Modern Russian literature - the best works. Elective course program in literature "Modern literary situation"

“Review of Russian and modern literature”

The chronological framework of the modern literary process in Russia is the last fifteen years of the outgoing century, including heterogeneous phenomena and facts of modern literature, heated theoretical discussions, critical discord, literary awards of varying significance, the activities of thick magazines and new publishing houses that are actively publishing works of modern writers.

Modern literature is closely connected, despite its fundamental and undoubted novelty, with the literary life and sociocultural situation of the decades preceding it, the so-called period of “modern literature.” This is a fairly large stage in the existence and development of our literature - from the mid-50s to the mid-80s.

The mid-50s is a new starting point for our literature. The famous report by N.S. Khrushchev at a “closed” meeting of the 20th Party Congress on February 25, 1956, marked the beginning of the liberation of the consciousness of millions of people from the hypnosis of Stalin’s personality cult. The era was called the “Khrushchev Thaw,” which gave birth to the generation of the “sixties,” its contradictory ideology and dramatic fate. Unfortunately, neither the authorities nor the “sixties” came close to a genuine rethinking of Soviet history, political terror, the role of the generation of the 20s, and the essence of Stalinism. The failures of the “Khrushchev Thaw” as an era of change are largely due to this. But in literature there were processes of renewal, reassessment of values and creative searches.

Even before the well-known decisions of the party congress of 1956, a breakthrough to new content took place in Soviet literature through the barriers of the “conflict-free theory” of the 40s, through the rigid guidelines of the theory and practice of socialist realism, through the inertia of reader perception. And not only in the literature that was written “on the table”. V. Ovechkin’s modest essays “District Everyday Life” showed the reader the true situation of the post-war village, its social and moral problems. “Lyrical prose” by V. Soloukhin and E. Dorosh took the reader away from the main paths of the builders of socialism into the real world of Russian “country roads”, in which there is no external heroism, pathos, but there is poetry, folk wisdom, great work, love for the native land.

These works, by the very life material underlying them, destroyed the mythologies of socialist realism literature about the ideal Soviet life, about a heroic man going “ever forward and higher” under the inspiring, inspiring and guiding leadership of the party.

The coming “Khrushchev thaw” seemed to open the floodgates. Restrained for a long time, a qualitatively different literature poured out. Books of poems by wonderful poets came to the reader: L. Martynov (“Birthright”), N. Aseev (“Lad”), V. Lugovsky (“Mid-Century”). And by the mid-60s, even poetry books by M. Tsvetaeva, B. Pasternak, A. Akhmatova would be published.

In 1956, an unprecedented celebration of poetry took place and the almanac “Poetry Day” was published. Both poetic holidays - meetings of poets with their readers, and the Poetry Day almanacs will become annual. “Young prose” boldly and brightly declared itself (V. Aksenov, A. Bitov, A. Gladilin. The poets E. Yevtushenko, A. Voznesensky, R. Rozhdestvensky, B. Akhmadulina and others became the idols of youth. “Variety poetry” collected audiences of thousands for poetry evenings at the Luzhniki Stadium.

B. Okudzhava’s original song introduced into the dialogue between the poet and the listener an intonation of trust and participation that was unusual for a Soviet person. Human, and not ideologically stilted problems and conflicts in the plays of A. Arbuzov, V. Rozov, A. Volodin transformed the Soviet theater and its audience. The policy of “thick” magazines changed, and in the early sixties, “New World” by A. Tvardovsky published the stories “Matrenin’s Dvor”, “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich”, “An Incident at Krechetovka Station” by A.I., who returned from the camps and exile. . Solzhenitsyn.

Undoubtedly, these phenomena changed the nature of the literary process and significantly broke with the tradition of socialist realism, essentially the only officially recognized method of Soviet literature since the early 30s.

Reader tastes, interests, and preferences were also transformed under the influence of the rather active publication of works of world literature of the 20th century in the 60s, primarily by French writers - existentialists Sartre, Camus, the innovative dramaturgy of Beckett, Ionesco, Frisch, Dürrenmatt, the tragic prose of Kafka, etc. The Iron Curtain gradually moved apart.

But changes in Soviet culture, as in life, were not so unequivocally encouraging. The real literary life of almost the same years was marked by the cruel persecution of B.L. Pasternak for the publication in the West of his novel Doctor Zhivago in 1958. The struggle between the magazines “October” and “New World” (Vs. Kochetov and A. Tvardovsky) was merciless. “Secretary literature” did not give up its positions, but healthy literary forces nevertheless did their creative work. Genuinely artistic, rather than opportunistically constructed, texts began to penetrate into the so-called official literature.

In the late fifties, young front-line prose writers turned to the recent past: they explored the dramatic and tragic situations of the war through the point of view of a simple soldier, a young officer. Often these situations were cruel, forcing a person to choose between heroism and betrayal, life and death. Critics of that time greeted the first works of V. Bykov, Yu. Bondarev, G. Baklanov, V. Astafiev with caution and disapproval, accusing the “literature of lieutenants” of “deheroizing” the Soviet soldier, of “trench truth” and the inability or unwillingness to show the panorama of events. In this prose, the center of value shifted from the event to the person, the moral and philosophical issues replaced the heroic and romantic ones, a new hero appeared who endured the harsh everyday life of war on his shoulders. “The strength and freshness of the new books was that, without rejecting the best traditions of military prose, they showed in all the magnifying detail the soldier’s “facial expression” and the “patch to death”, bridgeheads, nameless high-rises, containing a generalization of the entire trench severity of the war . Often these books carried a charge of cruel drama; they could often be defined as “optimistic tragedies”; their main characters were soldiers and officers of one platoon, company, battery, regiment.” These new realities of literature were also signs, typological features of the changing nature of the literary process, beginning to overcome the socialist realist one-dimensionality of literature.

Attention to a person, his essence, and not his social role, became the defining property of the literature of the 60s. The so-called “village prose” has become a true phenomenon of our culture. She raised a range of issues that still arouse keen interest and controversy to this day. As you can see, truly vital issues were touched upon.

The term "hillbilly prose" was coined by critics. A.I. Solzhenitsyn in his “Word at the presentation of the Solzhenitsyn Prize to Valentin Rasputin” clarified: “It would be more correct to call them moralists - for the essence of their literary revolution was the revival of traditional morality, and the crushed, dying village was only a natural, visual object.” The term is conditional, because the basis for the association of “village writers” is not at all a thematic principle. Not every work about the village was classified as “village prose.”

Village writers changed their point of view: they showed the inner drama of the existence of a modern village, and discovered in an ordinary villager a personality capable of moral creation. Sharing the main focus of “village prose,” in a commentary to the novel “And the Day Lasts Longer than a Century,” Ch. Aitmatov formulated the task of the literature of his time as follows: “The duty of literature is to think globally, without losing sight of its central interest, which I understand as the study of a particular human individuality. With this attention to the individual, “village prose” revealed a typological relationship with Russian classical literature. Writers return to the traditions of classical Russian realism, almost abandoning the experience of their closest predecessors - socialist realist writers - and not accepting the aesthetics of modernism. “The Villagers” address the most difficult and pressing problems of human existence and society and believe that the harsh life material of their prose a priori excludes the playful element in its interpretation. The teacher's moral pathos of Russian classics is organically close to “village prose.” The problematics of the prose of Belov and Shukshin, Zalygin and Astafiev, Rasputin, Abramov, Mozhaev and E. Nosov were never abstractly significant, but only concretely human. The life, pain and torment of an ordinary person, most often a peasant (the salt of the Russian soil), who falls under the skating rink of the history of the state or fatal circumstances, has become the material of “village prose”. His dignity, courage, and ability under these conditions to remain faithful to himself and to the foundations of the peasant world turned out to be the main discovery and moral lesson of “village prose.” A. Adamovich wrote in this regard: “The living soul of the people, preserved, carried through centuries and trials - isn’t this what it breathes, isn’t this what the prose, which today is called rustic, tells us about first of all? And if they write and say that prose, both military and rural, are the pinnacle achievements of our modern literature, is it not because here the writers touched the very nerve of people’s life.

The stories and novels of these writers are dramatic - one of the central images in them is the image of their native land - the Arkhangelsk village by F. Abramov, the Vologda village by V. Belov, the Siberian village by V. Rasputin and V. Astafiev, the Altai village by V. Shukshin. It is impossible not to love it and the person on it - the roots, the basis of everything, are in it. The reader feels the writer's love for the people, but there is no idealization of them in these works. F. Abramov wrote: “I stand for the people’s principle in literature, but I am a resolute opponent of a prayerful attitude to everything that my contemporary says... To love the people means to see with complete clarity both their merits and shortcomings, and their greatness and small, and ups and downs. Writing for the people means helping them understand their strengths and weaknesses.”

