Soil liberals. Soilism - what is it? Basic principles and representatives of pochvennichestvo

Soilism is literary school And philosophical worldview, which developed in the sixties of the 19th century. The fundamentals of the teaching were based on the ideas of the magazine “Moskvityanin”, which was headed by A. Grigoriev. In literature, pochvenism is primarily F.M. Dostoevsky. With his enormous authority he attracted Special attention to one of the many directions in culture. Among the writers of the 20th century, Valentin Rasputin, Vasily Shukshin, and Solzhenitsyn were classified as soil scientists.

Definition

Quite hard to give precise definition whose founding fathers did not particularly care about developing a clear program and declaration of their principles. Many rightly note the similarity of the Pochvenniks with the Slavophiles, who were seen in Russia own way civilizational development, different from Western European. However, the soil scientists themselves rejected their belonging to this camp, putting forward their own concepts in philosophy and literature.

Soilism is, first of all, the desire of reflective intellectuals to turn to their roots, to feel belonging to own people, which seemed like a mystical secret in the 19th century. The main goal of the Pochvenniks was the merging of all layers of society on the basis of common ideas supposedly characteristic of the Russian people.

The unification of the “enlightened classes” with the “national soil” was seen on the foundation of traditional values ​​and Orthodoxy.

At the same time, the Pochvenniks did not reject European culture, the achievements of which were not questioned, which was their main difference with the Slavophiles.

Prerequisites

The period of the reign of Alexander II became a time of deep socio-political reforms in the country, which, however, were not completed. logical conclusion. The Constitution, democratic reconstruction - all this remains in the realm of hope. Nevertheless, the authorities loosened the screws, and it became possible to express a wide variety of views on the pages of periodicals, which were fundamentally different from the generally accepted ones.

The sixties, which began with the liberation of peasants from serfdom, became a time of heated and irreconcilable discussions that flared up between Westerners, Slavophiles and Soils. The former looked towards Europe, the latter advocated a special path for Russia. With soil workers everything was much more complicated.

Quite reasonably, they pointed out that in Russia by the nineteenth century a situation had arisen in which representatives of almost two absolutely different countries lived in parallel in one country. different nations, despite common name"Russians". Petrine reforms transformed high society in the European style, however, the peasant masses, who made up the main population of the country, remained faithful to the traditional way of life. Yesterday's serfs, practically slaves, they lived the same way as their ancestors five hundred years before.

Dostoevsky and his followers quite rightly saw this situation as a serious threat to national unity and put forward their own recipes for salvation. Soilism is the search for some kind of connecting element capable of reuniting an essentially divided people.

How it all began

One of the founding fathers of the new ideological teaching was A. Grigoriev, a leading critic of the Moskvityanin magazine in 1850-56. Agreeing with the Slavophiles in their opinion about the special path of Russia, he, nevertheless, objected to the absolutization of the peasant community they put forward. Dissolution creative personality in the general mass was unacceptable, according to the respected critic, and he offered his own alternative vision of an ideal society.

At the same time, Grigoriev and his comrades did not yet call themselves soil scientists; this name came later.

Back in 1847, K.S. Aksakov, one of many reflective intellectuals, lamented the fact that he and his contemporaries were completely separated from the people, like a plant torn out of the ground. F.M. really liked this peculiar meme. Dostoevsky, who gladly used the image of the intelligentsia, divorced from the people's soil.

Classic ideological weapon

Fyodor Mikhailovich was distinguished by his peculiar views that did not fit into any ideological concept, so he and his brother decided to found their own publications, where he could preach his vision of the world. Pochvenism is a cultural teaching that developed on the pages of the magazines “Time” and “Epoch”, which became the mouthpiece of the ideas of pochvenism by Dostoevsky and other fans of the “special path”.

Actually, the classic of world literature never brought his views on society and culture into a single coherent system; a kind of “gospel of Dostoevsky” can be compiled from his individual statements on certain topics.

While generally accepting the program of the Slavophiles, he sharply disagreed with them on the issue of relations between the individual and society.

The great artist was disgusted by the very thought of the complete dissolution of living things, creative individuality in an amorphous peasant community. Here he already joined forces with Westerners, paying tribute to European culture and positive influence art per person. He called on intellectuals to pay attention to people far from them, to describe their way of life, customs, and to study their needs. The key here was the idea of ​​humility before old Russia.

Views on society

Dostoevsky rejected the ideas of socialism; in addition, his followers were similar in their desire to denounce the “rotten West,” which is becoming a popular doctrine in Russia with inexorable frequency. Traditional lack of spirituality and immorality, dangerous socialist ideas on the one hand, and bourgeoisism on the other - all this was cited as arguments for rejection of the Western path. At the same time, the value was not disputed European culture, its influence on Russia.

The basic principles of pochvennichestvo in relation to society were a return to traditional forms- community and zemstvo. Conciliarity and Orthodoxy are the path that should unite the peasants and nobles, according to the opinion of Fyodor Mikhailovich. Such terrible experiences as serfdom and other forms of enslavement must be abolished.

