History of creation
Chernyshevsky himself called these people a type that "has recently come into being and is rapidly growing", is a product and a sign of the times.
These heroes have a special revolutionary morality, which is based on the enlightenment theory of the 18th century, the so-called "theory of rational egoism." This theory is that a person can be happy if his personal interests coincide with the public.
Vera Pavlovna is the main character of the novel. Her prototypes are Chernyshevsky's wife Olga Sokratovna and Marya Alexandrovna Bokova-Sechenova, who fictitiously married her teacher, and then became the wife of the physiologist Sechenov.
Vera Pavlovna managed to escape from the circumstances that had surrounded her since childhood. Her character was tempered in a family where her father was indifferent to her, and for her mother she was just a profitable commodity.
Vera is as enterprising as her mother, thanks to which she manages to create sewing workshops that give a good profit. Vera Pavlovna is smart and educated, balanced and kind to both her husband and girls. She is not a prude, not hypocritical and smart. Chernyshevsky admires Vera Pavlovna's desire to break outdated moral principles.
Chernyshevsky emphasizes the similarities between Lopukhov and Kirsanov. Both doctors, engaged in science, both from poor families and have achieved everything with hard work. For the sake of helping an unfamiliar girl, Lopukhov abandons his scientific career. He is more rational than Kirsanov. This is evidenced by the intention of imaginary suicide. But Kirsanov is capable of any sacrifice for the sake of friendship and love, avoids communication with a friend and lover in order to forget her. Kirsanov is more sensitive and charismatic. Rakhmetov believes him, embarking on the path of improvement.
But the protagonist of the novel (not according to the plot, but according to the idea) is not just a "new person", but a "special person" revolutionary Rakhmetov. He generally refuses egoism as such, from happiness for himself. A revolutionary must sacrifice himself, give his life for those he loves, live like the rest of the people.
By origin he is an aristocrat, but he broke with the past. Rakhmetov earned as a simple carpenter, barge hauler. He had the nickname "Nikitushka Lomov", like a barge haul hero. Rakhmetov invested all his funds in the cause of the revolution. He led the most ascetic life. If new people are called by Chernyshevsky the salt of the earth, then revolutionaries like Rakhmetov are “the color of the best people, the engines of engines, the salt of the salt of the earth.” The image of Rakhmetov is covered with a halo of mystery and innuendo, since Chernyshevsky could not say everything directly.
Rakhmetov had several prototypes. One of them is the landowner Bakhmetev, who transferred almost all of his fortune to Herzen in London for the cause of Russian propaganda. The image of Rakhmetov is collective.
The image of Rakhmetov is far from ideal. Chernyshevsky warns readers against admiring such heroes, because their service is unrequited.
Stylistic features
Chernyshevsky widely uses two means of artistic expression - allegory and silence. Vera Pavlovna's dreams are full of allegories. The dark basement in the first dream is an allegory of women's lack of freedom. Lopukhov's bride is a great love for people, real and fantastic dirt from the second dream - the circumstances in which the poor and the rich live. The huge glass house in the last dream is an allegory of the communist happy future, which, according to Chernyshevsky, will definitely come and bring joy to everyone without exception. Silence is associated with censorship prohibitions. But some mystery of images or storylines does not spoil the pleasure of reading: "I know more about Rakhmetov than I say." The meaning of the finale of the novel, which is interpreted in different ways, the image of a lady in mourning, remains vague. All songs and toasts of a cheerful picnic are allegorical.
In the last tiny chapter, Change of Scenery, the lady is no longer in mourning, but in smart clothes. In a young man of about 30, the released Rakhmetov is guessed. This chapter depicts the future, albeit not far off.
The main character of the novel. This is a beautiful, slender girl with a southern type of face. She has black hair and brown skin. Before meeting with Lopukhov, she lived with her mother, father and brother Fedya on Gorokhovaya Street in St. Petersburg. Vera's father was the manager of an apartment building, and her mother gave money at interest and dreamed of marrying her daughter to a rich man.
One of the main characters of the novel, a friend of Lopukhov, a commoner, later the husband of Vera Pavlovna. He is a tall, well-built man with dark blond hair and dark blue eyes. He has an oblong, strong-willed face of remarkable whiteness and a straight Greek nose. He worked from the age of 12, helped his father in everything.
One of the main characters of the novel, husband and friend of Vera Pavlovna, student of the Medical Academy, son of a Ryazan landowner. He enters the Rozalskys' house as Fedya's teacher. There he meets Verochka and sympathizes with her difficult situation in the family. Lopukhov's best friend is Kirsanov.
The character of the novel, who has an important purpose in the life of the main characters, according to the author, is a "special person", a friend of Lopukhov, a young man from a noble environment. He is an honest and selfless person. From an early age, he set himself the goal of strengthening his will and becoming physically strong. For the sake of this, for several hours a day, he became a laborer.
Polozova Katerina Vasilievna
An acquaintance of Vera Pavlovna, who was saved from death by her husband, Alexander Kirsanov. She was passionately in love with one rogue - Solovtsov. The father flatly refused to bless the marriage with him, and she fell ill. Kirsanov managed to convince her father to give her time to deal with Solovtsov, and she soon realized that he was a bad person. She went on the mend. At this time, her father goes bankrupt and sells the last plant. An American came to conclude the deal - Charles Beaumont, who turned out to have previously been Lopukhov and Vera Pavlovna's first husband. Katerina and Beaumont fall in love and soon get married. In the future, the Kirsanovs and the Beaumonts became close friends and began living in neighboring apartments.
