Old Russian literature of the 18th century. Russian literature of the 18th century - general characteristics

1) Russian literature of the 18th century was a faithful mirror of Russian social life: all changes in the nature of this life were fully and accurately reflected in literature. From the literary works of this era one can trace how the Russian language was born. society, still absent under Peter the Great, how it was brought up under the influence of “enlightened absolutism”, how it finally grew to such a degree of self-awareness that, under Empress Catherine II, it risked fighting this “enlightened absolutism” in the name of the independence of its development (Novikov, Radishchev ).

Russian literature of the 18th century

2) In connection with this awakening of self-awareness, Russian society woke up and nationalistic aspirations,- hostility to excessive and absurd admiration for foreign ones (Fonvizin, Novikov, etc.), interest in Russian antiquity and to the common people, his life and creativity (Ekaterina, Chulkov, Novikov). This led to the clarification of two opposing worldviews in Russian society - conservative And liberal. Outside of these political aspirations, we have developed, under the influence of the West, aspirations - 1) Freemasonry to renew Christianity, supposedly clouded by “ritualism,” - 2) find happiness in idealismpure heart and in his "beautiful soul"(Karamzin).

3) All the main points in the development of Russian life in the 18th century. were primarily of a public nature. This social character for the first time in this era colored Russian literature, and from then on became its distinctive feature.

4) With the development of social life in Russia, literary traditions quickly began to take shape directions, literary schools began to be created. This indicates how quickly our literary tastes have reached high degree development: in one century we caught up with the literary development of Western literature; in the course of one 18th century we put an end to scholasticism middle ages, from classicism Renaissance, with sentimentalism and went up to romanticism And realism .

5) Thus, Russian literature consistently reflected the influences German(under Peter and his successors), French(under Elizabeth and Catherine), English-German(the second half of Catherine’s reign) and approached attempts to create national Russian literature - by crossing literary creativity with folk poetry and ancient writing (Chulkov, Novikov).

6) Interests in living reality, awakened nationalist tendencies, the desire for realism, which was determined in Russian literature since the 17th century, led to the fact that false classicism was expressed weaker in our country than in other European countries: even the brightest pseudo-classics (Lomonosov , Sumarokov, etc.) consciously moved in their literary development towards poetry of reality.

7) With the development of social and political life, the interests of Russian society are expanding. And literature also covers ever wider areas - it is now being done artistic creativity, poetry in the broad sense of the word, it is the sister of painting, music and other fine arts. Since this century, for the first time it acquires the title, “graceful,” a title indicating its character, or more often the title “new,” indicating that it met the needs not of ancient Russian life, but of a new life, renewed by a rapid cultural impulse forward.

8) It is therefore clear that the “ecclesiastical” character of the Russian worldview, weakened already in the 17th century and under Peter, is now, by the end of the 18th century, finally giving way to the “secular”.

9) Literature is freed from the service of the church, although for a long time it still does not achieve independence - at first it only changes its “master”: now it serves not church piety, but the morality that was brought to us from the West along with camisoles and wigs. The entire 18th century will present us with an instructive picture of how this morality will become part of the flesh and blood of Russian society, how from cramming common rules translated from German, Russian people will reach deep and clear idealism of the heart.

10) Ancient Rus' dealt with paganism, Moscow Russia was already working on correcting morals. Russia of the 18th century brought the preaching of universal morality, the preaching of service to goodness, truth and beauty. This century was for us an “era of great discoveries”: Russian people, in odes, novels, and drama, repeated in different ways that the sovereign is a “man,” that he must serve the state, that he must obey the laws... This point of view indicated how far the Russians had gone Society XVIII V. from the views of Muscovite Rus' on their sovereign rulers. In the same century, we made another, no less important “discovery” - “even the peasants know how to feel.” No matter how naive these words sound in our time, their cultural significance is enormous. They indicate that in the 18th century. began to be determined in our literature that humane treatment to the “humiliated and insulted” (Chulkov, Novikov), which becomes a characteristic feature of many great writers of the 19th century (Gogol, Dostoevsky, etc.).

11) Gradually freeing itself from semi-conscious “service” to the ideals of someone else’s, borrowed morality, from the tendencies of abstract moralizing, our literature is in the second half XVIII century is becoming quite conscious, since it reflects not borrowed moods and ideals, but the true beliefs of a different, improved, acclimatized breed of people among us. Thanks to Karamzin’s activities, Russian literature is becoming “idealistic” in its worldview - it is being made free by fine art (“belles lettres”), which widely embraces reality. It becomes a mirror of the writer’s soul (intimate lyrics of the heart), - deep and subtle is introduced into literature psychological analysis, new style of writing (Kleinmalerei), poetry of nature, poetry of intimate life.

IN early XVIII century, during the Peter the Great era, Russia began to develop rapidly thanks to transformations in all areas of state and cultural life. These transformations led to the centralization of autocratic statehood and themselves contributed to it. At this time, Russia's independence strengthened, its military power increased, its cultural rapprochement with European countries occurred, and its influence on the European arena increased.

Widely using the achievements of domestic and world science, culture, technology, industry, education, Peter I, with his reforms, opened new paths for Russian literature. Despite the fact that the movement of Russia slowed down after the death of Peter the Great, Russian society achieved enormous results in the field of culture and education in the 18th century. The Russian monarchs, especially Peter I and Catherine II, clearly understood that it was possible to move the country forward, destroy inert patriarchal orders, long-standing superstitions that created obstacles to the growth of material values ​​and new social relations, and to establish new secular state and moral norms and concepts only with the help of education, enlightenment, culture, press. In this regard, literature has received exceptional attention.

Under these conditions, various layers of Russian society received the opportunity for broad intellectual and artistic activity: Moscow University, secondary schools and vocational schools were opened, a new calendar was introduced, the first Russian newspaper was founded, the Academy of Sciences, the Academy of Arts, and Volnoe were established. economic society, the first permanent Russian theater. Society was given the opportunity to express their opinions and criticize the affairs of the government, nobles and dignitaries.

Russian literature of the 18th century inherited from ancient Russian literature a high understanding of the art of words and the mission of the writer, the powerful educational impact of the book on society, on the minds and feelings of fellow citizens. She gave these historically established features new forms, using the possibilities of classicism and the Enlightenment.

