Perhaps the works of Alexander Sergeevich most often attracted attention. The novel "Eugene Onegin" inspired the brilliant composer P.I. Tchaikovsky to create the opera of the same name. Libretto, which only in general terms resembles the original source, Konstantin Shilovsky. Only the love line of 2 couples remained from the novel - Lensky and Olga, Onegin and Tatyana. Onegin's mental turmoil, due to which he was included in the list of "superfluous people", is excluded from the plot. The opera was first staged in 1879 and since then has been included in the repertoire of almost every Russian opera house.
It is impossible not to recall the story "The Queen of Spades" and created by P.I. Tchaikovsky based on its motives in 1890. The libretto was written by the composer's brother, M.I. Tchaikovsky. Pyotr Ilyich personally wrote the words for Yeletsky's arias in Act II and Liza in Act III.
The story "The Queen of Spades" was translated into French by Prosper Merime and became the basis of the opera written by the composer F. Halevi.
Pushkin's drama "Boris Godunov" formed the basis of the great opera written by Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky in 1869. The premiere of the performance took place only 5 years later due to obstacles. The ardent enthusiasm of the public did not help - the opera was removed from the repertoire several times for censorship reasons. Obviously, the genius of both authors highlighted too clearly the problem of the relationship between the autocrat and the people, as well as the price that one has to pay for power.
Here are some more works by A.S. Pushkin, which became the literary basis of the operas: The Golden Cockerel, The Tale of Tsar Saltan (N.A. Rimsky-Korsakov), Mazepa (P.I. Tchaikovsky), The Little Mermaid (A.S. Dargomyzhsky), "Ruslan and Lyudmila" (M.I. Glinka), "Dubrovsky" (E.F. Napravnik).
M.Yu. Lermontov in music
On the basis of Lermontov's poem "The Demon", a well-known literary critic and researcher of his work P.A. Viskovatov wrote the libretto for the opera by the famous composer A.G. Rubinstein. The opera was written in 1871 and staged at the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg in 1875.
A.G. Rubinstein wrote music for another work by Lermontov: "The Song about the Merchant Kalashnikov." An opera entitled The Merchant Kalashnikov was staged in 1880 at the Mariinsky Theatre. The author of the libretto was N. Kulikov.
The drama of Mikhail Yuryevich "Masquerade" became the basis for the libretto of the ballet "Masquerade" by A.I. Khachaturian.
Other Russian writers in music
The drama "The Tsar's Bride" by the famous Russian poet L.A. Mea formed the basis of Rimsky-Korsakov's opera written at the end of the 19th century. The action takes place at the court of Ivan the Terrible and bears the pronounced features of that era.
Rimsky-Korsakov's opera The Maid of Pskov, for which the composer himself wrote the libretto based on L.A. May.
Rimsky-Korsakov also wrote music for the opera The Snow Maiden based on the fairy tale by the great Russian playwright A.N. Ostrovsky.
Opera based on the fairy tale by N.V. Gogol's "May Night" was written by Rimsky-Korsakov based on the composer's own libretto. Another work of the great writer, "The Night Before Christmas", became the literary basis of P.I. Tchaikovsky "Cherevichki".
In 1930, the Soviet composer D.D. Shostakovich wrote the opera "Katerina Izmailova" based on the novel by N.S. Leskov "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District". The innovative music of Shostakovich caused a flurry of harsh politically motivated criticism. The opera was withdrawn from the repertoire and restored only in 1962.
Old Russian literature is a historically logical initial stage in the development of all Russian literature as a whole, and includes the literary works of the ancient Slavs, written from the 11th to the 17th century. The main prerequisites for its appearance can be considered various forms of oral creativity, legends and epics of the pagans, etc. The reasons for its occurrence are associated with the formation of the ancient Russian state of Kievan Rus, as well as with the baptism of Rus, it was they who gave impetus to the emergence of Slavic writing, which began to contribute to a more accelerated cultural development of the East Slavic ethnic group.
