Russian literature through the eyes of American readers. American Literature in the First Half of the 20th Century

General description of work.

Chapter first. Imagology and the problem of national identity in literature (comparative aspects).

1.1. Foreign factor in national literature as an integral part of the relationship and interaction of literatures.

1.2. Imagology and the problem of perception of national images of the world by Russian literature.

1.3. The entry of the image of America into Russian society and Russian literature.

1.4. Americanism and the Russian idea.

1.5. National originality of Russian and American literature in the light of images of Russia and the USA.

1.6. The image of America in the literature of the Russian diaspora.

Chapter two. The United States in the Perception of Russian Writers of the Last Quarter

XIX - the first quarter of the XX century.

2.1. The American theme in the work of G.Machtet and V.Korolenko

2.2. United States in the perception of M. Gorky.

3.3. The image of America in the work of Sholom Aleichem

3.4. The American factor in the work of S. Yesenin

3.5. The American factor in the work of V. Mayakovsky.

Chapter three. Features of the perception of the United States by Russian literature in

1920s-1940s.

3.1. Russian-American literary relations in the 1920s-1930s through the eyes of American criticism.

3.2. The Image of the USA in the Perception of Soviet Literature in the 1930s

3.3. America and Russian society during the Second World War

Chapter Four. Russian literary consciousness and the image of America during the Cold War.

4.1. American literature in the perception of Soviet criticism of the late 40s and early 50s.

4.2. The Image of America in the Perception of Russian Literature during the Cold War.

Chapter five. "Thaw" and "second discovery" of America.

Introduction to the thesis (part of the abstract) on the topic "The Image of America in Russian Literature: From the History of Russian-American Literary and Cultural Relations in the Late 19th - First Half of the 20th Centuries."

Dissertation conclusion on the topic "Theory and history of culture", Kubanev, Nikolai Alekseevich

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Throughout the history of the United States, European ideas have nourished the spiritual life of the country, receiving a kind of refraction and being enriched by American cultural experience. From the 1830s to the 1920s, America was influenced by Coleridge and Carlyle, Fourier and Owen, Germaine de Stael and Hippolyte Taine, Darwin and Spencer, Tolstoy and Nietzsche, Marx and Dostoyevsky.

A powerful factor influencing American philosophical thought and artistic culture at the beginning of the 20th century. was Russian literature. The idols of the Americans were Tolstoy, Turgenev, Dostoevsky, and a little later - Gorky and Chekhov. They were read and promoted, they admired the psychological subtlety of the images they created, the depth of the depiction of Russian life, and learned artistic skills from them.

The wide popularity of Russian literature in America was no accident. Literature of the USA and Russia at the beginning of the 20th century. were at different stages of development. After a protracted - in comparison with Europe - period of romanticism in American literature at the end of the 19th century. a new artistic method was just beginning to enter widely, the highest point of which was the work of Mark Twain and Henry James. The golden age of Russian realistic literature, which opened with the work of Pushkin and Gogol, was nearing its end, and the Silver Age was already on the threshold. The richest artistic heritage of Tolstoy, Turgenev, Dostoevsky was actively mastered by America as it became available in translations.

The rebellion against conventions and various kinds of aesthetic restrictions, the desire to update the literary language, the development of a new artistic method predetermined the unusually great interest of Americans in Russian literature. Mastering the pragmatism of William James and John Dewey, turn-of-the-century Americans felt the need for social and intellectual renewal and were ready to accept and appreciate new ideas and artistic principles. The sentiment that gripped many writers of the time was expressed by Theodore Dreiser in the article "Changes" (1916): "Do not blindly adhere to any religious doctrine or system of state government, moral theory or philosophy of life, but be ready to discard traditional teachings and find freedom and wanting to accept completely new rules is the ideal state of mind." In the same year, a young, then still unknown, Dos Passos remarked: "We turn to Russian literature, because American literature keeps us on a starvation diet" 2 . Too harsh words of the writer reflect a certain state of mind - dissatisfaction with the state of national literature, a sense of a pause in its development, perhaps even decline.

That was the time when a real cult of Russia arose in America. The atmosphere of that time was determined by Henry May: “Wherever you look, everywhere you can see the fruits of the Slavic genius - both new ones and those that have only now become popular. Literary and art criticism was full of Russian names, such as Diaghilev, Nijinsky, Stravinsky, Chekhov, Dostoevsky. Further, the critic quotes from the influential magazine "Literary Digest" for 1913: "Priority in the world of art and literature has now passed to Russia" (2; p. 243).

The circumstance that the works of Turgenev, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and later Gorky and Chekhov were widely translated and printed both in England and in the USA was of great importance for the acquaintance of Americans with Russian literature. The main translator was the Englishwoman Constance Garnet, who accomplished a real feat - translating the collected works of Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky into English 3 . In America, Tolstoy's works were translated by Louise Maud, Alina Delano, and Elizabeth Hapgood. The latter carried out translations of Tolstoy's treatise "On Life", his autobiographical trilogy and "Sevastopol Tales", as well as "Anna Karenina" and "War and Peace" (together with Nathan Dole), the last two being from French translation. Louise Mood translated "Resurrection".

The activities of publishing houses contributed to the spread of Russian literature in America. So, in 1915. Alfred Knopf announced the start of the "Russian Project". Deciding to specialize in the production of Russian literature, the publisher explained it simply: "Russian literature, like German music, is the best in the world" (2; p. 291). These words, we note, belong to Yale University professor William Phelps, who prefaced them with a book of essays on Russian writers 4 .

It is important, however, to note that publishing houses did not always dare to print the works of Russian writers without cuts. Thus, Tolstoy's religious treatise "The Kingdom of God is within you" and the novel "Resurrection" were cut. Even such a faithful follower of Tolstoy as Ernest Crosby, who did a lot to popularize him in America, believed that the novel should be shortened a bit, so that "questions of gender in the narrative part were revealed less frankly" 5 .

An important factor in the interaction and mutual influence of Russian and American literature was personal contacts. Drawn by an interest in a country that was undergoing powerful political ferment and revolutionary change, as well as by love and respect for its culture—especially literature—American writers and journalists strove to visit Russia, become eyewitnesses of the events taking place there, meet writers whose authority in America was very high. Among the Americans who visited Russia at the beginning of the 20th century, one can name, in particular, the writers Henry Adams and his brother Brooks Adams. They were mainly interested in the political situation in the country. From their trips they got the impression that the country was on the verge of gigantic upheavals, but they refrained from predicting its future. In an article published in December 1900 in the Atlantic Monthly magazine, Brooks Adams wrote: "What the socialist revolution will bring to Russia is impossible to even imagine. But, most likely, the whole world will feel its consequences" 6 .

Journalists of various political orientations also visited Russia - Albert Rhys Williams, James Creelman, Andrew White, Stephen Bonsl, Leroy Scott, Ernest Crosby, William Walling, John Reed. The articles and books that they wrote upon their return to America shaped their compatriots' perceptions of Russia, social movements, the balance of socio-political forces and, last but not least, its spiritual culture.

The reverse process also took place: Russian writers came to America, got acquainted with the literary life of the United States, and their direct impressions were reflected in travel notes and stories, becoming the historical background of their works. But there are few such examples, the most famous of them is Gorky's trip to the United States, which stirred up public opinion.

Pyotr Kropotkin's lectures on Russian literature, delivered by him in Boston in 1901, must have had a definite, though limited, effect on Americans compared to the influence and spread that his socio-political views had in the United States. In the preface to publication of these lectures, he expressed a very subtle understanding of the literary situation in America and the importance for her of acquaintance with Russian literature: “She has a sincerity and simplicity of expression, which makes her attractive to anyone who is disgusted with artificiality in literature. introduces into the realm of art—poetry, prose, drama—almost all the social and political questions that in Western Europe and America are discussed mainly in journalism and very rarely in literature.

Turgenev became the first Russian writer to receive national recognition in the United States and "open Russia to American readers and writers" (3, p. 123). His influence relates primarily to the literary life of the United States of America. half of XIX c., but it persisted later. Interest in his work was of great importance for the development of Russian-American literary and cultural ties. It is known that Turgenev read Hamlin Garland and Stephen Crane, Frank Norris and Sherwood Anderson, not to mention Henry James, for whom throughout his career the works of the Russian master remained a model of artistic excellence. Following the "Notes of a Hunter" American writers discovered novels - "Rudin", "Fathers and Sons", "Nov", "Smoke", "Noble Nest".

Sherwood Anderson, who constantly read and re-read Turgenev, Dostoevsky, Gorky, Chekhov, wrote about the deep influence of Russian literature on him, and Turgenev in particular. His first acquaintance with Russian literature took place, according to the writer himself, around 1911, when he read The Hunter's Notes: "I remember how my hands trembled when I read this book. I read it avidly" 8. In a letter to Roger Sergel, he noted something in common that is characteristic of the Russian writers he loved: in Turgenev, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, he found "a reverent attitude to human life, the absence of this eternal didacticism and self-confidence, so characteristic of most Western writers" (8; p .118).

An interesting piece of evidence of Turgenev's unfading importance to the American reader is an article by John Reid, published in 1919 as a preface to the American edition of Smoke. The penetrating eye of the critic notes the graceful form and laconism of style, bright national features, but, most importantly, the acute social problems of the book.

Giving a general description of Turgenev's work, John Reed credits him primarily with the propaganda orientation of his works. Reed quotes the writer as saying that he swore to defeat his "enemy" - serfdom. The theme of the liberation of the peasants, Reed notes, permeates almost all of Turgenev's work, and this consistent and firm position had a tangible public resonance. The "Hunter's Notes", according to the critic, awakened public opinion and caused numerous protests against serfdom. He repeats a phrase he heard somewhere: "Notes of a hunter" is the Russian "Uncle Tom's Cabin". Turgenev's strength, Reid believes, is that he was able to write about political problems without didacticism, creating truthful pictures of people's life and giving the reader the opportunity to draw their own conclusions. The main interest for the critic was the image of Russian society - and not only the 60s of the XIX century, "but also whole era until 1917." 9: Turgenev showed the weakness and lack of will of the Russian intelligentsia (in "Rudin" and "Smoke"), which was fascinated by Western liberal ideas, but was unable to accept the revolution and recoiled from it when it happened. According to Reid, Turgenev, belonged to "a galaxy of great Russian novelists who followed Gogol. " His books constituted "a true chronicle of an era that has irrevocably receded into the past" (9; pp. 145, 146).