Pathos became the main idea in the development of literature in the era of classicism state building and transformations. Therefore, high civil-patriotic poetry and accusatory and satirical criticism of the vices of society and the state, circumstances and people who hindered progress came to the fore in literature. The central genre of high civic poetry was the ode. The critical direction was represented by the genres of high satire, close to ode, fable and domestic comedy morals

These main directions in the development of literature were determined at the beginning of the century. In the first third of the century, classicism was formed, the birth of which was facilitated by one of the highest hierarchs Orthodox Church- writer Feofan Prokopovich. The founders of classicism were A. D. Kantemir, V. K. Trediakovsky and M. V. Lomonosov. Besides them, the largest writer, whose work began in the first half of the 18th century, was A.P. Sumarokov.

In the second half of the 18th century, from about the 1760s, a new period began in literature. At this time, new genres appeared: prose novel, story, comic opera and “tear drama”.

As social contradictions deepened, satire became more widespread. To soften her impact on society, Catherine II herself became the secret publisher of the satirical magazine “Everything.” The Empress wanted to reduce the role of public satire and increase the importance of government satire, serving the political interests of the monarchy. She invited writers and publishers to follow her example. Russian society took advantage of this. Several satirical magazines immediately appeared in Russia (“Both this and that”, “Mixture”, “Hellish Mail”, “Drone”, “Neither this nor that in prose and verse”, “Podenshchina”). The most radical magazines that fought with Catherine’s “Everything and Everything” were the magazines of the outstanding Russian educator N.I. Novikov - “Drone” and “Painter”.

The satirical direction almost entirely dominated in poems (“Message to my servants Shumilov, Vanka and Petrushka”, “Fox the Executor”) and comedies (“Corion”, “Foreman”, “Undergrown”) by D. I. Fonvizin, in the comedies of I B. Knyazhnina (“The Braggart”, “Weirdos”), in the comedy “Sneak” by V. V. Kapnist, in the prose and comedies of I. A. Krylov (“Pranksters”, “Trumph, or Podschipa” and written already at the beginning XIX century “Fashion Shop” and “Lesson for Daughters”).

At the same time, interest in large, high forms of literature does not cool down. After the tragedies of A. P. Sumarokov in the last quarter of the 18th century, Ya. B. Knyazhnin (“Rosslav”, “Vadim Novgorodsky”) and other playwrights, for example N. P. Nikolev (“Sorena and Zamir”) turned to this genre.

In the second half of the 18th century, the genre system of classicism began to fetter the creative thought of writers, and they tried to destroy and reform it. The heroic poem, characteristic of Kantemir (“Petriad”), Lomonosov (“Peter the Great”), Sumarokov (“Dimitriada”), now fades into the background. The last attempt in this genre - “Rossiyada” by M. M. Kheraskov - was not crowned with success. Since then, the genres of “irocomic” poem, humorous poem and comic opera, in which the genre of the heroic poem was ironically reimagined (“The Ombre Player”, “Elisha, or the Irritated Bacchus” by V. I. Maykov; “Darling” by I. F. Bogdanovich).

The same tendencies of exhaustion of classicism as a literary movement are noticeable in the work of the greatest poet of the 18th century G. R. Derzhavin, who updated the principles of classicism and preceded the emergence of romanticism.

At the end of the 18th century, a new thing appeared in literature literary direction- sentimentalism. He had a strong influence on A. N. Radishchev, the greatest Russian thinker and angry writer, whose feelings were outraged by the people's troubles, the oppressed position of the peasants and the common Russian people in general. His main work, “Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow,” was written in the “travel” genre, beloved by sentimentalists, and was caused by emotional shock from the pictures of injustice and lawlessness he saw. This “sensitivity,” this concern of the heart, is extremely close to sentimentalists.

The founder of sentimentalism and the largest writer of this trend was N. M. Karamzin - poet, prose writer, essayist, journalist, “our last chronicler and our first historian,” according to Pushkin, and reformer of the Russian literary language. Many poems, ballads and stories brought him all-Russian fame. His greatest achievements are associated with such works as “Letters of a Russian Traveler”, the story “ Poor Lisa", "History of the Russian State", as well as with the transformation of the literary language. Karamzin outlined and implemented a reform, thanks to which the gap between the oral, spoken and written, book language of Russian society was eliminated. Karamzin wanted the Russian literary language to express new concepts and ideas that developed in the 18th century as clearly and accurately as the French language spoken by Russian educated society.

Karamzin’s closest ally was I. I. Dmitriev, the author of popular historical and patriotic works, songs, romances, satirical tales and fables (“Ermak”, “Liberation of Moscow”, “The Gray Dove Moans...”, “Someone else’s Talk”, “ Fashionable wife”, etc.). The principles of sentimentalism were talentedly embodied in his songs in the folk spirit by Yu. A. Neledinsky-Meletsky, who owns several songs (for example, “I’ll go out to the river ...”) that have survived in the song repertoire to this day.

Russian literature of the 18th century, in its rapid development, provided for the future great achievements of the art of speech that followed in the 19th century. She almost caught up with leading European literature and was able to “...become on par with the century in enlightenment.”

To Peter's XVIII era V. in response to the demands of the time, there was a rapid transformation of literature, updating its ideological, genre and thematic appearance. Peter's reform activities and the initiative to transform Russia determined the organic assimilation of enlightenment ideas by literature and new writers, and above all the political teachings of the enlighteners - the concept of enlightened absolutism. Enlightenment ideology gave modern forms traditional features Russian literature. As D.S. Likhachev pointed out, in the era of accelerated construction of the Russian centralized state, state and social themes begin to dominate in literature, and journalism is rapidly developing.

Journalism will penetrate into other genres of literature, thereby determining its special, openly pedagogical character. Teaching as the most important tradition of young Russian literature was inherited by the new time and acquired a new quality: the Russian writer acted as a citizen who dared to teach the reign of the next monarch. Lomonosov taught Elizabeth to reign, Novikov and Fonvizin - first Catherine II, and then Paul I, Derzhavin - Catherine II, Karamzin - Alexander I, Pushkin - during the difficult time of the defeat of the Decembrist uprising - Nicholas I.

Journalism became a feature of Russian literature of the 18th century, determining the originality of its artistic appearance.

Undoubtedly, the most important and fundamental feature new literature was that it was literature created through the efforts of individual authors. A new type of writer appeared in society, whose literary activity was determined by his personality.

During this period, Russian classicism entered the historical arena, becoming a necessary stage in the development of Russian literature as pan-European literature. Russian classicism created a multi-genre art, which at first asserted its existence only through the poetic word; prose will begin to develop later - from the 1760s. Through the efforts of several generations of poets, many genres of lyrical and satirical poetry were developed. The classicist poets (Lomonosov, Sumarokov, Kheraskov, Knyazhnin) approved the genre of tragedy. Thus, the conditions were prepared for the organization and successful activities of the Russian theater. The Russian theater, created in 1756, began its work under the leadership of Sumarokov. Classicism, having begun the creation of national literature, contributed to the development of ideals of citizenship, formed the idea of heroic character, included in national literature artistic experience ancient and European art, showed the ability of poetry to analytically reveal the spiritual world of man.

