Literature as a reflection of the life of the people. Essay “Literature as an artistic reflection of life

What psychologism is, the concept will not give a complete idea. Examples from works of art should be given. But, to put it briefly, psychologism in literature is an image of the hero’s inner world with the help of various means. The author uses systems that allow him to reveal deeply and in detail state of mind character.

Concept

Psychologism in literature is the author’s transmission to the reader of the inner world of his characters. Other forms of art also have the ability to convey sensations and feelings. But literature, thanks to its imagery, has the ability to depict a person’s state of mind down to the smallest detail. The author, trying to describe the hero, gives his details appearance, room interior. Often in literature, a technique such as landscape is used to convey the psychological state of characters.

Poetry

Psychologism in literature is the disclosure of the inner world of heroes, which can have a different character. In poetry, it usually has an expressive quality. Lyrical hero conveys his feelings or carries out psychological introspection. Objective knowledge of the inner world of man in poetic work almost impossible. conveyed quite subjectively. The same can be said about dramatic works, where the hero’s inner experiences are conveyed through monologues.

A striking example of psychologism in poetry is Yesenin’s poem “The Black Man.” In this work, although the author conveys his own feelings and thoughts, he does so somewhat detached, as if observing himself from the outside. The lyrical hero in the poem is having a conversation with a certain person. But at the end of the work it turns out that there is no interlocutor. The black man symbolizes a sick consciousness, pangs of conscience, the oppression of mistakes made.

Prose

The psychologism of fiction received special development in the nineteenth century. Prose has a wide range of possibilities for revealing the inner world of a person. Psychologism in Russian literature has become the subject of study by domestic and Western researchers. The techniques used by Russian writers of the nineteenth century were borrowed by later authors in their work.

The systems of images that can be found in the novels of Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoevsky have become an example to be followed by writers all over the world. But you should know that psychologism in literature is a feature that can only be present if the human personality is a great value. He is unable to develop in a culture characterized by authoritarianism. In literature, which serves to impose any ideas, there is not and cannot be an image of the psychological state of an individual.

Psychologism of Dostoevsky

How does the artist reveal inner world your hero? In the novel “Crime and Punishment,” the reader gets to know Raskolnikov’s emotions and feelings through the description of his appearance, the interior of the room, and even the image of the city. In order to reveal everything that happens in the soul of the main character, Dostoevsky does not limit himself to presenting his thoughts and statements.

The author shows the situation in which Raskolnikov finds himself. A small closet, reminiscent of a closet, symbolizes the failure of his idea. Sonya's room, on the contrary, is spacious and bright. But most importantly, Dostoevsky Special attention pays attention to the eyes. In Raskolnikov they are deep and dark. Sonya's are meek and blue. And, for example, nothing is said about Svidrigailov’s eyes. Not because the author forgot to describe the appearance of this hero. Rather, the point is that, according to Dostoevsky, people like Svidrigailov have no soul at all.

Tolstoy's psychologism

Each hero in the novels “War and Peace” and “Anna Karenina” is an example of how subtle a master artistic word can convey not only the torment and experiences of the hero, but also the life that he led before the events described. Techniques of psychologism in literature can be found in the works of German, American, French authors. But Leo Tolstoy's novels are based on the system complex images, each of which is revealed through dialogues, thoughts, details. What is psychologism in literature? Examples are scenes from the novel Anna Karenina. The most famous of them is the horse racing scene. Using the example of the death of a horse, the author reveals Vronsky’s selfishness, which subsequently leads to the death of the heroine.

Anna Karenina’s thoughts after her trip to Moscow are quite complex and ambiguous. Having met her husband, she suddenly notices irregular shape his ears - a detail that I had not paid attention to before. Of course, it is not this feature of Karenin’s appearance that repels his wife. But with the help small detail the reader learns how painful it becomes for the heroine family life, filled with hypocrisy and devoid of mutual understanding.

Chekhov's psychologism

The psychologism of Russian literature of the 19th century is so pronounced that in the works of some authors of this period the plot fades into the background. This feature can be observed in the stories of Anton Chekhov. Events in these works do not play a major role.

Forms of psychological image

Psychologism in the literature of the 19th century is expressed using various All of them can have both direct meaning, and indirect meaning. If the text says that the hero blushed and lowered his head, then we're talking about about direct form psychological image. But in the works classical literature often more complex artistic details. In order to understand and analyze the indirect form of psychological depiction, the reader must have a sufficiently developed imagination.