Criticism

Representatives of pochvennichestvo often became targets of criticism from liberal and radical democratic circles. The idyll depicted by the Pochvenniks seemed very dubious to the nihilists; they demanded that their ideological opponents present a concrete program of action to correct the situation of the people, and not a pathetic sop in the form of the concept of “small deeds.”

Nevertheless, in those noble times, “liberals” and “patriots” treated each other with respect, highly appreciating each other’s personal qualities. Commenting on Grigoriev’s passing, Pisarev ranked him among the last giants of Russian idealism.

Antonovich's statements were especially caustic. He rightly pointed out to the Pochvenniks that they easily justified their patriotism, the idea of ​​a special path and rejection of the “rotten West” in the language of German philosophy. From this he concludes that the ideas of the Pochvenniks are full of mutually exclusive paragraphs and contradict each other.

In general, the Pochvenniks got it from everyone: democrats criticized them for obscurantism and naive idealism, Slavophiles for their passion for European culture, conservatives for calling for a revision of the existing structure of society.

Silver Age and pochvenism

After the death of Grigoriev and Dostoevsky, interest in the theoretical research of pochvennichestvo subsided, and the main directions came to the fore social thought- Marxism and Tolstoyism. Only in 1902 did A. Blok turn to the half-forgotten ideas of the soil scientists. In 1916, he published the article “The Fate of Apollo Grigoriev,” where he calls him the only bridge from Pushkin and Griboedov to himself and his contemporaries.

Most thinkers Silver Age Pochvennichestvo was considered a religious phenomenon, a continuation of the ideas of Russian conciliarism.

Unexpected revival

A reaction to the state ideology under the USSR and the concept socialist realism was the emergence of writers who began to look for alternative ways self-expression.

Under state pressure, prominent artists of the twentieth century began to look for ways to express themselves. A return to nationality, one’s own roots, a special path of development - all this can be found, to one degree or another, in the works of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Valentin Rasputin, Vasily Shukshin.

In any case, pochvenism has become a serious cultural phenomenon. According to many, in the West it is the soil scientists who are typical spokesmen"mysterious Russian soul."

Soil science- a current of Russian social thought, akin to Slavophilism, opposite to Westernism. Originated in the 1860s. Adherents are called pochvenniks.

The Pochvenniki recognized the special mission of the Russian people to save all humanity and preached the idea of ​​rapprochement “ educated society"with the people (“national soil”) on a religious and ethical basis.

The term “Soilism” arose on the basis of the journalism of Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky with its characteristic calls to return to “one’s own soil”, to popular, national principles. Genetically, Pochvennichestvo goes back to the direction of the “young editorial staff” of the magazine “Moskvityanin”, which existed in 1850-1856, and was ideologically related to the Slavophiles (including their moral orientation towards the Russian peasantry); At the same time, representatives of this trend recognized the positive principles in Westernism. Pochvennichestvo opposed the feudal nobility and bureaucracy, called for “the merging of education and its representatives with the people” and saw this as the key to progress in Russia. The soil workers spoke out for the development of industry, trade, and freedom of the individual and press. Accepting “European culture,” they simultaneously denounced the “rotten West” - its bourgeoisness and lack of spirituality, rejected revolutionary, socialist ideas and materialism, contrasting them with Christian ideals; polemicized with the Sovremennik magazine.

In the 1870s, the features of pochvennichestvo appeared in the philosophical works of Nikolai Yakovlevich Danilevsky and the “Diary of a Writer” by Fyodor Dostoevsky.

In the second half of the twentieth century it was revived in " village prose"and publications on historical and patriotic topics. An article by Alexander Nikolaevich Yakovlev, then head of the department, was directed against them in 1972. The ideological department of the CPSU Central Committee, with crushing criticism from the standpoint of orthodox Marxism-Leninism.

F. Dostoevsky “A series of articles on Russian literature”

N. Strakhov “A few belated words”

20. Neo-Slavophile criticism of K. Leontiev.

One of the first Russian critics for whom religious issues turned out to be the main criterion in assessing literary phenomena was Konstantin Nikolaevich Leontyev. The writer, who almost single-handedly defended the priority of “pure” aesthetics in articles of the early 1860s, in the 1870s-1880s devoted himself almost entirely to philosophical and religious journalism, defending an extremely conservative, “protective” point of view not only on social conflicts, but also on Orthodox Christianity.

In two works included in the brochure “Our New Christians,” Leontyev questioned the socio-religious validity of the teachings of Dostoevsky and L. Tolstoy: in his opinion, Dostoevsky’s Pushkin speech and L. Tolstoy’s story “How People Live” demonstrate the imperfection of religious thinking and superficial acquaintance with the teachings of the church fathers of two famous Russian writers, despite the preaching religious pathos of their speeches. Unlike most “neo-Slavophiles,” Leontyev did not accept Tolstoy’s “religion of love,” which, in his opinion, distorts the essence of true Christianity.

