Realistic literature. Realism as an artistic movement

Realism is a movement in literature and art that truthfully and realistically depicts typical features reality, in which there are no various distortions and exaggerations. This direction followed romanticism, and was the predecessor of symbolism.

This trend originated in the 30s of the 19th century and reached its peak in the middle of it. His followers sharply denied the use of any sophisticated techniques, mystical trends or idealization of characters in literary works. The main feature of this direction in literature is the artistic representation of real life with the help of ordinary and familiar images to readers, which for them are part of their everyday life (relatives, neighbors or acquaintances).

(Alexey Yakovlevich Voloskov "At the tea table")

The works of realist writers are distinguished by a life-affirming beginning, even if their plot is characterized by a tragic conflict. One of the main features of this genre is the authors’ attempt to consider the surrounding reality in its development, to discover and describe new psychological, public and social relations.

Having replaced romanticism, realism has the characteristic features of an art that strives to find truth and justice, and wants to change the world for the better. The main characters in the works of realist authors make their discoveries and conclusions after much thought and deep introspection.

(Zhuravlev Firs Sergeevich "Before the Crown")

Critical realism developed almost simultaneously in Russia and Europe (approximately 30-40s of the 19th century) and soon emerged as the leading trend in literature and art throughout the world.

In France, literary realism is primarily associated with the names of Balzac and Stendhal, in Russia with Pushkin and Gogol, in Germany with the names of Heine and Buchner. They all experience in their literary creativity the inevitable influence of romanticism, but gradually move away from it, abandon the idealization of reality and move on to depicting a broader social background, where the life of the main characters takes place.

Realism in Russian literature of the 19th century

The main founder of Russian realism in the 19th century is Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin. In his works “The Captain's Daughter”, “Eugene Onegin”, “Belkin’s Tale”, “Boris Godunov”, “The Bronze Horseman”, he subtly captures and masterfully conveys the very essence of all important events in the life of Russian society, presented by his talented pen in all its diversity, colorfulness and inconsistency. Following Pushkin, many writers of that time came to the genre of realism, deepening the analysis of the emotional experiences of their heroes and depicting their complex inner world (“Hero of Our Time” by Lermontov, “The Inspector General” and “Dead Souls” by Gogol).

(Pavel Fedotov "The Picky Bride")

The tense socio-political situation in Russia during the reign of Nicholas I aroused keen interest in the life and fate of common people among progressive public figures of that time. This is noted in later works Pushkin, Lermontov and Gogol, as well as in the poetic lines of Alexei Koltsov and the works of the authors of the so-called “natural school”: I.S. Turgenev (cycle of stories “Notes of a Hunter”, stories “Fathers and Sons”, “Rudin”, “Asya”), F.M. Dostoevsky (“Poor People”, “Crime and Punishment”), A.I. Herzen (“The Thieving Magpie”, “Who is to Blame?”), I.A. Goncharova (“Ordinary History”, “Oblomov”), A.S. Griboyedov “Woe from Wit”, L.N. Tolstoy (“War and Peace”, “Anna Karenina”), A.P. Chekhov (stories and plays “The Cherry Orchard”, “Three Sisters”, “Uncle Vanya”).

Literary realism of the second half of the 19th century was called critical; the main task of his works was to highlight existing problems and address issues of interaction between man and the society in which he lives.

Realism in Russian literature of the 20th century

(Nikolai Petrovich Bogdanov-Belsky "Evening")

The turning point in the fate of Russian realism was the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, when this direction was experiencing a crisis and a new phenomenon in culture loudly declared itself - symbolism. Then a new updated aesthetics of Russian realism arose, in which History itself and its global processes were now considered the main environment shaping a person’s personality. The realism of the early 20th century revealed the complexity of the formation of a person’s personality, it was formed under the influence of not only social factors, history itself acted as the creator of typical circumstances, under the aggressive influence of which the main character fell.

(Boris Kustodiev "Portrait of D.F. Bogoslovsky")

There are four main trends in realism of the early twentieth century:

• Critical: continues the traditions of classical realism of the mid-19th century. The works focus on social nature phenomena (the works of A.P. Chekhov and L.N. Tolstoy);
• Socialist: displaying the historical and revolutionary development of real life, analyzing conflicts in conditions of class struggle, revealing the essence of the characters of the main characters and their actions committed for the benefit of others. (M. Gorky “Mother”, “The Life of Klim Samgin”, most works by Soviet authors).
• Mythological: display and rethinking of real life events through the prism of plots of famous myths and legends (L.N. Andreev “Judas Iscariot”);
• Naturalism: an extremely truthful, often unsightly, detailed depiction of reality (A.I. Kuprin “The Pit”, V.V. Veresaev “A Doctor’s Notes”).

Realism in foreign literature of the 19th-20th centuries

The initial stage of the formation of critical realism in European countries in the mid-19th century is associated with the works of Balzac, Stendhal, Beranger, Flaubert, and Maupassant. Merimee in France, Dickens, Thackeray, Bronte, Gaskell - England, the poetry of Heine and other revolutionary poets - Germany. In these countries, in the 30s of the 19th century, tension grew between two irreconcilable class enemies: the bourgeoisie and the labor movement, and a period of rise in various fields bourgeois culture, a number of discoveries take place in natural science and biology. In countries where a pre-revolutionary situation developed (France, Germany, Hungary), the doctrine of the scientific socialism of Marx and Engels arose and developed.

(Julien Dupre "Return from the Fields")

As a result of complex creative and theoretical polemics with the followers of romanticism, critical realists took for themselves the best progressive ideas and traditions: interesting historical topics, democracy, trends folklore, progressive critical pathos and humanistic ideals.

Realism of the early twentieth century, which survived the struggle of the best representatives of the “classics” of critical realism (Flaubert, Maupassant, France, Shaw, Rolland) with the trends of new non-realistic trends in literature and art (decadence, impressionism, naturalism, aestheticism, etc.) is acquiring new character traits. He turns to social phenomena real life, describes the social motivation of human character, reveals the psychology of personality, the fate of art. The modeling of artistic reality is based on philosophical ideas, the author's focus is primarily on the intellectually active perception of the work when reading it, and then on the emotional one. A classic example of an intellectual realistic novel is the works German writer Thomas Mann's "The Magic Mountain" and "Confession of the Adventurer Felix Krull", dramaturgy by Bertolt Brecht.

(Robert Kohler "Strike")

In the works of realist authors of the twentieth century, the dramatic line intensifies and deepens, there is more tragedy (creativity American writer Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby", "Tender is the Night"), a special interest in the inner world of man appears. Attempts to depict conscious and unconscious moments of a person’s life lead to the emergence of a new literary technique, close to modernism, called “stream of consciousness” (works by Anna Segers, W. Keppen, Yu. O’Neill). Naturalistic elements appear in the work of American realist writers such as Theodore Dreiser and John Steinbeck.

Realism of the 20th century has a bright, life-affirming color, faith in man and his strength, this is noticeable in the works of American realist writers William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, Jack London, Mark Twain. The works of Romain Rolland, John Galsworthy, Bernard Shaw, and Erich Maria Remarque were very popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Realism continues to exist as a trend in modern literature and is one of the most important forms of democratic culture.

Each literary direction characterized by its own characteristics, thanks to which it is remembered and distinguished as a separate species. This happened in the nineteenth century, when some changes took place in the writing world. People began to comprehend reality in a new way, to look at it from an absolutely different perspective. The peculiarities of 19th century literature lie, first of all, in the fact that now writers began to put forward ideas that formed the basis of the direction of realism.

What is realism

Realism appeared in Russian literature at the beginning of the nineteenth century, when a radical revolution took place in this world. The writers realized that previous trends, such as romanticism, did not satisfy the expectations of the population, since their judgments lacked common sense. Now they tried to depict on the pages of their novels and lyrical works the reality that reigned around, without any exaggeration. Their ideas were now of the most realistic character, which existed not only in Russian literature, but also in foreign literature for more than one decade.

Main features of realism

Realism was characterized by the following features:

• depiction of the world as it is, truthful and natural;
• at the center of the novels is a typical representative of society, with typical problems and interests;
• the emergence of a new way of understanding the surrounding reality - through realistic characters and situations.

Russian literature of the 19th century was of great interest to scientists, because through the analysis of works they were able to understand the very process in literature that existed at that time, as well as give it a scientific basis.

