The body of the lectures includes conversations about Russian culture. Yuri Lotman Conversations about Russian culture

Yu. M. Lotman

CONVERSATIONS ABOUT RUSSIAN CULTURE

Life and traditions of the Russian nobility (XVIII - early XIX centuries)

In loving memory my parents Alexandra Samoilovna and Mikhail Lvovich Lotman

The publication was published with the assistance of the Federal Target Program for Book Publishing of Russia and international fund"Cultural Initiative".

“Conversations about Russian Culture” belongs to the pen of the brilliant researcher of Russian culture Yu. M. Lotman. At one time, the author responded with interest to the proposal of “Arts - SPB” to prepare a publication based on a series of lectures that he gave on television. He carried out the work with great responsibility - the composition was specified, the chapters were expanded, and new versions appeared. The author signed the book for inclusion, but did not see it published - on October 28, 1993, Yu. M. Lotman died. His living word addressed to an audience of millions, this book has preserved. It immerses the reader in the world of everyday life of a Russian nobility XVIII - early XIX century. We see people of a distant era in the nursery and in the ballroom, on the battlefield and at the card table, we can examine in detail the hairstyle, the cut of the dress, the gesture, the demeanor. At the same time everyday life for the author - a historical-psychological category, a sign system, that is, a kind of text. He teaches to read and understand this text, where the everyday and the existential are inseparable.

"Meeting motley chapters", whose heroes were outstanding historical figures, reigning persons, ordinary people of the era, poets, literary characters, is connected together by the thought of the continuity of the cultural and historical process, the intellectual and spiritual connection of generations.

IN special issue Tartu "Russian Newspaper", dedicated to the death of Yu. M. Lotman, among his statements, recorded and saved by colleagues and students, we find words that contain the quintessence of his last book: “History passes through the House of man, through his privacy. It is not titles, orders or royal favor, but the “independence of a person” that turns him into a historical figure.”

The publishing house thanks State Hermitage Museum and the State Russian Museum, which donated the engravings stored in their collections for reproduction in this publication.

INTRODUCTION:

Life and culture

Devoting conversations to Russian life and culture of the 18th century XIX century, we must first of all determine the meaning of the concepts “life”, “culture”, “Russian culture XVIII- beginning of the 19th century” and their relationships with each other. At the same time, let us make a reservation that the concept of “culture,” which belongs to the most fundamental in the cycle of human sciences, can itself become the subject of a separate monograph and has repeatedly become so. It would be strange if in this book we set out to solve controversial issues related to this concept. It is very comprehensive: it includes morality, the whole range of ideas, human creativity, and much more. It will be quite enough for us to limit ourselves to that side of the concept of “culture” that is necessary to illuminate our relatively narrow topic.

Culture, first of all, - collective concept. An individual can be a carrier of culture, can actively participate in its development, nevertheless, by its nature, culture, like language, is a social phenomenon, that is, social.

Consequently, culture is something common to any collective - a group of people living simultaneously and connected by a certain social organization. From this it follows that culture is form of communication between people and is possible only in a group in which people communicate. ( Organizational structure uniting people living at the same time is called synchronous, and we will further use this concept when defining a number of aspects of the phenomenon that interests us).

Any structure serving the sphere of social communication is a language. This means that it forms a certain system of signs used in accordance with the rules known to the members of a given group. We call signs any material expression (words, drawings, things, etc.) that has the meaning and thus can serve as a means conveying meaning.

Consequently, culture has, firstly, a communication and, secondly, a symbolic nature. Let's focus on this last one. Let's think about something as simple and familiar as bread. Bread is material and visible. It has weight, shape, it can be cut and eaten. Bread eaten comes into physiological contact with a person. In this function of it, one cannot ask about it: what does it mean? It has a use, not a meaning. But when we say: “Give us this day our daily bread,” the word “bread” does not just mean bread as a thing, but has a broader meaning: “food necessary for life.” And when in the Gospel of John we read the words of Christ: “I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger” (John 6:35), then we have before us a complex symbolic meaning both the object itself and the words denoting it.

The sword is also nothing more than an object. As a thing, it can be forged or broken, it can be placed in a museum display case, and it can kill a person. This is all - the use of it as an object, but when, attached to the belt or supported by a baldric placed on the hip, the sword symbolizes free man and is a “sign of freedom”, it already appears as a symbol and belongs to culture.

In the 18th century, a Russian and European nobleman does not carry a sword - a sword hangs on his side (sometimes a tiny, almost toy ceremonial sword, which is practically not a weapon). In this case, the sword is a symbol of a symbol: it means a sword, and the sword means belonging to a privileged class.

Belonging to the nobility also means being bound by certain rules of behavior, principles of honor, even the cut of clothing. We know of cases when “wearing clothes indecent for a nobleman” (that is, peasant dress) or also a beard “indecent for a nobleman” became a matter of concern for the political police and the emperor himself.

A sword as a weapon, a sword as a part of clothing, a sword as a symbol, a sign of nobility - all these are different functions of an object in the general context of culture.

In its various incarnations, a symbol can simultaneously be a weapon suitable for direct practical use, or be completely separated from its immediate function. So, for example, a small sword specially designed for parades excluded practical use, actually being a picture of a weapon rather than a weapon. The parade sphere was separated from the battle sphere by emotions, body language and functions. Let us remember the words of Chatsky: “I will go to death as to a parade.” At the same time, in Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” we meet in the description of the battle an officer leading his soldiers into battle with a ceremonial (that is, useless) sword in his hands. The very bipolar situation of “fight - game of battle” created a complex relationship between weapons as a symbol and weapons as a reality. Thus, the sword (sword) becomes woven into the system of symbolic language of the era and becomes a fact of its culture.

And here’s another example, in the Bible (Book of Judges, 7:13–14) we read: “Gideon has come [and hears]. And so, one tells the other a dream, and says: I dreamed that round barley bread was rolling through the camp of Midian and, rolling towards the tent, hit it so that it fell, knocked it over, and the tent fell apart. Another answered him, “This is none other than the sword of Gideon...” Here bread means sword, and sword means victory. And since the victory was won with the cry “The sword of the Lord and Gideon!”, without a single blow (the Midianites themselves beat each other: “the Lord turned the sword of one against another in the whole camp”), then the sword here is a sign of the power of the Lord, and not of military victory .

