SUMAROKOV, ALEXANDER PETROVICH(1717–1777), Russian poet, playwright. Born 14 (25) November 1717 in St. Petersburg in a noble family. Sumarokov's father was a major military officer and official under Peter I and Catherine II. Sumarokov received a good education at home, his teacher was the teacher of the heir to the throne, the future Emperor Paul II. In 1732 he was sent to a special educational institution for children of the higher nobility - the Land Gentry Corps, which was called the "Knight's Academy". By the time the building was completed (1740), two Odes Sumarokov, in which the poet sang of the Empress Anna Ioannovna. The students of the Land Gentry Corps received a superficial education, but a brilliant career was provided to them. Sumarokov was no exception, who was released from the corps as an adjutant to Vice-Chancellor Count M. Golovkin, and in 1741, after the accession of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna, he became adjutant to her favorite, Count A. Razumovsky.

During this period, Sumarokov called himself a poet of “tender passion”: he composed fashionable love and pastoral songs (“Nowhere, in a small forest”, etc., about 150 in total), which were a great success, he also wrote shepherd idylls (7 in total) and eclogues (total 65). Describing Sumarokov's eclogues, V. G. Belinsky wrote that the author "did not think to be seductive or indecent, but, on the contrary, he was fussing about morality." The critic based himself on the dedication written by Sumarokov to the collection of eclogues, in which the author wrote: “In my eclogues, tenderness and fidelity are proclaimed, and not malicious voluptuousness, and there are no such speeches that would be repugnant to hearing.”

Work in the eclogue genre contributed to the fact that the poet developed a light, musical verse, close to the spoken language of that time. The main meter used by Sumarokov in his eclogues, elegies, satires, epistles and tragedies was iambic six-foot, a Russian variety of Alexandrian verse.

In the odes written in the 1740s, Sumarokov was guided by the models given in this genre by M.V. Lomonosov. This did not prevent him from arguing with the teacher on literary and theoretical issues. Lomonosov and Sumarokov represented two currents of Russian classicism. Unlike Lomonosov, Sumarokov considered the main tasks of poetry not to raise national problems, but to serve the ideals of the nobility. Poetry, in his opinion, should not be majestic in the first place, but “pleasant”. In the 1750s, Sumarokov performed parodies of Lomonosov's odes in a genre that he himself called "absurd odes." These comic odes were, to a certain extent, autoparodies.

Sumarokov tried his hand at all genres of classicism, wrote safic, Horatian, Anacreontic and other odes, stanzas, sonnets, etc. In addition, he opened the genre of poetic tragedy for Russian literature. Sumarokov began to write tragedies in the second half of the 1740s, creating 9 works of this genre: Khorev (1747), Sinav and Truvor (1750), Dimitri Impostor(1771) and others. In the tragedies, written in accordance with the canons of classicism, Sumarokov's political views were fully manifested. Yes, tragic ending. Khoreva stemmed from the fact that the main character, the "ideal monarch", indulged his own passions - suspicion and incredulity. "Tyrant on the throne" causes suffering for many people - this is the main idea of ​​the tragedy Dimitry the Pretender.

The creation of dramatic works was not least facilitated by the fact that in 1756 Sumarokov was appointed the first director of the Russian Theater in St. Petersburg. The theater existed largely thanks to his energy. After the forced resignation in 1761 (high-ranking court officials were dissatisfied with Sumarokov), the poet devoted himself entirely to literary activity.

At the end of the reign of Empress Elizabeth, Sumarokov spoke out against the established form of government. He was outraged that the nobles did not correspond to the ideal image of the "sons of the fatherland", that bribery flourished. In 1759, he began publishing the journal The Hardworking Bee, dedicated to the wife of the heir to the throne, the future Empress Catherine II, with whom he linked his hopes for arranging life according to truly moral principles. The magazine contained attacks on nobles and scoundrels, which is why it was closed a year after its foundation.

Sumarokov's opposition was not least based on his difficult, irritable character. Everyday and literary conflicts - in particular, the conflict with Lomonosov - are also partly explained by this circumstance. The coming of Catherine II to power disappointed Sumarokov with the fact that a handful of her favorites, first of all, took up not serving the common good, but satisfying their personal needs. Sumarokov described his own position in the tragedy Dimitry the Pretender: “My tongue must subdue my pretense; / To feel differently, to speak differently, / And to be vile sly ones I am like. / Here is the step if the king is unjust and evil.

During the reign of Catherine II, Sumarokov paid great attention to the creation of parables, satires, epigrams and pamphlet comedies in prose ( Tresotinius, 1750, Guardian, 1765, Cuckold by imagination, 1772 and others).

According to his philosophical convictions, Sumarokov was a rationalist, formulated his views on the structure of human life as follows: “What is based on nature and truth can never change, and what has other grounds is boasted, blasphemed, introduced and withdrawn at the discretion of each and without any mind." His ideal was enlightened noble patriotism, opposed to uncultured provincialism, metropolitan gallomania and bureaucratic venality.

Simultaneously with the first tragedies, Sumarokov began to write literary and theoretical poetic works - epistles. In 1774 he published two of them - Epistle about the Russian language And About poetry in one book Instruction to those who want to be writers. One of the most important ideas of epistle Sumarokov was the idea of ​​the greatness of the Russian language. IN Epistole about Russian language he wrote: "Our beautiful language is capable of everything." Sumarokov's language is much closer to the spoken language of enlightened nobles than the language of his contemporaries Lomonosov and Trediakovsky.

The work of Sumarokov had a great influence on contemporary Russian literature. Enlightener N. Novikov took epigraphs to his anti-Catherine satirical magazines from Sumarokov’s parables: “They work, and you eat their work”, “Strict instruction is dangerous, / Where there is a lot of atrocities and madness”, etc. Radishchev called Sumarokov “a great husband”. Pushkin considered his main merit that "Sumarokov demanded respect for poetry" at a time of neglect of literature.

During the life of Sumarokov, the complete collection of his works was not published, although many poetry collections were published, compiled according to genre. After the poet's death, Novikov published twice Complete collection of all works Sumarokov (1781, 1787).

Better known as the "father of the Russian theatre".

Alexander Petrovich Sumarokov received his first literary experience by publishing several congratulatory poems to Empress Anna Ioannovna.

After graduating from the cadet corps, he was assigned to the Russian Theater, where the entire structure of the theater fell on his shoulders. Sumarokov returned to literary activity only after leaving.

Alexander Petrovich was an adherent of the monarchy and the abandonment of serfdom. But the demands were too great. It runs like a thread through his works. In them, he pointed out that the emperor must be educated and erudite, must observe the laws of his state and be far from human passions. The nobility, on the other hand, must faithfully serve society in order to rightfully have their regalia, be enlightened, and have an adequate human attitude towards serfs. But the existing reality turned out to be far from the requirements of Sumarokov, they did not meet. And his poems took on a harshly satirical character and had an accusatory orientation. In his view of life and the surrounding reality, he was a rationalist. Sumarokov's love poems enjoyed great success in society, although they were rather conditional.

Alexander Petrovich Sumarokov (1717-1777) - Russian poet, writer and playwright of the 18th century.

Born into a noble family on November 14 (25), 1717 in St. Petersburg. He studied at home, continued his education in the Land Gentry Corps, where he began to engage in literary work, transcribing psalms in verse, composing "congratulatory odes" to Empress Anna on behalf of the cadets, songs - modeled on French poets and V. K. Trediakovsky (Tredyakovsky). After graduating from the corps in 1740, he was enrolled first in the military field office of Count Munnich, then as an adjutant to Count A. G. Razumovsky.

Verbosity is characteristic of human stupidity.

Sumarokov Alexander Petrovich

Fame brought him published in 1747 and played at the court of his first tragedy "Khorev". His plays were played at the court by the troupe of F. G. Volkov, ordered from Yaroslavl.

When a permanent theater was established in 1756, Sumarokov was appointed director of this theater and for a long time he remained the main "supplier" of the repertoire. Chorev was followed by eight tragedies, twelve comedies and three operatic librettos.

