Break with Sovremennik Avdotya Yakovlevna Panaeva: Writers dined at Turgenev's every week. Once, having come to the editorial office, he said to Panaev, Nekrasov and some old acquaintances of the writers who were here: - Lord! don't forget: I'm waiting for you all to have lunch today

Turgenev, who, according to the views of a liberal democrat, rejected the ideas of revolutionary-minded raznochintsy, began to think about the possibility of creating a hero whose positions would not conflict with his own, more moderate aspirations, but who at the same time would be revolutionary enough not to cause ridicule from more radical colleagues in Sovremennik. The understanding of the inevitable change of generations in progressive Russian circles, clearly visible in the epilogue of The Noble Nest, came to Turgenev in the days of work on Rudin:

Karateev, who had a premonition of his death when he handed over the manuscript to Turgenev, did not return from the war, having died of typhus in the Crimea. Turgenev's attempt to publish Karateev's artistically weak work was not crowned with success, and until 1859 the manuscript was forgotten, although, according to the memoirs of the writer himself, when he first got acquainted with it, he was so impressed that he exclaimed: “Here is the hero I was looking for! » Before Turgenev returned to Karateev's notebook, he managed to finish Rudin and work on The Noble Nest.

Plot

The novel begins with a dispute about nature and the place of man in it between two young people - the scientist Andrei Bersenev and the sculptor Pavel Shubin. In the future, the reader gets acquainted with the family in which Shubin lives. The husband of his second cousin aunt Anna Vasilievna Stakhova, Nikolai Artemyevich, once married her for money, does not love her and is acquainted with the German widow Augustina Khristianovna, who robs him. Shubin has been living in this family for five years, since the death of his mother, and has been practicing his art, but he is prone to bouts of laziness, works in fits and starts and does not intend to learn the skill. He is in love with the daughter of the Stakhovs, Elena, although he does not lose sight of her seventeen-year-old companion Zoya.

Elena Nikolaevna, a twenty-year-old beauty, from childhood was distinguished by a kind and dreamy soul. She is attracted by the opportunity to help the sick and hungry - both people and animals. At the same time, she has been showing independence for a long time and lives by her own mind, but has not yet found a companion. Shubin does not attract her because of her variability and inconstancy, and Bersenev is interesting to her with his mind and modesty. But then Bersenev introduces her to his friend, Bulgarian Dmitry Nikanorovich Insarov. Insarov lives on the idea of ​​liberating his homeland from Turkish rule and attracts Elena's keen interest.

After the first meeting, Insarov did not manage to please Elena, but everything turns upside down after the incident in Tsaritsyn, when Insarov protects Elena from the harassment of a huge drunkard by throwing him into a pond. After that, Elena admits to herself in her diary that she fell in love with the Bulgarian, but it soon turns out that he intends to leave. At one time, Insarov told Bersenev that he would leave if he fell in love, since he did not intend to give up debt for the sake of personal feelings, which Elena Nikolaevna later learns from Andrey. Elena goes to Dmitry and confesses her love to him. When asked if she would follow him everywhere, the answer is yes.

After that, Elena and Dmitry communicate for some time through Bersenev, but in the meantime, more and more disturbing letters come from Insarov's homeland, and he is already seriously preparing to leave. One day Elena goes to him herself. After a long and heated conversation, they decide to get married. This news is a blow to Elena's parents and friends, but she still leaves with her husband.

Having reached Venice, Dmitry and Elena are waiting for the arrival of the old sailor Rendich, who is supposed to transport them to Serbia, from where their path lies to Bulgaria. However, Insarov is ill and has a fever. Exhausted Elena has a nightmare, and, waking up, she realizes that Dmitry is dying. Rendich no longer finds him alive, but at the request of Elena, he helps her deliver her husband's body to his homeland.

Three weeks later, Anna Stakhova receives a letter from her daughter: she is heading to Bulgaria, which will become her new homeland, and will never return home. Further traces of Elena are lost; according to rumors, she was seen with the troops as a sister of mercy.

The motives of the novel

The ideas and motives of the novel were analyzed in detail from progressive positions by N. A. Dobrolyubov in the Sovremennik magazine in January 1860 (the article “When will the real day come?”). Dobrolyubov notes Turgenev's sensitivity as a writer to pressing social issues and dwells on how the author reveals some of these topics in his new novel.

Dobrolyubov paid special attention to the choice of the main character. Dobrolyubov sees in Elena Stakhova an allegory of young Russia on the eve of social changes - an interpretation with which Turgenev himself did not agree (see):

She expressed that vague yearning for something, that almost unconscious but irresistible need for a new life, new people, which now encompasses the whole of Russian society, and not even only the so-called educated. In Elena, the best aspirations of our modern life are so vividly reflected, and in those around her, all the inconsistency of the usual order of the same life comes out so clearly that one involuntarily takes the desire to draw an allegorical parallel ... This melancholy of expectation has long been tormenting Russian society, and how many times have people been mistaken we, like Elena, thinking that the one we had been waiting for had come, and then we grew cold. N. A. Dobrolyubov

Elena learned from the Russian people the dream of truth, which must be sought in distant lands, and the willingness to sacrifice herself for the sake of others. Elena's love is claimed by an artist, a scientist, a successful official and a revolutionary, and in the end she chooses not pure reason, not art and not public service, but a civic feat. Dobrolyubov emphasizes that of all the candidates, the only one worthy is Insarov, who cannot imagine his happiness without the happiness of his homeland, who is completely subordinate to a higher goal and whose word does not disagree with deed.

Another theme running through the novel is the theme of the conflict between egoistic and altruistic aspirations in the human soul. For the first time, this question is raised in the scene of the dispute between Bersenev and Shubin about happiness: is the desire for happiness an egoistic feeling, which is higher - “love-pleasure” that separates people or “love-sacrifice” that unites people. At first, it seems to Elena and Insarov that this contradiction does not exist, but then they are convinced that this is not so, and Elena is torn between Insarov and her family and homeland, and later Insarov himself asks her if his illness was sent as punishment for their love. Turgenev emphasizes this inevitable tragedy of human existence on Earth, when at the end of the book Insarov dies, and Elena disappears and her trace is lost. But this ending emphasizes the beauty of the liberating impulse even more strongly, giving the idea of ​​​​the search for social perfection a timeless, universal character.

Criticism

Turgenev, who dreamed of an alliance of anti-serfdom forces and reconciliation of liberals with radical democrats for the sake of fighting for a common national idea, did not accept the position of Dobrolyubov, who denied the viability of noble liberalism and opposed the Russian Insarovs to the “inner Turks”, among whom he included not only obscurantist reactionaries, but also dear to the heart of the author of the liberals. He tried to persuade Nekrasov to refuse to publish Dobrolyubov's article in Sovremennik, and when he did not heed his arguments, he broke with the editors of the magazine completely. For their part, the raznochintsy of Sovremennik also headed for confrontation, and soon a devastating review of Rudin appeared in the magazine, written already

The name of the novel "The Nest of Nobles" is local. Although this novel, like all of Turgenev's novels, is historically specific and, although the problems of the era are of paramount importance in it, the "local" coloring of its images and situations is no less significant. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Turgenev made a kind of renewal of the image of the “Hamletist”, giving his characterization not a “temporary” one (“A Hero of Our Time”), but a spatial and local definition (“Hamlet of the Shchigrovsky District”). The novel "The Nest of Nobles" is imbued with the consciousness of the flow of historical time, taking away the lives of people, the hopes and thoughts of generations, and entire layers of national culture. The image of the “noble nest” is locally and socially dissociated from the big, generalized image of Russia. In the "nest of the nobility", in an old house in which generations of nobles and peasants lived, the spirit of the motherland, Russia, lives, it blows "the smoke of the fatherland". The lyrical theme of Russia, reflections on the peculiarities of Russian historical conditions and characters in "The Nest of Nobles" anticipate the problems of the novel "Smoke". In the "noble nests", in the houses of Lavretsky and Kalitin, spiritual values ​​were born and matured, which will forever remain the property of Russian society, no matter how it changes. “Light poetry spilled in every sound of this novel”, according to Saltykov-Shchedrin’s definition, should be seen not only in the writer’s love for the past and his humility before the highest law of history, but also in his belief in the internal organicity of the country’s development, in the fact that there is, despite the pas historical and social fractures and antagonisms, spiritual continuity. One cannot ignore the fact that at the end of the novel, the new life “plays” in the old house and the old garden, and does not leave this house, renouncing it, as, for example, in Chekhov’s play The Cherry Orchard.

