beauty will save the world
beauty will save the world
From the novel The Idiot (1868) by F. M. Dostoevsky (1821 - 1881).
As a rule, it is understood literally: contrary to the author's interpretation of the concept of "beauty".
In the novel (part 3, ch. V), these words are spoken by an 18-year-old youth, Ippolit Terentyev, referring to the words of Prince Myshkin transmitted to him by Nikolai Ivolgin and ironically over the latter: "? Gentlemen, - he shouted loudly to everyone, - the prince claims that beauty will save the world! And I say that he has such playful thoughts because he is now in love.
Gentlemen, the prince is in love; just now, as soon as he entered, I was convinced of this. Don't blush, prince, I'll feel sorry for you. Which beauty will save world? Kolya told me this... Are you a zealous Christian? Kolya says that you call yourself a Christian.
The prince examined him attentively and did not answer him.
F. M. Dostoevsky was far from strictly aesthetic judgments - he wrote about spiritual beauty, about the beauty of the soul. This corresponds to the main idea of the novel - to create an image of "positively beautiful person". Therefore, in his drafts, the author calls Myshkin "Prince Christ", thereby reminding himself that Prince Myshkin should be as similar as possible to Christ - kindness, philanthropy, meekness, a complete lack of selfishness, the ability to sympathize with human misfortunes and misfortunes. Therefore, the “beauty” that the prince (and F. M. Dostoevsky himself) speaks of is the sum moral qualities"a positively beautiful person."
Such a purely personal interpretation of beauty is characteristic of the writer. He believed that "people can be beautiful and happy" not only in afterlife. They can be like this and "without losing the ability to live on earth." To do this, they must agree with the idea that Evil "cannot be normal state people" that everyone is able to get rid of him. And then, when people will be guided by the best that is in their soul, memory and intentions (Good), then they will be truly beautiful. And the world will be saved, and it is precisely such “beauty” (that is, the best that is in people) that will save it.
Of course, this will not happen overnight - spiritual work, trials and even suffering are needed, after which a person renounces Evil and turns to Good, begins to appreciate it. The writer speaks of this in many of his works, including in the novel The Idiot. For example (Part 1, Chapter VII):
“For some time, the general, silently and with a certain tinge of disdain, examined the portrait of Nastasya Filippovna, which she held in front of her in her outstretched hand, extremely and effectively moving away from her eyes.
Yes, she's good," she finally said, "very good indeed. I saw her twice, only from a distance. So you appreciate such and such beauty? she suddenly turned to the prince.
Yes ... such ... - answered the prince with some effort.
That is, exactly like this?
Exactly this.
For what?
There is a lot of suffering in this face ... - the prince said, as if involuntarily, as if speaking to himself, and not answering a question.
You, however, may be delusional, ”the general’s wife decided and with an arrogant gesture threw the portrait on the table about herself.”
The writer in his interpretation of beauty acts as a like-minded person German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), who spoke of " moral law within us”, that “beautiful is a symbol
ox of moral good. F. M. Dostoevsky develops the same idea in his other works. So, if in the novel “The Idiot” he writes that beauty will save the world, then in the novel “Demons” (1872) he logically concludes that “ugliness (malice, indifference, selfishness. - Comp.) will kill ... "
encyclopedic Dictionary winged words and expressions. - M.: "Lokid-Press". Vadim Serov. 2003 .
See what "Beauty will save the world" is in other dictionaries:
- (beautiful), in terms of Holy Rus' divine harmony, inherent in nature, man, some things and images. Beauty expresses the divine essence of the world. Its source is in God Himself, His integrity and perfection. "Beauty ... ... Russian history
BEAUTY Russian Philosophy: Dictionary
beauty- one of the central concepts of Russian. philosophical and aesthetic thought. The word K. comes from the Proto-Slavic beauty. The adjective red in Proto-Slavonic and Old Russian. languages meant beautiful, beautiful, bright (hence, for example, Red ... ... Russian Philosophy. Encyclopedia
Artistic the direction prevailing in the app. European culture in room 60 early. 70s 19th century (originally in literature, then in other forms of art depicting, musical, theatrical) and soon included other cultural phenomena philosophy, ... ... Encyclopedia of cultural studies
An aesthetic category that characterizes phenomena that have the highest aesthetic perfection. In the history of thought, the specificity of P. was realized gradually, through its correlation with other kinds of values, utilitarian (benefit), cognitive (truth), ... ... Philosophical Encyclopedia
Fedor Mikhailovich, Russian writer, thinker, publicist. Started in the 40s. lit. path in line natural school"As a successor to Gogol and an admirer of Belinsky, D. at the same time absorbed into ... ... Philosophical Encyclopedia
- (from the Greek. aisthetikos feeling, sensual) philosophy. a discipline that studies the nature of the whole variety of expressive forms of the surrounding world, their structure and modification. E. is focused on identifying universals in sensory perception ... ... Philosophical Encyclopedia
Vladimir Sergeevich (born January 16, 1853, Moscow - died July 31, 1900, ibid.) - the largest Russian. religious philosopher, poet, publicist, son of S. M. Solovyov, rector of the Moscow University and author of the 29th volume "History of Russia from ancient times" (1851 - 1879) ... Philosophical Encyclopedia
An activity that generates new values, ideas, the person himself as a creator. In modern scientific literature devoted to this problem, there is an obvious desire to explore specific types of technology (in science, technology, art), its ... ... Philosophical Encyclopedia
Valentina Sazonova Sazonova Valentina Grigoryevna Date of birth: March 19, 1955 (1955 03 19) Place of birth: Chervone ... Wikipedia
Books
- Beauty will save the world. Album of artistic tasks in the visual arts. 4th grade. GEF, Ashikova Svetlana Gennadievna. The album of artistic tasks "Beauty will save the world" is included in the UMK" art. Grade 4 ". He expands and deepens the material of the textbook for grade 4 (author S. G. Ashikova). Contents ...
