And he was alone in the world.
J. G. Byron
…and these beings are often endowed with great moral advantages, great spiritual powers, promise much, deliver little, or deliver nothing. It is not from themselves; here there is a fatum, which consists in reality, with which they are surrounded, like air, and from which it is not in the power and not in the power of a person to free themselves.
V.G. Belinsky
Peculiarity " extra person"not only in the fact that he never takes the side of the government, but also in the fact that he never knows how to take the side of the people ...
A.I. Herzen
To some extent, this theme is opposite to the depiction of the "little man": if there is seen the justification of the fate of everyone, then here - on the contrary, the categorical impulse "one of us is superfluous", which can both relate to the assessment of the hero, and come from the hero himself , and usually these two "directions" not only do not exclude each other, but also characterize one person: the accuser of his neighbors himself turns out to be "superfluous". "An extra person" is also a certain literary type. Literary types (types of heroes) are a collection of characters who are close in their occupation, worldview and spiritual appearance. The spread of this or that literary type may be dictated by the very need of society to depict people with some kind of stable set of qualities. The interest and benevolent attitude towards them on the part of critics, the success of books in which such people are depicted, stimulates writers to "repeat" or "variate" any literary types. Quite often, a new literary type arouses the interest of critics, who give it a name ("noble robber", "Turgenev's woman", "superfluous person", "little man", "nihilist", "tramp", "humiliated and insulted"). "An extra person", "extra people" - where did this term come from in Russian literature? Who was the first to apply it so successfully that it firmly and permanently established itself in the works of Pushkin, Lermontov, Turgenev, Goncharov? Many literary critics believe that it was invented by A.I. Herzen. According to another version, Pushkin himself, in a draft version of the VIII chapter of "Eugene Onegin," called his hero superfluous: "Onegin is like something superfluous."
In addition to Onegin, many nineteenth century and some literary critics of the twentieth century, Pechorin, the heroes of the novels of I.S. Turgenev Rudin and Lavretsky, as well as Oblomov I.A. Goncharov, are referred to the type of "superfluous person".
What are the main thematic features of these characters, "superfluous people"? This is, first of all, a person potentially capable of any social action. It does not accept the "rules of the game" proposed by society, and is characterized by disbelief in the possibility of changing anything. The "superfluous person" is a contradictory personality, often in conflict with society and its way of life. This is also a hero, of course, unsuccessful in relations with his parents, and unhappy in love. His position in society is unstable, contains contradictions: he is always at least somehow connected with the nobility, but - already in a period of decline, fame and fortune - rather a memory. He is placed in an environment that is somehow alien to him: a higher or lower environment, there is always a certain motive of alienation, which does not always immediately lie on the surface. The hero is moderately educated, but this education is rather incomplete, unsystematic; in a word, this is not a deep thinker, not a scientist, but a person with a "power of judgment" to make quick but immature conclusions. The crisis of religiosity is very important, often a struggle with churchness, but often internal emptiness, hidden uncertainty, habit to the name of God. Often - the gift of eloquence, skill in writing, keeping records or even writing poetry. There is always some pretension to be the judge of one's neighbors; a shade of hatred is required. In a word, the hero is a victim of the canons of life.
However, with all the seemingly apparent certainty and clarity of the above criteria for evaluating the "extra person", the framework that allows one to speak with absolute certainty about the belonging of a particular character to a given thematic line is very blurred. It follows from this that the "superfluous person" cannot be "superfluous" entirely, but it can be considered both in line with other topics, and merge with other characters belonging to other literary types. The material of the works does not allow assessing Onegin, Pechorin and others only from the point of view of their social "benefit", and the very type of "extra person" is rather the result of understanding the named characters from certain social and ideological positions.
This literary type, as it developed, acquired more and more new features and forms of display. This phenomenon is quite natural, since every writer saw the "superfluous person" as he was in his mind. All the masters of the artistic word who have ever touched on the topic of "extra man", not only added a certain "breath" of their era to this type, but also tried to combine all social phenomena contemporary to them, and most importantly the structure of life, in one image - the image of the hero of the time . All this makes the type of "superfluous person" universal in its own way. This is precisely what allows us to consider the images of Chatsky and Bazarov as heroes who had a direct impact on this type. These images, undoubtedly, do not belong to the type of "extra person", but at the same time they perform one important function: Griboedov's hero, in his confrontation with Famus's society, makes it impossible to peacefully resolve the conflict between an outstanding personality and an inert way of life, thereby pushing other writers to the coverage of this problem, and the image of Bazarov, completing (from my point of view) the type of "superfluous person", was no longer so much a "carrier" of time as its "side" phenomenon. But before the hero himself could certify himself as a "superfluous person", a more hidden appearance of this type had to occur. The first signs of this type were embodied in the image of Chatsky, the main character immortal comedy A.S. Griboyedov "Woe from Wit". "Griboyedov is a 'man of one book,'" VF Khodasevich once remarked. "If it weren't for Woe from Wit, Griboedov would have no place at all in Russian literature." And, indeed, although the history of dramaturgy speaks of Griboyedov as the author of several wonderful and funny comedies and vaudevilles in his own way, written in collaboration with the leading playwrights of those years (N.I. Khmelnitsky, A.A. Shakhovsky, P.A. Vyazemsky), but it was "Woe from Wit" that turned out to be a one-of-a-kind work. This comedy for the first time broadly and freely depicted modern life and thus opened a new, realistic era in Russian literature. The creative history of this play is exceptionally complex. Her idea dates back to 1818. It was completed in the autumn of 1824, the censorship did not allow this comedy to be printed or staged. Conservatives accused Griboedov of exaggerating satirical colors, which, in their opinion, was the result of the author's "squabbling patriotism", and in Chatsky they saw a clever "crazy man", the embodiment of "Figaro-Griboedov's" philosophy of life. But the Decembrist-minded part of society met this comedy enthusiastically. A. Bestuzhev wrote: "The future will appreciate this comedy with dignity and put it among the first creations of the people ...". However, the approval of the comedy was by no means so unanimous. Some of his contemporaries, who were very friendly towards Griboyedov, noted many errors in Woe from Wit. For example, a longtime friend of the playwright P.A.Katenin gave the following assessment of the comedy: "It's like a chamber of mind in it, but the plan, in my opinion, is insufficient, and the main character is confused and knocked down ...". A.S. Pushkin also expressed his opinion about the play, noting that the playwright succeeded most of all in "characters and a sharp picture of morals." The Poet reacted critically to Chatsky: “What is Chatsky? An ardent fellow who spent some time with a very smart person (namely with Griboyedov) and was fed by his thoughts, witticisms, satirical remarks. Everything he says is very smart. "Is he all this? Famusov? Moscow grandmothers? Molchalin? Skalozub? This is unforgivable. The first sign of an intelligent person is to know at first glance who you are dealing with, and not throw pearls in front of Repetilov and the like." Here Pushkin very accurately noticed the contradictory, inconsistent character of Chatsky's behavior, the tragicomism of his position. Belinsky, just as decisively as Pushkin, denied Chatsky a practical mind, calling him "the new Don Quixote." According to the critic, main character comedy - a completely absurd figure, a naive dreamer. However, Belinsky soon corrected his negative assessment of Chatsky and comedy in general, emphasizing that "Woe from Wit" is "a most noble, humanistic work, an energetic (and at the same time the first) protest against the vile racial reality." It is characteristic that the former condemnation was not canceled by the critic, but only replaced by a completely different approach of Belinsky, who assessed the comedy from the standpoint of the moral significance of the protest of the central character. And for the critic A.A. Grigoriev, Chatsky is "the only hero, that is, the only one who positively fights in the environment where fate and passion have thrown him."
The above examples of critical interpretations of the play only confirm all the complexity and depth of its social and philosophical problems, indicated in the very title of the comedy: "Woe from Wit". The problems of mind and stupidity, insanity and insanity, tomfoolery and buffoonery, pretense and hypocrisy are posed and solved by Griboedov on a variety of everyday, social and psychological material. Essentially, all characters, including minor, episodic and off-stage ones, are drawn into the discussion of questions about attitudes towards the mind and various forms of stupidity and insanity. The main figure, around which all the variety of opinions about comedy immediately concentrated, was the smart "madman" Chatsky. The general assessment of the author's intention, problems and artistic features of the comedy depended on the interpretation of his character and behavior, relationships with other characters. The main feature of the comedy is the interaction of two plot-forming conflicts: a love conflict, the main participants of which are Chatsky and Sophia, and a socio-ideological conflict, in which Chatsky faces conservatives who have gathered in Famusov's house. I want to note that for the hero himself, not social and ideological, but love conflict. After all, Chatsky came to Moscow with the sole purpose of seeing Sophia, finding confirmation of his former love and, possibly, getting married. It is interesting to see how love experiences the hero is exacerbated by the ideological opposition of Chatsky to the Famus society. At first, the protagonist does not even notice the usual vices of the environment where he got, but sees only the comic side in it: "I'm a weirdo to another miracle / Once I laugh, then I'll forget ...". But when Chatsky is convinced that Sophia does not love him, everything in Moscow begins to annoy him. Replies and monologues become bold, caustic - he angrily denounces what he previously laughed without malice. This moment is the key to the play. Because it is from this moment that the image of Chatsky begins to unfold right before our eyes; he pronounces monologues that affect all the most actual problems modern era: the question of what is real service, the problems of enlightenment and education, serfdom, national identity. These convictions of his were born by the spirit of change, by that "current century", which many sane and ideologically close people to Chatsky tried to bring closer. Consequently, Chatsky is not only a person with an established worldview, a system life values and morality. This is also a new type of person acting in the history of Russian society. His main idea is civil service. Such heroes are called upon to bring meaning into public life, to lead to new goals. The most hated for him is slavery in all manifestations, the most desirable is freedom. Such life philosophy puts this hero outside the society gathered in Famusov's house. In the eyes of these people, accustomed to living the old fashioned way, Chatsky - a dangerous person, "Carbonaria", which breaks the harmony of their existence. But here it is important to distinguish between the objective meaning of the hero’s very moderate enlightening judgments and the effect that they produce in the society of conservatives, for whom the slightest dissent is regarded as a denial of the usual ideals and way of life consecrated by the “fathers”. Thus, Chatsky, against the backdrop of an unshakable conservative majority, gives the impression of a lone hero, a brave "madman" who rushed to storm a powerful stronghold. But Chatsky is not "an extra person." He is only the forerunner of "superfluous people". First of all, this is confirmed by the optimistic sound of the comedy finale, where Chatsky remains with the right of historical choice given to him by the author. Consequently, Griboedov's hero can find (in the future) his place in life. Chatsky could have been among those who went to Senate Square on December 14, 1825, and then his life would have been a foregone conclusion for 30 years ahead: those who took part in the uprising returned from exile only after the death of Nicholas I in 1856. But something else could have happened. An irresistible disgust for the "abominations" of Russian life would make Chatsky an eternal wanderer in a foreign land, a man without a homeland. And then - melancholy, despair, alienation, acrimony and, what is most terrible for such a hero-fighter - forced idleness and inactivity. But this is just the guesswork of the readers. Chatsky, rejected by society, has the potential to find a use for himself. Onegin will no longer have such an opportunity. He is an "extra person" who has not been able to realize himself, who "deafly suffers from a striking resemblance to children present century". But before answering why, let's turn to the work itself. The novel "Eugene Onegin" is a work of amazing creative destiny. It was created for more than seven years - from May 1823 to September 1830. The novel was not written "in one breath", but was formed - from stanzas and chapters created at different times, in different circumstances, in different periods of creativity. The work was interrupted not only by the turns of Pushkin's fate (exile to Mikhailovskoye, the Decembrist uprising), but also by new ideas, for the sake of which he more than once abandoned the text of "Eugene Onegin". It seemed that history itself was not very favorable to Pushkin's work: from a novel about a contemporary and modern life, as Pushkin conceived "Eugene Onegin", after 1825 he became a novel about a completely different historical era. And, if we take into account the fragmentation and discontinuity of Pushkin's work, then we can say the following: the novel was for the writer something like a huge "notebook" or a poetic "album". Over the course of more than seven years, these records were replenished with sad "notes" of the heart, "observations" of a cold mind. But "Eugene Onegin" is not only "a poetic album of live impressions of a talent playing with its wealth", but also a "novel of life", which has absorbed a huge historical, literary, social and everyday material. This is the first innovation of this work. Secondly, it was fundamentally innovative that Pushkin, largely relying on the work of A.S. Griboedov "Woe from Wit", found a new type of problematic hero - the "hero of time". Eugene Onegin became such a hero. His fate, character, relationships with people are determined by the totality of the circumstances of modern reality, outstanding personal qualities and the range of "eternal", universal problems that he faces. It is necessary to make a reservation right away: Pushkin, in the process of working on the novel, set himself the task of demonstrating in the image of Onegin "that premature old age of the soul, which has become the main feature of the younger generation." And already in the first chapter, the writer notes the social factors that determined the character of the protagonist. This is belonging to the highest stratum of the nobility, the usual upbringing for this circle, training, the first steps in the world, the experience of a "monotonous and motley" life for eight years. The life of a "free" nobleman, not burdened by service, is vain, carefree, full of entertainment and romance novels, - fit into one tiring day. In short, Onegin early youth- "having fun and luxury a child." By the way, in this period of life, Onegin is an original, witty, “small scientist” in his own way, but still quite ordinary, dutifully following the secular “decency crowd”. The only thing in which Onegin "was a true genius," that "he knew more firmly than all sciences," as the Author remarks, not without irony, was "the science of tender passion," that is, the ability to love without loving, to imitate feelings, remaining cold and prudent. However, Pushkin is still interested in Onegin not as a representative of a common social type, the whole essence of which is exhausted by a positive description issued by secular rumors: "N.N. a wonderful person." It was important for the writer to show this image in motion, development, so that later each reader would draw the proper conclusions and give a fair assessment of this hero.
