In the woods of the millers the history of creation. Understanding of “native” and “foreign” in the Old Believer environment

About the folkloristic nature of P.I.’s creativity Melnikov-Pechersky was written by almost all researchers who turned to his duology “In the Forests” and “On the Mountains”. Among them, the work of G.S. deserves special attention. Vinogradov, which gives a fairly complete overview of the variety of oral and poetic genres used by the writer in his epic. However, in his work on the folklore sources of the novels “In the Forests” and “On the Mountains,” Vinogradov significantly exaggerates the role of “mythological” folklore in them and the degree of influence of the “mythological school” on the writer. To a no lesser extent, the work of Melnikov-Pechersky shows the influence of the historical approach to folk art. The collection and study of folklore in the activities of Melnikov-Pechersky had its own significance. It was carried out long before the start of his literary and artistic activity and was associated with the historical study of his native land - the Nizhny Novgorod Volga region. It is no coincidence that, along with “mythological” folklore, the folk calendar is important in Melnikov’s novels. The Russian agricultural calendar, which is based on the so-called calendar, serves as direct evidence that the religious calendar in the everyday life of Russian people has long become an everyday calendar. In the novels “In the Woods” and “On the Mountains” he performs important artistic functions. Firstly, it plays a serious compositional role. The writer relies on it to move the plots forward. The division of the novel “In the Woods” into parts, as P. O. Pilashevsky rightly noted, is carried out according to the folk calendar. The entire action of the novel takes place from January 6 (Epiphany Christmas Eve) to October 22 (i.e., before Kazan), when the heads of the girls are crowned. Parasha and Vasily Borisych are married at the time when Manefa’s mother, on the eve of Kazanskaya, leaves with the charter member Arkadia for Sharpan. The action of the first part of the novel, which began on the eve of Epiphany, ends with the beginning of Lent. Talking about Chapurin’s meeting with foresters, the writer notes: “But now it’s Lent, and logging is also coming to an end. Less than two weeks left until Plyushchikha.” If we take into account that Evdokia Plyushchikha was celebrated on the first of March, it becomes clear that the main character of the novel, Patap Maksimych Chapurin, was with the foresters in mid-February; Lent was just about to begin. The first part accounts for both the beginning and the development of the storyline Nastya - Alexey Lokhmaty. The climax and denouement fall on the second part of the novel. The discord between Nastya and Alexei occurs at the end of Lent, and Nastya dies during Holy Week. The third part of the novel - the marriage of Alexei and the love combination of Parasha and Vasily Borisych - covers Petrovka. The duration of the fourth part - the preparation of the wedding by leaving and the secret wedding of Parasha - stretches from Petrovka to Kazan. The ritual calendar poetry that accompanies the family and work life of the heroes of the novel “In the Woods” enabled the writer, through the description of rituals in all their diversity, to present various forms of the national life of the Russian peasant. In the rituals accompanying the everyday calendar of the Trans-Volga region, the primordial, kondovaya Rus' appears. “The idea of ​​the fatherland,” wrote M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, “corresponds to the idea of ​​morals and customs, of games, songs and dances, of signs and superstitions, of proverbs and sayings, parables and fairy tales and, finally, of the unstigmatized, but undoubtedly a walking dictionary." The entire folk (religious) calendar in the novels of Melnikov-Pechersky is accompanied by corresponding rituals, which most often do not have any religious or ritual significance. Moreover, Christian holidays are often accompanied by pagan rituals, which reveals the fact of dual faith inherent in folk life. According to the religious calendar, Peter's Day is one of the most important Christian holidays, but in the rituals accompanying it there are remnants of pagan beliefs. “The youth,” writes Melnikov. - on the eve of Peter’s Day, your troubles: the last “hoppy night” is approaching, tomorrow we need to bury Kostroma.” Truthfully, with the skill of a connoisseur of the folk spirit, Melnikov-Pechersky conveys through folklore those “tender phenomena” of folk life, “which bathe you in warmth when you imagine yourself facing the fatherland.” It is not for nothing that Saltykov-Shchedrin, disagreeing with Melnikov-Pechersky on many fundamentally important issues, saw real wealth in his epic and considered it a reference book for researchers of the Russian people. All life depicted in the novels “In the Woods” and “On the Mountains” is accompanied by rituals. They accompany the entire everyday life of the heroes. Already on the first pages of the second volume of the novel “In the Woods” the custom of caroling that accompanies Epiphany Christmas Eve is described: “Outside the outskirts of Osipovka, women and girls collected clean “Epiphany snow” into containers to whiten canvases and cure forty ailments. Looking at the brightly shining stars, the young women concluded that the New Year would bring bright white flowers, and the girls exclaimed among themselves: “The stars are shining for the peas, and for the berries; we’ll get pretty ugly: then we’ll take a walk in the forests and among the peas.” The old women prayerfully placed crosses over the doors and over the windows in order to ward off the unclean and held the following thought: “Merciful Father Nikola, if it thawed in the morning, if the fog fell on Holy Erdan, then we would have plenty of bread.” Remaining true to the requirements of realism, Melnikov-Pechersky is always ethnographically specific when transmitting this or that custom. The morals of the peasants of the village of Lupovitsy, located in the upper reaches of the Don, where Marya Ivanovna Alymova lives, differ significantly from the morals and customs of the Volga residents. One of the most popular here is the custom of celebrating dozhinki, widespread in the 19th century. in the western provinces of Russia. Three holidays came together on one day during the stay of the heroine of the novel “On the Mountains” Dunya Smolokurova in Lupovitsy - breaking the fast, a rural temple holiday and “dozhinki”. “The day before, the women and girls had finished the spring harvest, and after mass, wrapping the sickles in young straw, and others with flowers remaining in the fields and meadows, and holding those sickles high above their heads, they piled them into the manor’s courtyard in a crowd. Even higher, they carried the “last sheaf” in their arms, dressed in a red sundress decorated with multi-colored ribbons. The whole village came together, even crowds came from the outlying villages - everyone was willing to eat a hearty meal, drink drunkenly at the lordly feast and treat. "The custom of celebrating the "last sheaf" comes from the deepest antiquity of Slavic life. It was common among all Slavic peoples, among other gods who worshiped the especially revered Svetovid, the god of light, sun and solar heat, who warmed the air and fertilized the earth. He was also considered the god of the harvest and field work. An important role in the novel is played by rituals that accompany certain dates in the peasant’s family calendar - sorochiny, radunitsa, funerals, etc. The novels “In the Forests” and “On the Mountains” fully reflect the funeral ritual with the lamentations accompanying it. In the novel “In the Woods” alone, G. S. Vinogradov counted about a dozen lamentations timed to coincide with certain dates and events in the peasant’s family life - the celebration of the rainbow, funerals (when removing the body, over the grave, during the funeral rite). In the literature about Melnikov-Pechsky, much attention was paid to elucidating the sources of folklore materials in general and lamentations, in particular, included in the novel “In the Woods.” As a result of a thorough analysis of the text of the novel and the lamentations “embedded” in it, K. V. Chistov came to the conclusion that their source for the writer was the “Perm Collection” (1866) and “Lamentations of the Northern Territory,” compiled by E. V. Barsov from texts recorded by him from the famous storyteller of the 19th century. Irina Andreeva Fedosova, whose image, according to the researcher, largely determined the introduction of the “screamer” Ustinya Kleschikha into the circle of characters in the novel. K.V. Chistov, comparing the texts of lamentations from the novel “In the Woods” with individual lamentations from Barsov’s collection, convincingly proves the influence of I. A Fedosova on Melnikov-Pechersky. “In “Crying for a Daughter” and in “Crying for a Goddaughter,” recorded from I. A. Fedosova,” writes Chistov, “suddenly deceased girls of marriageable age were mourned, and one of them, just like the heroine of the novel “In the Woods” Nastya Chapurina died from a secret pregnancy. Therefore, it is not surprising that the texts of the lamentations that we find on the pages of the novel are not just some kind of stylization in the spirit of the lamentations recorded by I.V. Barsov, but also in the literal sense of the word a montage of excerpts from these two laments.” Of course, Melnikov-Pechersky could not help but pay attention to the first volume of Barsov’s book, published in 1872, which at that time was an outstanding phenomenon in the scientific and literary world and, obviously, used it when working on the novel. At the same time, it is difficult to imagine that Melnikov-Pechersky, an ethnographer and folklorist, did not observe funeral rites, did not hear or record the lamentations of the “cries”. In the chapter devoted to the description of Nastya Chapurina's funeral, there is a hint that he was familiar with northern lamentations. These “pathetic lamentations,” revealing the peculiarities of the national life of the Russian people, help the writer look into the depths of centuries and catch in them echoes of ancient pagan beliefs. “When you listen to these calls, to these pitiful lamentations,” he notes about the funeral laments, “it smells like deep antiquity! Those words have been passed on in the mouths of the people from generation to generation for ten centuries... Those songs are sung to the old gods: to the Rattled Thunder and to the Mother of the Raw Earth.” It is characteristic that Melnikov-Pechersky uses the agricultural calendar when depicting the life of heroes who are more associated with handicrafts than with agriculture. Neither Chapurin, nor Zaplatin, nor Marko Danilych Smolokurov are closely associated with agricultural labor, nevertheless, their family life moves strictly according to the circle of the agricultural calendar with the performance of all the rituals that accompanied it. “As our parents lived, so they blessed us,” the heroes of the epic repeat, thereby emphasizing the traditional nature of national identity. Moreover, the use of an agricultural calendar emphasizes that the main character of the dilogy is the masses, for whom handicrafts have always gone hand in hand with agriculture. It is no coincidence that the meeting of each important date of the calendar is accompanied by a description of mass celebrations, be it Bratchina Nikolshchina or Bratchina Petrovshchina, the celebration of the Red Hill or the meeting of the Rainbow, Semik or Spring Mikula.

Melnikov-Pechersky

Pavel Ivanovich Melnikov (pseudonym Andrei Pechersky) was one of the outstanding Russian writers of the mid-19th century. Original creative individuality, keen observation, knowledge of folk life and folklore, excellent command of folk speech put him among the number of significant writers at a time when such luminaries of critical realism as L.N. Tolstoy, Nekrasov, Saltykov-Shchedrin, Dostoevsky were active in literature. , Turgenev, Ostrovsky, Goncharov.

The ideological and artistic position of Melnikov-Pechersky is very unique. The activities of the official Melnikov constantly came into conflict with the literary work of Pechersky. As an official of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, he diligently carried out the “instructions” of his superiors and fluctuated between extremely conservative and moderately liberal views, depending on changes in the government’s internal political course. Melnikov did not hesitate to actively participate in the suppression of “sedition” and the fight against free thought. At the same time, Melnikov, who was keenly interested in the life of the people, highly valued Russian realistic literature, was an ardent admirer of Pushkin and Gogol, and was fond of realistic fiction of the 40s.

Turning to artistic creativity, he did not imagine it otherwise as the result of a careful study and impartial depiction of life.

The writer himself was aware that the right to a strong place in literature was given to him by those of his works that were close to the Gogol school and contained a critical attitude to the facts of social life; at the same time, he could not help but realize that his works were contrary to his official activities and could harm his career. Melnikov rushed from side to side, now fearing that literary pursuits would damage his reputation in the highest government spheres, now dreaming of ending his service in order to devote himself entirely to his beloved literary work “in freedom.”

The idealization of patriarchal forms of Old Believer life, ancient customs and Domostroevsky family foundations, which took place in the works of Melnikov-Pechersky, was associated with the influence of Slavophile-soil theories on him.

All this fettered the writer, dictating to him in a number of cases a biased approach to the phenomena of life, their schematic depiction.

Pavel Ivanovich Melnikov was born in Nizhny Novgorod on October 22 (November 3), 1819 in the family of the head of the gendarmerie team. In 1829-1834, Melnikov studied at the Nizhny Novgorod gymnasium, and then entered the literature department of Kazan University, from which he graduated in 1837 with the title of candidate. Already in his childhood and youth, Melnikov was interested in history and literature, read a lot, copied and knew by heart the poems and poems of Pushkin, Zhukovsky and poets of the Pushkin galaxy.

At the university, he thoroughly expanded his knowledge in the fields of literature, history and linguistics. G. S. Surovtsov, who taught literature and aesthetics at Kazan University, had a great influence on the development of the future writer. Surovtsov introduced students to modern literature; An ardent admirer of Pushkin’s work, he informed his students with sorrow and indignation about the death of the poet and read them Lermontov’s poems “The Death of a Poet.”

Surovtsov also instilled in his students an interest in studying folk speech and oral poetic creativity of the people. Melnikov recalled his literature professor: “Knowing perfectly the folk language and folk art, songs, fairy tales, proverbs, Surovtsov constantly used to say that they contain a pure, undisturbed source for the real literary Russian language ... ».

Long before the publication of V. I. Dahl’s dictionary, Surovtsov verbally and in print declared the need for a “Collection of regional words of the Russian language” and organized this work through Kazan University.

Melnikov was a diligent student who ardently sympathized with the views of his professor.

After graduating from the university, Melnikov was sent to Perm as a teacher of history and statistics at a gymnasium (1838-1839).

Not limiting himself to teaching work, Melnikov was actively involved in ethnography in Perm and studying the history of the Perm region. For this purpose, he traveled a lot around the Urals, visited a number of factories, talked with peasants and workers, got acquainted with their living and working conditions, with folk dialects and oral folk poetry. Impressions from these trips served as the basis for “Road Notes on the Way from the Tambov Province to Siberia,” published in “Notes of the Fatherland” of 1839-1842, in “Moskvityanin” for 1841 and in the “Magazine for Reading for Students of Military Educational Institutions.”

In 1839, Melnikov was transferred as a teacher to Nizhny Novgorod. Here he delved into the study of Russian antiquities and worked hard to analyze the archives of Nizhny Novgorod monasteries and public places. In 1845-1850, Melnikov was the editor of the unofficial part of the Nizhny Novgorod Provincial Gazette, where he published materials he found in the archives of Nizhny Novgorod, as well as descriptions of ancient monuments of the Nizhny Novgorod region, statistical and ethnographic data. Under his leadership, the unofficial part of the Nizhny Novgorod Provincial Gazette became the most interesting and richest section of the newspaper. Most of the materials published here belong to Melnikov himself.

Investigating “by the highest command” the question of the descendants of Kuzma Minin, Melnikov finds in the Nizhny Novgorod archives previously unknown historical information and documents relating to Kuzma Minin. This information was published partly in 1842 in Otechestvennye zapiski, partly in 1850 in Moskvityanin.

In 1846, Melnikov left his teaching career and was soon assigned to the position of an official of special assignments under the Nizhny Novgorod military governor (1847-1850). Melnikov proved himself to be a diligent and “zealous” official. He carefully delved into the essence of the “schismatic” affairs entrusted to him for the most part and at the same time, steadily and cruelly carried out the instructions he received from “above” to “eradicate” the schism. Melnikov's inflexibility and cruelty were widely known. Melnikov proposed taking the most drastic measures against schismatics, up to and including turning them over to recruits, and the children of schismatics to become cantonists. At the same time, taking advantage of his reading in schismatic literature, he resorted to methods of persuasion, and often without success.

In 1850, Melnikov was transferred to the Ministry of Internal Affairs as an official on special assignments. Remaining in Nizhny Novgorod until 1852, he carried out various assignments from the Ministry.

In 1852-1853, Melnikov was the head of the statistical expedition of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the Nizhny Novgorod province. The expedition was busy establishing the number of schismatics and identifying the “spirit” of their teaching. On the materials of the commission’s work, Melnikov based his extensive treatise “On the Current State of the Schism” (1853-1854), which in handwritten form was circulated in the highest governmental and spiritual spheres.

Melnikov did not follow the path of discrediting the schismatics and their entire way of life. He carefully studied this life and became one of its major experts. At the same time, his “notoriety” as an official, who with his diligence (“if he is a scoundrel, then he is not a malicious scoundrel, but on orders,” wrote Saltykov) brings great troubles to the Old Believer population, preceded his fame as a scientist and writer.

Herzen’s “Bell” wrote ironically about Melnikov-Pechersky in 1858: “Is it true that the Nizhny Novgorod writer, transferred to St. Petersburg for his elegant style, - Mr. Melnikov, is preparing for publication the story of his apostolic exploits, those aimed at converting the lost brethren of schismatics? If it’s not true, we’ll probably tell them.”

During the period of preparation for the peasant reform, when the government was forced, under pressure from the revolutionary movement of the peasants and the growth of revolutionary sentiment in society, to make liberal concessions, Melnikov-Pechersky was one of the first to take the path of changing the forms of struggle against the split. In a Note on the Russian Schism, compiled for Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolaevich (1857), Melnikov strongly advocates new liberal forms of combating the schism. Tolerance, broad explanation to schismatics of their “misconceptions” occurring

from darkness, according to Melnikov, should be the basis for the fight against the schism. Severely condemning sects that expressed in one form or another a protest against economic and political oppression (runners), Melnikov believed that such sects were exceptions. In general, the schism is not directed against the government and its institutions; the overwhelming majority of schismatics are bearers of the conservative principle of people's life. They should, according to Melnikov, be “led to common faith” gradually, through persuasion and influence on the Old Believer clergy.

P.I. Melnikov-Pechersky.
Lithograph from a photograph from the 1850s.

Of course, in his official activities and in his views on the split, Melnikov did not cross the line of liberalism “allowed” by the government.

In the 40s and early 50s, Melnikov wrote a number of articles on historical issues, published a significant number of historical documents, published translations and articles in various publications (Domestic Notes, Literary Gazette, Nizhny Novgorod Provincial Gazette, Moskvityanin "). Melnikov’s first literary experience was the story “Elpidifor Perfilievich”, published in 1840 in Literaturnaya Gazeta. Depicting the life of a small provincial

city, its “aristocracy” - officials, rich merchants and clergy, Melnikov student-like imitated Gogol.

Melnikov’s poem “The Great Artist,” published in the same year in Literaturnaya Gazeta, was an imitation of Mitskevich. The author himself was extremely dissatisfied with his first experiments.

At the beginning of his literary activity, Melnikov felt much stronger in the field of historical research or statistical research than in the field of artistic creativity. A high idea of ​​the writer’s duty and the responsibility of literary work forced Melnikov to abandon fiction for several years. Only in the early 50s, under the influence of V.I. Dahl, with whom he became close several years earlier, Melnikov again began working in the field of fiction. Dahl appreciated in Melnikov a remarkable expert on ancient Russian life, folk language and oral poetic creativity of the people. He also noticed the literary talent of Melnikov - a wonderful storyteller, a master of accurate, picturesque and expressive speech. Dahl persistently advised Melnikov to return to artistic creativity. The new work of fiction created by Melnikov after a long break, the story “The Krasilnikovs” (1852), was influenced by Dahl’s work. In this story, Melnikov depicted the life of a wealthy merchant class, terrible in its obscurantism and conservatism. The story was published under the signature “Andrey Pechersky”. Subsequently, throughout his entire creative career, Melnikov signed his works of art with this pseudonym. Following the story “The Krasilnikovs,” Melnikov-Pechersky wrote a number of works of art that sharply denounced provincial merchants, officials and the self-will and tyranny of the landowners of the “dissolute years” of “noble liberty” - “Poyarkov” (1857), “Grandfather Polycarp” (1857), “ Old Years" (1857), "Bear's Corner" (1857), "Indispensable" (1857), "Grandmother's Tales" (1858) and others. The stories and stories of Andrei Pechersky attracted the attention and interest of a wide reader. Chernyshevsky highly appreciated their artistic merits and their truthful, impartial portrayal of reality. The critic noted the significance of Melnikov-Pechersky’s literary talent, pointed out the uniqueness and originality of his work, and rated the story “Poyarkov” as one of the best works of literature of 1857.

Pechersky's stories were included in the category of the best works of literature that denounced the pre-reform order.

In 1858, when the bookseller A. Davydov undertook a separate publication of “Stories by A. Pechersky,” this book did not receive censorship approval, and only in 1876 was it possible to publish a collection of stories and stories by Melnikov-Pechersky.

But Melnikov’s socio-political positions mostly remained conservative. He justified his sympathy for the schismatics by their loyalty.

Melnikov spoke respectfully of the publishers of Moskvityanin, who brought, as he himself declared, “Orthodox and autocratic ideas into literature.” In 1859, Melnikov took part in the publication of the newspaper “Russian Diary”, and then began to collaborate in the “Northern Bee”, speaking

in his articles against Sovremennik. The newspaper "Russian Diary" was perceived by readers as an organ of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and did not enjoy any success.

In an effort to stir up people against Polish revolutionaries in connection with the uprising in Poland in 1863, the Ministry of Internal Affairs instructed Melnikov to write a brochure that “would serve as propaganda against outrageous propaganda” (Melnikov’s words). Melnikov fulfilled this assignment by writing a brochure “On Russian Truth and Polish Falsehood,” which was then distributed at a reduced price through fairs and special peddlers.

Saltykov-Shchedrin devoted a special review to the analysis of this book by Melnikov. In this analysis, he showed that such books harm the people, since they are imbued with obscurantism and misanthropy. Saltykov points out that the entire brochure is directed against advanced Russian people, who are called in it “thieves and traitors” because they sometimes try to “say something that neither the authorities announced nor the spiritual father said” (Melnikov’s words ).

In 1866, Melnikov was placed at the disposal of the Moscow Governor-General without salary and, having moved to Moscow, became an employee first of the Moskovskie Vedomosti (1867), and then a permanent employee of the Russian Messenger (since 1868). In Katkov’s journal, Melnikov published a number of historical works and fiction (“Historical essays on priesthood,” 1864, 1866; “Princess Tarakanova and Princess Vladimir,” 1867; “Counts of schismatics,” 1868; “Secret sects,” 1868; “Avdotya Petrovna Naryshkina ", 1872; etc.).

The Russian Messenger also published the story “Beyond the Volga” (1868), the beginning of the novel “In the Woods.” This entire novel appeared here (1871-1874; separate edition 1875) and its continuation - “On the Mountains” (1875-1881).

The novels of Melnikov-Pechersky, devoted mainly to depicting the life of merchants-Old Believers and schismatic monasteries, reflected all the many years of experience of a researcher of the schism, an observant and inquisitive traveler, who, on duty, traveled all over the Volga region and the Urals, but was interested not only in those aspects of life that had direct relation to the official assignments assigned to him. Thus, while conducting the investigation entrusted to him into the case of forgery committed during the marriage of the merchant Mokeev, Melnikov paid special attention to the victim - the Kazan merchant daughter Maria Petrovna Degtyareva, filling the sheets of the case with characteristics of her personality, position and psychology. Some of the character traits and fate of this woman were reflected in the image of Marya Gavrilovna Maslyanikova in the novels “In the Woods” and “On the Mountains.” The Mokeev case gave Melnikov-Pechersky a lot of material on the issue of marriages and divorces among schismatics (see the novel “In the Woods”).

The image of the “Trans-Volga thousand-man” Patap Maksimych Chapurin - the hero of the novels “In the Forests” and “On the Mountains” arose in Melnikov’s mind as a result of observations of merchants - patrons of the schism, in particular

the famous Nizhny Novgorod rich man - “the appanage peasant of the Semenovsky district of the Chistopolsky order of the village of Popova” Pyotr Egorovich Bugrov. Characterizing Bugrov in official documents, Melnikov noted his habit of a simple, peasant life, his natural intelligence and remarkable ability, entering into deals with bureaucratic bosses, including the highest ones, to deflect and soften blows aimed at schismatics. Some incidents from Bugrov’s life, recorded by Melnikov in memos, were then completely transferred by him to novels.

Acquaintance with schismatic merchants who sold ancient books and icons at the Nizhny Novgorod fair, and constant visits to their shops gave Melnikov material for the image of a dealer in antiquities and “rare things” - Gerasim Chubalov.

In 1869, Melnikov was sent to the Vyatka, Nizhny Novgorod, Perm, Kazan and Ufa provinces with the aim of finding the shortest route for the South Siberian road north of the Volga. The writer again met with the largest representatives of the Volga Old Believers and refreshed his memory of the impressions of an earlier period of his life.