In Bunin's story "Mr. from San Francisco" the hero's inner world is conveyed through the depiction of a landscape. Main character This piece says nothing at all. Moreover, he doesn't even have a name. But the reader understands from the first lines what he is and what his way of thinking is.

Psychologism in the prose of foreign authors

Bunin was inspired to write a story about a rich and unhappy man from San Francisco by a novel by Thomas Mann. in one of his small works depicted psychological condition a man who dies for the sake of passion and lust in a city engulfed by an epidemic.

The novella is called "Death in Venice." There is no dialogue in it. The hero's thoughts are expressed using direct speech. But the author conveys the internal torment of the main character with the help of many symbols. The hero meets a man in a frightening mask, which seems to warn him of mortal danger. Venice - a beautiful ancient city - is shrouded in stench. And in this case, the landscape symbolizes the destructive power of lustful passion.

"Flying over Cuckoo's Nest"

Wrote a book that became a cult favorite. In a novel about a man who finds himself in psychiatric clinic in order to avoid imprisonment, the main idea is not tragic fate heroes. A hospital for the mentally ill symbolizes a society in which fear and lack of will reign. People are unable to change anything and resign themselves to the authoritarian regime. McMurphy symbolizes strength, determination and fearlessness. This person is capable of, if not changing fate, then at least trying to do it.

The author can convey the psychological state of the characters in just one or two lines. An example of this technique is a fragment from Kesey's novel in which McMurphy makes a bet. Since it seems obvious to others that he will not be able to win the argument, they are happy to place bets. He's losing. Gives money. And then he says key phrase: “But I still tried, at least I tried.” With this small detail, Ken Kesey conveys not only McMurphy's mindset and character, but also the psychological state of other characters. These people are not able to take a decisive step. It’s easier for them to be in unbearable conditions, but not take risks.

The V class literature course begins with introductory lesson on the topic “Literature as artistic reflection life" which is natural continuation work begun in fourth grade (“Initial concept of literature as the art of speech”), and is subordinated to the task of giving students accessible level the initial idea of fiction as a special form of knowledge of reality. This idea, formulated in the most general outline in the lesson, forms the basis of the entire subsequent literature course of the fifth grade as a guideline for the teacher’s methodological efforts aimed at overcoming the naive-realistic perception of literary works by schoolchildren and the formation of special reading skills(the ability to recreate pictures of the life depicted by the writer, empathize with the characters, understand and evaluate their behavior, motives for actions, relationships, etc.; the ability to see the author’s attitude to the world he created).

Naturally, the complexity of the topic forces the teacher to limit its consideration to any one aspect. It seems necessary already at the first stages literary education to direct students' attention to the features of the artistic reproduction of life, to the difference between a work of art and the facts of life on which it is based.

It is advisable to start a conversation about fiction with the question of what a literary work can give a person, what a reader should be like in order for the work to be revealed to him in all the richness of thoughts, feelings, and aesthetic value.

In order for this conversation to become meaningful and not be limited to the children’s groundless guesses, it is necessary to work with the students to comprehend the texts proposed for the introductory lesson: “Love the Book” by M. Gorky, “The Ballad of a Boy” by F. Iskander, a fragment from an article by V. Kaverin “Memory and Imagination” and an excerpt from K. G. Paustovsky’s memoirs about V. Lugovsky. Let us turn first of all to M. Gorky’s statement “Love the book.” His deep meaning can be identified in the process of discussing the following questions: what significance did the book have in the life of M. Gorky? What attitude towards man and his affairs did M. Gorky develop under the influence of reading?

Carefully reading the text, students will note that the books revealed to M. Gorky the richness and diversity of life, showed how “great and beautiful a person is in striving for the best,” sharpened his attention to people, and aroused respect for his work. Schoolchildren should realize that books helped the writer, already in his childhood, determine his attitude towards the world around him. Reflections on the text “Love a book” allow the teacher to draw the attention of fifth-graders to what a thoughtful reader he was, why he believed that a book could make a person’s life easier, help sort out the “confusion of thoughts, feelings, events,” and teach them to respect people and themselves . At the same time, the teacher tries to update and revive the personal reading experience of students and encourage them to evaluate themselves as readers.

