PLAN

1. The history of the emergence of Christianity 3

2. Structure of Christian doctrine 5

3. The main features of Christian culture 8

4. Significance of Christianity for the development of European culture 11

Literature 12

1. The history of the emergence of Christianity

Belief in an almighty God originates in Judaism, the religion of the ancient Jews. This belief expresses the tragic history of the people, described in the Old Testament, a collection of books sacred to both Judaism and Christianity. The Old Testament history is full of wanderings and hopes, the bitterness of the Babylonian and Egyptian captivity 1 And of course, such a history gave rise to a religion that is fundamentally different from the Hellenic one. The gods of Hellas expressed the trust of the Hellenes in the established order of the universe, their hope for a decent life in one of the niches of the divine cosmos. But for the ancient Jews, the present cosmos was a world of exile and captivity. The gods, who personified the forces of this cosmos, were subject to its fate, which for the Jews was ill-fated. People needed hope, and only God, who himself was the creator of the world and the ruler of cosmic destiny, could give it. This is how the original version of Judaism, the most ancient monotheistic religion, was formed.

The God of the ancient Jews, the God of the Old Testament, was a type of the Christian God. Strictly speaking, for Christianity it is one and the same God, only his relationship with man changes. So the Old Testament faith is seen as a preparation for the New Testament, that is, a new union of man with God. And indeed, despite the significant differences in the ideas of the Old and New Testaments, it is among the Old Testament sages that the spiritual inquiries that Christianity was able to answer for the first time appear. But first, let's look at the differences.

If the God of the Old Testament is addressed to the whole people as a whole, then the God of the New Testament is addressed to each individual. The Old Testament God pays great attention to the implementation of a complex religious law and the rules of everyday life, numerous rituals that accompany each event. The God of the New Testament is addressed primarily to the inner life and inner faith of each person.

However, already in the Old Testament we see a person's thirst for a genuine meeting with God and the desire to spiritually free himself from submission to the outer side of life. These motives are primarily expressed in the book of Job and the book of Ecclesiastes (Men A. History of religion. In the 1st vol. M., 1993. Vol. VI, ch. 11-13). This striving for the spiritual overcoming of the external side of being is especially manifested at the turn of our era, for the people again fall under the rule of foreigners, who this time were the Romans. In the history of the Old Testament, God fulfilled his promise, gave the people a place for an independent life. Now it only remained to wait for the Savior, who, according to the beliefs of the ancient Jews, was to save the whole people and become the head of the kingdom. But the Savior (in Greek - Christ) did not come, and it only remained to think: maybe the expected salvation will not have a national-state, but a spiritual character? This is exactly what Jesus preached.

2. Structure of Christian doctrine

Man was created by God in the “image and likeness of God”. i.e., is a person with freedom and creativity. The freedom of the individual is connected with the fact that it embodies the supermundane spirit, which originates from the Divine Spirit. The original sin of Adam and Eve violated man's likeness to God and alienated him from God, but the image of God remained intact in man. All further history is considered by Christianity as the history of the reunion of man with God.

The Old Testament expresses the external connection between man and God, carried out through the law (the law regulates external relations, the external being of a person). Christianity proper begins with Jesus giving the New Testament and restoring man's inner connection with God 2 .

The highest religious goal of Christianity is salvation. The specificity of the Christian understanding of salvation is expressed in the dogmas of the trinity and the Incarnation. God eternally has three equal persons (persons) - Father, Son, Holy Spirit - united by a single divine essence (“nature”) and having a single will. At the same time, Christian theology requires "not to confuse persons and not to separate essences." The Savior (Christ) is one of the persons of the one God (God the Son). God the Son incarnates in human nature (“incarnates”) and becomes Jesus of Nazareth in order to atone for original sin and create conditions for the restoration of human likeness to God. “God became man so that man could become God,” said the Fathers of the Church (though man is called to become not God “by nature,” but “God by grace”). Salvation requires spiritual efforts from a person, and, above all, faith, but it is impossible to be saved on your own, this requires an appeal to Jesus Christ and the effective intervention of the Savior himself. The Path of Salvation is the path of becoming like Jesus: spiritual merging with the person of Christ and (with His help) purification and transformation of one's (sinful) nature, which leads a person to the final deliverance from the power of sin and death. However (due to the consequences of original sin), a person cannot escape bodily death. However, the soul of a person and his personality (spiritual "I") are immortal.

The path to salvation and eternal life in unity with God for man lies through physical death; this path is paved by the death on the cross and the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ. Salvation is possible only in the bosom of the Church, which is the "body of Christ": it unites believers into one mystical body with the "deified", sinless human nature of Christ. The theologians compared the unity of the Church with the unity of loving spouses, merging with love into one flesh, having the same desires and will, but preserving themselves as free individuals. Christ is the head of this one, but many-sided church body, just as the husband is the head of the marriage union (hence the self-name of the nuns: “brides of Christ”).

Christian morality proceeds from the inherent value of the individual (the individual is the "image of God" in man) and the inseparable connection between goodness, truth and freedom. “... You will know the truth and the truth will make you free”, “Everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin,” Jesus said. At the same time, goodness and truth are expressed not in impersonal formal rules, but in the very person of Jesus Christ; hence the fundamental non-formalizability of Christian morality, which in its very essence is the morality of freedom. Expressing the freedom of man, the truly Christian faith rests not on fear and external debt, but on love directed towards Christ and towards each person as the bearer of the image of God: “And now these three remain: faith, hope, love; but the love of them is greater.”

Good is created by a person on the paths of applying free will in the name of personality and love: “He who does not love, he did not know God, because God is love.” A different application of free will turns into its self-denial and spiritual degradation of a person. Thus, human freedom contains not only the possibility of good, but also the risk of evil. Evil is a false use of freedom; the truth of freedom is goodness. Therefore, evil does not have an independent essence and is reduced only to the negation of good: all supposedly independent definitions of evil turn out to be only definitions of good, taken with the opposite sign.

Evil was born as a wrong decision of a free spirit, but through the initial fall it took root in human nature, “infected” it. Hence the specificity of Christian asceticism: it struggles not with human nature itself, but with the sinful principle living in it. In itself, human nature is god-like and worthy of spiritualization and immortality (in this Christianity differs from Platonism, Gnosticism and Manichaeism). A bodily resurrection awaits man; after the Last Judgment, the righteous are destined for bodily immortality in new, transfigured bodies. Since it is difficult for a person to cope with the sinful desires rooted in his nature, he must humble pride and hand over his will to God; in such a voluntary renunciation of self-will, true, and not imaginary, freedom is acquired.

In Christianity, moral norms are addressed not to external affairs (as it was in paganism) and not to external manifestations of faith (as in the Old Testament), but to internal motivation, to the “inner man”. The highest moral authority is not duty, shame and honor, but conscience. Duty expresses the external relationship between man and God, man and society; shame and honor express the external expediency of nature and society. Conscience is the voice of a free spirit that makes a person independent of nature and society and subordinates it only to its own higher truth. We can say that the Christian God is the highest truth of human conscience, personified and deified as the grace-filled meaning of all being: “... The law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ”; "God is a spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth." Therefore, a person must partake of spiritual truth, as if reborn from it: “What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. ...You must be born again.”

Belief in the immortality of the soul and in the Last Judgment plays a huge role in Christian religiosity. Elevating man as a free and god-like transcendental being, Christianity cannot free man from the need to live and die in a world where there is no just recompense for good and evil. Belief in the immortality of the soul and retribution beyond the grave is called upon to give a person not only knowledge, but also a direct feeling of the absolute power of the moral norms of Christianity.

The most important component of Christianity is eschatology - the doctrine of the end of the world, the second coming of Christ, the bodily resurrection of the dead and the Last Judgment, after which the kingdom of the righteous should be established on the new earth under the new sky.

Over the course of two millennia, various trends arose in Christianity. Three of them are the most famous: Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Protestantism. Along with the names (and also within them, there are many smaller churches, sects and cults.

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in Doctor Zhivago

The purpose of the lesson: try to understand the meaning of Christian motives in the creative plan of Pasternak.

Methodical methods: discussion of homework questions, commented reading of episodes.

