1.1.Political democracy……………………………………………………

1.2.Social value of democracy…………………………………………

1.3. The role of democracy in the implementation of personnel policy…………………

1.4. Main advantages and disadvantages of the appointment principle………………

1.5. Election as the only way to form representative bodies and the best way to solve personnel issues………………….

1.6. Basic Principles of Democracy…………………………………………8

2. Varieties of democracy……………………………………………… 9

2.1. People's Democracy…………………………………………………….

2.2. Pluralistic democracy………………………………………….

3.Liberalism…………………………………………………………………..10

3.1. The basic premise of liberalism………………………………….

3.2. Liberalism as historically and logically the first stage in the development of democracy…………………………………………………………………….

3.3. Identification of liberalism with democracy…………………………

3.4. Liberal democracy as a compromise between liberalism and democracy……………………………………………………………………….

4. Forms of democracy…………………………………………………………16

4.1. Representative democracy………………………………………….

4.2. Direct (Direct) Democracy……………………………….

5. Problems of the formation of democracy in Russia…………………………19

5.1. Russia as a country on the way of transition from one political regime to another……………………………………………………………………………

5.2. Democratization as the formation of a democratic way of life of the people…………………………………………………………………………….

5.3. The reason for the long duration and difficulty of the process of transition to integral democracy in Russia……………………………………………….

5.4. Formation of Institutions of Democracy…………………………………...

6.Features of the democratic process in Russia…………………….22

7.Conclusion………………………………………………………………….32

8. References Introduction

The idea of ​​democracy shares the fate of general, abstract ideas that have survived several epochs, each time being filled with new concrete historical content and contradictions. Accordingly, the nature of the philosophical concept of democracy and the tasks it has in mind can only be realized as a result of an analysis of the specific and complex conditions that have given the idea of ​​democracy a new significance and meaning.

The democracy that we want to build in Russia today is a democracy with problems different from those in the West, generated by the history of the country and the desire to renew the social and political system in conditions that are very different from those in which the formation of modern democracy took place in European states. The point here is not the “Eurasianism” of Russia, but 1) the need to rediscover the principles of democracy and liberalism, in accordance with the historical traditions, culture and factors of the modern existence of Russia, and 2) the relevance of combining the experience of political democracy of the “top” with elements of democracy in the experience "bottom".

Modern democracy for modern Russia is, in the future, democracy as a way of life of the people, which should synthesize both political democracy and democracy in the traditions, customs, and mentality of the multi-ethnic, multi-confessional people of Russia. Political democratization must be combined with social democratization, democracy in everyday life, in the way of life of every citizen and social group. And this implies a number of conditions, and above all the moral and material uplift of the masses, the economic, social and legal protection of each citizen from the arbitrariness of officials, from violence and accidents both within the country and in the outside world.

The formation of democracy as a way of life of the people is also based on the socio-political activity of each citizen, on his high spirituality and cultural wealth. In this matter, the peculiarity of our country is such that due to the historical inclusion of Russia since the time of Peter I into the European socio-political and cultural system, the spiritual life in our country over the centuries has been modernized faster than the economic and social conditions of life of its population. Hence a kind of inversion of the interaction of socio-economic and spiritual factors of modernization in comparison with the countries of Western Europe: spiritual maturity " cultural society» In a certain sense, Russia is ahead of the material one. The question of the maturity of Russian society for new European transformations loses its former unambiguity and becomes a question of discovering and establishing a new connection between "being" and "consciousness", their new unity.

The problem of democracy is one of the most urgent for modern society in general, for Russia in particular, for a number of reasons.

First, the historical experience of the second half of the 20th century showed that countries with democratic regimes, as a rule, achieve greater economic success than countries with authoritarian regimes. This is due to the fact that it is democracy that creates the best conditions for the manifestation of initiative, without which effective production is impossible.

Second, democratic governments tend to make fewer mismanagement mistakes, not to mention abuses of power and crimes against the person. In other words, democracy is a kind of defense mechanism society from the usurpation of power. Democracy is not always able to fulfill this protective function. During crises, democratic mechanisms also fail, but in developed countries these are still exceptions to the rule.

Thirdly, for a modern person, democracy is increasingly becoming an independent value. People do not want to be wheels and cogs of any system, even if it is a well-established system, they prefer to solve their problems themselves.

Fourth, the problem of democracy is especially acute in Russia, as the country is going through the beginning of a long and difficult period in the formation of democratic forms of government. The situation is complicated by the very wide distribution in the mass consciousness of the stereotypes of authoritarian-patriarchal culture developed by the history of Russia in the pre-Soviet and Soviet times.

Based on the foregoing, the relevance of the chosen topic is beyond doubt.

The purpose of the work: to give the concept of democracy, to characterize the current problems and prospects for the democratic development of Russia.

In their appearance on the historical arena, the Raznochinsk movement put forward remarkable leaders - the great Russian revolutionary democrats N. G. Chernyshevsky (1828-1889) and N. A. Dobrolyubov (1836-1861), who were able to express with great force and depth aspirations and interests of the working Russian people and had a powerful influence on the entire development of advanced social thought and revolutionary movement. Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov were the successors of the revolutionary-democratic cause of Belinsky, this brilliant predecessor of the raznochintsy democrats. They were also great revolutionary enlighteners. Lenin saw character traits"enlightenment" in hot hostility "to serfdom and all its products in the economic, social and legal field", in the hot defense of "enlightenment, self-government, freedom, European forms of life", finally, in defending "the interests of the masses, mainly peasants ... ". These traits found their most vivid and complete expression in the activities of Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov. They declared a mortal war on the autocratic-feudal regime and all the old way of life connected with it in the name of the good of the many millions of Russian peasants.

The leaders of revolutionary democracy, the active fighters of the revolutionary movement, understood that only the revolutionary force of the insurgent people could break the fetters of the old feudal serf system, which hindered the development of their beloved homeland. Fighting for the victory of the peasant revolution in Russia, N. G. Chernyshevsky and N. A. Dobrolyubov subordinated all their diverse activities to this great goal. They left their works in philosophy, history, political economy, literary criticism and literary criticism; along with this, they were the authors of outstanding poems (Dobrolyubov) and fiction (Chernyshevsky), filled with the passion of the revolutionary struggle and lofty advanced ideas. They posed and theoretically developed precisely those questions in the fields of philosophy, history, political economy, literary criticism and literary criticism, the solution of which theoretically raised the social movement in Russia to a higher level, questions; the solution of which accelerated and facilitated the preparation of the revolution in Russia. At the same time, they were also outstanding revolutionary conspirators and organizers of the revolutionary movement.

