Korolenko is the story of my contemporary. The story of my contemporary V.G. Korolenko

Korolenko the publicist always set himself the task of revealing the movement and struggle between the new and the old, long-established and only still paving the way, to show the movement and change of moral norms, connecting them with the economic and socio-political structure. The basic principles of journalism and themes of artistic creativity were synthesized in Korolenko’s largest work of the 20th century. - “Stories of my contemporary.”

The idea of ​​an autobiographical work arose from Korolenko in 1902-1903, when, in conversations with his mother, he tried to reconstruct episodes of his childhood. But the writer began to create this work only in 1905, which was closely connected with the feeling of the beginning of fundamental changes in the life of Russia.

In order to understand the new “sharp break in our horizon,” Korolenko considered it necessary to look back and comprehend the historical past, because “the present is a kind of fiction, in the concept of which we only grab part of the past and part of the future, the interaction and struggle of which represents what we call modernity."

In the preface to “The History of My Contemporary,” the writer will say: “I think that many episodes from the time of my exile wanderings, events, meetings, thoughts and feelings of people of that time and that environment have not lost the interest of living reality itself. I would like to think that they will still retain their significance for the future. Our life wavers and trembles from the sharp clashes of new principles with outdated ones, and I hope to at least partially illuminate some elements of this struggle.”

Personality and social movement of the 60-80s. - this is the main theme of the writer’s autobiographical book. He writes not the history of Vladimir Korolenko’s childhood and youth, but the history of his contemporary, constantly moving from his personal fate to the fate of his generation and vice versa.

The rise in public mood at the turn of the century, marking the awareness of the need for social changes in the life of Russia, involuntarily evokes in Korolenko memories of the “period of expectations” that he experienced in his youth.

“Societies have their own moods and premonitions,” the author of “The History of My Contemporary” constantly emphasizes, for he is interested not so much in the established psychology of one or another layer or social group, but rather in that which is still making its way, barely taking shape in “social premonitions", illusions, dreams.

And moreover, Korolenko in “History” tries to understand the complex mechanism of the emergence of “social premonitions” and the emergence of that social ideal, which at present cannot yet be formulated, but is already being foreseen.

Naturally, the means for Korolenko to penetrate into this fragile, elusive world of not always conscious moods, aspirations, and ideals of his contemporaries was the analysis of his own inner world - fantasies, imagination, the “incomprehensible talk” of the soul, which “cannot be expressed in rude words, just like speech of nature."

Thanks to this analysis, Korolenko reveals not only the individual appearance of the hero of his work, but also the appearance of the “young man” of his time. Hero of "The History of My Contemporary". - both a type and a bright individuality.

Looking back at the path he has traveled, Korolenko does not so much strive to reveal what exactly he thought, what view of the world he developed, as to answer the question of why he thought this way and not another, why he professed this particular point of view and not another. This is due to the fact that his worldview was typical of the majority of democratically minded people of a certain circle and changes in the consciousness of the autobiographical hero are due not only to natural “growing up”, but also to the fact that society itself has changed its view of certain phenomena of life. By reproducing the evolution of the main character’s worldview, the author makes it clear that this worldview, as well as the entire moral character of the hero, is associated with specific historical conditions, that there is a close relationship between the psychology of an individual and the psychology of the social layer close to her.

Tracing the “reflection of history in man” (Herzen), Korolenko shows how developed social environment Moral norms enter a person’s consciousness, and then are assimilated so deeply that they begin to be perceived as personal, “instinctive,” coming as if “from nature.”

What “preconceived ideas” did the young hero Korolenko enter into life with? Family traditions instilled in him a deep faith in God, and he directly and sincerely pushes away everything that could violate the integrity of his religious mood. Communicating with a small circle of relatives and acquaintances, among whom was the kind and fair landowner Kolyanovskaya, the boy was imbued with a feeling of a “serf idyll.”

The relationship between peasants and landowners seems to him mutually friendly and almost family-like. His father’s “simple and integral” worldview “imperceptibly seeped” into his soul, from whose point of view the whole world seemed “unchangeable and motionless,” and moral issues could be raised and resolved only in the sphere of private life.

But soon such an orderly and well-ordered world begins to collapse in the hero’s mind. The period of peasant reform begins and Polish uprising, and the main “background of life” becomes a feeling of uncertainty. The search begins for “bright personalities” who know how to live and what to do.

This image will take shape in the minds of a “contemporary” under the influence of the novels of Omulevsky, Mordovtsev, Shpilhagen. And it will happen that the “wandering artist-declamator” Theodore Negri and the student Vasily Veselitsky will fall under this stencil, although the first is a clever charlatan, and the second is nothing more than a vulgar phrase-monger. But a truly deep and interesting person - student Zubarevsky - will not be noticed by a “contemporary”: the literary cliche he has adopted will get in the way.

Later, already in Moscow, at the Petrovsky Agricultural Academy, a major revolution took place in the consciousness of the autobiographical hero, which determined his life for a long time. He becomes acquainted with populist theory and is no longer looking for a “real”, ideal student. This elusive image was replaced by “a broader and more tempting image of a great people, mysterious in their wisdom, the subject of new quests and, perhaps, new illusions.”

And for a long time, between the hero of “The History of My Contemporary” and reality, the populist theory will stand, which will not allow him to see behind the image of the ideal peasant, created, of course, from the noblest motives, the image of a simple man from the people who did not fit into the framework of such a harmonious, but a theory so far from reality.

At the same time, the ethical side of the populist doctrine, which requires social activity from a person, is internalized by him as a deeply personal stimulus for behavior and thinking, determining a sense of personal responsibility for the entire order of things.

Showing the complexity of choosing a life path, Korolenko in “The History of My Contemporary” spoke about the struggle “with preconceived notions” and about overcoming illusions that have no real basis in today’s reality, and at the same time about the need for the appearance of a “pink fog” of illusions, in which one can discern “the reality of tomorrow” and thanks to which social premonitions arise both in society itself and in the soul of the hero.

Korolenko narrates the story either on behalf of his hero or on behalf of the author himself; The “two voices” present here are a common technique used in such autobiographies: the author explains something that the hero himself could not yet understand, much less deeply comprehend. But in Korolenko this “sound of voices” has its own individual coloring.

The author acts, as it were, as a researcher of the hero’s inner world and tries to reveal the social, everyday, historical conditionality of his thoughts, feelings, moods, thereby recreating the dynamics of the socio-historical sphere of the individual.

As a result, many of the hero’s feelings and actions, perceived by him as personal, individual, or even “instinctive,” coming from the depths of “his nature,” find a socio-historical explanation from the author-narrator.

The “eternal essence” of human nature is, according to Korolenko, the soil on which “new things are born constantly and every minute” and “which remains alone throughout the entire conscious history of mankind,” finding its manifestation in intuition, premonitions, hidden, subconscious movements human soul, and on a societal scale, manifesting itself in the ideals of a particular time.

Thus, in his final work, Korolenko overcomes the contradiction between anthropological and sociological approach to man, for the concept of “nature” of man, previously conceptualized as something stable, unchanging, becomes in “The History of My Contemporary” not only biological, but also social concept- and therefore mobile.

A major writer not only reflects the movement of history, but also tries to comprehend it and, moreover, to influence history, to introduce into it a piece of his mind, his moral, ethical, aesthetic standards and views. Such an active attitude to the history of his country is one of the most characteristic features of Korolenko’s appearance. External evidence of this is the diversity of his activities and interests. The high assessments given to his works by L. Tolstoy, A. Chekhov, M. Gorky, N. Mikhailovsky, Rosa Luxemburg were always combined with high assessments of the writer’s personality.

After the death of L. Tolstoy, many called the name Korolenko as the name of a person whose moral authority was no less high than the authority of Tolstoy. Thus, I. Bunin, invariably reserved in his praise of his contemporaries, spoke of Korolenko: “You rejoice that he lives and thrives among us, like some kind of titanium, which cannot be touched by all those negative phenomena with which our current literature and life".

It is noteworthy that after February Revolution in a conversation with R. Rolland, A. Lunacharsky expressed the following idea: if it were necessary to elect a president in Russia, he would nominate Korolenko.

After the October Socialist Revolution, Korolenko lived for four years in Poltava, where he witnessed the turbulent events of the civil war. His attitude towards the revolution was complex.

Being a man “who passionately loved beauty and justice, sought to merge them into a single whole,” Korolenko understood that the revolution would bring what he was striving for - the realization people's hopes; but the tasks of the dictatorship of the proletariat were not close to him. Korolenko wanted to remain a socialist, standing outside the intense political struggle of these years.

But while many intellectuals who participated to one degree or another in the revolutionary movement, after the October Revolution, came to the conclusion that their dreams had not come true, Korolenko thought differently. In the final letter of 1920, which was already quoted above, Korolenko said: “In general, I do not repent of anything, as you will find among many people of our age: they say they “strived” for one thing, but what happened. We strived for what it was impossible not to strive for under our conditions. And what happened was what it led to. historical move of things"...".

History of Russian literature: in 4 volumes / Edited by N.I. Prutskov and others - L., 1980-1983.

Full text of the dissertation abstract on the topic ""The History of My Contemporary" V.G. Korolenko: Artistic Originality"

As a manuscript

SAVELIEVA Elena Sergeevna

“THE HISTORY OF MY CONTEMPORARY” V. G. KOROLENKO: ARTISTIC ORIGINALITY

Krasnodar 2009,

The work was carried out at the Department of Literature and Teaching Methods of the Pedagogical Institute of Southern Federal University

Scientific supervisor: candidate of philological sciences, associate professor

Tukodyan Nvart Khazarosovna

Official opponents: Doctor of Philology, Professor

Prokurova Natalya Sergeevna Candidate of Philological Sciences Panaetov Oleg Grigorievich

Leading organization: Krasnodar State

University of Culture and Arts

The defense will take place ")[>> TsuTsR^SL 2009 at a meeting of the dissertation council D 212.101.04 at Kuban State University at the address: 350018, Krasnodar, st. Sormovskaya, 7, room. 309.

The dissertation can be found at scientific library Kuban State University (350040, Krasnodar, Stavropolskaya St., 149).

Scientific secretary of the dissertation council< 7 М.А.Шахбазян

GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF WORK

Currently, in the literature there is a tendency to turn to the problems of classical literature. AND; Now, after many years, the works of writers who created the culture of the Russian people, laid the foundations of the modern Russian language, and participated in historical events are worthy of attention. Undoubtedly, one of these writers is Vladimir Galakshyuvich Korolenko, a great humanist, fighter for justice and freedom, author of many artistic and journalistic works, in particular, the memoir-novel “The History of My Contemporary.”

Research by scientists in the field of classical works is carried out in two directions: firstly, these are attempts at a new interpretation of texts that have already become textbooks, studied by many generations of scientists, and secondly, the search for new works of classics that have not yet received the attention of science. “The History of My Contemporary” by V. G. Korolenko, undoubtedly, is one of the works insufficiently covered in literary criticism: in the works of recent years, researchers have limited themselves to problem-chemical analysis or analysis of genre specifics individual works or cycles.

“The History of My Contemporary” by V. G. Korolenko, being a highly moral work that reflects the essential features of the past, is modern in ideological orientation and should be included in the reading circle of the modern reader, therefore it seems promising to us to further study both the whole art of V. G. Korolenko’s work and and some of his works in terms of the author’s worldview, the moral evolution of the hero and the narrative structure.

Nowadays, it is necessary to turn more often to works of classical literature for many reasons. So, firstly, many undeservedly ignored

literary critics and the public, the works raise problems that are not alien to modern times. Works with documentary elements help a person, by looking into the past and understanding the problems of past years, to understand his own time. Secondly, turning to “The History of My Contemporary” as a work of a major genre allows us to evaluate some trends in the modern literary process. Thirdly, the works of the classics are highly ideological, and by reading them, a person increases his cultural level.

In this dissertation research, an attempt was made, based on classical works and the works of modern researchers: philologists, partly philosophers, teachers, linguists and cultural experts, to determine the place of “The History of My Contemporary” in Russian autobiographical literature and in the works of V. G. Korolenko, as well as explore the main features of the poetics of “The History of My Contemporary”.

Relevance of the dissertation. 1. The novel in question, “The History of My Contemporary,” is rightfully considered one of the pinnacle creations in Russian literature, but no special research has been carried out on this work. 2. Addressing this novel by V. G. Korolenko as a work with documentary elements allows, by looking into the past and understanding the problems of past years, to understand one’s own time both from the point of view of literary criticism and from the point of view of history.

The novelty of the dissertation. 1. In a dissertation research, the autobiographical novel-memoir “The History of My Contemporary” by V. G. Korolenko is subjected to such a comprehensive study for the first time. 2. Significantly new judgments about the specifics of this work as a kind of genre symbiosis. We define the genre of “Stories of My Contemporary” as an autobiographical memoir novel. Z. During the literary analysis of the work, we presented for the first time a classification of literary portraits of the novel, a number of significant conclusions were made,

concerning the architectonics of the work, the features of the image of the characters and the specifics of the chronotope.

The object of the study is the autobiographical novel-memoir “The History of My Contemporary” by V. G. Korolenko.

Purpose of the study. Having comprehended the theoretical aspects of the problem of the genre of a work with an autobiographical orientation, determine the place of “The History of My Contemporary” in the context of the work of V. G. Korolenko and consider the poetics of this memoir-novel.

