National character in the works of Russian writers. Depiction of the Russian national character in the works of N.S.

Russian character... There are so many legends and stories about him. Are there many such people, are they Russian or not? I think that there are many such people and that even people of other nationalities can be called a person with Russian character. All this is because “Russian character” is an expression, a phraseological unit, which means that a person is morally very strong, resilient, can endure a test of any complexity and not “break.” I believe that few people have a Russian character, but there are still such people.

Let's look at people with such a character using examples from literature and life. For example, the heroes, about whom legends were made and films and cartoons were made, had endurance and strong character, never gave up, did everything for the good of society, which means they had a “Russian character”.

Also, the main character of Boris Polevoy’s work “The Tale of a Real Man” has a “Russian character”. Alexey Meresyev was left without feet in battle, which immediately deprived him of further service in the armed forces. But the main character did not give up, every day he trained, learned to walk, dance, and fly an airplane again. He had a “Russian character”, which is why he found the strength to continue working on himself. After some time, he fully recovered and returned to the ranks of the armed forces.

Also in the story “Russian Character”, which was written by Alexei Tolstoy, a person with a truly “Russian character” is described. Egor Dremov was seriously wounded during the battle, his face was completely disfigured that even his parents did not recognize him by his appearance. So Egor Dremov, after recovery and undergone operations, returned to service. The main character did not give up, made great efforts to recover and he succeeded. After everything he had experienced, Yegor Dremov came home, but did not tell his parents that he was their son. He didn’t want to bring pain to his parents and his girlfriend, but his loved ones still recognized him and accepted him for who he is. Yegor Dremov is a man with a truly “Russian character”, because he endured all the difficulties and fought against them.

Thus, drawing a conclusion from all of the above, I would like to add that a person with a “Russian character” can not only be Russian, he can have any nationality, because what is more important is what qualities he possesses. If a person is truly courageous, morally strong, hardy, brave, courageous, valiant, kind, honest and sympathetic, then he can be called a person with a “Russian character”. If a person is not afraid to be responsible for his actions, if he can always help everyone, if he is smart, then we can say that he has a “Russian character.” If a person respects people and behaves decently, then he can be called a person with Russian character. Thus, the title of a person with “Russian character” must be earned, and then also lived up to it.

Russian national character

The Russian national character has always been quite unique and individual. It is very diverse, which is associated with a large number of difficulties and trials that the Russian people have had to experience throughout their time. Thanks to all this, the Russian character is characterized by masculinity, perseverance, a sense of duty and love for the homeland. This is confirmed in numerous classical works. Russian writers and poets.

Basic integral part Russian national character is the mentality. First, let's figure out what mentality is. Mentality is a complex of emotional and cultural values belonging to one nation or people. It follows from this that every country and every people has its own mentality, and Russia is no exception.

Perhaps every foreigner knows that Russian people are the most friendly and hospitable, but we know that this is not entirely true. Only here can responsiveness coexist with indifference, and goodwill with rudeness. Most psychologists around the world associate this with serfdom, autocracy and famine, which, in their opinion, never existed in the West. But as you know, this is not at all the case, because they constantly create the impression that everything is good and beautiful there, and that it has always been and will always be so.

According to one American psychologist, Nicholas Bright, this character of the Russian people was formed thanks to the idea of collective empathy, as a result of which our people were able to maintain unity and survive all the difficulties that our people faced.

What actually is the Russian folk character in this dualism? The sincerity of our character lies in the fact that we do not hide our emotions and feelings. If you are having fun, then to the fullest, and if you are angry, then so that everyone can hear. Also, laziness for us is a normal phenomenon, based on which we always blame someone else (the state, the authorities or magnetic storms). If we need to take responsibility, then this is not about us; in most cases, we will shift it to someone else. Russian people sometimes think “that even the apples in the neighbor’s garden are better” and at the same time we ourselves don’t want to move on. In addition to everything said above, I would like to add that we can argue that living in Russia is bad, but at the same time we will stand up as a wall for our state if all this comes from the lips of a foreigner.

Essay on Russian character

The character of any person is revealed in the most difficult life circumstances. Therefore, using the example of different heroes, writers show the true Russian character in many of their works.

The most terrible and terrible events occur in the destinies of people during the war. It is precisely at this moment that people’s character manifests itself, some lose heart, and some give their lives for their homeland.

Many pilots, facing certain death, directed their planes at the enemy, knowing that after the collision they would die.

It is precisely in such actions that the strength of the Russian character is visible, this is heroism, selflessness and boundless courage and bravery. For the sake of a common cause, for the sake of victory over a common enemy, all the inhabitants of our country united and stood until their last breath.

As a result, a long-awaited victory and the expulsion of the German invaders from our land. Using the example of the hero Yegor Dremov, writer A.N. Tolstoy shows the true character of the Russian soldier.

During the Battle, Yegor was wounded and received terrible scars on his face; the surgeon was unable to restore the soldier’s former appearance. This circumstance did not break the soldier; he answered his general that he was ready to go into battle again.

When Yegor was in the area of his native land, he came to his village, but did not go to his parents, for fear of scaring and upsetting his mother. After their regiment moved on, Yegor received a letter about his mother. She wrote that she loved him and the most important thing was that he was alive.

Unbroken character, courage, perseverance and fortitude, these are the character traits we see in this hero. Another example of dedication and devotion to the homeland, the hero Andrey Sokolov, from the work of Sholokhov.

He was called up to war, served honestly and selflessly, when he saw a traitor in his ranks, he destroyed this man. While in German captivity Andrei behaved with dignity, which earned him the respect of the German soldiers. When Andrei got out of captivity, he learned that he had neither a family nor a home.

This is so tragic and unbearable, but the hero does not give up and continues to fight. And when he comes across a boy who has lost his family and home, he decides to keep it for himself. This act shows compassion for people.

The example of such people shows the strength of the Russian character, this strength of courage and courage can be seen in many works of Russian writers.

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Sometimes they say that the ideals of Russian classics are too far from modernity and are inaccessible to us. These ideals cannot be inaccessible to a schoolchild, but they are difficult for him. Classics - and this is what we try to convey to our students - is not entertainment. The artistic exploration of life in Russian classical literature never turned into an aesthetic pursuit; it always pursued a living spiritual and practical goal. V.F. Odoevsky formulated, for example, the purpose of his writing: “I would like to express in letters that psychological law according to which not a single word uttered by a person, not a single action is forgotten, does not disappear in the world, but certainly produces some kind of action; so responsibility is connected with every word, with every seemingly insignificant act, with every movement of a person’s soul.”

When studying works of Russian classics, I try to penetrate into the “secrets” of the student’s soul. I will give several examples of such work. Russian verbal and artistic creativity and the national sense of the world are so deeply rooted in the religious element that even movements that have outwardly broken with religion still find themselves internally connected with it.

F.I. Tyutchev in the poem “Silentium” (“Silence!” - Lat.) speaks of special strings of the human soul that are silent in everyday life, but clearly declare themselves in moments of liberation from everything external, worldly, vain. F.M. Dostoevsky in “The Brothers Karamazov” recalls the seed sown by God into the soul of man from other worlds. This seed or source gives a person hope and faith in immortality. I.S. Turgenev felt brevity and fragility more acutely than many Russian writers human life on earth, the inexorability and irreversibility of the rapid flight of historical time. Sensitive to everything topical and momentary, able to capture life in its beautiful moments, I.S. Turgenev simultaneously possessed a generic feature of any Russian classic writer - a rare sense of freedom from everything temporary, finite, personal and egoistic, from everything subjectively biased, clouding visual acuity, breadth of vision, completeness artistic perception. In the troubled years for Russia, I.S. Turgenev creates a prose poem “Russian Language”. The bitter consciousness of the deepest national crisis that Russia was then experiencing did not deprive I.S. Turgenev of hope and faith. Our language gave him this faith and hope.

Russian realism is also capable of seeing something invisible that rises above visible world and directs life towards goodness.

On one of the sleepless nights, in difficult thoughts about myself and disgraced friends, N.A. was created. Nekrasov’s lyrical poem “A Knight for an Hour,” one of the most heartfelt works about the poet’s filial love for his mother, for his homeland. The poet, in the harsh hour of judgment, turns for help to maternal love and intercession, as if merging the human mother with the Mother of God into one image. And then a miracle occurs: the image of the mother, freed from the corruptible earthly shell, rises to the heights of unearthly holiness. This is no longer the poet’s earthly mother, but a “deity of purest love.” In front of him the poet begins a painful and merciless confession, asking to lead the lost one onto the “thorny path” into the “camp of those who perish for the great cause of love.”

Peasant women, wives, and mothers, in the poetry of N.A. Nekrasova, in critical moments of her life, invariably turns to the Heavenly Patroness of Russia for help. Unhappy Daria, trying to save Proclus, goes to Her for her last hope and consolation. In severe misfortune, Russian people least of all think about themselves. No grumbling or groaning, no bitterness or complaints. Grief is absorbed by an all-conquering feeling of compassionate love for the person who has passed away, up to the desire to resurrect him with a kind word. Relying on the divine power of the Word, household members invest in it all the energy of selfless, resurrecting love: “Splash, beloved, with your hands, / Look with a hawk’s eye, / Shake your silken curls, / Dissolve sugary lips!” (Nekrasov N.A. Complete collection of works and letters: In 15 volumes-L. 1981.-T.2).

In the poem “Frost, Red Nose,” Daria undergoes two tests. Two blows follow each other with fatal inevitability. After the loss of her husband, her own death overtakes her. But Daria overcomes everything with the power of spiritual love that embraces everything. God's peace: nature, land-nurse, grain field. And dying, she loves Proclus, children, and work in God’s field more than herself.

The people carried this amazing property of the Russian national character through the darkness of harsh hard times from “The Lay of Igor’s Campaign” to the present day, from the crying of Yaroslavna to the crying of the heroines V. Belov, V. Rasputin, V. Krupin. V. Astafiev, who lost their husbands and sons.

So, the depiction of the Russian national character distinguishes Russian literature as a whole. The search for a hero who is morally harmonious, who clearly understands the boundaries of good and evil, who exists according to the laws of conscience and honor, unites many Russian writers. The twentieth century (especially the second half) felt the loss of the moral ideal even more acutely than the nineteenth: the connection of times fell apart, the string broke, which A.P. Chekhov so sensitively grasped (the play “The Cherry Orchard”), and the task of literature is to realize that we not “Ivans who do not remember kinship.”

I would especially like to dwell on the depiction of the folk world in the works of V.M. Shukshina. Among the writers of the late twentieth century, it was V.M. Shukshin turned to the people’s soil, believing that people who retained their “roots,” albeit subconsciously, but were drawn to the spiritual principle inherent in the people’s consciousness, contained hope and testified that the world had not yet perished.

The originality of the folk world is reflected by the type of hero created by Shukshin - the “eccentric” hero, a character unlike all the others, spiritually connected with the folk soil, rooted in it. This connection is unconscious, however, it is precisely this that makes the hero a special person, the embodiment of a moral ideal, a person in whom lies the author’s hope for the preservation of traditions and the revival of the people’s world. “Freaks” often evoke an ironic smile, even laughter from readers. However, their “eccentricity” is natural: they look around with wide open eyes, their soul feels dissatisfaction with reality, they want to change this world, improve it, but they have at their disposal means that are unpopular among people who have well mastered the “wolf” laws of life. Speaking of “eccentrics,” we dwell on the story “Creacle,” whose hero’s name was Vasily Yegorych Knyazev, and he worked as a projectionist, but we learn these meager biographical facts only at the end of the story, because this information does not add anything to the character’s characterization. The important thing is that “something was always happening to him. He didn’t want this, he suffered, but every now and then he got into some kind of story - minor, however, but annoying.” He commits actions that cause bewilderment and sometimes even discontent.

