Features of realism in Turgenev's story.
Spring Turgenev's realism is complex. It shows the historical concreteness of the conflict, reflections of the real movement of life, the truthfulness of the details, “ eternal questions
"the existence of love, old age, death - objectivity of the image and tendentiousness, lyrium penetrating into the soul.
The desire of realist writers to show life in motion, to reflect all its essential aspects contributes to the development of the novel, which achieves high perfection and stylistic diversity.
Turgenev's novels, laconic, with a clear and simple plot, are not like Tolstoy's novels, where different narrative lines are intricately intertwined and many heroes act, or Dostoevsky's novels, the action of which is always subject to the contradictory, complex and painful ideological quests of the heroes.
The breadth of life material covered by literature gives rise to the largest literary genres - the epic novel (War and Peace by L. Tolstoy), the epic poem (Who Lives Well in Rus' by N. A. Nekrasova). At the same time, small forms live and develop - an epigram, a lyric poem, a story.
In the second half of the 19th century, Russian literature, enriched with the works of Tolstoy, Turgenev, Ostrovsky, Chernyshevsky, Nekrasov, Dobrolyubov, Saltykov-Shchedrin, Dostoevsky, Chekhov and other great writers, truly became the ruler of minds in Russia and attracted the sympathetic attention of the whole world. Creativity is also characteristic in this regard Ivan Alexandrovich Goncharov (1812-1891), one of the greatest writers of the second half of the 19th century. The author of the anti-serfdom novel Oblomov saw the path to liberating Russia from slavery not in peasant revolution
, but in government-led reforms. But the desire for life's truth in all its depth helped the writer reveal the pernicious influence of slavery on the human soul.
Life similar to a dream and a dream similar to death - this is the fate of the hero of the novel Ilya Ilyich Oblomov. A kind, intelligent man, he lies on the sofa in a comfortable dressing gown, and his life fades away irrevocably.
Dobrolyubov establishes the relationship of the hero Goncharov with other superfluous people - Onegin, Pechorin, Rudin. The critic says that in the old days they could have been considered heroes. But now society demands different heroes. Dobrolyubov calls the appearance of Oblomov’s image a sign of the times. Now what is striking is not the lofty aspirations and disappointment of the superfluous person, but his Oblomov-like inactivity. Oblomov appears before us exposed as he is, silent, brought down from a beautiful pedestal onto a soft sofa, covered instead of a robe only by a spacious robe. Question: what does he do? What is the meaning and purpose of his life? - stated directly and clearly. Dobrolyubov sees Goncharov’s merit in this.
The study of Oblomovism as a typical phenomenon of Russian reality made Goncharov’s novel immortal.
Goncharov's creative activity lasted several decades. Goncharov was a witness and active figure in the literary era that spanned almost the entire 19th century. Fluent in French, German and English, Goncharov was aware of all the major literary phenomena of its time. However, one of them, his own, dear, captured him most deeply, amazed him and forever subjugated him to its charm. This is Pushkin's poetry. Goncharov grew up and was brought up in the atmosphere of Pushkin's realism. The charm, rigor and purity of Pushkin's poetry captivated Goncharov and made Pushkin his great teacher.
Following Pushkin, Gogol, Lermontov, their follower and successor, among other great writers in Russian literature of the 19th century. passed his long, forty-year creative path Turgenev. Already at the beginning of this path, in the 40s, his talent was noted and appreciated by Gogol and Belinsky. From childhood, Turgenev “was imbued with love for the native soil of his fields and forests” and “kept in his soul the image of the suffering of the people inhabiting them...” Protesting against this suffering, he took Hannibal’s oath to fight serfdom all his life and kept it. It is not without reason that the first collection of his stories - “Notes of a Hunter” - was assessed by his contemporaries as “an orderly series of attacks, a whole battalion’s fire against the life of the landowners.”
Giving reviews of Turgenev's early works, Belinsky identified the characteristic features of his work. “A deep sense of reality”, “true observation”, “cordiality, sympathy for all living things”, “the ability to grasp the essence, and therefore the peculiarity of each object”, “the fragrant freshness of poetry” and, finally, that especially valuable virtue young writer, which revealed in him “the son of our time, carrying in his chest all his sorrows and questions” - this is what Belinsky noted from the young Turgenev. After reading the story “Khor and Kalinich,” Belinsky with amazing insight realized that in this small essay Turgenev’s talent “was fully evident.” Belinsky saw the “main characteristic feature” of Turgenev’s talent in the fact that Turgenev creates his artistic fiction from “real material” seen and studied in life, that Turgenev’s strength lies in the ability to “correctly and quickly understand and evaluate any phenomenon,” unravel its causes and consequences and, without leaving the “soil of reality,” process the “content taken from life into a poetic image,” creatively transform the “material” into “a picture more alive, speaking and full of thought than the actual incident that gave him the reason to paint this picture.” All further creativity Turgenev was a manifestation of this talent of a realist artist, deeply and correctly characterized by Belinsky. In the novel, novella and short story, Turgenev gave an artistic chronicle of several decades of Russian social life, the “sorrows and questions” of his century and a gallery of truthful images and paintings drawn with the skill of a first-class artist.
Nekrasov was an ideological ally of the great revolutionary democrats - Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov. For thirty years (1847-1877) he stood at the head of two of the best Russian magazines (Sovremennik and Otechestvennye zapiski).
An entire era of our social development found its immortal embodiment in his poetry. He was the poetic leader of the fighting generation of the 60-70s. His angry, suffering poetry had a powerful influence not only on revolutionary youth, but also on the great realists of the brush - the “Itinerant” artists, for whom he was a recognized teacher and friend. Nekrasov brought poetry closer to the people, introduced new themes and images into literature, updated and expanded the poetic vocabulary. His poetic voice, like Pushkin’s, “was an echo of the Russian people.”
In the early stages of his work, Leskov adheres to the tendencies of critical realism. The main direction of the research is the life and ideology of progressive youth in their diversity ( social conflicts, extreme situations - arson, etc.). The author paid special attention to the newfangled ideology - nihilism. For one of his investigations, Leskov was deprived of his job.
In the novel “Nowhere” Leskov talks about the homelessness of representatives of the advanced movement (“nowhere” to run or go). The author approaches the description of nihilists and their life satirically, emphasizing their fragmentation and illusory nature. These ideas are repeated in the novel “On Knives”.
Leskov insisted that nihilism is a purely Western idea, which is why his works contain many images of foreigners. For a Russian person, according to Leskov, nihilism is unacceptable and inevitably leads him to a dead end: Liza Bakhareva, who sincerely believes in progressive ideas, comes to a tragic end to her fate.
Realistic features deepen and thicken in “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk,” where elements of E. Zola’s naturalism clearly appear (detailed scenes of murders, visions, etc.).
The novel "On Knives" embodies an even more aggressive idea of nihilism as criminality. The author considered this work unsuccessful, so he never returned to the novel genre.
Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine Mariupol Construction College Course work Subject: “Foreign culture”
On the topic: “Critical realism”
Completed by: OS group student – 21
Kurmaz A.A
Mariupol 2002
1. The concept of critical realism.
2. Development of Russian realism:
a) the work of realist writers;
b) art and painting of Russian realists.
3. Conclusion.
4.Literature.
1. The concept of critical realism.
Realism - (from Latin realis, material) - an artistic method in the art of literature. The history of realism in world literature is unusually rich. The very idea of it changed at different stages of artistic development, reflecting the persistent desire of artists for a truthful depiction of reality.
A new type of realism emerged in the 19th century. This is critical realism. It differs significantly from the Renaissance and from the Enlightenment. Its flourishing in the West is associated with the names of Stendhal and Balzac in France, Dickens, Thackeray in England, and in Russia - A. Pushkin, N. Gogol, I. Turgenev, F. Dostoevsky, L. Tolstoy, A. Chekhov.
Critical realism portrays in a new way the relationship between man and environment. Human character is revealed in organic connection with social circumstances. Subject of deep social analysis the inner world of man has become, critical realism therefore simultaneously becomes psychological. Romanticism, which sought to penetrate the secrets of the human “I,” played a large role in the preparation of this quality of realism.
The deepening of knowledge of life and the complication of the picture of the world in the critical realism of the 19th century does not mean, however, some kind of absolute superiority over previous stages, for the development of art is marked not only by gains, but also by losses. The scale of the images of the Renaissance was lost. The pathos of affirmation characteristic of the enlighteners, their enthusiastic belief in the victory of good over evil, remained unique.
The rise of the labor movement in Western countries and the formation of Marxism in the 40s of the 19th century not only influenced the literature of critical realism, but also brought to life the first artistic experiments in depicting reality from the position of the revolutionary proletariat.
In Russia, the 19th century is a period of exceptional strength and scope in the development of realism. In the second half of the century, the artistic achievements of realism brought Russian literature to the international arena and won it worldwide recognition. The richness and diversity of Russian realism of the 19th century allow us to talk about its different forms.
Its formation is associated with the name of Pushkin, who led Russian literature onto the broad path of depicting “the fate of the people, the fate of man.” In the conditions of the accelerated development of Russian literature, Pushkin seems to be making up for its previous lag, paving new paths in almost all genres and, with his universality and his optimism, turning out to be akin to the talents of the Renaissance. Pushkin’s work lays the foundations of critical realism, developed in the work of Gogol and - after him - in the so-called natural school.
The performance of revolutionary democrats led by N. Chernyshevsky in the 60s gives new features to Russian critical realism.
A special place in the history of Russian realism belongs to L. Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. It was thanks to them that the Russian realistic novel acquired global significance. Their psychological mastery and insight into the “dialectics” of the soul opened the way for the artistic quests of 20th century writers. Realism in the 20th century throughout the world bears the imprint of the aesthetic discoveries of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky.
It is important to emphasize that Russian realism of the 19th century did not develop in isolation from the world historical and literary process. This was the beginning of an era when, according to K. Marx and F. Engels, “the fruits of the spiritual activity of individual nations become the common property” (Marx K., Engels F. Soch., I4, p. 428).
Critical realism, which continued to develop in Russian literature until the October Revolution (I. Bunin, A. Kuprin) and in the West, received further development in the 20th century, while undergoing significant changes. In the critical realism of the 20th century in the West, a variety of influences are more freely intensified and intersected, including some features of non-realistic movements of the 20th century, which does not exclude the struggle of realists against non-realistic aesthetics.
2. Development of Russian realism.
30-40s years XIX century is a time of crisis of educational and subjective-romantic concepts. Enlightenmentists and romantics are brought together by a subjective view of the world. They did not understand reality as an objective process developing according to its own laws, independent of the role of people. In the fight against social evil, thinkers of the Enlightenment relied on the power of words and moral example, and the theorists of revolutionary romanticism relied on the heroic personality. Both of them underestimated the role of the objective factor in the development of history.
Revealing social contradictions, the romantics, as a rule, did not see in them an expression of the real interests of certain segments of the population and therefore did not connect overcoming them with a specific social, class struggle.
Big role The revolutionary liberation movement played a role in the realistic understanding of social reality. Until the first powerful uprisings of the working class, the essence of bourgeois society and its class structure remained largely mysterious. The revolutionary struggle of the proletariat made it possible to remove the seal of mystery from the capitalist system and expose its contradictions. Therefore, it is quite natural that it was in the 30-40s of the 19th century that realism in literature and art was established in Western Europe. Exposing the vices of serfdom and bourgeois society, the realist writer finds beauty in objective reality itself. His positive hero is not elevated above life (Bazarov in Turgenev, Kirsanov, Lopukhov in Chernyshevsky, etc.). As a rule, it reflects the aspirations and interests of the people, the views of the advanced circles of the bourgeois and noble intelligentsia. Realistic art eliminates the disconnect between ideal and reality, characteristic of romanticism. Of course, in the works of some realists there are vague romantic illusions where we are talking about the embodiment of the future (“The Dream of a Funny Man” by Dostoevsky, “What to Do?” Chernyshevsky...), and in this case we can rightfully talk about the presence in their work romantic tendencies. Critical realism in Russia was a consequence of the rapprochement of literature and art with life.
Realists of the 20th century widely pushed the boundaries of art. They began to depict the most ordinary, prosaic phenomena. Reality entered their works with all its social contrasts and tragic dissonances. They decisively broke with the idealizing tendencies of the Karamzinists and abstract romantics, in whose work even poverty, as Belinsky put it, appeared “neat and washed.”
Critical realism took a step forward along the path of democratization of literature also in comparison with the work of the enlighteners of the 18th century. He took a much broader view of his contemporary reality. Feudal modernity entered the works of critical realists not only as the arbitrariness of serf owners, but also as a tragic situation masses- serf peasantry, disadvantaged urban people. In the works of Fielding, Schiller, Diderot and other writers of the Enlightenment, the middle class man was portrayed mainly as the embodiment of nobility, honesty and thereby opposed the corrupt, dishonest aristocrats. He revealed himself only in the sphere of his high moral consciousness. His daily life, with all its sorrows, suffering and worries, remained essentially outside the scope of the story. Only among revolutionary-minded sentimentalists (Rousseau and especially Radishchev) and individual romantics (Hu, Hugo, etc.) does this theme receive elaboration.
In critical realism, there has been a tendency towards a complete overcoming of rhetoric and didacticism, which were present in the works of many educators. In the works of Diderot, Schiller, Fonvizin, alongside typical images embodying the psychology of real classes of society, there were heroes embodying the ideal features of enlightenment consciousness. The appearance of the ugly is not always balanced in critical realism by the image of the proper, which is mandatory for educational literature of the 18th century. The ideal in the work of critical realists is often affirmed through the denial of the ugly phenomena of reality.
Realistic art performs its analytical function not only by revealing the contradictions between the oppressors and the oppressed, but also by showing the social conditioning of man. The principle of sociality - the aesthetics of critical realism. Critical realists in their work lead to the idea that evil is rooted not in man, but in society. Realists do not limit themselves to criticism of morals and contemporary legislation. They raise the question of the inhuman nature of the very foundations of bourgeois and serf society.
In the study of life, critical realists went further not only Sue, Hugo, but also the 18th century enlighteners Diderot, Schiller, Fildini, Smolett sharply criticized feudal modernity from a realistic position, but their criticism went in an ideological direction. They denounced the manifestations of serfdom not in the economic sphere, but mainly in the legal, moral, religious and political spheres.
In the works of enlighteners great place takes the image of a depraved aristocrat who does not recognize any restrictions on his sensual lusts. The depravity of rulers is portrayed in educational literature as a product of feudal relations, in which the aristocratic nobility knows no prohibition on their feelings. The work of enlighteners reflected the lack of rights of the people, the arbitrariness of princes who sold their subjects to other countries. Writers of the 18th century sharply criticized religious fanaticism (“The Nun” by Diderot, “Nathan the Wise” by Lessinia), opposed prehistoric forms of government, and supported the struggle of peoples for their national independence (“Don Carlos” by Schiller, “Egmant” by Goethe).
Thus, in the educational literature of the 18th century, criticism of feudal society occurs primarily in ideological terms. Critical realists expanded the thematic range of the art of words. A person, no matter what social stratum he belongs to, is characterized by them not only in the sphere of moral consciousness, he is also depicted in everyday life. practical activities.
Critical realism characterizes man universally as a specific historically established individual. The heroes of Balzac, Saltykov-Shchedrin, Chekhov and others are depicted not only in the sublime moments of their lives, but also in the most tragic situations. They portray man as a social being, formed under the influence of certain socio-historical reasons. Characterizing Balzac's method, G.V. Plekhanov notes that the creator of The Human Comedy “took” passions in the form that the bourgeois society of his time gave them; With the attention of a natural scientist, he watched how they grew and developed in a given social environment. Thanks to this, he became a realist in the very sense of the word, and his writings represent an indispensable source for studying the psychology of French society during the Restoration and “Louis Philippe.” However, realistic art is more than the reproduction of a person in social relationships.
Russian realists of the 19th century also depicted society in contradictions and conflicts, which reflected the real movement of history and revealed the struggle of ideas. As a result, reality appeared in their work as an “ordinary flow,” as a self-propelled reality. Realism reveals its true essence only if art is considered by writers as a reflection of reality. In this case, the natural criteria of realism are depth, truth, objectivity in revealing the internal connections of life, typical characters acting in typical circumstances, and the necessary determinants of realistic creativity are the historium, the nationality of the artist’s thinking. Realism is characterized by the image of a person in unity with his environment, the social and historical specificity of the image, conflict, plot, and the widespread use of such genre structures as the novel, drama, story, story.