Charles Beaumont
An American who came as an agent for the London firm of Hodchson, Loter and Co. to buy the Polozov plant. He told everyone that he was born in Russia, but at the age of 20 his American father took him to New York. Now Charles has grown up and decided to return to Russia, getting a job in a London firm. At dinners with Polozov, he met his daughter, Katerina. He was keenly interested in her acquaintances - the Kirsanovs. We soon learn that Charles Beaumont is actually Dmitry Lopukhov. Beaumont and Katerina fall in love and then get married. Beaumont is put in charge of Polozov's former factory with a good salary. The Kirsanovs and the Beaumonts live together in neighboring apartments.
Mertsalov
Priest and friend of Lopukhov, who married them to Vera Pavlovna. Later, together with his wife, he became a close friend of Vera Pavlovna.
Mertsalova
The wife of the priest Mertsalov and a close friend of Vera Pavlovna. Over time, she became the head of one of her sewing workshops.
Julie
Frenchwoman, former Parisian prostitute, Serge's girlfriend. Having learned about the bet between Storeshnikov and Jean Solovtsov about Vera Pavlovna, she went and warned her. In the future, she helped her to promote a sewing workshop.
Solovtsov (Jean)
One of the creepiest characters in the novel. First, he made a bet on Vera Pavlovna with Storeshnikov. And then he got married to Katerina Polozova, so much so that she turned her head. He did not love her at all, but Katya's father was still a millionaire, so he wanted his money. In the future, she figured out who he was and canceled the wedding.
Polozov
Katerina's father, a retired captain or staff captain, a former millionaire. Once he married a merchant, successfully disposed of her dowry, and earned 3-4 million. At the age of 60, he quarreled with one right person and lost almost all the money.
Storeshnikov
The fiance of Vera Pavlovna, whom her mother wanted to marry. He did not love her, even argued with her as if he were his mistress.
Marya Aleksevna
Mother of Vera Pavlovna. She did not love her daughter very much, she constantly shouted at her and dreamed of passing everything off as a rich fiancé. Because of her, Vera Pavlovna had to run away from home, marrying Lopukhov.
Vera's Father
A minor character who does not have his own opinion is the father of Vera Pavlovna. Lives under the heel of his wife.
His novel "What to do?" the famous Russian writer Nikolai Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky created during the period when he was imprisoned in one of the cells of the Peter and Paul Fortress. The time of writing the novel is from December 14, 1862 to April 4, 1863, that is, the work, which became a masterpiece of Russian literature, was created in just three and a half months. Starting from January 1863 and until the moment of the author's final stay in custody, he handed over the manuscript in parts to the commission that dealt with the writer's case. Here the work was censored, which was approved. Soon the novel was published in the 3rd, as well as 4th and 5th issues of the Sovremennik magazine for 1863. For such an oversight, the censor Beketov lost his position. This was followed by bans on all three issues of the magazine. However, it was already too late. Chernyshevsky's work was distributed throughout the country with the help of "samizdat".
And only in 1905, during the reign of Emperor Nicholas II, the ban was lifted. Already in 1906, the book "What to do?" published in a separate edition.
Who are the new heroes?
The reaction to Chernyshevsky's work was mixed. Readers, based on their opinion, were divided into two opposing camps. Some of them believed that the novel is devoid of artistry. The latter fully supported the author.
However, it is worth remembering that before Chernyshevsky, writers created images of “superfluous people”. A striking example of such heroes are Pechorin, Oblomov and Onegin, who, despite their differences, are similar in their "smart uselessness". These people, “pygmies of deed and titans of words,” were bifurcated natures, suffering from a constant discord between will and consciousness, deed and thought. In addition, their characteristic feature was moral exhaustion.
This is not how Chernyshevsky presents his heroes. He created images of "new people" who know what they need to desire, and are also able to carry out their own plans. Their thought goes along with the deed. Their consciousness and will are not at odds with each other. Heroes of Chernyshevsky's novel "What to do?" presented as bearers of new morality and creators of new interpersonal relations. They deserve the main attention of the author. No wonder even a summary of the chapters of "What to do?" allows us to see that by the end of the second of them, the author "lets go of the stage" such representatives of the old world - Marya Alekseevna, Storeshnikova, Serge, Julie and some others.
The main problem of the essay
Even the very brief content of “What to do?” gives an idea of the issues that the author raises in his book. And they are the following:
- The need for a socio-political renewal of society, which is possible through a revolution. Due to censorship, Chernyshevsky did not expand on this topic in more detail. He gave it in the form of half-hints when describing the life of one of the main characters - Rakhmetov, as well as in the 6th chapter.
- Psychological and moral problems. Chernyshevsky argues that a person, using the power of his mind, is able to create in himself new moral qualities set by him. At the same time, the author develops this process, describing it from the smallest, in the form of a struggle against despotism in the family, to the most ambitious, which found expression in the revolution.
- Problems of family morality and women's emancipation. The author reveals this topic in the first three dreams of Vera, in the history of her family, as well as in the relations of young people and the imaginary suicide of Lopukhov.
- Dreams of a bright and beautiful life that will come with the creation of a socialist society in the future. Chernyshevsky illuminates this topic thanks to the fourth dream of Vera Pavlovna. The reader sees here also the facilitated work, which became possible thanks to the development of technical means.
The main pathos of the novel is the propaganda of the idea of transforming the world by making a revolution, as well as its expectation and preparation of the best minds for this event. At the same time, the idea is expressed of active participation in the upcoming events.
What was Chernyshevsky's main goal? He dreamed of developing and implementing the latest methodology that would allow for the revolutionary education of the masses. His work was supposed to be a kind of textbook, with the help of which every thinking person would begin to form a new worldview.
The entire content of the novel "What to do?" Chernyshevsky is divided into six chapters. Moreover, each of them, except for the last one, is further subdivided into small chapters. In order to emphasize the particular importance of the final events, the author speaks of them separately. To do this, in the content of the novel "What to do?" Chernyshevsky included a one-page chapter titled "Change of scenery".