During the classes

I. Teacher's word

The hero of Pasternak, Yuri Zhivago, attracts with openness, the ability to love and appreciate life, insecurity, which is not a sign of lack of will, but the ability to think, doubt. The hero is an expression of the author's moral ideal: he is talented, smart, kind, he retains the freedom of spirit, he sees the world in his own way and does not adapt to anyone, he is a person. The idea of ​​the novel is the Christian idea of ​​a free individual.

II. Discussion of homework questions.

The whole novel is permeated with Christian ideas both directly (through speech) and indirectly (through symbols). The very name of the hero is associated with the image of Christ (“You are the son of the living God”: “living” is the form of the genitive and accusative cases in the Old Russian language). The name Yuri is also symbolic - a variant of the name George (George the Victorious). Yuri Zhivago almost does not take a direct part in the events, but his understanding of life, everything that happens is based on Christian values. The plot is based on the gospel drama of spiritual choice and sacrifice on the cross. The triad "life - death - resurrection" is constantly at the center of the hero's thoughts, and creativity is understood as "God's Word about life".

The novel begins and ends with a funeral scene. “They walked and walked and sang “Eternal Memory ...” to Yura’s mother at the beginning of the novel. At the end of it, Lara, saying goodbye to Yuri, speaks to him as if he were alive: “Your departure, my end. Again, something big, irreplaceable. The mystery of life, the mystery of death, the beauty of genius, the beauty of exposure, please, we understood that. And petty global squabbles like redrawing the globe, sorry, thank you, this is not our part. All events of "global significance" are "squabbles", nothing compared to the life of a person, realized every minute, now, in everyday life, in small and seemingly insignificant matters. But the last lines of the novel are poetic lines: the novel ends with the poem "The Garden of Gethsemane", the resurrection of the Son of God, immortality, life in other people.

III. Work on assignments

Exercise 1. We read and comment on the “sermon” by N. N. Vedenyapin (part 1, chapter 5).

(Nikolai Nikolaevich Vedenyapin, who renounced the priesthood, defines history as “the establishment of centuries-old works on the consistent solution of death and its future overcoming.” Vedenyapin remains true to his preaching confession. He believes that one can be an atheist, one can not know whether there is a God and why he, and at the same time to know that a person does not live in nature, but in history, and that in the current understanding it was founded by Christ, that the Gospel is its justification. " In this "sermon" Vedenyapin is very important for Pasternak's understanding of the meaning and value life. The basis for creativity in any area of ​​human activity is spiritual equipment ":" love for one's neighbor, ... the idea of ​​a free person and the idea of ​​life as a sacrifice ". The mention of Jesus Christ in the sermon of Father Nikolai is not accidental. According to N. L. Leiderman , in the system of value orientations of the novel, the Son of God and the Son of Man are both a symbol of the personal principle in man, his moral essence, and the one who was the first in the history of mankind to realize the idea of ​​immortality. This understanding of God is somewhat different from the traditional one, so the orthodox church gives ambiguous assessments of the novel Doctor Zhivago, as well as other works that use biblical motifs (for example, Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita, Aitmatov’s Block). In the artistic world of Pasternak, the spiritual and the earthly are closely connected, merged, and the author correlates his heroes with the ideal of the Personality, with Christ.)

Task 2. Let us pay attention to the features of the chronology of the events of the novel.

(The action of the novel is tied to the Orthodox calendar: Yura's mother died on the eve of the Intercession; in the summer of 1903, Yura and his uncle go to Voskoboinikov - It was Kazan, the height of the harvest during the civil war - “Winter was running out, Passionate, the end of Lent.” Pasternak as as if building a plot on the scale of eternity, so the meaning of even minor events deepens, expands.)

Task 3. We will find elements of the Church Slavonic vocabulary, references to the Holy Scriptures, to the gospel texts, and determine their role.

(There are a lot of such elements and references in the novel. Here are just a few of them: the scene of Anna Ivanovna's funeral (part three, chapters 15-17); Zhivago's conversation with Gordon (part four, chapter 12); the mention of biblical images in the rally scene (part fifth, chapter 7); the scene of the return to Moscow, when Doctor Zhivago first sees the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, and then the domes, roofs, houses of the whole city (part five, chapter 16); the scene of Zhivago’s typhoid delirium, ending with the words “We must wake up and get up. It is necessary to rise again "(part six, chapter 15); Lara and Yuri's conversation and Lara's comparison with Adam and Eve (part thirteen, chapter 13); Lara and Sima's conversation - interpretation of the gospel texts (part thirteen, chapter 17).)

CHRISTIAN MOTIVES

The 1960s are perhaps the first generation brought up within the established Soviet system. It would seem that this generation should have become its support, but it turned out to be a generation of debaters and opponents.

All questioning, the sixties could not help but come to the question of faith. In the "soul" of a totalitarian society, frightened by the collapse of the idol and ideals, a deep gap has formed, an acute need for faith, for spirituality. This gap was temporarily filled with poetry, which acted as a surrogate for religion. The stadiums assembled by the idols of the sixties were nothing but temples of this strange religion. Of course, many years of atheistic education in the country of state atheism meant the natural presence of some kind of mockery in relation to any religion and religiosity. However, over time, the "fragments of the old cult" began to attract more and more public consciousness. The enjoyment of freedom, innovation in creativity gradually began to be replaced by the search for soil, support, and faith.

In this regard, it is interesting to trace the course and development of one of the central discussions in the periodicals of the sixties - the discussion about traditions and innovation. In the early sixties, the sympathy of a substantial part of the reading public was clearly on the side of the young innovators. So, in 1962, in response to a questionnaire from the journal Questions of Literature, A. Voznesensky wrote: “I don’t think that closeness with literary predecessors would be useful for a writer.” E. Yevtushenko, V. Kostrov, Y. Marcinkyavichyus and others spoke in defense of innovation. By the end of the 1960s, however, the direction and tone of the thinking had changed significantly. If in 1962 it was mainly about innovation, then in 1968 (the collection "Day of Poetry") - about the attraction to national and classical traditions. As Alexander Mikhailov wrote, “the growing interest in national traditions in poetry is due to two reasons: firstly, the desire for sustainable forms of aesthetic values, obtained by the experience of many decades and even centuries; secondly, a reaction to pretentious "innovations" not supported by talent. The loud, pop poetry of the early sixties was replaced by the quiet elegiac lyrics of such poets as Vl. Sokolov.

Passionate thirst for an ideal, support, faith, a return to tradition, to the roots, naturally led to religion. Millennium-old Christianity on the path of faith-seeking turned out to be the closest thing: dozens of destroyed churches in numerous towns and villages of Russia silently appealed to faith.

The processes of faith-seeking, along with a turn to tradition, especially intensified towards the end of the sixties - the beginning of the seventies, which just happened to be the heyday of the author's song, the most active period of its classics - Bulat Okudzhava, Alexander Galich, Vladimir Vysotsky.

It was not for nothing that Yu. Andreev called the bards the seismographs of life.

Three bards identified three models of the religious development of the Soviet intelligentsia.

Bulat Okudzhava: a believing atheist

“The world of Bulat Okudzhava needs Bach - he does not need God at all,” writes Mikhail Gorelik in his article. You read and you are amazed: only a person who is completely deaf, who does not know, who superficially read and listened to Okudzhava (who listened, including in the second sense - that is, “missed past ears”), could write like that, an ultra-positivist.

The author backs up his shaky construction of Okudzhava's "godlessness" with sparse excerpts from questionnaires. Yes, Okudzhava repeatedly during his life, both verbally and in writing, called himself an atheist. But you can not blindly trust the questionnaires. Gorelik, developing a personal statement, claims that all of Okudzhava's work is atheistic, while the situation is exactly the opposite. As Svetlana Boyko rightly noted, “we are faced with a summary sentence like “God exists, and there is no God.” But “a constantly praying person, no matter how he imagines the universe, is not an atheist.” And if the questionnaire says one thing, and all creativity - another, you believe, of course, creativity.

