Chernyshevsky Nikolai Gavrilovich(1828 - 1889) - publicist, literary critic, prose writer, economist, philosopher, revolutionary democrat.
Born in the family of a priest. Until the age of 12, he was brought up and studied at home under the guidance of his father. In 1842-1845, Chernyshevsky studied at the Saratov Seminary, where he was destined for a brilliant spiritual career. However, the spiritual field did not attract the future publicist, and, without graduating from the seminary, he entered in 1846 the department of general literature of the philosophical faculty of St. Petersburg University, where he studied Slavic philology.
During the years of study at the university (1846-1850), the foundations of the worldview were developed. The conviction that a revolution in Russia was necessary by 1850 was combined with the soberness of historical thinking: “Here is my way of thinking about Russia: an irresistible expectation of an imminent revolution and a thirst for it, although I know that for a long time, maybe a very long time, nothing will come of it the good news is that, perhaps, oppression will only increase for a long time, and so on. - what are the needs?.. peaceful, quiet development is impossible.
Chernyshevsky tried his hand at prose (the story of Lily and Goethe, the story of Josephine, Theory and Practice, The Cut Piece). Having left the university as a candidate, after a short work as a tutor in the Second cadet corps Petersburg, served as a senior teacher of literature at the Saratov gymnasium (1851-1853), where he spoke in the class "things that smell like hard labor."
Returning to St. Petersburg in May 1853, Chernyshevsky taught at the Second Cadet Corps, while preparing for the exams for a master's degree, and working on his dissertation "The Aesthetic Relations of Art to Reality." The debate on the dissertation presented to Professor Nikitenko in the autumn of 1853 took place on May 10, 1855 and was a manifestation of materialistic ideas in aesthetics, irritating the university authorities. The dissertation was officially approved in January 1859. In parallel, there was a journal work, which began in the summer of 1853 with reviews in the journal Otechestvennye Zapiski.
But from the spring of 1855, Chernyshevsky, who retired, was engaged in journal work for N.A. Nekrasov's Sovremennik. Collaboration in this journal (1859-1861) fell on a period of social upsurge associated with the preparation of the peasant reform. Under the leadership of Chernyshevsky and Nekrasov, and later Dobrolyubov, the revolutionary-democratic direction of the journal was determined.
Since 1854, Chernyshevsky led the department of criticism and bibliography in Sovremennik. At the end of 1857, he handed it over to Dobrolyubov and concentrated mainly on political, economic, and philosophical topics. Convinced of the predatory nature of the forthcoming reform, Chernyshevsky boycotted the pre-reform hype; upon the publication of the manifesto on February 19, 1861, Sovremennik did not directly respond to it. In Letters Without an Address, written after the reform and actually addressed to Alexander II (published abroad in 1874), Chernyshevsky accused the autocratic-bureaucratic regime of robbing the peasants. Counting on a peasant revolution, the Sovremennik circle, headed by Chernyshevsky, resorted to illegal forms of struggle. Chernyshevsky wrote a revolutionary proclamation "Bow to the lordly peasants from well-wishers."
In an atmosphere of growing post-reform reaction, the attention of the III Division was increasingly attracted by the activities of Chernyshevsky. Since the autumn of 1861, he was under police surveillance. But Chernyshevsky was a skilled conspirator; nothing suspicious was found in his papers. In June 1862, the publication of Sovremennik was banned for eight months.
On July 7, 1862, Chernyshevsky was arrested. The reason for the arrest was a letter intercepted at the border by Herzen and Ogarev, in which it was proposed to publish Sovremennik in London or Geneva. On the same day, Chernyshevsky became a prisoner of the Alekseevsky ravelin. Peter and Paul Fortress, where he stayed until the verdict - the civil execution, which took place on May 19, 1864 on Mytninskaya Square. He was deprived of all the rights of the estate and sentenced to 14 years of hard labor in the mines, with the subsequent settlement in Siberia, Alexander II reduced the term of hard labor to 7 years. The trial in the Chernyshevsky case dragged on for a very long time due to the lack of direct evidence.
In the fortress, Chernyshevsky turned to artistic creativity. Here, from December 14, 1862 to April 4, 1863, the novel What Is to Be Done? From stories about new people. He was followed by the remaining unfinished story "Alferyev" (1863) and the novel "Tales in the story" (1863), "Small stories" (1864). Saw the light only novel "What to do?".
In May 1864, Chernyshevsky was sent under escort to Siberia, where he was first at the mine, and from September 1865 - in the prison of the Alexander Plant.
Hard labor, which expired in 1871, turned out to be the threshold for the worst test - a settlement in Yakutia, in the city of Vilyuysk, where the prison was the best building, and the climate turned out to be disastrous.
Here Chernyshevsky was the only exile and could communicate only with the gendarmes and the local Yakut population; Correspondence was difficult, and often deliberately delayed. Only in 1883, under Alexander III, Chernyshevsky was allowed to move to Astrakhan. The drastic change in climate greatly damaged his health.
The years of fortress, penal servitude and exile (1862-1883) did not lead to the oblivion of the name and works of Chernyshevsky - his fame as a thinker and revolutionary grew. Upon his arrival in Astrakhan, Chernyshevsky hoped to return to active literary activity, but the publication of his works, albeit under a pseudonym, was difficult.
In June 1889, Chernyshevsky received permission to return to his homeland, to Saratov. He made big plans, despite his rapidly deteriorating health. He died of a cerebral hemorrhage and was buried in Saratov.
In the versatile heritage of Chernyshevsky important place work on aesthetics, literary criticism, artistic creativity. In all these areas, he was an innovator, raising controversy to this day. To Chernyshevsky, his own words about Gogol as a writer from among those “for whom love requires the same mood of the soul with them, because their activity is the service of a certain direction of moral aspirations,” are applicable.
In the novel "What to do? From stories about new people" Chernyshevsky continued the theme of the new world discovered by Turgenev in Fathers and Sons. public figure, mainly from raznochintsy, who replaced the type of "extra person".
The romantic pathos of the work lies in the striving for the socialist ideal, the future, when the type of "new man" will become "the common nature of all people." The prototype of the future is also the personal relations of the “new people”, resolving conflicts on the basis of the humane theory of “calculation of benefits”, and their labor activity. These detailed areas of life of the "new people" are correlated with a hidden, "Aesopian" plot, the main character of which is the professional revolutionary Rakhmetov.
The themes of love, labor, revolution are organically linked in the novel, the characters of which profess "reasonable egoism", stimulating the moral development of the individual. Realistic Principle typification is more consistently sustained in Rakhmetov, whose stern courage is dictated by the conditions of the revolutionary struggle of the early 60s. The call for a bright and beautiful future, Chernyshevsky's historical optimism, a major finale are combined in the novel with awareness tragic fate his "new people": "... a few more years, perhaps not years, but months, and they will be cursed, and they will be driven from the scene, shoved, ostracized."
The publication of the novel caused a storm of criticism. Against the background of Chernyshevsky's numerous accusations of immorality and other things, the article by R.R.Strakhov "Happy People" stands out for its seriousness. Recognizing the author's vitality and "tension of inspiration", the "organic" critic challenged the rationalism and optimism of the "new people" and the absence of deep conflicts between them.
M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, expressing sympathy common idea novel, noted that in its embodiment the author could not avoid some arbitrary regulation of details.
And N.G. Chernyshevsky believed: "... Only those areas of literature achieve brilliant development that arise under the influence of strong and living ideas that satisfy the pressing needs of the era. Each century has its own historical work, its own special aspirations. The life and glory of our time constitute two aspirations, closely related and complementing one another: humanity and concern for the improvement of human life.