Assessing the role of Turgenev in the American and English literature at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries, MP Alekseev noticed that those writers who tried to find a way out of the contradictions of their time sought support in it; he "awakened their critical thought; they learned from Turgenev an intense interest in the truth of life, love for man, hatred of cruelty, hypocrisy and self-interest" 10 .

Indeed, Turgenev, as a master of psychological writing, who knew how to convey the state of mind of the heroes with accurate, mean strokes, an artist who subtly felt the peculiarities of the Russian character, became for American writers the undisputed authority from whom they learned the art of writing.

At the beginning of the 20th century, however, Turgenev's influence waned somewhat: Americans discovered Tolstoy. There was even a kind of "cult of Tolstoy", the spread of which was greatly facilitated by William Dean Howells. The assessments made by him in the 80s of the 19th century do not undergo significant changes over time, but are confirmed and developed in articles written at the turn of the century: Tolstoy's Philosophy (1897) and Leo Tolstoy (1908). After the death of the writer, the latter was reprinted under the title "What are the reasons for the fame of Tolstoy."

Howells highlights the main feature of Tolstoy's prose - the combination of ethical and aesthetic, writes about the writer's ability to show the merciless truth of life, recognizes the enormous moral power of his preaching of love, tolerance, self-sacrifice. The critic closely connects the ideas of Tolstoy's philosophical and religious treatises with his artistic work, admires such features of Tolstoy's talent as sincerity, simplicity and artlessness, the depth of the artistic study of characters. It is these qualities of Tolstoy that many American writers of the 20th century, following Howells, will note, and see his highest merit in a deep comprehension of life and humanistic pathos. According to Hamlin Garland, another passionate admirer of Tolstoy's talent, it was Howells who did more than any other American to interpret the work of the Russian writer: "He always saw the moralist as an artist" (5, p. 162).

Tolstoy's popularity in America, albeit in very different ways, was promoted by the brothers William and Henry James. G. James's attitude to Tolstoy was formed in the last decades of the 19th century, however, it was most clearly expressed in articles and letters of 1907-1910. He did not share the creative principles of Tolstoy and his artistic method, remaining to the end of his days an adherent of Turgenev, but at the same time he recognized the enormous scale of his talent. Although G. James warned young "authors against following Tolstoy, his recommendations apparently had the opposite effect. Tolstoy's influence on the strength of the impact on the souls of Americans can be likened to the elements. The venerable American writer could not resist him.

Unlike Henry James, the writer's brother, philosopher, psychologist and one of the founders of pragmatism, William James paid tribute to the mighty figure of Tolstoy. He wrote about it in The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902), which had an undoubted influence on the literary process in the United States. William James quotes Tolstoy's treatise "Confession", in which he found confirmation of his thoughts regarding the possibility of overcoming a painful split personality. He speaks of a phenomenon that is by no means peculiar only to Americans - the struggle of two principles: base and sublime, ideal and material, sinful and righteous: "The soul of a person is an arena of struggle between two warring principles - man himself recognizes them as natural and ideal"; "we have two lives - natural and spiritual; losing one, we gain another" 11 .

William James seems to echo the words of Tolstoy, who characterized Nekhlyudov at the beginning of the novel Resurrection as follows: “In Nekhlyudov, as in all people, there were two people. One is a spiritual person who seeks only good for himself that would be good for other people, and the other is an animal person who seeks good only for himself and is ready to sacrifice the good of the whole world for this good. In this period<...>this animal man dominated him and completely crushed the spiritual man.

For William James, it is extremely important that Tolstoy managed to overcome despair and disbelief in the meaningfulness of life - a kind of ontological skepticism, which, in his opinion, is evidenced by "Confession". Tolstoy's book served the philosopher to substantiate the position of inner harmony, which can be achieved through gradual (lysis), and not sharp (crisis). It is noteworthy that James turned to Russian literature for positive examples.

In the eighth chapter, entitled "Split Personality and the Way to Wholeness," William James wrote about Tolstoy's spiritual crisis and overcoming it with the help of religion, which brought the writer back to life from the abyss of despair. Among the targets of Tolstoy's social criticism, James names "the vulgarity of the world, the cruel imperial policy, the lies of the church, human vanity, the criminality of state institutions" (11; p. 175). He expressed his admiration for the talent of the great Russian writer metaphorically: "The mighty nature of Tolstoy can be compared with an old oak<...>He rejects luxury, falsehood, greed and cruelty, all the conventions of our civilization, and sees eternal values ​​​​in things more natural and alive.<...>Few can follow his example, for we do not have such natural power. But at least we think that it would be nice to follow in the footsteps of Tolstoy" (11; p. 173).

Henry James with his brother William in Cambridge. Photo. 1905

Tolstoy's influence on American writers of the early 20th century. was deep and multifaceted. Sherwood Anderson, Upton Sinclair, Theodore Dreiser were undoubtedly influenced by his work. Sherwood Anderson studied artistic skill with Tolstoy, which was reflected in his work later, in the late 10s and early 20s of the 20th century. Upton Sinclair, who gained fame at the beginning of the century as the author of the sharply social novels The Jungle (1906), The Capital (1908), The Money Changers (1908), saw in Tolstoy primarily a "socialist writer", a rebel against social injustice. , protector of the disadvantaged. He especially singled out Tolstoy's journalism and the novel "Resurrection", about which he spoke highly: "This book<...>more than any other work, did for the destruction of tsarism "(3, p. 213). Sinclair called Tolstoy the greatest writer in the world, personifying Russian genius and moral strength. Upton Sinclair expressed his admiration for Tolstoy directly, sending him a copy of the just published the novel "The Jungle" Traces of Tolstoy's reading of the book are visible in his article "On the Significance of the Russian Revolution", on which the writer was working at that time (3, p. 161).

The impact of Tolstoy's work on the artistic world of Dreiser can be judged both directly, based on his own confessions, and indirectly, by comparing the worldview of the two writers, the problems and poetics of their works. Dreiser turned to the experience of Tolstoy throughout his entire creative life, mentioned it in works of art, journalism, letters. The first works of Tolstoy, which he happened to read while still a student, were the stories "Kreutzer Sonata" and "The Death of Ivan Ilyich", as well as some of Tolstoy's treatises. In Dreiser's early work, Tolstoy's influence is invisibly present in some refracted form: Tolstoy's demand for simplicity and merciless truthfulness in art, expressed in the treatise What is Art, should have impressed the American writer.

The formation of Dreiser during the years of his student youth was influenced by such various writers and philosophers like Tolstoy, Spencer, Darwin, Huxley, Emerson, and later, already in 1908, Nietzsche. "I will never forget the chapter on the unknowable from Spencer's Fundamentals," he wrote in his autobiographical book, "At Dawn" (Dawn). "It completely amazed me." And here is another confession, very important for understanding Dreiser's worldview. He responded in the following way to the publication of the book "Nietzsche's Philosophy" (1908) in a letter to H. Mencken: "If what you write in the preface conveys the meaning of Nietzsche's philosophy, then I can consider myself his like-minded person (he and myself are hale fellows well met)" 1 4 . In another letter to Mencken (in 1916), he admitted that Hardy, Tolstoy and Balzac had the greatest influence on him (however, he spoke very carefully about the concept of "influence" as applied to himself). "After 1906 or so, I became acquainted with Turgenev, Dostoevsky, Maupassant, Flaubert, Strindberg and Hauptmann, but I cannot say that they influenced me, since I learned them too late" (14; v. 1, p. 215 ). "Anna Karenina" by Tolstoy, along with the novels "Madam Bovary" by Flaubert and "Fathers and Sons" by Turgenev, as well as the story by Balzac "Father Goriot", he called one of greatest works world literature (13; p. 186).

In 1893, Dreiser read Tolstoy's treatise "So what shall we do?" 15, which by that time had already been translated into English. Then he became acquainted with the religious and philosophical teachings of Tolstoy. Almost forty years later, the writer recalled how, together with a college friend, he discussed Tolstoy's theories. He doubted that they could be realized: “After all, it is well known what human nature is and how deep into our consciousness Darwin's thesis about the survival of the fittest has penetrated.<...>Tolstoy in his treatise preaches a return to a simple life and work, which would provide a person with only the bare necessities. He calls not to return evil for evil - this is the ancient doctrine of non-resistance. But how to make people accept Tolstoy's postulate and make them act contrary to their wishes? It is clear that this question is very complex both from the psychological and biological points of view. Neither he nor I could solve this problem" (15; p. 362).

Dreiser was generally hostile to writers, whom he called "moralists" and "preachers" (religionists) (15; p. 543). It is not surprising that this side of Tolstoy's work did not find a response in his soul. Unlike Howells, he did not always "see the artist in the moralist." He appreciated Tolstoy, first of all, as an artist, and not the creator of a religious and philosophical doctrine - their views were too different. He himself testifies to this as follows: “The most precious thing to me was then (in my student years — E. O.) Tolstoy the artist, the author of The Kreutzer Sonata and The Death of Ivan Ilyich”<...>I was shocked and delighted with the vitality of the pictures that were revealed to me in them” (5, p. 555).

Dreiser, by his own admission, sought to learn artistic skills from Balzac and Tolstoy. However, his worldview was based on other principles. At this time, he was strongly influenced by the ideas of social Darwinism, of which Tolstoy was a fierce opponent. In Dreiser's first novel, Sister Kerry (1900), in depicting the struggle for existence, in which the less worthy win, one feels the author's fascination with the doctrines of H. Spencer, but on the whole the book goes far beyond this teaching. It also clearly shows the features of naturalism, and the influence of Tolstoy is almost indistinguishable.

