,
1997. Chapters V, VI; Kapustin N.V.“Someone else’s word” in the prose of A. P. Chekhov: Genre transformations
mation. Ivanovo, 2003. Chapter II, etc.
17 See: Kucherskaya M A. Russian Christmas story and the problem of the canon in modern literature
time. Author's abstract. dis. ...cand. Philol. Sci. M., 1997.
18 Samsonova N.V. The Christmas text and its artistic anthropology in Russian literature
literature of the 19th - first third of the 20th centuries. Author's abstract. dis. ...cand. Philol. Sci. Voronezh, 1998.
19 Viduetskaya Ts. P. The genre of the story in the works of N. S. Leskov // Scientific. report high school:
Philol. Sciences. 1961. No. 2 (14). P. 92.
lem of small epic form - offered a convincing periodization of his work.
If I. P. Viduetskaya’s attention was focused on Leskov’s stories, then I. V. Stolyarova, in the chapter of the academic “History of the Russian Novel” dedicated to Leskov, examined the writer’s work from the perspective of a large form. As traced in detail in this work, Leskov, having suffered relative failure in creating the so-called “social novel,” abandoned topical topics. He turned to history, while developing the original genre form of the chronicle novel.
I. P. Viduetskaya and I. V. Stolyarova discovered Leskov’s originality in his approach to traditional genres and noted his characteristic tendency to develop new genre forms. The writer's legacy was covered sub spe-ciae by the novel, on the one hand, and the short story, on the other. Researchers have identified a connection between the genre composition of Leskov’s work and the writer’s worldview, with the fundamental principles of his literary activity.
Leskov's interested and free attitude to the problem of genre and the writer's development of new genre modifications were noted and revealed by the Czech researcher V. Kostrzyca 21 .
Following the “general” works, conceptual “particular” studies were published: they examine the individual genres that Leskov addressed and clarify their significance in the writer’s work. N. L. Sukhachev and V. A. Tunimanov showed the polysemy of Leskov’s legend. This is both a genre (that is, first of all, the so-called “setting” legends), and at the same time “the process of forming mythical images.” The word “development” in the title of the cited work conveys the dynamism of self-
20 Stolyarova I. V. Leskov's chronicle novel // History of the Russian novel: In 2 volumes. T. II. M; L.,
1964. pp. 416-438.
21 Kostrshitsa, Vladimir. On the genre originality of N. S. Leskov’s prose // Philological
Sciences. 1974. No. 2. P. 70-75.
22 Sukhachev N. L., Tunimanov V. A. Development of the legend by Leskov // Myth. - Folklore. - Litera
tour. L., 1978. P. 115.
th process of myth-making, which Leskov sensitively recorded when he developed the genre of legend.
The works of A. V. Luzhanovsky are devoted to the study of the genre uniqueness of Leskov’s prose. The researcher made an attempt to formulate genre features of the story that are characteristic specifically of Leskov’s work. “Documentary storytelling” 23 was identified as the main feature. Also, A.V. Luzhanovsky more than once drew attention to the importance of the author’s genre definition of “story.”
The study of Leskov genres intensified at the turn of the millennium. New parameters are proposed to identify previously unidentified genre forms (for example, T.V. Alekseeva identifies a conventional genre form that prevailed in Leskov’s work in the 1870s - “a story for persuasion” 24). Fair opinions are expressed about the insufficient differentiation of Leskov’s artistic and journalistic genres, about the constant diffusion of motives, themes and images used by the writer. The genres presented in Leskov’s work are also examined from the perspective of their origins (for example, in the work of O. B. Khabarova, individual letters of Leskov are originally elevated to the petition genre 26; the ancient Russian roots of some Leskov genre forms are revealed by E. V. Yakhnenko). Attempts are being made again to identify patterns in the construction and evolution of the writer's stories 28 . Creative
23 Luzhanovsky A.V. Documentary narration is a genre feature of N.S.’s stories.
Leskova//Russian literature. 1980. No. 4. pp. 144-150.
24 Alekseeva T.V.“A story for persuasion” and the literary position of N. S. Leskov in the 1870s
Dov // Problems of literary genres. Materials of the VII scientific interuniversity conference
May 4-7, 1992 Tomsk, 1992. P. 79-81.
25 See, for example: Yandiev Sh. D. Problematics and poetics of N. S. Leskov’s works of the 1880s
years. Author's abstract. dis. ...cand. Philol. Sci. M., 1991; Leonova B. A. Genre of memoir essay
in the works of N. S. Leskov of the 1880s. Author's abstract. dis. ...cand. Philol. Sci. Orel, 2003.
26 Khabarova O. B. The genre of petition in the epistolary heritage of N. S. Leskova // Vestn. Mosk.
un-ta. Ser. 9. Philology. 1997. No. 4. P. 138-141.
Yakhnenko E. V. Genre traditions of ancient Russian literature in the works of N. S. Leskov. Author's abstract. dis. ...cand. Philol. Sci. M., 2002.
28 See, for example: Zhirunov 77. G. The genre of the story in the works of N. S. Leskov of the 80-90s of the 19th century (problems of poetics). Author's abstract. dis. ...cand. Philol. Sci. Volgograd, 2004.
Leskov's quest in the field of small genre forms in general 29. Finally, genres are interpreted from the point of view of the foundations of Leskov’s worldview 30 .
Researchers, regardless of specific local material, strive to show the originality of Leskov’s approach to a particular genre and, at the same time, adherence to tradition, to connect the writer’s development a separate genre with the fundamental principles of his work.
Purpose and objectives of the study
The general goal of the research undertaken is to determine the place and significance of the Christmas story in Leskov’s creative heritage. To achieve this goal, the following tasks are expected to be solved:
to follow the development of the “Yuletide” theme in Leskov’s early work;
identify the main types of heroes in Leskov’s Christmas stories;
identify the most characteristic plot scheme in Leskov’s Christmas stories;
characterize Leskov’s theoretical understanding of the genre;
consider the creative relationship of Leskov as the author of Christmas stories with some contemporary writers who also turned to this genre.
Research methodology
The solution to the problems posed in the proposed study is an integrated approach to the material, combining historical-literary, typological and structural-semantic methods. Methodological heterogeneity
29 ShmelevaYu. IN. Poetics of small genres by N. S. Leskova (1880-1890s). Author's abstract. dis. ...
Ph.D. Philol. Sci. Ivanovo, 2001.
30 See, for example: Ugdyzhekova O. V. Ethical and philosophical foundations of genre searches N. S.
Leskov 1870s. Author's abstract. dis. ...cand. Philol. Sci. Tomsk, 1998; DolitnaI. IN. N.S.
This particularity is explained by the specificity of the material and objectives of the study, which presupposes, on the one hand, the reconstruction of the historical and literary context from a certain angle creative activity Leskova, on the other hand, is the analysis of individual works and the correlation with each other of texts created within the same genre tradition, clarification of their commonality (in abstraction from specific historical conditions).
Research material
The material for this study is the texts that Leskov created in line with the “Yuletide” tradition and, one way or another, outlined his genre decision. The main criterion for selecting works is the “indication” that the text belongs to the “Yuletide” genre, given by Leskov himself.
The body of these works is, in principle, heterogeneous: some stories were immediately created as Christmas stories, others were, in the words of the writer himself, “adapted” to Christmas as a result of later processing, most often formal (in connection with their inclusion in the collection of 1886). . Some stories, on the contrary, have ceased to be Christmas stories, since the author has taken them beyond the boundaries of the genre.
Among Leskov’s Yuletide stories, the following groups can be distinguished: 1) Stories that Leskov, at the first publication (December 25), provided with the genre subtitle “Yuletide story” or “Christmas story” (“Sealed Angel”, “At the End of the World”, “White Eagle” , “Christ visiting a peasant”, “The Beast”, “Pearl Necklace”, “Robbery”, “Idle Dancers”). (This also includes the unfinished Christmas story “Malanya’s Wedding.”)
Leskov in the 1870s: Type of artistic thinking and the dynamics of genres. Author's abstract. dis. ...cand. Philol. Sci. Ivanovo, 2001.
31 In a letter to V. A. Goltsev dated November 14, 1888, proposing the story “The Ascalonian Villain” to the magazine “Russian Thought”, Leskov notes: “adapted to the Nativity of Christ” [Leskov N. With Collection cit.: V I t. M., 1956. T. XI. P. 399).
Stories whose “Christmas” nature is made clear in the title (“Christmas Evening at a Hypochondriac’s,” “Christmas Night in a Carriage (Travel with a Nihilist),” “Offended at Christmas”) (all of them were also published on December 25).
Stories that were not initially classified by the author as belonging to the genre of interest to us and were subsequently revised - mainly in connection with the compilation of Leskov’s 1886 collection “Christmas Stories” (“The Spirit of Mrs. Zhanlis”, “A Little Mistake”, “ Old genius", "Jewish somersault board", "Deception", "Selected grain"). This also partly includes the story “At the End of the World,” which we already mentioned above (the early “non-holytide” edition of “Darkness” is known). The story “Ghost in the Engineering Castle” underwent minimal genre editing.