The novelty of social and moral content does not exhaust the merits of “village prose.” Ontological problematics, deep psychologism, and the beautiful language of this prose marked a qualitatively new stage in the literary process of Soviet literature - its modern period, with all the complex complex of searches at the content and artistic levels.

The lyrical prose of Y. Kazakov, the first stories of A. Bitov, and the “quiet lyrics” of V. Sokolov and N. Rubtsov added new facets to the literary process of the 60s.

However, the compromise of the “thaw” and the half-truths of this era led to the tightening of censorship in the late 60s. The party leadership of literature with renewed vigor began to regulate and determine the content and paradigm of artistry. Everything that did not coincide with the general line was squeezed out of the process. The Movist prose of V. Kataev received blows from official criticism. “New World” was taken away from Tvardovsky. The persecution of A. Solzhenitsyn and the persecution of I. Brodsky began. The sociocultural situation was changing - “stagnation was setting in.”

In Russian literary culture at the turn of the 19th - 20th centuries, many interesting, but insufficiently meaningful pages have still been preserved, the study of which could contribute to a deeper understanding of not only the laws of the evolution of verbal art, but also of certain major socio-political and historical and cultural events of Russian of the past. Therefore, it now seems quite important to turn to journals that for a long time, often due to ideological conjuncture, remained outside of close research attention.

Russian literature of the late 19th - early 20th centuries is a special, dynamic period characterized, among other things, by the formation of new ideals, intense struggle between social groups and parties, coexistence, and the collision of various literary trends, trends and schools, one way or another reflecting complex historical and socio-political realities and phenomena of the era, intensive contacts with foreign art. For example, the philosophical and ideological foundations of Russian symbolism are largely connected with the German cultural and artistic tradition and philosophy (I. Kant, A. Schopenhauer, Fr. Nietzsche). At the same time, France became the true birthplace of symbolism. It was here that the main stylistic features of this large-scale artistic phenomenon took shape, and its first manifestos and program declarations were published. From here, symbolism began its triumphal march through the countries of Western Europe and Russia. Literature not only presented historical events in the works of domestic and foreign authors with different ideological beliefs, but also revealed the reasons that prompted them to create; The reactions of readers and critics to published works, including translated ones, were incorporated into the literary and social consciousness, demonstrating the degree of their impact on the audience.

Along with books, literary collections, critical publications, printed periodicals were very popular both among literary figures and among readers: newspapers (“Moskovskie Vedomosti”, “Citizen”, “Svet”, “Novoye Vremya”, “Birzhevye Vedomosti” ", "Russian Gazette", "Courier", etc.), magazines ("Bulletin of Europe" by M.M. Stasyulevich - 1866-1918; "Russian Gazette" by M.N. Katkov - 1856-1906; "Dragonfly" by I. F. Vasilevsky - 1875-1908; “Russian Wealth” - 1876-1918; “Russian Thought” - 1880-1918, etc.) and the original form of a monojournal - diaries, created by F.M. Dostoevsky (“Diary of a Writer” by D.V. Averkiev - 1885-1886; A.B. Kruglova - 1907-1914; F.K. Sologub -1914). We emphasize that all literary magazines at that time were private, and only the “Journal of the Ministry of Public Education” (1834-1917), devoted largely to literary issues, was state-owned. Let us note that the appearance of magazines, starting from the 1840s, was largely determined by the social and political views of the publishers.

The socio-political and economic changes in our country, which began in 1985 and called perestroika, significantly influenced literary development. “Democratization”, “glasnost”, “pluralism”, proclaimed from above as new norms of social and cultural life, led to a reassessment of values in our literature.

Thick magazines began actively publishing works by Soviet writers written in the seventies and earlier, but for ideological reasons not published then. Thus, the novels “Children of Arbat” by A. Rybakov, “New Assignment” by A. Beck, “White Clothes” by V. Dudintsev, “Life and Fate” by V. Grossman and others were published. The camp theme, the theme of Stalinist repressions becomes almost the main one . The stories of V. Shalamov and the prose of Yu. Dombrovsky are widely published in periodicals. “New World” was published by A. Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago.

In 1988, again, “New World”, thirty years after its creation, published B. Pasternak’s disgraced novel “Doctor Zhivago” with a foreword by D.S. Likhacheva. All these works were classified as so-called “detained literature.” The attention of critics and readers was focused exclusively on them. Magazine circulation reached unprecedented levels, approaching the million mark. “New World”, “Znamya”, “October” competed in publishing activity.

Another stream of the literary process in the second half of the eighties consisted of the works of Russian writers of the 20s and 30s. For the first time in Russia, it was at this time that “big things” by A. Platonov were published - the novel “Chevengur”, the stories “The Pit”, “The Juvenile Sea”, and other works of the writer. Oberiuts are published, E.I. Zamyatin and other writers of the 20th century. At the same time, our magazines reprinted works of the 60s and 70s that were cherished in samizdat and published in the West, such as “Pushkin House” by A. Bitov, “Moscow - Petushki” by Ven. Erofeeva, “Burn” by V. Aksenov and others.

The literature of the Russian abroad was equally powerfully represented in the modern literary process: the works of V. Nabokov, I. Shmelev, B. Zaitsev, A. Remizov, M. Aldanov, A. Averchenko, Vl. Khodasevich and many other Russian writers returned to their homeland. “Returned literature” and the literature of the Metropolis are finally merging into one channel of Russian literature of the 20th century. Naturally, both the reader, criticism, and literary criticism find themselves in a very difficult situation, because a new, complete, without blank spots, map of Russian literature dictates a new hierarchy of values, makes it necessary to develop new evaluation criteria, and proposes the creation of a new history of Russian literature of the 20th century without cuts and seizures. Under the powerful onslaught of first-class works of the past, widely available to the domestic reader for the first time, modern literature seems to freeze, trying to understand itself in new conditions. The nature of the modern literary process is determined by “detained” and “returned” literature. Without representing the modern cross-section of literature, it is precisely this literature that influences the reader to the greatest extent, determining his tastes and preferences. It is she who finds herself at the center of critical discussions. Criticism, also freed from the shackles of ideology, demonstrates a wide range of judgments and assessments.

For the first time we are witnessing such a phenomenon when the concepts of “modern literary process” and “modern literature” do not coincide. In the five years from 1986 to 1990, the modern literary process consists of works of the past, ancient and not so distant. Actually, modern literature is pushed to the periphery of the process.

One cannot but agree with the generalizing judgment of A. Nemzer: “The literary policy of perestroika had a pronounced compensatory character. It was necessary to make up for lost time - to catch up, to return, to eliminate gaps, to integrate into the global context.” We really sought to compensate for lost time, to pay off old debts. As we see this time from today, the publishing boom of the perestroika years, despite the undoubted significance of newly discovered works, involuntarily distracted public consciousness from the dramatic modernity.

The actual liberation of culture from state ideological control and pressure in the second half of the 80s was legislatively formalized on August 1, 1990 by the abolition of censorship. Naturally, the history of “samizdat” and “tamizdat” came to an end. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, serious changes took place in the Union of Soviet Writers. It split into several writers' organizations, the struggle between which sometimes becomes serious. But various writing organizations and their “ideological and aesthetic platforms,” perhaps for the first time in Soviet and post-Soviet history, have virtually no influence on the living literary process. It develops under the influence not of directives, but of other factors that are more organic to literature as an art form. In particular, the rediscovery, one might say, of the culture of the Silver Age and its new understanding in literary criticism was one of the significant factors determining the literary process from the beginning of the 90s.

The work of N. Gumilyov, O. Mandelstam, M. Voloshin, Vyach was rediscovered in full. Ivanova, Vl. Khodasevich and many other major representatives of the culture of Russian modernism. The publishers of the large series “The New Library of the Poet” made their contribution to this fruitful process, releasing beautifully prepared collections of the poetic work of writers of the “Silver Age”. The Ellis Lack publishing house not only publishes multi-volume collections of works by classics of the Silver Age (Tsvetaeva, Akhmatova), but also publishes second-tier writers, for example, the excellent volume by G. Chulkov “Years of Wanderings,” which represents different creative facets of the writer, and some of his works are generally published first. The same can be said about the activities of the Agraf publishing house, which published a collection of works by L. Zinovieva-Annibal. Today we can talk about M. Kuzmin almost entirely published by various publishing houses. The publishing house "Respublika" has carried out a wonderful literary project - a multi-volume publication by A. Bely. These examples can be continued.

Fundamental monographic studies by N. Bogomolov, L. Kolobaeva and other scientists help to imagine the mosaic and complexity of the literature of the Silver Age. Due to ideological prohibitions, we could not master this culture “over time,” which would undoubtedly be fruitful. It literally “fell” on the general reader out of the blue, often provoking an apologetic, enthusiastic reaction. Meanwhile, this most complex phenomenon deserves close and attentive gradual reading and study. But it happened the way it happened. Modern culture and the reader find themselves under the most powerful pressure of a culture that was rejected during the Soviet period as not only ideologically, but also aesthetically alien. Now the experience of modernism of the beginning of the century and avant-gardeism of the 20s has to be absorbed and rethought in the shortest possible time. We can state not only the fact of the existence of works of the early 20th century as full participants in the modern literary process, but also affirm the fact of overlaps, influences of different movements and schools, their simultaneous presence as a qualitative characteristic of the literary process of modern times.