Analyzing the episodes associated with his stay visiting his brother, we grasp the moral strength that the people's soil gave him. The weirdo immediately feels hatred, waves of anger that emanate from his daughter-in-law. The hero does not understand why they hate him, and this worries him very much.

The weirdo goes home to his village, his soul cries. But in native village he felt how happy he was, how close the world with which he was connected was to him, nourishing his pure, vulnerable, misunderstood, but so necessary for the world, soul.

“Freak” heroes unite many of Shukshin’s stories. In class we analyze the stories “Styopka”, “Microscope”, “I Believe” and others. The hero-“eccentric” is contrasted with a “strong man”, a man who is cut off from the people’s soil, to whom folk morality is alien. This problem Let’s look at the example of the story “A Strong Man.”

Concluding the conversation about the depiction of the people's world V.M. Shukshin, we come to the conclusion that the writer deeply comprehended the nature of the Russian national character and showed in his works what kind of person the Russian village yearns for. About the soul of a Russian person V.G. Rasputin writes in the story “Izba”. The writer draws readers to the Christian norms of simple and ascetic life and, at the same time, to the norms of brave, courageous action,” creation, and asceticism. We can say that the story returns readers to the spiritual space of the ancient, maternal culture. The tradition of hagiographic literature is noticeable in the narrative. Agafya’s harsh, ascetic life, her ascetic work, love for native land, to every hummock and every blade of grass, erecting “mansions” in a new place - these are the moments of content that make the story about the life of a Siberian peasant woman related to life. There is also a miracle in the story: despite the “addiction,” Agafya, having built a hut, lives in it “twenty years without one year,” that is, she will be awarded longevity. And the hut built by her hands, after Agafya’s death, will stand on the shore, will preserve the foundations of centuries-old peasant life for many years, and will not allow them to perish even today.

The plot of the story, the character of the main character, the circumstances of her life, the story of the forced move - everything refutes the popular ideas about the laziness and commitment to drunkenness of the Russian person. The main feature of Agafya’s fate should also be noted: “Here (in Krivolutskaya) Agafya’s Vologzhin family settled from the very beginning and lived for two and a half centuries, taking root in half the village.” This is how the story explains the strength of character, perseverance, and asceticism of Agafya, who is building her “house”, a hut, in a new place, after which the story is named. In the story of how Agafya set up her hut in a new place, V.G. Rasputin’s story comes close to the life of Sergius of Radonezh. It is especially close in the glorification of carpentry, which was owned by Agafya’s voluntary assistant, Savely Vedernikov, who earned an apt description from his fellow villagers: he has “golden hands.” Everything that Savely’s “golden hands” do shines with beauty, pleases the eye, and glows. “Damp plank, and how board to board lay on two shiny slopes, playing with whiteness and newness, how it shone already in the twilight, when, having knocked on last time Savely went down the roof with an ax, as if light was streaming over the hut and it stood up to its full height, immediately moving into the residential order.”

Not only life, but also fairy tales, legends, and parables resonate in the style of the story. As in the fairy tale, after Agafya’s death the hut continues their common life. The blood connection between the hut and Agafya, who “endured” it, is not broken, reminding people to this day of the strength and perseverance of the peasant breed.

At the beginning of the century, S. Yesenin called himself “the poet of the golden log hut.” In the story by V.G. Rasputin, written at the end of the 20th century, the hut is made of logs darkened by time. There is only a glow under the night sky from the brand new plank roof. Izba - a word-symbol - was fixed at the end of the 20th century in the meaning of Russia, homeland. The parable layer of V.G.’s story is connected with the symbolism of village reality, with the symbolism of the word. Rasputin.

So, moral problems traditionally remain the focus of Russian literature; our task is to convey to students the life-affirming foundations of the works being studied. The portrayal of the Russian national character distinguishes Russian literature; the search for a hero who is morally harmonious, clearly aware of the boundaries of good and evil, and who exists according to the laws of conscience and honor, unites many Russian writers.

Depiction of the Russian national character in the works of N. S. Leskov

Introduction

"It was special person and a special writer"

A. A. Volynsky

The problem of the Russian national character became one of the main ones for the literature of the 60s - 80s of the 19th century, closely connected with the activities of various revolutionaries, and later populists. The writer N.S. also paid attention to her. Leskov.

Leskov belonged to those writers of the second half of the 19th century who, without having a clear progressive worldview, possessed a kind of spontaneous democracy and believed in popular forces.

The period of Leskov’s creativity is characterized by the writer’s desire to find positive ideals in Russian life and contrast them with all forms of personal suppression.

N.S. Leskov wrote: “A writer’s voice training lies in the ability to master the language and voice of his hero and not stray from altos to basses. I tried to develop this skill in myself and, it seems, achieved that my priests speak in a spiritual way, nihilists - in a nihilistic way, peasants - in a peasant way, upstarts - with frills, etc. For myself, I speak in the language of the ancients fairy tales and church-folk in purely literary speech. Now you only recognize me in every article, even if I didn’t sign for it. It makes me happy. They say it's fun to read me. This is because we all: both my heroes and myself, have our own voice...” A scientific and methodological newspaper for literature teachers. No. 14. July 16 - 31, 2007 from 43.

Hard work, high honesty, selflessness - these are the qualities that distinguish many of Leskov’s heroes. The author's realism at the turn of the 60s and 70s of the 19th century borders on romance: his artistic world is populated by eccentrics, originals with genuine love for humanity, doing good unselfishly, for the sake of good itself. Leskov deeply believes in the spiritual strength of the people and sees in it the salvation of Russia.

The topic of my essay: “Depiction of the Russian national character in the works of N. S. Leskov.”

The purpose of the work can be seen in the choice of the topic of the essay: to consider the depiction of the Russian national character in the works of N. S. Leskov.

I set myself the following tasks:

1. Study the character of the Russian people in the works of N. S. Leskov.

2. Learn the Leskov language.

N. S. Leskov worked in literature for 35 years, from 1860 to 1895. We find an interpretation of the essence of the character of a Russian person in many of his works. The period of Leskov's work in the 70s - mid-80s is characterized by the writer's desire to find positive ideals in Russian life and contrast them with all forms of personal suppression. Leskov saw good and bright sides in Russian people. And this is partly reminiscent of the search for ideally beautiful people by F. M. Dostoevsky and L. N. Tolstoy. But, creating his “righteous people,” Leskov takes them directly from life, does not endow them with any ideas of a previously accepted teaching; they are simply morally pure, they do not need moral self-improvement. His “righteous” go through difficult life trials and endure a lot of adversity and grief. And even if protest is not actively expressed, their very bitter fate is protest.

The “Righteous Man,” according to public assessment, is a “little man,” whose entire property is often in a small shoulder bag, but spiritually, in the reader’s mind, he grows into a legendary epic figure. This is the hero Ivan Flyagin in The Enchanted Wanderer, reminiscent of Ilya Muromets. The conclusion from his life suggested itself to be this: the Russian man can cope with everything.

The most striking work on the theme of the “righteous” is “The Tale of the Tula Oblique Lefty and the Steel Flea.” The “Righteous” bring people fascination with themselves, but they themselves act as if enchanted. Give them a second life, they will live through it too. The tale of Lefty develops this motif.

Leskov is the author of a huge number of works of various genres, an interesting publicist whose articles have not lost their relevance to this day, an excellent stylist and unsurpassed expert on the most diverse layers of Russian speech, a psychologist who has penetrated into the secrets of the Russian national character and shown the role of national and historical foundations in life. country, writer, in the apt expression of M. Gorky, “Pierced all of Russia” Gorky m. Full. Collection Op. t. 21. m., 1974. p. 299

I read a lot of interesting literature, which helped me better understand Leskov’s personality, character and worldview. The books that made a great contribution to my work were: “The History of Russian Literature of the 19th Century” by V. I. Kuleshov and “The Life of Nikolai Leskov” in two volumes by Andrei Leskov - a book by a son about his father. These books became the basis of my work, because they helped me study the life of Leskov and the people who surrounded him down to the smallest detail.

From the cradle to writing. The beginning of a creative journey.

Nikolai Semenovich Leskov was born on February 4 (old style) 1831. in the village of Gorokhov, Oryol province, in the family of a minor judicial official, who came from the clergy and only before his death received documents of personal nobility. Leskov's father, Semyon Dmitrievich, was an assessor of the Oryol Criminal Chamber. According to Leskov, he was distinguished by his religiosity, “wonderful mind,” honesty and “firmness of conviction, which is why he made a lot of enemies.” The son of a priest, Semyon Dmitrievich acquired nobility thanks to his service. Mother, Maria Petrovna (née Alfereva) was a hereditary Oryol noblewoman with family kinship in the Moscow merchant class. Leskov spent his childhood in Orel and on his father’s estate Panin, Oryol province. Close acquaintance with serfs, communication with peasant children revealed to the future writer the originality of the people's worldview, so different from the values and ideas educated people from the upper classes. Childhood impressions and stories from my grandmother, Alexandra Vasilyevna Kolobova, about Orel and its inhabitants were reflected in many of Leskov’s works.

Leskov’s first childhood years are connected with Third Noble Street in Orel. The “earliest pictures” that opened on the adjacent steppe carriage were “soldiers’ drill and stick fighting”: the time of Nicholas I excluded “humanitarianism”. Leskov encountered despotism of a different kind - direct serfdom in the village of Gorokhov, where he spent several years as a poor relative in the house of the old rich man Strakhov, to whom a young beauty - Leskov's aunt - was married. The writer attributed his “painful nervousness from which he suffered all his life” to Gorokhov’s “terrible impressions” Skatov N.N. History of Russian Literature of the 19th century (second half). Moscow “Enlightenment”, 1991. 321 pp..

In the eighth year of his son’s life, the father bought Panin’s farmstead on the Gostomlya River on credit, and this land of rich black soils Southern Russia, where Leskov encountered the hunger of the dry years and the daily poverty of the peasant chicken hut, where he heard folk tales and the secret stories of Catherine’s feudal estates, wedding votives and ritual songs of the “Petrovkas”, became his true homeland. Panino awakened the artist in the boy and brought him the feeling of being flesh of the people. “I didn’t study the people from conversations with St. Petersburg cab drivers,” said the writer in one of the first literary polemics, “but I grew up among the people on the Gostomel pasture, with a cauldron in my hand, I slept with it on the dewy grass of the night under a warm sheepskin coat, yes in the busy Panin crowd behind circles of dusty habits... I was one of my own people with the people, and I have many godfathers and friends in them... I stood between a man and the rods tied to him..." Skatov N.N. History of Russian Literature of the 19th century (second half). Moscow “Enlightenment”, 1991. 321 p.