Topic: - Artistic features and compositional originality of the novel "What is to be done?"
Unconventional and unusual for Russian prose of the 19th century, the plot of the work, more characteristic of French adventure novels, is a mysterious suicide described in the 1st chapter of "What to do?" - was, according to the generally accepted opinion of all researchers, a kind of intriguing device designed to confuse the commission of inquiry and tsarist censorship. The melodramatic tone of the narrative of family drama in the 2nd chapter, and the unexpected title of the 3rd - "Foreword", which begins with the words: "The content of the story is love, the main person is a woman, this is good, even if the story itself was bad ..." Moreover, in this chapter, the author, addressing the public in a half-joking, half-mocking tone, admits that he quite deliberately "began the story with spectacular scenes torn from the middle or end of it, covered them with fog." After that, the author, having laughed at his readers to his heart's content, says: “I don’t have a shadow of artistic talent. I don’t even speak the language well. a good thing: she rewards the shortcomings of the writer who serves her. "The reader is puzzled: on the one hand, the author clearly despises him, ranking him among the majority with whom he is "impudent", on the other, as if he is ready to show him all the cards and, moreover, intrigues him by the fact that in his narrative there is also hidden meaning! The reader is left with one thing - to read, and in the process of reading to gain patience, and the deeper he plunges into the work, the more tests his patience is subjected to ... The fact that the author really has a poor command of the language, the reader is convinced literally from the first pages. So, for example, Chernyshevsky has a weakness for stringing verbal chains: "Mother stopped daring to enter her room"; loves repetition: "It's strange to others, but you don't know that it's strange, but I know that it's not strange"; the author's speech is careless and vulgar, and sometimes one gets the feeling that this is a bad translation from a foreign language: "the gentleman broke into ambition"; "For a long time they felt the sides of one of themselves"; "He answered with exquisite tolerance"; "People fall into two main departments"; "The end of this beginning happened when they passed by the old man"; the author's digressions are dark, clumsy and wordy: "They didn't even think that they were thinking this; but this is the best thing, that they didn't even notice that they were thinking this"; Vera Pavlovna "..." began to think, not at all, but somewhat, no, not several, but almost completely, that there was nothing important, which she took for strong passion just a dream that will dissipate in a few days "...", or she thought not, does not think it, that she feels that it is not so? Yes, this is not so, no, so, so, more and more firmly she thought that she was thinking this. everyday fairy tale: "After tea ... she came into her little room and lay down. So she reads in her bed, only the book falls from her eyes, and Vera Pavlovna thinks: what is it, lately, it has become a little boring for me sometimes?" Alas, such examples can be cited indefinitely ... The mixing of styles is no less annoying: over the course of one semantic episode, the same faces continually stray from a pathetically sublime style to an everyday, frivolous or vulgar one. Why did the Russian public accept this novel? The critic Skabichevsky recalled: "We read the novel almost on our knees, with such piety that does not allow the slightest smile on our lips, with which liturgical books are read." Even Herzen, admitting that the novel was "vilely written," immediately made the reservation: "on the other hand, there is much good." What is the "other side"? Obviously, from the side of Truth, the service of which should remove all accusations of mediocrity from the author! And the "advanced minds" of that era identified Truth with Benefit, Benefit - with Happiness, Happiness - with serving the same Truth ... Be that as it may, it is difficult to blame Chernyshevsky for insincerity, because he wanted good, and not for himself, but for everyone! As Vladimir Nabokov wrote in The Gift (in the chapter devoted to Chernyshevsky), "the ingenious Russian reader understood the good things that the mediocre novelist tried in vain to express." Another thing is how Chernyshevsky himself went to this good and where he led the "new people." (Recall that the regicide Sofya Perovskaya already in her early youth adopted Rakhmetov's "boxing diet" and slept on the bare floor.) Let the revolutionary Chernyshevsky be judged with all severity by history, and the writer and critic Chernyshevsky by the history of literature.Mysterious suicide in the 1st chapter of the novel "What is to be done?" - the plot is unconventional and unusual for Russian prose of the 19th century, more characteristic of adventurous French novels. According to the generally established opinion of all researchers, it was, so to speak, a kind of intriguing device, designed to confuse the commission of inquiry and the tsarist censorship. The melodramatic coloring of the story about family tragedy in the 2nd chapter, as well as the unexpected title of the 3rd - "Preface", which begins like this: "The content of the story is love, the main person is a woman, this is good, even if the story itself was bad ..." In addition, in this In the chapter, the writer, addressing the people in a half-joking, half-mocking tone, admits that he quite deliberately "began the story with spectacular scenes torn from the middle or end of it, covered them with fog." Following this, Chernyshevsky, mocking his readers to his heart's content, says: “I have not a shadow of artistic talent. I even speak the language poorly. ". Thus, he puzzles the reader: on the one hand, the author openly despises him, referring to the majority with whom he is "impudent", on the other hand, as if he is inclined to open all his cards in front of him and, moreover, intrigues him with the fact that in his story there is also secret meaning! The reader is left with one thing - to read and disassemble, and in the process to gain patience, and the deeper he plunges into this work, the more tests his patience is subjected to ...
The fact that the author really does not speak the language well, the reader is convinced literally from the first pages. So, for example, Chernyshevsky has a weakness for stringing verbal chains: "Mother has ceased to dare to enter her room"; loves repetition: "It's strange to others, but you don't know that it's strange, but I know that it's not strange"; the author's speech is careless and vulgar, and sometimes one gets the feeling that this is a bad translation from a foreign language: "The master has broken into ambition"; "For a long time they felt the sides of one of themselves"; "He answered with exquisite tolerance"; "People fall into two main departments"; "The end of this beginning was when they passed by the old man." The author's digressions are dark, clumsy and verbose: "They did not even think that they were thinking this; but this is the best thing, that they did not notice that they were thinking this"; "Vera Pavlovna began to think, not at all, but somewhat, no, not several, but almost completely, to think that there was nothing important, which she mistook for a strong passion just a dream that would dissipate in a few days, or she thought no, does not think this, that she feels that it is not so? Yes, it is not so, no, so, so, more and more firmly she thought that she was thinking this. At times, the tone of the narration seems to parody the intonations of a Russian everyday fairy tale: “After tea ... she came into her room and lay down. So she reads in her bed, only the book falls from her eyes, and Vera Pavlovna thinks: what is it, lately, it has become a little boring sometimes? Alas, such examples can be cited ad infinitum...
No less annoying is the mixing of styles: over the course of one semantic episode, the same faces continually stray from a pathetically sublime style to an everyday, frivolous or vulgar one.
Why did the Russian public accept this novel? The critic Skabichevsky recalled: "We read the novel almost on our knees, with such piety that does not allow the slightest smile on our lips, with which liturgical books are read." Even Herzen, admitting that the novel was "vilely written," immediately made the reservation: "On the other hand, there is a lot of good stuff." What is the "other side"? Obviously, from the side of Truth, the service of which should remove all accusations of mediocrity from the author! And the advanced minds of that era identified Truth with Benefit, Benefit - with Happiness, Happiness - with serving the same Truth ... Be that as it may, it is difficult to reproach Chernyshevsky with insincerity, because he wanted good, and not for himself, but for everyone! As Vladimir Nabokov wrote in The Gift (in the chapter devoted to Chernyshevsky), "the ingenious Russian reader understood the good things that the mediocre novelist tried in vain to express." Another thing is how Chernyshevsky himself went to this good and where he led the "new people." (Recall that the regicide Sofya Perovskaya already in her early youth adopted Rakhmetov's "boxing diet" and slept on the bare floor.) Let the revolutionary Chernyshevsky be judged with all severity by history, and the writer and critic Chernyshevsky by the history of literature.
