Great people are great in everything. Often phrases from novels written by recognized geniuses of the literary world become winged and are passed from mouth to mouth for many generations.
So it happened with the expression "Beauty will save the world." It is used by many and each time in a new sound, with a new meaning. Who said: These words belong to one of the characters in the work of the great Russian classic, thinker, genius - Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky.
Fedor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky
The famous Russian writer was born in 1821 on November 11. He grew up in a large and poor family, distinguished by extreme religiosity, virtue and decency. Father is a parish priest, mother is a merchant's daughter.
Throughout the childhood of the future writer, the family regularly attended church, the children, together with adults, read the Old, Old and Very memorable Dostoevsky Gospel, he will mention this in more than one work in the future.
The writer studied in boarding houses, far from home. Then at the Engineering School. The next and main milestone in his life was the literary path, which captured him completely and irrevocably.
One of the most difficult moments was hard labor, which lasted 4 years.
The most famous works are the following:
- "Poor people".
- "White Nights.
- "Double".
- "Notes from the House of the Dead".
- "The Brothers Karamazov".
- "Crime and Punishment".
- "Idiot" (it is from this novel that the phrase "Beauty will save the world").
- "Demons".
- "Teenager".
- "A Writer's Diary".
In all his works, the writer raised acute questions of morality, virtue, conscience and honor. The philosophy of moral principles excited him extremely, and this was reflected in the pages of his works.
Catch phrases from Dostoevsky's novels
The question of who said: "Beauty will save the world" can be answered in two ways. On the one hand, this is the hero of the novel "The Idiot" Ippolit Terentyev, who retells other people's words (supposedly the statement of Prince Myshkin). However, this phrase can then be attributed to the prince himself.
On the other hand, it turns out that these words belong to the author of the novel, Dostoevsky. Therefore, there are several interpretations of the origin of the phrase.
Fyodor Mikhailovich has always been characterized by such a feature: many phrases written by him became winged. After all, for sure everyone knows such words as:
- "Money is minted freedom."
- "One must love life more than the meaning of life."
- "People, people - this is the most important thing. People are more valuable than even money."
And this is certainly not the whole list. But there is also the most famous and beloved by many phrase that the writer used in his work: "Beauty will save the world." It still causes a lot of different arguments about the meaning contained in it.
Roman Idiot
The main theme throughout the novel is love. Love and inner spiritual tragedy of the heroes: Nastasya Filippovna, Prince Myshkin and others.
The main character is not taken seriously by many, considering it a completely harmless child. However, the plot twists in such a way that it is the prince who becomes the center of all events. It is he who turns out to be the object of love for two beautiful and strong women.
But his personal qualities, humanity, excessive insight and sensitivity, love for people, desire to help the offended and outcast played a cruel joke on him. He made a choice and made a mistake. His brain, tormented by the disease, cannot stand it, and the prince turns into a completely mentally retarded person, just a child.
Who said: "Beauty will save the world"? The great humanist, sincere, open and infinitely who understood precisely such qualities by the beauty of people - Prince Myshkin.
virtue or stupidity?
This is almost as difficult a question as the meaning of the catchphrase about beauty. Some will say - virtue. Others are stupidity. This is what will determine the beauty of the responding person. Everyone argues and understands the meaning of the fate of the hero, his character, train of thought and experience in his own way.
In places in the novel there is really a very thin line between stupidity and sensitivity of the hero. Indeed, by and large, it was his virtue, his desire to protect, to help everyone around him that became fatal and disastrous for him.
He looks for beauty in people. He notices her in everyone. He sees the boundless ocean of beauty in Aglaya and believes that beauty will save the world. Statements about this phrase in the novel ridicule her, the prince, his understanding of the world and people. However, many felt how good he was. And they envied his purity, love for people, sincerity. From envy, perhaps, they said nasty things.
The meaning of the image of Ippolit Terentyev
In fact, his image is episodic. He is just one of many people who envy the prince, discuss him, condemn him and do not understand. He laughs at the phrase "Beauty will save the world." His reasoning on this matter is definite: the prince said utter nonsense and there is no sense in his phrase.
However, it certainly exists, and it is very deep. It's just that for narrow-minded people like Terentyev, the main thing is money, respectable appearance, position. He is not very interested in the inner content, the soul, which is why he ridicules the prince's statement.
What meaning did the author put into the expression?
Dostoevsky always appreciated people, their honesty, inner beauty and completeness of worldview. It was with these qualities that he endowed his unfortunate hero. Therefore, speaking about the one who said: "Beauty will save the world", we can confidently say that the author of the novel himself, through the image of his hero.
With this phrase, he tried to make it clear that the main thing is not the appearance, not the beautiful facial features and stately figure. And that, for which they love people - their inner world, spiritual qualities. It is kindness, responsiveness and humanity, sensitivity and love for all living things that will allow people to save the world. This is what real beauty is, and people who have such qualities are truly beautiful.