If we take into account the colossal boom in memoir literature, we are faced with another feature of this process. The influence of memoirs on fiction itself is obvious to many researchers. Thus, one of the participants in the discussion “Memoirs at the Turn of Eras,” I. Shaitanov, rightly emphasizes the high artistic quality of memoir literature: “As it approaches the sphere of fiction, the memoir genre begins to lose its documentary quality, giving a lesson in the responsibility of literature in relation to the word...” Despite the researcher’s accurate observation about a certain departure from documentation in many of the published memoirs, memoirs for readers are a means of recreating the social and spiritual history of society, a means of overcoming the “blank spots” of culture, and simply good literature.

Perestroika gave impetus to the intensification of publishing activity. In the early 90s, new publishing houses and new literary magazines of various directions appeared - from the progressive literary journal New Literary Review to the feminist magazine Preobrazhenie. Bookstores-salons “Summer Garden”, “Eidos”, “October 19” and others were born of a new state of culture and, in turn, have a certain influence on the literary process, reflecting and popularizing in their activities one or another trend of modern literature.

In the 90s, for the first time since the revolution, the works of many Russian religious philosophers of the turn of the 19th-20th centuries, Slavophiles and Westerners were republished: from V. Solovyov to P. Florensky, A. Khomyakov and P. Chaadaev. The Respublika publishing house is completing the publication of the multi-volume collected works of Vasily Rozanov. These realities of book publishing undoubtedly significantly influence modern literary development, enriching the literary process. By the mid-90s, the literary heritage previously unclaimed by the Soviet country had almost completely returned to the national cultural space. And modern literature itself has noticeably strengthened its position. Thick magazines again provided their pages to contemporary writers. The modern literary process in Russia, as it should be, is again determined exclusively by modern literature. According to stylistic, genre, and linguistic parameters, it is not reducible to a certain cause-and-effect pattern, which, however, does not at all exclude the presence of patterns and connections within the literary process of a more complex order. It is difficult to agree with researchers who do not see any signs of a process in modern literature. Moreover, this position often turns out to be unusually contradictory. For example, G.L. Nefagina states: “The state of literature of the 90s can be compared with the Brownian movement,” and then continues: “a single general cultural system is being formed.” As we can see, the researcher does not deny the existence of the system. Since there is a system, there are also patterns. What kind of “Brownian motion” is this! This point of view is a tribute to a fashionable trend, the idea of modern literature after the collapse of the ideological hierarchy of values as postmodern chaos. The life of literature, especially literature with such traditions as Russian, despite the times it has experienced, it seems, not only continues fruitfully, but also lends itself to analytical systematization.

Criticism has already done a lot by analyzing the main trends of modern literature. The magazines “Questions of Literature”, “Znamya”, “New World” hold round tables and discussions of leading critics on the state of modern literature. In recent years, several respectable monographs on postmodernism in Russian literature have been published.

The problems of modern literary development, as we see it, lie in the mainstream of the development and refraction of various traditions of world culture in the conditions of the crisis state of the world (ecological and man-made disasters, natural disasters, terrible epidemics, rampant terrorism, the flourishing of mass culture, a crisis of morality, the onset of virtual reality and etc.), which all of humanity experiences together with us. Psychologically, it is aggravated by the general situation at the turn of centuries and even millennia. And in the situation of our country - awareness and elimination of all the contradictions and collisions of the Soviet period of national history and culture of socialist realism.

The atheistic education of generations of Soviet people, the situation of spiritual substitution, when for millions of people religion and faith were replaced by the mythologies of socialism, have dire consequences for modern man. To what extent does literature respond to these most difficult life and spiritual realities? Should it, as it was in classical Russian literature, give answers to the difficult questions of existence, or at least pose them to the reader, contribute to the “softening of morals”, cordiality in people’s relationships? Or is the writer an impartial and cold observer of human vices and weaknesses? Or maybe the destiny of literature is to escape into a world of fantasy and adventure far from reality?.. And the field of literature is an aesthetic or intellectual game, and literature has nothing to do with real life, with man in general? Does a person need art? A Word alienated from God, separated from divine truth? These questions are very real and require answers.

In our criticism there are different points of view on the modern literary process and the very purpose of literature. Thus, A. Nemzer is confident that literature has stood the test of freedom and the last decade has been “wonderful.” The critic identified thirty names of Russian prose writers with whom he associates the fruitful future of our literature. Tatyana Kasatkina in her article “Literature after the End of Times” argues that there is no single literature now, but there are “shreds and fragments.” She proposes to divide the “texts” of current literature into three groups: “Works, the reading of which is an event in a person’s real life, which does not take him away from this life, but participates in it... works from which one does not want to return to real life, and this their fundamental, constitutional (and not at all positive) property... works that you don’t want to return to, even if you realize their value, that are hard to enter a second time, that have all the properties of a zone with the effect of accumulating radiation.” Without sharing the researcher’s general pathos in assessing the current state of Russian literature, we can use its classification. After all, such a division is based on time-tested principles - the nature of the reflection of reality in literature and the author’s position.

The last fifteen years of the 20th century are especially significant in the history of our literature. Russian literature finally turned out to be free from directive ideological pressure. At the same time, the literary process was characterized by increased drama and complexity of an objective nature.

The desire to recreate the history of literature of the last century in its entirety (returning to the reader the works of A. Platonov, M. Bulgakov, B. Pasternak, Oberiuts, writers of the Silver Age, emigrants, etc., forcibly not allowed in Soviet times) almost supplanted modern literature in general. Thick magazines experienced a publishing boom. Their circulation was approaching the million mark. It seemed that contemporary writers were relegated to the periphery of the process and were of little interest to anyone. The active reassessment of the culture of the Soviet period in the “new criticism” (“Wake for Soviet Literature”), as categorical as its recent apologetics in official criticism, caused a feeling of confusion among both readers and writers themselves. And when the circulation of thick magazines fell sharply in the early 90s (political and economic reforms entered an active phase in the country), modern literature generally lost its main platform. Intracultural problems became even more complicated under the influence of extraliterary factors.

In criticism, discussions arose around the problem of the modern literary process, voices were heard questioning the very fact of its existence. Some researchers argued that the collapse of a unified and mandatory system of ideological and aesthetic attitudes, and the resulting multidirectionality of literary development, lead to the automatic disappearance of the literary process. And yet the literary process survived, Russian literature stood the test of freedom. Moreover, in recent years there has been an obvious strengthening of the position of modern literature in the literary process. This is especially true for prose. Almost every new issue of such magazines as “New World”, “Znamya”, “October”, “Zvezda” gives us a new interesting work that is read, discussed and discussed.

The literary process of the 20th century is a unique phenomenon that embodies a complex interaction of multidirectional vectors of aesthetic search. The archetypal collision “archaists and innovators” has found its forms of embodiment in the literature of modern times. But at the same time, both writers who gravitate towards classical traditions and experimental pioneers - all, within the parameters of the artistic paradigm they have adopted, are looking for forms that are adequate to changes in the consciousness of modern man, new ideas about the world, about the function of language, about the place and role of literature.

The study of the modern literary process is multifaceted and involves the analysis and systematization of a huge amount of factual material. The framework of the benefit can hardly accommodate it.

The manual focuses on the most characteristic phenomena of modern literature, primarily related to various principles of artistic reflection of life reality. In modern Russian literature, as in the world artistic process, there is a confrontation between realism and postmodernism. The philosophical and aesthetic principles of postmodernism are actively being introduced by its brilliant theorists into the world artistic process, postmodernist ideas and images are in the air. Even in the works of realistically oriented writers, such as Makanin, for example, we see a fairly widespread use of elements of postmodernist poetics. However, in recent years, crisis phenomena have been obvious in the artistic practice of postmodernists themselves. The ideological load in postmodernism is so great that “artistry” itself, as the immanent nature of literature, begins to simply collapse under such influence.

Some researchers of postmodernism are prone to pessimistic forecasts and believe that its history in Russia was “stunningly stormy, but short” (M. Epstein), i.e. reflect on it as a past phenomenon. Of course, there is some simplification in this statement, but the replication of techniques, self-repetition in the latest works of famous postmodernists V. Sorokin, V. Erofeev and others indicate the exhaustion of “style”. And the reader, apparently, begins to get tired of the “courage” in removing linguistic and moral taboos, of the intellectual game, blurring of the boundaries of the text and the programmed multiplicity of its interpretations.