Will beauty save the world?
1. "Beauty will save the world"
This is a quote from The Idiot. In the context of the novel, it is precisely about strength inner beauty. In the drafts of the novel there is an entry: “The world will be saved by beauty. Two examples of beauty. Nastasya Fillipovna, as a model of the external, and Myshkin - of the internal.
In the plot of The Idiot, however, we find a refutation of this quote: the beauty of Nastasya Filippovna, like the purity of Prince Myshkin, does not make the life of other characters better and does not prevent tragedy.
2. "Am I a trembling creature or have the right"
This is Raskolnikov's phrase. She is the key to understanding why he still failed the old pawnbroker. No matter how he justifies himself with noble impulses and difficult circumstances, he confesses to Sonechka Marmeladova that he killed for himself. Check whether he belongs to the category of "Napoleons" and "Mohammedans" or to the category of the lowest.
3. "Will the light fail, or should I not drink tea"
This is part of the monologue of the nameless hero of Notes from the Underground, which he utters in front of a prostitute who unexpectedly came to his house. The phrase about tea sounds like evidence of insignificance and selfishness underground man.
tea in tsarist Russia was a really expensive product. In 1845, in the Chinese tea shop of the merchant Piskarev, prices per pound (0.45 kg) ranged from 5 to 6.5 rubles. A pound of first-class beef at the same time cost 6-7 rubles.
4. "If there is no God, then everything is allowed"
Dostoevsky's fantasy on the topic of what humanity will do without God shows that there is nothing good. Ivan Karamazov waives moral laws and allows the murder of his father. Unable to bear the consequences, he goes mad. Having allowed himself everything, Ivan does not stop believing in God - his theory does not work, even he could not prove it to himself.
By the way, no one pronounces this phrase in The Brothers Karamazov. It will later be constructed from different replicas literary critics and readers.
5. “Masha lies on the table. Will I see Masha?
This is a quote from the writer's diary entry made after the news of the death of his first wife Maria. They lived at that time in different cities and talked little. The death of Maria Dmitrievna struck him. He immediately wrote down his thoughts about love and marriage in his diary.
Their essence boiled down to the fact that a person is too selfish and is not able to love his neighbor as himself. Therefore, all marriages are doomed to fail. Only Christ was the ideal (he was portrayed by Dostoevsky in the hero of Myshkin), and a common person- it is rather an individualist and egoist Raskolnikov.
"Beauty will save the world...":
algorithm of the process of salvation in the works of Dostoevsky
Talk about famous quote from Dostoevsky's novel The Idiot, we will begin with an analysis of a quote from The Brothers Karamazov, also quite famous and dedicated to beauty. After all, the phrase of Dostoevsky, which became the title of this work, in contrast to the phrase of Vl. Solovyov, is dedicated not to beauty, but saving the world, which we have already found out by joint efforts ...
So, what Dostoevsky is dedicated to beauty itself: “Beauty is a terrible and terrible thing! Terrible, because it is indefinable, but it is impossible to determine because God asked only riddles. Here the banks converge, here all the contradictions live together. I, brother, am very uneducated, but I have thought about it a lot. So many mysteries! Too many riddles oppress man on earth. Guess how you know and get out dry from the water. Beauty! Moreover, I cannot bear the fact that another person, even higher in heart and with a loftier mind, begins with the ideal of the Madonna, and ends with the ideal of Sodom. It is even more terrible, who already with the ideal of Sodom in his soul does not deny the ideal of the Madonna, and his heart burns from him and truly, truly burns, as in his youthful immaculate years. No, the man is wide, too wide, I would narrow it down. The devil knows what it even is, that's what! What appears to the mind as a disgrace, then to the heart is entirely beauty. Is there beauty in Sodom? Believe that in Sodom she sits for the vast majority of people - did you know this secret or not? The terrible thing is that beauty is not only a terrible, but also a mysterious thing. Here the devil is fighting with God, and the battlefield is the hearts of people. And by the way, what hurts someone, he talks about it ”(14, 100).
Note that Dostoevsky always wrote the word "Sodom" with capital letter, referring directly to the biblical story.
Almost all Russian philosophers who analyzed this passage, were confident that Dostoevsky's hero was talking about two types of beauty. In a recent study contained in a just-published collection, the author is convinced of the same thing: "In these reflections, Dmitry opposes two types of beauty: the ideal of the Madonna and the ideal of Sodom." It was argued that Dostoevsky speaks through the lips of the hero (this statement was often redirected to the writer) about beauty and its imitation, fake; about a woman clothed in the sun, and a harlot on a beast, etc., that is, they picked up and, in fact, substituted a pair of (seemingly similar) metaphors in the text to explain it. At the same time, the text itself was perceived as a series of metaphors, since philosophers hastened to begin interpreting the text without honoring it with a real reading, that is, philological analysis, due in any philosophical reflection on artistic text precede philosophical analysis. They perceived the text as talking about something they already knew. Meanwhile, this text requires precise, mathematical, reading, and, having read it in this way, we will see that Dostoevsky, through the lips of the hero, is telling us here about something completely different than all the philosophers who talked about him.
