Poetics N.S. Leskova (Storytelling manner

A variety of genres (from large novels and chronicles to the pr-th small form in all varieties. At the same time, L found a special inclination towards the chronicle genre

Documentary pr-th L. His name is "not a writer-fictionist, but a writer-recorder" this leads to a chronicle composition. L often uses unreasonable sudden events, many suddenly, many climaxes, the plot unfolds with many introductory chapters and faces.

The originality is also manifested in language skills. The writer is bizarrely heterogeneous linguistic e-you. Obsolete words and dialectisms. Attentive to nar etymology, nar rethinking and sound deformation of the word

Many pr-i are written in the form of a tale with the special oral speech of the narrator or hero preserved, but often, along with the narration, the author-interlocutor also speaks, whose speech preserves the speech features of the hero. So the tale turns into a stylization. All this is subordinated to the main task - to reveal the fate of Russia.

Leskov's stories about the righteous. The problem of our national character became one of the main ones for the literature of the 1960s and 1980s, closely connected with the activities of the various revolutionaries, and later the Narodniks. In "Well-Intentioned Speeches", the satirist showed the Russian mass reader - the "simple" reader, as he said - all the lies and hypocrisy of the ideological foundations of the noble-bourgeois state. He exposed the falsity of the well-intentioned speeches of the lawyers of this state, who “throw you all kinds of“ cornerstones ”, talk about various“ foundations ”and then“ they foul the stones and spit on the foundations. The writer exposed the predatory nature of bourgeois property, respect for which the people were brought up from childhood; revealed the immorality of the bourgeois family relations and ethical standards. The Mon Repos Shelter cycle (1878-1879) shed light on the situation of small and medium-sized nobles in the late 70s. The author again turns to the most important topic: what did the reform give Russia, how did it affect various sections of the population, what is the future of the Russian bourgeoisie? Saltykov-Shchedrin shows the Progorelov family of nobles, whose village is becoming more and more entangled in the nets of the local kulak Gruzdev; truthfully notes that the bourgeoisie is replacing the nobility, but expresses neither regret nor sympathy for the dying class. In Krugly God, the satirist passionately and selflessly fights against young monarchist bureaucrats like Fedenka Neugodov, against the wild repressions of the government, frightened by the scope of the revolutionary struggle of the Narodnaya Volya, defends honest journalism and literature - the “beacon of ideas”, the “source of life” - from the government and from "Moscow hysterics" Katkov and Leontiev.

Leskov has a whole cycle of novels and stories on the theme of righteousness.

Love, skill, beauty, crime - all mixed up and

in another story by N.S. Leskov - “The Sealed Angel”. There is no

any one main character; there is a narrator and an icon around which

action unfolds. Because of it, faiths collide (official and

Old Believers), because of it they work miracles of beauty and go to

self-sacrifice, sacrificing not only life, but also the soul. It turns out for

Can the same person be killed and saved? And even true faith does not save from

sin? Fanatical worship even of the most lofty idea leads to

idolatry, and, consequently, vanity and superstition, when the main thing

something small and unimportant is accepted. And the line between virtue and sin

elusive, each person carries both. But ordinary

people mired in everyday affairs and problems, transgressing morality, do not

noticing this, they discover in themselves the heights of the spirit "... for the sake of people's love for people,

revealed on this terrible night." So the Russian character combines faith and unbelief, strength and

weakness, meanness and majesty. It has many faces, like people embodying

his. But its non-applied, true features are manifested only in the most simple and in

at the same time unique - in relation to people to each other, in love. If only

it was not lost, it was not ruined by reality, it gave people the strength to live. In the story "The Enchanted Wanderer" (1873), Leskov, without idealizing the hero and not simplifying him, creates a holistic, but contradictory, unbalanced character. Ivan Severyanovich can also be wildly cruel, unbridled in his ebullient passions. But his nature is truly revealed in good and chivalrous disinterested deeds for the sake of others, in selfless deeds, in the ability to cope with any business. Innocence and humanity, practical intelligence and perseverance, courage and endurance, a sense of duty and love for the motherland - these are the remarkable features of the Leskovsky wanderer. Innocence and humanity, practical intelligence and perseverance, courage and endurance, a sense of duty and love for the motherland - these are the remarkable features of the Leskovsky wanderer. The positive types depicted by Leskov opposed the "mercantile age" asserted by capitalism, which brought the depreciation of the individual common man, turned it into a stereotype, into a "half". Leskov means fiction resisted the heartlessness and selfishness of the people of the "banking period", the invasion of the bourgeois-petty-bourgeois plague, which kills everything poetic and bright in a person. The originality of Leskov lies in the fact that his optimistic portrayal of the positive and heroic, talented and extraordinary in the Russian people is inevitably accompanied by bitter irony, when the author sorrowfully talks about the sad and often tragic fate of the representatives of the people. The left-hander is a small, nondescript, dark person who does not know the "calculation of strength", because he did not get into the "sciences" and instead of the four rules of addition from arithmetic, everything still wanders according to the "Psalter and the Half Dream Book". But the wealth of nature inherent in him, diligence, dignity, the height of moral feeling and innate delicacy immeasurably elevate him above all the stupid and cruel masters of life. Of course, Lefty believed in the king-father and was a religious person. The image of Lefty under the pen of Leskov turns into a generalized symbol of the Russian people. In the eyes of Leskov, the moral value of a person lies in his organic connection with the living national element - with his native land and its nature, with its people and traditions that go back into the distant past. The most remarkable thing was that Leskov, an excellent connoisseur of the life of his time, did not submit to the idealization of the people that dominated the Russian intelligentsia in the 70s and 80s. The author of "Lefty" does not flatter the people, but he does not belittle them either. He portrays the people in accordance with specific historical conditions, and at the same time penetrates into the richest opportunities for creativity, ingenuity, and service to the motherland hidden in the people.

5. The most diverse characters in their social status in the works of Leskov got the opportunity to express themselves in their own word and thus act as if independently of their creator. Leskov was able to realize this creative principle thanks to his outstanding philological abilities. His "priests speak in a spiritual way, nihilists - in a nihilistic way, peasants - in a peasant way, upstarts from them and buffoons with frills."

The juicy, colorful language of Leskov's characters corresponded to the bright colorful world his work, in which the fascination with life reigns, despite all its imperfections and tragic contradictions. Life in the perception of Leskov is unusually interesting. The most ordinary phenomena, falling into art world his works are transformed into a fascinating story, into a sharp anecdote or into “a cheerful old fairy tale, under which, through some kind of warm slumber, the heart smiles freshly and affectionately.” To match this semi-fairytale, "full of mysterious charms of the world" and Leskov's favorite heroes are eccentrics and "righteous people", people with a whole nature and generous soul. None of the Russian writers we will meet so many goodies. Acute criticism of Russian reality and active civil position encouraged the writer to search for the positive beginnings of Russian life. And the main hopes for the moral revival of Russian society, without which he could not imagine social and economic progress, Leskov placed on the best people of all classes, be it the priest Savely Tuberozov from Soboryan, a policeman (Odnodum), officers (Engineers-unmercenaries ”, “Cadet Monastery”), a peasant (“Non-deadly Golovan”), a soldier (“The Man on the Clock”), an artisan (“Lefty”), a landowner (“The Seedy Family”).

Genre L, thoroughly saturated with philology, is a “tale” (“Lefty”, “Leon the Butler's Son”, “The Sealed Angel”), where the speech mosaic, vocabulary and voice setting are the main organizing principle. This genre is partly popular, partly antique. Here reigns "folk etymology" in the most "excessive" forms. It is also characteristic of Leskovsky philology that his characters are always marked by their profession, their social. and national sign. They are representatives of this or that jargon, dialect. Average speech, the speech of an ordinary intellectual, L gets by. It is also characteristic that these dialects are used by him in most cases in a comic way, which enhances the play function of the language. This applies both to the learned language and to the language of the clergy (cf. the deacon Achilles in The Councilmen or the deacon in Journey with the Nihilist), and to the nat. languages. Ukr. the language in the "Hare Remise" is used precisely as a comic element, and in other things, broken Russian appears every now and then. language - in the mouth of a German, then a Pole, then a Greek. Even such a "public" novel as "Nowhere" is filled with all sorts of linguistic anecdotes and parodies - a trait typical of a storyteller, a variety artist. But apart from the realm of the comic tale, L also has an opposite realm - the realm of sublime declamation. Many of his works are written, as he himself said, in "musical recitative" - ​​metrical prose, approaching verse. There are such pieces in "The Bypassed", in "The Islanders", in "The Spender" - in places of greatest tension. In his early works, L uniquely combines stylistic traditions and techniques he took from Polish, Ukrainian. and Russian writers. But in later works this connection

Leskov has a whole cycle of novels and stories on the theme of righteousness. The people of L. interpreted the concept broadly, and peasants, merchants, officials, and priests turned out to be righteous (“Odnodum”, “Cathedrals”). The righteous are endowed with mercy towards the sick, the oppressed, the poor. All of them have universal categories of goodness. The value of these virtues increases from experienced persecution and persecution both from the side of the authorities and from people who live a cruel and selfish life. In a sense, all the righteous merged into a broadly understood people's truth and turned out to be an opposition force in relation to the existing system, carried in themselves some element of the social. rebuke. Archpriest Tuberozov (“Cathedrals”), a man who lived in external prosperity, grew up as a rebel, rebelled against the lies of priestly life, privileges, dependence on higher ranks. All his thoughts for 30 years of service are recorded in his "Demicotonic Book". He yearns for a nationwide denunciation of the rank of priest at the council. Tuberozov refuses to repent and dies in his righteousness. Many righteous people seem to be eccentrics, people with a shifted psychology, oddities. All of them have some kind of obsession. “Righteousness” turns out to be a kind of popular opinion, which develops and lives spontaneously, it cannot be curbed by any circulars of power. Resolutely always "righteous" did not receive due assessment from the authorities. In principle, the "righteous" according to the social. estimates of a “small” person, whose entire property is often in a small shoulder bag, and spiritually he grows in the mind of the reader into a giant legendary epic figure. Such is the hero Ivan Severyanych Flyagin (“The Enchanted Wanderer”), reminiscent of Ilya Muromets. The conclusion from his life was this: "A Russian person can handle everything." He saw a lot and experienced a lot: “All my life I have been dying and could not die in any way.” The most striking work about the righteous is “The Tale of the Tula Oblique Lefty and the Steel Flea”. The “righteous” bring charm to people, but they themselves act as if enchanted. Give them a second life, they will live it the same way. In the exploits of Lefty and his friends, the Tula masters, there is a lot of virtuoso luck, even eccentric eccentricity. Meanwhile, their life is very nasty and for the most part meaningless, and folk talents wither and perish under the tsarist system. The result of the story is bitter: forced labor is pointless, although Lefty showed Russian prowess. And yet L. does not lose optimism. Despite the cruelty of circumstances and the complete oblivion that awaits Lefty, the hero managed to save the "human soul". L. was convinced that ordinary people with their pure hearts and thoughts, standing aside from the main events, "make history stronger than others."

