I. Organizational moment.

II. Checking homework.

1. Reading and peer review compositions (stories): “when I saw Pugachev in the novel by A. S. Pushkin.”

2.Card work.

Card 1.

What event of the Russian history goes speech in this passage? What is the name of this work and who is its author? From whose perspective is the story being told?

“I will not describe our campaign and the end of the war. I will briefly say that the disaster reached its extreme. We passed through the villages devastated by the rebels, and involuntarily took away from the poor inhabitants what they managed to save. Rule was terminated everywhere: the landowners took refuge in the forests. gangs of robbers were outrageous everywhere; the heads of individual detachments autocratically punished and pardoned; the state of the entire vast region, where the fire raged, was terrible ... God forbid to see a Russian rebellion, senseless and merciless!

(We are talking about a peasant revolt of 1772–1774 led by Emelyan Pugachev, who proclaimed himself tsar Peter III. The excerpt is taken from the novel by A. S. Pushkin " Captain's daughter". He talks about the events of his life main character- Pyotr Andreevich Grinev.)

Card 2.

Read Grinev's dream. When did he see the hero? What is interesting about this dream? Why did A. S. Pushkin include a dream in the narrative?

(This dream was dreamed by Petrusha Grinev during a steppe snowstorm, when an unexpected counselor undertook to show the way to housing. It predicts future terrible events of a people's revolt, because the man from the dream is a counselor, and in the future Emelyan Pugachev is the leader of the Cossack army, the self-proclaimed tsar. That is why he is important: he not only outperforms historical events, but also predicts the future nature of the relationship between the young officer and the people's leader.)

Card 3.

In connection with what and who tells the Kalmyk fairy tale? How do you understand its allegorical meaning? How does the attitude to the idea of ​​a fairy tale characterize the narrator and his listener?

(The tale of the eagle and the raven is told by Pugachev on the way to the Belogorsk fortress during a conversation about his affairs and a bleak future. The tale has an allegorical meaning: it is about two possible choices of a life path - a quiet, measured, not rich in external events and another: bright, saturated, The heroes of the fairy tale also play a symbolic role: the eagle is a free bird, loving heights, space, a regal bird; the raven is a wise bird, but prosaic, earthly, ugly.

Thanks to this story, Pugachev and Grinev express their attitude to life. For Pugachev, a short but bright path, reminiscent of the life of an eagle, is better. Grinev is disgusted by robbery and villainy, it is not for nothing that he calls rebellion senseless and merciless; it was created for peace family life among dear people.

Card 4.

Why does Grinev, calling Pugachev an impostor, a robber, a villain, still sympathize with his acquaintance, does not want his death, comes to say goodbye on the day of execution?

(Grinev cannot call Pugachev otherwise, since the rebel and the officer of the imperial army are enemies, in addition, Grinev remembers the massacre of the commandant Belogorsk fortress, the death of Vasilisa Egorovna and other tragic events. But the human relations of the two heroes stand outside their official relations; Pugachev not only saves the life of his friend, but also arranges his happiness, while showing nobility and tolerance, respecting Grinev for his loyalty to his word and kindness. with the impatience of the young hero - not only gratitude for the good deeds, but sincere human feeling, although at first (as in a dream) Grinev is slightly jarred that his benefactor is a “man”.)

Card 5.

Read the description. What artistic means does the author use? What role does this passage play in the work?

“The coachman jumped; but kept looking to the east. The horses ran together. The wind meanwhile grew stronger by the hour. The cloud turned into a white cloud, which rose heavily, grew and gradually enveloped the sky. A fine snow began to fall and suddenly fell in flakes. The wind howled; there was a blizzard. In an instant dark sky mingled with the snowy sea. Everything is gone. “Well, sir,” shouted the driver, “trouble: a snowstorm!” ...

I looked out of the wagon: everything was dark and whirlwind. The wind howled with such fierce expressiveness that it seemed animated; the snow covered me and Savelich; the horses walked at a pace - and soon they stopped. "Why aren't you eating?" I asked the driver impatiently. “Yes, why go? - he answered, getting down from the irradiation, - who knows where we stopped: there is no road, and darkness is all around.

(The main thing in this description is action, dynamics. The state of nature changes instantly: wind, snow, blizzard, snowstorm, haze. Pushkin uses very modest epithets; only two contrasting colors: dark sky - snowy sea (previously - a white cloud). There are only two metaphors: the wind howled (the beast howls), the snowy sea (an infinity of a moving mass of snow, similar to the sea element). Pushkin is a master of landscape. But his landscape is not static, frozen, but changing, moving, as in life. The description of the snowstorm in the novel has several meanings:

A) compositional- thanks to the snowstorm, the heroes (Pugachev and Grinev) not only meet, but also become imbued with sympathy for each other;

b) allegorical- snowstorm, rampant elements - symbolizes future events, rampant rebellion, representing, like a snowstorm, a threat to the life of the hero;

V) realistic- snowstorms are still found in the steppes now, so the description of the snowstorm gives the story the authenticity of what is actually happening.)

Card 6.

What is an epigraph? What are epigraphs for? Which epigraph does Pushkin choose for his novel The Captain's Daughter?

(An epigraph is a short text (quotation, saying, saying, etc.) prefaced by a work of art, placed before the text. The epigraph often expresses the main idea of ​​the author, the idea or mood of the work, contains the author's assessment of the events described. Pushkin's "Captain's Daughter" is preceded epigraph “Take care of honor from a young age.” This proverb not only defines the young man’s code of conduct, but also characterizes the hero, explains him moral choice in difficult times of trial.)

3.Questions session.

- We have already noted how confidently Pushkin prefaced his novel with the epigraph "Take care of honor from a young age." Remember the epigraphs prefixed to other chapters. What are they? Why?

(The epigraphs to other chapters of The Captain's Daughter are the lines folk songs, proverbs and excerpts from the works of writers of the 18th century (Kniazhnin and Kheraskov). This choice of epigraphs is not accidental. It helps to convey the color of the era (XVIII century), creates a special lyrical mood, gives lyricism to the narrative, creating the illusion of the author's assessment of the hero's story. There is another meaning in such a selection of epigraphs: the centuries-old experience of the people, their ideas about the ideal are concentrated in the works of oral folk art, therefore the epigraphs contain a popular assessment of the heroes and events.)

- Why do you think the story about the Pugachev rebellion is called "The Captain's Daughter"? Who is the main character?

(Indeed, the main characters in the novel are Pyotr Grinev and Emelyan Pugachev. Against the backdrop of the terrible events of the Pugachev rebellion, the story of the relationship between Masha - Grinev - Shvabrin develops. Modest and shy Masha at the decisive moment shows extraordinary strength of character and courage. She does not want to get married without parental blessing , ready to die, but not to become the wife of the unloved, finally, defending the honor and freedom of her fiancé, she decides to travel to the capital to the queen herself.Purity, selflessness give her image a heroic halo.

Perhaps, by naming his work "The Captain's Daughter", Pushkin wanted to emphasize that he was primarily interested in human relations. Even a historical person is presented from an unexpected and all the more remarkable side: the organizer of the fate of the enemy, who is humanly closer than the associates.)

III. Message about the topic and purpose of the lesson.

- What are they, the people of the "age of the past"? Is the epigraph of Chapter III of The Captain's Daughter true: "old people"? What does it mean?

We will try to answer these and many other questions in today's lesson.

IV. Exploring a new topic.

1. The word of the teacher.

So, "old people"! what does it mean? And why did Pushkin take this phrase from Fonvizin's "Undergrowth"? Is Prostakov and Skotinin remembered by the author of The Captain's Daughter? or maybe Starodum and Pravdin? Of course, expressive, "talking" surnames, quite definitely "representing" actors comedy Fonvizin. "Pravdin" does not need comments: the meaning of the surname is exhaustively clear. But "Starodum" ... As if it were not from the age of the Prostakovs, - from a long, "old" time, however, not very long ago. Just something from the Petrine, from the Lomonosov era! All the same XVIII century! So is Pushkin's epigraph successful? What did he reveal to you?

2. What is your feeling of "Belogorsk", "ancient" life? Reading these pages (p. 123).

“No one met me. I went into the hallway and opened the front door. An old invalid, sitting on a table, was sewing a blue patch on the elbow of his green uniform. I told him to report me. “Come in, father,” answered the invalid, “our houses.”

