Ham in Russian Literature Whether Merezhkovsky wanted it or not, he romanticized Ham. The passion of searching for a "superhuman" ideal (even a negative one) where it cannot exist at all let him down this time too. As a religious thinker, he lacked the “spiritual

IN last years more and more often voices are being heard calling for a revision of the concept of a literary trend or even for a complete rejection of it - in the name of freeing the history of literature from the usual stereotypes and outdated dogmas. The need for such a revision is usually justified by the fact that the work of a number of writers, especially large ones, hardly fits within the framework of any particular direction, or even stands alone. And the literary trends themselves are multilayered, internally heterogeneous, not clearly delimited from each other, as a result of which transitional, mixed, hybrid forms constantly arise.

All this seems to be self-evident. But something else is just as self-evident: the category of literary movement does not exist at all so that the name of any writer could be unconditionally attached to the label of a sentimentalist, romantic, realist, etc. It is intended only to mark the main milestones in the movement of literature, to indicate the most important stages of the literary process, its landmarks. And such guidelines are necessary not only for specialists-researchers, but also for the writers themselves - to comprehend and correct their own artistic principles, develop creative programs, and clarify their attitude towards predecessors, followers, opponents. Without passionate, bitter disputes between "classics" and romantics, romantics and realists, symbolists and acmeists, disputes between romantics themselves, realists about the essence of romanticism, realism, art, it is generally impossible to imagine the literary life of past eras. Struggle and change in literary trends is an integral part of literary history.

Another thing is that it is necessary to distinguish between the literary direction as a kind of ideal model - a schematic designation of its essential features - and the literary direction in its concrete historical being - as a living, dynamic, changeable phenomenon, in many respects different in different national literatures and at different stages of its development ... Unfortunately, this distinction is not easy for our science.

It is significant that V.M. Markovich (in the named works) builds his reasoning about literary trends, based on the material of Russian realism alone. Meanwhile, it is well known that in its classical form, realism was asserted in Western European literature as a method of artistic study of internal, often hidden socio-psychological antagonisms inherent in bourgeois society, which took shape in the West much earlier than in Russia.

It is in Western European (most of all - French) literature that the second half of XIX in. most clearly, consistently and fully embodied the essential properties of the realistic art of speech - such as an objective, mercilessly sober socio-psychological analysis, the absence of any illusions, hopes and hopes for the future, a sense of the stability of social life. As for Russian realism, it arises not just in a different socio-historical situation, but also at a fundamentally different - pre-bourgeois - stage of social evolution: after all, Russia has never known any developed bourgeois society at all. He comprehends and captures, therefore, a different historical reality - a society permeated in many respects by patriarchal-clan relations, the very process of changing eras, the collision of old and new principles.

Moreover, Russia in the second half of the 19th century lives under the sign of impending or occurring upheavals, a sense of the swiftness of historical movement, the inevitability of change. And therefore, the task of artistic and analytical research of modernity, which is paramount for realists in the West, was subordinated in Russian realism to the task of transforming the world and man. The study of life and its laws from this point of view acted as a necessary condition, as a prerequisite for the coming renewal - social, spiritual, moral.

Hence the synthetic nature of realism in Russia, its closer (in comparison with Western European) connection with the previous literary trends: sentimentalism, enlightenment, and especially romanticism. The romantic thirst for the transformation of man and society, the intense search for ways to change and improve them is the most important feature of Russian classical realism in general.

Undoubtedly, therefore, the national-historical originality of Russian realism and its essential difference from the "classical" Western European model. The differences between the stages of its evolution are just as essential and fundamental. Even if we take only the second half of the 19th century. - the era of maturity of realism in Russia - not only individual, but also typological features of the realism of Goncharov, Ostrovsky, Turgenev, on the one hand, and the realism of Dostoevsky, L. Tolstoy, on the other will be obvious. The work of writers of the end of the century is usually considered as a new phase of realistic art: Korolenko, Garshin, but above all - Chekhov. The three named stages of Russian realism will be discussed.