N. S. Leskov is an original and great writer. L. born in 1831 in the village of Gorokhov, Oryol province, in a family of small. official, out from a spiritual environment. As a child, his peers were baptized children, with a cat he, in his own words, "lived and lived soul to soul." L. wrote that the people do not need to study “The common people. I knew everyday life down to the smallest detail, and down to the smallest nuances I understood how it was related to it from a large manor house, from our “small chicken house”. In the 16th year, without graduating from the gymnasium, he began working life clerk in the Oryol Criminal Chamber. Later, having entered the private commercial service, he traveled Russia far and wide. According to L.'s convictions, he was a democrat, an educator, an enemy of crepe rights and its vestiges, a defender of education. But to the assessment of all yavl-th social. and political life, he, like Dost and L. Tolst, approached morality. criterion and count. the main progress is moral progress: we don’t need good orders, but we need good people, ”said L. creative theme. L. - the possibilities and riddles of the Russian. nat. Har-ra. He was looking for the distinctive properties of Russian people in all estates and classes, and his artist. the world hit its social. variegation and diversity. the grandson of a priest and a merchant's wife, the son of officials and a noblewoman, he knew the life of each class well and depicted it in his own way, constantly mixing it with literary traditions and stereotypes. His Katarina Izmailova from the story “LADY MACBETH OF MTSENSKY DISTRICT! immediately reminded the heroine of the play A. N. Ostrovsk "Thunderstorm"; also a young merchant's wife, having decided on illegal love, seized by passion to self-forgetfulness. But Kat Izm depicts love not as a protest against the merchant's way of life, to demand to rise above it, but as born of the same way of life, its sleepy stupidity, lack of spirituality, the thirst for pleasure, prompting the "fearless" woman to commit murder after murder. This is the image of the Russian. har-ra L. is arguing not nur with Ostrovsky and Dobrolyubov. The name of the story recalls Turgenev's essay "Hamlet of the Shchigrovsky District", where he described the European images of a nobleman with a weak, insignificant character. In L., the heroine of the sixth warehouse combines, on the contrary, an unusual strength of character with complete intellect-morality underdevelopment.

Early stories L. from the people. life "The Warrior" - about a tenacious and cynical Petersburg matchmaker, broken by a passion that overtook her late - like "Lady Macbeth ...", basic. on plots and images drawn from the people. love-everyday songs and ballads, and are saturated with rustic. and philistine-urban eloquence. L. is looking for genuine Russian heroes. life in a different environment-in the patriarch. nobility.

12. early dos-poor people, mistress, doppelgänger.

A vivid epigraph to all the work of Nikolai Semyonovich Leskov is his own words: “Literature should seek the higher, not the lower, and the goals of the gospel for it should always be more expensive than the goals of the Charter on warning. We have been given a clear instruction: "A voice is crying out: equalize the paths along which salvation proceeds." Salvation is common to all “in love, in forgiveness of offenses, in mercy to everyone - to one’s own and to the Samaritan”, and the goal and joy is that with a general softening of hearts “swords will be reforged into coulters, and the peace of God will settle in the hearts all people".

Writers and thinkers of the Russian diaspora of the first wave of emigration (I. Ilyin, B. Zaitsev, P. Struve) rightly called Leskov "the greatest Christian among Russian writers." “I.A. Ilyin, who called Leskov a "profound artist and philosopher", believed that Russian literature - "in an expanded sense" - "can be called ... moral theology." And this moral theology, in other words, the Christian doctrine of morality, is the spiritual core of the works of Nikolai Semyonovich. It is the basis of his creativity. A modern researcher of the Orthodox foundations of Russian literature M.M. Dunaev expresses a similar point of view: “It can be directly stated that in its highest manifestations, Russian literature was no longer just the art of the word, but theology in images.” “The coming revival of Russia was never questioned by Leskov, who managed in his works not only to show national characters"heroes of the righteous", to create their own artistic "iconostasis" of the saints of the Russian land, but also to recreate the very spirit of the nation.

It is impossible to understand Leskovsky's artistic world outside the religious context, religious and moral reflections, aspirations and acquisitions of the artist in the same way as to comprehend the true originality domestic literature. The spiritual charm of most of Leskov's positive heroes is that they are closely connected with the Orthodox worldview, which was then at the same time predominantly Russian. History testifies that the Russian people not only accepted Orthodoxy, but it was through it that they acquired and established their national self-consciousness. Without this truth, it is impossible to understand either the heroes of Leskov, or their selfless love for people and Russia, or the pathos of his work.

The writer created his works about the "righteous" in the post-reform period, when a person was partly "lost" in the new social circumstances. Like F.M. Dostoevsky and L.N. Tolstoy, Leskov is trying to protect universal human values, which are gradually beginning to collapse.

His works reveal to us many characters, innumerable shades of the movements of the Russian soul. He, like no other, realized that the deep essence of this soul, its root, was the Christian faith. And no matter how our holy Rus' was trampled, no matter how the formidable enemies of God took up arms against her, they could not break her, break this Christian faith. For Leskov himself, this faith instilled love for a person, even the most fallen one. This love inspired all his works. With love and faith, he penetrated the heart of the people and reflected it in his creations. All Leskov's work is imbued with the spirit of Christian love and compassion for man as the image of God, albeit sometimes very cloudy. This faith, love and compassion determined the character of his writings. He saw what others do not see, but what is life itself. After all inner life, inner work, the state of the soul - that area in which it is good to reveal Himself, to choose God Himself as an abode.

The author affirmed, planted, justified, defended life according to the word of Christ, protected from the storms of time, from various false and contrary to the spirit of human teachings. The Orthodox faith, the Christian faith, is revealed in his works in all its strength, truth, truth and beauty. How closely she intertwined with the Russian soul, how closely she entered her life. The author reveals it in his characters, the author shows it in their destinies, it lives their souls.

Christianity in Rus', in turn, is closely intertwined with the ancient pagan culture, which still influences the formation of the mentality of people today. Without taking into account the factor of Orthodox-pagan syncretism, it is impossible to understand either Orthodoxy, which is different from the Byzantine prototype, or achievements in various spheres of Russian culture with its characteristic features of explicit and implicit dual faith, and, finally, the origins of those internal spiritual traits and qualities that distinguish the Russian person. Where, for example, does he get the “breadth of the soul” known to the whole world?

ON THE. Berdyaev wrote that there is a correspondence between the immensity of the Russian land and the Russian soul: “In the soul of the Russian people there is the same immensity, boundlessness, aspiration to infinity, as in the Russian plain.” This unwritten law of "correspondence of the earth and the soul" operates with amazing constancy at all times of Russian history and carries the light of the quest for Truth, Goodness and Beauty. All this received the most complete and perfect embodiment in the amazing language created by the Russian people, inimitable folklore, and most importantly in art - great Russian literature, music, painting, architecture.

Russian spirituality has been shaping Russian culture for centuries, which, in turn, is shaping the current spirituality. A huge layer of Russian culture and spirituality is associated with Orthodoxy. The work of the Slavophiles I.V. Kireevsky (1806-1856) and A.S. Khomyakov (1804-1860) was an attempt to develop a system of Christian worldview. They came to the conclusion that Russian education should be based on the perception of "whole knowledge", combining reason and faith, and true philosophy should be the philosophy of "believing mind". The ideas of Buddhism and esoteric philosophy had a significant impact on the spiritual world of Russians. There is also the influence of Muslim culture.

What are the characteristic features of precisely Russian spirituality? The ideas of spirituality as the highest expediency were also manifested in the reflections of Russian thinkers about the fate - the destiny of Russia, and in the belief in the special mission of Russia: "Moscow is the third Rome", "the worldwide responsiveness of the Russian person", spiritual, mental and everyday originality.

We can agree with P.E. Astafiev, who wrote: “If there is not and cannot be Russian national philosophy, then there is not and cannot be Russian national self-consciousness, for philosophy, in contrast to the knowledge of objects, is precisely the self-consciousness of the whole spirit.”

“Religious and moral reflections of the “original Russian writer” - especially in the final period of his creative biography - are not just a testament, but a message, a testament to modern consciousness. Daniil Andreev penetratingly wrote about this gift of messengers from Leskov, which makes it possible to convey the highest truth in the images of art. In relation to Leskov, he also pointed out the bitter biblical truth that “there is no prophet in his own country”: “Talents-messengers, like Leskov or Alexei Konstantinovich Tolstoy, remained isolated units; they, so to speak, rowed against the current, not meeting among their contemporaries either due understanding or fair assessment.

Modern philologist V.I. Kuleshov writes: “The return to religion, to spiritual and moral principles is perhaps one of the most striking features of the modern world outlook. This is especially true for the entire spiritual situation in Russia today, which is on the way to self-restoration. The elimination of many ideological restrictions stimulated scientific research in the field of studying the ethical-philosophical and religious foundations of the historical-literary process. Now, when our literary criticism is freed from atheistic cliches and the pressure of all kinds of ideological dogmas, the task of reading Russian classics in line with the cross-cutting problem of the interaction between literature and Christianity is not only of undoubted interest, but is becoming acutely relevant. Awareness of the "Christian (namely, Orthodox) subtext of Russian literature as a special subject of study" becomes one of the most important tasks of literary criticism.

Spiritual culture is a set of spiritual values, as well as the process of their creation, distribution and consumption. Spiritual values ​​are designed to satisfy the spiritual needs of a person, i.e. everything that contributes to the development of his spiritual world (the world of his consciousness). And if material values, with rare exceptions, are fleeting - houses, machines, mechanisms, clothes, vehicles, etc., then spiritual values ​​can be eternal as long as humanity exists. Say, the philosophical judgments of the ancient Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle are almost two and a half thousand years old, but they are now the same reality as at the time of their statement - it is enough to take their works in the library or get information via the Internet.

Speaking about spiritual culture, its diversity should be noted. Spiritual values ​​include philosophy, science, religion, morality, art. Philosophy is essentially the basis of spiritual culture. It contributes to the formation of each person a certain view of the world and his revenge in this world, what is usually called a worldview. It gives a person the opportunity to think about the meaning of his life, thereby allowing him to carry out, as it were, a general orientation in the reality around us.

Other spheres of spiritual culture are moral, aesthetic and artistic. The very concept of "morality" comes from the word "nature", which means the mental and volitional qualities of a person. The main purpose of moral culture is to be a regulator of human relations.

In Leskov, even the description of nature carries a moral and philosophical charge. Moreover, all this is written in a magnificent artistic language. That is why Russian literature was the pinnacle of our spirituality, that is why the works of Russian classical writers not only had an enormous influence on the development of national culture, but also left a deep mark on the spiritual development of mankind.

480 rub. | 150 UAH | $7.5 ", MOUSEOFF, FGCOLOR, "#FFFFCC",BGCOLOR, "#393939");" onMouseOut="return nd();"> Thesis - 480 rubles, shipping 10 minutes 24 hours a day, seven days a week and holidays

Zenkevich Svetlana Igorevna. The genre of the Christmas story in the work of N. S. Leskov: Dis. ... cand. philol. Sciences: 10.01.01: St. Petersburg, 2005 224 p. RSL OD, 61:05-10/958

Introduction

Chapter 1. "Christmas" Theme in Leskov's Early Works (1860s - early 1870s) 21

1. "The life of a woman" 22

2. "Nowhere" 29

3. Islanders 35

4. "On knives" 47

5. "Cathedrals" 53

Chapter 2 The man in Leskov's Christmas story 58

1. Man and the world in Leskov's Christmas story 60

2. "Righteous Man" in Leskov's Yuletide Story 87

3. Cross-cutting images in Leskov's Christmas stories ("The Beast" and "Hidden Warmth") 102

Chapter 3 Christmas Story in the Light of Leskov's Literary Contacts with Contemporary Writers 123

1. Christmas story by N. S. Leskov and F. M. Dostoevsky: “Christ visiting a peasant” and “A boy at Christ on a Christmas tree” 126

2. The problem of the Christmas story in the dialogue between N. S. Leskov and A. S. Suvorin 144

3. Christmas story in the context of the creative dialogue between N. S. Leskov and L. N. Tolstoy 169

Conclusion 194

Literature 198

Application 212

Publications by S. I. Zenkevich on the topic of the dissertation 224

Introduction to work

The creative heritage of Nikolai Semenovich Leskov (1831-1895), who worked during the period of reassessment and rethinking of familiar forms in Russian realistic literature- turning them "into a system of mobile, changeable, constantly developing and renewing types and genres" 1 , - rich and varied. The writer contributed to the development of the novel, was one of the pioneers of the chronicle and the “prologue” legend, tried his hand at drama and the lyrical-epic genre (arabesque), created a large number of diverse stories, while remaining a bright publicist all his life. Emphasizing the unique appearance of his works, Leskov, as is known, often provided them with original subtitles 2 .

