Origin
Alexander Nikolaevich Radishchev was the first-born in the family of Nikolai Afanasyevich, the son of the Starodub colonel and large landowner Afanasy Prokopyevich. The first years of the writer's life were spent in Nemtsov (near Maloyaroslavets, Kaluga province).
Education
Apparently, his father, a pious man who was fluent in Latin, Polish, French and German. As was customary at that time, the child was taught Russian literacy according to the hour book and the psalter. When he was 6 years old, a French teacher was assigned to him, but the choice turned out to be unsuccessful: the teacher, as they later learned, was a runaway soldier. Shortly after the opening of Moscow University, around 1756, his father took Alexander to Moscow, to his uncle's house (Radishchev's mother, nee Argamakova, was related to the director of the university, Alexei Mikhailovich Argamakov). Here Radishchev was entrusted to the care of a good French tutor, a former adviser to the Rouen parliament, who fled from the persecution of the government of Louis XV. The Argamakov children had the opportunity to study at home with professors and teachers of the university gymnasium, so it cannot be ruled out that Alexander Radishchev trained here under their guidance and passed, at least in part, the program of the gymnasium course.
In 1762, Radishchev was granted a page and went to St. Petersburg to study in the page corps. The page corps did not train scientists, but courtiers, and the pages were obliged to serve the empress at balls, in the theater, at ceremonial dinners. Four years later, among a group of students, he was sent to Leipzig to study law. Of Radishchev's comrades, Fyodor Vasilievich Ushakov is especially remarkable for the enormous influence he had on Radishchev, who wrote his Life and published some of Ushakov's works.
Service
In 1771, Radishchev returned to St. Petersburg and soon entered the service of the Senate, as a recorder, with the rank of titular adviser. He did not serve long in the Senate: poor knowledge of the Russian language interfered, the partnership of clerks was a burden, rough treatment bosses. Radishchev entered the headquarters of General-in-Chief Bruce, who commanded in St. Petersburg, as chief auditor and stood out for his conscientious and courageous attitude to his duties. In 1775, he retired, and in 1778 he again entered the service of the Commerce Collegium, later (in 1788) moving to the St. Petersburg customs.
Literary activity
Studying Russian and reading led Radishchev to his own literary experiments. He first published a translation of Mably's Meditations on Greek history"(1773), then began to compile the history of the Russian Senate, but destroyed the written one.
Radishchev's literary activity begins only in 1789, when he published "The Life of Fyodor Vasilyevich Ushakov with the addition of some of his writings." Taking advantage of the decree of Catherine II on free printing houses, Radishchev set up his own printing house at his home and in 1790 printed his “Letter to a friend living in Tobolsk, on duty of his rank” in it. Following him, Radishchev released his main work, "Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow." The book begins with a dedication to Comrade Radishchev, A. M. Kutuzov, in which the author writes: “I looked around me - my soul became wounded by human suffering”. He realized that the person himself is to blame for these sufferings, because " he does not look directly at the objects around him". To achieve bliss, one must take away the veil that closes natural feelings. Everyone can become an accomplice in the bliss of his own kind, resisting delusions. “This is the thought that prompted me to draw what you will read”.
The book sold out quickly. Her bold reflections on serfdom and other sad phenomena of the then social and public life attracted the attention of the Empress herself, to whom someone delivered the Journey. Although the book was published with the permission of the established censorship, persecution was raised against the author. Radishchev was arrested, his case was "entrusted" to S. I. Sheshkovsky. Imprisoned in a fortress, during interrogations, Radishchev declared his repentance, refused his book, but at the same time, in his testimony, he often expressed the same views that were cited in Journey. The Criminal Chamber applied to Radishchev the articles of the Code on “ an attack on public health”, about “conspiracies and treason” and sentenced him to death. The verdict, transmitted to the Senate and then to the Council, was approved in both instances and presented to Catherine.
Link
On September 4, 1790, a personal decree was passed, which found Radishchev guilty of a crime of oath and the position of a subject of publishing a book, “filled with the most harmful mindsets, destroying public peace, detracting from due respect for the authorities, striving to produce indignation among the people against the chiefs and bosses, and finally with insulting and violent expressions against the dignity and power of the king”; Radishchev's guilt is such that he fully deserves death penalty, to which he was sentenced by the court, but "by mercy and for general joy" the execution was replaced by a ten-year exile to Siberia, to the Ilim prison. Soon after his accession (1796), Emperor Paul I returned Radishchev from Siberia. Radishchev was ordered to live in his estate in the Kaluga province, the village of Nemtsov.
Return and death
After the accession of Alexander I, Radishchev received complete freedom; he was summoned to Petersburg and appointed a member of the commission to draw up laws. There is a legend about the circumstances of Radishchev's suicide: summoned to the commission to draw up laws, Radishchev drew up a "Draft Liberal Code", in which he spoke about the equality of all before the law, freedom of the press, etc. The chairman of the commission, Count P. V. Zavadovsky, made him a strict suggestion for his way of thinking, sternly reminding him of his former hobbies and even mentioning Siberia. Radishchev, a man with severely disturbed health, was so shocked by Zavadovsky's reprimand and threats that he decided to commit suicide, drank poison and died in terrible agony.
Nevertheless, in the book "Radishchev" by D.S. Babkin, published in 1966, we find an exhaustive explanation of the circumstances of Radishchev's death. The sons who were present at his death testified to a severe physical illness that struck Alexander Nikolayevich already during his Siberian exile. The immediate cause of death was an accident: Radishchev drank a glass with “strong vodka prepared in it to burn out the old officer epaulettes of his eldest son” (aqua regia). Burial documents speak of natural death. In the register of the church Volkovsky cemetery in St. Petersburg on September 13, 1802, “colleague adviser Alexander Radishchev” was listed among the buried; fifty three years, died of consumption, ”priest Vasily Nalimov was at the removal. A.P. Bogolyubov, of course, was aware of these circumstances, and he gives the name of his grandfather for Orthodox commemoration.
Descendants
Daughters - Anna and Fyokla. The latter married Pyotr Gavrilovich Bogolyubov and became the mother of the famous Russian marine painter Alexei Petrovich Bogolyubov.
Son - Athanasius, governor of Podolsk province in 1842, Vitebsk province in 1847-1848, in 1851 he was governor of Kovno.