Speaking about the sources of his novel, Melnikov stated in 1874: “God gave me memory, a good memory ... And it was written in my family that I would rather travel around Mother’s house in Holy Rus'. And have you ever been somewhere? And in the forests, and on the mountains, and in swamps, and in the tundra, in mines and in peasants' chambers, and in cramped cells, and in hermitages, and in palaces, you can't count it all. And wherever I was, whatever I saw, whatever I heard, I remember everything firmly. I took it into my head to write; Well, I think, let’s write and I began to write “from memory, as from literacy,” as the old proverb says.”

Melnikov-Pechersky worked consistently on the novels “In the Forests” and “On the Mountains” for a number of years, either stopping work for a while, or taking it up with new tenacity, interest and enthusiasm.

In 1880, Melnikov dictated the last chapters of “On the Mountains” to his wife, no longer being able to write himself.

Melnikov's literary fame came from his novels and stories of the 50s. Already in the first of them, the story “The Krasilnikovs,” Melnikov showed artistic skill and remarkable knowledge of the depicted social environment. In the story, one felt a conscious following of Dahl - an expert in folk dialects and a master of reproducing the colorful, colloquial speech of the people; one also felt, perhaps to a greater extent, a creative perception of artistic traditions coming from Gogol, however, already in this story Melnikov-Pechersky appeared before the readers as a unique an artist endowed with an original style of painting that is unique to him.

The main character of the story is the provincial merchant Krasilnikov. The writer, as an observant visitor, first of all gives an external description of the furnishings of Krasilnikov’s house, noticing the owner of the house’s inclination towards a harsh and simple lifestyle, which he is forced to hide so that he, a rich man, is not condemned for stinginess.

Melnikov “objectively” gives justice to the natural intelligence and ingenuity of a semi-literate merchant. Next, he “gives the floor” to the hero and, having forced the tyrant merchant, suffering from the consequences of his own actions, to speak out, arouses sympathy not for him, but for the victims of his arbitrariness and tyranny: his son, whom he drove to binge drinking and madness, and his daughter-in-law, whom he beat him into a coffin. The “dark power” of capital, the power of money, combined with savagery and the triumph of prejudices, leads to the fact that a naturally generously gifted person becomes the bearer of evil, the enemy and oppressor of everything talented, fresh, noble that surrounds him. Old man Krasilnikov himself realizes that the “disobedient” son Dmitry, who recoiled from him, was an intelligent, capable and sincere person and that the humble son Sergei, who pleases his father in everything, “has nothing to praise for.” Only a vile sycophant and earphone, hated by workers and incapable of work, can get along with a tyrant father.

Revealing the psychology of a representative of the “dark kingdom”, showing how the “masters of life” - merchants sow evil around themselves, cultivate and instill vices in those around them and trample and trample on the rights and human dignity of people dependent on them, Melnikov-Pechersky denounced the system of social relations that subjugate human power of money, capital. The writer did not set himself the task of leading the reader to such broad generalizations; he himself was far from condemning bourgeois relations in general, however, the realistic depiction of merchant life in his story, the typical figures of merchant representatives he created, suggested conclusions that the author himself did not make.

That is why Chernyshevsky, highly appreciating the story “The Krasilnikovs,” pointed out that this work, in its content and artistic perfection, belongs to the “efficient, noble” and “energetic direction” and placed it next to Saltykov-Shchedrin’s “Provincial Sketches.”

Pechersky’s works, which followed “The Krasilnikovs,” developed the same line in the writer’s work and strengthened his reputation as a writer who, according to Chernyshevsky, “in all fairness should be counted among our most gifted storytellers.”

In the story “Grandfather Polycarp,” Melnikov characterizes the life of peasants in the non-black earth forest regions of the Volga region through the mouth of an old peasant. Without condemning the “bosses”, without even suggesting the possibility of a different attitude on the part of officials and “lords” towards the peasants, Grandfather Polycarp epically tells about the abuses and arbitrariness of officials ruining the population, about shortages, about the oppression to which peasants are subjected from all sides, about the lack of rights and the plight of farmers and artisans. Honest workers, working the land by the sweat of their brow, floating timber, wonderful woodworkers love their native land, despite the “cold” infertile lands. “That’s why we love the forest, that’s why we feel sorry for it - after all, it’s our drinker, our breadwinner” (vol. I, p. 50), says the old man warmly. The peasants look with sadness at the forest wealth, which is being plundered and destroyed by careless officials.

Melnikov-Pechersky emphasizes the insightful mind and resourcefulness of Polycarp. At the same time, he notes the humility of the old peasant, who, talking about the arbitrariness of the foresters, praises his “kind” forester, who robs his fellow villagers.

Melnikov does not grieve or be indignant, seeing the humility and meekness of the peasants, who easily forgive their tormentors. He is ironic not at the humility of Polycarp, but at the bureaucratic “mercy,” leading the reader to the idea that if such a boss is considered “merciful,” what are the rest of the officials like? Melnikov perceives the submission of the downtrodden peasants as the natural state of the people. In contrast to democratic writers, who understood that only popular protest, the open struggle of the oppressed masses against their oppressors could lead to the real liberation of the peasantry, Melnikov pinned all his hopes on the “beneficent” influence of government reforms and changes in the administrative apparatus system.

The life of officials, the abuses and lawlessness committed by large and small administrators were also depicted by Melnikov in his stories “Poyarkov”, “Bear Corner”, “Indispensable” and others.

The old bribe-taker and rogue police official Poyarkov, who has suffered from a larger rogue - the governor, has repented of his “wicked” actions and reveals to a random interlocutor “office secrets” - the favorite techniques with which officials rob the people (“Poyarkov”); contractor-merchant Gavrila Matveevich talks about the tricks of the “engineers,” mayors, police chiefs and other officials, about the complete lack of rights and darkness of the peasantry, about embezzlement, bribery, and forgery (“Bear’s Corner”).

The reader learns from these stories the “unwritten laws” of the bureaucratic world. “If you want to know who is bigger than who in the district, don’t look at the table of ranks; it has its own report card. The first place in the city is the tax farm manager: whether he is an official, whether he has a beard - it’s all the same. He has both honor and respect ... Whoever the tax farmer pays more is the more important official and has more power. The most important of all, of course, is the police officer, and if the city is large, rich, there are many merchants living in it, or there are noble market women in it, then the mayor. If the city is not important, then the mayor is the last spoke in the chariot ... After the police officer - the police officer, then the secretary of the zemstvo court and the secretary of the district court. These people are the first, followed by the small fry: judge, permanent member, treasurer, solicitor, wine bailiff. And below everyone is a full-time caretaker, and teachers .... , the payoff doesn’t give them a penny ... "(I, 63-64), - Poyarkov confidentially tells his interlocutor. This entire hierarchy of corrupt officials looks at the people as a source of profit.

Large officials take bribes from small ones and force them to strive for greater and greater increases in their illegal income. The bureaucratic horde imposes tribute on merchants, traders, and contractors. The merchants compensate for their “losses” at the expense of the workers and the “treasury.” As a result of the “activities” of officials, roads and bridges have been destroyed, the population is completely downtrodden and disenfranchised, the city economy is in complete decline, and the state is suffering colossal losses.

Introducing into his stories numerous “incidental” cases from official practice, which were well known to him as an official on special assignments under the governor, Melnikov used a method widespread in accusatory fiction and journalism of the 50s. However, along with this, Melnikov-Pechersky uses another method developed by the best representatives of the literature of critical realism: he creates vivid typical images of representatives of different social groups, satirically exposes significant phenomena of modern life. Police officer Poyarkov with fierceness and ingenuity

“searches for ways” to enrich himself at the expense of the people (“Poyarkov”), a rude and arrogant predator, engineer Nikolai Fomich Linquist, a smart entrepreneur Gavrila Matveich, who knows how to “please” officials, but deeply despises them (“Bear’s Corner”); the indispensable assessor of the zemstvo court, Andrei Tikhonych Podobedov (“Indispensable”), groveling before “his excellency,” and a number of other characters live, act and speak on the pages of Melnikov’s stories. With their thoughts and speeches, their actions and habits, and their entire way of life, they characterize the society to which they belong and by which they were raised.

The exposure of the nobility, landowner tyranny, and the horrors of serfdom was given by Melnikov-Pechersky in his works of the 50s - “Old Years” and “Grandma’s Tales.” The events depicted here are attributed to the historical past, to the 18th century, but as a result the stories did not lose their relevance, their modern sound. Despite the fact that the author in these works sought to contrast the liberalism of the era of preparation for the peasant reform with the age of “noble freedom”, the time of unlimited power of landowners over serfs, its accusatory meaning objectively acquired a broader and more significant character. Reading about the crime and fanaticism of Prince Alexei Yuryevich Zaborovsky, about the bullying, beatings, torture to which he subjected the peasants (“Old Years”), progressive people of the late 50s did not draw conclusions about the “progress of humanity” and “enlightenment”, as a result of which such wild and unbridled tyranny is impossible, but about the responsibility that the nobility should have rightly borne for all the suffering of the people.

The truthful description of the crimes of the nobility against the peasants, given in "Old Years", and the class egoism of the nobility, its contempt for the people, shown in "Grandmother's Tales", was of great public importance.

At the same time, in these stories of Melnikov-Pechersky, as well as in others that exposed the abuses of officials, the people were portrayed as submissively suffering, incapable of resistance.

The story “Old Years” is constructed in a very unique way: the author first learns about the events that took place in the 18th century in Zaborye from the lips of the police officer, who shows him the dilapidated and abandoned palace of the Zaborovsky princes and the portrait gallery in it. Then the author, contemplating the portraits of the owners of Zaborie and their pedigree, reflects on their fate and characters. He gives an objective and stern outline of the “career” of the most prominent and typical representative of the Zaborovsky family - Prince Alexei Yuryevich. Under Peter I, when the nobles, as well as representatives of other classes, were required to participate in the “business,” it was clear that Alexey Yuryevich was not fit for the “business.” But later the “clever prince ... knew how to make up for it and take over” (I, 87). Skillfully “plucking up” first one and then another temporary worker, he achieved the point that “ranks and villages flew to him at every change” (I, 87). The author briefly but definitely characterizes his unbridled, impetuous and uncontrollable temper, speaks of his deep depravity and tendency to arbitrariness, which in the provincial conditions of the 18th century was not limited by anything. The further history of the Zaborovsky family is immediately sharply and satirically characterized.

Most of the narrative is a kind of recording of the memories of old servants about Prince Alexei Yuryevich. Main narrator

The prince's servant appears - a hundred-year-old man, Anisim Prokofich, the master's favorite, whose voice, however, is not sharply distinguished among the voices of the other peasants remembering the old prince. Prokofich exalts the master, but does not hide his dark deeds and gloomy exploits. The will of the prince seems to him an indisputable law; any of his actions cannot be condemned. Anisim Prokofich proudly talks about the tyrant antics of Alexei Yuryevich. Other peasants, whose stories are organically woven into the narrative, talking about the master’s atrocities and arbitrariness, also do not dare to condemn him, although they mention their hatred of his confidants and headphones.

The noble family - generations of tyrants, libertines, money-grubbers, spendthrifts, gluttons - are opposed by generations of peasant workers and sufferers, in whose stories the epic images of their tormentor-landowners are recreated. In the folk style, with the introduction of elements of fairy tales and songs, “The Old Years” tells a story about the luxury that surrounded the Zaborovsky princes, about holidays, balls, dinners, and hunts.

While truthfully depicting the life of a serf estate in the 18th century, the bloody fun and deeds of the nobility, creating vivid images of serf owners and their slaves, Melnikov-Pechersky was unable in his work to give a realistic image of the serf people as a whole, to reflect the true attitude of the peasantry to the masters. Melnikov’s limited worldview was also reflected in his story “Grandmother’s Tales,” which at the same time contained sharp revelations of the life of the nobility of the 18th century.

Drawing here an argument between a grandmother, idealizing the times of her youth, and her grandson, Melnikov-Pechersky expressed the idea that with the success of enlightenment, the nobility is becoming more humane, gradually abandoning class prejudices and the wild customs of their grandfathers and fathers. However, it was not this thought, but a realistic, satirical depiction of noble society that constituted the main content of the story.

Contempt for the people, money-grubbing, careerism, bullying of the serfs and the “free” poor, kowtowing to those in power - these are the features that the writer characterizes the life of the highest noble society in the capital and province. The “patriarchal” sycophancy that surrounded the nobles of the Tsar’s governor, Chief General Pilnev in Yaroslavl or the retired Krasnogorod governor Churilin in Zimogorsk, gave way in the 19th century to a more refined and hidden, but no less disgusting veneration of rank; noble swagger and contempt for the people took only a more veiled form . The story of Nastenka Borovkova, the story of poor pupils who suffered from the heavy “mercies” of bar-tyrants - most of the episodes included in “Grandma’s Tales” depicted phenomena that continued to live, albeit in new forms, at the time when the story was written.

In "Grandmother's Tales", as in "Old Years", Melnikov was able to perfectly convey the color and characteristic features of life in the 18th century. He knew historical sources well, was knowledgeable in the field of oral and poetic folk art and the history of language. In literary terms, he was guided by the Pushkin tradition. In the characterization of Prince Zaborovsky and the depiction of his life, there are responses to the image of Troekurov from the novel “Dubrovsky”, in a number of episodes of “Grandmothers”

tales” one feels a creative following of Pushkin’s “The Captain’s Daughter” (for example, the episode of Nastenka Borovkova’s meeting with Catherine II in Tsarskoye Selo Park and her intercession for the peasant Savely Trifonov).

A significant achievement of Melnikov-Pechersky in “Grandmother's Tales” was the image of the positive heroine he created here - Nastenka Borovkova. Willpower and independence of character, a clear, strong mind, the desire to understand the world around her and determine her place in it, to live honestly and fairly, the youthful enthusiasm and wit that Melnikov endowed with his heroine were later, to one degree or another, inherent in the female characters of novels Melnikov “In the Forests” and “On the Mountains” (Nastya, Flenushka, Dunya).

A remarkable feature of this image was that Melnikov emphasized in his heroine the combination of high qualities of soul and character with free-thinking, love of the people, and hatred of the oppressors of the people.

Melnikov-Pechersky's stories laid the foundation for the writer's artistic style, which was clearly and fully manifested in his novels.

The theme of schism and schismatic life, which became one of the main themes of his novels, was already touched upon in the story “Poyarkov,” containing satirical sketches of the life of monasteries, and in the story “Grisha” (1861), the subtitle of which reads: “From the schismatic life.”

The story “Grisha” was artistically weaker than the writer’s fictional works that preceded it. Melnikov sought to depict in it the spiritual quest of a young Old Believer, which led him first to asceticism and then to fanaticism. In this story, the writer included legends about schismatic shrines, which he later included in his novel “In the Woods.”

After a story with a sharply defined plot (“The Krasilnikovs”), Melnikov-Pechersky created a number of works in the 50s, each of which does not contain a single consistent and clearly developed plot (the exception is the story “Grisha”). They are, as it were, collections of episodes and facts that, in their totality, characterize the life of a society or a certain social group. The means of characterizing this way of life are typical images, which the author sometimes places at the center of the narrative, connecting with them all subsequent presentation (for example, the image of Prince Alexei Yuryevich in “Old Years”), or introduces occasionally, intertwining the characteristics of a significant number of characters with the reporting of a number of facts and events (this is how the stories “Grandfather Polycarp”, “Bear’s Corner”, and, to a large extent, “Grandmother’s Tales” are structured).

The fact that the synthetic characterization of everyday life became the main content of Melnikov-Pechersky’s stories, subordinating the plot, that the episodes included in the frame of the story were connected with each other not so much in a clearly developing plot, but rather subordinated to the author’s general assessment of everyday life, that typical images played a primary role in the “mosaic” narrative of the story - expressed the formation of a unique epic style in the work of Melnikov-Pechersky. Of great importance in this case was the development of skaz methods and linguistic characteristics of heroes in Melnikov’s works of the 50s. The speech of the characters in his stories characterizes their social practice, the era in which they act, and their personal properties. Remarkable speech characteristics of the characters are given in “Grandfather Polycarp”, “Poyarkov”,

"Grandmother's Tales." In “Grandmother's Tales”, people of high society of the 18th century, including the grandmother, who speak a peculiar jargon, including a huge number of foreign words and combining them with the rudest vernacular, are contrasted with Nastenka Borovkova, who speaks a pure, expressive folk language.

In “Old Years” and partly in “Grisha” Melnikov-Pechersky developed a folk-epic tale.

Melnikov-Pechersky’s first major novel, “In the Woods,” began with the story “Beyond the Volga.” Melnikov sought in this work to give a picture of the life of the population of the Volga region and, when processing the story, he increasingly expanded and increased the scope of the depicted reality, complicating the artistic fabric of the work.

The transition from essays and short stories to the epic novel in the work of Melnikov-Pechersky was so organic that the author of “In the Forests” and “On the Mountains” himself did not fully feel it and was inclined to perceive his epic works as a development of the genre in which he wrote in the 50s.

Speaking in 1875, when the novel “In the Woods” was already completed, with the reading of chapters from his new work “On the Mountains,” Melnikov declared at the Society of Lovers of Russian Literature that “On the Mountains” “is not, strictly speaking, a new work, it is the continuation of those essays and stories that were published in the Russian Messenger under the general title “In the Woods” will be published in a separate publication in a few days.”

In the “Russian Bulletin” “In the Woods” was published with the subtitle “story”. Placing at the center of his novel an image of the life of the “Trans-Volga thousand-man” Patap Maksimych Chapurin and his family, Melnikov-Pechersky surrounds his hero with a huge number of other characters, sometimes even having little contact with him, and speaks about them in detail and in detail. He interweaves the main storylines (of which there are several) with secondary ones and often shifts his attention from the main characters to episodic characters. He is interested in the life of the Trans-Volga region as a whole. Therefore, Melnikov-Pechersky’s novel is not distinguished by its compositional harmony. The structure of the work allows for the inclusion of additional episodes, scenes, descriptions, and persons into its fabric. Melnikov did just that: publishing his novel in a separate edition, he added to the first part of the novel, which appeared in the magazine as the story “Beyond the Volga,” four chapters (14-17), which described Chapurin’s journey to Vetluga, his stay in the Krasnoyarsk monastery, The story of Kolyshkin was told.

In December 1872, Melnikov-Pechersky wrote in Semevsky’s album about his novel, a significant part of which had already appeared in print by that time: “Beyond the Volga”, “In the Forests” in “Russian Bulletin” began in 1868, and when will they end and how I’ll end before I know it.”

It was clear to the writer what material, what aspects of life should be covered in his novel, but how this or that plot would unfold

He could not imagine the situation, what conflicts would arise, how widely the action would develop and how the novel would end, and this was not of significant importance to him.

"In forests". Patap Maksimych Chapurin.
From a drawing by P. M. Boklevsky.
1870s.

In the novels of Melnikov-Pechersky, the contradictions of the writer’s creativity, his strengths and weaknesses were especially clearly manifested. The writer’s desire to truthfully show reality, to comprehensively reflect what he was able to see during his numerous trips and encounters with various people, contributed to the development of the strengths of his work. The writer creates in the novel a number of vivid typical images of Trans-Volga residents of different classes, touches on the issue of social contradictions that manifest themselves in relations between classes, notes the changes taking place in society and destroying patriarchal life.

However, along with these features of Melnikov-Pechersky’s novels, connecting them with the literature of critical realism, Slavophile-soil tendencies were clearly evident in them, leading to the idealization of patriarchal forms of life, to stylization in the depiction of everyday life and in language.

In a number of episodes and images of “In the Forests” and “On the Mountains,” in some situations of these works and in certain aspects of the author’s artistic style, his desire to create pictures of everyday life based on the supposedly inherent ethical and aesthetic principles of the Russian people was manifested. Carrying out his plan “to “betray in writing” as a keepsake for future generations about how Russian people lived in the old years,” Melnikov tried, based on the depiction of the life of the Old Believers, “carefully and sacredly preserving, or rather, preserving our hitherto treasured antiquity,” to create an ideal utopia. patriarchal relations of the archaic life of Russia, which “has stood in purity since ancient times - as it was under our great-grandfathers, it has been preserved to this day” (II, 4). The complex artistic fabric of the work reflected both trends contained in the novel. Stylization and Slavophil idealization, which had as their literary source Muscovite pochvenism and the weaknesses of Ostrovsky’s plays

the beginning of the 50s (“Don’t get on your own sleigh”, “Poverty is not a vice”, “Don’t live as you want”), were largely filmed in a truthful, realistic depiction of the social life of the Volga region. At the same time, elements of idealization and epic stylization limited the realism of Melnikov-Pechersky.

The central image of the novel, Patap Maksimych Chapurin, was conceived by the writer as an epic figure of the bearer and guardian of patriarchal principles, a defender of antiquity in everyday life, religion and morality. It is no coincidence that Melnikov looked for such a hero among the richest part of the state peasants, essentially the merchants. The theorists of pochvennichestvo from the young editors of Moskvityanin, with whom Melnikov’s ideological connections are undoubted, saw the expression of the primordial principles of folk life in the life of the merchants, arguing, in contrast to the “senior Slavophiles,” that among the peasants the principles of folk morality were distorted by serfdom. Melnikov follows a middle path: his hero, being essentially a merchant, is “written as a state peasant.” In his entire way of life, he retains connections with the life of the peasantry, but a peasantry that has not experienced the oppression of landowners and managers.

With epic thoroughness and lyrical inspiration, Melnikov-Pechersky speaks about the moral foundations of the family headed by Chapurin, about the relationships that exist between family members, about the ancient rituals that regulate these relationships. The writer strives to convey the poetry of patriarchal life and often falls into aestheticism, stylization and embellishment, describing the furnishings of the house, the clothes of the heroes who observe the legacy of antiquity, talking about the rituals and customs that mark holidays and sorrows in Chapurin’s house. However, in solving his artistic task, Melnikov-Pechersky went far beyond the limits outlined by his plan. Through the epic narrative, glorifying the hero and his entire way of life, the features of real life with its conflicts and contradictions, with its hardships and joys clearly appeared, and Chapurin himself appeared not as a stilted image of the bearer of certain, ideal traits, but as a living person whose character formed under the influence of his social position and social practice.

“Admiring” Chapurin’s house, which rises above the surrounding peasant huts, talking about the generosity of the rich man, about the love of his workers for him, about the patriarchal custom of “setting up tables” and treating the peasants, which Chapurin follows, Melnikov-Pechersky immediately reveals the true meaning of “kindness” the merchant and the “devotion” of the surrounding population to him.

The writer notes that landowners did not live in the Volga region and even serfs did not fully feel serfdom, since they paid quitrents and did not see the landowners and managers, and points out: “In the absence of landowners and managers, the so-called thousanders were of great importance. All industry is in their hands, all ordinary peasants depend on them and cannot escape their will. A thousand-man like Patap Maksimych - and up to twenty outlying villages worked for him - lived as a real master. His will is law, his affection is mercy, his anger is great misfortune. ... A man is strong: he can ruin anything he wants” (II, 40).

“Come on, Danila Tikhonych, look at my life. ... , Patap Maksimych mentally turns to his friend - the Samara merchant, - recognize my power over “my” villages” (II, 40).

In the circle of his thousand-strong friends, Chapurin complains that the workers have become “free people”, that they do not have the same obedience and “zeal” in them. He vigilantly monitors those who work for him and strictly punishes the “negligent”. The workers are afraid of the owner like fire.

Chapurin's character is determined by his position as a rich man, the owner of capital, which gives him enormous power over the poor. The will and even the whim of the “owner” turn into a law to which members of his family, and the workers who work in his workshops, lathes, mills, and the peasants who sell him their products, and the nuns in the monastery, and the officials whom he bribes. "Corrective Officer and Police Officer" ... never traveled around Osipovka, knowing that Chapurin always had a good treat ready,” the author reports (II, 127).

Patap Maksimych is not afraid of the clergy - Old Believer and official - “Nikonian”.

The priest of the “Great Russian Church” Sushilo hates Chapurin, but is forced to tolerate him, since his entire economy is supported only by handouts from the thousand’s manager. The hermits and Old Believer priests depend even more on Patap Maksimych.

“He has power over the monasteries ... , - the smart novice Flenushka says about Chapurin. You won’t be able to hide from him in the monastery. He will take it out of every monastery, not a single abbess will dare to contradict. Everyone submits to him because he is strong” (II, 60).