The first chapter is a turning point in the fate of the protagonist, who managed to abandon the stereotypes of secular behavior, from the noisy, but internally empty "ritual of life". Thus, Pushkin showed how a bright, outstanding personality, capable of overthrowing the "burden" of secular conventions, "behind the hustle and bustle." Onegin's seclusion - his undeclared conflict with the world and with the society of rural landowners - only at first glance seems to be a "fad", caused by purely individual reasons: boredom, "Russian melancholy". This is a new stage in the life of a hero. Pushkin emphasizes that this conflict of Onegin, "Onegin's inimitable strangeness" has become a kind of spokesman for the protagonist's protest against social and spiritual dogmas that suppress the personality in a person, depriving him of the right to be himself. And the emptiness of the hero's soul was the result of the emptiness and emptiness of secular life. Onegin is looking for new spiritual values: in St. Petersburg and in the countryside, he diligently reads, tries to write poetry. His search for new life truths dragged on for many years and remained unfinished. The internal drama of this process is also obvious: Onegin painfully frees himself from the burden of old ideas about life and people, but the past does not let him go. It seems that Onegin is the rightful master of his own life. But this is only an illusion. In St. Petersburg and in the countryside, he is equally bored - he still cannot overcome his spiritual laziness and dependence on " public opinion"The consequence of this was that the best inclinations of his nature were killed by secular life. But the hero cannot be considered only a victim of society and circumstances. Having changed his way of life, he took responsibility for his fate. But refusing the idleness and vanity of the world, alas, he did not a doer, but remained only a contemplator.The feverish pursuit of pleasures gave way to the solitary reflections of the protagonist.
For writers who paid attention to the theme of the "extra person" in their work, it is typical to "test" their hero with friendship, love, a duel, death. Pushkin was no exception. The two tests that awaited Onegin in the countryside - the test of love and the test of friendship - showed that external freedom does not automatically entail liberation from false prejudices and opinions. In relations with Tatyana Onegin proved himself to be a noble and mentally subtle person. And you can’t blame the hero for not responding to Tatyana’s love: as you know, you can’t command the heart. Another thing is that Onegin listened not to the voice of his heart, but to the voice of reason. In confirmation of this, I will say that even in the first chapter, Pushkin noted in the main character a "sharp, chilled mind" and an inability to have strong feelings. And it was this spiritual disproportion that became the cause of the failed love of Onegin and Tatyana. Onegin also did not pass the test of friendship. And in this case, the cause of the tragedy was his inability to live a life of feeling. No wonder the author, commenting on the state of the hero before the duel, remarks: "He could show feelings, / And not bristle like a beast." Both at Tatyana's name day and before the duel with Lensky, Onegin showed himself to be a "ball of prejudice", a "hostage of secular canons", deaf to the voice of his own heart and to Lensky's feelings. His behavior at the name day is the usual "social anger", and the duel is a consequence of the indifference and fear of the evil-speaking of the inveterate bully Zaretsky and the landlord neighbors. Onegin himself did not notice how he became a prisoner of his old idol - "public opinion". After the murder of Lensky, Eugene changed dramatically. It is a pity that only tragedy could open to him a previously inaccessible world of feelings. In a depressed state of mind, Onegin leaves the village and begins wandering around Russia. These wanderings give him the opportunity to take a fuller look at life, reevaluate himself, understand how fruitlessly and how much he has wasted time and effort in empty pleasures.
In the eighth chapter, Pushkin showed a new stage in the spiritual development of Onegin. Having met Tatyana in St. Petersburg, Onegin was completely transformed, nothing remained of the former, cold and rational person in him - he is an ardent lover, not noticing anything except the object of his love (and this is very reminiscent of Lensky). For the first time he experienced a real feeling, but it turned into a new love drama: now Tatyana could not answer his belated love. And, as before, in the foreground in the characterization of the hero is the relationship between reason and feeling. Now the mind has already been defeated - Onegin loves, "not heeding the mind to strict penalties." However, the text completely lacks the results of the spiritual development of the hero, who believed in love and happiness. This means that Onegin again did not achieve the desired goal, there is still no harmony between reason and feeling in him. Thus, Eugene Onegin becomes "an extra person." Belonging to the light, he despises it. As Pisarev noted, the only thing left for him is "to give up on the boredom of secular life as a necessary evil." Onegin does not find his true purpose and place in life, he is burdened by his loneliness, lack of demand. In the words of Herzen, "Onegin ... is an extra person in the environment where he is, but, not possessing the necessary strength of character, he cannot escape from it in any way." But, according to the writer himself, the image of Onegin is not finished. After all, the novel in verse essentially ends with such a statement of the question: "What will Onegin be like in the future?" Pushkin himself leaves the character of his hero open, emphasizing by this the very ability of Onegin to a sharp change in value orientations and, I note, a certain readiness for action, for an act. True, Onegin has practically no opportunities for self-realization. But the novel does not answer the above question, it asks the reader.
After Pushkin's hero and Pechorin, the protagonist of M.Yu. Lermontov's novel "A Hero of Our Time", was a type of "superfluous person". But first, let's briefly consider the novel itself, its composition. It is rather complicated because creative history"Hero of Our Time" is almost not documented. The history of the creation of this work shows that the idea of the novel posed a number of complex artistic problems for Lermontov, primarily the problem of the genre. The point here is that many writers of the 1830s sought to create a novel about modernity, but this task was never completed. Their experience suggested to Lermontov that the most promising way to a true reflection of reality is the cyclization of works of "small genres": stories, short stories, essays. All these genres, as well as individual scenes and sketches, being combined into a cycle, were subject to a new creative task - a novel arose, a major epic form. It should be noted that the boundaries between the collection of stories, stories, essays and the novel in the 1830s were not always felt quite clearly. For example, the editors of the magazine Domestic notes", in which the future novel was printed, presented Lermontov's work "as a collection of stories." And, indeed, each of the stories in the "Hero of Our Time" can be read as quite independent work, because they all have a complete plot, an independent system of characters. In "Bela", "Taman", "Princess Mary", "Fatalist" the writer consciously varies the themes set by the literary tradition, interprets already known plot and genre models in his own way. For example, in "Bela" a popular romantic plot is developed about the love of a European brought up by civilization for a "savage" who grew up among the "children of nature" and lives according to the laws of her tribe. In the story "Taman" the plot scheme of the adventurous short story is used. In "Princess Mary" Lermontov was guided by the tradition of the "secular" story. "Fatalist" is reminiscent of romantic novel on a philosophical theme: in the center of the actions and thoughts of the heroes was predestination, fate. The only thing that unites all these stories, creating not a plot, but a semantic center of the novel, is the central character, Pechorin. The acute situations that Pechorin finds himself in (a clash with "honest smugglers", secular intrigue, a mortal risk in a fight with fate) were comprehended by him, became facts of his self-consciousness and moral self-determination. It is noteworthy that in each story he appears in a new perspective, and in general the novel is a combination of various aspects of the image of the main character that complement each other. Such an image of Pechorin's character, revealed in his actions, in relationships with people and in his "confessions" notes, makes "A Hero of Our Time" not a "collection of stories", but a socio-psychological and philosophical novel.
Another feature of the composition of the novel is that the author refused to tell a consistent story about the fate of Pechorin, which means that he rejected the chronicle plot traditional for a “biography” novel. Let's follow this through the text. As the plot develops, the characterization of the protagonist deepens: in "Bel" we hear about Pechorin; in "Maxim Maksimych" we see him; in "Taman" and "Princess Mary" the hero speaks for himself. From the external psychologism of the first chapters, the author leads us to the emotional experiences of the hero and further - to "The Fatalist", the chapter of the novel, in which we already get acquainted with the philosophy of Pechorin. All this gives the hero a certain aura of mystery, ambiguity: "... and maybe I will die tomorrow! .. and there will not be a single creature left on earth who would understand me completely. Some will say: he was a kind fellow, others - a bastard. Both will be false…" and justifies the author's interest in the psychology and personality of the hero: "The history of the human soul, even the smallest soul, is almost more curious and more useful than the history of a whole people, especially when it is the result of observations of a mature mind over by yourself..." However, neither in the novel as a whole, nor in Pechorin's Journal, is there a history of the main character's soul: everything that would indicate the circumstances in which his character was formed and developed is omitted. Thus, the author subtly hinted to the reader that spiritual world the hero, as he appears in the novel, has already been formed, and everything that happens to Pechorin does not lead to changes in his worldview, morality, psychology.
Thus, artistic purpose , set by Lermontov, determined not only the intermittent nature of the image of Pechorin's fate, but also a certain complexity, the inconsistency of his nature. The complexity of the personality of the protagonist is set by a certain duality of Pechorin, which is noticed by the same simple-hearted Maxim Maksimych (for him these are inexplicable "oddities"), it also manifests itself in the portrait of the protagonist: the author notes the eyes that do not laugh when laughing and gives two contradictory explanations for this: "This a sign - or an evil disposition, or a deep constant sadness. Pechorin himself, with his inherent intellectual accuracy, summarizes: "There are two people in me: one lives in the full sense of the word, the other thinks and judges him." It follows from this that Pechorin is a contradictory person, and he himself understands this: "... I have an innate passion to contradict; my whole life has been only a chain of sad and unsuccessful contradictions of heart or mind." The contradiction becomes a formula for the hero's existence: he realizes in himself a "high purpose" and "immense forces" - and exchanges life in "empty and ungrateful passions." Yesterday he bought a carpet that the princess liked, and today, having covered his horse with it, he slowly led it past Mary's windows ... The rest of the day comprehended the "impression" that he made. And it takes days, months, life! Pechorin has a clearly expressed attraction and interest in people - and the impossibility of connecting with them. Wherever the main character appears, he brings only misfortunes to those around him: Bela ("Bela") dies, Maxim Maksimych ("Maxim Maksimych") is disappointed in friendship, "honest smugglers" ("Taman") leave their house, Grushnitsky is killed, inflicted a deep spiritual wound to Princess Mary, Vera ("Princess Mary") does not know happiness, officer Vulich ("Fatalist") was hacked to death by a drunken Cossack. Moreover, Pechorin is well aware of his ungrateful role: "How many times have I played the role of an ax in the hands of fate! As an instrument of execution, I fell on the heads of doomed victims, often without malice, always without regret ...". Why is Pechorin doing this? Unlike "Eugene Onegin", the plot in which is built as a system of testing the hero with the moral values of friendship, love, freedom, in "A Hero of Our Time" Pechorin himself subjects all the main spiritual values to a total test, experimenting on himself and others. Love is tested by him in its various forms: as "natural" love - in "Bel", as "romantic" - in "Taman", as "secular" - in "Princess Mary". Friendship is considered as "patriarchal" (Maxim Maksimych), friendship of peers belonging to the same social circle (Grushnitsky), intellectual (Werner). In all cases, the feeling turns out to be dependent on the external belonging of a person to a certain social circle. Pechorin is trying to get to the inner foundations human personality , check the possibility of a relationship with a person in general. He provokes people, putting them in a position where they are forced to act not automatically, according to the prescribed laws of traditional morality, but freely, based on the law of their own passions and moral ideas (for example, the scene of a duel with Grushnitsky). At the same time, Pechorin is merciless not only to others, but also to himself. And this ruthlessness towards himself, and deep indifference to the results of a cruel experiment, partly justify Pechorin. The protagonist's doubts about all the values that are firmly defined for other people (“I love to doubt everything!”) - this is what dooms Pechorin to loneliness in the world, to individualistic confrontation. This is what makes him "an extra person", "Onegin's younger brother". I wonder if there are any differences between them? According to Belinsky, “A Hero of Our Time” is “a sad thought about our time ...”, and Pechorin is “Onegin of our time, a hero of our time ... Their dissimilarity among themselves is much less than the distance between Onega and Pechora ... ". But there are still differences in their characters, worldview. Onegin - indifference, passivity, inaction. Not that Pechorin. "This man is not indifferent, not apathetic bears suffering: he is madly chasing after life, looking for it everywhere; he bitterly accuses himself of his delusions." Pechorin is characterized by bright individualism, painful introspection, internal monologues, the ability to impartially evaluate himself. "A moral cripple," he would say of himself. Onegin is simply bored, skepticism and disappointment are inherent in him. Belinsky once noted that "Pechorin is a suffering egoist," and "Onegin is bored." And to some extent it is. Pechorin, unfortunately, remained until the end of his life "smart uselessness." People like Pechorin were created by the socio-political conditions of the 30s of the 19th century, the times of gloomy reaction and police surveillance. He is truly lively, gifted, brave, smart. His tragedy is the tragedy of an active person who has no business. Pechorin craves activity. But he does not have the opportunity to apply these spiritual aspirations in practice, to realize them. An exhausting feeling of emptiness, boredom, loneliness pushes him to all sorts of adventures ("Bela", "Taman", "Fatalist"). And this is the tragedy not only of this hero, but of the entire generation of the 1930s: "As a gloomy crowd and soon forgotten, / We will pass over the world without noise or trace, / Without leaving a fruitful thought to the centuries, / Not by the genius of the labor begun ..." . "Glum" ... This is a crowd of disunited loners, not connected by unity of goals, ideals, hopes ...
It should be noted that, while working on the novel, Lermontov set himself the task, first of all, of creating an image that would become a mirror image of the era contemporary to the author himself. And he did great with her.
The theme of "superfluous people" found its continuation in the work of I.S. Turgenev. "The rapidly changing physiognomy of the Russian people of the cultural layer" - the main subject artistic image this writer. Turgenev is attracted by the "Russian Hamlets" - a type of nobleman-intellectual, captured by the cult of philosophical knowledge of the 1830s - early 1840s, who passed the stage of ideological self-determination in philosophical circles. That was the time of the formation of the personality of the writer himself, so the appeal to the heroes of the "philosophical" era was dictated by the desire not only to objectively assess the past, but also to understand oneself, to rethink the facts of one's ideological biography. Among his tasks, Turgenev singled out two of the most important. The first was to create an "image of the time", which was achieved by a careful analysis of the beliefs and psychology of the central characters, who embodied Turgenev's understanding of the "heroes of the time". The second is attention to new trends in the life of the "cultural stratum" of Russia, that is, the intellectual milieu to which the writer himself belonged. The novelist was primarily interested in lone heroes, who especially fully embodied all the most important trends of the era. But these people were not as bright individualists as the true "heroes of the time." One way or another, but all this was reflected in Turgenev's first novel, Rudin (1855). The prototype of the protagonist Dmitry Nikolaevich Rudin was a member of the circle of N.V. Stankevich M.A. Bakunin. Knowing perfectly well the people of the "Rudin" type, Turgenev hesitated for a long time in assessing historical role"Russian Hamlets" and therefore revised the novel twice. Rudin, in the end, turned out to be a controversial personality, and this was largely the result of the author's contradictory attitude towards him.