With all the national-historical uniqueness of realistic Russian literature of the middle of the 19th century, with all its undoubted difference from the literatures of the West, it is equally undoubtedly its significant approximation - precisely during this period - to the common European model of realism. It is no coincidence that the genre of the novel, the leading genre of realistic literature, is now coming to the fore. The very type of “heroic novel” (L.V. Pumpyansky) is taking shape, based on “a trial of the social significance of a person”. The main thing is that it was at this time that the most important features of the realistic artistic method crystallized: the installation to create typical concrete historical characters that embody the generic, essential features of a particular environment, era, social order, and the desire for objectivity, reliability in depicting reality, for recreating life in its natural flow and life-like forms, "in their inherent internal logic."

Undoubtedly, for example, the determining influence of the patriarchal-local way of life on the character and lifestyle of Oblomov, on the entire fate of this hero. His desire to arrange a semblance of a cozy patriarchal nest in the capital, his fruitless daydreaming and practical helplessness, the futility of his attempts to revive to a new life under the influence of Stolz and Olga, his marriage to Agafya Pshenitsyna and death itself - all this is characterized and explained in the finale of the novel in one word , one concept - "Oblomovism". If we add to this the writer’s predilection for depicting a settled life (for the type, in his opinion, “is composed of long and many repetitions or layers of phenomena and persons”); the involvement of his characters in the usual rhythm of everyday life, in the established circle of habits and relationships; finally, the objectivity of the delayed epic narration - it will become clear how clearly and fully these properties of realism were embodied in Goncharov's work.

Ostrovsky's work can be characterized in a similar way. Recall that in the article "A ray of light in dark kingdom"Dobrolyubov, defending the playwright from criticism, called his works" plays of life. " He explained that many “superfluous” (from the traditional point of view) characters and scenes of his dramas are necessary and artistically justified, although they are not directly related to the plot of the play, its intrigue. They are necessary because they show that "position", that social "soil" that determines the "meaning of the activities" of the main characters. It was in the instinctive fidelity of reality, in the ability to vividly and fully recreate the "environment of life", in other words, in the social character and typicality of the phenomena depicted, that the critic saw as the most important feature of Ostrovsky's talent.

The same qualities of the playwright were noted by other astute contemporary critics. Comparing Ostrovsky's plays with Gogol's dramatic works, they pointed to the pronounced subjectivity of Gogol's picture of life, where “exaggeration”, “exaggeration”, “hyperbole” prevail, while the main property of Ostrovsky's comedies is naturalness and reliability, “mathematical fidelity to reality” ... If Gogol's image of reality is permeated by his own impressions of it, then Ostrovsky recreates life in its authenticity - "as it is." Therefore, Gogol's animated lyricism is opposed by the impartiality of Ostrovsky's artistic manner.

All of the above explains the intense interest of Russian writers and critics in the very problem of creating typical characters in which the accident is overcome: the socio-historical regularity triumphs over empirical reality. So, Goncharov, according to Dobrolyubov, “wanted to achieve that the random image that flashed before him was elevated to a type, to give it a generic and permanent meaning”. And Turgenev constantly repeated, varied the idea that the artist's task is “to achieve types through the game of chances”, the writer said about himself that he always tried to capture and convey “the very spirit and pressure of time”, to embody it “into the proper types” ... "The triumph of poetic truth", in his words, consists in the fact that "an image taken by an artist from the depths of reality comes out of the hands of his type."

On the other hand, from the point of view of realist writers, the transformation of an image into a type, the elimination of everything that is empirically accidental in the name of this goal, has its limit, because it is fraught with the danger of schematization. Meanwhile, the desire for typicality, they believed, should not kill the illusion of a life full of accidents, unpredictable, contradictions, the illusion of its free and natural movement. In other words: as long as typical characters embody general, generic properties, they must also have individual, unique features. Otherwise, they will be lifeless figures, similar, in Herzen's words, "to anatomical preparations made of wax." “A wax cast,” Herzen develops his comparison, “can be more expressive, more normal, more typical; everything that the anatomist knew may be sculpted in it, but there is not that which he did not know ... The cast, like a statue, has everything outside, nothing behind the soul, but in the preparation life itself dried up, stopped, numb, with all the accidents and mysteries " ...

It is noteworthy that Turgenev thinks that Balzac's characters are lifeless, who "prick their eyes with their typicality." The writer himself seeks to harmoniously balance the typifying and individualizing tendencies in his works.