Finally, the genre form "What is to be done?" is also unusual. It was then still an almost unknown journalistic, socio-philosophical novel. Its peculiarity is that the "reproduction of life" in contrasting pictures of the "dirty" noble-bourgeois world and the world of new people is accompanied in the novel by an open author's explanation of both. This explanation is by no means boring or instructive. It is carried out subtly and varied, weaving into the narrative fabric of the novel with a special thread. An explanation is also a bright journalistic page, showing, by means of detailed economic calculations, the profitability of collective labor; it is also a complex psychological analysis of the spiritual experiences and actions of the heroes, convincing of the superiority of the new morality over the old, pre-construction one. This is also the author's incessantly ongoing caustic disputes with the "slaves" of routine, especially with the "astute reader", stupid, ignorant, self-satisfied, importunately undertaking to talk about art, and science, and morality, and about other things in which "no belmez does not understand." This is also a philosophical generalization of the events and processes of the age-old history of mankind, striking in the breadth of knowledge and the depth of theoretical thought.
In the work, publicistically clearly announced, declaring the words of the aesthetics of the author himself, and "the verdict on the phenomena of life." However, not at all in the form of "prosecutor" speeches, even some kind of punishing outpourings. The real verdict is presented by the spectacle of new family and domestic relationships. He condemns today the author's socialist ideal, in the "reflections of radiance" of which the unreasonableness of being, the characters and views of an egoistic society looks more and more terrible and ugly, and the Rakhmetovs, who give their lives to the revolutionary struggle, become more and more attractive.
In the chosen Chernyshevsky genre form novel, no doubt, a remarkable plot and compositional role was represented by the figure of the narrator, the author's "I". From one chapter to another, the presence of the author himself, his strong and powerful intellect, his generosity and nobility, the generosity of his soul, the cordial, impartial comprehension of the most complex motives of the human personality, his irony and causticity are felt closer and closer. And, besides, an unshakable faith in a better future. N. G. Chernyshevsky conceived his novel as a "textbook of life" and brilliantly implemented this idea.
Writer, philosopher and journalist Nikolai Chernyshevsky was popular during his lifetime in a narrow circle of readers. With coming Soviet power his works (especially the novel What Is to Be Done?) have become textbooks. Today his name is one of the symbols of Russian literature of the 19th century.
Childhood and youth
Nikolai Chernyshevsky, whose biography began in Saratov, was born into the family of a provincial priest. The father himself was engaged in the education of the child. From him, Chernyshevsky was transferred to religiosity, which faded away in his student years, when the young man became interested in revolutionary ideas. Since childhood, Kolenka read a lot and swallowed book after book, which surprised everyone around him.
In 1843, he entered the Saratov Theological Seminary, but, without graduating from it, he continued his education at the University of St. Petersburg. Chernyshevsky, whose biography was associated with humanities, chose the Faculty of Philosophy.
At the university, the future writer was formed. He became a utopian socialist. His ideology was influenced by members of the circle of Irinarkh Vvedensky, with whom the student talked and argued a lot. At the same time, he began his literary activity. First works of art were only a practice and remained unpublished.
Teacher and journalist
Having received an education, Chernyshevsky, whose biography was now connected with pedagogy, became a teacher. He taught in Saratov, and then returned to the capital. In the same years, he met his wife Olga Vasilyeva. The wedding took place in 1853.
The beginning of Chernyshevsky's journalistic activity was connected with Petersburg. In the same 1853, he began to publish in the newspapers Otechestvennye Zapiski and St. Petersburg Vedomosti. But most of all, Nikolai Gavrilovich was known as a member of the editorial board of the Sovremennik magazine. There were several circles of writers, each of which defended its position.
Work at Sovremennik
Nikolai Chernyshevsky, whose biography was already known in the literary environment of the capital, became closest to Dobrolyubov and Nekrasov. These authors were passionate about the revolutionary ideas they wanted to express in Sovremennik.
A few years earlier, civil riots had erupted across Europe, echoing through Russia. For example, Louis-Philippe was overthrown by the bourgeoisie in Paris. And in Austria, the nationalist movement of the Hungarians was suppressed only after Nicholas I came to the rescue of the emperor, who sent several regiments to Budapest. The tsar, whose reign began with the suppression of the Decembrist uprising, was afraid of revolutions and increased censorship in Russia.
This caused concern among the liberals in Sovremennik. They Vasily Botkin, Alexander Druzhinin and others) did not want the journal to be radicalized.
Chernyshevsky's activities increasingly attracted the attention of the state and officials responsible for censorship. A striking event was the public defense of a dissertation on art, at which the writer delivered a revolutionary speech. In protest, Minister of Education Avraam Norov did not allow Nikolai Gavrilovich to be awarded the prize. Only after he was replaced in this position by the more liberal Yevgraf Kovalevsky, did the writer become a master of Russian literature.
Chernyshevsky's views
It is important to note some features of Chernyshevsky's views. They were influenced by schools such as French materialism and Hegelianism. As a child, the writer was a zealous Christian, but in adulthood he began to actively criticize religion, as well as liberalism and the bourgeoisie.
Especially fiercely he stigmatized serfdom. Even before the Manifesto on the Liberation of the Peasants of Alexander II was published, the writer described the future reform in many articles and essays. He proposed drastic measures, including the transfer of land to peasants free of charge. However, the Manifesto had little to do with these utopian programs. Since they were established that prevented the peasants from becoming completely free, Chernyshevsky regularly scolded this document. He compared the situation of Russian peasants with the life of black slaves in the USA.
Chernyshevsky believed that in 20 or 30 years after the liberation of the peasants, the country would get rid of capitalist agriculture, and socialism would come with a communal form of ownership. Nikolai Gavrilovich advocated the creation of phalansters - premises in which the inhabitants of future communes would work together for mutual benefit. This project was utopian, which is not surprising, because its author was Phalanster, which was described by Chernyshevsky in one of the chapters of the novel What Is To Be Done?
"Land and Freedom"
Revolutionary propaganda continued. One of her inspirations was Nikolai Chernyshevsky. short biography writer in any textbook necessarily contains at least a paragraph stating that it was he who became the founder of the famous movement "Land and Freedom". It really is. In the second half of the 1950s, Chernyshevsky began to have many contacts with Alexander Herzen. went into exile due to pressure from the authorities. In London, he began publishing the Russian-language newspaper The Bell. She became the mouthpiece of revolutionaries and socialists. It was sent in secret editions to Russia, where the numbers were very popular among radical students.
Nikolai Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky also published in it. The biography of the writer was known to any socialist in Russia. In 1861, with his ardent participation (as well as the influence of Herzen), Land and Freedom appeared. This movement united a dozen circles in the largest cities of the country. It included writers, students and other supporters revolutionary ideas. It is interesting that Chernyshevsky even managed to drag the officers with whom he collaborated by publishing in military magazines there.
Members of the organization were engaged in propaganda and criticism of the tsarist authorities. "Going to the People" has become a historical anecdote over the years. Agitators trying to find mutual language with the peasants, they were also issued to the police. For many years, revolutionary views did not find a response in common people, remaining the lot of a narrow stratum of the intelligentsia.
Arrest
Over time, the biography of Chernyshevsky, in short, interested the agents of the secret investigation. On Kolokol's business, he even went to see Herzen in London, which, of course, only drew more attention to him. From September 1861, the writer was under covert surveillance. He was suspected of provocations against the authorities.
