Real criticism. Lifshits Mikhail

Real criticism- one of the most active critical movements of the 1840s - 1860s. Her method, like the aesthetics of realism in literature itself, was prepared by V.G. Belinsky, although his critical work does not all and does not fully fit into the contours of real criticism.

Principles that are related, but also shared by V.G. Belinsky with future real criticism.

V.G. Belinsky established the basic principles that would generally be followed by real criticism in the future.

1. 1) The social role of art is highlighted as its main purpose. Art is conceived as optics that serves to understand people's life. The ability of art to observe and reflect reality is the most important criterion of artistry.
2. 2) Criticism is conceived as a means that enhances the “optics” of literature and, most importantly, controls its fidelity.
3. 3) Literature is sovereign as a sphere of spiritual life and cultural activity, but it is closely coordinated with public life, since the artist is included in it and, reflecting reality, cannot remain outside its problems and needs. Therefore, literature is aimed at social purposes. However, it achieves them with its own specific means.

In the works of V.G. Belinsky has developed a system of categories on which the method of real criticism is based. First of all, this categories reality, type, pathos.

Reality- reality human world in a social form. Simply put, it is national life as a living, moving system. The category “reality” is contrasted with an abstract representation of the world in generalized, eternal, unchanging categories (man in general, beauty in general, etc.), free from historical, psychological, national specificity. In the poetics of V.G. Belinsky denies the scheme, normativity, canon, some special “correct” narrative code. A writer in his work must follow reality, without trying to idealize it in accordance with artificial ideas about the “norm” of literature.

Pathos is the category with which V.G. Belinsky denoted the sovereignty and specificity of literature. Philosophy and science also strive to understand the world (reality), just like literature. But the specificity of philosophy, according to V.G. Belinsky, lies in the idea, and the specificity of art lies in pathos. Pathos is a holistic emotional perception of reality, marked by the individuality of the artist, while the idea in philosophy is analytical and objective (this is discussed in detail in the fifth “Pushkin” article).

In the category of pathos, Belinsky reinforces the idea of ​​the importance of the strictly aesthetic, intuitive (and subjective) principles in art. Works that do not have a high degree of aesthetics and artistic individuality (expressiveness and integrity of pathos), V.G. Belinsky took them beyond the scope of literature as such, referring them to artistic “fiction” (works by V. Dahl, D. Grigorovich, A. Herzen, etc.). Pathos is a generalizing category; it connects art with generalization, enlargement, and the selection of the integral “main thing” from the diversity of observed phenomena and in this regard correlates with the category of type.

A type is an image taken from reality and revealing its main tendencies, foundations, and the essence of the processes occurring in it. Using the verbal formula of M.Yu. Lermontov, the type is a “hero of his time.” Typical is non-random, its opposite is exceptional, random, excess.

It is easy to see that the category of type grows out of the comparison and opposition of the romantic and realistic principles of depiction and therefore was very effective for analyzing the literature of the coming time, the heyday of realistic prose. However, she will interfere with V.G. Belinsky to evaluate the early works of F.M. Dostoevsky. But even if the type is not universal as a model for describing and cognition of literature (there are no universal models), then the scope of its “relevance” is very wide. Not only literature lends itself to description in terms of typification, the typical classical realism, but also the work of twentieth-century writers such as S. Dovlatov, V. Aksenov, A. Vampilov, and even L. Ulitskaya or V. Pelevin.

Thus, literature cognizes (reflects) reality with its own specific means - depicting social types, organizing the observed material of reality through the creative power of the artist’s personality, who expresses his involvement in moving reality in the pathos of his creativity.

Consequently, the task of the critic is, on the one hand, to evaluate how true the work is to national reality, to judge the accuracy of artistic types; on the other hand, to evaluate the artistic perfection of the work and the pathos of the author as a result of the creative mastery of reality.

Metalanguage of criticism V.V.G. Belinsky is not yet separated from the language of those disciplines and spheres of thought, of which, not so far from V.G. Literary criticism stood out during Belin's time. You can see how your own is formed metalanguage of criticism by V.G. Belinsky on the basis of “adjacent” languages.

— Non-critical terminology includes those important for the system of judgments of V.G. Belinsky concepts of aesthetics and aesthetic, public, social development, progress.

- At the next stage of metalanguage development, the concepts of adjacent linguistic subsystems are transposed into the sphere of literature, where they acquire a more specialized, although not yet special meaning: but on the basis of the concept of progress, an idea of ​​literary progress is formed, on the basis of the concept of history - an idea of ​​the history of literature. It is no coincidence that in the first part of the article “A Look at Russian Literature of 1847” V.V.G. Belinsky precedes his judgment on the progress of literature with a discussion about the concept of progress as such.

— Finally, criticism’s own metalanguage appears. Thus, the term rhetorical initially means “relating to rhetoric,” but V.G. Belinsky uses this term in the special meaning of “one of the periods in the development of Russian literature”; word real V.G. Belinsky uses in a special sense “modern literary direction” - a real school. Similarly in the system of concepts of V.G. Belinsky's terminologically rethought words nature, type, typical, etc. take their place.

Genre and text

The main genre form of criticism by V.G. Belinsky is a lengthy journal article in which an analysis of a literary work is preceded and interspersed with excursions of a philosophical, polemical, and journalistic nature. A constant accompanying goal of critical articles by V.G. Belinsky was constructing the history of Russian literature; one can say that in his criticism V.G. Belinsky is a historian who strives to periodize Russian literature in accordance with its literature, internal laws, and principles of artistic construction. Due to the journalistic nature of V.G.’s articles. Belinsky is their emotionality. V.G. Belinsky considered pathos to be a generic property of literature, and his own articles are characterized by the desire to create pathos, internally directed towards the main subject of the text - a literary work. Because of this, V.G. Belinsky can sometimes seem excessive in both his positive and negative assessments.

“Large form” of a magazine critical article in the works of V.G. Belinsky replaced her initial philosophical orientation with a journalistic orientation, and thus the classic form of a journal article was found, which would later be used by both “realist” critics and their opponents, and which still remains relevant. A journal journalistic literary-critical article is the main genre and the main form of literary criticism, which has become an independent professional value. Its place in the system of genres of criticism coincides with the center, the dominant of the genre field. It is fair to judge the state of criticism in general by its condition.

N.G. Chernyshevsky and the development of real criticism

The method created by V.G. Belinsky, developed in the work of his followers mainly along the path of deepening his central provisions about the connection between literature and reality, about the social functions of literature. This allowed real criticism to strengthen the tools for analyzing text and the literary process, and significantly bring together literary and social issues in its critical practice. At the same time, literature became increasingly dependent on extraliterary goals (social enlightenment and social struggle), the sovereignty and specificity of art was questioned, and aesthetic criteria were removed from criticism.

This dynamic of the method was most facilitated by the social situation of the mid-19th century - the social movement of the 1850s-60s, the abolition of serfdom, the activation of the public and high politicization social life that time. It is also significant that under conditions of censorship, political journalism and party ideology were forced to mix with literary criticism and existed immanently in its composition. Almost all representatives of “real” criticism supported the ideas of revolutionary democracy and corresponding social movements.

The features of real criticism at the mature stage of its development can be discovered by comparing the criticism of N.G. Chernyshevsky and V.G. Belinsky:

1. 1) If V.G. Belinsky demanded from the writer a living involvement in reality, then, according to Chernyshevsky, art serves reality, responds to its requests and needs.
2. 2) Presentation by V.G. Belinsky about genius subjectivity, in which the specificity of art is reflected, develops into the category of a subjectively constructed ideal. The ideal, however, was thought of in nature-defined, that is, objective contours - this is the “natural” state of man and the human world, given by nature - “reason, universal labor, collectivism, goodness, freedom of each and all.” Thus, real criticism (in the model of N.G. Chernyshevsky and his direct followers) considers it good to give objectivity to art, to moderate or exclude subjectivity, the individuality of the creative act.
3. 3) If V.G. Belinsky spoke about the non-partisan nature of literature and found the specificity of literature in pathos, and not in the idea, then Chernyshevsky finds it precisely in the idea, believing that artistry is a true, progressive idea.
4. 4) Chernyshevsky sees the correct aesthetic attitude not as the transformation of the material of reality, but as the copying of reality. Even typification, according to Chernyshevsky, is not the subjective work of the writer: the life patterns themselves are already “naturally” quite typical.
5. 5) If V.G. Belinsky did not envision the participation of art in politics, but according to N.G. Chernyshevsky, - it must express a specific social idea, directly participate in the social struggle.

Chernyshevsky’s fundamental historical and literary works are based on a primary interest in “external” literary phenomena, processes connecting artistic literature with social and literary life.

« Essays on the Gogol period of Russian literature"(1855-1856) can be considered the first major development of the history of Russian criticism of 1830-1840. Positively assessing the work of Nadezhdin and N. Polevoy, Chernyshevsky focuses on the activities of Belinsky, who, according to the author of the cycle, outlined the true routes of the progressive development of Russian artistic literature. Chernyshevsky, following Belinsky, recognizes the critical image of Russian life as the key to literary and social progress in Russia, taking Gogol’s work as the standard for such an attitude to reality. Chernyshevsky certainly places the author of “The Inspector General” and “Dead Souls” higher than Pushkin, and the main criterion for comparison becomes the idea of ​​​​the social effectiveness of the writers’ creativity. The optimistic faith in social progress characteristic of Chernyshevsky forced him to see processes of progressive development in literature.

Responding in 1857 for the publication of “Provincial Sketches”, the critic gives Shchedrin the palm in the matter of literary denunciation: in his opinion, the aspiring writer surpassed Gogol in the mercilessness of his sentences

and generality of characteristics. The desire to demonstrate changes in social needs can also explain Chernyshevsky’s harsh attitude

to the moderate liberal ideology that arose in the 1840s: the journalist believed that a sober and critical understanding of reality modern stage is not enough, it is necessary to take specific actions aimed at improving the conditions of public life. These views found expression in the famous

article "Russian man at rendez-vous"(1858), which is also noteworthy from the point of view of Chernyshevsky’s critical methodology. Turgenev’s short story “Asya” became the reason for large-scale journalistic generalizations by the critic, which were not intended to reveal the author’s intention. In the image of the main character of the story Chernyshevsky

I saw a representative of the common type " the best people”, who, like Rudin or Agarin (the hero of Nekrasov’s poem “Sasha”), have high moral virtues, but are incapable of decisive actions. As a result, these heroes look "more trashy than a notorious scoundrel." However, the deep revealing

the pathos of the article is directed not against individuals, but against reality,

which produces such people.