Among the diversity and variety of small epic forms in the creative heritage of the writer, a special place belongs to the Christmas / Christmas story.

According to our data, the total number of Lesk's Christmas stories is twenty-five works. Leskov discovered interest in the “Christmas” theme as early as the early 1860s, systematically introducing episodes dedicated to Christmas and Christmas time into his early novels and stories. The first work with the subtitle "Christmas Story" - "The Sealed Angel" - appeared in 1873, the last Christmas story "Empty Dances" was created two years before his death, in 1893. In December 1885, Leskov combined twelve stories into a special Christmas collection.

The Christmas story more than once became the object of theoretical reflection for the writer. Leskov's thoughts were reflected in articles and letters, as well as directly

1 Fridlender G. M. Poetics of Russian Realism: Essays on Russian Literature of the 19th Century. L.,
1971. From 166.

2 Numerous and varied subtitles of Leskov's works were brought together by D.S.
Likhachev. Cm.: Likhachev D.S. Features of the poetics of the works of N. S. Leskov // Leskov and
Russian literature. M., 1988. S. 13-14.

3 In chronological order, these stories are presented in the Appendix at the end of

in the text of many works of art(This fact made it possible for modern researchers to see in Leskov the first theorist of the Christmas story 5). So, for example, in a letter to I. S. Aksakov dated December 9, 1881, Leskov indicates that he created a “narrator of ordinary Christmas content”. The story “The Darner,” revised for the Christmas collection, begins like this: “This is a stupid wish to promise new happiness to everyone in the new year, but sometimes something like this comes. Let me tell you on this subject a small event that has a completely Christmas character. The genre canon is discussed in the first paragraph of the unfinished Christmas story "Malanya's Wedding": "I will tell you, esteemed readers, a little story that has developed according to all the rules of a Christmas story: it has a very sad beginning, a rather confusing intrigue and a completely unexpected cheerful end" 8 . Leskov defines the plot of the story “An Ear Without Fish” (1886) in a few words as “a simple matter for a Christmas pattern, with virtue” 9 .

According to Leskov, the Christmas story is “a kind of literature in which the writer feels like a slave of too tight and correctly limited form.<...>the author is not willing to invent himself and compose a plot that suits the program” 10 . Therefore, the writer is required to show "such an event

In general, Leskov left a number of theoretical reflections on his works. Widely known, for example, is the description of the chronicle form of the novel from the first chapter of the story of 1874 “Childhood. (From the memoirs of Merkul Praottsev) ":" I will not truncate some and inflate the significance of other events: I am not forced to do this by the artificial and unnatural form of the novel, which requires rounding the plot and focusing everything around the main center. That doesn't happen in life. A person’s life goes on like a charter developing from a rolling pin, and I will develop it so simply with a ribbon in the notes I offer ” (Leskov N. S. Sobr. cit.: V 11 t. M, 1956. T. V. S. 279).

Cm.: Dushechkina E. V. Russian Christmas story: Formation of the genre. SPb., 1995. S. 181; Kretova A. A.“Be perfect...” (religious and moral searches in the Christmas art of N. S. Leskov and his contemporaries). M.; Eagle, 1999. S. 162.

6 Leskov N. S. Sobr. cit.: V 11 t. M, 1956. T. XI. S. 256.

7 LeskovN. WITH. Sobr. cit.: In 11 vols. T. VII. S. 93.

8 Literary heritage. T. 101: Unpublished Leskov. Book. 1. M., 1997. S. 466.

9 Nov. 1886. Vol. VIII. No. 7. S. 352.

10 Leskov N. S. Sobr. cit.: In 11 vols. T. VII. S. 433.

tie from modern life Russian society, where both the century and modern man would be reflected, and yet all this would correspond to the form and program of the Christmas story, "p. Sometimes Leskov complained about the inertness of the form:" The form of the Christmas story has become very worn out.<...>I can't write in this form anymore." As follows already from these brief statements, the writer had a quite intelligible idea of ​​what cut the material required, singled out the formal and content side of the Christmas story, in other words, he saw in it a genre (in the modern sense of this term 13).

Thus, the Christmas story can be reasonably considered one of the genre dominants of Leskov's work. When creating texts, the writer constantly thought about the tasks of the Christmas story, that is, creative practice went hand in hand with theory. This genre, apparently, fully corresponded to the ethical and aesthetic principles of the writer and was well understood by him. Therefore, it seems quite legitimate and relevant to consider one of the leading Leskovian genres in the projection on the writer's work as a whole. We will be interested in how the Christmas story was born and developed under Leskov's pen, how the principles of plot-composition and narrative techniques developed by the writer were refracted in it.

The Christmas story as a genre of Russian literature has been fairly well studied by now 14 . In the works of E. V. Dushechkina, N. N. Starygina, Kh. Baran, O. N. Kalenichenko, the origin and evolution of the Christmas story are traced 15 . The contribution of individual writers (first of all,

12 Leskov N. S. Sobr. cit.: In 11 vols. T. XI. S. 406.

13 According to D. S. Likhachev, “by “genre” Leskov means genre paintings” (Dashing
chev D.S. Features of the poetics of the works of N. S. Leskov. S. 15).

14 Researches of the Christmas story are made by us in separate section literature list.

15 See: Dushechkina E. V. Russian Christmas story: Formation of the genre. SPb., 1995; stary
Gina N. N. Christmas story as a genre // Problems of historical poetics. Issue. 2: Bad
feminine and scientific categories. Sat. scientific works. Petrozavodsk, 1992, pp. 113-127; Baran X.
pre-revolutionary holiday literature and Russian modernism // Baran X. Poetics of Russian

Leskov and Chekhov) in the development of this genre. In the work of M. A. Kucherskaya, the question of the genre canon of the Christmas story was raised. N. V. Samsonova made an attempt to typologically identify the constants of the so-called “birth- is childish text".

Leskov's Christmas stories are studied in the projection on the genre tradition (E. V. Dushechkina) and in comparison with other cycles of the writer (N. N. Starygina, P. G. Zhirunov). The sources of Leskov's religious and ethical searches as the author of Christmas stories are revealed, the writer's works are read in the context of patristic literature (A. A. Kretova). At the same time, the question of the place of the Christmas story genre in the context of Leskov's work, in our opinion, still remains open.

The problem of the genre in Leskov's work: the history of the study

Let us consider in general terms the history of the study of Leskovian genres, which spans more than one decade. An active interest in the genre nature of the writer's work was largely manifested in the studies of I. P. Viduetska and I. V. Stolyarova. I. P. Viduetskaya directly posed the problem of the originality of the genre of the story in Leskov, which is of "great historical, literary and theoretical interest" 19 , and - in accordance with the development of literary

Russian literature of the beginning of the 20th century. M., 1993. S. 284-328; Kalenichenko O. N. The fate of small genres in Russian literature of the late XIX - early XX century (Christmas and Easter stories, modernist short story). Monograph. Volgograd, 2000, etc.

16 In addition to the already mentioned works by E. V. Dushechkina and A. A. Kretova, see also: Tol
stubborn P.N. Christmas stories in the work of Chekhov // Study of the poetics of realism:
Interuniversity. Sat. scientific works. Vologda, 1990, pp. 48-59; Sobennikov A.S."Between 'there is a God' and
"there is no God"...”: (on religious and philosophical traditions in the work of A.P. Chekhov). Irkutsk,
1997. Chapters V, VI; Kapustin N.V."Alien Word" in A.P. Chekhov's Prose: Genre Transformations
mation. Ivanovo, 2003. Chapter II and others.

17 See: Kucherskaya M A. Russian Christmas story and the problem of the canon in the literature of the new
time. Abstract dis. ... cand. philol. Sciences. M., 1997.

18 Samsonova N.V. The Christmas text and its artistic anthropology in Russian
literature of the 19th - first third of the 20th centuries. Abstract dis. ... cand. philol. Sciences. Voronezh, 1998.

19 Viduetskaya Ts. P. The genre of the story in the work of N. S. Leskov // Nauch. report high school:
Philol. Sciences. 1961. No. 2 (14). S. 92.

lem of a small epic form - offered a convincing periodization of his work.

If I. P. Viduetskaya’s attention was focused on Leskov’s stories, then I. V. Stolyarova, in the chapter of the academic “History of the Russian Novel” dedicated to Leskov, examined the writer’s work from the point of view of a large form. As is traced in detail in this work, Leskov, having suffered a relative failure in creating the so-called "social novel", abandoned topical topics. He turned to history, developing at the same time the original genre form of the novel-chronicle.

I. P. Viduetskaya and I. V. Stolyarova discovered Leskov’s originality in his approach to traditional genres and noted his tendency to develop new genre forms. The writer's legacy was embraced sub spe-ciae of the novel, on the one hand, and the short story, on the other. Researchers have identified the connection between the genre composition of Lesk's creativity and the writer's attitude, fundamental principles his literary activity.

Leskov's interested and free attitude to the problem of the genre, the writer's development of new genre modifications was noted and revealed by the Czech researcher V. Kostrshica 21 .

Following the "general" works, conceptual "private" studies saw the light: they examine the individual genres that Leskov addressed, and it becomes clear what their significance in the writer's work is. N. L. Sukhachev and V. A. Tunimanov showed the ambiguity of the legend in Leskov. This is both a genre (that is, first of all, the so-called "situational" legends), and at the same time "the process of forming mythical images". The word "development" in the title of the cited work conveys the dynamism of self-

20 Stolyarova I.V. Leskov's chronicle novel // History of the Russian novel: In 2 vols. T. II. M; L.,
1964, pp. 416-438.

21 Kostrshica, Vladimir. On the genre originality of N. S. Leskov's prose // Philological
Sciences. 1974. No. 2. S. 70-75.

22 Sukhachev N. L., Tunimanov V. A. Leskov's development of the legend // Mif. - Folklore. - Litera
tour. L., 1978. S. 115.

th process of myth-making, which was sensitively fixed by Leskov when he developed the genre of legend.

The works of A. V. Luzhanovsky are devoted to the study of the genre originality of Leskov's prose. The researcher made an attempt to formulate the genre features of the story, characteristic of Leskov's work. As the main feature, "documentary narrative" was singled out 23 . Also, A. V. Luzhanovsky more than once drew attention to the importance of the author's genre definition of "story".

The study of Leskovian genres is activated at the turn of the millennium. New parameters are proposed for identifying genre forms that were not distinguished before (for example, T. V. Alekseeva identifies a conditional genre form that prevailed in Leskov's work in the 1870s - "a story for persuasion" 24). Fair opinions are expressed about the insufficient division of artistic and journalistic genres in Leskov, about the constant diffusion of motives, themes and images used by the writer. The genres presented in Leskov's work are also studied from the standpoint of their origins (for example, in the work of O. B. Khabarova, individual letters by Leskov are originally raised to the genre of petition 26; the ancient Russian roots of some Leskov genre forms are revealed by E. V. Yakhnenko). Again, attempts are being made to identify patterns in the construction and evolution of the writer's stories 28 . Creative

23 Luzhanovsky A.V. The documentary nature of the narrative is a genre feature of the stories of N. S.
Leskova//Russian Literature. 1980. No. 4. pp. 144-150.