Isn't it hard not to smile? But this smile is sympathetic, full of emotion. No respect for either the uniform, which may well be decorated with a patch of a different color (and so it will do!), Or for army subordination: what a “report” there is! "Our houses!" - and that's it! But is there a contrast? Of course, Ivan Ignatich with his “interrogation” to Grinev, designed in the style of an old campaigner ( With. 124:“I dare to ask”, “why did you deign to move from the guard to the garrison”, “indecent actions of the guard officer”). But Vasilisa Egorovna immediately interrupts him: “It’s full of lies to trifles ...” (p. 124, 1st paragraph). But where are the words that capture the "old times", her good-heartedness? “Vasilisa Egorovna received us easily and cordially and treated me as if she had known each other for a century” (p. 126, 3rd paragraph).

That's the way around! But who is "us"? Clearly, not only Grinev, but also Savelich. Whose voice, whose intonation do you hear? Undoubtedly, not only Grinev, but also the Author. After all, it was he who prompted Grinev to sit down for memories. And to be completely accurate, he wrote them for him! His tongue! But also yours! Did you feel the style Pushkin's prose? Have you noticed Pushkin's attitude to parts of speech?

Needless to say, he prefers nouns and verbs and is very reserved in his use of adjectives.

Pushkin the prose writer is clear and precise in word and phrase, simple in syntax, preferring a simple sentence, without much complication. In which of the prose writers can we notice the same property of "Pushkin's" prose?

Yes, Chekhov! But this will happen much later. And not without the influence of Pushkin's prose.

But let's get back to Pushkin's novel. Are there changes in him, in his “world” itself, in his intonation?

Indeed, a calm, even narrative is replaced by rapidly bursting events, and with them intonations: anxiety, almost confusion, and even “horror” (we have already talked with you about Pugachev’s siege of the fortress, taking it, and executing its defenders). And what do you think, could Captain Mironov, Ivan Ignatich and Vasilisa Yegorovna escape death? Why did they suffer a different fate - "to disappear from a runaway convict," as Vasilisa Yegorovna will say, having paid for these words with her life? What surprised you the most about them? How did Pushkin write the scene of the massacre of the officers of the Belogorsk fortress? Why is this creepy page so short?

But who suddenly intervened in this scene? Yes, Savelich! It turns out that the circle of "old people" in Pushkin's novel is not limited to the inhabitants of the Belogorsk fortress: Savelich among them is also from the "old people"!

Are there any other "old people"? Yes, and the Grinevs of the same clan-tribe: "old people"! Why? Doesn't the comparison of the old man Grinev with the Belogorsk officers beg in our conversation? Of course, not only Andrey Petrovich Grinev would certainly repeat the feat of Captain Mironov, but Petrusha Grinev adequately represents his father, is faithful to his order: "Serve faithfully to whom you swear ..."

And again - the antithesis. Do you think Shvabrin is also one of the "old people"? oh no: "the newest" in meanness and dexterity!

And now let us return to Chapter III, to the epigraph, but in a different way.

Why is the proximity of the "soldier's song" and "old people" here?

What does the "soldier's song" evoke in your memory?

The Suvorov pages of national history, which were made by the "old people", the artistic meaning of Pushkin's novel overcomes the boundaries of the plot ("Pugachevshchina" and the fate of Petrusha Grinev) and incorporates the trials of Russia - the trials of loyalty - and the examples of its best fellow citizens, regardless of the class to which they belonged: "old people"!

And to whom do you rank Masha Mironova?

So, the 2nd part of our lesson will be devoted to the young heroine, whose name the novel is named after.

3.The image of Masha Mironova.

What is she, Masha Mironova?

If her portrait was transferred to a drawing, how would you paint her? (Review and discussion of drawings-portraits of Masha Mironova.)

Let's remember what impression Masha made on Grinev (read out, p. 126, 3rd paragraph).

"At first glance... not really liked." And you? Is Grinev's attitude towards Masha changing? Why?

And how did you meet Masha's shyness, shyness, even "to tears" of her?

Why do we need these details of the character of the heroine? Did you remember anyone? “Blushing, she apologized, / what, de, she went to visit them ...” The Pushkin princess! Do we need this parallel? Why are Pushkin's heroines so similar, and in absolutely different works?

But in the Pushkin novel, another heroine will appear next to Masha, on whom the happiness of Masha and Grinev will depend, a charming court lady, in whom we recognize ... the empress!

Before we turn again to the novel, to our beloved heroine, to reread the brilliant lines, let's look into the writer's creative laboratory.

In the journal "Children's Reading for the Heart and Mind" (part VII, M., 1786), the following "Anecdote" was published:

“Joseph II, the current Roman emperor, walking once in the evening according to his custom, saw a girl who was filled with tears, asked her what she was crying about, and found out that she was the daughter of a certain captain who was killed in the war, and that she was left without food with his mother, who, moreover, has long been ill.

"Why don't you ask the emperor for help?" - he asked.

The girl replied that they did not have a patron who would present to the sovereign about their poverty.

“I serve at court,” said the monarch, “and I can do it for you. Come only tomorrow to the palace and ask Lieutenant B.

At the appointed time, the girl arrived at the palace. As soon as she uttered the name B., they took her to a room where she saw the officer who had spoken to her yesterday, and recognized him as her sovereign. She came beside herself with surprise and fear. But the emperor, taking her by the hand, said to her very affectionately: “Here are three hundred chervonets for your mother and another five hundred for your tenderness towards her and for your power of attorney to me. In addition, I give you 500 thalers of an annual pension.”

What scenes of The Captain's Daughter does this anecdote recall (in the old days, a short, concise story about a wonderful, funny incident was called an anecdote)? Some literary critics believe that Pushkin used it when creating his story. In that case, how did he transform the anecdote into vivid and impressive scenes?

By the way, the censor P. A. Korsakov was so captivated by the plausibility of the last scenes of the story that he even turned to Pushkin with the question: “... did the maiden Mironova exist and was it really with the late empress?”

If we skip a bit of the text of The Captain's Daughter and turn to Marya Ivanovna's heroic trip to the court of Catherine II, we will see how closely these pages come into contact with the author's unforgettable youth, with that "place of upbringing" about which a friendly conversation was to take place in the evening of the same day when the draft of the novel was completed.

Arriving the day before in Tsarskoe Selo, “the next day, early in the morning, Marya Ivanovna woke up, dressed and quietly went into the garden. The morning was beautiful, the sun illuminating the tops of the lindens, which had already turned yellow under the fresh breath of autumn. The wide lake shone motionless. Awakened swans importantly swam out from under the bushes that overshadowed the shore. Marya Ivanovna walked near a beautiful meadow where a monument had just been erected in honor of the recent victories of Count Pyotr Alexandrovich Rumyantsev ... ”What a wonderful air of youth, even almost childhood, Pushkin breathed, copying these lines white with his light pen in the autumn of 1836 . What a smell of Tsarskoye Selo autumn coolness must have wafted over him in stuffy St. Petersburg, sparingly measuring out the last breaths of air released to the suffocating poet. Precisely because Tsarskoye Selo memories flooded over him, he marked the autograph of the novel in white on October 19, probably without thinking at all that the descendants would guess his mood from this mark.

(The last year of Pushkin's life.

Correspondence. Memories. Diaries")

- Read excerpts from Pushkin's poems and try to determine what impressions of the poet's youth are reflected in the description of the Tsarskoye Selo garden in The Captain's Daughter.

Memories in Tsarskoye Selo

The veil of a gloomy night hung

On the vault of dormant skies;

In silent silence, the valley and groves rested,

In a gray fog, a distant forest;

You can barely hear the stream running into the canopy of the oak forest,

A little breeze breathes, asleep on the sheets,

And the quiet moon, like a majestic swan,

Floats in silvery clouds.

Floats - and pale rays

Objects illuminated all around.

Alleys of ancient lindens opened up before my eyes.

They looked through both the hill and the meadow;

Here, I see, young willow intertwined with poplar

And reflected in the crystal of unsteady waters;

The queen among the fields of lily is proud

In luxurious beauty blooms ...

In the shade of dense gloomy pines

A simple monument was erected.

Oh, how he is for you, Cahul shore, vilified!

And glorious to the motherland of the dredge! 1 (See note.)

You are immortal forever, O Russian giants.

In battles, they were brought up in the midst of swearing bad weather!

About you, associates, friends of Catherine,

Rumor will pass from generation to generation...

1814

Tsarskoye Selo

Memory, paint in front of me

Magical places where I live with my soul...

Lead, lead me under the linden canopy,

Always kind to my free laziness,

On the shore of the lake, on the quiet slope of the hills! ..

Yes, I will see again the carpets of dense meadows

And a decrepit bunch of trees, and a bright valley,

And the green shores of a familiar picture,

And in a quiet lake among the glittering swells

A proud village of calm swans.