Fifth graders can meet another type of reader when reading F. Iskander’s “The Ballad of a Boy”:

A long time ago the whole house fell asleep...
The book is wide open,
Reading it at the table
Excited boy.
A boy is sitting at the table
And in the silence of the night,
It's like it's just around the corner,
He hears this fight.
They drove “legions of darkness,
and each - a dozen,

And he wants to shout
"Wrong! Can not be so!"
Spartacus is being squeezed by the legion,
And on four sides
He is surrounded by Romans.
Everything is at stake!

Spartak is calling his friends over, but where are his friends? There is dust and clouds above them, The ground is not damp for them. They don't see Spartak, they don't hear the commander. The teacher himself will read the ballad in class, and then offer the children next questions and tasks: Did you like this poem? How does a boy read a book? How does he respond to what he reads? Can he see in his imagination the pictures drawn by the author? Does he experience them, does the characters evaluate the events? Support your judgments with the text of the poem. Pay attention to the last part of the poem. What does the boy's dream tell us? How tall human qualities appear in a boy under the influence of reading?

It is important that the children appreciate the boy’s lively reaction to the fate of the characters in the book, become infected with his experiences, and understand his desire to change the course of events. And at the same time, the teacher needs to show the children that unbridled imagination when reading sometimes takes them beyond the boundaries of the world created by the writer, preventing them from perceiving with sufficient depth and completeness the author’s intention, the time and historical circumstances depicted.

All this work should help the student gain, on the one hand, an idea of the enormous possibilities of the book, and, on the other hand, of different readers: a qualified, experienced reader and a novice reader who perceives a work of art as real life. The testimony of an authoritative writer will provide especially convincing confirmation of these conclusions for fifth-graders.

Let's read to them an excerpt from an article by V. A. Kaverin, the author of the beloved teenager. mi of the novel “Two Captains”: “It is a rare work of art that does without invention, without imagination. Imagination is involved both in thinking about the character of the hero and in drawing up a plan. Many readers intertwine literature so closely with life, with such captivating, touching insistence, they accept literature as a photographically accurate record of what is happening in reality, that it is not uncommon to receive a letter asking how this or that hero is doing now, how he is doing, did he get married, etc.

In fact, one cannot equate between real existing person and a hero literary work. The basis of the personality that the writer talks about is almost always a genuine, real biography. But the writer selects from it only those features that he needs to create his hero. The character that he intended to portray is subordinate to the general concept of the work, his main idea, his plan." Let’s ask after reading: what readers does V. A. Kaverin write about?

As an option for an introductory lesson based on repeating material already familiar to fourth grade students about work of art, its compositional elements, we can offer a comparison of fate literary character Gerasima from the story “Mumu” and history real prototype- the mute janitor Andrei, the serf of I.S.'s mother.

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Homework on the topic: Literature as an artistic reflection of life.

Literature (from the Latin litera - letter, writing) is a type of art in which the main means of figurative reflection of life is the word.

Fiction is a type of art that is capable of most comprehensively and widely revealing the phenomena of life, showing them in movement and development.

Like the art of words fiction arose in oral folk art. Its sources were songs and folk epic tales. The word is an inexhaustible source of knowledge and an amazing means for creating artistic images. In words, in the language of any people, their history, their character, the nature of the Motherland are captured, the wisdom of centuries is concentrated. Living word rich and generous. It has many shades. It can be menacing and gentle, instill horror and give hope. No wonder the poet Vadim Shefner said this about the word:

With a word you can kill, with a word you can save, with a word you can lead regiments. A word can be sold and betrayed and bought, A word can be poured into crushing lead.

1.2. Oral folk art and literature. Genres unt.

1.3. Artistic image. Artistic time and space.

Artistic image is not only an image of a person (the image of Tatyana Larina, Andrei Bolkonsky, Raskolnikov, etc.) - it is a picture of human life, in the center of which stands a specific person, but which includes everything that surrounds him in life. Thus, in a work of art a person is depicted in relationships with other people. Therefore, here we can talk not about one image, but about many images.

Any image is an inner world that has come into the focus of consciousness. Outside of images there is no reflection of reality, no imagination, no knowledge, no creativity. The image can take sensual and rational forms. The image can be based on a person’s fiction, or it can be factual. Artistic image objectified in the form of both the whole and its individual parts.