Nikolai Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky belonged to the raznochintsy and came from a spiritual milieu (the son of a priest). In Saratov, where he spent his childhood and the first years of his youth, he could widely observe feudal reality, the cruel oppression of the peasantry, the rudeness and ignorance of the bureaucracy, the arbitrariness of the tsarist administration. Studying in the theological seminary aroused in him hatred for the scholastic, dead "science". Chernyshevsky longed to get a university education and devote himself to social activities. He managed to enter St. Petersburg University. Advanced Russian social thought, Belinsky, Herzen and all progressive Russian literature had a strong influence on him. “Gogol and Lermontov seem [to me] inaccessible, great, for whom I am ready to give my life…” wrote student Chernyshevsky. The circle of Petrashevites, with whom the young Chernyshevsky had close ties, also influenced him; together with its participants, Chernyshevsky discussed the issue of the approaching revolution in Russia. Revolutionary events in the West - the revolution of 1848 in France, subsequent revolutionary events in Germany, Austria, Hungary - captured the attention of Chernyshevsky; he studied them deeply, following them day by day. The intervention of Nicholas 1 in revolutionary Hungary aroused Chernyshevsky's passionate protest; he called himself a "friend of the Hungarians" and desired the defeat of the tsarist army. The formation of Chernyshevsky's revolutionary worldview proceeded with amazing speed: already in 1848, as a twenty-year-old student, he wrote in his diary that "more and more" was affirmed "in the rules of the socialists"; being a republican by conviction, at the same time he rightly believes that the point is not at all in the word "republic", but "in delivering the lower class from its slavery not before the law, but before the necessity of things" - the whole point is "so that one class does not suck the blood of another." All power must pass into the hands of the lower classes ("farmers-day laborers"). He matures the conviction of the need for active participation in the revolutionary struggle on the side of the insurgent people. “We will soon have a riot, and if it happens, I will certainly participate in it ... Neither dirt, nor drunken men with oak, nor massacre will frighten me ...” After working for some time in Saratov as a teacher and fearlessly devoting lessons to the propaganda of revolutionary ideas, Chernyshevsky moved to St. Petersburg, where he gave himself literary activity, which provided the greatest opportunities for revolutionary propaganda in the difficult Nikolaev time. In 1855, Chernyshevsky brilliantly defended his dissertation "The Aesthetic Relations of Art to Reality" in an auditorium crowded with enthusiastic listeners, where he developed materialistic views and proved that art is an instrument of social struggle and should serve life. The defense of the dissertation aroused the wrath of the reactionary professors. It was a great social event. Chernyshevsky substantiated the doctrine of materialistic aesthetics. His dissertation had the significance of a theoretical manifesto of the raznochinno-democratic movement. In the future, Chernyshevsky's activities were concentrated in the Sovremennik magazine, the militant organ of revolutionary democracy. Chernyshevsky was a man of deep and comprehensive knowledge, a great scientist and at the same time a wonderful militant publicist, sensitive to the advanced, new, insightful literary critic merciless to the supporters of serfdom. He was a flamboyant and extremely idiosyncratic fiction writer: his novel What Is To Be Done? (1863) had a tremendous impact on his contemporaries. Chernyshevsky was a man of steel will, a courageous revolutionary, the inspirer of the most important revolutionary undertakings of his time. But above all, Chernyshevsky is a fiery democratic revolutionary, and each of the aspects of his many-sided activity served a single goal - the preparation of a revolution in Russia, the creation of a revolutionary theory.

To prepare for the revolution, it was important to crush the positions of idealism, which hindered the revolutionary education of revolutionary cadres, and Chernyshevsky made an enormous contribution to the cause of materialist philosophy.

Chernyshevsky's activity as a philosopher represents an important stage in the development of Russian materialistic philosophy. He went forward along the path that had been blazed in Russian classical philosophy in the 1940s by Belinsky and Herzen. Chernyshevsky took into account, critically reworking them, the best achievements of Western European philosophical thought of the pre-Marx period and moved on; he highly valued the materialistic philosophy of Ludwig Feuerbach, but he himself went further than him. True, Chernyshevsky “could not, due to the backwardness of Russian life, rise to the dialectical materialism of Marx and Engels,” however, without rising to dialectical materialism, he nevertheless, unlike Feuerbach, invariably emphasized the importance of the dialectical method. On the other hand, the great democratic revolutionary strongly condemned Hegel for the narrowness and conservative nature of his conclusions. Chernyshevsky enthusiastically promoted dialectics and made extensive use of it in his own writings ( great attention deserves, for example, his dialectical argumentation in the work "Critique of Philosophical Prejudices Against Communal Ownership"). Chernyshevsky, like the founders of scientific socialism, remained alien to "religious and ethical layers" in Feuerbach's views. The contemplative character of Feuerbach's materialism was alien to him. Chernyshevsky's philosophy was profoundly effective; all his philosophical creativity, his philosophical propaganda were in the most organic interaction with revolutionary aspirations, reinforced, supported and substantiated the latter.

Until the end of his days, Chernyshevsky remained unshakably faithful to the philosophical principles developed by him in the heyday of his activity. In defense of materialism and a specially materialistic theory of knowledge, he again appeared in print in the 80s, after his return from a long-term exile. Lenin wrote on this occasion: “Chernyshevsky is the only truly great Russian writer who, from the 1950s until 1988, managed to remain at the level of integral philosophical materialism and to reject the pitiful nonsense of the neo-Kantians, positivists, Machists and other muddleheads.”

A consistent materialist in his general philosophical views, Chernyshevsky still remained largely under the influence of idealistic views on the socio-historical process. But his thought developed in the direction of a materialistic understanding of history. Chernyshevsky many times expressed deep materialistic conjectures in explaining historical phenomena. He succeeded with great acuteness and force in revealing the mechanics of class relations and the class struggle. From materialistic tendencies sociological views Chernyshevsky followed from his solution of one of the fundamental questions of the science of society, the question of the role of the masses in history. “No matter how one argues, only those aspirations are strong, only those institutions are durable that are supported by the masses of the people,” this is the main conclusion, which, being constantly reinforced concrete examples in Chernyshevsky's articles, he armed the raznochintsy movement in the struggle to prepare for the revolution.

Criticism of bourgeois political economy was extremely important in the course of the revolutionary struggle, as it showed the need to abolish the exploitation of the masses and exposed the apologists for the bourgeois mode of production. Therefore, Chernyshevsky's activity as a scientist-economist was of great importance. In additions and notes to Mill's Foundations of Political Economy (1860-1861), in the article Capital and Labor (1860), and in other works, Chernyshevsky built his political and economic "theory of the working people." Marx, noting the utopian nature of many of Chernyshevsky's propositions, at the same time saw in him the only truly original thinker among contemporary European economists. He spoke of Chernyshevsky as a "great Russian scientist and critic" who masterfully brought to light the bankruptcy of bourgeois political economy. Lenin also pointed out that Chernyshevsky "was a remarkably profound critic of capitalism in spite of his utopian socialism."

The utopian side of Chernyshevsky's views consisted primarily in his assessment of the Russian rural community. He, like Herzen and later the Narodniks, erroneously considered it a means to prevent the proletarianization of the peasantry, a bridge for Russia's transition to socialism. Chernyshevsky, however, was alien to such an idealization of the community, which is characteristic of Herzen. Chernyshevsky emphasized that the community does not constitute a “special innate feature” of Russia and is a remnant of antiquity that does not have to be “proud”, because he only speaks of “slowness and lethargy” historical development».

Chernyshevsky attached significant importance to the preservation of the community only on the condition that the peasants were adequately allocated land and that they were actually freed from all fetters of serfdom. He tirelessly and passionately defended the people's right to land and true freedom. This is precisely what constitutes a particularly important feature of his propaganda on the peasant question. Expecting nothing from the noble committees and government commissions preparing the reform, he placed all his hopes on the revolutionary initiative of the masses. “Chernyshevsky,” writes Lenin, “was a utopian socialist who dreamed of the transition to socialism through the old, semi-feudal, peasant community… But Chernyshevsky was not only a utopian socialist. He was also a revolutionary democrat, he knew how to influence all the political events of his era in a revolutionary spirit, passing - through the obstacles and slingshots of censorship - the idea of ​​​​a peasant revolution, the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthe struggle of the masses to overthrow all the old authorities.

