Critical literature war and peace. Strakhov War and Peace
In the early 60s, as already mentioned, I greeted the epic novel with irritation, not finding in it an image of the revolutionary intelligentsia and a denunciation of serfdom. The well-known critic V. Zaitsev in the article “Pearls and Adamants of Russian Journalism” (“Russian Word”, 1865, No. 2) described “1805” as a novel about “high-society figures.” The magazine “Delo” (1868, No. 4, 6; 1870, No. 1), in articles by D. Minaev, V. Bervi-Flerovsky and N. Shelgunov, assessed “War and Peace” as a work that lacks “deeply vital content”,
Its characters are considered “rude and dirty”, mentally “petrified” and “morally ugly”, and the general meaning of Tolstoy’s “Slavophile novel” is an apology for the “philosophy of stagnation”.
It is characteristic, however, that the critical side of the novel was sensitively grasped by the most perspicacious representative of democratic criticism of the 60s, M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin. He did not appear in print with an assessment of “War and Peace,” but in an oral conversation he noted: “But the so-called “high society” the Count famously grabbed.” D.I. Pisarev in the remaining unfinished article “Old nobility” (“Domestic
Notes”, 1868, No. 2) noted the “truth” in Tolstoy’s portrayal of representatives of high society and gave a brilliant analysis of the types of Boris Drubetsky and Nikolai Rostov; however, he was not satisfied with the “idealization” of the “old nobility”, the “involuntary and natural tenderness” with which the author treats his noble heroes.
The reactionary noble press and official “patriots” criticized “War and Peace” from a different perspective. A. S. Norov and others accused Tolstoy of distorting the historical era of 1812, that he outraged the patriotic feelings of his fathers, and ridiculed the highest circles of the nobility. Among the critical literature about “War and Peace,” the reviews of some military writers who were able to correctly assess Tolstoy’s innovation in depicting war stand out.
An employee of the newspaper “Russian Invalid” N. Lachinov published an article in 1868 (No. 96, dated April 10) in which he highly valued Tolstoy’s artistic skill in the military scenes of the novel, characterized the description of the Battle of Shengraben as “the height of historical and artistic truth” and agreed with Tolstoy's interpretation of the Battle of Borodino.
The article by the famous military figure and writer M.I. Dragomirov, published in 1868-1870 in the “Arms Collection”, is informative. Dragomirov believed that “War and Peace” should become a reference book for every military man: military scenes and scenes of military life “are inimitable and can constitute one of the most useful additions to any course in the theory of military art.” Dragomirov especially highly appreciated Tolstoy’s ability, when talking about “fictional” but “living” people, to convey “the inner side of the battle.”
Polemicizing with Tolstoy’s statements about the spontaneity of war, about the insignificance of the guiding will of the commander during the battle, Dragomirov rightly noted that Tolstoy himself presented wonderful pictures (for example, Bagration’s detour of troops before the start of the Battle of Shengraben), depicting the ability of true commanders to lead the spirit of the army and thereby the best way to control people during battle.
In general, “War and Peace” received the most profound assessment in the reviews of outstanding Russian writers - Tolstoy’s contemporaries. Goncharov, Turgenev, Leskov, Dostoevsky, Fet perceived “War and Peace” as a great, extraordinary literary event.
I. A. Goncharov, in a letter to P. B. Ganzen dated July 17, 1878, advising him to start translating Tolstoy’s novel into Danish, wrote: “This is a positively Russian “Iliad”, embracing a huge era, a huge event and representing a historical gallery great faces copied from life with a living brush by a great master. This work is one of the most capital, if not the most capital.” In 1879, objecting to Hansen, who decided to first translate Anna Karenina, Goncharov wrote: “War and Peace is an extraordinary poem-novel, both in content and in execution. And at the same time, this is also a monumental history of the glorious Russian era, where - either a figure, or a historical colossus, a statue cast in bronze. Even minor characters embody the characteristic features of Russian folk life.” In 1885, expressing satisfaction with the translation of Tolstoy’s works into Danish, especially the novel War and Peace, Goncharov remarked: “Count Tolstoy is positively superior to all of us.”
We find a number of remarkably correct judgments about “War and Peace” in articles by N. S. Leskov, published without a signature in 1869-1870 in the newspaper “Birzhevye Vedomosti”. Leskov called “War and Peace” “the best Russian historical novel”, “the pride of modern literature.” Highly appreciating the artistic truth and simplicity of the novel, Leskov especially emphasized the merit of the writer, who “did more than everyone else” to raise the “national spirit” to a worthy height.
Turgenev’s final opinion agreed with this assessment of “War and Peace,” which he arrived at by abandoning numerous initial critical judgments about the novel, especially about its historical and military side, as well as about the manner of Tolstoy’s psychological analysis.
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MINISTRY OF EDUCATION OF THE REPUBLIC OF BASHKORTOSTAN
Outline
literature lesson on the topic:
“War and Peace” L.N. Tolstoy in
perception of Russian criticism I
half XX century"
(Grade 10)
Teacher of Russian language and literature MBOU secondary school No. 101 with in-depth study of economics, Ufa Tatyana Vasilievna Sysoeva
Ufa
Lesson topic: “War and Peace” L.N. Tolstoy in the perception of Russian criticism of the first half of the 20th century."
Lesson objectives; Educational :
1) reveal the compositional role of the philosophical chapters of the epic novel;
2) explain the main provisions of historical and philosophical views
Tolstoy.
Developmental:
trace the attitude of critics of the first half of the twentieth century to the “War”
and to the world" L.N. Tolstoy.
Educational:
nurturing a culture of mental work based on such mental operations as analysis, synthesis, grouping;
instilling a sense of beauty in students.
Equipment: portrait of L.N. Tolstoy; exhibition of photographic materials; illustrations based on the writer’s work; I. Tolstoy’s book “The Light in Yasnaya Polyana”; text "War and Peace"; book “L.N. Tolstoy in Russian criticism." Methodical techniques: teacher's lecture, teacher's story, elements of text analysis, group work, student reports, conversation on issues. Lesson plan:
I. Teacher's lecture.
II. Student messages.
Work in groups.
Summarizing. Commenting on ratings.
V. Homework explanation.
Epigraphs for the lesson:
“Tolstoy told us almost as much about Russian life as the rest of our literature” (M. Gorky).
“Every person is a diamond who can purify or not purify himself. To the extent that it is purified, eternal light shines through it. Therefore, a person’s job is not to try to shine, but to try to purify himself” (L.N. Tolstoy).
“If only you could write like Tolstoy and make the whole world listen!” (T. Dreiser).
During the classes: I.
TEACHER'S LECTURE.
In the second half of the 19th century, new principles emerged in Russian realism. Three peaks rose on the literary horizon during this period - Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov. Each of them is the initiator of new creative trends not only in Russian, but also in world literature.
In the works of L.N. Tolstoy reveals not just the conflict between the individual and society, but the individual’s search for unity with the people based on the revision of all social institutions. Tolstoy's social and aesthetic ideal is a fair common life.
Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy (1828 - 1910) - a brilliant artist and a brilliant personality. Tolstoy left a huge literary legacy: three major novels, dozens of novellas, hundreds of short stories, several folk dramas, a treatise on art, many journalistic and literary critical articles, thousands of letters, entire volumes of diaries. And all this difficult-to-see legacy bears the stamp of the great writer’s tireless ideological quest.
Tolstoy L.N. was an ardent defender of the people. He showed, in particular in War and Peace, its decisive role in the historical development of society. But this was not the only characteristic of Tolstoy.
Tolstoy's epico-psychological realism is not a simple continuation of the realism of Pushkin, Gogol, Lermontov. Developed in the work of his predecessors - not only in Russian, but also in the world
literature, the epic principle in Tolstoy’s works acquires new content and meaning.
In revealing psychology, Tolstoy comes into contact with Stendhal and
Lermontov. However, Tolstoy’s “dialectics of the soul” constitutes a truly
a new word in literature. The synthesis of the epic and psychological opened
literature has enormous possibilities for aesthetic development
reality..,
However, in all of world literature there are not many books that could compare with War and Peace in terms of richness of content and artistic power. A historical event of enormous significance, the deepest foundations of the national life of Russia, its nature, the fate of its best people, the masses set in motion by the course of history, the richness of our beautiful language - all this was embodied on the pages of the great epic. Tolstoy himself said: “Without false modesty, it’s like the Iliad,” that is, he compared his book with the greatest creation of the ancient Greek epic.
"War and Peace" is one of the most fascinating and exciting novels in world literature. The horizon of a huge book is vast, where peace and life overcome death and war, where with such depth, with such insight, the history of the human soul is traced - that “mysterious Russian soul” with its passions and delusions, with a frantic thirst for justice and patient faith in goodness, oh which was written so much all over the world both before and after Tolstoy. It was aptly said once: “If God wanted to write a novel, he could not do it without taking War and Peace as a model.” , G
On the novel “War and Peace” by L.N. Tolstoy worked from 1863 to 1869. Initially, a story was conceived on a contemporary theme of that era, “The Decembrists,” of which three chapters remain. First L.N. Tolstoy was going to write about the Decembrist who returned from Siberia, and the action of the novel was supposed to begin in 1856. In the process of work, the writer decided to talk about the uprising of 1825, then pushed back the beginning of the action to 1812 -
the time of childhood and youth of the Decembrists. But since the Patriotic War was closely connected with the campaign of 1805 - 1807, Tolstoy decided to begin the novel from that time.
As the plan progressed, there was an intense search for the title of the novel. The original, “Three Times,” soon ceased to correspond to the content, because from 1856 to 1825 Tolstoy moved further and further into the past; Only one time was in the spotlight - 1812. So a different date appeared, and the first chapters of the novel were published in the magazine “Russian Messenger” under the title “1805”. In 1866, a new version emerged, no longer specifically historical, but philosophical: “All’s well that ends well.” And finally, in 1867 - another title where the historical and philosophical formed a certain balance - “War and Peace”.
So, in relation to all previous work of L.N. Tolstoy's "War and Peace" was a kind of result, synthesis and a huge step forward.
World fame came to Tolstoy during his lifetime. In Western countries, first of all, the greatness of the artist was revealed; In the East, interest in philosophical, social and religious-moral works first arose. As a result, it became clear that the artist and the thinker in Tolstoy were inseparable. II . STUDENT MESSAGES.
Pre-prepared students make presentations.
1. The subjectivist method of critics in assessing “War and Peace” by L.N. Tolstoy.
The multifaceted life of L.N. Tolstoy and his exceptionally rich creativity have been the subject of the most diverse and contradictory critical assessments over the course of many years. Newspapers and magazines of all political trends wrote about Tolstoy, and in other years his name did not leave the pages of periodicals. In total, thousands of critical articles and reviews have been written about him, but the predominant
Most of them have already been rightly forgotten and have become the property of bibliographers, a much smaller part is still of known historical interest, and very few have retained all their living significance to this day.
Only Tolstoy's early works were appreciated in revolutionary-democratic criticism; the outstanding representatives of this criticism, Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov, were no longer able to say their word about the masterpieces of the great writer - his novels. Therefore, such a novel as “War and Peace” did not receive real disclosure and coverage in contemporary criticism.
The criticism noted that Tolstoy, with his stories, opened up to readers a completely new world, hitherto unknown to them, that his works, distinguished by deep and genuine poetry, are a true and happy innovation in the description of military scenes.
The novel “War and Peace” by L.N. Tolstoy has generated widespread critical literature. Articles and reviews began to appear already in 1868, the year the first three volumes of the novel were published. The novel was lively discussed in literary circles, and issues of historical and aesthetic order were touched upon; everyone was interested not only in the correspondence of what was depicted to the true historical truth, but also in the unusual form of the work, its deep artistic originality. “What is “War and Peace”? - this question was asked by many critics and reviewers, but none of them understood the deeply innovative essence of Tolstoy’s work.
2. Novel - epic L.N. Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” in the assessment of the philosopher N.A. Berdyaev.
Let us turn to the assessment of the novel “War and Peace” by L.N. Tolstoy, given by the famous philosopher N.A. Berdyaev. In his judgments, he noted the genius of Tolstoy as an artist and personality, but denied him as a religious thinker. “He was not given the gift of expression in words, of expressing his religious life, his religious quest.”
It has long been noted that the works of Tolstoy the artist reflected our entire life, from the tsar to the peasant. These poles are outlined correctly: indeed, in War and Peace, for example, there is a strikingly vivid and real image of the tsar in the person of Alexander I. This is on the one hand. On the other, we have the almost speechless soldier Karataev and the peasant Akim (from “The Power of Darkness”). Between these extremes there are many characters - the aristocracy, village nobles, serfs, courtyards, men.
Tolstoy the thinker is entirely the product of Tolstoy the artist. L.N. Tolstoy is a shining example of aspiration, restless, selfless, tireless and contagious. The formulas in which Tolstoy from time to time concludes this desire, as a ready-made truth and as a moral for behavior, have changed more than once, just as they changed with his hero, Pierre Bezukhov. If you look at Tolstoy from this point of view, then all of him - throughout his long and brilliant work - is one fragile contradiction. Here, for example, is one of these formulas: “...It is good for the people who, not like the French in 1813, saluted according to all the rules of art and turned the sword over with the hilt, gracefully and courteously handing it over to the magnanimous winner, but good for the people who minute of testing, without asking how others acted according to the rules in similar cases with simplicity and ease he picks up the first club he comes across and nails it until while in his soul feeling of insult and revenge not replaced by feeling contempt and pity..."
These words, in which the feeling of “resistance” was expressed in all its immediacy and even extremes, where even a defeated enemy has no other attitude than pity mixed with contempt.
This motive, one and never changed in Tolstoy, is the search for truth, the desire for an integral mental structure, which is given only by deep, indecomposable analysis, faith in one’s truth and its direct application to life.
Next N.A. Berdyaev points out the antinomy of Tolstoy's views. After all, on the one hand, L.N. Tolstoy is striking in his belonging to the noble life. On the other hand, Tolstoy, with the power of negation and genius, rebels against the “light” not only in the narrow, but also in the broad sense of the word, against the entire “cultured” society.
Thus, N.A. Berdyaev comes to the conclusion that the brilliant personality and life of L.N. Tolstoy bears the stamp of some special mission. III . WORK IN GROUPS.
The teacher divides the class into two halves, gives questions to each group, and after a certain amount of time, students comment on the answer to the question given to them, citing the text of the epic novel and critical articles. 1 GROUP. V.G. Korolenko about “War and Peace” by L.N. Tolstoy (Articles by V.G. Korolenko “Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy” (article one); “L.N. Tolstoy” (article two)).
“Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy” (first article) was first published in the magazine “Russian Wealth” (1908, No. 8, August). “L.N. Tolstoy" (article two) was first published in the newspaper "Russian Vedomosti" (1908, No. 199, August 28).
Tolstoy is a great artist. This is a truth already recognized by the reading world and, it seems, not seriously disputed anywhere or by anyone. Tolstoy is truly a great artist, the kind that has been born for centuries, and his work is crystal clear, light and beautiful.
V.G. Korolenko noted that Tolstoy, a publicist, moralist and thinker, was not always sufficiently grateful to Tolstoy the artist. Meanwhile, if the artist had not risen to a height from where he is known and heard by the whole world, the world would hardly have listened with such attention to the words of the thinker. And, besides, Tolstoy the thinker is entirely contained in Tolstoy the artist. Here are all its major advantages and no less major disadvantages.
GROUP 2. M. Gorky about the novel by L.N. Tolstoy “War and Peace” (“Leo Tolstoy” (notes); “Leo Tolstoy” (excerpt)).
"Lev Tolstoy". For the first time, the main part of the “Notes” was published in a separate publication under the title “Memories of Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy.” Publisher Z.I. Grzhebina, St. Petersburg, 1919. "Lev Tolstoy". The excerpt represents the final part of a lecture on Tolstoy from The History of Russian Literature.
Having once experienced a passion for the countryside, the Caucasus, Lucerne, Tolstoy returns to Yasnaya Polyana again, opens a school there, teaches children, writes articles on pedagogy, polemicizes and writes the greatest work of world literature in the 19th century, “War and Peace.”
In it, the brightest type of peasant is Platon Karataev, a man who is deprived of the consciousness of his individuality, considers himself an insignificant part of a huge whole and says that the death and misfortunes of one person are replaced by the fullness of life and joy for some other, and this is the world order, harmony. The whole world is justified, with all its evil, with all the misfortunes and the brutal struggle of people for power over each other. But this harmony is doubtful; after all, evil is justified only because the Russian peasant supposedly agreed good-naturedly. Tolstoy puts all his observations of the peasant before the reform into the saint Platon Karataev.
Tolstoy is a deeply truthful man; he is also valuable to us because all his works of art, written with terrible, almost miraculous power - all his novels and stories - fundamentally deny his religious philosophy.
Reality is a living process, constantly flowing,
changing, this process is always wider and deeper than all possible generalizations.
He was often crudely tendentious in his attempts to confirm his conclusions with directly taken reality, even sometimes confirming the tendency of passivism, but still indicated
The longing for spontaneity and the search for faith, which gives integrity to the spiritual structure - this is the main note of the main characters of Tolstoy the artist, in whom his own personality was most fully reflected.
At one time, it seemed not only to Tolstoy that spiritual integrity remained only among the common people, as a gift of fate for the heavy burden of suffering and labor. But this gift is worth all the benefits that the lucky ones who walk on the sunny side of life took with them. It is more precious than even knowledge, science and art, because it contains complete, all-resolving wisdom. The illiterate soldier Karataev is taller and happier than the educated Pierre Bezukhov. And Pierre Bezukhov tries to penetrate the secret of this integral wisdom of an illiterate soldier, just as Tolstoy himself strives to comprehend the wisdom of the common people.
It is hardly accidental that the great artist chose for the most significant of his works an era in which the direct feeling of the people saved the state at a critical moment, when all “rational” organized forces turned out to be powerless and insolvent. Tolstoy sees the genius of Kutuzov as a commander only in the fact that he alone understood the power of spontaneous popular feeling and surrendered to this powerful current without reasoning. Tolstoy himself, like his Kutuzov, during this period was also at the mercy of the great elements. The people, their immediate feelings, their views on the world, their faith - all this, like a mighty ocean wave, carried with it the artist’s soul, dictated to him cruel maxims about “the first club that came his way”, about contempt for the vanquished. This is whole, and, therefore, this is the law of life.
In the era of “War and Peace,” an ocean of spiritual integrity swayed before Tolstoy’s admiring gaze, just as powerful, just as spontaneous and just as exciting. He was inspired by the mood of another people who, at the dawn of Christianity, under the roar of the collapsed old world, were preparing to conquer humanity not with a feeling of enmity and revenge, but with the teaching of love and meekness.
the only direction worthy of a person is towards activism, towards direct intervention in the life of human will and reason.
Tolstoy saw this and himself ridiculed his attempts, but, having ridiculed them, he again took up the same thing - that is, he wanted to process reality in the interests of his tendency.
Personally, Tolstoy always sought to separate himself from all people, to stand above them - this is the only motivation of a person who knows that he is the person who completes an entire period in the history of his country, a person who embodies everything that he has achieved in his hundred years. team, its class.
IV. SUMMARIZING. COMMENTING ON RATINGS.
Thus, the documents indicate that Tolstoy did not have the gift of easy creativity, he was one of the most sublime, most patient, most diligent workers. Two thousand pages of the huge epic “War and Peace” were rewritten seven times; sketches and notes filled large drawers. Every historical detail, every semantic detail is substantiated by similar documents.
The opinions of critics on the novel “War and Peace” by L.N. were also not uniform. Tolstoy. But basically the work was highly appreciated; it was noted for its fidelity to reality, deep knowledge of life and the subtle observation of the artist, who can not only picturesquely reproduce the life of peasants, but also convey “their view of things.”
V. HOMEWORK EXPLANATION.
1. Review volume III, highlight the main events of the novel.
2. Individual tasks - messages (brief retelling with elements of analysis): a) Kutuzov and Napoleon in the assessment of critics of the first half of the 20th century; b) Patriotism and heroism of the people in the Patriotic War of 1812.
