© Publishing House "Children's Literature". Design of the series, composition, 2004
© E. I. Nosov. Text. heirs
© D. G. Shevarov. Afterword, 2004
© L. G. Bashkov and Yu. P. Daletskaya. Illustrations, 2004
Here they write: a small homeland ... But what is it? Where are its limits? Where and how far does it extend? How to calculate, measure, explain?
In my opinion, the small homeland is the window of our childhood. Seen, heard and felt primal reality. That district under the bowl of the azure sky, which a boyish eye can embrace and contain a pure open soul, where this soul was first surprised, delighted and rejoiced from the overwhelming happiness of being on earth. And where she was upset for the first time, shed her first tear, got angry and experienced the first shock.
... Quiet village street, Father's house in her row under the boundless willow. A cramped shop on a pasture, enticingly smelling of mint gingerbread, a harness and a barrel herring, an unpretentious seven-year school under the bright canopy of birches, where a first-grader had yet to go, a dilapidated church with a graveyard, where in the thickened lilacs the turf tombstones of former residents who had already served their time were barely visible. …
And beyond the outskirts - the machine yard, where you always want to get through, sit secretly in the tractor cab, touch the levers, blissfully inhale the still warm smell of the engine that has been used up.
Well, below, behind the garden, there is meadow freemen, a grassy breeze, a honey flower of a bedstraw, a tight hum of bumblebees and a hazy, drowsy ringing of buntings. And, finally, the rivulet is winding, dodgy, not tolerating open places and striving to slip away into the willows and viburnum. And if you do not spare your pants and shirt, then you can make your way to the old mill, where raspberry fireweed briskly beats through the plank walkways and doorways. Here, too, it is not customary to speak loudly: and now, even in the whirlpool, the water Nikish is found. They say as if dark nights you can hear how, in the depths of the mill skeleton, he sniffles and strains, striving to push a millstone no longer needed by anyone into the pool ...
For some reason, it was not customary to wander across the river: on the high bank there is another village, another, otherworldly world. It is inhabited by its swirling okemshchiki, whose eyes one by one it is better not to catch ...
Of course, each person has his own small homeland, and its signs are also different.
But such a small, spacious dwelling is enough for everyone to run over and impress to the limit during the day of God, when, after an evening mug of milk, an indefatigable little head, scorched by the sun and battered by the wind, begins to bow involuntarily, and the mother picks up the scratched, pecked with cobwebs, smelling of cattail and mud, the limp child and carry him to bed, as a fallen sister of mercy carries him from the battlefield.
And it is seen as hotly scattered by the child, as if he is climbing on a century-old willow, which covers the house, and half of the yard, and part of the hillock under the windows, and in autumn showers almost the entire neighborhood with a gilded leaf. With tensely whitened fingers, the boy digs into the roughly mottled bark of an old tree, damp, perishable breathing in an open hollow, feels every suitable ledge, every dead branch, so that, reveling in the sweet feeling of overcoming, he rises above those marks where he had already visited in his previous ascents. But the farther he climbs, green and basking on his T-shirt, the fewer suitable hooks come across, the smoother and more unapproachable the main stem round becomes, bearing the main scatter of top branches, behind which, through the unsteady canopy of whispering foliage, the blue of the summer sky beckons invitingly. Biting his lips, he stubbornly pulls himself up on his numb arms to the next branch, throws his leg there and, taking a breath, triumphantly glances down at the everyday life of the farmstead he has abandoned, at his mother who has come out of the hallway with a basin of laundry ...
And now, with a sinking heart, he embraces the very last branch, boldly striving upwards and showered with a handful of narrow quivering leaves, similar to river fish. Free upper leaves are restlessly rinsing in the sunny blue, flashing now with a dark green lacqueriness, now with a whitish dullness of the underside. Swinging from side to side from his own weight, he looks around with jubilant horror in order to finally see: what is there further, beyond the window where he has not yet been?
And as happens in boyish dreams, the supporting lateral outgrowth suddenly emits a frosty crack and crawls away from under the foot in a relaxed way.
With a sunken breath and an unspeakable cry, breaking and destroying the oncoming confusion of branches and twigs, the boy silently falls into the green abyss. The most terrible thing in such dreams is not at all the transformation of the heart into ice, not the vile feeling of one's powerlessness to do something, but the fatal numbing impossibility to call mother. There she is, under a tree, not knowing anything, hanging his own pants and shirts on the lower branches. Hearing the call, she would, of course, stretch out her hands to meet her. But he, struck by dumbness, is not even able to open his mouth ...
Having penetrated the thickness of the covering dome, the boy flashes with a white T-shirt in the inter-tiered void, and at this insignificant moment, he involuntarily, by some unconscious command, manages to scatter his arms, like outstretched wings. The heavenly wind gently and carefully picks up this cross, which has arisen from a calf and outstretched palms, and the boy begins to feel how it is filled with unprecedented lightness, and for the first time breathes in deeply.
And now he is already soaring, soaring, leaving the willow aside, making breathtaking turns over the midday village, over the scattering of haystacks covered by the foil band of the rivulet, over the dove of the mill whirlpool, at the bottom of which the water Nikish hid - over all that is known and hitherto unknown.
