Real criticism- one of the most active critical movements of the 1840s - 1860s. Her method, like the aesthetics of realism in literature itself, was prepared by V.G. Belinsky, although his critical work does not all and does not fully fit into the contours of real criticism.

Principles that are related, but also shared by V.G. Belinsky with future real criticism.

V.G. Belinsky established the basic principles that would generally be followed by real criticism in the future.

1. 1) The social role of art is highlighted as its main purpose. Art is conceived as optics that serves to understand people's life. The ability of art to observe and reflect reality is the most important criterion of artistry.
2. 2) Criticism is conceived as a means that enhances the “optics” of literature and, most importantly, controls its fidelity.
3. 3) Literature is sovereign as a sphere of spiritual life and cultural activity, but it is closely coordinated with public life, since the artist is included in it and, reflecting reality, cannot remain outside its problems and needs. Therefore, literature is aimed at social purposes. However, it achieves them with its own specific means.

In the works of V.G. Belinsky has developed a system of categories on which the method of real criticism is based. First of all, this categories reality, type, pathos.

Reality- the reality of the human world in social form. Simply put, it is national life as a living, moving system. The category “reality” is contrasted with an abstract representation of the world in generalized, eternal, unchanging categories (man in general, beauty in general, etc.), free from historical, psychological, national specificity. In the poetics of V.G. Belinsky denies the scheme, normativity, canon, some special “correct” narrative code. A writer in his work must follow reality, without trying to idealize it in accordance with artificial ideas about the “norm” of literature.

Pathos is the category with which V.G. Belinsky denoted the sovereignty and specificity of literature. Philosophy and science also strive to understand the world (reality), just like literature. But the specificity of philosophy, according to V.G. Belinsky, lies in the idea, and the specificity of art lies in pathos. Pathos is a holistic emotional perception of reality, marked by the individuality of the artist, while the idea in philosophy is analytical and objective (this is discussed in detail in the fifth “Pushkin” article).

In the category of pathos, Belinsky reinforces the idea of ​​the importance of the strictly aesthetic, intuitive (and subjective) principles in art. Works that do not have a high degree of aesthetics and artistic individuality (expressiveness and integrity of pathos), V.G. Belinsky took them beyond the scope of literature as such, referring them to artistic “fiction” (works by V. Dahl, D. Grigorovich, A. Herzen, etc.). Pathos is a generalizing category; it connects art with generalization, enlargement, and the selection of the integral “main thing” from the diversity of observed phenomena and in this regard correlates with the category of type.

A type is an image taken from reality and revealing its main tendencies, foundations, and the essence of the processes occurring in it. Using the verbal formula of M.Yu. Lermontov, the type is a “hero of his time.” Typical is non-random, its opposite is exceptional, random, excess.

It is easy to see that the category of type grows out of the comparison and opposition of the romantic and realistic principles of depiction and therefore was very effective for analyzing the literature of the coming time, the heyday of realistic prose. However, she will interfere with V.G. Belinsky to evaluate the early works of F.M. Dostoevsky. But even if the type is not universal as a model for describing and cognition of literature (there are no universal models), then the scope of its “relevance” is very wide. Not only the literature of classical realism, but also the work of twentieth-century writers such as S. Dovlatov, V. Aksenov, A. Vampilov, and even L. Ulitskaya or V. Pelevin can be described in terms of typification, the typical.

Thus, literature cognizes (reflects) reality with its own specific means - depicting public types, organizing the observed material of reality through the creative power of the artist’s personality, who expresses his involvement in moving reality in the pathos of his creativity.

Consequently, the task of the critic is, on the one hand, to evaluate how true the work is to national reality, to judge the accuracy of artistic types; on the other hand, to evaluate the artistic perfection of the work and the pathos of the author as a result of the creative mastery of reality.

Metalanguage of criticism V.V.G. Belinsky is not yet separated from the language of those disciplines and spheres of thought, of which, not so far from V.G. Belinsky time stood out literary criticism. You can see how your own is formed metalanguage of criticism by V.G. Belinsky based on “adjacent” languages.

— Non-critical terminology includes those important for the system of judgments of V.G. Belinsky concepts of aesthetics and aesthetic, public, social development, progress.

- At the next stage of metalanguage development, the concepts of adjacent linguistic subsystems are transposed into the sphere of literature, where they acquire a more specialized, although not yet special meaning: but on the basis of the concept of progress, an idea of ​​literary progress is formed, on the basis of the concept of history - an idea of ​​the history of literature. It is no coincidence that in the first part of the article “A Look at Russian Literature of 1847” V.V.G. Belinsky precedes his judgment on the progress of literature with a discussion about the concept of progress as such.

— Finally, criticism’s own metalanguage appears. Thus, the term rhetorical initially means “relating to rhetoric,” but V.G. Belinsky uses this term in special meaning“one of the periods in the development of Russian literature”; word real V.G. Belinsky uses the special meaning of “modern literary direction” - a real school. Similarly in the system of concepts of V.G. Belinsky's terminologically rethought words nature, type, typical, etc. take their place.

Genre and text

The main genre form of criticism by V.G. Belinsky is a lengthy journal article in which an analysis literary work preceded and interspersed with excursions of a philosophical, polemical, journalistic nature. A constant accompanying goal of critical articles by V.G. Belinsky was constructing the history of Russian literature; one can say that in his criticism V.G. Belinsky is a historian who strives to periodize Russian literature in accordance with its literature, internal laws, and principles of artistic construction. Due to the journalistic nature of V.G.’s articles. Belinsky is their emotionality. V.G. Belinsky believed generic property literature has pathos, and his own articles are characterized by the desire to create pathos, internally directed towards the main subject of the text - a literary work. Because of this, V.G. Belinsky can sometimes seem excessive in both his positive and negative assessments.

“Large form” of a magazine critical article in the works of V.G. Belinsky replaced her initial philosophical orientation with a journalistic orientation, and thus the classic form of a journal article was found, which would later be used by both “realist” critics and their opponents, and which still remains relevant. A journal journalistic literary-critical article is the main genre and the main form of literary criticism, which has become an independent professional value. Its place in the system of genres of criticism coincides with the center, the dominant of the genre field. It is fair to judge the state of criticism in general by its condition.

N.G. Chernyshevsky and the development of real criticism

The method created by V.G. Belinsky, developed in the work of his followers mainly along the path of deepening his central provisions about the connection between literature and reality, about the social functions of literature. This allowed real criticism to strengthen the tools for analyzing text and the literary process, and significantly bring together literary and social issues in its critical practice. At the same time, literature became increasingly dependent on extraliterary goals (social enlightenment and social struggle), the sovereignty and specificity of art was questioned, and aesthetic criteria were removed from criticism.

This dynamic of the method was most facilitated by the social situation mid-19th century - the social movement of the 1850-60s, the abolition of serfdom, the activation of the public and the highly politicized social life of that time. It is also significant that under conditions of censorship, political journalism and party ideology were forced to mix with literary criticism and existed immanently within its composition. Almost all representatives of “real” criticism supported the ideas of revolutionary democracy and corresponding social movements.

The features of real criticism at the mature stage of its development can be discovered by comparing the criticism of N.G. Chernyshevsky and V.G. Belinsky:

1. 1) If V.G. Belinsky demanded from the writer a living involvement in reality, then, according to Chernyshevsky, art serves reality, responds to its requests and needs.
2. 2) Presentation by V.G. Belinsky about genius subjectivity, in which the specificity of art is reflected, develops into the category of a subjectively constructed ideal. The ideal, however, was thought of in nature-defined, that is, objective contours - this is the “natural” state of man and the human world, given by nature - “reason, universal labor, collectivism, goodness, freedom of each and all.” Thus, real criticism (in the model of N.G. Chernyshevsky and his direct followers) considers it good to give objectivity to art, to moderate or exclude subjectivity, the individuality of the creative act.
3. 3) If V.G. Belinsky spoke about the non-partisan nature of literature and found the specificity of literature in pathos, and not in the idea, then Chernyshevsky finds it precisely in the idea, believing that artistry is a true, progressive idea.
4. 4) Chernyshevsky sees the correct aesthetic attitude not as the transformation of the material of reality, but as the copying of reality. Even typification, according to Chernyshevsky, is not the subjective work of the writer: the life patterns themselves are already “naturally” quite typical.
5. 5) If V.G. Belinsky did not envision the participation of art in politics, but according to N.G. Chernyshevsky, - it must express a specific social idea, directly participate in the social struggle.

Chernyshevsky’s fundamental historical and literary works are based on a primary interest in “external” literary phenomena, processes connecting artistic literature with social and literary life.

« Essays on the Gogol period of Russian literature"(1855-1856) can be considered the first major development of the history of Russian criticism of 1830-1840. Positively assessing the work of Nadezhdin and N. Polevoy, Chernyshevsky focuses on the activities of Belinsky, who, according to the author of the cycle, outlined the true routes of the progressive development of Russian artistic literature. Chernyshevsky, following Belinsky, recognizes the critical image of Russian life as the key to literary and social progress in Russia, taking Gogol’s work as the standard for such an attitude to reality. Chernyshevsky certainly places the author of “The Inspector General” and “Dead Souls” higher than Pushkin, and the main criterion for comparison becomes the idea of ​​​​the social effectiveness of the writers’ creativity. The optimistic faith in social progress characteristic of Chernyshevsky forced him to see processes of progressive development in literature.

Responding in 1857 for the publication of “Provincial Sketches”, the critic gives Shchedrin the palm in the matter of literary denunciation: in his opinion, the aspiring writer surpassed Gogol in the mercilessness of his sentences

and generality of characteristics. The desire to demonstrate changes in social needs can also explain Chernyshevsky’s harsh attitude

to the moderate liberal ideology that originated in the 1840s: the journalist believed that a sober and critical understanding of reality at the present stage is not enough, it is necessary to take specific actions aimed at improving the conditions of public life. These views found expression in the famous

article "Russian man at rendez-vous"(1858), which is also noteworthy from the point of view of Chernyshevsky’s critical methodology. Turgenev’s short story “Asya” became the reason for large-scale journalistic generalizations by the critic, which were not intended to reveal author's intention. In the image of the main character of the story Chernyshevsky

I saw a representative of the common type of “best people” who, like Rudin or Agarin (the hero of Nekrasov’s poem “Sasha”), have high moral virtues, but are incapable of decisive actions. As a result, these heroes look "more trashy than a notorious scoundrel." However, the deep revealing

the pathos of the article is directed not against individuals, but against reality,

which produces such people.

Methodology, genre, text

Criticism N.G. Chernyshevsky was not a complete projection of his theoretical program, especially since creative manner criticism underwent significant changes at the turn of the 1850s and 1860s, during the period of the split in Sovremennik. The organizing point of Chernyshevsky’s method and methodology was the belief in the dependence of art on reality. But this does not exclude in his practice a deep and masterful analysis of the text, albeit abstracted from the main issues of aesthetics and poetics. In the later criticism of N.G. Chernyshevsky, his practice becomes more radical. During this period, his literary-critical attitudes almost completely retreated from journalistic ones (the real method was vulnerable to such distortions). Artistry is reduced to ideologicalness, and therefore, poetics is reduced to rhetoric; the only role of poetics is not to interfere with the expression of ideas; art loses its own sovereign tasks and becomes a means of public propaganda. A literary work is interpreted as a social act; the only aspect of the work.