Will beauty save the world?
1. "Beauty will save the world"
This is a quote from The Idiot. In the context of the novel, we are talking about the power of inner beauty. In the drafts of the novel there is an entry: “The world will be saved by beauty. Two examples of beauty. Nastasya Fillipovna, as a model of the external, and Myshkin - of the internal.
In the plot of The Idiot, however, we find a refutation of this quote: the beauty of Nastasya Filippovna, like the purity of Prince Myshkin, does not make the life of other characters better and does not prevent tragedy.
2. "Am I a trembling creature or have the right"
This is Raskolnikov's phrase. She is the key to understanding why he still failed the old pawnbroker. No matter how he justifies himself with noble impulses and difficult circumstances, he confesses to Sonechka Marmeladova that he killed for himself. Check whether he belongs to the category of "Napoleons" and "Mohammedans" or to the category of the lowest.
3. "Will the light fail, or should I not drink tea"
This is part of the monologue of the nameless hero of Notes from the Underground, which he utters in front of a prostitute who unexpectedly came to his house. The phrase about tea sounds like proof of the insignificance and selfishness of the underground man.
Tea in tsarist Russia was a really expensive product. In 1845, in the Chinese tea shop of the merchant Piskarev, prices per pound (0.45 kg) ranged from 5 to 6.5 rubles. A pound of first-class beef at the same time cost 6-7 rubles.
4. "If there is no God, then everything is allowed"
Dostoevsky's fantasy on the topic of what humanity will do without God shows that there is nothing good. Ivan Karamazov waives moral laws and allows the murder of his father. Unable to bear the consequences, he goes mad. Having allowed himself everything, Ivan does not stop believing in God - his theory does not work, even he could not prove it to himself.
By the way, no one pronounces this phrase in The Brothers Karamazov. It will later be constructed from various replicas by literary critics and readers.
5. “Masha lies on the table. Will I see Masha?
This is a quote from the writer's diary entry made after the news of the death of his first wife Maria. They lived at that time in different cities and communicated little. The death of Maria Dmitrievna struck him. He immediately wrote down his thoughts about love and marriage in his diary.
Their essence boiled down to the fact that a person is too selfish and is not able to love his neighbor as himself. Therefore, all marriages are doomed to failure. Only Christ was the ideal (he was portrayed by Dostoevsky in the hero of Myshkin), and an ordinary person is rather an individualist and egoist Raskolnikov.
beauty will save the world
beauty will save the world
From the novel The Idiot (1868) by F. M. Dostoevsky (1821 - 1881).
As a rule, it is understood literally: contrary to the author's interpretation of the concept of "beauty".
In the novel (part 3, ch. V), these words are spoken by an 18-year-old youth, Ippolit Terentyev, referring to the words of Prince Myshkin transmitted to him by Nikolai Ivolgin and ironically over the latter: “It’s true, prince, that you once said that the world will be saved by“ beauty "? Gentlemen, - he shouted loudly to everyone, - the prince claims that beauty will save the world! And I say that he has such playful thoughts because he is now in love.
Gentlemen, the prince is in love; just now, as soon as he entered, I was convinced of this. Don't blush, prince, I'll feel sorry for you. What beauty will save the world? Kolya told me this... Are you a zealous Christian? Kolya says that you call yourself a Christian.
The prince examined him attentively and did not answer him.
F. M. Dostoevsky was far from strictly aesthetic judgments - he wrote about spiritual beauty, about the beauty of the soul. This corresponds to the main idea of the novel - to create the image of a "positively beautiful person". Therefore, in his drafts, the author calls Myshkin "Prince Christ", thereby reminding himself that Prince Myshkin should be as similar as possible to Christ - kindness, philanthropy, meekness, a complete lack of selfishness, the ability to sympathize with human misfortunes and misfortunes. Therefore, the “beauty” that the prince (and F. M. Dostoevsky himself) speaks of is the sum of the moral qualities of a “positively beautiful person”.
Such a purely personal interpretation of beauty is characteristic of the writer. He believed that "people can be beautiful and happy" not only in the afterlife. They can be like this and "without losing the ability to live on earth." To do this, they must agree with the idea that Evil “cannot be the normal state of people”, that everyone is able to get rid of it. And then, when people will be guided by the best that is in their soul, memory and intentions (Good), then they will be truly beautiful. And the world will be saved, and it is precisely such “beauty” (that is, the best that is in people) that will save it.
Of course, this will not happen overnight - spiritual work, trials and even suffering are needed, after which a person renounces Evil and turns to Good, begins to appreciate it. The writer speaks of this in many of his works, including in the novel The Idiot. For example (Part 1, Chapter VII):
“For some time, the general, silently and with a certain tinge of disdain, examined the portrait of Nastasya Filippovna, which she held in front of her in her outstretched hand, extremely and effectively moving away from her eyes.