To achieve this goal, it seems necessary to solve a number of problems:

4) consider the features of the genre of the work;

5) explore the system of images, the features of literary portraits of “The History of My Contemporary”, classify them;

6) study the chronotopic structure of the novel.

The theoretical and methodological basis of the dissertation research is the principles of cultural-historical and comparative-historical research methods, as well as the provisions and concepts developed in the works of M. M. Bakhtin, B. O. Korman, Yu. M. Lotman, D. S. Likhachev , G. O. Vinokura, V. V. Vinogradova, G. N. Pospelova, G. A. Beloy, B. M. Eikhenbaum, Yu. N. Tynyanova, L. Ya. Ginzburg, S. S. Averintseva, A G. Tartakovsky, N. A. Nikolina, A. B. Esin, I. O. Shaitanov and others.

The literary categories used are considered historically and theoretically, the history of the formation of the genre of artistic autobiography is traced, attempts are made to analyze the principles of creating images of heroes, to identify artistic means of expressing the author’s position in an autobiographical memoir novel.

When determining the place of “The History of My Contemporary” in the writer’s work, we studied the works of D. N. Ovsyaniko-Kulikovsky, N. D. Shakhovskaya, G. A. Vyaly, as well as dissertation research in recent years (G. Z. Gorbunova, Yu. G Gushchin, P. E. Lion, V. E. Tatarinova, A. V. Trukhanenko, etc.), dedicated to the work of V. G. Korolenko. The theoretical significance of the dissertation lies in the fact that the work represents a single study dedicated to the autobiographical novel-memoir “The History of My Contemporary” by V. G. Korolenko, determines its significance and artistic originality.

"The scientific and practical value of this dissertation research lies in the possibility of using its results when teaching university courses on the history of Russian literature of the second half of the 20th century, special courses on the works of V. G. Korolenko and writers of the sixties, as well as for further research of the works of V. G. Korolenko.

Main provisions submitted for defense:

1) “The History of My Contemporary” occupies a central position in the work of V. G. Korolenko due to the analytical form of the writer’s thinking, the specific ideological orientation of the work and its value paradigm.

2) “History” of my contemporary” V. G. Korolenko ---

an autobiographical memoir novel with specific features characteristic of this genre: the fusion of various genres, the selection of images, techniques psychological image heroes, the creation of a special chronotope.

Approbation. The main provisions of the dissertation research were the subject of discussion at meetings of the Department of Russian Literature and Teaching Methods of the Pedagogical Institute of the Southern Federal University, and are also reflected in 3 publications of the author and presented in 4 reports at conferences at various levels (international scientific conference^ “Conceptual problems of literature: fiction cognition", Rostov-on-Don, international scientific conference (correspondence) of the XXIII Chekhov readings in Taganrog, scientific conference - XI Sheshukov readings "Historiosophy in Russian literature of the 20th and 19th centuries: traditions and a new view." Moscow) with subsequent publication articles.

Structure and scope of the dissertation. The work consists of an introduction, two chapters, a conclusion and a bibliography of 214 titles. When working with texts, we studied two collected works of V. G. Korolenko: in 9 volumes, 1914, and in 10 volumes, 1954. References in the text of the dissertation are based on the later collected works.

The total volume of the dissertation is 189 pages.

The introduction defines the subject, goals and objectives of the research, establishes the degree of knowledge of the problem, relevance, scientific novelty, research material, and also identifies a number of issues related to the problem of studying biographical literature in domestic literary criticism.

The first chapter of the dissertation research, “The History of My Contemporary” in the Context of the Epoch,” has four paragraphs.

In the first paragraph. “Prerequisites for the appearance of “The History of My Contemporary” in the works of V. G. Korolenko: analyticism as a form of thinking of the writer,” we consider novelistic thinking

the creator, which is a prerequisite for the creation of a work of a major genre. In developing this thesis, we rely on the judgments of V. Belinsky and M. Bakhtin about the syncretism of the novel genre, its versatility and ability to influence other genres (the concept of novelization of genres). Using the example of Korolenko’s stories and stories, we consider the formation of a big genre form in his work and we find in “The History of My Contemporary” the features of a complex genre symbiosis, a combination in the structure of the work of many genres: autobiography, memoirs, novel, diary, story, essay, article. Reading “The History of My Contemporary,” we can observe how the idea of ​​certain works was born, their details were laid down, we see elements of intertextuality: “Having passed Tobolsk, our barge began to rise north along the Irtysh, and the wonderful views of the Volga and Kama replaced the dull ones for us banks of Siberian rivers with rare settlements. Here I surrendered to my memories and wrote an essay “The Unreal City,” in which, strongly imitating Uspensky, I described Glazov” (vol. 7, p. 159). In the work we found more than 65 references to the texts of stories, articles, letters of V. G. Korolenko. Thus, we conclude that “The History of My Contemporary” is the logical result of the entire work of V. G. Korolenko; it follows from previous works, simultaneously enclosing them. One cannot help but pay attention to the journalistic elements in all of Korolenko’s work. Almost every work has a subtitle that speaks of its genre or the place where the idea was written or originated (“From a trip to Vetluga and Kerzhenets”, “From Siberian life"). The system of genres to which the author himself classifies his works seems to us extensive and diverse. We find here both generally accepted titles (short story, tale, essay) and rare variations of small genres (pictures, pages, excerpts). In addition to the above-mentioned genres of documentary prose, V. G. Korolenko has works belonging to allegorical genres (fairy tale, legend, fantasy), but most of his

In genre terms, Korolenko’s works are classified as documentary biographical prose (portrait, letter, memoirs, observations):

Korolenko’s work is characterized by a multi-stage cyclization system. The works are united according to the affiliation of the main characters to one or another social group, for example, cycles of essays (“Pavlov’s Sketches”, “At the Cossacks”, “In a Hungry Year”), cycles of stories “about tramps”, “about random people”. There are also macrocycles that unite works by genre: essays, short stories, lyrical miniatures, works of conventional genres (Siberian, children's). In addition, in Korolenko’s genre system one can distinguish Volga, American and Romanian macrocycles by theme.

The cycle is a step towards mastering the great novel form. The writer did not limit himself to partially developing the theme in one or two stories. He tried to express everything, to exhaust the topic to the end. One story led to another - and multiple cycles arose: Siberian, children's, “Pavlovsk Sketches”, cycles of essays “In the Hungry Year”, “Sorochinskaya Tragedy” and others.

This fact of cyclization of works undoubtedly speaks of V. G. Korolenko’s attraction to a large epic form. Thus, novelistic thinking determines the movement of genres in the writer’s work.

“The History of My Contemporary” is built from many essays and stories, united by the image of the main character - the author, presented by him in chronological order. At the same time, many of the components of the novel are unthinkable outside of it (they do not have an ending or beginning, their motives are tightly connected with the motives of other stories), but others can exist separately. Also in the novel we see elements of parallel construction (the division of characters into groups with diverse events occurring simultaneously). These parallels stem from the ideological views and value guidelines of the writer.

Second paragraph. “Korolenko’s historiosophical, value paradigm (orientation) in the embodiment of fate, choice, law.

human responsibility and the picture of the world,” is dedicated to the artistic and stylistic system of the writer’s concept and his moral and ethical program, reflected in “The History of My Contemporary” in comparison with some stories.

In the literary life of the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, many qualitative changes took place associated with the process of renewal and transformation of already existing literary movements, the emergence and movement of new ones. The complication of the literary process (multiplicity of currents and directions, extraordinary mobility and rapid change of forms and styles, sharp polemics) is also due to the multi-structure characteristic of a huge country, the combination of elements of different historical stages, which is why there was an extraordinary complexity in the manifestation of socio-ideological conflicts. At the same time, there existed such diverse, heterogeneous, sometimes opposing tendencies as the boundless aestheticism of adherents of “pure art” and the asceticism of the late Tolstoy, the desire of Chekhov, Korolenko to go beyond the circle only literary work, the emergence of literature of the Gorky direction.

However, it is possible to identify a feature that unites these many-sided phenomena: in literature, as in life, the problem of man, his personality, dignity, and value is raised with particular force. The great merit of Tolstoy, Chekhov, Korolenko was that in their artistic model social existence depicted the people as the value center with which everything else was correlated.

The question of personality in literature cannot be considered without connection with the humanistic concept of the writer, with his “idea of ​​man.”

“The fact of the matter is that there is no “man”, one and indivisible, just a man; there are Fedots, Ivans, poor people, rich people, beggars and kulaks, virtuous and vicious, caring and drunkards, living on a full allotment, and donors, with plots of one bast shoe, owners and workers... The fact of the matter is that we the people all seem to have the same face, and by the first peasant we judge all peasants” (vol. 9, p.

166). The writer portrays the people not as a homogeneous faceless mass, but embodies their destinies in specific, vivid artistic images.

The objects of our attention are the problems of fate, freedom, in particular free choice, and morality.

“Isn’t this our task to love this people?” - this is the problem posed by the author. Even having sunk to the bottom of life, dark, rude, people remain people, live as best they can, love, give birth to children, no matter how difficult their lot is. We see that, revealing this or that problem, Korolenko returns to it more than once in his subsequent works, and this feature again makes it possible to assert the novelism of V. G. Korolenko’s thinking.

The third paragraph of the first chapter is called " Ideological content“Stories of my contemporary” and its compositional expression in the novel.” Based on philosophical and literary definitions of idea, ideology, aesthetic ideal, we see that they are closely related.

The Dictionary of Philosophical Terms defines an ideal as follows: “a model, something sublime, good and beautiful, the highest goal of aspiration” (p. 245).

In art, the aesthetic ideal is the artistic world that arises from the correlation of life as it is and as it should be, however, the ideal must be derived from reality, based more on reality than on the fictional world.

Our thought in determining the ideological content is guided by the author’s understanding of the idea of ​​his novel.

“Now I see much of what my generation dreamed of and fought for, bursting into the arena of life in an alarming and stormy way. I think that many episodes from the times of my exile wanderings, events, meetings, thoughts and feelings of people of that time and that environment have not lost the interest of living reality itself. I would like to think that they will still retain their significance for the future” (vol. 5, p. 7).

Depicting the events of the life of his “contemporary”, V. G. Korolenko unfolds before the reader a panorama of the life of society in the 1860s-1880s of the 19th century, including the event aspect (outstanding historical events that took place at that time), the socio-political aspect (changes in the status of many people, the development of a social revolutionary movement), the literary-aesthetic aspect (the influence of literature on people and people on literature).

In the preface to “The History of My Contemporary,” V. G. Korolenko wrote: “There will be nothing here that I have not encountered in reality, that I have not experienced, felt, or seen” (vol. 5, p. 8). The autobiographical nature of this work did not prevent it from becoming a chronicle of an entire generation. D. N. Ovsyaniko-Kulikovsky (141) argued that Korolenko’s memoirs can be placed next to L. N. Tolstoy’s “Childhood” and “Adolescence”, and the brightness of the reconstruction of the era, as well as the depth and significance of reflections, they resemble “The Past and Thoughts” » Herzen.

“History...” is a broad epic narrative about the dramatic, truly tragic fate of the generation of the 1870s. In the foreground in the novel are thoughts about the people, about their capabilities. Korolenko draws attention to the overly bookish, abstract theoretical nature of the legacy of the “sixties”. Korolenko rejected “going to the people” and Narodnaya Volya terrorism as naive-utopian theories. The writer does not join any of the existing underground revolutionary organizations, seeing in them a sectarian character, revolutionaries without a people. Korolenko preferred to act openly, with the pen of a publicist and artist. His work, in particular “The History of My Contemporary,” represents a reflection of the writer’s political and social views.

Korolenko begins the story about himself from infancy. This technique corresponds to the canons of the genre and is used by the author to identify the sources of the formation of his personality, nature, and predispositions. In the first parts the author uses, of course,

the method of direct recollection, but given the hero’s young age and the often spontaneity and inaccuracy of his judgments, Korolenko sometimes has to introduce inserted episodes (for example, separated into separate chapters “My Father”, “Father and Mother”), narratives, colorful facts, dates and events that could not have been known to a little boy.

Another form of such explanations is a short episode that is not singled out compositionally, explaining the child’s feelings. Here an adult explains from the height of his years what he felt then and what, according to his current ideas, caused it. “During this painful period of my childhood life, the memory of God was very formless. With this word, somewhere in the depths of consciousness, an idea was born of something vast and completely bright, but impersonal. The closest thing would be to say that it seemed to me like a distant and huge spot of sunlight. But the light did not work at night, and the night was entirely in the power of a hostile, other world, which, together with darkness, was moving into the boundaries of ordinary life” (vol. 5, p. 45).

V. G. Korolenko also describes works of art that had a great influence on him (the book “Fomka from Sandomierz” by Jan Gregorovich, the historical theater play “Ursula, or Sigismund III”). Describing the process of his acquaintance with these works, the writer, relying on actually occurring events and his immediate impressions, gives a story with elements of analysis, determining their belonging to literary movements (book-sentimentalism, play-romanticism).

The individual’s striving for an emotionally anticipated universal ideal indicates a romantic current in a work written, undoubtedly, in the realistic tradition.

In the dissertation we consider the transformation of the ideal of V. G. Korolenko. When the writer was in childhood, it can be argued that his father had the traits of an ideal for him. However

From a very early age, Korolenko was inclined to look at everything from different sides, so he perfectly saw its ambiguous qualities or disadvantages. Having drawn attention to several false ideals (Theodor Negri, Vasily Veselitsky), we come to the conclusion that the image of Kliment Arkadyevich Timiryazev is closest to the ideal in the writer’s understanding.

