Works by Ivan Goncharov. Goncharov Ivan Alexandrovich - short biography
Then in 1831-1834 at the verbal department of Moscow University.
After graduating from the university, from the end of 1834 to April 1835, Goncharov served as secretary of the office of the governor of Simbirsk.
In May 1835 he moved to St. Petersburg and joined the Foreign Trade Department of the Ministry of Finance as a translator.
He worked part-time as a tutor and was a teacher of Russian literature and Latin for the children of the artist Nikolai Maikov, in whose house they often gathered famous writers, musicians, painters. The Maykov family produced handwritten almanacs "Snowdrop" and " Moonlit nights", in which the first poetic and prose works Ivan Goncharov.
Goncharov's first poetic experiments were an imitation of romantic poets. From early works The essay “Ivan Savvich Podzhabrin” (written in 1842, published in 1848) is significant. In 1846, Goncharov met Vissarion Belinsky, who played a big role in creative destiny writer. In 1847, the writer's first novel, An Ordinary Story, was published.
From October 1852 to August 1854, Goncharov participated in the expedition of Vice Admiral (since 1858 - Admiral) Efimy Putyatin to Japan on the military frigate Pallada as his secretary. During the expedition, Ivan Goncharov visited England, South Africa, Malaya, China, Japan. In February 1855 he returned to St. Petersburg by land, through Siberia and the Volga region. Impressions from the trip formed a series of essays, “Frigate Pallas,” published in magazines in 1855-1857 (separately published in 1858).
In 1855, Goncharov returned to serve in the department.
Since 1856, he worked as a censor in the St. Petersburg Censorship Committee. In 1857-1858, Goncharov, while maintaining the position of censor, taught Russian literature to Tsarevich Nikolai Alexandrovich.
In 1860, Ivan Goncharov became a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences in the department of language and literature.
In 1862-1863 he was editor-in-chief of the government newspaper Severnaya Posta.
In 1982, a literary library was opened in the city. memorial museum Goncharova.
In the Ulyanovsk region, traditional Goncharov readings have been gathering fans of the writer’s work from all over Russia for a third of a century.
The material was prepared based on information from RIA Novosti and open sources
Ivan Aleksandrovich Goncharov is a Russian writer and critic. Born June 6 (18), 1812 in Simbirsk, in merchant family. He studied at Moscow University at the Faculty of Philology. After graduating from university, he served for a short time in Simbirsk, in the governor’s office, then moved to St. Petersburg. For the first ten years of his life in the capital, he was a minor official in the Ministry of Finance.
Romantic poems and Goncharov’s first stories – “Dashing Illness” and “Happy Mistake” – appeared in 1838–1839. in handwritten almanacs. But success brought him the novel “Ordinary History,” published in 1847 in the Sovremennik magazine and very well received by critics, especially Belinsky.
In 1852, Goncharov set off on a journey to the shores of Japan on the Russian warship Pallada as secretary to the head of the expedition. In two and a half years he visited England, South Africa, Malaya, China, and Japan. In February 1855 he returned to St. Petersburg through Siberia (where he met with exiled Decembrists) and the Volga region. Impressions from the trip comprised two volumes of essays published in 1858 under the title “Frigate “Pallada””.
In 1859, the novel “Oblomov” also appeared in print. The success was simply stunning. The whole of cultural Russia read the novel.
However, Goncharov was forced to continue serving and in 1856 he became a censor. In this nervous position, incurring reproaches from both sides, he contributed to the new publication of Turgenev's Notes of a Hunter, a collection of poems by Nekrasov, which had been banned for several years, and allowed Pisemsky's novel A Thousand Souls to be published. He taught Russian literature to the Tsarevich. He was a member of Russian and foreign literary societies. Therefore, it can hardly be considered fair to compare the writer with his most famous hero, Oblomov. Meanwhile, many of the writer’s contemporaries made such a comparison, based on the fact that for the second half of his life Goncharov lived almost constantly in St. Petersburg and was not married.
In 1860, when censorship persecution of literature began to intensify, Goncharov resigned, but was again invited to a high position: he became a member of the Council for Printing Affairs and a member of the Main Directorate for Printing Affairs. Only in 1867 did he finally leave the censorship department.
In 1869, the writer’s third major novel, “The Precipice,” appeared, the fruit of twenty years of work. It causes heated discussion because it touches on the topic of nihilism and nihilists.