What kind of person was Rudin, the hero of Turgenev's first novel? We get to know him when he appears in the house of Darya Mikhailovna Lasunskaya, "a rich and noble lady": "A man of about thirty-five entered, tall, somewhat round-shouldered, curly-haired, with an irregular face, but expressive and intelligent ... with a liquid gleam in quick dark blue eyes, with a straight wide nose and beautifully defined lips. The dress on him was not new and narrow, as if he had grown out of it. "For now, everything is quite ordinary, but very soon everyone present at Lasunskaya will feel the sharp originality of this new personality for them. At first, Rudin easily and gracefully destroys Pigasov in a dispute, revealing wit and habit of controversy. Then he shows a lot of knowledge and erudition. But this is not what he conquers the audience: "Rudin possessed almost the highest secret - the music of eloquence. He knew how, by striking one strings of hearts, to make all the others vaguely ring ... ". His passion for exclusively higher interests also affects the listeners. A person cannot, should not subordinate his life only to practical goals, concerns about existence, says Rudin. Enlightenment, science ", the meaning of life - that's what Rudin says so inspirationally and poetically. The power of Rudin's influence on listeners, the conviction in a word, is felt by everyone. Breaking into the inert society of provincial nobles, he brought with him the breath of world life, the spirit of the era and became the brightest personality among the heroes From this it follows that Rudin is the spokesman for the historical task of his generation in the interpretation of the writer.
The characters of the novel are like a system of mirrors reflecting in their own way the image of the protagonist. Natalya Lasunskaya is immediately seized by a feeling that is still unclear to her. Bassistov looks at Rudin as a teacher, Volyntsev pays tribute to Rudin's eloquence, Pandalevsky assesses Rudin's abilities in his own way - "a very clever person!" Only Pigasov is embittered and does not recognize the merits of Rudin - from envy and resentment for losing the dispute.
In relations with Natalia, one of the main contradictions of Rudin's character is revealed. Just the day before, Rudin spoke with such inspiration about the future, about the meaning of life, and suddenly we have before us a man who has completely lost faith in himself. True, the objection of the surprised Natalya is enough - and Rudin reproaches himself for cowardice and again preaches the need to do good. Rudin's lofty thoughts, his truly quixotic disinterestedness and selflessness are combined with practical unpreparedness, amateurism. He takes on agronomic transformations from the owner of vast estates, dreams of "various improvements, innovations", but, seeing the failure of his attempts, leaves, losing his "daily piece of bread". Rudin's attempt to teach at the gymnasium also ends in failure. It was not only the lack of knowledge that affected, but also the free way of his thoughts. A hint of Rudin's clash with social injustice is also contained in another episode. “I could tell you,” Rudin says to Lezhnev, “how I got into the secretary to a high-ranking person and what came of it; but that would lead us too far…”. This silence is significant. Significant are also such words of Lezhnev, Rudin's antagonist, about the reasons for the isolation of the ideals of the protagonist from concrete reality: "Rudin's misfortune is that he does not know Russia ...". Yes, it is the isolation from life, the lack of mundane ideas that makes Rudin "an extra person." And his fate is tragic primarily because young years this hero lives only with complex impulses of the soul, groundless dreams. Turgenev, like many authors who touched on the topic of the "superfluous person", tests his protagonist with a "set of life criteria": love, death. Rudin's inability to take a decisive step in relations with Natalya was interpreted by contemporary criticism of Turgenev as a sign of not only the spiritual, but also the social failure of the protagonist. And the final scene of the novel - Rudin's death on the barricades in rebellious Paris - only emphasized the tragedy and historical doom of the hero, who represented the "Russian Hamlets" of a bygone romantic era.
The second novel - "The Nest of Nobles" (1858) strengthened Turgenev's reputation as a public writer, an expert on the spiritual life of his contemporaries, a subtle lyricist in prose. And, if in the novel "Rudin" Turgenev denotes the disunity of the progressive noble intelligentsia of his day with the people, their ignorance of Russia, their lack of understanding of concrete reality, then in "The Noble Nest" the writer is primarily interested in the origins, causes of this disunity. Therefore, the heroes of the "Noble Nest" are shown with their "roots", with the soil on which they grew up. There are two such heroes in this novel: Lavretsky and Liza Kalitina. These heroes are looking for an answer, first of all, to the questions that their fate puts before them - about personal happiness, about duty to loved ones, about self-denial, about their place in life. And the discrepancy life positions often leads to ideological disputes between the main characters. Moreover, in the novel, the ideological dispute occupies a central place and for the first time lovers become its participants. What are the life beliefs of the characters? Liza Kalitina is a deeply religious person, religion for her is the source of the only correct answers to any "damned" questions, a means of resolving the most painful contradictions of life. She seeks to prove to Lavretsky the correctness of her convictions, since, according to her, he only wants to "plow the land ... and try to plow it as best as possible." Her character is determined by her fatalistic attitude to life, she seems to take upon herself the burden of the historical guilt of a long series of previous generations. Lavretsky, on the other hand, does not accept Lisa's morality of humility and self-denial. This hero is busy searching for the vital, popular, in his words, truth, which consists "first of all in her recognition and humility in front of her ... in the impossibility of leaps and arrogant alterations of Russia from the height of bureaucratic self-consciousness - alterations that are not justified either by knowledge of their native land, or by real faith in the ideal ... ". Lavretsky, like Lisa, is a person with "roots" that go back to the past. No wonder his genealogy is told from the beginning - from the 15th century. But Lavretsky is not only a hereditary nobleman, he is also the son of a peasant woman. He never forgets about it, feeling "peasant" features in himself: extraordinary physical strength, lack of refined manners. Thus, the hero is close both by his origin and personal qualities to the people. Fascinated by everyday peasant work, plowing, it is in it that Lavretsky tries to find answers for himself to any questions that life asks him: "Here is only luck who paves his path slowly, like a plowman furrows with a plow."
The ending of the novel is very important, which is a kind of result of Lavretsky's life searches. After all, his welcome words at the end of the novel, unknown young forces mean not only the hero’s refusal from personal happiness (his connection with Lisa is impossible), her very possibility, but also sound like a blessing to people, faith in a person. The ending also determines the entire inconsistency of Lavretsky, makes him a "superfluous person."
I would like to draw your attention to the fact that Turgenev's point of view on the "superfluous person" was rather peculiar. To justify Rudin and "extra people" in general, the writer gives the same arguments as Herzen, but disagrees with him in determining the degree of their guilt. Herzen condemns "superfluous people" for the fact that, breaking away from their environment, they did not respond to violence with violence, did not go to the end in the matter of saving the world and themselves. Turgenev, on the other hand, rejects such a path of salvation, believing that no political changes can free a person from the power of the forces of history and nature. The writer also believed that the "superfluous person" could fulfill his duty more intelligently, devoting all his strength to the preparation of gradual transformations that were historically overdue and the need for which was recognized by many. Dobrolyubov, in this discussion, took a middle position, defining the position of Rudin and Lavretsky as truly tragic, because they encounter "such concepts and customs with which the struggle, indeed, should frighten even an energetic and courageous person."
So, the theme of the "superfluous person" comes to an end in a completely different capacity, having passed a difficult evolutionary path: from the romantic pathos of the rejection of life and society to the sharp rejection of the "superfluous person" itself. And the fact that this term can be applied to the heroes of the works of the 20th century does not change anything: the meaning of the term will be different and it will be possible to call it “superfluous” for completely different reasons. There will also be returns to this theme (for example, the image of the "superfluous person" Levushka Odoevtsev from A. Bitov's novel "Pushkin's House"), and proposals that there are no "extra" people, but only various variations of this theme. But the return is no longer a discovery: the 19th century discovered and exhausted the theme of the "superfluous man."
Bibliography:
1. Babaev E.G. Creativity of A.S. Pushkin. - M., 1988.
2. Batyuto A.I. Turgenev the novelist. - L., 1972.
3. Ilyin E.N. Russian literature: recommendations for schoolchildren and entrants, "SCHOOL-PRESS". M., 1994.
4. Krasovsky V.E. History of Russian literature of the XIX century, "OLMA-PRESS". M., 2001.
5. Literature. Reference materials. Book for students. M., 1990.
6. Makogonenko G.P. Lermontov and Pushkin. M., 1987.
7. Monakhova O.P. Russian literature of the 19th century, "OLMA-PRESS". M., 1999.
8. Fomichev S.A. Griboyedov's comedy "Woe from Wit": Commentary. - M., 1983.
9. Shamrey L.V., Rusova N.Yu. From allegory to iambic. Terminological dictionary-thesaurus on literary criticism. - N. Novgorod, 1993.
"Small man"- a type of literary hero that arose in Russian literature with the advent of realism, that is, in the 20-30s of the XIX century.
The theme of the "little man" is one of the cross-cutting themes of Russian literature, which was constantly addressed by writers of the 19th century. A.S. Pushkin was the first to mention it in the story “The Stationmaster”. The successors of this theme were N.V. Gogol, F.M. Dostoevsky, A.P. Chekhov and many others.
This person is small precisely in social terms, since he occupies one of the lower rungs of the hierarchical ladder. His place in society is little or completely invisible. A person is considered “small” also because the world of his spiritual life and claims is also extremely narrow, impoverished, filled with all sorts of prohibitions. For him there are no historical and philosophical problems. He lives in a narrow and closed circle of his vital interests.
The best humanistic traditions are associated with the theme of the "little man" in Russian literature. Writers invite people to think about the fact that every person has the right to happiness, to their own outlook on life.
Examples of "little people":
1) Yes, Gogol in the story "The Overcoat" characterizes the protagonist as a poor, ordinary, insignificant and inconspicuous person. In life, he was assigned the insignificant role of a copyist of departmental documents. Brought up in the sphere of subordination and execution of orders of superiors, Akaky Akakievich Bashmachkin not accustomed to reflect on the meaning of his work. That is why, when he is offered a task that requires the manifestation of elementary ingenuity, he begins to worry, worry, and in the end comes to the conclusion: “No, it’s better to let me rewrite something.”
The spiritual life of Bashmachkin is in tune with his inner aspirations. The accumulation of money to buy a new overcoat becomes for him the goal and meaning of life. The theft of a long-awaited new thing, which was acquired through hardship and suffering, becomes a disaster for him.
And yet Akaky Akakievich does not look like an empty, uninteresting person in the mind of the reader. We imagine that there were a great many such small, humiliated people. Gogol urged society to look at them with understanding and pity. This is indirectly demonstrated by the surname of the protagonist: diminutive suffix -chk-(Bashmachkin) gives it the appropriate shade. "Mother, save your poor son!" - the author will write.
Calling for justice the author raises the question of the need to punish the inhumanity of society. As compensation for the humiliation and insults suffered during his lifetime, Akaky Akakievich, who rose from the grave in the epilogue, comes through and takes away their overcoats and fur coats. He calms down only when he takes away the outer clothing of the "significant person" who played a tragic role in the life of the "little man". 2) In the story Chekhov "Death of an official" we see the slavish soul of an official whose understanding of the world is completely distorted. There is no need to talk about human dignity here. The author gives his hero a wonderful last name: Chervyakov. Describing the small, insignificant events of his life, Chekhov seems to look at the world with Chervyakov's eyes, and these events become huge. So, Chervyakov was at the performance and “felt on top of bliss. But suddenly ... sneezed. Looking around like a "polite person", the hero was horrified to find that he had sprayed a civilian general. Chervyakov begins to apologize, but this seemed not enough to him, and the hero asks for forgiveness again and again, day after day ... There are a lot of such little officials who know only their little world and it is not surprising that their experiences are made up of such small situations. The author conveys the whole essence of the official's soul, as if examining it under a microscope. Unable to bear the cry in response to the apology, Chervyakov goes home and dies. This terrible disaster his life is the catastrophe of his limitations. 3) In addition to these writers, Dostoevsky also addressed the theme of the “little man” in his work. The main characters of the novel "Poor people" - Makar Devushkin- a half-impoverished official, crushed by grief, want and social lawlessness, and Varenka- a girl who has become a victim of social ill-being. Like Gogol in The Overcoat, Dostoevsky turned to the theme of the disenfranchised, immensely humiliated "little man" who lives his inner life in conditions that trample on the dignity of man. The author sympathizes with his poor heroes, shows the beauty of their soul. 4) Theme "poor people" develops as a writer in the novel "Crime and Punishment". One by one, the writer reveals before us pictures of terrible poverty, which humiliates the dignity of a person. The scene of the work becomes Petersburg, and the poorest district of the city. Dostoevsky creates a canvas of immeasurable human torment, suffering and grief, peers penetratingly into the soul of the “little man”, discovers in him deposits of enormous spiritual wealth. Family life unfolds before us Marmeladov. These are people crushed by reality. He drinks himself with grief and loses his human appearance official Marmeladov, who has "nowhere else to go." Exhausted by poverty, his wife Ekaterina Ivanovna dies of consumption. Sonya is released into the street to sell her body in order to save her family from starvation. The fate of the Raskolnikov family is also difficult. His sister Dunya, wanting to help her brother, is ready to sacrifice herself and marry the rich Luzhin, whom she feels disgusted with. Raskolnikov himself conceives a crime, the roots of which, in part, lie in the sphere of social relations in society. The images of “little people” created by Dostoevsky are imbued with the spirit of protest against social injustice, against the humiliation of people and faith in their high calling. The souls of the "poor" can be beautiful, full of spiritual generosity and beauty, but broken by the hardest conditions of life.
The Russian world in the prose of the 19th century.
For lectures:
Depiction of reality in Russian literature XIX century.
Scenery. Functions and types.
Interior: detail problem.
The image of time in a literary text.
The motive of the road as a form of artistic development of the national picture of the world.
Scenery - not necessarily an image of nature, in literature it may involve a description of any open space. This definition corresponds to the semantics of the term. From French - country, area. In French art theory, the landscape description includes both the depiction of wildlife and the depiction of man-made objects.
The well-known typology of landscapes is based on the specifics of the functioning of this text component.
Firstly, landscapes stand out, which are the background of the story. These landscapes, as a rule, indicate the place and time against which the depicted events take place.
The second type of landscape- a landscape creating a lyrical background. Most often, when creating such a landscape, the artist pays attention to meteorological conditions, because this landscape should first of all influence the emotional state of the reader.
Third type- a landscape that creates/becomes a psychological background of existence and becomes one of the means of revealing the character's psychology.
Fourth type- a landscape that becomes a symbolic background, a means of symbolic reflection of the reality depicted in a literary text.
The landscape can be used as a means of depicting a particular artistic time or as a form of presence of the author.
This typology is not the only one. The landscape can be expositional, dual, etc. Modern critics isolate Goncharov's landscapes; it is believed that Goncharov used the landscape for an ideal representation of the world. For a person who writes, the evolution of the landscape skill of Russian writers is fundamentally important. There are two main periods:
pre-Pushkin, during this period, landscapes were characterized by the completeness and concreteness of the surrounding nature;
post-Pushkin period, the idea of an ideal landscape has changed. It assumes the stinginess of details, the economy of the image and the accuracy of the selection of details. Accuracy, according to Pushkin, involves identifying the most significant feature perceived in a certain way by feelings. This idea of Pushkin, then will be used by Bunin.