When, already in the first days of exile, Korolenko concludes: “No, I will no longer go into the service of this state with the Livens and Valuevs at the top, with a network of petty, irresistible predation below. This is the decaying past... And I will go towards the unknown future,” we are convinced that the real ideal is the author himself. The minute when a person is visited by such a strong feeling is very important for his self-determination and the course of his entire future life. In “The History of My Contemporary” a feature clearly emerges that can be called programmatic: the author gives the personal, intimate the character of social value and interest. In the era reproduced by the writer, one can feel living people, living life and, above all, one’s own humane, righteous soul of the contemporary - and in the personal and one’s own, the socially valuable of the experience is refracted, and not the accidental and narrowly individualistic.

We analyze the features of the plot and plot construction in Korolenko, based on compositional solution author. “The History of My Contemporary” is equipped with a detailed system of titles of parts and chapters. This attraction to headings and subheadings is explained by the high journalistic nature of V. G. Korolenko’s works.

Intertextual headings (chapters) can be divided into several main groups related to the thematic range of the novel and its chronotopic structure. We distinguish the following groups:

1) A static description of the current situation in a particular place, as well as a description of a group of people: “Old students”, “Workers”, etc.

2) Individual portrait descriptions of specific personalities: “Father and Mother”, “Alexander Kapitonovich Malikov”.

3) Narration of events extended over time: “I find myself in a den of robbers”, “Arrival in Perm”.

"We carried out calculations and calculations that allow us to testify to the distribution of material in the novel, and concluded that the distribution of textual material in the novel reflects the real content of the life period being described. The author, dividing the “History...” into chapters in accordance with the periods of development of the hero, simultaneously identifies the dominants of each period (Childhood - development, description of the situation; student years, the first link is development, eventfulness; period of exile - portrait sketches, description of the situation.)

Also in this paragraph, we emphasize the connection between content and form, arguing that the division of a work into architectural parts (books, chapters) is subordinated to the author’s main idea: to reflect the story of his life in his time, therefore the main criterion for delimiting chapters is the importance of certain events for the author, their stages in his life, influence on his future fate.

Fourth paragraph. "Author's concept creative personality V. G. Korolenko (hero and image of the author), is dedicated to the author’s concept of Korolenko’s creative personality, lyrical expression. We use the term “author”, meaning by it “a certain view of reality, the expression of which is the entire work,” using Bakhtin’s definition. We consider the image of the author in his development. "History..." covers the period 1854-1885, that is, the time from the early childhood of the writer until his arrival in Nizhny Novgorod as a thirty-three-year-old man. Developing the thesis about

the main idea of ​​“The History of My Contemporary”, expressed in paragraph 1.3, concerning the creation of the image of the hero of the era of the 60-80s. XIX century, let us turn to the image of the author presented in the novel.

Korolenko.

In 1905, when Korolenko began work on the novel, he was 53 years old. Naturally, the views of the depicted young man and the mature man do not always coincide. At the beginning of the narrative, monologues, reflections, and lyrical digressions belonging to the author have greater weight; the proportion of incidents that happened directly to the child described is not very large.

In the works of the children's cycle, the specificity lies in a double view of what is happening: from the point of view of the main character or hero-storyteller in childhood and the adult narrator or hero-storyteller, with the adult only balancing the child’s ideas and conclusions and correcting some accents. In the first volume of “The History of My Contemporary”, consisting of five parts, which tell about the early childhood of the writer, about his studies at the boarding school of Mrs. Okrashevskaya, in the Zhytomyr and Rivne gymnasiums, this is exactly the image of the author. The reader perceives the work in two time plans, either transporting to the 50-60s of the 19th century and taking the position of a child, or rising to the author’s point of view on the events that took place then.

Such authorial returns from the events described to his own modern opinion continue throughout the novel. Let us note some of their features. In the first chapters, V. G. Korolenko, by right of seniority, expresses his opinion about the actions and thoughts of the child that the author once was, as a rule, in the form of a statement, explanation, assessment; the form of a maxim, morality, and aphorism is also acceptable. Author's intervention may be in the nature of reporting historical facts, introduced for the purpose of illuminating and

clarification of events that cannot be told by a child - There are also comments in the text from the first person, in which one can feel irony, fatherly mockery of the hero: “How long ago it was” and how stupid I was then... And how much smarter I am now that boy who put his ear to the telegraph poles or was proud of... what? The title of a little boarder... But now I’m already an “old school student” and I’m going to new places for some kind of new life... "(vol. 5, pp. 144-145).

In the chapters devoted to the description of his student time, the author expresses his attitude towards the actions of the hero differently. Irony is clearly felt in the narrative; it permeates the entire text, sometimes being inseparable from own words hero. Often ironic thoughts are formalized in remarks in the first person: “I have developed an arrogant conviction that I am perhaps the smartest in this city. My standard was this: I can understand all the people flashing in front of me in this stream, swaying like water in a plate, from the barrier to the post office and back.<...>And they have no idea what thoughts about them and what dreams are wandering in my head” (vol. 6, p. 12). The character seems to be talking about his superiority over the people around him, but we can easily discern the hidden meaning put into the hero’s mouth by the author. The author does not hide his thoughts that actually arose in his youth, even if they run counter to his modern beliefs. The author further adds from the height of his life experience: “I was stupid. Subsequently, when I became smarter, I easily found people above me in the most remote corners of life” (vol. 6, p. 12).

Then the picture changes - the difference in views is reduced to a minimum and the share of events and actions of the hero increases. To directly address the reader, to express his point of view, Korolenko resorts to digressions in which he speaks about the hero in the third person. In subsequent chapters, the coincidence of the opinions of the hero and the author increases, so the author resorts less and less to irony and characterization of the hero’s actions. The author's digressions now pursue one goal: to make the narrative more coherent by introducing into the text

messages, reviews and generalizations about historical events that did not affect the hero personally, but are important for explaining further events. So, for example, without naming the source of the message, V.G. Korolenko speaks about the Chigirinsky case, about the assassination attempt on Solovyov - the events that occurred while the hero was under arrest in the Lithuanian castle. Thus, we see that the image of the author in “History...” changes and grows along with the writer. The text of the novel reflects the course of memory, the process of recollection, therefore there is a “double view” of what is happening: from the point of view of the hero and from the point of view of the author, although they are essentially the same person at different periods of his life.

The second chapter, “The Poetics of the History of My Contemporary,” is devoted to a comprehensive literary analysis of the work. It includes four paragraphs.

In the first paragraph. ""The History of My Contemporary" in the General Typology of Russian Autobiographical Literature." An attempt was made to determine the place of the autobiographical memoir novel in the general typology of Russian autobiographical literature. Problems of the genre nature of autobiographical literary prose in modern literary criticism are among the most complex and debatable. The main problems that are in the spotlight: the relationship between historical truth and artistic fiction, the documentary nature of autobiographical information, the role of the author in the artistic interpretation of the hero’s life and work, and others. These problems are due to the fact that the criteria for the genre and the range of its understanding are very wide. Obviously, the explanation for this must be sought in the synthetic nature of the genre, its constant evolution, and interaction with other literary genres. We are considering “The History of My Contemporary” in comparison with other works of the major autobiographical genre. S. T. Aksakov, A. I. Herzen, L. N. Tolstoy, V. G. Korolenko, I. A. Bunin - all of them in their works talk in detail about the history of their family, about

relatives, about their origin. “The History of My Contemporary” is undoubtedly one of the great works of autobiographical literature. !

The second paragraph is “Genre specificity of “The History of My Contemporary”.” Considering “The History of My Contemporary”; we define the genre of this work as an autobiographical memoir novel. The autobiographical component undoubtedly comes first in “The History of My Contemporary”. The desire for factual accuracy and consistency can be easily seen in the text of the work; this is repeatedly emphasized by the author.

Having studied the history of the genre of Russian artistic biography from hagiographies to modern autobiographical novels, we argue that in the process of its development, autobiography was enriched by the traditions of other genres (in Russia): hagiography, educational novel, historical novel, biography, diary, literary portrait, etc.

We see that from the point of view of genre nature, “The History of My Contemporary” combines the characteristics of several genres, three of which are fundamental: autobiography, that is, a description of the facts of one’s life, memoirs (memoirs) - a description of the “work of the soul,” reflections, reasoning , relationships to surrounding events characteristic of the character being described at a certain period of his life, and a novel, the main feature of which is the absence of prohibitions on the depiction of anything.

In the third paragraph. “Literary portrait as part of the artistic originality of “The History of My Contemporary””, we consider the system of images of the work, the features of their implementation. We support the point of view of V. S. Barakhov, who considers a literary portrait in its three mutually related manifestations: 1) a literary portrait as a means of creating the image of a character in a novel, story, story; 2) literary portrait as an integral part, a component of a more complex genre structure; 3) literary portrait as an independent genre.

In our opinion, all these three types of literary portrait are reflected in Korolenko’s work. We will consider the first two manifestations based on the material of the memoir-novel “The History of My Contemporary”. Directly in the novel, the literary portrait acts, firstly, as an integral part, a component of a more complex genre structure, and, secondly, as a means of creating the image of a character in the novel. We are making an attempt to give a typology of the characters portrayed in “The History of My Contemporary”, highlighting portraits-stories and memories. The main differentiating factor underlying the division of portraits into stories and memories is the passage of time. If in a portrait-story time moves independently of the narrative or stops altogether, then in a memory the passages selected by the writer to characterize the character continue the storyline. Also, regardless of the passage of time, we have singled out type portraits into a separate category. V. G. Korolenko creates galleries of images: officials, judges, teachers, students, exiles, political people, folk images: Pochinkovtsy, Glasovtsy, Amgintsy. In our study, we consider literary portraits of the writer’s parents, teachers, some representatives of petty officials, teachers (classifying them into “old”, “maniacs”, “chronographs” and “new”, based on the attitude of the author and borrowing his definitions), as well as teachers of higher educational institutions.

Portrait elements abound in the third book, which is dedicated to exile wanderings and at the same time tells about the places where the author visited exactly then (Berezovsky Pochinki, Vyshnevolotsk political prison, Perm, Tomsk, Krasnoyarsk, Yakutsk, Irkutsk). Thus, we see that “the portrait of a character predominates in chapters whose main goal is to create a picture of the life of a particular group, layer of people (landowners, court workers, teachers). All these paintings are given to us refracted through the prism of the author’s personality, respectively, each of them adds features to the image of a contemporary. ;

We consider it necessary to draw attention to another interesting feature of Korolenko’s narrative. The principle underlying his work in general and “The History of My Contemporary” in particular is the desire to reproduce. events from the point of view of “then perception”. We will talk about the problem of comparing time plans a little lower, but here we will highlight this technique insofar as it is a means of expressing the author’s subjectivity.

“Talking about past years, Korolenko always clearly distinguishes between his current position and the position of his autobiographical hero at this stage of his development. The author's point of view may complement or clarify the point of view of a “contemporary”, but it does not at all replace it. What is remarkable is that Korolenko never tries to hide his “back then” views and beliefs, even if they run counter to his modern thoughts. He can only allow himself to express his point of view about his former self. Describing the first year of study at Institute of Technology, talking about the fact that he had to starve, Korolenko says casually: “In essence, it was a slow death from hunger, only extended over a long time” (vol. 6, p. 90), “But I was stupid then and didn’t noticed this..." The author is not shy about even the most ridiculous and ridiculous mistakes and misconceptions, laughing at his sensitivity to literary motifs and types. In an effort to find words “that would come closest to the phenomena of life” (vol. 5, p. 295), the “contemporary” even finds a definition for his suit of cheap fabric, sewn for a trip to the capital by a provincial tailor: “Leaving in On the fashion side, I felt dressed to the nines, “quite simply, but tastefully”” (vol. 6, p. 11). The author puts these words in quotation marks, showing that this is the definition chosen by a young man who wants to look good, while despising fashion and not having the means to do so. After a remark from ladies I know about the unsuitability of such a costume for the capital, Korolenko speaks about his feelings: “And I was left with a terrible melancholy of loneliness in my heart and an unpleasant consciousness,

that my “unfashionable, but simple and elegant” costume attracts ironic attention...” (vol. 6, p. 14). The author again puts the description of the costume in quotation marks. Of course, the person who wrote these lines no longer thinks so, and with these quotation marks he emphasizes the difference between himself and this young man, so young and naive.

In the same vein, the author recalls his youthful vivid impressions of being a student, reaching the point of enthusiasm. In “The History of My Contemporary,” a work undoubtedly based on real facts, there are passages that speak of obviously fictitious events. First of all, these are the dreams of the author. So the young man is carried away by his thoughts on a trip on a steam locomotive in the role of a “smart and strong” worker-machinist, seeing a third-year trainee, or experiences temporary admiration for the image of Lazovsky, “the dance class Mephistopheles, who creates scandals with such beautiful carelessness” (vol. 6, p. 63 ). Such passages are characteristic of the hero’s youth.

In the study, we also pay attention to the methods of psychological depiction of heroes using the example of the owner of the proofreading bureau Studensky.

So, the main component of “The History of My Contemporary” is artistic portraits people who helped the writer form his views and beliefs.

