work of art literature plot

The perception and comprehension of a work of art as a whole has become especially significant in our time. Attitude modern man to the world as an integrity has a valuable, vital meaning. For people in our 21st century, it is important to realize the interconnection and interdependence of the phenomena of reality because people have acutely felt their own dependence on the integrity of the world. It turned out that a lot of effort is required from people to maintain unity as a source and condition for the existence of mankind.

Art from the very beginning was aimed at the emotional sensation and reproduction of the integrity of life. Therefore, “... it is precisely in the work that the universal principle of art is clearly realized: the re-creation of the integrity of the world of human life as an endless and incomplete “social organism” in the final and complete aesthetic unity of the artistic whole.”

Literature in its development, temporal movement, i.e. literary process, reflected the progressive course of artistic consciousness, striving to reflect people's mastery of the integrity of life and the destruction of the integrity of the world and man accompanying this movement.

Literature has a special place in preserving the image of reality. This image makes it possible for successive generations to imagine the uninterrupted history of mankind. The art of the word turns out to be "persistent" in time, most firmly implementing the connection of times due to the special specificity of the material - the word - and the work of the word.

If the meaning of world history is “the development of the concept of freedom” (Hegel), then it was the literary process (as a kind of integrity of a moving artistic consciousness) that reflected the human content of the concept of freedom in its continuous historical development.

Therefore, it is so important that those who perceive the phenomena of art realize the meaning of integrity, correlate it with specific works so that both in the perception of art and in its comprehension a “sense of integrity” is formed as one of the highest criteria of artistry.

The theory of art, literature helps in this complex process. The concept of the integrity of a work of art, one might say, develops throughout the history of aesthetic thought. Especially active, effective, that is, directed towards those who perceive and create art, it has become in historical criticism.

Aesthetic thought, literary science in the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century went through a complex, extremely contradictory path of development (schools of the 19th century, trends in art, again schools and trends in art and literary criticism of the 20th century). Different approaches to the content, to the form of works either "fragmented" the integrity of the phenomena of art, or "recreated" it. There were serious reasons for this in the development of artistic consciousness, aesthetic thought.

And so the second half of the 20th century again sharply raised the question of artistic integrity. The reason for this, as stated at the beginning of the section, lies in the very reality of the modern world.

For us, who are engaged in the study of art and teaching its understanding, to understand the problem of the integrity of the work means to comprehend the deepest nature of art.

The source of independent activity can be the works of modern literary scholars dealing with problems of integrity: B. O. Korman, L. I. Timofeev, M. M. Girshman, etc.

In order to successfully master the theory of the integrity of a work, it is necessary to imagine the content of the system of categories - carriers of the problems of integrity.

First of all, one must understand the concept artistic text and context.

The definition and description of the text, to a greater extent than literary criticism, has been engaged since the 40s linguistic science. Perhaps for this reason in the "Dictionary literary terms”(M., 1974) the term “text” does not exist at all. he appeared in the Literary encyclopedic dictionary(M., 1987).

The general concept of text in modern linguistics (from Latin - fabric, connection of words) has the following definition: “... some complete sequence of sentences related in meaning to each other within general design author". (

A work of art as an author's unity can be called a text in its entirety and is comprehended as a text. Although it may be far from homogeneous in terms of the way it is expressed, in terms of its elements and methods of organization, it nevertheless represents a monolithic unity realized as the moving thought of the author.

A literary text differs from other types of text primarily in that it has an aesthetic meaning and carries aesthetic information. The literary text contains an emotional charge that has an impact on readers.

Linguists also note such a property of a literary text as a unit of information: its “absolute anthropocentricity”, i.e., focus on the image and expression of a person. A word in a literary text is polysemous (polysemantic), which is the source of its ambiguous comprehension.

Along with the understanding of the literary text for analysis, understanding the integrity of the work, an understanding of the context is mandatory (from Latin - close connection, connection). In dictionary literary terms"(M, 1974) the context is defined as "a relatively complete part (phrase, period, stanza, etc.) of the text, in which a single word receives the exact meaning and expression that corresponds exactly this text generally. The context gives the speech a complete semantic coloring, determines the artistic unity of the text. Therefore, a phrase or word can only be evaluated in context. In a broader sense, the context can be considered the work as a whole.

In addition to these meanings of the context, its broadest meaning is also used - a feature and signs, properties, traits, content of the phenomenon. So, we say: the context of creativity, the context of time.

For analysis, understanding of the text, the concept of a component is used (Latin - component) - component, an element, a unit of composition, a segment of a work in which one way of depiction is preserved (for example, dialogue, description, etc.) or a single point of view (author, narrator, hero) on what is depicted.

The mutual arrangement, interaction of these text units forms a compositional unity, the integrity of the work in its components.

In the theoretical development of the work, in literary analysis The concept of "system" is often and naturally used. The work is considered as a systemic unity. The system in aesthetics and literary science is understood as an internally organized set of interrelated and interdependent components, that is, a certain set in their connections and relationships.

Along with the concept of a system, the concept of structure is often used, which is defined as the relationship between the elements of the system or as a stable repeating unity of relations, interconnections of elements.

A literary work of literature is a complex structural formation. The number of structural elements in today's science is not defined. Four main structural elements are considered indisputable: ideological (or ideological-thematic) content, figurative system, composition, language [see "Interpretation of a literary text", p. 27-34]. Often these elements include the genus, type (genre) of the work and the artistic method.

The work is the unity of form and content (according to Hegel: the content is formal, the form is meaningful).

The expression of complete completeness, the integrity of the designed content is the composition of the work (from Latin - compilation, connection, connection, arrangement). According to studies, for example, by E. V. Volkova (“A work of art is a subject of aesthetic analysis”, Moscow State University, 1976), the concept of composition came to literary science from the theory fine arts and architecture. Composition is a general aesthetic category, since it reflects the essential features of the structure of a work of art in all types of art.

Composition is not only the orderliness of the form, but, above all, the orderliness of the content. Composition in different time defined differently.

Artistic integrity - organic unity, interpenetration, interaction of all content-formal elements of the work. Conventionally, for the convenience of understanding the works, we can distinguish levels of content and form. But this will not mean that in the work they exist on their own. Not a single level, like an element, is possible outside the system.

Theme - the subject, thematic unity, thematic content, thematic originality, diversity, etc.

Idea - ideation, ideological content, ideological originality, ideological unity, etc.

Problem - problematic, problematic, problematic content, unity, etc.

Derivative concepts, as we see, reveal and expose the inseparability of content and form. If we keep in mind how, for example, the concept of plot has changed (sometimes as equal to the plot, then as a direct eventfulness of reality reflected in the work - compare, for example, the plot in the understanding of V. Shklovsky and V. Kozhinov), then it becomes obvious: in In a work of art, each level exists precisely because it is designed, created, shaped, and shaping, construction is a form in a broad sense: the content implemented in the material this art, which is "overcome" through certain methods of constructing the work. The same contradiction is also found when the levels of form are distinguished: rhythmic, sound organization, morphological, lexical, syntactic, plot, genre, again - system-figurative, compositional, figurative and expressive means of the language.

Already in the understanding and definition of each of the central concepts of this series, inseparable bond content and form. For example, the rhythmic movement of the picture of life in a work is created by the author, based on rhythm as a property of life, all its forms. Rhythm in an artistic phenomenon acts as a universal artistic regularity.

The general aesthetic understanding of rhythm is derived from the fact that rhythm is the periodic repetition of small and larger parts of an object. Rhythm can be revealed at all levels: intent-syntactic, plot-figurative, compositional, etc.

In modern science, there is a statement that rhythm is a phenomenon and a wider and more ancient concept than poetry and music.

Based on the understanding of the integrity of the work as a construction created by the author, expressing the artist's thought about human reality, M. M. Grishman distinguishes three stages of the system of relations between the processes of artistic creation:

• 1. The emergence of integrity as the primary element, the starting point and at the same time the organizing principle of the work, the source of its subsequent deployment.
• 2. The formation of integrity in the system of correlations and the constituent elements of the work interacting with each other.
• 3. Completion of integrity in the complete and integral unity of the work

The formation and deployment of a work is “the self-development of the created artistic world” (M. Girshman).

It is very important to note that the integrity of the work, although it seems to be constructed from elements known from the practice of art, i.e., allegedly “finished” details, but these elements are in this work are so updated in their content and functions that every time they are new, unique moments of the unique artistic world. The context of the work, the moving artistic idea fills the means, techniques with the content of only this organic integrity.

Perceiving, realizing a particular work of art, it is important to feel it as a creative system, “in every moment of which the presence of the creator, the subject creating the world” (M. Hirshman) is revealed.

This allows for a holistic analysis of the work. Particular attention should be paid to M. Hirshman's "warning": a holistic analysis is not a way of studying (whether in the course of the development of activity or "following the author", in the course of the reader's perception, etc.). It's about about the methodological principle of analysis, which assumes that each single element of a literary work is considered as a certain moment in the formation and deployment of the artistic whole, as an expression of internal unity, the general idea and organizing principles of the work. Holistic analysis is the unity of analysis and synthesis. He overcomes the mechanical selection and summing up of elements under a common meaning, a separate consideration of the various elements of the whole.

Principles holistic analysis different from the mechanical analytical approach to the work. Understanding integrity makes students, interpreters of literature, approach works more carefully, more subtly, feel deeper and more “tangibly” the “fabric” of the work, “verbal tie”, naturally highlight the “nodes” of this tie, feel the style of the work as a general speech system and strive in tune with the work. to interpret his idea, moving in every element-moment of the structure.

A holistic analysis can be carried out at any level of content and form, since penetration into one of the levels makes it possible to reveal its connection, interaction with others. It is not for nothing that they say with humor (but seriously) that the integrity of a work can be discovered, realized at the level of the punctuation mark characteristic of the work.