Yes, she's good," she finally said, "very good indeed. I saw her twice, only from a distance. So you appreciate such and such beauty? she suddenly turned to the prince.
Yes ... such ... - answered the prince with some effort.
That is, exactly like this?
Exactly this.
For what?
There is a lot of suffering in this face ... - the prince said, as if involuntarily, as if speaking to himself, and not answering a question.
You, however, may be delusional, ”the general’s wife decided and with an arrogant gesture threw the portrait on the table about herself.”
The writer in his interpretation of beauty acts as a like-minded German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), who spoke about the “moral law within us”, that “beauty is a symbol
ox of moral good. F. M. Dostoevsky develops the same idea in his other works. So, if in the novel “The Idiot” he writes that beauty will save the world, then in the novel “Demons” (1872) he logically concludes that “ugliness (malice, indifference, selfishness. - Comp.) will kill ... "
Encyclopedic Dictionary of winged words and expressions. - M.: "Lokid-Press". Vadim Serov. 2003 .
See what "Beauty will save the world" is in other dictionaries:
- (beautiful), in the concepts of Holy Rus', divine harmony, inherent in nature, man, some things and images. Beauty expresses the divine essence of the world. Its source is in God Himself, His integrity and perfection. "Beauty ... ... Russian history
BEAUTY Russian Philosophy: Dictionary
beauty- one of the central concepts of Russian. philosophical and aesthetic thought. The word K. comes from the Proto-Slavic beauty. The adjective red in Proto-Slavonic and Old Russian. languages meant beautiful, beautiful, bright (hence, for example, Red ... ... Russian Philosophy. Encyclopedia
Artistic the direction prevailing in the app. European culture in room 60 early. 70s 19th century (originally in literature, then in other forms of art depicting, musical, theatrical) and soon included other cultural phenomena philosophy, ... ... Encyclopedia of cultural studies
An aesthetic category that characterizes phenomena that have the highest aesthetic perfection. In the history of thought, the specificity of P. was realized gradually, through its correlation with other kinds of values, utilitarian (benefit), cognitive (truth), ... ... Philosophical Encyclopedia
Fedor Mikhailovich, Russian writer, thinker, publicist. Started in the 40s. lit. way in line with the "natural school" as a successor to Gogol and an admirer of Belinsky, D. at the same time absorbed into ... ... Philosophical Encyclopedia
- (from the Greek. aisthetikos feeling, sensual) philosophy. a discipline that studies the nature of the whole variety of expressive forms of the surrounding world, their structure and modification. E. is focused on identifying universals in sensory perception ... ... Philosophical Encyclopedia
Vladimir Sergeevich (born January 16, 1853, Moscow - died July 31, 1900, ibid.) - the largest Russian. religious philosopher, poet, publicist, son of S. M. Solovyov, rector of the Moscow University and author of the 29-volume "History of Russia from ancient times" (1851 - 1879) ... Philosophical Encyclopedia
An activity that generates new values, ideas, the person himself as a creator. In modern scientific literature devoted to this problem, there is an obvious desire to explore specific types of technology (in science, technology, art), its ... ... Philosophical Encyclopedia
Valentina Sazonova Sazonova Valentina Grigoryevna Date of birth: March 19, 1955 (1955 03 19) Place of birth: Chervone ... Wikipedia
Books
- Beauty will save the world. Album of artistic tasks in the visual arts. 4th grade. GEF, Ashikova Svetlana Gennadievna. The album of artistic tasks "Beauty will save the world" is included in the UMK "Fine Arts. Grade 4". He expands and deepens the material of the textbook for grade 4 (author S. G. Ashikova). Content…
They say that truly great people are great in everything. At first glance, such an assertion seems somehow incorrect. But if you think about how many catchphrases were invented by writers who became famous as the best masters of the pen, everything becomes clear.
Some people do not even think about where exactly this or that expression came from. After all, often catchphrases are so firmly embedded in people's lives that they simply forget whose they are, by whom and when they were invented.
In the article, we will consider an expression that has long since become winged. Moreover, even some foreigners are familiar with it. The author of this expression is a famous writer. Consider the full quote "Beauty will save the world."
Before we talk about why this phrase became winged, and what meaning was invested in it, let's get acquainted with the biography of the person who became its author. Fedor Mikhailovich was born on November 11, 1821.
His father was a priest who served in the parish church. Mother was the daughter of a merchant. However, despite the fact that the mother had a fortune, the family lived quite poorly. Dostoevsky's father believed that money brings evil with it. And so he taught children from childhood to decency and a modest life.
Since the father of the future writer was a priest, it is not at all difficult to assume that it was he who instilled in his children love for the Lord God. In particular, Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky was distinguished by this love. In his works, he repeatedly mentions religion.
As soon as Dostoevsky grew up a little, his father placed him in a boarding house. There he studied away from home, and after that, without any difficulties, he entered the Engineering School.