Fourth paragraph. “Features of the chronotope of “The History of My Contemporary”.” In the work we see several types of chronotopes interconnected and flowing into each other. The chronotope of an autobiographical memoir-novel has several components: calendar time (a variety of it is represented as biographical), event time (historical, everyday time, chronotope of the road, meetings), perceptual time (the author's chronotope). We give a brief description of the main types of chronotopes identified by Bakhtin (biographical, evental, historical, author's chronotope, everyday, road chronotope). The biographical chronotope predominates in the work under study. So

As the narrative is about a truly completed past, the author uses the techniques of prospection and retrospection, thus focusing attention on one or another stage of the hero’s life. Thus, V. G. Korolenko’s attention dwells for a long time on the upbringing, early years, and the process of growing up of a “contemporary.”

The flow of biographical time stops, and we become acquainted with both the hero’s reading circle and his friends, thus falling into the spiritual atmosphere of entire generations.

* The hero’s reading range allows the author to more deeply imagine the formation of his worldview and his formation as a person. In “The History of My Contemporary” there is a chapter partially devoted to a work of fiction (“Fomka from Sandomierz” and the landowner Dechert”), in which the author shares his childhood immediate impressions of the first book he read in his life. However children's perception books are specified by the author's opinion. The essay “My First Acquaintance with Dickens,” supplementing Chapter XXIX of the first book, included by the author in the appendices, has a different chronotope structure. Here, undoubtedly, a lot of attention is paid to books and works of art, but their perception is given almost without stopping time. Perhaps this form was dictated by the specifics of the hero’s reading in that period: the writer’s older brother, trying to separate himself from the younger ones, did not allow Korolenko to read his books, only allowing him to change them in the library. The boy began to read on the go. “This manner gave the reading process itself a peculiar and, so to speak, gambling character” (vol. 5, p. 366). The writer notes that such a superficial reading did not allow him to understand the work in all its versatility, allowing him to note only the main characters and the main storyline. However, such shallow reading did not at all form in the hero a careless attitude towards literary text On the contrary, having received the opportunity to read the books he wants, the hero understands the value of this.

Events can be described as occurring in biographical time, following life events, or they can represent

are retrospectives, memories of events that took place in reality, but at the moment of time described in the text, had already ended. The course of action, its distribution in time is connected with the artistic goal set by the author. We have identified some differences in. reflection of the passage of time in “The History of My Contemporary” in passages relating to various types text (narration, description, reasoning). Having analyzed the various chapters of “The History of My Contemporary” from the point of view of the length of action in time, we see that the choice speech means largely depends on the type of text. When choosing one or another means, V. G. Korolenko is guided by his communicative intentions.

In conclusion, the results of the research are summed up, the place of the autobiographical memoir-novel “The History of My Contemporary” by V. G. Korolenko in the history of Russian literature of the 20th century is determined, and ways of further research in this area are outlined.

The main provisions of the dissertation research are reflected in 9 publications of the author:

1. Savelyeva E. S. The concept of man in the work of V. G. Korolenko / E. S. Savelyeva // Epistemology of poetics: artistic semantics and genre syncretism. Intra-university collection of scientific works. Vol. 5. Rostov-on-Don, 2005. pp. 64-70.

2. Savelyeva E. S. Features of the manifestation of author’s subjectivity V. G. Korolenko in the aspect of genre / E. S. Savelyeva // Conceptual problems of literature: artistic cognition. G. Rostov-on-Don, 2006. pp. 198-201.

3. Savelyeva E. S. Portrait-substantive part of the novel-memory of V. G. Korolenko “The History of My Contemporary” and the means of creating an image / E. S. Savelyeva // Epistemology of poetics:

artistic semantics and genre syncretism. Intra-university collection of scientific works. Vol. 6. Rostov-on-Don, 2006. pp. 44-52.

4. Savelyeva E. S. The theme of childhood in the works of A. P. Chekhov and V. G. Korolenko / E. S. Savelyeva // Creativity of A. P. Chekhov. Collection of materials of the International scientific conference(correspondence) - XXIII Chekhov readings in Taganrog. Taganrog, 2007. pp. 28-32.

5. Savelyeva E. S. The concept of man as an expression of historiosophical and aesthetic orientation V. G. Korolenko / E. S. Savelyeva // Historiosophy in Russian literature of the 20th and 19th centuries: traditions and a new view. Materials of the scientific conference - XI Sheshukov readings. Moscow, 2007. pp. 54-58.

6. Savelyeva E. S. Exiled wanderings of V. G. Korolenko - part of the ideological content of “The History of My Contemporary” / E. S. Savelyeva // Conceptual problems of literature: artistic cognition. Rostov-on-Don, 2007. P.274-277.

7. Savelyeva E. S. Features of the reflection of novelistic thinking in “The History of My Contemporary” by V. G. Korolenko / E. S. Savelyeva // Conceptual problems of literature: typology and syncretism of genres. - Rostov-on-Don, 2007. pp. 211-215.

*8. Savelyeva E. S. Psychologism and lyrical expression of images in “The History of My Contemporary” by V. G. Korolenko. Scientific and methodological journal "Bulletin of Kostroma State University named after N. A. Nekrasov." Main issue, No. 1, January-March, 2008. Volume 14). pp. 131-134.

9. Savelyeva E. S. Temporal organization of the autobiographical novel-memoir of V. G. Korolenko “The History of My Contemporary” / E. S. Savelyeva // Epistemology of poetics: artistic semantics and genre syncretism. - Intra-university collection of scientific works. Vol. 8. Rostov-on-Don, 2009. pp. 52-61.

Legend: * indicates work published in a publication recommended by the Higher Attestation Commission of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation for the publication of basic materials of candidate dissertations.

Savelyeva E. S. “The History of My Contemporary” V. G. Korolenko: Artistic Originality: Abstract. day. ...cand. philologist, science: 01/10/01. Rostov n/d.: Southern Federal University, 2009.24 p.

Signed for publication on 05/08/2009. Format 60x84 1/16. Offset printing. Volume 1.5 conventional oven l. Circulation 100 copies. Order Ns fáí.

Publishing and printing department of Rostov State Pedagogical University 344082, Rostov-on-Don, st. B. Sadovaya, 33

Chapter 1 “The History of My Contemporary” in the context of the era

1. Prerequisites for the appearance of “The History of My Contemporary” in the works of V. G. Korolenko: analyticism as a form of thinking of the writer

2. Korolenko’s historiosophical, value paradigm (orientation) in the embodiment of fate, choice, law, human responsibility and the picture of the world

3. The ideological content of “The History of My Contemporary” and its compositional expression in the novel

Chapter 2 Poetics of “The Stories of My Contemporary”

1. “The History of My Contemporary” in the general typology of Russian autobiographical literature

2. Genre specificity of “The History of My Contemporary”

3. Literary portrait as part of the artistic originality of “The History of My Contemporary”

4. Features of the chronotope “Stories of my contemporary”

Introduction of the dissertation 2009, abstract on philology, Savelyeva, Elena Sergeevna

Currently, in the literature there is a tendency to turn to the problems of classical literature. And now, after many years, the works of writers who created the culture of the Russian people, laid the foundations of the modern Russian language, and participated in historical events are worthy of attention. Undoubtedly, one of these writers is Vladimir Galpktionovich Korolenko, a great humanist, fighter for justice and freedom, author of many artistic and journalistic works, in particular, the memoir-novel “The History of My Contemporary.”

Scientists' research in the field of classical works is carried out in two directions: firstly, these are attempts at a new interpretation of texts that have already become textbooks, studied by many generations of scientists, and secondly, the search for new classical works that have not yet received the attention of the spiders. “The History of My Contemporary” by V. G. Korolenko is undoubtedly one of the works that is insufficiently covered in literary criticism.

Relevance of this study. 1) The novel in question, “The History of My Contemporary,” is considered one of the pinnacle creations in Russian literature, but no special research has been carried out on this work. 2) This study allows us to clearly reflect the analysis of the characteristics of the author’s consciousness, the specifics of its manifestation; since, on the one hand, all scientists and researchers recognize the extreme activation of the author’s personality in autobiographical prose, on the other, this problem has rarely become the subject of special consideration. 3) Addressing this novel by V. G. Korolenko as a work with documentary elements allows, by looking into the past and understanding the problems of the past, to understand one’s own time both from the point of view of literary criticism and from the point of view of history.

The novelty of the dissertation. 1. In a dissertation research, the autobiographical novel-memoir “The History of My Contemporary” by V. G. Korolenko is subjected to such a comprehensive study for the first time. 2. Significantly new judgments about the specifics of this work as a kind of genre symbiosis. We define the genre of “Stories of My Contemporary” as an autobiographical memoir novel. 3. In the literary analysis of the work, we presented for the first time a classification of literary portraits of the novel, and made a number of significant conclusions regarding the architectonics of the work, the features of the image of the characters and the specifics of the chronotope.

The theoretical and methodological basis of the dissertation research is the principles of cultural-historical and comparative-historical research methods, as well as the provisions and concepts developed in the works of M. M. Bakhtin, B, O! Kormap, Yu. M. Lotman, D. S. Likhachev, G. O. Vinokura, V. V. Vshknrpdopya, G. I. Pospelova, G. A. Beloy, B. M. Eikhenbaum, Yu. II. Tynyanova, L. Ya. Ginzburg, S. S. Averyitsev, A. G. Tartakovsky, I. A. Nikolina, A. B. Esin, I. O. Shaitanov and others.

The literary categories used are considered historically and theoretically, the history of the formation of the genre of artistic autobiography is traced, attempts are made to analyze the principles of creating images of heroes, to identify artistic means of expressing the author’s position in an autobiographical memoir novel.

When determining the place of “The History of My Contemporary” in the writer’s work, we studied the works of D. P. Ovsyaiko-Kulikovsky (141), I. D. Shakhovskaya (210), A. V. Khrabrovitsky (196), G. A. Byaly (40 ), and also got acquainted with dissertation research in recent years dedicated to the work of V. G. Korolenko. These are the works of G. Z. Gorbunova (“Korolenko and Dostoevsky” (56)), S. N. Guskov (“V, G, Korolenko and L. N. Tolstoy: the problem of the writer’s ethical position” (63)), Yu. G Gushchina (“Essay cycle by V. G. Korolenko “In the Hungry Year”: Creative history And genre originality"(64)), N. N. Gushchina (“V. G. Korolenko and literary populism (1870-1880s)” (65)), D. A* Zavelskaya (“Semantic and artistic unity of the text in I works V. G. Korolenko” (79)), I. V. Kochergina (“V. G. Korolenko and literary criticism and journalism of the late 19th century” (102)), P. E. Lyon (“Literary position of V. G. Korolenko" (109)), L. I. Skreminskaya ("West - East" - the spiritual and creative quest of V. G. Korolenko" (170)), V. R. Tagarinova ("Poetics of stories and essays by V. G* Korolenko" (180)), A. V. Trukhapenko ("Some style features stories and stories by V. G. Korolenko: (Principles of portraiture and coloristics as a means of expressing the author’s idea)” (184)), O. L. Fetiseiko (“The story “The Artist Alymov” and the unrealized plan of V. G. Korolenko “In a quarrel with little brother"" (192)).

Having analyzed the focus of these works, we see that the researchers limited themselves to problem-thematic analysis or analysis of the regional specificity of individual works or cycles.

The object of research is the autobiographical novel-memoir “The History of My Contemporary” by V. G. Korolenko.

The novel is recognized as the leading genre of literature in recent centuries. Despite the fact that this genre is the subject of deep thought by writers and attracts the close attention of literary scholars and critics, it still remains a mystery,

Hegel, comparing the novel with the traditional epic, wrote that the novel lacks the “originally poetic state of the world” inherent in the epic; there is a “conflict” between the poetry of the heart and the opposing prose of everyday relationships” and “prosaically ordered reality.” V. G. Belinsky , calling the novel an epic of private life, defined the subject of this genre as follows: “the fate of a private person,” “everyday life.” M. M. Bakhtin expressed similar thoughts in his work “Epic and Novel (On the Methodology of Researching the Novel)” (19). The scientist claims that “the hero of the novel is shown not as ready-made and unchanging, but as becoming, changing, educated by life,” he “combines both positive and negative traits, both low and high, both funny and serious “, The novel shows “live contact” of a person “with an unprepared, emerging modernity”, “more deeply, significantly, sensitively and quickly” than any other genre, “reflects the formation of reality itself.”

The genre of the novel arises and strengthens where there is interest in a person who in one way or another differs from the average image of a citizen, who breaks out of the framework and behavioral stereotypes accepted in society.

The synthetic genre nature of the novel is undeniable. This genre incorporates features of many other genres. “War and Peace” by L. N. Tolstoy, “Gone with the Wind” by M. Mitchell, “ Quiet Don» M. A. Sholokhov - in these works, which capture not only the private lives of people, but also the events of the national historical masterpiece, there are features of an epic. Novels can also embody the meanings characteristic of a parable. According to O. A. Sedakova, “in the depths of a Russian novel there usually lies something similar to a parable” (167, 12). It is also impossible to deny the novel’s involvement in the traditions of hagiography - the hagiographic principle is clearly expressed in the works of Dostoevsky and Leskov.

As a genre prone to synthetics, the novel, in contrast to other, less complex genres (short story, essay, novella) that preceded it, operating in various limited areas of comprehension of the artistic world, turned out to be capable of bringing closer together! literature with life in its diversity and complexity, inconsistency and richness. This genre is capable of not only combining with relaxed freedom the substantive principles of many genres, both serious and humorous, but also transforming their structural properties.