The German scholar Horst-Jurgen Gerick sees in this novel a "stylistic affinity" (Affinitat) to Tolstoy's artistic manner, 16 which is hard to agree with. Rather, one can speak of stylistic similarity to the manner of Dreiser's compatriot Jack London. It is no coincidence that some chapters of the novel resemble London's essays, as well as certain places from the book "People of the Abyss", which appeared three years after "Sister Kerry", but in this case it is hardly legitimate to talk about influence (and then about Dreiser's influence on London) Rather, we are talking about typological convergences here.

The moral pathos so characteristic of Tolstoy was alien to Dreiser, about which he spoke unequivocally in a letter to one of his correspondents in January 1919. Regarding Johan Boyer's novel The Great Famine, he wrote: “In my opinion, the novel should not be like religious treatise. Its idea should lie rather in the material than in the spiritual plane. In life, of course, both of these elements are present, but the artist pursues one goal - to show life in the "whole" ("in the round").<...>Boyer is a real artist, although he strives to embody a spiritual message (if, of course, one can call a writer with such a big flaw an artist).

He is similar to Tolstoy in that he seeks to teach<... >His book is like a sermon, and I don't like that. To see this weakness of hers, it suffices to compare it with Saltykov's novel The Golovlevs, Madame Bovary by Flaubert, Cousin Bethta, or Balzac's Father Goriot" (14; v. I, p. 258). By the way, Dreiser highly valued Saltykov-Shchedrin's book "Lord Golovlev" and called its author "the greatest writer of Russia, and perhaps the world" (14; v. Ill, p. 847).

Like Tolstoy, Dreiser strove for merciless truth, but his truthfulness has other aesthetic characteristics than Tolstoy's truthfulness. So, in "Sister Kerry" the inexorable process of personality degradation is shown - the gradual physical degradation of George Hurstwood, who in the life battle "all against all" turned out to be one of the least adapted and died in the abyss of the New York Bowery. Kerry Meiber adapts, but her success in life is accompanied by moral degradation.

A different picture appears before us in "Jenny Gerhardt" (1911). It is possible that the portrayal of the main character of the novel was influenced by the female images from Anna Karenina - Dolly Oblonskaya and Kitty Shcherbatskaya. These women, unlike Anna Karenina, are endowed with the gift of self-sacrifice and genuine, not selfish love. Jenny Gerhardt has something in common with these Tolstoyan heroines.

In 1901, Tolstoy, in an interview with the American journalist Andrew White, noted that the literature of the United States is "not on a crest, but in a deep valley between high waves 17. If he had had a chance to read Dreiser's novels, he might have softened his assessment.

The theme of art, which first appeared in Dreiser's work in "Sister Carrie" and developed in the novel "Genius" (1915), was partly suggested to the author by Tolstoy's article "What is Art" 18 . She obviously made an impression on Dreiser, although he did not share all of Tolstoy's aesthetic views. In "Sister Carrie" one can hear echoes of words about "the contagiousness of art 19 , which, according to Tolstoy, requires originality, clarity of meaning and sincerity. Dreiser endowed the last of these qualities to Carrie Meeber when she happened to play the only time in an amateur production of a melodrama Augustine Daly "In the light of gas lamps" "Simplicity and artlessness" 20, which so captured the audience - in the eyes of Dreiser, especially valuable qualities. But the writer did not make Carrey a great actress, based on his artistic task: to show two processes in parallel - withering her acting talent and moral degradation.It is not for nothing that her acting in vaudevilles and operettas was not distinguished by either depth or originality, and her fame was artificially inflated.

Although Dreiser did not share many of Tolstoy's beliefs and was skeptical of his teachings on non-resistance to evil by violence, he considered it his duty to defend the writer when, in 1909, Theodore Roosevelt led an anti-Tolstoy campaign in the United States. The former American president published a scathing article in Outlook magazine, in which he called Tolstoy's views "stupid and fantastic", and called some aspects of his teachings (renunciation of property, denial of the state, philosophical anarchism, pacifism and the famous non-resistance to evil by violence) dangerous and even "immoral" 21 . He took as "intervention" in the internal affairs of America the words of a Russian writer who condemned the discriminatory ethnic policy of the American government and the war with Spain.

These ideas were voiced with great force, in particular, in Tolstoy's article "To Politicians" (1903), where he called on Americans - quite in the spirit of Thoreau - to civil disobedience. “The little-known American writer Thoreau,” Tolstoy wrote in 1903, “in his treatise on why a person is obliged to disobey the government, tells how he refused to pay the American government 1 dollar of tax, explaining his refusal by the fact that he does not want his dollar to participate in the affairs of the government, allowing the slavery of Negroes.Isn’t it possible and should feel the same towards his government, not to mention a Russian person, but a citizen of the most advanced state of America with its actions in Cuba, the Philippines, its attitude towards Negroes, the expulsion of the Chinese. .." (19; vol. 35, pp. 208-209).

Theodore Roosevelt was not afraid for nothing. The method proposed by Thoreau and developed by Tolstoy became, as history has shown, one of the ways of expressing civil protest. Apparently, Theodore Dreiser also understood this, although in his younger years, as already noted, he doubted the effectiveness of Tolstoy's ethical teaching. Later, in Thoreau's Living Thoughts (1939), he praised Thoreau as a philosopher and "moral reformer". It can be assumed that his own views on the theory and practice of civil disobedience have undergone some change. Dreiser's defense of Tolstoy from the invectives of Theodore Roosevelt indicates that the contradictions in his assessments of Thoreau and Tolstoy are smoothed out. Two factors could play a certain role in this: Tolstoy's extreme popularity in America and Dreiser's deeper acquaintance with his work.

Attention is drawn to the roll call of voices and ideas in Russian and American literature: Tolstoy saw much in common with US writers in the first half of the 19th century, who were occupied with philosophical and social problems that also worried him; many of the thoughts of Thoreau and Emerson, Harrison and Parker resonated in his soul. They reinforced his own convictions, gave impetus to reflection and search. And vice versa, the thoughts of Tolstoy the philosopher and the humanistic philosophy expressed in his works of art and treatises, which combined individualism and communality and taught people in their own life, which requires daily decisions and actions, to unfailingly follow their convictions and build relationships on the basis of brotherly love, won he has many admirers and followers in America.

Tolstoy's influence also affected American journalism. At the beginning of the century, many of those who came to Russia considered it their duty to visit Yasnaya Polyana and talk with the great writer, which testifies to Tolstoy's great authority in the United States. This interest was prepared both by the wide dissemination of Russian literature in America and by the development of the revolutionary movement in Russia.

In 1903 James Creelman, a correspondent for the New York newspaper The World, visited Tolstoy in Yasnaya Polyana. The interview he took, reprinted in many newspapers, evoked enthusiastic responses from Americans and was perceived as Tolstoy's appeal to the American people: the Russian writer urged Americans to return to the ideals embodied in the works of Thoreau, Emerson, Whittier, Harrison. Creelman, although he did not agree with much of Tolstoy's philosophy, considered him "the greatest of the most truthful people" (5, p. 434).

The well-known American journalist and active participant in the socialist movement William English Walling visited Russia in 1905-1907 as a correspondent for several American newspapers and magazines. His reports, published in the magazines In-Dependent, Outlook, Nation, Colliers Weekly, World Today, were included in the book Message to Russia. The World Significance of the Russian Revolution (1908). It went through several editions and was even translated into Russian and published in Berlin.

Walling's book is a valuable eyewitness account, a document that reflects the atmosphere of those turbulent years, the struggle of ideas, the confrontation of various political and social forces. The American journalist met with statesmen, politicians, writers, talked with Tolstoy, Gorky, Korolenko, whom he visited during a trip to the Poltava province. He spoke respectfully of Tolstoy's social preaching, Gorky's rebellious spirit, spoke of Korolenko's political views, whom he called "Russia's best publicist."

The materials for the book were not only personal impressions and conversations. Walling addressed the Russians periodicals published abroad, such as Correspondent Russe or the Socialist-Revolutionary monthly Russian Tribune, published in Paris, used articles by American journalists Albert Edwards and Harold Williams in Colliers Weekly and Harpers Weekly, and many other sources. Based on rich historical material, Walling's book is written by a talented pen and includes descriptions of places and events in the genre of a travel diary, sketches of characters, vivid publicistic and emotionally colored appeals to the reader, philosophical reflections, excerpts from letters, official documents, periodicals.

For Walling, Russia in 1905-1907 is the only country in the world that is experiencing spiritual ferment, a country that is ahead of others not only in social thought and ideals, but also in many areas of cultural life. "Under the influence of severe trials and great suffering, the Russian people have become accustomed to a deeper and more intense spiritual life, and therefore his new word, his message to the world should deeply affect all countries" 24 . The time has come, Walling wrote in the preface, "to assess the significance of the first act of the great revolutionary drama. The second act has not yet begun, and its end is far ahead" (23; p. XII). These words echo Walling's conversation with Tolstoy. They have preserved for us one more evidence that the great Russian writer could penetrate into the innermost essence of events, predict the course of history.

The figure of Tolstoy occupies a special place in the book. The author considered him a successor to the revolutionary ideas of Rousseau. “Tolstoy is now the greatest opponent of capitalism in Russia and in the whole world,” Walling wrote, and his social program, although it seems impractical, is in fact “the greatest threat to the existence of tsarism” (23; p. 434). The writer valued Tolstoy as a defender of the oppressed peasantry, noted the revealing power of his journalism.

In a conversation with Tolstoy, whom Walling visited at Yasnaya Polyana on May 12, 1906 (shortly after the convocation of the First Duma), he admitted that he was going to live in Russia for several years to observe the course of the revolution. To this Tolstoy replied that he would have to live in Russia for fifty years. "The Russian Revolution is the greatest drama, which consists of several acts. This Duma is not even the first act, but only the first scene of the first act, and, as always happens with the first scenes, it is a little comical" (23; p. 7) . In the 1917 edition of the book, Walling developed the image found by Tolstoy: "The second act will undoubtedly be played at the end or shortly before the end of the present war with Germany and Austria" 25 . Walling's words proved to be prophetic.