So, the area of culture is always the area of symbolism.

The author is an outstanding theorist and cultural historian, founder of the Tartu-Moscow semiotic school. His readership is enormous - from specialists to whom works on the typology of culture are addressed, to schoolchildren who picked up the “Commentary” to “Eugene Onegin”. The book was created on the basis of a series of television lectures telling about the culture of the Russian nobility. The past era is presented through the realities of everyday life, brilliantly recreated in the chapters “Duel”, “ Card game", "Ball" etc. The book is populated by heroes of Russian literature and historical figures- among them Peter I, Suvorov, Alexander I, Decembrists. Actual novelty and wide circle literary associations, fundamentality and liveliness of presentation make it a most valuable publication in which any reader will find something interesting and useful for themselves.
For students, the book will be a necessary addition to the course of Russian history and literature. The publication was published with the assistance of the Federal Target Program for Book Publishing of Russia and the International Foundation “Cultural Initiative”.
“Conversations about Russian Culture” belongs to the pen of the brilliant researcher of Russian culture Yu. M. Lotman. At one time, the author responded with interest to the proposal of “Arts - SPB” to prepare a publication based on a series of lectures that he gave on television. He carried out the work with great responsibility - the composition was specified, the chapters were expanded, and new versions appeared. The author signed the book for inclusion, but did not see it published - on October 28, 1993, Yu. M. Lotman died. His living word, addressed to an audience of millions, was preserved in this book. It immerses the reader in the world of everyday life of the Russian nobility of the 18th - early 19th centuries. We see people of a distant era in the nursery and in the ballroom, on the battlefield and at the card table, we can examine in detail the hairstyle, the cut of the dress, the gesture, the demeanor. At the same time, everyday life for the author is a historical-psychological category, a sign system, that is, a kind of text. He teaches to read and understand this text, where the everyday and the existential are inseparable.
“A collection of motley chapters”, the heroes of which were outstanding historical figures, reigning persons, ordinary people of the era, poets, literary characters, is connected together by the thought of the continuity of the cultural and historical process, the intellectual and spiritual connection of generations.
In a special issue of the Tartu “Russian Newspaper” dedicated to the death of Yu. M. Lotman, among his statements recorded and saved by colleagues and students, we find words that contain the quintessence of his last book: “History passes through a person’s House, through his private life. It is not titles, orders or royal favor, but the “independence of a person” that turns him into a historical figure.”
The publishing house thanks the State Hermitage and the State Russian Museum, which provided engravings stored in their collections free of charge for reproduction in this publication.--

Hidden text
INTRODUCTION: Life and culturePART ONEPeople and ranks
Women's World
Women's education in the 18th - early 19th centuries PART TWO Ball
Matchmaking. Marriage. Divorce
Russian dandyism
Card game
Duel
The Art of Living
Summary of the journey PART THREE “Chicks of Petrov’s Nest”
Ivan Ivanovich Neplyuev - reform apologist
Mikhail Petrovich Avramov - critic of the reform
Age of heroes
A. N. Radishchev
A. V. Suvorov
Two women
People of 1812
Decembrist in everyday life INSTEAD OF CONCLUSION “Between the double abyss...”

Add. information:Cover: Vasya from MarsThanks for the book Naina Kievna (Audio Book Lovers Club)--

Yuri Mikhailovich Lotman (1922 – 1993) – cultural scientist, founder of the Tartu-Moscow semiotic school. The author of numerous works on the history of Russian culture from the point of view of semiotics, he developed his own general theory culture, set out in the work “Culture and Explosion” (1992).

The text is published according to the publication: Yu. M. Lotman Conversations about Russian culture. Life and traditions of the Russian nobility ( XVIII-early XIX century). St. Petersburg, - “Art - St. Petersburg”. – 1994.

Life and culture

Devoting conversations to Russian life and culture XVIII – beginning of the 19th century, we must first of all determine the meaning of the concepts “life”, “culture”, “Russian culture of the 18th century” – beginning of the 19th century" and their relationships with each other. At the same time, let us make a reservation that the concept of “culture,” which belongs to the most fundamental in the cycle of human sciences, can itself become the subject of a separate monograph and has repeatedly become so. It would be strange if in this book we set out to resolve controversial issues related to this concept. It is very comprehensive: it includes morality, the whole range of ideas, human creativity, and much more. It will be quite enough for us to limit ourselves to that side of the concept of “culture” that is necessary to illuminate our relatively narrow topic.

Culture comes first – a collective concept. An individual can be a carrier of culture, can actively participate in its development, however, by its nature, culture, like language, – a public phenomenon, that is, social.

Consequently, culture is something common to any group – groups of people living at the same time and connected by a certain social organization. From this it follows that culture is form of communication between people and is possible only in a group in which people communicate. (An organizational structure that unites people living at the same time is called synchronous, and we will further use this concept when defining a number of aspects of the phenomenon that interests us).

Consequently, culture has, firstly, a communication and, secondly, a symbolic nature. Let's focus on this last one. Let's think about something as simple and familiar as bread. Bread is material and visible. It has weight, shape, it can be cut and eaten. Bread eaten comes into physiological contact with a person. In this function of it, one cannot ask about it: what does it mean? It has a use, not a meaning. But when we say: “Give us this day our daily bread,” – the word “bread” does not just mean bread as a thing, but has a broader meaning: “food necessary for life.” And when in the Gospel of John we read the words of Christ: “I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger” (John 6:35), then before us – complex symbolic meaning of both the object itself and the word denoting it.

The sword is also nothing more than an object. As a thing, it can be forged or broken, it can be placed in a museum display case, and it can kill a person. This is all – using it as an object, but when, attached to a belt or supported by a baldric placed on the hip, the sword symbolizes a free person and is a “sign of freedom”, it already appears as a symbol and belongs to culture.

In the 18th century, Russian and European noblemen do not carry a sword – hanging on his side is a sword (sometimes a tiny, almost toy ceremonial sword, which is practically not a weapon). In this case the sword – symbol symbol: it means a sword, and a sword means belonging to a privileged class.