Leskov received his initial education in the house of wealthy relatives of the Strakhovs, who hired Russian and foreign teachers for their children. From 1841 to 1846 he studied at the Oryol gymnasium, but did not complete the course, because the thirst for independence and attraction to books interfered with normal learning at the gymnasium. In 1847 he entered service in the Oryol Chamber of the Criminal Court, and in 1849 he transferred to the Kyiv Treasury Chamber. Living with his uncle S.P. Alferyev, professor of medicine at Kyiv University, Leskov found himself among students and young scientists. This environment had a beneficial effect on the development of the mental and spiritual interests of the future writer. He read a lot, attended lectures at the university, mastered the Ukrainian and Polish languages, and became closely acquainted with Ukrainian and Polish literature.

State service weighed heavily on Leskov. He did not feel free and did not see any real benefit to society in his own activities. And in 1857 He entered the economic and commercial company, which was headed by the Englishman Alexander Yakovlevich A. Ya. Shkott, the husband of Leskov’s aunt. As Leskov himself recalled, the commercial service “required incessant travel and sometimes kept him... in the most remote backwaters.” He “traveled Russia in a wide variety of directions” and collected “a large abundance of impressions and a stock of everyday information.”

Since June 1860 Leskov began to collaborate in St. Petersburg newspapers. In “St. Petersburg Gazette”, “ Modern medicine", "Economic Index" Leskov published his first articles of an economic and social nature.

In 1861 Leskov moves to St. Petersburg, and then to Moscow, where he becomes an employee of the newspaper “Russian Rech”. His articles also appear in “Book Bulletin”, “Russian Disabled”, “ Domestic notes", "Time". In December 1861, having broken with the editors of “Russian Rech” more for personal than ideological reasons, Leskov moved to St. Petersburg.

From January 1862 For two years, Leskov was an active employee of the bourgeois-liberal newspaper “Northern Bee”, whose editors began in 1860. headed by P. S. Usov. A prominent role in the editorial office was played by the revolutionary A. Benny, with whom Leskov became close friends and about whom he later wrote the essay “The Mysterious Man” (1870). Leskov headed the department at Northern Bee inner life and spoke on the most pressing issues of our time. He wrote about the progress of reforms in various areas of Russian life, the state budget, openness, relations between classes, the status of women, and the ways of further development of Russia. Having shown himself to be a passionate polemicist, Leskov entered into an argument with both the revolutionary-democratic “Contemporary” of Chernyshevsky and the Slavophile “Day” of I. S. Aksakov. In 1862, Leskov took part in the artel magazine “Vek”, of which G. Z. Eliseev was elected editor. His first work of fiction was published here - the story “The Extinguished Cause” (“Drought”) (1862). Leskov's stories are original essays from folk life, drawing ideas and actions ordinary people, which seem strange, unnatural for a civilized, educated reader. The peasants are convinced that the disastrous drought is caused by the burial of a drunkard sexton; all attempts by the village priest to refute this superstitious opinion are in vain. The peasants dug the sexton's corpse out of the grave, cut out a piece of fat from the dead man's body and made a candle from it. Immediately after this, the long-awaited heavy rain began (the story “The Extinguished Case”). Frightened by stories about robbers, a man drives through the forest and fatally beats a wanderer who came out from behind the trees, mistaking him for a robber (“Robber”). The writer's first stories contain features that are also characteristic of later works. The stories told are presented as actual events; the author does not give direct moral assessments of the characters, leaving this right to readers. Following him, “The Robber” and “In the Tarantass” (1862) appear in “The Northern Bee”, “The Life of a Woman” (1863) in “Library for Reading”, and “Caustic” (1863) in “Anchor”. Substantial part early works Leskova is written in the genre artistic essay, which in the 60s. enjoyed great popularity among writers of the mixed-democratic camp. However, despite the similarity of the themes and problems of creativity, Leskov, with the polemical fervor characteristic of him from the very first steps in literature, contrasted the pathos of studying folk life, characteristic of N. and Gl. Uspensky, Sleptsov, Reshetnikov and others, their natural, organic knowledge of it.

Features of the Russian character

Russian people are generally broad people...

wide as their land,

and extremely prone

to the fantastic, to the disorderly;

but the trouble is being wide

without much genius.

F.M. Dostoevsky

One can talk endlessly about the Russian character and its characteristics... There are so many things mixed up in a Russian person that you can’t even count them on your fingers.

What does it mean to be Russian? What is the peculiarity of the Russian character? How often do gray-haired academics ask this question in scientific debates, smart journalists in various shows, and ordinary citizens in table discussions? They ask and answer. They answer differently, but everyone notes our Russian “specialness” and is proud of it. You can’t lure a Russian person with a roll - Russians are so eager to preserve their own, dear, that they are proud of the most disgusting aspects of their identity: drunkenness, dirt, poverty. Russians make up jokes about how no one can outdrink them, happily showing their dirt to foreigners.

“Mysterious Russian soul”... What kind of epithets do we bestow on our Russian mentality. Is she so mysterious, the Russian soul, is she really so unpredictable? Maybe everything is much simpler? We Russians are capable of self-sacrifice in the name of our homeland, but we are not able to defend our interests as citizens of this country. We meekly accept all the resolutions and decisions of our leadership: we are choking in queues to replace our driver’s licenses; we lose consciousness in passport and visa services while waiting to receive a new passport; we upholster the thresholds tax office, in order to find out what number you now live under in this world. And this list can be continued endlessly. Limitless patience is what distinguishes a Russian person. How can one disagree with foreigners who personify us with a bear - huge, menacing, but so clumsy? We are probably rougher, certainly tougher in many cases. Russians have cynicism, emotional limitations, and a lack of culture. There is fanaticism, unscrupulousness, and cruelty. But still, mostly Russians strive for good.

For a Russian person, this is the most terrible accusation - the accusation of greed. All Russian folklore is based on the fact that being greedy is bad and greed is punishable. The catch, apparently, is that this same breadth can only be polar: drunkenness, unhealthy gambling, living for free, on the one hand. But, on the other hand, the purity of faith, carried and preserved through the centuries. Again, a Russian person cannot believe quietly and modestly. He never hides, but goes to execution for his faith, walking with his head held high, striking his enemies.

Very accurately the character traits of the Russian person are noted in folk tales and epics. In them, the Russian man dreams of a better future, but he is too lazy to make his dreams come true. He keeps hoping that he will catch a talking pike or catch a goldfish that will fulfill his wishes. This primordial Russian laziness and love of dreaming about the advent of better times has always prevented our people from living like human beings. And the tendency towards acquisitiveness, again mixed with great laziness! A Russian person is too lazy to grow or make something that his neighbor has - it is much easier for him to steal it, and even then not himself, but to ask someone else to do it. A typical example of this is the case of the king and the rejuvenating apples. Of course, in fairy tales and satirical stories, many features are greatly exaggerated and sometimes reach the point of absurdity, but nothing appears on empty space- there is no smoke without fire. Such a trait of the Russian character as long-suffering often goes beyond the bounds of reason. From time immemorial, Russian people have resignedly endured humiliation and oppression. The already mentioned laziness and blind faith in a better future are partly to blame here. Russian people would rather endure than fight for their rights. But no matter how great the patience of the people, it is still not limitless. The day comes and humility transforms into unbridled rage. Then woe to anyone who gets in the way. It’s not for nothing that Russian people are compared to a bear.

But not everything is so bad and gloomy in our Fatherland. We Russians have many positive character traits. Russians are deeply partisan and have high fortitude; they are capable of defending their land to the last drop of blood. Since ancient times, both young and old have risen to fight against invaders.

A special conversation about the character of Russian women. Russian woman has unbending strength spirit, she is ready to sacrifice everything for loved one and follow him to the ends of the earth. Moreover, this is not blindly following a spouse, like Eastern women, but a completely conscious and independent decision. This is what the wives of the Decembrists did, going after them to distant Siberia and dooming themselves to a life full of hardships. Nothing has changed since then: even now, in the name of love, a Russian woman is ready to spend her entire life wandering around the most remote corners of the world.

Speaking about the peculiarities of the Russian character, one cannot fail to mention the cheerful disposition - a Russian sings and dances even in the most difficult periods of his life, and even more so in joy! He is generous and loves to go out on a grand scale - the breadth of the Russian soul has already become the talk of the town. Only a Russian person can give everything he has for the sake of one happy moment and not regret it later. Let's remember the poor artist who sold everything he had and showered his beloved with flowers. This is a fairy tale, but it is not so far from life - a Russian person is unpredictable and you can expect anything from him.

Russian people have an inherent aspiration for something infinite. Russians always have a thirst for a different life, a different world, they always have dissatisfaction with what they have. Due to greater emotionality, Russian people are characterized by openness and sincerity in communication. If in Europe people are quite alienated in their personal lives and protect their individualism, then a Russian person is open to being interested in him, showing interest in him, caring for him, just as he himself is inclined to be interested in the lives of those around him: both his soul wide open and curious - what is behind the soul of the other.

There are dozens of characters in our literature, each of which bears an indelible stamp of Russian character: Natasha Rostova and Matryona Timofeevna, Platon Karataev and Dmitry Karamazov, Raskolnikov and Melekhov, Onegin and Pechorin, Vasily Terkin and Andrei Sokolov. You can't list them all. Are there really no such people in life? The pilot saves the city at the cost of his life, not leaving the stalled plane until the last moment; a tractor driver dies in a burning tractor, taking it away from a grain field; a family of nine takes in three more orphaned children; the master spends years creating a unique, priceless masterpiece and then gives it away orphanage... You can continue ad infinitum. Behind all this there is also a Russian character. But aren't other people capable of this? Where is the line that will help distinguish a Russian person from the rest? And there is another side to him: the ability for unbridled revelry and drunkenness, callousness and selfishness, indifference and cruelty. The world looks at him and sees a mystery in him. For us, Russian character is an alloy of the best qualities that will always prevail over dirt and vulgarity, and, perhaps, the most important of them is selflessly devoted love for one’s land. Tenderly stroking a birch tree and talking to it, greedily inhaling the heady aroma of arable land, reverently holding a poured ear of corn in your palm, seeing off a crane wedge with tears in your eyes - only a Russian person can do this, and may he remain like this forever and ever.

The Russian character is complex and multifaceted, but that’s what makes it beautiful. He is beautiful in his breadth and openness, cheerful disposition and love for his homeland, childish innocence and fighting spirit, ingenuity and peacefulness, hospitality and mercy. And we owe this entire palette of the best qualities to our homeland - Russia, a fabulous and great country, warm and affectionate, like the hands of a mother.

From all that has been said, we have to conclude that the only undeniable feature of the Russian character is inconsistency, complexity, and the ability to combine opposites. And is it possible on a land like Russian not to be special? After all, this feature did not appear with us today, but was formed day by day, from year to year, from century to century, from millennium to millennium...

And Leskov tried to create just such a Russian person in his works...

Positive type of Russian person in Leskov’s works

Among the Russian classics, Gorky pointed specifically to Leskov as a writer who, with the greatest effort of all the forces of his talent, sought to create a “positive type” of a Russian person, to find among the “sinners” of this world a crystal pure man, "righteous". The writer proudly declared: “The strength of my talent lies in positive types.” And he asked: “Show me another writer with such an abundance of positive Russian types?”

In the filigree tale of Lefty (1881), a wonderful master gunsmith performed a technical miracle - he forged a steel flea made by the British, which cannot be seen without a “small scope”. But Leskov did not reduce the essence of his story only to the fabulous ingenuity of the self-taught Lefty, although in itself it was of exceptional importance in the writer’s eyes for understanding the “soul of the people.” The writer penetrates into the complex dialectic of the external and internal content of the image of Lefty and places him in characteristic circumstances.