Address in St. Petersburg
Memory
In Moscow there are Upper and Lower Radishchevskaya streets, on the Upper one there is a monument to the writer and poet.
Radishcheva street is in Central region St. Petersburg.
Also, streets in Petrozavodsk, Irkutsk, Murmansk, Tula, Tobolsk, Yekaterinburg, Saratov, and a boulevard in Tver are named after Radishchev.
Pushkin on Radishchev
A special page in the perception of the personality and creativity of Radishchev by Russian society was the attitude of A.S. Pushkin. Acquainted with the "Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow" in his youth, Pushkin clearly focuses on Radishchev's ode "Liberty" in his ode of the same name (1817 or 1819), and also takes into account in "Ruslan and Lyudmila" the experience of "heroic songwriting" of Radishchev's son, Nikolai Alexandrovich , "Alyosha Popovich" (Pushkin mistakenly considered the author of this poem to be Radishchev the father). The Journey turned out to be in tune with the tyrannical and anti-serfdom moods of the young Pushkin. Despite the change political positions, Pushkin, even in the 1830s, retained an interest in Radishchev, acquired a copy of the Journey, which was in the Secret Chancellery, sketched a Journey from Moscow to St. Petersburg (conceived as a commentary on Radishchev's chapters in reverse order). In 1836, Pushkin tried to publish fragments from Radishchev's Journey in his Sovremennik, accompanying them with the article Alexander Radishchev, his most detailed statement about. In addition to a bold attempt for the first time since 1790 to acquaint the Russian reader with a forbidden book, here Pushkin also gives a very detailed criticism essay and its author.
"A petty official, a man without any power, without any support, dares to arm himself against general order, against autocracy, against Catherine! ... He has neither comrades nor accomplices. In case of failure - and what success can he expect? - he alone is responsible for everything, he alone appears to be a victim of the law. We never considered Radishchev a great man. His act always seemed to us a crime, in no way excusable, and "Journey to Moscow" a very mediocre book; but with all that, we cannot but recognize in him a criminal with an extraordinary spirit; a political fanatic, mistaken, of course, but acting with amazing selflessness and with some kind of chivalrous conscience....
"Journey to Moscow", the cause of his misfortune and fame, is, as we have already said, a very mediocre work, not to mention the barbaric style. Complaining about the unfortunate state of the people, about the violence of the nobles, etc. exaggerated and vulgar. The outbursts of sensibility, cutesy and puffed up, are sometimes extremely funny. We could confirm our judgment with many extracts. But the reader should open his book at random in order to ascertain the truth of what we have said.…
What was the goal of Radishchev? What exactly did he want? It is unlikely that he himself could have answered these questions satisfactorily. His influence was negligible. Everyone has read his book and forgotten it, despite the fact that there are a few prudent thoughts in it, a few well-meaning assumptions that had no need to be clothed in quarrelsome and pompous expressions and illegally stamped in secret printing presses, with an admixture of vulgar and criminal idle talk. . They would be of real benefit if presented with more sincerity and favor; for there is no persuasiveness in reproach, and there is no truth where there is no love" .
Criticism of Pushkin, in addition to auto-censorship reasons (however, the publication was still not allowed by censorship) reflects "enlightened conservatism" recent years the poet's life. In the drafts of the "Monument" in the same 1836, Pushkin wrote: “Following Radishchev, I glorified freedom”.
Perception of Radishchev in the XIX-XX centuries.
The idea that Radishchev is not a writer, but public figure, with amazing spiritual qualities, began to take shape immediately after his death and, in fact, determined his further posthumous fate. I. M. Born, in a speech to the Society of Fine Arts Lovers, delivered in September 1802 and dedicated to the death of Radishchev, says about him:
« He loved truth and virtue. His fiery philanthropy longed to illuminate all his fellows with this unfading ray of eternity.».
How " an honest man” (“honnête homme”) characterized Radishchev N. M. Karamzin (this oral testimony is given by Pushkin as an epigraph to the article “Alexander Radishchev”). Thought of Advantage human qualities P. A. Vyazemsky especially succinctly expresses Radishchev over his writing talent, explaining in a letter to A. F. Voeikov the desire to study Radishchev’s biography:
« With us, as a rule, a person is invisible behind the writer. In Radishchev, on the contrary: the writer is on the shoulder, and the man is his head higher».
With such a perception, of course, the article by A. S. Pushkin should also be correlated. And the assessment given in 1858 by A. I. Herzen when publishing his Journey in London (he puts Radishchev among “our saints, our prophets, our first sowers, the first fighters”), which resulted in 1918 in the characterization of A. V. Lunacharsky: " prophet and forerunner of the revolution”, goes back, undoubtedly, to this one, which was formed in the first decade XIX century, the assessment of "Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow" is not artwork but as a human achievement. G. V. Plekhanov noticed that under the influence of Radishchev’s ideas “ major social movements took place late XVIII- first thirds of XIX centuries» . It should be noted that during interrogations of the Decembrists, when investigative committee, appointed by Emperor Nicholas I and led by him, raising the question " from what time and from where did they borrow the first free-thinking thoughts”, I wanted to show the random nature of the Decembrists’ speech, which allegedly arose under the influence of borrowed ideas - the Decembrists really called the names of the great French enlighteners, English economists, German philosophers, gave examples from works the greatest thinkers ancient world, but the vast majority of them called, first of all, the name of Alexander Nikolaevich Radishchev - so deeply into the consciousness of advanced Russian society did the freedom-loving, anti-serfdom ideas of Radishchev penetrate.
Until the 1970s, the opportunities for the general reader to get acquainted with the Journey were extremely limited. After in 1790 almost the entire circulation of Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow was destroyed by the author before his arrest, until 1905, when the censorship was lifted from this work, the total circulation of several of his publications hardly exceeded one and a half thousand copies. In 1905-1907, several editions were published, but after that, Journey was not published in Russia for 30 years. In subsequent years, it was published several times, but mainly for the needs of the school, with cuts and scanty circulations by Soviet standards. Back in the 1960s, complaints from Soviet readers were known that it was impossible to get The Journey in a store or a district library. It wasn't until the 1970s that Journey began to be produced on a truly massive scale. In 1930-1950, under the editorship of Gr. Gukovsky carried out a three-volume " complete collection works of Radishchev”, where for the first time many new texts, including philosophical and legal ones, were published or attributed to the writer.