In June 1862, Chernyshevsky was arrested. Even before this event, clouds began to gather around him. In May, the Sovremennik magazine was closed. The writer was accused of compiling a proclamation discrediting the authorities, which ended up in the hands of provocateurs. The police also managed to intercept a letter from Herzen, where the emigrant offered to publish the closed Sovremennik again, only in London.
"What to do?"
The accused was placed in the Peter and Paul Fortress, where he stayed during the investigation. It went on for a year and a half. At first, the writer tried to protest against the arrest. He announced hunger strikes, which, however, did not change his position in any way. On days when the prisoner was getting better, he took up the pen and began to work on a sheet of paper. So the novel “What is to be done?” Was written, which became the most famous work published by Chernyshevsky Nikolai Gavrilovich. A brief biography of this figure, printed in any encyclopedia, necessarily contains information about this book.
The novel was published in the newly opened Sovremennik in three issues in 1863. Interestingly, there might not have been any publication. The only original was lost on the streets of St. Petersburg during transportation to the editorial office. The papers were found by a passer-by and only out of his kindness of heart returned them to Sovremennik. Nikolai Nekrasov, who worked there and literally went crazy with the loss, was beside himself with happiness when the novel was returned to him.
Sentence
Finally, in 1864, the verdict was announced to the disgraced writer. He went to hard labor in Nerchinsk. The verdict also contained a clause according to which Nikolai Gavrilovich was to spend the rest of his life in eternal exile. Alexander II changed the term of hard labor to 7 years. What else can Chernyshevsky's biography tell us? Briefly, literally in a nutshell, let's talk about the years spent by the materialist philosopher in captivity. The harsh climate and difficult conditions greatly worsened his health. Despite having survived hard labor. Later he lived in several provincial towns, but never returned to the capital.
Even in hard labor, like-minded people tried to free him, who came up with various escape plans. However, they were never implemented. From 1883 to 1889, Nikolai Chernyshevsky (his biography says that it was at the end of the life of a democratic revolutionary) spent in Astrakhan. Shortly before his death, he returned to Saratov thanks to the patronage of his son.
Death and meaning
On October 11, 1889, N. G. Chernyshevsky died in his native city. The biography of the writer has become the subject of imitation of many followers and supporters.
The Soviet ideology put him on a par with the figures of the 19th century, who were the harbingers of the revolution. The novel "What to do?" became a mandatory school curriculum. On modern lessons literature, this topic is also studied, only less hours are devoted to it.
In Russian journalism and journalism there is a separate list of the founders of these areas. It included Herzen, Belinsky and Chernyshevsky. Biography, a summary of his books, as well as the impact on social thought - all these issues are being investigated by writers today.
Quotes Chernyshevsky
The writer was known for his sharp language and ability to build sentences. Here are Chernyshevsky's most famous quotes:
- Personal happiness is impossible without the happiness of others.
- Youth is the time of freshness of noble feelings.
- Scholarly literature saves people from ignorance, and elegant literature from rudeness and vulgarity.
- They flatter in order to dominate under the guise of humility.
- Only in truth is the power of talent; wrong direction destroys the strongest talent.
Civil punishment. On May 19, 1864, an event took place on Mytninskaya Square in St. Petersburg, which forever entered the annals of the Russian liberation movement. It was a foggy, hazy Petersburg morning. It drizzled cold, piercing rain. Streams of water slid along the tall black pillar with chains, long drops fell to the ground from the wet wooden platform of the scaffold. By eight o'clock in the morning more than two thousand people had gathered here. Writers, magazine staff, students of the medical-surgical academy, officers of the army rifle battalions came to say goodbye to a man who for about seven years had been the ruler of the thoughts of the radical part of Russian society.
After a long wait, a carriage appeared, surrounded by mounted gendarmes, and Nikolai Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky climbed onto the scaffold. The executioner took off his hat, and the reading of the sentence began. A not very competent official did it loudly, but badly, with stutters, with pauses. In one place he choked and barely uttered "satsal ideas." A smile flickered across Chernyshevsky's pale face. The verdict declared that Chernyshevsky "had a great influence on young people with his literary activity" and that "for the intent to overthrow the existing order" he was deprived of "all the rights of the state" and referred "to hard labor for 14 years", and then "settled in Siberia forever.
The rain intensified. Chernyshevsky often raised his hand, wiping the cold water that flowed down his face and ran down the collar of his overcoat. Finally the reading stopped. “The executioners lowered him to his knees. They broke a saber over his head and then, raising him even higher a few steps, took his hands in chains, attached to a pole. At this time, it began to rain very heavily, the executioner put a hat on him. Chernyshevsky thanked him, straightened his cap as far as his hands allowed him, and then, putting his hand in his hand, calmly awaited the end of this procedure. There was dead silence in the crowd, - an eyewitness of the "civil execution" recalls. - At the end of the ceremony, everyone rushed to the carriage, broke through the line of police officers ... and only through the efforts of the mounted gendarmes, the crowd was separated from the carriage. Then... bouquets of flowers were thrown to him. One woman who threw flowers was arrested. Someone shouted: "Farewell, Chernyshevsky!" This cry was immediately supported by others ... "
The next day, May 20, 1864, Chernyshevsky, in shackles, under the protection of gendarmes, was sent to Siberia, where he was destined to live for almost 20 years in isolation from society, from relatives, from his beloved work. Worse than any penal servitude was this debilitating inaction, this doomedness to reflect on the brightly lived and suddenly cut off years ...
Childhood. Nikolai Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky was born
12 (24) July. 1828 in Saratov in the family of Archpriest Gavriil Ivanovich Chernyshevsky and his wife Evgenia Egorovn (nee 
Golubev). Both his_his_grandfather and his maternal great-grandfather were priests. Grandfather, Yegor Ivanovich Golubev, archpriest of the Sergius Church in Saratov, died in 1818, and the Saratov governor turned to the Penza bishop with a request to send the “best student” to the vacant place on the condition, as was customary in the clergy, to marry the daughter of the deceased archpriest. The librarian of the Penza Seminary Gavriil Ivanovich Chernyshevsky, a man of high learning and impeccable behavior, turned out to be a worthy person. In 1816, he was noticed by the famous statesman M. M. Speransky, who fell into disgrace and held the post of Penza governor. Speransky invited Gavriil Ivanovich to go to Petersburg, but at the insistence of his mother, he refused the flattering offer that promised him brilliant career statesman. Gavriil Ivanovich recalled this episode in his life not without regret and transferred the unfulfilled dreams of youth to his only son, who was in no way inferior to his father in talent and abilities. Prosperity and a warm family atmosphere reigned in Chernyshevsky's house, inspired by deep religious feelings. this disgust from them "has been in me since childhood, thanks, of course, to the modest and strictly moral lifestyle of all my close elder relatives." Chernyshevsky always treated his parents with filial reverence and reverence, shared with them his worries and plans, joys and sorrows In turn, the mother loved her son selflessly, and for the father he was also the subject of "undisguised pride. WITH early years the boy showed exceptional natural talent. His father saved him from the spiritual school, preferring an in-depth home education. He himself taught his son Latin and Greek, the boy successfully studied French on his own, and German colonist Gref taught him German. In my father's house was good library, in which, along with spiritual literature, there were works by Russian writers - Pushkin, Zhukovsky, Gogol, as well as modern magazines. In "Notes of the Fatherland" the boy read translated novels by Dickens, George Sand, was fond of articles by V. G. Belinsky. So from childhood Chernyshevsky turned into, according to him own words, into a true book-eater.