Over the past few decades, as an independent linguistic discipline, our country has been actively developing genre studies , the origins of which were laid back in 1979 in the publication of M.M. Bakhtin, The Problem of Speech Genres. Over the past decade, several thematic collections of "Genres of Speech" have also been published. In their works, various researchers (V.V. Dementiev, K.F. Sedov, T.V. Shmeleva, etc.) give different options for understanding the problems speech genre , offer reasons for typologies of speech genres, are described as separate speech genres, and groups of genres of oral everyday communication.

Interest in the theory of speech genres arose not so long ago and is mainly due to the shift from the systematic study of language (F. de Saussure) to the linguistics of speech - linguopragmatics, the theory of speech activity, the theory of linguistic personality. We can say that genre studies border on all known disciplines of the communicative sphere: literary criticism, stylistics, text linguistics, discourse theory and many other disciplines.

AT literary criticism genres types of literary works. For example, the genre variety of a novel can be autobiographical, socio-psychological and other types of novels.

Linguistics studies the issue of using the term "genre" primarily from the standpoint of stylistics, then from the point of view of communication theory. In our time, genres are most studied in stylistics journalistic style, mainly newspaper journalism and oratory.

Paraphrasing Bakhtin's popular definition of speech genres, their definition is revealed, according to which, what speech genres- established and conditionally unchanged thematic, compositional and stylistic varieties of units of speech communication, the boundaries of which are determined by the replacement of some speech subjects with others.

Great importance was attached to the study of speech genres, since the speaker is given the opportunity to use not only the vocabulary, grammatical structure, forms of utterance, that is, speech genres as such; they are especially important for mutual understanding, as well as language forms. If we compare speech genres with language forms, we can conclude that the former are more subject to change, are flexible, but for a speaking person they carry a normative meaning, they are already initially given to a person, and not created by him.

Bakhtin was one of the first to define the concept primary and secondary speech genres. Simple, or primary, speech genres arise in conditions of direct speech communication. Complex ones appear in conditions of relatively highly developed and cultural speech communication, usually it is written. In the process of their formation, secondary genres take into their composition and process primary speech genres.

As part of our study, it will be relevant to analyze the problem literary genres , which are called groups of literary works, united by a complex of formal and meaningful features, and in particular - genres of fiction. Exactly at artistic speech the language of the nation is more clearly looming, the directions and possibilities of the language are clearly manifested in it.

Based on the above-mentioned genre classification of Bakhtin, it becomes clear that genres of speech have a close relationship with genres of literature(we are talking about the relationship between primary and secondary genres). The concept of sequence and transition between them can be traced by getting acquainted in detail with the work of almost any writer. We have the right to believe that this way of creating a text is very important for modern writers, including children's writers, because they must speak a living language, close to the national spirit of readers, a language more saturated with oral forms.

Literary genres are not elements of any previously given system: on the contrary, they appear as certain places of concentration of tension in one or another interval of literary space in accordance with artistic tasks, which are set by a circle of authors, and are defined as thematically, compositionally and stylistically stable type of utterance .

Category of literary text analysis, allowing you to separate possible world text from the world of objective reality, manifests itself in different ways in texts of various types: this is the beginning and end of structured texts, a frame in painting, a ramp in the theater, etc.

Currently, it is customary to distinguish three main types of text:

· scientific text (reports, lectures, messages, science articles, dissertations, etc.) is characterized by the unambiguity of meaning and the certainty of the meaning of scientific terms;

· business , or practice text (business messages, documents, reports), the interpretation of which is determined by the communicative situation;

· artistic text - which is characterized by: 1) completeness, the impossibility of interference from the outside, 2) the variability of meaning, which occurs in conjunction with the variability of cultural and historical contexts, as well as through dialogue with readers of different perception groups and having different personal consciousness; reading a literary text, they are involved in the process of co-creation, give it additional meaning, 3) the creation of a message field as a special environment for artistic communication, 4) the subject discussed in the text does not exist outside this text, 5) the sphere of relations, based on which the interaction of the recipient with the literary text is born, does not exist before the process of perception of this text.

The hierarchy of any of the above types of text can be observed in the disintegration of the text system into subsystems. Usually these are phenomena of the borderline nature of a number of elements of its internal structure in subsystems different type such as chapters, verses, half lines. Some of these elements, as a rule, are signals of some kind of boundary, while others are already several, coinciding in a common position in the text (for example, the end of a chapter is also the end of a book), and since the dominance of certain borders, we can trace the possibility of structural comparability of the role of demarcation signals. After all, it is known that the border of a novel hierarchically dominates the border of a chapter, the border of a poem - over the border of a quatrain, the border of a chapter - over the borders of a stanza, and so on. Considering all this, the fullness of the text with internal borders and the presence of external borders also create the basis for classification of text construction types(It is customary to call internal boundaries such phenomena as hyphenation, division into chapters, strophic structure, etc., there are only two external boundaries, but the degree of their markedness can be significantly reduced up to a mechanical break in the text).

genre form- the result of interaction in the literature of fiction and other genres. It follows from this that the genre form is primarily a form of non-artistic education, which the author focuses on, transforming the latter into a literary text.

Having general ideas about hierarchical levels of literary text, his genre form and having understood its stable set of features, it will not be difficult to differentiate it from artistic work. One of the main criteria for distinguishing a “text” from a “work” remains the correlation of the latter with a certain intention. That is why, from a textual point of view, work should be called a text that changes as a whole and is united by a single idea, including in content and form. It follows from this that a work is a kind of complex content that originates from the text and is based on it.

Journalistic genres are addressed to the general public, so the task of constructing their text is to influence readers or listeners with a subsequent transition to the side of the author's idea. Journalism text characterized by expressiveness, the use of interrogative, incentive and exclamatory sentences, a clear expression copyright to the problem. The main feature of the publicistic text is open expression author's thoughts.

I would like to pay special attention to the fact that the text of any artistic and journalistic work rich in content in a special way. Despite the fact that the text is inextricably linked with the subject-shaped layer, content, meaning and concept, it is also distinguishable from them. One of the manifestations of the difference between the text and these concepts is its existence as a complex system of speech units, including the lexical-phraseological level, allegory, intonational-syntactic, in some cases, rhythmic and phonetic aspects. Also, the text of the work includes subject imagery, which to the greatest extent expresses the position of the author, not to mention the word, the mirror of the author's individual attitude to reality, by which we can judge the author's perception of the surrounding world.

Based on this, we can conclude that the literary text itself does not openly express the author's thought. The artistic text conveys the most concept-filled and value-oriented information, the physical existence of socially significant artistic thought. If it is not used, then its existence cannot be considered complete, it begins to exist as a potential work.

Literary and artistic work is a work of art in the narrow sense of the word, that is, it is one of the forms of existence of the consciousness of society. A work of art is a manifestation of emotional and mental semantic fullness. If we use Bakhtin's terminology, then a work of art is a "word about the world" spoken by the author, an act of reaction of a talented person to the surrounding reality.

A literary text is transformed into a work only through social existence: the closed system opens and begins to function socially. The main difference between a work and a text is that it is a functioning expanded text that has artistic concept and subject matter. The text develops into a work with the beginning of its social significance, the acquisition public opinion. A work is a variant of the social existence of art and one of the most complex phenomena in the world; it arises from reality perceived through the prism of culture.

Each artistic direction gives rise to its own type of work of art, which sought to convey a special worldview that expresses an artistic idea through variable semantic layers. Each of them contains one of the types of human interaction with the internal and external environment. That is why the work is considered more difficult than other cultural phenomena. Diversity and complexity is also explained by the fact that when getting acquainted with a literary text, it seems possible to trace the reality of the era that gave rise to it, and the relevance of the topic in relation to the recipient, and the personality of the author, and the meaning of somehow encrypted ideas and views hidden from direct understanding.

Another characteristic of the work is its historical variability. Gradually, it acquires new characteristics and semantic values, each new generation reads and perceives them differently. All this is due to the fact that the perception of a literary text proceeds according to the principle dialogue between author and reader .

As a result, the text and the work represent a process and a result. After all, in order to accurately understand the result (work), you need to directly refer to the production process (text). A work understandable and perceived by all the parameters of its symbolic nature is already a text.

In this regard, it can be argued that, having the unity of the author's intention, piece of art in its entirety can be called a text and be comprehended as a text. Despite the possible heterogeneity in the way of expression, methods of organization, construction, a work of art is a textual realization of the author's thought, which carries aesthetic information, which distinguishes it from all other types of text. In this way, piece of art how the text is a social phenomenon, cohesive unified intention in content and form, expressed author as the bearer of his culture.

General properties of fiction

Fiction has a number of features that distinguish it from all other forms of art and creative activity.

First of all, it is the use of language, or verbal language tools. No other art in the world relies entirely on language, is not created using only its expressive means.

The second feature of fiction is that the main subject of its depiction has always been and remains a person, his personality in all its manifestations.

The third feature of fiction should be recognized is that it is entirely built on the figurative form of reflecting reality, that is, it seeks to convey the general typical patterns of the development of society with the help of living, concrete, individual and unique forms.

Artwork as a whole

A literary work of art as a whole reproduces either complete picture life, or a holistic picture of experiences, but at the same time it is a separate finished work. The holistic character of the work is given by the unity of the problem posed in it, the unity of the problem revealed in it. ideas. Main the idea of ​​a work or its ideological meaning- this is the idea that the author wants to convey to the reader, that for which the entire work was created. At the same time, there have been cases in the history of literature when the author's intention did not coincide with the final idea of ​​the work (N.V. Gogol "Dead Souls"), or a whole group of works was created united by a common idea (I.S. Turgenev "Fathers and Sons", N. G. Chernyshevsky "What to do").