In no other work of Turgenev, to such an extent as in The Nest of Nobles, is negation connected with affirmation, in none of the opposites are weaved into such a tight knot. The outgoing noble culture in this novel, as in no other, is perceived in unity with the folk one. In the novel "On the Eve", the hopes that, as it were, illuminate the melancholic narrative of "The Noble Nest" as if by reflections, turn into clear predictions and decisions.

The clarity of the author's thought corresponds to his concept of a new ethical ideal - the ideal of active goodness - and his idea of ​​a character that the younger generation is ready to recognize as its hero - a whole, strong, heroic character. The main question for Turgenev about the relationship between thought and practical deed, about the importance for society of a person of action and a theoretician in this novel is decided in favor of the hero who practically implements the idea. In "On the Eve", the writer predicts the onset of a new period of historical activity and argues that the main figure in public life is once again becoming a man of action.

The title of the novel "On the Eve" - ​​"temporary", in contrast to the "local" title "Noble Nest" - indicates that the novel depicts a moment in the life of society, and the content of the title defines this moment as "eve", a kind of prologue to historical events . The patriarchal isolation of life, painted in the "Noble Nest", is a thing of the past. The Russian noble house, with its centuries-old way of life, with hosts, neighbors, card losses, finds itself at the crossroads of the world's roads. Already Rudin from a provincial landowner's house got to the Parisian barricade and in the street battles of Europe tested Russian liberation ideas. The figure of Rudin on the barricade looked quite exotic. The Russian revolutionary was still little known in Europe, and the French blouses, next to whom he died, mistook him for a Pole. Lavretsky did not see revolutionary workers in France. It was suppressed by the triumphant vulgarity of the bourgeoisie. France, like Russia, was affected by political timelessness.

In "On the Eve" the idea of ​​the global nature of political life is clearly expressed through the story of a leader of the Slavic liberation movement who ended up in Russia and met with sympathy and understanding here. The Russian girl finds use for her strength and selfless aspirations, participating in the struggle for the independence of the Bulgarian people. Left alone in Italy after Insarov’s death, Elena Stakhova travels to Bulgaria to continue his work, and writes to her relatives: “But why return to Russia? What to do in Russia? We have already noticed that Elena is not the first heroine of Turgenev to ask this question, but for Elena, “cause” means political struggle, active work in the name of freedom, social justice, national independence of the oppressed people. There is reason to believe that it is precisely this question of Elena, with which “On the Eve” ends, that the title of the novel What is to Be Done? Chernyshevsky, who showed the Russian youth the ways of joining the revolutionary cause. Turgenev viewed the liberation movements emerging in the West not as random and scattered outbreaks, but as the beginning of a process that could cause seemingly unexpected “bursts” of events in Russia. The title "On the Eve" not only reflects the plot of the novel (Insarov dies on the eve of the war for independence, in which he was ready to take part), but also emphasizes the crisis state of Russian society on the eve of the reform and hints at the all-European significance of the liberation struggle in Bulgaria. In Italy, engulfed in protest against Austrian domination and representing, along with the Balkans, a hotbed of revolutionary patriotic activity, Turgenev's heroes feel a pre-stormy political situation.

Turgenev considered Don Quixote - the image in which he saw the embodiment and typifying model of revolutionary, effective human nature - no less tragic than the image of Hamlet - a nature doomed to the development of "pure thought". Fate, imperiously dooming the best representatives of the Hamletic tribe to loneliness and misunderstanding, also gravitates over Don Quixote.

Elena's last letter, which concludes the main action of the novel, is imbued with tragic moods. The heroine is possessed by a thirst for self-sacrifice, which, as Turgenev's historically keen eye noted, increasingly penetrated young minds. “An uprising is being prepared there, they are going to war; I will go to the sisters of mercy; I will look after the sick, the wounded... I probably can't take it all - so much the better. I am brought to the edge of the abyss and must fall. Fate brought us together for good reason; who knows, maybe I killed him; Now it's his turn to take me with him. I was looking for happiness - and I will find, perhaps, death. Apparently, it should have been; Apparently it was the fault... Forgive me for all the grief that I have caused you; it was not in my will” (VIII, 165; italics ours. — L. L.).

Elena's mentality is not so far from the ascetic self-denial of Liza Kalitina. For both, the pursuit of happiness is inseparable from guilt, and guilt is inseparable from retribution. The revolutionary democrats polemicized with the Hegelian theory of the inevitability of the tragic course of history and opposed the ethics of renunciation. Chernyshevsky, in his dissertation “The Aesthetic Relations of Art to Reality” and in the article “The Sublime and the Comic”, falls upon the concept of tragic guilt, seeing in it a transcendental justification for the persecution of outstanding, creatively the most gifted revolutionary figures, on the one hand, and a theoretical justification for social inequality, on the other (II, 180-181). However, Chernyshevsky himself stated the ascetic moods of the revolutionary youth and recognized the historical conditioning of these moods, endowing his hero, the revolutionary Rakhmetov, with the features of a rigorist who renounces love and happiness.

Dobrolyubov in the article “When will the real day come?” opposed the idea of ​​the victim, which, as it seemed to him, permeated the image of Bersenev. But in his other article - "A Ray of Light in the Dark Kingdom" - the critic saw it in the "self-destruction", the suicide of the heroine of Ostrovsky's drama, who is ready to die rather than compromise and live in a house where, in her opinion, "not good" , an expression of the spontaneous revolutionary sentiments of the masses. Dobrolyubov considered the image of Elena the focus of the novel - the embodiment of young Russia; in it, according to the critic, expressed "the irresistible need for a new life, new people, which now embraces the entire Russian society, and not even only the so-called educated" (VI, 120).

Thus, like Ostrovsky’s heroine, Katerina, who embodies people’s Russia, Elena Stakhova, a representative of the country’s young generation, Dobrolyubov considers her to be a spontaneous nature, instinctively striving for justice and goodness. Elena "craves learning", wants to consciously comprehend her aspirations, to find an "idea" that would explain them and give them a common meaning. In Turgenev's Strange Story, the story of the tragic fate of the young lady Sophie, who, striving for the feat of self-denial, takes the foolishness of a "pious man" - an insane vagabond - ends with a brief summary: "She was looking for a mentor and leader and found him" ( X, 185).

Dobrolyubov sees in the "apprenticeship" of "Turgenev's women", which is especially clearly manifested in the heroine of "On the Eve", a typical feature of the modern young generation in general. “The “desire for active goodness” is in us, and there are forces; but fear, uncertainty, and finally ignorance; what to do? “They constantly stop us... and we... wait for at least someone to explain to us what to do” (VI, 120-121), he asserts, as if responding to Elena’s question, “what to do in Russia? ". The critic contrasts philanthropic activity, which does not require self-sacrifice from a person, does not put him in conflict with the bearers of evil, and an uncompromising struggle against social injustice. It is the latter path, in his opinion, that can satisfy the moral needs of young enthusiasts and bring real, socially significant benefits. The search by the heroine of “On the Eve” for a “leader, teacher”, her attempts to find an ethical and theoretical solution to the question of which path to take, what to strive for, what to accept as an ideal, Dobrolyubov considers as a typological scheme of those searches that Russian society has gone through in recent years. decades: Elena “felt a disposition towards Shubin, as our society at one time was fond of artistry; but in Shubin there was no sensible content ... For a moment she was carried away by serious science in the person of Bersenev; but serious science turned out to be modest, doubtful, waiting for the first number to follow him. And Elena just needed a man to appear ... independently and irresistibly striving for his goal and drawing others to it ”(VI, 121).

