A stumbling block for many readers of What Is to Be Done? are the dreams of Vera Pavlovna. They are difficult to understand, especially in cases where, for reasons of censorship, Chernyshevsky expressed his ideas in too allegorical form.
But one of the images presented in the second dream of Vera Pavlovna does not raise doubts about what the author created it for. This is “real dirt”. What does Chernyshevsky mean by using this term?
First, he himself asks the question: “Why is wheat so white, pure and tender born from one mud, and not born from another mud?” Together with his heroine, the author notes: where water has no flow, rot forms in which wheat cannot grow. This rot is “fantastic dirt” that forms when there is no movement. And movement, according to Chernyshevsky, “is reality”, the main element of which is labor.
That environment in human society, where work is honored, gives rise to worthy people despite the roughness of this environment. It is enough to recall the family of Verochka Rozalskaya to be convinced of this. The working environment does not kill a healthy beginning in a person - Chernyshevsky emphasizes this idea, it forms the basis not only of Vera Pavlovna's second dream, but of the entire novel.
Of course, “healthy ears” can also be born in “fantastic dirt”, that is, in an idle environment. An example of this is Rakhmetov. But people who are able to work are an exception in this environment.
All the “new people” - Vera Pavlovna, Kirsanov, Lopukhov - came out of the working environment, work is a need for them. Actually, it is in this sense that they are called new people - compared, for example, with the former heroes of Russian literature, such as Onegin or Pechorin.
It would seem that their work is subject only to the requirements of expediency. Vera Pavlovna says: “I started a workshop so that this profitable money would go into the hands of the very seamstresses for whose work they were received.” But at the same time, she “from the very first days began to bring books. Having made her orders, she began to read aloud ... "
Thus, it becomes clear that labor for heroes is not only a way to make a profit - even the most fair one - but, most importantly, an opportunity to sow "reasonable, good, eternal."
There is one more feature of the attitude to work inherent in the “new people”. This is the desire to ensure that work is creative. Vera Pavlovna constantly strives for this. As soon as she feels that she has “outgrown” her workshops, that she can do without her, she finds a new career: she becomes a doctor. And Kirsanov, her husband, willingly helps her in this, because he himself understands the need not just for labor, but for creative labor.
In the novel "What to do?" “new people” and a new type of human relations are shown. It applies to all spheres of life: professional, family, friendly. The essence of this new type is fully manifested in the daily creative work in which the heroes of the novel are constantly engaged.

The novel "What to do?" Chernyshevsky wrote in 1862-1863. The work was created within the framework of literary direction"sociological realism". Literary historians attribute the novel to the genre of utopia.

Central storyline book is love story with a positive end. In parallel, the work touches upon social, economic and philosophical ideas of that time, the themes of love, the relationship of fathers and children, enlightenment, the importance of human willpower. In addition, there are many allusions to the coming revolution in the novel.

Main characters

Vera Pavlovna Rozalskaya- a purposeful, freedom-loving girl, "with a southern type of face." She thought in a new way, did not want to be just a wife, but to do her own thing; opened sewing workshops.

Dmitry Sergeyevich Lopukhov- a physician, the first husband of Vera Pavlovna. After a staged suicide, he took the name Charles Beaumont.

Alexander Matveich Kirsanov- a friend of Lopukhov, a talented physician, the second husband of Vera Pavlovna.

Other characters

Maria Alexevna Rozalskaya- the mother of Vera Pavlovna, a very enterprising woman who always looked for profit in everything.

Pavel Konstantinovich Rozalsky- manager of the Storeshnikovs' house, father of Vera Pavlovna.

Mikhail Ivanovich Storeshnikov- "a prominent and handsome officer", ladies' man, wooed Vera Pavlovna.

Julie- a Frenchwoman, a woman with a difficult past, found herself a Russian lover, helped and sympathized with Vera.

Mertsalov Alexey Petrovich- a good friend of Lopukhov, a priest who married Lopukhov and Vera.

Mertsalova Natalya Andreevna- Mertsalov's wife, and then Vera's girlfriend.

Rakhmetov- Lopukhov's friend, Kirsanova, was straightforward, with bold views.

Katerina Vasilievna Polozova- Wife of Beaumont (Lopukhov).

Vasily Polozov- father of Katerina Vasilievna.

I. Fool

“On the morning of July 11, 1856, the servants of one of the large St. Petersburg hotels near the Moscow station railway was confused." The day before, at 9 o'clock in the evening, a certain gentleman stopped by them. He didn't answer in the morning. After breaking down the doors, they found a note: “I am leaving at 11 pm and will not return. I will be heard on the Liteiny Bridge, between 2 and 3 o'clock in the morning. Don't have any suspicions."

The policeman said that at night a pistol shot was heard on the bridge and the shot cap of the missing gentleman was found. Gossips decided that he did it because he was "just a fool".

II. The first consequence of a foolish deed

That same morning, at 12 o'clock, a young lady was sewing and humming a French song in an undertone. She was brought a letter that brought her to tears. The young man who entered the room read the letter: “I disturbed your calmness. I'm leaving the stage. Don't be sorry; I love you both so much that I am very happy with my determination. Farewell". His hands shook. The woman exclaimed: “You have his blood on you!” "And I have his blood on me!" .

III. Foreword

The author argues that he "used the usual cunning of novelists: he began the story with spectacular scenes torn from the middle or end of it." He reflects that among his audience there is a share of people whom he respects - “kind and strong, honest and able”, therefore he “still needs” and “already” to write.

Chapter 1. Life of Vera Pavlovna in the parental family

I

Vera Pavlovna grew up in high-rise building on Gorokhovaya, which belonged to the Storeshnikovs. Rozalsky - house manager Pavel Konstantinych, his wife Marya Aleksevna, daughter Vera and "9-year-old son Fedya" lived on the 4th floor. Pavel Konstantinovich also served in the department.

From the age of 12, Verochka went to a boarding school, studied with a piano teacher. She sewed well, so she soon sewed the whole family. Because of her swarthy, “like a gypsy” skin, her mother called her “stuffed animal”, so Vera used to consider herself an ugly girl. But after some time, the mother stopped driving her almost in tatters, and began to dress up, hoping to find the daughter of a rich husband. At the age of 16, Vera began to give lessons herself.

The head of Pavel Konstantinych decided to woo the girl, but he was going for too long. Soon, the master's son Storeshnikov began to go to the Rozalskys, and began to pay much attention to Verochka. To arrange their marriage, Marya Aleksevna even took expensive tickets to the opera in the same box where the son of the hostess was with friends, they were vigorously discussing something in French. Verochka was embarrassed and she, referring to headache, left earlier.

II

Mikhail Ivanovich dined with other gentlemen in a fashionable restaurant. Among them was one lady - Mademoiselle Julie. Storeshnikov said that Vera was his mistress. Julie, who saw Vera at the opera, noted that she was "magnificent", but clearly not Mikhail's mistress - "he wants to buy her."

III

When Storeshnikov came to the Rozalskys the next day, Vera deliberately spoke to him in French so that her mother would not understand anything. She said that she knew - yesterday he decided to "expose" her to his friends as a mistress. Vera asked not to visit them and leave as soon as possible.

IV

Julie, together with Storeshnikov, came to Vera, as the lady needed a piano teacher for her niece (but this was just a fictitious reason). Julie told Marya Aleksevna that Mikhail made a bet with friends on Vera.

V-IX

Julie considered Vera a good passion for Storeshnikov: “marrying her, despite her low birth and, in comparison with you, poverty, would have moved your career forward a lot.” Julie also advised Vera to become Storeshnikov's wife in order to get rid of her mother's persecution. But Storeshnikov was unpleasant to Vera.

After some thought, Storeshnikov really got married. Vera's parents were delighted, but the girl herself said that she did not want to marry Mikhail. However, Storeshnikov nevertheless begged for a delay in the answer instead of a refusal. Coming to visit the girl, Mikhail "was obedient to her, like a child." “Three or four months passed like that.”