The main idea of ​​the work is inextricably linked with its theme, that is, the vital material that the author took for the image in this work. Understanding the theme can only be achieved by carefully analyzing the literary work as a whole.

Topic, idea are categorized content works. Category forms works include such elements as composition, consisting of a system of images and plot, genre, style and language of the work. Both of these categories are closely related, which made it possible for the famous literary researcher G.N. Pospelov to put forward the thesis about the substantive form and formal content of a literary work of art.

All elements of the work form are associated with the definition conflict, that is, the main contradiction that is depicted in the work. At the same time, it can be a clearly expressed conflict between the heroes of a work of art or between individual hero and an entire social group, between two social groups(A.S. Griboedov "Woe from Wit"). Or it may be that it is not possible to find a really expressed conflict in a work of art, because it exists between the facts of reality depicted by the author of the work, and his ideas about how events should develop (N.V. Gogol "The Government Inspector") . Related to this is this private problem, as the presence or absence of a positive character in the work. foreign literature syntax poetry

The conflict becomes the basis of plot construction in the work, because through plot, that is, the system of events in the work, the attitude of the author to the depicted conflict is manifested. As a rule, the plots of the works have a deep socio-historical meaning, reveal the causes, nature and development of the depicted conflict.

Composition of a work of art is the plot and the system of images of the work. It is during the development of the plot that characters and circumstances appear in development, and the system of images is revealed in the plot movement.

Image system in the work includes all actors, which can be divided into:

• - main and secondary (Onegin - mother of Tatyana Larina),
• - positive and negative (Chatsky - Molchalin),
• - typical (that is, their behavior and actions reflect modern social trends - Pechorin).

National originality of plots and the theory of "wandering" plots. There are so-called "wandering" stories, that is, plots whose conflicts are repeated in different countries and in different eras (the story of Cinderella, the story of a miserly pawnbroker). At the same time, the recurring plots take on the color of the country where they are currently being embodied in connection with the peculiarities of national development ("The Misanthrope" by Molière and "Woe from Wit" by A.S. Griboyedov).

Plot elements: prologue, exposition, plot, development of action, climax, denouement, epilogue. Not all of them must be present in a work of art. The plot is impossible only without the plot, the development of the action, the climax. All other elements of the plot and their appearance in a work of art depend on the author's intention and the specifics of the depicted object.

As a rule, they do not have a plot, that is, a system of events, landscape lyrical works. Sometimes researchers talk about the presence in them of an internal plot, the inner world of the movement of thoughts and feelings.

Prologue- an introduction to the main plot of the work.

exposition- the image of the conditions for the formation of actors before the conflict and the character traits that developed under these conditions. The purpose of the exposition is to motivate the subsequent behavior of the characters. The exposition is not always placed at the beginning of the work, may be absent altogether, may be located in different places work or even at its end, but always performs the same role - to acquaint with the environment in which the action will take place.

tie- the image of emerging contradictions, the definition of the conflict of characters or the problem posed by the author. Without this element, a work of art cannot exist.

Development of action- detection and reproduction artistic means connections and contradictions between people, the events taking place during the development of the action reveal the characters of the characters and give an idea of ​​​​the possible ways to resolve the conflict. Sometimes the development of an action includes whole paths of life's quests, characters in their development. It is also a mandatory element for any work of art.

climax represents a moment highest voltage in the development of action. She is obligatory element plot and usually entails an immediate denouement.

denouement resolves the depicted conflict or leads to an understanding of the possibilities of its solution, if the author does not have this solution yet. Quite often in the literature there are works with an "open" ending, that is, without a denouement. This is especially common when the author wants the reader to think about the conflict depicted and try to imagine what will happen in the finale.

Epilogue - this is usually the information about the characters and their fate that the author wants to tell the reader after the denouement. It is also an optional element of a work of fiction, which the author uses when he believes that the denouement did not sufficiently clarify the depiction of the final consequences.

In addition to the above elements of the plot, there are a number of special additional elements of the composition that can be used by the author to convey his thoughts to readers.

The special elements of the composition are lyrical digressions. They are found only in epic works and represent digressions, that is, an image of feelings, thoughts, experiences, reflections, biography facts of the author or his characters, not directly related to storyline works.

The additional elements are intro episodes, Narratives not directly related to the plot, but used to expand and deepen the content of the work.

Artistic framing and artistic anticipation are also considered additional elements of the composition, used to enhance the impact, clarify the meaning of the work, anticipate it with similar episodes of future events.

A fairly significant compositional role in a work of art can be played by landscape. In a number of works, it not only plays the role of a direct background against which the action takes place, but also creates a certain psychological atmosphere, serves to internally reveal the character of the character or ideological concept works.

significant role in compositional construction works plays and interior(that is, a description of the environment in which the action takes place), since it is sometimes the key to understanding and revealing the characters' characters.

I THEORETICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL BACKGROUND OF LITERARY ANALYSIS

1. Artwork and its properties

A work of art is the main object of literary study, a kind of smallest “unit” of literature. Larger formations in the literary process - directions, currents, artistic systems - are built from individual works, represent a union of parts. A literary work, on the other hand, has integrity and internal completeness, it is a self-sufficient unit. literary development capable of independent living. Literary work as a whole, it has a complete ideological and aesthetic meaning, in contrast to its components - themes, ideas, plot, speech, etc., which receive meaning and in general can exist only in the system of the whole.

Literary work as a phenomenon of art

A literary and artistic work is a work of art in the narrow sense of the word *, that is, one of the forms of social consciousness. Like all art in general, a work of art is an expression of a certain emotional and mental content, some ideological and emotional complex in a figurative, aesthetically significant form. Using the terminology of M.M. Bakhtin, we can say that a work of art is a “word about the world” spoken by a writer, a poet, an act of reaction of an artistically gifted person to the surrounding reality.

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* For the different meanings of the word "art" see: Pospelov G.N. Aesthetic and artistic. M, 1965. S. 159–166.

According to the theory of reflection, human thinking is a reflection of reality, the objective world. This, of course, fully applies to artistic thinking. A literary work, like all art, is a special case of subjective reflection of objective reality. However, reflection, especially at the highest stage of its development, which is human thinking, should by no means be understood as a mechanical, mirror reflection, as a one-to-one copying of reality. The complex, indirect nature of reflection, to the greatest extent, perhaps, affects artistic thinking, where the subjective moment is so important, unique personality the creator, his original vision of the world and the way of thinking about it. A work of art, therefore, is an active, personal reflection; one in which not only the reproduction of life reality takes place, but also its creative transformation. In addition, the writer never reproduces reality for the sake of reproduction itself: the very choice of the subject of reflection, the very impulse to creative reproduction of reality is born from the writer's personal, biased, indifferent view of the world.

Thus, a work of art is an indissoluble unity of the objective and the subjective, the reproduction of reality and the author's understanding of it, life as such, which is included in the work of art and is known in it, and the author's attitude to life. These two aspects of art were pointed out by N.G. Chernyshevsky. In his treatise “The Aesthetic Relations of Art to Reality”, he wrote: “The essential meaning of art is the reproduction of everything that is interesting for a person in life; very often, especially in works of poetry, also comes to the fore the explanation of life, the verdict on its phenomena "*. True, Chernyshevsky, polemically sharpening the thesis about the primacy of life over art in the struggle against idealistic aesthetics, mistakenly considered the main and obligatory only the first task - "reproduction of reality", and the other two - secondary and optional. It is more correct, of course, to speak not about the hierarchy of these tasks, but about their equality, or rather, about the indissoluble connection between the objective and the subjective in a work: after all, a true artist simply cannot depict reality without comprehending and evaluating it in any way. However, it should be emphasized that the very presence of a subjective moment in a work of art was clearly recognized by Chernyshevsky, and this was a step forward in comparison with, say, the aesthetics of Hegel, who was very inclined to approach a work of art in a purely objectivist manner, belittling or completely ignoring the activity of the creator.

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* Chernyshevsky N.G. Full coll. cit.: V 15 t. M., 1949. T. II. C. 87.

To realize the unity of the objective image and subjective expression in a work of art is also necessary in methodological plan, for the sake of practical problems of analytical work with the product. Traditionally, in our study and especially teaching of literature, more attention is paid to the objective side, which undoubtedly impoverishes the idea of ​​a work of art. In addition, a kind of substitution of the subject of research can also occur here: instead of studying a work of art with its inherent aesthetic laws, we begin to study the reality reflected in the work, which, of course, is also interesting and important, but has no direct connection with the study of literature as an art form. The methodological approach, aimed at studying the mainly objective side of a work of art, voluntarily or involuntarily reduces the importance of art as an independent form of people's spiritual activity, and ultimately leads to ideas about the illustrative nature of art and literature. At the same time, a work of art is largely deprived of its lively emotional content, passion, pathos, which, of course, are primarily associated with the author's subjectivity.

In the history of literary criticism, this methodological trend has found its most obvious embodiment in the theory and practice of the so-called cultural-historical school, especially in European literary criticism. Its representatives looked in literary works, first of all, for signs and features of reflected reality; “they saw cultural and historical monuments in works of literature”, but “artistic specificity, all the complexity of literary masterpieces did not interest researchers”*. Individual representatives of the Russian cultural-historical school saw the danger of such an approach to literature. Thus, V. Sipovsky wrote bluntly: “One cannot look at literature only as a reflection of reality”**.

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* Nikolaev P.A., Kurilov A.S., Grishunin A.L. History of Russian literary criticism. M., 1980. S. 128.

** Sipovsky V.V.The history of literature as a science. St. Petersburg; M. . S. 17.

Of course, a conversation about literature may well turn into a conversation about life itself - there is nothing unnatural or fundamentally untenable in this, because literature and life are not separated by a wall. However, at the same time, the methodological setting is important, which does not allow one to forget about the aesthetic specificity of literature, to reduce literature and its meaning to the meaning of illustration.