The emergence of the era of Realism

Realism was first created as a special form for expressing the processes of reality. This happened back in the days when such a movement as the Renaissance reigned in both literature and painting. During the Enlightenment, it was conceptualized in a significant way, and was fully formed at the very beginning of the nineteenth century. Literary scholars name two Russian writers who have long been recognized as the founders of realism. These are Pushkin and Gogol. Thanks to them, this direction was comprehended, received theoretical justification and significant distribution in the country. With their help, Russian literature of the 19th century received great development.

In literature there was now no sublime feelings that the direction of romanticism possessed. Now people were worried about everyday problems, how to resolve them, as well as the feelings of the main characters that overwhelmed them in a given situation. Features of the literature of the 19th century are the interest of all representatives of the direction of realism in the individual character traits of each individual person for consideration in a given life situation. As a rule, this is expressed in a clash between a person and society, when a person cannot accept and does not accept the rules and principles by which other people live. Sometimes in the center of the work there is a person with some internal conflict, which he is trying to cope with himself. Such conflicts are called personality conflicts, when a person understands that from now on he cannot live as he lived before, that he needs to do something to get joy and happiness.

Among the most important representatives of the movement of realism in Russian literature It is worth noting Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoevsky. World classics gave us such realist writers as Flaubert, Dickens and even Balzac.

» » Realism and features of 19th century literature

Realism (lat. realis- material, real) - a direction in art, whose figures strive to understand and depict the interaction of a person with his environment, and the concept of the latter includes both spiritual and material components.

The art of realism is based on the creation of characters, understood as the result of the influence of socio-historical events, individually interpreted by the artist, as a result of which a living, unique and at the same time bearing generic characteristics appears. artistic image. "The cardinal problem of realism is the relationship credibility and artistic truth. External resemblance The image with its prototypes is in fact not the only form of expression of truth for realism. More importantly, such similarity is not enough for true realism. Although verisimilitude is an important and most characteristic form of realization of artistic truth for realism, the latter is ultimately determined not by verisimilitude, but by fidelity in comprehension and transmission essence life, the significance of ideas, expressed by the artist". From the above it does not follow that realist writers do not use fiction at all - without fiction, artistic creativity is generally impossible. Fiction is already necessary when selecting facts, grouping them, highlighting some characters and briefly characterizing others, etc.

The chronological boundaries of the realistic movement are defined differently in the works of various researchers.

Some see the beginnings of realism in antiquity, others attribute its emergence to the Renaissance, others date back to the 18th century, and others believe that realism as a movement in art arose no earlier than the first third of the 19th century.

For the first time in Russian criticism, the term “realism” was used by P. Annenkov in 1849, however, without a detailed theoretical justification, and came into general use already in the 1860s. The French writers L. Duranty and Chanfleury were the first to attempt to comprehend the experience of Balzac and (in the field of painting) G. Courbet, giving their art the definition of “realistic”. “Realism” is the name of the journal published by Duranty in 1856–1857 and the collection of articles by Chanfleury (1857). However, their theory was largely contradictory and did not exhaust the complexity of the new artistic movement. What are the basic principles of the realistic movement in art?

Until the first third of the 19th century, literature created artistically one-sided images. In antiquity, this is the ideal world of gods and heroes and the limitedness of earthly existence opposed to it, the division of characters into “positive” and “negative” (echoes of such a gradation still make themselves felt in primitive aesthetic thinking). With some changes, this principle continues to exist in the Middle Ages, and during the period of classicism and romanticism. Only Shakespeare was far ahead of his time, creating “diverse and multifaceted characters” (A. Pushkin). It was in overcoming the one-sidedness of the image of a person and his social connections that the most important shift in aesthetics lay. European art. Writers are beginning to realize that the thoughts and actions of characters often cannot be dictated solely by the author’s will, since they depend on specific historical circumstances.

The organic religiosity of society, under the influence of the ideas of the Enlightenment, which proclaimed human reason as the supreme judge of all things, is being supplanted throughout the 19th century by a social model in which the place of God is gradually taken by supposedly omnipotent productive forces and class struggle. The process of forming such a worldview was long and complex, and its supporters, while declaratively rejecting the aesthetic achievements of previous generations, relied heavily on them in their artistic practice.

England and France at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries suffered especially many social upheavals, and the rapid change of political systems and psychological states allowed the artists of these countries to realize more clearly than others that each era leaves its own unique imprint on the feelings, thoughts and actions of people.

For writers and artists of the Renaissance and classicism, biblical or ancient characters were only mouthpieces for the ideas of modernity. No one was surprised that the apostles and prophets in painting XVII century were dressed in the fashion of this century. Only at the beginning of the 19th century did painters and writers begin to monitor the correspondence of all everyday details of the depicted time, coming to the understanding that both the psychology of the heroes of a long time and their actions cannot be completely adequate in the present. It was precisely in capturing the “spirit of the times” that the first achievement of art consisted early XIX centuries.

The founder of literature in which the course was interpreted historical development society, there was an English writer W. Scott. His merit is not so much in the accurate depiction of the details of the life of past times, but in the fact that, according to V. Belinsky, he gave “historical direction to the art of the 19th century” and depicted the individual and all-human as an indivisible common thing. W. Scott's heroes, involved in the epicenter of turbulent historical events, are endowed with memorable characters and at the same time are representatives of their class, with its social and national characteristics, although in general he perceives the world from a romantic position. The outstanding English novelist also managed to find in his work that line that reproduces the linguistic flavor of past years, but does not literally copy archaic speech.

Another discovery of the realists was the discovery of social contradictions caused not only by the passions or ideas of “heroes,” but also by the antagonistic aspirations of estates and classes. The Christian ideal dictated sympathy for the humiliated and disadvantaged. Realistic art is also based on this principle, but the main thing in realism is the study and analysis of social relations and the very structure of society. In other words, the main conflict in a realistic work lies in the struggle between “humanity” and “inhumanity,” which is determined by a number of social patterns.

The psychological content of human characters is also explained by social reasons. When depicting a plebeian who does not want to come to terms with the fate destined for him from birth ("Red and Black", 1831), Stendhal abandons romantic subjectivism and analyzes the psychology of the hero, seeking a place in the sun, mainly in the social aspect. Balzac in the cycle of novels and stories " Human Comedy" (1829–1848) sets the grandiose goal of recreating a multi-figured panorama of modern society in its various modifications. Approaching his task as a scientist describing a complex and dynamic phenomenon, the writer traces the destinies of individuals over a number of years, discovering significant adjustments that "the spirit of the times "introduces the original qualities of the characters. At the same time, Balzac focuses attention on those socio-psychological problems that remain almost unchanged, despite the change in political and economic formations (the power of money, the moral decline of an extraordinary personality who pursued success at any cost, the collapse of family ties, sealed by love and mutual respect, etc.) At the same time, Stendhal and Balzac reveal truly high feelings only among unnoticed honest workers.

The moral superiority of the poor over the “high society” is also proven in the novels of Charles Dickens. The writer was not at all inclined to portray the “big world” as a bunch of scoundrels and moral monsters. “But the whole evil is,” wrote Dickens, “that this pampered world lives, as in a jewel case... and therefore does not hear the noise of the larger worlds, does not see how they revolve around the sun. This is a dying world, and the creation it is painful, because there is nothing to breathe in it.” In the work of the English novelist, psychological authenticity, along with a somewhat sentimental resolution of conflicts, is combined with gentle humor, sometimes developing into harsh social satire. Dickens outlined the main pain points of contemporary capitalism (the impoverishment of workers, their ignorance, lawlessness and spiritual crisis tops). No wonder L. Tolstoy was sure: “Sift through the world’s prose, what remains is Dickens.”

The main inspiring force of realism are the ideas of individual freedom and universal social equality. Realist writers denounced everything that interferes with the free development of the individual, seeing the root of evil in the unjust structure of social and economic institutions.

At the same time, most writers believed in the inevitability of scientific and social progress, which would gradually destroy the oppression of man by man and reveal his initially positive inclinations. A similar mood is characteristic of European and Russian literature, especially the latter. Thus, Belinsky sincerely envied the “grandchildren and great-grandchildren” who would live in 1940. Dickens wrote in 1850: “We strive to bring from the seething world around us, under the roofs of countless houses, a tale of many social miracles - both beneficent and harmful, but such as do not detract from our conviction and perseverance, indulgence towards each other, fidelity to the progress of mankind and gratitude for the honor given to us to live at the summer dawn of time." N. Chernyshevsky in "What to do?" (1863) painted pictures of a wonderful future, when everyone will have the opportunity to become a harmonious person. Even Chekhov's heroes, who belong to an era in which social optimism has already noticeably diminished, believe that they will see “the sky in diamonds.”