In parallel, Sumarokov, who worked extremely quickly, developed in other areas of literature. In 1755-1758, he was an active contributor to the academic journal Monthly Works, and in 1759 he published his own satirical and moralizing journal The Hardworking Bee (the first private journal in Russia). In 1762-1769, collections of his fables were published, from 1769 to 1774, a number of collections of his poems.

Despite the proximity to the court, the patronage of nobles, the praise of admirers, Sumarokov did not feel appreciated and constantly complained about the lack of attention, the nitpicking of censorship and the ignorance of the public. In 1761 he lost control of the theatre. Later, in 1769, he moved to Moscow. Here, abandoned by his patrons, ruined and drunk, he died on October 1 (12), 1777. He was buried at the Donskoy cemetery in Moscow.

Creativity Sumarokov develops within the framework of classicism, in the form that he adopted in France XVII - early. 18th century Modern admirers, therefore, more than once proclaimed Sumarokov "the confidant of Boileau", "Northern Racine", "Molière", "Russian Lafontaine".

The literary activity of Sumarokov stops attention with its external diversity. He tried all genres: odes (solemn, spiritual, philosophical, anacreontic), epistles (messages), satires, elegies, songs, epigrams, madrigals, epitaphs; In his poetic technique, he used all the meters that existed at that time, made experiments in the field of rhyme, and applied a variety of strophic constructions.

Russian literature of the 18th century

Alexander Petrovich Sumarokov

Biography

Alexander Petrovich Sumarokov, the most consistent of the classicist writers, along with the practice of literary activity, managed to give a theoretical justification for classicism as a literary trend characteristic of Russia in the middle of the century. In literature, Sumarokov acted as a successor at the same time as an antagonist of Lomonosov. In 1748, in the Epistle on Poetry, Sumarokov writes about Lomonosov: “He is Malgerb of our countries; he is like Pindar. Subsequently, Sumarokov recalled the time when he and Lomonosov were friends and daily interlocutors "and took advice from each other sensible" ("On versification"). Then the literary-theoretical and personal enmity of writers began.

A.P. Sumarokov is an outstanding playwright and poet of his time, passionately devoted to literary work, believing in the almighty power of the word addressed to the mind. One of the most prolific and active writers of the 18th century, he turned his literary work to the nobility. And his classicism was of a narrow noble class character, in contrast to the nationwide and nationwide character of Lomonosov's classicism. According to Belinsky, "Sumarokov was excessively extolled by his contemporaries and excessively humiliated by our time." At the same time, Sumarokov's work was an important milestone in the history of the development of the Russian literary process in the 18th century.

Biography

Alexander Petrovich Sumarokov was born on November 14 (25), 1717 in an aristocratic, but by that time impoverished family. Having received his initial home education, in 1732, at the age of 14, Sumarokov entered the land gentry corps, open only to nobles. In this corps, which was obliged to produce the "chiefs" of the military, civil and court service, Sumarokov received an excellent education and became familiar with literature and theater. Here such general educational disciplines as history, geography, legal sciences, languages, fencing and dances were taught. The building becomes the center of a new noble culture. Much time was devoted to literature and art. No wonder future writers studied in the corps at different times: A. P. Sumarokov, M. M. Kheraskov, I. P. Elagin, A. A. Nartov and others. In 1759, a group of students and officers of the corps undertook the publication of the journal Idle time, for the benefit of the used ”, in which Sumarokov also collaborated, graduating from the corps in 1740. Literary interests also determined that it was in the gentry corps that the first Russian tragedy written by Sumarokov and laid the foundation for the creation of the Russian dramatic repertoire was played. Already in the years of study, the poetic talent of Sumarokov was revealed. His first published works were two odes to the new year, 1740, published as a separate brochure. At the end of the course of sciences, Sumarokov, despite military service, which was mostly of a formal nature, devotes all his time to literature. He writes odes, elegies, songs, fables, acts as a playwright, treating literature for the first time as a professional matter.

During the years of study in the corps, Sumarokov developed firm and high ideas about the dignity of a nobleman, about the need for public service to the fatherland, ideal ideas about noble honor and virtue were formed. In the spirit of these ideals, he dreamed of educating a noble society, and chose literature as a means for this. Sumarokov addressed the government on behalf of the nobility, on which he focused his main attention. He becomes the ideologist of the nobility, the ideologist of the new nobility, born of Peter's time. A nobleman must serve for the good of society. And Sumarokov, in turn, protects the interests of the nobles. Seeing in the existing feudal system a completely natural and legal phenomenon, Sumarokov at the same time opposed the excessive cruelty of the feudal landowners, against the transformation of serfdom into slavery. “People should not be sold like cattle,” he said in his remarks on Catherine II’s “Instruction”. And at the same time he was convinced that "peasant freedom is not only harmful to society, but also pernicious, and why it is pernicious, that should not be interpreted." Recognizing the natural equality of people, he believed that it was upbringing and education that made the nobles "the first members of society", "sons of the fatherland":

What is the difference between a gentleman and a peasant?

And that, and that - earth animate clod,

And if you do not clear the mind of the master's man,

So I don't see any difference.

("About nobility")

The nobility, according to Sumarokov, occupying a privileged position in society, must be educated, enlightened, must prove their right to manage the "slaves of the fatherland", that is, the peasants. In this regard, the program poem was his satire "On Nobility":

I bring this satire to you, nobleman!

I am writing to the first members of the fatherland.

The nobles know their duty well enough without me,

But many remember one nobility,

Not remembering that born from women and from ladies

Without exception, all forefather Adam.

Is that why we are nobles, so that people work,

And we would have swallowed their works of nobility?

This satire repeats the main provisions of Cantemir's satire about the nobility of birth and the nobility of merit, about the natural equality of people. “Our honor does not consist in titles,” Sumarokov wrote, “that radiant one who shines with heart and mind, that superior one who surpasses other people in dignity, that boyar who is rooting for the fatherland.” Sumarokov never managed to bring the nobility closer to the ideal he bore.

Being a monarchist, a supporter of enlightened absolutism, Sumarokov sharply opposed the monarchs, who, in his opinion, do not fulfill their duties to their subjects, forgetting that “we were born for you. And you were born for us." Sumarokov never tired of recalling this in his odes and tragedies. He now and then becomes in opposition to the government.

Sumarokov's life, outwardly full of success and recognition, was extremely difficult. Not seeing worthy representatives of his class among the nobles, he tirelessly denounces the cruel, unenlightened nobles, who are so far from the ideal he created. He ridicules them in fables and satires, denounces bribery and lawlessness of officials, favoritism at court. The noble society, which did not want to listen to Sumarokov, began to take revenge on the writer. Proud, irritable, accustomed to the recognition of his literary success by writers, Sumarokov, according to the memoirs of his contemporaries, often lost his temper, could not restrain himself. Honest and direct, he never let anyone down. “His indomitability and hysteria are proverbial. He jumped up, scolded, ran away when he heard how the landowners called the serf servants "the boorish knee." He reached the point of hysteria, defending his copyright from the encroachments of the Moscow commander in chief; he loudly cursed arbitrariness, bribes, the savagery of society; noble "society" took revenge on him, infuriating him, mocking him.

The name of Sumarokov is associated with the emergence of a permanent "Russian, for the performances of tragedies and comedies, theater", the first director of which in 1756, Elizabeth appointed Sumarokov. Sumarokov saw in the theater the possibility of fulfilling an educational role in relation to the nobility. The creation of the theater depended largely on the appearance of Sumarokov's tragedies, which made up his repertoire. By the time the theater opened, Sumarokov was the author of five tragedies and three comedies. His contemporaries rightly called him "the founder of the Russian theatre". For five years he stood at the head of the theater, the work in which was unusually difficult: there was no permanent premises, there was not enough money for productions, the actors and the director did not receive a salary for months. Sumarokov wrote desperate letters to Shuvalov, entering into constant conflicts. A passionate love of art, devoted to the cause, Sumarokov was neither a sufficiently accommodating person, nor a good administrator. In 1761 he had to leave the theater.