If the content of a work of art is a unity of reflected life and the author's attitude to it, that is, it expresses a certain "word about the world", then the form of the work is figurative, aesthetic. Unlike other types public consciousness, art and literature, as you know, reflect life in the form of images, that is, they use such specific, single objects, phenomena, events that, in their specific singularity, carry a generalization. In contrast to the concept, the image has a greater “visibility”, it is characterized not by logical, but by concrete-sensual and emotional persuasiveness. Imagery is the basis of artistry, both in the sense of belonging to art and in the sense of high skill: due to their figurative nature, works of art have aesthetic dignity, aesthetic value.

So, we can give such a working definition of a work of art: it is a certain emotional and mental content, a “word about the world”, expressed in an aesthetic, figurative form; a work of art has integrity, completeness and independence.

Nowadays, anyone who would like to understand the nature of art comes across many categories; their number is growing. This is the plot, plot, circumstances, character, style, genre, etc. The question arises: is there no such category that would unite all others - without losing their special meaning? It is enough to put it down to immediately answer: of course, there is, this is a work of art.

Any review of the problems of theory inevitably returns to it. A work of art brings them into one; from it, in fact - from contemplation, reading, acquaintance with it - all the questions that a theoretician or a person simply interested in art can ask, but to him - resolved or unresolved - these questions return, connecting their distant content, revealed by analysis with the same general, albeit now enriched, impression.

In a work of art, all these categories are lost in each other - for the sake of something new and always more meaningful than themselves. In other words, the more there are and the more complex they are, the more pressing and important becomes the question of how an artistic whole, complete in itself, but infinitely expanded into the world, is formed and lives with their help.

It is separated from everything that the categories designate on a fairly simple basis: "complete in itself" remains, although old, but, perhaps, the most accurate definition for this distinction. The fact is that the plot, character, circumstances, genres, styles, etc. -

these are still only the "languages" of art, the image itself is also a "language"; a work is a statement. It uses and creates these "languages" only to the extent and in those qualities that are necessary for the completeness of its thought. A work cannot be repeated, as its elements are repeated. They are only historically changing means, a substantive form; a work is a formalized and not subject to change content. It balances and disappears any means, because they are here to prove something new, not amenable to any other expression. When this new takes and re-creates exactly as many “elements” as are necessary for its justification, then the work will be born. It will grow on different sides of the image and, having used it main principle; here art will begin and the finite, isolated existence of various means, which is so beneficial and convenient for theoretical analysis, will cease.

We must agree that, in answering the question about the whole, the theory itself will have to undergo some switching. That is, since a work of art is first of all unique, it will have to generalize, yielding to art, in a manner unusual for itself, within one whole. To talk about a work in general, as one talks, for example, about the structure of an image, would mean to get away from its special theme and place among theoretical problems into something else, for example, into the study of the relationship of different aspects of this "common" figurative structure to each other. The work is solely according to its task; in order to understand this task, its role among other categories of art, it is obviously necessary to take one of all the works.

What to choose? There are thousands of works - perfect and artistic - and most of them are not even known to any individual reader. Each of them, like a person, carries in itself a root relationship with all others, the original knowledge that the machine does not possess and which is “programmed” by the entire self-developing nature. Therefore, we can confidently take any and recognize in it this unique unity, which is only gradually revealed in the repetition of scientific, provable quantities.

Let's try to consider for this purpose the story of L. Tolstoy "Hadji Murad". This choice is, of course, arbitrary; however, several arguments can be made in its defense.

First, we are dealing here with undeniable artistry. Tolstoy is known as an artist, first of all, possessing an incomparable material-figurative-bodily power, that is, the ability to capture any detail of the "spirit" in the external movement of nature (compare, for example, Dostoevsky, who is more inclined, as one critic well said, to "hurricane of ideas").

Secondly, this artistry is the most modern; it has only just managed to become a classic and is not as distant from us as the systems of Shakespeare, Rabelais, Aeschylus or Homer.

Thirdly, this story was written at the end of the journey and, as often happens, it carries within itself its concise conclusion, the result - with a simultaneous exit into the future art. Tolstoy did not want to publish it, among other things, because, as he said, "it is necessary that something be left after my death." It was prepared (as an "artistic testament" and turned out to be unusually compact, containing, as in a drop, all the grandiose discoveries of Tolstoy's "past"; this is a concise epic, a "digest" made by the writer himself - a circumstance very beneficial for theory.

Finally, it so happened that in a small introduction, at the entrance to his own building, Tolstoy, as if on purpose, scattered several stones - the material from which it was indestructibly shifted. It is strange to say, but all the beginnings of art really lie here, and the reader can freely survey them: please, the secret is revealed, perhaps in order to see how great it really is. But nevertheless they are named and shown: both the nascent idea, and the first small image that will grow, and the way of thinking in which it will develop; and all three main sources of nutrition, supplies, from where it will gain strength - in a word, everything that will begin to move towards the unity of the work.

Here they are, these beginnings.

“I returned home through the fields. Was the most middle

for the summer. The meadows were cleared, and they were just about to mow the rye.”

These are the first three sentences; Pushkin could have written them - simplicity, rhythm, harmony - and this is no longer accidental. This is indeed the idea of ​​the beautiful that comes from Pushkin in Russian literature (in Tolstoy, of course, it arises spontaneously and only as the beginning of his idea); here she will undergo a terrible test. “There is a lovely selection of colors for this time of year,” Tolstoy continues, “red, white, pink, fragrant, fluffy porridge,” etc. An exciting description of colors follows - and suddenly: the image of a black “dead field”, raised steam - all this must perish . “What a destructive, cruel creature, man, how many various living beings, plants have been destroyed for half the maintenance of his life.” This is no longer Pushkin - "And let the young life play at the coffin entrance" - no. Tolstoy but he agrees. just like Dostoevsky with his “only tear of a child”, just like Belinsky, who returned to Yegor Fedorovich Hegel his “philosophical cap”, does not want to buy progress at the cost of the death and death of the beautiful. He believes that a person cannot come to terms with this, he is called upon to overcome it at all costs. Here begins his own idea-problem, which sounds in "Resurrection": "No matter how hard people try ..." and in "The Living Corpse": "Three people live ..."

And now this idea meets with something that seems ready to confirm it. Looking at the black field, the writer notices a plant that nevertheless stood before man - read: before the destructive forces of civilization; this is a "Tatar" bush by the road. “What, however, is the energy and strength of life,” and in the diary: “I want to write. Defends life to the last” 1 . At this moment, the "general" idea becomes a special, new, individual idea of ​​the future work.

II. In the process of its inception, it is therefore immediately artistic, that is, it appears in the form

1 Tolstoy L.I. Full. coll. soch., v. 35. M., Goslitizdat, 1928 - 1964. p. 585. All subsequent references are to this edition by volume and page.

original image. This image is a comparison of the fate of Hadji Murad, known to Tolstoy, with the "Tatar" bush. From here the idea takes on a social direction and is ready, with the passion characteristic of the late Tolstoy, to fall upon the entire ruling apparatus of the oppression of man. She takes as her main artistic problem the most acute of all possible positions of her time - the fate of the whole person in the struggle of systems alienated from her, in other words, the problem that later passed through the literature of the 20th century in its highest models in various changes. However, here it is still only a problem in the bud; the work will help her to become complete and convincing. In addition, in order to develop into art, and not into a logical thesis, it needs various other “substances” - which ones?

III. “And I remembered one old Caucasian story, some of which I saw, some I heard from eyewitnesses, and some I imagined. This story, as it has developed in my memory and imagination, is what it is.

So, they are singled out, and it is only necessary to put signs to distinguish between these separate sources of art: a) life, reality, fact - what Tolstoy calls "heard from eyewitnesses", that is, this includes, of course, documents, surviving objects, the books and letters he re-read and revised; b) the material of consciousness - "memory" - which is already united according to its own internal personal principle, and not according to some disciplines - military, diplomatic, etc.; c) "imagination" - a way of thinking that will lead the accumulated values ​​to new, still unknown ones.

It only remains for us to take one last look at these origins and say goodbye to them, because we will not see them again. The next line - and the first chapter - begins the work itself, where there are no traces of a separate memory, or references to an eyewitness, or imagination, - "it seems to me that it could be so," but just a man rides a horse on a cold November evening with whom we have to get to know, who does not suspect that we are following him and what he reveals to us with his behavior

great problems of human existence. And the author, who had appeared at the beginning, also disappeared, even - paradoxically - the work that we took in our hands also left: there was a window into life, thrown open by a single effort of idea, fact and imagination.

Having crossed the threshold of a work, we thus find ourselves inside a wholeness that is so hostile to dismemberment that even the very fact of reasoning about it contains a contradiction: in order to explain such a unity, it seems to be more correct to simply rewrite the work, and not to reason and investigate that only again brings us back to the scattered, albeit aimed at conjugation "elements".

True, there is one natural way out.

After all, the integrity of the work is not some kind of absolute point, devoid of dimensions; a work has extension, its own artistic time, order in alternation and transition from one "language" to another (plot, character, circumstances, etc.), and more often - in the change of those special life-like positions that these "languages" combined. Mutual arrangement and connection within the work, of course, pave and trace many natural roads to its unity; an analyst can also pass them. They, in addition; as a general phenomenon, have long been examined and are called composition.

Composition is the disciplining force and organizer of the work. She is instructed to ensure that nothing escapes to the side, into its own law, namely, it is mated into a whole and turns in addition to his thought: she controls artistry in all joints and in general. Therefore, it usually does not accept either logical derivation and subordination, or a simple life sequence, although it is very similar to it; its purpose is to arrange all the pieces so that they close into the full expression of the idea.