Stories that Leskov initially considered as Yuletide, and then abandoned such a genre decision (these are “Christmas Evening at a Hypochondriac”, later turned into “Chertogon”, and “Alexandrite”, included in the collection “Stories by the Way”, and not in “Yuletide”) stories"). This may also include the story “White Eagle”, already mentioned in the first group, which was first published as a Christmas story, and later began to be reprinted with a different subtitle - “fantastic story”.
The author of this study also addresses: Leskov’s novels and stories, which include “Yuletide” fragments (“The Life of a Woman,” “Nowhere,” “Islanders,” “On Knives,” “Cathedral People”); to the writer’s journalism (to those articles of his in which he reflects on the genre of the Christmas story); to works of other genres; as well as to letters which, allowing
trace the creative history of his stories, reflect the writer’s creative attitude to the genre, his sense of the genre’s mobility.
At the same time, it is necessary to make a reservation that not all of Leskov’s Christmas stories are examined in equal detail in the work. Less attention has been paid to humorous stories of the 1880s. We sought, first of all, to identify general patterns in the writer’s comprehension of the genre.
Thus, the object of the research undertaken is Leskov’s work as a whole, the subject is the writer’s reflections on the genre of the Christmas story and his works created in line with this genre tradition.
Key concepts of the study
Let us describe in general terms the key concepts of the proposed research - genre And Christmas story.
Under genre In this study, we understand the meaningful artistic form, the historically established system of ways of organizing a work 32. The concept of a literary genre, first of all, implies “a known typical commonality of the artistic structure of a group of works.”33 A writer who thinks in genres, when creating a work, one way or another, projects it onto a certain set of texts of the same genre: “The specific content can be inexhaustibly diverse But the design itself contains the experience of all previous creativity" 34. At the same time, "the common substantive basis of works of the same genre, most diverse in ideological orientation, is that they consider reality in the light of the same formula of the world, focusing on the same things.
32 About genre as a historical category and about historically changing principles of selection
genres see: Likhachev D. S. Poetics of Old Russian Literature. L., 1967. S. 40-41; Averintsev
S.S. Historical mobility of the genre category: Experience of periodization // Historical poetry
tika: Results and prospects of study. M., 1986. pp. 104-116.
33 Stepnik Yu. V. Systems of genres in the historical and literary process // Historical literature
Tour process: Problems and methods of study. L., 1974. P. 168.
3 * Gachev G. D., Kozhinov V. V. Content literary forms// Theory of literature: Main problems in historical coverage. Types and genres of literature. M., 1964. P. 25.
fundamental relationship between man and life." Therefore, when considering the category of genre in the proposed study, the concept context.
Christmas story, Despite the diversity and numerous texts belonging to different eras and different writers, it is nevertheless very easily recognizable. Leskov himself made attempts to highlight the characteristic features of these works. In the story “The Pearl Necklace” (1885) he wrote: “It is absolutely required of a Christmas story that it be timed to coincide with the events of the Christmas Eve - from Christmas to Epiphany, that it be somewhat fantastic, that it have some kind of morality, at least some kind of refutation harmful prejudice, and finally - so that it certainly ends cheerfully.<...>he must be true incident(emphasized by Leskov. - P. 3.)" 36. Leskov’s “theory” has not lost its relevance to this day: this fragment has a high “citation index” (although only one work is specifically devoted to it 37).
In the proposed study we are in the very general view let's define the Christmas story as a story about a miracle that happened during the winter holidays, which is meaningful by the author in the context of a particular literary tradition. In other words, a Christmas story can be recognized by the following features:
chronological location;
the presence of an “element of the miraculous” (Leskov);
Now let's take a closer look at each of these signs.
35 Leiderman N. L. The movement of time and the laws of the genre. Sverdlovsk, 1982. P. 22.
36 Leskov N. S. Collection cit.: In 11 volumes. M, 1956. T. VII. P. 433.
37 Dushechkina E. IN.“A Christmas story is certainly required...” (N.S. Leskov and tradition
tion of the Russian Christmas story) // Russian literature and culture of modern times. St. Petersburg,
1994, pp. 94-107. A little later, this work was included as a separate chapter in the monograph
“Russian Christmas story: The formation of a genre” (St. Petersburg, 1995).
1. Chronological location - the most obvious indicator of whether a work belongs to the genre we are interested in (although not self-sufficient). The Yuletide story is a genre of so-called “calendar literature” (this term was proposed and introduced into scientific circulation by E. V. Dushechkina). The main category of “calendar literature” is the category time: a “calendar” text is “provoked” by a certain calendar period and is connected with this period in content and plot 38 . Temporal timing can be external or internal 39 . The internal chronological reference constitutes the chronotope of the work (in our case, the Christmastide chronotope 40); most often it is represented by special formulas 4\ External is the connection of the text with the extra-textual sphere, first of all, with the time of functioning of the story itself. A work can have both bindings, or one at a time; in rare cases both are missing.
2. No less typical for a Christmas story "element of the miraculous", first of all, plays an important role in the plot-compositional structure
43 u44 g)
works, being a kind of novelistic pointe-toe. In works of this genre, as a rule, an event occurs that, one way or another, is associated with the intervention of an irrational principle - a godmother or an evil spirit.
38 See: Dushechkina E. V. Russian Christmas story: The formation of a genre. pp. 6 ff.
39 See: Ibid. P. 11.
40 Christmastide is the twelve-day period between Christmas and Epiphany.
41 For example, Leskov’s story “The Sealed Angel” begins like this: “It was about Christmas time,
on the eve of Vasilyev's evening" (Leskov N.S. Collection cit.: In 11 volumes. M., 1956. T. IV. P. 320).
42 This is Leskov’s expression from the Preface to his collection “Yuletide Stories” (St. Petersburg;
M., 1886. P. II).
43 In passing, we note that the “section of miracles” is one of the expressive elements of hagiographic
who canon - played a significant role in the formation of genres of plot narration in
Russian literature. See about this: Dmitriev L. A. Plot narration in hagiographies
mints of the late 13th-15th centuries. // Origins of Russian fiction: The emergence of plot genres
narration in ancient Russian literature. L., 1970. S. 229-232.
44 This is noted in the work: Kalenichenko O. I. The fate of small genres in Russian literature
late 19th - early 20th centuries (Yuletide and Easter stories, modernist short story).
Monograph. Volgograd, 2000. P. 4.
strength. This feature correlates with the chronological timing of the Christmas story: the “miraculous” event is associated with a certain calendar -
Nowadays - happy holiday.
Reflecting on the Christmas story, Leskov Special attention devoted to the category of “miraculous”, which in his own works is usually interpreted not without polemical repulsion from the literary tradition. In the Preface to the collection “Yuletide Stories,” he noted: “The twelve stories offered in this book were written by me at different times, mainly for the New Year’s issues of various periodicals. Of these stories, only a few have an element of the miraculous - in the sense of the supersensible and mysterious. In others, the bizarre or mysterious has its basis not in the supernatural or supersensible, but flows from the properties of the Russian spirit and those social trends in which for many, including the author himself who wrote these stories, lies a significant portion of the strange and amazing.” 47. A peculiar continuation of this Preface is a “framework” discussion from Leskov’s story “An Ear Without a Fish” (1886), the participants of which highly appreciate Leskov’s attempt to “comply with the requirements of a Christmas story without the routine involvement of devilry and all
some other mysterious and incredible elements."
Having specifically specified the nature of the miracle in his works, Leskov, in our opinion, largely predetermined the later research approach to sacred
See about this in the works of M. A. Kucherskaya, for example: Kucherskaya M. Eternity in the middle of the room // Yuletide Stories: Stories. Sermons. M., 1996. P. 13. The motifs characteristic of the Christmas story are brought together in one row by E. V. Dushechkina. Cm.: Dushechkina. IN. Russian Christmas story: The formation of a genre. pp. 200-206.
46 Yu. M. Lotman, who did not specifically study the Christmas story, nevertheless revealed
its typological similarity with the so-called “Petersburg” story. First line
is based on “temporal fiction”, the second - on “spatial” fantasy. Lotman Yu.M. Symbols
ka of St. Petersburg and the problems of semiotics of the city // Lotman Yu. M. Selected articles: In 3 volumes. T. II:
Articles on Russian history literature XVIII- first half of the 19th century century. Tallinn, 1992.
P. 16.
47 Leskov N. S. Yuletide stories. St. Petersburg; M., 1886. S.P.
48 Nov. 1886. T. VIII. No. 7. P. 352.
accurate stories. For a long time, there was talk of only one feature of Leskov’s stories - the rethinking of the “supernatural or supersensible.” As a result, at the initial stage of studying the Christmas story in Soviet literary criticism, a rather one-sided picture emerged. Researchers primarily sought to identify satirical subtext individual Leskov works. Meanwhile, the genre tradition as a whole has not been studied, a huge corpus texts, representing it, was not introduced into scientific circulation, that is, economic context until a certain time, for a number of reasons, it was not taken into account.
