The revolution that broke out in France in February 1848 had a profound effect on the student N.G. Chernyshevsky defining the range of his interests. He plunged into the study of the works of the utopian socialists, in which they then saw the development of Christian doctrine.

N.G. Chernyshevsky

But in July 1862 Chernyshevsky was arrested on charges of having links with emigrants, that is, with a group A.I. Herzen, and ended up imprisoned in the solitary confinement of the Peter and Paul Fortress, where he spent two whole years, and it was there that his novel What Is to Be Done was written.

Chernyshevsky writes the novel What Is to Be Done? The novel overshadowed the works of Dostoevsky, and he rushed to write his "answer to Chamberlain" - the novel "The Idiot"

It is impossible to apply the usual standards of that time to this novel. In the work Chernyshevsky we are dealing with a philosophical-utopian novel. Thought in his novel prevails over the direct depiction of life. It is no coincidence that the novel was evaluated by the revolutionary-democratic intelligentsia not as a work of art proper, but as program work for the socialist reorganization of life.

The composition of the work is strictly thought out: the image " vulgar people”, the image of “ordinary new people”, the image of a “special person” and the dreams of the heroine of the novel, Vera Pavlovna. The four dreams of Vera Pavlovna contain a philosophical concept developed by Chernyshevsky for the revolutionary youth.

Letter

On July 11, 1856, a note was found in one of the rooms of the St. Petersburg hotel, which says that its author will soon become known on Liteiny Bridge and that the guilty should not be looked for. On the same night, a man shot himself on the bridge. In the water they found his shot cap.

Vera Pavlovna receives a fatal letter

At this time on Stone Island, a young lady is sewing and singing a song. Her name is Vera Pavlovna. Then a maid appears with a letter, after reading it, Vera Pavlovna begins to cry. The young man who appears tries to console her, but Vera Pavlovna pushes him away with the words that it is his fault.

"You're in the blood! You have his blood on you! It's not your fault - I'm alone ... "

Acquaintance with Lopukhov

Further in the novel there is a story about the life of Vera Pavlovna and what led to such a sad outcome. Vera Pavlovna was born and raised in St. Petersburg. Her father, Pavel Konstantinovich Rozalsky, was the manager of the house, and her mother gave out money on bail. The main goal of the mother, Marya Alekseevna, was to get her daughter married as profitably as possible, and she made every effort to do this. The son of the owners of the house, officer Stareshnikov, draws attention to Vera, and tries to seduce her. The mother asks her daughter to be as affectionate with him as possible so that he will marry her, but Vera understands Storeshnikov's true intentions. In the house, Verochka becomes unbearable, but everything is suddenly decided.

Vera Pavlovna and Lopukhov

A young teacher, a medical student Dmitry Sergeevich Lopukhov, was invited to Fedya, Vera's brother. Initially, they treat each other with caution, but after they find a lot in common. Lopukhov tries to save Vera and arrange her as a governess, but he is refused, because no one wanted to take responsibility for a young girl who runs away from home.

First dream

Not long before graduation, Lopukhov quits studying, earns extra money with private lessons and proposes to Vera.

N. Bondarenko. Vera Pavlovna's first dream

Vera has her first dream. She dreams that she is locked in a damp, dark basement. And suddenly the door swung open, and Verochka found herself in a field. Then she dreams that she is paralyzed. And someone's voice says that she'll be well, as soon as He touches her hand. Verochka got up, walked, ran, and again she was on the field, and again she frolicked and ran. “But a girl is walking across the field - how strange! Both her face and her gait - everything changes, constantly changes in her. Verochka asks her who she is. “I am your fiancé's bride. My suitors know me, but I cannot know them; I have a lot of them". “But what is your name? I so want to know, ”says Verochka. And the girl answers her: “I have many different names. Whoever needs to call me, I tell him that name. You call me love for people. Then she instructs Verochka - to let everyone out and heal, as she cured her of paralysis. “And Verochka walks around the city and lets the girls out of the basement, heals them from paralysis. Everyone gets up, walks, and they are all back on the field, running, frolicking.” This dream is actually an allegory, and the thinking public of that time, being able to read between the lines, found specific images and even calls to action in the text. The girl that Verochka met personified the future revolution, and her suitors are revolutionaries ready to fight for the reorganization of Russia.

Old Saratov, where Chernyshevsky comes from. Mysterious treasures, the shadow of Chernyshevsky, an old manor and love for the Fatherland ... Why not another dream of Vera Pavlovna? All this just happened

The young people live in a rented apartment, the relationship between Lopukhov and Vera seems strange to its owner. They sleep in separate rooms, ask questions before entering a room, and do not appear in front of each other undressed. Vera explains this by the fact that they are afraid to get bored with each other, that this is how family life should be.

Second dream

Vera Pavlovna decides to open her own household - a sewing workshop and hires girls there who receive the same percentage of income as she does. They not only work together, but also relax together.

At this time, Vera Pavlovna has a second dream in which she sees a field on which ears of corn grow. There is real dirt on the field - this is concern for what a person needs, ears of corn grow from this dirt, and there is fantastic dirt - care for an empty, unnecessary deed, and nothing grows from this dirt.

third dream

A friend of Dmitry, Alexander Matveevich Kirsanov, often comes to visit the Lopukhovs. Kirsanov spends a lot of time with Vera Pavlovna, while Lopukhov is busy with his work. But suddenly Kirsanov stops visiting them, the Lopukhovs cannot understand why. It's just that Kirsanov understands that he has fallen in love with a friend's wife. Kirsanov appears only when Dmitry is ill, he helps Vera Pavlovna in everything, and at that moment she realizes that she is also in love with Kirsanov.

N. Bondarenko. Family portrait in the interior. Vera Pavlovna

This is also evidenced by her next, third, dream, in which she reads a diary.

N. Bondarenko. The third dream of Vera Pavlovna

The diary says that she is grateful to her husband for everything, but does not feel for him that tender feeling that she needs so much.

Dmitry finds the only way out of this - he goes to the Linear Bridge, where the fatal shot takes place.

N. Bondarenko. Sewing workshop of Vera Pavlovna

When Vera Pavlovna finds out about this, a common friend of Kirsanov and Lopukhov, Rakhmetov, comes to her. He was from rich family, but at one time he sold his estate, and distributed all the money.

N. Bondarenko. Portrait of Rakhmetov

He does not drink wine, does not touch women, and even sleeps on nails in order to find out his physical capabilities. Rakhmetov traveled extensively in Europe and Russia in order to get as close to the people as possible. On this day, he brought a letter to Vera Pavlovna from Lopukhov, after which she becomes calm. Rakhmetov tells Vera Pavlovna that they were too different from Lopukhov, which is why she fell in love with Kirsanov.

After some time, Vera Pavlovna marries Kirsanov.

Kirsanov and Vera Pavlovna. Film frame

The fact that Vera Pavlovna and Lopukhov are different was written in a letter she received from Berlin from a certain friend of Lopukhov, who says that after breaking up with Vera Lopukhov feels great.

fourth dream

As a result, the life of Vera Pavlova and Kirsanov is not much different from her life with Lopukhov. Kirsanov loved her very much, always listened to her, and if necessary, helped.

N. Bondarenko. The fourth dream of Vera Pavlovna

Soon she again has a dream in which there are a lot of women of all times. The beauty from the first dream is immediately shown, who tells her about the freedom of a woman and the equality of the sexes.