However, the critic declared Tolstoy’s works of art, his novels “War and Peace” and “Anna Karenina,” to be the greatest creations of world literature “over the last 40-50 years.” In the article “Two Counts: Alexey Vronsky and Leo Tolstoy,” which was included in the “Notes of a Hermit” series, Leontyev called “Gogolism” the main prophet of Russian literature - i.e. "humiliation" in artistic creativity Russian reality. For Leontyev, such an attitude towards Russian life is all the more blasphemous because in the matter of educating “Russian youths” “literature is much stronger than both school and family.” And only Tolstoy, in his main works, was able to break the Gogol tradition, depicting “high Russian society finally in a human way, that is, impartially, and in places with obvious love.” This was confirmed for Leontyev by the image of Vronsky, whom the critic perceives from a patriotic perspective, interpreting the “military heroes” of Russian literature.

Leontiev proposed a deeper and more detailed coverage of L. Tolstoy’s work in his voluminous work “Analysis, Style and Trend. About the novels of gr. L.N. Tolstoy,” which combined two, almost opposite, tendencies in the literary-critical activity of a religious thinker: a distinct political bias and the desire for a purely “philological,” formal, subtly analytical study of literary texts. It should be noted the methodological innovation of Leontyev, who tried to find a multi-valued refraction and artistic embodiment of the ideological concept in the writer’s style.

K. Leontiev “Our new Christians”

21. Literary-critical topics of journalism of writers of the 1870-90s.

Famous Russian writers of the 2nd half of the 19th century themselves often became subjects of the literary critical process, publicly expressing their opinions about the principles of artistic creativity and about many specific literary phenomena. And the fact that Turgenev, Ostrovsky, Goncharov, L. Tolstoy were only occasionally noted in the press with articles about literature did not prevent increased attention to their works by the public, which was attracted by the importance and breadth of the issues being addressed, as well as the authority of the writers themselves. Even in appeals to the past of Russian and world literature, in theoretical and aesthetic reflections, famous artists of words sought to demonstrate an unexpected and insightful vision of deep literary and social processes modernity.

I. Turgenev “Hamlet and Don Quixote”: The article, only at first glance, may seem like a detached historical and literary study - in fact, this “external” property of the article turns out to be a kind of genre “trap”, which with even greater acuteness directs readers to the perception of current social problems. Obvious allusions and associations connect two fundamentally dissimilar human types discovered by the writer, Hamlet and Don Quixote, with famous names social and literary figures of the 1860s and, more importantly, the prevailing mentality of the era. The pathos of Turgenev’s public speech was the affirmation of the equivalence of the socio-psychological type of the intelligent and subtle reflective skeptic Hamlet, who, resisting the lies surrounding him, is unable to believe in the possibility of modern truth, and the type of the funny in his naivety “enthusiast, servant of the idea” Don Quixote, who, on the contrary, for the sake of a ghostly, illusory ideal, he is ready for the most uncompromising actions. From the point of view of Turgenev, who masterfully “allows” the internal logic of the text to “reveal itself” to the reader, the position of the intelligent egoist Hamlet is much less in demand by modern times than the unbridled altruism of Don Quixote. For the writer, the key to characterizing the characters is their impact on others: if Hamlet unwittingly sows lies, deceit and death around himself, then Don Quixote infects such sincere and strong personalities with his positive enthusiasm as Sancho Panza who have crazy ideas can bring a lot of kindness and benefit. Turgenev's article, in which generalized reasoning was combined with specific historical issues, anticipated Merezhkovsky's future historical and cultural oppositions.

A. Goncharov “A Million Torments”: Chatsky becomes an eternal socio-psychological type, especially characteristic of Russian society, in this “critical study.” Agreeing with his predecessors that the immortal significance of Griboyedov’s comedy is given by the brilliant depiction of the mores of Moscow society, and the creation of bright, historically and psychologically reliable types, and apt aphoristic language, Goncharov still considers the image of Chatsky to be Griboyedov’s main achievement. According to Goncharov, the main character of “Woe from Wit,” unlike Onegin and Pechorin, overcomes the historical isolation of his time and becomes a hero new era, therefore, his image is saturated with numerous potential meanings that are revealed upon later reading. And it is no coincidence that the writer’s thoughts about the “positive”, i.e. Chatsky’s effective mind, his sincere passion, the desire of Griboyedov’s hero to disrupt the indifferent inertia and reassuring hypocrisy of the surrounding society are full of obvious and hidden associations connecting Chatsky with the personality of Herzen, with the activities of the leaders of social thought of the 1870s.

It is characteristic that Turgenev, and Goncharov, and Herzen, and Dostoevsky energetically resisted the perception of their speeches at literary themes in line with traditional literary critical creativity, willingly demonstrating their genre and content specificity.

22. "Other criticism" in criticism of the 1890-1910s. On the themes and problems of the literary process.

