Publications of “Westerners”. “Aesthetic criticism” of liberal Westerners Aesthetic criticism of liberal Westerners

In the 40s V.G. Belinsky called “aesthetic criticism judgments about literature from the position of “eternal” and “immutable” laws of art. This approach was largely inherent, for example, in articles by S.P. Shevyrev about Pushkin and Lermontov, as well as reviews by K. S. Aksakova about “Dead Souls” by Gogol and “Poor People” by Dostoevsky.

In the first half of the 50s. “Aesthetic” criticism, having formed into a whole movement, occupies a dominant position in Russian literature and journalism. Its principles are brilliantly developed by P.V.Annenkov, A.V.Druzhinin, V.P.Botkin, as well as S.S.Dushkin, N.D.Akhsharumov.

In their philosophical views, representatives of this criticism remain objective idealists, mainly Hegelians. According to their political convictions, they are opponents of the serfdom system, economic and state (class) suppression of the individual, dreaming of reforming Russia along the lines of Western European countries, but opposing revolutionary violent methods of social progress. In Russian literature, they rely on the legacy of Pushkin, the work of Turgenev, Goncharov, L. Tolstoy, the poetry of Fet, Tyutchev, Polonsky, A. Maykov.

The social significance of “aesthetic” criticism in Russia in the 50s and 60s. can only be correctly assessed from a specific historical perspective. During the “dark seven years” (1848-1855), it, like Russian liberalism as a whole, undoubtedly played a progressive role, defending the intrinsic value of art and its mission of morally improving man and society, the high calling of the artist. She remains true to these values ​​during the years of social upsurge, marked by the demarcation of liberals from democrats in the Russian liberation movement and the emergence of a “sociological” movement in literature (M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, N. Nekrasov, N. Uspensky, V. Sleptsov, A. Levitov, F. Reshetnikov), whose theoretical manifestos were Chernyshevsky’s dissertation “Aesthetic relations of art to reality” (defended in 1853, published in 1855) and Saltykov-Shchedrin’s article “Poems of Koltsov” (1856). Neither the theoretical nor the creative principles of the new literature were accepted by “aesthetic” criticism. From her point of view, “sociological writers” (democrats) reflected reality in a subjectively tendentious spirit, which led to the deformation of its objective completeness and truth and meant the destruction of artistry. However, outside of artistry - of course, in the understanding inherent in “aesthetic” criticism itself, - this criticism did not represent the moral and social significance of the literary work.

Remaining until the end of the 60s. a promoter and defender of literature as art, “aesthetic” criticism limited the scope of this literature to the works of writers close to it in social and aesthetic positions. In this, it was objectively inferior to the “real” criticism of Chernyshevsky, Dobrolyubov, Saltykov Shchedrin, Nekrasov. At the same time, when analyzing the work of Turgenev, Goncharov, L. Tolstoy, Ostrovsky, Fet, she not only paid more attention to the “innermost spirit” (Belinsky) of these artists, but often penetrated deeper into it than “real” criticism.

These are the general features of “aesthetic” criticism. Let us now move on to the individual positions of its largest representatives - Annenkov, Druzhinin and Botkin.

Pavel Vasilievich Annenkov (1813-1887) in the 40s. was close with Belinsky, Gogol, Herzen, and later with I.S. Turgenev. Author of "Letters from Abroad" ("Domestic Notes", 1841-1843)" "Paris Letters" ("Contemporary", 1847-1848), essay "February and March in Paris 1848" (the first part was published in " Library for Reading", 1859; the second and third - in the "Russian Bulletin", 1862), as well as extremely informative memoirs "Gogol in Rome in the summer of 1841" (1857), "A Wonderful Decade" (1880), the second living images of Gogol, Belinsky, I. Turgenev, Herzen, N. Stankevich, T. Granovsky, M. Bakunin and others were drawn. Annenkov prepared the first verified edition of the works of A. S. Pushkin (1855-1857), and also published valuable “Materials” for the biography of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin" (1855) and the study "Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin in the Alexander era" (1874).

An interested and often insightful observer of the ideological and political movement in France and Germany in the 40s, Annenkov personally knew K. Marx, with whom he corresponded in 1846-1847. Accompanying the sick Belinsky on his trip to the resorts of Germany in 1847, Annenkov witnessed the critic’s work on the Salzbrunn letter to Gogol.

Annenkov’s main literary critical speeches are as follows: “Novels and stories from common people’s life in 1853” (1854); "Characteristics: I.S. Turgenev and L.N. Tolstoy" (1854); “On the significance of works of art for society” (1856; later this work was published under the title “Old and New Criticism”); “The literary type of a weak person. - Regarding Turgenev’s “Asia”” (1858); “Business novel in our literature: “A Thousand Souls,” a novel by A. Pisemsky” (1859); “Our society in Turgenev’s “Noble Nest”” (1859); “Ostrovsky’s “Thunderstorm” and the Critical Storm” (1860); “Russian fiction in 1863...” (1864), “Historical and aesthetic issues in Count Leo Tolstoy’s novel “War and Peace”” (1868).

If we try to isolate the main question and at the same time the equal requirement (criterion) of these and other articles by Annenkov, then this question and this criterion will be artistry.

Already in “Notes on Russian Literature of the Last Year” (1849), Annenkov, for the first time in Russian criticism, resorted to the concept of “realism”, using it to delimit in the “natural” school the works of Goncharov, Turgenev, Herzen, Grigorovich, who developed the Gogol tradition without prejudice to art, from essays and stories by Ya. Butkov, V. Dahl and other moral writers - “physiologists”. As we remember, Belinsky also distinguished between fiction writers like Butkov and artistic writers. In his review of Russian literature for 1846, the critic, while generally supporting Butkov’s “Petersburg Heights”, at the same time noted: “In our opinion, Mr. Butkov has no talent for novels and stories, and he does very well, always remaining within... daguerreotypical stories and essays... Mr. Butkov's stories and essays relate to novels and stories as statistics relate to history, as reality relates to poetry." According to Belinsky, the creation of a work of art is impossible without fantasy (fiction) and in general that “tremendous power of creativity” that, for example, Dostoevsky immediately discovered. In its pathos, Annenkov’s article thus basically coincided with the value of Belinsky’s scale.

Perhaps only Annenkov’s praise of Herzen’s story “The Thieving Magpie” diverged from Belinsky’s thought about the need for a modern artist to have a subjective and personal attitude towards reality for the fact that it “bypasses... everything sharp, angular,” As the next major article showed Annenkova, “Novels and Stories from Common People’s Life in 1853”, it was not, however, accidental. Here the critic repeatedly repeats the idea that the acute contradictions of life “can be allowed in a literary work... on the condition that in their essence there is no persistent and irreconcilable hostility,” that is, that there is “the possibility of reconciliation” between them. This formulation of the question meant, in essence, a different view of artistry than Belinsky had in the 1940s. It was formulated by Annenkov in the programmatic articles for him and for all “aesthetic” criticism “On Thought in Works of Fine Literature” (1855) and “On the Significance of Artistic Works for Society.”

In the first of them, the critic sharply divides contemplation and “feeling,” on the one hand, and research, thought, on the other. If the latter, in his opinion, are the lot of science, then the task of art is limited to contemplation and “feeling”. This was an undoubted step back in comparison with the dialectical interpretation of the artistic idea that was given by Belinsky in his doctrine of pathos; as we remember, its specificity and fundamental difference not only from the abstract logical concept, but also from any one-sided thought (enlightenment, religious, moralizing, etc.) Belinsky saw in its holistic, life-like and integral character: the artist “is in love with an idea, as with a beautiful, living being... and he contemplates it not with any one ability of his soul, with with all the fullness and integrity of his moral being..." It is in this spirit, we note in passing, that such a representative of “real” criticism as Saltykov-Shchedrin understands the artistic idea. Almost directly objecting to Annenkov in the article “Poems of Koltsov,” he points to a deeply synthetic process and result of poetic contemplation, distinguished by the unity and interpenetration of thought and feeling.

In the second article, calling "the question of artistry" And"a valuable issue for Russian literature, before which all other requirements... seem... requirements of secondary importance," Annenkov sets out his understanding of this aesthetic category as a whole. First of all, he expresses sharp disagreement with the opinion of the author of "Essays on the Gogol Period of Russian Literature" Chernyshevsky , that “the search for artistry in art” is “the fun of people who have leisure for fun”, that artistry is “a play of forms that amuses the ear, eye, imagination, but nothing more.” “In our opinion,” Annenkov objects, “the desire to pure artistry, in art should not only be allowed among us, but strongly aroused and preached, as a rule, without which the influence of literature on society is completely impossible.”

Belinsky did not equate artistry with fun, or with a simple “play of forms.” And he had no doubt that “art must first of all be art, and then it can be an expression of the spirit and direction of society in a certain era.” In a word, Annenkov is, without a doubt, right in his defense of artistry and its meaningful meaning. What does the “pure artistry” that the critic calls for mean, however?

“The concept of artistry,” writes Annenkov, “appeared in our country in the mid-thirties and supplanted first the previous aesthetic teachings about the good, touching, sublime, etc., and finally the concept of romanticism.”

Annenkov establishes the genesis of the category of artistry in Russian literature and criticism quite precisely. Present since the mid-20s. in the correspondence and articles of Pushkin the realist (albeit without using the term itself), it signified the awareness of the intrinsic value of literature, the uniqueness and irreplaceability of its perception of reality (content), as well as the impact on a person, which later in Belinsky’s era of “reconciliation with reality” would take kind of harmonious, but almost to the same extent dogmatic teaching. It is to Belinsky, not the last period of his evolution, but to Belinsky, the author of the article on Menzel, Belinsky, a true believer of Hegelian, that Annenkov’s concept of “pure artistry” dates back.

“The theory of old criticism (i.e. criticism of the Belinsky turn of the 30-40s) ...,” writes Annenkov, “remains still a harmonious building ... a significant portion of the aesthetic provisions of old criticism still constitutes the best asset of our science of the elegant and remains the truth, as one should assume, forever." What are the fundamental norms (requirements) of “pure artistry” that will ensure its significance as an “always ideal” in current and future Russian literature?

This, says Annenkov, is the writer’s refusal to “offend one-sidedness” in relation to reality, that is, from a subjective-personal (from the standpoint of a social group, estate, class) interpretation of it, since it interferes with the objective perception of life in all its fullness and versatility. And “completeness and vitality of content” is “one of the first conditions of artistry.” “An artistic presentation,” the critic writes, “first of all removes the character of one-sidedness from each subject, prevents all objections and finally puts the truth in that higher relation to people when their private interests and views can no longer obscure or reinterpret it.” The lack of completeness in the depiction of reality is detrimentally “reflected in the very form” of the work.