The late activity of Chernyshevsky as a publicist outlines the path along which the real method is able to go beyond the boundaries of literary criticism. In this exposition, the only aspect of the work discussed remains its social action; otherwise, the critic’s efforts are aimed at the reality reflected by literature.

Criticism N.A. Dobrolyubova

ON THE. Dobrolyubov should be named, along with V.G. Belinsky, the creator of not only real criticism, but also a certain timeless model of critical-journalistic judgment about literature in a social context. The critic took this historical place thanks to his original position within the framework of the real method, which turned out to be more universal and less “partisan” than the position of N.G. Chernyshevsky.

The philosophical basis of the critical system of N.A. Dobrolyubov became the anthropologist of L. Feuerbach, in particular, the doctrine that the harmonious state of a person is his natural state, the balance of qualities inherent in him “by nature”. From these provisions N.A. Dobrolyubov developed a thesis about the primary value of artistic observation of reality, its state, its deviations from nature.

Unlike Chernyshevsky, N.A. Dobrolyubov...

1. a) considers the main criterion of artistry not the ideological content of the author and the book, but the truthfulness of the created types;
2. b) connects the success of a work with the writer’s personal intuition (which he equates to talent), and not with an objectively correct ideological position.

At both of these points N.A. Dobrolyubov turns out to be closer to V.G. Belinsky than N.G. Chernyshevsky.

ON THE. Dobrolyubov leaves to the writer mainly the role of the brilliant creator of the text as an “empty form”(we use the expression of W. Eco). This form is filled with meaning by the reader with the correct interpretation attitudes. That is, with a strong and correct system of presuppositions. Such a reader is a critic.

However, the writer, of course, assumed some interpretation of his own text, understands N.A. Dobrolyubov. — It happens that a writer even interferes in the reading process and, arguing with a critic, indicates how his book should have been understood (for example, I.S. Turgenev in a dispute with N.A. Dobrolyubov about the novel “On the Eve”). This is a contradiction of N.A. Dobrolyubov resolves in favor of the critic. He introduces into his metalanguage and conceptual system a pair of concepts: worldview and belief. Worldview, according to N.A. Dobrolyubov, there is a living, intuitive, integral sense of reality that guides the writer in his work. The worldview is reflected in typification, in all the artistic power of the works. But beliefs are purely logical in nature, and they are often formed under the influence of social context. A writer does not always follow his convictions in his work, but always follows his worldview (if he talented writer). Therefore his opinion about him own creativity is not the final truth. The critic's judgment is closer to the truth, since it reveals the ideological significance of the truthful images created by the writer. After all, the critic looks from the outside at both the work and the writer as an interpreter of his own work.

This is how N.A. himself talks about it. Dobrolyubov: “Not abstract ideas and general principles What occupies the artist is living images in which the idea is manifested. In these images, the poet can, even unnoticed by himself, grasp and express their inner meaning much before he defines it with his mind. Sometimes the artist may not even reach the meaning of what he himself depicts; but criticism exists in order to clarify the meaning hidden in the artist’s creations, and, analyzing the images presented by the poet, it is not at all authorized to become attached to his theoretical views” (“The Dark Kingdom”).

It was N.A. Dobrolyubov laid the foundation for the doctrine of the “subjective” (author’s) and “objective” (imputed by a systematically thinking critic) meaning of a work. This idea was later developed by Marxists and canonized by the Soviet school. It provided a mechanism for opportunistic recoding and tendentious ideological interpretation of works of literature. However, these later speculations should not cast a shadow on the work of N.A. Dobrolyubov, extremely professional and, as a rule, completely correct in interpretation.

The reader can and should have his own strong and “true” ideological codes and be independent of the author’s ideological intentions. If the reader himself does not have the necessary ideological system to “correctly” read the book, a critic helps him do this. If, according to N.G. Chernyshevsky, a critic teaches a writer, then, according to N.A. Dobrolyubova - rather a reader.

This point allows us to say that the criticism of N.A. Dobrolyubova left the writer more freedom than the views of Chernyshevsky or D.I. Pisarev, and even more so the later concepts of Marxists and G.V. Plekhanov. Having divided the intentions of the artist and the critic, N.A. Dobrolyubov left the artist freedom of creative expression, assuming that the work is good precisely in the form that the artist’s genius will give it. And any forced transformation of this form will interfere with the objectivity of reflection, artistic truth. In this regard, the method of N.A. Dobrolyubov assumed a fairly high internal status of the aesthetics and poetics of the work, respect for its organic integrity. True, these possibilities were not always fully realized by N.A. himself. Dobrolyubov.

Methodology

According to N.A. Dobrolyubov, the work of a critic is to analyze the artistic reality of a work and interpret it in the light of his prevailing knowledge of the extra-artistic reality - social life and its tasks.

The writer observes the phenomena of reality and, based on observation, creates artistic types. He compares artistic types with the social ideal present in his mind, and evaluates these types in their social functioning: are they good, how to correct their shortcomings, what social vices affected them, etc.

The critic, in this case, evaluates everything that the artist has done based on his own (critic’s) ideal, expressing his attitude to both the subject (the book) and the subject of the book (reality); and to the literary type, and to the social type, and to the ideals of the artist. As a result, the critic acts as a literary and social educator, expressing social ideas in literary criticism. Real criticism considered a critical (harsh, negative) view of reality to be the most fruitful and most in demand by modern times.

N.A. himself said it best. Dobrolyubov: “...the main features of the artist’s worldview could not be completely destroyed by rational errors. He could take for his images not those life facts in which a well-known idea is reflected the best way, could give them an arbitrary connection, interpret them not entirely correctly; but if the artistic instinct has not betrayed him, if the truth in the work has been preserved, criticism is obliged to use it to explain reality, as well as to characterize the writer’s talent, but not at all to scold him for thoughts that he, perhaps, also didn't have. Criticism must say: “These are the persons and phenomena brought out by the author; here is the plot of the play; but here is the meaning that, in our opinion, the facts of life depicted by the artist have, and here is the degree of their significance in social life.” From this judgment it will naturally appear whether the author himself looked at the images he created correctly. If, for example, he tries to elevate some person to a universal type, and criticism proves that it has a very particular and petty meaning, it is clear that the author has damaged the work with a false view of the hero. If he makes several facts dependent on one another, and upon examination of criticism it turns out that these facts are never in such dependence, but depend on completely different reasons, it is again obvious that the author misunderstood the connection of the phenomena he depicted. But even here criticism must be very careful in its conclusions.<…>

Such should be, in our opinion, the attitude of real criticism towards works of art; This is especially true for a writer when reviewing his entire literary activity.”

Genre and text

Articles by N.A. Dobrolyubova are lengthy texts designed for a thoughtful, like-minded reader who does not waste time reading criticism. A distinctive feature of N.A.’s criticism Dobrolyubova was her developed journalisticism. As this is facilitated by the “real” method in Dobrolyubov’s version, the article often moves away from text analysis to journalistic reasoning “about” the text. The critic, having stated the professionalism of the writer as a recorder of life phenomena, discusses not so much the book as the social symptoms recorded in it. In addition, N.A. Dobrolyubov, being a conscious sociologist to a greater extent than many of his contemporaries and predecessors, understands the need for a serious scientific basis for a thorough judgment, therefore his articles contain purely theoretical excursions into sociological reasoning. Sociology as a science was not yet developed in Russia at that time, so N.A. Dobrolyubov conducts his “amateur” analysis of the psychology of social classes in order to use it to explain the types he finds in literature.

Metalanguage real criticism of N.A. Dobrolyubova and N.G. Chernyshevsky is characterized by a decrease in philosophical terminology (compared to V.G. Belinsky) and in general terminological restraint. This is a feature of all journalistic criticism of the “Dobrolyubov type” (not excluding criticism of our days), which cares about the understandability of the text for a wide range of readers. Even the terminology of the literary sphere is used only generally understandable - the words literature, literature, criticism, writer, names of genres. Moreover, sociological terminology is not very specialized.

But when it is necessary to build a conceptual apparatus, real criticism boldly (and often successfully) creates special verbal formulas, giving them a metalinguistic character. So. Chernyshevsky created the term dialectics of the soul, N.A. Dobrolyubov is a term of real criticism. It is symptomatic that some of these formulas had the character of social rather than literary definitions (for example, the dark kingdom of N.A. Dobrolyubov). The journalistic nature of real criticism is reflected in the fact that all these terms are created on the basis of poetic metaphors.

A brilliant example of real criticism are Dobrolyubov’s own articles about Goncharov’s novel “Oblomov” (article “What is Oblomovism?” 1859), plays by Ostrovsky (articles “The Dark Kingdom” 1859 and “A Ray of Light in the Dark Kingdom” 1860), Turgenev’s story “On the Eve” (“When will the real day come?” 1860) and Dostoevsky (“The Downtrodden People” 1861). These articles can be considered as a single metatext, the pathos of which boils down to proof of the inferiority of the Russian socio-political system.

Collecting individual features and generalizing them into one complete image of Oblomovism, Dobrolyubov explains to the reader the life phenomena that were reflected in the artistic type created by Goncharov’s imagination.

Dobrolyubov compares Oblomov with a whole gallery of his literary ancestors. Russian literature is well aware of the type of intelligent person who understands the baseness of the existing order of life, but is unable to find application for his thirst for activity, his talents and desire for good. Hence loneliness, disappointment, spleen, and sometimes contempt for people. This is a type of intelligent uselessness, as Herzen put it, a type of superfluous person, certainly vital and characteristic of the Russian noble intelligentsia of the first half of the 19th century. Such are Pushkin’s Onegin, Lermontov’s Pechorin, Turgenev’s Rudin, Herzen’s Beltov. The historian Klyuchevsky found the ancestors of Eugene Onegin in more distant times. But what can be common between these outstanding personalities and the lazy Oblomov? All of them are Oblomovites, each of them contains a particle of his shortcomings. Oblomov - their maximum value, their further and, moreover, not fictional, but real development. The appearance in literature of a type like Oblomov shows that “the phrase has lost its meaning; the need for real action has appeared in society itself.”

Thanks to Dobrolyubov’s criticism, the word Oblomovism entered the everyday speech of the Russian people as an expression of those negative traits that advanced Russia has always struggled with.

Since 1858, Nikolai Aleksandrovich Dobrolyubov (1836-186) became the head of the literary-critical department of Sovremennik. Dobrolyubov sharpens and concretizes the requirements for the ideological content of modern literature: the main criterion for the social significance of a work becomes for him the reflection of the interests of the oppressed classes, which can be achieved with the help of the truthful, and therefore sharply critical image"higher" classes, or through a sympathetic (but not idealized) depiction of people's life. Dobrolyubov became famous among his contemporaries as a theorist of “real criticism.” He put forward this concept and gradually developed it. “Real criticism” is the criticism of Belinsky, Chernyshevsky, brought by Dobrolyubov to classically clear postulates and methods of analysis with one goal - to identify the social benefits of works of art, to direct all literature to a comprehensive denunciation of social orders. The term “real criticism” goes back to the concept of “realism”. Dobrolyubov insisted that the task of criticism is to explain those phenomena of reality that are affected by a work of art. A critic, like a lawyer or a judge, thoroughly explains to the reader the “details of the case” and the objective meaning of the work. Then he looks to see if the meaning corresponds to the truth of life. The most important thing for criticism is to determine whether the author is on par with those “natural aspirations” that have already awakened among the people or should soon awaken according to the requirements of the modern order of affairs.