To one degree or another, the heralds of " new criticism» writers appeared who fundamentally did not fit into a certain literary movement or direction. Their activities were openly independent. Even when drawn into aesthetic disputes with their contemporaries, they remained “lone” critics. Each of them had a special opinion on every important, aesthetic and ethical issue.

The literary and critical performances of Annensky, Aikhenvald, and Rozanov did not depend on established views, but at the same time they were the focus of close attention of everyone who was related to the artistic culture of the Silver Age. “Independents” could proclaim their own research methodology, they built the foundation of new philosophical teachings, saw in their own way the paths of literary development in Russia.

A “mansion” figure in the history of Russian criticism at the turn of the century – Innokenty Fedorovich Annensky, who occupies a special place in Russian literature of this period as a poet, translator, playwright and teacher. He published reviews of works on Russian, Slavic and classical philology in the Journal of the Ministry of Public Education.

In the development of Annensky's critical prose, two stages can be clearly distinguished.

The first is associated with critical and pedagogical articles published in the late 1880s-1890s in the magazines “Education and Training” and “Russian School”, dedicated to the works of A. Tolstoy, Gogol, Lermontov, Goncharov, Ap. Maykova. In these works, a system of views was gradually built and formed, which led in the early 1900s to the creation of a special new method of literary critical analysis. Annensky often used the ideas of discursive criticism (i.e., rational criticism, justified by previous judgments). In addition, the pedagogical task forced the critic to bring thoughts to the logical limit, while avoiding associative and metaphorical images that could complicate reader perception.

The second stage of Annensky’s literary-critical creativity is associated with the beginning of the 20th century. In 1906, a collection of literary critical articles, “Books of Reflections,” was published, not appreciated by contemporaries, but marking a completely new and original page in the history of Russian literary critical life. Turning in his critical studies to the works of Gogol, Dostoevsky, Turgenev, Pisemsky, L. Tolstoy, M. Gorky, Chekhov, Balmont, Annensky spoke about the inexhaustible ambiguity of works of art, about their eternal renewal and evolution in time, in accordance with this - about their interpretation, about reading as a creative process.

His critical articles are delicately executed, subtly associative and dynamic philological observations, permeated with the author's lyricism, benevolent intonation, and semantic diversity.

“Impressionistic” or “immanent” criticism played a significant role in the formation of the principles of “new criticism” Yulia Isaevich Aikhenvald. The methodological foundations of Aikhenwald’s literary critical activity were significantly influenced by the idealistic philosophy of Schopenhauer. The tasks of impressionistic criticism were to convey the impression made by the author on the insightful reader. Aikhenwald proceeded from the fact that art is something absolutely self-sufficient and therefore consciously refused to study the writer in connection with the specific conditions of place and time, and did not perceive impressionism as “aestheticism.” Recognizing the educational significance of art, he rejected the “ulitarian” requirements for it, considering them alien to the irrational nature of poetry. Aikhenwald denied the very possibility of constructing the history of literature on any single methodological basis. Speaking about the right of a critic to subjectively interpret a work, he assigned him the role of a kind of priest, an intermediary between the artist and the reader, the first and best of the readers. Aikhenvald’s views on art were especially clearly manifested in the revaluation of Belinsky’s creative heritage and criticism of the 60s, which he reproached for excessive journalisticism, insufficient artistic taste and inconsistency of literary assessments.

Y. Aikhenvald “Silhouettes of Russian Writers”

In the history of Russian culture of the late 19th - early 20th centuries Vasily Vasilievich Rozanov– a most controversial personality and at the same time undeniably talented, original and lively-minded. Like no other prominent writer of the turn of the century, he was openly rejected by his contemporaries. Russian journalism attacked him with particular zeal both on the left and on the right, rewarding him with many negative characteristics, among which were the following: “dirty man”, “rubbish”, “naked Rozanov”, “rotten soul”, “Great Vashlyak of Russian Literature” . He preferred truth to any ideological “trends.” Filled with counterfeelings, Rozanov’s manner of thinking and writing is paradoxical and dialogical, alone with own conscience and the conscience of a wise, sighted reader, open to honest dialogue, able to hear, but not obey, to maintain his own dignity and independence of concepts about life. With his entire system of judgment, Rozanov deliberately provoked internal irritated disagreement with himself. Hence the external fragmentation, mosaic, kaleidoscopicity and apparent disorder of his thoughts and style. Rozanov wrote a huge number of articles, essays, anniversary words, reviews and notes about Pushkin, Dostoevsky, L. Tolstoy, Turgenev, Strakhov, Leontiev, Merezhkovsky. He repeatedly turned to the analysis of the works of Gogol, Nekrasov, Goncharov, Chekhov, M. Gorky, Vl. Solovyova, Berdyaeva.

In the works of criticism on literature and philosophy, the fruitful concept of a value-based approach to the verbal, artistic and ethical-aesthetic heritage of Russian culture was clearly expressed.

