Literary criticism. A

A. Dmitrieva

Dobrolyubov- literary critic

N. A. Dobrolyubov. Literary criticism M., GIHL, 1961 OCR Bychkov M. N. The literary activity of N. A. Dobrolyubov, which lasted only about five years, dates back to the years of the pre-reform struggle and the emergence of a revolutionary situation in Russia, when the best people of the country - revolutionary democrats fought for for the peasant revolution to come true. This primarily explains the nature and direction of Dobrolyubov’s literary critical work. Comprehension literary phenomena of that time, analysis of the best who later became classical works, a rebuke to ideological opponents - all this was closely connected by Dobrolyubov the critic with the tasks of the “day”, modern struggle, subordinated to these tasks, everything was permeated with a single desire - to awaken the revolutionary consciousness of the people. Autocratic serfdom oppression was brought to its limit at the end of the reign of Nicholas I. The defeat in the Crimean War showed the rottenness of the tsarist system and the economic backwardness of Russia. Endless recruitment drives and the collapse of trade and the economy led to increased exploitation of peasants, who increasingly rebelled against the landowners, demanding land and freedom. Revolutionary democrats, expressing the interests of the broad peasant masses, aimed to raise the people in an organized struggle against autocracy and serfdom. The tension of the class struggle contributed to the rapid ideological formation the best people Russia. Dobrolyubov, the son of a Nizhny Novgorod priest, brought up in obedience and respect for all kinds of authorities, stuffed with seminary wisdom, in an amazingly short time becomes a convinced atheist, a materialist, an implacable enemy of oppression and tyranny, no matter what forms they appear. A student at the Main Pedagogical Institute, Dobrolyubov closely follows events in the country, everywhere trying to “get to the root.” A circle of advanced students gathers around him. They are engaged in heated debates about Russia, about its future, and are preparing themselves to fight for its freedom. Dobrolyubov not only assimilates the achievements of progressive thought of that time, but goes further, fearlessly tearing off the veils from all sorts of idols, not being seduced by any illusions. Already in these student years, he sees the inevitability of revolution in Russia, considering it the only way liberation from the shackles of economic and political slavery. When, after the death of Nicholas I, liberal society was overwhelmed by spring expectations and hopes, Dobrolyubov was one of the few people at that time who retained a merciless sobriety of view and revolutionary purposefulness. This is clearly evidenced by his “Ode on the death of Nicholas II, where he wrote: One tyrant disappeared, another put on the crown, And tyranny weighs again over the country. This is also evidenced by his letter written in connection with the death of Nicholas I, which, like the sky from the earth, differs even from the most decisive statements of liberals on this topic. Liberal K. D. Kavelin wrote to T. N. Granovsky about the death of Nicholas I: “The Kalmyk demigod, who passed like a hurricane and a scourge, and a roller, and a greenling across the Russian state during 30 years old, who cut out faces from thought, destroyed thousands of characters and minds, who wasted more money on the trinkets of autocracy and vanity than all previous reigns, starting with Peter I - this is the fiend of uniform enlightenment and the most vile side of Russian nature - he died finally, and this is the absolute truth! I still somehow can’t believe it! Do you really think this is not a dream, but reality?" ("Literary Heritage", No. 67, p. 607.) But then he speaks about the hopes in enlightened circles for the new king and about his own hopes: "If the new king does not become fight in your cage like a furious tiger, looking for victims and executions, like your father; if he only allows the wounds inflicted by this senseless Tatar and villain to be healed; if the opinion, complaint expressed between the four eyes will not be considered a fair basis to brutal executions; if even the slightest bit of public voice reaches him, then for 10, 15 years this will be very, very sufficient, without reforms and transformations. Russia is exhausted, ruined, crushed, robbed, humiliated, stupid and numb from 30 years of tyranny, which in history has no example of madness, cruelty and misfortunes of all kinds. 10, 15 years is not enough - to breathe, get a good night’s sleep and prepare for new activity "(Ibid., p. 610). Dobrolyubov did not call for calm, not for moral hibernation. He “hurried, rushed time.” He did not pin any hopes on the tsar - neither the old nor the new. And when the reactionary Grech burst out with a loyal article on the death of Nicholas I, glorifying his greatness, wisdom and piety, the young, unknown student Dobrolyubov responded to him with a murderous letter full of indignant contempt. The Tsar and the people, the irreconcilability of their interests - this is the main theme of the "Letter" Dobrolyubova. Faithful servants of the throne, like Grech, want to preserve the obedience of the people forever, but now they will no longer succeed. Russia is now not so simple-minded and stupid, it cannot be carried away by leavened patriotism, the preaching of slavish submission to despotism, love will no longer evoke sympathy to the Tsar. Tsarist power is deeply hostile to the people. “You say that “he was a people-loving person and loved by the people.” Not a very good play on words and a completely unfair play on thoughts! - Dobrolyubov addresses Grech. “Perhaps we can say that he loved the people, like a spider loves a fly that fell into his web, because he sucked the blood out of him, - like an official of the criminal chamber loves crime and criminals, without whom he could not serve, take bribes and salaries - like a jailer loves prisoners..." "As a jailer, finally, he guarded his people, he put strong shackles on the Russian mind..." (49--50) ( The pages of this edition are indicated in brackets.) The despotism of the Tsar is inseparable from the entire system of arbitrariness and oppression in a country where bribery and embezzlement flourish, where ordinary people are sent to die for the interests of German kings, where noble martyrs of freedom languish in Siberian mines. This universal oppression is true spiritual power also serves: “the Orthodox Church and despotism mutually support each other." It was no coincidence that this letter was signed “Anastasy Belinsky” - that is, the Resurrected Belinsky. It recalled another remarkable document of Russian revolutionary thought - Belinsky’s letter to Gogol, that the revolutionary traditions of the great critic are alive. Dobrolyubov understood very well that only the people themselves could win their freedom, sweep away the power of the landowners, the official aristocracy, and the tsar. He wrote in the handwritten student newspaper “Rumors” (1855): “One only needs to notice, thinking people say, that now it is necessary not only to sweep away Russia: this is not enough... It is necessary to break down the entire rotten edifice of the current administration, and here in order to drop the top mass , you just need to loosen, shake the foundation. If the base is the lower class of the people, you need to act on it, open its eyes to the present state of affairs, awaken in it the powers of the soul that have been dormant for centuries in a heroic sleep, instill in it the concept of human dignity, true goodness and evil, about natural rights and duties. And as soon as a Russian man wakes up and turns around, the German aristocracy that has settled on him will fly headlong into the abyss, no matter how hidden it is under Russian names" (4, 434) (Here and below, the volume and page of the Complete Works of N. A. Dobrolyubova (Goslitizdat, M. 1934--1939, vol. 1--6).) Dobrolyubov sought to develop these thoughts in the censored press and, above all, in the Sovremennik magazine, of which he became a permanent contributor since 1857. Events in the country were developing. The excited people's consciousness could no longer be lulled by benign speeches. The leaders and the tsar himself understood the impossibility of maintaining their dominance by ruling with old methods. Alexander II issued a number of decrees on preparations for the Peasant Reform. The basis of this “liberation” program was not encroaching neither on the monarchy of the tsar, nor on land ownership and the power of the landowners, there was a fear of the people who, without waiting for freedom “from above,” would begin to liberate themselves “from below.” The liberals, seeing that “peacefully rest for 10-15 years” “without any reforms and transformations" would not succeed, all their efforts were aimed at calming the people, turning them away from the revolution. The same Kavelin, criticizing the government, coming up with projects for various reforms, subordinated them to the sermons of peaceful development. Russian society, he wrote, has always been characterized by “the organic unity of all national elements, which opens up the possibility of endless peaceful development through gradual reforms, making the revolution of the lower classes against the upper classes impossible” (K. D. Kavelin, Collected works, St. Petersburg 1898, vol. II, column 127--128.). But the possibility of a peasant revolution was very real. The popular movement grew. In 1859-1861, a revolutionary situation developed in the country. Characterizing the conditions under which it arose, V. I. Lenin wrote: “The revival of the democratic movement in Europe, the Polish ferment, discontent in Finland, the demand for political reforms by the entire press and the entire nobility, the spread of the Bell throughout Russia, the powerful sermon of Chernyshevsky, who knew how to educate real people through censored articles revolutionaries, the appearance of proclamations, the agitation of the peasants, who “very often” had to use military force and the shedding of blood force accept the “Regulations”, which rip them off like sticky, the collective refusals of the nobles - world mediators to apply such“The situation”, student unrest - under such conditions the most cautious and sober politician would have to recognize a revolutionary explosion as quite possible and a peasant uprising as a very serious danger" (V.I. Lenin, Works, vol. 5, p. 26- -27.) Despite the most severe censorship persecution, Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov tirelessly exposed the falsity of the promises of the tsar and the liberal landowners who praised the “great Russian progress.” In all kinds and forms, through all the obstacles and slingshots of censorship, they sought to carry out the idea of ​​​​the need for revolution Dobrolyubov himself said this very well in a letter to the writer S. T. Slavutinsky (March 1860). Having seen in the “internal review” that Slavutinsky sent to the editors of Sovremennik, such a rosy color, faith in all kinds of promises, Dobrolyubov delivered a cruel rebuke to the author: “For mercy’s sake, for the third year now we have been bending over backwards to prevent society from falling asleep to the roar of praise lavished on it by Gromeka and Co.; We laugh in every way at “our great time when,” at the “gigantic steps,” at the paper-based progress of modern progress... It’s as if you really believe that the peasants will live better as soon as the editorial commission finishes its studies, and that simplicity of office work will be established everywhere as soon as thousands of unfortunate petty officials are kicked out of the state." Such pacification and glorification are the work of liberal publicists, says Dobrolyubov. "We have a different task, a different idea. We know (and you too) that modern confusion cannot be resolved otherwise than by the original influence of the people's life (that is, through revolution.-- A.D.). In order to arouse this influence even in that part of society that is accessible to our influence, we must act not in a soporific, but in a completely opposite way. We should group the facts of Russian life that require corrections and improvements, we need to call readers to attention to what surrounds them, we need to prick our eyes with all sorts of abominations, persecute, torment, not give rest - until the reader becomes disgusted with all this wealth dirt, so that he, finally touched to the quick, would jump up with excitement and say: “Well, they say, this is finally hard labor! It’s better for my little soul to disappear, but I don’t want to live in this pool anymore.” This is what needs to be achieved, and this is what explains the tone of my criticism, and the political articles of Sovremennik, and “Whistle” (Collection “Lights”, book I, Petrograd, 1916, pp. 66-68.). Literature and life, life and struggle have always been inextricably linked in Dobrolyubov’s mind. And this is what gave all his works such purposefulness, passion, and the conquering power of persuasiveness; this is what made the young critic, almost a youth, an exponent of the thoughts of an entire generation. Dobrolyubov was greatly influenced by the aesthetic theory and literary critical articles of N. G. Chernyshevsky. In his dissertation “Aesthetic Relations of Art to Reality” (1855), in “Essays on the Gogol Period of Russian Literature” (1855-1856), as well as in other articles, Chernyshevsky asserted the primacy of reality over art, exfoliated the social content of literature that explains life, pronounces his judgment on her. Defending the achievements of advanced Russian literature, the critical pathos of Gogol and the writers of the “natural school,” he wrote: “Gogol’s direction still remains the only strong and fruitful one in our literature.” These works by Chernyshevsky put an end to the “timelessness” that came in Russian criticism after the death of Belinsky, during the years of public reaction of 1848-1855. In aesthetics at this time, theories became widespread that were an eclectic mix of the fashionable idealistic aesthetics of the West, and in criticism Dudyshkin, Annenkov, Druzhinin and others called on writers to turn to the “eternally beautiful”, to get away from the “spite of the day.” Like Chernyshevsky, in the field of literary criticism Dobrolyubov acted as a successor to Belinsky. In the article “Interlocutor of Lovers of the Russian Word” (1856), he wrote about “the beneficial influence of his convictions, his ardent, bold, sincere preaching” on Russian society. When in 1859, after for long years ban, the first volume of the collected works of the great critic was published, Dobrolyubov greeted this event with an enthusiastic review: “In our literature there cannot be news more gratifying than that which has just come to us from Moscow. Finally, Belinsky’s works are published! The first volume has already been published and received in St. Petersburg; the next ones, they say, will not slow down. Finally! Finally!.. Whatever happens to Russian literature, no matter how magnificently it develops, Belinsky will always be its pride, its glory, its adornment. Until now Since then, his influence has been clearly felt on everything that is beautiful and noble that appears among us; to this day, each of our best literary figures admits that they owe a significant part of their development, directly or indirectly, to Belinsky...” (254). However, in the years since Belinsky's death, a lot has changed in the life of Russian society. Class contradictions emerged much more sharply, and during the revolutionary situation they became extremely aggravated. The growth of popular protest was reflected in advanced social thought - the second, revolutionary-democratic stage of the liberation movement began. Two irreconcilably hostile camps - revolutionary democrats, led by Chernyshevsky, Dobrolyubov, Herzen and Ogarev, and defenders of the autocratic serfdom system - opposed each other. The liberals of the 40s showed their complete inability to move from words to deeds and, as the revolutionary forces grew, they noticeably faded, lost their “love of freedom” and joined the reactionary camp... The best writers of that time in their works sensitively reflected the new content of social life, new ideas, new characters that have appeared in society. Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov generalized this rich experience of life and literature in their critical articles. Like Belinsky and Chernyshevsky, Dobrolyubov was merciless towards idealistic theories that sought to place literature above reality. He wrote: "Don't Life is going according to literary theories, and literature changes in accordance with the direction of life" (168). Literature is the reproduction of real reality, its reflection in living, concrete images. Truthfulness is the criterion of artistry. More and more fully revealing its nature, realizing itself as art, literature is getting closer and closer to life—this is the path of its development. Only life gives richness and variety to the content of literature, and attempts to subordinate it to some “eternal” laws inherent only to it are destructive. “Poetry as a reflection of life,” wrote Dobrolyubov, “ - as diverse as life itself... If we consider poetry in all its vast volume, as it appears among different peoples, then, of course, in it, as in life itself, there will be eternal, constant laws to which it was subject in its consistent development . These laws will, of course, be the laws of life, of reality" (1, 443). That is why the analysis of works of art, Dobrolyubov said, in order to better understand them, to reveal their essence, must be approached not from the point of view of the "eternal laws of aesthetics", but from the point of view of life itself. He fought for the most objective, real criticism which would connect literary problems with the most important life problems, and, comparing the facts depicted by the artist with the facts of life, would give the reader the opportunity to make his own conclusion about the correctness or falsity of the image, leading him to conclusions that inexorably follow from the picture of reality drawn by the realist artist . Depict true life, without false, preconceived ideas, in all its simplicity and at the same time complexity and inconsistency, to reveal the trends of its development - this is the task that Dobrolyubov set for literature. In this he saw the only true way to fight for true artistry. He called Ostrovsky's plays "plays of life" - and this was the highest praise for the writer from his lips. The same can be said about Dobrolyubov’s own criticism—it was criticism from the perspective of developing life. Dobrolyubov was highly characterized by the pathos of time and the movement of history. We always feel very clearly in his articles moving time, We see Russian life in process, in its development towards revolution. The development of literature reflects the development of life - that is why the critic calls on writers to monitor reality, to “catch the course of life”, and constantly speaks of “new demands of life”, of the “urgent need of the time”, of the “sign of the times”, of the “tasks of life”. The point of view of modernity, urgent needs social development conditioned historicism Dobrolyubov, who helped him not only to correctly assess the past of Russian literature, to give a deep analysis of the works of contemporary writers, but also to set new urgent tasks for literature. Dobrolyubov saw the main content of works of art as “moral questions, the interests of public life.” By showing a desecrated, humiliated, enslaved person, and the deep hostility of the entire system of life to him, literature thereby acts as a weapon in the struggle for the reconstruction of society, for human happiness and freedom. Dobrolyubov fought against liberal criticism, which sought to divert literature from serving the interests of life, from modernity. So, for example, the champion " pure art"A. Druzhinin in his article "Criticism of the Gogol period of Russian literature and our relationship to it" (1856), directed against Chernyshevsky, advocated for the "artistry" of the poet, to whom all everyday worries are alien, who creates unconsciously and does not set the goal of "correcting people ", society. Druzhinin wrote: "Firmly believing that the interests of the moment are fleeting, that humanity, while constantly changing, does not change only in ideas eternal beauty, goodness and truth, he (poet.-- A.D.) He sees his eternal anchor in selfless service to these ideas. His song does not contain any deliberate everyday morality or any other conclusions applicable to the benefits of his contemporaries; it serves as its own reward, purpose and meaning..." (A.V. Druzhinin, Collected works, St. Petersburg, 1865 , vol. VII, p. 214.) Druzhinin contemptuously called socially meaningful art “didactics” and predicted an inglorious and short-lived life for it: “Didactics who sacrifice their poetic talent to the interests of the so-called modernity, wither and fade along with the modernity they served" (A.V. Druzhinin, Collected works, St. Petersburg 1865, vol. VII, p. 217.). Time has shamed the defenders of “pure art” of the 60s, just like previous and subsequent eras, irrefutably proving that the “eternal”, divorced from the concrete, the “temporary" in art, as in life, does not exist. Works that have remained in the history of literature, which even now excite us with their eternally human content, arose from the ardent desire of artists to answer questions his time, reflect the thought his century. And, on the contrary, everything that was disconnected from living modern issues and was designed for “eternity” has sunk into oblivion. This pattern of art development was very well revealed by Belinsky, Chernyshevsky, and Dobrolyubov. They understood modernity as penetration into the deep processes of life, identifying its leading trends; they associated it with the reflection of the advanced ideas of the time in the artist’s work. The struggle of revolutionary-democratic criticism for modernity was caused by concern for the true flourishing of native literature, which only then will become a textbook of life, an educator of the reader, when it is truthful. Dobrolyubov angrily ridiculed not only the defense of “pure art,” but also the cheap adjustment to “modernity” of numerous liberal hacks who sought to combine the fashionable ideas of modernity with their own good intentions, applying these ideas to old literary schemes. The enemies of revolutionary-democratic criticism, opposing artistry and the principle of public service, accused Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov of indifference to art, of crude utilitarianism and tried to secure a monopoly on the defense of artistry. Dobrolyubov brilliantly proved the groundlessness of these claims. In the era of social upsurge, when the authority of Belinsky and writers of the Gogol movement was so high, it was not often possible to encounter such frankness as was shown, for example, by the champion of “pure art” B. Almazov, who directly stated in the Slavophile collection “Morning” that if in poetic work "some kind of philosophical idea“If the poet wants to prove something to them, it is already devoid of freshness and represents a stretch in construction,” because political and social issues harm literature, and there can be nothing poetic in public life. Much more often in the time of Dobrolyubov, these theories were presented in a veiled manner. Critics, enemies of progressive, ideologically oriented art swore by the name of Pushkin, gratefully remembered Koltsov, Gogol, even Belinsky, posed as their successors and at the same time distorted their work and views. Dobrolyubov very sensitively noticed and explained this phenomenon in his review of the collection "Morning". Defenders of the theory of "art for art's sake," he says, are in vain to consider themselves only people who demand from literature the correspondence of idea and form, skill, finishing of details in a work. They are not the only ones who want to see in the writer subtle sensitivity, sympathy for phenomena nature and life, “the ability to poetically portray them, to pour one’s feelings into the reader.” “No, such demands are made by every sane person, and only on the basis of them does any, the most ordinary criticism pronounce its judgment on writer's talent. The demands of the advocates of “art for art’s sake” are not that: they want - no more, no less than that the writer-artist should move away from all life issues, have no rational conviction, flee from philosophy like the plague ... " (2, 420-421). However, admirers of pure artistry, fearing to express these demands directly, without any cover - for they “will smack of demands from the writer that he remain a total fool for the rest of his life” - strive to “soften their theory with various restrictions and poetic circumlocutions,” thanks to which their opinions “gave a rather decent appearance and deceived even many people who were not completely stupid.” Dobrolyubov shows that it was precisely the calls to portray “sublime” feelings, to get away from the “vulgarity and dirt” of life and to sing "eternal and beautiful" deprive a work of art of vitality, mean not its elevation, but its humiliation, for the truth of life is replaced in them by a lie that violates the essence of art itself. “You know,” Dobrolyubov answered these critics, “that man is not in able to invent on his own a single grain of sand that does not exist in the world; good or bad, is still taken from nature and real life. When is the artist more subordinate to a predetermined goal - whether when in his works he expresses the truth of the phenomena surrounding him, without concealment and without embellishment, or when he deliberately tries to choose one sublime, ideal, in accordance with neat instincts aesthetic theory? And in what way is art more exalted - by describing the murmuring of brooks and expounding the relations of valley to hillock, or by representing the flow of human life and the collision of various principles, various social interests?" (145). Understanding the tasks of the time, the inextricable connection of literature with the progressive social movement, the animation of the idea of ​​human liberation helped Dobrolyubov to reveal the humanistic pathos and artistic merits of the works of advanced Russian writers, contributed to the fact that in other historical conditions than Belinsky, he deeply and in many ways posed and resolved the most important problems of realism, ideology, and nationality of literature in a new way. Belinsky had to defend the national identity of Russian literature from imitation and defend realism in it - in the fight against stilted romanticism, with all kinds of embellishment and rhetoric. He revealed the significance of Pushkin’s work, Gogol’s satire, pointed out the role of writers of the natural school, which was “the result of the entire past development of our literature and a response to the modern needs of our society” (V. G. Belinsky, Complete collection of works, ed. AN USSR, M. 1956, vol. X, p. 243.). In the 60s, when Dobrolyubov spoke, Belinsky’s ideas and the achievements of Gogol’s realism became the property of the best writers. But the continuation of traditions in new conditions meant their development. By truthfully showing the new content of social life, these writers thereby enriched the possibilities of realism and made remarkable artistic discoveries. Expanding the content of literature, appealing to the life of all strata of society and especially - close attention to a suffering, oppressed person, forced in many ways to resolve in a new way such problems as the problem of the hero, the depiction of the environment, the circumstances in which he acts. The desire to penetrate into the psychology of the mass man and to understand his inner world has opened up new possibilities for psychological analysis. Revolutionary-democratic criticism has always pointed out that creative possibilities of a particular writer depend not only on the objective content of life and on the degree of talent, but also on the ideals that inspire the writer. Contemporaries of Dobrolyubov, such wonderful artists, like Goncharov, Turgenev, Ostrovsky, Nekrasov, Saltykov-Shchedrin, L. Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, had different attitudes towards the idea of ​​revolution. In literature, as in all public life, there was an intense struggle. The critic's task was to understand these complex processes, identify advanced, fruitful trends in literature and, on their basis, outline the paths for its future development. Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov showed in their articles that bringing literature even closer to reality, strengthening its critical pathos, a broad and comprehensive depiction of the life of the oppressed working masses, among whom new heroes are born, will not only make literature a weapon in the struggle for human happiness, but and will bring her new creative victories. In the conditions of preparation of the peasant revolution, Dobrolyubov considered one of the most important the problem of the nationality of literature. He understood it broadly, considered it in different aspects, in relation to the work of different writers. Essentially, he does not have an article that does not address this issue in one way or another. Following Belinsky, he saw the connection between nationality and realism, for a mercilessly truthful depiction of autocratic-serfdom reality served the interests of the people and the tasks of the liberation struggle. In 1848, noting the “astonishing fidelity and truth” of Gogol’s depiction of Russian life, Belinsky wrote: “And so Bye This, most of all, is the nationality of our literature." Gogol's nationality lies in the fact that "he does not soften or embellish anything due to his love of ideals or any previously accepted ideas or habitual preferences" (V. G. Belinsky , Complete collected works, published by the USSR Academy of Sciences, M. 1956, vol. X, p. 294. (Italics are mine.-- A.D.)). Not a single Russian writer, says Belinsky, has the desire for naturalness, that is, realism and nationality, “did not achieve such success as in Gogol. This could only happen through the exclusive appeal of art to reality, beyond any ideals. To do this, it was necessary to pay all attention to the crowd, to the masses, to portray ordinary people, and not just pleasant exceptions from general rule, which always seduce the poet into idealization and bear someone else’s imprint on themselves" (V. G. Belinsky, Complete collected works, ed. Academy of Sciences of the USSR, M. 1956, vol. X, p. 294. (Italics are mine. - - L. D.)). This does not mean, of course, that Belinsky considered Gogol a writer without ideals. No, its ideal emerges from the very content of the works, “but not as decoration (hence, a lie),” but “as the relationship into which the author puts the types he created to each other, in accordance with the thought that he wants to develop with his work.” (Ibid., p. 295.) By saying “besides all ideals,” Belinsky means the ideals of the ruling classes, which were reflected in aesthetics and limited the possibilities of realism. We will find many similar thoughts in Dobrolyubov; he develops them in his doctrine of worldview writer when he talks about the reflection of advanced ideas of our time in the works of such artists as Turgenev, Ostrovsky, Dostoevsky. But he also has something significantly new in comparison with Belinsky. When Belinsky wrote: "Bye in this (that is, in the fidelity of the pictures of Russian life.-- A.D.)“most of all consists of the nationality of our literature,” he considered this situation as temporary and associated it with the underdevelopment of Russian social life, “which has not yet developed and established,” in order to give literature an ideal that directly expresses people’s interests. During Dobrolyubov’s time, the development of social life led to the creation of a camp of defenders of the people, revolutionary democrats... And in literature there were writers who consciously served the people, expressed the revolutionary democratic ideal. It was on this path, Dobrolyubov believed, that it was possible to reflect with the greatest completeness and truthfulness the new content of people's life in an era when the oppressed masses themselves began to rise up to fight. “They say: the spirit of parties, sectarianism harm talent, spoil his works. True! And that’s why it should be the organ not of this or that party or sect, ... but of the innermost thoughts of the whole society, its aspirations that may not yet be clear to itself “(Ibid., p. 306.),” wrote Belinsky, referring to the parties of the dominant minority. Dobrolyubov already directly connects the reflection of the progressive aspirations of society with popular interests and speaks of the need to create, in contrast to other parties, party of the people in literature. Dobrolyubov’s doctrine of the nationality of literature was associated with a generalization of the experience of Russian and European literature and was based on an understanding of the decisive role of the masses in history. It is not abstract theories about breed and hereditary differences, he emphasized, not genealogical interests that constitute its driving nerve, but the constant struggle of working people against parasites - the struggle of smerds and boyars, brahmins and pariahs, the struggle of oppressed Russian peasants against landowners. Dobrolyubov saw this struggle in capitalist Europe. Arguing with the liberal professor Babst (see review of Babst’s book “From Moscow to Leipzig”), who believed that enlightenment would lead to the peaceful elimination of the ills and contradictions of European life, Dobrolyubov confidently declares: “With the development of enlightenment in the exploiting In classes, only the form of exploitation changes and becomes more dexterous and refined; but the essence still remains the same as long as the possibility of exploitation remains" (4, 394). He talks about the selfish desire of various parties and circles to use the people in their struggle for power; but as soon as they see the danger from the workers themselves, they forget about their discord, “meaning one thing: joint forces to resist the working classes so that they do not even think of demanding their rights" (4, 399). Dobrolyubov believed in the victory of the people; he saw that "new discontent was brewing in the working classes, a new struggle was silently preparing," from which neither glasnost nor education, neither the parliamentary talking shop, nor the other benefits of capitalist civilization, praised by the liberals of Russia and the West. “In the general course of history, the greatest participation falls on the share of the people and only a very small share remains for individuals,” wrote Dobrolyubov (3, 136) . That is why the point of view of the people, their interests, ideas for the revolutionary transformation of Russian life should be the basis of history, literature, and literary criticism. The voice of the people themselves should be heard in literature, it should express their interests. Artistry in art and the protection of folk interests, realism and nationality are connected, because the popular view of things is at the same time the most correct, “fair, human” point of view. Dobrolyubov considered the work of A. S. Pushkin to be the most important stage in the development of realism and the nationality of Russian literature. He dedicated one of his first works to the great national poet - “Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin” (1857). The critic associates Pushkin’s work with “the discovery of reality in Russian literature.” Pushkin managed to see true poetry in reality itself. In his creations, the Russian public understood the “price of life.” This aesthetic discovery was due not only to the poet’s talent, but also to his highly humane ideal, the breadth of his interests: “Having had the opportunity to come into contact with all classes of Russian society, Pushkin was able to comprehend the true needs and true character folk life"(1, 114). After Pushkin, in poetry it was no longer possible to glorify abstract beauties and superstellar spheres, just as humane ideas could not be understood completely abstractly from life, fall into tearful sentimentality, punish unprecedented bookish vices and crown a non-existent ideal virtue In this appeal to realism and humanity, Dobrolyubov sees national form Pushkin. But with all the breadth of the poet’s interests in his works, “charm for our poor world” still prevailed, “he was little embarrassed by its imperfections,” the critical principle, the only fruitful one, according to Dobrolyubov, corresponding to the interests of the oppressed people, is still weakly expressed in his work. That is why Dobrolyubov believed that maintenance of the nationality Pushkin did not comprehend it; it was a matter of the future development of Russian literature. In a review of the seventh, additional volume of the poet’s works published by Annenkov, which included many works that were previously unpublished, prohibited by censorship, etc., the critic develops these thoughts. He dwells on those works of Pushkin that testified to his discord with society, to his internal dissatisfaction. Pushkin in Russia was not only a great poet, “the honor of his homeland,” writes Dobrolyubov, but also one of the leaders of its enlightenment. And at the same time, the critic speaks of the poet’s lack of “serious, independently developed convictions,” that he “pushed social issues away from himself,” and of “his complete turn to pure artistry.” We cannot agree with Dobrolyubov’s judgments about Pushkin on everything. Here we find many contradictions, which can only partly be explained by the conditions of the intense struggle of revolutionary-democratic criticism with official science and the defenders of the theory of “pure art,” who falsified the work of the great poet and proclaimed him a champion of “pure artistry.” It should also be borne in mind that many of Pushkin’s freedom-loving works were unknown at that time; his connections with the Decembrists and with the progressive ideas of his century were not revealed. But that's not the main point. Dobrolyubov considers contemporary literature and its development in the past from the point of view of how it expressed the interests of the people - and not the Russian people in general, as something unified, the totality of all its classes and estates, and the oppressed tratworking masses. This formulation of the question was a great achievement of Russian criticism; it was due to a new stage of historical development in the 50s and 60s. Belinsky, defending the national identity of Russian literature, began with a complete denial of its previous development. He ended with a harmonious historical and literary concept, revealing the progressive movement of Russian literature towards national identity, realism and nationality, which he considered as closely related principles. Dobrolyubov in new era reconsiders the history of Russian literature, his assessments of the works of the 18th century, satire in the era of Catherine, etc. are much more harsh than those of the mature Belinsky. He completely denies the nationality of the pre-Pushkin period of Russian literature, in which direct the reflection of the interests of the people and people's life was still weakly expressed. Dobrolyubov was wrong here. He failed to fully adhere to the principle of historicism in his historical and literary works. It is absolutely fair to say that Pushkin’s understanding of nationality was historically conditioned, that Pushkin belonged to his time and could not go beyond it, because “the time of strict analysis has not yet arrived” in Russian literature, it had not yet been prepared by the entire course of Russian life , a critic at the same time at times directly presents Pushkin’s demand for nationality, which was put forward by the revolutionary-democratic stage of the liberation struggle. That is why he wrongfully breaks the form and content of nationality, that is, realism, the humane beginning of Pushkin’s poetry and the reflection of the interests of the people. However, it is important to emphasize Dobrolyubov’s deeply fruitful thought about the connection between the concept of nationality and the reflection forward motion history, advanced ideas of the century, as well as high point modern perspective. True historicism means not only the analysis of a phenomenon in connection with the characteristics of the historical period to which it belongs, but also with modern point of view, which at every stage of the liberation movement becomes increasingly higher. V.I. Lenin wrote, for example, that it is possible to correctly understand the work of L. Tolstoy only in connection with the conditions that gave rise to it, and taking into account the point of view proletariat. Dobrolyubov walked, although not entirely consistently, along the right path when he connected Pushkin’s understanding of the people with his time, with the ideals of the revolutionary-democratic stage of the liberation movement. And in this regard, despite the critic’s mistakes in assessing certain specific literary phenomena, in his positions, perhaps much more truth than many authors modern articles, in which all good Russian writers appear as progressive writers, as democrats, popular writers - and equally popular ones - the very historically changing content of nationality itself is not taken into account at all, the “point of view of the proletariat” is not taken into account. Dobrolyubov advocated expanding the sphere of art, for its more active appeal to the life of the people. He examines the essential aspects of the problem of nationality in the article “A.V. Koltsov” (1857). Revolutionary democrats pointed to the great role of Koltsov in the conquest of the people by Russian literature. In connection with the publication in 1856 of the second edition of Koltsov’s collection of poems (which also included a biography of the poet written by Belinsky), Chernyshevsky, Saltykov-Shchedrin, and Dobrolyubov wrote articles about Koltsov. Developing Belinsky’s basic theses about Koltsov’s work in conditions of intense political struggle, revolutionary-democratic criticism of the 50s and 60s attached especially great importance to the artist’s deep connection with people’s life, with modernity, and the question of the writer’s worldview. These ideas were most fully developed in wonderful article Saltykov-Shchedrin "Poems of Koltsov" (1856), the introductory theoretical part of which - a genuine manifesto of revolutionary democratic criticism - was banned by censorship and only in our days has become available to the reader. Polemicizing with P. Annenkov, who called on artists to “deal with their great subjects, but on the condition that they deal with them exclusively,” and go into the area of ​​aesthetic contemplation, Saltykov-Shchedrin writes that these demands give art “an extra-social and, therefore, fantastic area”: the artist cannot be separated from the social environment in which he lives, from modern problems. "Having thus recognized the artist as a representative modern ideas and modern interests society, we must accept the idea that only such a phenomenon that bears all the signs modernity, can serve as its subject without prejudice to the art itself" ("Literary Heritage", No. 67, p. 294.). Art must be "imbued with thought and thought exclusively modern. This thought is extracted not an artist's instinct How want to assure there are many of us, but by active and conscientious development of facts, real participation in labor of our time." True talent, Shchedrin emphasizes, lies in the ability to find the main thing in the diverse manifestations of modern life, "to determine the path along which humanity walks" (Literary Heritage, No. 67, p. 296). To do this, one must sympathize with the advanced ideas of the time, be on the level modern thought in art, with the understanding and expression of which Saltykov-Shchedrin connects the concept of nationality. Turn to the life of the people, “think about eradicating those reasons” that gave rise to their darkness and downtroddenness, do not lull the people, do not sing of their humility and patience, do not attribute to them ideal virtues, but “awaken in mass consciousness that would do for herself urgent need for those qualities with which we in advance and so frivolously endow it..." - this is the true path of the people in art. Dobrolyubov, a beginning critic at that time, could not have known this article, but in his work about Koltsov and especially in his subsequent articles there is a lot in common with the production problems of nationality in Shchedrin. The significance of Koltsov, says Dobrolyubov in his article, is not only that he himself came from the people, although people like Lomonosov, Kulibin, Koltsov are the clearest evidence of the talent and creative power of the ordinary Russian person. The only thing is that the poet drew material for his works from folk life, used the wealth of folk art. Not in itself an appeal to life people - a sign nationalities. So-called folk songs poets of the XVIII century. gg. Karabanov, Nikolev, Neledinsky-Meletsky, as well as Merzlyakov, Delvig, although these poets tried to depict folk life and imitated folk songs, they carry little of the nationality. This is rather pseudo-nationalism, because these poets had false views on poetry: they did not want to understand that the dignity of a poet lies in not idealizing, not decorating people’s life, but “being able to capture and express the beauty that is in the very nature of the subject.” . Folk life and folk songs seemed wild and rude to them, and “they tried to throw away everything that reminded of real life, that is, throw away all poetry.” Russian peasants turned into sleek, sentimental shepherdesses and shepherdesses, with “sweet, unnatural, unprecedented feelings.” “Koltsov’s songs differ from all these songs, like heaven from earth,” writes Dobrolyubov. “In his poems for the first time we saw a purely Russian person, with a Russian soul, with Russian feelings, briefly familiar with the life of the people, a person who lived their life and had complete sympathy for her. His songs are in many ways similar in spirit to folk songs, but he has more poetry, because his songs contain more thoughts, and these thoughts are expressed with greater art, strength and variety, because his feelings are more deep and conscious, and the aspirations themselves are more sublime and definite" (75). This idea is extremely important for Dobrolyubov. Truly folk poetry for him is not sweetened lordly poetry about the people and not some special “reduced” poetry for the people - it is national, nationwide poetry, returning to the people their values ​​even more enriched, reflecting the advanced ideas of the time. That is why even folk songs, in which there is so much life, true poetry, in which the grief of the people is reflected, one can see the desire for better life, cannot quite satisfy Dobrolyubov. These songs reflect not only the strength of the people, but also the insufficiency of the people’s consciousness: the desire for the best in them is mostly vague, unconscious, and “a desperate, daring impulse can be unreasonable,” it “often destroys itself.” The poet’s task is not to descend to this underdevelopment, but to raise the people, to develop their consciousness. Dobrolyubov consistently examines Koltsov's works and comes to the conclusion that the expansion of the poet's horizons - acquaintance with Stankevich's circle, the beneficial influence of Belinsky - contributed to the deepening of the realism and nationalism of his work. The natural characteristics of Koltsov’s talent were given scope for their development - the desire for simplicity, naturalness, aversion from empty daydreaming, artistic courage: his poems for the first time reflected the everyday needs of the peasant, his hard work, and concerns about the material side of the matter. The most important stage in the development of the theory of nationality is represented by Dobrolyubov’s article “On the degree of participation of nationalities in the development of Russian literature” (1858). Here he directly raises the question of the need to create a party of the people in literature, which will consciously and confidently defend the interests of the people. In poetry, in historical science, political economy, says Dobrolyubov, hostile tendencies are constantly fighting, and this happens because they reflect the struggle in public life, serve different interests. In ancient times, under the dominance of patriarchal relations, “when there was not yet the slightest discord between family and state life,” there was also no struggle between hostile forces in poetry; it expressed “truly national interests and views on life.” Oppressors and oppressed appear - and literature begins to reflect their opposing interests. The ruling classes seek to suppress the voice of the people in poetry, to forcefully impose on them “concepts and views in favor of the winners.” Gradually, the spirit of “partialism”—“catering to the selfish demands of the minority”—prevailed in written literature: “Our interests are alien to the mass of the people, our sufferings are incomprehensible, our delights are funny. We act and write, with a few exceptions, in the interests of a circle, more or less insignificant ; that is why, as a rule, our view is narrow, our aspirations are shallow, all concepts and sympathies are of a partial nature. Even if objects that directly concern the people and are interesting for them are interpreted, they are again interpreted not from a generally fair, not from a human, not from a national point of view, but certainly in the form of private interests of one party or another, one class or another" (172--173). Dobrolyubov was unable to explain the essence and origin of classes from a consistently materialist position. He views man from an anthropological point of view, as natural person. He explains the struggle between exploiters and exploited by the fact that the winners, trying to satisfy their “artificially excited drives,” deprive the oppressed of the opportunity to satisfy their natural needs. He was mistaken in believing that with the growth of education and “literature,” there is no doubt, will respond to the needs of everyone, expanding the circle of its action and getting rid of the spirit of circles and parties"(italics mine.