Methodology, genre, text

Criticism N.G. Chernyshevsky was not a complete projection of his theoretical program, especially since the critic’s creative style underwent significant changes at the turn of the 1850s and 1860s, during the period of the split in Sovremennik. The organizing point of Chernyshevsky’s method and methodology was the belief in the dependence of art on reality. But this does not exclude in his practice a deep and masterful analysis of the text, albeit abstracted from the main issues of aesthetics and poetics. In the later criticism of N.G. Chernyshevsky, his practice becomes more radical. During this period, his literary-critical attitudes almost completely retreated from journalistic ones (the real method was vulnerable to such distortions). Artistry is reduced to ideologicalness, and therefore, poetics is reduced to rhetoric; the only role of poetics is not to interfere with the expression of ideas; art loses its own sovereign tasks and becomes a means of public propaganda. A literary work is interpreted as a social act; the only aspect of the work.

The late activity of Chernyshevsky as a publicist outlines the path along which the real method is able to go beyond the boundaries of literary criticism. In this exposition, the only aspect of the work discussed remains its social action; otherwise, the critic’s efforts are aimed at the reality reflected by literature.

Criticism N.A. Dobrolyubova

ON THE. Dobrolyubov should be named, along with V.G. Belinsky, the creator of not only real criticism, but also a certain timeless model of critical-journalistic judgment about literature in a social context. The critic took this historical place thanks to his original position within the framework of the real method, which turned out to be more universal and less “partisan” than the position of N.G. Chernyshevsky.

The philosophical basis of the critical system of N.A. Dobrolyubov became the anthropologist of L. Feuerbach, in particular, the doctrine that the harmonious state of a person is his natural state, the balance of qualities inherent in him “by nature.” From these provisions N.A. Dobrolyubov developed a thesis about the primary value of artistic observation of reality, its state, its deviations from nature.

Unlike Chernyshevsky, N.A. Dobrolyubov...

1. a) considers the main criterion of artistry not the ideological content of the author and the book, but the truthfulness of the created types;
2. b) connects the success of a work with the writer’s personal intuition (which he equates to talent), and not with an objectively correct ideological position.

At both of these points N.A. Dobrolyubov turns out to be closer to V.G. Belinsky than N.G. Chernyshevsky.

ON THE. Dobrolyubov leaves to the writer mainly the role of the brilliant creator of the text as an “empty form”(we use the expression of W. Eco). This form is filled with meaning by the reader with the correct interpretation attitudes. That is, with a strong and correct system of presuppositions. Such a reader is a critic.

However, the writer, of course, assumed some interpretation of his own text, understands N.A. Dobrolyubov. — It happens that a writer even interferes in the reading process and, arguing with a critic, indicates how his book should have been understood (for example, I.S. Turgenev in a dispute with N.A. Dobrolyubov about the novel “On the Eve”). This is a contradiction of N.A. Dobrolyubov resolves in favor of the critic. He introduces into his metalanguage and conceptual system a pair of concepts: worldview and belief. Worldview, according to N.A. Dobrolyubov, there is a living, intuitive, integral sense of reality that guides the writer in his work. The worldview is reflected in typification, in all the artistic power of the works. But beliefs are purely logical in nature, and they are often formed under the influence of social context. A writer does not always follow his convictions in his work, but always follows his worldview (if he is a talented writer). Therefore, his opinion about his own work is not the final truth. The critic's judgment is closer to the truth, since it reveals the ideological significance of the truthful images created by the writer. After all, the critic looks from the outside at both the work and the writer as an interpreter of his own work.

This is how N.A. himself talks about it. Dobrolyubov: “It is not abstract ideas and general principles that occupy the artist, but living images in which the idea is manifested. In these images, the poet can, even unnoticed by himself, grasp and express their inner meaning much before he defines it with his mind. Sometimes the artist may not even reach the meaning of what he himself depicts; but criticism exists in order to clarify the meaning hidden in the artist’s creations, and, analyzing the images presented by the poet, it is not at all authorized to become attached to his theoretical views” (“The Dark Kingdom”).

It was N.A. Dobrolyubov laid the foundation for the doctrine of “subjective” (author’s) and “objective” (imputed by the system thinking critic) the meaning of the work. This idea was later developed by Marxists and canonized by the Soviet school. It provided a mechanism for opportunistic recoding and tendentious ideological interpretation of works of literature. However, these later speculations should not cast a shadow on the work of N.A. Dobrolyubov, extremely professional and, as a rule, completely correct in interpretation.

The reader can and should have his own strong and “true” ideological codes and be independent of the author’s ideological intentions. If the reader himself does not have the necessary ideological system to “correctly” read the book, a critic helps him do this. If, according to N.G. Chernyshevsky, a critic teaches a writer, then, according to N.A. Dobrolyubova - rather a reader.

This point allows us to say that the criticism of N.A. Dobrolyubova left the writer more freedom than the views of Chernyshevsky or D.I. Pisarev, and even more so the later concepts of Marxists and G.V. Plekhanov. Having divided the intentions of the artist and the critic, N.A. Dobrolyubov left the artist freedom of creative expression, assuming that the work is good precisely in the form that the artist’s genius will give it. And any forced transformation of this form will interfere with the objectivity of reflection, artistic truth. In this regard, the method of N.A. Dobrolyubov assumed a fairly high internal status of the aesthetics and poetics of the work, respect for its organic integrity. True, these possibilities were not always fully realized by N.A. himself. Dobrolyubov.

Methodology

According to N.A. Dobrolyubov, the work of a critic is to analyze the artistic reality of a work and interpret it in the light of his prevailing knowledge of the extra-artistic reality - social life and its tasks.

The writer observes the phenomena of reality and, based on observation, creates artistic types. He compares artistic types with the social ideal present in his mind, and evaluates these types in their social functioning: are they good, how to correct their shortcomings, what affected them social vices and so on.

The critic, in this case, evaluates everything that the artist has done based on his own (critic’s) ideal, expressing his attitude to both the subject (the book) and the subject of the book (reality); and to the literary type, and to the social type, and to the ideals of the artist. As a result, the critic acts as a literary and social educator, expressing social ideas in literary criticism. Real criticism considered a critical (harsh, negative) view of reality to be the most fruitful and most in demand by modern times.

N.A. himself said it best. Dobrolyubov: “...the main features of the artist’s worldview could not be completely destroyed by rational errors. He could take for his images the wrong facts of life, in which a certain idea is best reflected, he could give them an arbitrary connection, and interpret them not entirely correctly; but if the artistic instinct has not betrayed him, if the truth in the work has been preserved, criticism is obliged to use it to explain reality, as well as to characterize the writer’s talent, but not at all to scold him for thoughts that he, perhaps, also didn't have. Criticism must say: “These are the persons and phenomena brought out by the author; here is the plot of the play; but here is the meaning that, in our opinion, the facts of life depicted by the artist have, and here is the degree of their significance in social life.” From this judgment it will naturally appear whether the author himself looked at the images he created correctly. If, for example, he tries to elevate some person to a universal type, and criticism proves that it has a very particular and petty meaning, it is clear that the author has damaged the work with a false view of the hero. If he makes several facts dependent on one another, and upon examination of criticism it turns out that these facts are never in such dependence, but depend on completely different reasons, it is again obvious that the author misunderstood the connection of the phenomena he depicted. But even here criticism must be very careful in its conclusions.<…>

Such should be, in our opinion, the attitude of real criticism towards works of art; This is especially true for a writer when reviewing his entire literary activity.”

Genre and text

Articles by N.A. Dobrolyubova are lengthy texts designed for a thoughtful, like-minded reader who does not waste time reading criticism. A distinctive feature of N.A.’s criticism Dobrolyubova was her developed journalisticism. As this is facilitated by the “real” method in Dobrolyubov’s version, the article often moves away from text analysis to journalistic reasoning “about” the text. The critic, having stated the professionalism of the writer as a recorder of life phenomena, discusses not so much the book as the social symptoms recorded in it. In addition, N.A. Dobrolyubov, being a conscious sociologist to a greater extent than many of his contemporaries and predecessors, understands the need for a serious scientific basis for a thorough judgment, therefore his articles contain purely theoretical excursions into sociological reasoning. Sociology as a science was not yet developed in Russia at that time, so N.A. Dobrolyubov conducts his “amateur” analysis of the psychology of social classes in order to use it to explain the types he finds in literature.

Metalanguage real criticism of N.A. Dobrolyubova and N.G. Chernyshevsky is characterized by a decrease in philosophical terminology (compared to V.G. Belinsky) and in general terminological restraint. This is a feature of all journalistic criticism of the “Dobrolyubov type” (not excluding criticism of our days), which cares about the understandability of the text for a wide range of readers. Even the terminology of the literary sphere is used only generally understandable - the words literature, literature, criticism, writer, names of genres. Moreover, sociological terminology is not very specialized.

But when it is necessary to construct a conceptual apparatus, real criticism boldly (and often successfully) creates special verbal formulas, giving them a metalinguistic character. So. Chernyshevsky created the term dialectics of the soul, N.A. Dobrolyubov is a term of real criticism. It is symptomatic that some of these formulas had the character of social rather than literary definitions (for example, the dark kingdom of N.A. Dobrolyubov). The journalistic nature of real criticism is also reflected in the fact that all these terms are created on the basis of poetic metaphors.

A brilliant example of real criticism are Dobrolyubov’s own articles about Goncharov’s novel “Oblomov” (article “What is Oblomovism?” 1859), plays by Ostrovsky (articles “The Dark Kingdom” 1859 and “A Ray of Light in the Dark Kingdom” 1860), Turgenev’s story “On the Eve” (“When will the real day come?” 1860) and Dostoevsky (“The Downtrodden People” 1861). These articles can be considered as a single metatext, the pathos of which boils down to proof of the inferiority of the Russian socio-political system.