“Real criticism” does not allow or impose “alien phenomena” on the author. “Real criticism” treats the artist’s work in exactly the same way as it does the phenomena of real life: it studies them, trying to determine their own norm, to collect their essential, character traits, but without fussing at all about why oats are not rye, and coal is not diamond.”
A characteristic method of Dobrolyubov’s criticism, which passes from article to article, is the reduction of all the features of creativity to the conditions of reality. The reason for everything that is depicted is in reality, and only in reality. The work is not only a reflection of objective reality, but also an expression of the artist’s subjective ideal. Those works of art that answer topical questions and pressing demands of the era acquire significance. A writer must be faithful to both the facts and the logic of life. The ideological views of a writer determine his success. A characteristic method of Dobrolyubov’s criticism, which passes from article to article, is the reduction of all the features of creativity to the conditions of reality. The reason for everything that is depicted is in reality, and only in reality. True artistry is the unity of form and content. “Real criticism” theoretically took almost nothing upon itself in relation to the study of the writer’s biography, the creative history of the work, the concept, drafts, etc. This seemed to be an extraneous matter. Dobrolyubov saw “the extraordinary richness of the content of the novel “Oblomov”” and began his article “What is Oblomovism?” from the characteristics of Goncharov’s leisurely talent, his inherent enormous power of typification, which perfectly corresponded to the accusatory direction of his time. The novel is “stretched out,” but this is what makes it possible to describe an unusual “subject” - Oblomov. Such a hero should not act: here, as they say, the form fully corresponds to the content and follows from the character of the hero and the talent of the author. Reviews of the epilogue in Oblomov, the artificiality of Stolz’s image, the scene revealing the prospect of Olga’s possible breakup with Stolz—that’s all artistic analyzes. And vice versa, analyzing only the activity of the energetic Insarov in “On the Eve” mentioned but not shown by Turgenev, Dobrolyubov believed that “the main artistic shortcoming of the story” lies in the declarative nature of this image. The image of Insarov is pale in outline and does not appear before us with complete clarity. What he does is closed to us, his inner world, even love for Elena. But love theme Turgenev always succeeded.

Its main representatives: N.G. Chernyshevsky, N.A. Dobrolyubov, D.I. Pisarev, as well as N.A. Nekrasov, M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin as the authors of actual critical articles, reviews and reviews.

Printed organs: magazines “Sovremennik”, “Russkoe Slovo”, “Domestic Notes” (since 1868).

The development and active influence of “real” criticism on Russian literature and public consciousness continued from the mid-50s to the end of the 60s.

N.G. Chernyshevsky

Nikolai Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky (1828 - 1889) acted as a literary critic from 1854 to 1861. In 1861, the last of the fundamentally important important articles Chernyshevsky “Isn’t this the beginning of change?”

Chernyshevsky’s literary-critical speeches were preceded by a solution to general aesthetic issues undertaken by the critic in his master’s thesis “Aesthetic relations of art to reality” (written in 1853, defended and published in 1855), as well as in a review of the Russian translation of Aristotle’s book “On Poetry” (1854) and auto-review of his own dissertation (1855).

Having published the first reviews in “Domestic Notes” by A.A. Kraevsky, Chernyshevsky in 1854 transferred at the invitation of N.A. Nekrasov at Sovremennik, where he heads the critical department. Sovremennik owed much to the collaboration of Chernyshevsky (and, from 1857, Dobrolyubov) not only for the rapid growth in the number of its subscribers, but also for its transformation into the main tribune of revolutionary democracy. The arrest in 1862 and the hard labor that followed interrupted Chernyshevsky’s literary and critical activity when he was only 34 years old.

Chernyshevsky acted as a direct and consistent opponent of the abstract aesthetic criticism A.V. Druzhinina, P.V. Annenkova, V.P. Botkina, S.S. Dudyshkina. Specific disagreements between Chernyshevsky the critic and “aesthetic” criticism can be reduced to the question of the admissibility in literature (art) of the entire diversity of current life - including its socio-political conflicts (“the topic of the day”), and social ideology (trends) in general. “Aesthetic” criticism generally answered this question negatively. In her opinion, socio-political ideology, or, as Chernyshevsky’s opponents preferred to say, “tendentiousness,” is contraindicated in art, because it violates one of the main requirements of artistry - an objective and impartial depiction of reality. V.P. Botkin, for example, stated that “a political idea is the grave of art.” On the contrary, Chernyshevsky (like other representatives of “real” criticism) answered the same question in the affirmative. Literature not only can, but must become imbued with and inspired by the socio-political trends of its time, for only in this case will it become an expression of urgent social needs, and at the same time serve itself. After all, as the critic noted in “Essays on the Gogol period of Russian literature” (1855 - 1856), “only those areas of literature achieve brilliant development that arise under the influence of strong and living ideas that satisfy the urgent needs of the era.” Chernyshevsky, a democrat, socialist and peasant revolutionary, considered the most important of these needs to be the liberation of the people from serfdom and the elimination of autocracy.

The rejection of “aesthetic” criticism of social ideology in literature was justified, however, by a whole system of views on art, rooted in the tenets of German idealistic aesthetics - in particular, Hegel’s aesthetics. The success of Chernyshevsky’s literary-critical position was therefore determined not so much by the refutation of the particular positions of his opponents, but by a fundamentally new interpretation of general aesthetic categories. This was the subject of Chernyshevsky’s dissertation “Aesthetic Relations of Art to Reality.” But first, let’s name the main literary critical works that a student needs to keep in mind: reviews “Poverty is not a vice.” Comedy by A. Ostrovsky" (1854), "On Poetry." Op. Aristotle" (1854); articles: “On sincerity in criticism” (1854), “Works of A.S. Pushkin" (1855), "Essays on the Gogol period of Russian literature", "Childhood and adolescence. Essay by Count L.N. Tolstoy. War stories of Count L.N. Tolstoy" (1856), "Provincial Sketches... Collected and published by M.E. Saltykov. ..." (1857), "Russian man at rendez-vous" (1858), "Isn't this the beginning of a change?" (1861).

In his dissertation, Chernyshevsky gives a fundamentally different definition of the subject of art compared to German classical aesthetics. How was it understood in idealist aesthetics? The subject of art is beauty and its varieties: sublime, tragic, comic. The source of beauty was thought to be the absolute idea or the reality that embodies it, but only in the entire volume, space and extent of the latter. The fact is that in a separate phenomenon - finite and temporary - the absolute idea, by its nature eternal and infinite, according to idealistic philosophy, is not incarnate. Indeed, between the absolute and the relative, the general and the individual, the natural and the random, there is a contradiction similar to the difference between the spirit (which is immortal) and the flesh (which is mortal). It is not possible for a person to overcome it in practical (material, production, socio-political) life. The only areas in which the resolution of this contradiction was possible were considered religion, abstract thinking (in particular, as Hegel believed, his own philosophy, more precisely, its dialectical method) and, finally, art as the main types of spiritual activity, the success of which is enormous depends on the creative gift of a person, his imagination, fantasy.

This led to the conclusion; beauty in reality, inevitably finite and transient, is absent, it exists only in creative creatures artist - works of art. It is art that brings beauty into life. Hence the corollary of the first premise: art, as the embodiment of beauty above life.// “Venus de Milo,” declares, for example, I.S. Turgenev, - perhaps, undoubtedly more than Roman law or the principles of 89 (that is, the French Revolution of 1789 - 1794 - V.N.).” Summarizing in his dissertation the main postulates of idealistic aesthetics and the consequences arising from them, Chernyshevsky writes: “Defining beauty as the complete manifestation of an idea in a separate being, we must come to the conclusion: “beauty in reality is only a ghost, put into it by our factism”; from this it will follow that “strictly speaking, the beautiful is created by our imagination, but in reality... there is no truly beautiful thing”; from the fact that there is no truly beautiful in nature, it will follow that “art has as its source the desire of man to make up for the shortcomings of the beautiful in objective reality” and that the beautiful, created by art“, above the beautiful in objective reality,” - all these thoughts constitute the essence of the concepts that dominate today...”

If in reality there is no beauty and it is brought into it only by art, then creating the latter is more important than creating, improving life itself. And the artist should not so much help improve life as reconcile a person with its imperfections, compensating for it with the ideal-imaginary world of his work.

It was to this system of ideas that Chernyshevsky contrasted his materialistic definition of beauty: “beauty is life”; “beautiful is the being in which we see life as it should be according to our concepts; “Beautiful is the object that shows life in itself or reminds us of life.”

Its pathos and at the same time fundamental novelty consisted in the fact that main task What was recognized was not the creation of beauty in itself (in its spiritually imaginary form), but the transformation of life itself, including the present, current one, according to this person’s ideas about its ideal. Solidarizing in this case with the ancient Greek philosopher Plato, Chernyshevsky seems to be saying to his contemporaries: first of all, make life itself beautiful, and do not fly away from it in beautiful dreams. And second: If the source of beauty is life (and not an absolute idea, Spirit, etc.), then art in its search for beauty depends on life, generated by its desire for self-improvement as a function and means of this desire.

Chernyshevsky also challenged the traditional opinion of beauty as the supposed main goal of art. From his point of view, the content of art is much broader than beauty and constitutes “generally interesting things in life,” that is, it covers everything. what worries a person, what his fate depends on. For Chernyshevsky, man (and not beauty) essentially became the main subject of art. The critic interpreted the specifics of the latter differently. According to the logic of the dissertation, what distinguishes an artist from a non-artist is not the ability to embody an “eternal” idea in a separate phenomenon (event, character) and thereby overcome their eternal contradiction, but the ability to reproduce life collisions, processes and trends that are of general interest to contemporaries in their individually visual form. Art is conceived by Chernyshevsky not so much as a second (aesthetic) reality, but as a “concentrated” reflection of objective reality. Hence those extreme definitions of art (“art is a surrogate for reality”, “a textbook of life”), which, not without reason, were rejected by many contemporaries. The fact is that Chernyshevsky’s desire, legitimate in itself, to subordinate art to the interests of social progress in these formulations turned into oblivion of his creative nature.

In parallel with the development of materialist aesthetics, Chernyshevsky also reinterprets such a fundamental category of Russian criticism of the 40s - 60s as artistry. And here his position, although it is based on individual provisions of Belinsky, remains original and, in turn, is polemical to traditional ideas. Unlike Annenkov or Druzhinin (as well as such writers as I.S. Turgenev, I.A. Goncharov), Chernyshevsky considers the main condition of artistry not the objectivity and impartiality of the author and the desire to reflect reality in its entirety, not the strict dependence of each fragment of the work ( character, episode, detail) from the whole, not the isolation and completeness of the creation, but an idea (social tendency), the creative fruitfulness of which, according to the critic, is commensurate with its vastness, truthfulness (in the sense of coincidence with the objective logic of reality) and “consistency”. In the light of the last two requirements, Chernyshevsky analyzes, for example, the comedy by A.N. Ostrovsky “Poverty is not a vice”, in which he finds “a sugary embellishment of what cannot and should not be embellished.” The erroneous initial thought underlying the comedy deprived it, Chernyshevsky believes, of even plot unity. “Works that are false in their main idea,” the critic concludes, “are sometimes weak even in a purely artistic sense.”