In Fathers and Children, the typologizing principle is revealed, perhaps, most clearly. Indeed, the main characters of the novel: Bazarov, on the one hand, and Pavel Petrovich Kirsanov, on the other, appear before the reader as the embodiment of two opposite social and psychological types, easily recognizable by contemporaries, two generations - "man of the forties" and "man sixties ". Typical was not only their contrast, but also their very opposition - ideological, personal, social, psychological. It is no coincidence that the antagonism between Bazarov and Pavel Petrovich Kirsanov arises immediately, literally at first sight - long before their worldview disputes.

This is the inner meaning of the persistent, unswerving comparison and opposition of the central characters of the novel, which is consistently drawn along all lines, in all areas of the image (external appearance, behavior, speech, lifestyle, past, characters, views) and which gives the work of internal unity ... Attention is drawn to the purposefulness of the artistic details, with the help of which the main characters are outlined. The details of their costume, behavior, speech, etc. hit the same point and contrast with each other. This achieves the transformation of an image into a type.

At the same time, in Fathers and Sons (as, incidentally, in other Turgenev's novels), an opposite tendency can be revealed - the desire to overcome the typological unambiguity in the depiction of the hero, to weaken the feeling of the absolute opposition of contrasting characters. The most important role in this belongs to the plot organization of the work. It is the plots of Turgenev's novels that carry the main anti-typological charge, reveal the irreducibility of a person to typological formulas. It is not for nothing that they are most often based on the fact that the central character finds himself in a certain society from somewhere outside, feels himself in it - in one way or another - as a stranger, an alien. The plot paradox of "Fathers and Sons" is precisely that the commoner hero, once in the aristocratic circle, to some extent ceases to be himself, becomes convinced of the non-viability and limitations of his usual views. “And his appearance confronts everyone around him with problems, the very existence of which they did not know before. In other words, the characters are immediately deduced from the channels outlined by the typological schemes, and enter into linkages that are illogical from the point of view of these schemes. "

The plot of the novel is constructed in such a way as to weaken, in particular, the fundamental opposition of the main antagonists, between whom it would seem that there is nothing and cannot be anything in common. Nevertheless, the story of Bazarov's love for Madame Odintsova is in many ways similar to the unhappy romance of Pavel Petrovich and Princess R. Another important similarity that arises between them is doom. Bazarov is destined to die soon. Pavel Petrovich, having settled the affairs of his brother, also feels like a dead man. “Yes, he was a dead man,” the author mercilessly concludes. This is how the balance of opposite tendencies is maintained in Turgenev's novel.

The writer's striving for naturalness, naturalness, strict objectivity of the image in many ways determined the features of his recreation of the mental life of a person - the principles of Turgenev's psychologism. The writer considered the most important task of the artist not to be profound analyticism, but to recreate mental movements and mental states in all their diversity, vivid, distinct, and clear for readers. Looking ahead, we note that non-observance of this principle extremely irritated Turgenev in L. Tolstoy - the author of War and Peace, whom he reproached for violating the objectivity, immediacy of the image in favor of the "system" adopted by him, in the constant emphasis on the author's position, in the importunity of the author's finger. On the contrary, the main feature of Turgenev's psychologism is its unobtrusiveness and imperceptibility.

All these individual properties of the artistic method of Turgenev the novelist are at the same time typologically significant, characteristic of the stage of Russian realism we are considering. Reducing the matter to an elementary and simplified formula, it could be conventionally designated as “ typical»Realism.

The new phase of Russian realism, represented primarily by the names of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, differs in many respects from the previous phase in its initial creative attitudes. The realism of these writers can be called "supertypical" or "universal", because they saw their main task not so much in the creation of historically specific social types, but in getting to the roots of human actions, to the fundamental principles and root causes of observed and reproduced processes and phenomena - the causes of social, psychological, spiritual and moral.

In this regard, the balance between objectively re-creating and analytical principles, characteristic of the realism of the previous period, is now violated: the analytical principle is noticeably strengthened due to the objectivity and naturalness of the image. It is this feature that brings both writers together.

To begin with, they themselves felt the uniqueness of their artistic method, its difference from the traditional realism of the Goncharov-Turgenev model, they strove to explain, protect, and substantiate their artistic goals and principles.