Critical realism was marked by an unprecedented spread of epic and drama, which noticeably replaced poetry. Among the epic genres, the novel gained the greatest popularity. The reason for its success is mainly that it allows the realist writer to most fully implement the analytical function of art, to expose the causes of social evil.
Critical realism brought to life a new type of comedy, based on a conflict not traditionally love, but social. Its image is Gogol’s “The Inspector General,” a sharp satire on Russian reality of the 30s of the 19th century. Gogol notes the obsolescence of comedy with love themes. In his opinion, in the “mercantile age”, “rank, money capital, profitable marriage” have more “electricity” than love. Gogol found such a comedic situation that allowed him to penetrate social relations era, to ridicule the embezzlers and bribe-takers. “Comedy,” writes Gogol, “must knit itself, with its entire mass, into one big knot. The plot should embrace all faces, and not just one or two, - touch on what worries more or less the characters. Everyone is a hero here.”
Russian critical realists depict reality from the perspective of the oppressed, suffering people, who in their works act as a measure of moral and aesthetic assessments. The idea of nationality is the main determinant artistic method Russian realistic art of the 19th century.
Critical realism is not limited to exposing the ugly. He also depicts the positive aspects of life - hard work, moral beauty, poetry of the Russian peasantry, the desire of the advanced nobles and common intelligentsia for socially useful activities, and much more. At the origins of Russian realism of the 19th century stands A.S. Pushkin. A major role in the ideological and aesthetic evolution of the poet was played by his rapprochement with the Decembrists during his southern exile. He now finds support for his creativity in reality. The hero of Pushkin’s realistic poetry is not isolated from society, does not run away from it, he is intertwined with the natural and socio-historical processes of life. His work acquires historical specificity, it intensifies criticism of various manifestations of social oppression, sharpens attention to the plight of the people (“When I wander around the city thoughtfully ...”, “My rosy critic ...” and others).
In Pushkin's lyrics one can see the social life of his time with its social contrasts, ideological quests, and the struggle of progressive people against political and feudal tyranny. The poet's humanism and nationality, along with his historicism, are the most important determinants of his realistic thinking.
Pushkin’s transition from romanticism to realism was manifested in “Boris Godunov” mainly in a specific interpretation of the conflict, in recognition of the decisive role of the people in history. The tragedy is imbued with deep historicism.
Pushkin was also the founder of the Russian realistic novel. In 1836 he completed The Captain's Daughter. Its creation was preceded by work on the “History of Pugachev”, which reveals the inevitability of the uprising of the Yaik Cossacks: “Everything foreshadowed a new rebellion - a leader was missing.” “Their choice fell on Pugachev. It was not difficult for them to persuade him.”
The further development of realism in Russian literature is associated primarily with the name of N.V. Gogol. The pinnacle of his realistic work is “Dead Souls”. Gogol himself considered his poem as a qualitatively new stage in his creative biography. In his works of the 30s (“The Inspector General” and others), Gogol depicts exclusively negative phenomena of society. Russian reality appears in them in its deadness and immobility. The life of the inhabitants of the outback is depicted as devoid of rationality. There is no movement in it. The conflicts are of a comic nature; they do not affect the serious contradictions of the time.
Gogol watched with alarm how, under the “crust of earthliness”, everything truly human disappeared in modern society, how man became smaller and vulgarized. Seeing art as an active force for social development, Gogol cannot imagine creativity that is not illuminated by the light of a high aesthetic ideal.
Gogol in the 40s was critical of Russian literature romantic period. He sees its shortcoming in the fact that it did not give a correct picture of Russian reality. Romantics, in his opinion, often rushed “above society,” and if they descended upon it, it was only to lash it with the scourge of satire, and not to pass on his life as a model for posterity. Gogol includes himself among the writers he criticizes. He is not satisfied with the predominantly accusatory nature of his past literary activity. Gogol now sets himself the task of a comprehensive and historically specific reproduction of life in its objective movement towards the ideal. He is not at all against denunciation, but only when it appears in combination with an image of beauty.
Continuation of Pushkin and Gogolian traditions the creativity of I.S. appeared Turgenev. Turgenev gained popularity after the publication of “Notes of a Hunter.” Turgenev’s achievements in the genre of the novel are enormous (“Rudin”, “The Noble Nest”, “On the Eve”, “Fathers and Sons”). In this area, his realism acquired new features. Turgenev, a novelist, focuses on the historical process.
Turgenev's realism was expressed most clearly in the novel Fathers and Sons. The work is distinguished by acute conflict. Intertwined in it are the destinies of people of very different views and different positions in life. The noble circles are represented by the brothers Kirsanov and Odintsova, and the various intelligentsia by the Bazarovs. In the image of Bazarov, he embodied the features of a revolutionary, opposed to all kinds of liberal talkers like Arkady Kirsanov, who clung to the democratic movement. Bazarov hates idleness, sybaritism, manifestations of lordship. He considers it insufficient to limit ourselves to exposing social vices.
Turgenev's realism is manifested not only in the depiction of the social contradictions of the era, the clashes of “fathers” and “sons”. It also involves revealing moral laws, ruling the world, in affirming the enormous social value of love, art...
Turgenev’s lyricism, the most characteristic feature of his style, is associated with the glorification of the moral greatness of man and his spiritual beauty. Turgenev is one of the most lyrical writers of the 19th century. He treats his heroes with passionate interest. Their sorrows, joys and sufferings are as if his own. Turgenev relates man not only to society, but also to nature, to the universe as a whole. As a result, the psychology of Turgenev’s heroes is the interaction of many components of both the social and natural series.
Turgenev's realism is complex. It shows the historical concreteness of the conflict, reflection of the real movement of life, the truthfulness of details, the “eternal questions” of the existence of love, old age, death - the objectivity of the image and tendentiousness, the lyrium penetrating into the soul.
Democratic writers (I.A. Nekrasov, N.G. Chernyshevsky, M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, etc.) brought a lot of new things into realistic art. Their realism was called sociological. What it has in common is the denial of the existing serfdom system, the demonstration of its historical doom. Hence the harshness of social criticism, the depth artistic research reality.
A special place in sociological realism is occupied by “What is to be done?” N.G. Chernyshevsky. The originality of the work lies in the promotion of the socialist ideal, new views on love, marriage, and in the promotion of the path to the reconstruction of society. Chernyshevsky not only reveals the contradiction of contemporary reality, but also proposes a broad program for the transformation of life and human consciousness. The writer attaches the greatest importance to work as a means of forming a new person and creating new social relations. Realism “What to do?” has features that bring it closer to romanticism. Trying to imagine the essence of the socialist future, Chernyshevsky begins to think typically romantically. But at the same time, Chernyshevsky strives to overcome romantic daydreaming. He wages the struggle for the embodiment of the socialist ideal based on reality.
Russian critical realism reveals new facets in the works of F.M. Dostoevsky. In the early period (“Poor People”, “White Nights”, etc.), the writer continues the tradition of Gogol, depicting the tragic fate of “ little man».
Tragic motives not only do not disappear, but, on the contrary, intensify even more in the writer’s work in the 60-70s. Dostoevsky sees all the troubles that capitalism has brought with it: predation, financial scams, increased poverty, drunkenness, prostitution, crime, etc. He perceived life primarily in its tragic essence, in a state of chaos and decay. This determines the acute conflict and intense drama of Dostoevsky’s novels. It seemed to him that any fantastic situation could not outshine the fantastic nature of reality. But Dostoevsky is looking for a way out of the contradictions of our time. In the struggle for the future, he relies on a decided, moral re-education of society.
Dostoevsky considers individualism and concern for one’s own well-being to be the most characteristic feature of bourgeois consciousness, therefore the debunking of individualistic psychology is the main direction in the writer’s work. The pinnacle of realistic depiction of reality was the work of L.M. Tolstoy. The writer’s enormous contribution to world artistic culture is not the result of his genius alone, it is also a consequence of his deep nationality. Tolstoy in his works depicts life from the perspective of “a hundred million agricultural people,” as he himself liked to say. Tolstoy's realism manifested itself primarily in revealing the objective processes of development of his contemporary society, in understanding the psychology of various classes, the inner world of people from various social circles. Tolstoy's realistic art was clearly demonstrated in his epic novel War and Peace. Having based the work on “people's thought,” the writer criticized those who are indifferent to the fate of the people, homeland and live a selfish life. Tolstoy's historicism, which fuels his realism, is characterized not only by an understanding of the main trends of historical development, but also by an interest in the everyday life of the most ordinary people, who nevertheless leave a noticeable mark on the historical process.
So, critical realism, both in the West and in Russia, is an art that both criticizes and affirms. Moreover, it finds high social, humanistic values in reality itself, mainly in democratically, revolutionary-minded circles of society. Positive heroes in the works of realists - truth-seekers, people associated with the national liberation or revolutionary movement (Carbonari in Stendhal, Neuron in Balzac) or actively resisting the corrupting attention of individualistic morality (in Dickens). Russian critical realism created a gallery of images of fighters for the people's interests (Turgenev, Nekrasov). This is the great originality of Russian realistic art, which determined its global significance.
A new stage in the history of realism was the work of A.P. Chekhov. The writer’s innovation lies not only in the fact that he is an outstanding master of the small ethical form. Chekhov's attraction to the short story, to the short story, had its reasons. As an artist, he was interested in the “little things of life,” all that everyday life that surrounds a person, influencing his consciousness. He depicted social reality in its ordinary, everyday flow. Hence the breadth of his generalizations despite the apparent narrowness of his creative range.
Conflicts in Chekhov's works are not the result of confrontation between heroes who clash with each other for one reason or another, they arise under the pressure of life itself, reflecting its objective contradictions. The features of Chekhov's realism, aimed at depicting the patterns of reality that determine the destinies of people, were vividly embodied in The Cherry Orchard. The play is very ambiguous in its content. It contains elegiac motifs associated with the death of the garden, the beauty of which is sacrificed for material interests. Thus, the writer condemns the psychology of mercantelium, which the bourgeois system brought with it.
In the narrow sense of the word, the concept of “realism” means a specific historical movement in the art of the 19th century, which declared correspondence to the truth of life as the basis of its creative program. The term was first put forward by the French literary critic Chanfleury in the 50s of the 19th century. This term has entered the vocabulary of people from different countries in relation to various arts. If in a broad sense realism is a common feature in the work of artists belonging to different artistic movements and directions, then in a narrow sense realism is a separate direction, different from others. Thus, realism is opposed to previous romanticism, in overcoming which it, in fact, developed. The basis of realism of the 19th century was a sharply critical attitude to reality, which is why it received the name critical realism. The peculiarity of this direction is the formulation and reflection of acute social problems in artistic creativity, a conscious desire to pronounce judgment on the negative phenomena of social life. Critical realism was focused on depicting the lives of the disadvantaged sections of society. The work of artists of this movement is like a study of social contradictions. The ideas of critical realism were embodied most clearly in the art of France in the first half of the 19th century, in the works of G. Courbet and J.F. Millais ("The Ear Pickers" 1857).
Naturalism. In the fine arts, naturalism was not presented as a clearly defined movement, but was present in the form of naturalistic tendencies: in the rejection of public evaluation, social typification of life and the replacement of the disclosure of their essence with external visual authenticity. These trends led to such traits as superficiality in the depiction of events and passive copying of minor details. These features appeared already in the first half of the 19th century in the works of P. Delaroche and O. Vernet in France. Naturalistic copying of the painful aspects of reality, the choice of all kinds of deformities as themes determined the originality of some works by artists who gravitate toward naturalism.
A conscious turn of new Russian painting towards democratic realism, nationality, and modernity emerged in the late 50s, together with the revolutionary situation in the country, with the social maturation of the intelligentsia of the various classes, with the revolutionary enlightenment of Chernyshevsky, Dobrolyubov, Saltykov-Shchedrin, with the people-loving poetry of Nekrasov. In “Essays on the Gogol Period” (in 1856), Chernyshevsky wrote: “If painting is now generally in a rather pitiful position, the main reason for this must be considered the alienation of this art from modern aspirations.” The same idea was cited in many articles in the Sovremennik magazine.
But painting was already beginning to join modern aspirations - first of all in Moscow. The Moscow School did not enjoy even a tenth of the privileges of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, but it was less dependent on its ingrained dogmas, and the atmosphere in it was more lively. Although the teachers at the School are mostly academicians, the academicians are secondary and wavering - they did not suppress with their authority the same way as at the Academy F. Bruni, the pillar of the old school, who at one time competed with Bryullov with his painting “The Copper Serpent”.
Perov, recalling the years of his apprenticeship, said that they came there “from all over the great and diverse Russia. And where did they come from?
We just weren’t students!.. They were from distant and cold Siberia,
from the warm Crimea and Astrakhan, from Poland, the Don, even from the Solovetsky
islands and Athos, and finally from Constantinople. God, what a diverse, diverse crowd used to gather within the walls
Schools!.."
Original talents, crystallized from this solution, from this motley mixture of “tribes, dialects and states,” finally sought to tell about what they lived, what was vitally close to them. In Moscow this process began; in St. Petersburg it was soon marked by two turning events that put an end to the academic monopoly in art. First: in 1863, 14 graduates of the Academy, led by I. Kramskoy, refused to write a graduation picture based on the proposed plot of “The Feast in Valhalla” and asked to be given the choice of subjects themselves. They were refused, and they defiantly left the Academy, forming an independent Artel of artists similar to the communes described by Chernyshevsky in the novel “What is to be done?” The second event is the creation in 1870
The Association of Traveling Exhibitions, the soul of which was the same Kramskoy.
The Association of Itinerants, unlike many later associations, did without any declarations or manifestos. Its charter only stated that the members of the Partnership should manage their own financial affairs, not depending on anyone in this regard, and also organize exhibitions themselves and take them to different cities (“move” around Russia) in order to acquaint the country with Russian art . Both of these points were of significant importance, asserting the independence of art from the authorities and the will of artists to widely communicate with people not only in the capital. The main role in the creation of the Partnership and the development of its charter belonged to, in addition to Kramskoy, Myasoedov, Ge - from St. Petersburg, and from Muscovites - Perov, Pryanishnikov, Savrasov.
On November 9, 1863, a large group of graduates of the Academy of Arts refused to write competition papers on the proposed topic from Scandinavian mythology and left the Academy. The rebels were led by Ivan Nikolaevich Kramskoy (1837-1887). They united into an artel and began to live as a commune. Seven years later it disbanded, but by this time the “Association of Artistic Traveling Inserts” was born, a professional and commercial association of artists who held similar ideological positions.
The Peredvizhniki were united in their rejection of “academicism” with its mythology, decorative landscapes and pompous theatricality. They wanted to depict living life. Genre (everyday) scenes occupied a leading place in their work. The peasantry enjoyed particular sympathy with the “Itinerants”. They showed his need, suffering, oppressed position. At that time - in the 60-70s. XIX century - ideological side
art was valued higher than aesthetics. Only over time did artists remember the intrinsic value of painting.
Perhaps the greatest tribute to ideology was paid by Vasily Grigorievich Perov (1834-1882). Suffice it to recall such of his paintings as “The Arrival of the Chief for Investigation”, “Tea Party in Mytishchi”. Some of Perov’s works are imbued with genuine tragedy (“Troika”, “Old Parents at the Grave of their Son”). Perov painted a number of portraits of his famous contemporaries (Ostrovsky, Turgenev, Dostoevsky).
Some of the paintings of the “Itinerants,” painted from life or inspired by real scenes, have enriched our ideas about peasant life. S. A. Korovin’s film “On the World” shows a clash at a rural gathering between a rich man and a poor man. V. M. Maksimov captured the rage, tears, and grief of the family division. The solemn festivity of peasant labor is reflected in the painting “Mowers” by G. G. Myasoedov.
Portraiture occupied the main place in Kramskoy’s work. He wrote Goncharov, Saltykov-Shchedrin, Nekrasov. He owns one of the best portraits of Leo Tolstoy. The writer's gaze does not leave the viewer, no matter from what point he looks at the canvas. One of Kramskoy’s most powerful works is the painting “Christ in the Desert.”
The first exhibition of the “Itinerants”, which opened in 1871, convincingly demonstrated the existence of a new direction that took shape throughout the 60s. There were only 46 exhibits (in contrast to the cumbersome Academy exhibitions), but carefully selected, and although the exhibition was not deliberately programmatic, the overall unwritten program emerged quite clearly. All genres were represented - historical, everyday life, landscape portraiture - and the audience could judge what new the “Wanderers” brought to them. Only one sculpture was unlucky, and that was the little remarkable sculpture of F. Kamensky), but this type of art was “unlucky” for a long time, in fact, the entire second half of the century.