Chernyshevsky's orientation toward the people as an active figure in history, who himself must liberate himself from economic and political oppression, Chernyshevsky's conviction that peaceful ways to the liberation of the working people are impossible, his stake on revolution speak of his superiority over the majority of Western utopians with their hopes for good will. the propertied classes and governments. Even in his student years, Chernyshevsky wrote: “I know that without convulsions there is never a single step forward in history. It is foolish to think that mankind can go straight and level when it has never been before.” Such was Chernyshevsky's view of the move human history in general, this was his view on the path of development of his homeland. Of all the utopian socialists, Chernyshevsky came closest to scientific socialism.

Love for the Russian people and native Russian land inspired Chernyshevsky in all his activities. “The historical significance of every great Russian man,” wrote Chernyshevsky, “is measured by his merits to his homeland, his human dignity- by the strength of his patriotism. Chernyshevsky owns the words: To contribute not to the transient, but to the eternal glory of one's fatherland and the good of mankind - what can be higher and more desirable than this? Chernyshevsky understood patriotism in its true and sublime meaning and content, completely identifying service to the motherland with selfless service to its working people, linking the effective struggle for the victory of the new in one's own fatherland with a living striving for the good of all working people.

Chernyshevsky spoke with indignation about those renegades who renounce their native word, despise their native culture and literature. Proud of the achievements of Russian thought, he pointed out that the progressive people of Russia go "along with the thinkers of Europe, and not in the retinue of their students," that representatives of "our mental movement" do not submit to "any foreign authority." The most honorable place in the construction of national Russian culture belongs to Chernyshevsky himself. Not without reason Lenin, speaking of democratic, advanced Russian culture, characterized it by the names of Chernyshevsky and Plekhanov.

Chernyshevsky naturally and necessarily intertwined love for his homeland, for his people, with hatred for their enemies. He hated serfdom and autocracy, which blocked the Russian people's road to freedom and progress.

Chernyshevsky did not separate the question of the abolition of serfdom from the question of the abolition of the autocratic system. “Everything is nonsense in the face of the general character of the national system,” Chernyshevsky wrote, referring to the serf system and tsarism that headed it.

Carefully studying the political reality of both Russia and Western Europe, Chernyshevsky showed a deep interest in the problem of the state. He saw that the "state policy" of his contemporary era was in fact an expression of the interests of the ruling classes.

Chernyshevsky regarded the absolutist autocratic state as an organ of domination by the nobility. He considered the "representative" form of government of the states of the capitalist countries of the West as an organ of the rule of a new privileged class - the bourgeoisie. Chernyshevsky pointed out that the takhkhoy state provides the people with only formal “freedom” and formal “right”, without providing material opportunities for the use of this freedom and this right. Therefore, Chernyshevsky, although he preferred the political structure of bourgeois European states over the autocracy that dominated Russia, however, being a defender of the interests of the working people, he criticized and denounced not only absolutist, but also bourgeois parliamentary forms state structure, desiring to win, through revolutionary struggle, a system where the "political power", "education" and "material well-being" of the masses would be realized in an inseparable combination. The peasant revolution in Russia, the overthrow of the autocracy, the transfer of the land to the people, the strengthening and improvement of the community, according to Chernyshevsky, should have opened the way to achieving this ideal in his homeland. In a more distant perspective, after a person "completely subjugates external nature", "remakes everything on earth in accordance with his needs", after the elimination of "the disproportion between human needs and the means of satisfying them", Chernyshevsky conceived the disappearance of coercive laws in society, the disappearance states.

In the midst of a revolutionary situation, Chernyshevsky launched an agitation for a revolutionary solution to the peasant question. He strove to enlist in the active support of the cause of the people all those social elements capable of standing on the ground of the struggle for the interests of the masses. At the same time, he tirelessly exposed the cowardice and self-interest of the liberals, who betrayed the interests of the people, sought collusion, deals with tsarism, and sowed harmful monarchist illusions among the intelligentsia. The campaign which Chernyshevsky carried out daily against liberalism was a very important element in his struggle for the ideological preparation of the revolution.

All aspects of Chernyshevsky's multifaceted activities were reflected in his legal articles in Sovremennik, both on the eve of the reform and after it. But Chernyshevsky was not limited to legal journalistic activities. He attached great importance to secret work and the creation of a revolutionary organization, he was going to use a secret printing press to directly address the revolutionary appeal to the broad peasant masses. This is confirmed by the actions of Chernyshevek during 1861 and 1862, up to the day of his arrest by the tsarist government. The great writer-thinker was organically combined in Chernyshevsky with a fearless revolutionary leader.

Liberal-bourgeois historiography tried with all its might to present Chernyshevsky as a person who was very far from the revolution, a compromiser of the liberal type (Denisyuk and others). This gross falsification of the image of the great revolutionary was based on an obvious juggling of facts, distorted the true knowledge of Chernyshevsky in its class goals. The first serious research work about Chernyshevsky was the great work of G. V. Plekhanov “N. G. Chernyshevsky”, dedicated to the analysis of his ideology. But the revolutionary-democratic essence of Chernyshevsky's outlook and activity, his unshakable devotion to the idea of ​​a peasant revolution, is obscured in this work. Giving a largely correct coverage of the general theoretical views of Chernyshevsky, Plekhanov, as Lenin pointed out, “because of the theoretical difference between the idealist] and materialist] views on history ... overlooked

Practically to the political and class difference between the liberal and the democrat! Complete misunderstanding of reality political sense Chernyshevsky's activity was also discovered by M.N. Pokrovsky when he called him "the founder of Menshevik tactics", who allegedly urged to remain calm and gradually, "slowly and gently", relying on "educated classes", to seek concessions from the tsar. This false assessment distorted the image of a brilliant writer, one of the best representatives of the Russian people, who devoted all his strength to the preparation of a democratic revolution. Later, other erroneous concepts were put forward in historiography, for example, the incorrect opinion was expressed that Chernyshevsky was allegedly the founder of Marxism in Russia; the general appearance of Chernyshevsky was drawn as the appearance of a Bolshevik. The great revolutionary democrat needs no embellishment of this kind; such conceptions are ahistorical and devoid of scientific foundation.

A comrade and associate, a student and like-minded person of Chernyshevsky, the great revolutionary democrat Dobrolyubov entered literature three years later than him (Chernyshevsky's first works were published in 1853, Dobrolyubov's in 1856). WITH youthful years Dobrolyubov was absorbed in the thought of the great future of Russia, for which he sought to "work tirelessly, disinterestedly and fervently." The ardent patriot Dobrolyubov wrote that “in a decent person, patriotism is nothing more than a desire to work for the benefit of one’s country, and comes from nothing else but the desire to do good, as much as possible more and as much as possible better.”

future greatness home country Dobrolyubov associated with the revolution, democracy and socialism. While still a student, Dobrolyubov published in 1855 the underground handwritten newspaper Rumors, where he expressed the conviction that “it is necessary to break the rotten building of the current administration”, and for this it is necessary to act on the “lower class of the people”, “open his eyes to the present state of affairs ", to excite his dormant forces, to instill in him the concept of the dignity of man, of "true good and evil." Dobrolyubov remained invariably faithful to this view throughout his short, but unusually bright and fruitful activity as a democratic revolutionary, publicist, philosopher, critic, head of the critical department in the Sovremennik magazine.