Annenkov is aware that the ideal of “pure artistry” he depicted is hardly real, unless, of course, one has in mind a contemplative writer who is simply not involved in the “work of modernity, the thought that enlivens it,” and who stands “below or outside” his time . And he is ready, without yielding in principle, “to reduce the previous ideal idea of ​​artistry to a more modest and simpler definition,” to which many phenomena of modern literature will correspond to one degree or another. And the “degree of artistry” of each of them, as well as “the forms and laws by which artistry is achieved,” should, the critic says, “be judged by science”—that is, “aesthetic” criticism.

Annenkov writes in the article “On Thought in Works of Fine Literature” that she should turn her primary attention to “the aesthetic form, the abundance of imagination and the beauty of images”, the “construction” of the work, and not to its "teaching" by which the critic means not so much some abstract thought, “philosophical or pedagogical” (in this case, he would be right), but rather the actual creative, but socially or politically acute (“topical”) idea or position of the author. After all, such an idea, even fully aesthetically mastered and embodied by the writer, in Annenkov’s eyes does not fall into the category of poetic or artistic.

Starting to analyze Turgenev's works, Annenkov sets the task of "discovering and understanding for himself... artistic habits, a unique way of performing themes." “It always seemed to us,” he explains this approach, “that this is the most instructive and most important part in any person who devotes himself to art.” Thus Annenkov himself falls into critical one-sidedness, in which, without reason to reproach the “real” criticism of Chernyshevsky. Chernyshevsky isolates from the writer (for example, in the article “Russian man on rendes-vous” (1858)) an ideological and social aspect that is relevant to him - even if it diverges from the holistic meaning of the work. He speaks not so much about the work, but about life based on it . Annenkov, on the contrary, turns to the artist’s formal techniques, without, however, linking their overall meaningful meaning with the specific concept of the work. The first is interested in a literary phenomenon in its temporary and topical facet; the second - imperishable (“eternal”) and general. One is inclined to understand artistry rationalistically and utilitarianly, the other - dogmatically and abstractly. But in a truly artistic work, form and content are inseparable, the meaning is timeless and modern.

Annenkov, nevertheless, considers modern Russian literature in the light of those, first of all, invariably eternal human aspirations and values, the adequate form of which, in his opinion, is “pure artistry.” “Not only here,” he writes, “the continuation of pure artistry is still necessary... but it is necessary for every educated society on earth and in every era of its life. This is an everlasting ideal... The artistic education of society is accomplished precisely by these ideals: they raise level of concepts, make hearts accessible to everything meek and with sympathetic revelations of the soul, refreshing love for a person curbs and moderates the will,”

As follows from these words of Annenkov, “pure artistry,” along with the aesthetic, also contains a morally humanizing effect on a person. Indeed, the idea that art is the moral educator of society was the critic’s deep conviction. In understanding the social role of literature, Annenkov connected not with the Decembrist poets, Belinsky of the last period and democratic writers ("sociologists"), but with the tradition of Karamzin, Zhukovsky, F. Tyutchev, who wrote, for example, in the poem "Poetry" (circa 1850) : “Among thunder, among fires, / Among seething passions, / In elemental, fiery discord, / She flies from heaven to us - / Heavenly to earthly sons, / With azure clarity in her gaze - / And on the rebellious sea / Pours conciliatory oil ".

Annenkov is interested in the moral values ​​of a person, in turn, in their invariably general aspect outside of its specific refraction and modification in a particular social situation. Indicative in this light is Annenkov’s polemic with Chernyshevsky regarding Turgenev’s story “Asya” (1858). Annenkov responded to Chernyshevsky’s article “Russian man on rendes-vous” (1858) with the article “Literary type of a weak person” (1858).

Considering the hero of “Asia” (as well as Rudin, Beltov and other “superfluous people”) to be a type of noble liberal, Chernyshevsky wondered about the reasons for the inactivity and indecision shown by such people even in an intimate situation with a beloved girl who reciprocates. Chernyshevsky explained the discord between lofty aspirations and the inability to translate them into action by the contradictory social position of such people: a Russian noble liberal cannot be an effective and consistent fighter for social progress, because he himself belongs to a class that is the main obstacle to this progress. Hence his half-heartedness, inability to act, and apathy.

Answering Chernyshevsky, Annenkov agrees: yes, Turgenev’s hero is weak, inconsistent, inactive, weak-willed, too preoccupied with himself, and sometimes selfish in relation to other people. But why is he like this? Annenkov's answer to this question turned out to be diametrically opposed to Chernyshevsky's opinion. The whole point, the critic believes, is that Turgenev’s heroes, in general people of this type, crave enduring moral values, harmony, freedom, beauty, spiritual perfection. Their weakness is rooted in the maximalism of their moral needs and the awareness of their striking contradictions with reality. And yet, the height of spiritual aspirations makes, says Annenkov, precisely this type of people the only moral type in modern Russian literature. After all, those decisive natures for which Chernyshevsky advocates are active, energetic, and assertive because, neglecting high moral human goals, they seek only utilitarian values. And Annenkov refers to the tyrant merchants Ostrovsky and the officials Saltykov-Shchedrin. Essentially, Annenkov considers the representatives of the revolutionary-democratic camp, from which Chernyshevsky spoke, to be similar dry, rigid, coldly rational, and not spiritual people.

Annenkov prefers weak, but spiritually moral people - both in literature and in life - to the active and heroic natures that revolutionary democrats dreamed of. Because for the liberal reformist and evolutionist, the key to true social progress was not revolutionary disruption, but the gradual moral improvement of man and humanity, inspired and guided along this path by high - including literary and artistic - examples.

It should be noted that in his position Annenkov was nevertheless alien to blind fanaticism. Over the years, he realized more and more clearly that historical development ran counter to his ideas. And after 1858, he honestly admitted that his ideals and criteria were outdated. “We have lost,” he wrote on October 4, 1858 to E.F. Korsh, “a moral, aesthetic... arshin and we need to order a new one.” In his 1859 review of Turgenev’s “The Noble Nest,” Annenkov, while heartily sympathizing with Liza Kalitina and Lavretsky as, in the critic’s opinion, highly moral heroes, at the same time directly states that Turgenev has already completely exhausted his beloved world of images and must choose a new path , depict new types and conflicts.

This, however, did not mean that Annenkov abandoned either the moral and educational interpretation of literature or the thesis of “pure artistry,” which he contrasts with the socio-political orientation of democratic (“sociological”) fiction. And not only her. Thus, from the standpoint of “pure artistry,” Annenkov examined A.F. Pisemsky’s novel “A Thousand Souls” (1858). Annenkov's definition of this work is indicative - “a business novel,” emphasizing the utilitarian-practical nature of the conflict within which Pisemsky’s heroes operate. "He ( novel), writes Annenkov, “all in the official meaning of Kalinovich” - “an ambitious man making his way.” But this, according to Annenkov, also conceals the main flaw of the work. “The distinctive quality of the novel, where a civil matter is the mainspring of the event, - says the critic, - there is a certain kind of dryness. He is able to excite the most diverse phenomena, except for one, feelings poetry.

Annenkov contrasts the social and business novel with a different type of this genre, which does not violate the “laws of free creativity.” These are the best novels of George Sand, Dickens and, of course, the novels of Turgenev and Goncharov. These are works organized and imbued with a highly spiritual principle, the bearer of which is for the most part “one being (man or woman, it doesn’t matter), full of dignity and possessing a remarkable power of moral influence. The role of such a being is always the same: it everywhere stands in the middle of the collision of two different worlds... - the world of abstract demands of society and the world of real needs of man, tempering with his presence the energy of their mistakes, disarming the winner, consoling and strengthening the vanquished.”

Likewise, in understanding the novel, Annenkov proceeds from his idea of ​​​​the reconciling" (harmonizing) purpose of "pure artistry."

Great social influence in the 60s. "sociological" fiction prompted Annenkov to turn to the works of such representatives as Pomyalovsky, N. Uspensky, Saltykov-Shchedrin. The article “Russian fiction in 1863” is largely devoted to them. However, here Annenkov remained true to his previous criteria. Thus, he reproaches Pomyalovsky for the fact that his types “have no relief, convexity and lack the properties by which living organisms are recognized.” In general, Pomyalovsky demonstrates only “absent creativity.” The stories of N. Uspensky, highly appreciated by Chernyshevsky in the article “Isn’t this the beginning of change?” (1861), Annenkov considers “anecdotes”, finds in them “indifference of humor”, “simplified attitudes towards the people”. Saltykov-Shchedrin, “who devoted himself primarily to explaining phenomena and issues of social life,” according to the critic, “does not know such cases in life that would be important for their moral or artistic significance alone,” and only once paid tribute to the “poetic elements of life” . But for Shchedrin this is “an accidental phenomenon.”

A kind of result of Annenkov’s “aesthetic” criticism was his 1868 article “Historical and aesthetic issues in the novel by gr. L.N. Tolstoy "War and Peace". Immersion in the vast world of this deeply innovative work, brilliant creative solutions and at the same time powerful thoughts, including philosophical ones, did not allow us to limit ourselves to a simple comparison of it with the norms of “pure artistry.” And we must give Annenkov his due - in many ways he rose to the occasion. The article makes many valuable conclusions about Tolstoy’s historical views and their place in the novel, about his genre in relation to the historical, everyday, social novel, and about psychological analysis. Of greatest interest are Annenkov's considerations about the new nature of Tolstoy's relationship between everyday and historical life, personal and social life. This part of the article remains relevant today.

Against the background of Annenkov's, the critical position of Alexander Vasilyevich Druzhinin (1824 - 1864) looks much less flexible and at the same time more one-sided.

Druzhinin gained fame with the story "Polinka Sax" (1847), where he originally developed some ideas and motives (about the dignity of a woman, her right to freedom of feelings) of George Sand's novels. Belinsky noted in the story “a lot of warmth and a true, conscious understanding of reality.” During the years of the “dark seven years”, Druzhinin declared himself a moderate liberal reformist who did not accept revolution and revolutionary democratic ideology. During these years, he published in Sovremennik a series of feuilletons “The Sentimental Journey of Ivan Chernoknizhnikov through St. Petersburg Dachas”, magazine reviews “Letters from a Nonresident Subscriber”, articles on English and French literature, and translated Shakespeare.

In 1856 - 1861 Druzhinin edits the "Library for Reading", turning it into an organ of "aesthetic criticism" opposed to the "real" criticism of Sovremennik.