Chapurin's "power" is the power of his money. She makes the rich man, despite his personal qualities (Melnikov sympathizes with his hero and endows him with great charm), scary. Aksinya Zakharovna, Chapurin’s wife, is afraid to let her daughters out on the street on Christmas Eve, because they are “a good father to their daughter” and they and the village girls “can’t count themselves alongside each other” - “my father will eat me as soon as he finds out,” she tells her daughters (II, 13). When Aksinya Zakharovna subsequently comes to consult with her husband about Snezhkov’s matchmaking, Chapurin seemed so scary to her that her first move was to hide from him.

Flenushka calls Patap Maksimych “a bear.” Even Chapurina's sister - the powerful abbess Manefa - is afraid of him, remembering not so much his angry shouts and heavy hand, but the purse on which the “prosperity” of her monastery and the quiet life of the Old Believer clergy depend.

Chapurin treats his employees especially harshly. Having lost his way in the Kerzhen forest, Chapurin scolds and beats the worker who was driving the horse. An employee who does not please the owner turns out to be guilty without guilt.

Even the employee, who became a clerk, “favored” by Chapurin, Alexey Lokhmaty, always feels the distance that separates him from the owner, and is panicky afraid of his benefactor.

Alexey's fear of Patap Maksimych, on whom his entire future fate depends, largely predetermines the tragedy of Nastya, Chapurin's daughter, who was disappointed in her lover and despaired of the possibility of a successful outcome of her relationship with him. “Nastasya Patapovna and I have equal love, but our customs are not equal,” says Alexey Flenushka, “Patap Maksimych is rich and arrogant, he will not give up his brainchild for a poor worker who lives in bondage with him.” ... After all, I'm in his bondage ... enslaved for a whole year ... He gave money to my father in advance ... And you know yourself, the same lordly one is enslaved !.. And what kind of master gives his daughters as slaves? So it is here! everything is one” (II, 52).

The fear of the all-powerful rich man, which took possession of Alexei after his first meetings with the owner, never leaves him and gradually corrupts his soul. Alexey dreams of becoming a “master” himself and unaccountably giving orders to others.

The writer does not reveal the reasons that caused drastic changes in Alexei’s character, turning him from a daring, hardworking guy, whose golden hands were famous throughout the Volga region, into a pathetic coward, a self-seeker and a slacker. However, objectively, as the novel progresses, it is clear that Alexei’s “fall” began in Chapurin’s house.

Here the young master is overcome by a passion for profit. Having made Alexey a clerk and brought him closer to himself, because “the workers will not listen, they will not be afraid, unless you bring the clerk closer to you” (II, 121), Chapurin introduces him into the circle of “master’s” interests. At the table of the thousander, in the “good company” of the owner’s friends and relatives, Alexey first hears about “Vetluga gold”, about placers, by opening which you can easily and quickly get rich. The passion for gold, for quick profit, which gripped all the participants in the conversation, is transmitted to the young clerk. The desire to get rich and become a “master” leads Alexei to betray Nastya, marry Marya Gavrilovna, based on calculation, and then turns him into a callous acquirer, robbing and abandoning his wife, “paying off” money from his parents, carried away by carousing and foppery. Thus, even the mercy and generosity of a rich man does not bring happiness to the worker and ruins him, introducing him to the circle of people who live in the interests of profit and worship money.

The fate of Alexei in the novel is closely intertwined with the fate of Chapurin. From Alexei, whose acquisitive interests were nurtured in Chapurin’s house, the Trans-Volga thousand-man “receives retribution” and he himself gives retribution to Shaggy, who has gone too far and has lost the remnants of his conscience (in the novel “On the Mountains”). Alexei’s subconscious thought: “from this man is your destruction,” which arose at the first meeting with Chapurin and haunts him until the last fatal collision with his former owner, has a general meaning that is important for the novel.

Melnikov-Pechersky did not make direct conclusions in the novel about the social reasons for the “fall” of Shaggy. He was inclined to transfer the problems of his novel from the social to an abstract moral plane; he explained Alexei’s “Evolution” primarily by the “cowardice” of a guy who is unable to resist temptations and easily violates the moral principles bequeathed to him by his grandfathers. The story of Chapurin's clerk was understood by him as a story of rejection of the ethical norms inherent in patriarchal life. The writer contrasted Chapurin, who became rich and became the largest merchant from a wealthy peasant as a result of his “restless labors,” with Alexei, who was looking for easy money. However, the logic of realistic images and situations snatched from life itself led the reader to a broader view of the phenomena depicted in the novel, to an understanding of their social nature.

The realistic depiction of everyday life also breaks down the provisions proclaimed by the epic tale at the beginning of the novel about the rich and well-fed life of the peasants of the Trans-Volga region and about their love and respect for the thousands.

The novel's characters clash with the author's epic voice. " ... Even if you take Vetluga - the poor are alone, they cut down the forest, they tear up the bast, they wash away the bast, they drive away the resin - their hearts are beating their lives for hard work: they won’t finish eating during the day, they won’t sleep at night,” says Stukalov, who has traveled around the Volga region (II, 173).

The writer depicts the life and work of peasant lumberjacks, whose teams prepare the forest for rafting.

Employers - merchants and industrialists - exploit and deceive lumberjacks, who earn their bread through hard work, without rest or holidays.

“Foresters are assigned to rafting ... industrialists give them deposits for the Intercession, and payment is given before Easter, or by rafting. It’s not without deception that it happens: in any business, the moneybags will be able to squeeze the poor peasant, but among themselves in the foresters’ artel, every business is conducted on a clean basis,” the author reports and shows that the workers have no respect for the rich, that “the foresters don’t like them for deceptions and insults" (II, 192, 199).

Turning from depicting the life of merchants to pictures of the life of working peasants, the writer refuses to admire everyday details. A strict sketchy description of the living conditions of the “foresters” speaks only of hard, inhuman labor and the harsh conditions of their life.

And yet, it is here that the writer manages to show people who are endowed with traits typical of the Russian people. Going to the forest for the winter for hard work and hardships, the artel workers are “glad ... They are happy and busy," they are "in a hurry to work just in time for the holiday" (II, 192). In the forest, everyone works diligently and in unison, strictly observing the order that they themselves have established. Hard work, poverty and darkness do not extinguish curiosity, respect for knowledge, and observation in these people. Chapurin, who finds himself in a deep forest among woodcutters who are literate and knowledgeable, is surprised to learn that they have a compass in their dugout, that they know how to use it and know how the “pasori” (northern lights) affect the compass. Chapurin is amazed by the clear mind, the friendliness of the lumberjacks, and their excellent knowledge of the features of nature and their region.

The words of Uncle Onuphry, the “elder” in the artel, breathe deep love for his native place: “ ... Let’s not exchange our wilderness for someone else’s side. Even though our villages are poor ... however, we don’t change our side ... You have fun, even though the housing is comfortable, but it’s someone else’s, but in our forests, even though we have grief, we have our own ... "(II, 208).

Much in the everyday life of peasant lumberjacks repulses Chapurin and causes his condemnation. Chapurin is ironic about the “confusion and noise” that arise in the artel as soon as the artel is forced to deviate from its usual forms of labor and payment. Accustomed to deciding everything by his own will, without regard for anyone and without listening to anyone’s advice, Chapurin laughs at the attempt of the “foresters” to decide everything together.

The difference in positions and the resulting difference in the views of Chapurin and the poor peasant lumberjacks is especially clear during their conversations about faith, about antiquity and about Stepan Razin.

Expressing the dreams of a poor peasant who tried in the past to find the ideal of a just life, the lumberjack Artemy tells Patap Maksimych about the “old times” when “the merchants and boyars were owned by their shirts.” “There was a time, Mr. Merchant, it was a golden time, but because of our sins it has passed ... Gray people lived throughout the free world ... Now there are steamships scurrying back and forth along the Volga, boats and barges are sailing, rafts are sailing ... Whose ships, whose rafts and barges? All merchants. Your merchant brothers have taken possession of the Mother Volga ... And in the old days, it was not the merchant people who owned the Volga expanse, but our brothers, the poor” (II, 221).

To the objection of Chapurin, dissatisfied with these stories: “It has never happened that the Volga was in the hands of a fool,” Artemy replies: “Lies and fables have a short life, but this truth came from ancient people to us. Fathers and grandfathers told us about her, and we sing such songs about her ... This means the truth is true” (II, 221).

Artemy speaks with inspiration and delight about the exploits of Stepan Razin and his esauls, who collected “the very last bareness” and with it smashed merchant caravans, boyar ships and barges, ravaged monasteries that enslaved peasants.

“Are you talking about robbers?” - Chapurin interrupts his stories. “In your opinion, they are robbers, in our opinion, the esauls are fine fellows and free Cossacks,” Artemy objects to him (II, 222). For the Trans-Volga thousand-man, Stepan Razin is a robber and thief, for the poor peasants - “the daring ataman Stenka Razin, nicknamed Timofeevich” (II, 224), the defender and liberator of the people, the bearer of justice. So Melnikov-Pechersky, who planned to give in the person of Chapurin a monumental image of the keeper of antiquity, folk customs and grandfather’s behests, contrary to this plan, shows that in the heritage of antiquity, in folk legends, in the aesthetic ideas of the people, various tendencies are manifested, that the “thousander” - Chapurin - alien to the traditions and customs that the poor cherish, that what Chapurin believes in, what Chapurin respects, is often not dear, but hostile to the poor. Wise in their “simplicity,” the Kerzhen men give a unique and largely fair explanation of why merchants and rich peasants especially stubbornly adhere to the “old faith.” “Wealth” makes it possible to give gifts to the authorities and remain in schism. Kerzhen lumberjacks say about themselves: “ ... We are poor, hard-working people, we don’t have enough income to follow the Old Believers” (II, 206). They do not attach much importance to rituals, because they are always busy with hard work and have almost no leisure. “Here you’ll forget the holidays ... and day and night I only think about how to drop more trees” (II, 207). Considering themselves “church members” (i.e., recognizing the official church), the poor only occasionally attend church. “After all, once you get into the habit of going to vespers, everything is the same as going to a tavern: no candle, tomorrow a candle - you look, but a fur coat is off your shoulder” (II, 207).

Chapurin's attitude to religion is interpreted in two ways. Chapurin's house is depicted as a refuge of "ancient piety." It is not the Old Believers of Patap Maksimych, but the conservatism manifested in his Old Believers, the desire to follow the customs of antiquity in everything that evoke the author’s sympathy.

At the same time, already at the beginning of the novel, the writer emphasizes the internal indifference of Chapurin, immersed in matters of trade and craft, to religion in general and to the tenets of the Old Believers in particular. Strictly observing customs and performing all rituals, he easily comes to terms with violating the rules of behavior prescribed by the prejudices of the Old Believers, and sometimes even admits that what keeps him in schism most of all is his business ties with the Old Believers merchants.

Thus, the image of Patap Maksimych Chapurin is formed from heterogeneous and sometimes contradictory elements. However, despite the inconsistency of the writer’s creative concept itself, Melnikov-Pechersky managed to create in the person of the main character of his epic a living individual and typical image that absorbed great social content. Moments of idealization, elements of an abstract moral interpretation of the image recede here into the background, suppressed by realistic tendencies,

revealing the social nature of the hero. The author of the novel confronts Chapurin with representatives of various social groups, puts him in complex situations typical of the life of the society to which he belongs, and thus characterizes the hero in a multifaceted and vivid way. The novel gives numerous figures of merchants and tells stories of collecting and making capital. Next to the ferocious exploiter Mark Danilych Smolokurov, with the newly minted merchant, the heartless Alexei Lokhmaty, in comparison with the Kazan merchant Zaletov, who sold his daughter “like a brown cow” for a steamer, in comparison with the Moscow merchant Maslyanikov, who made up his capital through deception and unclean tricks, The bright sides of Chapurin’s character clearly emerged, which to some extent still connected him with the peasantry. At the same time, looking at the images of representatives of the merchant class, each of whom embodies the typical features of his environment, the reader saw that Chapurin’s character reflected his belonging to the world of profit.

Depicting the life of the merchants in a broad and multifaceted manner, depicting the life of the peasants in relatively small, but nevertheless vivid and expressive episodes, Melnikov devotes significant space in the novel to the description of Old Believer monasteries and the life of the Old Believer clergy. This line in Melnikov-Pechersky’s novel is presented with the greatest artistic force in the image of the abbess of the Komarovsky monastery Manefa, Chapurin’s sister “in the flesh.”

Melnikov-Pechersky considered monasteries as centers of ancient culture, where the rituals and customs of antiquity were especially carefully preserved. At the same time, he denounced asceticism and fanaticism, superstition and hypocrisy, which he discerned behind the veil of the external splendor of monastic life.

In the novel “In the Woods,” the connection between the Old Believer clergy and the elite of the merchant class is clearly evident. The rich maintain monasteries and create chapels, but the hermits and schismatic priests bless and in every possible way support the power of the rich, absolving them of any sins for rich “donations”, instilling in workers, the poor and rebellious youth the idea of ​​the need to obey their masters and parents.

“Cell mothers” carry the traditions and laws of the merchant environment into their everyday life. The interests of acquisition come first in the monasteries. The entire internal life of the monasteries, the entire order of their life, is subordinated to them. “In all communal women’s monasteries, housekeeping went ahead of spiritual exploits. True, the services in chapels and prayer houses were carried out by the hermits diligently and unfailingly, but it was only a way of obtaining money for the household. Each skete artel lived on alms from rich Old Believers, generously given in exchange for “mothers to pray well.” And the mothers conscientiously fulfilled their duties: they faithfully performed the chapel service, praying for the health of the “benefactors.” ...

“Within the walls of the community, every day, except holidays, work was in full swing from morning to night. They spun flax and wool, wove new clothes, motley cloth, and cloth ...

“The main manager of the work and the entire monastery economy was the abbess” (II, 291-292).

In the monasteries there were novices who worked eternally and tirelessly, doing hard work; there were also white-handed girls, most of them white-haired - “father’s daughters”, brought up in the monastery. The author reports about the novice Anaphrolia: “Anafrolia was a simple village girl.

She lived more in the cellar, helping the mother cellarer prepare food for the monastery and correcting menial work ... worked for four ... She was unresponsive, few people heard her voice” (II, 34). Melnikov shows that in the monastery, as well as “in the world,” the poor work for the rich. Rich “mothers” with significant business connections are made the head of the monastery - the abbess. Those whose presence provides the monastery with material profit enjoy the greatest influence; rich monasteries support poorer monasteries that are “submissive” to them.

There is a kind of competition for “benefactors” between the monasteries and various religious centers of the Old Believers.

“Mothers cannot do otherwise in their business,” the merchant Samokvasov sneers. “After all, this is their bread. How not to invite buyers? Everything is the same in our Gostiny Dvor: “What do you want to buy?” please, sir !.. “By God, the same shop! “Don’t serve at Rogozhsky, the goods there are rotten and waterlogged” (III, 310).

Even the most “important” questions of dogma and church structure are decided on the basis of material considerations. The Trans-Volga monasteries “accept” the Belokrinitsky hierarchy because its authority is recognized by the “benefactor” merchants, while the merchants, accepting the “Austrian priesthood,” proceed from the desire to strengthen and expand their business and trade ties.

To the question of the Chapurins’ house canon Eupraxia: “What do you think, mother, about the Austrian priesthood? ?..

“We probably would have accepted,” Manefa said. How not to accept, Evprakseyushka, when Moscow accepted? How will we feed ourselves, how will we break ties with Moscow? ?.. Like ours<Чапурины>have what they decide on ?.. In my opinion, they should also accept it, because in Moscow, and in Kazan, in Niza and in all cities they accepted it. Patapushka may go bankrupt if he does not accept the new priesthood. No one will want to do business with him; there will be no credit, it will break with buyers ...

He will follow everything that the Samara people do"<купцы>, - noted Eupraxia (II, 35).

Melnikov describes in detail the history and life of the Manefina monastery, which “was considered the best monastery not only in all of Komarov, but also in all the monasteries of Kerzhensky and Chernoramensky” (II, 300).

The reader learns how in the distant past the monastery became rich and “emerged” above other monasteries as a result of the dark affairs of the house-loving and managerial, but ready to do anything for the sake of profit, abbess.

Abbess Manefa greatly contributed to the prosperity of the monastery thanks to her connections in the merchant world and her ability to organize and manage the economy.

The image of Manefa occupies a very significant place in the novel. Realistically depicting the complex and vivid character of the strict “old lady”, combining the “zealous” performance of religious rituals and asceticism with practical intelligence and common sense, the writer shows that pietism and mystical moods are not characteristic not only of the majority of the people, but even of the majority of “horse breeders” of the Old Believers .

Abbess Manefa is a woman with a strong will, persistent character and remarkable intelligence.

In her youth, her will and youthful feelings encountered resistance from her tyrant father and were broken by the moral torture to which cunning cell attendants savagely subjected her during childbirth, forcing the rich bride to marry her under pain of publicity on earth and fiery hell in the afterlife.

take a vow of monasticism in life. “The tonsure” was a heavy blow for the girl, who was full of life and strength and who loved dearly, but it opened up a different path in life for her. “By withdrawing from the world,” the young nun was freed from the power of her father; she could even raise an “illegitimate” daughter in her own person, keeping her motherhood in the strictest secrecy.

"In forests". Nastya. From a drawing by P. M. Boklevsky.
1870s.

The management of the monastery, the abbess for which she was chosen after the death of the old abbess, of course, could not provide genuine food for Manefa’s inquisitive mind, satisfy her spiritual needs, she constantly had to make deals with her conscience here, pleasing rich “benefactors.” However, the vast majority of women in the Volga region were completely detached from any activity other than daily menial work or housekeeping, and were completely subordinated to the authority of their fathers and husbands. Only by immersing herself in the economic affairs of the monastery, in acquisitions, on the one hand, and in religious disputes, dogma and teaching, on the other, could Manefa find a known, albeit very limited, area for the application of her abilities, strength and will.

The tragedy of Manefa was that this gifted woman was forced to kill not only her flesh, but also her spirit. Senseless disputes about the external side of rituals, hoarding, hypocrisy - this is the spiritual cell in which Manefa’s mind and will were locked.

There is no place in the world of merchants for women with a bright character, big demands, and a broad mind. They are destined here to either death, or slavery and eternal torment.

Melnikov-Pechersky creates “In the Woods” several bright and charming female characters: the smart, strong-willed Matryona-Manefa, the mischievous and daring Flenushka, the gentle and proud Nastya Chapurina, the submissive and loving Marya Gavrilovna; and the fate of all these girls and women is deeply tragic. There are no episodes in the novel that depict the happy life of a girl or young woman who falls in love.

Marya Gavrilovna experiences love twice and is deeply disappointed twice. Her first feeling was crushed by her father and tyrant Maslyanikov - the father of her fiancé. Having “coveted” his son’s bride, Maslyanikov ruined the guy and himself married Marya Gavrilovna, who was almost fifty years younger than him. The bride's father willingly agreed to this “deal”, as a result of which he acquired the ship. Death

her lover and her eight-year life with her hated fanatic and libertine husband - this is the result of Marya Gavrilovna’s youth, the first difficult drama she endured. Under the impression of her first marriage, Marya Gavrilovna refuses all marriage proposals and settles in a monastery, where she leads a reclusive life. A meeting with Alexei Lokhmaty and love for him force Marya Gavrilovna to leave the monastery and get married. The second marriage brings Marya Gavrilovna new suffering. The husband embezzles her capital and then leaves his wife. Having looked at the “life-being” of Marya Gavrilovna with Alexei Lokhmaty, Chapurin reflects on the fate of his daughter Nastya, who loved Alexei:

"The Lord knows what he's doing ... He sent his heart to an early death, delivered him from a difficult fate, from a villainous husband” (III, 500).

The Zavolzhsky thousand's manager is sure that Nastya “did not know the secret plans” of Alexei, did not understand that he was a “self-seeker.” However, in fact, Nastya turned out to be more insightful than her father thought. Having become close to Alexei, she soon realized that he was not worth love and lost respect for her lover.

Alexei, who has mastered the morality of the dark kingdom and dreamed of “managing himself, so much so that he can move thousands,” is afraid of the strong character and clear mind of his “betrothed”, “even if the wife were a goat, if only she had golden horns, but she was meek, flexible, so that I didn’t dare raise my head higher than my husband,” he reflects (II, 482). Thus, the novel reveals the connection between the family foundations of the dark kingdom, the oppression of women in a merchant family, with all the “business practices” of merchants - the pursuit of profit and heartlessness generated by the omnipotence of “monetary interest”. A happy marriage is impossible under these conditions. Death saves Nastya from her money-grubbing groom, and the cell saves Matryona-Manefa from Stukolov, a swindler and swindler.

The lament of the mourners at Nastya Chapurina’s funeral sounds like a tragic generalization:

Why are you, my dear, scared?
Why did you go to the grave?
I know you were scared, my swallow,
That none of the little girls all started crying,
The young people went all deceitful,
Single guys went non shameless

However, the theme of love and family relationships, like other problems, receives an ambivalent solution in the novel. Along with revealing the social causes of the tragic fates of girls and women, Melnikov tries to give an ahistorical and non-social interpretation of the “eternal laws” that are invariably supposedly inherent in human feeling. “The scorching god” - Yarilo, “who kindles the blood of boys and girls” and calls on them to “love”, appears in the novel as a symbol of the elemental power of love. Melnikov tries to liken the “ruthlessness” of nature, eternally alive and indifferent, containing the unity of life and death, to the ruthless cruelty of his contemporary society. Throughout the entire novel “In the Woods,” as well as through its continuation “On the Mountains,” there is a clearly palpable duality of concept. Including in his epic a huge number of works of oral folk poetry: fairy tales, legends, spiritual, historical, lyrical songs, laments, romances, proverbs, sayings, riddles, supplementing them with descriptions of rituals, beliefs, signs and elements

ancient pagan mythology, “constructed” by folklorists-mythologists, Melnikov-Pechersky tried to give his novel the character of a broad picture of the life of the people, the constant manifestation of its eternal, spontaneous “beginnings”. Youth and old age, birth and death, feasts and funeral feasts, christenings and funerals, love, its joys and sorrows - these are the “eternal” moments of human life that the writer wanted to depict and glorify in their “unchangeable” essence. However, this abstract plan could not be realized by methods of realistic depiction of reality with a realistic depiction of characters, with a pronounced interest in specific forms of people’s existence, which was characteristic of the author of “In the Woods” and “On the Mountains.” Melnikov-Pechersky's novel was a truly artistic work precisely because the writer depicted in it the historical and social reality of his time. The folklore included in the novel has not lost its social coloring and historical certainty: legends and songs poeticizing the image of Stepan Razin exist among poor lumberjacks, but do not evoke Chapurin’s sympathy; signs that are well known to peasant grain growers, who “make predictions” about whether the bread will grow, whether the vegetables and berries will be good, are forgotten by the merchants; not allowing her daughters to go outside on Christmas Eve to celebrate a ritual festivities with the girls, Aksinya Zakharovna exclaims: “What haven’t you seen? ?.. Plow snow, whiten canvases !.. Will they really have to whitewash their canvases? Thank God, everything is in store, not a dowry” (II, 13); “peasant rituals” associated with the working life of peasants are “not suitable” for merchant daughters; the laments of Ustinya Kleschikha, about which Melnikov declares that they “smell of distant antiquity”, that they are “an ancient ritual, the remains of an old Russian funeral service”, are full of details of modern life, express deep sadness and longing for a woman’s lot, “romances” written in the daughters’ notebooks Chapurin, like “Little blue darling, army lieutenant!”, arouse the wrath of the decorous and stern Old Believer of their father; The dance and lyrical songs that Flenushka sings reflect more the life of Trans-Volga peasants and merchants than ancient traditions.

Folklore appears in the novel more as a bright and real sign of people's life, an expression of the people's assessment of various phenomena of life, than as proof and a sign of the “unity of the people’s existence”, its eternal and unchangeable essence.

Folklore plays a huge role in Melnikov’s novels in creating the speech characteristics of the characters. It acts here not as an element that unites all the characters in the epic, blurring the boundaries between social groups and giving a general “epic” character to all the images of the novel, but as a means by which vivid individual characteristics are built and social-typical images are created. The speech of the characters is full of folklore, but the author introduces folk poetic means into the language of the characters in the novel with great tact, using these means in a variety of ways. The speech of the heroes, who have retained stronger ties with the people's environment, is saturated with a folk-poetic element; merchants and officials, cut off from the people, all of whose human feelings are clogged and destroyed by the passion for profit, are expressed in pale, distorted language, their speech is wretched and monotonous, like their thoughts and feelings .

