An ordinary story by the author of the work. “Novel “Ordinary History”

Year of publication of the book: 1847

Goncharov’s novel “Ordinary History” is the writer’s first work, which was published in 1847 in one of the periodicals. Based on the work, several performances were staged on the stage of Russian and even Yugoslav theaters. And in 1970, one of the theatrical productions based on Goncharov’s book “An Ordinary Story” was released as a full-fledged film.

The novel “An Ordinary Story” summary

The plot of the novel takes place on a warm summer morning in a small village called Grachi. From the very morning, the house of landowner Anna Adueva is filled with noise. The thing is that today her only son, twenty-year-old Alexander Fedorych, is leaving here. The young man decides to enlist in St. Petersburg itself. Anna Pavlovna is trying in every possible way to resist this; she cannot imagine her life without her son and is afraid that the big city will ruin him. The woman is trying her best to persuade Alexander to stay and find his happiness here - in a small village with his beloved Sonyushka. But he doesn’t want to hear about such a life - the young man is attracted by fame and a beautiful life, and he wants to try to find himself in a big city. Alexander himself graduated from university not long ago. He is an educated and versatile person and even enjoys writing poetry.

All Anna Pavlovna’s persuasion was in vain, and the time had come for her to say goodbye to her son. As parting words, the woman asks Alexander to maintain all fasts, go to church and be reasonable about his health and financial condition. She says that she will try to help her son and assures that she will send him 2,500 rubles annually. The woman asks her son to promise her not to marry without love. But Alexander himself does not even think about looking for a bride. He says that he will never forget his beloved Sophia for anything in the world. Together with Alexander, his valet Yevsey is heading to St. Petersburg. He receives blessings from his mother and also gets ready to travel. At a farewell dinner, Sofia gives her lover a ring so that he will not forget about her. After long conversations and lunch in Goncharov’s novel “An Ordinary Story,” the heroes say goodbye to the young man.

Further, the work “An Ordinary Story” by Ivan Goncharov tells that in St. Petersburg Alexander knew only one person - his uncle on his father’s side, Pyotr Ivanovich, who has been living there for about twenty years. That is why, having arrived in an unfamiliar city, a young man arrives at the address he received from his mother. Today Pyotr Ivanovich is a wealthy man, a major official and co-owner of several factories. He doesn’t particularly want to communicate with his nephew, however, remembering the kindness of his brother’s wife, he decides to help the young man adapt to an unfamiliar place. The man shares with Alexander what he himself knows about the city - the best rooms and restaurants, rules of behavior in society, job responsibilities. As soon as Peter finds out about Sophia’s gift, he immediately throws the ring into the river. The man claims that all Alexander should think about now is work and career. And love only distracts a young man from business.

After some time, the uncle helps the main character get a job in the department. This was Alexander’s first job, so Pyotr Ivanovich told him to carefully complete all tasks, watch everything that others were doing, and learn everything new. But even after receiving a position, the young man does not feel joy from life. The big city seems like a cage to him, compared to his native small village. He shows his uncle his poems, but he doubts his nephew’s talent and expresses his harsh opinion to him. To make the main character forget about poetry, Pyotr Ivanovich offers him a new job with a large salary - now Alexander needs to translate articles on the topic of agriculture from German into Russian.

In the future of Goncharov’s novel “An Ordinary Story,” the summary takes us two years forward from the moment of Alexander Fedorych’s arrival in St. Petersburg. The main character has already gotten used to it a little and continues to work in the department, at the same time translating articles and writing poetry and essays. He admits to his uncle that it’s hard for him to live without love affairs. After some time, Alexander realizes that he is in love with Nadya Lyubetskaya. The girl reciprocates his feelings, and the young people agree to get engaged in a year. Meanwhile, the main character, caught up in a romantic relationship, begins to become more negligent about his work and spends a lot of time writing poetry. Nadya, as the main character, is attracted by the creative nature of her lover, she memorizes all his poems and sincerely admires them.

Pyotr Ivanovich is not delighted with his nephew’s behavior. He tells him that he must put his head together and get to work, since the man is not going to help the young man financially. In addition, the uncle believes that Alexander’s obsession with marrying for love is delusional in itself. He is more than confident that a husband and wife should be connected by common goals and interests, and not by romantic feelings. But Alexander does not hear him, continuing to regularly visit Nadenka. So a year passes, and the main character goes to his beloved to ask for her hand in marriage. However, in her house he notices Count Novinsky. The conversation is postponed indefinitely, and Alexander tries to find out what feelings Nadezhda has for him. One day he sees a girl walking with Novinsky. He seeks a meeting with her and demands that she stop dating the count. But the young lady was frightened by Alexander’s cruel tone and quickly ran into the house.

After this, the Lyubetskys stopped inviting the young man to visit them. So one day he decided to visit without an invitation. During the conversation, it turns out that Nadenka’s heart is already occupied. Here the main character finds himself deeply disappointed in love. Considering his relationship with this girl to be something unearthly and special, he never expected a refusal. He cannot hold back his tears and immediately leaves the Lyubetsky estate. The idea of ​​challenging the count to a duel stuck in his head. But the uncle manages to dissuade his nephew from this idea. He states that in the modern world it is necessary to repel the enemy in a different way - gradually and impartially. Pyotr Ivanovich does not consider this situation a great tragedy in the young man’s life and suggests that Alexander return to work as quickly as possible.

If you download the novel “An Ordinary Story” by Goncharov, we will find out that another year has passed since the events described above. Alexander completely cools off towards Nadenka and no longer tries to win her back. He communicates more and more with the wife of Pyotr Ivanovich. A woman notices that her nephew is the complete opposite of her husband. She understands that she has not been sure of her husband’s feelings for a long time and lives with him, rather, out of habit. The main character still does not give up hope of becoming famous for his writing. He finishes the story and takes it to his uncle, who was not delighted with the work. To get the opinion of those who understand literature, Boris Ivanovich sends the story under his own name to one of the publishing houses. It is returned with the note that only an embittered and self-confident person could come up with such a story. Hearing this, Alexander realizes that he does not have talent. The young man burns all his works and only after that feels free.

To distract his nephew, Pyotr Ivanovich asks him for a small favor. A young man must seduce the twenty-three-year-old widow Julia, for whom his good friend has feelings. The main character agrees to the adventure, but soon realizes that he himself has fallen in love with the girl. Lovers notice that they have similar characters and attitudes to life. They decide to get married. However, it becomes difficult for two jealous natures to get along together, and after two years Alexander realizes that his love for Julia has evaporated. But that’s not the case - the girl refuses to let go of the young man. Then he has to again turn to Pyotr Ivanovich for help. Tom manages to smooth out the conflict, and the man asks his nephew to throw himself into work and not indulge in romantic feelings.

However, this break in relations had a rather strong impact on Alexander. He realizes that he is completely disappointed in friendship and love. Nothing pleases the young man - he does not strive to get a promotion or spend time usefully. Instead, he periodically visits the department, and in his free time he prefers to fish or play checkers. The main character begins to blame his uncle for the fact that by the age of twenty-five he had ceased to believe in sincerity and kindness. He understands that life in St. Petersburg has spoiled him and changed him forever. It would be much better to stay in Rrachi and marry Sonechka. But, despite this, he is still grateful to Pyotr Ivanovich for his support, because he understands that his uncle wanted only the best for him. Their life values ​​just didn’t match.

After this, in the novel “An Ordinary Story” by Goncharov, a brief summary tells that at the age of twenty-nine, Alexander decides to return home. Anna Pavlovna is looking forward to her son's return. However, when she notices him, she cannot contain her horror - the once sweet and round-faced young man has changed so much. The woman blames Yevsey for everything, allegedly he did not look after the main character, but he replies that he was not involved in Alexander’s changes. The valet himself brought with him many gifts for his beloved Agrafena. Despite the fact that so much time has passed, the young people are incredibly happy to see each other.

Only after three months did the main character manage to fully restore his strength and regain his good mood. He begins to live an ordinary life, resumes writing, reads books, and spends time in the fresh air. However, after a year and a half, he begins to languish in such a way of life. He writes a letter to Pyotr Ivanovich, in which he says that he is ripe for normal work and understands how naive his plans were many years ago. The main character congratulates his uncle, who received a promotion, and is going back to St. Petersburg.

