The emergence of the historical novel dates back to the 1930s, the successes of which reflected the development of the national-historical self-awareness of Russian society, the rise of its interest in the domestic past.

The first such novel about “one’s own” was Yuri Miloslavsky, or the Russians in 1612 by Zagoskin, which appeared in 1829. His success was unheard of in the annals of Russian literature. In the next few years, many historical novels appeared, of which Roslavlev, or the Russians in 1812 (1830) by Zagoskin, Dimitry the Pretender (1829) Bulgarin, and The Oath at the Holy Sepulcher (1832) played a certain role in the development of the genre. Field, "The Last Novik, or the conquest of Livonia under Peter 1", published in parts in 1831-1833, "Ice House" (1835) and "Basurman" (1838) I. I. Lazhechnikova. In 1835, Gogol's story "Taras Bulba" was published. In 1836, Pushkin's The Captain's Daughter appeared. Russian historical novel was created.

The success and rapid development of the historical novel caused a lively controversy around its problems in magazines and literary circles in the first half of the 1930s. “At that time, they talked a lot about local color, about historicity, about the need to recreate history in poetry, in the novel,” testifies Adam Mickiewicz, an attentive observer of the development of Russian literature of that time. The controversy surrounding the problems of the historical novel was important point in that struggle for realism in Russian literature, which Pushkin began in the mid-1920s and then continued by Belinsky.

For Belinsky, the development of the historical novel in Russian literature was not the result of the influence of Walter Scott, as Shevyrev and Senkovsky argued, but a manifestation of the "spirit of the times", "a universal and, one might say, worldwide trend." Attention to the historical past, reflecting the growth national consciousness peoples, at the same time testified to the ever deeper penetration of reality and its interests into art and social thought. Belinsky points out that all further activity of advanced thought will and must be based on history, grow out of historical soil. According to Belinsky, the significance of Walter Scott was that he "finished the union of art with life, taking history as an intermediary." “Art itself has now become predominantly historical, the historical novel and historical drama are of interest to everyone and everyone more than works of the same kind, belonging to the realm of pure fiction,” the critic noted. In attention to history, to reality, he saw the movement of Russian literature towards realism.

Among the authors of historical novels of the 1930s, prominent and. And. Lazhechnikov is replaced by Ivan Ivanovich Lazhechnikov, who, according to Belinsky, gained wide popularity and "loud authority" among his contemporaries. The son of a rich, enlightened merchant who had been in contact with N. I. Novikov, he received a good education at home. Captured by a broad upsurge of patriotism in 1812, he ran away from home, participated in the Patriotic War, and visited Paris. Subsequently, in his Travel Notes of a Russian Officer, published in 1820, Lazhechnikov sympathetically noted the progressive phenomena of European culture and protested, although restrainedly, against serfdom. In the future, he served for a number of years as director of schools; By the 1960s, his moderate liberalism had dried up, his talent as a novelist had also weakened, only his published memoirs of life meetings (with Belinsky and others) are of undoubted interest.

Each of Lazhechnikov's novels was the result of the author's careful work on sources known to him, careful study documents, memoirs and the area where the described events took place. Lazhechnikov's first novel, The Last Novik, is already distinguished by these features. Lazhechnikov chose Livonia as the main place of action, which he knew well and, perhaps, attracted his imagination with the ruins of ancient castles.

The plot of "Last Novik" is romantic. The author resorted to an unsuccessful fiction, making the hero of the novel the son of Princess Sophia and Prince Vasily Golitsyn. IN early years he almost became the murderer of Tsarevich Peter. After the overthrow of Sophia and the removal of Golitsyn from power, he had to flee abroad to escape execution. There he matured and took a fresh look at the situation in Russia. He sympathetically followed the activities of Peter, but considered it impossible to return to his homeland. When a war arose between Russia and Sweden, Novik secretly began to help the Russian army, which invaded Livonia. Having entered into the confidence of the head of the Swedish troops Schlippenbach, he reported on his forces and plans to the commander of the Russian army in Livonia Sheremetyev, contributing to the victory of the Russian troops over the Swedes. Thus a dramatic situation arose in a romantic spirit. The last Novik is both a hero and a criminal: he is Peter's secret friend and knows that Peter is hostile towards him. The conflict is resolved by the fact that the last Novik returns to his homeland secretly, receives forgiveness, but no longer feeling the strength to participate in Peter's transformations, he goes to the monastery, where he dies.

The novel exposes the hypocritical, disguised as patriarchalism, soulless feudal attitude of the Livonian barons towards the peasants and their needs. At the same time, the author could well expect that the reader would be able to apply the images of the Livland landlords-serfs to Russian reality. Their black world is confronted in a novel noble people: zealots of education and true patriots I. R. Patkul, doctor Blumen-trost, pastor Gluck and his pupil - the future Catherine 1, noblemen - officers, the Traufert brothers, scientific librarian, lover of natural science Big and others. Most of them are historical figures. These characters are the bearers of historical progress in the novel. All of them admire the personality of Peter 1, sympathize with his activities, wish Livonia to come closer to Russia.

IN light colors Lazhechnikov draws the image of Peter himself, combining the simplicity and grandeur that are given in two scenes of Pushkin's "Arap Peter the Great". But if Pushkin clearly imagined the contradictory nature of Peter's activity, then in Lazhechnikov's novel the Petrine era, Peter himself and his associates are extremely idealized. Lazhechnikov does not show any social contradictions and political struggle, passes by the barbaric methods of government used by Peter. The appearance of Peter is given in the spirit of the romantic theory of genius.

Lazhechnikov's most significant novel is The Ice House (1835). Creating it, the novelist read into the memoirs of the figures of the time of Anna Ioannovna - Manstein, Munnich and others, published at the beginning of the 19th century. This allowed him to recreate with sufficient accuracy the atmosphere of court life during the time of Anna Ioannovna and the images of some historical figures, although in sketching them he considered it possible, according to his views, to change something compared to reality. This applies primarily to the hero of the novel Cabinet Minister Art. Volynsky, slandered by the favorite of the Empress, the German Biron, and betrayed by a terrible execution. The writer largely subjected his image to idealization. The historical role of Volynsky, who fought against the temporary foreigner, was undoubtedly progressive. But in historical Volynsk, positive features were combined with negative ones. Peter I beat him more than once for covetousness. Like other nobles of his time, Volynsky was not alien to servility, vanity, and careerism. All these features of his personality are eliminated by the writer. Volynsky in the novel is full of concern for the welfare of the state and the people, exhausted by heavy requisitions; in the fight with Biron, he enters only in the name of the good of the fatherland.

Volynsky's rival, the impudent temporary worker and oppressor of the people Biron, is sketched by the writer much closer to the historical image of the favorite of the empress. With all the caution of Lazhechnikov, the painted image of Anna Ioannovna herself testified to her narrow-mindedness, lack of will, and her lack of any spiritual interests. The construction of an ice house, in which the wedding of a jester couple was celebrated, is shown by the writer as an expensive and cruel entertainment.

The plot presented Lazhechnikov with the opportunity to deeply reveal the plight of the people. For the holiday, conceived by Volynsky for the amusement of the empress, young couples were brought from all over the country, creating the image of a multinational Russia. In the fear and humiliation experienced by the participants in the performance in the ice house, in the fate of the Ukrainian tortured by Biron's slander, the theme of the suffering of the Russian people under the yoke of Biron's revolt sounds. Conveying the dreams of the joker Mrs. Kulkovskaya about how she, “the future pillar noblewoman”, will “buy peasants in her name and beat them out of her own hands”, and, if necessary, resort to the help of an executioner, Lazhechnikov slightly opens the veil over serf morals, expressing his indignant attitude towards serfdom, his position as a humanist writer.