The construction of "Hadji Murad" grew out of Tolstoy's many years of observation of his own and other people's work, although the writer himself opposed this work, far from moral self-improvement, in every possible way. Painstakingly and slowly, he turned over and rearranged the heads of his "burdock", trying to find a match.

perfect frame of the work. “I will do it on the sly,” he said in a letter to M. L. Obolenskaya, having previously announced that he was “on the edge of the grave” (vol. 35, p. 620) and that therefore it was ashamed to deal with such trifles. In the end, he nevertheless managed to achieve a rare order and harmony in the huge plan of this story.

Thanks to his originality, Tolstoy for a long time was incomparable with the great realists of the West. He alone walked the path of entire generations from the epic scope of the Russian Iliad to a new acutely conflicted novel and a compact story. As a result, if one looks at his works in the general current of realistic literature, then, for example, the novel "War and Peace", which stands out as one of the highest achievements of the 19th century, may seem like an anachronism on the part of purely literary technique. In this work, Tolstoy, according to B. Eikhenbaum, who is somewhat exaggerating, but on the whole right, treats “slender architectonics with complete contempt” 1 . The classics of Western realism, Turgenev and other writers in Russia had already managed to create a special dramatized novel with one central character and well-defined composition.

Balzac's programmatic remarks about the "Parma Monastery" - a work very beloved by Tolstoy - make you feel the difference between a professional writer and such apparently "spontaneous" artists like Stendhal or Tolstoy of the first half of his creative path. Balzac criticizes the looseness and disintegration of the composition. In his opinion, the events in Parma and the story of Fabrizio are developed into two independent themes of the novel. Abbot Blanes is out of action. Against this, Balzac objects: “The ruling law is the unity of the composition; unity may be in a common idea or plan, but without it, ambiguity will reign” 2 . One must think that if he had War and Peace in front of him, the head of the French realists, having expressed admiration, perhaps no less than for Stendhal's novel, would not fail to make similar reservations.

1 Eichenbaum B. Young Tolstoy, 1922, p. 40.

2 Balzac on art. M. - L., "Art", 1941, p. 66.

It is known, however, that towards the end of his life, Balzac begins to retreat from his rigid principles. A good example is his book "Peasants", which loses its proportion due to psychological and other digressions. A researcher of his work writes: "Psychology, as a kind of commentary on the action, shifting attention from the event to its cause, undermines the powerful structure of the Balzac novel" 1 . It is also known that in the future the critical realists of the West gradually decompose the clear-cut forms of the novel, filling them with sophisticated psychologism (Flaubert, later Maupassant), subordinating documentary materials to the action of biological laws (Zola), etc. Meanwhile, Tolstoy, as Rosa Luxemburg well said , "going indifferently against the current" 2, strengthened and purified his art.

Therefore, while - as a general law - the works of Western novelists late XIX- the beginning of the 20th century is moving further and further away from a coherent plot, blurring in fractional psychological details, Tolstoy, on the contrary, relieves his “dialectics of the soul” of uncontrolled generosity in shades and reduces the former multi-darkness to a single plot. At the same time, he dramatizes the action of his great works, chooses the conflict that explodes more and more each time, and does this at the same depths of psychology as before.

There are great general changes in the formal structure of his creations.

The dramatic succession of scenes is grouped around an ever smaller number of basic images; family and love couples, of which there are so many in "War and Peace", are first reduced to two lines of Anna - Vronsky, Kitty - Levin, then to one: Nekhlyudov - Katyusha and, finally, in "Hadji Murad" disappear completely, so that the well-known Nekrasov reproach " Anna Karenina" in excessive attention to adultery, and in itself unfair, could no longer be addressed to this thoroughly social story. This epic drama focuses on one person, one big

1 Reizov B.G. Creativity of Balzac. L., Goslitizdat, 1939, p. 376.

2 About Tolstoy. Collection. Ed. V. M. Friche. M. - L., GIZ, 1928, p. 124.

an event that rallies everything else around itself (such is the regularity of the path from War and Peace to Anna Karenina, The Death of Ivan Ilyich, The Living Corpse, and Hadji Murad). At the same time, the scale of the problems raised does not fall and the volume of life captured in artistic scenes does not diminish - due to the fact that the significance of each person is increased, and the inner connection of their relations to each other as units is more strongly emphasized. common thought.

Our theoretical literature has already spoken about how the polarities of Russian life in the 19th century influenced artistic consciousness, putting forward new type artistic assimilation of contradictions and enriching the forms of thinking in general 1 . Here we must add that the very principle of polarity was innovatively extended in Tolstoy to the end of his way of the form of composition. It can be said that thanks to him in "Resurrection", "Hadji Murad" and other later works of Tolstoy, the general laws of the distribution of the image within the work were more clearly revealed and sharpened. The magnitudes reflected in each other lost their intermediate links, moved away from each other to enormous distances - but each of them began to serve as a semantic center for all the others.

You can take any of them - the smallest event in the story - and we will immediately see that it deepens and becomes clearer when we get acquainted with every detail that is far from it; at the same time, each such detail receives a new meaning and evaluation through this event.

For example, the death of Avdeev - killed in a random shootout of soldiers. What does his death mean for various human psychologies, laws and social institutions, and what do they all mean for him, peasant son, - unfolds like a fan of details that flashed just as "accidentally" as his death.

“I just started loading, I hear it chirped ... I look, and he fired a gun,” repeats the soldier who was paired with Avdeev, obviously shocked by the ordinariness of what could happen to him.

1 See: G. D. Gachev, The Development of Figurative Consciousness in Literature. - Theory of literature. Main problems in historical coverage, vol. 1. M., Publishing House of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, 1962, p. 259 - 279.

“- Te-te,” Poltoratsky clicked his tongue (company commander. - P.P.). - Well, does it hurt, Avdeev? .. ”(To the sergeant major. - P.P.):“- Well, all right, you make arrangements,” he added, and, “waving his whip, rode at a big trot towards Vorontsov.”

Zhurya Poltoratsky for arranging a skirmish (it was provoked in order to introduce Baron Frese, demoted for a duel), Prince Vorontsov casually inquires about the event:

“- I heard a soldier was wounded?

Yes very sorry. The soldier is good.

It seems hard - in the stomach.

Do you know where I'm going?"

And the conversation turns to a more important subject: Vorontsov is going to meet Hadji Murad.

“Who is assigned what,” say the patients in the hospital where they brought Petrukha.

Immediately, “the doctor dug for a long time with a probe in the stomach and felt for a bullet, but could not get it. Bandaging the wound and sealing it with a sticky plaster, the doctor left.

The military clerk informs his relatives about Avdeev's death in the wording that he writes according to tradition, hardly thinking about its content: he was killed, "defending the tsar, the fatherland and the Orthodox faith."

Meanwhile, somewhere in a remote Russian village, although these relatives are trying to forget him (“the soldier was a cut piece”), they still remember him, and the old woman, his mother, even decided to somehow send him a ruble with a letter: “ And also, my dear child, you are my little dove Petrushenka, I cried out my eyes ... "The old man, her husband, who took the letter to the city," ordered the janitor to read the letter to himself and listened attentively and approvingly.

But, having received the news of death, the old woman "wailed while there was time, and then set to work."

And Avdeev's wife, Aksinya, who mourned in public "Pyotr Mikhailovich's blond curls", "in the depths of her soul ... she was glad of Peter's death. She was again a belly from the clerk with whom she lived.

The impression is completed by a magnificent military report, where Avdeev’s death turns into some kind of clerical myth:

“On November 23, two companies of the Kurinsky regiment set out from the fortress for logging. In the middle of the day, a significant crowd of highlanders suddenly attacked the cutters. The chain began to retreat, and at this time the second company struck with bayonets and knocked over the mountaineers. In the case, two privates were lightly wounded and one was killed. The highlanders lost about a hundred people killed and wounded.

These amazing trifles are scattered in different parts of the work and each stand in the natural continuation of its own, different event, but, as we see, they are composed by Tolstoy in such a way that now one or the other whole is closed between them - we took only one!

Another example is a raid on a village.

Cheerful, just escaped from St. Petersburg, Butler eagerly absorbs new impressions from the proximity of the highlanders and the danger: “It’s either the case, or the case, rangers, rangers!” - sang his songwriters. His horse walked with a cheerful step to this music. The company's shaggy, gray Trezorka, like a chief, with a twisted tail, with a preoccupied look, ran in front of Butler's company. My heart was cheerful, calm and cheerful.”

His boss, the drunken and good-natured Major Petrov, views this expedition as a familiar, everyday affair.

“So that's it, sir, father,” said the major in the interval of the song. - Not like you have in St. Petersburg: alignment to the right, alignment to the left. But work hard, and go home.

What they "worked" on is evident from the next chapter, which talks about the victims of the raid.

The old man, who rejoiced when Hadji Murad ate his honey, has now just “returned from his bee-house. The two stacks of hay that were there were burned ... all the beehives with bees were burned.

His grandson, “that handsome boy with sparkling eyes, who enthusiastically looked at Hadji Murad (when Hadji Murad visited their house. - P.P.), was brought dead to the mosque on a horse covered with a cloak. He was pierced in the back with a bayonet ... ”, etc., etc.

Again the whole event is restored, but through what a contradiction! Where is the truth, who is to blame, and if so, how much, for example, the thoughtless campaigner Petrov, who cannot be otherwise, and the young Butler, and the Chechens.

Isn't Butler a man, and aren't people his songwriters? Questions arise here by themselves - in the direction of the idea, but none of them finds a frontal, one-sided answer, bumping into another. Even in one “local” unity, the complexity of artistic thought makes everything dependent on each other, but at the same time, as it were, it accelerates and kindles the need to embrace, understand, balance this complexity in the whole truth. Feeling this incompleteness, all “local” unities move towards the whole that the work represents.

