Aksakov family. The Aksakov family and my family.doc - Extracurricular event “The Aksakov family and my family”

Purity of life
elevate above the purity of the syllable

Ivan Kireevsky

Recently, the country has begun to revive interest in national traditions, its roots, and its own root culture. In this regard, the problems of family education and family culture are becoming increasingly relevant. The hope that the national idea and the closely related principles of family culture and family pedagogy, like a cement mortar, will strengthen the social foundation is justified.

Now, when the eternal debate about the Russian idea, the “special path of Russia” acquires particular urgency and relevance, the life, fate, views and literary and pedagogical ideas of the great Russian writer S.T. Aksakov and his family are of increasing interest to historians, literary critics, cultural experts, educators and psychologists.

As you know, in Russia in the 19th century, various circles, salons, literary and other evenings were a common form of social and cultural communication. Such formations were inspired by humanistic ideals, their breeding ground was concerns about the fate of the Fatherland, people, culture, and national traditions.

The Aksakov family as a whole, as a phenomenon of Russian culture, has not yet been sufficiently studied and understood. She has a special place in noble Russian culture. Coming from a remote Russian province, the Aksakovs experienced the split of Russian society along class lines more acutely than the capital’s nobles. Formed in patriarchal traditions, in harmony with nature little touched by civilization, in constant contacts with pagans and Islamic civilization, they were among the first in Russia in the 19th century to raise the question of hostility Russian statehood Russian national idea. Not seeing any encouraging prospects in modern Russian and European reality, the Aksakovs turned their gaze to the pre-Petrine past, sometimes idealizing and romanticizing it, but at the same time making subtle observations and amazing discoveries.

Many of the Aksakovs’ ideas, discarded as unnecessary over the course of a century, have acquired exceptional relevance in recent years. Not only here in Russia, but also in Europe and America, their philosophical, literary, but above all pedagogical and cultural heritage is carefully studied and adopted by various social groups. Among many reasons, this is also due to the fact that “the 18th - early 19th century is Family album of our culture today, its “home archive”, its “near and far” (11.14). Today's mostly ugly attempts to reform Russian statehood force us to take a fresh look at the creative heritage of the Aksakovs, trying to find in it answers to the questions of our time. It was in their heritage that the phenomenon of family turned out to be a defining element of culture.

Let us remember that the era of the 18th–19th centuries is a time that is quite close to us and closely connected with the present day. This is the time when the features of the new Russian culture, to which we also belong, were taking shape. On the other hand, this time is quite distant, already largely forgotten. And if in studying folk culture and a lot has been done about the life of the era we are considering, then in relation to the culture of the nobility until very recently, a well-established prejudice of denigration was felt. According to the researcher, when using the epithet “noble” in the mass consciousness for a long time the image of an “exploiter” immediately arose, stories about Saltychikha and much that was said about this were recalled. But at the same time it was forgotten that that great Russian culture, which became the national culture and gave Fonvizin and Derzhavin, Radishchev and Novikov, Pushkin and the Decembrists, Lermontov and Chaadaev and which formed the basis for Gogol, Herzen, the Slavophiles, Tolstoy and Tyutchev, was noble culture. Nothing can be erased from history. You have to pay too dearly for this” (9, II, 16).