Left-handed is a small, homely, dark man who doesn’t know “calculation of strength” because he’s “not good at science” and instead of the four rules of addition from arithmetic, he still wanders around from the “Psalter and the Half-Dream Book.” But his inherent wealth of nature, diligence, dignity, height of moral feeling and innate delicacy immeasurably elevate him above all the stupid and cruel masters of life. Of course, Lefty believed in the Tsar-Father and was a religious person. The image of Lefty, under the pen of Leskov, turns into a generalized symbol of the Russian people. In the eyes of Leskov moral value man lies in his organic connection with the living national element - with his native land and its nature, with its people and traditions that go back to the distant past. The most remarkable thing was that Leskov, an excellent expert on the life of his time, did not submit to the idealization of the people that dominated among the Russian intelligentsia of the 70s and 80s. The author of "Lefty" does not flatter the people, but does not belittle them either. He depicts the people in accordance with specific historical conditions, and at the same time penetrates into the richest opportunities hidden among the people for creativity, ingenuity, and service to the homeland. Gorky wrote that Leskov “loved all of Rus' as it is, with all its absurdities ancient life, loved the people, bedraggled by officials, half-starved, half-drunk."

In the story “The Enchanted Wanderer” (1873), the versatile talents of the runaway serf Ivan Flyagin are depicted by Leskov in merging with his struggle with the hostile and difficult circumstances of life. The author draws an analogy with the image of the first Russian hero Ilya Muromets. He calls him “a typical simple-minded, kind Russian hero, reminiscent of grandfather Ilya Muromets in the beautiful painting by Vereshchagin and in the poem by Count A.K. Tolstoy.” It is noteworthy that Leskov chose the narrative in the form of a story about the hero’s wanderings around his native country. This allowed him to paint a broad picture of Russian life, to confront his indomitable hero, in love with life and people, with its most diverse conditions.

Leskov, without idealizing the hero or simplifying him, creates a holistic, but contradictory, unbalanced character. Ivan Severyanovich can also be wildly cruel, unbridled in his seething passions. But his nature is truly revealed in kind and knightly unselfish deeds for the sake of others, in selfless deeds, in the ability to cope with any task. Innocence and humanity, practical intelligence and perseverance, courage and endurance, a sense of duty and love for the homeland - these are the remarkable features of Leskov’s wanderer.

Why did Leskov call his hero the enchanted wanderer? What meaning did he put into such a name? This meaning is meaningful and very deep. The artist convincingly showed that his hero is unusually sensitive to everything beautiful in life. Beauty has a magical effect on him. His whole life is spent in varied and high charms, in artistic, unselfish hobbies. Ivan Severyanovich is dominated by the spell of love for life and people, for nature and homeland. Such natures are capable of becoming obsessed, they fall into illusions. into self-forgetfulness, into dreams, into an enthusiastic, poetic, exalted state.

The positive types depicted by Leskov opposed the “mercantile age” established by capitalism, which brought the devaluation of the individual common man, turned him into a stereotype, into a “half-ruble”. Leskov means fiction resisted the heartlessness and selfishness of the people of the “banking period”, the invasion of the bourgeois-philistine plague, which kills everything poetic and bright in a person.

In his works about “righteous people” and “artists,” Leskov has a strong satirical, critical current, when he reproduces the dramatic relationships of his positive heroes with the socially hostile environment surrounding them, with anti-people authorities, when he talks about the senseless death of talented people in Russia. Leskov’s originality lies in the fact that his optimistic depiction of the positive and heroic, talented and extraordinary in the Russian people is inevitably accompanied by bitter irony, when the author talks with sorrow about the sad and often tragic fate representatives of the people. In "Lefty" there is a whole gallery of satirically depicted representatives of the corrupt, stupid and self-interested ruling elite. Satirical elements are also strong in The Stupid Artist. The whole life of the hero of this work consisted of combat with lordly cruelty, lawlessness, and soldiery. And the story of the serf actress, a simple and courageous girl? Isn’t her broken life, the tragic outcome of which gave rise to the habit of “pouring the ember” of the suffering she endured with sips from a “placon” of vodka, a denunciation of serfdom?!

The formula “all of Rus' appeared in Leskov’s stories” should be understood, first of all, in the sense that the writer comprehended the essential national characteristics spiritual world Russian people. But “all of Rus' appeared in Leskov’s stories” in a different sense. He perceives life as a panorama of the most diverse ways of life and morals in various regions of a vast country. Leskov turned to such successful methods of constructing a plot that allowed him to embody “all of Rus'” in a single picture. He closely studies the experience of Gogol, the author of Dead Souls, and not only learns a fruitful lesson for himself from Gogol’s technique (Chichikov’s travels), but also rethinks this technique in relation to his subject of depiction. The hero's wanderings, as one of the ways to unfold the narrative, are necessary for Leskov in order to show a simple Russian man - a runaway peasant - in different circumstances, in a clash with by different people. This is a kind of odyssey of an enchanted wanderer.

Leskov called himself an “artist of style,” that is, a writer who masters living, rather than literary, speech. From this speech he drew its imagery and strength, clarity and precision, lively emotional excitement and musicality. Leskov believed that in the Oryol and Tula provinces the peasants spoke surprisingly figuratively and accurately. “So, for example,” the writer reports, “a woman does not say about her husband, “he loves me,” but says, “he pities me.” Think about it, and you will see how complete, tender, precise and clear this is. He doesn’t tell his wife that he “liked” her, he says, “she came with all my thoughts.” Look again, what clarity and completeness.”

In an effort to enrich and strengthen the linguistic means of artistic depiction and expressiveness, Leskov skillfully used the so-called folk etymology. Its essence lies in rethinking words and phrases in the spirit of the common people, as well as in the sound deformation of words (especially of foreign origin). Both are carried out on the basis of corresponding semantic and sound analogies. In the story “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk” we read: “Few people speak to you in a long tongue.” In "Warrior": "What are you doing... you're really disgusting yourself." In “Lefty”: “two-seater carriage”, “small scope”, “nymphosoria”, etc. Of course, Leskov overheard such sayings not for the sake of aesthetic collecting or photographic copying, but in the name of achieving certain ideological and artistic goals. Reinterpretation and sound deformation of words and phrases in the narrator’s speech often gave the language of the work an almost imperceptible comic or parody-satirical, humorous and ironic shade.

But the structure of Leskov’s author’s speech is distinguished by the same jewelry finishing and rainbow play. Not hiding behind the character-narrator, but leading the entire story from himself or acting in it as an author-interlocutor, Leskov “faked” the speech of his heroes, transferred the features of their vocabulary and phraseology into his own language. This is how stylization arose, which, in combination with skaz, gave Leskov’s entire prose the deepest originality. Ironic stylization of the Church Slavonic language, stylization of folklore, lubok, legend, the “epic of workers,” or even a foreign language - all this was imbued with polemics, mockery, sarcasm, denunciation or good-natured humor, loving attitude, pathos. So Lefty was called to the king. He “walks in what he was wearing: in frills, one trouser leg is in a boot, the other is dangling, and the collar is old, the hooks are not caught, they are lost, and the collar is torn; but nothing, he is not embarrassed.” Only a thoroughly Russian person could write like this, merging with the spirit of a living spoken language, penetrating into the psychology of a forced, unprepossessing, but artistically talented worker who knows his worth. “The Wizard of Words” is what Gorky called the author of “Lefty.”

Leskov is like a “Russian Dickens”. Not because he is similar to Dickens in general, in the maneuver of his writing, but because both Dickens and Leskov are “family writers,” writers who were read in the family, discussed by the whole family, writers who are of great importance for moral formation a person is raised in his youth, and then accompany him throughout his life, along with the best memories of childhood. But Dickens is typically English family writer, and Leskov is Russian. Even very Russian. So Russian that he, of course, will never be able to enter the English family the way Dickens entered the Russian one. And this despite Leskov’s ever-increasing popularity abroad and primarily in English-speaking countries.

There is one thing that brings Leskov and Dickens very much together: these are eccentrics - righteous people. What is not Leskov’s righteous man Mr. Dick in “David Copperfield”, whose favorite hobby was it possible to fly kites and who found the correct and kind answer to all questions? And why not a Dickensian eccentric? Non-lethal Golovan who did good in secret, without even noticing that he was doing good?

But a good hero is exactly what is needed for family reading. A deliberately “ideal” hero does not always have a chance of becoming a favorite hero. A favorite hero should be to a certain extent a secret of the reader and writer, for if a truly good person does good, he always does it in secret, in secret.

The eccentric not only keeps the secret of his kindness, but he also in himself constitutes a literary mystery that intrigues the reader. Bringing out eccentrics in works, at least in Leskov’s works, is also one of the techniques of literary intrigue. An eccentric always carries a mystery within himself. Leskov’s intrigue, therefore, subordinates the moral assessment, the language of the work and the “characterography” of the work. Without Leskov, Russian literature would have lost a significant share of its national color and national problems.

Leskov’s creativity has its main sources not even in literature, but in the oral colloquial tradition, going back to what Likhachev would call “talking Russia.” It came out of conversations, disputes in various companies and families and again returned to these conversations and disputes, returned to the entire huge family and “talking Russia”, giving rise to new conversations, disputes, discussions, awakening the moral sense of people and teaching them to decide for themselves moral problems.

For Leskov, the whole world of official and unofficial Russia is, as it were, “his own.” In general, he treated all modern literature and Russian social life as a kind of conversation. All of Russia was native to him, a native land where everyone knows each other, remembers and honors the dead, knows how to talk about them, knows their family secrets. This is what he says about Tolstoy, Pushkin, Zhukovsky and even Katkov. Ermolov for him is, first of all, Alexey Petrovich, and Miloradovich is Mikhail Andreevich. And he never forgets to mention their family life, their relationship with one or another character in the story, their acquaintances... And this is by no means a vain boast of “a short acquaintance with big people.” This consciousness - sincere and deep - of one’s kinship with all of Russia, with all its people - both good and bad, with its centuries-old culture. And this is also his position as a writer.

We find an interpretation of the essence of the character of a Russian person in many of Leskov’s works. The most popular stories Leskov are “Lefty” and “The Enchanted Wanderer”, in which Leskov places a clear emphasis on the character and worldview of a truly Russian person.

Stories about the righteous: “Lefty”, “Enchanted Wanderer”

At the end of the 1870-1880s. Leskov created a whole gallery of righteous characters. This is the quarterly Ryzhov, rejecting bribes and gifts, living on a meager salary, boldly speaking the truth to the eyes of his high authorities (story “Odnodum”, 1879). Another righteous man is the Oryol tradesman, milkman Golovan from the story “The Non-Lethal Golovan” (1880); The story is based on stories Leskov heard as a child from his grandmother. Golovan is a savior, helper and comforter of the suffering. He defended the narrator in early childhood when he was attacked by an unchained dog. Golovan takes care of the dying during a terrible pestilence and dies in the great Oryol fire, saving property and the lives of townspeople.

Both Ryzhov and Golovan in Leskov’s portrayal both embody the best features of the Russian folk character and are contrasted with those around them as exceptional natures. It is no coincidence that the residents of Soligalich consider the selfless Ryzhov a fool, and the residents of Oryol are convinced that Golovan is not afraid to care for those suffering from the plague, because he knows a magical remedy that protects him from the terrible disease. People do not believe in Golovan’s righteousness, falsely suspecting him of sins.