Artistic image can expressively influence feelings and mind.

It provides the maximum capacity of content, is capable of expressing the infinite through the finite, it is reproduced and evaluated as a kind of whole, even if created with the help of several details. The image may be sketchy, unspoken.

As an example artistic image You can cite the image of the landowner Korobochka from Gogol’s novel “ Dead Souls" She was an elderly woman, thrifty, collecting all sorts of rubbish. The box is extremely stupid and slow to think. However, she knows how to trade and is afraid to sell things short. This petty thrift and commercial efficiency puts Nastasya Petrovna above Manilov, who has no enthusiasm and who knows neither good nor evil. The landowner is very kind and caring. When Chichikov visited her, she treated him to pancakes, unleavened pie with eggs, mushrooms, and flatbreads. She even offered to scratch her guest's heels at night.

The reflection of realism in literature is a description of reality, whatever it may be. You can immediately distinguish realism in a work. Firstly, realism does not imply the presence of embellished or distorted facts of life. Realism presupposes a description of a life that will seem familiar and believable to the reader. By using real description some will be able to understand for themselves the whole essence of the current and past life, identify inconsistencies between your understanding of entities and the author’s understanding. Reality can be different for everyone. For example, now many are not satisfied with the quality of life, and for some, the current state of affairs is very successful.

Realism is also characterized by detailed descriptions of specific situations. By using of this description you can dwell more thoroughly on existing problems.

Description real events can often be tragic, cruel or dramatic. At the same time, the meaning of realism is an instructive interpretation of certain individual narratives. With the help of works in the genre of realism, the reader must find out for himself all the nuances and aspects of life, present and past, the subtleties of relationships, criteria for communication, and much more.

Realism is also considered by many historical processes in order to identify a pattern between them, to establish a trend of development and differentiation of different times, historical events and the consequences after them. Some historical and even scientific literature can be attributed to the genre of realism.

Authors who wrote in the genre of realism did not resort to the realm of fantasy, distortion of facts, or sophistication of description in their work. They could reflect their attitude to the plot, their worldview and their life concepts. But the plot of a work of realism has always remained traditional.

Main actor Realism has always remained a person. All storylines always swirling around human society. The author can dilute the work with his thoughts and his attitude.

Realism has changed over time. If earlier realism reflected existing reality, then now realism takes on more the character of dreams about how it would be better in reality. Authors are increasingly conveying their thoughts and their dreams about ideal images, not real ones. This is what determines modern realism. Nowadays, this trend in literature is gaining popularity.

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Lectures for...

Literature
as an artistic reflection historical life people since ancient times.
Humanistic orientation of Russian literature:
formulation and attempt to solve moral and ethical problems in it...