In the autobiographical works of S.T. Aksakov, the life of the Ufa nobles and the family life of the steppe Trans-Volga landowners in the 18th century are recorded with almost documentary accuracy. However, unlike ordinary memoirs or historical chronicles, in Aksakov’s books everyday life is poeticized, and the internal harmony of the author of the memoirs gives the patriarchal way of life and pictures of nature he describes the charm of an earthly paradise. Before moving on to understanding the life of the Aksakov family as part of the Russian noble culture of the 19th century, I would like to dwell on the definition of the term “life” itself. According to one of the experts in this field, Yu. M. Lotman: “Everyday life is the usual course of life in its real-practical forms; everyday life is the things that surround us, our habits and everyday behavior.” In everyday life, everyday life surrounds us like air, and like air, it becomes noticeable only when it begins to change or disappear. “Turning to the history of everyday life,” the researcher writes, “we easily distinguish in it deep forms, the connection of which with ideas, with the intellectual, moral, spiritual development of the era is self-evident. Thus, ideas about noble honor or court etiquette, although they belong to the history of everyday life, are also inseparable from the history of ideas” (11.10). In light of the above, the close connection of everyday life becomes obvious not only with history, but also with the culture, philosophy, ethics, aesthetics and psychology of the people or class to which it belongs. “...Everyday life is not only the life of things, it is also customs, the entire ritual of daily behavior, the structure of life that determines the daily routine, the time of various activities, the nature of work and leisure, forms of rest, games, love ritual and funeral ritual. The connection between this aspect of everyday life and culture requires no explanation. After all, it is in it that those features are revealed by which we recognize our own and the stranger, a person of this or that era, an Englishman or a Spaniard...” (11.12).

Aksakov worked on “Family Chronicle” for 16 years and released it only when he was 64 years old. After its appearance, the author was simply bombarded with praise from people of various political and aesthetic tastes and predilections. Why is Aksakov’s chronicle, simple-minded in content and old-fashioned in language and style, appearing after “Belkin’s Tales”, “The Captain’s Daughter”, “The Queen of Spades”, after “A Hero of Our Time”, after “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka”, “Mirgorod”? , “The Overcoat” and “Dead Souls”, caused such genuine delight among Russian readers? According to Yu.M. Nagibin, Aksakov “did not poeticize his modest heroes, did not elevate them to the level of symbols, did not envelop them in a fairy-tale haze, no, everything was given straight away, without pretense, almost with scientific precision, with trusting, unhurried thoroughness. But that’s why Aksakov captured the readers – immediately and forever” (15.10). However, the writer’s contemporaries, in the person of Dobrolyubov, saw important things in his notes. historical meaning. What did it consist of? After all, Aksakov did not represent either famous historical figures or significant historical events. The heroes of his chronicle are poor steppe landowners, not very literate, not very advanced, his own grandfather, grandmother, aunts, father, mother, leading a comfortable and well-functioning life on family estates.

S.T. Aksakov did not belong to the writers whose works reflected the acute conflicts and contradictions of the era. The narration of his works is calm and sometimes calm, the problems are momentary, the issues of today seem to be drowned in memories and thoughts of days gone by. But this does not mean at all that the author of “Notes of a Gun Hunter”, “Family Chronicle”, “Childhood Years of Bagrov the Grandson”, “Memoirs” is only a beautiful-hearted “commemorator” of the past, hiding in its haze from the problems of today; Simply, the pulse of time in his works is barely audible, it is barely audible and, as it were, hidden in the ingenuous destinies of the heroes, in a leisurely sequence of events. Nevertheless, criticism, following Dobrolyubov, still recognized the historical significance of S. Aksakov’s work; the critic characterized the “Family Chronicle” and “Childhood of Bagrov the Grandson” as a chronicle of “events that actually happened, without any admixture of poetic fiction,” meaning, first of all, a historically reliable, truthful and realistic depiction of Russia’s past (6.249).

Nevertheless, it seems to us that Aksakov’s books were written in many ways not in the spirit of the times, but in defiance of it; the artistic fabric of the works led the reader away from the problems of modernity into the past, into the world of a patriarchal noble estate.