Second level. Interior - image of the interior. The main unit of the interior image is a detail (detail), attention to which was first demonstrated by Pushkin. The literary test of the 19th century did not show a clear boundary between the interior and the landscape.
Time in literary text in the 19th century it becomes discrete, intermittent. Heroes easily go into memories and whose fantasies rush into the future. There is a selectivity of the attitude to time, which is explained by the dynamics. Time in a literary text in the 19th century has a convention. The most conditional time in a lyrical work, with the predominance of the grammar of the present tense, for lyrics, the interaction of different time layers is especially characteristic. Artistic time is not necessarily concrete, it is abstract. In the 19th century, the image of historical color becomes a special means of concretizing artistic time.
One of the most effective means of depicting reality in the 19th century is the motive of the road, becomes part of the plot formula, a narrative unit. Initially, this motif dominated the travel genre. In the 11th-18th centuries, in the genre of travel, the motive of the road was used, first of all, to expand ideas about the surrounding space (cognitive function). In sentimentalist prose, the cognitive function of this motif is complicated by evaluativeness. Gogol uses travel to explore the surrounding space. The renewal of the functions of the road motif is associated with the name of Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov. "Silence" 1858
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The 19th century is called the "Golden Age" of Russian poetry and the century of Russian literature on a global scale. It should not be forgotten that the literary leap that took place in the 19th century was prepared by all means. literary process 17-18 centuries. The 19th century is the time of the formation of the Russian literary language, which took shape largely thanks to A.S. Pushkin. But the 19th century began with the heyday of sentimentalism and the formation of romanticism. These literary trends found expression primarily in poetry. Poetic works of poets E.A. Baratynsky, K.N. Batyushkova, V.A. Zhukovsky, A.A. Feta, D.V. Davydova, N.M. Yazykov. Creativity F.I. Tyutchev's "Golden Age" of Russian poetry was completed. However, the central figure of this time was Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin. A.S. Pushkin began his ascent to the literary Olympus with the poem "Ruslan and Lyudmila" in 1920. And his novel in verse "Eugene Onegin" was called an encyclopedia of Russian life. Romantic poems by A.S. Pushkin's "The Bronze Horseman" (1833), "The Fountain of Bakhchisaray", "Gypsies" opened the era of Russian romanticism. Many poets and writers considered A. S. Pushkin their teacher and continued the traditions of creating literary works laid down by him. One of these poets was M.Yu. Lermontov. Known for his romantic poem "Mtsyri", poetic story "Demon", a lot of romantic poems. Interestingly, Russian poetry of the 19th century was closely connectedwith the social and political life of the country. Poets tried to comprehend the idea of their special purpose. The poet in Russia was considered a conductor of divine truth, a prophet. The poets urged the authorities to listen to their words. Vivid examples of understanding the role of the poet and influence on the political life of the country are the poems of A.S. Pushkin "Prophet", ode "Liberty", "The Poet and the Crowd", a poem by M.Yu. Lermontov "On the Death of a Poet" and many others. The prose writers of the beginning of the century were influenced by the English historical novels of W. Scott, whose translations were very popular. The development of Russian prose of the 19th century began with the prose works of A.S. Pushkin and N.V. Gogol. Pushkin, influenced by English historical novels, creates story "The Captain's Daughter" where the action takes place against the backdrop of grandiose historical events: during the Pugachev rebellion. A.S. Pushkin did an enormous job, exploring this historical period. This work was largely political in nature and was directed to those in power. A.S. Pushkin and N.V. Gogol identified the main artistic types that would be developed by writers throughout the 19th century. This is the artistic type of the “superfluous person”, an example of which is Eugene Onegin in the novel by A.S. Pushkin, and the so-called type of "little man", which is shown by N.V. Gogol in his story "The Overcoat", as well as A.S. Pushkin in the story "The Stationmaster". Literature inherited its publicism and satirical character from the 18th century. In a prose poem N.V. Gogol " Dead Souls» the writer in a sharp satirical manner shows a swindler who buys up dead souls, various types of landowners who are the embodiment of various human vices(the influence of classicism affects). Comedy is in the same vein. "Inspector". The works of A. S. Pushkin are also full of satirical images. Literature continues to satirically depict Russian reality. The tendency to depict the vices and shortcomings of Russian society is a characteristic feature of all Russian classical literature.. It can be traced in the works of almost all writers of the 19th century. At the same time, many writers implement the satirical trend in a grotesque form. Examples of grotesque satire are the works of N.V. Gogol "The Nose", M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin "Gentlemen Golovlevs", "History of one city". Since the middle of the 19th century, the formation of Russian realistic literature has been taking place, which is created against the background of the tense socio-political situation that developed in Russia during the reign of Nicholas I. The crisis of the feudal system is brewing, the contradictions between the authorities and the common people are strong. There is a need to create a realistic literature that sharply reacts to the socio-political situation in the country. Literary critic V.G. Belinsky marks a new realistic trend in literature. His position is being developed by N.A. Dobrolyubov, N.G. Chernyshevsky. A dispute arises between Westernizers and Slavophiles about the paths of Russia's historical development. Writers address to the socio-political problems of Russian reality. Genre develops realistic novel. Their works are created by I.S. Turgenev, F.M. Dostoevsky, L.N. Tolstoy, I.A. Goncharov. Socio-political and philosophical problems prevail. Literature is distinguished by a special psychologism. people. The literary process of the late 19th century discovered the names of N. S. Leskov, A.N. Ostrovsky A.P. Chekhov. The latter proved to be a master of a small literary genre - a story, as well as an excellent playwright. Competitor A.P. Chekhov was Maxim Gorky. The end of the 19th century was marked by the formation of pre-revolutionary sentiments. The realist tradition was beginning to fade. It was replaced by the so-called decadent literature, the hallmarks of which were mysticism, religiosity, as well as a premonition of changes in the socio-political life of the country. Subsequently, decadence grew into symbolism. This opens a new page in the history of Russian literature.
7. Literary situation at the end of the 19th century.
Realism
The second half of the 19th century is characterized by the undivided dominance of the realistic trend in Russian literature. basis realism as an artistic method is socio-historical and psychological determinism. The personality and fate of the depicted person appears as the result of the interaction of his character (or, more deeply, universal human nature) with the circumstances and laws of social life (or, more broadly, history, culture - as can be observed in the work of A.S. Pushkin).
Realism 2nd half of XIX V. often call critical, or socially accusatory. Recently, in modern literary criticism, there have been more and more attempts to abandon such a definition. It is both too wide and too narrow; it levels out the individual characteristics of the writers' work. critical realism often referred to as N.V. Gogol, however, in Gogol's work, social life, the history of the human soul is often correlated with such categories as eternity, supreme justice, the providential mission of Russia, the kingdom of God on earth. Gogol's tradition to one degree or another in the second half of the 19th century. picked up by L. Tolstoy, F. Dostoevsky, partly N.S. Leskov - it is no coincidence that in their work (especially later) there is a craving for such pre-realistic forms of comprehension of reality as a sermon, a religious and philosophical utopia, a myth, a life. No wonder M. Gorky expressed the idea of the synthetic nature of Russian classical realism, about its non-delimitation from the romantic direction. At the end of XIX - beginning of XX century. the realism of Russian literature not only opposes, but also interacts in its own way with the emerging symbolism. The realism of the Russian classics is universal, it is not limited to the reproduction of empirical reality, it includes a universal content, a “mystical plan”, which brings realists closer to the search for romantics and symbolists.
Socially accusatory pathos in its purest form appears most in the work of writers of the second row - F.M. Reshetnikova, V.A. Sleptsova, G.I. Uspensky; even N.A. Nekrasov and M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, with all their closeness to the aesthetics of revolutionary democracy, are not limited in their work posing purely social, topical issues. Nevertheless, a critical orientation towards any form of social and spiritual enslavement of a person unites all realist writers of the second half of the 19th century.
XIX century revealed the main aesthetic principles and typological properties of realism. In Russian literature of the second half of the XIX century. It is conditionally possible to single out several directions within the framework of realism.
1. The work of realist writers who strive for the artistic recreation of life in the "forms of life itself." The image often acquires such a degree of reliability that literary heroes are spoken of as living people. I.S. belong to this direction. Turgenev, I.A. Goncharov, partly N.A. Nekrasov, A.N. Ostrovsky, partly L.N. Tolstoy, A.P. Chekhov.
2. Bright in the 60s and 70s the philosophical-religious, ethical-psychological direction in Russian literature is outlined(L.N. Tolstoy, F.M. Dostoevsky). Dostoevsky and Tolstoy have amazing pictures of social reality, depicted in the "forms of life itself." But at the same time, writers always start from certain religious and philosophical doctrines.
3. Satirical, grotesque realism(in the 1st half of the 19th century, it was partly represented in the works of N.V. Gogol, in the 60-70s it unfolded in full force in the prose of M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin). The grotesque does not act as hyperbole or fantasy, it characterizes the writer's method; it combines in images, types, plots what is unnatural, and is absent in life, but possible in the world created by the creative imagination of the artist; similar grotesque, hyperbolic images emphasize certain patterns that prevail in life.
4. Completely unique realism, "hearted" (Belinsky's word) by humanistic thought, presented in art A.I. Herzen. Belinsky noted the “Voltaireian” warehouse of his talent: “talent went into the mind”, which turns out to be a generator of images, details, plots, biographies of a person.
Along with the dominant realistic trend in Russian literature of the second half of the 19th century. the direction of the so-called "pure art" also developed - it is both romantic and realistic. Its representatives eschewed "damned questions" (What to do? Who is to blame?), but not reality, by which they meant the world of nature and the subjective feeling of a person, the life of his heart. They were excited by the beauty of life itself, the fate of the world. A.A. Fet and F.I. Tyutchev can be directly comparable with I.S. Turgenev, L.N. Tolstoy and F.M. Dostoevsky. The poetry of Fet and Tyutchev had a direct influence on the work of Tolstoy in the era of Anna Karenina. It is no coincidence that Nekrasov discovered F.I. Tyutchev to the Russian public as a great poet in 1850.
Problematics and Poetics
Russian prose, with all the flourishing of poetry and dramaturgy (A.N. Ostrovsky), occupies a central place in the literary process of the second half of the 19th century. It develops in line with the realistic direction, preparing, in the variety of genre searches of Russian writers, an artistic synthesis - a novel, the pinnacle of world literary Development XIX V.
The search for new artistic techniques images of a person in his connections with the world appeared not only in the genres story, story or novel (I.S. Turgenev, F.M. Dostoevsky, L.N. Tolstoy, A.F. Pisemsky, M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, D. Grigorovich). Striving for an accurate recreation of life in the literature of the late 40s and 50s begins to look for a way out in memoir-autobiographical genres, with their installation on documentary. At this time, they begin to work on the creation of their autobiographical books. A.I. Herzen and S.T. Aksakov; the trilogy partly adjoins this genre tradition. L.N. Tolstoy ("Childhood", "Adolescence", "Youth").
Another documentary genre goes back to aesthetics natural school", This - feature article. In its very pure form it is represented in the works of democratic writers N.V. Uspensky, V.A. Sleptsova, A.I. Levitova, N.G. Pomyalovsky (“Essays on Bursa”); revised and largely transformed - in Turgenev's "Notes of a Hunter" and "Provincial Essays" by Saltykov-Shchedrin, "Notes from Dead House» Dostoevsky. Here there is a complex interpenetration of artistic and documentary elements, fundamentally new forms of narrative prose are being created, combining the features of a novel, essay, autobiographical notes.
The desire for epicness is a characteristic feature of the Russian literary process of the 1860s; it captures both poetry (N. Nekrasov) and dramaturgy (A.N. Ostrovsky).
The epic picture of the world as a deep subtext is felt in novels I.A. Goncharova(1812-1891) “Oblomov” and “Cliff”. Thus, in the novel “Oblomov”, the description of typical character traits and way of life subtly turns into the image of the universal content of life, its eternal states, collisions, situations. , which has firmly entered the Russian public consciousness under the name "Oblomovism", Goncharov contrasts it with the preaching of the deed (the image of the Russian German Andrei Stolz) - and at the same time shows the limitations of this sermon. Oblomov's inertia appears in unity with genuine humanity. The composition of the "Oblomovism" also includes the poetry of a noble estate, the generosity of Russian hospitality, the touchingness of Russian holidays, the beauty of Central Russian nature - Goncharov traces the primordial connection of noble culture, noble consciousness with folk soil. The very inertia of Oblomov's existence is rooted in the depths of centuries, in the distant corners of our national memory. Ilya Oblomov is somewhat akin to Ilya Muromets, who sat on the stove for 30 years, or the fabulous simpleton Emelya, who achieved his goals without applying his own efforts - "at the behest of the pike, at my will." "Oblomovism" is a phenomenon of not just noble, but Russian national culture, and as such it is not idealized by Goncharov at all - the artist explores both its strengths and weaknesses. In the same way, purely European pragmatism, opposed to Russian Oblomovism, reveals strong and weak features. In the novel, on a philosophical level, the inferiority, insufficiency of both opposites and the impossibility of their harmonious combination are revealed.
In the literature of the 1870s, the same prose genres dominate as in the literature of the previous century, but new trends appear in them. The epic tendencies in narrative literature are weakening, there is an outflow of literary forces from the novel, to small genres - a story, an essay, a story. Dissatisfaction with the traditional novel was a characteristic phenomenon in literature and criticism in the 1870s. It would be wrong, however, to assume that the genre of the novel entered a period of crisis during these years. The work of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Saltykov-Shchedrin serves as an eloquent refutation of this opinion. However, in the 1970s, the novel underwent an internal restructuring: the tragic beginning sharply intensified; this trend is associated with a heightened interest in the spiritual problems of the individual and its internal conflicts. Novelists pay special attention to a personality that has reached its full development, but is put face to face with the fundamental problems of being, deprived of support, experiencing deep discord with people and with itself (“Anna Karenina” by L. Tolstoy, “Demons” and “The Brothers Karamazov” by Dostoevsky ).
In the short prose of the 1870s, a craving for allegorical and parable forms is revealed. Particularly indicative in this regard is the prose of N.S. Leskov, the flowering of his work falls precisely on this decade. He acted as an innovative artist, combining the principles of realistic writing into a single whole with the conventions of traditional folk poetic techniques, with an appeal to the style and genres of ancient Russian literature. Leskov's skill was compared with icon painting and ancient architecture, the writer was called an "isographer" - and not without reason. Gorky called the gallery of original folk types painted by Leskov “the iconostasis of the righteous and saints” of Russia. Leskov introduced into the sphere of artistic representation such layers folk life, which before him were hardly touched upon in Russian literature (the life of the clergy, the bourgeoisie, the Old Believers and other strata of the Russian provinces). In the depiction of various social strata, Leskov masterfully used the forms of a tale, whimsically mixing the author's and folk points of view.