During the meeting of the two writers, the discussion turned to the methods of social protest, the possibility and justification of violence. According to Walling, Tolstoy remarked that in this respect he "consistently agreed with the well-known anarchists—Thoreau, Bakunin, Kropotkin, Proudhon, and others" (23; p. 449). The American writer obviously understood the limitations of Tolstoy's position on this issue. However, like Korolenko, he did not speak out against Tolstoy's doctrine of non-resistance to evil by violence, for he saw how much evil retaliatory violence brings in a village where a real civil war was going on. On the other hand, he accurately assessed the historical futility of terrorism, individual acts of revenge, which were carried out by the "Combat Organization" of the Socialist-Revolutionaries.

Walling's book contains not only an analysis of the revolutionary situation in Russia, but also reflections on the development of philosophical thought in Europe and America. The rejection of the ideas of social Darwinism forced Walling to look for opposite phenomena in Russian culture and philosophy. And he found them in Tolstoy's teachings, 26 in which he was attracted by the preaching of spirituality and moral perfection, nonconformism and the rejection of violence. Influenced by a conversation with the writer, he formulates his vision of the ways of social progress as follows: "We must stop opposing social progress personal improvement, to stop trying to uphold principles with the help of force. We must, together with him (Tolstoy. - E.O.), implement non-resistance to evil in our actions! "(23; p. 449) At the same time, Walling emphasizes Tolstoy understands non-violence as active resistance to evil.

Largely due to his acquaintance with the work and personality of Tolstoy, Walling came to the conclusion about the leading role of Russia in the field of spiritual life. For him, "light from the East" (Lux Orientalis) came precisely from Russia. By the way, Walling's stay in Russia - together with his wife, Anna Strunskaya, and her sister, Roza Strunskaya - had other consequences for the expansion of literary contacts between the two countries. Anna Strunskaya presented Tolstoy with the second edition of the book "Letters of Love" (Letters of Kempton-Weiss), written by her together with Jack London in 1902. Roza Strunskaya translated into English excerpts from Tolstoy's diaries, as well as Gorky's book of religious quest "Confession" 27 .

Walling's views and his Russian impressions could not help but influence Jack London, who knew him closely through Anna Strunskaya. It was no coincidence that he chose Walling as the prototype of the hero from the unfinished novel The Murder Bureau (1911), the plot of which is indirectly connected with Russian events. The main conflict of the novel is the clash of two ideologies: life philosophy the head of the Murder Bureau, Ivan Dragomilov, and the socialist Winter Hall, a staunch opponent of terror, carried out by an "initiative personality." Hall was based on William Walling. This is evidenced not only by the portrait resemblance, but also by a number of characteristic details. London calls his hero a "millionaire socialist", namely these words were used in the American press in relation to Walling, the grandson of a prominent politician and heir to a large fortune.

Like Walling, Winter Hall is a brilliant journalist, author of many articles and books. He spent a year in Russia, where he witnessed the events of 1905, studied the tactics of the revolutionaries in the fight against the autocracy. He came to the conclusion that the time of the "rider on horseback" had passed. In an ideological dispute with Dragomilov, Hall wins. He proves to his opponent that the activities of the Murder Bureau are antisocial or, as he said, "socially inappropriate." (Interestingly, in a conversation with Walling, Boris Savinkov characterized the actions of Russian terrorists with similar words.) Having admitted defeat, Dragomilov accepts an order from Hall to destroy himself. As a result, having eliminated all members of the organization, he himself perishes. Hall and Dragomilov's daughter, Grunya, remain to live, demonstrating the triumph of the principles of "humane socialism", devoid of any shade of Nietzscheanism, the principles of which Dragomilov professed.

Walling's views (and possibly Azef's case, about which he could get information from the press or from acquaintances) influenced London's assessment of the methods of Russian revolutionaries. The evolution in his views on the problem of violence is obvious: if in the essay "Revolution" he welcomed the explosion of Sozonov's bomb, then in the novel "The Murder Bureau" he unequivocally condemned the SR tactics of terror.

The influence of Tolstoy, his artistic creativity and social views - both direct and indirect (as evidenced, in particular, by the case described above) - became, at the beginning of the 20th century, perhaps the most significant part of Russian-American literary ties. At the beginning of the century, the first attempt was made to put Tolstoy on stage. The choice fell on "Resurrection" 29. The staging of the novel had been going on for several years in Paris, at the Odeon theater. The American premiere took place in New York in February 1903. According to most critics, the performance was unsuccessful because it did not convey the essence of Tolstoy's novel. However, he gave impetus to critical discussions about the writer's work. In one of the reviews, a theater columnist for the Evening Post wrote about Resurrection: “The book contains a lot of fantastic and utopian, which will remain so until a radical transformation of all mankind takes place. But its value does not lie in savoring vice, not in a scrupulous description of poverty and moral decline, but in an analysis of the causes that gave rise to them, in the psychological insight of the author, in a fiery philanthropic spirit that permeates the book, in a deep study of national life and customs, in an ardent desire to protect human interests "(29. p. 194).

Interesting is the testimony of Ernest Crosby, who, in a letter to Tolstoy, mentioned the play he had seen by the American playwright (whose name he does not name) "Lea Kleshma", written under the influence of the novel. The main idea of ​​the play, according to Crosby, is that even in the most hardened criminal there is a spark of good (5; p. 398). In addition to Resurrection, some time later, The Power of Darkness (Guild Theatre, 1920), The Living Corpse (Plymouth Theatre, 1918) were staged on the New York stage, and Anna Karenina was staged ( theater "Herald", 1907) 30 .

An anonymous critic from the Evening Post pointed out quite accurately the reasons for Tolstoy's colossal influence on the American consciousness at the beginning of the century. It was a time when Americans yearned not only for the truth brought to light by the muckrakers, but also for a different kind of truth, in the frame of a utopian doctrine built on the foundation of an optimistic worldview like that which fueled the work of the transcendentalists. The Puritan ideals that shaped the American character remained influential in the 19th and 20th centuries, changing under the influence of changes in social and spiritual life. It is no coincidence that the preaching pathos of the author of "Resurrection" found such a lively response in the souls of many Americans.

Yet Tolstoy influenced American writers in different ways. He was perceived and evaluated, in accordance with the peculiarities of the worldview, creative attitudes, and temperament. Some—there were a minority of them (Henry James and Theodore Roosevelt were among them)—although they recognized Tolstoy's artistic talent, they did not share his belief in the "religious principle of conscience," and his teaching, at best, left them indifferent. They also rejected certain provisions of Tolstoy's aesthetics, which demanded a person who was irreconcilable to evil, sensitive to the pain and suffering of a person, calling him to the spiritual self-improvement of art; they were disgusted by the preaching pathos of his later stories, and the recommendations in the spirit of the Sermon on the Mount seemed beautiful-hearted and too lofty to follow in life.

Others - they were in the majority - on the contrary, perceived Tolstoy's work as a kind of unity of the ethical and aesthetic (Howells said this best), admired the writer's artistic innovation, his deep democratism and the scale of social criticism. It is no coincidence that among those who were influenced by Tolstoy were socialists and radicals (Upton Sinclair, William Walling, Michael Gold31), thinkers and philosophers (in particular, William James), writers who sought to overcome the "tradition of decency" still palpable in literature. and reflect the merciless truth of life (Jack London, part naturalists).

The next step in introducing America to Russian literature was acquaintance with the work of Dostoevsky. Its beginning dates back to the last decade of the 19th century. As early as 1889, after reading Crime and Punishment, Howells urged writers to learn from Dostoevsky (later, however, he changed his mind). However, the recognition of Dostoevsky's genius did not come immediately. Many of the American writers of the late 19th century—Henry James, Stephen Crane, Hamlin Garland, Frank Norris—did not accept it, mainly for aesthetic reasons. Henry James spoke of his lack of compositional unity, saw a serious flaw in what he called "disregard for style", "looseness" and "wastefulness" 33 .

In the 10-20s of the XX century. the peculiar cult of Tolstoy began to gradually give way to the passion for Dostoevsky. This was facilitated by the publication of the collected works of the writer in the translation of Constance Garnet. No less important is the circumstance that, under the influence of the events of the First World War, the public consciousness was prepared for the perception of the tragic world of Dostoevsky. Its popularity in the late 10s coincided with a turn in the artistic consciousness and a change in the philosophical orientation of American prose writers, which was later reflected in the work of the Jazz Age writers, in the poetics of Dos Passos and Faulkner. The first to notice this, perhaps, was Randolph Bourne. In 1917, in an article about Dostoevsky's work in the journal Diel, he wrote about the novelty of Dostoevsky's artistic method, which he saw in showing the depths of the human psyche, painful passions, "sinister and grotesque quirks of human thinking." It is no coincidence that he sharply spoke out against classifying Dostoevsky's novels as "unhealthy, pathological, harmful" literature.

The author of the article determined exactly what role Dostoevsky was to play in American literature and life: he was necessary to expand the artistic horizons of his compatriots; they needed to grow up, "to free themselves from the pomposity and prejudice of ideas about human psychology" (34, p. 266). It was necessary to shake the established principles of Victorian morality, enshrined in literature, to destroy aesthetic taboos. This was only possible for a great talent, an artist of extraordinary strength and a special vision of life. He considered Dostoevsky to be such an artist. Analyzing the originality of his poetics, Born especially notes the writer's artistic innovation, such a quality as the artist's involvement (immanence), when it seems that the author does not move away from his characters, but seems to merge with them. In "Double" and "Possessed" this involvement is brought to the limit. The critic expressed his thought thus: "The work seems to tell itself" (34, p. 267). The significance of Dostoevsky, according to Born, was that he helped writers change their aesthetic guidelines, and critics - to justify the need to more boldly reflect the complexity of the world.