The Aksakov house, their family nest, was, of course, the heart, the focus of spiritual communication between the best minds of Russia for several generations. Against the background of such famous St. Petersburg and Moscow circles and salons as the circles of Herzen, Ogarev, Stankevich, the salons of Z.A. Volkonskaya, A.P. Elagina, E.A. Karamzina, V.F. Odoevsky, A.O. Smirnova, Kutuzov’s daughter E.I. Khitrovo and others, the Aksakov house stood out for its consistency, a wide range of cultural interests, and special warmth. S.T. Aksakov, the head of the family, was distinguished by his friendliness, responsiveness, and high level of culture, thereby attracting the most different writers, scientists, actors, musicians. As E.L. writes Voitolovskaya, M.P. visited the Aksakovs. Pogodin, famous historian, publisher of the Moskovsky Vestnik magazine, S.P. Shevyrev, professor of Russian literature, writer M.S. Zagoskin, playwright A.A. Shakhovskoy, collector of folk songs P.V. Kireevsky, here one could meet N.V. Gogol, I.S. Turgeneva, L.N. Tolstoy, F.I. Tyutcheva, A.K. Tolstoy, N.M. Yazykova, A.S. Khomyakov, actor M.S. Shchepkin, composer A.N. Verstovsky and many others. It seems that such a moral and pedagogical concept as the “House of Aksakov” has the right to life, presupposing a special House, a special Family, in which the entire way of life was permeated by the preservation and maximum dissemination of primordially Russian traditions, including folk Russian pedagogy and culture.

S.T. Aksakov was not a preacher of Slavophilism, like Konstantin and Ivan Aksakov, but as a citizen and writer, the artist largely shared their views, the essence of which was unity, integrity of beliefs and way of life. K.S. Aksakov in the article “Bogatyrs of the times of Grand Duke Vladimir according to Russian songs” wrote: “Together and in accordance with the beginning of the Christian faith, the beginning of the family is given out, the basis of all good things on earth. Bogatyrs are respectful to their father and mother... So, heroic strength appears among us, overshadowed by a sense of Orthodoxy and a sense of family: without which there can be no true strength.” This harmony of citizen and writer was the basis of the artistic narrative of S.T. Aksakov’s works, which in fact were the realization of filial thoughts and aspirations; I think that his support in his search for an artist was realism, a truthful reflection of life, an assessment of changes from the point of view of their necessity; and the starting point of the author’s position in Aksakov’s books was one of the moral commandments of Russian morality, which also became a commandment of Russian literature: the family is the prototype folk life.

As you know, the Aksakov family was strong in united mutual love and rich in bright individual personalities. The further away from us the time of writing the “Family Chronicle”, “Childhood Years of Bagrov the Grandson”, “Memoirs” goes, the more significant for us this unique family lineage, its roots, traditions of family pedagogy and family culture.

In the middle of the 20th century, the super-sensitive A.P. Platonov was the first to draw attention to this cultural phenomenon in his review of S.T. Aksakov’s book “The Childhood Years of Bagro-va-grandson”: “The ancient institution - the family - is the essence of Aksakov’s work "(18.69). The special power of Aksakov’s book, its social, literary and pedagogical significance“lies in the depiction of a beautiful family, or rather, a whole clan, that is, the continuity of two families passing on to the future, the third, through the mediation of a grandson and son, through the mediation of a child: the family is shown through its result - a child, which is most convincing. It is in the love of a child for his mother and for his father that his future feeling lies. public person: it is here that he turns, by the force of attachment to the sources of life - his mother and father - into a social being, because the mother and father will eventually die, but their descendant will remain - and the love brought up in him, the feeling assigned, but no longer quenched, will turn back, must turn to other people, to a wider circle of them than just one family. Man cannot tolerate orphanhood, and it is the greatest sorrow” (18:69-70).

It is no coincidence that the writer’s review appeared in the alarming year of 1941, at the time of Stalin’s famous address: “Brothers and sisters!”, which rallied the Russian people around their tyrant father in a moment of mortal danger hanging over the country. Describing in the “Family Chronicle” the tyranny of the feudal landowners, S.T. Aksakov, unlike many Russian writers of the 19th century, does not so much condemn this evil as, as it seems to us, suggests that it is unnatural to the age-old patriarchal way of life. However, despite their conservative views and romanticization of the patriarchal past, S.T. Aksakov and his sons supported many liberal reforms in Russia, in particular, the abolition of serfdom, as this corresponded to their desire to see the Russian peasant free, as an equal member of the family, big family of the Russian people.