In the future, in the novel “Ordinary History” by Goncharov, we can read about events unfolding four years later. During this time, a lot changed in the life of Pyotr Ivanovich - his wife fell ill, and the man realized how cold he had been to her all this time. He decides to retire and sells his plant. Now he is ready to devote all his time to his wife, which she is incredibly happy about. Here Alexander appears, who received the position of collegiate adviser. He tells his uncle that he recently got married successfully as the main character, but he does not feel any feelings for his chosen one. The only reason for the marriage was the welfare of the spouse. Pyotr Ivanovich declares that he is finally proud of his nephew.

The novel “An Ordinary Story” on the Top Books website

Goncharov’s novel “An Ordinary Story” is popular to read, largely due to the presence of the work in the school curriculum. This allowed the novel to take a high place among. And given the periodic surge of interest in the novel among schoolchildren, we can confidently say that we will see it more than once in our books.

You can read Ivan Goncharov’s novel “An Ordinary Story” online on the Top Books website.

We present to your attention the work of I.A. (summary). This article describes the main events of the novel, first published in 1847.

Part one

One summer, from the estate of Anna Pavlovna Adueva, a poor landowner from the village of Grachi, Alexander Fedorovich, her only son, a fair-haired young man in the prime of his strength, years and health, was sent to St. Petersburg for service. His valet, Yevsey, also travels with him.

Seeing off

Anna Pavlovna grieves and gives her son the last instructions. He is also accompanied by the strict and Agrafena, struggling to contain her emotions. Neighbor Marya Karpovna and her daughter Sofia come to see him off. The hero has an affair with the latter; his beloved gives him a lock of cut hair and a ring as a farewell.

They swear loyalty and eternal love. Pospelov, Alexander’s friend, also appears, having come from afar just to hug his comrade.

Petr Ivanovich

Let us continue to present the events of the novel “An Ordinary Story”. A summary of the work will tell about the further development of the story.

Finally, Alexander and Yevsey hit the road. The uncle of the main character, Pyotr Ivanovich Aduev, was also sent to St. Petersburg by Alexander’s father and lived in this city for 17 years, without communicating with relatives for a long time. He served as an official on special assignments for an important person, occupied a very good apartment, and had several servants. Uncle, a reserved man, was considered a businesslike and active member of society. He always dressed tastefully and carefully, one might even say dapper. When Pyotr Ivanovich found out about the arrival of his nephew, he first decided to get rid of him under the first pretext. The uncle throws out letters from relatives without even reading them (including from Alexandra’s aunt, with whom he had an affair in his youth and who never married). But in the letter to his nephew’s mother, something touches him; he remembers how, many years ago, Anna Pavlovna cried as she saw him off to St. Petersburg. Pyotr Ivanovich is horrified that the latter orders him to stand up for his son before his superiors, to baptize him at night and to cover his mouth with a handkerchief from flies.

First difficulties

We present to you a description of the first difficulties that the young man encountered and their summary. Goncharov's "Ordinary History" continues its narrative chapter by chapter. The hero's first troubles were as follows. His uncle does not allow him to hug him, shows him a room that he can rent, instead of inviting him to live with him. This makes the emotional and exalted Alexander sad, who is accustomed to sincere outpourings and friendly disposition. The young man’s romantic attitude towards life is completely unacceptable in the eyes of Pyotr Ivanovich. He ridicules his nephew’s manner of expressing himself in romantic cliches, throws away Sophia’s hair and ring, and pastes the poems that the young man was so proud of on the wall. Pyotr Ivanovich gradually brings Alexander down to earth and assigns him to serve. The nephew dreams of a dizzying career, imagining it extremely vaguely. He talks about this uncle, about his projects, which, in the latter’s opinion, have either already been completed or do not need to be done at all. Knowing that the young man dreams of becoming a writer, his uncle is looking for translations for him for an agricultural magazine.

New life

A new stage begins in the life of the main character of the work “An Ordinary Story”. Its brief summary consists of the following events. Two years later, Alexander is already mastering graceful manners, becoming more self-confident and balanced. Pyotr Ivanovich was about to decide that he was on the right path, when suddenly the young man falls in love with Nadenka Lyubetskaya and forgets about everything in the world: his career, education, responsibilities. The uncle tries to explain that it is too early for him to get married, since in order to support his family, he must have a decent income. In addition, you need to be able to win a woman with your intelligence and cunning, but your nephew is primitive. His infatuation with Nadya will quickly pass, his uncle warns. Alexander is indignant upon learning that his uncle himself is going to get married and reproaches him for an arranged marriage.

Nadenka Lyubetskaya

Goncharov's "Ordinary History" continues its development in a brief summary. Alexander begins to visit the Lyubetskys' house. His beloved was impressionable to the extreme, had a fickle and wayward heart and an ardent mind. At first, she is satisfied with conversations about nothing, loving glances and walks under the moonlight. Alexander visits Pyotr Ivanovich less and less, abandons his career, begins to write again, but publishers do not accept his works, pointing out their unnaturalness and immaturity. Gradually Nadya gets bored with her admirer. The year of probation she assigned to Alexander is ending, and she is trying to avoid explanations. One of the reasons was a visit to Count Novinsky, a well-educated and well-mannered young man, a socialite. He begins to visit Nadenka and teaches her horse riding. Alexander, seeing that he is being avoided, falls into melancholy, then into panic, then decides to disappear for a while so that they will start looking for him, but this does not happen. The young man finally dares to call his beloved for a decisive conversation. Nadenka admits that she likes the Count. Alexander, leaving the house, sobs.

The summary of the book "Ordinary History" continues. In the middle of the night, the hero runs to Pyotr Ivanovich in order to arouse sympathy for himself, asks his uncle to agree to be his second during the duel with Novinsky. Pyotr Ivanovich speaks about the meaninglessness of the duel: Nadenka cannot be returned, but her hatred can be acquired if you harm the count. In addition, in case of murder, hard labor or exile awaits him. In return, he offers to beat his opponent, to convince Nadenka of his superiority over the count, first of all, intellectually. The uncle proves that his beloved is not to blame for choosing Novinsky. At the end of the conversation, the nephew bursts into tears. Pyotr Ivanovich's wife, Lizaveta Alexandrovna, comes to console him.

Part two

We have reached the second part of the novel "An Ordinary Story". Its summary is as follows.

Another year has passed. Alexander turned to cold despondency. Auntie spends a lot of time consoling him. The nephew likes the role of the sufferer. In response to her objection that true love does not seek to demonstrate itself to everyone, Alexander immodestly notes that love for Pyotr Ivanovich’s wife is hidden very deeply, so that it is completely invisible. Mentally, the aunt agrees with him. Although she has no right to complain about her husband, who provides her with everything, Lizaveta Alexandrovna still sometimes wants a greater manifestation of feelings.

Meeting with a friend

This is how I. A. Goncharov unfolds further events (“Ordinary History”). The chapter summary that you are reading continues with the meeting of the main character with an old friend. One day Alexander comes to his aunt and tells her about the betrayal of a friend whom he has not seen for many years. He met him on Nevsky Prospekt. He did not respond to the sincere outpourings, dryly inquiring about the service and inviting him to come to his place the next day for dinner, which was attended by about a dozen guests. Here he offers to play cards, as well as money if he needs it. Alexander begins to talk about unhappy love, but his friend just laughs. The nephew reads to his aunt and uncle quotes from French novelists who defined friendship in a very pretentious way. This angers Pyotr Ivanovich, he declares that his friend behaved decently towards him. The uncle reprimands the young man that it’s time to stop complaining about people and whining when he has friends, among whom he also counts himself and his wife.

Alexander's Tale

Let us describe further events and their brief content. Goncharov's "Ordinary History" continues its development. Pyotr Ivanovich reminds his nephew that he has not written to his mother for 4 months. Alexander is completely crushed. To console him, his aunt advises him to take up literature again. A young man writes a story, the action of which takes place in a Tambov village, and the heroes are liars, slanderers and monsters. He reads it aloud to his aunt and uncle. Pyotr Ivanovich writes a letter to an editor he knows, in which he states that the story was written by himself, and he intends to publish it for a fee. He reads the editor's response to his nephew. He saw through the deception, noticing that the author was a young man, not stupid, but angry at the whole world. The reasons for this, in his opinion, are daydreaming, pride, premature development of the heart and immobility of the mind, leading to laziness. Work, science, practical work should help this young man. According to the editor, the author of the story has no talent.