It would seem that family well-being, religious piety, the love with which the boy was surrounded from childhood - nothing foreshadowed in him a future denier, a revolutionary overthrower of the foundations of the social order that existed in Russia. However, I.S. Turgenev drew attention to one feature of the Russian revolutionary fighters: “All the true deniers whom I knew - without exception (Belinsky, Bakunin, Herzen, Dobrolyubov, etc.) came from relatively kind and honest parents. And there is a great meaning in this: it takes away from the doers, from the deniers, every shadow of personal indignation, personal irritability. They follow their own path only because they are more sensitive to the demands of the people's life. This very sensitivity to the grief of others and the suffering of one's neighbor presupposed a high development of Christian moral feelings, which took place in the family cradle. The power of denial was fed and maintained by the equal power of faith, hope and love. In contrast to the peace and harmony that reigned in the family, the social untruth hurt the eyes, so from childhood Chernyshevsky began to wonder why "people's misfortunes and sufferings occur", tried to "make out what is true and what is false, what is good and what is evil" .
Saratov Theological Seminary. In 18421, Chernyshevsky entered the Saratov Theological Seminary as a student of his own, "living at home and coming to the seminary only for lessons. Modest, quiet and shy, he was nicknamed by the poor seminarians "gentry": young Chernyshevsky was too different from most of his comrades - and well dressed, and the son of an archpriest revered by everyone in the city, and goes to the seminary in his own cab, and in terms of knowledge he is head and shoulders above his classmates. topic. pedagogical principles based on the belief that bodily suffering contributes to the purification human soul. Strong students were encouraged, and weak students were punished. Language teacher and Latin Voskresensky often punished the sinful flesh of his pupils, and after corporal punishment invited him home for tea, directing their souls to the path of virtue.
Under these conditions, smart students turned out to be a kind of savior and protector of the weak. Chernyshevsky recalled: “Many medieval customs remained in seminary teaching, among them are student-teacher disputes. Having finished explaining the lesson, the teacher says: “Who has to make an objection?” A student who wants to distinguish himself - to distinguish himself not so much in front of the teacher as in front of his comrades - gets up and says: "I have an objection." The dispute begins; it often ends with curses from the teacher who objected; sometimes the objector is sent to his knees; but on the other hand, he acquires among his comrades the glory of a genius. It must be said that each course in the seminary has five “geniuses” before whom the comrades absolutely bow ... ”Moreover, in each class there was also a spiritual, intellectual leader - the one who is“ smarter than everyone. Chernyshevsky easily became such a leader.
According to the recollections of his classmates, “Nikolai Gavrilovich deliberately came to class earlier than was necessary, and was engaged in translation with his comrades. A group of 5-10 people will come up, he will translate difficult passages and explain; as soon as this one leaves, another one comes up, there is a third, etc. And there was no case for Chernyshevsky to express, even in a half-word, his displeasure.
Petersburg University. So, from an early age, Chernyshevsky was strengthened by his truly inherent sense of intellectual exclusivity, and after him, faith in the power of the human mind, which transforms the world. Having not completed the seminary, having studied there for less than four years out of six, he left her with the firm intention of continuing his education at the university. Why did Chernyshevsky turn down the brilliant spiritual career that was opening before him? In a conversation with a friend before leaving for St. Petersburg, the young man said: "I would like fame." Probably, his outstanding mental abilities did not find satisfaction; he outgrew the level of seminary learning by self-education. It is possible that Chernyshevsky was prompted to receive a secular education by his father, who had just experienced an undeserved disgrace from the spiritual authorities. The position of the clergy in Russia at that time was far from being brilliant. Since the reform of Peter I, it was dependent on the state, on officials, on secular authorities. University education gave greater independence, and with certain mental abilities, the prospect of moving from the clergy to the privileged nobility. The father remembered his youth and wanted to see in his son the realization of his unfulfilled hopes. One way or another, but in May 1846, the young man, accompanied by his beloved mother, went “for a long time” to a distant capital to take exams at the university.
On August 2, 1846, the half-educated seminarian enters into a daring rivalry with the sons of the nobility, graduates of boarding schools and gymnasiums, and wins a brilliant victory. On August 14, he was enrolled in the historical and philological department of the Faculty of Philosophy. In the first year, Chernyshevsky studies a lot, reads Lermontov, Gogol, Schiller, and begins to keep a diary. He is fascinated by the ideas of moral self-improvement, the Bible is still a reference book. Chernyshevsky sympathizes with Gogol's "Selected passages from correspondence with friends" and condemns the rejection of this book by Belinsky and Nekrasov.
The revolution that broke out in France in February 1848 significantly changes the circle of interests of a sophomore student. He is fascinated by philosophical and political questions. Characteristic entries appear in the diary: “The socialists do not want the destruction of property and the family, but that these benefits, now the privilege of a few, be extended to all!” In September 1848, Chernyshevsky met Alexander Khanykov, a participant in the "Fridays" of M. V. Petrashevsky, who gave him the writings of the French utopian socialist Fourier to read. Dostoevsky noted that "the emerging socialism was then compared, even by some of its horsemen, with Christianity and was taken only as a correction and improvement of the latter, in accordance with the age and civilization." Socialism was seen as a "new revelation", a continuation and development of the basic provisions of the ethical teachings of Jesus Christ. “I finished reading Fourier this morning,” Chernyshevsky writes in his diary. “Now I see that he is not really dangerous for my Christian convictions ...” But a deeper acquaintance with socialist teachings gives rise to doubts about the identity of socialism with Christianity: “If this is a revelation, - the last revelation, let it be, and what does it matter to the agitation of the souls of the weak, such as mine ... But I do not believe that there is a new one, and it would be a pity for me to part with Jesus Christ, who is so good, so sweet to his soul a person who is good and loving humanity, and so pours peace into the soul when you think about it. Chernyshevsky likens modern civilization to the era of Rome during the decline, when the foundations of the old worldview were destroyed and everyone expected the arrival of the messiah, savior, herald of the new faith. And the young man is ready to stay with the truth of the new teaching and even leave Christ if Christianity disagrees with the “last revelation”. Moreover, he feels immense powers in his soul. He wants to become the ancestor of a doctrine that can renew the world and give a “decidedly new direction” to all mankind. In this regard, such a touching detail is noteworthy. Diaries are written with a specially invented method of cursive writing, incomprehensible to the uninitiated. One day Chernyshevsky remarks the following: “If I die without rereading them well and without copying them into a generally readable language, then this will be lost for the biographers whom I am waiting for, because in essence I think that I will be a wonderful person.”
On April 23, the Petrashevites were arrested, including A. Khanykov, an acquaintance of Chernyshevsky. By a lucky chance, the young man was not involved in this political process. And yet Chernyshevsky does not lose heart. In the summer of 1849, he writes: “If I now had the power in my hands, I would immediately proclaim the emancipation of the peasants, disband more than half of the troops, if not now, then I would soon limit as much as possible the administrative and government power in general, especially small persons (i.e., small people). e. provincial and county), as much as possible education, teaching, schools. He would hardly have tried to give political rights to women.” After graduating from university, he dreams of becoming a journalist and leader of the "extreme left, something like Louis Blanc", famous figure French Revolution of 1848.