While studying at the school, the young man was completely in the grip of love for literature. Realizing this, the young man abandoned the intention to master any craft and joined the ranks of writers.
It was this decision that subsequently caused serious problems that became a real test for Dostoevsky. The words written by him reached not only the hearts of readers. The yard drew attention to him. And by the decision of the monarch, he was forced to go into exile.
Note! For four years the young man was in hard labor.
From the pen of the writer came out many works. And all of them found a response in the hearts of not only his contemporaries. Now the creations of this author continue to excite and excite thoughts.
After all, he raises very important questions in them. And some of them have not yet been answered. The most famous works written by Dostoevsky are:
- "Crime and Punishment";
- "Demons";
- "The Brothers Karamazov";
- "White Nights";
- "Idiot".
saving the world
"Beauty will save the world" - this expression belongs to one of the heroes of the aforementioned work called "The Idiot". But who said it? Hippolytus suffering from consumption. This is a minor character who literally pronounces this phrase, wanting to clarify whether Prince Myshkin really used such a strange expression.
It is noteworthy that the hero himself, to whom Hippolytus himself ascribes this expression, never used it. Only once did he use the word salvation, when he was asked if Nastasya Filippovna was really a kind woman: “Oh, if only she were kind! Everything would be saved!
And although the phrase was said by a book hero, it is not difficult to assume that the author of the work himself was thinking about this. If we consider this phrase in the context of the work, then one clarification must be made. The book is not only about external beauty. An example is Nastasya Filippovna, pleasant in all respects. But her beauty is more external. Prince Myshkin, in turn, appears as a model of inner beauty. And it is about the power of this inner beauty that the book speaks to a greater extent.
When Dostoevsky worked on this creation, he corresponded with Apollon Maikov, who was not only a poet, but also a well-known censor. In it, Fedor Mikhailovich mentioned that he wanted to recreate a certain image. It was the image of a beautiful person. The author wrote it down in detail.
It was the prince who tried on this image. Dostoevsky even made a note in his draft. It mentioned two examples of beauty. Thus, we can conclude that the statement about the different beauty of Myshkin and his beloved is true.
Pay attention to the nature of this entry. This idea is a kind of statement. However, any person who has read the work "The Idiot" will have a completely logical question: was it really a statement? After all, if you recall the content of the book, it becomes clear that neither inner nor outer beauty in the end could save not only the world, but even several people. Moreover, after reading some people, they even began to wonder if she had ruined these heroes?
Prince Myshkin: kindness and stupidity
The second most important question is: what killed Myshkin? Because the answer to it is an indicator of how beautiful a person is. It should be noted that finding the right answer to this question is really not easy. In some cases, the virtue of the prince borders on real stupidity.
Why do some people think the prince is stupid? Of course, not because of his ridiculous actions. The reason for this is excessive kindness and sensitivity. After all, in the end, his positive qualities became the cause of the tragedy that happened to him.
The man tried to see only the good in everything. With beauty, he could even justify some of the shortcomings. Perhaps that is why he considers Nastasya Filippovna a truly beautiful person. However, many may argue with this.
Whose beauty could save the heroes?
Whose beauty could save the heroes? This is the third question that readers ask themselves when they finish reading a book. After all, it seems that it is the answer to it that can make it possible to understand what was the cause of the tragedy. But, as it turned out, beauty was the cause of the tragedy described in the book. And in two ways.
As it was written above, the beauty of Nastasya Filippovna was external. And to a greater extent, it was she who ruined the woman. Because beauty always wants to possess. And in a world of cruel and powerful men, being beautiful is simply dangerous.
But then a logical question arises: why the world, or at least the lives of the main characters, were not saved by Myshkin's inner beauty? Perfect inner beauty, which in reality is an absolute virtue, became the cause of the "blindness" of the prince. He refused to understand how dangerous darkness is in the soul of other people. To him they were all perfect. But his main stupidity was to pity even his offenders. This is what eventually turned him into an absolutely helpless and stupid person.
Important words of Terentyev
It is noteworthy that the question of who owns the phrase is decisive. But in this case, we are talking about the character of the book, and not about its author. After all, the phrase, which in reality is defining for the work, was uttered precisely by a minor character.
Moreover, he was distinguished by great stupidity and thought too narrowly. He often ridiculed the prince, considering him a low person, which he actually was.
In the first place for Terentyev are not feelings. Men are most interested in money. For the sake of well-being, he is ready for a lot. Appearance and position are also important to him. But he is ready even to close his eyes to these important “attributes” of a person. After all, if there is money, then everything else is unimportant.
Important! It is precisely in this that the symbolism of the fact that it is Hippolyte who pronounces this phrase, which later became winged, lies.
This character is in fact unable to appreciate not only the inner, but also the outer beauty. Although the latter is important for him. But he is not able to appreciate the beauty of a woman if she is not rich. And therefore it seems impossible to him that the world will be saved only because of someone's beauty.