Collecting individual features and generalizing them into one complete image of Oblomovism, Dobrolyubov explains to the reader the life phenomena that were reflected in the artistic type created by Goncharov’s imagination.

Dobrolyubov compares Oblomov with a whole gallery of his literary ancestors. Russian literature is well known for the type smart person who understands the baseness of the existing order of life, but is unable to find application for his thirst for activity, his talents and desire for good. Hence loneliness, disappointment, spleen, and sometimes contempt for people. This is a type of intelligent uselessness, as Herzen put it, a type of superfluous person, certainly vital and characteristic of the Russian noble intelligentsia of the first half of the 19th century. Such are Pushkin’s Onegin, Lermontov’s Pechorin, Turgenev’s Rudin, Herzen’s Beltov. The historian Klyuchevsky found the ancestors of Eugene Onegin in more distant times. But what can be common between these outstanding personalities and the lazy Oblomov? All of them are Oblomovites, each of them contains a particle of his shortcomings. Oblomov - their maximum value, their further and, moreover, not fictional, but real development. The appearance in literature of a type like Oblomov shows that “the phrase has lost its meaning; the need for real action has appeared in society itself.”

Thanks to Dobrolyubov’s criticism, the word Oblomovism entered the everyday speech of the Russian people as an expression of those negative traits that advanced Russia has always struggled with.

All writing people are divided into two categories. The first group includes the creators of literary works. The second group includes those who devote critical articles to these works. There is also a third category, which includes people who do not know how to write, but highly respect this creative process. But today’s article is not about them. We have to figure out what criticism is. What is it for? What is the job of a literary critic?

Definition

What is literary criticism? It is impossible to answer this question in a few words. It is a rich, varied concept. Writers and scientists have repeatedly tried to define literary criticism, but each of them has come up with their own, author’s own definition. Let's consider the origin of the word.

What is "criticism"? This is a word of Latin origin that translates as "judgment". The Romans borrowed it from the Hellenes. In ancient Greek there is a word κρίνω, meaning “to judge”, “to pass judgment”. Giving general definition criticism, it is worth saying that it can be not only literary, but also musical. In every field of art there are people who create works and those who analyze and evaluate them.

There are professions such as restaurant critic, theater critic, film critic, art critic, photo critic and so on. Representatives of these specialties are by no means idle observers and idle talkers. Not everyone knows how to analyze and disassemble a work, be it literature, painting or cinema. This requires certain knowledge and skills.

Musical critic

This profession arose not so long ago - just in the 19th century. Of course, even before this there were people who talked about music and devoted their notes to this topic. But only with the advent of periodicals did specialists appear who could already be called music critics. They wrote treatises no longer on general humanitarian issues. philosophical themes, mentioning from time to time the work of one or another composer. They occupied a hitherto empty niche.

What is music criticism? This is an analysis and assessment based on deep knowledge and experience. This is a specialty that is acquired at a higher education institution. In order to become a critic in this field, you must first graduate from a music school, then a specialized school, then enter a university, for example, the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in the Faculty of History and Theory. As you can see, acquiring this profession is not easy.

The emergence of criticism

The foundations of this science originated in Ancient Greece. In antiquity, of course, there were no theorists who zealously controlled the literary process. Athenian citizens did not gather in the square to listen to a literary critic's treatise smashing Aeschylus's Oresteia or Euripides' Medea to smithereens. But the long, lengthy arguments of Aristotle and Plato are nothing more than an attempt to understand why a person needs art, by what laws it exists and what it should be.

Purposes of criticism

The basis for the emergence and development of this science is the appearance of literary texts. What is criticism? This is something that cannot exist without fiction. The critic pursues the following goals in his work:

• Identifying contradictions.
• Analysis, discussion.
• Identifying errors.
• Scientific verification of historical accuracy.

A great many literary works are created every year. The most talented of them find their readers. However, it often happens that a work devoid of any literary value, arouses considerable interest. Literary critics do not impose their opinions on readers, but they have a huge influence on their perception.

Once upon a time, an unknown writer from Little Russia appeared in the literary field. His short, romantic stories were worthy of attention, but it cannot be said that they were read. Creation young writer received a resonance in society thanks to the light hand of an eminent critic. His name was Vissarion Belinsky. Aspiring writer - Nikolai Gogol.

Criticism in Russia

The name of Vissarion Belinsky is known to everyone in the school curriculum. This man had a huge influence on the work of many writers who later became classics.

In Russia, literary criticism was formed in the 18th century. In the 19th century it acquired a magazine character. Critics increasingly began to touch upon philosophical topics in their articles. Analysis of a work of art has become a pretext for thinking about the problems of real life. In the Soviet era, especially in the twenties of the last century, there was a process of destruction of the traditions of aesthetic criticism.

Critic and writer

It is easy to guess that the relationship between them is not going too smoothly. There is an inevitable antagonism between critic and writer. This antagonism is exacerbated when the creation of literary texts and their consideration are influenced by ambition, the desire for primacy and other factors. A critic is a person with a literary education who analyzes a work of art without regard to political or personal bias.

Russian history knows many cases when criticism was in the service of power. This is exactly what is described in Bulgakov’s world-famous novel “The Master and Margarita”. The writer has repeatedly encountered unscrupulous critics. In real life there was no way I could take revenge on them. The only thing that remained for him was to create unsightly images of Latunsky and Lavrovich - typical critics of the 20s. On the pages of his novel, Bulgakov took revenge on his offenders. But this did not change the situation. Many prose writers and poets still continued to “write” on the table. Not because their works were mediocre, but because they did not correspond to the official ideology.

Literature without criticism

One should not assume that critics do nothing but praise or destroy the work of this or that author. They in some way control the literary process, and without their intervention it would not have developed. A true artist must respond adequately to criticism. Moreover, he needs it. A person who writes, is convinced of the high artistic value of his creations and does not listen to the opinions of his colleagues, is more likely not a writer, but a graphomaniac.

St. Petersburg Humanitarian University of Trade Unions

KIROV BRANCH

TEST

in the discipline History of Russian Literature

Topic: Drama A.N. Ostrovsky “The Thunderstorm” in Russian criticism

Salamatova Anna Alexandrovna

Introduction

Many of the largest works of world literature upon their appearance were subject to censorship bans and persecution, becoming a field of heated polemics and fierce ideological struggle. Griboyedov did not live to see the publication of the full text of “Woe from Wit”; he did not see his comedy on stage. Flaubert - after the publication of Madame Bovary - was put on trial for “insulting public morality, religion and good morals.” The critical battles surrounding most of the most significant Russian novels (especially Turgenev's novels), dramas, poems and poems of the nineteenth century represented irreconcilable clashes between progressive and reactionary forces, the struggle for truth and the realism of artistic creation.

Contemporaries vigorously greeted the new works, which later became classics. A complex and contradictory struggle also unfolded around Ostrovsky’s “The Thunderstorm”. After the author's readings of the new drama, its first stage performances and magazine publication, a fierce battle ensued between critics with different ideological positions, between innovators and retrogrades. The unusual and complex nature of the controversy surrounding “The Thunderstorm” was that not only ideological and aesthetic opponents, but also leading artists and critics differed in their views on this drama. “The Thunderstorm” was rated very highly by people of the warring ideological camps.

“The Thunderstorm” first saw the light not in print, but on stage: on November 16, 1859, the premiere took place at the Maly Theater, and on December 2 at the Alexandrinsky Theater. The drama was published in the first issue of the magazine “Library for Reading” the following year, 1860, and in March of the same year it was published as a separate publication.

It is obvious that Ostrovsky’s “most decisive work” was not accidental, nor out of a writer’s whim, appeared at the turn of the fifties and sixties, at a time when the social atmosphere in the country was heated to the limit, when life itself inevitably demanded decisive changes. “The Thunderstorm” sounded like the tragic voice of the times, like the cry of the people’s soul, which could no longer endure oppression and bondage.

The purpose of this work is to study the place of the drama “The Thunderstorm” in literature. To achieve this goal, it is necessary to solve the following tasks: analyze scientific publications on this work, characterize the characters in the drama, highlight the essence of the conflict present in “The Thunderstorm,” and also reveal the essence of the title of this work.

Drama (as a generic concept of tragedy and comedy) is the highest kind of poetry, and the highest precisely because in it the personality of the poet - his mood, his views, etc., clearly appearing in lyrical works and more or less visible in epic works, disappear completely , giving way to life, reproduced quite objectively. Therefore, drama does not allow for morality, or maxims, or ulterior motives, or the desire to carry out some idea, to present some principle in a favorable light, or the desire to defeat some social vice and elevate some social virtue to a pedestal. All this is alien to drama, which deals only with life, objectively reproduced - and with nothing more. The task of a dramatic writer is to bring life to the stage, but not to judge it, not to explain it, not to punish its bad sides or admire its good ones. If a dramatic writer, struck by some unreasonable phenomenon of life, sets himself the task of exposing to the viewer in the brightest possible light all the harm of this phenomenon, then he ceases to be a dramatic writer in the real sense of the word (for he ceases to have an objective attitude towards life) and becomes a satirist, punishing this or that social evil. Such satire usually takes on a dramatic form and, depending on the degree of evil punished, takes on a comic or tragic character. Such is “Woe from Wit” by Griboedov, such is the last play by A. N. Ostrovsky, “The Thunderstorm,” which was performed at a benefit performance in the city of Vasilyev.1

If we look at Mr. Ostrovsky's play as a drama in the real sense of the word, then it will not withstand strict criticism: much in it will turn out to be superfluous, much insufficient; but if we see in it caustic satire, clothed only in the form of drama, then it, in our opinion, surpasses everything so far written by the venerable author.

1.1 The purpose of creating Ostrovsky’s play

The purpose of "The Thunderstorm" is to show in all its terrifying light how that terrible family despotism that prevails in the "dark kingdom" (According to the excellent expression of Mr. Bov (Dobrolyubov).) - in the life of some part of our calloused, undeveloped merchants, inside of his life still belonging to times long past - so is that murderous, fatal mysticism,2 which in a terrible net entangles the soul of an undeveloped person. And the author masterfully achieved his goal: the disastrous results of both appear before you in a terrible, astonishing picture, in a picture faithfully copied from nature and not deviating a single feature from the gloomy reality; you see in living, artistically reproduced images what these two scourges of the human race lead to - to loss of will, character, debauchery and even suicide.

