Herder ideas briefly. Biography of Herder Johann Gottfried

Herder Johann Gottfried (Herder, Johann Gottfried) (1744-1803), German writer and thinker. Born August 25, 1744 in Morungen (East Prussia). The son of a school teacher. In 1762 he was enrolled in the theological faculty of Königsberg University.

From 1764 he was a teacher at a church school in Riga, and in 1767 he became assistant rector of two of the most important parishes in Riga. In May 1769 he went on a journey and by November reached Paris. In June 1770, as a companion and mentor to the Crown Prince of Holstein-Eiten, he went with his ward to Hamburg, where he met Lessing.

He who sees only the shortcomings, not seeing their causes, he sees only half; if he sees their causes, then his anger can sometimes turn into the most tender compassion.

Herder Johann Gottfried

In Darmstadt he met Caroline Flaxland, who became his wife. In Strasbourg, he underwent an unsuccessful eye operation. He became close friends with I. W. Goethe, then still a student, on whose formation as a poet Herder had a decisive influence. In 1771-1776 he was chief pastor and member of the consistory in Bückeburg; thanks to the mediation of Goethe, in 1776 he was invited to Weimar, where he became a court preacher and a member of the consistory.

Here, apart from a trip to Italy in 1788-1789, he spent the rest of his life. In 1801 he headed the consistory and received a patent for nobility from the Elector of Bavaria. Herder died on December 18, 1803.

Herder erected his first works among the most important, Sketches on the latest German literature (Fragmente uber die neuere deutsche Literatur, 1767-1768) and Critical forests (Kritische Walder, 1769), on the foundations laid by his great forerunner Lessing. The sketches arose in addition to Lessing's Literary Letters, and Lesa begins with a critique of his Laocoön.

In the articles Extracts from Correspondence on Ossian and the Songs of the Ancient Peoples and Shakespeare in the collection On German Character and Art (Von deutscher Art und Kunst, 1773; published jointly with Goethe), the program document of the Sturm und Drang movement, Herder tries to prove that all literature ultimately goes back to folk songs.

Widely known was his collection of folk poetry Folk Songs (Volkslieder, 1778-1779), later renamed Voices of the Peoples in Songs (Stimmen der Volker in Lidern), composed of songs of different nations beautifully translated by him and original poems by Herder himself, Goethe and M .Claudius.

Herder's greatest work, Ideas for the Philosophy of Human History (Ideen zur Geshichte der Menschheit, vols. 1-4., 1784-1791), remained unfinished. His idea in a broad sense was to discover a close relationship between nature and the cultural development of the human race. For Herder, history is the scene of the deeds of God, the fulfillment of God's plan and the revelation of God in nature.

HERDER, JOHANN GOTHFRID(Herder, Johann Gottfried) (1744-1803), German writer and thinker. Born August 25, 1744 in Morungen (East Prussia). The son of a school teacher. In 1762 he was enrolled in the theological faculty of Königsberg University. From 1764 he was a teacher at a church school in Riga, and in 1767 he became assistant rector of two of the most important parishes in Riga. In May 1769 he went on a journey and by November reached Paris. In June 1770, as a companion and mentor to the Crown Prince of Holstein-Eiten, he went with his ward to Hamburg, where he met Lessing. In Darmstadt he met Caroline Flaxland, who became his wife. In Strasbourg, he underwent an unsuccessful eye operation. He became close friends with I.V. Goethe, then still a student, on whose formation as a poet Herder had a decisive influence. In 1771-1776 he was chief pastor and member of the consistory in Bückeburg; thanks to the mediation of Goethe, in 1776 he was invited to Weimar, where he became a court preacher and a member of the consistory. Here, apart from a trip to Italy in 1788-1789, he spent the rest of his life. In 1801 he headed the consistory and received a patent for nobility from the Elector of Bavaria. Herder died on December 18, 1803.

