Voyage around the world on the frigate Pallas. Around the world voyage on the frigate Pallada

In order to establish new circumstances relevant to the criminal case, testimony previously given by the suspect or accused, as well as the victim or witness, can be checked or clarified at the site associated with the event under investigation.

Verification of testimony on the spot consists in the fact that a previously interrogated person reproduces on the spot the situation and circumstances of the event under investigation, points to objects, documents, traces that are important for the criminal case, and demonstrates certain actions. Any outside interference in the inspection process and leading questions are unacceptable.

Simultaneous on-site verification of the testimony of several persons is not permitted.

When drawing up a protocol for checking evidence on the spot during this investigative action, greater accuracy is ensured in reflecting everything shown, explained and discovered at the scene of the event, on the way to it or from it. If objective conditions (for example, driving a car on an uneven road) practically do not allow this, the investigator must keep a detailed rough record, from which it will be possible to compile a full text protocol.

The protocol can be written by hand or produced using technical means.

The on-site test protocol consists of three parts: introductory, descriptive and final.

In the introductory part the date and place of the verification of testimony on the spot, the time from which the investigative action began and the time of its completion, the position, rank and surname of the investigator, surnames, first names and patronymics and addresses of witnesses, surnames, initials and official position of persons participating in the investigative action are indicated.

After which a reference is made to Art. 194 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation, in accordance with which this investigative action is carried out, an indication of the procedural position and data of the person whose testimony is being verified, and the number of the criminal case in which it is being carried out.

The protocol must also contain a record explaining to the participants in the investigative actions their rights, duties, responsibilities and the procedure for conducting the investigative action, which is certified by the signatures of the participants in the investigative actions.

Also, the protocol should note that the persons participating in the investigative action were warned in advance about the use of technical means during the investigative action.

In addition, the weather condition is indicated, since it is essential for the correct perception of the process and results of checking the readings on site, as well as for the correct orientation of the person whose readings are being checked in the surrounding environment. After which the person whose testimony is being checked is asked to indicate the place where his testimony will be checked, and the answer of this person is indicated. If the movement of the participants was carried out to the place where the readings will be checked on the spot, in a car, then the type of vehicle and the possibility of viewing the surrounding environment from it are indicated.

In the descriptive part The protocol describes procedural actions in the order in which they were carried out. At the same time, the starting point is indicated, where the advance of its participants began, what was the order of their location (where were the person whose testimony is being verified, the witnesses and the investigator, as well as other invited persons), the content of the investigator’s questions and proposals, instructions, explanations and actions of the person are stated , whose testimony is checked during the movement to the scene of the event and upon arrival at the place, a description of the objects and other factual data indicated by this person is given. At the same time, their location on the ground (or indoors), general condition and individual characteristics are indicated, if they are related to the place under study and the event on it, and in general, are of interest for the investigation of the case. Along with this, other circumstances are described that will be established by the investigator independently, without the help of the person whose testimony is being verified, when studying the entire situation at the scene of the event, if they are relevant to the case.

All questions and instructions of the investigator are recorded in the protocol in the third person, and explanations and instructions of the person whose testimony is being verified are recorded in the first person. The instructions given by the latter by means of gestures or other conditioned signs are described with thoroughness, allowing one to understand their meaning.

As for various circumstances related to the peculiarities of the location of objects and traces at the scene of the event or on the approaches to it, with the individual characteristics of the objects themselves, when describing them the investigator must proceed from the specific circumstances of the case, take into account their significance for the investigation, for the correct assessment of evidence and actions of the person whose testimony is being verified.

In the final part The protocol indicates the technical means used in the production of the investigative action, the objects and documents attached to it (photographic negatives and photographs, films, slides, phonograms, video tapes, computer storage media, drawings, plans, diagrams, casts and prints of traces made during the production investigative action - part 8 of article 166 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation).

After this, the protocol is presented for review to all persons participating in the investigative action. At the same time, the indicated persons were explained their right to make comments on its addition and clarification to be included in the protocol, agreed upon and certified by the signatures of these persons. After this, the method of familiarizing persons with the protocol is indicated: by personal reading or by reading the protocol by the investigator (interrogating officer). All persons participating in the investigative action sign this protocol in the places provided for this.

Materials of the criminal case against Klykov.

Write a notification to the victim that the investigation is complete.