By the beginning of the 90s, among the young artists of the Moscow school, there were, however, those who worthily and seriously continued the civil itinerant tradition: S. Ivanov with his cycle of paintings about immigrants, S. Korovin - the author of the painting “On the World”, where it is interesting and the dramatic (really dramatic!) conflicts of the pre-reform village are thoughtfully revealed. But they did not set the tone: the entry to the forefront of the “World of Art”, equally distant from the Wanderers and the Academy, was approaching. What did the Academy look like at that time? Her artistic previous rigoristic attitudes had faded away; she no longer insisted on the strict requirements of neoclassicism, on the notorious hierarchy of genres; she was quite tolerant of everyday genre, she only preferred that it be “beautiful” rather than “peasant” (an example of “beautiful” non-academic works - scenes from ancient life then popular S. Bakalovich). For the most part, non-academic production, as was the case in other countries, was bourgeois salon, its “beauty” was vulgar prettiness. But it cannot be said that she did not put forward talents: G. Semiradsky, mentioned above, and V. Smirnov, who died early (who managed to create the impressive large painting “The Death of Nero”) were very talented; One cannot deny certain artistic merits of the paintings of A. Svedomsky and V. Kotarbinsky. Repin spoke approvingly of these artists, considering them bearers of the “Hellenic spirit” in his later years, and Vrubel was impressed by them, just like Aivazovsky, also an “academic” artist. On the other hand, none other than Semiradsky, during the reorganization of the Academy, decisively spoke out in favor of the everyday genre, pointing to Perov, Repin and V. Mayakovsky as positive examples. So there were enough points of convergence between the “Itinerants” and the Academy, and the then vice-president of the Academy I.I. understood this. Tolstoy, on whose initiative the leading “Itinerants” were called to teach.
But the main thing that does not allow us to completely discount the role of the Academy of Arts, primarily as an educational institution, in the second half of the century is the simple fact that many outstanding artists emerged from its walls. These are Repin, and Surikov, and Polenov, and Vasnetsov, and later - Serov and Vrubel. Moreover, they did not repeat the “revolt of the fourteen” and, apparently, benefited from their apprenticeship. More precisely, they all benefited from the lessons of P.P. Chistyakov, who was therefore called the “universal teacher.” Chistyakova deserves special attention.
There is even something mysterious in the universal popularity of Chistyakov among artists very different in their creative individuality. The quiet Surikov wrote long letters to Chistyakov from abroad. V. Vasnetsov addressed Chistyakov with the words: “I would like to be called your son in spirit.” Vrubel proudly called himself a Chistyakovite. And this, despite the fact that as an artist Chistyakov was of secondary importance, he wrote little at all. But as a teacher he was one of a kind. Already in 1908, Serov wrote to him: “I remember you as a teacher, and I consider you the only (in Russia) true teacher of the eternal, unshakable laws of form - which is the only thing that can be taught.” Chistyakov's wisdom was that he understood what can and should be taught, as the foundation of the necessary skill, and what cannot be taught - what comes from the talent and personality of the artist, which must be respected and treated with understanding and care. Therefore, his system of teaching drawing, anatomy and perspective did not fetter anyone, everyone extracted from it what they needed for themselves, there was room for personal talents and searches, and a solid foundation was laid. Chistyakov did not leave a detailed statement of his “system”; it is reconstructed mainly from the memories of his students. This was a rationalistic system, its essence was a conscious analytical approach to the construction of form. Chistyakov taught “to draw with form.” Not with contours, not with “drawing” and not with shading, but to build a three-dimensional form in space, going from the general to the specific. According to Chistyakov, drawing is an intellectual process, “deriving laws from nature” - this is what he considered a necessary basis for art, no matter what the artist’s “manner” and “natural shade” may be. Chistyakov insisted on the priority of drawing and, with his penchant for humorous aphorisms, expressed it this way: “Drawing is the male part, the man; painting is a woman.”
Respect for drawing, for the constructed constructive form, is rooted in Russian art. Was it Chistyakov with his “system” that was the reason, or was the general orientation of Russian culture towards realism the reason for the popularity of Chistyakov’s method? One way or another, Russian painters up to and including Serov, Nesterov and Vrubel honored the “immutable eternal laws of form” and were wary of “dematerialization” or submission to the colorful amorphous element, no matter how much one loves color.
Among the Peredvizhniki invited to the Academy were two landscape painters - Shishkin and Kuindzhi. It was precisely at that time that the hegemony of landscape began in art both as an independent genre, where Levitan reigned, and as an equal element of everyday, historical, and partly portrait painting. Contrary to the forecasts of Stasov, who believes that the role of landscape will decrease, in the 90s it increased more than ever. The lyrical “mood landscape” prevailed, tracing its ancestry to Savrasov and Polenov.
The Peredvizhniki group made genuine discoveries in landscape painting. Alexey Kondratievich Savrasov (1830-1897) managed to show the beauty and subtle lyricism of a simple Russian landscape. His painting “The Rooks Have Arrived” (1871) made many contemporaries take a fresh look at native nature.
Fyodor Alexandrovich Vasiliev (1850-1873) lived short life. His work, which was cut short at the very beginning, enriched Russian painting with a number of dynamic, exciting landscapes. The artist was especially good at transitional states in nature: from sun to rain, from calm to storm.
The singer of the Russian forest, the epic breadth of Russian nature, became Ivan Ivanovich Shishkin (1832-1898). Arkhip Ivanovich Kuindzhi (1841-1910) was attracted by the picturesque play of light and air. The mysterious light of the moon in rare clouds, red reflections of dawn on the white walls of Ukrainian huts, slanting morning rays breaking through the fog and playing in puddles on a muddy road - these and many other picturesque discoveries are captured on his canvases.
Russian at its peak landscape painting The 19th century was achieved in the work of Savrasov's student Isaac Ilyich Levitan (1860-1900). Levitan is a master of calm, quiet landscapes. He was a very timid, shy and vulnerable man, he knew how to relax only alone with nature, imbued with the mood of his favorite landscape.
One day he came to the Volga to paint the sun, air and river expanses. But there was no sun, endless clouds crawled across the sky, and the dull rains stopped. The artist was nervous until he got involved in this weather and discovered the special charm of the lilac colors of Russian bad weather. Since then, the Upper Volga and provincial town of Ples have become firmly entrenched in his work. In those parts he created his “rainy” works: “After the Rain”, “Gloomy Day”, “Above Eternal Peace”. Peaceful evening landscapes were also painted there: “Evening on the Volga”, “Evening. Golden Reach", "Evening Ringing", "Quiet Abode".
In the last years of his life, Levitan paid attention to the work of French impressionist artists (E. Manet, C. Monet, C. Pizarro). He realized that he had a lot in common with them, that their creative searches went in the same direction. Like them, he preferred to work not in the studio, but in the air (in the open air, as the artists say). Like them, he lightened the palette, banishing the dark, earthy colors. Like them, he sought to capture the fleeting nature of existence, to convey the movements of light and air. In this they went further than him, but almost dissolved volumetric forms (houses, trees) in light-air streams. He avoided it.
“Levitan’s paintings require slow viewing,” wrote K. G. Paustovsky, a great connoisseur of his work, “They do not stun the eye. They are modest and precise, like Chekhov’s stories, but the longer you look at them, the sweeter the silence of provincial towns, familiar rivers and country roads becomes.”
In the second half of the 19th century. have to creative flourishing I. E. Repin, V. I. Surikov and V. A. Serov.
Ilya Efimovich Repin (1844-1930) was born in the city of Chuguev, into the family of a military settler. He managed to enter the Academy of Arts, where his teacher was P. P. Chistyakov, who trained a whole galaxy of famous artists (V. I. Surikov, V. M. Vasnetsov, M. A. Vrubel, V. A. Serov). Repin also learned a lot from Kramskoy. In 1870, the young artist traveled along the Volga. He used numerous sketches brought from his travels for the painting “Barge Haulers on the Volga” (1872). She made a strong impression on the public. The author immediately rose to the ranks of the most famous masters.
Repin was a very versatile artist. A number of monumental genre paintings belong to his brush. Perhaps no less impressive than “Barge Haulers” is the “Religious Procession in the Kursk Province”. The bright blue sky, clouds of road dust pierced by the sun, the golden glow of crosses and vestments, the police, ordinary people and cripples - everything fits on this canvas: the greatness, strength, weakness and pain of Russia.
Many of Repin’s films dealt with revolutionary themes (“Refusal of Confession,” “They Didn’t Expect,” “Arrest of the Propagandist”). The revolutionaries in his paintings behave simply and naturally, avoiding theatrical poses and gestures. In the painting “Refusal to Confess,” the man sentenced to death seemed to have deliberately hidden his hands in his sleeves. The artist clearly sympathized with the heroes of his paintings.
A number of Repin’s paintings were written on historical themes (“Ivan the Terrible and his son Ivan”, “Cossacks composing a letter to the Turkish Sultan”, etc.) - Repin created a whole gallery of portraits. He painted portraits of scientists (Pirogov and Sechenov), writers Tolstoy, Turgenev and Garshin, composers Glinka and Mussorgsky, artists Kramskoy and Surikov. At the beginning of the 20th century. he received an order for the painting “The Ceremonial Meeting of the State Council.” The artist managed not only to place such a large number of those present on the canvas compositionally, but also to give psychological characteristics to many of them. Among them were such famous figures as S.Yu. Witte, K.P. Pobedonostsev, P.P. Semenov Tian-Shansky. Nicholas II is hardly noticeable in the picture, but is depicted very subtly.
Vasily Ivanovich Surikov (1848-1916) was born in Krasnoyarsk, into a Cossack family. The heyday of his work was in the 80s, when he created his three most famous historical paintings: “The Morning of the Streltsy Execution”, “Menshikov in Berezovo” and “Boyaryna Morozova”.
Surikov knew well the life and customs of past eras, and was able to give vivid psychological characteristics. In addition, he was an excellent colorist (color master). Suffice it to recall the dazzlingly fresh, sparkling snow in the film “Boyaryna Morozova”. If you come closer to the canvas, the snow seems to “crumble” into blue, light blue, and pink strokes. This painting technique, when two or three different strokes merge at a distance and give the desired color, was widely used by the French impressionists.
Valentin Aleksandrovich Serov (1865-1911), son of the composer, painted landscapes, canvases on historical themes, and worked as a theater artist. But it was primarily his portraits that brought him fame.
In 1887, 22-year-old Serov was vacationing in Abramtsevo, the dacha of philanthropist S.I. Mamontov near Moscow. Among his many children, the young artist was his own man, a participant in their noisy games. One day after lunch, two people accidentally lingered in the dining room - Serov and 12-year-old Verusha Mamontova. They sat at the table on which there were peaches, and during the conversation Verusha did not notice how the artist began to sketch her portrait. The work lasted for a month, and Verusha was angry that Anton (as Serov was called at home) made her sit in the dining room for hours.
At the beginning of September, "Girl with Peaches" was completed. Despite its small size, the painting, painted in rose-golden tones, seemed very “spacious”. There was a lot of light and air in it. The girl, who sat down at the table for what seemed like a minute and fixed her gaze on the viewer, enchanted with her clarity and spirituality. And the whole canvas was covered in a purely childish perception of everyday life, when happiness is not conscious of itself, and a whole life lies ahead.
The inhabitants of the Abramtsevo house, of course, understood that a miracle had happened before their eyes. But only time gives final assessments. It placed “Girl with Peaches” among the best portrait works in Russian and world painting.
The next year, Serov managed to almost repeat his magic. He painted a portrait of his sister Maria Simonović (“Girl Illuminated by the Sun”). The name is a little inaccurate: the girl is sitting in the shade, and the rays of the morning sun illuminate the clearing in the background. But in the picture everything is so united, so united - morning, sun, summer, youth and beauty - that it is difficult to come up with a better name.
Serov became a fashionable portrait painter. Famous writers, actors, artists, entrepreneurs, aristocrats, even kings posed in front of him. Apparently, not everyone he wrote had his heart set on it. Some high-society portraits, despite their filigree execution technique, turned out cold.
For several years Serov taught at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. He was a demanding teacher. An opponent of frozen forms of painting, Serov at the same time believed that creative searches should be based on a solid mastery of the techniques of drawing and pictorial writing. Many outstanding masters considered themselves students of Serov. This is M.S. Saryan, K.F. Yuon, P.V. Kuznetsov, K. S. Petrov-Vodkin.
Many paintings by Repin, Surikov, Levitan, Serov, and the “Wanderers” ended up in Tretyakov’s collection. Pavel Mikhailovich Tretyakov (1832-1898), a representative of an old Moscow merchant family, was an unusual person. Thin and tall, with a thick beard and a quiet voice, he looked more like a saint than a merchant. He began collecting paintings by Russian artists in 1856. His hobby grew into the main business of his life. In the early 90s. the collection reached the level of a museum, absorbing almost the entire fortune of the collector. Later it became the property of Moscow. Tretyakov Gallery has become a world famous museum of Russian painting, graphics and sculpture.
In 1898, the Russian Museum was opened in St. Petersburg, in the Mikhailovsky Palace (the creation of K. Rossi). It received works by Russian artists from the Hermitage, the Academy of Arts and some imperial palaces. The opening of these two museums seemed to crown the achievements of Russian painting of the 19th century.
3. Conclusion.
The literary process is a complex system of literary interactions, attractions and repulsions. The new is not born as a result of a complete break with the traditions of the past, but is most often associated with their revaluation and enrichment. Art does not develop through revolutionary explosions. The old classical heritage, falling into a new ideological atmosphere, does not lose its meaning; it contains something imperishable, universal, which passes from one era to another. You can always feel the beating of life, the human heart and soul. Classicism did not disappear without a trace with the advent educational realism, the latter did not cease to exist with the formation of romanticism, which in turn retained the power of its influence during the period of widespread fame and glory of Stendhal, Balzac, Dickens, Turgenev and other critical realists. The works of classics of various literary movements still live today, providing positive influence on consciousness, on human feelings.
If we consider the literary process from a typological point of view, it should be noted that in the history of literature and art in the conditions of pre-socialist formations, the romantic and realistic traditions were never interrupted; there were writers of two types of creativity. At the same time, the coexistence of romantic and realistic types of creativity can be seen throughout all centuries, being a pattern in the development of art.
We see that there is also no unity in any literary direction - neither in romanticism, nor in realism. While close to each other in terms of style, writers and poets can be different ideologically.
The development of art in general is a progressive process, a process of continuous enrichment in connection with discoveries in the field of knowledge of life, with changes in society and, above all, with the successes of the revolutionary movement.
We value critical realism V.I. Lenin mainly for the critical study of social relations, contributing to the development of the revolutionary self-awareness of the people, helping to understand the mechanism of social life. This does not mean that Lenin does not see other features in the work of critical realists, but the main thing in it is still a criticism of the serfdom and bourgeois system.
Revolutionary romanticism attracted Lenin with the depiction of people of heroic impulse and action, names in honor of the “madness of the brave,” and glorification of fighters for the people’s interests. The romantic works of M. Gorky are highly regarded.
Critical realism and revolutionary romanticism appear in Lenin's aesthetics as forms of art that complement each other. In his works, both the work of critical realists with their spirit of analysis, criticism of serfdom and bourgeois society, and revolutionary romantics, which shapes a person’s heroic feelings and character, receives recognition.
The main merit of critical realism was in explaining life, in revealing the tragic situation of the masses. This is exactly how Belinsky and Chernyshevsky viewed this issue. Revolutionary romanticism developed the effective, transformative side of art, introducing the rebel hero into literature.
Literature
1. Berkovsky N.Ya. Problems of Romanticism. M., 1971, pp. 5-8, 18.
2. Gulyaev N.a. Literary trends and methods in Russian and foreign literature 17th – 19th centuries: Book. for the teacher M.: Prosveshchenie, 1983. – 144 p.
3. Evnin F.I. Realism of Dostoevsky. –In the collection: Problems of typology of Russian realism. M.: 1969, p. 411.
4. Kuleshov V.I. History of Russian criticism of the 18th and early 20th centuries. Textbook For students of philology. specialist. un-tov and ped. Inst. 3rd ed., rev. and additional M.: Education, 1984.