The beginning of the story
Consider the summary of Chernyshevsky's novel "What is to be done?". Its plot begins with a found note, which was left in one of the rooms of the hotel in St. Petersburg by a strange guest. It happened in 1823, on July 11. The note says that soon its author will be heard on one of the bridges of St. Petersburg - Liteiny. At the same time, the man asked not to look for the guilty. The incident happened the same night. A man shot himself on Liteiny Bridge. The perforated cap that belonged to him was fished out of the water.
The following is a summary of the novel "What to do?" introduces us to a young lady. On the morning when the event described above happened, she is in a dacha located on Kamenny Island. The lady is sewing, singing a bold and lively French ditty, which speaks of a working people whose liberation will require a change of consciousness. This woman's name is Vera Pavlovna. At this moment, the maid brings the lady a letter, after reading which she begins to sob, covering her face with her hands. The young man who entered the room makes attempts to calm her down. However, the woman is inconsolable. She pushes the young man away. At the same time, she says: “His blood is on you! You are in the blood! I'm the only one to blame..."
What was said in the letter that Vera Pavlovna received? We can learn about this from the presented brief content "What to do?". In his message, the writer indicated that he was leaving the stage.
The appearance of Lopukhov
What further do we learn from the summary of Chernyshevsky's novel What Is to Be Done? After the events described, a story follows, telling about Vera Pavlovna, about her life, as well as about the reasons that led to such a sad outcome.
The author says that his heroine was born in St. Petersburg. This is where she grew up. The lady's father - Pavel Konstantinovich Vozalsky - was the manager of the house. The mother was engaged in the fact that she gave money on bail. The main goal of Marya Alekseevna (mother of Vera Pavlovna) was the profitable marriage of her daughter. And she did her best to resolve this issue. The evil and narrow-minded Marya Alekseevna invites a music teacher to her daughter. Buys Vera beautiful clothes, goes to the theater with her. Soon, the son of the owner, officer Storeshnikov, pays attention to the swarthy beautiful girl. The young man decides to seduce Vera.
Marya Alekseevna hopes to force Storeshnikov to marry her daughter. To do this, she requires Faith to favor the young man. However, the girl perfectly understands the true intentions of her boyfriend and in every possible way refuses signs of attention. Somehow she even manages to mislead her mother. She pretends to be supportive of the womanizer. But sooner or later the deception will be revealed. This makes the position of Vera Pavlovna in the house simply unbearable. However, everything suddenly resolved, and at the same time in the most unexpected way.
Dmitry Sergeevich Lopukhov appeared in the house. This graduate medical student was invited by Vera's parents to join her brother Fedya as a teacher. At first, young people were very wary of each other. However, then their communication began to flow in conversations about music and books, as well as about a fair direction of thought.
Time has passed. Vera and Dmitry felt sympathy for each other. Lopukhov learns about the plight of the girl and makes attempts to help her. He is looking for a governess job for Verochka. Such work would allow the girl to live separately from her parents.
However, all Lopukhov's efforts were unsuccessful. He could not find such owners who would agree to take in a girl who had run away from home. Then the young man in love takes another step. He leaves his studies and starts translating a textbook and private lessons. This allows him to start getting sufficient funds. At the same time, Dmitry makes an offer to Vera.
First dream
Vera has her first dream. In it, she sees herself emerging from a dark and damp basement and meeting an amazing beauty who calls herself love for people. Vera talks to her and promises to let girls out of such basements who are locked in them, as she was locked.
family well-being
Young people live in a rented apartment, and everything is going well for them. However, the landlady notices oddities in their relationship. Verochka and Dmitry only call each other "darling" and "darling", they sleep in separate rooms, entering them only after knocking, etc. All this is surprising to an outsider. Vera tries to explain to the woman that this is a completely normal relationship between spouses. After all, this is the only way to not get bored with each other.
The young wife runs the household, gives private lessons, reads books. Soon she opens her own sewing workshop, in which the girls are self-employed, but receive part of the income as co-owners.
Second dream
What else do we learn from the summary of Chernyshevsky's novel What Is to Be Done? In the course of the plot, the author introduces us to the second dream of Vera Pavlovna. In it, she sees a field with ears of corn growing on it. There is also dirt here. And one of them is fantastic, and the second is real.
Real dirt means taking care of what is most needed in life. It was precisely this that Marya Alekseevna was constantly burdened with. On this, ears can be grown. Fantastic dirt is a concern for the unnecessary and superfluous. On such soil, ears of corn will never grow.
The emergence of a new hero
The author shows Kirsanov as a strong-willed and courageous person, capable not only of a decisive act, but also of subtle feelings. Alexander spends time with Vera when Dmitry is busy. Together with his friend's wife, he goes to the opera. However, soon, without explaining any reasons, Kirsanov stops coming to the Lopukhovs, which greatly offends them. What was the real reason for this? Kirsanov's falling in love with a friend's wife.
The young man reappeared in the house when Dmitry fell ill to cure him and help Vera with care. And here the woman realizes that she is in love with Alexander, which is why she is completely confused.
third dream
From the summary of the work "What to do?" we learn that Vera Pavlovna is having a third dream. In it, she reads the pages of her diary with the help of some unknown woman. From it, she learns that she feels only gratitude for her husband. However, at the same time, Vera needs a gentle and quiet feeling, which she does not have for Dmitry.
Solution
The situation in which three decent and intelligent people found themselves, at first glance, seems insoluble. But Lopukhov finds a way out. He shoots himself on the Liteiny Bridge. On the day that Vera Pavlovna received this news, Rakhmetov came to see her. This old acquaintance of Lopukhov and Kirsanov, who is called "a special person."