Dream house of Vera Pavlovna

The fourth dream paints a utopian picture of the life of the future socialist society, the real earthly paradise. In this ideal world, unprecedented luxury reigns, workshops work, for some reason aluminum (for that time a precious metal) prevails, while everyone is happy in free labor. Fantastic descriptions of the future clearly set off the main idea of ​​the novel: all this will easily come true in the near future, you just have to trust the Rakhmetovs and jointly “make” a revolution according to recipes taken from Vera Pavlovna’s dreams.

Unlike Goncharova, who showed in the chapter "Oblomov's Dream" his ideal of Russia with all its troubles and weaknesses - that ideal that was turned not to the future, but to the present, - Chernyshevsky in Vera Pavlovna's dreams, she denies the very possibility of building a just society on the basis of the tsarist regime. It seems to him that only rebellion and revolution can bring happiness. But it was a utopia, and half a century later, the Bolshevik Party, having made an attempt to build a just society according to the plans of the utopian socialists, ultimately failed, at least temporarily.

There are many guests in the Kirsanovs' house, and soon the Beaumont family appears among them. Ekaterina Beaumont met Kirsanov a long time ago, when he helped her understand that the man she loved was not worthy of her. Later, she meets Charles Beaumont, who speaks Russian in excellence, since he lived in Russia until the age of 20. When Charles Beaumont meets Kirsanov, the latter recognizes Lopukhov in him. The Kirsanovs and the Beaumonts become so close to each other that they decide to live in the same house.

What to do in the Looking Glass?

A little over a century and a half ago, Chernyshevsky began to compose the dreams of Vera Pavlovna, and Lewis Carroll - the dreams of the girl Alice

Vera Pavlovna and Alice. As soon as Alice dozed off with a book, the Rabbit ran past and miracles began. And Vera Pavlovna dreamed of how to work so that worse miracles would spin around

What to do if Carroll dreams of Chernyshevsky?

A century and a half ago, the radical writer began to compose the dreams of Vera Pavlovna, and the conservative writer began to compose the dreams of the girl Alice.

One summer morning in 1862, 34-year-old Chernyshevsky went to Peter and Paul Fortress. And 30-year-old teacher Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll) is on a boat trip.

One, sitting behind bars, composed the dreams of Vera Pavlovna. It was then that another, swimming with a colleague Duckworth and the children of the dean of the college, Henry Liddell, began to compose, at the request of 7-year-old Alice, a fairy tale about her dreams. And here's the thing: the girl's dreams, invented by two young people, made so much noise. So many meanings found in their dreams!

Of course, the coincidence is just a coincidence. Chernyshevsky did not suspect the existence of Lewis Carroll, just as he did not know about Nikolai Gavrilovich. But the whim of coincidence is curious - chiaroscuro is mixed, the characters glare in a new way.

Chernyshevsky was accused of compiling a proclamation "Bow to the lord peasants from well-wishers", they called him "enemy number one of the Russian Empire." And he outlined his utopian ideals in the novel What Is to Be Done?, mixing in dreams the future of mankind, the reality of love and cakes. By the way, after Vera Pavlovna, he also took up a fairy tale novel in the spirit of "A Thousand and One Nights" ("A Tale in a Story"), but somehow it did not work out.

Against Lewis Carroll, public opinion fabricated the myth of pedophilia: its shadow hovers over all Freudian (and what else ?!) interpretations of the history of Carroll's incomprehensible relationship with children. True, these relations have always remained within the limits of the decency of that time - and those decency are no match for the current ones. And the concept of “pedophilia” itself appeared only 15 years after the release of “Alice” (it was introduced by the Austrian psychiatrist Richard Kraft-Ebing in 1886).

Chernyshevsky, said the skeptic Nabokov, counted every time he shed a tear, the number of his tears. Carroll is also attentive to tears: his Alice almost drowned, having cried a whole sea.

"Fu you, well you" in French

Vera Pavlovna is a principled girl. She's trying to figure out the wonders real life and the characters around her, organizes a sewing workshop and, with inexplicable persistence, dreams about new life and its female equality (“do only what I want”). Alice is a girl who is always dozing somewhere in the garden and falling into a dream in places where everything around is “wonderful”, just like around Vera Pavlovna.

Maria Alekseevna, mother of Vera Pavlovna, shouts to her daughter: “Wash your face!” The queen yells at Alice: "Chop off her head!"

The same mother suddenly asks a question: “Is a wedding in French - marriage, or something, Verochka?” Alice could also answer (she was also asked how in French “fu you, well you”): “If you tell me what it means, I will immediately translate it into French for you.”

The heroes of Chernyshevsky are obsessed with tea parties. “Please sit down,” said Marya Alekseevna. - Matryona, give me another glass. - "If this is for me, then I thank you: I will not drink." - “Matryona, you don’t need a glass. (A well-bred young man!) So it is with Alice: “Have some more tea,” said the March Hare, leaning towards Alice. "Yet? Alice asked resentfully. “I haven’t drunk anything yet.” “She doesn’t want more tea,” said the March Hare into space.

It is clear that neither Verochka nor Alice can calmly pass by the pie.

Both the revolutionary-minded Vera Pavlovna and the naive Alice have confusion with their arms and legs. One in bewilderment flips through the pages of music: “sometimes with the left hand, sometimes with the right. Suppose now I turned it over with my right: how could I turn it over with my left? And the second is horrified: “Where have my shoulders gone? My poor hands, where are you? Why can not I see you?"

In a dream, Vera has a girl whose "face and gait are constantly changing." Alice also admits: “I change all the time and don’t remember anything.”

Time, by the way, jumps as it wants. With Vera, “in one minute, two months passed” Alice knows how it is: “She whispered a word and - r-time! - the arrow ran forward!

Verochka's mother "snored in mid-sentence and fell down" - just like Carroll's Sonya. Characters around and there, and here appear from nowhere and disappear into nowhere. Have you forgotten Rakhmetov?! Rakhmetov sleeping on nails is no worse than flamingos playing the role of clubs and soldiers bending in the shape of a croquet goal.

Finally, the main dream of Vera Pavlovna, the fourth. social ideal in her head. Free workers work hard to come off in the evenings to the fullest. They explain to Vera Pavlovna (the girl who asked to call her “love”): “You saw in the hall how your cheeks were burning, how your eyes were shining; you saw - they left, they came; ... it was I who captivated them, here is the room of each and every one ... Here I am the goal of life.

And to Alice, who noticed that the game went more fun, the Duchess says: “And the moral from here is this:“ Love, love, you move the world ... ””

One has a clumsy tongue, the other is playful. One has simple general thoughts. The other has nothing in the forehead. But in fact, everything is about the same thing, as if they dreamed of each other: how to sail through life? Everyone answered the question - to the extent of their depravity with their talent.

Wonderfulness in the environment

It is terrible to think what would have happened to Chernyshevsky if he had dreamed of Lewis Carroll. Can you imagine the appearance of Gavrilych to the sleeping Carroll? That's it.

But if we discard empty fantasies, Tolstoy did not digest Chernyshevsky for "a thin, unpleasant voice, speaking stupid troubles." Carroll had his own problems with diction: he stuttered.

With the authorities, the prisoner Chernyshevsky was quite tense. Carroll, for all his conservatism, managed to upset Queen Victoria - albeit unwittingly. She asked after "Alice" to dedicate the next wonderful book to her - but the gentleman's next work was "An Elementary Guide to the Theory of Mathematical Determinants."