Among those who admired Dostoevsky's talent were Dos Passo, Floyd Dell, Sherwood Anderson. Dos Passos read and reread Crime and Punishment in the mid-10s. Noting the decline of Turgenev's popularity during these years, he spoke of the special significance of Dostoevsky's poetics, his ability to make the reader "totally live this novel" (3, p. 250).

Around the same time, Floyd Dell explained the reasons for Dostoevsky's extraordinary popularity in an article on his work published in 1915 in the New Review magazine: gave us a new understanding of the truth" (3, p. 249). In another article that appeared in 1916 in the journal Massiz, he noted that the great Russian writers Tolstoy, Turgenev and Dostoyevsky had changed the whole direction of literature in English.

Sherwood Anderson repeatedly wrote and spoke about the influence of Russian literature on him. He became acquainted with the works of Dostoevsky in the early 1910s, when he had already published his first novel, but had not yet created the famous cycle of stories Winesburg, Ohio (1919). Anderson called Dostoevsky the only writer before whom he was "ready to kneel" (8; p. 70). In all literature, he wrote, there is nothing equal to The Brothers Karamazov. He also highly appreciated other works of Dostoevsky: "Demons", "The Idiot", "Notes from the House of the Dead".

The influence of Dostoevsky on the formation of Anderson as an artist can already be judged from the first collection of stories, which was distinguished by the novelty of the subject and courage in showing the human psyche. Anderson managed to breathe new life into the American genre of the short story, which was experiencing a serious crisis at that time. He went against the established - and almost exhausted - tradition and refused to use exotic backgrounds, action-packed plots, spectacular or comforting endings in stories. In the "simple stories" that made up the collection Winesburg, Ohio, he showed the life of a provincial town with its small joys, base passions and deeply hidden tragedies. Sherwood Anderson expanded the scope of the story to include depictions of irrational impulses, oddities of character, feelings of compassion and humility. The psychological depth of the short stories distinguished him from other American writers of that time, and it was achieved not without the influence of Dostoevsky.

The statements of many US writers, and most importantly, their works, confirm the correctness of Randolph Bourne's judgment that Dostoevsky became a measure for determining the aesthetic and moral maturity of Americans, their ability to perceive unpleasant truths about themselves and about human nature in general.

At the beginning of the XX century. America met another Russian writer, first through his works, and then through performances before an American audience - in Philadelphia and Providence, Boston and New York. We are talking about M. Gorky. In 1901, a translation of his story "Foma Gordeev" was published in America. Jack London immediately responded to the publication, writing a review article that was published in the November issue of the San Francisco Impressions magazine. In addition to the story, at the beginning of the century, a collection of short stories "Twenty-six and One" and the novel "Mother", which Gorky wrote in America in the summer of 1906, were published in the USA at the beginning of the century (it was published in Appleton Magazine in 1907). Later, in the early 1910s, the play "At the Bottom" was translated and printed, and in 1919 it was staged on the American stage.

The artistic world of Gorky became for American readers a real shock, an aesthetic discovery. His works have received critical acclaim. In 1917, Randolph Bourne published an article in the New Republic magazine "In the World of Maxim Gorky", in which he evaluated the autobiographical books of the writer "Childhood" and "In People". Their main advantage, according to the critic, is the truth about the unbearable "abominations of life." The sensitive analytical view of the critic caught the main thing in his books: the author's ability to clothe in an artistic form the thought of the ability of a Russian person to resist evil. He is impressed by Gorky's optimism, his indestructible hope, thirst for life, love for people, "fortitude of the soul." The critic considered Gorky's great merit to be that he managed "to achieve a balance between the realism of the depiction and the sympathy of the artist" (34; pp. 68, 269).

The Russian experience, captured in the books "Childhood" and "In People," helped Randolph Bourne to substantiate his own aesthetic principles: the preference for "moral" and responsible art over art that is far from the life of the people. Gorky's example was an argument for him in a dispute with American writers, whose work, in his words, "takes a person exclusively into the realm of fantasy and thus reconciles him with the existing world." Gorky's strength lies in the fact that his works "are marked not by escapism and detachment from reality, but, on the contrary, by close connection with it and its deep comprehension" (34, p. 70). The secret of the Russian writer's talent was seen by Born in Gorky's deep understanding of people's life, the merciless truth of the image and deep optimism, which - it is quite obvious - appealed to American critics. It is not for nothing that he quotes the words he especially liked from the first part of the Gorky trilogy: “Our life is not only amazing because it contains such a fruitful and fat layer of all bestial rubbish, but because bright, healthy and creative nevertheless victoriously sprouts through this layer. ... arousing an unshakable hope for our rebirth to a light, human life" (34; p. 268). The critic gave Gorky an important place in the history of literature, as evidenced by his high appreciation of the writer's autobiographical books. He called the trilogy one of the greatest literary biographies.

Gorky was perceived by many in America as a successor artistic traditions Tolstoy, spokesman for revolutionary sentiments in Russia. So, in particular, treated the writer Jack London. His review of "Foma Gordeev" deserves to be told about it in more detail.

For the American writer, Gorky is "genuinely Russian" in his perception and understanding of life. London, familiar with the work of Turgenev and Tolstoy (he read The Nest of Nobles and Sevastopol Tales), had great respect for Russian literature, appreciated the in-depth "introspection of Russians", the passion of their social protest. He used the review of Gorky's story not only to express his own sympathies, but also for literary controversy directed against the authors of entertaining reading, sentimental and far from life novels (light and airy romances). “From his clenched mighty fist come not elegant literary trinkets, pleasant, delightful and deceitful, but living truth - yes, heavy, rude and repulsive, but the truth” (34, p. 209).

Foma Gordeev symbolizes, in the eyes of London, the protest of a strong, but broken by the environment man who painfully thinks about the meaning of life - and does not find it. "... Spinning in a frenzied whirlpool of life, circling in the dance of death, blindly chasing something nameless, vague, in search of a magical formula, the essence of things, a hidden meaning - a spark of light in pitch darkness, in a word, a reasonable justification for life, Foma Gordeev goes to madness and death" (34, p. 211). He was defeated in the struggle of life because he thought about the meaning of life and lost to successful merchants who "sing a hymn to strength", proclaim the freedom of unlimited, ruthless competition.

It is noteworthy that the tone of London's article differs from that which colored other speeches of the writer of those years: from the article about Kipling written in the same 1901 "These bones will rise again" and a number of journalistic essays in which competition and the struggle for existence are presented ( quite in the spirit of William Sumner) as a condition for the survival of the strongest and fittest individuals and races.

Undoubtedly, the writer was greatly impressed by the very figure of Gorky, in whose fate he saw a resemblance to his own fate. He noted and commented on the autobiographical nature of the story as follows: unlike his hero, the author found the meaning of life and found hope. Gorky's example obviously strengthened London's hope that it is possible to assert goodness both in life and in creativity. London highly appreciated Gorky's novel as a "healing book" that awakens the dormant conscience of people and can involve them in the "struggle for humanity" (34; p. 212). Jack London was, of course, biased in his assessments. His perception was left a certain imprint by his own philosophy of life and adherence to the artistic method, marked by strong features of naturalism. Gorky's realism seemed to him more effective than Tolstoy's artistic method, and Turgenev's realism generally seemed "tedious", if not "boring". Not sharing the philosophy of Tolstoy, London, of course, could not appreciate the depth of his artistic creations, but this did not prevent him from considering Tolstoy a great writer. London ends the article with high praise for Gorky, calling him a follower of Tolstoy and Turgenev: "The mantle from their shoulders has fallen on his young shoulders, and he promises to wear it with true grandeur" (34; p. 212).

Gorky's story received favorable reviews in America, and one of them, written by Abraham Kahan, was published in the Bookman magazine in 1902 and was called Tolstoy's Robe (6; p. 158). Judging by the title, London's article did not go unnoticed.

Howells also spoke highly of Gorky's artistic method. In one of his critical essays in 1902, he called his realism "stormy and visual to the point of tangibility" 35 . in the same year, the Diel magazine spoke of Gorky's stories with great praise. Later, Van Wyck Brooks wrote in the same journal (v. LXII, 1917; at that time, his editors included famous writers and philosophers - Torsten Veblen and John Dewey): "America and Russia are in many ways opposite: Russia is the richest of countries in the spiritual In respect, America is the poorest; socially, Russia is the poorest country, and America is the richest" (2, p. 243). These words are reminiscent of the conclusion made by William Walling after his stay in Russia in 1905-1907, where he met with Russian writers, publicists and cultural figures.

Gorky revealed to the reader what the world of the "bottom" looked like. His tramps were perceived as new characters in literature, although they had an American counterpart - tramps (hobo), described by Jack London. According to the American researcher Ivar Spektor, Gorky "was the first to show the world of vagabonds, and this is his main contribution to Russian literature" 36 . But the Americans first saw the image of the social bottom, of course, not in Gorky, but in Dostoevsky. In an effort to better express their literary preferences, critics were not always objective. The very fact of such tendentiousness can be partly explained by the deep impression of reading new works of Russian literature.

Gorky's play "At the Bottom" was highly acclaimed by critics. The theater columnist for the New York Sun, James Hueneker, in an essay on this play (he had seen it staged in a Berlin theater), noted its stunning truthfulness and complete lack of theatricality. Interestingly, he compared her mise-en-scenes with the paintings of the little Dutchmen Teniers and Ostade 37 . "Is it possible to show deeper the character of a person who has lost his place in society? Gorky's play, although it sometimes causes a feeling of disgust, awakens in us pity and horror<...>Compared with the vulgar little plays made in Paris, which come to America every year, this drama of social outcasts contains a moral lesson" (37; p. 283).

Describing the tastes of the American audience, which demanded entertainment, Hueneker expressed the idea that Gorky's play would not be successful in America and might even bring persecution of the author. The critic's fears were not justified. The play was staged in 1919 by Arthur Hopkins, although it was not as successful as in Germany (30; pp. 299-300).