Fairytale motifs, the interweaving of the comic and tragic, the author’s dual assessment of the characters - distinctive features works by Leskov. They are fully characteristic of one of the most famous works writer - the tale “Lefty” (1881, this work was originally published under the title “The Tale of the Tula Oblique Lefty and the Steel Flea”). At the center of the story is the motif of competition characteristic of the fairy tale. Russian craftsmen, led by the Tula gunsmith Levsha, shoe a dancing steel flea made in England without any complex tools. The victory of Russian masters over the British is presented both seriously and ironically: sent by Emperor Nicholas I, Lefty causes amazement because he was able to shoe a flea. But the flea, savvy by Lefty and his comrades, stops dancing. Lefty is a skilled craftsman who personifies the amazing talents of the Russian people. But at the same time, Lefty is a character devoid of technical knowledge known to any English master. Lefty rejects lucrative offers from the British and returns to Russia. But Lefty’s selflessness and incorruptibility are inextricably linked with downtroddenness, with a feeling of his own insignificance in comparison with Russian officials and nobles. Lefty is accustomed to the constant threats and beatings that those in power threaten him with in his homeland. Leskov's hero combines both the virtues and vices of an ordinary Russian person. Returning to his homeland, he falls ill and dies, useless to anyone, deprived of any care.

“Lefty” has an amazing literary destiny. Having appeared in print, this thing immediately gained popularity, but criticism received it ambiguously. Leskov was accused of a lack of patriotism, of mocking the Russian people, but critics agreed on one thing: the author had heard enough stories of Tula artisans and “concocted” his “Lefty” from them. Meanwhile, the tale was invented by the author from the first to last word. And all the supposedly popular words were invented by him. It’s amazing how this man knew, felt, and loved the people. No writer has studied the Russian soul so deeply and seriously.

Leskov's story "Lefty", which is usually perceived as clearly patriotic, as glorifying the work and skill of the Tula workers, is far from simple in its tendency. He is patriotic, but not only...

“Lefty” is a sad work. Everything in it seems to be simple, but every word is doubled, irony is hidden behind a smile, pain and resentment are hidden behind love. Here are the wonderful Tula craftsmen who shoed an English steel flea without “small scopes”, but they ruined the mechanism: the flea no longer dances. Here is Lefty with the English, seducing him with money and a bride. He looks at the English workers and is jealous, but at the same time he is eager to go home, so much so that on the ship he keeps asking where Russia is and looking in that direction. And he is in a hurry to bring home an important English “secret” that neither the kings nor the generals have discovered. How does Russia greet him? The English skipper - a warm bed, doctor's care. Left-handed - a block away, because he does not have a “tugament”. They undressed the poor guy, accidentally dropped the back of his head on the parapet, and while they were running around looking for Platov or the doctor, Lefty was already gone. But even when dying, he remembered the “secret”: you don’t need to clean the inside of the gun with a brick! They're not good for shooting! But an important “secret” did not reach the sovereign - who needs the advice of a commoner when there are generals. A kind word only an Englishman said about the master, who with his skill stood up to the British for the entire Russian people: “Even though he has Ovechkin’s fur coat, he has the soul of a man.”

Leskov's bitter irony and sarcasm reach the limit. He does not understand why Rus', which gives birth to craftsmen, geniuses of craftsmanship, deals with them with its own hands. As for guns, this is a non-fictional fact. The guns were cleaned with crushed bricks, and the authorities demanded that the barrels sparkle from the inside. And inside there was a carving... so the soldiers destroyed it out of excess zeal. It hurts Leskov that we are diligently destroying what can save us in difficult times.

The form of narration in Levsha, as in many other works of Leskov, is a skaz, that is, a story that imitates the features of oral speech.

IN separate publication“Lefty” 1882 Leskov indicated that his work is based on the legend of Tula gunsmiths about the competition between Tula craftsmen and the British. Literary critics believed this message from the author. But in fact, Leskov invented the plot of his legend. Radical-democratic criticism saw Leskov’s work as a glorification of the old order and assessed “Lefty” as a loyal work glorifying serfdom and asserting the superiority of Russians over Europe. On the contrary, conservative journalists understood “Lefty” as an exposure of the resigned submission of the common man to “all kinds of hardships and violence.” Leskov responded to critics in the note “About the Russian Lefty” (1882): “I just cannot agree that in such a plot (plot, story. - Ed.) there is any flattery of the people or a desire to belittle the Russian people in the person of the “lefty” "In any case, I had no such intention."

Literary critics who wrote about Leskov's work invariably - and often unkindly - noted the unusual language and bizarre verbal play of the author. "Leskov is... one of the most pretentious representatives of our modern literature. Not a single page can go by without some kind of equivocation, allegories, made up or God knows where words dug up from and all sorts of kunststyuki,” - this is what A.M. Skabichevsky, famous in the 1880s - 1890s, said about Leskov . literary critic of the democratic trend. The writer of the turn of the 19th-20th centuries A. V. Amphiteatrov said this somewhat differently: “Of course, Leskov was a natural stylist. Already in his first works he reveals rare reserves of verbal wealth. But wandering around Russia, close acquaintance with local dialects, studying Russian antiquity, Old Believers, primordial Russian crafts, etc. Much was added, over time, to these reserves. Leskov took into the depths of his speech everything that was preserved among the people from his ancient language, smoothed out the found remains with talented criticism and put them into practice with enormous success. The special richness of the language is distinguished by... “The Sealed Angel” and “The Enchanted Wanderer”. But the sense of proportion, which is generally not inherent in Leskov’s talent, betrayed him in this case too. Sometimes the abundance of overheard, recorded, and sometimes invented, newly formed verbal material served Leskov not to benefit, but to harm, dragging his talent onto the slippery path of external comic effects, funny words and figures of speech." In the "striving for the bright, convex, bizarre , harsh - sometimes to the point of excessiveness." Leskov was also accused by his younger contemporary, literary critic M.O. Menshikov. About the writer's language, Menshikov responded as follows: "Irregular, motley, antique (rare, imitating an ancient language - Ed.) manner makes Leskov's books a museum all kinds of dialects; you hear in them the language of village priests, officials, book-readers, the language of liturgical, fairy-tale, chronicle, litigation (the language of legal proceedings), salon, all the elements, all the elements of the ocean of Russian speech are found here. This language, until you get used to it, seems artificial and motley... Its style is irregular, but rich and even suffers from the vices of wealth: satiety and what is called embarras de richesse (overwhelming abundance - French...). It does not have the strict simplicity of the style of Lermontov and Pushkin, in whom our language took on truly classical, eternal forms, it does not have the elegant and refined simplicity of Goncharov and Turgenev’s writing (that is, style, syllable.), there is no sincere everyday simplicity of Tolstoy’s language - the language Leskova is rarely simple; in most cases it is complex, but in its own way beautiful and magnificent.”

Another “righteous person” of Leskov’s works is Ivan Flyagin, the main character of the story “The Enchanted Wanderer.” "The Enchanted Wanderer" is a work of complex genre nature. The story uses motifs from the lives of saints, folk epics - epics, and adventure novels.

In the story “The Enchanted Wanderer,” Leskov creates a completely special image of a person, incomparable with any of the heroes of Russian literature, who is so organically fused with the changing elements of life that he is not afraid to get lost in it. This is Ivan Severyanich Flyagin, the “enchanted wanderer”; he is “fascinated” by the fairy tale of life, its magic, so for him there are no boundaries in it. This world, which the hero perceives as a miracle, is endless, just as his journey in it is endless. He has no specific goal for the journey, because life is inexhaustible.

His destiny is unusual and exceptional, as is his birth. Flyagin was born thanks to the prayers of his parents, and therefore his fate was predetermined: he was “destined” for the monastery, his life was predicted to him by a dying elder: “But... a sign for you that you will die many times and will not die until yours comes.” real destruction, and then you will remember your mother’s promise for you and go to the monks.” Ivan Severyanovich thinks little about his life, and even less does he make plans for the future.

The hero of the story “The Enchanted Wanderer” is a giant of physical and moral strength. From the very first moment of meeting him, the narrator-author associates him with the hero Ilya Muromets.

Each new refuge of Flyagin is another discovery of life, and not just a change in one activity or another.

The broad soul of the wanderer gets along with absolutely everyone - be it wild Kyrgyz or strict Orthodox monks; he is so flexible that he agrees to live according to the laws of those who accepted him: according to Tatar custom, he is cut to death with Savarikei, according to Muslim law he has several wives, in the monastery he not only does not complain about the fact that he is punished he was locked in a dark cellar for the whole summer, but he even knows how to find joy in it: “Here you can hear the church bells, and you can hear your comrades.” But despite such an accommodating nature, he does not stay anywhere for long.

It may seem that Ivan is frivolous, fickle, unfaithful to himself and others, so he wanders around the world and cannot find refuge for himself. But that's not true. He proved his devotion and infidelity more than once - both when he saved Count K.’s family from imminent death, and in his relations with the prince and Grusha. Often Flyagin’s actions reveal his kindness, naivety and purity of soul, which is also characteristic of the entire Russian people. He saves the count and countess when the carriage falls into the abyss. And when the count offers him a reward, Ivan Severyanovich asks to give him an accordion. He voluntarily joins the recruits, taking pity on the unfortunate old people. His life is very similar to the one that the elder predicted: on the edge of an abyss he stops horses, saves mountaineers from bullets, and wins in a mortal duel with a Tatar. Flyagin sees God’s providence and fate in everything. Despite all the hardships of life, he does not lose his self-esteem and never acts contrary to his conscience. “I didn’t sell myself for a lot of money, or for a little, and I won’t,” he says. And such a frequent change of habitat and Flyagin’s constant motive for flight are explained not by dissatisfaction with life, but, on the contrary, by the thirst to drink it to the last drop. He is so open to life that it carries him with the flow, and he follows it with wise humility. But this is not a consequence of mental weakness and passivity, but a complete acceptance of one’s fate.

Often Flyagin is not aware of his actions, intuitively relying on the wisdom of life, trusting her with everything. AND high power, to whom he is open and honest, rewards him for this and keeps him. Ivan is invulnerable to death, for which he is always prepared. Miraculously, he escapes death, keeping his horses on the edge of the abyss; the gypsy takes him out of the noose; he gains the upper hand in a duel with a Tatar; escapes from captivity; escapes bullets during the war. Flyagin says about himself that he “perished all his life, but could not perish,” and explains this by saying that he is a “great sinner” whom “neither the earth nor the water wants to accept.”

Flyagin's character is multifaceted. He is distinguished by childish naivety, innocence and self-esteem, and the ability to subtly perceive the beauty of nature. Flyagin is characterized by natural kindness and even a willingness to sacrifice himself for the sake of another: he becomes a soldier, freeing a young peasant guy from many years of hard service. But these qualities coexist in his soul with some callousness and limitation.

On his conscience is the death of the monk, the Tatar and the gypsy Grushenka, he, without a twinge of conscience, abandons his children from his Tatar wives, he is “tempted by demons.” But none of his “sinful” actions are generated by hatred, lies, or thirst for personal gain. The death of the monk is the result of an accident, Ivan pinned Savarikey to death in a fair fight, and in the story with Grusha, he acted following the dictates of his conscience, fully aware that he was committing murder... Realizing the inevitability of the gypsy’s death, he takes the sin upon himself, hoping in future to beg God's forgiveness. “You will live, you will pray to God for my soul and for yours, don’t destroy me so that I don’t raise my hand against myself,” the unfortunate Grusha begs him.