In the 1870s. Goncharov acts as a talented critic, publishing the article “A Million Torments” (about Griboedov’s comedy “Woe from Wit”, about Chatsky), “Notes on Belinsky’s personality” and other works.
Ivan Aleksandrovich spent the last years of his life in almost complete solitude, sick, lonely.
September 15 (27), 1891 Goncharov died.
By depicting a fairly narrow circle of people in his novels (one or two families in St. Petersburg, small towns and villages in remote provinces), Goncharov managed to achieve high degree generalizations. His Oblomov was perceived as a symbol of all Russian laziness, a “breakdown” in novel of the same name- like a cliff to which all of Russia has approached. According to the writer and critic V.V. Rozanov, “the Russian essence, which is called the Russian soul, the Russian element, received, under the pen of Goncharov, one of the greatest awarenesses, depictions of itself, interpretations of itself, reflections on itself...”.
Years of life: from 06.06.1812 to 15.09.1891
Famous Russian writer, prose writer, literary critic, Corresponding Member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences. A classic of Russian literature, who created in his work the image of the Russian national character.
Ivan Goncharov was born in Simbirsk (now Ulyanovsk). His parents belonged to the merchant class, and the family lived quite prosperously. When Goncharov was seven years old, his father died. In the subsequent fate of the boy, in his spiritual development important role played by his godfather Nikolai Nikolaevich Tregubov, who became the first teacher of the future writer. At the age of ten he was sent to Moscow, where, at the insistence of his mother, he studied at a commercial school. In total, Goncharov spent 8 years at the school. Studying weighed heavily on him; in his memoirs, the writer speaks negatively about the school and the years he spent there. In 1830, Goncharov managed to convince his mother that his further education would not bring any benefit or joy, and she wrote a petition to expel him from the school. The interest that had awakened by that time humanities, and especially to artistic literature prompted Goncharov to enroll in the literature department of Moscow University, from which he graduated 3 years later. The university years include the first literary experiments writer.
After graduating from the university, Goncharov decided not to return to live permanently in Simbirsk, but after much deliberation he nevertheless accepted the offer to take the position of secretary of the Simbirsk governor. The writer worked in this capacity for about a year; the service turned out to be boring and thankless. Leaving Simbirsk, Goncharov went to St. Petersburg, where in 1835 he joined the Foreign Trade Department of the Ministry of Finance, as a translator of foreign correspondence. The work was not very lucrative, but Goncharov had a lot of free time, which he devoted to literature. At this time, Goncharov became close to the Maykov family, was the teacher of Apollo Maykov, and in the Maykov house the writer met with many representatives national culture. In 1838 and 1839, Goncharov’s romantic poems and the first stories “Dashing Illness” and “Happy Mistake” appeared in the handwritten almanacs of N. Maykov’s literary and artistic circle.
In the early 40s, Goncharov met Belinsky, who had a noticeable influence on the writer’s work. In 1846, Goncharov read his first novel, “Ordinary History,” to Belinsky, and after the critic’s approval, the novel was published in the Sovremennik magazine. The novel immediately made Goncharov a prominent figure Russian literature. Immediately after the publication of Ordinary History, Goncharov began work on his second novel Oblomov, and two years later (1849) on The Precipice. In October 1852, something happened in Goncharov’s life an important event: he became a member trip around the world on a sailing warship - the frigate "Pallada" - as secretary to the head of the expedition, Vice Admiral Putyatin. She was equipped to inspect Russian possessions in North America- Alaska, which belonged to Russia at that time, as well as to establish political and trade relations with Japan. The expedition lasted almost two and a half years, based on its results, Goncharov published a series of travel essays “Frigate Pallada” (1855-1857) - a kind of “writer’s diary”. The book became famous due to both its literary merits and the rich factual material collected by the writer.
Upon returning to St. Petersburg, Goncharov continued working on novels, but could not leave the service. In 1856, the writer received the position of censor, thus acquiring an ambiguous position in the literary community. However, judging by the reviews of his contemporaries, his position as a censor was quite liberal, so he contributed to the new publication of Turgenev's Notes of a Hunter, a collection of poems by Nekrasov, which had been banned for several years, and allowed Pisemsky's novel A Thousand Souls to be published.