Author of "What to do?" in appearance, a cracker is a cracker, - but is clearly preoccupied with the piquancy of "new forms of life": a fictitious marriage, a life of three, and other empyreans. By the way, there were times when the forbidden book “What is to be done?” gave the newlyweds for the wedding as a very spicy little thing!

The author of the cheerful "Alice" lived like an adult child - one would expect all kinds of quirks from him, and he suddenly puffed out his cheeks, wanting to "publish an ultra-modest Shakespeare for young English virgins" and convincing them that "the true goal of life is to develop character" .

How to link one with the other? And the way everything is connected in a dream. Everything topsy-turvy, humpty-dumpty, no explanation.

Both writers did not live on the moon, the world was boiling around. What happened in the same 1862, what was digested in their heads when they wrote about the girlish dreams of their heroines?

The US is at war with North and South. The British Parliament is outraged by General Butler's proclamation on the women of New Orleans, which allowed them to be treated like prostitutes if they harmed the soldiers. Parliamentarians ridiculed by the London correspondent of the New York Daily Herald, Karl Marx.

England and France are preparing an intervention in the States to help the slave-owning South. But the campaign is frustrated because of wild Russia, which did not want to participate in armed intervention.

Inventor Richard Gatling receives a patent for the first rapid-fire machine gun. The first conservatory in Russia is opened in St. Petersburg.

In England, depression, confusion and vacillation. There are reforms in Russia, but also confusion and vacillation. Everywhere they think about strengthening sovereign feelings. The world industrial exhibition is magnificently held in London. We are splendidly celebrating the millennium of Russia.

The stream of events is quite insane, like today's, and Vera Pavlovna and Alice are trying to swim out of it to this day.

What do Chernyshevsky and Carroll offer them? As old man Einstein said, there are only two ways to live life. The first is that miracles do not exist. The second - as if there were only miracles around. The first is clearly for Chernyshevsky. The second is for Carroll.

Everyone chooses their own dreams in life to taste.

MARRIAGE JUDGMENT

The bold lifestyle and even bolder dreams of Vera Pavlovna were gleaned from the texts of Charles Fourier, which Chernyshevsky read already in the late 1840s. By that time, there were Fourierist phalansters in practical America, but their experiments with marriage and sex did not go beyond the joint work of men and women and attempts " free love". Fourier's now famous erotic writings for the most part remained in manuscripts inaccessible to either Noyez or Chernyshevsky. But the Russian author in his novel What Is to Be Done? did not limit himself to the sewing workshop of Vera Pavlovna, copying the economic experiments of the Fourierists, but added a completely utopian, although vague, concept of the “difficult marriage” type under censorship conditions.

In his History of American Socialisms (1869), John Humphrey Noyes gave a clear and, it must be admitted, extremely instructive survey of local utopian communities. All of them, according to Noyez, are the fruit of two main influences, which the author, in his usual erotic way, designated as maternal and paternal principles. The paternal beginning of the American communities were the influences of the European utopians. After the arrival of Robert Owen (“holy old man,” as Chernyshevsky called him) to America in 1824 and his purchase of a huge plot for New Harmony, he lived here for a long time and, leaving for Europe, returned to New World. In the 1840s, Owen's American followers were influenced by Fourier and the communes were renamed Phalansteres. The Owenites hated the Fourierists, but Noyes considered their fusion to be natural. “One should not think of the two great attempts at a socialist revival as being quite different from one another. […] After all, the main idea of ​​both was […] to expand the family union […] to the size of a large corporation.” Having thus formulated the idea of ​​socialism, Noyes easily accepts both of its founders as his own predecessors. But all this is a paternal, European beginning, which; obviously not enough.

Noyes considers the American religious tradition. Beginning in the early decades of the 19th century, there was a renaissance in America (Revival, writes Noyes with capital letter) religious life. The revival has given rise to many denominations and sects, but the main one for Noyez is the Shakers. Shakers and socialists complement each other. The great goal of the shakers is the rebirth of the soul; the great goal of socialism is the regeneration of society. The real problem is their mutual fertilization. It is this synthesis, Noyez claims, that he carried out in "biblical communism."

European socialism, in his opinion, ignored sex, never understanding how important it is for the reconstruction of life. Owen, according to Noyez, did not deal with these issues at all; and the followers of Fourier, although they expected a change in human nature in the future, actually concentrated on economic experiments alone and led a traditionally monogamous life in their phalansteres. The new approach to sex and sex was, according to Noyez, the exclusive merit of the Shakers and biblical communists. “In all the memories of the Fourier and Owen associations, not a word is said about the Women's Question! […] In fact, women are barely mentioned; and the violent passions associated with the separation of the sexes, with which they had so much trouble […] all religious communes […] remain absolutely out of sight.” The American failures of the European socialists are connected with the neglect of sex; conversely, the celibate Shaker and pro-miscuine communist communities are stable and happy, Noyez said. They owe this to their attention to gender and radical ways of solving its problems. The Fourierists, according to Noyes, build the furnace starting from the chimney; and he rejects their ideas, not because he does not want to build furnaces, but because he believes that they must be built on a solid foundation. In other words, its ultimate goal is the same - the destruction of the family, private property and the state; but in order to achieve it, one must begin not with the destruction of property and not with the destruction of the state, but with a new order of relations between the sexes.

Although the celibacy of the Shakers seems to be the polar opposite of the "difficult marriage", in fact it turns out that among all the variety of sects and communes, it is the Shakers that Noyez is closest to. He lived among them, participated in their rituals, and quoted their documents with sympathy. Contacts were also made at the community level, shakers. They even showed their “dances” in Oneida. “We owe the Shakers more than any other social architect, and more than all of them put together,” wrote Noyes. In general, it seemed to him "doubtful that Owenism or Fourierism […] would touch the practical American people if it were not for the Shakers." He even assumed that the Shakers, even when they were in England, influenced European utopians. Yale alumnus and heir romantic era, Noyez readily acknowledged his association with folk culture, which the shakers embodied for him.

Associations of any kind only increase the tendency to adultery, frequent in ordinary life; and this tendency is capable of destroying any association, - Noyez marks the experience of the American communists. “Love in its exclusive form is complemented by jealousy; and jealousy leads to enmity and division. Thus, any association that recognizes the exclusivity of love carries within itself the seeds of its dissolution; and these seeds only ripen faster in the heat life together". This has always happened to the Fourierist phalansters, but it does not happen where people abstain from sex, like the Shakers, or where people enter into a "difficult marriage," as in Oneida. Like the Hellenistic Gnostics and Russian eunuchs, Noyes builds his reasoning on the history of original sin; but here, too, he goes further than the rest, or at least formulates more consistently. "The real scheme of redemption begins with reconciliation with God, then leads to the restoration of proper relations between the sexes, then deals with the reform of the industrial system, and ends with the victory over death." Fourierists, Noyez believed, ignore both the beginning and the end of this chain, and are concerned only with the economy. This analysis is striking in the non-triviality of the sociological vision. John Noyez would have been able to compete with Max Weber if his ideas had not taken him too far.

Family and property, love and self-interest are two sides of the same moon; but, as usual, this moon is always turned to the observer of one of its sides. Gender often turned out to be on the reverse, invisible side, and only the one that is connected with property and its redistribution is addressed to the enthusiastic observer. But back side moon exists, and looking beyond has always seemed like an exciting and risky adventure. If the pillars of socialism rather abhorred them, then the fanatics and poets did not get tired of reminding us that the program of socialism goes, and has always gone, beyond the limits of the economy. “Every person has a whole imperialism in the lower place,” said the hero of Platonov. Mayakovsky's "Left March" asserted the same thing: overcoming original sin is the key to a truly left-wing policy, and those who do not recognize this are still walking on the right. “It is enough to live by the law given by Adam and Eve […] the Left!” - called the poet. If the “hag of history” can be driven out, then only in this way.