As a result, a dangerous trend arose: a “miracle,” taken out of the “Yuletide” context, began to be perceived by researchers as an obstacle on the writer’s path that needed to be overcome. Therefore, Leskov’s skill was assessed, first of all, from the point of view of how mercilessly he rejected this condition that constrained creative imagination. The Christmas story, with its “demands,” became a kind of disguise, an Aesopian speech, a means of circumventing censorship. From a modern standpoint, it would be a mistake to completely reject this approach, since researchers have rightly pointed out the presence of hidden meaning in stories. Concepts of this kind do not seem to be erroneous, but rather incomplete and one-sided. Since Leskov was steadily looking for only the second plan behind the “wonderful” event, the first plan was missed and the entire “Yuletide flavor” (M. S. Goryachkin) turned out to be reduced to an external mention of the holiday. This approach inevitably ran its course. The genre nature of the Christmas story (and not only Leskov’s) required the expansion of the methodological base for its further study.
49 Here are typical examples. L.P. Grossman especially noted Leskov’s desire to “avoid the usual in this genre (in the Christmas story. - P. 3.)"the element of the miraculous" (Grossman L. N. S. Leskov: Life - creativity - poetics. M., 1945. S. 191-192). V. A. Gebel also emphasized the writer’s “exposure” of “elements of the miraculous and mystical” (Gebel V. N. S. Leskov: In the creative laboratory. M., 1945. S. 177-178). However, the artistic meaning of this “revelation” at that time still remained behind the scenes.
3. A sign of a Christmas story (not independent, but associated with
antecedent) is also the presence of a narrator, or, in other words,
the presence in the text of two (or several) narrative instances. Would-
personal, to which, according to modern research, ascends literature
yuletide story - this is folk genre non-fairy prose, immediately
making reference to the words of an eyewitness 50. "The element of the miraculous" and manifestation in
narration of the secondary subject of consciousness (B. O. Korman), with its own special
way of speech - are often interconnected. The narrator has his own interpretation
no “miracle” without “preventing” the author from taking a fundamentally different position in this
question (by the way, the Christmas story reached its peak of popularity precisely during the period
the flourishing of realism in Russian literature).
4. Finally, we designated the last sign of the Christmas story as oso
battle author's assignment 51. Let us make a reservation right away: we do not consider this sign
I eat exclusively “Yuletide” - it is typical for any work in
in the event that the writer understands the genre category 52 substantively.
In relation to Leskov’s work, and first of all, to Leskov’s stories, the important role of the author’s genre concept noted A.V. Luzhanovsky, emphasizing that “a genre is a form of an author’s statement that carries specific information.<...>When a writer creates a work,
50 See about this, for example: Zinoviev V. P. Genre features of epic tales. Irkutsk, 1974. P. 4.
31 Here we mean only the literature of the New Age, when, in contrast to medieval literature, individual creative consciousness began to develop. “The central “character” of the literary process became not the work, subordinate to a given canon, but its creator, the central category of poetics - not style or genre, A author(emphasized in the original. - P. 3.)" (Averintsev S.S., Andreev M.L., Gaayurov M.L., Grintser P.A., Mikhailov A.V. Categories of poetics in changing literary eras // Historical poetics: Literary eras and types of artistic consciousness. M., 1994. P. 33).
So, for example, according to the research of V.N. Zakharov, genre is “one of key categories artistic thinking of Dostoevsky,” always striving to indicate “what he wrote - a novel, a story or a short story.” Zakharov V. N. Dostoevsky's system of genres (typology and poetry). L., 1985. P. 5.
he focuses on a certain genre model and, accordingly, on the type of composition and plot, plot construction” 53.
As for the author’s “will” specifically in the Christmas story, the feature we highlight most clearly manifested itself at the moment of the apogee of this genre in Russian literature (the last third of the 19th century). The extreme increase in the number of Yuletide stories at that time led to the inevitable introduction of new themes into the genre arsenal that were not genetically “Yuletide” 54 . In the current situation, the role of the desire (or reluctance) of the author (as well as the editor, etc.) to include this or that work in the “Yuletide” context has become actualized - for example, to publish it for the holiday in a special section, issue or collection. Looking ahead, we note that Leskov felt his “final” role in shaping the genre appearance of the work perfectly. So, he finalized the manuscript of “Darkness”, turning it into a Christmas story “At the End of the World”, and “Christmas Evening at a Hypochondriac”, on the contrary, took it beyond the genre. Judging by these examples, the relative fluidity of the genre “identity” of a work depends on the author’s “task,” the author’s “will.”
Another example is the work of A.P. Chekhov. Many of his works are not Yuletide stories in the usual sense; however, being published on December 25, they could be perceived as Yuletide (for example, “Kashtanka”). As a modern researcher rightly notes, “if we exclude them from the context of Christmas literature, inevitable losses of meaning will arise, since the “dialogizing background” will disappear from the sphere of perception” 55 .
53 Luzhanovsky A.V. The plot of the story “The Enchanted Wanderer” // New about Leskov. Scientific
methodological collection. M.; Yoshkar-Ola, 1998. P. 82. In this work “Enchanted countries
nickname", in accordance with Leskov’s genre designation, is called exclusively a story
zom, with which we completely agree (while in modern literary criticism This
the work is often considered as a story).
54 See about this: Duiechkisha E. V. Russian Christmas story: The formation of a genre. pp. 208-209.
55 Kapustin N.V.“Someone else’s word” in the prose of A. P. Chekhov: Genre transformations. Abstract
day ... doc. Philol. Sci. Ivanovo, 2003. P. 13.
So, in the proposed work we will proceed from the fact that the author’s indication plays a fundamental role in determining the genre.
Thus, the noted four signs of a Christmas story have varying degrees of significance, however, their combination with each other is important 5b.
By revising Christmas story How genre of Russian literature We rely, first of all, on the monograph by E. V. Dushechkina “Russian Yuletide Story: The Formation of a Genre” (St. Petersburg, 1995) and on the work of N. N. Starygina “Yuletide Story as a Genre” 57.
Let us separately dwell on the problem of distinguishing between the Yuletide and Christmas stories. In the proposed work, we will consider these concepts to be basically synonymous. Leskov, as a rule, mixed two genre definitions. The only evidence that the writer felt an intra-genre typology, according to our data, is his collection “Russian Discord. Essays and stories (1880 and 1881),” published in 1881, which included: “Christ visiting a peasant. A Christmas Story" and "White Eagle. Christmas story." In subsequent years, the difference between the two concepts apparently lost relevance for the writer.
V. N. Zakharov, exploring another type of “calendar” prose - Easter story, - identifies two necessary and sufficient genre features - the timing of the work for the holidays of the Easter cycle and the “soul-saving” content. If only the first component is present, the content may not be Easter at all. If there is no timing, then, according to the elegant observation of the researcher, a significant part of Russian literature can be considered “Easter” - because of its high moral principles (see: Zakharov V. N. Easter story as a genre of Russian literature // Gospel text in Russian literature of the 18th-20th centuries. Quote, reminiscence, motive, plot, genre. Sat. scientific works Petrozavodsk, 1994. P. 256).
Starygina N. N. Yuletide story as a genre // Problems of historical poetics. Vol. 2: Artistic and scientific categories. Sat. scientific works Petrozavodsk, 1992. pp. 113-127.
/z
Work structure
In Leskov’s work we will a priori distinguish two stages - “pre-Yuletide” and “Yuletide”. With a certain degree of convention, we will consider the boundary between these stages to be January 1873, when The Sealed Angel was published. Dedicated to the “pre-Christmas” period First the head of this study, “Yuletide” - Second And Third chapters.
IN First The chapter analyzes the “Yuletide” theme in episodes of Leskov’s early novels and stories dedicated to winter holidays (1860s - early 1870s). Based on the analysis of these episodes, the question is raised about the internal prerequisites for the writer’s appeal to the genre of the Christmas story.
In Second The chapter examines the principles of depicting a person in Leskov’s Christmas story, identifying typical features of the hero’s appearance and the basic plot scheme developed by the writer in these works.
In the Third In the chapter, the research goes beyond the scope of Leskov’s own creativity. In this chapter, first of all, based on letters from Leskov and his correspondents, we examine Leskov’s Christmas story in the light of the writer’s creative relationships with his contemporaries - F. M. Dostoevsky, A. S. Suvorin and L. N. Tolstoy. This context, in our opinion, can shed additional light on Leskov’s attitude to the Christmas story and the possibilities of this genre.
IN Conclusion are summed up results research, substantiates its scientific novelty, theoretical And practical importance and outlines the paths that could potentially be followed by further study of the genre uniqueness of Leskov’s work.
Application is a list of Leskov's Yuletide/Christmas stories in chronological order of their publication. Later publications of these stories are also recorded here.
Finishes work Bibliography, which is composed of three sections. The first section presents, in alphabetical order, works on Leskov’s work, which we relied on in our research. The second section is an alphabetized bibliography of works on the Yuletide story. The third section is “Miscellaneous”.
Accepted abbreviations
As we progress, we will constantly refer to Leskov’s texts, published in two Collected Works of the writer:
Leskov K S. Collection cit.: In 11 volumes. M.: GIHL, 1956.
Leskov N. S. Poly. collection cit.: In 30 volumes. M.: Terra, 1996 (publication ongoing).
For convenience, all references to these publications will be given in parentheses in the text. For the 11-volume Collection, we will use the traditional reference - designating the volume number with a Roman numeral and the page number with Arabic numerals. References to the Complete Collection will be given in the same way, but after the abbreviation: PSS. Links to all other sources are provided in footnotes. The reference numbers are continuous throughout each of the three chapters.