First of all, it should be noted that beauty defined here in terms of antonyms: terrible, terrible thing.
Further - in the text answers the question: why is it terrible? - because indefinable(and, by the way, the definition through antonyms brilliantly emphasizes indefinability this thing).
That is, in relation to beauty, about which in question, it is precisely the operation of allegorization (rigidly defining, we note, operation) that philosophers performed is impossible. The only symbol corresponding to this beauty that fits the description of Dostoevsky's hero is the famous Isis under the veil - terrible and terrible, because it cannot be defined.
So there - All, in this beauty, all contradictions live together, the banks converge, - and this completeness being not defined in separators, in opposing parts of the whole, terms of good and evil. Beauty is terrible and terrible because it is thing from another world, contrary to all probability, present here, in this given and revealed world, is a thing world before the fall, the world before the beginning of analytical thought and the perception of good and evil.
But the "Ideal of Sodom" and "the ideal of the Madonna", which are further discussed by Dmitry Karamazov, are still for some reason stubbornly understood as two opposing types of beauty, selected in some absolutely unknown way from the fact that indefinitely(i.e. literally - has no limit - but therefore cannot be divided), from what is convergence, inseparable unity of all contradictions, a place where contradictions get along- that is, they cease to be contradictions ...
But this would be a violation of logic, completely uncharacteristic of such a strict thinker, what is Dostoevsky - and what, it should be noted, are his heroes: before us is not two distinct, opposing, beauties, but only ways of relating person to unified beauty. The “ideal of the Madonna” and the “ideal of Sodomsky” are in Dostoevsky - and there will be many confirmations of this in the novel - ways to look at beauty, perceive beauty, desire beauty.
The “ideal” is in the eye, head and heart of the upcoming beauty, and beauty is given to the future so defenselessly and selflessly that it allows it to shape its inherent indeterminacy in accordance with its “ideal”. Lets see myself as coming able see.
I think this will seem unconvincing - we have accustomed ourselves too much to the fact that it is not our ways of perception that oppose each other, but precisely the types of beauty, for example, the "blond blue-eyed angel" and the "fire-eyed demoness" replicated by the romantics.
But if, defining what the "ideal of Sodom" is, we turn to the source texts, never mentioned in vain by Dostoevsky, we will see that it was not libertines and seducers, not demons who came to Sodom: they came to Sodom angels, receptacles and prototypes of the Lord, - and it was them that the Sodomites rushed to “know” with the whole city.
Yes, and the Mother of God - remember the "Song of Songs" - "terrible, like regiments with banners", "protector", "indestructible wall" - is not at all reducible to "one type" of beauty. Its completeness, the ability to contain "all contradictions", is emphasized by the abundance different types, izvodov, plots of icons reflecting different aspects Her acting in the world and transforming the world of beauty.
Mitino is extremely characteristic: “Is there beauty in Sodom? Believe that she is in Sodom and is sitting for the vast majority of people. ”That is, it is characteristic precisely from the point of view of the language used by the hero of the words. Beauty is not "acquired", is not "located" in Sodom. And Sodom does not "constitute" beauty. Beauty in Sodom "sits" - that is, planted, locked up in Sodom as in a prison, as in a dungeon human eyes. It is in this secret, communicated by Mitya to Alyosha, that the clue to Dostoevsky's attraction to the heroine is the saint harlot. "All contradictions live together." Beauty, prisoner in Sodom, and cannot appear in any other form.
The essential thing here is this: in Dostoevsky the word "Sodom" appears both in the novel "Crime and Punishment" and in the novel "The Idiot" - and in the most characteristic places. Marmeladov says, describing the place of residence of his family: “Sodom, sir, the ugliest ... hm ... yes” (6, 16), - exactly anticipating the story of Sonya's transformation into a prostitute. We can say that the beginning of this transformation is the settlement of the family in Sodom.
In The Idiot, General repeats: "This is Sodom, Sodom!" (8, 143) - when Nastasya Filippovna, in order to prove to the prince that she is not worth him, for the first time takes money from the person selling her. But before this exclamation, from the words of Nastasya Filippovna, it turns out for the general that Aglaya Yepanchina is also participating in the auction - although she majestically refuses this at the beginning of the novel, forcing the prince to write to Ghana in the album: "I do not enter into auctions." If they don’t trade with her, then they trade with her - and this is also the beginning of her placement in Sodom: “And you, Ganechka, overlooked Aglaya Epanchin, did you know this? If you hadn't bargained with her, she would certainly have married you! That's how you all are: either with dishonorable or honest women to know - one choice! And then you will certainly get confused ... ”(8, 143). On XII At the Youthful April Dostoevsky Readings, one speaker characteristically expressed herself about Nastasya Filippovna: “She is vicious, because everyone sells it." I think it because- very accurate.
A woman - the bearer of beauty in Dostoevsky - is terrible - and striking - precisely by her indefinability. Nastasya Filippovna with the prince, who did not trade her, is "not like that", but with Rogozhin, who traded her, suspecting her - "exactly like that." These "such - not such" will be the main definitions given in the novel by Nastasya Filippovna - the embodied beauty ... and they will depend solely on the gaze of the beholder. Let us note to ourselves the complete indeterminacy and indefinability of these so-called definitions.