The Cyrillic alphabet, created by the Byzantine enlighteners and missionaries Cyril and Methodius, made it possible to open for the Slavs Byzantine, Greek and Bulgarian books, mostly church books, through which Christian teaching was transmitted. But due to the fact that in those days there were not so many books, for their distribution there was a need for their correspondence, this was mainly done by the ministers of the church: monks, priests or deacons. Therefore, all ancient Russian literature was handwritten, and at that time it happened that texts were not just copied, but rewritten and reworked for completely different reasons: literary tastes of readers changed, various socio-political rearrangements arose, etc. As a result, at the moment, various versions and editions of the same literary monument have been preserved, and it happens that it is quite difficult to establish the original authorship and a thorough textual analysis is required.
Most of the monuments of Old Russian literature have come down to us without the names of their creators, in essence they are basically anonymous, and in this respect this fact is very similar to the works of oral Old Russian folklore. Old Russian literature is distinguished by the solemnity and majesty of the writing style, as well as the traditional, ceremonial and repetitive plot lines and situations, various literary devices (epithets, phraseological units, comparisons, etc.).
The works of ancient Russian literature include not only the usual literature of that time, but also the historical records of our ancestors, the so-called annals and chronicle narratives, notes of travelers, according to ancient walking, as well as various lives of saints and teachings (biography of people ranked by the church as saints) , essays and messages of oratorical character, business correspondence. All monuments of the literary creativity of the ancient Slavs are characterized by the presence of elements of artistic creativity and emotional reflection of the events of those years.
Famous Old Russian works
At the end of the 12th century, an unknown storyteller created a brilliant literary monument of the ancient Slavs "The Tale of Igor's Campaign", which describes the campaign against the Polovtsy of Prince Igor Svyatoslavich from the Novgorod-Seversky Principality, which ended in failure and had sad consequences for the entire Russian land. The author is concerned about the future of all Slavic peoples and their long-suffering Motherland, recalling past and present historical events.
This work is distinguished by the presence of its inherent characteristic features, here there is an original processing of "etiquette", traditional techniques, it surprises and amazes the richness and beauty of the Russian language, fascinates the subtlety of rhythmic construction and special lyrical elation, admires and inspires the essence of the people and high civic pathos.
Epics are patriotic songs-tales, they tell about the life and exploits of heroes, describe events in the life of the Slavs in the 9th-13th centuries, express their high moral qualities and spiritual values. The famous epic "Ilya Muromets and the Nightingale the Robber" written by an unknown storyteller tells about the heroic deeds of the famous defender of the ordinary Russian people, the mighty hero Ilya Muromets, whose meaning of life was to serve the fatherland and protect it from the enemies of the Russian land.
The main negative character of the epic - the mythical Nightingale the Robber, half man, half bird, endowed with a destructive "animal cry", is the personification of robbery in Ancient Rus', which brought a lot of trouble and evil to ordinary people. Ilya Muromets acts as a generalized image of an ideal hero, howling on the side of good and defeating evil in all its manifestations. Of course, there are a lot of exaggerations and fabulous fiction in the epic, with regard to the fantastic strength of the hero and his physical capabilities, as well as the destructive effect of the whistle of the Nightingale-Rozboynik, but the main thing in this work is the highest goal and meaning of the life of the protagonist of the hero Ilya Muromets - to live and work peacefully on native land, in difficult times, always be ready to help the Fatherland.
A lot of interesting things about the way of life, way of life, beliefs and traditions of the ancient Slavs can be learned from the epic "Sadko", in the image of the main character (the merchant-guslar Sadko) all the best features and features of the mysterious "Russian soul" are embodied, this is both nobility and generosity , and courage, and resourcefulness, as well as boundless love for the Motherland, a remarkable mind, musical and singing talent. In this epic, both fairy-tale-fiction and realistic elements are surprisingly intertwined.
One of the most popular genres of ancient Russian literature is Russian fairy tales, they describe fantastic fictitious plots, unlike epics, and in which morality is necessarily present, some obligatory teaching and instruction for the younger generation. For example, the fairy tale “The Frog Princess”, well-known since childhood, teaches young listeners not to rush where it is not necessary, teaches kindness and mutual assistance and the fact that a kind and purposeful person on the way to his dream will overcome all obstacles and difficulties and will definitely achieve what he wants. .