Lomonosov, drawing on the artistic experience of mankind, wrote deeply national, original odes, expressing the spirit of a rising nation. The pathos of his poetry was the idea of ​​affirming the greatness and power of Russia, the youth, energy and creative activity of a nation that believed in its strength and its historical vocation. Idea statements was born in the process of creative explanation and generalization of experience, the real practice of “Russian sons”. The poetry created by Lomonosov existed next to the satirical movement, the founder of which was Kantemir.

During the reign of Catherine II, the Russian Enlightenment, journalist and writer Nikolai Novikov, playwright and prose writer Denis Fonvizin, philosopher Yakov Kozelsky entered the public arena. Along with them, scientists S. Desnitsky, D. Anichkov, propagandist and popularizer of educational ideology, Professor N. Kurganov, and the compiler of one of the most popular books of the century, “Pismovnik,” actively worked with them. In the 1780s. Novikov created the largest educational center in Moscow on the basis of the Moscow University printing house he rented. IN

late 1780s A young writer, a student of Russian enlighteners, and a talented prose writer, Ivan Krylov, entered literature.

At the same time, in Russia, almost simultaneously with other European countries, another literary movement was formed, called sentimentalism. The penetration of sentimentalism into Russian literature began already in the 1770s. It is especially noticeable in the work of M. Kheraskov and the poets of his circle, who united in the Moscow university magazine “Useful Amusement.” Russian writers knew the works of English, French and German sentimentalists very well and translated them intensively. Hence the understandable, peculiar commonality of themes, genres, motifs and even heroes among writers of this movement.

The creator of Russian sentimentalism as a new and original artistic system was Karamzin - poet, prose writer, publicist, literary and theater critic, publisher and author of the multi-volume “History of the Russian State.” This literary school for Karamzin, editing the magazine “ Children's reading for the heart and mind" (1785–1789), published by Novikov, for whom Karamzin translated many works European literature XVIII century Travel through European countries in 1789–1790. turned out to be a decisive moment in literary fate Karamzin. Undertaking the publication of the Moscow Journal, Karamzin acted both as a writer and as a theorist of a new direction, who deeply and independently accepted the experience of contemporary European literature, the main aesthetic principles whose sincerity of feeling and “pure natural taste” became.

Already in the first literary works of the writer, heroes of two types appear: the “natural man” and the civilized, enlightened man. The writer is looking for heroes of the first type in peasant environment, an environment not spoiled by civilization, which has preserved patriarchal foundations. Karamzin’s famous story “Poor Liza” (1791) attracted contemporaries with its humanistic idea: “even peasant women know how to love.” The main character of the story, the peasant woman Liza, embodies the writer’s idea of ​​a “natural person”: she is “beautiful in soul and body,” kind, sincere, capable of loving devotedly and tenderly.

Almost the most significant work Karamzin "Letters of a Russian Traveler", representing European life end of the 18th century – morals and life, social structure, politics and culture of Karamzin’s contemporary Europe. The main character is a “sensitive”, “sentimental” person, this determines his attention to nature, interest in works of art, in every person he meets and, finally, his thoughts about the good of all people, about the “moral rapprochement of peoples”. In his 1802 article “On Love of the Fatherland and People’s Pride,” Karamzin wrote: “Our trouble is that we all want to speak French and don’t think about working on mastering our own language.” Bilingualism of Russian educated society seemed to Karamzin to be one of the main obstacles to the national self-determination of Europeanized Russian literature and culture, but the final solution to the problem of reforming the language of Russian prose and poetry belongs not to Karamzin, but to Pushkin.

Sentimentalism directly prepared the flowering of Russian romanticism at the beginning of the 19th century.

Test questions and assignments

Poetry: Simeon Polotsky, Sylvester Medvedev, Karion Istomin.

N. Karamzin “Poor Liza.”

Poetry V. Trediakovsky, M. Lomonosov, A. Sumarokov, G. Derzhavin.

/ compiled by V.P. Stepanov and Yu.V. Stennik. Edited, with additions and a foreword by Corresponding Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences P. N. Berkov. L.: Nauka, 1968. 500 p.

PREFACE

The history of Russian literature of the 18th century became an independent branch of Soviet literature. literary science very late - in the late 20s - early 30s of our century. This delay had its positive and negative sides. For example, literary historians of the 18th century did not have to overcome the inertia of pre-revolutionary scientific traditions, and they were immediately able to get involved in solving general literary problems raised by Soviet reality, of course, using their own material. As a result, the study of literature of the 18th century was never perceived in Soviet literary scholarship as something alien, anachronistic, interesting only to a limited group of few specialists.

However, the negative aspects of this late development our discipline was greater. The fact that the literature of the 18th century was not recognized by the old academic philological science, like ancient literature, a worthy object of scientific analysis, led to the fact that it pre-revolutionary time was studied from time to time, either by researchers of ancient Russian literature (M. I. Sukhomlinov, N. S. Tikhonravov, V. N. Peretz), then by linguists (Ya. K. Grot), then, finally, by gradually emerging specialists in the literature of the 19th century century (L. N. Maikov). Of all the Russian literary scholars of pre-Soviet times, only V.V. Sipovsky specialized in the study of literature of the 18th century.

As a result of such a disdainful attitude of pre-revolutionary academic literary criticism towards the study of literature of the 18th century, Soviet specialists of the late 20s - early 30s began their research activities in the almost complete absence of a source study base: there were almost no scientific editions of the works of writers of the 18th century, and there was no There is still no summary description of handwritten sources for the study of literature of the 18th century; finally, and most noticeably, there has not been any satisfactory bibliography of the literature of the period under study and its scientific research.

Now, after a third of a century, we have some achievements in the first of these areas, in the field of publishing the works of the greatest writers of the 18th century - Lomonosov, Radishchev, Fonvizin, Kantemir, Trediakovsky, Karamzin, etc. However, the second two problems have not yet been solved. This bibliographic index aims to solve the third problem, leaving the second one for further implementation.