The idea of ​​the novel and its structural expression, so complex and ambiguous in The Nest of Nobles, are clear and unambiguous in The Eve. Dobrolyubov defined the main theme of the novel as an image of the search for a typical young girl, almost symbolically representing Russian society, an ideal in the moral sphere and in a real person and the embodiment of her dream of the unity of life with the ideal of “active goodness”. The heroine's heartfelt choice turns into a choice of an ethical concept, a spontaneous elaboration of her attitude to speculative and practical decisions, which were made by analysts and artists who comprehended the course of social events after 1848.

Elena chooses from four contenders for her hand, from four ideal options, because each of the heroes is the highest expression of her ethical and ideological type. Upon closer examination, we see that these four options can in a certain sense be reduced to two pairs. Shubin and Bersenev represent the artistic-thinking type (the type of people of abstract-theoretical or figurative-artistic creativity), Insarov and Kurnatovsky belong to the "active" type, i.e., people whose vocation is practical "creativity of life."

Each of the characters is compared with the other and opposed to the other, however, this opposition of heroes in pairs is given according to the general complex of features, determined by the main feature: readiness to act, finality (simplicity) of decisions, lack of reflection - on the one hand; abstraction from the direct needs of modern society, interest in one's activity beyond its utilitarian goals, introspection and criticism of one's position, broadness of view, on the other. Within each “pair”, the comparison is more “diverse” in nature, the main ideas of the characters, their ethical attitudes, their personal characters and their chosen life paths are contrasted. It is significant that Shubin and Bersenev are intimately close friends, while Insarov and Kurnatovsky are both Elena's suitors, one official, the other "chosen by the heart."

Considering Elena’s search and choice of a “hero” as a kind of process, an evolution similar to the development of Russian society over the past decade, Dobrolyubov argued that Shubin, and then Bersenev, corresponded in their characters and ideological attitudes to more archaic, remote stages of this process. At the same time, both of these heroes are not so archaic as to be "incompatible" with Kurnatovsky (the figure of the new era) and Insarov (who is given special importance by the emerging revolutionary situation). Bersenev and Shubin are people of the 50s. None of them is a pure representative of the Hamletic character. Thus, Turgenev in "On the Eve" seemed to say goodbye to his favorite type. Both Bersenev and Shubin are genetically related to "superfluous people", but they do not have many of the main features of the heroes of this kind. Both of them are not primarily immersed in pure thought; the analysis of reality is not their main occupation. Professionalization, vocation, keen interest in a certain field of activity, constant work "saves" them from reflection and withdrawal into an abstract theory. Behind the images of these heroes, one can easily guess the circle of moods and ideas characteristic of the progressive people of the era of the “gloomy seven years”, in particular, their belief that by working in the field of art and science, one can preserve one’s dignity, protect oneself from compromises and benefit society.

The image of the artist Shubin is an aesthetic and psychological study in the form of a portrait. Turgenev sought in the person of this hero to synthesize those features that made up the ideal idea of ​​​​artism in the 50s.

Shubin, in his appearance, carefully described at the beginning of the novel, is similar to Pechorin: short, strong blond, at the same time he is pale and pampered, his small hands and feet testify to aristocracy. “Giving” his hero the name of the great Russian sculptor, Turgenev gave his portrait features reminiscent of the appearance of Karl Bryullov.

From the very first conversation of the heroes - friends and antipodes (Bersenev's appearance is drawn as the exact opposite of Shubin's appearance: he is thin, black, awkward) - it turns out that one of them is "clever, philosopher, third candidate of Moscow University", an aspiring scientist, the other is an artist , "artist", sculptor. But the characteristic features of the "artist" of the 50s differ greatly from the romantic idea of ​​the artist. Turgenev makes this clear in a special episode: Bersenev “points out” to Shubin what an artist should be like according to generally accepted concepts. The traditional stereotype “prescribes” the artist to obligatory admiration of nature, an enthusiastic attitude to music, etc. Resisting the “norms” of behavior and positions forcibly imposed on him by the routine, Shubin defends his interest in the manifestations of real, sensual life, in its “material nature”: “ I'm a butcher; my business is meat, sculpting meat, shoulders, legs, arms” (VIII, 9). In Shubin's approach to the profession of an artist, to the tasks of art and to his vocation, his organic connection with the era is manifested. The possibilities of sculpture as an artistic type seem to him limited, and he wants to expand them, enriching sculpture with the artistic means of other arts. Creating sculptural portraits, he sets himself the task of conveying not so much the appearance as the spiritual essence of the original, not the “face lines”, but the gaze of the eyes. At the same time, he has a special, pointed ability to evaluate people and the ability to build them into types. The accuracy of the characteristics that Shubin gives to other heroes of the novel turns his expressions into winged words. These characteristics are in most cases the key to the types depicted in the novel.

Often, the sharpening of the characteristic leads to the emergence of a satirical image, sometimes to the likening of a person to his primitive counterpart. Shubin's caricature and satirical similes are remarkable in that they arise from a dual and sometimes ambiguous assessment of a phenomenon and represent a certain approach, a perception consciously oriented towards a sharp, unusual angle of the object. The artist is able to see the same face in a series of sublime, elegant phenomena and in a satirical way. Anna Vasilievna Stakhova is perceived by Shubin in one vein as a woman worthy of respect, doing good deeds, in another - as a stupid and defenseless chicken. This breadth of Shubin's view, his ability to see the same people from different points of view and convey their image in different ways in the episode with two sculptural images of Insarov - heroic (his facial features are given an expression of courage, strength, honesty and nobility) is much more significantly manifested. ) and satirical (here in his physiognomy, the main thing is “stupid importance, enthusiasm, narrow-mindedness”). Both images convey the essence of the object. Shubin's assessment of his own personality is dual. He knows that he is endowed with talent by nature, and says about himself: “Maybe the name of Pavel Shubin will eventually be a glorious name?”; at the same time, he admits another possibility - vulgarization, turning into a submissive, weak-willed roommate of a lively and stupid woman, mired in a vulgar provincial life. He embodies this possibility in a caricature figurine. In the traits of his character, which make him related to the "superfluous people" of a reduced, provincial type, he sees the origins of this danger (cf. the story "Petushki" by Turgenev, "Notes of a Zamoskvoretsky resident" by Ostrovsky; there is a similar episode in Goncharov's "Oblomov"); in art, in one's profession, in serious pursuits of it, salvation from the fate of the Russian Hamlet.

The very themes of Shubin's work, his ideas (for example, a bas-relief: a boy with a goat) speak of him as an artist of the middle of the century, they resemble the works of Ramazanov, "anticipate" the young Antokolsky.