Of course, the sixties Okudzhava cannot definitely call himself a believer. When his confession needs God, he calls it Hope. In the domesticated post- and anti-totalitarian spiritual space of Okudzhava, Nadezhda certainly has the status of a deity, similar to the status that the Eternal Femininity, Sofia, had in the poetic system of the Young Symbolists. The lyrical hero of the early Okudzhava, perhaps, strictly speaking, does not know God, but desperately needs - in God, in prayer. Hence the Arbat religion: “Oh, Arbat, my Arbat, you are my religion”, hence the paradoxical, almost blasphemous statement for a Christian:

I need on someone pray.
Think simple ant
suddenly wanted to fall into the legs,
believe in your charm /70/.

According to V. Aksenov, the art of the sixties and seventies was generally characterized by “the sublimation of religious feeling, the transfer of “enchantment” to objects, sometimes curious, to phenomena and faces that seem to stand aside from prayer” .

Okudzhava's path to faith was not quick and was full of internal contradictions. Prayerfully turning to Faith, Hope and Love, understood as the hypostases of God, he almost at the same time puts an earthly woman in the place of God, literally creating a goddess for himself "in her own image and spirit." This goddess is a Komsomol girl “in a blue T-shirt”. And in this case, of course, the speech is "about something else" - "and there are no gods in sight." As a result of the imposition of the romanticized ideological background of the Soviet mass consciousness on the Young Symbolist cult, a paradoxical image of the “Komsomol goddess” is obtained. But despite the paradoxical sound, this image is in complete harmony with all of Okudzhava's poetics, based on the simultaneous "domestication" of the high, conditional - and the spiritualization of the "low", everyday: the epithet Komsomol"domesticates" the sublime "goddess", and in comparing the Komsomol girl with the goddess, the method of "spiritualization" of life works.

The only appeal directly to God (the poem "Prayer"), for reasons of censorship, was published by Okudzhava as performed on behalf of a third party, Francois Villon, whose piety, by the way, is also very doubtful.

Okudzhava does not want to see evil, and therefore, perhaps, he uses all sorts of infernal words with such ease: that is why he has “a clarinetist as handsome as hell” (next to a flutist who is “like a young prince, graceful”), and Pushkin and learned as hell. The devil, traditionally for the aesthetics of the sixties, is reduced to the level of an interjection: "to hell with fairy tales about the gods!" Just as often and in opposition, Okudzhava uses God and gods in vain (which in this case is unambiguous).

However, all these roughness and unevenness of the worldview, quite characteristic of the sixties, recede and seem to us unimportant in the face of the truly deeply Christian content of the poetic world of Bulat Okudzhava.

His lyrical hero is a “simple ant”, who is fully aware of his modest place in space and time, a speck of dust in the palm of Being, an eccentric person who wants and knows how to see harmony in the world around him, connected through harmony, Music of heaven, with the world and with God. Music, the language of the ideal world, penetrating into the real, domestic world, harmonizes it and enchants a person:

And only this orchestra is the support of life, only it saves from the "lead rains" of the war. By the way, about the war.

A man at war (according to Okudzhava) is a puppet in the hands of others, in the hands of the Evil and Cunning, he himself does not know exactly his goals, he is ridiculous and imperfect in his small ambitions, a defenseless toy, a paper soldier with his puppet patriotism:

He would be glad - into the fire and into the smoke,
to die twice for you
but you made fun of him:
after all, there was a paper soldier / 69 /.

Or in a later poem:

Ah, something I can not believe that I, brother, fought,
Or maybe it was a schoolboy who drew me:
I swing my arms, I kick my legs
and I expect to survive, and I want to win / 447 /.

For the puppet "if there is no God, everything is allowed" (according to Dostoevsky); If you do not think about what you have done, then:

I go to myself, I play by automatic machine.
How easy it is to be a soldier, a soldier /100/.

All explained above:

And if something goes wrong, it's none of our business.
As they say, "the motherland ordered!".

War is contrary to the natural order of life on earth. The infantry, going on a campaign, acts contrary to life, contrary to nature itself:

Why are we leaving
when spring rages over the earth? /104/.

Man in war, as a representative of Life, fights Death, and victory is not in defeating a specific enemy, but in remaining a man. The raven appears as an infernal, formidable symbol of war and death:

If the raven is in the sky -
business, therefore, to war /382/.

Raven, a symbol that has both folklore and literary roots, in Okudzhava, by its presence, provokes a passion for aggression and murder, which seizes absolutely everyone.

From a dramatic generalization (“everyone wants to shoot”), Okudzhava moves on to the apocalyptic:

Oh, and nothing more.
In, and no one else.
Besides the raven:
shoot someone at him.

In a late poem, echoing the "Omen", the raven has an earthly handy:

In a general's uniform is a conductor,
in front of him is a clipped choir.
He has white-gloved hands /354/.

Gradually develops "music s like a trench”, the human choir, filled with madness, enters into an unrestrained orgy, “now curses, now bawling hymns”; mountains of corpses grow, already belonging to the kingdom of the dead, where the raven called, the dead are enchanted by the raven:

Those in the field side by side (I beg your pardon),
they don't take their eyes off that raven.

Aggressive, evil, diabolical in a person (“everyone wants to shoot”) Okudzhava tries to curse: “Stop, damn it, swear on blood!” /232/.

A purely peaceful person, Okudzhava rebels against the war, contrasting death with the undying image of the deceased:

Because in war, though it's true, they shoot,
damp earth is not for Lenka.
Because (guilty), but I don't represent Moscow
without a king like him /28/.

Just as the whole world for Okudzhava is cozy, harmonious, expedient and eternal no matter what, so the lyrical hero is eternal, enduring, immortal - good things must live forever:

Hope I stay safe
the earth is not damp for me,
but for me your worries
and the good world of your worries /7/.

And the dead are not dead. The motive of single combat with death, up to the resurrection from the dead, passes from song to song, from poem to poem:

Get up, get up, fellow soldier -
take your overcoat - let's go home! /300/.

Goodbye boys! Boys
try to go back! /52/.

I dodge the bullet, make a desperate dash... /47/.

Okudzhava affirms the primacy of kindness in the people around him. Calling them good, he conjures them to be so. A random midnight trolleybus, an ark of kindness and human participation, picking up “everyone who suffered a crash in the night” is the central image-symbol of Okudzhava. This motif - kindness, compassion, complicity, mercy - is heard in each of his songs right up to the very last ones, to the fabulous Parisian spaniel, who has "mercy in every movement" (why not the poetics of Francis of Assisi? By the way, the abundance of diminutive suffixes also allows commemorate the "Flowers" of St. Francis). Asserting the harmonious principle in people, Okudzhava in his "Prayer" asks on behalf of the people:

Lord, give everyone
what he does not have /178/.

And what else can and should the Poet do, how not to ask for a better share for these foolish ones - not to demand, namely to ask, pray, believing in the wisdom of God and not separating himself from the general mass, to be both a witness and intercessor for humanity , and one of the mortals - of us living "not knowing what we are doing."

As the priest who buried him, father Georgy Chistyakov, wrote about Okudzhava, “he was a psalmist throughout his life ... In almost all of his poems, without exception, the presence of God is felt, invisible, but real. The poet, although he himself, with his head, with his intellect, did not believe, or rather, did not want to believe in God, it was precisely as a poet that he brilliantly felt His presence.

Andrei Voznesensky spoke very accurately: “All his life with the verses of an atheist // He, Lord, served you!” . Remaining unbaptized and having accepted the Sacrament only before his death, Okudzhava prayed for a person throughout his life. The main motives of his work are deeply Christian: hope, kindness, compassion, mercy, consolation, stable faith in the harmony of the universe.