1.2 Images of heroes in the plot of Ostrovsky’s play “The Thunderstorm”

The plot of the drama is as follows. In the city of Kalinov, on the banks of the Volga, lives Marfa Ignatievna Kabanova, a rich merchant's wife, a widow, a rude, wild woman, a bigot and a despot. Rooted in old barbaric concepts, she is a terrible scourge in her family: she oppresses her son, suppressing every manifestation of his will, every impulse, she oppresses her daughter-in-law, sharpening her like rusty iron for every act that disagrees with her wild, insane demands. Kabanova is the ideal of a female slave, ossified in slavery and enslaving everything that her wild tyranny can extend to. There is something hellish, satanic in this woman; This is some kind of Lady Macbeth,3 snatched from the dark corners of the “dark kingdom”.

Tikhon Ivanovich, Kabanova’s son, on the contrary, is a kind man, with a soft heart, but already completely devoid of any will: his mother does whatever she wants with him. Loving his wife and, by his nature, not being able to treat her rudely, despotically, as the ancient customs require, in which Kabanova would like to raise and keep everyone, he thereby incurs the constant persecution of his mother, her rude nature, brought up in rude, barbaric morals, cannot allow the thought that a husband could not beat his wife, and treat her meekly, like a human being. She sees this as a weakness and a character flaw. The wife, in her opinion, also should not be affectionate towards her husband and openly express her feelings - she is not a mistress, but a wife (an amazing argument!): all this is contrary to the code of morality, which is so sacredly adhered to in the “dark kingdom”. It is only proper for a wife to subserviently before her husband, bow at his feet, unquestioningly carry out his orders - and deceive him, pretend, hide her thoughts and feelings from him.

Having suppressed all will in her son, Kabanova cannot, however, completely enslave her daughter-in-law: Katerina constantly rebuffs her, constantly defends her rights to independence. Hence the eternal enmity between them. The result of all this is that life in Kabanova’s house is not life, but hard labor. Neither Tikhon nor Katerina has the strength to remain in this situation, and each of them gets out of their apparently hopeless situation in their own way. Tikhon is eager to go somewhere - and gets drunk - although he will take his soul away with wine - and his mother does not say a word against this: drinking and debauchery is allowed by the morals of the “dark kingdom”, as long as everything is sewn and covered. Katerina also finds an outcome, but only in a different way: she falls in love with one young man, Boris Grigorievich, nephew of the merchant Dikiy.

In Katerina, as an undeveloped woman, there is no consciousness of duty, moral obligations, no developed sense of human dignity and no fear of tarnishing it with some immoral act; in her there is only the fear of sin, the fear of the devil, she is only afraid of absolute hell, fiery Gehenna: 4 there is mysticism in her, but no morality.

And she, in our opinion, is the only difference from her sister-in-law, Varvara, in whom there is no longer any mysticism or morality, and who calmly spends her nights with the clerk Vanya Kudryash, without fear of either humiliating her human dignity or getting caught for it into fiery Gehenna. Katerina’s personality attracts the viewer from the first time, but only from the first time, until you think about it; she deserves not sympathy, but only compassion, as the epileptics, the blind, the lame deserve it: you can feel sorry for them, you should try to help them, but you certainly cannot sympathize with their epilepsy,5 blindness and lameness: that would be madness. If Katerina had not had such a mother-in-law (mother-in-law - I.S.) - a Baba Yaga, she would not have started an intrigue with Boris and would have spent her life with Tisha, who, it seems to us, is a thousand times smarter and more moral than the vulgar Boris. But she has a mother-in-law - Lady Macbeth - and she walks with her lover for ten nights, forgetting during this time both about the Last Judgment and about fiery hell. But then her husband returns - and the fear of the sin he has committed begins to torment Katerina. If mysticism had not overwhelmed her so much, she would have somehow gotten out of her predicament (especially with the help of Varvara, who will guide and lead her out) - But mysticism has overpowered her too much - and she does not know what to do: the thought of the sin she has committed haunts her at every step. And then another thunderstorm turns up, which drives her into some kind of grotto, and in the grotto on the walls there are pictures of the Last Judgment and fiery hell - well, it’s all over. Katerina thumped at her husband’s feet, and well, repent - and repented of everything, and even with everything honest people, who also ran here to take shelter from the rain.

What followed is not difficult to guess: Katerina ran away from home, turned to Boris to take her with him (his uncle sends him to Siberia for love affairs), but Boris, a terrible vulgar, answered her that his uncle did not order it. And the unfortunate woman was left with either of two options: either return to her mother-in-law for eternal torment and suffering, or throw herself into the Volga. Mysticism helped her here too: she rushed into the Volga...

Despite, however, such a tragic end, Katerina - we repeat, still does not arouse the viewer's sympathy - because there is nothing to sympathize with, there was nothing reasonable, nothing human in her actions: she fell in love with Boris for no reason, cheated to her husband (who trusted her so completely, so nobly that, when saying goodbye to her, it was even difficult for him to pronounce his mother’s strict order not to look at other people’s fellows) - for no reason at all, she repented - for no reason at all , threw herself into the river - also for no reason at all. This is why Katerina cannot possibly be the heroine of a drama; but it serves as an excellent subject for satire. Of course, there is no point in bursting out with thunder against Katerina - they are not to blame for what the environment has made of them, into which not a single ray of light has yet penetrated; but then it is all the more necessary to rage against an environment where there is no religion (mysticism is not a religion), no morality, no humanity, where everything is vulgar and rude and leads to only vulgar results.

So, the drama “The Thunderstorm” is a drama only in name, but in essence it is a satire directed against two of the most terrible evils deeply rooted in the “dark kingdom” - against family despotism and mysticism.

Whoever looks at Mr. Ostrovsky's drama as a drama in the real sense of the word and applies to it demands that are appropriate only for dramas that are completely artistic, and not dramatic satires, will come to the conclusion that all the other faces of the drama about which We haven’t talked yet, it’s completely unnecessary. But it won't be fair; for - once again - Mr. Ostrovsky's drama is not a drama, but a satire.

The best of these accessory faces - necessary and excellent in satire, and superfluous in drama - is, in our opinion, Kuligin, a tradesman, a self-taught watchmaker. This face is straight out of life and full of deep meaning in relation to the main idea of ​​Mr. Ostrovsky's drama. Look - what a bright worldview Kuligin has, how alien mysticism is to him, how kindly and joyfully he looks at everyone, how he loves everyone, look what a desire for knowledge he has, what a love for nature, what a thirst to benefit people: he is also concerned about device sundial on the boulevard, and about the construction of lightning rods - and all this is not for oneself, not for self-interest, not for the sake of speculation, but so - for the sake of the common good, in the purest and noblest meaning of the word... Look now at the other face of the drama (also accessory) : to Savelya Prokofich Diky, a merchant, a significant person in the city. What a contrast with Kuligin! The first exudes humanity, rationality, it is clear that the light of God has penetrated his soul; the second is like a fierce beast: he doesn’t want to know anything, doesn’t want to recognize anyone’s rights, doesn’t listen to anyone, scolds everyone, finds fault with everyone - and all because he has such a temper that he can’t control himself. Where does this contrast come from? Because a ray of truth, goodness and beauty - a ray of education - has penetrated into the soul of one, while the soul of the other is enveloped in impenetrable darkness, which can only be dispersed by the light of enlightenment...

Of the other accessory persons, after Kuligin, Feklusha, the hanger-on, comes to the fore. This face, masterfully drawn from life, plays a huge role in the concept of Mr. Ostrovsky’s satirical drama. Feklusha, who talks about “Saltan Mahmud of Turkey”, about “Saltan Mahmud of Persia” and that in Turkey there are no righteous judges, but all judges are unrighteous, etc., this Feklusha, and others like her, constitute the only source of light and enlightenment for the inhabitants of the “dark kingdom”: every absurdity that can come into her head will usually get stuck forever and ever in the heads of “dark people” who listen with religious reverence to her story about distant countries - about holy places, about the city of Kyiv and so on. and so on. A considerable source of mysticism, which entangled the soul of unfortunate Katerina in such a devilish net, lies, in our opinion, in these hangers-on Feklushi, in their stories about various differences that fog the consciousness of poor “dark people” for the rest of their lives.

Now a few words about the other persons. They are not needed for the course of the drama (with the possible exception of the Barbarians), but are necessary for a complete picture of the life of the district merchants, of which “The Thunderstorm” presents us with a bilious satire. Dikoy, Boris's uncle, is one of the tyrants who are so brilliant at Mr. Ostrovsky. A picture of merchant life cannot exist without a tyrant: this is already an axiom. This is the reason why Dikoy is brought out in “The Thunderstorm”, although he is not needed for the course of the play - and the reason, in our opinion, is completely legal and reasonable.

Varvara’s face is also depicted excellently, and it is absolutely necessary for the concept of satire: Varvara serves as visual, plastic proof that the despotism of a mother will not protect her daughter’s morality, as is confirmed by millions of examples taken from the life of the “dark kingdom.”

As for Boris’s face (although necessary in the drama, it is completely colorless), its very colorlessness is its dignity as an artistically reproduced face: Boris should be colorless, because his uncle’s tyranny has brought out any color in him. His colorlessness is also good in the sense that it brings into relief the whole absurdity of Katerina’s love for him.

play by Ostrovsky critic Pisarev

2. Assessment of the drama by Russian critics

2.1“A Ray in the Dark Kingdom” by Dobrolyubov

In 1859, Ostrovsky summed up the interim result of his literary activity: his two-volume collected works appeared. “We consider it best to apply real criticism to Ostrovsky’s works, which consists of reviewing what his works give us,” Dobrolyubov formulates his main theoretical principle. “Real criticism relates to the artist’s work in the same way as to the phenomena of real life: she studies them, trying to determine their own norm, to collect their essential, characteristic features, but without fussing at all about why oats are not rye, and coal is not diamond..."

What kind of norm did Dobrolyubov see in Ostrovsky’s world? “Social activities are little touched upon in Ostrovsky’s comedies, but Ostrovsky extremely fully and vividly displays two types of relationships to which a person can still attach his soul in our country - family relationships and property relations. It is no wonder, therefore, that the plots and the very names of his plays revolve around the family, the groom, the bride, wealth and poverty.