-- A.D.). But these enlightenment illusions should not obscure from us the deep content and revolutionary essence of Dobrolyubov’s concept, the dialectics of his thought. Each class, each party defends its interests, writes Dobrolyubov, “but this is what’s bad: between dozens of different parties there is almost never a party of the people in literature” (173). Saying that the educated layer of society turned out to be cut off from the people and often hostile to them, since they were interested in the exploitation of people’s labor, in the inviolability of the existing unjust order of things, Dobrolyubov at the same time reveals the complexity of the attitude of educated people to the people. The fragmentation of various circles and parties, especially noticeable in the West, leads to the fact that each party, fighting for power, is forced to turn to the people, posing as their defender - this is how popular aspirations penetrate into literature. The voice of the people sounded louder in poetry as the people woke up and rose to fight. This also happened because the spirit of “partialism” is deeply hostile not only to the people, but also to the very nature of artistic creativity - it leads to a petty and narrow view of the world, contrary to the universal, humane point of view. The best educated people, including in literature, strive to free themselves from this narrowness and reflect “true and essentially important interests.” The critic writes with deep insight that catering to the selfish interests of the minority occurs in literature not only directly, but also under the cover of the chanting of various abstract virtues, sublime beauties, fantasies divorced from life, etc. - all this takes literature away from its direct, tasks of the struggle for human happiness. The approach of literature to real real life, ridding it of everything illusory - turning to realism - coincides with the movement along the path to nationality. In life itself, Dobrolyubov points out, the forces that bring literature into the field of living activity are constantly growing and developing. Literature always picks up questions raised by practical life, develops them, discusses them - and this is its great significance. The bolder, more decisive and consistent it is to capture and reflect these ideas that have matured in society, the wider circle it captures, the more fully its nationality will be expressed, for the progressive development of society is ultimately carried out in the interests of the people and cannot but lead to his victory. Along with the problem of reflecting popular interests, the truth of people's life, Dobrolyubov also considers the other side of the problem of nationality - accessibility of literature to the people. These are precisely the two sides of the nationality of literature that V.I. Lenin paid attention to. And although at the new, proletarian stage of the liberation movement, the concept of nationality is filled with new content, it is connected with the problem of proletarian partisanship - with the conscious expression of the interests of the socialist proletariat, here one cannot help but see a direct continuity between revolutionary-democratic criticism and Marxist science. Dobrolyubov speaks with contrition about the narrow circle of educated people and about the tens of millions of ordinary people who inhabit Russia and who, unfortunately, “don’t care at all about the artistry of Pushkin, the captivating sweetness of Zhukovsky’s poems, the high soaring of Derzhavin, etc. Let’s say more : even Gogol’s humor and Krylov’s sly simplicity did not reach the people at all” (172). Dark, illiterate people are forced to worry about their daily bread and feeding educated people. “And believe me,” the critic writes in another place, “that these millions are not at all to blame for their ignorance: it is not they who are alienated from knowledge, from the arts, from poetry, but they are alienated and despised by those who have managed to seize the intellectual property into their own hands" (200). Tracing the path of Russian literature, the critic comes to the conclusion that it consistently reflected the development of life, new needs that had already matured in society. Despite any obstacles, her circle of action kept expanding, and this coincided “with another no less important circumstance—bringing her closer to real, real life” (186). If before Pushkin the world of reality was denied by poets “in the name of abstract ideas and transcendental dreams,” then after him this denial was “in the name of the truth of life itself.” Gogol, who focused his attention on depicting the negative aspects of contemporary reality, took a further step towards the people, “but he could not follow his path to the end. The depiction of the vulgarity of life horrified him; he did not realize that this vulgarity is not his destiny people's life, did not realize that it must be pursued to the end, without any fear that it might cast a bad shadow on the people themselves... No, Gogol did not fully comprehend what the secret of the Russian people is" (204-205), - Dobrolyubov concludes. True, Gogol “in his best creations came very close to the people’s point of view, but he approached unconsciously, simply by artistic touch” (213). The critic writes that as Russian literature developed, it became more and more inclined towards public interests, the writers revealed many good, kind principles in the common Russian person, but their main purpose was “to serve as an expression of people’s life, people’s aspirations”, to serve consciously- the literature has not yet fulfilled it. He did a lot to achieve the nationality of Koltsov, who “lived the life of the people, understood its sorrows and joys, and knew how to express them.” But truly folk literature is literature that stands at the level of the most advanced ideas of our time, comprehensive in nature, capturing the most important problems of the life of the nation. And if Dobrolyubov ended his article about Koltsov with the words that he was a “great people’s poet,” now he more clearly sees the shortcomings of Koltsov’s poetry - it lacks national significance, breadth, comprehensiveness of view: “The simple class of the people appears to him in solitude from general interests, only with his own private everyday needs" (205). The richest possibilities of a deeply folk talent could be revealed in the work of Lermontov: he, according to Dobrolyubov, not only comprehended the shortcomings of his contemporary society, “he was able to understand that salvation from this false path lies only in the people... Unfortunately, the circumstances Lermontov's life placed him far from the people, and his too early death prevented him from even striking at the vices of modern society with the breadth of vision that none of the Russian poets had shown before him..." (205--206). Dobrolyubov writes with deep conviction that Russian literature must enter into new stage of its development. “To be a truly popular poet... you need to be imbued with the people’s spirit, live their life, become on par with them, throw away all the prejudices of classes, book teaching, etc., feel everything with the simple feeling that the people possess” (203). Reflecting the interests of the people, literature must also enlighten the people, making the ideas of truth and humanity their own property in the future. It was a program that determined the development of literature for many years to come. And although Dobrolyubov, who knew better than anyone else the darkness and downtroddenness of the people, wrote with bitterness that this future was “no doubt quite distant,” he deeply believed in it. This program inspired many Russian writers and contributed to the flourishing of their creativity. It has that broad truth that makes it alive for our era. Fighting for the creation of a party of the people in literature, for writers to consciously serve the people's interests, Dobrolyubov was devoid of any sectarianism or narrowness, which his ideological opponents so often tried to accuse him of. He did not impose anything on art. He approached every talented work with deep interest and was able to reveal the uniqueness of the writer’s talent and his view of the world. How subtly and soulfully Dobrolyubov showed, for example, the characteristics of Goncharov the artist! In Goncharov's works, he wrote, there is little action, no intrigue, no external obstacles. We will not find any expression of the feelings of the author himself: he does not care about the readers, about the conclusions that will be drawn from the novel. But “he has an amazing ability - at any given moment to stop the volatile phenomenon of life, in all its fullness and freshness, and to keep it before him until it becomes the complete property of the artist.” Goncharov is characterized by a completeness of poetic worldview, “the ability to capture the complete image of an object, mint it, sculpt it - hence the love of detail and “extraordinarily subtle and deep mental analysis.” The writer will not lag behind a phenomenon “without tracing it to the end, without finding its cause , not understanding his connection with all surrounding phenomena." It was this property of the writer’s talent that helped him elevate the image of Oblomov into a type, determine its generic and permanent meaning, and thereby reveal the social essence of Oblomovism. Dobrolyubov wrote that there is no need to present Goncharov with a demand otherwise, less calm about reality - his attitude towards the facts of life is revealed from their very image. Turgenev's talent is in many ways the opposite of Goncharov's; he is characterized by deep lyricism. The writer talks about his heroes as people close to him, he “follows them with tender sympathy, with painful trepidation, he himself suffers and rejoices along with the faces he created, he himself is carried away by the poetic atmosphere with which he always likes to surround them... And his passion is contagious: it irresistibly captures the reader’s sympathy, from the first page rivets his thoughts and feelings to the story, makes him experience, re-feel those moments in which Turgenev’s faces appear before him” (258). This lyricism, together with another remarkable feature of the writer’s talent - the ability to “immediately respond to every noble thought and honest feeling that is just beginning to penetrate the consciousness of the best people” - determined the range of problems that Turgenev addressed: a hero who is at odds with society , was revealed to him primarily in the sphere of feelings; the writer created poetic female images, he is “the singer of pure, ideal female love.” Understanding these features of Turgenev’s talent helped Dobrolyubov reveal the social significance of the artist’s works, the new and fruitful things that appeared in his work under the influence of a new movement in society. Speech at literary field Ostrovsky immediately generated a lot of articles. Critics of various directions sought to present the playwright as an exponent of the ideas of their camp. Dobrolyubov did not impose any abstract theories on Ostrovsky, he compared his creations with life itself - and this allowed him not only to expose the dark kingdom of autocratic-serf Russia, but also to insightfully identify the most important features of the playwright’s talent: his moral pathos, close attention to the victims of social evil , To personalities a person crushed by tyranny, and hence - deep attention to the inner world of the heroes: Ostrovsky is characterized by “the ability to notice nature, penetrate into the depths of a person’s soul, capture his feelings, regardless of the depiction of his external, official relationships” (311). Dobrolyubov shows the inconsistency of Ostrovsky’s critics, who stated that the endings of his comedies are random, and that the composition lacks logical harmony and consistency. In this freedom of the playwright from the dilapidated canons of various plays, from the “old stage routine,” he sees true innovation: the very depiction of the life of tyrants, where there is no logic, no moral laws, requires “a lack of logical consistency.” One of Dobrolyubov’s fiercest critics was Dostoevsky, who in his article “G.-bov and the question of art” (“Time”, 1861, No. 2) accused him of “utilitarianism”, of disdain for artistry. Dostoevsky wrote that works of art influence the reader with their beauty, which gives “harmony and tranquility” to a person, especially when he is at odds with reality. In the article "Downtrodden People", analyzing in detail the works of Dostoevsky, two types of his heroes - meek, downtrodden, submissive, and - bitter, despairing - the critic highlights the characteristic features of the writer's worldview - pain for a humiliated person, turned into a rag due to "wild, unnatural relationships" reigning in society. The artistry of the writer’s works, contrary to false theories, was manifested not in pacifying beauty, but in the merciless truth of the images, in his “highly humane ideal.” Dobrolyubov deeply despised criticism, “wandering in synthetic mists,” as well as criticism, “which approaches the authors, like men brought into the recruit’s presence, with a uniform yardstick, and shouts first “forehead!”, then “back of the head!”, looking by whether the recruit fits the bill or not,” that is, whether his creation meets the “eternal laws of art, printed in textbooks.” He understood artistry not as the decoration of scenes, details, or as external picturesqueness. He deeply and soulfully analyzed the most important thing in works of art - types, human characters And circumstances, in which they operate. And this invariably yielded fruitful results: Dobrolyubov saw and revealed the greatest achievement of the art of realism - the ability to reveal the social and historical conditioning of human character. The critic spoke about the significance of outstanding literary phenomena for the social struggle of the 50s and 60s and at the same time showed their eternal and enduring content, the new things they brought into the development of art itself, posed and solved great aesthetic problems. One of the most important problems of aesthetics is the problem of typification. The reflection of reality in art is not a mechanical process; it presupposes the active work of the artist’s consciousness, which generalizes life phenomena. “An artist,” writes Dobrolyubov, “is not a photographic plate that reflects only currently: then there would be no meaning in works of art and life. The artist complements the fragmentary nature of the captured moment with his creative feeling, generalizes particular phenomena in his soul, creates one harmonious whole from disparate features, finds a living connection and consistency in apparently incoherent phenomena, merges and processes the diverse and contradictory aspects of life into the generality of his worldview. reality" (686). To be truthful, to be true to his talent, a writer must penetrate deeply into the essence of life. To do this, firstly, he must turn his talent to vital subjects, and secondly, to grasp the development trend social life, to see what is dying in it and what is being born - this is a necessary property of typification, only this will determine the completeness and comprehensiveness of the picture of reality, the correct view of it. The critic’s thought comes down to the fact that in truly great art realism and ideologicalness are necessarily united , for the truth of the image itself is " necessary condition, and not yet the merit of the work. We judge dignity by the breadth of the author’s view, the fidelity of understanding and the vividness of the depiction of those phenomena that he touched upon" (628--629). Dobrolyubov attached great importance to the general convictions and sympathies of the writer, which are manifested in the entire figurative structure of his works and act as worldview. The artist’s worldview is his own view of the world, which is developed in the process of artistic cognition of reality and contradicts “partiality” - false ideas, narrow views, learned by upbringing, taken on faith. Worldview is by no means some spontaneous property of talent, completely independent of the subjective beginning, of the artist’s personality. On the contrary, it is the result of activity, his knowledge, creative will, and in-depth penetration into life. Dobrolyubov speaks of Goncharov’s careful study of life types, of Turgenev’s types, “to the point of subtlety studied and alive heartfelt author,” about Ostrovsky’s ability to see and persecute tyranny in all its types and forms... In works of art, the critic emphasizes, we see a phenomenon taken from life itself, but "clarified in the mind of the artist and placed in such positions that allow him to reveal himself more fully and decisively than as happens in most cases of ordinary life" (655). When Dobrolyubov notes that with strong talents "sometimes from a simple statement of facts and relationships made by the artist, their solution follows of course," - he does not mean the passivity, thoughtlessness of the writer. The worldview is formed under the influence of developing reality and means the artist’s involvement in the advanced movement of the time. This happens because, getting to know life, studying it, the writer penetrates into its needs, reflects the urgent ones ideas of social development. In contrast to false, abstract ideas imposed on reality, contradicting it and therefore hostile to art, progressive ideas naturally follow “from the existing facts of life." These ideas are not artificially introduced into the work, but help the artist to reflect social relations more fully and deeply - not from any narrow, false, but from a universal, fair, that is, people's point of view - this is how Dobrolyubov affirms the connection between the ideological nature of art and its nationality. The artist’s worldview is not just a reflection of life, but a reflection of it from the point of view of “human truth.” Dobrolyubov shows that this is precisely what allowed Ostrovsky, for example, to base his plays on the motif of “the unnaturalness of social relations, resulting from the tyranny of some and the lack of rights of others.” This is what allowed Dostoevsky, who preached patience and humility, to discover in his downtrodden, lost heroes “the never suppressed aspirations and needs of human nature”, to take out “the individual’s protest against external violent oppression hidden in the very depths of the soul” and present it for judgment and sympathy reader. These goals and objectives are not always clearly understood by the artist; they arise from the very development of life. By cognizing and reflecting life, the writer discovers its aspects and patterns from which a progressive idea associated with progressive historical development “follows by itself.” By introducing the concept of “worldview,” Dobrolyubov clearly expresses the peculiarity of truly realistic creativity, which the artists of the word themselves spoke about - Pushkin, Goncharov, L. Tolstoy and others. Turgenev, for example, wrote about “Fathers and Sons”: “To accurately and powerfully reproduce the truth, the reality of life, is the highest happiness for a writer, even if this truth does not coincide with his own sympathies” (I. S. Turgenev, Collection. cit., Goslitizdat, M. 1956, vol. 10, p. 349.). Dobrolyubov wrote that false ideas and views fetter the writer’s creativity, preventing him from freely indulging in the suggestions of his artistic nature. This can be seen in the example of Ostrovsky’s plays from the period of his passion for Slavophilism: the author, sometimes misunderstanding the connection of the phenomena he depicted, sought to elevate into a universal type persons who in reality had “a very particular and petty meaning,” and with this false view of the hero harmed his works. Since any one-sidedness and exclusivity interferes with genuine observance of the truth, the artist “must... save himself from one-sidedness by a possible expansion of his view, through the assimilation of those general concepts that have been developed by reasoning people.” Dobrolyubov associates the realization of the nationality of literature with the breadth of the writer’s worldview, with the reflection of advanced ideas in his work. The main progressive idea of ​​that time was the idea of ​​the complete failure of serfdom and “all its offspring.” It arose not in literature, Dobrolyubov said, not in the minds of leading figures, but from the very course of social life. But literature, having reflected, picked it up, disseminated and propagated it with its own inherent means, in turn influences further development society. Dobrolyubov could not give a complete scientific explanation of the origin and role of ideas, he did not even reach the point of understanding the class conditionality of the artist’s worldview, but he saw the opposition and struggle of the ideas of exploiters and workers, and saw that ideas do not arise as a result of the purely speculative activity of the artist, and from the practical, material needs of society and play an active role in its development. This determined the strength and depth of his analysis. In his articles “What is Oblomovism?” (1859), "The Dark Kingdom" (1859), "When will the real day come?" (1860), “A Ray of Light in the Dark Kingdom” (1860), “Downtrodden People” (1861), analyzing the wonderful works of contemporary literature, the critic showed that penetration by means of art into the essence of life, into its main conflicts leads to the fact that even writers far from a revolutionary worldview overcome false ideas and prejudices of their class and, truthfully depicting life, act as impartial judges of everything that has outlived its time... Time itself, the progressive process of history, is on the side of the people. Reflecting the urgent needs of social development, writers thereby participate in the struggle for people's happiness and at the same time realize their creative potential and enrich the art of realism. In the specific conditions of that time, the camp of revolutionary democracy put forward the task of educating public figures a new type, heroes of the people's struggle. The question of the hero in life and in literature caused heated debate. Chernyshevsky, in the article “Russian man at rendez-vous” (1858), debunked the image of the “superfluous person”, showing that these people, who have shown their pettiness in the field of feelings, in love for a woman, are also untenable in the social sense - “they cannot be wait for life to improve." The “superfluous man” is an imaginary hero who “retreats from everything that requires determination and noble risk,” because the very circumstances of life cultivate in him selfishness, selfishness, and inability to do real work. This article was not only an angry debunking of liberalism, but also raised the most important question for literature about the positive hero of the time. Liberal P. Annenkov spoke out against Chernyshevsky with the article “Literary Type weak person" (1858). “Is the spineless man of the era as weak and insignificant as they say about him, and where to look for the opposite type, who, according to his highest moral qualities, would be worthy to replace him?” (P. V. Annenkov, Memoirs and critical essays. Second Department, St. Petersburg, 1879, p. 153.) asked Annenkov. The so-called “strong characters,” he said, are the mayors, Ostrovsky’s tyrants, Shchedrin’s officials, Aksakov’s patriarchal landowners, and, when you’ve seen enough on them, “the need to return to refresh thoughts and feelings in the circle of the “weak” becomes uncontrollable and passionate.” A weak person, Annenkov concluded, is “the only moral type both in our contemporary life and in the reflection of it.” - current literature." It was this person and no one else, he believed, who still had a lot to do for Russian society. That is why it is necessary to treat him with care and participation and not make exorbitant demands, because "in the properties of our character and the way of our life there is nothing like the heroic element" (Ibid., pp. 167--168.). Dobrolyubov angrily ridiculed this “weak hero,” who in modern times had lost all aura of heroism and was already perceived as a fragment of previous eras. In contrast to P. Annenkov, he saw the need for the birth of a new, strong, real hero. In different strata of society, discontent and a spirit of protest are rising - and writers, expanding the sphere of reality accessible artistic reflection, show not only the failure of former heroes who remained aloof from public affairs, but also the birth of the heroic from life itself. The true and imaginary hero, his attitude to reality, the methods of his depiction, typification - Dobrolyubov paid very great attention to these problems, and his conclusions are instructive for our days. Literary heroes, he pointed out, are not the fruit of the writer’s imagination, but are taken from life itself and, depending on its movement, change, receive a new meaning, and, consequently, a new assessment by the artist. Dobrolyubov traces the development of the type of “superfluous person” in Russian literature and comes to the conclusion: “Over time, as society consciously developed, this type changed its forms, took on different relationships to life, and received a new meaning. Notice these new phases of its existence , to determine the essence of its new meaning - this has always been an enormous task, and the talent who knew how to do this has always made a significant step forward in the history of our literature" (263). A writer, recreating a true picture of reality, trying to present his hero in all its fullness and artistic persuasiveness, cannot help but think about the