24 Alekseeva T.V.“A story for persuasion” and the literary position of N. S. Leskov in the 1870s
Dov // Problems of literary genres. Materials of the VII scientific interuniversity conference
May 4-7, 1992. Tomsk, 1992, pp. 79-81.

25 See, for example: Yandiev Sh. D. The problems and poetics of the works of N. S. Leskov in the 1880s
years. Abstract dis. ... cand. philol. Sciences. M., 1991; Leonova B. A. Genre of memoir
in the work of N. S. Leskov in the 1880s. Abstract dis. ... cand. philol. Sciences. Eagle, 2003.

26 Khabarova O. B. The genre of petition in the epistolary heritage of N. "S. Leskov // Vestn. Mosk.
university Ser. 9. Philology. 1997. No. 4. S. 138-141.

Yakhnenko E.V. Genre traditions of ancient Russian literature in the work of N. S. Leskov. Abstract dis. ... cand. philol. Sciences. M., 2002.

28 See, for example: Zhirunov 77. G. The genre of the story in the work of N. S. Leskov in the 80-90s of the XIX century (problems of poetics). Abstract dis. ... cand. philol. Sciences. Volgograd, 2004.

Leskov's searches in the field of small genre forms in general 29 . Finally, genres are comprehended from the point of view of the foundations of Lesk's worldview 30 .

Researchers, regardless of the specific local material, seek to show the originality of Leskov's approach to a particular genre and, at the same time, follow the tradition, to connect the writer's development of a separate genre with the fundamental principles of his work.

Purpose and objectives of the study

The overall goal of the research being undertaken is to determine the place and significance of the Christmas story in Leskov's creative heritage. To achieve this goal, it is supposed to solve the following tasks:

follow the development of the "Christmas" theme in Leskov's early work;

identify the main types of characters in Lesk's Christmas stories;

identify the most characteristic plot scheme in Leskov's Christmas stories;

characterize Leskov's theoretical understanding of the genre;

consider Leskov's creative relationship as the author of Christmas stories with some contemporary writers who also turned to this genre.

Research Methodology

The solution of the tasks set in the proposed study is an integrated approach to the material, combining historical-literary, typological and structural-semantic methods. Methodological heterogeneity

29 Shmeleva Yu. IN. Poetics of small genres N. S. Leskov (1880-1890s). Abstract dis. ...
cand. philol. Sciences. Ivanovo, 2001.

30 See, for example: Ugdyzhekova O. V. Ethical and philosophical foundations of genre searches by N. S.
Leskov in the 1870s. Abstract dis. ... cand. philol. Sciences. Tomsk, 1998; DolitnaI. IN. N.S.

The specificity is explained by the specifics of the material and objectives of the study, which, on the one hand, involves the reconstruction of the historical and literary context from a certain point of view creative activity Leskov, on the other hand, - analysis individual works and correlating with each other texts created within the same genre tradition, understanding their commonality (in abstraction from specific historical conditions).

Research material

The material of this study is the texts that Leskov created in line with the "Christmas" tradition and, one way or another, outlined his genre solution. The main criterion for selecting works is the “indication” of the text belonging to the “Christmas” genre, given by Leskov himself.

The body of these works is, in principle, heterogeneous: some stories were immediately created as Christmastide stories, others were, in the words of the writer himself, "adapted" to Christmastide as a result of later processing, most often formal (in connection with their inclusion in the collection of 1886) . Separate stories, on the contrary, ceased to be Christmas stories, as the author brought them out of the genre.

Among the Christmas stories of Leskov, the following groups can be distinguished: 1) Stories that Leskov, when first published (December 25), provided the genre subtitle "Christmas story" or "Christmas story" ("The Sealed Angel", "At the End of the World", "White Eagle" , "Christ visiting a peasant", "The Beast", "Pearl Necklace", "Robbery", "Empty Dances"). (The unfinished Christmas story "Malanya's wedding" also belongs here.)

Leskov in the 1870s: The type of artistic thinking and the dynamics of genres. Abstract dis. ... cand. philol. Sciences. Ivanovo, 2001.

31 In a letter to V. A. Goltsev dated November 14, 1888, offering the story “The Ascalon Villain” to the journal Russkaya Mysl, Leskov notes: “adapted to the birth of Christ” [Leskov N. With Sobr. cit.: V I t. M., 1956. T. XI. S. 399).

Stories whose "Christmas" nature is explicated in the title ("Christmas Evening at the Hypochondriac's", "Christmas Night in a Carriage (Journey with a Nihilist)", "Offended at Christmas") (all of them were also published on December 25).

Stories that were not initially attributed by the author to the genre of interest to us and were subsequently reworked - mainly in connection with the acquisition of the Leskovsky collection of 1886 "Christmas Stories" ("The Spirit of Mrs. Janlis", "A Little Mistake", "Old Genius", "Jewish somersault", "Deceit", "Selective grain"). This also partly includes the story "At the End of the World", which we have already mentioned above (an early "non-Christmas" edition of "Temnyak" is known). The short story "Ghost in the Engineer's Castle" underwent minimal genre editing.

The stories that Leskov initially considered as Yuletide, and then abandoned such a genre solution (these are "Christmas Evening at the Hypochondriac", later turned into "Chertogon", and "Alexandrite", included in the collection "Stories by the way", and not in "Christmas stories"). This may also include the story “White Eagle”, already mentioned in the first group, which was first published as a Christmas story, and later began to be reprinted with a different subtitle - “fantastic story”.

The author of this study also refers to: Leskov's novels and stories, which include "Christmas" fragments ("The Life of a Woman", "Nowhere", "Islanders", "On Knives", "Cathedrals"); to the writer's journalism (to those of his articles in which he reflects on the genre of the Christmas story); to works of other genres; as well as to letters, which, allowing

trace the creative history of his stories, reflect the writer's creative attitude to the genre, his sense of the mobility of the genre.

At the same time, it is necessary to make a reservation that not all of Leskov's Christmas stories are considered in the same detail in the work. Less attention paid humorous stories 1880s We sought, first of all, to identify general patterns in the writer's comprehension of the genre.

Thus, the object of the research being undertaken is Leskov's work as a whole, the subject is the writer's reflections on the genre of the Christmas story and his works created in line with this genre tradition.

Key Research Concepts

Let us characterize in general terms the key concepts of the proposed study - genre And holy story.

Under genre in the present study, we mean a meaningful art form, a historically established system of ways to organize a work 32 . The concept of a literary genre, first of all, implies "a certain typical commonality of the artistic structure of a group of works" "33. A writer who thinks in genres, creating a work, one way or another, projects it onto a certain set of texts of the same genre: "The specific content can be inexhaustibly diverse But the experience of all previous creativity is stored in the construction itself" 34. At the same time, "the common content basis of the most diverse works of the same genre in terms of ideological orientation is that they consider reality in the light of the same formula of the world, focus on the same

32 On the genre as a historical category and on the historically changing principles of singling out
genres see: Likhachev D.S. Poetics of ancient Russian literature. L., 1967. S. 40-41; Averintsev
S.S. Historical mobility of the genre category: The experience of periodization // Historical poetry
tika: Results and perspectives of the study. M., 1986. S. 104-116.

33 Stepnik Yu. V. Systems of genres in the historical and literary process // Historical literature
tour process: Problems and methods of study. L., 1974. S. 168.

3 * Gachev G. D., Kozhinov V. V. pithiness literary forms// Theory of Literature: Main Problems in Historical Coverage. Types and genres of literature. M., 1964. S. 25.

fundamental relationship between man and life. Therefore, when considering the category of genre in the proposed study, the concept of context.

holiday story, despite the diversity and multiplicity of texts belonging to different eras and different writers, nevertheless, it is very easily recognizable. Leskov himself made attempts to highlight the characteristic features of these works. In the story “Pearl Necklace” (1885), he wrote: “It is absolutely required from the Christmas story that it be timed to coincide with the events of the Christmas evening - from Christmas to baptism, so that it is somehow fantastic, has some kind of morality, at least like a refutation harmful prejudice, and finally - so that it ends without fail cheerfully.<...>he should be true incident(highlighted by Leskov. - S. 3.)" 36 . Leskov's "theory" has not lost its relevance to this day: this fragment has a high "citation index" (although only one work is specifically devoted to it 37).

In the proposed study, we general view Let's define a Christmas story as a story about a miracle that happened during the winter holidays, which is meaningful author in the context of a particular literary tradition. In other words, the Christmas story can be recognized by the following features:

chronological confinement;

the presence of a “miraculous element” (Leskov);

Now let's take a closer look at each of these features.

35 Leiderman N. L. The movement of time and the laws of the genre. Sverdlovsk, 1982. S. 22.

36 Leskov N. S. Sobr. cit.: V 11 t. M, 1956. T. VII. S. 433.

37 Dushechkina E. IN.“A Christmas story is certainly required ...” (N. S. Leskov and tradition
tion of the Russian Christmas story) // Russian literature and culture of the new time. SPb.,
1994, pp. 94-107. A little later, this work was included as a separate chapter in the monograph
"Russian Christmas Story: The Formation of the Genre" (St. Petersburg, 1995).

1. Chronological timing - the most obvious indicator of the work's relevance to the genre of interest to us (although not self-sufficient). The Christmas story is a genre of the so-called "calendar literature" (this term was proposed and introduced into scientific circulation by E.V. Dushechkina). The main category of "calendar literature" is the category time: the "calendar" text is "provoked" by a certain calendar period and is related to this period in a meaningful and plot way 38 . Temporal confinement can be external and internal 39 . The internal chronological reference makes up the chronotope of the work (in our case, the Christmas time chronotope 40); most often it is represented by special formulas 4 \ External - this is the connection of the text with the extra-textual sphere, first of all - with the time of the functioning of the story itself. In the work there can be both bindings, and one at a time; in rare cases, both are absent.

2. No less characteristic of the Christmas story "element of the miraculous", first of all, plays an important role in the plot-compositional structure

43 u44 g)

works, being a kind of novelistic pointe. In the works of this genre, as a rule, an event occurs that, one way or another, is associated with the intervention of an irrational principle - a godmother or an unclean

38 See: Dushechkina E. V. Russian Christmas story: Formation of the genre. S. 6 et seq.

39 See: Ibid. S. 11.

40 Christmas time - a twelve-day period between Christmas and Epiphany.

41 For example, Leskov’s story “The Sealed Angel” begins like this: “It was about Christmas time,
on the eve of Vasiliev evening " (Leskov N. S. Sobr. cit.: In 11 t. M., 1956. T. IV. S. 320).

42 This is an expression by Leskov from the Preface to his collection Yuletide Stories (St. Petersburg;
M., 1886. S. II).

43 In passing, we note that the “section of miracles” is one of expressive elements hagiographic
whom the canon - played a significant role in shaping the genres of storytelling in
Russian literature. See about it: Dmitriev L. A. Storytelling in hagiographic pas
pennies of the end of the 13th-15th centuries. // The Origins of Russian Fiction: The Emergence of Plot Genres
narration in ancient Russian literature. L., 1970. S. 229-232.