The original “music” of Rozanov’s word was clearly stated in his early book by the “deepest analyst of the soul” Dostoevsky, “The Legend of the Grand Inquisitor F. M. Dostoevsky”: it touches on many side, parallel and very important topics dear to him.

A special place in Rozanov’s creative heritage is occupied by original, genre-unusual memoir-necrological works (“In Memory of Vl. Solovyov”, “In Memory of I. I. Kablits”).

V. Rozanov “Three moments in the development of Russian criticism”

23.Modernist criticism (symbolism and acmeism). Stylistic, genre features, polemical and self-characterizing orientation.

In the 1890s, with the establishment of symbolism as a fundamentally new poetic direction, the formation of modernist tendencies in literary criticism began. The emergence of each new literary movement - be it symbolism, acmeism, futurism, imagism in various and whimsical combinations and modifications - brought to life not only theoretical treatises proclaiming and explaining the essence of creative quests inherent in one or another aesthetic platform, but also a rapid flow of literary -critical publications. A new artistic expression, new poetic rhythms, new poetic ideas required urgent assessments, controversial revelations, and polemical statements.

Feature literary era became the participation in critical debates of almost all writers without exception. It is difficult to name the name of at least one prose writer or poet who would not write a critical article, review, or preface to a new book. In an era that will be called the Silver Age, many literary critics turn out to be outstanding poets, and poets turn out to be talented critics. V. Solovyov and Merezhkovsky, Annensky and Rozanov, Blok and A. Bely, Akhmatova and Mandelstam turned out to be exceptionally talented both in writing and in critical analysis.

At the beginning of the century, new organizational forms appeared for the expression of literary assessments: these were poetry clubs and literary cafes, which contributed to the birth of free critical thought. Controversy has taken over all literature. Literary criticism of modernist movements was formed and developed in parallel with socially oriented democratic, mass criticism. Both populist criticism, feuilleton newspaper and magazine speeches, and Marxist literary journalism were aimed at the vast masses of readers. The literary-critical studies of the modernists appeared with the expectation of a small circle of “insider” people, initiates, involved in a certain literary movement. The modernists created art for a sophisticated audience, for a sophisticated reader capable of perceiving and appreciating not the “ideological essence” of a work, but its poetic poignancy and filigree of form. That is why, with the widest genre-thematic range and stylistic richness, the critical prose of the modernists was focused on the phenomenon of artistic integrity.

Probably, the poetic highways of the Silver Age would have developed differently if not for the work of V.S. Solovyov, who determined both the fate of symbolism and the role of literary criticism during the period of active emergence of new artistic concepts.

Into the history of Russian culture Vladimir Sergeevich Solovyov entered as a great idealist philosopher. However, he did not study “pure” philosophy for quite a long time. His rich literary heritage includes both poetry and literary criticism, and journalism. In literary criticism, Soloviev primarily appears as a discerning “judge,” unusually sensitive to both the artist’s place in the world of ideas and his individual pathos. Philosophical and critical articles devoted to Russian poetry had a unique introduction. They were 2 fundamental works on aesthetics for Solovyov - “Beauty in Nature” and “The General Meaning of Art”. In the first article, beauty was revealed as “the transformation of the mother through the embodiment in her of another, supermaterial principle” and was considered as an expression of ideal content, as the embodiment of an idea. The second article characterized the goals and objectives of art, and a work of art was defined as “a tangible image of any object or phenomenon from the point of view of its final state or in the light of the future world.” The artist, according to Solovyov, is a prophet. What becomes significant in Solovyov’s views on art is that truth and goodness must be embodied in beauty. According to Solovyov, beauty cuts off light from darkness, “only it illuminates and tames the evil darkness of this world.”

It was Solovyov who discovered Fet’s legacy for such poets as Blok and A. Bely, and oriented the young poetic generation towards the principles that Fet professed. It was Fet’s poetry that was the subject of Solovyov’s first literary-critical article, “On Lyric Poetry.” The article also embodied some of the favorite themes of Solovyov’s philosophical and aesthetic works: about the subject of lyric poetry, about the role of objective reality in poetry, about the meaning of beauty in the world and its embodiment in lyrics, about “the true background of all lyrics,” about love and its embodiment in lyrics, about the lyrics of nature. Here the idea was put forward that Fet’s poetry is the most noticeable phenomenon in the general flow of “ulitarian” Russian literature.

Solovyov’s undoubted creative achievement was the philosophical essay “The Poetry of F. I. Tyutchev.” It was a milestone in the understanding and interpretation of Tyutchev’s poetry and had big influence to the early symbolists, who ranked the great lyricist among their predecessors. Solovyov tried to reveal to the reader the countless treasures of philosophical lyrics, to look into the secrets of his artistic poetic world.

Soloviev is not only the luminary of Russian philosophical criticism at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, but also its true founder. Soloviev argued that philosophical analysis does not subordinate a work of art to a scheme within which it is doomed to serve as an illustration of a thesis, but goes back to its objective semantic basis.