To a non-specialist, such a sequence in setting the tasks to be solved may not seem entirely clear. It would seem more expedient to first take into account what has not yet been published, what has not entered into scientific circulation, and thereby enrich science by providing it with unstudied materials, and only then move on to taking into account what has been published. The matter, however, is much more complicated. Every area of ​​literary science develops in two directions: first, the literary monuments themselves are studied - the works of writers - handwritten for the period before the introduction of printing and in the immediate future, and then - printed ones. Of course, the printed texts of writers, especially in the 17th and 18th centuries, constituted a relatively small part of their literary output, and therefore higher value must have these manuscript materials for modern literary scholars. However, the archives of writers of the 18th century, with a few exceptions (Derzhavin, M.N. Muravyov), have not been preserved, and some of their works, letters, business documents, letters to them, other people’s copies, etc., that have survived to this day are scattered among numerous libraries and archives, most of them without indicating the author and without dates. It will be possible to properly understand this little-studied, but, as preliminary calculations suggest, enormous material only when a scientific bibliography of what is available to the modern study of 18th-century literature and its history is created as a basis and support.

Of the two elements that make up any scientific literary bibliography - bibliographies of texts and bibliographies research literature, - historians of Russian literature of the 18th century, at first glance, have a very thoroughly developed first part - a bibliography of publications of the 18th century; it is enough to list the most important ones: “The Experience of Russian Bibliography” by V. S. Sopikov (1815-1821), “Description of Slavic-Russian Books and Printing Houses of 1698-1725” by P. P. Pekarsky (the second part of the work “Science and Literature in Russia under Peter Great") (1862), " Reference Dictionary about Russian writers and scientists who died in the 18th and 19th centuries, and a list of Russian books from 1725 to 1825.” G. N. Gennadi (1876-1908), “Rare Russian books and flying publications of the 18th century” by Yu. Yu. Vitovt (1905). “Description of publications of the civil press. 1708 - January 1725" T. A. Bykova and M. M. Gurevich (1955), “Books of the civil press of the 18th century” by S. O. Petrov (1956), “Eighteenth Century Russian Publications in the Library of Congress” by T. Fesenko (1961) and, finally, “Unified catalog of Russian books of civil press of the 18th century. 1725-1800" (1962).

However, these numerous bibliographies of publications of the 18th century do not replace the actual literary bibliography texts of writers of the 18th century. On the contrary, their abundance only complicates research work: the information a literary scholar needs about the lifetime publications of the authors of the century being studied is lost in a sea of ​​materials about other books, and frequent discrepancies in their descriptions almost always force him to carry out additional research, which takes a lot of time and often does not lead to positive results. results. In addition, the texts of writers of the 18th century were published in large numbers in both the 19th and 20th centuries and were only to a small extent taken into account in the pre-revolutionary Russian literary bibliography, in essence, only in the outdated book by A. V. Mezier, which did not set itself scientific goals “Russian literature from the 11th to the 19th centuries inclusive. Part II. Russian literature of the 18th and 19th centuries.” In its time this venerable work was very useful and played a positive role; We still turn to it now, but only because we have no other similar works. And in the two-thirds of the 20th century that has passed since its publication, many publications of literary texts of the 18th century have been made, but information about this has never been brought together even in the most elementary form.

Thus, the most important section of scientific literary bibliography for the 18th century, the bibliography of texts, is in an unsatisfactory state.

The bibliography on the study of literature of the 18th century is in an even worse situation. It has never been collected, and its true volume cannot be determined with even approximate accuracy. According to the tradition established in the last quarter of the 19th century, literary scholars who studied literature XVIII century, turned to a limited range of periodicals that published research and materials on the period that interested them - to “Readings in the Society of Russian History and Antiquities”, to the “Russian Archive”, “Russian Antiquity”, “Ancient and New Russia”, “ Historical Bulletin”, “Journal of the Ministry of Public Education”, “Collections” and “Izvestia” of the Department of Russian Language and Literature of the Academy of Sciences. Articles and publications of texts that appeared in the rest, especially in the provincial, local history press, with rare exceptions did not come to the attention of researchers of literature of the 18th century.

From the very beginning of its existence (1932), the Group for the Study of Literature of the 18th Century set one of its top priorities to create a bibliography of works on the history of Russian literature of the 18th century. To this end, under the leadership of P. N. Berkov, during 1935-1938, a number of employees of the Rare Book Department of the Library of the USSR Academy of Sciences painted both the above periodicals and the works of provincial and regional archival commissions, memorial books of various provinces, indexes to capital and provincial general and historical magazines, collections and newspapers, as well as collections “in honor of...” and “in memory of...”. P. N. Berkov’s card file, which contained many unaccounted materials, was added to the rather extensive bibliographic card file that was compiled in this way, which occupied several boxes. Unfortunately, after June 1938, during the absence of the director for more than a year, work on the bibliography of the history of Russian literature of the 18th century was stopped, and the collected cards were lost and, despite careful searches, have not yet been discovered.

The interrupted work was resumed only 25 years later in connection with the large bibliography planned by the Institute of Russian Literature (Pushkin House) on new Russian literature from the 18th century to 1917. It was assumed that the bibliography on the 18th century would form the first part of this work and would be followed by bibliographies on XIX and XX centuries. However, circumstances turned out differently, and the bibliographic indexes ed. K. D. Muratova, dedicated to the literature of the 19th century and the literature of the late 19th - early 20th centuries, came out earlier. Thus, this bibliography on the literature of the 18th century offered to readers is at the same time part of a general bibliographic work on new Russian literature, and an independent first bibliographic experience in the study of the literature of this period.