Chapter 2

I

To prepare Vera's younger brother for entering the gymnasium, his father hired a medical student, Lopukhov. During the lessons, 9-year-old Fedya told the teacher everything about Vera and her potential fiancé.

II

Lopukhov did not live on state support, and therefore did not starve and did not get cold. From the age of 15 he gave lessons. Lopukhov rented an apartment with his friend Kirsanov. In the near future, he was to become an intern (doctor) in one of the "Petersburg military hospitals", soon to receive a chair at the Academy.

III-VI

Marya Aleksevna invited Lopukhov to an "evening" - for her daughter's birthday. At the evening, during the dance, Lopukhov got into a conversation with Vera. He promised to help her "break out of this humiliating situation" associated with the upcoming wedding.

At the end of the evening, Verochka thought about how strange it was that they spoke for the first time "and became so close." She fell in love with Lopukhov, not yet realizing that her feelings were mutual.

VII - IX

Somehow, in order to finally check Lopukhov, whether he had views of Vera, Marya Aleksevna overheard the conversation between Vera and Dmitry. She heard Lopukhov telling Vera that cold, practical people are right: “only the calculation of profit controls a person.” The girl replied that she completely agreed with him. Lopukhov advised her to marry Mikhail Ivanovich. What she heard completely convinced Marya Aleksevna that conversations with Dmitri Sergeyevich were useful for Vera.

X-XI

Lopukhov and Vera knew they were being followed. At the request of Vera, Lopukhov was looking for a place for her as a governess. Kirsanov helped find the right option.

XII. Verochka's first dream

Vera dreamed that she was locked in a damp, dark basement. Suddenly the door opened and she was in a field. She began to dream that she was paralyzed. Someone touched her, and her illness went away. Vera saw that a beautiful girl with a changing appearance was walking across the field - English, French, German, Polish, Russian, and her mood was constantly changing. The girl introduced herself as the bride of her suitors and asked to be called "love for people". Then Vera dreamed that she was walking through the city and freeing the girls locked in the basement and treating girls who were paralyzed.

XIII-XVI

The woman, to whom Verochka was supposed to go as a governess, refused, because she did not want to go against the will of the girl's parents. Frustrated, Vera thought that if it was really hard, she would throw herself out the window.

XVII - XVIII

Vera and Dmitry decide to get married, discuss later life. The girl wants to earn her own money so as not to be a slave to her husband. She wants them to live as friends, they have separate rooms and a common living room.

XIX – XIX

While Lopukhov had business, Vera lived at home. Somehow she went out with her mother before Gostiny Dvor. Unexpectedly, the girl told her mother that she had married Dmitry Sergeyevich, got into the first cab she came across and ran away.

XX- XIV

Three days before that, they really got married. Lopukhov arranged for his friend Mertsalov to marry them. He remembered that they kissed in the church and, so that it would not be too embarrassing there, they kissed beforehand.

Having escaped from her mother, Vera went to the apartment Lopukhov had found for them. Lopukhov himself went to the Rozalskys and reassured them about what had happened.

Chapter 3

I

"Things were going well for the Lopukhovs." Vera gave lessons, Lopukhov worked. The owners, with whom the spouses lived, were surprised by their way of life - as if they were not a family, but brother and sister. The Lopukhovs entered each other only by knocking. Vera believed that this only contributes to a strong marriage and love.

II

Vera Pavlovna opened a sewing workshop. Julie helped her find clients. Having gone to her parents, she, returning home, did not understand how she could live in "such disgusting embarrassment" and "grow up with love for good."

III. The second dream of Vera Pavlovna

Vera dreamed that her husband and Alexei Petrovich were walking across the field. Lopukhov told a friend that there is “pure dirt”, “real dirt”, from which an ear grows. And there is "rotten dirt" - "fantastic dirt", from which there is no development.

Then she dreamed of her mother. Marya Aleksevna, with malice in her voice, said that she was taking care of a piece of bread for her daughter, and if she had not been evil, the daughter would not have been kind.

IV

"The workshop of Vera Pavlovna settled down." She first had three seamstresses, who then found four more. For three years, their workshop has only developed and expanded. “A year and a half later, almost all the girls already lived in one large apartment, had a common table, stocked up on provisions in the same manner as is done in large farms.”

5th–18th

Once, after a walk, Dmitry Sergeyevich fell seriously ill with pneumonia. Kirsanov and Vera were on duty at the bedside of the patient until he recovered. Kirsanov had been in love with Vera for a long time, so before his friend's illness he very rarely visited them.

Both Kirsanov and Lopukhov “plowed their way with their breasts, without connections, without acquaintances.” Kirsanov was a physician, "already had a chair" and was known as a "master" of his craft.

Being with the Lopukhovs during the illness of a friend, Kirsanov understood that he was "stepping on a dangerous path for himself." Despite the fact that the attachment to Vera resumed with greater force, he managed to cope with it.

XIX. The third dream of Vera Pavlovna

Vera dreamed that she was reading her own diary. From him, she understands that she loves Lopukhov because he "brought her out of the basement." That before she did not know the need for a quiet, tender feeling, which is not in her husband.

XX – XXI

Vera had a premonition that she did not love her husband. Lopukhov began to think that he would not "keep her love behind him." Having analyzed latest events, Lopukhov realized that feelings arose between Kirsanov and Vera.

XXII-XXVIII

Lopukhov asked Kirsanov to visit them more often. Vera realized her passion for Kirsanov and wrote a note to her husband apologizing that she loved Alexander. The next day, Lopukhov went to relatives in Ryazan. A month and a half later he returned, lived for three weeks in St. Petersburg, and then left for Moscow. He left on July 9, and on July 11 "bewilderment occurred in the hotel near the station of the Moscow railway" in the morning.

XXIX-XXX

An acquaintance of Lopukhovy Rakhmetov volunteered to help Vera. He knew about Lopukhov's plans and handed over a note where he wrote that he was going to "leave the stage".

Rakhmetov had the nickname Nikitushka Lomov, named after a barge hauler who walked along the Volga, "a giant of Herculean strength." Rakhmetov worked hard on himself and acquired "exorbitant strength". He was quite sharp and straightforward in communication. Once I even slept on nails to test my willpower. The author believes that such people as Rakhmetov, “the life of all flourishes; without them, she would have died out.

XXXI

Chapter 4

I-III

Berlin, July 20, 1856. Letter to Vera Pavlovna from a "retired medical student" in which he conveys the words of Dmitry Sergeevich. Lopukhov understood that their relationship with Vera would no longer be the same as before, reflected on his mistakes and said that Kirsanov should take his place.

IV-XIII

Vera is happy with Kirsanov. They read and discuss books together. Once, during a conversation, Vera said that “the organization of a woman is almost higher than that of men,” that women are stronger and more resilient than men.

Vera suggested that "you need to have such a thing that cannot be abandoned, which cannot be postponed - then a person is incomparably stronger." Vera cited Rakhmetov as an example, for whom a common cause replaced a personal one, while they, Alexander and Vera, only need a personal life.

To be equal to her husband in everything, Vera took up medicine. At that time, there were no female doctors yet, and for a woman this was a compromising matter.

XIV

Vera and Alexander note that over time, their feelings only become stronger. Kirsanov believes that without his wife, he would have long ceased to grow in the professional field.

XVI. The fourth dream of Vera Pavlovna

Vera dreamed of a field covered with flowers, flowering shrubs, a forest, a magnificent palace. Vera is shown three queens, goddesses who were worshipped. The first is Astarte, who was the slave of her husband. The second is Aphrodite, who was exalted only as a source of pleasure. The third - "Integrity", showing a jousting tournament and a knight who loved an inaccessible lady of the heart. The knights loved their ladies only as long as they did not become their wives and subjects.

The guide of Faith said that the kingdoms of those queens are falling, and now her time has come. Vera understands that she herself is the guide and the new queen. The conductor says that it can be expressed in one word - equality. Vera dreams of New Russia, where people live and work happily.