Close clouds blind with whiteness, envelop with damp coolness, smell deliciously of primordial snow. The growing height intoxicates and fills with the exultant joy of being.
- Mom, it's me! I'm flying, mom!
A small homeland is what gives us wings of inspiration for life ...
In an open field behind a country road
In an open field behind a country road
The smithy stood at the side of a field country road that ran around Malye Serpilki. From the road, only the tops of the Serpilkovsky orchards were visible behind the bread, while the huts themselves were hidden behind a solid wall of cherry and apple trees. On windless mornings, lazy oven smokes rose over the gardens, satisfyingly smelling of dung and khmyza. In the summer, bees flew from there to the buckwheat blossom, skirting the smoky forge, with a sultry buzz. In the autumn, when, after the first timid matinees, a thoughtfully mild Indian summer with deep skies and fair-haired stacks of young straw settled for two weeks, the bitter-wine smell of apple preli penetrated far into the field from the Serpilkovo orchards, and the kochetki clumsily and brittlely shouted in every way - underyearlings.
Of all the buildings on the side of the country road, only one seven-year school was visible. A few years ago, it was built to replace the old, original and very dilapidated corners. They placed it at the back of the village, on a flat, ant-covered pasture, and now it was pure white against the dark greenery of the gardens, and at sunrise it blazed with wide and clear windows.
The forge, on the other hand, was built near the country road back in ancient times some broken-hearted Serpilkovsky peasant, who, like a spider, decided to hunt for any passing people. They say that, having made money on a roadside forging business, the peasant subsequently set up a visiting yard with samovar and wine heating next to the forge. And they also say that he took not only living money for a stay, but did not disdain either oats or a pectoral cross.
The stories of Evgeny Nosov are not full of battle scenes and frankly terrifying episodes from military everyday life. But they suggest human destiny and impress with their openness.
Nosov Eugene sings of the feat of everyone. In particular, if a person did not receive awards, did not kill enemies in droves, and did not go one on one with a tank.
To visit the war and go through all its circles of hell is in itself a feat. But the will to win is not the only feeling that lingers in the soul of a soldier. The characters are ordinary people from all over the Soviet Union. They are closely connected with their small homeland and they have a family, and therefore to protect the country is to ensure security and peace, first of all, for themselves and their loved ones. And understanding the same position of other warriors makes you hold on to the last.
Stories by Evgeny Nosov
The writer knows firsthand about the war. Who, if not an eyewitness, knows all the secret thoughts, experiences of ordinary soldiers. Nosov Evgeny Ivanovich took part in hot hostilities, therefore he could tell everything in the first person.
Being myself out ordinary people- the writer's father was a talented blacksmith - Evgeny Ivanovich was brought up in an atmosphere of love for his native land. Often nature appears in his works as a mirror image state of mind character. She also plays the role of premonition. She is the first to warn of anxiety, upcoming changes. Also, nature is able to support forces. The spring singing of birds reminds us that life goes on, and war and sorrows are not eternal.
“Red Wine of Victory” is a story that is far from battlefield ups and downs. He tells about life outside the military cauldron, but not detached from it. The war was left behind, but some of its frames are so tightly ingrained in the mind of a person that it is too difficult to get rid of them. Although a person is trying to convince himself that "the living should think about the living."
Nosov Evgeny Ivanovich in the story shows the end of the war as a holiday with a dual nature. The bitterness of loss coexists with the joy of the long-awaited peace. And the very expectation of good news draws in parallel with the image of a new spring, the flowering of nature. It is she who first announces the victory.
The plot of the story "Red Wine of Victory"
Berlin has fallen soviet soldiers entered the city, the war is over. Already after the surrender of Germany Nosov Evgeny writes his imperishable work. The author's own emotional experiences have not subsided yet, so the story turned out to be so sharp and touching. Naturally, we are talking about the story "Red Wine of Victory". The summary of the work can be conveyed in a few words: the wounded soldiers in the hospital are waiting for the end of the war. But if you delve into the plot, then the retelling can take up more space than the author's narration itself. The fact is that many-sided characters are collected on several pages, various events. From the superficial sketches of the life of each wounded, a panorama of the state of all the inhabitants of the country is revealed.
The story begins with the fact that several servicemen end up in the Serpukhov hospital, near Moscow. The wounded were brought into it for about a week. The arrival was marked by cold weather. The soldiers were carried out in their underwear, covered with blankets, and taken on a stretcher to bright wards where staff waited to apply clean bandages. It is white that is the priority color at the beginning of the work.
The first impressions of a clean bed were indescribable. Each fighter could not imagine that all this is real. But soon the whiteness and softness got tired. Joy was overshadowed by itchy wounds and a noxious, heavy smell that stood in the ward for twelve people.
The front was behind, and the radio announced that most likely no one would return to the battlefield, because the offensive had gained momentum. A certain amount of disappointment is mixed with the joy of an early victory - so much to go and nowhere to come. Berlin will be taken without them.