The image of Trediakovsky turned out to be historically incorrect, which was noted by Pushkin in a letter to Lazhechnikov. Trediakovsky Lazhechnikova is more similar to his caricature in Sumarokov's comedy Tressotinius, caused by fierce literary disputes mid-eighteenth century than on the historical reformer of Russian verse and man tragic life over which the nobles scoffed.

In the plot of the novel, political and love intrigues are intertwined all the time, Volynsky's romantic love for the beautiful Moldavian Marioritsa. This line of plot development sometimes interferes with the first, weakening the historicism of the Ice House. But it does not go beyond the life and customs of the capital's noble society of that time. Not always skillfully intertwining two main motives plot development novel, Lazhechnikov, unlike most historical writers of his time, does not subordinate history to fiction: the main situations and the ending of the novel are determined by the political struggle between Volynsky and Biron.

Reproducing in the novel "local color", some curious features of the customs and life of that time, the writer truthfully showed how state affairs were intertwined during the time of Anna Ioannovna with the palace and household life of the queen and her entourage. The scene of fear of the people at the appearance of the “language”, when pronouncing the terrible “word and deed”, which entailed torture in the Secret Chancellery, is historically accurate. Christmas fun girls, faith in sorcerers and fortune-tellers, the images of gypsy, palace jesters and crackers, the idea of ​​​​an ice house and the court entertainments of bored Anna, which the Cabinet Minister himself had to deal with - all these are picturesque and true features of the mores of that time. In the historical and everyday paintings and episodes, in the depiction of the horrors of the Bironovshchina, the realistic stream continues its course in the writer's work.

Historical novel as a genre

HISTORICAL NOVEL- a novel, the action of which takes place against the backdrop of historical events. The beginnings of a historical novel can be seen already in the Alexandrian era, not only in the historical names that he endows his heroes, in the style of his novel Hairei And Collyroy imitating Thucydides, Chariton of Aphrodisias, but, in particular, in the novels about Alexander the Great and the Trojan campaign, written in the first centuries of our era and received in the Middle Ages in numerous versions and alterations a huge distribution throughout Europe. However, the touch of alleged historicism that meets us here is almost only a convenient device to make readers treat with the greatest confidence that irresistible fantasy that overwhelmed all these works.

Historical novel- a symbol for novels that are heterogeneous in structure and composition, in which historical events of a more or less distant time are narrated, and historical figures can act as actors (main or secondary).

In European culture, the generally accepted founder and first classic of the genre was Walter Scott, although he had predecessors (for example, Maria Edgeworth). The genre flourished in the era of romanticism and remained popular in subsequent periods. The most famous writers of this genre also include Victor Hugo, Fenimore Cooper, Alessandro Manzoni, Heinrich Kleist, Alexander Dumas père, in Russian literature - Alexander Pushkin, Mikhail Zagoskin, Ivan Lazhechnikov, in Soviet literature - Yuri Tynyanov, Alexei Nikolaevich Tolstoy, Sergei Sergeev -Tsensky, Vasily Yan, Valentin Pikul, Dmitry Balashov, Bulat Okudzhava, Yuri Davydov and others.

What is a historical novel The historical novel sets itself the task of depicting people in the conditions of a specific historical time. The task of a historical novel is not to retell major historical events, but to recreate by artistic means the image of those people who participated in these events. The classic historical novel arose at the beginning of the 19th century, almost simultaneously with the overthrow of Napoleon. And until the XIX century. there have been attempts to turn to the past, but only with the advent of Walter Scott in literature is a truly historical novel created. The historical novel before Walter Scott lacks historical thinking, that is, the fact that the features of the character of people stem from the historical uniqueness of their time. Great historical art consists in the revival of the past as a prehistory of the present, in the artistic revival of those social and human forces that, during a long development, have shaped our life as it is. True artist makes this whole process so tangible, so clearly visible, that we ourselves, as it were, participate in it and experience it. Why did the historical novel appear at the beginning of the 19th century? As a result of the French Revolution of 1789, the revolutionary wars, the rise and fall of Napoleon, interest in history awakened among the masses. At this time, the masses received an unprecedented historical experience. During two or three decades (1789-1814), each of the peoples of Europe experienced more upheavals and upheavals than in previous centuries. There is a growing conviction that history really exists, that it is a process of continuous change, and, finally, that history intrudes directly into the personal life of each person, determines this life. What had previously been experienced only by a few people, mostly people with adventurous inclinations - to travel around and get to know the whole of Europe, or at least a significant part of it - now, during the years of the Napoleonic wars, became accessible and even necessary for hundreds of thousands and millions. people from various segments of the population of almost all European countries. Thus, a concrete opportunity arises for the masses to understand that their entire existence is historically conditioned, to see in history something that invades everyday life - and, consequently, something that every person cares about. On such a social basis, the historical novel created by Walter Scott arose.

Typology of the historical novel

The Soviet writer V. S. Pikul, for example, created novels-historical chronicles: "Word and Deed" (1974), "Battle of the Iron Chancellors" (1977), "Favorite" (1982) and many others. He collected a huge amount of documents, memoirs, statements of historical figures or simple contemporaries of events and arranged all the information in the order that he considered best for expressing his ideas.

In this type of novel, everything - historical truth and there is practically no author's fiction, but lacks psychological depth and artistic persuasiveness. Once Yu. N. Tynyanov, the author of the remarkable historical novels "Kukhlya" (1925), "The Death of Vazir-Mukhtar" (1928), said: "Where the document ends, I begin." To paraphrase Tynyanov, Pikul could say about himself: "I finish writing where the document ends." The second type of historical novel is a work where the characters are dressed up in costumes of a certain era, where historical figures are side by side with fictional characters, and the main characters are fictional, and the real characters belong to the event background.

A striking example of this type of novel is the "Three Musketeers" by Alexandre Dumas - a work with an exciting, masterfully "twisted" intrigue. Its alignment is the main objective the author, and the desire to understand and convey the content of the depicted era becomes a secondary task. In fairness, it should be noted that French literary critics found the real prototype of d'Artagnan, but this man remained in the history of France only thanks to his modest memoirs. the historical truth of Alexandre Dumas and The Three Musketeers! And he did the right thing, that he did not observe. "The works of M.N.

Zagoskin "Yuri Miloslavsky, or Russians in 1612" (1829), "Roslavlev, or Russians in 1812" (1830). Historical novels of the two named types become interesting for readers if they are written by talented authors, such as Pikul or Dumas. However, there is a third type of historical novel - not a historical chronicle, not "costume" adventures, but a work that has a real historical basis, an entertaining plot and a serious, one might say philosophical, understanding of the depicted era. The authors of novels of the third type are interested not only in conformity with the documentary source (as in novels of the first type), not only in historical exoticism, in the outward coloring of place and time (as in novels of the second type); they are attracted by the connection of the past and the present, the knowledge of modern public and private life through the comprehension of the past. Such historical works include the novel by A.