Sword as a weapon, sword as part of clothing, sword as a symbol, sign of nobility – all these are different functions of an object in the general context of culture.

In its various incarnations, a symbol can simultaneously be a weapon suitable for direct practical use, or be completely separated from its immediate function. So, for example, a small sword specially designed for parades excluded practical use, in fact it was an image of a weapon, not a weapon. The parade sphere was separated from the battle sphere by emotions, body language and functions. Let us remember the words of Chatsky: “I will go to death as to a parade.” At the same time, in Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” we meet in the description of the battle an officer leading his soldiers into battle with a ceremonial (that is, useless) sword in his hands. The bipolar situation itself “battle” – the game of combat" created a complex relationship between weapons as symbols and weapons as reality. Thus, the sword (sword) becomes woven into the system of symbolic language of the era and becomes a fact of its culture.

We used the expression “centuries-old building of culture.” It is not accidental. We talked about the synchronous organization of culture. But we must immediately emphasize that culture always implies the preservation of previous experience. Moreover, one of the most important definitions of culture characterizes it as the “non-genetic” memory of the collective. Culture is memory. Therefore, it is always connected with history and always implies the continuity of the moral, intellectual, spiritual life of a person, society and humanity. And therefore, when we talk about our modern culture, we, perhaps without knowing it, are also talking about the enormous path that this culture has traveled. This path goes back thousands of years and crosses borders. historical eras, national cultures and immerses us in one culture – culture of humanity.

Therefore, culture is always, on the one hand, – a certain number of inherited texts, and on the other hand – inherited characters.

Symbols of a culture rarely appear in its synchronic cross-section. As a rule, they come from time immemorial and, modifying their meaning (but without losing the memory of their previous meanings), are transmitted to future states of culture. Such simple symbols as circle, cross, triangle, wavy line, more complex: hand, eye, house – and even more complex ones (for example, rituals) accompany humanity throughout its millennia-old culture.

Therefore, culture is historical in nature. Its present itself always exists in relation to the past (real or constructed in the order of some mythology) and to forecasts of the future. These historical connections cultures are called diachronic. As we see, culture is eternal and universal, but at the same time it is always mobile and changeable. This is the difficulty of understanding the past (after all, it is gone, moved away from us). But this is the need to understand a bygone culture: it always contains what we need now, today.

A person changes, and to imagine the logic of actions literary hero or people of the past – but we look up to them, and they somehow maintain our connection with the past, – one must imagine how they lived, what kind of world surrounded them, what their general ideas and moral ideas were, their official duties, customs, clothing, why they acted this way and not otherwise. This will be the topic of the proposed conversations.

Having thus determined the aspects of culture that interest us, we have the right, however, to ask the question: does not the expression “culture and life” itself contain a contradiction, do these phenomena lie on different planes? Really, what is everyday life? Life – this is the usual course of life in its real-practical forms; everyday life – these are the things that surround us, our habits and everyday behavior. Everyday life surrounds us like air, and like air, it is noticeable to us only when it is missing or deteriorates. We notice the features of someone else’s life, but our own life is elusive to us – we are inclined to consider it “just life,” the natural norm of practical existence. So, everyday life is always in the sphere of practice; it is the world of things, first of all. How can he come into contact with the world of symbols and signs that make up the space of culture?

Turning to the history of everyday life, we easily distinguish in it deep forms, the connection of which with ideas, with the intellectual, moral, spiritual development of the era is self-evident. Thus, ideas about noble honor or court etiquette, although they belong to the history of everyday life, are inseparable from the history of ideas. But what to do with such, it would seem, external features time, as fashions, customs of everyday life, details of practical behavior and objects in which it is embodied? Is it really important for us to know what they looked like? "Lepage fatal trunks" from which Onegin killed Lensky, or – wider – imagine objective world Onegin?

However, the two types of household details and phenomena identified above are closely related. The world of ideas is inseparable from the world of people, and ideas – from everyday reality. Alexander Blok wrote:

Accidentally on a pocket knife

Find a speck of dust from distant lands –

And the world will appear strange again...

“Specks of dust from distant lands” of history are reflected in the texts that have been preserved for us – including in “texts in everyday language.” By recognizing them and being imbued with them, we comprehend the living past. From here – the method of offering the reader “Conversations about Russian culture” – see history in the mirror of everyday life, and small, sometimes seemingly scattered household parts illuminate great historical events.

In what ways Is there an interpenetration of life and culture? For objects or customs of “ideologized life” this is self-evident: the language of court etiquette, for example, is impossible without real things, gestures, etc., in which it is embodied and which belong to everyday life. But how are those endless objects of everyday life that were mentioned above connected with culture, with the ideas of the era?

Our doubts will be dispelled if we remember that All The things around us are included not only in practice in general, but also in social practice, they become, as it were, clots of relations between people and in this function they are capable of acquiring a symbolic character.

In Pushkin’s “The Miserly Knight,” Albert waits for the moment when his father’s treasures pass into his hands in order to give them “true,” that is, practical use. But the baron himself is content with symbolic possession, because gold is for him – not yellow circles for which you can buy certain things, but a symbol of sovereignty. Makar Devushkin in Dostoevsky’s “Poor People” invents a special gait so that his holey soles are not visible. Leaky sole – real object; as a thing, it can cause trouble to the owner of the boots: wet feet, colds. But to an outside observer, a torn sole – This sign, the content of which is Poverty, and Poverty – one of the defining symbols of St. Petersburg culture. And Dostoevsky’s hero accepts the “view of culture”: he suffers not because he is cold, but because he is ashamed. It's a shame – one of the most powerful psychological levers of culture. So, everyday life, in its symbolic sense, is part of culture.

But there is another side to this question. A thing does not exist separately, as something isolated in the context of its time. Things are connected. In some cases, we mean a functional connection and then we talk about “unity of style.” The unity of style is the belonging, for example, of furniture, to a single artistic and cultural layer, a “common language” that allows things to “speak to each other.” When you enter a ridiculously furnished room filled with the most various styles, you feel as if you are in a market where everyone is shouting and no one listens to anyone else. But there may be another connection. For example, you say: “These are my grandmother’s things.” Thus, you establish a certain intimate connection between objects, due to the memory of a person dear to you, of his long-gone time, of his childhood. It is no coincidence that there is a custom of giving things as a keepsake. – things have memory. These are like words and notes that the past conveys to the future.