This dual quality of a real bibliographic index determines its features. Firstly, its compilers and editor had to take into account the bibliographic methodology developed by K. D. Muratova and which formed the basis of bibliographic indexes on the 19th and end of the 19th century - the beginning of the 20th century. This was relatively easy to do, since in general the bibliographic instructions of K. D. Muratova coincide with the methodology generally accepted in Soviet bibliographic practice and the comments of the reviewers (B. Ya. Bukhshtab and others) that appeared in the press were not of a significant, much less fundamental nature . Secondly, the qualitative differences in the literature of the 18th century and the originality of the ways of studying it posed special tasks for the compilers and editor, which either did not arise at all for the team of authors working under the leadership of K. D. Muratova, or were solved by them differently. This applies most of all to the accounting of text publications. Considering pre-Soviet publications of works by writers of the 19th - early 20th centuries to be unscientific and not meeting the requirements of Soviet textual criticism, K. D. Muratova, as a rule, did not include them in the indexes she edited. If the compilers and editor of this bibliography had followed the same path, their work would have lost, if not all its meaning, then a significant portion of it. They believe that, despite the obsolescence and, often, unscientific nature of the techniques of the old textual methodology, publications of the pre-revolutionary period are important, firstly, because they often indicate the location of the printed document, thanks to which, if it has survived, the accuracy of the transmission can be verified his; secondly, if it is lost altogether (for example, in a fire, etc.) or is not found at the present time, then it is better to use a bad or not entirely satisfactory publication with due critical care than to assume or pretend that this document does not exist and there wasn't. As an example, it is enough to refer to “Letter on the Rules of Russian Versification by Lomonosov” (1739). The manuscript of this work has not reached us, and it is known only from the publication of Bishop Damascus (1778), a very educated man who went through a good textual school at the University of Göttingen with the famous professor of classical philology H. G. Heine and with the no less famous professors I. D. Michaelis and I. X. Gatterer. To reject this document means to cross out the most important page in the history of Russian versification, in the creative biography of Lomonosov, in the history of Russian literature of the 18th century. Thus, taking into account the features of the material subject to historical and literary study, and the positive experience of the indexes published under the editorship of. K. D. Muratova, the 18th century group developed a program for this bibliography. First of all, it was accepted that this index should not represent an exhaustively complete, accounting and registration bibliography, but a scientific bibliography on the literature and history of literature of the 18th century. By scientific bibliography we mean a bibliography selected, reviewed, and meeting the modern needs of science. Of course, the last formulation - “meeting the modern needs of science” - is fraught with the danger of some subjectivity: what one modern researcher of literature of the 18th century may consider extremely important or at least necessary, another may consider unimportant and even unnecessary. But the fact that this bibliography was compiled by a team of authors, albeit a small one - V.P. Stepanov and Yu.V. Stennik - was then reviewed by a number of reviewers and employees of the institute, as well as other specialists in the literature of the 18th century, contributes, in our opinion opinion, amendments to the possible one-sidedness of the selection of material by the compilers.

Believing that a real bibliography should be scientific, the 18th century Group deliberately refused to include in the index of popular and educational literature - editions of texts for high school, old gymnasium and similar textbooks and manuals on the history of Russian literature of the 18th century, as well as pre-revolutionary and Soviet popular publications, such as numerous reprints of Fonvizin’s “Minor” and Radishchev’s “Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow” with mostly boring prefaces repeating one another. If, however, the reader finds in our index certain deviations from the accepted position, this means that in the appropriate case the compilers and the editor considered it advisable, as an exception, to introduce information about this educational or popular publication as having some merits.

At the same time, even with this limitation, the 18th-century Group, having in mind the immediate practical side of the matter, did not want to turn the index into a complete list of relevant scientific materials, especially those that are mostly inaccessible to students of 18th-century literature outside Moscow and Leningrad, and sometimes even in the named cities. This primarily applies to the lithographed courses of lectures by university professors on literature of the 18th century, starting with M.I. Sukhomlinov and N.S. Tikhonravov, continuing with V.V. Sipovsky and M.N. Speransky and ending with the lithographed notes of the beginning Soviet period. They were not included primarily because of their extreme rarity: in order to avoid censorship, they were lithographed in a very limited edition and therefore are a legal deposit in state book depositories did not arrive; Even the largest university libraries do not have a complete set of such publications. Then, as acquaintance with their text shows, with a few exceptions (courses by V.V. Sipovsky), they contain independent research and original judgments of the authors and present conscientious summaries of facts and views already known to science. Courses by V.V. Sipovsky are also available in printed form, with more reliable text than the lithographed student notes. The same practical considerations led the 18th Century Group, in cases where the compilers and editor were aware, to list certain works not only in journal editions, but also in individual reprints. This was done so that the future reader could find the work he needed in any form of its existence, and, in addition, also because in a number of cases the text of a separate print turns out to be more complete than the magazine edition. Such, for example, is the valuable review article by V. A. Pasenko “On the bibliography of Russian comedy. (Regarding von Berg’s book “Russian Comedy before the Appearance of A. N. Ostrovsky”); in the journal “Bibliographic News” (1914, No. 3-4) it occupies ten pages (pp. 279-288), and in a separate print, which does not have pagination, three more unnumbered pages are added, devoted to the second part of the reviewed work and containing useful comments and considerations. The same applies to some reprints from the Journal of the Ministry of Public Education.

Thus, the compilers and editor set out to make this index as comprehensive as possible. practical nature and therefore sought, on the one hand, not to include in it what, in their opinion, would be useless in research work, and, on the other, taking into account the peculiarities of staffing of scientific libraries outside Moscow and Leningrad, to help the specialist reader in finding the necessary materials by reference to reprints, reprints, individual prints, etc.

While emphasizing the practical orientation of this bibliography, the 18th Century Group is at the same time clearly aware of the historiographical and theoretical-problematic significance of this work. Almost every more or less conscientiously completed bibliography of any science, in addition to its practical purpose - to serve readers as a guide for collecting the necessary scientific literature - also has the property that it is a unique, bibliographically formatted story about the ways of development of this science, the history of its study , the story of its history. Showing by its methods the degree of development of individual scientific problems, such a bibliography not only summarizes what has already been done, but also establishes what has not yet been done, identifies gaps in scientific research and puts forward and outlines the next research problems. Of course, this is not done by the bibliography itself as such, but partly by its compilers and editor, grouping the material into headings and creating subject and name indexes, and partly, and to an even greater extent, by the readers themselves, who carefully study scientific literature, which appeared after the completion of the corresponding summary bibliography, and correlating the results of these studies with the materials contained in the summary bibliography. Thus, they outline new directions in science.

All this imposes a number of complex and difficult responsibilities on the compilers and editor of this index. Taking into account that our bibliography is the first experience in constructing an index on the history of Russian literature of the 18th century and that similar works are created for many years, even decades, we considered it our most important duty to provide for both the practical requirements of the reader that will be presented to us for our work, and, at the same time, the general paths of development of our science, as they appear to us. We were aware that we could not foresee and satisfy all possible questions, the answers to which the reader would look for in our index, for example, on the genealogy of the Russian nobility, on military and political history, church history, Russian history Science XVIII century. Therefore, we decided to limit ourselves to a relatively narrow range of disciplines that are directly and directly related to the study of literature of the 18th century. In addition to the bibliography of literary texts and the history of literature and folklore of the 18th century, we included bibliographic materials on the history of Russian social thought, philosophy, journalism, journalism, theater and literary language. The significant volume of the publication forced us to refuse to include materials on the bibliography of Russian in the index visual arts And music XVIII century, history of linguistics, individual educational institutions, etc., although such sections are available in the card index of the 18th century Group. We have no doubt that further development our science will require closer communication with the history of Russian fine arts and music and history itself. However, we believe that neither this bibliography nor its continuations, which, in our opinion, will appear from time to time, should replace the bibliographies of the above-listed, as well as those not listed, sciences and disciplines: a serious researcher, of course, will have to refer to special bibliographies of these sections of knowledge.