The four-volume epic novel by L. N. Tolstoy “War and Peace” has been known to every person since school. Someone liked this work and read it from the first volume to the last; some were horrified by the volume of the novel that needed to be mastered; and someone simply ignored the teacher’s request to read the novel. Nevertheless, “War and Peace” is a truly worthwhile and great work of Russian literature, which is still studied in school. This article is intended to help schoolchildren understand the novel, understand its meaning and main ideas. So, we present to you a condensed analysis of the novel “War and Peace”. Let's pay attention to the most important points.
When analyzing the novel “War and Peace,” three main ideas can be identified that L. N. Tolstoy reveals. This is a family thought, a national thought and a spiritual thought.
Family thought in the novel “War and Peace”
It can be conveniently seen in the way Tolstoy portrays three families in the novel - the Bolkonsky, Rostov and Kuragin families.
Bolkonsky family
Let's begin the analysis of the work "War and Peace" with the Bolkonsky family. The Bolkonsky family is the old Prince Bolkonsky and his children - Andrei and Marya. The main features of this family are following reason, severity, pride, decency, and a strong sense of patriotism. They are very restrained in expressing their feelings, only Marya sometimes openly shows them.
The old prince is a representative of the ancient aristocracy, very strict, has power both among the servants and in his family. He is very proud of his pedigree and intelligence, and wants his children to be the same. Therefore, the prince undertakes to teach his daughter geometry and algebra at a time when such knowledge was not required from ladies.
Prince Andrei is a representative of the advanced noble youth. He is a very strong-willed, persistent person of high moral principles; he does not accept human weakness. Many trials await him in life, but he will always find the right way out thanks to his morality. His love for Natasha Rostova will change a lot in his life, which will be like a breath of fresh air for him, a symbol of real life. But Natasha’s betrayal will kill his hope for the best. However, Andrei Bolkonsky’s life will not end there; he will still find his meaning in life.
For Princess Marya, the main thing in life is self-sacrifice; she is always ready to help another, even to the detriment of herself. She is a very meek, kind, sweet-hearted and submissive girl. She is religious and dreams of simple human happiness. However, she is not so soft, she can be firm and stand her ground when her self-esteem is humiliated.
Rostov family
The Rostov family was masterfully portrayed in the novel by Leo Tolstoy. “War and Peace”, we will continue the analysis of this work with a story about this family.
The Rostov family is meaningfully opposed to the Bolkonsky family in that the main thing for the Bolkonskys is reason, and for the Rostovs it is feelings. The main features of the Rostov family are kindness, generosity, nobility, moral purity, closeness to the people, generosity, openness, hospitality, affability. In addition to her children, Sonya, the count’s niece, Boris Drubetskoy, the son of a distant relative, and Vera also live with them. In difficult times, the Rostov family sacrifices their property and helps their country survive the war. The old count, for example, donates his carts so that the wounded can be carried on them. This family is a symbol of liberation from the luxury of the material world.
The old count, father Ilya Andreevich, is a simple-minded and kind gentleman, a gullible and wasteful person loves his family and home holidays, he has a close relationship with his children, he supports them in everything.
Countess Rostova is the teacher and mentor of her children, she also has a trusting relationship with them.
Warm relationships based on family love also exist in the relationships of children. Natasha and Sonya are like best friends, in addition, Natasha loves her brother Nikolai very much and is happy when he returns home.
Nikolay R skeleton, Natasha's older brother - simple, noble, honest, sympathetic, generous Human . He is kind and romantic, just like Natasha. Forgives old friends Drubetsky their debt. However, Nikolai's interests are limited to his family and household. At the end of the novel, he creates a family with Marya Bolkonskaya, and they have a harmonious union.
Natasha Rostova, the youngest of the children, is a cheerful, lively, spontaneous girl, soul of the Rostov family, in childhood he neglects the rules of decency accepted in society. She is not beautiful in appearance, but she has a beautiful pure soul, She has many traits of a naive child. The work is structured in such a way that the closer a person is to Natasha, the purer he is spiritually. Natasha is not characterized by deep introspection and reflection on the meaning of life. She is selfish, but her selfishness is natural, unlike, for example, the selfishness of Ellen Kuragina. Natasha lives by feelings and at the end of the novel finds her happiness by starting a family with Pierre Bezukhov.
Kuragin family
We will continue our analysis of the novel “War and Peace” with a story about the Kuragin family. Kuragins - This old prince Basil and his three children: Helen, Hippolyte and Anatole. For this family, the most important thing is a good financial situation and status in society , they are related to each other only by blood.
Prince Vasily is an ambitious intriguer striving for wealth. He needs the inheritance of Kirilla Bezukhov, so he is trying with all his might to bring his daughter Helene together with Pierre.
Daughter Helen is a socialite, a “cold” beauty with impeccable manners in society, but lacking the beauty of her soul and feelings. She is only interested in social events and salons.
Prince Vasily considers both his sons fools. He was able to place Hippolytus in the service, which was enough for him. More AND Ppolit does not strive for anything. Anatole is a handsome socialite, a rake, and there is a lot of trouble with him. To calm him down, the old prince wants to marry him to the meek and rich Marya Bolkonskaya, but this marriage did not take place due to the fact that Marya did not want to part with her father and start a family with Anatole.
The family thought is one of the most important in the novel “War and Peace”. Tolstoy carefully studies the Bolkonsky, Rostov and Kuragin families, puts them in a situation of a turning point for the country and observes how they will behave. It is easy to conclude that the author sees the future of the country in the Rostov and Bolkonsky families, highly spiritual, d rich and connected with the people.
Popular thought in the novel “War and Peace”
It is impossible to imagine a complete analysis of the work “War and Peace” without considering popular thought. This idea is the second important theme in the novel War and Peace. It reflects the depth and greatness of the Russian people. Tolstoy showed the people in his novel in such a way that they do not seem like a faceless mass, his people are reasonable, they are the ones who change and move forward history.
There are many people like Platon Karataev. This is a humble person who loves everyone equally, he accepts all the hardships that happen in his life, but is not soft and weak-willed. Platon Karataev in the novel is a symbol of folk wisdom, cultivated in Russian people since ancient times. This character significantly influenced Pierre Bezukhov and his worldview. Based on Karataev’s thoughts Pierre will then decide for himself h what is good in life and what is bad.
The power and spiritual beauty of the Russian people are shown T as well as many episodic characters. For example, Raevsky’s artillerymen are afraid of death in battle, however you can't see it from them . They are not used to talking a lot, they are used to proving their devotion to the Motherland with their deeds, so they silently protect her .
Tikhon Shcherbaty is another prominent representative of the Russian people , he expresses his anger, unnecessary, but still justified cruelty .
Kutuzov natural, close to the soldiers, to the people, and that is why we are loved by our subordinates and ordinary people. This is a wise commander who understands that he cannot change anything, so he is only a little old A It is possible to change the course of events.
Almost every character in the novel is tested by popular thought. H The more distant a person is from the people, the less chance he has for true happiness. Napoleon himself O he is in love, which cannot be approved by the soldiers, Kutuzov is like a father to his soldiers, in addition, he does not need great fame, like Napoleon, so he is appreciated and loved.
The Russian people are not ideal, and Tolstoy does not seek to present them as such. However, all the shortcomings of the Russian people are offset by their behavior in wartime, because everyone is ready to sacrifice what they can for the good of their country in order to save it. Consideration of popular thought is one of the key issues in the analysis of the novel “War and Peace”.
Spiritual thought in the novel “War and Peace”
Now let's move on to the third important question in the analysis of the work "War and Peace". This is m spirit is spiritual. Is concluded she in the spiritual development of the main characters. Harmony is achieved by those e swarms that develop do not stand still. They make mistakes, damn it at wait, change their ideas about life, but as a result they come to harmony.
So, for example, this is Andrei Bolkonsky. At the beginning of the novel, he is an educated, intelligent young man, To who sees all the vulgarity of the noble environment. He wants to escape from this atmosphere, he strives to accomplish a feat and gain fame, That's why goes to the army. On the battlefield, he sees how terrible the war is, the soldiers are fiercely trying to kill each other so that X they didn’t kill themselves, patriotism here is false. Andrei is wounded, he falls on his back and sees a clear sky above his head. A contrast is created between I kill soldiers talking to each other and clear soft skies. At this moment the prince A ndrey understands that there are more important things in life than fame and war, Napoleon ceases to be his idol. This is a turning point in the soul of Andrei Bolkonsky. Later he e wanders around h then he will live for his loved ones and himself in the family world, however, he is too active to focus only on this. Andrey reborn to life, oh he wants to help people and live for them, he finally understands the meaning of Christian love, however, the bright impulses of his soul are cut short by the death of the hero on the battlefield .
Pierre Bezukhov is also looking for the meaning of his life. At the beginning of the novel, not finding anything to do, Pierre leads a wild life l new life. At the same time, he understands that such a life is not for him, but he does not yet have the strength to leave it. He is weak-willed and overly trusting, so he easily falls into Helen Kuragina’s network. However X the marriage did not last long, Pierre realized that he had been deceived, And divorced. Having survived his grief, Pierre joined the Masonic lodge, where I found a use for it. However, seeing self-interest and dishonor in the Masonic lodge, Pierre leaves it. The battle on the Borodino field greatly changes Pierre's worldview; he sees a world of ordinary soldiers that was previously unfamiliar to him and he himself wants to become a soldier. Later, Pierre is captured, where he sees a military trial and execution of Russian soldiers. While in captivity, he meets Platon Karataev, who greatly influences Pierre's ideas about good and evil. At the end of the novel, Pierre marries Natasha, and together they find family happiness. Pierre is dissatisfied with the situation in the country, he does not like political oppression, and he believes that everything can be changed by uniting with honest people and starting to act together with them. This is how the spiritual development of Pierre Bezukhov occurs throughout the novel, he finally understands that the best thing for him is to fight for the happiness and well-being of the Russian people.
"War and Peace": episode analysis
In literature classes at school, when studying the novel “War and Peace,” individual episodes are very often analyzed. There are many of them; for example, we will analyze the episode of Andrei Bolkonsky’s meeting with an old oak tree.
Meeting with an oak tree symbolizes the transition Andrey Bolkonsky from the old boring and dull life to a new and joyful one.
D dec with his appearance relates to internal them state m hero. At the first meeting the oak looks it an old gloomy tree that does not harmonize with the rest of the forest. The same contrast is easy to notice in the behavior of Andrei Bolkonsky in the company of A.P. Sherer. He is not interested in small talk, boring people he has known for a long time.
When Andrey meets the oak tree for the second time, it already looks different: the oak tree seems to be full of vitality and love for the world around it, there are no sores, dried or gnarled branches left on it, it is all covered with lush young greenery. The tree was more quite strong and strong, he had high potential, just like Andrei Bolkonsky.
Andrei's potential was revealed in the battle of Austerlitz, when he saw the sky; in his meeting with Pierre, when he told him about Freemasonry, about God and eternal life; at the moment when Andrei accidentally overheard the words of Natasha, who admired the beauty of the night. All these moments revived Andrey to life, he again felt the taste of life, R hell O happiness and happiness, like an oak tree, “bloomed” mentally. These changes in the hero were also led by his disappointments - in the personality of Napoleon, in the death of Lisa, etc.
All this greatly influenced Andrei Bolkonsky and led him to a new life with different ideals and principles. He realized where he was wrong before and what he now needs to strive for. Thus, the external transformation of the oak tree in the novel symbolizes the spiritual rebirth of Andrei Bolkonsky.
"War and Peace": analysis of the epilogue
To present a full analysis of the novel “War and Peace”, you need to pay attention to its epilogue. The epilogue is an important part of the novel. It carries a great semantic load, it sums up issues that touch on questions about the family, the role of the individual in history .
The first thought expressed in the epilogue is the thought of the spirituality of the family. The author shows that the main thing in a family is kindness and love, spirituality, the desire for mutual understanding and harmony, which is achieved through the complementarity of spouses. This is the new family of Nikolai Rostov and Marya Bolkonskaya, united and I the Rostov and Bolkonsky families are opposite in spirit.
Another new family is the union of Natasha Rostova and Pierre Bezukhov. Each of them remains a special person, but makes concessions to each other, as a result they form a harmonious family. In the epilogue, using the example of this family, the connection between the course of history and the relationships between individuals is traced . After the Patriotic War of 1812, a different level of communication between people arose in Russia, many class boundaries were erased, which led to the creation of new, more complex families.
The epilogue also shows how the main characters of the novel have changed and what they ultimately came to. For example, in Natasha it is difficult to recognize the former emotional, lively girl.
Portrait of Leo Tolstoy. 1868
The novel “War and Peace” is Tolstoy’s largest work, the pinnacle of his artistic creativity. According to the writer, he devoted “five years of incessant and exceptional work, under the best living conditions,” to working on the novel. In fact, this work lasted even longer - from 1863 to 1869.
Having started the historical novel “The Decembrists” in 1860, Leo Tolstoy wanted to tell in it about the time of the Decembrists’ return from Siberian exile (mid-1850s), and then he decided to depict the period of the Decembrist uprising itself - 1825. This, in turn, led the writer to the idea of showing the era preceding the December uprising, that is, the Patriotic War of 1812. And the events of an even earlier period - 1805-1807. So Gradually, the concept of the work expanded and deepened until it took the form of a grandiose national heroic epic, covering almost a quarter of a century of Russian life.
Pierre on the Borodino field
The novel “War and Peace” is a work that has no equal in all world literature. With convincing force, Leo Tolstoy depicts the courage and heroism of the Russian army, which repelled the blows of Napoleonic hordes. Imbued with the consciousness of the rightness of their cause, Russian soldiers show unprecedented courage on the battlefield. Captain Tushin's battery, left alone on the battlefield near Shengraben, conducted hurricane fire at the enemy all day, delaying his advance. The Russian army accomplished legendary feats on the Borodino field, where the fate of Moscow and all of Russia was decided.
Leo Tolstoy shows that the strength of the Russian army consisted not only in the courage of the soldiers and the military skill of the commanders, but also in the support of the entire people. “The goal of the people,” says Leo Tolstoy, “was one: to cleanse their land from invasion.” For the people there was no question whether things would be good or bad under the rule of the interventionists. The life of the fatherland is incompatible with the rule of the interventionists - this is the conviction that lived in the soul of every Russian person. And this is the origin of the extraordinary scope of the popular partisan movement and that “hidden warmth of patriotism” that determined the “spirit of the army” and the entire
countries. Hence the indestructible power of the “club of the people’s war”, which destroyed the enemy invasion.
"War and Peace" by Leo Tolstoy. Ball at the Rostovs.
The war was a severe test not only of military power, but also of the moral strength of the people. And the Russian people passed this test with honor. With a sense of national pride, Leo Tolstoy shows the courage, resilience and spiritual nobility of the people that manifested themselves during the difficult years of the war. The best people of the noble society - Andrei Bolkonsky, Pierre Bezukhov, Natasha Rostova, Vasily Denisov and other heroes of the novel - are drawn to the heroic people, to their life wisdom.
Closeness to the people lies the secret of Kutuzov’s enormous authority. Hated by the tsar, persecuted by court circles, Commander-in-Chief Kutuzov was strong due to his inextricable connection with the mass of soldiers and the love of the people. A faithful son of his homeland, he understood with all his being the purpose of the Patriotic War, and therefore his activities were the best and complete expression of the will of the people.
Justice, however, requires that it be noted that Leo Tolstoy, with all his amazing skill, did not recreate the image of Kutuzov in all its versatility. As a result of his false historical views, the writer in some of his author's reflections impoverished the image of the commander, underestimated his energy, foresight and strategic genius.
The fruit of Tolstoy's erroneous views is the image of the soldier Platon Karataev in the novel. He is depicted as a submissive, indifferent, passive person. In Karataev’s soul there is no protest against oppression, just as there is no burning hatred for the interventionists. Russian soldiers were not like that. Leo Tolstoy himself showed in his epic the mighty rise of national activity and patriotism.
The epic "War and Peace" is a work in which the victorious spirit of the people's liberation war is most fully embodied. The writer captured with great force the Russian national genius, the height of self-awareness and military valor of the warrior people, the heroic people.
The exhibits in the hall are arranged in the following sections:
1) “Image of the war of 1805-1807,” 2) “From 1807 to 1812,” “The Beginning of the Patriotic War,” 3) “1812 Borodino,” 4) “The Club of the People’s War.” The end of the Napoleonic invasion. Epilogue of the novel." In the display cases there are materials characterizing the history of the creation of the novel, the writer’s creative laboratory, and reviews of the novel.
Image of the war of 1805-1807.
Anatol Kuragin. "War and Peace" 1866-1867
Exhibits illustrating the 1st volume of the novel, mainly dedicated to the War of 1805, are located on the wall to the left and on the walls adjacent to the windows. The inspection should begin from the central wall, where a portrait of Tolstoy from the 60s is exhibited. and A. M. Gorky’s review of “War and Peace.”
On the walls to the left and right are artistic illustrations of the main events of this era (Battle of Shengraben, Battle of Austerlitz, etc.).
Of outstanding interest in this section are the illustrations by the artist M. S. Bashilov for “War and Peace,” approved by Tolstoy.
From 1807 to 1812. The beginning of the Patriotic War.
Pierre Bezukhov
On the second wall of the hall, to the right of the entrance, are exhibits illustrating the 2nd and the beginning of the 3rd volume of the novel “War and Peace” - the period between the war of 1805-1807. and the first stage of the War of 1812
1812 Borodino.
"War and Peace" by Leo Tolstoy. Militia build fortifications
On the central wall of the hall and the adjacent walls there are exhibits illustrating the formidable era of 1812, the events of which are depicted in the third volume of the novel “War and Peace.” The main theme of the novel - the theme of the people's war - is revealed in paintings and illustrations dedicated to the Battle of Borodino and the partisan movement.
The leading text for the section is Tolstoy’s words about Borodino: “The Battle of Borodino is the best glory of Russian weapons. It is victory” (“War and Peace”, manuscript).
"The Club of the People's War." The end of the Napoleonic Invasion. Epilogue of the novel.
Natasha lets the wounded into the courtyard of her house
On the fourth wall of the hall are exhibits illustrating the final stage of the war of 1812 - the defeat of the French army, the flight of the interventionists from Moscow, their extermination by partisans. These events are described in the 4th volume of the novel “War and Peace”.
Second edition. Moscow, 1868
Article one
Everything that is done in our literature and literary criticism is forgotten quickly and, so to speak, hastily. Such, however, is the generally amazing course of our mental progress; Today we forget what we did yesterday, and every minute we feel as if there is no past behind us - every minute we are ready to start all over again. The number of books and magazines, the number of readers and writers increases every year; Meanwhile, the number of established concepts - concepts that would receive a clear and definite meaning for the majority, for the mass of readers and writers - apparently not only does not increase, but even decreases. Observing how, over the course of decades, the same questions have appeared on the stage of our mental world, constantly raised and constantly not taking a single step forward - how the same opinions, prejudices, misconceptions are repeated endlessly, each time in the form of something - something new - how, not just an article or a book, but the entire activity of another person, who worked ardently and for a long time on a certain area and managed to bring some light into it, disappears, apparently, without any trace, and again everyone appears in an endless procession the same opinions, the same mistakes, the same misunderstandings, the same confusion and nonsense - observing all this, one might think that we are not developing at all, not moving forward, but are only hovering in one place, spinning in a vicious circle. “We are growing,” said Chaadaev, “but we are not maturing.”
Since Chaadaev’s time, things have not only not improved, but worsened. The essential defect that he noticed in our development was revealed with greater and greater force. In those days, things moved more slowly and concerned a relatively small number of people; Nowadays the attacks of the disease have accelerated and affected a huge mass. “Our minds,” wrote Chaadaev, “are not haunted by the indelible features of the consistent movement of ideas”; and so, as literature develops externally, the number of writers and readers who are alien to any foundations, who do not have any support points for their thoughts, who do not feel any connection with anything, is growing more and more. Denial, which was once courage and took its first steps with effort, finally became common place, routine, officialdom; Nihilism was formed as a general basis, as a starting point for all kinds of wanderings and vacillations of thought, that is, an almost direct denial of everything that had passed, a denial of any need for any kind of historical development. “Every person, no matter when and where he is born, has a brain, a heart, a liver, a stomach: what else is needed for him to think and act like a human being?” Nihilism, which has thousands of forms and manifests itself in thousands of attempts, it seems to us, is only the consciousness that has broken through to the surface of our intelligentsia that its education has no lasting roots, that no ideas have left traces in its minds, that it has no past at all.