Beauty is defenseless before the beholder in the sense that it is he who shapes its concrete manifestation (after all, beauty does not appear without the beholder). What a man sees a woman, so she is for him. “A man can insult a prostitute, a ruble woman, with cynicism,” Dostoevsky was convinced. Svidrigailov is kindled precisely by the chastity of the innocent Dunya. Fyodor Pavlovich experiences lust when he first sees his last wife, similar to the Madonna: ““These innocent eyes slashed my soul like a razor then,” he used to say later, giggling nastily in his own way” (14, 13). Here, it turns out, what is terrible about the preserved ideal of the Madonna, when the Sodom ideal already triumphs in the soul: the ideal of the Madonna becomes the object of voluptuous attraction par excellence.
But when Madonna's ideal hinders voluptuous attraction - then he becomes the object of direct denial and abuse, and in this sense the scene retold by Fyodor Pavlovich to Alyosha and Ivan acquires the meaning of a huge symbol: “But God, Alyosha, I never offended my hymn! Once, only once, even in the first year: she prayed very much then, especially observed the Mother of God feasts and then she drove me from herself to the office. I think, let me knock this mystic out of her! “You see, I say, you see, here is yours image, here it is, here I'll take it off ( let's pay attention - Fyodor Pavlovich speaks as if he was taking her away from Sophia at that moment true image, undresses her from her image ... - T.K.). Look, you consider him miraculous, and now I’ll spit on him in your presence, and I won’t get anything for it! then suddenly covered her face with her hands as if trying to obscure the defiled image - T.K.), all trembled and fell to the floor ... and sank ”(14, 126).
It is characteristic that Fedor Pavlovich does not consider other insults to be insults, although the story of his marriage to his wife Sophia is literally the story of the imprisonment of beauty in Sodom. And here Dostoevsky shows how external imprisonment becomes internal imprisonment - how out of abuse grows a disease that distorts both the body and the spirit of the bearer of beauty. “Having not taken any remuneration, Fyodor Pavlovich did not stand on ceremony with his wife and, taking advantage of the fact that she, so to speak, was“ guilty ”to him and that he almost“ took her off the noose, ”using, in addition, her phenomenal unresponsiveness, even trampled underfoot the most ordinary marriage propriety. In the house, right there with his wife, bad women gathered and organized orgies.<…>Subsequently, a sort of nervous female disease, found most often among the common people among village women, called hysterics for this disease. From this illness, with terrible hysterical fits, the patient at times even lost her mind ”(14, 13). The very first attack of this disease, as we have seen, occurred precisely when the image of the Madonna was defiled ... By virtue of what has been described, we will not be able to separate this embodiment of the “ideal of the Madonna” in the novel either from the hysterical women, perceived as possessed, or from the senseless Lizaveta Smerdyashaya. We will not be able to separate him from Grushenka, the “queen of impudence”, the main “infernal” of the novel, who once sobbed at night, remembering her offender, thin, sixteen years old ...
But if the story of Sophia is the story of the imprisonment of beauty in Sodom, then the story of Grushenka is the story of bringing beauty out of Sodom! The evolution of perception of Mitya Grushenka, the epithets and definitions he gives her is characteristic. It all starts with the fact that she is a creature, a beast, "the bend at the rogue", an infernal, a tiger, "it is not enough to kill." Next - the moment of the trip to Wet: a sweet creature, the queen of my soul (and in general names that are directly related to the Madonna). But then something absolutely fantastic appears at all - “brother Grushenka”.
So, I repeat: beauty lies outside the area from which the division into good and evil begins - in beauty there is still an unsplit, whole world. The world before the fall. It is by manifesting this primordial world that one who sees true beauty saves the world.
Beauty in Mitya's statement is just as one and all-powerful and indivisible, like God, with whom the devil fights, but Who Himself does not fight with the devil ... God abides, the devil attacks. God creates - the devil tries to take away what has been created. But he himself did not create anything, which means that everything created is good. It can only - like beauty - be planted in Sodom...
The phrase from Dostoevsky's novel "The Idiot" - I mean the phrase that is the title for this work - was remembered in a different form, the one that Vladimir Solovyov gave it: "Beauty will save the world." And this change is somehow very similar to the changes that the philosophers of the turn of the century made with the phrase: "Here the devil is fighting God." It was said: “Here the devil is with Godutsya ", and even -" Here God is fighting the devil.
Meanwhile, Dostoevsky says differently: "Beauty will save the world."
Perhaps the easiest way to understand what Dostoevsky wanted to say is to compare these two phrases and realize that in how lies their difference.
What does the change of seme and rheme bring us on a semantic level? In Solovyov's phrase, the salvation of the world is a property inherent in beauty. beauty is saving says this phrase.
Nothing of the kind is said in Dostoevsky's phrase.
Here, rather, it is said that the world will be saved by beauty as one of its inherent properties of the world. Beauty does not tend to save the world, but beauty tends to abide in it indestructibly. And this indestructible presence of beauty in it is the only hope of the world.
That is, beauty is not something victoriously approaching the world with the function of salvation, no, but beauty is something already present in it, and due to this presence of beauty in it, the world will be saved.
Beauty, like God, does not fight, but abides. The salvation of the world will come from the gaze of a man who has seen beauty in all things. Ceased to conclude, imprison her in Sodom.
Elder Zosima in drafts for a novel about such a sojourn of beauty in the world: “The world is paradise, we have the keys” (15, 245). And he will also say, also in drafts: “All around man is the mystery of God, the great mystery of order and harmony” (15, 246).