This investigative action has been legalized for the first time, although in practice it has been used before, and quite widely. Its purpose, as is now directly stated in the law (Part 1 of Article 194 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation), is “to establish new circumstances that are significant for the criminal case.” This formulation is of fundamental, key importance for understanding the essence of this investigative action; Without the “increase” of new circumstances, it, like any other investigative action to collect evidence, makes no sense. Verification of testimony on the spot consists in the fact that the previously interrogated person reproduces on the spot the situation and circumstances of the event under investigation, points to objects, documents, traces that are important for the criminal case, and demonstrates certain actions. Any outside interference in the inspection process and leading questions are unacceptable. Simultaneous on-site verification of the testimony of several persons is not permitted. Verification of testimony begins with an invitation to the person to indicate the place where his testimony will be checked. The person whose testimony is being checked may be asked questions after a free story and demonstration of actions. These are the norms of the current law regulating the procedure for this investigative action (parts 2 - 4 of article 194 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation). Scientists and practitioners have been engaged in a long-term debate about checking evidence on site. Some consider it an independent investigative action, others - a type of investigative examination, and still others - a type of investigative experiment. Of decisive importance in this debate is the answer to the question whether the method of obtaining new factual data when checking testimony on the spot is original, unique, not inherent in any other investigative action, if, of course, such obtaining takes place at all. The new Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation with its wording of Art. 194 did not put an end to these disputes, which once again confirms the sad observation: domestic theory, legislation and practice in resolving difficult issues each follow their own inscrutable path. To solve the problem, a strictly differentiated approach to all known to practice procedures for checking evidence on the spot, and especially to situations of this kind when the accused, who has admitted his guilt, is taken to the scene of a crime that has previously been examined and there is no need to re-examine it (for example, a city square where a murder took place a week ago) . Here, in the presence of witnesses, and sometimes high authorities, whose signature on the protocol is intended to give it special weight, the accused, at the suggestion of the investigator, repeats his confession, accompanying them with gestures, movements, words, imitation of criminal actions, without tying this imitation to anything objective existing. The protocol drawn up as a result of such an action, called the protocol for checking evidence on the spot (and sometimes - going to the place, going to the place, etc.), is usually signed by many persons present, who, by implication, are witnesses to the accused's admission of guilt. It is accompanied by impressive photographs, equipped with appropriate inscriptions (“Accused N. shows how he kicked the corpse to make sure that the victim is dead,” etc.), and sometimes a videotape that captures the testimony in dynamics. Such investigative measures are useless. They serve neither as a way to obtain new factual data (evidence), nor as a way to verify or consolidate existing ones. Repetition by the accused of his testimony fresh air does not provide new information, is not a new way of obtaining factual data and, thus, does not form an independent investigative action. If the accused in court refuses his testimony given in the investigator’s office, then the protocol of his interrogation in this office and the protocol of checking the testimony on the spot lose all significance. If the accused has incriminated himself, going to the scene deepens his sense of hopelessness and strengthens the need to persist in self-incrimination, and strengthens those around him and the investigator himself in the illusion of the strength of the accusation. Another version of the investigative action called “Checking testimony on the spot” is that the accused is also taken to a previously examined crime scene or to the place where traces of a crime were hidden (for example, to the burial site of the corpse of a murdered person), where he is asked to give (repeat) testimony and point to specific objects, places, traces and circumstances about which evidence is given that actually reflect the crime event. As a result of such a complex investigative action, combining the features of a repeated interrogation with a repeated examination, new relevant factual data (evidence) can be obtained. During a procedure of this kind, a coincidence of the factual circumstances recorded during the first investigative examination with the testimony of the accused, given in the specific conditions of the crime scene and accompanied by certain demonstrations on the part of the interrogated, is revealed. This coincidence is valuable in that it indicates the knowledge of the accused regarding certain circumstances of the crime event. The fact of such awareness serves as indirect incriminating evidence, which could not be obtained in any other way. So, if in a case of the theft of some thing, during an investigative examination of the scene of the incident, the location of the thing at the time of the theft was clearly recorded based on the remaining traces, and during a second examination, accompanied by testimony and certain actions of the accused, the latter firmly and accurately indicated the same place in a huge trading floor, warehouse, etc., the investigator has the right to conclude that the accused knows what item was stolen and (in detail) where the theft came from. This finding of fact has evidentiary value. It is not possible to obtain it through the most detailed interrogation of the accused, without leaving the investigator’s office. In this case, checking testimony on the spot has especially much in common with an investigative examination with the participation of the accused, suspect, witness or victim. The main content of this procedure is an inspection, visual examination of a place, premises, objects with the participation of attesting witnesses and, accordingly, with the participation of the accused, suspect, victim, witness. But there are also significant differences. First, the goals differ. The purpose of the investigative examination is to detect traces of a crime, other material evidence, to find out the circumstances of the incident, as well as other circumstances relevant to the case. The purpose of checking the testimony follows from the interrogation of the testimony itself, as it is established on the spot through inspection. But if, during the verification of evidence on the spot, material evidence is discovered, important data about the situation of the incident or other circumstances relevant to the case are revealed, then they, naturally, must be examined and recorded accordingly in the protocol. Unsteadiness theoretical foundations Such verification of testimony on the spot as an independent investigative action lies in its obvious similarity with an investigative experiment, which is especially clearly manifested in typical investigative situations that arise during the investigation of criminal cases of murder using not firearms, but bladed weapons or heavy household objects, as well as laces , straps, ropes and other means of strangulation (nooses). If a person accused of murder pleads guilty, describes in detail the mechanism of the crime and agrees to demonstrate it, then it is quite natural that the investigator will not refuse to check the reliability of the testimony in this way. Such a demonstration “on record” using dummies and video recording, if well organized, can clearly show that the accused: a) according to his physical characteristics, could, can (or, conversely, could not, cannot) take the life of the victim under circumstances where whom the crime was committed; b) knows the mechanism of causing death in detail, which follows from a comparison of testimonies, their verification on the spot and objective data on bodily injuries found on the corpse during its examination and expert research causes of death. It is generally accepted that in such cases the testimony of the accused is verified on the spot. To call it exactly that and correctly draw up an investigative protocol under that name means to obtain evidence without breaking the law, and in general not to “sin” anything in practical terms. From a theoretical position, one cannot help but notice that the essence of such an action lies in the same experience, which is the essence of an investigative experiment. When planning this procedural action, setting yourself the task of finding out whether this person knows about certain circumstances and whether he could perform certain actions under certain conditions, the investigator plans nothing more than an experimental action, a test of a certain person either for awareness or for his ability. Third option: the investigator does not know the scene of the crime (or the place where the crime was concealed, the place where the stolen goods were sold, etc.), but the accused during interrogation expressed a desire to show this place, since he is not able to describe it, and at this place explain the details of the criminal event. The action that is in this case called verification of evidence on the spot, consists in the fact that the investigator (or an operational worker acting on behalf of the investigator) together with the accused, the convoy (if the accused is in custody), witnesses and other persons go to the location indicated by the accused starting point on the ground or in a populated area, and from there they go to where the accused is leading them, who along the way talks about how he relates to the crime event. Upon arrival, the investigator, depending on the specific circumstances of the case, carries out the appropriate investigative action at the place indicated by the accused, most often an investigative inspection (for example, the place where the crime was committed, where the corpse, murder weapon or stolen property is hidden). In some cases of this kind, a search or seizure is required, in others, investigative actions are not required at all; more precisely, it all comes down to a trip. So, if the accused, as a result of leaving and orientation on the spot, led to the door of a city apartment that had once been robbed by him, about which the investigator did not have any data, and the door was opened by a tenant who confirmed that the robbery actually took place and that this was reported to such and such a department police, then the investigator (investigative and operational group) has nothing more to do in this place. One way or another, the accused, who expressed a desire to show the crime scene unknown to the investigative authorities, revealed his awareness of certain objectively existing circumstances crime committed, which serves as indirect evidence against him. It is this circumstance that allows us to talk about an awareness test as a way of obtaining evidence. But, as it was persistently emphasized above, testing and experience constitute the meaning of another investigative action, which, according to the definition of the law (Article 181 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation), is also carried out in order to verify and clarify data relevant to the case, in particular by performing the necessary experimental actions . This means that if an investigator, organizing a visit with the accused, sets the task of testing whether this participant in the process really knows about certain circumstances, such a visit is an experimental action that forms the core of the investigative experiment. To what has been said, it should be added that the trip itself, orientation to the area, group search specific place or certain objects are not regulated in the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation. Trips of this kind cannot be regulated, since in this case it is almost impossible to foresee the development of events, which means that they cannot be squeezed into the framework of an investigative action. This circumstance may serve as an argument against recognizing such an on-site verification of testimony as an independent investigative action. In any case, the actions preceding arrival at the place where the actual procedural, legally regulated actions (inspection, search, etc.) are carried out are rather operational-search, search, similar to the actions of an operative worker who carries out a raid with the victim in for the purpose of searching and identifying a suspect, for example, in robbery, robbery, rape, etc., or organizes, with the participation of a witness (witnesses), surveillance of people entering the territory of the enterprise in order to identify among them the one about whom testimony was given. A document (report) drawn up by an operative officer based on the results of such unregulated activities is a source of evidence (Article 89 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation). The position is that this document is a less reliable source of evidence than the investigative protocol on visiting the site, because the latter is signed not only by the investigator and his travel companion, i.e. accused, but also witnesses, does not stand up to criticism. It is especially difficult to call an investigative action such an exit (departure, trip), which ended in vain, when the accused, commanding the investigator (“went right”, “went left”), finally declares that he was lost (changed his mind, tired, etc. .). Genuine investigative actions are planned, directed and carried out not by the accused, but by the investigator. 5.10.