Acquaintance with Rakhmetov
In the summary of the novel “What to do”, the “special person” Rakhmetov is presented by the author as a “higher nature”, which Kirsanov helped to awaken in his time by familiarizing himself with the necessary books. The young man comes from a wealthy family. He sold his estate, and distributed the money he received for it to fellows. Now Rakhmetov adheres to a harsh lifestyle. In part, he was prompted by the reluctance to possess what the common man does not have. In addition, Rakhmetov set as his goal the education of his own character. For example, to test his physical abilities, he decides to sleep on nails. In addition, he does not drink wine and does not make acquaintances with women. In order to get closer to the people, Rakhmetov even walked with barge haulers along the Volga.
What else is said about this hero in Chernyshevsky's novel What Is to Be Done? The summary makes it clear that Rakhmetov's whole life consists of sacraments that are clearly revolutionary. A young man has many things to do, but they are not all personal. He travels around Europe, but at the same time in three years he is going to Russia, where he will certainly need to be.
It was Rakhmetov who came to Vera Pavlovna after receiving a note from Lopukhov. After his persuasion, she calmed down and even became cheerful. Rakhmetov explains that Vera Pavlovna and Lopukhov had very different personalities. That is why the woman reached out to Kirsanov. Soon Vera Pavlovna left for Novgorod. There she married Kirsanov.
The dissimilarity between the characters of Verochka and Lopukhov is also mentioned in a letter that soon arrived from Berlin. In this message, a medical student who allegedly knew Lopukhov well conveyed Dmitry's words that he began to feel much better after the separation of the spouses, as he always sought solitude. Namely, the sociable Vera Pavlovna did not allow him to do this.
The life of the Kirsanovs
What does the novel What to Do next tell its reader about? Nikolai Chernyshevsky? The summary of the work makes it possible to understand that the love affairs of the young couple settled well to the common pleasure. The lifestyle of the Kirsanovs is not much different from that of the Lopukhov family.
Alexander works hard. As for Vera Pavlovna, she takes baths, eats cream and is already engaged in two sewing workshops. The house, as before, has neutral and common rooms. However, the woman notices that her new husband does not just allow her to lead a lifestyle she likes. He is interested in her affairs and is ready to help in difficult times. In addition, the husband perfectly understands her desire to master some urgent occupation and begins to help her in the study of medicine.
fourth dream
Getting acquainted briefly with Chernyshevsky's novel What Is to Be Done?, we proceed to continue the plot. It tells us about the fourth dream of Vera Pavlovna, in which she sees amazing nature and pictures from the life of women of different millennia.
At first, the image of a slave appears before her. This woman obeys her master. After that, in a dream, Vera sees the Athenians. They begin to bow to the woman, but at the same time they do not recognize her as their equal. Then the following image appears. This is a beautiful lady, for whom the knight is ready to fight in the tournament. However, his love immediately passes after the lady becomes his wife. Then, instead of the face of the goddess, Vera Pavlovna sees her own. It does not differ in perfect features, but at the same time it is illuminated by the radiance of love. And here comes the woman who was in the first dream. She explains to Vera the meaning of equality and shows pictures of the citizens of the future Russia. They all live in a house built of crystal, cast iron and aluminium. In the morning these people work, and in the evening they begin to have fun. The woman explains that this future must be loved and should be strived for.
Completion of the story
How does the novel by N. G. Chernyshevsky “What to do?” End. The author tells his reader that guests often come to the Kirsanovs' house. The Beaumont family soon appears among them. When meeting with Charles Beaumont, Kirsanov recognizes him as Lopukhov. The two families become so close to each other that they decide to continue living in the same house.
It was written partly in response to Ivan Turgenev's Fathers and Sons.
Chernyshevsky wrote the novel while in solitary confinement of the Alekseevsky ravelin of the Peter and Paul Fortress, from December 14, 1862 to April 4, 1863. Since January 1863, the manuscript has been handed over in parts to the commission of inquiry on the Chernyshevsky case (the last part was handed over on April 6). The commission, and after it the censors, saw only a love line in the novel and gave permission for publication. The oversight of censorship was soon noticed, the responsible censor Beketov was removed from his post. However, the novel had already been published in the journal Sovremennik (1863, Nos. 3-5). Despite the fact that the issues of Sovremennik, in which the novel What Is to Be Done? were published, were banned, the text of the novel in handwritten copies was distributed throughout the country and caused a lot of imitation.
In 1867, the novel was published as a separate book in Geneva (in Russian) by Russian emigrants, then it was translated into Polish, Serbian, Hungarian, French, English, German, Italian, Swedish and Dutch. In Soviet times also into Finnish and Tajik (Farsi). The influence of Chernyshevsky's novel is felt by Emil Zola ("Lady's happiness"), Strindberg ("Utopias in reality"), the figure of the Bulgarian national revival Lyuben Karvelov ("Is fate to blame", written in Serbian).
What Is to Be Done, like Fathers and Sons, spawned the so-called anti-nihilistic novel. In particular, "On Knives" by Leskov, where the motifs of Chernyshevsky's work are parodied.
The ban on the publication of the novel What Is to Be Done? was removed only in 1905. In 1906, the novel was first published in Russia as a separate edition.
In the novel by N. G. Chernyshevsky “What to do?” aluminum is mentioned. In the "naive utopia" of Vera Pavlovna's fourth dream, it is called the metal of the future. Aluminum reached the "big future" by the middle of the 20th century.
The "lady in mourning" that appears at the end of the work is Olga Sokratovna Chernyshevskaya, the writer's wife. At the end of the novel, we are talking about the release of Chernyshevsky from the Peter and Paul Fortress, where he was at the time of writing the novel. He did not wait for release: on February 7, 1864, he was sentenced to 14 years of hard labor, followed by a settlement in Siberia.
The main characters with the surname Kirsanov are also found in Ivan Turgenev's novel "Fathers and Sons", but the researchers refuse to connect the heroes of Chernyshevsky and Turgenev's novels with each other.
F. M. Dostoevsky argues with the ideas of Chernyshevsky, in particular with his thoughts about the future of mankind, in Notes from the Underground, thanks to which the image of the “crystal palace” has become a common motif of world literature of the 20th century.