The literary movement of the 1870s, important changes in the style and poetics of prose genres, necessarily prepared a new period in the development of Russian realistic prose.
The 1880s are a strange, intermediate time in the history of Russian literature and Russian social thought. On the one hand, they were marked by a complete crisis of the populist ideology and the mood of pessimism that it caused, the absence of a common idea; “Sleep and darkness reigned in the hearts” - as A.A. Blok in the poem "Retribution". However, it was precisely the exhaustion of the revolutionary ideology of the 1860s and 1870s that led to the formation of a new attitude towards reality. The 1980s was a time of radical reassessment of the history and culture of the past. Fundamentally new for Russian culture was the orientation towards the calm, peaceful development of society; for the first time, conservatism became an important part of the national consciousness. In society, an attitude began to take shape not to remake the world (which prevailed in the 1860s and 70s), but to change (self-change) a person (F.M. Dostoevsky and L.N. Tolstoy, Vl.S. Solovyov and K. N. Leontiev, N. S. Leskov and V. M. Garshin, V. G. Korolenko and A. P. Chekhov).
The 1880s were perceived by contemporaries as an independent period, opposed in their minds to the sixties and seventies. The specificity of the period was associated with the idea of the end of the era of the Russian "classics", with a sense of the boundary, the transition of time. The eighties sum up the development of Russian classical realism. The end of the period does not coincide with 1889, but rather should be attributed to the mid-1890s, when a new generation of writers announced itself and trends associated with the emergence of symbolism appeared. As a literary event that ended the 1880s, one can consider the publication in 1893 of a brochure by D.S. Merezhkovsky "On the Causes of the Decline and New Trends in Modern Russian Literature", which became the program document of literature and criticism at the turn of the century. At the same time, this document is a starting point new era in the history of Russian literature. We can say that Russian literature of the XIX century. ends in 1893, its last period chronologically covers the years 1880-1893.
Russian literature of the 1880s is the literature of realism, but qualitatively changed. Classical realism of the 1830-70s strove for a synthesis in artistic research and depiction of life, focused on the knowledge of the whole, the universe in all its diversity and inconsistency. Realism in the 80s proved unable to give a clear and meaningful picture of being from the point of view of some general universal idea. But at the same time in Russian literature there is an intense search for a new generalized view of life. Russian literature of the 1880s interacts with religious-philosophical and ethical concepts; writers appear in whose work philosophical ideas find their expression in artistic, literary form (Vl. Soloviev, K.N. Leontiev, early V.V. Rozanov). The realistic setting in the work of the classics of Russian realism is changing; prose by I.S. Turgenev is saturated with mysterious, irrational motives; in the work of L.N. Tolstoy's realism is gradually but steadily transforming into realism of a different kind, densely surrounded by moralistic and preachy journalism. The most characteristic feature of the literary process of the 80-90s is the almost complete disappearance of the genre form of the novel and the flourishing of small epic genres: story, essay, story. The novel assumes a generalizing view of life, and in the 1980s life empiricism, a fact of reality, comes to the fore. Hence the emergence of naturalistic tendencies in Russian prose - in the work of second-line fiction writers (P.D. Boborykin, D.N. Mamin-Sibiryak), partly even A.P. Chekhov, who is included in the literature of the 1880s as the author of humorous stories, skits and parodies. Chekhov, perhaps more acutely than any of the artists, feels the exhaustion of the old artistic forms - and subsequently it is he who is destined to become a true innovator in the field of new means of artistic expression.
Simultaneously with the naturalistic tendencies in the prose of the 1880s, the desire for expressiveness, for the search for more capacious forms of artistic expression, is intensifying. The desire for expressiveness leads to the predominance of the subjective principle not only in lyric poetry, which is experiencing a new flowering in the 80-90s, but also in narrative prose genres (V.M. Garshin, V.G. Korolenko). A distinctive feature of the prose of the 80s is the vigorous development of mass fiction and mass dramaturgy. However, in the same years, A.N. Ostrovsky: "sad" comedies "Slaves", "Talents and Admirers", "Handsome Man", "Guilty Without Guilt" and L.N. Tolstoy (folk drama "The Power of Darkness", satirical comedy "The Fruits of Enlightenment"). Finally, at the end of the 1880s, Chekhov began to reform the dramatic genre (the plays Ivanov, Leshy, later reworked into the play Uncle Vanya).
The poetry of the 80s occupies a more modest place in the general literary process than prose and dramaturgy. It is dominated by pessimistic or even tragic notes. However, it is in the poetry of the 80s that the artistic tendencies of the new era, leading to the formation of the aesthetics of symbolism, most clearly appear.
For lectures:
Ivan Alekseevich Bunin (1870-1953) is the last Russian classic, but new Russian literature begins with him.
Received the Pushkin Prize for translating the text of the Song of Goyate.
"Antonov apples" 1900, "The gentleman from San Francisco", " Easy breath» - Bunin's trilogy about the meaning of being. Innovation is determined by the fact that the artist moves away from the study of class contradictions. The focus is on the civilizational conflict, the world of people in general. Bunin believed that in "Antonov apples" he presented new principles for creating a literary image. The ideological and artistic space allows us to pose completely different problems. "Antonov apples" are expressed:
plotless plot;
in this story, Bunin has the opportunity to describe the "crystal" silence; a special subject of study was the state of sadness, "great and hopeless";
the unique rhythm of Bunin's prose;
"brocade" language.
Bunin connected the secret of life with the motive of love and with the motive of death, but he sees the ideal solution to the problems of love and death in the past (peace, harmony, when a person felt himself a part of nature).
In the 20th century, Bunin in The Gentleman from San Francisco reveals the theme of death, which he began to think about from childhood. I express the idea that money gives only the illusion of life.
8. The literary situation of the early twentieth century.
Modern (The general name for various trends in art of the late 19th - early 20th centuries, which proclaimed a break with realism, the rejection of old forms and the search for new aesthetic principles.) - the interpretation of being
Lyric poetry (Sensitivity in feelings, in moods; softness and subtlety of the emotional beginning)
The idea of art synthesis
Russian literature of the late XIX - early XX centuries. (1893 -1917) - rather short, but a very important period, independent in its meaning, in the history of Russian literature. In October 1917 Russian culture has undergone a tragic cataclysm. The literary process of that time is characterized by unprecedented tension, inconsistency, and the clash of the most diverse artistic tendencies. Not only in Russia, but throughout the world culture, a new modernist aesthetics, which sharply contrasted its philosophical and artistic program, its new worldview with the aesthetics of the past, which included essentially all the classical heritage of world culture.
A distinctive feature of the culture of the 1st quarter of the 20th century is an unprecedented one since Pushkin's time. flowering of poetry and above all - lyric poetry, development of a completely new poetic language, new artistic imagery. The very concept of the "Silver Age" owes its origin to the new rise of poetic art. This rise is a direct consequence of the general process associated with search for more capacious means of artistic expression. The literature of the beginning of the century as a whole is characterized by the element of lyricism. At the turn of the century, lyricism becomes one of the most effective means of revealing the worldview of the author and the man of modern times portrayed by him. The flowering of poetry in this period is a natural consequence of deep processes in the history of Russian literature and culture, it is associated primarily with modernism as the leading artistic direction of the era.
Article by V.I. Lenin "Party Organization and Party Literature" (1905) with the thesis that that literary work should be part of the general proletarian cause- followed from the principles proclaimed by "real criticism" and carried to its logical end. The article provoked a sharp rebuff in the literary and philosophical thought of Russia at the beginning of the 20th century; Lenin's opponents were D. Merezhkovsky, D. Filosofov, N. Berdyaev, V. Bryusov, who was one of the first to react with the article "Freedom of Speech", which appeared at the same time in November 1905 in the journal "Scales". V. Bryusov defended the already established in the decadent environment beliefs about the autonomy of literature as the art of speech and the freedom of artistic creativity.
The literature of the turn of the century entered into close relationships with religion, philosophy, and other forms of art, which also experienced a revival at that time: with painting, theater, and music. No wonder the idea of the synthesis of arts occupied the minds of poets and artists, composers and philosophers. These are the most general trends in the development of literature and culture in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
During the late XIX - XX centuries. Russian literature includes a group of young writers who continue high traditions of classical realism. This is V.G. Korolenko, A.I. Kuprin, M. Gorky,I.A. Bunin,B. Zaitsev, I. Shmelev, V. Veresaev, L. Andreev. In the works of these writers, it is peculiar reflected the interaction of the realistic method with the new trends of the era . The bright and clear talent of V.G. Korolenko was distinguished by his attraction to romantic motifs, plots, and images. The prose and dramaturgy of Leonid Andreev more and more experienced the influence of expressionist poetics. The lyrical prose of B. Zaitsev, his plotless miniatures gave critics reason to talk about impressionistic features in his creative method. Fame I.A. Bunin was brought first of all by his story "The Village", in which he gave a harsh image of modern folk life, sharply arguing with the poeticization of the peasantry, coming from the Turgenev tradition. At the same time, the metaphorical figurativeness of Bunin's prose, the associative connection of details and motifs, bring it closer to the poetics of symbolism. Early work M. Gorky connected with the romantic tradition. Revealing the life of Russia, the acutely dramatic spiritual state of modern man, Gorky created a picture of life common with Kuprin, Bunin, Remizov, Sergeev-Tsynsky.
Modernist and avant-garde movements
The word "modernism" comes from the French. moderne - "newest". The aesthetics of realism meant reflection of the surrounding reality in the works of the artist in its typical features ; aesthetics of modernism brought to the fore the creative will of the artist, the possibility of creating many subjective interpretations of being. Avant-gardism is a private and extreme manifestation of modernist culture; The motto of the avant-garde could be the words of Pablo Picasso: "I depict the world not as I see it, but as I think it." The avant-garde believed that vital material can be deformed by the artist to the ground. Avant-garde art meant first of all a fundamental break with the traditions of the XIX century. Avant-gardism in Russian culture reflected in poetry futurists and in similar searches in the field of painting (K.Malevich, N.Goncharova) and theater (V.Meyerhold).
Plan
Introduction
The problem of the "new man" in Griboedov's comedy "Woe from Wit"
The theme of a strong man in the work of N.A. Nekrasov
The problem of "a lonely and superfluous person" in a secular society in poetry and prose by M.Yu. Lermontov
The problem of the "poor man" in the novel by F.M. Dostoevsky "Crime and Punishment"
The theme of folk character in the tragedy of A.N. Ostrovsky "Thunderstorm"
The theme of the people in the novel by L.N. Tolstoy "War and Peace"
The theme of society in the work of M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin "Lord Golovlev"
The problem of the "little man" in the stories and plays of A.P. Chekhov
Conclusion
List of used literature
Introduction
man society Russian literature
Russian literature of the 19th century brought to the whole world the works of such brilliant writers and poets as A.S. Griboedov, A.S. Pushkin, M.Yu. Lermontov, N.V. Gogol, I.A. Goncharov, A.N. Ostrovsky, I.S. Turgenev, N.A. Nekrasov, M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, F.M. Dostoevsky, L.N. Tolstoy, A.P. Chekhov and others.
In many works of these and other Russian authors of the 19th century, the themes of man, personality, people developed; personality was opposed to society (“Woe from Wit” by A.S. Griboedov), the problem of “an extra (lonely) person” was demonstrated (“Eugene Onegin” by A.S. Pushkin, “A Hero of Our Time” by M.Yu. Lermontov), “ poor man” (“Crime and Punishment” by F.M. Dostoevsky), problems of the people (“War and Peace” by L.N. Tolstoy) and others. In most of the works, as part of the development of the theme of man and society, the authors demonstrated the tragedy of the individual.
The purpose of this essay is to consider the works of Russian authors of the 19th century, to study their understanding of the problem of man and society, the peculiarities of their perception of these problems. The study used critical literature, as well as works of writers and poets of the Silver Age.
The problem of the "new man" in Griboedov's comedy "Woe from Wit"
Consider, for example, a comedy by A.S. Griboyedov "Woe from Wit", which played an outstanding role in the socio-political and moral education of several generations of Russian people. It armed them to fight against violence and arbitrariness, meanness and ignorance in the name of freedom and reason, in the name of the triumph of advanced ideas and genuine culture. In the image of the protagonist of the comedy Chatsky, Griboedov for the first time in Russian literature showed a “new man”, inspired by lofty ideas, raising a revolt against a reactionary society in defense of freedom, humanity, mind and culture, cultivating a new morality, developing a new view of the world and human relationship.
The image of Chatsky - a new, intelligent, developed person - is opposed to the "famus society". In "Woe from Wit" all Famusov's guests simply copy the customs, habits and outfits of French milliners and rootless visiting rogues who got rich on Russian bread. All of them speak "a mixture of French and Nizhny Novgorod" and go dumb with delight at the sight of any visiting "Frenchman from Bordeaux." Through the mouth of Chatsky, Griboyedov, with the greatest passion, exposed this unworthy servility to a stranger and contempt for his own:
So that the Lord destroyed this unclean spirit
Empty, slavish, blind imitation;
So that he would plant a spark in someone with a soul.
Who could by word and example
Hold us like a strong rein,
From pathetic nausea, on the side of a stranger.
Chatsky loves his people very much, but not the "famus society" of landowners and officials, but the Russian people, hardworking, wise, powerful. A distinctive feature of Chatsky as a strong man in contrast to the prim Famus society lies in the fullness of feelings. In everything he shows true passion, he is always ardent in soul. He is hot, witty, eloquent, full of life, impatient. At the same time, Chatsky is the only open positive hero in Griboedov's comedy. But it is impossible to call it exceptional and lonely. He is young, romantic, passionate, he has like-minded people: for example, professors Pedagogical Institute, who, according to Princess Tugoukhovskaya, “practice in splits and unbelief”, these are “crazy people”, prone to learning, this is the nephew of the princess, Prince Fedor, “a chemist and botanist”. Chatsky defends the rights of a person to freely choose his occupation: to travel, live in the countryside, "fix his mind" in science or devote himself to "creative, high and beautiful arts."
Chatsky defends the "folk society" and ridicules the "famus society", his life and behavior in his monologue:
Are not these rich in robbery?
They found protection from court in friends, in kinship.
Magnificent building chambers,
Where they overflow in feasts and prodigality.