"Family Chronicle" consists of five "passages". Three of them are a detailed, even hour-by-hour story about how Timofey Stepanovich Aksakov, the author’s father, married Maria Nikolaevna Zubova, his mother. The author of the chronicle does not escape the slightest details of this marriage, all the thoughts, secret and open, of the participants in this simple story. And this story is very ordinary: the bride and groom, very different in level of education and upbringing, first overcome complications with their numerous relatives, and having become husband and wife, they “adjust” to each other in order to maintain mutual understanding for the rest of their lives. Naturally, the author could not be a witness to these events and experiences: “Family Chronicle” ends with an episode of his (“Bagrov’s grandson”) birth. He relied on the stories of his father, mother, relatives, whom he “heard a lot”... And here the apparent simplicity turns into a special complexity, a depth that is almost inaccessible to us. According to V.A. Koshelev, “Aksakov, as it were, reveals to us, today, that world of human relationships that seems to be lost to us. Will the current father and mother retell to their son the story of their, in general, ordinary marriage? Which of today's children would be interested in their grandfather's character from times long past - so interested that they would carry it through their whole lives? In order to tell everyone about this grandfatherly character in his declining years, to find significant, generally interesting content in the ordinary history of his ancestors, and to decide to make this story, as it is, without embellishment and invention, the property of literature. For this we need not just a special artistic gift, but also great moral qualities, lost, forgotten by us in the stream of fast-flowing time, and a special psychology - the psychology of family tradition preserved from centuries" (6, 13).

One of the significant artistic successes of “Family Chronicle” was bright image Stepan Mikhailovich Bagrov, whose prototype was the writer’s grandfather, Stepan Mikhailovich Aksakov. This is one of the classic images in Russian literature, incorporating many positive and negative traits Russian provincial nobility of the 18th century. The Aksakov family was strong in its roots. And in the “Family Chronicle” we read: “... the antiquity of noble origin was my grandfather’s strong point, and although he had one hundred and eighty souls of peasants, but, producing his family, God knows by what documents, from some Varangian prince, he put his The seven-hundred-year-old nobility is above all wealth and rank. He did not marry one very rich and beautiful bride, whom he really liked, only because her great-grandfather was not a nobleman” (1, 61). Stepan Mikhailovich Bagrov was not only of average, but even short height; but his high chest, unusually broad shoulders, sinewy arms, and muscular body revealed him as a strong man. In his wild youth, in his youthful fun, he shook off a bunch of military comrades who were clinging to him, just as a stocky oak shakes off splashes of water after rain, when the wind shakes it. Correct facial features, beautiful large dark blue eyes, easily lit up with anger, but quiet and meek in hours of peace of mind, thick eyebrows, pleasant mouth - all this together gave the most open and honest expression to his face; his hair was brown. There was no person who did not believe him; his word, his promise was stronger and holier than any spiritual and civil act. His natural mind was healthy and bright. Of course, given the general ignorance of the landowners of that time, he did not receive any education; he knew Russian literacy poorly; but while serving in the regiment, even before becoming an officer, he learned the first rules of arithmetic and calculations on accounts, which he loved to talk about even in his old age” (1.60).

The character of any person is revealed most of all in his relationships with other people. And in the way Stepan Mikhailovich Bagrov treated his peasants, his wife, children, daughter-in-law, grandchildren - he was all a strong and beautiful person with a special moral beauty. “In just a few years, Stepan Mikhailovich was able to gain general love and deep respect in the entire neighborhood. He was a true benefactor of his neighbors distant and close, old and new, especially the latter, due to their ignorance of the area, lack of funds and various needs, always accompanying the settlers, who often embark on such a difficult task without taking preliminary measures, without preparing grain reserves and sometimes even not having anything to buy. Grandfather's full barns were open to everyone - take whatever you want. “If you can, give it back at the first harvest; If you can’t, God bless you!” With these words, grandfather with a generous hand distributed grain reserves for Seeds and Emen. To this we must add that he was so reasonable, so lenient to requests and needs, so invariably true to every word that he soon became a true oracle of the newly populated corner of the vast Orenburg region. Not only did he help, he educated his neighbors morally!” (1.72-73).