1. Researcher of ancient Russian life and literature D.S. Likhachev wrote: “By appreciating the beautiful in the past, protecting it, we thereby seem to follow the behest of A.S. Pushkin: “Respect for the past is the feature that distinguishes education from savagery...” In life you can often come across opinions that contrast natural sciences with humanities: some are considered “accurate”, while others are denied this incarnation. However, in reality they are hardly different, because they are similar in the method of historical approach: among the natural sciences there are purely historical research, becoming, as it were, the basis further development sciences: “History of flora”, “History of fauna”, “History geological structure earth's crust", etc. Humanitarian sciences deal with the statistical patterns of random phenomena, but many natural sciences only seem accurate, so mathematics at the highest level of development is not as accurate and unambiguous as in the textbook primary school. There is not a single methodological feature that is not used in all the diversity of sciences and scientific schools.
But literature as knowledge has one feature that distinguishes it from other forms of knowledge of the world: it carries within itself educational value, increases and improves a person’s social and ethical qualities. What does literature study? What is the subject of her research? First of all, the subject of literary research is always a person in the fullness of his material and spiritual activity. Literature as a form of art, studying a person, comprehends him in multidimensional spiritual-ethical and historical-social aspects, in the context of historical (reality) or pseudo-historical reality (fiction), depicting and comprehending it as a process changing over time. Medicine also studies man, but it does not deal with his spiritual needs and his relationship with reality. Chemistry studies the organic essence of man, chemical reactions, occurring in his body, the essence of these reactions and their impact... But it is necessary to make a reservation, today many researchers believe that the mutual influence of any essence and hypostasis on the world is so great that science cannot explain it now. For example, numerology believes that indices of numbers can influence a person and his life, others talk about the influence of a name on a person’s appearance, behavior and even fate... In my opinion, literature is still such a comprehensive science, trying to explain a person to a person in all his relationships with the universe and interdependencies on it...
The diversity of literature is studied by the science of “literary criticism”, which develops reader interest and the depth of perception of the text by readers, their social sense, which makes it possible to develop in a person tolerance for manifestations of other cultures, other historical eras, foreign language or foreign national communities.
The artist, on a mental level based on the above, depicts something individual, putting into it the essence of generalization, so that the reader feels his involvement in the world of the heroes of the work. It is the gift of artistic imagination that allows the author to transform his generalizations into images that excite the reader. Seeing the big in the small, embodying the big in the small, the general - this is main principle literature, the search for truth always begins with a small fact, their accumulation, but in any science the same thing happens.
The ability to think abstractly contributes to the creation of an artistic image of reality. The more developed is the abstract thinking of the author creating the image (of the world, person, country, historical painting life) the greater the associations the reader will have when meeting him.
A figurative generalization arises for the author on the basis of his own life and spiritual experience, on the basis of the polysemy of the reality depicted, and is always correlated with many patterns that he needs to isolate, separating them from each other, and then, grouping them in his own way, to create a single, recognizable "typical" image. It is with the help of imagination that he revives the created figurative world, breathes life into it, but if he does not do this, then the reader says: “this does not happen, and there are no such heroes in life...”
The nature of artistic talent is the author’s ability to imagine vividly and strongly. Here's what they think about it various artists words.
I.A. Goncharov: “The work goes on in my head, faces haunt me, they pester me, they pose in scenes, I hear excerpts of their conversations - and it often seemed to me, God forgive me, that I’m not making this up, but that all this is rushing around in air near me, and I need to look and think about it"
I.S. Turgenev: “You feel that someone is standing next to you, walking with you, - and then a living face has formed. It's something like a dream. You walk among the heroes of the novel, you see yourself between them..."
L.N. Tolstoy: “Until he (the hero) becomes an old, good acquaintance for me, until I see him and hear his voice, I do not begin to write.”
Without the gift of imagination, which transforms generalizations into images that excite the reader, touching his emotional strings, a writer, even if he has knowledge of life, the ability to generalize, linguistic culture and many other advantages, he will not be able to create the whole picture life, to make the reader believe in what is depicted. But in order for the reader to become sensitive to literature, it must use its main advantage - the figurative system.
An image is a specific and at the same time generalized picture of life, created with the help of fiction and having aesthetic significance.
Here is the image of Russia from three lyrical poets of Russia:

A.S. Pushkin:
Comrade, believe me, she will rise
The dawn of captivating happiness,
Russia will wake up from its sleep,
And on the ruins of autocracy
They will write our names...

ON THE. Nekrasov:
Native land, name me such an abode,
I've never seen such an angle
Where would your sower and guardian be?
Wherever a Russian man moans...