Shubin intensely reflects on contemporary social and ethical problems. He owns all the sayings in the novel that express the author's point of view, and criticism (including Dobrolyubov) constantly referred to his words, defining the fruitful, historically progressive ideas of the novel. Thus, the author of the novel transferred all his originality and strength as a thinker and analyst to Shubin, and not to Insarov and not to the representative of science - Bersenev. This clearly expressed Turgenev's view of the personality of the artist. Turgenev did not share the theory of unconscious creativity, which was widely used among the supporters of "pure art". However, the talent of generalization, typification, sharp thought of the artist depicted by Turgenev is combined with the ability to unconsciously, feelingly perceive the environment and appreciate in others the gift of spontaneous insight into the essence of life phenomena. Shubin has long conversations with the observant and silent Uvar Ivanovich, delving into the vague meaning of his irrational assessments and prophecies. He asks him the most important question in the novel: “When will our time come? When will we have people? “Give me time,” answered Uvar Ivanovich, “they will” (VIII, 142). Only Shubin understands the mysterious connection of the old nobleman, immersed in complete inactivity and contemplation, with the "choral beginning", "black earth power", his ability to penetrate the people's point of view and foresee the spontaneous processes taking place among the people. However, Shubin understands and develops Uvar Ivanovich's incoherent, indefinite speeches. In their original formlessness, amorphousness, they are just as unacceptable to him as Insarov's "simple", rationalistic answers to "damned questions." As a personality, Shubin was given features that corresponded to Turgenev's view of the ideal artist. He is graceful, ingenuous, perspicacious, kind and selfish, loves life in its real manifestations and forms, spontaneously and joyfully enjoys beauty, not romantic, ideal and abstract, but rough, lively, he longs for happiness and is able to indulge in it. This is a man with the sun in his blood. At the same time, more than anyone else in the novel, he is capable of introspection, of a penetrating and witty assessment of phenomena, of understanding someone else's spiritual world and of dissatisfaction with his own. Creative imagination reveals to him the charm of that inner animation with which Insarov is permeated, and he dreams that such a spiritual uplift would become possible for everyone. This breadth of Shubin's views is characteristic of Turgenev, but does not correspond to the usual notions of an ideal artistic nature among writers in the 50s. It is through Shubin's mouth that the novel expresses the idea that art cannot give satisfaction to today's youth, who yearn for self-denial for the sake of universal happiness. Thus, having said goodbye to the ideal of the mysterious power of art, which stands above ethics and ideological strife, in The Eve, Turgenev pronounces the final verdict on the illusions about artistic creativity as a sphere of higher activity, capable of resolving all conflicts and issues of the time within itself.

If the author of the novel put the most important generalizations, definitions and assessments into Shubin's mouth, up to the recognition of the legitimacy of "Elena's choice", he conveyed a number of ethical declarations to Bersenev. Bersenev is the bearer of the high ethical principle of selflessness and service to the idea (“the idea of ​​science”), just like Shubin is the embodiment of the ideal “high” egoism, the egoism of a healthy and integral creative nature. Turgenev emphasized that Bersenev was brought up in the traditions of noble culture. Bersenev's father - the owner of eighty-two souls - freed his peasants before his death. A Schellingian and a mystic, he dealt with abstract philosophical subjects, but he was a Republican and bowed before Washington. He anxiously followed world events, and the treatise he wrote was related to the utopian theories of humanism, in any case, “the events of the 48th year shook him to the ground (the whole book had to be redone), and he died in the winter of the 53rd year, not waiting for his son to leave the university, but in advance ... blessing him to serve science” (VIII, 50).

The characteristic is concrete and clear in historical and social terms. Bersenev's father, an abstract humanist and utopian, died a little short of the first signs of a new social upsurge, deeply shaken by the impressions of the catastrophe of 1848; he pointed out to his son abstract science as a subject worthy of service (faith in enlightenment remained unshaken in him). So Turgenev creates a biography-concept for his hero, which was then adopted by other writers. The main significance of Bersenev's biography was not in its specific content, but in the very method of constructing a story about the fate of one person in connection with the historical evolution of the social environment and with the assessment of philosophical and ethical concepts that replace each other in the course of the historical development of society. This method was then mastered by Pomyalovsky (who developed it and gave it an openly journalistic character), Chernyshevsky (for whom it became a rethought element of his peculiar artistic system), Pisemsky and many others.

Departure into science as a sphere of pure and independent creativity was a common phenomenon among the thinking people of Russia in the middle of the century. Chernyshevsky himself hesitated which way to choose - whether to become a philologist or a writer-publicist. Since the 1960s, studies in the natural sciences have especially attracted independent-minded young people with the opportunity to combine the development of accurate knowledge with the freedom to express their philosophical, materialistic views.

Bersenev was given a moral trait, which Turgenev assigned a particularly high place on the scale of spiritual virtues: kindness. In his opinion, the kindness of Don Quixote gives exceptional ethical significance to this hero in the spiritual life of mankind: “Everything will pass, everything will disappear, the highest rank, power, all-embracing genius, everything will crumble to dust. But good deeds will not go up in smoke; they are more durable than the most radiant beauty” (VIII, 191). Bersenev's kindness comes from the deep, traditionally inherited "Schillerian" humanism and from his inherent "justice", the objectivity of a historian who is able to rise above personal, selfish interests and determine the meaning of the phenomena of reality, regardless of his personality. This is where the modesty, interpreted by Dobrolyubov as a sign of the moral weakness of the “superfluous person,” comes from, his understanding of the secondary importance of his interests in the spiritual life of modern society, his “second number” in the hierarchy of types of modern figures.

In the mediation of Bersenev, his patronage of the love of Elena and Insarov, there is an objective understanding of what Elena is striving for, the consciousness of the “centrality” of Insarov’s nature (“number one”) and their correspondence to each other, and most importantly, strict adherence to the ethical principle of the individual’s right to freedom of development and freedom of feeling, rooted and "second nature" respect for someone else's "I".

Significant are the similarities between Bersenev and Granovsky (in the text of the novel, direct indications are given that he is a student of Granovsky and looks to his teacher as a role model). Bersenev's personality brings to the fore those features that Chernyshevsky noted ("Essays on the Gogol period", positively assessed by Turgenev) in the best people of the 40s: camaraderie, high respect for someone else's personality, the ability to "calm down" passions, stop quarrels of friends, which distinguished the “meek and loving” Stankevich (III, 218): Ogarev’s humanity and sensitivity, devotion to the cause of education, Granovsky’s simplicity and selflessness, “he was a simple and modest man, who did not dream of himself, did not know pride” (III, 353 ), - all this is akin to the character of Bersenev.

Turgenev thus emphasizes the ideality of his scientist hero, endowing him with character traits of people who have become a legend, habitually perceived by the democratic reader of the 60s as ideal images. At the same time, the type of scientist as an ideal turns out to be historically disavowed. Scornfully naming the topics of Bersenev’s scientific works, which are of exceptionally historical significance, and citing words from the novel that experts praised the author, Dobrolyubov writes about the scientist’s work as a surrogate for “real activity”: “The structure of our life turned out to be such that Bersenev only had there is only one means of salvation: “to dry up the mind with fruitless science”... And it is also good that at least in this I could find salvation...” (VI, 136-137).

Describing Bersenev's activity with a quote from Lermontov's Duma, Dobrolyubov thus assessed it as the fruit of the "epoch of timelessness" and as a manifestation of noble culture, the occupation of "superfluous people." Such an attitude towards the professional activity of a historian could only be born at a time when a revolutionary situation was taking shape in the country and the thirst for direct life-building and social creativity seized the best people of the younger generation.

It is interesting to note that all the young people surrounding Elena renounce aristocratism and the limited nobility, all claim to be a worker and even a proletarian - also a sign of the era, representing a mystified reflection in the heads of people of the historical process of democratization. Labor, democracy, service to the cause became the ethical ideal of the generation, replacing the ideal of elitism and being chosen. Bersenev says about people of his type: “We ... are not sybarites, not aristocrats, not minions of fate and nature, we are not even martyrs, we are workers, workers and workers. Put on your leather apron, hard worker, and stand behind your work bench in your dark workshop! (VIII, 126).

In the dramatic monologue of the hero, a spontaneous foreboding is expressed that in the eyes of society, the scientist is steadily turning from a priest of science, possessing the gift of penetrating into the mysterious essence of things (such, for example, the interpretation of the personality of a scientist in Goethe's Faust) is turning into a mental worker, bringing a stable income to society and content for his work with more or less modest pay, without moral satisfaction, recognition, fame (“First Class Passenger” by A.P. Chekhov).