Many are indignant at this course of affairs, and how is it sometimes possible to contain indignation? How can one not call all these ugliest opinions, which apparently form without any participation of correct thought, stupidity and absurdity? How can one not call this complete misunderstanding and oblivion of the past - these reasonings, not only not based on the study of the subject, but clearly breathing complete contempt for any study, gross and wild ignorance? And, however, we would be completely wrong if we attributed the deplorable phenomena of our mental world to these two reasons, that is, the weakness of Russian minds and the ignorance prevailing among them. Weak and ignorant minds are not therefore wandering and forgetful minds. Obviously, the reason here is different, deeper. Rather, the trouble is that we not only do not consider, but even have some right not to consider ourselves ignorant; the trouble is that we actually have some kind of education, but that this education only instills in us courage and swagger and does not bring any sense to our thoughts. Another reason, parallel to the first and constituting the main, root source of evil, is obviously that with this false education we lack real present formation, which by its action would paralyze all deviations and wanderings generated by any reasons.
So, the matter is much more complex and deeper than is usually thought. General formula we need more education like other general formulas, it does not resolve the issue. For now, every new influx of education will only result in an increase in our meaningless, rootless, in a word, fake education, education will not bring us any benefit. And this will not stop and cannot stop until the sprouts and shoots of real education develop and strengthen in us - until the movement of ideas, “leaving indelible features in our minds,” receives full strength.
The matter is difficult to a high degree. For in order for education to deserve its name, so that its phenomena have the proper strength, proper connection and consistency, so that today we do not forget what we did and what we thought about yesterday - this requires a very difficult condition, an independent, original mental development. It is necessary that we live not someone else’s, but our own mental life, so that other people’s ideas are not simply imprinted or reflected on us, but turn into our flesh and blood, processed into parts of our body. We should not be wax cast into ready-made forms, but should be a living being who gives everything he perceives its own forms, formed by him according to the laws of his own development. Such is the high price at which alone we can buy real education. If we take this point of view, if we think how inevitable this condition is, how difficult and high it is, then much will be explained to us in the phenomena of our mental world. We will no longer marvel at the ugliness that fills it, and we will not hope for a quick cleansing of these ugliness. All this should have been and should have been for a long time. Is it possible to demand that our intelligentsia, without fulfilling the essential conditions for correct development, produce something good? Shouldn't this ghostly activity naturally, necessarily, arise, this imaginary movement, this progress that leaves no traces behind? Evil, in order to cease, must be exhausted to the end; effects will continue as long as causes exist.
Our entire mental world has long been divided into two areas, only occasionally and briefly merging with each other. One region, the largest, encompassing the majority of readers and writers, is the region of progress that leaves no traces, the region of meteors and mirages, smoke blowing in the wind as Turgenev put it. Another region, incomparably smaller, contains everything that is really done in our mental movement, there is a channel fed by living springs, a stream of some continuous development. This is the area in which we not only grow, but also mature, in which, therefore, the work of our independent spiritual life is accomplished in one way or another. For the real thing in this case can only be that which bears the stamp of originality, and (according to a fair remark made long ago by our criticism) every remarkable figure in our development certainly discovered in himself a completely Russian person. The contradiction that exists between these two areas is now clear - a contradiction that should increase as their mutual relations become clearer. For the first, dominant area, the phenomena of the second have almost no significance. She either does not pay any attention to them, or understands them incorrectly and distortedly; she either doesn’t know them at all, or recognizes them superficially and quickly forgets.
They forget, and it is natural for them to forget; but who remembers? It would seem that we should have people for whom it is just as natural to remember as it is for those to forget - people who are able to appreciate the dignity of any phenomena of the mental world, who are not carried away by the momentary moods of society and who are able, through smoke and fog, to see real movement forward and distinguish it from empty, fruitless fermentation. Indeed, we have people who are apparently quite capable of this task; but, unfortunately, such is the power of things that they do not do this, do not want to do it, and in essence cannot. Our serious and thoroughly educated people are inevitably under the unfortunate influence of the general vice of our development. First of all, their own education, which usually constitutes some exception, and although high, is mostly one-sided, inspires them with arrogance towards the phenomena of our mental world; they don't give him undivided attention. Then, according to their relationship to this world, they are divided into two categories: some have complete indifference to something, as to a phenomenon that is more or less alien to them; others, theoretically recognizing their kinship with this world, dwell in it on some isolated phenomena and look at everything else with greater contempt. The first attitude is cosmopolitan, the second is national. Cosmopolitans rudely, inattentively, without love and insight, bring our development to European standards and do not know how to see anything particularly good in it. Nationalists, with less rudeness and inattention, apply the requirement of originality to our development and on this basis deny it all, except for a few exceptions.
Obviously, the whole difficulty lies in the ability to appreciate manifestations of originality. Some people don’t want to find them at all and don’t know how to find them; no wonder they don’t see them. Others want just that; but, being too quick and demanding in their desires, they are always dissatisfied with what actually is. Thus, a work that is priceless and accomplished with hard work is constantly neglected. Some will believe in Russian thought only when it produces great world-wide philosophers and poets; others - only when all its creations take on a vivid national imprint. Until then, both of them consider themselves entitled to treat her work with contempt - to forget everything she does - and continue to suppress her with the same high demands.
Such thoughts came to our minds when we decided to begin analyzing War and Peace. And it seems to us that these thoughts are most appropriate when it comes specifically to a new work of art. Where to begin? Where should we base our judgments? Whatever we refer to, whatever concepts we rely on, everything will be dark and incomprehensible to most of our readers. New work by gr. L.N. Tolstoy, one of the most beautiful works of Russian literature, is, firstly, the fruit of the movement of this literature, its deep and difficult progress; secondly, it is the result of the development of the artist himself, his long and conscientious work on his talent. But who has a clear understanding of the movement of our literature and... about the development of talent gr. L.N. Tolstoy? True, our criticism once carefully and thoughtfully assessed the features of this amazing talent *; but who remembers this?
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* Here, of course, is an article by Apollon Grigoriev.
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Recently, one critic announced that before the appearance of "War and Peace" everyone had already forgotten about gr. L.N. Tolstoy and no one else thought about him. The remark is absolutely fair. Of course, there were probably still backward readers who continued to admire the previous works of this writer and find in them priceless revelations of the human soul. But our critics were not among these naive readers. Our critics, of course, remembered the gr. less than all others. L.N. Tolstoy and thought about him. We will be right even if we extend and generalize this conclusion. We probably have readers who value Russian literature, who remember and love it, but these are by no means Russian critics. Critics are not so much interested in our literature as they are disturbed by its existence; they don’t want to remember or think about her at all and are only annoyed when she reminds them of herself with new works.
Such, indeed, was the impression produced by the appearance of War and Peace. For many, who enjoyed reading the latest books of magazines and their own articles in them, it was extremely unpleasant to realize that there was some other area that they did not think about and did not want to think about and in which, however, phenomena of enormous proportions are being created and brilliant beauty. Everyone values their own tranquility, self-loving confidence in their own mind, in the meaning of their activities - and this explains the embittered cries that we raise, in particular, against poets and artists, and in general against everything that accuses us of ignorance, oblivion and misunderstanding.
From all this we will first draw one conclusion: it is difficult to talk about literature in our country. In general, it has been noticed that it is difficult for us to talk about anything without causing countless misunderstandings, without causing the most incredible distortions of our thoughts. But it is most difficult to talk about what is called literature par excellence, about works of art. Here we should not assume that readers have any established concepts; one should write as if no one knew anything either about the present state of our literature and criticism, or about the historical development that led them to this state.
That's what we'll do. Without referring to anything, we will directly state the facts, describe them as accurately as possible, analyze their meaning and connection, and from here draw our conclusions.
I
The fact that prompted the present investigation and the explanation of which, due to its enormity, we undertake not without doubt in our abilities, is the following.
In 1868, one of the best works of our literature, War and Peace, appeared. His success was extraordinary. It has been a long time since a book has been read with such greed. Moreover, it was a success of the highest level. “War and Peace” was carefully read not only by ordinary readers who still admire Dumas and Feval, but also by the most discerning readers - all with a solid or unfounded claim to scholarship and education; read even by those who generally despise Russian literature and do not read anything in Russian. And since the circle of our readers is increasing every year, it turned out that not one of our classic works - of those that not only have success, but deserve success - has sold out so quickly and in so many copies as "War and peace". Let us add to this that not one of the remarkable works of our literature has had such a large volume as the new work of gr. L.N. Tolstoy.
Let us proceed directly to the analysis of the accomplished fact. The success of War and Peace is an extremely simple and clear phenomenon, containing no complexity or intricacy. This success cannot be attributed to any collateral or extraneous reasons. Gr. L.N. Tolstoy did not try to captivate his readers with any intricate and mysterious adventures, nor with descriptions of dirty and terrible scenes, nor with images of terrible mental torments, nor, finally, with any daring and new trends - in a word, with none of those means that tease the thought or imagination of readers painfully irritate curiosity with pictures of an unknown and untested life. Nothing could be simpler than the many events described in War and Peace. All cases of ordinary family life, conversations between brother and sister, between mother and daughter, separation and meeting of relatives, hunting, Christmastide, mazurka, playing cards, etc. - all this is elevated to the pearl of creation with the same love as the Battle of Borodino . Simple objects occupy as much space in “War and Peace” as, for example, in “Eugene Onegin” the immortal description of the Larins’ life, winter, spring, trip to Moscow, etc.
True, next to this gr. L.N. Tolstoy brings to the stage great events and persons of enormous historical significance. But it cannot be said that this is precisely what aroused the general interest of readers. If there were readers who were attracted by the depiction of historical phenomena or even a feeling of patriotism, then, without any doubt, there were many who did not like to look for history in works of art or were strongly armed against any bribery of patriotic feelings and who, however, , read “War and Peace” with the liveliest curiosity. Let us note in passing that “War and Peace” is not at all a historical novel, that is, it does not at all intend to make romantic heroes out of historical figures and, by telling their adventures, combine the interests of the novel and history.
So, the matter is pure and clear. Whatever goals and intentions the author may have, no matter what high and important subjects he touches, the success of his work depends not on these intentions and objects, but on what he did, guided by these goals and touching on these subjects, that is - from high artistic performance.
If gr. L.N. Tolstoy achieved his goals, if he forced everyone to fix their eyes on what occupied his soul, it was only because he completely mastered his instrument, art. In this regard, the example of War and Peace is extremely instructive. Hardly many were aware of the thoughts that guided and animated the author, but everyone was equally amazed by his work. People who approached this book with preconceived views, with the idea of finding a contradiction to their tendency or its confirmation, were often perplexed, did not have time to decide what to do - be indignant or admired, but everyone equally recognized the extraordinary mastery of the mysterious work. It has been a long time since art has demonstrated its all-conquering, irresistible effect to such a degree.
But artistry does not come for free. Let no one think that it can exist separately from deep thoughts and deep feelings, that it can be a frivolous phenomenon that has no important meaning. In this case, it is necessary to distinguish true artistry from its false and ugly forms. Let's try to analyze the creativity found in the book of gr. L.N. Tolstoy, and we will see what depth lies at its foundation.
What was everyone amazed by in "War and Peace"? Of course, objectivity, imagery. It is difficult to imagine images more distinct, colors more vibrant. You see exactly everything that is being described, and you hear all the sounds of what is happening. The author does not say anything on his own; he directly brings out faces and makes them speak, feel and act, and every word and every movement is true to amazing accuracy, that is, it fully bears the character of the person to whom it belongs. It’s as if you are dealing with living people, and, moreover, you see them much more clearly than you can see in real life. It is possible to distinguish not only the image of expressions and feelings of each character, but also each person’s manners, favorite gestures, and gait. The important Prince Vasily once had to walk on tiptoe in unusual and difficult circumstances; the author knows perfectly how each of his faces walks. “Prince Vasily,” he says, “did not know how to walk on tiptoes and awkwardly bounced with his whole body” (vol. I, p. 115). With the same clarity and distinctness, the author knows all the movements, all the feelings and thoughts of his characters. Once he has brought them onto the stage, he no longer interferes in their affairs, does not help them, leaving each of them to behave in accordance with his own nature.
From the same desire to maintain objectivity, it happens that gr. There are no paintings or descriptions of Tolstoy that he would do on his own. Nature appears to him only as it is reflected in the characters; he does not describe the oak tree standing in the middle of the road, or the moonlit night on which Natasha and Prince Andrei could not sleep, but describes the impression that this oak tree and this night made on Prince Andrei. In the same way, battles and events of all kinds are told not according to the concepts that the author has formed about them, but according to the impressions of the persons acting in them. The Sheigraben case is described mostly based on the impressions of Prince Andrei, the Battle of Austerlitz - based on the impressions of Nikolai Rostov, the arrival of Emperor Alexander in Moscow is depicted in Petya's unrest, and the action of the prayer for salvation from the invasion is depicted in Natasha's feelings. Thus, the author nowhere appears from behind the characters and depicts events not abstractly, but, so to speak, with the flesh and blood of those people who made up the material of the events.
In this respect, "War and Peace" represents true miracles of art. What is captured is not individual features, but the entire atmosphere of life, which varies among different individuals and in different strata of society. The author himself talks about loving and family atmosphere Rostov's houses; but remember other images of the same kind: the atmosphere surrounding Speransky; the atmosphere that prevailed around uncles Rostov; the atmosphere of the theater hall that Natasha found herself in; the atmosphere of the military hospital where Rostov went, etc., etc. Persons entering one of these atmospheres or moving from one to another inevitably feel their influence, and we experience it with them.
Thus, the highest degree of objectivity has been achieved, that is, we not only see before us the actions, figures, movements and speeches of the characters, but their entire inner life appears before us in the same distinct and clear features; their soul, their heart is not obscured from our gaze. Reading "War and Peace", we are in the full sense of the word we contemplate those objects that the artist chose.
But what are these objects? Objectivity is a general property of poetry, which must always be present in it, no matter what objects it depicts. The most ideal feelings, the highest life of the spirit must be depicted objectively. Pushkin is completely objective when he recalls some majestic wife; He says:
Her brow I remember the veil
And eyes as bright as heaven.
In exactly the same way, he quite objectively depicts the feelings of the “Prophet”:
And I heard the sky tremble,
And the heavenly flight of angels,
And the reptile of the sea underwater,
And the valley of the vine is vegetated.
Objectivity gr. L.N. Tolstoy is obviously turned in the other direction - not to ideal objects, but to what we oppose - to the so-called reality, to that which does not achieve the ideal, deviates from it, contradicts it and, however, exists as would indicate his powerlessness. Gr. L.N. Tolstoy is realist, that is, it belongs to a long-dominant and very strong trend in our literature. He deeply sympathizes with the desire of our minds and tastes for realism, and his strength lies in the fact that he knows how to fully satisfy this desire.
Indeed, he is a magnificent realist. One might think that he not only depicts his faces with incorruptible fidelity to reality, but as if he even deliberately pulls them down from the ideal height to which we, according to the eternal property of human nature, so willingly place people and events. Mercilessly, mercilessly gr. L.N. Tolstoy reveals all the weaknesses of his heroes; he does not hide anything, does not stop at anything, so that he even instills fear and melancholy about human imperfection. Many sensitive souls cannot, for example, digest the thoughts of Natasha’s passion for Kuragin; If it weren’t for this, what a beautiful image would have emerged, drawn with amazing truthfulness! But the realist poet is merciless.
If you look at "War and Peace" from this point of view, then you can take this book as the most ardent denunciation Alexander's era, for the incorruptible exposure of all the ulcers from which she suffered. The self-interest, emptiness, falsity, depravity, and stupidity of the then upper circle were exposed; the meaningless, lazy, gluttonous life of Moscow society and rich landowners like the Rostovs; then the greatest unrest everywhere, especially in the army, during the war; People are shown everywhere who, amidst blood and battles, are guided by personal benefits and sacrifice the common good to them; terrible disasters were exposed that occurred from disagreement and petty ambition of the bosses, from the lack of a firm hand in management; a whole crowd of cowards, scoundrels, thieves, libertines, cheaters was brought onto the stage; the rudeness and savagery of the people is clearly shown (in Smolensk, a husband beating his wife; a riot in Bogucharovo).
So, if someone had decided to write an article about “War and Peace” similar to Dobrolyubov’s article “The Dark Kingdom,” he would have found in the work gr. L.N. Tolstoy provides abundant materials for this topic. One of the writers belonging to the foreign department of our literature, N. Ogarev, once brought all of our current literature under the formula of denunciation - he said that Turgenev is an exposer of landowners, Ostrovsky - of merchants, and Nekrasov - of officials. Following this view, we could rejoice at the appearance of a new accuser and say: gr. L.N. Tolstoy is an exposer of the military - an exposer of our military exploits, our historical glory.
It is very significant, however, that such a view found only faint echoes in literature - clear evidence that the most biased eyes could not help but see its injustice. But that such a view is possible, we have precious historical evidence for this: one of the participants in the War of 1812, a veteran of our literature A.S. Norov, carried away by a passion that inspired involuntary and deep respect, accepted gr. L.N. Tolstoy as an accuser. Here are the true words of A.S. Norova:
“Readers are amazed, during the first parts of the novel (“War and Peace”), first by the sad impression of the empty and almost immoral upper circle of society presented in the capital, but at the same time having influence on the government, and then by the absence of any meaning in military actions and barely not the lack of military prowess, of which our army has always been so justly proud." “The year 1812, resounding with glory, both in military and civilian life, is presented to us as a soap bubble; the whole phalanx of our generals, whose military glory is chained to our military chronicles and whose names still pass from mouth to mouth of the new military generation, seemed to be composed of mediocre, blind instruments of chance, who sometimes acted successfully, and even these successes are spoken of only in passing and often with irony. Was this really how our society was, was this really what our army was like?" “Being among the eyewitnesses of great domestic events, I could not finish reading this novel, which had a claim to be historical, without an offended patriotic feeling.”*
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* "War and Peace" (1805 - 1812) from a historical point of view and according to the memoirs of a contemporary. Regarding the essay of Count L.N. Tolstoy "War and Peace" by A.S. Norova. St. Petersburg, 1868, pp. 1 and 2.
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As we said, this side of the work of gr. L.N. Tolstoy, which so painfully affected A. S. Norov, did not make a noticeable impression on most readers. From what? Because it was too much overshadowed by other aspects of the work, because other motives of a more poetic nature came to the fore. Obviously, gr. L.N. Tolstoy depicted the dark features of objects not because he wanted to show them off, but because he wanted to depict objects completely, with all their features, and therefore with their dark features. His goal was Truth in the image - unchanging fidelity to reality, and it was this truthfulness that attracted all the attention of readers. Patriotism, the glory of Russia, moral rules, everything was forgotten, everything faded into the background before this realism, which came out fully armed. The reader eagerly followed these pictures; as if the artist, without preaching anything, without denouncing anyone, like some magician, transported him from one place to another and let him see for himself what was happening there.
Everything is bright, everything is figurative and at the same time everything is real, everything is true to reality, like a daguerreotype or a photograph, that’s the power of gr. L.N. Tolstoy. You feel that the author did not want to exaggerate either the dark or the light sides of the objects, did not want to throw any special color or spectacular lighting on them - that he with all his soul strove to convey the matter in its real, actual form and light - this is an irresistible charm that conquers the most persistent readers! Yes, we, Russian readers, have long been stubborn in our attitude towards works of art, have long been strongly armed against what is called poetry, ideal feelings and thoughts; We seem to have lost the ability to be carried away by idealism in art and stubbornly resist the slightest temptation in this direction. We either do not believe in the ideal, or (which is much more correct, since a private person can not believe in the ideal, but not the people) we place it so highly that we do not believe in the power of art - in the possibility of any embodiment of the ideal. In this state of affairs, there is only one road left for art - realism; What will you do than arm yourself against the truth - against the portrayal of life as it is?