S. Pushkin " Captain's daughter", the epic novel by L. N. Tolstoy "War and Peace", the novel by A. N. Tolstoy "Peter the Great". The novels of the third type are characterized by the desire to show history through artistic images, and not through historical facts and costumes, which are easy to find respectively in historical documents and in ancient portraits.

In Russia, the first acquaintance with the prose works of the Scottish writer takes place in the same 1810s, but the peak of fame falls on the 1820s-30s. The success and rapid development of the historical novel caused a lively controversy around its problems in magazines and literary circles in the first half of the 1930s. “At that time, they talked a lot about local color, about historicity, about the need to recreate history in poetry, in the novel,” testifies Adam Mickiewicz, an attentive observer of the development of Russian literature of that time. The controversy around the problems of the historical novel was an important moment in the struggle for realism in Russian literature, which was started by Pushkin in the mid-1920s and then continued by V.G. Belinsky.

For Belinsky, the development of the historical novel in Russian literature was not the result of the influence of Walter Scott, as famous authors claimed. literary critics the first third of the 19th century S.P. Shevyrev and O.I. Senkovsky, but a manifestation of the "spirit of the times", "a universal and, one might say, a worldwide trend." Attention to the historical past, reflecting the growth of the national self-consciousness of peoples, at the same time testified to the ever deeper penetration of reality and its interests into art and social thought. Belinsky points out that all further activity of advanced thought will and must be based on history, grow out of historical soil. According to Belinsky, the significance of Walter Scott was that he "finished the union of art with life, taking history as an intermediary." “Art itself has now become predominantly historical, the historical novel and historical drama are of interest to everyone and everyone more than works of the same kind, belonging to the realm of pure fiction,” the critic noted. In attention to history, to reality, he saw the movement of Russian literature towards realism.

V. Scott at that time was read almost everywhere, although opinions were different (for example, O.I. Senkovskiy strongly condemned the historical novel). But the majority still assessed his work positively, even enthusiastically (N.A. and K.A. Polevye, P.A. Vyazemsky, V.K. Kuchelbeker, etc.).

The main merit of W. Scott was considered the creation of a new genre - the historical novel, which, according to critics, absorbed the main aesthetic aspirations of that era. “Walter Scott created, invented, discovered, or, rather, guessed the epic of our time - a historical novel,” wrote V.G. Belinsky. And in another article: “Walter Scott was the creator of a new kind of poetry that could only arise in the 19th century, the historical novel. In Walter Scott's novel, history and poetry first met as kindred rather than hostile principles.<...>And this is why, when reading the novels of Walter Scott, in which one historical event is mixed with many fictitious ones, you think that you are reading history: everything is so natural, alive and true in the novel. What was new was the angle of view from which he saw Walter Scott " privacy with her worries and troubles "(V. G. Belinsky) and love -" the supreme queen of feelings "(N. I. Nadezhdin). Everything "private" is given by W. Scott in a historical perspective: fictional heroes - people of past centuries - act among historical figures, participate in events that took place in reality. “Archaeological” and “ethnographic” details acquired special significance in the novels of W. Scott: the area with all its features, the color of the era, the costumes, and the poses of the characters - everything had to correspond to its time. The novelist strove for the same correspondence when depicting "old customs": habits, customs, concepts, prejudices of people of the past. With special care, the everyday and historical background of the era was recreated in the historical novel. This does not mean that W. Scott reproduced historical events, faces, objects with scrupulous accuracy, based only on documentary facts. The writer, resurrecting history in a novel with the help of artistic conjecture, was free to allow deliberate anachronisms, rearrange the dates to enhance the drama of the narrative, and invent the character of a historical person.

In Russia, the first attempt at a historical "narration" based on historical reality is N. Karamzin's story "Natalia, the Boyar's Daughter" (1792). However, the difficulty of mastering the historical epoch is not only not resolved in it, but is also recognized by the author as insoluble. “The reader will guess,” he writes in a short preface to the story, “that the old lovers did not speak quite the way they speak here, but we could not now understand the language of that time.” As a result of this realization characters stories are both spoken and felt in the modern literary language of sentimentalism to N. Karamzin. The influence of Walter Scott, who showed how you can make your heroes speak the language of their era, so that it is understandable and modern readers, affected, first of all, in the "Moor of Peter the Great" A.S. Pushkin (1827), about which V.G. Belinsky wrote: “These seven chapters of the unfinished novel, of which one preempted all the historical novels of Mr. Zagoskin and Lazhechnikov, are immeasurably higher and better than any historical Russian novel taken separately and all of them taken together.”

However, the consciousness of contemporaries is much greater than the "Arap of Peter the Great" and even

The Captain's Daughter (1836) touched upon the historical novels of M.N. Zagoskin ("Yuri Miloslavsky" 1829, "Askold's Grave" 1833, "Bryn Forest" 1845 and many others) and I.I. Lazhechnikov (“The Last Novik” 1831-1833, “Ice House” 1835, “Basurman” 1838, etc.). A. S. Pushkin, in his review of Yuri Miloslavsky, wrote: “Mr. Zagoskin definitely takes us to 1612. Our good people, boyars, Cossacks, monks, violent shisha - all this is guessed, all this acts, feels how it should have acted, felt in troubled times Minin and Avraamy Palitsyn. How alive, how entertaining are the scenes of ancient Russian life! .

"War and Peace" by Leo Tolstoy (1860), according to D. Blagoy, "this" Russian Iliad ", where all the struggles and passions are woven into the" giant web of history human heart, all the quests and sorrows of the human spirit, where, next to the exceptionally well-aimed portraits of the great participants in the events of the 12th year, a broad picture of life is given - and all this airy construction is worn around dark waves original philosophical and historical worldview of the author, - gives a unique example of a world historical novel, at the same time not entirely fitting within the framework of this genre alone.

Among the famous classical Russian historical novels are “Taras Bulba” by N.V. Gogol, "Masons" by A.F. Pisemsky (1880), "Pugachevtsy" (1874) E.A. Salias de Turnemire, novels by G.P. Danilevsky ("Mirovich" and others), Vs. Solovyov ("Magi" 1889, "The Great Rosicrucian" 1890, etc.), D.L. Mordovtsev (“The Great Schism”, “The Twelfth Year” and many others), “ Fire Angel» V.Ya. Bryusov, the historical trilogy "Christ and the Antichrist", the novel "Alexander I" by D.S. Merezhkovsky and many others.

History of the Russian novel. Volume 1 Philology Team of authors --

CHAPTER IV. HISTORICAL NOVEL (S. M. Petrov)

CHAPTER IV. HISTORICAL NOVEL (S. M. Petrov)

One of the significant phenomena in the history of the Russian novel and the 30s XIX years century was the emergence and development of the historical novel. The historical novel appears in world literature as a reflection of the turbulent events associated with the breaking of the feudal order and the development of capitalism. It is formed on the basis of new historical thinking, which replaced the rationalist philosophy of the Enlightenment. In the Russian literature of the serf era, the historical novel takes shape as a reflection of the struggle around the cause of the Decembrists, as a manifestation of the rise of the national - historical identity of the Russian people, caused by the events of 1812-1825, the development of public interest in the national historical past, in the problems of originality folk character, national culture.

The literary sources of the Russian historical novel of the 19th century go back to narrative prose on the historical theme of the period of sentimentalism (Karamzin's stories "Marfa Posadnitsa" and "Natalia, the Boyar's Daughter").