Dobrolyubov, like Chernyshevsky, hated serfdom and autocracy with all his heart, was an enemy of the oppressors of the working people, a supporter of socialism. He proclaimed the struggle for "man and his happiness" as the guiding principle of his activity. Recognizing, together with Chernyshevsky, the superiority of the socio-political structure of the more advanced capitalist countries over the autocracy, Dobrolyubov, like him, was alien to any idealization of the bourgeois order. He pointed to the discontent brewing in the West in the "working classes", and emphasized that "the proletarian understands his position much better than many fine-hearted scientists who rely on the generosity of older brothers in relation to the smaller." Thus, Dobrolyubov, although not freed from the influence of utopian socialism, did not believe in the possibility of inducing the ruling classes to voluntarily go towards the working masses. He expected the solution of the "social question" both in the West and in Russia from the awakening of consciousness and activity in the struggle of the masses themselves. “Modern confusion cannot be resolved otherwise than by the original influence of people's life,” he wrote at the beginning of 1860. By such “influence” he meant a popular uprising, a peasant revolution in Russia.

Dobrolyubov was an implacable opponent of the liberals, he sharply exposed them for their inability to engage in a serious public cause, for supporting the tsarist government, and revealed the extreme narrowness and limitations of their reformist plans. Dobrolyubov opposed the people to the liberal society with its "ringing phrases", scanty, "almost obscene" claims for reforms. “Among the masses of our people,” he said, “there is efficiency, seriousness, there is a capacity for sacrifice ... The masses of the people do not know how to speak eloquently. Their word is never idle; it is said by them as a call to action.” Exposing the liberal manilovs, people of phrase, supporters of a compromise with the monarchy and serfdom at the expense of the people, Dobrolyubov put forward his positive ideal, the ideal of a revolutionary who knows no discord between word and deed, embraced by one idea of ​​​​struggle for the happiness of the people, ready "or to bring triumph to this idea, or die."

In all his articles, written even on purely literary topics, Dobrolyubov acted as an ardent and courageous political fighter. He knew how to use them to denounce the feudal system and propagate his revolutionary democratic views. His famous articles “Dark Kingdom”, “What is Oblomovism?”, “When will the real day come?” - examples of brilliant literary critical analysis and, at the same time, remarkable works of revolutionary journalism.

Dobrolyubov is a writer who "passionately hated arbitrariness and passionately awaited a popular uprising against the "internal Turks" - against the autocratic government."

Chernyshevsky called Dobrolyubov the best defender of the interests of the Russian people.

Dobrolyubov, like Chernyshevsky, was highly valued by Marx and Engels. Marx put Dobrolyubov on a par with Lessing and Diderot, Engels called Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov "two socialist Lessings."

Scientists-fighters, scientists-revolutionaries who rallied around themselves like-minded people who worked in the name of the great task of preparing the revolution - this is who N. G. Chernyshevsky and N. A. Dobrolyubov first of all appear before us.

The activities of the revolutionary democrats had an enormous historical meaning- they were the direct forerunners of social democracy in Russia. They sought to develop a revolutionary theory. V. I. Lenin emphasized that Russia suffered Marxism at the cost of half a century passionate search revolutionary theory. In these searches revolutionary democrats were the forerunners of Russian social democracy.

The revolutionary democrats considered the people the creator of history, the main driving force historical development. They were the first to turn with a revolutionary sermon to the people, and such an appeal does not disappear, even if whole decades separate the sowing from the harvest.

The revolutionary democrats gave a merciless criticism of tsarism, serfdom and liberalism, which retained its significance for long years. In this, too, they were the forerunners of social democracy, in contrast to the Narodniks, who themselves slipped into liberalism.

Entire generations of revolutionaries were brought up on the works of revolutionary democrats. V. I. Lenin emphasized that his revolutionary outlook was formed under the influence of these works.

The ideological legacy of the revolutionary democrats was of tremendous importance for the education of subsequent generations of revolutionaries in other countries as well. Thus, G. Dimitrov said that Chernyshevsky's novel "What Is to Be Done?" played an enormous role in shaping his revolutionary views. Rakhmetov was for him a model of a revolutionary.

The revolutionary democrats were also the forerunners of the Social Democracy in deeply patriotic, selfless service to their people, in the struggle for their revolutionary liberation.

The Sovremennik magazine is the ideological center of revolutionary democracy. The ideological center of revolutionary democracy was the Sovremennik magazine, the best and most popular magazine of the era. The editor of the magazine was the great poet of Russian revolutionary democracy - N. A. Nekrasov, an active participant in the revolutionary struggle of those years.

The revolutionary democrats, headed by Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov, made the journal a propaganda organ for revolutionary democratic ideas. "Sovremennik" at the time of the leadership of Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov played an absolutely exceptional role in the life of advanced Russian society, especially the young people of Raznochinsk. He enjoyed, according to the true testimony of N. Mikhailovsky, such a prestige, "which had not been equal before in the entire history of Russian journalism."

"The mighty sermon of Chernyshevsky, who knew how to educate real revolutionaries with censored articles," sounded from the pages of Sovremennik.

Realizing all the narrowness, all the squalor and the feudal nature of the peasant reform being prepared, the editors of Sovremennik, headed by Chernyshevsky, tirelessly exposed the tsarist reform and defended the interests of the oppressed peasantry.

At the same time, Chernyshevsky deeply understood the class nature of liberalism and mercilessly exposed in the pages of Sovremennik the line of betrayals of liberalism.

A group of like-minded people close-knit around Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov, consisting of M. L. Mikhailov, N. V. Shelgunov, N. A. Serno-Solovyevich, V. A. Obruchev, M. A. Antonovich, G. Z. Eliseev, and others. in her articles published in Sovremennik, she also promoted the idea of ​​preparing a peasant revolution, developed serious theoretical questions, and covered lively, topical topics put forward by Russian life.

Sovremennik, as the ideological center of revolutionary democracy, played an enormous role in the organizational rallying of the revolutionary forces. It was from this ideological center that the threads stretched to other leading journals, to circles of "Chernyshevites" in the student and military environment, to underground organizations youth, to the "Bell" of Herzen and Ogaryov. It was precisely around Sovremennik that the galaxy of associates of Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov gathered, which was the core of the “party” of revolutionaries of 1861 that was being created in the era of the revolutionary situation.

Many Russian writers of the 19th century felt that Russia was placed before an abyss and was flying into the abyss.

ON THE. Berdyaev

Since the middle of the 19th century, Russian literature has become not only the number one art, but also the ruler of political ideas. In the absence of political freedoms, public opinion is formed by writers, and social themes predominate in the works. Sociality and publicity - distinctive features literature of the second half of the 19th century. It was in the middle of the century that two painful Russian questions were posed: "Who is guilty?" (title of a novel by Alexander Ivanovich Herzen, 1847) and "What to do?" (title of the novel by Nikolai Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky, 1863).

Russian literature refers to the analysis of social phenomena, so the action of most works is modern, that is, it takes place at the time when the work is being created. The life of the characters is depicted in the context of a broader social picture. Simply put, the heroes "fit" into the era, their characters and behavior are motivated by the peculiarities of the socio-historical atmosphere. That is why the leading literary direction and method the second half of the 19th century becomes critical realism, and leading genres- romance and drama. At the same time, in contrast to the first half of the century, prose prevailed in Russian literature, and poetry faded into the background.

The severity of social problems was also associated with the fact that in Russian society in the 1840s-1860s. there was a polarization of opinions regarding the future of Russia, which was expressed in the emergence of Slavophilism and Westernism.

