A hero of his time in Russian literature of the first half of the 19th century. Hero of time in modern literature

Introduction

I. The problem of the hero of time in Russian literature

1. Spiritual drama of the Russian European Eugene Onegin

Pechorin is a hero of his time.

Similarities and differences between the images of Onegin and Pechorin

Literature

Introduction

The problem of the hero of time has always excited, worried and will excite people. It was staged by classical writers, it is relevant, and until now this problem has interested and worried me ever since I first discovered the works of Pushkin and Lermontov. That's why I decided to turn to this topic in my job. Pushkin's novel in verse "Eugene Onegin" and Lermontov's novel "A Hero of Our Time" are the pinnacles of Russian literature of the first half of the 19th century. In the center of these works are people who, in their development, are higher than the society around them, but who are not able to find application for their rich strengths and abilities. Therefore, such people are called "superfluous". AND target of my work to show the types of "superfluous people" on the images of Eugene Onegin and Grigory Pechorin, as they are the most characteristic representatives of their time. One of assignments, which I set myself - is to reveal the similarities and differences between Onegin and Pechorin, while referring to the articles of V. G. Belinsky.

I. The problem of the hero of time in Russian literature

Onegin is a typical figure for the noble youth of the 20s of the 19th century. Even in the poem "Prisoner of the Caucasus" A.S. Pushkin set himself the task of showing in the hero "that premature old age of the soul, which has become the main feature of the younger generation." But the poet, in his own words, did not cope with this task. In the novel "Eugene Onegin" this goal was achieved. The poet created a deeply typical image.

M.Yu. Lermontov is a writer of "a completely different era", despite the fact that a decade separates them from Pushkin.

Years of brutal reaction have taken their toll. In his era it was impossible to overcome the alienation from time, or rather from the timelessness of the 1930s.

Lermontov saw the tragedy of his generation. This is already reflected in the poem "Duma":

Sadly, I look at our generation!

His future is either empty or dark,

Meanwhile, under the burden of knowledge and doubt,

It will grow old in inaction...

This theme was continued by M.Yu. Lermontov in the novel "A Hero of Our Time". The novel "A Hero of Our Time" was written in 1838-1840 of the 19th century. It was the era of the most severe political reaction that came in the country after the defeat of the Decembrists. In his work, the author recreated in the image of Pechorin, the protagonist of the novel, a typical character of the 30s of the XIX century.

II. Types of superfluous people in the novels of Pushkin and Lermontov

In the first third of the 19th century, the concept of the "hero of time" was associated with the type of "superfluous person". It has undergone a number of transformations without losing its main essence, which is that the hero has always been the bearer of a spiritual idea, and Russia, as a purely material phenomenon, could not accept the best of her sons. This contradiction of spirit and life becomes decisive in the conflict between the hero and the motherland. Russia can offer the hero only a material field, a career, which does not interest him at all. Being cut off from material life, the hero cannot take root in his homeland in order to realize his lofty plans for its transformation, and this gives rise to his wandering, restlessness. The type of "superfluous person" in Russian literature goes back to the romantic hero. A characteristic feature of romantic behavior is a conscious orientation towards one or another literary type. A romantic young man necessarily associated himself with the name of some character from the mythology of romanticism: the Demon or Werther, the hero of Goethe, the young man who was tragically in love and committed suicide, Melmoth, the mysterious villain, the demonic seducer, or Ahasuerus, the Eternal Jew, who abused Christ during his ascent to Golgotha ​​and for that cursed with immortality, Giaur or Don Juan - romantic rebels and wanderers from Byron's poems.

The deep meaning and characterization of the type of "superfluous person" for Russian society and Russian literature of the Nikolaev era was probably most accurately defined by A.I. Herzen, although this definition still remains in the "repositories" of literary criticism. Speaking about the essence of Onegin and Pechorin as "superfluous people" of the 20-30s of the XIX century, Herzen made a remarkably deep observation: "The sad type of superfluous ... person - only because he developed in a person, was then not only in poems and novels, but in the streets and living rooms, in villages and cities."

Spiritual drama of the Russian European Eugene Onegin

A. S. Pushkin's novel "Eugene Onegin" is perhaps the greatest work of the first half of the nineteenth century. This novel is one of the most beloved and at the same time the most complex works of Russian literature. Its action takes place in the 20s of the XIX century. The focus is on the life of the capital's nobility in the era of spiritual quest of the advanced noble intelligentsia.

Onegin is a contemporary of Pushkin and the Decembrists. The Onegins are not satisfied with secular life, the career of an official and a landowner. Belinsky points out that Onegin could not engage in useful activities "due to some inevitable circumstances beyond our will," that is, due to socio-political conditions. Onegin, the "suffering egoist", is nevertheless an outstanding personality. The poet notes such traits as "involuntary devotion to dreams, inimitable strangeness and a sharp, chilled mind." According to Belinsky, Onegin "was not from among ordinary people." Pushkin emphasizes that Onegin's boredom comes from the fact that he did not have a socially useful business. The Russian nobility of that time was an estate of land and soul owners. It was the possession of estates and serfs that was the measure of wealth, prestige and the height of social position. Onegin's father "gave three balls every year and finally squandered", and the hero of the novel himself, after receiving an inheritance from "all his relatives", became a rich landowner, he is now:

Factories, waters, forests, lands

The owner is complete...

But the theme of wealth turns out to be connected with ruin, the words "debts", "pledge", "lenders" are already found in the first lines of the novel. Debts, re-mortgaging already mortgaged estates were not only the work of poor landowners, but also many "powerful ones" left huge debts to their descendants. One of the reasons for the general debt was the idea that developed during the reign of Catherine II that "truly noble" behavior consists not just in big expenses, but in spending beyond one's means.

It was at that time, thanks to the penetration of various educational literature from abroad, that people began to understand the perniciousness of serf farming. Among these people was Eugene, he "read Adam Smith and was a deep economy." But, unfortunately, there were few such people, and most of them belonged to the youth. And therefore, when Eugene "with a yoke ... replaced the corvee with an old dues with a light one",

Puffed up in my corner

Seeing in this terrible harm,

His prudent neighbor.

The reason for the formation of debts was not only the desire to "live like a nobleman", but also the need to have free money at your disposal. This money was obtained by mortgaging estates. To live on the funds received when mortgaging the estate was called living in debt. It was assumed that the nobleman would improve his position with the money received, but in most cases the nobles lived on this money, spending it on the purchase or construction of houses in the capital, on balls ("gave three balls annually"). It was on this, habitual, but leading to ruin, that Father Evgeny went. Not surprisingly, when Onegin's father died, it turned out that the inheritance was burdened with large debts.

Gathered before Onegin

Lenders greedy regiment.

In this case, the heir could accept the inheritance and, together with it, take on the father's debts or refuse it, leaving the creditors to settle accounts among themselves. The first decision was dictated by a sense of honor, the desire not to tarnish the good name of the father or to preserve the family estate. The frivolous Onegin went the second way. Receipt of the inheritance was not the last means to correct the frustrated affairs. Youth, the time of hopes for an inheritance, was, as it were, a legalized period of debts, from which in the second half of life one had to be freed by becoming the heir to "all one's relatives" or by marrying favorably.

Who at twenty was a dandy or a grip,

And at thirty profitably married;

Who got free at fifty

From private and other debts.

For the nobles of that time, the military field seemed so natural that the absence of this feature in the biography had to have a special explanation. The fact that Onegin, as is clear from the novel, never served anywhere at all, made the young man a black sheep among his contemporaries. This reflected a new tradition. If earlier refusal to serve was denounced as selfishness, now it has acquired the contours of a struggle for personal independence, upholding the right to live independently of state requirements. Onegin leads the life of a young man, free from official duties. At that time, only rare young people, whose service was purely fictitious, could afford such a life. Let's take this detail. The order established by Paul I, in which all officials, including the emperor himself, had to go to bed early and get up early, was also preserved under Alexander I. But the right to get up as late as possible was a kind of sign of aristocracy that separated the non-serving nobleman not only from the common people, but also from village landowner. The fashion to get up as late as possible dates back to the French aristocracy of the "old pre-revolutionary regime" and was brought to Russia by emigrants.

Morning toilet and a cup of coffee or tea were replaced by two or three in the afternoon with a walk. The favorite places for the festivities of St. Petersburg dandies were Nevsky Prospekt and the English Embankment of the Neva, it was there that Onegin walked: "Having put on a wide bolivar, Onegin goes to the boulevard." . About four o'clock in the afternoon it was time for dinner. The young man, leading a single life, rarely kept a cook and preferred to dine in a restaurant.

In the afternoon, the young dandy sought to "kill" by filling the gap between the restaurant and the ball. The theater provided such an opportunity, it was not only a place for artistic spectacles and a kind of club where secular meetings took place, but also a place of love affairs:

The theater is already full; lodges shine;

Parterre and chairs - everything is in full swing;

In heaven they splash impatiently,

And, having risen, the curtain rustles.

Everything is clapping. Onegin enters,

Walks between the chairs on the legs,

Double lorgnette slanting induces

To the lodges of unknown ladies.

The ball had a dual property. On the one hand, it was an area of ​​easy communication, secular recreation, a place where socio-economic differences were weakened. On the other hand, the ball was a place of representation of various social strata.

Tired of city life, Onegin settles in the countryside. An important event in his life was his friendship with Lensky. Although Pushkin notes that they agreed "from doing nothing." This eventually led to a duel.

At that time, people looked at the duel in different ways. Some believed that a duel, in spite of everything, is a murder, which means barbarism, in which there is nothing chivalrous. Others - that a duel is a means of protecting human dignity, since in the face of a duel both a poor nobleman and a favorite of the court turned out to be equal.