Relationship with Yulia Tafaeva

After the events described above, Alexander burns all his literary works. His uncle asks him for help: to compete with Surkov, his partner. He is in love (Peter Ivanovich believes that he only thinks he is in love) with a certain Yulia Tafaeva, a young widow. He intends to throw money away for her sake and take it from Uncle Alexander. The young man begins to visit Tafaeva, with whom they have a lot in common (gloomy outlook on the world, dreaminess). He soon falls in love, and Tafaeva, who was brought up on French sentimental literature and married early to a man much older than her, reciprocates his feelings.

New disappointment

The hero will again be disappointed with the further development of events. Here is a brief summary of them. Goncharov's "An Ordinary Story" is already approaching its finale. Preparations for the wedding are underway. Alexander asks Lizaveta Alexandrovna for secret help from his uncle. Aunt pays a visit to Yulia, the girl is amazed by her beauty and youth. Tafaeva protests against her lover’s communication with the Aduevs. Alexander behaves despotically with Yulia, demands obedience and fulfillment of any whim (fences her off from male acquaintances, forbids her to travel). Julia puts up with this, but after a while they become bored, and the hero begins to find fault with his beloved. He realizes that he has wasted two whole years, and his career has once again suffered. He wants to communicate with friends, work, go out into society, but she despotically demands that Alexander belong only to her. Julia is humiliated and even begs to marry her on the condition that the hero be given complete freedom. Alexander doesn’t want this, but doesn’t know how to refuse. He turns to his uncle for advice. Julia has a nervous attack, Pyotr Ivanovich comes to her and settles the matter, saying that Alexander does not know how to love. The nephew falls into apathy. He doesn’t strive for anything, doesn’t show up to visit his uncle. The young man notices that there is not a single hope or dream left, there is only bare reality in front of him, which he is not ready to confront.

Lisa

The author, however, does not end the novel “Ordinary History” here. The summary will tell you how this story will end. The main character goes fishing with old man Kostikov, a miser and a grouch.

One day they meet with a certain elderly summer resident and his daughter Lisa, who falls in love with the hero. He plays the role of uncle, teaches her to have a sober attitude towards love and life. Lisa's father kicks him out. The young man is contemplating suicide, but the bridge on which he is standing is at that moment raised, and he jumps onto a solid support. After some time, he receives a note from his aunt asking him to take her to a concert, since his uncle is sick. The music makes a strong impression on Alexander, he cries right in the hall, they laugh at him.

Return to the village

These were the main events before returning to the village (briefly). Goncharov’s “ordinary story” is already unfolding in Rrachi. The young man completely loses faith in humanity and decides to return to the village. He tells his uncle that he does not blame him for opening his eyes, but having seen things in their true light, he was completely disillusioned with life. In the village, Alexander learns that his former lover Sophia has been married for a long time and is expecting her sixth child. The mother begins to fatten the young man, allows him to do nothing, hints that the time has come to get married, but the hero refuses.

New trip to St. Petersburg

Our ordinary story continues. A brief development of events is as follows. A thirst for activity gradually awakens in the hero, and a desire arises to return to the capital. He writes letters to his aunt and uncle, in which he admits his selfishness. He also brings evidence to his uncle - a letter to his aunt from Rooks, in which he once talked in a romantic way.

Epilogue

4 years after the young man’s next visit to St. Petersburg, he announces to his uncle his intention to marry. He takes a large dowry, but barely remembers the bride herself. The uncle, however, cannot fully support his nephew, since during that time great changes have occurred in him. Pyotr Ivanovich began to treat his wife differently. He tries to show his feelings, but it’s too late: she doesn’t care, she lives only in silent submission to her husband, without reacting in any way to these attempts. The doctor discovers a strange illness in the aunt, one of the reasons for which, in his opinion, is that she did not have children. Pyotr Ivanovich decides to sell the plant, retire and go on a trip with his wife. But she is not ready to accept such sacrifices. She doesn't need belated love or freedom. Lizaveta Alexandrovna feels sorry for the old Alexander. Pyotr Ivanovich hugs his nephew for the first time since they met.

This is the plot of the work “An Ordinary Story,” briefly described in this article. We hope it helps you as you study this novel.

Brief Analysis

In this work, every person at all stages of life and development will find the necessary lesson for themselves. In a business atmosphere, Alexander Aduev’s sentimentality and naivety are ridiculous. His pathos is false, and his ideas about life and the loftiness of his speeches are far from reality. However, the uncle cannot be called an ideal: a respected man, a breeder, he is afraid of living feelings and goes too far in his practicality. He turns out to be unable to show warm feelings towards his wife, which leads to her nervous breakdown. There is a lot of irony in the teachings of this hero, and the nephew, being a simple, ingenuous person, accepts them too directly.

Alexander Aduev, having lost his former false ideals, does not acquire other, genuine ones. He simply turns into a calculating vulgar. Goncharov is ironic that such a path is far from an exception. Youthful ideals disappear - this is a common story. Few people can resist the pressure on their soul and mind of a large city and bourgeois society. At the end of the work, the cynical uncle is much more humane than his student-nephew. Alexander became a business man for whom only money and career matter. And the city awaits new victims - the inexperienced and naive.

The appearance of Goncharov's first novel in print was preceded by several small experiments in poetry and prose. On the pages of the handwritten almanac "Moonlit Nights", published by the Maykov circle, four of his poems are published (later these are the poems of Sashenka Aduev from "Ordinary History"), stories "Dashing pain"(1838) and "Lucky Mistake"(1839). In these early works one can feel the influence of Pushkin's prose. Thus, in “A Happy Mistake,” which is reminiscent of a secular story in genre, the ardent passions of the romantic characters already have a psychological motivation. Feature article "Ivan Savvich Podzhabrin" is the only early work of the young writer, published during Goncharov’s lifetime in Sovremennik in 1848. This is a typical physiological essay exploring morals, in which the features of Gogol’s style are noticeable: the narration in it is focused on a fairy tale style, lyrical digressions occupy a fairly large place, and Ivan Savvich and his servant Avdey were undoubtedly created under the influence of The Inspector General.

Already by the beginning of the 1840s. Goncharov’s creative positions are determined, his unconditional interest in Russian reality, in what has “stayed” but has not become a thing of the past, and in what is new that has made its way into life.

Novel "An Ordinary Story" was the first Russian work that explored the forms of social progress in Russia. Goncharov's innovation lay in the fact that he tried to see the manifestation of social patterns in the fate of an individual. In the novel we have the ordinary story of the transformation of the young romantic Alexander Aduev into a representative of the new bourgeois formation. Already in the first attempt of the novel, certain plot-compositional principles for the structure of the conflict are developed, which will subsequently be used by Goncharov in his other works.

Externally, the plot of "An Ordinary History" has a clearly chronological character. Goncharov carefully and leisurely tells the story of the life of the Aduevs in Rrach, creating in the reader’s imagination an image of a noble province dear to the author’s heart. At the beginning of the novel, Sashenka Aduev is passionate about Pushkin, he writes poetry himself, listening to what is happening in his heart and soul. Alexander is exalted, smart, confident that he is an exceptional being, who should not have the last place in life. Throughout the course of the novel, Goncharov debunks the romantic ideals of Aduev. As for the social revelations of romanticism, they are not directly declared anywhere in the novel. Goncharov leads the reader to the conviction that the historical time of romanticism has passed through the entire course of the novel’s events.