In his book on Russian theater in America, Oliver Sayler writes that before 1918, Russian plays were rarely staged on the American stage. In addition to the already mentioned dramatizations of two novels and plays by L. N. Tolstoy, he talks about the productions of the historical trilogy of A. K. Tolstoy (the New York theater "Knickerbocker"), Gogol's "Inspector General", Leonid Andreev's plays "Days of Our Life" and "Anatem ". He also mentions the unsuccessful production of Chekhov's The Seagull in 1916 (30; pp. 299-305).

Ivar Spektor, who evaluated The Lower Depths already in the 1940s, interpreted the play in many ways differently from Huenecker. Gorky's heroes, he wrote, are spiritually richer than Chekhov's, "they regard the poverty in which they find themselves as a condition for freedom." The author, in his words, "discovered a whole world in the world of the bottom" (36; p. 245).

Gorky's popularity in America at the beginning of the 20th century. can be explained both by interest in Russia, its culture and the revolutionary movement that swept the country, and by the wide response in the press to his works. When Gorky arrived in America in April 1906, a warm welcome was prepared for him. According to William Phelps (4; pp. 219-220), at a meeting dedicated to the creation of a fund to help the Russian revolution, where Gorky was present, Mark Twain made a short speech. “With all my heart,” he said, “I sympathize with the movement for the liberation of the country that has unfolded in Russia. I am sure that it will be crowned with success. Any such movement deserves approval and the most serious and unanimous assistance on our part ...” 38

However, the very next day a scandal broke out that prevented Howells (and not only him) from personally welcoming the Russian writer to American soil. The fact is that they did not want to place Gorky in hotels with M.F. Andreeva. The campaign against him in the press was launched by the World newspaper, the same newspaper that had published an interview with Tolstoy three years earlier. There were demands to send Gorky out of America. He himself wrote to D. B. Krasin in April 1906 about this: “The World newspaper published an article in which it proved that, firstly, I was a bigamist, and secondly, an anarchist. I printed a portrait of my first wife with children, abandoned by me to the mercy of fate and dying of hunger. The fact is shameful. Everyone shied away from me. Kicked out of three hotels. I settled in with an American writer and waited - what will happen? 39

The incident with Gorky caused a storm of indignation in Russia 40 . A large group of cultural figures, among whom were Mamin-Sibiryak, Nemirovich-Danchenko, and Sologub, came out with a letter of protest, published in the newspaper Rannye Utro. Such a different reaction in America and Russia is by no means explained by political considerations: the American press was dominated by the concept of "decency" (a modification of rigoristic puritan morality), in Russia there was a much greater freedom of belief. It also helps to understand the atmosphere of that time in America that even Mark Twain - despite his free-thinking - refused further meetings with the writer. Later, Howells remarked about this: “He (Gorky. - E.O.), of course, is a simple and great writer but you can't do such things!" (6; p. 160) After several years, this episode was also recalled by Upton Sinclair, who did not forgive Howells and Twain for "turning away" from Gorky (9; p. 184).

After returning to Russia, Gorky continued to correspond with his American colleagues. He met John Reed, A.R. Williams, and in the late 1920s, Theodore Dreiser. The latter noted that much in the work of the Russian writer was in tune with his own worldview. He attributed the works of Gorky, permeated with humanistic pathos, to literature that awakens and directs human thought.

In America, where in the 10s of the 20th century, according to Floyd Dell, a certain cultural famine was felt, the influence of Russian literature was extremely beneficial. In addition to Turgenev, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky and Gorky, Americans discovered Chekhov, whose stories, and later plays (already in the 90s of the 19th century) began to appear here in translation.

Chekhov was perceived in America and England as a writer who achieved an amazing harmony of life and art, form and content. His unique handwriting and subtle psychologism were highly appreciated not only by realist writers of the beginning of the century. They found a response in the hearts of modernist writers who were looking for new opportunities for artistic writing and new aesthetic approaches to reality. In Chekhov they found their idol. The charm of Chekhov's prose was able to be assessed as something completely new by American writers, who had already managed to feel the brilliant power of Tolstoy, the lyricism and sad poetry of Turgenev's prose, and feel the freshness of Gorky's writing style. Before them appeared an unfamiliar artistic world, which at that time, perhaps, had no equal in American literature.

Enthusiastic reviews of Chekhov's work are contained in Dreiser's diaries; he attributed his plays to the highest achievements of literature (14; v. 1, p. 118). Sherwood Anderson spoke about spiritual kinship with the writer. Creating a new type of plotless psychological novel for American literature, he relied on the experience of Russian masters, in particular the experience of Chekhov the novelist.

There is an opinion that the American short story in the 10s of the XX century. began to lose some characteristic features and began to "look like a Russian", and this happened thanks to the influence of Chekhov (6; p. 191). The fact that American writers felt the need to update the artistic language of short stories and turned to Russian literature in search of examples is confirmed by the words of Sherwood Anderson. In a letter to the translator of his works, Pyotr Okhrimenko, in 1923, he noted: “We have a bad tradition in America that we borrowed from the British and French: we are used to looking for an entertaining plot in the stories published in our magazines, all sorts of cunning tricks (trickery and juggling). human life recedes into the background, becomes unimportant; the plot does not grow out of the natural drama of life generated by the complex web of human relationships. With you, in Russian literature, you feel the beating of life in every page" (8; p. 93).

Although the real acquaintance with Chekhov took place after the First World War, when the collected works of the writer in 13 volumes (1916-1922) in translations by Constance Garnet began to appear, the prerequisites for Chekhov's wide influence on American writers in the 30s and 40s were laid precisely at the beginning of the century .

US literature borrowed from Russian those features that had not yet been sufficiently developed on American soil. In the first two decades of the 20th century there were no artists here who could show with such frankness the painful movements of the soul and the destructive nature of passions as Dostoevsky; there was no talent on such a cosmic scale as Tolstoy, who can access a psychologically subtle and accurate analysis of the dialectics of the human soul and at the same time a passionate social protest in conjunction with a program of moral improvement; there was no writer who would create exquisite prose, reflecting at the same time deep knowledge life of the people, as Turgenev did. In America, the legacy of Puritanism, with its many taboos, was still affecting; the legacy of the enlighteners and transcendentalists, who idealized human nature, was also alive; the “tradition of decency”, which sharply narrowed the horizons of artistic knowledge, did not completely disappear.

Russian literature - from Turgenev, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky to Chekhov and Gorky - was the force that, in the difficult period of development of American literature at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, gave it new impulses and had a powerful influence on the creative attitudes of its writers. Turning to Russian literature helped them open up new paths in art, affirm humanistic ideals, and expand the boundaries of artistic knowledge.

NOTES

1 Cited. by: Aaron D. Writers on the Left. Oxford & N. Y., Oxford University Press, 1977, p. 9.

2 Quot. by: May, Henry. The End of American Innocence. N.Y., Knopf, 1959, p. 243.

3 For more details on the translations of Russian writers into English, see: Niko-lyukin A. N. Interrelationships between the literatures of Russia and the USA. M., Nauka, 1987, p. 77-82, 159-168,238-240.

4 Phelps W. Essays on Russian Novels. N. Y., 1917, p. VII.

5 Literary heritage, v. 75. In 2 books. Tolstoy and the foreign world, book. 1. M., Nauka, 1965, p. 396.

6 Brewster D. East-West Passage. A Study in Literary Relationships. London, Allen and Unwin, 1954, p. 135.

7 Kropotkin P. Russian Literature. London, N. Y., McClure, 1905, p. v.

8 Anderson Sh. letters. Selected and ed. by H. M. Jones. Boston. Little and Brown, 1953, p. 118.

9 US Writers on Literature. M., Progress, 1974, p. 145.

10 Literary heritage, v. 76. M., Nauka, 1967, p. 506.

11 James W. The Varieties of Religious Experience. N.Y., Vintage Books, 1990, pp. 159, 155.

12 Tolstoy L.N. Sobr. op. in 12 vols., v. 11. M., 1959, p. 60.

13 Dreiser, Theodore. A Selection of Uncollected Prose. Ed. by Donald Pizer. Detroit, Wayne State Univ. Press, 1977, p. 185.

14 Dreiser, Theodore. letters. Philadelphia, 1959, v. 1, p. 97.

15 Dreiser, Th. Dawn. N.Y., 1965, p. 362.

16 Gerigk, Horst-Jurgen. Die Russen in America. Dostojewskij, Tolstoj, Turgenjew und Tschechov in ihrer Bedeutung fur die Literatur der USA. Hurtgenwald, Guido Pressler Verlag, 1995, s. 453.

17 E. White. Walks and conversations with Tolstoy // Foreign Literature, 1978, No. 8, p. 227.

18 H.-Yu. write about it. Gerick (16; s. 451-452) and Stephen Brennan (Brennan S. "Sister Carrie" and the Tolstoyan Artist //Research Studies, 47, 1979, pp. 1-16).

19 Tolstoy L. N. Complete collection. soch., vol. 30. M.-L., Goslitizdat, 1951, p. 148.

20 Dreiser T. Collected. op. in 12 vols. M., Goslitizdat, 1955, v. 1, p. 216.

21 Roosevelt Th. Tolstoy // Outlook. XCII (1909, May 15), p. 105. Op. by: Dreiser Th. Letters, v. I, rL53,

22 Russian word. New York, 1909, May 19, p. 3. I. Gorbunov-Posadov wrote about the influence of Tolstoy's moral preaching on religious and social reformers in the USA. In an introductory article to the translation of Ernest Crosby's book "Tolstoy and His Worldview" (Count Tolstoy's Philosophy of Life. Boston, 1896), he noted that numerous pacifist and religious organizations of various kinds, including ecumenical and Buddhist, send Tolstoy their publications. " They all send to Yasnaya Polyana news about yourself" (Gorbunov-Posadov I. Ernest Crosby, poet of the new world / / Crosby E. Tolstoy and his worldview. M., Posrednik, 1911, p. XI).