The socialization of property requires the socialization of the family. The overcoming of the economy means, as a necessary condition and even as the reverse side of the same process, the overcoming of sex. It's better to admit it directly, especially if you have a technical design for the task. But this duality of the leftist ideology cannot be ignored, even if one does not have the necessary technical ideas. Dostoevsky, for example, also believed in the new man and in the fact that the current "man is a creature on earth [...] not finished, but transitional." Dostoevsky knows only one feature of the "future nature of the future being", which is defined in the Gospel: "They do not marry and do not encroach, but live like the angels of God." Following the various sectarians, Dostoevsky reads this text literally. The essence of the new man, although unknown, is determined not by economic equality, but by liberation from sex. The condemnation of sex and marriage is dictated by the requirements of communal life: “the family […] is still an abnormal, egoistic state in the full sense”; "marriage and encroachment on a woman is, as it were, the greatest repulsion from humanism." It can be seen here that Dostoevsky is concerned not with physiology, but with sociology: not the filthiness of sexual life, but its selectivity, an inevitable consequence of the very nature of sex as a paired function. The love of one person for another distracts him from his love for the community as a whole. Therefore, the earthly paradise will be determined by overcoming sex and sex: “It will be […] when a person is reborn, according to the laws of nature, finally into another nature, who does not marry and does not encroach.” The ideal, assigned to other worlds, acquires the reality of hope, realizable in this world: thus the utopian grows out of the mystical teaching. The community, the main value of Russian dreamers, will one day overcome the family, the selfish and inhumane institution of the old society. To do this, it is necessary to abolish sex, change the nature of man, carry out rebirth.

Dreams of Vera Pavlovna in Nizhny Tagil

Did Chernyshevsky dream about this? In any case, the gospel source was the same. “Someday there will be only “people” in the world: neither women nor men (who for me are much more intolerant than women) will remain in the world. Then people will be happy." So it was not only Noyes who noticed the connection of socialism with sex, or, more precisely, with its absence. But only he puts a positively accurate diagnosis of the problem: the existence of a family makes it impossible to liquidate property; as long as people unite in pairs, this will tear the community apart; the socialization of property is impossible without the neutralization of sex. Therefore, any socio-economic programs are doomed to failure if they do not include the manipulation of gender, sex and family.

Noyes knows of two lines of such work, and perhaps these two possibilities really exhaust the situations. You can try to eliminate sex by building a community of sexless people who need to be given some way to replace sex; this is how the shakers operated in America, and eunuchs in Russia. Noyes came up with the second way: without eliminating sex as such, to eliminate its harmful consequences for the community, forbidding pair connections and opening them up to the boundaries of the community; in Russia, a semblance of such a practice developed among the whips. Rasputin preached: “Love is the ideal of angelic purity, and we are all brothers and sisters in Christ, there is no need to choose, because men and women are equal to everyone and love should be equal, impassive to everyone, without charm.”

If in his inventions Noyes followed Fourier, he was incomparably more practical and radical than him, approximately like Lenin in comparison with Saint-Simon. Chernyshevsky, for his part, feeding on fragments of what he read and heard, and more on his intuitive understanding of the problem, combined both dimensions of utopia, economic socialism and sexual communism, in the fragments of his novel. Already in 1856, Chernyshevsky wrote about the success of the community Modern Times (Modern Times) in the state of New York and about a series of similar experiments, which in America, the Russian author wrote with envy, no one considers dangerous.

Chernyshevsky and Herzen's own contribution to Russian ideology is generally considered to be their discovery of the transition to socialism directly from feudalism and on the basis of the rural community. So, with a big leap based on national tradition, it seemed possible to bypass accursed capitalism. This is the main innovation of the left thought in Russia for all the times of its rapid development. The practice of Russian populism relied on this theory of Chernyshevsky right up to Lenin and further followers of his work; that is why they all valued Chernyshevsky so much. But this theory is radical not only in its practical implications; it was obviously anti-economic in nature and radically contradicted Marx. At the time of its inception, this theoretical fantasy was in dire need of allies. The communist communities that existed in America even before the abolition of slavery seemed to be the living realization of this Russian dream. Developing and uniting, these advanced germs of new life were to transform all other American realities, including the slave system in the South and the power of capital in the North. So America will make its big jump by overcoming capitalism straight from the lower formations; at least that's how it was seen from across the ocean.

Paying tribute to the practical possibilities of the New World, Chernyshevsky placed his dream construction where it could only actually be realized - in America. Thanks to Ivan Grigoriev, Noyez's experiments became known in Russia several years before Chernyshevsky's novel was written; other, less expressive American experiments were also known. The similarity between Noyes' inventions and Vera Pavlovna's dreams was also the result of their reliance on identical (Fourier) and similar (shakers and whips) sources. Perhaps even readers of the novel What Is to Be Done? underestimated Chernyshevsky. He was more sober than Dostoevsky, without his hope for a mystical transformation, he saw the incompatibility of marriage and community; he understood more clearly than Herzen, without his romantic torments and passions, the revolutionary essence of adultery; he was bolder than Lenin, without his everyday moralism, he understood the need for a sexual revolution as a lining for any communist project; and locked in prison cell, he looked at the geographical map much more often than his more fortunate compatriots.

*****

Discover America

ArticleA. Etkinda (with abbreviations and minor editing by S. Likhachev)

As you know, there is nothing more boring than other people's dreams - and nothing more interesting than your own. Among others interesting dreams Russian culture's favorite is the fourth dream of Vera Pavlovna, the heroine of Chernyshevsky's novel "What to do?".

The dream is like an opera and consists of several acts; we are interested in decorations. First we see a prelude with Goethe's poems and a pan-European romantic landscape: fields, flowers, birds, clouds. Then, in the first act, the goddess Astarte appears against the backdrop of a typical Middle Eastern landscape: tents, nomads, camels, olives, fig trees, cedars. The second act of the goddess Aphrodite plays out in Athens, they are called by name. The third act is a Gothic castle and the same beauty. This is followed by an interlude during which Rousseau is read to us and the scenery is changed.

The next queen combines the charms of all her predecessors. And no wonder: she is Russian. Her utopian palace is located near the Oka, among "our groves"; as proof, the author, true to his technique, lists Russian trees (oak, linden, maple, elm). The inhabitants of the palace live in separate rooms, dine together, and also work together. However, "machines do almost everything for them." But this collective farm among “our fields” is by no means the ultimate dream of the author and his heroine.

As it should be in an opera, something unexpected and sublime happens in the last act. Autumn is coming, it is cold in Russia, and most of the inhabitants of the Crystal Palace, together with their queen, move to a new place, to the south. As it turns out, here, in some kind of seasonal emigration, they spend most of their lives: seven to eight months a year. “This side is called New Russia”; But it is not southern Russia, the queen specifically specifies.