The narrative in the novel begins with a presentation of the story of Yevsey and Agrafena - the Aduev serfs, an ordinary story of landowner tyranny, told in a casually calm tone. Sending her son to St. Petersburg, Anna Pavlovna is focused only on her experiences, and she does not care about the feelings of Yevsey and Agrafena, whom she separates for a long time. However, as the author says, addressing the reader, she “did not prepare her son for the fight against what awaited him and awaits everyone ahead.” Goncharov reveals the world of the provincial nobility, living in a completely different dimension, in three letters brought by his nephew to his uncle. Each of them is associated with one of the plot motives that will be implemented in the novel. So, in Zaezzhalov’s letter Kostyakov is mentioned - “a wonderful person - his soul is wide open and such a joker,” communication with whom will constitute one of the “epochs” of the development of the younger Aduev. The aunt's letter also represents a kind of anticipation of one of the plot twists in the novel. The ardent enthusiasm of Marya Gorbatova's memories of the yellow flower and ribbon as a symbol of tender feelings for Pyotr Ivanovich gives way to a completely reasonable request for English wool for embroidery. This letter is a kind of “summary” of the image of Sashenka’s future, to which the hero will come in the finale. In the phrase that ends the letter to the mother, “Do not leave him, dear brother-in-law, with your advice and take him into your care; I hand him over to you from hand to hand,” the most important principle of constructing the system of images of the work is “programmed.” The role of Sashenka’s mentor passes to his uncle, but his philosophy of life is just as little taken into account by young Aduev as his mother’s words. One of the functions of the uncle’s image in the novel is to debunk the romantic ideals of the nephew.

The fate of Pyotr Ivanovich is a clear example of the benefits of abandoning romantic illusions. This hero does not deny reality and does not oppose himself to it; he recognizes the need for active inclusion in life, familiarization with the harsh everyday work. The hero of the novel, which appeared in print in 1846, became an artistic generalization of a phenomenon that was just “erupting” in Russian reality, but did not escape the attentive Goncharov. Many of the writer’s contemporaries went through the harsh school of everyday work: Gogol, Dostoevsky, Nekrasov, and Saltykov, who overcame social romanticism, but did not lose faith in the ideal. As for the image of the elder Aduev, Goncharov shows what a terrible moral disaster the desire to evaluate everything around him from the standpoint of practical benefit can turn into for a person.

The assessment of the romantic as the most important personality quality is far from unambiguous. Goncharov shows that the “liberation” of a person from the ideals of youth and the associated memories of love, friendship, and family affections destroys the personality, occurs unnoticed and is irreversible. Gradually, the reader begins to understand that an ordinary story of familiarization with the prose of life has already happened to Pyotr Ivanovich Aduev, when, under the influence of circumstances, a person is freed from romantic ideals of goodness and becomes like everyone else. It is this path that Alexander Aduev takes, gradually becoming disillusioned with friendship, love, service, and family feelings. However, the end of the novel - Alexander's profitable marriage and borrowing money from his uncle - is not the end of the work. The ending is a sad reflection on the fate of Pyotr Ivanovich, who succeeded on the basis of real practicality. The depth of the moral catastrophe that has already befallen society with the loss of faith in romanticism is revealed precisely in this life story. The novel ends happily for the younger one, but tragically for the older one: the latter is sick with boredom and the monotony of the monotonous life that has filled him - the pursuit of a place in the sun, fortune, rank. These are all quite practical things, they bring income, give a position in society - but for what? And only the terrible guess that Elizaveta Alexandrovna’s illness is the result of her devoted service to him, service that killed the living soul in her, makes Pyotr Ivanovich think about the meaning of the life she lived.

In studies of Goncharov’s work, it was noted that the originality of the novel’s conflict lies in the collision of two forms of life presented in the dialogues between uncle and nephew, and that dialogue is the constructive basis of the novel. But this is not entirely true, since the character of Aduev Jr. changes not at all under the influence of his uncle’s beliefs, but under the influence of circumstances embodied in the twists and turns of the novel (writing poetry, infatuation with Nadenka, disappointment in friendship, meeting with Kostikov, leaving for the village, etc. ). The circumstances “alien” to the hero are concretized by the image of St. Petersburg given in the second chapter of the novel against the background of the memories of the “provincial egoist” Aduev about the peace of rural life. The turning point in the hero occurs during his meeting with the Bronze Horseman. Aduev turns to this symbol of power “not with a bitter reproach in his soul, like poor Evgeny, but with an enthusiastic thought.” This episode has a pronounced polemical character: Goncharov’s hero “argues” with Pushkin’s hero, being confident that he can overcome circumstances and not submit to them.

The dialogue plays an essential function in clarifying the author's point of view, which is not identical to either the position of the uncle or the position of the nephew. It manifests itself in a dialogue-dispute that continues without stopping almost until the end of the novel. This is a debate about creativity as a special state of mind. The theme of creativity first appears in a letter from young Aduev to Pospelov, in which the hero characterizes his uncle as a man of the “crowd”, always and in everything equally calm, and completes his analysis of the moral qualities of Pyotr Ivanovich with the words: “... I think he didn’t even read Pushkin". The serious conclusion that vegetating “without inspiration, without tears, without life, without love” can destroy a person will turn out to be prophetic: having added prose to Pushkin’s lines (“And without hair”), the uncle, without suspecting it, pronounces a sentence on himself. Sashenka’s romantic poems, which he destroyed with his criticism, from the position of Pyotr Ivanovich are an expression of reluctance to “pull the burden” of daily work, and his remark “writers are like others” can be seen as the hero’s conviction that unprofessional pursuit of literature is self-indulgence and a manifestation of lordly laziness . Confronting the positions of his heroes, Goncharov himself is arguing with an invisible enemy, because the poems of Aduev Jr. are the poems of the young Goncharov, which he never published, apparently feeling that this is not his kind of creativity. However, the fact of their inclusion in the text of the novel is very significant. Of course, they are weak artistically and may seem like a parody of romantic daydreaming, but the lyrical pathos of the poems is caused not only by Goncharov’s desire to expose idealism: Sashenka’s romanticism is aimed at criticizing the depersonalization of man by the bureaucratic reality of St. Petersburg and at criticizing the moral slavery of women.

The theme of the poet and the crowd - one of the cross-cutting themes of the novel - manifests itself in a unique way. Its detailed interpretation is given by the young Aduevs in Chapter IV, which reveals the state of the hero who has reached the apogee of happiness in love. Dreams about Nadenka and dreams of poetic glory merge together, but the author accompanies this enthusiastic monologue with his own commentary. From it, the reader learns about a comedy, two stories, an essay, and a “trip somewhere” created by Sashenka, but not accepted for publication, and gets acquainted with the plot of a story from American life, which Nadenka listened to with delight, but was not accepted for publication. Failures are perceived by Aduev in the spirit of the romantic conflict between the poet and the crowd; he recognizes himself as a person capable of “creating a special world” without difficulty, easily and freely. And only at the end of the monologue the position of the author-narrator, who doubts the success of this kind of creativity, is indicated.

Dialogue, as the most important substantive element of the genre form of Goncharov’s novel, turns out to be a form of expression of the author’s point of view in other novels, where its dialectical character increases. The writer’s task was to strive to indicate his position without insisting on it as the only reliable one. This, apparently, can explain the “absurdities” of the artistic structure, the contradictory characters of the heroes of “Oblomov” and “Cliff,” for which Druzhinin, Dobrolyubov, and many others reproached the author. Goncharov, due to his character, temperament, and worldview, could not and did not want to write out recipes for correcting damaged morals that were not thought through and not through personal experience. Like his young hero Aduev, he took up elegant prose when “the heart beats more evenly, the thoughts come into order.”

In the 1840s Goncharov saw the conflict between the individual and society as developing in several directions at once, two of which he evaluates in Ordinary History, and the other two he outlines as possible: the hero’s involvement in the life of the St. Petersburg petty bureaucracy and philistinism (Kostyakov) - this conflict has already been partially revealed in “The Bronze Horseman” (in the fate of Evgeny) - and immersion in physical and moral sleep, from which Aduev sobered up. Philistinism and sleep are intermediate stages of the hero’s evolution, which in the artistic structure of “Oblomov” are fully realized and develop into independent storylines.

The theme, ideas and images of “Oblomov” and “Cliff” already existed hiddenly in the artistic world of “Ordinary History”; the measured life of Goncharov the official went on as usual. By the will of fate and his own will, he was destined to experience what he dreamed about as a teenager.