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Chapter Eight Voyage on the frigate "Pallada"

Chapter Eight

Voyage on the frigate "Pallada"

In the autumn of 1852, among Goncharov’s friends and acquaintances, and then in St. Petersburg literary circles news spread: Goncharov is going to circumnavigation. People who knew Goncharov were amazed. No one could have thought that this sedentary and phlegmatic in appearance man, “de-Laziness,” could decide to do such an act.

“An extraordinary incident!”

Goncharov’s appearance subsequently misled many. Some saw him as Oblomov's double. True, Oblomov also dreamed of traveling to distant countries, but he did not move further than his sofa. Behind his phlegmatic appearance, Goncharov hid a man of enormous creative energy, a lively and clear Russian mind, and great and humane feelings. That such natures were born in Russian life at that time - our great poet-fabulist I. A. Krylov can also serve as an example...

Every person has their own cherished romantic dream in life. Goncharov had a dream about the sea, about traveling around the world. “A passion for the sea lived in my soul,” he admitted in his “Memoirs.”

This “passion for water” began in his childhood. His godfather N.N. Tregubov contributed a lot to this with his exciting stories about the exploits of sea travelers, about the discoverers of new lands. “As he grew old, and I came of age,” Goncharov recalled, “a transfer was established between me and him—on his part, and on mine, a lively receptivity of his serious technical knowledge.” In particular, Goncharov was entirely indebted to Tregubov for his serious knowledge of maritime affairs and the history of navigation, which was so useful to him on his trip around the world. Tregubov had some nautical instruments, a telescope, a sextant, a chronometer, and he taught his godson how to use them. “...One might perhaps think,” Goncharov later said, “that more than one occasion gave me such a mentor for my future long journey.”

Already in his adolescence, Goncharov read a number of books on geography, which he found in his godfather’s rich library.

The youthful romantic desire to “see distant countries described in travel” over the years turned into a conscious and serious interest in geographical knowledge. In St. Petersburg, Goncharov made acquaintances with members of the then newly established Russian Geographical Society: V. I. Dahlem, A. P. Zablotsky-Desyatovsky, G. S. Karelin and others.

But first of all, upon his arrival in St. Petersburg, Goncharov hurried to visit Kronstadt and “examine the sea and everything marine.” Walking along Vasilievsky Island, he looked at the ships “with pleasure” and “smelled the smell of resin and hemp ropes.”

But, of course, it was not this love of the sea, the desire to fulfill his “old dream” that mainly prompted Goncharov to sail around the world on a frigate.

Other, more important reasons prompted him to do this...

Like many Russian people then, Goncharov acutely felt that in Russia “they were preventing you from breathing freely.” The ban on writing on issues of serfdom cut the ground from under the feet of progressive Russian writers. Goncharov also saw and felt this. He was aware of the threat that arose to the implementation of the plan of the novel “Oblomov”. Still, he “occasionally... sat down and wrote,” but then again left work for a long time. Years passed, but only the first part was written, which included “Oblomov’s Dream.”

In Goncharov's letters dating back to this time, one can hear a growing dissatisfaction with life. The writer is increasingly burdened by the need to be daily “within four walls with several dozen similar faces, uniformed officers,” that is, service, bureaucratic burdens, the monotony of the environment and everyday life.

At the time when Goncharov was preparing to travel on a frigate, he was already forty years old. The experience was difficult and difficult. Impressionable and nervous by nature, Goncharov very keenly, with a sharp pain in his soul, perceived the unsettled state of his life and that of his entire life. “If you knew,” Goncharov wrote in a somewhat exaggerated tone to I. I. Lkhovsky, with whom he became close friends during his joint service in the Ministry of Finance (July 1853), “through what dirt, through what debauchery, trifle, rudeness of concepts, mind , heart movements of the soul I passed from the shrouds and what it cost my poor nature to go through the phalanx of eternal moral and material dirt and delusions in order to climb out onto the path on which you saw me, still rude, unclean, clumsy and still sighing after that a bright and beautiful human image, which I often dream about and which, I feel, I will always chase as fruitlessly as his shadow chases a person.”

In the appearance of Goncharov as a person, we do not find a drop of complacency. There was always some kind of mercilessness, bitterness, irony and even mockery in what he said and wrote about himself. This man’s large, clear mind and humane heart longed for a bright and active life. Goncharov fervently, with all his soul, wished the good of his homeland, dreamed of its bright future, and had good feelings for the people. And naturally, such a person could not be satisfied with Russian reality.

Longing for the inspired creative work, “awareness of uselessly rotting forces and abilities,” the desire to change the situation, to enrich oneself with new impressions - this was the main reason why Goncharov in 1852 decided to go on a trip around the world on the frigate “Pallada”.

From Apollo Maykov, Goncharov learned that one of the Russian warships was going around the world for two years. Maikov was offered to go as the secretary of this expedition, since they needed a person who would “write well in Russian, a writer.” But Maikov refused and recommended Goncharov.

And Ivan Alexandrovich began to fuss “with all his might.”

Before sailing, Goncharov, in a letter to E. A. Yazykova, explained this action of his as follows: “I believe,” he wrote, “that if I had stocked up on all the impressions of such a trip, then perhaps I would have lived the rest of my life more fun... Everyone was surprised that I could decide on such a long and dangerous path - I, so lazy and spoiled! Anyone who knows me will not be surprised by this determination. Sudden changes make up my character, I am never the same for two weeks in a row, and if outwardly I seem constant and true to my habits and inclinations, it is because of the immobility of the forms in which my life is contained.”

He expressed the reason for his departure with deep sincerity in a letter to E.P. and N.A. Maykov from England: “So that’s why he left, you might think: he was dying alive at home from idleness, boredom, heaviness and desolation in his head and heart; there was nothing to refresh the imagination, etc. All this is true, there I completely died slowly and boringly: I had to change it to something, worse or better - it doesn’t matter, just to change it.”

All these confessions of the writer regarding the reasons that prompted him to go are covered up in the letter with the words “I was just joking... and meanwhile fate grabbed me in its claws.” This is not only subtle irony at oneself. Perhaps these words reflect the moment when a person has hesitations, but he involuntarily surrenders to the course of things.