The disastrous delight of Vladimir Vysotsky

With Vysotsky, everything is more complicated. If Okudzhava’s lyrical hero is ideal, ideally harmonious, harmonious and, in essence, his poetic world is also problem-free, then Vysotsky’s lyrical hero is as close as possible to a real contemporary, and the world is recognizable, detailed and problematic. The world of Vysotsky, like the real world, is tragic - split and full of contradictions. For almost everything pro it is possible, on occasion, to find and contra. That is why the assessments of some critics who are trying to present an account to Vysotsky from a “religious” point of view are sometimes so harsh. This point of view is presented most vividly by Marina Kudimova in her pamphlet The Apostate's Disciple. Kudimova proclaims: the poet Vysotsky is genuine and unique, but he, along with Yesenin, "it's time to present a spiritual account." According to Kudimova, the "neo-pagan" Vysotsky is clearly incapable of paying this bill. Similar accusations - of anti-Christianity and sinfulness - are made by A. Simakov in the article “Like God without pants” and N. Pereyaslov in the article “Should I listen to Vysotsky at night?” . This position is unshakable and therefore easily vulnerable. Its explanation, apparently, must be sought in the amazing ease with which part of our intelligentsia moved from atheism not even to religiosity - but to militant, aggressive piety with its manic tendentiousness and gloomy adherence to the letter, and by no means the spirit of Holy Scripture. This leads to startling "discoveries" in their research.

So, Mr. Pereyaslov for some reason decided that Vysotsky's tightrope walker hates the audience, and the author hates Sam Brook for his Guinean origin and fast running. Without dwelling on this, Pereyaslov presents a "spiritual account" to Vysotsky for the frequent use of fairy-tale symbols in genre songs. However, the delusional nature of such accusations is easily explained, in essence, by the author’s pro-communist orientation: Vysotsky’s supreme sin, according to Pereyaslov, is by no means godlessness, but the fact that he destroyed “the strength of both the official ideology and the accompanying culture” .

Marina Kudimova also writes about the same, indiscriminately declaring Vysotsky a preacher of hatred. An inaccurate quote from the song "Storks" - "What is needed now? // Hatred!" Kirill Kovaldzhi reasonably corrects in his response to her article: “But there is no such line anywhere! In this song we read something completely different: “What is more needed now - hatred?”

The question of Vysotsky's attitude to Christianity is complex, requiring calm reflection. Let's try to overcome both the tendentious blasphemy and hysteria of the "pious" and the choking enthusiasm of myth-makers. Let's turn to the sources, look for and find the declared pro And contra.

With a superficial, literalist approach, the motives of creativity do not look Christian in any way - the atheistic leaven, the naive-positivist skepticism, are too strong. In the lyrical hero of Vysotsky - a strong man, always overcoming something, conquering - there is something almost Nietzschean: affective rebellion combined with declared hedonism, emphasized secularism and theomachism. And the love sung by Vysotsky is by no means Christian, but sensual, pagan:

But many, choked with love,
Do not shout - no matter how much you call, -
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
And we will put candles at the head
Died from unseen love...

How this call to passionate, "unprecedented love" contrasts with the quiet asceticism of Okudzhava, with his Platonic contemplation of a woman!

In the work of Vysotsky God, crap, hell, paradise at first they act only as elements of comic decor. Often God's name is mentioned in vain - in established turns in Christ's bosom, for Christ's sake, by God, and the gods came down to earth.

Christianity is perceived by young Vysotsky as something exotic, even comical. So, in contrast to the song of Galich, similar in name, the song "About the Devil" (1966) is a purely comic sketch, somewhat reminiscent of Antosha Chekhonte's story "A conversation between a drunk and a sober devil." The well-known motive - the drunkard saw the devil as a symbol of a fair amount of intoxication. The problem is that it's basically missing. This song was written in conjunction with other "exotic" songs - for example, about a lunatic asylum, about the constellation Tau Ceti, or about a boxer and a skater. Vysotsky laughs not only at the ministers of the cult: “The clergymen gaped open, // The Vatican hesitated a little, - // We threw the Pope at them here -// From ours, from the Poles, from the Slavs” / 346 /. He does not shun typical Soviet blasphemy against the gospel story of the Immaculate Conception (from the Soviet point of view, it is clearly exotic and humorous):

I'm coming back from work
I put the rasp against the wall, -
Suddenly someone flutters through the window
Out of bed from his wife!
Of course I ask:
"Who it?"
And she answers me:
"Holy Spirit!" /99/.

Of course, this song clearly belongs to the "genre" and is written on behalf of a role-playing hero. By the way, Vysotsky's detractors completely ignore the possibility of inadequacy of the author's position (and the position of the hero), naively (or deliberately) identifying the author and his hero. However, in this case, given that the declared blasphemous position is situational, that is, it entirely belongs to the described situation, is characteristic of the hero’s experiences, etc., it is still clear that a believer could not write such a song. It is a fact. But it would be sheer stupidity to reduce the poet's worldview, predominantly tragic, to this one unquestionably anti-Christian song.

Gradually, with the strengthening of the lyrical beginning, the motive of the tragic awareness of the problem of unbelief, the imperfection of the world around us increases in Vysotsky's work: “Light is darkness, there is no God!”; "Everything is not right!" /102/. He acutely feels the discreteness, fragmentation of the environment, the inferiority and inconsistency of his own worldview, discord with his own soul. On the one hand, he deliberately engages in self-molding the idol of the crowd, on the other hand, he tragically experiences loneliness and isolation from the soil. On the one hand, he continues to blaspheme: in the song “Coup in the brain from edge to edge ...” God “said: “I don’t give a damn about darkness!” - // And he declared that he would shoot many” /142/; in the song “On Fatal Dates and Figures” vulgarly interprets Christ: “he was a poet, he said: // “Thou shalt not kill!” If you kill, I will find it everywhere, they say” /166/; and in the song "I don't love!" casually declares: “I do not like violence and impotence, - // That's just a pity for the crucified Christ” / 127 /. “Pity for the crucified Christ” is far from being Christianity. This is just one more of the "positive" auto-characteristics in the self-promotion synodic.

On the other hand, such a deep, central song for all creativity appears as “Fussy Horses”. The lyrical hero is a nomad, a wanderer, cut off from home, from his family, from his homeland. He matches the central symbol of Vysotsky's poetics - the horse. Paradoxically, the hero himself whips, drives horses, and at the same time begs:

A little slower, horses, a little slower!
I beg you not to fly! /189/.

The key line to all Vysotsky's work, of course, is from this song: “I feel with deadly delight I'm lost, I'm lost!

In this desperate balancing on the edge of the abyss - and the temptation of suicide, and painful passion up to some kind of sadomasochism, and the true tragedy of a wrong life. The hero of Vysotsky yearns for faith, without faith, longs for it, but at the same time he doubts - both in it and in his ability to believe. Therefore, he imagines that "angels sing with such evil voices."

This theme is further developed in Paradise Apples, where the longed-for paradise turns out to be a concentration camp:

And in the midst of nothing towered cast gates,
And a huge stage - five thousand - was sitting on his knees / 340 /.

A la folklore hero-shooter, roaming, jumped into paradise, which turned out to be a place "dead and chilly", whose "gardens guard and shoot without a miss in the forehead." He galloped out of mischief - for apples - and managed to return with prey to his beloved, as befits a fairy-tale hero. It is interesting that Vysotsky transfers the Galich motif of the world-shifter here from earth to heaven. The comic feeling and depiction of Christianity was replaced by a skeptical-tragic one.

The motif of the world-shifter was also realized by Vysotsky in the "Parable of Truth and Lies" (compare with Galich's "Spell of Good and Evil"). It is strange that this song is dedicated to Okudzhava. It would be more appropriate to dedicate it to Galich, who depicted the world turned upside down, with concepts shifted to an absurd opposite: Good is Evil, and Evil is Good. Likewise with Vysotsky:

Rough Lies pulled the blanket over themselves,
I drank into Truth - and was completely satisfied.
And she got up and cut her face like a bulldog:
A woman is like a woman, and why should she please her?! -
There is no difference between Truth and Falsehood, -
Unless, of course, both of them are undressed /312/.

Increasingly, Vysotsky laments the lack of faith in the fatherland:

«<...>From time immemorial we
In evil and in a whisper,
Under the icons
In black soot."

And a few lines earlier:

The light of the lamps went out,
Air poured out...
Ali live at your place
Have you forgotten how? /265/

Vysotsky once finds this land in the past, in Orthodox Rus' - the song "Domes":

Domes in Russia are covered with pure gold -
So that the Lord notices more often /289/.

It becomes more and more important for him, “into which abyss in the end” to shout. In the last songs, the question of faith, the dualism of human nature, occupies a central place. The tragedy, the feeling of splitting intensifies: "On the left are demons, on the right are demons ..."; "My black man in a gray suit..."; “A furry, vicious redneck lives in me // With callused, tenacious hands” / 351-353 /.