Proverbs and sayings pour out from the lips of the singer and talker Flenushka, they decorate the speech of the master cook Nikitishna, the lumberjacks Onufry and Artemy, the groom Dementy, and the Saratov clerk Semyon

Petrovich, but they are completely absent from the speech of the fanatic and money-grubber Stukolov. As Alexey Lokhmatoy’s mind becomes corrupted and his heart hardens, his speech loses its brightness and expressiveness, it becomes clogged with incorrect phrases, poorly understood, and inappropriately used foreign words.

Sayings, proverbs, vivid figures of speech associated with oral poetic folk art are also inherent in the speech of Patap Maksimych Chapurin, his wife, Aksinya Zakharovna, and even such tyrant merchants as Maslyanikov and Smolokurov. But in their mouths, the very proverbs and sayings acquire a unique meaning, different from the one that was put into these sayings by the people. The merchant’s speech is colorful and expressive to the extent that it is nourished by the colloquial and poetic language of the people, from which the merchants often come and with whom they communicate, but what evokes irony among the people, and sometimes sharp ridicule or condemnation, is the merchants considered inevitable, reasonable, worthy of imitation. “I already burned him, I put him in damn bast shoes like Filya ... But you fool won’t be able to drive up half a ruble like that with an altyn” (II, 346), Maslyanikov boasts and asserts with a clear conscience: “ ... the merchant is the same archer, he must wait for someone else’s mistake” (II, 347). The merchant Smolokurov, whose character is outlined with particular completeness in “On the Mountains,” argues: “Just as water flows from place to place, so does money - that’s what commerce is for! Of course, the most important thing here is: “don’t yawn.” ... Know how to work, and know how to bury your ends.

“- The proverb, Marko Danilych, doesn’t seem to say that ... Know how to steal, know how to bury your ends ... “,” the young merchant Vedeneev objects to him (IV, 160).

“Commerce,” which merchants consider “work,” appears to the people as theft. The poor speak with irony and indignation about the lives of merchants and cell attendants, who “have no plans for money. But death doesn’t take the rich right away ... The ruble is not a god, but it also has mercy,” they note (II, 444).

Melnikov-Pechersky depicts the characters of a number of his heroes in development and movement. The passionate and proud Matryona becomes a strict and managerial Manefa, the cheerful Flenushka becomes an imperious and stern abbess, the quiet and affectionate Nastya becomes a brave and decisive defender of her right to freedom of feeling, the submissive and God-fearing Alexey becomes a callous acquirer and a cynical fop. And all these changes are clearly reflected in the speech of the heroes.

The change that has occurred in Flenushka, who has become abbess, becomes quite clear to the reader when, instead of the “intriguing” speeches of a cheerful laugher prone to wit, in the novel “On the Mountains” the decorous, businesslike, dry speech of Mother Philagria is heard. Nastya, whose character, in Flenushka’s words, “unfolded” in a collision with her father, instead of modest fragmentary phrases, begins to utter angry, decisive, energy-filled speeches.

Melnikov used his remarkable knowledge of the folk spoken language and the style of oral poetry not only to create the speech characteristics of the characters. Both of his novels, depicting the life of the population of the Volga region, are told in an epic folk style, through the lips of an invisible narrator, whose face is in no way defined, but who, like a chronicler, slowly and thoroughly describes the life of his people. This “chronicler” is far from indifferent to what he depicts. Drawing joys and feasts, festivities and games, wedding ceremonies and

secret meetings, he glorifies youth, fun and abundance of earthly blessings, telling about grief and death, switches to a tone of crying and lamentation.

"In forests". Tryphon Shaggy. From the drawing
P. M. Boklevsky. 1870s.

The desire to tell, as if through the voice of a folk storyteller, about the ancient life of the Trans-Volga region sometimes led the writer to a simplified manner of conveying events and characters. Following the epic tradition, Melnikov describes his heroes monotonously, endowing them with the same stereotypical features: blond braids, black or blue eyes, high breasts, scarlet lips, ruddy cheeks, slender figure, curls, sparkling gaze. The initial characterization of the characters’ mental make-up is often given in a simplified manner; the author gives the characters “constant definitions” that accompany them throughout the entire narrative - lively Flenushka, sleepy Parasha Chapurina, handsome Alexey, jealous canon Ustinya-Moskovka, etc.

However, the realistic development of the character and image of the heroes breaks the shell of these static definitions, just as the voice of the narrator does not become a voice that depicts and glorifies the “staticity”, the immobility of life. The keen observer and truthful realist, hiding behind the simple-minded chronicler, reveals his keen eye and speaks in a full voice about real life, its hardships and joys.

The novel “On the Mountains” was conceived and implemented by Melnikov-Pechersky as a continuation of “In the Woods”. Many difficult situations arising in the first novel found their resolution in the second. “Some of the characters from “In the Woods” remain in “On the Mountains.” Only the terrain changes: from the left meadow, forest bank of the Volga I move to the right, mountainous, sparsely forested,” the writer declared.

In its main artistic and ideological features, the second novel also formed a single whole with the first. In the novel “On the Mountains,” the strengths and weaknesses of the writer’s work, which appeared in “In the Woods,” were expressed only with greater clarity and certainty.

The life of the inhabitants of the Volga region continues to be the focus of the author’s attention, and again he sets himself the goal of giving a “synthetic image”, a general picture of this life. Historical processes taking place in society, the social practice of the merchants, growing richer and pushing aside

nobles, who until recently laid claim to undivided dominance over all other classes, the position of the workers is more or less widely reflected in the second novel by Melnikov-Pechersky.

The Alatyr merchant Morkovnikov - one of the minor, but very clearly outlined heroes of the novel “On the Mountains” - characterizes the peculiarities of the time in this way: “Now good times have come for our merchant brother: the gentlemen, almost all of them, have spent their money, their pockets are torn, there is no money water, that means we can respect our interests. Now there’s talk about freedom, let’s, Lord, let’s do our own thing. Then, sir, little by little and little by little everything will reach our hands - the lands, the manor’s houses, everything, I assure you. Our brother must now keep one thing in mind: “don’t yawn”” (IV, 274).

At the center of the novel is the old rich millionaire merchant Smolokurov. The son of a noble leader wooed his daughter Duna. “It’s not a wise thing - his father’s estate was hanging by a thread, and Dunya is the heiress of the first rich man in the area, a millionaire,” the author notes (IV, 55).

Smolokurov refuses noble suitors, preferring to marry his daughter to a merchant with “good capital.”

In the novel “On the Mountains,” merchants and their commercial “practices” are shown more widely and variedly than “In the Woods.”

A large place here is occupied by episodes depicting the history of the origin of capital.

The novel “On the Mountains” briefly but expressively tells the story of the emergence of Smolokurov’s capital, whose father was one of the trusted “well done” of the all-powerful gentleman-tyrant Potashov, who got rich from robberies and crimes. Having appropriated a bag of gold after Potashov’s death, the father of the hero “On the Mountains” opens a trade and becomes a merchant. The father of another “millionaire”, Doronin, who bore the expressive nickname “Alyoshka the dissolute,” made capital through dark speculation and thieves. Sons, having inherited millions, increase their capital, following the traditions bequeathed to them by their fathers. Smolokurov’s trusted clerk, Korney Evstigneev, nicknamed “The Burnt One,” comes to his dying owner for the “final settlement”: “You know my affairs better than I do. Cases for which people are sent to hard labor in Siberia ... “,” he declares to Smolokurov, “Who told me to get rid of the Oroshin clerk Efim Volchanin?” I have your honor's letter intact. ... I drowned Volchanin, I did it right, but I didn’t receive any special reward ... And how did you and I sell fake documents on Niza - and apparently I forgot about it? And how they robbed the Sytninsk merchant Molodtsova - have I also forgotten? And how did you burn two young fellows to death, just so you could part with them and so that they wouldn’t show your deeds at the trial? After all, I heated the stoves on your orders ... Do you understand the matter? Give me two hundred thousand!” (V, 341). The passion for profit has taken over Smolokurov so much that he is ready to leave his brother in captivity in Khivan, just so as not to part with part of the capital. Smolokurov brings desperate scoundrels and inveterate scoundrels closer to himself, making them his clerks. They help the owner “do tricky things,” brutally exploit and rob the workers, and, not missing what “floats into their hands,” they themselves rob the barge haulers and workers of Smolokurov.

The writer paints scenes of Smolokurov and his clerks mocking the starving workers, who waited in vain for several days

calculation. Outraged by the arbitrariness of the owner, the workers try to protest and even threaten Smolokurov with violence. However, the cunning merchant manages to easily deceive the downtrodden and dark barge haulers, and then suppress their rebellion. The workers have absolutely no rights. “Wait until evening, then you’ll find out how to start riots in a caravan! The land here is not without justice - the owner will find justice,” the clerk threatens them (IV, 81), knowing full well that the workers demanded only what the owner was obliged to pay them by law. “Your brother can’t compete with Smolokurov, he’s not like the merman<начальником пристани>, he talks bread and salt with the governor himself. The authorities will not replace him with you, barefooted ones” (IV, 81).

Officials, from minor ones to the governor, cover up the crimes of rich merchants and brutally suppress the slightest attempt of the people to fight the arbitrariness of their owners.

The huge profits received from overworked, starving and ruined “hiremen” do not satisfy the merchants. The pursuit of more and more profits forces them to resort to any scams, including false bankruptcy and fraudulent tricks. Eminent merchants consider predation, deception, cynical deception and brutal reprisals against competitors to be the law of their lives. Thinking about how to undermine the trade of the young, inexperienced merchant Merkulov and profit at his expense, Smolokurov justifies himself in ruining the “betrothed son-in-law” of his old friend Doronin: “I’ll ruin it! Well ?.. The merchant, like a Sagittarius, is waiting for a mistake ... Friends, we are friends with Zinovy ​​Alekseich - so what of this ?.. Matchmaker is matchmaker, brother is brother, but money is not relatives ... That's all true, that's all ... If I let a chance to warm up to my neighbor pass by, they’ll call me a fool ... If you fool someone better, they will laugh at him - study, they say, pay for science ... "(IV, 130).

The images of merchants created in the novel “On the Mountains”, the descriptions of the situation of the workers much more acutely than in Melnikov’s first novel, revealed the exploitative and predatory essence of the merchants.

Along with this, the novel “On the Mountains” more clearly reflected the weaknesses of the writer’s worldview. Melnikov here tries to contrast the predatory merchants and plunderers with young merchants who graduated from a commercial academy and conduct “correct” trade (Vedeneev, Merkulov), which gives them millions in profits. However, the writer himself refutes the idyll he painted.

Through the mouth of one of his idealized young merchants, he expresses doubt about the possibility of proper trade: “A lot, brother, I traveled abroad, I traveled the length and breadth of Europe ... And I know it, the right trade ... And there, brother, are the same Smolskurovs and Oroshins, only cleaner and smoother. And there the whole bargaining is based on deception: where money is involved, don’t expect the truth there ... "(IV, 307).

Merchant trickery and the pursuit of profit seem to Melnikov-Pechersky to be an inevitable consequence of the imperfection of human nature, the inherent vices of humanity. However, the very image of merchant predation given by the writer suggested the injustice of a social system based on worship of money, robbery of the people, hypocrisy and lies.

Like “In the Woods,” in the novel “On the Mountains” the writer shows that deep, pure, strong natures unconsciously sense the untruth of the world around them and are burdened by it.

Smolokurov commits all his crimes, thinking about leaving Dunyushka a lot of capital, and Dunya suffers, rushes about, gets lost in thoughts: “There is no truth in the world, there is no good in people! - after long, painful thoughts, she decided. There is deception everywhere, lies and pretense everywhere! Where to look for the truth? Where is the goodness, where is the love? (V, 262).

The family life that the rich bride observes among the merchants does not seduce her, just as this life did not seduce Flenushka and Nastya Chapurina. “She considered marriage to be inseparable from worries around the house, from her husband’s waywardness, and, on occasion, even from untruth, anger and malice. Her soul strove not for suitors, but for the knowledge of goodness and truth. ... "(V, 260-261).

The search for “good and truth,” which Dunya does not see around her, leads her to mysticism, Khlystyism and new bitter disappointments.

In addressing the theme of the collision of a “warm heart” with the world of profit and oppression in the novel “On the Mountains,” the author’s tendency to soften conflicts and idealization, which the author discovered in this work, was especially clearly reflected. Unlike Melnikov-Pechersky’s first novel, “On the Mountains” contains images of several happy marriages, idealized pictures of love and family life of young merchant couples (including Dunya Smolokurova and Samokvasov). The searches and hesitations of pure souls and strong characters end in “prosperous” vegetation. The pages of the novel containing these episodes are extremely pale and weak artistically.

A kind of didactics and obvious idealization also permeate those chapters of the novel where the author tries to show the Old Believers historically, in his opinion, a logical way out of the schism and into joining the Church of the same faith.

However, the official church and its clergy are depicted in the novel “On the Mountains” in the same unsightly form as “In the Woods.” Like the priest Sushila, whose figure is clearly outlined in the first novel, in the second novel the priests appear as greedy and “pretentious” servants of the “powers of this world.” Pop Prokhor Petrovich, rescuing Dunya, who escaped from the “ship” of the Khlysty, from trouble, receives a large reward from her. After Prokhor’s father and Dunya leave, the priest calculates what “profits” might fall to them: “ ... Avdotya Markovna is a scary rich girl ... Guess he’ll give Petrovich ten rubles ... Petrovich had never before rescued such a rich woman from this house” (V, 313). Such reflections do not prevent “mother” from accepting a handout of ten rubles from the whip master Lupovitsky, from whose house Dunya fled, and rushing to kiss his hand.

However, in further chapters, Father Prokhor appears as Dunya’s spiritual teacher, who has a huge influence on the outcome of her religious and moral quest.

Elements of idealization and didactics reduced the artistic value of a number of episodes of the novel “On the Mountains” and limited the writer’s realism, but they did not determine the general character of the novel, in which the realistic reproduction and exposure of the life of the merchants constituted the main content. At its core, the novel “On the Mountains” was a realistic work that continued and in many ways deepened the artistic solution to the problems posed in the novel “In the Woods.”

The experience of Melnikov-Pechersky was taken into account by V. G. Korolenko, who followed him on a trip to the Kerzhen schismatic monasteries. Without sharing Melnikov’s views on the split, being interested first of all

not by conservative traditions, but by elements of protest among the Old Believers, Korolenko observed and uniquely reflected the ethnographic and social features of the life of the Volga residents.

The images and motifs of Melnikov-Pechersky became firmly entrenched in Korolenko’s consciousness. Their response is felt in Korolenko’s stories and stories, which interpret scenes from the schismatic life.

Korolenko took into account the work of his predecessor in studying the life of schismatics both in the field of ethnography, and in observing social life, and in a broad study of the language and oral poetic creativity of the people of this region.

A. M. Gorky highly valued Melnikov-Pechersky. He considered him one of “our richest lexicographers” and encouraged him to learn from him the ability to draw artistic means from the treasury of oral folk art - folklore. “You can learn such a literary language, devoid of all barbarisms, all words borrowed from foreign languages,” wrote Gorky about the language of the novel “In the Woods.”

P. P. Bazhov recognized the influence of Melnikov-Pechersky’s creativity, especially his language, on his literary activity. Comparing Leskov and Melnikov, he wrote: “Melnikov always seemed closer to me. Simple, relatable nature, situation and carefully selected language without becoming a verbal game.”2

M. Bitter. Uncollected literary criticism articles. Goslitizdat, 1941, p. 158.

P.P. Bazhov, Works in three volumes, vol. III, 1952, p. 287.

I invite you, dear readers, to guess the time of writing and the name of the author of the book, which contains the following stories:

1. Two adventurers with a criminal past are trying to involve the head of a small tableware trading company in an adventurous venture to mine gold in the local forests. However, the business that this person is ready to sponsor is in fact a complete fiction. In reality, the funds of a gullible sponsor should be used to print counterfeit money, the production and sale of which is carried out by the adventurers who lead him by the nose.

2. In a provincial hotel, two young “new Russians”, wanting to celebrate a profitable deal, in the confidence that “with money everything is possible,” demand champagne in their room at midnight, alarming the entire neighborhood because of this.

3. The only daughter of a wealthy businessman becomes involved in a sect, whose members engage in debauchery at their secret meetings...

Before us are clearly modern stories taken from some clearly modern detective story. Who could have written it? Marinina? Leonov? Cherkasov? Dontsova? But no! The book, which contains such intriguing and relevant plots for our time, was written... in the second half of the 19th century. True, the name of its author is hardly familiar to those who are familiar with Russian literature exclusively within the school curriculum. We are talking about the duology of P.I. Melnikov-Pechersky “In the forests” and “On the mountains”. Despite the fact that these are two different novels, one of them is a continuation of the other. And the heroes in them are the same. Therefore, I did not greatly sin against the truth by calling this duology a “book”.

But my appeal to P. I. Melnikov-Pechersky’s novels “In the Forests” and “On the Mountains” is not so much due to the fact that the descriptions they contain of the life and morals of the Russian peasantry and merchants of the 19th century strangely turned out to be topical more than a century later. Much more important is that in our time these books can help teachers of secular educational institutions tell schoolchildren and students about Orthodoxy.

I had to face in practice difficulties in teaching students of the Faculty of Religious Studies of a local university (former pedagogical institute) a discipline called “Introduction to Orthodoxy.” It turns out that introducing students to the basics of Orthodoxy is much more difficult than conducting similar classes in Sunday school or theological courses. There you are dealing with listeners who are already churchgoers. Or, at least, positively related to Orthodoxy. But a secular university is a completely different matter. First of all, because the listeners are not always Orthodox. Most often they are non-believers (although they still cannot be called convinced or militant atheists), for whom Orthodoxy, unfortunately, is incomprehensible and alien. And there are students, although they are believers, but not in the Orthodox way. Therefore, those who are hostile to Orthodoxy.

However, that's not all. Since the place of teaching is not a religious educational institution, but the department of religious studies of a secular university, then the teacher of “introduction to Orthodoxy” is bound by certain obligations. He must present his subject exclusively in secular language, without attempts to convert listeners to Orthodoxy, not engage in criticism of other faiths, not impose his beliefs on students, be in civilian clothes... Paradoxically, as a result of all this, the teacher is rejected by Orthodox students as well who would like the classes to be taught by a person of holy orders and in appropriate vestments. Indeed, in fairness, the words of a priest have greater significance among Orthodox listeners than the speeches of the most intelligent and eloquent layman. In addition, for Orthodox Christians, a “neutral” presentation of the foundations of Orthodoxy may seem simply offensive. Deacon A. Kuraev’s thoughts on this matter are fair ( in the first issues of the magazine “Orthodox Conversation for 2001.”) that the vocabulary of a missionary and the language of a church preacher are completely different. But what if the audience is mixed? How can you avoid finding yourself in the position of the elephant - the painter from S. Mikhalkov's fable, who, wanting to please all the critics at once, turned the landscape he painted into a complete mess?

And here we can be helped out by what was effective decades ago, during the times of atheism. I'm talking about our, so to speak, “literary heritage.” About the works of Russian classic writers. It is well known that they clearly reflected the Orthodox views of their authors. Therefore, even when anti-religious propagandists intensively instilled godless ideas in schoolchildren and students, the number of books recommended in the school curriculum still included such deeply Orthodox works as A. S. Pushkin’s novel “The Captain’s Daughter”, stories by N. S. Leskov “The Beast” and “The Unchangeable Ruble”, “The Night Before Christmas” by N.V. Gogol. Atheists still did not dare to raise their hand to the heritage of the Russian classics. And through these works, children brought up in atheism could still learn at least a little about the Orthodox faith... Times have changed. And “militant atheism”, fortunately, is a thing of the past. But the role of the works of Russian Orthodox classic writers in the spiritual and moral education of their readers remains unchanged. In introducing them to the Orthodox faith. And the novels of P. I. Melnikov-Pechersky “In the Forests” and “On the Mountains” belong to just such books.

Let me make a reservation right away: I am not a professional literary critic. I am a neurologist who had and still has to teach the fundamentals of Orthodoxy to schoolchildren, students and adults. The range ranges from Sunday school to the Faculty of Religious Studies. And it is from this point of view that I will talk about the novels of P. I. Melnikov-Pechersky “In the Forests” and “On the Mountains”. It is well known that the doctor’s job is to identify the symptoms of the disease and make a diagnosis, on the basis of which treatment can begin for the patient. And my task will be to identify and list the plot lines of these books that can be used when talking about Orthodoxy. And try to prove that using the example of the novels “In the Woods” and “On the Mountains” one can successfully talk about the Orthodox faith to schoolchildren, students and adults of various beliefs.

First of all, this is possible precisely because we are dealing with novels. Russian classics of the 19th century. Therefore, exclusively “secular” literary works. In addition, even those declared by literary critics of the times of atheism to be “anti-church works” written by an author “alien to religious prejudices” ( see essay by M. P. Eremin in volume 6 op. P. I. Melnikov-Pechersky). To what extent this statement is true, the reader will be able to draw his own conclusion later. For now, I will say that it can become a reliable defense for a teacher who uses the novels of P. Melnikov-Pechersky in his classes. After all, in this case, no one will dare to accuse him of “religious propaganda”...

On top of that, the novels “In the Woods” and “On the Mountains” are books with a very fascinating plot. As they say, there are more than enough adventures in them. Their heroes conduct business in trade, cheat, fall in love, go on pilgrimages, get into all sorts of dangerous troubles... Moreover, everyday problems and passions do not bypass even the monastery walls. Thus, in the last chapters of the novel “In the Woods” a wedding is described with the kidnapping of the bride, which was organized by a mischievous novice of the Old Believer monastery Flenushka. In short, a motley and exciting picture of the lives of many people unfolds before the readers. However, despite the diversity of everyday whirlwind into which the heroes of the novels “In the Woods” and “On the Mountains” are drawn, the deep essence of their lives is still Orthodoxy. And this runs like a red thread throughout the entire narrative. The Orthodox faith motivates the actions of the heroes. It also determines their spiritual quest. Therefore, in order to explain the meaning of the behavior of Patap Chapurin or Flenushka in a given situation, a conversation about Orthodoxy will become simply necessary.

Another positive side of the novels of P. I. Melnikov-Pechersky is that they talk specifically about the Old Believers. Therefore, about something seemingly far from “traditional” Orthodoxy and even alien to it. The theme of the confrontation between the “Old Believers” and the “Nikonians” is quite vivid in both books. However, despite the ritual features, the heroes of the novels “In the Woods” and “On the Mountains” are Orthodox. And the main positive characters of both books (like Patap Maksimych Chapurin) “stick to the old fashioned way” “because beyond the Volga such a custom has long been followed, moreover... friendship and acquaintance with rich merchants were maintained.” And the heroine of the novel “On the Mountains,” Dunya Smolokurova, having gone through a period of spiritual quest, comes to the idea that “the difference between us and the Great Russians is only one external ritual, and the faith of both us and them is the same, and there is no difference between them.” there is no difference." Her husband, Pyotr Samokvasov, draws the same conclusion for himself. Therefore, although the heroes of P.I. Melnikov-Pechersky are Old Believers, for the most part they are by no means hostile to those Orthodox who differ from them not in faith, but only in rituals.

What themes from P. I. Melnikov-Pechersky’s novels “In the Forests” and “On the Mountains” can a modern teacher use when talking about Orthodoxy in a “secular” school or university?

First of all, this is the theme of mercy, mercy towards others. It is known that mercy has been a characteristic feature of Orthodox Russian people since ancient times. This theme is most clearly expressed in the novel “In the Woods” in the story of “orphan Grunya”. The rich peasant Patap Chapurin adopts a girl who was left an orphan after the sudden death of her parents at a fair from cholera. He raises her along with his own daughters. Subsequently, young Grunya, who has not forgotten her short-term orphanhood, of her own free will marries the elderly merchant Zaplatin, feeling sorry for his orphaned children. This amazing story, even in pre-revolutionary times, was included in the anthology of Archpriest G. Dyachenko “The Spark of God,” compiled by him “for reading in a Christian family and school.” This book, first published in 1903 (in our time it has been reprinted several times), was intended “for middle-aged girls.” It contained edifying stories about pious Christian women of different times and peoples. Including the story about the “God-given Soil”. For kids - in a retelling. For older children - in abbreviation.