1823

Memories in Tsarskoye Selo

Confused by memories

Filled with sweet longing.

Beautiful gardens, under your sacred dusk

I enter with a bowed head ...

In the heat of fleeting delights,

In a barren whirlwind of vanity,

Oh, I have squandered many treasures of my heart

For unreachable dreams.

And I wandered for a long time, and often, tired,

With repentance of grief, anticipating troubles,

I thought about you, blessed limit,

I imagined these gardens.

I imagine a happy day

When a lyceum arose among you,

And I hear our games again, I playful noise

And I see a family of friends again.

Again a gentle youth, now ardent, now lazy,

Vague dreams melt in my chest,

Wandering through meadows, through silent groves,

I forget as a poet.

And awake I see before me

Days of the past are proud traces.

Still filled with a great wife 2 (see note),

Her favorite gardens

Are inhabited by palaces, gates,

Pillars, towers, idols of the gods

And the glory of marble, and copper praises

Catherine's Eagles.

The ghosts of heroes sit down

At the pillars dedicated to them.

Look: here is a hero, a constraint of military formations,

Perun of the Kagul coast.

Behold, behold the mighty chief of the midnight flag,

Before whom the fire melted the seas and flew.

Here is his faithful brother, the hero of the Archipelago,

Here is Navarino Hannibal 3 (see note)...

Expressive reading episode of Masha's meeting with the Empress (pp. 208–209).

Consider the illustrations for the novel (S. Gerasimov "Grinev and Masha Mironova", 1951 (p. 142), P. Sokolov "The Captain's Daughter" (p. 210). Describe the portraits of the characters.

Why do you think Masha Mironova and the Empress ended up side by side on Pushkin's pages?

V. Summing up the lesson.

Name magic: Masha! What brings to mind this name? Of course, a different Masha - Troekurova!

Is the name coincidence coincidence? Let's try to compare our favorite heroines. Who is closer to you?

I hope Pushkin's "old people" will stay with you forever.

Homework: prepare the performance of your beloved Pushkin's page"The Captain's Daughter" and explain your choice; draw up a citation plan for an essay on the topic "Grinev in the Belogorsk fortress".

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The connection between the characteristics of the heroes and their deeds in both cases is the most direct. Another, for example, in the obituary characteristic of Vsevolod Yaroslavich: “This more noble prince Vsevolod is not childishly God-loving, loving the truth, guarding the poor, honoring the bishop and pres-viter, loving the black priests in excess and giving them a demand. and from lust..." etc. Nothing in this characterization follows from the facts cited about him in the annals. The characterization of Vsevolod Yaroslavich here performs a purely etiquette function: it is a conditional funeral word that marks his Christian qualities at the moment when these Christian qualities needed to be remembered.

Consequently, another difference between the epic style in the depiction of people from the dominant medieval monumentalism lies in the fact that the many faces of the hero, each time appearing in a new guise appropriate to him, are absent in the epic style: here the hero is closely connected with one or more of his exploits, his characteristic is one, immutable, attached to the hero. The characteristic of the hero is, as it were, his coat of arms; it is short and extraordinarily expressive, like the shield of the Prophetic Oleg on the gates of Constantinople.

On the whole, the epic style in the depiction of people precedes the monumental in stages, just as the oral creativity of the people of writing precedes. But with the advent of writing, oral creativity does not disappear; also, the impact on literature of this epic style in the depiction of heroes does not disappear. It manifests itself in those works that are associated with oral folk art.

Indeed, something in the depiction of the characters in the chronicle suggests a relationship with folklore.

Obviously, in the annals and other works of literature, the characteristics of the characters according to their one major act go back to folk art. This is how Prince African is characterized, for example, in the Kiev-Pechersk Patericon: "Prince African, brother of Yakun Slepago, who runs away from the golden luda, fighting with a regiment along Yaroslav with Fierce Mstislav" .

Before us is, as it were, a reminder of a well-known feat, deed or event. This is how, in particular, some of the characters in The Tale of Igor's Campaign are characterized: "... to the brave Mstislav, like the dawn for Rede-dupred plykykasozhoky"; "... until the current Igor, even if you draw out your strength and sharpen your hearts with courage, having been filled with a military spirit, bring your brave cry to the land of Polovtska for the Russian land."

It is remarkable that in the annals, many of the famous Polovtsian khans are presented to the reader in this way: "... Kontsak, who demolished Sulu, walking, carrying a cauldron on his shoulders"; "... Sevench Bonyakovich ... ilk byashetrekl:" I want to strike at the Golden Gate, like my father ""; "... Altunop, who speaks of courage" .

folk character and General characteristics inhabitants of any area. Kievans called Novgorodians "carpenters". Rostov, Suzdal and Murom say about Vladimir: "... that is the essence of our lackey stoners." Vladimirians noted their "pride" in Novgorodians. Following these folk characteristics and the chronicler says about the Pereyaslavtsy that they are "daring to exist."

To these same characteristics adjoins the characterization of the Kuryans - "knowledgeable kites" in the "Tale of Igor's Campaign". All these characteristics are interesting in that they are transmitted by the chronicler as well-known to everyone, as popular opinion and as "glory" about certain inhabitants. In all of them, reliance on real popular rumor is felt.

The characterization of the "Kuryans" in "The Tale of Igor's Campaign" in terms of its principles of artistic generalization coincides with the characterization of the "Ryazan army" in "The Tale of the Devastation of Ryazan by Batu" - those Ryazan "dared and frisky" ones, of which "one was with a thousand, and two with you." Both in the "Word" and in the "Tale" we have before us a characteristic of the army, in which not a word is said about the feudal loyalty of the soldiers to their prince, but everything is aimed only at revealing the military virtues of the fighters - the defenders of the motherland.

Characteristic phenomena are found in the XII-XIII centuries. in the same monuments when creating an image folk hero, the image of the defender of the motherland. This hero exaggerates in his strength and courage, he seems to grow in size, he cannot be defeated by enemies. However, the concept of a hyperbola can be applied here with great limitations. The impression of hyperbole is achieved by the fact that the exploits of his squad are transferred to this hero. So. for example, Vsevolod Bui Tur in "The Tale of Igor's Campaign" streaks at enemies with arrows, rattles swords on helmets, and Avar helmets are "slashed" with his red-hot sabers.

It goes without saying that Vsevolod spits arrows of his squad at enemies, fights with her swords and sabers: Vsevolod himself could have only one sword or saber. We see the same transfer of the exploits of the squad to the prince in the Lay in other cases. Svyatoslav of Kiev "patched" the treachery of the Polovtsy "with his strong swords and swords"; Vsevolod Suzdalsky can "pour out the Don helmets" - not with one of his helmets, but with many, of course, the helmets of his warriors.

The image of Evpatiy Kolovrat is created in the same way in "The Tale of the Devastation of Ryazan by Batu". The exploits of his warriors and their fighting qualities are transferred to Evpaty. It seems to combine the features of the entire Russian army. Without mercy, he flogs Batu's regiments so that the Tatars became "like drunk or furious." When Yevpatiy's swords became dull, he took Tatar swords and slashed with them. Again, this is typical plural: "... as if the swords were blunted, and the earth was the Tatar swords and sechasha them." There can be no doubt that, speaking of Evpaty, the author had in mind not just him, but his entire squad. That is why it is further said: "... the Tatars think, as if they were dead." We are talking about the dead, about many resurrected soldiers. That is why, without any transition, it is said about the regiment of Evpatius: the regiment of Evpatius and Evpatius himself are united. Thanks to this, Evpaty grows to heroic proportions: he is "giant in strength", the Tatars manage to kill him only with the help of "numerous vices" - wall-beating machines.

The death of Evpaty is a kind of birth of the first hero in Russian literature. We clearly see how the image of Evpaty combines the qualities of his squad. Strong is not a hero - strong is the army that he embodies. Artistic generalization follows the path of creating a collective image of the hero, embodying the qualities of all Russian soldiers. This was the way in which the image was developed. epic hero, who eventually became alone, without an army, to fight for the Russian land against a huge army of enemies. This path, as yet untrodden and only weakly outlined, will lead in the future to literary generalizations of a new, more perfect character. This path, as we have clearly seen in other cases, was associated with the violation of the narrow class, feudal literary stereotype in the depiction of people. These violations were especially frequent in the depiction of a woman. The woman did not usually take her place in the hierarchical ladder of feudal relations. She was a princess, princess, noblewoman, hawthorn or merchant's wife by her husband or father. And this weakened the certainty of its class characteristics.