If the consistency of a truthful idea provides unity to a work, then its social and aesthetic significance depends on the scale and relevance of the idea.

Chernyshevsky also demands that the form of the work correspond to its content (idea). However, this correspondence, in his opinion, should not be strict and pedantic, but only expedient: it is enough if the work is laconic, without unnecessary excesses. To achieve such expediency, Chernyshevsky believed, no special author's imagination or fantasy is needed.

The unity of a truthful and consistent idea with a corresponding form is what makes a work artistic. Chernyshevsky’s interpretation of artistry thus removed from this concept the mysterious aura that representatives of “aesthetic” criticism had endowed it with. It was also freed from dogmatism. At the same time, here, as in determining the specifics of art, Chernyshevsky’s approach was guilty of unjustified rationality and a certain straightforwardness.

The materialistic definition of beauty, the call to make everything that excites a person the content of art, the concept of artistry intersect and are refracted in Chernyshevsky’s criticism in the idea of ​​​​the social purpose of art and literature. The critic here develops and clarifies Belinsky’s views of the late 30s. Since literature is a part of life itself, a function and means of its self-improvement, it, says the critic, “cannot help but be a servant of one or another direction of ideas; this is a purpose that lies in her nature, which she cannot refuse, even if she wanted to refuse.” This is especially true for autocratic-serf Russia, which is undeveloped in political and civil relations, where literature “concentrates... the mental life of the people” and has “encyclopedic significance.” The direct duty of Russian writers is to spiritualize their work with “humanity and concern for the improvement of human life", which have become the dominant need of the time. “The poet,” writes Chernyshevsky in “Essays on the Gogol Period...”, is a lawyer., of her (the public. - V.NL) own ardent desires and sincere thoughts.

Chernyshevsky’s struggle for a literature of social ideology and direct public service explains the critic’s rejection of the work of those poets (A. Fet. A. Maykov, Ya. Polonsky, N. Shcherbina), whom he calls “epicureans”, “for whom public interests do not exist, for whom public interests are known.” only personal pleasures and sorrows. Considering the position of “pure art” in everyday life to be by no means disinterested, Chernyshevsky in “Essays on the Gogol Period...” also rejects the argumentation of the supporters of this art: that aesthetic pleasure “in itself brings significant benefit to a person, softening his heart, elevating his soul,” that aesthetic experience “directly... ennobles the soul by the sublimity and nobility of objects and feelings with which we are seduced in works of art.” And a cigar, objects Chernyshevsky, softens, and a good dinner, in general health and excellent living conditions. This, the critic concludes, a purely epicurean view of art.

The materialist interpretation of general aesthetic categories was not the only prerequisite for Chernyshevsky’s criticism. Chernyshevsky himself indicated two other sources of it in “Essays on the Gogol Period...”. This is, firstly, Belinsky’s legacy of the 40s and, secondly, Gogol’s, or, as Chernyshevsky clarifies, the “critical direction” in Russian literature.

In “Essays...” Chernyshevsky solved a number of problems. First of all, he sought to revive the covenants and principles of criticism of Belinsky, whose very name was under censorship ban until 1856, and whose legacy was suppressed or interpreted by “aesthetic” criticism (in the letters of Druzhinin, Botkin, Annenkov to Nekrasov and I. Panaev) one-sidedly, sometimes negative. The plan corresponded to the intention of the editors of Sovremennik to “fight the decline of our criticism” and “to improve, if possible,” their own “critical department,” as stated in the “Announcement about the publication of Sovremennik” in 1855. It was necessary, Nekrasov believed, to return to the interrupted tradition - to the “straight path” of “Notes of the Fatherland” of the forties, that is, Belinsky: “... what faith there was in the magazine, what a living connection between him and the readers!” Analysis from democratic and materialist positions of the main critical systems of the 20s - 40s (N. Polevoy, O. Senkovsky, N. Nadezhdin, I. Kireevsky, S. Shevyrev, V. Belinsky) at the same time allowed Chernyshevsky to determine for the reader his own position in the emerging with the outcome of the “dark seven years” (1848 - 1855) of the literary struggle, as well as to formulate modern tasks and principles of literary criticism. “Essays...” also served polemical purposes, in particular the fight against the opinions of A.V. Druzhinin, which Chernyshevsky clearly has in mind when he shows the selfish-protective motives of S. Shevyrev’s literary judgments.

Considering in the first chapter of “Essays...” the reasons for the decline of criticism by N. Polevoy, “who at first so cheerfully emerged as one of the leaders in the literary and intellectual movement” of Russia, Chernyshevsky concluded that for viable criticism, firstly, modern philosophical theory, Secondly. moral feeling, meaning by it the humanistic and patriotic aspirations of the critic, and finally, orientation towards truly progressive phenomena in literature.

All these components organically merged in Belinsky’s criticism, the most important principles which had “fiery patriotism” and the latest “ scientific concepts", that is, the materialism of L. Feuerbach and socialist ideas. Chernyshevsky considers other major advantages of Belinsky’s criticism to be its struggle against romanticism in literature and in life, the rapid growth from abstract aesthetic criteria to animation by the “interests of national life” and the judgments of writers from the point of view of “the significance of his activities for our society.”

In “Essays...” for the first time in the Russian censored press, Belinsky was not only associated with the ideological and philosophical movement of the forties, but was made its central figure. Chernyshevsky outlined the scheme of Belinsky’s creative emotion, which remains the basis of modern ideas about the activity of a critic: the early “telescopic” period - the search for a holistic philosophical understanding of the world and the nature of art; a natural meeting with Hegel on this path, a period of “reconciliation” with reality and a way out of it, mature period creativity, which in turn revealed two moments of development - according to the degree of deepening of social thinking.

At the same time, for Chernyshevsky, the differences that should appear in future criticism in comparison with Belinsky’s criticism are also obvious. Here is his definition of criticism: “Criticism is a judgment about the merits and demerits of some literary direction. Its purpose is to encourage the expression of the opinion of the best part of the public and to promote its further dissemination among the masses” (“On Sincerity in Criticism”).

“The best part of the public” are, without a doubt, democrats and ideologists of the revolutionary transformation of Russian society. Future criticism should directly serve their tasks and goals. To do this, it is necessary to abandon the workshop isolation among professionals and enter into constant communication with the public. reader, as well as gain “all possible ... clarity, certainty and directness” of judgment. The interests of the common cause, which she will serve, give her the right to be harsh.

In the light of the requirements, first of all, of social-humanistic ideology, Chernyshevsky undertakes an examination of both the phenomena of the current realistic literature, and its origins in the person of Pushkin and Gogol.

Four articles about Pushkin were written by Chernyshevsky simultaneously with “Essays on the Gogol period...”. They included Chernyshevsky in the discussion started by A.V.’s article. Druzhinin “A.S. Pushkin and the latest edition of his works”: 1855) in connection with Annenkov’s Collected Works of the poet. Unlike Druzhinin, who created the image of a creator-artist, alien to the social conflicts and unrest of his time, Chernyshevsky appreciates in the author of “Eugene Onegin” the fact that he “was the first to describe Russian morals and the life of various classes ... with amazing fidelity and insight” . Thanks to Pushkin, Russian literature became closer to “Russian society.” The ideologist of the peasant revolution especially cherishes Pushkin’s “Scenes from the Times of Knights” (they should be placed “not lower than “Boris Godunov””), the meaningfulness of Pushkin’s verse (“every line... touched, aroused thought”). Crete, recognizes the enormous importance of Pushkin “in the history of Russian education.” enlightenment. However, in contrast to these praises, the relevance of Pushkin’s legacy for modern literature was recognized by Chernyshevsky as insignificant. In fact, in his assessment of Pushkin, Chernyshevsky takes a step back compared to Belinsky, who called the creator of “Onegin” (in the fifth article of Pushkin’s cycle) the first “poet-artist” of Rus'. “Pushkin was,” writes Chernyshevsky, “primarily a poet of form.” “Pushkin was not a poet of someone with a specific view of life, like Byron, he was not even a poet of thought in general, like ... Goethe and Schiller.” Hence the final conclusion of the articles: “Pushkin belongs to a bygone era... He cannot be recognized as a luminary of modern literature.”

The general assessment of the founder of Russian realism turned out to be unhistorical. It also made clear the sociological bias in Chernyshevsky’s understanding of artistic content and poetic idea, which was unjustified in this case. Willingly or unwittingly, the critic handed Pushkin over to his opponents - representatives of “aesthetic” criticism.

In contrast to Pushkin’s legacy, the Gogolian legacy according to Chernyshevsky’s thought, addressed to the needs of social life and therefore full of deep content, receives the highest appreciation in “Essays...”. The critic especially emphasizes Gogol’s humanistic pathos, which was essentially not noticed in Pushkin’s work. “To Gogol,” writes Chernyshevsky, “those who need protection owe a lot; he became the head of those. who deny evil and vulgarity."

The humanism of Gogol’s “deep nature,” however, Chernyshevsky believes, was not supported by modern advanced ideas (teachings), which had no impact on the writer. According to the critic, this limited the critical pathos of Gogol’s works: the artist saw the ugliness of the facts of Russian social life, but did not understand the connection of these facts with the fundamental foundations of Russian autocratic-serf society. In general, Gogol had the “gift of unconscious creativity,” without which one cannot be an artist. However, the poet, adds Chernyshevsky, “will not create anything great if he is not also gifted with a wonderful mind, strong common sense and subtle taste.” Chernyshevsky explains Gogol's artistic drama by the suppression of the liberation movement after 1825, as well as the influence on the writer of the protective minded S. Shevyrev, M. Pogodin and his sympathies for patriarchy. Nevertheless, Chernyshevsky’s overall assessment of Gogol’s work is very high: “Gogol was the father of Russian prose,” “he is credited with firmly introducing the satirical into Russian literature—or, as it would be more fair to call it critical directions", he is "the first in Russian literature to have a decisive striving for content and, moreover, striving in such a fruitful direction as critical." And finally: “There was no writer in the world who was as important for his people as Gogol was for Russia,” “he awakened in us consciousness about ourselves - this is his true merit.”

Chernyshevsky’s attitude towards Gogol and the Gogolian trend in Russian realism, however, did not remain unchanged, but depended on which phase of his criticism it belonged to. The fact is that in Chernyshevsky’s criticism there are two phases: the first - from 1853 to 1858, the second - from 1858 to 1862. The turning point for them was the emerging revolutionary situation in Russia, which entailed a fundamental division between democrats and liberals on all issues, including literary ones.

The first phase is characterized by the critic’s struggle for the Gogolian direction, which remains effective and fruitful in his eyes. This is a struggle for Ostrovsky, Turgenev, Grigorovich, Pisemsky, L. Tolstoy, for the strengthening and development of their critical pathos. The task is to unite all anti-serfdom writer groups.