This view was not alien to Pushkin, as his biography shows. The duel implied the strict observance of the rules, which was achieved by appealing to the authority of experts. Zaretsky plays such a role in the novel. He, "a classic and a pedant in duels", conducted his business with great omissions, or rather, deliberately ignoring everything that could eliminate the bloody outcome. Even at the first visit, he was obliged to discuss the possibility of reconciliation. This was part of his duties as a second, especially since no blood offense was inflicted and it was clear to everyone except 18-year-old Lensky that the matter was a misunderstanding. Onegin and Zaretsky break the duel rules. The first is to demonstrate his irritated contempt for the story, into which he fell against his will, the seriousness of which he still does not believe, and Zaretsky because he sees in a duel an amusing story, an object of gossip and practical jokes. Onegin's behavior in the duel irrefutably testifies that the author wanted to make him an unwilling killer. Onegin shoots from a long distance, taking only four steps, and the first, obviously not wanting to hit Lensky. However, the question arises: why, after all, did Onegin shoot at Lensky, and not past? The main mechanism by which the society, despised by Onegin, still powerfully controls his actions, is the fear of being ridiculous or becoming the subject of gossip. In the Onegen era, ineffective duels evoked an ironic attitude. A person who went to the barrier had to show an extraordinary spiritual will in order to maintain his behavior, and not accept the norms imposed on him. Onegin's behavior was determined by the fluctuations between the feelings that he had for Lensky and the fear of appearing ridiculous or cowardly, violating the rules of conduct in a duel. What won us, we know:

Poet, pensive dreamer

Killed by a friendly hand!

Thus, we can say that the drama of Onegin lies in the fact that he replaced real human feelings, love, faith with rational ideals. But a person is not able to live a full life without experiencing the play of passions, without making mistakes, because the mind cannot replace or subdue the soul. In order for the human personality to develop harmoniously, spiritual ideals must still come first.

The novel "Eugene Onegin" is an inexhaustible source that tells about the customs and life of that time. Onegin himself is a true hero of his time, and in order to understand him and his actions, we study the time in which he lived.

The protagonist of the novel "Eugene Onegin" opens a significant chapter in poetry and in all Russian culture. Onegin was followed by a whole string of heroes, later called "superfluous people": Lermontov's Pechorin, Turgenev's Rudin and many other, less significant characters, embodying a whole layer, an era in the socio-spiritual development of Russian society.

Pechorin is a hero of his time

Pechorin is an educated secular person with a critical mind, dissatisfied with life and not seeing an opportunity for himself to be happy. It continues the gallery of "superfluous people" opened by Pushkin's Eugene Onegin. Belinsky noted that the idea to portray the hero of his time in the novel does not belong exclusively to Lermontov, since at that moment Karamzin's “Knight of Our Time” already existed. Belinsky also pointed out that many writers of the early 19th century had such an idea.

Pechorin is called a “strange person” in the novel, as almost all other characters say about him. The definition of “strange” takes on the shade of a term, followed by a certain type of character and personality type, and is broader and more capacious than the definition of “an extra person”. There were such “strange people” before Pechorin, for example, in the story “A Walk in Moscow” and in Ryleev’s “Essay on an Eccentric”.

Lermontov, creating the “Hero of Our Time”, said that it was “fun” for him to draw a portrait of a modern person the way he understands him and met us then. Unlike Pushkin, he focuses on the inner world of his characters and argues in the “Preface to Pechorin’s Journal” that “the history of the human soul, even the smallest soul, is almost more interesting and not more useful than the history of a whole people.” The desire to reveal the inner world of the hero was also reflected in the composition: the novel begins, as it were, from the middle of the story and is consistently brought to the end of Pechorin's life. Thus, the reader knows in advance that Pechorin's "frantic race" for life is doomed to failure. Pechorin follows the path that his romantic predecessors took, thus showing the failure of their romantic ideals.

Pechorin is a hero of the transitional period, a representative of the noble youth, who entered life after the defeat of the Decembrists. The absence of high social ideals is a striking feature of this historical period. The image of Pechorin is one of the main artistic discoveries of Lermontov. The Pechorin type is truly epochal. In it, the fundamental features of the post-Decembrist era received their concentrated artistic expression, in which, according to Herzen, "only losses are visible on the surface", while inside "great work was being done .... deaf and silent, but active and uninterrupted ". This striking discrepancy between the internal and the external, and at the same time the conditionality of the intensive development of spiritual life, is captured in the image - the type of Pechorin. However, his image is much broader than what is contained in him in the universal, national - in the world, socio-psychological in the moral and philosophical. Pechorin in his journal repeatedly speaks of his contradictory duality. Usually this duality is considered as a result of the secular education received by Pechorin, the destructive influence of the noble-aristocratic sphere on him, and the transitional nature of his era.

Explaining the purpose of creating the "Hero of Our Time", M.Yu. Lermontov, in the preface to it, quite clearly makes it clear what the image of the protagonist is for him: "The hero of our time, my dear sirs, is like a portrait, but not of one person: this is a portrait made up of the vices of our entire generation, in their full development" . The author has set himself an important and difficult task, wishing to display the hero of his time on the pages of his novel. And here we have Pechorin - a truly tragic person, a young man suffering from his restlessness, in despair asking himself a painful question: "Why did I live? For what purpose was I born?" In the image of Lermontov, Pechorin is a man of a very specific time, position, socio-cultural environment, with all the contradictions that follow from this, which are investigated by the author in full artistic objectivity. This is a nobleman - an intellectual of the Nikolaev era, its victim and hero in one person, whose "soul is corrupted by light." But there is something more in him, which makes him a representative of not only a certain era and social environment. The personality of Pechorin appears in Lermontov's novel as unique - an individual manifestation in it of the concrete historical and universal, specific and generic. Pechorin differs from his predecessor Onegin not only in temperament, depth of thought and feeling, willpower, but also in the degree of self-awareness, his attitude to the world. Pechorin, to a greater extent than Onegin, is a thinker, an ideologist. He is organically philosophical. And in this sense, he is the most characteristic phenomenon of his time, according to Belinsky, "the age of the philosophizing spirit." Pechorin's intense thoughts, his constant analysis and introspection in their meaning go beyond the era that gave birth to him, they also have universal significance as a necessary stage in the self-construction of a person, in the formation in him of an individually-generic, that is, personal, beginning.

In the indomitable effectiveness of Pechorin, another important side of Lermontov's concept of man was reflected - as a being not only rational, but also active.

Pechorin embodies such qualities as a developed consciousness and self-awareness, "fullness of feelings and depth of thoughts", the perception of oneself as a representative not only of the current society, but of the entire history of mankind, spiritual and moral freedom, active self-affirmation of an integral being, etc. But, being the son of his time and society, he bears on himself their indelible stamp, which is reflected in the specific, limited, and sometimes distorted manifestation of the generic in him. In Pechorin's personality, there is a contradiction between his human essence and existence, which is especially characteristic of a socially unsettled society, according to Belinsky, "between the depth of nature and the pitiful actions of one and the same person." However, Pechorin's life position and activities make more sense than it seems at first glance. The seal of masculinity, even heroism, marks his unstoppable denial of reality unacceptable to him; in protest against which he relies only on his own strength. He dies in nothing, without giving up his principles and convictions, although without doing what he could do in other conditions. Deprived of the possibility of direct public action, Pechorin strives, nevertheless, to resist circumstances, to assert his will, his "own need", contrary to the prevailing "state need".

Lermontov, for the first time in Russian literature, brought to the pages of his novel a hero who directly set himself the most important, "last" questions of human existence - about the purpose and meaning of human life, about his purpose. On the night before the duel with Grushnitsky, he reflects: “I run through my memory of all my past and involuntarily ask myself: why did I live? For what purpose was I born? my strength is immense; but I did not guess this destination. I was carried away by the baits of empty and ungrateful passions; from the crucible of them I came out hard and cold as iron, but I lost forever the ardor of noble aspirations, the best color of life. Bela becomes a victim of Pechorin's self-will, forcibly torn from her environment, from the natural course of her life. Beautiful in its naturalness, but fragile and short-lived harmony of inexperience and ignorance, doomed to inevitable death in contact with reality, even if it is “natural” life, and even more so with the “civilization” invading it more and more powerfully, has been destroyed.

During the Renaissance, individualism was a historically progressive phenomenon. With the development of bourgeois relations, individualism loses its humanistic basis. In Russia, the deepening crisis of the feudal-serf system, the emergence in its depths of new, bourgeois relations, the victory in the Patriotic War of 1812 caused a truly renaissance upsurge in the feeling of the individual. But at the same time, all this is intertwined in the first third of the 19th century with the crisis of noble revolutionism (the events of December 14, 1825), with the fall in the authority of not only religious beliefs, but also educational ideas, which ultimately created a fertile ground for the development of individualistic ideology in Russian society. In 1842, Belinsky stated: "Our century ... is a century ... of separation, individuality, an age of personal passions and interests (even mental ones) ...". Pechorin, with his total individualism, is an epoch-making figure in this regard. Pechorin's fundamental denial of the morality of his contemporary society, as well as his other foundations, was not only his personal merit. It has long matured in the public atmosphere, Pechorin was only its earliest and most vivid spokesman.

Another thing is also significant: Pechorin's individualism is far from pragmatic egoism adapting to life. In this sense, it is significant to compare the individualism of, say, Pushkin's Herman from The Queen of Spades with the individualism of Pechorin. Herman's individualism is based on the desire to win a place under the sun at all costs, that is, to climb to the top rungs of the social ladder. He rebels not against this unjust society, but against his humble position in it, which, he believes, does not correspond to his inner significance, his intellectual and volitional capabilities. For the sake of winning a prestigious position in this unjust society, he is ready to do anything: step over, “transgress” not only through the fate of other people, but also through himself as an “inner” person. "Pechorin's individualism is not like that. The hero is full of truly rebellious rejection of all the foundations of society he is forced to live in. He is least of all concerned about his position in it. More than that, in fact, he has, and could easily have even more of what Herman is trying to achieve: he is rich, noble, all the doors of higher education are open to him. light, all roads on the way to a brilliant career, honors... He rejects all this as purely external tinsel, unworthy of the aspirations living in him for the true fullness of life, which he sees, in his words, in "the fullness and depth of feelings and thoughts", he considers his conscious individualism as something forced, since he has not yet found an alternative acceptable to him.