"The Life of a Woman"
Leskov’s first work in which a Yuletide episode takes place, according to our observations, is the 1863 story “The Life of a Woman” (except for the translated arabesque “You Don’t Hurt,” which, after a short introduction, opens with carol scene 3.)
A story from folk life, as L. M. Lotman showed, “became... the central phenomenon of artistic prose of the 60-70s” 4. Introduction of a festive description into the fabric of a “folk story” 5, created by Leskov in the wake of a strong passion for folklore and ethnography 6, is quite natural and even traditional to a certain extent. According to E.V. Dushechkina, Russian writers already from the 1820-1830s. (the period of the formation of Russian folkloristics and ethnography) willingly included festive (including Christmas) scenes in their works about the people, since on the holiday “folk psychology manifested itself in its most characteristic features” 7. Leskov was no exception. However, despite the typical inclusion of a festive scene in the story, Leskov’s “Yuletide” sketch is of undoubted interest, and its role in the context of “The Life of...” and in the future of the writer’s genre searches, in our opinion, is very significant.
Let's turn to the text. The scene that interests us opens with a clear statement of time: “So Christmas passed; broke the fast; Christmas time has begun" (PSS: II, 119). “Yuletide space” is set quite typical landscape description, which serves as a kind of “sign” Yuletide tradition: “And outside it was light from the month, dry snow creaked underfoot, and the frost was bitter, Epiphany-like” (PSS: II, 120-121)8.
The fragment of the story in question describes holiday party, the main character of which, Nastya, will soon get married. The narrator emphasizes in every possible way the traditional nature of the holiday. To do this, he constantly compares “these Christmastides” with the traditional Christmastide “scenario”: “Their lady... loved to listen to girlish songs and sometimes she herself will sing along to them. On Christmastide, in the evenings, her girls would gather and sing.
The same thing happened this Christmas. The girls gathered under New Year and sang “Blacksmith”, “Merzlyak”, “Rich Men”, “Pig from St. Petersburg”. After each song, they took out a ring from a dish covered with a napkin, and explained who what song predicted for whom” (PSS: II, 119-120). The text of the story - with the substitution of the names of the characters - introduces the majestic wedding song “Perch”: “As on that perch / Yes, no one walked, / No one was respected; / Grigory, sir, crossed, / He passed the light to Nastasya / By the right hand / To his side (highlighted by Leskov. - P. 3.)” (PSS: I, 120). However, the traditional holiday sketch in “The Life of...” turns out not so much as an illustration of folk customs, but as a contrasting background for the action of the heroine, which sharply contradicts the everyday canons, and resists the wedding with all her might. She protests against the role prepared for her by the traditional way of life and runs away, introducing discord into the course of the holiday: “Nastya stood up to thank the girls properly for their greatness, but instead of saying: “Thank you, sister-friends,” she said : "Let me in." .. . she’s right at the door and into the yard” (PSS: II, 120). This protest is all the more palpable because the “sandwich” Nastya is the flesh and blood of the traditional peasant culture. Let us pay special attention to the narrator’s remark: “...instead of...” - in it the unusual course of the holiday described in the story is contrasted with a certain holiday pattern, firmly rooted in the traditional consciousness.
A small Christmas episode in the story acquires conceptual significance. Within its boundaries, the nature of the flow of time changes: the so-called “cyclical” time, set from year to year by a repeating calendar holiday, opens up and becomes “linear” 9. Against the background of the traditional holiday picture, a plot shift occurs. An unexpected event that shakes the stability of existence 10 - the heroine’s timid protest against the power of tradition - in this case is the “core” of the emerging plot 12. The point of view of the narrator - a native of the described peasant environment, who constantly compares the two layers - serves here as an actualizer of this event .
IN research literature the importance of the Yuletide scene in the “Life...” was rightly pointed out by A. A. Gorelov, according to whom, the “escape” from Yuletide gatherings will receive “rapid development in the entire chain of Nastya’s “misdeeds””,3, and will echo sadly in future fate heroines. Moreover, the researcher is inclined to see in the early story the origins of Leskov’s mature Christmas stories: “... the violation of the ritual on the holy evening is symbolic, this appeal by Leskov to folk beliefs will manifest itself compositionally more than once in his Christmas stories.”
Thus, what we have before us is not an accidental, but a conceptual, key plot device: the heroine does not agree to repeat the traditional formula (village Christmas gatherings here are like a “clump” of tradition - it’s not for nothing that the narrator constantly compares Nastya’s behavior with a “model”) - she makes some kind of breakthrough outside. We also note that a similar glitch will occur in the “Yuletide” chapters of Leskov’s subsequent works. So, for example, Liza Bakhareva, the heroine of the novel “Nowhere”, sharply - even to the point of scandal - refuses to follow the Christmas tradition (this will be discussed in more detail in the next section). So, in “The Life of a Woman,” Leskov, in a certain sense, creates a kind of plot invariant, a model of a Christmastide plot, which is based on going beyond the established rules.
Man and the world in Leskov's Christmas story
In 1873, shortly after the chronicle “Soboryan”, Leskov’s work, labeled “A Christmas Story”, appeared for the first time on the pages of the magazine “Russian Messenger” - “The Captured Angel”. With this landmark work, Leskov creates, so to speak, a genre precedent in his work 6: subsequently, characterizing the next story as a Christmas-Twain one, and since 1880 as a Yuletide one, the writer inevitably projects it in one way or another onto “The Captured Angel.” In other words, in 1873 the “Yuletide” context of Leskov’s work began to take shape.
The main theme of “The Sealed Angel” can be most generally defined as a person’s path to unity with the world. In terms of plot, the path is a long and difficult transition into the womb Orthodox Church artel and Old Believers money changers, “led” miraculous icon An angel, dramatically lost and happily found again. In symbolic terms, the path is read as the destruction and loss of the former artel unity and consent and its “miraculous” restoration and renewal.
“The Sealed Angel” is very attractive to researchers. There are excellent works about Leskov’s story. In the studies of A. A. Gorelov and S. A. Polozkova, symbolic meaning the “miraculous” help of the “Angel” 9. O. V. Evdokimova, and after her V. A. Lepakhin, connected the composition of the story with the composition of the icon, which made it possible to clarify the meaning of the “angelic path” (IV, 322). B. S. Dykhanova traced the pattern of a happy ending and noted the importance of the narrator’s word x. A. A. Kretova was the first to analyze the story “The Sealed Angel” in its genre originality, showing in what ways Leskov follows the “Yuletide” tradition and in what ways he deviates from it 12.
In the proposed work, taking into account the results of all these studies, we will follow how the narrator, peering into the past, remembers and comprehends turning point of his life, when he and his comrades managed to “become united in spirit with all of Russia” (IV, 383). The entire artistic structure of his story - the plot, the composition, the details, the system of allegories, and the features of the style - reflects the purposefulness of the path to a new truth.
The general outline of the narrator’s appearance emerges already in the first “framework” chapter. On Christmas Eve, a great crowd of people gathered at an inn in the steppe, waiting out the “cruelest ground blizzard” (IV, 320). A “small red-haired man” enters into a casual conversation (IV, 321). From the very first words of this “little man” one can guess some very nice properties of his nature, namely, good nature, an amazing disposition towards people and a persistent desire to reconcile everyone. “Redhead” gets involved in an argument at the moment when the owner, having “profusely scolded” (IV, 321) the next newcomers, does not let them into the hut, citing the cramped conditions and the opportunity for them to spend the night under the “skin.” While one of the guests “in a tone of very energetic protest” (IV, 321) accuses the owner of cruelty, the “red-haired little man” easily assures those gathered, and first of all the owner’s opponent, that the latter is absolutely right, thereby introducing a note into the motley society peace and harmony. Having won over the listeners with the statement: “Every saved person is not led by an Ethiopian, but by an angel” (IV, 322), the “little man” offers their attention the story of the “angelic path” (IV, 322).
The narrator, as we learn at the very beginning of the story (chapter 2), comes from an artel of masons born “in the old Russian faith” (IV, 323). The connection between the “redhead” and the artel, judging by his words, is very close: the narrator’s “I” immediately turns into “We.” From his first words, two essential “qualities” of the artel are identified. On the one hand, these people lead a nomadic lifestyle (cf.: “We walked our path at work... like the Jews in their desert wanderings with Moses...” (IV, 323)), move freely in space; For them, movement is a natural form of life. Secondly, they are closely united with each other. The internal unity of the masons' artel is reflected not only in the plot action, but even penetrates into the style of the story. Here, for example, is the narrator’s “touching” description of the artel shrine - the icon of the Angel: “The hair on the head is curly and blond, curled from the ears and drawn hair by hair with a needle. The wings are spacious and white as snow, and underneath there is a light azure, feather to feather, and in each beard of the feather, antennae to antennae (our italics - S.Z.)” (IV, 324). The threefold repetition of a stylistic figure in a small text space apparently carries within itself the same idea of the cohesion of people 13, the unity of their actions and thoughts.
The narrator emphasizes: “we had agreement among ourselves” (IV, 324). The word “consent,” in our opinion, is an extremely capacious characteristic of the community of heroes. In the 19th century, this word had, in addition to the usual range of meanings 14 in our time, another relevant meaning: “consent” is a sect, a form of unification of opponents of the ruling church. This value was well known to Leskov 15. It seems that this meaning is partly present in the characteristics of the artel: from the inside, a harmonious community of people is sectarianly isolated from outside world(We and They are a clear opposition here).