In 1856, Chernyshevsky dedicated a large review to Grigorovich, by that time the author not only of “The Village” and “Anton the Miserable”, but also of the novels “Fishermen” (1853), “Migrants” (1856>, imbued with deep participation in life and fate “ commoners", especially serfs, contrasting Grigorovich with his numerous imitators, Chernyshevsky believes that in his stories " peasant life depicted correctly, without embellishment; the description shows strong talent and deep feeling.”

Until 1858, Chernyshevsky took “extra people” under protection, for example, from the criticism of S. Dudyshkin. reproaching them for lack of “harmony with the situation,” that is, for opposition to the environment. In the conditions of modern society, such “harmony,” Chernyshevsky shows, will come down only to “being an efficient official, a managerial landowner” (“Notes on Journals,” 1857*. At this time, the critic sees in “superfluous people” more victims of the Nicholas reaction , and he values ​​the share of protest that they contain. True, even at this time he does not treat them the same: he sympathizes with Rudin and Beltov, who are striving for social activity, but not with Onegin and Pechorin.

Particularly interesting is Chernyshevsky’s attitude towards L. Tolstoy, who, by the way, spoke extremely hostilely about the critic’s dissertation and his very personality at that time. In the article “Childhood and adolescence. Essay by Count L.N. Tolstoy...” Chernyshevsky revealed extraordinary aesthetic sensitivity when assessing the artist, whose ideological positions were very far from the mood of the critic. Chernyshevsky notes two main features in Tolstoy’s talent: the originality of his psychological analysis (unlike other realist writers, Tolstoy is not concerned with the result of the mental process, not the correspondence of emotions and actions, etc., but “the mental process itself, its forms, its laws , dialectics of the soul") and the sharpness ("purity") of the "moral feeling", the moral perception of the depicted." The critic rightly understood Tolstoy's mental analysis as an expansion and enrichment of the possibilities of realism (we note in passing that at first even such a person was very skeptical about this feature of Tolstoy's prose a master like Turgenev, who called it “picking out the dirty linen from under the armpits”) As for the “purity of moral feeling”, which Chernyshevsky noted, by the way, in Belinsky, Chernyshevsky sees in it a guarantee of the artist’s rejection of social untruth along with moral falsity. , social lies and injustice. This was already confirmed by Tolstoy’s story “The Morning of the Landowner,” which showed the meaninglessness of lordly philanthropy in relation to the peasant in conditions of serfdom. The story was highly praised by Chernyshevsky in “Notes on Journals” in 1856. The author was given credit for the fact that the content of the story was taken “from a new sphere of life,” which also developed the writer’s very view “of life.”

After 1858, Chernyshevsky’s judgments about Grigorovich, Pisemsky, Turgenev, as well as about “superfluous people” changed. This is explained not only by the break between democrats and liberals (in 1859 - 1860 L. Tolstoy, Goncharov, Botkin, Turgenev left Sovremennik), but also by the fact that during these years a new trend was emerging in Russian realism, represented by Saltykov-Shchedrin (in 1856, “Russian Bulletin” began publishing his “Provincial Sketches”), Nekrasov, N. Uspensky, V. Sleptsov, A. Levitov, F. Reshetnikov and inspired by democratic ideas. Democratic writers had to establish themselves in their own positions, freeing themselves from the influence of their predecessors. Chernyshevsky is also involved in solving this problem, believing that Gogol’s direction has exhausted itself. Hence the overestimation of Rudin (the critic sees in him an unacceptable “caricature” of M. Bakunin, with whom the revolutionary tradition was associated), and other “superfluous people” whom Chernyshevsky no longer separates from the liberal nobles.

Chernyshevsky’s famous article “Russian man at rendez-vous” (1958) became a declaration and proclamation of an uncompromising demarcation from noble liberalism in the Russian liberation movement of the 60s. It appears at the moment when, as the critic specifically emphasizes, the denial of serfdom, which united liberals and democrats in the 40s and 50s, was replaced by the polar opposite attitude of the former allies to the coming, Chernyshevsky believes, peasant revolution.

The reason for the article was the story by I.S. Turgenev's "Asya" (1858), in which the author of "The Diary of an Extra Man", "The Calm", "Correspondence", "Trips to Woodland" depicted the drama of failed love in conditions when the happiness of two young people seemed both possible and close . Interpreting the hero of “Asia” (along with Rudin, Beltov, Nekrasov’s Agarin and other “superfluous people”) as a type of noble liberal. Chernyshevsky gives his explanation public position(“behavior”) of such people - albeit revealed in an intimate situation of a date with a beloved girl who reciprocates. Filled with ideal aspirations and sublime feelings, they, the critic says, fatally stop short of putting them into practice and are unable to combine word with deed. And the reason for this inconsistency is not in any of their personal weaknesses, but in their belonging to the dominant noble class, burdened with “class prejudices.” It is impossible to expect decisive actions from a noble liberal in accordance with “the great historical interests of national development” (that is, to eliminate the autocratic serfdom system), because the main obstacle for them is the nobility itself. And Chernyshevsky calls for a decisive rejection of illusions regarding the liberation-humanizing capabilities of the noble oppositionist: “The idea is developing in us more and more strongly that this opinion about him is an empty dream, we feel... that there are people better than him, precisely those whom he offends; that we would be better off without him.”

In his article “Polemical Beauty” (1860), Chernyshevsky explains his current critical attitude towards Turgenev and his break with the writer, whom the critic had previously defended from attacks, by the incompatibility of revolutionary democracy with reformism. cnpalai “Our way of thinking became so clear for Mr. Turgenev that he stopped approving of him . It began to seem to us that Mr. Turgenev’s latest stories were not as close to our view of things as before, when his direction was not so clear to us, and our views were not so clear to him. We parted".

Since 1858, Chernyshevsky’s main concern has been devoted to raznochinsky-democratic literature and its authors, called upon to master writing skills and point out to the public heroes who are different from the “superfluous people”, close to the people and inspired by the people’s interests.

Chernyshevsky connects his hopes for creating a “completely new period” in poetry primarily with Nekrasov. Back in 1856, he wrote to him in response to a request to speak about the famous collection “Poems of N. Nekrasov” that had just been published: “We have never had a poet like you.” Chernyshevsky retained his high assessment of Nekrasov throughout the following years. Having learned about the poet's fatal illness, he asked (in a letter on August 14, 1877 to Pypin from Vilyuysk) to kiss him and tell him, “the most brilliant and noble of all Russian poets. I’m crying for him” (“Tell Nikolai Gavrilovich,” Nekrasov answered Pypin, “that I thank him very much, I am now consoled: his words are more valuable than anyone else’s words”). In the eyes of Chernyshevsky, Nekrasov is the first great Russian poet who became truly popular, that is, who expressed both the state of the oppressed people (the peasantry), and faith in their strength, the growth of national self-awareness. At the same time, Chernyshevsky cherishes the intimate lyrics of Nekrasov - “poetry of the heart,” “plays without a tendency,” as he calls it, - which embodied the emotional-intellectual structure and spiritual experience of the Russian raznochinsky intelligentsia, its inherent system of moral and aesthetic values.

In the author of “Provincial Sketches” M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, Chernyshevsky saw a writer who went beyond the critical realism of Gogol. Unlike the author of Dead Souls, Shchedrin, according to Chernyshevsky, already knows “what the connection is between that branch of life in which facts are found and other branches of mental, moral, civil, state life,” that is, he knows how to construct private outrages Russian social life to their source - the socialist system of Russia. “Provincial Sketches” are valuable not only as “beautiful literary phenomenon“, but also as a “historical fact” of Russian life” on the path of its self-awareness.

In his reviews of writers ideologically close to him, Chernyshevsky raises the question of the need for new things in literature. positive hero. He is waiting for “his speech, the most cheerful, at the same time the calmest and most decisive speech, in which one could hear not the timidity of theory before life, but proof that reason can rule over life and a person can reconcile his life with his convictions.” Chernyshevsky himself became involved in solving this problem in 1862, creating in the casemate of the Peter and Paul Fortress a novel about “new people” - “What is to be done?”

Chernyshevsky did not have time to systematize his views on democratic literature. But one of its principles - the question of depicting the people - was developed by him very thoroughly. This is the subject of the last of Chernyshevsky’s major literary critical articles, “Isn’t this the beginning of change?” (1861), the occasion for which was “Essays on National Life” by N. Uspensky.

The critic opposes any idealization of the people. In conditions of the social awakening of the people (Chernyshevsky knew about mass peasant uprisings in connection with the predatory reform of 1861), he believes that it objectively serves protective purposes, since it reinforces popular passivity, the belief in the inability of the people to independently decide their fate. Nowadays, the depiction of the people in the form of Akaki Akakievich Bashmachkin or Anton Goremyka is unacceptable. Literature must show the people, their moral and psychological state “without embellishment,” because only “such an image testifies to the recognition of the people as equal to other classes and will help the people get rid of the weaknesses and vices instilled in them over centuries of humiliation and lawlessness. It is equally important, not content with routine manifestations of folk life and ordinary characters, to show the people in whom the “initiative of popular activity” is concentrated. This was a call to create images of people's leaders and rebels in literature. Already the image of Saveliy, the “hero of Holy Russia” from Nekrasov’s poem “Who Lives Well in Rus',” spoke of this. that this behest of Chernyshevsky was heard.

Chernyshevsky's aesthetics and literary criticism are not distinguished by academic dispassion. They, in the words of V.I. Lenin, imbued with the “spirit of class struggle.” And also, we add, the spirit of rationalism, faith in the omnipotence of reason, characteristic of Chernyshevsky as an educator. This obliges us to consider Chernyshevsky’s literary critical system in the unity of not only its strong and promising premises, but also its relatively weak and even extreme premises.

Chernyshevsky is right in defending the priority of life over art. But he is mistaken when, on this basis, he calls art a “surrogate” (that is, a substitute) for reality. In fact, art is not only special (in relation to the scientific or social-practical activity of a person), but also a relatively autonomous form of spiritual creativity - an aesthetic reality, in the creation of which a huge role belongs to the holistic ideal of the artist and the efforts of his creative imagination. In turn, by the way, underestimated by Chernyshevsky. “Reality,” he writes, “is not only more vivid, but also more complete than fantasy. Fantasy images are only a pale and almost always unsuccessful reworking of reality. This is true only in the sense of the connection between artistic fantasy and the life aspirations and ideals of a writer, painter, musician, etc. However, the very understanding of creative fantasy and its possibilities is erroneous, because consciousness great artist does not so much remake the real one as create a new world.

Concept artistic idea(content) acquires from Chernyshevsky not only a sociological, but sometimes also a rationalistic meaning. If its first interpretation is completely justified in relation to a number of artists (for example, Nekrasov, Saltykov-Shchedrin), then the second actually eliminates the line between literature and science, art and sociological treatise, memoirs, etc. An example of an unjustified rationalization of artistic content is the following statement of a critic in a review of the Russian translation of Aristotle’s works: “Art, or, better said, POETRY... distributes among the mass of readers a huge amount of information and, more importantly, familiarity with the concepts developed by science - - this is the great significance of poetry for life.” Here Chernyshevsky, wittingly or unwittingly, anticipates the future literary utilitarianism of D.I. Pisareva. Another example. Literature, the critic says elsewhere, acquires authenticity and content if it “talks about everything that is important in any respect that happens in society, considers all these facts ... from all possible points of view, explains, from what causes each fact comes, what supports it, what phenomena must be brought into existence to strengthen it, if it is noble, or to weaken it, if it is harmful.” In other words, a writer is good if, while recording significant phenomena and trends in social life, he subjects them to analysis and makes his own “sentence” on them. This is how Chernyshevsky himself acted as the author of the novel “What is to be done?” But to fulfill such a formulated task it is not at all necessary to be an artist, for it is completely solvable within the framework of a sociological treatise, a journalistic article, brilliant examples of which were given by Chernyshevsky himself (remember the article “Russian man on rendez-vous”), Dobrolyubov, and Pisarev.