There is another feature in the character of Pechorin, which makes in many ways to take a fresh look at the individualism he professed. One of the dominant internal needs of the hero is his pronounced desire to communicate with people, which in itself contradicts individualistic worldviews. In Pechorin, the constant curiosity for life, for the world, and most importantly, for people, is striking.

Pechorin, the preface to the novel says, is the type of "modern man" as the author "understands him" and as he too often met.

3. Similarities and differences between the images of Onegin and Pechorin

The novels "Eugene Onegin" and "A Hero of Our Time" were written at different times, and the duration of these works is different. Eugene lived in an era of rising national and social consciousness, freedom-loving sentiments, secret societies, and hopes for revolutionary transformations. Grigory Pechorin is the hero of an era of timelessness, a period of reaction, a decline in social activity. But the problems of both works are the same - the spiritual crisis of the noble intelligentsia, critically perceiving reality, but not trying to change, improve the structure of society. The intelligentsia, which is limited to a passive protest against the lack of spirituality of the surrounding world. The heroes withdrew into themselves, wasted their strength aimlessly, realized the meaninglessness of their existence, but did not possess either a social temperament, or social ideals, or the ability to sacrifice themselves.

Onegin and Pechorin were brought up in the same conditions, with the help of fashionable French tutors. Both received a fairly good education for those times, Onegin communicates with Lensky, talks on a wide variety of topics, which indicates his high education:

Tribes of past treaties,

The fruits of science, good and evil,

And age-old prejudices

And fatal secrets of the coffin,

Fate and life...

Pechorin freely discusses with Dr. Werner the most complex problems of modern science, which testifies to the depth of his ideas about the world.

The parallelism between Onegin and Pechorin is obvious to the point of triviality, Lermontov's novel intersects with Pushkin's not only due to the main characters - their correlation is supported by numerous reminiscences. Many considerations could be given regarding the reflection of the antithesis Onegin - Lensky in the pair Pechorin - Grushnitsky (it is significant that back in 1837 Mr. Lermontov was inclined to identify Lensky with Pushkin); about the transformation of the narrative principles of Onegin in the system of A Hero of Our Time, which reveals a clear continuity between these novels, etc. Pechorin, repeatedly considered from Belinsky and Ap. Grigoriev to the works of Soviet Lermontov scholars. It is interesting to try to reconstruct on the basis of the figure of Pechorin how Lermontov interpreted the Onegin type, how he saw Onegin.

The principle of self-understanding of heroes through the prism of literary clichés, characteristic of Onegin, is actively used in A Hero of Our Time. Grushnitsky's goal is "to become the hero of the novel"; Princess Mary strives "not to get out of her accepted role"; Werner informs Pechorin: "In her imagination, you have become the hero of a novel in a new taste." In Onegin, literary self-understanding is a sign of naivety, belonging to a childish and untrue outlook on life. As they mature spiritually, the heroes are freed from literary glasses and in the eighth chapter they no longer appear as literary images of famous novels and poems, but as people, which is much more serious, deeper and more tragic.

In A Hero of Our Time, the emphasis is different. Heroes outside the literary self-coding - characters like Bela, Maxim Maksimovich or smugglers - are ordinary people. As for the characters of the opposite row, all of them - both high and low - are encoded by the literary tradition. The only difference is that Grushnitsky is the character of Marlinsky in real life, while Pechorin is encoded with the Onegin type.

In a realistic text, a traditionally coded image is placed in a space that is fundamentally alien to it and, as it were, extra-literary space (“a genius chained to a desk”). The result of this is a shift in plot situations. The self-perception of the hero turns out to be in contradiction with those surrounding contexts that are given as adequate to reality. A vivid example of such a transformation of the image is the relationship between the hero and plot situations in Don Quixote. Titles like "Knight of Our Time" or "Hero of Our Time" throw the reader into the same conflict.

Pechorin is encoded in the image of Onegin, but that is why he is not Onegin, but his interpretation. Being Onegin is a role for Pechorin. Onegin is not an "extra person" - this definition itself, just like Herzen's "smart uselessness", appeared later and is some kind of interpretive projection of Onegin. Onegin of the eighth chapter does not think of himself as a literary character. Meanwhile, if the political essence of the “superfluous person” was revealed by Herzen, and the social essence by Dobrolyubov, then the historical psychology of this type is inseparable from experiencing oneself as the “hero of the novel”, and one’s life as the realization of some plot. Such self-determination inevitably raises the question of man's "fifth act" - the apotheosis or death that completes the play of life or its human novel. The theme of death, the end, the “fifth act”, the finale of his novel becomes one of the main ones in the psychological self-determination of a person of the romantic era. Just as a literary character "lives" for the sake of the final scene or the last exclamation, so the man of the Romantic era lives "for the sake of the end." “We will die, brothers, oh, how glorious we will die!” - A. Odoevsky exclaimed, going out on December 14, 1825 to Senate Square.

The psychology of the “superfluous person” is the psychology of a person whose entire life role was aimed at death and who, nevertheless, did not die. The novel plot catches the “superfluous person” after the end of the fifth act of his life play, devoid of a scenario for further behavior. For the generation of Lermontov's "Duma" the concept of the fifth act is still filled with historically real content - this is December 14th. In the future, it turns into a conditional point of the plot reference. Naturally, activity after activity turns into continuous inactivity. Lermontov very clearly revealed the connection between the failed death and the aimlessness of further existence, forcing Pechorin in the middle of "Princess Mary" to say goodbye to life, settle all accounts with her and ... not die. “And now I feel that I still have a long time to live.” L. N. Tolstoy later showed how this literary situation becomes a program of real behavior, doubling again (a romantic hero as a certain program of behavior, being realized in the real actions of a Russian nobleman, becomes an “extra person”; in turn, an “extra person” becomes , having become a fact of literature, a program for the behavior of a certain part of the Russian nobles.

III. "Eugene Onegin" and "Hero of Our Time" - the best artistic documents of their era

What a short time separates Pushkin's Onegin and Lermontov's Pechorin! First quarter and forties of the 19th century. And yet these are two different eras, separated by an unforgettable event in Russian history - the uprising of the Decembrists. Pushkin and Lermontov managed to create works that reflect the spirit of these eras, works that touched upon the problems of the fate of the young noble intelligentsia, who could not find application for their forces.

According to Belinsky, "A Hero of Our Time" is "a sad thought about our time," and Pechorin is "a hero of our time. Their dissimilarity among themselves is much less than the distance between Onega and Pechora."

"Eugene Onegin" and "A Hero of Our Time" are vivid artistic documents of their era, and their main characters personify for us all the futility of trying to live in society and be free from it.

Conclusion

So, we have two heroes, both representatives of their difficult time. The remarkable critic V.G. Belinsky did not put an "equal" sign between them, but he did not see a big gap between them either.

Calling Pechorin Onegin of his time, Belinsky paid tribute to the unsurpassed artistry of Pushkin's image and at the same time believed that "Pechorin is superior to Onegin in theory," although, as if muffling some categoricalness of this assessment, he added: "However, this advantage belongs to our time, and not Lermontov". Starting from the 2nd half of the 19th century, the definition of "an extra person" was strengthened for Pechorin.

The deep meaning and characterization of the type of "superfluous person" for Russian society and Russian literature of the Nikolaev era was probably most accurately defined by A.I. Herzen, although this definition still remains in the "repositories" of literary criticism. Speaking about the essence of Onegin and Pechorin as "superfluous people" of the 1820s and 30s, Herzen made a remarkably deep observation: "The sad type of superfluous ... person - only because he developed in a person, was then not only in poems and novels but in the streets and living rooms, in villages and cities.

And yet, with all his closeness to Onegin, Pechorin, as a hero of his time, marks a completely new stage in the development of Russian society and Russian literature. If Onegin reflects the painful, but in many ways semi-spontaneous process of turning an aristocrat, a "dandy" into a person, becoming a personality in him, then Pechorin captures the tragedy of an already established highly developed personality, doomed to live in a noble-serf society under an autocratic regime.

According to Belinsky, "A Hero of Our Time" is "a sad thought about our time," and Pechorin is "a hero of our time. Their dissimilarity among themselves is much less than the distance between Onega and Pechora."

Literature

1. Demin N.A. The study of the work of A.S. Pushkin in the 8th grade. - Moscow, "Enlightenment", 1971
2. Lermontov M.Yu. Hero of our time. - Moscow: "Soviet Russia", 1981
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5. Udodov B.T. Roman M.Yu. Lermontov "Hero of Our Time", Moscow, "Enlightenment", 1989
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8. Gershtein E. "A Hero of Our Time" M.Yu. Lermontov. - M.: Fiction, 1976
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11. Viskovatov P. A. Mikhail Yurievich Lermontov: Life and work - M .: Book, 1989
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14. Pushkin A. S. Favorites - M .: Education, 1983

Composition and Poetics in the Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri

Composition and plot of the Divine Comedy. The worldview of the poet in the poem. Analysis of poetics in the Divine Comedy. The Divine Comedy is the majestic summation of all poetic...