His first works among the most important, Sketches on the latest German literature (Fragmente über die neuere deutsche Literatur, 1767–1768) and critical forests (Kritische Walder, 1769), Herder erected on the foundations laid by his great forerunner Lessing. sketches arose in addition to literary letters Lessing, and Forests start with a critique Laocoon. Articles Extracts from Correspondence on Ossian and Songs ancient peoples And Shakespeare in the collection ABOUT German character and art (Von deutscher Art und Kunst, 1773; published jointly. with Goethe), the key document of the Sturm und Drang movement, Herder tries to prove that all literature ultimately goes back to folk songs. Widely known for his collection of folk poetry Folk songs (Volkslieder, 1778–1779), later renamed Vote peoples in songs (Stimmen der Volker in Lidern), composed of songs of different nations beautifully translated by him and original poems by Herder himself, Goethe and M. Claudius. Herder's greatest work, Ideas for philosophy human history (Ideen zur Geshichte der Menschheit, tt. 1–4., 1784–1791), remained unfinished. His idea in a broad sense was to discover a close relationship between nature and the cultural development of the human race. For Herder, history is the scene of the acts of God, the fulfillment of God's plan and the revelation of God in nature. The only goal of human existence is the progress of mankind and humanity.

German cultural historian, writer and educator.

Main labor Johann Gottfried Herder: Ideas for the philosophy of the history of mankind / Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit, published in parts from 1784 to 1791. One of the book's ideas is about the infinite perfection of man.

"The world is facing Herder in the form of a single, continuously developing whole, naturally passing through quite certain necessary steps. How Herder imagined these steps, says the following rough sketch:

"1. Organization of matter - heat, fire, light, air, water, earth, dust, universe, electrical and magnetic forces.
2. Organization of the Earth according to the laws of motion, all kinds of attraction and repulsion.
3. Organization of inanimate things - stones, salts.
4. Organization of plants - root, leaf, flower, forces.
5. Animals: bodies, feelings.
6. People - reason, reason.
7. World soul: everything […]

The problem of the laws of social development occupies a central place in Ideas for the Philosophy of the History of Mankind. Do they even exist? Is there anything like progress in society? If a superficial observer, limited only by an external consideration of the fate of mankind, can give a negative answer to these questions, then a deeper acquaintance with history leads to different results: the philosopher discovers immutable laws in society, similar to those that operate in nature. Nature, according to Herder, is in a state of continuous regular development from lower to higher levels; the history of society is directly adjacent to the history of nature, merges with it. Herder thus decisively rejects the theory Rousseau, according to which the history of mankind is a chain of delusions and is in sharp contradiction with nature.

For Herder the natural development of mankind is exactly what it was in history. The laws of the development of society, as well as the laws of nature, are natural in nature. Living human forces are the mainsprings of human history; history is a natural product of human abilities, depending on conditions, place and time. In society, only that which is due to these factors has happened. This, according to Herder, is the fundamental law of history.

Gulyga A.V., Herder and his “Ideas for the Philosophy of the History of Mankind” - afterword to the book: Johann Gottfried Herder, Ideas for the Philosophy of the History of Mankind, M., “Nauka”, 1977, p. 623 and 629.

“The most prominent theorist of the “Sturmers” was Johann Gottfried Herder. A man of universal education, he not only had an excellent knowledge of the history of literature and art, ancient and modern philosophy, but was also aware of the natural sciences of his time.

Lacking the firmness of revolutionary democratic convictions Lessinga, Herder nevertheless, like his older colleague, he passionately hated the feudal system of Germany and struggled all his life against feudal ideology, against scholasticism. Like Lessing, he identified himself as a Spinozist.

At the end of his life, he sharply criticized his teacher Kant on the theory of knowledge and aesthetics. Arguing with Kant, for example, he declared: “Being is the basis of all knowledge. Being binds every judgment of the understanding; no rule of reason can be thought outside being. Elsewhere he says: "Our thinking has arisen from and through sensation." Religion Herder called "harmful, deadly opium for the soul."

One can cite a large number of Herder's atheistic and materialistic statements. At the same time, it should be noted that he still does not refuse the very concept of “God”. Carefully reading those of his works where he criticizes Kant, we are convinced that he criticizes the Koenigsberg thinker rather from objectively idealistic than from consistently materialistic positions. Therefore, it turns out that some of Herder's statements sound materialistic, while the general concept emerges as objectively idealistic. Herder's philosophical outlook is contradictory.

Herder's great merit is that he was the first of the German thinkers to dwell in the most detailed way on characterizing the historical role of the people. In this light, he solves the problems of aesthetics.

In his works: "Essays on the latest German literature" (1766-1767), "Critical groves" (1769), "On Ossian and the songs of ancient peoples" (1773), "On Shakespeare" (1770), etc. Herder puts forward the principle historical approach to the phenomena of art. He proves that poetry is the product of the activity not of individual "refined and developed natures", but of entire peoples. The poetry of each nation reflects its customs, customs, working and living conditions. Each phenomenon of art can be understood only by studying the conditions in which it arose.