The reader of today, as one of the subjects of the literary process, plays an important role in it. It was his need to know the true realities of history, the disbelief in the “artistically” transformed past in the works of Soviet literature, which lied so much about life and “straightened” it, that provoked a colossal interest in memoirs, its real flourishing in recent literature.

The reader returns literature to the traditional values of realism, expects “cordiality”, responsiveness, and good style from it. It is precisely from this readership that the fame and popularity of Boris Akunin, for example, grows. The writer competently calculated the systemic stability and plot thoroughness of the detective genre (everyone is so tired of the plotlessness and chaos of the artistic world of postmodern works). He diversified genre shades as much as possible (from spy to political detective), invented a mysterious and charming hero - detective Fandorin - and immersed us in the atmosphere of the 19th century, so attractive from a historical distance. And the high-level stylized language of his prose completed the job. Akunin became a cult writer with his own wide circle of admirers.

It is interesting that at the other pole of literature there is also its own cult figure - Viktor Pelevin, a guru for an entire generation. The virtual world of his works is gradually replacing the real world for his admirers, truly they find “the world as a text.” Pelevin, as we noted above, is a talented artist who sees tragic collisions in the fate of humanity. However, the reader's perception of his work reveals the vulnerability and even inferiority of the artistic world he creates. Playing with “imaginaries,” boundless nihilism, irony without boundaries turn into the imaginary nature of creativity. A writer of extraordinary talent turns into a figure of mass culture. Having created the world expected by admirers, the author becomes its prisoner. It is not the writer who guides the reader, but the audience who determines the space of artistic search that is recognizable to it. It is unlikely that such feedback will be fruitful for the writer, the literary process and, of course, the reader.

The prospects for the literary process in Russia are connected with other creative trends, with the enrichment of the artistic possibilities of realism. Its framework, as we see in the work of many modern writers, can be expanded even to modernist and postmodernist techniques. But at the same time, the writer retains moral responsibility to life. He does not replace the Creator, but only strives to reveal his plan.

And if literature helps a person clarify the time of his existence, then “every new aesthetic reality clarifies for a person his ethical reality” (I. Brodsky). Through familiarization with aesthetic reality, a person “clarifies” his moral guidelines, learns to understand his time and relate his destiny to the highest meaning of existence.

The literary process in Russia at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries inspires confidence that literature is still necessary for man and humanity and is faithful to the great purpose of the Word.

Soviet literature reading poetry

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7. Lipovetsky M.N. Russian postmodernism. Essays on historical poetics. Ekaterinburg, 1997.
8. Nefagina G.L. Russian prose of the second half of the 80s - early 90s of the XX century. - Minsk, 1998.
9. Postmodernists on postculture: Interviews with contemporary writers and critics. - M., 1996.
10. Rodnyanskaya I.B. Literary seventh anniversary. 1987-1994. - M., 1995.
11. Rudnov V.P. Dictionary of 20th century culture: key concepts and texts. - M., 1997.
12. Skoropanova I.S. Poetry during the years of glasnost. - Minsk, 1993.

A people deprived of public freedom has the only platform from the height of which they make the cry of their indignation and their conscience heard,” wrote A.I. Herzen in the last century. For the first time in the entire centuries-old history of Russia, the government has now given us freedom of speech and press. But, despite the enormous role of the media, domestic literature is the ruler of thoughts, raising layer by layer the problems of our history and life. Maybe E. Yevtushenko was right when he said: “in Russia - more than a poet!..”.

Today, one can very clearly trace the artistic, historical, socio-political significance of a literary work in connection with the socio-political situation of the era. This formulation means that the characteristics of the era are reflected in the theme chosen by the author, his characters, and artistic means. These features can give a work great social and political significance. Thus, in the era of the decline of serfdom and the nobility, a number of works about “superfluous people” appeared, including the famous “Hero of Our Time” by M.Yu. Lermontov. The very name of the novel and the controversy surrounding it showed its social significance in the era of the Nikolaev reaction. A.I. Solzhenitsyn’s “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich,” published during the period of criticism of Stalinism in the early 60s, was also of great importance. Modern works demonstrate an even greater connection than before between the era and the literary work. Now the task is to revive the rural owner. Literature responds to it with books about the dispossession and de-peasantization of the village.

The close connection between modernity and history even gives rise to new genres (for example, chronicles) and new visual means: documents are introduced into the text, time travel for many decades is popular, and more. The same applies to problems of environmental protection. It can't be tolerated anymore. The desire to help society forces writers, for example Valentin Rasputin, to move from novels and stories to journalism.

The first theme that unites a very large number of works written during the 50s - 80s is the problem of historical memory. The epigraph to it could be the words of Academician D.S. Likhachev: “Memory is active. It does not leave a person indifferent or inactive. She controls the mind and heart of a person. Memory resists the destructive power of time. This is the greatest meaning of memory."

“Blank spots” were formed (or rather, they were formed by those who constantly adapted history to their interests) not only in the history of the entire country, but also in its individual regions. Viktor Likhonosov’s book “Our Little Paris” about Kuban. He believes its historians owe a debt to their land. “Children grew up without knowing their native history.” About two years ago the writer was in America, where he met with residents of the Russian colony, emigrants and their descendants from the Kuban Cossacks. A storm of reader letters and responses was caused by the publication of the novel, the chronicle of Anatoly Znamensky “Red Days,” which reported new facts from the civil history of the Don. The writer himself did not immediately come to the truth and only in the sixties realized that “we know nothing at all about that era.” In recent years, several new works have been published, such as Sergei Alekseev’s novel “Sedition,” but there is still a lot unknown.

The theme of those innocently repressed and tortured during the years of Stalin's terror is especially prominent. Alexander Solzhenitsyn did a tremendous amount of work in his “GULAG Archipelago.” In the afterword to the book, he says: “I stopped working not because I considered the book finished, but because there was no more life left for it. I not only ask for leniency, but I want to shout: when the time comes, the opportunity comes, gather together, friends, survivors, those who know well, and write another comment next to this one...” Thirty-four years have passed since those were written, no, embossed on heart, these words. Solzhenitsyn himself has already edited the book abroad, dozens of new evidence have come out, and this call will remain, apparently, for many decades, both to the contemporaries of those tragedies, and to the descendants, before whom the archives of the executioners will finally open. After all, even the number of victims is unknown!.. The victory of democracy in August 1991 gives hope that the archives will soon be opened.

And therefore, the words of the already mentioned writer Znamensky seem to me not entirely true: “And how much should have been said about the past, it seems to me, has already been said by A.I. Solzhenitsyn, and in “Kolyma Stories” by Varlam Shalamov, and in the story “Bas-relief on rock" Aldan - Semenova. And I myself, 25 years ago, during the years of the so-called Thaw, paid tribute to this topic; my story about the camps called “Without Repentance”... was published in the magazine “North” (N10, 1988).” No, I think witnesses, writers, and historians still have to work hard.

Much has already been written about Stalin’s victims and executioners. I note that a continuation of the novel “Children of the Arbat” by A. Rybakov, “The Thirty-Fifth and Other Years,” has been published, in which many pages are devoted to the secret springs of the preparation and conduct of the trials of the 30s against the former leaders of the Bolshevik Party.

Thinking about Stalin’s time, your thoughts involuntarily turn to the revolution. And today it is seen in many ways differently. “We are told that the Russian revolution did not bring anything, that we have great poverty. Absolutely right. But... We have a perspective, we see a way out, we have will, desire, we see a path before us...” - this is what N. Bukharin wrote. Now we are wondering: what did this will do to the country, where did this path lead and where is the way out. In search of an answer, we begin to turn to the origins, to October.

It seems to me that A. Solzhenitsyn explores this more deeply than anyone else. Moreover, these issues are addressed in many of his books. But the main thing of this writer about the origins and beginning of our revolution is the multi-volume “Red Wheel”. We have already printed parts of it - “August the fourteenth”, “October the sixteenth”. The four-volume “March the Seventeenth” is also being published. Alexander Isaevich continues to work hard on the epic.

Solzhenitsyn persistently does not recognize not only the October, but also the February revolution, considering the overthrow of the monarchy a tragedy of the Russian people. He argues that the morality of the revolution and revolutionaries is inhumane and inhumane; the leaders of revolutionary parties, including Lenin, are unprincipled and think, first of all, about personal power. It is impossible to agree with him, but it is also impossible not to listen, especially since the writer uses a huge number of facts and historical evidence. I would like to note that this outstanding writer has already agreed to return to his homeland.

There are similar discussions about the revolution in the memoirs of the writer Oleg Volkov, “Plunge into Darkness.” , an intellectual and patriot in the best sense of the word, spent 28 years in prison and exile. He writes: “In the more than two years that my father lived after the revolution, it was already clearly and irrevocably determined: the harshly tamed peasant and the somewhat softer bridled worker had to identify themselves with the authorities. But it was no longer possible to talk about this, to expose imposture and deception, to explain that the iron lattice of the new order leads to enslavement and the formation of an oligarchy. And it’s useless..."