In the new New Russia we see a landscape as easily recognizable as the previous landscapes: “groves of the tallest trees […] plantations of the coffee tree […] date palms, fig trees; vineyards interspersed with sugarcane plantations; there is also wheat on the fields, but more rice.” It looks like America, the southern states. But this is not enough; not trusting the reader's botanical knowledge, Chernyshevsky moves on to geography. The binding of the final picture of the fourth dream of Vera Pavlovna on the ground is given with details and persistence, rare even for this author:

“In the far northeast, there are two rivers that merge together directly east of the place from which Vera Pavlovna looks; farther south, still in the same southeasterly direction, a long and wide bay; in the south the land extends far, expanding more and more to the south between this bay and the long narrow bay that forms its western border. Between the western narrow bay and the sea, which is very far to the northwest, is a narrow isthmus […] We are not very far […] from the southern border of the cultivated area […]; every year people, you Russians, push the border of the desert further and further south. Others work in other countries [...] Yes, from the big northeastern river, the entire space to the south to half of the peninsula is green and blooming, all over the space there are huge buildings, as in the north.”

The rivers in the northeast are the Mississippi and Missouri; a wide bay in the southeast of them - the Gulf of Mexico, a narrow bay and an isthmus in the west - the Gulf of California and the peninsula. Vera Pavlovna and her guide, the Russian queen, are somewhere in Kansas; Russian people are expanding the borders of the States to the South, to Texas and Mexico.

AT draft version in the novel, Vera and the queen ended up in the Sinai desert; Mount Sinai was explicitly mentioned in the text. Reworking the text, Chernyshevsky transferred the promised land from its old place, the Middle East, to a new place, America. So, probably, he understood his parting with the Christian archaic in the name of modernity. Writing his novel in a cell from which the sky was not visible, he did not seem to take his eyes off the map. Not biblical Palestine, but the American States are becoming a place of new aspirations. The Russian idea is carried out in the American South. As expected in a utopia, the time coordinate is flattened and frozen in place; there will be no more time, it is said about this in the Apocalypse. On the other hand, space expands and opens up, and geography acquires unprecedented intricate meanings.

Faith. New dreams

Seasonal inhabitants of New Russia work on American soil during the day, and "every evening they have fun and dance" in their crystal palace. Having fun, however, "only half of them"; others spend every other evening in their bedrooms. Just as often they change partners, each time with the help of the same queen. “This is my secret,” says the beautiful queen. Conspiring through her, the utopian men and women go for a time in pairs to their luxurious rooms with curtains, carpets and secrets that are "inviolable." In a dream, as you know, desires are realized that cannot be realized in reality. But Chernyshevsky's heroine succeeds and comes true: that's what utopia is for. In her real life, as in her dream, young people spend half of all evenings together, and the other half of the evenings in pairs.

The civil war in America, on the model of which Chernyshevsky built his projects for the liberation of Russia, ends with the conquest of the slave-owning South by free Russian people. Nothing special; after all, we are only dealing with the novel, and even with the dream in the novel. In the world of symbols, desire can find a geopolitical metaphor like any other. Starting with the troubles that the censors who missed the novel were subjected to, and ending with the interpretations that he received in Soviet school textbooks, the erotic content of the novel was subjected to repression. It is much more unusual that geography has also become an object of repression. We are dealing with a text that has been read many times and by a variety of readers. Discovering America in such a well-known space, it is necessary to explain why previous readers did not see it there: to give an interpretation to their interpretations - or, as in this case, the absence of the latter.

Vera Pavlovna's question, which Russia has not been able to answer for 150 years

Meanwhile, this fantasy with its two elements - group marriage, on the one hand, its implementation in America, on the other hand, did not leave Chernyshevsky even after a quarter of a century, which he spent without women and without freedom. In the Yakut convict prison, Chernyshevsky improvised for casual listeners an entertaining story with familiar motifs; he read it smoothly, looking into a clean notebook, but the listeners wrote down the plot (it was later published by Korolenko). The story was called "Not for Everyone" and talked about physical love in three. Two friends love the same woman and after many adventures find themselves with her on a desert island. What to do? They “try and, after an easy victory over some ingrained feelings, everything works out fine. There is peace, harmony, and instead of hell […] paradise reigns.” But Russian homesickness brings them back to Europe; on the way, they end up in England, where they are put on trial for their triple marriage. But, all the time the three of them, they seek justification and "leave for America, where, among the fermentation of new forms of life, their union finds tolerance and its rightful place."

TV show dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the novel What Is To Be Done? “Vera Pavlovna’s dreams are generally impossible to read!” - exclaims one of the participants of the program

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The novel "What to do?" in many respects there is a realization of the socio-political and literary-aesthetic principles of Chernyshevsky. The problems of the novel clearly and consistently reflect the program requirements of the revolutionary democrats; a call for revolution and confidence in its victory, propaganda of the ideas of materialism and socialism, the struggle for the emancipation of women (the novel clearly shows that only in social work is the path to equal rights for women), the education of new people "on the basis of the principles of collective labor and new morality» The theme of “new people” is solved with the help of their contrasting opposition to people of the old world (images of Marya Alekseevna, Michel Storeshnikov and others). Analyzing the images of the “new people” (Lopukhov, Kirsanov, Vera Pavlovna), one should characterize their worldview, aesthetic principles, social ideals and specific activities.

The problem of the positive hero should be clarified on the example of the image of the revolutionary leader - Rakhmetov (his "extraordinary" does not lie in the specific psychological properties of "nature", but in the fact that he is a professional revolutionary). Rakhmetov is the first image of a professional revolutionary in Russian literature.

The novel is dominated by a rationalistic, logical beginning, only somewhat embellished with an "entertaining" plot, made up of banal situations and plot moves of romantic literature. The purpose of the novel is journalistic and propaganda tasks. The novel was supposed to prove the need for a revolution, as a result of which socialist transformations would be carried out. The author, who demanded from writers a truthful representation and almost a copy of reality, did not follow these principles himself in the novel and admitted that he had taken his work out of his head from beginning to end. There was no workshop of Vera Pavlovna, no semblance of heroes, not even a relationship between them. Hence the impression that the invented ideal, illusory and utopian, arises.

Philosophical-journalistic and socio-political novel by N.G. Chernyshevsky "What to do?" published in 1863. This work had a great influence on the young minds of that time and made a significant contribution to the development of Russian literature of the "proletarian" period.

In his novel, which embodied the scientific, political, spiritual ideas of the 60s of the XIX century, the author in an artistic form destroys the old, gradually fading world - the "basement" as obsolete ethical and aesthetic dogmas. In contrast to this, Chernyshevsky depicts "ordinary decent people of the new generation", people of the "new" morality - heroes, for whom he recognized the future of Russia.

3. The theory of rational egoism, its justification. Relationships in the love triangle of the novel in the light of the theory of rational egoism.

Difficult to understand is the theory of "reasonable selfishness". Developing a materialistic understanding of ethics, Chernyshevsky substantiated the main idea of ​​this theory in his work Anthropological Principle in Philosophy. It lies in the fact that the actions of people must always be consistent with their inner motives. And in real life, a person is guided at first glance by the incentives of narrow egoism, the desire for maximum benefit and maximum pleasure. ”The “essence” of a person, according to Chernyshevsky, is strictly conditioned by the laws of nature. And in egoism there is a rational basis; greatest benefit and greatest pleasure can be achieved by following the principle of equal good for all other people, since there can be no “lonely happiness”. All "natural", "egoistic" aspirations are not only personal, individual and autonomous, but at the same time "natural", "universal". This understanding of the "ethics of happiness" in practice meant a break with the traditional morality of the old society; it is possible to affirm one's striving for happiness only through a struggle with what hinders this happiness and helps the happiness of another. A complex dialectic of egoism and altruism permeates the actions and deeds of the heroes of What Is To Be Done?.