essence of certain life types, about their connection with each other, about their significance in society. In an article about Shchedrin’s “Provincial Sketches” (1857), recalling the beginning of the discussion of the proposed reforms, the energetic cries of the champions of progress, calls to save Rus' from internal evil, the critic says that this atmosphere of general fermentation and expectations gave rise to hope - new figures entered the public arena , true heroes. “But two years have passed, and although nothing particularly important happened during these years, social aspirations are now far from being presented in the same form as before.” Everyone saw that the enthusiastic cries of home-grown progressives were worth little, because they did not give any practical results. And the heroes themselves, from whom great feats were expected, became very dim: “It turns out that... many of the people who warmly welcomed the dawn of a new life suddenly wanted to wait for noon and decided to sleep until then; that an even larger part of the people who blessed the deeds , suddenly became subdued and hid when she saw that feats had to be accomplished not in words alone, but that real work and sacrifices were needed" (128). Shchedrin - and in this, first of all, Dobrolyubov sees his merit as an artist, this showed the strength of his talent, deeply in tune with modernity - debunked these would-be progressives, subjected them to merciless satirical ridicule, creating various types talented natures, in which “the dominant character of our society is quite clearly expressed.” We know that Shchedrin is a writer with a conscious revolutionary ideal, a merciless enemy of liberal verbiage. However, Dobrolyubov in many of his works shows that other writers, in another in a creative manner, but sometimes they no less vividly captured changes in social life, passing judgment on the old, obsolete, and sensitively noticing the birth of the new. Attention to life, to what is new in it, is, according to Dobrolyubov, the first and obligatory sign of talent. The appearance of a new type in literature becomes possible only when this type arises in life itself, when at least in some, the most advanced part of society, the consciousness has matured that the old heroes are already lagging behind life and cannot serve as a real example for readers. And the works of literature will be the more valuable and truthful, the greater their influence, the more formerly an artist will notice these thosendecency social development, will see the features of a new, progressive movement, will give us the opportunity to be present at the very birth of a new hero, at the just beginning of the decline of previous idols. In the article "What is Oblomovism?" Dobrolyubov highly appreciates Goncharov’s novel not only because it delivers a merciless verdict on old, outdated serfdom relations, but also because it shows the evolution of a once tall and noble hero, a “superfluous man” who could not find real activity for himself, ruined by his environment. In new conditions, when the possibility of a “terrible mortal struggle” with hostile circumstances is close, when the people themselves “realized the need for a real cause,” this hero appears in a new light. “Superfluous people,” says Dobrolyubov, “not seeing a goal in life, despite this, had high authority in the eyes of the reader, because they were advanced people, standing much higher than their environment. The very possibility of broad practical work was not yet open to them; it had not yet matured in society. It's not the same now. The new generation expects from heroes real deItelnosti. It will no longer listen with love and reverence to endless speeches about dissatisfaction with life and the need to act. These speeches in the new conditions cannot but be perceived as apathy of thought and soul, as moral Oblomovism. AND modern type a well-meaning liberal with his deceit and idle talk is involuntarily associated in the reader’s mind with the heroes of former times - “superfluous people”. Now, from the heights of modern times, one can see that the traits of Oblomovism were always in embryo in the character of superfluous people - after all, these seemingly strong natures so often showed inconsistency in the face of hostile circumstances and retreated whenever it was necessary to make a firm decision in life. , a decisive step - whether it concerned their relationship to society or the area of ​​​​feelings - their relationship to the woman they loved. Goncharov's talent and the breadth of his views were reflected in the fact that he felt this breath of new life. Dobrolyubov calls the creation of the Oblomov type “a sign of the times,” and sees the main merit of its author in the fact that he sensed in advanced Russian society a different attitude towards the life type that appeared thirty years ago. Oblomov’s story “reflected Russian life, in it a living, modern Russian type appears before us, minted with merciless severity and correctness; it reflected the new word of our social development, pronounced clearly and firmly, without despair and without childish hopes, but with complete consciousness of truth. This word is - Oblomovism; it serves as a key to unraveling many phenomena of Russian life, and it gives Goncharov’s novel much more social significance than all our accusatory stories have” (262). In the public consciousness, this transformation of the “superfluous man” into Oblomov has not yet taken place, Dobrolyubov points out. , the process has only just begun. But this is where the great property and great significance of true art comes into force - to capture a progressive movement, an idea that has only just begun and will be realized in the future. Having debunked, brought down from a high pedestal to Oblomov’s soft sofa, the former hero, Having directly posed the question: what is he doing? What is the meaning and purpose of his life? - the artist, with the whole meaning of his work, posed the important question of what a modern hero should be. True, the novel also reflected the limitations of the artist’s worldview: who could do this to deeply understand and so vitally show Oblomovism, he “could not, however, help but pay tribute to the general error, Oblomovism and the past, deciding to bury it.” The image of Stolz, through whose mouth Goncharov buries Oblomovism and in whose person he wanted to show an active progressive hero, lacks persuasiveness, there are no typical life features in him. Dobrolyubov explains this by saying that the artist here is trying to pass off wishful thinking, running too far ahead of life, because such active, active heroes, whose thoughts immediately turn into action, do not yet exist among educated Russian society. Stolz cannot satisfy the reader from the point of view of his social ideals. In his practical practicality, he is narrow, he does not need anything except his own happiness, he “calmed down from all the aspirations and needs that overwhelmed even Oblomov.” The critic sees a hint of a new Russian life, of an active Russian character in the image of Olga Ilyinskaya. Her naturalness, courage and simplicity, the harmony of her mind and heart are so far manifested only in the area of ​​feeling, in active love. She tries to bring Oblomov out of his slumber, to revive him morally, and when she is convinced of his complete passivity, she decisively and directly rejects Oblomov’s sleepy kingdom. She is constantly worried about some questions and doubts, she strives for something, although she does not yet know well what exactly. The author did not reveal these unrest to us in its entirety,” says the critic, “but there is no doubt that they are an echo of a new life, to which Olga is “incomparably closer to Stolz.” Dobrolyubov also sees traits of the new Russian character in the heroine of the novel “On the Eve” - Elena. The critic valued most of all the writer's ability to reveal thirst for activity in your heroine. This is not the activity itself, because Russian reality has not yet provided material for such an image; the result would not be a living person, but a dry scheme: Elena “would turn out to be a stranger to Russian society,” and the social significance of the image would be zero. Sami search, herself uncertainty The image of the heroine, her dissatisfaction with the present here are surprisingly truthful, they cannot but evoke deep thoughts in the reader and will play a much greater role in the active influence of literature on society than the image of an ideal hero, artificially “composed of the best traits developing in our society.” Turgenev, an artist extremely sensitive to the burning issues of our time, under the influence of the natural course of social life, “to which the very thought and imagination of the author involuntarily obeyed,” saw that his former heroes - “superfluous people” could no longer serve as a positive ideal, and made an attempt show the leading hero of modern times - Insarov, a fighter for the liberation of his homeland from foreign enslavers. The greatness and holiness of the idea of ​​patriotism permeates Insarov’s entire being. Not an external command of duty, not a renunciation of oneself, as was the case with previous heroes. For Insarov, love for his homeland is life itself, and this cannot but captivate the reader. And yet Dobrolyubov did not consider this image a complete artistic success: if in Stolz Goncharov depicted activity without ideals, then Insarov is an ideological hero without activity. He is not brought “face to face with the matter itself—with the parties, with the people, with someone else’s government, with his own like-minded people, with the enemy’s force” (464). True, says Dobrolyubov, this was not the author’s intention, and, judging by his previous works, he could not have shown such a hero. But the very possibility of creating epics of folk life and character public figuresela the critic saw precisely in the depiction of the struggle of the people, as well as the best representatives of an educated society who defend the people's interests. The new hero will bear little resemblance to the old, inactive one. And literature was faced with the task of finding ways to portray not only the new hero, but also the old ones - because their social role had changed, and from a progressive force they turned into a force inhibiting social development. Belinsky wrote about Eugene Onegin: “You can do something only in society, on the basis of social needs indicated by reality itself, and not by theory. But what would Onegin do in a community with such wonderful neighbors, in the circle of such dear neighbors?” (V. G. Belinsky, Complete collected works, vol. XII, p. 101.). The very elevation of the hero above the environment was already a sign of his positivity and exclusivity. In modern times, such passive superiority was not enough. The motif of the suffering hero and his surrounding environment, which was so widespread in literature, could no longer satisfy the requirements of art itself. In the article “Benevolence and Activity” (1860), devoted to the analysis of Pleshcheev’s stories, Dobrolyubov examines this issue in detail. The image of the environment is “a good and very strong motive for art,” he writes. But the writers have many omissions and abstractions here - if the hero’s suffering is depicted fully and in detail, then his relationship to the environment raises many questions: what does this hero achieve? What is the strength of the environment based on? What eats the hero and why does he allow himself to be eaten? And, having delved into the essence of the matter, the artist discovers that these heroes are vitally connected with the environment, have experienced its vicious influence: they are internally powerless, completely inactive. These heroes have no right to our sympathy. They cannot continue to be depicted with romantic pathos, in an aura of suffering. Such a hero, like the environment itself, is “a subject for the most merciless satire.” The critic considers the main advantage of Pleshcheev’s works to be precisely the author’s “negative, mocking attitude” towards the “platonic liberalism and nobility” of his heroes. Future talented writers, says Dobrolyubov, “will give us heroes with healthier content.” These heroes grow in life itself, although they have not yet been defined in all their integrity and completeness. But the question about them has already been posed by reality itself, and best writers sensitively reflected this social need. Soon, very soon, real heroes will appear in Russian life and literature - revolutionary figures, Russian Insarovs, who will face a difficult and sacred task - the liberation of their homeland from internal Turks. And a sure guarantee of this is that the traits of the new hero are manifested not only among the educated class, but in all strata of society, because the entire people's Russia is already rising against the old order. Dobrolyubov highly appreciated the importance of Ostrovsky's realism and especially the image of Katerina from The Thunderstorm. The playwright was able to “very fully and comprehensively portray the essential aspects and requirements of Russian life,” to show the aspirations that had already awakened among the people. Moreover, here too the critic notes that Ostrovsky “found the essence of the general requirements of life at a time when they were hidden and expressed by very few and very weakly.” The wild merchant world of tyrants, presented by Ostrovsky, as if in a drop of water, reflects the entire “dark kingdom” of autocratic-serf Russia, where arbitrariness reigns, “the powerless arbitrariness of some over others,” where individual rights are destroyed. But “life is no longer completely absorbed by their influence, but contains the makings of a more reasonable, legal, correct order of affairs.” And this is what makes it possible for the artist satirical image tyrants: they already cause “laughter and contempt.” In the depiction of the senseless influence of tyranny on family and social life, Dobrolyubov sees the basis of Ostrovsky’s comedy. The writer reveals to us that “this tyranny is powerless and decrepit in itself, that there is no moral power in it, but its influence is terrible in that, being itself senseless and without rights, it distorts common sense and the concept of law in all who come into contact with him" (348). However, the artist shows - and this is the revolutionary meaning and deep truth of his works - that the very intolerability of oppression gives rise to and strengthens the protest against unnatural relations, and this protest comes out, it can no longer be suppressed at its very inception. Thus, says Dobrolyubov, Ostrovsky expressed the idea that had matured in society about the illegality of tyranny, and most importantly, he created a strong, integral national character, which “has long demanded its implementation in literature,” which “corresponds to the new phase of national life.” In the characters of positive heroes, according to Dobrolyubov, there should be organicity, integrity, simplicity, which are determined by the naturalness of their aspirations for a new life. He finds these traits in Olga and Elena. They manifested themselves with special, irresistible force in Katerina. And this is natural. Katerina's strength lies in her "complete opposition to all tyrant principles." Everything here is alien to her, her internally free nature requires will, happiness, and spaciousness of life. It is not abstract ideals and beliefs, but everyday facts of life, a powerless, materially dependent existence that makes her strive for something new. That is why her desire for freedom is so organic and so strong: freedom is more valuable to her than life. This is a heroic, courageous character; such people, if necessary, will endure the struggle, you can rely on them. Katerina’s spontaneous, unconscious protest is much more valuable to Dobrolyubov than the “vivid speeches of high speakers of truth” who shout about their dedication, about “denial of themselves for a great idea”, and end up in complete humility before evil, because, they say, the fight against it "still too hopeless." In Katerina, the playwright was able to “create a person who serves as a representative of a great popular idea, without carrying great ideas either on his tongue or in his head, selflessly goes to the end in an unequal struggle and dies, without at all dooming himself to high selflessness.” Dobrolyubov talks about the breadth of the writer’s worldview, which makes his works deeply popular. The measure of nationality is that it stands “in line with those natural aspirations that have already awakened among the people at the request of the modern order of affairs,” that he understood and expressed them fully and comprehensively. “The demands of law, legality, respect for man,” a protest against arbitrariness and tyranny—this is what the reader hears in Ostrovsky’s plays, this is what allowed Dobrolyubov, using the material of these plays, to show that the only way out of the darkness of the “dark kingdom” is a revolutionary struggle against all its foundations. The playwright himself did not think about the possibility of such revolutionary conclusions from his works; his worldview was not revolutionary. Dobrolyubov dreams of the literature of the future, when artists will consciously preach advanced ideals: “The free transformation of the highest speculations into living images and, at the same time, full consciousness of the highest, general meaning in every, most private and random fact of life - this is the ideal , representing a complete fusion of science and poetry and has not yet been achieved by anyone" (309). Revolutionary-democratic criticism set as its task the struggle for such revolutionary literature. The path of conscious service to the people, the revolution should lead to the further flourishing of art, because “when the general concepts of the artist are correct and are in complete harmony with his nature, then this harmony and unity are reflected in the work. Then reality is reflected in the work brighter and more vividly, and it can more easily lead a reasoning person to correct conclusions and, therefore, have more meaning for life" (309). Dobrolyubov called for revolution. He knew that Rus' was rising, that there was hidden in it a huge force of hatred for the existing system. He saw manifestations of this force in the “middle class of society,” as he said, and in the sometimes still vague search for a new life among advanced educated people, and in Katerina’s rebellion against the tyranny of tyrants that went to the end, and in manifestations of protest even among the most humiliated and downtrodden people. Connected with the belief in the unstoppable development of life, in people’s desire for freedom, which cannot be drowned out by anything, is Dobrolyubov’s ardent dream of the appearance in life, and then in literature, of new people, real, active, active heroes. This will be a hero whose words do not diverge from his deeds, whose “principle merges with internal need soul,” disappears in him and becomes “the only force that moves a person.” If in previous articles the critic attributed such a hero only to the future, then at the end of the article “Downtrodden People” his appearance emerges more definitely (due to censorship conditions, Dobrolyubov could not talk about these heroes of revolutionary action to speak loudly). The critic calls on these active people, “who have a sufficient share of initiative in themselves,” to delve deeper into the situation, follow life, catch every fact, hint, indication in the press, use them “as material for their own considerations", to be tireless propagandists of their ideas. It is these people who must show a way out of the situation for downtrodden individuals. But main strength revolution - the people themselves, the million-strong mass of the oppressed peasantry. Revolutionary-democratic criticism considered the most important task of literature related to its future development to be the reflection in literature of the life of the peasantry and the creation of images of Russian ordinary people. In this way, writers will help reveal the true character of the people, their revolutionary capabilities, awaken their energy, and reveal “the active role that is being prepared for the people in the very near future.” What is the character of the Russian common man? How to portray him in literature? - these questions were posed by reality itself during the years of the revolutionary situation. The long-standing debate between Westerners and Slavophiles, some of whom, according to Dobrolyubov, believed that “the Russian person is good for nothing in himself and is nothing more than zero: if you substitute some foreign numbers for him, then something will come out - something, and if not, then he will remain in utter insignificance,” and others convincingly argued: “no matter what man we have, he is a genius,” there is no need to change anything in his life, he will surpass everyone anyway - these disputes received slightly different look. Now they no longer simply asserted that Russia has nothing in common with the West. The needs of economic development were realized much more clearly, and even such a fierce defender of Russian patriarchal principles as Pogodin began to talk about the need to adopt the technical innovations of Europe. A very popular theory of “soilism” arose - its exponent was the young editors of “Moskvityanin” (Ap. Grigoriev, B. Almazov, T. Filippov, etc.), it was preached by both F. and M. Dostoevsky in their magazine “Vremya”. The essence of this theory boiled down to the fact that it contrasted the national with the social, and patience and humility were recognized as the main dignity of the ordinary Russian person. Critics of "Moskvityanin", praising, for example, Ostrovsky's dramas, calling him an exponent of the Russian nationality, saw this nationality in the fundamental patriarchal principles allegedly defended by him, in the "objectivity", "calmness" of the paintings he created, and presented the playwright himself as an "objective poet" ", which teaches "humility before the people's truth", as a community, a single national principle. Ap. Grigoriev in his article “After Ostrovsky’s “Thunderstorm”” (January 1860); wrote: “I opposed nationality to a purely satirical attitude towards our inner everyday life, therefore, by nationality in Ostrovsky I meant an objective, calm, purely poetic, and not tense, not negative, not satirical attitude to life” (Ap. Grigoriev, Collection. op., St. Petersburg. 1876, vol. I, p. 475.). Dostoevsky, developing his understanding of nationality, argued that Russian society is not divided by class interests: “Every Russian is first of all Russian, and then he belongs to some class.” He called for turning to the Russian “national principle”, which would unite “integrity, all-reconciliation, all-humanity.” “Our new Rus' has understood,” he wrote in a programmatic article in the magazine “Time” (1861, No. 1), “that there is only one cement, one soil on which everything will come together and be reconciled - this is universal spiritual reconciliation, the beginning of which lies in education." There was once a time, says Dostoevsky, when we were in vain denouncing and flagellating ourselves, “out of nothing to do, we then founded natural school". Now the task of literature is to express the ideas of pacification and unity of the entire Russian nation. In the article "G. -bov and the question of art" the writer, in particular, polemicized with Dobrolyubov regarding his assessment of stories from Russian folk life by Marko Vovchka. The characters of rebels and Protestants created by the writer seemed implausible to him, devoid of Russian national traits. Along with the tendency to worship " humble people's truth" was another. Liberals, making speeches in defense of the people, at the same time expressed complete disbelief in their creative forces and the development of Russian society and its heroic achievements were attributed exclusively to the “noble educated class.” Dobrolyubov analyzes the various views of “our most educated economists, Slavists, lawyers, liberals, nouvellists, etc., etc.” and convincingly reveals the essence of their lordly view of the people - they all believe that the Russian peasant “has not begun to live conscious life", "has not yet matured to real freedom." The appeal of Russian literature to the life of the broadest strata of the oppressed people is a necessary step on the path to nationality. In a number of his articles, Dobrolyubov highly valued the national character traits of the Russian common man - the ability to achieve feats without lush, loud phrases, a healthy view of things, dedication, hard work, inner delicacy. But he saw not only the national, but also the socio-historical conditioning of people's characters, the irreconcilability of the interests of the Russian peasant and the Russian master. Not the ideas of appeasement, but the spirit of popular protest should reflect and is already reflected in Russian literature. In the 60s, a readiness for independent activity was much more clearly revealed among the people. Now, the numerous pseudo-folk stories of the early 50s, in which some general and completely faceless type of Russian peasant appeared, were perceived as a complete anachronism. whose character amazingly coincided with the character of representatives of an educated society and who was also corroded by reflection, worried about abstract problems that had not the slightest relation to his everyday life. However, Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov could no longer be satisfied with the image of the people, which in the previous era was characteristic even of very talented writers - only as suffering, submissive, humble... Such an image no longer revealed the whole truth of life. It is characteristic, for example, that Belinsky saw the sense of humanity that permeates “Poor People” in the fact that the humiliated hero appears here also as Human, and for Dobrolyubov, the “deeply humane feeling of the author” is expressed primarily in the fact that the downtrodden, humble Makar Devushkin cannot submit, he too protests. At the end of the 40s, Grigorovich's "Anton Goremyk" was a sign of the times, and Belinsky wrote about it with delight. Dobrolyubov, and somewhat later Chernyshevsky, are clearly critical of the “literature of the wretched.” In modern times, when the possibility of activity opened up for the hero, when he was able to more actively resist the dark oppressive force of “circumstances,” humanism became more demanding in relation to the hero himself. Dobrolyubov’s struggle for the depiction of the heroic national character in literature did not at all mean that he limited the sphere of art only to the area of ​​the heroic. Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov, much more soberly than any of their contemporaries, saw the negative sides of the people generated by centuries of slavery: darkness, downtroddenness, ignorance... Moreover, they perfectly understood that dark, downtrodden peasants still made up the majority of the nation that Protestants and rebels are rather the exception. But they saw the trend in the development of life, the emergence of something new in it, and it was precisely the positive ideal, the deepest faith in the people that made it possible for them to fight for the depiction in literature of the whole truth of people's life, without any embellishment or conventions, with a clearly expressed, demanding position of the author. in relation to the people themselves. It was Dobrolyubov in articles about the works of Saltykov-Shchedrin, Slavutinsky, Marko Vovchka, and a little later Chernyshevsky in the article “Isn’t this the beginning of change?” dedicated to stories N. Uspensky, they valued the active, active, demanding love for the people in the works of these writers. Dobrolyubov followed with close attention every talented work from the people's life, supported democratic writers who knew and loved the people and were vitally connected with them. In an article about “Provincial Sketches,” Dobrolyubov puts forward his merciless truthfulness as the main advantage in Shchedrin’s depiction of pictures of people’s life: “The people appear as they are, with their shortcomings, rudeness, and underdevelopment.” But those superficial critics or those who deliberately reject his work are deeply wrong, says Dobrolyubov, who reproach the writer for being too harsh and for the gloom of his paintings. Shchedrin's deep realism is expressed in what he sees possibilities the people, their inner wealth, sees many good, noble, although undeveloped or misdirected instincts in these workers, “an uncontrollable desire for spiritual achievement.” It is for the truth, for the love for the people that Shchedrin will be appreciated in the future by the masses themselves, for whom the benefits of culture are now inaccessible and for whom the name of this writer is still unknown, the critic says with deep conviction. More than once Dobrolyubov wrote that the new time should put forward a poet who would express the thought of the century and would consciously serve his ideal. Like Chernyshevsky, Dobrolyubov, an employee of Sovremennik, considered it inconvenient for himself to publish articles dedicated to creativity Nekrasova. We will not find any detailed statements about the poet from him. But he highly valued his poetry. In September 1859, Dobrolyubov wrote to his friend at the institute, Ivan Bordyugov: “Dearest! Learn by heart and tell everyone you know to learn the song to Eremushka Nekrasov, published in the September Sovremennik. Remember and love these poems: they are didactic, if you want, but "They go straight to a young heart, not yet completely mired in the mire of vulgarity. My God, how many magnificent things Nekrasov could have written if he had not been oppressed by censorship!" ("Materials for the biography of Dobrolyubov", M. 1890, vol. I, p. 534.) In a review of the poems of D. Minaev (the Accusatory Poet), the critic, without naming Nekrasov's name, but implying it, writes that there is already Russian life is a poet who “embraced the entire structure of life, agreed with it in his melody” and put his poetry “on a level with living reality.” Dobrolyubov not only admired Nekrasov, but also had a great moral influence on him. One cannot read his letter, written abroad on August 23, 1860, without emotion. In response to Nekrasov’s letter, written in a moment of mental discord and doubt, Dobrolyubov, already terminally ill, writes to a man who was much older than him and had much more life experience, a letter filled with unshakable faith in the future, in life, in the power of talent. Here is a great ardent love for the poet, care for his work and purity, determination, uncompromisingness, the principle of high demands on people and artists, which have always been so characteristic of Dobrolyubov. We will not find any notes of tenderness, consolation, or persuasion here. There is a deep conviction here that a person has no right to complain about the lack of activity - the people themselves, the progressive representatives of society, such as Nekrasov, “must create this activity.” Doubts about one’s usefulness, about the correctness of one’s path cannot occur when a person is inspired by a high idea, a strong desire for activity. Dobrolyubov acts as a preacher of a heroic life. It is necessary to persistently and systematically prepare activities, to dominate the circumstances, because “serious work is not done suddenly and is not immediately given, but it remains for a long time, spreads widely, becomes the lasting property of nations” (“Book and Revolution”, 1921, No. 2, p. 72.). Russia is facing great achievements, the most important issue is being resolved in it, all the forces of nations must be gathered to solve it correctly. “And at this time, you, the most beloved Russian poet, the representative of the good principles in our poetry, the only talent in which there is now life and strength, you so frivolously refuse serious activity! “The letter contains a deep faith in the power of creativity, which no censorship can hinder, “and no one is able to interfere with the work of talent and thought. But our thought must come to action, and there is not the slightest doubt that, in spite of everything, we will see how it comes" (Ibid., p. 73). A truly popular poet, who has "the whole circle his thoughts and sympathies are in perfect accordance with the meaning and structure of people’s life,” who “came from the people, lived with the people, and not only in thought, but also in the circumstances of life was tightly and bloodily connected with them,” Dobrolyubov believed Taras Shevchenko. True , due to censorship conditions and fearing to endanger the poet, who had just returned from exile and with great difficulty published a collection of his poems, the critic could not speak out loud about the angry denunciations of the great Kobzar, about his deep, irreconcilable hatred of the Tsar and God, to the entire autocratic-serf system of Russia. But he draws the readers’ attention to Shevchenko’s deep love for his native Ukraine, for the people and the very nature of his songs: in them “there is nothing artificial”, in them we will find “the whole range of vital interests ", "famously And not enough ordinary life." And at the same time we feel everywhere modern a poet - that is, according to Dobrolyubov, a person armed with the advanced worldview of the era. The pathos of the article about Nikitin's poems (1860) is to show the creative possibilities that open up for a lyric poet in a folk theme. Dobrolyubov proceeds from the very nature of lyricism, where what is important is not passive perception, but spontaneity, the living, internal reaction of the artist to external impressions. From this point of view, he criticizes some of Nikitin’s poems, where abstract ideas, rhetorical themes, as well as the poet’s concern “for neat, polished and sonorous phrases” make his verse sluggish and cold: here the poet “strives to imitate the way “gentlemen” depict suffering and the bitterness of life, not noticing that these gentlemen for the most part inflict all sorts of torments on themselves. He moves away from the simplicity of the initial impression, he tries to smooth out its roughness and dissonance and blurs into colorless abstractions" (507). Meanwhile, the poet has all the conditions to become an original artist. To do this, you need to abandon all “aesthetic subtleties”, look at the people with your own eyes, trust more in your natural inner feeling, the experience of a person who is close to the people and knows them well. We must learn to see poetry in “the simple, urgent needs of life,” “pay attention to the organization of social relations,” and broadly and boldly push the boundaries of genres that change under the influence of time and include new, increasingly vital content. Realism in life, says Dobrolyubov, has already firmly won its rights in the novel, in drama, in satire, it should be established in poetry: “If we soon have a wonderful poet, then, of course, it will be in this field - and not in aesthetic subtleties." Meanwhile, it is precisely in the lyrics that there is a lot of lordly sybaritism, poetic routine: “Indeed, in this case we remind ourselves of those people who cannot drink water because it always gives them severe cramps. Simple phenomena of simple life, urgent demands human nature, the unadorned, normal existence of undeveloped people - we do not know how to perceive poetically: we need all of this to be laced with various sentiments and sugared with refined grace - then we will, perhaps, begin to drink this lemonade" (504). You can see the essence of people's life, its true poetry. For this, Dobrolyubov emphasizes, one needs not only knowledge of this life, closeness to it, but also “courage and breadth of views,” an understanding that a person’s discord with reality does not come from the influence of abstract ideas, not from “power.” dark forces and inevitable fate," but from the organization of society. In order to express truly popular self-awareness, you need to take the side of the advanced, revolutionary forces, "to develop in your soul a firm conviction of the necessity and possibility of a complete departure from the present order of this life" (505). Then the poet the ideal will be real, and not taken from other people's books, the reasons for the unjust order will be visible to him, and then neither dirty poverty, nor ignorance, nor heavy gloomy pictures will frighten the writer. They will appear in their true light, he will be able to separate the truth of the people's character, its normal human content from everything superficial, accidental, caused by external oppression. Only on this path of addressing the real, practical aspects of life will the lyrics be freed from colorlessness, uncertainty and dreaminess. The problem of an ideal found in reality itself, in the nature of the subject, and not introduced from the outside , the critic also based on the material of stories and tales from peasant life by Slavutinsky and Marko Vovchka. Some writers and theorists were deeply convinced that we should decisively abandon the complete reproduction of the life of the common people, because this in no way fits with the “immutable laws of art.” For example, P. Annenkov spoke about this in his article “Stories and Tales from Common People’s Life in 1853” (“Sovremennik”, 1854). Analyzing numerous novels and short stories, Annenkov wrote that their authors, being unable to reveal the content of people's life, resorted to "fictions", "idyls", "phosphoric lights" and other tricks of the literary craft. And he came to the conclusion that it was impossible to combine “the desire for poetic illumination of the subject” and the simplicity, even primitiveness of folk life: “Let us remember that the best, most correct methods of modern art rather confuse the understanding of life than explain it. That means, in addition to all others obstacles, there is even an obstacle to presenting it in proper clarity and from the ordinary conditions of art" (P. V. Annenkov, Memoirs and Critical Essays. Second Department, St. Petersburg, 1879, p. 82.). Dobrolyubov recalls this article by the “insightful critic” and agrees with him in his assessment of the works of the early 50s. He also says that the traditions of “salon-common” storytellers turned out to be tenacious: sensitivity, dramatic pathos, sublime love - techniques taken from a completely different sphere can often be found in works from folk life. Writers were easily given “the external environment of everyday life, formal, ritual manifestations of morals, turns of phrase,” but “ inner meaning and the structure of the entire peasant life, the special way of thinking of the common people, the peculiarities of their worldview, remained for the most part closed to them" (431). However, this depends, the critic says, not at all on the subject itself, which supposedly contradicts the requirements of art, but from "lack of instinct to internal development people's life." And the best proof of this is the appearance in Russian literature of works that give a completely different image of the people. Such works include Slavutinsky's stories. Slavutinsky's advantage over other writers lies in his very attitude towards the people: "He does not accommodate anyone readers, nor to the people, he does not try, applying our concepts, to soften before us the rough coloring of peasant life, he does not try to create ideal faces from simple life." He does not have the smug sympathy for the people that was previously put on display, there is no desire. "Magnanimously bypass its shortcomings and expose only the good side“, in his works there is no that offensive affectionateness, “which usually comes from confidence in the immeasurable superiority of one’s own.” Slavutinsky “deals with the peasant world quite strictly,” and, despite this, or rather, thanks to this, his stories are much more exciting in us respect and sympathy for the people than the idylls of previous storytellers. This calmness, courage and impartiality of the author, due to his faith in the people, give much greater results in artistically than “sweetening politeness with the people and forced idealization.” For Dobrolyubov, there have never been immutable laws and “techniques of modern art.” He showed that the principles of depiction in literature change and improve as it covers an ever wider sphere of life. The pattern is its liberation from the conventions of the romantic style, increasing naturalness in the depiction of the subject. Dobrolyubov considered the ability to depict the everyday, material side of life to be very important for a writer. He highly appreciated this in Ostrovsky's plays and Koltsov's songs. First of all, he notes the accuracy and concreteness of the pictures of peasant life in Slavutinsky’s stories, contrasting them with the works of other, perhaps more talented writers, but who approached the people from the outside, trying to illustrate their general, abstract ideas using the material of peasant life. A correct view of the subject and a correct rendering of actual facts - "without embellishment, without pretension, without didactic foundations" - help the artist to more convincingly show the social relations of people, to give "the development of characters and an explanation of their dependence on the environment", to see the birth of something new in reality. That is why it becomes possible not only to strengthen critical pathos in works about folk life, but also to depict a positive hero from among the people themselves. Slavutinsky’s great merit is his attempt in the story “The Reader” to create a positive, ideal character a simple person - not composed, not sweetened, but “found in the very wilderness of Russian life.” This character is barely outlined, the drawing does not yet have artistic completeness and brightness, but, says the critic, one cannot help but thank the author “for the direct and correct indication of the existing, not fictitious, but inherent in Russian life perfect image. Let this instruction be made without much grace or animation; but we are glad that it is still indicated; such a fact, better and purer than which our idealizers, in all their sublime moods, did not come up with" (439). The question of creating truly folk literature, about a hero from the people, was widely raised by a critic in the article "Traits for Characterizing the Russian Common People" (1860). says here that the possibility of creating a positive heroic image is caused by life itself: the people are increasingly asserting themselves, and in contrast to the “plantation” point of view, which universally condemns them for downtroddenness and passivity, the progressive part of society is increasingly captured by the idea that that the masses play a decisive role in the development of society, in its economy. In literature, “serious, sincerely and lovingly made observations of people’s life and character” also appear. Such are “Stories from Russian folk life” by Marko Vovchka, in which deep love and respect for the people, faith in the great forces hidden within them. The writer, says the critic, reveals an unsuppressed desire for a free life and an aversion to slavery in a people who retained their character, despite depersonalizing conditions, who could never come to terms with serfdom , recognize it as a normal state. Among the masses of the peasantry, rebels, strong, heroic characters are born. Let this be spontaneous heroism, let the forces hidden in the people have not yet found a correct and free outlet for themselves and “are revealed noisily, shatteringly, often to their own destruction.” These forces must be directed, and the people will rise “to any moral and mental heights” and perform miracles true heroism in the struggle for freedom. The common man is strong in his practical outlook on things; he has a deep consciousness of man's duty to work and the rights of labor. Hence the moral strength of the simple worker, his characteristic delicacy, combined with the energy of character - internally he is much more free from slavery than his masters. Marco Vovchok, depicting the emptiness and insignificance of the bar, not monsters, but even “good”, sentimental gentlemen, their complete impersonality, shows the reasons for this emptiness and insignificance - their parasites and thereby pronounces a merciless verdict on “the very essence, the very principle of serfdom” . Dobrolyubov analyzes in detail folk types, presented in the works of Marko Vovchka, reveals the complexity and richness of the characters of Russian ordinary people. The unconscious, insane heroism of the peasant girl Masha, who is ready to die rather than live in slavery, the decisive, courageous character of Sasha, who forgets everything for the sake of her loved one, the active, strong-willed nature of Katerina, who wants to serve people - are deeply vital and truthful. Dobrolyubov argues with critics, to whom such characters seem impossible in Russian life, “fantasy,” “idyll in social taste,” and the pictures of reality depicted by the writer are only “exceptional curious cases” that do not have serious life and artistic significance. It is known that something similar was stated by A. Druzhinin in his article about the Ukrainian folk stories of Marko Vovchka, published in 1859 in Turgenev’s translation, and a little later by F. Dostoevsky in the article “G. -bov and the question of art.” Dobrolyubov, with the whole meaning of his article, proves that the people are an endless source of inspiration for the artist, that life itself provides the most grateful material for art, for creating the image of a truly positive hero. Touching on the artistic side of Marko Vovchk's stories, the critic says that we will not find full picture, sometimes these are just “hints, outlines.” The writer's talent is not the greatest. In addition, the creation of an “epic of the people’s life” will become possible only in the future, when the consciousness of the popular masses increases and they come out in open struggle against the oppressors. Dobrolyubov ends his article with the conclusion that there is a lot of “energetic, courageous element” among the people, a lot of unspent strength. It is necessary to educate correctly, to direct this energy so that it is possible to act on the people “directly and directly”, to call them to “living action”. And he calls on publicists, critics, and poets to renounce their abstract disputes, petty topics, useless problems, and journal routine. “Isn’t it time for us to turn from these skinny and stunted broods of a failed civilization to the fresh, healthy sprouts of people’s life, to help their correct, successful growth and blossom, to protect their beautiful and abundant fruits from spoilage? Events call us to this, the talk of people’s life reaches us, and we should not neglect any opportunity to listen to this talk" (607). The essence of a positive hero, the principles of depicting a people, the historical changeability of heroes in life and literature - all these problems were not only extremely important for that era, but they have not yet lost their significance. Instructive for modern critics and itself method analysis of works of art by Dobrolyubov. What was amazing was the critic’s ability to see the ways of development of literature and to perceive new works that had just appeared. modern writers, as a phenomenon literary process, define them historical meaning And these assessments and definitions were so clear and objective that they entered our consciousness, and now, 100 years later, we perceive the process of development of literature in a Dobrolyubov manner. Reading the articles of the great critic, we clearly feel how Russian literature grew and matured, capturing ever larger spheres of life, creating images of new heroes, posing new problems, and how it was getting closer and closer to the life of the people. The journalistic nature of Dobrolyubov’s criticism and its connection with big social issues did not detract from, but determined the depth of his analysis. The strength of Dobrolyubov as a critic was in the breadth of his view of literature and its tasks. He saw the limitless possibilities of its development, opposed all restrictions, against all the canons that constrained it. He knew only one criterion of artistry - the criterion of life's truth. And this is precisely what helped him to soulfully determine the merits and inner essence of works of art. I. Goncharov, for example, reported to L. Tolstoy: “Dobrolyubov wrote an excellent article in Sovremennik, where he analyzed Oblomovism very fully and widely” (I. A. Goncharov, Collected works, Goslitizdat, M. 1955, vol. 8 , pp. 320--321.). In another letter he notes the subtlety aesthetic analysis Dobrolyubov also has a deep understanding of the artist’s psychology: “He amazed me with two of his remarks: this is the penetration of what is happening in the artist’s imagination. But how does he, not an artist, know this?” (I. A. Goncharov, Collected works, Goslitizdat, M. 1955, vol. 8, p. 323.) The very style of Dobrolyubov as a critic, where merciless thought is combined with deep emotionality, passionate defense of one’s ideals, vivid imagery, aphorism his speeches, irony, sarcasm, appeal to the reader-friend, argument with the reader-enemy, use of a wide variety of critical genres - all this had and continues to have an irresistible influence on the reader. The struggle of Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov for a deeply realistic, folk literature had great practical significance and influenced both contemporary and subsequent generations of writers. Their noble influence was experienced not only by those who shared their ideas, but also by many of the greatest literary artists, whose convictions were far from revolutionary-democratic ideology. This is evidenced by the direct statements of Goncharov, Ostrovsky, the creative experience of Turgenev, L. Tolstoy and many other writers. The strength of this influence is explained not only by the fact that revolutionary-democratic criticism in new historical conditions continued the high and beneficial traditions of Russian literature, not only by the fact that Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov did not proceed from abstract formulas, but attracted for analysis and evidence the facts of life itself, which they knew deeply, but also the ability of critics to penetrate into the essence of creativity itself, to guess truly talented works. The strength of this influence is also due to Dobrolyubov’s high ethical pathos, his uncompromisingness, integrity, dictated by his ardent love for his native literature, and interest in its further development. These features of his criticism make it alive today. Dobrolyubov’s legacy is not a dead “classic”, but our military weapon.