Is this the way to evaluate the revolution?! It's hard to say; only time will make a final verdict. Personally, I do not consider this point of view correct, but it is also difficult to refute it: you will not forget either about Stalinism or about the deep crisis of today. It is also clear that it is no longer possible to study the revolution and the civil revolution from the films “Lenin in October”, “Chapaev” or from V. Mayakovsky’s poems “Vladimir Ilyich Lenin” and “Good”. The more we learn about this era, the more independently we will come to some conclusions. A lot of interesting things about this time can be gleaned from Shatrov’s plays, B. Pasternak’s novel “Doctor Zhivago”, V. Grossman’s story “Everything Flows” and others.

If there are sharp differences in the assessment of the revolution, then everyone condemns Stalin’s collectivization. And how can it be justified if it led to the ruin of the country, the death of millions of hardworking owners, and a terrible famine! And again I would like to quote Oleg Volkov about the time close to the “great turning point”:

“Then they were just organizing the mass transportation of robbed men into the abyss of the desert expanses of the North. For the time being, they snatched it selectively: they would impose an “individual” unpaid tax, wait a little, and then declare him a saboteur. And then there’s lafa: confiscate the property and throw it in prison!...”

Vasily Belov tells us about the village before the collective farm in the novel “Eves”. The continuation is “The Year of the Great Turnaround, Chronicle of 9 Months,” which describes the beginning of collectivization. One of the true works about the tragedy of the peasantry during the period of collectivization is the novel - the chronicle of Boris Mozhaev “Men and Women”. The writer, relying on documents, shows how that stratum in the village is formed and takes power, which prospers from the ruin and misfortune of fellow villagers and is ready to be fierce in order to please the authorities. The author shows that the culprits of the “excesses” and “dizziness from success” are those who ruled the country.

Need a cheat sheet? Then save - » Literary review of works of recent years. Literary essays!

“Literature for a people deprived of public freedom is the only platform from the height of which they make them hear the cry of their indignation and their conscience,” wrote A.I. Herzen in the last century. For the first time in the entire centuries-old history of Russia, the government has now given us freedom of speech and press. But, despite the enormous role of the media, our country is the ruler of thoughts, raising layer after layer of problems in our history and life. Maybe E. Yevtushenko was right when he said: “A poet in Russia is more than a poet!..”.

In today's literature one can very clearly trace the artistic, historical, socio-political significance of a literary work in connection with the socio-political situation of the era. This formulation means that the characteristics of the era are reflected in the theme chosen by the author, his characters, and artistic means. These features can give a work great social and political significance. Thus, in the era of the decline of serfdom and the nobility, a number of works about “superfluous people” appeared, including the famous “Hero of Our Time” by M.Yu. Lermontov. The very name of the novel and the controversy surrounding it showed its social significance in the era of the Nikolaev reaction. A.I. Solzhenitsyn’s story “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich,” published during the period of criticism of Stalinism in the early 60s, was also of great importance. Modern works demonstrate an even greater connection than before between the era and the literary work. Now the task is to revive the rural owner. Literature responds to it with books about the dispossession and de-peasantization of the village.

The close connection between modernity and history even gives rise to new genres (for example, the novel - chronicle) and new visual means: documents are introduced into the text, time travel for many decades is popular, and more. The same applies to problems of environmental protection. It can't be tolerated anymore. The desire to help society forces writers, for example Valentin Rasputin, to move from novels and stories to journalism.

“Blank spots” were formed (or rather, they were formed by those who constantly adapted history to their interests) not only in the history of the entire country, but also in its individual regions. Viktor Likhonosov’s book “Our Little Paris” about Kuban. He believes its historians owe a debt to their land. “Children grew up without knowing their native history.” About two years ago the writer was in America, where he met with residents of the Russian colony, emigrants and their descendants from the Kuban Cossacks. A storm of reader letters and responses was caused by the publication of the novel - the chronicle of Anatoly Znamensky “Red Days”, which reported new facts from the history of the civil war on the Don. The writer himself did not immediately come to the truth and only in the sixties realized that “we know nothing at all about that era.” In recent years, several new works have been published, such as Sergei Alekseev’s novel “Sedition,” but there is still a lot unknown.

The theme of those innocently repressed and tortured during the years of Stalin's terror is especially prominent. Alexander Solzhenitsyn did a tremendous amount of work in his “GULAG Archipelago.” In the afterword to the book, he says: “I stopped working not because I considered the book finished, but because there was no more life left for it. I not only ask for leniency, but I want to shout: when the time comes, the opportunity comes, gather together, friends, survivors, those who know well, and write another comment next to this one...” Thirty-four years have passed since they were written, no, these words are engraved on my heart. Solzhenitsyn himself has already edited the book abroad, dozens of new evidence have come out, and this call will remain, apparently, for many decades, both to the contemporaries of those tragedies, and to the descendants, before whom the archives of the executioners will finally open. After all, even the number of victims is unknown!.. The victory of democracy in August 1991 gives hope that the archives will soon be opened.

Thinking about Stalin’s time, your thoughts involuntarily turn to the revolution. And today it is seen in many ways differently. “We are told that the Russian revolution did not bring anything, that we have great poverty. Absolutely right. But... We have a perspective, we see a way out, we have the will, the desire, we see the path before us...” - this is how N. Bukharin wrote. Now we are wondering: what did this will do to the country, where did this path lead and where is the way out. In search of an answer, we begin to turn to the origins, to October.

It seems to me that A. Solzhenitsyn explores this topic more deeply than anyone else. Moreover, these issues are addressed in many of his books. But the main work of this writer about the origins and beginning of our revolution is the multi-volume “Red Wheel”. We have already printed parts of it - “August the fourteenth”, “October the sixteenth”. The four-volume “March the Seventeenth” is also being published. Alexander Isaevich continues to work hard on the epic.

There are similar discussions about the revolution in the memoirs of the writer Oleg Volkov, “Plunge into Darkness.” The author, an intellectual and a patriot in the best sense of the word, spent 28 years in prison and exile. He writes: “In the more than two years that my father lived after the revolution, it was already clearly and irrevocably determined: the harshly tamed peasant and the somewhat softer bridled worker had to identify themselves with the authorities. But it was no longer possible to talk about this, to expose imposture and deception, to explain that the iron lattice of the new order leads to enslavement and the formation of an oligarchy. Yes, and it’s useless...”

Is this the way to evaluate the revolution?! It's hard to say; only time will make a final verdict. Personally, I do not consider this point of view correct, but it is also difficult to refute it: you will not forget either about Stalinism or about the deep crisis of today. It is also clear that it is no longer possible to study the revolution and civil war from the films “Lenin in October”, “Chapaev” or from V. Mayakovsky’s poems “Vladimir Ilyich Lenin” and “Good”. The more we learn about this era, the more independently we will come to some conclusions. A lot of interesting things about this time can be gleaned from Shatrov’s plays, B. Pasternak’s novel “Doctor Zhivago”, V. Grossman’s story “Everything Flows” and others.

The topic of war seems to have been thoroughly studied and described in literature. But suddenly one of our most honest writers, Viktor Astafiev, himself a participant in the war, writes: “... as a soldier, I have nothing to do with what is written about the war. I was in a completely different war... Half-truths tormented us...” Yes, it is difficult to wean ourselves from the usual images of noble Soviet soldiers and despicable enemies that have been emerging for decades from war books and films. We learn from the newspapers that among the German pilots there were many who shot down 100 and even 300 Soviet aircraft. And our heroes Kozhedub and Pokryshkin are only a few dozen. Still would! It turns out that sometimes Soviet cadets flew for only 18 hours - and then went into battle! And the planes, especially during the war, were unimportant. Konstantin Simonov in “The Living and the Dead” perfectly described how pilots died because our “hawks” were “plywood”. We learn a lot of truth about the war from V. Grossman’s novel “Life and Fate”, from the conversations of Solzhenitsyn’s heroes - prisoners, former front-line soldiers, in the novel “In the First Circle”, in other works of our writers.

In the books of modern authors, there is an excellent theme of protecting and preserving our nature. Sergei Zalygin believes that in the face of the catastrophe and tragedy that is approaching us, today there is no more important and significant task than ecology. One could name the works of Astafiev, Belov, Rasputin (including his latest - about Siberia and Baikal), Aitmatov and many others.

The topic of nature conservation is also closely related to moral problems and the search for answers to “eternal” questions. For example, in Chingiz Aitmatov’s novel “The Scaffold”, both themes - the death of nature and immorality - complement each other. This writer also raises themes of universal human values in his new novel “Our Lady of the Snows.”