The theme of family happiness, repeatedly raised by P. Melnikov-Pechersky on the pages of his novels “In the Forests” and “On the Mountains,” is also interesting. Now, when most young families are not strong, this problem is extremely relevant. And it’s worth thinking about why Patap Maksimych Chapurin with the grumpy but kind Aksinya Zakharovna, and Agrafena Petrovna Zaplatina with her middle-aged but beloved and loving husband live in harmony and harmony? This question is best answered in the novel “In the Woods” by young Dunya Smolokurova, expressing her innermost thoughts about her future family life: “I will marry the one I love... Whoever I think I will find, I will marry him, and I will love him forever, until my last breath, - one damp earth will cool my love... But if he stops loving, leaves, replaces him with another - God judge him, and a wife is not a judge for her husband. And even if he stopped loving me, I wouldn’t complain to anyone... But what I’ll do when I’m married, how I’ll live with my husband - I don’t know. I know one thing - where a husband and wife live in love and advice, in kindness and in truth, the Lord Himself lives in that family. He will teach me how to act...” It is impossible not to agree with these words. Indeed, sacrificial love and mutual humility of spouses before each other are the key to the strength of the family. And in such a family, indeed, “the Lord Himself lives.”

However, perhaps the most surprising thing is that the novels “In the Woods” and “On the Mountains” can become a very vivid illustration of the theme of God’s Providence. Let me remind you of the definition of Divine Providence from the “Long Christian Catechism” of St. Philaret: “Divine Providence is the unceasing action of the omnipotence, wisdom and goodness of God, by which God preserves the existence and powers of creatures, directs them to good goals, helps every good, and what arises through removal from good suppresses evil, or corrects it and turns it to good consequences.” When reading the novels “In the Woods” and “On the Mountains,” one notices that their heroes receive from God exactly what they deserve in their deeds. Or what is for them the best solution to their aspirations and problems. The proud and ambitious Patap Chapurin is humbled by the loss of both daughters. Although, to the joy of his lonely old age, a grandson is growing up in the house of this kind and sympathetic man. Thus, the Chapurin family is not stopped after all. On merit, the counterfeiter Stukolov and his friends end up in hard labor. The spiritual quest of Gerasim Chubalov and Dunya Smolokurova ends with the discovery of Truth. The former weak-willed drunkard “Mikeshka the Wolf” is morally reborn and regains his good name, again becoming the respected “Nikifor Zakharych”. Alexey Lokhmatov, who has completely lost his shame and conscience, dies ingloriously, without repentance.

Oddly enough, even in the seemingly sad fate of Nastya Chapurina and Flenushka, the manifestation of God’s providence and mercy for them is obvious. Contrary to the claims of Soviet-era critics, it was not her father’s “spirit of money-grubbing” that ruined Nastya Chapurina. The cause of her death was severe nervous shock. This happened when she realized who Alexei, whom she was so quick to trust, really turned out to be... The subsequent story of Alexei Lokhmatov, who abandoned his family, robbed his wife Marya Gavrilovna, and in the end also discredited the memory of Nastya, clearly demonstrates that if she had remained alive, her family life with Alexei would have been a complete misfortune.

The action of God's Providence is obvious even in such a tragic fate of Flenushka at first glance. Of course, in terms of her lively character and behavior, this “raucous” novice clearly did not “fit” into the world of the monastery where she spent her childhood and youth. “The girl does not look like a blueberry, she does not look at monasticism. Of all the monasteries, she is the most entertaining, the most amusing...” - this is how everyone who knew her characterized Flenushka. Indeed, Flenushka takes monasticism amidst the most severe spiritual struggles. Moreover, she consents to the tonsure only when she finds out that her selflessly beloved Abbess Manefa is her own mother. But it’s worth thinking about whether Flenushka would have been happier “in the world” if she had married Pyotr Samokvasov? Unfortunately, she herself repeatedly gives a negative answer to this question. “A husband should be a wife’s head, but I will never tolerate this. I won’t trample the authorities over myself - I want the power itself...” - Flenushka expresses her thoughts in the girls’ circle. Later, in the dramatic scene of farewell to Samokvasov, she tells him: “you can’t bear the love of a girl like me... Look for yourself, be quieter and more peaceful.” Thus, Flenushka herself understood that in a marriage with Samokvasov there would be no happiness for both of them. She also understood that her escape from the monastery with her beloved would bring suffering, and perhaps death, to her mother, Manefa.

Of course, Flenushka’s path to monasticism is extremely painful. But is it possible to agree with the opinion of the above-mentioned M.P. Eremin that “the fate of Flenushka is the most serious accusation against all Old Believer customs and morals”? Not at all. The mental “withdrawal” of Flenushka-Philagria is caused by the fact that, having lived in the monastery until she was 27 years old (let me remind you that in the perception of people of the 19th century, 50 years of age was already considered senile, therefore, Flenushka was also “middle-aged”) as a novice, all During this time, in her soul she was and remained a laywoman. “Flenushka doesn’t look like a cell attendant, she’s painfully mischievous,” Patap Chapurin says about her. Monastic rules and prayer were alien to her. That is why her path to monasticism turned out to be so difficult. It is no coincidence that, having taken over the management of the monastery, Flenushka established the strictest discipline there. This is her attempt to restore order, first of all, in her own soul. Let us remember the instruction that St. Joseph of Volotsky gives to the monk: “clench your hands, close your eyes and gather your mind.” This is exactly what Flenushka does when she becomes the nun Filagria. She cuts off all possible temptations and memories of her past life. Of course, this is difficult for her. According to the author of the currently republished pre-revolutionary brochure “A Kind Word to the New Novice”, “everyone has to endure and grieve a lot at the time when they begin, so to speak, to transform him from a layman into a monk, especially to accustom him to humility, obedience and cutting off.” of your own will." The monastic life of Flenushka remains “outside” the novel “On the Mountains”. But one can assume that as she goes deeper into it, she will find comfort and joy in it. After all, in the words of St. Seraphim of Sarov, “whether on the advice, or on the authority of others, or in any way you came to the monastery, do not be discouraged: there is a visitation from God.” It is not Abbess Manefa, not Samokvasov who determine the fate of Flenushka, and not even she herself - the Lord Himself chooses for her the best fate for her. No matter how sad it may seem to us at first glance, for Flenushka this is really the best way out. After all, she remains in a familiar environment familiar to her from childhood, with her beloved mother, who, in addition, handed over control of the monastery to her. It is difficult to answer the question: would Flenushka, who lived in the monastery since childhood, have been able to become happy “in the world” or not? Because, according to St. Demetrius of Rostov, the world only “promises gold, but gives gold.”

But this is by no means the end of those plots from the novels of P.I. Melnikov-Pechersky, which can be used for stories about Orthodoxy. In the novel “On the Mountains” there is a wonderful plot, using an example of which a teacher can lead a conversation about modern totalitarian sects hostile to the Orthodox faith. Moreover, without fear of incurring anger from both atheists and sectarians who may be among his listeners or colleagues. After all, we are just talking about the adventures of the novel’s heroine Dunya Smolokurova. And the Khlysty sect described in P.I. Melnikov-Pechersky’s novel “On the Mountains” is by no means “New Age” or “Jehovah’s Witnesses”. For our time, Khlystyism is “a thing of bygone days, a legend of deep antiquity.” However, if we compare the characteristics of modern totalitarian sects given in A. Dvorkin’s fundamental study “Cult Studies” with the description of the Khlysty sect in the novel “On the Mountains,” then they practically coincide. Judge for yourself. Among the signs of totalitarian sects cited in A. Dvorkin’s book (identified by Christian Western sect scholars), the following four factors stand out: the presence of a leader (mentor, guru), the presence of an organization with strict discipline, a method (simple, but accessible only upon joining the sect, which mastered by its leader), as well as an “esoteric gap”. That is, the “secret teaching”, which for the time being is not communicated to beginners. Among other signs of a totalitarian sect cited by A. Dvorkin, they highlight its occult nature and its own terminology, constant control over the consciousness of sectarians. And also their own system of values ​​and morals, which often runs counter to what is accepted in society. Another feature of modern totalitarian sects is their unique method of recruiting new members. In the Moonite sect, it is defined as “love bombing.” A recruiter who lures a person into a sect shows him maximum love and participation. Usually poor, lonely people easily succumb to this. However, the love and participation of the sectarian recruiter serve only as bait for those whom he is trying to capture. And under the bait, as you know, there is always a hook hidden.... And subsequently, the leadership of the sect, without a twinge of conscience, uses for its own purposes the property and the very lives of the people lured into its network. A. Dvorkin very aptly described modern sects as “a faith that kills.”

All this can be perfectly illustrated by the example of Dunya Smolokurova, the heroine of the novel “On the Mountains”. This girl fell into the Khlysty sect in a state of severe depression caused by the imaginary betrayal of her loved one. She was recruited into the sect by the experienced Khlyst “prophetess” Maria Alymova, who played her most sincere participation in Dunya’s fate. By the way, exactly the same “love bombing” took place in the case of her recruitment into the sect of the peasant girl Lukerya, who was downtrodden and intimidated by her stepmother. Dunya’s “mentor” in the sect was Alymova, who recruited her. However, she, in turn, was subordinate to the head of the local Khlyst group (in Khlyst terminology - “ship”), Nikolai Lupovitsky. And he obeyed a sectarian of a higher rank, the “Ararat envoy,” Yegor Denisov. Denisov played the role of a sort of “guru” in Lupovitsky’s “ship”, to whom everyone obeyed unquestioningly. This is a wonderful illustration of the “three-level” membership in totalitarian sects described by A. Dvorkin, where above people who are partly affected by the sect (in our example this includes Dunya), there are its permanent members (Alymova, Nikolai Lupovitsky), led by the highest echelon of the sect ( Egor Denisov, his mentor “Prophet of Ararat Maxim”).

It has already been mentioned that modern sectarians believe that it is their leadership that holds the highest “secrets” of their teaching. This belief is shared by the Khlysts described in the novel “On the Mountains.” It is the desire to know the “intimate secret of spiritual marriage” that keeps Dunya in the sect, who is already beginning to understand its demonic character. Let us remember that Denisov’s attempt to “initiate” her into this supposed “secret” almost ended in disaster for the girl. As for the occult nature of Khlystyism, it is shown quite clearly in the novel “On the Mountains”. Also, just as is customary in modern totalitarian sects, the consciousness of Dunya Smolokurova was subjected to constant control in the Khlysty sect. Alymova, as well as sectarians Varenka and Katenka, Dunya’s peers, under the guise of participating in her fate, challenged her to open conversations. Thus, they monitored the girl’s thoughts and inspired her that she was a “prophetess” and a “chosen good vessel”... However, P.I. Melnikov-Pechersky repeatedly mentions that the participation of the Khlysty in the fate of Dunya was feigned. It was explained solely by the desire to take possession of her capital. Alymova, Lupovitsky and Denisov did not hesitate to talk about this among themselves. Dunya herself did not interest them at all. After all, the same Maria Alymova, whom Dunya selflessly trusted, in order to keep the girl in the sect, gave her to Yegor Denisov to be desecrated...

The so-called “esoteric break” (conscious misinformation of people recruited into the sect), which, fortunately, sobered up and made Dunya, who had completely fallen into delusion, sobered up and made her think twice about it. When recruiting her, Alymova took into account the fact that by her nature she was a contemplative person, prone to dreams. Therefore, in order to lure Dunya into the sect, the Khlyst heresy was presented to her as something exclusively spiritual, bright and attractive. But, having landed in the very nest of sectarians - Lupovitsa, Dunya learned something completely different about the faith that she hastened to accept. And the fact that they were hiding something from her alarmed her. When she heard the Khlyst legends about false Christs, saw the “zeal” of common people, with self-torture and debauchery, she realized that “this is something demonic!... There is deception, lies, cunning, cunning!... And where is the deception, there is no truth there...And there is no truth in their faith.” And the shock Dunya experienced when Yegor Denisov tried to introduce her to the “secret of spiritual marriage” (or, simply put, to abuse her) finally and forever turned her away from the Khlyst heresy. Again, one cannot help but see in this the mercy of God towards this sincerely and deeply believing girl, who came to the sect not consciously, but after being deceived.

In addition to the story of Dunya Smolokurova, other examples from the novel “On the Mountains” can be used when talking about modern totalitarian sects. Talking about the members of the Khlyst “ship”, P. I. Melnikov-Pechersky told the readers their fates. And therefore - the reasons that led them from Orthodoxy to this disgusting sect. Among these reasons is their craving for the “mysterious,” mystical, and insoluble everyday problems. And the hostility towards Orthodoxy that arose for various reasons. Or rather, to something that offended them, people with whom they mistakenly identified the Orthodox faith. For the same reasons, people join sects today. Therefore, here too, P. Melnikov-Pechersky’s book “On the Mountains” remains as relevant as possible.

But the novels “In the Woods” and “On the Mountains” most clearly show the peculiarities of the worldview of a Russian Orthodox person. We are talking about his constant dissatisfaction with everyday, earthly things. About his constant “search for God”, about his spiritual search. Prince N.D. Zhevakhov wrote wonderfully about this in his “Memoirs.” It was precisely because of this that he considered P.I. Melnikov-Pechersky one of the greatest Russian writers. I will quote the words of N.D. Zhevakhov almost in full:

“There were many different writers in Russia, but... only two of them were as brilliant as they were truly Russian writers and, to the shame of Russian readers, they went almost unnoticed. These were Pavel Ivanovich Melnikov and Nikolai Semenovich Leskov. The first of them wrote the story “On the Mountains,” one of the greatest works of Russian literature, a real Russian epic in prose. Here is what the Russian scientist A.V. Storozhenko writes to me about this story:

“Unfortunately, Russian readers poorly appreciated Melnikov’s brilliant work, and criticism... even silenced it, because they focused primarily on works that reflected revolutionary trends... There was and could not be anything revolutionary in P. I. Melnikov’s epic story ; otherwise it wouldn't be epic.

Russian God-seeking found its truest reflection in this story and is represented in the faces, with all the prominence characteristic of the great masters of words. The picture captures all layers of the Russian people: the highest landowner intelligentsia, the middle merchant and bureaucratic circle, and the common people. Gentlemen Lupovitsky, Maria Ivanovna Alymova, a district official with a transparent, faded daughter, a retired soldier, a deacon-beekeeper, various women - all, in their own way, searched for God and ended up in the Khlyst “ship”. The scribe and reader Gerasim Silych tried 8 or 10 “faiths” and came to the conclusion that only selfless love for his brother’s impoverished family could give him moral peace. Dunya Smolokurova was born with impulses towards unearthly regions and, “in order to fly with her heart into the regions in absentia,” as Pushkin put it, and feeling insulted in her pure love for Petya Samokvasov, she succumbed to the influence of Alymova’s whip, but then came to her senses, mainly thanks to a conversation with a simple but believing parish priest, she ran away from the “ship” into the world to become the good wife of the repentant Samokvasov.”

The readers of Melnikov's story reveal the very essence of the Russian soul, and not its revolutionary passions. Having entered the living circle of Russian God-seekers depicted in Melnikov’s story, we can, under his leadership, analyze the motivations for God-seeking in the Russian people.”

To these words we can add the characterization of Russia given by the Orthodox writer-martyr E. Poselyanin. In one of his books, he called Russia “The Great Seeker of God.” The constant spiritual quest of the Russian people is a sign that their souls are alive. This is amazingly said in one of the psalms: “...seek God and your soul will live” ( Ps. 68:33). Only a Russian person can peer into the waters of Svetloyar Lake in the hope of seeing there the golden domes of the temples of the city of Kitezh, invisible to sinners. Or, putting your ear to the ground, try to hear the ringing of its bells. Just like simple peasants, the characters in the novel “In the Woods,” do, looking for a way to the fabulous Kitezh, dreaming of “staying in that city for at least an hour.”

Here is how P.I. Melnikov-Pechersky writes about the dissatisfaction characteristic of Russian people with exclusively earthly affairs and concerns, about their eternal desire to find answers to the spiritual questions that concern them: “At all times, in all directions, there have been many seekers of the right faith in Rus'. In their quest for eternal bliss, they greedily but in vain seek solutions to the questions that arise in their inquisitive minds and trouble their troubled souls. There is nowhere, nowhere and no one to get answers to such questions, and an inquisitive person will spend his whole life looking for them...”

Where do the positive heroes of the novel “On the Mountains” find the Truth that they so long to find? Where, in fact, Orthodox Russian people have found it at all times. In mercy, in love for others. In this regard, the story of one of the characters in the novel “On the Mountains,” the book reader Gerasim Chubalov, is significant. For fifteen years he wandered around the world in search of true faith, but he could not find it. Chubalov’s wanderings ended in “spiritual despair, anger and hatred of people and himself.” But when Gerasim Chubalov, who returned to his homeland, took pity on his impoverished brother and took part in the fate of his family, the Truth that he could not find during 15 years of wandering was revealed to him. It was revealed to him that “God is love.” And “he felt such joy, such high spiritual pleasure, which he could not even imagine until then. It was the active power of love, the mother of all goodness and benefit.” In this regard, an interesting comparison of the fate of Gerasim Chubalov with the fate of a hero similar to him in an earlier story by P. I. Melnikov-Pechersky “Grisha” suggests itself. Gerasim, through humility and love, through serving his neighbors, finds God. And the young cell attendant Grisha from the story of the same name, as a result of his pride and hatred of people, falls more and more into delusion, confident in his own infallibility. Thus, he moves further and further away from the Lord.

Thanks to love and humility, Dunya Smolokurova also receives an answer to her spiritual quest. Initially, this is manifested in trust in the hostile in her eyes (let me remind you that Dunya Smolokurova, like other characters in the novels of P.I. Melnikov-Pechersky, is an Old Believer) “Nikonian” priest Father Prokhor, who warns her about the danger of being among sectarians, and subsequently secretly takes her away from Lupovitsy. Having broken with the Khlysty sect, Dunya does not join the “Great Russian” Church. She remains an Old Believer. However, he overcomes the spiritual barrier that for centuries divided and made enemies of the “Old Believers” and “Nikonians”. And in this she is helped by a feeling of gratitude, respect and love for Father Prokhor, who sacrificed himself for her salvation. And having forgiven her fiancé, Pyotr Samokvasov, and becoming his wife, Dunya finally finds peace of mind.

The stories of Gerasim Chubalov and Dunya Smolokurova are a lesson for all of us, today's Christians. This is a call to remember that “whoever does not love has not known God, because God is love. If we love each other, then God abides in us, and His love is perfect in us" ( 1 John 4:5,12).

I tried to show how relevant and useful the novels of P. I. Melnikov-Pechersky “In the Forests” and “On the Mountains” can be for modern Orthodox readers or those coming to Orthodoxy. And also - analyze those topics that a teacher who talks about Orthodoxy to schoolchildren or students of a secular educational institution can borrow from them. Because these books, despite their often almost adventure-like character, are outstanding works about the Russian people. Orthodox people, deeply religious, striving to live in God and with God. And this desire, this constant “seeking from above,” turns out to be stronger than all earthly passions and concerns in the characters of P. I. Melnikov-Pechersky’s novels. Thanks to this, the novels “In the Forests” and “On the Mountains” can be considered among the best works of Russian classic writers about Orthodox Russia. It is no coincidence that the following epitaph is written on the grave of their author:

“He will live for centuries,
Who wrote “In the Woods” and “On the Mountains”.

It is no coincidence that, while in Siberian exile, the Holy Confessor Luka of Crimea (Voino-Yasenetsky) asked his relatives to send him, along with the works of F. Dostoevsky and N. Leskov, precisely the novels of P. I. Melnikov-Pechersky. After all, they say in the best possible way that in the life of our ancestors the main thing was not earthly, but spiritual wealth - the Orthodox faith. Therefore, it seems that even today the novels of P. I. Melnikov-Pechersky “In the Forests” and “On the Mountains” will be able to help modern people coming to Orthodoxy to know, love and accept it with all their heart and soul.

“Old Rus' there, primordial, old …»

P.I.Melnikov-Pechersky

« The works of P.I. Melnikov express a firm, deep faith in progress and in the great future of the Russian land; in his writings, a sincere love for the common people and a bitter mockery of people of the privileged classes who have distorted themselves to imitate the West are everywhere manifested.”

(P. Melnikov-Pechersky. “Autobiography”)

“Old Rus' there, primordial, old. Since then

When the Russian land began, there were no alien inhabitants there. There's Rus'

Since ancient times it has been kept as clean as it was during the time of our great-grandfathers, and is kept as it is until

our days. The good side, although it looks angrily at the stranger.”

(P. Melnikov-Pechersky. “In the forests)

Pavel Ivanovich Melnikov (pseudonym Andrey Pechersky), (1818-1883), P. Melnikov-Pechersky, is a great Russian prose writer, known primarily for the duology “In the Woods” (1871-1874) and “On the Mountains” (1875-1881 ), in which he talks about the life of the Volga Old Believers. Nizhny Novgorod is the writer’s homeland; it was the Volga region that he devoted years of service to. A number of his religious studies articles are devoted to the theme of the Old Believers, “schism,” the most significant of which are “Letters on the Schism” (1862). To a lesser extent, P. Melnikov is known as a researcher of sectarianism - primarily of sects that were attributed with “Old Believer” roots: Khlysty, Skoptsy, etc. In his research, he relied on materials from trials and information received directly from sources from among the sectarians. His essays not only provide a wealth of educational material, but also make it possible to once and for all separate Russian Old Believers from sectarianism initiated from the West (popularly “farmazonism”).

The most interesting, exciting works “In the Forests” and “On the Mountains” are a unique encyclopedic source of information about the character, life, customs and customs of the Old Believers, presented to the reader in the form of a voluminous, multifaceted picture. The action takes place in a village and a provincial town, in a hermitage and at a fair, at a village party and in a tavern, in a deep forest and on the Volga. Various social groups are depicted in vivid figurative language: inhabitants of monasteries, village peasants, merchants, hired workers, officials, representatives of the official church, etc. Using the example of the central characters, representatives of merchant Old Believer families, a socio-psychological, historical portrait is drawn of the very Old Believer who largely created a strong Russian state - he created it through an effort of will, the tension of a sharp, searching mind, hard work, loyalty to the behests of his ancestors and Orthodox ideals.

In artistic form, P. Melnikov-Pechersky tells how the process of accumulation of initial merchant capital went on and wealth grew, how, on the basis of a single ideology, which was the old faith, network economic communities were formed and economic mechanisms functioned, how a “state in state" with its own set of ethical rules and unwritten laws. The plot also shows the role of the Old Believers in the preservation of Russian culture - ancient books, icons, artifacts of the historical past. The history of the Old Believers in novels is the history of the entire Russian Old Believers.

Serving as an official of special assignments of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, P. Melnikov had to travel a lot around the Volga region and communicate with representatives of all classes. “To the questions put to him by admirers of his talent - where did he learn the folk language, P. I. Melnikov usually answers: on barges, in monasteries, and in peasants’ quarters.” ("Autobiography").