XVII

A year later, Vera's new workshop "was completely settled" . The first workshop is run by Mertsalova. Soon they opened a store on Nevsky.

XVIII

Letter from Katerina Vasilievna Polozova. She writes that she met Vera Pavlovna and is delighted with her workshop.

Chapter 5

I

Polozova owed a lot to Kirsanov. Her father was "a retired captain or staff captain". After resigning, he began to engage in entrepreneurship and soon created a "hefty capital". His wife died, leaving him a daughter, Katya. Over time, his capital reached several million. But at some point he quarreled with the “right person” and at the age of 60 he was left a beggar (compared to the recent one, otherwise he lived well).

II-V

When Katya was 17 years old, she suddenly began to lose weight and took to her bed. Just a year before the wedding with Vera, Kirsanov was among the doctors who took care of Katya's health. Alexander guessed that the cause of the girl's ill health was unhappy love.

“Hundreds of suitors followed the heiress of a huge fortune.” Polozov immediately noticed that Solovtsov liked his daughter. But it was very bad man» . Polozov once said a taunt to Solovtsov, who began to rarely visit them, but began to send Katya hopeless letters. Rereading them, she imagined love and fell ill.

VI–VIII

At the next medical consultation, Kirsanov said that Polozova's disease is incurable, so her suffering must be stopped by taking a lethal dose of morphine. Upon learning of this, Polozov allowed the girl to do what she wanted. The wedding was scheduled three months later. Soon the girl herself realized her mistake and broke off the engagement. Her views had changed, now she was even glad that her father had lost his wealth and "the vulgar, boring, nasty crowd had left them."

IX

Polozov decided to sell the stearin plant and, after a long search, found a buyer - Charles Beaumont, who was an agent for the London firm of Hodchson, Lauter and K.

X

Beaumont said that his father came from America, he was here "a distiller at a factory in the Tambov province", but after the death of his wife he returned to America. When his father died, Charles got a job in a London office that deals with St. Petersburg and asked for a job in Russia.

XI-XII

Polozov invited Beaumont to dinner. During the conversation, Katya said that she wanted to do some useful work. Beaumont advised her to get acquainted with Mrs. Kirsanova, but then to tell how her affairs were.

XIII-XVIII

Beaumont began to visit the Polozovs very often. Polozov considered him a good match for Katerina. Katerina and Charles fell in love, but did not show their passion, they were very reserved.

Charles proposed to Catherine, warning that he was already married. The girl realized that it was Vera. Katherine gave him her consent.

XIX – XXI

The next day, Katerina went to Vera and said that she would introduce her to her fiancé. The Kirsanovs, having learned that it was Lopukhov, were very happy (Dmitry staged suicide, changed his name, left for America, but then returned). “The same evening we agreed: for both families to look for apartments that would be nearby.”

XXII

“Each of the two families lives in its own way, as it pleases which one. They see each other like family." “Sewing, continuing to grow together, continue to exist; there are now three of them; Katerina Vasilievna has arranged her own for a long time.” This year, Vera Pavlovna will already "take the exam for a doctor."

XXIII

Several years passed, they lived just as amicably. The author depicts a scene of festivities. Among the youth there is a certain lady in mourning who says that "you can fall in love and you can get married, only with analysis, and without deceit."

Chapter 6

“- To the Passage! - said the lady in mourning, only now she was no longer in mourning: a bright pink dress, pink hat, white mantilla, bouquet in hand. She had been waiting for this day for over two years. But, the author, not wanting to continue, finishes his story.

Conclusion

Roman Chernyshevsky "What to do?" interesting gallery of strong, strong-willed characters - "new" people. This is Vera Pavlovna, Kirsanov, Lopukhov, above whom, as if standing apart, the image of Rakhmetov. All these people made themselves and did not stop working on self-development, while trying to invest as much as possible in the “common cause”. In fact, they are revolutionaries.

The main character of the book, Vera Pavlovna, is not an ordinary woman for that time. She decides to go against the will of her parents, is not afraid of the condemnation of society, opening her workshops, and then becoming a doctor. She inspires other women and people around them for self-development, service to the common cause.

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The main character of the novel "What to do?" is Vera Pavlovna.

The girl is quite beautiful, slender, looks like a southern princess. She is the owner of thick black hair and dark skin. Vera Pavlovna is incredibly charming, feminine, and dresses with taste.

Vera grew up in a bourgeois family, where there was a terrible atmosphere of vulgarity and debauchery. Her father is a cowardly and hopeless person, and her mother is a woman with a strong temper, a complex character, very selfish. To some extent, the upbringing of the mother can be called tyrannical.

Vera Pavlovna is a bright character in the work. She is incredibly sensitive, kind, has spiritual harmony. She is also a very creative person: she loves to play the piano and sing. Her voice is simply wonderful, which makes everyone who hears it fall in love.

The main character set the goal of her life to gain freedom and independence. She does not want to obey anyone, because from childhood she was obliged to sheathe the whole family. The girl was not afraid of dirty work, she was not a white hand. Faith is the ideal of that time. Proud, playful, independent of other people's opinions. Freedom comes first for her. This person is constantly improving and growing, developing his skills.

When Vera found out that her tyrant mother wants to “sell” her, that is, marry her “successfully” to some vulgar and terrible man, the girl decides to take a desperate step - to commit suicide. After all, her ardent character and the will to freedom are much more important than the whims of her mother. She is not ready to put up with such injustice, in her opinion, it is better to die than to live with someone you do not love.

The brother's teacher, Lopukhov, helps to avoid an unwanted wedding. He organized a fictitious marriage. Vera, in turn, arranges sewing production. Its main principle is the equality of working girls, she wants to teach them freedom.

Later, Vera meets Lopukhov's friend Kirsanov. Faith falls in love with it young man and their feelings are mutual. Lopukhov, realizing that Vera Pavlovna is under reliable protection, disappears from their lives.

The image of Faith is the desire for freedom and real happiness without any framework. This is the kind of heroine who gets what she wants. She will not stop on her way for the sake of her cherished goal.

Composition on the theme of Vera Pavlovna

Chernyshevsky left a legacy to his descendants in the form of a novel about "new people". The novel "What to do?" asks the reader questions and makes him analyze what is happening. Here you can meet a revolutionary, and an educator, and "new people" and a person who is not ready for the new. Vera Pavlova Rozolskaya is a woman who throughout the novel shows her strength and confidence. Even in difficult circumstances, she improves herself, becomes the mistress of a sewing workshop and a doctor. This image is written with love, since Chernyshevsky reflects in it his worldview as a revolutionary writer.

Vera Pavlovna was born and spent her childhood in a bourgeois family. Parents were not distinguished by high moral feelings. Since childhood, she was forced to work. Therefore, I quit piano lessons with a teacher. But she did not agree to her mother's persuasion to marry a wealthy man and formalized a fictitious marriage with Lopukhov. This episode shows the rebellious spirit of the girl. She is not ready to come to terms with outdated laws, she opposes falsehood and lies. And even in this family, everything is according to the new rules: the main thing in everyday life is equality, no one crosses the border. Vera Pavlovna is convinced that the main thing is independence, which manifests itself not only in the ability to do what you want, but also in relation to another person and in relationships in general.

But her struggle is not only a selfish desire to be equal with a man. She saves young girls from poverty. In the new apartment, he organizes a sewing workshop, hires workers with whom he shares the profit equally. Together with the girls, he not only works, but also goes on picnics, communicates on important topics. It is very important for Vera Pavlovna to give happiness to others.

She cannot deceive her husband Lopukhov, when she fell in love with Kirsanov, she immediately said this. She is self-sufficient and understands that any outcome will be correct. After all, a woman does not give up sewing and studies the medical craft. After Lopukhov's "suicide", she is in pain and blames herself. But having overcome these feelings, he still remains with his beloved Kirsanov, and later another family appears in the house - Beaumont.

Vera Pavlovna loves music and theater, reads a lot of classical and modern literature. He takes care of his appearance, so he always has a neat appearance and looks feminine. But at the same time she has a strong character and persistent life position. Chernyshevsky, in the image of Vera Pavlovna, combined the features of his wife and the "new women" of that time.