Among the moral problems, writers are very concerned about the moral savagery of some of our youth. This is noticeable even to foreigners. One of the foreign journalists writes: “People of the West... sometimes know more about some historical events in the Soviet Union than Russian youth. Such historical deafness... led to the development of a generation of young people who know neither villains nor heroes and worship only the stars of Western rock music.” Andrei Voznesensky’s poem “The Ditch” is permeated with indignation and pain, in which the author pilloried grave robbers, scumbags who, for the sake of profit, do what the poet writes in the afterword, that they dig “in skeletons, next to a living road, to crumble the skull and tearing out crowns with pliers in the headlights.” “What must a person reach, how corrupted must consciousness be?!” - the reader exclaims along with the author.

It is difficult to list all the themes that have been heard in the best works of recent years. All this indicates that “our literature is now keeping pace with perestroika and is justifying its purpose.”

The events that occurred in the last decades of the last century affected all spheres of life, including culture. Significant changes were also observed in fiction. With the adoption of the new Constitution, a turning point occurred in the country, which could not but affect the way of thinking and the worldview of citizens. New value guidelines have emerged. Writers, in turn, reflected this in their work.

The topic of today's story is modern Russian literature. What trends have been observed in prose in recent years? What features are inherent in the literature of the 21st century?

Russian language and modern literature

The literary language has been processed and enriched by great masters of words. It should be considered one of the highest achievements of national speech culture. At the same time, it is impossible to separate the literary language from the folk language. The first person to understand this was Pushkin. The great Russian writer and poet showed how to use speech material created by the people. Today, in prose, authors often reflect the folk language, which, however, cannot be called literary.

Time frame

When using a term such as “modern Russian literature,” we mean prose and poetry created in the early nineties of the last century and in the 21st century. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, dramatic changes occurred in the country, as a result of which literature, the role of the writer, and the type of reader became different. In the 1990s, the works of such authors as Pilnyak, Pasternak, Zamyatin finally became available to ordinary readers. The novels and stories of these writers have, of course, been read before, but only by advanced book lovers.

Liberation from prohibitions

In the 1970s, a Soviet person could not calmly walk into a bookstore and buy the novel Doctor Zhivago. This book, like many others, was banned for a long time. In those distant years, it was fashionable for representatives of the intelligentsia, even if not out loud, to scold the authorities, criticize the “correct” writers approved by it and quote “forbidden” ones. The prose of disgraced authors was secretly reprinted and distributed. Those who were involved in this difficult matter could lose their freedom at any time. But banned literature continued to be reprinted, distributed and read.

Years have passed. The power has changed. Such a concept as censorship simply ceased to exist for some time. But, oddly enough, people did not line up in long lines for Pasternak and Zamyatin. Why did it happen? In the early 1990s, people lined up at grocery stores. Culture and art were in decline. Over time, the situation improved somewhat, but the reader was no longer the same.

Many of today's critics speak very unflatteringly about prose of the 21st century. What the problem of modern Russian literature is will be discussed below. First, it is worth talking about the main trends in the development of prose in recent years.

The Other Side of Fear

During times of stagnation, people were afraid to say an extra word. This phobia turned into permissiveness in the early nineties of the last century. Modern Russian literature of the initial period is completely devoid of an instructive function. If, according to a survey conducted in 1985, the most read authors were George Orwell and Nina Berberova, 10 years later the books “Filthy Cop” and “Profession - Killer” became popular.

In modern Russian literature at the initial stage of its development, phenomena such as total violence and sexual pathologies prevailed. Fortunately, during this period, as already mentioned, authors from the 1960s and 1970s became available. Readers also had the opportunity to get acquainted with foreign literature: from Vladimir Nabokov to Joseph Brodsky. The work of previously banned authors has had a positive impact on Russian modern fiction.

Postmodernism

This movement in literature can be characterized as a peculiar combination of ideological attitudes and unexpected aesthetic principles. Postmodernism developed in Europe in the 1960s. In our country, it took shape as a separate literary movement much later. There is no single picture of the world in the works of postmodernists, but there is a variety of versions of reality. The list of modern Russian literature in this direction includes, first of all, the works of Viktor Pelevin. In the books of this writer, there are several versions of reality, and they are by no means mutually exclusive.

Realism

Realist writers, unlike modernists, believe that there is meaning in the world, but it must be found. V. Astafiev, A. Kim, F. Iskander are representatives of this literary movement. We can say that in recent years the so-called village prose has regained popularity. Thus, one often encounters depictions of provincial life in the books of Alexei Varlamov. The Orthodox faith is, perhaps, the main one in the prose of this writer.

A prose writer can have two tasks: moralizing and entertaining. There is an opinion that third-rate literature entertains and distracts from everyday life. Real literature makes the reader think. Nevertheless, among the topics of modern Russian literature, crime occupies not the last place. The works of Marinina, Neznansky, Abdullaev, perhaps, do not inspire deep reflection, but they gravitate towards the realistic tradition. The books of these authors are often called “pulp fiction.” But it is difficult to deny the fact that both Marinina and Neznansky managed to occupy their niche in modern prose.

The books of Zakhar Prilepin, a writer and famous public figure, were created in the spirit of realism. Its heroes mainly live in the nineties of the last century. Prilepin's work evokes mixed reactions among critics. Some consider one of his most famous works, “Sankya,” to be a kind of manifesto for the younger generation. And Nobel laureate Günter Grass called Prilepin’s story “The Vein” very poetic. Opponents of the Russian writer’s work accuse him of neo-Stalinism, anti-Semitism and other sins.

Women's prose

Does this term have a right to exist? It is not found in the works of Soviet literary scholars, yet the role of this phenomenon in the history of literature is not denied by many modern critics. Women's prose is not just literature created by women. It appeared in the era of the birth of emancipation. Such prose reflects the world through the eyes of a woman. Books by M. Vishnevetskaya, G. Shcherbakova, and M. Paley belong to this direction.

Are the works of Booker Prize winner Lyudmila Ulitskaya women's prose? Maybe only individual works. For example, stories from the collection "Girls". Ulitskaya’s heroes are equally men and women. In the novel “The Kukotsky Case,” for which the writer was awarded a prestigious literary award, the world is shown through the eyes of a man, a professor of medicine.

Not many modern Russian works of literature are actively translated into foreign languages today. Such books include novels and stories by Lyudmila Ulitskaya and Victor Pelevin. Why are there so few Russian-language writers today who are interesting in the West?

Lack of interesting characters

According to publicist and literary critic Dmitry Bykov, modern Russian prose uses outdated narrative techniques. Over the past 20 years, not a single living, interesting character has appeared whose name would become a household name.

In addition, unlike foreign authors who are trying to find a compromise between seriousness and mass appeal, Russian writers seem to be divided into two camps. The creators of the above-mentioned “pulp fiction” belong to the first group. The second includes representatives of intellectual prose. A lot of arthouse literature is being created that even the most sophisticated reader cannot understand, and not because it is extremely complex, but because it has no connection with modern reality.

Publishing business

Today in Russia, according to many critics, there are talented writers. But there aren't enough good publishers. Books by “promoted” authors regularly appear on the shelves of bookstores. Out of thousands of works of low-quality literature, not every publisher is ready to look for one that is worth attention.

Most of the books of the writers mentioned above reflect the events not of the beginning of the 21st century, but of the Soviet era. In Russian prose, according to one of the famous literary critics, nothing new has appeared over the past twenty years, since writers have nothing to talk about. In conditions of family disintegration, it is impossible to create a family saga. In a society in which priority is given to material issues, an instructive novel will not arouse interest.

One may not agree with such statements, but there really are no modern heroes in modern literature. Writers tend to turn to the past. Perhaps the situation in the literary world will soon change, authors will appear who are capable of creating books that will not lose popularity in a hundred or two hundred years.

Literature of the 50s–80s (review)

Death of I.V. Stalin. XX Party Congress. Changes in the social and cultural life of the country. New trends in literature. Topics and problems, traditions and innovations in the works of writers and poets.

Reflection of the conflicts of history in the destinies of the heroes: P. Nilin “Cruelty”, A. Solzhenitsyn “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich”, V. Dudintsev “Not by Bread Alone...”, etc.

New understanding of the problem of man in war: Y. Bondarev “Hot Snow”, V. Bogomolov “Moment of Truth”, V. Kondratyev “Sashka”, etc. Study of the nature of heroism and betrayal, philosophical analysis of human behavior in an extreme situation in the works of V. Bykov “Sotnikov”, B. Okudzhava “Be healthy, schoolboy” and others.

The role of works about the Great Patriotic War in the education of patriotic feelings of the younger generation.

Poetry of the 60s . Searches for a new poetic language, form, genre in the poetry of B. Akhmadullina, E. Vinokurov, R. Rozhdestvensky, A. Voznesensky, E. Evtushenko, B. Okudzhava and others. Development of the traditions of Russian classics in the poetry of N. Fedorov, N. Rubtsov, S. Narovchatova, D. Samoilov, L. Martynov, E. Vinokurova, N. Starshinova, Y. Drunina, B. Slutsky, S. Orlov, I. Brodsky, R. Gamzatov and others.