But wagons with the wounded do not stop coming from the forest, coming from all sides. Hastily bandaged, moaning, dying soldiers fill the hospital wards. The picture of the operation in a dirty tent is dissonant with the whiteness of the sheets and dressing gowns. But it is difficult to understand the line that separates these two worlds.
In parallel, it tells about the journey to the hospital and how the air changes depending on the area. The closer to the Motherland, the easier it is to breathe.
There are 12 main characters. These are soldiers, a nurse and the head physician of the hospital. The soldiers remember their native land and begin to argue which side is better. But everyone understands that disputes are useless and are needed only for fun.
Two of the ward, Saenko and Bugaev, are the only walkers, the sniper Mihai lost both hands. The most difficult thing for Kopyoshkin - he is motionless and hardly speaks.
The radio is no longer turned off in the ward, even at night. Along with the news, birdsong bursts into the ward, Fresh air and the smell of rebirth. The further spring is coming, the more impatience grows in the hearts of the soldiers.
And, finally, the message of the complete defeat of Germany sounded. The head physician arrives at the hospital to order to prepare a festive dinner for the soldiers. The caretaker even manages to get some wine.
Immediately after the news of the victory, Kopeshkin dies, without having drunk for her.
Nosov's story "Red Wine of Victory", a summary of which conveys the essence of the events from February to May 1945, while leaving many questions that were dangerous to raise at that time.
Plot origins
"Red Wine of Victory" written in hot pursuit and based on real events. Indeed, the young writer was seriously wounded and taken to a military hospital in Serpukhov. The building itself, in which it is located, used to be a school before the start of the war.
All the characters that are present in the story are also real.
Having been wounded in February 1945, Evgeny Ivanovich Nosov ended up in unsanitary conditions, a constantly changing stream of the wounded, a sea of blood, pain, death left an indelible imprint on the writer's memory.
All the stories of Yevgeny Nosov are based on real events in one way or another, but nothing has been changed or added in this.
The life experience of the writer is also due to the fact that he conveys in detail the mood of the characters. It’s easy to outline the plot, but you can dig to the depths only if you have talent and experience the same feelings as Evgeny Nosov. Works about the war are also transmitted through the prism of reality. As he himself says, "I wanted to portray fighting on the other hand, deepen the issue, raise new topics.
That is why the stories of Yevgeny Nosov cannot but be noted as an innovation in Russian literature of this era.
Story characters
Why do the characters in the story fascinate us? Evgeny Nosov "Red Wine of Victory" wrote "from life". All characters are real, as are their feelings.
Let's highlight the main characters:
nurse.
the narrator is a real participant and eyewitness of events;
Sasha Selivanov;
Borodukhov;
Kopeshkin;
Bugaev and Saenko;
The narrator is not called by name. We only know about him that he is a simple soldier who was wounded and, along with the others, is now in the hospital. He is young and hot. He can't get used to the idea that his body was shredded by metal. I used to think that this only happens to others.
Sasha Selivanov - "Volgar", healthy, tall, swarthy. There is some part of Tatar blood in him, as evidenced slightly. Being in the rear, he sadly reflects on his comrades in arms and regrets that he cannot be with them on the front line. This longing was combined with some kind of envy. Young and hot, he strove to fight, to perform feats, but he could not, because his leg was in a cast and he could hardly move.
Borodukhov from ordinary men. Already at an age, however, he had a powerful figure. The emphasis on "o" in speech made every word of Borodukhov heavy and weighty. This was his fourth wound, because in the hospital he felt at home. Strength of mind and courage did not allow him to break. He endured all operations steadfastly and never even groaned.
Kopeshkin is the heaviest patient in the ward. He doesn't move. His body is completely encased in a white plaster shell. The soldier barely speaks, therefore he does not take an active part in the discussions. Moreover, no one even really knows his name, and they think about him only after his death. Then it turns out that his name was Ivan. Kopeshkin was not an outstanding hero. He served as a cabbie. When asked about the medals, he denied. What kind of medals could there be for someone who was not even supposed to kill the Fritz. Companions learn about his place of residence from the inscription on the letter. What kind of Penza, none of the inhabitants of the chamber knows. He doesn't know exactly where she is. But the fact that the place is picturesque, no one doubts.
Saenko and Bugaev are cheerful and carefree. Happy with their freedom and in a hurry to enjoy life. But in their behavior one can guess the fear that the war is not over yet and they should have time to rejoice at the forced "citizen".
Mihai is a former sniper, broad-shouldered, tanned. During the fighting, he lost both hands and suffers greatly about this.
Nurse Tanya is the embodiment of femininity, care and mercy. She does not give preference to anyone alone. Maybe this happens not only because of her tolerance and tact, but also because of her constant workload. However, she is friendly and kind to everyone. If he tries to show strictness, then objectively, they obey her more out of respect.
images
Apart from human images, in the story there is also abstract. Among them we highlight the following:
small family.
Bright and clean wards, bandages, plaster, dressing gowns, snow and even the sky is transparent. On the one hand, white is a symbol of calmness, confidence, which is guaranteed by a quick victory. On the other hand, it is a shade of surrender. Each character in the story understands that there is a forced retreat before the final push.