An important stage in the life of the artel (Chapter 3) is associated with its arrival on the left bank of the Dnieper to build a stone bridge (a step towards the beginning of the plot). Researchers rightly noted that the bridge in the story is symbolic: fate leads the heroes to overcome isolation, to go outside, “to Big world". “In the narrative plot,” according to the observation of A. A. Gorelov, “the steadfastness of the spiritual movement of the Old Believers to the place where they are building a bridge, to the “right bank”, to the “big city,” triumphs.
Cross-cutting images in Leskov’s Christmas stories (“The Beast” and “Hidden Heat”)
In the previous sections, we most generally defined the plot of Leskov’s Christmas story as “the transformation of man.” IN early stories(“The Sealed Angel”, “At the End of the World”) the writer puts at the center the hero’s path from error to truth. Gradually, the “duration” of the journey is shortened, and a bright event comes to the fore, turning the hero’s soul upside down (“Christ visiting a peasant,” “The Beast”). At the same time, stories are being created in which the hero finds himself in an unusual, out-of-the-ordinary situation that undermines his dubious “principles” (or, in the words of the writer himself, refutes harmful prejudices). IN mature years Leskov also writes stories in which the hero, under the influence of chance, discovers a good principle hidden in his soul, discovers the traits of a righteous person in himself. In general, we can say that the hero of Leskov’s Christmas story undergoes two main types of changes - he is either reborn, that is, becomes different, or awakens, that is, a positive principle that previously had no way out is actualized in his soul.
In this section we will be interested in the cross-cutting images-symbols presented in Leskov’s work - their formation and embodiment in different texts and, finally, penetration into the “Yuletide” context. This is "the beast" and "latent heat". Ultimately, we will try to understand what role these images play in the “Yuletide” plot of human change.
In 1883, Leskov created one of his most famous stories, “The Beast.” According to tradition, the writer publishes it in the holiday issue - in the “Christmas Supplement” to the “Newspaper of A. Gatsuk”, subtitles it “A Christmas Story”, and then includes it in the Christmas collection of 1886. Researchers are almost unanimous that “The Beast” is classic sample genre (although sometimes the writer is reproached for excessive sentimentality 59). The genre affiliation of “The Beast” was not in doubt at any stage of the life of “The Beast” - neither by Leskov himself, nor by critics, nor by researchers, nor by readers.
Meanwhile, “The Beast” is the result of Leskov’s long creative search. The title of the story is conceptual: the beast in the context of the writer’s work is a rich image-symbol.
Leskov uses the whole palette of meanings of the word “beast”. The text of the story implements the main nominative meaning: the beast is a wild, usually predatory animal, that is, first of all, the Sganarelle bear. It is no coincidence that, speaking about the “brutal” nature of the bear, Leskov describes a large number of victims of his “pranks.” However, with the mention of the ark and Noah, the main meaning is enriched with new shades that are important for the Christmas story: the beast is God's creature. The animals in the story rejoice and suffer no less, and sometimes even more than people. In the scenes of persecution, calling the bear a beast, Leskov seems to obscure the “species” affiliation of Sganarelle - before us is a suffering living creature.
Along with the main one, the text certainly updates the figurative meaning of the word “beast” (a stable metaphor: a beast is a cruel person), and this meaning in the context of the story is very important. The beast appears, first of all, as the “uncle” who knows no pity, who is characterized in the exposition chapter as follows: “He was very rich, old and cruel. His character was dominated by malice and inexorability, and he did not regret it at all, but on the contrary, he even flaunted these qualities, which, in his opinion, allegedly served as an expression of courageous strength and unyielding firmness of spirit” (VII, 260). However, according to the logic of the Christmas story, the hero, endowed with the features of an animal, under the influence of an extraordinary incident, is cured of cruelty. Jokingly calling his serf Ferapont “the tamer of the beast,” the uncle gives a “characteristic” of the metamorphosis that happened to himself and expresses gratitude to the devoted servant for the lesson of goodness taught (this reveals the “moral” of the Christmas story).
In European literature of modern times, as well as in art in general (for example, in caricature), the comparison of man with beast implies indulgence in base passions and moral degradation. In the 19th century This technique is widely used by realist writers (Balzac, Zola), who create broad pictures of the life of society in various spheres and analyze social processes. 60. In Leskov, the “beast” metaphor is oriented towards tradition and at the same time has its own specifics.
Let us trace in the most general terms the history of the origin of the image of the “beast” in Leskov and the features of its implementation in different texts.
As researchers have noted more than once, already in the first works - “Musk Ox”, “Lady Macbeth” Mtsensk district" - Leskov often resorts to a variety of zoological metaphors 62. The 1864 novel “Nowhere” is literally permeated with animalistic comparisons, and the range of their application is unusually wide. On the one hand, by resorting to such a popular stylistic device, Leskov implements an attitude towards discrediting “new people”, common to works of an “anti-nihilistic” orientation (as N. N. Starygina showed, the “animal” characteristics embodied the “diabolical” principle allegedly inherent in nihilists in the view of opposition forces 63). At the same time, images of “pure” nihilists are created differently. So, for example, with great warmth and subtle humor, the author speaks about Justin Pomada: “Pomada, having already overcome the steepest steepness of the mountain, rushed like a real Oryol trotter along the more sloping slope of the upper part of the descent. ... Seeing two whitening figures ahead on the road, he doubled his trot and in an instant stood against the girls...” (PSS: IV, 47). Further, after several chapters, we see an almost verbatim repetition of this comparison, which reveals the “mechanism” of the technique: “Lipstick is running downhill, along the very slope along which he once rushed on an Oryol trotter towards Jenny and Lisa” (PSS: IV , 120).
Christmas story by N. S. Leskov and F. M. Dostoevsky: “Christ visiting a man” and “A boy at Christ’s Christmas tree”
In the first chapter of the work, we made an attempt to highlight the “prehistory” of Leskov’s Christmas story (that is, conditionally, before the appearance of the first work in this genre, “The Sealed Angel,” in 1873). The material was scenes dedicated to Christmastide, which were abundantly included in the writer’s early novels and stories. In the course of analyzing these fragments, we raised the question of the prerequisites for the emergence of the Yuletide story genre in Leskov’s “pre-Yuletide” work. At the center of each of the episodes considered is a certain event that violates the traditional way of life. This event is interpreted in its own way by the narrator. Subjective perception of an out-of-the-ordinary event, as we have suggested, prepares the ground for the formation of the category of the miraculous in Leskov’s creative consciousness. We also noted the first cases of “theoretical” discussions of heroes about the nature of a miracle.
In the second chapter, turning directly to Leskov’s Christmas stories, we raised the question of the depiction of a person in them. At the center of these works, Leskov, as a rule, placed a “changing man” who, in contrast to the internally holistic righteous man, undergoes a certain spiritual metamorphosis in the course of the action.
The first and second chapters were limited by the framework of Leskov’s creativity. Meanwhile, Leskov created his works at a time when the popularity of the Christmas story in Russian literature reached its apogee. Leading writers, second-tier writers, and numerous authors of mass “Yuletide products” worked in line with the genre tradition. Consequently, the question of the mutual influence of contemporary writers quite naturally arises.
Attempts have been made in the research literature benchmarking Christmas stories created by different writers. So, for example, A. V. Kubasov compares two works of 1883 - “Makar’s Dream” by V. G. Korolenko and “The Crooked Mirror” by A. P. Chekhov - and as a result of the analysis comes to the following conclusion: “The ability of a story to turn around parable, then parodic stylization indicates the relative convention of the genre definition of “Yuletide story.” (For all the subtlety of the analysis and the validity of the conclusion about the layering of features of different genres in the text, the vulnerability of such a comparison is also obvious: the researcher clearly underestimated the genre context, as well as the place of the “Yuletide” genre within the work of the writers he was considering.) Parallel reading of two Christmastide stories ( “At the End of the World” by Leskov and “Makar’s Dream”) is also proposed by A. A. Kretova, identifying Leskov’s motifs in Korolenko’s work 3.
On the other hand, Leskov’s works have already been studied against a general genre background. Leskov’s Yuletide stories in a number of genres of mass fiction (such as, for example, the “anti-nihilistic” novel) were considered by E. M. Pulkhritudova 4. In the “projection onto the traditional Yuletide story,” a number of Leskov’s works were analyzed by E. V. Dushechkina 5.
In this chapter, we will turn to individual Leskov’s Christmastide stories and consider them through the prism of the writer’s literary contacts with his contemporaries, who also paid tribute to this genre, had a certain impact on Leskov and, to a certain extent, felt the influence of his works.
Three sections of the chapter will be devoted respectively to F. M. Dostoevsky, A. S. Suvorin and L. N. Tolstoy. This series can undoubtedly be continued. The main criterion that guided us when choosing personalities was documented facts of personal contacts between writers, which allows us to talk about more or less conscious “genre” reflection in Leskov. At the same time, for the heroes of this chapter, the Yuletide story had different values. One of the leading genres in Leskov’s work, for Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, for example, it was, to a certain extent, passable, although the problems posed in Leskov’s Christmas stories were close to these writers.