Dostoevsky sees the limitations of traditional realism in its indifference to such phenomena and facts of "current reality", which seem, at first glance, unusual, exceptional, fantastic. Meanwhile, they express to a much greater extent the essence of the processes taking place in society than ordinary and familiar facts. It is precisely the comprehension of not just reality "as it is", but also the tendencies of its development, the possibilities contained and hidden in it - these are the main tasks of the artistic method, which the writer called "realism in the highest sense."

Of course, Dostoevsky not only noticed the “fantastic” facts of the “current reality,” but he himself created exceptional extreme situations, preferring a hero who is able to completely surrender to the idea that has captured him, to bring it to the extreme, to its logical end. And such a hero was, in his view, a person least connected with a certain social environment, moral and cultural tradition, family tradition, a person "from a random family" - as opposed to a person from a "family family".

Thus, Dostoevsky undermines, in essence, the principle of the social conditioning of character - the cornerstone of traditional realistic aesthetics. The inner world of his heroes is more free, autonomous, less dependent on the social "soil", the social position of the character (which connects Dostoevsky with the tradition of romanticism - a fact that has been repeatedly noted in our science).

The traditional view of realism as the creation of stable socio-psychological types was also unacceptable for L. Tolstoy with his ideas about the constant variability of man, the fluidity of his consciousness ("people are like rivers"). Own artistic method he defined it as a combination of opposite principles - "pettiness" and "generalization", that is, as a method of close observation and detailed analysis of the human psyche, allowing in the end to comprehend and show "secrets common to all people."

All that has been said does not mean, of course, that Tolstoy did not want or did not know how to create specific socio-psychological types; on the contrary, the relief and authenticity of his characters are striking. And yet the everyday, socio-historical characteristic was for him only an external stratum, a kind of shell through which it was necessary to break through - first - to the inner life of the individual, his psyche, and then and even further - to the constant and unchanging core of the personality. The essence of Tolstoy's depiction of a person is precisely to demonstrate the fundamental identity of all people - regardless of their social affiliation or the era in which they live, “to show that the real life of people goes on independently of history, that basically human life is unchanging, etc. " ... Meanwhile, classical realism, as you know, stands firmly on a socio-historical basis. And this special position of Tolstoy largely determined the originality of his artistic method.

I must say that contemporaries - writers, readers, critics, acutely felt the unusual artistic manner of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. Critics found it difficult to overcome and master new aesthetic principles; many were irritated by the greater degree of artistic convention inherent in the work of both writers. Both Tolstoy and Dostoevsky were accused of deviating from realistic canons: in violation of naturalness and plausibility, in the atypical characters or plot situations they created, in overly detailed, analytical consideration. inner peace heroes.

On the other hand, they themselves acutely felt the limitations of the old realism and the need to renew it. And, of course, such a renewal could not but mean a revision of a number of fundamental provisions of traditional realistic aesthetics.

For all the differences between the two described stages of Russian realism, there is a lot in common between them. They are brought together, first of all, by the socio-worldview pathos - the thirst for solving specific and urgent social problems.

In the realistic literature of the end of the century, which can be regarded as the next stage of Russian realism, the picture changes significantly: it is characterized by a feeling of chaotic confusion, complexity, incomprehensibility of life as a whole, its tragedy - regardless of the state of society or the political regime.

In Chekhov's work, the ideological and aesthetic principles of the new stage of Russian realism were embodied with the greatest artistic completeness, consistency and strength. It is known that contemporary critics repeatedly reproached Chekhov for the absence of a worldview and lack of ideology, insignificance of content, etc. And although it is, of course, impossible to agree with such opinions, one cannot but say that there was undoubtedly some truth in such judgments. After all, Chekhov himself more than once spoke about his lack of any definite and complete worldview, persistently dissociated himself from existing ideological currents and systems. “I am afraid of those who are looking for tendencies between the lines and who want to see me as a liberal or conservative by all means,” he admitted in a well-known letter to A.N. Pleshcheev. Moreover, the writer was deeply convinced that to follow any teaching, theory, doctrine, concept means to claim a monopoly on the possession of truth, which is especially absurd now - in the confusion and confusion of modern life. Only the crowd can think “that she knows everything, understands everything”. As for the people who write, "it is time for them to admit that they cannot make out anything in this world."