Thus, whiteness has a dual nature, it gives new hopes, and at the same time it depresses.
Victory, like color, is also not an unambiguous image. The joy of liberation is overshadowed by the heavy losses that have been paid for it.
Definitely, Nosov beat the image of nature in his story. "Red Wine of Victory" presents nature as a herald of change, a predictor. It learns about events much earlier and signals to others with its changes. Nature and life continue their rhythm.
The author's attachment to nature also influenced the creation of the image small motherland. Nosov wrote “Red Wine of Victory”, an analysis of whose biography is direct evidence of this, impressed by the many places that he saw himself and that fellow soldiers told him about. Motherland - collective image denoting attachment to the world and real life.
Symbols
Yevgeny Nosov saturated Red Wine of Victory with many symbols, despite the small volume of the work. The main one is wine. On the one hand, it is a festive drink that is served in honor of victory. On the other hand, it resembles blood. This is a kind of payment for victory and serves as an edification for future generations.
Another symbol is the finch, which sings at the top of the tree and thus makes the soldiers remember the peaceful life with all its joys.
Blooming poplar foliage outside the window is also a symbol of the beginning of a full life. He seems to be hinting at a rebirth. What kind of revival this is, everyone will decide for himself: the reincarnation of spiritual forces, the rebirth of the whole people, or the awakening from a painful sleep, whose name is war.
Artistic media
At the beginning of the story "Red Wine of Victory", a depressing effect on the reader is produced by means of gradation. The frequent repetition of the words "white", "dirty", "gray" and the like paints before us a colorful picture of military everyday life.
The presence of common words, the transmission of lively speech makes the story not detached from life, but, on the contrary, as close as possible to it, which proves the analysis. "Red Wine of Victory" is replete with vivid epithets and comparisons when it comes to describing the interior and nature.
Personalized images add dynamics to the story, thanks to which almost every object lives its own life.
Rich comparisons enable the reader to immerse themselves in the atmosphere of events and feel the atmosphere of that time as much as possible.
Victory Day as a separate image
A large number of personifications in the work recreates the victory as a separate, concretized image. It runs like a red thread through the whole story. All the thoughts of the heroes, one way or another, are concentrated around this magical, seemingly surreal, word. Verbs contribute to the "revival" of the victory that must come, come.
No one knows what she looks like, but everyone feels her closeness, clearly realizes that she promises the long-awaited peace and tranquility, and therefore she is a welcome guest.
Victory is a ticket to the past, in which the best memories remain, and to the future, where inevitable happiness awaits everyone.
This image of triumph is new in Russian literature post-war era. Prior to this, victory was always described as a trophy.
The Red Wine of Victory gives us a chance to reassess previous views, to rethink the essence of those past horrific events.
Depiction of the war in the story
The depiction of war is an occasion for a more thorough analysis. "Red Wine of Victory" gives us a completely new vision of this phenomenon. Nosov's predecessors sought to portray the war as a separate image. It was both an evil aunt, and a stepmother, to someone - and a “dear mother”. Most often, the attitude to the struggle of either the whole people or enemy forces was depicted - as a way to seize foreign lands.
Nosov Evgeny, whose books give a completely new understanding of many things, including war, refuses to give the status of a separate image, a living organism, to this horror. Instead, he makes a scattered, terrifying sketch that only becomes concrete when viewed through the prism of a single human life.
Parallels with foreign writers
An attempt to delve into the souls of individual combatants is not new to world literature. It has always been risky to write on this topic in any country, because in this light, war is presented as great sorrow for ordinary soldiers on both sides.
The works of Erich Maria Remarque are imbued with deep psychologism. He began to write in this vein after the First World War.
Similar sentiments are observed in the novels of Ernest Hemingway.
The main difference between the works of Yevgeny Nosov, including the story "The Red Wine of Victory", is the panorama of the image in much smaller genre forms.
For Russian literature, this side of the war remained completely closed before the writer. He made a huge, invaluable contribution to the development of the patriotic education of youth.
21. Zola's work
Zola (Zola) Emil ( full name Emile Edouard Charles Antoine) (April 2, 1840, Paris - September 28, 1902, ibid.), French writer. The main work - a 20-volume series of novels "Rougon-Macquarts" (1871-1893) - the history of one family in the era of the Second Empire. In the novels of the series The Belly of Paris (1873), The Trap (1877), Germinal (1885), Money (1891), Defeat (1892), the social contradictions. Zola is a supporter of the principles of naturalism (the book "Experimental Novel", 1880). He protested against the Dreyfus affair (the pamphlet I Accuse, 1898).
Creative way.
Zola was born into a mixed Italian-French family. His father, an engineer who came from an old Venetian family, signed a contract to participate in the construction of a canal that was supposed to provide Aix-en-Provence with water. In this town, which became the prototype of Plassant in the Rougon-Macquart cycle, the writer spent his childhood and received his education. He studied with Paul Cezanne, who later introduced him to the circle of Impressionist painters.