Every nation, he says, has its own poets equal to Homer. “Is it possible to compose and sing the Iliad today! Is it possible to write as Aeschylus, Sophocles, Plato wrote!

Herder considers folk art to be an inexhaustible source of all poetry. Therefore, he collects songs of the Greenlanders, Tatars, Scots, Spaniards, Italians, French, Estonians. He talks about the freshness, courage, expressiveness of folk songs. He recommends listening to the "voices of the peoples" and calls for the collection of folk songs. At the same time, Herder emphasizes that true taste is formed not at the court of patrons, not in high society, but among the people. Only the people are the bearers of a truly healthy taste.

Biography

Born into the family of a poor school teacher, he graduated from the theological faculty of the University of Königsberg. In his native Prussia, he was threatened by recruitment, so in 1764 Herder left for Riga, where he took a position as a teacher at the cathedral school, and later as a pastoral adjunct. In Riga he began his literary activity. In thanks to the efforts of Goethe, he moved to Weimar, where he received the position of court preacher. Made a trip to Italy.

Philosophy and criticism

Herder's writings "Fragments on German Literature" ( Fragmente zur deutschen literature, Riga, 1766-1768), "Critical Groves" ( Kritische Walder, 1769) played a major role in the development of German literature during the Sturm und Drang period (see Sturm und Drang). Here we meet with a new, enthusiastic assessment of Shakespeare, with the idea (which became the central position of Herder's entire bourgeois theory of culture) that every people, every progressive period of world history has and should have a literature imbued with a national spirit. Herder substantiates the thesis about the dependence of literature on the natural and social environment: climate, language, customs, way of thinking of the people, whose moods and views are expressed by the writer, and completely specific specific conditions of a given historical period. “Could Homer, Aeschylus, Sophocles write their works in our language and according to our customs? - Herder asks a question and answers: - Never!

The following works are devoted to the development of these thoughts: “On the emergence of language” (Berlin, 1772), articles: “On Ossian and the songs of ancient peoples” ( Briefwechsel über Ossian und die Lieder alter Völker, 1773) and "On Shakespeare", published in "Von deutscher Art und Kunst" (Hamb., 1770). The essay "Also the Philosophy of History" (Riga, 1774) is devoted to criticism of the rationalist philosophy of the history of the Enlightenment. The era of Weimar includes his "Plastic", "On the influence of poetry on the customs of peoples in old and new times", "On the spirit of Hebrew poetry" (Dessau, 1782-1783). The monumental work "Ideas for the Philosophy of the History of Humanity" ( Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit, Riga, 1784-1791). This is the first experience of the general history of culture, where Herder's thoughts about the cultural development of mankind, about religion, poetry, art, and science receive their most complete expression. The East, antiquity, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, modern times - are depicted by Herder with erudition that amazed his contemporaries. At the same time he published a collection of articles and translations "Scattered sheets" (1785-1797) and a philosophical study "God" (1787).

His last great works (except for theological works) are "Letters for the Promotion of Humanity" ( Briefe zur Beförderung der Humanitat, Riga, 1793-1797) and "Adrastea" (1801-1803), pointed mainly against the romanticism of Goethe and Schiller.

Fiction and translations

Of the original works, Legends and Paramythia can be considered the best. Less successful are his dramas "The House of Admetus", "Prometheus Liberated", "Ariadna-Libera", "Aeon and Aeonia", "Philoctetes", "Brutus".

Herder's poetic and especially translational activity is very significant. He acquaints reading Germany with a number of the most interesting, hitherto unknown or little-known monuments of world literature. His famous anthology "Folk Songs" was made with great artistic taste ( Volkslieder, 1778-1779), known under the title "Voices of the Nations in Songs" ( Stimmen der Volker in Liedern), which opened the way for the latest collectors and researchers of folk poetry, since only since the time of Herder did the concept of folk song receive a clear definition and become a genuine historical concept; he introduces into the world of Eastern and Greek poetry with his anthology "From Eastern Poems" ( Blumenlese aus morgenländischer Dichtung), translation of "Sakuntala" and "Greek anthology" ( Griechische Anthologie). Herder completed his translation activities with the processing of romances about Side (1801), making the brightest monument of old Spanish poetry a property of German culture.