The last period of life is especially difficult for Sumarokov. He moves to Moscow, continues to write a lot. At the end of the reign of Elizabeth Petrovna, he joined the noble opposition, who succumbed to the liberal declarations of Catherine, who by all means went to power. The coup of 1762, which brought Catherine II to the throne, did not fulfill Sumarokov's political hopes. He becomes in opposition to the queen and creates politically acute tragedies "Demetrius the Pretender", "Mstislav". In the first tragedy, the plot is based on a sharp exposure of the despot monarch and a call for his overthrow. The nobility is still dissatisfied with the writer. He enjoys fame mainly in literary circles, but she cannot console Sumarokov. Sharp in his views and irreconcilable in his judgments, he sets the Empress against him. The persecution intensified when he, an aristocrat by birth, an ideologue of the nobility, having violated all class prejudices, married a serf girl. Relatives of the first wife began a lawsuit against the writer, demanding the deprivation of the rights of his children from his second wife. The process ended in favor of Sumarokov. However, bankrupt, entangled in debt, Sumarokov was forced to humiliate himself in front of the rich man Demidov, who drives him out of the house for an unpaid debt. There is gossip about him all over town. The commander-in-chief of Moscow, Saltykov, organizes the failure of the Sinav and Truvor tragedy. A beggar, abandoned and ridiculed by everyone, Sumarokov descends and begins to drink. In the poem "Complaint" he writes:

... Weak consolation to me that glory will not fade,

Which the shadow will never feel.

What need do I have in mind

If I only carry crackers in my bag?

What an honor to me as a writer,

If there is nothing to drink or eat?

On October 11, 1777, after a short illness, Sumarokov died. There was not a single ruble to bury the poet. According to Pavel Ivanovich Sumarokov, the writer's nephew, Sumarokov was "buried at his own expense by the actors of the Moscow theater" in the cemetery of the Donskoy Monastery.

Sumarokov was the first noble writer for whom literature became the main business of life. It was impossible to live by literature at that time, this largely determined the severity of Sumarokov's material hardships. In a petition addressed to Catherine II, Sumarokov wrote about his plight: “The main reason for all this is my love for poetry, because I relied on it and verbal sciences, not so much about ranks and about the estate, as about my muse.” Sumarokov himself was inclined to consider himself the founder of syllabic-tonic poetry, and in an article polemically directed against Lomonosov, “To the senseless rhymers,” he stated that when he began to write, “we didn’t even have poets and there was no one to learn from. It was as if I was passing through a dense forest, hiding from my eyes the dwelling of the muses, without a guide ... ". This, of course, was far from the truth, but Sumarokov's merits in the development of Russian poetry are beyond doubt.

If Trediakovsky discovered that Russian poetry should be tonic, and Lomonosov made a true reform, then Sumarokov provided samples of almost all types of tonic verse. Speaking as a playwright, poet, theorist, critic, Sumarokov believed that his literary activity was a service to society, a form of active participation in the public life of the country. He was an advanced man of his time, a noble educator, whose work was highly valued by Radishchev and Novikov.

Sumarokov - theorist of classicism

A. P. Sumarokov, with his literary work, contributed to the establishment of classicism on Russian soil. He acted both as a theoretician of classicism and as a writer who, in his literary practice, gave examples of the diverse genres provided for by the poetics of classicism. Sumarokov began by writing odes, the first two odes dedicated to Anna Ioannovna were published in 1740. In them, the novice poet imitated Trediakovsky. Since the appearance of Lomonosov's odes, Sumarokov has been strongly influenced by his creative genius. However, the ode genre did not become dominant in the work of Sumarokov, who was destined to find fame as a great playwright and lyric poet, creators of love songs, idylls, elegies, eclogues.

An important literary event was the two poetic epistles printed in 1748 by Sumarokov - "On the Russian Language" and "On Poetry", in which Sumarokov acted as a theorist of classicism. In the first, he speaks of the need to enrich the literary language with timeless Church Slavonic words and to avoid foreign words. In this he approaches Lomonosov. In the Epistle on Poetry (1747), already unlike Lomonosov, Sumarokov, theoretically substantiating the genres of classicism, asserts the equality of all genres, without giving preference to any of them:

Everything is laudable: drama, eclogue or ode -

Write down what your nature attracts you to ...

Subsequently, both of these epistles were revised and made up one - "Instruction to those who want to be writers", published in 1774.

To Trediakovsky’s reproach for borrowing epistles from The Art of Poetry, Sumarokov replied that he “took no weight from Boileau,” referring to his understanding of the aesthetic code and his independent development of individual genres. Nevertheless, Sumarokov does not deny his dependence on Boileau's theory. “My epistle on poetry,” he says, “is all Boalova, and Boalo took from Horace. No: Boalo did not take everything from Horace, and I did not take everything from Boalo ... "

The beginning of Sumarokov's dramaturgical activity also dates back to the 40s, for he considered the theater to be the strongest means of educating the nobility. In his tragedies, one of the most characteristic genres of classicism, Sumarokov poses big, socially significant problems. Contemporaries highly appreciated this type of Sumarokov's dramaturgy, calling him "Northern Racine", the founder of the dramaturgy of Russian classicism.

Tragedies of Sumarokov

In the tragedies, Sumarokov's political views were especially clearly manifested. He strove to create a harmonious society in which each member of society would know his duties and honestly fulfill them. He longed to return the "golden ages", believing that they are possible under the existing social order, but for this it is necessary to eliminate the lawlessness and disorder that exist in the absolutist-noble monarchy. His tragedies were supposed to show what a true enlightened monarch should be, they were supposed to educate the “first sons of the fatherland”, the nobility, arousing in them a sense of civic duty, love for the fatherland, true nobility. Sumarokov did not get tired of convincing the monarchs that "we (subjects) were born for you, and you were born for us." And although Sumarokov constantly repeats that "monarchical rule, I do not say despotic, is the best," he did not stop at a sharp condemnation of monarchs who did not correspond to the ideal he had outlined. Standing in opposition to Elizabeth Petrovna, he soon understood the pseudo-enlightened absolutism of Catherine's reign and, while promoting the ideas of enlightened absolutism in his tragedies, at the same time exposes the despotism of the reign of monarchs. The tyrannical tendencies in his tragedies sharply intensified by the end of the 60s and the beginning of the 70s, reflecting the general growth of noble opposition to the regime of Catherine II. The socio-political pathos of the tragedies of Sumarokov had a huge impact on the development of the subsequent Russian tragedy, which retained its political orientation.

For 28 years, Sumarokov wrote nine tragedies. The first group of tragedies, 1740-1750, is "Khorev" (1747), "Hamlet" (1748), which was a free adaptation from the French prose translation of Shakespeare's tragedy, "Sinav and Truvor" (1750), "Ariston" (1750 ), "Semira" (1751), "Dimiza" (1758), later revised and called "Yaropolk and Dimiza" (1768).

Sumarokov's first tragedy "Khorev" was published in 1747. This is the first experience of the playwright, it only outlines the main provisions, motives, situations that will develop later. The tragedy is addressed to Ancient Rus', however, the connection with ancient Russian history is very conditional, it is actually limited to names, nevertheless it is important to note that, taking plots from his native history, Sumarokov considered them more effective in educating the "virtue" of the nobility. This, undoubtedly, gave the most pronounced patriotic character to the tragedies of the playwright and was a distinctive feature of Russian classicism, because Western European dramaturgy was built mainly on ancient subjects.

In the tragedy "Khorev" the central image is Prince Kiy. His brother Horev loves Osnelda, the daughter of Zavlokh, who was expelled from Kyiv by Prince Kiy. Osnelda reciprocates Khorev, but her love is contrary to the duty of a daughter and a patriot. By order of Kiy, who wants to test Horev's loyalty, the latter must march with an army against his beloved's father. This is how the conflict between public and personal, between duty and passion, which is characteristic of Sumarokov's subsequent tragedies, is determined.

The denouement is tragic, and Prince Kiy, who trusted the scammer Stalverh, is to blame for it. In this first tragedy of Sumarokov, there is not yet that clarity of the main idea, that rigor and integrity in construction that will be characteristic of his best tragedies, but the main collisions are outlined, and the moralistic, didactic orientation of the tragedy is decisive. The monarch, who subjugated the voice of reason to the pernicious passion that gripped him, becomes a tyrant for his subjects. In the speeches of Khorev and Osnelda, lessons of noble morality were concluded.