44 This is noted in: Kalenichenko O. I. The fate of small genres in Russian literature
late XIX - early XX century (Christmas and Easter stories, modernist short story).
Monograph. Volgograd, 2000. P. 4.

strength. This sign correlates with the chronological timing of the Christmas story: a “wonderful” event is associated with a certain calendar

nym time - with a holiday.

Reflecting on the Christmas story, Leskov paid special attention to the category of "wonderful", which in his own works is usually interpreted not without a polemical repulsion from the literary tradition. In the Preface to the collection "Christmas Stories", he noted: "The twelve stories proposed in this book were written by me at different times, mainly for the New Year's issues of various periodicals. Of these stories, only a few have an element of the miraculous - in the sense of the supersensible and mysterious. In others, the bizarre or mysterious has its foundations not in the supernatural or supersensible, but stems from the properties of the Russian spirit and those social trends in which for many, including the author himself, who wrote these stories, there is a significant amount of strange and surprising. 47 . A kind of continuation of this Preface is a "framework" discussion from Leskov's story "An Ear Without Fish" (1886), the participants of which highly appreciate Leskov's attempt "to comply with the requirements of the Christmas story without the routine involvement of devilry and all

some other mysterious and incredible elements.

Having specifically specified the nature of the miracle in his works, Leskov, in our opinion, largely predetermined the later research approach to the sacred.

See about this in the works of M. A. Kucherskaya, for example: Kucherskaya M. Eternity in the middle of the room // Christmas stories: Stories. Sermons. M., 1996. P. 13. Motives characteristic of the Christmas story are summarized in one row by E. V. Dushechkina. Cm.: Dushechkina. IN. Russian Christmas story: Formation of the genre. pp. 200-206.

46 Yu. M. Lotman, who did not specifically deal with the Christmas story, nevertheless, revealed
its typological commonality with the so-called "Petersburg" story. First stro
is based on "temporal fantasy", the second - on "spatial". Lotman Yu.M. symbols
Petersburg and the problems of city semiotics // Lotman Yu. M. Selected articles: In 3 vols. Vol. II:
Articles on the history of Russian literature XVIII - the first half of the XIX century. Tallinn, 1992.
S. 16.

47 Leskov N. S. Holiday stories. SPb.; M., 1886. S. P.

48 Nov. 1886. Vol. VIII. No. 7. S. 352.

accurate stories. For a long time, there was only one feature of Leskov's stories - the rethinking of the "supernatural or supersensible". As a result, on initial stage The study of the Christmas story in Soviet literary criticism has developed a rather one-sided picture. Researchers primarily sought to identify satirical overtones individual Leskov works. Meanwhile, the genre tradition as a whole has not been studied, a huge corpus texts, representing it, was not introduced into scientific circulation, that is eyuanr context until a certain time for a number of reasons was not taken into account.

As a result, a dangerous tendency arose: the "miracle", torn from the "Christmas" context, began to be perceived by researchers as an obstacle on the writer's path, which must be overcome. Therefore, Leskov's skill was assessed, first of all, from the point of view of how ruthlessly he rejects this condition that fetters creative imagination. The Christmas story, with its "demands", has become a kind of disguise, Aesopian speech, a means to circumvent censorship. It would be a mistake from modern positions to completely reject this approach, because the researchers pointed out, not unreasonably, the presence in the stories hidden meaning. Concepts of this kind do not appear to be erroneous, but rather incomplete, one-sided. Since behind the “wonderful” event Leskov was steadily looking for only a second plan, the first plan was missed and the whole “Christmas color” (M. S. Goryachkina) turned out to be reduced to an external mention of the holiday. This approach has inevitably exhausted itself. The genre nature of the Christmas story (and not only Leskovsky's) required an expansion of the methodological base for its further study.

49 Here are typical examples. L.P. Grossman especially noted Leskov’s desire “to avoid the usual in this genre (in a Christmas story. - C. 3.)"element of the miraculous"" (Grossman L. N. S. Leskov: Life - creativity - poetics. M., 1945. S. 191-192). V. A. Goebel also emphasized the “exposing” by the writer of “elements of the miraculous and mystical” (Gebel W. N. S. Leskov: In the creative laboratory. M., 1945. S. 177-178). However, the artistic meaning of this "revealing" at that time was still behind the scenes.

3. A sign of a Christmas story (not independent, but associated with
antecedent) is also the presence of a narrator, or, in other words,
the presence in the text of two (or several) narrative instances. Would-
personal, to which, according to modern research, ascends literature
ny Christmas story is a folklore genre of non-fairytale prose,
referring to the words of an eyewitness 50 . "The Element of the Miraculous" and Manifestation in
narrative of a secondary subject of consciousness (B. O. Korman), with its own special
warehouse of speech - are often interconnected. The narrator in his own interpretation
there is no “miracle”, without “preventing” the author from taking a fundamentally different position in this
question (by the way, the Christmas story reached its peak of popularity precisely in the period
flourishing of realism in Russian literature).

4. Finally, we designated the last sign of the Christmas story as oso
combat author's task 51 . Let us make a reservation right away: we do not at all consider this sign
eat exclusively "Christmas" - it is typical for any work in
in the event that the writer understands the content of the genre category 52 .

In relation to Leskov's work, and first of all, to Leskov's stories, A. V. Luzhanovsky noted the important role of the author's genre concept, emphasizing that “genre is a form of the author's statement that carries specific information.<...>When a writer creates a work,

50 See, for example: Zinoviev V.P. Genre features of bylichek. Irkutsk, 1974, p. 4.

31 Here we have in mind only the literature of modern times, when, in contrast to medieval literature, individual creative consciousness began to develop. “The central “character” of the literary process was not a work subject to a given canon, but its creator, the central category of poetics was not style or genre, A author(highlighted in the original. - p. 3.) " (Averintsev S.S., Andreev M.L., Gaayurov M.L., Grintser P.A., Mikhailov A.V. Categories of Poetics in the Change of Literary Epochs // Historical Poetics: Literary Epochs and Types of Artistic Consciousness. M., 1994. S. 33).

So, for example, according to the research of V. N. Zakharov, the genre is "one of the key categories of Dostoevsky's artistic thinking", always striving to indicate "what he wrote - a novel, a story or a short story." Zakharov V. N. The system of genres of Dostoevsky (typology of the hypoetsh). L., 1985. P. 5.

he focuses on a certain genre model and, accordingly, on the type of composition and plot, plot construction” 53 .

As for the author's "will" in the Christmas story, the feature we singled out most clearly manifested itself at the apogee of this genre in Russian literature (the last third of the 19th century). The number of Yuletide stories increased to the limit at that time led to the inevitable introduction of new themes into the genre arsenal, genetically not "Christmas" 54 . In the current situation, the role of the desire (or unwillingness) of the author (as well as the editor, etc.) to include this or that work in the "Christmas" context, for example, to be published for the holiday in a special section, issue or collection, became actual. Looking ahead, we note that Leskov felt his “final” role in shaping the genre image of the work perfectly. So, he finalized the manuscript of "Temnyak", turning it into a Christmas story "At the End of the World", and "Christmas Evening at the Hypochondriac", on the contrary, took it beyond the genre. Judging by these examples, the relative mobility of the genre "identity" of a work depends on the author's "task", the author's "will".

Another example is the work of A.P. Chekhov. Many of his works are not Christmas stories in the usual sense; however, being published on December 25, they could be perceived as Christmas (for example, "Kashtanka"). According to the fair remark of a modern researcher, “if they are excluded from the context of Christmas literature, inevitable loss of meaning will arise, since the “dialogizing background” will disappear from the sphere of perception” 55 .

53 Luzhanovsky A.V. The plot of the story "The Enchanted Wanderer" // New about Leskov. Scientific
methodical collection. M.; Yoshkar-Ola, 1998. S. 82. In this work, “The Enchanted Country
nickname”, in accordance with Leskov’s genre designation, is called exclusively a story
zom, with which we fully agree (while in modern literary criticism This
the work is often regarded as a story).

54 See on this: Duiechkisha E.V. Russian Christmas story: Formation of the genre. pp. 208-209.

55 Kapustin N.V."Alien Word" in A.P. Chekhov's Prose: Genre Transformations. abstract
day. ... doc. philol. Sciences. Ivanovo, 2003, p. 13.

So, in the proposed work, we will proceed from the fact that the author's indication plays a fundamental role in determining the genre.

Thus, the noted four features of the Christmas story have different degrees of significance, however, their combination with each other is important 5b.

By revising Christmas story How genre of Russian literature we rely primarily on the monograph by E. V. Dushechkina “The Russian Yuletide Story: The Formation of the Genre” (St. Petersburg, 1995) and on the work of N. N. Starygina “The Yuletide Story as a Genre” 57 .

Let us dwell separately on the problem of distinguishing between the Christmas story and the Christmas story. In the present work, we will consider these concepts to be basically synonymous. Leskov, as a rule, mixed two genre definitions. The only evidence that the writer felt intra-genre typology, according to our data, is his collection “Russian Discord. Essays and stories (1880 and 1881)”, published in 1881, which included: “Christ is visiting a peasant. A Christmas Story” and “White Eagle. Christmas story. In subsequent years, the difference between the two concepts apparently lost relevance for the writer.

V. N. Zakharov, exploring another kind of "calendar" prose - Easter story, - highlights two necessary and sufficient genre features- the confinement of the work to the holidays of the Easter cycle and the “soul-saving” content. In the presence of only the first component, the content may not be Easter at all. If there is no confinement, then, according to the researcher's elegant observation, a significant part of Russian literature can be recognized as "Easter" - because of its high moral beginning (see: Zakharov V. N. Easter story as a genre of Russian literature // Gospel text in Russian literature of the 18th-20th centuries. Quote, reminiscence, motive, plot, genre. Sat. scientific works. Petrozavodsk, 1994, p. 256).

Starygina N. N. Christmas story as a genre // Problems of historical poetics. Issue. 2: Artistic and scientific categories. Sat. scientific works. Petrozavodsk, 1992, pp. 113-127.

/z

Work structure

In the work of Leskov, we a priori single out two stages - "pre-Svyatochny" and "Christmas". With a certain degree of conventionality, we will consider January 1873 as the boundary between these stages, when the Sealed Angel saw the light of day. Dedicated to the "pre-Svyatochny" period First head of this study, "Christmas" - Second And Third chapters.

IN First The chapter analyzes the "Christmas" theme in the episodes of Leskov's early novels and stories (1860s - early 1870s) dedicated to the winter holidays. Based on the analysis of these episodes, the question is raised about the internal prerequisites for the writer's appeal to the genre of the Christmas story.

In Second The chapter examines the principles of depicting a person in Leskov's Christmas story, reveals the typical features of the hero's appearance and the main plot scheme developed by the writer in these works.

Third In this chapter, the study goes beyond the scope of Lesk's own creativity. In this chapter, first of all, based on the letters of Leskov and his correspondents, we consider Leskov's Christmas story in the light of the writer's creative relationship with his contemporaries - F. M. Dostoevsky, A. S. Suvorin and L. N. Tolstoy. This context, in our opinion, can shed additional light on Leskov's attitude to the Christmas story and the possibilities of this genre.

IN Conclusion are summed up results research, substantiates its scientific novelty, theoretical And practical significance and outlines the ways in which further study of the genre originality of Lesk's creativity can potentially go.

Application is a list of Leskov's Christmas / Christmas stories in chronological order of their publication. Later publications of these stories are also recorded here.