But realism is different from realism; art, in essence, never renounces the ideal, it always strives for it; and the clearer and more vividly this desire is heard in the creations of realism, the higher they are, the closer they are to real artistry. There are quite a few people among us who understand this matter crudely, namely, they imagine that for the best success in art they must turn their soul into a simple photographic device and take from it whatever pictures they come across. Our literature presents many similar pictures: but simple-minded readers, imagining that real artists were speaking before them, were later surprised to see that absolutely nothing came of these writers. The point, however, is understandable; These writers were faithful to reality not because it was brightly illuminated by their ideal, but because they themselves did not see beyond what they wrote. They stood in line with the reality they described.
Gr. L.N. Tolstoy is not a realist exposer, but he is not a realist photographer either. This is why his work is so valuable, this is its strength and the reason for its success, that, while fully satisfying all the requirements of our art, he fulfilled them in their purest form, in their deepest sense. The essence of Russian realism in art has never been revealed with such clarity and strength; in "War and Peace" he rose to a new level and entered a new period of his development.
Let's take another step in characterizing this work, and we will already be close to the goal.
What is the special, prominent feature of the gr.’s talent? L.N. Tolstoy? In an unusually subtle and faithful depiction of mental movements. Gr. L.N. Tolstoy can be called par excellence realist psychologist. Based on his previous works, he has long been known as an amazing master in the analysis of all kinds of mental changes and states. This analysis, developed with some kind of passion, reached the point of pettiness, to the point of incorrect tension. In the new work, all his extremes disappeared and all his former accuracy and insight remained; the artist's power found its limits and settled into its shores. All his attention is directed to the human soul. His descriptions of the furnishings, costumes - in a word, of the entire outer side of life are rare, brief and incomplete; but nowhere is the impression and influence made by this external side on the soul of people lost, and the main place is occupied by their internal life, for which the external serves only as a reason or an incomplete expression. The slightest shades of mental life and its deepest shocks are depicted with equal clarity and truthfulness. The feeling of festive boredom in the Otradnensky house of the Rostovs and the feeling of the entire Russian army in the midst of the Battle of Borodino, the young spiritual movements of Natasha and the excitement of the old man Bolkonsky, who is losing his memory and is close to a stroke of paralysis - everything is bright, everything is alive and accurate in the story of gr. L.N. Tolstoy.
So, this is where the entire interest of the author, and therefore the entire interest of the reader, is concentrated. No matter what huge and important events take place on the stage - whether it be the Kremlin, choked with people as a result of the arrival of the sovereign, or a meeting between two emperors, or a terrible battle with the thunder of guns and thousands of dying - nothing distracts the poet, and with him the reader from gazing closely into the inner world of individuals. It is as if the artist is not interested in the event at all, but is only interested in how the human soul acts during this event - what does it feel and bring into the event?
Now ask yourself, what is the poet looking for? What persistent curiosity makes him follow the slightest sensations of all these people, from Napoleon and Kutuzov to those little girls whom Prince Andrei found in his ruined garden?
There is only one answer: the artist is looking for traces of the beauty of the human soul, looking for in each depicted face that spark of God in which the human dignity of the individual lies - in a word, he tries to find and determine with all accuracy how and to what extent a person’s ideal aspirations are realized in real life .
II
It is very difficult to present, even in its main features, the idea of a deep work of art; it is embodied in it with such completeness and versatility that an abstract presentation of it will always be something inaccurate, insufficient - it will not, as they say, completely exhaust the subject.
The idea of "War and Peace" can be formulated in various ways.
We can say, for example, that the guiding thought of the work is the idea of a heroic life. The author himself hints at this when, among the description of the Battle of Borodino, he makes the following remark: “The ancients left us examples of heroic poems in which heroes make up the entire interest of history, and we still cannot get used to the fact that for our human time a story of this kind has no meaning” (Vol. IV, p. 236).
The artist, thus, directly tells us that he wants to depict for us the kind of life that we usually call heroic, but to depict it in its real sense, and not in those incorrect images that were bequeathed to us by antiquity; he wants us lost the habit from these false ideas, and for this purpose gives us true ideas. Instead of the ideal, we must get the real.
Where to look for a heroic life? Of course, in history. We are accustomed to thinking that the people on whom history depends, who make history, are heroes. Therefore, the artist’s thought settled on 1812 and the wars that preceded it, as a predominantly heroic era. If Napoleon, Kutuzov, Bagration are not heroes, then who is the hero after that? Gr. L.N. Tolstoy took enormous historical events, the terrible struggle and tension of the people's forces, in order to capture the highest manifestations of what we call heroism.
But in our human time, as gr. L.N. Tolstoy, heroes alone do not constitute the entire interest of history. No matter how we understand heroic life, it is necessary to determine the attitude of ordinary life to it, and this is even the main point. What is an ordinary person compared to a hero? What is a private person in relation to history? In a more general form, this will be the same question that has long been developed by our artistic realism: what is ordinary everyday reality in comparison with the ideal, with a beautiful life? Gr. L.N. Tolstoy tried to resolve the issue as completely as possible. He presented to us, for example, Bagration and Kutuzov in incomparable, amazing greatness. They seem to have the ability to become above everything human. This is especially clear in the depiction of Kutuzov, weak from old age, forgetful, lazy, a man of bad morals who, as the author puts it, has retained all the habits of passions, but no longer having the passions themselves. For Bagration and Kutuzov, when they have to act, everything personal disappears; the expressions: courage, restraint, calmness are not even applicable to them, since they do not dare, do not restrain themselves, do not tense up and do not plunge into peace... Naturally and simply they do their job, as if they were spirits capable of only contemplating and unmistakably guided by the purest feelings of duty and honor. They look straight into the face of fate, and for them the very thought of fear is impossible - no hesitation in actions is possible, because they do everything, what they can, submitting to the flow of events and his own human frailty.
But beyond these lofty spheres of valor, reaching its highest limits, the artist presented to us the whole world where the demands of duty struggle with all the disturbances of human passions. He showed us all kinds of courage and all types of cowardice... What a distance from the initial cowardice of the cadet Rostov to the brilliant courage of Denisov, to the firm courage of Prince Andrei, to the unconscious heroism of Captain Tushin! All sensations and forms of battle - from panic fear and flight at Austerlitz to invincible stamina and bright burning hidden spiritual fire under Borodin - described to us by the artist. These people are what we see scoundrels as Kutuzov called the fleeing soldiers, then fearless, selfless warriors. In essence, they are all simple people, and the artist with amazing skill shows how, in varying degrees and degrees, in the soul of each of them the spark of valor that is usually inherent in a person arises, goes out or flares up.
And most importantly, it is shown what all these souls mean in the course of history, what they “wear in great events, what share of participation they have in heroic life. It is shown that kings and generals are great because they constitute, as it were, centers in which they strive to concentrate heroism living in the souls of simple and dark. Understanding of this heroism, sympathy for it and faith in it constitute all the greatness of the Bagrations and Kutuzovs. Misunderstanding of it, neglect of it or even contempt for it constitute the misfortune and smallness of Barclay de Tolly and the Speranskys.
War, state affairs and upheavals constitute the field of history, the heroic field par excellence. Having depicted with impeccable truthfulness how people behave, what they feel and what they do in this field, the artist, to complete his thoughts, wanted to show us the same people in their private sphere, where they are simply as people. “Meanwhile,” he writes in one place, “life (real life people with their own essential interests of health, illness, work, leisure, with their interests of thought, science, poetry, music, love, friendship, hatred, passions, proceeded, as always, independently and beyond political affinity or enmity with Napoleon Bonaparte and beyond all possible transformations” (vol. III, pp. 1 and 2).
These words are followed by a description of how Prince Andrey traveled to Otradnoye and met Natasha there for the first time.
Prince Andrei and his father in the sphere of common interests are real heroes. When Prince Andrei leaves Brunn to join an army in danger, the mocking Bilibin twice, without any ridicule, gives him the title of hero (vol. I, pp. 78 and 79). And Bilibin is absolutely right. Perzoerige all the actions and thoughts of Prince Andrei during the war, and you will not find a single reproach on him. Remember his behavior in the Shengraben affair, no one understood Bagration better than him, and he alone saw and appreciated the feat of Captain Tushin. But Bagration knew little about Prince Andrei, Kutuzov knows him better and turned to him during the Battle of Austerlitz, when it was necessary to stop the fleeing and lead them forward. Remember, finally, Borodino, when Prince Andrei stands for long hours with his regiment under fire (he did not want to stay at headquarters and did not fall into the ranks of the fighting), all human feelings speak in his soul, but he never for a moment loses complete composure in shouts to the adjutant lying on the ground: “Shame on you, Mr. Officer!” at the very moment when a grenade explodes and inflicts a serious wound on him. The path of such people is truly a mountain of honor, as Kutuzov put it, and they can, without hesitation, do everything that is required by the strictest concept of courage and self-sacrifice.
Old Bolkonsky is not inferior to his son. Remember that Spartan parting word that he gives to his son going to war and loved by him with bloody fatherly tenderness: “Remember one thing, Prince Andrei, if they kill you, I will give you the old man hurt will be... And if I find out that you did not behave like the son of Nikolai Bolkonsky, I will... ashamed!"
And his son is such that he had every right to object to his father: “You could not tell me this, father” (vol. I, p. 165).
Remember later that all the interests of Russia become for this old man as if his own, personal interests, constitute the main part of his life. He avidly follows affairs from his Bald Mountains. His constant ridicule of Napoleon and our military actions is obviously inspired by a feeling of insulted national pride; he does not want to believe that his mighty homeland suddenly lost its strength; he would like to attribute this to mere chance, and not to the strength of the enemy. When the invasion began and Napoleon advanced to Vitebsk, the decrepit old man was completely lost; At first he doesn’t even understand what he reads in his son’s letter: he pushes away from himself a thought that is impossible for him to bear - which should crush his life. But I had to be convinced, I finally had to believe: and then the old man dies. More accurately than a bullet, he was struck by the thought of a general disaster.
Yes, these people are real heroes; Such people make strong nations and states. But why, the reader will probably ask, is it that their heroism seems to be devoid of anything amazing, and they are more likely to appear to us as ordinary people? Because the artist depicted them completely for us, he showed us not only how they act in relation to duty, honor, and national pride, but also their private, personal life. He showed us the home life of the old man Bolkonsky with his painful relationship with his daughter, with all the weaknesses of a decrepit man - an involuntary tormentor of his neighbors. In Prince Andrei gr. L.N. Tolstoy revealed to us the impulses of terrible pride and ambition, his cold and at the same time jealous relationship with his wife, and in general his entire difficult character, which in its severity resembles the character of his father. “I’m afraid of him,” Natasha says about Prince Andrei just before his proposal.
Old Bolkonsky amazed strangers with his greatness; Having arrived in Moscow, he became the head of the opposition there and aroused in everyone a feeling of respectful respect. "For visitors, this entire old house with huge dressing tables, pre-revolutionary furniture, these footmen in powder, and the of the last century, a cool and smart old man with his meek daughter and a pretty French girl, who revered him, presented a majestic and pleasant sight."(Vol. III, p. 190). In the same way, Prince Andrei inspires involuntary respect in everyone and plays some kind of regal role in the world. Kutuzov and Speransky caress him, the soldiers idolize him.
But all this has full effect for outsiders, and not for us. The artist introduced us to the most intimate life of these people; he initiated us into all their thoughts, into all their worries. The human weakness of these persons, those moments in which they become on an equal footing with ordinary mortals, those positions and mental movements in which all people feel equally, equally - people - all this is revealed to us clearly and completely; and this is why the heroic features of faces seem to drown in the mass of simply human features.
This should apply to all persons of War and Peace, without exception. Everywhere it’s the same story as with the janitor Ferapontov, who inhumanly beats his wife, who asked to leave, bargains stingily with cab drivers at the very moment of danger, and then, when he sees what’s going on, shouts: “I’ve made up my mind! Russia!” and sets his house on fire. So accurately, in each person, the author depicts all aspects of mental life - from animal tendencies to that spark of heroism that often lurks in the smallest and most perverted souls.
But let no one think that the artist thus wanted to humiliate heroic faces and actions by exposing their imaginary greatness; on the contrary, his whole goal was only to show them in the real light and, therefore, rather to teach us to see them where we could not see them before. Human weaknesses should not obscure human virtues from us. In other words, the poet teaches his readers to penetrate into the poetry that is hidden in reality. It is deeply closed from us by vulgarity, pettiness, the dirty and stupid vanity of daily life, it is impenetrable and inaccessible to our own indifference, drowsy laziness and selfish fussiness; and now the poet illuminates before us all the mud that entangles human life, so that we can see the spark of the Divine flame in its darkest corners, - we can understand those people in whom this flame burns brightly, although myopic eyes do not see it, - we can sympathize with matters that seemed incomprehensible to our cowardice and selfishness. This is not Gogol, illuminating the whole world with the bright light of the ideal. vulgarity vulgar person; This is an artist who, through all the vulgarity visible to the world, knows how to discern in a person his human dignity. With unprecedented courage, the artist undertook to depict for us the most heroic time of our history - the time from which the conscious life of the new Russia actually begins; and who will not say that he emerged victorious from a competition with his subject?
Before us is a picture of that Russia that withstood Napoleon’s invasion and dealt a mortal blow to his power. The picture is painted not only without embellishment, but also with sharp shadows of all the shortcomings - all the ugly and pitiful sides that plagued the society of that time in mental, moral and governmental terms. But at the same time, the power that saved Russia is clearly shown.
The thought that makes up military theory gr. L.N. Tolstoy, which caused so much noise, is that each soldier is not a simple material tool, but is strong primarily in his spirit, that in the end the whole thing depends on this spirit of the soldier, which can either fall to panic fear, or rise to heroism. Generals are strong when they control not only the movements and actions of soldiers, but are able to control them in spirit. To do this, the commanders themselves need to stand in spirit above all his army, above all accidents and misfortunes - in a word, to have the strength to bear the entire fate of the army and, if necessary, the entire fate of the state. Such, for example, was the decrepit Kutuzov during the Battle of Borodino. His faith in the strength of the Russian army and the Russian people is obviously higher and stronger than the faith of every warrior; Kutuzov, as it were, concentrates all their inspiration in himself. The fate of the battle is decided by his own words, spoken to Wolzogen: “You know nothing. The enemy is defeated, and tomorrow we will drive him out of the sacred Russian land.” At this moment Kutuzov, obviously, stands immeasurably above all the Wolzogens and Barclays, he stands on a par with Russia.
In general, the description of the Battle of Borodino is quite worthy of its subject. The considerable praise that Mr. L.N. Tolstoy managed to snatch even from such biased connoisseurs as A.S. Norov. “Count Tolstoy,” writes A.S. Norov, “in chapters 33 - 35 beautiful and true depicted the general phases of the Battle of Borodino."* Let us note in parentheses that if the Battle of Borodino is depicted well, then one cannot help but believe that such an artist was able to depict well all kinds of other military events.
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* See: "Russian Archive", 1868 N 3. A few explanatory words gr. L.N. Tolstoy.
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The power of the description of this battle follows from the entire previous story; it is, as it were, the highest point, the understanding of which was prepared by everything previous. When we get to this battle, we already know all types of courage and all types of cowardice, we know how all members of the army behave or can behave, from the commander to the last soldier. Therefore, in the story of the battle the author is so concise and brief; There is not just one captain Tushin, described in detail in the Shengraben case, operating here, there are hundreds of such Tushins. From a few scenes - on the mound where Bezukhov was, in Prince Andrei's regiment, at the dressing station - we feel all the tension in the spiritual strength of each soldier, we understand that single and unshakable spirit that animated this entire terrible mass of people. Kutuzov appears to us as if connected by some invisible threads to the heart of every soldier. There has scarcely ever been another such battle, and scarcely anything like it has been told in any other language.
So, heroic life is depicted in its most sublime manifestations and in its actual form. How war is made, how history is made - these questions, which deeply occupied the artist, were resolved by him with skill and insight that are beyond all praise. One cannot help but recall the author’s own explanations about his understanding of history*. With a naivety that can rightfully be called genius, he almost directly asserts that historians, by the very nature of their techniques and research, can only depict events in a false and distorted form - that the real meaning, the real truth of the matter is accessible only to the artist. And what? How not to say that gr. L.N. Does Tolstoy have considerable rights to such insolence regarding history? All historical descriptions of the twelfth year are really some kind of lie in comparison with the living picture of “War and Peace”. There is no doubt that our art in this work stands immeasurably higher than our historical science and therefore has the right to teach it an understanding of events. So once upon a time Pushkin with his Chronicle of the village of Gorokhina wanted to expose the false features, false tone and spirit of the first volumes History of the Russian State Karamzin.
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* See: "Russian Archive", 1868 N 3. A few explanatory words, gr. L.N. Tolstoy.
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But a heroic life does not exhaust the author’s tasks. Its subject is obviously much broader. The main idea that guides him when depicting heroic phenomena is to reveal them human the basis, show in the heroes - of people. When Prince Andrei meets Speransky, the author notes: “If Speransky were from the same society from which Prince Andrei was - the same upbringing and moral habits, then Bolkonsky I would soon find his weak, human, unheroic sides; but now this logical mindset, strange to him, inspired him with respect all the more because he did not fully understand it (vol. III, p. 22). What Bolkonsky was not able to do in this case, the artist with the greatest skill can do in relation to all his faces: he reveals to us their human sides. Thus, his entire story takes on a human rather than a heroic character; this is not the story of exploits and great events, but the story of the people who participated in them. So, the author's broader subject is simply Human; people obviously interest the author completely regardless of their position in society and the great or small events that happen to them.
Let's see how gr. L.N. Tolstoy depicts people.
The human soul is depicted in War and Peace with a reality unprecedented in our literature. We see before us not abstract life, but completely defined beings with all the limitations of place, time, and circumstances. We see, for example, how grow faces gr. L.N. Tolstoy. Natasha running out into the living room with a doll in the first volume, and Natasha entering the church in the fourth, are really the same person at two different ages - girls and girls, and not two ages just assigned to one person (as is often the case happens with other writers). The author also showed us all the intermediate stages of this development. Exactly like this - Nikolai Rostov is growing before our eyes, Pyotr Bezukhov is turning from a young man into a Moscow gentleman, old Bolkonsky is decrepit, etc.
Mental characteristics of persons gr. L.N. Tolstoy are so clear, so imprinted with individuality that we can follow family resemblance those souls who are related by blood. Old Bolkonsky and Prince Andrei are clearly the same in nature; only one is young, the other is old. The Rostov family, despite all the diversity of its members, presents amazingly captured common features - reaching those shades that can be felt, but not expressed. For some reason, one feels, for example, that Vera is the real Rostov, while Sonya clearly has a soul of a different root.
There is nothing to say about foreigners. Remember the Germans: General Mack, Pfuhl, Adolf Berg, the Frenchwoman Mlle Bourienne, Napoleon himself, etc. The mental difference between nationalities is captured and maintained to the point of subtlety. Regarding Russian faces, it is not only clear that each of them is a completely Russian face, but we can even distinguish between the classes and states to which they belong. Speransky, who appears in two small scenes, turns out to be a seminarian from head to toe, and the peculiarities of his mental structure are expressed with the greatest brightness and without the slightest exaggeration.
And everything that happens in these souls, which have such definite features - every feeling, passion, excitement - has exactly the same definiteness, is depicted with the same exact reality. There is nothing more ordinary than an abstract depiction of feelings and passions. The hero is usually credited with some one emotional mood - love, ambition, thirst for revenge - and the case is told as if this mood constantly exists in the soul of the hero; Thus, a description is made of the phenomena of a certain passion, taken separately, and is attributed to the person brought onto the stage.
Not so with gr. L.N. Tolstoy. For him, every impression, every feeling is complicated by all the responses that it finds in the various abilities and aspirations of the soul. If we imagine the soul in the form of a musical instrument with many different strings, then we can say that the artist, depicting some kind of shock of the soul, never stops at the predominant sound of one string, but captures all the sounds, even the weakest and barely noticeable. Remember, for example, the description of Natasha, a being in whom mental life has such intensity and completeness; in this soul everything speaks at once: pride, love for the groom, cheerfulness, thirst for life, deep affection for family, etc. Remember Andrei when he stands over a smoking grenade.