The next group of tragedies, in which tyrannical motifs sounded most clearly, was written after a ten-year break: Vysheslav (1768), Dimitry the Pretender (1771), Mstislav (1774). However, even in these tragedies, despite the sharper socio-political sound, the plot-compositional structure is subordinated to the clarification of the main problem: the attitude of the tsarist authorities to the subjects and the subjects to this authority. In the center of the tragedies is the monarch, invested with power, his subjects - princes, nobles, representatives of a noble family, often subjects of the monarch - two lovers, but this love is undesirable, it is condemned by the law of honor and duty. Devotion to one's feelings and one's duty creates a tragic conflict. Usually, a tragic conflict is based on a violation of duty by a monarch who does not know how to control his passions and becomes a tyrant in relation to his subjects. In the tragedies of Sumarokov, the monarch, unable to suppress his passion, attraction, has no right to control others. And hence, in most tragedies, an important moment in the development of the plot is a speech against a tyrant. This speech is successful if it is directed against despots (Hamlet, Demetrius the Pretender). In other cases, when the ruler is a reasonable monarch (“Semira”, “Vysheslav”) or a monarch who repented of his actions (“Artiston”, “Mstislav”, etc.), the uprising ends in failure. Characteristically, the triumph of Sumarokov's didactic concept of morality leads to happy endings in tragedies (exceptions: "Sinav and Truvor" and "Khorev").

Creating patterns of behavior of a true monarch and a true subject, whose high feelings and thoughts were to educate the Russian nobility, Sumarokov divides his heroes into positive and negative, virtuous and villains, who are revealed to the viewer primarily in his monologues. The action in tragedies is reduced to a minimum, the monologues of the characters are turned into the auditorium and are an expression of certain ideas of the author.

The tragedy "Sinav and Truvor" translated into French was approved by Voltaire. Sumarokov's last tragedies Vysheslav (1768), Dimitry the Pretender (1771) and Mstislav (1774) were written at a time when the playwright was in disgrace and clearly saw that the Russian monarchy was despotic. Sumarokov's opposition to the government and his fight against favoritism were reflected in these tragedies, which were clearly political in nature.

The goal of Sumarokov is the education of monarchs, an indication of their duties towards their subjects:

He reigns over the people to bliss

And the common benefit leading to perfection:

The orphan does not cry under his scepter,

The innocent fear no one,

The flatterer does not bow down at the feet of a nobleman.

The king is an equal judge and an equal father to all.

("Vysheslav")

Proceeding from his ideal of a class monarchy, Sumarokov, with his characteristic vehemence and insolence, attacked those social phenomena and social forces that he regarded negatively. In his latest tragedies, tyrannical motives are intensified. A monarch who is unable to establish order in the state and be the father of his subjects is worthy of contempt, he is a “vile idol”, an “enemy of the people”, who must be overthrown from the throne (“Demetrius the Pretender”). Sumarokov spoke about the "villains" on the throne. It is not for nothing that the tragedy Dimitry the Pretender was included in a collection of the best works of Russian literature published in Paris in 1800. Its compilers explained the choice of this play by the fact that “its plot, almost revolutionary, is obviously in direct conflict with the morals and political system of this country: minor characters (Shuisky, George, Parmen and Xenia) make speeches about the rights of the people and the duties of sovereigns. The theme of the violent overthrow of the tyrant by the people sounds in the tragedy. And although Sumarokov has in mind only a palace coup, and the concepts of “people”, “society”, “sons of the fatherland” are nobles, which P. N. Berkov rightly pointed out in his work on Sumarokov, nevertheless, the socio-political sound this tragedy was very strong.

Sumarokov's tragedies were of great educational value. Spectators sitting in the hall received lessons in morality, listened to lofty words about duty, nobility, love for the Motherland, learned to resent tyranny. N. I. Novikov, the most prominent educator of the 18th century, wrote about Sumarokov: “... although he was the first Russian to write tragedies according to all the rules of theatrical art, he managed so much in them that he deserved the name of northern Racine.” It is characteristic that Sumarokov himself expressed dissatisfaction with the audience. In the preface to Demetrius the Pretender, complaining about the frivolity and indifference of the public, he wrote: “You who traveled, who were in Paris and London, tell me! do they gnaw nuts there during the performance and, when the performance is in its greatest heat, do the drunken coachmen who quarreled with each other flog to the alarm of the entire stalls, boxes and theater?

Designed for the education and upbringing of the nobility, the tragedy of Sumarokov had a wider resonance, a wider sphere of influence. The play "Demetrius the Pretender", according to contemporaries, was "the people's favorite" even in the 20s of the XIX century. The socially progressive role of Sumarokov's tragedies was great, and the type of classical tragedy he created remained for a long time a model followed by modern playwrights and playwrights of later times.

Comedy Sumarokov

Sumarokov said his word in the genre of comedy. In the Epistle on Poetry, the playwright defines the social and educational function of comedy: “The property of comedy is to correct temper with a mockery; / To laugh and use - its direct charter. By exposing human vices in a ridiculous form, denouncing them, comedy should thereby contribute to liberation from them. In "Epistole", formulating the theory of the comedy genre, Sumarokov wrote that comedy should be separated from tragedy, on the one hand, and from farcical games, on the other:

For knowledgeable people, you do not write games:

To laugh without reason is the gift of a vile soul.

Separating comedy from folk games, Sumarokov nevertheless turned to the practice of folk theater in his comedies. His comedies are small in volume (from one to three acts), written in prose, they often lack a plot basis (this applies especially to Sumarokov's first comedies), comedies are characterized by farcical comedy, the characters are a clerk, a judge, a dandy and other characters noticed Sumarokov in Russian life.

Imagine a soulless podyachev in an order,

The judge that he does not understand what is written in the decree.

Imagine me a dandy who picks up his nose,

That the whole age thinks about the beauty of hair,

Who was born, as he imagines, for Cupid,

In order to persuade such a fool somewhere to yourself.

In an effort to imitate, above all, the French comedy of Moliere, Sumarokov was far from the comedies of Western classicism. Classical comedy had to consist of five acts in verse (Molière's comedy The Misanthrope served as an example), it had to have compositional rigor, completeness, obligatory observance of unity (of course, in Western comedy there were deviations from the classical model: comedies in prose were written and Molière). With Sumarokov, the imitation of French comedy and Italian interludes was reflected primarily in the borrowing of conditional names of characters: Erast, Dulizh, Dorant, Isabella, etc.

Sumarokov wrote twelve comedies, which, although they had a number of undoubted merits, were lower in their ideological significance and artistic value than his tragedies.

The first comedies "Tresotinius", "Monsters", "Empty Quarrel" he writes in 1750. The next group of comedies appears in the 60s: "Dowry by deceit", "Guardian", "Poisonous", "Likhoimets", "Narcissus" , "Three brothers are partners", and, finally, in 1772 three more comedies were written - "Cuckold by imagination", "Mother daughter's partner", "Squat". Most often, Sumarokov's comedies served him as a means of polemic, hence the pamphlet nature of most of them. Unlike tragedies, Sumarokov worked on comedies for a short time. In his first comedies, each of the characters who appeared on the stage showed the public his vice, and the scenes were mechanically connected. In a small comedy, there are many actors (in Tresotinius - 10, in Monsters - 11). The portraiture of the characters made it possible for contemporaries to find out who in reality served as the prototype of this or that character. Real faces, everyday details, negative phenomena of Russian life - all this gave Sumarokov's comedies, despite the conventionality of the image, a connection with reality. The strongest side of Sumarokov's comedies was their language: bright, expressive, it is often colored with features of a lively dialect. This manifested the writer's desire to individualize the characters' speech, which is especially characteristic of Sumarokov's later comedies.

The polemical nature of the early comedies, often directed against enemies in the literary field, can be traced in the comedy-pamphlet Tresotinius, in the main character of which, the scientist-pedant, Trediakovsky was depicted in an exaggerated and grotesque form. A parody of Trediakovsky's poems sounds in Tresotinius's song:

Looking at your beauty, I was inflamed, she-she!

Oh, if you please, save me from my passion,

You torment me, Clymene, and knocked me down with an arrow.

The images created in the first comedies were conditional and far from typical generalizations.