The “Dark Kingdom” is a world of senseless tyranny and suffering of “our younger brothers”, “a world of hidden, quietly sighing sorrow”, a world where “outward humility and dull, concentrated grief, reaching the point of complete idiocy and the most deplorable depersonalization” are combined with “slavish cunning, the most vile deception, the most unscrupulous treachery." Dobrolyubov examines in detail the “anatomy” of this world, its attitude to education and love, its moral beliefs like “than others steal, I’d rather steal,” “that’s my father’s will,” “so that it’s not her over me, but me swaggering over her.” , as much as your heart desires,” etc.

“But is there any way out of this darkness?” - a question is asked at the end of the article on behalf of an imaginary reader. “It’s sad,” the truth is; but what can we do? We must admit: we did not find a way out of the “dark kingdom” in Ostrovsky’s works,” the critic answers. “Should we blame the artist for this? Isn’t it better to look around us and turn our demands on life itself, which so sluggishly and monotonously weaves around us... The way out must be sought in life itself: literature only reproduces life and never gives what is not in reality.” Dobrolyubov's ideas had a great resonance. Dobrolyubov’s “Dark Kingdom” was read with an enthusiasm with which, perhaps, not a single magazine article was read at that time; the great role of Dobrolyubov’s article in establishing Ostrovsky’s reputation was recognized by contemporaries. “If you collect everything that was written about me before Dobrolyubov’s articles appeared, then at least drop your pen.” A rare, very rare case in the history of literature is a case of absolute mutual understanding between writer and critic. Soon each of them will make a response “replica” in the dialogue. Ostrovsky - with a new drama, Dobrolyubov - with an article about it, a kind of continuation of "The Dark Kingdom". In July 1859, just at the time when Sovremennik began printing The Dark Kingdom, Ostrovsky began The Thunderstorm.

2.2Refutation of Dobrolyubov's views by Russian critic Pisarev

Another critic, D.I. Pisarev, entered into polemics with Dobrolyubov.

Pisarev constructs his analysis of “The Thunderstorm” as a consistent refutation of Dobrolyubov’s view. Pisarev fully agrees with the first part of Dobrolyubov’s dilogy about Ostrovsky: “Based on the dramatic works of Ostrovsky, Dobrolyubov showed us in the Russian family that “dark kingdom” in which the mental abilities wither and the fresh strength of our young generations is depleted. As long as the phenomena of the “dark kingdom” exist “And as long as patriotic dreaminess turns a blind eye to them, until then we will constantly have to remind the reading society of Dobrolyubov’s true and living ideas about our family life.” But he resolutely refuses to consider the heroine of “The Thunderstorm” as a “ray of light”: “This article was a mistake on Dobrolyubov’s part; he was carried away by sympathy for Katerina’s character and mistook her personality for a bright phenomenon.”
Like Dobrolyubov, Pisarev proceeds from the principles of “real criticism”, without questioning either the aesthetic validity of the drama or the typical character of the heroine: “Reading “The Thunderstorm” or watching it on stage, you will never doubt that Katerina should act in reality exactly as she acts in the drama." But the assessment of her actions, her relationship with the world is fundamentally different from Dobrolyubov’s. “Katerina’s whole life,” according to Pisarev, “consists of constant internal contradictions; every minute she rushes from one extreme to another; today she repents of what she did yesterday, and yet she herself does not know what she will do tomorrow; she is at every Step by step she confuses her own life and the lives of other people; finally, having mixed up everything that was at her fingertips, she cuts through the lingering knots with the most stupid means, suicide, and even a suicide that is completely unexpected for herself. Pisarev speaks of “a lot of nonsense” committed by “the Russian Ophelia and quite clearly contrasts with her the “lonely personality of the Russian progressive,” “a whole type that has already found its expression in literature and which is called either Bazarov or Lopukhov.” (Heroes of the works of I. S. Turgenev and N. G. Chernyshevsky, raznochintsy, prone to revolutionary ideas, supporters of the overthrow of the existing system).

On the eve of the peasant reform, Dobrolyubov optimistically pinned his hopes on Katerina’s strong character.

Four years later, Pisarev, already on this side of the historical border, sees: the revolution did not work out; the expectation that the people themselves would decide their own fate did not come true.

We need a different path, we need to look for a way out of the historical impasse. "Our social or national life does not need strong characters, of which she has plenty behind her eyes, and only and exclusively in one consciousness.

We need exclusively people of knowledge, that is, knowledge must be assimilated by those iron characters with which our people's life is filled Dobrolyubov, assessing Katerina on only one side, concentrated all his attention as a critic only on the spontaneously rebellious side of her nature, which caught Pisarev's eyes exclusively Katerina’s darkness, the antediluvian nature of her social consciousness, her peculiar social “Oblomovism,” political bad manners.”

Conclusion

Based on the dramatic works of Ostrovsky, Dobrolyubov showed us in the Russian family that “dark kingdom” in which the mental abilities wither and the fresh strength of our young generations is depleted. The article was read, praised, and then put aside. Lovers of patriotic illusions, who were unable to make a single solid objection to Dobrolyubov, continued to revel in their illusions and will probably continue this activity as long as they find readers. Looking at these constant genuflections before folk wisdom and folk truth, noticing that gullible readers accept current phrases devoid of any content at face value, and knowing that folk wisdom and folk truth were expressed most fully in the construction of our family life - conscientious criticism placed in the sad necessity of repeating several times those positions that have long been expressed and proven.

As long as the phenomena of the “dark kingdom” exist and as long as patriotic dreaminess turns a blind eye to them, until then we will constantly have to remind the reading society of Dobrolyubov’s true and living ideas about our family life. But at the same time, we will have to be stricter and more consistent than Dobrolyubov; we will need to defend his ideas against his own passions; where Dobrolyubov succumbed to the impulse of aesthetic feeling, we will try to reason calmly and see that our family patriarchy suppresses any healthy development. Ostrovsky's drama "The Thunderstorm" prompted a critical article from Dobrolyubov entitled "A Ray of Light in a Dark Kingdom."

Bibliography

1. Artamonov S.D. History of foreign literature of the 17th-18th centuries. Textbook for students pedagogical institutes about specialty No. 2101 “Russian language and literature.” M.: Enlightenment. 1978.-608 p.

Lebedev Yu.V. Russian literature of the 19th century: 2nd half: A book for students.-M.: Enlightenment. 1990.-288 p.

Kachurin M.G., Motolskaya D.K. Russian literature. Textbook for 9th grade of secondary school. M.: Enlightenment. 1982.-384 p.

Ostrovsky A.N. Storm. Dowryless. Plays. Reprint.-M.: Children's literature.. 1975.-160 p.

Reader on foreign literature for grades VIII-IX of secondary school. M.: Enlightenment. 1972.-607 p.

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PRINCIPLES AND OBJECTIVES OF REAL CRITICISM
(Dedicated to the editors of the Lay)

Its main representatives: N.G. Chernyshevsky, N.A. Dobrolyubov, D.I. Pisarev, as well as N.A. Nekrasov, M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin as the authors of actual critical articles, reviews and reviews.

Printed organs: magazines “Sovremennik”, “Russkoe Slovo”, “Domestic Notes” (since 1868).

The development and active influence of “real” criticism on Russian literature and public consciousness continued from the mid-50s to the end of the 60s.

N.G. Chernyshevsky

Nikolai Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky (1828 - 1889) acted as a literary critic from 1854 to 1861. In 1861, the last of Chernyshevsky’s fundamentally important articles, “Is this the beginning of change?” was published.

Chernyshevsky’s literary-critical speeches were preceded by a solution to general aesthetic issues undertaken by the critic in his master’s thesis “Aesthetic relations of art to reality” (written in 1853, defended and published in 1855), as well as in a review of the Russian translation of Aristotle’s book “On Poetry” (1854) and auto-review of his own dissertation (1855).

Having published the first reviews in “Domestic Notes” by A.A. Kraevsky, Chernyshevsky in 1854 transferred at the invitation of N.A. Nekrasov at Sovremennik, where he heads the critical department. Sovremennik owed much to the collaboration of Chernyshevsky (and, from 1857, Dobrolyubov) not only for the rapid growth in the number of its subscribers, but also for its transformation into the main tribune of revolutionary democracy. The arrest in 1862 and the hard labor that followed interrupted Chernyshevsky’s literary and critical activity when he was only 34 years old.

Chernyshevsky acted as a direct and consistent opponent of the abstract aesthetic criticism of A.V. Druzhinina, P.V. Annenkova, V.P. Botkina, S.S. Dudyshkina. Specific disagreements between Chernyshevsky the critic and “aesthetic” criticism can be reduced to the question of the admissibility in literature (art) of the entire diversity of current life - including its socio-political conflicts (“the topic of the day”), and social ideology (trends) in general. “Aesthetic” criticism generally answered this question negatively. In her opinion, socio-political ideology, or, as Chernyshevsky’s opponents preferred to say, “tendentiousness,” is contraindicated in art, because it violates one of the main requirements of artistry - an objective and impartial depiction of reality. V.P. Botkin, for example, stated that “a political idea is the grave of art.” On the contrary, Chernyshevsky (like other representatives of “real” criticism) answered the same question in the affirmative. Literature not only can, but must become imbued with and inspired by the socio-political trends of its time, for only in this case will it become an expression of urgent social needs, and at the same time serve itself. After all, as the critic noted in “Essays on the Gogol period of Russian literature” (1855 - 1856), “only those areas of literature achieve brilliant development that arise under the influence of strong and living ideas that satisfy the urgent needs of the era.” Chernyshevsky, a democrat, socialist and peasant revolutionary, considered the most important of these needs to be the liberation of the people from serfdom and the elimination of autocracy.