Bagrov-grandfather did not tolerate lies, no matter who they came from: “Only with the truth can you get everything from him. Whoever lied, once deceived, do not go to his master’s courtyard” (1, 73). It embodied the ability to be caring, affectionate, not forgetting to bring a bunch of large wonderful strawberries from the fields to his Arisha, and tenderness and love for children and grandchildren.

Slowly and thoroughly describing the smallest details of the patriarchal serf life of Stepan Mikhailovich Bagrov, Aksakov creates a vivid image of a stern but wise master, a caring and demanding father, living in harmony with God and nature.

In contrast to the wise and sedate life of Stepan Mikhailovich Bagrov, the second passage of the “Family Chronicle” describes the violent life of the cruel landowner Mikhail Maksimovich Kurolesov, the husband of Aksakov’s aunt. The writer does not paint him with only black paint: not lacking in dexterity and practical acumen, Kurolesov enjoys success with provincial young ladies and the respect of his own peasants. But all his positive qualities - thrift, charm - are overshadowed by wild scenes of landowner tyranny, which distorted and doomed this remarkable nature. “Little by little, rumors began to spread that the major was not only upset, as they said before, but also cruel, that having retreated into his villages, especially in Ufa, he was drinking and debauching...” (1.100).

It’s a paradox, but “forty years later, having become the owner of Parashin, the grandson of Stepan Mikhailovich found in the Kurolesov peasants a sincere grateful memory of the management of Mikhail Maksimovich, because they felt the constant benefit of many institutions; they forgot his cruelty, from which it was mainly the servants who suffered, but they remembered his ability to distinguish right from wrong, hard-working from lazy, perfect knowledge of peasant needs and always ready help"(1, 119). Yu. Nagibin is right when he asserts that “if it were not for Aksakov, our idea of ​​Russian life would have been much one-sided and poorer” (16, 10). An important place in the narrative of the “Family Chronicle” is occupied by chapters describing the love story and marriage of the parents. This simple story told by Aksakov contains an important result of the path traveled by Russian noble culture in the 18th century, from the creation of a powerful state and a profitable economy based on Christian morality, to the transfer of the main life goals and interests to the sphere of spirit and family. It was on such traditions of their family that not only noble, but also Christian children were brought up for centuries. They learned from them how to build their future families. These legends contained the wisdom of the age-old structure of Russian family life, that structure that we never tire of admiring, but which we are no longer able to follow” (16, II).

“Family Chronicle” by S.T. Aksakova was received by readers unusually unanimously and enthusiastically. The complex process of forming a child’s soul is the central theme of Aksakov’s second book, “The Childhood Years of Bagrov the Grandson.” The main task that Aksakov set for himself was to write a “child’s story” and that it be a “book for children.” “The Childhood Years of Bagrov the Grandson” is life seen through the eyes of a child. Aksakov conceived a book that did not exist either in Russian or in world literature.