Finishes work Bibliography, which is divided into three sections. The first section lists in alphabetical order works on Leskov's work, on which we relied in our study. The second section is an alphabetical bibliography of works on the Christmas story. The third section is "Miscellaneous".

Accepted abbreviations

In the course of work, we will constantly refer to the texts of Leskov, published in two Collected Works of the writer:

Leskov K S. Sobr. cit.: In 11 t. M.: GIHL, 1956.

Leskov N. S. Poly. coll. cit.: In 30 vol. M.: Terra, 1996 (publication in progress).

For convenience, all references to these editions will be given in parentheses in the text. For the 11-volume Collection, we will use the traditional reference - the designation of the volume number with a Roman numeral, the page number with an Arabic one. References to the Complete Collection will be given in the same way, but after the abbreviation: PSS. References to all other sources are given in the footnotes. Reference numbering is continuous throughout each of the three chapters.

"The life of a woman"

According to our observations, the first work by Leskov, in which the Christmas season episode takes place, is the 1863 story “The Life of a Woman” (except for the translated arabesque “It doesn’t hurt you”, which, after a short introduction, opens with the scene of carol 3.)

Tale from folk life, as shown by L. M. Lotman, "became ... the central phenomenon of artistic prose of the 60-70s" quite naturally and even to a certain extent traditionally. According to the data of E. V. Dushechkina, Russian writers already from the 1820s-1830s. (the period of the formation of Russian folklore and ethnography) willingly included festive (including Christmas) scenes in their works about the people, since on a holiday “folk psychology manifested itself in its most characteristic features” 7. Leskov was no exception. However, despite the typical inclusion of a festive scene in the composition of the story, Leskov's "Christmas" sketch is of undoubted interest, and its role in the context of "Life ..." and in the future genre searches of the writer, in our opinion, is very significant.

Let's turn to the text. The scene we are interested in opens with a clear statement of time: “So Christmas passed; broke the fast; Christmas time has begun" (PSS: II, 119). The “Christmas space” is given by a fairly typical landscape description, which serves as a kind of “sign” of the Christmastide tradition: “And it was light from the moon outside, dry snow crunched underfoot, and the frost was crackling, Epiphany” (PSS: II, 120-121 )8.

The section in question describes holiday party, whose main character, Nastya, will soon get married. The narrator in every possible way emphasizes the traditional nature of the holiday. To do this, he constantly compares “these Christmas time” with the traditional Christmas “scenario”: “Their lady ... loved to listen to girlish songs and sometimes she herself will pull them up. At Christmas time, in the evenings, the girls gathered and sang at her place.

It was the same during these holidays. The girls gathered on New Year's Eve and sang "Blacksmith", "Merzlyak", "Rich Peasants", "Pig from St. Petersburg". After each song, they took out a ring from a dish covered with a napkin, and explained to whom which song predicted what ”(PSS: II, 119-120). In the text of the story - with the substitution of the names of the heroes - the majestic wedding song "Perch" is introduced: / Grigory, sir, crossed, / Nastasya translated the light / By the right hand by the hand / To his side (highlighted by Leskov. - P. 3.) ”(PSS: I, 120). However, the traditional holiday sketch in the "Life ..." turns out to be not so much an illustration folk customs, how much a contrasting background for the action of the heroine, which sharply contradicts the everyday canons, opposes the wedding with all her might. She protests against the role prepared for her by the traditional way of life and runs away, bringing discord into the course of the holiday: “Nastya got up to thank the girls, properly, for the greatness, but instead of saying:“ Thank you, sister-friends, ”said : "Let go." .. . she is right at the door and into the yard ”(PSS: II, 120). This protest is all the more tangible because the “songwriter” Nastya is the flesh of the flesh of the traditional peasant culture. Let us pay special attention to the narrator's remark: "...instead of ..." - in it, the unusual course of the holiday described in the story is opposed to some festive pattern that is firmly rooted in the traditional mind.

A small Christmastide episode in the story acquires conceptual significance. Within its limits, the nature of the flow of time changes: the so-called “cyclical” time, set from year to year by a recurring calendar holiday, opens up, becomes “linear” 9. Against the background of a traditional holiday picture, a plot shift occurs. An unexpected event that shook the stability of being 10 - the heroine's timid protest against the power of tradition p - in this case is the "core" of the emerging plot 12. The point of view of the narrator - a native of the described peasant environment, who constantly compares two layers - serves here as an actualizer of this event .

In the research literature, the importance of the Christmas scene in the "Life ..." was rightly pointed out by A. A. Gorelov, according to whom, "escape" from Christmas gatherings will receive "rapid development in the whole chain of real" misconducts "", 3, will respond with a sad echo in the future fate of the heroine. Moreover, the researcher is inclined to see in the early story the origins of Leskov’s mature Christmas stories: “... the violation of the ritual on the holy evening is symbolic, this Leskov’s appeal to folk beliefs more than once compositionally manifest itself in his Christmas stories.

Thus, we have before us not an accidental, but a conceptual, key plot move: the heroine does not agree to repeat the traditional formula (village Christmas gatherings here are, as it were, a “clot” of tradition - it’s not for nothing that the narrator constantly compares Nastya’s behavior with a “sample”) - she makes a breakthrough. We also note that such a failure will take place in the "Christmas" chapters of Leskov's subsequent works. So, for example, Liza Bakhareva, the heroine of the novel "Nowhere", abruptly - up to a scandal - refuses to follow the Christmas tradition (more on this will be discussed in the next section). So, in The Life of a Woman, Leskov, in a certain sense, creates a kind of plot invariant, a model of a Christmastide plot, which is based on going beyond the established rules.

Man and the world in Leskov's Christmas story

In 1873, shortly after the chronicle "Soboryane", Leskov's work appeared for the first time on the pages of the journal "Russian Messenger", equipped with the genre label "Christmas Story" - "The Sealed Angel". With this milestone work, Leskov creates, so to speak, a genre precedent in his work 6: later, characterizing the next story as a Christmas story, and since 1880 as a Christmas story, the writer inevitably somehow projects it onto The Sealed Angel. In other words, in 1873 the "Christmas" context of Leskov's work began to take shape.

The main theme of the "Sealed Angel" can be defined in the most general form as a person's path to unity with the world. In terms of plot, the path is a long and difficult transition to the bosom of the Orthodox Church of the artel and the Old Believer moneymen, "guided" miraculous icon Angel, dramatically lost and happily found again. In symbolic terms, the path is read as the destruction and loss of the former artel unity and harmony and its “wonderful” restoration and renewal.

The "sealed angel" is very attractive to researchers. There are excellent works on Lesk's story. In the studies of A. A. Gorelov, S. A. Polozkova, the symbolic meaning of the “wonderful” help of the “Angel” was revealed. "angelic way" (IV, 322). B. S. Dykhanova traced the pattern of a happy denouement and noted the importance of the narrator's word x. A. A. Kretova for the first time analyzed the story "The Sealed Angel" in its genre originality, showing in what way Leskov follows the "Christmas" tradition, and in what ways 12 deviates from it.

In the proposed work, taking into account the results of all these studies, we will follow how the narrator, peering into the past, recalls and comprehends the turning point in his life, when he and his comrades managed to “come to life with all of Russia” (IV, 383). The whole artistic structure of his story - the plot, the composition, the details, the system of allegory, and the peculiarities of style - reflects the purposefulness of the path to the new truth.

The general outline of the narrator's appearance emerges already in the first "framework" chapter. On Christmastide night, a great multitude of people gathered at the inn in the steppe, waiting for the "severe earthly blizzard" (IV, 320). A “small red-haired man” enters into a conversation that has suddenly begun (IV, 321). From the very first words of this "little man" one can guess some - very nice - properties of his nature, namely, good nature, an amazing disposition towards people and an insistent desire to reconcile everyone. The "red-chok" gets involved in a dispute at the moment when the owner, "having scolded well" (IV, 321) the next visitors, does not let them into the hut, referring to the tightness and the opportunity for them to spend the night under the "skin". While one of the guests “in a tone of very energetic protest” (IV, 321) accuses the host of cruelty, the “red-haired little man” assures the audience, and first of all the host’s opponent, that the latter is absolutely right, which brings a note to the motley society peace and harmony. Having won over the listeners with the statement: “It is not the Ethiopian who guides every saved person, but the angel guides” (IV, 322), the “little man” brings to their attention the story of the “angelic path” (IV, 322).

The narrator, as we learn at the very beginning of the story (Chapter 2), comes from an artel of masons born "in the old Russian faith" (IV, 323). The connection between the “redhead” and the artel, judging by his words, is very close: I of the narrator immediately turns into We. From his first words, two essential "qualities" of the artel are indicated. On the one hand, these people lead a nomadic lifestyle (cf.: “We walked our way at work ... just like the Jews in their wanderings in the wilderness with Moses ...” (IV, 323)), move freely in space; for them, movement is a natural form of life. Secondly, they are closely related to each other. The internal unity of the artel of masons is reflected not only in the action of the plot, but even penetrates into the style of the story. Here, for example, is the “touching” description by the narrator of the artel shrine - the icon of the Angel: “The hairs on the head are curly and russes, a hair was twisted from the ears and drawn to the hair with a needle. The wings are spacious and white as snow, and the underside is light blue, feather to feather, and in each beard of the feather, a mustache to a mustache (our italics. - S.Z.) ”(IV, 324). The threefold repetition of a stylistic figure in a small text space, apparently, carries the same idea of ​​the solidarity of people 13, the unity of their actions and thoughts.

The narrator emphasizes: “we had agreement among ourselves” (IV, 324). The word "consent", in our opinion, is an extremely capacious characteristic of the community of heroes. In the 19th century, this word had, in addition to the circle of meanings familiar in our time 14, another actual meaning: “consent” is a sect, a form of association of opponents of the dominant church. This meaning was well known to Leskov 15. It seems that this meaning is partly present in the characteristics of the artel: from the inside, a harmonious community of people is sectarianally isolated from the outside world (We and They are here - a clear opposition).

An important stage in the life of the artel (chapter 3) is associated with its arrival on the left bank of the Dnieper to build a stone bridge (a step towards the beginning of the plot). The researchers rightly noted that the bridge in the story is symbolic: fate leads the characters to overcome isolation, to go outside, "in Big world» . "In the narrative plot, - according to the observation of A. A. Gorelov, - the steadfastness of the spiritual movement of the Old Believers triumphs to where they are building the bridge - to the "right bank", to the "big city" ".

Cross-cutting images in Leskov's Christmas stories ("The Beast" and "Latent Warmth")

In the previous sections, in the most general form, we defined the plot of Leskov's Christmas story as "the transformation of a person." In the early stories ("The Sealed Angel", "At the End of the World"), the writer focuses on the hero's path from error to truth. Gradually, the "duration" of the path is reduced, a bright event comes to the fore, turning the soul of the hero ("Christ is visiting a peasant", "The Beast"). In parallel, stories are created in which the hero finds himself in an unusual, out of the ordinary situation that shakes his dubious “principles” (or, in the words of the writer himself, refutes harmful prejudices). IN mature years Leskov also writes such stories in which the hero, under the influence of chance, discovers in his soul a good beginning that is under a bushel, discovers in himself the features of a righteous man. In general, it can be said that the hero of Leskov's Christmas story undergoes two main types of changes - he is either reborn, that is, he becomes different, or he awakens, that is, a positive principle that previously found no way out is actualized in his soul.

In this section, we will be interested in the cross-cutting images-symbols presented in the work of Leskov - their formation, embodiment in various texts and, finally, penetration into the "Christmas" context. It is the "beast" and "latent warmth". Ultimately, we will try to understand what role these images play in the "Christmas" plot of human change.