23 Walling W. Russia's Message. The True Import of the Revolution. London, 1909, p. 237.

24 Walling W. Message to Russia. Berlin, 1910, p. 367.

25 Walling W. Russia's Message. The People and the Czar. N. Y., 1917, p. 14.

26 Let us note in passing that in America the dispute with representatives of social Darwinism was led by a follower of Tolstoy, Ernest Crosby. On this see: Hofstadter R. Social Darwinism in American Thought. Philadelphia Univ. of Pennsylvania Press; Lnd., Humphrey Milford, Oxford Univ Press, 1945, p. 167.

27 See: Perry J. Jack London. An American Myth. Chicago, 1981, p. 109.

28 For more on this, see: Osipova E. F. The First Russian Revolution in the Works of Jack London // Russian Revolutionary Movement and Problems of the Development of Literature. L., publishing house of Leningrad State University, 1989, p. 130-146.

29 Shchelokova E. N. The first dramatization of the novel "Resurrection" on the American stage // L. N. Tolstoy's novel "Resurrection". Historical and functional research. M., 1991, p. 188-194.

30 Sayler, Oliver. The Russian Theatre. N. Y., Brentano, 1922, pp. 297-299.

31 On Michael Gold's perception of Tolstoy, Dorothy Day, a journalist and editor of The Catholic Worker, writes in her memoir The Long Solitude (1952): Left, p. 85).

32 For details on this, see: Nikolyukin AM. Interrelations between Russian and American Literature, p. 238-284.

33 James H. The Letters. Ed. by P. Lubbock. N.Y., Scribner, 1920, v. 2, p. 237.

34 US Writers on Literature. M., Progress, 1982, v. 1, p. 265, 266.

35 W. D. Howells as Critic. Ed. by E. Cady. London and Boston, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1973, p. 424.

36 Spector, Ivar. The Golden Age of Russian Literature. Caldwell, Idaho, 1948, p. 246.

37 Huneker, James. Maxim Gorky's Nachtasyl // Huneker J. Iconoclasts. A Book of Dramatists. N. Y., Scribner, 1921, p. 277.

38 Twain M. Russian Republic// Twain M. Sobr. op. in 12 vols., v. 11. M., Goslitizdat, 1961, p. 582.

39 Gorky M. Sobr. op. in 30 vols. M., Goslitizdat, 1954, v. 28, p. 416.

40 For more on this episode, see: Kireeva I. V., Lunina I. E. A. M. Gorky and Mark Twain // Russian American Studies in Search of New Approaches. M., 1998, p. 46-58.

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The most ancient form of AD, (abbreviated as English-language dramaturgy) associated with pagan people. games, - dialogues between two singers (or female with Kim and male semi-choirs) in Nar. ballads (recordings date back to later times).

A turning point in the development of the English drama as art. forms was the appeal (under the influence of Italian humanists) to ancient samples and the emergence of the so-called. correct drama, the next classic. rules. From Ser. 16th century the first “correct” comedies appear - “Ralph Royster Doyster” (c. 1551) by N. Yudalla

The highest flowering of A. d. the Renaissance reaches after 1588, during the period of strengthening the position of the bourgeoisie and the new nobility, in an environment of nat. upsurge caused by the struggle against Spain. At this time, a galaxy of playwrights appeared in London, creating vivid examples of poetic. dramas (Kid, Green, Shakespeare) Main white verse becomes the form of the literary language of a.d., introduced for the first time by Marlo and Kid and replacing the rhymed verse that dominated the drama of the Middle Ages. Prod. of this period are imbued with the ideas of humanism, assert human rights to enjoy all the blessings of life (Marlo), deny feud. - estate restrictions, emphasize the heroism and dignity of people from the people (Green).

After the completion of the creative activity of Shakespeare (1613), the decline of Renaissance art began. The reason for this was the aristocratization of the theater, its deepening gap with the bunks. spectator.

Late 18th century marked the emergence of a new genre of tragedy "nightmares and horrors", akin to the romantic genre of the Gothic novel. The creator of the genre H. Walpole had numerous. imitators who cultivated this type of play in the beginning. 19

Critical approval. realism in English literature, the emergence of socio-critical. novels by Ch. Dickens and W. Thackeray who denounced the vices of the bourgeoisie. society, was not reflected in the AD, the repertoire of theaters was dominated by production. epigones of romanticism - S. Knowles, S. Phillips, and others. The establishment of realism in AD was hindered by government censorship and the hypocrisy of the bourgeoisie, which blocked the access of life's truth to the stage.

Truly realistic. and socio-critical. the character of A. d. acquired in creativity B. Shaw, performing in the 1890s. with their " unpleasant plays"- "Widower's House" (1892), "Mrs. Warren's Profession" (1893, "Stage Society" - 1902).

IN "Unpleasant Plays"We have in front of us outwardly quite decent respectable English bourgeois, who have significant capital and lead a calm, orderly life. But this calmness is deceptive. It conceals such phenomena as exploitation, like dirty, dishonest enrichment of the bourgeois at the expense of the poverty and misfortunes of the common people. Before our eyes Readers and viewers of Shaw's plays go through pictures of the injustice, cruelty and meanness of the bourgeois world.It is characteristic that Shaw's plays begin with traditional pictures of the everyday life of a bourgeois family.The second cycle of Bernard Shaw's plays was "Pleasant Plays" These included: "War and Man", "Candida", "The Chosen One of Fate", "Never You Can Tell". In "Pleasant Pieces" Shaw changes the methods of satirical denunciation. In these plays, Shaw aims to throw off those romantic veils that hide the cruel truth of reality. He calls on people to take a sober and bold look at life and free themselves from the sticky web of prejudices, obsolete traditions, delusions and empty illusions. In the very name - "Pleasant Pieces" - quite frank irony sounds. In the period from 1897 - 1899. created "Plays for the Puritans" - "The Devil's Disciple", "Caesar and Cleopatra", "Appeal of Captain Brassbound".

How authentic innovator Shaw acted in the field of drama. He established in the English theater new type drama intellectual drama, in which the main place belongs not to the intrigue, not to the exciting plot, but to those tense disputes, witty verbal fights that its characters wage. Shaw called his plays discussion plays.

Other playwrights, trying to show social conditions in their plays, approached naturalism. realism in AD was promoted by the famous novelist J. Galsworthy, who created significant social dramas- "Silver Box" (1909), "Struggle" (1909), "Mobile" (1914), "Death Grip" (1920), etc.

Creativity was of great importance in the period between the 1st and 2nd World Wars. J.B. Priestley. Representative of a radical petty-bourgeois. intelligentsia, Priestley reflected conflicting tendencies in his plays. Social and ethical bourgeois criticism. society (“A Dangerous Turn”, 1932, “Time and the Conway Family”, 1937, “They Came to the City”, 1943, “The Linden Family”, 1947, etc.) is combined in his work with decadent and mystical. motives ("Music at night", 1938, "Johnson over Jordan", 1939

In 1932, Priestley wrote and staged the play "Dangerous bend" The local conflict of the play "Dangerous Turn" is clearly expressed and fairly straightforward - it is a conflict of truth and lies. The characters form two opposing camps: on the one hand, Robert Kaplan, a "stubborn truth-seeker", a seeker of truth, on the other hand, his relatives and friends - Robert's wife Fred, the Whitehouse spouses, as well as Stanton and Olwen, who believe that without lies and hypocrisy, human existence will become simply unbearable. Maud Mockridge occupies a special position - she acts as a spectator of everything that happens and does not openly express her position on the issue under discussion. The plot of the action becomes a "dangerous turn", when those present from the conversation between Freda and Olwen learn that both of them are hiding some kind of secret. The emergence of a conflict may be due to Robert's decision to reveal this secret - if he had come to terms with the current situation, the action would have developed differently.

In 1937 he completed the philosophical drama "Time and the Conway family". In none of these plays is there a trace of that optimism which determines the general intonation of the novels. Priestley the playwright refers to the image of the intelligentsia and the upper layers of the so-called middle class or "people of society". It shows the moral collapse experienced by these people, their deep emptiness. Refusing any conclusions, and even more so any instructive tendency, the playwright seeks refuge in imaginary objectivity. At the same time, in all his plays of these years, one feels confusion: neither his characters nor he himself can answer the question that arises before them - how to live. Priestley is trying to create a theory of the new drama, contrasting it with the traditional "well-made play" or the parlor-entertainment play. His drama should be active, devoid of any didactic conclusions imposed on the viewer beforehand. Time and the Conway Family” is complicated by a tangible philosophical overtones. The confusion of the author in front of the steady course of time, acting as a terrible monster devouring a person, is noticeable. In the second act, Priestley shows the collapse of the illusions and hopes of several young people, whose images are outlined in the first. The third act develops the first, is its direct continuation. But the viewer already knows where what is happening on the stage will lead to in the future. Thanks to the shift in time, Priestley makes the viewer understand what awaits the actors-drama in 20 years, what the future conceals from them - how their bright, but illusory hopes will inevitably collapse. Each piece of the life of this or that person, Priestley wants to say, acquires meaning only if one understands the direct connection of the future with the present, the fragility of the lines between “today” and “tomorrow”. The history of human existence is perceived by the author not as a complex process, subject to the general laws of development, but as a predetermined quantity. The characters act as voiceless puppets in the hands of omnipotent necessity, they are completely helpless before the fate that awaits each of them.

SEAN O'CASEY(1880-1964) Defending the ideologically rich drama of B. Shaw, he opposes supporters of entertaining plays, he fights for the theater of high passions and big ideas all his life. The stages of the national liberation struggle of Ireland form the background of three plays of the so-called "Dublin cycle": "Shadow of the Gunslinger" (1923), "Juno and the Peacock" (1924) and "The Plow and the Stars" (1926).