Ancient Russian literature, consisting of a collection of the greatest historical manuscripts, is the national treasure of several peoples at once: Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian, is the "beginning of all beginnings", the source of all Russian classical literature and artistic culture in general. Therefore, every modern person who considers himself a patriot of his state and respects its history and the greatest achievements of his people is obliged to know her works, be proud of the great literary talent of his ancestors.
Homer or Virgil's Aeneid) as non-fiction fiction. In Russia, back in the 1820s, critics agreed that the best examples of Russian prose were Karamzin's The History of the Russian State and Nikolai Turgenev's The Experience of the Theory of Taxes. By separating the fiction of other periods from religious, philosophical, scientific, publicistic literature, we project our modern ideas into the past.
Nevertheless, literature has a number of universal properties that are unchanged in all national cultures and throughout human history, although each of these properties is associated with certain problems and reservations.
- Literature includes author's texts (including anonymous, that is, those whose author is unknown for one reason or another, and collective, that is, written by a group of people - sometimes quite numerous, if we are talking, for example, about an encyclopedia, but still certain). The fact that the text belongs to a certain author, was created by him, is important in this case not from a legal point of view (cf. copyright) and not from a psychological one (the author as a living person, information about which the reader can try to extract from the text being read), but because that the presence of a certain author in the text ensures completeness of this text: the author puts the last point, and after that the text begins to exist on its own. The history of culture knows the types of texts that exist according to other rules - for example, folklore: due to the lack of authorship, the text itself is not finally fixed, and the one who once again retells or rewrites it is free to make changes to it, sometimes quite significant. Certain records of such a text may be associated with the name of the writer or scientist who made such a record (for example, Afanasiev's Folk Russian Tales), however, such a literary fixation of a non-literary text does not negate the possibility of the existence of other versions of it, and the author of such a record belongs to this particular record, not the story itself.
- Another property is connected with the previous property: written texts belong to literature and oral texts do not. Oral creativity historically precedes the written one and before, unlike the written one, it was not amenable to fixation. Folklore has always been oral (until the 19th century, when its written forms began to appear - for example, girl's albums). Modernity knows, however, transitional and borderline cases. So, in national cultures that made a big leap in development in the 20th century, storytellers engaged in oral (poetic, on the verge of song) creativity were preserved or are preserved - before such songs would go into folklore and exist in it, changing and developing in the mouths of others performers, however, in modern times, the compositions, for example, of Dzhambul, were subjected to written fixation immediately after their creation and therefore exist as literary ones. Another way to turn oral creativity into writing is the so-called “literary record”: for example, the memoirs of the mother of Zoya and Alexander Kosmodemyansky, repeatedly published in a separate book, are recorded from her words and turned into a literary text by the writer Frida Vigdorova who interviewed her.
- Literature includes texts whose material is exclusively human language words, and does not include synthetic and syncretic texts, that is, those in which the verbal component cannot be separated from the musical, visual or any other. A song or an opera is not in itself a part of literature. If the song is written by the composer on the already existing text written by the poet, then there is no problem; in the 20th century, however, the ancient tradition became widespread again, according to which the same author creates both a verbal text and music and (as a rule) performs the resulting work himself. The question of how legitimate it is to extract only the verbal component from the resulting synthetic work and consider it as an independent literary work remains debatable. In a number of cases, synthetic works are nevertheless perceived and qualified as literary if there are relatively few non-verbal elements in them (for example, the famous “squiggle” in Lawrence Stern’s The Adventures of Tristram Shandy or the drawings in Sinken Hopp’s famous children’s book The Magic Chalk) ) or their role is fundamentally subordinate (like the role of formulas in mathematical, chemical, physical literature, even if they occupy most of the text). Sometimes, however, the place of additional visual elements in a literary text is so great that it is already a stretch to consider it as purely literary from a scientific point of view: the most famous of such texts is Saint-Exupery's fairy tale "The Little Prince", an important part of which are the author's drawings.