The optimism and active practicality generated by social and political changes were not expressed by all people of the 60s in selfless service to the common good. The bearer of the traits of egoistic businessmanship in the novel is (the senior secretary of the Senate, the careerist Kurnatovsky. It is in a dispute with Kurnatovsky that Bersenev, ready to recognize the secondary importance of science in relation to the struggle for the immediate improvement of people's lives, defends the independence of scientific activity, opposing the doctrines of subordinating it to bureaucratic "types » government.

Shubin, a representative of art, more painfully than Bersenev, perceives the cooling of the advanced people of society in his cause. Shubin cannot agree either with the vulgar or with the intellectual rejection of art. He is burdened both by the imposition of a certain stereotype of behavior on him as an artist, and the traditional attitude towards the artist as an inspired and idle child-dreamer. Steady and hard work becomes Shubin's ethical ideal. In the name of his calling, he is ready to play the fate of an ordinary "worker".

Insarov - the ideal embodiment of an active and consciously heroic nature - is characterized in the novel by a sum of features in which democracy, hard work, and simplicity of the proletarian occupy not the last place. That's what they say about him - as about a commoner, "some kind of Montenegrin." Its social characteristics turned out to be especially important for the reader of the 60s, since in it Turgenev showed the process of democratization of the advanced, thinking layer of Russian society, "the complete displacement of the nobles by the raznochintsy in our liberation movement", and idealized a new social type. Of course, Insarov’s foreign origin is very significant, however, Insarov’s “proletarianism”, otherwise Insarov’s raznochinnosti, combined with radicalism of convictions and a willingness to act boldly and decisively, not sparing his life, connected him with new ideals and new heroes of Russian society, turned his image into a “substitute for ", in the form of expressing the thought of the inevitable appearance of such a Russian hero.

It is interesting to note that not only Bersenev, Insarov, and to some extent Shubin feel themselves to be "thinking proletarians." This “title” is also claimed by such a “leader” of the younger generation as the antipode of Bersenev and Insarov, Kurnatovsky.

In the characterization of Kurnatovsky, “attributed” by the author to Elena, the idea is revealed that Kurnatovsky, like Insarov, belongs to the “effective type” and about the mutually hostile positions they occupy within this very broad psychological type. At the same time, this characterization also reveals how historical tasks, the need to solve which is clear to the whole society, force people of the most diverse political orientations to put on the mask of a progressive person and cultivate in themselves the traits that society ascribes to such people. Elena informs Insarov about Kurnatovsky: “There is something iron in him ... and dull and empty at the same time - and honest; They say he's very honest. I have you, too, iron, but not so ... once he even called himself a proletarian. We, he says, are laborers. I thought: if Dmitry said this, I would not like it, but let this one talk to himself! let him brag!.. He must be self-confident, industrious, capable of self-sacrifice... that is, of sacrificing his own benefits, but he is a great despot. The trouble is to fall into his hands!

In conclusion, Elena reports Shubin's opinion that Insarov and Kurnatovsky “are both practical people, but look what a difference; there is a real, living, life-given ideal; and here there is not even a sense of duty, but simply official honesty and efficiency without content”; “But in my opinion,” Elena objects, “what do you have in common? You believe, but he doesn't, because you can't believe only in yourself" (VIII, 108).

It would seem that in the characterization of Kurnatovsky, the clarity of the description of types inherent in the novel "On the Eve", the categorical nature of the author's sentence, reaches its climax. The writer, as it were, does not want to spend fiction on the depiction of this type, which is too clear for him. Insarov acts as the main engine of action in the novel; his personality, the work to which he devoted himself entirely, determine the fate of the heroine. The "official" groom - Kurnatovsky - does not bother Elena at all. Young people decide their fate boldly and independently. The characterization of Kurnatovsky is given concisely, in one place, almost in the style of the famous "registries of actors" that Turgenev compiled in the early stages of work on his works. However, putting the last point in this characterization, the writer moves away from straightforwardness, a dispute arises between Shubin and Elena on the most basic issue of evaluating Kurnatovsky's personality. Elena, in words that almost verbatim coincide with the key wording of the article “Hamlet and Don Quixote”, opposes Kurnatovsky to Insarov as an egoist, without faith and ideal, i.e., “denies” him the main feature of the active type (“Don Quixote”, according to terminology of Turgenev); Shubin directly ranks him among the figures, although he stipulates that his ideal does not stem from the living needs of society, but from formal devotion to official duty, a “principle” without content.

The dispute between Elena and Shubin is in the nature of a joint search for truth. Disagreeing with Shubin and putting forward a seemingly opposite point of view, Elena nevertheless attaches serious importance to his words, takes them into account. Each of them turns out to be right, and on the whole their dispute clarifies not only the characterization of Kurnatovsky, but also the concept of the active type. A person of an active character, capable of selflessly serving an idea, turns out to be not only a revolutionary or a fighter of the national liberation movement, but also a bureaucrat, for whom faith in the state and government plans replaces some other ideal.

However, in accordance with the artistic structure of the novel "On the Eve", Kurnatovsky is not only an image of a certain modern type, but also the embodiment of an ideal: he is an ideal administrator - a bureaucrat of a new type, characteristic of the 60s. Kurnatovsky is energetic, resolute, honest and adamant in following a certain principle (“iron”). Behind the external and purely psychological features of Kurnatovsky as a person is a certain worldview, it embodies the result of the evolution of some ideas of the 40s, a political, philosophical concept, a “solution” of social problems of our time by thought that developed in a peculiar direction. In pronouncing the verdict on the "hero of the case" - Kurnatovsky, Turgenev evaluates not only the "case" itself, but also the concept, the ideological direction on which it relies. Herzen's Past and Thoughts contains an episode of his acquaintance with a real bearer of this kind of ideas, a type that was new in 1857 and seemed ideal, not yet completely debunked in the early 60s. Herzen writes:

“In the autumn of 1857, Chicherin arrived in London. We were looking forward to him: once one of Granovsky's favorite students, a friend of Korsh and Ketcher, he represented a close person for us. We heard about his cruelty, about conservative orders (aspirations. - L. L.), about immeasurable pride and doctrinarianism, but he was still young ... A lot of angularity is turned over by the passage of time.

“I thought for a long time whether I should go to you or not ... But, as you know, while I fully respect you, I do not agree with you in everything. That's where Chicherin started. He approached not just, not young, he had stones in his bosom ... The light of his eyes was cold, in the timbre of his voice there was a challenge and a terrible, repulsive self-confidence. From the first words, I felt that it was not an adversary, but an enemy... The distances dividing our views and our temperaments soon became clear... He saw the upbringing of the people in the emperorship and preached a strong state and the insignificance of the person in front of him. One can understand that these thoughts were attached to the Russian question. He was a tutor, he considered the government much higher than society and its aspirations ... All this teaching came from him from a whole dogmatic construction, from which he could always and immediately derive his own ideas. philosophy of bureaucracy"(IX, 248-249; italics ours. - L. L.).

The similarity of external manners, character and, most importantly, the worldview of Kurnatovsky in Turgenev and Chicherin in the image of Herzen is striking. Moreover, Herzen's analysis of the personality of one of the main ideologists of the "state school" clarifies the meaning of Elena's and Shubin's contradictory reviews about Kurnatovsky (on the one hand, he has no ideal, he is an egoist, on the other hand, he is able to sacrifice his own benefit, he is honest; his activities and selfless and does not follow from the needs of society). Kurnatovsky's "faith" is faith in the state "as applied to the Russian question" (Herzen's expression), that is, devotion to the estate-bureaucratic, monarchical state. Understanding that reforms are inevitable, figures like Kurnatovsky associated all possible changes in the life of the country with the functioning of a strong state, and considered themselves the bearers of the idea of ​​the state and the executors of its historical mission, hence self-confidence, egocentrism, hence the willingness to give up personal benefits.

However, faith in a monarchical state and in a bureaucratic "strong" system is faith in a system that historically can be filled with very different content (carrying out reforms and carrying out counter-reforms).