"A Hero of Our Time" is certainly one of the masterpieces of Russian literature of the 19th century. It became the first Russian psychological novel. As the author writes in the preface, the novel depicts "the history of the human soul." And indeed it is. The whole novel is centered around the personality of the protagonist Pechorin. "A Hero of Our Time" is structured in such a way that readers learn about Pechorin's character gradually, see the hero from different angles, in different situations, listen to his characteristics from the lips of a variety of characters (and even the narrator officer himself, who accidentally meets Pechorin in the chapter "Maxim Maksimych"). Thus, at the end, the reader should form his own opinion about the “hero of time”.
In addition, the novel raises a number of important philosophical questions - about the boundaries of what is permitted, about life and death, about human will and predestination (most clearly in the story "The Fatalist"). Also, Lermontov manages to reliably depict in the novel several worlds of his contemporary era - the life of highlanders and Caucasian officers, the life of secular society on the waters.
The most interesting and mysterious person is the main character of the novel, Grigory Aleksandrovich Pechorin. All other characters of the novel immediately notice his eccentricity, courage, and caustic mind. Mediocre and shallow people (like Grushnitsky and the dragoon captain) feel hostility towards him. Smart and insightful people (like Dr. Werner) or simply good people (like Maxim Maksimych) are strongly attached to Pechorin, recognizing his superiority. Much in Pechorin's actions seems unusual, too risky. Sometimes he behaves like a cold and cruel person. For example, having fallen in love with a Circassian Bela, he quickly cools down to her and seriously injures her heart. A simple game for him is the rivalry with Grushnitsky for Princess Mary. He kills Grushnitsky in a duel, and then coldly admits to the princess that he does not love her at all.
The author does not justify his hero. But he finds an opportunity to show the reader why his soul “withered”. From the very beginning of his life, Pechorin found himself in an unfriendly world where no one understood him - and he was forced to defend himself, ruthlessly burying half of his soul. In a monologue before a duel with Grushnitsky, Pechorin says that he did not guess his destination, squandered his immense spiritual strength on empty and ignoble passions and lost "the ardor of noble aspirations - the best color of life."
In Pechorin, despite the realism of his character, the features of a romantic hero are visible. He is also lonely, resisting the whole world and even fate, he wanders restlessly around the world.
There are many other interesting or mysterious personalities in the novel - Kazbich from "Bela", Yanko from "Taman", Dr. Werner from "Princess Mary", Vulich from "The Fatalist", even the storyteller officer who published Pechorin's diary. But they are all psychological counterparts of Pechorin. Psychological "twins" are usually called heroes, in the image of which the author highlights some trait that is also characteristic of Pechorin himself. For example, in Kazbich - a passionate heart, in Yanko - mystery and courage, in Dr. Werner - a sharp mind .. When compared with the "doubles", Pechorin's personal qualities, the special properties of his character, the depth of his reflection - all those features due to which Pechorin became a "hero of the time." Only Grushnitsky is not a "double", but a parody of Pechorin. What makes up the essence of Pechorin's soul (disillusionment, contempt for secular society, wit) becomes simple posturing for Grushnitsky.

On August 7, 2016, in the city of Borisoglebsk, Voronezh region, a round table "The Hero of Our Time in Modern Russian Literature" was held as part of the round table. The organizer of the round table was MBUK BGO "Borisoglebsk Centralized Library System" and the Council for Criticism of the Writers' Union of Russia. Moderator - Vyacheslav Lyuty.

The video recording of the round table was transcribed Olga Biryukova, methodologist MBUK BGO "Borisoglebsk Centralized Library System". Unfortunately, the recording was intermittent and not all opinions expressed during the almost three-hour conversation are present in the final text.

Vyacheslav LUTY, Literary critic, Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Podyom magazine, Chairman of the Council for Criticism of the Writers' Union of Russia:

As the first report, I offer my speech, which is of a more general nature, and you will get acquainted with this or that specificity in the speeches of my colleagues.

Starting from the image presented to the Russian person by Lermontov, and turning our gaze to reality, first of all, we ask direct questions:

How do we define the time in which we live?
- who should be considered the hero of our time, what human qualities are worthy of this generalizing characteristic?
- how does modern literature relate to reality, is the literary reflection of life adequate to it or does it present it with distortions?
- Does the psychological and moral contour of the hero of our time coincide in reality with the depiction of this image in literature?

Without taking into account these leading questions, the following reflections will be purely optional.

If we compare the social profile of today's society with the social map of the Soviet era or pre-revolutionary, several differences will immediately catch your eye. In the pre-Soviet period, the property stratification of the population was probably similar to the current one. In addition, psychologically, the most diverse types of people were commonplace, after 1917 very often unthinkable. Sexual and serfs, dirty whores and kept women, gentlemen with a brain swollen with fat and increased self-confidence, well-born upstarts, bandits, a self-sufficient and unceremonious bureaucratic layer. Of course, selfless people with honor and dignity in a long-standing class society were in sight, no matter what environment they acted in, whether it was a teacher in a rural school or a statesman in the capital. Above all this human conglomerate, like a dome uniting everyone, public opinion soared. Sometimes his accents were false, but the necessity and influence of this social and moral institution was not questioned by anyone.

In the socialist era, cringing, which was a visible part of human relationships earlier, turned into a contemptuous characteristic. In an implicit form, this quality still existed, but visibly it is a thing of the past. Public opinion, albeit adjusted for ideological bonds, continued to exist. The social picture of the citizens of the Soviet state became largely homogeneous.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, all the worst features of the old Russian past and Western present, like a night killer, penetrated the territory of Russia and declared their master's rights. Today, the nouveau riche and the corrupt court, the viscous bureaucracy and contempt for the common man, civil hysterics and the real fear of the rich and the official have again become commonplace in our country.

So, bearing in mind these very common features of the past and the present, we must define the hero of our time. It is not at all necessary to continue the old content of the image: "the most remarkable human type, corresponding to its time." I think it is much more important now to make the designation “hero” the first in the proposed formula, that is, a person who resists the environment in which he happens to exist, who does not break his own principles, but for their sake comes into conflict with the dictates of a decaying era. And this will be correct in projection for future Russian decades.

Postmodern literature and the media have turned inside out in their bestial attempt to deheroize our being. But every new day gradually informed us about a new hero who did not spare his own life for the sake of his homeland or neighbor. The very course of hours and days resisted this satanic desire to emasculate the roots of Russian history, humiliate the feat and bow to betrayal or indifference.

And gradually postmodernist hysterics - philosophers, literary critics and writers - moved into the shadows. The stinking spirit of huckstering and coldness of heart still pervades our relationships, but Russian literature is beginning to free itself from the characters imposed on it. As if taken from the stories of Saltykov-Shchedrin and imperiously transferred to a comfortable environment of their own kind, they extinguished the living breath of a truly Russian person, a sophisticated reader or an ingenuous hard worker.

Meanwhile, traditional images based on generic concepts of honor and dignity, conscience and mercy are firmly rooted in his mind. Therefore, it is absolutely wrong to demand intellectualism from modern literature and reproach it with an uninventive depiction of common types. Having suffered in the postmodern desert, Russian people are drawn to warmth, to a specific hero, to a recognizable situation. Our literature is recovering its humanistic potential and ability to show life in recognizable forms. Nowadays, many of the most important realistic works have not yet taken their rightful place, the primacy in ratings and presentations is given to sometimes insignificant, hysterical things, and an incompetent author is artificially increased to the size of a literary seeker, and sometimes even a genius. It is necessary to bring the literary picture of modern life to a weighty completeness and only then outline the next steps in the development of Russian literature.

One can consider the smart, principled and honest journalist Ivan Bazanov from Pyotr Krasnov's novel Zapolye to be the hero of a turning point in the era. This tragic image remains in the memory for a long time, it is inextricably linked with the time in which its fate is revealed. The novel of defeat "Zapolye" is still waiting for the attention of critics, it is multidimensional and combines the truth of the city and the truth of the countryside.

The stories and stories of Natalya Molovtseva seem to be simple and unpretentious, but in every plot of the author we find moral stoicism and the hero's unwillingness to go against conscience and memory. The characters in Dmitry Voronin's prose are numerous and sketchy, but we suddenly see almost a crowd of heroes of the present time - including negative types. She makes noise, talks to herself, can start a fight, and sometimes - with their heads down, her people silently, quietly saying something to each other, go home.

In modern poetry, we are waiting for the Russian myth and the thirst for resistance to the cynical oligarchic way of life, more and more often in the verses of poets one can find a desire to join forces and repel evil incarnate. As a rule, such plots are conditional, almost fabulous, but the desire of the characters is indicated not only lyrically accurately and convincingly, but also adamantly morally. Vladimir Skif and Gennady Yomkin have similar stories based on rural material.

The significant poem by Svetlana Syrneva “Patriot” (“To stand near the black White House, // to lose both relatives and bury friends ...”) echoes the novel “Zapolye” in sorrowful drama. But both in prose and in verse, the heroes do not break themselves into the slippery stereotype of a bourgeois little man: the scale of their personality remains unchanged.

In the poetry of Diana Kahn, the theme of struggle is one of the main ones. In the coordinates of the myth and on purely modern material, her lyrical heroine is a rooted Russian person - with a thirst for the continuation of the tribal tradition, with a sense of the Orthodox structure of her own soul.

The task of showing in a literary work the real heroes of modern life who hold the walls of our home-state, despite the lies of propaganda and the thieves' tricks of an insignificant elite, is extremely important. Because the hope for tomorrow, the spiritually correct education of the new generation, in this case, will find a strong ally - modern Russian literature. And then public opinion of a different type will begin to build up again - in the absence of self-interest and vulgarity, permeated with sincerity and faith in justice.

Viktor Barakov,literary critic, prose writer, doctor of philological sciences, professor of the Vologda State University, member of the Council for Literary Criticism of the Writers' Union of Russia:

I want to illustrate the words of Vyacheslav Dmitrievich with specific examples from the literary life of the Vologda region.