Perhaps someday beauty will really play a decisive role in saving the world. But this will happen in the future. And now the important task of every person is to preserve this beauty. It is important to be not just a wonderful person, but also to be an image of wisdom and virtue. Indeed, using the example of Prince Myshkin, it became clear that kindness, full of sympathy, without wisdom can cause trouble.
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Summing up
It is extremely important to remember that kindness, which becomes limitless, can even destroy a person. Because he is not able to see in time the threat that comes from another individual. Perhaps this is what the greatest writer Dostoevsky tried to convey to his readers. He showed how dangerous it can be to believe in something absolute. And Myshkin's faith in righteous love for Nastasya Filippovna became a fatal mistake for him.
"Beauty will save the world...":
algorithm of the process of salvation in the works of Dostoevsky
Let's start talking about the famous quote from Dostoevsky's novel The Idiot by analyzing a quote from The Brothers Karamazov, which is also quite famous and dedicated to beauty. After all, the phrase of Dostoevsky, which became the title of this work, in contrast to the phrase of Vl. Solovyov, is dedicated not to beauty, but saving the world, which we have already found out by joint efforts ...
So, what Dostoevsky is dedicated to beauty itself: “Beauty is a terrible and terrible thing! Terrible, because it is indefinable, but it is impossible to determine because God asked only riddles. Here the banks converge, here all the contradictions live together. I, brother, am very uneducated, but I have thought about it a lot. So many mysteries! Too many riddles oppress man on earth. Guess how you know and get out dry from the water. Beauty! Moreover, I cannot bear the fact that another person, even higher in heart and with a loftier mind, begins with the ideal of the Madonna, and ends with the ideal of Sodom. It is even more terrible, who already with the ideal of Sodom in his soul does not deny the ideal of the Madonna, and his heart burns from him and truly, truly burns, as in his youthful immaculate years. No, the man is wide, too wide, I would narrow it down. The devil knows what it even is, that's what! What appears to the mind as a disgrace, then to the heart is entirely beauty. Is there beauty in Sodom? Believe that in Sodom she sits for the vast majority of people - did you know this secret or not? The terrible thing is that beauty is not only a terrible, but also a mysterious thing. Here the devil is fighting with God, and the battlefield is the hearts of people. And by the way, what hurts someone, he talks about it ”(14, 100).
Note that in Dostoevsky the word "Sodom" was always written with a capital letter, directly referring us to the biblical story.
Almost all Russian philosophers who analyzed this passage, were confident that Dostoevsky's hero was talking about two types of beauty. In a recent study contained in a just-published collection, the author is convinced of the same thing: "In these reflections, Dmitry opposes two types of beauty: the ideal of the Madonna and the ideal of Sodom." It was argued that Dostoevsky speaks through the lips of the hero (this statement was often redirected to the writer) about beauty and its imitation, fake; about a woman clothed in the sun, and a harlot on a beast, etc., that is, they picked up and, in fact, substituted a pair of (seemingly similar) metaphors in the text to explain it. At the same time, the text itself was perceived as a series of metaphors, since philosophers hastened to begin interpreting the text without honoring it with a real reading, that is, philological analysis, due in any philosophical reflection on artistic text precede philosophical analysis. They perceived the text as talking about something they already knew. Meanwhile, this text requires precise, mathematical, reading, and, having read it in this way, we will see that Dostoevsky, through the lips of the hero, is telling us here about something completely different than all the philosophers who talked about him.
First of all, it should be noted that beauty defined here in terms of antonyms: terrible, terrible thing.
Further - in the text answers the question: why is it terrible? - because indefinable(and, by the way, the definition through antonyms brilliantly emphasizes indefinability this thing).
That is, in relation to the beauty in question, it is precisely the operation of allegorization (rigidly defining, we note, operation) that philosophers performed that is impossible. The only symbol corresponding to this beauty that fits the description of Dostoevsky's hero is the famous Isis under the veil - terrible and terrible, because it cannot be defined.
So there - All, in this beauty, all contradictions live together, the banks converge, - and this completeness being not defined in separators, in opposing parts of the whole, terms of good and evil. Beauty is terrible and terrible because it is thing from another world, contrary to all probability, present here, in this given and revealed world, is a thing world before the fall, the world before the beginning of analytical thought and the perception of good and evil.
But the "Ideal of Sodom" and "the ideal of the Madonna", which are further discussed by Dmitry Karamazov, are still for some reason stubbornly understood as two opposing types of beauty, selected in some absolutely unknown way from the fact that indefinitely(i.e. literally - has no limit - but therefore cannot be divided), from what is convergence, inseparable unity of all contradictions, a place where contradictions get along- that is, they cease to be contradictions ...