In 1857, Emil's father died suddenly, leaving the family with very modest savings, and a year later the widow decided to go with her son to Paris, hoping to get the support of her late husband's friends. Zola was interrupted by odd jobs, until at the beginning of 1862 he entered the service of the Ashet publishing house, where he worked for about four years. At the same time, he wrote articles for periodicals, and in 1864 published the first collection of short stories, Tales of Ninon. In 1865, his first semi-autobiographical novel, The Confession of Claude, appeared. The book brought him fame, which increased even more thanks to a vivid speech in defense of the paintings of Edouard Manet on the pages of the review. art exhibition 1866.
In the preface to the novel Therese Raquin (1867), Zola first formulated the essence of the naturalistic method: carried away by the ideas of the literature of the document, he set as his goal the creation of " scientific novel", which will include data natural sciences, medicine and physiology. In the novel Madeleine Ferat (1868), the writer made the first attempt to show the laws of heredity in action. Around the same time, he had the idea to create a series of novels dedicated to one family, whose fate has been explored for five generations.
In 1870, Zola married Gabrielle-Alexandrine Mel, and in 1873 he bought a house in Medan (near Paris), where young writers began to gather, forming a short-lived "naturalistic school". In 1880 they published a collection of short stories, Medan Evenings. Zola himself published collections of articles "Experimental Novel" (1880) and "Natural Novelists" (1881) - theoretical works designed to explain the essence of the new method: the character, temperament and behavior of a person are determined by the laws of heredity, environment And historic moment, and the task of the writer is to objectively depict the exact moment under certain conditions.
In the last years of his life, Zola created two more cycles: “Three Cities” (“Lourdes”, 1894; “Rome”, 1896; “Paris”, 1898) and “The Four Gospels” (“Fecundity”, 1899; “Labor”, 1901; "Truth", publ. 1903). The books of the first cycle are united by the ideological quest of the protagonist - Pierre Froment. The second cycle, which remained unfinished (the fourth volume was not written), is a social utopia in which the writer tried to realize his dream of the coming triumph of reason and labor.
The Dreyfus affair.
At the end of his life, Zola enjoyed worldwide fame and was considered - after the death of Victor Hugo - the most prominent figure among all living French writers. His reputation was strengthened by his intervention in the Dreyfus affair: Zola became convinced that this officer of the French General Staff, a Jew by nationality, was unjustly convicted of espionage in 1894. Exposure of the army elite, bearing the main responsibility for the obvious miscarriage of justice, took the form open letter to the President of the Republic with the title "I accuse" (1898). As a result, Zola was convicted of "libel" and sentenced to a year. imprisonment. He had to hide in England, and he returned to his homeland only in June 1900, when the situation changed in favor of Dreyfus. The writer died suddenly: the cause of death was carbon monoxide poisoning, but this "accident" was most likely set up by his political enemies. At the funeral, Anatole France called his brother "the conscience of the nation." In 1908 Zola's remains were transferred to the Panthéon. During his lifetime, he was never elected to the French Academy, although he was nominated no less than nineteen times.
Family saga.
Zola gave the title of Rougon-Macquart to his grandiose epic. natural and social history one family in the era of the Second Empire "(1871-1893). The original plan included ten novels, but stormy historical events(The Franco-Prussian War and the Commune) prompted the writer to expand the scope of the cycle, which in its final form has twenty novels. The Rougon Macquarts are the offspring of a feeble-minded woman who dies in latest volume series, reaching a hundred years of age and completely losing his mind. From her children - one legitimate and two illegitimate - three branches of the family originate. The first of these is represented by the prosperous Rugons. Members of this family appear in such novels as The Career of the Rougons (1871), which takes place in the small town of Plassant in December 1851, on the eve of Louis Bonaparte's coup d'état; His Excellency Eugene Rougon (1876), which examines the political machinations of the reign of Napoleon III; "Money" (1891), dedicated to speculation in landed property and securities. The second branch of the genus is the Mouret family. Octave Mouret, the ambitious red tape in Naquipi (1882), creates one of the first Parisian department stores in the pages of The Lady's Happiness (1883), while other members of the family run a very humble life, like the village priest in the novel The Misdemeanor of the Abbé Mouret (1875). Representatives of the third branch are extremely unbalanced, since their progenitor was an alcoholic. Members of this family, the Macquarts and Lantiers, play prominent roles in Zola's most powerful novels. In The Belly of Paris (1873), the central market is depicted, against which the story of the brothers Florent and Quenu unfolds: the first of them was sent to hard labor for participating in the December events of 1851 - when he returned, he saw a giant market place on the site of past battles; During this time, Quenu grew up and married the beautiful Lisa, the daughter of the Macquarts of Plassans. Everyone considers Floran "Red", and he really dreams of a new uprising. On the denunciation of several merchants, including Lisa, he is again sent into exile, from where he will not be destined to return. The novel ends with Florent's friend, the painter Claude Lantier, walking around the market, where Lisa, the triumph of the womb, is laying out tongues and hams on the counter. In the novel "Nana" (1880), the main actor Anna is the daughter of the drunken washerwoman Gervaise Macquart and the crippled worker Coupeau from the novel The Trap (1877). Economic circumstances and hereditary inclinations make her an actress and then a courtesan. From her comes a crazy call of the flesh, which drives crazy and enslaves men. In 1870, just before the beginning of the fatal war with Prussia for France, Nana fell ill with smallpox and died at the age of eighteen: her beautiful face turns into a purulent mask to the joyful cries of patriots: “To Berlin! To Berlin! Germinal (1885) depicts a miners' strike led by a stranger, the mechanic Etienne Lantier. He meets the Russian socialist Souvarine, who, in the name of the triumph of the revolution, saws the supports in the mine. Etienne's beloved perishes in a stream of water, and he himself leaves the village: from under the ground, he hears the muffled blows of a pickle - work is in full swing in all the mines that have recently been on strike. In the novel Creativity (1886), both main characters come to Paris from Plassans. The novelist Sandoz and the artist Claude Lantier (whose prototypes Zola and Cezanne were considered by contemporaries) are champions of the new art. Dreaming of a synthesis of literature and science, Sandoz conceives a giant novel series that would cover and explain the entire history of mankind. Claude is even more obsessed with his ideas, and creativity becomes a real torture for him. In November 1870, he is found hanging in a noose in front of an unfinished painting for which his wife Christina posed for him. Sandoz in a rage burns this failed masterpiece, and at the funeral of a genius from whom nothing remains, he blames the end of the century with its rot and decay for everything: the air of the era is poisoned - a century that began with clarity and rationalism ends with a new wave of obscurantism.