Slavophiles (the most famous among them are Alexei Khomyakov, Ivan Kireevsky, Yuri Samarin, Konstantin and Ivan Aksakov) believed that Russia had its own, special path of development, destined for it by Orthodoxy. They resolutely opposed the Western model of political development in order to avoid the dehumanization of man and society. The Slavophiles demanded the abolition of serfdom, wished for general enlightenment and the liberation of the Russian people from state power. They saw the ideal in pre-Petrine Rus', where the fundamental principle of people's existence was Orthodoxy and catholicity (the term was introduced by A. Khomyakov as a designation of unity in Orthodox faith). The tribune of the Slavophiles was the literary magazine Moskvityanin.

Westerners (Pyotr Chaadaev, Alexander Herzen, Nikolai Ogaryov, Ivan Turgenev, Vissarion Belinsky, Nikolai Dobrolyubov, Vasily Botkin, Timofey Granovsky, and the anarchist theorist Mikhail Bakunin adjoined them) were sure that Russia should follow the same path in its development, like the countries of Western Europe. Westernism was not a single direction and was divided into liberal and revolutionary-democratic currents. Like the Slavophiles, the Westerners advocated the immediate abolition of serfdom, considering this as the main condition for the Europeanization of Russia, they demanded freedom of the press and the development of industry. In the field of literature, realism was supported, the founder of which was considered N.V. Gogol. The tribune of the Westerners was the journals Sovremennik and Otechestvennye Zapiski during the period of their editing by N.A. Nekrasov.

Slavophiles and Westernizers were not enemies, they only looked differently at the future of Russia. According to N.A. Berdyaev, the first saw a mother in Russia, the second - a child. For clarity, we offer a table compiled according to Wikipedia, where the positions of the Slavophiles and Westerners are compared.

They tried to overcome the polarity of opinions of Slavophiles and Westerners soil workers . This movement originated in the 1860s. in the circle of the intelligentsia, close to the magazine "Time" / "Epokha". The ideologists of pochvennichestvo were Fyodor Dostoevsky, Apollon Grigoriev, Nikolai Strakhov. The Pochvenniki rejected both the autocratic serf system and Western bourgeois democracy. Dostoevsky believed that representatives of the "enlightened society" should merge with the "people's soil", which would allow the tops and bottoms of Russian society to mutually enrich each other. In the Russian character, the Pochvenniks emphasized the religious and moral principle. They were negative about materialism and the idea of ​​revolution. Progress, in their opinion, is the union of the educated classes with the people. The soil people saw the personification of the ideal of the Russian spirit in A.S. Pushkin. Many ideas of Westerners were considered utopian.

Since the middle of the 19th century, the question of the nature and purpose of fiction has become a subject of controversy. In Russian criticism, there are three views on this issue.

Alexander Vasilievich Druzhinin

Representatives "aesthetic criticism" (Alexander Druzhinin, Pavel Annenkov, Vasily Botkin) put forward the theory " pure art", the essence of which is that literature should refer only to eternal themes and not depend on political goals, on social conjuncture.

Apollon Alexandrovich Grigoriev

Apollon Grigoriev formulated the theory "organic criticism" , advocating the creation of works that would cover life in its entirety, integrity. At the same time, the emphasis in the literature is proposed to be done on moral values.

Nikolai Alexandrovich Dobrolyubov

Principles "real criticism" were proclaimed by Nikolai Chernyshevsky and Nikolai Dobrolyubov. They viewed literature as a force capable of transforming the world and contributing to knowledge. Literature, in their opinion, should promote the dissemination of progressive political ideas, pose and solve primarily social problems.

Poetry also developed along different, diametrically opposed paths. The pathos of citizenship united the poets of the "Nekrasov school": Nikolai Nekrasov, Nikolai Ogaryov, Ivan Nikitin, Mikhail Mikhailov, Ivan Golts-Miller, Alexei Pleshcheev. Supporters of "pure art": Afanasy Fet, Apollo Maykov, Lev Mei, Yakov Polonsky, Alexei Konstantinovich Tolstoy - wrote poems mainly about love and nature.

Socio-political and literary-aesthetic disputes significantly influenced the development of the national journalism. Literary magazines played a huge role in shaping public opinion.

Cover of the Sovremennik magazine, 1847

Earlier, in the chapter devoted to the fictitious name of a literary hero, I have already touched upon the democratic literature of the seventeenth century. For a long time, in its main part, it did not attract much attention, it was then discovered by careful research and publications by V.P. Adrianov-Peretz *(( I will only mention the main works of V.P. Adrianov-Peretz: Essays on the history of Russian satirical literature XVII century. M.; L., 1937; Russian democratic satire of the 17th century; 2nd ed., add. M., 1977.)) and immediately took its rightful place in the historical and literary studies of Soviet literary critics.

This democratic literature includes "The Tale of Yersh Ershovich", "The Tale of Shemyakina Court", "The ABC of the Naked and Poor Man", "Message to the noble enemy", "The Tale of Luxurious Life and Joy", "The Tale of Thomas and Yerema" , “Service to a tavern”, “Kalyazinskaya petition”, “The Tale of Priest Savva”, “The Tale of the Hen and the Fox”, “The Tale of the Hawk Moth”, “The Tale of peasant son”, “The Tale of Karp Sutulov”, “Healer for Foreigners”, “Painting about Dowry”, “The Word about Jealous Men”, “A Poem about the Life of the Patriarchal Choirs” and, finally, such a significant work as “The Tale of Mount Misfortune” . In part, the autobiography of Archpriest Avvakum and the autobiography of Epiphanius adjoin the same circle.

This literature is spreading among the common people: among artisans, small merchants, the lower clergy, it penetrates into the peasant environment, etc. It opposes the official literature, the literature of the ruling class, partly continuing the old traditions.

Democratic literature is in opposition to the feudal class; this is literature that emphasizes the injustice that prevails in the world, reflecting dissatisfaction with reality, social orders. The union with the environment, so characteristic of the personality of the previous time, is destroyed in it. Dissatisfaction with one's fate, one's position, others - this is a feature of the new, not known to previous periods. Connected with this is the striving for satire and parody that prevails in democratic literature. It is these satirical and parodic genres that become the main ones in the democratic literature of the 17th century.

For democratic literature of the 17th century. the conflict of the individual with the environment is characteristic, the complaints of this individual about his lot, the challenge to social order, sometimes self-doubt, prayer, fear, fear of the world, a sense of his own defenselessness, faith in fate, in fate, the theme of death, suicide and the first attempts confront your fate, correct injustice.

In the democratic literature of the XVII century. a special style of portraying a person develops: a style that is sharply reduced, deliberately everyday, asserting the right of every person to public sympathy.

The conflict with the environment, with the rich and noble, with their "pure" literature demanded an accentuated simplicity, lack of literariness, deliberate vulgarity. The stylistic "arrangement" of the image of reality is destroyed by numerous parodies. Everything is parodied - up to church services. Democratic literature strives for the complete exposure and exposure of all the ulcers of reality. Rudeness helps her in this - rudeness in everything: the rudeness of the new literary language, half colloquial, half taken from business writing, the rudeness of the depicted life, the rudeness of eroticism, the corrosive irony in relation to everything in the world, including oneself. On this basis, a new stylistic unity is being created, a unity that at first glance seems to be a lack of unity.

The person depicted in the works of democratic literature does not occupy any official position, or his position is very low and "trivial". This is just a suffering person, suffering from hunger, cold, from social injustice, from the fact that he has nowhere to lay his head. At the same time, the new hero is surrounded by the ardent sympathy of the author and readers. His position is the same as that of any of his readers. He does not rise above the readers either by his official position or by any role in historical events, nor its moral high ground. He is deprived of everything that distinguished and exalted the actors in the previous literary development. This man is by no means idealized. Against!