The significance and nature of P. Melnikov’s work can be judged simply because even critics, who are difficult to classify as defenders of primordially Russian values, recognize his merits in depicting the Russian people. For example, the currently popularized literary historian and bibliographer S.A. Vengerov(1855-1920), an intellectual commoner, the forerunner of the “democratic” writer, wrote in his “Brief Information” about P. Melnikov:

“Thanks to long-term communication with the people of the Volga region, Melnikov has mastered the folk speech to such an extent that he uses it not only in conversations, but also where the narration is on behalf of the author, when describing nature, etc.<…>

Research in local archives brought him the title of corresponding member of the archaeographic commission. The subject of his official activity was almost exclusively schismatic affairs, which were very numerous in the Nizhny Novgorod province. Melnikov was well acquainted with the schismatic life from his childhood in Semenovsky district, where he inherited a small estate after his mother. Through his schismatic friends, Melnikov obtained old printed and handwritten theological works and was soon able to out-argue the best schismatic reciters<…>Melnikov's reports on the execution of schismatic orders drew the attention of the Ministry of Internal Affairs to him; in the last years of the reign of Nicholas I, he became the first authority on the split for the central administration<…>

“In the Forests” and “On the Mountains,” which first introduced Russian society to the life of the schism, are works as unique as their origin. Melnikov was completely unaware of either the properties or the extent of his talent. Entirely absorbed in official ambition, he had almost no literary ambition and looked at writing, especially fiction, as an activity “in between.” The impulse to put his knowledge of the schism into fictional form was almost forced upon him; even the title itself: “In the Woods” does not belong to him. In 1861, Melnikov was included among the people who accompanied the late heir Nikolai Alexandrovich on his trip along the Volga. He knew every corner of the Nizhny Novgorod Volga region and about each place he could tell all the legends, beliefs, details of everyday life associated with it, etc. The Tsarevich was fascinated by the novelty and interest of Melnikov’s Stories, and when, near Lyskov, Melnikov spoke in particularly detailed and fascinating detail about the life of the schismatics beyond the Volga, about their monasteries, forests and crafts, he said to Melnikov: “What would you, Pavel Ivanovich, write all this - depict beliefs, traditions, the entire life of the Trans-Volga people.” Melnikov began to evade, making the excuse of “lack of time for official activities,” but the Tsarevich insisted: “No, be sure to write. I will be indebted to you for the story of how they live in the forests beyond the Volga.” Melnikov promised, but only 10 years later, when his official activities were completely over, he began to fulfill the promise, without a specific plan, having prepared only the first chapters. The ever-increasing success of the work forced him to go to the opposite extreme: he became extremely generous with his memories of what he saw and heard among people of “ancient piety” and inserted very long episodes, which in themselves were very interesting, but had nothing to do with the main plot and cluttered up the story. There are especially many long and unnecessary inserted episodes in “On the Mountains,” although the editors of “Russian Messenger” made huge cuts in this work by Melnikov.”

As we see, it was impossible not to recognize the significance of the literary phenomenon of M. Melnikov-Pechersky’s work, although the critical interpretation was one-sided and tendentious:

“In the first two parts of “In the Woods,” those pictures of everyday life of which Melnikov is such an amazing master are fully outlined: dinners, rituals, crafts, parties, prayers, hermitage life, debates about faith; further repetitions of all this are very tedious. Particularly boring are the dozens of pages that Melnikov devotes to translating schismatic dogma into conversations. But the first two parts of “In the Woods” belong to the most fascinating books of Russian literature. They open up a completely new (now part of history), amazingly colorful world, full of life and movement. Semi-wild people of the Trans-Volga forests in the artistic depiction of Pechersky they arouse not only cold curiosity, but also the most lively participation. The greatest strength of "In the Woods" is the beauty of the story itself. Melnikov turns the most ordinary thing - lunch, a walk, a steam bath - into a fascinating epic<…>. The main drawback of Melnikov's latest works is that Melnikov took only the casual side of life. Before us is some kind of eternal holiday. The “thousanders” every now and then give fabulous feasts with dozens of dishes; how a guy is so handsome, how a girl is so beautiful, and how a guy sees a girl - so now they are in love, and in the next chapter the bushes are already moving apart and a series of dots follows. Melnikov depicts hermitage life only from the side of sweet eating and partying. Melnikov hardly touched upon his working life and only once very angrily ridiculed the artel system, which he generally could not tolerate, along with communal land ownership. Strictly speaking, “In the Forests” and “On the Mountains” depict only the life of the rich and riotous “thousanders” and hermits who cover up their parasitism and debauchery with imaginary holiness. Pechersky's stories do not provide the key to understanding the inner essence of such a huge, deep movement as the schism. Why do these such cheerful people, who are only busy with food, drink and girls, hold on so tightly to the “old faith”? There are some spiritual foundations in the psychology of people of ancient piety that give them strength to fight persecution. And it was these that Melnikov overlooked during the feasts and parties, which is why all his magnificent narrative is important only for external acquaintance with the schism.”

It is worth reading the novel to understand that this review is not only unfair in essence and distorts the content of the books, but it reflects the critic’s misunderstanding and rejection of the life described in the novel. S. Vengerov did not understand that the Old Believers are not only “psychology” or a class position, but, in the words of the Old Believer publicist I.A. Kirillov, life itself Russian people. In S. Vengerov’s criticism one can hear a certain class (or even ethnic) envy - and, perhaps, envy of the “unambitious” talent of the writer, or of the maximalist fullness of life and feelings that P. Melnikov-Pechersky saw in the Old Believer environment.

The novels of P. Melnikov-Pechersky are polyphonic: the lyrics of romantic collisions are intertwined with the epic sound of historical events that had a turning point for the entire Russian life. The music of love, mournful motives of mental suffering, a polyphonic labor choir sound in unison with the ancient melodies of folk songs, legends and prayers, sounds of nature and mysterious, almost otherworldly voices. The author equally skillfully and surprisingly subtly depicts the spiritual world of a person and external reality, be it a beautiful landscape, a generous meal or the vicissitudes of adventurous adventures.

P. Melnikov-Pechersky created unique images of Russian people, now designated as “ self- made people » ( verbatim « who have achieved success on their own"),- the people on whom all Russian life rested: the economy, the army, trade, morality and culture, passed on from generation to generation. These are not residents of capitals or large cities, not nobles and not artificial, far-fetched characters “a la Rus”. These are people from the very depths of the Russian people, constituting its core, the “salt of the Russian earth.”

“In the Forests” and “On the Mountains” are the only works of their kind that depict the Russian people in all the depth and completeness of their national character. They are intended primarily for the Russian people: the author poses the most complex questions of moral choice, but solves them not in the form of philosophical and schematic calculations, but through a fascinating figurative narrative, rich in rich ethnographic and historical material, accessible and interesting for any, even the widest reader. P.I.Melnikov-Pechersky writes about the people and for the people.

“The author looks at modern people this way: how much, how much, it seems, is needed for people to love and respect a person? A friendly word, and participation in grief and illness, and respect for the primordial rights of humanity, and don’t look like a beast - that’s all. And the main thing is - be fair, be a man, and don’t turn a man around in your own way, and he will be all yours, soul and body, at the end of his life. And if you die, he will remember you kindly, he will not forget you in his simple, ingenuous, not crafty prayer before the Lord... Truth, more truth, the Russian man - he doesn’t need anything else...”

(P. Melnikov. “Indispensable”).

In his books, the author, however, does not idealize the heroes he portrays, and that is why they are so vital and typical. M. Melnikov-Pechersky creates not diagrams, but images of living people with their unique destinies. The reader cannot help but feel empathy for the characters - a girl in love dying from betrayal and her unhappy parents; an elderly abbess with a broken fate and her young successor, who abandoned worldly happiness and shouldered all responsibility for the fate of the Komarovsky monastery during times of persecution; young merchants - representatives of the new generation of Russia's economic elite; an inexperienced spiritual seeker caught in the net of a dangerous sect...

Brilliant literary talent allows the author to create a complete effect of presence in the reader: here we are in the cell of the Komarovsky monastery at a noisy meeting of mother abbess who have come here to make a decision on the election of the “Austrian bishop” - unsuccessfully! But here we are among lumberjacks in the winter forest, or listening to an old legend about swamp spirits, or marveling at the story about an adventurer-pseudo-abbot who created a workshop for making counterfeit money in a forest monastery.

It should be noted that P. Melnikov-Pechersky has still not received due official recognition and appreciation corresponding to the degree of his talent and the scale of his literary and historical contribution to the humanitarian heritage of the Russian people. Unlike L. Tolstoy, F. Dostoevsky, A. Chekhov, I. Turgenev and a number of other prose writers who embody the greatness of Russian literature both in Russia and in the West, P. Melnikov-Pechersky is rarely mentioned among the significant Russian writers , and his works are not published - unlike the huge amount of colorfully designed literary trash that fills the shelves of bookstores.

Probably, the realism of the image - along with the absence of the books themselves from the general reader - gives critics unlimited freedom to interpret the works of P. Melnikov-Pechersky, even to the point of falsifying their meaning: the author is credited with a hostile attitude towards the Old Believers, he is characterized as an ardent apologist for official Orthodoxy and an exposer of “religious fanaticism" as the most cruel fighter against Old Belief. In the works of P. Melnikov there are indeed statements and even plot structures that could classify the author as a supporter of the official church. On duty, he actually dealt with both Old Believers and sectarians. However, the images he created speak for themselves. To understand the true position of the author, whose ancestors came from the Don, who himself lived and worked in the Old Believer regions - on the Volga and Perm, you need to read his books.

In fairness and with all certainty, it should be said that P. Melnikov-Pechersky, having universal knowledge in the field of ethnography, sociology, history, and religious studies, created an unsurpassed, unique in its significance document on the role of the Old Believers in the life and historical development of Russia. The questions he raised are still relevant today:

“Bringing to fresh water the abuses perpetrated in the dark, P.I. Melnikov most of all attacked embezzlement: “every government business,” he says in “Bear Corner,” “that’s why the treasury is worth a lot because every person looks at the treasury as on his purse and his paw he throws himself into it like a businessman. Any master of the treasury is infinitely more capable of profiting from the treasury than taking bribes, for the fact that he took from whomever he took, he will probably scream out the guard, but the mother of the treasury has no tongue, for that and rob her, with no answer.” ("Autobiography").

The writing gift of P.I. Melnikov-Pechersky and the talent of a researcher, fueled by a great love for the Russian land, place him in one of the first places among the great Russian writers.

Excerpts from the works “In the Forests” and “On the Mountains”:

(Trans-Volga region and Trans-Volga residents. Potap Maksimych Chapurin - Trans-Volga thousand-manager)

(History of the Trans-Volga Old Believers. Hermitages in the forests of the Trans-Volga region. Monasteries on Kamenny Vrazhek - an island among the swamps. History of the Komarovsky monastery)

(The right side of the Volga. The legend of the White Tsar’s journey along the Volga. Upland peasants. Bear hunting and the case of the “bear battalion”)

(Smolokurov brothers)

(Makaryevskaya fair. Nizhny Novgorod merchants)

(Millionaire Doronin: family history)

(The full text of the books “In the Woods” and “On the Mountains” is posted on the page

Full text of the dissertation abstract on the topic "The work of P.I. Melnikov-Pechorsky and the depiction of the Old Believers in Russian literature of the 19th century"

As a manuscript

Bochenkov Viktor Vyacheslavovich

Creativity P.I. Melnikov-Pechersky and the depiction of the Old Believers in Russian literature of the 19th century

Moscow 2005

The work was carried out at the Department of Russian Classical Literature and Slavic Studies of the Literary Institute named after. A.M. Gorky.

Scientific adviser:

Doctor of Philology, Professor Mineralov Yuri Ivanovich

Official opponents:

Doctor of Philology, Professor Gazizova Amina Abdullaevna

Candidate of Philological Sciences, Associate Professor Zavgorodnyaya Galina Yurievna

Leading organization: State Institute of Russian Language named after. A.C. Pushkin

The defense will take place "U^" 2005 at /5 o'clock at the meeting

dissertation council D 212.109.01 at the Literary Institute named after. A.M. Gorky at the address: 123104, Moscow, Tverskoy Boulevard, 25, room.

The dissertation can be found in the library of the Literary Institute. A. M. Gorky.

Scientific secretary of the dissertation owl! ;kyi M.Yu.

GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF WORK

P.I. Melnikov remains a little-studied writer for various reasons. One of them is the lack of criticism that would appreciate him at his true worth (and not just as an ethnographic writer) and contribute to the popularity of his works. This circumstance was pointed out at the beginning of the 20th century by A.A., who highly appreciated the writer. Izmailov: “His novels appeared already when Russian criticism became impoverished. Most critics did not consider anything beyond the external forms and external facts of Melnikov’s story.”1

The purpose of the study is to analyze the evolution of artistic characters in Melnikov’s works, starting with his stories at the turn of 1850-60 (“Poyarkov”, “Grisha”) and ending with the novels “In the Woods” and “On the Mountains”. In accordance with the stated goal, the following main objectives of the study were identified:

1. Reveal the ideological foundations of P.I.’s artistic depiction. Melnikov of the Old Believers, the creation of literary characters, to explain their originality. Another academician P.N. Sakulin noted that the writer’s worldview is directly reflected in the creation of an artistic image: “Worldview is understood as a poetic concept of life and the world. It permeates all the artistic creativity of the poet and the school...”2

3. To trace the influence of anti-Old Believer journalism by other authors on the creation of certain characters of P.I. Melnikov.

4. Identify the main artistic techniques for creating P.I. Melnikov's images of Old Believers in stories and novels, as well as literary sources used by the writer and not previously noted by literary scholars.

THE RESEARCH MATERIAL was the writer’s stories touching on Old Believer issues (“Poyarkov”, “Grisha”), “Essays on priesthood”, the dilogy “In the Forests” and “On the Mountains”. For comparison purposes, the works of I.I. Lazhechnikova, M.N. Zagoskina, O. Zabytogo, F.V. Livanova and others.

immnymshgvri^AShmnyuF^collection of works

P I Melnikov (Andrey Pechersky)" In 7 volumes 2nd ed. - St. Petersburg, 19f9#OCl NATIONAL j

2 Sakulin P N. Philology and cultural studies - M., 1990 - P 141

LIBRARY

The THEORETICAL-METHODOLOGICAL basis of the dissertation is the works of Russian literary scholars, in particular A.A. Potebnya, M.M. Bakhtina, A.F. Loseva, A.N. Veselovsky, Yu.I. Mineralova and others.

PRACTICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY. The dissertation materials can be used in university basic lecture courses, special courses and special seminars.

The dissertation consists of three chapters, has an introduction and a conclusion. The total volume of the dissertation is 179 units, including bibliography.

The introduction outlines the history of the literary-critical study of P.I. Melnikov-Pechersky from the 19th century to the present day, a description of the most notable critical and scientific works is given. The relevance of the topic is substantiated, the goals and objectives of the research are set, scientific novelty is established, and the structure of the work is characterized. The main content of the dissertation chapters is briefly outlined, and an overview of literary works on P.I. is given. Melnikov.

Reviews from critics about P.I. Melnikov during his lifetime did not generally contain a sufficiently deep analysis of his work. About P.I. Melnikov wrote to O.F. Miller, A.P. Miliukov, A.N. Pypin, S.A. Vengerov, A.M. Skabichevsky, historian and friend of the writer D.I. Ilovaisky. Summing up the critical reviews that appeared in print during the 25 years that elapsed after the writer’s death, critic H.A. Savvin stated: “By a strange irony of fate, Melnikov still has not received a detailed - thorough - if not study, then analysis as a fiction writer. None of the critics and literary historians gave a full coverage of the literary physiognomy of the writer, did not find out the meaning of his artistic images, did not put it in general connection with previous literary development, did not indicate the basic techniques of creativity; in most cases, the matter is limited to the most general, most concise description of a talented writer.”3

The most complete pre-revolutionary work on P.I. Melnikov's book was P.S. Usova, who opened the collected works of the writer, published in

3 Savvin NA. II I.-Meltpso&A assessment of literary criticism // Collection in memory of P I Melnikov (Andrey Pechersky). - Nizhny Tsovdots ¿EDO. 4 1 -С 296

1897-1898 M.O. Wolf4 It is mainly biographical in nature. It published for the first time many documents related to the activities of P.I. Melnikov in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, with his life and work.

To date, the most studied side of the work of P.I. Melnikov remains a folklore-ethnographic aspect. The theme of the writer’s use of folklore means has an extensive bibliography. However, in the book by V.F. Sokolova “P.I. Melyshkov-Pechersky. An Essay on Life and Creativity”, the sources that served as the basis for a number of storylines in the duology “In the Forests” and “On the Mountains” are analyzed, information about the prototypes of the heroes is identified and summarized, literary characteristics of the main characters are given, and there is an excursion into the writer’s creative laboratory. Researchers paid attention to the artistic connections of the writer with “previous literary development” (dissertations by P.I. Leshchenko “The early period of the work of P.I. Melnikov-Pechersky (origins and relationships)”, 1971, L.M. Rudneva “P. I. Melnikov-Pechersky in the 1830s-60s. (Questions of biography and creativity), 1996), on the particular creation of an artistic portrait by him (the dissertation of I.V. Kudryashov “The Dilogy of P.I. Melnikov-Pechersky “In forests" and "On the mountains" (portrait poetics)", 2000), on the genre specificity of novels (the dissertation of E.T. Kakilbayeva "The dilogy of P.I. Melnikov-Pechersky "In the forests" and "On the mountains" (System of images and features of the genre)", 1990). The specifics of the artistic depiction of the Old Believers remain unclear.

The first chapter is “The formation of the views of P.I. Melnikov on the Old Believers and their reflection in stories." In the first paragraph of this chapter (“Old Believer specificity and artistic analysis of the works of P.I. Melnikov”) it is noted that the fiction of P.I. Melnikova attracted the attention of her contemporaries with her unique insight into the ritual, religious and everyday life of Russian Old Believers. This forces us to take a close look at the cultural and historical issues involved here before moving directly to the texts of the writer’s works. We deliberately delve into this issue, since P.I. Melnikov managed to create a special artistic image of the Old Believers in the dilogy “In the Forests” and “On the Mountains”; all religious, everyday, ethnographic realities were melted by him into artistic quality. And in order to subject this image to analysis in order to realize the set goal - an analysis of the artistic construction of the writer’s world, artistic skill and individual style.

4 Usov YASPI. Melnikov, his life and literary activity // Melnikov P I Complete collected works - In 7 volumes - St. Petersburg - M, - 1897 - T 1. - 324 pp.

Well, it is necessary to take a closer look at the aspects that provided the material for creating the image of the Old Believers in stories, then in novels. Ignoring the peculiarities of the Old Believer aspect of the writer’s works leads the literary critic to a number of inaccuracies.

The second paragraph (“Principles of anti-Old Believer journalism, formed before P.I. Melnikov”) shows the main stages in the development of anti-Old Believer journalism. The basic principles of depicting the Old Believers are considered. One of the first writers who stood at the origins of anti-Old Believer journalism was Simeon of Polotsk, author of the book “This Mental Rod of Rule, Affirmation, Punishment and Execution” (a shorter name is accepted - “The Rod of Rule”). The traditions of the “Rod...” were continued by Bishop Dimitry of Rostov (“Search for the schismatic Bryn faith...”), Archbishop Athanasius Kholmogorsky (“Spiritual Ovet”), Archpriest A.I. Zhuravlev (“Complete historical information about the ancient Strigolniki and new schismatics, the so-called Old Believers, about their teaching, deeds and disagreements”), etc. Based on the book by A.I. Zhuravlev relied on I.I. Lazhechnikov (“The Last Novik”), M.N Zagoskin (“Bryn Forest”).

Since anti-Old Believers journalism was called upon to fulfill a certain state order, its main themes included, in particular, the justification for the anti-state activities of the Old Believers. Polemicists point to the Solovetsky uprising, the Khovanshchina, the peasant wars led by Razin and Pugachev, in which the Old Believers took part or put forward slogans for the restoration of the pre-Nikon church rite. All this allegedly served as confirmation of anti-state sentiments in the Old Believers. Fiction about the Old Believers also received corresponding orientations. It is no coincidence, for example, even at the end of the 19th century D.L. Mordovians in the story “For whose sins?” brings together Stepan Razin and Archpriest Avvakum in one of the chapters. The first personifies armed rebellion, the second - spiritual rebellion, resistance without weapons. There is no information in historical documents that such a meeting actually took place. The journalism that shaped the image of the Old Believers also tried to prove that the Old Believers rested on stubborn ignorance and illiteracy, that there was no positive ideal in the Old Believers. It was in journalism that it became the norm, which later passed into fiction, to emphasize negatively colored qualities when depicting the character of the Old Believers. In journalism, such a technique of satirical sharpening as the use of comic, anecdotal situations arose and was adopted by fiction.

All of the indicated features and features of the Old Believers are shown in the fiction and journalistic literature of the 18th and 19th centuries (Feofan Pro-kopovich, A.D. Kantemir, F.N. Slepushkin, A.N. Muravyov, I.I. Lazhechnikov, M.N. Zagoskin , F.V. Livanov, stories by P.I. Melnikov-Pechersky).

The third paragraph (“Literary and artistic understanding of the Old Believers before P.I. Melnikov”) continues the analysis of the embodiment and influence of the journalistic principles of depicting the Old Believers on the fiction of the 18th - first half of the 19th centuries, on the typification and artistic embodiment of the image of the literary hero. The paragraph provides an analysis of the depiction of Old Believers in the novels of I.I. Lazhechnikov “The Last Novik” and M.N. Zagoskina "Bryn Forest". The Old Believers continue to remain a closed world for literature, despite the era of romanticism - with all its attention to the national, to the folk, and, in fact, for the natural school - with its attention to everyday specifics, human types, ethnography. It is noted that if the writer’s artistic task did not include a satirical depiction of the Old Believers, he accordingly did not resort to established journalistic canons. The Old Believers appeared as a completely unstudied, mysterious phenomenon (V.A. Sollogub, story “Tarantas”). On the other hand, attention to folk life and the strengthening of realistic tendencies provoked a literary understanding of the Old Believers in the context of their real, everyday life, and not based on tendentious literature.

The fourth paragraph (“Formation of P.I. Melnikov’s views on the Old Believers”) is devoted to the analysis of the writer’s first independent assessments of Old Belief. The material was some of his unfinished and unpublished articles that remained in drafts (“The first heresies and schismatics”), letters from A.A. Kraevsky. It is noted that the early judgments of P.I. Melnikov's comments on the Old Believers are stingy and do not go beyond the prevailing templates. A deeper study and understanding of the phenomenon of the Old Believers begins while working on the report “On the state of the schism in the Nizhny Novgorod province” (1853-54).

The second chapter is “Features of the depiction of the Old Believers in the works of P.I. Melnikov (before the dilogy “In the Forests” and “On the Mountains”).” Here we analyze the stories “Poyarkov” (1859), “Grisha” (1861), “Essays on Priesthood” (1864), the works of lesser-known writers - F.V. Livanov, A.V. Ivanov, O. Zabytogo and others.

The first paragraph examines the peculiarities of interpreting the behavior of the characters in the story by P.I. Melnikov "Grisha". The second paragraph (“Righteous” and “sinners” in “Grisha”) specifies some nuances and features

images of Old Believers. It is shown that both the author’s assessment and the selection of properties characterizing the character, the sharpening of certain of his qualities were determined by P.I. Melnikov, under the influence of stereotypes already established in anti-Old Believer journalism and public consciousness, the Writer emphasizes the negatively colored qualities of the heroes (fanaticism, blind asceticism with contempt for simple and good human joys, inability to do good deeds, duplicity, stupidity).

In the stories of P.I. Melnikov's "Grisha" and "Poyarkov" do not reflect his wide knowledge of Old Believer life, which he showed in his "Report on the current state of the schism in the Nizhny Novgorod province." Meanwhile, some sketches from the “Report...” could well serve as the basis for essays in the spirit of the natural school and could be used in stories. However, while working on “Grisha” and “Poyarkov”, P.I. Melnikov left aside this rich ethnographic material.

For stories by P.I. Melnikov about the Old Believers (“Grisha”, “Poyarkov”) is characteristic, in particular:

Lack of everyday life, a predilection for which was evident in the “Report...”;

The presence of a caricature element (drunken old men in Grisha, some characters in Poyarkov);

The artificiality of situations and characters, due to the desire for caricature, to depict the negative as typical;

Attention to extreme manifestations, which by no means characterize all Old Believers.

The third paragraph (“Literary sources of images in the story “Grisha””) indicates the sources on which the writer relied while working on the story. This is “Russian Grapes” by Semyon Denisov, the work of historian A.P. Shchapov “Russian schism of the Old Believers...”, published in 1859, a polemical book by Archbishop Gregory of Kazan “The Truly Ancient and Truly Orthodox Church of Christ, a presentation in relation to the so-called Old Believers.” The presence of parallels with a number of book sources indicates the writer’s intention to focus on already established models when creating an artistic character.

The satirical aspects of P.I. Melnikov’s stories are discussed in the fourth paragraph (“The illusion of authenticity as a principle of P.I. Melnikov’s anti-Old Believer satire”) and in the fifth paragraph (“P.I. Melnikov and F.V. Livanov - two satirists of the Old Believers”) .