The works of ancient Russian literature reflected a few character traits of a woman ancient Rus'. In the great state concerns, ancient Russian writers rarely had to turn their eyes to the daughters, wives and mothers of the heroes of Russian history. However, the brief and few lines of Russian secular works almost always write about women with sympathy and respect. The "evil wife", so typical of ascetic ecclesiastical literature, is a rare guest in the works of secular literature: in the annals, in military, embassy, ​​and historical stories. And in those cases when she appears in secular works, as, for example, in Daniil Zatochnik's "Prayer", she is devoid of any femininity: she is "rotasta", "jawed", "old-fashioned". Young women are attractive without exception. With what touchingness Vladimir Monomakh writes in a letter to Oleg Svyatoslavich about the widow of his son Izyaslav, who was killed by Oleg; the chronicler recalls the mother of the young brother Monomakh, Rostislav, who died untimely in Stugna. Rostislav's mother mourned him in Kyiv, and the chronicler sympathizes with her grief: "And crying for him, his mother and all the people took pity on him for him, for the sake of him."

Knows ancient Russian literature and heroic images of Russian women. Princess Maria - the daughter of the Chernigov prince Mikhail who died in the Horde and the widow of the Rostov prince Vasilko tortured by the Tatars - worked hard to perpetuate the memory of both. On her instructions (and perhaps with her direct participation), the life of her father Mikhail Chernigovsky was compiled and touching lines were written about her husband Vasilka in the Rostov Chronicle.

Touching and beautiful in "The Tale of the Devastation of Ryazan by Batu" is the image of the wife of the Ryazan prince Fedor - Evpraksia. Her husband sacrificed his life, defending her honor in the camp of Batu. Hearing about the death of her husband, Eupraxia "abie rushes from her lofty temple with her son with Prince Ivan to the environment of the earth, and becomes infected to death."

While stingy in everything related to the personal feelings of its characters, the Russian chronicle nevertheless notes that the Suzdal prince Vsevolod the Big Nest was "sorry" for his "dear daughter" Verkhoslava. Vsevolod gave "for her a lot of money, countless gold and silver", richly endowed the matchmakers and, releasing her with great honor, accompanied her to three camps. "And the father and mother wept for her: in the past, the ima and the young were sweet." The chronicler did not forget that unknown woman who, mistaking the blinded prince Vasilko-Rostislavich Terebolsky for the deceased, mourned him and washed his bloody shirt.

Describing the death of the Volyn prince Vladimir Vasilkovich, the chronicler did not fail to mention his love for his wife, "dear Olga." This was the fourth daughter of the Bryansk prince Roman, but she was "the sweetest of all" to him. Roman gave "his dear daughter" for Vladimir Vasilkovich, "he sent with her the son of his oldest Mikhail and many boyars." Subsequently, her brother Oleg visits her. With her help, on his deathbed, Vladimir Vasilkovich settles his affairs of state, and calls her "princess moa mila Olgo." Vladimir and Olga were childless. Vladimir's dying worries are directed "but to arrange the fate of her and their adopted daughter- Izyaslavy, "whomever milovakh is like his own daughter." Vladimir Vasilkovich allows his wife to do whatever she pleases after his death - to live like this or go to the blueberries: “I don’t get up to watch what someone has to fix on my stomach,” he says.

The gentle, thoughtful appearance of a woman-mother was brought to us by the works of Russian painting of the 12th century. They embody the care of a woman, her love for her dead son.

A story has been preserved about the impression these works left on the audience. Proud Prince Andrey Yuryevich Bogolyubsky, who never bowed his head to anyone, a brave warrior, always the first to rush into battle against enemies, was struck by the image of Our Lady of Vladimir. "The Legend of the Miracles of the Vladimir Icon" speaks of the deep impression that the icon of the Vladimir Mother of God made on Andrei Bogolyubsky. Seeing her for the first time, he fell on his knees before her - "fell on the ground." Subsequently, he and his chronicler attributed all their victories over enemies to the help of this icon.

In all these few references, the woman invariably appears in the charm of tender care, a penetrating understanding of the state anxieties of her husbands and brothers. Daughter, mother or wife - she always helps her father, son or husband, mourns for him, mourns him after death and never inclines him to cowardice or self-preservation at the cost of shame. She takes death in battle with enemies for granted and mourns her sons, husbands or fathers without a shadow of reproach, without a trace of discontent, as warriors and patriots who have fulfilled their duty, not horrified and not condemning their behavior, but with quiet caress and with their praise courage, their prowess. Love for a husband, father or son does not dull their love for their homeland, hatred for enemies, confidence in the rightness of the cause of a loved one.

The Russian women of "The Tale of Igor's Campaign" embody the same features that, although scarcely, but quite clearly conveyed to us the annals and military stories of the 12th-13th centuries. We can confidently imagine the ideal of an ancient woman Rus' XII-XIII centuries, which will be the same in the annals and in military stories, and in "The Tale of Igor's Campaign"; only in The Tale of Igor's Campaign does the image of a modest, caring, faithful and loving woman, worthy of the wife of her hero-husband, appear with even greater clarity and great charm. The ideal of a woman of the XII-XIII centuries. contains few class features. The class of feudal lords did not develop its own ideal of a woman, sharply different from the popular one. A woman among the feudal lords was devoted to her cares of a wife, mother, widow, daughter. Large state duties were not her lot. And this is what contributed to the convergence of female images - feudal and folk. That is why Yaroslavna in "The Tale of Igor's Campaign" is presented in the image of a lyrical, songful Russian woman - Yaroslavna.

The epic style in the depiction of people never completely covers a literary work. Even in The Tale of Igor's Campaign this epic style is combined with the style of medieval monumentalism. As we have already seen, elements of the epic style are clearly felt only in the initial part of the Tale of Bygone Years, and later in the images of women. It is reflected in the Ipatiev Chronicle (characterization of Roman Galitsky), in the "Word about the destruction of the Russian land", in the Life of Alexander Nevsky (in the description of the six brave men of Alexander Nevsky), in "The Tale of the Devastation of Ryazan by Batu" and in some other works. Such episodic manifestations of this style are quite understandable: this style was mainly expressed only in oral folk art, and in literature it was reflected from time to time under the influence of the latter. Because the oral folk art of the Kievan period is known to us in meager remnants among written works, many features of this style remain unclear to us.

In the visual arts, the epic style was almost not reflected. This is understandable: fine art was much more "expensive" than literature, but individual elements of the epic style still penetrated fine art through direct executors of the will of the feudal lords. Here is what M. V. Alpatov writes about this: “The art that was created in Kiev by the people for themselves did not reach us. Smerds had to live in chicken huts of a semi-dugout type. at the veche. Working people had their own ideals of life and their own concepts of beauty. The hands of these people created Kiev buildings with their magnificent decoration. That is why echoes of folk artistic ideas are felt in many grand-ducal monuments. "

Chapters: "Folk poetic creativity during the heyday of the ancient Russian early feudal state (X-XI centuries)" and "Folk poetic creativity in the years feudal fragmentation Rus' - before the Tatar-Mongol invasion (XII - beginning of XII c.)". in the book: "Russian folk poetic creativity", vol. I, M-L., 1953.

Tale of Nikol Zarazsky - Proceedings of the Department of Old Russian Literature (ODRL) of the Institute of Russian Literature of the USSR Academy of Sciences, vol. VII, 1949, pp. 290-291.

Tale of Nikol Zarazsky - Proceedings of the Department of Old Russian Literature (ODRL) of the Institute of Russian Literature of the USSR Academy of Sciences, vol. VII, 1949, p. 293.

Tale of Nikol Zarazsky - Proceedings of the Department of Old Russian Literature (ODRL) of the Institute of Russian Literature of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, vol. VII, 1949, p. 294.

The Tale of Bygone Years, vol. I, p. 144.