And yet, first of all, the new direction in art focuses on criticism of existing orders. Realism of the 19th century in Russian literary criticism of the 1930s - early 1980s was usually called critical realism(definition proposed M. Gorky). However, this term does not cover all aspects of the phenomenon being defined, since, as already noted, realism XIX century was not at all devoid of affirming pathos. In addition, the definition of realism as predominantly critical “is not entirely accurate in the sense that, while emphasizing the specific historical significance of the work and its connection with the social tasks of the moment, it leaves in the shadows the philosophical content and universal significance of the masterpieces of realistic art.”

A person in realistic art, unlike romantic art, is not considered as an autonomously existing individual, interesting precisely because of his uniqueness. In realism, especially at the first stage of its development, it is important to demonstrate the impact on the individual social environment; at the same time, realist writers strive to depict the way of thoughts and feelings of characters changing over time ("Oblomov" and "Ordinary History" by I. Goncharov). Thus, along with historicism, the origins of which were W. Scott (transmission of the color of place and time and the awareness of the fact that the ancestors saw the world differently than the author himself), the rejection of staticism, the depiction of the inner world of characters depending on the conditions of their life and constituted the most important discoveries of realistic art.

No less significant for its time was the general movement towards the people of art. For the first time, the problem of nationality was raised by the romantics, who understood nationality as national identity, which was expressed in the transmission of customs, features of life and habits of the people. But Gogol already noticed that a truly folk poet remains so even when he looks at a “completely foreign world” through the eyes of his people (for example, England is depicted from the perspective of a Russian artisan from the provinces - “Lefty” by N. Leskov, 1883).

In Russian literature, the problem of nationality has played a particularly important role. This problem was substantiated in most detail in the works of Belinsky. Sample is authentic folk work the critic saw in Pushkin’s “Eugene Onegin”, where “folk” paintings as such take up little space, but the moral atmosphere in society of the first third of the 19th century was recreated.

By the middle of this century, nationality in the aesthetic program of most Russian writers became a central point in determining the social and artistic significance of a work. I. Turgenev, D. Grigorovich, A. Potekhin strive not only to reproduce and study various aspects of folk (i.e. peasant) life, but also directly address the people themselves. In the 60s, the same D. Grigorovich, V. Dal, V. Odoevsky, N. Shcherbina and many others published books for public reading, published magazines and brochures designed for people who had just started reading. As a rule, these attempts were not very successful, because cultural level the lower strata of society and its educated minority was too different, which is why writers looked at the peasant as " little brother", which should be taught intelligence. Only A. Pisemsky ("The Carpenter's Artel", "Piterschik", "Leshy" 1852–1855) and N. Uspensky (stories and short stories 1858–1860) were able to show the true peasant life in its pristine simplicity and roughness, but most writers preferred to glorify the people's "soul I live."

In the post-reform era, the people and “nationality” in Russian literature are turning into a kind of fetish. L. Tolstoy sees in Platon Karataev the concentration of all the best human qualities. Dostoevsky calls for learning worldly wisdom and spiritual sensitivity from the “muddle man.” People's life is idealized in the works of N. Zlatovratsky and other writers of the 1870s–1880s.

Gradually, nationality, understood as addressing problems folk life from the point of view of the people themselves, it becomes a dead canon, which nevertheless remained unshakable for many decades. Only I. Bunin and A. Chekhov allowed themselves to doubt the object of worship of more than one generation of Russian writers.

TO mid-19th century, another feature of realistic literature was determined - bias, that is, the expression of the moral and ideological position of the author. And before, artists one way or another revealed their attitude towards their heroes, but basically they didactically preached the harmfulness of universal human vices, regardless of the place and time of their manifestation. Realist writers make their social, moral and ideological predilections integral part artistic idea, gradually leading the reader to an understanding of his position.

Tendentiousness gives rise to a division in Russian literature into two antagonistic camps: for the first, the so-called revolutionary-democratic, the most important thing was criticism of the state system, the second demonstratively declared political indifference, proved the primacy of “artistry” over the “topic of the day” (“pure art”). The prevailing public mood - the dilapidation of the feudal system and its morality was obvious - and the active offensive actions of the revolutionary democrats formed in the public the idea of ​​those writers who did not agree with the need to immediately break all “foundations” as anti-patriots and obscurantists. In the 1860s–1870s" civil position"The writer was valued higher than his talent: this can be seen in the example of A. Pisemsky, P. Melnikov-Pechersky, N. Leskov, whose work was regarded negatively by revolutionary-democratic criticism or was hushed up.

This approach to art was formulated by Belinsky. “But I need poetry and artistry no more than enough for the story to be true...” he stated in a letter to V. Botkin in 1847. “The main thing is that it raises questions, makes a moral impression on society. If it achieves this goal and without poetry and creativity at all - for me it is nevertheless interesting..." Two decades later, this criterion became fundamental in revolutionary-democratic criticism (N. Chernyshevsky, N. Dobrolyubov, M. Antonovich, D. Pisarev). At the same time, general character criticism and all ideological struggle in general, with her fierce uncompromisingness and desire to “destroy” those who disagree. Another six or seven decades will pass, and in the era of dominance socialist realism this trend is being realized literally.

However, all this is still far ahead. In the meantime, new thinking is being developed in realism, a search is underway for new themes, images and style. The focus of realistic literature is alternately on the “little man,” “extra” and “new” people, folk types. "The Little Man" with his sorrows and joys, first appearing in the works of A. Pushkin (" Stationmaster") and N. Gogol ("The Overcoat"), for a long time became an object of sympathy in Russian literature. Social humiliation " little man" redeemed all the narrowness of his interests. The property of the "little man" barely outlined in "The Overcoat" under favorable circumstances to turn into a predator (at the end of the story a ghost appears, robbing any passer-by without regard to rank and condition) was noted only by F. Dostoevsky ("The Double" ) and A. Chekhov ("The Triumph of the Winner", "Two in One"), but in general remained unexplained in literature. Only in the 20th century did M. Bulgakov ("Heart of a Dog") devote an entire story to this problem.

Following the “little one,” the “superfluous person” came to Russian literature, the “smart uselessness” of Russian life, not yet ready to perceive new social and philosophical ideas (“Rudin” by I. Turgenev, “Who is to Blame?” by A. Herzen, “Hero” of our time" by M. Lermontov and others). “Superfluous people” have mentally outgrown their environment and time, but due to their upbringing and financial status they are not capable of everyday work and can only denounce self-righteous vulgarity.

As a result of thinking about the possibilities of the nation, a gallery of images of “new people” appears, most vividly presented in “Fathers and Sons” by I. Turgenev and “What is to be done?” N. Chernyshevsky. Characters of this type are presented as decisive subverters of outdated morality and government system and are an example of honest work and dedication to the “common cause.” These are, as their contemporaries called them, “nihilists,” whose authority among the younger generation was very high.

In contrast to works about “nihilists,” “anti-nihilistic” literature also appears. In works of both types, standard characters and situations are easily detected. In the first category, the hero thinks independently and provides himself with intellectual work, his bold speeches and actions make young people want to imitate authority, he is close to the masses and knows how to change their lives for the better, etc. In anti-nihilistic literature, “nihilists” " were usually portrayed as depraved and unscrupulous phrase-mongers who pursue their own narrowly selfish goals and crave power and worship; Traditionally, the connection between the “nihilists” and the “Polish rebels”, etc. has been noted.

There were not so many works about the “new people”, while among their opponents were such writers as F. Dostoevsky, L. Tolstoy, N. Leskov, A. Pisemsky, I. Goncharov, although it should be admitted that, for with the exception of "Demons" and "Precipice", their books do not belong to the best creations of these artists - and the reason for this is their pointed tendentiousness.

Deprived of the opportunity to openly discuss the pressing problems of our time in representative government institutions Russian society concentrates its intellectual life in literature and journalism. The writer’s word becomes very significant and often serves as an impetus for making vital decisions. The hero of Dostoevsky's novel "The Teenager" admits that he left for the village in order to make life easier for the men under the influence of "Anton the Miserable" by D. Grigorovich. The sewing workshops described in “What is to be done?” gave rise to many similar establishments in real life.