5. Lenin V.I. Complete collection cit., vol. 20, p. 70.
7. Makogonenko G. From Fonvizin to Pushkin. From the history of Russian realism. Publishing house “Fiction”. - M., 1969.
8. Introduction to literary criticism. Reader: Textbook. Manual for high fur boots Nikolaev P.A., Rudcheva E.G., Khalshchev V.E., Chernets L.V.; Ed. P.A. Nikolaev, - M.: Higher School, 1979.
9. Plekhanov G.V. Art and literature. M., 1948.
10. Introduction to literary criticism: Textbook for philology. specialist. un-tov (Pospelov G.I., Nikolaev P.A., Volkov I.F., Khalizev V.E., etc.); Ed. G.N. Pospelov. 2nd ed., additional - M.: Higher School, 1983.
11. Sokolov A.G. History of Russian literature of the late 19th and early 20th centuries: Textbook. For philol. specialist. universities - 3rd ed., rev. and additional – M.: Higher School, 1988.
12. Literature: Reference. Materials: Student's Book of Ale /S.V. Turaev, L.I. Timofeev, K.D. Vishnevsky and others - M.: Education, 1989.
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Chapter seven. "Smoke" among Turgenev's novels
The idea of Turgenev's new novel "Smoke" dates back to the very end of 1862, and the action of the novel was timed to coincide with the same year. The idea matured in an atmosphere of intense disputes between Turgenev and Herzen about the future of Russia, about its historical path, about Russia and the West, about the artel and the community. In essence, it was a dispute about the populist socialism of Herzen and Ogarev, which was opposed by Turgenev, annoyed that Herzen’s “Bell”, not limiting itself to the fight against government spheres, took the path of socialist propaganda.
In this dispute, Turgenev expressed many sober and fair truths to Herzen. Denying the populist idealization of the peasantry, with its supposed socialist aspirations, Turgenev astutely noted the growth of kulak, bourgeois elements in the Russian village. “The people before whom you bow,” he wrote to Herzen on October 18, 1862, “are the conservative par excellence and even bear within themselves the germs of such a bourgeoisie in a tanned sheepskin coat, a warm and dirty hut, with a belly always stuffed to the point of heartburn and an aversion to any civic responsibility.” and initiative, which will far leave behind all the aptly true features with which you portrayed the Western bourgeoisie..." Turgenev also reacted ironically to the populist calculations of the “newly found trinity: zemstvo, artel and community.” 1*
One could say that on all these points Turgenev was right in his dispute with his revolutionary opponent. However, the whole point is that for Herzen, his false theory of “Russian socialism” served as a justification for the inevitability and necessity of waging a revolutionary struggle among the people, and for Turgenev, his skepticism, albeit well-founded, was an argument in favor of slow changes as a result of long-term civilizing work among the people , which will have to be carried on patiently and persistently by “the minority of the educated class in Russia.”
The dispute between Turgenev and Herzen is one of the episodes of the long-term struggle between two utopias, liberal and populist. Sixty years after Turgenev’s significant dispute with Herzen, V.I. Lenin wrote an article “Two Utopias,” which contains the following lines: “The liberal utopia weans the peasant masses from fighting. The populist one expresses their desire to fight...” 2* V. Ibid. I. Lenin recalls Engels’ remarkable saying regarding utopian socialism: “What is false in the formal economic sense can be true in the world-historical sense.” 3* Applying this profound position of Engels to the struggle between two utopias on Russian soil, V.I. Lenin came to the following conclusion: “False in the formal economic sense, populist democracy is the truth in the historical sense; false, as a socialist utopia, this democracy “is the truth of that unique historically determined democratic struggle of the peasant masses, which constitutes an inextricable element of the bourgeois transformation and the condition for its complete victory.” 4*
This means that in the dispute between Turgenev and Herzen, despite the validity of many of Turgenev’s arguments, the truth in a broad - historical - sense was not on his side. In the “old socialist theories” being developed anew by London emigrants, he saw only “a significant misunderstanding of people’s life and its modern needs.” 5* He placed responsibility for these theories primarily on Ogarev, whom he considered their main creator.
It is not surprising, therefore, that when conceiving a new novel, Turgenev in 1862 put the letter O in the list of characters next to Gubarev’s name, indicating that this character was somehow supposed to be connected with Ogarev. At the same time, Turgenev was going to direct the blow in the other direction. By the end of 1862, the government reaction had already become quite clear, although the time for its complete triumph was still ahead. In the new novel, Turgenev intended to give vent to his irritation and indignation against the new, backward course of government policy. The image of the general outlined in the novel's plan (Selunsky, who later became Ratmirov) was supposed to serve as a target for Turgenev's attacks on the reactionary clique.
However, this plan came true much later: the novel was written in 1866-1867. The gap between "Fathers and Sons" and the new novel was filled with two stories - "Ghosts" (1864) and "Enough" (1865), closely related to one another. The idea for "Ghosts", of which "Enough" was a spin-off, dates back to 1855. The appearance of these stories in the interval between two novels was, as it were, the implementation of the old Turgenev tradition - to surround each of his novels with a chain of stories of intimate-lyrical or lyrical-philosophical content. Antonovich ironized this custom of Turgenev in connection with “Ghosts” in Sovremennik. “In Mr. Turgenev,” he wrote, “until now, poetry and tendencies have appeared periodically, interspersed; “Asya” - pure poetry - was followed by “On the Eve” with tendencies; then “First Love” - poetry, and after it “Fathers” and children" with a clearly expressed tendency; finally, "Ghosts" is poetry; a tendency must follow them in turn, and now the question arises: will it follow or not? 6*
As for the “poetry” of “Ghosts” “Enough”, the general tone and meaning of this poetry is already familiar to us from Turgenev’s previous stories and novels. This is tragic poetry, based on that feeling of “own insignificance” that so “stank” Bazarov. Bazarov's mean and angry remarks on this topic are developed and brought to the clarity and refinement of philosophical definitions and aphorisms in "Ghosts" and "Enough" The idea of life as a tragicomic struggle of a person with the "unchangeable and inevitable", the motives of the futility and vanity of human aspirations. Fortunately, they sound even stronger in these stories than in the previous ones, but, just like in the previous ones, they are balanced by an inextinguishable desire to “run after every new image of beauty... to catch every flutter of its thin and strong wings. Poetry of beauty and love.” bursts into Turgenev’s pessimistic declarations and gives rise to such episodes as the scene of the singing of a beautiful Italian woman in “Ghosts” and the chain of lyrical love memories in “Enough.” Moreover, the poetry of love, unfolded in the form of “poems in prose” in the first part of “Enough.” , acquired the character of such emphasized emotion that it became the subject of parodies and ridicule. Memories of past love are also presented in “Enough” as the only spiritual wealth of a person, even after he has comprehended his insignificance before the formidable elements of nature.
But if the pessimistic philosophy of "Ghosts" and "Enough" did not close the paths to the unrest and anxieties of private life, then even less did it close the paths to socio-political interests and aspirations. In Turgenev’s new stories (and this is their cardinal difference from the previous ones) we observe constant transitions from cosmic pessimism, from general judgments about the meaninglessness of human life - to social pessimism, directed against specific forms of modern, social life, in particular Russian. Instead of “crossing unnecessary arms on an empty chest,” Turgenev reacts lively and caustically to the growing reaction in Russia and abroad. With contempt and disgust, he unfolds pictures of barracks-based Petersburg in “Ghosts,” gives sharply satirical sketches of Russian tourists in Paris and the native Parisian philistinism, and pronounces angry tirades against Napoleon I and Napoleon III. A peculiar satirical symbol of bourgeois Paris during the era of Napoleon III is represented by Turgenev’s grotesque portrait of a street Parisian lorette drawn in “Ghosts”: “a stone, high-cheeked, greedy, flat Parisian face, usurious eyes, whitewash, rouge, fluffed hair and a bouquet of bright fake flowers under a pointed hat, scraped nails like claws, an ugly crinoline...". The narrator of "The Phantom" imagines a Russian steppe landowner "running with a crappy hop after a corrupt doll," and a feeling of disgust overcomes him. The same feeling arouses in him the entire lifestyle of bourgeois Paris, and he is irresistibly drawn away from “shaved soldiers’ foreheads and polished barracks... from liberal lectures and government pamphlets, from Parisian comedies and Parisian operas, from Parisian witticisms and Parisian ignorance... . Away! Away!
In Enough, he sets out for the new Shakespeare, if he were to be born, the rewarding task of creating a new Richard III, “a modern type of tyrant who is almost ready to believe in his own virtue and sleeps peacefully at night or complains about an overly elegant dinner at the same time , when his half-crushed victims try to at least console themselves by imagining him, like Richard III, surrounded by the ghosts of the people he destroyed..." This deep disgust for the leaders of European reaction was not a fleeting mood of Turgenev, it remained with him throughout his life. To be convinced of this, it is enough to recall his later poem “Croquet at Windsor” (1876), full of contempt and anger against the inhumane policies of the rulers of England, who encouraged Turkish atrocities in the Balkans. However, for all his indignation against the reaction, Turgenev remained at the mercy of liberal prejudices. Turning to history, he struck right and left, equally rejecting both the ghost of Caesar and the ghost of Razin (the story “Ghosts”), and these ghosts of the past, equally unacceptable to him, only confirmed in his eyes the strength and immutability of social evil, which from his point of view, it has not decreased at all in the modern world, but has only changed external forms: “the same grasps of power, the same habits of slavery, the same naturalness of untruth...”
In the second half of the 60s, Turgenev's indignation against the reaction intensified even more and found fertile ground in socio-political conditions. The revolutionary situation of the late 50s and early 60s is ending, reaction is triumphant, and difficult times are coming for Russian democracy. Slavophiles are joining the government clique, taking advantage of the victory of reaction to launch pan-Slavist propaganda. This seemed all the more dangerous to Turgenev because in the socialist propaganda of Herzen and Ogarev such characteristically populist features as faith in the community and the doctrine of “originality” appeared, which Turgenev mistakenly perceived as a rapprochement with Slavophilism, while in reality “the essence of populism lies deeper: not in the doctrine of originality and not in Slavophilism, but in the representation of the interests and ideas of the Russian small producer." 7*
It was in this environment that “Smoke” was created, which occupies a completely separate position among Turgenev’s novels.
In the chronicle of the ideological life of Russian society, which is formed by Turgenev’s novels, “Smoke” seems to have no place. People of the 40s were reflected in “Rudin” and “Noble Nest”, democrats - commoners - in “On the Eve” and “Fathers and Sons”, the populist generation - in “Novi”. There is no such central theme in Smoke. In Turgenev's novels, successive representatives of the social trends of their time pass through - Rudin, Lavretsky, Insarov, Bazarov, Nezhdanov. Main character"Smoke" Litvinov does not stand in line with these brothers of his. Even in the novel itself, he does not occupy the same place as the characters listed above in the works dedicated to them: in “Smoke” Litvinov is overshadowed by Potugin.
This isolated position of "Smoke" was always felt and sometimes led even researchers to think about the fall of Turgenev's novelistic creativity in "Smoke", about the collapse of the genre of Turgenev's novel itself. 8* Naturally, the difference between “Smoke” and “Rudin”, “On the Eve” and “Fathers and Sons” should have been particularly clear to contemporaries when the novel was published.
And in fact, in the critical controversy that flared up around “Smoke,” notes were heard that had never been heard in disputes about Turgenev’s previous novels. Then the bewilderment of critics was the question of whose side the author’s sympathies were on, whether the hero of the novel was his personal hero, whether he approved or condemned a new worldview, a new type of culture, which is shown in the image of the central character.
Now the situation has changed dramatically. Critics, writers and readers of different camps and trends unanimously agreed that “Smoke” is generally more a novel of antipathies than of sympathies, and that the usual Turgenev hero who would express the new aspirations of the new Russia is not in the novel at all.
“In “Smoke” there is almost no love for anything and there is almost no poetry,” Leo Tolstoy was indignant. 9*
And the smoke of the fatherland is sweet and pleasant to us! -
This is how the last century speaks poetically,
And our talent itself is always looking for spots in the sun,
And he smokes the fatherland with stinking smoke! -
wrote F.I. Tyutchev, and in his famous poetic appeal to Turgenev, he irritably reproached the author of “Smoke” for the same thing:
What is this? ghost, some kind of spell?
Where are we? And should you believe your eyes?
There is only smoke here, like the fifth element,
Desolate smoke, endless smoke.
The critic of “Notes of the Fatherland” (A. Skabichevsky) saw “unconditional denial” in the novel. 10*
N. Strakhov, in his famous article “The Last Works of Turgenev” 11*, refused to classify the author of “Smoke” as any of the parties shown in the novel, and came to the following conclusion: “It seems best to us to call Turgenev a skeptic. As a skeptic, he, naturally, had to equally push away from both of our parties, both from the Slavophiles and from the Westerners."
With the same irritation, critics noted the disappearance of Turgenev’s former hero, in one sense or another a new man, a hero of his time. Litvinov aroused general indignation precisely because he seemed to have taken a vacant position without any reason.
“Litvinov is not a strong man, but some kind of rubbish”, “Litvinov cannot stand the most lenient criticism”, he cannot be a “hero”, he is “a ship without ballast and a rudder”, “this Litvinov is no good” - such assessments The article from Otechestvennye Zapiski has been sprinkled throughout.
Litvinov embodies “lack of will” - this is how Strakhov perceived Turgenev’s hero in the article already cited.
Orest Miller directly hints at the reasons for the general (and his own) irritation against Litvinov, posing the question: “But what is he himself - is he not a new person?” He, like everyone else, answers this question with a categorical denial: with all Litvinov’s desire for activity, “he still weak personality". 12*
Strakhov summarizes all these rumors about Litvinov, seeing new feature Turgenev's creativity after "Fathers and Sons" is, among other things, that Turgenev "stopped bringing us representatives of our progress, these heroes of our society."
In connection with this general search for the disappeared Turgenev hero, there are also Pisarev’s famous questions addressed to Turgenev: “I would like to ask you, Ivan Sergeevich, where did you put Bazarov?” - You look at the phenomena of Russian life through the eyes of Litvinov, you sum up from his point of view of vision, you make him the center and hero of the novel, but Litvinov is the same Arkady Nikolaevich whom Bazarov unsuccessfully asked not to speak beautifully. In order to look around and get your bearings, you stand on this low and loose ant mound, while at your disposal is. a real tower, which you yourself discovered and described. What happened to this tower? Where did it go? 13*
This brilliant tirade reflected not only Pisarev’s passion for Bazarov as a specific image, but also the desire to see Turgenev’s hero in Turgenev’s novel - a new “representative of progress,” a new “hero of society,” a “new man.”
It was in vain that Turgenev referred to Potugin in his reply letter: Pisarev could not accept this link. Turgenev was right when he pointed out to Pisarev that his “bump” was not Litvinov, but Potugin; “Well, I chose the hummock, in my opinion, not as low as you think,” he assured (XII, 376). And yet Potugin could not pretend to replace Turgenev’s former hero, the “new man,” since he was introduced by the author into the novel precisely as an “inveterate and sworn” bearer of the old principles. Despite all the differences in the positions of Pisarev and, for example, O. Miller, Pisarev could well join him on this issue: “The strongest personality in “Smoke” is, of course, Potugin, but he is decidedly far from being a new person.” , says Orest Miller, characterizing Potugin as one of the last Mohicans of Westernism.
Thus, in the responses to “Smoke,” two positions emerged with complete clarity: first, that “Smoke” is, so to speak, a negative novel, and second, that it is a novel without a hero. This modification of Turgenev’s novel seemed so new, unexpected and stunning that Strakhov found it possible to express the general impression in such pathetic words: “Some event happened in his activity, a revolution, a turning point, a cataclysm...”
This “cataclysm” was associated primarily with the fact that the reaction that occurred after 1861-1862 caused a crisis of the Bazarov type in life and in literature. When Turgenev began work on "Smoke", the time of the Bazarovs was already in the past. A hero of this type was possible only in the modified socio-psychological appearance that V. A. Sleptsov gave him in “Difficult Time” (1865). The hero is defeated, although he has not given up, eager to fight, but tragically experiencing a period of forced inaction; the main person of the novel without programmatic monologues, with cynical paradoxes and bitter omissions instead of direct declarations, with speech that is inevitably vague - such a person was fit to be the hero of a “encrypted” novel, designed for a strictly defined circle of like-minded readers. Turgenev was not prepared to create a novel of this type: he was accustomed to addressing all of educated Russia in his novels, carrying out a public trial on his heroes. In relation to a hero who is defeated or, perhaps, gathering strength in silence for new struggle Turgenev was constrained both in the possibilities and, most importantly, in the moral right of the court. He himself clearly indicated this in his answer to Pisarev’s question to the latter: “Where did you put Bazarov?” “You remind me of Bazarov and cry out to me: “Cain, where is your brother Abel?” from a critical point, it shouldn’t, but on the other hand, it’s inconvenient; and finally, now he can only declare himself - that’s why he’s Bazarov; ". The only thing that was possible for Turgenev under these conditions was only to hint at the existence of such defeated but not surrendered heroes; however, this too seemed to Turgenev too external and therefore an unworthy response to a great and tragic theme.