They intersect in all directions in thousands of points, add up to unexpected combinations and gravitate towards the expression of one idea - without losing their "self".

All large categories of the image behave in this way, for example, characters. They, of course, also participate in this intersection, and the main compositional principle penetrates into their own core. This principle consists in, unexpectedly for logic, to place any uniqueness and opposites on some axis passing through the center of the image. The external logic of one sequence breaks down, colliding with another. Between them, in their struggle, artistic truth is gaining strength. The fact that Tolstoy took special care of this is evidenced by entries in his diaries.

For example, on March 21, 1898: “There is such an English peepshow toy - one thing or another is shown under a glass. This is how you need to show a person X (aji) -M (urat): a husband, a fanatic, etc.

Or: May 7, 1901: “I saw in a dream the type of old man that Chekhov anticipated in me. The old man was especially good because he was almost a saint, and meanwhile a drinker and a scolder. For the first time, I clearly understood the power that types gain from boldly applied shadows. I will do it on X (adji) -M (urate) and M (arye) D (mitrievna) ”(v. 54, p. 97).

Polarity, that is, the destruction of external sequence for the sake of internal unity, led the late Tolstoy's characters to a sharp artistic "reduction", that is, the removal of various intermediate links, along which in another case

go reader's thought; this reinforced the impression of extraordinary courage and truth. For example, Comrade Prosecutor Breve (in "Resurrection") graduated from high school with a gold medal, received a prize at the university for an essay on servitudes, is successful with the ladies, and "as a result of this he is extremely stupid." The Georgian prince at dinner at Vorontsov's is "very stupid", but he has a "gift": he is "an unusually subtle and skillful flatterer and courtier."

In the versions of the story there is such a remark about one of the murids of Hadji Murad, Kurban; “Despite his obscurity and not a brilliant position, he was devoured by ambition and dreamed of overthrowing Shamil and taking his place” (vol. 35, p. 484). In the same way, by the way, one “bailiff with a large bundle, in which there was a project on a new method of conquering the Caucasus”, was mentioned, etc.

Any of these particular units was noticed and singled out by Tolstoy from outwardly incompatible, assigned to different rows of signs. The image expanding its space breaks and breaks these rows one by one; polarities grow larger; the idea receives new evidence and confirmation.

It becomes clear that all its so-called contrasts are, on the contrary, the most natural continuation and steps towards the unity of artistic thought, its logic. They are "contrasts" only if we assume that they are supposedly "shown"; but they are not shown, but proved, and in this artistic proof not only do they not contradict each other, but they are simply impossible and meaningless one without the other.

Only for this they continuously reveal themselves and move the story towards tragic end. They are especially felt in places of transition from one chapter or scene to another. For example, Poltoratsky, who returns in an enthusiastic mood from the charming Marya Vasilievna after a small talk and says to his Vavila: “What did you think of locking up?! Bolvan!. Here I'll show you..." - there is the most convincing logic of the movement of this general thought, as well as the transition from the wretched hut of the Avdeevs to the Vorontsovs' palace, where "the head waiter solemnly poured steaming soup from a silver bowl", or from the end of the story of Hadji Murad Loris - Melikov: “I am tied, and the end of the rope is with Shamil in

hand" - to Vorontsov's exquisitely cunning letter: "I did not write to you with the last mail, dear prince ...", etc.

From the compositional subtleties, it is curious that these contrasting pictures, in addition to the general idea of ​​​​the story - the story of "burdock" - also have special transitions that form in them themselves, which transfer the action, without breaking it, to the next episode. Thus, Vorontsov's letter to Chernyshev introduces us to the emperor's palace with an inquiry about the fate of Hadji Murad, which, that is, fate, depends entirely on the will of those to whom this letter was sent. And the transition from the palace to the chapter on the raid follows directly from Nicholas' decision to burn and ravage the villages. The transition to the family of Hadji Murad was prepared by his conversations with Butler and the fact that the news from the mountains was bad, etc. In addition, scouts, couriers, messengers rush from picture to picture. It turns out that the next chapter necessarily continues the previous one precisely because of the contrast. And thanks to the same idea of ​​the story, while developing, it remains not abstract scientific, but humanly alive.

In the end, the range of the story becomes extremely large, because its grandiose initial thought: civilization - man - the indestructibility of life - requires exhausting all "earthly spheres". The idea “calms down” and reaches its climax only when the entire plan corresponding to itself passes: from the royal palace to the court of the Avdeevs, through ministers, courtiers, governors, officers, translators, soldiers, along both hemispheres of despotism from Nikolai to Petrukha Avdeev, from Shamil to Gamzalo and Chechens, prancing with the singing of "La ilaha il alla." Only then does it become a work. Here it also achieves general harmony, proportionality in complementing each other with different sizes.

In two key places of the story, that is, at the beginning and at the end, the movement of the composition slows down, although the swiftness of the action, on the contrary, increases; the writer plunges here into the most difficult and complex work of setting up and unleashing events. The unusual fascination with details is also explained by the importance of these supporting paintings for the work.

The first eight chapters cover only what happens during one day during the release of Had-

Zhi-Murata to the Russians. In these chapters, a method of opposition is revealed: Hadji Murad in a sakla at Sado (I) - soldiers in the open air (II) - Semyon Mikhailovich and Marya Vasilievna Vorontsov behind heavy curtains at the card table and with champagne (III) - Hadji Murad with nukers in the forest (IV) - Poltoratsky's company on logging, Avdeev's injury, Hadji Murad's exit (V) - Hadji Murad visiting Marya Vasilievna (VI) - Avdeev in the Vozdvizhensky hospital (VII) - Avdeev's peasant yard (VIII). The connecting threads between these contrasting scenes are: the envoys of the naib to Vorontsov, the notice of the military clerk, the letter of the old woman, etc. The action fluctuates, now running a few hours ahead (the Vorontsovs go to bed at three o'clock, and the next chapter begins late in the evening), then returning back.

Thus, the story has its own artistic time, but its connection with the external, given time is also not lost: for the convincing impression that the action takes place on the same night, Tolstoy, barely noticeable to the reader, “looks” several times at the star sky. The soldiers have a secret: " bright stars, which, as it were, ran along the tops of the trees while the soldiers walked through the forest, now stopped, shining brightly between the bare branches of the trees. After some time, they also said: "Again everything was quiet, only the wind stirred the branches of the trees, now opening, then closing the stars." Two hours later: “Yes, the stars have begun to go out,” said Avdeev.

On the same night (IV), Hadji Murad leaves the village of Mekhet: "There was no month, but the stars shone brightly in the black sky." After he rode into the forest: "... in the sky, although faintly, the stars shone." And finally, in the same place, at dawn: "... while they were cleaning weapons ... the stars faded." The most precise unity is also maintained in other ways: the soldiers secretly hear the very howl of the jackals that woke Hadji Murad.

For the external connection of the last paintings, the action of which takes place in the vicinity of Nukha, Tolstoy chooses nightingales, young grass, etc., which are described in the same detail. But this "natural" unity we will find only in the framing chapters. In quite different ways, the transitions of the chapters, which are told, are carried out.

about Vorontsov, Nikolai, Shamil. But even they do not violate the harmonic proportions; it was not for nothing that Tolstoy shortened the chapter on Nikolai, throwing out many impressive details (for example, the fact that his favorite musical instrument was a drum, or the story of his childhood and the beginning of his reign) in order to leave only those signs that most closely correlate in their inner essence with another pole of absolutism, Shamil.

Creating a holistic thought of the work, the composition brings into unity not only the large definitions of the image, but also coordinates with them, of course, the speech style, syllable.

In "Hadji Murad" this affected the choice by the writer, after long hesitation, which of the forms of narration would be best for the story: from the point of view of Leo Tolstoy or a conditional narrator - an officer who served at that time in the Caucasus. The diary kept these doubts of the artist: “H(adji)-M(urata) thought a lot and prepared materials. I can’t find all the tone ”(November 20, 1897). The initial version of "Repey" is presented in such a way that although it does not contain a direct story in the first person, the presence of the narrator is invisible, as in " Caucasian prisoner»; in the style of speech, an outside observer is felt, who does not pretend to psychological subtleties and great generalizations.

“In one of the Caucasian fortresses lived in 1852 the military commander, Ivan Matveyevich Kanatchikov, with his wife Marya Dmitrievna. They didn’t have children…” (vol. 35, p. 286) and further in the same vein: “As Marya Dmitrievna planned, she did everything” (vol. 35, p. 289); about Hadji Murad: “He was tormented by terrible longing, and the weather was suitable for his mood” (vol. 35, p. 297). About halfway through the work on the story, Tolstoy already simply introduces an officer-witness reinforcing this style with meager information about his biography.

But the plan grows, new big and small people are involved in the case, new scenes appear, and the officer becomes helpless. A huge influx of paintings is cramped in this limited field of vision, and Tolstoy parted with him, but not without pity: “It used to be

the message was written like an autobiography, now written objectively. Both have their advantages” (vol. 35, p. 599).

Why, after all, did the writer tend to the advantages of the “objective”?

The decisive thing here was - this is obvious - the development of an artistic idea, which required "divine omniscience." The humble officer could not grasp all the causes and consequences of Hadji Murad's entry to the Russians and his death. Only the world, knowledge and imagination of Tolstoy himself could correspond to this big world.