At the same time, it is noteworthy that Russian literature has practically not created the image of an active and energetic person, busy with specific work, but not thinking about a radical restructuring of the political system. Attempts in this direction (Kostanzhoglo and Murazov in " Dead souls ah", Stolz in "Oblomov") modern criticism were regarded as groundless. And if the “dark kingdom” of A. Ostrovsky aroused keen interest among the public and critics, then subsequently the playwright’s desire to paint portraits of entrepreneurs new formation there was no such response in society.

The solution in literature and art to the “cursed questions” of the time required a detailed justification of a whole complex of problems that could only be solved in prose (due to its ability to address political, philosophical, moral and aesthetic problems at the same time). In prose, primary attention is paid to the novel, this “epic of modern times” (V. Belinsky), a genre that made it possible to create broad and multifaceted pictures of the life of various social strata. The realistic novel turned out to be incompatible with the plot situations that had already turned into cliches, which were so readily exploited by the romantics - the mystery of the hero’s birth, fatal passions, extraordinary situations and exotic locales in which the will and courage of the hero are tested, etc.

Now writers are looking for plots in the everyday existence of ordinary people, which becomes the object of close study in all details (interior, clothing, professional activities, etc.). Since the authors strive to give the most objective picture of reality, the emotional author-narrator either goes into the shadows or uses the mask of one of the characters.

Poetry, which has receded into the background, is largely oriented towards prose: poets master some features of prosaic storytelling (civilism, plot, description of everyday details), as this was reflected, for example, in the poetry of I. Turgenev, N. Nekrasov, N. Ogarev.

Portraiture of realism also gravitates towards detailed description, as was also observed among the romantics, but now it carries a different psychological load. “Looking at facial features, the writer finds the “main idea” of the physiognomy and conveys it in all the completeness and universality of a person’s inner life. A realistic portrait, as a rule, is analytical, there is no artificiality in it; everything in it is natural and conditioned by character.” Wherein important role the so-called “material characteristics” of the character (costume, home decoration) play a role, also contributing to an in-depth disclosure of the psychology of the characters. These are the portraits of Sobakevich, Manilov, Plyushkin in “Dead Souls”. In the future, the listing of details is replaced by some detail that gives scope to the reader’s imagination, calling him to “co-authorship” when familiarizing himself with the work.

The depiction of everyday life leads to the abandonment of complex metaphorical structures and refined stylistics. All the big rights in literary speech conquers the vernacular, dialect and professional sayings, which among the classicists and romantics, as a rule, were used only to create a comic effect. In this regard, “Dead Souls”, “Notes of a Hunter” and a number of other works by Russian writers of the 1840s–1850s are indicative.

The development of realism in Russia proceeded at a very fast pace. In just less than two decades, Russian realism, starting with “physiological essays” of the 1840s, gave the world such writers as Gogol, Turgenev, Pisemsky, L. Tolstoy, Dostoevsky... Already in the middle of the 19th century, Russian literature became the focus of Russian social thoughts, going beyond the art of words among other arts. Literature “is imbued with moral and religious pathos, journalistic and philosophical, complicated by meaningful subtext; masters the “Aesopian language”, the spirit of opposition, protest; the burden of literature’s responsibility to society, and its liberating, analytical, generalizing mission in the context of the entire culture, becomes fundamentally different. Literature turns into self-forming cultural factor, and above all, this circumstance (that is, cultural synthesis, functional universality, etc.) ultimately determined the worldwide significance of Russian classics (and not its direct relationship to the revolutionary liberation movement, as Herzen, and after Lenin, almost all of them, tried to show Soviet criticism and the science of literature)".

Closely following the development of Russian literature, P. Merimee once said to Turgenev: “Your poetry seeks first of all the truth, and then beauty appears by itself.” Indeed, the main direction of Russian classics is represented by characters walking along the path of moral quest, tormented by the consciousness that they did not fully use the opportunities provided to them by nature. Such are Pushkin's Onegin, Lermontov's Pechorin, Pierre Bezukhov and L. Tolstoy's Levin, Turgenev's Rudin, such are Dostoevsky's heroes. “The hero, who gains moral self-determination on the paths given to man “from time immemorial,” and thereby enriches his empirical nature, is elevated by Russian classical writers to the ideal of a person involved in Christian ontologism.” Is it because the idea of ​​a social utopia at the beginning of the 20th century found such an effective response in Russian society because the Christian (specifically Russian) search for the “promised city”, transformed in the popular consciousness into a communist “bright future”, which is already visible over the horizon, had in Russia has such long and deep roots?

Abroad, the attraction to the ideal was much less pronounced, despite the fact that critical beginning sounded no less significant in literature. This is reflected in the general orientation of Protestantism, which considers success in business as fulfilling the will of God. The heroes of European writers suffer from injustice and vulgarity, but first of all they think about own happiness, while Turgenev's Rudin, Nekrasov's Grisha Dobrosklonov, Chernyshevsky's Rakhmetov are concerned not with personal success, but with general prosperity.

Moral problems in Russian literature are inseparable from political problems and, directly or indirectly, are associated with Christian dogmas. Russian writers often take on a role similar to the role of the Old Testament prophets - teachers of life (Gogol, Chernyshevsky, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy). “Russian artists,” wrote N. Berdyaev, “will have a thirst to move from the creativity of artistic works to the creativity of a perfect life. The religious-metaphysical and religious-social theme torments all significant Russian writers.”

The strengthening of the role of fiction in public life entails the development of criticism. And here the palm also belongs to Pushkin, who moved from taste and normative assessments to the discovery of general patterns of the contemporary literary process. Pushkin was the first to recognize the need for a new way of depicting reality, “true romanticism,” according to his definition. Belinsky was the first Russian critic who tried to create an integral historical and theoretical concept and periodization of Russian literature.

During the second half of the 19th century, it was the activity of critics (N. Chernyshevsky, N. Dobrolyubov, D. Pisarev, K. Aksakov, A. Druzhinin, A. Grigoriev, etc.) that contributed to the development of the theory of realism and the formation of domestic literary criticism (P. Annenkov, A. Pypin, A. Veselovsky, A. Potebnya, D. Ovsyaniko-Kulikovsky, etc.).

As is known, in art its main direction is paved by the achievements outstanding artists, whose discoveries are used by “ordinary talents” (V. Belinsky). Let us characterize the main milestones in the formation and development of Russian realistic art, the achievements of which made it possible to call the second half of the century “the century of Russian literature.”

At the origins of Russian realism are I. Krylov and A. Griboyedov. The great fabulist was the first in Russian literature to recreate the “Russian spirit” in his works. The lively colloquial speech of Krylov's fable characters, his thorough knowledge of folk life, and the use of popular common sense as a moral standard made Krylov the first truly “folk” writer. Griboedov expanded Krylov's sphere of interests, placing the center of attention on the “drama of ideas” that lived in educated society in the first quarter of the century. His Chatsky, in the fight against the “Old Believers,” defends national interests from the same positions of “common sense” and popular morality. Krylov and Griboyedov still use the dilapidated principles of classicism (the didactic genre of fables in Krylov, the “three unities” in “Woe from Wit”), but their creative power even within these outdated frameworks declares itself loudly.

In Pushkin’s work, the main problems, pathos, and methodology of realism have already been outlined. Pushkin was the first to depict the “superfluous man” in “Eugene Onegin,” he also outlined the character of the “little man” (“The Station Warden”), saw in the people the moral potential that determines national character ("Captain's daughter", "Dubrovsky"). Under the poet's pen, such a hero as Hermann first appeared (" Queen of Spades"), a fanatic obsessed with one idea and not stopping at any obstacles to implement it; Pushkin also touched on the theme of emptiness and insignificance of the upper strata of society.

All these problems and images were picked up and developed by Pushkin’s contemporaries and subsequent generations of writers. “Superfluous people” and their capabilities are analyzed in “Hero of Our Time”, and in “Dead Souls”, and in “Who is to Blame?” Herzen, and in “Rudin” by Turgenev, and in “Oblomov” by Goncharov, depending on time and circumstances, acquiring new features and colors. "The Little Man" is described by Gogol ("The Overcoat"), Dostoevsky (Poor People). Tyrant landowners and "sky-smokers" were portrayed by Gogol ("Dead Souls"), Turgenev ("Notes of a Hunter"), Saltykov-Shchedrin ("The Golovlev Gentlemen" "), Melnikov-Pechersky ("Old Years"), Leskov ("The Stupid Artist") and many others. Of course, such types were supplied by Russian reality itself, but it was Pushkin who identified them and developed the basic techniques for depicting them. And folk types in their relations between themselves and the masters arose in objective light precisely in the work of Pushkin, subsequently becoming the object of close study by Turgenev, Nekrasov, Pisemsky, L. Tolstoy, and populist writers.