“It would be very easy for me to introduce a phrase like this: “however, we now have efficient and strong workers who work in silence,” but out of respect for both these workers and this silence, I preferred to do without this phrases..." (XII, 376-377).
So, the possibilities of an objective-historical trial of the novelist over the new Russia were closed to Turgenev for reasons of both internal and external nature. But the possibilities of a trial over old Russia were completely open to him: as mentioned above, Turgenev’s social and philosophical views and moods at the time of work on “Smoke” included, in a contradictory combination with other elements, motives of social denunciation, and the social atmosphere of the mid-60s 's made these motifs as timely as possible and gave them a particularly poignant meaning.
The trial of the reviving forces of old Russia is concluded primarily in the episode with the Baden generals. The generals' scenes in "Smoke" reflect the initial stage of the reactionary offensive and the preparation for the future revelry of reactionary forces, which Turgenev in 1865-1867 could only foresee and anticipate. The policy of counter-reforms is maturing, developing alongside the policy of reforms and maturing with such furious force that it threatens to destroy all the results and consequences of the act of February 19 - this is the meaning of the accusatory pages of Turgenev’s novel, directed against the aristocratic reactionary party. "... We need to redo... yes... redo everything that has been done", "And the nineteenth of February - as far as possible", "you need to stop... and stop", "go back, go back...", "Completely ; quite back, mon tres cher. The further back, the better." These are the general formulas of the beginning backward movement, condemned by "Smoke", and to these general demands is added a whole chain of specific tasks of reactionary aggression: a campaign against the press ("Magazines! Exposure!"), against the democratic intelligentsia ("these students, priests, commoners, all this small fry, tout ce fond du sac, la petite propriete, pire que le proletariat"), against education at all levels ("all these universities, and seminaries there, and public schools"), against the so-called "legal order" ("De la poigne et des formes! .. de la poigne surtout. And this in Russian can be translated taco: politely, but in the teeth!").
All these general and specific formulas in their meaning, tone, style and phraseology provide a complete and detailed program reactionary movement of the 60s.
At first glance, it may seem that Turgenev separates the political calls and aspirations of the Baden generals from the official course of government policy, that the generals’ company in “Smoke” is only an aristocratic opposition on the right, an imperious opposition, socially significant, but nothing more than an opposition. However, with a few subtle touches and laconic, but extremely expressive details, he makes it clear that official policy differs from the policy of open reactionary onslaught only in phraseological nuances and the desire to maintain diplomatic decorum. The representative of government ideology is in the same circle of Baden generals, he is his own man among them and even the center of their circle. This is General Ratmirov; he is preparing for a big bureaucratic career, they say about him: “you are aiming to be a government person,” and at the same time his figure is introduced into the novel not to contrast with the society of voluntary knights of reaction, but as a necessary addition to it. He can allow himself slight criticism of the “exaggerations” that his friends allow, not constrained by the demands of an official tone; he sometimes drops phrases about the need for progress (“Progress is a manifestation of social life, that’s what we shouldn’t forget; it’s a symptom. Here we need to watch "), but he does not reject the essence of the aspirations of his colleagues, but only introduces into their words and speeches a shade of "general, light-as-down liberalism." Turgenev even made sure that Ratmir’s liberalism could not be taken at least seriously, introducing the following remark from the author into the novel: “This liberalism did not prevent him, however, from flogging fifty peasants in a rebellious Belarusian village, where he was sent to pacify " (Chapter XII). To depict the program of government-aristocratic reaction with such thoroughness and accuracy, as Turgenev did in “Smoke,” would be quite enough for its political condemnation: the very enumeration of the points of this program sounded like an accusatory speech. But Turgenev did not want to limit himself to one political court and added a moral court to it.
The moral judgment of the reactionary party lies in the fact that its direction is shown by Turgenev not as the fruit of political conviction, but as the result of the absence of any convictions, the absence of political thought and passion. The general party is guided only by selfish instincts, rude, vulgar and base. The political program covers up a dirty void.
“In the very cries and exclamations, no passion was heard; in the censure itself, no passion was felt: only occasionally, from under the guise of pseudo-civil indignation, pseudo-contemptuous indifference, the fear of possible losses squealed like a whiny squeak, and a few names that posterity will not forget were uttered with the grinding of teeth... And even if only there was a drop of living flow under all this rubbish and rubbish! What old stuff, what unnecessary nonsense, what bad trifles occupied all these heads, these souls, and not only on this evening did they occupy them, not only! in the world - but also at home, at all hours and days, throughout the entire width and depth of their existence! (Chapter XV).
Muffled hints about the life of these people “at home” are the second side of Turgenev’s moral judgment. “At home” “terrible and dark stories” are happening. Turgenev pronounces this formula of direct condemnation three times: once on behalf of Potugin, the second time through the lips of Litvinov and the third time on behalf of the author, clearly seeking to morally brand the hated environment with this persistent formula and just as clearly refusing artistic intimacy in the depiction of this dark world ( "Pass by, reader, pass by!").
Those disgusting, stingy phrases with which Turgenev lifts the veil over Ratmirov’s personal life also acquire the character of a moral stigma: “... Smooth, ruddy, flexible and sticky, he enjoyed amazing success with women: noble old women simply went crazy about him.” This motif, which first appears in ch. XIII, echoed in ch. XV with a quick caricature portrait of a noble old woman who “moved her bare, scary, dark gray shoulders and, covering her mouth with a fan, languidly glanced sideways at Ratmirov with already completely dead eyes,” and ends in the same chapter with a brief episode in the scene of Ratmirov’s explanation with Irina.
“How? Are you? Are you jealous?” she finally said, and, turning her back to her husband, walked out of the room. “He’s jealous!” was heard from behind the doors, and her laughter was heard again.”
Having secured this topic in the reader’s mind with a threefold reminder, Turgenev breaks it off again, again demonstrating the moral impossibility of intimately addressing it.
This is how two assessments of the reactionary world develop in Turgenev’s novel; both lines run side by side, approaching each other so closely that finally the separateness of the criteria ceases to be felt at all. An example of a complete convergence of assessments is the sudden angle in which Ratmirov is shown to the reader at the moment when, irritated by the explanation with Irina and excited by her beauty, he is left alone with himself. “His cheeks suddenly turned pale, a spasm ran down his chin, and his eyes wandered dully and brutally across the floor, as if looking for something... All semblance of grace disappeared from his face. It should have taken a similar expression when he spotted the Belarusian peasants.”
Thus, complete unity of the moral and political character of the people of the reactionary world is established.
Next to the general’s scenes in Turgenev’s new novel stand Gubarev’s episodes, which the author called “Heidelberg arabesques” in a letter to Herzen. In addition to the frank and aggressive reaction, Turgenev also knows a cowardly, hypocritical reaction. Potugin’s very first keynote speech included a mention of that cowardice and “petty servility”, due to which, “look, another important dignitary in our country is being attracted to a student who is insignificant in his eyes, almost flirting with him, running towards him like a hare” (chap. .V). At the very beginning of the novel, in Gubarev’s scene, Turgenev introduces the reader to a company of “officers who had jumped out on a short vacation to Europe and were delighted at the opportunity, of course cautiously and without letting the thought of the regimental commander out of their heads, to dabble with smart and slightly dangerous people” (chapter .IV).
Almost all the participants in Gubarev’s circle, consisting of landowners who indulged in Herzen-style democracy in their leisure time, were not far removed from these “officers.” How little Turgenev's intentions in these chapters of the novel could have included a direct attack against Herzen and his London group is shown by the carefully developed social portraits of the participants in Gubarev's circle: all of them (with the exception of Sukhanchikova) return to their homeland, Gubarev becomes a tooth-crushing landowner, Voroshilov joins the military service, Bindasov becomes an excise officer and dies, killed in a tavern with a cue during a fight, Pishchalkin meets Litvinov as a respectable zemstvo figure, freezing in a “fit of well-intentioned sensations.” Turgenev, therefore, did everything possible to prevent direct rapprochement between Gubarev’s circle and the London emigration, represented by names that, in his own words, “posterity will not forget.”
On the contrary, he could not have more clearly revealed his intention to show Herzen’s imaginary like-minded people, always ready for renegade, in the persons of the members of Gubarev’s circle. Latest research Soviet Turgenev scholars showed with complete clarity that in the Gubarev episodes we're talking about not about the London, but about the Heidelberg emigration, among which there were a lot of random people who quickly abandoned their ostentatious “Herzenism” as soon as connections with “smart and somewhat dangerous people” led to undesirable consequences. 14* If Turgenev in 1862 had pamphlet intentions towards the London exiles, established by researchers based on an analysis of the list of characters in “Smoke”, 15* then by 1867 the novelist’s plan should have changed significantly. In any case, in the text of the novel, Turgenev clearly separates the Gubarev circle from the London emigration. This was understood and correctly accepted by some contemporaries. “There is a Russian proverb: fools are beaten at the altar,” Pisarev wrote to Turgenev. “You act according to this proverb, and for my part I cannot object to this course of action. I myself deeply hate all fools in general, and I especially deeply hate those fools who pretend to be my friends, like-minded people and allies." 16*
A man from a completely different camp, O. Miller, understood the matter in exactly the same way, noting in the quoted article that in Gubarev’s circle “only stupidity or maliciousness can find anything similar to our well-known foreign emigration.” Finally, Herzen himself, whom the image of Gubarev’s company could have offended more than anyone else, in his correspondence with Turgenev did not say a word about these episodes of the novel, without attaching at least some serious significance to them.
Meanwhile, the name “Gubarev” hinted at Ogarev for good reason, and there was an element of polemic with Herzen and his like-minded people in Gubarev’s scenes, although not in the sense of a pamphlet identification of Ogarev or Herzen with Gubarev or Bindasov. This polemic, in our opinion, lies in the fact that Turgenev establishes the external proximity of Herzen’s populist positions to the Slavophil slogans of the officially reactionary party, hinting that the “original” features of his ideology can bring to him such “allies” in which he is less interested in everything. Sending his novel to Herzen, Turgenev wrote: “... I am sending you my new work. As far as I know, it has brought religious people, courtiers, Slavophiles and patriots against me in Russia. You are not a religious person and not a courtier, but you are a Slavophile and a patriot and, You’ll probably get angry too, and besides, you probably won’t like my Heidelberg arabesques.” 17* Here, not without a hint of irony, Turgenev points out to Herzen the points of his involuntary rapprochement (“Slavophile and patriot”) with such people with whom, in any case, Herzen could not desire any closeness (religious people and courtiers), and directly calls him a Slavophile. Some elements of Herzen’s views are included in the circle of ideological signs of a world hostile to him - this is the meaning of the above quote.
Based on this view, Turgenev throughout the entire novel does not make any distinction between official-reactionary Slavophilism and the Slavophilism of a group of Gubarev’s henchmen playing at Herzen’s democracy. Slavophil tirades are uttered by Prince Koko, Mrs. X (“trashy morel”), and visitors to the salon, where “real secret silence” reigns, while Slavophil conversations about identity, community, etc. are noisily conducted in Gubarev’s gatherings. In Potugin’s speeches, both “Slavophilisms” often come together so closely that sometimes the reader cannot immediately make out which party is meant in a particular case. For example, in ch. V Potugin says: “You see this armyak? That’s where everything will come from. All other idols have been destroyed; let us still believe in the armyak”; one gets the impression that here we are talking about populist “originality,” but the next phrase points to another target of Potugin’s attacks: “Well, what if the Armenian betrays you? No, he won’t betray you, read Kokhanovskaya, and your eyes will be in the ceiling.” The same in ch. XIV: Potugin, having mentioned the community in passing, speaks irritably about a meeting with a genius musician. The reader remembers Bambaev singing Varlamov’s romances, and is ready to attribute the “nugget” to Gubarev’s circle, but a few pages later he finds this same “nugget” in Ratmirov’s salon, where he, sitting at the piano, plays chords “with an absent-minded hand,” “d”une main distraite." These and similar rapprochements achieve two goals at once: the blows striking the ideology of populist “originality” each time turn to the right, and at the same time, such episodes sound like a reproach to Herzen, a reproach and a warning that he is renewing what has been appropriated by the reaction the outdated weapon of Slavophilism gives the Gubarevs the opportunity, at least outwardly, to become like-minded people of Herzen, even if they are stupid and hypocritical.
Gubarev's democracy will disappear as soon as it becomes unsafe ("Others were taken under cover, but nothing to him"). Love for the people will be replaced by the following program: “Men’s filthy things!... You need to beat them, that’s what; hit them in the faces; this is what freedom they have - in the teeth...”. But the Slavophile phrase may remain, and the enthusiastic Bambaev will quickly adapt the old formulas to the new situation: “But still I will say: Rus'... what a Rus'! Look at this pair of geese: after all, there is nothing like this in the whole of Europe. Real Arzamas!"
This special method of Turgenev’s polemic with Herzen, a method designed to ensure that every polemical movement towards Herzen was simultaneously and with much greater force directed against his enemies, obviously Pisarev had in mind when he said to the author of “Smoke”: “.. I see and understand that Gubarev’s scenes constitute an episode sewn on a living thread, probably so that the author, who directed the full force of his blow to the right, does not completely lose his balance and find himself in a society of red democrats that is unusual for him. That the blow really falls. to the right, and not to the left, to Ratmirov, and not to Gubarev - even the Ratmirovs themselves understood this.” 18*
This was the only way Turgenev could distinguish himself from the society of “Red Democrats”. Arguing with Herzen in 1862, Turgenev reproached him precisely for the fact that, while proclaiming a social-Slavophile program, he, contrary to his own wishes, was also renouncing the revolution. Seeing the revolutionary role of the “educated class” in the transfer of civilization to the people, who themselves will decide what to reject from this civilization and what to accept, Turgenev wrote: “You, gentlemen, on the contrary, use the German process of thinking (like Slavophiles), abstracting from the barely understood and understandable substance of the people, the principles on which you assume that they will build their lives, you are spinning in the fog and, most importantly, you are essentially renouncing the revolution."... ".. . Because of your mental pain, your fatigue, your thirst. “to put a fresh grain of snow on a withered tongue,” he wrote, “you are attacking everything that should be dear to every European, and therefore to us, - civilization, legality, the revolution itself, finally ..” 19*.
This feature in Turgenev’s views on the populism of the London emigration allowed him in “Smoke” to turn the polemic with Herzen first of all to the right - against that common enemy with whom, as it seemed to him, the “Red Democrats,” having “broken their sword,” unexpectedly united .
The meaning of the reproach for “refusal of revolution,” a reproach unexpected from the lips of Turgenev, an opponent of revolutionary upheavals, is that by a revolutionary cause he understands nothing more than the transfer of the basic principles of “civilization” to the people by the educated class. “The role of the educated class in Russia is to be the transmitter of civilization to the people so that they themselves can decide what to reject or accept, this is essentially a modest role, although Peter the Great and Lomonosov worked in it, although it is brought into action by the revolution, this role, in my opinion, it is not over yet,” Turgenev wrote to Herzen. 20* He sees the “guilt” of Herzen and Ogarev in refusing this kind of task. In this, contrary to historical truth, he also sees their rapprochement with Slavophilism.
In the novel, the preacher of liberal culturalism and at the same time the enemy of Slavophilism (the true Slavophilism of the reactionary clique and the imaginary Slavophilism of Herzen and Ogarev) is Potugin. Turgenev’s ideological weakness was clearly reflected in this image. Having wrongfully brought Slavophilism closer to Herzen’s “Russian socialism,” Turgenev was doomed to wage his struggle against the Slavophiles based on old Westernizing dogmas. Having embarked on this path, he inserted praise of Western civilization into Potugin’s programmatic reasoning. That is why the attempts of some modern literary critics to “rehabilitate” Potugin as an opponent of Slavophilism in the first place are completely untenable. But for Potugin (by the will of the author), the populists were also Slavophiles. There is no doubt that Potugin’s reasoning is directed against reaction, but there is also no doubt that they are aimed at defending that very European “ci-vi-li-za-tion”, the dark sides of which Herzen so clearly saw. It was not for nothing that he, ignoring the “Heidelberg arabesques,” spoke sharply against Potugin. "Why didn't you forget half of his chatter?" - he ironically asked Turgenev in a letter dated May 16, 1867.