In Druzhinin’s defense and propaganda of the idea of ​​“pure artistry” (“Pure Art”), his aesthetic sympathies sometimes merged with far from disinterested considerations, as evidenced, for example, by Druzhinin’s letter to V.P. Botkin dated August 19, 1855. Referring to figures like Chernyshevsky, Druzhinin writes: “If we do not oppose them, they will do stupid things, damage literature and, wanting to teach society, persecute us and force us to lose that corner in the sun, which we obtained with sweat and blood." Chernyshevsky hinted at this self-protective background of “aesthetic” critics in “Essays on the Gogol Period,” inviting readers to “take a closer look at the facts testifying to their aspirations”: “We need to see in what spirit they themselves write and in what spirit the works they approve of are written.” , and we will see that they are not at all concerned about pure art, independent of life, but, on the contrary, want to subordinate literature exclusively to the service of one tendency, which has purely everyday significance."

In 1855, Druzhinin delivered a programmatic article “A.S. Pushkin and the latest edition of his works.” In it, he negatively evaluates not the “daggerotypic” trend in the “natural school,” as was the case in Annenkov’s “Notes...”, but this school as a whole, and at the same time the entire “satirical trend” in Russian realism, which is to blame for the current Russian literature is supposedly “exhausted, weakened.” “No matter what ardent admirers of Gogol say,” writes Druzhinin, “all literature cannot live on “Dead Souls” alone. We need poetry. There is little poetry in Gogol’s followers, there is no poetry in the overly real direction of many of the newest figures.”

Here Druzhinin for the first time contrasts Pushkin’s tradition in Russian literature with Gogol’s. “Against the satirical direction to which our excessive imitation of Gogol has led us,” he says, “Pushkin’s poetry can serve as the best weapon.” The true artistic meaning of Pushkin’s work was determined, according to Druzhinin, by the poet’s “kind, loving” attitude towards reality. Therefore, unlike Gogol’s, in his works “everything looks quiet, calm and joyful.” Druzhinin expresses the hope that, in particular, Pushkin's "Belkin's Estate" will serve as a "reaction against Gogol's direction - and this time will not be long in coming."

A year later, in the article “Criticism of the Gogol period and our relationship to it” (1856), Druzhinin makes an attempt to substantiate his opposition of Pushkin to Gogol theoretically - in the light of the eternal confrontation in the history of art (literature) between its two concepts and types - “artistic” and “didactic” . “All critical systems, theses and views that have ever stirred the world of old and new poetry,” he writes, “can be subsumed under two, eternally opposing theories, one of which we will call artistic, that is, having as its slogan pure art for art's sake, and didactic, that is, striving to influence the morals, life and concepts of a person through his direct teaching.”

Druzhinin’s idea about artistic and didactic literature should not be rejected out of hand: it has a rational grain. Let us remember that Belinsky also divided poetry (literature) into strictly artistic, on the one hand, and “rhetorical”, on the other. The first is form, the materialization of an integral perception of the world, content-pathos. The second only uses certain figurative and aesthetic forms (tropes, high vocabulary, expressive figures, etc.) as a means for a non-artistic, but abstract or one-sided (moral, moral, pedagogical) idea and goal. As we remember, fiction itself, poetry as art in Russia, according to Belinsky, was created no earlier than Pushkin, although the poet’s predecessors on this path were Karamzin, Zhukovsky, and Batyushkov. Thus, the distinction between fiction and pre-fiction, non-fiction is in itself historically justified. And Druzhinin’s theory is unacceptable not for this reason, but because, unlike Belinsky’s historical formulation of the question, it is, in principle, ahistorical. After all, Druzhinin considers the existence and opposition of “artistic” and “didactic” poetry to be eternal. This is the first thing. Secondly, he makes his division within fiction itself, since Gogol is as much a poet-artist as Pushkin, and there was no basis for contrasting them for reasons of artistry.

Essentially, Druzhinin, who recognizes only the unchangeable “ideas of eternal beauty, goodness, truth” as the content of art and considers the transient “interests of the moment” and the problems of current life contraindicated in literature, does not accept in literature (including in the heritage of both Gogol and Pushkin) its social ideology (conflicts, images) and orientation, which he declares “didactic”. Hence his interpretation of Pushkin’s poetry as supposedly reconciling the light and dark sides of reality and alien to “everyday excitement.”

The rejection of concrete social pathos in art predetermined Druzhinin’s main assessments of contemporary Russian literature, contained in such critic articles as “War stories of Count L.N. Tolstoy” (1856), “Provincial Sketches” by N. Shchedrin (1856), "Essays from Peasant Life" by A.F. Pisemsky (1857), "Poems by Nekrasov" (published in 1967), "Tales and Stories" by I. Turgenev (1857), "Works by A. Ostrovsky" ( 1859), "Oblomov". Novel by I.A. Goncharov" (1859).

Druzhinin believes that Turgenev “weakened his talent, sacrificing modernity.” On the contrary, he classifies L. Tolstoy and A. N. Ostrovsky as “pure” artists, seeing in their work the beginning of a reaction against the dominance of the “natural school”. Recognizing the energy in the “severe” poetry of Nekrasov, Druzhinin nevertheless finds it narrow, since it does not satisfy people “little familiar with the sad side of life,” and contrasts it with the supposedly multifaceted poetry of A. Maykov.

Let's return to the article "Criticism of the Gogol period and our relationship to it." The fact is that in it Druzhinin also expressed his attitude towards Belinsky’s criticism. It was the opposite of the judgments about Belinsky in Chernyshevsky’s “Essays on the Gogol Period of Russian Literature.” If Chernyshevsky considered the second half of the 40s to be the peak of the literary and aesthetic evolution of the “frantic Vissarion,” then Druzhinin gave full preference to the position of Belinsky’s period of “reconciliation” with reality. “The best time for criticism of the Gogol period,” he wrote, “coincides with the last years of the complete dominance of Hegel’s philosophy. His aesthetic theories, his views on the noble meaning of art, even his terminology - all this was accepted by our criticism, and not accepted slavishly.” .

For Druzhinin, Belinsky is dear as an idealist-Hegelian, a theorist of objectivist-contemplative art, denying the poet’s right to a subjective attitude and judgment over reality. He reproaches Belinsky for what was his merit - for the fairly quick overcoming of Hegelianism: “Hegel’s view... began to take root in our literature, when suddenly... in the direction of the criticism we were examining, sad symptoms began to appear, forcing us to assume she began to be at odds with the theories she had recently expressed.”

Druzhinin returned to assessing Belinsky's critical heritage in 1859 in his review of the three volumes of Belinsky's Works, which were published for the first time. Here Druzhinin called his opinion about Belinsky, expressed three years ago, one-sided and “temporary”, and for the first time spoke positively about the public nature of the critical activity of this “powerful talent.” Here Druzhinin praises Belinsky’s articles about Gogol and Marlinsky. Remaining, however, true to himself, he still especially highlights Belinsky’s article “Menzel, critic of Goethe,” where, in his words, “you will find, in all its harmony, a theory about the freedom of art, a theory that will never die and will always remain true, standing above all refutations."

Druzhinin, like Annenkov, showed extraordinary insight when he spoke about artists who were to one degree or another close to him in social and aesthetic positions. It was reflected in an article about Fet, in a number of observations in articles about Pushkin, in analyzes of “Oblomov” and essays from Goncharov’s “Frigate “Pallada””, and most of all in a review of “Tales and Stories” by I. Turgenev. Here we will find a serious analysis of Turgenev's works in connection with Russian life, as well as the desire for poetry(in the sense of orientation towards universal human manifestations and aspirations of existence and the subtle spiritual strings of a person) as a characteristic feature of Turgenev’s talent.

Unlike Druzhinin, Vasily Petrovich Botkin (1811 - 1869) was not a critic-journalist, and his literary analyzes are relatively episodic and few in number. These are mainly articles “Shakespeare as a man and a lyricist” (1842), “N.P. Ogarev” (1850), “Notes on magazines for the month of July 1855” (1855), “Poems by A.A. Fet” (1857 ). Valuable judgments and reviews of Russian and Western European writers are contained in Botkin’s extensive correspondence with Belinsky, especially for 1841-1847.

Member of N.V. Stankevich’s circle, Belinsky’s friend and like-minded person in the assessments of Lermontov, Gogol, many authors of the “natural school” and in polemics with Slavophiles, author of the wonderful “Letters about Spain” (departmental ed. in 1857) and articles about painting, music and theater, Botkin enjoyed the sympathy and friendship of such different people as Bakunin, Herzen, Granovsky, Nekrasov, Turgenev, L. Tolstoy, A. Fet. The explanation for this is not only in the peculiar ideological “omnivorousness” of Botkin, who made, as B.F. Egorov correctly notes, unexpected “oscillations from democracy, almost revolutionary, to extreme conservatism, from utilitarianism to the defense of “free art”” (Egorov B.F. Botkin - critic and publicist/ /Botkin V.P. Literary criticism. Journalism. Letters. M., 1984. P. 21). What was attractive about Botkin was his unborrowed mind, originality with a frequent depth of view on the subject (for example, in judgments about Lermontov expressed in a letter to Belinsky dated March 22, 1842) and, above all, a rare aesthetic sense and feeling as perhaps the decisive moment in Botkin’s perception literature.

B.F. Egorov, not without reason, speaks of the element of hedonism in Botkin’s aesthetic sense: “...He perceived art as a personal, almost physiological joy” (ibid., p. 22). One of the first to notice this trait of his friend was none other than Belinsky in connection with Botkin’s reaction to D. Grigorovich’s just published story “Anton the Miserable.” Belinsky himself, who saw “sad and important thoughts” in Anton the Miserable, called it more than a story: “... this is a novel in which everything is true to the main idea, everything relates to it, the beginning and ending freely emerge from the very essence of the matter." Botkin, on the contrary, did not enjoy Grigorovich’s story, as can be seen from Belinsky’s letter to him; he reproaches it for its length, sluggish descriptions of nature, and similar aesthetic errors. Responding to this, Belinsky remarks: “So, you and I are sitting on the ends. You, Vasenka, are a sybarite, have a sweet tooth - you see, give me poetry and art - then you will savor and smack your lips.” Botkin’s other impression, this time pleasant, is also indicative of Goncharov’s novel “An Ordinary Story,” which Botkin, in his words, “read... as if on a hot summer day he had eaten ice cream, which left the most gratifying coolness inside, and mouth the aroma of the fruit from which it is made."

In the mid-50s. Botkin’s literary-critical position is marked by particular inconsistency, expressed, in particular, in correspondence with Druzhinin and Nekrasov about the significance of the Gogol tradition in Russian literature. At first, Botkin is ready to challenge Druzhinin’s rejection of social ideology in literature. He writes to Druzhinin in connection with the latter’s article about Pushkin: “The clear and quiet pictures of our life are dear to us, but... in essence we are surrounded by not clear and quiet pictures. No, do not protest, dear friend, against the Gogol direction - it is necessary for public benefit, for public consciousness." In his response letter, Druzhinin, however, continues to insist that “the neodidactic direction of literature, that is, efforts to correct morals and society, maybe useful for everyday affairs, but not for art." And Botkin agrees. Having quoted almost the entire review of Druzhinin about Gogol in a letter to Nekrasov, he adds on his own: "... all this, in my opinion, is completely fair. Who would not agree that didactics only proves the complete impotence of creativity?