That is, the struggle is on two fronts: on the outside, with the demons and temptations of the world, with the gray undead of gray life, and on the inside, on the very one where "the devil and God are fighting." The conqueror of external heights, yesterday's romantic, in the struggle with his passions, with the "furry evil redneck", I think, did not completely overcome him, although he asserted, like a spell: "But I know what is false and what is holy" / 352 /; “I have something to sing, having appeared before the Almighty, / I have something to justify myself before him” / 356 /.

In the key quote "Timelessness poured vodka into us" /354/ timelessness can be read as unbelief- and it is still unknown what is in this bundle timelessness - unbelief consequence and what is the cause.

Noteworthy is the view of Vysotsky, expressed by V. N. Trostnikov in the samizdat article of 1980 “And we had Vysotsky”. Trostnikov compares Vysotsky's mission with the activities of the Russian educators of the 18th-19th centuries - only in contrast to the educators, who "instilled reason in the people, Vysotsky instills feeling", since by the time of Vysotsky "Russia had become a country with a huge head" stuffed "with schematic constructions and insensitive tiny heart." Vysotsky "in post-war Russia became the first true university of our feelings ... His vital task was the emotional enlightenment of the people." Vysotsky, according to Trostnikov, became a kind of bridge to the lost culture, having assimilated "the mass of things and events crowding around" and "raising them to the level of the highest mystical reality." Therefore, Trostnikov believes, Vysotsky is "a typically creative poet."

As if developing this idea, O. Yu. Shilina believes that Vysotsky "can be attributed to those artists in whose work Christianity plays the role of a certain organizing force, putting a lot in its place" .

Interesting in this case is the attitude of some church ministers to the work of Vysotsky, which is represented by a recent article by the priest Mikhail Khodanov in several issues of Literary Russia. The opinion of the priest is in many respects the opposite of the opinion of the newly-appeared zealots of the Christian faith quoted at the beginning of the chapter, namely: “Vysotsky’s bright talent,” Khodanov believes, “is largely identical with the active expression of feasible love and compassion for one’s neighbor.” Just like o. Georgy Chistyakov speaks about Okudzhava, Fr. Mikhail Khodanov believes that Vysotsky, "being non-church during his life, nevertheless strove to live in accordance with the internal laws of human conscience."

The world created by Vysotsky is deep and great. It found a place for both Good and Evil, and the devil and God, but in general, the moral guidelines indicated by the author, the moral qualities sung by Vysotsky - kindness, justice, friendly participation - are deeply Christian. Like Okudzhava, Vysotsky does not draw enemies in detail - only friends, and "the hands of a friend" are always close. And Vysotsky's humor is mostly harmless and harmless.

In conclusion, one more quotation from Fr. Mikhail Khodanov: “With his creative burning, openness and extreme tension, the desire for purity, light and subsequent breakdowns into the abyss of vicious addictions, the poet very much reminds us of a special inner quality of the dechurched and long-suffering Russian people - their latent craving for God and frequent deepest falls in<...>bottomless darkness followed by a painful rebirth through repentance.

Crusade of Alexander Galich

Galich began to write songs at a fairly mature age - in any case, those that are usually attributed to the genre of author's song. Actually, the songs became the fruits of his creative maturity. Having repented of a frivolous past, he came to Christianity, to Orthodoxy. “Somehow I didn’t even think for a second about the topic “why?”, “Why?”. But I just couldn’t do it any other way - for me it was the only way, the only light, the only opportunity to recognize myself as a person - a person in the Christian, divine sense of the word, ”said Galich in an interview. “By this time (by 1972) he was very much strengthened in faith in the Lord. In baptism, there was also the opportunity to tie oneself as tightly as possible to this country and its people.<...>And how good he was in church! He was going up somewhere, it was obvious, ”recalls his godfather, N. Karetnikov.

Galich was baptized by Father Alexander Men.

Here is how Galich himself spoke about this: “Somewhere in the late 60s, I became interested in literature of a philosophical and religious content.<...>I came across the work of the priest Father Alexander ... it seemed to me that this<...>a person who has the quality that the writer Tynyanov called "the quality of presence"<...>Then one fine day I decided to go and just look at him... I stood the service, listened to the sermon, and then, together with all those praying, I went to kiss the cross. And then a small miracle happened.<...>Father Alexander put his hand on my shoulder and said: “Hello, Alexander Arkadyevich. I've been waiting for you for such a long time. It's good that you've come."

The Christianity of Galich is unconditional and expressive. With the hasty ardor of a man who suddenly believes, he sets out on a crusade against unrighteous reality. Guided by the ideals of the higher, true world, he enters into a merciless struggle with the earthly, sinful world - with the System, which is a synonym for Evil, the Empire of Evil. However, he fights the System according to its own rules. The system recognizes two colors - black and white, only because of its absurdity it turns everything upside down - and Galich, trying to restore justice in the world-shifter, does not question the duality.

Reality in the interpretation of Galich is phantasmagoric and absurd, endowed with clearly infernal features. In the description of Evil, Galich clearly succeeded. If Okudzhava tries not to notice Evil, Vysotsky laughs at Evil in the face, looks for cute features in him, over which he can play a good joke, then for Galich Evil is real. Superreal. So, the devil comes to visit the poet, who has already managed to seduce everything around, offering to accept the rules of the game of this world (already hell), to enter into a deal so as not to look like a white crow among the sinful world in which "everyone is as one!" and “on the conscience the price is a nickel!”. The everyday life of crimes is emphasized: deals with the devil “in our atomic age, in our stone age” are no longer signed with blood, but with simple ink.

In the New Year's Phantasmagoria, a vulgar booze turns into a satanic coven:

And then I lie down on the table, on the solemn one,
And I'll put a paper rose in a grinning mouth,
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
It will be funny, it will cause laughter to tears,
And the hostess will lick my forehead like a grateful dog,
And the colonel, having overslept, will again take up his own,
And, having cut off my leg, he will give it to her mistress ...

In the "Night Watch" "plaster stumps are scratched" along the streets - and this ominous "parade of freaks" is hosted by the ominous "bronze generalissimo", "repeated a thousand times" / 81 /.

The vigilant major Chistov writes down other people's dreams. A retired Chekist-supervisor exiles the Black Sea along a stage to Inta.

The picture of the writer's trial of Pasternak, repeated in the real biography of Galich himself, is also infernal:

I, placed on the right,
Suddenly I saw such faces -
More terrible than carnival faces! /119/.

The characters of Galich are woven into a single tragic farce, infernal carnival, and the author is unequivocal in his choice. He opposes Christian values ​​to this Sabbath, confronting Good with Evil - perhaps too simplistic. So, in the “Poem about Stalin”, Stalin, the “father of nations”, who imagines himself superior to God, taunts the Christ child:

You were just a forerunner
Not a creator, but a victim of the elements,
You are not a son of God, but a man,
If he could exclaim: "Thou shalt not kill!".
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Weak in soul and mind, not strong,
You believed both God and the king.
I won't repeat your mistakes
I won't repeat any of them!

And he dies in writhing, begging God to prolong his life. The idol of Evil is defeated, but his cause is alive. The poem ends not with a victory march, but with a prayer chant - "Ave Maria".

The hymn of righteous deed and holiness sounds another poem - "Kaddish", dedicated to the memory of Janusz Korczak. The motive of repentance and despair sounds in the finale:

I don't know how to pray, forgive me, Lord God!
I don't know how to pray, forgive me and help me!.. .

Despair sometimes leads Galich to generalizations that are by no means Christian. In his temper, he disputes the Christian commandment: "Judge not, lest you be judged." There is contempt:

And there is no darkness, no insight,
And you are neither alive nor dead.
And I'm only glad that there is contempt,
Reliable healer of all grievances /201/.

This quote echoes a quote from a November 1974 interview. In interpreting his Christianity, Galich expresses clearly unchristian feelings, unwillingness to forgive both the oppressor and the oppressed. “The Christian religion is not a religion of forgiveness. She is religion mercy. That is, we can, without forgiving, be merciful to our enemies<...>First we must take stock of the regime's crimes. And then we will pray for them.” (Highlighted ed. cit. - D.K.).