The general's scenes and Gubarev's episodes gave "Smoke" the character of a sharply satirical novel. Satirical features have always been characteristic of Turgenev’s work, but nowhere have they acquired such sharpness and intensity as in “Smoke.”
This new manner of Turgenev immediately caught the eye of his contemporaries. P. V. Annenkov wrote: “He so accustomed the reader to subtle features, soft sketches, to a sly and cheerful joke when he had to laugh at people, to an elegant choice of details when he drew their moral emptiness, that many did not recognize their beloved the author in the current satirist and writer, expressing his impressions directly and frankly. Some even asked: “what happened to him?”
Leaving his former manner of "crafty and funny joke", Turgenev generously introduces into his new novel satirical devices and the forms developed in the literature that preceded it. L. V. Pumpyansky pointed out that the entire end of the first chapter of “Smoke” represents a conscious arrangement of Pushkin’s poems from the satirical pamphlet of the eighth chapter of “Eugene Onegin”. “But the sharpness of the attack is extremely intensified, and they are given an acutely political character, which was not present in Pushkin’s poems,” he rightly notes.
Gubarev's scenes forced contemporaries to recall the Repetilovsky episode in "Woe from Wit." O. Miller writes about “repetilovism” in connection with “Gubarev’s foreign circle.” “Here’s Bambaev for you: a chip from Griboyedov’s Repetilov,” writes A. Skabichevsky. Indeed, Bambaev speaks with almost verbatim quotes from Repetilov’s speech:
“But Gubarev, Gubarev, my brothers!! That’s who you have to run to, you have to run! I absolutely revere this man! But I’m not the only one, everyone in a row is in awe. What an essay he’s writing now, oh... oh! ...
What is this essay about? - asked Litvinov.
About everything, my brother..."
So, in Gubarev’s circle there is their own Repetilov, there is also their own Ippolit Udushiev (Voroshilov), there is also something like Griboyedov’s “night robber and duelist” - this is Tit Bindasov, “in appearance a noisy riot, but in essence a fist and a scorcher, according to in speeches a terrorist, by vocation a quarterly, a friend of Russian merchants and Parisian lorettes."
As for the general's scenes, it is not Pushkin's or Griboyedov's tones that predominate in them. Here Turgenev’s pen becomes especially harsh; here the method of political caricature dominates. People are called here not by names, but by satirical nicknames. The reader recognizes only the name - Boris, but it is not this that is remembered, but the classification nicknames of the generals: irritable, condescending, obese, this also includes such a nickname as “a dignitary from among the softly shrill” (Chapter XV). The method of political grotesquery is also reflected in the speeches of the generals: the entire political program of the generals’ party, developed by Turgenev with deliberate accuracy and completeness, is expressed in sharply caricatured aphorisms (“politely, but in the teeth,” “go back, go back,” etc.); thanks to this, the very form of expression of political views becomes a method of discrediting them. The same purpose is also served by Turgenev’s technique of intertwining the grotesque language of politics with the grotesque language of everyday vulgarity: the exclamation of a condescending general in response to the remarks of the corpulent general (“Oh, you naughty, incorrigible naughty!”), the babble of a lady in a yellow cap: “J” adore les questions politiques", direct transitions from the language of politics to the language of salon vulgarity ("And Boris turned to the lady grimacing in the empty space, and, without lowering his voice, without even changing his facial expression, began asking her about when she " will crown him with flame,” since he is amazingly in love with her and suffers extraordinarily.” Let us also add here the satirical use of the French language in its Russian-noble, salon-vulgar dialect.
Turgenev's grotesque speech is also accompanied by grotesque images with features of bestiality (the handsome Finikov with a flat skull and a soulless bestial expression), inanimateness ("a trashy morel, which reeked of vegetable oil and exhausted poison"), with features of a corpse and at the same time a mannequin, producing, due to some eerie automatism, human movements (the aforementioned terrible wreck with bare dark gray shoulders, which - in Chapter XV - languidly glanced sideways at Ratmirov with already completely dead eyes and then struck the corpulent general’s hand with a fan, and “a piece of white fell off her forehead from this sudden movement”).
It is quite obvious that all the signs of this satirical style in Smoke lead us not to Pushkin or Griboyedov, but to Saltykov-Shchedrin, whose “ferocious humor” Turgenev gave an enthusiastic review of a few years later. Shchedrin's traditions do not disappear from Turgenev in the future; they are clearly evident in “Novi”, where the approach to Shchedrin’s style becomes even more obvious than in “Smoke”.
But in “Novi” such “Shchedrinsky” features of Turgenev’s style no longer struck anyone, since the way for them was prepared by “Smoke”, where readers met them in Turgenev for the first time, and some, as P.V. Annenkov testifies, were inclined consider this new form of Turgenev’s satire “an unusual and partly obscene flapping of a satirical whip.”
Describing the change in the usual scheme of Turgenev's novel, we have already talked about the disappearance of the hero. But in “Smoke” there is no Turgenev heroine. Turgenev's heroine has always served as the embodiment of vague, unconscious social aspirations, to which the hero of the novel must respond with his conscious activity. There could not have been such a heroine in Smoke, since this novel had lost the character of a narrative about a Russian figure. Irina replaces the heroine of Turgenev's former novel just as little as Litvinov replaces Turgenev's former hero.
This does not mean, however, that Irina’s role in the novel is similar to Litvinov’s role. On the contrary, it can be said without exaggeration that the modification of Turgenev’s novel in “Smoke” was reflected, among other things, in the fact that this is a novel not about a hero, but about a heroine: Irina appears in the novel as a victim of the environment that provides the author with material for political satire . Therefore, the opinion expressed by L. V. Pumpyansky that “Smoke” falls into several autonomous spheres and that the love story, unlike Turgenev’s previous novels, is in no way connected with the political content of “Smoke” is incorrect. On the contrary, the inextricable connection of the love theme with the political theme is that (perhaps the only) feature of Turgenev’s new novel, which goes back to the old tradition of his novels. The connection between both themes is as undoubted as it is certain that this connection is different than before. Previously, the heroine’s fate was associated with new, affirmed forces; now she is associated with old, denied forces. Previously, the heroine strived for a social feat, now she strives to get rid of the social shackles that bind her. Previously, the heroine lived in anticipation of the future, now she is animated by the desire to get rid of the past. This turns out to be impossible for her, since secular society not only externally drew her into its sphere, but also corrupted her mentally. Therefore, the character of the heroine, simultaneously with the traits of sacrifice, also acquires the traits of tragic guilt.
It was noted in the literature (L. V. Pumpyansky) that the old Turgenev novel ("Rudin", "The Noble Nest", "On the Eve") is a novel about an advanced Russian person, a "personal" novel, cultural and historical, a love and political novel at the same time - arose as a continuation of the tradition bequeathed by Pushkin in Eugene Onegin. Despite the fact that Turgenev’s new novel departed from this tradition of the “personal” novel, it is still connected with Onegin, although again with a different connection.
“This story (of Irina and Litvinov) is extremely similar to the one told in “Eugene Onegin,” wrote N. Strakhov in the cited article, “only a woman is put in the place of a man, and vice versa. Onegin, beloved by Tatyana, first refuses her , and then, when she is married, she falls in love with her and suffers. So in “Smoke,” Irina, beloved by the student Litvinov, abandons him, and then, when she herself is married, and Litvinov has a fiancee, she falls in love with him and hurts him. great suffering for both him and himself. In both cases, initially a mistake occurs, which the heroes then realize and try to correct, but it is no longer possible. The moral teaching from both fables is the same: “But happiness was so possible, so close!”
“Onegin and Irina do not see where their real happiness lies, they are blinded by some false views and passions, for which they are punished. To all this, in “Smoke” another sad feature is added. Tatyana does not succumb to Onegin’s persecution; she remains pure and impeccable and personifies the “sweet ideal” of a Russian woman, misunderstood by those whom she fell in love with, but Litvinov, playing the role of a woman, could not resist Irina, and thereby inflicted new torment on Irina, himself, and his bride.”
This witty passage is doubly interesting. First of all, here for the first and only time in literature the connection between “Smoke” and “Onegin” is indicated, although the specific form of this connection is outlined by Strakhov more than arbitrarily. In addition, Strakhov’s reasoning suggested a relationship between Irina and Pushkin’s Tatyana. Turgenev (as a Slavophile critic might have thought) in “Smoke” re-evaluates the moral side of the denouement of Pushkin’s novel: Tatyana, who did not want to leave her husband-general, was elevated by Pushkin to the “sweet ideal” of a Russian woman, Irina was condemned for the same by Turgenev.
The moral assessment of the denouement of Eugene Onegin has occupied readers and literature for many decades, and at different times this question has been filled with a wide variety of content.
A few years after the cited article by Strakhov, the question of the denouement of Onegin (and even more broadly, the question of the love story in this novel) arose in connection with Anna Karenina. In critical reviews of Tolstoy’s novel, the name of Pushkin’s Tatiana flashed, and Dostoevsky, discussing the ideological roots of Anna Karenina in “The Diary of a Writer,” came to the conclusion that “we, of course, could point Europe directly to the source, i.e. on Pushkin himself."
B. M. Eikhenbaum in the article “Pushkin and Tolstoy” indicated that “Anna Karenina” was begun under the direct influence of Pushkin’s prose - his style, his manner - and that in Tolstoy’s novel historical and literary connections with “Eugene Onegin” are felt. “Here we are talking, of course, not about direct influence, not about “influence,” but about natural, historical kinship.” In particular, B. M. Eikhenbaum points out, in Anna Karenina the question posed in the denouement of Pushkin’s novel is resolved anew; in this sense, Tolstoy’s novel looks like “a kind of continuation and ending of Eugene Onegin.” 22*
If posing the question of the initial historical origins of Anna Karenina led to Pushkin, to his prose passages and Eugene Onegin, then when searching for the closest example of a novel to Anna Karenina, connected with the tradition of the love story in Onegin, it would be natural remember "Smoke". No one was as well prepared to pose this question as the author of the above-mentioned rapprochement between Smoke and Onegin, Strakhov, who was also on close terms with Tolstoy. And in fact, only having read Anna Karenina in proof in 1874, Strakhov, in a letter to Tolstoy, immediately drew a parallel between Tolstoy’s novel and Smoke, of course, to the latter’s disadvantage.
“It’s terribly disgusting to read such secular stories from Turgenev, for example, in “Smoke.” You feel that he has no point of support, that he condemns something secondary, and not the main thing, that, for example, passion is condemned because it is not strong and consistent enough, and not because it is passion. He looks at his generals with disgust because they are out of tune when they sing, that they do not speak French well enough, that they do not grimace gracefully enough, etc. Simple and true human. he has no standards at all. You are absolutely obliged to publish your novel in order to destroy all this and similar falsehood at once. How angry Turgenev must be! in "Spring Waters"?)". 23 * And after the publication of L. N. Tolstoy’s novel, Strakhov again returned to the parallel with Turgenev: “No, Lev Nikolaevich,” he wrote on January 3, 1877 year - victory After you! Turgenev cannot write even one page like that." 24*
Strakhov had every reason to compare and contrast both novels. "Smoke" and "Anna Karenina" should be compared due to the close similarity in the very type of their construction. A novel about a heroine - a victim of a secular environment, worthy of the author's regret and participation and at the same time subject to moral judgment and condemnation; a novel built on the exposure of the “light”; a novel in which the love theme develops side by side and in inextricable connection with the socio-political theme - it is this type of novel that was developed by both Turgenev in Smoke and Tolstoy in Anna Karenina. The typical similarity of both novels highlights even more sharply the features of the ideological differences between them. Tolstoy judges differently than Turgenev, applies different standards, offers different solutions. He judges the environment not with a political court, like Turgenev, he condemns his heroine not for her inability to break with the world that has corrupted her, and, most importantly, he sees new and difficult questions where Turgenev outlines the resolution of these issues.
Litvinov “jumped into the carriage and, turning around, pointed to Irina to a place next to him. She understood him. Time had not yet passed. Just one step, one movement, and two forever united lives would have rushed off into the unknown distance... While she was hesitating, there was a a loud whistle, and the train moved."
Tolstoy realized in his novel the situation outlined here by Turgenev, and showed that instead of an idyll, it should lead to drama. Where Turgenev saw the possibility of a successful conclusion to the novel, Tolstoy saw only its tragic ending. Tolstoy's heroine took her place in the carriage with Vronsky, but their lives did not unite forever. The train rushed them “into an unknown distance,” but for Tolstoy’s heroine this “unknown distance” turned into a small railway station, where she died under the wheels of the train.
With such a correlation between both works, Tolstoy’s novel seems to be polemically pointed against Turgenev’s “Smoke.” The creative history of "Anna Karenina" does not provide facts for the assertion that such polemics were consciously part of Tolstoy's plan. At the same time, it is difficult to imagine that Tolstoy, with his constant and often jealous interest in Turgenev’s work, while working on Anna Karenina, could completely ignore Turgenev’s similar experience, which was close to his novel in genre and type.
But no matter how the question of the meaning of “Smoke” for Tolstoy is resolved, the historical and literary side of the matter does not change. In the history of the Russian novel "Smoke" turned out to be major milestone on the way to Anna Karenina, a direct harbinger of Tolstoy's novel. And in the novelistic work of Turgenev himself, “Smoke” remained the only experience of this kind. When new people loudly spoke about themselves in literature and politics, Turgenev in Novi returned to the proven type of his cultural-historical novel.
Notes
1* (Letters from K. Dm. Kavelina and Iv. S. Turgenev to Al. Iv. Herzen, Geneva, 1892, p. 172.)
2* ()
3* (V. I. Lenin. Works, ed. 4, vol. 18, p. 328.)
4* (V. I. Lenin. Works, ed. 4, vol. 18, p. 329.)
5* (Letters from K. Dm. Kavelina and Iv. S. Turgenev to Al. Iv. Herzen, p. 175.)
6* (M. A. Antonovich. Selected articles. M., GIHL, 1931 p. 238.)
7* (V. I. Lenin. Works, ed. 4, vol. 1, p. 384.)
8* (L. V. Pumpyansky. "Smoke". Historical and literary essay, - I. S. Turgenev. Collected Works, vol. IX. M. - L., GIHL, 1930.)
9* (L. N. Tolstoy. Complete works, vol. 61. M., GIHL, 1953, p. 172.)
10* (New time and old gods. - "Domestic Notes", 1868, No. 1, pp. 1-40.)
11* ("Dawn", 1871, book. 2, dept. 2, pp. 1-31.)
12* (About social types in the stories of I. S. Turgenev. - "Conversation", 1871, XII, pp. 246-274.)
13* ("Rainbow". Almanac Pushkin House. Pg., 1922, pp. 218-219.)
14* (See: A. Muratov. About the “Heidelberg arabesques” in “Smoke” by I. S. Turgenev. - "Russian Literature", 1959, No. 4, pp. 199-202.)
15* (For a summary of data and research on the issue, see Yu. G. Oksman’s comments to volume IX of Turgenev’s Works, M. - L., GIHL, 1930.)
16* ("Rainbow", page 217.)
17* (Letters from K. Dm. Kavelina and Iv. S. Turgenev to Al. Yves, Herzen, p. 190.)
18* ("Rainbow, pp. 217-218.)
19* (Letters from K. Dm. Kavelina and Iv. S. Turgenev to Al. Iv. Herzen, pp. 170-172.)
20* (Letters from K. Dm. Kavelina and Iv. S. Turgenev to Al. Iv. Herzen, pp. 160-161.)
21* (P. V. Annenkov. Russian modern history in I. S. Turgenev’s novel “Smoke”. - "Bulletin of Europe", 1867, book. VI, p. 110.)
22* ("Literary Contemporary", 1937, No. 1, p. 145.)
23* (Correspondence between L. N. Tolstoy and N. N. Strakhov. St. Petersburg, 1913, p. 49.)
24* (Correspondence between L. N. Tolstoy and N. N. Strakhov. St. Petersburg, 1913, p. 97.)
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Introduction
Following Pushkin, Gogol, Lermontov, their follower and successor, among other great writers in Russian literature of the 19th century. Turgenev went through his long, forty-year creative journey. Already at the beginning of this path, in the 40s, his talent was noted and appreciated by Gogol and Belinsky.