Publication of the novel "What to do?" in the 3rd, 4th and 5th issues of Sovremennik in 1863 literally shocked reading Russia. The camp of direct and hidden serf-owners, the reactionary and liberal press took the novel extremely unfriendly. The reactionary Severnaya Pchela, Moskovskie Vedomosti, Domashnaya Talk, the Slavophile Den, as well as other protective publications, in different ways, but with the same degree of rejection and hatred, attacked the novel and its author.
Progressive-minded circles, especially young people, read the novel with intense attention and delight.
Against slanderous attacks on What Is To Be Done? V. Kurochkin, D. Pisarev, M. Saltykov-Shchedrin, A. Herzen and other prominent figures of Russian literature spoke. “Chernyshevsky created a highly original and extremely remarkable work,” noted D. Pisarev. M. Saltykov-Shchedrin wrote: “...“ What to do? - a serious novel, pursuing the idea of the need for new life foundations.
Even the enemies were forced to recognize the novel as an extraordinary phenomenon. Censor Beketov, removed from his post for such a rude viewing, testified: "He got up about his sodoms when they saw that something extraordinary was happening between young people of both sexes under the influence of this work."
Issues of Sovremennik with Chernyshevsky's novel were strictly prohibited by the government. But a significant part of the circulation has already been distributed throughout the country. Hundreds of copies of What Is to Be Done? rewritten by hand. Not a single work of art in Russia in the 19th century had such a public resonance, did not have such a direct impact on the formation of revolutionary generations. This was emphasized by the prominent Narodniks P. Kropotkin and P. Tkachev. G. Plekhanov wrote about this emotionally and excitedly: “Who has not read and re-read this famous work? Who was not carried away by him, who did not become cleaner, better, more cheerful and bolder under his beneficial influence? Who was not struck by the moral purity of the main characters? Who, after reading this novel, has not thought about his own life, has not subjected his own aspirations and inclinations to a strict test? We all drew from him both moral strength and faith in a better future.”
Soon after the resounding success in Russia, Chernyshevsky's novel was translated into English, French, German, Italian and many other languages of the world, published and read widely, recruiting more and more volunteers for the revolutionary cause away from Russia.
The influence of Chernyshevsky and his novel What Is to Be Done? recognized by such well-known figures of the international liberation and workers' movement as A. Bebel, X. Botev, J. Ged, G. Dimitrov, V. Kolarov, K. Zetkin. The founders of scientific communism, K. Marx and F. Engels, highly valued the revolutionary and literary feat of Nikolai Gavrilovich, calling him the great Russian writer, the socialist Lessing.
What is the secret of the unfading longevity of N. G. Chernyshevsky's book? Why does each new generation of socialists and revolutionaries see again and again in the novel What Is to Be Done? "an old but formidable weapon"? Why do we, the people of the end of the 20th century, the period of developed socialism, read it with such excitement?
Perhaps, first of all, because N. G. Chernyshevsky was the first in the history of world literature to show that the high ideas of socialism and the enlightened morality of the future golden age are not the lot of celestials and supermen, but the daily life of quite understandable, tangible "ordinary new people", whom he saw in life and whose characters he made the subject of artistic research.
The indisputable merit of the writer is the naturalness of that ascent to the heights of the human spirit and action - from the dirt and immobility of the philistine world of "old people" - which he makes the reader-friend step by step go through with his heroine Vera Rozalskaya - Vera Pavlovna Lopukhova-Kirsanova.
Let us recall the very beginning of his unexpected “Foreword”, which boldly invaded the semi-detective beginning of the novel: “The content of the story is love, the main person is a woman ...
I. It’s true, I say,” the author claims.
Yes it's true! The novel "What to do?" a book about the love of people and about love for people, which inevitably comes, which must be established on earth.
Vera Pavlovna’s love for the “new man” Lopukhov gradually led her to the idea that “all people need to be happy, and that it is necessary to help this come sooner ... this is one and natural, one and human ... " G. Chernyshevsky was deeply convinced that among the "new people", whose main features he considered activity, human decency, courage and confidence in achieving the lofty goal once chosen, the ethics of socialism and revolution can and should grow out of relationships in love, in family, in a circle of associates, like-minded people.
He left evidence of this conviction to us not only in the novel, masterfully showing in it the development and enrichment (from the particular to the general) of Vera Pavlovna's living feeling. In one of his letters to his sons from far Siberia, many years later, he wrote: “No one can think about millions, tens, hundreds of millions of people as well as they should. And you can't. But all the same, part of the rational thoughts inspired by your love for your father inevitably expands to many, many other people. And at least a little bit these thoughts are transferred to the concept of “man” - to everyone, to all people.
Many pages of the novel are a true hymn to the love of "new people", which is the result and crown of the moral development of mankind. Only the real equality of lovers, only their joint service to a beautiful goal will help to enter the realm of the “Bright Beauty” - that is, the realm of such Love, which is a hundred times greater than the love of the times of Astarte, Aphrodite, the Queen of Immaculateness.
These pages were read by many in Russia and abroad. For example, I. E. Repin wrote about them with enthusiasm in his book of memoirs “Far Close”. They were singled out from the whole novel by August Bebel, “... a pearl among all the episodes seems to me a comparative description of love in different historical eras ... This comparison is perhaps the best that the 19th century has so far said about love,” he emphasized.
It is also true that, being a love story, What Is to Be Done? - a book about the revolution, about its moral principles, about ways to achieve a better future for mankind. With the whole structure of his work, the concrete life of his specific heroes, Chernyshevsky showed that a wonderful future cannot come by itself, that a stubborn and long struggle is needed for it. The dark forces of evil, which are so concretized "humanized" in the characters of "old people" - from Marya Alekseevna, Storeshnikov and the "perceptive reader" many-sided in his vile vulgarity to the barely marked persecutors of Vera Pavlovna's workshop, behind whom police ranks, prohibition, prisons and the entire arsenal of violence accumulated over the centuries, are not at all going to voluntarily give way to the future.