In 1883, Leskov created one of his most famous stories - "The Beast". By tradition, the writer publishes it in a festive issue - in the “Christmas Supplement” to A. Gatsuk’s Newspaper, subtitles “A Christmas Story”, and then includes it in the Christmas collection of 1886. Researchers are almost unanimous that “The Beast” is a classic an example of the genre (although sometimes the writer is reproached for being too sentimental 59). The genre affiliation at no stage in the life of The Beast was in doubt - neither among Leskov himself, nor among critics, nor among researchers, nor among readers.

Meanwhile, "The Beast" is the result of Leskov's long creative search. The title of the story is conceptual: the beast in the context of the writer's work is a rich image-symbol.

Leskov uses the whole range of meanings of the word "beast". The main nominative meaning is realized in the text of the story: the beast is a wild, usually predatory animal, that is, first of all, the bear Sganarelle. It is no coincidence that, speaking of the “brutal” nature of the bear, Leskov describes a large number of victims of his “pranks”. However, with the mention of the ark and Noah, the main meaning is enriched with new shades that are important for the Christmas story: the beast is God's creature. The animals in the story rejoice and suffer no less, and sometimes even more than people. In the scenes of persecution, calling the bear a beast, Leskov, as it were, obscures the "species" belonging of Sganarelle - we have a suffering living creature in front of us.

Along with the main one, the text, of course, actualizes the figurative meaning of the word “beast” (a stable metaphor: a beast is a cruel person), and this meaning is very important in the context of the story. First of all, the “uncle” who does not know pity appears as a beast, which is characterized in the exposition chapter as follows: “He was very rich, old and cruel. Malice and inexorability prevailed in his character, and he did not regret it in the least, but on the contrary, he even flaunted these qualities, which, in his opinion, served as if an expression of courageous strength and inflexible firmness of spirit ”(VII, 260). However, according to the logic of the Christmas story, the hero endowed with the features of the beast, under the influence of an extraordinary case, is cured of cruelty. Jokingly calling his serf Ferapont “the tamer of the beast”, the uncle gives a “characteristic” of the metamorphosis that happened to himself and expresses gratitude to the devoted servant for the lesson of goodness taught (this is the “moral” of the Christmas story).

In the European literature of modern times, as well as in art in general (for example, in caricature), the comparison of man with the beast implies indulgence in base passions, moral degradation. In the 19th century this technique is widely used by realist writers (Balzac, Zola), who create broad pictures of the life of society in various fields and analyze social processes 60. Leskov's metaphor "the beast" is traditionally oriented and at the same time has its own specifics.

Let us follow in the most general terms the history of the origin of the image of the “beast” by Leskov and the features of its implementation in different texts.

As researchers have noted more than once, already in his first works - "The Musk Ox", "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District" - Leskov often resorts to various zoological metaphors 62. The 1864 novel "Nowhere" is literally permeated with animalistic comparisons, and the range of their application is unusually wide. On the one hand, resorting to such a popular stylistic device, Leskov implements the attitude to discredit the “new people”, common to works of an “anti-nihilistic” orientation (as N. N. Starygina showed, the “devilish” principle is embodied in the “animal” characteristics, allegedly inherent in nihilists in the representation of the opposition forces 63). At the same time, the images of "pure" nihilists are created differently. So, for example, with great warmth and subtle humor, the author says about Justin Pomada: “Lipstick, having already overcome the steepest steepness of the mountain, was rushing like an Oryol trotter along the more gentle slope of the upper part of the descent. ... Seeing two whitening figures ahead on the road, he doubled his trot and in an instant stood against the girls ... ”(PSS: IV, 47). Further, after several chapters, we see an almost verbatim repetition of this comparison, which reveals the “mechanism” of the reception: “Lipstick runs downhill, along the same descent, on which he once rushed as an Oryol trotter towards Jenny and Lisa” (PSS: IV , 120).

Christmas story by N. S. Leskov and F. M. Dostoevsky: “Christ visiting a peasant” and “A boy at Christ on a Christmas tree”

In the first chapter of the work, we made an attempt to isolate the "prehistory" of Leskov's Christmas story (that is, conditionally, before the appearance in 1873 of the first work in this genre - "The Sealed Angel"). The material was the scenes dedicated to Christmas time, which were in abundance in the early novels and short stories of the writer. In the course of the analysis of these fragments, we raised the question of the prerequisites for the emergence of the Christmas story genre in Leskov's "pre-Christmas" work. At the center of each of the considered episodes is a certain event that violates the traditional way of life. This event is interpreted by the narrator in his own way. The subjective perception of an out of the ordinary event, as we suggested, prepares the ground for the formation of the category of the miraculous in Leskov's creative mind. We also noted the first cases of “theoretical” reasoning of heroes about the nature of a miracle.

In the second chapter, turning already directly to Leskov's Christmas stories, we raised the question of depicting a person in them. At the center of these works, Leskov, as a rule, placed a “changing person,” who, in contrast to an internally integral righteous man, undergoes a certain mental metamorphosis in the course of action.

The first and second chapters were limited to the framework of Leskovsky's work. Meanwhile, Leskov created his works at a time when the popularity of the Christmas story in Russian literature reached its zenith. Leading writers, writers of the second rank, and numerous authors of mass "Christmas production" worked in line with the genre tradition. Therefore, the question naturally arises about mutual influence contemporary writers.

There have been attempts in the research literature comparative analysis Christmas stories created by different writers. So, for example, A. V. Kubasov compares two works of 1883 - “The Dream of Makar” by V. G. Korolenko and “ false mirror" A. P. Chekhov - and as a result of the analysis comes to the following conclusion: "The ability of the story to turn into either a parable or a parodic stylization testifies to the relative conventionality of the genre definition of "Christmas story"". (For all the subtlety of the analysis and the validity of the conclusion about the stratification of signs of different genres in the text, the vulnerability of such a comparison is also obvious: the researcher clearly underestimated the genre context, as well as the place of the “Christmas” genre within the framework of the work of the writers he considered.) Parallel reading of two Christmastide stories ( “At the End of the World” by Leskov and “The Dream of Makar”) is also proposed by A. A. Kretov, revealing Leskovian motifs in Korolenko’s work 3.

On the other hand, Leskov's works have already been studied against a general genre background. E. M. Pulkhritudova 4 considered Leskov’s Christmas stories in a number of genres of mass fiction (such as, for example, the “anti-nihilistic” novel).

In this chapter, we will turn to individual Leskov Christmas stories and consider them through the prism of the writer's literary contacts with his contemporaries, who also paid tribute to this genre, had a certain impact on Leskov and, to a certain extent, felt the influence of his works.

Three sections of the chapter will be devoted respectively to F. M. Dostoevsky, A. S. Suvorin and L. N. Tolstoy. This series, no doubt, can be continued. The main criterion that guided us in choosing personalities is the documented facts of personal contacts between writers, which make it possible to speak of Leskov's more or less conscious "genre" reflection. At the same time, for the heroes of this chapter, the Christmas story was of different value. One of the leading genres in Leskov's work, for Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, for example, it was, to a certain extent, a passing one, although the problems that were posed in Leskov's Christmas stories were close to these writers.

In the first section, we will consider the position of Leskov and F. M. Dostoevsky regarding the "Christmas" genre as one of the aspects of the writers' long-term relationship. Working on the Christmas stories at about the same time, Leskov and Dostoevsky, however, presented largely opposite artistic concepts. A parallel analysis of the stories “Christ Visiting the Man” by Leskov and “The Boy at Christ on the Christmas Tree” by Dostoevsky gives us the opportunity to see which elements of the Christmas story were the most significant for the writers.

The second section will be dedicated to the writer, editor and publisher AS Suvorin. For many years, heading the editorial office of the daily newspaper Novoye Vremya, he passed through his hands a huge number of Christmas stories. Leskov published in Novoye Vremya the third Christmas story "Christmas Evening at the Hypochondriac's" (subsequently revised into "Chertogon"), and Suvorin, to a certain extent, intervened in the creative history of this text. Following this story, the White Eagle (1880), Christmas Night in a Carriage (Traveling with a Nihilist) (1882), and About the Artistic Husband Nikita and His Co-Brought-ups (1886) were published on the pages of the Christmas issues of the Suvorin newspaper. . Leskov and Suvorin, who had been in close correspondence for decades, often discussed with each other the problems and prospects of this genre.

Communication with L. N. Tolstoy, the hero of the third section of the chapter, also represents a bright page in the life and work of Leskov. The closeness of the moral and ethical quests of Tolstoy and Leskov was reflected in a certain way in the "program" of the latter's Christmas stories. The ultimate goal of all the comparisons made in the chapter will be an attempt to find out what is the originality of Lesk's approach to a widespread genre.

N. G. Mikhailova

Genre diversity of Russian prose of the second half of the 19th century. largely due to the influence on literature of various oral narrative genres folk prose. Fairy tale in its varieties, religious legend, legend, bylichka, all kinds of anecdotes, everyday stories close to anecdote, just memoir stories - all these varieties of oral storytelling to varying degrees penetrate into literary prose this time. Thanks to the compositional and stylistic freedom of narration in literature, the possibilities of the most diverse combination of the author's own and oral-folk narrative plans in a work arise.

Very common and perhaps the most simple form genre interaction with folk art is the inclusion in a literary work of fairy tales, legends, byvshchiny, sustained in the spirit of folk, and often representing the processing by the author of oral texts directly heard or received from other sources. In this case, the work is a free memoir, essay-descriptive narrative or a tale. A characteristic and far from the only example of a work of this kind is P. I. Melnikov-Pechersky’s dilogy “In the Forests” and “On the Mountains”.

Sometimes a literary work stands on the verge of fiction and folklore recording: the oral-folk text, given by the author-collector quite completely and accurately, is given in a fictional frame. These are some essays by P. I. Yakushkin, notes by I. I. Zheleznov.

Another form of interaction with folk prose is presented by works that are generally built in the traditions of one or another oral genre, for example, literary folk story who received special development in the work of L. N. Tolstoy; it is found in the 80s and among other writers. This literary genre combining artistic image with moral and didactic reasoning, usually uses a legend, sometimes a fairy tale or just an instructive story about an everyday situation.

More general, mediated connections with folklore, in particular with folk tales, can be traced in the literary tale genre of the second half of the 19th century. (Saltykov-Shchedrin, Garshin, Leskov).

An anecdote is a short dynamic narrative about some insignificant, but unusual, and sometimes unlikely event with an unexpected outcome, not prepared by the initial situation. Such incompatibility of plot-narrative material, sometimes bordering on paradoxicality, is the source of comedy in this oral-prose genre. An anecdote is often associated with playing out some minor, although usually acute social moments, and is transmitted as a story about a real event. It is no coincidence that the appeal to the anecdote of Leskov, a writer with heightened attention to the so-called little things in life.

The anecdote is "a kind of atom in the nature of Lesk's creativity." The anecdotally acute situation, which sometimes receives the most unexpected resolution, is the basis for such stories as “A Little Mistake”, “The Darner”, “Robbery”, “Selective Grain”, “The Tale of the Comma” in “Improvisers”, the stories of Caesar Berlinsky in “Pechersky Antiques”, some short stories from “Notes of an Unknown”, individual episodes from “Trifles of Bishop's Life”. In many ways close to the anecdote "Lefty".