“Depict for me,” wrote Gogol (in 1847) to P.V. Annenkov, - a portrait of young Turgenev, so that I would get an idea of him as a person; “As a writer, I know him partly: as far as I can judge from what I’ve read, his talent is remarkable and promises great activity in the future.” A few years later, Gogol confirmed his opinion: “In all modern literature, Turgenev has the most talent.”
Turgenev's heroes and heroines entered the ranks of classical Russian literary images, became artistic generalizations of great cognitive power - a reflection of the cultural and social stages of one of the most remarkable eras of Russian life (idealists of the 30-40s, commoners of the 60s, populists of the 70s) . About Turgenev’s responsiveness to the demands of life, Dobrolyubov wrote: “A lively attitude towards modernity strengthened Turgenev’s constant success with the reading public. We can safely say that if Turgenev touched on any issue in his story, if he depicted some new side of social relations, this serves as a guarantee that this issue is being raised or will soon be raised in the consciousness of educated society, that this new side of life is beginning to emerge and will soon appear before everyone’s eyes.”
Turgenev was not a revolutionary, but his works, full of thoughts about the fate of his homeland, warmed by love for the people and deep faith in their great future, helped educate Russian revolutionaries. That is why Saltykov-Shchedrin wrote: “Turgenev’s literary activity was of leading importance for our society, on a par with the activities of Nekrasov, Belinsky and Dobrolyubov.”
Great is the social and literary merit of Turgenev, who created wonderful female characters full of thirst for activity, dedication and readiness for heroism. Such Turgenev heroines as Elena from the novel “On the Eve”, the girl from the prose poem “The Threshold”, inspired struggle, called to the path of serving the people, and were an example for many of the writer’s contemporaries. “Turgenev,” said L.N. Tolstoy did a great job by painting amazing portraits of women. Perhaps there were none, as he wrote, but when he wrote them, they appeared. This is grain; I watched it myself. then Turgenev’s women in life.”
Belinsky also noted Turgenev’s “extraordinary skill in depicting pictures of Russian nature.” The singer of Russian nature, Turgenev showed with such poetic power and spontaneity captivating beauty and the beauty of the Russian landscape, like no prose writer before him.
Together with his great predecessors - Pushkin, Lermontov, Gogol-Turgenev, he was one of the creators of the Russian literary language. “Our classics,” Gorky wrote, “selected the most accurate, bright, weighty words from the chaos of speech and created that “great, beautiful language,” which Turgenev begged Leo Tolstoy to serve for the further development.”
Turgenev achieved world fame during his lifetime and had a progressive influence on the work of a number of Western writers.
“Notes of a Hunter” became very popular in France.
His socio-psychological novels added even more to Turgenev’s fame in Western Europe. Progressive circles of readers were captivated by the moral purity in matters of love that Turgenev discovered in his novels; they were captivated by the image of a Russian woman (Elena Stakhova), seized by a deep revolutionary impulse; I was struck by the figure of the militant democrat Bazarov.
Maupassant admired Turgenev - a “great man” and a “brilliant novelist.” Georges Sand wrote to him: “Teacher! We all must go through your school."
Turgenev's works became a true revelation about Russia for European society. They gave an excellent artistic commentary on the events of life and history of our country.
Turgenev was the first to introduce foreign readers to the Russian peasant ("Notes of a Hunter"), to Russian commoners and revolutionaries ("Fathers and Sons", "Nove"), to the Russian intelligentsia (in most novels), to the Russian woman (Natalia Lasunskaya , Lisa Kalitina, Elena Stakhova, Marianna, etc.). From the works of Turgenev, the cultural world recognized Russia as a country where the center of both the revolutionary movement and the ideological quest of the era had moved.
To this day, Turgenev remains one of our favorite writers. The living truth of life, long gone, does not die in his images.
In an era of decisive and sharp class clashes, defending his “old-style liberalism,” Turgenev more than once found himself between two fires. This is the source of his ideological fluctuations, but one cannot underestimate the courage of his mind, the depth of his thoughts, the breadth of his views, which freed him from the chains of class egoism. A pet of a landowner's estate, heir to noble culture, Turgenev was one of the best progressive representatives of his turbulent and complex “transitional” time. In his writings there is always an open, sincere thought, truth (as he understood it, fearing the “damned idealization of reality”) and genuine, smart love to man, homeland, nature, beauty, art.
Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev was born into a wealthy noble family. Thinking Russian people, since the times of Kantemir and Fonvizin, ridiculed the noble fanabery, empty inventions about some special, higher virtues of the noble breed; but these people themselves were nobles, and their ridicule is the real result of the process of accumulation and organic assimilation by the nobles of the most important assets of world culture, without which creativity within an original national culture was unthinkable. But noble culture grew on the soil of serfdom, which determined both the life and morals of the noble masses.
In conversations about his childhood, Turgenev often recalled the areas in which the serfdom and customs of their family had a particularly sharp effect. Of course, in his childhood and early youth, Turgenev hardly understood that he, the barchuk, who was flogged for high pedagogical reasons “in the rooms” and “lovingly”, and those coachmen, cooks, hay girls, boys and Cossack women, who, by order of his mother was flogged in the stable - victims of the same order, the same morality. But he learned to ardently, painfully sympathize with their suffering even then, in this cruel home school.
1. From romanticism to realism. "Notes of a Hunter"
In the development of Russian and world literature, Turgenev's time is the time of transition from romanticism to realism, the time of the establishment and flourishing of realism. Turgenev himself saw in “the great realistic stream, which currently dominates everywhere in literature and the arts,” the most remarkable manifestation of the artistic development of his time, as he wrote in 1875 in the preface to French translation“Two Hussars” L.N. Tolstoy. In realism, he pointed out, “expressed that special direction of human thought, which, replacing the romanticism of the 30s and every year spreading more and more in European literature, also penetrated into art, into painting, into music.” An outstanding representative of this trend in world literature was Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev himself.
Pushkin, Lermontov, Gogol laid the unshakable foundation of a new realistic Russian literature. The successes of realism were due to the fact that it provided art with limitless possibilities for a truthful artistic reflection of reality, created diverse artistic forms, and made literature a powerful means of influencing the ideological, moral and aesthetic development of society.
In the 40s of the 19th century, a brilliant galaxy of new realist writers, brought up by the criticism of Belinsky, the successors of Pushkin and Gogol, entered Russian literature. Among them was Turgenev. In 1845-1846. He was still not sure of his calling as a writer and even “had,” as he wrote in his memoirs, “a firm intention to leave literature altogether; only as a result of requests from I.I. Panaev, who did not have anything to fill the mixture section in the 1st issue of Sovremennik, I left him an essay entitled “Khor and Kalinich.” The story was highly praised by Belinsky: “Turgenev approached the people from a side that no one had ever approached him before.”
The main idea of Turgenev’s unique creativity was to point out the “sorrows and questions” of the time. It was in the development of this topic that the great critic saw the key to further success in the development of Russian literature. We can say that the entire period of the 1840s, all of Turgenev’s work in those years was subordinated to one super task - the writer was looking for his solution to a social theme in literature.
His appeal to peasant life naturally followed from the anti-serfdom sentiments that arose in the writer in his youth. The main idea of “Notes of a Hunter” was a protest against serfdom. “Under this name I collected and concentrated everything against which I decided to fight to the end, with which I swore never to reconcile... This was my Annibal oath; and I wasn’t the only one who gave it to myself then,” Turgenev later recalled.
Since the time of Radishchev’s “Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow,” the peasant theme has been one of the main themes of Russian literature. The appearance of images of peasants in Turgenev’s work corresponded to an important trend general development realistic Russian literature of the 40s - its desire for artistic knowledge of people's life, for rapprochement with the people.
“Notes of a Hunter” was the most direct and profound expression of the social and literary struggle of the 1840s of the 19th century.
After the publication of each new essay or story from “Notes of a Hunter,” this conviction became stronger and stronger. First of all, the breadth of the author's horizons attracted attention; Turgenev seemed to write from life, but his essays and stories did not give the impression of etudes or ethnographic sketches, although he did not skimp on ethnographic and “local history” details. The private lives of apparently non-fictional people are usually presented in his system of comparisons, which show that in the author’s field of vision is all of Russia in its connections with the whole world. Thanks to this, each figure, each episode, with all its individual spontaneity, and sometimes even seeming fleetingness or chance, acquires special significance, and the content of this or that thing turns out to be broader than the vital material reproduced in it.
In “Notes of a Hunter,” Turgenev’s characters often compare “old” and “new” times. But no matter what the heroes say about this - whether they praise the old years or do not approve - the author’s position is extremely clear: the “golden age” of the Russian nobility - the age of Catherine and Alexander - is mainly the age of noble revelry, extravagance (one only has to remember the fun and the fun of Count A.G. Orlov-Chesmensky, which is told by fellow nobleman Luka Petrovich Ovsyanikov), debauchery and impudent arbitrariness. Well, what about the new, Nikolaev times? Strange as it may seem, it was precisely in this dark period that state-owned borzoscribes shouted more than ever about the successes of enlightenment, especially among landowners. In the story “The Burmister” it is precisely about one “most enlightened” landowner - about Arkady Pavlych Penochkin, Turgenev leaves nothing for the reader to guess: the mask of “enlightenment” is torn off right before his eyes. As a matter of fact, Penochkin puts it on only on special occasions. Indicative in this sense is the episode of pacifying the “rebellion” in Shipilovka: “No, brother, I don’t advise you to rebel... I... (Arkady Pavlych stepped forward, and probably remembered my presence, turned away and put his hands in his pockets.)” In this disgusting figure lies the summation of enormous power.
Turgenev's first stories and essays were written and published during the years of relative revival in the public life of Russia, when even government circles were thinking about abolishing serfdom. But at the beginning of 1848, a revolution broke out in France, and Nicholas I, who never forgot what a coward he celebrated on December 14, 1825, immediately decided to stop any liberal efforts. The punishers undertook a genuine campaign against literature. Naturally, first of all, they paid attention to the most advanced magazine - Sovremennik. Nekrasov and Panaev were summoned to the Third Department, where they were given a suggestion and explanation about Siberia. Turgenev, whose works were one of the most important components of the success of Sovremennik, was also taken under suspicion. They were just waiting for an opportunity to deal with him. Such an opportunity soon presented itself. Turgenev wrote a short, heated article on Gogol's death, which the chairman of the St. Petersburg censorship committee banned on the grounds that Gogol was a “lackey writer.” Then Turgenev sent the article to Moscow, and there it was published through the efforts of his friends - Botkin and Feoktistov. An investigation was immediately ordered, as a result of which Turgenev (by order of Nicholas I) was arrested on April 28, 1852. He was then sent to Spasskoye-Lutovinovo (Turgenev’s mother’s estate) under police supervision, again on the personal orders of Nicholas I.
Even in Turgenev’s time, such punishment looked cruel, so there was virtually no doubt that the note about Gogol was not the only fault of the writer.
In this involuntary seclusion, Turgenev was able to sum up the most important results of his work. He was finally convinced that not a single topic in literature could be more or less satisfactorily resolved without directly or indirectly relating it to the elements of people's life. This also concerned the topic of personality, a topic that, in the real conditions of Russian social development in the first half of the 19th century, was inextricably linked with the question of the fate of the noble intelligentsia.
The criterion of nationality deepened the theme of the noble intelligentsia with a new understanding of the idea of duty. A developed, and even more so a gifted, personality must strive to realize the possibilities inherent in it; this is her duty, a duty to herself, to the idea of Humanity. Without access to the wide world of Humanity, the Motherland, and the world of people's life, a noble intellectual is doomed to the collapse of his personality. A hero was needed who decided to take this step. Apparently, in order to present such a person, stories of the usual scale and form for Turgenev were no longer suitable. This theme of entering the wide world of activity - activity on the scale of the whole of Russia - required a great story, as Turgenev often said, that is, it required a novel.
2 . Roman "Rudin"
Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev began work on “Rudin” in 1855.
The appearance of the novel in print caused a lot of speculation and controversy in literary circles and among readers.
The critic of Otechestvennye Zapiski viewed Rudin only as a pale copy of previous heroes of Russian literature - Onegin, Pechorin, Beltov. But Chernyshevsky objected to him in Sovremennik, noting that Turgenev was able to show in the image of Rudin a man of a new era of social development. Comparing Rudin with Beltov and Pechorin, Chernyshevsky emphasized that “these are people of different eras, different natures - people who form a perfect contrast to one another.”
After the novel was published, Nekrasov expressed confidence that for Turgenev “the new era activity, for his talent has acquired new strength, that he will give us works even more significant than those with which he earned in the eyes of the public the first place in our modern literature after Gogol.”
In a letter to Turgenev, Sergei Timofeevich Aksakov spoke about the vitality of the image of the Rudin type and noted that the novel “raises many small questions and reveals the deep secrets of the spiritual nature of man.”
Speaking about the recognition of the novel among the populist intelligentsia, one cannot ignore the words of V.N. Figner: “It seems to me that the whole novel is taken directly from life, and Rudin is the purest product of our Russian reality, not a parody, not a mockery, but a real tragedy that has not died at all, that is still alive, still going on...” "In any case educated person of our time sits a piece of Dmitry Rudin,” wrote Stepnyak-Kravchinsky.
Rudin is one of the best representatives of the cultural nobility. He was educated in Germany, like Mikhail Bakunin, who served as his prototype, and like Turgenev himself. Rudin's character is revealed in words. This is a brilliant speaker. Appearing at the estate of the landowner Lasunskaya, he immediately charms those present. “Rudin possessed perhaps the highest secret - the secret of eloquence. He knew how, by striking one string of hearts, he could make all the others vaguely ring and tremble.” In his philosophical speeches about the meaning of life, about the high purpose of man, Rudin is simply irresistible. A person cannot and should not subordinate his life only to practical goals, concerns about existence, he argues. Without the desire to find " general principles in the private phenomena" of life, without faith in the power of reason there is no science, no enlightenment, no progress, and "if a person does not have a strong beginning in which he believes, there is no ground on which he stands firmly, how can he give himself an account in the needs, in the meaning, in the future of his people?
Enlightenment, science, the meaning of life - this is what Rudin talks about so passionately, inspiredly and poetically. He tells a legend about a bird that flew into a fire and disappeared again into the darkness. It would seem that a person, like this bird, appears from oblivion and, after living a short life, disappears into obscurity. Yes, “our life is fast and insignificant; but everything great is accomplished through people.”
His statements inspire and call for a renewal of life, for extraordinary, heroic achievements. The power of Rudin’s influence on listeners, his persuasion in words, is felt by everyone. And everyone admires Rudin for his “extraordinary mind.” Only Pigasov does not recognize Rudin’s merits - out of resentment for his defeat in the dispute.
But in Rudin’s very first conversation with Natalya, one of the main contradictions of his character is revealed. After all, only the day before he spoke so enthusiastically about the future, about the meaning of life, about the purpose of man, and suddenly he appears as a tired man who does not believe in his own strength or in the sympathy of people. True, one objection from the surprised Natalya is enough - and Rudin reproaches himself for cowardice and again preaches the need to get things done. But the author has already cast doubt in the reader’s soul that Rudin’s words are consistent with deeds, and intentions with actions.
The writer subjects the contradictory character of his hero to a serious test - love. Turgenev’s feeling is sometimes bright, sometimes tragic and destructive, but it is always a force that reveals the soul, true nature person. This is where Rudin's true character is revealed. Although Rudin's speeches are full of enthusiasm, years of abstract philosophical work have dried up the living springs of his heart and soul. The preponderance of the head over the heart is already noticeable in the scene of the first love confession.
The first obstacle that arose on his way - Daria Mikhailovna Lasunskaya's refusal to marry her daughter to a poor man - leads Rudin into complete confusion. In response to the question: “What do you think we should do now?” - Natalya hears: “Of course, submit.” And then Natalya throws a lot of bitter words at Rudin: she reproaches him for cowardice, cowardice, for the fact that his lofty words are far from reality. And Rudin feels pathetic and insignificant in front of her. He fails the test of love, revealing his human inferiority.
In the novel, Lezhnev is opposed to the main character - openly, straightforwardly. Rudin is eloquent - Lezhnev is usually a man of few words. Rudin cannot understand himself - Lezhnev understands people perfectly and without further ado helps his loved ones, thanks emotional tact and sensitivity. Rudin does nothing - Lezhnev is always busy with something.