In the first section, we will consider the position of Leskov and F. M. Dostoevsky regarding the “Yuletide” genre as one of the aspects of the writers’ long-term relationship. Working on Christmas stories at about the same time, Leskov and Dostoevsky, however, presented largely opposing artistic concepts. A parallel analysis of the stories “Christ Visiting a Man” by Leskov and “The Boy at Christ’s Christmas Tree” by Dostoevsky gives us the opportunity to see which elements of the Christmas story were the most significant for the writers.
The second section will be devoted to the writer, editor and publisher A. S. Suvorin. During for long years while heading the editorial office of the daily newspaper “Novoye Vremya”, he passed through his hands great amount Christmas stories. Leskov published in Novoye Vremya his third Christmas story, “Christmas Evening with a Hypochondriac” (later revised into “Chertogon”), and Suvorin, to a certain extent, intervened in the creative history of this text. Following this story, “White Eagle” (1880), “Christmas Night in a Carriage (Travel with a Nihilist)” (1882), “About the Artistic Husband Nikita and His Co-Raisers” (1886) were published on the pages of the Christmas issues of Suvorin’s newspaper. . Leskov and Suvorin, who had been in close correspondence for decades, often discussed with each other the problems and prospects of this genre.
Communication with L.N. Tolstoy, the hero of the third section of the chapter, also represents a bright page in Leskov’s life and work. The closeness of the moral and ethical quests of Tolstoy and Leskov was reflected in a certain way in the “program” of the latter’s Christmas stories. The ultimate goal of all the comparisons carried out in the chapter will be an attempt to find out what is unique about Leskov’s approach to a widespread genre.
The originality of Leskov's poetics
As for his own creativity, the writer went “against the currents.” He loves the genres of short stories and jokes, which are based on news, surprise, i.e. something that conflicts with the usual view of things.
Leskov did not strive to invent, but to look for interesting plots and characters in life. In this search he turned to social groups, which no one had looked closely at before: priests, craftsmen, engineers, managers, Old Believers.
Leskov portrayed a “righteous” hero, in the writer’s terminology.
Reflecting on such a character, Leskov looked for manifestations of goodness in Everyday life, among the bustle of office and everyday activities. The writer was interested not so much in the presence of an ideal, but in the possibility and diversity of its manifestation in specific life situations.
The most important thing is that most of his positive heroes are not titans or “idiots”; they are characterized by human weaknesses and eternal human virtues: honesty, kindness, unselfishness, the ability to come to the rescue - something that, in general, everyone can do. It is no coincidence that in works of large form (especially in “Soboryans”) Leskov surrounds his favorite characters with close people. Archpriest Tuberozov (“Soborians”), for whom the whole city stood up, is still an unsurpassed example of human fortitude and courage, spiritual independence and strength. Tuberozov was compared to the famous archpriest Avvakum, but he lived in XIX c., when Avvakum’s firm faith was, to put it mildly, out of fashion.
The heroes of “The Captured Angel” are mason workers, the hero of “The Enchanted Wanderer” is a groom, a runaway serf, “Lefty” is a blacksmith, a Tula gunsmith, “The Stupid Artist” is a serf hairdresser and theatrical make-up artist.
To place a hero from the people at the center of the narrative, one must first masterin his language, be able to reproduce the speech of different segments of the people, different professions, destinies, ages.
The task is to recreate in literary work the living language of the people required special art when Leskov used the form of a tale. Tale in Russian literature comes from Gogol, but was especially skillfully developed by Leskov and glorified him as an artist.The essence of this manner is that the narration is not conducted on behalf of a neutral, objective author; the narration is conducted by a narrator, usually a participant in the reported events. The speech of a work of art imitates the living speech of an oral story. Moreover, in a fairy tale, the narrator is usually a person from a different social circle and cultural layer to which the writer and the intended reader of the work belong.Leskov’s story is led by either a merchant, or a monk, or an artisan, or a retired mayor, or former soldier. Each narrator speaks in a way that is characteristic of his education and upbringing, his age and profession, his concept of himself, his desire and ability to impress his listeners.
The narrator in a tale usually addresses some interlocutor or group of interlocutors, and the narrative begins and progresses in response to their questions and comments. So, in"The Enchanted Wanderer"The steamship passengers are interested in the knowledge and opinions of the monastic novice traveling with them, and at their requests he tells the story of his colorful and remarkable life. Of course, not all of Leskov’s works are written in “skaz”; in many, the narration, as is usually the case in literary prose, is narrated by the author himself.
His speech is the speech of an intellectual, lively, but without imitation of oral conversation. Those parts of “fairy tale” works in which the author introduces and characterizes his heroes are also written in this manner. Sometimes the combination of the author's speech and skaz is more complex. At the core"The Stupid Artist"- a story from an old nanny to her pupil, a nine-year-old boy. This nanny is a former actress of the Oryol serf theater of Count Kamensky. (This is the same theater that is described in Herzen’s story “The Thieving Magpie” under the name of the theater of Prince Skalinsky). But the heroine of Herzen’s story is not only highly talented, but, due to exceptional life circumstances, also an educated actress. Leskov’s Lyuba is an uneducated serf girl, with natural talent capable of singing, dancing, and performing roles in plays “by sight” (that is, by hearsay, following other actresses). She is not able to tell and reveal everything that the author wants to tell the reader, and she cannot know everything (for example, the master’s conversations with his brother). Therefore, not the entire story is told from the nanny’s perspective; Some of the events are recounted by the author, including excerpts and small quotes from the nanny’s story.
"Lefty" - not an everyday tale, where the narrator narrates events he has experienced or personally known to him; here he retells a legend created by the people, as folk storytellers perform epics or historical songs.
As in the folk epic, a number of historical figures act in “Lefty”: two kings - Alexander I and Nicholas I, ministers Chernyshev, Nesselrode (Kiselvrode), Kleinmichel, Ataman Donskoy Cossack army Platov, commandant of the Peter and Paul Fortress Skobelev and others.
The narrator has no name, no personal image. True, in early publications the story opened with a preface in which the writer claimed that he “wrote this legend in Sestroretsk according to a local tale from an old gunsmith, a native of Tula...”. However, when preparing “Lefty” for the collection of his works, Leskov excluded this preface. The reason for the exclusion could be that all the reviewers of “Lefty” believed the author that he had published a folklore record, and did not agree only on whether the tale was accurately recorded or whether Leskov added something of his own. Leskov twice had to expose his preface in print as literary fiction. “...I composed this whole story...” he wrote, “and Lefty is a person I invented.”
Hero "The Enchanted Wanderer"Ivan Severyanovich Flyagin is a hero in the full sense of the word, and, moreover, “a typical, simple-minded, kind Russian hero, reminiscent of grandfather Ilya Muromets.” He has extraordinary physical strength, is infinitely brave and courageous, sincere and straightforward to the point of naivety, extremely unselfish, responsive to the grief of others. Like any national hero, Ivan Severyanych passionately loves his homeland. This is clearly manifested in his mortal longing for his native land, when he has to spend ten years in captivity among the Kirghiz. By his old age, his patriotism becomes broader and more conscious. He is tormented by the premonition of the coming war, and he dreams of taking part in it and dying for his native land.
He is extraordinarily talented. First of all, in the case to which he was assigned as a boy, when he became a postilion for his master. For everything related to horses, he “received a special talent from his nature.”
He has a record of not only misdemeanors, but also crimes: murder, intentional and unintentional, horse theft, embezzlement. But every reader feels a pure and noble soul in Ivan Severyanych. After all, even of the three murders described in the story, the first is an accidental result of mischievous recklessness and a young force that does not know what to do with itself, the second is the result of the intransigence of the enemy, hoping to “whip” Ivan Severyanych “in a fair fight,” and the third is greatest feat selfless love.
Legendary Leftywith two of his comrades, he managed to forge and attach horseshoes with nails to the legs of a steel flea made in England. On each horseshoe “the artist’s name is displayed: which Russian master made that horseshoe.” These inscriptions can only be seen through a “microscope that magnifies five million times.” But the artisans did not have any microscopes, but only “shot eyes.”
Leskov is far from idealizing the people. Lefty is ignorant, and this cannot but affect his creativity. The art of the English craftsmen was manifested not so much in the fact that they cast the flea from steel, but in the fact that the flea danced, wound up with a special key. Savvy, she stopped dancing. And the English masters, cordially welcoming Lefty, who was sent to England with a savvy flea, point out that he is hampered by a lack of knowledge: “...Then you could realize that in every machine there is a calculation of force, otherwise you are very much in your hands are skillful, but did not realize that such a small machine as in the nymphosoria is designed for the most accurate precision and cannot carry its shoes. Because of this, the nymphosoria now does not jump and does not dance.”
Lefty loves his Russia with a simple-hearted and ingenuous love. He is eager to go home because he is faced with a task that Russia needs to complete; thus she became the goal of his life. In England, Lefty learned that the muzzles of guns should be lubricated, and not cleaned with crushed bricks, as was then customary in the Russian army, which is why “the bullets dangle in them” and the guns, “God bless war, are not suitable for shooting.” With this he hurries to his homeland. He arrives sick, the authorities did not bother to provide him with a document, the police completely robbed him, after which they began to take him to hospitals, but they would not admit him anywhere without a “tugament”, they threw the patient onto the floor, and finally, “the back of his head split on the paratha” . Dying, Lefty thought only about how to bring his discovery to the king, and still managed to inform the doctor about it. He reported to the Minister of War, but in response he received only a rude shout: “Know your emetic and laxative, and don’t interfere with your own business: in Russia there are generals for that.”