The rejection of “aesthetic” criticism of social ideology in literature was justified, however, by a whole system of views on art, rooted in the tenets of German idealistic aesthetics - in particular, Hegel’s aesthetics. The success of Chernyshevsky’s literary-critical position was therefore determined not so much by the refutation of the particular positions of his opponents, but by a fundamentally new interpretation of general aesthetic categories. This was the subject of Chernyshevsky’s dissertation “Aesthetic Relations of Art to Reality.” But first, let’s name the main literary critical works that a student needs to keep in mind: reviews “Poverty is not a vice.” Comedy by A. Ostrovsky" (1854), "On Poetry." Op. Aristotle" (1854); articles: “On sincerity in criticism” (1854), “Works of A.S. Pushkin" (1855), "Essays on the Gogol period of Russian literature", "Childhood and adolescence. Essay by Count L.N. Tolstoy. War stories of Count L.N. Tolstoy" (1856), " Provincial essays...Collected and published by M.E. Saltykov. ..." (1857), "Russian man at rendez-vous" (1858), "Isn't this the beginning of a change?" (1861).

In his dissertation, Chernyshevsky gives a fundamentally different definition of the subject of art compared to German classical aesthetics. How was it understood in idealist aesthetics? The subject of art is beauty and its varieties: sublime, tragic, comic. The source of beauty was thought to be the absolute idea or the reality that embodies it, but only in the entire volume, space and extent of the latter. The fact is that in a separate phenomenon - finite and temporary - the absolute idea, by its nature eternal and infinite, according to idealistic philosophy, is not incarnate. Indeed, between the absolute and the relative, the general and the individual, the natural and the random, there is a contradiction similar to the difference between the spirit (it is immortal) and the flesh (which is mortal). It is not possible for a person to overcome it in practical (material, production, socio-political) life. The only areas in which the resolution of this contradiction was possible were considered religion, abstract thinking (in particular, as Hegel believed, his own philosophy, more precisely, its dialectical method) and, finally, art as the main types of spiritual activity, the success of which is enormous depends on the creative gift of a person, his imagination, fantasy.

This led to the conclusion; beauty in reality, which is inevitably finite and transitory, is absent; it exists only in the creative creations of the artist - works of art. It is art that brings beauty into life. Hence the corollary of the first premise: art, as the embodiment of beauty above life.// “Venus de Milo,” declares, for example, I.S. Turgenev, - perhaps, undoubtedly more than Roman law or the principles of 89 (that is, the French Revolution of 1789 - 1794 - V.N.).” Summarizing in his dissertation the main postulates of idealistic aesthetics and the consequences arising from them, Chernyshevsky writes: “Defining beauty as the complete manifestation of an idea in a separate being, we must come to the conclusion: “beauty in reality is only a ghost, put into it by our factism”; from this it will follow that “strictly speaking, the beautiful is created by our imagination, but in reality... there is no truly beautiful thing”; from the fact that there is no truly beautiful in nature, it will follow that “art has as its source the desire of man to make up for the shortcomings of the beautiful in objective reality” and that the beautiful created by art is higher than the beautiful in objective reality” - all these thoughts constitute the essence of the prevailing now concepts..."

If in reality there is no beauty and it is brought into it only by art, then creating the latter is more important than creating, improving life itself. And the artist should not so much help improve life as reconcile a person with its imperfections, compensating for it with the ideal-imaginary world of his work.

It was to this system of ideas that Chernyshevsky contrasted his materialistic definition of beauty: “beauty is life”; “beautiful is the being in which we see life as it should be according to our concepts; “Beautiful is the object that shows life in itself or reminds us of life.”

Its pathos and at the same time its fundamental novelty consisted in the fact that the main task of man was recognized not to create beauty in itself (in its spiritually imaginary form), but to transform life itself, including the present, current one, according to this person’s ideas about its ideal . Solidarizing in this case with the ancient Greek philosopher Plato, Chernyshevsky seems to be saying to his contemporaries: first of all, make life itself beautiful, and do not fly away from it in beautiful dreams. And second: If the source of beauty is life (and not an absolute idea, Spirit, etc.), then art in its search for beauty depends on life, generated by its desire for self-improvement as a function and means of this desire.

Chernyshevsky also challenged the traditional opinion of beauty as the supposed main goal of art. From his point of view, the content of art is much broader than beauty and constitutes “generally interesting things in life,” that is, it covers everything. what worries a person, what his fate depends on. For Chernyshevsky, man (and not beauty) essentially became the main subject of art. The critic interpreted the specifics of the latter differently. According to the logic of the dissertation, what distinguishes an artist from a non-artist is not the ability to embody an “eternal” idea in a separate phenomenon (event, character) and thereby overcome their eternal contradiction, but the ability to reproduce life collisions, processes and trends that are of general interest to contemporaries in their individually visual form. Art is conceived by Chernyshevsky not so much as a second (aesthetic) reality, but as a “concentrated” reflection of objective reality. Hence those extreme definitions of art (“art is a surrogate for reality”, “a textbook of life”), which, not without reason, were rejected by many contemporaries. The fact is that Chernyshevsky’s desire, legitimate in itself, to subordinate art to the interests of social progress in these formulations turned into oblivion of his creative nature.

In parallel with the development of materialist aesthetics, Chernyshevsky also reinterprets such a fundamental category of Russian criticism of the 40s - 60s as artistry. And here his position, although it is based on individual provisions of Belinsky, remains original and, in turn, is polemical to traditional ideas. Unlike Annenkov or Druzhinin (as well as such writers as I.S. Turgenev, I.A. Goncharov), Chernyshevsky considers the main condition of artistry not the objectivity and impartiality of the author and the desire to reflect reality in its entirety, not the strict dependence of each fragment of the work ( character, episode, detail) from the whole, not the isolation and completeness of the creation, but an idea (social tendency), the creative fruitfulness of which, according to the critic, is commensurate with its vastness, truthfulness (in the sense of coincidence with the objective logic of reality) and “consistency”. In the light of the last two requirements, Chernyshevsky analyzes, for example, the comedy by A.N. Ostrovsky “Poverty is not a vice”, in which he finds “a sugary embellishment of what cannot and should not be embellished.” The erroneous initial thought underlying the comedy deprived it, Chernyshevsky believes, of even plot unity. “Works that are false in their main idea,” the critic concludes, “are sometimes weak even in a purely artistic sense.”

If the consistency of a truthful idea provides unity to a work, then its social and aesthetic significance depends on the scale and relevance of the idea.

Chernyshevsky also demands that the form of the work correspond to its content (idea). However, this correspondence, in his opinion, should not be strict and pedantic, but only expedient: it is enough if the work is laconic, without unnecessary excesses. To achieve such expediency, Chernyshevsky believed, no special author's imagination or fantasy is needed.

The unity of a truthful and consistent idea with a corresponding form is what makes a work artistic. Chernyshevsky’s interpretation of artistry thus removed from this concept the mysterious aura that representatives of “aesthetic” criticism had endowed it with. It was also freed from dogmatism. At the same time, here, as in determining the specifics of art, Chernyshevsky’s approach was guilty of unjustified rationality and a certain straightforwardness.

The materialistic definition of beauty, the call to make everything that excites a person the content of art, the concept of artistry intersect and are refracted in Chernyshevsky’s criticism in the idea of ​​​​the social purpose of art and literature. The critic here develops and clarifies Belinsky’s views of the late 30s. Since literature is a part of life itself, a function and means of its self-improvement, it, says the critic, “cannot help but be a servant of one or another direction of ideas; this is a purpose that lies in her nature, which she cannot refuse, even if she wanted to refuse.” This is especially true for autocratic-serf Russia, which is undeveloped politically and civilly, where literature “concentrates... the mental life of the people” and has “encyclopedic significance.” The direct duty of Russian writers is to spiritualize their work with “humanity and concern for the improvement of human life", which have become the dominant need of the time. “The poet,” writes Chernyshevsky in “Essays on the Gogol Period...”, is a lawyer., of her (the public. - V.NL) own ardent desires and sincere thoughts.

Chernyshevsky’s struggle for a literature of social ideology and direct public service explains the critic’s rejection of the work of those poets (A. Fet. A. Maykov, Ya. Polonsky, N. Shcherbina), whom he calls “epicureans”, “for whom public interests do not exist, for whom public interests are known.” only personal pleasures and sorrows. Considering the position of “pure art” in everyday life to be by no means disinterested, Chernyshevsky in “Essays on the Gogol Period...” also rejects the argumentation of the supporters of this art: that aesthetic pleasure “in itself brings significant benefit to a person, softening his heart, elevating his soul,” that aesthetic experience “directly... ennobles the soul by the sublimity and nobility of objects and feelings with which we are seduced in works of art.” And a cigar, objects Chernyshevsky, softens, and a good dinner, in general health and excellent living conditions. This, the critic concludes, a purely epicurean view of art.

The materialist interpretation of general aesthetic categories was not the only prerequisite for Chernyshevsky’s criticism. Chernyshevsky himself indicated two other sources of it in “Essays on the Gogol Period...”. This is, firstly, Belinsky’s legacy of the 40s and, secondly, Gogol’s, or, as Chernyshevsky clarifies, the “critical direction” in Russian literature.

In “Essays...” Chernyshevsky solved a number of problems. First of all, he sought to revive the covenants and principles of criticism of Belinsky, whose very name was under censorship ban until 1856, and whose legacy was suppressed or interpreted by “aesthetic” criticism (in the letters of Druzhinin, Botkin, Annenkov to Nekrasov and I. Panaev) one-sidedly, sometimes negative. The plan corresponded to the intention of the editors of Sovremennik to “fight the decline of our criticism” and “to improve, if possible,” their own “critical department,” as stated in the “Announcement about the publication of Sovremennik” in 1855. It was necessary, Nekrasov believed, to return to the interrupted tradition - to the “straight path” of “Notes of the Fatherland” of the forties, that is, Belinsky: “... what faith there was in the magazine, what a living connection between him and the readers!” Analysis from democratic and materialist positions of the main critical systems of the 20s - 40s (N. Polevoy, O. Senkovsky, N. Nadezhdin, I. Kireevsky, S. Shevyrev, V. Belinsky) at the same time allowed Chernyshevsky to determine for the reader his own position in the emerging with the outcome of the “dark seven years” (1848 - 1855) of the literary struggle, as well as to formulate modern tasks and principles of literary criticism. “Essays...” also served polemical purposes, in particular the fight against the opinions of A.V. Druzhinin, which Chernyshevsky clearly has in mind when he shows the selfish-protective motives of S. Shevyrev’s literary judgments.