But irreconcilable contempt does not heal, it corrects, distorts Christian feelings - so Galich forgives, not quite forgiving, and asks for forgiveness not quite, with a mockery:

Sinful me - forgive me, sinners,
Vile - sorry, scoundrels! /184/.

Isn't that why the already cited V. Trostnikov calls Galich a typically destructive poet?

However, in despair, Galich continues to seek salvation in God. In the poem "Psalm" a person who went out in search of God continually molds himself an idol, a god with a small letter - from clay, from fear, from the word. "Go and kill!" - repeats his created idol, leading a person to horror, to despair. But still:

But again I'm sad and stern
In the morning I go out of the door -
In Search of a Good God
And, oh, God help me! /198/.

Actually, after many years of despair and struggle, Galich comes to Christian harmony, balance and peace of mind, enlightenment, perhaps, only in one of the last, “quiet” songs:

When I'll come back,
I'll go to that one house
Where the sky cannot compete with the blue dome,
And the smell of incense, like the smell of shelter bread,
It will hit me and splash in my heart /209/.

The experience of the religious development of domestic bards is also valuable because it is the experience of independent experience of religious feelings in a country of militant atheism, an individual path to God. This process took place in the years when even such an advanced magazine as Novy Mir, the flagship of the “thaw” democracy, was actively promoting atheistic propaganda. Turning to God required will and courage.

Now, however, some of the sixties force their religious feelings, artificially cultivating in themselves that which is impossible to educate. Therefore, their Orthodox moralizing in verse is very unconvincing - they seem to be disguised atheists too much.

Notes

Voznesensky A. Our profile: Young people about themselves // Vopr. lit. 1962. No. 9. S. 122-123.

Poetry day. M., 1968. S. 142.

Cm.: Andreev Yu. What are they singing? // October. 1965. No. 1. S. 183.

Okudzhava B. XX century: milestones of history - milestones of fate: Questionnaire // Friendship of peoples. 1997. No. 4. S. 189.

Boyko S. S. On the pragmatic nature of the use of the word "atheist" in the questionnaire statements of Bulat Okudzhava // Functional Linguistics: Pragmatics of the Text. Conf. Yalta, 6-10 Oct. Simferopol, 1997. S. 21-22.

Okudzhava B. Tea drinking on the Arbat. M., 1997. S. 80. Further - references to this edition with the page number.

Aksenov V. Everyone writes how he breathes... // Spec. issue [Ref. gas.]. 1997. . S. 8.

Chistyakov G. As he knew how, he lived, but nature does not know the sinless // Spec. issue [Ref. gas.]. 1997. . S. 8.

Continent. 1992. No. 2 (72). pp. 323-341.

Blagovest. 1988. No. 5. Cited. From: Through the pages of samizdat: Sat. M., 1990. S. 216-218.

Pereyaslov N.V. Riddles of Literature: Sat. literary critic. Art. Samara, 1996. S. 46-52.

There. S. 49.

Kowalji K. Letters to "Continent" // Continent. 1992. Issue. 74. S. 342.

Vysotsky V. Poetry and prose. M., 1989. S. 288. Further - references to this edition with the page number in slash brackets in the text.

Cit. Quoted from: The World of Vysotsky: Research. and materials. Issue. 1. M., 1997. S. 130-148.

Shilina O. Yu. The poetry of V. Vysotsky in the light of the traditions of Christian humanism // Ibid. S. 116.

Khodanov M."I don't like it when it's halfway" // Lit. Russia. 1988. No. 7 (February 13). S. 13.

Karetnikov N. Readiness for being // Continent. 1992. No. 1 (71). S. 52.

Galic A. I choose freedom: Sat. M., 1991. (Verb No. 3). S. 60.

Galic A. Return. L., 1989. S. 195.

Galic A. Petersburg Romance: Sat. L., 1989. S. 36. Further - references to this edition with the page number in the text, except as otherwise noted.

Galic A. Return. S. 243.

Galic A. Dress rehearsal. M., 1991. S. 125.

Galic A."I believe in the triumph of the word" // World of Vysotsky. S. 375.

1. Christianity in the culture of Russia.

2. Basic Christian motives.
3. Symbolism of numbers.
4. Biblical names.
5. The idea of ​​human humanity.

Christianity brought to Rus' in the 10th century left a deep imprint on almost all levels of human life - cultural, spiritual, physical. In addition, it was thanks to Christianity, or rather Orthodoxy, that writing appeared in Rus', and literature along with it. It is impossible to deny the influence of Christianity on a Russian person, just as it is impossible to deny the influence of this religion on art - painting, music, literature. In particular, the deepest conviction in the truth of the ideals of Orthodoxy is contained in the works of the great Russian writer F. M. Dostoevsky. The novel "Crime and Punishment" is the clearest confirmation of this.

The religiosity of the writer, his sincere faith in the power of Orthodoxy amaze with its purity and strength. Dostoevsky is interested in such categories as sin and virtue, sinner and saint, morality and its absence. The protagonist of the novel, Rodion Raskolnikov, is the key to understanding these concepts. Initially, he carries the sin of pride in himself, not only in deeds, but also in thoughts. Having absorbed the theory of earthly Napoleons, trembling and right-handed creatures, the hero turns out to be drugged by ideals unusual for him. He kills an old pawnbroker, not yet realizing that he is destroying not so much her as himself, his soul. This is followed by purgatory on earth - having gone a long way through remorse, self-destruction and despair, the hero finds his salvation in love for Sonya Marmeladova,

The concepts of suffering, love, purification are central to the Christian religion. Deprived of repentance and love, people cannot know the true light and are forced to remain in darkness. So, Svidrigailov, even during his lifetime, knows what hell will look like for him - a place like "a black bathhouse with spiders and mice." When this hero is mentioned in the text, the word “devil” constantly appears, and even the good that he can and wants to do turns out to be unnecessary, useless. Later, Raskolnikov himself, in his penitential speech, will say that the devil is persecuting him: "The devil led me to a crime." But if Svidrigailov commits suicide, which is the most terrible sin in the Christian religion, then the repentant Raskolnikov is capable of purification and rebirth.

The motif of prayer is important in the framework of the novel. The protagonist himself prays, despite his initial aspirations. After the episode of the dream about the horse, Raskolnikov prays, but his prayers are not destined to be heard because of the depravity of the one who prays, and therefore he has no choice but to commit a long-planned and tormenting crime. Sonechka, the daughter of the owner of the apartment, the children of Katerina Ivanovna, who is preparing herself for the monastery, are constantly praying. Prayer, as an important and integral part of the life of a Christian, becomes the same integral part of the novel.

An important role is played within the framework of the work by two more holy symbols of the Christian religion - the cross and holy scripture. The gospel, which previously belonged to Lizaveta, is given to Raskolnikov by Sonya. Reading it, the hero is reborn spiritually. The cross, also Lizavetin, the hero at first does not accept it because he is not ready for repentance and awareness of his sin, but then he finds the strength to take it, which also indicates a spiritual rebirth.

The significance of religion in the novel, the religiosity of its text are enhanced by constant associations, analogies with biblical stories. There is also a reference to the biblical Lazarus, which sounds in the epilogue of the novel from the lips of Sonechka, who tells the story of him to Raskolnikov on the fourth day after the hero committed the crime. At the same time, in the parable itself there is a mention that Lazarus was also resurrected on the fourth day. In fact, Raskolnikov is dead, he lies in a coffin - in his closet, and Sonya comes in order to save, heal and resurrect him. Present in the text, organically intertwining in it, are such parables as the story of Cain and Abel, the parable of the harlot (“if anyone is not sinful, let him be the first to throw a stone at her”), the parable of the publican and the Pharisee, the parable of Martha, fussing all over life about the empty and missing the very essence of life (associations with Svidrigailov's wife Marfa Petrovna).

It is easy to trace the gospel principles in the names of the characters. They are talking. Here it is necessary to give a Christopher example about Martha and Martha Petrovna, here it is necessary to say about Kapernaumov, the man from whom Sonya rented a room (Capernaum is the biblical city from which the harlot came), about Ilya Petrovich (combination of the names Ilya - the holy thunderer and Peter - hard as a stone), about Lizaveta (Elizabeth - worshiping God, holy fool), about Katerina (Catherine - pure, bright).