An important role in the plot of "Lefty" is given to"Don Cossack" Platov. As in folk historical songs and in Cossack tales about the war with the French, here the ataman of the Don army, General Count M. I. Platov, is named by this name. In the tale of Lefty, Platov, on the orders of Tsar Nicholas I, took an overseas curiosity to Tula so that Russian craftsmen would show what they were capable of, “so that the British would not exalt themselves over the Russians.” He brings Lefty to St. Petersburg to the royal palace.
In the story "The Stupid Artist"the writer depicts a rich count with an “insignificant face” that exposes an insignificant soul. This is an evil tyrant and tormentor: people he dislikes are torn to pieces by hunting dogs, and executioners torment them with incredible torture.
The image of one of the master's servants is clearly depicted in"Toupey artist". This is the priest Arkady, undaunted by the torture that threatens him, perhaps fatal, trying to save his beloved girl from the abuse of her by a depraved master. The priest promises to marry them and hide them at his place for the night, after which both hope to get into the “Turkish Khrushchuk”. But the priest, having previously robbed Arkady, betrays the fugitives to the count's people sent to search for the escaped ones, for which he receives a well-deserved spit in the face.
Nikolai Leskov is one of the peculiar representatives of Russian classical literature. Its narrative features are largely related to the writing style used by the writer.
One of the key features inherent in Leskov is his lively manner of presentation, a language close to colloquial. The author's texts are very different from the correct one literary speech, but at the same time this feature does not turn them into overly simple and primitive.
Leskov deliberately inserted into his works speech errors and misuse of words. However, it should be noted that in similar cases In this way, it is not the direct speech of the author that sounds, but the speech patterns put into the mouths of the characters.
With the help of such techniques, Leskov managed to show Russian reality and representatives of different social strata in a broad and multifaceted way. The writer uses many different dialects and manners of conversation typical of village priests or officials. Their originality helps him enliven the narrative, making the characters brighter and more prominent.
It is characteristic that the writer did not reproduce the actual folk speech. The manner he uses is only stylization, but it looks very natural and believable.
The narrative styles used by Leskov are also different. This includes an appeal to folklore motifs and to the language of the chronicle, court and other various aspects of social life.
The widespread use of national color was dictated by various reasons. First of all, Leskov’s goal was to depict the Russian character; it is not without reason that in a number of works he contrasts it with foreigners, especially Germans.
In addition, Leskov is a satirist. Bizarre expressions of different characters helped him more vividly draw the images of heroes, in which he depicted the personification of the qualities of the people. The coloring of the narrative language allowed the writer not to resort to excessive dramatization in his works.
Leskov's works can be defined as tales. In a story that looks like a story about a story that happened in real life, epic elements are interwoven, which gives Leskov’s works a unique flavor. The manner of presentation has the appearance of a story from one good friend to another, where the truth is not so easy to separate from fiction. However, clearly implausible details do not spoil the overall impression.
Option 2
Leskov is an outstanding writer who began his career in the twentieth century.
Leskov has a completely different language and style of writing each work and therefore it is very difficult to confuse him with anyone else. He can also be called an experimenter, who on the one hand is kind and cheerful, but on the other hand he is serious, who sets big goals for himself and does everything to fulfill them.
If you consider his creativity, it seems that he has no boundaries. He can bring out heroes not only from different circles, but also from different classes. In addition, representatives meet here different nationalities. These could be Ukrainians, Yakuts, Jews, Gypsies and Poles. And he knows perfectly well how each person lived. And he had life experience for this, as well as memory, instinct and a keen eye.
Before you put one of the people as the main character, you must first study his manners, and also learn how to express speech and thoughts as he does. Immerse yourself at least a little in his life and field of activity.
The story about the main character is not narrated by the author or a neutral character, but by a special narrator who is in the thick of all the events. The story can be told not only by a landowner or merchant, but also by a monk, artisan or retired soldier. With the help of this, each work is saturated with living creatures. The language becomes rich and diverse. Using this facet, you can not only judge, but also evaluate each of the characters, as well as the event that occurs in the work.
Since Leskov has never seen workers before, he dresses them as he sees fit. He doesn’t know many of the words they use in their work. That is why many of them are distorted and pronounced completely differently.
Many contemporaries considered Leskov not such a great writer. And that’s all, because each of his heroes did not have a very good and easy situation in life. One problem is superimposed on another and then it is very difficult or almost impossible to deal with them.
In one of his works, he talked about Tula craftsmen, who are actually professionals in their field and can make beautiful and miniature things from any material.
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It is impossible to imagine the life of a modern person without work. For most of us, it begins in childhood. Help with housework, cleaning the house, looking after younger brothers and sisters.
Goals:
1. Acquaintance with the biography and work of the writer.
2. Reveal the meaning of the title of the story; features of the image of the Russian national character.
Method: Lecture with elements of conversation
Vocabulary work:
· story - an epic work that reveals a number of episodes from the life of the leading character, whose character is revealed fully and comprehensively.
· charmed - bewitched.
· wanderer - a person traveling on foot, on a pilgrimage.
· righteous - 1. A believer who lives a righteous life.
2. A person who does not sin in any way against the rules of morality.
During the classes
I. Design of notebooks:
Leskov seemed to set himself the goal of approving and inspiring Rus'
and began to create for Russia an iconostasis of its saints and righteous people
His “righteous people are little great men.”
M. Gorky
Plan.
1. Curriculum Vitae.
2. “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk” (1865).
3. “The Enchanted Wanderer” (1873).
II. Teacher's word.
The work of N. S. Leskov is one of the brightest and most original phenomena in Russian literature of the 19th century century.
His fate reflected the image of the righteous man of the Russian land, which is given in “The Enchanted Wanderer”, “Lefty” and in other works.
The creative style of N. S. Leskov is extraordinary, unique and original, and the language is unexpected and strange, sharply distinguishes the writer from other artists of the 19th century.
In his works, Leskov reflected the contradictions of the time, its rebellious spirit and tirelessness in the search for truth. Noticing the paradoxes of Russian reality, the writer did not lose hope for the future renewal of the country, because the unpredictable Russian character conceals inexhaustible strength.
So, what is this man, where did he “get” the materials for his works?
III. Curriculum Vitae(introduced by a prepared student). Leskov is a prose writer and publicist. Born into the family of a minor official who came from the clergy. He studied at the Oryol gymnasium, but did not complete the course. Served in the Oryol Chamber of the Criminal Court, the Kyiv State Chamber. At the age of 26, Leskov left public service and moved to private service - to the commercial company of A. Ya. Shcott. On business for the company, he “traveled Russia in a wide variety of directions.”
The service provides abundant material for creativity. Since 1861, Leskov’s articles have appeared in the newspaper “Russian Speech”, of which he became an employee. Substantial part early works written in the genre of creative essay, which in the 60s was very popular among common writers.
Leskov acutely felt the economic and cultural backwardness of Russia in comparison with Western European countries. In the early 60s, he was confident that with the abolition of serfdom, Russia would quickly follow the path of progress. But observations of the reform reality showed how little changes for the better have occurred in the life of the country. The theme of serfdom remnants becomes one of the main ones in his work.
Leskov's work in the 60s is distinguished by great diversity in genre. The writer tries his hand at an artistic essay, short story, novel, and writes his only play, “The Spendthrift.”
All of the writer’s works are imbued with folklore motifs. They contain lyrical, ritual songs, proverbs, incantations... The plot of many of them is imbued with fabulous epic motifs and includes folk superstitions and legends.
A striking feature of Leskov’s creative style is the documentary nature of the image. “I always like to base a case on a real event, not on fiction,” he admitted. He was especially interested in the reflection of the characteristic features of the time in the destinies of ordinary people. Many of his heroes have real prototypes(“Cadet Monastery”, “Vladychny Court”, “Man on the Clock”).
Throughout his entire creative career, Leskov is distinguished by his continuous genre searches. The peculiarities of his writing talent, life experience and worldview were most clearly manifested in small genres: in essence, Leskov was the first Russian writer who managed to create the broadest picture of Russian life not in large epic works, but in short stories and tales.
IV. Teacher's word.
The name of N. S. Leskov is known to all Russian readers from the story “Lefty,” who managed to shoe a flea made by English craftsmen.
The writer's characters are unusual, unexpected and original, just like his creative manner. They cannot be approached with ordinary ideas and criteria. Leskov is attracted to rebels and eccentrics, righteous people and villains obsessed with passions, wanderers and outcasts, that is, all those who are trying to escape from the gray, everyday life, preserving in their souls the unique features of the Russian national character.
Creating folk characters, Leskov involuntarily turns to living Russian speech, which is most vividly captured in folklore tradition- in epics, legends, fairy tales, sayings, fairy tales. (“God will forgive” - this is not the first time such snow has fallen on our heads” - “Lefty”).
Many heroes are ready to sacrifice themselves for the sake of the happiness of others. This includes “The Enchanted Wanderer” and “The Captured Angel”.