An unexpected coincidence of different circumstances determines the seeming unusualness of the everyday situation in "A Little Mistake". A Moscow merchant's wife asks the "miracle worker" Ivan Yakovlevich to beg for the "fruit of the womb" of her eldest, married daughter. However, in her "pleading note" the name is accidentally written youngest daughter, "Girls Katechki". Thanks to a whimsical coincidence of circumstances, everything really comes true through the “erroneous prayer” of the crazy “miracle worker”.

In the story "Robbery" there is a sharp discrepancy between the initial situation and its sudden resolution, as well as the goals set by the characters, and the resulting result. The question of robbery, “flying up”, how to more reliably preserve one’s fortune is the most important in the old testamentary pious merchant family. The conversations between the hero, his “mother”, “aunt, venerable widow Katerina Leontievna” and “uncle Ivan Leontievich”, a Yelets merchant, constantly revolve around this topic. However, it is precisely due to the fact that the uncle and nephew are doing their best to protect themselves and their property from the famous Oryol “approaches”, they, completely unexpectedly for themselves, suddenly become robbers themselves, thereby confirming the comically paradoxical statement of the narrator: “when the thieves’ hour comes, then and honest people rob."

An interesting example of Leskov's processing of an anecdotal plot is the Tale of the Comma in The Improvisers, which is given in the text of the story in two versions. In the story of the “portioned peasant” about the general, his valet, the doctor and cholera, the story of how the “general beat the doctors” is set out “in the most powerful concreteness”: “The general lived near the market ... had a faithful valet servant. He left for a kiater, and the faithful valet took tea to drink when he came to him ... When suddenly he had a pain in his stomach ... They took him and began to experiment on him with an instrument, all feelings were extinguished, but the pulse still beat in the ankle. The general delighted him - and in the bath. Then he called the doctors to visit, and ordered the valet to come in and serve tea ... They fell ... And the general shot two, and stuffed the third in the face and said: “Go, complain"

This is the general plot basis that the writer usually borrows from the stories he heard somewhere. In addition, in Leskov's story, the same plot is given in the story "nanny from a familiar family." This is Lesk's own version of the story. This is how the writer usually processes borrowed from oral sources.

In the nanny’s story, the image of the old general is depicted in vivid detail: “He does not like to go to the dacha, but stays in St. Petersburg, because he is of a cheerful nature and loves to visit acquaintances, and in the evening he watches the sunset and listens to how the French women sing.” A story full of comic details follows about how the general, having arrived from Arcadia or Livadia, found out that his faithful valet had been "taken away to die" and, "moved to tears", went to rescue him. As usual with Leskov, the narrative almost entirely consists of lively, dynamic dialogues: a general with a policeman, a cab driver, a “senior doctor”, a “reader” in “dead peace”.

In most cases, it is very difficult to establish whether the anecdotes underlying Leskov's stories are really oral creativity, or whether they arose in the writer's imagination by analogy or association with something heard or seen. Leskov sometimes merges so much with the elements of the people's worldview and the corresponding forms of lively oral storytelling that the folklorism of his works, which at first glance seems to be a direct borrowing, turns out to be very indirect in reality. A typical example in this regard is the "Tale of the Tula oblique left-hander and the steel flea." As is well known, Leskov's statement in the preface to the first editions that the "legend" was written down by him from an "old gunsmith", which is a simple narrative device of a fairy tale, was taken literally by many critics. The folklore nature of the “tale” did not cause any doubts and was sometimes affirmed even after the writer himself made a “refutation”, stating that he “composed” “this whole story”. “All that is purely folk in “The Tale of the Tula Left-Handed Man and the Steel Flea” lies in the following joke or joke: “The British made a flea out of steel, and our Tula people shoed it and sent it back to them ... the left-hander is a face I invented ".

However, as B. Buchshtab convincingly and witty proved, the existence of such a joke or joke, which could only be a contracted anecdote, is unlikely, both because it is not entirely proverbial in nature (understatement), and mainly because it is essentially repeats the plot of Leskovsky's work and acquires meaning only in its context. “Purely folk” is only the proverb “Tulyaks shod a flea”, used in the second part of the “jest”. However, it sounds like a mockery of the Tula people and does not at all contain the meaning of Leskov's "jest" and the whole "tale" (the superiority of Russian masters over English ones). As for just such a meaning, it is in the anecdote mentioned by the writer in connection with "Levshaya", plot similar to Lesk's story about the "German monkey", which "the German invented, but she could not sit down (everything jumped), but the Moscow furrier took yes sewed her tail on. The folk origin of this anecdote, as Buchstab rightly notes, "is quite plausible."

In addition, a well-known role in the creation of the tale was played by an anecdote about a nobleman buying a pistol, and a Tula craftsman and some other folklore impressions of the writer, as well as literary sources, to which Bukhshtab, for example, tends to attach special importance. Such complicated ways the anecdotal basis of "Lefty" arose, the oral-folk character of which always seemed so indisputable.

It is natural to assume that, in general, the plot basis of Leskov's short stories is usually a fusion of oral folk and literary sources, as well as observations, fiction, associations of the writer, direct borrowing from folk art, appeal to oral sources, perhaps more often declared by the writer than actually takes place. However, from the point of view of our problem, this does not change much: the close connection with the genre-narrative forms of folk prose often remains undoubted even when the writer resorts to fiction. Brilliant knowledge of oral material (“records made by me (Leskov. - Ya. M.) during my wanderings around different places my fatherland") allowed him to create very skillful "fakes".

Along with anecdotal stories about all sorts of funny incidents, among the people, especially in the past, stories about various strange and terrible events often spread, which also usually did not go beyond the local narrative tradition. Such stories about extraordinary events are primarily distinguished by the effectiveness of the material taken from life. This quality is also inherent in jokes. However, if the unexpectedness and unusualness of the situation in the joke is realized in a comic way, then such stories cause serious attitude and the narrator and listeners, and the event in question is perceived as strange, surprising or even terrible. The life material underlying the story may be different and in itself does not yet determine the nature of the story. For example, the anecdotal story about the general’s valet who died of cholera and then resurrected, cited by Leskov in two versions in The Improvisers, in terms of its plot and thematic nature, could also be sustained in the tradition of stories about terrible cases: about events related to cholera , more often told as scary. The version of the "portioned peasant" almost does not contain the comic that is characteristic of the anecdote. However, an unexpectedly happy ending allows us to give a general comic development of the plot, to fill it with funny details and episodes. Thus, similar life material can be perceived and processed both in the traditions of the comic and the "serious" genres.

At the same time, the events referred to in this type of prose are not distinguished by any historical significance, special antiquity, as is usually the case in legends. For all their unusualness, they retain their worldly, everyday character. The defining feature of the processing of vital material in such stories is exaggeration. The element of the terrible is especially emphasized by the narrator, so that the narration, while retaining some connection with real local events, in general, despite the installation of authenticity, becomes unlikely or even completely unbelievable, and sometimes includes traditional folklore fantastic images.

These terrible stories include stories about all sorts of, usually very mysterious, murders and robberies that were common in the past, often taking place in inns, in various remote places. Similar stories were indirectly reflected in Leskov's story about the "empty janitor" Selivan ("Scarecrow").

This type of storytelling is especially widespread during national disasters and catastrophes. For example, such events of the 90s. of the last century, like a famine or an epidemic of cholera, found a peculiar reflection in the minds of the people and attracted the attention of Leskov and his contemporaries.

L-ra: Philological sciences. - 1975. - No. 6. - S. 14-24.

Keywords: Nikolai Leskov, criticism of Leskov's work, Leskov's work, download criticism, free download, genres N. Leskov, Russian literature of the 19th century, download essay, novels and stories by Leskov

The most striking and original in the literary work of Nikolai Semenovich Leskov is the Russian language. His contemporaries wrote and tried to write in an even and smooth language, avoiding too bright or dubious turns. Leskov greedily grabbed every unexpected or picturesque idiomatic expression. All forms of professional or class language, all sorts of slang words - all this can be found on its pages. But he was especially fond of the comic effects of colloquial Church Slavonic and the puns of "folk etymology." He allowed himself great liberties in this regard and invented many successful and unexpected deformations. common sense or familiar sound. Other distinguishing feature Leskov: he, like no other of his contemporaries, possessed the gift of storytelling. As a storyteller, he, perhaps, occupies the first place in modern literature. His stories are mere anecdotes, told with colossal gusto and skill; even in his big things, he likes to characterize his characters by telling a few anecdotes about them. This was contrary to the traditions of "serious" Russian literature, and critics began to consider him just a Gaer. Leskov's most original stories are so filled with all sorts of incidents and adventures that the critics, for whom the main thing was ideas and trends, seemed ridiculous and absurd. It was too obvious that Leskov simply enjoys all these episodes, as well as the sounds and grotesque faces of familiar words. No matter how hard he tried to be a moralist and preacher, he could not neglect the opportunity to tell an anecdote or pun.

Nikolay Leskov. Life and legacy. Lecture by Lev Anninsky

Tolstoy loved Leskov's stories and enjoyed his verbal balancing act, but blamed him for the oversaturation of his style. According to Tolstoy, Leskov's main shortcoming was that he did not know how to keep his talent within limits and "overloaded his cart with good things." This taste for verbal picturesqueness, for the rapid presentation of an intricate plot, is strikingly different from the methods of almost all other Russian novelists, especially Turgenev, Goncharov or Chekhov. In Leskovsky's vision of the world there is no haze, no atmosphere, no softness; he chooses the most flashy colors, the roughest contrasts, the sharpest contours. His images appear in merciless daylight. If the world of Turgenev or Chekhov can be likened to the landscapes of Corot, then Leskov is Brueghel the Elder, with his colorful, bright colors and grotesque forms. Leskov does not have dull colors, in Russian life he finds bright, picturesque characters and paints them with powerful strokes. The greatest virtue, outrageous originality, great vices, strong passions and grotesque comic features are his favorite subjects. He is both a servant of the cult of heroes and a comedian. Perhaps one could even say that the more heroic his characters are, the more humorously he portrays them. This humorous cult of heroes is Lesk's most original feature.

Leskov's political novels of the 1860s and 70s, which brought him hostility at the time radicals are now almost forgotten. But the stories he wrote at the same time did not lose their glory. They are not as rich in verbal joys as the stories of the mature period, but in them already in high degree showcased his storytelling skills. Unlike later works, they give pictures of hopeless evil, invincible passions. An example of this Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District(1866). This is a very powerful exploration of a woman's criminal passion and her lover's brash, cynical callousness. A cold, merciless light is shed on everything that happens and everything is told with strong "naturalistic" objectivity. Another great story of that time - Warrior , a colorful story of a St. Petersburg procuress who treats her profession with delightfully naive cynicism and is deeply, completely sincerely offended by the “black ingratitude” of one of her victims, whom she was the first to push onto the path of shame.

Portrait of Nikolai Semenovich Leskov. Artist V. Serov, 1894

These early stories were followed by a series chronicle fictional city of Stargorod. They make up a trilogy: Old years in the village of Plodomasovo (1869), Cathedral(1872) and seedy kind(1875). The second of these chronicles is the most popular of Leskov's works. It is about the Stargorod clergy. Its head, Archpriest Tuberozov, is one of Leskov’s most successful images of the “righteous man”. The deacon of Achilles is a superbly written character, one of the most marvelous in the entire portrait gallery of Russian literature. The comical escapades and unconscious mischief of a huge, full of strength, completely soulless and simple-hearted like a deacon's child, and the constant reprimands that he receives from Archpriest Tuberozov, are known to every Russian reader, and Achilles himself has become a common favorite. But in general Cathedral the thing is uncharacteristic for the author - too even, unhurried, peaceful, poor in events, non-Leskovian.