Preparing to leave, Goncharov joyfully exclaimed: “...And my life will not be an idle reflection of small, boring phenomena. I was renewed, all the dreams and hopes of my youth, youth itself returned to me. Hurry, hurry, get on your way!” He was “not happy” in St. Petersburg. There was also a deeply personal reason for this. Once at the Yazykovs, Goncharov met their relative Augusta Andreevna Kolzakova. She excited him, awakened in him hopes for love and happiness. But for some reason this romance soon faded away or was extinguished with effort. And before leaving for a circumnavigation of the world, all that remained in Ivan Alexandrovich’s memory, as he later said, was the image of her “ pure beauty" And he “left calmly, with a steady beating heart and dry eyes.”

Both as a person and as an artist, Goncharov constantly thirsted for “updating” of his impressions and observations. He was always attracted to the distance of the new, unknown.

Going on a voyage, Goncharov hoped that participation in the voyage of a Russian ship would enrich him with new impressions and sensations; he intended to write a book, which, in his opinion, “in any case would be entertaining,” even if he “simply, without any pretensions literary,” wrote down only what he saw. But at the same time, he anxiously asked himself where “to get the strength to perceive a mass of great impressions,” to understand them, so that he could tell the public about them correctly, “without any lies.”

The patriotic writer, the realist writer, was deeply aware of the responsibility a competent traveler has to his compatriots who follow the voyage, and thoughtfully and seriously prepared “for the report.”

Traveling “without an idea,” in his opinion, is just fun. Goncharov formulated his idea of ​​travel as follows: “Yes, to travel with pleasure and with benefit,” he wrote in one of his first essays, “means to live in the country and merge your life at least a little with the life of the people you want to know: here you will certainly spend parallel, which is the desired result of the journey. This peering, thinking into someone else's life, whether into the life of an entire people or one person separately, gives the observer such a universal and private lesson, which you won’t find in books or in any schools” (my italics - A.R.).

Throughout the entire journey, Goncharov steadily followed this principle of his. The writer’s desire to draw “a parallel between someone else’s and one’s own” in everything reveals to us his intense thoughts about his homeland, about its destinies. Many countries and peoples, various pictures of nature passed before his eyes, as if in a kaleidoscope. But everywhere and everywhere the image of home country, which feudal lawlessness and backwardness doomed to Oblomovism. In the writer’s imagination, pictures of patriarchal local life arose, the image of a Russian landowner in an atmosphere of “active laziness and lazy activity.” Then he saw “a long row of poor huts, half covered with snow. A man in patches makes his way along the path with difficulty. He has a canvas bag hanging over his shoulder, and in his hands is a long staff, like the ancients carried.”

A bleak, sad picture! What pain for the homeland it caused in the Russian traveler!..

“We are so deeply rooted in our home that no matter where and how long I go, I will carry the soil of my native Oblomovka on my feet, and no oceans will wash it away,” Goncharov wrote when the frigate was in the ocean. The writer said with bitterness that the soil of his homeland is “the soil of Oblomovka,” and on the way he nurtured thoughts and images for passionate denunciation of Oblomovism. In everything that he saw, observed, learned while traveling on the frigate, he confidently and persistently looked for arguments against patriarchy and Oblomovism from which Russia suffered.

Whatever prompted Goncharov to participate in the expedition, he actually traveled, as he himself said more than once, “out of official necessity.”

What was this “need”?

“The Admiral,” Goncharov said in one of his first travel letters, “told me that my main duty would be to write down everything that we see, hear, and meet. Do they really want to make me the Homer of their campaign? Oh, they'll be wrong..."

However, Goncharov coped with this responsibility perfectly and became a wonderful chronicler-artist, a “singer of the campaign” - moreover, by no means “ex officio”, as he initially thought. His “Essays on Circumnavigation”, published in 1855 in magazines and published in 1858 separate publication, under the name “Frigate “Pallada”,” immortalized the heroism of this campaign, which had the peaceful goal of establishing trade relations with Japan.

The frigate Pallada set out from Kronstadt on October 7, 1852 for a circumnavigation of the world. The campaign took place in difficult conditions and was a remarkable feat of the Russian people. The ship's command and crew had to overcome numerous obstacles and difficulties along the way - not only of a purely nautical nature, but also of a military-political nature.

At one time, the frigate "Pallada" was one of the best beautiful ships of the Russian navy. Its first commander was P.S. Nakhimov. But by the time of the trip to Japan, the ship was outdated and its service life was coming to an end. Already at the very beginning of the voyage, after strong and prolonged storms in the Baltic Sea, and especially after the Pallada “ran aground” upon entering the Sound Strait, damage was discovered in the ship’s hull, and the frigate had to undergo major repairs in Portsmouth . The ship set off on a further voyage only at the beginning of January 1853. Favorable time for sailing around Cape Horn was missed, and the route had to be changed: “Pallada” went not to the west, to South America, as previously planned, but to the east, to the cape Good Hope.

But even here the weather was not favorable for swimming. The ship moved forward in a stubborn struggle with the elements. “In general, the second part of the voyage (that is, after the Cape of Good Hope. - A.R.),” Goncharov reported to Maykov on May 25, 1853, “was marked by continuous calms, daily thunderstorms and squalls.” “Our frigate is more than bad,” wrote Goncharov. Ahead were the most “hurricane seas”.

The most severe sailing conditions became beyond the Cape of Good Hope, where, in the words of our traveler, they were “shattered by a storm.” “Classic in all its form,” according to the sailors themselves and Goncharov, the frigate overcame the storm in the Indian Ocean. But he passed his main test in the Pacific Ocean, where he was overtaken by the strongest of sea storms. It seemed that the old ship, damaged by previous storms, could not withstand the pressure of the formidable elements.

There is no doubt that only thanks to the courage of the Russian sailors, their skill, tirelessness and willingness to spare no effort in the struggle for the honor and glory of their homeland, the old frigate withstood all the trials that befell it and justified the name inscribed on its board - “Pallada”, which means in Russian "Victory".

The labor heroism of the campaign was combined with combat and military heroism. In 1853, Türkiye declared war on Russia. Soon after this, England and France came out against Russia. A grandiose battle for Sevastopol began.

The frigate Pallada, then in the Pacific Ocean, was faced with the need to prepare for combat operations.

The British command gave a special order to capture the Russian ship and dispatched a squadron for this purpose, which, by the way, never completed its task. It was destroyed by the Russians off the coast of Kamchatka. Goncharov later proudly recalled the “heroic repulse of the British from this peninsula” in his essay “Across Eastern Siberia.”

Despite the threat from the British, the Pallada did not even think about surrendering: these were not the traditions of Russian sailors.