Saltykov-Shchedrin, the most “political” writer of Russia in the mid-19th century, who saw the colossal historical significance of the state in the development of society, more than once, in his satirical artistic manner, touched on the issue of “new”, modern “extraordinary” bureaucrats who were preparing themselves to carry out government reforms that claimed the role of figures who are destined to turn the "wheel of history", and then became servants of the reaction. In the satirical drama "Shadows", for example, he depicts the situation in the early 60s, when the implementation of reforms was combined with an attack on any free thought, with the suppression of the democratic forces of society. The heroes of the drama, young bureaucrats who believed in the doctrine of a “strong state” and convinced themselves that any system proposed from above is good, come to bare careerism, cynicism and an inner consciousness of the “monstrous corvée” that they carry, exerting their “ obligatory assistance" to any nefarious design of the government.

N. G. Pomyalovsky was the biggest exposer of bureaucracy among the sixties. Having learned a lot from Turgenev and Saltykov, he saw completely different socio-political aspects of the problem of bureaucracy and expressed his observations through a special, specific system of images. However, the episode of Kurnatovsky's courtship in "On the Eve" left a noticeable mark on his creative imagination. In "Molotov" he repeated this situation, making the image of the fiance-official a grotesque satirical embodiment of the formalism of the bureaucratic apparatus.

More thoroughly than Turgenev in the novel "On the Eve", he developed the conflict between fathers and children seeking the right to freedom of feelings and independence in choosing a life path. Turgenev did not complicate the transparent structure of the novel by analyzing this conflict, which was not so important for him in this case. At the end of the 60s, he devoted the novel Smoke (1867) to the problem of bureaucracy, the fate of young bureaucrats, figures of the "new time", as well as the question of the international significance of the Russian administrative system. Pomyalovsky, who “immersed” the conflict common in Russian stories since the 40s into the peculiarly illuminated and understandable moral world of the bureaucratic-petty-bourgeois environment, against its background, considered those real, new paths that young people are trying to pave in the old, established society.

The relationship between Elena and Insarov is in many ways “ideal”. The writer draws heroes flying like moths into the light, towards the struggle, not seeing and not recognizing "small" obstacles in their path, ignoring them. There is not yet that resolute rejection of the old society and its morality, that war with them, which was declared in What Is to Be Done?, but there is a poetic, emotional affirmation of the self-worth and irresistible force of the ideal impulse, its fruitfulness.

We see that in "On the Eve" Turgenev consistently debunked three ideals, in the formation and strengthening of the influence of two of which on society, he played an important role. Turgenev contributed to the establishment among Russian readers of the authority of the personality of the artist, poet, whose activities can be opposed to participation in the practical affairs of the upper classes of society. The ideal of learning was also not alien to Turgenev. After all, quite shortly before The Eve, in The Nest of Nobles, he internally contrasted Lavretsky, striving for "positive knowledge", with his former heroes - "pure theoreticians", abstract "dreamy" thinkers. Soon, in the novel Fathers and Sons, he will again write about scholarship and faith in science as the most important signs of a new type of people, the most modern, in a sense, ideal spokesmen for the aspirations of society.

Turgenev did not have a hand in establishing the ideal of bureaucratic "state" reformism. In the system of artistic images of Turgenev, the liberal bureaucrat-reformer is always a negative figure, although Turgenev understood that this type could have its own ideal expression in the minds of his contemporaries. The peculiarity of Turgenev’s artistic debunking of ideals was that, by “revitalizing” them, giving them the structural form of a living human character, an individual endowed with a certain worldview and style of behavior, he reduced them to a type. The ethical ideal, the social solution, born by the searching minds of the epoch, received a real, vital embodiment, implementation, and thus revealed their social and temporal limitations. Turgenev showed that this ideal had already "materialized", and often that humanity had already passed the stage of its embodiment in its path.

The idea of ​​the ideal for him was inseparable from the thought of the most modern, most progressive human character, and ultimately from the thought of history and time. This trait, inherent in Turgenev to the highest degree, was also characteristic of other writers of the 60s, especially those of them who went through the school of the 40s with its historical philosophism. A. N. Ostrovsky in the 70s wrote about the ability to destroy old ideals as an obligatory feature of a true artist: “Every time has its own ideals, and the duty of every honest writer (in the name of eternal truth) is to destroy the ideals of the past, when they have become obsolete ... ".

It has already been noted above that the liberation movement in Europe is considered in "On the Eve" as the beginning of a revolutionary situation in a number of countries, as a possible prologue to a change in the political climate in Russia. Insarov utters words that immediately attracted the attention of readers and still make the interpreters of the novel think: “Note: the last man, the last beggar in Bulgaria and I - we want the same thing. We all have one goal. Understand what confidence and strength this gives! (VIII, 68). These words are regarded as an expression of the thought “about the need to unite all the advanced forces of Russian society for the struggle for reforms” and as a political lesson for revolutionary democrats, preaching that “heroes are born only by the struggle for“ national ”interests.”

Without denying the possibility of some political and didactic meaning contained both in this phrase of Insarov and in the very depiction in the novel of the national liberation struggle that unites the nation, it should, however, be noted that for Turgenev, no less, and perhaps more important was the other side of the matter. In "On the Eve", despite the fact that this novel, by its very structure, is perhaps the most "reasonable", publicistic of the writer's novels, the lyrical element is unusually strong. The form of expression of the new ideal and the new, replacing the still recent depression, social revival is that general tone of vivacity, energy, enthusiasm, which is felt in the moods of the main characters and, as it were, illuminates the other characters of the novel with a reflected light.

Describing the position of a person in different periods of the life of society and under different political conditions, Herzen wrote about the revolutionary situation: “There are epochs when a person is free in a common cause. The activity towards which every energetic nature aspires then coincides with the aspiration of the society in which it lives. At such times - also quite rare - everything rushes into the cycle of events, lives in it, suffers, enjoys, perishes ... Even those individuals who are at enmity against the general flow are also carried away and satisfied in a real struggle ... need to talk about self-sacrifice and devotion - all this is done by itself and extremely easily. “No one backs down because everyone believes. There are, in fact, no victims, the victims seem to the audience to be such actions that constitute a simple execution of the will, a natural way of behavior” (VI, 120-121).

Herzen, who wrote these lines under the direct impression of the revolutionary situation in Europe at the end of the 1940s, speaks of the historical possibility of social unity - if not unity in worldview and aspirations (cf. the words of Insarov, who claimed that all Bulgarians want the same thing), but in activity, in a state of mind expressing social uplift. It is significant that Herzen writes about the reactionary leaders that they "are at enmity against the general current." The revolutionary situation, in his opinion, covers the whole society, the majority of citizens in one way or another participate in the struggle on the side of progressive forces, since revolutionary changes become a historical necessity. The revolutionary situation in Russia in the 1960s made optimism, the striving for happiness, faith in the fruitfulness of political creativity the main mood, the main tone of society, and the revolutionaries, aware of the inevitability of self-sacrifice in the struggle, angrily protested against the concept of "victim".

Interest in the eras of popular upsurge, the activity of all members of society, in historical periods when the chorus of collective political action sounded powerfully and each individual (often aimed at achieving private and personal goals) flowed into the mainstream of great historical achievements, embraced Russian literature. Its highest expression was L. Tolstoy's novel War and Peace.

The life of the main character in "On the Eve" develops tragically; and, of course, it is no coincidence that Insarov dies without entering the struggle he dreams of, and Elena, preparing to participate in the war, foresees her imminent end and is looking for it. Turgenev was characterized by a keen awareness of the tragic nature of the course of history. It was reflected in the images of his heroes - the children of his time - and in their destinies. Elena, as noted above, is brought closer to Lisa Kalitina by a sacrificial impulse. Moreover, the writer connects the selflessness of both heroines, their inherent thirst for achievement with the traditions of folk asceticism (it is not without reason that the beggar Katya “appears” to Elena in a dream, inspiring her with a dream of wandering and leaving her family). However, unlike Lisa Kalitina, Elena is free from ascetic morality. She is a modern, courageous girl, easily breaking with the oppression of traditions, striving for happiness.