On the other hand, things powerfully dictate the gestures, style of behavior and, ultimately, the psychological attitude of their owners. So, for example, since women began to wear trousers, their gait has changed, it has become more sporty, more “masculine”. At the same time, there was an invasion of typically “male” gestures into female behavior (for example, the habit of crossing one’s legs high when sitting – the gesture is not only masculine, but also “American”; in Europe it was traditionally considered a sign of indecent swagger). An attentive observer may notice that the previously sharply different manners of laughter between men and women have now lost their distinction, and precisely because women in the mass have adopted the masculine manner of laughter.

Things impose a behavior on us because they create a certain cultural context. After all, you need to be able to hold an ax, a shovel, a dueling pistol, a modern machine gun, a fan or the steering wheel of a car in your hands. In the old days they said: “He knows how (or does not know how) to wear a tailcoat.” It’s not enough to have your tailcoat sewn by the best tailor – To do this, it is enough to have money. You must also be able to wear it, and this, as the hero of Bulwer-Lytton’s novel “Pelham, or a Gentleman’s Adventure” reasoned, – a whole art that is given only to a true dandy. The one who held in his hand and modern weapons, and an old dueling pistol, one cannot help but be amazed at how well, how well the latter fits in the hand. You can't feel its heaviness – it becomes, as it were, an extension of the body. The point is that objects ancient life were made by hand, their shape was perfected over decades, and sometimes centuries, the secrets of production were passed on from master to master. This not only produced the most convenient form, but also inevitably turned the thing into the history of a thing in memory of the gestures associated with it. The thing, on the one hand, gave the human body new capabilities, and on the other – included a person in tradition, that is, both developed and limited his individuality.

However, everyday life – This is not only the life of things, it is also customs, the entire ritual of daily behavior, the structure of life that determines the daily routine, the time of various activities, the nature of work and leisure, forms of recreation, games, love ritual and funeral ritual. The connection between this aspect of everyday life and culture requires no explanation. After all, it is in it that those features are revealed by which we usually recognize our own and the stranger, a person of a particular era, an Englishman or a Spaniard.

Custom has another function. Not all laws of behavior are recorded in writing. Writing dominates in the legal, religious, and ethical spheres. However, in human life there is a vast area of customs and decency. “There is a way of thinking and feeling, there is a darkness of customs, beliefs and habits that belong exclusively to some people.” These norms belong to culture, they are enshrined in forms of everyday behavior, everything that is said about: “this is customary, this is decent.” These norms are transmitted through everyday life and are in close contact with the sphere folk poetry. They become part of the cultural memory.

Questions to the text:

1. How does Y. Lotman define the meaning of the concepts “life” and “culture”?

2. What, from the point of view of Y. Lotman, is the symbolic nature of culture?

3. How does the interpenetration of life and culture occur?

4. Prove using examples from modern life that the things around us are included in social practice, and in this function they acquire a symbolic character.

Microhistory

Conversations about Russian culture:

Life and traditions of the Russian nobility (XVIII - early XIX centuries)

Lotman Yu.M. Conversations about Russian culture: Life and traditions of the Russian nobility (XVIII-beginningXIXcentury) - St. Petersburg, 2000.

Questions and tasks for the text:

What role did the ball play in the life of a Russian nobleman, according to Lotman?

Was the ball different from other forms of entertainment?

How were nobles prepared for balls?

In what literary works Have you come across a description of the ball, the attitude towards it or individual dances?

What is the meaning of the word dandyism?

Restore the model appearance and behavior of a Russian dandy.

What role did the duel play in the life of a Russian nobleman?

How were duels treated in Tsarist Russia?

How was the duel ritual carried out?

Give examples of duels in history and literary works?

Lotman Yu.M. Conversations about Russian culture: Life and traditions of the Russian nobility (XVIII - early XIX centuries)

Dancing was an important structural element of noble life. Their role was significantly different from both the function of dances in the folk life of that time and from the modern one.

In the life of a Russian metropolitan nobleman of the 18th - early 19th centuries, time was divided into two halves: staying at home was devoted to family and economic concerns - here the nobleman acted as a private individual; the other half was occupied by service - military or civil, in which the nobleman acted as a loyal subject, serving the sovereign and the state, as a representative of the nobility in the face of other classes. The contrast between these two forms of behavior was filmed in the “meeting” that crowned the day - at a ball or evening party. Here the social life of a nobleman was realized... he was a nobleman in a noble assembly, a man of his class among his own.

Thus, the ball turned out, on the one hand, to be an area opposite to service - an area of relaxed communication, social recreation, a place where the boundaries of the official hierarchy were weakened. The presence of ladies, dancing, and social norms introduced extra-official value criteria, and a young lieutenant who danced deftly and knew how to make the ladies laugh could feel superior to an aging colonel who had been in battle. On the other hand, the ball was an area of public representation, a form of social organization, one of the few forms of collective life allowed in Russia at that time. In this sense, secular life received the value of a public cause. Catherine II’s answer to Fonvizin’s question is typical: “Why aren’t we ashamed of not doing anything?” - “... living in society is not doing nothing” 16.

Since the time of Peter the Great's assemblies, the question of organizational forms of secular life has also become acute. Forms of recreation, youth communication, and calendar ritual, which were basically common to both the people and the boyar-noble milieu, had to give way to a specifically noble structure of life. The internal organization of the ball was made a task of exceptional cultural importance, as it was intended to give forms of communication between “gentlemen” and “ladies” and to determine the type of social behavior within the culture of the nobility. This entailed the ritualization of the ball, the creation of a strict sequence of parts, the identification of stable and obligatory elements. The grammar of the ball arose, and it itself developed into some kind of holistic theatrical performance, in which each element (from entering the hall to leaving) corresponded to typical emotions, fixed meanings, and styles of behavior. However, the strict ritual that brought the ball closer to the parade made all the more significant possible deviations, “ballroom liberties,” which compositionally increased towards its finale, building the ball as a struggle between “order” and “freedom.”