Having passed the period of romantic depictions of unusual characters in exceptional circumstances, Pushkin opened for the reader the poetry of everyday life, in which the place of the hero was taken by an “ordinary”, “little” person.

Pushkin rarely describes the inner world of the characters; their psychology is more often revealed through actions or commented on by the author. The characters depicted are perceived as a result of the influence of the environment, but most often they are not given in development, but as a kind of already formed reality. The process of formation and transformation of the psychology of characters will be mastered in literature in the second half of the century.

Pushkin’s role is also great in developing norms and expanding the boundaries of literary speech. The colloquial element of language, which clearly manifested itself in the works of Krylov and Griboedov, still has not yet fully established its rights; it is not without reason that Pushkin called for learning the language from the Moscow breadwinners.

The simplicity and accuracy, the “transparency” of Pushkin’s style at first seemed to be a loss of the high aesthetic criteria of previous times. But later “the structure of Pushkin’s prose, its style-forming principles were adopted by the writers who followed him - with all the individual originality of each of them.”

It is necessary to note one more feature of Pushkin’s genius - his universalism. Poetry and prose, drama, journalism and historical studies - there was no genre in which he did not say a significant word. Subsequent generations artists, no matter how great their talent, still mainly gravitate towards one particular family.

The development of Russian realism was not, of course, a straightforward and unambiguous process, during which romanticism was consistently and inevitably replaced by realistic art. This can be seen especially clearly in the example of M. Lermontov’s work.

In his early works, Lermontov creates romantic images, coming to the conclusion in “A Hero of Our Time” that “the history of the human soul, at least most petty soul, almost more curious and not more useful than history of an entire people...". The object of close attention in the novel is not only the hero - Pechorin. With no less care, the author peers into the experiences of "ordinary" people (Maksim Maksimych, Grushnitsky). The method of studying Pechorin's psychology - confession - is associated with a romantic worldview , however, the author’s general focus on an objective portrayal of characters determines the constant comparison of Pechorin with other characters, which makes it possible to convincingly motivate those actions of the hero that would remain only declared for a romantic. different situations and in clashes with different people, Pechorin opens up from new sides every time, revealing strength and tenderness, determination and apathy, selflessness and selfishness... Pechorin, like romantic hero, experienced everything, lost faith in everything, but the author is not inclined to either blame or justify his hero - an unacceptable position for a romantic artist.

In "A Hero of Our Time" the dynamism of the plot, which would be quite appropriate in the adventure genre, is combined with deep psychological analysis. This is how Lermontov’s romantic attitude manifested itself here, as he embarked on the path of realism. And by creating “A Hero of Our Time,” the poet did not completely abandon the poetics of romanticism. The heroes of "Mtsyri" and "Demon", in essence, solve the same problems as Pechorin (achieving independence, freedom), only in the poems the experiment is carried out, as they say, in pure form. Almost everything is available to the demon, Mtsyri sacrifices everything for the sake of freedom, but the sad result of the desire for an absolute ideal in these works is already summed up by the realist artist.

Lermontov completed “...the process of eliminating genre boundaries in poetry, begun by G. R. Derzhavin and continued by Pushkin. poetic texts- “poems” in general, often synthesizing the features of different genres.”

And Gogol began as a romantic (“Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka”), however, even after “Dead Souls,” his most mature realistic creation, romantic situations and characters never cease to attract the writer (“Rome,” second edition of “Portrait”).

At the same time, Gogol refuses the romantic style. Like Pushkin, he prefers to convey the inner world of the characters not through their monologues or “confession.” Gogol's characters attest to themselves through actions or by means of “material” characteristics. Gogol's narrator plays the role of a commentator, allowing one to reveal shades of feelings or details of events. But the writer is not limited to only visible side what's happening. For him, what is hidden behind the outer shell – the “soul” – is much more important. True, Gogol, like Pushkin, mainly depicts already established characters.

Gogol marked the beginning of the revival of the religious and edifying trend in Russian literature. Already in romantic "Evenings" dark forces, demonism, retreat before kindness and religious fortitude. “Taras Bulba” is animated by the idea of ​​direct defense of Orthodoxy. And “Dead Souls,” populated by characters who neglected their spiritual development, were supposed, according to the author’s plan, to show the path to the revival of fallen man. The appointment of a writer in Russia for Gogol at the end of his creative path becomes inseparable from spiritual service to God and people, which cannot be limited only by material interests. Gogol’s “Reflections on the Divine Liturgy” and “Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends” were dictated by a sincere desire to educate oneself in the spirit of highly moral Christianity. However, it was the last book that even Gogol’s admirers perceived as a creative failure, since social progress, as many believed then, was incompatible with religious “prejudices.”

The writers of the “natural school” also did not accept this side of Gogol’s work, having assimilated only his critical pathos, which in Gogol serves to affirm the spiritual ideal. "Natural school" was limited only, so to speak, " material sphere"the interests of the writer.

And subsequently realistic direction in literature makes the main criterion of artistry the fidelity of the depiction of reality, reproduced “in the forms of life itself.” For its time, this was a huge achievement, since it made it possible to achieve such a degree of life-likeness in the art of words that literary characters begin to be perceived as really existing people and become an integral part of national and even world culture (Onegin, Pechorin, Khlestakov, Manilov, Oblomov, Tartarin, Madame Bovary, Mr. Dombey, Raskolnikov, etc.).

As already noted, the high degree of life-likeness in literature does not at all exclude fiction and science fiction. For example, Gogol’s famous story “The Overcoat”, from which, according to Dostoevsky, all Russian literature of the 19th century came, contains fantastic story ghost, terrifying on passers-by. Realism does not refuse the grotesque, symbol, allegory, etc., although all these visual arts do not determine the main tonality of the work. In those cases when the work is based on fantastic assumptions ("The History of a City" by M. Saltykov-Shchedrin), there is no place for the irrational principle, without which romanticism cannot do.

Focus on facts was a strong point of realism, but, as we know, “our shortcomings are a continuation of our advantages.” In the 1870–1890s, a movement called “naturalism” emerged within European realism. Under the influence of the success of the natural sciences and positivism (the philosophical teaching of O. Comte), writers want to achieve complete objectivity of the reproduced reality. “I don’t want, like Balzac, to decide what the system should be human life, to be a politician, a philosopher, a moralist... The picture I paint is a simple analysis of a piece of reality, such as it is,” said one of the ideologists of “naturalism,” E. Zola.

Despite internal contradictions, the group of French naturalist writers that formed around Zola (Br. E. and J. Goncourt, C. Huysmans, etc.) professed a common view of the task of art: depicting the inevitability and invincibility of rough social reality and cruel human instincts that everyone is drawn in the stormy and chaotic “stream of life” into the abyss of passions and actions unpredictable in their consequences.

Human psychology among “naturalists” is strictly determined by the environment. Hence the attention to the smallest details of everyday life, recorded with the dispassion of a camera, and at the same time the biological predestination of the characters’ fate is emphasized. In an effort to write “under the dictation of life,” naturalists tried to eradicate any manifestation of a subjective vision of the problems and objects of the image. At the same time, pictures of the most unattractive aspects of reality appear in their works. A writer, naturalists argued, like a doctor, has no right to ignore any phenomenon, no matter how disgusting it may be. With this attitude, the biological principle involuntarily began to look more important than the social one. The books of naturalists shocked adherents of traditional aesthetics, but nevertheless, later writers (S. Crane, F. Norris, G. Hauptmann, etc.) used individual discoveries of naturalism - primarily the expansion of the field of view of art.

In Russia, naturalism did not receive much development. We can only talk about some naturalistic tendencies in the works of A. Pisemsky and D. Mamin-Sibiryak. The only Russian writer who declaratively professed the principles of French naturalism was P. Boborykin.

Literature and journalism of the post-reform era gave rise to the conviction in the thinking part of Russian society that the revolutionary reorganization of society will immediately lead to the flourishing of all the best sides of the individual, since there will be no oppression and lies. Very few did not share this confidence, and first of all F. Dostoevsky.

The author of "Poor People" was aware that rejection of the norms of traditional morality and the covenants of Christianity would lead to anarchy and a bloody war of all against all. As a Christian, Dostoevsky knew that in every human soul the

God or the devil and it depends on everyone who he will give preference to. But the path to God is not easy. To get closer to him, you need to be imbued with the suffering of others. Without understanding and empathy for others, no one can become a full-fledged person. With all his work, Dostoevsky proved: “Man on the earth’s surface has no right to turn away and ignore what is happening on earth, and there are higher moral reasons for that."