Before connecting his life with her life, Insarov introduces the woman he loves into his plans, interests, and concludes with her a kind of contract, which implies on her part a conscious assessment of their possible future. This is exactly how, according to Chernyshevsky, expressed in the article “A Russian Man on Rendez-Vous”, a “decent person” would behave when meeting with Asya, Chernyshevsky himself tried to “conclude” such an agreement with his bride. Elena's selfless love and her noble determination destroy Insarov's ascetic isolation and make him happy. Dobrolyubov especially appreciated the pages of the novel, which depicted the bright and happy love of young people. The novel contains a meaningful conversation between Shubin and Uvar Ivanovich: “... Insarov is coughing up blood; this is bad. I saw him the other day ... a wonderful face, but unhealthy, very unhealthy.

"Fighting... it's all the same," said Uvar Ivanovich.

“It’s all the same to fight, that’s for sure… but it’s not all the same to live. But she wants to live with him.

"It's a young thing," said Uvar Ivanovich.

“Yes, a young, glorious, bold undertaking. Death, life, struggle, fall, triumph, love, freedom, motherland... Good, good. God bless everyone! It's not like sitting up to your neck in a swamp and trying to act like you don't care when you really don't really care. And there - the strings are stretched, ring for the whole world or break" (VIII, 141).

The idea of ​​​​Uvar Ivanovich, an old man, about the struggle as a synonym for death (therefore, it doesn’t matter whether a healthy or sick person goes to fight) Shubin contrasts the view of his generation, according to which life, happiness, struggle are inseparable. Regardless of whether triumph or death leads to a struggle, it makes a person happy (“God grant everyone”).

The aspirations and needs of the young "children of the time" were characterized by Turgenev in the novel, and this was his main novelty. In "The Eve" a hero of the 60s was found, although also nominatively; in fact, it was synthesized from historical needs, emerging ideals, individual observations on the development trends of the historical process. Not wanting to pass off this hero as a typical, real, rooted phenomenon of Russian life, Turgenev gave his idea the appearance of a life-like, historically concrete hero - a fighter of the national liberation movement. Why exactly this type was chosen by the writer as a “substitute” for the Russian revolutionary figure, a “substitute” expressing both the inevitability of the transformation of such a hero into the main figure of modernity and the incompleteness of the process of his formation, we had the opportunity to say above.

The fundamental feature on which Turgenev built the character of this hero is his active, active nature, his significance as a social engine, a person who is assigned to implement tasks that are both the simplest and most important for a person, people, time.

N. Shchedrin (M. E. Saltykov). Full coll. op. T. XVIII. M., 1937, p. 144.

The clarity and some deliberate schematicity of both the general structure of the novel and its individual images was noted by contemporary criticism of the writer. See: K. N. Leontiev. Letter from a provincial to Mr. Turgenev. - Otechestvennye zapiski, 1860, No. 5, dep. III, p. 21; N. K. Mikhailovsky. Literary-critical articles. M., 1957, p. 272.

S. M. Petrov rightly writes: “The problem of the social role and significance of the diverse democratic intelligentsia is posed for the first time by Turgenev not in “Fathers and Sons”, but in “On the Eve” (S. M. Petrov. I. S. Turgenev. M. , 1968, p. 167).

V. I. Lenin. Full coll. cit., vol. 25, p. 94.

Chernyshevsky in What to Do?, speaking of Lopukhov's work at the plant, very closely reproduced the wording of Kurnatovsky's confessions, who claimed that he almost changed his service in the Senate to the position of manager of a large plant in search of a lively business. Needless to say, the meaning of Lopukhov's activity at the plant is essentially the opposite of the administrative work that attracts Kurnatovsky, but the willingness of both heroes to give up office work (Lopukhov leaves science) for the sake of communicating with the direct producers of material goods and understanding them (each in accordance with his worldview) of the significance of industrial enterprises in society characterizes both of these heroes as figures of a new era. The possibility of a direct polemic between Chernyshevsky (or his hero Lopukhov) and the understanding of the importance of organizational work at the plant, which is stated in Kurnatovsky's reasoning, is not ruled out.

A. N. Ostrovsky. Full coll. op. T. XV. M., 1953, p. 154.

M. K. Clement. Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev. L., 1936, p. 123; commentary by A. I. Batyuto to “On the Eve” (VIII, 533).

"The day before"- novel by Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev, published in 1860.

History of writing a novel

In the second half of the 1850s, Turgenev, according to the views of a liberal democrat who rejected the ideas of revolutionary-minded raznochintsy, began to think about the possibility of creating a hero whose positions would not conflict with his own, more moderate aspirations, but who at the same time would be revolutionary enough not to provoke ridicule from more radical Sovremennik colleagues. The understanding of the inevitable change of generations in progressive Russian circles, clearly visible in the epilogue of The Nest of Nobles, came to Turgenev during the days of work on Rudin:

In 1855, Turgenev's neighbor in the Mtsensk district, the landowner Vasily Karateev, who went to the Crimea as an officer of the noble militia, left the manuscript of the autobiographical story to the writer, allowing him to dispose of it at his own discretion. The story told about the author's love for a girl who preferred a Bulgarian student of Moscow University to him. Later, scientists from several countries identified the prototype of this character. This man was Nikolai Katranov. He came to Russia in 1848 and entered Moscow University. After the Russian-Turkish war begins in 1853, and the revolutionary spirit revives among the Bulgarian youth, Katranov and his Russian wife Larisa return to their hometown of Svishtov. His plans, however, were thwarted by an outbreak of fulminant consumption, and he died while undergoing treatment in Venice in May of that year.

Karateev, who foresaw his death when he handed over the manuscript to Turgenev, did not return from the war, having died of typhus in the Crimea. Turgenev’s attempt to publish Karateev’s artistically weak work was unsuccessful, and until 1859 the manuscript was forgotten, although, according to the writer’s own recollections, when he first got acquainted with it, he was so impressed that he exclaimed: “Here is the hero I was looking for! » Before Turgenev returned to Karateev's notebook, he managed to finish Rudin and work on The Noble Nest.

Returning home to Spasskoye-Lutovinovo in the winter of 1858-1859, Turgenev returned to the ideas that occupied him in the year of his acquaintance with Karateev, and remembered the manuscript. Taking as a basis the plot suggested by the deceased neighbor, he took up its artistic processing. Only one scene from the original work, the description of the trip to Tsaritsyno, according to Turgenev himself, was kept in general terms in the final text of the novel. In working on the factual material, he was assisted by a friend, writer and traveler E. P. Kovalevsky, who was well acquainted with the details of the Bulgarian liberation movement and himself published essays on his trip to the Balkans at the height of this movement in 1853. Work on the novel “On the Eve” continued both in Spassky-Lutovinovo and abroad, in London and Vichy, until the autumn of 1859, when the author took the manuscript to Moscow, to the editorial office of the Russian Messenger.

Plot

The novel begins with a dispute about nature and the place of man in it between two young people, scientist Andrei Bersenev and sculptor Pavel Shubin. In the future, the reader gets acquainted with the family in which Shubin lives. The husband of his second cousin aunt Anna Vasilievna Stakhova, Nikolai Artemyevich, once married her for money, does not love her and is acquainted with the German widow Augustina Khristianovna, who robs him. Shubin has been living in this family for five years, since the death of his mother, and has been practicing his art, but he is prone to bouts of laziness, works in fits and starts and does not intend to learn the skill. He is in love with the daughter of the Stakhovs, Elena, although he does not lose sight of her seventeen-year-old companion Zoya.

The famous and talented writer Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev is a classic of Russian literature. He is known not only as a writer, but also as a poet, publicist, translator, playwright. His realistic works are still a great asset of Russian literature. Ivan Sergeevich made a huge contribution to the development of Russian literature in the nineteenth century.