The main element of the ball as a social and aesthetic event was dancing. They served as the organizing core of the evening, setting the type and style of conversation. “Mazur chat” required superficial, shallow topics, but also entertaining and sharp conversation, and the ability to quickly respond epigrammatically.

Dance training began early - from the age of five or six. For example, Pushkin began to learn dancing already in 1808...

Early dance training was painful and reminiscent of the harsh training of an athlete or the training of a recruit by a diligent sergeant major. The compiler of the “Rules”, published in 1825, L. Petrovsky, himself an experienced dance master, describes some of the methods of initial training in this way, while condemning not the method itself, but only its too harsh application: “The teacher must pay attention to ensuring that students strong stress was not tolerated in health. Someone told me that his teacher considered it an indispensable rule that the student, despite his natural inability, should keep his legs to the side, like him, in parallel line... As a student, he was 22 years old, quite decent in height and had considerable legs, albeit faulty ones; Then the teacher, who could not do anything himself, considered it his duty to use four people, two of whom twisted their legs, and two held their knees. No matter how much he screamed, they just laughed and didn’t want to hear about the pain - until his leg finally cracked, and then the tormentors left him...”

Long-term training gave the young man not only dexterity during dancing, but also confidence in his movements, freedom and ease in posing his figure, which in a certain way influenced the person’s mental structure: in the conventional world of social communication, he felt confident and free, like an experienced actor on the stage. Grace, reflected in the precision of movements, was a sign of good upbringing...

The aristocratic simplicity of the movements of people of “good society” both in life and in literature is opposed by the stiffness or excessive swagger (the result of the struggle with one’s own shyness) of the commoner’s gestures...

The ball at the beginning of the 19th century began with a Polish (polonaise), which replaced the minuet in the ceremonial function of the first dance. The minuet became a thing of the past along with royal France...

In “War and Peace,” Tolstoy, describing Natasha’s first ball, contrasts the polonaise, which opens “the sovereign, smiling and leading the mistress of the house by the hand,” with the second dance, the waltz, which becomes the moment of Natasha’s triumph.

Pushkin characterized him this way:

Monotonous and crazy

Like a young whirlwind of life,

A noisy whirlwind swirls around the waltz;

Couple flashes after couple.

The epithets “monotonous and crazy” have not only an emotional meaning. “Monotonous” - because, unlike the mazurka, in which at that time solo dances and the invention of new figures played a huge role, and even more so from the dance - playing the cotillion, the waltz consisted of the same constantly repeating movements. The feeling of monotony was also enhanced by the fact that “at that time the waltz was danced in two steps, and not in three steps, as now” 17. The definition of the waltz as “crazy” has a different meaning: ... the waltz... enjoyed in the 1820s the reputation of an obscene or at least excessively free dance... Zhanlis in the “Critical and Systematic Dictionary of Court Etiquette”: “Young a person, lightly dressed, rushes into his arms young man who presses her to his chest, who carries her away with such swiftness that her heart involuntarily begins to pound and her head goes spinning! That’s what this waltz is!.. Modern youth are so natural that, putting sophistication at nothing, they dance waltzes with glorified simplicity and passion.”

Not only the boring moralist Janlis, but also the fiery Werther Goethe considered the waltz a dance so intimate that he swore that he would not allow his future wife to dance it with anyone but himself...

However, Zhanlis’s words are also interesting in another respect: the waltz is contrasted with classical dances as romantic; passionate, crazy, dangerous and close to nature, he opposes the etiquette dances of the old time. The “common people” of the waltz was acutely felt... The waltz was admitted to European balls as a tribute to the new time. It was a fashionable and youth dance.

The sequence of dances during the ball formed a dynamic composition. Each dance... set a certain style of not only movements, but also conversation. In order to understand the essence of the ball, one must keep in mind that dancing was only the organizing core in it. The chain of dances was also organized by the sequence of moods... Each dance entailed appropriate topics of conversation for it... An interesting example of changing the topic of conversation in a sequence of dances is found in Anna Karenina. “Vronsky and Kitty went through several rounds of the waltz”... She expects words of recognition from him that should decide her fate, but for an important conversation a corresponding moment in the dynamics of the ball is necessary. It is by no means possible to conduct it at any moment and not during any dance. “During the quadrille, nothing significant was said, there was an intermittent conversation... But Kitty did not expect anything more from the quadrille. She waited with bated breath for the mazurka. It seemed to her that everything should be decided in the mazurka.”

The mazurka formed the center of the ball and marked its culmination. The mazurka was danced with numerous bizarre figures and a male solo, which constituted the culmination of the dance... Within the mazurka there were several distinct styles. The difference between the capital and the provinces was expressed in the contrast between the “exquisite” and “bravura” performance of the mazurka...

Russian dandyism.

The word “dandy” (and its derivative, “dandyism”) is difficult to translate into Russian. More precisely, this word is not only conveyed by several opposite Russian words, but also defines, at least in the Russian tradition, very different social phenomena.

Originating in England, dandyism included a national opposition to French fashions, which caused violent indignation among English patriots at the end of the 18th century. N. Karamzin in “Letters of a Russian Traveler” described how, during his (and his Russian friends’) walks around London, a crowd of boys threw mud at a man dressed in French fashion. In contrast to the French “refinement” of clothing, English fashion canonized the tailcoat, which had previously been only riding clothing. "Rough" and sporty, it was perceived as national English. French pre-revolutionary fashion cultivated grace and sophistication, while English fashion allowed extravagance and put forward originality as the highest value 18 . Thus, dandyism was colored in tones national specifics and in this sense, on the one hand, it was close to romanticism, and on the other, it was adjacent to the anti-French patriotic sentiments that swept Europe in the first decades of the 19th century.

From this point of view, dandyism acquired the color of romantic rebellion. It was focused on extravagance of behavior that offends secular society and on the romantic cult of individualism. An offensive manner for the world, “indecent” swagger of gestures, demonstrative shocking - all forms of destruction of secular prohibitions were perceived as poetic. This lifestyle was typical of Byron.