A world hostile to true morality and love must be swept away by the spring flood of revolutionary renewal, which must be expected, but which must be actively prepared. It is precisely for this that Chernyshevsky puts forward life and reveals himself to the reader as a "special person." Creating the image of Rakhmetov - a professional revolutionary, conspirator, herald, and possibly the leader of a future popular uprising - is a literary feat of Nikolai Gavrilovich. The art of the novelist and the heights of the “Aesopian possibilities” of the author, who was able to “educate real revolutionaries” even under censored conditions, allowed him to say much more about Rakhmetov than was said in the heading “A Special Person”.
Once found and awakened to a new life by Kirsanov, Rakhmetov actively influences the inner world of all the main characters: Lopukhov, Kirsanov, Vera Pavlovna, and their friends. He is the catalyst and the inner spring of their actions, as, indeed, the inner spring of the novel itself. This is not seen and cannot be seen by the “astute reader”. But the author constantly invites the like-minded reader to take part in this non-plot line of the novel.
Rakhmetov is really a special person, one of those few who, according to the author, are “salt of the salt of the earth”, “motors of engines”. He is a knight of what was conceived, a knight of that Bright beauty that appears in the beautiful dreams of Vera Pavlovna. But no matter how the author Rakhmetov differs from his other favorite heroes, he still does not separate them with an impenetrable abyss. And at times he makes it clear that under certain circumstances, "ordinary decent people" can be melted into "special" people. This happened in the time of Chernyshevsky, and we meet even more examples in the subsequent history of our history, when the modest soldiers of the revolution became its true knights, the leaders of millions of misses.
Volumes have been written about the famous dreams of Vera Pavlovna, about retrospective allegories and insights into the future in them during the existence of the novel. It hardly needs further interpretation. Of course, concrete pictures of the socialist far away, a kind of utopia painted with the bold brush of the author of What Is To Be Done?, seem naive to us today, but they made a strong impression on the reader of the last century. By the way, N. G. Chernyshevsky himself was skeptical about the possibility of “clearly describing for others, or at least imagining to himself a different social structure, which would have a higher ideal as its basis.”
But even today's reader of the novel cannot but be captivated by that quivering faith, that inescapable conviction, that historical optimism with which more than one hundred and twenty years ago a prisoner from the “eleventh number” of the Peter and Paul Fortress looked into the future of his people and humanity. Without waiting for the verdict that the world of autocracy and serfdom, the world of “old people” already doomed by history, was preparing for him, N. G. Chernyshevsky himself pronounced his verdict on this world, prophetically proclaiming the inevitability of the onset of the world of socialism and labor.
Chernyshevsky finished "What is to be done?" shortly before his 35th birthday. He came to literature as a man of all-round erudition, a solid materialistic worldview, serious life experience and almost incredible knowledge in the field of philology. Nikolai Gavrilovich was aware of this himself. In one of the variants of the preface to the novel "Tales in the Story", written shortly after the publication of "Chto Delat?" to be a great poet." It is hardly necessary to give here other arguments about his possible place in literature as a novelist. They, as the reader of What Is to Be Done well remember, are full of ironic self-criticism, but, by and large, they have a restrained assessment of their capabilities, without self-abasement.
Of course, the enormous talent of Chernyshevsky as a fiction writer could not be revealed in full force. The heavy press of censorship and the ban even on his very name from 1863 almost until the revolution of 1905 is one of the most vile crimes of tsarism against the Russian people and world literature. The reader of the 19th century practically did not recognize a single new work of a writer buried alive. However, "What is to be done?", the incomparable literary fate of N. G. Chernyshevsky's first novel, gives a convincing idea of the scope and depth of his fiction talent.
The noticeable influence of Chernyshevsky's novel on the further fate of Russian literature is generally recognized in Soviet literary criticism. It can be traced even in the work of such outstanding artists as JI. Tolstoy, F. Dostoevsky, N. Leskov, who could not avoid the impact of many ideas of "What is to be done?" - even when they built some of their works taking into account their rejection or direct polemics with them.
Chernyshevsky's book "What to do?" brought to literature not only an immense world of ideas, not only a new genre of the intellectual novel. Having absorbed much from the innumerable treasures of the literary arsenal, the author enriched them, reworked them with the power of his talent, and sometimes he himself made discoveries both in the field of content and in terms of equipment with literary devices, plot moves, the looseness of the visible authorial participation in the fabric itself, the architectonics of the work .
Researchers rightly point out, for example, that the origins of such a literary device as the dreams of Vera Pavlovna should be seen in Radishchev's Pravvzor from the chapter "Spasskaya cavity" of the famous "Journey ...". “The sister of her sisters and the bride of her suitors” is a talented continuation of the image of the one who, at the behest of Alexander Radishchev, removed the thorn in the eyes, seeing the reality of true life. Of course, Chernyshevsky took into account the experience of "Eugene Onegin" and "Dead Souls", when he boldly introduced into the novel not just individual author's digressions, lyrical reflections, but the author himself but the flesh, character, strength of sarcasm or respect for the many-sided reader, who himself often turns out to be a hero and part of the story.
Ln Chernyshevsky’s ability to create visible, “culturally tangible types of “old people” - such as Vera’s parents, or the hopelessly stupid Storeshnikov with the stupid maman, mired in class snares, or the monstrously bloated noble spider Chaplin from the “Prologue” - perhaps do we not see the gift of Shchedrin's or Swift's strength?
In the light of what has been said, it seems really absurd, now refuted by more than a century of life, “What is to be done?”, which arose even in the first fight around the novel, reasoning
about his ineptitude. Unfortunately, this vile version proved tenacious. Apparently, it is not in vain that the enemies of revolutionary literature have worked so hard around it for so long.