IN 1886 The year saw the light of Zola's novel "Creativity" ("L'Oeuvre") about the life of the artist. The writer was very pleased with his novel and wrote to Henri Seart, having finished the novel:
“I am very happy, and most importantly, very pleased with the end.”
But such was the reaction only of the writer himself, and the Impressionist artists met the appearance of this novel with obvious irritation. All artists immediately realized that Zola did not understand anything in painting and in the work of artists, especially the Impressionists, and they regarded the publication of the novel “Creativity” as a break with the Impressionists.
And this happened at a time when the Impressionists achieved their first successes and began to win public recognition. Claude Monet immediately wrote to Zola:
“I have been fighting for a very long time and I am afraid that in the moment of success, critics may use your book to deal us a decisive blow.”
However, no one could understand who Zola brought out under the name of the protagonist of the novel, Claude Lantier, although many other characters in the novel were easily recognizable.
When young then, and later renowned critic, Gustav Kokiyo asked Zola to “decipher” the names of the heroes of the novel, he replied:
“Why name names? These are the losers that you certainly don't know."
If the general public and critics wondered who was hiding under the names of the various heroes of the novel, then Cezanne immediately saw that Zola used many moments from their joint youth in Aix for the book, and also brought out their mutual acquaintances, only changing their names. And in Claude Lantier, Cezanne recognized himself, his characteristic statements and even gestures.
Cezanne was offended, but what is there - he was simply offended by this novel, especially since Zola showed his complete ignorance in painting:
“Emile would like me to place women in my landscapes, of course, nymphs, like papa Corot in the forests of Ville d'Avray ... A sort of cretin! And he leads Claude Lantier to suicide!”
Cezanne's friendship with Zola ended there, but the artist found the strength to answer the writer:
“Dear Emil! I just received your book "Creativity", which you were so kind to send me. I thank the author of Rougon-Macquart for the kind testimony to his memory of me and ask, with a thought of the past, to allow me to shake hands with him. Sincerely yours. I was glad to relive the wonderful moments of the past. Paul Cezanne, 4 April 1886.“
Even the owner of an art shop, “daddy” Tanguy, did not approve of this novel:
“This is not good, this is not good. I would never have believed that Monsieur Zola, such a decent person, and besides, a friend of these people! He did not understand them! And this is very unfortunate!”
From a conversation between Cezanne and Ambroise Vollard about Emile Zola
Vollard: “Once, when Cezanne was showing me a small sketch he made with Zola in his youth, around 1860, I asked him what time their break was.”
Cezanne: “There was no quarrel between us, I was the first to stop going to Zola. I no longer felt at ease with him. Those carpets on the floor, the servants and himself, now working for the carved wood bureau! In the end, I got the impression that I was visiting a minister. He has turned (forgive me, Monsieur Vollard, I do not say this in a bad way) into a dirty bourgeois.”
Vollard: "It seems to me that the people who could be met at Zola were of extraordinary interest: Edmond de Goncourt, Daudet's father and son, Flaubert, Guy de Maupassant and many others."
Cezanne: "Indeed, he had a lot of people, but what was said there was like this ... Once I started talking about Baudelaire: this name was of no interest to anyone."
Vollard: “But what did they talk about?”
Cezanne: “Everyone talked about the number of copies in which he published his last book or hoped to publish the next one, of course, slightly inventing it. It was especially worth listening to the ladies…”
Vollard: “But was there really no one there but men with large circulations and vain women! For example, Edmond de Goncourt…”
Cezanne: “It's true, he didn't have a wife; but he also wrinkled his face, listening to all these figures.
Vollard: "Do you like Goncourt?"