Ivan has his own religion, his own morality, but in life he is always honest with himself and other people. Narrating about his life, Flyagin does not hide anything, for his soul is open both to God and to random fellow travelers. Flyagin is naive and simple, like a baby, but when he fights injustice and evil, he can be decisive and even tough. For torturing the bird, he punishes the master's cat and cuts off its tail, for which he himself suffers severe punishment. He “really wants to die for the people,” and he goes to war in place of the young man, with whom his parents are unable to part.

A decade earlier, having spoken of the people as an “enchanted environment,” the writer noted the features of conservatism, routine in everyday life and the consciousness of the peasantry, historically excommunicated from enlightenment by the serfdom regime. This imprint is undeniable in the appearance of Ivan Flyagin, the bearer of the religious-folklore way of thinking and the “charm” inherent in the latter. Explaining to himself and his listeners why he “did not even do things of his own free will,” the hero attributes this to the mystical influence of “parental promise,” given to god, - a vow that his son would go to a monastery: “You can’t outrun your own path, and the investigator had to call (that is, mystical destiny, the calls of which the “enchanted wanderer” heard from time to time)” Skatov N.N. History of Russian Literature XIX century (second half). Moscow “Enlightenment”, 1991. 332 pp. Flyagin either condemns his activity, or connects incoherent facts and thoughts with a fantastically bizarre connection. It is no coincidence that the author, who finds completely earthly, social explanations for the turns of fate of the hero in his own confession, compares the hero, who has not overcome mental “enchantment,” with a “baby.”

Of course, Ivan Severyanovich is not so much a sufferer-passion-bearer as a seeking-active, powerful force. Girded with an amulet-belt on which are woven the words of the ancient Russian military commandment “I will not give my honor to anyone” Skatov N. N. History of Russian Literature of the 19th century (second half). Moscow “Enlightenment”, 1991. 332 pp., he is, as it were, sentenced to heroic deeds and struggle for the affirmation of his human dignity. And every now and then he breaks through the magical resistance of the circumstances surrounding him from all sides. He continually “stretches out for feat,” more than all the saints, “respecting” Prince Vsevolod-Gabriel, famous for his “youth.” His powers are eager to be used. And especially eloquently testify to wealth people's soul Flyagin's “charms” are of a different kind - admiration for the wonder of the world.

In 1898, A. Gorelov wrote: this is “a work with a nakedly symbolic author’s assignment, with a monumental hero in the center, personifying a new historical stage in the movement of national character,” this is “the master’s broad reflection on the fate of Russia, the substantial, naturally original strength of its people.” “Never before has a hero from the masses been raised to the height of such a generalization.”

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Introduction

1. Reflection of the features of the Russian mentality in the fiction of the 19th century

2. Russian artistic culture of the second half of the 19th century

Conclusion

Bibliography

Introduction

Fiction actively participates in modern life, influencing the souls of people, their culture and ideology. And at the same time, she is a mirror: on her pages, in the images and paintings she created, spiritual development society for many decades, expresses the feelings, aspirations and aspirations of the masses of different stages of the country's historical past, embodies the mentality of the Russian people.

Since the task of our research is to trace how the features of the character and culture of the Russian people are reflected in Russian literature, we will try to find manifestations of the above-mentioned features in works of fiction.

However, little scientific literature is devoted to this issue, only a few scientists have seriously worked on this topic, although by analyzing our past and present and identifying the direction of our character and culture, it is possible to determine the right path along which Russia should move in the future.

The object of our research is the culture and character of the Russian people, its characteristics and distinctive features.

When writing this work, three main methods were used: analysis and synthesis of philosophical literature on this issue, analysis and synthesis of fiction of the 19th century, and analysis of historical events in Russia.

The purpose of this work is to study the characteristics and distinctive features of the character and culture of the Russian people through works of philosophical and artistic literature and historical events.

The purpose of this study is to trace how the features of Russian character and culture are reflected in Russian literature.

1. Reflection of the features of the Russian mentality in fiction of the 19th century

If we turn to N.V. Gogol, then in his poem “Dead Souls” one can observe the manifestation of all that scope and ignorance of proportion that is so characteristic of the Russian people. The composition of the work is based on the journey of the main character Chichikov across the endless Russian expanses. Chichikov’s chaise, a Russian troika, “equipped” by a “Yaroslavl efficient man”, turns into a symbolic image of the rapid, “wonderful movement of Rus' into an unknown distance.”

The writer did not know where the Rus' Troika was rushing, because Rus' is wide and vast. In chapters V and IX we observe landscapes of endless fields and forests: “...And a mighty space envelops me menacingly, reflecting with terrible force in my depths; my eyes were illuminated with an unnatural power: wow! what a sparkling, wonderful, unfamiliar distance to the earth! Russia!.. “But in the images created by Gogol we see scope, breadth, and prowess. Manilov is extremely sentimental and dreamy, which prevents him from effectively managing the land.

Nozdryov clearly expressed irrepressible energy in real life, daring and a destructive tendency to participate in all sorts of “stories,” fights, drinking bouts: “Nozdryov was in some respects a historical person. Not a single meeting where he was present was complete without a story. What a story.” something inevitably happened: either the gendarmes would lead him out of the hall by the hand, or his friends would be forced to push him out. buffet in such a way that he only laughs, or breaks out in the most cruel way...” Gogol speaks of Plyushkin as an unusual phenomenon for Russia: “I must say that such a phenomenon rarely comes across in Russia, where everything likes to unfold rather than shrink.” Plyushkin is distinguished by greed, incredible stinginess, stinginess to the extreme, so he seems to “shrink.” Nozdryov, “reveling in the full breadth of the Russian prowess of the nobility, burning through life, as they say,” “loves to turn around.” The desire to cross the boundaries of decency, the rules of the game, and any norms of behavior is the basis of Nozdryov’s character. He says these words when he goes to show Chichikov the borders of his estate: “Here is the border! Everything you see on this side is all mine, and even on this side, all this forest that turns blue over there, and everything that is beyond the forest , it's all mine." It creates a rather blurry idea of what is real and what is not. For him, there are no boundaries in anything - the clearest example of such a feature of the Russian mentality as the desire for scope. His generosity even goes beyond all boundaries: he is ready to give Chichikov all the dead souls that he has, just to find out why he needs them.

Plyushkin goes to the other extreme: a liqueur, carefully cleaned of dust and boogers, and a cake brought by his daughter, somewhat spoiled and turned into crackers, he offers to Chichikov. And if we talk about landowners in general, then their inhumanity knows no bounds, just as Nozdryov knows no bounds in his revelry. Breadth, going beyond limits, scope can be seen in everything; the poem is literally saturated with all this.

The record of the Russian people found its clearest reflection in Saltykov-Shchedrin’s “History of a City.” The tribe of bunglers, in order to achieve some kind of order, decided to gather all the other tribes living in the surrounding area, and “it started with kneading the Volga with oatmeal, then dragging the calf to the bathhouse, then boiling porridge in a purse”... But nothing came of it. Boiling porridge in the purse did not lead to order, and head scratching also did not produce results. Therefore, the bunglers decided to look for a prince. There is a phenomenon of searching for a defender, intercessor, and ruler, which is so characteristic of the Russian people. The bunglers cannot solve their problems on their own, they can only throw hats at the Kosobryukhs. The desire for revelry prevailed and led to complete disorder in the tribe. They need a leader who will do everything for everyone. The wisest in the tribe say this: “He will provide us with everything in an instant, he will make soldiers for us, and he will build the proper prison” (the breadth of space still puts pressure on the residents of Foolov, and they want to somehow isolate themselves, as evidenced by this detail, like a prison). The Foolovites, who are the personification of the Russian people, relaxed in the presence of Mayor Brudasty, and then, “as soon as the Foolovites found out that they were left completely without a mayor, driven by the power of love for the authorities, they immediately fell into anarchy,” which was manifested in the smashing of windows in a fashionable establishment of a French woman, in throwing Ivashki from the roll and drowning the innocent Porfishki. fiction gogol mentality

However, the intensification of administrative activity in Foolov led to the fact that the residents “overgrown with hair and sucked their paws.” And they even somehow got used to it! This is already happiness: “We live like this without having a real life.” The woman of the city, Foolov, is the force that brings movement to the life of the city. Strelchikha Domashka - “she was the type of woman-khalda, swearing casually,” “she had extraordinary courage,” “from morning to evening her voice rang throughout the settlement.” Mayor Ferdyshchenko even forgot why he came to the field, what he wanted to tell the Foolovites when he saw Domashka, “acting in one shirt, in front of everyone, with a pitchfork in her hands.”

If we pay attention to the contenders for the position of mayor, we see from the description that each of them has a masculine trait: Iraidka, “of an unyielding character, courageous build,” Klemantinka “had high growth“, loved to drink vodka and rode horseback like a man,” and Amalia, a strong, lively German woman. It should also be noted that in the legend of the six mayors, for some time the government was in the hands of Clémentine de Bourbon, who was connected with France by some family relationship; the German woman Amalia Karlovna Stockfish, the Polish woman Anelya Aloizievna Lyadokhovskaya. In the novel “Oblomov” by I. A. Goncharov we also find manifestations of the traits of the Russian mentality. The clearest example of a passive person is Ilya Ilyich Oblomov. And the point is not whether he is just a slacker and a lazy person, having nothing sacred, just sitting in his place, or he is a person of highly developed culture, wise and rich spiritually, he, however, does not show activity. Throughout almost the entire novel we see him lying on the sofa. He even puts on boots and a shirt he himself cannot, since he is accustomed to relying on his servant Zakhar. Oblomov was brought out of the state of “immobility and boredom” by his friend Andrei Stolz (again, a German). The passivity of the Russian people, called by Berdyaev “eternally feminine,” finds a way out in Goncharov’s description of Ilya Ilyich : “in general, his body, judging by its matte finish, is too white color neck, small plump arms, soft shoulders, it seemed too pampered for a man." His lying on the sofa was occasionally diluted by the appearance of fellow revelers, for example, the ardent reveler and robber Tarantiev, in whom one can hear a echo of Gogol's Nozdryov. Immersion in the depths of thought and spirituality life, distracting Oblomov from external life, presupposes a leader who will always guide the hero who Stolz becomes.Oblomov's passivity is also manifested in his love for Olga Ilyinskaya.

The letter that was written to her began with the fact that it was very strange for such a letter to appear, since Olga and Ilya Ilyich see each other a lot and an explanation could have been completed long ago. This indicates some timidity, passivity even in such a matter as love!.. It is from Ilyinskaya that the initiative comes. It is Olga who always brings Oblomov into conversations, she is some kind of engine of these relationships (like a real Russian woman, brave, strong and persistent), offering some meetings, walks, evenings, and in this we see an illustration of that feature of the mentality of the Russian people , which characterizes the position of women and men.