At the opposite pole was the interpretation of dandyism that was developed by the most famous dandy of the era, George Bremmel. Here, individualistic contempt for social norms took other forms. Byron contrasted the energy and heroic rudeness of the romantic to the pampered world, Bremmel contrasted the coarse philistinism of the “secular crowd” with the pampered sophistication of the individualist 19 . This second type of behavior was later attributed by Bulwer-Lytton to the hero of the novel “Pelham, or the Adventures of a Gentleman” (1828) - a work that aroused the admiration of Pushkin and influenced some of his literary ideas and even, at some moments, his everyday behavior...

The art of dandyism creates a complex system of its own culture, which outwardly manifests itself in a kind of “poetry of a refined suit”... The hero of Bulwer-Lytton proudly says to himself that he “introduced starched ties” in England. He “by the power of his example”... “ordered the lapels of his boots to be wiped with 20 champagne.”

Pushkinsky Evgeny Onegin “spent at least three hours // In front of mirrors.”

However, the cut of the tailcoat and similar fashion attributes constitute only the outward expression of dandyism. They are too easily imitated by profane people who cannot access his inner aristocratic essence... A man must make a tailor, not a tailor - a man.

The Bulwer-Lytton novel, which is a kind of fictionalized program of dandyism, became widespread in Russia; it was not the reason for the emergence of Russian dandyism; rather, on the contrary: Russian dandyism aroused interest in the novel...

It is known that Pushkin, like his hero Charsky from “Egyptian Nights,” could not stand the role of “poet in secular society,” so sweet for romantics like Kukolnik. The words sound autobiographical: “The public looks at him (the poet) as their property; in her opinion, he was born for her “use and pleasure”...

The dandyism of Pushkin's behavior is not in an imaginary commitment to gastronomy, but in outright ridicule, almost arrogance... It is arrogance, covered with mocking politeness, that forms the basis of the dandy's behavior. The hero of Pushkin’s unfinished “Novel in Letters” accurately describes the mechanism of dandyish impudence: “Men are extremely dissatisfied with my fatuite indolente, which is still news here. They are all the more furious because I am extremely polite and decent, and they just don’t understand what exactly my impudence consists of - although they feel that I am impudent.”

Typically dandy behavior was known among Russian dandies long before the names of Byron and Bremmel, as well as the word “dandy” itself, became known in Russia... Karamzin in 1803 described this curious phenomenon of the fusion of rebellion and cynicism, the transformation of selfishness into a peculiar religion and a mocking attitude towards all the principles of “vulgar” morality. The hero of “My Confession” proudly talks about his adventures: “I made a lot of noise on my journey - by jumping in country dances with important ladies of the German Princely Courts, I deliberately dropped them to the ground in the most indecent way; and most of all, by kissing the Pope’s shoes with good Catholics, he bit his foot and made the poor old man scream with all his might.”... In the prehistory of Russian dandyism, many notable characters can be noted. Some of them are the so-called Khripuns... “Khripuns” as a phenomenon that has already passed are mentioned by Pushkin in the versions of “The Little House in Kolomna”:

The guards are lingering,

You wheezers

(but your wheezing has died down) 21 .

Griboyedov in “Woe from Wit” calls Skalozub: “Wheezer, strangled, bassoon.” The meaning of these pre-1812 military jargons to the modern reader remains incomprehensible... All three names of Skalozub (“Khripun, strangled, bassoon”) speak of a tight waist (cf. the words of Skalozub himself: “And the waists are so narrow”). This also explains Pushkin’s expression “Protracted guardsmen” - that is, tightened at the waist. Tightening the belt to the point of rivaling a woman's waist - hence the comparison of a tightened officer with a bassoon - gave the military fashionista the appearance of a "strangled man" and justified calling him a "wheezer." The idea of a narrow waist as an important sign of male beauty persisted for several decades. Nicholas I pulled it tight, even as his belly grew longer in the 1840s. He preferred to endure intense physical suffering just to maintain the illusion of a waist. This fashion has captured not only the military. Pushkin proudly wrote to his brother about the slimness of his waist...

In the behavior of a dandy big role glasses played - a detail inherited from the dandies of the previous era. Back in the 18th century, glasses became a fashionable part of the toilet. Looking through glasses was equated to looking at someone else's face point-blank, that is, a daring gesture. The decency of the 18th century in Russia forbade those younger in age or rank to look through their glasses at their elders: this was perceived as impudence. Delvig recalled that at the Lyceum it was forbidden to wear glasses and that therefore all women seemed beauties to him, ironically adding that, having graduated from the Lyceum and acquiring glasses, he was very disappointed... Dandyism introduced its own shade into this fashion: a lorgnette appeared, which was perceived as a sign Anglomania...

A specific feature of dandyish behavior was also viewing in the theater through a telescope not the stage, but the boxes occupied by the ladies. Onegin emphasizes the dandyism of this gesture by looking “sideways,” and looking at unfamiliar ladies like that is double insolence. The female equivalent of “daring optics” was the lorgnette, if it was not directed towards the stage...

Another characteristic feature everyday dandyism is a pose of disappointment and satiety... However, “premature old age of the soul” (Pushkin’s words about the hero of “Prisoner of the Caucasus”) and disappointment could be perceived in the first half of the 1820s not only in an ironic way. When these properties manifested themselves in the character and behavior of people like P.Ya. Chaadaev, they acquired a tragic meaning...

However, "boredom" - the blues - was too common for the researcher to dismiss it. For us, it is especially interesting in this case because it characterizes everyday behavior. So, like Chaadaev, the blues drive Chatsky abroad...

Spleen as a reason for the spread of suicide among the English was mentioned by N.M. Karamzin in “Letters of a Russian Traveler”. It is all the more noticeable that in the Russian noble life of the era we are interested in, suicide out of disappointment was quite common. a rare occurrence, and it was not included in the stereotype of dandy behavior. Its place was taken by a duel, reckless behavior in war, a desperate game of cards...