In the folklore and literature of many nations, there is a “wandering story” about an old man planting a fruit tree and three young people who mocked him, believing that due to his age he was too late to plant the tree. Creating a bibliographic index in a certain sense is similar to the actions of an old man planting a fruit tree. In the words of Tyutchev,

We can't predict

How our word will respond.

However, we have no doubt that the publication of this bibliography will contribute to the development research work on literature of the 18th century. The prominent modern French scientist Lucien Febvre wrote: “A bibliographer, like general rule, accustomed to the ingratitude of those who owe him. But the knowledge that his work is useful and contributes to the growth of science is enough for him. - this is his reward.”

If Lucien Febvre is right and the bibliographer is almost always met with ingratitude, this does not give him the right to do the same. The compilers and editor express their sincere gratitude to all those who contributed to the implementation of this index.

FROM THE COMPILERS

In the book “History of Russian Literature of the 18th Century. Bibliographic Index" contains a bibliography of the main literary works from the first half of the 19th century. until mid-1965. Literature from 1965 to early 1967 is included in the “Additions”.

For ease of use, bibliographic materials are grouped by thematic sections and by personalities of writers.

Within departments, the material is arranged in chronological order, by year of publication, and within each year - in the alphabet of authors and titles. Repeated publications of works indicated in the bibliography are registered after the first entry, under the same number as it.

Reviews are placed after the work being reviewed in the following order: a) anonymous (Without signature), b) signed, in the alphabet of reviewers. The list of reviews also includes responses from the authors of the books under review to their critics.

Brief annotations aim to indicate the most important materials contained in registered works, the names of the authors whose work is discussed in most detail; explain inaccurate and unclear titles of works. To make it easier to find, the names in the annotations are located in alphabetical order, and not in the sequence as they are given in the book or article. It should be borne in mind that annotations are by no means a personal key to the annotated work.

Collections of letters from authors to more than three persons are indicated as a separate entry (under a separate number). In this case, in the annotation the recipients are arranged alphabetically by name. Following the addressee, the number of letters addressed to him and their end dates are indicated, full (day, month, year) if one or two letters are published, and short (years) if there are more letters. Individual publications of letters are registered under shared number in the alphabet of addressees, indicating the place of the corresponding publication.

Despite the systematization of materials by thematic basis used in the book, the compilers tried to record each work only once, deviating from this principle only in rare cases. In this regard, for ease of use, reference numbers have been introduced in the headings “Texts”, “Works” and “Reference Department”, which point the reader to works registered under other headings or in other departments, but containing materials devoted to this topic or creativity of this writer. The reader can find a complete summary of all materials included in the reference book, on a thematic and personal basis, in the name and subject indexes attached to the book.

When describing publications, the compilers generally followed the rules of bibliographic description adopted in previous issues“History of literature of the 19th century” and “History of literature of the 19th-20th centuries.” edited by K. D. Muratova.

When referring to periodicals, the year of publication, number, issue or part of the magazine or periodical collection, if there are several paginations, the department number, and pages of the article or its part are indicated. The so-called serial publications (“Scientific Notes”, “Historical Notes”, “Literary Heritage”, etc.) are described as periodical publications. When describing editions of texts by writers of the 18th century. the place, publishing house or publisher are indicated (if available on title page), number of pages and header data. For literary books, the compilers considered it possible, in order to save space, to shorten the bibliographic description, omitting information about publishers and publishing houses, but retaining the above-title information if it contains information about the scientific series, the institution that prepared the publication, or is the second title of the book.

Pseudonyms are revealed according to the “Dictionary of Pseudonyms” by I. F. Masanov. Authors of anonymous works are revealed mainly in accordance with published lists of their works.

This bibliography is divided into two parts: a general section and a personal bibliography section.

The general section contains 14 thematic bibliographies covering the history of Russian literature of the 18th century. V various aspects, as well as in its connections with the socio-political history of Russia, the history of theater, music, art and culture, journalism, censorship, publishing and bookselling.

In thematic departments, if relevant literature is available, the following headings are distinguished: “Collections of texts”, “Literature”, “Reference department”.

The “Literature” section brings together studies devoted to this problem. This also includes works containing publications of materials and newly discovered works of the 18th century, which is indicated in the annotations to these works.

The “Reference Section” provides the main bibliography, allowing the researcher to expand the range of literature recorded by the compilers.

Section “Classics of Marxism-Leninism on the history of Russia in the 18th century.” records the statements of Marx-Engels-Lenin, as well as works devoted to these statements.

In the section “History of Literature of the 18th Century” general courses on the history of literature, works, dedicated to research individual periods of the literary process, historical and literary study of individual genres of the 18th century, periodization of literature, tasks of its study, etc. Within the department, the problem of “Connections of literature of the 18th century with Old Russian literature and literature of the 19th century” is highlighted.

In the section on “History of Literary Language in the 18th Century” there is a heading “Linguistics”, where works covering the activities of writers and translators of the 18th century are registered. problems of literary language.

The “Public Thought and Journalism” department records literature about the socio-political life of Russia in the 18th century, against the background of which the formation of new Russian literature took place. In addition to special historical studies on the history of Russian social thought in the 18th century, this includes monographic works on the largest public figures and publicists, about the peasant question in the 18th century, “enlightened absolutism” and the activities of the “Commission for drafting a new Code”, about the anti-serfdom movements of the masses of Russia. The subsections “Freemasonry” and “Religious and Atheistic Thought” are specially highlighted, where materials on the literature of the Old Believers, official church literature and the development of anti-religious ideology are taken into account.

Section “Periodicals and Criticism”, dedicated to history Russian press of the 18th century, is supplemented by the section “Censorship”, which contains materials about the persecution of literature by secular and spiritual authorities.

The department “Literary and cultural contacts” is devoted to the problem of acquaintance with foreign literature and culture in Russia in the 18th century, the influence foreign literature on Russian and Russian literature on literature of other countries. Theoretical works are grouped under the heading “The problem of literary and cultural relations in the 18th century”; works and collections of materials of a general nature are allocated to a special subsection. The subsections “Russian Literature and Antiquity”, “Russian-Slavic Relations” and “Connections with Eastern Countries” have been developed as independent topics. The rest of the material is grouped in the alphabet of foreign language literatures, and materials from English and North American literatures are combined as literature in English, the Russian-Spanish connections include literature from South America, and the Russian-German ones include works on Russian-Austrian connections. The “Dramaturgy” section includes literature on the history of dramatic genres of the 18th century. A special subsection includes literature on specific genre « folk drama", dedicated to its history in the 18th century. Works about playwrights, whose bibliography is included in the second part of the reference book (Personalia), are not listed in the “Dramaturgy” section.