At the same time, Chekhov invariably stressed the need for a "common idea", "higher goals." After all, the question for him was the applicability of ideally lofty ideas to the existing reality: “When the tundra and Eskimos are all around, then general ideas, as inapplicable to the present, just as quickly blur and slip away, as thoughts of eternal bliss.

And if in the art of classical realism (in comparison with romanticism) the spheres of the ideal and the real merged, came closer (the ideal for a realist is the edge of reality itself), then in Chekhov they again diverged far. The world of the highest spiritual and moral values \u200b\u200band "distant goals", so necessary, but inaccessible to modern man, and the sphere of everyday life exist for Chekhov separately, as if by themselves, barely touching. And this separation is tragic.

Deprived of a "general idea", everyday "human life consists of trifles," "of horrors, squabbles and vulgarities, changing and alternating." The power of trifles, trifles, everyday worries, like a spider web, entangling a person, can be called the main theme of Chekhov's work. Hence - the writer's gravitation towards anecdotal stories and situations, details and remarks that express the absurdity of being. In Chekhov's tragicomic world, everything can turn out to be anecdotal - from a meaningless and fruitless life lived (as in "Gooseberry") to a typo in a telegram ("funeral Tuesday" - in "Darling"). Let us recall, for example, Chebutykin's famous remark: "Balzac got married in Berdichev." It is doubly absurd: as an absurdity in the mouths of a provincial officer, a degraded military doctor, and as a statement of the anecdotal nature of the life situation itself. This phrase is a model of Chekhov's “theater of the absurd”.

But if life consists of anecdotal absurdities, of particulars, trifles, trifles that have no apparent meaning, if it is difficult to explain and it is difficult to find a guiding idea in it, how to distinguish in this case the important from the unimportant, the main from the secondary, the accidental from the natural? And it was on this opposition that the concept of the typical was based - the central category of traditional realism. Accordingly, each detail was charged with the whole and directed to a single center, it had a characterological meaning.

Chekhov's realism is based on completely different principles. In his art system the main thing freely mixes with the secondary, the typical with the atypical, the natural with the accidental; they are simply inseparable from each other. If in traditional realism the accidental exists only as a manifestation of the characteristic, typical, then in Chekhov “it is actually accidental, having an independent existential value and equal right for artistic embodiment with everything else ", because the task of the writer is to create art world, the closest "to natural being in its chaotic, meaningless, random forms." In a word, if the old realism sought to recreate the world in its permanent and stable features, then Chekhov - in its instant and momentary guise.

Indeed, even an inexperienced reader can easily understand the fundamental difference between such details as Oblomov's robe or Bazarov's naked red hands, and the fact that in Chekhov “one of the characters wears worn-out shoes and beautiful ties, the other heroine drops matches all the time when talking, and another one has the habit of reading magazines, eating frozen apples, and the hero of another story - looking at his palms while talking, etc. etc. ... Such details in Chekhov have incomparably greater autonomy in relation to the whole. "

Using the terminology of A.P. Chudakov, Chekhov's realism could be called “ random realism"Or otherwise - realism" atypical", Significantly different from the classical realism of the XIX century.

So, even during a relatively short historical period - in the literature of the second half of the 19th century. - it is possible to distinguish at least three phases, three stages of realism, which in many respects differ from each other in terms of initial creative attitudes and deep artistic principles. The stages, which we conditionally designated as "Typical", "supertypical" and "atypical" realism. Moreover, only “typical” realism is certainly close to the classical (“ideal”) model of realism as such. In all other cases, such closeness is problematic.

It follows from what has been said that it is necessary to distinguish between realism in its original essence and in its broader, general meaning (this also applies to other literary trends). Therefore, it is quite legitimate to correlate certain literary phenomena with the original model of realism, to strive to reveal the measure of their typological correspondence or non-coincidence. But it hardly makes sense to try at all costs to discover the full completeness of signs or general properties of realistic art in the work of any writer or even a group of writers acting under the banner of realism. And it’s very strange, convinced of the futility of such an occupation, to blame for this on the imperfection of the very category of the literary trend.