Perhaps the most vulnerable place in Chernyshevsky's literary critical system is the idea of ​​artistry and typification. Agreeing that “the prototype for a poetic person is often a real person,” raised by the writer “to a general meaning,” the critic adds: “There is usually no need to raise it, because the original already has a general meaning in its individuality.” It turns out that typical faces exist in reality itself, and are not created by the artist. The writer can only “transfer” them from life into his work in order to explain them and judge them. This was not only a step back from the corresponding teachings of Belinsky, but also a dangerous simplification, reducing the work and work of the artist to copying reality.

The well-known rationalization of the creative act and art in general, the sociological bias in the interpretation of literary and artistic content as the embodiment of one or another social trend explain negative attitude to the views of Chernyshevsky not only of representatives of “aesthetic” criticism, but also of such major artists of the 50s and 60s as Turgenev, Goncharov, L. Tolstoy. In Chernyshevsky’s ideas they saw the danger of “enslaving art” (N.D. Akhsharumov) by political and other transitory tasks.

While noting the weaknesses of Chernyshevsky's aesthetics, one should remember the fruitfulness - especially for Russian society and Russian literature - of its main pathos - the idea of ​​​​the social and humanistic service of art and the artist. Philosopher Vladimir Solovyov would later call Chernyshevsky’s dissertation one of the first experiments in “practical aesthetics.” L. Tolstoy’s attitude towards her will change over the years. A number of provisions of his treatise “What is art?” (published in 1897 - 1898) will be directly consonant with the ideas of Chernyshevsky.

And one last thing. We must not forget that literary criticism was for Chernyshevsky, in the conditions of a censored press, in fact, the main opportunity from the standpoint of revolutionary democracy to illuminate the pressing problems of the Russian social development and influence him. One can say about Chernyshevsky the critic what the author of “Essays on the Gogol Period...” said about Belinsky: “He feels that the boundaries literary issues cramped, he yearns in his office, like Faust: he feels cramped in these walls lined with books - it doesn’t matter whether they are good or bad; he needs life, not talk about the merits of Pushkin’s poems.”

Dobrolyubov - theorist of “real criticism”

Dobrolyubov became famous among his contemporaries as a theorist of “real criticism.” He put forward this concept and gradually developed it. “Real criticism” is the criticism of Belinsky, Chernyshevsky, brought by Dobrolyubov to classically clear postulates and methods of analysis with one goal - to reveal the social benefit of works of art, to direct all literature towards a comprehensive denunciation of social orders. The term “real criticism” goes back to the concept of “realism”. But the term “realism”, used by Annenkov in 1849, has not yet taken root. Dobrolyubov modified it, interpreting it in a certain way as a special concept.

In principle, in all methodological techniques of “real criticism” everything is similar to the techniques of Belinsky and Chernyshevsky. But sometimes something important was narrowed down and simplified. This is especially evident in the interpretation of the connections between criticism and literature, criticism and life, problems artistic form. It turned out that criticism is not so much a disclosure of the ideological and aesthetic content of works, but rather the application of works to the requirements of life itself.

A consistently carried out “real” approach often led not to an objective analysis of what is in the work, but to judging it from inevitably subjective positions that seemed to the critic the most “real”, the most worthy of attention... Outwardly, the critic seems to know nothing imposes, but he relies more on his own competence, his own verification and does not seem to fully trust the cognitive power of the artist himself as the discoverer of truths. Therefore, the “norm”, volumes, and angles of what was depicted in the works were not always determined correctly. It is no coincidence that Pisarev, from the standpoint of the same “real criticism,” entered into a polemic with Dobrolyubov regarding the image of Katerina from “The Thunderstorm,” dissatisfied with the degree of civil criticism inherent in it... But where could the merchant Katerina get it? Dobrolyubov was right when he assessed this image as “a ray of light in a dark kingdom.”

“Real criticism” theoretically took almost nothing upon itself in relation to the study of the writer’s biography, the creative history of the work, the concept, drafts, etc. This seemed to be an extraneous matter.

Dobrolyubov was right in rebelling against the “penny-pinching” of criticism. But at first he mistakenly classified N.S. as a “penny-pincher.” Tikhonravov and F.I. Buslaeva. Dobrolyubov had to reconsider his statements when he was faced with sensible factual and textual clarifications and discoveries. Reviewing the seventh volume of Annenkov's edition of Pushkin's works, Dobrolyubov stated that Pushkin appeared somewhat different in his mind; Pushkin’s article about Radishchev, critical notes, newly discovered poems “O muse of fiery satire!” shook the previous opinion of Pushkin as a “pure artist”, devoted to religious sentiments, who fled from the “uninitiated rabble.”

Although theoretically the question of analyzing the artistic form of works was not posed in sufficient detail by Dobrolyubov - and this is a lack of “real criticism” - in practice, Dobrolyubov can establish several interesting approaches to this problem.

Dobrolyubov often analyzed the form in detail in order to ridicule the emptiness of the content, for example, in the “fizzy” poems of Benediktov, in the mediocre “accusatory” poems of M. Rozenheim, the comedies of N. Lvov, A. Potekhin, and the stories of M. I. Voskresensky.

In his most important articles, Dobrolyubov seriously examined the artistic form of the works of Goncharov, Turgenev, and Ostrovsky.

Dobrolyubov demonstrated how “artistry took its toll” in Oblomov. The public was indignant that the hero of the novel did not act during the entire first part, that in the novel the author evaded pressing modern issues. Dobrolyubov saw the “extraordinary richness of the novel’s content” and began his article “What is Oblomovism?” from the characteristics of Goncharov’s leisurely talent, his inherent enormous power of typification, which perfectly corresponded to the accusatory direction of his time. The novel is “stretched out”, but this is what makes it possible to describe an unusual “subject” - Oblomov. Such a hero should not act: here, as they say, the form fully corresponds to the content and follows from the character of the hero and the talent of the author. Reviews about the epilogue in Oblomov, the artificiality of Stolz’s image, the scene revealing the prospect of Olga’s possible breakup with Stolz—these are all artistic analyses.

And vice versa, analyzing only the activity of the energetic Insarov in “On the Eve” mentioned but not shown by Turgenev, Dobrolyubov believed that “the main artistic shortcoming of the story” lies in the declarative nature of this image. The image of Insarov is pale in outline and does not appear before us with complete clarity. What he does, his inner world, even his love for Elena is closed to us. But Turgenev always succeeded in the love theme.

Dobrolyubov establishes that only in one point is Ostrovsky’s “Thunderstorm” built according to “rules”: Katerina violates the duty of marital fidelity and is punished for it. But in all other respects, the laws of “exemplary drama” in “The Thunderstorm” are “violated by the most in a cruel way" The drama does not inspire respect for duty, passion is not fully developed, there are many extraneous scenes, the strict unity of action is violated. The character of the heroine is dual, the outcome is random. But, starting from the caricatured “absolute” aesthetics, Dobrolyubov superbly revealed the aesthetics that the writer himself created. He made deeply correct remarks about Ostrovsky’s poetics.

We encounter the most complex and not entirely justified case of polemical analysis of the form of a work in the article “Downtrodden People” (1861). There is no open polemic with Dostoevsky. Dostoevsky reproached Dobrolyubov for neglecting artistry in art.

Dobrolyubov told his opponent the following: if you care about artistry, then from this point of view your novel is no good or, in any case, stands below aesthetic criticism; and yet we will talk about it because it contains “pain for man,” which is precious in the eyes of real criticism, that is, everything redeems the content. But can we say that Dobrolyubov was right in everything here? If such a technique could easily be applied to some Lvov or Potekhin, then it looked somehow strange in relation to Dostoevsky, already highly appreciated by Belinsky, and whose novel “The Humiliated and Insulted,” for all its shortcomings, is classic work Russian literature.

IN aesthetic concept Dobrolyubova have important problems of satire and nationality.

Dobrolyubov was dissatisfied with the state of contemporary satire, especially since opportunistic “accusatory” literature appeared. He expressed this in the article “Russian Satire in the Age of Catherine” (1859). The external reason for considering the issue was the book by A. Afanasyev “Russian satirical magazines of 1769-1774”. Afanasyev's book was a response to the period of "glasnost" and exaggerated the social successes of satire in Russian literature of the 18th century, the development of satire in Russian literature. Dobrolyubov praised in the article “Russian Satire in the Age of Catherine” such works of the 18th century as “Excerpt of a Journey to ***”, and Fonvizin’s famous “The Experience of a Russian Estatesman”, now attributed either to Novikov or Radishchev, which caused a sharp cry from the queen.

Dobrolyubov was right in raising the criteria for assessing satire in general. But he clearly underestimated the satire of the 18th century. He approached it too utilitarianly, not historically. Dobrolyubov proceeded from a scheme that was not established in science: “...satire appeared among us as an imported fruit, and not at all as a product developed by the people’s life itself” 1 . If Belinsky allowed a similar statement in relation to Russian literature with its odes and madrigals, then in any case the satirical direction, even in the form in which it began with Cantemir, he always considered native, unartificial.

This generalization by Dobrolyubov was also unhistorical: “... the character of all satire of Catherine’s time is distinguished by the most sincere respect for existing regulations and the prosecution of abuses alone.” Here the 18th century is clearly being judged by the criteria of the 60s of the 19th century. In Novikov’s time, one still had to learn to at least attack abuses; There was also Catherine’s “impersonal” satire on vices in general.

In general, Dobrolyubov’s conclusion about satire was this: “But its weak side was that it did not want to see the fundamental crudity of the mechanism that it was trying to correct.”

It is clear that Dobrolyubov’s harsh analyzes and verdicts regarding 18th-century satire had their purpose. He wanted not petty satire, but militant satire, directed against the exploitative social system. In this way he expressed his revolutionary-democratic aspirations, his desire to raise the standards of modern satire and contrast it with liberal denunciation. But Dobrolyubov solved a complex issue too didactically. These goals should not have interfered with the concrete historical analysis of what 18th-century satire was able to do in its time. Only on the basis of a correct generalization of historical experience was it possible to indicate the prospects and tasks for Russian criticism in the 60s of the 19th century. Chernyshevsky was more circumspect and stricter in this kind of assessment of the past.

Dobrolyubov interprets the concept of “nationality” somewhat vaguely; it is vague in the very title of the special article “On the degree of participation of the nationality in the development of Russian literature” (1858). What, exactly, was meant by nationality? Ethnographic elements, popular aspirations, the people as a theme for writers, or the participation of writers from the people in literary life? What was meant by the people themselves? All peasants or the middle strata of society along with them? Dobrolyubov used this word in different senses. And the men are the people, and Katerina, the merchant’s wife, is a heroine of the people.