Despite the fact that the method of conditional representation of characters is also characteristic of the second group of comedies, nevertheless, they differ from the first ones in a greater depth and conditionality of the image of the main characters. The second group of comedies, written between 1764-1768, refers to the comedies of characters, when all attention is focused on the main character, while other characters serve only to reveal the character traits of the main character. So, "Guardian" is a comedy about a nobleman-usurer, swindler and hypocrite Outsider, "Poisonous" - about the slanderer Herostratus, "Narcissus" - a comedy about a narcissistic dandy. The rest of the characters are positive characters who act as reasoners. The most successful in Sumarokov's comedies are the images of negative characters, in whose characters many satirical and everyday features are noticed, although their portrayal is still far from creating a socially generalized type.

One of the best comedies of this period is the comedy "The Guardian", which focuses on the image of a bigot, a miserly nobleman Outlander, ripping off orphans who fell under his care. The “original” of the Outsider was a relative of Sumarokov Buturlin. It is characteristic that he is also depicted as a central image in other comedies (The Likhoimets, Dowry by Deception). In the comedy "Guardian" Sumarokov does not show the bearer of some kind of vice, but draws a complex character. Before us is not only a miser who knows neither conscience nor pity, but also a hypocrite, an ignoramus, a debauchee. With some resemblance to Moliere's Tartuffe, Sumarokov creates a generalized conditional satirical image of a vicious Russian nobleman. Disclosure of character is facilitated by both speech characteristics and everyday details. The speech of the Outsider is full of proverbs and sayings: “the purse is empty, the head is also empty”, “what an honor, if there is nothing to eat?”, “Swearing does not hang on the collar”, “what is taken is holy”. In his sanctimonious repentance, the Outsider turns to God, saturating his speech with Church Slavonicisms: “Lord, I am a swindler and a soulless person and have not the slightest love for you or for my neighbor; alone trusting in your philanthropy, I cry out to you: remember me, Lord, in your kingdom.

The positive characters of Sumarokov's comedies are deprived of vitality, they often act in comedies as reasoners - such is Valery in the comedy "Guardian". The pictorial names of negative characters characteristic of classicism also corresponded to the moralizing goals: the Outsider, Kashchei, Herostratus.

The late 60s - 70s are characterized by the growth of oppositional sentiments in relation to enlightened absolutism among the advanced nobility and the raznochintsy intelligentsia. This was the time when Russian enlightenment thought turned to the formulation of the peasant question. The issue of the relationship between landowners and peasants began to be addressed more closely, socially meaningful in various genres of literature. Attention to the everyday life surrounding a person, the desire for a more complex psychological disclosure of characters in certain social conditions are characteristic of the best dramatic works of the second half of the century. At this time (between 1766-1769) Fonvizin wrote the first everyday comedy from the life of the Russian provincial nobility "The Brigadier", the influence of which affected Sumarokov's last comedies. Following Fonvizin's Brigadier, the best play in Sumarokov's comedy work, Cuckold by Imagination, appeared, which, in turn, anticipated the appearance of Fonvizin's Undergrowth (some commonality of situations, characters).

The focus of the writer's attention is the life of the provincial poor landowners, Vikul and Khavronya. Limited interests, ignorance, narrow-mindedness characterize them. At the same time, the characters of Sumarokov's comedy are devoid of one-sidedness. Ridiculing the savagery, the absurdity of these people, who only talk about “sowing, reaping, threshing, chickens,” whose peasants go around the world, Sumarokov also shows features that evoke sympathy for them. Vikul and Khavronya touch with their mutual affection (here they precede Gogol's "Old World Landowners"). "Cuckold by imagination" is the pinnacle of Sumarokov's comedy creativity.

Poetry Sumarokov

The diverse work of Sumarokov was also manifested in the richness of poetic genres. Sumarokov sought to give samples of all types of poetry provided for by the theory of classicism. He wrote odes, songs, elegies, eclogues, idylls, madrigals, epigrams, satires, parables. In his poetry, two directions were fundamental - lyrical and satirical. He began writing love songs in the first decade of his creative activity. In the field of love lyrics, which was very popular with his contemporaries, Sumarokov made undoubted discoveries. His lyrics are addressed to a person, to his natural weaknesses. Despite the still conventional image of the lyrical hero, in his songs Sumarokov seeks to reveal the inner world, depth and sincerity of the feelings of the hero or heroine. His lyrics are distinguished by sincere simplicity, immediacy, sincerity and clarity of expression are inherent in it. After the lyrics of the time of Peter the Great, Sumarokov's lyrics, both in the field of content and in the field of verse technique, made a big step forward.

Here is an example of one of those love songs that created Sumarokov's first fame:

Hidden those hours, as you were looking for me,

And all my joy is taken away by you.

I see that you have become unfaithful to me now,

Against me, you have become completely different.

My moan and sadness are fierce,

imagine

And remember those moments

How sweet I was to you.

Look at the places where you saw me

All tenderness they will bring to memory.

Where are my joys? Where has your passion gone?

Gone and never come back to me.

Another life has come;

But was I expecting this?

Lost life dragging

Hope and peace.

Sumarokov often uses the antithesis technique to reveal

Sumarokov Alexander Petrovich was born in Moscow in 1717. He is known to readers of his contemporaries as a poet and playwright.

Alexander Petrovich grew up in a noble family. He received his upbringing and primary education at home. At the age of 15 he entered the land gentry corps. Here begins his work as a young poet.

Sumarokov is known to his fans as a writer of love songs that have received success and public recognition. In his lines, the poet uses the theme of interpersonal conflicts, which he later begins to apply in his tragedies. The most famous of them: "Khorev" (1747), "Hamlet" (1748), "Sinav and Truvor" (1750). Poetic tragedies became an incentive for the playwright to create a theater in Russia, which was headed by Sumarokov himself.

During the reign of Catherine II, the popularity of Alexander Petrovich reaches its full flowering. He has support in the circles of Novikov and Fonvizin. His works are aimed at ridiculing bribe-takers, landowners who treated their serfs cruelly.

But in 1770, a conflict arose between Sumarokov and Saltykov. In this situation, the empress supported the poet, and he wrote her a mocking letter. This event had a negative impact on his literary position.

Throughout his life, the playwright wrote the most interesting works of comedy and tragedy. But in his dying years, he somewhat lost his popularity, which contributed to the passion for bad habits. The consequence is the sudden death of Sumarokov in 1777.

Alexander Petrovich Sumarokov is one of the brightest representatives of Russian literature of the 18th century. He managed to theoretically substantiate classicism as a literary trend characteristic of Russia of that period. The literary activity of Sumarokov gives grounds to consider the writer both the successor of the work of Lomonosov and his antagonist. The relationship of these two talented and extraordinary personalities, which began with the sincere admiration of Sumarokov, who in 1748 dedicated the lines to his senior colleague: “He is Malgerb of our countries; he is like Pindar”, turned into friendly relations, and then into open personal and literary-theoretical enmity.

Being an outstanding playwright, poet and one of the most prolific writers of his time, selflessly devoted to literary work, A.P. Sumarokov worked mainly for the nobility, while Lomonosov's classicism was of a nationwide and nationwide character. As Belinsky later wrote, "Sumarokov was excessively extolled by his contemporaries and excessively humiliated by our time." At the same time, for all its shortcomings, Sumarokov's literary work became one of the important milestones in the history of Russian literature and culture of the 18th century.

The biography of Alexander Petrovich Sumarokov is rich in events, ups and downs. The future writer was born in 1717 in an impoverished aristocratic family. As a child, the boy received a home education traditional for his class, and when he was 14 years old, he was sent by his parents to the Land Gentry Corps, where only children of nobles could study, who were trained for leadership in the military, civil and court spheres. In the building where history, languages, geography, legal sciences, fencing and dancing were taught, young Sumarokov received an excellent classical education for those times. There he was instilled with a love of theater and literature. Over time, the gentry corps became a hotbed of progressive noble culture. Here a lot of time was devoted to literature and art; a group of students, under the guidance of officers, in 1759 began to publish the journal “Idle time, for the benefit of the used”, where Sumarokov was published after graduating from the corps in 1940. It was in the Corps that the premiere of the first Russian tragedy written by him took place, with which the creation of the Russian dramatic repertoire. Even while studying in the building, two of his odes were printed in honor of the celebration of the new year, 1740.