Considering in the first chapter of “Essays...” the reasons for the decline of criticism by N. Polevoy, “who at first so cheerfully emerged as one of the leaders in the literary and intellectual movement” of Russia, Chernyshevsky concluded that for viable criticism, firstly, modern philosophical theory, Secondly. moral feeling, meaning by it the humanistic and patriotic aspirations of the critic, and finally, orientation towards truly progressive phenomena in literature.

All these components organically merged in Belinsky’s criticism, the most important principles which had “fiery patriotism” and the latest “ scientific concepts", that is, the materialism of L. Feuerbach and socialist ideas. Chernyshevsky considers other major advantages of Belinsky’s criticism to be its struggle against romanticism in literature and in life, the rapid growth from abstract aesthetic criteria to animation by the “interests of national life” and the judgments of writers from the point of view of “the significance of his activities for our society.”

In “Essays...” for the first time in the Russian censored press, Belinsky was not only associated with the ideological and philosophical movement of the forties, but made it central figure. Chernyshevsky outlined the scheme of Belinsky’s creative emotion, which remains the basis of modern ideas about the activity of a critic: the early “telescopic” period - the search for a holistic philosophical comprehension of the world and the nature of art; a natural meeting with Hegel on this path, a period of “reconciliation” with reality and a way out of it, a mature period of creativity, which in turn revealed two moments of development - according to the degree of deepening of social thinking.

At the same time, for Chernyshevsky, the differences that should appear in future criticism in comparison with Belinsky’s criticism are also obvious. Here is his definition of criticism: “Criticism is a judgment about the merits and demerits of a literary movement. Its purpose is to encourage the expression of the opinion of the best part of the public and to promote its further dissemination among the masses” (“On Sincerity in Criticism”).

“The best part of the public” are, without a doubt, democrats and ideologists of the revolutionary transformation of Russian society. Future criticism should directly serve their tasks and goals. To do this, it is necessary to abandon the workshop isolation among professionals and enter into constant communication with the public. reader, as well as gain “all possible ... clarity, certainty and directness” of judgment. The interests of the common cause, which she will serve, give her the right to be harsh.

In the light of the requirements, first of all, of social-humanistic ideology, Chernyshevsky undertakes an examination of both the phenomena of current realistic literature and its sources in the person of Pushkin and Gogol.

Four articles about Pushkin were written by Chernyshevsky simultaneously with “Essays on the Gogol period...”. They included Chernyshevsky in the discussion started by A.V.’s article. Druzhinin “A.S. Pushkin and the latest edition of his works”: 1855) in connection with Annenkov’s Collected Works of the poet. Unlike Druzhinin, who created the image of a creator-artist, alien to the social conflicts and unrest of his time, Chernyshevsky appreciates in the author of “Eugene Onegin” the fact that he “was the first to describe Russian morals and the life of various classes ... with amazing fidelity and insight” . Thanks to Pushkin, Russian literature became closer to “Russian society.” The ideologist of the peasant revolution especially cherishes Pushkin’s “Scenes from the Times of Knights” (they should be placed “not lower than “Boris Godunov””), the meaningfulness of Pushkin’s verse (“every line... touched, aroused thought”). Crete, recognizes the enormous importance of Pushkin “in the history of Russian education.” enlightenment. However, in contrast to these praises, the relevance of Pushkin’s legacy for modern literature was considered insignificant by Chernyshevsky. In fact, in his assessment of Pushkin, Chernyshevsky takes a step back compared to Belinsky, who called the creator of “Onegin” (in the fifth article of Pushkin’s cycle) the first “poet-artist” of Rus'. “Pushkin was,” writes Chernyshevsky, “primarily a poet of form.” “Pushkin was not a poet of someone with a specific view of life, like Byron, he was not even a poet of thought in general, like ... Goethe and Schiller.” Hence the final conclusion of the articles: “Pushkin belongs to a bygone era... He cannot be recognized as a luminary of modern literature.”

The general assessment of the founder of Russian realism turned out to be unhistorical. It also made clear the unjustified sociological bias in Chernyshevsky’s understanding in this case. artistic content, poetic idea. Willingly or unwittingly, the critic handed Pushkin over to his opponents - representatives of “aesthetic” criticism.

In contrast to Pushkin’s legacy, the Gogolian legacy according to Chernyshevsky’s thought, addressed to the needs of social life and therefore full of deep content, receives the highest appreciation in “Essays...”. The critic especially emphasizes Gogol’s humanistic pathos, which was essentially not noticed in Pushkin’s work. “To Gogol,” writes Chernyshevsky, “those who need protection owe a lot; he became the head of those. who deny evil and vulgarity."

The humanism of Gogol’s “deep nature,” however, Chernyshevsky believes, was not supported by modern advanced ideas (teachings), which had no impact on the writer. According to the critic, this limited critical pathos Gogol's works: the artist saw the ugliness of the facts of Russian social life, but did not understand the connection of these facts with the fundamental foundations of Russian autocratic-serf society. In general, Gogol had the “gift of unconscious creativity,” without which one cannot be an artist. However, the poet, adds Chernyshevsky, “will not create anything great if he is not also gifted with a wonderful mind, strong common sense and subtle taste.” Chernyshevsky explains Gogol's artistic drama by the suppression of the liberation movement after 1825, as well as the influence on the writer of the protective minded S. Shevyrev, M. Pogodin and his sympathies for patriarchy. Nevertheless, Chernyshevsky’s overall assessment of Gogol’s work is very high: “Gogol was the father of Russian prose,” “he is credited with firmly introducing the satirical into Russian literature - or, as it would be more fair to call his critical trends,” he is “the first in Russian literature to have a decisive desire to content and, moreover, striving in such a fruitful direction as critical.” And finally: “There was no writer in the world who was as important for his people as Gogol was for Russia,” “he awakened in us consciousness about ourselves - this is his true merit.”

Chernyshevsky’s attitude towards Gogol and the Gogolian trend in Russian realism, however, did not remain unchanged, but depended on which phase of his criticism it belonged to. The fact is that in Chernyshevsky’s criticism there are two phases: the first - from 1853 to 1858, the second - from 1858 to 1862. The turning point for them was the emerging revolutionary situation in Russia, which entailed a fundamental division between democrats and liberals on all issues, including literary ones.

The first phase is characterized by the critic’s struggle for the Gogolian direction, which remains effective and fruitful in his eyes. This is a struggle for Ostrovsky, Turgenev, Grigorovich, Pisemsky, L. Tolstoy, for the strengthening and development of their critical pathos. The task is to unite all anti-serfdom writer groups.

In 1856, Chernyshevsky dedicated a large review to Grigorovich, by that time the author not only of “The Village” and “Anton the Miserable”, but also of the novels “Fishermen” (1853), “Migrants” (1856>, imbued with deep participation in life and fate “ commoners", especially serfs. Contrasting Grigorovich to his numerous imitators, Chernyshevsky believes that in his stories "peasant life is depicted correctly, without embellishment; strong talent and deep feeling are visible in the description."

Until 1858, Chernyshevsky took “extra people” under protection, for example, from the criticism of S. Dudyshkin. reproaching them for lack of “harmony with the situation,” that is, for opposition to the environment. In the conditions of modern society, such “harmony,” Chernyshevsky shows, will come down only to “being an efficient official, a managerial landowner” (“Notes on Journals,” 1857*. At this time, the critic sees in “superfluous people” more victims of the Nicholas reaction , and he values ​​the share of protest that they contain. True, even at this time he treats them differently: he sympathizes with Rudin and Beltov, who strive for social activity, but not with Onegin and Pechorin.

Particularly interesting is Chernyshevsky’s attitude towards L. Tolstoy, who, by the way, spoke extremely hostilely about the critic’s dissertation and his very personality at that time. In the article “Childhood and adolescence. Essay by Count L.N. Tolstoy...” Chernyshevsky revealed extraordinary aesthetic sensitivity when assessing the artist, whose ideological positions were very far from the mood of the critic. Chernyshevsky notes two main features in Tolstoy’s talent: the originality of his psychological analysis (unlike other realist writers, Tolstoy is not concerned with the result of the mental process, not the correspondence of emotions and actions, etc., but “the mental process itself, its forms, its laws , dialectics of the soul") and the sharpness ("purity") of the "moral feeling", the moral perception of the depicted." The critic rightly understood Tolstoy's mental analysis as an expansion and enrichment of the possibilities of realism (we note in passing that at first even such a person was very skeptical about this feature of Tolstoy's prose a master like Turgenev, who called it “picking out the dirty linen from under the armpits.”) As for the “purity of moral feeling”, which Chernyshevsky noted, by the way, in Belinsky, Chernyshevsky sees in it a guarantee of the artist’s rejection, after moral falsity, also of social untruth , social lies and injustice.This was already confirmed by Tolstoy’s story “The Morning of the Landowner,” which showed the meaninglessness of lordly philanthropy in relation to the peasant under the conditions of serfdom. The story was highly praised by Chernyshevsky in “Notes on Journals” in 1856. The author was given credit for the fact that the content of the story was taken “from a new sphere of life,” which also developed the writer’s very view “of life.”

After 1858, Chernyshevsky’s judgments about Grigorovich, Pisemsky, Turgenev, as well as about “superfluous people” changed. This is explained not only by the break between democrats and liberals (in 1859 - 1860 L. Tolstoy, Goncharov, Botkin, Turgenev left Sovremennik), but also by the fact that during these years a new trend was emerging in Russian realism, represented by Saltykov-Shchedrin (in 1856, “Russian Bulletin” began publishing his “Provincial Sketches”), Nekrasov, N. Uspensky, V. Sleptsov, A. Levitov, F. Reshetnikov and inspired by democratic ideas. Democratic writers had to establish themselves in their own positions, freeing themselves from the influence of their predecessors. Chernyshevsky is also involved in solving this problem, believing that Gogol’s direction has exhausted itself. Hence the overestimation of Rudin (the critic sees in him an unacceptable “caricature” of M. Bakunin, with whom the revolutionary tradition was associated), and other “superfluous people” whom Chernyshevsky no longer separates from the liberal nobles.

Chernyshevsky’s famous article “Russian man at rendez-vous” (1958) became a declaration and proclamation of an uncompromising demarcation from noble liberalism in the Russian liberation movement of the 60s. It appears at the moment when, as the critic specifically emphasizes, the denial of serfdom, which united liberals and democrats in the 40s and 50s, was replaced by the polar opposite attitude of the former allies to the coming, Chernyshevsky believes, peasant revolution.