At the beginning of the 19th century, a number of works appeared in Russian literature, the main problem of which was the conflict between man and society, the environment that raised him. The most outstanding of them were “Eugene Onegin” by A.S. Pushnina and “Hero of Our Time” by M.Yu. Lermontov. This is how a special literary type is created and developed - the image of a “superfluous person”, a hero who has not found his place in society, is misunderstood and rejected by his environment. This image changed as society developed, acquiring new features, qualities, features, until it reached its most vivid and complete embodiment in the novel by I.A. Goncharov "Oblomov".

Goncharov's work is the story of a hero who does not have the makings of a determined fighter, but has all the data to be a good, decent person. The writer “wanted to ensure that the random image that flashed before him was elevated to a type, giving it a generic and permanent meaning,” wrote N.A. Dobrolyubov. Indeed, Oblomov is not a new face in Russian literature, “but before it was not presented to us as simply and naturally as in Goncharov’s novel.”

Why can Oblomov be called a “superfluous man”? What are the similarities and differences between this character and his famous predecessors - Onegin and Pechorin?

Ilya Ilyich Oblomov is a weak-willed, lethargic, apathetic nature, divorced from real life: “Lying... was his normal state.” And this feature is the first thing that distinguishes him from Pushkin’s and, especially, Lermontov’s heroes.

The life of Goncharov's character is rosy dreams on a soft sofa. Slippers and a robe are integral companions of Oblomov's existence and bright, precise artistic details that reveal Oblomov's inner essence and outer lifestyle. Living in an imaginary world, fenced off by dusty curtains from real reality, the hero devotes his time to making unrealistic plans and does not bring anything to fruition. Any of his undertakings suffers the fate of a book that Oblomov has been reading for several years on one page.

However, the inaction of Goncharov’s character was not raised to such an extreme degree as that of Manilov from the poem by N.V. Gogol’s “Dead Souls”, and, as Dobrolyubov correctly noted, “Oblomov is not a stupid, apathetic nature, without aspirations and feelings, but a person also looking for something in his life, thinking about something...”.

Like Onegin and Pechorin, Goncharov’s hero in his youth was a romantic, thirsting for an ideal, burning with the desire for activity, but, like them, Oblomov’s “flower of life” “bloomed and did not bear fruit.” Oblomov became disillusioned with life, lost interest in knowledge, realized the futility of his existence both directly and figuratively“lay down on the sofa,” believing that in this way he could maintain the integrity of his personality.

So the hero “laid away” his life, without bringing any visible benefit to society; “slept through” the love that passed him by. One can agree with the words of his friend Stolz, who figuratively noted that Oblomov’s “troubles began with the inability to put on stockings and ended with the inability to live.”

Thus, the main difference between the “superfluous man” of Oblomov and the “superfluous people” of Onegin and Pechorin is that the latter denied social vices in action - real deeds and actions (see Onegin’s life in the village, Pechorin’s communication with the “water society”) , while the first one “protested” on the sofa, spending his entire life in immobility and inaction. Therefore, if Onegin and Pechorin - “ moral cripples"is largely due to the fault of society, then Oblomov is mainly due to the fault of his own apathetic nature.

In addition, if the type of “superfluous person” is universal and characteristic not only of Russian, but also foreign literature (B. Consgan, L. de Musset, etc.), then, considering the features of the social and spiritual life of Russia in the 19th century, it can be noted that that Oblomovism is a purely Russian phenomenon, generated by the reality of that time. It is no coincidence that Dobrolyubov saw in Oblomov “our indigenous, folk type.”

So, in the novel by I.A. Goncharov’s “Oblomov”, the image of the “superfluous man” receives its final embodiment and development. If in the works of A.S. Pushkin and M.Yu. Lermontov reveals the tragedy of one human soul that has not found its place in society, while Goncharov depicts an entire phenomenon of Russian social and spiritual life, called “Oblomovism” and incorporating the main vices of one of the characteristic types of noble youth of the 50s of the 19th century.

Part III

Fighting for the creation of a party of the people in literature, for writers to consciously serve the people's interests, Dobrolyubov was devoid of any sectarianism or narrowness, which his ideological opponents so often tried to accuse him of. He did not impose anything on art. He approached every talented work with deep interest and was able to reveal the uniqueness of the writer’s talent and his view of the world.

How subtly and soulfully Dobrolyubov showed, for example, the characteristics of Goncharov the artist! In Goncharov's works, he wrote, there is little action, no intrigue, no external obstacles. We will not find any expression of the feelings of the author himself: he does not care about the readers, about the conclusions that will be drawn from the novel. But “he has an amazing ability - at any given moment to stop the volatile phenomenon of life, in all its fullness and freshness, and to keep it before him until it becomes the complete property of the artist.” Goncharov is characterized by a completeness of poetic worldview, “the ability to capture the complete image of an object, mint it, sculpt it - hence the love of detail and “extraordinarily subtle and deep mental analysis.” The writer will not lag behind a phenomenon “without tracing it to the end, without finding its cause without understanding its connection with all surrounding phenomena."

It was this property of the writer’s talent that helped him elevate the image of Oblomov into a type, determine its generic and permanent meaning, and thereby reveal the social essence of Oblomovism. Dobrolyubov wrote that there is no need to demand that Goncharov have a different, less calm attitude towards reality - his attitude towards the facts of life is revealed from their very image.

Turgenev's talent is in many ways the opposite of Goncharov's; he is characterized by deep lyricism. The writer talks about his heroes as people close to him, he “follows them with tender sympathy, with painful trepidation, he himself suffers and rejoices along with the faces he created, he himself is carried away by the poetic atmosphere with which he always likes to surround them... And his passion is contagious: it irresistibly captures the reader’s sympathy, from the first page rivets his thoughts and feelings to the story, makes him experience, re-feel those moments in which Turgenev’s faces appear before him” (258).

This lyricism, together with another remarkable feature of the writer’s talent - the ability to “immediately respond to every noble thought and honest feeling that is just beginning to penetrate the consciousness of the best people” - determined the range of problems that Turgenev addressed: a hero who is at odds with society , was revealed to him primarily in the sphere of feelings; the writer created poetic female images, he is “a singer of pure, ideal female love.” Understanding these features of Turgenev’s talent helped Dobrolyubov reveal the social significance of the artist’s works, the new and fruitful things that appeared in his work under the influence of a new movement in society.

Ostrovsky's performance in the literary field immediately generated a lot of articles. Critics of various directions sought to present the playwright as an exponent of the ideas of their camp. Dobrolyubov did not impose any abstract theories on Ostrovsky, he compared his creations with life itself - and this allowed him not only to expose the dark kingdom of autocratic-serf Russia, but also to insightfully identify the most important features of the playwright’s talent: his moral pathos, close attention to the victims of social evil , To personalities a person crushed by tyranny, and hence - deep attention to the inner world of the heroes: Ostrovsky is characterized by “the ability to notice nature, penetrate into the depths of a person’s soul, capture his feelings, regardless of the depiction of his external, official relationships” (311).

Dobrolyubov shows the inconsistency of Ostrovsky’s critics, who stated that the endings of his comedies are random, and that the composition lacks logical harmony and consistency. In this freedom of the playwright from the dilapidated canons of various plays, from the “old stage routine,” he sees true innovation: the very depiction of the life of tyrants, where there is no logic, no moral laws, requires “a lack of logical consistency.”

One of Dobrolyubov’s fiercest critics was Dostoevsky, who in his article “G.-bov and the question of art” (“Time”, 1861, No. 2) accused him of “utilitarianism”, of disdain for artistry. Dostoevsky wrote that works of art influence the reader with their beauty, which gives “harmony and tranquility” to a person, especially when he is at odds with reality. In the article "Downtrodden People", analyzing in detail the works of Dostoevsky, two types of his heroes - meek, downtrodden, submissive, and - bitter, despairing - the critic highlights the characteristic features of the writer's worldview - pain for a humiliated person, turned into a rag due to "wild, unnatural relationships" reigning in society. The artistry of the writer’s works, contrary to false theories, was manifested not in pacifying beauty, but in the merciless truth of the images, in his “highly humane ideal.”

Dobrolyubov deeply despised criticism, “wandering in synthetic mists,” as well as criticism, “which approaches the authors, like men brought into the recruit’s presence, with a uniform yardstick, and shouts first “forehead!”, then “back of the head!”, looking by whether the recruit fits the bill or not,” that is, whether his creation meets the “eternal laws of art, printed in textbooks.” He understood artistry not as the decoration of scenes, details, or as external picturesqueness. He deeply and soulfully analyzed the most important thing in works of art - types, human characters And circumstances, in which they operate. And this invariably yielded fruitful results: Dobrolyubov saw and revealed the greatest achievement of the art of realism - the ability to reveal the social and historical conditioning of human character.

The critic spoke about the significance of outstanding literary phenomena for the social struggle of the 50s and 60s and at the same time showed their eternal and enduring content, the new things they brought into the development of art itself, posed and solved great aesthetic problems.

One of the most important problems of aesthetics is the problem of typification. The reflection of reality in art is not a mechanical process; it presupposes the active work of the artist’s consciousness, which generalizes life phenomena. “An artist,” writes Dobrolyubov, “is not a photographic plate that reflects only the present moment: then there would be no meaning in works of art and life. The artist complements the fragmentary nature of the captured moment with his creative feeling, generalizes private phenomena in his soul, creates one harmonious whole from disparate features, finds a living connection and consistency in apparently incoherent phenomena, merges and processes diverse and contradictory aspects of living reality into the community of his worldview" (686).

To be truthful, to be true to his talent, a writer must penetrate deeply into the essence of life. To do this, firstly, he must turn his talent to vital subjects, and secondly, to grasp the trend of development of social life, to see what is dying in it and what is being born - this is a necessary property of typification, only this will determine completeness and comprehensiveness of the picture of reality, a correct view of it. The critic’s thought boils down to the fact that in truly great art, realism and ideology are necessarily united, because the truth of the image in itself is “a necessary condition, and not yet the dignity of the work.

We judge dignity by the breadth of the author’s view, the fidelity of understanding and the vividness of the depiction of the phenomena that he touched upon" (628--629),

Dobrolyubov attached great importance to the general convictions and sympathies of the writer, which are manifested in the entire figurative structure of his works and act as worldview. The artist’s worldview is his own view of the world, which is developed in the process of artistic cognition of reality and contradicts “partiality” - false ideas, narrow views, learned by upbringing, taken on faith.

Worldview is by no means some spontaneous property of talent, completely independent of the subjective beginning, of the artist’s personality. On the contrary, it is the result of activity, his knowledge, creative will, and in-depth penetration into life. Dobrolyubov speaks of Goncharov’s careful study of life types, of Turgenev’s types, “to the point of subtlety studied and alive heartfelt author,” about Ostrovsky’s ability to see and persecute tyranny in all its types and forms... In works of art, the critic emphasizes, we see a phenomenon taken from life itself, but "clarified in the mind of the artist and placed in such positions that allow it to reveal itself more fully and decisively than as happens in most cases of ordinary life" (655).

When Dobrolyubov notes that with strong talents “sometimes from a simple statement of facts and relationships made by the artist, their solution follows naturally,” he does not mean the passivity, thoughtlessness of the writer. The worldview is formed under the influence of developing reality and means the artist’s involvement in the progressive movement of time. This happens because, by getting to know life and studying it, the writer penetrates into its needs and reflects the mature ideas of social development. Unlike false, abstract ideas imposed on reality, contradicting it and therefore hostile to art, progressive ideas naturally follow “from the existing facts of life.” These ideas are not artificially introduced into the work, but help the artist to reflect social relations more fully and deeply - not from some narrow, false, but from a universal, fair, that is, people's point of view - this is how Dobrolyubov asserts the connection between the ideological nature of art and its nationality.

The artist’s worldview is not just a reflection of life, but a reflection of it from the point of view of “human truth.” Dobrolyubov shows that this is precisely what allowed Ostrovsky, for example, to base his plays on the motif of “the unnaturalness of social relations, resulting from the tyranny of some and the lack of rights of others.” This is what allowed Dostoevsky, who preached patience and humility, to discover in his downtrodden, lost heroes “the never suppressed aspirations and needs of human nature”, to take out “the individual’s protest against external violent oppression hidden in the very depths of the soul” and present it for judgment and sympathy reader. These goals and objectives are not always clearly understood by the artist; they arise from the very development of life. By cognizing and reflecting life, the writer discovers its aspects and patterns from which a progressive idea associated with progressive historical development “follows by itself.”

By introducing the concept of “worldview,” Dobrolyubov clearly expresses the peculiarity of truly realistic creativity, which the artists of the word themselves spoke about - Pushkin, Goncharov, L. Tolstoy and others. Turgenev, for example, wrote about “Fathers and Sons”: “To accurately and powerfully reproduce the truth, the reality of life, is the highest happiness for a writer, even if this truth does not coincide with his own sympathies” (I. S. Turgenev, Collected. cit., Goslitizdat, M. 1956, vol. 10, p. 349.).

Dobrolyubov wrote that false ideas and views fetter the writer’s creativity, preventing him from freely indulging in the suggestions of his artistic nature. This can be seen in the example of Ostrovsky’s plays from the period of his passion for Slavophilism: the author, sometimes misunderstanding the connection of the phenomena he depicted, sought to elevate into a universal type persons who in reality had “a very particular and petty meaning,” and with this false view of the hero harmed his works. Since any one-sidedness and exclusivity interferes with genuine observance of the truth, the artist “must... save himself from one-sidedness by a possible expansion of his view, through the assimilation of those general concepts that have been developed by reasoning people.” Dobrolyubov associates the realization of the nationality of literature with the breadth of the writer’s worldview, with the reflection of advanced ideas in his work.

The main progressive idea of ​​that time was the idea of ​​the complete failure of serfdom and “all its offspring.” It arose not in literature, Dobrolyubov said, not in the minds of leading figures, but from the very course of social life. But literature, having reflected, picked it up, disseminated and propagated it with its own inherent means, in turn, influences the further development of society.

Dobrolyubov could not give a complete scientific explanation of the origin and role of ideas, he did not even reach the point of understanding the class conditionality of the artist’s worldview, but he saw the opposition and struggle of the ideas of exploiters and workers, and saw that ideas do not arise as a result of the purely speculative activity of the artist, and from the practical, material needs of society and play an active role in its development. This determined the strength and depth of his analysis.

In his articles “What is Oblomovism?” (1859), "The Dark Kingdom" (1859), "When will the real day come?" (1860), “A Ray of Light in the Dark Kingdom” (1860), “Downtrodden People” (1861), analyzing the wonderful works of contemporary literature, the critic showed that penetration by means of art into the essence of life, into its main conflicts leads to the fact that even writers far from a revolutionary worldview overcome false ideas and prejudices of their class and, truthfully depicting life, act as impartial judges of everything that has outlived its time...

Time itself, the progressive process of history, is on the side of the people. Reflecting the urgent needs of social development, writers thereby participate in the struggle for people's happiness and at the same time realize their creative potential and enrich the art of realism.

In the specific conditions of that time, the camp of revolutionary democracy put forward the task of educating public figures of a new type, heroes of the people's struggle. The question of the hero in life and in literature caused heated debate. Chernyshevsky, in the article “Russian man at rendez-vous” (1858), debunked the image of the “superfluous person”, showing that these people, who have shown their pettiness in the field of feelings, in love for a woman, are also untenable in the social sense - “they cannot be wait for life to improve." The “superfluous man” is an imaginary hero who “retreats from everything that requires determination and noble risk,” because the very circumstances of life cultivate in him selfishness, selfishness, and inability to do real work. This article was not only an angry debunking of liberalism, but also raised the most important question for literature about the positive hero of the time.

The liberal P. Annenkov spoke out against Chernyshevsky with the article “The Literary Type of a Weak Man” (1858). “Is the spineless man of the era as weak and insignificant as they say about him, and where can we look for the opposite type, who, based on his highest moral qualities, would be worthy of replacing him?” (P.V. Annenkov, Memoirs and Critical Essays. Second Department, St. Petersburg, 1879, p. 153.) Annenkov asked. The so-called “strong characters,” he said, are the mayors, Ostrovsky’s tyrants, Shchedrin’s officials, Aksakov’s patriarchal landowners, and when you look at them enough, “the need to return to refresh thoughts and feelings in the circle of the “weak” becomes uncontrollable, passionate ". A weak person, Annenkov concluded, is “the only moral type both in our contemporary life and in its reflection - current literature.” It was this man and no one else, he believed, who still had a lot to do for Russian society. That is why it is necessary to treat it with care and participation and not make exorbitant demands, for “in the properties of our character and the way of our life there is nothing resembling a heroic element” (Ibid., pp. 167-168.).

Dobrolyubov angrily ridiculed this “weak hero,” who in modern times had lost all aura of heroism and was already perceived as a fragment of previous eras. In contrast to P. Annenkov, he saw the need for the birth of a new, strong, real hero. Discontent and a spirit of protest rise in different strata of society - and writers, expanding the sphere of reality accessible to artistic reflection, show not only the failure of former heroes who remained aloof from public affairs, but also the birth of the heroic from life itself.

The true and imaginary hero, his attitude to reality, the methods of his depiction, typification - Dobrolyubov paid very great attention to these problems, and his conclusions are instructive for our days. Literary heroes, he pointed out, are not the fruit of the writer’s imagination, but are taken from life itself and, depending on its movement, change, receive a new meaning, and, consequently, a new assessment by the artist. Dobrolyubov traces the development of the type of “superfluous person” in Russian literature and comes to the conclusion: “Over time, as society consciously developed, this type changed its forms, took on different relationships to life, and received a new meaning. Notice these new phases of its existence , to determine the essence of its new meaning - this has always been an enormous task, and the talent who knew how to do this has always made a significant step forward in the history of our literature" (263).

A writer, recreating a true picture of reality, trying to present his hero in all its fullness and artistic persuasiveness, cannot help but think about the essence of certain life types, about their connection with each other, about their significance in society.

In an article about Shchedrin’s “Provincial Sketches” (1857), recalling the beginning of the discussion of the proposed reforms, the energetic cries of the champions of progress, calls to save Rus' from internal evil, the critic says that this atmosphere of general fermentation and expectations gave rise to hope - new figures entered the public arena , true heroes. “But two years have passed, and although nothing particularly important happened during these years, social aspirations are now far from being presented in the same form as before.” Everyone saw that the enthusiastic cries of home-grown progressives were worth little, because they did not give any practical results. And the heroes themselves, from whom great feats were expected, became very dim: “It turns out that... many of the people who warmly welcomed the dawn of a new life suddenly wanted to wait for noon and decided to sleep until then; that an even larger part of the people who blessed the deeds , suddenly became subdued and hid when she saw that feats had to be accomplished not in words alone, but that real work and sacrifices were needed" (128).

Shchedrin - and in this, first of all, Dobrolyubov sees his merit as an artist, this showed the strength of his talent, deeply in tune with modernity - debunked these would-be progressives, subjected them to merciless satirical ridicule, creating various types talented natures, in which “the dominant character of our society is quite clearly expressed.”

We know that Shchedrin is a writer with a conscious revolutionary ideal, a merciless enemy of liberal verbiage.

However, Dobrolyubov in many of his works shows that other writers, in a different creative manner, but sometimes no less vividly, captured changes in public life, passing judgment on the old, obsolete, sensitively noticing the birth of the new. Attention to life, to what is new in it, is, according to Dobrolyubov, the first and obligatory sign of talent.

The appearance of a new type in literature becomes possible only when this type arises in life itself, when at least in some, the most advanced part of society, the consciousness has matured that the old heroes are already lagging behind life and cannot serve as a real example for readers. And the works of literature will be the more valuable and truer, the greater the influence they will have, the sooner the artist notices these thosendecency social development, will see the features of a new, progressive movement, will give us the opportunity to be present at the very birth of a new hero, at the just beginning of the decline of previous idols.