Saratov gymnasium. However, the years of the "gloomy seven years" do not allow his vocation to unfold. Shortly after graduating from the university, in March 1851, Chernyshevsky left for Saratov and was assigned as a teacher to the local gymnasium. According to the memoirs of one of his students, "mind, extensive knowledge ... cordiality, humanity, extraordinary simplicity and accessibility ... attracted, connected the hearts of students with the loving heart of a young teacher for life." His colleagues at the gymnasium perceived the direction of the young teacher differently. The headmaster exclaimed: “What freedom Chernyshevsky allows me! He tells his students about the dangers of serfdom. This is freethinking and Voltairianism! Moreover, the words of the director did not exaggerate anything, for the freethinker-teacher himself admitted that he was telling the truth to students, “who smell of hard labor.” And yet the fate of a provincial teacher was clearly insufficient for Chernyshevsky’s seething forces. a head clerk, or an official for special assignments," Chernyshevsky complained in his diary. "Be that as it may, I still have such pride that it is deadly for me. No, I must go to Petersburg."
Shortly before leaving, he proposes to the daughter of a Saratov doctor, Olga Sokratovna Vasilyeva. Chernyshevsky's love is peculiar: the usual young feeling is complicated by the motive of salvation, the release of the bride from the despotic guardianship of her parents. The first condition that Chernyshevsky puts before the chosen one of his heart is this: “... If you chose a person better than me, know that I will be glad to see you happier than you could be with me; but know that it would be a heavy blow to me.” Chernyshevsky formulated the second condition as follows: "... We will soon have a riot, and if it happens, I will certainly participate in it ... Neither dirt, nor drunken men with oak, nor massacre will frighten me." “It won’t scare me either,” Olga Sokratovna answered in the spirit of “new women”, the future heroines of Chernyshevsky's novels.
Approaches to a new aesthetic. In May 1853, Chernyshevsky and his young wife left for St. Petersburg. Here he gets a job as a teacher of literature in the cadet corps, begins to publish in magazines - first in A. Kraevsky's Fatherland Notes, and after meeting N. A. Nekrasov in the fall of 1853 - in Sovremennik. Like a knight at a crossroads, he is faced with a choice of which path to follow: a journalist, a professor or a metropolitan official. However, even V. G. Belinsky said that for practical participation in public life the raznochinets were given "only two means: a department and a journal." Upon arrival in St. Petersburg, Chernyshevsky began preparing for the master's examinations in Russian literature and worked on his dissertation "The Aesthetic Relationship of Art to Reality." Literature and art attract his attention not by chance. “Among a people deprived of public freedom,” A. I. Herzen wrote, “literature is the only tribune from the height of which he makes the cry of his indignation and his conscience heard.” And Chernyshevsky himself, three years later, would say in Essays on the Gogol Period of Russian Literature: “Literature in our country still concentrates almost the entire mental life of the people, and therefore it is directly incumbent on it to deal with such interests that in other countries have already passed, so to speak , in a special department of other areas of mental activity ... "
Chernyshevsky noted with chagrin that after the death of V. G. Belinsky, in the era of the “gloomy seven years”, his former friends A. V. Druzhinin, P. V. Annenkov, V. P. Botkin departed from the principles of revolutionary democratic criticism. Based on the aesthetic teachings of the German idealist philosopher Hegel, they believed that artistic creativity is independent of reality, that a real writer escapes from the contradictions of life into a pure and worldly sphere free from the fuss of the eternal ideals of goodness, truth, beauty. These eternal values are not revealed in life by art, but, on the contrary, are brought into life by it, making up for its fatal imperfection, its inevitable disharmony and incompleteness. Only art can give the ideal of perfect beauty, which cannot be embodied in the environment.
current reality. Such aesthetic views diverted the attention of the writer from questions of social reconstruction, deprived art of its effective character, its ability to renew and improve life.
In his dissertation, "The Aesthetic Relations of Art to Reality," Chernyshevsky spoke out against this "slavish admiration for old opinions that have long outlived themselves." For about two years he sought permission to defend it: university circles were alarmed and frightened by the "spirit of free research and free criticism" contained in it.
Finally, on May 10, 1855, a long-awaited event took place at the Faculty of History and Philology of St. Petersburg University. According to N. V. Shelgunov, a friend and like-minded person of Chernyshevsky, “the small auditorium reserved for the debate was packed with listeners. There were also students, but it seems that there were more outsiders, officers and civilian youth. It was very crowded, so that the audience stood at the windows... Chernyshevsky defended his dissertation with his usual modesty, but with the firmness of an unshakable conviction. After the dispute, Pletnev turned to Chernyshevsky with the following remark: “It seems that I didn’t read that to you at lectures!” Indeed, Pletnev did not read this, but what he read would not have been able to lead the public to the delight that the dissertation led her to. It was all new and all tempting ... "
Chernyshevsky really solves in a new way in his dissertation the main question of aesthetics about the beautiful: “beautiful is life”, “that being is beautiful in which we see life as it should be according to our concepts.” Unlike Hegel and his Russian followers, Chernyshevsky sees the source of beauty not in art, but in life. The forms of beauty are not brought into life by art, but exist objectively, independently of art in reality itself.
In affirming the formula "beautiful is life", Chernyshevsky is aware that the forms of beauty objectively existing in life are in themselves aesthetically neutral. They are perceived as beautiful only in the light of certain human concepts. But what then is the criterion of beauty? Maybe the formula is true that they don't argue about tastes, maybe, how many people - so many concepts of beauty? Chernyshevsky shows that people's tastes are far from arbitrary, that they are socially determined: different classes of society have different ideas about beauty. Moreover, true, healthy tastes are represented by those classes of society that lead a working lifestyle: “the peasant in the concept of“ life ”always contains the concept of work: you can’t live without work ...” And therefore “in the descriptions of the beauty in folk songs there is not a single one sign of beauty, which would not be an expression of flourishing health and balance of forces in the body, the always consequence of a life of contentment with constant and serious, but not excessive work. And vice versa, the secular "half-air" beauty seems to the villager decidedly "nondescript", even makes an unpleasant impression on him, because he is used to considering "thinness" as a result of illness or "bitter lot".
It is clear that Chernyshevsky's dissertation was the first manifesto of democratic aesthetics in Russia. Subordinating the ideal to the real, the art of reality, Chernyshevsky created a fundamentally new aesthetic theory not of an idealistic, but of a materialistic type. His work, enthusiastically greeted by young people of different ranks, irritated many prominent Russian writers. Turgenev, for example, called it "an abomination and insolence unheard of." This was due to the fact that Chernyshevsky destroyed the foundation of idealistic aesthetics, on which a whole generation of Russian cultural nobles of the 30s and 40s was brought up. In addition, Chernyshevsky's youthful work was not free from obvious errors and simplifications. “When a stick is bent in one direction,” he said, “it can be straightened only by bending it in the opposite direction: such is the law of social life.” There are a lot of such "distortions" in Chernyshevsky's work. So, he claims, for example, that “works of art cannot withstand comparison with living reality”: it is much better to look at the sea itself than at its image, but for lack of the best, a person is content with the worst, for the lack of a thing - its surrogate. Of course, neither Turgenev nor Leo Tolstoy could agree with such a belittling of the role of art. Chernyshevsky's dissertation also irritated them with a utilitarian, applied understanding of art, when it was assigned the role of a simple illustration of certain scientific truths. Turgenev long remembered Chernyshevsky's passage, which offended his artistic nature, and put it into the mouth of Bazarov in a slightly modified form. Examining an album with views of Saxon Switzerland, Bazarov arrogantly remarks to Odintsova that artistic taste he really does not: "... But these views could interest me from the point of view of the geological, from the point of view of the formation of mountains, for example ... The drawing will visually present to me what is presented in the book on as many as ten pages."