The tendency in this article to consider all the literature from one angle is extremely strong. Bestuzhev reviewed it from the point of view of the development of civic motives from Boyan to Ryleev. Belinsky - from the point of view of rapprochement with life and the development of realism. Chernyshevsky reviewed the “school of Gogol” and the “school of ideas” of Belinsky from a sociological angle. Dobrolyubov’s aspect was characteristic of the pre-reform years: everything was measured by the yardstick of “people’s” life. But there is some uncertainty in the criterion.

The general principle of Dobrolyubov’s understanding of the nationality of a writer is this: “To be a truly national poet, one must<...>imbued with the spirit of the people, live their life, become on par with them, discard all the prejudices of classes, book teachings<...>and feel everything with that simple feeling that the people have.”

It is quite obvious that Dobrolyubov oversimplified this complex issue.

It seems to Dobrolyubov that there were two processes in literature: the gradual loss of the national, popular principle in the post-Petrine era and then its gradual revival. This process dragged on so long that, in fact, Dobrolyubov could not call almost a single writer a national writer. “It’s also in vain that we have a loud name folk writers“The people, unfortunately, don’t care at all about Pushkin’s artistry, the captivating sweetness of Zhukovsky’s poems, Derzhavin’s lofty soarings, etc. Let’s say more: even Gogol’s humor and Krylov’s sly simplicity did not reach the people at all.”

Everything is resolved by the critic too straightforwardly: “Lomonosov did a lot for the success of science in Russia... but in relation to the social significance of literature, he did nothing.” Lomonosov does not say a word about serfdom. Dobrolyubov recognizes only direct, visible forms of service. Derzhavin moved only “a little” in his view of the people, their needs and relationships. Karamzin’s point of view is “still abstract and extremely aristocratic.” Zhukovsky “reproduced only one thing from the Russian people... and that one thing is folk superstition” (in “Svetlana” - V.K). Pushkin, for all his enormous merits as an artist, “comprehended only the form of the Russian nationality.” Gogol “found more strength in himself,” but his depiction of the vulgarity of life was “horrifying”; he blamed all the sins not on the government, but on the people. “No, we are decisively dissatisfied with Russian satire, with the exception of satire of the Gogol period.”

Of course, such an analysis outlined some higher tasks for literature. “Holy” discontent was seething in Dobrolyubov. But it was doubtful to advance the matter with such one-sided, extreme judgments that destroyed the accumulated historical experience. After all, Belinsky already knew that almost all of the listed writers were truly popular, each to the extent of his talent and time. The artistic immortality of the work was generally not taken into sufficient account by Dobrolyubov.