In the article "What is Oblomovism?" Dobrolyubov highly appreciates Goncharov’s novel not only because it delivers a merciless verdict on old, outdated serfdom relations, but also because it shows the evolution of a once tall and noble hero, a “superfluous man” who could not find real activity for himself, ruined by his environment. In new conditions, when the possibility of a “terrible mortal struggle” with hostile circumstances is close, when the people themselves “realized the need for a real cause,” this hero appears in a new light.

“Superfluous people,” says Dobrolyubov, “not seeing a goal in life, despite this, had high authority in the eyes of the reader, because they were advanced people, standing much higher than their environment. The very possibility of broad practical work was not yet open to them; it had not yet matured in society.

It's not the same now. The new generation expects from heroes real deItelnosti. It will no longer listen with love and reverence to endless speeches about dissatisfaction with life and the need to act. These speeches in the new conditions cannot but be perceived as apathy of thought and soul, as moral Oblomovism. And the modern type of well-intentioned liberal, with his deceit and idle talk, is involuntarily associated in the reader’s mind with the heroes of former times - “superfluous people.” Now, from the heights of modern times, one can see that the traits of Oblomovism were always in embryo in the character of superfluous people - after all, these seemingly strong natures so often showed inconsistency in the face of hostile circumstances and retreated whenever it was necessary to make a firm decision in life. , a decisive step - whether it concerned their relationship to society or the area of ​​​​feelings - their relationship to the woman they loved.

Goncharov's talent and the breadth of his views were reflected in the fact that he felt this breath of new life. Dobrolyubov calls the creation of the Oblomov type “a sign of the times,” and sees the main merit of its author in the fact that he sensed in advanced Russian society a different attitude towards the life type that appeared thirty years ago. Oblomov’s story “reflected Russian life, in it a living, modern Russian type appears before us, minted with merciless severity and correctness; it reflected the new word of our social development, pronounced clearly and firmly, without despair and without childish hopes, but with complete consciousness of truth. This word is - Oblomovism; it serves as a key to unraveling many phenomena of Russian life, and it gives Goncharov’s novel much more social significance than all our accusatory stories have” (262).

In the public consciousness, this transformation of the “superfluous man” into Oblomov has not yet taken place, Dobrolyubov points out, the process has only just begun. But this is where the great property and great significance of true art comes into force - to capture a progressive movement, an idea that has only just emerged and will be realized in the future. Having debunked, brought down the former hero from a high pedestal to Oblomov’s soft sofa, directly posing the question: what is he doing? What is the meaning and purpose of his life? - the artist, with the whole meaning of his work, raised the important question of what a modern hero should be.

True, the novel also reflected the limitations of the artist’s worldview: having been able to so deeply understand and so vitally show Oblomovism, he “could not, however, help but pay tribute to the general delusion, Oblomovism and the past, deciding to bury it.”

The image of Stolz, through whose mouth Goncharov buries Oblomovism and in whose person he wanted to show an active progressive hero, lacks persuasiveness, there are no typical life features in him. Dobrolyubov explains this by saying that the artist here is trying to pass off wishful thinking, running too far ahead of life, because such active, active heroes, whose thoughts immediately turn into action, do not yet exist among educated Russian society. Stolz cannot satisfy the reader from the point of view of his social ideals. In his practical practicality, he is narrow, he does not need anything except his own happiness, he “calmed down from all the aspirations and needs that overwhelmed even Oblomov.”

The critic sees a hint of a new Russian life, of an active Russian character in the image of Olga Ilyinskaya. Her naturalness, courage and simplicity, the harmony of her mind and heart are so far manifested only in the area of ​​feeling, in active love. She tries to bring Oblomov out of his slumber, to revive him morally, and when she is convinced of his complete passivity, she decisively and directly rejects Oblomov’s sleepy kingdom. She is constantly worried about some questions and doubts, she strives for something, although she does not yet know well what exactly. The author did not reveal these unrest to us in its entirety,” says the critic, “but there is no doubt that they are an echo of a new life, to which Olga is “incomparably closer to Stolz.”

Dobrolyubov also sees traits of the new Russian character in the heroine of the novel “On the Eve” - Elena. The critic valued most of all the writer's ability to reveal thirst for activity in your heroine. This is not the activity itself, because Russian reality has not yet provided material for such an image; the result would not be a living person, but a dry scheme: Elena “would turn out to be a stranger to Russian society,” and the social significance of the image would be zero. Sami search, herself uncertainty The image of the heroine, her dissatisfaction with the present here are surprisingly truthful, they cannot but evoke deep thoughts in the reader and will play a much greater role in the active influence of literature on society than the image of an ideal hero, artificially “composed of the best traits developing in our society.”

Turgenev, an artist extremely sensitive to the burning issues of our time, under the influence of the natural course of social life, “to which the very thought and imagination of the author involuntarily obeyed,” saw that his former heroes - “superfluous people” could no longer serve as a positive ideal, and made an attempt show the leading hero of modern times - Insarov, a fighter for the liberation of his homeland from foreign enslavers. The greatness and holiness of the idea of ​​patriotism permeates Insarov’s entire being. Not an external command of duty, not a renunciation of oneself, as was the case with previous heroes. For Insarov, love for his homeland is life itself, and this cannot but captivate the reader.

And yet Dobrolyubov did not consider this image a complete artistic success: if in Stolz Goncharov depicted activity without ideals, then Insarov is an ideological hero without activity. He is not brought “face to face with the matter itself—with the parties, with the people, with someone else’s government, with his own like-minded people, with the enemy’s force” (464). True, says Dobrolyubov, this was not the author’s intention, and, judging by his previous works, he could not have shown such a hero. But the very possibility of creating epics of folk life and character public figuresela the critic saw precisely in the depiction of the struggle of the people, as well as the best representatives of an educated society who defend the people's interests. The new hero will bear little resemblance to the old, inactive one. And literature was faced with the task of finding ways to portray not only the new hero, but also the old ones - because their social role had changed, and from a progressive force they turned into a force inhibiting social development.

Belinsky wrote about Eugene Onegin: “You can do something only in society, on the basis of social needs indicated by reality itself, and not by theory. But what would Onegin do in a community with such wonderful neighbors, in the circle of such dear neighbors?” (V. G. Belinsky, Complete collected works, vol. XII, p. 101.). The very elevation of the hero above the environment was already a sign of his positivity and exclusivity. In modern times, such passive superiority was not enough. The motif of the suffering hero and his surrounding environment, which was so widespread in literature, could no longer satisfy the requirements of art itself.

In the article “Benevolence and Activity” (1860), devoted to the analysis of Pleshcheev’s stories, Dobrolyubov examines this issue in detail. The image of the environment is “a good and very strong motive for art,” he writes. But the writers have many omissions and abstractions here - if the hero’s suffering is depicted fully and in detail, then his relationship to the environment raises many questions: what does this hero achieve? What is the strength of the environment based on? What eats the hero and why does he allow himself to be eaten? And, having delved into the essence of the matter, the artist discovers that these heroes are vitally connected with the environment, have experienced its vicious influence: they are internally powerless, completely inactive. These heroes have no right to our sympathy. They cannot continue to be depicted with romantic pathos, in an aura of suffering. Such a hero, like the environment itself, is “a subject for the most merciless satire.” The critic considers the main advantage of Pleshcheev’s works to be precisely the author’s “negative, mocking attitude” towards the “platonic liberalism and nobility” of his heroes.

Future talented writers, says Dobrolyubov, “will give us heroes with healthier content.” These heroes grow in life itself, although they have not yet been defined in all their integrity and completeness. But the question about them has already been posed by reality itself, and the best writers have sensitively reflected this social need. Soon, very soon, real heroes will appear in Russian life and literature - revolutionary figures, Russian Insarovs, who will face a difficult and sacred task - the liberation of their homeland from internal Turks.

And a sure guarantee of this is that the traits of the new hero are manifested not only among the educated class, but in all strata of society, because the entire people's Russia is already rising against the old order.

Dobrolyubov highly appreciated the importance of Ostrovsky's realism and especially the image of Katerina from The Thunderstorm. The playwright was able to “very fully and comprehensively portray the essential aspects and requirements of Russian life,” to show the aspirations that had already awakened among the people. Moreover, here too the critic notes that Ostrovsky “found the essence of the general requirements of life at a time when they were hidden and expressed by very few and very weakly.”

The wild merchant world of tyrants, presented by Ostrovsky, as if in a drop of water, reflects the entire “dark kingdom” of autocratic-serf Russia, where arbitrariness reigns, “the powerless arbitrariness of some over others,” where individual rights are destroyed. But “life is no longer completely absorbed by their influence, but contains the makings of a more reasonable, legal, correct order of affairs.” And this is precisely what makes a satirical depiction of tyrants possible for the artist: they already evoke “laughter and contempt.”

In the depiction of the senseless influence of tyranny on family and social life, Dobrolyubov sees the basis of Ostrovsky’s comedy. The writer reveals to us that “this tyranny is powerless and decrepit in itself, that there is no moral power in it, but its influence is terrible in that, being itself senseless and without rights, it distorts common sense and the concept of law in all who come into contact with him" (348). However, the artist shows - and this is the revolutionary meaning and deep truth of his works - that the very intolerability of oppression gives rise to and strengthens the protest against unnatural relations, and this protest comes out, it can no longer be suppressed at its very inception. Thus, says Dobrolyubov, Ostrovsky expressed the idea that had matured in society about the illegality of tyranny, and most importantly, he created a strong, integral national character, which “has long demanded its implementation in literature,” which “corresponds to the new phase of national life.”

In the characters of positive heroes, according to Dobrolyubov, there should be organicity, integrity, simplicity, which are determined by the naturalness of their aspirations for a new life. He finds these traits in Olga and Elena. They manifested themselves with special, irresistible force in Katerina. And this is natural. Katerina's strength lies in her "complete opposition to all tyrant principles." Everything here is alien to her, her internally free nature requires will, happiness, and spaciousness of life. It is not abstract ideals and beliefs, but everyday facts of life, a powerless, materially dependent existence that makes her strive for something new. That is why her desire for freedom is so organic and so strong: freedom is more valuable to her than life. This is a heroic, courageous character; such people, if necessary, will endure the struggle, you can rely on them.

Katerina’s spontaneous, unconscious protest is much more valuable to Dobrolyubov than the “vivid speeches of high speakers of truth” who shout about their dedication, about “denial of themselves for a great idea”, and end up in complete humility before evil, because, they say, the fight against it "still too hopeless." In Katerina, the playwright was able to “create a person who serves as a representative of a great popular idea, without carrying great ideas either on his tongue or in his head, selflessly goes to the end in an unequal struggle and dies, without at all dooming himself to high selflessness.”

Dobrolyubov talks about the breadth of the writer’s worldview, which makes his works deeply popular. The measure of nationality is that it stands “in line with those natural aspirations that have already awakened among the people at the request of the modern order of affairs,” that he understood and expressed them fully and comprehensively. “The demands of law, legality, respect for man,” a protest against arbitrariness and tyranny—this is what the reader hears in Ostrovsky’s plays, this is what allowed Dobrolyubov, using the material of these plays, to show that the only way out of the darkness of the “dark kingdom” is a revolutionary struggle against all its foundations. The playwright himself did not think about the possibility of such revolutionary conclusions from his works; his worldview was not revolutionary.

Dobrolyubov dreams of the literature of the future, when artists will consciously preach advanced ideals: “The free transformation of the highest speculations into living images and, at the same time, full consciousness of the highest, general meaning in every, most private and random fact of life - this is the ideal , representing a complete fusion of science and poetry and has not yet been achieved by anyone" (309). Revolutionary-democratic criticism set as its task the struggle for such revolutionary literature.

The path of conscious service to the people, the revolution should lead to the further flourishing of art, because “when the general concepts of the artist are correct and are in complete harmony with his nature, then this harmony and unity are reflected in the work. Then reality is reflected in the work brighter and more vividly, and it can more easily lead a reasoning person to correct conclusions and, therefore, have more meaning for life" (309).

Roman "Oblomov". Since 1847, Goncharov had been pondering the horizons of a new novel: this thought is also palpable in the essays “Frigate Pallada,” where he pits a type of businesslike and practical Englishman against a Russian landowner living in patriarchal Oblomovka. And in “Ordinary History,” such a clash moved the plot. It is no coincidence that Goncharov once admitted that in Ordinary History, Oblomov and Precipice he sees not three novels, but one. The writer completed work on Oblomov in 1858 and published it in the first four issues of the journal Otechestvennye zapiski for 1859.

Dobrolyubov about the novel. "Oblomov" met with unanimous acclaim, but opinions about the meaning of the novel were sharply divided. N. A. Dobrolyubov in the article “What is Oblomovism?” I saw in Oblomov the crisis and collapse of old feudal Rus'. Ilya Ilyich Oblomov is “our indigenous folk type,” symbolizing laziness, inaction and stagnation of the entire feudal system of relations. He is the last in a row of “superfluous people” - the Onegins, Pechorins, Beltovs and Rudins. Like his older predecessors, Oblomov is infected with a fundamental contradiction between word and deed, dreaminess and practical worthlessness. But in Oblomov, the typical complex of the “superfluous man” is brought to a paradox, to its logical end, beyond which is the disintegration and death of man. Goncharov, according to Dobrolyubov, reveals the roots of Oblomov’s inaction more deeply than all his predecessors.

The novel reveals the complex relationship between slavery and lordship. “It is clear that Oblomov is not a stupid, apathetic nature,” writes Dobrolyubov. “But the vile habit of receiving satisfaction of his desires not from his own efforts, but from others, developed in him an apathetic immobility and plunged him into a pitiful state moral slavery. This slavery is so intertwined with Oblomov's lordship, so they mutually penetrate each other and are determined by one another, that it seems there is not the slightest possibility of drawing any kind of boundary between them... He is the slave of his serf Zakhar, and it is difficult to decide ", which of them is more submissive to the power of the other. At least - what Zakhar does not want, Ilya Ilyich cannot force him to do, and what Zakhar wants, he will do against the master’s will, and the master will submit..."

But that is why the servant Zakhar, in a certain sense, is a “master” over his master: Oblomov’s complete dependence on him makes it possible for Zakhar to sleep peacefully on his bed. The ideal of Ilya Ilyich’s existence - “idleness and peace” - is equally Zakhara’s longed-for dream. Both of them, master and servant, are children of Oblomovka.

“Just like one hut ended up on the cliff of a ravine, it has been hanging there since time immemorial, standing with one half in the air and supported by three poles. Three or four generations lived quietly and happily in it.” Since time immemorial, the manor house also had a gallery that had collapsed, and they had been planning to repair the porch for a long time, but it has not been repaired yet.

“No, Oblomovka is our direct homeland, its owners are our educators, its three hundred Zakharovs are always ready for our services,” concludes Dobrolyubov. “There is a significant part of Oblomov in each of us, and it is too early to write a funeral eulogy for us.”

“If I now see a landowner talking about the rights of humanity and the need for personal development, I know from his first words that this is Oblomov.

If I meet an official who complains about the complexity and burdensomeness of office work, he is Oblomov.

If I hear from an officer complaints about the tedium of parades and bold arguments about the uselessness of a quiet step, etc., I have no doubt that he is Oblomov.

When I read in magazines liberal outbursts against abuses and the joy that what we have long hoped and desired has finally been done, I think that everyone is writing this from Oblomovka.

When I am in a circle of educated people who ardently sympathize with the needs of humanity and for many years, with undiminished fervor, tell the same (and sometimes new) anecdotes about bribe-takers, about oppression, about lawlessness of all kinds, I involuntarily feel that I moved to old Oblomovka,” writes Dobrolyubov.

(*29) Druzhinin about the novel. This is how one point of view on Goncharov’s novel “Oblomov”, on the origins of the protagonist’s character, emerged and became stronger. But already among the first critical responses, a different, opposite assessment of the novel appeared. It belongs to the liberal critic A.V. Druzhinin, who wrote the article “Oblomov,” a novel by Goncharov.”

Druzhinin also believes that the character of Ilya Ilyich reflects the essential aspects of Russian life, that “Oblomov” was studied and recognized by a whole people, predominantly rich in Oblomovism.” But, according to Druzhinin, “in vain many people with overly practical aspirations are trying to despise Oblomov and even call his snail: this whole strict trial of the hero shows one superficial and fleeting pickiness. Oblomov is kind to all of us and deserves boundless love."

“The German writer Riehl said somewhere: woe to that political society where there are no and cannot be honest conservatives; imitating this aphorism, we will say: it is not good for that land where there are no kind and incapable of evil eccentrics like Oblomov.” What does Druzhinin see as the advantages of Oblomov and Oblomovism? “Oblomovism is disgusting if it stems from rottenness, hopelessness, corruption and evil stubbornness, but if its root lies simply in the immaturity of society and the skeptical hesitation of pure-hearted people in the face of practical disorder, which happens in all young countries, then being angry with it means the same thing why be angry with a child whose eyes are sticking together in the middle of an evening noisy conversation between adults..."

Druzhinsky’s approach to understanding Oblomov and Oblomovism did not become popular in the 19th century. Dobrolyubov's interpretation of the novel was enthusiastically accepted by the majority. However, as the perception of “Oblomov” deepened, revealing to the reader more and more facets of its content, the druzhinsky article began to attract attention. Already in Soviet times, M. M. Prishvin wrote in his diary: “Oblomov.” In this novel, Russian laziness is internally glorified and externally it is condemned by the depiction of dead-active people (Olga and Stolz). No “positive” activity in Russia can withstand Oblomov’s criticism: his peace is fraught with a demand for the highest value, for such activity, because of which it would be worth losing peace. This is a kind of Tolstoyan “not doing.” It cannot be otherwise in a country where any activity aimed at improving one’s existence is accompanied by a feeling of wrongness, and only activity in which the personal completely merges with the work for others can be opposed to Oblomov’s peace.”

The completeness and complexity of Oblomov's character. In the light of these diametrically opposed interpretations of Oblomov and Oblomovism, let us take a closer look at the text of the very complex and multi-layered content of Goncharov’s novel, in which the phenomena of life “revolve from all sides.” The first part of the novel is dedicated to one ordinary day in the life of Ilya Ilyich. This life is limited to the confines of one room in which Oblomov lies and sleeps. Externally, very little happens here. But the picture is full of movement. Firstly, the hero’s state of mind is constantly changing, the comic merges with the tragic, carelessness with internal torment and struggle, sleep and apathy with the awakening and play of feelings. Secondly, Goncharov, with plastic virtuosity, guesses in the household items surrounding Oblomov the character of their owner. Here he follows in the footsteps of Gogol. The author describes Oblomov's office in detail. All things show abandonment, traces of desolation: last year's newspaper is lying around, there is a layer of dust on the mirrors, if someone decided to dip a pen into an inkwell, a fly would fly out of it. The character of Ilya Ilyich is guessed even through his shoes, long, soft and wide. When the owner, without looking, lowered his feet from the bed to the floor, he certainly fell into them immediately. When in the second part of the novel Andrei Stolts tries to awaken the hero to an active life, confusion reigns in Oblomov’s soul, and the author conveys this through his discord with familiar things. “Now or never!”, “To be or not to be!” Oblomov started to get up from his chair, but didn’t immediately hit his shoe and sat down again.”

The image of the robe in the novel and the whole story of Ilya Ilyich’s relationship to it are also symbolic. Oblomov’s robe is special, oriental, “without the slightest hint of Europe.” He, like an obedient slave, obeys the slightest movement of his master’s body. When love for Olga Ilyinskaya temporarily awakens the hero to an active life, his determination is associated with the robe: “This means,” Oblomov thinks, “suddenly throwing off the wide robe not only from his shoulders, but also from his soul, from his mind...” But in At the moment of the decline of love, like an ominous omen, the threatening image of a robe flashes in the novel. Oblomov’s new owner, Agafya Matveevna Pshenitsyna, reports that she took the robe out of the closet and is going to wash and clean it.