However, these simplified judgments about art, made in the heat of polemical enthusiasm, do not in the least detract from the truth of the general pathos. aesthetic views Chernyshevsky. Following Belinsky, he pushes the boundaries of art in order to enrich its content. “The general interest in life is the content of art,” he says. In the same way, Chernyshevsky expands the boundaries of the aesthetic, which in the works of his predecessors, as a rule, were confined to the sphere of art. Chernyshevsky, on the other hand, shows that the realm of the aesthetic is extremely broad: it embraces the entire real world, the entire reality.
In Essays on the Gogol Period of Russian Literature, Chernyshevsky showed that the traditions of Belinsky's criticism of the 1940s are still viable. Rejecting the theoreticians of “pure art”, developing Belinsky’s ideas, Chernyshevsky wrote: “Literature cannot but be a servant of one direction or another of ideas: this is a destination that lies in its nature, a destination that it cannot refuse, even if it wanted to. refuse. The followers of the theory of pure art, presented to us as something that should be alien to worldly affairs, are deceived or pretend: the words "art must be independent of life" have always served only as a cover for the struggle against the directions of literature that these people did not like, in order to make it a servant of another direction, which was more to the taste of these people. However, in a dispute with his ideological opponents, Chernyshevsky "goes too far" in the opposite direction: behind the "Gogol" direction, he recognizes "substantiality", while he accuses the "Pushkin" one of "shaping". "Pushkin was par excellence a poet of form... In his works, one should not look for, most importantly, deep content, clearly conscious and consistent." In fact, Chernyshevsky is inferior to Pushkin to the liberals. Considering art as one of the forms of socially useful activity, Chernyshevsky clearly underestimates its specificity. He appreciates in art only momentary, concrete historical content that meets the interests of society at a given moment, and is skeptical about that enduring and eternal that makes a work of real art interesting for different times and different generations. But in the main, he remains right: "Only those areas of literature achieve brilliant development that satisfy the urgent needs of the era."
Beginning in 1857, when the young Dobrolyubov took over the literary-critical department of Sovremennik, Chernyshevsky abandoned criticism and turned to questions of an economic and political nature, to the substantiation of the theory of the peasant socialist revolution. In the mid-60s, he became one of the inspirers and leaders of the underground revolutionary organization "Land and Freedom". The government has been following his actions for a long time and is eagerly looking for a suitable reason for his arrest. In early July 1862, Pavel Vetoshnikov was detained at the border, who was carrying correspondence from A. I. Herzen from London to Russia. In one of Herzen's letters, the secret police read: "We are ready to publish Sovremennik here with Chernyshevsky" (the publication of the magazine was then suspended by the government). These careless words of Herzen were the reason for Chernyshevsky's arrest. On July 7, 1862, he was taken under investigation and imprisoned in the Alekseevsky ravelin of the Peter and Paul Fortress.
Creative history of the novel "What to do?". A two-year investigation began; in addition to his connection with the "London propagandists", Chernyshevsky was accused of authoring the revolutionary proclamation "Bow to the lordly peasants from their well-wishers." Here, in the solitary confinement of Alekseevsky ravelin, Chernyshevsky worked hard for four months on the novel What Is To Be Done? It was started on December 4, 1862 and completed on April 14, 1863.
What prompted Chernyshevsky to turn to an unusual for him, critic and publicist, art form? The opinion was expressed that the motives that pushed Chernyshevsky to fiction were connected with the extreme conditions in which he found himself. Tribune and publicist, he was artificially isolated from journal work, addressing the reader in his usual form of a scientific journalistic article now turned out to be impossible. And so literary form was chosen by Chernyshevsky as a convenient way to encrypt a direct journalistic word. From this, a conclusion was made about the artistic stylization, the aesthetic inferiority of this work.
However, the facts prove otherwise. Even in Saratov, while teaching at the gymnasium, Chernyshevsky took up the pen of a fiction writer. The cherished dream of writing a novel lived in him even during the period of cooperation in Sovremennik. But the journal work drew Chernyshevsky into a tense public struggle on topical issues of our time, demanded a direct journalistic word. Now the situation has changed. In conditions of isolation from a stormy public life, in solitary confinement in the Peter and Paul Fortress, the writer got the opportunity to realize a long-conceived and already matured idea. Hence the unusually short time it took for Chernyshevsky to implement it.
"Special person". New people in Chernyshevsky's novel are intermediaries between vulgar and superior people. “The Rakhmetovs are a different breed,” says Vera Pavlovna, “they merge with the common cause so that it is a necessity for them that fills their lives; for them, it even replaces personal life. But to us, Sasha, this is not available. We are not eagles like him."
Creating the image of a professional revolutionary, Chernyshevsky also looks into the future, in many ways ahead of his time. But characteristic properties The writer defines people of this type with the maximum possible completeness for his time. First, he shows the process of becoming a revolutionary, dissecting life path Rakhmetov into three stages: theoretical training, practical involvement in the life of the people and the transition to a professional revolutionary activity. Secondly, at all stages of his life, Rakhmetov acts with full dedication, with an absolute tension of spiritual and physical strength. He goes through a truly heroic hardening both in mental studies and in practical life, where for several years he has been performing heavy physical work, earning himself the nickname of the legendary Volga barge hauler Nikitushka Lomov. And now he has "an abyss of affairs", about which Chernyshevsky specifically does not expand, so as not to tease the censorship.
The main difference between Rakhmetov and new people is
in the fact that “he loves more sublimely and wider”: it is no coincidence that for new people he is a little scary, but for ordinary people, like the maid Masha, for example, he is his own person. Comparison of the hero with an eagle and with Nikitushka Lomov is simultaneously intended to emphasize both the breadth of the hero's views on life, and his extreme closeness to the people, sensitivity to understanding the primary and most urgent human needs. It is these qualities that make Rakhmetov into historical figure. “The mass of honest and kind people is great, but there are few such people; but they are in it - theine in tea, bouquet in noble wine; from them strength and aroma; this is the color of the best people, these are the engines of engines, this is the salt of the salt of the earth. Rakhmet's "rigorism" should not be confused with "sacrifice" or self-restraint. He belongs to that breed of people for whom a great common cause of historical scale and significance has become the highest need, the highest meaning of existence. There is no sign of regret in Rakhmetov's refusal of love, for Rakhmetov's "reasonable egoism" is larger and fuller than the rational egoism of new people.
Vera Pavlovna says: “But is it possible for a man, such as we, not an eagle, to care for others, when he himself is very hard? Does he care about convictions when his feelings torment him? But here the heroine expresses her desire to move to the highest stage of development that Rakhmetov has reached. “No, I need a personal matter, a necessary matter on which my own life would depend, which ... for my whole fate would be more important than all my hobbies with passion ...” Thus, in the novel, the prospect of new people moving to the higher level opens up, a succession is built connection between them.
But at the same time, Chernyshevsky does not consider Rakhmetov's "rigorism" to be the norm of everyday human existence. Such people are needed on the steep passes of history as individuals who absorb the needs of the people and deeply feel the pain of the people. That is why in the chapter "Change of scenery" the "lady in mourning" changes her outfit for a wedding dress, and next to her is a man of about thirty. The happiness of love returns to Rakhmetov after the revolution.
The fourth dream of Vera Pavlovna. key place in the novel, "Vera Pavlovna's Fourth Dream" occupies, in which Chernyshevsky unfolds a picture of a "bright future". He paints a society in which the interests of each are organically combined with the interests of all. This is a society where a person has learned to rationally control the forces of nature, where the dramatic division between mental and physical labor has disappeared, and the personality has acquired the harmonious completeness and completeness lost over the centuries.