There were overlaps between the behavior of the dandy and the different shades of political liberalism of the 1820s... However, their nature was different. Dandyism is, first of all, a behavior, and not a theory or ideology 22. In addition, dandyism is limited to a narrow sphere of everyday life... Inseparable from individualism and at the same time invariably dependent on observers, dandyism constantly fluctuates between a claim to rebellion and various compromises with society. His limitations lie in the limitations and inconsistency of fashion, in the language of which he is forced to speak with his era.

The dual nature of Russian dandyism created the possibility of its dual interpretation... It was this two-facedness that became characteristic feature a strange symbiosis of dandyism and St. Petersburg bureaucracy. English habits of everyday behavior, the manners of an aging dandy, as well as decency within the boundaries of the Nicholas regime - this will be the path of Bludov and Dashkov. The “Russian dandy” Vorontsov faced the fate of the commander-in-chief of the Separate Caucasian Corps, governor of the Caucasus, field marshal general and his serene prince. Chaadaev, on the other hand, had a completely different fate: he was officially declared insane. Lermontov's rebellious Byronism will no longer fit within the boundaries of dandyism, although, reflected in Pechorin's mirror, he will reveal this ancestral connection going back into the past.

Duel.

A duel (combat) is a pair fight that takes place according to certain rules, with the goal of restoring honor... Thus, the role of the duel is socially significant. The duel... cannot be understood without the very specificity of the concept of “honor” in the general system of ethics of the Russian Europeanized post-Petrine noble society...

The Russian nobleman of the 18th - early 19th centuries lived and acted under the influence of two opposing regulators of social behavior. As a loyal subject, a servant of the state, he obeyed orders... But at the same time, as a nobleman, a man of a class that was at the same time a socially dominant corporation and a cultural elite, he obeyed the laws of honor. The ideal that creates for itself noble culture, implies the complete banishment of fear and the establishment of honor as the main legislator of behavior... From these positions, medieval knightly ethics is experiencing a certain restoration. ...The behavior of a knight is not measured by defeat or victory, but has self-sufficient value. This is especially evident in relation to a duel: danger, coming face to face with death become cleansing agents that remove insult from a person. The offended person himself must decide ( correct solution testifies to the degree of his mastery of the laws of honor): is dishonor so insignificant that in order to remove it, a demonstration of fearlessness is enough - a display of readiness for battle... A person who too easily goes for reconciliation can be considered a coward, an unjustifiably bloodthirsty - a brute.

The duel, as an institution of corporate honor, met opposition from two sides. On the one hand, the government’s attitude towards the fights was invariably negative. In the “Patent on duels and starting quarrels,” which made up the 49th chapter of Peter the Great’s “Military Regulations” (1716), it was prescribed: “If it happens that two people come to the appointed place, and one draws their swords against the other, then We command them, although none of them will be wounded or killed, without any mercy, and also the seconds or witnesses who will be proven against will be executed by death and their belongings will be given away... If they begin to fight, and in that battle they are killed and wounded, then as if they were alive, so let the dead be hanged” 23 ... the duel in Russia was not a relic, since nothing similar existed in the life of the Russian “old feudal nobility”.

Catherine II unequivocally pointed out that the duel was an innovation: “Prejudices not received from ancestors, but adopted or superficial, alien” 24...

Montesquieu pointed out the reasons for the negative attitude of the autocratic authorities towards the custom of dueling: “Honor cannot be the principle of despotic states: there all people are equal and therefore cannot exalt themselves over each other; there all the people are slaves and therefore cannot rise above anything... Can a despot tolerate it in his state? She places her glory in contempt for life, and the whole power of a despot lies only in the fact that he can take life. How could she herself tolerate a despot?

On the other hand, the duel was criticized by democratic thinkers, who saw in it a manifestation of the class prejudice of the nobility and contrasted noble honor with human honor, based on Reason and Nature. From this position, the duel was made the object of educational satire or criticism... A. Suvorov’s negative attitude towards the duel is known. The Freemasons also had a negative attitude towards the duel.

Thus, in a duel, on the one hand, the narrow class idea of protecting corporate honor could come to the fore, and on the other, the universal, despite archaic forms, idea of protecting human dignity...

In this regard, the attitude of the Decembrists to the duel was ambivalent. Assuming in theory negative statements In the spirit of general educational criticism of the duel, the Decembrists practically widely used the right to duel. So, E.P. Obolensky killed a certain Svinin in a duel; called repeatedly different persons and fought with several K.F. Ryleev; A.I. Yakubovich was known as a brute...

The view of a duel as a means of protecting one’s human dignity was not alien to Pushkin. During the Kishinev period, Pushkin found himself in the offensive position of a young civilian man, surrounded by people in officer uniforms who had already proven their undoubted courage in the war. This explains his exaggerated scrupulousness during this period in matters of honor and almost brute behavior. The Kishinev period is marked in the memoirs of contemporaries with numerous challenges to Pushkin 25 . Typical example- his duel with Lieutenant Colonel S.N. Starov... Pushkin's bad behavior during the dances in the officers' meeting became the reason for the duel... The duel was conducted according to all the rules: there was no personal enmity between the combatants, and the impeccable observance of the ritual during the duel aroused mutual respect in both. The careful observance of the ritual of honor equalized the position of the civilian youth and the military lieutenant colonel, giving them equal right for public respect...

Breter behavior as a means of social self-defense and assertion of one’s equality in society perhaps attracted Pushkin’s attention in these years to Voiture, a French poet of the 17th century, who asserted his equality in aristocratic circles with emphasized bratism...

Pushkin’s attitude towards the duel is contradictory: as the heir to the enlighteners of the 18th century, he sees in it a manifestation of “secular enmity”, which is “wildly... afraid of false shame.” In Eugene Onegin, the cult of the duel is supported by Zaretsky, a man of dubious integrity. However, at the same time, a duel is also a means of protecting the dignity of an offended person. She puts on a par the mysterious poor man Silvio and the favorite of fate, Count B. 26 A duel is a prejudice, but honor, which is forced to turn to her help, is not a prejudice.

It was precisely because of its duality that the duel implied the presence of a strict and carefully performed ritual... No dueling codes it could not appear in the Russian press under the conditions of an official ban... Strictness in observing the rules was achieved by appealing to the authority of experts, living bearers of tradition and arbiters in matters of honor...