The most important feature of the novel is the author’s close attention to the microenvironment surrounding the characters, in which they act, live, and communicate. Without recreating the microenvironment, it is very difficult for a writer to reveal the inner world of a character. Novels, focused on a person's connections with a reality close to him and, as a rule, giving preference to internal action, have become a kind of center of literature. They seriously influenced all other genres, even transformed them. In the words of M. M. Bakhtin, the novelization of verbal art has occurred: when the novel comes into literature, other genres are sharply modified, “to a greater or lesser extent Romanized.”

The subject of study is the author, who is also the hero of this work, from the point of view of his role in the artistic organization of the text, the means of expressing the author’s position and creating the image of the main character. And although logic requires us to consider the problem in the “author-hero” order, we first consider the problem of the hero, then the author, leaving the traditional order of concepts in the formulation of the topic.

One of the central problems of social thought, artistic creativity and culture has recently become the spiritual formation of man, the changes taking place not only in his life, but also in his soul. Here it successfully competes with external action internal action, the consciousness of the hero in its diversity and complexity, with its endless dynamics and psychological nuances, comes to the fore.

The purpose of the dissertation research is to comprehend the theoretical aspects of the problem of the genre of a work with an autobiographical orientation, to determine the place of “The History of My Contemporary” in the context of the work of V. G. Korolenko and to consider the poetics of the memoir-novel.

To do this, the following tasks must be solved:

1) summarize and systematize literary works on the problems of artistic autobiographical literature;

2) comprehend the theoretical aspects of the stated problem;

3) determine the position of the novel “The History of My Contemporary” in the general typology of Russian autobiographical literature and in the works of V. G. Korolenko;

4) consider the features of the genre of the work being studied;

5) explore the system of images, the features of literary portraits of “The History of My Contemporary”, classify them;

6) study the chronotopic structure of the novel.

The structure of the work is determined by the nature of this dissertation research and is organized in accordance with its purpose and objectives. The dissertation consists of an introduction, two chapters, a conclusion, and a bibliography. When working with texts, we studied two collected works of V. G. Korolenko: in 9 volumes, 1914, and in 10 volumes, 1954. References in the text of the dissertation are based on the later collected works.

Conclusion of scientific work dissertation on the topic ""The History of My Contemporary" V.G. Korolenko: Artistic Originality"

Conclusions on Chapter 2:

1. Generalization, systematization and analysis of literary works on the problem of the genre nature of artistic autobiography give reason to believe that the genre of autobiography at the present stage of its formation is complex, it has the features of confession, chronicle, memoir, and in Russian literature - hagiography, confession and sermon. The main stages in the evolution of the genre: ancient biographies, medieval lives, autobiographies of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, autobiographies of the 19th and 20th centuries. The main elements of the specificity of works of this genre are: 1) documentary (to varying degrees); 2) aesthetic significance; 3) identity of the author and narrator, 4) features of the chronotope (fundamentally retrospective organization of the narrative, the principle of double vision),

5) a focus on recreating the history of individual life, 6) some features of poetics, etc.

2. After considering autobiographical genres, the genre of “Stories of My Contemporary” is defined by us as an autobiographical memoir novel. The synthesis of various genres in the autobiographical prose of V. G. Korolenko, in our opinion, most accurately confirms the stated thesis about the orientation of this author towards the great epic form and novelistic thinking.

3. An important part of “The History of My Contemporary”, which carries a significant semantic and organizing load for the narrative, are literary portraits that make up a broad, detailed picture of life in Russia in the 60-80s of the 19th century. In our research, we distinguish portraits-histories, portraits-memories and portraits-types. We base the classification on the passage of time in the portrait relative to the main narrative.

4. The chronotope of an autobiographical memoir-novel has several components: calendar time (a variety of it is represented as biographical), event time (historical, everyday time, chronotope of the road, meetings), perceptual time (the author’s chronotope). Having analyzed the various chapters of “The History of My Contemporary” from the point of view of the duration of the action in time, we see that the choice of speech means largely depends on the type of text. When choosing one or another means, V. G. Korolenko is guided by his communicative intentions. He achieves the greatest accuracy of description, expressiveness of narration and clarity of logical reasoning. When describing phenomena and objects in the text, imperfective verbs with the meaning of a repetitive and concrete procedural action predominate (example 1. 1 and 1. 2). A type of text such as a narrative is characterized by the use of perfective verbs with the meaning of instant action (example 2.5), or a process limited in time (2.6), when we are talking about isolated cases, or imperfective verbs with the meaning of permanent , ordinary action (2.2), when we are talking about ordinary and repeated events. In reasoning, the temporal structure depends to the greatest extent on the communicative intentions of the speaker and is subordinate to the general logical structure of the text.

Conclusion

The works of Vladimir Galaktionovich Korolenko, which have great weight in the Russian literary heritage, depict historical memory Russia, the spiritual creation of its best representatives, unbreakable connection generations.

The creative heritage of V. G. Korolenko is large and varied - here are rare variations of small genres (pictures, pages, excerpts), and allegorical (fairy tales, legends, fantasies), journalism and works belonging to the genres of documentary and documentary-biographical prose (portraits , letters, memoirs, observations, stories, essays, novellas). However, everywhere - both in journalism and in everyday life - a fiction writer, a prose writer with his own style is visible - in the traditions of the classics, but at the same time sharply modern, propagandistic, oratorical.

The autobiographical novel-memoir “The History of My Contemporary,” which is the pinnacle of the writer’s entire work, is a work of a complex genre that includes most of the above. That is why “The History of My Contemporary” is the final work of V. G. Korolenko.

The History of My Contemporary” occupies a central place in the work of V. G. Korolenko, absorbing everything he wrote before it and illuminating part of the author’s life framed by a wide panorama of the life of society in the 60-80s. XIX century.

At the center of the analyzed work is a creative personality. Fate outstanding personality has attracted the attention of writers throughout the history of literature. The artist’s aesthetic and social ideals are embodied in the image of the hero. Ideals are a moving category, developing, like the person himself. The author's personality is an active principle.

In the novel under study, it is created artistic image creative personality. Even traditional methods of creating a hero’s image for biographical storytelling, such as a biographical element, portrait characteristics, and a system of leitmotifs, make it possible to accurately recreate the hero’s image, and psychological characteristics make it convincing and reliable. The author managed to show the complex interaction between a creative person and the environment through a biographical, cultural and historical context.

Literary portraits are an important part of “The History of My Contemporary.” We are creating a classification that divides the literary portraits of “The History of My Contemporary” into historical portraits, memory portraits and type portraits. We base the classification on the passage of time in the portrait relative to the main narrative.

Artistic time and artistic space are essential forms of creating the image of a hero. The basis of the plot is part of the hero’s life - from early childhood to his arrival in Nizhny Novgorod. We analyze the various chapters of “The History of My Contemporary” from the point of view of the duration of the action in time and come to the conclusion that the choice of speech means largely depends on the type of text. When choosing one or another means, V. G. Korolenko is guided by his communicative intentions. He achieves the greatest accuracy of description, expressiveness of narration and clarity of logical reasoning.

Nowadays, there is no doubt that it is necessary to turn more often to works of classical literature for many reasons. Many works that have been undeservedly overlooked by literary scholars and the public raise problems that are not alien to modern times. Works with documentary elements help a person, by looking into the past and understanding the problems of past years, to understand his own time. Turning to “The History of My Contemporary” as a work of a major genre allows us to evaluate some trends in the modern literary process. It is also important that the works of the classics are highly ideological, and by reading them, a person increases his cultural level.

Let us outline the range of problems for further research. Firstly, these are questions related to the national idea, very clearly expressed in “The History of My Contemporary.” Secondly, these are the problems of researching a national autobiographical novel written by representatives different cultures and nations, comparison of works by different authors.

Thus, we assert that “The History of My Contemporary” by V. G. Korolenko, being a highly moral work reflecting the essential features of the past, is modern in ideological orientation and should be present in the reading circle of the modern reader, and is also of interest to researchers of Russian literature of the turn of the 19th century -XX centuries.

List of scientific literature Savelyeva, Elena Sergeevna, dissertation on the topic "Russian literature"

1. Averin B.V. Personality and creativity of V.G. Korolenko // Collection. Op.: In 5 volumes. M., 1989. T. 1.S. 5-22.

2. Averin B.V. Novels of V.V. Nabokov in the context of Russian autobiographical prose and poetry: Author's abstract. dis. for the job application Doctoral degrees Philol. Sci. St. Petersburg, 1999. 32 p.

3. Averintsev S.S. Plutarch and ancient biography // Averintsev S.S. image of antiquity. St. Petersburg, 2004. pp. 225-479.

4. Azbukin V.N. Literary-critical activity of Russian writers of the 19th century: Textbook. allowance. Kazan, 1989. 228 p.

5. Allahverdov V. M. Psychology of art. An essay about the secret emotional impact of works of art. St. Petersburg, 2001. 201 p.

6. Andronikov I. L. Collection. cit.: In 3 vols. M., 1980. T. 2. P. 370-378.

7. Andronikova M.I. From prototype to image. On the problem of portraiture in literature and cinema. M., 1974. 200 p.

8. Arefieva I. T. Education of Russian Symbolist writers as a historical

Back in the mid-1890s, Korolenko, together with his closest friend and co-editor of “Russian Wealth” N. Fannensky, was planning a memoir and journalistic book “Ten Years in the Province,” which was not yet connected with the history of an entire generation of the 1870s . The epic plan was outlined in the fall of 1896 in Korolenko’s correspondence with P.F. Yakubovich. The latter sent the story “Youth” from Kurgan exile to the editorial office of “Russian Wealth” and expressed his dream of a “novel of our time.” Korolenko, in a response letter, supported the idea of ​​“our novel,” which “played out with greater or less intensity among a whole generation,” when “the scene was filled with active populism,” and the epilogue of which is “remote places.” He believed, however, that on the path to such a novel there are not only insurmountable external obstacles in the form of censorship: we “ourselves cannot yet look back with sufficient calm and<...>"objectivity" Yakubovich, in turn, expressed hope that the person who will be able to “cope with all the difficulties” will be Korolenko himself: “You, exactly You You’ll write “our novel” after all.”

In 1905, when the censorship climate had softened significantly, Korolenko began an artistic chronicle of his generation. “I wanted, paying tribute to the topic of the day, to start with exile,” he wrote to his brother, but he overcame the temptation and started from childhood. However, the “first impression of existence” turned out to be a fire: “reflections of a crimson flame” “against the deep background of night darkness.” A picture that echoes the Russian reality of the “burning year.”

In an effort to determine the genre of his work, Korolenko resorted to various formulas: the work is “almost fictional, not dry memories”, “life impressions”, “illuminated by memories”, but not a biography, not a “public confession”, not “his own portrait”, in at the same time, the story of one life, where “historical truth” is given preference over “artistic truth.” In the end, “The History of My Contemporary” absorbed all the main principles of Korolenko’s work - artistic and visual, memoir, lyrical, essay and journalistic. At the same time, the weight of the last two elements gradually increased, which corresponded to general direction writer's path.

Portraying the high spiritual image of his contemporary, Korolenko shares with the reader many anxieties and doubts. In 1916, he called the “young and hot” time of his populism “the crushed ashes of still recent hopes”: “After that old sharp experience, I am skeptical about “ready-made formulas”,” be it the formula of “folk” or “class” wisdom. He chose for himself a “partisan line” of action “from his own mind.”

The generation of the 1860s-1870s, which Korolenko called “his own”, entered the historical arena with “boiling wine of denial” in their heads, with a tendency to act “very radically and very naively”, dealing with all “junk” using the “Knock on head” method and to hell! Korolenko treated all kinds of “nihilists” and “subverters” aloofly, believing that something new can only be introduced if it is based on a higher moral principle.

However, in the life of the “nihilistic generation” Korolenko overheard the motive of exhaustion of denial, fatigue from enmity, and caught the desire of the young for “something that could reconcile with life - if not with reality, then at least with its possibilities.”

The shortest and most succinct review of “The History of My Contemporary” belongs to A.V. Amphiteatrov: “A fragrant book!” History has prepared a cruel epilogue for Korolenkov’s generation: “the dictatorship of the bayonet,” as the writer defined it in the last years of his life, “immediately moved us centuries back,” surpassing “the craziest dreams of the Tsarist retrogrades.”

Vladimir Galaktionovich Korolenko

The story of my contemporary. Book one

V. G. Korolenko. Collected works in ten volumes.

Volume five. The story of my contemporary M., GIHL, 1954

Preparation of text and notes by S. V. Korolenko

In this book I try to recall and revive a number of pictures of the past half-century, as they were reflected in the soul of first a child, then a youth, then an adult. Early childhood and the first years of my youth coincided with the time of liberation. The middle of his life passed during a dark period, first of government and then of public reaction, and among the first movements of struggle. Now I see much of what my generation dreamed of and fought for, bursting into the arena of life in an alarming and stormy way. I think that many episodes from the times of my exile wanderings, events, meetings, thoughts and feelings of people of that time and that environment have not lost the interest of living reality itself. I would like to think that they will still retain their significance for the future. Our life fluctuates and trembles from the sharp clashes of new principles with outdated ones, and I hope to at least partially illuminate some elements of this struggle.