(1812-1891)

IA Goncharov came from an old noble family. He was born in the city of Simbirsk, the writer spent his childhood in a rich landowner's estate. From 1822 to 1830, Goncharov studied at the Moscow Commercial School, and in 1831 he took an exam at Moscow University for the philological or, as it was called then, the verbal faculty. The university left a memory of itself as the best time in the writer’s life: here he learned the wonderful spirit of freedom of Moscow University, a temple of science that educated “not only the mind, but the entire young soul.” In the memoirs about the university (they have the subtitle “How we were taught 50 years ago”) the names of Lermontov and Herzen, Belinsky and K. Aksakov, historian M. Kachenovsky and professor of theory of fine arts and archeology N. Nadezhdin appear.

One of the brightest impressions of those years was A. Pushkin’s visit to the university in September 1832. Goncharov recalls the atmosphere of the dispute that arose after a lecture between Pushkin and Kachenovsky about the authenticity of “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign.” Goncharov creates an image of “literary antagonism” that arose between the participants in the dispute back in 1818, when Pushkin wrote the first, but not the last, epigram on Kachenovsky. During his student years, he showed interest in professional literary pursuits: in 1832, the magazine “Telescope” published an excerpt from E. Xu’s novel “Atar-Gul” translated by Goncharov.

Having graduated from the university in 1834, Goncharov went home, where he was “swept by the same “Oblomovism” that he observed in childhood.” In order to “not fall asleep looking at this calm,” in the fall Goncharov moved to St. Petersburg and began serving in the Ministry of Finance.

The role of the literary and artistic circle of academician of painting N. Maikov, whose sons, Valerian and Apollo, the future writer taught literature, was also significant in the development of Goncharov’s literary talent. The appearance in print of the novel “An Ordinary Story” (1846) meant recognition of Goncharov’s literary talent.

In 1853, Goncharov set off on a circumnavigation of the world on the military frigate Pallada, which lasted two years. The result of the trip was the essays “The Frigate “Pallada” - a unique phenomenon of Russian literature of the mid-19th century.

In 1859, Goncharov published the novel “Oblomov”, and ten years later - “The Precipice” (1869). In the last years of his life, Goncharov appeared as a brilliant publicist in “Notes on the Personality of Belinsky”, a literary critic in the sketch “A Million Torments”, a memoirist (“Servants of the Old Century”), an art historian who collected a lot of material for articles about the work of A.N. Ostrovsky. A special place in Goncharov’s journalism belongs to the articles “Better late than never”, “Intentions, objectives and ideas of the novel “The Cliff””, in which the writer provides a rationale for the principles of realism.

Artistic method

In 1879, an article by I.A. appeared in the magazine “Russian Speech”. Goncharov “Better late than never.” 33 years after the publication of his first novel, “An Ordinary Story,” Goncharov answered to readers, trying in the article “to explain once and for all his own view of the author’s tasks.” This critical analysis of his own work was a revision of the preface to a separate edition of The Precipice in 1870, which was never published. Goncharov returned to him in 1875, but only now, says Goncharov, this material can serve as a preface to the collection of all his works.

Goncharov’s article is of fundamental importance for characterizing the uniqueness of the writer’s creative method. Goncharov begins the formulation of his own aesthetic principles by defining the essence of artistic creativity, which is “thinking in images.” According to Goncharov, there are two types of creativity - “unconscious” and “conscious”. The “unconscious” artist creates, obeying the requirement to outline the impression, to give space to the work of the heart, the flow of fantasy. For such artists, the ability to convey the power of impression prevails over the analysis of life. In other writers, Goncharov believes, “the mind is subtle, observant and overcomes imagination and heart,” and then the idea is expressed in addition to the image and often obscures it, revealing a tendency. Goncharov defines his type of creativity as “unconscious”.

Belinsky was one of the first to draw attention to this feature of Goncharov’s work, defining it as an excellent “ability to draw.” The basis of his artistic images was always the impression of a person, event, phenomenon, and he hurried to remember it, putting a verbal image on scraps of paper: “... I move forward, as if by groping, at first I write sluggishly, awkwardly, boringly (like the beginning in Oblomov and Raisky), and I myself find it boring to write, until light suddenly pours in and illuminates the path where I should go... I always have one main image and at the same time the main motive: it is this that leads me forward - and On the way, I accidentally grab what comes to hand, that is, what is close to him...” From the episode, the sketch, the overall picture subsequently emerged. This happened with “Oblomov’s Dream”, which, being published in 1849 as a separate work, served as a sketch for the epic canvas “Oblomov”.

Explaining to the reader how the “mechanism” of the unconscious works in an artist, Goncharov resorts to the metaphorical image of a “mirror,” comparing their ability to reflect life. “It is difficult to draw from life,” writes Goncharov, “and in my opinion, it is simply impossible to create types that have not yet been formed, where its forms have not been established, the faces have not been layered into types.” The mirror of creative consciousness can repeat as many images as it likes, but it cannot convey something that does not yet have a definite form, especially when it comes to the laws of social development.

Goncharov calls the process of creating his artistic image typification, which he understands as a “mirror” reflection of life, environment, era in the phenomenon that interests him: “All this, in addition to my consciousness, was naturally reflected in my imagination by the power of reflection, as a landscape from windows, as sometimes a huge environment is reflected in a small pond: the sky overturned over the pond, with a pattern of clouds, and trees, and a mountain with some buildings, and people, and animals, and vanity, and stillness - all in miniature likenesses. So this simple physical law is fulfilled over me and my novels - in a way almost imperceptible to me.”

Goncharov is the author of three large epic works. The time interval between the appearance of each of them in print is about ten years: “An Ordinary History” was published in 1846, “Oblomov” was completed in 1857, and published in 1859, “The Break” dates back to 1869 G.

In this temporary space, the implementation of plans is an important feature of Goncharov’s creative method. He needed time to process the impressions of life, to put them into the artistic system of one, as Goncharov himself insisted on this, and not three novels: the reader had to “catch one common thread, one consistent idea - the transition from one era of Russian life to another” . Thus, according to Goncharov’s plan, each part of this novel cycle was an artistic picture of a certain era of Russian reality, and together they represented its biography, told by an intelligent, thoughtful writer. These principles noted by Goncharov were realized in the artistic structure of the novels, in their plot organization, compositional scheme, and system of images and characters.

"An Ordinary Story"

The appearance of Goncharov's first novel in print was preceded by several small experiments in poetry and prose. On the pages of the handwritten almanac “Moonlit Nights”, published by the Maykov circle, 4 of his poems are published (later these are the poems of Sashenka Aduev from “Ordinary History”), the stories “Dashing Illness” (1838) and “Happy Mistake” (1839).

In these early works one can feel the influence of Pushkin's prose. Thus, in “The Happy Mistake,” which is reminiscent of a secular story in genre, the ardent passions of the romantic characters already have a psychological motivation.

The essay “Ivan Savvich Podzhabrin” is the only early work of the young writer, published during Goncharov’s lifetime in Sovremennik in 1848. This is a typical physiological essay exploring morals, in which the features of Gogol’s style are noticeable: the narration in it is focused on a fairy tale style, quite large the place is occupied by lyrical digressions, and Ivan Savvich and his servant Avdey were created, undoubtedly, under the influence of “The Inspector General”.

Already by the beginning of the 40s, Goncharov’s creative positions were determined: his unconditional interest in Russian reality: in what “stood” but did not become a thing of the past, and in what was new, which was making its way into life.

The novel “An Ordinary History” was the first Russian work to explore the forms of social progress in Russia. Goncharov's innovation lay in the fact that he tried to see the manifestation of social patterns in the fate of an individual. In the novel we have the ordinary story of the transformation of the young romantic Alexander Aduev into a representative of the new bourgeois formation. Already in the first attempt of the novel, certain plot and compositional principles for the structure of the conflict are developed, which will subsequently be used by Goncharov in his other works.

Externally, the plot of “An Ordinary Story” has a pronounced chronological character. Goncharov carefully and leisurely tells the story of the life of the Aduevs in Rrach, creating in the reader’s imagination an image of a noble province dear to the author’s heart. At the beginning of the novel, Sashenka Aduev is passionate about Pushkin, he writes poetry himself, listening to what is happening in his heart and soul. He is exalted, intelligent, confident that he is an exceptional being, who should not have the last place in life. Throughout the course of the novel, Goncharov debunks the romantic ideals of Aduev. As for the social revelations of romanticism, they are not directly declared anywhere in the novel. Goncharov leads the reader to the conviction that the historical time of romanticism has passed through the entire course of the novel’s events.