In 1859, Goncharov’s second novel, “Oblomov,” appeared, which became the subject of active critical attention and was greeted as a major social event. WITH light hand ON THE. Dobrolyubov, the word “Oblomovism,” used in the novel itself and repeated in the title of Dobrolyubov’s article “What is Oblomovism?”, becomes a household word. In 1860, when censorship persecution of literature began to intensify, Goncharov resigned, wanting to devote himself entirely to writing the next novel. However, work on the novel was difficult, and financial considerations forced Goncharov to retake the position of censor, in which he worked from 1862 to 1867, when he finally retired. In 1868, the novel “The Precipice” was finally published, the result of almost twenty years of work.
“The Cliff” became Goncharov’s last major work. In subsequent years, he wrote several essays and a number of works in the field of criticism: “A Million Torments”, “Notes on the Personality of Belinsky”, “Better Late Than Never”, which entered the history of Russian literary and aesthetic thought. His life at that time was difficult, the writer experienced financial difficulties, suffered from depression, was sick a lot. At one time I was eager to take up new novel, however, without feeling either physical or moral forces, abandoned these plans. Goncharov lived in his apartment in St. Petersburg, and in last years I was left almost completely alone. The writer died of pneumonia at the age of eightie.
Ivan Aleksandrovich Goncharov (1812-1891), Russian writer XIX c., was born into a wealthy merchant family. In addition to him, there were three more children in the Goncharov family. After the death of the father, the mother and their children took up raising the children. Godfather N.N. Tregubov, educated person progressive views, familiar with many Decembrists. During his years of study at a private boarding school, Goncharov began reading books by Western European and Russian authors and learned French and Russian well. In 1822, he successfully passed the exams at the Moscow Commercial School, but without graduating, he entered the philological department of Moscow University.
During his years at the university, Goncharov turned to literary creativity. Of the subjects he studied, he was most attracted to theory and history of literature, art, architecture. After graduating from the university, Ivan Aleksandrovich entered the service in the office of the Simbirsk governor, then moved to St. Petersburg and took the position of translator in the Ministry of Finance. However, his service did not prevent him from pursuing literature and maintaining friendly relations with poets, writers and painters.
Goncharov's first creative experiments - poetry, then the anti-romantic story "Dashing Illness" and the story "Happy Mistake" - were published in a handwritten journal. In 1842, he wrote the essay “Ivan Savich Podzhabrin”, published only six years after its creation. In 1847, the Sovremennik magazine published the novel Ordinary History, which aroused enthusiastic criticism and brought the author big success. At the heart of the novel is a clash between two central characters- Aduev the uncle and Aduev the nephew, personifying sober practicality and enthusiastic idealism. Each of the characters is psychologically close to the writer and represents different projections of his spiritual world.
In the novel “An Ordinary Story,” the writer denies the abstract appeals of the main character, Alexander Aduev, to a certain “divine spirit”, condemns empty romance and the insignificant commercial efficiency that reigns in the bureaucratic environment, that is, what is not supported by high ideas, necessary for a person. The clash of the main characters was perceived by contemporaries as “a terrible blow to romanticism, daydreaming, sentimentality, and provincialism” (V.G. Belinsky). However, decades later, the anti-romantic theme lost its relevance, and subsequent generations of readers perceived the novel as the most “ an ordinary story» cooling and sobering up a person, how eternal theme life.
The pinnacle of the writer’s creativity was the novel “Oblomov,” the creation of which Goncharov began back in the 40s. Before the novel was published, “Oblomov’s Dream”, an excerpt from the future work, appeared in the almanac “Literary Collection with Illustrations”. “Oblomov’s Dream” was highly praised by critics, but in their judgments one could see ideological differences. Some believed that the passage had great artistic value, but rejected the author’s irony in relation to the patriarchal landowner way of life. Others recognized the writer’s undoubted skill in describing scenes of estate life and saw in the excerpt from Goncharov’s future novel a creative step forward compared to his previous works.
In 1852, Goncharov, as secretary to Admiral E.V. Putyatina went to circumnavigation on the frigate "Pallada". Simultaneously with the performance of his official duties, Ivan Alexandrovich collected material for his new works. The result of this work was travel notes, which in 1855-57. published in periodicals, and in 1858 they were published as a separate two-volume publication entitled “Frigate “Pallada””. IN travel notes the author's impressions of acquaintance with the British and Japanese cultures are conveyed, and the author's opinion about what he saw and experienced during the trip is reflected. The paintings created by the author contain unusual associations and comparisons with the life of Russia and are filled with a lyrical feeling. Travel Stories enjoyed great popularity among Russian readers.