Botkin’s contradictory position on the issue of the social orientation of art is clearly visible against the background of Nekrasov’s solution to the same issue. In his response to Botkin, the poet states: “... I read what Druzhinin writes to you about Gogol and his followers and I find that Druzhinin is simply lying and lying hopelessly, so it is useless to talk to him about such things... Love the truth unselfishly and passionately... if you begin to serve art, you will serve society, and vice versa, if you begin to serve society, you will also serve art,” Perhaps unconsciously, but Nekrasov returns here to Belinsky’s teaching on pathos, according to which any idea (including social, even political, etc.) if it is holistically, “passionately” experienced and embodied by the writer, it can become the basis of a work of art.

Nekrasov, however, did not convince Botkin. Ultimately, he took the side not of Nekrasov, but of Druzhinin, in a letter to whom he stated, in particular, that “a political idea is the grave of art.” Here he invites the addressee, not limiting himself only to Gogol’s direction, to turn his criticism to Nekrasov’s poems, which “begins to fall into a didactic tone.”

In 1856 - 1857 Botkin, according to him, followed with great participation Chernyshevsky’s “Essays on the Gogol Period” published in Sovremennik, finding “a lot of smart and practical things” in his dissertation. This did not in the least prevent him from speaking out in his 1857 article “Poems by A.A. Fet” from positions diametrically opposed to the aesthetic concepts of Chernyshevsky and Nekrasov. The article about Fet is a kind of result of Botkin’s “aesthetic” criticism, so it should be discussed in more detail.

Botkin prefaces the analysis of Fet's lyrics with general considerations about the essence of art. In his opinion, it is addressed to the constant (“identical”) properties and needs of human nature, which are not subject to practical and social changes. “With all the temporary transformations of the various aspirations with which the life of peoples is filled, the basic properties of human nature,” says the critic, “remain the same at all times.” One of these properties is a person’s desire for harmony and enjoyment of it. In its creation lies the main task and social purpose of art. The present century, Botkin continues, has taken a particularly practical, utilitarian direction, which has obscured the basic, deep-seated needs of man from the consciousness of people. But art must respond to them with all the greater fidelity and constancy. “It is necessary,” says the critic, “for the poet to guess the eternal fact of the human soul under the appearance of the temporary.”

Genuine, free creativity (artistry), according to Botkin, is incompatible with mentality (ideology), it is unconscious, mysterious. Therefore, the “conscious Goethe” is weaker than the unconscious Shakespeare. The ideal of a poet-artist is a contemplative artist like Fet.

It is easy to notice that Botkin, like Druzhinin and Annenkov, returns here to the idea of ​​artistry that was characteristic of Belinsky’s “conciliatory” period and was rooted in the aesthetics of Hegel and Schelling (the idea of ​​the unconsciousness and purposelessness of creativity), as well as in the teachings of theorists Western European romanticism (the Schlegel brothers, etc.).

In the light of this teaching, Botkin’s sharply negative attitude towards the idea of ​​a poet-citizen is understandable and logical. “In our country,” he writes, “they have written both in prose and in poetry what a poet should be; they especially like to portray him as a punisher of social vices, a corrector of morals, a conductor of so-called modern ideas. An opinion that is completely contrary to both the essence of poetry and the fundamental the beginnings of poetic creativity." And Botkin, in every possible way humiliating the “utilitarian theory, which wants to subordinate art to serving practical goals,” contrasts it with the “theory of free creativity.”

Let's summarize. The pathos of “aesthetic” criticism can be expressed by the proposition: there is nothing more valuable than harmony, and art is its only organ. That is why it must remain “clean” from current socio-political passions, concerns, conflicts that violate the harmonious meaning of art. However, representatives of “aesthetic” criticism understood harmony (in the form of artistry, morality, and spirituality) in a very abstract and asocial way, which, of course, was a reflection of a very specific social position - the position of reformers, opponents of revolutionary upheavals.

“Aesthetic” criticism perceived Belinsky’s legacy in a very one-sided way. From it she took the most dogmatic, non-dialectical part. On the contrary, the doctrine of pathos, in which the enduring (aesthetic) and concrete-historical (social) facets of a work of art were dialectically merged, was neither understood nor continued by “aesthetic” criticism.

At the end of the 50s. - in the face of a new trend in literature, marked by ever-increasing socialization (sociologization) and new forms of artistry, “aesthetic” criticism is becoming objectively more and more archaic.

Questions for independent work of students

1. The main features of aesthetic criticism, its formation and development.

2. Literary-critical views of P.V. Annenkov.

3. A.V.Druzhinin about the Pushkin and Gogol traditions in Russian literature.

4. V.P. Botkin about “utilitarian theory” and free creativity.

Assignment: read the article and answer the following questions:

1. What are the features of Russian criticism of the 2nd half of the 19th century?

2. What explains the diversity of trends in Russian criticism of the 2nd half of the 19th century?

3. What did the Slavophiles not accept in Russian prose and poetry?

4. What traditions in literature and art were defended by Western liberals?

5. What art did the critic Druzhinin consider authentic?

6. What are the merits of liberal-Western criticism?

7. What are the shortcomings of liberal-Western criticism?

8. What is the task of “real” criticism, according to Dobrolyubov?

9. What are the disadvantages of “real” criticism?

Lebedev Yu.V. — Russian literary-critical and religious-philosophical thought of the second half of the 19th century.

On the uniqueness of Russian literary criticism. “As long as our poetry is alive and well, there is no reason to doubt the deep health of the Russian people,” wrote critic N. N. Strakhov, and his like-minded Apollo Grigoriev considered Russian literature “the only focus of all our highest interests.” V. G. Belinsky bequeathed to his friends to put in his coffin an issue of the magazine “Domestic Notes”, and the classic of Russian satire M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin in his farewell letter to his son said: “Above all, love your native literature and prefer the title of writer to any other.” .

According to N.G. Chernyshevsky, our literature was elevated to the dignity of a national cause that united the most viable forces of Russian society. In the minds of the 19th century reader, literature was not only “fine literature”, but also the basis of the spiritual existence of the nation. The Russian writer treated his work in a special way: for him it was not a profession, but a ministry. Chernyshevsky called literature a “textbook of life,” and Leo Tolstoy was subsequently surprised that these words did not belong to him, but to his ideological opponent.

The artistic exploration of life in Russian classical literature never turned into a purely aesthetic pursuit; it always pursued a living spiritual and practical goal. “The word was perceived not as an empty sound, but as a deed - almost as “religiously” as the ancient Karelian singer Veinemeinen, who “made a boat with singing.” Gogol also harbored this belief in the miraculous power of the word, dreaming of creating such a book that itself, by the power of the only and indisputably true thoughts expressed in it, should transform Russia,” notes modern literary critic G. D. Gachev.

Belief in the effective, world-transforming power of the artistic word also determined the features of Russian literary criticism. From literary problems it always rose to social problems that were directly related to the fate of the country, people, and nation. The Russian critic did not limit himself to discussions about artistic form and the skill of the writer. Analyzing a literary work, he came up with questions that life posed to the writer and reader. The focus of criticism on a wide range of readers made it very popular: the authority of the critic in Russia was great and his articles were perceived as original works that enjoyed success on a par with literature.

Russian criticism of the second half of the 19th century developed more dramatically. The social life of the country at this time became unusually complicated, many political trends arose that argued with each other. The picture of the literary process also turned out to be motley and multi-layered. Therefore, criticism has become more diverse compared to the era of the 30s and 40s, when all the diversity of critical assessments was covered by the authoritative word of Belinsky. Like Pushkin in literature, Belinsky was a kind of universalist in criticism: he combined sociological, aesthetic, and stylistic approaches in evaluating works, covering the literary movement as a whole with a single gaze.

In the second half of the 19th century, Belinsky’s critical universalism turned out to be unique. Critical thought specialized in certain areas and schools. Even Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov, the most versatile critics with a broad social outlook, could no longer claim not only to embrace the literary movement in its entirety, but also to provide a holistic interpretation of an individual work. Sociological approaches predominated in their work. Literary development as a whole and the place of an individual work in it was now revealed by the entire set of critical movements and schools. Apollo Grigoriev, for example, arguing with Dobrolyubov’s assessments of A. N. Ostrovsky, noticed facets in the playwright’s work that eluded Dobrolyubov. A critical understanding of the works of Turgenev or Leo Tolstoy cannot be reduced to the assessments of Dobrolyubov or Chernyshevsky. N. N. Strakhov’s works on “Fathers and Sons” and “War and Peace” significantly deepen and clarify them. The depth of understanding of I. A. Goncharov’s novel “Oblomov” is not exhausted by Dobrolyubov’s classic article “What is Oblomovism?”: A. V. Druzhinin introduces significant clarifications into the understanding of Oblomov’s character.

The main stages of the social struggle of the 60s. The diversity of literary criticism in the second half of the 19th century was associated with growing social struggle. Since 1855, two historical forces emerged in public life, and by 1859, entered into an uncompromising struggle - revolutionary democracy and liberalism. The voice of the "peasant democrats", gaining strength on the pages of Nekrasov's magazine Sovremennik, begins to determine public opinion in the country.

The social movement of the 60s went through three stages in its development: from 1855 to 1858; from 1859 to 1861; from 1862 to 1869. At the first stage there is a demarcation of social forces, at the second there is an intense struggle between them, and at the third there is a sharp decline in the movement, ending with the onset of government reaction.

Liberal-Western Party. Russian liberals of the 60s advocated the art of “reforms without revolutions” and pinned their hopes on social changes “from above.” But in their circles, disagreements arise between Westerners and Slavophiles about the paths of the emerging reforms. Westerners begin the countdown of historical development with the transformations of Peter I, whom Belinsky called “the father of the new Russia.” They are skeptical about pre-Petrine history. But, denying Russia the right to the “pre-Petrine” historical tradition, Westerners derive from this fact a paradoxical idea about our great advantage: a Russian person, free from the burden of historical traditions, may turn out to be “more progressive” than any European due to his “re-innovativeness.” The land, which does not conceal any of its own seeds, can be plowed boldly and deeply, and in case of failures, in the words of the Slavophile A.S. Khomyakov, “you can calm your conscience with the thought that no matter what you do, you will not make it worse than before.” “Why is it worse?” Westerners objected. “A young nation can easily borrow the latest and most advanced in the science and practice of Western Europe and, transplanting it onto Russian soil, make a dizzying leap forward.”