Due to the fact that the portrait of the prince was always turned to the viewer and painted for the viewer, it was easy to see those features that were most dear to the viewer who acted as the customer of the work. In the vault of the Rostov Princess Maria, in the description of her late husband, the Rostov Prince Vasilko Konstantinovich, one can clearly feel not only praise, but also an expression of the sorrow of loss: the boyars are affectionate, no one is from the boyars who served him and ate his bread, and drank the cup, and received gifts - then it’s impossible for another prince to be for his love; lively, the truth and the truth walk with him. Be more cunning and much more able, and in a gray-haired way of doing good on the table and days "(Laurentian Chronicle, under 1237, p. 467). This lyrical portrait, in which the external features of the prince are given such great importance, can only be compared with the portrait of the Volyn prince Vladimir Vasilkovich, compiled by the Volyn chronicler, who was also especially attentive to the fate of the widow of this prince - "dear" Olga. Volynsky: Rostov chroniclers - both wrote for the widows of their princes, both, to some extent, reflected their feelings. “This blessed prince Volodymyr,” writes the Volyn chronicle, “was tall, broad-shouldered, red-faced, with yellow curly hair, a short beard, and having red hands and legs; it is clear from books, because the philosopher is great and the fisher is cunning, kind, meek, humble, gentle, truthful, not a bribe-taker, not lying to hate the torment, but do not drink from your age. in the kiss of the cross, you stood with all true truth, not hypocrisy "(Ipatiev Chronicle, under 1289, p. 605).

Proceedings of the ODRL, vol. VII, p. 289.

Hypatiev Chronicle, under 1187, p. 443.

Ipatiev Chronicle, under 1264, p. 569.

Hypatiev Chronicle, under 1274, p. 577.

Ipatiev Chronicle, under 1287, p. 595.

The Ipatiev Chronicle, under 1287, Vladimir says about Izyaslav: “God didn’t let me give birth to my own, for my sins, but these were like a horn from my princess, took me from my mother in swaddling clothes and raised me” (p. 593).

The Legend of the Miracles of the Vladimir Icon of the Mother of God. Ed. IN. Klyuchevsky. Society of Lovers of Ancient Literature, vol. XXX, 1878, p. 30.

M.V. Alpatov. General history of arts, g. ///. M., 1955, pp. 60-61.

Fate is a rather complex concept and has not yet been fully studied by anyone. Some believe that a person himself is the arbiter of his own destiny, the opinion of others is that there is Someone - God, or the Higher Mind, which determines not only the duration of human life, but also the events taking place in it. However, what category can be attributed to the prediction made by writers and poets on the pages of literary works? After all, it often happens that the author first described some event, and only after years, or even centuries, it comes true. It is still unknown how and why science fiction writers were able to "guess" and even to some extent predict many upcoming events. An example is the novel "Futility", which was written by Morgan Robertson - an author, little known a wide range fantasy lovers. The novel takes place aboard a ship called the Titan.

E readers. Those who had the idea to compare the main characteristics of the ship were horrified: the length of the ship was 243 m (for the Titanic - 269), it moved at a speed of 25 knots (like for the Titanic), both ships - both fictional and real - There were 4 pipes and 3 screws. We will not list the rest of the characteristics of the ships: believe me, they are almost identical. According to the plot of the work, on a cold April night, the Titan ship, which is considered unsinkable, does not slow down. Hit an iceberg and drowned. 14 years after the publication of the novel, a ship with similar name- "Titanic". In April 1912, a catastrophe happened to him: moving at night at high speed, the ship collided with an iceberg and died.
The amazing similarity of events did not end there: the writer also indicated the cause of the death of thousands of passengers who did not have enough lifeboats. So what is it - a mere coincidence or a prediction of events?
This story has a sequel. On an April night in 1935, sailor William Reeves was on watch at the bow of the English steamer Titanian bound for Canada. It was deep midnight, Reeves, under the impression of the novel "Futility" he had just read, suddenly realized that there was a shocking similarity between the Titanic disaster and a fictional event. Then the thought flashed through the sailor that his ship was currently crossing the ocean where both the Titan and the Titanic had found their eternal rest. Reeves then remembered that his birthday coincided with the exact date of the Titanic's submersion - April 14, 1912. At this thought, the sailor was seized with indescribable horror. It seemed to him that fate was preparing something unexpected for him.
Being under strong impression, Reeves gave a danger signal, and the steamer's engines immediately stopped. Crew members ran out onto the deck: everyone wanted to know the reason for such a sudden stop. What was the astonishment of the sailors when they saw the ship stop right in front of the iceberg that emerged from night darkness. So, if Reeves had dismissed his thoughts, the ship would have repeated the fate of both ships, which were discussed above. In 1866 the British journalist E.W. Stead also wrote a story about the ship "Majestic", which sank after encountering an iceberg in North Atlantic. The name of its captain - E. Smith - coincided with the name of the real-life captain of the Titanic liner. It is interesting that Stead, who spent his whole life studying many phenomena, including the role of predictions for a person's future life, did not pay attention to his own prophecy. E. W. Stead, back in 1912, boarded the most unsinkable ship in the world, which found itself an icy grave in the Atlantic.

And what about the work of the famous American science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke? In 1947, he published his first literary brainchild - a story about landing a man on the moon. Moreover, the author accurately indicated the geographical characteristics of this celestial body. Not so much has passed since the events described in A. Clark's story came true.

During the years of Soviet power, a kind of prophetic work was under the greatest ban.

A. Bogdanova "Red Star" written by him in 1904.
In this book, which can be called a dystopia, the writer foresaw not only the tragic events in Russia, but also the symbolism of the new state indicated in the title of the novel. And here is what F. M. Dostoevsky wrote in his Diary of a Writer forty years before the tragic events in Russia: “A terrible, colossal ... revolution is foreseen that will shake all countries with a change in the face of the world. But this will require a hundred million heads. The whole world will be flooded with rivers of blood… The rebellion will begin with atheism and the robbery of all wealth, They will begin to overthrow religion, destroy temples and turn them into stalls, flood the world with blood, and then they themselves will be frightened.”
Here the writer predicted the approximate number of victims of the coming revolution (100 million), and in "Demons" - and its timing. Petenka Verkhovensky to the question: “When will everything start?” - answered: “Fifty years later ... It will begin at Maslenitsa (February), end after the Intercession (October).”
The gift of foresight inherent in some writers is shrouded in a haze of mystery. Even centuries later, he continues to amaze and amaze scientists who still cannot understand how the geniuses of the artistic word managed to create works that are inherently prophetic.

Prophecies of Russian writers and poets about the future of Russia

We also find a whole series of similar breakthroughs into the future and forebodings of it among Russian writers and poets. As in everyday life, these forebodings most often relate to disastrous, catastrophic events.

Almost a hundred years before the revolution and what followed, Mikhail Lermontov wrote the prophetic lines:
A year will come, a black year for Russia,
When the kings crown will fall;
The mob will forget their former love for them,
And the food of many will be death and blood;
When children, when innocent wives
The overthrown will not defend the law...

This was written many years before the overthrow and murder of the latter Russian emperor and his family, to mass executions and camps.

There are too many artistic insights of Russian writers about the events of the coming era, stunning in their power, to be explained by a mere coincidence. Among the brilliant insights are the lines of some Russian poets about their own death.

Mikhail Lermontov in the poem "Dream" wrote:
In the midday heat in the valley of Dagestan
With lead in my chest, I lay motionless;
A deep wound still smoking,
My blood dripped drop by drop.

Less than a year later, the poet died in a duel during his stay in the Caucasus. Nikolai Gumilyov "saw" in one of his poems a craftsman who made a bullet intended for him.
A bullet cast by them will find my chest.

If today you read his own poems “The Death of a Poet”, then each line in it clearly corresponds to the life fate of the author - who took over from the great Pushkin ... “The poet died! - a slave of honor - fell slandered by rumors ... He rebelled against the opinions of the world alone, as before, ... and was killed!

In a letter to A.Ya. Sad! Yes. I sincerely feel sorry for Lermontov, especially after learning that he was so inhumanely killed. At least a French hand aimed at Pushkin, and it was a sin for a Russian hand to aim at Lermontov ... "

It is no coincidence that Boris Pasternak warned his contemporary poets against predicting their own death in verse.
Let us recall the prophetic lines of Dostoevsky from his Diary of a Writer for 1877:
“A terrible, colossal spontaneous revolution is foreseen, which will shake all the kingdoms of the world by changing the face of the world of everything. But this will require a hundred million heads. The whole world will be flooded with rivers of blood.”
“The rebellion will begin with atheism and the robbery of all wealth. They will begin to overthrow religion, destroy temples and turn them into stalls, flood the world with blood, and then they themselves will be frightened ... "

Moreover, these prophetic lines were written forty years before the events of 1917, when in public life there was, it seemed, not the slightest sign of an impending national tragedy. It is not surprising that for the next seventy years, the new rulers of Russia preferred not to refer to these lines.

All these years, Alexander Bogdanov’s prophetic dystopia “Red Star” was also banned, in which back in 1904 he foresaw not only the features of impending totalitarian rule, but even its symbolism, which was put in the title of the novel.