“And they say here,” Goncharov wrote to Maykov at that moment, “that they will not surrender alive, - and if necessary, they will fight, listen, to the last drop of blood.”

In his later years, Goncharov told A.F. Koni about a fact that remained secret during the frigate’s voyage. When Admiral Putyatin received news of the declaration of war on Russia by England and France, he called senior officers to his cabin and, in the presence of Goncharov, binding them all with an obligation to secrecy, said that due to the impossibility of a sailing frigate to successfully fight the enemy’s screw-driven iron ships or leave from him - he decided to “grab them and explode.”

The voyage of the frigate "Pallada" is covered with genuine heroism, and the images of Russian sailors are covered with it. This is inspired and truthfully captured in Goncharov’s essays.

“...The history of the voyage of the ship itself,” he later wrote, “of this small Russian world with four hundred inhabitants, which rushed across the oceans for two years, the peculiar life of the sailors, the features of sea life - all this in itself is also capable of attracting and retaining the sympathies of readers... »

First of all, it was this patriotic romance, this real Russian heroism that at one time attracted and still attracts readers to Goncharov’s “Frigate “Pallada”.

Goncharov developed a deep sympathy for the Russian sailors, participants in the campaign, who, as he put it, were “fiercely devoted to the cause.”

On the ship he became close not only with a circle of officers, but also made acquaintances with sailors. However, this communication, apparently, was not widespread, which was partly, apparently, explained by the fact that Goncharov sailed “on official business” and was the admiral’s secretary. According to the charter and the existing concepts of that time, management personnel were not supposed to enter into personal communication with lower ranks.

In Goncharov’s essays, little space is devoted to descriptions of ship life, the relationship between the rank and file and the command staff of the ship. Goncharov was forced to keep silent about many negative phenomena and facts that took place on the frigate. At that time, corporal punishment had not yet been abolished in the navy. Not all officers were the “fathers” of the sailors, they knew their souls and sought not to instill fear in their subordinates, but “love and trust,” as one of the outstanding Russian naval commanders, Admiral Senyavin, bequeathed.

Goncharov sincerely sympathized with the plight of the sailors, who not only had to perform hard and dangerous work, but also endure the arbitrariness and rudeness of officers, and the cruelty of reactionary military discipline. However, due to censorship conditions, he could only talk about this in letters. Regarding the publication in the press of materials about the navy and especially facts characterizing the attitude of officers towards sailors, there were special censorship regulations and prohibitions. In letters to friends, Goncharov also spoke about harsh conditions the life of sailors, and about bad food, and about diseases that claimed many lives, and about accidents due to overwork and stress of people in the fight against the elements, and about corporal punishment...

But no matter how narrow the circle of ordinary people, sailors, brought out in the “Frigate “Pallada””, and no matter how meager the story about their everyday life, it is clearly visible that the author has good feelings for them. The image of Faddeev is drawn especially warmly and vividly by Goncharov. Goncharov clearly liked this hardworking and resourceful sailor from the peasantry. Everything about him is original: “He brought to foreign shores,” notes Goncharov, “his Kostroma element and did not dilute it with a drop of someone else’s.” Everything about him reminded Goncharov of distant Russia.

In Faddeev, as in other sailors, Goncharov was always struck by his amazing calmness, “evenness of spirit.” Whether circumstances are good or bad, he, this simple Russian man, is always calm and strong in spirit in the simplest sense of the word. However, Goncharov saw very well that there was no hint of submission to fate in this. “Everything bounces off this calm,” the writer notes, “except for one, indestructible desire for one’s duty - to work, to death, if necessary.”

The trip gave Goncharov the opportunity to see even more clearly and understand what powerful forces lie hidden in the Russian people, who are not afraid of work and struggle.

In his essays, Goncharov did not have the opportunity to expand on discussions about the officer corps. He could not, in particular, tell what he knew and what he thought about Admiral Putyatin, who, although considered an experienced sailor, was a reactionary in his views, distinguished by hypocrisy and tyranny. Goncharov was forced to keep silent about the fact that Putyatin created an unbearably difficult atmosphere on the frigate, was in constant quarrels with the commander of the Pallada, I. S. Unkovsky, and these quarrels almost once led to a duel between them.

It did not escape the writer’s attention that the frigate’s officer corps was not distinguished by unanimity and cohesion. Quite a few of the officers were cultured and humane people, brought up on the best, progressive traditions of the Russian fleet. The ship's commander himself, I. S. Unkovsky, was a wonderful sailor, a student of the famous M. P. Lazarev. However, a significant part of the ship's officers, starting with the head of the expedition, Admiral Putyatin, was reactionary.

In his essays, Goncharov showed typical representatives of the Nikolaev military clique. This is Lieutenant N. Kridner - small man with the baronial fanabery - and midshipman P. A. Zeleny, who later was the mayor of Odessa and became famous for his tyranny.

The spirit of the Nikolaev reaction made itself felt throughout the life of the Russian warship. Goncharov also experienced his influence, which was manifested in some of his judgments about the peoples of Africa and Asia. But the most important thing is that during the trip Goncharov was closer to the progressive, rather than the reactionary circle of officers on the ship, and that his progressive, anti-serfdom views became stronger during the campaign.

A lot is said, for example, by the fact that one of the officers of the frigate, and then the commander of the schooner “Vostok”, which Putyatin bought in England and assigned to the frigate, V. A. Rimsky-Korsakov, was distinguished by his wide education and humane treatment to his subordinates, enjoyed special respect from Goncharov. In his travel letters, Goncharov draws with undisguised sympathy a portrait of the ship’s senior officer I. I. Butakov. When Lieutenant Butakov was sent by Putyatin from Singapore to St. Petersburg on a special mission, Goncharov handed him a letter to be passed on to the Yazykovs. “Receive him,” he wrote about Butakov to Yazykov, “both as a messenger about a friend and as good man, especially since he doesn’t have a soul of acquaintances in St. Petersburg. He served in the Black Sea all his century, and for good reason: he is a magnificent sailor. When inactive, he is apathetic or likes to hide somewhere in a corner and sleep; but in a storm and generally at a critical moment - all fire. And now, at this moment, he is screaming so that, I think, his voice can be heard at once in both Java and Sumatra. He is the second person on the frigate, and if there is a need for management, speed, whether something will burst, whether it will fall out of place, whether water will flow in streams into the ship - his voice is heard above everyone and everywhere, and the speed of his considerations and orders is amazing. The admiral sends him by courier to ask for a newer and stronger frigate in exchange for the Pallas, which leaks like a sieve and turns out to be very unreliable for a long voyage” (from Goncharov’s letter dated May 18, 1853).

The writer put a lot of soul into the image of senior navigator A. A. Khalezov, nicknamed Grandfather in the navy. How much is truly Russian in his character, appearance, language, truly people's power and beauty in his soul!