The hero, not only in modern prose, but also in life, is an honest man, a seeker of truth, who is not yet tired of fighting for justice. Two all-Russian prose competitions are held in the Vologda Oblast: Vasily Ivanovich Belov's All Ahead and Vasily Makarovich Shukshin's Bright Souls. Here is the fifth collection in my hands here, I brought gifts from Vologda - the magazines "Vologda Lad", a selection of newspapers "Vologda Writer". We receive thousands of manuscripts not only from Russia, but also from abroad: Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Belarus, the United States, Canada. They are different in quality, but the plots, in most cases, are connected with one theme: an attempt to survive in the circumstances offered. People are banging their heads against the wall, trying to reach out to the authorities - exactly like in Alexander Yashin's old essay "Vologda Wedding": "Do the top people know what's going on here?" But then the collective farmers and Yashin, two years after the publication of the essay, were heard, the current ones do not even want to listen. After all, not a single referendum has been held in these twenty-odd years. And they approach me in the districts, they say: “You tell me in Moscow that the government in the state is wrong.” And who will I tell?.. And if they turn to the authorities directly, as, for example, in Elena Rodchenkova’s story “The House of the Fool” (it was published in the Vologda Writer), then nothing good happens - look at the end of the story.

We are talking about details, but let's see if the writers themselves managed to change their own destiny? There is no law on creative organizations, the meeting with Putin did not produce results, the writer, as he was powerless and impoverished, has remained so. Has anyone managed to adapt to a market economy, except for literary show business figures like Marinina and grant-eaters? Nobody. They say the writers themselves are to blame? But then the teachers, doctors, university professors, scientists are also to blame - only the oligarchs are right. It is clear that our ideology is different, but there is one more circumstance that leads to sad reflections - this is personnel policy.

In Soviet times, the Vologda Writers' Organization thundered throughout the Union, and one of the reasons was the professionalism of the authorities. The first secretary of the regional committee, Drygin, knew modern literature perfectly, provided apartments for all Vologda writers without exception, and gave Viktor Astafyev, who arrived in Vologda in 1969, his new apartment, he himself stayed to live in the old one. Victor Korotaev enthusiastically told that he, a bachelor who had just joined the Writers' Union, was given the keys to a one-room apartment in the center of Vologda the next day. By the way, Nikolai Rubtsov was also given a one-room apartment in the center of Vologda after joining the Union.

What happened after 1991? A total disgrace. Governor Podgornov, appointed by Yeltsin, turned out to be the first head of the region with a secondary education in history, after a while he stole and went to prison. The current governor, Kuvshinnikov, immediately closed the Regional Youth Library.

And so along the entire vertical: Putin calls Zakhar Prilepin Fedey and quotes lines that do not belong to Mikhail Lermontov, the first “Russian” mayor of Vologda Yakunichev, on our proposal to install a memorial plaque on the hotel building, where Sergei Yesenin stayed three times in 1916-17, made round eyes and asked: “And who is Yesenin?” The recent mayor of Vologda Shulepov (went on promotion) is notorious for the country for his reasoning: "When spring comes, nettles will appear, it will become easier." To the local branch of the Union of Russian Writers, which is 99% graphomaniacs (I will quote one of the stanzas of the Vologda graphomaniac: “I don’t need a hat or a fashionable dress, / If only I could dirty the paper”), he allocated a whole house and exempted them from rent for several years. And our Union, in which, for example, Olga Fokina works, the fee was raised. When I published a critical article about local graphomaniacs, I was accused ... of fascism.

At our Vologda University, we are not sitting idly by, we have prepared an excellent leader, historian, candidate of science Lukichev. The regional authorities instead took a loser. We have the most talented graduates. Despite the fact that students come to the first year, less and less prepared in schools, they grow very quickly. There are a lot of talented guys, girls - during the defense of diplomas, the representative of the department admired, gave everyone “five”, but did not hire anyone. Unfortunately, now it is not professionalism that is valued, but some other qualities.

Upstairs are still odious Chubais, Medvedev, Shuvalov, Dvorkovich, Nabiulina. If not Putin determines personnel policy, then who? People say: “We love our homeland, but the state ...” The state, mocking, for example, the Academy of Sciences (it is actually run by a boy from FASO), doctors, teachers (the salary, for example, of a young teacher at the Vologda University is half as much as than the cleaning lady in my apartment building). This state, which has not yet decided on its own what it needs, which separates itself from these problems, has become stagnant in its idea of ​​life, far from reality, it, of course, does not have a happy future. I would very much like to be wrong, but, unfortunately, sooner or later this policy will have to be changed. But how? This is no longer a question for me.

Svetlana ZAMLELOVA, prose writer, poet, publicist, member of the Council for Literary Criticism of the Union of Writers of Russia, editor-in-chief of the network literary magazine "Kamerton", editor-in-chief of the literary historical magazine "Velikoross", columnist for the newspaper "Soviet Russia", candidate of philosophical sciences:

Modern literary criticism does not leave attempts to describe the "hero of our time", displayed in the works of today's writers. Many, like, for example, philologist Vera Rastorguyeva, believe that "with the modern prose writer's rejection of realistic writing, the image of the hero of the time as the embodiment of a certain historically established type of consciousness seems impossible." She, referring to the writer Olga Slavnikova, argues that in a rapidly changing world, it is really impossible to understand the image of the hero of time as “also a person, only for some reason immortal”, as “the existence of a secret network of “special agents” sent from literature into reality is really impossible.”

There is another point of view. For example, critic Nikolai Krizhanovsky writes about the absence of a hero in modern Russian literature and assures that “a real hero of our time, like any other, for Russian literature is a person who is able to sacrifice himself for the sake of his neighbors, who is able to “lay down his soul for his friends” and is ready to to serve God, Russia, the family…” According to the critic, the hero of our time in literature can be “a professional soldier who saves conscripts from a live grenade, an entrepreneur who does not want to live only for enrichment and his own pleasures and recklessly went to fight in Novorossia, a family man raising his children in national traditions, a schoolboy or student capable of a great and selfless deed, an elderly rural teacher who still keeps a cow and does not sell, but distributes milk to her poor neighbors, a priest who sells his apartment to complete the construction of the temple, and many our other contemporaries.

In search of a “hero of our time,” Vera Rastorguyeva turns to the works of the so-called media writers, that is, writers actively published and widely cited by the press. Nikolai Krizhanovsky, in addition to the media, names several names from his entourage. Rastorgueva really describes the "hero of our time", found in modern works. Krizhanovsky assures that there are few real heroes left in modern literature, that “the process of deheroization of domestic literature is underway, and that, finally, “the tendency in modern literature to emasculate the positive hero is gradually being overcome today” by the efforts of some writers.

There is also a point of view according to which the blame for the disappearance of the heroic from modern literature is placed on postmodernism. The same critic Krizhanovsky believes that “the penetration of postmodernism into Russian literature leads to the disappearance of the hero in the original sense of the word.”

However, none of these points of view seems convincing, and for several reasons at once. First of all, it is necessary to point out the conceptual confusion: saying “hero of our time”, many researchers mean “heroic”, understood as selflessness, courage, selflessness, nobility, etc. But the concept of “hero of our time” sends us, of course, to M.Yu. Lermontov. In the preface to the novel, Lermontov deliberately stipulates that "the hero of our time" is "a portrait made up of the vices of our entire generation, in their full development." In the same place, in the preface, Lermontov ironically notes that the public tends to understand every word literally, and that he himself calls his contemporary a “hero of our time,” or rather, a more common type of modern man. And if the image of Pechorin came out unattractive, then there is no author's fault.

In other words, "hero of our time" is not a synonym for "heroic" at all. So, since the time of Lermontov, it is customary to call an image that has absorbed the typical features of the era, reflecting the spirit of the times, which should not necessarily be associated with heroism, nobility and selflessness. Therefore, studies of the "hero of our time" and "heroic" should go in two different directions. Replacing one concept with another not only clarifies nothing, but only multiplies confusion.

Misunderstandings of the creative process contribute to the same confusion, with critics guilelessly claiming the need for more descriptions of engineers, doctors, and teachers. Let's try, for example, to present a modern work of art written in the spirit and truth of the early Middle Ages. It is clear that at best, it will be comical, and at worst, it is a pity, because a modern person professes other truths, moves in a different spirit. It is possible to portray the “hero of our time”, that is, according to Lermontov, a modern person who is met too often, guided by the spirit and truth of his time. But in this case, engineers, teachers, and doctors are not necessarily "positively wonderful people."

Each era creates its own picture of the world, its own culture, its own art. The expression “now they don’t write like that” is appropriate precisely in those cases when an artist tries to create in the spirit of a time alien to him. And this is not about conjuncture, but about the artist's ability to feel his time and convey these feelings in images. Even when working on a historical work, a sensitive and talented artist will make it understandable for his contemporaries, while not vulgarizing or simplifying anything. This means that the artist will be able to convey the spirit of a time alien to him in images understandable to his contemporaries.

Art changes with the era, so ancient art differs from medieval art, and contemporary Russian art differs from Soviet art. In the works of culture, a person always reflects himself and his era, a creative act does not exist in isolation from culture, and culture does not exist in isolation from the era. That is why the researcher of the work is able to identify the features and originality of the human type of a particular era. Based on this, it is logical to assume that if modern art does not offer heroic images, then the heroic is not characteristic, or rather, not typical of our era. And the point here is not the rejection of realistic writing.

It's easier, of course, to blame writers who don't want to describe characters. But it would be appropriate to do this only if the writers, fulfilling the order, deliberately deheroize literature. If we are talking about a direct creative act, then it would be much more correct to explore the era through works, and not try to turn literature into a program “On Request”.