If in all previous medieval styles of depicting a person, this latter was certainly somehow higher than his readers, was to a certain extent an abstract character, hovering in some kind of his own, special space, where the reader, in essence, did not penetrate, now the character appears quite equal to him, and sometimes even humiliated, demanding not admiration, but pity and indulgence.

This new character is devoid of any pose, any kind of halo. This is a simplification of the hero, taken to the limits of the possible: he is naked, if he is dressed, then in “ gunka tavern» *{{ The Tale of Mount Misfortune. Ed. prepared D. S. Likhachev and E. I. Vaneeva. L., 1984. S. 8.)) V " fired ferizas» with bast strings *(( “The ABC of a Naked and Poor Man”: Adrianov-Peretz V.P. Russian democratic satire of the 17th century. S. 31.}}.

He is hungry, he has nothing to eat, and no one gives", no one invites him to his place. He is not recognized by his family and is expelled from his friends. He is depicted in the most unattractive positions. Even complaints about disgusting diseases, about a dirty toilet * (( Likhachev D.S. Poem about the life of the patriarchal choristers. // TODRL. T. XIV. 1958, p. 425.)), reported in the first person, do not confuse the author. This is a simplification of the hero, taken to the limits of the possible. Naturalistic details make this person completely fallen, " low”, almost ugly. A person wanders somewhere on the earth - such as it is, without any embellishment. But it is remarkable that it is precisely in this way of depicting a person that the consciousness of the value of the human person in itself most of all comes out: naked, hungry, barefoot, sinful, without any hope for the future, without any signs of any position in society.

Take a look at a person - as if inviting the authors of these works. Look how hard it is for him on this earth! He is lost among the poverty of some and the wealth of others. Today he is rich, tomorrow he is poor; today he made his money, tomorrow he lived. He's wandering between the yard”, eats alms from time to time, wallowed in drunkenness, plays dice. He is powerless to overcome himself, to go out on " saved way". And yet he deserves sympathy.

Particularly striking is the image of the unknown young man in The Tale of Mount Misfortune. Here, the sympathy of readers is enjoyed by a person who has violated the worldly morality of society, deprived of parental blessings, weak-willed, acutely aware of his fall, mired in drunkenness and gambling, who has made friends with tavern roosters and bonfires, wandering who knows where, contemplating suicide.

The human personality was emancipated in Russia not in the clothes of conquistadors and wealthy adventurers, not in the pompous confessions of the artistic gift of Renaissance artists, but in “ gunka tavern”, at the last step of the fall, in search of death as liberation from all suffering. And this was a great harbinger of the humanistic character of Russian literature XIX V. with her theme of the value of a small person, with her sympathy for everyone who suffers and who has not found his true place in life.

The new hero often appears in literature on his own behalf. Many of the works of this time are in the nature of " internal monologue". And in these speeches to his readers, the new hero is often ironic - he seems to be above his suffering, looks at them from the side and with a grin. At the lowest stage of his fall, he retains a sense of his right to a better position: And I want to live, like good people live»; « My mind was firm, but dashing in my heart I have a lot of every thought»; « I live, a kind and glorious man, but I have nothing to eat and no one gives»; « I would have washed Belenko, dressed up well, but nothing».

And some are now persecuting the burden-bearers.
God grants honor to Ovom, they redeem the barn,
Ovii laboring, Ovii entering into their labor.
Ovi jump, Ovi cry.
Ini having fun, ini always tearing up.
Why write a lot that they don’t like anyone from the poor.
It is better to love whom money beats.
What to take from the wretched - order him to shackle
*{{ABC about a naked and poor man. S. 30.}}.

It is remarkable that in the works of democratic literature of the 17th century. there is a teaching voice, but it is not the voice of a self-confident preacher, as in the works of the previous time. This is the voice of the author offended by life or the voice of life itself. Actors perceive the lessons of reality, under their influence they change and make decisions. This was not only an extremely important psychological discovery, but also a literary and plot discovery. The conflict with reality, the impact of reality on the hero made it possible to build a narrative differently than it had been built before. The hero made decisions not under the influence of the influx of Christian feelings or the prescriptions and norms of feudal behavior, but as a result of the blows of life, the blows of fate.

In The Tale of Mount Misfortune, this influence of the surrounding world was personified in the form of friends-advisers and in the form of unusual bright image Woe. At first, well done in "The Tale of Mount Misfortune" and " small and stupid, not in full mind and imperfect in mind". He doesn't listen to his parents. But then he listens, although not completely, to his random friends, asking them for advice himself. Finally, Grief itself appears. The advice of Grief is unkind: it is the embodiment of pessimism engendered by bad reality.

Originally Woe" dreamed"Well done in a dream to disturb him with terrible suspicions:

Refuse you, well done, to your beloved bride -
be spoiled for you by the bride,
you still have to be strangled by that wife,
from gold and silver to be killed!

Grief advises the young man to go to the king's tavern", drink your wealth, put on yourself" gunka tavern"- For the naked, Grief is not a chaser, but no one will bind to the naked.

The good fellow did not believe his dream, and Woe appears to him for the second time in a dream:

Ali you, well done, unknown
nakedness and barefoot immeasurable,
lightness, great bezprotoritsa?
What to buy for yourself, then it will break through,
and you, well done, and so you live.
Yes, they don’t beat, don’t torture the naked, barefoot,
and naked barefoot will not be kicked out of paradise,
and with that the world will not come out here,
no one will be attached to him
and barefoot to make noise with a row.

With amazing force unfolds the story of the picture emotional drama well done, gradually increasing, accelerating at a pace, acquiring fantastic forms.

Born of nightmares, Grief soon appears to the young man and in reality, at the moment when the young man, driven to despair by poverty and hunger, tries to drown himself in the river. It requires the young man to bow to himself before " damp earth And from that moment on, he relentlessly follows the young man. Well done wants to return to his parents, but Woe " went ahead, met a young man on an open field', croaks over him, ' that an evil crow over a falcon»:

You stand, did not leave, good fellow!
Not for an hour, I am attached to you, ill-fated grief,
I'll torment myself with you until death.
I am not alone, Woe, still relatives,
and all our relatives are kind;
we are all smooth, sweet,
and who will join us in the seed,
otherwise he will be tormented between us,
such is our fate and lutchaya.
Although I throw myself at the birds of the air,
although you will go into the blue sea as a fish,
and I will go with you arm in arm under the right.

It is clear that the author of "The Tale of Woe of Misfortune" is not on the side of these "lessons of life", not on the side of Grief with his distrust of people and deep pessimism. In the dramatic conflict between the young man and Grief, who embodies evil reality, the author of The Tale is on the side of the young man. He deeply sympathizes with him.

Such a separation of the author's point of view from the moralizing presented in the work, the justification of a person who, from the church point of view, could not but be considered a "sinner", was a remarkable phenomenon in the literature of the 17th century. It meant the death of the medieval normative ideal and the gradual exit of literature onto a new path of inductive artistic generalization - a generalization based on reality, and not on a normative ideal.

In close connection with general trends justification of the human person, so characteristic of democratic literature, is found in all of Avvakum's work. The only difference is that in the work of Avvakum this justification of the individual is felt with greater force and carried out with incomparable subtlety.

The justification of man is combined in the work of Avvakum, as in all democratic literature, with the simplification art form, the desire for vernacular, the rejection of traditional ways of idealizing a person.