The transforming effect of beauty can be described as follows: the realized beauty of a person, as it were, gives an impetus to the personalities around her to reveal themselves in their own beauty (this is what the heroine of the novel “Idiot” means when she says about Nastasya Filippovna: “Such beauty is strength,<…>With such beauty, you can turn the world upside down! (8, 69)). Harmony (aka: paradise - the perfect state of the world - the beauty of the whole) - is both the result and the starting point of this mutual transformation. The realized beauty of the person, in accordance with the meaning in the Greek language of beauty as validity, is the acquisition of personality your place. But if at least one finds its place, a chain reaction of restoring others in their places begins (because this one who has found his place will become an additional indicator for them and a determinant of their place - like in a puzzle - if the place of one piece is found - then everything is already much easier) - and not symbolic, but really the temple of the transfigured world will be rapidly built. This is exactly what Seraphim of Sarov said when he said: save yourself - and thousands around you will be saved ... This is actually the mechanism for saving the world with beauty. Because - once again - everyone is beautiful in place. You want to be near such people and you want to follow them ... And here you can make a mistake trying to follow in their rut, while the only true way to follow them is to find its own ruts.
However, it is possible to err even more radically. The impulse given to those around by a beautiful personality, causing wish beauty, striving for beauty, can lead (and, alas, so often leads) not to a reciprocal disclosure of beauty in yourself, work beauty from within myself- that is - to the transformation of oneself, but to the desire to seize in a spring way into the property this already manifested others, beauty. That is, the desire that harmonizes the world and man give its beauty to the world in this case turns into a selfish desire assign beauty of the world. This leads to destruction, the destruction of any harmony, to confrontation and struggle. This is the ending of The Idiot. I would like to emphasize once again that the so-called "infernals" of Dostoevsky's works are not guns hell, and prisoners hell, and they are imprisoned in this hell by those who, instead of their own self-giving in response to the inevitable and inevitable self-giving of beauty (since self-giving, according to Dostoevsky, is the way beauty exists in the world), seeks to realize capture beauty into their own property, entering on this path into the inevitable fierce struggle with the same invaders.
Self-revelation of personalities in their beauty in response to the manifestation of beauty is the path of abundance, the path of turning a person into a source of grace to the world; the desire to appropriate the beauty revealed to others is the path of poverty, lack, the path of turning a person into a black hole that sucks grace from the universe.
Self-disclosure of personalities in their beauty is, according to Dostoevsky, the ability give it all. In the “Diary of a Writer” for 1877, it is precisely along the rift between the principles “to give everything away” and “you cannot give everything away” that for him there will be a rift between humanity that is being transformed and stagnant in its untransformed state.
But even much earlier, in “Winter Notes on Summer Impressions,” he wrote: “Understand me: the self-willed, completely conscious and forced self-sacrifice of oneself for the benefit of everyone is, in my opinion, a sign of the highest development of the personality, its highest power, the highest self-control, the highest freedom own will. To voluntarily lay down one's stomach for everyone, to go to the cross, to the fire for everyone, can only be done with the strongest development of personality. A highly developed personality, fully confident in its right to be a personality, no longer having any fear for itself, can do nothing else out of its personality, that is, there is no other use than to give it all to everyone, so that everyone else would be exactly the same self-righteous and happy individuals. This is the law of nature; a normal person is drawn to this” (5, 79).
The principle of building harmony, restoring paradise for Dostoevsky is not to renounce something with the aim of fit in into EVERYTHING, and not to keep your everything, insisting on the fullness of self-acceptance - but to give all without conditions- and then EVERYTHING will return its personality All, which includes for the first time blossomed in true fullness given All personality.
Here is how Dostoevsky describes the process of achieving the harmony of nations: “We will be the first to announce to the world that we do not want to achieve our own prosperity through the suppression of the personalities of nationalities alien to us, but, on the contrary, we see it only in the freest and most independent development of all other nations and in fraternal unity with them, replenishing one another, grafting to themselves their organic characteristics and giving them and from themselves branches for grafting, communicating with them in soul and spirit, learning from them and teaching them, and so on until when mankind, having been filled with the world communion of peoples to universal unity, like a great and magnificent tree, will overshadow the happy earth with itself” (25, 100).
I want to draw your attention to the fact that this apparently poetic description is actually very technologically. It describes in detail and technically precisely the process of gathering the body of Christ (“entirely included in humanity”, according to Dostoevsky) from its disparate and often opposing aspects of it - individuals and peoples. I suspect, however, that such are all truly poetic descriptions.
A person who has realized his beauty, being surrounded by failed yet, who have not become beautiful personalities, turns out to be crucified on the cross of their imperfection; freely crucified in the impulse to realize the self-giving of beauty. But - at the same time - she seems to be locked in a cage by their impenetrable boundaries, limited in her own self-giving (she gives - but they cannot receive), which makes the suffering on the cross unbearable.
Thus, in the first approximation, we can say that Dostoevsky draws us a single process of transforming the world, consisting of two interdependent steps that are repeated many times in this process, capturing more and more new levels of the universe: the realized beauty of the members that make up the community makes harmony possible, the realized harmony of the whole unleashes beauty...