Meaning

Fight against the ideas of the Enlightenment

Herder is one of the most significant figures of the Sturm und Drang era. He struggles with the theory of literature and the philosophy of the Enlightenment. Enlighteners believed in a man of culture. They argued that only such a person should be the subject and object of poetry, considered only periods of high culture worthy of attention and sympathy in world history, were convinced of the existence of absolute examples of art created by artists who developed their abilities to the maximum extent (such perfect creators were for enlighteners, ancient artists). Enlighteners considered the task of the contemporary artist to approach these perfect models through imitation. In contrast to all these assertions, Herder believed that the bearer of true art is precisely not a cultivated, but a “natural”, close to nature person, a person of great passions unrestrained by reason, a fiery and innate, and not a cultivated genius, and it is precisely such a person who should be the subject of art. Together with other irrationalists of the 70s. Herder was unusually enthusiastic about vernacular poetry, Homer, the Bible, Ossian, and finally Shakespeare. According to them, he recommended studying genuine poetry, because here, as nowhere else, a “natural” person is depicted and interpreted.

The idea of ​​human development

Heine said of Herder: “Herder did not sit, like a literary Grand Inquisitor, as a judge over various peoples, condemning or justifying them, depending on the degree of their religiosity. No, Herder considered the whole of humanity as a great harp in the hands of a great master, each nation seemed to him the string of this gigantic harp tuned in its own way, and he comprehended the universal harmony of its various sounds.

According to Herder, humanity in its development is like a separate individual: it goes through periods of youth and decrepitude - with the death of the ancient world, it recognized its first old age, with the age of Enlightenment, the arrow of history again made its circle. What enlighteners take as genuine works of art are nothing but fakes of artistic forms devoid of poetic life, which arose in due time on the basis of national self-consciousness and became inimitable with the death of the environment that gave birth to them. By imitating models, poets lose the opportunity to show the only important thing: their individual identity, and since Herder always considers a person as a particle of the social whole (nation), then his national identity.

Therefore, Herder calls on contemporary German writers to start a new rejuvenated circle of European cultural development, to create, obeying free inspiration, under the sign of national identity. For this purpose, Herder recommends that they turn to earlier (younger) periods of national history, because there they can join the spirit of their nation in its most powerful and pure expression and draw the strength necessary to renew art and life.

However, Herder combines the theory of progressive development with the theory of the cyclical development of world culture, converging in this with the enlighteners who believed that the "golden age" should be sought not in the past, but in the future. And this is not an isolated case of Herder's contact with the views of representatives of the Enlightenment. Relying on Hamann, Herder at the same time shares his solidarity with Lessing on a number of issues.

Constantly emphasizing the unity of human culture, Herder explains it as the common goal of all mankind, which is the desire to find "true humanity." According to Herder's concept, the comprehensive spread of humanity in human society will allow:

• reasonable abilities of people to make reason;
• feelings given to man by nature to realize in art;
• to make the attraction of the individual free and beautiful.

The idea of ​​a nation state

Herder was one of those who first put forward the idea of ​​a modern nation state, but it arose in his teaching from a vitalized natural law and was of a completely pacifist nature. Each state that arose as a result of the seizures terrified him. After all, such a state, as Herder believed, and this manifested his popular idea, destroyed the established national cultures. In fact, only the family and the form of the state corresponding to it seemed to him as a purely natural creation. It can be called Herder's form of the nation-state.

“Nature brings up families and, consequently, the most natural state is one where one people lives with a single national character.” “The state of one people is a family, a comfortable home. It rests on its own foundation; founded by nature, it stands and perishes only in the course of time.”

Herder called such a state structure the first degree of natural governments, which will remain the highest and last. This means that the ideal picture he drew of the political state of the early and pure nationality remained his ideal of the state in general.

Doctrine of the Folk Spirit

These words contain the quintessence of Herder's doctrine of the spirit of the people. This teaching was first of all directed, as already at the preliminary stages of its development among the Enlighteners, to the preserved essence of peoples, stable in change. It rested on a more universal sympathy for the diversity of the individualities of peoples than the somewhat later teaching of the historical school of law, which arose from a passionate immersion in the originality and creative power of the German folk spirit. But it anticipated, albeit with less mysticism, the romantic feeling of the irrational and mysterious in the popular spirit. It, like romance, saw in the national spirit an invisible seal, expressed in the specific features of the people and their creations, unless this vision was freer, not so doctrinaire. Less rigidly than subsequently romanticism, it also considered the question of the indelibility of the national spirit.