The value of feeling, immediacy, inner, mental life of man was proclaimed by Habakkuk with exceptional passion. Sympathy or anger, scolding or affection - everything is in a hurry to pour out from under his pen. " Strike the soul before god» *{{ Hereinafter quoted from the publication: The Life of Archpriest Avvakum, written by himself // Monuments of the history of the Old Believers of the 17th century. Book. I. Pg., 1916 (italics mine.- D. L.). )) - that's the only thing he aspires to. No compositional harmony, no shadow " convolutions of words"in the depiction of a person, nor the usual in ancient Russian educational literature" red verbs"- nothing that would hamper his excessively hot feeling in everything that concerns a person and his inner life. Church rhetoric, which is not uncommon in the work of Avvakum, did not touch the image of a person. None of the writers of the Russian Middle Ages wrote as much about his feelings as Avvakum. He grieves, mourns, cries, is afraid, regrets, marvels, etc. In his speech, there are constant remarks about the moods he is experiencing: “ oh, woe to me!», « much sad», « I'm sorry..."And he himself, and those about whom he writes, now and then sigh and cry:" ... pretty little ones cry, looking at us, and we at them»; « smart person look, but it’s less to cry, looking at them»; « weepingly rushed to my karbas»; « and everyone cries and bows". Avvakum notes in detail all the external manifestations of feelings: “ my heart was cold and my legs were trembling". He also describes bows, gestures, and prayers in detail: beats himself and groans, but he himself says»; « and he, bowing low to me, and he himself says: "God save"».

He seeks to arouse the sympathy of readers, complains about his sufferings and sorrows, asks for forgiveness for his sins, describes all his weaknesses, including the most everyday ones.

One must not think that this justification of man concerns only Habakkuk himself. Even enemies, even his personal tormentors, are portrayed by him with sympathy for their human suffering. Just read the wonderful picture of the suffering of Avvakum on Sparrow Hills: “ Then the tsar sent a half-head with archers, and they took me to the Sparrow Hills; right there - the priest Lazarus and the elder Epiphanius, cursed and shorn, as I was before. They put us in different yards; relentlessly 20 people of archers, yes half a head, and a centurion stood over us - they took care, complained, and at night they sat with a fire, and escorted them to the yard. Have mercy on them Christ! straight good archers those people and children will not be tormented there, with fiddling with us; the need is what happens, and it’s different, cute, happy... Onet the goryuny drink until drunk, but swearing swearing, otherwise they would be equal with the martyrs ». « The devil is dashing before me, and people are all good before me,” Avvakum says elsewhere.

Sympathy for one's tormentors was completely incompatible with medieval methods of portraying a person in the 11th-16th centuries. This sympathy became possible thanks to the writer's penetration into the psychology of the persons depicted. Each person for Avvakum is not an abstract character, but a living one, closely familiar to him. Avvakum knows well those he writes about. They are surrounded by a very concrete life. He knows that his tormentors are only doing their archery service, and therefore does not get angry with them.

We have already seen that the image of a person is inserted into a everyday frame in other works of Russian literature of the 17th century - in the Life of Uliania Osorina, in the Tale of Martha and Mary. In democratic literature, the everyday environment is clearly felt in "The Tale of Yersh Ershovich", in "The Tale of Shemyakina Court", in "Service to the Tavern", in "The Tale of Priest Sava", in "The Tale of the Peasant's Son", in "A Poem about Life patriarchal choristers, etc. In all these works, everyday life serves as a means of simplifying a person, destroying his medieval idealization.

In contrast to all these works, Habakkuk's commitment to everyday life reaches a completely exceptional force. Outside of everyday life, he does not imagine his characters at all. He clothes in everyday forms quite general and abstract ideas.

Avvakum's artistic thinking is all permeated with everyday life. Like Flemish artists who transferred biblical events to their native environment, Avvakum even depicts the relationship between the characters of church history in social categories of his time: I am like a beggar, walking the streets of the city and begging through the windows. Having finished that day and having nourished his household, in the morning he dragged again. Taco and az, dragging all day long, I also take it to you, church nurseries, I suggest: let us have fun and live. At rich man I will beg Christ from the gospel for a loaf of bread, from Paul the Apostle, from rich guest, and from the messengers of his bread I will beg, from Chrysostom, from trading man, I will receive a piece of his words, from David the king and from Isaiah the prophets, from townspeople, asked for a quarter of bread; having collected a purse, yes, and I give you residents in the house of my God».

It is clear that life here is heroized. And it is remarkable that in the works of Avvakum the personality is again elevated, full of special pathos. She is heroic in a new way, and this time life serves her glorification. Medieval idealization elevated the individual above everyday life, above reality - Avvakum, on the other hand, forces himself to fight this reality and heroizes himself as a fighter with it in all the little things of everyday life, even when he, " like a dog in a straw', lying when his back ' rot" And " there were a lot of fleas and lice when he ate all filth».

« It’s not for us to go to Persis the martyr- says Avvakum, - and then the houses of Babylon have amassed". In other words: you can become a martyr, a hero in the most everyday, homely environment.

Identity conflict with surrounding reality, so characteristic of democratic literature, reaches terrible force in his Life. Avvakum seeks to subdue reality, to master it, to populate it with his ideas. That is why it seems to Avvakum in a dream that his body is growing and filling the whole Universe with itself.

He dreams about this, but in reality he continues to fight. He does not agree to withdraw into himself, in his personal sorrows. He considers all the questions of the world order to be his own, and he is not excluded from any of them. He is painfully hurt by the ugliness of life, its sinfulness. Hence the passionate need for preaching. His "Life", like all his other works, is a continuous sermon, a sermon, sometimes reaching a frenzied cry. The preaching pathos is revived in a new way, in new forms in the works of Avvakum, along with it monumentality is revived in the depiction of a person, but the monumentality is completely different, devoid of the former impressiveness and former abstraction. This is the monumentality of the struggle, the titanic struggle, until death, martyrdom, but quite concrete and everyday. That is why life itself acquires some special shade of pathos in the works of Avvakum. The chains, the earthen prison, the hardships of poverty are the same as in other democratic works, but they are sanctified by his struggle, his martyrdom. The cabbage soup that Avvakum eats in the basement of the Andronikov Monastery is the same as in any peasant family of that time, but they are served to him by an angel. The same black hen, which he got himself in Siberia, but she carries Avvakum two eggs a day. And this is interpreted by Habakkuk as a miracle. Everything is sanctified by the halo of martyrdom for the faith. His whole literary position is consecrated by him.

In the face of martyrdom and death, he is a stranger to lies, pretense, cunning. " Hey, that's good!», « I don't lie!”- his writings are full of such passionate assurances of the veracity of his words. He " living Dead», « earthen user"- he should not cherish the external form of his works:" ... after all, God does not listen to the words of the Reds, but wants our deeds". That is why it is necessary to write without sophistication and embellishment: “ ... tell me, I suppose, keep your conscience strong».

Avvakum wrote his compositions at a time when the halo of martyrdom was already flickering over him, both in his own eyes and in the eyes of his adherents. That is why both his vernacular and his "bytovism" in the description own life wore a special heroic character. The same heroism is felt in the image he created as a martyr for the faith.