A. Blok:
Russia, poor Russia!
I want your gray huts,
Your songs to me, windy ones,
Like the first tears of love.
…
Let him lure and deceive,
You won’t be lost, you won’t perish,
And only care will cloud
Your beautiful features.
The richness of the image arises due to the multitude individual traits and details, vital details of his time. All three poets write about Russia, believe in its better future, but with different figurative structures these lines are perceived differently.
A.P. Chekhov wrote about this: “I thought that the artist’s instincts are sometimes worth the scientist’s brains, that both have the same goals, the same nature, and, perhaps, over time, with the perfection of methods, they are destined to merge together into a gigantic monstrous a force that is difficult to imagine now..."
The greatest value of Russian literature lies in its kindness, which only a strong beginning always possesses, it is part of Russian culture, open system and accepts, creatively comprehending and processing all human values.
But if an artist, sculptor, etc. a whole set of materials that allow you to create an image, then for a poet, a writer, the main and only material is the word.
The birth of Russian literature was facilitated by the excellent flexible and laconic-precise Russian language, which by the time of its emergence had reached written literature high level of development. Rich and expressive it was presented in oral folklore, business writing, oratory at veche and princely congresses. It was a language with extensive vocabulary, with developed terminology: legal, military-feudal, church, technical, abundant synonyms capable of reflecting emotional shades of understanding, allowing for diverse forms of word formation.
Russian literature from its very inception was closely connected with Russian historical reality Therefore, the history of Russian literature is an artistic presentation of the history of the Russian people, their universal human quest, the history of the Russian state, which determines its artistic originality.
Critic, public figure, V.G. Belinsky wrote: “Since art, in terms of its content, is an expression of the historical life of the people, this life has a great influence on it, being in the same relation to it as oil is to the fire that it supports in a lamp, or, even more like soil to the plants to which it gives nourishment.”
Exactly high level general ancient Russian culture, literacy, development of crafts, architecture, icon painting, extensive military and trade relations with countries and peoples, requiring legal and diplomatic support, advanced technology production, became the initial foundation for the emergence ancient Russian literature.
Therefore, the works of ancient Russian literature took a special, original place as the basis for the further development of Russian artistic thought: “The Tale of Igor’s Host...”, “The Tale of the Law” by Hilarion, “The Teaching of Vladimir Monomakh”, “The Prayer of Daniil the Zatochnik”, “The Kiev-Pechersk Patericon” ", "The Tale of Bygone Years" and many other works of later times.
Already the literature of modern times, the 18th century, became a consequence and artistic reflection of the changes, reforms and transformations of Peter I, subsequent reigns, including Peter’s daughter Elizabeth I and subsequently Catherine II, decades of absolutism turned out to be beneficial for the emergence of Russian Empire secular literature, which began its countdown with the satires of a contemporary and comrade-in-arms of Peter I, Antiochus Cantemir.
Russian classicism is being formed, incorporating the best of Western Europe, but also having its own characteristics:
1. B best works Classicism, Russian literature declared its irreconcilability to all manifestations of moral evil.
2. Classicism in Russia was not questioned social structure society, although their works, with national pathos, contained a demand for humanism towards the weak and orphaned...
3. Russian classicists, as opposed to Western ones, turned not only to history Ancient Greece And Ancient Rome, and more often to national history.
4. Russian classicism represented by its own people the brightest representatives: Fonvizin, Trediakovsky, Sumarokov, Lomonosov, Derzhavin, Karamzin, - prepared the appearance of the geniuses of Russian literature A.S. Griboyedov and A.S. Pushkin, with their close attention to real life Russian society.
2. Artistic Features and discoveries of literature of the second half of the 19th century century
After the defeat in Crimean War(1853-1855), when the Russian aristocratic bureaucracy showed its inability to govern the country, having lost a local war on its territory, although the Turks, Greeks, French and British arrived in the Crimea with the quiet support of the Austrian and German power structures, but it failed to prepare either the infrastructure for the transport of troops and army supplies, or the army, or the state diplomatic service itself. Immediately after the signing of peace in 1856, speaking to the noble deputies, the new Tsar Alexander II said: “It’s better to start destroying serfdom from above, rather than waiting for it to begin to destroy itself from below.”
Due to complexity Russian life, the multi-layered nature of its social, economic and political-public structures, the social movement of the 60s can be divided into three stages, and Russian literature has always been strictly tied to the history of its country and the state and social trends manifested in it.
From 1855 to 1858, there was a stage of “liberal spring”, which replaced strict control during the reign of Nicholas I, but disagreements immediately began between “revolutionary democrats” and “liberals”, there were discussions about the “Pushkin” and “Gogol” trends in literature . Although there were no particular contradictions: Pushkin was liberal, but did not share the views of his Decembrist friends on a violent change in the structure of Russian life... Gogol was generally a supporter of preserving the basic bonds Russian statehood, autocracy and Orthodoxy, with the moral self-improvement of representatives of the elite and the destruction through reforms of the shame of serfdom...