Of great importance are the numbers, which also refer the reader to biblical motifs. The most common numbers are three, seven and eleven. Sonya gives Marmeladov 30 kopecks, the first time she brings 30 rubles “from work”, Martha redeems Svidrigailov with the same 30 kopecks, and he, like Judas, betrays her. Svidrigailov offers Duna "up to thirty", and Raskolnikov hits the old woman three times on the head. The hero commits a murder at the seventh hour, and the number seven in Orthodoxy is a symbol of the unity of man and God. Committing a crime, Raskolnikov tries to break the oppressive connection and ends up with mental anguish and seven years of hard labor.

The main biblical motif that matters for the novel is the motif of voluntary acceptance of torment and recognition of one's sins. It is no coincidence that Mikola wants to take the blame for the protagonist. But Raskolnikov, led by Sonya, refuses such a sacrifice: it would not bring him the long-awaited consolation. He accepts Sonya's request for public repentance and recognition of his sins and voluntarily goes for it. And only then does he become ready for spiritual and spiritual rebirth.

Christian motives in the work of Russian writers

I AM GOING TO THE LESSON

Tatiana FOMINA,
school number 14,
Polysaevo,
Kemerovo region.

Christian motives in the work of Russian writers

Teaching the humanities at school opens up opportunities for getting to know the key texts that have made up the culture of mankind. Among such texts, the Bible occupies one of the first places.

Acquaintance with the Bible at school should interest us from the point of view of literary criticism and linguistics, primarily because it is one of the first written texts (translated), representing “a rather economical collection of texts in terms of volume, including different genres. These are works in which the myth of the origin of the universe and man is presented, ethnological works, theological, ethical-legal, historical-political, hymnological, biographical, love canon, parables, prophetological and military-historical works” (Rozhdestvensky Yu.V.).

The entire world culture - music, painting, literature, theater - is permeated with the motifs of the Bible, to one degree or another contains its elements. Without knowledge of biblical commandments, plots, biblical expressions, it is impossible to fully join the culture created by mankind.

In most current literary education programs, exposure to the Bible is kept to a minimum and only takes place in the 6th grade. The program edited by T.F. Kurdyumova (M.: Drofa, 2000) is supposed to read and discuss the story "The Nativity of Jesus Christ" and the parables "About the Prodigal Son" and "About the Good Samaritan".

In the textbook-reader on literature for the 6th grade, the author-compiler of which is V.P. Polukhina (M.: Prosveshchenie, 1999–2001), the legend of the Tower of Babel has been added to the Bible texts listed above. The named textbook is included in the complex that provides the process of literary education according to the program edited by V.Ya. Korovina (M.: Enlightenment, 2000). But for some reason, not a single hour is allotted for acquaintance with biblical stories by the program itself, and the Bible is not mentioned at all. The program edited by G.I. Belenky and Yu.I. Lyssogo (M.: Mnemozina, 2001).

Noteworthy is the program edited by A.G. Kutuzov. In grades 5–9, students are supposed to get acquainted with spiritual literature and its influence on secular literature, but only mainly in connection with the study of any work of ancient Russian literature.

As you can see, the conversation about the Bible is conducted in most cases with students of middle school age. Will a ten-eleven-year-old student be able to appreciate the Bible as a literary monument if he is offered not the original text (which is quite understandable by the age of the students), but a retelling of biblical stories?

This is where the acquaintance with the Holy Scriptures in the school course ends and is in no way linked with the works of Russian writers. The programs do not provide for the study of the influence of Christian ideas, the moral meaning of Christianity on the formation of Russian literature, and even more so, they do not aim to study the embodiment of Christian plots and images in the work of writers.

To fill this gap, I consider it necessary to create a system of work in this direction, and you need to start from the 6th grade.

At the beginning of the school year, in literature lessons with 6th grade students (the study of literature is carried out according to the program of V.Ya. Korovina), we get acquainted with the history of the Birth of Jesus Christ, with the tradition of celebrating Christmas in Russia and other countries.

Before the Christmas holidays, we return to this topic: at the extracurricular reading lesson, we talk about Christmas stories by Russian writers (“Angel” by L. Andreev, “Christ's Boy on the Christmas Tree” by F.M. Dostoevsky). Pupils of the 6th grade easily recall a “story” with a similar plot - about a girl who got on a Christmas tree to God (G.-H. Andersen. “The Girl with Matches”).

It is appropriate to talk about the Christian subtext in connection with the study of Belkin's Tales by A.S. Pushkin. The guys easily draw parallels between the parable "About the Prodigal Son" and "The Stationmaster". The moral meaning of the parables is quickly captured by the students, and they themselves can evaluate the actions of the heroes, their comrades, their actions against the backdrop of biblical stories.

We are talking about the use of Christian motives with students when studying in the 7th grade "The Tale of Peter and Fevronia of Murom", the poems "Angel" and "Prayer" by M.Yu. Lermontov.

Acquaintance with the Bible and Christian motives in Russian literature at this stage is of a propaedeutic nature. A deeper understanding of the Holy Scriptures and Christian stories and images is supposed to start from the 9th grade.

The study of literature in the senior classes, based on the historical and literary approach, does not imply an appeal to the texts of the Holy Scriptures, although it seems to me possible and necessary to include a system of lessons devoted to getting to know the Bible in the course of literature of the 9th grade. The system of lessons does not aim to give an "overview", much less an exhaustive comprehension of the Bible. It is important that during these lessons the students feel the artistic perfection and the religious-humanistic, moral content of the greatest monument of world culture, feel the originality of the poetic language of the Bible, and be able to determine the meaning of the Bible in the context of world literature.

I take 3 hours to get acquainted with the Bible in the 9th grade.

In the first lesson, the conversation is about the origin of the Bible, about the book of Genesis (ch. 1–4, 7), about creation and the divine basis of the universe, about the moral and everyday postulates of human life.

In the next lesson, we are talking about the prophets, about their special purpose. We read the book of Exodus (ch. 3), the Book of the Prophet Isaiah (ch. 6, 58). After getting acquainted with the poem by A.S. Pushkin's "Prophet" we compare the biblical prophet and Pushkin's (we talk in more detail about the biblical basis of the poem when studying the work of A.S. Pushkin). We dwell on the Psalms (51, 52, 81) from the Psalter and do not disregard the Parables of Solomon (ch. 2-3, 13), drawing a parallel between the parables of King Solomon and the "Instruction" of Vladimir Monomakh. At the end of the lesson, we conclude that in the Old Testament one can hear the voices of both prophets and kings who are not indifferent to the fate of their people. We note that the Psalter and the Proverbs of Solomon are distinguished by special poetry and musicality.

The third lesson is devoted to the Song of Songs (1-4, 6, 8) and the Gospel of Matthew (ch. 1, 4, 5) and their influence on literature. At the lesson, excerpts from the story of A.I. Kuprin "Shulamith" (ch. 4), poems by A. Blok, A. Akhmatova. Students notice that the Song of Songs is a hymn of sublime love, filled with poetic inspiration, created on the basis of love folk lyrics.

Having become acquainted with the key pages of the Gospel, the students felt that this book is more restrained than the Old Testament, it does not have that emotionality that is inherent in the Old Testament. We conclude the lesson with a discussion of the fragments of Ch. Aitmatov's "Plakha" (part 2, ch. 2) in comparison with the original source (ch. 27 of the Gospel of Matthew). Summing up, we say that many writers turn to the image of Christ, since again it becomes the highest moral ideal for man and mankind, showing the way to goodness, love, and mercy. The appeal to gospel stories is also explained by the search for new means of artistic generalization.

Only after such a preliminary acquaintance will students be able to consciously approach the conversation about Christian images and plots, their reflection in Russian literature. The Bible is a literary monument that lies at the origins of our entire written verbal culture. Writers of different times and peoples used the images and plots of the Bible as the basis of their stories, novels, and novels.