The appearance of a national historical theme in Russian narrative prose had a progressive social and artistic significance. Karamzin takes a step forward compared to Kheraskov, whose historical novels are completely fabulous character, depicting "images without faces, events without space and time." In the stories of Karamzin, nevertheless, “people acted, the life of the heart and passions was depicted in the midst of ordinary everyday life". The ideological and stylistic influence of his historical novels continued long time, reaching Zagoskin and Lazhechnikov (the story "Robin"). However, the historicism of Karamzin's stories was didactic in nature. History was in them the subject of moral teaching. Karamzin's historical prose did not resolve the issues related to the emergence of the historical novel in Russian literature. In particular, Karamzin does not yet feel the need for historical stylization in recreating historical differences in the psychology, morality, spiritual image and language of people from different ages.

The problems of creating a historical novel were not resolved by the Decembrist writers who turned to him.

By 1816, M. S. Lunin attempted to write a historical novel. “I conceived a historical novel from the time of the interregnum: this is the most interesting epoch in our chronicles, and I set myself the task of understanding it. Although the story of False Dmitry is legendary, it is still a prologue to our present life. And how much drama is there! - he told the French writer Auger. Written in French, the first part of the novel has not come down to us.

At the same time, F. N. Glinka made an attempt to create a historical novel. In 1817, in an appendix to the third part of his "Letters to a Friend", the beginning of his novel "Zinobiy Bogdan Khmelnitsky, or Liberated Little Russia" was published, which appeared in a completely separate edition in two parts in 1819. While working on a novel about the great figure in the history of Ukraine, Glinka tried to “get all kinds of information about him during his stay in Kyiv, Chernigov and Ukraine. I collected all kinds of legends, went into all the details and even listened to the songs of the people, which often explain different places in their history.

The novel is imbued with the ideas of the struggle against despotism, for the independence of the Motherland, expressed by the young Bogdan Khmelnitsky. But the level of historical thinking of the author turned out to be low. Glinka does not care about revealing the character of Khmelnitsky as a figure of a certain historical era: the image of the hero of the novel is only a mouthpiece for expressing the thoughts of the writer himself. The events of the novel come down to depicting the personal relationships of the young Khmelnitsky, to a love affair. The life of the people is not shown in the novel, the action is not connected with the movement of the masses who suffered under the yoke of pan Poland. Historical events are covered in the spirit of a romantic interpretation of the role outstanding personality. “A hero appears, inspired by heaven, reinforced by happiness. He orders - and thousands of Little Russians obey him ... ”, - Glinka writes about the relationship between Bogdan Khmelnitsky and the masses of Ukraine. The whole style of the novel, with its rhetoric, with images divorced from concrete historical reality, with moralization and sentimental lamentations, goes back to the traditions of classicism and partly to Karamzin's prose.

A well-known role in the development of the epic form in the artistic development of the historical theme was played by the romantic stories of A. A. Bestuzhev-Marlinsky of the 1920s. Bestuzhev himself did not try his hand at the novel, but rather accurately defined the meaning of his historical stories, pointing out that they "served as doors to the mansions of the complete novel." Pushkin directly advises him to write a novel, elements of which he saw in Bestuzhev's stories. One of the first Bestuzhev raised the question of using the language of ancient times to convey the appearance of the historical past, the task of historical stylization, which, however, was unsuccessfully solved in his own stories, in the spirit of romantic folk.

The most noticeable realistic tendencies in the historical prose of the Decembrists are those of A. O. Kornilovich. His historical essays on the era of Peter I served as material in Pushkin's work on Peter the Great's Moor. Kornilovich did not want to follow those historians who based all the glory of the rulers on military successes. He addresses the inner and even the economic side of the life of that time. The image of Peter I as a progressive historical figure - an educator anticipates Pushkin's image of Peter. While in the fortress, Kornilovich wrote a work from the era of Peter I "Andrey the Nameless", published in 1832 without the author's name, with the subtitle "An Old Tale".

Kornilovich understood the need for a realistic reflection of the historical past and, in connection with this, the difficulties that the writer faced. The historical novel requires "the greatest subtlety in events, characters, customs, language," he notes. He seeks to faithfully recreate the life and customs of the time of Peter the Great, carefully describes the costumes, furnishings, utensils, details of the wedding ceremony, meetings of the Senate. The fictitious representative of the landowner-feudal milieu, who persecutes the peasants and is ready to tear everyone for “intimidation” for the fault of one, is critically illuminated. But the characters of the story are not like the people of Peter's time. Kornilovich makes Peter utter such tirades: “May my people sing on the path of enlightenment!.. May the truth triumph, the truth will sit in judgment!” The story reveals the dramatic fate of a noble loner, which was not typical for the Peter the Great era, which was one of the favorite topics of Decembrist literature. The image of the hero of the old story reminded not of antiquity, but of modernity. In the personality of Andrei Bezymyanny, an honest nobleman - a patriot, persecuted by the servants of the all-powerful despot Menshikov and bailed out by the tsar, there were hopes for an enlightened and humane monarch of the Decembrist writer himself, who also failed to overcome the sin of modernization inherent in all Decembrist literature when referring to the historical past. “The lack of material has damaged much of the novel's amusement and dignity. None of the characters are developed. Human passions are always the same, but their forms are different. These forms are manifested in conversations, which must bear the stamp of the century, reveal the then concepts, enlightenment, be expressed in their own language. I could not comply with this ... ”, Kornilovich himself admitted.

After the glorious and necessary, but difficult and bitter experience of December 14, 1825, interest in questions of history, the historical development of Russia, is growing and intensifying. Pushkin, N. Polevoy, Chaadaev and others turn to the problems of Russian and world history to the philosophy of history. The ruling reaction, taking into account the role of the intellectual movement in the preparations for December 14, for its part, puts forward historical theory seeking to justify autocratically - feudal system in Russia. Its history is contrasted with the history of the West, in particular, in order to present the cause of the Decembrists as anti-people, allegedly contradicting the entire historical development of the Russian nation and introduced by foreign ideological influence. In the struggle against the reactionary ideology of the official nationality, progressive thought defends the rapprochement of Russia with the West. The struggle for the cause of the Decembrists, for the development of humanistic ideas and enlightenment, the "inevitable consequence" of which, as he firmly believed, would be "people's freedom", was continued by Pushkin in the new conditions; he made the most profound philosophical and historical conclusions from the turbulent upheavals of his era.

In the West, the historical novel had already gained immense popularity by that time. The novels of Walter Scott gained worldwide fame, his influence had a fruitful effect not only in literature, but also in historical science.

In his novels, which was a huge step forward in the development of world literature, Walter Scott sought to identify national identity historical life people. Turning to the great social crises in the history of the country, the writer has always sought to embrace his creative imagination the whole nation, both the top and the bottom of the English society of a given era. He traces the reflection of significant historical events in the life of the people, their impact on the fate of individuals. In his novels, Walter Scott was able to vividly depict the political battles of the era of feudalism, national and social differences in different periods English and Scottish history.

In the images of people of different eras created by Walter Scott, certain social currents, historical forces and trends are revealed, and in clashes of human interests - historical contradictions and clashes. The characters of his novels always represent entire social groups, professions, workshops, tribal clans, various strata of the people.

Activity historical figures drawn by Walter Scott as an expression turning points V historical development nation or social group. The historical figure appears to the writer as a son of his time and at the same time as a representative of a certain historical trend, the arrival of which is prepared by previous events.