Love for the nationality, preserved in purity and untouched, did not prevent him from recognizing the beneficialness of "graftings, timely given to the peoples" (as the Normans did with the English people). The idea of ​​a national spirit received a special meaning from Herder due to the addition of his favorite word "genetic" to its formulation. This means not only a living formation instead of a frozen being, and at the same time one feels not only the original, unique in historical growth, but also the creative soil from which all living things flow.

Herder was much more critical of the then-appearing concept of race, considered shortly before by Kant (). His ideal of humanity counteracted this concept, which, according to Herder, threatened to bring humanity back to the animal level, even talking about human races seemed ignoble to Herder. Their colors, he believed, are lost in each other, and all this in the end is only shades of the same great picture. The true bearer of the great collective genetic processes was and remained, according to Herder, the people, and even higher - humanity.

Sturm und Drang

Thus Herder can be seen as a thinker standing on the periphery of "storm and stress". Nevertheless, among the sturmers, Herder was very popular; the latter supplemented Herder's theory with their artistic practice. It was not without his assistance that works with national plots arose in German bourgeois literature (“Goetz von Berlichingen” - Goethe, “Otto” - Klinger and others), works imbued with the spirit of individualism, a cult of innate genius developed.

A square in the Old Town and a school are named after Herder in Riga.

Literature

• Gerbel N. German Poets in Biographies and Samples. - St. Petersburg., 1877.
• Thoughts related to the philosophical history of mankind, according to the understanding and outline of Herder (books 1-5). - St. Petersburg., 1829.
• Sid. Previous and note. W. Sorgenfrey, ed. N. Gumilyova. - P .: "World literature", 1922.
• Guym R. Herder, his life and writings. In 2 vols. - M., 1888. (Republished by the publishing house "Nauka" in the series "The Word about Being" in 2011).
• Pippin A. Herder // Vestnik Evropy. - 1890. - III-IV.
• Mering F. Herder. On philosophical and literary themes. - Mn., 1923.
• Gulyga A.V. Herder. Ed. 2nd, finalized. (ed. 1st - 1963). - M.: Thought, 1975. - 184 p. - 40,000 copies. (Series: Thinkers of the Past).

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- (Herder) (1744 1803), German philosopher, critic, esthetician. In 1764 1769 he was a pastor in Riga, from 1776 in Weimar, the theorist of Sturm und Drang, a friend of J. W. Goethe. He preached the national identity of art, asserted historical originality and ... ... encyclopedic Dictionary

Herder Johann Gottfried (August 25, 1744, Mohrungen, East Prussia, ≈ December 18, 1803, Weimar), German philosopher, educator writer. After graduating from the theological faculty of Königsberg University in 1764–1769, he was a pastor in Riga. IN… … Great Soviet Encyclopedia

Herder(Johann Gottfried Herder) - a remarkable German scholar publicist, poet and moral philosopher, b. in 1744 at Morungen in East Prussia. His father was a bell ringer and at the same time a school teacher. In his youth, G. experienced all the hardships of poverty. As an adult boy, he performed various, sometimes very painful, petty services from his mentors. One Russian surgeon convinced him to take up medicine and brought him to Koenigsberg to the university for this purpose, but the very first visit to the anatomical theater caused a faint, and G. decided to become a theologian. The knowledge of the 18-year-old G. was already so significant that he was mockingly called a walking bookshop. G.'s love of reading was so developed that even in the windows of houses of completely unfamiliar faces he could not see books without going in there and begging for them to read. Kant noticed a talented student and did a lot to expand his mental outlook. Another well-known Koenigsberg philosopher, Hamann (see VIII, p. 54) had a significant influence on the development of Herder. Herder's fascination with his writings and Rousseau's ideas also dates back to the time of Herder's stay in Konigsberg. Already in Koenigsberg, G. attracted the attention of the gift of words and the art of teaching. This gave his friends the opportunity to appoint G. to the place of a preacher and head of a church school in Riga (1764). In 1767, G. received a lucrative offer in St. Petersburg, but refused to accept it, although he was fond of Catherine's "Order" and dreamed of getting closer to her. In Riga, G. was a huge success as a preacher and as an educator. Here Herder dreams of the role of a reformer in the spirit of the ideas of "Emil" Rousseau and wants to become the savior and reformer of Livonia with the help of a new school system. In 1769 he left Riga for a two-year journey through France, Holland and Germany. Upon his return, he enters the position of educator with a German prince and makes another journey with him, during which he becomes close to Goethe, exerting a huge influence on his development. From 1771 to 1776, Mr.. G. lives in Bückeburg as chief preacher, superintendent and member of the consistory. In 1776, with the assistance of Goethe, he received a position as a court preacher at the Weimar court and remained in Weimar until his death. Here G. and died in 1803.