But this would be a violation of logic, completely uncharacteristic of such a strict thinker, what is Dostoevsky - and what, it should be noted, are his heroes: before us is not two distinct, opposing, beauties, but only ways of relating person to unified beauty. The “ideal of the Madonna” and the “ideal of Sodomsky” are in Dostoevsky - and there will be many confirmations of this in the novel - ways to look at beauty, perceive beauty, desire beauty.
The “ideal” is in the eye, head and heart of the upcoming beauty, and beauty is given to the future so defenselessly and selflessly that it allows it to shape its inherent indeterminacy in accordance with its “ideal”. Lets see myself as coming able see.
I think this will seem unconvincing - we have accustomed ourselves too much to the fact that it is not our ways of perception that oppose each other, but precisely the types of beauty, for example, the "blond blue-eyed angel" and the "fire-eyed demoness" replicated by the romantics.
But if, defining what the "ideal of Sodom" is, we turn to the source texts, never mentioned in vain by Dostoevsky, we will see that it was not libertines and seducers, not demons who came to Sodom: they came to Sodom angels, receptacles and prototypes of the Lord, - and it was them that the Sodomites rushed to “know” with the whole city.
Yes, and the Mother of God - remember the "Song of Songs" - "terrible, like regiments with banners", "protector", "indestructible wall" - is not at all reducible to "one type" of beauty. Her completeness, her ability to contain "all contradictions" is emphasized by the abundance of different types, renditions, and plots of icons that reflect different aspects of Her beauty that acts in the world and transforms the world.
Mitino is extremely characteristic: “Is there beauty in Sodom? Believe that she is in Sodom and is sitting for the vast majority of people. ”That is, it is characteristic precisely from the point of view of the language used by the hero of the words. Beauty is not "acquired", is not "located" in Sodom. And Sodom does not "constitute" beauty. Beauty in Sodom "sits" - that is, planted, locked up in Sodom as in a prison, as in a dungeon human eyes. It is in this secret, communicated by Mitya to Alyosha, that the clue to Dostoevsky's attraction to the heroine is the saint harlot. "All contradictions live together." Beauty, prisoner in Sodom, and cannot appear in any other form.
The essential thing here is this: in Dostoevsky the word "Sodom" appears both in the novel "Crime and Punishment" and in the novel "The Idiot" - and in the most characteristic places. Marmeladov says, describing the place of residence of his family: “Sodom, sir, the ugliest ... hm ... yes” (6, 16), - exactly anticipating the story of Sonya's transformation into a prostitute. We can say that the beginning of this transformation is the settlement of the family in Sodom.
In The Idiot, General repeats: "This is Sodom, Sodom!" (8, 143) - when Nastasya Filippovna, in order to prove to the prince that she is not worth him, for the first time takes money from the person selling her. But before this exclamation, from the words of Nastasya Filippovna, it turns out for the general that Aglaya Yepanchina is also participating in the auction - although she majestically refuses this at the beginning of the novel, forcing the prince to write to Ghana in the album: "I do not enter into auctions." If they don’t trade with her, then they trade with her - and this is also the beginning of her placement in Sodom: “And you, Ganechka, overlooked Aglaya Epanchin, did you know this? If you hadn't bargained with her, she would certainly have married you! That's how you all are: either with dishonorable or honest women to know - one choice! And then you will certainly get confused ... ”(8, 143). On XII At the Youthful April Dostoevsky Readings, one speaker characteristically expressed herself about Nastasya Filippovna: “She is vicious, because everyone sells it." I think it because- very accurate.
A woman - the bearer of beauty in Dostoevsky - is terrible - and striking - precisely by her indefinability. Nastasya Filippovna with the prince, who did not trade her, is "not like that", but with Rogozhin, who traded her, suspecting her - "exactly like that." These "such - not such" will be the main definitions given in the novel by Nastasya Filippovna - the embodied beauty ... and they will depend solely on the gaze of the beholder. Let us note to ourselves the complete indeterminacy and indefinability of these so-called definitions.
Beauty is defenseless before the beholder in the sense that it is he who shapes its concrete manifestation (after all, beauty does not appear without the beholder). What a man sees a woman, so she is for him. “A man can insult a prostitute, a ruble woman, with cynicism,” Dostoevsky was convinced. Svidrigailov is kindled precisely by the chastity of the innocent Dunya. Fyodor Pavlovich feels lust when he first sees his last wife, who looks like Madonna: ““These innocent eyes slashed my soul like a razor then,” he used to say later, giggling nastily in his own way” (14, 13). Here, it turns out, what is terrible about the preserved ideal of the Madonna, when the Sodom ideal already triumphs in the soul: the ideal of the Madonna becomes the object of voluptuous attraction par excellence.