The fact that Goncharov’s sympathies were decisively on the side of sailors like Rimsky-Korsakov, Unkovsky, Khalezov, Butakov is not difficult to notice when reading “The Frigate “Pallada”. Goncharov was close friends with them and constantly spent time in their circle. In one of his letters to the Maykovs (from the Sunda Strait), he wrote: “The four of us always gather at the captain’s to have a snack in the evening, and we sit until two o’clock.” “The four of us” are the commander himself, I. S. Unkovsky, senior officer I. I. Butakov, captain-lieutenant K. N. Posyet, a friend of the writer, and, finally, Goncharov himself.

There is no doubt that in this close circle of frigate officers, not only military, but also other political issues related to internal state Russia. Many people saw the terrible backwardness of the country and all the rottenness of the Nikolaev system at that time.

It was hard then for a Russian person to be far from his native land and not have news about events. It was also hard for Goncharov, but he preferred to express these experiences not in “travel essays”, but in letters to his closest people. In one of his letters on the way to the Maykovs, regarding the terrible trials brought to Russia by the war, he said: “I so keenly sympathize with what is moving you and all of Rus' at the present time...” Reading “The Frigate “Pallada”, we feel this all the time patriotic feeling.

For Goncharov, the frigate is a “corner of Russia”, a “small Russian world, a living particle” of a distant homeland.

Here is a ship at the equator - in the “serene kingdom of warmth and silence.” The squall passed, and the frigate again “fell asleep in the calm.” And it’s February outside. We waited until Maslenitsa. Company commander Pyotr Aleksandrovich Tikhmenev did everything to somehow recall this “cheerful moment of Russian life.” He baked pancakes and replaced the caviar with sardines. It is impossible for Maslenitsa not to bring at least one smile to the Russian traveler. And everyone laughed, like sailors carrying each other on their shoulders near the masts. Celebrating Maslenitsa among the sultry swells of the Atlantic, they remembered skating on ice and replaced it with riding on each other - more successfully than the company commander replaced caviar with sardines. “Looking at how both the young and the gray-haired mustaches are having fun, riding on each other,” our traveler notes, “you will burst out laughing at this natural, national tomfoolery: it’s better than Neptune’s flaxen beard and faces sprinkled with flour.”

There was no shortage of opportunities to have fun. “Not only on holidays, but also on weekdays, after school and all the work, songwriters and musicians are whistled upstairs. And now the distance of the sea, under these blue and clear skies, resounds with the sounds of a Russian song, filled with frantic joy, God knows from what joys, and accompanied by frenzied dancing, or you will hear the groans and cries that are so familiar to you, grabbing your heart from some ancient, historical, long-forgotten suffering.”

In everyday life, one extraordinary, solemn morning stood out. According to tradition, on March 1, which, apparently, was the ship’s “name day,” after mass and the usual review of the crew, after asking whether she was happy with everything, if anyone had any complaints, everyone, officers and sailors, gathered on deck. Everyone bared their heads: the admiral came out with a book and read aloud the naval regulations of Peter the Great.

Then everything went back to normal again - the days flowed monotonously. “In this calm, solitude from the whole world, in warmth and radiance, the frigate takes on the appearance of some remote steppe Russian village. You will get up in the morning, without rushing anywhere, with complete balance in the strength of your soul, with excellent health, with a fresh head and appetite, pour several buckets of water on yourself straight from the ocean and walk, drink tea, then sit down to work. The sun is already high, the heat is scorching: in the village at this hour you will not go to look at the rye or to the threshing floor. You sit under the protection of the marquise on the balcony, and everything hides under the roof, even the birds, only dragonflies soar bravely over the ears of corn. And we hide under the stretched awning, opening the windows and doors of the cabins wide. The breeze blows slightly, gently refreshing your face and open chest. The sailors have already dined (they have lunch early, before noon, as in the village, after morning work) and groups sit or lie between the guns. Others sew underwear, dresses, boots, quietly humming a song; The sound of a hammer hitting an anvil can be heard from the tank. The roosters crow, and their voice carries far away amid the clear silence and serenity. Some other fantastic sounds are heard, as if the distant ringing of bells, barely perceptible by the ear... A sensitive imagination, full of dreams and expectations, creates these sounds among the silence, and against the background of this blue sky some distant images..."

You will read this picture, painted as if not with a pen, but with a brush and paints, where everything is so natural and poetic, and you will think. And something will stir up, excite the soul...

Goncharov built a reputation on the ship courageous man. That's what he really was. But since Goncharov’s narration is “from himself,” one might think that the image of the traveler who is in the center of the book is the image of Goncharov himself. In reality this is not the case or not always the case.

The central character in the essays, their hero, is a purely prosaic, ordinary person, accustomed to comfort, an ordinary official, whom God knows why fate tore away from the daily visits of the department and the conveniences of city life and threw him onto the “unsteady bosom of the seas.” Goncharov makes fun of his hero, calling him and even himself the traveling Oblomov. But all this is a subtle and cleverly conceived irony. Oblomov did not dare to cross the Neva, but Goncharov traveled around the whole world.

From Goncharov's travel letters we see that it cost him great health and strength to endure all the hardships and hardships associated with sailing on an outdated sailing ship.

He experienced his “betrothal” to the sea especially hard - the journey from Kronstadt to Portsmouth, which was difficult even for a real sailor. “What can I tell you about myself, about what is playing out in me, not under the influence, but under the pressure of the impressions of this journey? - he wrote to M.A. Yazykov from London. - Firstly, the blues followed me here to the frigate; then the news of everyday life, faces - then the lack of peace and some of the comforts to which I was accustomed - all this for now turns the journey into a little torture... However, the sailors assure me that I will end up getting used to it, that now they themselves are more or less suffering from the inconveniences and even dangers associated with sailing the northern seas in the fall.”

Goncharov had doubts and hesitations (due to illness, etc.) whether to return home from England, and he allegedly even began to conduct business on the ship this way in order to “sneak away”... From contradictory and playfully ironic confessions Goncharov on this score shows that in the end this intention was not very decisive. “...When I saw,” he wrote from Portsmouth to the Maykovs, “my suitcases, things, linen, I imagined how I would travel alone with this cargo throughout Germany, groaning and groaning, unlocking and locking suitcases, getting linen, getting dressed myself Yes, in every city, dragging around, guarding when a car comes and goes, etc. - I was attacked by terrible laziness. No, I’d rather follow in the footsteps of Vasco de Gama, the Vancouvers, the Krusensterns, etc., than in the footsteps of French and German barbers, tailors and shoemakers. I took it and went."

Gradually, Goncharov “in many ways became accustomed to the sea”; he developed a “habit of the sea.”