In the years 1950-1960, romantic hypotheses about the “hidden Radishchev” (G.P. Shtrom and others) arose, which were not confirmed by the sources - that Radishchev continued, allegedly after the exile, to finalize the Journey and distribute the text in a narrow circle of like-minded people. At the same time, it is planned to abandon the straightforward propaganda approach to Radishchev, emphasizing the complexity of his views and the great humanistic significance of the individual (N. I. Eidelman and others). IN contemporary literature the philosophical and journalistic sources of Radishchev - Masonic, moralizing and educational and others are studied, the multilateral problems of his main book, which cannot be reduced to the struggle against serfdom, are emphasized.
Philosophical views
“The philosophical views of Radishchev bear traces of the influence of various trends in European thought of his time. He was guided by the principle of reality and materiality (corporality) of the world, arguing that "the existence of things, regardless of the power of knowledge about them, exists on its own." According to his epistemological views, "the basis of all natural knowledge is experience." At the same time, sensory experience, being the main source of knowledge, is in unity with “reasonable experience”. In a world in which there is nothing “besides corporality”, man also takes his place, a being as corporeal as all nature. A person has a special role, he, according to Radishchev, is the highest manifestation of corporeality, but at the same time is inextricably linked with the animal and flora. “We do not humiliate man,” Radishchev asserted, “by finding similarities in his composition with other creatures, showing that he essentially follows the same laws as him. And how else could it be? Isn't it real?
The fundamental difference between man and other living beings is the presence of his mind, thanks to which he "has the power of things known." But even more important difference lies in the ability of a person to moral actions and assessments. “Man is the only creature on earth who knows the evil, evil”, “a special property of man is an unlimited opportunity to both improve and corrupt.” As a moralist, Radishchev did not accept the moral concept of " reasonable selfishness“, believing that it is by no means “selfishness” that is the source of the moral feeling: “man is a sympathetic being.” Being a supporter of the idea of “natural law” and always defending the idea of the natural nature of man (“the rights of nature never run out in man”), Radishchev at the same time did not share the opposition of society and nature, cultural and natural principles in man, outlined by Rousseau. For him, the social being of man is as natural as natural. According to the meaning of the case, there is no fundamental boundary between them: “Nature, people and things are the educators of man; climate, local position, government, circumstances are the educators of peoples. Criticizing the social vices of Russian reality, Radishchev defended the ideal of a normal “natural” way of life, seeing in the injustice reigning in society, in the literal sense, a social disease. He found such “diseases” not only in Russia. Thus, assessing the state of affairs in the slave-owning United States of America, he wrote that "one hundred proud citizens are drowning in luxury, and thousands do not have reliable food, nor their own shelter from the heat and scum (frost)". In the treatise “On Man, on His Mortality and Immortality”, Radishchev, considering metaphysical problems, remained true to his naturalistic humanism, recognizing the inseparability of the connection between natural and spiritual beginnings in man, the unity of body and soul: “Doesn’t the soul grow with the body, doesn’t it mature and grow strong with it, doesn’t it wither and grow dull with it?” At the same time, not without sympathy, he quoted thinkers who recognized the immortality of the soul (Johann Herder, Moses Mendelssohn and others). The position of Radishchev is not the position of an atheist, but rather an agnostic, which fully corresponded general principles his worldview, already quite secularized, oriented towards the “naturalness” of the world order, but alien to theomachism and nihilism.
Bibliography
- Radishchev A. N. Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow - St. Petersburg: b. i., 1790. - 453 p.
- Radishchev A. N. Prince M. M. Shcherbatov, "On the damage to morals in Russia"; A. N. Radishchev, "Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow." With a preface by Iskander (A. I. Herzen). - London, Trubner, 1858.
- Radishchev A. N. Works. In two volumes./Ed. P. A. Efremova. - SPb., 1872. (edition destroyed by censorship)
- Radishchev A. N. Complete works of A. Radishchev / Ed., entry. Art. and approx. V. V. Kallash. T. 1. - M.: V. M. Sablin, 1907. - 486 p.: p., The same T. 2. - 632 p.: ill.
- Radishchev A. N. Full composition of writings. T. 1 - M.; L .: Academy of Sciences of the USSR, 1938. - 501 p.: p. The same T. 2 - M .; L.: Academy of Sciences of the USSR, 1941. - 429 p.
- Radishchev A. N. Poems / Entry. Art., ed. and note. G. A. Gukovsky. Ed. collegium: I.A. Gruzdev, V.P. Druzin, A.M. Egolin [i dr.]. - L.: Owls. writer, 1947. - 210 p.: p.
- Radishchev A. N. Selected works / Intro. Art. G. P. Makogonenko. - M.; L.: Goslitizdat, 1949. - 855 p.: P, k.
- Radishchev A. N. Favorites philosophical writings/ Under the general editorship. and with preface. I. Ya. Schipanova. - L.: Gospolitizdat, 1949. - 558 p.: p.
- Radishchev A. N. Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow. 1749-1949 / Enter. article by D. D. Blagogoy. - M.; L.: Goslitizdat, 1950. - 251 p.: ill.
- Radishchev A. N. Selected philosophical and socio-political works. To the 150th anniversary of his death. 1802-1952 / Under the general ed. and with enter. article by I. Ya. Shchipanov. - M.: Gospolitizdat, 1952. - 676 p.: p.
- Radishchev A. N. Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow / Enter. article by D. Blagogo. - M.: Det. lit., 1970. - 239 p. The same - M.: Det. lit., 1971. - 239 p.
- Shemetov A.I. Breakthrough: The Tale of Alexander Radishchev. - M .: Politizdat, 1974 (Fiery revolutionaries) - 400 s, ill. Same. - 2nd ed., revised. and additional - 1978. - 511 p., ill.