“Is this really death?” thought Prince Andrey, looking with a completely new, envious gaze at the grass, at the sand and at the stream of smoke curling from the spinning black ball. “I can’t, I don’t want to die; I love life, I love this grass, this earth.” , air"... He thought this and at the same time remembered that they were looking at him."(Vol. IV, p. 323).
And further, whatever feeling possesses a person, it is depicted by gr. L.N. Tolstoy with all its changes and fluctuations - not in the form of some constant value, but in the form of only the ability to a certain feeling, in the form of a spark, constantly smoldering, ready to burst into flames, but often drowned out by other feelings. Remember, for example, the feeling of malice that Prince Andrei has towards Kuragin, the strange contradictions and changes in the feelings of Princess Marya, religious, amorous, boundlessly loving her father, etc.
What was the author's purpose? What thought guides him? Depicting the human soul in its dependence and variability - in its subordination to its own characteristics and the temporary circumstances surrounding it - he seems to belittle spiritual life, as if depriving it of unity - a permanent, essential meaning. Inconsistency, insignificance, vanity of human feelings and desires - this is, apparently, the main theme of the artist.
But here too we will be mistaken if we dwell on the realistic aspirations of the artist, which appear with such extraordinary force, and forget about the source that inspired these aspirations. Reality in the depiction of the human soul was necessary so that even a weak, but real realization of the ideal would appear to us the brighter, the more truthful and the more undoubted. In these souls, agitated and suppressed by their desires and external events, sharply imprinted with their indelible characteristics, the artist is able to capture every feature, every trace of true spiritual beauty - true human dignity. So, if we try to give a new, broader formula for the problem of the product of gr. L.N. Tolstoy, we will have to express it like this, it seems.
What is human dignity? How should we understand the life of people, from the most powerful and brilliant to the weakest and most insignificant, so as not to lose sight of its essential feature - the human soul in each of them?
We found a hint of this formula from the author himself. Discussing how small Napoleon's participation was in the Battle of Borodino, how undoubtedly every soldier participated in it with his soul, the author notes: "Human Dignity tells me, that each of us, if not more, then in no way no less a man than the great Napoleon"(Vol. IV, p. 282).
So, to depict that in which each person is no less than any other - that in which a simple soldier can be equal to Napoleon, a limited and stupid person can be equal to the greatest clever man - in a word, that which we must respect in a person, in what they should supply him price,- this is the broad goal of the artist. For this purpose, he brought to the stage great people, great events and, nearby, the adventures of the cadet Rostov, high-society salons and everyday life uncles, Napoleon and the janitor Ferapontov. For this purpose, he told us family scenes of simple, weak people and the strong passions of brilliant, rich in strength natures - he depicted impulses of nobility and generosity and pictures of the deepest human weaknesses.
The human dignity of people is hidden from us either by their shortcomings of all kinds, or by the fact that we value other qualities too highly and therefore measure people by their intelligence, strength, beauty, etc. The poet teaches us to penetrate through this appearance. What could be simpler, more dozens, so to speak, more humble than the figures of Nikolai Rostov and Princess Marya? They don’t shine in anything, they don’t know how to do anything, they don’t stand out from the lowest level of ordinary people in anything, and yet these simple beings, walking without struggle along the simplest paths of life, are obviously beautiful beings. The irresistible sympathy with which the artist managed to surround these two faces, apparently so small, but in essence not inferior to anyone in spiritual beauty, constitutes one of the most masterful aspects of “War and Peace.” Nikolai Rostov is obviously a very limited person in intelligence, but, as the author notes in one place, “he had a common sense of mediocrity, which showed him what was due” (vol. III, p. 113).
And indeed, Nikolai does a lot of stupid things, understands little about people and circumstances, but always understands what should; and this invaluable wisdom in all cases protects the purity of his simple and ardent nature.
Should we talk about Princess Marya? Despite all her weaknesses, this image achieves almost angelic purity and meekness, and at times it seems that a holy radiance surrounds him.
Here we are involuntarily stopped by a terrible picture - the relationship between the old man Bolkonsky and his daughter. If Nikolai Rostov and Princess Marya represent clearly sympathetic faces, then, apparently, there is no way to forgive this old man for all the torment that his daughter endures from him. Of all the faces drawn by the artist, none seems to deserve more indignation. Meanwhile, what happens? With amazing skill, the author depicted for us one of the most terrible human weaknesses, which cannot be overcome by either mind or will, and most of all capable of arousing sincere regret. In essence, the old man loves his daughter infinitely - literally could not live without her; but this love was distorted in him into a desire to inflict pain on himself and his beloved being. He seems to be constantly tugging at the inextricable connection that unites him with his daughter, and finds painful pleasure in like this feeling this connection. All the shades of these strange relationships are captured by gr. L.N. Tolstoy with inimitable fidelity, and the denouement - when the old man, broken by illness and close to death, finally expresses all his tenderness for his daughter - makes a stunning impression. And to such an extent the strongest, purest feelings can be distorted! People can inflict so much torment on themselves through their own fault! It is impossible to imagine a picture that more clearly proves how little control a person can sometimes have over himself. The relationship of the stately old man Bolkonsky to his daughter and son, based on a jealous and perverted feeling of love, constitutes an example of the evil that often nests in families, and proves to us that the most sacred and natural feelings can take on a crazy and wild character.
These feelings, however, constitute the root of the matter, and their perversion should not obscure their pure source from us. In moments of strong upheaval, their true, deep nature often comes out completely; Thus, love for his daughter takes possession of the entire being of the dying Bolkonsky. To see what lurks in a person’s soul under the play of passions, under all forms of selfishness, self-interest, animal drives - this is what the great master Count L.N. Tolstoy. The hobbies and adventures of such people as Pierre Bezukhov and Natasha Rostova are very pathetic, very unreasonable and ugly; but the reader sees that, behind all that, these people hearts of gold, and he will not doubt for a minute that where self-sacrifice was involved - where selfless sympathy for the good and the beautiful was needed - in these hearts there would be complete response, complete readiness. The spiritual beauty of these two faces is amazing. Pierre - an adult child, with a huge body and with terrible sensuality, like an impractical and unreasonable child, combines childish purity and tenderness of soul with a naive mind, but for that same reason - with a character to which everything ignoble is not only alien, but even and unclear. This person, like children, is not afraid of anything and knows no evil behind him. Natasha is a girl gifted with such fullness of spiritual life that (in Bezukhov’s words) she doesn't deserve to be smart, those. has neither the time nor the inclination to translate this life into abstract forms of thought. The immeasurable fullness of life (leading it sometimes to Drunk, as the author puts it) involves her in a terrible mistake, in an insane passion for Kuragin, a mistake that is later redeemed by severe suffering. Pierre and Natasha are people who, by their very nature, must experience mistakes and disappointments in life. As if in contrast to them, the author also brought out a happy couple, Vera Rostova and Adolf Berg, people who are alien to any mistakes, disappointments and who are quite comfortable in life. One cannot help but marvel at the extent to which the author, exposing all the baseness and smallness of these souls, never once succumbed to the temptation of laughter or anger. This is real realism, real truthfulness. The same truthfulness is in the depiction of the Kuragins, Helen and Anatole; these heartless creatures are exposed mercilessly, but without the slightest desire to scourge them.
What comes out of this even, clear, daylight with which the author illuminated his picture? We have neither classic villains nor classic heroes; The human soul appears in an extreme variety of types; it appears weak, subordinate to passions and circumstances, but, in essence, in the mass it is guided by pure and good aspirations. Among all the diversity of persons and events, we feel the presence of some solid and unshakable principles on which this life rests. Family responsibilities are clear to everyone. The concepts of good and evil are clear and strong. Having depicted with the greatest truthfulness the false life of the upper strata of society and the various headquarters surrounding high-ranking officials, the author contrasted them with two strong and truly living spheres - family life and real military, that is, army life. Two families, the Bolkonskys and the Rostovs, present us with a life guided by clear, undoubted principles, in observance of which the members of these families place their duty and honor, dignity and consolation. In the same way, army life (which Count L.N. Tolstoy compares in one place to paradise) presents us with complete certainty of concepts about duty, about human dignity; so that the simple-minded Nikolai Rostov even once preferred to stay in the regiment rather than go to a family where he did not quite clearly see how he should behave.
Thus, in large and clear terms, Russia of 1812 is depicted to us as a mass of people who know what their human dignity requires of them - what they should do in relation to themselves, to other people and to their homeland. The whole story gr. L.N. Tolstoy depicts only every kind of struggle that this sense of duty endures with the passions and accidents of life, as well as the struggle that this strong, most populous layer of Russia endures with the upper, false and bankrupt layer. The twelfth year was the moment when the lower layer took over and, due to its hardness, withstood the pressure of Napoleon. All this is clearly visible, for example, in the actions and thoughts of Prince Andrei, who left the headquarters for the regiment and, talking with Pierre on the eve of the Battle of Borodino , constantly remembers his father, killed by the news of the invasion. Feelings similar to those of Prince Andrei saved Russia then. “The French ruined my house,- he says, - and they are going to ruin Moscow, they insulted and insult me every second. They are my enemies, they are all criminals, according to my concepts" (vol. IV, p. 267).
After these and similar speeches, Pierre, as the author says, “understood the whole meaning and the whole significance of this war and the upcoming battle.”
The war was defensive on the part of the Russians and, therefore, had a holy and popular character; whereas on the part of the French it was offensive, that is, violent and unfair. Under Borodin, all other relations and considerations smoothed out and disappeared; Two peoples stood opposite each other - one attacking, the other defending. Therefore, here the power of those two was revealed with the greatest clarity. ideas, which this time moved these peoples and put them in such a mutual position. The French appeared as representatives of a cosmopolitan idea, capable, in the name of common principles, of resorting to violence, to the murder of peoples; Russians were representatives of the people's idea - with love, protecting the spirit and structure of an original, organically formed life. The question of nationalities was raised on the Borodino field, and the Russians decided it here for the first time in favor of nationalities.
It is therefore clear that Napoleon did not understand and could never understand what happened at Borodino okay; it is clear that he should have been overwhelmed with bewilderment and fear at the spectacle of an unexpected and unknown force that rebelled against him. Since the matter, however, was apparently very simple and clear, it is clear, finally, that the author considered himself entitled to say the following about Napoleon: “And not only for this hour and day were darkened mind and conscience this man, who bore the full weight of what had happened more heavily than all the other participants in this case, but never until the end of his life, he could not understand goodness, beauty, or truth, nor the meaning of his actions, which were too opposite to goodness and truth, too far from everything human, for him to understand their meaning. He could not renounce his actions, praised by half the world, and therefore had to renounce from truth and goodness and all humanity"(Vol. IV, pp. 330, 331).
So, here is one of the final conclusions: in Napoleon, in this hero of heroes, the author sees a man who has reached the complete loss of true human dignity - a man comprehended by darkness of mind and conscience. The proof is there. Just as Barclay de Tolly is forever damaged by the fact that he did not understand the situation of the Battle of Borodino, - just as Kutuzov is extolled beyond all praise because he completely clearly understood what was happening during this battle - so Napoleon is forever condemned by the fact that he did not understand that holy, simple the work that we did under Borodin and which every soldier understood. In a case that screamed so loudly about its meaning, Napoleone realized that the truth was on our side. Europe wanted to strangle Russia and in its pride dreamed that it was acting beautifully and fairly.
So, in the person of Napoleon, the artist seemed to want to present to us the human soul in its blindness, he wanted to show that a heroic life can contradict true human dignity - that goodness, truth and beauty can be much more accessible to simple and small people than to other great heroes. The poet places a simple person, a simple life above heroism - both in dignity and in strength; for ordinary Russian people with hearts like those of Nikolai Rostov, Timokhin and Tushin, defeated Napoleon and his great army.
IV
Until now we have spoken as if the author had completely definite goals and objectives, as if he wanted to prove or explain well-known thoughts and abstract propositions. But this is only an approximate way of expressing it. We said this only for clarity, for emphasis of speech; we deliberately gave the matter rude and sharp forms so that they would catch the eye more vividly. In reality, the artist was not guided by such bare considerations as we have attributed to him; the creative force acted more widely and deeply, penetrating into the most intimate and highest meaning of phenomena.
Thus, we could give a few more formulas for the purpose and meaning of War and Peace. True is the essence of every truly artistic work, and therefore, no matter what philosophical height of contemplation of life we rise to, we will find in “War and Peace” points of support for our contemplation. Much has been said about historical theory Count L.N. Tolstoy. Despite the excessiveness of some of his expressions, people of the most diverse opinions agreed that he was, if not entirely right, then one step from the truth.
This theory could be generalized and said, for example, that not only historical, but all human life is governed not by the mind and will, that is, not by thoughts and desires that have reached a clear conscious form, but by something darker and stronger, so called in kind of people. The sources of life (both of individuals and of entire nations) are much deeper and more powerful than the conscious arbitrariness and conscious consideration that apparently guides people. Similar faith in life- recognition of a greater meaning behind life than what our mind is capable of grasping - is diffused throughout the work of Count L.N. Tolstoy; and one could say that this entire work was written on this idea.
Let's give a small example. After his trip to Otradnoye, Prince Andrei decides to leave the village for St. Petersburg. “A whole series,” says the author, “of reasonable logical arguments why he needed to go to St. Petersburg and even serve, was ready at his service every minute. Even now he did not understand how he could ever doubt the need to take an active part in life , just as a month ago he did not understand how the idea of leaving the village could have come to him. It seemed clear to him that all his experiences in life should have been in vain and be meaningless if he had not put them to work and again took an active part in life. He did not even remember how before, on the basis there were obviously the same poor reasonable arguments that he would be humbled if now, after his life lessons, he again believed in the possibility of being useful and in the possibility of happiness and love” (vol. III, p. 10).
The same subordinate role is played by reason in all other persons of the group. L.N. Tolstoy. Everywhere life turns out to be broader than poor logical considerations, and the poet excellently shows how it reveals its power beyond the will of people. Napoleon strives for what should destroy him, the disorder in which he found our army and government saves Russia, because it lures Napoleon to Moscow - allows our patriotism to mature - makes it necessary to appoint Kutuzov and generally change the whole course of affairs. The true, deep forces that control events take precedence over all calculations.
So, the mysterious depth of life is the idea of War and Peace.<...>
In one place the author notes in parentheses that narrow-minded people like to talk "in our time, in our time, because they imagine that they have found and appreciated the peculiarities of our time, and think that properties of people change over time"(Vol. III, p. 85). Gr. L.N. Tolstoy obviously rejects this gross error, and, on the basis of everything that has gone before, we seem to have every right to say that in War and Peace he is true throughout unchangeable, eternal properties of the human soul. Just as in a hero he sees the human side, so in a man of a certain time, a certain circle. and education, he first of all sees a person - so in his actions, determined by the century and circumstances, he sees the unchangeable laws of human nature. This is where it comes from, so to speak. universal the entertaining nature of this amazing work, which combines artistic realism with artistic idealism, historical fidelity with general mental truth, a bright folk originality with a universal breadth.
These are some of the general points of view into which War and Peace fits. But all these definitions do not yet indicate the private nature of the work of gr. L.N. Tolstoy - his features, which give him, in addition to the general meaning, a certain meaning for our literature. This particular characteristic can be made only by showing the place of “War and Peace” in our literature, explaining the connection of this work with the general course of our literature and with the history of the development of the author’s talent itself. We will try to do this in the next article.
Article two and last
It is now hardly possible to make a final judgment about “War and Peace.” Many years will pass before the meaning of this work is fully understood. And we say this not in special praise of him, not for the sake of his exaltation, no, such is the general fate of facts that are too close to us, that we weakly and poorly understand their meaning. But, of course, such misunderstanding is most deplorable and its source is most clearly revealed when it comes to important phenomena. Often great and beautiful things pass before our eyes, but we, due to our own smallness, do not believe and do not notice that we have been given the opportunity to be witnesses and eyewitnesses of the great and beautiful. We judge everything by ourselves. Hastily, carelessly, inattentively, we judge everything modern, as if we could handle it all, as if we had every right to treat it in a familiar manner; Most of all, we love not just to judge, but to condemn, because by this we think to undoubtedly prove our mental superiority. Thus, about the deepest and most luminous phenomenon are indifferent or arrogant reviews, of which those who utter them are unaware of their amazing insolence. And it’s good if we come to our senses and finally understand what we dared to judge, what giants we compared ourselves with in our naivety. For the most part, this does not happen, and people stick to their opinions with the tenacity of that chief under whom Gogol served for several months and who then, until the end of his life, could not believe that his subordinate had become a great Russian writer.
We are blind and shortsighted to the modern. And although works of art, as intended directly for contemplation and those who use all the means by which it is possible to achieve clarity of impression, apparently, should be more striking to our eyes than other phenomena, but they do not escape the common fate. Gogol’s remark is constantly coming true: “Go get along with man! He doesn’t believe in God, but believes that if the bridge of his nose itches, he will certainly die; will pass by the poet’s creation, clear as day, all imbued with harmony and the lofty wisdom of simplicity, but he will rush to the very place where some daredevil will confuse, weave, break, twist nature, and he will like it, and he will begin to shout: here it is, here is the real knowledge of the secrets of the heart!
There is, however, in this inability to appreciate the present and what is close to us, there is another, deeper side. While a person develops and strives forward, he cannot correctly appreciate what he possesses. Thus, a child does not know the charms of his childhood, and a young man does not suspect the beauty and freshness of his spiritual phenomena. Only later, when all this has become the past, do we begin to understand what great benefits we possessed; then we find that these goods have no price, since it is impossible to return them or acquire them again. The past, the unique, becomes unique and irreplaceable, and therefore all its advantages appear before us clearly, not obscured by anything, not obscured by either worries about the present or dreams of the future.
It is clear, therefore, why, moving into the realm of history, everything acquires a clearer and more definite meaning. Over time, the meaning of “War and Peace” will cease to be a question, and this work will occupy that irreplaceable and unique place in our literature that is difficult for contemporaries to discern. If we now want to have some indications of this place, then we can get them no other way than by considering the historical connection of “War and Peace” with Russian literature in general. If we find living threads connecting this modern phenomenon with phenomena whose meaning has already become clearer and more definite for us, then its meaning, its importance and features will become clearer to us. The fulcrum for our judgments in this case will no longer be abstract concepts, but solid historical facts that have a very definite physiognomy.
So, moving on to a historical view of the work of gr. L.N. Tolstoy, we are entering a clearer and more distinct area. Having said this, we must, however, add that this is only true in general and comparatively. For the history of our literature, in essence, is one of the most obscure stories, the least generally known, and the understanding of this history? - as one would expect from the general state of our enlightenment - is highly distorted and confused by prejudices and false views. But, as our literature moves, the meaning of this movement must, however, become clearer, and such an important work as “War and Peace,” of course, should reveal to us a lot about what our literature internally lives and feeds on, where it strives main current.
I
There is a classic work in Russian literature with which “War and Peace” has more similarities than with any other work. This is Pushkin's "Captain's Daughter". There are similarities in the external manner, in the very tone and subject of the story, but the main similarity is in the inner spirit of both works. “The Captain's Daughter” is also not a historical novel, that is, it does not at all mean to depict in the form of a novel life and morals that have already become alien to us, and persons who played an important role in the history of that time. Historical figures, Pugachev, Ekaterina, appear briefly in Pushkin in a few scenes, just as in “War and Peace” Kutuzov, Napoleon, etc. appear. The main attention is focused on the events of the private lives of the Grinevs and Mironovs, and historical events are described only in to the extent that they touched the lives of these ordinary people. "The Captain's Daughter", strictly speaking, is chronicle of the Grinev family; this is the story that Pushkin dreamed of back in the third chapter of Onegin - a story depicting
Traditions of the Russian family.
Subsequently, we had many similar stories, among which the highest place is occupied by Family chronicle S.T. Aksakova. Critics noticed the similarity of this chronicle with Pushkin’s work. Khomyakov says: “The simplicity of Pushkin’s forms in stories and especially Gogol, with whom S. T. was so friendly, influenced him."*
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* Sochin. Khomyakova, vol. 1, p. 665.