“...I rock like a sailor,” he wrote to E.A. and M.A. Yazykov from the Sunda Strait, “I sleep and sometimes don’t hear a cannon shot, I eat and don’t spill soup when the table moves back and forth... I finally got used to it.” to this strange extraordinary life and... I don’t want to go back.”

At first, Goncharov had little success in writing travel notes, and sometimes the blues began to visit him again. Official work on a frigate took a lot of effort and time - “Like in a department!” - he exclaimed ironically in one of his letters.

In addition to performing his official duties, the writer, at the request of the admiral, taught literature and history to midshipmen.

Goncharov’s mood improves decisively when he feels the “need to draw” and satisfies it. Confidence in your creative forces and the desire to write gradually grew along the way. This “desire to write,” in particular, was “warmed up” in him each time by the “book of Ivan Sergeevich,” that is, Turgenev.

When setting sail, Goncharov took with him “Notes of a Hunter,” which was published in August 1852. “And yesterday,” he reported to the Yazykovs from China, “exactly yesterday, this happened: how these Russian people came in front of me, the birch groves, fields, fields were full of colors, and - what’s most pleasant - Ivan Sergeevich himself stood in the middle of it, as if telling a story in his childish voice, and goodbye to Shanghai, camphor and bamboo trees and bushes, the sea; where am I - I forgot everything. Orel, Kursk, Zhizdra, Bezhin Meadow - that’s how they walk around...”

He complains that he has not yet been able to “concentrate into one focus” everything he has seen, that he has not yet “determined the meaning of many phenomena,” that he does not have a “key” to them. “...I have not comprehended the poetry of the sea and sailors and I do not understand where they found it here,” Goncharov notes in a letter to the Maykovs from Portsmouth. - Steering a sailing ship seems to me a pathetic proof of the weakness of the mind of mankind. I just see how through torture humanity has achieved a weak result... After steamships, it’s embarrassing to look at a sailing ship.”

But it is precisely from this letter that it is clear that Goncharov has already picked up the first “key” to the phenomena and facts of the life around him. This “key,” this criterion in assessing the facts and phenomena of reality for Goncharov is the idea of ​​progress, sober realism, and the debunking of the notorious exoticism.

Goncharov wrote a lot of letters on the way. “Writing letters to friends,” he admits to I. I. Lkhovsky, “is a great joy for me.” In these letters, Goncharov spoke in detail about his travel experiences, impressions and observations. He asked his friends to keep his letters. In a number of cases, they were preparatory, initial sketches for the “Sketches of a Journey” (“Frigate “Pallada”).

As the secretary of the expedition, Goncharov kept a ship's log, in which he recorded various events. Unfortunately, this magazine has not survived. But even more important in the preparatory literary work of the author of the essays was his travel diary (which also has not reached us). Goncharov constantly made entries in his diary. “As soon as a worthwhile thought appears, an apt note, I’ll take it into a memory book, wondering if it might be good for something later...” he wrote to the Maykovs from Singapore.

Even from the Cape of Good Hope, Goncharov informed the Maykovs that he had “an abyss of materials, that is, impressions,” but that his work was hampered by his “unfortunate weakness to elaborate (that is, to finish stylistically - A.R.) to the utmost.”

However, by the time the ship arrived in the Philippine Islands (March 1854), Goncharov had already written most of essays. We find confirmation of this in a letter to the Maykovs: “I tried to study, and, to my surprise, there was some desire to write, so I filled a whole briefcase with travel notes. Cape of Good Hope, Singapore, Bonin-Sima, Shanghai, Japan (two parts), Lycaean Islands, I have all this written down, and others in such order that I can’t even print it now...”

During this period of travel, Goncharov deeply, from a progressive realistic position, comprehended the enormous material of his travel observations, which allowed him to create a truthful and rich in content book.

For the idle romantic, poverty is picturesque; he imagines everything around him in a rosy light. Reality is revealed differently to the gaze of a realist. The Russian writer was alien to the aesthetic seduction of the unusual and exotic. Behind the external effects, he sought to see the unvarnished truth of life, he painted life as it was in itself, that is, with all its contrasts and contradictions, and not as it was imagined in the imagination. Goncharov saw that poverty is the same everywhere in the world: both under the radiant shine of the southern sun and under the gray sky of the north. Whether it is a Russian serf, a Portuguese, a Negro or a Chinese, their work is equally hard, their clothes and huts are equally poor. And the Russian writer was imbued with deep and sincere sympathy for these oppressed and powerless people. Life and man are always the focus of attention of the author of “The Frigate Pallas,” a convinced humanist and realist.

Despite the fact that Goncharov was not a man of revolutionary views, in his observations of foreign reality he rose a head above many Western progressives of that time. He, while welcoming “material progress,” was able at the same time to take a critical look at bourgeois society.

Developing capitalism brought death to patriarchal-feudal forms of life. Goncharov regarded this as progressive historical fact. At the same time, he also saw the vices of bourgeois society. And he not only saw them, but also sharply denounced them.

Goncharov's first impressions of foreign reality were associated with his stay in England. This was the heyday of English industrial capital and English foreign trade, the time of England's unlimited claims to world domination. England “became, earlier than others, a capitalist country and, by the half of the 19th century, having introduced free trade, claimed to be the “workshop of the whole world,” a supplier of manufactured goods to all countries, which were supposed to supply it, in exchange, with raw materials.”

Going to English soil, Goncharov intended “not to write anything about England.” It seemed to him that already all Russians were “tired of listening and reading what they write about Europe and from Europe, especially about France and England.” Not wanting to repeat himself, Goncharov decided to limit himself to quick notes about England and the British, a description of what “flickered” in his eyes.

However, during his stay in England, he accumulated many new and interesting observations, which formed one of the first, and, moreover, the most important chapters of “The Frigate Pallas.”

In his judgments about English reality, Goncharov is not only completely independent, but also very insightful. The writer pays tribute to the successes of English industry and trade, but is far from being captivated by the picture English life. He is alien to the Anglomania with which many were so infected at that time both in Russia and abroad. In England, more than anywhere else in the country, he was able to convince himself that the material and technical progress of bourgeois society was in many cases accompanied by the suppression of the spiritual forces and aspirations of man, turning him into a simple appendage of a machine.

“...In animals,” says Goncharov with deep sarcasm, “the desire to fulfill one’s purpose seems to extend to rational consciousness, but in people, on the contrary, it is relegated to animal instinct. The rules of behavior are instilled in animals in such a way that the bull seems to understand why he is getting fat, but a person, on the contrary, tries to forget why he does it all day and all year round, and all his life, just putting coal in the stove, or opening it and closes some valve.” Any “deviation” from mechanical function, the author of the essays further notes, “is suppressed in a person.”