Particular attention should be paid to the genre originality of the novel, which combines the tendencies of a journalistic, philosophical, educational and "family" novel, a philosophical generalization of historical processes leading people to the victory of the revolution in all areas of life, combined with an openly analytical consideration of the psychology of the behavior of "new people" who affirm in new principles of morality in everyday life (detailed calculations of the “benefits” of collective labor are interspersed with meticulously caustic disputes with the “astute reader”). In the light of the socialist ideal, Chernyshevsky pronounces judgment on the old world.

The novel "What to do?" for many years was a "textbook of life" for thousands of advanced people in Russia. Pisarev praised the impact of the novel on the revolutionary youth of the second half of the 19th century: “He plowed me deep in everything ... This is a thing that gives a charge for life”

Love triangle.

The main character of the novel, Vera, later Vera Pavlovna, began to fight for her right to love, while still in the camp of enemies, before meeting "new people". Her mother wanted to marry her to a rich but worthless man. Vera made a bold move when she went against the will of her mother. The first ally of the girl in this struggle was the frivolous Frenchwoman Julie. This image is interesting in that the author does not condemn the fallen woman, but shows that she is freer and in many ways more decent than respectable ladies. I can imagine how shocked Chernyshevsky's contemporaries were that it was in the mouth of a corrupt woman that he put a fiery appeal: "Die, but do not give a kiss without love!" Julie herself can no longer love and considers herself unworthy of love. But this does not prevent her from understanding the value of true feelings.

Verochka's acquaintance with Lopukhov was a turning point in her life. In a taciturn student, she found her first like-minded and true friend. He became her savior, helped her escape from the gloomy basement to the bright sunlight. In her first dream, the liberated Vera releases other girls and meets the so-called "bride of all suitors" for the first time. Who she really is will become clear only in the fourth dream. Vera could not help but fall in love with Lopukhov and was very happy when she married him. The author describes in detail to us what orders were established in the "new" family. Lopukhov praised his wife for something that the former husbands could not even imagine - for independence: "So, so, Verochka! Let everyone protect his independence with all his might from everyone, no matter how much he loves him, no matter how much he believes in him." Chernyshevsky defends the idea, revolutionary at that time, that a woman does not worse than men and should have equal rights with him in everything.

For several years, Vera and Lopukhov live in complete harmony. But gradually in the soul of our heroine there is a vague feeling that she is missing something. The third dream reveals the cause of this unrest. The feeling that she has for the "cute" is not love at all, but misunderstood gratitude. Not only that, she truly loves her husband's best friend. And Kirsanov loves Vera Pavlovna for many years. It seems to me that in the novel "What is to be done?" it is love that tests the heroes' loyalty to the ideals of the "new" life. And Lopukhov, and Kirsanov, and Verochka pass this test. In their torments, they appear before us not as heroes, but simply as good, decent people. The resolution of this love triangle is very original. It is simply impossible for an "astute reader" to believe that such a solution exists. But the author does not care about the opinion of the layman.

The "special person" Rakhmetov is also being tested by feeling. “I shouldn’t love,” he says and makes himself an iron warrior, but love penetrates under his armor and makes him exclaim with pain: “... and I am also not an abstract idea, but a person who would like to live. Well, nothing, will pass." Of course, he is a heroic person, but I feel sorry for him, because a person who stifles love in himself becomes an insensitive machine. Subsequently, he can only talk about feelings, but you should not trust him in these matters. Rakhmetov tells Verochka about jealousy: "In developed person shouldn't be her. This is a distorted feeling ... this is a consequence of looking at a person as my belonging, as a thing. "The words are correct, but what can a stern warrior know about this? Only one who loves and overcomes jealousy that is offensive to another can speak about this.

My favorite character in the novel is Kirsanov. Unlike Rakhmetov, when Kirsanov realizes that he loves his friend's wife, he fights not with feeling, but with himself. Suffering, but does not disturb the peace of Verochka. Humbles jealousy and the desire for personal happiness for the sake of friendship.

In the fourth dream of Vera Pavlovna, N. G. Chernyshevsky unfolds before the readers a picture of an ideal future. In her great place takes love. The whole history of mankind passes before us from the point of view of the evolution of love. Vera finally learns the name of her guiding star, "sister of all sisters" and "bride of all suitors": "... this word is equality ... From it, from equality, and freedom is in me, without which there is no me." It seems to me that the author meant by this that without independent preference and equality, true love will not live.

In the final chapter of the work, Vera Pavlovna, Kirsanov, Lopukhov and his new life friend Katya are completely and completely happy in love. The writer is unspeakably happy for his own heroes: "... few have experienced that the charm that love gives to everything should not at all ... be a fleeting phenomenon in a person's life." The happiness of Love will become immortal, only "you need to have for this pure heart and an honest soul and the current concept of human rights, respect for the freedom of those with whom you live.