Among the prophecies and non-random coincidences, there are those when a Russian person does not know whether to cry or laugh. Half a century before the Bolshevik revolution, the satirist Saltykov-Shchedrin wrote the story "The History of a City", where under the "city of Foolov" more than one generation of Russian readers recognized the country in which they lived. The tyrant governor, says Shchedrin, as soon as he assumed power over the unfortunate city, canceled all the holidays, leaving only two. One was celebrated in spring, the other in autumn. That is exactly what the Bolsheviks did in the very first years of their reign, abolishing all traditional holidays in the country. Of the holidays they introduced, one was celebrated in the spring (May 1), the other in the fall (November 7). The coincidences don't end there. For Shchedrin, the spring holiday "serves as a preparation for the coming disasters." For the Bolsheviks, May 1 has always been a "day of review of the fighting forces of the proletariat" and was accompanied by calls to intensify the class struggle and to overthrow capitalism. In other words, he was focused on the disasters to come. Concerning autumn holiday, then, according to Shchedrin, it is dedicated to "memories of disasters already experienced." And as if on purpose or in mockery, November 7, a holiday established by the Bolsheviks, was dedicated to the memory of the bloodshed of the revolution.

Deadly prophecies often appeared against the will of the authors from random, inadvertently thrown words, - Alexander Sergeevich explains. - But these words were fixed on paper and, therefore, gained an independent life. And the life of words has its own laws and consequences. First of all, these consequences concern those who uttered these words. See for yourself.

The most striking case is found in the poem by Nikolai RUBTSOV "I will die in Epiphany frosts." He died on January 19 - on the very day when Orthodox Baptism is celebrated.

The playwright Alexander VAMPILOV casually scribbled in his notebook: "I know - I will never be old". And so it happened: he drowned in Baikal a few days before his 35th birthday. The poet and musician Yuri VIZBOR in 1978 wrote the song “In Memory of the Departed”, where there is such a line: “How I want to live another hundred years - well, maybe not a hundred, at least half.” It was as if Vizbor himself measured out his earthly term - he lived exactly 50 years.

Vladimir VYSOTSKY in one not very well-known poem predicted the time of his death: “Life is an alphabet: I’m already somewhere in “tse-che-she-shche” - I will leave this summer in a raspberry cloak.” The poems were written in the early 1980s. This summer, on July 25, Vysotsky died.

When Valentin PIKUL passed away, his wife found a book with a blind spine in his library, and it contained a creative testament that ended with the words: “This was written by Pikul Valentin Savich, Russian, born July 13, 1928, died July 13, 19... of the year". This was written in 1959, and he died on July 16, 1990, having made a mistake in the number by only three days.

Hints of untimely death are found in the works of Sergei Yesenin, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Nikolai Gumilev, Vsevolod BAGRITSKII, Vasily Shukshin, Marcel Proust, Heinrich IBSEN, Paul Fleming.

For example, a flight of fancy allows a genius who sees a self-propelled carriage or a balloon to immediately "predict" traffic jams on the roads of the world and space teeming with interplanetary travelers.

Another thing is the prediction of his death. There is an opinion that creative people do not predict the future at all, but, as it were, model it. After all, some of the poetic lines resemble spells like "I want to die young!" Mirra Lokhvitskaya. If we agree that the word is material and has powerful energy, then it is logical to assume that these dangerous phrases can attract troubles to the person who uttered them.

No wonder the wise Akhmatova warned her overly daring fellow writers: "Poets, do not predict your death - it comes true!"

Literary forecasts for the twentieth century...

Jonathan Swift

(1667 - 1745)

WHAT I FORECAST

In the book " Trips Gulliver” (1726), astronomers of Laputa, the country where Gulliver ended up, discovered the presence of two satellites near the planet Mars. And in the chapter on the Great Academy of Lagado, there is a description of "a machine for discovering abstract truths."

WHAT HAPPENED

The discovery of Phobos and Deimos took place only one and a half hundred years after the release of the novel. And in the description of a strange machine, one can guess the invention of a “thinking device”, that is, a computer.

Vladimir Odoevsky

(1803 -1869)

WHAT I FORECAST

The novel Year 4338 (1835) tells that air and underground transport will become the main means of transportation in the future. This is how the hero describes his journey to Russia from China: “We flew through the Himalayan tunnel with the speed of lightning, but in the Caspian tunnel ... we had to get off the electric ship, superbly lit by galvanic lamps.” The novel talks about the exploration of the Moon, which is "uninhabited and serves only as a source of supply for the Earth", as well as "electrical conversations" that will replace correspondence.

WHAT HAPPENED

Tunnels, electric ships resemble the descriptions of the subway. By the way, the first experimental electric locomotive was built in Germany in 1879. And it was not easy to foresee the use of "galvanic lamps": Lodygin's coal lamp was patented in 1874, the "Yablochkov candle" - in 1876, and the Edison incandescent lamp - in 1879. And the Caspian tunnel, through which an electric ship from China rushes, is laid under the bottom seas- also a very progressive idea for that time. The first practical telephone set was patented only in 1876. Scientists started talking about the use of lunar rocks for the energy of the Earth only in the second half of the 20th century.

Jules Verne

(1828 - 1905)

WHAT I FORECAST

In the novels From the Earth to the Moon (1865), Around the Moon (1870) and Paris in the 20th Century (1863), Verne's heroes "missed" the Moon and never landed on its surface, then safely circled the earth's satellite and returned to earth. In the third book, the streets of Paris are filled with hydrogen-powered cars, and documents are transmitted through a device that looks very much like a modern fax machine.

WHAT HAPPENED

In the first case, the plot is similar to the fate of the crew of the American Apollo 13 spacecraft, which exactly one hundred years later - in April 1970 - could not land on the moon. But even more interesting are the parallels between Vernov's ship and Apollo 8, which in 1968 made the first manned flight around the moon. Both devices - both literary and real - had a crew of three people. Their size and weight were approximately the same. Both started from the territory of the USA. Even the areas of the launch pads coincided! In addition, today, hydrogen cars are becoming a reality. But faxes are already becoming a thing of the past as unnecessary.

H. G. Wells

(1866 - 1946)

WHAT I FORECAST

In his works, he "invented" biological weapons, artificial insemination, a technique for introducing nutrients directly into the blood. Back in the 1910s, he spoke about the huge role of nuclear energy in the life of mankind and predicted that in the future, high-speed aviation would move to a swept wing. In The War of the Worlds (1898), Wells describes the action of a heat beam similar to a modern laser, and in When the Sleeper Awakes (1899), "strange technical devices, on the smooth surface of which appear bright colored pictures with moving figures."

WHAT HAPPENED

Wells was ahead of scientific and technological progress by many decades. Aircraft designers came to the correct wing scheme only 20 years after the writer's prediction. In the last century, lasers appeared, including combat ones. The description by the author of the end of the century before last of the TV and VCR is very impressive.

Arthur Clark

(b. 1917)

WHAT I FORECAST

In 1945, he spoke seriously about the launch of communications satellites into earth orbit. He also claimed that a man would land on the moon before the year 2000, and suggested the appearance of phones with a camera, teletext and opportunity create messages and an intercom built into a wristwatch.

WHAT HAPPENED

In less than half a century, the Earth's orbit was literally clogged with such satellites. His other scientific “discoveries” have already come into use today.

Compared with these prophecies, the predictions of other authors look much paler. But still remember that sound recording devices appeared with Cyrano de BERGERAC in The States and Empires of the Moon (1655), the first robots- in the play by Karel CAPEK "R.U.R." (1920), the calculator is found in Isaac Asimov in The Foundation (1951), the player is in Ray BRADEBURY in Fahrenheit 451 (1953).

... FOR THE COMING AGES

By 2519 Europe is running wild

Looking through literary works, you can try to look into the future

Wilhelm Küchelbecker in his European Letters (1820) suggested that by 2519 Europe would run wild: London and Paris would disappear from the face of the Earth, and Spain would be settled by some Gverilasses who would roam from valley to valley and rob merchants and travelers.

The British humorist Jerome K. Jerome in the story "The New Utopia" (1891) looks as far into the 29th century. There we are waiting for a world in which Universal and Absolute Equality reigns - people are required to walk in the same clothes, wash and eat at the same time. Names will be replaced by numbers (a similar prediction is also found in Yevgeny Zamyatin's dystopia "We", 1924), and if someone's intelligence turns out to be above average, then surgeons "average" the brain of such a person.

With regard to scientific discoveries and technical advances Here are just a few predictions:

2023 - creation of a superintelligent robot ("Turing Variant" by Robert Minsky and Harry Harrison).