The narrative in the novel begins with a presentation of the story of Yevsey and Agrafena - the Aduev serfs, an ordinary story of landowner tyranny, told in an everyday, calm tone. Sending her son to St. Petersburg, Anna Pavlovna is focused only on her experiences, and she does not care about the feelings of Yevsey and Agrafena, whom she separates for a long time. However, the author says, addressing the reader, she “did not prepare her son for the fight against what awaited him and awaits everyone ahead.”

Goncharov reveals the world of the provincial nobility, living in a completely different dimension, in three letters brought by his nephew to his uncle.

Each of them is associated with one of the plot motives that will be implemented in the novel. So, in Zaezzhalov’s letter Kostyakov is mentioned - “a wonderful person - his soul is wide open and such a joker,” communication with whom will constitute one of the “epochs” of the development of the younger Aduev. The aunt's letter also represents a kind of anticipation of one of the plot twists in the novel. The ardent enthusiasm of Marya Gorbatova's memories of a yellow flower and ribbon as a symbol of the will of tender feelings for Pyotr Ivanovich is replaced by a completely reasonable request for English wool for embroidery. This letter is a kind of “summary” of the image of Sashenka’s future, to which the hero will come in the finale. In the phrase that ends the letter to the mother: “Do not leave him, dear brother-in-law, with your advice and take him into your care; I pass it to you from hand to hand” the most important principle of constructing a system of images of a work has been “programmed”. The role of Sashenka’s mentor passes to his uncle, but his philosophy of life is just as little taken into account by young Aduev as his mother’s words. One of the functions of the uncle’s image in the novel is to debunk the romantic ideals of the nephew.

The fate of Pyotr Ivanovich is a clear example of the benefits of abandoning romantic illusions. This hero does not deny reality and does not oppose himself to it; he recognizes the need for active inclusion in life, familiarization with the harsh everyday work. The hero of the novel, which appeared in print in 1846, became an artistic generalization of a phenomenon that was just “erupting” in Russian reality, but did not escape the attentive Goncharov. Many of the writer’s contemporaries went through the harsh school of everyday work: Gogol, Dostoevsky, Nekrasov, and Saltykov, who overcame social romanticism, but did not lose faith in ideas. As for the image of the elder Aduev, Goncharov shows what a terrible moral disaster the desire to evaluate everything around him from the standpoint of practical benefit can turn into for a person.

The assessment of the romantic as the most important personality quality is far from unambiguous. Goncharov shows that the “liberation” of a person from the ideals of youth and the associated memories of love, friendship, and family affections destroys the personality, occurs unnoticed and is irreversible. Gradually, the reader begins to understand that an ordinary story of familiarization with the prose of life has already happened to Pyotr Ivanovich Aduev, when, under the influence of circumstances, a person is freed from romantic ideals of goodness and becomes like everyone else. It is this path that Alexander Aduev takes, gradually becoming disillusioned with friendship, love, service, and family feelings. But the end of the novel - his profitable marriage and borrowing money from his uncle - is not the end of the novel. The ending is a sad reflection on the fate of Pyotr Ivanovich, who succeeded on the basis of real practicality. The depth of the moral catastrophe that has already befallen society with the loss of faith in romanticism is revealed precisely in this life story. The novel ends happily for the younger one, but tragically for the older one: he is sick with boredom and the monotony of the monotonous life that has filled him - the pursuit of a place in the sun, fortune, rank. These are all quite practical things, they generate income, give a position in society - but for what? And only the terrible guess that Elizaveta Alexandrovna’s illness is the result of her devoted service to him, service that killed the living soul in her, makes Pyotr Ivanovich think about the meaning of her life.

In studies of Goncharov’s work, it was noted that the originality of the novel’s conflict lies in the collision of two forms of life presented in the dialogues between uncle and nephew, and that dialogue is the constructive basis of the novel. But this is not entirely true, since the character of Ayauev Jr. changes not at all under the influence of his uncle’s beliefs, but under the influence of circumstances embodied in the twists and turns of the novel (writing poetry, infatuation with Nadenka, disappointment in friendship, meeting with Kostikov, leaving for the village, etc. .). The circumstances “alien” to the hero are concretized by the image of St. Petersburg given in the second chapter of the novel against the background of the memories of the “provincial egoist” Aduev about the peace of rural life. The turning point in the hero occurs during his meeting with the Bronze Horseman. Aduev turns to this symbol of power “not with a bitter reproach in his soul, like poor Evgeny, but with an enthusiastic thought.” This episode has a pronounced polemical character:

Goncharov’s hero “argues” with Pushkin’s hero, being confident that he can overcome circumstances and not submit to them.

The dialogue plays an essential function in clarifying the author's point of view, which is not identical to either the position of the uncle or the position of the nephew. It manifests itself in a dialogue-dispute that continues without stopping almost until the end of the novel. This is a debate about creativity as a special state of mind. The theme of creativity first appears in a letter from young Aduev to Pospelov, in which the hero characterizes his uncle as a man of the “crowd,” always and equally calm in everything, and completes his analysis of the moral qualities of Pyotr Ivanovich with the conclusion: “... I think he didn’t even read Pushkin." The serious conclusion that vegetating “without inspiration, without tears, without life, without love” can destroy a person will turn out to be prophetic: having added prose to Pushkin’s lines (“And without hair”), the uncle, without suspecting it, pronounces a sentence on himself. Sashenka’s romantic poems, which he destroyed with his criticism, from the position of Pyotr Ivanovich are an expression of reluctance to “pull the burden” of daily work, and his remark “writers are like others” can be seen as the hero’s conviction that unprofessional pursuit of literature is self-indulgence and a manifestation of lordly laziness . Confronting the positions of his heroes, Goncharov himself is arguing with an invisible enemy, because the poems of Dtsuev Jr. are the poems of the young Goncharov, which he never published, apparently feeling that this is not his kind of creativity. However, the fact of their inclusion in the text of the novel is very significant. Of course, they are weak artistically and may seem like a parody of romantic reverie. But the lyrical pathos of the poems is caused not only by Goncharov’s desire to expose idealism: Sashenka’s romanticism is aimed at criticizing the depersonalization of man by the bureaucratic reality of St. Petersburg and at criticizing the moral slavery of women.

The theme of the poet and the crowd - one of the cross-cutting themes of the novel - manifests itself in a unique way. Its detailed interpretation by the young Aduevs is given in Chapter IV, revealing the state of the hero who has reached the apogee of happiness in love. Dreams about Nadenka and dreams of poetic glory merge together, but the author accompanies this enthusiastic monologue with his own commentary. From it, the reader learns about a comedy, two stories, an essay, and a “trip somewhere” created by Sashenka, but not accepted into the magazine, and gets acquainted with the plot of a story from American life, which Nadenka listened to with delight, but was not accepted for publication. . Failures are perceived by Aduev in the spirit of the romantic conflict between the poet and the crowd; he recognizes himself as a person capable of “creating a special world” without difficulty, easily and freely. And only at the end of the monologue the position of the author-narrator, who doubts the success of this kind of creativity, is indicated.

Dialogue, as the most important substantive element of the genre form of Goncharov’s novel, turns out to be a form of expression of the author’s point of view in other novels: its dialectical character will increase. The writer’s task was to strive to indicate his position without insisting on it as the only reliable one. This, apparently, can explain the “absurdities” of the artistic structure, the inconsistency of the characters of the heroes of “Oblomov” and “Cliff”, for which Druzhinin, Dobrolyubov, and many others reproached the author. Goncharov, due to his character, temperament, and worldview, could not and did not want to write out recipes for correcting damaged morals that were not thought through and had not been gained through personal experience. Like his young hero Aduev, he took on elegant prose when “the heart beats more evenly, the thoughts come into order.”