The innovation of the great English novelist also manifested itself in a broad depiction of everyday life, in the transfer of national color, the real circumstances of the life of his heroes. The writer seems to be getting used to it! in the old days, in his novels, archaeological and ethnographic details that characterize the material and spiritual culture of the era are richly presented, typical features of the national landscape are reproduced, but all this is subordinated to the depiction of the characters and customs of people of a certain era.

Fiction in the novels of Walter Scott is always rich and historical, the plot is interesting and meaningful. Romantic plot, love stories, which are an integral part of the content of the novels of Walter Scott, freely and naturally merge with historical events. The novels of Walter Scott, in terms of the tension of the action, the complexity of the ups and downs, the concentration of events, sometimes resemble a romantic drama. At the same time, Walter Scott is a master of epic storytelling, a complex narrative that spans a range of characters.

A particularly significant place in his novels is occupied by dialogue, which always plays a characterological role. The writer also made extensive use of language as a means of individualizing his characters. A feature of the composition of the novels of Walter Scott is that the center of action is always a fictional character, who connects the opposing sides, historical antagonists with his fate and adventures. Historical figures act episodically, most often at the decisive moment of the events depicted in the novel, and occupy a compositionally secondary place.

At the same time, Walter Scott's novels and his realistic method also have certain limitations. The English novelist lacks a deep psychological insight into the characters of his characters; many of Walter Scott's characters repeat each other. If Walter Scott truthfully recreates the national-historical features of the social environment of each era he chose, then he achieved much less achievements in depicting the development of the inner world, the character of a person. His Ivanhoe, Waverley, Quentin Dorward not only resemble the type of well-bred English nobleman of the times of the writer himself, but their very character is not given in development, in changes, in the course of their life. Stendhal rightly pointed out that the "movements of the human heart" are poorly disclosed in the novels of Walter Scott. In area psychological novels English writer were not at all as historical as in the depiction of the situation, customs, life, public environment. The development principle had yet to be applied to the image inner world person, his character, and, moreover, in causation with the social environment, which is also changing and developing according to its own objective laws, independent of the consciousness of people. In most of his novels; love affair plays a significant role. “The historical novels of Walter Scott are based on love adventures - what is it for? Chernyshevsky asked. - Was love the main occupation of society and the main engine of events in the eras he depicts? It should also be noted that in the novels of Walter Scott, love stories and romantic adventures almost always end happily. He avoids showing the dark, wild mores of the Middle Ages, smooths out in some way the collisions and contradictions he depicts. In the novels of Walter Scott, there is still a tendency, dating back to the Gothic novel, to depict the wonderful, the unusual. The exposition of a number of novels by Walter Scott is characterized by slowness, the writer is often overly fond of descriptions - landscape and ethnographic.

The historical novel by Walter Scott marked the beginning of the development of realism in the historical genre. The historical point of view on reality as the most important and necessary condition her truthful image found my objective art form in the very genre where the power and strength of the new method of depicting life manifested itself most clearly, with results that amazed contemporaries. The "Scottish Magician" so freely and with such convincing truth recreated the pictures of a distant and, it seemed, forever disappeared past, that it seemed to the astonished readers of all countries of Europe the magic of a genius. But the mighty talent of Walter Scott expressed in the language of art what was the spirit of the time, reflecting the world-historical experience of peoples in the era of the bourgeois-democratic revolution.

If the penetration of the spirit of history into art and literature was a worldwide phenomenon, then the main form of this penetration turned out to be universal - the historical novel, which in the 30s pushed the historical drama into the background, which occupied the first place in the historical genre during the period of "storm and stress", during the growth and development of the bourgeois revolution. The direct reflection in the action of the stormy clash of social contradictions is replaced by the epic form of their cognition and disclosure in modern reality and in the past. This form was the novel in general, the historical novel in particular.

Following Walter Scott in the genre of the historical novel, the greatest masters begin to write Western literature- realists Balzac, Stendhal, Merimee, romantic Victor Hugo in France, A. Manzoni - in Italy, F. Cooper - in the USA. Most of them point to Walter Scott as their teacher.

In the West, contemporaries explained the general fascination with the historical novel by the nature of the era itself, which came after the dramatic finale of the Napoleonic epic. In one of the magazine articles of the 1930s we read: “Previously, when getting acquainted with history, they were content with stories about battles and victories, but now they “question the past” and want to delve into“ the smallest details of inner life ... "". It was precisely this interest in the “internal”, “home”, “everyday” in history that the realistic historical novel of the early 19th century answered.

Historical novels were also read with increasing success in Russia, especially the novels of Walter Scott. Translations of his works began in 1820. It is noteworthy that the largest number translations of novels by Walter Scott falls on 1826-1828, on the eve of the appearance of the Russian historical novel. "Walter Scott was known in all circles of Russian society, his name, his heroes, his plots were made public and entered into the daily conversations, disputes, comparisons, references."

Reading the novels of the "Scottish sorcerer", they were surprised at "the art with which Walter Scott sometimes gives life and truth to the faces that he brings to the stage." The name of Walter Scott is one of the most frequent literary controversies in journals of the 1930s. “Walter Scott solved the century’s inclination towards historical details, created a historical novel, which has now become the need of the entire reading world, from the walls of Moscow to Washington, from the nobleman’s office to the counter of a petty merchant,” we read in Marlinsky’s article about the novel by N. A. Polevoy “ An oath at the tomb of the Lord.

In the literature of each country, the source of the development of the historical novel, its content was national reality, a specific socio-political situation, on the basis of which both the very interest in the historical past and various trends in the historical novel arose. At the same time, it would be absurd to deny that the historical novel in Russian literature took shape under the influence of the artistic experience of the earlier Western European historical novel, and above all the novel by Walter Scott. “In place of the old local and national isolation… comes all-round communication and all-round dependence of nations on each other… The fruits of the spiritual activity of individual nations become common property. National one-sidedness and narrow-mindedness become more and more impossible, and out of the multitude of national and local literatures one world literature is formed.

The development of the historical novel in Russian literature is ahead of the appearance of the social novel about modernity. The turbulent historical events of the beginning of the century, the tragic failure of the Decembrists brought the problems of history to the fore in the development of Russian social thought in the late 1920s and 1930s. It was impossible to solve any issues of our time without generalizing the experience of history, without mastering the historical point of view on the course community development. At the same time, the era of romanticism, the very nature of the romantic worldview that prevailed in the advanced circles of society, contributed to interest in history and, on the contrary, distracted from the specific social issues of reality. The artistic method of romanticism considered a person in his national-historical originality, romantically understood, but separated a person from the social environment that gave birth to him. It should also be borne in mind that in the Russian narrative prose of the 1920s, the development of which prepared the way for the appearance of the novel, the historical theme sounded stronger than the theme of modernity. It took the experience of the stories of the 30s and, first of all, Gogol, and then the writers " natural school", so that prose appears in Russian literature social romance about modernity. One of its predecessors was the historical novel of the 1930s. With his help, in various forms, the principle of historicism entered deeper into the method of fiction, which was also necessary for the development of a realistic novel about modernity.

The spirit of history penetrated deeper and deeper into Russian social thought and into Russian literature.

It is clear what great interest historical novels devoted to their native, national history should have aroused among the Russian reading public.

Pushkin was one of the first to feel this. Upon his return from exile to Moscow, the poet told his friends: "God willing, we will write a historical novel, which even strangers will admire." Pushkin had in mind the historical novel he had conceived from the era of Peter I. In the summer of 1827, he began work on the novel Peter the Great's Moor.