In addition, in order to obtain more or less objective results, it is necessary to study the work of not only media authors. The fact is that modern domestic literature is very reminiscent of an iceberg with a relatively small visible part and a completely unpredictable invisible part. The visible or media part is usually the literature of the projects. Such literature does not have to be good or bad in terms of the quality of the text. It just has to be, consisting of printed books and authors whose names, thanks to frequent and repeated mention in all kinds of media, gradually become brands. So even without reading the works, people know very well: this is a fashionable, famous writer. There is such a thing as "pop taste", that is, the preference is not good, but successful, what is replicated, broadcast and discussed. The modern literature of projects is designed specifically for the “pop taste”, while the goals of its existence are very different - from commercial to political. The author of a series of articles on the modern literary process, the writer Yuri Miloslavsky, analyzing the features of contemporary art, notes that, among other things, “the professional art industry, by its very nature, could not operate successfully in the conditions of changeability, unpredictability and arbitrariness of individual creative achievements, indeed struggle of creative groups, etc.” That is why "gradually achieved complete and absolute man-made (<…>ersatz, imitation) of artistic and/or literary success. In other words, the same media literature or literature of projects is an artificially created space, characterized by Yuri Miloslavsky as an “artificial cultural context”, where “the best, highest quality will be declared at the moment that the art industry, according to someone’s orders, strategic or tactical calculations, and according to the own calculations formed on the basis of these calculations, it produced, acquired and assigned for subsequent implementation. Today, anything can be assigned to these “best”. Everything". In addition, Yuri Miloslavsky refers to the data of a survey conducted from 2008 to 2013. Internet project "Megapinion". The survey participants, and they turned out to be over twenty thousand people, were asked the question “Which of these writers have you read?” and a list of nine hundred writers' names. It turned out that the percentage of media writers who actually read the works ranges from about 1 to 14. The Russian reader, it turns out, still prefers classics or entertaining (mainly detective) fiction.

Perhaps the main consumers of media literature are researchers who undertake, for example, to find out what he is - "a hero of our time." But this kind of research concerns only writers and critics, not touching the ordinary reader. After all, if the reader is familiar with modern literature, mainly at the level of names and newspaper praises, then the influence of such literature on him will be very insignificant. At the same time, studies based on media literature seem to be incomplete and meaningless, since media literature, as was said, is only the tip of the iceberg and it is not possible to judge the block as a whole by it. Building a study of literature solely on its public component is like studying the opinion of the citizens of a country by polling pop stars.

The understanding of the “hero of our time” can be approached not only through the study of works of literature, but also from the theoretical side. Let's ask ourselves a simple question: what kind of person is more common in our time than others - a disinterested daredevil, a restless intellectual or a gambling consumer? Of course, you can meet anyone, and each of us has wonderful friends and loving relatives. And yet, who is more typical of our time: governor Khoroshavin, analyst Rodchenkov, some "promoted" artist with dubious merit, or, in the words of critic Krizhanovsky, "a priest selling his apartment to complete the construction of the temple"? We repeat: you can definitely meet anyone, especially in the Russian expanses, but in order to understand who the “hero of our time” is, it is important to identify the typical, to find an exponent of the spirit of the time.

Would it not be correct to assume that a typical representative of our era is a person who prefers the material to the ideal, the mundane to the sublime, the perishable to the eternal, earthly treasures to all other treasures? And if this assumption is correct, then the “hero of our time” can safely be called Judas. His image becomes clear through the choice he made. Therefore, it is important to understand not why and why he betrayed, but what exactly he chose. Through his betrayal, Judas refused Christ and what Christ offered. The amount of thirty pieces of silver was so small that Judas could hardly be tempted by it. But he was faced with a choice: a symbolic amount, meaning the rejection of the Teacher, or the Kingdom of Heaven. In other words, just the same material against the ideal, mundane against the sublime, downhill against the mountain. Judas turned out to be the prototype of a “consumer society”, for which, just like for Judas, it is impossible, while remaining oneself, to remain faithful to high ideals.

There is really little heroic in modern literature. But this is precisely because the heroic has ceased to be typical. Alas, not in every era more often than others there are defenders of the Motherland, space explorers and honest workers. There are epochs when consumers of goods scurry around, turning from ideals to comfort.

Meanwhile, the heroic is necessary. At least as an example to follow, a reason for pride, a model for education. But what heroes in the country of optimistic patriotism! Unless those who, in the absence of money, lasted the longest. Or those who gave more kicks to English drunkards, yelling louder than others "Russia, forward!" The authorities have no one to offer as heroes, and the society has no one to nominate. There remain individual cases of heroism shown by ordinary citizens, but not becoming typical from this. The critic Krizhanovsky writes about these cases, including, among other things, simply decent people among the heroes.

And yet, in the hero of our time, that is, in the contemporary we meet more often than others, there is nothing heroic. But, as M.Yu. Lermontov, God save us trying to correct human vices. After all, humanity is just clay in the hands of history. And who knows what features it will take in the next decade.

Vyacheslav LUTY:
Here is such a text - in many respects, it seems, bullying, forcing to object, disagree, make some amendments and somewhat change the picture within which the definition of “hero of our time” and, in general, “feat” is formed.

On this occasion, it is worth exchanging views, since what Barakov and I said does not coincide in everything with the position of Svetlana Zamlelova.

I think we should not understand literature as a kind of workshop. Let's say that a locksmith and a salesman have their own workshop signs. It seems that the writer is also a part of a certain professional corporation, which has its own guild features. Imagine that we entered the workshop, looked at what tools are there, what materials are needed, how the work is going, and so on. In my opinion, this is an external and very limited understanding of the writing activity. Literature, which does not separate itself from the people, must enter into a dialogue with them and designate some building and some non-building things. These two substances are mutually nourished: artistic, aesthetic ideas and spiritual insights - people from literature; and, on the contrary, literature is from the people - by fidelity, the truth of what is happening.

Archpriest Gennady RYAZANTSEV-SEDOGIN,prose writer, poet, member of the Writers' Union of Russia, archpriest of the Russian Orthodox Church, rector of the Church of Michael the Archangel (Lipetsk city):

The tradition of Russian literature lies in the fact that Russian classic writers did not promise to curtail the framework of literature. And everything that is said about the guild life of a writer simply did not exist for them. They went beyond the bounds of literature to the people. Tolstoy, for example, wanted to write a book that could change lives, influence people in such a way that their inner life would change. Therefore, he wrote 93 bricks, which all the time wanted to change, change, change a person. Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky and his magazine "Grazhdanin" - after all, the writer was in it both as a prophet, and as a comforter, and as an old man, because they already turned to him as a priest or psychotherapist for help. And remember, when he wrote a work called "The Sentence" and also published it in his journal, he may have already written a response to society, because the "Sentence" depicts a person who commits suicide and does not find meaning In this life. And later, when he published the answer, everyone was outraged: so many suicides happened. “You, Fyodor Mikhailovich, with your ultimate logic and depth portray a person who does not find support in life.” Then Dostoevsky was already writing "Memoirs of P.", where he replied that the only meaning of life is faith in the immortality of the human soul. And our life is a preparation for the future life. That's how they thought, these writers. And not like modern authors who proclaim who knows what.

Andrey TIMOFEEV,prose writer, critic, poet, member of the Council for Criticism of the Writers' Union of Russia:

I will return to literature. My report is more guild, but perhaps it will also be of interest.
In the Council for Criticism, I mainly deal with young authors, relatively speaking, under the age of 35. And I am especially pleased to see that in recent years a whole generation of promising and talented prose writers has entered literature. To begin with, I will name the most striking ones, it seems to me that it will be interesting for you to learn about them. This is the Irkutsk prose writer Andrei Antipin, who is now much written about in connection with his rich thick, maybe even somewhat redundant language. But Antipin is not just a language. In his most mature story to date, "Uncle", published in the magazine "Our Contemporary" in 2014, he manages to see the tragedy of the people in the personal tragedy of a simple peasant from the village, to create an image of a truly powerful generalizing force. This is the St. Petersburg prose writer Dmitry Filippov, in whose work the truly Russian, as it were, struggles with the influence of Prilepin-Shargunov's "new realism", and when the first one wins, it turns out, for example, the poignant story "Three Days of Osorgin", published in the magazine "Neva" in volume same 2014. This is also a prose writer from the Moscow region Yuri Lunin, who has been published in recent years in the MolOKO online magazine, whose stories and novels are full of psychologism, tracking the smallest movements of the soul of their characters - a very valuable and rare quality in our time. These are other prose writers: thirty-year-olds - Alexei Ryaskin, who published in particular in Podyom, Anton Lukin, Elena Tulusheva, Evgenia Dekina, Anastasia Chernova, Oleg Sochalin - and those who are a little over twenty - Alena Belousenko, Ivan Makov and others.

But despite the fact that in this generation there are talented and already mature prose writers, despite the fact that one can talk a lot and fruitfully about them, in the full sense of the word, none of these prose writers is engaged in the creation of a hero. So when I got to know the topic of the upcoming roundtable and started thinking about it in relation to this young generation, I was just amazed. But Russian literature is, probably, first of all, a gallery of “heroes of their time” filled with vitality, who began to live in the memory of people almost more tangibly than their real contemporaries: Onegin, Pechorin, Bazarov, Judas Golovlev, the Karamazov brothers and others.

Needless to say, this situation is not new. A little over thirty years ago, in 1984, Vadim Kozhinov wrote the article "The Need for a Hero", in which he also notes that there are many talented young prose writers around who, nevertheless, do not strive to create a full-fledged hero. And, perhaps, that is why the generation that Kozhinov then called “new” in his article did not fully declare itself as a phenomenon, and only individual authors progressed, for example, Nikolai Doroshenko developed at that time. Maybe the modern young generation, without finding their hero, will not be able to make a real statement about themselves. But let's not guess.

It is interesting and instructive for today's young authors and for us to see how the classics of Russian literature found their hero. Vadim Kozhinov's article "Necessity of a Hero" devoted to this topic analyzes an illustrative example from Turgenev's memoirs. “... At the base of the figure, Bazarov,” writes Turgenev, “one person of a young provincial doctor that struck me lay down.” It “embodied ... that barely born ... beginning, which later received the name of nihilism. The impression... was... not entirely clear; at first, I myself could not give myself a good account of it ... "But after a period of doubt," I again set to work - plot gradually took shape: during the winter I wrote the first chapters ... "Every detail of this story is meaningful, Kozhinov notes:" It is like an instantaneous insight - but it crystallizes the experience of a lifetime. And yet, for a long time, the writer doubts. And then, which is very important, the writer is taken for the plot, because "only in a specific artistic action, a hero can become. For no ethical reflections and experiences reveal the moral essence of the hero: it is found only in a decisive, changing state of affairs. deed." That is, if a literary character sits at a table throughout the whole novel, thinks a lot and does nothing significant, then this is not a real hero. It’s not enough to talk about the murder of an old money-lender, you need to kill; it is not enough to repent, one must go to Siberia, and so on. Often modern authors do not understand this at all.