Returning from his trip, Goncharov entered the service of the St. Petersburg Censorship Committee and accepted an invitation to teach Russian literature to the heir to the throne. From that time on, the writer’s relations with Belinsky’s circle cooled noticeably. Acting as a censor, Goncharov assisted in the publication of a number of best works Russian literature: “Notes of a Hunter” by I.S. Turgenev, “A Thousand Souls” by A.F. Pisemsky and others. From the autumn of 1862 to the summer of 1863, Goncharov edited the newspaper “Northern Post”. Around the same time, his removal from literary world. The ideal writer, by his own admission, consisted of “a piece of independent bread, a pen and a close circle of his closest friends.”
In 1859, the novel “Oblomov” was published, the idea of which was formed back in 1847. From the moment the chapter “Oblomov’s Dream” was published, the reader had to wait almost ten years for the appearance of the full text of the work, which immediately won enormous success. The novel caused heated debate among readers and critics, which testified to the depth of the author's intention. Immediately after the novel was published, Dobrolyubov wrote an article “What is Oblomovism?”, which was a merciless trial of the main character, a “completely inert” and “apathetic” master, who became a symbol of the inertia of feudal Russia. Some critics, on the contrary, saw in the main character an “independent and pure”, “tender and loving nature”, who consciously avoided fashion trends and remained faithful true values being. Disputes about the main character of the novel continued until the beginning of the 20th century.
Goncharov’s last novel, “The Cliff,” published in 1869, presents new option Oblomovism in the image of the main character - Boris Raisky. This work was conceived back in 1849 as a novel about difficult relationships artist and society. However, by the beginning of writing, the writer had somewhat changed his plan, which was dictated by new social problems. At the center of the novel is tragic fate revolutionary-minded youth, represented in the image of the “nihilist” Mark Volokhov. The novel "The Break" caused mixed assessment critics. Many questioned the author's talent and denied him the right to judge modern youth.
After the publication of the novel “The Break,” Goncharov’s name rarely appeared in print. In 1872, a literary critical article “A Million Torments” was written, dedicated to the stage production of Griboyedov’s comedy “Woe from Wit”. To this day this article remains classic work about Griboedov's comedy. Further literary activity Goncharova is represented by “Notes on the Personality of Belinsky”, theatrical and journalistic notes, the article “Hamlet”, the essay “ Literary evening"and newspaper feuilletons. The result creative activity Goncharov in the 70s. considered large critical work about him own creativity entitled "Better Late Than Never". In the 80s The first collected works of Goncharov were published. In the last years of his life, the writer, endowed with the talent of a subtle observer, lived alone and secluded, consciously avoiding life and at the same time having a hard time experiencing his situation. He continued to write articles and notes, but, unfortunately, before his death, he burned everything he had written in recent years.
In all his works, Goncharov sought to reveal the inner dynamism of the individual outside of plot events and convey internal tension everyday life. The writer advocated the independence of the individual, called for active work, animated moral ideas: spirituality and humanity, freedom from social and moral dependence.
The famous Russian novelist Ivan Aleksandrovich Goncharov was born in 1812 (or around; the exact date is unknown, since the metric certificate was burned in a fire in 1812, therefore, no later than September of this year) in Simbirsk, died on September 15, 1891. Despite his merchant origin, Goncharov grew up in conditions not much different from raising children in wealthy noble families, and, thanks to the care of his mother, a simple but intelligent woman, he received thorough mental training for that time, which gave an ennobling direction to his hereditary businesslike activity. Goncharov's father died early, leaving him a three-year-old child. Impression early biography boy - impressions of sleep and stagnation hometown, a picture of an idle and free life, it deeply etched itself in every detail into the soul of the future author of “Oblomov” (see the full text and summary of this novel). In addition to the mother, Goncharov’s godfather, a retired sailor who bears the pseudonym Yakubova in his memoirs, took part in the upbringing, an enlightened man who loved children. He subscribed to books, read a lot and talked with Goncharov about mathematical and physical geography, astronomy, and introduced him to marine instruments and the principles of navigation. The latter interested the boy so much that at times he was already drawn to the sea, or at least to the water, and, no doubt, this interest had its share in Goncharov’s determination to sail around the world many years later.