However, it was in Vera Pavlovna's Fourth Dream that the weaknesses typical of utopians of all times and peoples were revealed. They consisted in excessive "regulation of details", which caused disagreement even in the circle of Chernyshevsky's like-minded people. Saltykov-Shchedrin wrote: “Reading Chernyshevsky's novel What Is to Be Done?, I came to the conclusion that his mistake lay precisely in the fact that he was too preoccupied with practical ideals. Who knows if it will! And can the forms of life indicated in the novel be called final? After all, Fourier was great thinker, and the entire applied part of his theory turns out to be more or less untenable, and only undying general propositions remain.
Hard labor and exile. The novel Prologue. After the publication of the novel What Is to Be Done? the pages of legal publications were closed for Chernyshevsky forever. Following the civil execution stretched long and painful years of Siberian exile. However, even there Chernyshevsky continued his persistent fiction work. He conceived a trilogy consisting of the novels The Old Man, The Prologue, and Utopia. The novel "Starina" was secretly transported to St. Petersburg, but the writer's cousin A.N. Pypin was forced to destroy it in 1866, when, after Karakozov shot at Alexander II, searches and arrests began in St. Petersburg. The novel "Utopia" Chernyshevsky did not write, the idea of the trilogy went out on the unfinished novel "Prologue".
The action of the Prologue begins in 1857 and opens with a description of the Petersburg spring. This is a metaphorical image, clearly hinting at the "spring" of public awakening, at a time of great expectations and hopes. But the bitter irony immediately destroys the illusion: “admiring the spring, he (Petersburg. - Yu. L.) continued to live in winter, behind double windows. And in this he was right: the Ladoga ice has not yet passed.
This feeling of the impending "Ladoga ice" was not in the novel "What is to be done?". It ended with the optimistic chapter "A Change of Scenery", in which Chernyshevsky hoped to wait for a revolutionary upheaval very soon... But he never did. The pages of the novel Prologue are permeated with a bitter consciousness of lost illusions.
Two camps are opposed to each other in it: revolutionary democrats - Volgin, Levitsky, Nivelzin, Sokolovsky - and liberals - Ryazantsev and Savelov. The first part of the "Prologue of the Prologue" deals with the private lives of these people. We have history love relationships Nivelzin and Savelova, similar to the story of Lopukhov, Kirsanov and Vera Pavlovna. Volgin and Nivelzin, new people, are trying to save the heroine from "family slavery". But nothing comes of this attempt. The heroine is not able to surrender to "reasonable" arguments " free love". She loves Nivelzin, but “with her husband she has such brilliant career". It turns out that the most reasonable concepts are powerless in the face of complex reality, which does not want to fit into Procrustean bed clear and precise logic diagrams. Thus, in a particular example, new people begin to realize
that move life alone lofty notions and reasonable calculations is unusually difficult.
In the everyday episode, like in a drop of water, the drama of the social struggle of the sixties revolutionaries is reflected, who, according to V. I. Lenin, "remained alone and, apparently, suffered a complete defeat." If the pathos "What to do?" - an optimistic statement of a dream, then the pathos of the "Prologue" is a collision of a dream with a harsh reality of life.
Along with the general tone of the novel, its characters also change: where Rakhmetov was, now Volgin appears. This is a typical intellectual, strange, short-sighted, absent-minded. He is always ironic, bitterly joking with himself. Volgin is a man of "a suspicious, timid nature", the principle of his life is "to wait and wait as long as possible, to wait as quietly as possible." What caused such a strange position for a revolutionary?
The liberals invite Volgin to make a radical speech at a meeting of the provincial nobles so that, frightened by it, they will sign the most liberal draft of the upcoming peasant reform. Volgin's position at this meeting is ambiguous and comical. And so, standing aside by the window, he falls into deep thought. “He remembered how he used to walk along his street hometown a crowd of drunken barge haulers: noise, screaming, daring songs, bandit songs. A stranger would have thought: "The city is in danger - here, now they will rush to rob shops and houses, they will smash everything piece by piece." The door of the booth opens a little, from where a sleepy old face, with a gray, half-faded mustache, sticks out, a toothless mouth opens and either screams or groans with a decrepit wheeze: “Cattle, why are they roaring? Here I am!” The daring gang quieted down, the front one was buried behind the back - there would still be such a cry, and the daring fellows would have fled, calling themselves “not thieves, not robbers, Stenka Razin workers”, promising that as they “waving the oar”, then “Moscow will shake ", - they would run away, wherever their eyes look ...
"Poor nation, wretched nation! A nation of slaves, from top to bottom, all slaves...” he thought and frowned.
How to be a revolutionary, if he does not see a grain of that revolutionary spirit in the nikushkas of the drowsmen, which he dreamed of during the period of work on the novel “What is to be done?”. A question that has already been answered is now put in a new way. “Wait,” Volgin replies. The most active in the novel "Prologue" are the liberals. They really have an "abyss of deeds", but they are perceived as empty dances: "They talk:" Let's free the peasants. Where is the strength for such a thing? Still no strength. It is absurd to get down to business when there is no strength for it. And you see what it is leading to: they will release you. What will come out? Judge for yourself what comes out when you take on a task that you cannot do. Naturally, if you ruin the case, an abomination will come out, ”Volgin assesses the situation. Reproaching the people in slavery for the lack of revolutionary spirit in them, Volgin, in disputes with Levitsky, suddenly expresses doubts about the expediency of revolutionary ways to change the world in general: “The smoother and calmer the progress of improvements, the better. This common law nature: a given amount of force produces the greatest amount of motion when it acts smoothly and constantly; action by jerks and jumps is less economical. Political economy has revealed that this truth is just as immutable in social life. We should wish that everything went off quietly, peacefully. The calmer the better." It is obvious that Volgin himself is in a state of painful doubts. This is partly why he holds back the young impulses of his friend Levitsky.
But Volgin's call to "wait" cannot satisfy the young romantic. It seems to Levitsky that now, when the people are silent, and it is necessary to work to improve the fate of the peasant, to explain to society the tragedy of his situation. But society, according to Volgin, "does not want to think about anything but trifles." And in such conditions, one will have to adapt to his views, to exchange great ideas for small trifles. One warrior in the field is not an army, why fall into exaltation.
What to do? There is no clear answer to this question in the Prologue. The novel ends on a dramatic note of an unfinished dispute between the characters and goes into a description of Levitsky's love interests, which, in turn, are interrupted in mid-sentence.
This is the result artistic creativity Chernyshevsky, which by no means reduces the significance of the writer's legacy. Pushkin once said: "A fool alone does not change, because time does not bring him development, and experiments do not exist for him." In hard labor, persecuted and persecuted, Chernyshevsky found the courage to directly and harshly face the truth that he told himself and the world in the novel "Prologue". This courage is also a civil feat of Chernyshevsky, a writer and thinker.
Only in August 1883, Chernyshevsky was “graciously” allowed to return from Siberia, but not to St. Petersburg, but to Astrakhan, under police supervision. He met Russia, seized by government reaction after the assassination of Alexander II by Narodnaya Volya. After a seventeen-year separation, he met with the aged Olga Sokratovna (only once, in 1866, she visited him for five days in Siberia), with adult sons completely unfamiliar to him ... Chernyshevsky lived alone in Astrakhan. The whole Russian life has changed, which he hardly understood and could no longer enter.
After much trouble, he was allowed to move to his homeland, to Saratov. But shortly after arriving here, on October 17 (29), 1889, Chernyshevsky died.