2119 - the appearance of a universal cure for all diseases (Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, "Noon, XXII century").

2122 - the discovery of extraterrestrial life on the planet Tagora, with whose population in 2124 earthlings will establish contact (Strugatsky, "Noon, XXII century").

XXIII century - the invention of the psychosynthesizer, a device for materializing images that arise in the human brain (Grigory Temkin, "Bonfire").

XXIV century - houses will be built on the basis of the "theory of four-dimensional cubes." Here the interior will be updated by itself, and the rooms will move from floor to floor, so that the owner is not bored (Robert Heinlein, “The House That Teal Built”).

Fantasists also predict the invention of photographs that convey smell, sound and a moving picture (Joe Haldeman, “Right to the Earth”), the appearance of luminous implants that will be implanted into the human body instead of jewelry (Paul Di Filippo, “Problems of Survival”) and much more.

The world of things is an essential facet of human reality, both primary and artistically realized. This is the sphere of activity and habitation of people. The thing is directly related to their behavior, consciousness and constitutes a necessary component of culture: “a thing outgrows its “thingness” and begins to live, act, “matter” in the spiritual space. Things are made by someone, belong to someone, cause a certain attitude towards themselves, become a source of impressions, experiences, thoughts. They are put by someone exactly in this place and are true to their purpose, or, on the contrary, for some reason they are in a purely random place and, having no owner, lose their meaning, turn into rubbish.

In all these facets, things that are either values ​​or “anti-values” are able to appear in art (in particular, in literary works), constituting their integral link. “Literature,” notes A.P. Chudakov - depicts the world in its physical and concrete-objective forms. The degree of attachment to the material is different - in prose and poetry, in the literature of different eras, among writers of different literary trends.

But the artist of the word can never shake off the material dust from his feet and, with his liberated foot, enter the realm of immateriality; The internally substantial, in order to be perceived, must be recreated externally and objectively. Images of things have acquired a particularly responsible role in works that are closely attentive to everyday life, which almost predominate in literature since the era of romanticism.

One of the leitmotifs of the literature of the 19th-20th centuries is a thing akin to a person, as if fused with his life, home, everyday life. So, in the novel of Novalis, convinced that nothing in the environment is alien to a real poet, it is said that home stuff and the use of it promises the human soul pure joy, that they are able to "raise the soul above everyday life", elevate the needs of man. In a similar way - carefully painted by N.V. Gogol objects in the house of Afanasy Ivanovich and Pulcheria Ivanovna (“Old-world landowners”): bundles of dried pears and apples on a palisade, a clay floor kept with tidiness, chests, boxes in rooms, a singing door.

“All this has an inexplicable charm for me,” the narrator admits. Something close to this and L.N. Tolstoy: his own, special, living face have both the office of the old prince Volkonsky (it was “filled with things that were obviously incessantly used”, which are described below), and the interiors of the Rostovs’ house (let us recall the excitement of Nikolai, who returned from the army to Moscow, when he saw the well-known card tables in the hall, a lamp in case, doorknob), and Levin's room, where on everything - both on a notebook with his handwriting and on his father's sofa - "traces of his life."

Similar motives are heard by I.S. Turgenev, N.S. Leskov, sometimes - at A.P. Chekhov (especially in later plays); in the XX century - in the prose of B.K. Zaitsev and I.S. Shmelev, in verses and the novel "Doctor Zhivago" by B.L. Pasternak, especially persistently - in the "White Guard" by M.A. Bulgakov (understandable to the reader a tiled stove, dotted with notes, a “bronze lamp under a lampshade”, without which a turbine house is unimaginable). The things denoted in this series of works, as it were, exude the poetry of family and love, comfort, spiritual settledness, and at the same time - high spirituality.

Many of these things, lived by a person and signifying his good connection with the world, are worldly decorations designed to please the eye and heart (most often - multi-colored, colorful, patterned). This kind of things is rooted in the centuries-old culture of mankind and, accordingly, in verbal art. So, the narrators of epics were closely attentive to what is now commonly called jewelry. Here are rings, and red clasps, and pearl earrings, and buttons that are more beautiful than the robe itself, and fabrics with patterns, and magnificent banquet bowls, and the gilding of the prince's gard, and a fur coat that “as if burns in a fire” during the day and with which at night "as if sparks are pouring." In historically early poetic genres, a thing appears as “a necessary belonging of a person, as an important conquest of him, as something that determines his social value by its presence”; "depicted with special care and love", she "is always offered in a state of ultimate perfection, the highest completeness." This layer of verbal imagery testifies to the nature of the life of our distant ancestors, who surrounded themselves with objects "more or less artistically processed."

Everyday decorations, festively and fabulously bright, appear as a kind of counterbalance to the vulgar everyday life in the stories of E.T.A. Hoffmann. Such is the entourage of the house of the archivist Lindgorst (“Golden Pot”): a crystal mirror and bells, a ring with a precious stone and the golden pot itself with a magnificent lily embroidered on it, which is designed to miraculously make happy young heroes story. Such are in the fairy tale “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King”), the plot of which is well known thanks to the ballet by P.I. Tchaikovsky, fabulously plentiful Christmas gifts for children (among them - the Nutcracker).

Such objects, charmingly poetic, make up an important facet of the works of N.V. Gogol, N.S. Leskova, P.I. Melnikov-Pechersky, I.A. Goncharova ("Cliff"), A.N. Ostrovsky ("The Snow Maiden"). They are also present in A. Blok:

Each skate on a patterned carving

Red flames are thrown towards you

(Introduction to "Poems about the Beautiful Lady")

And far, far away waving invitingly

Your patterned, your colored sleeve.

We also recall the “painted knitting needles” and “patterned patterns up to the eyebrows” from famous poem"Russia".

The poetic side of everyday life with its utensils and subject entourage, which has folk roots, is vividly embodied in the story of I.S. if you don’t do it, then you have to rejoice with your soul. ” The description of a pavilion near the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, which is called a “song”, is imbued with such joy: “the glasses are all multi-colored, platbands and valances of the most intricate work, made of birch, under light varnish, stars and knobs, skates and cockerels, cunning curlicues, suns and ripples” — everything is “carved, thin”. Such household items are mentioned in the story of V.I. Belov "The Village of Berdyaika" and in his book "Lad", in the stories of V.P. Astafiev "Arc" and "Asterisks and Christmas trees".

But in the literature of the XIX-XX centuries. a different illumination of the material world predominates, to a greater extent depressingly prosaic rather than elevatingly poetic. In Pushkin (1830s), even more so in Gogol and in "post-Gogol" literature, life with its material entourage is often presented as dull, monotonous, weighing on a person, repulsive, insulting the aesthetic sense. Let us recall Raskolnikov's room, one corner of which was "terribly sharp", the other "too ugly stupid", or the clock in "Notes from the Underground", which "wheezes as if they are being strangled", after which there is a "thin, nasty ringing". At the same time, a person is depicted as alienated from the world of things, on which the seal of desolation and death is thus placed.

These motifs, often associated with the idea of ​​writers about the responsibility of a person for his immediate environment, including the subject, sounded in Gogol's "Dead Souls" (images of Manilov and, in particular, Plyushkin), and in a number of Chekhov's works. So, the hero of the story “The Bride”, dreaming of beautiful fountains of a bright future, lives in a room where “it is smoky, spitting; on the table near the cold samovar lay broken plate with a dark piece of paper, and there were a lot of dead flies on the table and on the floor.

In numerous cases, the material world is associated with a person's deep dissatisfaction with himself, with the surrounding reality. Vivid evidence of this is the work of I.F. Annensky, which foreshadowed a lot in the art of the 20th century. In his poems, “from every shelf and whatnot, from under the closet and from under the sofa,” the night of life looks; in the open windows there is a sense of "hopelessness"; the walls of the room are seen as “dreary white.” Objects are here, L.Ya. Ginzburg, are “signs of longing for immobility”, a physiologically specific, but very voluminous “longing for everyday life”: a person in Annensky is “linked to things” painfully and painfully.

In a different, one might say, aestheticized variation, the theme of melancholy, stimulated by things, persistently sounds in the work of V.V. Nabokov. For example: "It was a vulgarly furnished, dimly lit room with a shadow stuck in the corner and a dusty vase on an inaccessible shelf." This is how the room where the Chernyshevsky couple lives ("The Gift") is drawn. But (in the same novel) a room in the apartment of the parents of Zina, the hero’s beloved: “small, oblong, with walls painted in a whirlwind,” it seemed to Godunov-Cherdyntsev “unbearable” - “its furnishings, coloring, view of the asphalt courtyard”; and the "sand pit for children" reminded the narrator of that "greasy sand" that "we touch only when we bury our acquaintances."