Reflection on the past, present and future of the Motherland, affirmation of moral values in the poetry of A. Tvardovsky.

« Urban prose» . Subjects, moral issues, artistic features of the works of V. Aksenov, D. Granin, Yu. Trifonov, V. Dudintsev and others.

« Village prose» . A depiction of life in a Soviet village. The depth and integrity of the spiritual world of man, connected by his life with the earth, in the works of F. Abramov, M. Alekseev, S. Belov, S. Zalygin, V. Krupin, P. Proskurin, B. Mozhaev, V. Shukshin, etc.

Dramaturgy. Moral issues of the plays by A. Volodin “Five Evenings”, A. Arbuzov “Irkutsk History”, “Cruel Intentions”, V. Rozov “In Good Hour”, “The Wood Grouse’s Nest”, A. Vampilov “Last Summer in Chulimsk”, “Senior son”, “Duck Hunt”, etc.

Dynamics of moral values over time,foreseeing the danger of losing historical memory: “Farewell to Matera” by V. Rasputin, “Stormy Stop” by Ch. Aitmatov, “Dream at the Beginning of Fog” by Y. Rytkheu and others.

An attempt to evaluate modern life from the perspective of previous generations: “Sign of Trouble” by V. Bykov, “Old Man” by Y. Trifonov, “Shore” by Y. Bondarev, etc.

Historical theme in Soviet literature. Resolving the issue of the role of personality in history, the relationship between man and power in the works of B. Okudzhava, N. Eidelman,

V. Pikulya, A. Zhigulina, D. Balashova, O. Mikhailova and others.

Autobiographical literature. K. Paustovsky,

I. Ehrenburg.

The growing role of journalism. Journalistic orientation of works of art of the 80s. Appeal to the tragic pages of history, reflections on universal human values.

Magazines from this time,their position. (“New World”, “October”, “Banner”, etc.).

Development of the fantasy genre in the works of A. Belyaev, I. Efremov, K. Bulychev and others.

Author's song. Its place in the historical and cultural process (meaningfulness, sincerity, attention to the individual). The significance of the creativity of A. Galich, V. Vysotsky, Y. Vizbor, B. Okudzhava and others in the development of the genre of art song.

Multinationality of Soviet literature.

A.I. Solzhenitsyn. Information from the biography.

« Matrenin Dvor» *. “One day in the life of Ivan Denisovich.” A new approach to depicting the past. The problem of generational responsibility. The writer's reflections on the possible ways of human development in the story. The skill of A. Solzhenitsyn - a psychologist: the depth of characters, historical and philosophical generalization in the writer’s work.

V.T. Shalamov. Information from the biography.

« Kolyma stories» .(two stories of your choice). The artistic originality of Shalamov's prose: absence of declarations, simplicity, clarity.

V.M. Shukshin. Information from the biography .

Stories: "Weirdo", « I choose a village to live in», « cut off», « Microscope», « Oratorical reception» . A depiction of the life of a Russian village: the depth and integrity of the spiritual world of the Russian person. Artistic features of V. Shukshin's prose.

N.M. Rubtsov. Information from the biography .

Poems : « Visions on the Hill», « Autumn leaves» (You can choose other poems).

The theme of the homeland in the poet’s lyrics, acute pain for its fate, faith in its inexhaustible spiritual powers. Harmony of man and nature. Yesenin traditions in Rubtsov’s lyrics.

Rasul Gamzatov. Information from the biography.

Poems: « Cranes», « Horsemen quarreled in the mountains,it happened...» (you can choose other poems).

The soulful sound of the theme of the homeland in Gamzatov’s lyrics. A technique of parallelism that enhances the semantic meaning of eight lines. The relationship between the national and the universal in Gamzatov’s works.

A.V. Vampilov.Information from the biography.

Play « Provincial jokes» ( You can choose another dramatic work).

The image of an eternal, indestructible bureaucrat. Affirmation of goodness, love and mercy. Gogolian traditions in Vampilov’s dramaturgy.

Russian literature of recent years (review)

Foreign literature (review)

J.-W. Goethe.« Faust» .

E. Hemingway.« The Old Man and the Sea» .

E.-M. Remarque.« Three comrades»

G. Marquez.« One Hundred Years of Solitude» .

P. Coelho.« Alchemist» .

Works for discussions on modern literature

A. Arbuzov « Years of wandering» .

V. Rozov « Looking for Joy» .

A. Vampilov « Last summer in Chulimsk» .

V. Shukshin « Until the third roosters», « Duma» .

V. Erofeev “Moscow – Petushki”

Ch. Aitmatov. “The White Steamer” (After the Fairy Tale)”, “Early Cranes”, “Piebald Dog Running by the Edge of the Sea”.

D. Andreev. "Rose of the World"

V. Astafiev. "The Shepherd and the Shepherdess."

A. Beck. "New appointment."

V. Belov. "Carpenter's Stories", "The Year of the Great Turning Point".

A. Bitov. "Georgian Album".

V. Bykov. “Roundup”, “Sotnikov”, “Sign of Trouble”.

A. Vampilov. "Eldest Son", "Farewell in June".

K. Vorobiev. "Killed near Moscow."

V. Vysotsky. Songs.

Yu. Dombrovsky. "Faculty of unnecessary things."

V. Ivanov. “Primordial Rus'”, “Great Rus'”.

B. Mozhaev. "Men and women."

V. Nabokov. "Luzhin's Defense"

V. Nekrasov. “In the trenches of Stalingrad”, “A little sad story”.

E. Nosov. “Usvyatsky Helmet Bearers”, “Red Wine of Victory”.

B. Okudzhava. Poetry and prose.

B. Pasternak. Poetry.

V. Rasputin. “Farewell to Matera”, “Live and Remember”.

V. Shalamov. “Kolyma stories.

Poetry of the 60–90s and the last decade (A. Kuznetsov, N. Tryapkin, G. Aigi, D. Prigov, V. Vishnevsky, etc.).

Sample essay topics

XIX century

Social and political situation in Russia at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The influence of the ideas of the Great French Revolution on the formation of public consciousness and the literary movement.

Romanticism. Social and philosophical foundations of its occurrence.

Moscow Society of Philosophers, its philosophical and aesthetic program.

Basic aesthetic principles of realism. Stages of development of realism in the 19th century.

K.N. Batyushkov. The cult of friendship and love in the works of Batyushkov. The role of the poet in the development of Russian poetry.

V.A. Zhukovsky. The artistic world of romantic elegies and ballads.

The main problems of I.A.’s fables Krylova. The theme of the Patriotic War of 1812 in the fables of I.A. Krylova.

Creativity of the Decembrist poets. Features of the civil-heroic romanticism of the Decembrists, leading themes and ideas of their work (K.F. Ryleev,V.F. Raevsky and others).

A.S. Pushkin is the creator of the Russian literary language; Pushkin’s role in the development of Russian poetry, prose and drama.

Freedom-loving lyrics by A.S. Pushkin, its connection with the ideas of the Decembrists (“Liberty”, “To Chaadaev”, “Village”).

Southern poems by A.S. Pushkin, their ideological and artistic features, reflection in the poems of the character traits of “modern man”.

The tragedy “Boris Godunov” by A.S. Pushkin. The historical concept of the poet and its reflection in the conflict and plot of the work.

Decembrist theme in the works of A.S. Pushkin (“To Siberia”, “Arion”, “Anchar”).

The theme of the poet’s spiritual independence in Pushkin’s poetic manifestos (“The Poet and the Crowd,” “The Poet,” “To the Poet”).

The poet’s philosophical lyrics (“A vain gift, an accidental gift...”, “Do I wander along the noisy streets...”).

The novel “Eugene Onegin” by A.S. Pushkin - the first Russian realistic novel, its social issues, system of images, features of plot and composition.

Patriotic poems by A.S. Pushkin (“To the Slanderers of Russia”, “Borodin Anniversary”, “Before the Saint’s Tomb”).

Pushkin's fairy tales, their problematics and ideological content.

The significance of the creative heritage of A.S. Pushkin. Pushkin and our modernity.

The place and significance of the poets of Pushkin’s “pleiad” in Russian poetry. The originality of D.V.’s poetry Davydova, P.A. Vyazemsky, E.A. Baratynsky, A.A. Delviga, N.M. Yazykova, D.V. Venevitinova.

Theme and originality of the early lyrics of M.Yu. Lermontov, her genres, character traits of the lyrical hero.

The theme of the poet and poetry in the works of M.Yu. Lermontov (“Death of a Poet”, “Poet”, “Prophet”).

Development of realistic tendencies in the lyrics of M.Yu. Lermontov, the interaction of lyrical, dramatic and epic principles in lyrics, its genre diversity.

The social and philosophical essence of the poem by M.Yu. Lermontov's "Demon", the dialectic of good and evil, rebellion and harmony, love and hatred, fall and rebirth in the poem.