After graduating from the gentry corps, Sumarokov served in the military field office, but he devoted all his free time to literary activity, which he treated as a professional matter. Which was quite unusual for that time.

Brought up in the Corps in the spirit of high ideas about the dignity, honor and virtue of a nobleman, about the need for selfless service to the Fatherland, he dreamed of conveying these ideals to the noble society as a whole through literature. The writer addressed the authorities on behalf of the progressive part of the nobility. Over time, Sumarokov becomes the main ideologist of the nobility as an estate, but not conservative, but a new nobility, which is a product of Peter's reforms.
The nobility, according to Sumarokov, should serve social progress. And the writer with zeal undertakes to defend the interests of the nobles. Considering the existing serf system to be a completely natural and legal phenomenon, at the same time he condemned the excessive cruelty of the serf landowners and protested against the transformation of serfdom into slavery and considered all people equal by birth. As Sumarokov wrote in his remarks to the “Instruction” of Catherine II, “people should not be sold like cattle.” But at the same time, he wrote the following lines: “peasant freedom is not only harmful to society, but also pernicious, and why it is pernicious, that’s why should not be interpreted." Sumarokov believed that the nobles were "the first members of society" and "sons of the fatherland" due to upbringing and education, and therefore had the right to own and manage the peasants, whom he called "slaves of the fatherland."

Being a staunch monarchist and an ardent supporter of enlightened absolutism, the writer sharply criticized monarchs who forget that power over subjects also implies the fulfillment of certain duties in relation to them. “... we were born for you. And you were born for us,” he wrote in one of his odes. Sumarokov never tired of recalling this in his tragedies. Such criticism sometimes put him in opposition to the government.

Outwardly, quite prosperous, full of recognition and success, Sumarokov's life, however, was difficult and full of sorrows. The writer was depressed that among the representatives of his class he did not find people close to the ideal that he himself created. Disillusioned more and more, he furiously denounces the unenlightened, despotic and cruel nobles, ridicules their behavior and boyar arrogance in fables and satires, denounces bribe-takers, and criticizes favoritism at court. The angry nobility began to persecute the writer. The extremely irritable and proud Sumarokov, already accustomed to the recognition of his literary talent by fellow writers and unable to restrain his emotions, often lost his temper. At times, it came to tantrums, which made him the talk of the town. Honest and direct, Sumarokov did not let down impudence on anyone. He said impartial things to high-ranking government officials, fiercely defended his copyright from encroachment, cursed out loud the arbitrariness of the authorities and their bribery, the savagery of Russian society, and in response, the noble "society" took revenge on the writer, deliberately infuriating him and openly mocking him .

The role of Sumarokov for the formation and development of the Russian theater as a phenomenon is enormous. He was one of the founders and the first director of the first permanent Russian theater. The order on the creation of the theater and the appointment of Sumarokov was signed by Elizabeth I in 1756. For him, theatrical activity was an opportunity to fulfill his, as he believed, main purpose - the education of the nobility.

The existence of the theater would have been impossible without the dramatic works of Sumarokov, which made up his repertoire. By the time the theater opened, he had already written five tragedies and three comedies. Contemporaries highly valued the playwright and considered him "the founder of the Russian theater."

In parallel with the theatrical activities, the writer worked a lot and fruitfully in the literary field. In the period from 1755-1758. he actively collaborated with the academic journal Monthly Works, and in 1759 he began publishing his own satirical and moralizing journal The Hardworking Bee, which became the first private journal in Russia.

Work as director lasted about five years, during which he had to face a lot of technical and financial problems, which he, for the most part, because of his quarrelsomeness and harshness, were unable to solve. During this period, he repeatedly had to make requests to the all-powerful favorite of Elizabeth Petrovna - Count Shuvalov and come into conflict with him and other nobles. In the end, he was forced to leave his offspring - the theater, to which he devoted a lot of time and energy.

The last years of Sumarokov's life were especially difficult for the writer. He leaves St. Petersburg and moves to Moscow, where he continues to write extensively. The liberal declarations of Catherine II, who at that time was the wife of the heir to the throne, brought him into the ranks of the anti-Elizabeth noble opposition.

After the coup of 1762, as a result of which Catherine II ascended the throne, the writer is deeply disappointed, connected with the collapse of his political hopes. Having become in opposition now to Catherine, he creates the tragedies "Demetrius the Pretender" and "Mstislav" on the political topics of the day. In Demetrius the Pretender, the despot monarch is sharply exposed and there are calls for his overthrow. The nobility with discontent perceives such a political orientation of the writer's work, but he continues to be successful in literary circles, but this cannot console Sumarokov's pride. With his sharpness and intransigence, he restores the young empress against him.

The cup of patience of conservative-minded noble circles and the court is overwhelmed by the news that, being an aristocrat by birth and an ideologue of the nobility, Sumarokov married one of his serfs. A high-profile lawsuit begins against the writer, initiated by the family of his first wife, demanding the deprivation of property rights of his children from his second marriage. And although the process was lost by the opposite side, this was the reason for the complete ruin of Sumarokov. The writer, entangled in financial problems, was forced to humbly ask the rich man Demidov not to expel him and his family from home for unpaid debts. Added to this is the persecution by high-ranking nobles. In particular, the Governor-General of Moscow Saltykov becomes the organizer of the failure of Sumarokov's tragedy "Sinav and Truvor". Brought to poverty, ridiculed and abandoned by everyone - the writer begins to drink and sinks.

When in October 1777, unable to withstand the disasters that had befallen him, Sumarokov died, his family did not have the funds for a funeral. The famous writer, playwright and public figure at the Donskoy cemetery was buried at his own expense by the actors of the Moscow theater he created.

Analyzing the life and work of Sumarokov, one can see that the main reason for his failures was in idealistic ideas about life and lack of practicality. He was the first nobleman who made literature the main business of life and profession. However, at that time, literary activity could not ensure financial well-being, and this caused Sumarokov's material problems. As the writer wrote, addressing Catherine II with a petition: “The main reason for all this is my love for poetry, for I ... did not so much care about ranks and the estate, as about my muse.”

Sumarokov himself, greatly exaggerating his role in the formation of Russian poetry, considered himself its ancestor and declared that when he began to write poetry, he had no one to learn from, and he had to figure everything out himself. Of course, these statements are very far from the truth, but it is also impossible to belittle the merits of Sumarokov in the formation and development of Russian poetry. If Vasily Kirillovich Trediakovsky developed the rules of syllabo-tonic versification in relation to the Russian language, and Lomonosov became the author of large-scale ones, then Sumarokov created samples of almost all types of Russian tonic verse. In all his incarnations, as a playwright, as a poet, as a theorist, as a critic, he sought to serve society, and believed that literary activity is one of the forms of active participation in the public life of his country. He was a true patriot and noble educator, whose works were highly valued by the progressive people of that time, in particular, Radishchev and Novikov.

A great merit of A.P. Sumarokov is also the establishment of classicism in Russia. He acted both as one of the first theoreticians of Russian classicism and as a writer who created samples of almost all genres provided for by this literary trend.

Sumarokov began his literary work by writing odes, back in 1740, in which he imitated Trediakovsky, who was already quite famous at that time. Having become acquainted with the odes of Lomonosov, Sumarokov was delighted with them and for a long time worked under their influence. However, it was not the ode genre that glorified Sumarokov. It was difficult for him to gain fame as a lyric poet and one of the greatest Russian playwrights.

An important event for the literary community was the publication by Sumarokov in 1748 of two verse epistles in which the author declared himself to be a theoretician of classicism. In the first of them, entitled "On the Russian Language", he writes about the need to avoid introducing foreign words into the Russian literary language. At the same time, the writer welcomes the use of timeless Church Slavonic words in literature. In this he Sumarokov draws closer to Lomonosov.

In the second work, “The Epistle on Poetry”, views are expressed that are opposite to Lomonosov’s judgments on this issue, who put the ode above all literary genres, while Sumarokov affirms the equality of all genres and does not give preference to any of them. "Everything is laudable: whether it's a drama, an eclogue or an ode - Compose what your nature leads you to," the poet writes.