All three of these criteria are not fully satisfied by some ancient texts, traditionally understood as literary, - for example, The Iliad and The Odyssey: it is likely that Homer as the sole author of these two poems never existed, and the texts of these two poems were formed from ancient Greek folklore, performed by storytellers in the form of songs. However, the written fixation of these texts in their final version took place so long ago that such a traditional approach can be considered justified.
One more criterion should be added, which no longer refers to the structure of literary texts, but to their function.
- Literature includes texts that in themselves have social significance (or are calculated to have one). This means that private and official correspondence, personal diaries, school essays, etc. are not considered literature. This criterion seems simple and obvious, but in fact it also causes a number of difficulties. On the one hand, personal correspondence can become a fact of literature (artistic or scientific) if it is conducted by significant authors: it is not without reason that the collected works of both writers and scientists include a section of letters, and these letters sometimes contain important and valuable information for literature and science; the same applies to the school writings of future writers, scientists, politicians: they can be retroactively drawn into the space of literature, shedding unexpected light on the subsequent work of their authors (for example, a fairy tale written on a school assignment by 14-year-old Saint-Exupery reveals amazing roll call with The Little Prince). Moreover, in some cases, writers, philosophers, publicists purposefully turn private correspondence or a diary into a fact of literature: they write them with the expectation of an outside reader, publicly perform excerpts, publish them, etc.; Well-known examples of such texts personal in form, but public in purpose, can serve as letters from Russian writers of the 1820s, who were members of the Arzamas literary society, and in the latest Russian literature, the correspondence of Vyacheslav Kuritsyn and Alexei Parshchikov, the diary of Sergei Esin, etc. On the other hand, the status of artistic creativity of amateur authors, whose texts remain the property of themselves and a narrow circle of their friends and acquaintances, remains problematic: is it legitimate to consider as a literary phenomenon a poetic congratulation composed by a group of employees on the birthday of their boss? New difficulties in this regard arose with the advent of the Internet and the spread of sites with free publication, where anyone can publish their works. Modern scientists (for example, the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu and his followers) try to describe the social mechanisms that define literature, art, science and delimit them from amateurish activity of any kind, but the schemes they proposed are not generally accepted and remain the subject of fierce debate.
Main types of literature[ | ]
Types of literature can be distinguished both by the content of texts and by their purpose, and it is difficult to fully comply with the principle of unity of basis in the classification of literature. In addition, such a classification can be misleading, combining dissimilar and completely different phenomena. Often, typologically different texts of the same era are much closer to each other than typologically identical texts from different eras and cultures: Plato's Dialogues, which form the basis of European philosophical literature, have much more in common with other monuments of ancient Greek literature (say, with the dramas of Aeschylus) than with the works of such modern philosophers as Hegel or Russell. The fate of some texts develops in such a way that during their creation they gravitate towards one type of literature, and subsequently move towards another: for example, The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, written by Daniel Defoe, are read today more like a work of children's literature, and between That is why they were written not just as a work of fiction for adults, but as a pamphlet with a significant role of a journalistic principle. Therefore, a general list of the main types of literature can only be approximate and indicative, and the specific structure of the literary space can only be established in relation to a given culture and a given period of time. For applied purposes, however, these difficulties are not of fundamental importance, so that the practical needs of the book trade and libraries are satisfied by rather branched, albeit superficial in approach, systems of library and bibliographic classification.
Fiction[ | ]
Fiction is an art form that uses words and constructions of natural (written human) language as the only material. The specificity of fiction is revealed in comparison, on the one hand, with art forms that use other material instead of verbal-linguistic (music, visual arts) or along with it (theater, cinema, song), on the other hand, with other types of verbal text: philosophical, journalistic, scientific, etc. In addition, fiction, like other types of art, combines author's (including anonymous) works, in contrast to works of folklore that fundamentally do not have an author.