Notes
Composition
The first and only writer in the 18th century who penetrated "the essence social contradictions”, guessed “the spirit of history itself, primarily popular movements”, abandoned the usual rationalistic schemes and moved on to “creating the concept of a revolutionary developing reality,” was Radishchev. The life and work of A. N. Radishchev is a bright feat in the name of the liberation of the Russian peasant, the entire Russian people from serfdom, from the shackles of autocracy. A revolutionary writer, he had the right to expect the grateful gratitude of his descendants:
* Yes, my cold ashes will be overshadowed by Majesty,
* what I sang today;
* Yes, young man, hungry for glory,
* Coming over my dilapidated coffin,
* In order to broadcast with feeling:
* “Under the yoke of power, this one born
* Wearing gilded shackles,
* We were the first to prophesy liberty.
These expectations of Radishchev were completely justified. In the article "About national pride Great Russians” Gorky wrote: “It is most painful for us to see and feel what violence, oppression and abuse our beautiful homeland is subjected to by the royal executioners, nobles and capitalists. We are proud that these acts of violence evoked a rebuff from among our midst, from among the Great Russians, that this milieu brought forward Radishchev, the Decembrists, the raznochintsy revolutionaries of the 1970s, that the Great Russian working class created in 1905 a mighty revolutionary party of the masses, that the Great Russian peasant began at the same time become a democrat, began to overthrow the priest and the landowner ... ". This article precisely defines the place of Radishchev in the process of historical and revolutionary development of Russia.
Alexander Nikolaevich Radishchev was born on August 20, 1749. His parents were wealthy noble families, and the relatives of the future writer on the mother's side (Argamakovs) can be attributed to the advanced noble intelligentsia. A seven-year-old boy was brought to Moscow and settled in the house of a relative of M. F. Argamakov, the rector of the recently opened Moscow University. The course of the university gymnasium Radishchev, together with the nephews of M. F. Argamakov, took place at home.
In 1762 he was enrolled in the Corps of Pages. In the corps, Radishchev studied diligently, was on duty in the palace as a page of the empress. When Catherine II needed legal scholars, she sent Radishchev to the University of Leipzig among the most successful pages. During the five years (1766-1771) he lived in Leipzig, Radishchev studied, in addition to the compulsory legal sciences, medicine, natural Sciences, literature, mastered several foreign languages. "At their own discretion" Russian students listened to lectures by Platner (on philosophy, physiology), the poet-moralist Gellert. But even more important was Radishchev's acquaintance with those literary trends that were replacing classicism. The pan-European pre-romantic trend took shape in German literature By the forces of the poets of "storm and onslaught", the search for national content and forms of its embodiment in art increased. One should also take into account the influence that the ideas of the French Enlightenment had on the formation of the views of the young Radishchev. The book of Helvetius "On Reason" had a particularly strong impact on Russian students, they "read it with attention and learned to think with it." However, the main source of the emerging worldview of the future writer was life itself - "circumstances", in the terminology of Radishchev. And they developed in such a way that it was in Leipzig that the first clash of Russian students with the personification of autocracy in the person of Major Gkzhum (“our guide”, as Radishchev ironically calls him in autobiographical work"The Life of Fyodor Vasilyevich Ushakov").
F. V. Ushakov became the head of the "rebellion" of students - an outstanding and remarkable personality in many respects. Having reached the rank of second major and having a promotion in the near future, he refused everything and obtained permission to go with the young men to Leipzig, where he was distinguished by special curiosity, exceptional perseverance in the study of sciences, far exceeding the range of compulsory subjects. He supervised extracurricular reading for his younger colleagues. Radishchev is indebted to him for the realization that it is necessary not only to have knowledge, but also to be able to apply it, that in his activity a person must rely on solid ethical principles. Throughout his life, Radishchev carried the testament of the deceased "leader of his youth." “Remember that you need to have rules in order to be blissful (happy), and that you must be firm in thoughts in order to die fearlessly.”
After graduating from the University of Leipzig, Radishchev and many of his comrades expected that a wide field of activity for the benefit of the fatherland would open before them. Their delight knew no bounds when they "saw the boundary separating Russia from Courland." But soon they were deeply disappointed. “I confess, and you, my dear friend (meaning A.M. Kutuzov.), admit the same thing, that what followed after our return, this heat in us much moderated.” Radishchev, together with A. M. Kutuzov and A. K. Rubanovsky, in December 1771 received a more than modest place as recorders in the Senate (although they were nevertheless awarded the rank of titular adviser). Radishchev's dissatisfaction with the appointment he received (which he will recall later in The Life of F.V. Ushakov) was not his personal offense. He was outraged by the short-sightedness and short-sightedness of the rulers, who crippled young souls, extinguished the impulses of youth for the “common good”:
* “Oh, you rulers who control the minds and will of the peoples, how often you are short-sighted and short-sighted, how many times you miss an opportunity for the common good, quenching the leaven that uplifts the heart of youth. Once you have humbled him, you will often make him a cripple forever.
Researchers have shown that Radishchev's work in the First Department of the Senate gave him the opportunity, by repeatedly compiling extracts (extracts) of cases sent to the Senate, and the decisions of the Senate themselves, to be convinced of the abuses and arbitrariness of officials and nobles, in the complete lack of rights of the people. Bribery, mutual responsibility, and red tape were also widespread among the officials of the Senate Chancellery. Radishchev created an impressive picture of the relationship of petitioners to the bureaucratic world in The Life of F. V. Ushakov, most likely not only from the story of his friend, but also from his own observations: “ Most of petitioners think, and often rightly, that in order to achieve their goal, they need the affection of all those who, even with their little finger to their grandfather, touch them; and for this they use caresses, flattery, flattery, gifts, indulgence, and everything that you can think of, not only to the very one on whom the fulfillment of their request depends, but to all his close ones, somehow: to his secretary, to his secretary secretary, if he has one, to scribes, watchmen, lackeys, mistresses, and if a dog happens to be here, they won’t let him pet him either.
In January 1772, Radishchev, having received a long-term leave (until July 1772), spent it on his father's estate near Penza. Here Radishchev got acquainted with the situation of the peasants no longer through documents, but directly in live communication. In 1773, Radishchev joined the staff commander of the Finnish division, General Ya. A. Bruce, as an auditor, whose duties included overseeing the work of regimental courts and overseeing the divisional treasury. In March 1775, Radishchev retired. During these years, Radishchev's life, flowing in the sight of relatives and close acquaintances, was perceived by them as the most “pleasant era” for her, as it is said in the biography of Radishchev, written by his son II. L. Radishchev, It also says further: “Being loved by his boss, he became a member of the best St. Petersburg societies through him; his taste was formed, and he received dexterity and pleasantness in getting around. But at the same time, faced in the service on a daily basis with the unjustified bloody cruelty of military courts, with the arbitrariness and uncontrollability of officers from the nobility, "who did not care about either health or food" ionic, Radishchev begins a persistent search for the causes, the roots of the social evil that has spread throughout the whole country. The intensity of this search increased and deepened by events that were formidable for the feudal world of Russia - peasant war under the leadership of Pugachev.