______________ * How beautiful it is, how amazing it is! (French).
“We owe our little acquaintance with sensitive young ladies,” Dobrolyubov continues, “by the fact that we do not know how to write such pleasant and harmless criticism. Frankly admitting this and refusing the role of “educator of the aesthetic taste of the public,” we choose another task, more modest and more commensurate with our strengths. We simply want to summarize the data that is scattered in the writer’s work and which we accept as an accomplished fact, as a vital phenomenon standing before us" (6, 96-97).
Real criticism first of all strives to clarify those life phenomena that are reflected in a work of art, and then analyzes these phenomena and expresses its verdict on 20 of them. There is no doubt that it is journalistic criticism. But not every journalistic criticism can be called real in Dobrolyubov’s understanding. It would be wrong to think that the great Russian thinkers were returning to the ideas of the enlighteners of the 18th century, who partly took on the role of educators of the public’s aesthetic taste, and partly imposed the demands of public morality on art. Real criticism is of a journalistic nature, but it is far from the desire to impose any external tendencies on the artist or tell him what he should have done. The mechanistic view of the 18th century was a step long abandoned for Russian authors who stood at the level of Belinsky and Dobrolyubov.
“We know,” writes Dobrolyubov, “that pure aestheticians will immediately accuse us of trying to impose their opinions on the author and assign tasks to his talent. Therefore, let’s make a reservation, even though it’s boring. No, we don’t impose anything on the author, we say in advance that we don’t We know for what purpose, due to what preliminary considerations, he depicted the story that makes up the content of the story “On the Eve”. facts of life. We value every talented work precisely because in it we can study the facts of our native life, which is already so little open to the gaze of a simple observer" (6, 97).
This shows how real criticism understands the content of the work. This content is real, it is given by external reality. Artistic creativity is not a purely subjective visual process, in which it is important how the writer managed to convey what he conceived and saw in front of him. Real criticism is primarily interested in what is reflected in a literary work, even beyond the will and intention of the author. The activity of a writer is for her an objective process of reflecting life, and in this process the first place belongs to reality itself. Literary images are not just pictorial signs, topographic pictures, hieroglyphs of objects and phenomena of the external world, but real clots of life, real images created by the process of its formation. Criticism accepts these data of the historical world, included in works of literature, “as an accomplished fact, as a vital phenomenon facing us.”
Here we are not talking about the external influence of the social environment on the psychology of the writer - a circumstance that was well known to French criticism of the 18th century. The social environment influences literary creativity - this is undeniable. But a person who would like to reduce the meaning of criticism to the clarification of these influences could be said that he walks around his subject without penetrating further than the secondary conditions of its origin. “Of course, this is not a criticism of an elegant work,” wrote Belinsky, “but a commentary on it, which may have a greater or lesser value, but only as a commentary” (2, 107). We will not help matters at all if we add to such a sociological or biographical commentary an analysis of artistic form in the spirit of aesthetic criticism. Dobrolyubov has something else in mind. Real criticism speaks of the irresistible influence of objective reality on the writer’s literary work. She is interested in the reflection of the life of society, which becomes an internal necessity for the artist and, subordinating him with her historical basis, makes art the real voice of life. The presence of historical content, felt as an accomplished fact, as a vital phenomenon facing us, is the first proof of the artistry of a literary work.
Therefore, the highest interest for real criticism is literature that is free from all artificiality or posture, rhetoric and false poetry. It was precisely this kind of courageous maturity that Russian literature reached in the middle of the 19th century. For her, the times of artificial passions and unprecedented positions, borrowed charms, whitewash and rouge of literary cosmetics are over. “Our literature,” Belinsky wrote in one of his last articles, “was the fruit of conscious thought, appeared as an innovation, began with imitation. But it did not stop there, but constantly strived for originality, nationality, from rhetoric it sought to become natural, natural. This striving, marked by noticeable and constant successes, constitutes the meaning and soul of the history of our literature. And we will say without hesitation that in no other Russian writer has this striving achieved such success as in Gogol. This could only have happened through the exclusive appeal of art to. reality, apart from any ideals... This is a great merit on Gogol's part... with this he completely changed the view of art itself. To the works of each of the Russian poets one can, although with a stretch, apply the old and decrepit definition of poetry as “decorated nature.” "; but in relation to Gogol's works this is no longer possible. They come with another definition of art - as the reproduction of reality in all its truth" (8, 351 - 352).
Thus, in the person of the head of the natural school, Russian literature turned to reality, apart from any ideals. This does not at all mean a contemptuous attitude towards ideals on the part of Belinsky. We will see later how Russian criticism looked at the relationship of literature to the social goals that inspire it. Speaking about ideals alien to Gogol’s realism, Belinsky had in mind superficial good intentions in the spirit of the philanthropic impulses of one of the heroes of “Dead Souls” - the landowner Manilov. Such “ideals” were deeply alien to real criticism No wonder Dobrolyubov in his parody of magazine enthusiasm for the works of Turgenev mocks not only the aesthetics of sensitive young ladies, but also touches the sublime feelings of liberal journalists. He foresees their Manila speeches about “a deep understanding of the invisible streams and currents of social thought” and that Turgenev’s last story enlivens and decorates your life, elevates you before you human dignity and the great, eternal significance of the holy ideas of truth, goodness and beauty! "(6, 96-97).
Real criticism examined Russian literature from the point of view of revolutionary democracy, which is why it had to treat so-called ideals with particular sobriety, testing them against the touchstone of real social facts and decisively rejecting empty liberal rhetoric. That is why, for example, when speaking about Ostrovsky, Dobrolyubov rejects only the attempts of the Slavophiles to present the stage work of the great Russian playwright as a direct expression of their reactionary ideas, but also criticizes the claims of the liberal-Western "Athenaeus", expressed from the point of view of "progressive ideals". Real criticism is not interested in the subjective intentions of the author, good or bad, in a work of art , and the content of living reality that was included in his work was truly embodied in form, if we have before us a real talent capable of serving as a mirror of the outside world.
“The reader sees,” said Dobrolyubov, “that for us it is precisely those works that are important, in which life was expressed by itself, and not according to a program previously invented by the author. For example, we did not talk about “A Thousand Souls” at all*, because, in our opinion, the entire social side of this novel is forced into a pre-conceived idea. Therefore, there is nothing to interpret here, except to what extent the author cleverly composed his work. It is impossible to rely on the truth and living reality of the facts presented by the author. because his attitude to these facts is not simple and not truthful. We see not at all the same attitude of the author to the plot in Mr. Turgenev’s new story, as in most of his stories. In “On the Eve” we see the irresistible influence of the natural course of social life and thought. , to which the very thought and imagination of the author involuntarily submitted" (6, 98).
______________ * It's about about the novel by A. F. Pisemsky, first published in the magazine. "Domestic Notes" in 1858
If a writer more or less deftly selects pictures and images to complement a pre-composed idea, then his work can serve as the subject of a lower type of criticism, subjecting the idea and form to external analysis. Every true work of art, precisely because it is the work of an artist and not a craftsman, is something more than just a product of human hands. You can see an objective reflection in it famous trait or a process in the life of society And here the field of action of higher, real criticism opens up. It wants to “interpret the phenomena of life itself on the basis of a literary work, without, however, imposing on the author any pre-conceived ideas and tasks.” The main goal of literary criticism, says
Dobrolyubov, there is “an explanation of those phenomena of reality that gave rise to a famous work of art” (6, 98, 99).
A brilliant example of real criticism are Dobrolyubov’s own articles about Goncharov’s novel Oblomov,” Ostrovsky’s plays and Turgenev’s story “On the Eve.” Collecting individual features and generalizing them into one complete image of Oblomovism, Dobrolyubov explains to the reader the life phenomena that were reflected in the artistic type created by Goncharov’s fantasy Oblomov is a gifted and noble man, whose whole life is spent lying on the couch, in unfulfilled endeavors and empty daydreaming. He is not even capable of creating the happiness of the woman he loves and loves. However, can his feeling be called love? , like Oblomov’s life itself, Goncharov’s narrative depicts the conditions in which it developed terrible disease his hero, a disease that paralyzes all natural inclinations and plunges the individual into a humiliating state.
The fate of Oblomov is a clear example of how a person is sucked in by the sticky web of serfdom, relations of domination and slavery, how it gives rise to a fatal lack of will even among those representatives of the lordly part of society, whose souls are yearning for clean air and would be glad to wish their people a better life, but completely are incapable of decisive practical actions, and, perhaps, do not want them, instinctively clinging to their privileges.
Explaining the final conclusions, which may have remained unclear to the writer himself, Dobrolyubov compares Oblomov with a whole gallery of his literary ancestors. Russian literature is well known for the type of intelligent person who understands the baseness of the existing order of life, but is unable to find application for his thirst for activity, his talents and desire for good. Hence loneliness, disappointment, spleen, and sometimes contempt for people. This is a type of intelligent uselessness, as Herzen put it, a type of superfluous person, certainly vital and characteristic of the Russian noble intelligentsia of the first half of the 19th century. Such are Pushkin’s Onegin, Lermontov’s Pechorin, Turgenev’s Rudin, Herzen’s Beltov. The historian Klyuchevsky found the ancestors of Eugene Onegin in more distant times. But what can these outstanding personalities have in common? amazing the reader with their inner suffering even when their actions are filled with the poison of contempt for people, and the lazy Oblomov, a ridiculous lazy person who, despite all his high impulses, descends into slovenliness, marries a fat bourgeois woman, falls into complete slavery to her cunning relatives and dies in this unclean puddle?
And, however, they are all Oblomovites, in each of them there is a particle of Oblomov’s shortcomings - their maximum value, their further and, moreover, not fictitious, but real development. The appearance in literature of a type like Oblomov shows that “the phrase has lost its meaning, the need for real action has appeared in society itself” (4, 331).
Therefore, Onegins, Pechorins, Rudins can no longer appear before the reader in ideal attire. They appear in a more real light. Developing this idea, Dobrolyubov does not at all want to belittle the charm of the images created by the genius of Pushkin and Lermontov. He only wants to point out the morphological development of images by life itself.
“We are not saying again that Pechorin, in these circumstances, began to act exactly like Oblomov; he could have developed in a different direction due to these very circumstances. But the types created by strong talent are durable: and today there live people who seem to be modeled after Onegin, Pechorin , Rudin, etc., and not in the form in which they could have developed under other circumstances, namely in the form in which they are presented by Pushkin, Lermontov, Turgenev. Only in the public consciousness do they all turn more and more into Oblomov. to say that this transformation has already taken place: no, even now thousands of people spend time in conversations and thousands of other people are ready to take conversations for action. But that this transformation is beginning is proved by the type of Oblomov created by Goncharov. His appearance would have been impossible if it were not for this. although in some part of society the consciousness of how insignificant all these quasi-talented natures, whom they previously admired, had not matured, was covered with different robes, adorned with different hairstyles, and attracted to them with different talents. But now Oblomov appears before us exposed as he is, silent, brought down from a beautiful pedestal onto a soft sofa, covered instead of a robe only with a spacious robe. Question: what does he do? What is the meaning and purpose of his life? delivered directly and clearly, not filled with any side questions. This is because now the time for social work has already come or is coming urgently... And that’s why we said at the beginning of the article that we see a sign of the times in Goncharov’s novel” (4, 333).
Knowing the strict limits of tsarist censorship, Dobrolyubov, in Aesopian language, makes it clear to his readers that social activity should be understood as a revolutionary method of fighting autocracy and serfdom, while Oblomovism in all its forms represents landowner liberalism. In a broader sense, the image of Oblomov combines all the features of laxity, inactive submission and readiness to be satisfied with empty dreams that centuries of serfdom and royal despotism have introduced into people’s habits.
“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 tediousness 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."
When asked what needs to be done, these people cannot say anything sensible, and if you yourself offer them some remedy, they will be unpleasantly puzzled. And, most likely, from them you can hear the recipe that in Turgenev’s novel Rudin presents to his beloved girl Natalya: “What to do? Of course, submit to fate. What to do! I know too well how bitter, difficult, unbearable it is, but, judge themselves..." and so on... You won't expect anything more from them, because all of them bear the stamp of Oblomovism" (4, 337-338).
This is the approach of real criticism to literary images, her manner of “interpreting the phenomena of life itself on the basis of a literary work.” The writer created a wonderful book that reflected an important social phenomenon. Comparing this book with life, the critic explains the objective historical content of the novel about an enlightened man who dies from an amazing disease - Oblomovism. He extends this concept to a whole circle of people and objects that, at first glance, have nothing to do with Oblomov’s sofa. He shows their common features, which served the artist, perhaps even without his knowledge, as real material for the creation of a literary type. He finds the sources of these features in the life of society, connects them with certain class relations, gives them an even more precise political designation, pointing out the features of Oblomovism in the cowardly liberalism of the upper classes. Thus, the critic explains to the reader the truth of the content embodied in the artistic image. At the same time, he shows the falsity of this content, and, moreover, not in the subjective sense of the word, as the falsity of the plan put by the writer as the basis of his creation, but in the objective sense - as the falsity of the subject of the image itself. The appearance of Oblomov’s type in literature proves, according to Dobrolyubov, that the time of liberal phrase-mongering is over. In the face of a real revolutionary cause, it becomes obvious how alien the features of Oblomovism are to the true needs of the people. As evidence of maturity public consciousness, Goncharov’s novel has a significance that goes far beyond the literary department. A work of art becomes a sign of the times.
Thanks to Dobrolyubov’s criticism, the word Oblomovism entered the everyday speech of the Russian people as an expression of those negative traits that advanced Russia has always struggled with. It is in this sense that Lenin uses this concept.
Another example of real criticism is the wonderful article by Dobrolyubov’s teacher, N. G. Chernyshevsky, “Russian man on rendez-vous” (1858). It was written about "Asia" by Turgenev. The situation shown in this story is similar to the situation in Oblomov. It is also related to the position of Rudin in the decisive scene with Natalya, Pechorin in relation to Princess Mary, Onegin in the famous explanation with Tatiana. It gives rise to some generalizations. Let's imagine Romeo and Juliet. A girl, full of deep and fresh feelings, is waiting for her sweetheart on a date. And he really comes to read her the following notation: “You are guilty before me,” he tells her; “you got me into trouble, I am dissatisfied with you, you are compromising me, and I must end my relationship with you; it is very unpleasant for me.” to part with you, but if you please go away from here" (5, 157).
Some readers were dissatisfied with Turgenev's story, finding that this rough scene did not fit with general character hero "Asi". “If this man is what he appears to be in the first half of the story, then he could not have acted with such vulgar rudeness, and if he could have acted like that, then from the very beginning he should have appeared to us as a completely crappy person” (5, 158). This means the writer did not make ends meet contrary to the laws of art. Chernyshevsky undertakes to prove that this contradiction is not a consequence of the author’s weakness, but stems from life itself, its own contradictions and limitations. The fact is that the hero of “Asia” really belongs to the best people in society. But, alas, these best people behave very strangely at rendez-vous; and such are they in every matter that requires not only conversations, but also the determination to act, disregarding conventions and taking responsibility for what they have done. That is why the position of women in the works of Russian authors of the 19th century is so unenviable. Natures are organic and rich, they believe in the truth of the words and noble motives of Onegin, Pechorin, Beltov, the hero of Nekrasov’s “Sasha” and other best people of their time. And these people themselves consider themselves capable of feats. But at the decisive moment they remain inactive, and, moreover, they value this inactivity, since it gives them the pitiful consolation of thinking that they are above the reality around them and are too smart to take part in its petty fuss. And here they are
scouring the world
They are looking for gigantic things to do for themselves,
The benefit of the legacy of rich fathers
Freed me from small labors.
“Everywhere, whatever the character of the poet,” says Chernyshevsky, whatever his personal concepts about the actions of his hero, the hero acts the same way with all others decent people, like him deduced from other poets, there is still no talk about the matter, but you just need to occupy idle time, fill an idle head or an idle heart with conversations and dreams, the hero is very lively; As the matter approaches to directly and accurately express their feelings and desires, most of the heroes begin to hesitate and feel sluggish in their language. A few, the bravest, somehow still manage to gather all their strength and tongue-tiedly express something that gives a vague idea of ​​​​their thoughts; but if anyone decides to grab hold of their desires, to say: “You want such and such; we are very glad; start acting, and we will support you,” - with such a remark, one half of the bravest heroes faints, the others they begin to reproach you very rudely for putting them in an awkward position, they begin to talk; that they did not expect such proposals from you, that they are completely losing their heads, cannot figure out anything, because “how is it possible so soon,” and “besides, they - honest people", and not only honest, but very humble and do not want to expose you to troubles, and that in general, is it really possible to bother about everything that is talked about out of nothing to do, and that it is best not to take on anything, because everything is associated with troubles and inconveniences, and nothing good can happen yet, because, as already said, they “didn’t expect or expect” and so on.” (5, 160).
The critical activity of Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov was the development of the foundations created by the genius of Belinsky. Nowadays every educated Russian thinks in living figures. national literature. Chatsky, Onegin, Lensky, Tatyana, Pechorin, Khlestakov, Manilov, Rudin, Oblomov... All these classic images of Russian writers received the imprint of complete clarity in the eyes of the people thanks to the efforts of real criticism. They became something more significant than mere creations of literature, almost historical figures.
5
It may be objected that literary criticism, which considers its main task to be “explaining those phenomena of reality that gave rise to a well-known work of art,” uses this work as a reason for its journalistic goal and loses sight of the purely artistic effect art. But such an objection would be wrong. In any case, it does not affect Russian criticism of the 19th century, which never allowed itself to measure a work of art by some alien, external scale. To clarify this circumstance, we need to take a closer look at the method of real criticism as an application of a well-known aesthetic theory in practice.
The aesthetic theory of Russian thinkers of the 19th century can be expressed in the form of several main principles. The first principle is already known to us. “The beautiful is life,” says the basic formula of Chernyshevsky’s dissertation “Aesthetic Relations of Art to Reality.” The subject of poetry is truth, the task of literature is to reflect the actual world in its living reality. Truthfulness and naturalness constitute necessary condition true work of art. Great writer depicts life as it is, without embellishing or distorting it.
Thus, the first principle of the Russian aesthetic school can be called the principle of realism. However, realism is not understood here in the usual, subjective-formal sense - as a skillful depiction of objects of the external world on canvas or in a novel. Real criticism examines the author's successes and failures in the technique of copying life. In any significant work of literature, the shortcomings of form belong to the very reality that lies at the basis of literary creativity. For example, real criticism does not accuse Ostrovsky of the fact that his plays are devoid of Shakespearean passions and stunning dramatic effects. She believes that such advantages would be completely unnatural in plays from the life of the Russian “middle class”, and indeed Russian life in the mid-19th century. They say that the endings in Ostrovsky's comedies are unreasonable and random. The objection is empty, writes Dobrolyubov. “Where can we get rationality when it is not in the very life depicted by the author? Without a doubt, Ostrovsky would have been able to present some more valid reasons for keeping a person from drunkenness than the ringing of a bell; but what to do if Peter Ilyich was like that, that you couldn’t understand reasons? You can’t put your mind into a person, folk superstition you can't change it. To give it a meaning that it does not have would mean to distort it and lie to the very life in which it manifests itself. It’s the same in other cases: - to create unyielding dramatic characters, evenly and deliberately striving towards one goal, to invent a strictly conceived and subtly executed intrigue would mean imposing on Russian life something that is not in it at all" (5, 27). They say, that Ostrovsky's characters are inconsistent, logically inconsistent. “But if naturalness requires a lack of logical consistency?” - In this case, some contempt for the logical isolation of the work may be necessary from the point of view of fidelity to the facts of reality.