The demarcation between those who advocated the complete and speedy abolition of serfdom and those who advocated the gradual abolition of serfdom, with the preservation of its elements for some time, was complicated by the different cultural and historical orientation of members of the public. A struggle ensued between Westernizing liberals and Slavophiles - this confrontation, to one degree or another, continues to this day, corroding the social movement in Russia like rust.
Westerners believed that Russia had a great future, as a developing national education only when focusing on Western achievements and values transferred to Russian socio-political reality, that Russia needs to move in line with the Western tradition of common Christian civilization.
The Slavophiles, rejecting and criticizing all social theories that were not present in the experience of the Russian historical past, affirmed the idea of the cultural and historical identity of Russia. They contrasted the Western formal “association” under the supremacy of the majority with the Russian “conciliarity”, which represents not the legal formalization of relations, but cordial agreement between people; an example of such conciliarity was considered the peasant community with the solution of all issues “in peace”.
1859 – 1861 second stage of development public life: views on the peasant reform became clearer, it became clear that, as always happened in Russia, when reforms were carried out “from above,” they remained half-hearted and contradictory. The revolutionary democrats broke with the liberals, discord and disputes on their part were supported by the magazines “Sovremennik” and “Svistok” (1859), which considered the peasant community to be the core of the socialist community, hoping for its opposition to the authorities, but the community had to be shaken up .
The 1861 manifesto on the liberation of the peasants aggravated the contradictions between the radicals and the gradualists, and the government began to persecute the extreme left: N.G. was arrested. Chernyshevsky, D.I. Pisarev, the publication of Sovremennik has been suspended. Contradictions also arose within left-wing journalism: “Sovremennik” (Dobrolyubov, Chernyshevsky, Nekrasov) and “Russian Word” (Pisarev, Zaitsev), the former insisted on the natural revolutionary spirit of the Russian peasantry, the latter considered the “mental proletariat”, commoners, representatives from different walks of life. To some extent, these debates were reflected in “Fathers and Sons” by I.S. Turgenev and “The Thunderstorm” by A.N. Ostrovsky.
1862-1869 the third stage in the development of social movements...
There was a decline in extreme revolutionary sentiments, especially after the Polish uprising, when the majority of the liberal intelligentsia supported the government in its confrontation with the Polish nationalists, and in 1866 Karakozov fired a shot at the emperor, declaring the hopes of the extreme wing of revolutionary democrats to achieve change through political terror, to which the government responded with a wave of arrests and a harsh political reaction.
Russian literature during the period of the 60s tried to answer basic questions about the ways of development of the country, the participation of its people in this and responsibility educated society for the state of affairs. In general, Russian literature of the mid-19th century is called literature of three questions formulated by titles famous works wide readable authors, to which society has never found an answer...
1st “Who is to blame?”, directed by A.I. Herzen with his work of the same name.
2nd “What to do?” asked N.G. Chernyshevsky, when he tried to understand the task of the intelligentsia and give it the same name in his novel positive examples the lives of heroes for the happiness of the people.
3rd “Who lives well in Rus'?” wanted to know in poem of the same name A.N. Nekrasov.
With acceleration social processes, the increase in political and social confrontation in the life of the population of Russia, differentiation and specialization occurs literary creativity. In fact, Pushkin’s artistic universe turned out to be unique; there were no authors capable of reflecting all the twists and turns of Russian life in such a multi-faceted and multi-genre way. L.N. Tolstoy entered literature as the creator unique novels, including the epic novel War and Peace. A.N Ostrovsky realized himself as a playwright. Revered by contemporaries and now almost forgotten writers A.I. Levitov, G.I. Uspensky, N.V. Uspensky primarily remained sketchers of contemporary Russian life, M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin entered literature as a satirist and author of “The History of a City.” I.S. Turgenev tried to preserve universalism in his work, but did not achieve either Tolstoy’s epoch-making artistic power or tragic intensity internal conflicts and passions of novels by F.M. Dostoevsky. The fiction of the majority of revolutionary democrats, due to their fascination with one particular facet of social existence, resulted in the loss of completeness and a comprehensive artistic display of life. Writers of the 60s of the XIX century were faced with the need artistic comprehension mobile, fluid, rapidly and spontaneously changing reality. I.S. Turgenev complained in a letter to the writer K.S. Aksakov: “Simplicity, calmness, clarity of lines... - all these are still ideals that only flash before me... Life hurries and drives - and teases and beckons... it’s difficult to a modern writer“, especially for a Russian, to be calm - neither from the outside nor from the inside does he feel calm.”
These words of Turgenev can, unfortunately, be attributed to all Russian literature, not only of the 19th, but also of the 20th century...