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  The fantastic story of Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol "The Night Before Christmas" begins with the tricks of the devil. The devil steals a month from heaven to take revenge on the blacksmith Vakula for painting a picture of the Last Judgment in the church.

The revolution that broke out in France in February 1848 had a profound effect on the student N.G. Chernyshevsky defining the range of his interests. He plunged into the study of the works of the utopian socialists, in which they then saw the development of Christian doctrine.

N.G. Chernyshevsky

But in July 1862 Chernyshevsky was arrested on charges of having links with emigrants, that is, with a group A.I. Herzen, and ended up imprisoned in the solitary confinement of the Peter and Paul Fortress, where he spent two whole years, and it was there that his novel What Is to Be Done was written.

Chernyshevsky writes the novel What Is to Be Done? The novel overshadowed the works of Dostoevsky, and he rushed to write his "answer to Chamberlain" - the novel "The Idiot"

It is impossible to apply the usual standards of that time to this novel. In the work Chernyshevsky we are dealing with a philosophical-utopian novel. Thought in his novel prevails over the direct depiction of life. It is no coincidence that the novel was evaluated by the revolutionary-democratic intelligentsia not as a work of art proper, but as program work for the socialist reorganization of life.

The composition of the work is strictly thought out: the image of “vulgar people”, the image of “ordinary new people”, the image of “ special person”and the dreams of the heroine of the novel by Vera Pavlovna. The four dreams of Vera Pavlovna contain a philosophical concept developed by Chernyshevsky for the revolutionary youth.

Letter

On July 11, 1856, a note was found in one of the rooms of the St. Petersburg hotel, which says that its author will soon become known on Liteiny Bridge and that the guilty should not be looked for. On the same night, a man shot himself on the bridge. In the water they found his shot cap.

Vera Pavlovna receives a fatal letter

At this time on Stone Island, a young lady is sewing and singing a song. Her name is Vera Pavlovna. Then a maid appears with a letter, after reading it, Vera Pavlovna begins to cry. The young man who appears tries to console her, but Vera Pavlovna pushes him away with the words that it is his fault.

"You're in the blood! You have his blood on you! It's not your fault - I'm alone ... "

Acquaintance with Lopukhov

Further in the novel there is a story about the life of Vera Pavlovna and what led to such a sad outcome. Vera Pavlovna was born and raised in St. Petersburg. Her father, Pavel Konstantinovich Rozalsky, was the manager of the house, and her mother gave out money on bail. main goal mother, Marya Alekseevna, it was as profitable as possible to marry her daughter, and she made every effort to do this. The son of the owners of the house, officer Stareshnikov, draws attention to Vera, and tries to seduce her. The mother asks her daughter to be as affectionate with him as possible so that he will marry her, but Vera understands Storeshnikov's true intentions. In the house, Verochka becomes unbearable, but everything is suddenly decided.

Vera Pavlovna and Lopukhov

A young teacher, a medical student Dmitry Sergeevich Lopukhov, was invited to Fedya, Vera's brother. Initially, they treat each other with caution, but after they find a lot in common. Lopukhov tries to save Vera and arrange her as a governess, but he is refused, because no one wanted to take responsibility for a young girl who runs away from home.

First dream

Not long before graduation, Lopukhov quits studying, earns extra money with private lessons and proposes to Vera.

N. Bondarenko. Vera Pavlovna's first dream

Vera has her first dream. She dreams that she is locked in a damp, dark basement. And suddenly the door swung open, and Verochka found herself in a field. Then she dreams that she is paralyzed. And someone's voice says that she'll be well, as soon as He touches her hand. Verochka got up, walked, ran, and again she was on the field, and again she frolicked and ran. “But a girl is walking across the field - how strange! Both her face and her gait - everything changes, constantly changes in her. Verochka asks her who she is. “I am your fiancé's bride. My suitors know me, but I cannot know them; I have a lot of them". “But what is your name? I so want to know, ”says Verochka. And the girl answers her: “I have many different names. Whoever needs to call me, I tell him that name. You call me love for people. Then she instructs Verochka - to let everyone out and heal, as she cured her of paralysis. “And Verochka walks around the city and lets the girls out of the basement, heals them from paralysis. Everyone gets up, walks, and they are all back on the field, running, frolicking. ”This dream is actually an allegory, and the thinking public of that time, being able to read between the lines, found in the text specific images and even calls to action. The girl that Verochka met personified the future revolution, and her suitors are revolutionaries ready to fight for the reorganization of Russia.

Old Saratov, where Chernyshevsky comes from. Mysterious treasures, the shadow of Chernyshevsky, an old manor and love for the Fatherland ... Why not another dream of Vera Pavlovna? All this just happened

The young people live in a rented apartment, the relationship between Lopukhov and Vera seems strange to its owner. They sleep in separate rooms, ask questions before entering a room, and do not appear in front of each other undressed. Vera explains this by the fact that they are afraid to get bored with each other, that this is how family life should be.

Second dream

Vera Pavlovna decides to open her own household - a sewing workshop and hires girls there who receive the same percentage of income as she does. They not only work together, but also relax together.

At this time, Vera Pavlovna has a second dream in which she sees a field on which ears of corn grow. There is real dirt on the field - this is concern for what a person needs, ears of corn grow from this dirt, and there is fantastic dirt - care for an empty, unnecessary deed, and nothing grows from this dirt.

third dream

A friend of Dmitry, Alexander Matveevich Kirsanov, often comes to visit the Lopukhovs. Kirsanov spends a lot of time with Vera Pavlovna, while Lopukhov is busy with his work. But suddenly Kirsanov stops visiting them, the Lopukhovs cannot understand why. It's just that Kirsanov understands that he has fallen in love with a friend's wife. Kirsanov appears only when Dmitry is ill, he helps Vera Pavlovna in everything, and at that moment she realizes that she is also in love with Kirsanov.

N. Bondarenko. Family portrait in the interior. Vera Pavlovna

This is also evidenced by her next, third, dream, in which she reads a diary.

N. Bondarenko. The third dream of Vera Pavlovna

The diary says that she is grateful to her husband for everything, but does not feel for him that tender feeling that she needs so much.

Dmitry finds the only way out of this - he goes to the Linear Bridge, where the fatal shot takes place.

N. Bondarenko. Sewing workshop of Vera Pavlovna

When Vera Pavlovna finds out about this, a mutual friend Kirsanov and Lopukhov - Rakhmetov. He was from a wealthy family, but at one time he sold his estate and gave away all the money.

N. Bondarenko. Portrait of Rakhmetov

He does not drink wine, does not touch women, and even sleeps on nails in order to find out his physical capabilities. Rakhmetov traveled extensively in Europe and Russia in order to get as close to the people as possible. On this day, he brought a letter to Vera Pavlovna from Lopukhov, after which she becomes calm. Rakhmetov tells Vera Pavlovna that they were too different from Lopukhov, which is why she fell in love with Kirsanov.

After some time, Vera Pavlovna marries Kirsanov.

Kirsanov and Vera Pavlovna. Film frame

The fact that Vera Pavlovna and Lopukhov are different was written in a letter she received from Berlin from a certain friend of Lopukhov, who says that after breaking up with Vera Lopukhov feels great.

fourth dream

As a result, the life of Vera Pavlova and Kirsanov is not much different from her life with Lopukhov. Kirsanov loved her very much, always listened to her, and if necessary, helped.

N. Bondarenko. The fourth dream of Vera Pavlovna

Soon she again has a dream in which there are a lot of women of all times. The beauty from the first dream is immediately shown, who tells her about the freedom of a woman and the equality of the sexes.

Dream house of Vera Pavlovna

The fourth dream paints a utopian picture of the life of the future socialist society, a real earthly paradise. In this ideal world, unprecedented luxury reigns, workshops work, for some reason aluminum prevails (for that time a precious metal), while everyone is happy in free labor. Fantastic descriptions of the future clearly set off the main idea of ​​the novel: all this will easily come true in the near future, you just have to trust the Rakhmetovs and jointly “make” a revolution according to recipes taken from Vera Pavlovna’s dreams.