In the 40s personality conflict and society he saw as developing in several directions at once, two of which he evaluates in Ordinary History, and the other two he outlines as possible: the hero’s involvement in the life of the St. Petersburg petty bureaucracy and philistinism (Kostyakov) - this conflict is partially already revealed in Medny horseman" in the fate of Evgeniy) - and immersion in physical and moral sleep, from which Aduev sobered up. Philistinism and sleep are intermediate stages of the hero’s evolution, which in the artistic structure of “Oblomov” are fully realized and develop into independent storylines.

The theme, ideas and images of “Oblomov” and “Cliff” already existed latently in the artistic world of “Ordinary History”; the measured life of Goncharov the official went on as usual. By the will of fate and his own will, he was destined to experience what he dreamed about as a teenager.

Already in the first novel, “An Ordinary Story” (1847), the idea of ​​the entire trilogy received an original embodiment. The conflict between uncle and nephew was intended to reflect very characteristic phenomena of Russian social life of the 1840s, the morals and life of that era. Goncharov himself explained his plan as follows in the critical article “Better late than never” (1879): “The struggle between uncle and nephew also reflected the then, just beginning, breakdown of old concepts and mores - sentimentality, caricatured exaggeration of feelings of friendship and love, poetry idleness, family and home lies of feigned, essentially unprecedented feelings<…>, a waste of time on visits, on unnecessary hospitality,” etc.

All the idle, dreamy and affective side of old morals with the usual impulses of youth - towards the high, great, graceful, towards effects, with a thirst to express this in crackling prose, most of all in verse.

All this “was obsolete, gone away; there were faint glimpses of a new dawn, something sober, businesslike, necessary.” This assessment of the conflict is quite understandable if we take it from a general historical perspective. According to Goncharov, the landowner way of life that raised Alexander Aduev, the idle environment of the landowner’s estate without intense labor of soul and body - these are the social reasons that determined the complete unpreparedness of the “romantic” Aduev to understand the real needs of modern social life.

These needs, to a certain extent, are embodied in the figure of Uncle Pyotr Ivanovich Aduev. Healthy careerism coexists quite well in his character with education and an understanding of the “secrets” of the human heart. Consequently, according to Goncharov, the advent of the “industrial age” itself does not at all threaten the spiritual development of the individual, does not turn it into a soulless machine, callous to the suffering of other people. However, the writer, of course, is by no means inclined to idealize the moral character of the representative of the new, victorious “philosophy of business.” In the epilogue of the novel, the uncle appears as a victim of this “philosophy”, having lost the love and trust of his wife and himself found himself on the verge of complete spiritual emptiness.

Here we come to understand the essence of the conflict in Goncharov’s first novel. The types of “romantic” and “man of action” for a writer are not only and not so much signs of the hero’s belonging to a certain class, profession, or even cultural and everyday microenvironment (“province” or “capital”). These are, first of all, understood and interpreted very widely as “eternal types” and even (in allegorical terms) “eternal” poles of the human spirit: the sublime and the base, the divine and the devil, etc. It is not for nothing that the fate of the heroes is surrounded by many literary reminiscences. For example, Alexander’s speeches and actions constantly “rhyme” (in the form of direct quotes, allusions) with the destinies of many heroes of European literature, “disappointed idealists” like himself. Here are Goethe’s Werther, and Schiller’s Karl Moor, and the heroes of Zhukovsky-Schiller’s ballads. and Eugene from Pushkin’s “The Bronze Horseman”, and Balzac’s Lucien de Rubempre from “Lost Illusions”…. It turns out that the “romantic biography” of Alexander Aduev is as much a biography of a Russian provincial romantic of the 1840s as it is an “international” biography, “a barely noticeable ring in the endless chain of humanity.” Goncharov himself pushes the hero to this conclusion in the episode where Alexander’s condition is described after the inspired playing of a visiting violinist struck his imagination. It’s no wonder that sometimes Alexander perceives his dispute with his uncle through the prism of the plot of Pushkin’s famous poem “The Demon”, and then Pyotr Ivanovich appears to him in the image of an “evil genius” tempting an inexperienced soul...

The meaning of Pyotr Ivanovich’s “demonic” position is that the human personality for him is just a mechanical cast of his “Century”. He declares love to be “madness”; “illness” on the grounds that it only interferes with one’s career. Therefore, he does not recognize the power of the heart’s passions, considering human passions “mistakes, ugly deviations from reality.” He also refers to “friendship”, “duty”, “loyalty”. All this is allowed to a modern person, but within the boundaries of “decency” accepted in society. He, therefore, wrongfully reduces the very essence of the “Century” only to a bureaucratic bureaucratic career, narrowing the scope of the “case.” It is not without reason that proportionality, correctness, and measure in everything become the dominant characteristics of both his behavior and his appearance (cf., for example, the description of a face: “not wooden, but calm”). Goncharov does not accept in his hero an apology for “the cause” as such, but extreme forms of denial of dreams and romance, their beneficial role in the formation of the human personality in general. And in this case, the rightness in the dispute already goes to the side of the nephew: “Finally, isn’t it a general law of nature that youth should be anxious, ebullient, sometimes extravagant, stupid, and that everyone’s dreams will eventually subside, as they did for me? » This is how Alexander, wise in life, reflects in his final letter to his uncle.

Closer to the finale, the genre structure of Goncharov’s first novel, oriented towards the plot canons of the “novel of education,” becomes clearer. Education by life is understood in the novel primarily as the education of the hero’s feelings. “Lessons of Love” become a true school of life for Alexander. It is not for nothing that in the novel it is the personal, spiritual experience of the hero that becomes the main subject of artistic research, and love conflicts are closely intertwined with the main conflict of the novel - a dispute between two worldviews: “idealistic” and “sober-practical”. One of the lessons of life wisdom for Alexander was the discovery of the beneficial, uplifting power of suffering and delusion: they “purify the soul” and make a person “participant in the fullness of life.” Anyone who at one time was not an “incurable romantic”, was not “eccentric” and was not “crazy” will never become a good “realist”. Pushkin’s wisdom - “the old man is funny and flighty, the sedate young man is funny” - seems to hover over the final pages of Goncharov’s work. This wisdom helps to understand the enduring essence of the dispute between uncle and nephew.

Is it because in the finale Pyotr Ivanovich pays so cruelly for his efficiency that he too quickly hastened to accept the “truth” of the “Century” and so easily and indifferently parted with both the “yellow flowers” ​​and the “ribbon” stolen from his beloved’s chest of drawers, and with other “romantic nonsense” that was still present in his life? And Alexander? The transformation of Alexander, a “romanticist” into a “realist,” differs from a similar transformation of his uncle in that he takes a “sober view” of life, having previously gone through all the steps of the romantic school of life, “with full consciousness of its true pleasures and bitterness.” Therefore, for Alexander, the hard-won “realistic” worldview is not at all a “necessary evil” of the “Century”, for the sake of which it is imperative to suppress everything poetic in oneself. No, Alexander, quite like Pushkin, begins, as the author notes, “to comprehend the poetry of the gray sky, a broken fence, a gate, a dirty pond and a trepak,” that is, the poetry of “the prose of life.” That is why the hero again rushes from Rooks to the “businesslike”, “non-romantic” Petersburg, because he is gradually imbued with the peculiar “romance of business”. It is not without reason that in his letter to his aunt he now considers “activity” to be the “powerful ally” of his romantic love for life. His “soul and body asked for activity,” the author notes. And on this path, the vector of spiritual evolution of Aduev Jr. foreshadowed the appearance of the future hero Goncharov, equally passionate about the “romance of the matter” - Andrei Stolts...

One can only complain that all these spiritual insights of the hero remained insights. He didn't make a Stolz. In the epilogue, instead of Stolz, we see a somewhat softened copy of Aduev Sr. instead of the “hero of the cause” - the “hero-businessman”. Neither in the field of “dreams” nor in the field of “deeds” did Alexander succeed in spiritually transforming and defeating the heavy tread of the “industrial age”.