At the beginning of the novel, Pushkin gives an expressive and historically accurate picture of the life of the highest noble society in France in the first quarter.

XVIII century. Pushkin emphasizes the economic and moral decline of the careless and frivolous aristocracy: “... nothing could compare with the free frivolity, madness and luxury of the French of that time ..., greed for money was combined with a thirst for pleasure and absent-mindedness; estates disappeared; morality perished; the French laughed and calculated, and the state disintegrated under the playful choruses of satirical vaudevilles ”(P, VIII 1, 3). Versailles of the Regency era is, as it were, an illustration of those reflections on the causes of political upheavals that Pushkin had during his work on the note “On public education» (1826). And here, in the novel, and later, in the notes of the 30s about french revolution, and in the poem "To the Nobleman" (1830), which in its historical content was a direct continuation of the picture drawn in the first chapter of Peter the Great's Moor, Pushkin develops the idea of ​​the historical pattern of the French Revolution and the death of the old order in France at the end of the 18th century.

The picture of the decline of the French state, the moral licentiousness of the aristocracy, the carelessness of the Duke of Orleans Pushkin contrasts in the novel with the image of the young, full of creative power of Peter's Russia, the harsh simplicity of the St. Petersburg court, Peter's concern for the state.

The era of Peter the Great is revealed by Pushkin mainly from the side of the “form of government”, culture and customs of the Russian people, or, as Pushkin wrote in the note “On Nationality in Literature”, “customs, beliefs and habits belonging exclusively to some people” (P, XI , 40). Pushkin strove to show the time of Peter the Great in a clash of the new with the old (the family of the boyar Rzhevsky), in a contradictory and sometimes comical combination of time-honored habits and new orders introduced by Peter.

In the images of Ibragim and the frivolous dandy Korsakov, Pushkin historically correctly outlines two opposite trends in the development of noble society, generated by the Peter the Great reform, those two types of Russian nobility, about which Herzen later wrote, whose appearance was illuminated by Tolstoy in War and Peace. According to the aspirations of his spirit and the meaning of his activity, Ibrahim is the earliest representative of that few enlightened and progressive nobility, from whose midst some prominent figures of Russian culture emerged in subsequent eras.

Pushkin's interest and attention to the personality and reforms of Peter I had political sense and meaning.

In the image of Peter I, Pushkin developed the main motives of the Stanzas (“There was an eternal worker on the throne” and “With an autocratic hand He boldly sowed enlightenment”; P, IIIi, 40). The image of Peter I is illuminated by Pushkin in the spirit of that ideal of an enlightened, establishing reasonable laws, loving science and art, understanding his people, a ruler who was drawn to the imagination of Holbach and Diderot, and in Russian literature before Pushkin - to Lomonosov and Radishchev. The democracy of Peter, the breadth of his nature, a penetrating, practical mind, hospitality, good-natured slyness embodied, according to Pushkin, the features of a Russian national character. Belinsky rightly remarked that Pushkin showed "the great reformer of Russia in all folk simplicity his methods and customs” (B, VII, 576).

Later, in The History of Peter, Pushkin took a more critical approach to the personality and activities of Peter I. In the novel, emphasizing the simplicity and humanity of Peter, Pushkin argued with that official pompous image of him that impressed Nicholas I.

The pathos of "Arap Peter the Great" is the glorification of the transformative, creative activity of Peter I and his associates. The theme of Peter is included in the poet's work in close connection with the Decembrist idea of ​​the progressive development of Russia in the spirit of "people's freedom, the inevitable consequence of enlightenment," as Pushkin wrote back in 1822 in Notes on Russian history XVIII century" (P, XI, 14).

Considering The Moor of Peter the Great against the backdrop of historical fiction of the 1930s, Belinsky wrote: “If this novel ended as well as it began, we would have an excellent historical Russian novel depicting mores greatest era Russian history ... These seven chapters of the unfinished novel, of which one preempted all the historical novels of the years. Zagoskin and Lazhechnikov, immeasurably higher and better than any historical Russian novel taken separately, and all of them taken together” (B, VII, 576).

Pushkin is equally far from the moralistic approach to the historical past, which was inherent in sentimentalists, and from the romantic "allusions", applications of history to the current political situation. Pushkin shows that both the virtues and limitations of his heroes, the forms of their spiritual and moral life, grow on a certain historical night, depending on the social environment in which these heroes are brought up. Historicism is combined in Pushkin's realism with a deep understanding of the role of social differences, which are of great importance for the formation of a person's personality. Specifically - the historical image of the national past, the fidelity of historical characters, consideration of reality in its development - those principles of historicism that were developed by Pushkin in his work on "Boris Godunov" found their artistic embodiment in "Peter the Great's Moor", the first in Russian literature experience of the realistic historical novel.

In the next few years, many historical novels appeared in Russian literature, of which Yuri Miloslavsky (1829) and Roslavlev (1831) played a certain role in the development of the genre.

M. N. Zagoskina, “Dimitriy the Pretender” (1830) by F. V. Bulgarin, “The Oath at the Holy Sepulcher” (1832) by N. A. Polevoy, “The Last Novik, or the Conquest of Livonia in the reign of Peter the Great”, published in parts in 1831–1833, “Ice House” (1835) and “Basurman” (1838) by I. I. Lazhechnikov. In 1835, Gogol's story "Taras Bulba" was published in the collection "Mirgorod". In 1836, Pushkin's The Captain's Daughter appeared. Russian historical novel was created.

Especially big success fell to the share of the first historical novel by M. N. Zagoskin "Yuri Miloslavsky, or Russians in 1612".

Pushkin noted the veracity of a number of paintings and images of the novel. “Zagoskin,” he wrote in his review, “takes us exactly to 1612. Our good people, boyars, Cossacks, monks, violent shisha - all this is guessed, all this acts, feels how it should have acted, felt in the troubled times of Minin and Avraamy Palitsyn. How alive, how entertaining are the scenes of ancient Russian life! How much truth and good-natured gaiety in the portrayal of the characters of Kirsha, Alexei Burnash, Fedka Khomyak, Pan Kopychinsky, Old Man Yeremey! (P, XI, 92). Zagoskin managed to convey some features folk life. The rite of an old wedding, peasant superstition, the sorcerer's trickery and fear of him, descriptions of the wilderness and the road recreate the local flavor.

Belinsky attributed the success of Yuri Miloslavsky to the patriotic feeling that warmed the novel; he revived the memories of many readers about the triumph of Russia in the fight against Napoleon in 1812-1815. Drawing in the novel a picture of the patriotic upsurge of the masses who rose to fight for the liberation of Moscow, captured by the Poles, Zagoskin correctly illuminates the popular movement in 1612 as a nationwide cause. However, the historical fact of the patriotic unity of the majority of the Russian people in the face of the threat of foreign enslavement, the writer transfers to internal social relations in Russia, which were very far from this unity both in 1612 and in 1829, when the novel appeared. Zagoskin one-sidedly shed light on the mood of the masses of that time, drawing a picture of patriarchal relations between the serfs and the boyars. The very desire for freedom and disobedience is considered by the author as alien to the people, brought to Rus' by alien semi-robber elements, such as the willful and greedy Zarutsky Cossacks, the Zaporizhzhya Cossacks, who suffer greatly in the novel. Zagoskin promotes the reactionary idea that the Russian nation at all times has been united by service to the tsar and devotion to Orthodoxy. In Yuri Miloslavsky, such unity is presented in the scene of a meeting of the boyar duma in Nizhny Novgorod on the eve of the convocation of the people's militia. It is no coincidence that the leader of the "shisha", the people's partisans, is priest Yeremey. The main character of the novel, a representative of the old patrimonial boyars, hostile to the people, Zagoskin made a national hero, an exponent of popular aspirations, a decisive figure in the historical events of 1612. Even Kozma Minin, a purely rhetorical figure in the novel, recedes into the background before Yuri Miloslavsky.