Cezanne: “I used to love Manette Salomon very much. But since the “widow,” as someone called him [it was Barbe d’Aurevilly], began to write alone, I have not had to read anything like that ...
So, I only occasionally visited Zola, because it was very hard for me to see him become such a gentleman; when suddenly one day his servant reported to me that his master was not receiving anyone. I do not think that this order specifically concerned me, but my visits became even rarer ... And finally Zola published “L’Oeuvre” (“Creativity”) ...
It is impossible to demand from an ignorant person that he speak reasonable things about the art of painting. But, damn it, how dare he say that the artist is finished, since he painted a bad picture! If the picture is not successful, it is thrown into the fire and a new one is started! ”
Vollard: “But what about Zola, who spoke to me so much about you and in such cordial terms, with such excitement ...”
Cezanne: “Listen, Monsieur Vollard, I have to tell you this ...
Later, while in Aix, I learned that Zola had recently arrived there ... I learned about his arrival at a time when I was on the “motive”; I wrote an etude, which I did well; but what the hell was in my study when Zola was in Aix! Wasting no time even packing my things, I rush to the hotel where he is staying. But a comrade whom I meet along the way informs me that the day before, in his presence, someone said to Zola:
“Are you going to hang out with Cezanne?”
And Zola replied:
“Why would I want to date this loser?”
Then I returned to the "motive".
Claude Lantier, an artist, hanged himself in his studio in front of an unfinished painting in November 1870. His wife Christine, who posed for this painting and was painfully jealous of it, lost her mind with grief. Claude lived in total poverty. Nothing remained of him but a few sketches: the last and main picture, a failed masterpiece, was tore off the wall and burned in a fit of rage by a friend of Claude Sandoz. Except for Sandoz and Bongrand - another friend of Claude, an artist-maitre and a rebel academic - there was no one from their company at the funeral.
All of them were from Plassans and became friends in college: the painter Claude, the novelist Sandoz, the architect Dubuch. In Paris, Dubuch with great difficulty entered the Academy, where he was subjected to merciless ridicule from friends: both Claude and Sandoz dreamed of a new art, despising classical models and gloomy, through and through. literary romanticism Delacroix. Claude isn't just phenomenally gifted, he's obsessed. Classical education not for him: he learns to portray life as he sees it - Paris, its central market, the banks of the Seine, cafes, passers-by. Sandoz dreams of a synthesis of literature and science, of a gigantic series of novels that would encompass and explain the entire history of mankind. Claude's obsession is alien to him: he watches with fright how periods of inspiration and hope are replaced by his friend's gloomy impotence. Claude works, forgetting about food and sleep, but does not go beyond sketches - nothing satisfies him. But the whole company of young painters and sculptors - the easy and cynical mocker Fazherol, the ambitious son of the stonemason Magudo, the prudent critic Jory - are sure that Claude will become the head new school. Jory called it "the plein air school". The whole company, of course, is occupied not only with disputes about art: Magudo with disgust endures the whore druggist Matilda next to him;
Claude avoided women until one night, not far from his house on the Bourbon Quay, he met a lost young beauty during a thunderstorm - tall girl dressed in black, who had come to join the general's wealthy widow as a lecturer. Claude had no choice but to offer her to spend the night with him, and she had no choice but to agree. Having chastely placed the guest behind a screen and annoyed at the sudden adventure, in the morning Claude looks at the sleeping girl and freezes: this is the nature that he dreamed of for new painting. Forgetting everything, he begins to rapidly sketch her small breasts with pink nipples, a thin arm, flowing black hair ... Waking up, she tries to hide under the sheet in horror. Claude hardly persuades her to pose further. They belatedly meet: her name is Christina, and she was barely eighteen. She trusts him: he only sees her as a model. And when she leaves, Claude with annoyance admits to himself that most likely he will never see the best of his models again and that this circumstance seriously upsets him.
He made a mistake. She came in a month and a half later with a bouquet of roses - a token of her gratitude. Claude can work with the same enthusiasm: one sketch, even if it was better than all the previous ones, is not enough for his new work. He decided to depict a naked woman against the backdrop of a spring garden, in which couples stroll and wrestlers frolic. There is already a name for the picture - just "Plein Air". In two sessions, he painted Christina's head, but he does not dare to ask her to pose naked again. Seeing how he suffers, trying to find a model like her, one evening she undresses herself in front of him, and Claude completes his masterpiece in a matter of days. The painting is intended for the Salon of the Les Misérables, conceived as a challenge to the semi-official and unchanged in its predilections. Paris Salon. A crowd gathers around Claude's painting, but this crowd is laughing. And no matter how much Jory assures that this is the best advertisement, Claude is terribly depressed. Why is the woman naked and the man clothed? What kind of sharp, rough strokes? Only artists understand all the originality and power of this painting. In feverish excitement, Claude cries of contempt for the public, that together with his comrades he will conquer Paris, but he returns home in despair. Here a new shock awaits him: the key is stuck in the door, some girl has been waiting for him for two hours already ... This is Christina, she was at the exhibition and saw everything: both the picture, in which she recognizes herself with horror and admiration, and the audience, consisting from fools and scoffers. She came to console and encourage Claude, who, having fallen at her feet, no longer restrains his sobs.