Many years later, both of these epistles were combined into one and revised. The resulting work, "Instruction to Those Who Want to Be Writers," was published in 1774.

After the epistles were published, Sumarokov was accused of plagiarism. In particular, Trediakovsky reproached the writer for borrowing the ideas expressed in Boileau's The Art of Poetry. Sumarokov did not deny his dependence on the theory of the French poet, however, he pointed out that just as Boileau himself learned a lot, but not everything from Horace, so he "... did not take everything from Boalo ...".

Dramatic activity of Sumarokov. By the 40s of the 18th century. The beginning of Sumarokov's activities as a playwright, who considered the theater the most effective means of educating the nobility, also applies. In his tragedies, he raises important socially significant problems. Contemporaries, who called Sumarokov "Northern Racine", highly appreciated this type of his work and recognized him as the founder of the dramaturgy of Russian classicism.

It is the tragedies of Sumarokov that can give the most complete picture of his political views. In them, he expresses his aspirations to create a society in which each of its members knew and fulfilled his duties. The writer was eager to return the "golden ages", believing, at the same time, that the prosperity of society is possible even under the existing social order, if some lawlessness and disorder are eliminated.

With the help of his tragedies, Sumarokov tried to show what, in his understanding, a truly enlightened monarch should be. Tragedies were also supposed to educate the "first sons of the fatherland" - the nobility, awakening in them patriotism and a sense of civic duty. He tirelessly convinced the monarchs that not only subjects were born to serve the monarch, but the monarch should also take care of the benefit of his subjects.

Sumarokov's first dramatic work, the tragedy "Khorev", was published in 1747. The action of the tragedy takes place in Ancient Rus', and although the names of the characters are taken from historical sources, no real events are present in it. However, in the future, in his tragedies, he tried to choose pseudo-historical plots about the past of the Fatherland, with a pronounced patriotic coloring, considering such plots to be more effective in educating virtuous nobles. It was the patriotism of Russian classicism that became its distinctive feature from Western European, which was based mainly on ancient subjects.

The tragedy of Sumarokov, indeed, had an invaluable educational value. Many nobles, who did not like reading very much, but tried to keep up with the times and regularly attend theatrical performances, received lessons in morality and patriotism from the stage, listened to lofty words about nobility and duty, and, perhaps, for the first time received food for thought about the injustice of the existing tyranny. . One of the most prominent educators of the 18th century. N. I. Novikov, wrote about Sumarokov that although he was the first to write tragedies in Russian according to all the rules of theatrical art, he succeeded so much in this that he could be put on a par with Racine.

Interestingly, the playwright himself was extremely dissatisfied with the audience, who, instead of listening, gnawed nuts and flogged the guilty servants.
Designed for the upbringing and education of the nobility alone, Sumarokov's dramatic works had a wider public resonance. According to contemporaries, one of the playwright's best works, the play Dimitry the Pretender, enjoyed great popularity among the broad masses even in the 1820s.

Comedy Sumarokov

In the comedy genre, Sumarokov's biography is quite rich. With her help, the author skillfully expressed his thoughts.

The comedy "Epistle on Poetry" is defined by the playwright as a social and educational comedy, where human vices are exhibited in a ridiculous form, where their exposure should also contribute to their release. Thus formulating the theory of this genre, Sumarokov noted that it is very important for comedy to be different from tragedy and farcical games:

“For knowledgeable people, you don’t write games: To laugh without reason is a gift from a vile soul.”

Having managed to distinguish comedy from the games of the crowd, Sumarokov in his works turns to the practice of folk theater. The comedies themselves are not large in volume and are written in prose. They do not have a plot basis. This is especially true of Sumarokov's first comedies, which are characterized by farcical comedy. All the characters are noticed by him from Russian life.

Imitating the French comedies of Molière, Sumarokov was far removed from the comedies of Western classicism, which were usually always in verse and consisted of five acts. According to the standards, it had to contain compositional rigor, completeness, with the obligatory observance of personalization. As for Sumarokov, his imitation of Italian interludes and French comedy was more pronounced, only in the use of conditional names of characters: Dorant and Erast, Dulizh and Isabella.

He wrote twelve comedies. They may have had a number of advantages, but as far as artistic value and ideological value are concerned, they were inferior to the tragedies of the playwright.

Some of the first comedies were: "Tresotinius", "Empty Quarrel" and "Monsters", written in 1750. In the 60s, the following group of comedies appeared: “Poisonous” and “Dowry by deception”, “Narcissus” and “Guardian”, “Likhoimets” and “Three brothers are partners”. In 1772, three more comedies were released: "The Buffoon", "Cuckold by Imagination" and "Mother Daughter's Companion". Sumarokov's comedies served him, to a greater extent, as a means of controversy, which is why most of them are marked by a pamphlet character.

On his comedies, he did not work for a long time. This was his distinguishing feature from writing tragedies. Each acting character, in his first comedies, showed his vices to the public when he appeared on the stage, and the scenes had a mechanical connection with each other. Small comedies featured many actors, up to 10 characters each. The portrait similarity of the characters made it possible for contemporaries to recognize those who served as prototypes of one or another hero. Everyday details and negative phenomena of the life of that time gave his comedies a connection with obvious reality, regardless of the conventionality of the image.

The greatest strength of the playwright's comedies was their language. It was bright and expressive, often colored with the features of a lively dialect. This revealed the writer's desire to demonstrate the individuality of the speech of each of the characters, especially characteristic of Sumarokov's comedies written later.

Often directed against enemies, in the field of literary activity, the controversial nature of Sumarkov's first comedies is easily traced in the pamphlet comedy Tresotinius. The main character in it is a scientist-pedant, in which Trediakovsky was depicted. The images created in the first comedies were far from standard generalizations and were approximate. Regardless of the fact that the conditional depiction of characters is also characteristic of the second group of comedies, they are still distinguished by great depth and limitations in the image. In them, the whole emphasis is directed to the main character, all other characters are present only to reveal the basics of the character, the main one. For example, "Guardian" is one of the comedies where the nobleman Outsider is a usurer and a big crook. "Poisonous" - carries the slanderer Herostratus, and "Narcissus" - a comedy about a narcissistic goldfinch.

Secondary characters are characters who carry positive characteristics and act only as resonators. Comic images of negative characters were obtained by Sumarkov much more successfully than positive ones. In their characters, satirical and everyday moments were emphasized, although still far from the true reality of a socially generalized type.

Perhaps the comedy "Guardian" is one of the best comedies of that period. In the center of attention, we are presented with the image of a nobleman - a hypocrite and greedy Outsider, ripping off orphans who fell under his care. The true identity of the Outsider was a relative of Sumarokov himself. It is significant that he was again portrayed as a central figure in other comedies. In The Guardian, Sumarokov does not demonstrate the bearer of a single vice, but creates a complex character. Before us appears not only a miser who does not know conscience and pity, we see a hypocrite, an ignoramus and a libertine.

Some resemblance to Tartuffe, Moliere, draws a generalized and rather conditional image of the satirical genre, dedicated to a vicious Russian nobleman. Complements the disclosure of character, speech characteristics and household trifles. The speech of the Outsider is replete with proverbs and sayings: “what is taken is holy”, “swearing does not hang on the collar”. In his sanctimonious repentance, when turning to God, the speech is filled with church Slavism: “Lord, I am a swindler and a soulless person and I have not the slightest love for you or for my neighbor; alone trusting in your philanthropy, I cry out to you: remember me, Lord, in your kingdom.

Surprisingly, even goodies in Sumarokov's comedies are not given vitality. They, for the most part, act as resonators. One such resonator is Valery, in the comedy Guardian. The common nouns of the negative characters: Outsider, Kashchei, Herostratus, corresponded to the moralizing goals characteristic of classicism.

The period of the 60s and 70s is characterized by the growth of oppositional sentiments towards enlightened absolutism among the raznochintsy intelligentsia and the advanced nobility. This was the period when Russian educational thought turned to the peasant question. In various literary genres, the moment of relations between landowners and peasants began to be resolved quite closely, socially deliberately. The life that surrounds a person, the desire for a complex disclosure of the psychology of the characters' characters, in certain social conditions that have developed, is characteristic of the best works of dramaturgy of the second half of the century.