But this, in my opinion, is not all - it’s not enough to see the hero, express him, you need to look at him as if from above, give him a certain moral assessment (although, of course, not in the form of ready-made maxims). If this is not done, one can end up in a situation in which the generation immediately preceding the modern young found themselves, those who are now 35-40 years old, the generation of the so-called "new realism". They just happened to have a “hero of the time”, they unanimously announced - Sankya, the hero of Prilepin’s novel of the same name, a sincere young guy, a member of the National Bolsheviks party, ready to die and kill for his beliefs.

Indeed, it seems that Prilepin was able to catch in his hero the characteristic features of the time - young pressure, political maximalism, extreme rejection of other people's opinions, combined with a strong and passionate love for the Motherland. Sanya Prilepin, these furious boys, can be easily found, say, in the writing environment, for example, on the Free Press website. One can empathize with their slogans, but at the same time one cannot but see: their truth is one-sided and youthfully maximalistic. So, the type is captured correctly, there are such people and they are, perhaps, characteristic of our time, especially for the younger generation. But is Sanka a full-fledged artistic hero? No. No, because the author, in fact, did not see the hero, but only expressed himself, who turned out to be this characteristic hero. He could not rise above him, look at him with a wise adult look.

This is clearly seen in comparison, for example, with the same Turgenev. Was the author of Fathers and Sons a nihilist? Certainly not. He was not only able to show Bazarov, but also experienced him - for example, with true love, in a collision with which his hero suffered a crushing defeat. Moreover, having led Bazarov to death, Turgenev ended the novel with a scene in the cemetery with the words that “no matter how passionate, sinful, rebellious heart hides in the grave, the flowers growing on it look serenely at us with their innocent eyes” and do not they speak of the eternal tranquility of "indifferent" nature, but of "infinite life." Turgenev rose above his hero, comprehended his experience, and finally even confronted him with eternity. Prilepin, of course, does not pretend to be like that, to express himself is the maximum that he is capable of. And therefore, his Sanka cannot be called a full-fledged hero of a work of art.

So, summing up, we repeat - the need to find a hero is categorically important for the modern young generation. You can find a hero only by carefully peering into the world around, and the true development of the hero is possible only in action - that is why the plot of a work of art is so important. And yet - it is not enough to discover the hero, it is also necessary to comprehend him, to rise above him. This is all a kind of call to young authors, in a sense, a guide to action. I will be glad if this call is heard.

And the last. Russian literature knows not only the "characteristic" heroes of its time, but also those "eternal" types that can be called moral ideals. This is Tatyana Larina (remember Dostoevsky's Pushkin speech), and Natasha Rostova, and their closest descendant - Polya Vikhrova from Leonid Leonov's Russian Forest. Oddly enough, they are all women. But there are also men - Alyosha Karamazov, in a sense - Pavka Korchagin, Belovsky Ivan Afrikanych and others. These are those who embodied the moral health of the Russian people, who could be an example for their compatriots. Such heroes are vital to our time.

But maybe it's time to take a step forward? Now, when the recent collapse of the country not only turned into a deep tragedy for the Russian people, but also released a powerful religious layer, we can say that modern literature also has a super-task. This is to express the Christian worldview, to understand and show the hero, in whose soul the Christian ideal dominates with force. I dare not hope so. And at the same time I will end my report with this lofty and desperate hope.

Vyacheslav LUTY:
In Andrey's speech, the idea was voiced that Prilepin and those who are close to him, in their heroes, first of all, expressed themselves. To some extent, this speaks of the infantilism of their writing talent. After all, “Sankya” is not the first work that Prilepin wrote, before there were “Pathologies”, and before that he composed poetry. It is generally accepted that the debut story or novel is prepared by the whole life of a young author. The second thing is to some extent “borderline”, and from the third it becomes clear: the author writes something about himself, scraping out the remnants of characteristics and faces from the old chest; or he stood next to life, perhaps he entered it as an invisible person and contemplates what is happening, with an imperious hand selecting everything necessary for the formation of an artistic plot. And we see that Prilepin is not growing up. Andrew has a very good observation.

Reply from the audience:
Let's not move on to Prilepin's early stories now ...

Vyacheslav LUTY:
I read his stories, which were posted by the author himself on the website of the Civic Literary Forum, and felt some bewilderment: what is all this written for? One thing was a tracing-paper of the plot of Shukshin's last story "Slander". Vasily Makarovich's nanny in the hospital did not let visitors visit the lyrical hero. Here, the janitor blocked the entrance to the back, where the newspaper's office was located, to Prilepin himself and his partner in political struggle, Garry Kasparov, who is coquettishly designated as "the world champion in one board game." Such a small “bonaparte” can be found anywhere: in a minibus, in a shop, in an institution. I could not understand why I need such a transcription for the second or third time? How can you take it seriously? And I closed the topic called "Prilepin's stories" for myself. After all, when we start reading this or that writer, we give him a kind of credit of trust and see how he justifies him. I then took back a similar credit of trust to the author and did not investigate further. Quite a few articles have been written on this subject: the brilliant work of Gennady Starostenko, Svetlana Zamlelova has thoughts about Prilepin. This is enough for me not to delve into the essence of the revision that has already happened inside me.

Irina POLUEKTOVA,Candidate of Philological Sciences, Associate Professor of the Department of Philological Disciplines and Methods of Their Teaching, Borisoglebsk Branch of Voronezh State University:
But Prilepin is different in the Abode, Vyacheslav Dmitrievich ...

Andrey TIMOFEEV:
First of all, note that the plot of the novel "The Abode" is an absolutely adventurous story. Whatever happens to the hero, he always survives, and this does not add credibility to the work. The most important thing is that Prilepin's interest as an author in the novel "The Abode" is exclusively in the political and social plane. He doesn't deal with moral issues at all. He tries to remain politically correct, and on the other hand, he strives to give in a morally correct way (if political correctness is remade) the image of the bishop and the scene of communion. And in the scene with the sacrament, he gives completely hilarious things about what each of them repented of. For example, one is that he was with an animal. This is completely unacceptable. It can be seen that the author is not at all interested in the spiritual and moral dimension of what is happening.

Reply from the audience:
Here they relied very seriously on high literary examples, starting with Turgenev. The fact is that now a magnificent stream has appeared in literature - the literature of "runaways-captives". And not only… Someone died and woke up in someone else's body. And so they begin to play tricks, to correct the world. Here, after all, a whole line has already taken shape Plus Russian fantasy, science fiction. This is an overlooked thing that is not discussed here. They just feel their reader very precisely: what hurts him, what he wants.

Vyacheslav LUTY:
With regard to the current science fiction, I can express my dissatisfaction, which may well be subjective: I didn’t plunge headlong into this issue on purpose. But several times I compared today's science fiction stories with my own idea of ​​science fiction, which developed in Soviet times. In those years, Soviet science fiction was part of a great literature. In the old issues of the magazine "Seeker" there are many works of this kind. There, the development of human characters, and the facial expressions of the characters, and the situationality are very well resolved, the worldly side is captured. Today's science fiction is the successor of the former only in terms of ideas and designs. As in the fluoroscopy room, the skeleton rattles with bones, moves, and the outlines of the body are not visible.

Reply from the audience:
And Marina and Sergey Dyachenko?

Vyacheslav LUTY:
I'm not ready to talk by names. To do this, you need to immerse yourself in the material. I do not at all deny the possible merits of a corpus of such works. But in order to introduce the fantastic literature that you are talking about into the field of consideration of problematic literature, literature of the traditional high artistic and reader's demand. I need some serious motivation.
Let's return to our reports.

Zhanna JARMIN,writer, member of the International Union of Writers :

It seems to me that the theme "A Hero of Our Time" is interesting and relevant, although we usually associate it with Lermontov's Pechorin from a half-forgotten school curriculum. What is a hero? This is a brave person who has committed a brave act or feat in the name of a common goal.

In literature, the hero is the main character of the work.

The concept of a “hero of our time” is of a different type. This is, first of all, a person with a bright personality, morally oriented, free, independent, creative and active. The specific manifestations of these qualities of the hero depend on time. As a teacher of mathematics, the model of the development of society in the form of a sinusoid is close to me. If the curve goes up - this is a period of solidarity when people unite to win. Recall the "hero of his time" Pavel Korchagin. This is not an image of a primitive person, but one who seeks the truth-truth, all of the properties listed above apply to him. These are the people who determined the moral vector in the development and creation of a new type of state. Is it possible to call, say, Grigory Melekhov from M. Sholokhov's brilliant novel The Quiet Flows the Don a "hero of his time"?

What is life, what is death, what is eternal, what is infinite, how to be quite good - the “heroes of their time” thought about this, who, in unity with their people, solved the main task of their time. I'm talking about Andrei Bolkonsky and Pierre Bezukhov.

Let's remember the Great Patriotic War. This unprecedented period of solidarity for the sake of victory ("We need one victory, one for all, we will not stand up for the price") brought to life new "heroes of our time." We all remember such names as Kozhedub, Maresyev, Matrosov, Talallikhin, who studied in Borisoglebsk, and many others. About 12,000 citizens received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. But the "heroes of our time" are living people with their strengths and weaknesses. Were the heroes of that time such personalities as Zhukov and Stalin?

When the period of solidarity passes and the sinusoid goes down, this is the process of individualization. At this time, a person begins to think more often about eternal questions: why, in fact, do I live, what to do and in the name of what, to be or not to be a civilly active person, or “my hut is on the edge, I don’t know anything.” The heroes of this time are Hamlets, we have Onegin, Pechorin and others. They are rejected by their society, they oppose it, therefore, it seems, they are “superfluous people”. But even in these times, those whose moral vector is aimed at a positive wave also show heroism in the usual sense of the word, but not so massively. These are, first of all, people of heroic professions: firefighters, representatives of law enforcement agencies, the military.