Unlike Goncharova, who showed in the chapter "Oblomov's Dream" his ideal of Russia with all its troubles and weaknesses - that ideal that was turned not to the future, but to the present, - Chernyshevsky in Vera Pavlovna's dreams, she denies the very possibility of building a just society on the basis of the tsarist regime. It seems to him that only rebellion and revolution can bring happiness. But it was a utopia, and half a century later, the Bolshevik Party, having made an attempt to build a just society according to the plans of the utopian socialists, ultimately failed, at least temporarily.

There are many guests in the Kirsanovs' house, and soon the Beaumont family appears among them. Ekaterina Beaumont met Kirsanov a long time ago, when he helped her understand that the man she loved was not worthy of her. Later, she meets Charles Beaumont, who speaks Russian in excellence, since he lived in Russia until the age of 20. When Charles Beaumont meets Kirsanov, the latter recognizes Lopukhov in him. The Kirsanovs and the Beaumonts become so close to each other that they decide to live in the same house.

What to do in the Looking Glass?

A little over a century and a half ago, Chernyshevsky began to compose the dreams of Vera Pavlovna, and Lewis Carroll - the dreams of the girl Alice

Vera Pavlovna and Alice. As soon as Alice dozed off with a book, the Rabbit ran past and miracles began. And Vera Pavlovna dreamed of how to work so that worse miracles would spin around

What to do if Carroll dreams of Chernyshevsky?

A century and a half ago, the radical writer began to compose the dreams of Vera Pavlovna, and the conservative writer began to compose the dreams of the girl Alice.

One summer morning in 1862, 34-year-old Chernyshevsky went to Peter and Paul Fortress. And 30-year-old teacher Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll) is on a boat trip.

One, sitting behind bars, composed the dreams of Vera Pavlovna. It was then that another, swimming with a colleague Duckworth and the children of the dean of the college, Henry Liddell, began to compose, at the request of 7-year-old Alice, a fairy tale about her dreams. And here's the thing: the girl's dreams, invented by two young people, made so much noise. So many meanings found in their dreams!

Of course, the coincidence is just a coincidence. Chernyshevsky did not suspect the existence of Lewis Carroll, just as he did not know about Nikolai Gavrilovich. But the whim of coincidence is curious - chiaroscuro is mixed, the characters glare in a new way.

Chernyshevsky was accused of compiling a proclamation "Bow to the lord peasants from well-wishers", they called him "enemy number one of the Russian Empire." And he outlined his utopian ideals in the novel What Is to Be Done?, mixing in dreams the future of mankind, the reality of love and cakes. By the way, after Vera Pavlovna, he also took up a fairy tale novel in the spirit of "A Thousand and One Nights" ("A Tale in a Story"), but somehow it did not work out.

Against Lewis Carroll public opinion fabricated the myth of pedophilia: its shadow hovers over all Freudian (and what else ?!) interpretations of the history of Carroll's incomprehensible relationship with children. True, these relations have always remained within the limits of the decency of that time - and those decency are no match for the current ones. And the concept of “pedophilia” itself appeared only 15 years after the release of “Alice” (it was introduced by the Austrian psychiatrist Richard Kraft-Ebing in 1886).

Chernyshevsky, said the skeptic Nabokov, counted every time he shed a tear, the number of his tears. Carroll is also attentive to tears: his Alice almost drowned, having cried a whole sea.

"Fu you, well you" in French

Vera Pavlovna is a principled girl. She's trying to figure out miracles real life and the characters around her, organizes a sewing workshop and, with inexplicable persistence, dreams about new life and its female equality (“do only what I want”). Alice is a girl who is always dozing somewhere in the garden and falling into a dream in places where everything around is “wonderful”, just like around Vera Pavlovna.

Maria Alekseevna, mother of Vera Pavlovna, shouts to her daughter: “Wash your face!” The queen yells at Alice: "Chop off her head!"

The same mother suddenly asks a question: “Is a wedding in French - marriage, or something, Verochka?” Alice could also answer (she was also asked how in French “fu you, well you”): “If you tell me what it means, I will immediately translate it into French for you.”

The heroes of Chernyshevsky are obsessed with tea parties. “Please sit down,” said Marya Alekseevna. - Matryona, give me another glass. - "If this is for me, then I thank you: I will not drink." - “Matryona, you don’t need a glass. (A well-bred young man!) So it is with Alice: “Have some more tea,” said the March Hare, leaning towards Alice. "More? Alice asked resentfully. “I haven’t drunk anything yet.” “She doesn’t want more tea,” said the March Hare into space.

It is clear that neither Verochka nor Alice can calmly pass by the pie.

Both the revolutionary-minded Vera Pavlovna and the naive Alice have confusion with their arms and legs. One in bewilderment flips through the pages of music: “sometimes with the left hand, sometimes with the right. Suppose now I turned it over with my right: how could I turn it over with my left? And the second is horrified: “Where have my shoulders gone? My poor hands, where are you? Why can not I see you?"

In a dream, Vera has a girl whose "face and gait are constantly changing." Alice also admits: “I change all the time and don’t remember anything.”

Time, by the way, jumps as it wants. With Vera, “in one minute, two months passed” Alice knows how it is: “She whispered a word and - r-time! - the arrow ran forward!

Verochka's mother "snored in mid-sentence and fell down" - just like Carroll's Sonya. Characters around and there, and here appear from nowhere and disappear into nowhere. Have you forgotten Rakhmetov?! Rakhmetov sleeping on nails is no worse than flamingos playing the role of clubs and soldiers bending in the shape of a croquet goal.

Finally, the main dream of Vera Pavlovna, the fourth. The social ideal is in her head. Free workers work hard to come off in the evenings to the fullest. They explain to Vera Pavlovna (the girl who asked to call her “love”): “You saw in the hall how your cheeks were burning, how your eyes were shining; you saw - they left, they came; ... it was I who captivated them, here is the room of each and every one ... Here I am the goal of life.

And to Alice, who noticed that the game went more fun, the Duchess says: “And the moral from here is this:“ Love, love, you move the world ... ””

One has a clumsy tongue, the other is playful. One has simple general thoughts. The other has nothing in the forehead. But in fact, everything is about the same thing, as if they dreamed of each other: how to sail through life? Everyone answered the question - to the extent of their depravity with their talent.

Wonderfulness in the environment

It is terrible to think what would have happened to Chernyshevsky if he had dreamed of Lewis Carroll. Can you imagine the appearance of Gavrilych to the sleeping Carroll? That's it.

But if we discard empty fantasies, Tolstoy did not digest Chernyshevsky for "a thin, unpleasant voice, speaking stupid troubles." Carroll had his own problems with diction: he stuttered.

With the authorities, the prisoner Chernyshevsky was quite tense. Carroll, for all his conservatism, managed to upset Queen Victoria - albeit unwittingly. She asked after "Alice" to dedicate the next wonderful book to her - but the gentleman's next work was "An Elementary Guide to the Theory of Mathematical Determinants."

Author of "What to do?" in appearance, a cracker is a cracker, - but is clearly preoccupied with the piquancy of "new forms of life": a fictitious marriage, a life of three, and other empyreans. By the way, there were times when the forbidden book “What is to be done?” gave the newlyweds for the wedding as a very spicy little thing!

The author of the cheerful "Alice" lived like an adult child - one would expect all kinds of quirks from him, and he suddenly puffed out his cheeks, wanting to "publish an ultra-modest Shakespeare for young English virgins" and convincing them that "the true goal of life is to develop character" .

How to link one with the other? And the way everything is connected in a dream. Everything topsy-turvy, humpty-dumpty, no explanation.

Both writers did not live on the moon, the world was boiling around. What happened in the same 1862, what was digested in their heads when they wrote about the girlish dreams of their heroines?