But the reader still remembers that such a possibility was not at all excluded by Goncharov for his hero. Goncharov’s first novel definitely found itself within the artistic boundaries of the “natural school.” The author of “Ordinary History” disagreed with the team of the collection “Physiology of St. Petersburg” in solving the main problem of realism - the problem of the typical. In Goncharov’s characters one can always feel a certain “residue” that cannot be directly derived from historical time or “environment”. Like the author of “Eugene Onegin,” it is important for Goncharov to emphasize both the realized and unrealized capabilities of the heroes, not only the extent of their compliance, but also the degree of their inconsistency with their “Century.” Projecting the conflict of “An Ordinary Story” onto the plot collisions of Goncharov’s next novel “Oblomov,” we can say that the idealism of Alexander Aduev concealed two equal, although opposite, development possibilities. As in the fate of Vladimir Lensky, in the fate of his younger “literary brother” there was, relatively speaking, both the “Oblomov option” and the “Stolz option.” The development of this dialectic of character will be traced by Goncharov in the system of images of the novel “Oblomov”

“An Ordinary Story,” published in 1847 in Sovremennik, was the first work of fiction by I. A. Goncharov to appear in print. The writer worked on “An Ordinary Story” for three years. In an autobiographical article “An Extraordinary History” (1875-1878), he wrote: “it was conceived in 1844, written in 1845, and in 1846 I had a few chapters left to complete.”

Goncharov read his “An Extraordinary History” to Belinsky for several evenings in a row. Belinsky was delighted with the new talent, who performed so brilliantly. Before giving his work “to Belinsky for judgment,” Goncharov read it several times in the Maykovs’ friendly literary circle. Before appearing in print, the novel underwent many corrections and alterations.

Recalling the late 40s, the dark period of Nicholas’s reign, when advanced Russian literature played a huge role in the fight against feudal-serfdom reaction, Goncharov wrote: “Serfdom, corporal punishment, oppression of the authorities, lies of prejudices of social and family life, rudeness, savagery morals in the mass - that’s what was next in line in the struggle and what the main forces of the Russian intelligentsia of the thirties and forties were directed towards.”

“Ordinary History” showed that Goncharov was a writer sensitive to the interests of his time. The work reflects the changes and shifts that took place in the life of feudal Russia in 1830-1840. Calling for a fight against “all-Russian stagnation” and for work for the good of the fatherland, Goncharov passionately searched around him for those forces, those people who could accomplish the tasks facing Russian life.

The essence of the pseudo-romantic worldview inherent in a significant part of the idealistic intelligentsia of the 1930s, divorced from reality, is revealed by Goncharov in the image of the main character of the novel, Alexander Aduev. I saw the soil on which this phenomenon grew in the noble-manorial serf system of life, in the lordly landowner upbringing.

Romantic perception of life, sublime abstract dreams of glory and exploits, of the extraordinary, poetic impulses - who did not, to some extent, go through all this in their youth, in the “era of youthful unrest.” But Goncharov’s merit as an artist is that he showed how these youthful dreams and illusions were distorted and disfigured by lordly-serf education.

Young Aduev knows about grief and troubles only “by ear” - “life is smiling at him from the very beginning.” Idleness and ignorance of life “prematurely” developed “heartfelt inclinations” and excessive daydreaming in Aduev. Before us is one of those “romantic sloths,” barchuks who are accustomed to blithely living off the labor of others. Young Aduev sees the purpose of life not in work and creativity (work seemed strange to him), but in an “exalted existence.” “Silence... stillness... blessed stagnation” reigns on the Aduev estate. But in the estate he does not find a field for himself. And Aduev leaves “to seek happiness”, “to make a career and look for fortune - to St. Petersburg.” All the falsity of Aduev’s everyday concepts begins to be revealed in the novel already in the first clashes between his dreamer nephew, spoiled by laziness and lordship, and his practical and intelligent uncle, Pyotr Ivanovich Aduev. The struggle between uncle and nephew also reflected the then, just beginning, breakdown of old concepts and mores - sentimentality, caricatured exaggeration of feelings of friendship and love, poetry of idleness, family and home lies of feigned, essentially unprecedented feelings, waste of time on visits, on unnecessary hospitality etc. In a word, all the idle, dreamy and affective side of old morals with the usual impulses of youth towards the high, great, graceful, towards effects, with a thirst to express this in crackling prose, especially in verse.

Aduev Sr. at every step mercilessly ridicules the feigned, groundless dreaminess of Aduev Jr. “Your stupid enthusiasm is no good”, “with your ideals it’s good to sit in the village”, “forget these sacred and heavenly feelings, and take a closer look at the matter.” But the young hero does not give in to moral teaching. “Isn’t love a thing?” - he answers his uncle. It is characteristic that after the first failure in love, Aduev Jr. complains “about the boredom of life, the emptiness of the soul.” The pages of the novel devoted to the description of the hero’s love affairs are an exposure of the egoistic, possessive attitude towards a woman, despite all the romantic poses that the hero takes in front of the chosen ones of his heart.

For eight years, my uncle worked with Alexander. In the end, his nephew becomes a business man, a brilliant career and a profitable marriage of convenience await him. Not a trace remained of the former “heavenly” and “sublime” feelings and dreams. The evolution of the character of Alexander Aduev, shown in “Ordinary History,” was “ordinary” for some of the noble youth of that time. Having condemned the romantic Alexander Aduev, Goncharov contrasted him in the novel with another, undoubtedly more positive in a number of traits, but by no means ideal person - Pyotr Ivanovich Aduev. The writer, who was not a supporter of the revolutionary transformation of feudal-serf Russia, believed in progress based on the activities of enlightened, energetic and humane people. However, the work reflected not so much these views of the writer, only the contradictions that existed in reality, which were carried with them by the bourgeois-capitalist relations that replaced the “all-Russian stagnation”. Rejecting the romanticism of the Aduev type, the writer at the same time felt the inferiority of the philosophy and practice of bourgeois “common sense”, the selfishness and inhumanity of the bourgeois morality of the elder Aduevs. Pyotr Ivanovich is smart, businesslike and in his own way a “decent person.” But he is extremely “indifferent to man, to his needs and interests.” “They look at what a person has in his pocket and in the buttonhole of his coat, but they don’t care about the rest,” his wife Lizaveta Aleksandrovna says about Pyotr Ivanovich and others like him about her husband: “What was the main goal of his work? Did he work for a common human goal, fulfilling the lesson given to him by fate, or only for petty reasons, in order to acquire official and monetary importance among people, or, finally, so that he would not be bent into an arc by need and circumstances? God knows. He didn’t like to talk about lofty goals, he called it nonsense, but he said dryly and simply that things had to be done.”

Alexander and Pyotr Ivanovich Aduev are contrasted not only as a provincial romantic nobleman and a bourgeois businessman, but also as two psychologically opposite types. “One is enthusiastic to the point of extravagance, the other is icy to the point of bitterness,” says Lizaveta Aleksandrovna about her nephew and husband.

Goncharov sought to find an ideal, that is, a normal type of person, not in Aduev Sr. and not in Aduev Jr., but in something else, a third, in the harmony of “mind” and “heart.” A clear hint of this is already contained in the image of Lizaveta Aleksandrovna Adueva, despite the fact that the “age” has “eaten” her, as Belinsky rightly noted, Pyotr Ivanovich.

Among these wonderful images, one should include not only Lizaveta Alexandrovna, but also Nadenka.

The daughter is a few steps ahead of her mother. She fell in love with Aduev without asking and almost does not hide this from her mother or is silent only for the sake of decency, considering for herself the right to dispose in her own way of her inner world and Aduev himself, which, having studied him well, she has mastered and commands. This is her obedient slave, gentle, spinelessly kind, promising something, but pettyly proud, a simple, ordinary young man, of which there are many everywhere. And she would have accepted him, gotten married - and everything would have gone as usual.

But the figure of the count appeared, consciously intelligent, dexterous, and brilliant. Nadenka saw that Aduev could not stand comparison with him either in mind, or in character, or in upbringing. In her everyday life, Nadenka did not acquire consciousness of any ideals of male dignity, strength, and what kind of strength? All she had to do was see what she had seen a thousand times in all the other young men with whom she danced and flirted a little. She listened to his poetry for a minute. She expected that strength and talent lay there. But it turned out that he only writes passable poetry, but no one knows about them, and he is also sulking to himself at the count because he is simple, smart and behaves with dignity. She went over to the side of the latter: this was the conscious step of the Russian girl so far - silent emancipation, a protest against the authority of her mother, which was helpless for her.