2. Russian utopian socialism. Workshops of Vera Pavlovna. The fourth dream of V.P.

The enormous conquering power of the novel by N.G. Chernyshevsky was that he convinced of the truth, beauty and grandeur of the new, advanced in life, convinced that a bright socialist future is possible and undeniable. He answered the most important and lively question of the era: what should people do who hate the old, who do not want to live in the old way, who are striving to bring closer the beautiful historical tomorrow of their homeland and all of humanity? Much in "What to do?" struck by its surprise. His storyline was extraordinary. Under the pen of Chernyshevsky, the seemingly everyday story of the liberation from domestic captivity of the daughter of a petty Petersburg official resulted in a stormy, intense story of the struggle of a Russian woman for the freedom of her personality, for civil equality. Vera Pavlovna, in a truly unheard of and never seen before way, achieves material independence. She runs an artel sewing workshop and here, in the complex conduct of business, she develops an active, purposeful, enterprising character. This storyline is intertwined with another showing the implementation new woman even more significant life goals - the achievement of spiritual, moral and social independence. In relations with Lopukhov and Kirsanov, the heroine finds love and happiness in their truly human high sense. Russian utopian socialism stemmed from French utopian socialism, whose representatives were Charles Fourier and Claude Henri de Saint-Simon. Their goal was to create prosperity for all people, and to carry out the reform in such a way that no blood was shed. They rejected the idea of ​​equality and fraternity and believed that society should be built on the principle of mutual gratitude, asserting the need for hierarchy. But who will divide people into more and less gifted? Why gratitude is the best thing? Because the one who is below should be grateful to others for being below. The problem of a full-fledged personal life was solved. Bourgeois marriage (concluded in the church) they considered legalized trade in a woman, since a woman cannot provide herself with well-being and is sold; in an ideal society it would be free. So, the principle of mutual gratitude should be at the head of everything. Chernyshevsky in his novel What Is to Be Done? special emphasis is placed on reasonable selfishness (calculation of benefits). If gratitude is outside people, then reasonable egoism lies in the very “I” of a person. Each person secretly or openly considers himself the center of the universe. Why then is selfishness reasonable? But because in the novel "What to do?" for the first time, a “new approach to the problem” is considered, Chernyshevsky’s “new people” create a “new” atmosphere, according to Chernyshevsky, “new people” see their “benefit” in striving to benefit others, their morality is to deny and destroy official morality. Their morality frees the creative possibilities of the human person. "New people" less painfully resolve the conflict of a family, love nature. There is an undeniable attraction and rational grain in the theory of reasonable egoism. The “new people” consider labor to be an absolutely necessary condition of human life, they do not sin and do not repent, their mind is in the most complete harmony with feeling, because neither their mind nor their feelings are distorted by chronic enmity against other people. One can trace the course of Vera Pavlovna's internal development: first, at home, she gains inner freedom, then the need for public service appears, and then the fullness of her personal life, the need to work independently of personal will and public arbitrariness. N. G. Chernyshevsky creates not an individual, but a type. For a “not new” person, all “new” people are the same, the problem of a special person arises. Such a person is Rakhmetov, who differs from others, especially in that he is a revolutionary, the only individualized character. The reader is given his features in the form of questions: why did he do this? What for? These questions create an individual type. He is a "new" man in his making. All new people - as if they fell from the moon, and the only one who is associated with this era is Rakhmetov. Renouncing yourself from the "calculation of benefits"! Here Chernyshevsky appears not as a utopian. And at the same time, Vera Pavlovna's dreams exist as an indication of the ideal society to which the author aspires. Chernyshevsky resorts to fantastic tricks: beautiful sisters appear in a dream to Vera Pavlovna, the eldest of them, the Revolution, is a condition for renewal. In this chapter, we have to put a lot of dots explaining the voluntary omission of the text, which the censors will not let through anyway and in which the main idea of ​​the novel would be exposed. Along with this, there is the image of the younger sister-beauty - the bride, meaning love-equality, which turns out to be the goddess not only of love, but also of the enjoyment of work, art, relaxation: “Somewhere in the south of Russia, in a desert place, there are rich fields, meadows , gardens; there is a huge palace made of aluminum and crystal, with mirrors, carpets, with wonderful furniture. Everywhere you can see how people work, sing songs, rest. There are ideal human relations between people, everywhere there are traces of happiness and contentment, which it was impossible to even dream of before. Vera Pavlovna is delighted with everything she sees. Of course, there are many utopian elements in this picture, a socialist dream in the spirit of Fourier and Owen. No wonder they are repeatedly hinted at in the novel, without naming them directly. The novel shows only rural labor and talks about the people "in general", very generally. But this utopia is very realistic in its main idea: Chernyshevsky emphasizes that labor must be collective, free, the appropriation of its fruits cannot be private, all the results of labor must go to satisfy the needs of the members of the collective. This new work must be based on high scientific and technological achievements, on scientists and powerful machines that allow a person to transform the earth and his whole life. The role of the working class is not highlighted. Chernyshevsky knew that the transition from a patriarchal peasant community to socialism had to be revolutionary. In the meantime, it was important to fix in the reader's mind the dream of a better future. It is Chernyshevsky himself who speaks through the lips of his “elder sister”, addressing Vera Pavlovna with the words: “Do you know the future? It is light and beautiful. Love it, strive for it, work for it, bring it closer, transfer from it to the present as much as you can.

Workshops

The sewing workshop at Chernyshevsky is completely invented. “There is a feature in the story that I invented: this is a workshop. In fact, Vera Pavlovna was fussing over the organization of not a workshop; and such workshops as I described, I did not know: they are not in our dear fatherland. In fact, she was fussing over something something like a Sunday school or - closer to the real truth - like a daily free school not for children, but for adults. Does this mean that we are dealing with a naked utopia? Why is such a beautiful project not feasible? And being feasible, can it not cease to exist for the same reasons as the phalanxes in Western Europe? Is it possible that any attempt to create something human, anthropocentric on the basis of capitalist relations, implicated in alienation, mechanism - any such attempt will turn out to be ridiculous? Is it worth rejecting "sewing workshops" as radicalism, vain frills?

No! On the contrary, in order to win, parallel associations must be much more radical. Here, one organization of labor is not enough, "accounting and control" is clearly not enough. Bigger aspirations, a broader horizon and more ambitious goals are needed.

Sewing workshop in the novel "What to do?" created for one purpose: to improve the disgusting conditions of wage labor. It succeeds, but only in the imagination of the author. And he himself, however, is inclined to consider the "enterprise of a new type" as a temporary help for that part of society that is most susceptible to temptations and falls. At the same time, the workshop is not taken into account as something fundamentally different from the world, different in its very deepest essence. They go there not for justice, but for convenience. The businessman who came from America dismisses: “And we have enough of this.” They work in the workshop according to the same model as in all other enterprises. The sewing workshop of Vera Pavlovna is included in the general competition and differs from other factories in only one thing: the working conditions there are easier and the attitude of the owners is more humane. Despite the fact that formally all the workers are the owners, in reality there is a strict centralization in the workshop. Such a commune is not even a cooperative or an artel, but rather a small enterprise with enlightened owners.

The partisan detachment only in its external form is similar to the sewing workshop of Vera Pavlovna. But in fact they are completely different. The partisan detachment exists not to improve working conditions (although it can and should improve them), but to provide those who seek opportunities for other work, work for their calling. This work is unthinkable in today's world. With the conditions to ensure it, the detachment will forever bind people to itself. They will never be able to return to the cesspool of monetary totalitarianism and again put on the chains of meaningless credit and endless circulation from crisis to crisis, from bankruptcy to bankruptcy, from error to error.

The fourth dream of Vera Pavlovna

The key place in the novel is occupied by Vera Pavlovna's Fourth Dream, in which Chernyshevsky unfolds the picture of a "bright future". He paints a society in which the interests of each are organically combined with the interests of all. This is a society where man has learned to intelligently control the forces of nature, where the dramatic division between the mental and physical labor and the personality acquired the harmonic completeness and completeness that had been lost over the centuries. However, it was in Vera Pavlovna's Fourth Dream that the weaknesses typical of utopians of all times and peoples were revealed. They consisted in excessive "regulation of details", which caused disagreement even in the circle of Chernyshevsky's like-minded people.

In Russian literature, a typical example of a socialist phalanx is known - the sacramental sewing workshop of Vera Pavlovna from Chernyshevsky's novel What Is To Be Done? This novel was extremely appreciated by Lenin: certainly not for its literary merits, but, firstly, for the depiction of revolutionaries as "people of a new type", and secondly, for the author's careful attention to the rational organization of production, for an attempt to combine the human principle with the capitalist development. The same desire moved Lenin when creating his best political manifestos: "Imperialism as the highest stage of capitalism" and "The State and Revolution". The first book is apocalyptic, it describes the depth of human fall. The second - shows a way out of the abyss through organization, "accounting and control."

The sewing workshop at Chernyshevsky is completely invented. “There is a feature in the story that I invented: this is a workshop. In fact, Vera Pavlovna was fussing over the organization of not a workshop; and such workshops as I described, I did not know: they are not in our dear fatherland. In fact, she was fussing over something something like a Sunday school or - closer to the real truth - like a daily free school not for children, but for adults. Does this mean that we are dealing with a naked utopia? Why is such a beautiful project not feasible? And being feasible, can it not cease to exist for the same reasons as the phalanxes in Western Europe? Is it possible that any attempt to create something human, anthropocentric on the basis of capitalist relations, implicated in alienation, mechanism - any such attempt will turn out to be ridiculous? Is it worth rejecting "sewing workshops" as radicalism, vain frills?

No! On the contrary, in order to win, parallel associations must be much more radical. Here, one organization of labor is not enough, "accounting and control" is clearly not enough. Bigger aspirations, a broader horizon and more ambitious goals are needed.