For example, in my story "The Cockerel on a Stick", published in the collection "Atlanta" for the 70th anniversary of the Victory, the post-war 50s are described in Odessa. The nameless hero of this story lost his leg in battles, his wife and daughter died. A lone invalid, he could do nothing but sell sugar cockerels on a stick to us, post-war children. However, his influence on us turned out to be so strong that we remembered him for the rest of our lives, and even many years later I wrote a story about him. Can he be called a "hero of that time"? Judge for yourself. With your permission, I will read this short story.

COCK ON A STICK

In life, you know, there is always a place for achievement, and joy, and work, and grief - everything. At the same time, to each his own. So for us, post-war Odessa children, the days have specially acquired the property of being saturated with important, exciting, interesting and joyful events. The boys fought with wooden pistols, machine guns, they took someone prisoner (the enemy was appointed strictly in turn), someone was saved. The girls were reincarnated as nurses, doctors, shop assistants and, of course, naughty daughters and strict mothers. Sometimes we played hide-and-seek, hopscotch, or something else with the boys. However, all games immediately stopped when we heard the ringing of a certain bell. If it was a garbage man's call, they raced for the trash cans. If the kerosene worker called, we ran home for canisters to buy kerosene for the stove. We all knew our responsibilities at home.
Another circumstance always stopped our games. It's "Cocks on a stick!" Hearing these words, we were indescribably delighted and began to shout: “Cockerels on a stick! Roosters on a stick! Children in the next street, hearing this, also began to scream. The sound wave swept through the entire children's population of the area. Everyone rushed to get five or, if they were lucky, ten kopecks in order to buy a small or large cockerel on a stick. These were red or yellow lollipops made from melted sugar in the shape of a cockerel, stars or pistols with a wooden stick underneath to keep the sweetness from sticking to the hands. Always the same person selling them. One-legged, on crutches, in military uniform, with a medal and an order on his chest, he walked long distances, carrying an aluminum can with cockerels. Clenching our nickels in our fists, we waited impatiently for him in our street. He had an outstanding appearance: tanned, fit, with an army bearing - an athlete crippled by the war. We used to run towards him, holding out our nickels, and he would ask us:
- What do you want?
- Red cockerel.
Boys usually asked for a gun. And he handed us what we asked for. Sometimes he said:
- Cockerels are over, only yellow stars remain.
Then we took stars and licked them with pleasure too.
One day he asked me my name. I answered by taking the lollipop out of my mouth and looked up. He suddenly closed his eyes tightly, and I saw that he was crying.
- Why are you crying? I asked.
- You remind me of my daughter.
- Where is she? At home?
She died during the war. Along with her mom. By my wife. And now I have roosters on sticks and you.

Why is the theme of “a hero of our time” important for us, writing people? Probably because with our works we influence other people. What do our literary heroes serve? Do they have a moral vector, are they role models as heroes of our time, do they ruthlessly open the ulcers of society, calling for the fight against vices?

I remember one old story. Two sinners are burning in hell, they are suffering. After some time, God pardoned one. The second began to complain, why was the first released? He was a drunkard, a thief, and I am an intelligent person, a writer. To which they answered: the thief sincerely repented of sin, his family prayed for him, but you did not, your writings will poison fragile minds for a long time, so there is no forgiveness for you.

So we need to think about what we write and why.

Take, for example, such a related art as cinema. Why are American films so popular and captivated the world's film distribution? Entertaining plots, excellent cinematography, talented actors? Not only. These are works of mass culture designed for a consumer with a low aesthetic and intellectual level. These works lower people to the level of a primitive man in the street. The illusion is created that the "heroes of our time" are only fictional supermen, which conveniently leads away from the problems of real life.

Living in England for 16 years, I have seen enough American films to the point of nausea, and it seems to me that any Russian film is deeper and more interesting than American consumer goods. However, I have already seen several of our American-styled films, such as Seeking a Husband for My Wife. If not for our well-known actors, it could well pass for a Western craft.

A few days ago, the 7th Odessa Film Festival ended. I have seen three feature films. All of them are topical and relevant and left a positive impression. I especially liked the English film "I, Daniel Blake", which won at Cannes this year. Director - Ken Loach, screenwriter Paul Laverty. I think Daniel Blake is the "hero of our times" in England, just like the makers of this film. I think it's just a social bomb. The English, like many other peoples, are told that they were lucky to be born in this country. The film unobtrusively debunks this illusion. Daniel Blake is a simple worker, a widower, always telling the truth and helping other people. He had a heart attack and was unable to secure social support because of the soulless bureaucratic state machine. Desperate, in huge letters he wrote his protest on the wall of the institution, where he, the patient, was denied help, like thousands of other people. A crowd of passers-by gathered to support Blake. The police arrested him, but then released him with a warning. During a futile search for material assistance, he met and subsequently helped, as best he could, to settle down a young woman who could not feed two children. Daniel dreamed that she, unlike him, could learn and become financially independent. To his desperation, he accidentally discovered that an acquaintance of his had to turn into prostitution so that her children would not starve. Cornered, Blake dies of a second heart attack. I think it's a very brave film and I wonder how it will be received in England. As the producer of this film told us, we were their first real audience in Odessa.

To summarize my message, I’ll say that when the characters of our works are morally oriented, looking for personalities who awaken the best in people or ruthlessly reveal the shortcomings of society, calling for the fight against vices, then it will be possible to say about them that they are “heroes of our time”. But what are they? Such as during the period of solidarization or individualization? It seems to me that now we are closer to the period of individualization. But maybe the “heroes of the next era” are already maturing? After all, the sinusoid is infinite.

Vyacheslav LUTY:
Summing up the discussion, let me read out a resolution that reflects the main idea of ​​our conversation today.

RESOLUTION OF THE ROUND TABLE
"A Hero of Our Time in Modern Russian Literature"

The round table of writers, poets and philologists on the theme "The Hero of Our Time in Modern Russian Literature" revealed a wide panorama of opinions of the creative literary community in the field of interaction between modern Russian literature and modern Russian life. The need for a positive, actually heroic principle in our literature is a requirement of the present day. This is how you can transform the current Russian society, which has many vices and shortcomings, into tomorrow's Russia, when the words Motherland and the state will not be antagonists.

The introduction of the image of the protagonist into the novel, which reflects the reality in which the author lives, is one of the hallmarks of romanticism in literature. But since the main romantic conflict is a conflict between the individual and society, the protagonist in such works almost always turns out to be superfluous and incomprehensible in his time.

Heroes of Griboedov's time

The first romantic work in Russian literature was comedy A.S. Griboedova Woe from Wit written in 1824. The main character, Chatsky, enters into constant disputes with representatives of the past generation, the era of Catherine. Chatsky is a classic representative of his time, when the thoughts of young people were already moving towards the liberal development of Russia, secret societies were functioning and a coup was planned.

Chatsky actively opposes the existing order in society, but no one listens to him: Chatsky turns out to be a preacher at the ball, inappropriate and incomprehensible. Chatsky is lonely, he has no family or close friends, the only way for him is the way of the Decembrist, as for many intellectual people of that time.

Heroes of Pushkin's time

The image of the hero of time continues to develop A.S. Pushkin in the novel Eugene Onegin which was completed in 1830. The protagonist is a bored young man, selfish and mocking, but at the same time, this is Onegin - a modern hero. Pushkin presents him as a superman who fancies himself superior to others, but cannot really realize himself. Society does not understand him, Onegin turns out to be superfluous.

At first, his whole life is a continuous entertainment, but then secular amusements bother him. He begins to get bored, out of boredom he provokes a duel in which he kills the young poet Lensky. Then he decides to court the already married Tatyana and, most likely, the life of an extra person will end tragically: he may well be challenged to a duel and killed by Tatyana's husband.

Heroes of Lermontov's time

This image is further developed M.Yu. Lermontov, who in 1840 did not beat around the bush and called his novel simply and eloquently - Hero of our time, revealing the main meaning of the title of the novel. Lermontov shows how a person as smart, talented and towering over others as Onegin becomes superfluous due to difficult circumstances. If he himself was to blame for Onegin's troubles: he had opportunities for self-realization, he just did not want to use them, preferring to mope, then Pechorin, a man of a different era, is a victim of circumstances and time.

This novel no longer describes the liberal Alexander era, but the strict years of the reign of Nicholas I, when censorship was tightened and control over society was tightened. Pechorin has no choice, only service in the free-kick position. He tries to control his own destiny, kills Grushnitsky, who annoys him, in a duel, but this does not save the hostage of the situation. The image of Pechorin is really tragic - he has no choice, no prospects, but society and the authorities are to blame for this.

Hero of Gogol's time

A new image of the hero of time introduces N.V. Gogol in Dead Souls(1842), which differs significantly from previous novels. The idea of ​​the Dead Souls is different here. The main character is a swindler who deceives everyone he meets. But this is also a man of a new era, a type previously unknown in Russian literature - the owner-acquirer.

The main goal of his life is to accumulate more, he is going to rise above the others due to his ability to save a penny (thus the theme of the superman continues). However, Chichikov does not consider himself superfluous, because his plans are very simple and realistic, he does not conflict with society.

The need for a typical time hero

Analyzing these works, as well as the historical and literary situation in Russia in the first half of the 19th century, we can conclude that the need for the image of a typical hero of the time arises when the author himself feels somehow out of place in the existing society. Especially expressive in this respect is the hero of Lermontov, who has the most autobiographical features.

It is also worth noting that the image of the hero of time is a detail of romantic literature. By the end of the 1840s, romanticism in Russian literature was gradually fading away, giving way to realism, therefore, an extra hero of the time was no longer needed. However, the desire of the authors to describe the characters typical of their time is absolutely natural; it will remain in the literature until the twentieth century.

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