“In Russian literature, among the great Russian writers, religious themes and religious motives were stronger than in any literature of the world. All our literature of the 19th century is wounded by the Christian theme, all of it seeks salvation, all of it seeks deliverance from evil, suffering, the horror of life ... The combination of torment for God with torment for man makes Russian literature Christian even when in their minds Russian writers retreated from Christian faith” (N.A. Berdyaev).

The student who is not familiar with the Bible by paraphrasing does not have to impose his explanation when reading such works as A.S. Pushkin, M.Yu. Lermontov or N.A. Nekrasov, "Crime and Punishment" by F.M. Dostoevsky, poems by Yuri Zhivago from the novel by B.L. Pasternak "Doctor Zhivago" and others. Such a student himself will be able to compare "Judas Iscariot" by L. Andreev and chapters from the novel "The Master and Margarita" by M.A. Bulgakov, and in their correlation with the Bible. In order to organize work with students to study works in comparison with biblical stories, I developed didactic materials that consist of a system of questions and tasks for a work (or episode) and an informer card. The information card includes texts of the Holy Scriptures, reference material from encyclopedias, dictionaries, works or excerpts from the works of writers or (for comparison) excerpts from the critical works of literary critics.

Turning to the study of literature in high school classes of works of the 19th-20th centuries from the point of view of the use of Christian plots and images in them, we solve the following tasks:

• introducing students to the spiritual heritage of their people;
• education of love and respect for the Motherland, for its people, for its culture, traditions;
• the formation of students' ability to determine their attitude to what they read, to the interpretation of the canonical text in the work of a particular writer.

In the 9th grade, studying the work of A.S. Pushkin, we are talking about the biblical basis of the poems "The Prophet" (The Book of the Prophet Isaiah, ch. 6), "The gift is in vain, the gift is accidental" (The Book of Job, ch. 1, st. 1, 6, 8, 12; ch. 7, st. . 17-18, 20-21), "Remembrance" (Psalm, psalm 50).

For the analysis of poems, students receive an informer card with a biblical text and a card with tasks.

We analyze the poem "Prophet" on the following issues:

1. Compare the poem with a passage from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah. What is the difference between the plot of Pushkin's poem and the biblical plot?
2. Why did the seraph choose this particular person?
3. What does the meeting place mean - "crossroads"?
4. Why, in your opinion, did the seraphim change the organs of sight and hearing? How have the organs of vision and hearing changed?
5. Why was human language changed?
6. Why is a “quivering” heart not suitable for a prophet?
7. What turned a “corpse” into a prophet?
8. How does the vocabulary of the poem show the solemnity of the event?

Having examined the poem, we conclude that despite the fact that the poet uses a biblical story, the difference between them is obvious. In the Bible, the emphasis is on the unrighteousness of the surrounding society, which managed to defile the future prophet, from which he wished to be cleansed. In Pushkin, the emphasis is on the torturousness of the operation to transform a person into a prophet. The hero goes through torment and death, being reborn as a prophet, and gets the right to bring the will of the Divine to people. The poem makes extensive use of words and phrases from the Bible. The poem sounds solemn.

Getting acquainted with the work of M.Yu. Lermontov, we compare the "Prophet" by Pushkin and Lermontov. The information card contains passages from the Book of the Prophet Jeremiah (ch. 1, vv. 4–10, ch. 19, vv. 14–15, ch. 20, v. 8), from the Lamentations of Jeremiah (ch. 4, v. 11 -13).

The following questions help you compare the two poems.

1. Are the plots of the poems "The Prophet" by Pushkin and Lermontov similar? What biblical story does Lermontov use?
2. How does the image of the poet-prophet M.Yu. Lermontov? How does he differ from the prophet A.S. Pushkin?
3. What was revealed to the poet-prophet in the poems of Pushkin and Lermontov?
4. How is the confrontation between the poet and society intensified in Lermontov's poem? What images create an idea of ​​the poet's tragedy?
5. Do people need a prophetic gift?
6. Where does Lermontov's poet find peace of mind?
7. What role does the image of the desert play in the poems of A.S. Pushkin and M.Yu. Lermontov?
8. What is the lexical structure of Lermontov's poem?
9. What is the mission of the prophet in Lermontov's poem?

After analyzing the poem, the students notice that the theme of the prophet in the work of M.Yu. Lermontov is revealed as tragic. Unlike Pushkin, who endowed the prophet with supernatural properties, Lermontov introduces simple human traits into the description of his hero, even everyday details. Lermontov deliberately renounces the solemn elation of Pushkin's poem, saturated with Slavicisms and archaisms, using modern vocabulary, simplicity of style, colloquial intonations.

The Christian model of the world as the basis of the idea of ​​"Dead Souls" is discussed in connection with the study of the poem by N.V. Gogol.

In the 10th grade, we again turn to the topic of prophecy when we get acquainted with the works of N.A. Nekrasov. Here it is appropriate to mention the interweaving of historical and evangelical reality in the poems “Vlas”, “Prophet” (“Do not say: “He forgot caution!”), In the poem “Who lives well in Rus'”.

Card with tasks for the poem "Prophet" by N.A. Nekrasov looks like this:

1. Who fulfills the mission of the prophet in Nekrasov's poem?
2. From whose perspective is the story being told? How many points of view are expressed in Nekrasov's poem?
3. What is the mission of the Nekrasov prophet? Who evaluates the fate of the prophet?
4. Find in each stanza of the poem the words that, in your opinion, correlate with the theme of God's chosenness, destiny, renunciation of one's "I".
5. How is this reflected in the tone of the poem? Can we say that we are talking about stylization, a deliberate choice of words of high style?
6. Has the mission of the prophet been fulfilled in Nekrasov's poem? Is there an indication of this in the poem?
7. Read the last stanza of the poem. The poem was originally published without it. In 1877, Nekrasov gave I.N. Kramskoy a copy of "The Last Songs", which includes the poem "Prophet", and the last stanza was inscribed by the poet by hand, and the sixteenth, last, line was accidentally cut off when the book was bound. What has changed in the poem with the inclusion of the last stanza?
8. What are the first two lines talking about? Whose fate is related to the fate of the prophet? Why?
9. Consider a reproduction of the painting by I.N. Kramskoy "Christ in the Desert".

According to art historians, Kramskoy's canvas and Nekrasov's poem are consonant. What do you think this consonance is?

Having become acquainted with the poem, the guys conclude that the mission of the prophet in the poem by N.A. Nekrasov performs an ideal public figure. In addition to the point of view of the lyrical hero himself, in the poem, with the help of direct speech, the points of view of the unknown, reproaching prophet, and the prophet are conveyed. Nekrasov shows the history of the prophet not from the inside, but from the outside, objectifying it to the utmost.

The assessment of the fate of the prophet is made by people - a “reproachful” and lyrical hero. The purpose of the prophet is to remind people immersed in vanity and “life for themselves” about God not in word, but in deed, by their sacrifice on the cross.

In a similar way, we organize the work in the study of "Crime and Punishment", speaking about the Christian symbolism of the novel by F.M. Dostoevsky. The gospel subtext is evident in the works of A.P. Chekhov ("Student", "Bishop", "Ionych"). Through the prism of the Christian value system, we consider Chekhov's ideal of harmony between man and the world.

In the 11th grade, work on the study of Christian plots and images continues with the analysis of L. Andreev's story "Judas Iscariot", the stories "Shulamith" and "Garnet Bracelet" by A.I. Kuprin, the play “At the Bottom” and the story “The Old Woman Izergil” by M. Gorky, the poems by A. Blok “The Nightingale Garden” and “The Twelve”, “Bible Verses” by A. Akhmatova, the novel “The Master and Margarita” by M.A. Bulgakov and the novel by B.L. Pasternak "Doctor Zhivago".

When speaking in literature lessons about the use of Christian motifs, it must be remembered that we are dealing with the interpretation of the canonical text in the work of one or another writer, but not copying biblical stories and not an attempt by any author to create his own “Scripture”.

Interest in the Bible has not weakened among scientists, philosophers, writers for centuries. The need to turn to the Bible, its great educational value was emphasized by L. Tolstoy: "It is impossible to replace this book." Turning to the Bible in literature lessons is the displacement of the lack of spirituality that has struck society, the revival of our roots.