The reason for the article was the story by I.S. Turgenev’s “Asya” (1858), in which the author of “The Diary of an Extra Man”, “The Calm”, “Correspondence”, “Trips to Woodland” depicted the drama of failed love in conditions when the happiness of two young people seemed both possible and close . Interpreting the hero of “Asia” (along with Rudin, Beltov, Nekrasov’s Agarin and other “superfluous people”) as a type of noble liberal. Chernyshevsky gives his explanation of the social position (“behavior”) of such people - albeit revealed in the intimate situation of a date with a beloved girl who reciprocates. Filled with ideal aspirations and sublime feelings, they, the critic says, fatally stop short of putting them into practice and are unable to combine word with deed. And the reason for this inconsistency is not in any of their personal weaknesses, but in their belonging to the dominant noble class, burdened with “class prejudices.” It is impossible to expect decisive actions from a noble liberal in accordance with “the great historical interests of national development” (that is, to eliminate the autocratic-serf system), because the main obstacle for them is the very nobility. And Chernyshevsky calls for a decisive rejection of illusions regarding the liberation-humanizing capabilities of the noble oppositionist: “The idea is developing in us more and more strongly that this opinion about him is an empty dream, we feel... that there are people better than him, precisely those whom he offends; that we would be better off without him.”

In his article “Polemical Beauty” (1860), Chernyshevsky explains his current critical attitude towards Turgenev and his break with the writer, whom the critic had previously defended from attacks, by the incompatibility of revolutionary democracy with reformism. cnpalai “Our way of thinking became so clear for Mr. Turgenev that he stopped approving of him . It began to seem to us that Mr. Turgenev’s latest stories were not as close to our view of things as before, when his direction was not so clear to us, and our views were not so clear to him. We parted".

Since 1858, Chernyshevsky’s main concern has been devoted to raznochinsko-democratic literature and its authors, called upon to master the craft of writing and show the public heroes other than “superfluous people,” close to the people and inspired by popular interests.

Chernyshevsky connects his hopes for creating a “completely new period” in poetry primarily with Nekrasov. Back in 1856, he wrote to him in response to a request to speak about the famous collection “Poems of N. Nekrasov” that had just been published: “We have never had a poet like you.” Chernyshevsky retained his high assessment of Nekrasov throughout the following years. Having learned about the poet's fatal illness, he asked (in a letter on August 14, 1877 to Pypin from Vilyuysk) to kiss him and tell him, “the most brilliant and noble of all Russian poets. I’m crying for him” (“Tell Nikolai Gavrilovich,” Nekrasov answered Pypin, “that I thank him very much, I am now consoled: his words are more valuable than anyone else’s words”). In the eyes of Chernyshevsky, Nekrasov is the first great Russian poet who became truly popular, that is, who expressed both the state of the oppressed people (the peasantry), and faith in their strength, the growth of national self-awareness. At the same time, Chernyshevsky cherishes the intimate lyrics of Nekrasov - “poetry of the heart,” “plays without a tendency,” as he calls it, - which embodied the emotional-intellectual structure and spiritual experience of the Russian raznochinsky intelligentsia, its inherent system of moral and aesthetic values.

In the author of “Provincial Sketches” M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, Chernyshevsky saw a writer who went beyond the critical realism of Gogol. Unlike the author of Dead Souls, Shchedrin, according to Chernyshevsky, already knows “what the connection is between that branch of life in which facts are found and other branches of mental, moral, civil, state life,” that is, he knows how to construct private outrages Russian social life to their source - the socialist system of Russia. “Provincial Sketches” are valuable not only as “a wonderful literary phenomenon,” but also as “ historical fact"Russian life" on the path of its self-awareness.

In his reviews of writers ideologically close to him, Chernyshevsky raises the question of the need for a new positive hero in literature. He is waiting for “his speech, the most cheerful, at the same time the calmest and most decisive speech, in which one could hear not the timidity of theory before life, but proof that reason can rule over life and a person can reconcile his life with his convictions.” Chernyshevsky himself became involved in solving this problem in 1862, creating in the casemate Peter and Paul Fortress a novel about “new people” - “What to do?”

Chernyshevsky did not have time to systematize his views on democratic literature. But one of its principles - the question of depicting the people - was developed by him very thoroughly. This is the subject of the last of Chernyshevsky’s major literary critical articles, “Isn’t this the beginning of change?” (1861), the occasion for which was “Essays on National Life” by N. Uspensky.

The critic opposes any idealization of the people. In conditions of the social awakening of the people (Chernyshevsky knew about mass peasant uprisings in connection with the predatory reform of 1861), he believes that it objectively serves protective purposes, since it reinforces popular passivity, the belief in the inability of the people to independently decide their fate. Nowadays, the depiction of the people in the form of Akaki Akakievich Bashmachkin or Anton Goremyka is unacceptable. Literature must show the people, their moral and psychological state “without embellishment,” because only “such an image testifies to the recognition of the people as equal to other classes and will help the people get rid of the weaknesses and vices instilled in them over centuries of humiliation and lawlessness. It is equally important, not content with routine manifestations of folk life and ordinary characters, to show the people in whom the “initiative of popular activity” is concentrated. This was a call to create images of people's leaders and rebels in literature. Already the image of Saveliy, the “hero of Holy Russia” from Nekrasov’s poem “Who Lives Well in Rus',” spoke of this. that this behest of Chernyshevsky was heard.

Chernyshevsky's aesthetics and literary criticism are not distinguished by academic dispassion. They, in the words of V.I. Lenin, imbued with the “spirit of class struggle.” And also, we add, the spirit of rationalism, faith in the omnipotence of reason, characteristic of Chernyshevsky as an educator. This obliges us to consider Chernyshevsky’s literary critical system in the unity of not only its strong and promising premises, but also its relatively weak and even extreme premises.

Chernyshevsky is right in defending the priority of life over art. But he is mistaken when, on this basis, he calls art a “surrogate” (that is, a substitute) for reality. In fact, art is not only special (in relation to the scientific or social-practical activity of a person), but also a relatively autonomous form of spiritual creativity - an aesthetic reality, in the creation of which a huge role belongs to the holistic ideal of the artist and his efforts creative imagination. In turn, by the way, underestimated by Chernyshevsky. “Reality,” he writes, “is not only more vivid, but also more complete than fantasy. Fantasy images are only a pale and almost always unsuccessful reworking of reality. This is true only in the sense of the connection between artistic fantasy and the life aspirations and ideals of a writer, painter, musician, etc. However, the very understanding of creative fantasy and its possibilities is erroneous, because consciousness great artist does not so much remake the real one as create a new world.

The concept of an artistic idea (content) acquires from Chernyshevsky not only a sociological, but sometimes a rationalistic meaning. If its first interpretation is completely justified in relation to a number of artists (for example, Nekrasov, Saltykov-Shchedrin), then the second actually eliminates the line between literature and science, art and sociological treatise, memoirs, etc. An example of an unjustified rationalization of artistic content is the following statement of a critic in a review of the Russian translation of Aristotle’s works: “Art, or, better said, POETRY... distributes among the mass of readers a huge amount of information and, more importantly, familiarity with the concepts developed by science - - this is the great significance of poetry for life.” Here Chernyshevsky, wittingly or unwittingly, anticipates the future literary utilitarianism of D.I. Pisareva. Another example. Literature, the critic says elsewhere, acquires authenticity and content if it “talks about everything that is important in any respect that happens in society, considers all these facts ... from all possible points of view, explains, from what causes each fact comes, what supports it, what phenomena must be brought into existence to strengthen it, if it is noble, or to weaken it, if it is harmful.” In other words, a writer is good if, while recording significant phenomena and trends in social life, he subjects them to analysis and makes his own “sentence” on them. This is how Chernyshevsky himself acted as the author of the novel “What is to be done?” But to fulfill such a formulated task it is not at all necessary to be an artist, for it is completely solvable within the framework of a sociological treatise, a journalistic article, brilliant examples of which were given by Chernyshevsky himself (remember the article “Russian man on rendez-vous”), Dobrolyubov, and Pisarev.

Perhaps the most vulnerable place in Chernyshevsky's literary critical system is the idea of ​​artistry and typification. Agreeing that “the prototype for a poetic person is often a real person”, raised by the writer “to a general meaning,” the critic adds: “There is usually no need to build, because the original already has general meaning in its individuality." It turns out that typical faces exist in reality itself, and are not created by the artist. The writer can only “transfer” them from life into his work in order to explain them and judge them. This was not only a step back from the corresponding teachings of Belinsky, but also a dangerous simplification, reducing the work and work of the artist to copying reality.

The well-known rationalization of the creative act and art in general, the sociological bias in the interpretation of literary and artistic content as the embodiment of one or another social trend explain the negative attitude towards Chernyshevsky’s views not only of representatives of “aesthetic” criticism, but also of such major artists of the 50s and 60s , like Turgenev, Goncharov, L. Tolstoy. In Chernyshevsky’s ideas they saw the danger of “enslaving art” (N.D. Akhsharumov) by political and other transitory tasks.

Celebrating weak sides Chernyshevsky’s aesthetics, one should remember the fruitfulness - especially for Russian society and Russian literature - of its main pathos - the idea of ​​​​the social and humanistic service of art and the artist. Philosopher Vladimir Solovyov would later call Chernyshevsky’s dissertation one of the first experiments in “practical aesthetics.” L. Tolstoy’s attitude towards her will change over the years. A number of provisions of his treatise “What is art?” (published in 1897 - 1898) will be directly consonant with the ideas of Chernyshevsky.

And one last thing. We must not forget that literary criticism was for Chernyshevsky, in the conditions of a censored press, in fact, the main opportunity from the standpoint of revolutionary democracy to illuminate the pressing problems of the Russian social development and influence him. One can say about Chernyshevsky the critic what the author of “Essays on the Gogol Period...” said about Belinsky: “He feels that the boundaries of literary issues are narrow, he yearns in his office, like Faust: he is cramped in these walls lined with books , - it doesn’t matter whether they are good or bad; he needs life, not talk about the merits of Pushkin’s poems.”