The direction of philosophical thought at the beginning of the century.

Literary searches of the supporters of the revolutionary movement.

At the beginning of the XX century. a completely different direction of literature arose. It was associated with specific tasks of the social struggle. This position was defended by a group of "proletarian poets". Among them were intellectuals, workers and yesterday's peasants. The attention of the authors of revolutionary songs, propaganda poems was drawn to the plight of the working masses, their spontaneous protest and organized movement.

Works of such an ideological orientation contained a lot of real facts, correct observations, expressively conveyed some public sentiments. At the same time, there were no significant artistic achievements here. Attraction to political conflicts, to the social essence of a person prevailed, and the development of personality was replaced by ideological preparation for participation in class battles.

The path to art lay through the comprehension of the multifaceted relations of people, the spiritual atmosphere of the time. And where concrete phenomena were somehow linked to these problems, a living word, a vivid image was born.

For the artists of the beginning of the century, overcoming the general disunity and disharmony went back to the spiritual rebirth of man and mankind.

The painful reaction to the social struggle, to the calls for violence gave rise to the neo-religious quest of the era. The Christian precepts of Good, Love and Beauty were opposed to the preaching of class hatred. This is how the desire of a number of thinkers to find in the teaching of Christ

the way to the salvation of contemporary humanity, tragically separated and alienated from eternal spiritual values.

The "Religious Renaissance" determined the activities of a number of philosophers of modern times. All of them were warmed by the dream of the introduction of a weak, lost person to the divine truth. But each expressed his own idea of \u200b\u200bsuch a rise.

Most of the writers, outside of special research in the field of religion, came to consonant with neo-Christian ideals. In the secret places of a lonely, contradictory soul, a latent desire for perfect love, beauty, for harmonious merging with the divine wonderful world... In the artist's subjective experience, faith in the incorruptibility of these spiritual values \u200b\u200bwas acquired.

The young realism of the border epoch had all the signs of a transforming art, seeking and finding truth. Moreover, its creators went to their discoveries by way of subjective attitudes, thoughts, dreams. This feature, born of the author's perception of time, determined the difference between realistic literature at the beginning of our century from Russian classics.

1. The next generation of his heroes "stepped into the work of Chekhov's younger contemporaries."

Sleepiness, the alienation of the soul from the world increased many times over and, in contrast to the works of Chekhov, became familiar, imperceptible.

Gloomy impressions prompted writers to turn to the mysteries of human nature itself. The socio-psychological origins of his behavior were by no means hushed up. But it was correlated with subconscious processes: the influence of the "force of the flesh" "on the strength of the spirit" (Kuprin), the clash of reason and instinct (Andreev), instinct and intellect (Gorky), a spiritualized soul and a soulless mechanism (Bunin). People are forever doomed to vague, confused experiences that lead to a sad and bitter fate. The colorful, changeable, beautiful and terrible world remained a mystery for the heroes of foreign prose. It is no wonder that a stream of thoughts and premonitions emanating from the artist himself was poured into the works.

At these origins, the renewal of genre and style structures began.
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The plan of events, the communication of the characters was simplified in every way, sometimes barely indicated. But the limits of mental life are widened, accompanied by a refined analysis of the character's inner states. In connection with this, the reproduction of several months, even days, often grew into large narratives. Complicated topics, as if requiring a detailed embodiment, were presented in a "stingy" form, since difficult problems are defined on behalf of the writer or expressed by symbolizing phenomena.

The author's gaze is constantly directed beyond the border of the chosen situation, to the person and the world as a whole. The limits of time and space depicted in the product are freely expanded. In their search, a new generation of prose writers turned to folklore, biblical images and motives,

the beliefs of many peoples, to historical, cultural and literary reminiscences, often to the personality of classical artists.

The author's thoughts literally permeate the works. Meanwhile - a striking fact - in the literature of the beginning of the century there is no trace of instructive or prophetic intonations. Difficult mastery of reality did not give an unambiguous answer. The reader is, as it were, attracted to comprehension, co-creation. This is the phenomenal feature of realistic prose; she called for a discussion.

The peculiarity of realism is the concept and types. Classification and features of the category "Peculiarity of Realism" 2017, 2018.