Mikhail Nikiforovich Katkov, on the pages of the liberal magazine “Russian Messenger”, founded by him in 1856 in Moscow, promotes the English ways of social and economic reforms: the liberation of peasants with land when it is purchased by the government, the provision of local and state government rights to the nobility following the example of the English lords.

Liberal Slavophile Party. The Slavophiles also denied the “unaccountable worship of the past forms of our antiquity.” But they considered borrowing possible only if they were grafted onto an original historical root. If Westerners argued that the difference between the enlightenment of Europe and Russia existed only in degree, and not in character, then the Slavophiles believed that Russia, already in the first centuries of its history, with the adoption of Christianity, was educated no less than the West, but “the spirit and fundamental principles "Russian education differed significantly from Western European education.

Ivan Vasilyevich Kireevsky in his article “On the Nature of the Enlightenment of Europe and its Relation to the Enlightenment of Russia” identified three significant features of these differences: 1) Russia and the West adopted different types of ancient culture, 2) Orthodoxy had pronounced original features that distinguished it from Catholicism, 3) the historical conditions in which Western European and Russian statehood took shape were different.

Western Europe inherited ancient Roman education, which differed from ancient Greek formal rationality, admiration for the letter of legal law and disdain for the traditions of “common law,” which was based not on external legal decrees, but on traditions and habits.

Roman culture left its mark on Western European Christianity. The West sought to subordinate faith to the logical arguments of reason. The predominance of rational principles in Christianity led the Catholic Church first to the Reformation, and then to the complete triumph of self-deified reason. This liberation of reason from faith was completed in German classical philosophy and led to the creation of atheistic teachings.

Finally, the statehood of Western Europe arose as a result of the conquest of the indigenous inhabitants of the former Roman Empire by German tribes. Beginning with violence, European states were to develop through periodic revolutionary upheavals.

In Russia, many things turned out differently. She received a cultural inoculation not of the formally rational, Roman, but of a more harmonious and integral Greek education. The fathers of the Eastern Church never fell into abstract rationality and cared primarily about the “correctness of the internal state of the thinking spirit.” What was in the foreground for them was not intelligence, not rationality, but the highest unity of the believing spirit.

Slavophiles considered Russian statehood to be unique. Since in Russia there were no two warring tribes - the conquerors and the conquered, social relations in it were based not only on legislative and legal acts that constrained people's life, indifferent to the internal content of human connections. Our laws were more internal than external. “The sanctity of tradition” was preferred to the legal formula, morality to external benefit.

The Church has never tried to usurp secular power and replace the state with itself, as happened more than once in papal Rome. The basis of the original Russian organization was the communal structure, the grain of which was the peasant world: small rural communities merged into broader regional associations, from which the consent of the entire Russian land, headed by the Grand Duke, arose.

Peter's reform, which subordinated the church to the state, abruptly broke the natural course of Russian history.

In the Europeanization of Russia, the Slavophiles saw a threat to the very essence of Russian national existence. Therefore, they had a negative attitude towards Peter’s reforms and government bureaucracy, and were active opponents of serfdom. They stood up for freedom of speech, for the resolution of state issues at the Zemsky Sobor, consisting of representatives of all classes of Russian society. They objected to the introduction of forms of bourgeois parliamentary democracy in Russia, considering it necessary to preserve the autocracy, reformed in the spirit of the ideals of Russian “conciliarity.” The autocracy must take the path of voluntary cooperation with the “land”, and in its decisions rely on popular opinion, periodically convening the Zemsky Sobor. The sovereign is called upon to listen to the point of view of all classes, but to make the final decision alone, in accordance with the Christian spirit of goodness and truth. Not democracy with its voting and mechanical victory of the majority over the minority, but consent, leading to unanimous, “conciliar” submission to the sovereign will, which should be free from class limitations and serve the highest Christian values.

Literary-critical program of the Slavophiles was organically connected with their social views. This program was proclaimed by the “Russian Conversation” they published in Moscow: “The highest subject and task of the people’s word is not to say what is bad about a certain people, what they are sick with and what they do not have, but in the poetic recreation of what given him the best for his historical purpose."

Slavophiles did not accept social-analytical principles in Russian prose and poetry; refined psychologism was alien to them, in which they saw the disease of the modern personality, “Europeanized,” cut off from the people’s soil, from the traditions of national culture. It is precisely this painful manner of “flaunting unnecessary details” that K. S. Aksakov finds in the early works of L. N. Tolstoy with his “dialectics of the soul”, in the stories of I. S. Turgenev about the “superfluous man.”

Literary-critical activity of Westerners. In contrast to the Slavophiles, who advocate the social content of art in the spirit of their “Russian views,” Western liberals represented by P. V. Annenkov and A. V. Druzhinin defend the traditions of “pure art,” addressed to “eternal” issues, shunned by malice of the day and faithful to the “absolute laws of artistry.”

Alexander Vasilyevich Druzhinin in the article “Criticism of the Gogol period of Russian literature and our relationship to it” formulated two theoretical ideas about art: he called one “didactic” and the other “artistic”. Didactic poets “want to directly influence modern life, modern morals and modern man. They want to sing, teaching, and often achieve their goal, but their song, while gaining in an instructive sense, cannot but lose a lot in relation to eternal art.”

True art has nothing to do with teaching. “Firmly believing that the interests of the moment are fleeting, that humanity, changing constantly, does not change only in the ideas of eternal beauty, goodness and truth,” the poet-artist “sees his eternal anchor in selfless service to these ideas... He depicts people as he sees them , without ordering them to correct themselves, he does not give lessons to society, or if he gives them, he gives them unconsciously. He lives in the midst of his sublime world and descends to earth, as the Olympians once descended upon it, firmly remembering that he has his own home on high Olympus."

The indisputable advantage of liberal-Western criticism was close attention to the specifics of literature, to the difference between its artistic language and the language of science, journalism, and criticism. There is also an interest in the enduring and eternal in the works of classical Russian literature, in what determines their unfading life in time. But at the same time, attempts to distract the writer from the “everyday unrest” of our time, to muffle the author’s subjectivity, and distrust of works with a pronounced social orientation testified to the liberal moderation and limited social views of these critics.

Social program and literary-critical activities of the Pochvenniks. Another socio-literary movement of the mid-60s, which removed the extremes of Westerners and Slavophiles, was the so-called “soilism”. Its spiritual leader was F. M. Dostoevsky, who published two magazines during these years - “Time” (1861-1863) and “Epoch” (1864-1865). Dostoevsky's associates in these magazines were literary critics Apollo Aleksandrovich Grigoriev and Nikolai Nikolaevich Strakhov.

The Pochvenniki to some extent inherited the view of the Russian national character expressed by Belinsky in 1846. Belinsky wrote: “Russia has nothing to compare with the old states of Europe, whose history went diametrically opposite to ours and has long since given flower and fruit... It is known that the French, English, Germans are so national, each in their own way, that they are not able to understand each other, then how a Russian can equally access the sociality of a Frenchman, the practical activities of an Englishman, and the vague philosophy of a German.”

The Pochvenniks spoke of “all-humanity” as a characteristic feature of the Russian national consciousness, which was most deeply inherited in our literature by A. S. Pushkin. “This thought was expressed by Pushkin not only as an indication, teaching or theory, not as a dream or prophecy, but fulfilled in reality, contained forever in his brilliant creations and proven by him,” wrote Dostoevsky. “He is a man of ancient times.” world, he is a German, he is an Englishman, deeply aware of his genius, the melancholy of his aspiration ("A Feast During the Plague"), he is also a poet of the East. He told and declared to all these peoples that the Russian genius knows them, understood them, touched with them as a native, that he can be reincarnated in them in its entirety, that only the Russian spirit has been given universality, given the purpose in the future to comprehend and unite all the diversity of nationalities and remove all their contradictions."

Like the Slavophiles, the pochvenniki believed that “Russian society must unite with the people’s soil and absorb the people’s element.” But, unlike the Slavophiles, they did not deny the positive role of the reforms of Peter I and the “Europeanized” Russian intelligentsia, called upon to bring enlightenment and culture to the people, but only on the basis of popular moral ideals. A. S. Pushkin was precisely such a Russian European in the eyes of the soil people.

According to A. Grigoriev, Pushkin is “the first and full representative” of “our social and moral sympathies.” “In Pushkin, for a long time, if not forever, our entire spiritual process, our “volume and measure,” was completed, outlined in a broad outline: all subsequent development of Russian literature is a deepening and artistic understanding of those elements that were reflected in Pushkin. The most organic expression of Pushkin's principles in modern literature was A. N. Ostrovsky. "Ostrovsky's new word is the oldest word - nationality." “Ostrovsky is as little an accuser as he is a little idealizer. Let us leave him to be what he is - a great folk poet, the first and only exponent of the people’s essence in its diverse manifestations...”

N. N. Strakhov was the only deep interpreter of L. N. Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” in the history of Russian criticism of the second half of the 19th century. It is no coincidence that he called his work “a critical poem in four songs.” Leo Tolstoy himself, who considered Strakhov his friend, said: “One of the blessings for which I am grateful to fate is that there is N.N. Strakhov.”

Literary-critical activity of revolutionary democrats. The social, social-critical pathos of the articles of the late Belinsky with his socialist beliefs was picked up and developed in the sixties by the revolutionary democratic critics Nikolai Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky and Nikolai Aleksandrovich Dobrolyubov.

By 1859, when the government program and views of the liberal parties became clearer, when it became obvious that reform “from above” in any of its variants would be half-hearted, the democratic revolutionaries moved from a shaky alliance with liberalism to a severance of relations and an uncompromising fight against it. The literary-critical activity of N. A. Dobrolyubov falls on this second stage of the social movement of the 60s. He devotes a special satirical section of the Sovremennik magazine called “Whistle” to denouncing liberals. Here Dobrolyubov acts not only as a critic, but also as a satirical poet.

Criticism of liberalism then alerted A. I. Herzen, who, being in exile, unlike Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov, continued to hope for reforms “from above” and overestimated the radicalism of liberals until 1863. However, Herzen's warnings did not stop the revolutionary democrats of Sovremennik. Beginning in 1859, they began to pursue the idea of ​​a peasant revolution in their articles. They considered the peasant community to be the core of the future socialist world order. Unlike the Slavophiles, Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov believed that communal ownership of land rested not on Christian, but on the revolutionary-liberation, socialist instincts of the Russian peasant.

Dobrolyubov became the founder of the original critical method. He saw that the majority of Russian writers do not share the revolutionary-democratic way of thinking and do not pronounce judgment on life from such radical positions. Dobrolyubov saw the task of his criticism as completing in his own way the work begun by the writer and formulating this verdict, relying on real events and artistic images of the work. Dobrolyubov called his method of understanding the writer’s work “real criticism.”