Literary fame G. begins with the time of his stay in Riga. Here he wrote "Fragmente über die neuere deutsche Literatur" (1767), which were to complement Lessing's literary writings, and "Kritische Wälder" adjoining Lessing's "Laocoon". In Strasbourg, G. wrote for the Berlin Academy Prize book «Ueber d. Ursprung d. Sprache" (1772). In Bückeburg he collected material for his philosophy of history and folk songs, and published Ursache d. gesunkenen Geschmacks bei d. verschiedenen Volkern" (1773); Aelteste Urkunde d. Menschengeschlechts"; "Auch eine Philosophie d. Gesch. zur Bildung d. Meoscheit" (1774). In Weimar he printed: "Volkslieder od. Stimmen der Völker in Liedern" (1778-1779), "Vom Geiste d. Ebräischen Poesie" (1782-83), "Briefe das Studium d. Theologie betreffend" (1793-97), "Ideen zur Philosophie d. Geschichte d. Menschheit" (1784-91), "Briefe zur Beförderung d. Humanität" (1793-97), "Metacriticism" (against Kant), "Adrasteia", translation of romances about Side (1805). A distinctive feature on the outside of all the works of G. - fragmentary, lack of a rigorous method of scientific criticism. Each of his articles is a kind of improvisation, revealing in the author a tendency to poetic generalizations; in everything one can see the desire to find common laws, a brilliant penetration into the most remote corners of the spiritual life of peoples, supported by the self-confidence of a pastor-preacher and at the same time a poet, as if overshadowed by inspiration from above. In vain did the rationalists try to overthrow G. from the pedestal; even when they were right (Schlozer), G.'s influence was irresistible, and every German preferred "to lie with G. in the clouds and look with contempt at those who walked the earth" (Schlosser). Herder's activity coincides with the era of "Sturm und Drang", a period of stormy and passionate protest against the intellectual dryness of the "enlightenment age". The highest ideal for Herder was the belief in the triumph of universal, cosmopolitan humanity (Humanität). He was an apostle of the idea of ​​the unity of civilization, but at the same time, recognizing that there is no internal contradiction between the universal and the people, G. was the protector of nationality. Combining both of these ideas, he was equally free from both superficial cosmopolitanism and narrow national swagger. Progress consists, according to G., in the gradual development in humanity of the idea of ​​humanity, that is, those principles that fundamentally elevate people above the animal world, humanize human nature. G. sought to prove that this idea of ​​humanity, this concept of universal love and reciprocity is growing and developing in society; he tried to light the way to her full triumph. He believed, then, that wise goodness reigns over the fate of people, that a harmonious order can be found in the apparent labyrinth of history. His philosophical and historical writings can be referred to the so-called theolicy (Kareev). “If there is a God in nature, then there is also in history, and man is subject to laws no less excellent than those by which all celestial bodies move. Our entire history is a school for achieving a beautiful crown of humanity and human dignity.” G.'s nationalism is the desire to understand and recognize people's rights and peculiarities; he is fascinated by folk poetry, the original and peculiar inner life of every nation. From this pure source arose that idealization of everything folk, which was then passed on to all Slavic patriots of the Slavic renaissance, and at a later time gave rise to Russian populism.