This is their first night, followed by months of love intoxication. They rediscover each other. Christine leaves her general, Claude finds a house in Bennecourt, a suburb of Paris, for only two hundred and fifty francs a year. Not married to Christina, Claude calls her his wife, and soon his inexperienced lover discovers that she is pregnant. The boy was named Jacques. After his birth, Claude returns to painting, but the Bennecourt landscapes have already bored him: he dreams of Paris. Christina understands that burying himself in Bennecourt is unbearable for him: the three of them return to the city.
Claude visits old friends: Magudo yields to the tastes of the public, but still retains his talent and strength, the apothecary is still with him and has become even uglier; Zhori earns not so much by criticism as by gossip and is quite pleased with himself; Fajerolle, who is stealing Claude's picturesque finds with might and main, and Irma, who changes lovers weekly, from time to time rush to each other, because there is nothing stronger than the attachment of two egoists and cynics. Bon-gran, Claude's older friend, a recognized master who rebelled against the Academy, for several months in a row cannot get out of a deep crisis, does not see new ways, talks about the artist's agonizing fear of the realization of each new idea, and in his depression Claude sees with horror an omen own torment. Sandoz got married, but still sees friends on Thursdays. Having gathered in the same circle - Claude, Dubuch, Fazherol, Sandoz with his wife Henriette - the friends sadly notice that they are arguing without the same vehemence and are talking more and more about themselves. The connection is broken, Claude goes into solitary work: it seems to him that now he is really capable of exhibiting a masterpiece. But for three years in a row, the Salon rejected his best, innovative, striking creations: the winter landscape of the city's outskirts, the Batignolles Square in May and the sunny, melting view of the Carousel Square in midsummer. Friends are delighted with these canvases, but the sharp, roughly accented painting scares off the Salon jury. Claude is again afraid of his inferiority, hates himself, his insecurity is transferred to Christine. Only a few months later he has a new idea - a view of the Seine with port workers and bathers. Claude takes on a gigantic sketch, quickly writes down the canvas, but then, as always, in a fit of uncertainty, spoils own work, can not bring anything to the end, destroys the plan. His hereditary neurosis is expressed not only in genius, but also in the inability to realize himself. Any completed work is a compromise, Claude is obsessed with the mania of perfection, the creation of something more alive than life itself. This struggle drives him to despair: he belongs to the type of genius for whom any concession, any retreat is unbearable. His work becomes more and more convulsive, inspiration passes faster and faster: happy at the moment of the birth of an idea, Claude, like any true artist, understands all the imperfection and half-heartedness of any incarnations. Creativity becomes his torture.
At the same time, she and Christina, tired of neighbor gossip, decide to finally get married, but marriage does not bring joy: Claude is absorbed in work, Christina is jealous: having become husband and wife, they realized that their former passion had died. In addition, the son irritates Claude with his excessively large head and slow development: neither mother nor father yet knows that Jacques has dropsy of the brain. Poverty comes, Claude proceeds to his last and most grandiose picture - again a naked woman, the personification of Paris at night, the goddess of beauty and vice against the backdrop of a sparkling city. On the day when, in the twilight evening light, he sees his just finished painting and is again convinced that he has been defeated, twelve-year-old Jacques dies. Claude immediately begins to paint The Dead Child, and Fajerolles, feeling guilty before the tattered older comrade, puts the picture in the Salon with great difficulty. There, hung in the most remote hall, high up, almost invisible to the public, she looked scary and pitiful. New job Bongrana - "Village Funeral", written as if in a pair to his early "Village Wedding", - was also not noticed by anyone. On the other hand, fajerolle is a huge success, softening the findings from Claude's early works and passing them off as his own; Fagerol, who became the star of the Salon. Sandoz looks longingly at the friends gathered in the Salon. During this time, Dubush married profitably and unhappily, Magudo made an ugly apothecary his wife and fell into complete dependence on her, Jory sold out, Claude was awarded the nickname of a lunatic - does every life come to such an inglorious end?
But Claude's end turned out to be worse than his friends could have imagined. During one of the painful and already meaningless sessions, when Claude painted Christina naked again and again, she could not stand it. Terribly jealous of the woman on the canvas, she rushed to Claude, begging for the first time in many years to look at her again as a woman. She's still beautiful, he's still strong. On this night, they experience such a passion that they did not know even in their youth. But while Christina is sleeping, Claude gets up and slowly walks to the studio, to his painting. In the morning, Christina sees him hanging from a rung that he himself once nailed to reinforce the ladder.
The air of the era is poisoned, says Bongran Sandoz at the funeral of a genius of whom nothing remains. We are all misguided people, and the end of the century is to blame for everything, with its rottenness, decay, dead ends on all paths. Art is in decline, anarchy is all around, personality is suppressed, and the age that began with clarity and rationalism ends with a new wave of obscurantism. If it were not for the fear of death, every true artist would have to act like Claude. But even here, in the cemetery, among old coffins and dug up earth, Bongran and Sandoz remember that work awaits them at home - their eternal, only torture.