In them, O "Casey spoke about the real Ireland - the Ireland of the Dublin slums, a bleeding country. The viewer saw life's clashes, the occurrence of which was caused by social storms. The carriers of the positive beginning in his early plays were not the participants in the battles, but the victims of the struggle, mainly women: young girls and mothers crushed by worries and grief.

The playwright's ability to reveal the bright humanistic principle in ordinary working people was deeply innovative. Time of the tragedy "The Shadow of the Arrow»-1920 year. The national liberation uprising was brutally suppressed. The English are atrocious. They are not far behind the detachments of the Irish Auxiliary Police, formed by the reactionaries and nicknamed because of the mixing of military uniforms in khaki with black police "black and pie". Looting and reprisals against the civilian population cause hatred and fear.

The Irish are guerrilla fighting terrorists. “The slums of Dublin are at war with the British Empire. All the might of the army, flanked by gangs of ruthless hooligans, all the forces of the government of the crown, all the monetary power of the banks, took up arms against the ragged tenement girls. The fight is unequal, but the slums will win!” - wrote O "Casey.

O "Casey managed, following B. Shaw and D. M. Sing (1), to reveal the dangerous tendency of the Irish people to a romantic perception of life. O" Casey was able not only to ridicule this dangerous property of the national character of the Irish, but also present it in a tragic aspect. The playwright urged to get rid of romantic illusions, not to die a meaningless death, taught to prepare for a conscious struggle for a better life. At the heart of the play "Plow and Stars" lies the uprising of 1916. The duration of the first two acts is the eve of the uprising, the period of preparation of the civil army for action. The third and fourth acts are the days of the famous Dublin uprising. The name "Plow and Stars" is associated with the emblem depicted on the flag of the civilian army. “On heavy poplin, on a deep blue background, a symbolic pattern stretched in full length and width - a plow, uplifting golden-brown, reddish layers of earth, and above all this a magnificent abundance of stars sparkled, flooding the northern sky with light.”

O "Casey was a participant in the uprising. Together with the ordinary people of Ireland, he suffered his defeat hard. But he could not help but see the weak preparation of the uprising, its prematureness, the isolation of its leaders from the people. The tragic sound of the play is connected with this.

In the first place in the play is the tragedy of a woman who lost her husband during the days of the struggle. Before us is the clash of two opposite human natures: Jack and Nora Cliterow, which is the central conflict of the play.

Nora Cliterow loves her husband dearly. She has no other interests, except for the interests of a small family, except for thoughts about the future of the child, how to decorate and furnish the apartment, dress smartly. She seeks to isolate herself from the outside world and does everything possible to prevent her husband from participating in the political life of the country.

But the rhythm of another life, full of struggle and danger, persistently invades a quiet family corner; the homeland calls its sons under the banner of struggle, and Jack Cliterow goes to the camp of the defenders of the independence of Ireland. The fear of losing a loved one drives Nora crazy.

Bricklayer Jack Cliterow - the first and the only hero tragedies of the "Dublin cycle" O "Casey, who is directly involved in the national struggle and dies in open battle.

The playwright was able to show the process of formation of the character of his hero. At the beginning of events, Clitheroe is a man like everyone else. He has no mature political convictions, he is vain. But here we are listening to Brannon's story and we understand that Jack's ostentatious heroism has grown into a genuine one, that he managed to find his place among the fighters for the bright future of his homeland.

Talking about the personal tragedy of the Cliterow spouses, the author reveals a topic of great importance - the defeat of the 1916 uprising. Introducing many characters into the play, the playwright sought to give a more complete picture of the life of Dublin on the eve and during the uprising.

Influence of Russian literature

CASEY. Great school of realism, high artistic skill considered O "Casey throughout his life Russian literature - creativity Chekhov, Tolstoy, Gorky. Here is his assessment of A. Chekhov's work: “What is the meaning of Chekhov's work for me? He is my friend, he is a great writer, a great playwright, a great person... A poet, like Whitman, a playwright, like Shakespeare, a great person, like all of them, he seemed to combine them all. But Chekhov is even more, he is a friend.”

No less deeply O "Casey knew and appreciated the work of L. Tolstoy: "Tolstoy had an extremely deep and courageous mind and a broad outlook ... His powerful intellect was complex and multifaceted. All of Tolstoy's thinking was stamped with poetic spirituality. Such minds combined with a poetic worldview are so rare, their significance for humanity is so great that they are not allowed to die. ”O" Casey always drew a lot of thoughts from the treasury of Russian literature: “In my youth I recognized Tolstoy; a little later I heard about Turgenev, but I had no idea about Gorky ... Now Gorky is my comrade ”

In Priestley's plays, the influence of Chekhov's dramaturgy is palpable. In accordance with the Chekhovian tradition, Priestley seeks to convey the drama of everyday life, to achieve a free development of events, to show life with all its halftones, to reveal the characters of not only central, but also secondary characters. Based on the traditions of Chekhov's drama, Priestley also develops his own original techniques, which are associated primarily with special attention to the category of time. In the second act of the drama Conway Time and the Family, Priestley moves the action into the future, trying to imagine what his characters could become, and in the third act returns them again to the time of the first act.

Amid the ocean of conflicting passions that Russian-American political relations seem to be today, American interest in Russian literature remains an island of normality. Evidence of this was the Week of Russian Literature held in New York in May. Translation Festival, organized by non-commercial project Read Russia, existing since 2012.

This week saw a series of readings, discussions and round tables at prestigious cultural venues in the Big Apple (as New Yorkers affectionately call their crazy metropolis). Authors from Moscow appeared in them: Pavel Basinsky, Andrey Gelasimov, Maya Kucherskaya, Vadim Leventhal and Marina Stepnova, as well as stars of American Slavic studies and translation. Among them are Stephanie Sandler (Harvard), Caryl Emerson (Princeton), Elif Batuman, Antonina Buis and Marian Schwartz.

Anticipating one such evening, Read Russia director Peter Kaufman jokingly remarked: “We know that our Senate intends to hold hearings about Russian influence on political life in the United States. They should perhaps also investigate the influence of Russian literature on American culture."

Indeed, this influence is enormous. Hemingway studied with Leo Tolstoy, Faulkner studied with Dostoyevsky, Eugene O'Neill and Arthur Miller studied with Chekhov. Philip Roth told me that he wrote his story The Chest, inspired by Gogol's The Nose.

I recall a poll the New York Times Book Review once conducted among leading American authors: "Who influenced you the most?" Every second named Nabokov. Nobel laureate Czesław Milosz wrote a long essay about Doctor Zhivago as a Christian novel, rare in the nihilistic 20th century.

I am of the opinion that culture and politics are closely intertwined, sometimes it is difficult to separate them. In fact, the success in America of Tolstoy (Basinsky spoke about him in New York), Pasternak, Solzhenitsyn is inextricably linked with the political (and religious) ideas of these writers. On the other hand, "Lolita" or "The Master and Margarita" owe their popularity to completely different reasons.

Has Russian literature of the 21st century provided examples of the same popularity? Let's be honest: no. Although the works of Vladimir Sorokin, Viktor Pelevin, Lyudmila Ulitskaya and some other authors are respected in the circles of lovers of translated literature. Created under the wing of Columbia University Press with the support and participation of Rospechat, the Institute of Translation (executive director - Evgeny Reznichenko) and Read Russia, the Russian Library is called upon to expand the range of significant opuses of Russian literature available to the American reader.

This is a very ambitious initiative: it is planned to publish 100 books in ten years. Among the first titles are a novel by the futurist Ilyazd (a pseudonym for Ilya Zdanevich), a collection of plays by Andrei Platonov, and Walks with Pushkin by Andrei Sinyavsky.

At a meeting with inquisitive readers at the university's Book Culture bookstore, the director of the Pushkin House, Vsevolod Bagno, and I talked about Yevgeny Yevtushenko. This is a powerful tree on the American island of Russian literature, a whole Siberian cedar!

His departure was marked by a lengthy obituary in the New York Times, which is not very fond of Russia these days. They noted with approval that the poet had "the charisma of an actor and the instincts of a politician", and emphasized the memorable fact of the appearance of a portrait of Yevtushenko on the cover of Time magazine in April 1962 - an honor that politicians and cultural figures around the world still seek to this day.

They also remembered Yevtushenko's many years of professorial work at the University of Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he was not so much a lecturer as an educator of young souls. “Someone needs to be the leader of their generation! - exclaimed the poet, addressing his students. "Why not one of you?"

I can confirm that Yevtushenko's popularity in Tulsa was enormous. When the film crew of Channel One, headed by director Anna Nelson, arrived there to film a series of dialogues with the poet for a week (I was entrusted with the role of host), we were convinced of this: Yevtushenko was recognized on the street, asked for an autograph, for a joint photo. Students adored him, despite his peculiar, as he put it, English "with a Siberian accent" and unthinkable jackets and ties. And maybe that's why?

This accent and bright outfits did not interfere with Yevtushenko in snobbish New York either. I will never forget how he read his famous "Babi Yar" there in the Philharmonic Hall, anticipating the performance of Shostakovich's 13th symphony. In that concert, I found myself between two decent ladies in mink capes. When the poet finished his recitation, I suddenly heard, along with applause, loud squelching - both ladies were sobbing, not in the least embarrassed by their tears.

The New York cultural elite knew and respected Yevtushenko, and the poets even envied him: after all, he alone could fill Carnegie Hall. They never dreamed of such a thing. Later, they, like poets in Russia, were divided into admirers of Yevtushenko and Brodsky: the older generation gravitated towards the first, the younger - towards the second.

Personally, the rivalry between Yevtushenko and Brodsky reminded me of a competition between two weightlifters. One walks around the bar for a long time, carefully prepares and immediately squeezes out a record weight. The other makes many attempts, often fails, but in the end also becomes the winner. In the literature, this is called the difference in creative methods.

My American acquaintances (in particular, the famous Susan Sontag) watched the duel of these two champions with genuine interest. What a sin to hide, fights of this kind stir up interest in literary process. Now they have no one to root for. It's a pity. The Russian literary island in America needs drama.