Another feature of the Russian mentality - Russian love - can be seen in this work. Oblomov, realizing that “they don’t like people like that,” did not demand from Olga reciprocal feelings for his love, he even tries to warn her against the mistaken choice of a groom in his person: “You are mistaken, look around!” This is the sacrifice of Russian love. You can also note another feature of the Russian mentality - duality, since Oblomov does not want to admit what is so unpleasant for him - the erroneous, false love of Olga Ilyinskaya - and can marry her to himself while she thinks that she loves, but we immediately encounter a characteristic of the Russian people inconsistency: he is afraid of hurting Olga by marrying her to him forever, and at the same time hurting himself because he loves the heroine and breaks off relations with her. The image of Agafya Pshenitsina also illustrates the passivity and sacrifice of Russian love: she does not want to disturb Oblomov with her feeling: “Agafya Matveevna makes no urgings, no demands.” Thus, using the example of Goncharov’s novel “Oblomov,” we traced how the following traits manifest themselves in literature: sacrifice and cruelty in love, intelligence and passivity, fear of suffering and inconsistency. The stories of Nikolai Semenovich Leskov “Chertogon” and “The Enchanted Wanderer” very clearly illustrate the above-mentioned features of the mentality of the Russian people.

In the first story "Chertogon" we can observe a ritual "that can only be seen in Moscow alone." Over the course of one day, a number of events happen to the hero of the story, Ilya Fedoseevich, which are narrated to the reader by his nephew, who saw his uncle for the first time and spent all this time with him. In the image of Ilya Fedoseevich, that Russian prowess is represented, that Russian scope, which is expressed by the proverb to walk like that. He goes to the restaurant (where he is always a welcome guest), and on his orders, all visitors are kicked out of the restaurant and they begin to prepare every single dish indicated on the menu for a hundred people, they order two orchestras and invite all the most eminent persons of Moscow.

The author lets the reader know that Ilya Fedoseevich sometimes forgets about moderation and can plunge into revelry by assigning to his hero the “half-grey, massive giant” Ryabyk, who “was in a special position” - to protect his uncle, in order to have someone to pay . The party was in full swing all evening. There was also forest cutting: my uncle cut down exotic trees displayed in the restaurant, since the gypsies from the choir were hiding behind them; “they were taken prisoner”: dishes were flying, the rumble and cracking of trees was heard. “Finally, the stronghold was taken: the gypsies were grabbed, hugged, kissed, each one stuck a hundred rubles for the “corsage”, and the matter was over...” The theme of the worship of beauty can be traced, as the uncle was fascinated by the gypsy charm. Ilya Fedoseevich and all the guests did not skimp on money, as they threw expensive dishes at each other and paid a hundred rubles here and there. At the end of the evening, Ryabyka paid for all this revelry instead of his uncle with a huge amount of money - as much as seventeen thousand, and his uncle just without any concern, “with a calmed and rejuvenated soul,” said to pay. The whole breadth of the Russian soul is evident, ready to live life through and not be limited by anything: for example, the requirement to lubricate the wheels with honey, which “is more interesting in the mouth.”

But also in this story there is a “combination of the difficult to combine” and that special Russian holiness, which requires only humility, even in sin: after such a revelry, the uncle cleans himself up in the hairdresser and visits the baths. Such a message as the death of a neighbor with whom Ilya Fedoseevich had been drinking tea for forty years in a row was not surprising. The uncle replied that “we will all die,” which was only confirmed by the fact that he walked like the last time, without denying anything and without limiting himself in anything. And then he sent to take the stroller to Vsepeta (!) - he wanted to “fall before Vsepeta and cry about his sins.”

And in his repentance, the Russian knows no limits - he prays so that it is as if the hand of God is lifting him by the tuft. Ilya Fedoseevich is both from God and from the demon: “his spirit is burning towards heaven, but his legs are still in hell.” In Leskov's story "The Enchanted Wanderer" we see a hero who, throughout the entire story, is a combination of mutually exclusive properties. Ivan Flyagin overcomes a difficult path, which is a circle in which we can observe all the above-mentioned features of the Russian mentality, the defining of which is duality. The entire work is built on a complete antithesis and the connecting link of the opposing elements is Flyagin himself. Let's turn to the plot. He, a praying son, protected by the Lord (which in itself contradicts the commission of some kind of sin), saves the count and countess, feels compassion for the murdered missionaries, but the death of the monk and Tatar is on his conscience; whatever the reason, he killed Grusha. Also, the inconsistency of the image lies in the fact that he loves a gypsy, whom he barely knows, Grushenka, and does not recognize his Tatar wives, although he lived with them for eleven years; he cares for someone else's child, but does not love his own legitimate children because they are not baptized. When Flyagin lived in the count's house, he kept pigeons, and the count's cat ate the eggs laid by the dove, so the hero decided to take revenge on her and cut off her tail with an ax.

This speaks to the inconsistency of his character - love for a bird (or a horse, since Flyagin’s work was connected with them) coexists with such cruelty towards a cat. Flyagin cannot resist making an “exit”, implying that he will not be there for a certain amount of time, since any such exit is not complete without visiting a tavern, if this is not the main reason at all... Here is an example of Russian ignorance of proportions: Flyagin is going with five thousand rubles from his master to a tavern, where, under the influence of some kind of magnetizer (by the way, speaking in French words, which emphasizes the knowledge of a Russian person under the influence of foreign influence), he is treated for drunkenness with vodka (!), as a result of which he gets drunk as hell in in the literal sense of the word and wanders into a tavern (again, the story contains gypsies, who in Russian fiction are a symbol of daring, scope, revelry, drunken fun and revelry), where the gypsies are singing.

With all his broad Russian soul, he begins to throw the lord’s “swans” at the gypsy’s feet, like the rest of the guests (it is no coincidence that “other guests” are used in the stories - Ilya Fedoseevich cut down trees with a late general, and Flyagin was constantly trying to outdo the hussar - so as these heroes are not isolated phenomena, they constitute the whole Russian people), infected with this captivating carefree fun of the gypsy tavern, first one at a time, and then a whole fan: “Why should I torture myself like this in vain! I’ll let my soul walk to its heart’s content.” It is interesting that on the way to the tavern, Flyagin goes into the church to pray so that the master’s money does not disappear, as if anticipating a loss of control over himself, and, by the way, manages to show the demon a figurine in the temple. Here, such features of the Russian mentality as leadership and worship of beauty are also manifested: Flyagin no longer controls, power over him belongs to the beautiful gypsy Grushenka, who captivated the hero with her unprecedented beauty. Flyagin says the following words about this: “I can’t even answer her: she did this to me right away! Right away, that is, when she bent over the tray in front of me and I saw how it was between the black hairs on her head, as if silver, the parting curls and falls behind my back, so I went crazy, and all my mind was taken away from me... “Here it is,” I think, “where the real beauty is, what nature calls perfection...” There is also Russian love in this story, which manifested itself in the murder of Grusha, who would forever be tormented by feelings for the prince and his betrayal: “I trembled all over, and told her to pray, and did not stab her, but took her and pushed her off the steep slope into the river...” Despite all those sins that the hero accomplished in his life, during the narration of this story he became a church minister. Flyagin follows the path of sin, but prays and repents of his sins, for which he becomes a righteous man. Using this image as an example, we see that in a Russian person the angelic and the demonic can coexist , how great is the amplitude of fluctuation - from committing a murder to becoming God's servant.

In the poem by N.A. Nekrasov can trace the features of the Russian mentality. The scope of the Russian soul is clearly presented here: “In the village of Bosovo, Yakim Nagoy lives, he works until he’s dead, he drinks half to death!..” Accustomed to turning around in everything, the Russian man forgets to pause here too. We can observe in the poem a manifestation of such a feature of the Russian mentality as admiration for beauty. During the fire, Yakim Nagoy ran first to save pictures with beautiful images bought for his son. We also note that people see their happiness in suffering! Although this contradicts another feature of the mentality - the fear of any suffering in general. Perhaps the people would like to avoid some “single” griefs, but when their whole life consists of only sad things, they learn to live with it and even find in it some kind of happiness that is understandable, probably only to the Russian people... in suffering, in agony! In the poem it is written like this: “Hey, peasant happiness! Leaky with patches, hunchbacked with calluses...” in the poem there are a lot of songs that reflect the mood of the people, which express the above-mentioned feature of the Russian mentality: “- Eat the prison, Yasha! Milk- then no! “Where is our cow?” - They took away my light! The master took her home for the offspring. It’s a glorious life for the people in Saint Russia!” This song is called cheerful. In the chapter about Savely, the Bogatyr of Svyatorus, we meet a peasant who suffered torture every year for non-payment of tribute, but was even proud of it, because he was a hero and protected others with his chest: “The arms are twisted with chains, the legs are forged with iron, the back... the dense forests have passed along it - they broke. And the chest? Elijah the prophet thunders along it and rides on a chariot of fire... The hero endures everything! " There is a Russian woman, strong, hardy, courageous - Matryona Timofeevna: “Matryona Timofeevna, a dignified woman, broad and dense, about thirty-eight years old. Beautiful; gray hair, large, stern eyes, rich eyelashes, stern and dark-skinned. She is wearing a white shirt , and a short sundress, and a sickle over the shoulder." She endures all the hardships of life, cruelty from her father-in-law and mother-in-law, from her sister-in-law. Matryona Timofeevna sacrifices herself for the sake of her beloved husband and tolerates his family: “The family was huge, grumpy... I ended up in hell from my maiden holiday! redeem." And her husband Philip, the intercessor (the leading Russian follower; the governor and the governor’s wife, to whom Matryona Timofeevna went to resolve her trouble), act as a leader, in the role of intercessor in the poem, hit her, albeit only once: “Philip Ilyich I got angry, waited until I placed the pot on the pole, and hit me on the temple! .. Filyushka also added... And that’s it!” Belief in omens and superstition, in fate in this poem is reflected in the fact that Matryona Timofeevna’s mother-in-law was always offended if someone acted, forgetting about omens; even famine happened in the village because , that Matryona put on a clean shirt for Christmas. Savely said the following words: “no matter how you fight, stupid, what is written in your family cannot be avoided! Men have three paths: a tavern, a prison and hard labor, and women in Russia have three nooses: white silk, the second - red silk, and the third - black silk, choose any one!.." Another feature of the Russian mentality - holiness - is reflected in the following episodes of the poem. Grandfather Savely goes to the monastery after neglecting Demushka, in search of remission of sins. In the story of two great sinners, we again see Russian holiness. In Kudeyar, the robber chieftain, “God awakened his conscience.” For repentance of sins, “God took pity on him.” The murder of the sinful Pan Glukhovsky is a manifestation of full awareness of the sins once committed by Kudeyar, the murder of a sinner atones for sins, therefore the tree that Kudeyar had to cut with a knife fell on its own as a sign of forgiveness: “Just now the bloody pan fell with his head on the saddle, the tree collapsed huge, the echo shook the whole forest." It is no coincidence that we noted precisely the external manifestations of the Russian mentality. What explains this behavior of the heroes of the above-mentioned works can be found in Tyutchev’s lyrics and when considering the connection between the hero of Dostoevsky’s novel Mitya Karamazov and Apollo Grigoriev.

In Tyutchev’s lyrics one can observe how the features of the mentality of the Russian people manifest themselves. In many poems, the poet talks about contradictions, about absolutely opposite things that coexist simultaneously in the Russian soul.