Real criticism “examines whether such a person is possible and real; having found that it is true to reality, it moves on to its own considerations about the reasons that gave rise to it, etc. If these reasons are indicated in the work of the author being analyzed, criticism uses them and thanks the author; if not, he doesn’t pester him with a knife to his throat - how, they say, did he dare to draw such a face without explaining the reasons for its existence? In this case, the critic takes the initiative into his own hands: he explains the reasons that gave rise to this or that phenomenon from a revolutionary-democratic position and then pronounces a verdict on it.

Dobrolyubov positively evaluates, for example, Goncharov’s novel “Oblomov,” although the author “does not and, apparently, does not want to give any conclusions.” It is enough that he “presents you with a living image and vouches only for its resemblance to reality.” For Dobrolyubov, such authorial objectivity is quite acceptable and even desirable, since he takes upon himself the explanation and the verdict.

Real criticism often led Dobrolyubov to a peculiar reinterpretation of the writer’s artistic images in a revolutionary-democratic manner. It turned out that the analysis of the work, which developed into an understanding of the pressing problems of our time, led Dobrolyubov to such radical conclusions that the author himself had never expected. On this basis, as we will see later, Turgenev’s decisive break with the Sovremennik magazine occurred when Dobrolyubov’s article about the novel “On the Eve” was published in it.

In Dobrolyubov’s articles, the young, strong nature of a talented critic comes to life, sincerely believing in the people, in whom he sees the embodiment of all his highest moral ideals, with whom he associates the only hope for the revival of society. “His passion is deep and persistent, and obstacles do not frighten him when they need to be overcome to achieve something passionately desired and deeply conceived,” writes Dobrolyubov about the Russian peasant in the article “Traits for Characterizing the Russian Common People.” All the critic’s activities were aimed at the struggle for the creation of a “party of the people in literature.” He devoted four years of tireless work to this struggle, writing nine volumes of essays in such a short time. Dobrolyubov literally burned himself out in his selfless journal work, which undermined his health. He died at the age of 25 on November 17, 1861. Nekrasov said soulfully about the premature death of his young friend:

But your hour struck too soon

And the prophetic pen fell from his hands.

What a lamp of reason has gone out!

What heart has stopped beating!

The decline of the social movement of the 60s. Disputes between Sovremennik and Russian Word. At the end of the 60s, dramatic changes took place in Russian social life and critical thought. The manifesto of February 19, 1861 on the liberation of the peasants not only did not soften, but further aggravated the contradictions. In response to the rise of the revolutionary democratic movement, the government launched an open attack on progressive thought: Chernyshevsky and D.I. Pisarev were arrested, and the publication of the Sovremennik magazine was suspended for eight months.

The situation is aggravated by a split within the revolutionary democratic movement, the main reason for which was disagreement in the assessment of the revolutionary socialist capabilities of the peasantry. Activists of the "Russian Word" Dmitry Ivanovich Pisarev and Varfolomey Aleksandrovich Zaitsev sharply criticized Sovremennik for its alleged idealization of the peasantry, for an exaggerated idea of ​​​​the revolutionary instincts of the Russian peasant.

Unlike Dobrolyubov and Chernyshevsky, Pisarev argued that the Russian peasant is not ready for a conscious struggle for freedom, that for the most part he is dark and downtrodden. Pisarev considered the revolutionary force of modern times to be the “mental proletariat,” the common revolutionaries who bring natural science knowledge to the people. This knowledge not only destroys the foundations of the official ideology (Orthodoxy, autocracy, nationality), but also opens the people’s eyes to the natural needs of human nature, which are based on the instinct of “social solidarity.” Therefore, enlightening the people with natural sciences can lead society to socialism not only by a revolutionary (“mechanical”), but also by an evolutionary (“chemical”) path.

In order for this “chemical” transition to take place faster and more efficiently, Pisarev proposed that Russian democracy be guided by the “principle of economy of force.” The “mental proletariat” must concentrate all its energy on destroying the spiritual foundations of the existing society through propaganda of natural sciences among the people. In the name of so-understood “spiritual liberation,” Pisarev, like Turgenev’s hero Yevgeny Bazarov, proposed abandoning art. He really believed that “a decent chemist is twenty times more useful than any poet,” and recognized art only to the extent that it participates in the propaganda of natural science and destroys the foundations of the existing system.

In the article “Bazarov” he glorified the triumphant nihilist, and in the article “Motives of Russian Drama” he “crushed” the heroine of A. N. Ostrovsky’s drama “The Thunderstorm”, erected on a pedestal by Dobrolyubov. Destroying the idols of the “old” society, Pisarev published the infamous anti-Pushkin articles and the work “The Destruction of Aesthetics.” The fundamental differences that emerged during the polemics between Sovremennik and Russian Word weakened the revolutionary camp and were a symptom of the decline of the social movement.

The social upsurge of the 70s. By the beginning of the 70s, the first signs of a new social upsurge associated with the activities of the revolutionary populists were visible in Russia. The second generation of revolutionary democrats, who made a heroic attempt to rouse the peasants to revolution by “going to the people,” had their own ideologists who, in new historical conditions, developed the ideas of Herzen, Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov. “Faith in a special way of life, in the communal system of Russian life; hence faith in the possibility of a peasant socialist revolution - this is what animated them, raised tens and hundreds of people to heroic struggle against the government,” V. I. Lenin wrote about the populists of the seventies . This faith, to one degree or another, permeated all the works of the leaders and mentors of the new movement - P. L. Lavrov, N. K. Mikhailovsky, M. A. Bakunin, P. N. Tkachev.

The mass “going to the people” ended in 1874 with the arrest of several thousand people and the subsequent trials of 193 and 50. In 1879, at a congress in Voronezh, the populist organization "Land and Freedom" split: "politicians" who shared Tkachev's ideas organized their own party "People's Will", proclaiming the main goal of the movement to be a political coup and terrorist forms of struggle against the government. In the summer of 1880, Narodnaya Volya organized an explosion in the Winter Palace, and Alexander II miraculously escaped death. This event causes shock and confusion in the government: it decides to make concessions by appointing the liberal Loris-Melikov as plenipotentiary ruler and appealing to the liberal public of the country for support. In response, the sovereign receives notes from Russian liberals, which propose to immediately convene an independent assembly of representatives of zemstvos to participate in governing the country “with the aim of developing guarantees and individual rights, freedom of thought and speech.” It seemed that Russia was on the verge of adopting a parliamentary form of government. But on March 1, 1881, an irreparable mistake was made. After multiple assassination attempts, the Narodnaya Volya members kill Alexander II, and after this, a government reaction occurs in the country.

Conservative ideology of the 80s. These years in the history of the Russian public are characterized by the flourishing of conservative ideology. It was defended, in particular, by Konstantin Nikolaevich Leontyev in the books “East, Russia and the Slavs” and “Our “New Christians” F. M. Dostoevsky and Count Leo Tolstoy.” Leontiev believes that the culture of each civilization goes through three stages of development: 1) primary simplicity, 2) blossoming complexity, 3) secondary mixed simplification. Leontyev considers the main sign of decline and entry into the third stage to be the spread of liberal and socialist ideas with their cult of equality and general prosperity. Leontyev contrasted liberalism and socialism with “Byzantism” - strong monarchical power and strict churchism.

Criticism in Russian literature of the 19th century The first high examples of Russian criticism emerged in the critical prose of A.S. Pushkin and N. V. Gogol, who left subtle judgments about the purpose of literature, about realism and satire, about the essence and tasks of criticism. In the criticism of V.G. Belinsky, who put forward the concept of critical realism, the assessment of a work is based on the interpretation of it as an artistic whole, in the unity of its ideas and images, and the writer’s work is considered in connection with the history of literature and society. By the early 1870s, the concept of “real criticism” was formed. Its representatives can be called Chernyshevsky, Dobrolyubov, Pisarev. Criticism is based on real events and artistic images of works, and makes public judgments. Along with new movements, Russian criticism appears, represented by three major movements: Westerners, Slavophiles, and Soilists.

WESTERNS, representatives of one of the directions of Russian social thought of the 1920s. Supporters of the country's development along the Western European path considered the history of Russia to be part of the global historical process. They criticized autocracy and serfdom, put forward projects for the liberation of peasants with land, supporters of reforms and constitutional transformation of the state system. Main representatives: P.V. Annenkov, V.P. Botkin, T.N. Granovsky, K.D. Kavelin, M.N. Katkov, I.S. Turgenev, P.Ya. Chaadaev, B.N. Chicherin and others. Collaborated in the magazines “Otechestvennye zapiski”, “Sovremennik”, “Russian Bulletin”. The extreme left wing of Westerners - A.I. Herzen, V.G. Belinsky, N.P. Ogarev (until the end of the 1840s). After the peasant reform of 1861, Westerners became closer to the Slavophiles on the basis of liberalism. The views of Westerners (especially their constitutional projects) were further developed in the programs of Russian liberal organizations and groups of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

SLAVYANOPHILES, representatives of one of the directions of Russian social thought of the 1920s. 19th century They came out with the justification for a special path of historical development of Russia, different from Western Europe, seeing its originality in the absence of struggle between social groups, in the peasant community, Orthodoxy as the only true Christianity; opposed the Westerners. Main representatives: brothers K.S. and I.S. Aksakovs, I.V. and P.V. Kireevskie, A.I. Koshelev, Yu.F. Samarin, A.S. Khomyakov, V.A. Cherkassky. V.I. is ideologically close to the Slavophiles. Dahl, A.A. Grigoriev, A.N. Ostrovsky, F.I. Tyutchev. In the process of preparing the peasant reform of 1861, many Slavophiles became close to Westerners on the basis of liberalism. Some ideas of the Slavophiles were developed in the ideology of pochvennichestvo (N.N. Strakhov), pan-Slavism (N.Ya. Danilevsky), as well as “protective” directions of Russian social thought. SOIL PEOPLE, representatives of the current of Russian social thought of the 1860s, related to the Slavophiles (F.M. Dostoevsky, A.A. Grigoriev, N.N. Strakhov). In the magazines "Time" and "Epoch" they preached the rapprochement of an educated society with the people ("soil") on a religious and ethical basis.