But when Madonna's ideal hinders voluptuous attraction - then he becomes the object of direct denial and abuse, and in this sense the scene retold by Fyodor Pavlovich to Alyosha and Ivan acquires the meaning of a huge symbol: “But God, Alyosha, I never offended my hysteria! Once, only once, even in the first year: she prayed very much then, especially observed the Mother of God feasts and then she drove me from herself to the office. I think, let me knock this mystic out of her! “You see, I say, you see, here is yours image, here it is, here I'll take it off ( let's pay attention - Fyodor Pavlovich speaks as if he is removing her true image from Sophia at this moment, undresses her from her image ... - T.K.). Look, you consider him miraculous, and now I’ll spit on him in your presence, and I won’t get anything for it! then suddenly covered her face with her hands as if trying to obscure the defiled image - T.K.), all trembled and fell to the floor ... and sank ”(14, 126).
It is characteristic that Fedor Pavlovich does not consider other insults to be insults, although the story of his marriage to his wife Sophia is literally the story of the imprisonment of beauty in Sodom. And here Dostoevsky shows how external imprisonment becomes internal imprisonment - how out of abuse grows a disease that distorts both the body and the spirit of the bearer of beauty. “Having not taken any remuneration, Fyodor Pavlovich did not stand on ceremony with his wife and, taking advantage of the fact that she, so to speak, was“ guilty ”to him and that he almost“ took her off the noose, ”using, in addition, her phenomenal unresponsiveness, even trampled underfoot the most ordinary marriage propriety. In the house, right there with his wife, bad women gathered and organized orgies.<…>Subsequently, with the unfortunate young woman, frightened from childhood, something like some kind of nervous female disease occurred, most often found among the common people among village women, who are called hysterics for this disease. From this illness, with terrible hysterical fits, the patient at times even lost her mind ”(14, 13). The very first attack of this disease, as we have seen, occurred precisely when the image of the Madonna was defiled ... By virtue of what has been described, we will not be able to separate this embodiment of the “ideal of the Madonna” in the novel either from the hysterical women, perceived as possessed, or from the senseless Lizaveta Smerdyashaya. We will not be able to separate him from Grushenka, the “queen of impudence”, the main “infernal” of the novel, who once sobbed at night, remembering her offender, thin, sixteen years old ...
But if the story of Sophia is the story of the imprisonment of beauty in Sodom, then the story of Grushenka is the story of bringing beauty out of Sodom! The evolution of perception of Mitya Grushenka, the epithets and definitions he gives her is characteristic. It all starts with the fact that she is a creature, a beast, "the bend at the rogue", an infernal, a tiger, "it is not enough to kill." Next - the moment of the trip to Wet: a sweet creature, the queen of my soul (and in general names that are directly related to the Madonna). But then something absolutely fantastic appears at all - “brother Grushenka”.
So, I repeat: beauty lies outside the area from which the division into good and evil begins - in beauty there is still an unsplit, whole world. The world before the fall. It is by manifesting this primordial world that one who sees true beauty saves the world.
Beauty in Mitya's statement is just as one and all-powerful and indivisible, like God, with whom the devil fights, but Who Himself does not fight with the devil ... God abides, the devil attacks. God creates - the devil tries to take away what has been created. But he himself did not create anything, which means that everything created is good. It can only - like beauty - be planted in Sodom...
The phrase from Dostoevsky's novel "The Idiot" - I mean the phrase that is the title for this work - was remembered in a different form, the one that Vladimir Solovyov gave it: "Beauty will save the world." And this change is somehow very similar to the changes that the philosophers of the turn of the century made with the phrase: "Here the devil is fighting God." It was said: “Here the devil is with Godutsya ", and even -" Here God is fighting the devil.
Meanwhile, Dostoevsky says differently: "Beauty will save the world."
Perhaps the easiest way to understand what Dostoevsky wanted to say is to compare these two phrases and realize that in how lies their difference.
What does the change of seme and rheme bring us on a semantic level? In Solovyov's phrase, the salvation of the world is a property inherent in beauty. beauty is saving says this phrase.
Nothing of the kind is said in Dostoevsky's phrase.
Here, rather, it is said that the world will be saved by beauty as one of its inherent properties of the world. Beauty does not tend to save the world, but beauty tends to abide in it indestructibly. And this indestructible presence of beauty in it is the only hope of the world.
That is, beauty is not something victoriously approaching the world with the function of salvation, no, but beauty is something already present in it, and due to this presence of beauty in it, the world will be saved.
Beauty, like God, does not fight, but abides. The salvation of the world will come from the gaze of a man who has seen beauty in all things. Ceased to conclude, imprison her in Sodom.
Elder Zosima in drafts for a novel about such a sojourn of beauty in the world: “The world is paradise, we have the keys” (15, 245). And he will also say, also in drafts: “All around man is the mystery of God, the great mystery of order and harmony” (15, 246).