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It’s worth looking a little closer at “War and Peace” to make sure that this is also some family chronicle. Namely, this chronicle of two families: the Rostov family and the Bolkonsky family. These are memories and stories about all the most important events in the lives of these two families and how contemporary historical events affected their lives. The only difference from a simple chronicle is that the story is given a brighter, more picturesque form in which the artist could better embody his ideas. There is no bare story; everything is in scenes, in clear and distinct colors. Hence the apparent fragmentation of the story, which is essentially extremely coherent; hence the fact that the artist, of necessity, limited himself to a few years of the life he described, and did not begin to tell it gradually from the very birth of this or that hero. But even in this story, concentrated for greater artistic clarity, don’t all the “family legends” of the Bolkonskys and Rostovs appear before the readers’ eyes?
So, guided by comparison, we finally found the one genus verbal works, which should include "War and Peace". This is not a novel at all, not a historical novel, not even a historical chronicle; This - family chronicle. If we add that we certainly mean a work of art, then our definition will be ready. This unique kind, which is not found in other literature and the idea of which troubled Pushkin for a long time and was finally realized by him, can be characterized by two features indicated by its name. Firstly, this is - chronicle, those. a simple, ingenuous story, without any complications or intricate adventures, without outward unity and connection. This form is obviously simpler than a novel - closer to reality, to the truth: it wants to be taken as a fact, and not as a simple possibility. Secondly, this is true family, those. not the adventures of an individual, on whom all the reader’s attention should be focused, but events that are somehow important for the whole family. For the artist, it is as if all members of the family whose chronicle he is writing are equally dear, equally heroes. And the center of gravity of the work is always in family relationships, and not in anything else. "The Captain's Daughter" is a story about how Pyotr Grinev married the daughter of Captain Mironov. The point is not at all about curious sensations, and all the adventures of the bride and groom do not concern changes in their feelings, simple and clear from the very beginning, but are random obstacles that prevented a simple outcome - not obstacles to passion, but obstacles to marriage. Hence the natural diversity of this story; There is actually no romantic thread in it.
One cannot help but marvel at Pushkin’s genius, revealed in this case. "The Captain's Daughter" has all the external forms of Walter Scott's novels, epigraphs, division into chapters, etc. (Thus, the external form of “History of the Russian State” was taken from Hume.) But, having decided to imitate, Pushkin wrote a work that was highly original. Pugachev, for example, is brought onto the stage with such amazing caution that can only be found in gr. L.N. Tolstoy, when he brings before us Alexander I, Speransky, etc. Pushkin, obviously, considered the slightest deviation from strict historical truth to be a frivolous matter and unworthy of poetic labor. In the same way, the romantic story of two loving hearts is brought to simplicity, in which everything romantic disappears.
And thus, although he considered it necessary to base the plot on love and introduce a historical figure into this plot, due to his unwavering poetic truthfulness, he wrote us not a historical novel, but a family chronicle of the Grinevs.
But we cannot show all the deep similarities between “War and Peace” and “The Captain’s Daughter” if we do not delve into the inner spirit of these works - if we do not show that significant turn in Pushkin’s artistic activity, which led him to the creation of our first family chronicle. Without understanding this turn, reflected and developed in gr. L.N. Tolstoy, we will not understand the full meaning of War and Peace. External similarity means nothing in comparison with the similarity of the spirit that is instilled in both works that we are comparing. Here, as always, it turns out that Pushkin is the true founder of our original literature - that his genius comprehended and combined in himself all the aspirations of our creativity.
II
So, what is "The Captain's Daughter"? Everyone knows that this is one of the most precious assets of our literature. Due to the simplicity and purity of its poetry, this work is equally accessible and equally attractive to adults and children. On "The Captain's Daughter" (as well as on "Family Chronicle" by S. Aksakov), Russian children educate their minds and their feelings, since teachers, without any outside instructions, find that there is no book in our literature that is more understandable and entertaining and, together with those so serious in content and high in creativity. What is "The Captain's Daughter"?
We no longer have the right to take the decision on this issue solely on ourselves. We have literature and we also have criticism. We wish to show that there is a constant development in our literature - that in it, to varying degrees and in different forms, all the same basic inclinations are revealed; worldview gr. L.N. We associate Tolstoy with one of the aspects of Pushkin’s poetic activity. In the same way we are obliged and would like to connect our judgments with the views already expressed by our criticism. If we have criticism, then it could not help but appreciate that important trend in our art, which began with Pushkin, lived until the present time (about forty years) and, finally, gave birth to such a huge and lofty work as “War and Peace” . A fact of this size is the best way to test the insight of criticism and the depth of its understanding.
We have written a lot about Pushkin, but of all that has been written, two works stand out: we have two books, about Pushkin, of course, known to all readers: one - the 8th volume of his works Belinsky, containing ten articles about Pushkin (1843 - 1846), the other - “Materials for the biography of Pushkin” P.V. Annenkova, constituting the 1st volume of his edition of Pushkin’s works (1855). Both books are quite wonderful. Belinsky, for the first time in our literature (the Germans already wrote about Pushkin in a manner worthy of a poet, Varnhagen von Enze) made a clear and firm assessment of the artistic merit of Pushkin’s works; Belinsky clearly understood the high dignity of these works and accurately indicated which of them were lower, which were higher, which reached heights, according to the critic exhausting all surprise. Belinsky's verdicts regarding the artistic value of Pushkin's works remain true to this day and testify to the amazing sensitivity of our critic's aesthetic taste. It is known that our literature at that time did not understand the great significance of Pushkin; Belinsky has the glory that he firmly and consciously stood for its greatness, although he was not given the opportunity to comprehend the full extent of this greatness. That’s exactly how he got the glory - to understand the heights of Lermontov and Gogol, who were also treated in a friendly manner by contemporary literary judges. But an aesthetic assessment is another matter, and an assessment of the significance of a writer for public life, his moral and national spirit is another. In this regard, Belinsky’s book about Pushkin, along with correct and beautiful thoughts, contains many erroneous and vague views. This is, for example, Article IX about Tatyana. Be that as it may, these articles represent a complete and, aesthetically speaking, extremely accurate overview of Pushkin's works.
Another book, “Materials” by P.V. Annenkov, contains the same review, presented in close connection with the biography of the poet. Less original than Belinsky's book, but more mature, compiled with the greatest care and love for the work, this book provides the most food for those who want to study Pushkin. It is superbly written; as if the spirit of Pushkin descended on the biographer and gave his speech simplicity, brevity and certainty. The “materials” are unusually rich in content and free of any ranting. As for judgments about the poet’s works, then, guided by his life, closely adhering to the circumstances that surrounded him and the changes that took place in him, the biographer made precious instructions and drew with great fidelity, with a loving understanding of the matter, the history of Pushkin’s creative activity. There are no erroneous views in this book, since the author did not deviate from his subject, which he loved so much and understood so well: there is only incompleteness, which is fully justified by the modest tone and the too modest title of the book.
And it is to such and such books that we naturally turn to for a solution to our question about “The Captain's Daughter.” What turns out to be? In both books, only a few careless lines are devoted to this amazing work. Moreover, about the entire cycle of Pushkin’s works adjacent to “The Captain’s Daughter” (which are: Belkin's stories, Chronicle of the village of Gorokhina, Dubrovsky), both critics respond either with disapproval or with indifferent, casually spoken praise. Thus, an entire side in Pushkin’s development, which culminated in the creation of “The Captain’s Daughter,” was lost sight and attention, considered unimportant and even unworthy named after Pushkin. Both critics missed something that significantly influenced the entire course of our literature and was finally reflected in such works as War and Peace.
This is a highly significant fact and can only be explained by the internal history of our criticism. It is very clear that it took a long time to understand such a versatile and profound poet as Pushkin, and that more than one person had to work in this field; There is still a lot of work ahead. First, we had to understand that side of Pushkin that is most accessible, most merging with the general direction of our education. Already before Pushkin and in his time, we understood European poets - Schiller, Byron and others; Pushkin was their rival, their competitor; This is how we looked at him, measuring his merits with a yardstick familiar to us, comparing his works with the works of Western poets. Both Belinsky and Annenkov are Westerners; that is why they could only feel well the universal beauties of Pushkin. The same features in which he was an original Russian poet, in which his Russian soul revealed a kind of reaction against Western poetry, should have remained inaccessible or completely incomprehensible to our two critics. To understand them, another time was needed, when views other than Westernism would appear, and another person who would experience a turn in his soul similar to the turn of Pushkin’s creativity.
III
This man was Apollo Aleksandrovich Grigoriev. For the first time, he pointed out the important meaning of that side of Pushkin’s poetic activity, the best fruit of which was “The Captain’s Daughter.” Grigoriev’s views on this subject and, in general, on the significance of Pushkin, were often repeated and developed by him, but for the first time they were presented in the “Russian Word” of 1859. This was the first year of this magazine, which then had three editors: gr. G.A. Kusheleva-Bezborodko, Ya.P. Polonsky and An. A. Grigorieva. Before this, Grigoriev had not written anything for two years and lived abroad, mostly in Italy and mostly contemplating works of art. Articles about Pushkin were the fruit of his long thoughts abroad. There are actually six of these articles; the first two under the title: A look at Russian literature from the death of Pushkin; the other four are called - I.S. Turgenev and his activities, regarding the novel "The Noble Nest", and contain the development of the same views and their application to Turgenev*.
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* These articles are reprinted in the first volume of the works of Ap. Grigoriev, concluding all his general articles. Works of Apollon Grigoriev. T 1. St. Petersburg, 1876, pp. 230 - 248.
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What is Grigoriev’s thought? Let us try to express it more clearly, limiting ourselves to the issue that we are examining. Grigoriev found that Pushkin’s activity represented a spiritual struggle with various ideals, with various fully developed historical types that disturbed his nature and was experienced by it. These ideals or types belonged to alien, non-Russian life; it was a muddy-sensual stream of false classicism, foggy romanticism, but most of all the Byronian types of Childe Harold, Don Juan, etc. These forms of other life, other folk organisms aroused sympathy in Pushkin’s soul, found in it the elements and strength to create corresponding ideals. This was not imitation, external mimicry of well-known types; it was their actual assimilation, their experience. But the poet’s nature could not completely and completely submit to them. It was discovered that Grigoriev calls fight with types, that is, on the one hand, the desire to respond to a certain type, to grow up to it with one’s spiritual strength and, thus, to measure oneself against it, on the other hand, the inability of a living and original soul to completely surrender to a type, the uncontrollable need to treat it critically and even discover and recognize in oneself as legitimate sympathies that are completely inconsistent with the type. Pushkin always emerged from this kind of struggle with alien types himself, a special type, completely new. In it, for the first time, our Russian physiognomy, the true measure of all our social, moral and artistic sympathies, the full type of Russian soul, was isolated and clearly defined. This type could be isolated and characterized only in that person who really lived other types, but had the strength not to succumb to them and to put his own type on an equal footing with them, to boldly legitimize the desires and demands of his original life. That is why Pushkin is the creator of Russian poetry and literature, because in him our typical not only was reflected, but also expressed, that is, it was clothed in the highest poetry, equal to everything great that he knew and to which he responded with his great soul. Pushkin's poetry is an expression of the ideal Russian nature, measured against the ideals of other peoples.
Awakening Russian mental type with his rights and demands can be found in many of Pushkin’s works. One of the most important passages is that passage from Onegin’s journey, which talks about Tavrida(simply - about Crimea):
A sacred land to the imagination!
Pylades argued with Atrid there,
Mithridates stabbed himself there,
Mickiewicz sang there, inspired
And among the coastal rocks
I remembered my Lithuania.
You are beautiful, shores of Taurida,
When I see you from the ship,
In the light of morning Cypris,
How I saw you for the first time!
You appeared to me in bridal splendor:
In the sky blue and transparent
The piles of your mountains shone;
Valleys, trees, villages pattern
It was spread out in front of me.
And there, between the Tatar huts...
What a fever awoke in me!
What magical melancholy
The fiery breast was embarrassed!
But, Muse! forget the past.
Whatever feelings are hidden
Then in me - now they are not:
They have passed or changed...
Peace to you, worries of past years!
At that time I seemed to need
Deserts, edges of pearly waves,
And the noise of the sea, and piles of rocks,
And the ideal of a proud maiden,
And nameless suffering...
Other days, other dreams!
You have humbled yourself, my spring
High-flown dreams
And into a poetic glass
I mixed a lot of water.
I need other paintings;
I love the sandy slope,
There are two rowan trees in front of the hut,
A gate, a broken fence,
There are gray clouds in the sky,
Heaps of straw in front of the threshing floor
Yes, a pond under the shadow of thick willows -
The expanse of young ducks;
Now the balalaika is dear to me.
Yes, the drunken tramp of a trepak
In front of the threshold of the tavern;
My ideal now is a mistress,
My desires are peace,
Yes, a pot of cabbage soup, a big one.
Sometimes on a rainy day,
I turned into the barnyard...
Ugh! prosaic nonsense,
The Flemish school is a motley litter!
Was this what I was like when I was blooming?
Say, fountain of Bakhchisarai,
Are these the thoughts that come to my mind?
Your endless noise has caused
When I'm silent in front of you
Zarema I imagined?
(Ed. Isakov, 1st, vol. III, p. 217).
What happens in the poet's soul? We would be very mistaken if we find any bitter feeling here; cheerfulness and clarity of spirit are heard in every verse. In the same way, it is wrong to see here a mockery of the lowliness of Russian nature and Russian life; otherwise one could perhaps interpret this passage and quite the opposite, as a mockery of the high-flown dreams of youth, over those times when the poet seemed to need nameless suffering and he imagined Zarem, following Byron, “who drove me crazy then” (see ibid., vol. IV, p. 44).
The matter is much more complicated. Obviously, something new arises in the poet next to the previous ideals. There are many items that have been around for a long time sacred to his imagination; and the Greek world with its Cypris, Atrid, Pylades; and Roman heroism, which Mithridates fought against; and the songs of alien poets, Mickiewicz, Byron, which inspired him proud maiden ideal; and pictures of southern nature appearing to the eyes in bridal splendor. But at the same time, the poet feels that love for a different way of life, for a different nature has begun to speak in him. This a pond under the canopy of thick willows, probably the same pond over which he wandered
We languish with longing and rhymes
and from which he flushed ducks singing mellifluous stanzas(see Eug. On., ch. qt., XXXV); this simple life in which fun is expressed trepak's tramp, whose ideal is mistress, and desires - a pot of cabbage soup, a big one; this whole world, so unlike what is sacred to the poet’s imagination, nevertheless has an irresistible appeal for him. “It’s amazing,” says A. Grigoriev, “this most simple-minded mixture of the most heterogeneous sensations - indignation and desire to throw the most gray color onto the picture with an involuntary love for the picture, with a feeling of its special, original beauty! This poet’s escapade is indignation at the prosaism and pettiness of his surroundings, but at the same time involuntary the consciousness that this prosaism has inalienable rights over the soul,- that he remained in the soul as a remnant after all the fermentation, after all the stress, after all the vain attempts to petrify into Byron’s forms" (Works by Ap. Grigoriev, vol. I, pp. 249, 250).
In this process taking place in the poet’s soul, three moments must be distinguished: 1) fiery and broad sympathy for everything great that he encountered ready-made and given, sympathy for all the light and dark sides of this great; 2) the impossibility of completely escaping into these sympathies, of petrifying in these alien forms; therefore - a critical attitude towards them, a protest against their predominance; 3) love for one’s own, for the Russian typical, “for one’s own soil,” as Ap put it. Grigoriev.
“When the poet,” says this critic, “in the era of mature self-awareness, brought into evidence for himself all these apparently completely opposite phenomena that took place in his own nature, then, above all truthful and sincere, He belittled himself, once a Captive, Girey, Aleko, to the image of Ivan Petrovich Belkin..." (ibid., p. 251).
“The type of Ivan Petrovich Belkin was almost the favorite type of poet in the last era of his activity. In the tone and look of this type, he tells us many good-natured stories, among other things, “The Chronicle of the Village of Gorokhin” and the family chronicle of the Grinevs, this ancestor of all the current “family chronicles” (p. 248).
What is Pushkin Belkin?
“Belkin is a simple common sense and common sense, meek and humble, - blatantly legal against our abuse of our broad ability to understand and feel” (p. 252). "In this type it was legitimized, and only for a while, only negative, critical, purely typical side" (ibid.).
Protest against high-flown dreams against the fascination with gloomy and brilliant types was expressed by Pushkin, love for simple types, the ability for moderate understanding and feeling. Pushkin contrasted one poetry with another, Byron - Belkin, being a great poet, he descended from his height and managed to approach the poor reality that surrounded him and involuntarily loved him in such a way that it revealed to him all the poetry that was in it. Therefore Al. Grigoriev could quite rightly say:
"Everything is simple, neither exaggerated humorously nor idealized tragically the relationship of literature to the surrounding reality and to Russian life - in a straight line, originates from a look at the life of Ivan Petrovich Belkin" (ibid., p. 248).
Thus, Pushkin accomplished the greatest poetic feat in creating this type; for in order to understand a subject, you need to take the proper attitude towards it, and Pushkin found such an attitude towards a subject that was completely unknown and required all the strength of his vigilance and truthfulness. "The Captain's Daughter" cannot be told in a different tone and with a different point of view than how it is told. Otherwise, everything in it will be distorted and perverted. Our Russian typical, our spiritual type was embodied here for the first time in poetry, but it appeared in such simple and small forms that it required a special tone and language; Pushkin should have change the sublime structure of your lyre. For those who did not understand the meaning of this change, it seemed like a prank of the poet, unworthy his genius; but we see now that it was here that the brilliant breadth of vision and the completely original power of our Pushkin’s creativity was revealed.
IV
For the sake of clarity, we must dwell a little longer on this subject. The discovery of Belkin's significance in Pushkin's work is Ap's main merit. Grigorieva. At the same time, this was for him the starting point from which he explained the internal course of all post-Pushkin fiction. Thus, even then, in 1859, he saw the following main elements in the mood of our literature:
1) “It is a futile effort to forcibly create in oneself and establish in one’s soul the charming ghosts and ideals of someone else’s life.”
2) “An equally futile struggle against these ideals and equally futile efforts to break away from them altogether and replace them with purely negative and humble ideals.”
Even then, Apollo Grigoriev, following his point of view, defined Gogol this way: “Gogol was only the measure of our antipathies and the living organ of their legality, the poet purely negative he could not personify our blood, tribal, and life sympathies, firstly, as a Little Russian, and secondly, as a solitary and sickly ascetic" (ibid., p. 240).
The entire general course of our literature, its significant development, is expressed by Grigoriev as follows: “In Pushkin, for a long time, if not forever, our entire spiritual process was completed, outlined in a broad outline - and the secret of this process is in his next, deeply spiritual and fragrant poem (Revival):
Barbarian artist with a sleepy brush
The picture of a genius is being blackened,
And your drawing is lawless
He draws senselessly on it.
But the colors become alien with age
They fall off like old scales,
Creating a shadow before us
It comes out with the same beauty.
This is how misconceptions disappear
From my tormented soul.
And visions arise from her
Initial, pure days.
“This process took place with all of us individually and with our social life and is still taking place today. Those who do not see the powerful growths of the typical, indigenous, folk nature have been deprived of their sight and in general sense of feeling” (ibid., p. 246).
So, from a look at Belkin, from insight into the meaning of the struggle that took place in Pushkin, from Al. Grigoriev’s view of Russian literature flows, with which all its works are connected into one chain. Each link of this goal can serve as proof and verification that their mutual connection has really been found. Each post-Pushkin writer can be fully explained in no other way than if we take as a basis the general thought of Ap. Grigorieva. Even then, the attitude of our modern writers towards Pushkin was formulated by our critic in the following general terms.