When the composition of the story was freed from the plan “with an officer”, the structure of individual episodes within the work also shifted. Everywhere the conditional narrator began to fall out and the author took his place. Thus, the scene of the death of Hadji Murad changed, which, even in the fifth edition, was transmitted through the lips of Kamenev, was interspersed with his words and interrupted by the exclamations of Ivan Matveyevich and Marya Dmitrievna. In the last version, Tolstoy discarded this form, leaving only: “And Kamenev told,” and in the next sentence, deciding not to trust this story to Kamenev, he prefaced Chapter XXV with the words: “It was like this.”

Having become a “small” world, the style of the story freely accepted and expressed the polarity with which the “big” world developed, that is, a work with its many sources and colorful material. Soldiers, nukers, ministers, peasants spoke to Tolstoy themselves, without regard for external communications. It is interesting that in such a construction it turned out possible - as it always succeeds in a truly artistic creation - to direct towards unity that which, by its nature, is called upon to isolate, separate, consider in an abstract connection.

For example, Tolstoy's own rationalism. The word "analysis", so often used next to Tolstoy, is, of course, not accidental. Looking more closely at how people feel in him, one can see that these feelings are conveyed by means of an ordinary division, so to speak, by translation into the realm of thought. From this it is easy to conclude that Tolstoy was the father and forerunner of modern intellectual literature; but of course this

far from the truth. It is not a matter of which of the forms of thought lies on the surface; an outwardly impressionistic, scattered style can be essentially abstract-logical, as was the case with the expressionists; on the contrary, Tolstoy's strict rationalistic style turns out to be not at all strict and reveals in every phrase an abyss of incompatibilities that are compatible and reconcilable only in the idea of ​​the whole. Such is the style of Hadji Murad. For example: “The eyes of these two people, having met, told each other a lot that cannot be expressed in words, and certainly not at all what the translator said. They directly, without words, expressed the whole truth about each other: Vorontsov's eyes said that he did not believe a single word of everything that Hadji Murad said, that he knew that he was the enemy of everything Russian, that he would always remain so and now submits only because he is forced to do so. And Hadji Murad understood this, and nevertheless assured him of his devotion. The eyes of Hadji Murad said that this old man should have thought about death, and not about war, but that, although he is old, he is cunning, and one must be careful with him.

It is clear that rationalism here is purely external. Tolstoy does not even care about the apparent contradiction: first he claims that the eyes said "the inexpressible in words", then he immediately begins to report what exactly they "said". But all the same, he is right, because he himself really speaks not in words, but in positions; his thought comes in flashes of those collisions that are formed from the incompatibility of words and thoughts, feelings and behavior of the translator, Vorontsov and Hadji Murad.

The thesis and thought can stand at the beginning - Tolstoy loves them very much - but real thought, artistic, one way or another will become clear in the end, through everything that was, and the first thought will turn out to be in it only a pointed moment of unity.

Actually, we observed this principle already in the beginning of the story. This little exposition, like the prologue in a Greek tragedy, announces in advance what will happen to the hero. There is a legend that Euripides explained such an introduction by the fact that he considered it unworthy for the author to intrigue the viewer with an unexpected

action gate. Tolstoy also neglects this. His lyrical page about burdock anticipates the fate of Hadji Murad, although the movement of the conflict in many versions did not go after the “plowed field”, but right from the moment of the quarrel between Hadji Murad and Shamil. The same "introduction" is repeated in small expositions of some scenes and images. For example, before the end of the story, Tolstoy again resorts to the technique of the "Greek choir", notifying the reader once again that Hadji Murad was killed: Kamenev brings his head in a sack. And in the construction of secondary characters, the same bold tendency is revealed. Tolstoy, not fearing to lose attention, immediately declares: this person is stupid, or cruel, or "does not understand life without power and without humility," as it is said about Vorontsov Sr. But this statement becomes undeniable for the reader only after several completely opposite (for example, the opinion of this person about himself) scene-pictures.

In the same way as rationalism and "thesis" introductions, numerous documentary information entered the unity of the story. They did not need to be specially hidden and processed, because the sequence and connection of thoughts were not kept by them.

Meanwhile, the history of the creation of "Hadji Murad", if traced by variants and materials, as A. P. Sergeenko did, 1 really resembled the history of a scientific discovery. Dozens of people worked in different parts of Russia, looking for new data, the writer himself re-read piles of material for seven years.

In the development of the whole, Tolstoy moved in "leaps", from the accumulated material to a new chapter, excluding the scene in the Avdeevs' courtyard, which he, as an expert on peasant life, wrote immediately and did not remake again. The rest of the chapters demanded the most varied "inlays".

A few examples. The article by A.P. Sergeenko contains a letter from Tolstoy to the mother of Karganov (one of the characters in Hadji Murad), where he asks that “dear Anna Avesealomovna” inform him of some

1 Sergeenko A.P. "Hadji Murad". The history of writing (Afterword) - Tolstoy L. N. Full. coll. cit., v. 35.

other facts about Hadji Murad, and in particular ... “whose horses were on which he wanted to run. His own or given to him. And were these horses good, and what color. The text of the story convinces us that these requests stemmed from an indomitable desire to convey all the variety and variegation required by the plan through accuracy. So, during the exit of Hadji Murad to the Russians, “Poltoratsky was given his little karak Kabardian”, “Vorontsov rode his English, blooded red stallion”, and Hadji Murad “on a white-maned horse”; another time, at a meeting with Butler, near Hadji Murad there was already “a red-brown handsome horse with a small head, beautiful eyes”, etc. Another example. In 1897, Tolstoy writes while reading "Collection of information about the Caucasian highlanders": "They climb onto the roof to see the procession." And in the chapter about Shamil we read: "All the people of the large village of Vedeno stood on the street and on the roofs, meeting their lord."

Accuracy in the story is found everywhere: ethnographic, geographical, etc., even medical. For example, when Hadji Murad's head was cut off, Tolstoy remarked with invariable calmness: "Scarlet blood gushed from the arteries of the neck and black blood from the head."

But just this exactness - the last example is especially expressive - is taken in the story, as it turns out, in order to further and further push the polarities apart, to isolate, remove every trifle, to show that each of them is in its own, as if tightly closed from others, a box that has a name, and with it a profession, a specialty for the people involved in it, while in fact its true and highest meaning is not at all there, but in the sense of life - at least for a person who stands at the center of them. The blood is scarlet and black, but these signs are especially meaningless before the question: why was it shed? And - was the man who defended his life to the last not right?

Scientific and precise, thus, also serve the artistic unity; Moreover, in it, in this whole, they become channels for spreading the idea of ​​unity outside, to all spheres of life, including ourselves. A concrete, historical, limited fact, document becomes indefinitely close

for all. The boundaries between time- and place-specific art and life in the broadest sense are crumbling.

In fact, few people think when reading that "Hadji Murad" is a historical story, that Nikolai, Shamil, Vorontsov and others are people who lived without a story, on their own. No one is looking for a historical fact - whether it was, was not, than confirmed - because these people are told many times more interesting than could be extracted from the documents that history has left. At the same time, as mentioned, the story does not contradict any of these documents. He simply looks through them or guesses them in such a way that extinct life is restored between them - it runs like a stream along a dried-up channel. Some facts, external, known, entail others, imaginary and deeper, which, even when they happened, could not be verified or left for posterity - it seemed that they had irretrievably gone in their precious single content. Here they are restored, returned from non-existence, become part of modern reader life - thanks to the life-giving activity of the image.

And - a wonderful thing! - when it happens that these new facts somehow manage to be verified from the fragments of the past, they are confirmed. Unity, it turns out, reached out to them. One of the miracles of art is performed (miracles, of course, only from the point of view of logical calculation, which does not know this inner relationship with the whole world and believes that before unknown fact one can reach only by the sequence of the law) - from the transparent void one can suddenly hear the noise and cries of a bygone life, as in that scene at Rabelais, when the battle “frozen” in antiquity thawed out.

Here is a small (at first extraneous) example: Nekrasov's sketch of Pushkin. As if an album sketch - not a portrait, but so, a fleeting idea - in the verses "About the Weather".

The old messenger tells Nekrasov about his ordeals:

I've been babysitting with Sovremennik for a long time:

He wore it to Alexander Sergeyich.

And now it's the thirteenth year

I wear everything to Nikolai Alekseich, -

Lives on Li gene...

He visited, according to him, many writers: Bulgarin, Voeikov, Zhukovsky ...

I went to Vasily Andreevich,

Yes, I didn’t see a penny from him,

Not like Alexander Sergeyich -

He often gave me vodka.

But he reproached everything with censorship:

If red meets crosses,

So it will let you proofread:

Get out, please, you!

Watching a man get killed

Once I said: “It will do, and so!”

This is blood, she says, shed, -

My blood - you are a fool! ..

It is difficult to convey why this little passage so suddenly illuminates Pushkin's personality for us; brighter than a dozen historical novels about him, including very smart and scholarly ones. In a nutshell, of course, we can say: because he is highly artistic, that is, he captures, according to the facts known to us, something important from Pushkin's soul - the temperament, passion, loneliness of his genius in the literary and bureaucratic fraternity (not to mention the light) , hot temper and innocence, suddenly breaking into a bitter mockery. However, all the same, listing these qualities does not mean explaining and unraveling this image; he was created by an artistic, integral thought that restored the life-like trifle, the detail of Pushkin's behavior. But what? Having examined it, then suddenly we can come across a fact saved in Pushkin's correspondence - a completely different time and a different situation, from his youth - where the expressions and spirit of speech completely coincide with Nekrasov's portrait! Letter to P. A. Vyazemsky dated February 19, 1825: “Tell Mukhanov from me that it is a sin for him to joke magazine jokes with me. Without asking, he took the beginning of the Gypsies from me and dissolved it around the world. Barbarian! it's my blood, it's money! now I have to print out Tsyganov, and not the time at all” 1 .