The transforming effect of beauty can be described as follows: the realized beauty of a person, as it were, gives an impetus to the personalities around her to reveal themselves in their own beauty (this is what the heroine of the novel “Idiot” means when she says about Nastasya Filippovna: “Such beauty is strength,<…>With such beauty, you can turn the world upside down! (8, 69)). Harmony (aka: paradise - the perfect state of the world - the beauty of the whole) - is both the result and the starting point of this mutual transformation. The realized beauty of the person, in accordance with the meaning in the Greek language of beauty as validity, is the acquisition of personality your place. But if at least one finds its place, a chain reaction of restoring others in their places begins (because this one who has found his place will become an additional indicator for them and a determinant of their place - like in a puzzle - if the place of one piece is found - then everything is already much easier) - and not symbolic, but really the temple of the transfigured world will be rapidly built. This is exactly what Seraphim of Sarov said when he said: save yourself - and thousands around you will be saved ... This is actually the mechanism for saving the world with beauty. Because - once again - everyone is beautiful in place. You want to be near such people and you want to follow them ... And here you can make a mistake trying to follow in their rut, while the only true way to follow them is to find its own ruts.
However, it is possible to err even more radically. The impulse given to those around by a beautiful personality, causing wish beauty, striving for beauty, can lead (and, alas, so often leads) not to a reciprocal disclosure of beauty in yourself, work beauty from within myself- that is - to the transformation of oneself, but to the desire to seize in a spring way into the property this already manifested others, beauty. That is, the desire that harmonizes the world and man give its beauty to the world in this case turns into a selfish desire assign beauty of the world. This leads to destruction, the destruction of any harmony, to confrontation and struggle. This is the ending of The Idiot. I would like to emphasize once again that the so-called "infernals" of Dostoevsky's works are not guns hell, and prisoners hell, and they are imprisoned in this hell by those who, instead of their own self-giving in response to the inevitable and inevitable self-giving of beauty (since self-giving, according to Dostoevsky, is the way beauty exists in the world), seeks to realize capture beauty into their own property, entering on this path into the inevitable fierce struggle with the same invaders.
Self-revelation of personalities in their beauty in response to the manifestation of beauty is the path of abundance, the path of turning a person into a source of grace to the world; the desire to appropriate the beauty revealed to others is the path of poverty, lack, the path of turning a person into a black hole that sucks grace from the universe.
Self-disclosure of personalities in their beauty is, according to Dostoevsky, the ability give it all. In the “Diary of a Writer” for 1877, it is precisely along the rift between the principles “to give everything away” and “you cannot give everything away” that for him there will be a rift between humanity that is being transformed and stagnant in its untransformed state.
But even much earlier, in “Winter Notes on Summer Impressions,” he wrote: “Understand me: the self-willed, completely conscious and forced self-sacrifice of oneself for the benefit of everyone is, in my opinion, a sign of the highest development of the personality, its highest power, the highest self-control, the highest freedom of one's own will. To voluntarily lay down one's stomach for everyone, to go to the cross, to the fire for everyone, can only be done with the strongest development of personality. A highly developed personality, fully confident in its right to be a personality, no longer having any fear for itself, can do nothing else out of its personality, that is, there is no other use than to give it all to everyone, so that everyone else would be exactly the same self-righteous and happy individuals. This is the law of nature; a normal person is drawn to this” (5, 79).
The principle of building harmony, restoring paradise for Dostoevsky is not to renounce something with the aim of fit in into EVERYTHING, and not to keep your everything, insisting on the fullness of self-acceptance - but to give all without conditions- and then EVERYTHING will return its personality All, which includes for the first time blossomed in true fullness given All personality.
Here is how Dostoevsky describes the process of realizing the harmony of nations: “We will be the first to announce to the world that we do not want to achieve our own prosperity through the suppression of the personalities of nationalities foreign to us, but, on the contrary, we see it only in the freest and most independent development of all other nations and in fraternal unity with them. , replenishing one another, grafting their organic features to themselves and giving them and from themselves branches for grafting, communicating with them in soul and spirit, learning from them and teaching them, and so on until humanity, having been replenished by the world communication of peoples to universal unity, like a great and magnificent tree, will overshadow a happy land” (25, 100).
I want to draw your attention to the fact that this apparently poetic description is actually very technologically. It describes in detail and technically precisely the process of gathering the body of Christ (“entirely included in humanity”, according to Dostoevsky) from its disparate and often opposing aspects of it - individuals and peoples. I suspect, however, that such are all truly poetic descriptions.
A person who has realized his beauty, being surrounded by failed yet, who have not become beautiful personalities, turns out to be crucified on the cross of their imperfection; freely crucified in the impulse to realize the self-giving of beauty. But - at the same time - she seems to be locked in a cage by their impenetrable boundaries, limited in her own self-giving (she gives - but they cannot receive), which makes the suffering on the cross unbearable.
Thus, in the first approximation, we can say that Dostoevsky draws us a single process of transforming the world, consisting of two interdependent steps that are repeated many times in this process, capturing more and more new levels of the universe: the realized beauty of the members that make up the community makes harmony possible, the realized harmony of the whole unleashes beauty...