The US is at war with North and South. The British Parliament is outraged by General Butler's proclamation on the women of New Orleans, which allowed them to be treated like prostitutes if they harmed the soldiers. Parliamentarians ridiculed by the London correspondent of the New York Daily Herald, Karl Marx.

England and France are preparing an intervention in the States to help the slave-owning South. But the campaign is frustrated because of wild Russia, which did not want to participate in armed intervention.

Inventor Richard Gatling receives a patent for the first rapid-fire machine gun. The first conservatory in Russia is opened in St. Petersburg.

In England, depression, confusion and vacillation. There are reforms in Russia, but also confusion and vacillation. Everywhere they think about strengthening sovereign feelings. The world industrial exhibition is magnificently held in London. We are splendidly celebrating the millennium of Russia.

The stream of events is quite insane, like today's, and Vera Pavlovna and Alice are trying to swim out of it to this day.

What do Chernyshevsky and Carroll offer them? As old man Einstein said, there are only two ways to live life. The first is that miracles do not exist. The second - as if there were only miracles around. The first is clearly for Chernyshevsky. The second is for Carroll.

Everyone chooses their own dreams in life to taste.

MARRIAGE JUDGMENT

The bold lifestyle and even bolder dreams of Vera Pavlovna were gleaned from the texts of Charles Fourier, which Chernyshevsky read already in the late 1840s. By that time, there were Fourierist phalansters in practical America, but their experiments with marriage and sex did not go beyond the joint work of men and women and attempts at "free love." Fourier's now famous erotic writings for the most part remained in manuscripts inaccessible to either Noyez or Chernyshevsky. But the Russian author in his novel What Is to Be Done? did not limit himself to the sewing workshop of Vera Pavlovna, copying the economic experiments of the Fourierists, but added a completely utopian, although vague, concept of the “difficult marriage” type under censorship conditions.

In his History of American Socialisms (1869), John Humphrey Noyes gave a clear and, it must be admitted, extremely instructive survey of local utopian communities. All of them, according to Noyez, are the fruit of two main influences, which the author, in his usual erotic way, designated as maternal and paternal principles. The paternal beginning of the American communities were the influences of the European utopians. After the arrival of Robert Owen (“holy old man,” as Chernyshevsky called him) to America in 1824 and his purchase of a huge plot for New Harmony, he lived here for a long time and, leaving for Europe, returned to New World. In the 1840s, Owen's American followers were influenced by Fourier and the communes were renamed Phalansteres. The Owenites hated the Fourierists, but Noyes considered their fusion to be natural. “One should not think of the two great attempts at a socialist revival as being quite different from each other. […] After all, the main idea of ​​both was […] to expand the family union […] to the size of a large corporation.” Having thus formulated the idea of ​​socialism, Noyes easily accepts both of its founders as his own predecessors. But all this is a paternal, European beginning, which; obviously not enough.

Noyes considers the American religious tradition proper to be the mother principle. Beginning in the early decades of the 19th century, there was a renaissance in America (Revival, writes Noyes with capital letter) religious life. The revival has given rise to many denominations and sects, but the main one for Noyez is the Shakers. Shakers and socialists complement each other. The great goal of the shakers is the rebirth of the soul; the great goal of socialism is the regeneration of society. The real problem is their mutual fertilization. It is this synthesis, Noyez claims, that he carried out in "biblical communism."

European socialism, in his opinion, ignored sex, never understanding how important it is for the reconstruction of life. Owen, according to Noyez, did not deal with these issues at all; and the followers of Fourier, although they expected a change in human nature in the future, actually concentrated on economic experiments alone and led a traditionally monogamous life in their phalansteres. The new approach to sex and sex was, according to Noyez, the exclusive merit of the Shakers and biblical communists. “In all the memoirs about the associations of Fourier and Owen, not a word is said about women's issue! […] In fact, women are barely mentioned; and the violent passions associated with the separation of the sexes, with which they had so much trouble […] all religious communes […] remain absolutely out of sight.” The American failures of the European socialists are connected with the neglect of sex; conversely, the celibate Shaker and pro-miscuine communist communities are stable and happy, Noyez said. They owe this to their attention to gender and radical ways of solving its problems. The Fourierists, according to Noyes, build the furnace starting from the chimney; and he rejects their ideas, not because he does not want to build furnaces, but because he believes that they must be built on a solid foundation. In other words, his ultimate goal is the same - the destruction of the family, private property and states; but in order to achieve it, one must begin not with the destruction of property and not with the destruction of the state, but with a new order of relations between the sexes.

Although the celibacy of the Shakers seems to be the polar opposite of the "difficult marriage", in fact it turns out that among all the variety of sects and communes, it is the Shakers that Noyez is closest to. He lived among them, participated in their rituals, and quoted their documents with sympathy. Contacts were also made at the community level, shakers. They even showed their “dances” in Oneida. “We owe the Shakers more than any other social architect, and more than all of them put together,” wrote Noyes. In general, it seemed to him "doubtful that Owenism or Fourierism […] would touch the practical American people if it were not for the Shakers." He even assumed that the Shakers, even when they were in England, influenced European utopians. A Yale alumnus and heir to the Romantic era, Noyez readily acknowledged his connection to folk culture, which the shakers embodied for him.

Associations of any kind only increase the tendency to adultery, frequent in ordinary life; and this tendency is capable of destroying any association, - Noyez marks the experience of the American communists. “Love in its exclusive form is complemented by jealousy; and jealousy leads to enmity and division. Thus, any association that recognizes the exclusivity of love carries within itself the seeds of its dissolution; and these seeds only ripen faster in the heat life together". This has always happened to the Fourierist phalansters, but it does not happen where people abstain from sex, like the Shakers, or where people enter into a "difficult marriage," as in Oneida. Like the Hellenistic Gnostics and Russian eunuchs, Noyes builds his reasoning on the history of original sin; but here, too, he goes further than the rest, or at least formulates more consistently. "The real scheme of redemption begins with reconciliation with God, then leads to the restoration of proper relations between the sexes, then deals with the reform of the industrial system, and ends with the victory over death." Fourierists, Noyez believed, ignore both the beginning and the end of this chain, and are concerned only with the economy. This analysis is striking in the non-triviality of the sociological vision. John Noyes would have been able to compete with Max Weber if his ideas had not taken him too far.

Family and property, love and self-interest are two sides of the same moon; but, as usual, this moon is always turned to the observer of one of its sides. Gender often turned out to be on the reverse, invisible side, and only the one that is connected with property and its redistribution is addressed to the enthusiastic observer. But the far side of the moon does exist, and looking beyond has always seemed like an exciting and risky adventure. If the pillars of socialism rather abhorred them, then the fanatics and poets did not get tired of reminding us that the program of socialism goes, and has always gone, beyond the limits of the economy. “Every person has a whole imperialism in the lower place,” said the hero of Platonov. Mayakovsky's "Left March" asserted the same thing: overcoming original sin is the key to a truly left-wing policy, and those who do not recognize this are still walking on the right. “It is enough to live by the law given by Adam and Eve […] the Left!” - called the poet. If the “hag of history” can be driven out, then only in this way.

The socialization of property requires the socialization of the family. The overcoming of the economy means, as a necessary condition and even as the reverse side of the same process, the overcoming of sex. It's better to admit it directly, especially if you have a technical design for the task. But this duality of the leftist ideology cannot be ignored, even if one does not have the necessary technical ideas. Dostoevsky, for example, also believed in the new man and in the fact that the current "man is a creature on earth [...] not finished, but transitional." Dostoevsky knows only one feature of the "future nature of the future being", which is defined in the Gospel: "They do not marry and do not encroach, but live like the angels of God." Following the various sectarians, Dostoevsky reads this text literally. The essence of the new man, although unknown, is determined not by economic equality, but by liberation from sex. The condemnation of sex and marriage is dictated by the requirements of communal life: “the family […] is still an abnormal, egoistic state in the full sense”; "marriage and encroachment on a woman is, as it were, the greatest repulsion from humanism." It can be seen here that Dostoevsky is concerned not with physiology, but with sociology: not the filthiness of sexual life, but its selectivity, an inevitable consequence of the very nature of sex as a paired function. The love of one person for another distracts him from his love for the community as a whole. Therefore, the earthly paradise will be determined by overcoming sex and sex: “It will be […] when a person is reborn, according to the laws of nature, finally into another nature, who does not marry and does not encroach.” The ideal, assigned to other worlds, acquires the reality of hope, realizable in this world: thus the utopian grows out of the mystical teaching. The community, the main value of Russian dreamers, will one day overcome the family, the selfish and inhumane institution of the old society. To do this, it is necessary to abolish sex, change the nature of man, carry out rebirth.