It is very significant that the disputes that once thundered around the work of N. G. Chernyshevsky, around the novel What Is To Be Done? did not recede into the field of archival literary criticism. First subsiding, then flaring up again, they did not stop either in the years preceding the Great October Revolution, or in the middle of the twentieth century, or today. Fearing the impact of a revolutionary novel on the reading public, wanting to downplay the human feat of its author at all costs, bourgeois ideologists of all stripes, from Russian white émigrés to their current ideological followers - literary critics-Sovietologists, and to this day, as if with a living, continue to fight with Chernyshevsky.
In this sense, the picture of the "study" of Chernyshevsky's work in the USA is of considerable interest. Some revival that emerged in the study of Russian revolutionary thought during the Second World War and the first post-war years was replaced by a lull. For a long time Chernyshevsky's name only occasionally appeared on the pages of American literary publications. In the 1960s and 1970s, for a number of reasons: exacerbation of social contradictions, crisis phenomena in the economy, the growth of anti-war sentiment in the United States, the success of the USSR's peace initiatives, the turn towards international detente, interest in our country and its history began to grow. Certain intellectual circles in the United States sought to take a different look at the "Russian question" and its origins. It was at this time that the attention of American researchers to the Russian revolutionary democrats, and especially to Chernyshevsky, increased.
New processes in the socio-political and intellectual atmosphere of those years were manifested to a large extent, for example, in the serious work of F. B. Randall - the first American monograph on Chernyshevsky, published in 1967. According to the author's own statement, he set the task of discovering for the Western reader a new name in Russian literature of the 19th century. He believes, and it is hard to disagree with this, that the previous works of his colleagues did not give even an approximate idea of the true scope and significance of Chernyshevsky in the history of literature and social thought in Russia.
Randall very convincingly shows the reader the stereotypes-"myths" that have developed in American and Western literature in general about Chernyshevsky. One of them is the "myth" about Chernyshevsky as a primitive utilitarian in the field of aesthetics and morality. Another "myth" is about the Russian thinker as an uncritical popularizer of crude vulgar materialistic theories borrowed from the West. The third "myth" -
about Chernyshevsky as a boring, ponderous writer, allegedly of no interest to the modern reader. Randall considers all these "myths" to be the product of incompetence, scientific dishonesty and even ignorance of scientific specialists, of whom, in his opinion, only one in two read "What is to be done?" and at most one in twenty took the trouble to get acquainted with the other works of the Russian author.
Well, the assessment is harsh, but, perhaps, not without reason. Randall showed an enviable familiarity not only with the works of N. G. Chernyshevsky, but also with world (including Soviet) literature on these issues. For him, reading Chernyshevsky - the novel "What is to be done?" and other works - not at all boring. It gives "pleasure and genuine pleasure." In his opinion, Chernyshevsky is a witty polemicist, possessing exceptional merits of style, integrity, unity of form and content. The American researcher is captivated by the high degree of persuasiveness of Chernyshevsky's works, his faith in the bright future of mankind, in the correctness of his views. At the same time, he admits with frank sadness and regret that such qualities are absent in the ideologists of the modern Western world.
Noting the undoubted merits and personal courage of Randall, who shouldered the heavy burden of "rehabilitating" Chernyshevsky before the American reader, it should be said that this role is not always maintained by him. The burden of bourgeois "myths" is digging in too heavily. The author himself is sometimes engaged in myth-making, accusing either Soviet researchers or Chernyshevsky himself of various kinds of sins. There is no shortage of contradictory arguments in the book, evidence of the influence of stereotypes of Western propaganda and bourgeois thinking, but nevertheless the appearance of such a monograph is an undoubted step by an American scientist along the path of comprehending the true Chernyshevsky, along the path of constructiveness and scientific conscientiousness.
A continuation of the emerging trend of serious interest in the life and work of Chernyshevsky in American scientific literature should be considered the monograph of Professor William Wurlin "Chernyshevsky - a man and a journalist", published in Hell and Harvard University in 1971. And this author freely uses both the works of Chernyshevsky himself, and the literature about him of his predecessors in the West, and a wide range of names of Soviet researchers. The book contains many correct conclusions and observations about the personality, philosophical, economic views of Chernyshevsky. In assessing his aesthetics and literary positions, Wörlin remains in the snares of commonplace bourgeois ideas. He could not understand the dialectical depth of the aesthetic views of the great democrat, he also assesses the novel What Is To Be Done quite primitively. According to Wörlin, Chernyshevsky "salted his novel with heroes who embody abstract vices and virtues." But the author does not deny the wide popularity of the novel and the fact that the "new people" were perceived by Russian youth as an example to follow, and Rakhmetov became "a model of a professional revolutionary" for many years.
However, even timid inclinations towards truth and objectivity in matters of the study of Russian literature and the history of social thought alarmed the guardians of the "orthodox" bourgeois mores from science. Sovietologists of all stripes tried to "play back." Randall's unusual book did not go unnoticed. In the very first review by a certain C. A. Moser, it was criticized for breaking with "generally accepted" concepts. N. G. Pereira, first in articles, and then in a special monograph, hastened not only to restore the old "myths", but also to go further than others in his slanderous accusations against Chernyshevsky.
In 1975, new names joined the war against Chernyshevsky. Among them, the professor of Columbia (New York) University Rufus Mathewson especially “distinguished himself”. He came out with a libelous book called "The Good Hero in Russian Literature"2. One of the numerous chapters, entitled "Salt of the Salt of the Earth", is specially devoted to Chernyshevsky, his aesthetics and literary practice. Nikolai Gavrilovich is directly accused (which for some reason seems terrible to the aesthetic professor) that “he created a consistent and integral doctrine of literature for the service of society” and thereby became the theoretical herald of Soviet literature so hated by Mathewson. "The full extent of his (Chernyshevsky. - Yu. M.) influence on Soviet thought has yet to be assessed," warns the militant professor threateningly. After all, the positive hero of Soviet literature "agrees to all sorts of restrictions on his vital needs in order to become, like Rakhmetov in Chernyshevsky, an instrument of history."