Fedor Dostoevsky. Engraving by Vladimir Favorsky. 1929 State Tretyakov Gallery/DIOMEDIA
"Beauty will save the world"
“Is it true, Prince [Mishkin], that you once said that the world would be saved by “beauty”? Gentlemen, - he [Ippolit] shouted loudly to everyone, - the prince claims that beauty will save the world! And I say that he has such playful thoughts because he is now in love. Gentlemen, the prince is in love; just now, as soon as he entered, I was convinced of this. Don't blush, prince, I'll feel sorry for you. What beauty will save the world? Kolya told me this... Are you a zealous Christian? Kolya says you call yourself a Christian.
The prince examined him attentively and did not answer him."Idiot" (1868)
The phrase about the beauty that will save the world is said by minor character- consumptive young man Ippolit. He asks if Prince Myshkin really said so, and, having received no answer, he begins to develop this thesis. And here main character of the novel in such formulations does not talk about beauty and only once clarifies about Nastasya Filippovna whether she is kind: “Oh, if only she were kind! Everything would be saved!”
In the context of The Idiot, it is customary to speak first of all about the power of inner beauty - this is how the writer himself suggested interpreting this phrase. While working on the novel, he wrote to the poet and censor Apollon Maikov that he set himself the goal of creating perfect image"quite a wonderful person," referring to Prince Myshkin. At the same time, in the drafts of the novel there is the following entry: “The world will be saved by beauty. Two examples of beauty, ”after which the author discusses the beauty of Nastasya Filippovna. For Dostoevsky, therefore, it is important to evaluate the saving power of both the inner, spiritual beauty of a person and his appearance. In the plot of The Idiot, however, we find a negative answer: the beauty of Nastasya Filippovna, like the purity of Prince Myshkin, does not make the life of other characters better and does not prevent tragedy.
Later, in the novel "The Brothers Karamazov", the characters will again talk about the power of beauty. Brother Mitya no longer doubts her saving power: he knows and feels that beauty can make the world a better place. But in his own understanding, it also has destructive power. And the hero will be tormented because he does not understand exactly where the border between good and evil lies.
"Am I a trembling creature, or do I have the right"
“And not money, the main thing, I needed, Sonya, when I killed; money was needed not so much as something else ... I know all this now ... Understand me: maybe, following the same path, I would never repeat the murders again. I had to find out something else, something else pushed me under the arms: I had to find out then, and find out as soon as possible, whether I was a louse, like everyone else, or a man? Will I be able to cross or not! Do I dare to bend down and take it or not? Am I a trembling creature or right I have…”
"Crime and Punishment" (1866)
For the first time, Raskolnikov speaks of a “trembling creature” after meeting with a tradesman who calls him a “murderer”. The hero is frightened and plunges into reasoning about how some “Napoleon” would react in his place - a representative of the highest human “category”, who can calmly commit a crime for the sake of his goal or whim: “Right, right.” prophet, when he puts a good-r-roy battery somewhere across the street and blows on the right and the guilty, without even deigning to explain himself! Obey, trembling creature, and - do not wish, therefore - this is none of your business! .. ”Raskolnikov most likely borrowed this image from Pushkin’s poem “Imitation of the Koran”, where the 93rd sura is freely stated:
Be of good cheer, despise deceit,
Follow the path of righteousness,
Love the orphans and my Quran
Preach to the trembling creature.
IN original text suras, the addressees of the sermon should not be “creatures”, but people who should be told about the blessings that Allah can bestow “Therefore do not oppress the orphan! And do not drive the one who asks! And proclaim the mercy of your Lord" (Qur'an 93:9-11).. Raskolnikov deliberately mixes the image from "Imitations of the Koran" and episodes from the biography of Napoleon. Of course, not the prophet Mohammed, but the French commander put "across the street good battery". So he crushed the royalist uprising in 1795. For Raskolnikov, they are both great people, and each of them, in his opinion, had the right to achieve their goals by any means. Everything that Napoleon did could be implemented by Mahomet and any other representative of the highest "class".
The last mention of the "trembling creature" in "Crime and Punishment" is the very damned question of Raskolnikov "Am I a trembling creature or have the right to ...". He utters this phrase at the end of a long explanation with Sonya Marmeladova, finally not justifying himself with noble impulses and difficult circumstances, but bluntly stating that he killed for himself in order to understand which “category” he belongs to. Thus ends his last monologue; after hundreds and thousands of words, he finally got to the bottom of it. The significance of this phrase is given not only by the biting wording, but also by what happens next with the hero. After that, Raskolnikov no longer makes long speeches: Dostoevsky leaves him only short remarks. Readers will learn about Raskolnikov's inner experiences, which will eventually lead him with a confession to Sen-naya Square and to the police station, from the author's explanations. The hero himself will not tell about anything else - after all, he has already asked the main question.
"Will the light fail, or should I not drink tea"
“... In fact, I need, you know what: so that you fail, that's what! I need peace. Yes, I'm in favor of not being disturbed, I'll sell the whole world right now for a penny. Will the light fail, or should I not drink tea? I will say that the light will fail, but that I always drink tea. Did you know this or not? Well, I now know that I am a scoundrel, a scoundrel, a selfish, lazy person.
"Notes from the Underground" (1864)
This is part of the monologue of the nameless hero of Notes from the Underground, which he says to a prostitute who unexpectedly came to his house. The phrase about tea sounds like proof of the insignificance and selfishness of the underground man. These words have a curious historical context. Tea as a measure of prosperity first appears in Dostoevsky's Poor People. Here's how he talks about his financial situation the hero of the novel Makar Devushkin:
“And my apartment costs me seven rubles in banknotes, and a table of five rubles: here are twenty-four and a half, and before that I paid exactly thirty, but denied myself a lot; He didn't always drink tea, but now he's paid for tea and sugar. It is, you know, my dear, not to drink tea is somehow ashamed; there are enough people here, and it’s a shame.”