In the anti-Old Believer stories of P.I. Melnikov and other contemporary authors (F.V. Livanov; N. Popov and his “Collection from the history of steel

rituals"; V. Popov, “Secrets of schismatics, Old Believers, eunuchs and other sectarians”) satirical deformation is created through sharp caricaturing, the use of a number of satirical oppositions, negative authorial characteristics, caricature and other techniques. The fight against the Old Believers with the power of laughter required turning to the comic, on which a genre such as the anecdote, also used in anti-Old Believers satire, is built. Hyperbole, grotesque, and fantasy were not used by writers.

The fifth paragraph provides a comparative analysis of the works of P.I. Melnikov and F.V. Livanova. Both writers resorted to such a technique as including an anecdote in the story. F.V. Livanov prefers to use entire anecdotal stories (for example, in the stories “The schismatic prophetess Ustinya Nikiforovna”, “Rusanov - a fugitive schismatic bishop”, etc.). P.I. Melnikov included a whole series of anecdotes in the story “Poyarkov”.

What is common in the artistic concept of the characters of the Old Believers by P.I. Melnikov and F.V. Livanov is revealed in the dissertation using the example of a number of satirical oppositions of both writers. These are, in particular:

The requirements of faith for a way of life are an actual way of life that does not correspond to these requirements;

Faith - connection with criminal offense and criminal activity;

Literacy as an ideal - ignorance and fanaticism as ideals.

The paragraph also examines the features of the satirical poetics of both writers (portrait caricaturing, irony, the use of offensive speech cliches, the desire for everyday and everyday authenticity, refusal to use the grotesque, fantasy). Archaic figures of speech as a symbol of the obsolete, the dead are used by both authors in the speech characteristics of the heroes. It is noted that the main failure of F.V. Livanov and the reason for his failure as a writer is that he was unable to create a convincing and complete Old Believer character, albeit a negative one. “Exposing the activities of schismatic horse breeders, especially modern ones and currently operating, is the most beneficial thing.” This author’s maxim from the essay “The Myasnitsky Propagandist” was his creative credo and social position. To implement it, journalistic techniques were required that influenced the style and genre specificity of the works. This task of “exposing” led to dominance in the work of F.V. Livanov's journalism and pamphleteering, while the features of a pamphlet in the stories of P.I. Melnikov is absent, the author's characteristics do not suffer from journalistic straightforwardness. Journalisticism is manifested in “Essays on Priesthood”, where it is appropriate. F.V. Livanov is more inclined to mix genres. “The damned schismatic son” is a synthesis of a pamphlet and an essay. The story "Schismatic Prophetess"

Ustinya Nikiforovna” begins as a travel sketch and contains inclusions of authentic historical documents, which is typical for a sketch of that time. The story ends in journalistic style with the author's emotional arguments about religious and civil freedom, education, which later, like Livanov's books in general, became the object of many critical reviews.

P.I. Melnikov, relying on the same with F.V. Livanov’s satirical oppositions, avoided declarativeness, pamphleteering, and journalisticism in his stories. Moreover, by the time of the creation of the dilogy, a completely special artistic methodology had emerged in his work, not associated with the dominance of satire, due to the writer’s orientation towards ethnography and folklore.

The sixth paragraph of the dissertation is “The role of the tragic and the motif of the “repentant sinner” in works denouncing the Old Believers.” Not only the comic, but also the tragic can strengthen the reader’s negative attitude towards the character - the object of satire. In works about the Old Believers, the tragic and the comic are often a close and complex interweaving.

The tragic conflict shows that in the Old Believers a positive ideal is impossible, and if it exists, it is doomed (the death of the merchant Gusyatnikova in Grisha). This idea is nuanced with the help of satirical techniques designed to show more clearly the negative essence of the heroes. The tragic outcome acts as a logical, natural ending to the opposing moral and immoral principles. Moreover, the immoral is personified precisely by the Old Believers.

In the works that exposed the Old Believers, a special motive arose, which we conventionally define as the “motive of the repentant sinner.” It consists in the fact that the hero, strictly adhering to the Old Believers and having gone through various everyday trials, is convinced of the wrongness of his religious doctrine, repents and joins the dominant religion. Denying the norms of Old Believer ethics and worldview by introducing a tragic conflict, the writer tried to show that, what No matter how deep the hero’s fall may reach, it does not exclude the possibility of purification. An Old Believer hero who committed a crime (often serious, involving the shedding of blood) or an act that caused someone’s death was brought to repentance. Repentance and renunciation of the Old Believers elevated such a hero, but looked artificial. The motif of the “repentant sinner” can be traced in the works of I.I. Lazhechnikova (“The Last Novik”), A. V. Ivanova (“Self-Burners”), F.V. Livanova (story “The Raskolnik’s Daughter”). The motive of the repentant sinner in the stories of P.I. Melnikov does not sound. Obviously, the piss

The author realized that its introduction required extremely precise artistic and psychological authenticity, otherwise the artificiality that took place in the works listed above cannot be avoided.

Elements of the tragic and comic as a means of exposing the Old Believers in literary works are closely intertwined. In order to achieve an artistic goal, writers sought to use both. However, one of the main features of creating the image of the Old Believer was the method of typification and sharpening of negative character traits (worldview). The strength of this technique was the ability to very specifically express the attitude towards the character being depicted. The disadvantage is the inability to create a multifaceted, three-dimensional image.

The seventh paragraph of the second chapter is devoted to the historical and journalistic work “Essays on Priesthood” and the principles of depicting the Old Believer priesthood in them (meaning the creation of artistic characters of persons who were ordained - bishops, priests, deacons - and who became spiritual leaders in the Old Believer environment). The paragraph highlights the most characteristic techniques for depicting the Old Believer priesthood in the “Essays”: the satirical sharpness of a number of images and the emphasis on negatively colored characteristics (such an approach directly goes back to the quests and principles of anti-Old Believer journalism of the 18th - 19th centuries), reliance on unverified rumors when selecting material, veiling of social the reasons pushing priests to “flight into schism”, the lack of a “living voice” of the Old Believers themselves, a kind of “monophony” of the “Essays...”. P.I. Melnikov always speaks for the Old Believers, instead of them, without giving them the right to express their point of view, their opinion, their position, their view, their truth on this or that issue. The methodological features of the depiction of the Old Believer priesthood are visible when comparing them with the works of populist writers (O. Zabyty (G.I. Nedetovsky) and his story “I didn’t please!”, N. Alexandrov, the novel “Missing!”).

The eighth paragraph (“PI. Melnikov and the weakening of anti-Old Believer tendencies in the literature of the mid-19th century”) states the emergence of a number of works of art, the authors of which abandon the principles of satirical poetics when depicting the Old Believers

The third chapter of the dissertation (“Old Believer merchants in the dilogy “In the Forests” and “On the Mountains””) is devoted, respectively, to the novels of P.I. Melnikov-Pechersky and the peculiarities of the depiction of the merchants, since the vast majority of the heroes of the dilogy belong precisely to this social group.

The first paragraph (“The image of the Old Believers and the stylistic features of the dilogy”) stipulates that the study is based on the definition of the term

“artistic style” given by A.F. Losev. The task that P.I. set himself is specified. Melnikov, starting to work on the dilogy: “...to depict the life of the Great Russians in localities with different developments, under different conditions of the social system of life, with different beliefs and at different levels of education.” The paragraph and further in the chapter show that in order to fulfill it, the writer was forced to look for a special style capable of displaying and recreating a completely different, special image of the Old Believers, which could not be realized in the literary word with the help of the already established satirical poetics of the image of the Old Believers . To implement his ideas P.I. Melnikov needed a different poetics, a special system of visual means that would allow him to adequately embody in artistic images the culture, value guidelines (including those of the author), the religious and everyday way of life of all social strata represented in the dilogy, and mainly the Old Believer merchants. The artistic embodiment of the image of the Old Believer Volga region required the work to have different stylistic dominants, different approaches to the system of characters in the dilogy, and special techniques for creating individual heroes.

The organizing principles and stylistic dominants of the dilogy were descriptiveness and life-likeness, which made it possible to most fully realize the task set by the writer in artistic images. A distinctive feature of the principle of life-likeness in the dilogy is that here it is different from the stories (“Poyarkov”, “Grisha”), and does not serve satirical purposes or to discredit specific individuals, as in “Essays on Priesthood”. Descriptiveness in the dilogy presupposes not only a detailed and accurate artistic reproduction of the features of monastery and merchant life, the ethnographic features of the Old Believers of the Volga region, regional coloring, it certainly has a noticeable impact on the methods of creating special human characters. Descriptiveness and life-likeness dictate the special use of folk vocabulary, dialectisms, and regionalisms. Descriptiveness as a stylistic dominant subordinates the composition of the dilogy, which is manifested, in particular, in the peculiarities of plot construction.

To create a convincing artistic image of the Old Believers with its folk understanding of religion, P.I. Melnikov refers the reader to the culture of the environment from which the hero came. The stylistic dominants of the dilogy work to create and embody a unique, unique image of the Old Believers in its inextricable connection with the people's worldview, the image of the entire Old Believer Volga region with its culture, economy and other features. The Old Believers are represented by diverse characters; they are shown in a multifaceted and non-schematic way. The duology character system has been built

also based on the principle of descriptiveness. The character is important P.I. Melnikov not as a participant in the plot action, but rather as a means for revealing artistic content, for recreating and revealing not only individual character, but a broader, significant image, united in its diversity - the image of the people, nation, population of the Volga region.

The writer’s main approaches to the artistic depiction of the main characters (Old Believers) include the combination of contradictions, versatility of character, demonstration of rejection of the church-hierarchical system of modern Old Believers, and the close connection of the hero and the cultural environment. Now the writer moves from the image-scheme to the image-character. A positive hero, an Old Believer, appears in the dilogy. However, an essential feature of his portrayal is either the hero’s declaration of a break with the Old Believer environment, or its constant criticism.

Nevertheless, for the first time in Russian literature, the image of the Old Believer hero was shown against a broad cultural background with which this hero is vitally connected and which nuances some of the character’s characteristics.

The duality of some characters is due to the writer’s ambiguous attitude towards the Old Believers. Artistic concept by P.I. Melnikov’s goal was to recreate the image of the Volga Old Believers in all the diversity of human types, as well as to show its doom, the need to reunite with the “Great Russian Church” (as the heroes of the dilogy call it) and the ability in this case to positively influence society P.I. Melnikov not only discovered and showed a positive character in the Old Believer environment - he showed it as a national ideal, immersed in the religious and everyday atmosphere of the Old Believers, becoming akin to it. The writer primarily thought of Patap Chapurin and Manefa as such an ideal. Their opposition would be incorrect. Personifying the worldly and spiritual, Chapurin and Manefa at the same time symbolize their unity: they are blood brother and sister. They are different sides of the same coin.

The duality of the hero in a dilogy can be of different types. If the character of Patap Chapurin combines ironic mockery of the Old Believers and an inextricable affiliation with it, then in the character of Yakim Stukolov ascetic religiosity is combined with criminal activity without entering into a contradiction. Religiosity and the ability to deceive while conducting trade are traits of Marko Danilych Smolokurov. The same Vasily Borisych, on the one hand

On the other hand, he appears as a “great book reader” who “knew ancient books like the back of his hand,” on the other hand, as an ordinary womanizer.

The combination of opposites is not found in P.I. Melnikov's psychological understanding, it is not shown by the writer through internal monologues or other artistic techniques. Psychologism is not the stylistic dominant of the dilogy, although those pages where the author talks about the emotional experiences of the characters, their moods, convince of the subtle skill of psychological analysis. In general, the heroes of the dilogy are little inclined to self-esteem and introspection. Psychologism as a stylistic dominant would require the author to construct a different plot, composition, resort to special techniques for depicting characters, their emotions, remove statistical aspects and detailed detail from the narrative, and would require different laws for organizing the material world of the dilogy, working to reflect the inner world of the heroes. Psychologism, in contrast to descriptiveness as a stylistic dominant, would not have allowed solving the task set by P.I. Melnikov “to depict the life of the Great Russians...”. In our opinion, this is also one of the reasons forcing the writer to leave aside the explanation of the mechanism for combining different opposites in the characters’ characters.

Positive hero P.I. Melnikov is characterized by patriarchy. At the same time, the depiction of the behavior of positive heroes is determined by the principle of creating a “bifurcated” character. P.I. Melnikov empathizes with such an Old Believer hero who, being the bearer of the old and persistent Russian worldview, can break with the Old Believer environment (Chubalov, Dunya Smolokurova, having a wedding in a Edinoverie church) or does not feel completely and completely belonging to this environment. At the very least, he must resist dead religious dogma and be open to feeling (Flenushka).

The third paragraph (“Russian owner” in the system of characters in the dilogy “In the Forests” and “On the Mountains”) analyzes the images of merchants, united into a special type - “Russian owners” (the definition of the Old Believer publicist V.P. Ryabushinsky was used). The “owners” are characterized by a patriarchal way of life, a special Domostroevsky worldview, based on the awareness of their 011C1ness before God for wealth, a special attitude to entrepreneurship, family life, and religion. Images of fanatics like Grisha from the story of the same name fade into the background in the dilogy. Fanaticism is shown as one of the distinctive features of Khlystyism, and not of the Old Believers (“On the Mountains”). The choice of the merchants as the main social group to which the main characters of the dilogy belong was of a fundamental nature for the writer. The solution to the problem of Russia's development was connected for him precisely with the Russian coupe-

an honor that has not lost its national roots. One of the artistic merits of P.I. Melnikov is that he introduced completely original characters into literature - merchants-Old Believers of the Volga region, creating a special artistic image of the Volga Old Believers. The paragraph criticizes the analysis of the character system in the novels of P.I. Melnikov and an attempt to classify them, undertaken by literary critic L.M. Bagretsov in his work “Schismatic types in the fictional works of P.I. Melnikov-Pechersky" (1904).

The fourth paragraph is called “Other types of Old Believers in the dilogy.” Here we consider the features and functions of the images of those heroes who do not belong to the group of “masters”. Oto Stukolov, Alexey Lokhmaty, merchants Snezhkovs, Vasily Borisych. The fact of the writer’s use of anti-Old Believer journalism when creating the image of Vasily Borisych was noted and analyzed (the anonymous article “How we went for peace to Belaya Krinitsa”, published in No. 3 of “Russian Messenger” for 1864).

The conclusion summarizes the results of the study.

The writer’s creative principles in creating the artistic image of the Old Believers and Old Believers underwent evolution. So, at the turn of the 1850-1860s. These images personify the “shortcomings of the Russian people” that must be eradicated. The positive Old Believer hero only became the object of artistic depiction in the dilogy. The ethnopsychological image of Russians analyzed in the dissertation, outlined by the writer in the “Report on the current state of the schism in the Nizhny Novgorod province” (largely naive), was, however, “remelted” by P.I. Melnikov in artistic quality when working on the stories “Poyarkov” and “Grisha”.

The writer’s ideological approaches to depicting the Old Believers interacted with approaches already included in the literature from journalism, entrenched, for example, in the works of I.I. Lazhechnikova, M. N. Zagoskina. The lack of everyday life, the presence of caricature elements, anecdotal inserts, the artificiality of situations and characters, due to the desire to depict the negative in the Old Believers as typical, are the distinctive features of the stories of P.I. Melnikova.

Make a complete classification of the characters in P.I.’s dilogy. Melnikov’s “In the Forests” and “On the Mountains” is very problematic due to their considerable number and the difficulty in determining the criteria. The attempts that have taken place, which put the degree of sincerity and devotion of the heroes to the Old Believers at the forefront (for example, the attempt of L.M. Bagretsov), are unconvincing. However, in his novels P.I. Melnikov recreated a special type of literary hero, who, according to a number of criteria, can be conditionally defined as a “Russian master” (the expression

V.P. Ryabushinsky) and is singled out as a special group in the general system of characters.

In the duology “In the Forests” and “On the Mountains,” the writer managed to move away from the established patterns of depicting the Old Believers, which he himself once followed. His heroes appear here as holistic, convincing characters, and not schemes of the General Staff. Melnikov showed his heroes in inextricable connection with the cultural environment to which they belong, and at the same time saw and outlined a national positive ideal in the Old Believer environment.

1. Bochenkov V.V. “Essays on priesthood” by P.I. Melnikov-Pechersky as a work of journalism and the depiction of the Old Believer priesthood in them - In the book. Old Believers: history, culture, modernity. Materials of the VI scientific and practical conference. - M., 2002. - P. 365 - 372. (0.5 pl.).

2. Bochenkov V.V. The national ideal in the dilogy of P.I. Melnikov-Pechersky. - In the book. Three centuries of Russian literature - relevant aspects of study. Interuniversity collection of scientific works - Vol. 6 - M., Irkutsk. - 2004. -S. 128-134.(0.5 pl.).

3. Bochenkov V.V. Melnikov Pavel Ivanovich. - In the book. Holy Rus'. Great encyclopedia of the Russian people. Russian literature. - M.: Institute of Russian Civilization. - 2004. - P.643 - 645. (0.4 pl.).

4. Bochenkov V.V. The role of the tragic and the motive of the “repentant sinner” (P.I. Melnikov-Pechersky, I.I. Lazhechnikov, A.V. Ivanov, F.V. Livanov). -In the book Three centuries of Russian literature: current aspects of study. Interuniversity collection of scientific works - Vol. 9. - M., Irkutsk. - 2004. - P. 152 - 157. (0.4 pl.).

For notes

Oshechatano at the copy center "ST PRINT" Moscow, Lenin Hills, Moscow State University, 1st Humanities Building. vvv\ vv.stprint.ru e-mail: [email protected] tel. 939-3338 circulation 100 copies. Signed for publication on 02/07/2005

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"-2AC 1 2005-4

CHAPTER I. Formation of views of P.I. Melnikov on the Old Believers and their reflection in stories

1.1.Old Believer specificity and artistic analysis of works

P.I. Melnikova

1.2.Principles of anti-Old Believer journalism, formed before P.I. Melnikova

1.3.Literary and artistic understanding of the Old Believers before P.I. Melnikova;

1.^Formation of views of P.I. Melnikov on the Old Believers,

CHAPTER II. Features of the depiction of the Old Believers in the works of P.I. Melnikov (before the dilogy “In the Forests” and “On the Mountains”)

2.1.The story “Grisha”: on the problem of interpreting the behavior of characters

2.2. “Righteous” and “sinners” in “Grisha”

2.3.Literary sources of images in the story “Grisha”

2.4. The illusion of authenticity as a principle of anti-Old Believer satire

P. I. Melnikova

2.5.P.I. Melnikov and F.V. Livanov - two satirists of the Old Believers

2.6. The role of the tragic and the motif of the “repentant sinner” in works denouncing the Old Believers;

2.7. “Essays on clericalism” in the aspect of journalism and the depiction of the Old Believer priesthood in them

2.8. P.I. Melnikov and the weakening of anti-Old Believer tendencies in literature of the mid-19th century

CHAPTER III. Old Believer merchants in the dilogy “In the Forests” and “On the Mountains”

3.1. The image of the Old Believers and the stylistic features of the dilogy

3.3. “Russian master” in the character system of the duology “In the Forests” and “On the Mountains”

3.4. Other types of Old Believers in the dilogy

Introduction of the dissertation 2005, abstract on philology, Bochenkov, Viktor Vyacheslavovich

P.I. Melnikov remains a little-studied writer for various reasons. One of them is the lack of criticism that would appreciate him at his true worth (and not just as an ethnographic writer) and would contribute to the popularity of his works. This circumstance was pointed out at the beginning of the 20th century by A.A., who highly appreciated the writer. Izmailov: “His novels appeared already when Russian criticism became impoverished. Most critics did not consider anything beyond the external forms and external facts of Melnikov’s story.”1 A.A. Izmailov, in his critical-biographical essay, substantiated the artistic validity of the writer’s works.

Reviews from critics about P.I. Melnikov during his lifetime did not generally contain a sufficiently deep analysis of his work. About P.I. Melnikov wrote to O.F. Miller, A.P. Miliukov, A.N. Pypin, S.A. Vengerov, A.M. Skabichevsky, historian and friend of the writer D.I. Ilovaisky. Summing up the critical reviews that appeared in print during the 25 years that have elapsed since the death of the writer, H.A. Savvin stated: “By a strange irony of fate, Melnikov still has not received a detailed - thorough - if not study, then analysis as a fiction writer. None of the critics and literary historians gave a full coverage of the literary physiognomy of the writer, did not find out the meaning of his artistic images, did not put it in general connection with previous literary development, did not indicate the basic techniques of creativity; in most cases, the matter is limited to the most general, most concise description of a talented writer.”2 I

After the death of P.I. Melnikov received negative assessments of his work. For example, he spoke negatively about the duology of A.M. Skabichevsky: “In these novels

1 Izmailov A.A. P.I. Melnikov-Pechersky (critic-biographical essay) // Complete works of P.I. Melnikov (Andrey Pechersky): In 7 volumes, 2nd ed. - St. Petersburg, 1909. - T. 1. - P.5.

2 Savvin N.A. P.I. Melnikov in the assessment of literary criticism // Collection in memory of P.I. Melnikov (Andrey Pechersky). - Nizhny Novgorod., 1910. - 4.1. - P. 296. there is no point in looking for any artistic merit, as well as psychological truth. The life of the Volga schismatics, which forms the content of these novels, is depicted in them from one external, ethnographic side.”3 “Melnikov liked to show off his goods, that is, to furnish his material more effectively, embellish it with archaeological rarities, found folk expressions, etc., and The ethnographic picture is indeed very interesting. But what worldview underlies it? To what extent do the author’s own interpretations and combinations explain the depicted life? In this sense, the result of the stories is very small,” writes A.N. Pypin4. In giving such assessments, critics, as already noted, casually analyzed the writer’s artistic skill; the harsh tone of their assessments was due to the discrepancy in views on some social phenomena that were then relevant.

The most complete pre-revolutionary work on P.I. Melnikov's book was P.S. Usova, who opened the collected works of the writer, published in 1897 - 1898 by M.O. Wolf5. It is mainly biographical in nature. It published for the first time many documents related to the activities of P.I. Melnikov in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, with his life and work. However, in general, in pre-revolutionary literary criticism, P.I. Melnikov firmly established his reputation as an “ethnographer writer.” It was this side of his work that was highlighted, in addition to A.M. Skabichevsky, A.N. Pypin (“The story “On the Mountains” is half a work with artistic intentions, half ethnography”)6 and S.A. Vengerov, 7 H.A. Yanchuk8.

Literary understanding of the writer’s work begins in the Soviet era. In 1928, an article by P.O. Pilashevsky “On the question of composition and

3 Skabichevsky A.M. History of modern Russian literature. 7th ed. - St. Petersburg, 1909. - P. 225.

4 Pypin A.N. History of Russian ethnography: In 4 volumes - St. Petersburg, 1891.-Vol.2. -P.401.

3 Usov P.S. P.I. Melnikov, his life and literary activity // Melnikov P.I. Complete works: In 7 volumes - St. Petersburg. - M., - 1897 - T. 1. - 324 p. Pypin A.N. History of Russian ethnography: In 4 volumes - St. Petersburg, 1891. - Volume 2. - P. 400.

7 Vengerov S. Melnikov Pavel Ivanovich // Encyclopedic Dictionary (publishers F.A. Brockhaus and N.A. Efron). - St. Petersburg, 1896. - T. 19. - P.46 - 48.

8 Yanchuk H.A. Melnikov as an ethnographer // History of Russian literature of the 19th century. - M., 1910. - T.IV. style of the novel by P.I. Melnikov "In the woods"9. Then the article by G.S. Vinogradova “Folklore sources of Melnikov-Pechersky’s novel “In the Woods””, which opened this novel, published by the Academia publishing house in 1936. The author of the article argued that the use of folklore and ethnographic elements is a means of creating artistic images, which is also necessary for an accurate and realistic depiction of folk life. But, assessing generally positively these and other works about the writer, in 1957 D.A. Markov was forced to state: “The language and style of Melnikov-Pechersky have been little studied.”10

A notable contribution to the study of the work of P.I. Melnikova contributed JI.M. Lotman11, i considering the writer’s work in the context of the general development of Russian literature of the 19th century in comparison with the work of contemporaries P.I. Melnikova.

To date, the most studied side of the work of P.I.