For a bourgeois researcher, the very idea that art is a reflection of life's reality seems blasphemous. What this bourgeois petty bourgeois does not ascribe to Chernyshevsky: both the fact that he "completely denies the creative functions of the artist" and the fact that he wrote "What is to be done?" from a “radical utilitarian position”, and what “denies the artistic imagination”, and, finally, even what the Soviet five-year plans foresaw.
"What to do?" causes literally pathological hatred of Matthewson, since the novel is the realization of the aesthetic principles developed by Chernyshevsky in his dissertation. He sees many sins in the novel and is even ready to forgive the author’s inexperience and supposedly his indifference to literary traditions, but he cannot forgive the worst thing for him - “mistakes arising from the basic doctrines of radical literature, formulated then and still valid now.” Mathewson "criticizes" Chernyshevsky precisely from the position of a bourgeois, frightened by the possibility of an organized struggle of the working people for their future. He is clearly not satisfied with the call of the author "What to do?" to the reader - to see a better future and fight for it. He tries to reject the wonderful novel, to condemn it precisely for its effectiveness, for its revolutionary meaning.
Reading and thinking about this today, one cannot help but be surprised at how far-sighted Chernyshevsky was when, on December 14, 1862, he conceived a work that carries an intellectual charge of such explosive power, against which the ideological defenders of the passing world are waving their hands so unsuccessfully to this day " old people."
More than a century of active work of Chernyshevsky's novel What Is to Be Done? on the bright field of the struggle for socialism, he even more clearly shows the undoubted correctness of V. I. Lenin, who placed Chernyshevsky himself so highly, the artistic and ideological and political merits of his novel What Is To Be Done? Already in the post-war years, additional materials about this became known from the book of memoirs of the former Menshevik N. Valentinov "Meetings with Lenin". Such a stroke is characteristic. When in 1904, during a conversation between Lenin and Vorovsky and Valentinov, the latter began to slander the novel What Is to Be Done?, Vladimir Ilyich warmly stood up for Chernyshevsky. “Are you aware of what you are saying? - he threw at me. - How can a monstrous, absurd idea come to mind to call the work of Chernyshevsky, the greatest and talented representative of socialism before Marx, primitive, mediocre? .. I declare: it is unacceptable to call “What is to be done?” primitive and mediocre. Under his influence, hundreds of people became revolutionaries. Could this have happened if Chernyshevsky had written mediocre and primitive? For example, he captivated my brother, he captivated me too. He plowed me deep. When did you read "What to do?"? It is useless to read it if the milk on the lips has not dried up. Chernyshevsky's novel is too complex, full of thoughts to be understood and appreciated at an early age. I myself tried to read it, I think at the age of 14. It was a worthless, superficial read. But after my brother's execution, knowing that Chernyshevsky's novel was one of his most beloved works, I took up real reading and sat over it not for several days, but for weeks. Only then did I understand the depth. This is a thing that gives a charge for a lifetime.”
In 1928, during the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the birth of Chernyshevsky, A. V. Lunacharsky said with considerable irony: “The following attitude was established towards Chernyshevsky: he, of course, is a weak artist; his fictional works are something like a fable, morality is important in them ... ”Lunacharsky ridiculed such reasoning, showed their superficiality and complete failure, he emphasized that in order to educate young people, it is fundamentally important to acquaint them with Chernyshevsky’s novels. He urged literary science to study these works more deeply and rightly believed that studying the experience of the great democrat could help the development of young Soviet literature. More than half a century has passed since then. Much has changed in our ideas about Chernyshevsky, we have learned a lot about him and his work. But the conclusions and advice of Lunacharsky on the significance of human and literary achievement II. G. Chernyshevsky, about the importance of the distribution of his books for our life and literature seem to be very relevant today.
In October 1862, during the birth of the idea “What is to be done?”, Nikolai Gavrilovich wrote such proud and prophetic lines to Olga Sokratovna: “... our life belongs to history; hundreds of years will pass, and our names will still be dear to people; and they will remember us with gratitude when they have already forgotten almost everyone who lived at the same time with us. So it is necessary for us not to lower ourselves from the side of cheerfulness of character in front of people who will study our life.
And Chernyshevsky did not drop himself either during the civil execution, or in the Nerchinsk mines, or in the monstrous Vilyui exile. With more than three years of fortress, penal servitude, exile for each year of work in Sovremennik, tsarism took revenge on its dangerous enemy. But his will was unshakable. When in 1874, with promises of close freedom, the authorities tried to persuade the exhausted prisoner to submit a request for pardon to the “highest name”, a short and firm answer followed: “I read it. I refuse to apply. Nikolay Chernyshevsky.
"Relief" occurred only in 1883, when, almost under the Arctic Circle, Chernyshevsky was secretly transferred to the semi-desert hell of the then Astrakhan. At the end of June 1889, after long troubles of the family, Chernyshevsky moved to Saratov. A wonderful but short meeting with relatives. The health of the great fighter and martyr was undermined. October 29, 1889 Chernyshevsky died.
A century and a half has passed since the day when the great democrat and writer was born in a modest Saratov house on the high bank of the Volga. Life has changed on the banks of his beloved river, the wind of the revolutionary storm he predicted has turned the history of Russia sharply. Already more than a third of humanity and pillboxes are on the path of building a new, socialist world. Guided by the truth of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, the progressive people of the world today know what to do to save and beautify planet Earth. And in all this - a considerable share of work, talent, courage and pores of Nikolai Chernyshevsky, who loved people and wanted them to be happy.
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