Dostoevsky himself experienced similar experiences in his youth. In 1839 he wrote from St. Petersburg to his father in the village:
"What; without drinking tea, you will not die of hunger! I'll live somehow!<…>The camp life of each pupil of military educational institutions requires at least 40 rubles. money.<…>In this sum, I do not include such needs as, for example, to have tea, sugar, and so on. This is already necessary, and necessary, not out of propriety alone, but out of need. When you get wet in damp weather in the rain in a linen tent, or in such weather, when you come home from school tired, cold, you can get sick without tea; what happened to me last year on a hike. But still, respecting your need, I will not drink tea.
Tea in tsarist Russia was a really expensive product. It was transported directly from China along the only overland route, and this route is for-------- small for about a year. Due to transportation costs, as well as huge customs duties, tea in Central Russia cost several times more than in Europe. According to the Vedomosti of the St. Petersburg City Police, in 1845, in the Chinese tea shop of the merchant Piskarev, prices per pound (0.45 kilograms) of the product ranged from 5 to 6.5 rubles in banknotes, and the cost of green tea reached 50 rubles. At the same time, for 6-7 rubles you could buy a pound of first-class beef. In 1850" Domestic notes” wrote that the annual consumption of tea in Russia is 8 million pounds - however, it is impossible to calculate how much per person, since this product was popular mainly in cities and among people of the upper class.
“If there is no God, then everything is allowed”
“... He ended with the assertion that for every private person, for example, as if we are now, who does not believe either in God or in his immortality, the moral law of nature must immediately change into the complete opposite of the former, religious one, and that egoism is even evil --- action should not only be allowed to a person, but even recognized as necessary, the most reasonable and almost the noblest outcome in his position.
The Brothers Karamazov (1880)
Most important words in Dostoevsky it is usually not the main characters who speak. So, Porfiry Petrovich is the first to speak about the theory of dividing humanity into two categories in Crime and Punishment, and only then Ras-kol-nikov; Ippolit asks the question of the saving power of beauty in The Idiot, and Pyotr Aleksandrovich Miusov, a relative of the Karamazovs, notes that God and the salvation promised to him are the only guarantor of people's observance of moral laws. Miusov refers to his brother Ivan, and only then other characters discuss this provocative theory, arguing about whether Karamazov could have invented it. Brother Mitya considers it interesting, the seminarian Raki-tin is vile, the meek Alyosha is false. But the phrase "If there is no God, then everything is allowed" in the novel, no one pronounces. This "quote" will later be constructed from various replicas by literary critics and readers.
Five years before the publication of The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky was already trying to fantasize about what humanity would do without God. The hero of the novel "Teenager" (1875), Andrei Petrovich Versilov, argued that clear evidence of the absence higher power and the impossibility of immortality, on the contrary, will make people love and appreciate each other more, because there is no one else to love. This imperceptibly slipped remark in next novel grows into a theory, and that, in turn, into a test in practice. Exhausted by God-borches-skim ideas, brother Ivan waives moral laws and allows the murder of his father. Unable to bear the consequences, he almost goes insane. Allowing himself everything, Ivan does not stop believing in God - his theory does not work, because even to himself he could not prove it.
“Masha is on the table. Will I see Masha?
Love a person as yourself according to the commandment of Christ, it is impossible. The law of personality on earth binds. I hinders. Only Christ could, but Christ was an ideal from the ages, to which man aspires and, according to the law of nature, man must strive.
From a notebook (1864)
Masha, or Maria Dmitrievna, nee Constant, and by the first husband of Isaev, the first wife of Dostoevsky. They married in 1857 in the Siberian city of Kuznetsk, and then moved to Central Russia. On April 15, 1864, Maria Dmitrievna died of consumption. IN last years The couple lived separately and had little contact. Maria Dmitrievna is in Vladimir, and Fedor Mikhailovich is in St. Petersburg. He was absorbed in the publication of magazines, where, among other things, he published the texts of his mistress, the aspiring writer Apollinaria Suslova. The illness and death of his wife hit him hard. A few hours after her death, Dostoevsky recorded in notebook their thoughts about love, marriage, and human development goals. Briefly, their essence is as follows. The ideal to strive for is Christ, the only one who could sacrifice himself for others. Man is selfish and unable to love his neighbor as himself. Nevertheless, heaven on earth is possible: with proper spiritual work, each new generation will be better than the previous one. Having reached the highest stage of development, people will refuse marriages, because they contradict the ideal of Christ. A family union is a selfish isolation of a couple, and in a world where people are ready to give up their personal interests for the sake of others, this is not necessary and impossible. And besides, since the ideal state of mankind will be reached only at the last stage of development, it will be possible to stop multiplying.
"Masha lies on the table..." - intimate diary entry rather than a thoughtful writer's manifesto. But it is precisely in this text that ideas are outlined that Dostoevsky would later develop in his novels. The selfish attachment of a person to his "I" will be reflected in the individualistic theory of Raskolnikov, and the unattainability of the ideal - in Prince Myshkin, who was called "Prince Christ" in drafts, as an example of self-sacrifice and humility.