But earlier I wanted to draw the attention of readers to the first movements of the emerging and growing consciousness. I knew that it would be difficult for me to concentrate on these distant memories while the present was roaring with the sound of an approaching thunderstorm, but I had no idea how difficult it would be.

I am not writing the history of my time, but only the history of one life at this time, and I want the reader to first become familiar with the prism in which it was reflected... And this is only possible in a sequential story. Childhood and youth form the content of this first part.

One more note. These notes are not a biography, because I was not particularly concerned about the completeness of biographical information; not confession, because I do not believe in either the possibility or the usefulness of public confession; not a portrait, because it is difficult to draw your own portrait with guarantee of likeness. Every reflection differs from reality in that it is a reflection; the reflection is obviously incomplete - even more so. It always, so to speak, more clearly reflects the chosen motives, and therefore often, despite all the truthfulness, is more attractive, more interesting and, perhaps, purer than reality.

In my work, I strived for the most complete historical truth, often sacrificing to it the beautiful or striking features of artistic truth. There will be nothing here that I have not encountered in reality, that I have not experienced, felt, or seen. And yet I repeat: I am not trying to give a portrait of myself. Here the reader will find only features from the “history of my contemporary”, a person known to me closer than all other people of my time...

Part one

Early childhood

First impressions of life

I remember myself early, but my first impressions are scattered, like brightly lit islands among colorless emptiness and fog.

The earliest of these memories is a strong visual impression of a fire. I might have been in my second year then, but I can still clearly see the flames above the roof of the barn in the yard, the strangely illuminated walls of a large stone house in the middle of the night and its flame-reflecting windows. I remember myself, wrapped up warmly, in someone’s arms, among a group of people standing on the porch. From this vague crowd, memory singles out the presence of the mother, while the father, lame, leaning on a stick, climbs the stairs of the stone house in the courtyard opposite, and it seems to me that he is walking into the fire. But that doesn't scare me. I am very interested in the firemen's helmets flashing like firebrands across the yard, then one fire barrel at the gate and a high school student entering the gate with a shortened leg and high heel. I didn’t seem to experience any fear or anxiety; I didn’t establish any connections between the phenomena. For the first time in my life, so much fire, fireman’s helmets and a high school student with a short leg fell into my eyes, and I carefully examined all these objects against the deep background of the darkness of the night. I don’t remember the sounds: the whole picture only silently shimmers in my memory with floating reflections of a crimson flame.

I then remember several completely insignificant cases when they held me in their arms, calmed my tears or amused me. It seems to me that I remember, but very vaguely, my first steps... As a child, my head was large, and when I fell, I often hit it on the floor. One time it was on the stairs. I was in great pain and cried loudly until my father consoled me with a special treatment. He beat the step of the stairs with a stick, and this gave me satisfaction. Probably I was then in a period of fetishism and imagined an evil and hostile will in the wooden board. And so they beat her for me, but she can’t even leave... Of course, these words very roughly translate my feelings at that time, but I clearly remember the board and the seemingly expression of her submission under the blows.

Subsequently, the same feeling was repeated in more complex form. I was already somewhat larger. It was an unusually bright and warm moonlit evening. This is actually the first evening that I remember in my life. My parents had gone somewhere, my brothers must have been sleeping, the nanny had gone to the kitchen, and I was left with only one footman, who bore the dissonant nickname Gandylo. The door from the hallway to the courtyard was open, and from somewhere, from the moonlit distance, came the rumble of wheels along the paved street. And for the first time I also identified the rumble of the wheels in my mind as a special phenomenon, and for the first time I did not sleep for so long... I was scared - probably during the day they were talking about thieves. It seemed to me that our yard was moonlight very strange and that a “thief” will certainly enter through the open door from the yard. I seemed to know that the thief was a man, but at the same time he seemed to me not quite a man, but some kind of humanoid mysterious creature that would do me harm with just his sudden appearance. This made me suddenly cry loudly.

I don’t know by what logic, but the footman Gandylo again brought my father’s stick and took me out to the porch, where I, perhaps in connection with a previous episode of the same kind, began to firmly beat the step of the stairs. And this time it again brought satisfaction; My cowardice passed so much that a couple more times I fearlessly went out alone, without Gandyl, and again beat up an imaginary thief on the stairs, reveling in the peculiar feeling of my courage. The next morning, I enthusiastically told my mother that yesterday, when she was not there, a thief came to us, whom Gandyl and I soundly beat. The mother condescendingly agreed. I knew that there was no thief and that my mother knew it. But I loved my mother very much at that moment because she did not contradict me. It would be hard for me to give up that imaginary creature, which I at first feared, and then positively “felt”, under a strange moonlight, between my stick and the step of the stairs. It was not a visual hallucination, but there was some kind of rapture from one’s victory over fear...

Another island in my memory is the trip to Chisinau to visit my grandfather on my father’s side... From this trip I remember crossing the river (I think it was the Prut), when our stroller was installed on a raft and, smoothly swaying, separated from the shore, or the shore separated from it , – I haven’t distinguished this yet. At the same time, a detachment of soldiers was crossing the river, and, I remember, the soldiers were sailing in twos and threes on small square rafts, which, it seems, does not happen when troops are crossing... I looked at them with curiosity, and they looked at our carriage and they said something incomprehensible to me... It seems that this crossing was in connection with the Sevastopol war...

That same evening, shortly after crossing the river, I experienced the first feeling of sharp disappointment and resentment... It was dark inside the spacious traveling carriage. I was sitting in the arms of someone in front, and suddenly my attention was attracted by a reddish dot that flashed and then faded in the corner, in the place where my father was sitting. I started laughing and reached out to her. Mother said something warning, but I really wanted to get to know her better. interesting subject or the creature that made me cry. Then my father moved a small red star towards me, gently hiding under the ashes. I reached out to her with the index finger of my right hand; for some time it did not give in, but then it suddenly flared up brighter, and a sharp bite suddenly burned me. I think that in terms of the power of impression this could now only be equaled by a strong and unexpected bite from a poisonous snake hiding, for example, in a bouquet of flowers. Ogonyok seemed to me deliberately cunning and evil. Two or three years later, when I remembered this episode, I ran to my mother, began to tell her and began to cry. These were again tears of resentment...

The first bath caused me a similar disappointment. The river made a charming impression on me: the small greenish waves of swell that burst under the walls of the bathhouse, and the way they played with sparkles, fragments of heavenly blue and bright pieces of a seemingly broken bathhouse, were new, strange and beautiful to me. All this seemed fun, lively, cheerful, attractive and friendly to me, and I begged my mother to quickly carry me into the water. And suddenly - an unexpected and sharp impression of either cold or burn... I cried loudly and struggled so much in my mother’s arms that she almost dropped me. This time my bathing did not take place. While my mother splashed in the water with a pleasure that was incomprehensible to me, I sat on the bench, sulking, looking at the crafty swell, which continued to play just as temptingly with fragments of the sky and the bathhouse, and was angry... At whom? It looks like it's on the river.

E. M. Boldyreva

Autometa-descriptions in the novel by V. G. Korolenko “The History of My Contemporary”

The article examines the autobiographical novel by V. G. Korolenko “The History of My Contemporary” as both a socio-political version of an autobiographical novel and one of the few auto-reflexive texts in Russian literature, which consistently explicates both the causal dominants of the autobiographical act and the numerous laws of constructing an autobiographical text . The article notes that the objective modality of the text of “The History of My Contemporary” turns out to be unstable and is determined simultaneously by two opposing processes: the exposure of the conventions of any memory and the constant confirmation of the autobiographical pact, the recognition of the rigid reference of the text. V. G. Korolenko avoids categorical modality in stating the facts of the past, realizing that memories can be imposed on him by others, therefore almost every memory-statement immediately exposes itself to self-deconstruction, carried out using various techniques. Numerous lexical leitmotifs with the semantics of doubt about the correctness of one’s memories turn out to be bifunctional in V. G. Korolenko: on the one hand, they enhance the degree of truthfulness of the text, and on the other, they expose its conventionality.

Key words: autobiographical novel, autobiographical subject, auto-meta-description, auto-reflexive text, autobiographical pact.

Autometadescriptions in V. G. Korolenko's novel The History of My Contemporary

The article considers autobiographic novel by V. Korolenko The History of My Contemporary as both socio-political variant of the autobiographic novel and one of the few autoreflexive texts in Russian literature where causal dominants of autobiographic act as well as many laws of constructing autobiographic text are explained . The author notes that the objective modality of the text in The History of My Contemporary is unstable and is defined by two contrary processes at the same time: revealing conventional nature of any reminiscence and constant confirmation of autobiographical pact, acceptance of strict text reference. Korolenko avoids strong modality in stating the facts of the past, realizing that reminiscences may be imposed on him by other people, thus almost every memory-statement is subject to self-deconstruction. Numerous lexical leitmotifs with the semantics of doubts as to the correctness of the memories turn out to be bifunctional: on the one hand, they enhance the degree of the text's truthfulness and, on the other hand, reveal its conventionalism.

Key words: autobiographic novel, autobiographic self, autometadescriptions, autoreflexive text, autobiographic pact.

In the preface to “The History of My Contemporary,” V. G. Korolenko himself defines the genre of his work negatively - this is not a confession, not a biography, not a portrait. This “pseudo-definition” became the reason for the terminological uncertainty that is found in the works of literary scholars who are trying to identify the genre status of “The History of My Contemporary” and often replace genre categories with purely thematic ones: “memoirs in in the narrow sense words are memories from the author’s personal life or memories about his life of a certain segment of society. But first of all, these are purely personal memories,” “along with the presence of memoir material itself, the main place is occupied by artistic and historical images.” “The history of my modern

Mennik" is not a memoir, but piece of art, a wide canvas of folk life of an entire historical strip of Russian reality. Korolenko talks not only about himself, about his family... He writes about his contemporaries...” A common feature of most works on “The History of My Contemporary” is the recognition of its connection with autobiographical works of the second half of the 19th century, mainly with A. Herzen’s “The Past and Thoughts,” but the nature of this connection is not sufficiently clarified. Thus, there is a need to clearly define the place of “The History of My Contemporary” in the system of genres of memoir literature.

Already the first phrase of “The Stories of My Contemporary” is a typical self-reflective text, an explication of the mechanism of the structure of traditional

© Boldyreva E. M., 2016

new autobiography: “In this book I try to recall and revive a number of pictures of the past half-century, as they were reflected in the soul of first a child, then a youth, then an adult.” It would seem that everything is extremely simple and clear: at least two autobiographical constants are specified - retrospective orientation and tracing the internal evolution of the autobiographical hero. However, immediately those numerous semantic and logical contradictions begin that distinguish Korolenko’s autobiographical novel from similar novels of other writers of the beginning of the century. The first paragraph clearly emphasizes the significance of the historical setting for the novelist; moreover, the author synchronizes personal and social life, fitting an individual biography into a broad socio-political context: “Early childhood and the first years of my youth coincided with the time of liberation. The middle of my life passed during a dark period, first of government and then of public reaction, and among the first movements of struggle, and I hope to at least partially illuminate some elements of this struggle.” But already in the next paragraph, Korolenko makes a reservation, contradicting what was just said: “I am not writing the history of my time, but only the history of one life at this time.” On the one hand, he tries, if possible, to exclude potential judgments from critics and future researchers of his text regarding the accuracy/inaccuracy of his biography: “These notes are not a biography, because I was not particularly concerned about the completeness of biographical information; not confession, because I do not believe in either the possibility or the usefulness of public confession; not a portrait, because it is difficult to draw your own portrait with guarantees for the likeness...” And he immediately gives the opposite judgment: “In my work I strived for the most complete historical truth... There will be nothing here that I have not encountered in reality, that I have not experienced, felt, seen...”. Indeed, Korolenko admitted more than once that he worked best in Poltava and Khatki, where it was as if the atmosphere itself was reminiscent of his childhood and youth and his memory worked more intensively. He talked with his mother, clarified facts from the life of the family in Zhitomir, Rivne, selected material, and made original preparations (sketches, clippings, letters). If something seemed inaccurate to him, he wrote to his friends, clarifying and verifying every event from the distant past. So about

at once, already in the preface the obvious duality of Korolenko’s novel is felt. He absolutely brilliantly formulates one of the basic principles of autobiography (“Every reflection differs from reality in that it is a reflection... It always, so to speak, more densely reflects the chosen motives, and therefore often, despite all the truthfulness, is more attractive, more interesting and , perhaps, purer than reality") - this is a clear discrediting of the theory of reflection, “mandatory” for all self-respecting realists of that time, which, according to Korolenko, is always modeling, construction, “purification”), however, it asserts the truthfulness and accuracy of his story. “The History of My Contemporary”, thus, turns out to be both a socio-political version of an autobiographical novel (it is in this category that numerous critics and representatives of Soviet literary criticism include Korolenko) and one of the first attempts in Russian literature to recreate one’s reflection in the text, and not outside it. over the writing process, over the laws of the genre, although sometimes self-reflective fragments are perceived as redundant. Korolenko materializes the elusive aura of autobiography, which should emerge from the text itself; he states the obvious (I want to do this and that, and this is only possible in a sequential story, etc.). In the continuation of the novel, Korolenko will constantly resume the conversation begun in the preface, and conduct it differently each time. Thus, the chapter “Should You Be” begins with another self-reflective fragment: “I am not writing the history of my time. I simply peer into the foggy past and record strings of images and paintings that themselves come to light, touching, illuminating and pulling close and related memories with them. I try only one thing: to clearly and distinctly put into words this immediate material of memory, strictly limiting the crafty work of the imagination...” - again Korolenko emphasizes the combination of the functions of a simple relay of various events that took place in reality, and the active, constructive role of his consciousness .