It can be concluded that Chatsky in comedy represents the young thinking generation of Russian society, its best part. A. I. Herzen wrote about Chatsky: “The image of Chatsky, sad, restless in his irony, trembling with indignation, devoted to a dreamy ideal, appears at the last moment of the reign of Alexander I, on the eve of the uprising on St. Isaac's Square. This is a Decembrist, this is a man who completes the era of Peter the Great and tries to see, at least on the horizon, the promised land ... ".
The theme of a strong man in the work of N.A. Nekrasov
The theme of a strong man is found in the lyrical works of N.A. Nekrasov, whose work many call the whole era of Russian literature and public life. The source of Nekrasov's poetry was life itself. Nekrasov positions the problem of the moral choice of a person, a lyrical hero in his poems: the struggle between good and evil, the interweaving of the high, the heroic with the empty, indifferent, ordinary. In 1856, Nekrasov's poem "The Poet and the Citizen" was published in the Sovremennik magazine, in which the author affirmed the social significance of poetry, its role and active participation in life:
Go into the fire for the honor of the Fatherland,
For faith, for love...
Go and die flawlessly
You will not die in vain: the matter is solid,
When blood flows under him.
Nekrasov in this poem simultaneously shows strength lofty ideas, thoughts and duty of a citizen, a person, a fighter, and at the same time implicitly condemns a person’s retreat from duty, serving the motherland and people. In the poem "Elegy" Nekrasov conveys the most sincere, personal sympathy for the people in their difficult lot. Nekrasov, knowing the life of the peasantry, saw real strength in the people, believed in their ability to renew Russia:
Will endure everything - and wide, clear
He will pave the way for himself with his chest ...
An eternal example of serving the Fatherland were such people as N.A. Dobrolyubov ("In Memory of Dobrolyubov"), T.G. Shevchenko (“On the death of Shevchenko”), V.G. Belinsky ("In memory of Belinsky").
Nekrasov himself was born in a simple serf-owning village, where "something was crushing", "my heart ached". He painfully recalls his mother with her "proud, stubborn and beautiful soul", who was forever given to "a gloomy ignoramus ... and a slave carried her lot in silence." The poet praises her pride and strength:
With a head open to the storms of life
All my life under an angry thunderstorm
You stood, - with your chest
Protecting beloved children.
The central place in the lyrics of N.A. Nekrasov is occupied by a “living”, acting, strong person who is alien to passivity and contemplation.
The problem of "a lonely and superfluous person" in a secular society in poetry and prose by M.Yu. Lermontov
The theme of a lonely person who is struggling with society is well disclosed in the work of M.Yu. Lermontov (Valerik):
I thought: “Poor man.
What does he want!”, the sky is clear,
Under the sky there is a lot of space for everyone,
But incessantly and in vain
One is at enmity- For what?"
In his lyrics, Lermontov seeks to tell people about his pain, but all his knowledge and thoughts do not satisfy him. The older he gets, the more difficult the world seems to him. He connects everything that happens to him with the fate of a whole generation. The lyrical hero of the famous "Duma" is hopelessly lonely, but he is also worried about the fate of the generation. The more keenly he peers into life, the clearer it becomes for him that he himself cannot be indifferent to human troubles. Evil must be fought, not run from it. Inaction reconciles with the existing injustice, at the same time causing loneliness and the desire to live in the closed world of one's own "I". And, worst of all, it breeds indifference to the world and people. Only in struggle does a person find himself. In the "Duma" the poet clearly says that it was inaction that ruined his contemporaries.
In the poem “I look at the future with fear ...” M.Yu. Lermontov openly condemns a society alien to feelings, an indifferent generation:
Sadly, I look at our generation!
His coming- either empty or dark...
Shamefully indifferent to good and evil,
At the beginning of the race, we wither without a fight ...
The theme of a lonely person in Lermontov's work is by no means due only to personal drama and hard fate, but it largely reflects the state of Russian social thought during the reaction period. That is why in the lyrics of Lermontov, a lonely rebel, a Protestant, at enmity with "heaven and earth", fighting for the freedom of the human person, foreseeing his own untimely death, occupied a significant place.
The poet opposes himself, the "living", the society in which he lives, - the "dead" generation. The “life” of the author is conditioned by the fullness of feelings, even simply by the ability to feel, see, understand and fight, and the “death” of society is determined by indifference and narrow-minded thinking. In the poem "I go out alone on the road ..." the poet is full of sad hopelessness, in this poem he reflects how far the disease of society has gone. The idea of life as “a smooth path without a goal” gives rise to a feeling of the futility of desires - “what good is it to wish in vain and forever? ..” The line: “We hate and we love by chance” logically leads to a bitter conclusion: worth the work, but it is impossible to love forever.
Further, in the poem “And Boring and Sad...” and in the novel “A Hero of Our Time”, the poet, speaking about friendship, about higher spiritual aspirations, about the meaning of life, about passions, seeks to explore the reasons for dissatisfaction with his appointment. For example, Grushnitsky belongs to a secular society, a characteristic feature of which is lack of spirituality. Pechorin, accepting the conditions of the game, is, as it were, “above society”, knowing full well that “images of soulless people flicker there, masks pulled together by decency”. Pechorin is not only a reproach to all the best people of the generation, but also a call to civil deeds.
A strong, independent, lonely and even free personality is symbolized by M.Yu. Lermontov "Sail":
Alas!- he is not looking for happiness
And not from happiness runs!
The theme of a lonely person, permeated with sadness, unsurpassed in the beauty of performance, is clearly seen in Lermontov's lyrics, due to his feelings and the society around him.
In the famous novel by M.Yu. Lermontov "A Hero of Our Time" solves the problem of why smart and agile people do not find application for their remarkable abilities and "wither without a fight" at the very beginning of their life path? Lermontov answers this question with the life story of Pechorin, a young man belonging to the generation of the 30s of the 19th century. In the image of Pechorin, the author presented an artistic type that absorbed a whole generation of young people at the beginning of the century. In the preface to Pechorin's Journal, Lermontov writes: "The history of the human soul, even the smallest soul, is almost more curious and more useful than the history of a whole people ...".
In this novel, Lermontov reveals the theme of "an extra person", because Pechorin is an "extra person". His behavior is incomprehensible to others, because it does not correspond to their ordinary point of view on life, common in a noble society. With all the differences in appearance and character traits, Eugene Onegin from the novel by A.S. Pushkin, and the hero of the comedy A.S. Griboyedov "Woe from Wit" Chatsky, and Pechorin M.Yu. Lermontov belong to the type of "superfluous people", that is, people for whom there was neither place nor business in the surrounding society.
Is there a clear similarity between Pechorin and Onegin? Yes. Both of them are representatives of high secular society. Much in common can be noted in the history and youth of these heroes: first, the pursuit of secular pleasures, then disappointment in them, an attempt to do science, reading books and cooling down to them, the same boredom that owns them. Like Onegin, Pechorin is intellectually superior to the surrounding nobility. Both heroes are typical representatives of thinking people of their time, critical of life and people.
Then the similarities end and the differences begin. Pechorin differs from Onegin in his spiritual way, he lives in different socio-political conditions. Onegin lived in the 1920s, before the Decembrist uprising, at the time of social and political revival. Pechorin is a man of the 30s, when the Decembrists were defeated, and the revolutionary democrats social force have not yet declared themselves.
Onegin could go to the Decembrists, Pechorin was deprived of such an opportunity. Pechorin's position is all the more tragic because he is by nature more gifted and deeper than Onegin. This giftedness manifests itself in a deep mind, strong passions and the steel will of Pechorin. The sharp mind of the hero allows him to correctly judge people, about life, to be critical of himself. The characteristics given by him to people are quite accurate. Pechorin's heart is able to feel deeply and strongly, although outwardly he keeps calm, because "the fullness and depth of feelings and thoughts does not allow frantic impulses." Lermontov shows in his novel a strong, strong-willed personality, eager for activity.
But for all his giftedness and wealth of spiritual powers, Pechorin, by his own fair definition, is a "moral cripple." His character and all his behavior are distinguished by extreme inconsistency, which affects even his appearance, which, like all people, reflects the inner appearance of a person. Pechorin's eyes "did not laugh when he laughed." Lermontov says that: "This is a sign of either an evil temper, or a deep, constant sadness ...".
Pechorin, on the one hand, is skeptical, on the other, he is thirsty for activity; reason in him struggles with feelings; he is selfish, and at the same time capable of deep feelings. Left without Vera, unable to catch up with her, "he fell on the wet grass and, like a child, wept." Lermontov shows in Pechorin the tragedy of a person, a “moral cripple”, an intelligent and strong person, whose most terrible contradiction lies in the presence of “immense forces of the soul” and the commission of petty, insignificant deeds. Pechorin strives to "love the whole world", but brings people only evil and misfortune; his aspirations are noble, but his feelings are not high; he longs for life, but suffers from complete hopelessness, from the realization of his doom.
To the question why everything is so and not otherwise, the hero himself answers in the novel: “In my soul is spoiled by light”, that is, by the secular society in which he lived and from which he could not escape. But the point here is not only in an empty noble society. In the 1920s, the Decembrists left this society. But Pechorin, as already mentioned, is a man of the 30s, typical representative of his time. This time put him before a choice: "either decisive inaction, or empty activity." Energy seeths in him, he wants active action, he understands that he could have "a high purpose."
The tragedy of the noble society is again in its indifference, emptiness, inactivity.
The tragedy of Pechorin's fate is that he never found the main, worthy of his goal in life, since it was impossible in his time to apply his strength to a socially useful cause.
The problem of the "poor man" in the novel by F.M. Dostoevsky "Crime and Punishment"
Let us now turn to the novel by F.M. Dostoevsky "Crime and Punishment". In this work, the author draws the reader's attention to the problem of the "poor man". In the article " downtrodden people" ON THE. Dobrolyubov wrote: “In the works of F.M. Dostoevsky, we find one common feature, more or less noticeable in everything that he wrote. This is pain about a person who recognizes himself as unable or, finally, not even entitled to be a person, a real, complete independent person on his own.
F. M. Dostoevsky's novel "Crime and Punishment" is a book about the life of destitute poor people, a book that reflects the writer's pain for the desecrated honor of a "little" person. Before readers unfold pictures of the suffering of "little" people. Their lives are spent in dirty closets.
Well-fed Petersburg looks coldly and indifferently at the destitute people. Tavern and street life interferes with the fate of people, leaving an imprint on their experiences and actions. Here is a woman who throws herself into a canal... But a drunk fifteen-year-old girl is walking along the boulevard... A typical shelter for the poor in the capital is the miserable room of the Marmeladovs. At the sight of this room, the poverty of the inhabitants, the bitterness with which Marmeladov told Raskolnikov the story of his life, the story of his family a few hours ago, becomes understandable. Marmeladov's story about himself in a dirty tavern is a bitter confession " dead person crushed unjustly by the yoke of circumstances.
But the very vice of Marmeladov is explained by the immensity of his misfortunes, the awareness of his deprivation, the humiliation that poverty brings him. “Dear sir,” he began almost solemnly, “poverty is not a vice, it is the truth. I know that drunkenness is not a virtue, and this is all the more so. But poverty, sir, poverty is a vice. In poverty, you still retain your nobility of innate feelings, but in poverty - never anyone. Marmeladov is a poor man who has "nowhere to go." Marmeladov is sliding further and further down, but even in the fall he retains the best human impulses, the ability to feel strongly, which are expressed, for example, in his plea for forgiveness to Katerina Ivanovna and Sonya.
All her life, Katerina Ivanovna has been looking for how and with what to feed her children, she has been in need and deprivation. Proud, passionate, adamant, left a widow with three children, under the threat of hunger and poverty, she was forced, “weeping and sobbing and wringing her hands,” to marry a homely official, a widower with a fourteen-year-old daughter Sonya, who, in turn, married Katerina Ivanovna out of a sense of pity and compassion. Poverty kills the Marmeladov family, but they fight, albeit without a chance. Dostoevsky himself says of Katerina Ivanovna: “But Katerina Ivanovna was, moreover, not one of those downtrodden, she could be completely killed by circumstances, but it was impossible to beat her morally, that is, it was impossible to scare and subjugate her will.” This desire to feel complete person and forced Katerina Ivanovna to arrange a chic commemoration.
Next to the feeling of self-respect in the soul of Katerina Ivanovna lives another bright feeling - kindness. She tries to justify her husband, saying: “Look, Rodion Romanovich, she found a gingerbread cockerel in his pocket: he’s walking dead drunk, but he remembers about the children ...” She, holding Sonya tightly, as if with her own breast wants to protect her from Luzhin’s accusations says: "Sonya! Sonya! I don’t believe!”… She understands that after the death of her husband her children are doomed to starvation, that fate is not merciful to them. So Dostoevsky refutes the theory of consolation and humility, which allegedly leads everyone to happiness and well-being, just as Katerina Ivanovna rejects the consolation of a priest. Its end is tragic. In unconsciousness, she runs to the general to ask for help, but "their excellencies are having lunch" and the doors are closed in front of her, there is no longer any hope of salvation, and Katerina Ivanovna decides to take the last step: she goes to beg. The scene of the death of a poor woman is impressive. The words with which she dies, “leave the nag,” echo the image of a tortured, beaten to death horse that Raskolnikov once dreamed of. The image of a broken horse by F. Dostoevsky, a poem by N. Nekrasov about a beaten horse, a fairy tale by M. Saltykov-Shchedrin "Konyaga" - such is the generalized, tragic image tortured people. The face of Katerina Ivanovna captures the tragic image of grief, which is a vivid protest of the free soul of the author. This image stands in a number of eternal images of world literature, the tragedy of the existence of the outcasts is also embodied in the image of Sonechka Marmeladova.
This girl also has nowhere to go and run in this world, according to Marmeladov, “how much can a poor but honest girl earn with honest labor.” Life itself answers this question in the negative. And Sonya goes to sell herself to save her family from starvation, because there is no way out, she has no right to commit suicide.
Her image is inconsistent. On the one hand, it is immoral and negative. On the other hand, had Sonya not violated the norms of morality, she would have doomed the children to starvation. Thus, the image of Sonya turns into a generalizing image of eternal victims. Therefore, Raskolnikov exclaims these famous words: “Sonechka Marmeladova! Eternal Sonechka»...
F.M. Dostoevsky shows Sonya's humiliated position in this world: "Sonya sat down, almost trembling with fear, and timidly looked at both ladies." And it is this timid downtrodden creature that becomes a strong moral mentor, F.M. Dostoevsky! The main thing in Sonya's character is humility, forgiving Christian love for people, religiosity. Eternal humility, faith in God give her strength, help her live. Therefore, it is she who makes Raskolnikov confess to a crime, showing that the true meaning of life is in suffering. The image of Sonechka Marmeladova was the only light of F.M. Dostoevsky in the general darkness of hopelessness, in the same empty noble society, throughout the whole novel.