But Lezhnev is not only Rudin’s antagonist, he is the hero’s interpreter. Lezhnev's assessments are not the same at different moments, even contradictory, but on the whole they inspire the reader with an understanding of the complex character of the hero and his place in life.
Thus, the highest assessment of Rudin is given by his antagonist, a man of a practical nature. Maybe he is the true hero of the novel? Lezhnev was awarded both intelligence and understanding of people, but his activities are limited by the existing order of things. The author constantly emphasizes its everyday life. He is businesslike, but for Turgenev it is impossible to reduce the whole meaning of life to businesslike activity that is not inspired by a higher idea.
Rudin reflects the tragic fate of a man of Turgenev’s generation. A retreat into abstract thinking could not but entail negative consequences: speculativeness, poor familiarity with the practical side. People like Rudin, bearers of high ideals, guardians of culture, serve the progress of society, but are clearly devoid of practical potential. An ardent opponent of serfdom, Rudin turned out to be absolutely helpless in realizing his ideal.
In Russian life he is destined to remain a wanderer. His fate is echoed by another image of a wanderer, the image of the immortal Don Quixote.
The ending of the novel is heroic and tragic at the same time. Rudin dies on the barricades of Paris. I remember the words from Rudin’s letter to Natalya: “I will end up sacrificing myself for some nonsense that I won’t even believe in...”.
3 . "Noble Nest"
Compared to Turgenev’s first novel in “The Noble Nest,” everything seems soft, balanced, there are no such sharp contrasts as the contrast between Rudin and Pigasov, Basistov and Pandalevsky. Even Panshin, who embodies exemplary noble morality, is not distinguished by obvious, conspicuous negativity. One can understand Lisa, who for a long time could not determine her attitude towards Panshin and, in essence, did not resist Marya Dmitrievna’s intention to marry her to Panshin. He is courteous, quite tactful in everyday life, moderately educated, knows how to hold a conversation; he draws and paints, composes music and poetry. And who knows what Lisa’s fate would have been like if not for the dispute. In general, it should be noted that in the composition of Turgenev’s novels, ideological disputes always play a huge role. In “The Noble Nest” the “starting” dispute is the dispute between Panshin and Lavretsky about the people. Turgenev once remarked that this was a dispute between a Westerner and a Slavophile. This author's description cannot be taken too literally. The fact is that both Panshin is a Westerner of a special, official type, and Lavretsky a Slavophile is not a true believer. In his attitude towards the people, Lavretsky is most similar to the author of “Notes of a Hunter,” that is, to Turgenev himself. He is not trying to give the Russian people some simple, easy-to-remember definition; like Turgenev, Lavretsky believes that before inventing and imposing recipes for organizing people’s life, it is necessary to understand this life, to study the character of the people. Here he expresses essentially the same idea that Rudin expressed in his dispute with Pigasov.
“The Noble Nest” is a novel about the historical fate of the nobility in Russia. The father of the main character of the novel, Fyodor Ivanovich Lavretsky, spent his entire life abroad, first for work, and then “for his own pleasure.” This man, in all his hobbies, is infinitely far from Russia and its people. A supporter of the constitution, he cannot stand the sight of “fellow citizens” - peasants.
After the death of his father, Fyodor Ivanovich falls into the love networks of the cold and calculating egoist Varvara Pavlovna. He lives with her in France until an incident opens his eyes to his wife’s infidelity. As if freed from obsession, Lavretsky returns home and seems to see anew his native places, where life flows “silently, like water through swamp grasses.” In this silence, where even the clouds seem to “know where and why they are floating,” he meets his true love - Lisa Kalitina. But this love was not destined to be happy, although the amazing music composed by the old eccentric Lemm, Lisa’s teacher, promised happiness for the heroes. Varvara Pavlovna, who was considered dead, turned out to be alive, which means that the marriage of Fyodor Ivanovich and Liz became impossible. In the finale, Lisa goes to a monastery to atone for the sins of her father, who acquired wealth through unrighteous means. Lavretsky is left alone to live out a joyless life.
Lisa and Lavretsky are heirs best features patriarchal nobility (their bearer in the novel is Marfa Timofeevna, Liza’s aunt), and at the same time, both the barbarity and ignorance of former times and blind admiration for the West are alien to them.
They are capable of self-sacrifice and are ready for long, hard work. The characters of the honest, slightly awkward “baybak” Lavretsky (in many traits he resembles Pierre Bezukhov from Tolstoy’s “War and Peace”) and the modest, religious Liza Kalitina are truly national. Turgenev saw in them that healthy beginning of the Russian nobility, without which, from his point of view, the social renewal of the country could not take place.
The beginning of folk morality is still expressed in the character of Lisa, in her entire worldview. With all her behavior, her calm grace, she more than any of Turgenev’s heroines resembles Pushkin’s Tatyana. But in the character of Lisa there is one property that is only outlined in the character of Tatiana, but which will become the main distinguishing property of the type of Russian women who are usually called “Turgenevsky”. This is dedication, readiness for self-sacrifice. Lisa has only one predecessor: Lukerya from Turgenev’s story “Living Relics”.
It is difficult for us to accept the fact that at the end of the novel we see Lisa Kalitina in the monastery. But, in essence, this is an amazingly courageous, true touch of the artist. After all, Lisa had no path to life in the name of good (and Liza dreamed only of such a life). Liza’s fate also contained Turgenev’s verdict on Lavretsky. It is difficult to imagine what would have happened to Lisa if Lavretsky had gone beyond his dreams, if he had been in some great danger. Probably, then Lisa’s fate would have been different. Her monastic lot is an accusation not only against Lavretsky, but also against the whole society, which kills everything pure that is born in it.
Turgenev novel realism creative
4 . Revolutionary sentiments of Turgenev - the novel “On the Eve”
The novel “On the Eve” was written and published at the height of the revolutionary situation of 1859-1861.
The action of this novel takes place in 1963, before the Crimean defeat, but there is no such oppressive atmosphere that existed in the last years of the reign of Nicholas I. The novel was written after the Crimean War, during the years of the beginning of the social awakening of Russia, in the pursuit of freedom, freedom in everything: in social activities, in feelings, in personal life. This penetrating pathos of the novel is embodied primarily in the image of Elena Stakhova.
In concrete historical terms, the image of Turgenev’s heroine testified to the growth of social self-awareness among Russian female youth of that time. When Elena, after the death of Insarov, becoming a sister of mercy, took part in the liberation war of the Bulgarian people against the Turkish yoke, readers could not help but recall the memorable images of the first Russian sisters of mercy and their exploits during the defense of Sevastopol.
When the novel was published, opinions about it were sharply divided, even those who welcomed the novel were forced to talk, first of all, and most of all, about Elena. She seemed the most convincing artistically, and the life path she chose was a new word in Russian literature. And many considered Insarov’s image to be unsuccessful. His restraint in expressing his feelings seemed unnatural, contrived.
Turgenev did not choose a Bulgarian as his hero on a whim. Russian society followed with great attention and sympathy the struggle waged by the peoples of the Slavic countries against the Turkish yoke. It was quite natural that the Russian writer not only became interested in this struggle, but also made one of its participants the hero of his work. So there was nothing contrived in Elena’s decision. In fact, in those days there were many cases when Russian young people, one way or another, were involved in the liberation movement against Turkish rule in the Balkans.
In the novel “On the Eve”, social issues are in the foreground. “Notice,” says Insarov, “the last man, the last beggar in Bulgaria and I - we want the same thing. We all have the same goal. Understand how much confidence and strength this gives!” Here, in essence, the duality of the theme of Turgenev’s novel is most clearly reflected. Insarov talks about Bulgaria and Turkey. Turgenev wanted the reader to think about the “internal Turks,” that is, about the defenders of serfdom, about serfdom, against which all healthy forces of Russian society should unite, forgetting, at least for a while, internal strife and misunderstandings. Turgenev dreamed of uniting all the forces of Russian society, of jointly preparing for the coming transformations.
Turgenev found himself in an extremely difficult position: neither revolutionary democrats nor conservatives accepted his idea. If we consistently reveal the dual theme of the novel, we will have to admit that the writer was quite sympathetic to how the Bulgarians were fighting the Turkish yoke (we were talking about armed struggle). It turned out that, introducing an internal theme and developing it, Turgenev did not deny the most decisive forms of struggle against serfdom.
Analyzing the novel, Dobrolyubov in the article “When will the real day come?” (1860) proposed his own interpretation of his main idea, different from Turgenev’s: if Turgenev believed that Insarov as a heroic nature “could not develop and manifest himself in modern Russian society,” he was possible only in Bulgaria, then Dobrolyubov, on the contrary, argued that “there is now a place in our society for great ideas and sympathies, and that the time is not far off when these ideas can be manifested in practice.” These direct revolutionary conclusions from the novel “On the Eve” were not acceptable to Turgenev. After reading Dobrolyubov's article in manuscript, he asked Nekrasov, the editor of Sovremennik, not to publish it even after it had been censored. Nekrasov refused. Then Turgenev posed the question sharply: “Me or Dobrolyubov?” Nekrasov preferred Dobrolyubov. After this, Turgenev went to Sovremennik.
5 . "Fathers and Sons"
Under the influence of communication with the ideological leaders of Sovremennik - Dobrolyubov and Chernyshevsky - the writer nevertheless began to think intently about how to show A work of art new heroes - commoners-democrats, whose public role intensified every day. As a result of these writer's reflections and observations, the novel “Fathers and Sons” soon appeared, where the central character is the democrat commoner Bazarov.
In this novel, the dispute is between liberals, like Turgenev and his closest friends, and a revolutionary democrat like Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov (Dobrolyubov partly served as the prototype for Bazarov). When Turgenev created the image of Bazarov, he thought not so much about embodying in this figure the features of Dobrolyubov that were unpleasant to him, but about conveying as fully as possible the charm of strength and integrity that attracted him to new people.
The son of a doctor, Evgeny Bazarov, contemptuously calls nobles who have never worked anywhere “barchuks.” But in the work not only representatives of different social groups, but also generations collide.
A month and a half before the end of the novel, Turgenev noted in one letter: “Real clashes are those in which both sides are to a certain extent right.” The conflict between ideological opponents, Pavel Petrovich Kirsanov and Evgeny Bazarov, representing “fathers” and “children” respectively, is exactly this. The position of the educated liberal Pavel Petrovich is in many ways close to the author. His “principles” and “authorities” are a sign of respect and trust in the experience of past generations. But he is not able to treat the mental needs and concerns of the “children” with “fatherly” attention. Bazarov, who mercilessly denies love, poetry, morality and, perhaps, the entire world order, is an extreme individualist. In the novel he is characterized as a nihilist: “From the Latin nihil, nothing... therefore, this word means a person who... recognizes nothing.” But his nihilism (this word was picked up with the advent of Turgenev’s novel) feeds on the latent ferment of popular discontent and is therefore strong.
It was not for nothing that Turgenev was called “the chronicler of the Russian intelligentsia.” He sensitively captured the hidden movements, feelings and thoughts of the “cultural layer” of the Russian people. In his novels, he embodied not only already existing “types and ideals,” but also those barely emerging. The latter also includes the image of Bazarov. Even a few years later, critic D.I. Pisarev complained that there were still too few Bazarovs in Russia.
In disputes with Pavel Petrovich, Bazarov turns out to be morally stronger and almost emerges victorious. The inconsistency of his nihilism is proven not by Pavel Petrovich, but by the entire artistic structure of the novel.
Critic N.N. Strakhov defined Turgenev’s “mysterious moral teaching” as follows: “Bazarov turns away from nature... Turgenev... paints nature in all its beauty. Bazarov does not value friendship and renounces romantic love... the author... depicts Arkady's friendship for Bazarov himself and his happy love for Katya. Bazarov denies close ties between parents and children... the author... unfolds before us a picture of parental love. Bazarov shuns life... the author... shows us life in all its beauty. Bazarov rejects poetry; Turgenev... portrays him himself with all the luxury and insight of poetry. ...Bazarov... is defeated not by the faces and not by the accidents of life, but by the very idea of \u200b\u200bthis life.”
The love rejected by Bazarov irresistibly chained him to the cold aristocrat Odintsova and broke his spiritual strength. Bazarov dies by stupid accident. A cut on his finger was enough to kill the “giant” (as he thought of himself). Bazarov accepts his death with the dignity of a victim of fate. As in other works of Turgenev, inexplicable higher powers triumph over man, controlling his life and death.
Turgenev did not like people like Bazarov. And yet, his image of a nihilist was by no means caricatured, as in the series of “anti-nihilistic novels” that followed Fathers and Sons. Paradoxically, the statements of his nihilist are in many ways consonant with the sentiments of Turgenev himself (in particular, Bazarov’s words about a “narrow place” where human life passes meaninglessly, about a “burdock” that will grow on the grave of a suffering and thinking creature, etc. ). Turgenev even admitted: “With the exception of Bazarov’s views on art, I share almost all of his beliefs.” It is no coincidence that Bazarov came out as a truly tragic figure.
Turgenev began work on the novel in early August 1860, and finished it in July 1861. “Fathers and Sons” appeared in the February book of the Russian Bulletin magazine for 1862. In the same year, the novel was published as a separate edition dedicated to the memory of V.G. Belinsky.
The novel takes place in the summer of 1859; the epilogue tells about the events that followed the fall of serfdom, in 1861. Turgenev follows, one might say, on the heels of the events of Russian life - he has never yet created a work, the vital content of which would almost coincide in time with the moment of the work itself on it.
Conclusion
Turgenev admitted in one of his letters that when he wrote to Bazarov, he, in the end, felt not hostility, but admiration for him. And when I wrote the scene of Bazarov’s death, I sobbed bitterly. These were not tears of pity, these were the tears of an artist who saw the tragedy of a man in whom part of his own ideal was embodied.
“Fathers and Sons” apparently caused the most fierce controversy in the entire history of Russian literature of the 19th century. Pisarev believed that Bazarov unusually fully embodied the qualities of a revolutionary of the generation of the 60s, Sovremennik in an article by M.A. Antonovich spoke sharply negatively about Turgenev’s novel, seeing in the image of Bazarov slander of “children.”
In the second half of the 60s, Turgenev’s conflict with revolutionary democrats reached its peak. The writer believed that he had been unfairly offended, was indignant, complained, threatened to “put down his pen,” but at the same time he did not cease to follow with intense attention the ups and downs of the social struggle in Russia. An artist always faithful to the truth of life, he realized that both in the years of reaction and in the years of the new rise of the liberation movement, it was Chernyshevsky’s young followers who played the leading role. Even now he did not agree with their methods of struggle; but he openly bowed before their nobility, before their readiness to make the greatest sacrifices in the name of the good of the people. It was this feeling that guided him when he wrote both his last novel, “Nov,” and the famous hymn to revolutionary feat, “The Threshold.”
Turgenev was a highly developed man, convinced and never abandoned the soil of universal human ideals. He carried these ideals into Russian life with that conscious constancy, which constitutes his main and invaluable service to Russian society. In this sense, he is a direct successor of Pushkin and has no other rivals in Russian literature.
In terms of the epic power of his works, Turgenev is second only to Tolstoy. Tolstoy's compositions, covering entire years, revealing the life of the nation from bottom to top, approach the epic, while Turgenev's novel is close to the story. However, the very possibility of the emergence of a “thick novel” was prepared by Turgenev, his careful development of the fate of the characters in their relationship with the environment, with the typical circumstances of their life, their upbringing, their spiritual and moral development...
Turgenev is one of the creators of the great Russian realistic novel, whose truthfulness, depth and artistic merit amazed the world. And if it is true that the main line of development of world literature in the era of realism was the novel, then it is indisputable that one of the central figures of this development in mid-19th century was Turgenev.
Bibliography
1. Belinsky, V.G. Poly. collection Op. T 7. M.: Publishing House of the USSR Academy of Sciences, 1955. P. 78.
2. I.S. Turgenev in Russian criticism. M: Goslitizdat, 1953. P. 397-398.
3. Turgenev. I.S. Complete collection of works and letters. In 28 volumes. Letters. T. 3. M.; L., 1961.
4. Library of World Literature. Episode two. T. 117.
I. Turgenev “Notes of a Hunter. The day before. Fathers and Sons". Publishing house "Fiction" Moscow 1971
5. “Russian literature of the 19th-20th centuries: in two volumes”, T. 1. Textbook for those entering universities. Comp. and scientific ed. B.S. Bugrov, M.M. Golubkov. - 12th edition. - M.: Moscow University Publishing House, 2013
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