Since 1895, Soloviev has been writing encyclopedic articles for the Brockhaus and Efron dictionary, in which the spirit of his “philosophical criticism” is fully preserved. This is not only the article “Beauty”, but also works dedicated to Maikov, Polonsky, A. M. Zhemchuzhnikov, Kozma Prutkov and K. Leontyev.

In research works, Solovyov’s literary-critical activity is most often considered as a harbinger of Russian symbolism. Solovyov’s influence on the “younger” symbolists (Blok, A. Bely, S. Solovyov), on their creation of the historical and literary concept of the poet-prophet, is undeniable.

Solovyov’s ideas about the integrity of the writer’s creative path, about the “holiness” of artistic activity, about the highest responsibility of the artist to humanity, about the great and inescapable duty of genius had a huge impact on the ethics and aesthetics of the 20th century, on Russian culture as a whole.

24.Literary-critical aspect of the work of religious thinkers of the early 20th century.

The literary life of the early 20th century cannot be fully perceived if we do not take into account the creative participation of Russian religious philosophers in it. The works of N. A. Berdyaev, S. N. Bulgakov, S. L. Frank, filled with allusions and reminiscences from Russian classical and modern literature, devoted to the problems of creative self-awareness, the role of the intelligentsia in critical eras, one way or another found themselves in the thick of literary critical discussions. It often happened that philosophers and critics came to the same painful points of Russian reality, relying on the Russian intelligentsia, capable of an educational mission, and Russian literature as the highest form of manifestation of Russian consciousness.

In the famous collection “Vekhi” (1909), philosophers, publicists and critics began an alarming prophetic conversation about the future tragic events in Russia. An acute premonition of impending disaster permeates N.A.’s articles. Berdyaev “Philosophical truth and intellectual truth”, S. N. Bulgakov “Heroism and asceticism”, M. O. Gershenzon “Creative self-consciousness”, P. B. Struve “Intelligentsia and revolution”, S. L. Frank “Ethics of nihilism” .

After 60 s extra years another Russian thinker, A.I. Solzhenitsyn, will write that the ideas set out in “Vekhi” were “indignantly rejected by the entire intelligentsia, all party directions from the Cadets to the Bolsheviks. The prophetic depth of “Vekhi” did not find the sympathy of reading Russia and did not influence the development of the Russian situation.” The timeless, universal - that which now constitutes a veritable treasury of literary assessments, opinions, and fulfilled forecasts - receives recognition from readers only after many decades.

Russian philosophers warned Russia against the invasion of lack of culture and called for religious humanism. And in this respect, they turned out to be methodologically consonant with the various movements of the so-called “new criticism”.

N. Berdyaev “The Crisis of Art”

V. Rozanov “The Legend of Dostoevsky’s Grand Inquisitor”

S. Bulgakov

In Russia, the trend of populism grew out of the teachings of A.I. Herzen about “Russian”, i.e. peasant socialism. Capitalism was condemned by the populists and assessed as a reactionary, backward movement in socio-economic and cultural terms.

The main exponents of this worldview were M.K. Mikhailovsky, P.L. Lavrov, P.A. Tkachev, M.A. Bakunin.

Just like Herzen, N.G. was oriented towards “Russian socialism” and the revolutionary transformation of society. Chernyshevsky (1828-1889). He expressed the interests of the oppressed peasantry and considered masses as main driving force history and being an optimist, he believed in the progress of humanity. Chernyshevsky consciously placed his philosophical concept at the service of revolutionary democracy. In the field of philosophy, he took the position of materialism, believing that nature exists outside consciousness, and emphasized the indestructibility of matter.

Chernyshevsky’s ideas were formed by him and formed the basis of an ideological movement such as populism. Chernyshevsky is considered the founder of this movement. Populism promoted and defended the “Russian” (non-capitalist) path of development towards socialism. The rural community was recognized as the economic and moral and spiritual basis of Russian, or peasant, socialism. The main feature of the ideology of populism was the desire to achieve socialism, bypassing capitalism.

The continuers of Slavophilism in the 60-70s. In the 19th century, soil scientists appeared. main idea their philosophical quest is the “national soil” as the basis for the development of Russia. United all soil workers religious character their worldview. Actually, the “national soil” for them was the ideals and values ​​of Orthodoxy. The main representatives of this direction are A.A. Grigoriev, N.N. Strakhov, F.N. Dostoevsky.

The most profound thinker and main exponent of the ideas of the Pochvenniks was F.M. Dostoevsky (1821-1881), although he is not a philosopher and did not create purely philosophical works his philosophy is a philosophy of experiencing actions, thoughts created by him literary heroes. Moreover, his works are so philosophical that they often do not fit into the framework of the literary and artistic genre.

One of the main problems that frightens Dostoevsky is whether the world and the actions of people can be justified even in the name of a bright future if it is built on the tear of at least one child. His answer here is unequivocal - no high goal, cannot justify the violence and suffering of an innocent child. Thus, Dostoevsky was unable to reconcile God and the World he created. Dostoevsky saw the highest national destiny of Russia in the Christian reconciliation of peoples.