A special place in the writer’s work is occupied by the theme of women’s fate, usually tragic (“The Life of a Woman,” “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk,” “Warrior”).
In the works of N. S. Leskov reflected the contradictions of the time, its rebellious spirit and search for truth. Noticing the contradictions of Russian reality, the writer believed in the future of Russia, because the unpredictable, strong Russian character concealed inexhaustible strength. Leskov loves his homeland with all his soul, and loves it as it is.
The title of the work, “The Enchanted Wanderer,” at first glance seems mysterious, almost incomprehensible. It sounds poetic and sad, you can feel some kind of mystery, melancholy and loneliness in it, you can hear in its sounds quiet, crying, distant music, similar to the song of the gypsy Grusha, the heroine of the story.
V. Conversation. Question for the class:
Who is this wanderer?
(A wanderer is a person without shelter, walking along all the roads of life, striving for something and not finding peace).
What is an enchanted wanderer?
(Perhaps this is a wanderer upon whom a spell has descended, who has stopped at a crossroads and thought about where he is going after all and what awaits him, what his purpose is in this contradictory life).
The enchanted wanderer in the story, who is he? Tell us about it. What is his life path?
(Flyagin Ivan Severyanych, aka Ivan Golovan, Izmal’s father, - Mr. Flyagin - a former coneser, a monk in “minor tonsure,” an “enchanted wanderer” traveling to the Solovetsky Monastery.
Flyagin was born into a “serfdom”, “from the courtyard people of Count K. from the Oryol province.” His parent was “the coachman Severyan, and although he was not one of the very first coachmen... but, nevertheless, he drove six people”... Ivan’s mother died after childbirth because he “was born with an unusually large head,” for which he received nickname Golovan. She wanted her son to become a monk.
From his father and other coachmen, Flyagin “learned the secret of knowledge in animals” and fell in love with the horse. At the age of eleven, Ivan coped with the position of a postman: “as the decency of that time required for noble postmen: the most piercing, sonorous and so long-lasting that... could... start ringing like that for half an hour.” Soon he got used to it and began to show “postilion mischief”: to pull some guy he met across his shirt with a whip.” Because of his mischief, a monk, whom Flyagin pinned with a whip, dies under horses. This monk, with a woman's face, often comes to him in a dream and predicts a sign. However, in his youth, Flyagin carelessly regards the amazing vision and sign.
Now that Ivan Severyanych is fifty-three years old, he has a different attitude towards the words of the deceased monk that he is a “prayerful” son, “promised”. “Father Ishmael” understands that the sign has come true and says about this: “All my life I have been perishing, and there was no way I could perish.”
Flyagin quietly joins in the passengers' conversation about suicides, and his first “wonderful story” about “Pashka, the bitter drunkard,” who “is in charge of and corrects the affairs of suicides after their death,” interested them. Flyagin responds willingly to the request of his fellow travelers to tell the story of his life, but warns them that I cannot even embrace all my vast past vitality.”)
Tell a few stories from the life of Ivan Severyanich.
VI. Teacher's word.
Flyagin professes the “narration of his past” openly, tries to speak calmly, in detail, without concealment. He considers himself a person “not one of the well-read,” but all his stories are deep and original. His speech constantly changes, maintaining the flavor of the environment in which he has to move. The hero narrates his adventures good-naturedly and dispassionately, sometimes with a note of regret. For a long time, listeners perceived his adventures as a fairy tale, and only the story of Grusha changes their opinion. Leskov notes that the travelers “for the first time suspected the truth of his story and remained silent for quite a long time.”
Numerous mythological episodes and elements give the story special charm and unusualness to the hero. Which ones exactly?
(The appearance of a monk, the spirit of a gypsy, a magnetizer, demons in a monastery.)
VII. Teacher's lecture.
“Depiction of the Russian national character in Leskov’s story “The Enchanted Wanderer” ( According to the teacher’s lecture, students make a short summary or theses).
Already in the title of the work “The Enchanted Wanderer” is encrypted certain meaning. It is believed that wandering is an important element of Russian national identity.
The expanses of the Russian land are limitless, and people want to see them. Strangers, cripples, passers-by, wanderers, and preachers pass through these spaces, blessing them. At the same time, they do not have their own home on earth; they walk in search of the kingdom of God.
The tossing soul of the main character of the story, Ivan Severyanych Flyagin, also seeks the kingdom of God. For the hero, this highest ideal is revealed in one of his visions: “... the sand has been swept up by a cloud, and there is nothing, only somewhere subtly a bell is ringing quietly, and the whole, like a scarlet dawn, a large white monastery, bathed in red, appears on the top, and winged creatures along the walls angels walk with golden stakes...”
A monastery is a place where a handful of righteous people gather, fenced off from the outside world.
At the end of the story, Ivan Flyagin actually comes to the monastery. Submission, peace and obedience are his life now, and that's what he likes. But the hero's journey to the monastery is a random whim of fate. Already at the very beginning, the hero knows that he is a “praying son,” that is, begged from God and destined by vow to the monastery from birth. Therefore, he “did not even do a lot of his own will,” but “according to his parents’ promise.”
Destiny influences the hero’s life, and its fulfillment turns into the plot of the work.
The reason for the hero’s final arrival at the monastery is his wonderful Russian soul. From the very first pages of the story, Ivan Severyanych is presented as a simple-minded, frank, kind and fearless person. There is nothing that Ivan Severyanych cannot do, even the Pole for whom he went to work as a nanny says: “You are a Russian person, aren’t you? The Russian man can handle everything.”
Yes, to look after a difficult child, to cure him, to pacify the temper of a wild horse, to escape from captivity - there is nothing inaccessible to the Russian man Ivan Flyagin.
The characterization of Ivan Severyanich as a truly Russian person is also enhanced in comparison with the Russian epic hero: “... he was in the full sense of the word a hero, and, moreover, a typical, simple-minded, Russian hero, reminiscent of grandfather Ilya Muromets...”. The purpose of the epic hero is to perform a patriotic and Christian feat. One of the definitions of the hero of the story is “hero-monk” and this should once again emphasize his characteristics as a national hero. But Leskov’s hero is not just a wanderer and a hero. He is an “enchanted wanderer” and his “enchanted hero,” that is, bewitched, is at the mercy of mythological forces.
“Bewitchment” constitutes the second side of the hero’s image, which correlates with his national character, just as two lines are correlated in the story itself - the national and the mythological.
The action of the mythological element in the story is determined by the spell cast on Ivan Severyanych by the ghost of the murdered monk: “But,” he says, “a sign for you that you will die many times and will never die until your real death comes, and then you will remember your mother’s life.” a promise for you and you will go to the Chernetsy!..”
Ivan Severyanych subsequently could not get rid of this spell, since it was a punishment for committing three murders. The prediction became the fate of the hero: “... and that’s why he went from one battle to another, enduring more and more, but did not die anywhere..”
Fate moans: “some event, a tragic outcome (death), a journey and everything repeats itself, but only the next test is worse, more terrible than the previous one. For example, a competition in beating each other with a whip with an Asian for the right to receive a horse - the death of an Asian - captivity for ten years in the steppe, drunkenness in a tavern, a meeting with the gypsy Grusha - her death at the hands of Ivan Flyagin - military service in the Caucasus for fifteen years.
The bright, colorful, semi-fairy-tale world in the story is matched by the hero - a man of solid nature, richly gifted, generous of soul, a real hero, a talented Russian man, a fugitive serf owner Ivan Severyanych, who went through terrible trials, was many times on the verge of death, symbolizes physical and moral fortitude of the Russian people, the gradual growth of their spiritual powers and the development of self-awareness.
Flyagin has a special relationship with the soul. Reflecting, he asks the question: why “I have a self-insignificant spirit and how much I endure through it, but I improve nothing.” For three nights he asks God for “another, more appropriate spirit” and expects something different to happen in his soul. Finally, having acquired the gift of prophecy, he understands that he has been forgiven by God, and now he “really wants to die for the people.” Ivan Severyanych believes in his future destiny - to go to war, to die for the people. Before his death, “on a pilgrimage to Solovki to Zosima Savvaty, he was blessed and therefore travels with the passengers to whom he confesses.
Just like Lefty, the hero of Leskov’s story of the same name, in the last minutes of his life thinks about the Fatherland (the British do not clean their guns with bricks, but lubricate them with oil), so at the end of the story, the gift of a harbinger, a prophet, was revealed in Ivan Flyagin: He constantly talks about a new and imminent war, for which he is punished again. Flyagin is wandering again. Now he believes the prophecy of the monk “with a woman’s face” and feels the approach of death. The listeners notice this: “... the enchanted wanderer seemed to again feel the influx of the broadcasting spirit and fell into quiet concentration.”
Leskov ends the story with a meaningful remark: “and his enlightenment remains for the time being in the hand of one who hides his destinies from the smart and reasonable and only sometimes reveals them to babies.”
Thus, N. S. Leskov, in his story “The Enchanted Wanderer,” through the image of the Russian serf Ivan Flyagin, showed the serf moral and physical strength, spiritual generosity, the ability to always come to the aid of the weak, love for his people, homeland, and nature. These are the main features of the Russian national character.
VIII. Homework.
1. Get acquainted with the biography of M.E. Saltykova - Shchedrin.