Documentary prose[ | ]
Literature on psychology and self-development[ | ]
Literature on psychology and self-development is literature that gives advice on developing abilities and skills, achieving success in personal life and work, building relationships with others, raising children, etc.
There are also other types of literature: spiritual, religious literature, advertising literature, separated into a separate type (leaflet, brochure, brochure, etc.), and other types, as well as industry arrays.
How were great books created? How did Nabokov write Lolita? Where did Agatha Christie work? What was Hemingway's daily routine like? These and other details of the creative process of famous authors are in our issue.
The first thing you need to write a book is inspiration. However, each writer has his own muse, and it does not come always and not everywhere. Whatever tricks the famous authors went to in order to find the very place and the very moment when the plot and characters of the book formed in their head in the best possible way. Who would have thought that great works were created in such conditions!
Agatha Christie (1890-1976), having already published a dozen books, in the questionnaire line "occupation" indicated - "housewife". She worked in fits and starts, not having a separate office, not even a desk. She wrote in the bedroom at the washstand or could perch at the dinner table in between meals. “I used to feel a little embarrassed about ‘going to write’. But if I managed to retire, close the door behind me and make sure that no one interfered, then I forgot about everything in the world.
Francis Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940) wrote his first novel, The Other Side, at a training camp on scraps of paper in his spare time. After serving, he forgot about discipline and began to use alcohol as a source of inspiration. I slept until lunch, sometimes worked, and spent the night in bars. When there were bouts of activity, he could write 8000 words in one go. This was enough for a long story, but not enough for a story. When Fitzgerald wrote Tender is the Night, he had great difficulty staying sober for three or four hours. “Subtle perception and judgment during editing are incompatible with drinking,” Fitzgerald wrote, confessing to the publisher that alcohol interferes with creativity.
Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880) wrote Madame Bovary for five years. The work progressed too slowly and painfully: "Bovary" does not work. In a week - two pages! There is something to fill your face with despair. Flaubert woke up at ten in the morning, without getting out of bed, read letters, newspapers, smoked a pipe, talked with his mother. Then he took a bath, had breakfast and lunch at the same time and went for a walk. For one hour he taught his niece history and geography, then sat down in an armchair and read until seven in the evening. After a plentiful supper, he talked with his mother for several hours and, finally, with the onset of night, he began to compose. Years later, he wrote, “After all, work is the best way to escape life.”
Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) got up at dawn all his life. Even if he drank late the night before, he got up no later than six in the morning, fresh and rested. Hemingway worked until noon, standing near the shelf. There was a typewriter on the shelf, on the typewriter lay a wooden board lined with sheets for printing. Having written all the sheets with a pencil, he removed the board and retyped what he had written. Every day he counted the number of written words and built a graph. “When you finish, you feel empty, but not empty, but refilled, like making love to your loved one.”
James Joyce (1882-1941) wrote about himself: "A man of little virtue, prone to extravagance and alcoholism." No regime, no organization. He slept until ten, breakfasted in bed with coffee and bagels, earned money by taking English and piano lessons, constantly borrowing money and distracting creditors with talk of politics. To write "Ulysses", it took him seven years with breaks for eight illnesses and eighteen moves to Switzerland, Italy, France. Over the years, he spent about 20,000 hours at work.
Haruki Murakami (b. 1949) gets up at four in the morning and writes for six hours straight. After work, he runs, swims, reads, listens to music. Lights out at nine o'clock. Murakami believes that the repetitive mode helps him to go into a trance, which is useful for creativity. He once led a sedentary lifestyle, gained weight and smoked three packs of cigarettes a day. Then he moved to the village, began to eat fish and vegetables, quit smoking and has been running for more than 25 years. The only downside is the lack of communication. To comply with the regime, Murakami has to decline all invitations, and friends are offended. “Readers don’t care what my daily routine is, as long as the next book is better than the previous one.”
Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977) sketched novels on small cards, which he folded into a long catalog drawer. He wrote down pieces of text on cards, and then put them together from fragments of the page and chapter of the book. Thus, the manuscript and the desktop fit in the box. "Lolita" Nabokov wrote at night in the back seat of the car, believing that there is no noise and distractions. Growing older, Nabokov never worked in the afternoon, watched football matches, sometimes allowed himself a glass of wine and hunted butterflies, sometimes running up to 25 kilometers for rare specimens.