(+ 1864), N.N. Strakhov (+ 1896).

The term “soilism” was formed on the basis of the journalistic calls of F.M. Dostoevsky to return to his “soil”, to Russian national principles, to “become Russian”:

"...our task is to create for ourselves new uniform, our own, dear, taken from our soil, taken from the people's spirit and from the people's principles..."

The Pochvenniki advocated the collection of everything creative in the ideas of both Slavophiles and Westerners.

The editors of Vremya attach paramount importance to the task of spreading literacy among the people; this is the main thing on which the educated class should concentrate its efforts. Hence Dostoevsky’s call to condescend to the level of a peasant boy, leaving behind abstract theoretical debates and discussions about the universal good of mankind.

The ideas of pochvennichestvo were met with hostility by the publicist M. N. Katkov:

« People's beginnings! Root Basics! What are these beginnings? What are these basics? Does anything seem completely clear to you, gentlemen, at these words? As soon as you, in good conscience, must admit that these and similar words do not give rise to such clear and definite concepts in your head as the name of an object well known to you, then throw these words away, do not use them and close your ears when you will treat them».

The critic S.S. Dudyshkin from Otechestvennye Zapiski subjected a biased discussion to the “Announcement of subscription to the magazine “Vremya””, Dostoevsky’s first article from the series “A Series of Articles on Russian Literature.” The magazine “Moskvityanin” announced that the program of the new magazine was copied as if from their programs.

But to many new magazine For example, Nekrasov liked it. In the first issue of "Whistle" for 1861, the poet wrote:

What are you up to, wretch?

What did you dare to promise?..

The most dangerous thought -

The appearance of a new magazine

Suddenly it shocked our minds:

The thunders of Juvenal are heard in it,

The spirit of darkness is invisible in him,

His stern tone is courageous,

His program is wide...

Hello, new comrade!

You showed the wisdom of an old man.

Bear the burden of your task,

Without getting tired and loving!

Since January of the year, Vremya has become one of the thick St. Petersburg magazines and soon began to compete with the most popular periodicals: in the first year of publication alone, “Vremya” equaled the number of subscribers with “ Domestic notes" and "Russian Word" (about 4,000 subscribers) and took third position in relation to the two absolute leaders - "Sovremennik" by N.A. Nekrasov (7,000 subscribers) and "Russian Messenger"

Pochvenism is one of the first trends in Russian conservative thought that chose pragmatism. It was founded by A.A., who united around the magazine “Time”. Grigoriev, F.M. Dostoevsky, N.N. Strakh. Only having made themselves known, literally from the publication of the first issue of the magazine, they were forced to enter into a tough polemical confrontation with N.G. Sovremennik. Chernyshevsky, and with “Russian Messenger” M.N. Katkov, and Happy “Day” to I.S. Aksakova.

Confrontation was inevitable, because pochvenism took shape, building its ideology on combining the arguments of Westerners and Slavophiles and their criticism. The authors of the ideology themselves did not deny their connection with the previous ideological era. And although Grigoriev himself wrote to the Slavophile A.I. Koshelev: “In the teaching about the independence of development, about the immutability of Orthodoxy, we willingly recognize you as elders, and ourselves as disciples,” the soil activists criticized the Slavophiles for their reluctance to admit that Rus' decisively and irrevocably “changed” after Peter the Great. “Slavophilism, like Westernism, did not take the people as they appeared in life, but always looked for an ideal people in them, pruning the shoots of this enormous plant life according to a conventional standard.”

The Westerners, however, could not accept the fact that they were praying to the “abstract monster of humanity” and making sacrifices to the universal theory of progress. In addition, at all times, Westerners did not like, poorly understood and despised Russian history, the spontaneous life of the people, considering it illiterate, not ordered in a European way and “not mature enough” to civilization.

A.A. Grigoriev was convinced that both of them did not want to see reality, limiting themselves to rationalistic constructions.

Creating their own ideology, these Russian conservatives took as a basis the idea of ​​“soil” as a unique unity of natural-geographical and cultural reality.

The principles of political transformation in Russia, which the Pochvenniki adhered to, directly follow from their “ organic theory"and are closely related to the characteristics national character Russian people. Politics for the Pochvenniks is a concentrated expression of the spiritual tradition of the people. This tradition predetermined the initial blurring of boundaries between classes and estates of Russian society. Relative social world in Russia and was supposed to ensure the effectiveness and organicity of only those transformations that would be peaceful and gradual. The path of armed coups and revolutions that some European countries followed was rejected in advance.

The Pochvenniks did not accept the theory of progress, socialism and political radicalism. They spoke on behalf of something different from the West cultural world, since the basis of all European culture, starting from the New Age, was the mythology of free Reason. And the mind, not limited by any religious discipline, is precisely characterized by eternal doubt, tossing, eternal progress, reaching relative truths and never able to comprehend the absolute truth.