The History of the Theater contains general courses on the history of theater and theatrical repertoire, the history of individual theaters, works on the typology of theater of the 18th century, articles and books about individual theater figures. Special subsections include “Musical theatre, ballet and music”, “Actors and acting art”, “Theatrical spectacles”, which in the 18th century were closely associated with both theater and literature.

The heading “Manuscript and Mass Literature” includes works about the existence of old tradition in the 18th century, about works created in the 18th century. and continued this tradition; about handwritten collections and literary “amateurism”; about the literature of the “middle” layer of readers: collections of jokes, popular print books and pictures.

Chapter " Folk art"records literature about works of folklore created in the 18th century, or having layers dating back to this time, as well as about the connections between literature and folk art.

Section “Education and Culture”, except general literature on this topic, takes into account in separate sections materials about educational institutions, which were often literary centers, and also includes a bibliography of works on libraries and museums in the 18th century.

The department “Publishing, book trading and bibliology” aims to show the external side of the history of literature in the 18th century, the methods and volume of distribution of books, the study of books by figures of the 18th century. The topics “Rare Editions” (mainly articles and notes by bibliophiles and bibliologists about rare and remarkable publications of the 18th century) and “Principles of publishing texts in the 18th century” are highlighted here as independent subsections.

The “Personalia” section includes 53 personal bibliographies of writers of the 18th century. The list of writers is compiled on the basis of volumes III-IV of the “History of Russian Literature” published by the Academy of Sciences and takes into account the main figures of the literary process, whose work has been studied quite intensively and comprehensively.

Each personal bibliography consists of the headings “Works”, “Literature”, “Reference Department”.

“Works” includes the main lifetime editions of works and individual works the writer, as well as subsequent editions of works, collections and collected works that have retained scientific value or are important for studying the history of his heritage. Special attention devoted to scientific publications of the Soviet era. “Works” are supplemented by letters from the writer.

The heading “Literature” records the main literature and materials about the life and work of the writer. In the bibliographies of writers who have special biographical literature, the heading “Biographical Materials” is highlighted, and under the heading “Literature” only works about the writer’s work are collected. In the bibliographies of Radishchev and Lomonosov, the section “Problems of Worldview” is also highlighted, which takes into account works on the philosophical, political, pedagogical, etc. views of writers; in the bibliography of Ya. B. Knyazhnin - materials about the fate of the tragedy “Vadim Novgorod”.

The directory is closed by the “Alphabet of names, titles of periodicals, circles and societies” and the “Subject Index”. When compiling this bibliography, the following journals were examined especially carefully:

Bibliographer (1885-1895); Bibliographical notes (1858-1861); Bibliographical notes (1892); Voice of the Past (1913-1917); Ancient and new Russia (1875-1881); Living Antiquity (1890-1903; 1905-1916); Journal of the Ministry of Public Education (1834-1916); News of the Department of Russian Language and Literature of the Academy of Sciences (1896-1916); News of the Department of Russian Language and Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences (1917-1927); News on Russian language and literature (1928-1930); Historical Bulletin (1880-1916); Kyiv antiquity (1882-1906); Literary Bulletin (1901-1904); Russian antiquity (1870-1916); Russian archive (1863-1916); Russian bibliophile (1911-1916); Russian Philological Bulletin (1879-1916); Philological notes (1860-1916); Readings at the Society of Russian History and Antiquities at Moscow University (1858-1916); Ethnographic Review (1889-1916); “Scientific Notes” of Kazan, Moscow, Novorossiysk, St. Petersburg-Leningrad, Kharkov and Yuryevsk-Dorpat universities; materials published in the publications of the Vladimir, Voronezh, Vyatka, Ekaterinoslav, Irkutsk, Kaluga, Kostroma, Kursk, Nizhny Novgorod, Orenburg, Penza, Perm, Poltava, Ryazan, Saratov, Smolensk, Taurida, Tula, Chernigov, Yaroslavl “Scientific Archive Commissions”.

Materials from card files and bibliographic collections were also used:

Card index of S. A. Vengerov. Registers literature of the 19th-20th centuries. (up to 1912 inclusive) - IRLI Archive.

Bio-bibliographic files of B. L. and L. B. Modzalevsky and V. I. Saitov. Includes mostly pre-1930s material. - IRLI Archive.

Card index of the collection of books and clippings by A. I. Lyashchenko - BAN USSR.

Personal card index-library on Russian literature of the 18th century. P. N. Berkova.

Card index of journal articles on literary issues. Analytical list of Russian magazines since 1934 - IRL Library.

Card index of articles from “Scientific Notes”, “Bulletins”, “Proceedings” of universities, pedagogical institutes, research institutions. Covers material from 1918. Compiled by A. D. Alekseev and G. Ya. Galagan. - Sector of Source Studies and Bibliography of the IRLI.

Alphabetical catalog of the library of the Institute of Russian Literature. Includes painting of collections, almanacs and prints from periodicals of the 19th-20th centuries.

Card index of the Department of Rare Books of the USSR BAN.

Systematic catalog of the BAN USSR.

Systematic catalog of the GPB named after. M. E. Saltykova-Shchedrin.

The compilers also reviewed lists of works by scientists specializing in the field of Russian literature of the 18th century, general reference books on the history of Russian literature and related disciplines, and available personal bibliographies of writers of the 18th century, “Book”, “Journal” and “Newspaper” chronicles.

The selected material was again reviewed de visu.

In this bibliographic index, Yu. V. Stennik compiled bibliographies of A. A. Ablesimov, I. S. Barkov, I. F. Bogdanovich, A. T. Bolotov, D. P. Gorchakov, S. G. Domashnev, G. P Kameneva, Ya. B. Knyazhnina, M. Komarova, E. I. Kostrova, V. A. Levshina, M. V. Lomonosova, V. I. Lukin, V. I. Maykov, M. A. Matinsky, M N. Muravyova, N. P. Nikoleva, N. I. Novikova, N. P. Osipova, V. P. Petrova, P. A. Plavilshchikova, M. I. Popov, N. N. Popovsky, A. A Rzhevsky, V. G. Ruban, N. N. Sandunov, G. N. Teplov, V. K. Trediakovsky, M. M. Kheraskov, M. D. Chulkova, N. F. Emin, F. A. Emin , Stefan Jaworski. " Common department"and other personal bibliographies were completed by V.P. Stepanov. The alphabetical index was compiled by N. D. Kochetkova; subject - V.P. Stepanov.

The compilers express their deep gratitude to all employees of the Institute of Russian Literature, an asset of the 18th century Group. and to the book reviewers K.D. Muratova and A.P. Mogilyansky, who took part in the discussion individual parts the index and the entire work as a whole, for valuable practical advice.