G.'s works on the study of language and folk poetry are especially remarkable for the profound influence they had on the development of interest in folk and folk poetry among different peoples. From a young age G. was fond of Homer, the songs of Ossian, the Bible. He already vaguely anticipated the conclusions that Wolf made a little later, arguing that the Iliad and the Odyssey are monuments of folk, and not personal creativity. Reading these poems, as well as the songs of Ossian, G. came to the conclusion about the extraordinary importance of songs for the understanding of the people. With passionate enthusiasm he proves the need to collect them, explains their incomparable poetic merits. In his collection Stimmen der Völker, with equal care and love, he places translations of the songs of the Lapps, Tatars, Greenlanders, Spaniards, and others. Here, in Goethe's wonderful translation, the Slavic song “The Lamenting Song of Asan-Ashnitsa”, which amazed the world of its artistic charm, which awakened in the Slavs a sense of national dignity and pride. “For G., all of humanity was like one harp in the hand of a great artist; each nation seemed to him a separate string, but he understood the general harmony flowing from these various chords ”(Heine). In the articles “On the most ancient monument of the human race”, “Letters on the study of theology”, “On the spirit of Jewish poetry”, G. for the first time considers the Bible as the same monument of folk poetry, like the Iliad and the Odyssey; and any folk poetry for G. is an "archive of folk life." Moses for Herder is the same national Jewish hero as Odysseus is the hero of Greece. A subtle sense of poetry and a deep understanding of folk moods are nowhere so beautifully manifested as in G.'s essay “On the Song of Songs”, the most tender of all that he has ever written. G.'s translations of Spanish folk epics about Side also gained general fame. Later romanticism and the very history of literature in its further development owe much to the activity of G. He removed the vow of condemnation from the Middle Ages, laid the foundation for the science of comparative linguistics, earlier than Schlegel pointed out the need to study the Sanskrit language; in his philosophical views lie the germs of Schelling's natural philosophy. The last years of G.'s activities are overshadowed by a provocative polemic with Kant, indicating a significant decline in strength. Following the outbursts of feeling, which constitute the predominant feature in G.'s activity, a reaction should have set in, during which the main flaw in G.'s character was manifested: an internal split, explained, among other things, by a complete discrepancy between the official duties of G. as a pastor and his deeper convictions. This explains the attempts in the last years of Herder's life to obscure and change the meaning of previously expressed views. G. was of great importance not only for the Germanic tribe. Of the Slavic figures under the strong influence of G. were: Kollar, who called him in his poem "Dcera slavy" a friend of the Slavs; Chelyakovsky, whose collection of songs from various nations is partly a translation of "Stimmen der Völker", partly an imitation of him; Šafarik, who directly translated several chapters from the Idea in his book Slav. Staroz". Of the Poles, Surovetsky and especially Brodzinsky should be noted. In Russia, the name G. became known as early as the 18th century. Karamzin was fond of him, Nadezhdin was partly brought up on his writings; Shevyrev's lectures on the history of the theory of poetry were written largely on the basis of the works of G. Maksimovich; Metlinsky knew him and were partly excited about him. Of the European writers, G. had a particularly strong influence on Edgar Quinet, who translated into French some of Herder's works (for example, "Ideen"). Among the many comments on the value of G., one should note the opinion of Schlosser, Gervinus, Bluntschli (“Geschichte der neueren Staatswissenschaft”, 1881), who believes that as a political mind G. can only be compared with Montesquieu and Vico. The most complete and accurate assessment belongs to Gettner in his famous book on the literature of the 18th century. and Scherer in Geschichte der deutsch. Lit." (6th ed. Berlin, 1891).

Wed Caroline G., "Erinnerungen aus dem Leben J. G. H." (Stuttgart, 1820); J. G.v. H. Lebensbild” (correspondence and writings of adolescence, Erlangen, 1846); Ch. Joret, "Herder et la renaissance littéraire en Allemagne au XVIII siècle" (P., 1875); Nevison, "A sketch of H. and his times" (London, 1884); Bächtold, "Aus dem Herderschen Hause" (Berlin, 1881); A. Werner, "Herder als Theologe"; Kroneberg, "Herders Philosophie" (Heid., 1889); Fester, Rousseau u. die deutsche Geschichtsphilosophie" (Stuttgart, 1890); Raumer in his Gesch. der Germ. Philology". Heim's detailed monograph "Herder and his time" (B., 1885, 2nd ed.; translated into Russian M., 1887-1889); A. N. Pypin’s article “Herder” (“Vest. Evr” 1890, 3-4 books) is about her. Shevyrev's article about G. in Mosk. observation." (1837). In Russian lang. some poems have been translated. G., romances about Sid and "Thoughts relating to the history of mankind" (St. Petersburg, 1829). Complete collections of Op. Herder came out in 1805-1820 and in 1827-30; a new edition worthy of Herder, edited by B. Zupan, is not yet finished. There is also ed. elected. works of G. Herder's Correspondence: "Briefsammlungen aus Herders Nachlass" (Frankfurt, 1856-1857); "Von und an Herder" (Leipzig, 1861-62). Letters to Haman ed. Hoffmann (Berlin, 1880).