Europe built its political philosophy in conditions of almost complete independence from religion. All forms of social utopianism, social contract theories, principles of “social physics” are a clear demonstration of the desire for autonomous political rationality. The Pochvenniks were worried that the path of political and social change proposed by the West was marked by total differentiation not only of estates and classes, but also of all spheres public life and social thought. A.A. To Grigoriev, for example, it seemed strange how one could even think about power, socialism, progress outside the context of not only Christian, but generally moral axiology.

On the other hand, Russia’s “internal Europeanism” and the continuous spiritual influence of Europe determined the complex interweaving of pan-European and national elements in the domestic political thought. Although it must be emphasized that the soil scientists themselves considered the theories of “natural law”, “social contract”, the axiology of personality, the concept of socialism, progress, etc. by and large, do not have deep soil in Russia. Even Russian, torn apart by the reforms of Peter I cultural space was capable of rejecting everything relative and changeable that was aggressively implanted in him by the new European mind, the soil scientists believed.

They rejected not only revolutionary, but also any forms of political radicalism, especially in Russia, where, in their opinion, there were no prerequisites or grounds for it. Radical sentiments of a certain part domestic intelligentsia, grouped in the sixties around the magazines Sovremennik and Russian word“, the Pochvenniki assessed as a consequence of the uncritical perception of alien European ideas, superimposed on traditional Russian maximalism and “thirst for powerful activity.”

The main commandment of the political culture of pochvennichestvo states that both in everyday political activity, and especially in turning points state development, in eras of large-scale reforms, one should be guided not by borrowed ideas and schemes, but by delving into one’s own historical experience, the essence of the national character. And only based on such ideas can one properly organize social and political life: “We do not need to look for some new principles that have not yet been seen in the world, we should only be imbued with the spirit that has lived in our people from time immemorial, and contains within itself the whole secret of the growth, strength and development of our land... This unconscious life, this We should bring spiritual power, filled with such humility and such power, to our consciousness, and with it we should animate our enlightenment.

Having discovered a persistence, vitality and power of expansion unheard of in the world, the Russian people, however, never devoted themselves exclusively to material and state interests, but, on the contrary, constantly lived and live in a certain spiritual area, in which they see their true homeland, their highest interest "

The positive program of change proposed by the ideologists of pochvennichestvo was even radical in its own way. It set the task of merging the educated classes with the people's soil, reconciling “civilization” with “ popular beginning" From your cultural “other existence” upper classes must return to the fold of organic development. In fact, soil scientists described “pseudomorphosis” (O. Spengler’s term), i.e. mechanism of filling with one's own national content alien cultural forms, which came from Western samples. But they also came up with a program for the disincarnation of this “pseudomorphosis,” which was conceived as the opposite of the efforts of Peter I, a large-scale counter-reform, “a huge revolution,” in the words of F.M. Dostoevsky, “which will happen peacefully and in harmony throughout our entire fatherland.”

The program of “bringing the educated classes closer to the people” (F.M. Dostoevsky) included the education (literacy) of the people; destruction of class barriers; moral transformations of both the people and the educated strata themselves. Without literacy and education, the spiritual unification of the nation is impossible, therefore, the reform of education in terms of its dissemination acquired in the eyes of the pochvenniks the character of a political program, instead of the Slavophil idea of ​​“educating society,” because the religious, “Orthodox” principle predominates in it. Culture is beginning to be perceived more broadly by Russian conservatives; culture is both legal consciousness and secular elements of life, language, folklore, etc. Thus, we can say that within the framework of pochvennichestvo in Russian conservatism, a larger-scale idea of ​​the people arises, expanding the boundaries of the social and religious base on which they relied in their ideas Slavophiles.

In the person of pochvennichestvo, Russian conservatism acquired a system of values ​​and attitudes, oriented towards experience “ folk life"Russian society.

A direct consequence of the “organic view” was that the political interests and tasks of the soil scientists proposed to be comprehended and interpreted based on the indigenous spiritual instincts of the people, their culture, traditions, historical experience, which perform the function of the crop genotype. The destruction of the genotype or even a simple break with it (and this break is inevitable if institutions and traditions alien to the “soil” are borrowed) violates the organic life of the nation. “Soil” - a unique unity of natural-geographical and spiritual reality - gives birth to a nation, gives impetus to the development of its spiritual traditions, which in the course of real historical life form social psychology and stable features of the national character. Only comprehension of national character can make political activity constructive and fruitful.

Hence the attention paid by the Pochvenniks to the study and description of problems of the Russian national character, the main features of which they saw as the lack of commitment to “material” interests, the need to fight for political rights and freedoms, to engage in government activities; The pochvenniki considered the “all-reconcilability” of the Russian soul to be the basis for conflict-free cooperation of various classes and estates Russian society, their past and future unity.

The idea of ​​continuity, the careful preservation of the “connection of times” in the historical existence of the people, as the most important basis of the socio-political views of the Pochvenniks, determines the “protective”, conservative nature of their theory.