The most dear person to a child has always been and is the mother: “The constant presence of my mother merges with my every memory. Her image is inextricably linked with my existence, and therefore it stands out little in the fragmentary pictures of the first time of my childhood, although it constantly participates in them.” It is the mother, Maria Nikolaevna Aksakova (Zubova), who introduces little Seryozha into the wonderful world of books. And books in Aksakov’s chronicle appear together with the heroine - Sofia Nikolaevna Zubina. The author endows his heroine with rare qualities: Seryozha Bagrov’s mother is pretty - “the first Ufa beauty” is smart and educated. Not last role in this, the author devotes her attention to books: she independently studies French, reads in it, but she gives clear preference to Russian literature. The Russian educator N.I. Novikov, whom Maria Nikolaevna met in absentia, by correspondence, and who played a certain role in her education, sent from Moscow “all the wonderful works in Russian literature.” Books in the Aksakov-Bagrov family are not just reading matter, albeit refined, literate, bringing pleasure, and this is not even a part of life, it is life in all its manifestations: they teach, educate, enlighten, they are capable of performing miracles: it is the book - “Home medical book" Bukhana - gave Seryozha a second birth. After the “child” recovers, the “Healer” pushes the Ufa doctors into the background and becomes for the mother not just a healer, but an adviser for the rest of her life, and Bukhan receives the title of savior in the family: “My recovery was considered a miracle, according to the doctors themselves... His mother attributed it, firstly, to God’s endless mercy, and secondly, to Bukhan’s clinic. Bukhan received the title of my savior, and my mother taught me as a child to pray to God for the repose of his soul during morning and evening prayers. It was, in fact, an interesting read, because all the herbs, salts, roots, and all the medicinal drugs that were mentioned in the medical book were described. I re-read these descriptions much later in life and always with pleasure, because all this is presented and translated into Russian very sensibly and well.”

Soon Sergei Ivanovich Anichkov, a former deputy of the Catherine Commission of the new code, a champion of education and “the patron of all curiosity,” brought the book “Children’s Reading for the Heart and Mind,” published without money by N.I. Novikov at the Moskovskie Vedomosti: “I was so happy that Almost in tears, he threw himself on the old man’s neck and, not remembering himself, began to cry and ran home, leaving his father to talk with Anichkov. ...Fearing that someone would take my treasure, I ran straight through the hallway into the nursery, lay down in my crib, closed the curtains, opened the first part of my book with delight and, despite my mother’s reasonable thrift, read everything in just over a month. A complete revolution took place in my childhood mind, and a new world opened up for me...” (1.418). This was not the last book - a gift from S.I. Anichkov, who talked with the boy after each book he read.

The next books for Seryozha to read were from his aunt’s library. These are “Song Book”, “Dream Book” and “some kind of theatrical vaudeville”. Both books made a great impression on Seryozha. “I learned by heart what a dream meant, and for a long time I loved to interpret dreams, my own and those of others, for a long time I believed the truth of these interpretations, and only at the university was superstition completely destroyed in me...”

Bagrov's grandson's library, consisting of twelve parts of "Children's Reading" and "Mirror of Virtue", was multiplied by Shishkov's "Children's Library" and "The History of the Young Cyrus and the Return March of Ten Thousand Greeks, the Works of Xenophon." The first books by Seryozha Bagrova-Aksakov were works by Kheraskov and Sumarokov. One of the first, according to tradition, was books of fairy tales, especially Arabic ones: “At the first opportunity, I began to read Arabic fairy tales, which captured my ardent imagination for a long time. I liked all the fairy tales, I didn’t know which one to choose! They aroused my childhood curiosity, amazed me with the unexpectedness of outlandish adventures, and ignited my own fantasies.” “Scheherazade drove me crazy. I couldn't tear myself away from the book. It seems that no book has ever aroused such participation and curiosity in me” (1.429).

Churasovo also had a decent library, which the little reader was quick to take advantage of. With Praskovya Ivanovna’s permission, at his mother’s choice, he took books from there, “which he read with great pleasure.” The first book Seryozha came across was “Cadmus and Harmony,” the works of Kheraskov, and his “Polydor, son of Cadmus and Harmony.” There was also Karamzin’s “My Trinkets” and his own publication of various poems by different writers called “Aonids”. “These poems were no longer the same as the poems of Sumarokov and Kheraskov.” The author of the autobiographical book more than once notes Seryozha Bagrov’s observation skills, his interest in new people, communication, and guests who often came to the hospitable home of the Aksakov-Bagrovs. These meetings did not pass without a trace, but on the contrary, “often made me think: I had quite a bit of free time for thinking” (1.456).