In the novel "Crime and Punishment" F.M. Dostoevsky creates an image of pure love for people, an image of eternal human suffering, an image of a doomed victim, each of which was embodied in the image of Sonechka Marmeladova. The fate of Sonya is the fate of the victim of abominations, deformities of the possessive system, in which a woman becomes an object of sale. A similar fate was prepared for Duna Raskolnikova, who was to follow the same path, and Raskolnikov knew this. In a very detailed, psychologically correct portrayal of "poor people" in society, F.M. Dostoevsky carries out the main idea of the novel: it is impossible to live like this any longer. These "poor people" are Dostoevsky's protest to that time and to society, a bitter, heavy, bold protest.
The theme of folk character in the tragedy of A.N. Ostrovsky "Thunderstorm"
Consider further the tragedy of A.N. Ostrovsky "Thunderstorm". Before us is Katerina, who alone in The Thunderstorm is given to hold the fullness of viable principles folk culture. Katerina's worldview harmoniously combines Slavic pagan antiquity with Christian culture, spiritualizing and morally enlightening the old pagan beliefs. Katerina's religiosity is inconceivable without sunrises and sunsets, dewy herbs in flowering meadows, flights of birds, butterflies fluttering from flower to flower. In the monologues of the heroine, the familiar motifs of Russian folk songs come to life. In Katerina's worldview, a spring of primordially Russian song culture beats and acquire new life Christian beliefs. The joy of life is experienced by the heroine in the temple, the sun bows to the ground in the garden, among the trees, grasses, flowers, morning freshness, awakening nature: I don't know what I'm praying for and what I'm crying about; that's how they'll find me." In the mind of Katerina, ancient pagan myths that have entered the flesh and blood of the Russian folk character are awakened, deep layers of Slavic culture are revealed.
But here in the house of the Kabanovs, Katerina gets into " dark kingdom» spiritual unfreedom. “Everything here seems to be from under bondage,” a stern religious spirit has settled here, democracy has faded here, the cheerful generosity of the people's worldview has disappeared. The wanderers in the house of the Kabanikha are different, from among those hypocrites who “due to their weakness did not go far, but heard a lot.” And they talk about last times about the coming end of the world. These wanderers are alien to the pure world of Katerina, they are in the service of Kabanikh, and therefore they cannot have anything in common with Katerina. She is pure, dreaming, believing, and in the house of the Kabanovs “she has almost nothing to breathe” ... The heroine becomes hard because Ostrovsky shows her as a woman who is alien to compromises, who longs for universal truth and does not agree to anything less.
The theme of the people in the novel by L.N. Tolstoy "War and Peace"
Let us also recall that in 1869, from the pen of L.N. Tolstoy published one of the brilliant works of world literature - the epic novel "War and Peace". In this work, the main character is not Pechorin, not Onegin, not Chatsky. The protagonist of the novel "War and Peace" is the people. “For a work to be good, one must love the main, basic idea in it. In War and Peace, I loved the thought of the people, as a result of the war of 1812, ”said L.N. Tolstoy.
So, the main character of the novel is the people. The people who rose in 1812 to defend their homeland and defeated in the war of liberation a huge enemy army led by an invincible commander until then. The most important events of the novel are assessed by Tolstoy with folk point vision. The writer’s assessment of the war of 1805 is expressed by the writer in the words of Prince Andrei: “Why did we lose the battle near Austerlitz? .. There was no need for us to fight there: we wanted to leave the battlefield as soon as possible.” The Patriotic War of 1812 was a just, national liberation war for Russia. The Napoleonic hordes crossed the borders of Russia and headed for its center - Moscow. Then all the people came out to fight the invaders. Ordinary Russian people - the peasants Karp and Vlas, the elder Vasilisa, the merchant Ferapontov, the deacon and many others - hostilely meet the Napoleonic army, put up due resistance to it. The feeling of love for the motherland swept the whole society.
L.N. Tolstoy says that "for the Russian people there could be no question whether it would be good or bad under the rule of the French." The Rostovs are leaving Moscow, having handed over carts to the wounded and leaving their house to the mercy of fate; Princess Marya Bolkonskaya leaves her native Bogucharovo nest. Disguised in a simple dress, Count Pierre Bezukhov is armed and stays in Moscow, intending to kill Napoleon.
With all this, not all people united in the face of war. Cause contempt individual representatives of the bureaucratic-aristocratic society, which in the days of nationwide disaster acted for selfish and selfish purposes. The enemy was already in Moscow when Petersburg court life went on as before: “There were the same exits, balls, the same french theater, the same interests of service and intrigue". The patriotism of the Moscow aristocrats consisted in the fact that instead of the French dishes were eaten by Russian cabbage soup, and a fine was imposed for French words.
Tolstoy angrily denounces the Moscow governor-general and commander-in-chief of the Moscow garrison, Count Rostopchin, who, due to his arrogance and cowardice, was unable to organize replacements for Kutuzov's heroically fighting army. The author speaks with indignation about careerists - foreign generals like Wolzogen. They gave all of Europe to Napoleon, and then "they came to teach us - glorious teachers!" Among staff officers, Tolstoy singles out a group of people who want only one thing: "... the greatest benefits and pleasures for themselves ... The drone population of the army." These people include Nesvitsky, Drubetsky, Berg, Zherkov and others.
These people L.N. Tolstoy contrasts the common people, who played the main and decisive role in the war against the French conquerors. The patriotic feelings that gripped the Russians gave rise to the general heroism of the defenders of the Motherland. Talking about the battles near Smolensk, Andrei Bolkonsky rightly noted that Russian soldiers “fought there for the first time for the Russian land”, that there was such a spirit in the troops, what he (Bolkonsky) never saw that the Russian soldiers "repulsed the French for two days in a row, and that this success multiplied our forces tenfold."
The “folk thought” is felt even more fully in those chapters of the novel where characters are depicted who are close to the people or strive to understand it: Tushin and Timokhin, Natasha and Princess Marya, Pierre and Prince Andrei - all those who can be called “Russian souls”.
Tolstoy portrays Kutuzov as a person who embodied the spirit of the people. Kutuzov is a truly popular commander. Thus, expressing the needs, thoughts and feelings of the soldiers, he appears during the review near Braunau, and during the Battle of Austerlitz, and especially during Patriotic War 1812. “Kutuzov,” writes Tolstoy, “with his whole Russian being knew and felt what every Russian soldier felt.” Kutuzov is his own for Russia, a native person, he is the bearer of folk wisdom, an exponent of folk feelings. He is distinguished by "an extraordinary power of penetration into the meaning of occurring phenomena, and its source lies in the popular feeling, which he carried in himself in all its purity and strength." Only the recognition of this feeling in him made the people elect him, against the will of the tsar, as commander-in-chief of the Russian army. And only this feeling put him on that height from which he directed all his forces not to kill and exterminate people, but to save and pity them.
Both soldiers and officers - they all fight not for St. George's crosses, but for the Fatherland. The defenders of the battery of General Raevsky shake with their moral stamina. Tolstoy shows the extraordinary stamina and courage of the soldiers and the better part of the officers. At the center of the story about the partisan war is the image of Tikhon Shcherbaty, who embodies the best national traits of the Russian people. Next to him stands Platon Karataev, who in the novel "represents everything Russian, folk, good." Tolstoy writes: "... it is good for the people who, in a moment of trial ... with simplicity and ease, pick up the first club that comes across and nail it until in their souls feelings of insult and revenge are replaced by contempt and pity."
Speaking about the results of the Battle of Borodino, Tolstoy calls the victory of the Russian people over Napoleon a moral victory. Tolstoy glorifies the people, who, having lost half of the army, stood as menacingly as at the beginning of the battle. And as a result, the people achieved their goal: the native land was cleared by the Russian people from foreign invaders.
The theme of society in the work of M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin "Lord Golovlev"
Let us also recall such a novel about public life as “Lords Golovlevs” by M.E. Satykov-Shchedrin. The novel presents a noble family, which reflects the decay of bourgeois society. As in bourgeois society, everything collapses in this family moral relations, family ties, moral norms of behavior.
In the center of the novel, the head of the family, Arina Petrovna Golovleva, is an imperious landowner, a purposeful, strong housewife, spoiled by power over her family and others. She single-handedly manages the estate, depriving the serfs, turning her husband into a "hooker", crippling the lives of "hateful children" and corrupting her "favorite" children. She builds wealth, without knowing why, implying that she does everything for the family, for the children. But about duty, family, children, she repeats all the time rather in order to hide her indifferent attitude towards them. For Arina Petrovna, the word family is just an empty phrase, even though it never left her lips. She fussed about the family, but at the same time forgot about her. The thirst for hoarding, greed killed the instincts of motherhood in her, all that she could give to children was indifference. And they began to answer her the same. They did not show her gratitude for all the work that she did “for their sake”. But, forever immersed in troubles and calculations, Arina Petrovna forgot about this thought too.
All this, together with time, morally corrupts all the people close to her, as well as herself. The eldest son Stepan drank himself, died a loser. The daughter, from whom Arina Petrovna wanted to make a free accountant, ran away from home and soon died, abandoned by her husband. Arina Petrovna took her two little twin girls to her. The girls grew up and became provincial actresses. Also left to their own devices, as a result, they were drawn into a scandalous lawsuit, later one of them was poisoned, the second did not have the courage to drink poison, and she buried herself alive in Golovlevo.
Then the abolition of serfdom dealt a strong blow to Arina Petrovna: knocked off her usual rhythm, she becomes weak and helpless. She divides the estate between her favorite sons Porfiry and Paul, leaving only capital for herself. The cunning Porfiry managed to lure capital from his mother. Then Paul soon died, leaving his property to the hated brother Porphyry. And now we see clearly that everything for which Arina Petrovna subjected herself and her loved ones to deprivation and torment all her life turned out to be nothing but a ghost.
The problem of the "little man" in the stories and plays of A.P. Chekhov
A.P. also speaks about the degradation of a person under the influence of a passion for profit. Chekhov in his story “Ionych”, which was written in 1898: “How are we doing here? No way. We grow old, we grow fat, we fall. Day and night - a day away, life passes dimly, without impressions, without thoughts ... ".
The hero of the story "Ionych" is a habitual narrow-minded fat man, the peculiarity of which is that he is smart, unlike many others. Dmitry Ionych Startsev understands how insignificant the thoughts of the people around him are, who are happy to talk only about food. But at the same time, Ionych did not even have thoughts that it was necessary to fight with such a way of life. He did not even have a desire to fight for his love. His feeling for Ekaterina Ivanovna is difficult, in fact, to be called love, because it passed three days after her refusal. Startsev thinks with pleasure about her dowry, and Ekaterina Ivanovna's refusal only offends him, and nothing more.
The hero is possessed by spiritual laziness, which gives rise to the absence of strong feelings and experiences. Over time, this spiritual laziness weathers everything good and sublime from Startsev's soul. They began to own only the passion for profit. At the end of the story, it was the passion for money that extinguished the last flame in Ionych's soul, lit by the words of the already adult and intelligent Ekaterina Ivanovna. Chekhov writes sadly that a strong flame of the human soul can extinguish just a passion for money, simple pieces of paper.
A.P. writes about a man, a little man. Chekhov in his stories: "Everything should be beautiful in a person: the face, and clothes, and the soul, and thoughts." All the writers of Russian literature treated the little man differently. Gogol urged to love and pity the "little man" as he is. Dostoevsky - to see a personality in him. Chekhov, on the other hand, is looking for the guilty not in the society that surrounds a person, but in the person himself. He says that the reason for the humiliation of the little man is himself. Consider Chekhov's story "The Man in the Case". His hero Belikov himself went down, because he is afraid of real life and runs away from it. He is an unfortunate person who poisons the life of himself and those around him. Prohibitions for him are clear and unambiguous, and permissions cause fear and doubt: "No matter how something happens." Under his influence, everyone became afraid to do something: speak loudly, make acquaintances, help the poor, etc.
With their cases, people like Belikov kill all living things. And he was able to find his ideal only after death, it is in the coffin that his facial expression becomes cheerful, peaceful, as if he has finally found that case from which he can no longer get out.
The petty philistine life destroys everything good in a person if there is no inner protest in him. This is what happened with Startsev, with Belikov. Further, Chekhov seeks to show the mood, life of entire classes, strata of society. This is what he does in his plays. In the play "Ivanov" Chekhov again turns to the theme of the little man. The main character of the play is an intellectual who made huge life plans, but helplessly lost to the obstacles that life itself put in front of him. Ivanov is a small man who, as a result of an internal breakdown, turns from an active worker into a broken loser.
In the following plays A.P. Chekhov's "Three Sisters", "Uncle Vanya" the main conflict develops in the clash of morally pure, bright personalities with the world of the townsfolk, greed, greed, cynicism. And then there are people who go to replace all this worldly vulgarity. This is Anya and Petya Trofimov from the play " The Cherry Orchard". In this play, A.P. Chekhov shows that not all small people necessarily turn into broken, small and limited. Petya Trofimov, an eternal student, belongs to the student movement. For several months he was hiding at Ranevskaya. This young man is strong, smart, proud, honest. He believes that he can correct his situation only by honest constant work. Petya believes that a bright future awaits his society, his homeland, although he does not know the exact lines of life change. Petya is only proud of his disregard for money. The young man influences the formation of the life positions of Anya, the daughter of Ranevskaya. She is honest, beautiful in her feelings and behavior. With such pure feelings, with faith in the future, a person should no longer be small, this already makes him big. Chekhov also writes about good (“big”) people.
So, in his story "The Jumper" we see how Dr. Dymov, a good man, a doctor who lives for the happiness of others, dies saving someone else's child from illness.
Conclusion
In this essay, such works of Russian writers of the Silver Age as Ostrovsky's "Thunderstorm", Lermontov's "Hero of Our Time", Pushkin's "Eugene Onegin", Tolstoy's "War and Peace", Dostoyevsky's "Crime and Punishment" and others were considered. The theme of man and people in the lyrics of Lermontov, Nekrasov, Chekhov's plays has been studied.
Summing up, it should be noted that in Russian literature of the 19th century, the theme of a person, personality, people, society is found in almost every work of the great writers of that time. Russian authors write about the problems of superfluous, new, small, poor, strong, different people. Often in their works we meet with the tragedy of a strong personality or a small person; with the opposition of a strong "living" personality to an indifferent "dead" society. At the same time, we often read about the strength and diligence of the Russian people, to which many writers and poets are especially touching.
List of used literature
1.M.Yu. Lermontov, Selected Works, 1970
2.A.S. Pushkin, "Collected Works", 1989
.A.S. Griboedov, "Woe from Wit", 1999.