Unlike his predecessors, Dostoevsky did not strive to capture established, typical forms of life and psychology, but to capture and identify emerging social conflicts and types. His works are always dominated by crisis situations and characters, outlined with large, sharp strokes. In his novels, the “dramas of ideas”, intellectual and psychological duels of characters are brought to the fore, and the individual is inseparable from the universal; behind a single fact there are “world issues”.

Discovering the loss of moral guidelines in modern society, powerlessness and fear of the individual in the grip of a spiritless reality, Dostoevsky did not believe that a person should capitulate to “external circumstances.” He, according to Dostoevsky, can and must overcome “chaos” - and then, as a result of the common efforts of everyone, “world harmony” will reign, based on overcoming unbelief, selfishness and anarchic self-will. A person who has embarked on the thorny road of self-improvement will face material deprivation, moral suffering, and misunderstanding of others (“Idiot”). The most difficult thing is not to become a “superman”, like Raskolnikov, and, seeing in others only a “rag”, to indulge any desire, but to learn to forgive and love, without demanding reward, like Prince Myshkin or Alyosha Karamazov.

Like no other leading artist of his time, Dostoevsky was close to the spirit of Christianity. In his work in various aspects the problem of the original sinfulness of man is analyzed ("Demons", "Teenager", "The Dream of a Funny Man", "The Brothers Karamazov"). According to the writer, the result of the original fall is world evil, which gives rise to one of the most acute social problems - the problem of fighting against God. “Atheistic expressions of unprecedented power” are contained in the images of Stavrogin, Versilov, Ivan Karamazov, but their throwings do not prove the victory of evil and pride. This is the path to God through His initial denial, proof of God's existence by contradiction. Dostoevsky's ideal hero must inevitably take as his model the life and teaching of the One who for the writer is the only moral guideline in a world of doubt and hesitation (Prince Myshkin, Alyosha Karamazov).

With the genius instinct of an artist, Dostoevsky felt that socialism, under whose banner many honest and smart people, is the result of the decline of religion ("Demons"). The writer predicted that humanity would face severe upheavals on the path of social progress, and directly connected them with the loss of faith and its replacement with socialist teachings. The depth of Dostoevsky’s insight was confirmed in the 20th century by S. Bulgakov, who already had reason to assert: “...Socialism today acts not only as a neutral area of ​​social policy, but, usually, also as a religion based on atheism and man-theology, on self-deification of man and human labor and on the recognition of the elemental forces of nature and social life as the only foundational principle of history." In the USSR all this was realized in practice. All means of propaganda and agitation, among which literature played one of the leading roles, introduced into the consciousness of the masses that the proletariat, always led by the leader and party who are right in any undertaking, and creative labor are forces called upon to transform the world and create a society of universal happiness (a kind of Kingdom of God on earth). The only thing Dostoevsky was wrong about was his assumption that the moral crisis and the spiritual and social cataclysms that followed it would break out primarily in Europe.

Along with the “eternal questions,” Dostoevsky the realist is also characterized by attention to the most ordinary and at the same time hidden from the mass consciousness facts of our time. Together with the author, these problems are given to the heroes of the writer’s works to solve, and comprehension of the truth is very difficult for them. The individual's struggle with the social environment and with himself determines the special polyphonic form of Dostoevsky's novels.

The author-narrator takes part in the action as an equal, or even a secondary character (“chronicler” in “Demons”). Dostoevsky's hero not only has an inner secret world that the reader has to know; he, according to M. Bakhtin’s definition, “most of all thinks about what others think and may think about him, he strives to get ahead of someone else’s consciousness, every other person’s thought about him, every point of view on him. With all his own moments of his confessions, he tries to anticipate a possible definition and assessment of him by others, to guess these possible other people’s words about him, interrupting his speech with imaginary someone else’s remarks.” Trying to guess other people's opinions and arguing with them in advance, Dostoevsky's heroes seem to bring to life their doubles, in whose speeches and actions the reader receives justification or denial of the characters' position (Raskolnikov - Luzhin and Svidrigailov in Crime and Punishment, Stavrogin - Shatov and Kirillov in "Demons").

The dramatic intensity of the action in Dostoevsky’s novels is also due to the fact that he brings events as close as possible to the “topic of the day,” sometimes drawing plots from newspaper articles. Almost always, in the center of Dostoevsky’s work there is a crime. However, behind the acute, almost detective story there is no desire to solve a tricky logical problem. The writer raises criminal events and motives to the level of capacious philosophical symbols ("Crime and Punishment", "Demons", "The Brothers Karamazov").

The setting of Dostoevsky’s novels is Russia, and often only its capital, and at the same time the writer received worldwide recognition, because for many decades to come he anticipated the general interest in global problems for the 20th century (“superman” and the rest of the masses, “man of the crowd” and state machine, faith and spiritual anarchy, etc.). The writer created a world populated by complex, contradictory characters, rich dramatic conflicts, for the solution of which there is not and cannot be simple recipes- one of the reasons that Soviet time Dostoevsky's work was either declared reactionary or kept silent.

Dostoevsky's work outlined the main direction of literature and culture of the 20th century. Dostoevsky inspired Z. Freud in many ways; A. Einstein, T. Mann, W. Faulkner, F. Fellini, A. Camus, Akutagawa and other outstanding thinkers and artists spoke about the enormous influence of the works of the Russian writer on them.

L. Tolstoy also made a huge contribution to the development of Russian literature. Already in his first story, “Childhood” (1852), which appeared in print, Tolstoy acted as an innovative artist.

His detailed and clear descriptions of everyday life are combined with a microanalysis of the complex and dynamic psychology of a child.

Tolstoy enjoys own method images of the human psyche, observing the “dialectics of the soul.” The writer strives to trace the development of character and does not emphasize its “positive” and “negative” sides. He argued that there was no point in talking about any "defining trait" of a character. “... In my life I have never met an evil, proud, kind or intelligent person. In humility I always find the suppressed desire of pride, in the smartest book I find stupidity, in the conversation of the stupidest person I find smart things, etc.” etc. etc."

The writer was sure that if people learn to understand the multi-layered thoughts and feelings of others, then most psychological and social conflicts will lose its edge. The task of a writer, according to Tolstoy, is to teach to understand another. And for this it is necessary that truth in all its manifestations become the hero of literature. This goal is already declared in “Sevastopol Stories” (1855–1856), which combines the documentary accuracy of what is depicted and the depth of psychological analysis.

The tendentiousness of art, propagated by Chernyshevsky and his supporters, turned out to be unacceptable for Tolstoy simply because the a priori idea was placed at the forefront of the work, determining the selection of facts and the angle of view. The writer almost demonstratively joins the camp of “pure art”, which rejects all “didactics”. But the position “above the fray” turned out to be unacceptable for him. In 1864, he wrote the play “The Infected Family” (it was not published and staged in the theater), in which he expressed his sharp rejection of “nihilism.” Subsequently, all of Tolstoy’s work was devoted to the overthrow of hypocritical bourgeois morality and social inequality, although he did not adhere to any specific political doctrine.

Already at the beginning of his creative career, having lost faith in the possibility of changing social orders, especially in a violent way, the writer seeks at least personal happiness in the family circle ("The Romance of a Russian Landowner", 1859), however, having constructed his ideal of a woman capable of self-sacrifice in the name of her husband and children, comes to the conclusion that this ideal is also unrealizable.

Tolstoy longed to find a model of life in which there would be no place for any artificiality, any falsehood. For a while, he believed that one could be happy among simple, undemanding people close to nature. You just need to completely share their way of life and be content with the little that forms the basis of a “correct” existence (free labor, love, duty, family ties - “Cossacks”, 1863). And Tolstoy strives in real life to be imbued with the interests of the people, but his direct contacts with the peasants and his work in the 1860s and 1870s reveal an ever-deepening gap between the peasant and the master.