There is little historical in the character of Yuri Miloslavsky. In the scene with Pan Kopychinsky, one can see not so much a young boyar of the beginning of the 17th century as a duelist - a bully from the tsarist army officers of the 30s. And Yuri's beloved, Anastasya, is more like a young lady from the noble province of Zagoskin's time than the daughter of a noble boyar of the early 17th century. Zagoskin transfers the psychology of the people of his time to the beginning of the 17th century.

According to the principles of composition, which has as its center not a historical person, but a fictional hero, according to the development of the plot, moving by the fact that the hero falls into a conflict between two warring camps, according to the desire to reproduce the national color, "Yuri Miloslavsky" goes back to the novel by Walter Scott, but this closeness largely external. Zagoskin turned out to be far from the deep historicism of the English writer. He connected the adventures of his heroes with historical events, but the events themselves and historical figures remained aloof; they play a purely auxiliary role in the novel and, moreover, much less than, in similar situations, in the novels of Walter Scott. Usually Zagoskin himself tells about historical events instead of depicting them artistically. Figures of 1612 appear in the novel only at those moments when the adventures and interests of Yuri Miloslavsky require it. The story itself turns into a novel proof of the triumph of the moral ideas of the writer. Zagoskin not only did not care about observing the principle of objectivity in depicting the historical past, but directly attached a didactic purpose to his novels. In this respect, he is the direct successor historical prose Karamzin. Negative heroes"Yuri Miloslavsky" are punished, and virtue triumphs. Zagoskin gives idealized images; it is not history that is important to him, but its moralizing meaning. Like Karamzin, he did not strive to create historically typical characters, replacing them with the image of abstract bearers of moral ideas, devoid of historical flesh. “All the faces of the novel are the realization of the author's personal concepts; they all feel it with their feelings, understand it with their minds,” Belinsky rightly notes (B, VI, 36).

According to S. T. Aksakov, Zagoskin himself saw the historical novel as "an open field where the writer's imagination could roam freely."

Zagoskin undoubtedly experienced the influence of romanticism. Although the writer sometimes somewhat ironically over the gloomy imagination of romantics, nevertheless, in the style of Zhukovsky's ballads, he describes a secluded dilapidated castle and tells legends about dead monks rising from their graves. All stages of the life of Yuri Miloslavsky are predicted by some mysterious beggar, and the events of the novel show the validity of this prophetic prophecy. On the other hand, Zagoskin often falls into a pompous didactic tone.

Nevertheless, "Yuri Miloslavsky" was a remarkable experience of Russian literature of the late 20s. Pushkin in Zagoskin's novel was attracted by the qualities of prose, undoubtedly good for that time. “Of course, it lacks a lot, but there is a lot: liveliness, gaiety, which Bulgarin would never even dream of,” Pushkin wrote to Vyazemsky about “Yuri Miloslavsky” (P, XIV, 61). Zagoskin "is not in a hurry with his story, dwells on the details, looks to the side, but never tires the reader's attention" (P, XI, 92-93). The adventures of the heroes are described vividly, taking into account the experience of the adventure genre: the novel is built on the unusual wanderings of its characters. Zagoskin succeeded in everyday and comic scenes. All this was not so common in Russian narrative prose of the 1920s. The colloquial language of the novel, its easy dialogue, was good in its naturalness. " narrative language"Yuri Miloslavsky" is literary language first decades

XIX century, with a bright imprint of the official - patriotic style of journalism of this time and at the same time - with some lexical deviations from the modern norm ”(in particular, the use of Church Slavonic phraseology in the speech of the court-boyar environment). “Conversation (lively, dramatic wherever it is common people) denounces the master of his craft,” Pushkin noted (P, XI, 93). The author's narrative language is simple and concise. Recall the first scene: "... in early April 1612, two horsemen slowly made their way along the banks of the meadow side of the Volga." Or: “The travelers have stopped. To the right, half a mile from the road, a light flickered; they turned in that direction, and a few minutes later Alexei, who was walking in front with the dog, shouted in a joyful voice: “Here, Yuri Dmitritch, here! ..”. Zagoskin does not overload his novel with the words of the 16th-17th centuries, using folk tales, songs, proverbs. We must not forget that "Yuri Miloslavsky" was written before the advent of the prose works of Pushkin and Gogol. However, where the writer conveys the feelings of Yuri and Anastasya or the speeches of historical figures, he departs from simplicity and ease and resorts to pretentious language, to rhetorical phrases and sentimental exclamations, which, of course, are in no way characteristic of the language of the Russian people of the early 17th century. In Minin's speech "there are no outbursts of popular eloquence," Pushkin notes (P, XI, 93). “Minin's speeches are very reminiscent of the similar pompous tirades of Martha Posadnitsa in Karamzin's story,” A. M. Skabichevsky rightly points out. Sometimes Zagoskin was afraid of "offending the tender ear" of readers with rude expressions of the old language.

Nevertheless, “Zagoskin decisively transformed Karamzin’s manner historical narrative. The essence of this transformation is not only in the weakening of high rhetoric, not only in the strengthening of the everyday element of speech. He “expanded the range of ancient clothing terminology as part of the narrative. He strives for archaeological accuracy of designations, although he does not abuse old words ... But the most important thing: using old terms, Zagoskin, following Karamzin, compares the objects they designate with the corresponding objects modern life. The method of historical parallels sharpens the perception of the historical perspective, inspires the illusion of direct acquaintance of the author with the depicted environment and culture, its language and nomenclature.

The features of Zagoskin's historical novel were even more clearly manifested in his second novel, Roslavlev, or the Russians in 1812. The content of the novel vividly reminded contemporaries of the great events in the life of Russia that had taken place just fifteen to twenty years before the appearance of the novel. In 1812, the Russian nation and the Russian state were threatened by an almost greater danger than in 1612. Naturally, the question arose of what changes had taken place over two centuries in the appearance of the Russian people, in their social ideals and patriotic aspirations. Zagoskin himself foresaw the possibility of such a question and gave a frank answer to it in the preface to the new novel. Thanking the readers for the “flattering reception” given to Yuri Miloslavsky, Zagoskin wrote: “Assuming to write these two novels, I had in mind to describe the Russians in two memorable historical eras, similar to each other, but separated by two centuries; I wanted to prove that although the external forms and physiognomy of the Russian nation had completely changed, they did not change with them: our unshakable loyalty to the throne, attachment to the faith of our ancestors and love for our native side.