The duel began with a challenge. It was usually preceded by a clash, as a result of which one party considered itself offended and, as such, demanded satisfaction. From this moment on, the opponents no longer had to enter into any communication: this was taken upon themselves by their representatives-seconds. Having chosen a second, the offended person discussed with him the severity of the insult inflicted on him, on which the nature of the future duel depended - from a formal exchange of shots to the death of one or both participants. After this, the second sent a written challenge to the enemy (cartel)... It was the responsibility of the seconds to seek all opportunities, without harming the interests of honor and especially ensuring that the rights of their principal are respected, for a peaceful resolution of the conflict. Even on the battlefield, seconds were obliged to take last try to reconciliation. In addition, the seconds work out the conditions of the duel. In this case, the unspoken rules instruct them to try to prevent irritated opponents from choosing bloodier forms of combat than is required by the minimum strict rules of honor. If reconciliation was not possible, as was the case, for example, in the duel between Pushkin and Dantes, the seconds drew up written conditions and carefully monitored the strict execution of the entire procedure.

So, for example, the conditions signed by the seconds of Pushkin and Dantes were as follows (original in French): “The conditions of the duel between Pushkin and Dantes were as cruel as possible (the duel was designed for fatal outcome), but the conditions of the duel between Onegin and Lensky, to our surprise, were also very cruel, although there was clearly no reason for mortal enmity here...

1. Opponents stand at a distance of twenty steps from each other and five steps (for each) from the barriers, the distance between which is ten steps.

2. Opponents armed with pistols can shoot at this sign, moving towards each other, but in no case crossing barriers.

3. Moreover, it is accepted that after the shot, the opponents are not allowed to change place, so that the one who fired first would be subjected to fire from his opponent at the same distance 27.

4. When both sides fire a shot, then in case of ineffectiveness the fight is resumed as if for the first time: the opponents are placed at the same distance of 20 steps, the same barriers and the same rules are maintained.

5. Seconds are indispensable mediators in any explanation between opponents at the battlefield.

6. The seconds, the undersigned and vested with full powers, ensure, each for his own side, with his honor, strict compliance with the conditions stated here.”

In loving memory of my parents Alexandra Samoilovna and Mikhail Lvovich Lotman

The publication was published with the assistance of the Federal Target Program for Book Publishing of Russia and the International Foundation “Cultural Initiative”.

“Conversations about Russian Culture” belongs to the pen of the brilliant researcher of Russian culture Yu. M. Lotman. At one time, the author responded with interest to the proposal of “Arts - SPB” to prepare a publication based on a series of lectures that he gave on television. He carried out the work with great responsibility - the composition was specified, the chapters were expanded, and new versions appeared. The author signed the book for inclusion, but did not see it published - on October 28, 1993, Yu. M. Lotman died. His living word, addressed to an audience of millions, was preserved in this book. It immerses the reader in the world of everyday life of the Russian nobility of the 18th - early 19th centuries. We see people of a distant era in the nursery and in the ballroom, on the battlefield and at the card table, we can examine in detail the hairstyle, the cut of the dress, the gesture, the demeanor. At the same time, everyday life for the author is a historical-psychological category, a sign system, that is, a kind of text. He teaches to read and understand this text, where the everyday and the existential are inseparable.

“A collection of motley chapters”, the heroes of which were outstanding historical figures, reigning persons, ordinary people of the era, poets, literary characters, is connected together by the thought of the continuity of the cultural and historical process, the intellectual and spiritual connection of generations.

In a special issue of the Tartu “Russian Newspaper” dedicated to the death of Yu. M. Lotman, among his statements recorded and saved by colleagues and students, we find words that contain the quintessence of his last book: “History passes through a person’s House, through his private life. It is not titles, orders or royal favor, but the “independence of a person” that turns him into a historical figure.”

The publishing house thanks the State Hermitage and the State Russian Museum, which provided engravings stored in their collections free of charge for reproduction in this publication.

INTRODUCTION:

Life and culture

Having devoted conversations to Russian life and culture of the 18th - early 19th centuries, we must first of all determine the meaning of the concepts “life”, “culture”, “Russian culture of the 18th - early 19th centuries” and their relationships with each other. At the same time, let us make a reservation that the concept of “culture,” which belongs to the most fundamental in the cycle of human sciences, can itself become the subject of a separate monograph and has repeatedly become so. It would be strange if in this book we set out to resolve controversial issues related to this concept. It is very comprehensive: it includes morality, the whole range of ideas, human creativity, and much more. It will be quite enough for us to limit ourselves to that side of the concept of “culture” that is necessary to illuminate our relatively narrow topic.

Consequently, culture is something common to a collective - a group of people living simultaneously and connected by a certain social organization. From this it follows that culture is form of communication between people and is possible only in a group in which people communicate. (An organizational structure that unites people living at the same time is called synchronous, and we will further use this concept when defining a number of aspects of the phenomenon that interests us).

The sword is also nothing more than an object. As a thing, it can be forged or broken, it can be placed in a museum display case, and it can kill a person. This is all - the use of it as an object, but when, attached to a belt or supported by a baldric placed on the hip, the sword symbolizes a free person and is a “sign of freedom”, it already appears as a symbol and belongs to culture.

A sword as a weapon, a sword as a part of clothing, a sword as a symbol, a sign of nobility - all these are different functions of an object in the general context of culture.

In its various incarnations, a symbol can simultaneously be a weapon suitable for direct practical use, or be completely separated from its immediate function. So, for example, a small sword specially designed for parades excluded practical use, in fact it was an image of a weapon, not a weapon. The parade sphere was separated from the battle sphere by emotions, body language and functions. Let us remember the words of Chatsky: “I will go to death as to a parade.” At the same time, in Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” we meet in the description of the battle an officer leading his soldiers into battle with a ceremonial (that is, useless) sword in his hands. The very bipolar situation of “fight - game of battle” created a complex relationship between weapons as a symbol and weapons as a reality. Thus, the sword (sword) becomes woven into the system of symbolic language of the era and becomes a fact of its culture.

So, the area of culture is always the area of symbolism.