In 1780, on the recommendation of A. R. Vorontsov, Radishchev moved to the St. Petersburg customs as an assistant to the elderly manager G. Yu. Dahl, where he served until the days of his arrest on June 30, 1790. In this official field, Radishchev proved to be an enterprising, courageous and incorruptible person, and at the Commerce Collegium he often challenged the decisions of the President himself and sought to revise them; But the most important thing that these years were remarkable for was the literary and social activity of Radishchev.
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Biography, life story of Radishchev Alexander Nikolaevich
Radishchev Alexander Nikolaevich - Russian prose writer, philosopher, public figure.Childhood, youth, education
Alexander Radishchev was born on August 31, 1749 (August 20 of the same year according to the old style) in a small village called Upper Ablyazovo (Saratov Province). Alexander was lucky to be born into a wealthy family - his father, Nikolai Afanasyevich Radishchev, inherited from his father, grandfather Alexander, title of nobility And large territories. So in childhood, the future shone of Russian literature did not know any hardships.
Alexander Radishchev spent the first years of his life in the village of Nemtsovo (Kaluga province), where his father had an estate. A caring but strict father tried to give his son an excellent education - he taught him several languages \u200b\u200bat once (Polish, French, German and even Latin), taught him Russian literacy, however, mainly from psalters (Nikolai Afanasyevich was a very pious person). When Alexander was six years old, a teacher was hired for him. French However, the teacher stayed in their family quite a bit - it soon became clear that he was a runaway soldier.
At the age of seven, Alexander moved to Moscow, to the house of his great-uncle. There he was able to good knowledge and skills (children in his relative's house had the opportunity to study only with the best professors).
In 1762, Radishchev entered the Corps of Pages (Petersburg). After studying there for four years, he was redirected to the University of Leipzig (Germany, Leipzig). In a foreign land, Alexander had to study law. And, it should be noted, he achieved good results - in addition to the fact that he diligently completed the tasks of teachers, he also showed considerable activity in the study of other subjects. In a word, at that time his horizons expanded greatly, which, undoubtedly, played into his hands in the future.
Service
At the age of twenty-two, Alexander Nikolaevich returned to St. Petersburg. Soon he became a recorder in the Senate. A little later, he left this post and was accepted for the position of chief auditor at the headquarters of the St. Petersburg General-in-Chief. The authorities noted Radishchev's diligence, his diligence and responsible attitude to work.
CONTINUED BELOW
In 1775 Alexander retired. After leaving the service, he decided to arrange his personal life, start a family. He found good girl and married her. Two years later, the quiet life tired Radishchev and he returned to work - he was accepted into the commerce college.
In 1780, Alexander Radishchev began working at the St. Petersburg customs. In 1790, he was already her boss.
Literary activity
Radishchev took up the pen in 1771, when he returned to St. Petersburg. At that time, she sent a couple of chapters from her future book, Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow, to the editors of the then respected magazine The Painter. The excerpt was printed anonymously - as the author himself wished.
In 1773, Alexander Radishchev translated and published the book "Reflections on Greek History" (author - Gabriel Bonnot de Mably, French writer and philosopher). At the same time, he presented the world with his other works - "The Diary of One Week", "Officer's Exercises" ...
From the beginning of the 1780s, Alexander Nikolayevich began to work hard on the Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow. The book told about the plight of the serfs, about the cruel landowners, about the uselessness of autocracy ... For that time, the book was more than scandalous. In May 1790, Radishchev independently printed copies of his book in his own printing house, which he had created at his home the year before. Radishchev did not sign his creation.
People began to buy the book very quickly. The commotion she caused among the common people agitated the empress and she demanded that one copy be delivered to her immediately. After reading the book and learning who wrote it, the empress was furious. The writer was arrested.
After his arrest, Radishchev was imprisoned in a fortress. A series of interrogations began. Alexander Nikolaevich, being a man of honor, did not betray any of those who somehow helped him in publishing the book. The Criminal Chamber, after listening to Radishchev, sentenced him to death. In the autumn of 1790, the case of Radishchev was reviewed - the execution was replaced by a ten-year exile in Siberia. Fortunately, in 1796 the emperor took pity on the talented thinker. The writer returned to his native place. He settled in the village of Nemtsovo, where he spent his childhood.
Personal life
The first time Alexander Radishchev married in 1775 was Anna Vasilievna Rubanovskaya, the daughter of an official of the Main Palace Chancellery. Anna bore Alexander six children - three daughters and three sons. Unfortunately, two girls died in early age. But the rest of the children - Vasily (born in 1776), Nikolai (born in 1779), Catherine (born in 1782) and Pavel (born in 1783) - turned out to be stronger. Anna Vasilievna herself died in childbirth younger son Paul.
When Radishchev was exiled to Siberia, the younger sister Anna Elizabeth. She took Catherine and Pavel with her. It so happened that Elizabeth remained in Siberia. Soon Alexander began to have very warm feelings for her. Elizabeth responded to him in return. They started living together. New sweetheart gave birth to Radishchev three children - daughters Anna (born in 1792) and Fekla (born in 1795) and son Athanasius (born in 1796).
When the emperor ordered that Radishchev return home, there was no limit to the happiness of the writer himself and his beloved woman. No one knew that leaving the bored Siberia would bring so much pain to their family ... On the way, Elizaveta Vasilievna caught a bad cold. The woman could not cope with the disease. She died in 1979.
Death
Alexander Nikolaevich spent the last years of his life being a free and respected person. He was even specially invited to St. Petersburg to join the Commission for drafting laws. Once in St. Petersburg, Radishchev wanted to introduce a bill that would equalize all people before the law, giving everyone the right to freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Upon learning of this, the chairman of the Commission gave the writer a very severe reprimand. After the threats of the chairman, some historians assure, Alexander Nikolayevich decided to take his life. Radishchev committed suicide by drinking a huge dose of poison on September 24, 1802 (according to the old style - September 12).