Nikolai Nikolaevich Strakhov (), Russian philosopher, publicist, critic. In journalism he developed the ideas of pochvennichestvo. Articles about L.N. Tolstoy (including the novel "War and Peace"). He was one of the first to appreciate the enormous literary significance of L. N. Tolstoy’s novel “War and Peace.” In 1870 he predicted that “War and Peace” would soon become “a reference book for every educated Russian, a classic reading for our children.” The creativity and personality of L.N. Tolstoy had an exceptional influence on Strakhov. The first biographer F.M. Dostoevsky. (one of his best articles on Dostoevsky's novel Crime and Punishment). In the books “The World as a Whole” (1872), “On Eternal Truths” (1887), “Philosophical Essays” (1895), believing religion to be the highest form of knowledge, he criticized modern materialism and spiritualism. SOILS

Grigoriev, Apollo Alexandrovich (1822 - 1864) Russian literary and theater critic, poet Creator of the so-called organic criticism: articles about N.V. Gogole, A.N. Ostrovsky, A.S. Pushkin, M.Yu. Lermontov, I.S. Turgenev, N.A. Nekrasov, A.A. Fete and others. According to his worldview, he is a soil scientist. Grigoriev’s lyrics contain the thoughts and sufferings of a romantic personality: the cycle “Struggle” (complete edition 1857), including the romance poems “Oh, at least speak to me...” and “Gypsy Hungarian”, the cycle “Improvisations of a wandering romantic” (1860). Confessional poem "Up the Volga" (1862). Autobiographical prose. “...the organic view recognizes creative, spontaneous, natural, vital forces as its starting point. In other words: not just the mind with its logical requirements and the theories they generate, but the mind plus life and its organic manifestations.” (A. Grigoriev) SOIL PLANTS

AKSAKOV Ivan Sergeevich (), Russian publicist, public figure, entrepreneur. KIREEVSKY Ivan Vasilievich () one of the founders of Slavophilism SLAVYANOPHILES

Annenkov Pavel Vasilievich Memoirs are the most durable and valuable part of the literary heritage; These also include memories of the “idealists of the thirties” - Ogarev, Belinsky, Koltsov, V.P. Botkin, Granovsky, Herzen, Bakunin, Turgenev (collected in the book “Literary Memoirs”, St. Petersburg, 1909). In the mid-1850s, he entered the field of literary critic and wrote about many modern literary phenomena about the works of Turgenev, Count Leo Tolstoy, Count Alexei Tolstoy, S.T. Aksakov, Ostrovsky, Pisemsky, Saltykov, Kokhanovskaya and others. “...the type of your talent is not what a poet needs, but for a storyteller you have much more talent than is needed” (Belinsky to P.V. Annenkov) WESTERNS

Granovsky Timofey Nikolaevich WESTERNS () famous professor of history CHAADAEV Petr Yakovlevich () Russian thinker, publicist, public figure.

Vissarion Grigorievich Belinsky was an opponent of the Slavophil idealization of Russian patriarchy, but he also opposed the uncritical attitude of some Western liberals towards the European bourgeois order. I knew that capitalism is a new slavery for the people, but Russia cannot escape the bourgeois path of development. Humanity, however, will not stop at the bourgeois stage; it will be replaced by socialism. Belinsky made literary criticism an expression of a holistic philosophical worldview. Having deeply comprehended Hegel's dialectics, he developed objective, historical criteria for art, breaking with taste-based "romantic" criticism.

The founder of Russian realistic aesthetics and literary criticism, he combined philosophical thinking and literary critical talent and the pathos of a revolutionary publicist. Belinsky Vissarion Grigorievich Belinsky subordinated his work to the tasks of the struggle against serfdom, for the development of social consciousness and Russian realistic literature. The traditions of his criticism were continued by N.G. Chernyshevsky and N.A. Dobrolyubov. He considered Pushkin as the first national poet of Russia. Proclaimed N.V. Gogol the head of modern Russian literature. Explained the deeply Russian, rebellious nature of Lermontov’s poetry, the humanism and nationality of the poet. Possessing excellent artistic taste, he was able to determine from the early works of Herzen, Nekrasov, Turgenev, Goncharov, Dostoevsky, what was the unique originality of their talent.

Nikolai Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky (12.VII (29).X.1889) Russian revolutionary publicist, materialist philosopher and utopian socialist, literary critic and writer. Ch.’s journalistic activity was devoted to the tasks of the struggle against tsarism and serfdom. “... He knew how to influence all the political events of his era in a revolutionary spirit, carrying out - through the obstacles and slingshots of censorship - the idea of ​​​​a peasant revolution, the idea of ​​​​the struggle of the masses to overthrow all the old authorities" (V.I. Lenin. Complete collection of works ., 5th ed., vol. 20, p. 175) What to do? From stories about new people. Literary criticism 1850 About Fonvizin’s “Brigadier”. PhD thesis Poverty is not a vice. Comedy by A. Ostrovsky Works by Pushkin Essays on the Gogol period of Russian literature Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin. His life and writings: Childhood and adolescence. War stories of Count L.N. Tolstoy Russian man on rendez-vous. Reflections on reading Mr. Turgenev’s story “Asya” A collection of miracles, stories borrowed from mythology.

Dobrolyubov Nikolai Alexandrovich Russian literary critic, publicist. Since 1857, he has been a permanent contributor to the Sovremennik magazine. Developed the aesthetic principles of V.G. Belinsky and N.G. Chernyshevsky, seeing the purpose of literature primarily in criticism of the existing system, developed a method of “real criticism” (1836 – 1861) of the article: “What is Oblomovism?”, “Dark Kingdom”, “A ray of light in the dark kingdom”, “When will the real one come?” day?" and others. Created a satirical supplement to Sovremennik - “Whistle” (1859). Satirical poems, parodies.

Dmitry Ivanovich Pisarev () Russian publicist and literary critic. Since the early 1860s. Leading employee of the magazine "Russian Word". He was imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress for an anti-government pamphlet. In the early 1860s. Dmitry Pisarev put forward the idea of ​​achieving socialism through the industrial development of the country (“the theory of realism”). He promoted the development of natural science, which he considered a means of education and a productive force. N.G. highly appreciated the novel. Chernyshevsky "What to do?", creativity of I.S. Turgeneva, L.N. Tolstoy, F.M. Dostoevsky. From a nihilistic position, he denied the significance of A.S.’s creativity. Pushkin for modern times. Main works: “Essays from the History of Labor”, “Bazarov”, “Realists”, “Destruction of Aesthetics”, “Heinrich Heine”.

“In the historical development of European literatures, our young literature is an amazing phenomenon; I will not exaggerate the truth by saying that none of the literature of the West has come to life with such force and speed, in such a powerful, dazzling brilliance of talent... nowhere in less than a hundred years has such a bright constellation of great names appeared as in Russia ... Our literature is our pride. In Russian literature, the great liberating ideas created by humanity have found vivid expression... The importance of Russian literature is recognized by the world, amazed by its beauty and power.” A.M. Gorky about literature of the 19th century

“Domestic Notes”. The magazine was founded in 1818 by Svinin. It published articles on historical and geographical topics, as well as reports on the life and customs of the Russian people, who prospered under the rule of the tsar, the church and the nobility. The magazine was not particularly successful. In 1831 he stopped publishing. But in 1838 Svinin tried to resume publication. But again it was unsuccessful. And he transferred the rights to publish to A.A. Kraevsky, a man with literary ability and experience, as well as good business acumen. He had long dreamed of publishing a magazine. He adhered to the pro-Western direction. The magazine was voluminous and encyclopedic. It was a success. Almost immediately Belinsky began to collaborate with him and highly valued him. Under Belinsky, the publication received a clear direction - the fight against serfdom, remnants, stagnation, and Asianism. This position was especially noticeable in the departments of bibliography and criticism, in which Belinsky contributed articles. Nekrasov, Herzen, Panaev, Ogarev participated in the work of the magazine, Lermontov, Koltsov and Turgenev published articles. The magazine actively polemicized with the publications of Bulgarin, Grech, Senkovsky, especially with “ Library for reading”, as well as with Slavophile publications . Belinsky attracted many prominent writers to work in the magazine - Dostoevsky, Saltykov-Shchedrin, Odoevsky, Dahl, Fet, Maykov and others. The magazine's translation department was also interesting - Dickens, F. Cooper, George Sand, G. Heine. Of the foreign writers of the past, only Goethe and Shakespeare appeared on the pages of this publication. The criticism department published reviews of not only domestic but also foreign literature, and published translations of critical articles by foreign authors. Polemical articles against speeches in the press by famous Slavophiles also appeared in the magazine. The magazine spoke out for the spread of education, for freedom, and for progressive forms of economic, political and cultural life. He advocated for the comprehensive development of the country and its people. He fought against serfdom, using every possible reason to do so. For example, he published articles about slavery in America. He wrote about new methods of labor, leading to the idea of ​​the need to abolish serfdom. An important place was given to the national culture of Russia and the disdainful attitude of the nobility towards it was condemned. Despite their Westernizing views, Herzen and Belinsky, collaborating in the magazine, did not at all bow to the West, although they objectively assessed the great achievements of its capitalist civilization. Many materials in the magazine were devoted to the development of science and coverage of new developments in philosophy. However, in 1846 Belinsky, Nekrasov and Herzen left the magazine, after which it took a liberal position.

"Contemporary". The magazine, founded by A.S. Pushkin in 1846, is purchased from Pletnev by Nekrasov and Panaev. Among its leading employees is Belinsky, who actually exercised ideological leadership. He worked here for only two years, but this is the most noticeable period in the life of the renewed magazine. “Letter to Gogol” is a unique programmatic work by Belinsky, known for a long time only in a handwritten version. Here his view is expressed on the role of literature and journalism in the fight against serfdom, against the arbitrariness of those in power, and against the remnants of autocracy. It is with this yardstick that Belinsky approaches the assessment of contemporary literature and journalism, in this spirit he reacts to the speeches of other magazines, and from this position he participates in polemics with opponents. This ensured the magazine's success. It is published in a circulation of 3,100 copies and begins to generate income. After Belinsky's death, the magazine remains one of the best magazines. The works of Tolstoy appear on its pages, Turgenev Goncharov and Pisemsky are published. The magazine was closed in 1866.

Publications of “revolutionary democrats”- these are publications that were published abroad and delivered to Russia illegally. The first who began to do this was A.I. Herzen, a talented publicist, writer and philosopher. He decided to show in practice the power of the free printed word and began publishing his almanac and newspaper under him. He was a supporter of Russian utopian socialism. And he considered revolutionary propaganda to be the main task of his journalistic and publishing activities. Criticism of serfdom, enlightenment of the people, dissemination of the ideas of utopian socialism, reliance on the Russian peasant community - these are the main themes of his publications. On their pages, he supported revolutionary manifestations in different countries, especially the Polish rebels of Russia. First, Herzen published brochures, then an almanac and a newspaper.