“A Hero of Our Time” as a socio-psychological and philosophical novel by M.Yu. Lermontov, its structure, system of images.

A.V. Koltsov. The organic unity of the lyrical and epic principles in Koltsov’s songs, the features of their composition and visual means.

Features of N.V.’s creative talent Gogol and his poetic vision of the world. A.S. Pushkin about the specifics of Gogol’s talent.

Poem “Dead Souls” by N.V. Gogol, its concept, features of the genre, plot and composition. The role of Chichikov’s image in the development of the plot and the revelation of the main idea of the work.

The main features of Russian classical literature of the 19th century: national identity, humanism, life-affirming pathos, democracy and nationality.

Geopolitics of Russia: protection of the national-state interests of the country in the works of L. N. Tolstoy, N. A. Nekrasov, F. I. Tyutchev.

The demarcation of socio-political forces in the 1860s, polemics on the pages of periodicals. The magazines “Sovremennik” and “Russkoe Slovo” and their role in the social movement.

Journalistic and literary-critical activities of N.G. Chernyshevsky, N.A. Dobrolyubova and D.I. Pisareva.

N.G. Chernyshevsky. Socio-political and aesthetic views. Literary-critical activity of N.G. Chernyshevsky.

The novel “What to do?” N.G. Chernyshevsky, his socio-political and philosophical character, problematics and ideological content. The theory of “reasonable egoism”, its attractiveness and impracticability.

ON THE. Nekrasov is the organizer and creator of the new Sovremennik.

Roman I.A. Goncharov “Oblomov” as a socio-psychological and philosophical novel.

“Notes of a Hunter” by I.S. Turgenev - history of creation, problems and artistic originality. V.G. Belinsky about “Notes”.

The novel “Fathers and Sons” by I.S. Turgenev, his problems, ideological content and philosophical meaning. The main conflict of the novel and its reflection of the socio-political struggle on the eve of and during the reforms.

The image of Bazarov as a “transitional type” of a “restless and yearning man” in the novel by I.S. Turgenev "Fathers and Sons". Controversy surrounding the novel. DI. Pisarev, M.A. Antonovich and N.N. Fears about “Fathers and Sons.”

I.S. Turgenev “Poems in Prose”, themes, main motives and genre originality.

Drama “The Thunderstorm” by A.N. Ostrovsky. The problem of personality and environment, ancestral memory and individual human activity in relation to the moral laws of antiquity.

The innovative character of A.N.’s dramaturgy Ostrovsky. The relevance and topicality of the problems raised in his works.

Soul and nature in the poetry of F.I. Tyutcheva.

Features of love lyrics by F.I. Tyutchev, its dramatic tension (“Oh, how murderously we love…”, “Last Love”, “On the eve of the anniversary of August 4, 1864”, etc.).

The spontaneity of artistic perception of the world in the lyrics of A.A. Feta (“Don’t wake her up at dawn…”, “Evening” “How poor our language is!..”, etc.).

Genre diversity of creativity of A.K. Tolstoy. The main motives of the poet’s lyrics (“Among the noisy ball...”, “Not the wind, blowing from above...”, etc.).

Socio-political and cultural life of Russia in the 1870s – early 1880s. Formation of the ideology of revolutionary populism.

M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin is a contributor and editor of Sovremennik and Otechestvennye zapiski.

“Fairy Tales” by M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, their main themes, fantastic orientation, Aesopian language.

Roman F.M. Dostoevsky's "Crime and Punishment", the formulation and solution in it of the problems of moral choice and human responsibility for the fate of the world.

Raskolnikov and his theory of crime. The essence of “punishment” for a lost person and her path to spiritual rebirth in the novel by F.M. Dostoevsky "Crime and Punishment".

N.S. Leskov and his tales about truth-seekers and people's righteous people (“Soborians”, “The Enchanted Wanderer”, “Lefty”).

“War and Peace” L.N. Tolstoy. Concept, issues, composition, system of images.

Spiritual quests of L.N. Tolstoy in the novel Anna Karenina.

Search for a positive hero and ideals of A.P. Chekhov in his stories (“My Life”, “House with a Mezzanine”, “The Jumper”).

Innovation of Chekhov's dramaturgy.

The cognitive, moral, educational and aesthetic role of Russian literature of the 19th century, its global significance and relevance for modern times.

The end of the 19th – the beginning of the 20th century

Modernist movements. Symbolism and young symbolism. Futurism.

Motives of the immortality of the soul in the works of I.A. Bunina.

A.I. Kuprin. Affirmation of the high moral ideals of the Russian people in the writer’s stories.

Moral and social quests of the heroes of I.S. Shmeleva.

The concept of society and man in the dramatic works of M. Gorky.

Autobiographical stories by M. Gorky “Childhood”, “In People”, “My Universities”

Ideals of serving society as interpreted by V. Ya. Bryusov.

The theme of the historical destinies of Russia in the works of A.A. Blok.

Acmeism as a movement in literature; representatives of Acmeism.

Fate and Creativity M.I. Tsvetaeva.

M. Sholokhov's epic novel “Quiet Don”. The uniqueness of the depiction of Russian character in the novel.

Novels and stories about the war “Young Guard” by A. Fadeev, “Star” by E. Kazakevich, “In the Trenches of Stalingrad” by V. Nekrasov.

Soviet historical novel “Peter the Great” by A. Tolstoy.

Satirical novels and stories by I. Ilf and E. Petrov.

Reflection of the tragic contradictions of the era in the works of A. Akhmatova, O. Mandelstam.

Development of the traditions of Russian folk culture in the poetry of the 30s by A. Tvardovsky, M. Isakovsky, P. Vasiliev.

Patriotic poetry and songs of the Great Patriotic War.

M.A. Sholokhov is the creator of the epic picture of folk life in “Don Stories”.

Military theme in the works of M. Sholokhov.

The originality of the composition of the novel “The White Guard” by M.A. Bulgakov.

The tragedy of the depiction of the Civil War in the dramaturgy of M.A. Bulgakov (“Days of the Turbins”, “Running”, etc.).

The novel “Other Shores” by V.V. Nabokov as a novel-memoir of Russia.

Early lyrics of B. Pasternak.

A. Tvardovsky “Vasily Terkin”. A book about a fighter is the embodiment of the Russian national character. I. Bunin about “Vasily Terkin”.

A. Tvardovsky’s poem “House by the Road”: issues, images of heroes.

“Camp” prose of A. Solzhenitsyn “The Gulag Archipelago”, novels “In the First Circle”, “Cancer Ward”.

Philosophical novels by Ch. Aitmatov: “Stormy Stop”, “And the Day Lasts Longer than a Century”, “The Scaffold”.

Depiction of the difficult path of the Soviet intelligentsia in Yu. Bondarev’s novels “The Shore”, “Choice”, “The Game”.

Philosophical fantastic prose by A. and B. Strugatsky.

Historical novels by L. Borodin, V. Shukshin, V. Chivilikhin, B. Okudzhava.

Realistic satire by F. Iskander, V. Voinovich, B. Mozhaev, V. Belov, V. Krupin.

Neomodernist and postmodernist prose by V. Erofeev “Moscow - Petushki”.

Artistic exploration of the everyday life of modern man in the “cruel” prose of T. Tolstoy, L. Petrushevskaya, L. Ulitskaya and others.

The image of a working man in the poetic works of Y. Smelyakov, B. Ruchev, L. Tatyanicheva and others.

The spiritual world of the Russian person in the lyrical verses and poems of N. Rubtsov.

Lyrics by poets of the front generation M. Dudin, S. Orlov, B. Slutsky and others.

An epic understanding of the Patriotic War in V. Grossman’s novel “Life and Fate.”

Philosophical and parable narrative about the war in V. Bykov’s stories “Sotnikov”, “Obelisk”, “Sign of Trouble”.

The variety of folk characters in the works of V. Shukshin.

Early stories by A. Solzhenitsyn: “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich”, “Matrenin’s Yard”.

Poetry of the 60s XX century.

N. Rubtsov. The development of Yesenin’s traditions in the books “Star of the Fields”, “The Soul Keeps”, “The Noise of Pines”, “Green Flowers”, etc.

I. Brodsky's Nobel lecture is his poetic credo.

Books of poems by I. Brodsky “Part of Speech”, “The End of a Beautiful Era”, “Urania”, etc.

Social and psychological dramas by A. Arbuzov “Irkutsk History”, “Tales of the Old Arbat”, “Cruel Intentions”.

Theater of A. Vampilov: “The Eldest Son”, “Duck Hunt”, “Provincial Anecdotes”, “Last Summer in Chulimsk”.

Conventional metaphorical novels by V. Pelevin “The Life of Insects” and “Chapaev and Emptiness.”

Literary criticism of the mid-80s–90s. XX century

Development of the detective genre at the end of the twentieth century.