In “The History of My Contemporary” there is a fragment where the author informs the reader about an idea that “suddenly” came into his head: “... what if we described a boy like me, who first lived in Zhitomir, then moved here to Rivne; describe everything he felt, describe love

the people who surrounded him, and even this moment, when he stands on an empty street and measures his current spiritual growth with his past and present.” By explicating his motive for writing an autobiographical text, the narrator models the situation “autobiography within an autobiography.” He declares his desire to create an autobiographical novel within the framework of a “ready-made product” - this very autobiographical novel, which has just turned from a potential object into a real one. Outwardly, this looks like a simple mention by the author of when and how his intention to describe his life arose, but in the perspective of the genre self-reflection of the text, this fragment turns into a concentrated equivalent of the entire “History of My Contemporary” - here is a synthesis of the author’s main intentions (“to describe those around people”, to follow his “spiritual growth”, to portray everything “in simplicity and truth”), and the conviction that “the story of a boy like me and the people around him could be more interesting and smarter than the Count of Monte Cristo ". A very strange modal situation arises: built into the structure of a real autobiographical text are discussions about it in the subjunctive mood - what it could have been like if it had been written. It is also noteworthy that “The Count of Monte Cristo” is chosen as an example of an “interesting and intelligent story”, which the author intends to surpass (the plot model of an adventure novel seems to the narrator very suitable for describing “the vicissitudes of the fate of a young revolutionary”). By the way, already here a clear detachment from the potential object of description is actualized - the narrator wants to “describe the boy” and not himself.

However, the definition of the genre of his work as an autobiography, and not a memoir, will be refuted closer to the end of the novel: “I apologize to the reader for this deviation from the purely narrative form of memoirs.” At the beginning of the novel, the narrator stated that he was not writing the history of his time, but the story of one life - now he refuses the autobiographical pact and admits that he is writing memoirs after all (by the way, before this, genre laws were violated repeatedly and without explanation, since priority is clearly devoted himself to stories about other people, and not about himself, and the “purely narrative form” was constantly supplemented by various lyrical digressions, so sorry

before a personal narrator is perceived as purely formal).

Thus, at first glance, “The History of My Contemporary” seems to be a very traditional socio-political autobiography of the beginning of the century, written in the vein of Gorky’s trilogy. However, the text sometimes reveals such subtle discoveries that would honor even a true-believing European modernist. Thus, describing his family’s move to Rivne, the narrator, perhaps without realizing it, formulates the basic ontological law of the autobiographical text: “And I am surprised to notice that in this past, along with certain paintings, so simple, so ordinary and prosaic, when they happened, the consciousness arises from nowhere in the soul that it was good and wonderful. I wonder: why wasn’t this feeling there when it was all real? Maybe it was, but not like that... What I now feel next to all these paintings, that special, that sad-pleasant, that which is gone, that which will not happen again, that which makes these impressions so extraordinary... - that didn’t exist then...” The meaning of this phrase, slightly muffled by the overtones of numerous homogeneous constructions, is quite clear: a person receives more pleasure from memories, from reality creatively transformed by consciousness, than from real life, the kaleidoscopic flickering of colors in the magical space of memory overshadows the black and white photograph of objective reality. Moreover, the author claims that time distance influences the assessment of a particular fact of the past: “Now I love the memory of this town, as sometimes they love the memory of an old enemy. But, my God, how by the end of my stay I hated this addictive... everyday life...” Korolenko explicates and another feature of the autobiographical novel - the complete or partial replacement of real proper names with fictitious ones - is also revealed and pronounced by the narrator, who, after pronouncing the next surname, can notice that it is real or, conversely, changed: “And nothing more about Go- I didn’t recognize Ritskom, whom I call here by his real surname...”

The structure of Korolenkov’s autobiography is quite traditional: the first part, “Early Childhood,” begins with a phrase that has become a “mandatory program” for autobiographical novels:

“I remember myself early, but my first impressions are scattered, like brightly lit islands among colorless emptiness and fog. The earliest of these memories is a strong visual impression of a fire...” The fragmentation of childhood impressions is a kind of autobiographical axiom. Korolenko “works” for now according to the instructions of the “autobiographers” of past years, diligently reproducing the autobiographical archetype. The phenomenon of the first memory is also a “minimum program” for an autobiographical novel, however, if in Bunin it is a room illuminated by the pre-autumn sun and the dry shine of the sun over the slope (a concentrated synthesis of the main dominants of Bunin’s creativity), then Korolenko chooses (precisely chooses - after all, we remember only that , what we want to remember) is a rather symbolic event - a fire, which became a kind of anticipation of the later glow revolutionary years. The first part of the text is structured as a listing of scattered impressions of early childhood, “islands in memory” (we see this most clearly in Aksakov) - Korolenko also observes “ genre etiquette": "The trip to Chisinau to my paternal grandfather still stands as an island in my memory...", "Another of those primary sensations when a natural phenomenon for the first time remains in consciousness isolated from the rest of the world, as special and sharply completed, with the main its properties. This is a memory of the first walk in a pine forest...”, “All these are disparate, separate impressions of semi-conscious existence, seemingly not connected by anything other than a personal feeling. The last of them is moving to a new apartment...”

Another “common place” that brings Korolenko closer to other authors of autobiographical novels of the beginning of the century is the tendency to fit their feelings and memories into already known classical literary models: “And the sun, rising higher and higher, heated up the stones of the paved courtyard and flooded our entire estate with a completely Oblomov languor and boredom..." However, the literary “niche” that Korolenko chooses for himself is clearly different, for example, from Bunin’s or Nabokov’s. If it is important for Bunin to “tune” his aesthetic tuning fork to the Russian tradition, and for Nabokov to demonstrate following different literary models as one of the mechanisms of memory, then Korolenko prefers to “fit” into the socially accusatory tradition of Russian classics.

ki: he will certainly choose that passage from Dostoevsky’s “Diaries of a Writer,” which tells about the author’s meeting with a courier: “... the courier stood in the cart and, without ceasing, beat the driver on the neck. The coachman furiously lashed the horses with his whip, and the troika, with mortal horror in their eyes, rushed along a straight road past the striped pillars...” And he will make a rather tendentious conclusion that this picture seemed to the young Dostoevsky a symbol of the entire autocratic Russia and contributed to the fact that the writer was sentenced to death together with the Petrashevites. death penalty. The perception of real life through the prism of a literary model is one of the most powerful plot catalysts in “The Story of My Contemporary”: a specific memory is built into the structure of a familiar classical plot or motif, “played out” before the reader in this perspective (for example, the literature teacher Avdiev is identified by the hero with one of Pisemsky’s characters, and St. Petersburg life is perceived exclusively through the prism of Dostoevsky), and then the narrator mocks the picture just depicted, caustically noting that “my contemporary was especially susceptible to the influence of literary motifs and types,” and “the life of a small town, everyday , monotonous, not suitable for literary categories, seemed to him something random, “not real.”

The next “semantic core” of any autobiographical novel can be considered the category of “death.” None of the authors will miss the opportunity to describe the first impression of the hero’s encounter with death, but the degree of actualization and quality of interpretation this concept are undoubtedly different. In this sense, it is interesting to compare two paired episodes in “The Life of Arsenyev” and “The History of My Contemporary” - a description of the death of a sister. For Bunin, this episode is perhaps the most fundamental - it is the hero’s first breakthrough into the existential dimension, which determined once and for all the main vector of his work. Bunin’s wondrous melancholy and fascination with the unknowable turns out to be inaccessible to the autobiographical hero Korolenko - the death of his sister is mentioned in passing, as if by chance: “I knew from time immemorial that we had a little sister Sonya, who died and is now in the “other world.” It was a slightly sad performance (the mother sometimes had tears in her eyes), but at the same time it was light-

loe: she is an angel, which means she feels good. And since I didn’t know her at all, she and her stay in the “other world” in the role of an angel seemed to me like some kind of luminous, foggy speck that didn’t make much of an impression...” This event even turns out to be devoid of independent meaning - it performs an auxiliary function and is mentioned in connection with another fact, rather, as a reason for telling about something else, a kind of preamble. Korolenko’s mystical horror in the face of death is closer to ordinary childhood fear based on superstitions, “ scary stories"about the living dead, evil spirits etc. And it is no coincidence that memories of two specific facts - the death of the old man Kolyanovsky and the boy Slavek Lisovsky - are densely “woven” with various rumors, superstitions, mystical stories constructed according to the genre principle of “fairy tales” or “horror stories”.

A mandatory element of the autobiographical model can be considered a description of the school (or other educational institution). Korolenko, unlike, for example, Bunin, describes “school morals” in extreme detail - this is where his clear focus on the context, on the environment, and not on the inner world is manifested. It tells in detail about physical punishment, relations with informers, the main ways of pastime of boarders, and a detailed typology of school teachers is given. However, despite the apparent neutrality and objectivity, Korolenkov’s “essays on the bursa” are structured more than tendentiously - all events are presented in the perspective of a short course in the “school of a young revolutionary”, such things as contempt for informers, an unspoken requirement not to cry during punishment are actualized ruler, comradely mutual assistance, etc. For almost every school incident, the narrator “selects” an analogy from the future tense, thereby “embedding” it into a political dimension: for example, talking about how schoolchildren did not hand over to the authorities those who threw chewing gum at the wall , dipped in ink, the author transfers this action “don’t snitch” from the category of a childishly naive “code of comradely honor” to the high rank of “manifestation of revolutionary solidarity”: “Here arose a feeling, because of which in the seventies Strelnikov sent the young man Rozovsky to the gallows, not who wished to extradite a comrade..." Here, as if by the way, the motives of a “growing thunderstorm”, “spontaneous explosion” appear.

va”, etc. There is a conscious modeling of memory in the spirit of the general concept of the text.

Another one of key points any autobiographical novel is a description of the creative process. Bunin’s inspired insight turns out to be unacceptable for the autobiographical hero Korolenko - it gives way to hard, painstaking work, an intense search for the most accurate word: “... I became interested in looking for words that would come closest to the phenomena of life. Everything that amazed me, I tried to pour into words that would capture the inner character of the phenomenon... Passing by her (the hut), I said to myself: she is frowning... frowning... squinting... offended... sad ... ". The involuntary and spontaneity of creativity is rejected by Korolenko; he considers this frivolous and shameful for a “real writer”: solidity and heaviness are placed above lightness, ease and formal sophistication. It is no coincidence that Korolenko constantly resorts to the terminology of traditional literary criticism, consciously highlighting the dichotomy of form and content compromised by the modernists: “... sometimes, when I did not make any deliberate effort, poems and rhymes ran through my mind, some periods flashed, smooth and beautiful... But they ran by involuntarily and did not capture anything from life... The form seemed to be born separately from the content and flew away when I tried to embrace something specific with it.”

Thus, all the plot constants of an autobiographical novel are reflected in Korolenko’s novel; the author allegedly sets out to compile a kind of encyclopedia of all the “first events” in the life of the autobiographical hero: the first lesson, the first performance, the first independent return home, etc., trying embrace all manifestations of the “past”.

In “The History of My Contemporary” we see the unity of two opposing processes: exposing the conventions of the text, reflection on the veracity of memories and confirmation of the autobiographical pact.

Among domestic literary scholars, the thesis about the realism of Korolenko’s work is beyond doubt - its journalistic nature, documentary nature and reliance on a real accomplished fact are repeatedly emphasized. However, in “The History of My Contemporary” Korolenko avoids categorical modality in stating the facts of the past: “I could have been in my second year then...” (italics

author of the article), “It seems to me (italics of the author of the article) that I remember, but very vaguely, my first steps...”. He realizes that his memories may not correspond to the facts and events of the past - the correspondence can only be apparent, and the memory may appear later, imposed by others. The fact that many of the facts presented in the novel are not his memories is not directly stated; this distance between one’s own and other people’s memories is revealed as if by accident, against the will of the author. So, after a detailed story about the pedigree of his mother and about her life with her father, Korolenko, continuing the theme of a “strange marriage,” begins one of the paragraphs with the phrase: “Already in my memory...”. Thus, the boundary between “one’s own” and “them” is exposed quite clearly, but here is a paradox: if “not one’s own” memories are presented in a confident tone, then Korolenko, practically the only one of all the writers of the beginning of the century, constantly reflects on the veracity of his memories, producing his own a kind of “modal insurance”: “Of course, these words very roughly translate my feelings at that time...”, “I was scared - they were probably talking about thieves during the day”, “My parents left somewhere, my brothers must have been sleeping.. .”, “However, perhaps this is not true, although, remembering the look of the intercessor, angry and indignant,... I admit that such a sneak could really come from his pen...”. Thus, introductory constructions with the semantics of the speaker’s doubt about the truth of his words and emphasizing the subjectivity of any statement appear quite often in Korolenkov’s text, almost every memory-statement immediately exposes itself to self-deconstruction, the narrator’s position is not categorical, he seems to constantly say: I I remember that there was such and such, but I’m not sure that it was exactly like that or that it happened at all. And in the sentence recording the last fragmentary memory - moving to a new apartment: “And not even the move (I don’t remember that, just as I don’t remember the previous apartment), but again the first impression of the “new house”, of the “new yard” and garden ." , the conventionality of autobiography as a genre is exposed to the limit: the author of an autobiography cannot be responsible for his words - he must realize that his memories can be invented by the author himself and gradually turn from myth into reality (this is a property of our consciousness), their reliability is not guaranteed in any way. The plot of any autobiography

fii is also very conventional: the sequence of memories, which seems to the reader to be held together by a rigid logical and temporal connection, is in fact a product of a later artificial construction: “... then this memory falls out of my memory. I remembered about it only a few years later, and when I remembered, I was even surprised, since it seemed to me at that time that we lived in this house forever...” Memories easily fade into oblivion and come suddenly and spontaneously, filling a gap in the “life line”, thus, an autobiography for Korolenko is not a sequential resurrection in memory of past events, but a bringing together of memories of different times and different qualities according to a certain plot. It is no coincidence that Korolenko names the main “feature of my contemporary” as his constant desire to “create biased general impressions, through the prism of which reality was viewed,” postulating autobiography as a modeling of one’s own life according to a certain concept.