Tolstoy tries to discover the meaning of modernity that eludes him by delving into the historical past, by returning to the sources of the national worldview. He came up with the idea of ​​a huge epic canvas, which would reflect and comprehend the most significant moments of the life of Russia. In “War and Peace” (1863–1869), Tolstoy’s characters painfully strive to comprehend the meaning of life and, together with the author, are imbued with the conviction that it is possible to comprehend the thoughts and feelings of people only at the cost of renouncing one’s own egoistic desires and gaining the experience of suffering. Some, like Andrei Bolkonsky, learn this truth before death; others - Pierre Bezukhov - find it, rejecting skepticism and defeating the power of the flesh with the power of reason, finding themselves in high love; the third - Platon Karataev - this truth is given from birth, since “simplicity” and “truth” are embodied in them. According to the author, Karataev’s life “as he himself looked at it, did not make sense as a separate life. It made sense only as a particle of the whole, which he constantly felt.” This moral position is illustrated by the example of Napoleon and Kutuzov. The gigantic will and passions of the French emperor give in to the actions of the Russian commander, devoid of external effect, for the latter expresses the will of the entire nation, united in the face of a terrible danger.

In his work and in life, Tolstoy strove for harmony of thought and feeling, which could be achieved with a universal understanding of individual particulars and the general picture of the universe. The path to such harmony is long and thorny, but it cannot be shortened. Tolstoy, like Dostoevsky, did not accept revolutionary teachings. Paying tribute to the selflessness of the faith of the “socialists,” the writer nevertheless saw salvation not in the revolutionary dismantling of the state structure, but in the unswerving adherence to the gospel commandments, no matter how simple, just as difficult to fulfill. He was sure that one cannot “invent life and demand its implementation.”

But Tolstoy’s restless soul and mind could not fully accept the Christian doctrine. At the end of the 19th century, the writer opposed the official church, which was in many ways akin to the state bureaucratic apparatus, and tried to correct Christianity, to create his own teaching, which, despite numerous followers ("Tolstoyism"), had no prospects in the future.

In his declining years, having become a “teacher of life” for millions in his fatherland and far beyond its borders, Tolstoy still constantly experienced doubts about his own righteousness. In only one thing was he unshakable: the custodian of the highest truth is the people, with their simplicity and naturalness. For the writer, the interest of the decadents in the dark and hidden twists of the human psyche meant a departure from art, which actively serves humanistic ideals. True, in the last years of his life, Tolstoy was inclined to think that art is a luxury that not everyone needs: first of all, society needs to comprehend the simplest moral truths, the strict observance of which would eliminate many “damned questions.”

And one more name cannot be avoided when talking about the evolution of Russian realism. This is A. Chekhov. He refuses to recognize the complete dependence of the individual on the environment. "Chekhov's dramatic conflict situations do not consist in opposition to volitional orientation different sides, but in objectively caused contradictions, against which the individual will is powerless." In other words, the writer is groping for those pain points of human nature that will later be explained by innate complexes, genetic programming, etc. Chekhov also refuses to explore the possibilities and desires of the "little man ", the object of his study is an “average” person in all respects. Like the characters of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, Chekhov’s heroes are also woven from contradictions; their thoughts also strive to know the Truth, but they do this poorly, and almost none of them thinks about God .

Chekov discovers new type personality generated by Russian reality - a type of honest but limited doctrinaire who firmly believes in the power of social “progress” and judges living life using social and literary templates (Doctor Lvov in “Ivanov”, Lida in “The House with a Mezzanine” and etc.). Such people talk a lot and willingly about duty and the need for honest work, about virtue, although it is clear that behind all their tirades there is a lack of genuine feeling - their tireless activity is akin to mechanical.

Those characters with whom Chekhov sympathizes do not like loud words and meaningful gestures, even if they are experiencing genuine drama. The tragic in the writer's understanding is not something exceptional. In modern times it is everyday and commonplace. A person gets used to the fact that there is no other life and cannot be, and this, according to Chekhov, is the most terrible social ailment. At the same time, the tragic in Chekhov is inseparable from the funny, satire is fused with lyricism, vulgarity is adjacent to the sublime, as a result of which an “undercurrent” appears in Chekhov’s works; the subtext becomes no less significant than the text.

When dealing with the “little things” of life, Chekhov gravitates towards an almost plotless narrative (“Ionych”, “The Steppe”, “The Cherry Orchard”), towards the imaginary incompleteness of the action. The center of gravity in his works is transferred to the story of the spiritual hardening of the character ("Gooseberry", "Man in a Case") or, on the contrary, his awakening ("The Bride", "Duel").

Chekhov invites the reader to empathy, not expressing everything that the author knows, but pointing to the direction of the “search” only with individual details, which in his work often increase to symbols (a killed bird in “The Seagull”, a berry in “Gooseberry”). “Both symbols and subtext, combining opposing aesthetic properties (a concrete image and an abstract generalization, a real text and an “internal” thought in the subtext), reflect the general tendency of realism, which intensified in Chekhov’s work, towards the interpenetration of heterogeneous artistic elements.”

TO end of the 19th century century, Russian literature has accumulated enormous aesthetic and ethical experience, which has won worldwide recognition. And yet, to many writers this experience already seemed deadened. Some (V. Korolenko, M. Gorky) gravitate toward the fusion of realism with romance, others (K. Balmont, F. Sologub, V. Bryusov, etc.) believe that “copying” reality has become obsolete.

The loss of clear criteria in aesthetics is accompanied by a “crisis of consciousness” in philosophical and social spheres. D. Merezhkovsky in the brochure “On the Causes of Decline and New Trends in Modern Russian Literature” (1893) comes to the conclusion that the crisis state of Russian literature is due to excessive enthusiasm for the ideals of revolutionary democracy, which requires art, first of all, to have civic acuity. The obvious failure of the sixties behests gave rise to public pessimism and a tendency toward individualism. Merezhkovsky wrote: “The newest theory of knowledge has erected an indestructible dam, which forever separated the solid earth, accessible to people, from the boundless and dark ocean that lies beyond the boundaries of our knowledge. And the waves of this ocean can no longer invade the inhabited earth, the region of exact knowledge. .. Never before has the border line of science and faith been so sharp and inexorable... Wherever we go, no matter how we hide behind the dam of scientific criticism, with our whole being we feel the closeness of mystery, the closeness of the ocean. No barriers! We are free and alone! No enslaved mysticism of past centuries can compare with this horror. Never before have people so felt the need to believe and so understood with reason the impossibility of believing." L. Tolstoy also spoke about the crisis of art in a somewhat different way: “Literature was a blank sheet, but now it is all covered with writing. We need to turn it over or get another one.”

Realism, which had reached its peak of flowering, seemed to many to have finally exhausted its possibilities. Symbolism, which originated in France, claimed a new word in art.

Russian symbolism, like all previous movements in art, dissociated itself from old tradition. And yet, the Russian symbolists grew up on the soil prepared by such giants as Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy and Chekhov, and could not ignore their experience and artistic discoveries. "...Symbolic prose actively involved the ideas, themes, images, techniques of the great Russian realists into its own artistic world, forming with this constant comparison one of the defining properties symbolic art and thereby giving many topics a realistic literature of the 19th century century, a second reflected life in the art of the 20th century." And later, “critical” realism, which was declared abolished in Soviet times, continued to nourish the aesthetics of L. Leonov, M. Sholokhov, V. Grossman, V. Belov, V. Rasputin, F. Abramov and many other writers.

Bulgakov S. Early Christianity and modern socialism. Two hail. M., 1911.T. P.S. 36.

Skaftymov A. P. Articles about Russian literature. Saratov, 1958. P. 330.

Development of realism in Russian literature. T. 3. P. 106.

Development of realism in Russian literature. T. 3. P. 246.

Presentation on the topic "Realism as a trend in literature and art" on literature in powerpoint format. A voluminous presentation for schoolchildren contains information about the principles, features, forms, and stages of development of realism as a literary movement.

Fragments from the presentation

Literary methods, directions, trends

• Artistic method- this is the principle of selection of phenomena of reality, the features of their assessment and the originality of their artistic embodiment.
• Literary direction- this is a method that becomes dominant and acquires more specific features associated with the characteristics of the era and trends in culture.
• Literary movement- manifestation of ideological and thematic unity, homogeneity of plots, characters, language in the works of several writers of the same era.
• Literary methods, directions and movements: classicism, sentimentalism, romanticism, realism, modernism (symbolism, acmeism, futurism)

• Realism- a direction of literature and art that arose in the 18th century, reaching comprehensive development and flourishing in critical realism 19th century and continues to develop in struggle and interaction with other directions in the 20th century (up to the present).
• Realism- a truthful, objective reflection of reality using specific means inherent in a particular type of artistic creativity.