On the advice of her aunt, the housekeeper Pelageya was called for Seryozha Bagrov, “who was a great master of telling fairy tales and whom even the late grandfather loved to listen to... Pelageya, an elderly, but still white, rosy-cheeked and portly woman, came, prayed to God, walked up to the arm, sighed several times, in her habit, saying every time: “Lord, have mercy on us sinners,” she sat down by the stove, became sad with one hand and began to say, in a little sing-song voice: “In a certain kingdom, in a certain state...”. This was a fairy tale called “The Scarlet Flower”. Need I say that I did not fall asleep until the end of the fairy tale, that, on the contrary, I did not sleep longer than usual? The fairy tale aroused my curiosity and imagination so much, captivated me so much that it could have cured me of drowsiness, and not of insomnia... From then on, until my recovery, Pelageya told me every day one of her many fairy tales. More than others, I remember “The Tsar Maiden”, “Ivan the Fool”, “The Firebird” and “The Snake Gorynych”. Fairy tales occupied me so much...” (1, 468-469).

If you carefully follow Seryozha Bagrov’s reading circle, you can note one, perhaps, main feature: he was interested primarily in Russian literature, he was brought up on it, it gave him, a provincial boy, the first knowledge about his country, its past, traditions, people . Among the books were also: “Ancient Vivliofika”, “Rossiada” by Kheraskov and a complete collection in twelve volumes of the works of Sumarokov. Having glanced at Vivliofika, “I left it alone, and read Rossiada and Sumarokov’s works with greed and enthusiastic enthusiasm” (1.467).

The author notes the dramatic changes that clearly occur with Seryozha, the reader: “Enriched with new books and new impressions in the silence of solitude and undisturbed freedom, only after Churasov’s life was fully appreciated by me, I talked incessantly with my mother and noticed with pleasure that I had become older and smarter, because my mother and others talked and reasoned with me about things that they didn’t want to talk about before” (1.469).

In “Family Chronicle” and “Childhood Years of Bagrov the Grandson” the reader is presented with magnificent pictures of the life of provincial landowners of that time: folk holidays(Christmastide, Easter), fasting, weddings, funerals, wakes, home healing, dinners and readings, customs of ancient times.

With no less pleasure, the author reproduces the rituals of the Russian noble feast, and the names of the dishes sometimes resemble a kind of poetic cookbook. This is what the lunch of old grandfather Seryozha Bagrov looks like when he returned tired from field work: “The big yard guy Nikolka Ruzan stood behind his grandfather with a whole branch of birch to fan it from flies. Grandfather slurped hot cabbage soup with a wooden spoon, because the silver one burned his lips; they were followed by botvinya with honey, with transparent balyk, yellow as wax, salted sturgeon and peeled crayfish and similar dishes. All this was washed down with homemade mash and kvass, also with honey” (1, 80).

And how detailed, with what knowledge of customs and rituals, S. Aksakov described the wedding dinner in Bagrov! “Dinner took place as usual; the young people sat side by side between the father-in-law and mother-in-law, there were many dishes, one fatter than the other, one heavier than the other; cook Stepan did not spare cinnamon, cloves, pepper and most of all butter... The old people did not think to stock up on boiling wine in Ufa and the health of the newlyweds drank three-year-old, three-berry liqueur, strawberries, thick as butter, spreading around them the wonderful smell of field strawberries. Vanka Mazin “... served everyone one glass with white patterns and a bluish stream that wriggled inside the glass stem. When the young people had to thank them for their congratulations, Sofya Nikolaevna, of course, was unpleasant to drink from a glass that had just come out of Karataev’s fat lips; but she didn’t wince and even wanted to drink a whole glass” (1, 174). They didn’t forget about the servants in the Bagrovs’ house: “In Bagrov, orders were made in advance to treat the servants on the day of the newlyweds’ arrival... Several stoves of korchag beer were brewed in advance, a dozen other buckets of strong homemade wine were poured, and all the necessary vessels were prepared... In the wide courtyard, not fenced off from the street, boards were approved for supply, on which there were lucas with beer, barrels of wine, and piles of pies cut in half for snacks” (1, 178).