Another technique used by Korolenko in order to doubt the veracity of his memories and protect himself from accusations of inaccuracy is to “present” his past to the reader in the form of not an ordinary memory, but a dream: “And now, although whole decades separate me from that time , - from time to time I see myself in a dream as a high school student at the Rivne gymnasium... Sometimes I also dream that I am sitting on a bench and waiting for an exam or a call to the board for an answer.” The effectiveness of this technique is undeniable: the boundary between sleep and reality seems to blur, and memories become unsteady and illusory - where is the guarantee that this past did not actually exist, but that the narrator simply dreamed it? Many literary critics reproached Korolenko for the inaccuracy and incompleteness of many fragments of his text: “In recent years, Korolenko worked on his memoirs, especially on the fourth volume, while being seriously ill; his memory, obviously, sometimes failed him, and he was increasingly forced to resort directly to his notes from the period of exile.” However, such narrative blocks and the narrator’s methodical loosening of the categorical modality of the text make such statements not entirely justified - the narrator describes in detail any event of his past and at the same time abdicates all responsibility, declaring that he simply dreamed of all this.

Xia. But the “modal metamorphoses” do not end there: having described his “dream” about life in the Rivne gymnasium, the narrator suddenly destroys with one phrase the impression that he had just created of the unreality and illusory nature of his memories: “These impressions are so strong. And no wonder. I spent five years in the Rivne gymnasium and two years in the Zhytomyr one.” Now the reverse mechanism is actualized: these events were so often repeated, they were so firmly “ingrained” into the memory that now even in a dream they do not leave the hero alone. Thus, placing a memory in the perspective of a dream does not at all mean its unreality, but, on the contrary, emphasizes its typicality and stability - this is the background of this supposedly modernist move.

The conventionality of the text is also exposed in those fragments of “The History of My Contemporary”, where the narrator, taking responsibility for the truthfulness of “ general meaning” statements, doubts that he correctly conveys its verbal form; So, after a long description of the thoughts and feelings of the autobiographical hero, the author makes a reservation: “Not in these words, but that’s exactly what I thought.”

Thus, Korolenko’s favorite technique is a pseudo-admission to the possible inaccuracy of his statement: when telling the reader, for example, the name of the bellhop at the police station - Perkiyainen - he makes a reservation in the note: “Now, however, I cannot guarantee that I am saying it accurately.” However, since the reader is unlikely to need such a thorough verification, it becomes clear that this note is not for him, it only superficially aims to emphasize the veracity of the autobiography and protect itself from potential accusations of inaccuracy, but in fact it is another exposure of one of the components of Korolenkov’s autobiographical model: I’m not inventing anything and I’m not distorting real events, I’m just a repeater.

Starting from the second chapter, “The History of My Contemporary” clearly takes on the features of a family chronicle: the chapters “My Father” and “Father and Mother” are nothing more than a consistent description by the author of his genealogy. Moreover, if almost all authors of autobiographical novels avoid all kinds of dates and historical comments in their works, then Korolenko constantly indicates the exact dates of all events, citing reliable sources: “He was an official. Objective history of his life

therefore preserved in the “track records”. Born in 1810, in 1826 he became a scribe... Died in 1868 with the rank of court councilor...". This precise dating, which allows for the intrusion of extra-textual reality into the text, testifies to a clear autobiographical pact, declared at the beginning and constantly confirmed subsequently. However, parallel to this factual confirmation, an opposite process is taking place - the explication of the narrator’s doubts about the correctness of his commentary on what is happening, expressed in various complexes of modal constructions, such as: “I’m almost sure that my father never discussed this issue... I guess (italics by the author of the article), that he entered life with high... expectations... ". But this opposition of processes is imaginary: such reservations, doubts about the reliability of what is happening only enhance the effect of reality - the reader recognizes Tolstoy’s convention of speaking for his characters, but will not notice the same convention in Korolenko: since he is afraid of making a mistake and even admits it, it means he is speaking “purely.” the truth." Korolenko often quotes individual words, wanting to emphasize the personal, individual nature of their semantics: “The house in which, it seemed to me, we had “always” lived was located in a narrow alley...”. Here the relative nature of the category of memory is again updated, “always” is a sign of the unchanging child’s world, “always” is the child’s subjective feeling that his space was, is and will be at all times.

So, throughout the entire novel, the narrator reflects on “it was - it wasn’t”, “he said - he didn’t say” solely for the sake of proving the first. But in one of these fragments the author goes a little further, practically speaking out what he had been hiding for so long. Describing a peasant holiday during his journey into exile, he notices that one middle-aged peasant woman said in a sing-song voice, looking at the exiles: “Eh, my birth... If only it were our will!..”. And then, as before, the narrator makes a reservation: “I’m not entirely sure that these exact words were said. Perhaps my imagination (italics by the author of the article) cast in them all the impressions of these bright holiday days...” This is no longer so much a doubt about accuracy as it is a pronunciation of the basic principle of autobiography as a model of life created according to a scheme existing in the author’s mind; write an autobiography

A creative novel means re-modeling your life according to some idea or concept. Thus, Korolenko seems to be balancing between the desire to emphasize the objectivity of his autobiography and the understanding that he is still doomed to this modeling and “work” within a certain scheme. Numerous reservations scattered throughout the text, such as “I don’t remember exactly if it was like that,” turn out to be bifunctional: on the one hand, they enhance the degree of veracity of the text (I don’t want to invent anything), and on the other, absurd as it may be, they expose its conventionality ( I understand that I remember real facts not as they were, but as I wanted them to be; I force them to exist with my consciousness). “The History of My Contemporary” is thus a synthesis of mutually exclusive aspirations. Although, it is possible that the conscious explication of the status of the text as a model of one’s life, and not as an objective recreation of this life, is in itself the highest embodiment of truthfulness: Bunin, for example, was aware of the creatively transformative power of memory, but did not speak about it “openly” , Korolenko not only understands this, but also exposes this property of memory. The principle of transformative memory - the basis and essence of Bu-nin’s autobiography - is pantheistically poured out in his mythic world (and there is not even a question of truthfulness and the need for verification), in Korolenko this is revealed, exposed, directly discredited - and because of this it turns into the opposite side, becoming even more one proof of the “truthfulness” of the text. If Bunin’s goal is to create a special myth of his childhood (I understand that this is a myth, but it doesn’t matter), Korolenko’s goal is, when creating such a myth (precisely a myth, because this is inevitable: remembering by inventing) to constantly expose it, emphasizing that it is only only a myth, a man-made construction, thereby giving rise to the effect of truthfully objective (and not constructive-subjective) memory.

But this is not the last link in a long chain of interpretations of the motives of Korolenkov’s self-reflection. We can take the last step by looking closely at the following quote: “I opened the newspaper, if I’m not mistaken, “Rumor”..., unfortunately, I now do not have the opportunity to reproduce the reporter’s note verbatim..., but the whole picture of this dark Pochinkov hut filled with eagerly listening men, all their remarks and individual words were so vividly imprinted in my memory then that even now, almost

forty years later, I see and hear all this so clearly, as if it happened recently...” The narrator does not seem to notice the obvious logical glitch in his speech: he does not remember the notes verbatim, but he remembers the conversations synchronous with them almost verbatim - this looks like obvious nonsense in the coordinate system “Objectivity and Truth” already set by the author himself. The question “I remember - I don’t remember” begins to function not according to the principle of truthfulness, but according to the principle of political priorities; a reporter’s note is not important or valuable (and therefore “I don’t remember” it), but the conversations of “dark” men are undoubtedly worth their weight in gold (and therefore are remembered and reproduced in detail). The main criterion for selecting facts for “memorization becomes, therefore, the degree of importance of the event for the socio-political life of Russia (“I still remembered - although it was in childhood - the joyful revival of the first years after the liberation of the peasants”...), and if the social status events are quite high, then the narrator does not even need to doubt whether he could remember it or could not.

Korolenko’s autobiographical novel strives for a complete and comprehensive exhaustion of any topic, and therefore, having started to talk about something, the narrator will certainly not trace the affected “thematic pattern” to its logical or temporal limit (for example, the chapter “Gortynsky” is entirely devoted to one of such lines: the author recalls his acquaintance with the student Gortynsky, then consistently reproduces all subsequent meetings with this person and ends the chapter with a message about early death Gortynsky from consumption). However, “The History of My Contemporary” is not a bizarre interweaving of “patterns of fate”, but a consistent tracing from beginning to end of first the life story of the father, then the mother, then the history of the gymnasium, etc. As a result, the novel is deprived of integrity, unity and turns into into a set of various “stories”, essays about the life of “my contemporary”, this is not a single organism, not a text-world, but a set of fragmentary memories. It is no coincidence that many of Korolenko’s early essays were included in “The History of My Contemporary” as separate chapters. This novel reflected many motifs from Korolenko’s previous work: for example, the essay “In Berezovsky Repairs,” the story “In Bad Society” (1885), and the story “The Blind Musician” (1886) were reflected in the first volume. And vice versa - there are many plots and themes

Some stories grew out of “The History of My Contemporary” (for example, the description of the noise pine forest grew into the story “The Forest is Noisy”, and the episode with the doll - into the story “In Bad Society”). Korolenko’s Siberian stories “Makar’s Dream” and “The Killer” also came from the same novel, and it is no coincidence that one of the areas of “Korolenko studies” was the comparison of the text of “The History of My Contemporary” with Korolenko’s stories derived from it. Sometimes the narrator can simply make a reservation that he will not include any description in “The History of My Contemporary”, since it has already been included in a separate essay: “I described my feelings in those few days that I spent in this cell in an autobiographical essay “Temptation” and I won’t repeat them. Let me just say briefly that...” ; “I described these impressions in my story “The Sovereign's Coachmen.”

As a justification for such fragmentation, “incompleteness” of the novel, Korolenko states in one of the early editions of the text that time, modernity constantly destroys the author’s plans, and therefore the text inevitably acquires an essay character, because “essays are able to live their own artistic life". In this case, the fragmentation becomes understandable: any autobiography is given integrity by a single author’s personality, his prism of consciousness, cementing the text: usually the instability and variability of the material is compensated by the stability of the author of the autobiography himself, it is he who conceptually builds the text; here the narrative is controlled not by a “contemporary”, but by modernity, history, it is this that sets the plots, motives, moods, constantly changing, hence the constantly changing modes of narration and the “scattering galaxy” of individual essays, and not an integral text-world. The “essay” nature of “The History of My Contemporary” was also predetermined by the extreme “extension” of the time it was written: the idea for the novel arose from Korolenko back in the mid-80s of the 19th century, the beginning of work was determined in 1905, the first volume was published in 1906-1908. in the magazines “Modern Notes”, “Modernity” and “Russian Wealth”, the second volume was published in 1910, the third in 1921, and the fourth volume, hastily completed by the terminally ill Korolenko, was published after the author’s death, Moreover, according to contemporaries, Korolenko “could not devote himself entirely to the History of My Contemporary.” The "grievance of the day" often tore him away from

work..., and again and again he took up the weapon of a publicist."

Thus, the objective modality of the text of “The History of My Contemporary” turns out to be extremely unstable: the novel combines the assertion of the veracity and truth of everything said - and doubt about the possibility of adequately recreating the past, and the novel itself becomes a synthesis of the chronicle document and consciously,

Bibliography

1. Donskoy, Ya. E. V. G. Korolenko (essay on the Poltava period of the writer’s life and work), 1900-1921 [Text] / Ya. E. Donskoy. - Kharkov, 1963.

2. Korolenko, V. G. The history of my contemporary. [Text] / V. G. Korolenko. - M.: Publishing house “Khudozhestvennaya Literatura”, 1965.

3. Storozhev, A. I. “The History of My Contemporary” V. G. Korolenko [Text] / A. I. Storozhev. -Minsk: State. Publishing house of the BSSR, 1953. - 189 p.

Bibliograficheskij spisok

1. Donskoj, Ja. E. V. G. Korolenko (ocherk poltavskogo perioda zhizni i dejatel "nosti pisatelja), 1900-1921 / Ja. E. Donskoj. - Har"kov, 1963.

2. Korolenko, V. G. Istorija moego sovremenni-ka. / V. G. Korolenko. - M.: Izdatel"stvo "Hudozhestvennaja literatura", 1965.

3. Storozhev, A. I. “Istorija moego sovremenni-ka” V. G. Korolenko / A. I. Storozhev. -Minsk: Gos. Izd-vo BSSR, 1953. - 189 s.