The squeamish alienation from the world of things reaches its maximum in the works of J.-P. Sartre. The hero of the novel "Nausea" (1938) is disgusted by things because "the very existence of the world is ugly"; he cannot bear their presence as such, which is motivated simply: "nausea is myself." While in the tram, the hero experiences an irresistible disgust for the seat cushion, and for the wooden back, and for the strip between them; in his feeling all these things are “bizarre, stubborn, huge”: “I am among them. They surrounded me, lonely, wordless, defenseless, they are under me, they are above me. They don’t demand anything, they don’t impose themselves, they just exist.” And this is precisely what the hero finds unbearable: “I jump off the tram on the move. I couldn't take any more. Couldn't bear the haunting closeness of things."

Literature of the 20th century was marked by an unprecedentedly wide use of images of the material world, not only as attributes of the everyday environment, people's habitat, but also (above all!) as objects that are organically fused with the inner life of a person and at the same time have a symbolic meaning: both psychological and "existential", ontological . It's a recess artistic function things take place both when it participates in the depths of human consciousness and being, is positively significant and poetic, as, say, in Pasternak's poems with their dithyrambic tones, and in those cases when, as in Annensky and Nabokov, it is associated with melancholy, hopelessness and cold alienation from reality lyrical hero, narrator) character.

So, material concreteness is an integral and very essential facet of verbal and artistic imagery. Thing and literary work(both as part of the interiors and beyond) has a wide range of meaningful functions. At the same time, things “enter” literary texts in different ways. Most often they are episodic, present in very few episodes of the text, often given in passing, as if in between times. But sometimes images of things come to the fore and become the central link in the verbal fabric. Let's remember the "Summer of the Lord" by I.S. Shmelev is a story full of details of a rich and bright merchant life, or Gogol's "The Night Before Christmas" with abundant descriptions and enumerations of everyday realities and with a plot "twisted" around things, what are the bags of Solokha, in which her fans "hit", and the queen's little slippers, which Oksana wished to have.

Things can be “given” by writers either in the form of some kind of “objective” given, dispassionately depicted (remember Oblomov’s room in the first chapters of I.A. Goncharov’s novel; descriptions of shops in E. Zola’s novel “Lady’s Happiness”), or as someone’s impressions from what is seen, which is not so much painted as drawn by single strokes, subjectively colored. The first style is perceived as more traditional, the second as akin to modern art. As noted by A.P. Chudakov, F.M. Dostoevsky “there is no calmly consistent image of the material content of an apartment, a room. Objects, as it were, tremble in the cells of a tightly stretched authorial or heroic intention - and this reveals and exposes it. Something similar - in L.N. Tolstoy, A.P. Chekhov and many writers of the 20th century.

V.E. Khalizev Theory of Literature. 1999

Man began to create from the moment of his appearance. Paintings, sculptures and other artifacts whose age is impressive are still found by scientists today. We have collected 10 ancient works of art found at different times and in different parts of the world. And there is no doubt that women were the source of inspiration for the ancient masters.

1. Prehistoric rock art - 700 - 300 thousand years BC

The oldest examples of prehistoric rock art found to date are a form of pictogram, called "cups" by archaeologists, which are sometimes carved with longitudinal grooves. Cups are depressions carved into walls and rock tops. At the same time, they are often ordered in rows and columns. Such rock artifacts have been found on all continents. Some indigenous peoples in Central Australia still use them today. The oldest example of such art can be found in the Bhimbetka cave in central India.

2. Sculptures - 230,000 - 800,000 BC

The oldest human sculpture is the Venus from Hole Fels, which is 40,000 years old. However, there is much more ancient statue, around the authenticity of which there are heated debates. This statue, discovered on the Golan Heights in Israel, was named Venus from Berehat Ram. If this is in fact a real sculpture, then it is older than the Neanderthals and probably made by the predecessor of Homo sapiens, namely Homo erectus. The figurine was found between two layers of volcanic stone and soil, radiological analysis of which showed staggering figures - from 233,000 to 800,000 years. The debate around the discovery of this figurine intensified after a figurine called "Tan-Tan" was found in nearby Morocco, which was between 300,000 and 500,000 years old.

3. Drawings on the shell of ostrich eggs - 60,000 BC

Ostrich eggs were an important tool in many early cultures, and decorating their shells became an important form of self-expression for people. In 2010, researchers from Deepklough in South Africa discovered a large cache containing 270 fragments of ostrich eggs, which were decorated with decorative and symbolic designs. The two different main motifs in these designs were hatched stripes and parallel or converging lines.

4. The oldest rock paintings in Europe - 42,300 - 43,500 BC

Until recently, it was thought that Neanderthals were not able to create works of art. That changed in 2012 when researchers working in the Nerja Caves in Malaga, Spain discovered drawings that predate the famous drawings in the Chauvet Cave in southeastern France by more than 10,000 years. Six drawings on the walls of the cave were made with charcoal, and radiocarbon analysis showed that they were created between 42,300 and 43,500 years before our era.

5. Oldest handprints - 37,900 BC

Some of the oldest drawings ever made have been found on the walls of the Sulawesi caves in Indonesia. They are almost 35.5 years old and almost as old as the drawings in the cave of El Castillo (40,800 years old) and cave drawings in the Chauvet cave (37,000 years old). But the most original image in Sulawesi is 12 handprints made with ocher, which are at least 39,900 years old.

6. The oldest bone figurines - 30,000 BC

In 2007, archaeologists from the University of Tübingen were excavating on a plateau in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. They discovered a cache of small animals carved from bone. Bone figurines were made neither more nor less - 35,000 years ago. Five more figurines carved from mammoth tusk were discovered in the Vogelherd Cave in southwestern Germany. Among these finds were the remains of two lion figurines, two fragments of mammoth figurines, and two unidentified animals. Radiocarbon analysis and the rock layer in which they were found show that the bone sculptures were made during the Aurignacian culture, which is associated with the first appearance. modern man in Europe. Tests show that the figurines are 30,000 to 36,000 years old.

7. The oldest ceramic figurine - 24,000 - 27,000 BC

The Vestonice Venus is similar to other Venus figurines found around the world and is a 11.3 cm nude female figure with large breasts and wide hips. This is the first known ceramic sculpture made from fired clay, and it is 14,000 years older than the period in which fired clay began to be widely used to make pottery and figurines. The figurine was discovered during excavations on July 13, 1925 in Dolni Vestonice, South Moravia, Czechoslovakia.

8. The first landscape painting - 6000 - 8000 BC

Chatal-Hyuyuk painting is the oldest known in the world landscape painting. However, this claim is disputed by many scholars who claim that it is a depiction of abstract shapes as well as leopard skin. What it really is, no one knows. In 1963, archaeologist James Mellaart was excavating at Çatal_Hüyük (modern Turkey), one of the largest Stone Age cities to have been found. He discovered that one of the many frescoes used to decorate the dwelling depicts, in his opinion, a view of the city, with the Hasan Dag volcano erupting nearby. A study in 2013 partly confirmed his theory that this is actually a landscape. It was discovered that there was a volcanic eruption near the ancient city at that time.

9. Earliest Christian illustrated manuscript - 330-650 AD

In medieval times and earlier, books were an extremely scarce commodity, and were considered virtually treasures. Christian scribes adorned book covers precious stones and painted the pages with patterns with calligraphy. In 2010, in a remote monastery in Ethiopia, researchers discovered the gospel of Garima. This Christian manuscript was originally thought to have been written in the year 1100, but radiocarbon dating has shown the book to be much older, dating from 330-650 AD. This wonderful book may be related to the time of Abba Garima, the founder of the monastery where the book was discovered. Legend has it that he wrote the gospel in one day. To help him with this task, God stopped the movement of the Sun until the book was finished.

10. The oldest oil painting is from the 7th century AD.

In 2008, scientists discovered the world's oldest oil painting in a Bamyan cave monastery in Afghanistan. Since 2003, scientists from Japan, Europe and the United States have been working to preserve as much of the art as possible at Bamiyan Monastery, which was dilapidated by the Taliban. In the labyrinth of caves, walls were found covered with frescoes and paintings that depict the Buddha and other characters of mythology. The researchers believe that the study of these images will provide invaluable information about cultural exchange along different parts of the world along the Silk Road.

It is worth noting that today, among peaceful pastorals, noble portraits and other works of art that evoke only positive emotions, there are strange and shocking canvases, such as.