Melnikov remains the folklore aspect. Research of folklore in the works of P.I. Melnikov also touched upon the study of the stylistic features of the writer’s work. In works aimed at research and operation

9 Pilashevsky P.O. On the question of the composition and style of the novel by P.I. Melnikov “In the forests” // News of Nizhny Novgorod University, 1928. - Vol. 2. - SZZO - 347. ■

10 Markov D. A. Language and style of Melnikov-Pechersky in the assessment of Russian criticism // Moscow Regional Pedagogical Institute. Scientific notes. - M., 1957. - T. XLVIII. - Vol. 4. - P.56. Lotman JI.M. Melnikov-Pechersky // History of Russian literature. - M. - JL, 1956. - T.9. - 4.2. pp. 198 - 227; hers - Realism of Russian literature of the 60s of the 19th century (origins and aesthetic originality). - J.I. 1974 - 352 units; hers is a novel from folk life. Ethnographic novel // History of the Russian novel: In 2 volumes - M. - JL, 1964. - T.2 - P.405 - 415; hers - Russian historical and philological science and fiction of the second half of the 19th century (interaction and development) // Russian literature. 1996. - No. 1 - P.19 - 44.

11 Voronina M.F. Sources of the Kitezh legend in the novel by P.I. Melnikov (A. Pechersky) “In the forests” - in the book: “Folklore of the Peoples of the RSFSR”. - Ufa, 1979. - P.48 - 54; Vinogradov G.S. Folklore sources of Melnikov's novel “In the Woods”. - In the book: Melnikov-Pechersky P.I., “In the Forests”, M. - JL, 1936. - P. VIII - LXVII; His<,е -Опыт выяснения фольклорных источников романа Мельникова-Печерского «В лесах». - в кн.: «Советский фольклор». №2 - 3. М. - JL, 1936. - С. 341 - 368; Власова З.И. П.И. Мельников. - В кн.: Русская литература и фольклор. (Вторая половина 19 в.), - JL, 1982; Коренова К.Е. Фольклор народов Поволжья в историко-этнографических работах П.И. Мельникова-Печерского. - в кн.: «Фольклор народов РСФСР». - Уфа. 1976., -Вып 3. - С. 161 - 167. Курдин Ю.А. Идейно-композиционные функции фольклора в дилогии П.И. Мельникова-Печерского «В лесах» и «На горах» / Моск. гос. пед. ин-т им.В.И.Ленина. - М., 1986. - 25 с. Его же -Художественная функция фольклора в романах П.И. Мельникова-Печерского «В лесах» и «На горах» // Проблемы интерпретации художественных произведений. - М., 1985. - С. 116-122. Его же - Постоянные эпитеты в авторской речи П.И. Мельникова-Печерского («В лесах») // Проблемы взаимовлияния фольклора и литературы. - М., 1986. - С. 100 -109. Его же - Традиции народной сатиры в творчестве П.И. Мельникова-Печерского // Фольклорные традиции в русской и советской литературе. - М., 1987. - С. 100 -111. Макаров В.Г. Об особенностях функционирования пословиц и поговорок в романе П.И. Мельникова-Печерского «На горах» // Частные вопросы общего языкознания. - Чебоксары, 1993. - С. 17-30; Марков А.В. Мельников-Печерский как собиратель былин // Этнографическое обозрение. - 1908. - Кн. 79.- №4. - С.134 - 135; Кудряшов И.В.; Курдин Ю.А. Эстетика и поэтика народной поэзии в портретных описаниях персонажей дилогии П.И. Мельникова-Печерского «В лесах» и «На горвх» // Аркадий Гайдар и круг детского и юношеского чтения. - Арзамас, 2001. -С. 130-139. фольклора в произведениях писателя, затрагивались вопросы создания образов старообрядцев с помощью фольклорных средств. Исследователи обратили внимание на художественные связи писателя с «предшествующим литературным развитием» (диссертации П.И. Лещенко «Ранний период творчества П.И. Мельникова-Печерского (истоки и взаимосвязи)», Л.М. Рудневой «П.И. Мельников-Печерский в 1830 - 60-е годы. (Вопросы биографии и творчества)», на особенности создания им художественного портрета (диссертация И.В. Кудряшова «Дилогия ТТ И. Мельникова-Печерского "В лесах" и "На горах" (поэтика портрета)»), на жанровую специфику романов (диссертация Э.Т. Какильбаевой «Дилогия П.И. Мельникова-Печерского "В лесах" и "На горах" (Система образов и особенности жанра)»). Тем не менее специфика художественного изображения старообрядчества остается пока не вскрытой.

During the Soviet years, two collected works of P.I. were published. Melnikova. The first, six volumes, edited, with notes and a critical and biographical essay by M.P. Eremina, was published in 1963. The second collection, in eight volumes, also prepared by M.P. Eremin, - in 1976. Links to works by P.I. Melnikov's dissertation on the eight-volume collected works (the first number is the volume number, the second is the page).

In the introductory articles by M.P. Eremina, F.M. Levin (his article “Epic

P.I. Melnikov" opens the novel "On the Mountains", republished in 1956), the writer's official and literary activities were reviewed. The articles contain a number of valuable comments, however, the specific attitude towards religion at the time when they were published influences the general tone of assessments of many episodes of the dilogy and leads to their subjective interpretation. For the same reason, the writer’s anti-Old Believer attitudes were not re-evaluated, and a sharply negative, satirical depiction of, for example, monastic life was clearly regarded as

13 Levin F.M. Epic P.I. Melnikova // Melnikov P.I. On the mountains. - M., 1956. - Book. 1. - pp. 3 - 27. the dignity of the dilogy, one of the “truthfully drawn pictures of life”14. In our opinion, the depiction of the Old Believers in the writer’s work remained quite subjective, which cannot be ignored.

Of the works on the writer in recent years, the most complete book remains the book by V.F. Sokolova “P.I. Melnikov-Pechersky. Essay on life and creativity." Here, the sources that served as the basis for a number of storylines in the dilogy “In the Woods” and “On the Mountains” are analyzed, information about the prototypes of some heroes is identified and summarized, literary characteristics of the main characters are given, and an excursion into the writer’s creative laboratory is given.

Artistic analysis of the works of P.I. Melnikov should, in our opinion, correlate with the peculiarities of the development of the writer’s views on the Old Believers, taking into account the influence of anti-Old Believer journalism on the writer’s work.

The writer usually endows the literary hero with certain character traits: one-sided or multi-sided, integral or contradictory, static or developing, evoking respect or contempt, etc. THE PURPOSE of the work is to analyze the evolution of the artistic character of the Old Believer in the works of Melnikov, starting from his stories at the turn of 1850-60 (“Poyarkov”, “Grisha”) and ending with the novels “In the Forests” and “On the Mountains”.

In accordance with the stated purpose, the following TASKS of the study were determined:

1. Reveal the ideological foundations of the depiction of the Old Believers, the creation of artistic characters, and explain their originality. We consider it important to dwell on this particular aspect, since we agree with the thoughts of P.N. Sakulin that the writer’s worldview is directly reflected in the creation of an artistic image. “Worldview is understood as poetic

14 Kuleshov V.I. History of Russian literature of the 19th century. 70 - 90s. - M., 1983. - P. 74. concept of life and peace. It permeates all the artistic creativity of the poet and school.”15

3.Trace the influence of anti-Old Believer journalism on the creation of certain characters.

4.Identify the main artistic techniques for creating P.I. Melnikov's image of the Old Believer in stories and in the dilogy, as well as some literary sources used by the writer and not previously noted by literary scholars.

THE RELEVANCE of the work is due to the poor knowledge of the listed aspects of P.I.’s creativity. Melnikova.

THE MATERIAL FOR THE RESEARCH was the writer’s stories touching on Old Believer themes (“Poyarkov”, “Grisha”), “Essays on priesthood”, the dilogy “In the Forests” and “On the Mountains”. For comparison purposes, the works of I.I. Lazhechnikova, M.N. Zagoskina, O. Zabytogo, F.V. Livanova and others."

The THEORETICAL-METHODOLOGICAL basis of the dissertation is the works of A.A. Potebnya, M.M. Bakhtina, A.F. Loseva, A.N. Veselovsky, Yu.B. Boreva, Yu.I. Mineralova and others.

PRACTICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY. The dissertation materials can be used in university basic lecture courses, special courses, special seminars, and when working on commentaries on the writer’s works.

According to STRUCTURE, the dissertation, in addition to the introduction, consists of three chapters and a conclusion. The structure is determined by the above-mentioned goals of the work and the specifics of the material.

The first chapter is “The formation of the views of P.I. Melnikov on the Old Believers and their reflection in his stories." Here are outlined the main stages in the development of anti-Old Believer journalism (including before P.I. Melnikov) and

15 Sakulin P.N. Theory of literary styles. - in the book: “Philology and Culturology”. - M., 1U90. - P.141. its influence on the fiction of the first half of the 19th century, touching on Old Believer themes, is shown. It is noted that the image of the Old Believers is constructed in accordance with a certain journalistic task, a “social order”, in accordance with the stereotypes that have developed in journalism and in public opinion. Such, for example, are the images of the Old Believers in “The Last Novik” by I.I. Lazhechnikov, “Bryn Forest” by M.N. Zagoskina. The Old Believers continue to remain a closed world for literature, despite the era of romanticism with all its attention to the national, to the folk, and, in fact, for the natural school with its attention to everyday specifics, human types, and ethnography. Stories by P.I. Melnikov’s “Poyarkov” and “Grisha” also bear a noticeable imprint of the journalistic stereotypes that had developed by that time with a characteristic emphasis on the negative character traits of the Old Believer and the motives of behavior.

The FIRST chapter analyzes the current situation with P.I. Melnikov in the first half of the 1850s, the so-called concept of “shortcomings of the Russian people”, set out in the “Report on the current state of the schism in the Nizhny Novgorod province.” This concept is a unique attempt to describe the ethnic image of Russian Old Believers. Concept of P.I. Melnikova is in many ways naive, shaky, incomplete, and often poorly reasoned. Nevertheless, this was a certain stage in his personal understanding of the national characteristics of the Russian people, the fruit of his observations, thoughts, reflections. This concept, which literary scholars have not addressed, allows us to clarify some of the features of the depiction of the heroes of the story “Grisha” and take a fresh look at it. The images of the heroes of the story (and an artistic image, as we know, always carries a generalization, that is, it has a typical 3 meaning) personify certain “shortcomings of the Russian people” identified by P.I. Melnikov in the “Report.” Dependence on the concept of “Disadvantages.” a number of oddities in the actions of the characters are explained, the concept allows us to resolve the issue of interpreting the behavior of the heroes of this work.

The first chapter also defines the main features of GS’s works. Melnikov at the turn of the 1850s - 60s, relating to the Old Believers.

CHAPTER TWO (“Features of the depiction of the Old Believers in the works of P.I. Melnikov (first half of the 1860s)”) examines the features of the anti-Old Believer satire of P.I. Melnikova. The main satirical oppositions used by the writer are revealed. The features of the satirical depiction of the Old Believers are compared with the work of F.V. Livanov, whose views on the Old Believers were distinguished by extreme conservatism and sharp rejection of this religious movement. Although these writers, of course, have different talents, in their work one can identify some similarities in motives, accusatory and satirical techniques and, of course, differences.

The chapter also analyzes the role of tragic elements in anti-Old Believer satire and the so-called “repentant sinner” motif. It consists in the fact that the hero, strictly adhering to the Old Believers and having gone through various everyday vicissitudes, becomes convinced of the wrongness of his religious doctrine (often under the influence of some strong shock), repents and joins the dominant religion. Denying the norms of Old Believer ethics by introducing a tragic conflict, some writers (I.I. Lazhechnikov, A.B. Ivanov) tried to show that no matter how deep the hero’s fall may reach, it does not exclude the possibility of purification. An Old Believer hero who committed a crime (often a serious crime involving the shedding of blood) or caused someone’s death was brought to repentance. Repentance and renunciation of the Old Believers elevated such a hero, but looked artificial. Realizing that the introduction of the motive of a repentant sinner requires great psychological authenticity, P.I. Melnikov, with his artistic flair, avoided using it and did not dare to describe the sharp, dramatic turns in the destinies of his heroes.

A separate paragraph of the second chapter is devoted to the historical and journalistic work “Essays on Priesthood” and the principles of depicting the Old Believer priesthood in it. They are compared with the artistic style of writers close to the populist camp - O. Zabyty (G.I. Nedetovsky), N. Alexandrov.

THE THIRD CHAPTER of the dissertation (“Old Believer merchants in the dilogy “In the Forests” and “On the Mountains””) is devoted, accordingly, to the peculiarities of the image of the merchants. Since the attitude of P.I. Melnikov's approach to the Old Believers changed, then the system of visual means and the figurative structure of the works underwent changes. P.I. Melnikov was forced to look for a special style, capable of displaying and recreating a completely different, special image of the Old Believers than the one created with the help of satirical poetics. The characters in the dilogy are completely different. From the image-scheme the writer moves to the image-character. A positive hero, an Old Believer, appears in the dilogy. However, an essential feature of his portrayal is the hero’s declaration of a break with the Old Believer environment or its constant criticism. The correctness of the Old Believers and the canonicity of the restoration of the Belokrinitsky church hierarchy P.I. Melnikov instructs Stukolov, a negative hero, an adventurer, to defend it.

The images of fanatics fade into the background (Grisha). The merchant-Old Believer, an enterprising owner, and organizer of production is put forward to the first. In other words, the group of people with whom the writer associated the development of the country. Using the expression of the Old Believer publicist V.P. Ryabushinsky, in the third chapter we highlight a special group of heroes of the dilogy - the “Russian master”. At the same time, it is stipulated that due to the diversity, individualization of characters, and due to other features of the system of characters in the dilogy, it is hardly possible to offer their complete, harmonious classification. The classification of L.M. was criticized. Bagretsov, proposed by him in the work “Schismatic types in the fictional works of P.I. Melnikov-Pechersky" (1901), which is based on a criterion that presupposes the need to take into account the degree of sincerity of the characters' attitude towards the Old Believers (random "representatives of the schism", true "zealots of ancient piety", transitional types).

In conclusion, the results of the study are summarized and conclusions substantiated in the chapters of the dissertation are formulated.

Conclusion of scientific work dissertation on the topic "The work of P.I. Melnikov-Pechorsky and the depiction of the Old Believers in Russian literature of the 19th century"

P.I. Melnikov did not lag behind his time, and this concerns the artistic interpretation of the Old Believers. His study proceeded in conjunction with the problem of the historical destiny of Russia, the Russian people, which was solved by the writer from a position very close to the Slavophile. Initially, in the 1850s, the views of P.I. Melnikov's views on the Old Believers were no different from those generally accepted; The author's assessment and the character of the characters were influenced by the stereotypes that had developed since the end of the 17th century in anti-Old Believer journalism. Typical qualities of the characters in “Poyarkov” and “Grisha” are fanaticism, inability to do good, duplicity, hypocrisy, stupidity, justification of sin with religious arguments. The positive Old Believer hero did not become the object of artistic depiction. The Old Believers personify the “shortcomings of the Russian people” that must be eradicated. The concept of “Disadvantages...”, set out in the “Report on the current state of the schism in the Nizhny Novgorod province,” is largely naive, and was “melted” into artistic quality when working on the stories “Poyarkov” and “Grisha.” To the Old Believers - the heroes of these stories - characterized by gullible compliance with various absurd religious views and a tendency to break the law. These qualities are revealed with the help of anecdotal situations, characteristics put into the mouths of the characters, author's characteristics, and with the help of satirical sharpening of certain character traits of the character. The satirical depiction of the Old Believers dominates the descriptive one. In the “Report on the Current State...” we come across episodes in which the Old Believer life is carefully and in detail described (home decoration, features of clothing, speech) and which could be used in a work of art, for example, to characterize the hero, his family, for enhancing the credibility effect. But P.I. Melnikov did not implement these rich observations in his stories, although the combination of satirical and everyday descriptive tasks was quite possible. This was achieved, for example, by M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin in the essays “Mother Mavra Kuzmovna” and “The Wanderer” from the series of “Provincial Sketches”. The generally satirical depiction of the Old Believers is made here in close connection with an accurate, in the spirit of the natural school, depiction of their life. But if Shchedrin’s official from “Mother Mavra Kuzmovna,” on whose behalf the essay was written, is a keen observer capable of noticing various everyday trifles, then Melnikov’s official Poyarkov is prone to malicious ridicule of the Old Believers, telling the narrator anecdotes about monasteries, not considering it important to characterize the closed the world of the Old Believers through everyday life, not distorted by caricature deformation. The absence of everyday life, the presence of caricature elements, anecdotal inserts, the artificiality of situations and characters, due to the desire to depict the negative in the Old Believers as typical - the distinctive features of the stories of P.I. Melnikov "Poyarkov" and "Grisha". The writer’s ideological approaches to depicting the Old Believers coincided with approaches already included in journalism from journalism, which were entrenched, for example, in the works of I.I. Lazhechnikova, M.N. Zagoskina. The commonality of these approaches is also noticeable in the comparative analysis of the stories of P.I. Melnikov (between 1850 and 1860) with the works of his contemporary F.V. Livanov, despite the great difference in their talents. It should be noted that, belonging to the “protesters of the schism,” P.I. Melnikov avoided some of the common artistic techniques that his contemporaries used when creating the image of the Old Believer. In the plot line of his stories there is no movement of the Old Believer hero from crime to repentance with subsequent joining the “Great Russian Church”. A similar plot device (motive) is noted in the works of A.V. Ivanova, F.V. Livanov, among the more famous writers - I.I. Lazhechnikova. The depiction of the hero's religious reorientation and changes in his inner world required different stylistic dominants, a rejection of satirical caricature in favor of psychologism, which none of the listed authors did. Therefore, the motif of the repentant sinner of the Old Believers looked artificial and far-fetched in their works. P.I. Melnikov refused it; at the same time, psychologism did not become the stylistic dominant of his works. The inner world of the hero, his experiences, feelings, thoughts, actions are revealed with the help of self- and mutual characteristics, letters, various folklore means (stylization of a folk song, the use of sayings, proverbs). But in general, the characters of P.I. Melnikov, both in his stories and in his novels, are little inclined to reflection and introspection. Old Believer legends, beliefs, and lives widely used in the dilogy are intended to reflect the special worldview of the heroes, not only the characteristics of psychological states, makeup and movements of the soul. Having pointed out the features of the image of the Old Believers, we agree with the conclusion of L.M. Lotman: “The combination of the most traditional means of artistic representation with realistic methods of characterizing a person and his inner world, developed by the literature of the 19th century and not alien to the oral folk art of modern times, was one of the integral features of Melnikov’s work, which left a special imprint on the figurative system of novels”*" ^. At the same time, it is necessary to point out the features of the depiction of real Old Believers in the historical and journalistic works of P.I. Melnikov, otherwise this characteristic, which relates only to the writer’s artistic creativity, will not be entirely sufficient to imagine his overall approaches to creating the image of the Old Believers. The writer had a neutral attitude towards personalities and events of Old Believer history that went into the distant past. At the same time, modern Old Believers remain in the crosshairs of harsh satire. This feature is preserved in the duology “In the Woods” and “On the Mountains”. Just look at the sympathy with which P.I. Melnikov retells and uses in the artistic space of the novels, “Essays on Priesthood,” Old Believer legends, episodes “^” by A. Starikov. On the psychologism of P.I.’s novels. Melnikov (Andrey Pechersky) // Creative individuality of the writer and interaction of literature. - Alma-Ata, 1988. - 36." "Lotman L.M. A novel from folk life. Ethnographic novel. - In the book: “The History of the Russian Novel.” - L. -

M., 1964.-T.2.-P.413. LIVES of the ascetics of “ancient piety”. But when it is necessary to introduce into the essay, to mention in the novel a real person (be it a priest who remained faithful to the Old Believers, an active figure in the Old Believers (such as Afoniy Kochuev, Archbishop Anthony, in the dilogy - Vasily Borisych), irony and emphasis on negative characteristics are used hero, their satirical sharpening, and sometimes unverified speculation concerning the personality of a particular person. One of the means of persuasion in journalism is fact; we have established that the writer, unfortunately, overly trusted unverified facts, hastily grasping at them. His style " Essays on Priesthood" represents an original fusion of documentary journalism, historical research with artistic techniques for depicting characters and events, expressing the author's subjective, emotional attitude to the subject of the image. The problem of the development and strengthening of Russia set the writer the task of determining which social stratum it will be connected with. Pledge of the future The writer saw the country in “Old Believers who will not be schismatics.” The ideological concept of the dilogy with its diversity could not be realized within the framework of the already established satirical poetics of the depiction of the Old Believers. P.I. Melnikov found a special approach to depicting his artistic ideas associated with the Old Believers. It is characterized by the fact that the heroes of the works are inseparable from their cultural environment and cannot be torn out of it. The dominance of satire is on its way to death. The characters characterize this environment, and it, in turn, characterizes them. The principle of immersion in the environment, in the Old Believer culture, was tested in Zauzoltsy and Grisha. Here the heroes acted as nomggels of Old Believer legends, in which they certainly believed, who influenced their actions. A detailed depiction of everyday life, ethnographic and mental characteristics was embodied in the dilogy. The image of the Old Believers is made up of images of various characters, main and secondary, it is characterized with the help of folklore means, the material world of the dilogy, the author's digressions, comments (often negative), and the mutual characteristics of the heroes. Even the author’s explanations in the footnotes serve this purpose. The organizing stylistic dominants of the duology “In the Woods” and “On the Mountains” were descriptiveness and life-likeness. The peculiarity of the principle of life-likeness is that it does not serve a satirical task, as in “Poyarkov” and “Grisha”, in those “Essays on Priesthood” that are dedicated to modern Old Believers. The evolution of images of Old Believers in the works of P.I. Melnikov is due to a change in his views on the historical mission of the Old Believers. From a sketchy character created according to the canons that originated in anti-Old Believer journalism, P.I. Melnikov moved, freeing himself from these canonical conventions, to create a complex, multifaceted, individual character in which the national ideal would be embodied. This or that hero is important to the writer as a means of developing a broader than individual character of the image - the image of the people, the Old Believers of the Volga region. It is formed and nuanced by the introduction of many minor characters into the artistic space of the dilogy, which gives it a special uniqueness and originality. In the dilogy, a special group of heroes can be identified, conventionally called “masters”. These Volga merchants are characterized by a special attitude to business, family life, and religion. The duology “In the Forests” and “On the Mountains” became the pinnacle of P.I.’s artistic heritage. Melnikova. Its originality lies in the fact that, firstly, the writer was able to convincingly show an unknown, isolated world - the world of the Old Believers, where, according to established traditions, it is not customary to share information and open up. And moreover, a world that Russia knew about only from tendentious publications. Secondly, the Old Believers, this “domestic Atlantis,” were represented by convincing human characters, where the individual and the typical represented a complex synthesis, despite a number of features of the author’s approach to creating a positive image of the Old Believers. At the beginning of the 20th century, literary critic L.M. Bagretsov accurately noted that the characters in the dilogy “... live the full lives of people occupying a certain social position, entering into family relationships - people with a certain mental make-up, character, inclinations, in a word - with a certain individuality” "*". The skill and artistic talent of P.I. Melnikov manifested themselves, in particular, in the fact that the writer sought to move away from the established patterns of depicting the Old Believers, which he himself once followed. His hero is conceived precisely as a holistic, convincing character, and not a scheme. The dilogy also showed the inexhaustible possibilities of Russian folklore. Folklore used by P.I. Melnikov in the author's speech, does not look alien, it organically fits both into the speech of the heroes and into the speech of the author, being one of the foundations of the individual creative consciousness of P.I. Melnikova. The writer relied on folklore images and symbols, accumulated his ideas and thoughts with the help of folk proverbs and sayings, even when he worked on critical articles - in a genre that seemed far from folklore. In addition, the genre nature of the dilogy is unique in itself, combining the features of a family, adventure, and everyday novel. In a dilogy it is impossible to identify one dominant theme; we can talk about a system of themes. P.I. Melnikov completely undermined the principles of artistic depiction of the Old Believers, identifying a positive ideal among the Old Believers. Moreover, he found and outlined a national ideal in this environment." Bagretsov L.M. Schismatic types in the fictional works of P.I. Melnikov-Pechersky. St. Petersburg, 1904.-P.2.

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