The first everyday comedy was written by Fonvizin between 1766-1769. It had content filled with the meaning of the life of the Russian nobility from the provinces, and was called - "Brigadier". Her influence, in a certain way, was reflected in the later comedies of Sumarokov. Following Fonvizin's Brigadier, the best comedy in Sumarokov's work was published. This play was called "Cuckold by Imagination". She, in turn, was ahead of the appearance of the play "Undergrowth" by Fonvizin. The focus of the writer - playwright was the life of the provincial not very rich landowners Vikul and Khavronya - limited by interests. They are ignorant, who are characterized by narrow-mindedness. However, the characters of Sumarkov's comedy lack stability in their attitude to life. The narrow-mindedness and stupidity of these people, who speak only “about sowing, about reaping, about threshing, about chickens,” is ridiculed. Sumarokov also depicts a number of features that evoke sympathy for the characters, touching the audience with their mutual affection. In this case, these characters of Surmakov anticipate Gogol's "Old World Landowners". And the comedy "Cuckold by Imagination" is the pinnacle of Sumarokov's work in this genre.

Poetry Sumarokov

The creativity of Sumarokov manifested itself in its diversity and in the richness of the poetic genre. In an effort to provide a standard for all types of poetry, the writer managed to provide for the theory of classicism in his work. He created odes and elegies, songs and eclogues, idylls and madrigals, as well as many epigrams and parables. The fundamental directions in his poetry were lyrical and satirical. Still, in the first ten years of his creative activity, he began to create love songs, which were very popular with his contemporaries.

The field of love lyrics gave him the opportunity for undoubted discoveries, referring to man and his natural weaknesses. Despite the conditional image of the characters, in his songs the writer tries to reveal the inner, deep world and the sincerity of the characters' feelings. His lyrics are sincere and simple. It is filled with spontaneity, with its inherent clarity of expression. The lyrics of Sumarokov, which appeared after the lyrics of the time of Peter the Great, in the field of content and in the technique of poetry, made a huge step forward.

He liked to use the technique of antitheses in order to reveal to the maximum the depth of the psychological state of his lyrical heroes, allowing romanticism and spiritual qualities to enter the life and fate of human hearts. Recognizing the usefulness of the rights of love topics, where feelings are defeated by reason, Sumarokov himself is very far from moralizing positions.

“Love is the source and foundation of all breathing: and in addition to this, the source and foundation of poetry,” the author writes in his preface to the Eclogues.

The song, “In vain I hide ..., seems to be one of the best in its deep essence and sincerity of feelings, complementing the subtle psychologism. With this poem, the author managed to convey the struggle of passions and reason, subtle experiences of the human soul and heart.

The songs: “In the grove, the girls were walking”, “Forgive me, my dear, my light, forgive me” and “Why the heart trembles, why the blood burns”, were written by him in the folk spirit. In addition to them, both military songs and satirical couplet songs are created. Sumarokov also writes on the military theme "Oh, you strong, strong Bender city." In his songs he uses different poetic meters, repeating the folk style in the rhythm of a number of songs.

Sumarokov, who wrote odes and psalms, became an example of various genres of poetry. The development of subsequent poetry was, in a certain way, due to the influence of his poetry. In the field of lyric poetry, N. Lvov and Neledinsky-Meletsky and others became his students.

However, the reading public gave much more preference to Sumarokov's poetry, consisting of satirical themes, as well as his epigrams, parables, and satires. “His parables are revered as the treasure of the Russian Parnassus. In this kind of poem, he far surpasses Phaedrus and de la Fontaine,” wrote N. I. Novikov.

Quite rightly, the researchers point to the discovery of the fable genre by Sumarokov, especially for Russian literature, giving it the form in which it has lived and has been living since then. He wrote 374 parables - a free multi-foot iambic, which later became the classic size of a fable in Russia. His fables are like living satirical stories in which they ridiculed and condemned the disorder of our Russian life, and their characters are concrete carriers of vices, including political ones.

Sumarokov was affected by every layer of Russian society. The kings condemned by the author are his lions, about which he freely discusses in The Fool and The Feast at the Lion. Almost all of his satirical works are directed against bribe-takers and nobles, clerks and bureaucrats. In his fables, Russian nobles and ignorant, cruel landowners-serfs in "The Arrogant Fly" and "Satire and Vile People", as well as all kinds of officials, are subjected to inexorable condemnation.

The writer’s hatred for clerks was described by Belinsky: “Whatever the talent of Sumarokov, his satirical attacks on the “nettle seed” will surely rightly be honorably mentioned by the historian of Russian literature.”

The harsh satire of Sumarokov's fables made it necessary to turn to obvious life stories, and the parables are filled with scenes taken from life itself, accompanied by witty and well-aimed details of everyday life. Directly, in the satirical genre of the playwright's work, the tendency of realism was laid. Sumarokov's fables are completely diverse in their subject matter, but in each of them hypocrisy and stinginess are ridiculed. Either in the face of a merchant's widow from the parable "The Legless Soldier", then in the custom of fisticuffs in "Fistfight". Sumarokov draws a funny scene in which, a disputant wife, pestering her husband with her grumpiness, disputing the obvious, in "The Disputer".

Most of the plots for Sumarokov's parables are not new in their subject matter. Similar themes have already been encountered before by Aesop, Lafontaine and Phaedrus, but it is Sumarokov's fables that are distinguished by their content, style, and new fable size. They are filled with topicality, and turn their attention to Russian reality, with a distinctive sharpness in attacks and intentionally simple and rude style. This approach is provided for by the fable genre of "low spirit". Such sharpness in tone and rudeness of style, with painted pictures, was caused by the desire to reveal the vices of reality. This clearly distinguished the style of Sumarokov's fables from Western satirists.

Reading the parables of the playwright, one can clearly feel the juicy and lively language, close to the vernacular, full of sayings. The parables written with their help formed the basis of two books by Sumarokov, which were called: “The Proverbs of Alexander Sumarokov” and were published in 1762 and in 1769. The work of Sumarokov, in fable art, was followed by his students and contemporaries: M. Kheraskov, A. Rzhevsky, I. Bogdanovich, and others.

The pathos of denunciation is characteristic of all the works of Sumarokov. He is also filled with his satire, written in lively speech in verse. In satire, the writer expands and continues the line of Cantemir in "On Nobility" both in its theme and in direction - it rises to the level of satire "Filaret and Eugene". The works are aimed at ridiculing the nobility, which flaunts its "nobility" and "noble title". Written in a free iambic, like a parable, one of Sumarkov's best satires "Instruction to the son." In it, he sharply and poignantly depicts an old cunning clerk who, being dying, teaches his son how to be happy in life, following the example of his father - not to go the straight path. The remaining satirical works of the author are written in the size of the Alexandrian verse.

Against the gallomantic nobility, which clogs the beauty of the Russian language, Sumarokov also speaks in his satire "On the French Language". Of particular interest is his "Chorus to the Perverted Light", a satirical work written by Sumarokov to order. It was created for the masquerade "Triumphant Minerva", arranged in Moscow. The masquerade was timed to coincide with the accession to the throne of Catherine II, and took place in 1763 on Maslenitsa. However, such satirical poignancy and topicality of "Choir", Sumarokov, was allowed only in an abbreviated version. Talking about an ideal overseas country with its praiseworthy orders, the author tells about the unrest and disorder that obviously and painfully reign in his country.

"Chorus" - is close in its poetic warehouse to the Russian folk song. This work deservedly takes pride of place in the satirical and accusatory stylistic direction of Russian literature of the 18th century. Always considering serfdom to be a necessary measure, Sumarokov spoke out against the excessive cruelty of the landowners, who abused their power over the peasants. The sharpness of satire in "Chorus" was well felt by contemporaries. For the first time, "Chorus" was published in its entirety only in 1787, by N. I. Novikov, in the collected works of Sumarokov, after his death. A few decades later, in the 1940s, Sumarokov's satirical works began to be published in abbreviated form.

We draw your attention to the fact that the biography of Sumarokov Alexander Petrovich presents the most basic moments from life. Some minor life events may be omitted from this biography.