For example, in the poem “O my prophetic soul!” illustrates the duality of the soul of the Russian person: “Let the suffering chest be agitated by fatal passions - the soul is ready, like Mary, to cling to the feet of Christ forever.” That is, again, the soul is a “dweller of two worlds” - the sinful world and the holy world. We again see a contradiction in words lyrical hero: “Oh, how you struggle on the threshold of a kind of double existence!..” in the poem “Our Century” we note the combination of unbelief and faith in one person: “Let me in! - I believe, my God! Come to the aid of my unbelief! "The hero turns to God, because the desire to believe and the desire to deny everything coexist in him at the same time; his soul constantly fluctuates between these two opposite sides. In the poem “Day and Night” we see confirmation that at the heart of the Russian soul there is always something darkly elemental, chaotic, wild, drunken: “and the abyss is exposed to us with its fears and darkness, and there are no barriers between us ..." We observe the cruelty and sacrifice of Russian love in the poem "Oh, how murderously we love...":

"Fate is a terrible sentence

your love was for her,

and undeserved shame

she laid down her life!

And what about the long torment?

like ashes, did she manage to save them?

Pain, the evil pain of bitterness,

pain without joy and without tears!

Oh, how murderously we love!

As in the violent blindness of passions

we are most likely to destroy,

what is dearer to our hearts!.."

Speaking about the Russian mentality, one cannot speak about such a person as Apollo Grigoriev. A parallel can be drawn between him and the hero of Dostoevsky’s novel Mitya Karamazov. Grigoriev was not, of course, in the full sense the prototype of Dmitry Karamazov, but, nevertheless, we see in the latter many characteristic Grigoriev traits and the connection between them seems quite close.

Mitya Karamazov is a man of nature. The minute dominates his life, dragging him along with it and constantly revealing two abysses. Delight and fall, Schiller and debauchery, noble impulses and base deeds alternately, or even together, burst into his life. Already these fairly obvious features indicate a mental situation very close to Grigoriev’s. It is the collision of the ideal and the earthly, the need for a higher existence with a passionate thirst to live that can be seen in the fate of Grigoriev and in the fate of Mitya. If we take as an example the attitude towards a woman and love, then for both of them it is like some point in life at which contradictions converge. For Mitya, the ideal of the Madonna somehow came into contact with the ideal of Sodom (two extremes), and he was unable to separate them. Grigoriev had that “ideal of Madonna” seen on painting by Murillo. In the Louvre, he prays to the Venus de Milo to send him “a woman - a priestess, not a merchant.” The frenzied Karamazov feeling can be heard in his letters almost as clearly as in Mitya’s hymns to Queen Grushenka. “To be frank: what I haven’t done to myself over the past four years. What meannesses I haven’t allowed myself in relation to women, as if taking it out on them all for the damned puritanical purity of one - and nothing helped... I sometimes love her to the point of baseness , to the point of self-humiliation, although she was the only thing that could raise me. But there will be...” Such duality, the incompatibility of the two sides of existence, tears at the soul of Apollo Grigoriev in its Karamazov way. Submission to the unconscious elements does not yet bring internal integrity. He realized that he was releasing “wild and unbridled” forces, and already, while these forces were taking more and more power over him, he felt more and more acutely that he was not living as he should. Here are examples from his letters: “A whole period of dissolute and ugly life lay here in a layer, I escaped from it as the same wild gentleman who is known to you from all his good and bad sides... how I lived in Paris, it’s better not to ask about this "Poisonous blues, crazy - bad hobbies, drunkenness to the point of visions - this is life."

The two abysses of Apollo Grigoriev’s life became more and more clearly visible. He wrote about the duality of the Russian soul and tried to justify with it everything that happened to him. But the duality with his keen critical consciousness also turned out to be unbearable. From the end of his stay in Italy, there was a struggle in his soul, a struggle between life and death. He wrote: “For me, for example, no human efforts can either save or correct me. For me there are no experiences - I fall into eternal spontaneous aspirations... I thirst for nothing more than death... Neither of me nor of us has anything at all comes out and can’t come out.” He still continued to believe in life with an impenetrable Russian faith, which, in fact, is difficult to define as a life phenomenon - what is Russian faith? Grigoriev felt himself captured by the whirlwind principle and, in the name of his faith, surrendered to it to the end with that feeling that Alexander Blok later called the love of death. A terrible monument to his last wandering was the poem “Up the Volga,” ending with a groan: “Vodka or what?..” up the Volga Grigoriev was returning to St. Petersburg, where a debt prison and imminent death almost under the fence.

The rhythm of vortex movement is equally present in the lives of Apollo Grigoriev and Dmitry Karamazov. In Dostoevsky's novel this rhythm plays an almost decisive role. Despite the stops and turns in Mitya’s fate, the speed of movement is increasing, and life is rapidly carrying Mitya towards disaster. This rhythm finds its highest expression in the scene of desperate driving in the wet, when the passion for a woman fights in him with the passion of renunciation and shame for what was done depicts the only way out for the confused mind - suicide. “And yet, despite all the determination he had made, his soul was vague, vague to the point of suffering, and the determination did not give him peace... There was one moment on the way that he suddenly wanted... to take out his loaded pistol and end everything without waiting and dawn. But that moment flew by like a spark. And the trio flew, “devouring space,” and as they approached the goal, again the thought of her, of her alone, more and more captured his breath..."

And in the fall, Grigoriev finds delight and beauty, if there is no other way out, and finds the only true and beautiful solution to fall to the end, as the Russian scale allows. Just like Mitya: “Because if I’m going to fly into the abyss, I’ll do it straight, head down and heels up, and I’m even pleased that it’s in this humiliating position that I fall and consider it beauty for myself.” Apollo Grigoriev also traces the theme of gypsies in the cycle “Struggle” - a Hungarian gypsy woman. In him we finally see an accurate and comprehensive definition of the gypsy theme: “It’s you, the dashing spree, you are the fusion of evil sadness with the voluptuousness of the Badeyarka - you, the motive of the Hungarian!”

In general, Mitya and Apollo Grigoriev were always attracted by beauty, and perhaps because “beauty is a terrible and terrible thing,” a mysterious thing, a “divine riddle,” to guess which means to say goodbye to this light; “When you look into the abyss, you don’t want to go back, and it’s impossible.” But the desire to give an accurate, almost mathematical definition is not inherent in the poet... Yes, Grigoriev the scientist was not completely defeated by Grigoriev the poet and Grigoriev the scientist did not completely defeat Grigoriev the poet, leaving Apollo Grigoriev in a state bifurcation. Grigoriev the man, the Russian, the truly Russian man, won. Before us are different works by different authors, but they are united by some common features that can be traced here and there: breadth, scope, an uncontrollable desire to look into the abyss, to fall into it, and the desire of the soul for the light, for the divine, for the temple, which has just left she's a tavern. Flyagin, Ilya Fedoseevich, Oblomov, Yakim Nagoy, Tarantiev, Nozdrev - this is a whole gallery of images illustrating the features of the Russian mentality. Oscillation from one extreme to another - from the tavern to the temple for Ilya Fedoseevich, from the temple to the tavern for Ivan Flyagin - closes the path of the Russian person in an endless circle, in which other features of the mentality of the Russian people, such as knowledge, passivity, worship, manage to manifest themselves. beauty, holiness, etc. The interaction of all these traits confirms that we have not listed some independent and isolated traits that appear among the Russian people, we have named the traits of the mentality, which by definition is a combination of these traits and something holistic, unified, where each element is in close connection with another.

2. Russian artistic culture of the second half of the 19th centuryA

Russian literature of the second half of the 19th century continues the traditions of Pushkin, Lermontov, Gogol. There is a strong influence of criticism on the literary process, especially the master's thesis of N.G. Chernyshevsky "Aesthetic relations of art to reality." His thesis that beauty is life underlies many literary works of the second half of the 19th century.

This is where the desire to reveal the causes of social evil comes from. The main topic works of literature and, more broadly, works of Russian artistic culture, the theme of the people, its acute social and political meaning, became at this time.

In literary works, images of men appear - righteous people, rebels and altruistic philosophers.

Works by I.S. Turgeneva, N.A. Nekrasova, L.N. Tolstoy, F.M. Dostoevsky's works are distinguished by a variety of genres and forms, and stylistic richness. Noted special role novel in literary process as phenomena in the history of world culture, in artistic development of all humanity.

"Dialectics of the Soul" became an important discovery in Russian literature of this period.

Along with the appearance of the “great novel,” small narrative forms of great Russian writers appear in Russian literature (please look at the literature program). I would also like to note dramatic works A.N. Ostrovsky and A.P. Chekhov. In poetry, high civil position ON THE. Nekrasov, soulful lyrics by F.I. Tyutchev and A.A. Feta.

Conclusion

Solving the assigned tasks, studying materials on this topic, we came to the conclusion that the Russian mentality has the following features and distinctive features: ignorance of proportion, breadth and scope (illustrations are such heroes of works of fiction as the “wasting life” reveler Nozdryov from Gogol’s poem , the reveler and robber Tarantyev from Oblomov, Ilya Fedoseevich, ordering dinner from the most expensive dishes for a hundred people and arranging the cutting of exotic trees in a restaurant, Ivan Flyagin, getting drunk in a tavern and squandering five thousand rubles in a night in a lordly tavern); knowledge and irresistible faith (this trait is clearly reflected in the “History of a City” by Saltykov-Shchedrin: without the prince there was no order, and the residents of the city of Foolov threw off Ivashki and drowned the innocent Porfishek, believing that a new city chief would come and will arrange their life, bring order); passivity (an example of a passive person is Ilya Ilyich Oblomov, who cannot deal with economic affairs, and even cannot be active in love); a Russian man is a generator of ideas, a Russian woman is the engine of Russian life (Olga Ilyinskaya orders Oblomov to read books and then talk about them, calls him for walks and invites him to visit, she feels love when Ilya Ilyich is already thinking about what she will do in the future meet your true other half); cruelty and sacrifice in Russian love (In the story “The Enchanted Wanderer,” Ivan Flyagin kills Grushenka, the one he loves, and Ilya Ilyich Oblomov breaks up with Olga, although he loves); admiration for beauty (Yakim Naga in Nekrasov’s poem “Who Lives Well in Russia?” During a fire, he ran to save the pictures that he had once bought for his son, since they depicted something very beautiful. The reader does not know what exactly was in the pictures, but the author makes it clear that people are drawn to beauty with irresistible force, they are attracted by beauty); holiness (Ilya Fedoseevich from Leskov’s story “Chertogon” allows himself to drunkenly cut down trees, break dishes in a restaurant and chase gypsy girls from the choir and at the same time repent for all this in the temple, where, by the way, as in the restaurant, he is a regular) ; duality, inconsistency, combination of the difficult to combine (Mitya Karamazov and Apollon Grigoriev constantly fluctuate between delight and fall, find happiness in grief, rush between a tavern and a temple, want to die from love, and when dying, they talk about love, look for an ideal and immediately surrender earthly hobbies, desire a higher heavenly existence and combine this with an irresistible thirst to live).

Bibliography

1. Gachev G.D. Mentality of the peoples of the world. M., Eksmo, 2003.

2. Likhachev D.S. Thoughts about Russia: St. Petersburg: LOGOS Publishing House, 2001.

3. Ozhegov S.I., Shvedova N.Yu. Dictionary Russian language. M., 1997.

4. Likhachev D.S. Three foundations of European culture and Russian historical experience // Likhachev D.S. Selected works on Russian and world culture. St. Petersburg, 2006. P. 365.

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