According to another version, Alexander Nikolayevich died by accidentally drinking alcohol instead of medicine. Officially (according to the documents) it is believed that Radishchev died of natural causes.
RADISHCHEV, ALEXANDER NIKOLAEVICH(1749–1802) writer, philosopher. Born in Moscow in noble family August 20 (31), 1749. Studied in Germany, at the University of Leipzig (1766-1770). During these years, Radishchev's passion for philosophy began. He studied the works of representatives European Enlightenment, rationalistic and empirical philosophy. After returning to Russia, he entered the service in the Senate, and later - in the Commerce Collegium. Radishchev actively participated in literary life: published a translation of the book by G.Mably Reflections on Greek History(1773), own literary works Word about Lomonosov (1780), Letters to a friend living in Tobolsk(1782), an ode liberty(1783), etc. Everything changed after the publication in 1790 Travel from St. Petersburg to Moscow. Radishchev was arrested and declared a state criminal for his "blameless writings." The court sentenced him to death, replaced by exile "to Siberia, to the Ilim prison for a ten-year hopeless stay." In exile, Radishchev was engaged in scientific research, wrote An abbreviated narrative of the acquisition of Siberia, Letter on Chinese Trade, philosophical treatise (1790–1792). In 1796, Emperor Paul I allowed Radishchev to return from Siberia and settle in his Kaluga estate. In 1801, Emperor Alexander I allowed him to move to the capital. In the last year of his life, Radishchev prepared a number of projects ( About the statute, Draft civil code and others), in which he substantiated the need to eliminate serf relations and civil reforms. Radishchev died in St. Petersburg on September 12 (24), 1802.
The philosophical views of Radishchev bear traces of the influence of various trends in European thought of his time. He was guided by the principle of reality and materiality (corporality) of the world, arguing that "the existence of things, regardless of the power of knowledge about them, exists on its own." According to his epistemological views, "the basis of all natural knowledge is experience." At the same time, sensory experience, being the main source of knowledge, is in unity with “reasonable experience”. In a world in which there is nothing “besides corporeality”, man also takes his place, a being as corporeal as all nature. A person has a special role, he, according to Radishchev, is the highest manifestation of corporality, but at the same time is inextricably linked with the animal and plant world. “We do not humiliate man,” Radishchev argued, “by finding similarities in his composition with other creatures, showing that he essentially follows the same laws as him. And how else could it be? Isn't he real?
The fundamental difference between man and other living beings is that he has a mind, thanks to which he "has the power of knowing things." But an even more important difference lies in the ability of a person to moral actions and assessments. “Man is the only creature on earth who knows what is bad, evil”, “a special property of man is an unlimited opportunity to both improve and corrupt.” As a moralist, Radishchev did not accept the moral concept of "reasonable egoism", believing that it was by no means "selfishness" that was the source of the moral feeling: "man is a sympathetic being." Being a supporter of the idea of “natural law” and always defending the idea of the natural nature of man (“the rights of nature never run out in man”), Radishchev at the same time did not share the opposition of society and nature, cultural and natural principles in man, outlined by Rousseau. For him, the social being of man is as natural as natural. In fact, there is no fundamental boundary between them: “Nature, people and things are the educators of man; climate, local position, government, circumstances are the educators of peoples. Criticizing the social vices of Russian reality, Radishchev defended the ideal of a normal “natural” way of life, seeing in the injustice reigning in society, in the literal sense, a social disease. He found such "diseases" not only in Russia. Thus, assessing the state of affairs in the slave-owning United States, he wrote that "a hundred proud citizens are drowning in luxury, and thousands do not have reliable food, nor their own from the heat and darkness of ukrov."
In the treatise About man, about his mortality and immortality Radishchev, considering metaphysical problems, remained true to his naturalistic humanism, recognizing the inseparability of the connection between the natural and spiritual principles in man, the unity of the body and soul: ? At the same time, not without sympathy, he quoted thinkers who recognized the immortality of the soul (I. Herder, M. Mendelssohn, etc.). Radishchev's position is not an atheist's, but rather an agnostic's, which fully corresponded to the general principles of his worldview, already quite secularized, oriented towards the "naturalness" of the world order, but alien to theomachism and nihilism.
Alexander Nikolaevich Radishchev(August 20, 1749, the village of Verkhnee Ablyazovo, Saratov province - September 12, 1802, St. Petersburg) - Russian writer, philosopher, poet, de facto head of the St. Petersburg customs, member of the Commission for drafting laws under Alexander I.
He became best known for his main work, Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow, which he published anonymously in 1790.
Biography
Alexander Radishchev was the first-born in the family of Nikolai Afanasyevich Radishchev (1728-1806), the son of the Starodub colonel and large landowner Afanasy Prokopyevich.
Apparently, his father, a devout man who was fluent in Latin, Polish, French and German, took direct part in Radishchev's initial education. As was customary at that time, the child was taught Russian literacy according to the hour book and the psalter. By the age of six, he was assigned a French teacher, but the choice was unsuccessful: the teacher, as they later learned, was a runaway soldier. Shortly after the opening of Moscow University, around 1756, his father took Alexander to Moscow, to the house of his maternal uncle (whose brother, A. M. Argamakov, was director of the university in 1755-1757). Here Radishchev was entrusted with the cares of a very 
a good French tutor, a former adviser to the Rouen parliament, who fled from the persecution of the government of Louis XV. The Argamakov children had the opportunity to study at home with professors and teachers of the university gymnasium, so it cannot be ruled out that Alexander Radishchev trained here under their guidance and passed, at least in part, the program of the gymnasium course.
In 1762, after the coronation of Catherine II, Radishchev was granted a page and sent to St. Petersburg to study in the page corps. The page corps did not train scientists, but courtiers, and the pages were obliged to serve the empress at balls, in the theater, at ceremonial dinners. Four years later, among twelve young nobles, he was sent to Germany, to the University of Leipzig to study law. Of Radishchev's comrades, Fyodor Ushakov is especially remarkable for the enormous influence he had on Radishchev, who wrote his Life and published some of Ushakov's writings.