Dreams of Vera Pavlovna in Nizhny Tagil

Did Chernyshevsky dream about this? In any case, the gospel source was the same. “Someday there will be only “people” in the world: neither women nor men (who for me are much more intolerant than women) will remain in the world. Then people will be happy.” So it was not only Noyes who noticed the connection of socialism with sex, or, more precisely, with its absence. But only he puts a positively accurate diagnosis of the problem: the existence of a family makes it impossible to liquidate property; as long as people unite in pairs, this will tear the community apart; the socialization of property is impossible without the neutralization of sex. Therefore, any socio-economic programs are doomed to failure if they do not include the manipulation of gender, sex and family.

Noyes knows of two lines of such work, and perhaps these two possibilities really exhaust the situation. You can try to eliminate sex by building a community of sexless people who need to be given some way to replace sex; this is how the shakers operated in America, and eunuchs in Russia. Noyes came up with the second way: without eliminating sex as such, to eliminate its harmful consequences for the community, forbidding pair connections and opening them up to the boundaries of the community; in Russia, a semblance of such a practice developed among the whips. Rasputin preached: “Love is the ideal of angelic purity, and we are all brothers and sisters in Christ, there is no need to choose, because men and women are equal to everyone and love should be equal, impassive to everyone, without charm.”

If in his inventions Noyes followed Fourier, he was incomparably more practical and radical than him, approximately like Lenin in comparison with Saint-Simon. Chernyshevsky, for his part, feeding on fragments of what he read and heard, and more on his intuitive understanding of the problem, combined both dimensions of utopia, economic socialism and sexual communism, in the fragments of his novel. Already in 1856, Chernyshevsky wrote about the success of the community Modern Times (Modern Times) in the state of New York and about a series of similar experiments, which in America, the Russian author wrote with envy, no one considers dangerous.

Chernyshevsky and Herzen's own contribution to Russian ideology is generally considered to be their discovery of the transition to socialism directly from feudalism and on the basis of the rural community. So, with a big leap based on national tradition, it seemed possible to bypass accursed capitalism. This is the main innovation of the left thought in Russia for all the times of its rapid development. The practice of Russian populism relied on this theory of Chernyshevsky right up to Lenin and further followers of his work; that is why they all valued Chernyshevsky so much. But this theory is radical not only in its practical implications; it was obviously anti-economic in nature and radically contradicted Marx. At the time of its inception, this theoretical fantasy was in dire need of allies. The communist communities that existed in America even before the abolition of slavery seemed to be the living realization of this Russian dream. Developing and uniting, these advanced germs of new life were to transform all other American realities, including the slave system in the South and the power of capital in the North. So America will make its big jump by overcoming capitalism straight from the lower formations; at least that's how it was seen from across the ocean.

Paying tribute to the practical possibilities of the New World, Chernyshevsky placed his dream construction where it could only actually be realized - in America. Thanks to Ivan Grigoriev, Noyez's experiments became known in Russia several years before Chernyshevsky's novel was written; other, less expressive American experiments were also known. The similarity between Noyes' inventions and Vera Pavlovna's dreams was also the result of their reliance on identical (Fourier) and similar (shakers and whips) sources. Perhaps even readers of the novel What Is to Be Done? underestimated Chernyshevsky. He was more sober than Dostoevsky, without his hope for a mystical transformation, he saw the incompatibility of marriage and community; he understood more clearly than Herzen, without his romantic torments and passions, the revolutionary essence of adultery; he was bolder than Lenin, without his everyday moralism, he understood the need for a sexual revolution as a lining for any communist project; and locked in prison cell, he looked at the geographical map much more often than his more fortunate compatriots.

*****

Discover America

ArticleA. Etkinda (with abbreviations and minor editing by S. Likhachev)

As you know, there is nothing more boring than other people's dreams - and nothing more interesting than your own. Among others interesting dreams Russian culture's favorite is the fourth dream of Vera Pavlovna, the heroine of Chernyshevsky's novel "What to do?".

The dream is like an opera and consists of several acts; we are interested in decorations. First we see a prelude with Goethe's poems and a pan-European romantic landscape: fields, flowers, birds, clouds. Then, in the first act, the goddess Astarte appears against the backdrop of a typical Middle Eastern landscape: tents, nomads, camels, olives, fig trees, cedars. The second act of the goddess Aphrodite plays out in Athens, they are called by name. The third act is a Gothic castle and the same beauty. This is followed by an interlude during which Rousseau is read to us and the scenery is changed.

The next queen combines the charms of all her predecessors. And no wonder: she is Russian. Her utopian palace is located near the Oka, among "our groves"; as proof, the author, true to his technique, lists Russian trees (oak, linden, maple, elm). The inhabitants of the palace live in separate rooms, dine together, work together too. However, "machines do almost everything for them." But this collective farm among “our fields” is by no means the ultimate dream of the author and his heroine.

As it should be in an opera, something unexpected and sublime happens in the last act. Autumn is coming, it is cold in Russia, and most of the inhabitants of the Crystal Palace, together with their queen, move to a new place, to the south. As it turns out, here, in some kind of seasonal emigration, they spend most of their lives: seven to eight months a year. “This side is called New Russia”; But it is not southern Russia, the queen specially specifies.

In the new New Russia, we see a landscape as easily recognizable as previous landscapes: “groves of the most tall trees[…] coffee tree plantations […] date palms, fig trees; vineyards interspersed with sugarcane plantations; there is also wheat on the fields, but more rice.” It looks like America, the southern states. But this is not enough; not trusting the reader's botanical knowledge, Chernyshevsky moves on to geography. The binding of the final picture of the fourth dream of Vera Pavlovna on the ground is given with details and persistence, rare even for this author:

“In the far northeast, there are two rivers that merge together directly east of the place from which Vera Pavlovna looks; farther south, still in the same southeasterly direction, a long and wide bay; in the south the land extends far, expanding more and more towards the south between this bay and the long narrow bay that forms its western border. Between the western narrow bay and the sea, which is very far to the northwest, is a narrow isthmus […] We are not very far […] from the southern border of the cultivated area […]; every year people, you Russians, push the border of the desert further and further south. Others work in other countries [...] Yes, from the big northeastern river, the entire space to the south to half of the peninsula is green and blooming, all over the space there are huge buildings, as in the north.”

The rivers in the northeast are the Mississippi and Missouri; a wide bay in the southeast of them - the Gulf of Mexico, a narrow bay and an isthmus in the west - the Gulf of California and the peninsula. Vera Pavlovna and her guide, the Russian queen, are somewhere in Kansas; Russian people are expanding the borders of the States to the South, to Texas and Mexico.

IN draft version in the novel, Vera and the queen ended up in the Sinai desert; Mount Sinai was explicitly mentioned in the text. Reworking the text, Chernyshevsky moved promised land from her old place, the Middle East, to her new place, America. So, probably, he understood his parting with the Christian archaic in the name of modernity. Writing his novel in a cell from which the sky was not visible, he did not seem to take his eyes off the map. Not biblical Palestine, but the American States are becoming a place of new aspirations. The Russian idea is carried out in the American South. As expected in a utopia, the time coordinate is flattened and frozen in place; there will be no more time, it is said about this in the Apocalypse. On the other hand, space expands and opens up, and geography acquires unprecedented intricate meanings.