Jane Austen (1775-1817), author of Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Emma, Reason. Jane Austen lived with her mother, sister, friend and three servants. She never had the opportunity to be alone. Jane had to work in the family living room, where she could be disturbed at any moment. She wrote on small pieces of paper, and as soon as the door creaked, warning her of a visitor, she had time to hide the notes and take out a basket of needlework. Later, Jane's sister Cassandra took over the household chores. Grateful Jane wrote: “I can’t imagine how you can compose when lamb cutlets and rhubarb are spinning in your head.”
Marcel Proust (1871-1922) wrote In Search of Lost Time for almost 14 years. During this time, he wrote one and a half million words. In order to fully concentrate on his work, Proust hid from society and hardly left his famous oak-lined bedroom. Proust worked at night, slept until three or four hours during the day. Immediately after waking up, he lit a powder containing opium - this is how he treated asthma. He ate almost nothing, only had coffee with milk and a croissant for breakfast. Proust wrote in bed, with a notebook on his knees and pillows under his head. In order not to fall asleep, he took caffeine in tablets, and when it was time to sleep, he ate caffeine with veronal. Apparently, he tortured himself on purpose, believing that physical suffering allows one to reach heights in art.
George Sand (1804-1876) used to write 20 pages a night. Working at night has become a habit for her since childhood, when she looked after her sick grandmother and only at night could do what she loved. Later, she left her sleeping lover in bed and moved to her desk in the middle of the night. The next morning she did not always remember that she wrote in a sleepy state. Although George Sand was an unusual person (she wore men's clothes, had affairs with both women and men), she condemned the abuse of coffee, alcohol or opium. To stay awake, she ate chocolate, drank milk, or smoked a cigarette. “When the moment comes to give form to your thoughts, you need to completely control yourself, both on the stage of the stage and in the shelter of your office.”
Mark Twain (1835-1910) wrote The Adventures of Tom Sawyer on a farm where he had a separate gazebo-study built for him. He worked with open windows, pressing sheets of paper with bricks. No one was allowed to approach the study, and if Twain was really needed, the family blew the bugle. In the evenings, Twain read what he had written to his family. He continuously smoked cigars, and wherever Twain appeared, after him it was necessary to ventilate the room. While working, he was tormented by insomnia, and, according to the recollections of friends, he began to treat her with champagne at night. Champagne did not help - and Twain asked his friends to stock up on beer. Then Twain said that only Scotch whiskey helped him. After a series of experiments, Twain simply went to bed at ten in the evening and suddenly fell asleep. All this greatly amused him. However, he was entertained by any life events.
Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) worked three hours in the morning and three hours in the evening. The rest of the time was taken up by social life, lunches and dinners, drinking with friends and girlfriends, tobacco and drugs. This mode brought the philosopher to nervous exhaustion. Instead of taking a break, Sartre got hooked on Coridran, a mixture of amphetamine and aspirin that was legal until 1971. Instead of the usual dosage of a tablet twice a day, Sartre took twenty pieces. The first was washed down with strong coffee, the rest slowly chewed during work. One tablet is one page of the Critique of Dialectical Reason. According to the biographer, Sartre's daily menu included two packs of cigarettes, several pipes of black tobacco, more than a liter of alcohol, including vodka and whiskey, 200 milligrams of amphetamine, barbiturates, tea, coffee and fatty foods.
Georges Simenon (1903-1989) is considered the most prolific writer of the 20th century. He has 425 books to his credit: 200 dime novels under pseudonyms and 220 under his own name. Moreover, Simenon did not comply with the regime, he worked in bouts for two or three weeks, from six to nine in the morning, giving out 80 printed pages at a time. Then I walked, drank coffee, slept and watched TV. When writing a novel, he wore the same clothes until the end of work, supported himself with tranquilizers, never corrected what he wrote, and weighed himself before and after work.
Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) was a beech at the time of his work. He got up late, around nine o'clock, did not talk to anyone until he washed, changed clothes and combed his beard. I had breakfast with coffee and a couple of soft-boiled eggs and locked myself in the office until dinner. Sometimes his wife Sofya sat there, quieter than a mouse, in case you had to rewrite a couple of chapters of War and Peace by hand or listen to the next portion of the composition. Before dinner Tolstoy went for a walk. If he returned in a good mood, he could share his impressions or work with children. If not, I read books, played solitaire and talked with guests.
Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) published 78 books during his 92 years of life. Maugham's biographer called his work writing not a calling, but rather an addiction. Maugham himself compared the habit of writing with the habit of drinking. Both are easy to acquire and both are hard to get rid of. Maugham came up with the first two phrases while lying in the bath. After that, he wrote a daily norm of one and a half thousand words. “When you write, when you create a character, he is with you all the time, you are busy with him, he lives.” Stopping writing, Maugham felt infinitely lonely.
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In what works of Russian literature are images of historical figures created, and in what way can they be compared with L. N. Tolstoy's assessment of real historical figures?
The following characters can be used as a literary context: Emelyan Pugachev in the novel by A.S. Pushkin "The Captain's Daughter" and the poem of the same name by S.A. Yesenin, Ivan the Terrible in "The Song about the Merchant Kalashnikov", the imperial court and generals Kornilov, Denikin, Kaledin in the epic M.A. Sholokhov "Quiet Don", Stalin and Hitler in the epic novel by V. S. Grossman "Life and Fate" (two positions at the student's choice).
Justifying your choice and comparing the characters in the given direction of analysis, note that the image of Pugachev in A.S. Pushkin, like Leo Tolstoy's Napoleon, is subjective, not so much historically specific as subordinate to the author's idea - to show the tragedy of the "people's tsar", which is the product of "Russian rebellion, senseless and merciless." The impostor is poeticized by the author: he is kind, humane, and fair, unlike his guys.
Point out that the image of Pugachev in The Captain's Daughter and Napoleon in the epic War and Peace is due to the writer's task: for L.N. Tolstoy it is the debunking of Napoleonism, for A.S. Pushkin - poeticization of the image of the "counselor". Both are characterized by unique personal qualities, military genius, ambition. Pugachev’s self-will is manifested in his statement: “Execute like this, execute like that, favor like that: this is my custom ...” For all the difference in the position of the impostor and the French emperor, both are shown not only as historical figures, but also as people in their relationship with the people, the servants. Rise and fall also distinguishes the nature of their fate.
Tell us how Lermontov's depiction of Ivan the Terrible in "The Song about the Merchant Kalashnikov" is dominated by the attitude towards stylization of folk epic works, and, consequently, towards idealization. Like the French emperor, the Russian tsar is self-willed: if he wants, he executes, if he wants, he pardons. The injustice of the tsar's decision regarding the fate of Kalashnikov pays off with his indisputable authority among the people.
Remember that in the novel by V. S. Grossman "Life and Fate" Stalin and Hitler act only as weak-willed slaves of time, hostages of circumstances created by them. Hitler himself created the magic wand of ideology and believed in it himself. Comparison of grotesquely reduced images of the rulers of two great nations gives the author the opportunity to compare Hitlerism and Stalinism, which must be condemned and overcome.
Summarizing what has been said, note that Tolstoy’s Napoleon is a small man in a gray frock coat with a “fat chest”, a “round belly”, a trembling calf of his left leg, Grossman’s Stalin is a pockmarked dark-faced man in a long overcoat (“Shtrum was outraged that Stalin’s name overshadowed Lenin, his military genius was opposed to the civilian turn of the Leninist mind"). These arbiters of destinies do not realize the strength of the people's spirit.
S. Grossman, following Tolstoy's traditions, orients the reader to comprehend historical patterns. Ascended to unprecedented heights, idols then become victims of their own people.
Searched here:
- which works contain historical figures
- name another work of literature in which the image of the king was created
- Russian work in which the image of the sovereign is created