(*31) The connection between Oblomov’s internal experiences and the things that belong to him creates a comic effect in the novel. Not anything significant, but shoes and a robe characterize his internal struggle. The hero's long-standing habit of the deceased Oblomov's life is revealed, his attachment to household things and dependence on them. But here Goncharov is not original. He picks up and develops the Gogolian technique of reifying man, known to us from Dead Souls. Let us recall, for example, the descriptions of the offices of Manilov and Sobakevich.

The peculiarity of Goncharov’s hero is that his character is in no way exhausted or limited by this. Along with the everyday environment, the action of the novel includes much broader connections that influence Ilya Ilyich. The very concept of the environment that shapes human character is expanded immensely by Goncharov. Already in the first part of the novel, Oblomov is not only a comic hero: behind the humorous episodes, other, deeply dramatic principles slip through. Goncharov uses the hero’s internal monologues, from which we learn that Oblomov is a living and complex person. He plunges into youthful memories, reproaches for a mediocre life are stirring in him. Oblomov is ashamed of his own lordship, as a person, he rises above him. The hero is faced with a painful question: “Why am I like this?” The answer to it is contained in the famous “Oblomov’s Dream”. The circumstances that influenced the character of Ilya Ilyich in childhood and youth are revealed here. The living, poetic picture of Oblomovka is part of the soul of the hero himself. It includes the Russian nobility, although Oblomovka is far from being limited to nobility. The concept of “Oblomovism” includes the entire patriarchal way of Russian life, not only with its negative, but also with its deeply poetic sides.

The broad and gentle character of Ilya Ilyich was influenced by Central Russian nature with the soft outlines of sloping hills, with the slow, leisurely flow of lowland rivers, which either spill into wide ponds, or rush in a fast thread, or crawl slightly over the pebbles, as if lost in thought. This nature, shunning the “wild and grandiose,” promises a person a calm and long-term life and an imperceptible, sleep-like death. Nature here, like an affectionate mother, takes care of the silence and measured tranquility of a person’s entire life. And at the same time, there is a special “mode” of peasant life with a rhythmic sequence of everyday life and holidays. And even thunderstorms are not terrible, but beneficial (*32) there: they “occur constantly at the same set time, almost never forgetting Ilya’s day, as if in order to support a well-known legend among the people.” There are no terrible storms or destruction in that region. The stamp of unhurried restraint also lies on the characters of people nurtured by Russian mother nature.

The creations of the people's poetic imagination match nature. “Then Oblomov dreamed of another time: on an endless winter evening he timidly clings to his nanny, and she whispers to him about some unknown side, where there are neither nights nor cold, where miracles happen, where rivers of honey and milk flow, where no one he doesn’t do anything all year round, and all he knows every day is that all the good fellows, such as Ilya Ilyich, and beauties are walking, no matter what a fairy tale can describe.”

Goncharov’s “Oblomovism” includes boundless love and affection, with which Ilya Ilyich has been surrounded and nurtured since childhood. “The mother showered him with passionate kisses,” looked “with greedy, caring eyes to see if his eyes were cloudy, if anything hurt, if he slept peacefully, if he woke up at night, if he tossed about in his sleep, if he had a fever.” .

This also includes the poetry of rural solitude, and pictures of generous Russian hospitality with a gigantic pie, and Homeric fun, and the beauty of peasant holidays to the sounds of the balalaika... It is not only slavery and lordship that shape the character of Ilya Ilyich. There is something in him from the fairy-tale Ivanushka, a wise sloth who distrusts everything calculating, active and offensive. Let others fuss, make plans, scurry and jostle, boss and servile others. And he lives calmly and carelessly, like the epic hero Ilya Muromets, he sits for thirty years and three years.

Here, in the modern St. Petersburg guise, “walking men” come to him, calling him on a journey across the sea of ​​\u200b\u200blife. And then we suddenly involuntarily feel that our sympathies are on the side of the “lazy” Ilya Ilyich. How does St. Petersburg life tempt Oblomov, where do his friends invite him? The capital's dandy Volkov promises him secular success, the official Sudbinsky - a bureaucratic career, the writer Penkin - vulgar literary denunciation.

“I’m stuck, dear friend, up to my ears,” Oblomov complains about the fate of the official Sudbinsky. “And he’s blind, and deaf, and dumb for everything else in the world. But he’ll come out into the public, and over time he’ll manage his affairs and grab ranks... And how little (*33) a person is needed here: his intelligence, his soul, his feelings - why is this?

“Where is the man here? Why is he fragmented and scattered?” Oblomov denounces the emptiness of Volkov’s social bustle. “...Yes, in ten places in one day - unfortunate!” - he concludes, “turning over on his back and rejoicing that he does not have such empty desires and thoughts, that he does not rush around, but lies here, maintaining his human dignity and his peace.”

In the life of business people, Oblomov does not see a field that meets the highest purpose of a person. So isn’t it better to remain an Oblomovite, but retain humanity and kindness of heart, than to be a vain careerist, an active Oblomov, callous and heartless? So Oblomov’s friend Andrei Stolts finally lifted the couch potato from the sofa, and Oblomov for some time indulges in the life into which Stolts plunges headlong.

“One day, returning from somewhere late, he especially rebelled against this fuss. - “For whole days,” Oblomov grumbled, putting on a robe, “you don’t take off your boots: your feet itch!” I don’t like this life of yours in St. Petersburg!” he continued, lying down on the sofa.

"Which one do you like?" - asked Stolz. - “Not like here.” - “What exactly didn’t you like here?” - “Everything, the eternal running around, the eternal game of trashy passions, especially greed, interrupting each other’s paths, gossip, gossip, clicking on each other, this looking from head to toe; if you listen to what they are talking about, you will feel dizzy, you will go crazy. It seems that you will go crazy. , people look so smart, with such dignity on their faces; all you hear is: “This one was given this, that one got the rent.” “For goodness sake, for what?” someone shouts. “This one lost yesterday in the club; he takes three hundred thousand!" Boredom, boredom, boredom!.. Where is the man here? Where is his integrity? Where did he hide, how did he exchange for every little thing? "

Oblomov lies on the sofa not only because as a master he can do nothing, but also because as a person he does not want to live at the expense of his moral dignity. His “doing nothing” is also perceived in the novel as a denial of bureaucracy, secular vanity and bourgeois businessmanship. Oblomov's laziness and inactivity are caused by his sharply negative and rightly skeptical attitude towards the life and interests of modern practically active people.

Andrey Stolts as the antipode of Oblomov. Oblomov is contrasted in the novel by Andrei Stolts. Initially, he was thought of by Goncharov as a positive hero, worthy of Oblomov’s antipode. The author dreamed that over time many “Stoltsevs will appear under Russian names.” He tried to combine in Stolz German hard work, prudence and punctuality with Russian dreaminess and gentleness, with philosophical thoughts about the high destiny of man. Stolz's father is a businesslike burgher, and his mother is a Russian noblewoman. But Goncharov failed to synthesize German practicality and Russian spiritual breadth. The positive qualities coming from the mother are only declared in Stolz: they never entered the flesh of the artistic image. In Stolz, the mind prevails over the heart. This is a rational nature, subordinating even the most intimate feelings to logical control and distrusting the poetry of free feelings and passions. Unlike Oblomov, Stolz is an energetic, active person. But what is the content of his activity? What ideals inspire Stolz to work hard and constantly? As the novel develops, the reader becomes convinced that the hero does not have any broad ideals, that his practice is aimed at personal success and bourgeois comfort.

Oblomov and Olga Ilyinskaya. And at the same time, behind the Russian type of bourgeois, the image of Mephistopheles can be seen in Stolz. Like Mephistopheles to Faust, Stolz, in the form of temptation, “slips” Olga Ilyinskaya to Oblomov. Even before she meets Oblomov, Stolz negotiates the terms of such a “prank.” Olga is given the task of lifting the couch potato Oblomov from his bed and dragging him into the big world. If Oblomov’s feelings for Olga are sincere and unartificial, then in Olga’s feelings we can sense a consistent calculation. Even in moments of enthusiasm, she does not forget about her high mission: “she liked this role of a guiding star, a ray of light that she would pour over a stagnant lake and be reflected in it.” It turns out that Olga loves in Oblomov not Oblomov himself, but her own reflection. For her, Oblomov is “some kind of Galatea, with whom she herself had to be Pygmalion.” But what does Olga offer Oblomov in exchange for him lying on the sofa? What light, what radiant ideal? Alas, the program for Oblomov’s awakening in Olga’s clever head is completely exhausted by Stoltsev’s horizon: read newspapers, bother about organizing the estate, go to the order. Everything is the same as what Oblomov and Stolz advise: “...Choose a small circle of activity for yourself, set up a village, tinker with the peasants, get involved in their affairs, (*35) build, plant - all this you must and can do.” This minimum for Stolz and Olga, whom he raised, is the maximum. Is this why, having flared up brightly, the love of Oblomov and Olga quickly fades?

As the Russian poet of the early 20th century I. F. Annensky wrote, “Olga is a moderate, balanced missionary. She does not have a desire to suffer, but a sense of duty... Her mission is modest - to awaken a sleeping soul. She fell in love not with Oblomov, but with The timid and gentle Oblomov, who treated her so obediently and so bashfully, loved her so simply, was only a convenient object for her girlish dreams and games of love.

But Olga is a girl with a large supply of common sense, independence and will, most importantly. Oblomov is the first, of course, to understand the chimerical nature of their romance, but she is the first to break it off.

One critic laughed evilly at both Olga and the end of the novel: good, they say, is love that burst like a soap bubble because the lazy groom did not get his act together.

This ending seems very natural to me. The harmony of the novel ended a long time ago, and it may have flashed for only two moments in Casta diva *, in the lilac branch; Both Olga and Oblomov are going through a difficult inner life, but completely independently of each other; in a joint relationship there is boring prose, when Oblomov is sent either for double stars or for theater tickets, and he, groaning, bears the yoke of an affair.

Some nonsense was needed to cut off these very thin threads."

Olga’s head-like, rational-experimental love is contrasted with Agafya Matveevna Pshenitsyna’s spiritual-heartfelt love, not controlled by any external idea. Under the cozy roof of her home, Oblomov finds the desired peace.

The dignity of Ilya Ilyich lies in the fact that he is devoid of self-satisfaction and is aware of his spiritual decline: “I began to fade away over writing papers in the office; then I died out, reading truths in books that I didn’t know what to do with in life, I died out with my friends, listening to talk, gossip, mimicry... Either I didn’t understand this life, or it’s no good, and I didn’t know anything better, I didn’t see anything, no one showed it to me... yes, I’m flabby, decrepit, (*36) a worn-out caftan, but not from the climate, not from work, but from the fact that for twelve years the light was locked inside me, which was looking for a way out, but only burned its prison, did not break free and went out.”

When Olga, in the scene of the last date, declares to Oblomov that she loved in him what Stolz pointed out to her, and reproaches Ilya Ilyich for his dovelike meekness and tenderness, Oblomov’s legs give way. “In response, he smiled somehow pitifully, painfully bashful, like a beggar who was reproached for his nakedness. He sat with this smile of powerlessness, weakened by excitement and resentment; his extinct look clearly said: “Yes, I am meager, pitiful, poor.” ... hit me, hit me!..”

“Why doesn’t his passivity produce on us either the impression of bitterness or the impression of shame?” I. F. Annensky, who had a keen sense of Oblomov, asked the question and answered it like this. “Look at what is opposed to Oblomov’s laziness: career, social vanity, petty litigiousness or cultural - Stolz's commercial activities. Isn't it possible to sense in Oblomov's robe and sofa the denial of all these attempts to resolve the question of life?"

At the end of the novel, not only Oblomov fades away. Surrounded by bourgeois comfort, Olga begins to increasingly experience acute attacks of sadness and melancholy. She is troubled by eternal questions about the meaning of life, about the purpose of human existence. And what does the wingless Stolz say to her in response to all her worries? “You and I are not titans... we will not go with the Manfreds and Fausts into a daring fight against rebellious issues, we will not accept their challenge, bow our heads and humbly endure a difficult moment...” Before us, in essence, is the worst version of Oblomovism, because in Stolz she is stupid and smug.

Historical and philosophical meaning of the novel. In the conflict between Oblomov and Stolz, another, historical and philosophical meaning shines through behind social and moral problems. In the novel, sadly funny Oblomov challenges modern civilization with its idea of ​​historical progress. “And history itself,” he says, “only plunges you into melancholy: you teach, you read that a time of disaster has come, a person is unhappy; now he gathers his strength, works, struggles, endures and labors terribly, everything is preparing clear days. they came - here at least history itself could rest: no, the clouds appeared again, the building collapsed again, work and chaos again... The clear days will not stop, they run - and life continues to flow, everything flows, everything breaks and breaks.”

(*37) Oblomov is ready to leave the vain circle of history. He dreams that people will finally calm down and calm down, give up the pursuit of illusory comfort, stop playing technical games, leave big cities and return to the village world, to a simple, unpretentious life, fused with the rhythms of the surrounding nature. Here Goncharov’s hero in some ways anticipates the thoughts of the late L.N. Tolstoy, who denied technical progress and called people to simplify and renounce the excesses of civilization.

Novel "Break". Goncharov continued his search for ways of organic development of Russia, removing the extremes of patriarchy and bourgeois progress, in his last novel, “The Precipice.” It was conceived back in 1858, but the work lasted, as always, for a whole decade, and the “Cliff” was completed in 1868. As the revolutionary movement develops in Russia, Goncharov becomes an increasingly determined opponent of drastic social changes. This affects the change in the concept of the novel. It was originally called "The Artist". In the main character, the artist Raisky, the writer thought to show Oblomov awakening to an active life. The main conflict of the work was still built on the collision of the old, patriarchal-serf Russia with the new, active and practical, but it was resolved in the original plan by the triumph of young Russia.

Accordingly, the character of Raisky’s grandmother sharply emphasized the despotic habits of the old landowner-serf. Democrat Mark Volokhov was considered a hero exiled to Siberia for his revolutionary beliefs. And the central heroine of the novel, proud and independent Vera, broke with “grandmother’s truth” and left after her beloved Volokhov.

A lot changed while working on the novel. The character of grandmother Tatyana Markovna Berezhkova increasingly emphasized positive moral values ​​that keep life on safe “shores.” And in the behavior of the young heroes of the novel, “falls” and “precipices” increased. The title of the novel also changed: the neutral one - “The Artist” - was replaced by the dramatic one - “The Cliff”.

Life has also brought significant changes to the poetics of Goncharov’s novel. Compared to Oblomov, Goncharov now uses the confession of the characters, their internal monologue, much more often. The narrative form has also become more complex. An intermediary (*37) appeared between the author and the heroes of the novel - the artist Raisky. This is a fickle person, an amateur, often changing his artistic preferences. He is a little bit of a musician and painter, and a little bit of a sculptor and writer. The lordly, Oblomov element is tenacious in him, preventing the hero from surrendering to life deeply, for a long time and seriously. All events, all people passing through the novel are passed through the prism of the perception of this changeable person. As a result, life is illuminated from a wide variety of angles: either through the eyes of a painter, or through the unsteady musical sensations elusive by plastic art, or through the eyes of a sculptor or a writer who has conceived a great novel. Through the intermediary Raisky, Goncharov achieves in “The Cliff” an extremely voluminous and vibrant artistic image, illuminating objects and phenomena “from all sides.”

If in Goncharov’s past novels there was one hero at the center, and the plot focused on revealing his character, then in “The Precipice” this sense of purpose disappears. There are many storylines and corresponding characters. The mythological subtext of Goncharov’s realism is also intensified in “The Precipice.” There is a growing desire to elevate fleeting momentary phenomena to fundamental and eternal ones. life fundamentals. Goncharov was generally convinced that life, with all its mobility, maintains unchanged foundations. Both in the old and in the new times, these foundations do not diminish, but remain unshakable. Thanks to them, life does not die or be destroyed, but remains and develops.

The living characters of people, as well as the conflicts between them, are directly traced back to mythological foundations, both Russian, national, and biblical, universal. The grandmother is both a woman of the 40s and 60s, but at the same time she is also patriarchal Russia with its stable, centuries-worn moral values, the same for both the noble estate and the peasant hut. Vera is also an emancipated girl of the 40s-60s with an independent character and a proud rebellion against the authority of her grandmother. But this is young Russia in all eras and all times, with its love of freedom and rebellion, with its bringing everything to the last, extreme line. And for love drama Faith with Mark raises the ancient tales of the prodigal son and fallen daughter. In the character of Volokhov, the anarchic, Buslaevsky beginning is clearly expressed.

Mark offering Vera an apple from his grandmother’s “paradise” garden is an allusion to the devilish temptation of the biblical heroes Adam and Eve. And when Raisky wants to breathe life (*39) and passion into the outwardly beautiful, but cold as a statue cousin Sofya Belovodova, he is resurrected in the reader’s mind ancient legend about the sculptor Pygmalion and the beautiful Galatea brought to life from marble.

“It has long been noticed that all the heroes of the most wonderful Russian stories and novels suffer because they do not see a goal in life and do not find decent activities for themselves. As a result, they feel boredom and disgust from every business, in which they present a striking similarity with Oblomov, writes N. A. Dobrolyubov. “Indeed, open, for example, “Onegin”, “Hero of Our Time”, “Who is to Blame?”, “Rudina”... - in each of them you will find features almost literally similar to those of Oblomov.”

So Dobrolyubov in the article “What is Oblomovism?” put the hero of the novel I. A. Goncharov on a par with those who are called “superfluous people.” True, the critic is not trying to prove that Oblomov belongs to the “superfluous people.” The hero himself admitted this: “I have parted with the world where you are drawing me,” he says to Stoltz at the last meeting, “I have parted forever; You can’t solder, you can’t make two broken halves.” Dobrolyubov, pointing out the kinship of the heroes in their upbringing, in their attitude to society, to work, science and women, comes to the conclusion that they are all united by one feature - Oblomovism. “What all these people have in common is that in life they have no business that would be a vital necessity, a sacred thing of the heart, a religion that would organically grow together with them, so to take them away from him would mean to deprive them of life.”

What is Oblomov’s place in this gallery of “superfluous” but not the worst people of his time? It looks like it's the latter. Firstly, by the time of appearance. Thirty years passed from the appearance of Onegin to Oblomov. If Onegin and Pechorin did not find application for their aspirations, then they are justified by the fact that they were in many ways ahead of their time, the possibility of their activity was limited by objective historical conditions. Oblomov is a man of new times, “when the time for public work comes urgently.” But Ilya Ilyich turned out to be unsuitable not only for “social work.” He is not able to do anything for personal benefit, for his own happiness. Before him is a wide field of activity. Stolz and Olga are ready to help him, they call him to follow them into a new life.|But Oblomov fell behind his time, he remained forever in old Oblomovka. And no one can get him out of there! Of all the extra people, Ilya Ilyich is the weakest in character. He is lethargic, apathetic, lazy. But he does not hide his shortcomings, although he is ashamed of them. Oblomov, like his literary brethren, has his own philosophy that justifies him in his own eyes. In some ways he is truly higher than the people around him, deeper, more honest. He is proud that he “does not fragment” and “does not fall apart,” “does not rush around,” obtaining ranks and satisfying someone’s desires. He “lies here, maintaining his human dignity.” Oblomov seems to be aware of his place in the gallery of superfluous people: he is the last of the Mohicans and his mission is to preserve, as in a safe, the best features of the Russian nobility, everything that remains of the Onegins, Pechorins, Rudins. And he, as a true guardian, remains true to himself until his death.

Then other people will come: energetic, confident, enterprising and obsessed. There will also be some good people among them (Stolz, for example). But they have their own values, different ideals, a different era.

And behind Oblomov the door slammed to the era of the Russian nobility, to the gallery of its best, but “superfluous people.”