“Pushkin’s Belkin,” writes A. Grigoriev, “is the Belkin who laments in Turgenev’s stories that he is the eternal Belkin, that he belongs to the number of “superfluous people” or “short people” - who in Pisemsky would like to die (but completely in vain) to laugh at the brilliant and passionate type, whom Tolstoy wants to excessively and forcibly poetize, and before whom even Pyotr Ilyich of Ostrovsky’s dramas: “Don’t live the way you want” - humbles himself... at least until the new Maslenitsa and until the new Pear" (ibid., p. 252).<...>
VI
General principles of criticism Al. Grigoriev are very simple and well-known, or at least should be considered well-known. These are the deep principles that were bequeathed to us by German idealism, the only philosophy to which everyone who wants to understand history or art must still resort. These principles are adhered to, for example, by Renan and Carlyle; These very principles have recently been applied by Taine with such brilliance and with considerable success to the history of English literature. Since German philosophy, due to our responsiveness and the weakness of our original development, was accepted among us much earlier than in France or England, it is not surprising that our critic has long held those views that are currently news to the French and for the first time successfully spread between them.
In general terms, as we said, these views are simple. They consist in the fact that each work of art represents a reflection of its century and its people, that there is a significant inextricable connection between the mood of the people, its unique mental make-up, the events of its history, its morals, religion, etc., and the creations that the artists of this produce people. The principle of nationality dominates in art and literature, as in everything. To see the connection of literature with the tribe to which it belongs, to find the relationship between literary works and those vital elements among which they appeared, means to understand the history of this literature.
Let us note here a significant difference that distinguishes Ap. Grigoriev from other critics, most notably, for example, from Taine. For Taine, every work of art is nothing more than a certain sum of all those phenomena under which it appeared: the properties of the tribe, historical circumstances, etc. Each phenomenon is nothing more than a consequence of previous ones and the basis of subsequent ones. Grigoriev, fully recognizing this connection, also saw that all literary phenomena have one common root, that they are all private and temporary manifestations of the same spirit. In a given people, works of art represent, as it were, diverse attempts to express all the same thing - the spiritual essence of this people; in humanity as a whole, they constitute an expression of the eternal demands of the human soul, its unchanging laws and aspirations. Thus, in the particular and temporary we should always see only the isolated and embodied expression of the general and unchangeable.
It's all very simple; these provisions have long become, especially in our country, current phrases; partly consciously, and mostly unconsciously, they are recognized by almost everyone. But there is still a long way to go from the general formula to its application. No matter how firmly a physicist is convinced that every phenomenon has its own cause, this conviction cannot guarantee that he will discover the cause of even one, the simplest phenomenon. Discovery requires research and requires close and precise acquaintance with the phenomena.
Ap. Grigoriev, considering the new Russian literature from the point of view of the people, saw in it a constant struggle between European ideals, poetry alien to our spirit, with the desire for original creativity, for the creation of purely Russian ideals and types. Again, the idea in its general form is very clear, very simple and believable. The beginnings of this view can be found in others, in I. Kireevsky, in Khomyakov, who clearly pointed out the predominance of alien ideals among us, the necessity and possibility for us of our own art. Khomyakov, in particular, contains truly thoughtful, amazingly correct remarks about Russian literature, considered from the point of view of the people. But these are nothing more than general remarks, and not without one-sidedness. Strange affair! Because of the very height of their demands, the very thing that should have pleased them most has escaped the eyes of these thinkers; They did not see that the struggle between their own and the foreign had long since begun, that art, by virtue of its ever-present sensitivity and truthfulness, had prevented abstract thought.
In order to see this, deep general views and a clear theoretical understanding of essential issues were not enough; what was needed was an unshakable faith in art, a fiery passion for his works, a merging of one’s life with the life that is poured into them. This is what Ap was like. Grigoriev, a man who until the end of his life remained invariably devoted to art, did not subordinate it to theories and views alien to him, but, on the contrary, expected revelations from it, looked for it new word.
It is difficult to imagine a person whose literary vocation would merge even more closely with life itself. In his "Literary Wanderings" this is what he says about his university years:
“Youth, real youth, began late for me, and it was something in between adolescence and youth. The head works like a steam engine, gallops at full speed to ravines and abysses, and the heart lives only a dreamy, bookish, affected life. It’s definitely not me who lives it, but different images and literatures that live in me. On the entrance threshold of this era it is written: “Moscow University” after the transformation of 1836, - the university of Redkin, Krylov, Moroshkin, Kryukov, the university of mysterious Hegelism with its severe forms and a swift, irresistibly rushing forward force - Granovsky University "...
Moscow University was followed by St. Petersburg and the first era of literary activity, then again Moscow and the second era of activity, more important. He talks about her like this:
“The dreamy life is over. Real youth begins, with a thirst for real life, with hard lessons and experiences. New meetings, new people - people in whom there is nothing or very little bookish - people who “pull” in themselves and in others everything is feigned, everything is warmed up and they carry in their souls unpretentiously, naively to the point of unconsciousness, faith in the people and nationality. Everything is “folk”, even local(i.e. Moscow) that surrounded my upbringing, everything that I managed to almost drown out in myself for a while, surrendering to the powerful trends of science and literature, rises in the soul with unexpected strength and grows, grows to a fanatical exclusive faith, to intolerance, to propaganda..." The two-year stay abroad that followed this era produced a new fracture in mental and mental life criticism.
“Western life,” he says, “is unfolding before my eyes with the wonders of its great past and again teases, lifts, captivates. But even in this living clash, faith in one’s own, in the people’s, did not break. It softened only the fanaticism of faith."("Time", 1862, Dec.)
Here, in brief, is the process in which our critic’s beliefs were formed and at the end of which he wrote his first articles about Pushkin. Ap. Grigoriev experienced a fascination with Western ideals and a return to his own, to the people's, which lived indestructibly in his soul. Therefore, with the greatest clarity he saw in the development of our art all phenomena, all phases of that struggle, which we were talking about. He knew perfectly well how the types created by other people’s art act on the soul, how the soul strives to accept the forms of these types and, in some kind of sleep and fermentation, lives their life - how suddenly it can wake up from this feverishly anxious sleep and, looking back at God light, shake out her curls and feel fresh and young, the same as she was before her fascination with ghosts... Art then comes into some discord with itself; it sometimes laughs, sometimes regrets, sometimes even falls into vivid indignation (Gogol), but with invincible force it turns to Russian life and begins to look in it for its types, its ideals.
This process is revealed more closely and more accurately in the results that come from it. Grigoriev showed that almost everything that bears the stamp belongs to the alien types that dominated our literature. heroic,- brilliant or gloomy types, but in any case strong, passionate, or, as our critic put it, predatory. Russian nature, our spiritual type, appeared in art primarily in types simple and meek, apparently alien to everything heroic, like Ivan Petrovich Belkin, Maxim Maksimych in Lermontov, etc. Our fiction represents a continuous struggle between these types, the desire to find the right relationship between them - either debunking or exalting one of them. two types, predatory or docile. Thus, for example, one side of Gogol’s activity is reduced to Ap. Grigoriev to the following formula:
"Heroic there is no longer in the soul and life: what seems heroic is in essence Khlestakov’s or Poprishchin’s..."
“But it’s strange,” adds the critic, “that no one bothered to ask themselves what it is precisely the heroic that no longer exists in the soul and in nature - and Which in nature it does not exist. Some people preferred either to stand for the heroic, which had already been ridiculed (and it is remarkable that gentlemen who were more inclined towards practical-legal views in literature stood for the heroic), or to stand for nature.”
“They didn’t pay attention to a very simple circumstance. Since the time of Peter the Great, the people’s nature has tried on elaborate forms of the heroic, not made by it. The caftan turned out to be either narrow or short; there were a handful of people who somehow put it on and began to walk around in it with dignity Gogol told everyone that they were flaunting someone else's caftan - and this caftan fits them like a saddle on a cow. It only followed that they needed a different caftan based on thickness and height, and not at all that they would be left without a caftan altogether or continue to stare at yourself with a worn-out caftan" (Op. Grigoriev, I, p. 332).
As for Pushkin, he was not only the first to sense the question in all its depth, not only the first to bring out in all truth the Russian type of a meek and complacent person, but, due to the high harmony of his genius nature, he was the first to indicate the correct attitude towards the predatory type . He did not deny it, did not think of debunking it; As examples of a purely Russian passionate and strong type, Grigoriev cited Pugachev in “The Captain’s Daughter” and “Rusalka”. In Pushkin, the struggle had the most correct character, just like him. the genius clearly and calmly felt equal to everything great that was and is on earth; he was, as Grigoriev puts it, a “caster and master” of those diverse elements that were aroused in him by alien ideals.
Here is a brief outline of Grigoriev’s direction and the view that he achieved by following this direction. This view still retains its strength and is still justified by all the phenomena of our literature. Russian artistic realism began with Pushkin. Russian realism is not a consequence of the impoverishment of the ideal among our artists, as happens in other literatures, but, on the contrary, a consequence of an intensified search for a purely Russian ideal. All the strivings for naturalness, for the strictest truth, all these images of small, weak, sick people, the careful avoidance of the premature and unsuccessful creation of heroic faces, the execution and debunking of various types who have claims to heroism, all these efforts, all this hard work have the goal and hope is to see the once Russian ideal in all its truth and undeceiving greatness. And there is still a struggle between our sympathies for a simple and kind person and the inevitable demands of something higher, with the dream of a powerful and passionate type. Indeed, what is Turgenev’s “Smoke” if not a desperate new fight between the artist and the predatory type whom he so clearly wanted to brand and humiliate in the person of Irina? What is Litvinov if not the type of a meek and simple person, on whose side, obviously, all the sympathies of the artist are and who, however, in essence, shamefully gives in in a clash with a predatory type?
Finally, the gr. L.N. Isn’t Tolstoy clearly trying to elevate the common man to the ideal? "War and Peace", this huge and motley epic - what is it if not the apotheosis of the tame Russian type? Isn't it here? it is told how, on the contrary, the predatory type gave in to the humble one - how on the Borodino field ordinary Russian people defeated everything that one can imagine, the most heroic, the most brilliant, passionate, strong, predatory, i.e. Napoleon I and his army?
Readers now see that our digressions concerning Pushkin, our criticism and Ap. Grigoriev, were not only appropriate, but even absolutely necessary, since all this is closely connected with our subject. Let's say straight away that, explaining private the character of "War and Peace", that is, the most essential and difficult aspect of the matter, we could not be original even if we wanted it. So correctly and deeply indicated by Ap. Grigoriev represents the most essential features of the movement of our literature, and yet we feel so little able to compete with him in critical understanding.
VII
History of artistic activity of gr. L.N. Tolstoy, which our only critic had seen and appreciated all the way up to War and Peace, is remarkable to a high degree. Now that we see that this activity led to the creation of “War and Peace,” we understand even more clearly its importance and character, and we can see more clearly the correctness of Ap’s instructions. Grigorieva. And vice versa, the previous works of gr. L.N. Tolstoy most directly leads us to an understanding of the private nature of War and Peace.
This can be said about every writer in general; Everyone has a connection between the present and the past, and one is explained by the other. But it turns out that none of our artistic writers has such depth and strength of this connection, that no one’s activity is more harmonious and integral than the activity of gr. L.N. Tolstoy. He entered his field together with Ostrovsky and Pisemsky: he appeared with his works a little later than Turgenev, Goncharov, and Dostoevsky. But meanwhile... as all his peers in literature have long since spoken out, they have long discovered the greatest strength of their talent, so that one could fully judge its extent and direction, - gr. L.N. Tolstoy continued to work hard on his talent and fully developed its strength only in War and Peace. It was a slow and difficult ripening, which produced an even more juicy and huge fruit.
All previous works by gr. L.N. Tolstoy is nothing more than sketches, sketches and attempts in which the artist did not have in mind any complete creation, a complete expression of his thoughts, a complete picture of life, as he understood it, but only the development of particular issues, individuals, special characters, or even special mental states. Take, for example, the story "Blizzard"; Obviously, all the artist’s attention and all the interest of the story is focused on those strange and subtle sensations experienced by a person, covered in snow, constantly falling asleep and waking up. This is a simple sketch from life, similar to those sketches in which painters depict a patch of field, a bush, part of a river under special lighting and a difficult to convey state of water, etc. All the previous works of the gr. have this character, to a greater or lesser extent. L.N. Tolstoy, even those that have some external integrity. "Cossacks", for example, apparently present a complete and masterful picture of the life of the Cossack village; but the harmony of this picture is obviously violated by the huge space that is given to Olenin’s feelings and emotions; the author's attention is too one-sidedly directed in this direction, and, instead of a harmonious picture, it turns out sketch from mental life some Moscow youth. Thus, “completely organic, living creatures” Ap. Grigoriev admitted from gr. L.N. Tolstoy only “Family Happiness” and “War Stories”. But now, after War and Peace, we must change this opinion. "War stories" that seemed to critics completely organic works, in comparison with “War and Peace,” also turn out to be nothing more than sketches, preparatory sketches. Consequently, only one “Family Happiness” remains, a novel which, in the simplicity of its task, in the clarity and distinctness of its solution, really constitutes a completely living whole. “This work is quiet, deep, simple and highly poetic, with the absence of any showiness, with a direct and unbroken posing of the question of the transition of a feeling of passion into another feeling.” So says Ap. Grigoriev.
If this is true, if indeed, with one exception, before “War and Peace” gr. L.N. Tolstoy made only sketches, then one wonders why the artist struggled, what tasks delayed him on the path of creativity. It is easy to see that all this time there was some kind of struggle going on in him, some difficult mental process was going on. Ap. Grigoriev saw this well and in his article argued that this process was not over yet; we now see how true this opinion is: the artist’s mental process was completed, or at least significantly matured, not before the creation of “War and Peace.”
What's the matter? An essential feature of the internal work that took place in the group. L.N. Tolstoy, Ap. Grigoriev believes negation and refers this work to that negative process which began already in Pushkin. That's right - denial everything superficial, feigned in our development- this is what dominated the activities of gr. L.N. Tolstoy up to "War and Peace".
So, the internal struggle taking place in our poetry has acquired a partly new character, which it did not yet have in Pushkin’s time. A critical attitude is no longer applied simply to “pompous dreams”, not to those spiritual moods when the poet “seemed to need”
Deserts, edges of pearly waves,
And the ideal of a proud maiden,
And nameless suffering.
Now the truthful gaze of poetry is directed at our society itself, at the actual phenomena taking place in it. In essence, however, it is the same process. People have never lived and will never live except under the power of ideas, under their leadership. No matter how insignificant in content a society we imagine, its life will always be governed by certain concepts, perhaps perverted and vague, but still unable to lose their ideal nature. So, a critical attitude towards society is essentially a struggle with the ideals that live in it.
The process of this struggle is not described by any of our writers with such deep sincerity and truthful clarity as by Count. L. N. Tolstoy. The heroes of his previous works usually suffer from this struggle, and the story about it represents the essential content of these works. For example, let's take what one of them, Nikolai Irtenev, writes in the chapter bearing the French title "Comme il faut."
“My favorite and main division of people at the time about which I am writing was - into people comme il faut and into comme il ne faut pas. The second kind was also divided into people not actually comme il faut and the common people. People comme il faut I respected and considered worthy to have equal relations with me; secondly, I pretended that I despised, but in essence he hated them, harboring some kind of offended sense of personality towards them; the third did not exist for me - I completely despised them."
“It even seems to me that if we had a brother, mother or father who were not comme il faut, I would say that this is a misfortune, but that there can be nothing in common between me and them.”
This is what the power of French and other concepts can be, and here is one of the most striking examples of the social falsehood among which the heroes of the gr. L. N. Tolstoy.
“I knew and know,” concludes Nikolai Irtenyev, “very, very many people old, proud, self-confident, harsh in judgment, who, in response to the question, if one asks them in the next world: “Who are you? And what did you do there?” - will not be able to answer otherwise than: “je fus un homme tres comme il faut.”
This fate awaited me."*
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* Works of Count L.N. Tolstoy. St. Petersburg, 1864, part 1, p. 123.
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What happened, however, was completely different, and in this internal turn, in that difficult rebirth that these young men are performing on themselves, lies the greatest importance. Here's what Al says about it. Grigoriev:
“The mental process that is revealed to us in “Childhood and Adolescence” and the first half of “Youth” is a process incredibly original. The hero of these wonderful psychological studies was born and raised in a society so artificially formed, so exclusive that it essentially has no real existence - in the so-called aristocratic sphere, in the sphere of high society. It is not surprising that this sphere formed Pechorin - its largest fact - and several smaller phenomena, such as the heroes of various high society stories. It is surprising, and at the same time significant, what comes out of it, this narrow sphere, i.e. renounces it through analysis, the hero of Tolstoy's stories. After all, Pechorin did not leave it, despite all his intelligence; the heroes of Count Sollogub and Mrs. Eugenia Tur did not emerge from it!.. On the other hand, it becomes clear when you read Tolstoy’s sketches how, despite that the exclusive sphere, Pushkin’s nature retained in itself a living stream of folk, broad and common life, the ability to understand this living life, and to deeply sympathize with it, and at times even to identify with it.”
So, the artist’s inner work had extraordinary power, extraordinary depth, and produced a result incomparably higher than that of many other writers. But what a hard and lengthy job it was! Let us point out here at least its most important features.
Former heroes of the gr. L.N. Tolstoy usually harbored a very strong and completely vague idealism, that is, a desire for something lofty, beautiful, valiant; all shapes and forms. These were, as Ap puts it. Grigoriev, “ideals in the air, creation from above, not from below - that is what ruined Gogol morally and even physically.” But with these airy ideals the heroes of the gr. L.N. Tolstoy is not satisfied, they do not dwell on them as something undoubted. On the contrary, twofold work begins: firstly, the analysis of existing phenomena and proof of their inconsistency with ideals; Secondly, a persistent, tireless search for such phenomena of reality in which the ideal would be realized.
The artist’s analysis, aimed at exposing all kinds of spiritual falsehood, is striking in its subtlety, and it was this that primarily caught the readers’ eyes. “Analysis,” writes A. Grigoriev, “develops early in the hero of “Childhood, Adolescence and Youth” and digs deep into the foundations of everything conventional that surrounds him, that conventional thing that is in him.” “He rummages patiently and mercilessly strictly into each of his own feelings, even in the very one that seems completely holy in appearance (chapter Confession), - incriminates every feeling in everything that is in the feeling made, even leads every thought, every childhood or adolescent dream forward to its extreme edges. Remember, for example, the hero's dreams "Adolescence" when he was locked in a dark room for disobeying his tutor. Analysis in its mercilessness forces the soul to admit to itself what it is ashamed to admit to itself.
The same ruthlessness of analysis guides the hero in Youth. Succumbing to his conventional sphere, accepting even its prejudices, he constantly executes himself and emerges victorious from this execution.”
Thus, the essence of this process lies in “the execution he carries out on everything false, purely made in the sensations of modern man, which Lermontov superstitiously deified in his Pechorin.” Tolstoy's analysis reached the deepest level of disbelief in everything upbeat, unusual feelings of the human soul in a certain sphere. He brought to life ready-made, established, partly alien ideals, strengths, passions, energies.”
In relation to such purely false phenomena, Tolstoy’s analysis, Ap further notes. Grigoriev, “is completely right, more right than Turgenev’s analysis, sometimes, and even often, incense towards our false sides, and on the other hand, more right than Goncharov’s analysis, for he executes in the name of deep love for truth and sincerity of feelings, and not in the name of narrow bureaucratic “practicality.”
Such is the purely negative work of the artist. But the essence of his talent is revealed much more clearly in the positive aspects of his work. Idealism does not inspire him with either contempt for reality or hostility towards it. On the contrary, the artist humbly believes that reality contains truly beautiful phenomena; he is not content with contemplating airy ideals that exist only in his soul, but stubbornly seeks at least a partial and incomplete, but in fact, personally existing embodiment of the ideal. On this path, along which he walks with constant truthfulness and vigilance, he comes to two exits: either he - in the form of weak sparks - comes across phenomena, mostly weak and small, in which he is ready to see the realization of his cherished thoughts, or he does not is content with these phenomena, becomes tired of his fruitless searches and falls into despair.