Faith. New dreams

Seasonal residents of New Russia work on American soil during the day, and “every evening they have fun and dance” in their crystal palace. Having fun, however, "only half of them"; others spend every other evening in their bedrooms. Just as often they change partners, each time with the help of the same queen. “This is my secret,” says the beautiful queen. Conspiring through her, the utopian men and women go for a time in pairs to their luxurious rooms with curtains, carpets and secrets that are "inviolable." In a dream, as you know, desires are realized that cannot be realized in reality. But Chernyshevsky's heroine succeeds and comes true: that's what utopia is for. In her real life, as in her dream, young people spend half of all evenings together, and the other half of the evenings in pairs.

The civil war in America, on the model of which Chernyshevsky built his projects for the liberation of Russia, ends with the conquest of the slave-owning South by free Russian people. Nothing special; after all, we are only dealing with the novel, and even with the dream in the novel. In the world of symbols, desire can find a geopolitical metaphor like any other. Starting with the troubles that the censors who missed the novel were subjected to, and ending with the interpretations that he received in Soviet school textbooks, the erotic content of the novel was subjected to repression. It is much more unusual that geography has also become an object of repression. We are dealing with a text that has been read many times and by a variety of readers. Discovering America in such a well-known space, it is necessary to explain why previous readers did not see it there: to give an interpretation to their interpretations - or, as in this case, the absence of the latter.

Vera Pavlovna's question, which Russia has not been able to answer for 150 years

Meanwhile, this fantasy with its two elements - group marriage, on the one hand, its implementation in America, on the other hand, did not leave Chernyshevsky even after a quarter of a century, which he spent without women and without freedom. In the Yakut convict prison, Chernyshevsky improvised for casual listeners an entertaining story with familiar motifs; he read it smoothly, looking into a clean notebook, but the listeners wrote down the plot (it was later published by Korolenko). The story was called "Not for Everyone" and talked about physical love in three. Two friends love the same woman and after many adventures find themselves with her on a desert island. What to do? They “try and, after an easy victory over some ingrained feelings, everything works out fine. There is peace, harmony, and instead of hell […] paradise reigns.” But Russian homesickness brings them back to Europe; on the way, they end up in England, where they are put on trial for their triple marriage. But, all the time the three of them, they seek justification and "leave for America, where, among the fermentation of new forms of life, their union finds tolerance and its rightful place."

TV show dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the novel What Is To Be Done? “Vera Pavlovna’s dreams are generally impossible to read!” - exclaims one of the participants of the program

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The main positive character of the work is Vera Pavlovna Rozalskaya, presented by the writer as a strong, confident woman.

The heroine is described in the novel as a tall, slender girl, distinguished by thick hair, black eyes and swarthy skin, reminiscent of the Caucasian type of appearance, and also possessing incredible charm, femininity and excellent taste. The girl is portrayed creative personality, because he enjoys playing the piano and vocals, demonstrating his wonderful voice to others, and also spends a significant amount of time reading classical and modern literary works.

Vera Pavlovna is a native of St. Petersburg, coming from a family of bourgeois, in which the girl's father is shown as a cowardly and hopeless person, and the mother is characterized by a woman with a tough nature, excessive self-interest and tyranny in relation to her daughter, forcing the latter from childhood to work for the good of the family.

The writer displays her cheerful, sociable disposition, proud nature, independence from the opinions of others with the distinctive features of Vera Pavlovna's character. Vera Pavlovna considers the acquisition of freedom and independence to be the main goal of her life, so the girl resolutely refuses to associate her fate with the vulgar and terrible groom chosen by her mother, even thinking about suicide, but accepts help from the teacher's brother Lopukhov, entering into a fictitious marriage with him and organizing her own enterprise in the form of clothing production, where the principle of equality of all employees prevails.

With the beginning of acquaintance with Lopukhov's friend Kirsanov, a feeling of love and feminine tenderness wakes up in Vera Pavlovna, which turn out to be mutual. The fictitious husband does not interfere with the happiness of the lovers and fakes his own death to eliminate the obstacle in the marriage of Vera Pavlovna with Kirsanov.

The writer demonstrates in the image of Vera Pavlovna an ideal example special woman who managed to comprehend true female happiness, while the author reinforces the characterization of the heroine with a description of her dreams, which reflect the spiritual and moral evolution of Vera Pavlovna in the form of her confidence in her own self-sufficiency.

The image of Vera Pavlovna represents a new generation of Russian women who do not want to live in an outdated social order filled with false falsehood.

Option 2

The key character of the work is Rozalskaya Vera Pavlovna, whose life and development in terms of spirituality is narrated by the writer.

Vera Pavlovna is described in the novel as a beautiful, slender girl with a southern type of appearance with thick black hair and swarthy skin, dressed with taste, distinguished by femininity and charm.

Vera Pavlovna grew up in a bourgeois family, in which a disgusting atmosphere of vulgarity reigned, since Verya's father was a miserable, cowardly man, and his mother was a woman with a tough temper, distinguished by despotism, rudeness, self-interest.

The girl is characterized by spiritual harmony, cheerful disposition, possesses musical talents, perfectly able to sing and play the piano, is fond of theater and reading literature.

WITH early years Vera is forced to join the work, forced to sheathe the whole family, therefore the main characteristic quality of the heroine is her desire for a free life and independence. Vera Pavlovna is described by the writer as a proud, determined and freedom-loving person who cannot deceive himself or others, constantly striving for spiritual improvement and growth.

Unable to overcome the cruelty of her mother, who is ready to sell her daughter by marrying a wealthy secular vulgar, Vera Pavlovna decides to commit suicide rather than submit to the decision of her parents.

Vera Pavlovna is helped to avoid the forced marriage by her brother's teacher, Lopukhov, by concluding a fictitious marriage with her. Having organizational skills, Vera Pavlovna arranges a garment production, in which she establishes the principle of equality for working girls, trying to teach them inner freedom, creating a prototype of a commune.

Lopukhov's friend Alexander Kirsanov begins to look into the house of young people, with whom Vera Pavlovna develops tender, sincere relationship based on a mutual feeling of love. Lopukhov, realizing that Vera and Kirsanov have found each other, disappears from their lives, giving the lovers the opportunity to find real family happiness.

In the image of Vera Pavlovna, the writer reflects the desire of his contemporaries for happiness based on freedom, independence and mutual love.

Essay about Vera Pavlovna

Vera Pavlovna became a reflection of Chernyshevsky's ideals. In the novel "What to do?" revolutionary pathos was very clearly manifested. This work became the most striking creative feat of Chernyshevsky.

Vera began to work quite early, she has organizational skills. Vera Pavlovna Rozalskaya spent her childhood on Gorokhovaya Street. From 12 years old main character I went to a boarding school where I learned to sew.

She always demonstrates maturity of character. Quite early, the heroine marries her brother's teacher fictitiously. Then she opens a sewing workshop. Now sewing is the main business of life.

Gradually, Vera realizes that she prefers not Lopukhin, but his friend Kirsanov. Vera Pavlovna - positive character. She has a desire for spiritual perfection. Chernyshevsky wanted to show that there is nothing unnatural in emancipation. Vera knows that "personal happiness is unrealistic without the happiness of other people."

Having fallen in love with Kirsanov, she tells Lopukhov everything. She reads a lot and loves music, knows how to work well and have fun from the bottom of her heart. Vera Pavlovna is not only hardworking, but also kind-hearted. She always retains femininity, charm and strives to make others happy.

At first, Kirsanov and Vera don't know what to do. Then Lopukhov staged a suicide. For a certain period, he disappears from their lives. Lopukhov goes abroad, where he studies industrial production for a long time. Vera blamed herself for everything that happened. Soon Kirsanov proposes to her, and the Beaumont couple appears in the house. It does not immediately become clear that Lopukhov was Charles.

Now Lopukhov's wife is Ekaterina. The two couples are already family friends. In Chernyshevsky's novel, love becomes a testing stage, from which the characters come out with honor. Recognition of women's rights from Chernyshevsky's point of view is good and right. Although free love can only take place in a society where there is a true liberation of women.

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