Service in St. Petersburg
In 1771, Radishchev returned to St. Petersburg and soon entered the service of the Senate, as a recorder, with the rank of titular adviser. He did not serve long in the Senate: his poor knowledge of the Russian language interfered, the camaraderie of the clerks, and the rude treatment of his superiors weighed him down. Radishchev entered the headquarters of General-in-Chief Bruce, who commanded in St. Petersburg, as chief auditor and stood out for his conscientious and courageous attitude to his duties. In 1775, he retired, and in 1778 he again entered the service of the Commerce Collegium, later (in 1788) moving to the St. Petersburg customs. Studying the Russian language and reading led Radishchev to his own literary experiments. First, he published a translation of Mably's "Reflections on Greek History" (1773), then began to compile the history of the Russian Senate, but destroyed the written one.
Literary and publishing activities
Undoubtedly literary activity Radishchev begins only in 1789, when he published "The Life of Fyodor Vasilyevich Ushakov with the addition of some of his writings." Taking advantage of the decree of Catherine II on free printing houses, Radishchev set up his own printing house at his home and in 1790 printed his “Letter to a friend living in Tobolsk, on duty of his rank” in it.
Following him, Radishchev released his main work, "Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow." The book begins with a dedication to comrade Radishchev, A. M. Kutuzov, in which the author writes: “I looked around me - my soul became wounded by human suffering.” He realized that the person himself is to blame for these sufferings, because "he does not look directly at the objects surrounding him." To achieve bliss, one must take away the veil that closes natural feelings. Everyone can become an accomplice in the bliss of his own kind, resisting delusions. “This is the thought that prompted me to draw what you will read.”
The book sold out quickly. Her bold discussions about serfdom and other sad phenomena of the then public and state life attracted the attention of the empress herself, to whom someone delivered the Journey. Although the book was published with the permission of the established censorship, persecution was raised against the author. Radishchev was arrested, his case was "entrusted" to S. I. Sheshkovsky. Imprisoned in a fortress, during interrogations, Radishchev declared his repentance, refused his book, but at the same time, in his testimony, he often expressed the same views that were cited in Journey. The Criminal Chamber applied to Radishchev the articles of the Code on "assault on the sovereign's health", on "conspiracies and treason" and sentenced him to death. The verdict, transmitted to the Senate and then to the Council, was approved in both instances and presented to Catherine. On September 4, 1790, a personal decree was issued, which found Radishchev guilty of a crime of oath and the position of a subject by publishing a book “filled with the most harmful philosophies, destroying public peace, detracting from due respect for the authorities, striving to produce indignation among the people against the bosses and bosses and finally, insulting and frantic expressions against the rank and power of the king ”; Radishchev’s guilt is such that he fully deserves the death penalty, to which he was sentenced by the court, but “by mercy and for everyone’s joy” the execution was replaced by a ten-year exile to Siberia, to the Ilimsk prison. Soon after his accession (1796), Emperor Paul I returned Radishchev from Siberia. Radishchev was ordered to live in his estate in the Kaluga province, the village of Nemtsov.
Last years. Death
After the accession of Alexander I, Radishchev received complete freedom; he was summoned to Petersburg and appointed a member of the commission to draw up laws. There is a legend about the circumstances of Radishchev's suicide: summoned to the commission to draw up laws, Radishchev drew up a "Draft Liberal Code", in which he spoke about the equality of all before the law, freedom of the press, etc. The chairman of the commission, Count P. V. Zavadovsky, made him a strict suggestion for his way of thinking, sternly reminding him of his former hobbies and even mentioning Siberia. Radishchev, a man with severely disturbed health, was so shocked by Zavadovsky's reprimand and threats that he decided to commit suicide, drank poison and died in terrible agony.
In the book "Radishchev" by D.S. Babkin, published in 1966, a different version of the death of Radishchev is proposed. The sons who were present at his death testified to a severe physical illness that struck Alexander Nikolayevich already during his Siberian exile. According to Babkin, the immediate cause of death was an accident: Radishchev drank a glass with “strong vodka prepared in it to burn out the old officer epaulettes of his eldest son” (aqua regia). Burial documents speak of natural death. On September 13, 1802, the register of the church of the Volkovsky cemetery in St. Petersburg listed among the buried “colleague adviser Alexander Radishchev; fifty-three years old, died of consumption, ”priest Vasily Nalimov was carried out.
Perception of Radishchev in the XIX-XX centuries
The idea that Radishchev was not a writer, but a public figure, distinguished by amazing spiritual qualities, began to take shape immediately after his death and, in fact, determined his future posthumous fate. I. M. Born, in a speech to the Society of Lovers of the Fine, delivered in September 1802 and dedicated to the death of Radishchev, says about him: “He loved truth and virtue. His ardent philanthropy longed to illuminate all his fellows with this unflickering ray of eternity. N. M. Karamzin characterized Radishchev as an “honest person” (“honnête homme”) (this oral testimony was given by Pushkin as an epigraph to the article “Alexander Radishchev”). The idea of the superiority of Radishchev's human qualities over his writing talent is especially succinctly expressed by P. A. Vyazemsky, explaining in a letter to A. F. Voeikov the desire to study Radishchev's biography: “Usually, a person is invisible behind a writer. In Radishchev, it’s the other way around: the writer is on the shoulder, and the man is head and shoulders above him.”
During interrogations of the Decembrists, to the question “since when and from where did they borrow the first free-thinking thoughts,” many Decembrists called the name of Radishchev.
The influence of Radishchev on the work of another freethinker writer, A.S. Griboedov (presumably, both were connected by blood relationship), who, being a career diplomat, often traveled around the country and therefore actively tried his hand at the genre of literary “travel”, is obvious.