Sewing workshop in the novel "What to do?" created for one purpose: to improve the disgusting conditions of wage labor. It succeeds, but only in the imagination of the author. And he himself, however, is inclined to consider the "enterprise of a new type" as a temporary help for that part of society that is most susceptible to temptations and falls. At the same time, the workshop is not taken into account as something fundamentally different from the world, different in its very deepest essence. They go there not for justice, but for convenience. The businessman who came from America dismisses: “And we have enough of this.” They work in the workshop according to the same model as in all other enterprises. The sewing workshop of Vera Pavlovna is included in the general competition and differs from other factories in only one thing: the working conditions there are easier and the attitude of the owners is more humane. Despite the fact that formally all the workers are the owners, in reality there is a strict centralization in the workshop. Such a commune is not even a cooperative or an artel, but rather a small enterprise with enlightened owners.

The partisan detachment only in its external form is similar to the sewing workshop of Vera Pavlovna. But in fact they are completely different. The partisan detachment exists not to improve working conditions (although it can and should improve them), but to provide those who seek opportunities for other work, work for their calling. This work is unthinkable in today's world. With the conditions to ensure it, the detachment will forever bind people to itself. They will never be able to return to the cesspool of monetary totalitarianism and again put on the chains of meaningless credit and endless circulation from crisis to crisis, from bankruptcy to bankruptcy, from error to error.

Nikolai Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky - the creator of a work of a special genre - the artistic and journalistic novel "What is to be done?". In it, the writer tried to answer the eternal questions of Russian literature. The dreams of the heroine, Vera Pavlovna, contribute to the disclosure of the writer's intention, since the novel was written in an allegorical form due to censorship considerations. The writer in numerous publicistic digressions explains his views on others, the role of literature in shaping public opinion.
Chernyshevsky, by his activity, tried to bring closer the construction of a just, reasonable system, under which every person could develop his abilities, working for himself and for the state. It is not the fault of the writer that over the centuries many have striven for this utopia. Nikolai Gavrilovich gives specific recipes: what needs to be done to become happy and rich, to build that social formation that would be universally acceptable to everyone.
In the dreams of the heroine, the author shows the way thinking girl to the heights of professionalism. It must be taken into account that the novel was written at a time when there was no system of women's education in Russia. Women were assigned a secondary role: guardians of the hearth, educators of children who would be given to live in the new world, but mothers, wives, sisters and daughters could not count on a wider range of social activities. Only "crumbs from the master's table" could be lifted by a woman.
The heroes of Chernyshevsky are new people. They look differently at the woman and her role in public life. It is no coincidence that Lopukhov provides Vera Pavlovna with complete freedom after marriage. He “released her from the basement” of life, now she has the right to choose her own path. She becomes the founder of the women's artel workshop. But soon Vera Pavlovna realizes that this is not the thing to which she would like to devote her life. Things have been established in the sewing workshop, it gives a stable income to both the owners and workers participating in the share of profits, and Vera Pavlovna becomes an assistant to her second husband, doctor Kirsanov. Isn't this a woman's free choice?!
In the dreams of Vera Pavlovna, the writer explains or predicts what will follow later in the life of the heroes or Russia as a whole. The fourth dream of Vera Pavlovna is Chernyshevsky's utopian vision of the future of a just social order of the country. It's kind of classic description the communist structure of the country, to which Russia subsequently went for a number of years.
It is not the fault of the writer that his dreams and plans were not given to come true. The artist has the right to invent, and Chernyshevsky won this right by the ascetic activity and life that he put on the altar of a beautiful future.
Now, from the height of the 21st century, it is easy to give assessments, to judge the past and ancestors, especially since opponents cannot answer. It is easy to accuse them of all sins, even their own. But history keeps irrefutable evidence that Chernyshevsky subordinated his activities not to self-interest, proprietary interests, career, future glory, but to the high service of Russia. He is not so much a great writer as selfless and fair man who managed to live in harmony with himself, and this is not very easy and deserves the respect of descendants.
The first thing that makes you see the essence of the relationship between these people differently and suspect yourself of impenetrability is the fact that Lopukhov leaves the Medical Academy two months before graduation, in order to save Vera Rozalskaya from oppression in her parental home by marrying. And this is the Lopukhov who reasonably and rationally claims that his actions are always guided by profit!
What does this person mean by the word “benefit”, if he is capable of actions that are clearly illogical precisely from the point of view of everyday convenience? This thought makes it possible to see the relations between the “new people” – and it is with their help that Chernyshevsky presents human relations in the novel – with a different look…
You begin to understand that the student Lopukhov, leaving the Academy, really acts in accordance with his own interests. The thing is that such things are beneficial to a kind and decent person. But it is precisely about Dmitry Lopukhov that Chernyshevsky writes: “These people, like Lopukhov, have magic words that attract to them every distressed, offended being.” It is not difficult to guess that “magic words” are an expression of high properties human soul. Chernyshevsky is sure that the one who does not admire himself at this time really does good. This characteristic is the best suited to the personality of Lopukhov.
For Lopukhov, human relations are not bargaining according to the principle: "You - to me, I - to you", but a relay race: "You - to me, I - to others." It is no coincidence that Verochka, not feeling love for Lopukhov, communicating with him in a friendly manner, immediately perceives this moral principle. Her first dream, in which she frees people from the basement, just testifies to this.
It is worth feeling this main, inherently inherent principle of human relations, professed by the main characters, as you begin to think: maybe it’s not so important how they arrange their family life? Specific signs of everyday life change depending on the time, and most importantly remains unchanged ... For modern man it is important to understand the main thing that determines the relationship of the “new people” in the novel “What is to be done?”.
Relations between people are fully revealed when Alexander Kirsanov appears on the stage. In many ways, he is similar to Lopukhov. Both of them, according to the author, with their breasts, without connections, without acquaintances, made their way. Both put a lot of effort in order to realize their abilities. And when an insoluble “love triangle” developed in the relationship between Kirsanov, Lopukhov and Vera Pavlovna, both behaved with dignity in a difficult situation.
Kirsanov tried for a long time to give up any relationship with his friend's wife. But the feeling turns out to be stronger than logical constructions, and the heroes of the novel “What is to be done?” would not be themselves if they built their lives only according to the laws of logic, ignoring feelings.
But there are other conditions Everyday life, and everyone decides how to relate their feelings to them. Kirsanov and Vera Pavlovna cannot connect their lives without going through the humiliating divorce procedure for everyone. Realizing this, Lopukhov takes the only possible step: he decides to leave the stage. He does this, obeying the dictates of the very “benefit” that determines for him human relations in general and his own actions in particular. And for this benefit, if you strive to transform life, dream of a future in which people will be harmonious and spiritually free, then even today you need to be not only educated, hardworking and honest, but also happy, relying in this not so much on fate as to myself.
Perhaps someone will think that Lopukhov did wrong, someone will approve of his act - it already depends on the code of honor of each of us. Lopukhov behaved as he saw fit: he staged a suicide and gave Vera Pavlovna and Kirsanov the opportunity to be together. He goes abroad and returns to St. Petersburg only when the former feeling has passed.
But the most important thing is that human relationships built on such moral basis, do not seem to Chernyshevsky something out of the ordinary. He directly writes about this in the novel: “I bet that until the last sections of this chapter, Vera Pavlovna, Kirsanov, Lopukhov seemed to the majority of the public to be heroes, persons of higher nature ... No, my friends, they do not stand too high, but you stand too low … At the height at which they stand, all people must stand, all people can stand.”
Here is the main lesson given by heroes novel "What to do?". Political systems are changing, people's aspirations are changing, and moral principles human relations remain unchanged at all times. One can be grateful to the writer who reminds of this.

• Kirsanov and Vera Pavlovna

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