.A.P. Chekhov, "Collected Works", 1995
.M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, "Gentlemen Golovlevs", 1992
.L.N. Tolstoy, "War and Peace", 1992.
.F.M. Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment, 1984.
.ON THE. Nekrasov, "Collection of poems", 1995.
.A.N. Ostrovsky, "Collected Works", 1997.
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"Verily, that was the golden age of our literature,
the period of her innocence and bliss! .. "
M. A. Antonovich
M. Antonovich in his article called the "golden age of literature" early XIX century - the period of creativity of A. S. Pushkin and N. V. Gogol. Subsequently, this definition began to characterize the literature of the entire 19th century - up to the works of A.P. Chekhov and L.N. Tolstoy.
What are the main features of Russian classical literature of this period?
Fashionable at the beginning of the century, sentimentalism gradually fades into the background - the formation of romanticism begins, and from the middle of the century realism rules the ball.
New types of heroes appear in literature: the "little man", who most often dies under the pressure of the foundations accepted in society, and the "extra man" - this is a string of images, starting with Onegin and Pechorin.
Continuing the traditions of the satirical image, proposed by M. Fonvizin, in the literature of the 19th century, the satirical image of the vices of modern society becomes one of the central motifs. Often satire takes on grotesque forms. Vivid examples- Gogol's "Nose" or "The History of a City" by M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin.
Another one distinguishing feature The literature of this period has an acute social orientation. Writers and poets are increasingly turning to socio-political topics, often plunging into the field of psychology. This leitmotif permeates the works of I. S. Turgenev, F. M. Dostoevsky, L. N. Tolstoy. Appears new form- Russian realistic novel, with its deep psychologism, harshest criticism reality, irreconcilable enmity with the existing foundations and loud calls for renewal.
Well main reason, which prompted many critics to call the 19th century the golden age of Russian culture: the literature of this period, despite a number of unfavorable factors, had a powerful influence on the development of world culture as a whole. Absorbing all the best that world literature offered, Russian literature was able to remain original and unique.
Russian writers of the 19th century
V.A. Zhukovsky- Pushkin's mentor and his Teacher. It is Vasily Andreevich who is considered the founder of Russian romanticism. It can be said that Zhukovsky "prepared" the ground for Pushkin's bold experiments, since he was the first to expand the scope poetic word. After Zhukovsky, the era of the democratization of the Russian language began, which was so brilliantly continued by Pushkin.
Selected Poems:
A.S. Griboyedov went down in history as the author of one work. But what! Masterpiece! Phrases and quotes from the comedy "Woe from Wit" have long become winged, and the work itself is considered the first realistic comedy in the history of Russian literature.
Analysis of the work:
A.S. Pushkin. He was called differently: A. Grigoriev claimed that "Pushkin is our everything!", F. Dostoevsky "the great and incomprehensible Forerunner", and Emperor Nicholas I admitted that, in his opinion, Pushkin is "the smartest person in Russia". Simply put, this is Genius.
Pushkin's greatest merit is that he radically changed the Russian literary language, saving it from pretentious abbreviations, such as "young, breg, sweet", from ridiculous "marshmallows", "Psyche", "Cupids", so revered in high-sounding elegies, from borrowings, which then so abounded in Russian poetry. Pushkin brought colloquial vocabulary, craft slang, elements of Russian folklore to the pages of printed publications.
A. N. Ostrovsky also pointed out another important achievement of this brilliant poet. Before Pushkin, Russian literature was imitative, stubbornly imposing traditions and ideals alien to our people. Pushkin, on the other hand, "gave courage to the Russian writer to be Russian", "revealed the Russian soul". In his stories and novels, for the first time, the theme of the morality of the social ideals of that time is so vividly raised. And the main character light hand Pushkin is now becoming an ordinary "little man" - with his thoughts and hopes, desires and character.
Analysis of works:
M.Yu. Lermontov- bright, mysterious, with a touch of mysticism and an incredible thirst for will. All his work is a unique fusion of romanticism and realism. Moreover, both directions do not oppose at all, but, as it were, complement each other. This man went down in history as a poet, writer, playwright and artist. He wrote 5 plays: the most famous is the drama "Masquerade".
And among prose works, the real diamond of creativity was the novel "A Hero of Our Time" - the first realistic novel in prose in the history of Russian literature, where for the first time the writer tries to trace the "dialectics of the soul" of his hero, mercilessly subjecting him to psychological analysis. This pioneering creative method Lermontov in the future will be used by many Russian and foreign writers.
Selected works:
N.V. Gogol known as a writer and playwright, but it is no coincidence that one of his most famous works - "Dead Souls" is considered a poem. There is no other such Master of the word in world literature. Gogol's language is melodious, incredibly bright and figurative. This was most clearly manifested in his collection Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka.
On the other hand, N.V. Gogol is considered the founder of the "natural school", with its satire bordering on the grotesque, accusatory motifs and ridicule of human vices.
Selected works:
I.S. Turgenev- the greatest Russian novelist who established the canons classic novel. He continues the traditions established by Pushkin and Gogol. He often refers to the theme of "an extra person", trying to convey the relevance and significance of social ideas through the fate of his hero.
Turgenev's merit also lies in the fact that he became the first propagandist of Russian culture in Europe. This is a prose writer who opened the world of the Russian peasantry, intelligentsia and revolutionaries to foreign countries. And the string of female images in his novels became the pinnacle of the writer's skill.
Selected works:
A.N. Ostrovsky- an outstanding Russian playwright. I. Goncharov most accurately expressed Ostrovsky's merits, recognizing him as the founder of the Russian folk theater. The plays of this writer became a "school of life" for the playwrights of the next generation. And the Moscow Maly Theater, where most of the plays of this talented writer were staged, proudly calls itself the "Ostrovsky House".
Selected works:
I.A. Goncharov continued to develop the traditions of the Russian realistic novel. The author of the famous trilogy, who, like no one else, managed to describe the main vice of the Russian people - laziness. With the light hand of the writer, the term "Oblomovism" also appeared.
Selected works:
L.N. Tolstoy- a real block of Russian literature. His novels are recognized as the pinnacle of the art of novel writing. The style of presentation and the creative method of L. Tolstoy are still considered the standard of the writer's skill. And his ideas of humanism had a huge impact on the development of humanistic ideas throughout the world.
Selected works:
N.S. Leskov- a talented successor to the traditions of N. Gogol. Made a huge contribution to the development of new genre forms in literature, such as pictures from life, rhapsodies, incredible events.
Selected works:
N.G. Chernyshevsky- an outstanding writer and literary critic who proposed his theory of the aesthetics of the relationship of art to reality. This theory became the reference for the literature of the next few generations.
Selected works:
F.M. Dostoevsky — brilliant writer, whose psychological novels are famous all over the world. Dostoevsky is often called the forerunner of such trends in culture as existentialism and surrealism.
Selected works:
M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin- the greatest satirist, who brought the art of denunciation, ridicule and parody to the heights of skill.
Selected works:
A.P. Chekhov. With this name, historians traditionally complete the era of the golden age of Russian literature. Chekhov was recognized throughout the world during his lifetime. His short stories have become a benchmark for short story writers. And Chekhov's plays had a huge impact on the development of world drama.
Selected works:
By the end of the 19th century, the traditions of critical realism began to fade away. In a society permeated through and through with pre-revolutionary moods, mystical moods, partly even decadent ones, have come into fashion. They were the forerunner of a new literary direction- symbolism and marked the beginning of a new period in the history of Russian literature - the silver age of poetry.
In the literature of 1850-1860, a whole series of novels appeared, which were called novels about “new people”. What are the criteria for classifying a person as a “new people”? First of all, the emergence of "new people" is due to the political and historical situation of society. They are representatives of a new era, therefore, they have a new perception of time, space, new tasks, new relationships. Hence the prospect of development of these people in the future. So, in literature, “new people” “begin” with Turgenev’s novels Rudin (1856), On the Eve (1859), Fathers and Sons (1862). At the turn of the 30-40s, after the defeat of the Decembrists, fermentation took place in Russian society. One part of him was seized by despair and pessimism, the other by scrupulous activity, expressed in attempts to continue the work of the Decembrists. Soon, social thought takes a more formalized direction - the direction of propaganda. It was this very idea of society that Turgenev expressed in Rudin's type. At first, the novel was called "Brilliant nature." In this case, “genius” means enlightenment, striving for truth (the task of this hero is, indeed, more moral than social), his task is to sow “reasonable, good, eternal”, and he does this with honor, but he lacks nature not strong enough to overcome obstacles. Turgenev also touches upon such a painful issue for Russians as the choice of activity, activity that is fruitful and useful. Yes, each time has its own heroes and tasks. For the society of that time, Rudin's enthusiasts and propagandists were needed. But no matter how severely the descendants may accuse their fathers of “vulgarity and doctrinairism”, the Rudins are people of the moment, of a specific situation, they are rattles. But when a person grows up, there is no need for rattles... The novel “On the Eve” (1859) is somewhat different, it can even be called “intermediate”. This is the time between Rudin and Bazarov (again, a matter of time!). The title of the book speaks for itself. On the eve of ... what? .. Elena Stakhova is at the center of the novel. She is waiting for someone ... someone must fall in love ... Whom? internal state Helena reflects the situation of the time, it covers the whole of Russia. What does Russia need? Why did neither the Shubins nor the Bersenievs, seemingly worthy people, attract her attention? And this happened because they did not have enough active love for the Motherland, complete dedication to her. That is why he attracted Elena Insarov, who is fighting for the liberation of his land from Turkish oppression. Insarov's example is a classic example, a man for all time. After all, there is nothing new in it (for fail-safe service to the Motherland is not at all new!), but it was precisely this well-forgotten old that Russian society lacked ... In 1862, Turgenev's most controversial, sharpest novel, Fathers and Sons, was published. Of course, all three novels are political, dispute novels, dispute novels. But in the novel "Fathers and Sons" this is especially well noticed, for it manifests itself specifically in the "fights" between Bazarov and Kirsanov. “Battles” turn out to be so irreconcilable, because they represent the conflict of two eras - noble and raznochinskaya. The acute political nature of the novel is also shown in a specific social conditioning type of "new man". Evgeny Bazarov is a nihilist, a collective type. Dobrolyubov, Preobrazhensky, and Pisarev were his prototypes. It is also known that nihilism was very fashionable among the youth of the 50s and 60s of the 19th century. Of course, denial is the path to self-destruction. But what caused it, this unconditional denial of all living life, Bazarov gives a very good answer to this: “And then we guessed that talking, just talking about our ulcers is not worth the trouble, that this only leads to vulgarity and doctrinairism; we saw that even our wise men, the so-called progressive people and accusers, are no good, that we are engaged in nonsense ... when it comes to daily bread ... ”So Bazarov was engaged in obtaining“ daily bread ”. It is not for nothing that he does not connect his profession with politics, but becomes a doctor and “messes with people”. In Rudin there was no efficiency, in Bazarov this efficiency appeared. That's why he's head and shoulders above everyone else in the novel. Because he found himself, raised himself, and did not live the life of an empty flower, like Pavel Petrovich, and even more so, he did not “see off day after day”, like Anna Sergeevna. The question of time and space is posed in a new way. Bazarov says: "Let it (time) depend on me." Thus, this stern person turns to such a universal idea: “Everything depends on a person!” The idea of space is shown through the inner liberation of the personality. After all, the freedom of the individual is, first of all, going beyond the framework of one's own “I”, and this can only happen when one gives oneself to something. Bazarov gives himself to the cause, to the Motherland (“Russia needs me ...”), to feeling. He feels huge forces, but he cannot do something the way he wants. That's why he withdraws into himself, becomes bilious, irritated, sullen. While working on this work, Turgenev gave great progress to this image and the novel acquired a philosophical meaning. What was missing from this? iron man"? Lacked not only a general education, Bazarov did not want to come to terms with life, did not want to accept it as it is. He did not recognize in himself human impulses. Here is his tragedy. He crashed against people - this is the tragedy of this image. But it is not for nothing that the novel has such a reconciling end, it is not for nothing that Yevgeny Bazarov's grave is holy. There was something natural and deeply sincere in his actions. This is what comes to Bazarov. The direction of nihilism has not justified itself in history. It formed the basis of socialism ... A novel-continuation, a novel-answer to Turgenev's work became the novel "What to do?" N. G. Chernyshevsky. If Turgenev created collective types generated by social cataclysms, showed their development in this society, then Chernyshevsky not only continued them, but also gave a detailed answer, creating program work"What to do?". If Turgenev did not outline the background of Bazarov, then Chernyshevsky gave full story the lives of their heroes. What distinguishes Chernyshevsky's "new people"? First, they are Democrats-raznochintsy. And they, as you know, represent the period of bourgeois development of society. The nascent class creates its own new, creates a historical foundation, hence new relations, new perception. Theory reasonable selfishness” and was an expression of these historical and moral tasks. Chernyshevsky creates two types of "new people". These are “special” people (Rakhmetov) and “ordinary” people (Vera Pavlovna, Lopukhov, Kirsanov). Thus, the author solves the problem of the reorganization of society. Lopukhov, Kirsanov, Rodalskaya rebuild it with creative, creative, harmonious work, through self-education and self-education. Rakhmetov - "revolutionary", although this path is shown vaguely. That is why the question of time immediately arises. That is why Rakhmetov is a man of the future, and Lopukhov, Kirsanov, Vera Pavlovna are people of the present. The "new people" Chernyshevsky in the first place the inner freedom of the individual. The "new people" create their own ethics, solve moral and psychological issues. Self-analysis (unlike Bazarov) is the main thing that distinguishes them. They believe that the power of the mind will bring up the “good and eternal” in a person. The author views this issue in the formation of the hero from initial forms struggle against family despotism to preparation and "change of scenery". Chernyshevsky argues that a person must be a harmonious personality. So, for example, Vera Pavlovna (the issue of emancipation), being a wife, a mother, has the opportunity of social life, the opportunity to study, and most importantly, she brought up in herself the desire to work. “New people” Chernyshevsky “in a new way” and relate to each other, that is, the author says that these are quite normal relations, but in the conditions of that time they were considered special and new. The heroes of the novel treat each other with respect, delicately, even if they have to step over themselves. They are above their ego. And that "theory of rational egoism", which they created, is only a deep introspection. Their selfishness is public, not personal. Rudin, Bazarov, Lopukhov, Kirsanovs. There were and no. Let each of them have their shortcomings, their theories, which time did not justify. But these people gave themselves to their Motherland, Russia, they cheered for it, they suffered, so they are “new people”.