In "Hadji Murad" this principle of artistic "resurrection" was expressed, perhaps, more fully than anywhere else in Tolstoy. This work is in the most precise sense - a reproduction. His realism re-creates what has already been, repeats the course of life in such moments that give the focus of everything that was in something personal, free, individual: you look - this fictional past turns out to be a fact.

Here is Nikolai, who is taken from documentary data and dispersed, so to speak, from there into such self-propulsion that a new document, not “laid” into him at first, is restored in him. We can check this through the same Pushkin.

Tolstoy has one of the persistent external leitmotifs - Nikolai "frowns." This happens to him in moments of impatience and anger, when he dares to be disturbed by something that he has resolutely condemned: irrevocably, for a long time and therefore has no right to exist. An artistic find in the spirit of this personality.

"What's your last name? - asked Nikolai.

Brzezovsky.

Of Polish origin and a Catholic,” answered Chernyshev.

Nicholas frowned.

Or: “Seeing the uniform of the school, which he did not like for freethinking, Nikolai Pavlovich frowned, but high growth and the student's diligent drawing and saluting, with the pupil's pointedly protruding elbow, softened his displeasure.

What's the last name? - he asked.

Polosatov! Your Imperial Majesty.

Well done!"

And now let's look at Pushkin's random testimony, which has nothing to do with the story of Hadji Murad. Nikolai was "photographed" in it in 1833, that is, twenty years before the time that Tolstoy described, and without the slightest desire to "deep" into the image.

“Here’s the thing,” Pushkin writes to MP Pogodin, “according to our agreement, for a long time I was going to seize the time,

to ask the sovereign for you as an employee. Yes, everything somehow failed. Finally, at Shrovetide, the tsar once spoke to me about Peter I, and I immediately presented to him that it was impossible for me to work alone on the archives and that I needed the help of an enlightened, intelligent and active scientist. The sovereign asked who I needed, and at your name he almost frowned (he confuses you with Polevoy; excuse me generously; he is not a very firm writer, though a fine fellow, and a glorious king). I somehow managed to introduce you, and D. N. Bludov corrected everything and explained that only the first syllable of your surnames is common between you and Polevoy. To this was added the favorable opinion of Benckendorff. Thus the matter is harmonious; and the archives are open to you (except the secret one)" 1 .

Before us, of course, is a coincidence, but what is the correctness of repetitions - in what is unique, in life's little things! Nikolai stumbled upon something familiar - immediate anger ("frowned"), it is now difficult for him to explain anything ("I somehow," writes Pushkin, "managed to recommend you ..."); then some deviation from the expected still "softens his displeasure." Perhaps in life there was no such repetition, but in art - from a similar position - it resurrected and from an insignificant stroke became important point artistic thought. It is especially pleasing that this "movement" into the image took place with the help, albeit without the knowledge, of two geniuses of our literature. In undeniable examples, we observe the process of spontaneous generation of an image in a primary conjugating trifle and, at the same time, the power of art, capable of restoring a fact.

And one more thing: Pushkin and Tolstoy, as one can guess here, are united in the most general artistic approach to the subject; art as a whole, as can be understood even from such a small example, rests on the same foundation, has a single principle - with all the contrast and difference in styles, manners, historical trends.

As for Nicholas I, Russian literature had a special account for him. Still not written

1 Pushkin A. S. Full. coll. cit., vol. X, p. 428.

although sparsely known, the history of the relationship of this person with Russian writers, journalists, publishers and poets. Nikolai dispersed most of them, gave them to the soldiers or killed them, and pestered the rest with police guardianship and fantastic advice.

The well-known Herzen list is far from complete in this sense. It lists only the dead, but there are not many facts about the systematic strangulation of the living - about how Pushkin's best creations were put aside on the table, mangled by the highest hand, how Benckendorff set even on such an innocent, in the words of Tyutchev, "dove" like Zhukovsky, and Turgenev was put under arrest for his sympathetic response to Gogol's death, and so on and so forth.

Leo Tolstoy, with his Hadji Murad, repaid Nikolai for everyone. It was, therefore, not only artistic, but also historical revenge. However, in order for it to come true so brilliantly, it still had to be artistic. It was precisely art that was needed to revive Nicholas for a public trial. This was done by satire - another of the unifying means of this artistic whole.

The fact is that Nikolai in Hadji Murad is not just one of the polarities of the work, he is a real pole, an ice cap that freezes life. Somewhere on the other end there should be its opposite, but only, as the plan of the work finds out, there is the same hat - Shamil. From this ideological and compositional discovery in the story, a completely new type of realistic satire, apparently unique in world literature, is born - a through parallel exposure. By mutual similarity, Nikolai and Shamil destroy each other.

Even the simplicity of these creatures turns out to be false.

“In general, there was nothing shiny, gold or silver on the imam, and his tall ... figure ... produced the same impression of greatness,

“... returned to his room and lay down on the narrow, hard bed, which he was proud of, and covered himself with his cloak, which he considered (and so he said)

which he desired and knew how to produce among the people.

ril) as famous as Napoleon's hat..."

Both of them are aware of their insignificance and therefore hide it even more carefully.

"... despite the public recognition of his campaign as a victory, he knew that his campaign was unsuccessful."

"... although he was proud of his strategic abilities, in the depths of his soul he was aware that they were not."

The majestic inspiration, which, according to despots, should shock subordinates and inspire them with the idea of ​​communication between the ruler and the supreme being, was noticed by Tolstoy back in Napoleon (leg trembling is a “great sign”). Here it rises to a new point.

“When the advisers talked about this, Shamil closed his eyes and fell silent.

The advisers knew that this meant that he was now listening to the voice of the prophet speaking to him.

“Wait a bit,” he said, and closing his eyes, lowered his head. Chernyshev knew, having heard this more than once from Nikolai, that when he needed to solve some important issue, he only needed to concentrate, for a few moments, and that then inspiration came to him ... "

A rare ferocity distinguishes the decisions made by such intuitions, but even this is sanctimoniously presented as mercy.

“Shamil fell silent and looked at Yusuf for a long time.

Write that I took pity on you and will not kill you, but gouge out your eyes, as I do to all traitors. Go."

“Deserves the death penalty. But thank God death penalty we do not have. And it's not for me to enter it. Pass 12 times through a thousand people.

Both of them use religion only to strengthen their power, not at all caring about the meaning of commandments and prayers.

“First of all, it was necessary to perform the midday prayer, for which he now had not the slightest disposition.”

“... he read the usual, since childhood prayers: “Theotokos”, “I believe”, “Our Father”, without attributing any meaning to the spoken words.

They correlate in many other details: the empress “with a shaking head and a frozen smile” plays under Nicholas essentially the same role as “a sharp-nosed, black, unpleasant face and unloved, but older wife” will enter under Shamil; one attends the dinner, the other brings it, these are their functions; therefore, Nikolai's entertainment with the girl Kopervain and Nelidova only formally differ from Shamil's legalized polygamy.

Messed up, merged into one person, imitating the emperor and higher ranks, all kinds of courtiers, Nikolai is proud of his cloak - Chernyshev did not know galoshes, although without them his legs would feel cold. Chernyshev has the same sleigh as the emperor, the adjutant wing on duty, just like the emperor, combing his temples to his eyes; Prince Vasily Dolgorukov’s “stupid face” is decorated with imperial sideburns, mustaches and the same temples. Old Vorontsov, like Nikolai, says "you" to young officers. With another

On the other hand, Chernyshev flatters Nikolai in connection with the affair of Hadji Murad (“He realized that it was no longer possible to hold on to them”) in exactly the same way as Manana Orbeliani and other guests - Vorontsov (“They feel that they now (this now meant: with Vorontsov) cannot withstand"). Finally, Vorontsov himself even somewhat resembles the imam: "... his face smiled pleasantly and his eyes squinted ..."

" - Where? - Vorontsov asked, screwing up his eyes ”(squinted eyes were always a sign of secrecy for Tolstoy, remember, for example, what Dolly thought about why Anna squinted), etc., etc.

What does this similarity mean? Shamil and Nikolai (and with them the “half-frozen” courtiers) prove by this that, unlike other diverse and “polar” people on earth, they do not complement each other, but duplicate, like things; they are absolutely repeatable and therefore, in essence, do not live, although they stand on the official heights of life. This special kind compositional unity and balance in the work thus means the most profound development of her idea: "a minus by a minus gives a plus."

The character of Hadji Murad, irreconcilably hostile to both poles, ultimately embodying the idea of ​​people's resistance to all forms of an inhuman world order, remained Tolstoy's last word and his testament to the literature of the 20th century.

"Hadji Murad" belongs to those books that should be reviewed, and not written literary works about them. That is, they need to be treated as if they had just left. Only conditional critical inertia still does not allow doing so, although each edition of these books and each reader's encounter with them is an incomparably stronger intrusion into the central questions of life than - alas - sometimes happens among contemporaries catching up with each other.

“... Perhaps,” Dostoevsky once wrote, “we will say unheard-of, shameless insolence, but let them not be embarrassed by our words; after all, we are talking only one assumption: ... well, if the Iliad is more useful than the works of Marko Vovchka, and not only

before, and even now, with modern questions: is it more useful as a way of achieving the known goals of these same questions, solving desktop problems? one

In fact, why not, for the sake of the smallest, harmless projection, our editors not try - at the moment of unsuccessful searches for a strong literary response - to publish a forgotten story, story or even an article (these are just asked) by a real deep writer on some similar modern issue. from past?

That sort of thing is probably justified. As for the literary analysis of classical books, then he, in turn, can try to keep these books alive. For this it is necessary that the analysis of the various categories from time to time return to the whole, to the work of art. Because only through a work, and not through categories, can art act on a person with the quality that only it can act - and nothing else.

1 Russian writers on literature, vol. II. L., "Soviet writer", 1939, p. 171.