Publ. according to edition:
History of Russian literature of the 18th century. Bibliographic index /
compiled by V.P. Stepanov and Yu.V. Stennik.
Edited, with additions and preface
Corresponding Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences P. N. Berkov.
L.: Nauka, 1968. P. 3-11.

A proposed textbook on the history of Russian literature of the 18th century. focused on the program of higher humanities education, adopted and used in the practice of teaching the history of Russian literature in higher educational institutions Russian Federation. It differs from existing textbooks currently used in the pedagogical process in that the history of Russian literature of the 18th century. the author tried to consistently interpret in terms of historical poetics, paying primary attention to the uniqueness of genre models and the genre system.

A similar approach to studying and teaching the history of Russian literature of the 18th century. emerged in scientific works Russian philologists back in the 1920-1930s.

It is enough to mention at least the classic work of Yu. N. Tynyanov “Ode as an oratorical genre”, articles by L. V. Pumpyansky and whole line research by G. A. Gukovsky, starting from the article “On the Sumarokov tragedy” (1926) to the monograph “Russian poetry of the 18th century. (L., 1927), the problems of which were partly reflected in his textbook on the history of Russian literature of the 18th century.

In modern literary criticism, this trend has been continued in the works of Yu. M. Lotman, B. A. Uspensky, V. N. Toporov, N. D. Kochetkova and others. And it is precisely this trend that characterizes the main direction of modern historical and literary science that has turned out to be least reflected in existing textbooks on the history of Russian literature of the 18th century.

The desire to bring the content of the textbook, addressed to teachers and students of higher education, closer to the main trend of modern philological science, obviously gravitating in its development towards cultural knowledge and the methodology of historical poetics, dictated the main aspect of the presentation of historical and literary facts, which the author of the proposed textbook sought to adhere to in all cases.

Without deviating from traditionally established ideas about the historical and literary paradigm of the 18th century. and the generally accepted chronological principle of its development, the author tried to consistently interpret the history of Russian literature of the 18th century. in the aspect of historical poetics, that is, to present the literary process of the era under study as the history of the emergence, development, interaction and change of productive genre models of Russian literature, considering that this aspect in the existing educational literature has received incomparably less attention than the ideological, worldview, problematic and sociological.

Thus, in the proposed textbook Russian literature of the 18th century. is not presented as a set of exhaustive descriptions creative heritage individual writers, but as a dynamic genre system. It was this initial position that determined the basic principles of selection literary material and his compositions.

First of all, the proposed angle of view forced the author to abandon the generally accepted principle of factual encyclopedicism, as determining the thematic composition of the textbook, in particular, to omit biographical information about writers, to introduce historical commentary only in in some cases, necessary from the point of view of aesthetic factors for interpreting a given text, as well as to make a targeted selection of texts from the totality of the creative heritage of Russian writers of the 18th century.

As a rule, the biographical empiricism of life writer XVIII V. has little connection with his literary personality, represented by the leading genres of his work and the scale of functioning of his author’s genre models in the literary consciousness of the era. On the contrary, it was the literary personality that was the fundamental aesthetic innovation that distinguishes the author's Russian literature of the 18th century. from the anonymous bookishness of the Russian Middle Ages. Exceptions to the general pattern of the gap between the biographical and literary personality of the writer are very rare.

So, to talk about Lomonosov’s literary position, for example, information about his scientific activity, and for the analysis of the genre model of the solemn ode they are, in principle, inapplicable, since the personality of the author of the ode appears in it in an emphasized generalized human cross-section. To characterize Cantemir's satire, it is completely unimportant that he was a diplomat; the stylistic originality of Trediakovsky's lyrics and epic does not in any way correlate with his academic activities. On the other hand, Emin’s extraordinary biography directly determined the aesthetics and poetics of his novels, the autobiographical nature of Derzhavin’s lyrics is an aesthetic factor that determines its originality, and Karamzin’s life-building requires a correlation of his texts with the facts of his biography. In these and all similar, aesthetically motivated cases, the author sought to provide the necessary biographical information, omitting it in other cases that were not so important.

The same can be said about the motivations for introducing historical sketches of the era. Despite the fact that Russian history of the 18th century. was very stormy throughout the century, only two of its periods have aesthetic richness, both are transitional eras in the development of Russian mentality, Russian statehood and Russian literature. This is the era government reforms the beginning of the century, associated with the name of Peter I, and the first decades of the reign of Catherine II. The first gave birth to a new type of personality and mass aesthetic consciousness, which determined the general direction of the literary process, the second - a new type of relationship between ideology and aesthetics. Therefore, an outline of the socio-political and spiritual atmosphere is given only for these two cultural and historical periods. The new quality of Russian literature at the origins of the modern era of Russian culture and at the moment of the first deep crisis of the Enlightenment worldview in these cases is deeply motivated by extraliterary reality that comes into direct contact with aesthetic activities. Of course historical facts, the realities of Russian and European life, necessary for understanding this or that literary text, are constantly present on the pages of the textbook, but the nature of their aesthetic refraction is emphasized.

Finally, the criteria for selecting literary material are determined by the obvious inequality of genre models within the totality of literary texts of one writer: with the general diversity of these models for each creative individuality, the literary personality of the writer is determined only by individual genre structures - namely those that have the prospect of further existence not only in the literature of the 18th century, but also beyond its chronological boundaries. In the case of Kantemir, whose name has become synonymous with the genre of satire, with Lomonosov, whose literary personality is isomorphic to the genre of the solemn ode, with Bogdanovich - the “singer of Dushenka”, with Chulkov - the author of the first original Russian novel, Fonvizin - the “writer of Nedoroslya”, etc. ., such an approach probably does not need special motivation.

“ high comedy", presenting Kapnist as the author of the comedy "The Yabeda", focusing on the formation of the genre system of Russian sentimentalist prose in the works of Radishchev and Karamzin, etc.

It seems that the cross-cutting idea of ​​the proposed textbook also requires special motivation - namely, an emphasis on the existence of the tradition of the older genres of satire and solemn ode and the study of their functions in the Russian literary process of the 18th century. Yu. N. Tynyanov also showed the exceptional role of the oratorical solemn ode, which exhausted its genre existence in the work of the creator of this model, M. V. Lomonosov, but became an underlying tendency of the Russian literary process not only in the 18th century, but also in the first third of the 19th century. The same can be said about the patterns of existence of the genre of satire, which has grown into a trend in the development of Russian literature already beyond the boundaries of Cantemir’s work, where satire exists exclusively in its genre quality.