It is known that this wonderful writer succeeded not only in writing, but also became a corresponding member of the famous and prestigious Academy of Sciences, where he received a degree in Russian language and literature. In addition, he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Oxford, as well as an honorary member of the capital's university. But his main achievements are his works, among which six novels stand out. They brought him fame and popularity. One of them is "On the Eve", which was published in 1860.

The history of the creation of Turgenev's novel

Ivan Turgenev, according to the memoirs of his contemporaries, already in the second half of the 1850s began to think about creating in one of his works a completely new hero, who had not yet been in Russian literature before him. This decision came to the writer not so easily, but because the author of wonderful landscape works was influenced by liberal democrats.

As conceived by Ivan Turgenev, his hero was supposed to reflect the views of the author himself, but be more moderate. This understanding of the creation of a new character came to the writer much earlier, when he was just starting work on his first novel. And even the female images in his work have become new for modern literature. For example, Elena, about whom the author himself spoke:

"a strong desire for freedom, could indulge."

About the history of the creation of this novel, it is known for sure that the manuscript of his autobiography was left to the writer by a neighbor who at that time lived in the neighboring Mtsensk district. This event happened to the author around 1855. And that landowner-neighbor turned out to be a certain Vasily Karataev. This officer, serving in the noble militia, decided not only to leave his manuscript to the writer, but also agreed to Ivan Sergeevich to dispose of it as he pleases.

Of course, Ivan Turgenev read it, and he was interested in the love story that was told in this handwritten notebook. This is how the plot of his novel was born: a young man loves a beautiful and charming girl who chooses another - a Bulgarian. He is just in Moscow, studying at the university.

The main characters of the novel:

✔ Anna Vasilievna Stakhova.
✔ Nikolai Artemyevich Stakhov.

✔ Dmitry Insarov.
✔ Andrey Bersenev.
✔ Pavel Shubin.

As you know, the prototype of this Bulgarian was a certain Nikolai Katranov, who lived in the capital, and then, together with his Russian wife, tries to return to his homeland, since the Russian-Turkish war began. But soon he dies of consumption, never reaching his hometown.

It is known that the neighbor who gave his manuscript to the writer never returned from the war, as he died of typhus. Ivan Turgenev tried to publish this manuscript, but, from the point of view of literature, it was too weak, so after many years he re-reads this notebook and realizes that he has found a new hero, which he was thinking about at that time.

In 1858, he takes on the artistic processing of the plot, which was suggested to him by a neighbor. But, as the writer himself explained, only one scene remained the same, everything else was reworked and changed. Ivan Turgenev also had an assistant - a famous writer, Turgenev's friend and traveler E. Kovalevsky. He was necessary for the author of the novel, as he was well versed in all the details of the liberation movement that took place in Bulgaria.

It is known that the writer wrote his novel not only in the family estate, but also abroad, for example, in London and other cities. And as soon as he returned to Moscow, he himself delivers the manuscript to the publication of the then-famous journal Russky Vestnik.

The plot of the new novel

The plot of Turgenev's novel begins with a dispute. The scientist Andrey Bersenev and the sculptor Pavel Shubin take part in it. The topic of their dispute is the nature and place of man in the world around him. Gradually, the author introduces the reader to the whole family of the sculptor. For example, with a distant relative, aunt Anna Vasilievna, who does not love her husband at all, just like he does her. Anna Vasilievna's husband met by chance a German widow and therefore spends most of his time with her. And this is easy to explain: after all, he once married Anna Vasilievna for the sake of money, and the only thing that unites them is their adult daughter Elena.

It is known to everyone that the new acquaintance of Nikolai Artemyevich robs her well. And now the sculptor has been living in this family for five years, since he can only practice art here, but most of the time he is lazy. He takes care of the companion of the master's daughter - Zoya, but he is still in love with Elena. But who is she, Elena? This is a young girl, twenty years old, dreamy and kind. She helps those who need help: hungry, sick people and animals. However, she is also very lonely. She lives alone, she does not have a young man yet. She is not at all interested in Shubin, and she is only interested in his friend for conversation.

One day, Bersenev introduces Elena to his acquaintance, Dmitry Insarov, who lives in Russia, but dreams of liberating his homeland. The Bulgarian interested Elena, but not at the first meeting. He begins to like him when he protects her from a drunkard who has stuck with a girl right on the street. And when the girl falls deeply in love, she finds out that Dmitry is leaving. Andrei tells the girl that he is afraid that his personal passionate feelings for Elena will be able to deprive him of the will to fight for his country. Then the girl herself goes to the young man, confesses her feelings and is now ready to help him in everything and follow him everywhere.

Elena and Dmitry communicate modestly for some time, but Insarova, receiving disturbing and sad letters from her relatives and friends, begins to prepare for her departure. And then Elena comes to his house in order to talk seriously about their future together. After a heated explanation, it was decided to get married. Her parents were shocked by her announcement of her marriage. For them, the news that she was going to foreign lands with her husband was a big blow.

In Venice, they have to linger a little, as they are waiting for a ship going to Serbia, and only then they can get to Bulgaria. But then Dmitry falls ill: he has a fever and a temperature. One day, Elena has a terrible and terrible dream, and when she wakes up, she sees that her husband has died. Therefore, only his body is delivered to his homeland. After that, there was another letter to her parents, where Elena wrote that she was going to Bulgaria and wanted to consider this country her new homeland. After that, she disappears, and only rumors informing that she is fulfilling the role of a sister of mercy.

Motives of Turgenev's plot

All the motives, as well as Turgenev's ideas in the novel, were analyzed by the critic Nikolai Dobrolyubov, who approached the plot from a progressive position. The critic notes a special writer's sensitivity in the author. This is perfectly manifested in the way Ivan Sergeevich portrays the main character. The critic saw in Elena Stakhova the image of Russia, which is still young and beautiful.

Elena in Turgenev's view is turned to the people, from them she takes a dream, looking for the truth. She is also willing to sacrifice herself for someone else. Elena is a wonderful heroine, men like her. The army of her admirers is great: it is an artist, an official, a scientist and even a revolutionary. The girl chooses the revolutionary Insarov, also trying to accomplish a civil feat. Her chosen one has a lofty goal, to which he subordinates his whole life. He dreams of happiness for his homeland.

There is another theme in Turgenev's work - this is a conflict of personal interests and sincerity. For example, Barsenev and Shubin argue about what happiness is, what love is, and what can be higher. The more the reader watches the main characters, the more it becomes obvious that they must make a sacrifice of their love. The author seems to be trying to emphasize that any life on Earth ends tragically. And according to the plot of the novel, it is known that Insarov suddenly dies from an illness. And Elena dissolves in a crowd of people and no one else knows anything about her.

Criticism and reviews of Ivan Turgenev's novel "On the Eve"

The writer did not accept the position of the critic Nikolai Dobrolyubov on his novel, his interpretation of the general plot and look at the main characters. At the time when the critical article was to be published, Turgenev turned to Nekrasov with a request to stop the review. It's not that the author was afraid of publication. Ivan Sergeevich was upset by the very fact that the novel was misunderstood. Therefore, as soon as the Nekrasov magazine Sovremennik came out, the writer decides to break with him forever, since his requests were not heeded. But the criticism of the novel "On the Eve" did not stop there. Soon another article appeared on the pages of the same Nekrasov magazine, in which there was a negative review of the novel, but already written by Chernyshevsky. No less negative reaction to the content of the novel and its characters was from conservative-minded writers and nobles.

What contemporaries did not write about the published novel. Most of all, the heroine was scolded, believing that she did not have any feminine qualities at all, that she was immoral and empty. The main character also got it, most often he was called dry and sketchy.

This greatly upset the author. But time put everything in its place. The predictions made by the first readers that Nakanune would never have a tomorrow did not come true. The novel, written more than 150 years ago, is one of the brightest creations of Russian classics, known as a bright and deep work to any contemporary.