Goncharov perfectly showed how behind all the vaunted English bourgeois prosperity and decency lies only one thing - “the desire for trading”, for “petty, microscopic activity”, acquisitiveness, the power of the purse strings, hypocrisy and deep indifference to the interests of humanity. “It seems,” he writes, “everything is calculated, weighed and assessed, as if a duty is also taken from the voice and facial expressions, like from windows, from wheel tires.”

Goncharov boldly pulls back the veils from the ostentatious, external side of English bourgeois morality: “It is imperceptible,” he says, “that public and private virtues flow freely from the bright human principle, the unconditional charm of which society should feel incessantly and incessantly feel the need to enjoy it.”

“But maybe it’s all the same for the good of humanity,” he asks himself with obvious irony, “to love goodness for its unconditional grace and to be honest, kind and just - a gift, without any purpose, and not be able to be anywhere and never like this or to be virtuous by machine, by tables, by demand? It would seem that it doesn’t matter, but why is it disgusting?”

Goncharov strives to defend and affirm the “bright human principle” in life, as Russian progressive thought has always strived for this.

Virtue, as the author of the essays notes, is achieved in England through purely police measures. “There are slingshots everywhere, conscience testing machines... these are the engines that support virtue in society.” There is no basic internal trust between people; everyone is afraid that his “neighbor” will cheat him.

These accusatory lines of Goncharov have not lost their significance to this day, since they capture not some random, transient, temporary phenomena, but the fatal vices of capitalist society.

In 1843, in the article “The Situation of England,” F. Engels wrote:

“It’s amazing how spiritually fallen and weakened we are in England.” upper classes society... Political and religious prejudices are inherited from generation to generation... The English, that is, the educated English, by which people on the continent are judged national character, these Englishmen are the most despicable slaves in the world... The Englishman grovels before social prejudice, sacrifices himself to it every day - and the more liberal he is, the more obediently he falls into the dust before this god of his... Thus, the educated classes in England are deaf to any progress "

While in England, Goncharov felt this decline in spiritual life at every step, which was one of the reasons for his dissatisfaction with Western European reality.

In England, Goncharov had to face not only moral, but also political hypocrisy. All the efforts of the ruling classes, says Goncharov, are aimed at showing that “society is prospering.” But the reality of life was different. Despite the fact that the author of the essays could not think through the essence of class differences and class contradictions in bourgeois society, he still clearly saw that “not only individuals and families are dying from poverty, but also entire countries under English rule.”

He left England without regret. “I willingly part with,” he wrote in essays, “this world market and the picture of bustle and movement, with the color of smoke, coal, steam and soot. I’m afraid,” he added, “that the image of a modern Englishman will for a long time interfere with other images...”

And indeed, that’s exactly what happened. Throughout his long journey to Japan, Goncharov more than once had to encounter this image, to closely observe the types of English traders and colonialists who sought to assert their influence and dominance throughout the world.

“Here he is,” writes Goncharov with deep irony, “ poetic image, in a black tailcoat, in a white tie, shaved, cropped, comfortably, that is, with an umbrella under his arm, looks out of a carriage, out of a cab, flashes on ships, sits in a tavern, sails along the Thames, wanders through a museum, jumps in the park! In between, he managed to watch rat baiting, some bridges, and bought Duke boot lasts. I ate a steamed chicken in passing and contributed a pound to the poor. After that, calm with the knowledge that he lived the day in all comforts, that he saw a lot of wonderful things, that he has a duke and steam chickens, that he profitably sold a batch of paper blankets on the stock exchange, and his vote in parliament, he sits down to dinner and, getting up from behind the table, not quite firmly, hangs unopenable locks in the closet and bureau, removes his boots with a typewriter, sets the alarm clock and goes to bed. The whole machine falls asleep."

It is unlikely that in the literature of that time, and much later, there was a more mocking and caustic depiction of the collective type of English bourgeois businessman, all his imaginary perfections and completely deceitful, sanctimonious morality.

Goncharov attached exceptional importance to the development of world trade, which, in his opinion, spread “the fruits of civilization to all corners of the world,” introduced movement into the patriarchal idyll, and eliminated feudal isolation and backwardness.

Defining the tasks of world trade, Goncharov resolutely spoke out against its use for the purposes of expansion, capture and enslavement by more developed countries of less developed ones. He condemns violence against peoples, cruelty and inhumanity of the colonialists.

Due to the limitations of his social views, Goncharov did not see that the exploitative, aggressive aspirations and deeds of the British and American colonialists constituted the essence of capitalism. However, placing above all in artistic creativity a true reflection of reality, he was able to capture in his essays the characteristic features and contradictions of bourgeois progress.

As a sober realist, Goncharov saw the inevitability and relative progressiveness of developing capitalism. At the same time, he also saw the “unaccountable horror” that the capitalist colonialists generated in countries still untouched by “civilization,” everywhere asserting their dominance, their “faustrecht” - the right of the fist. Goncharov aptly exposes the colonialist method of unleashing aggression against the peoples of Asia: “Go, for example, to Japanese ports, go ashore without asking, and when they won’t let you in, start a fight, then complain about the insult and start a war.” This predatory tactic, described by Goncharov, is also used by modern imperialist aggressors.

The Frigate Pallada shows that England was the leader of the colonialist takeovers at that time. But Goncharov noticed the appearance of another predator on the international scene - the United States, which was striving for colonization and conquest in the Far East under the banner of “patronage” of peoples.

When the frigate "Pallada" arrived at the Lycean Islands, it turned out that the notorious "civilization" had already "touched this primitive silence and simplicity of life." The Americans also penetrated into this remote corner of Asia. “The people of the United States,” Goncharov wrote, “have already come here with paper and woolen fabrics, guns, cannons and other tools of the latest civilization.” Exposing the hypocrisy of the American colonialists, he remarks with subtle irony: “Blessed islands. How can you not take them under your protection?

Thus, the true goals and aspirations of the “civilizers” did not escape the writer’s gaze. However, in a number of cases Goncharov deviated from the correct view. This can be seen, for example, from the essay on the Cape Colony in Africa. It seemed to Goncharov that “the European is trying to persuade the black to goodness, extending his hand to him,” that, having become civilized, these peoples will become equal “to their conquerors.” He looked at the natives - the Kaffirs and Hottentots - with prejudice, immediately contradicting himself and calling them and the Europeans brothers, “children of the same father,” the human god.

Goncharov expressed certain erroneous opinions about both the Koreans and the peoples of the north of Russia. In one case it was a tribute to the prejudices of the time, in the other it was the result of ignorance or poor knowledge of the life of some peoples. It is indisputable, for example, that a few words spoken by Goncharov about the Koreans indicate that neither he nor the other people from the frigate had any idea about the life of the Korean people and judged them without leaving the ship, on the basis of current opinions and prejudices.