All his writings, all literary details are permeated with the pathos of struggle: from the earthen pit and the gallows to the titanic landscape of Dauria with its high mountains and stone cliffs. He enters into an argument with Christ himself: “... why did you, Son of God, let me kill him so painfully? I have become a widow for your widows! Who will judge between me and You? When I stole, and You didn't insult me ​​like that; but now we do not know that we have sinned! »

In the works of Avvakum, in the special style developed by him, which could be called the style of the pathetic simplification of man, literature Ancient Rus' again rose to the monumentalism of the old art, to universal and "world" themes, but on a completely different basis. The power of the individual in itself, outside of any official position, the power of a person deprived of everything, plunged into an earthen pit, a person whose tongue has been cut out, takes away the ability to write and communicate with the outside world, whose body is rotting, who is seized by lice, who is threatened the most terrible tortures and death at the stake - this power appeared in the works of Avvakum with amazing power and completely overshadowed the external power of the official position of the feudal lord, which the Russians followed with such fidelity in many cases historical works XI-XVI centuries

The discovery of the value of the human person in itself concerned in literature not only the style of depicting a person. It was also a discovery of the value of the author's personality. Hence the emergence of a new type of professional writer, the realization of the value of the author's text, the emergence of the concept of copyright, which does not allow a simple borrowing of the text from predecessors, and the abolition of compilability as a principle of creativity. From here, from this discovery of the value of the human person, comes the characteristic of the 17th century. interest in autobiographies (Avvakum, Epiphanius, Eleazar Anzersky, etc.), as well as personal notes about events (Andrey Matveev about the Streltsy rebellion).

IN fine arts the discovery of the value of the human personality manifests itself in a very diverse way: parsunas (portraits) appear, a linear perspective develops, providing for a single individual point of view on the image, illustrations appear for works of democratic literature depicting an “average” person, splint is born.

Democratic Literature of the Second Half of the 17th –beginning of the eighteenth century

The 17th century in Russian history is a time of gradual liberation of the human personality, awareness of the value of human individuality, an interest in the inner life of a person develops. From the middle of the XVII century. "mental reading" is pushed into the background by historical and everyday stories, democratic satire, translated chivalric novels, collections joke stories and anecdotes. Reading is no longer for the salvation of the soul, but for entertainment.

The Tale of Frol Skobeev

The Tale of Frol Skobeev is a picaresque short story about a clever rogue, created, most likely, in the time of Peter the Great (late 17th or early years of the 18th century), but still closely connected with the previous literary tradition. Linguistically, the story is interesting in that book-Slavic “decorations” are no longer used, but new artistic means have not yet been developed. A combination of business style with expressive means is used colloquial speech.

The author leads his story in a brisk clerical style: In the Novgorod district had nobleman Frol Skobeev. In the same Nougorod district there were estates of the stolnik Nardin-Nashchokin, had daughter Annushka, who lived in those Novgorod estates(clericalisms are underlined; lexical pickup is highlighted in color, creating a chain stringing, characteristic of business writing).

There are many new words and phrases in the narrative, mainly from the business language: “Well, you rogue, what are you going to live for?” - “If you please know about me: there is nothing else that to follow orders". - "Stop, rogue, walk for sneak! AND estates available, fiefdom mine, in the Sinbirsk district, which according to the census, it consists of 300 hundred households. do it, rogue, follow yourself and live constantly».

Loanwords from Western European languages ​​are often and habitually used: apartment (stayed in the apartment - came to his veterinary), register, person(meaning "person") banquet, corket, coachman, lackey dress, publication And public(in the same sense) .

The stylistic setting is the rejection of verbal "beauty". Some glimpses of the book-Slavonic style can only be found in the episode of the hero's "repentance": “Gracious sir, first steward! Let go of the guilty A ho, like ra ba, which WHO ymel n re you boldness».

There are many colloquial constructions in the syntax, especially in the replicas of the characters, and the author individualizes the speech of the characters, separates their statements from the author's. Many examples testify to the normalization of colloquial speech, the emergence of speech etiquette. For example, appeals sister, brother, friend; verb usage if you please as a courtesy:

Then the steward Nardin-Nashchokin went to the monastery to his sister, for a long time he did not see his daughter, and asked his sister: “ Sister what I don't see Annushka? And his sister answered him: Enough, brother, mock! What should I do when I'm heartless with my petition to you? I asked her to send to me; it is significant that you to me don't dare to believe, but I don’t have time to send it to her.”

Frol Skobeev is typical of the 17th century. figure. His adventures are dated 1680, a year later the tsar and the boyars set fire to the lists of discharge books: from now on, it was necessary to serve "without jobs", the path to power and wealth was open to enterprising people of any origin (such as Frol Skobeev).

Satire second half of the 17th century. - a qualitatively new phenomenon in the literature of Ancient Rus'. Previously, there were only satirical episodes (among the chroniclers, with Daniil Zatochnik and others). But satire as a literary genre first appears in the urban environment during the period of exacerbation of its dissatisfaction with power, feudal oppression, etc. The struggle against the traditions of the old bookish language is most clearly found in parodies, which was widely distributed in Russian manuscript literature of the late 17th century. Literary genres, various types of Church Slavonic and business language were parodied. Thus, the semantic renewal of the old language forms took place and the paths for the democratic reform of literary speech were outlined.

The Tale of the Shemyakin Court

The Tale of the Shemyakin Court is an example of Russian democratic satire (More). The combination of the colloquial manner with the book style created an individual style of the story (colloquial elements are underlined, book ones are highlighted in color).

V nѣ which mѣ stokhliving two brothers, earthlingѣ faces, one is rich, others are poor. The rich are lending a lotѣ t wretchedly V but you cannot fulfill his poverty. For a few times, come to the rich and ask horses on what heѣ firewoodlead… And always give him horse, he, take it, start from him collar ask. And be offended at him, brother, beginning to revile his wretchedness, saying: And that you have ѣ tb that of his collar».

The story of the judicial procedure is full of realities that reproduce the situation of the city court in the second half of the 17th century, and the corresponding terms (to beat with a forehead; there will be a package for him from the city, and not go, otherwise it will beѣ zd bailiff to pay, bringtake his petition against him,Popa hundred seek the death of your son, having gone out the plaintiffs with the defendant and to the order, according to the judicial decree etc.).

The Tale of Ersh Ershov son

The story about Ersh Ershov son was very popular: more than 20 versions of the story (manuscript, popular print and oral) have been preserved. After the “great devastation” of the beginning of the 17th century, the voivodeship court had to deal with a lot of land litigation caused by violent seizures of land (some of the land was abandoned by the owners, some of the owners lost documents). Power was often on the side of those who could more generously pay for a court decision.

In the older edition, the story has the title "List from the court case, how the gray bream competed about Rostov Lake and the rivers." Indeed, the author imitates court lists (minutes of court sessions), and the entire court procedure is exactly followed (More).

Although business style tropes and other verbal embellishments are alien; there are many expressive elements in the parody of court lists. For example, the petition contains a series evaluative words: on a stubble on a thief, on a thief on a robber, on a thief on a deceiver, on dashing, on cancerous eyes, on sharp bristles, on a badly unkind person.

Main satirical device- irony: I am a kind person, they know me in Moscow princes and boyars and boyar children, and heads of archers, and clerks and clerks, and merchant guests, and zemstvo people (all classes are listed) and the whole world in many people and cities, and they eat me in the ear with pepper and shavfranom and with vinegar, and in all sorts of patterns, and put me in front of them ondishes, and many people justify me with a hangover.

Another example in which irony develops into fiction (folklore genre): And Yershtak said: “Lord, I tell you, I had ways and data and all sorts of fortresses on that Rostov lake. And it’s a sin for my sake in the past, my lords, that Rostov Lake burned for a long time, and until Semyon’s days of summer, and there was nothing to flog at that time, because the old straw stuck, and the new straw did not ripen at that time. My paths and data have burned down.” There are many other folklore elements in the story.