Principles of realism

1. Typification of the facts of reality, i.e., according to Engels, “in addition to the truthfulness of details, truthful reproduction typical characters under typical circumstances."
2. Showing life in development and contradictions, which are primarily of a social nature.
3. The desire to reveal the essence of life phenomena without limiting topics and plots.
4. Aspiration towards moral quest and educational influence.

The most prominent representatives of realism in Russian literature:

A.N. Ostrovsky, I.S. Turgenev, I.A. Goncharov, M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, L.N. Tolstoy, F.M. Dostoevsky, A.P. Chekhov, M. Gorky, I. Bunin, V. Mayakovsky, M. Bulgakov, M. Sholokhov, S. Yesenin, A. I. Solzhenitsyn and others.

• Main property– through typification, reflect life in images that correspond to the essence of the phenomena of life itself.
• Leading criterion of artistry– fidelity to reality; the desire for immediate authenticity of the image, the “recreation” of life “in the forms of life itself.” The artist’s right to illuminate all aspects of life without any restrictions is recognized. Wide variety of art forms.
• The task of the realist writer– try not only to grasp life in all its manifestations, but also to understand it, to understand the laws by which it moves and which do not always come out; through the play of chance one must achieve types - and with all this, always remain faithful to the truth, not be content with superficial study, and shun effects and falsehood.

Features of realism

• The desire for a broad coverage of reality in its contradictions, deep patterns and development;
• Gravity towards the image of a person in his interaction with the environment:
• the inner world of the characters, their behavior bear the signs of the times;
• much attention is paid to the social and everyday background of the time;
• Versatility in depicting a person;
• Social and psychological determinism;
• Historical point of view on life.

Forms of realism

• educational realism
• critical realism
• socialist realism

Stages of development

• Enlightenment realism(D.I. Fonvizin, N.I. Novikov, A.N. Radishchev, young I.A. Krylov); “syncretistic” realism: a combination of realistic and romantic motifs, with the dominance of the realistic (A.S. Griboyedov, A.S. Pushkin, M.Yu. Lermontov);
• Critical realism– accusatory orientation of the works; a decisive break with the romantic tradition (I.A. Goncharov, I.S. Turgenev, N.A. Nekrasov, A.N. Ostrovsky);
• Socialist realism- imbued with revolutionary reality and a feeling of socialist transformation of the world (M. Gorky).

Realism in Russia

Appeared in the 19th century. Rapid development and special dynamism.

Features of Russian realism:

• Active development of socio-psychological, philosophical and moral issues;
• Pronounced life-affirming character;
• Special dynamism;
• Syntheticity (closer connection with previous literary eras and directions: enlightenment, sentimentalism, romanticism).

18th century realism

• imbued with the spirit of educational ideology;
• affirmed primarily in prose;
• the novel becomes the defining genre of literature;
• behind the novel a bourgeois or bourgeois drama arises;
• recreated everyday life modern society;
• reflected his social and moral conflicts;
• the depiction of characters in it was straightforward and subject to moral criteria that sharply distinguished between virtue and vice (only in certain works did the depiction of personality differ in complexity and dialectical inconsistency (Fielding, Stern, Diderot).

Critical realism

Critical realism- a movement that arose in Germany at the end of the 19th century (E. Becher, G. Driesch, A. Wenzl, etc.) and specialized in the theological interpretation of modern natural science (attempts to reconcile knowledge with faith and prove the “failure” and “limitations” of science) .

Principles of Critical Realism

• critical realism portrays the human-environment relationship in a new way
• human character is revealed in organic connection with social circumstances
• subject of deep social analysis the inner world of man has become (critical realism therefore simultaneously becomes psychological)

Socialist realism

Socialist realism- one of the most important artistic movements in the art of the 20th century; a special artistic method (type of thinking) based on knowledge and understanding of the vital reality of the era, which was understood as dynamically changing in its “revolutionary development”.

Principles of socialist realism

• Nationality. The heroes of the works must come from the people. As a rule, the heroes of socialist realist works were workers and peasants.
• Party affiliation. Reject the truth empirically found by the author and replace it with party truth; show heroic deeds, the search for a new life, the revolutionary struggle for a bright future.
• Specificity. In depicting reality, show the process of historical development, which in turn must correspond to the doctrine of historical materialism (matter is primary, consciousness is secondary).

Realism

1) A literary and artistic movement that finally took shape by the middle of the 19th century. and established the principles of analytical understanding of reality, as well as its life-accurate reproduction in a work of art. Realism sees its main task in revealing the essence of life phenomena through the depiction of heroes, situations and circumstances, “taken from reality itself.” Realists strive to trace the chain of causes and consequences of the phenomena described, to find out what external (socio-historical) and internal (psychological) factors influenced this or that course of events, to determine in human character not only individual, but also typical traits that were formed under the influence of general atmosphere era (along with realism, the idea of ​​socially conditioned human types arises).

Analytical beginning in realism of the 19th century. combines:

• with a powerful critical pathos aimed at the flaws of the social structure;
• with a desire for generalizations concerning the laws and trends of social life;
• With close attention to the material side of existence, realized both in detailed descriptions of the appearance of the heroes, the characteristics of their behavior, way of life, and in the widespread use of artistic details;
• with the study of personality psychology (psychologism).

19th century realism gave birth to a whole galaxy of writers of world significance. In particular, Stendhal, P. Mérimée, O. de Balzac, G. Flaubert, C. Dickens, W. Thackeray, Mark Twain, I. S. Turgenev, I. A. Goncharov, N. Nekrasov, F. .M. Dostoevsky, L.N. Tolstoy, A.P. Chekhov and others.

2) An artistic movement in art (including literature), based on the principle of a vitally truthful reflection of reality. Approving vital importance literature as a means for a person to understand himself and the world around him, realism is not at all limited to external verisimilitude when reproducing facts, things, human characters, but strives to identify the patterns that operate in life. Therefore, realistic art also uses such methods of artistic expression as myth, symbol, and grotesque. The very selection of certain phenomena of reality, the preferential attention to certain characters, the principles of their depiction - all this is connected with literary position the author, his individual skill. The absence of any kind of bias, genuine artistic freedom helped realists see life in its ambiguity, complexity, and inconsistency. A person’s character is revealed in connection with the reality around him, society, and environment. The often used terms “sociological realism” or “psychological realism” are prone to inaccuracy, since it is sometimes extremely difficult to determine which type of realism the work of a particular writer belongs to.

3) An artistic method, following which the artist depicts life in images that correspond to the essence of the phenomena of life itself. Affirming the importance of literature as a means for a person to understand himself and the world around him, realism strives for a deep knowledge of life, for a wide coverage of reality. In a narrower sense, the term “realism” denotes the direction that most consistently embodies the principles of a vitally truthful reflection of reality.

4) A literary direction in which the surrounding reality is depicted specifically historically, in the diversity of its contradictions, and “typical characters act in typical circumstances.”

Literature is understood by realist writers as a textbook of life. Therefore, they strive to comprehend life in all its contradictions, and a person - in psychological, social and other aspects of his personality.

Common features of realism: Material from the site

1. Historicism of thinking.
2. The focus is on the patterns operating in life, determined by cause-and-effect relationships.
3. Fidelity to reality becomes the leading criterion of artistry in realism.
4. A person is depicted in interaction with the environment in authentic life circumstances. Realism shows the influence of the social environment on spiritual world a person, the formation of his character.
5. Characters and circumstances interact with each other: character is not only conditioned (determined) by circumstances, but also itself influences them (changes, opposes).
6. Works of realism present deep conflicts, life is given in dramatic clashes. Reality is given in development. Realism depicts not only already established forms social relations and types of characters, but also reveals emerging ones that form a trend.
7. The nature and type of realism depends on the socio-historical situation - it manifests itself differently in different eras.

In the second third of the 19th century. The critical attitude of writers to the surrounding reality has intensified - both to the environment, society, and to man. A critical understanding of life, aimed at denying its individual aspects, gave rise to the name realism of the 19th century. critical.

The largest Russian realists were L. N. Tolstoy, F. M. Dostoevsky, I. S. Turgenev, M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, A. P. Chekhov.

The depiction of the surrounding reality and human characters from the point of view of the progressiveness of the socialist ideal created the basis of socialist realism. The first work of socialist realism in Russian literature is considered to be M. Gorky’s novel “Mother”. A. Fadeev, D. Furmanov, M. Sholokhov, A. Tvardovsky worked in the spirit of socialist realism.

Didn't find what you were looking for? Use the search

On this page there is material on the following topics:

• Brief description of realism
• briefly about realism
• realism short definition
• realism in brief
• realism essay