The tasks set by the writer were not completely fulfilled. Himself a participant in the war of 1812, Zagoskin managed to truthfully recreate some episodes of the war, the partisan movement, paintings provincial life. According to a friend of the novelist, S. T. Aksakov, “some of the incidents described by Zagoskin in the fourth volume of Roslavlev really happened to him or to other colleagues during the siege of Danzig.” But the era and the people of 1812 in Roslavlev did not receive a historically correct embodiment. The writer's ideas about the Russian people in 1812 are given in the image of a young officer - a patriot Roslavlev. Like Yuri Miloslavsky, Roslavlev is an ideal hero: he is virtuous, his behavior is impeccable, he is ready to sacrifice his personal happiness for the good of the motherland. Zagoskin, at the same time, contrasts his hero with the really advanced social trend of that time - the freedom-loving noble intelligentsia, from whose midst the Decembrists emerged.

The writer was sincere in his patriotism, but the lack of an advanced worldview directed his patriotism towards conservative ideas.

Even stronger than in Yuri Miloslavsky, Zagoskin emphasizes the unity of the entire Russian people around the tsar and the Orthodox Church. “Trouble will come, so everyone will speak with one voice, both the nobles and the common people!” - says the "true - Russian" "respectable citizen" merchant Ivan Arkhipovich. The serfs speak of their devotion to the masters in the novel. Just during the period of peasant unrest at the very beginning of the 1930s, Zagoskin makes the old peasant recall Pugachev with condemnation.

There is even less historical in Roslavlev than in Yuri Miloslavsky. The reader learns about the events of 1812 only from the conversations of the heroes of the novel and from the brief arguments and references of the author. Zagoskin's reasoning is superficial and sometimes gives historical facts the interpretation is even more primitive and tendentious than the official historiography of the time. Answering the question of what could have forced Napoleon to retreat from Moscow along the Smolensk road devastated by the war, Zagoskin replies: “Whatever you want. Napoleon did this out of stubbornness, out of ignorance, even out of stupidity - only by all means of his own free will ... ". The emergence of war on the pages of the novel is not explained in any way. Blaming “the strict exactingness of some critics who, God knows why, in no way allow the author to speak on his own behalf with the reader,” Zagoskin often indulges in historical comments, accompanying them with moralizing maxims or sentimental exclamations. His portrayal of historical figures is melodramatic. “On the edge of the gentle slope of the mountain, surrounded by a high Kremlin wall, stood, throwing his hands back, a man of small stature, in a gray frock coat and a triangular low hat. Below, at his very feet, flowed, curving, Moscow - the river; illuminated by the crimson flames of the fire, it seemed to flow with blood. Bowing his gloomy brow, he looked thoughtfully at her sparkling waves ... Ah! they reflected for the last time and extinguished forever the marvelous star of his happiness! This is how Zagoskin draws an image

Napoleon. Murat is presented in a funny and pitiful form in the novel. In general, Zagoskin is of little interest historical figures preferring fiction to historically accurate details.

The political orientation of Zagoskin's first two novels was perfectly understood by conservatively minded noble readers. From the provinces they wrote to the author: “Literature is our usual occupation in winter evenings; having recently read with particular pleasure two novels of your composition, "Yuri Miloslavsky" and "Yaroslavl"<«Рославлева»>, we noticed with admiration that there are still true Russians who are proud of this name and are not blinded about everything French; your writings can do much more good in this sense; Please accept our most sincere thanks. However, with strong regret, we see daily new experiences of how much many of our nobles and semi-princes are still attached to everything French, although the deeds of the French of all times still clearly prove that they would want to destroy Russia, if it depended on them, and that they spare no means for it; therefore, we must consider the French as our notorious enemies ... What important service could you render to the fatherland if you bothered to write new novel with a description in it in the liveliest colors of all the vile behavior of the French against Russia and the unforgivable frivolity of those among us who are so blindly attached to these world-wide rebels; a lot can be said in a novel that is impossible or inconvenient elsewhere...”.

Zagoskin's novels also received the approval of the royal court. Closely following the literature, which played a significant role in spiritual development hated by him the Decembrists, Nicholas I experienced great pleasure in the novels of Zagoskin, in which, in a fashionable and decent literary form reactionary ideas were carried out. Zagoskin was encouraged and taken under the highest patronage. Even Bulgarin, when he, mainly out of envy, tried to criticize the author of Yuri Miloslavsky, ended up in a guardhouse. Zagoskin's subsequent historical novels - "Askold's Grave", "Bryn Forest" - illuminated and Kievan Rus, and the era of Peter I, and the time of Catherine II in the spirit of the same reactionary interpretation of the idea of ​​nationality and had no significance in the development of the Russian historical novel.

“The subsequent (after “Roslavlev” - S.P.) novels by Zagoskin were already one weaker than the other. In them he fell into some kind of strange, pseudo-patriotic propaganda and politics and began with particular love to paint the broken noses and folded cheekbones of a certain kind of heroes, in whom he thinks to see worthy representatives of purely Russian customs, and with special pathos glorify the love of salty cucumbers and sauerkraut", Belinsky wrote in 1843 (B, VIII, 55–56). Zagoskin's novels become the subject of ridicule of advanced criticism.

The glory of the initiator of the Russian historical novel was challenged by Bulgarin from Zagoskin. Shortly after the appearance of Yuri Miloslavsky, met with a devastating article in Severnaya pchela, Bulgarin's novel Dimitry the Pretender was published. Following him appeared “Pyotr Ivanovich Vyzhigin. Descriptive historical novel XIX century" (1831) and "Mazepa" (1833-1834). The themes of Bulgarin's novels are drawn to the same historical epochs that were covered in the works of Zagoskin, Pushkin and, to some extent, Lazhechnikov (the time of Peter I). And although Bulgarin pursued more speculative than artistic goals with his base creations, did they contain them? The evidence indicated that the literary development of the historical theme in the first half of the 1930s had a rather stable direction. It was associated with those periods of Russian history in which the relations between the monarchy and the people, Russia and the West, the people and the nobility were clearly revealed. Naturally, the theme of the war of 1812 was especially acute. Bulgarin's novels, both in political and literary-genre terms, were largely polemical in nature, the first two caused a wide response in the journals of that time.

The political thrust of Bulgarin's novels and their treatment of Russian history were openly reptilian and reactionary. The “moral goal” of Bulgarin’s writings was to prove that “the state cannot be happy except under the shadow of legitimate authority, and that the greatness and prosperity of Russia depends on our love and trust to the throne, on commitment to faith and the fatherland.” So he declared in the preface to Demetrius the Pretender.

Bulgarin sees the basis of the historical conflict of the Time of Troubles in the clash of two contenders for the royal throne, from which Demetrius the Pretender emerges victorious, as more legitimate according to the "people's" concept. The people appear in the novel as a faithful guardian of the royal throne and the purity of the monarchical principle. The strength of Rus' in the unity of the tsar with the people - such is the idea of ​​the novel, bringing it closer to the novels of Zagoskin. However, “if Zagoskin puts the boyars on guard of patriarchalism in the center of the picture, around which the people unite, acting here mainly as the peasantry, then Bulgarin’s center uniting the people is enlightened absolutism and the people act mainly as the urban middle class. The peasantry is not at all within Bulgarin's field of vision... Bulgarin's people are a tradesman, a merchant, a townsman, a churchman, an archer, a doctor, and all sorts of service people. It is this people that Bulgarin represents “the Russians at the beginning of the 17th century.” There is no hint of the actual social and political contradictions of the Time of Troubles in Demetrius the Pretender. Bulgarin speaks of the unrest of the people with fear and malice. “The enraged mob is a carnivorous beast that devours its feeder when it ceases to be afraid of him,” we read in Demetrius the Pretender.