"Constantinople - sooner or later, should be ours"
“Pre-Petrine Russia was active and strong, although it was slowly taking shape politically; she worked out a unity for herself and was preparing to consolidate her outskirts; she understood to herself that she carries within herself a precious value that is not found anywhere else - Orthodoxy, that she is the custodian of Christ's truth, but already the true truth, the real Christ's image, obscured in all other faiths and in all other on-ro-dah.<…>And this unity is not for capture, not for violence, not for the destruction of Slavic personalities in front of the Russian colossus, but in order to recreate them and put them in proper relation to Europe and to humanity, to give them, finally, the opportunity to calm down and rest - after their countless centuries of suffering ...<…>Of course, and for the same purpose, Constantinople - sooner or later, should be ours ... "
"A Writer's Diary" (June 1876)
In 1875-1876, the Russian and foreign press was flooded with ideas about the capture of Constantinople. At this time in the territory of Porto Ottoman Porta, or Porta, Another name for the Ottoman Empire. uprisings broke out one after another Slavic peoples which the Turkish authorities brutally suppressed. It was going to war. Everyone was waiting for Russia to come out in defense of the Balkan states: they predicted victory for it, and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. And, of course, everyone was worried about the question of who in this case would get the ancient Byzantine capital. Discussed different variants: that Constantinople will become an international city, that the Greeks will occupy it, or that it will be part of Russian Empire. The last option did not suit Europe at all, but it was very popular with Russian conservatives, who saw it primarily as a political benefit.
Vol-no-vali these questions and Dostoevsky. Having entered into a controversy, he immediately accused all the participants in the dispute of being wrong. In The Writer's Diary, from the summer of 1876 until the spring of 1877, he continually returns to the Eastern Question. Unlike the conservatives, he believed that Russia sincerely wants to protect fellow believers, free them from the oppression of the Muslims, and therefore, as an Orthodox power, has the exclusive right to Constantinople. “We, Russia, are really necessary and inevitable both for all of Eastern Christianity and for the whole fate of the future Orthodoxy on earth, for its unity,” writes Dostoevsky in his Diary for March 1877. The writer was convinced of the special Christian mission of Russia. Even earlier, he developed this idea in The Possessed. One of the heroes of this novel, Shatov, was convinced that the Russian people are God-bearing people. The same idea will be devoted to the famous, published in the Writer's Diary in 1880.
beauty will save the world
From the novel The Idiot (1868) by F. M. Dostoevsky (1821 - 1881).
As a rule, it is understood literally: contrary to the author's interpretation of the concept of "beauty".
In the novel (part 3, ch. V), these words are spoken by an 18-year-old youth, Ippolit Terentyev, referring to the words of Prince Myshkin transmitted to him by Nikolai Ivolgin and ironically over the latter: “It’s true, prince, that you once said that the world will be saved by“ beauty "? Gentlemen, - he shouted loudly to everyone, - the prince claims that beauty will save the world! And I say that he has such playful thoughts because he is now in love.
Gentlemen, the prince is in love; just now, as soon as he entered, I was convinced of this. Don't blush, prince, I'll feel sorry for you. What beauty will save the world. Kolya told me this... Are you a zealous Christian? Kolya says that you call yourself a Christian.
The prince examined him attentively and did not answer him. F. M. Dostoevsky was far from strictly aesthetic judgments - he wrote about spiritual beauty, about the beauty of the soul. This corresponds to the main idea of the novel - to create the image of a "positively beautiful person." Therefore, in his drafts, the author calls Myshkin "Prince Christ", thereby reminding himself that Prince Myshkin should be as similar as possible to Christ - kindness, philanthropy, meekness, a complete lack of selfishness, the ability to sympathize with human misfortunes and misfortunes. Therefore, the “beauty” that the prince (and F. M. Dostoevsky himself) speaks of is the sum of the moral qualities of a “positively beautiful person”.
Such a purely personal interpretation of beauty is characteristic of the writer. He believed that "people can be beautiful and happy" not only in the afterlife. They can be like this and "without losing the ability to live on earth." To do this, they must agree with the idea that Evil “cannot be the normal state of people”, that everyone is able to get rid of it. And then, when people will be guided by the best that is in their soul, memory and intentions (Good), then they will be truly beautiful. And the world will be saved, and it is precisely such “beauty” (that is, the best that is in people) that will save it.
Of course, this will not happen overnight - spiritual work, trials and even suffering are needed, after which a person renounces Evil and turns to Good, begins to appreciate it. The writer speaks of this in many of his works, including in the novel The Idiot. For example (Part 1, Chapter VII):
“For some time, the general, silently and with a certain tinge of disdain, examined the portrait of Nastasya Filippovna, which she held in front of her in her outstretched hand, extremely and effectively moving away from her eyes.
Yes, she's good," she finally said, "very good indeed. I saw her twice, only from a distance. So you appreciate such and such beauty? she suddenly turned to the prince.
Yes ... such ... - answered the prince with some effort.
That is, exactly like this?
Just such
There is a lot of suffering in this face ... - the prince said, as if involuntarily, as if speaking to himself, and not answering a question.
You, however, may be delusional, ”the general’s wife decided and with an arrogant gesture threw the portrait on the table about herself.”
The writer in his interpretation of beauty acts as a supporter of the German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), who spoke about the “moral law within us”, that “beauty is a symbol of moral goodness”. F. M. Dostoevsky develops the same idea in his other works. So, if in the novel “The Idiot” he writes that beauty will save the world, then in the novel “Demons” (1872) he logically concludes that “ugliness (malice, indifference, selfishness. - Comp.) will kill ... "