I. A. Goncharov. Portrait by I. Kramskoy
For basic education, the Goncharovs were placed in private boarding schools, one of which did not remain without a serious influence on Goncharov. It was a noble boarding house for a priest who lived next door, on the estate of Princess Khovanskaya, educated and secular cultured person. His wife, originally French, taught her native language, the priest supervised the teaching and reading of the students. The latter consisted of instructive and serious books: trips; Karamzin and Golikov, Racine and Tasso, Lomonosov and Derzhavin; At home, Goncharov devoured the gloomy novels of Radcliffe, the mystical “Keys to the Mysteries of Nature” by Eckartshausen, fairy tales, but his favorite reading were the stories of sailors, taking his imagination either to the Sandwich Islands with Cook, or to Kamchatka with Krasheninnikov.
In 1822 came new stage biographies of Goncharov: he was taken to Moscow for further education and was placed in one of the noble boarding houses. Goncharov stayed here for eight years, learned foreign languages, could translate Cornelius Nepos from sight, but he read books in the same spirit, with a fantastic element in the foreground, like “Agasphere” or “The Count of Monte Cristo”. Such reading, which fell on fertile soil, despite the sobriety of Goncharov’s mind, raised the thought too high above the native reality and, naturally, prevented us from looking with great attention, and most importantly with a degree of personal participation, into the features of the surrounding life.
It is not surprising, therefore, that Goncharov entered the literature department of Moscow University in 1831 with a very poorly developed social sense. He listened to Kachenovsky here, Nadezhdina, Shevyreva, Davydov, and retained grateful memories of everyone, especially Nadezhdin and Shevyrev. Having entered the university “with fear and trembling,” as if into a sanctuary, Ivan Aleksandrovich Goncharov felt like a member of “a small scientific republic, over which stretched an eternally clear sky, without clouds, without thunderstorms and without internal turmoil, without any stories except universal and Russian, taught from the departments.” Having found Herzen and Ogarev and Stankevich’s comrades at the university, he was not familiar with any of them, and remained completely alien to that mental excitement, that passionate enthusiasm that characterized the Moscow circles of the 30s, which Herzen, recalling his student biography, called "boiling". Neither Hegel, nor Saint-Simon, nor dreams of political transformations in general worried then, as, indeed, later, Goncharov. He carefully studied foreign literatures and classics, learned from them the perfection of form, and in his later studies followed the instructions and methods learned from his student days.
After graduating from a university course in 1836, the young candidate entered the service first in Simbirsk, where he remained for a short time, then in St. Petersburg, in the department of foreign trade, first as a translator, then as a clerk. The clerical service did not burden Goncharov; on the contrary, it suited his slow-moving nature and even character, it was in harmony with general direction his thoughts, enchanted by Schiller and Dante, hovered so high above the earth that no thresholds or clumsiness of Russian life touched it. It is safe to say, however, that his ambition lay outside the office walls; subsequently it developed from the consciousness of his artistic talent and literary merits. In St. Petersburg, Ivan Aleksandrovich Goncharov became close to the family of the artist Nik. Apol. Maykov, father of Apollo, Valerian and Leonid Maykov, who, each in his own field, left their names in the history of Russian literature. This family was dominated by an aesthetic atmosphere, a worship of pure “objective” art, which gave the tone to an epicurean serene reconciliation with life and gentle contentment with oneself and others.
Naturally, having met Belinsky and his circle of 1846, Goncharov could not get along with him either because of his passion for the ideas of Louis Blanc and Ledru-Rollin, and then George Sand, which worried the great critic at that time, or because of his complicity in that passionate anxiety social thought, which characterized this circle, and for which Goncharov was too sober and calm in nature. “Sometimes he seemed to attack me,” he later recalled about Belinsky, because I had no anger, irritation, or subjectivity. “You don’t care whether you come across a scoundrel, a fool, a freak or a decent, kind nature, you draw everyone the same: no love, no hatred for anyone!”
From 1858, Goncharov served in the censorship department as a censor and a member of the council of the chief administrator for press affairs; in 1862 he was at one time the editor of Northern Mail. In 1873 he service biography ended and he retired. Since then, Goncharov spent the winter monotonously and without worry in St. Petersburg, in a small apartment on Mokhovaya (No. 9, apt. 3), and the summer in Ust-Narova, in the same familiar surroundings, in the care of his old servant and his family (Goncharov was not married), to whom he bequeathed his literary property. Before his death (1891), Goncharov destroyed part of his old notes, fearing that they might someday get into print, and having previously protested the right of posthumous publication, without the will of the author, biographical and literary material in the article “Violation of will”.