Herzen's publications: the almanac “Polar Star” (1855) and the newspaper “Bell” (1857-1867). The almanac was published in London. The title completely repeats the title of the Decembrists' almanac. This is reflected in the design - on the cover there are portraits of all the executed Decembrists. The first issue was published on the anniversary of their execution - July 25, 1855. The main thing in it is a letter to Emperor Alexander II, in which he demanded freedom of speech and the liberation of the peasants. The publication became widespread in Russia. A year later the second issue was published. It published banned poems by Pushkin, Ryleev and other poets. Herzen’s literary works also played a propaganda role and were perceived as journalistic materials by readers. Such were the features of the time. The almanac was published rarely. Herzen decided to publish a newspaper in addition to it “ Bell". This first revolutionary newspaper had the epigraph “ I’m calling the living!” It was published once a month, and becoming an independent publication in 1861 - twice a month. The main theme of the newspaper’s speeches was determined by what was proclaimed in “ To the North Star" motto: “ Everywhere, in everything, always be on the side of the will against violence, on the side of the mind against prejudice, on the side of science against fanaticism...” Topical hot messages from Russia were published here. Many materials were written in the genre of revolutionary appeals for the liberation of peasants from the oppression of landowners, for the abolition of censorship and freedom of speech. For the liberation of peasants from beatings. In his speeches, Herzen mercilessly criticized the autocracy, landowners, and embezzler dignitaries. He contributed to the development of new genres of revolutionary journalism: editorial, critical correspondence, open letter pamphlet. The abolition of serfdom at first pleased Herzen. But then it became clear that the problems hardly became less. Peasants without land, the authorities still pursue an anti-people policy. In short, Herzen had no shortage of topics for publication. His friend Ogarev also writes for this publication. The success of the newspaper in Russia was enormous. Many people have read it. The circulation was 2500-3000 copies. Naturally, the newspaper was published at the publisher’s own expense. However, Herzen did not achieve his goal - there was no revolution in Russia. Freedom of speech was not achieved. Democracy has not been formed. He felt some disappointment. And he realized that spontaneous peasant revolts, senseless and merciless, according to him, cannot lead to success. In recent years, he began to devote more materials in the newspaper to the experience of revolutionary struggle in European countries and the activities of the First International. In 1867, publication ceased. However, the influence of Herzen’s journalism on Russian society and on journalism in general is very significant.

The main thing in the work of V.G. Belinsky – the revolutionary-democratic aspiration of the critic, his connection with the ideas of the liberation movement of his time. He was the first professional democratic journalist, who, with his searches and reflections in the field of history and theory of journalism, laid the foundations of the science of the press. For the first time in Russia, he formulated the requirements that journalism must meet in the article “Nothing about nothing, or a report to the publisher of Telescope for the last six months (1835) of Russian literature.” The article is written in the form of a review. The title allows you to touch on many topics and subjects. Belinsky considers only magazines. They find the most complete expression of the leading trends of the time. Broadly covers journalism issues. This is one of the first theoretical works in this area. It concerns questions about the direction of the magazine and ways to influence the public. The goals and functions of the periodical and its various departments are all reflected in the article. Belinsky saw enormous ideological power in the magazine and wanted to direct it to solving democratic problems. He expanded the concept of journalism - not only a way of intellectual development of the people, but also the only way to awaken their political and legal consciousness. “The magazine must have... physiognomy, character; Almanac impersonality is the worst thing for him. The physiognomy and character of the journal consist in its direction, its opinion, its dominant teaching, of which it should be the organ...”. The article is interesting for understanding the magazine struggle of the 30s. XIX century The democratic press was forged in it. The article is directed against the anti-democratic concepts and protective activities of the magazine triumvirate. The publicist Belinsky opposes Bulgarin, who, as he believes, mocks the Russian people and their literature, against the publisher of “Library for Reading” Senkovsky, who, as he claims, proclaimed unprincipledness and lack of ideas as the basis of his editorial activity. He condemns the subjective nature of the Moscow Observer's criticism. Belinsky is trying to understand the reasons for the growth of the magazine industry, the reasons for the influence of trade journalism. It was quite significant. Given the underdevelopment of capitalist relations in Russia, the Russian bourgeoisie learned to benefit from the printed word. The noble educational and humanistic role of the press gave way to outright trade in words - the income of publishers was directly dependent on the depreciation of the ideas expressed by magazines. He tries to understand the reason for their popularity. Teaches you to recognize true values ​​and false declarations. The article is full of pathos and the struggle against the magazine triumvirate (Senkovsky, Bulgarin and Grech with their publications). They, according to Belinsky, with their vulgarity, narrow-mindedness and obvious calculation for the tastes of the landowners, stood in the way of progressive journalism, which wanted to introduce the Russian people to the achievements of European culture, arouse their thirst for knowledge, interest in progress and the desire for freedom. He also sees positive features in trade journalism - its entertainment, accessibility, variety and richness of materials. He believes it is necessary to use this as cutting-edge journalism. But he certainly advocates the ideological nature of publications at the same time as using methods to “win” readers. But Belinsky’s contribution to domestic journalism is not limited to this. He developed and made universal the genre of literary criticism, which became the leading genre in journalism in the second half of the 19th century. Belinsky creates a theory of realism, the main theses of which are the originality and nationality (i.e., truthfulness, fidelity) of literature. The critic's works have long been moral and aesthetic guidelines for the intellectual part of society.

Many Russian writers of the 19th century felt that Russia was faced with an abyss and was flying into the abyss.

ON THE. Berdyaev

Since the mid-19th century, Russian literature has become not only the number one art, but also the ruler of political ideas. In the absence of political freedoms, public opinion is formed by writers, and social themes predominate in works. Sociality and journalism- distinctive features of literature of the second half of the 19th century. It was in the middle of the century that two painful Russian questions were posed: "Who is guilty?" (the title of the novel by Alexander Ivanovich Herzen, 1847) and "What to do?" (the title of the novel by Nikolai Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky, 1863).

Russian literature turns to the analysis of social phenomena, therefore the action of most works is contemporary, that is, it occurs at the time when the work is created. The lives of the characters are depicted in the context of a larger social picture. Simply put, heroes “fit” into the era, their characters and behavior are motivated by the peculiarities of the socio-historical atmosphere. That is why the leading literary direction and method the second half of the 19th century becomes critical realism, and leading genres- novel and drama. At the same time, unlike the first half of the century, prose prevailed in Russian literature, and poetry faded into the background.

The severity of social problems was also due to the fact that in Russian society of the 1840-1860s. there was a polarization of opinions regarding the future of Russia, which was reflected in the emergence Slavophilism and Westernism.

Slavophiles (the most famous among them are Alexei Khomyakov, Ivan Kireevsky, Yuri Samarin, Konstantin and Ivan Aksakov) believed that Russia had its own special path of development, destined for it by Orthodoxy. They resolutely opposed the Western model of political development in order to avoid the despiritualization of man and society.

Slavophiles demanded the abolition of serfdom, wanted universal enlightenment and the liberation of the Russian people from state power. In particular, Konstantin Aksakov argued that Russians are a non-state people to whom the constitutional principle is alien (see the work of K.S. Aksakov “On the Internal State of Russia”, 1855).

They saw the ideal in pre-Petrine Rus', where the fundamental principles of national life were Orthodoxy and conciliarity (the term was introduced by A. Khomyakov as a designation of unity in the Orthodox faith). The literary magazine "Moskvityanin" was the tribune of the Slavophiles.

Westerners (Peter Chaadaev, Alexander Herzen, Nikolai Ogarev, Ivan Turgenev, Vissarion Belinsky, Nikolai Dobrolyubov, Vasily Botkin, Timofey Granovsky, anarchist theorist Mikhail Bakunin also joined them) were confident that Russia should follow the same path in its development, as well as Western European countries. Westernism was not a single direction and was divided into liberal and revolutionary democratic movements. Like the Slavophiles, Westerners advocated the immediate abolition of serfdom, considering this as the main condition for the Europeanization of Russia, and demanded freedom of the press and the development of industry. In the field of literature, they supported realism, the founder of which was considered N.V. Gogol. The tribune of Westerners was the magazines “Sovremennik” and “Otechestvennye zapiski” during the period of their editing by N.A. Nekrasov.

Slavophiles and Westerners were not enemies, they only had different views on the future of Russia. According to N.A. Berdyaev, the first saw a mother in Russia, the second saw a child. For clarity, we offer a table that compares the positions of Slavophiles and Westerners.

They tried to overcome the polarity of opinions of Slavophiles and Westerners soil scientists . This movement originated in the 1860s. in the circle of intellectuals close to the magazine "Time" / "Epoch". The ideologists of pochvennichestvo were Mikhail Dostoevsky, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Apollon Grigoriev, Nikolai Strakhov. The Pochvenniks rejected both the autocratic serfdom system and Western bourgeois democracy. Accepting Western civilization, Pochvenniki accused Western countries of lack of spirituality. Dostoevsky believed that representatives of the “enlightened society” should merge with the “national soil”, which would allow the top and bottom of Russian society to mutually enrich each other. In the Russian character, the Pochvenniki emphasized the religious and moral principles. They had a negative attitude towards materialism and the idea of ​​revolution. Progress, in their opinion, is the union of the educated classes with the people. The pochvenniki saw the personification of the ideal of the Russian spirit in A.S. Pushkin. Many ideas of Westerners were considered utopian.

The nature and purpose of fiction has been a subject of debate since the mid-19th century. In Russian criticism there are three views on this issue.

Alexander Vasilievich Druzhinin

Representatives "aesthetic criticism" (Alexander Druzhinin, Pavel Annenkov, Vasily Botkin) put forward the theory of “pure art”, the essence of which is that literature should address only eternal themes and not depend on political goals or social conjuncture.

Apollo Alexandrovich Grigoriev

Apollo Grigoriev formulated a theory "organic criticism" , advocating the creation of works that would embrace life in all its fullness and integrity. At the same time, the emphasis in the literature is proposed to be on moral values.

Nikolai Alexandrovich Dobrolyubov

Principles "real criticism" were proclaimed by Nikolai Chernyshevsky and Nikolai Dobrolyubov. They viewed literature as a force capable of transforming the world and promoting knowledge. Literature, in their opinion, should promote the dissemination of progressive political ideas and, first of all, pose and solve social problems.

Poetry also developed along different, diametrically opposed paths. The pathos of citizenship united the poets of the “Nekrasov school”: Nikolai Nekrasov, Nikolai Ogarev, Ivan Nikitin, Mikhail Mikhailov, Ivan Golts-Miller, Alexei Pleshcheev. Supporters of “pure art”: Afanasy Fet, Apollon Maikov, Lev May, Yakov Polonsky, Alexei Konstantinovich Tolstoy - wrote poems mainly about love and nature.

Socio-political and literary-aesthetic disputes significantly influenced the development of domestic journalism. Literary magazines played a huge role in shaping public opinion.

Cover of the magazine "Contemporary", 1847