A special page in the perception of the personality and creativity of Radishchev by Russian society was the attitude of A.S. Pushkin towards him. Acquainted with the "Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow" in his youth, Pushkin clearly focuses on Radishchev's ode "Liberty" in his ode of the same name (1817 or 1819), and also takes into account in "Ruslan and Lyudmila" the experience of "heroic songwriting" of Radishchev's son, Nikolai Alexandrovich , “Alyosha Popovich” (Pushkin mistakenly considered the author of this poem to be Radishchev the father all his life). The Journey turned out to be in tune with the tyrannical and anti-serfdom moods of the young Pushkin. Despite the change in political positions, Pushkin remained interested in Radishchev in the 1830s, acquired a copy of the Journey, which was in the Secret Chancellery, sketched out Journey from Moscow to St. Petersburg (conceived as a commentary on Radishchev's chapters in reverse order). In 1836, Pushkin tried to publish fragments from Radishchev's Journey in his Sovremennik, accompanying them with the article "Alexander Radishchev" - his most detailed statement about Radishchev. In addition to a bold attempt for the first time since 1790 to acquaint the Russian reader with a banned book, here Pushkin also gives a very detailed criticism of the work and its author: “We never considered Radishchev a great man. His act always seemed to us a crime, in no way excusable, and "Journey to Moscow" a very mediocre book; but with all that, we cannot but recognize in him a criminal with an extraordinary spirit; political fanatic, mistaken, of course, but acting with amazing selflessness and with some kind of chivalrous conscience.
Criticism of Pushkin, in addition to auto-censorship reasons (however, the publication was still not allowed by censorship) reflects the "enlightened conservatism" of the last years of the poet's life. In the drafts of the "Monument" in the same 1836, Pushkin wrote: "Following Radishchev, I glorified freedom."
In the 1830s-1850s, interest in Radishchev decreased significantly, and the number of travel lists decreased. A new revival of interest is associated with the publication of the Journey in London by A. I. Herzen in 1858 (he puts Radishchev among "our saints, our prophets, our first sowers, the first fighters").
Assessment of Radishchev as a forerunner revolutionary movement was adopted by the social democrats of the early 20th century. In 1918, A. V. Lunacharsky called Radishchev "the prophet and forerunner of the revolution." G. V. Plekhanov believed that under the influence of Radishchev’s ideas “the most significant social movements of the late 18th - first third of the 19th century". V. I. Lenin called him "the first Russian revolutionary."
Until the 1970s, the opportunities for the general reader to get acquainted with the Journey were extremely limited. After in 1790 almost the entire circulation of Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow was destroyed by the author before his arrest, until 1905, when the censorship was lifted from this work, the total circulation of several of his publications hardly exceeded one and a half thousand copies. The foreign edition of Herzen was carried out according to a faulty list, where XVIII language century was artificially "modernized" and there were numerous errors. In 1905-1907, several editions were published, but after that, Journey was not published in Russia for 30 years. In subsequent years, it was published several times, but mainly for the needs of the school, with cuts and scanty circulations by Soviet standards. Back in the 1960s, complaints from Soviet readers were known that it was impossible to get The Journey in a store or a district library. It wasn't until the 1970s that Journey began to be produced on a truly massive scale.
The scientific study of Radishchev, in fact, began only in the 20th century. In 1930-1950, under the editorship of Gr. Gukovsky, a three-volume "Complete Works of Radishchev" was carried out, where for the first time many new texts, including philosophical and legal ones, were published or attributed to the writer. In the 1950s-1960s, romantic hypotheses about the “hidden Radishchev” (G.P. Shtorm and others) arose, which were not confirmed by the sources - that Radishchev continued, allegedly after the exile, to refine the Journey and distribute the text in a narrow circle of like-minded people. At the same time, it is planned to abandon the straightforward propaganda approach to Radishchev, emphasizing the complexity of his views and the great humanistic significance of the individual (N. Ya. Eidelman and others). In modern literature, the philosophical and journalistic sources of Radishchev - Masonic, moralizing and educational, and others are studied, the multilateral problems of his main book, which cannot be reduced to the struggle against serfdom, are emphasized.
Philosophical views
“The philosophical views of Radishchev bear traces of the influence of various trends in European thought of his time. He was guided by the principle of reality and materiality (corporality) of the world, arguing that "the existence of things, regardless of the power of knowledge about them, exists on its own." According to his epistemological views, "the basis of all natural knowledge is experience." At the same time, sensory experience, being the main source of knowledge, is in unity with “reasonable experience”. In a world in which there is nothing “besides corporality”, man also takes his place, a being as corporeal as all nature. A person has a special role, he, according to Radishchev, is the highest manifestation of corporality, but at the same time is inextricably linked with the animal and plant world. “We do not humiliate man,” Radishchev asserted, “by finding similarities in his composition with other creatures, showing that he essentially follows the same laws as him. And how else could it be? Isn't he real?'
The fundamental difference between man and other living beings is the presence of his mind, thanks to which he "has the power of things known." But an even more important difference lies in the ability of a person to moral actions and assessments. “Man is the only creature on earth who knows the evil, evil”, “a special property of man is an unlimited opportunity to both improve and corrupt.” As a moralist, Radishchev did not accept the moral concept of "reasonable egoism", believing that it is by no means "selfishness" that is the source of moral feeling: "man is a sympathetic being." Being a supporter of the idea of “natural law” and always defending the idea of the natural nature of man (“the rights of nature never run out in man”), Radishchev at the same time did not share the opposition of society and nature, cultural and natural principles in man, outlined by Rousseau. For him, the social being of man is as natural as natural. According to the meaning of the case, there is no fundamental boundary between them: “Nature, people and things are the educators of man; climate, local position, government, circumstances are the educators of peoples. Criticizing the social vices of Russian reality, Radishchev defended the ideal of a normal “natural” way of life, seeing in the injustice reigning in society, in the literal sense, a social disease. He found such “diseases” not only in Russia. Thus, assessing the state of affairs in the slave-owning United States of America, he wrote that "one hundred proud citizens are drowning in luxury, and thousands do not have reliable food, nor their own shelter from the heat and scum (frost)". In the treatise “On Man, on His Mortality and Immortality”, Radishchev, considering metaphysical problems, remained true to his naturalistic humanism, recognizing the inseparability of the connection between the natural and spiritual principles in man, the unity of body and soul: “Does the soul grow with the body, not with it? does it grow manly and strong, does it wither and grow dull with it? At the same time, not without sympathy, he quoted thinkers who recognized the immortality of the soul (Johann Herder, Moses Mendelssohn and others). Radishchev's position is not an atheist's position, but rather an agnostic, which fully corresponded to the general principles of his worldview, already quite secularized, oriented towards the "naturalness" of the world order, but alien to theomachism and nihilism.