Heroes gr. L.N. Tolstoy is sometimes directly presented as if wandering around the world, through Cossack villages, St. Petersburg Spitz balls, etc., and trying to resolve the question: is there true valor, true love, true beauty of the human soul in the world. And in general, even starting from childhood, they involuntarily focus their attention on phenomena that come across them by chance, in which some other life is revealed to them, simple, clear, alien to the hesitation and duality they experience. They take these phenomena for what they were looking for. “Analysis,” says A. Grigoriev, “when it reaches phenomena that are not amenable to it, it stops before them. In this regard, the chapters about the nanny, about Masha’s love for Vasily, and especially the chapter on holy fool, in which analysis encounters a phenomenon that constitutes something rare, exceptional, eccentric even in the simple life of the people. Analysis contrasts all these phenomena with everything conventional that surrounds it.”
IN War stories, in the story Meeting in the squad, V Two hussars the analysis continues its work. Stopping in front of everything that is beyond his control, and here turning either into pathos before the enormously grandiose, like the Sevastopol epic, or into amazement before everything humbly great, like the death of Valenchuk or Captain Khlopov, he is merciless towards everything artificial and made, whether it is in the bourgeois captain Mikhailov, in the Caucasian hero a 1a Marlinsky, in the completely broken personality of the cadet in the story Meeting in the squad.
This difficult, painstaking work of the artist, this persistent search for truly bright points in the continuous darkness of gray reality for a long time, however, does not give any lasting result, it gives only hints and fragmentary indications, and not a complete, clear view. And often the artist gets tired, he is often overcome by despair and disbelief in what he is looking for, and he often falls into apathy. Finishing one of the Sevastopol stories, in which he greedily searched and, apparently, did not find the phenomena true valor in people, the artist says with deep sincerity:
"Heavy thoughts overcome me. Maybe I shouldn’t have said this, maybe what I said belongs to one of those evil truths that, unconsciously lurking in everyone’s soul, should not be expressed so as not to become harmful, like the sediment of wine that does not you have to shake it so as not to spoil it.”
"Where is the expression of evil that should be avoided? Where is the expression of good that should be imitated in this story? Who is the villain, who is her hero? All are good and all are bad."(Works by L.N. Tolstoy, part II, p. 61).
The poet often and with surprising depth expressed his despair, although this was not noticed by readers, who were generally not very inclined to such questions and feelings. For example, despair is heard in “Lucerne”, “Alberta” and even earlier - in “Notes of a Marker”. “Lucerne,” as Ap notes. Grigoriev, - represents the obvious expression pantheistic sorrow for life and its ideals, for everything somewhat artificial and made in the human soul." The same idea is expressed even more clearly and sharply in “Three Deaths.” Here the death of a tree is the most normal thing for the artist. “She is placed by consciousness,” says Ap. Grigoriev, “above the death of not only a developed lady, but also above the death of a common man.” Finally, “Family Happiness” itself expresses, as the same critic notes, “severe submission to fate, which does not spare the color of human feelings.”
Such is the difficult struggle taking place in the poet’s soul, such are the phases of his long and tireless search for the ideal in reality. It is no wonder that in the midst of this struggle he could not produce harmonious artistic creations, that his analysis was often tense to the point of morbidity. Only great artistic power was the reason that the sketches, generated by such deep inner work, retained the stamp of unchanging artistry. The artist was supported and strengthened by the high aspiration that he expressed with such force at the end of the very story from which we wrote him out hard thinking.
“The hero of my story,” he says, “ an undoubted hero, whom I love with all the strength of my soul, which I tried to reproduce in all its beauty and which always was, is and will be beautiful - Truth".
Truth is the slogan of our fiction; truth guides her both in her critical attitude towards other people’s ideals and in the search for her own.
What is the final conclusion from this story of the development of the talent of gr. L.N. Tolstoy, a story so instructive and in such vivid and truthful artistic forms lying before us in his works? What did the artist come to and where did he stop?
When Ap. Grigoriev wrote his article, gr. L.N. Tolstoy fell silent for some time, and the critic attributed this stop to the apathy we were talking about. “Apathy,” wrote Ap. Grigoriev, “certainly waited in the middle of such a deeply sincere process, but that she is not the end of him,- in this, probably, none of the believers in the power of Tolstoy’s talent I don’t even doubt it.” The critic's faith did not deceive him, and his prediction came true. Talent unfolded with all its strength and gave us “War and Peace.”
But where did this talent go in his previous works? What sympathies developed and strengthened in him amid his internal struggle?
Already in 1859 Ap. Grigoriev noted that gr. L.N. Tolstoy didn't moderately and violently strives to poeticize the Belkin type; in 1862 the critic writes:
"Tolstoy's analysis shattered the ready-made, established, partly ideals, strengths, passions, energies that are alien to us. In Russian life he sees only the negative type of a simple and meek person and became attached to him with all my soul. Everywhere he follows the ideal of simplicity of spiritual movements: in the nanny’s grief (in “Childhood” and “Adolescence”) about the death of the hero’s mother - grief, which he contrasts with the somewhat spectacular, although deep, grief of the old countess; in the death of the soldier Valenchuk, in the honest and simple courage of Captain Khlopov, which clearly surpasses in his eyes the undoubted, but extremely spectacular courage of one of the Caucasian heroes a 1a Marlinsky; in the humble death of a simple man, contrasted with the death of a suffering, but capriciously suffering lady..."
This is the most essential feature, the most important feature that characterizes the artistic worldview of the gr. L.N. Tolstoy. It is clear that this feature also contains some one-sidedness. Ap. Grigoriev finds that gr. L.N. Tolstoy came to love the meek type - mainly due to disbelief in the brilliant and predatory type,- that he sometimes overdoes his severity with “elevated” feelings. “Few,” says the critic, “will, for example, agree with him about the greater depth of the nanny’s grief compared to the grief of the old countess.”
Predilection for the simple type, however, is a common feature of our fiction; therefore, how about gr. L.N. Tolstoy, and in general regarding our art, the following general conclusion of the critic is of great importance and deserves the greatest attention.
"Tolstoy's analysis is wrong because it does not attach importance to the brilliant really and passionate really and predatory really a type that has its justification both in nature and in history, i.e. justification of one’s possibility and reality.”
“Not only would we be a people not very generously gifted by nature if we saw our ideals in only meek types, be it Maxim Maksimych or Captain Khlopov, even the meek types of Ostrovsky; but the types we experienced with Pushkin and Lermontov are alien to us only partly, only, perhaps, in their forms and in their own, so to speak, gloss. They are experienced by us because, in fact, our nature is just as capable of perceiving them as any European one. Not to mention the fact that in our history there were predatory types, and not to mention that Stenka Razin from the world of epic tales of the people, you won’t survive,- no, the most established types in an alien life are not alien to us and among our poets they were clothed in unique forms. After all, Turgenev’s Vasily Luchinov is the 18th century, but the Russian 18th century, and his, for example, Veretyev, passionate and carefree, burning through life, even more so.”
VIII
These are the points of view from which we can judge the private character of War and Peace. The late critic set them out clearly, and all that remains for us to do is apply them to a new work of talent, so truly and deeply understood by him.
He guessed that the apathy and feverish tension of analysis must pass. They passed completely. In War and Peace, talent is in full control of its own powers and calmly manages the gains of long and hard work. What firmness of hand, what freedom, confidence, simple and distinct clarity in the image! For the artist, it seems, nothing is difficult, and wherever he turns his gaze - to Napoleon’s tent or to the top floor of the Rostovs’ house - everything is revealed to him down to the smallest detail, as if he has the power to see at will in all places and then what is and what was. He stops at nothing; Difficult scenes, where various feelings struggle in the soul or subtle sensations run through, he, as if jokingly and on purpose, draws to the very end, to the smallest line. Not only, for example, he depicted to us with the greatest truth the unconsciously heroic actions of Captain Tushin; He also looked into his soul, overheard the words that he whispered without noticing it.
“In his head,” the artist says as simply and freely, as if he were talking about the most ordinary thing in the world, “he had his own fantastic world established in his head, which was his pleasure at that moment. The enemy’s guns were not in his imagination guns, but pipes from which an invisible smoker released smoke in rare puffs."
"Look, he puffed again," Tushin said in a whisper to himself, while a puff of smoke jumped out of the mountain and was blown to the left by the wind - now wait for the ball to send back.
The sound of a rifle fire that died down and then intensified again under the mountain seemed to him like someone's breath. He listened to the fading and flaring up of these sounds.
Look, I’m breathing again, I’m breathing,” he said to himself. He himself imagined himself to be of enormous stature, a powerful man who threw cannonballs at the French with both hands" (vol. I, part 2, p. 122).
So, this is the same subtle, all-penetrating analysis, but now given complete freedom and firmness. We saw what happened from here. The artist calmly and clearly treats all his faces and all the feelings of his faces. There is no struggle in him, and just as he does not actively arm himself against “elevated” feelings, he does not stop in amazement in front of simple feelings. He knows how to portray both of them in their entirety. true, in flat daylight.
In "Lucerne", one of the minutes hard thinking which we mentioned, the artist asked himself with despair: “Who has this so unshakable in his soul? measure of good and evil so that he can measure running facts with them?”
In “War and Peace” this standard has obviously been found, is in the artist’s full possession, and he confidently measures with it any facts that he decides to take.
From the previous it is clear, however, what the results of this measurement should be. Everything that is false and brilliant only in appearance is mercilessly exposed by the artist. Beneath the artificial, outwardly elegant relationships of high society, he reveals to us a whole abyss of emptiness, low passions and purely animal drives. On the contrary, everything simple and true, no matter how base and crude forms it may appear, finds deep sympathy in the artist. How insignificant and vulgar are the salons of Anna Pavlovna Scherer and Helen Bezukhova and with what poetry humble life is clothed uncles!
We must not forget that the Rostov family, although they are counts, is a simple family of Russian landowners, closely connected with the village, preserving the entire system, all the traditions of Russian life and only accidentally coming into contact with the big world. The Great Light is a sphere, completely separate from them, a pernicious sphere, the touch of which has such a disastrous effect on Natasha. As usual, the author draws this sphere according to the impressions that Natasha experiences from it. Natasha is vividly struck by the falseness, the absence of any naturalness that dominates in Helen’s attire, in the singing of the Italians, in Duport’s dances, in the recitation of Mlle George, but at the same time the ardent girl is involuntarily carried away by the atmosphere of artificial life, in which lies and affectation constitute a brilliant cover of all passions, all thirst for pleasure. In the wider world we inevitably come across French and Italian art; the ideals of French and Italian passion, so alien to Russian nature, act on it in this case in a corrupting way.
Another family, the chronicle of which belongs to what is told in “War and Peace,” the Bolkonsky family, in the same way, does not belong to the big world. One might rather say that it higher of this light, but in any case it is outside of it. Remember Princess Marya, who has no semblance of a society girl; Remember the hostile attitude of the old man and his son towards the little princess Lisa, the most charming society woman.
So, despite the fact that one family is a count and the other a prince, “War and Peace” does not have even a shadow of a high-society character. “Greatness” once greatly seduced our literature and gave rise to a whole series of false works. Lermontov did not have time to free himself from this hobby, which Ap. Grigoriev called it “the disease of moral lackeyness.” In "War and Peace" Russian art appeared completely free from any sign of this disease; this freedom is all the more powerful because here art has captured the very spheres where high society seems to dominate.
The Rostov family and the Bolkonsky family, in their internal life, in the relationships of their members, are the same Russian families as any other. For members of both families, family relationships are of significant, dominant importance. Remember Pechorin, Onegin; these heroes do not have a family, or at least the family does not play any role in their lives. They are busy and absorbed in their personal, individual lives. Tatyana herself, remaining completely faithful to family life, without betraying it in anything, is somewhat aloof from it:
She is in her own family
The girl seemed like a stranger.
But as soon as Pushkin began to depict simple Russian life, for example, in “The Captain's Daughter,” the family immediately took all its rights. The Grinevs and Mironovs appear on stage as two families, as people living in close family relationships. But nowhere did Russian family life appear with such vibrancy and strength as in War and Peace. Young men, like Nikolai Rostov, Andrei Bolkonsky, live their own special, personal life, ambition, revelry, love, etc., they often and for a long time are separated from their home by service and occupation, but the house, the father, the family - constitutes a shrine for them and absorbs the better half of their thoughts and feelings. As for women, Princess Marya and Natasha, they are completely immersed in the family sphere. The description of the happy family life of the Rostovs and the unhappy family life of the Bolkonskys, with all the variety of relationships and cases, constitutes the most essential and classically excellent side of War and Peace.
Let us make one more rapprochement. In "The Captain's Daughter", as in "War and Peace", the clash between private life and public life is depicted. Both artists obviously felt a desire to peek and show the attitude in which the Russian people have towards their state life. Do we not have the right to conclude from this that among the most essential elements of our life is a double connection: the connection with the family and the connection with the state?
So, this is the kind of life depicted in War and Peace - not a personal egoistic life, not a history of individual aspirations and suffering; Communal life is depicted, connected in all directions by living ties. In this feature, it seems to us, the truly Russian, truly original character of the work of gr. L.N. Tolstoy.
And what about passions? What role do personalities and characters play in War and Peace? It is clear that passions cannot in any case have a primary place here and that personal characters will not stand out from the overall picture by the enormity of their size.
Passions have nothing brilliant or picturesque in War and Peace. Let's take love as an example. This is either simple sensuality, like Pierre’s in relation to his wife, like Helen herself towards her admirers; or, on the contrary, it is a completely calm, deeply human attachment, like Sophia’s for Nikolai, or like the gradually emerging relationship between Pierre and Natasha. Passion, in its pure form, appears only between Natasha and Kuragin; and here, from Natasha’s side, she represents some kind of insane intoxication, and only from Kuragin’s side does it turn out to be what the French call passion, a concept that is not Russian, but, as we know, has been strongly grafted onto our society. Remember how Kuragin admires his goddess, how he, “with the techniques of an expert, examines in front of Dolokhov the dignity of her arms, shoulders, legs and hair” (vol. III, p. 236). This is not how the truly loving Pierre feels and expresses himself: “She is charming,” he says about Natasha, “but why, I don’t know: that’s all that can be said about her” (ibid., p. 203).
In the same way, all other passions, everything in which a person’s individual personality is revealed, anger, ambition, revenge - all this either manifests itself in the form of instant outbursts, or turns into permanent, but calmer relationships. Remember Pierre’s relationship to his wife, to Drubetsky, etc. In general, “War and Peace” does not elevate passions to an ideal; this chronicle is obviously dominated by faith in family and, just as obviously, disbelief in passion, that is, disbelief in their duration and durability - the conviction that no matter how strong and beautiful these personal aspirations are, they will fade and disappear over time.
As for the characters, it is absolutely clear that the artist’s heart remains invariably sweet to simple and meek types - a reflection of one of the most beloved ideals of our national spirit. Compassionate and humble heroes, Timokhin, Tushin, complacent and simple people, Princess Marya, Count Ilya Rostov, are depicted with that understanding, with that deep sympathy that is familiar to us from the previous works of the gr. L.N. Tolstoy. But anyone who followed the artist’s previous activities cannot help but be amazed by the courage and freedom with which the gr. L.N. Tolstoy also began to portray strong, passionate types. In "War and Peace" the artist seemed to have mastered for the first time the secret of strong feelings and characters, which he had previously always treated with such distrust. The Bolkonskys - father and son - no longer belong to the meek type. Natasha represents a charming reproduction of a passionate female type, at the same time strong, ardent and tender.
The artist, however, declared his dislike for the predatory type in the depiction of a number of such persons as Helen, Anatole, Dolokhov, the coachman Balaga, etc. All these natures are predominantly predatory; the artist made them representatives of evil and depravity, from which the main persons of his family chronicle suffer.
But the most interesting, most original and masterful type created by gr. L.N. Tolstoy, there is the face of Pierre Bezukhov. This is obviously a combination of both types, meek and. passionate, purely Russian nature, equally filled with good nature and strength. Gentle, shy, childishly simple-minded and kind, Pierre at times discovers in himself (as the author says) the nature of his father. By the way, this father, a rich and handsome man of Catherine’s time, who in “War and Peace” appears only as a dying man and does not utter a single word, makes up one of the most striking pictures of “War and Peace.” This is quite a dying lion, striking with its power and beauty until its last breath. The nature of this lion sometimes resonates in Pierre. Remember how he shakes Anatole by the collar, this brawler, the head of the rake who did things that an ordinary person would have deserved Siberia long ago(Vol. III, p. 259).
Whatever, however, the strong Russian types depicted by gr. L.N. Tolstoy, it is still obvious that in the totality of these individuals there was little that was brilliant or active, and that the strength of Russia at that time relied much more on the staunchness of the meek type than on the actions of the strong. Kutuzov himself, the greatest force depicted in War and Peace, does not have a brilliant side to him. This is a slow old man, whose main power is revealed in the ease and freedom with which he carries the heavy burden of his experience. Patience and time his slogan (Vol. IV, p. 221).
The very two battles in which the extent to which the strength of Russian souls can reach with the greatest clarity are shown - the Shengraben affair and the Battle of Borodino - are obviously of a defensive rather than offensive nature. According to Prince Andrei, we owe our success under Shengraben most of all to heroic fortitude of Captain Tushin(Vol. I, Part I, p. 132). The essence of the Battle of Borodino was that the attacking French army was struck with horror before the enemy, who, “having lost half troops, stood just as menacingly at the end, as at the beginning of the battle" (vol. IV, p. 337). So, here the long-standing remark of historians was repeated that the Russians are not strong in attack, but that in defense they have no equal in the world.
We see, therefore, that all the heroism of the Russians comes down to the strength of the selfless and fearless type, but at the same time meek and simple. A truly brilliant type, full of active force, passion, and rapacity, is obviously represented, and in essence should be represented by the French with their leader Napoleon. In terms of active strength and brilliance, the Russians could in no way equal this type, and, as we have already noted, the entire story of “War and Peace” depicts the clash of these two very different types and the victory of the simple type over the brilliant type.
Since we know our artist’s fundamental, deep dislike for the brilliant type, it is here that we should look for a biased, incorrect image; although, on the other hand, passion, which has such deep sources, can lead to priceless revelations - can reach the truth, not noticed by indifferent and cold eyes. In Napoleon, the artist seemed to directly want to expose, to debunk the brilliant type, to debunk him in his greatest representative. The author is positively hostile to Napoleon, as if completely sharing the feelings that Russia and the Russian army had for him at that moment. Compare how Kutuzov and Napoleon behave on the Borodino field. What purely Russian simplicity one has and how much affectation, falsehood and falsehood the other has!
With this kind of image, we are overcome with involuntary distrust. Napoleon at gr. L.N. Tolstoy is not quite smart, deep and not even quite scary. The artist captured in him everything that is so disgusting to Russian nature, so outrageous to her simple instincts; but one must think that these features in their own, that is, French, world do not represent the unnaturalness and harshness that Russian eyes see in them. That world must have had its own beauty, its own grandeur.
And yet, since this greatness gave way to the greatness of the Russian spirit, since Napoleon suffered the sin of violence and oppression, since the valor of the French was, indeed, darkened by the radiance of Russian valor, one cannot help but see that the artist was right in casting a shadow on the brilliant type of emperor, one cannot help but sympathize with the purity and correctness of those instincts that guided him. The portrayal of Napoleon is still amazingly true, although we cannot say that the inner life of him and his army was captured in such depth and completeness as the Russian life of that time is presented to us with our own eyes.
These are some of the traits private characteristics of "War and Peace". From them, we hope, it will be clear at least how much purely Russian heart is put into this work. Once again, everyone can be convinced that real, real creations of art are deeply connected with the life, soul, and whole nature of the artist; they constitute a confession and the embodiment of his spiritual history. As a completely alive, completely sincere creation, imbued with the best and most sincere aspirations of our national character, “War and Peace” is an incomparable work and constitutes one of the greatest and most original monuments of our art. We will express the meaning of this work in our fiction in the words of Ap. Grigoriev, which were said by him ten years ago and were not confirmed by anything so brilliantly as the appearance of “War and Peace”.
“Whoever does not see the mighty growths of a typical, indigenous, folk one, nature has deprived him of his sight and, in general, his sense of smell.”
Nikolai Nikolaevich Strakhov (1828 - 1896). Russian philosopher, publicist, literary critic, corresponding member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences.