How many cooking recipes can you learn from Aksakov! “... meanwhile the fish was boiled, fried in a frying pan in sour cream, and the largest perches were baked with skin and scales” (1, 190). But during Lent they ate “botvinya”, fish, crayfish, porridge with some kind of lean milk and strawberries” (1, 315,372). They knew a lot about medicinal herbs and folk healing. There are many examples of folk healing in the text of “Family Chronicle” and “Childhood Years”: people beaten by “cats” were saved only by “wrapping their tormented body in warm, freshly skinned sheep skins, which were immediately slaughtered” (1, 107 ); Zubikha the sorceress - bewitches all men with her roots (1.131); Ivan Petrovich has been “pulling the gastric herbalist” since the morning (1.160). In winter they were treated with a healing herbalist or with Bashkir honey. But the best remedy for treatment was “clean forest air and the use of kumiss” (1, 240). “The weak, yellow, thin, in a word, shadow of the former Sofia Nikolaevna” (1.242) was taken by Alexey Stepanovich to the Tatar village of Uzy-Tamak, called by the Russians Alkino.” ...the blooming meadows breathed the incense of herbs and flowers, and forests of oak, linden, maple and all other types of black forest, thinning the air, imparted life-giving force to it” (241). “Koumiss was a common drink from morning to evening. For Sofya Nikolaevna, this beneficial drink was prepared in a civilized way, that is, mare’s milk was fermented not in a turpsuk, but in a clean, new, linden tub... the healing drink was prepared for her in the most pleasant way” (241). After this treatment, the patient got up within two to three weeks. For a complete recovery, he also needed horse riding and fatty lamb meat, which was used to eat kumiss. All these pictures of everyday life are transformed under the pen of S.T. Aksakov into a broad panorama of provincial life in Russia in the second half of the 18th century. Yu.M. said this well. Nagibin: “Aksakov did not formulate his philosophical views, with the exception of devotion to the “Russian principle.” But the significance of his seemingly unpretentious autobiographical chronicles (.....) is that they have a solid and strong ideological basis. These views are expressed in the famous phrase of Leo Tolstoy: “Stop making history, let’s just live.” The phrase is amazing in its simplicity and depth. Tolstoy also said that the most serious and real life takes place at home, not in the square. By house he meant not four walls, but what is encompassed by the direct concern of the human heart, and by square - not urban space, but a revelry of abstract speculation, leading to destructive consequences. For Tolstoy’s truth, the everyday life of a family is important with all the small and seemingly insignificant events, with all the tears and joys, with holidays, illnesses, separations, meetings, with everything that languishes the human heart” (16, 10). The “strong and strong ideological basis” that the writer rightly declares was Slavophilism, which arose not from idleness, but was a kind of response to the challenge posed by Westerners to opposing ideological camps. The reforms of Peter I did their job: historical development Russia followed the scenario of mastering the life experience of Western Europe; Westerners conclude: Russia has neither a historical past nor a future. The thinking part of the Russian nobility, true patriots, which were all Slavophiles without exception, despite disagreements, disputes, contradictions, did not and could not accept such an ideological orientation. One of the founders of Slavophilism A.S. Khomyakov formulated the credo of the future Slavophile ideology as follows: “Down with everything borrowed! Long live your native, folk, original. Let us be Russian in everything, in the structure of our state and way of life, in science, philosophy, literature, mental activity” (2.49).

The philosophical, historical, religious, cultural aspects of Slavophilism were, although not fully, studied not only in pre-revolutionary Russia, but also in the West. This cannot be said about his political and pedagogical doctrine, orientation in the field of culture. The historical development from the 1830s to the 1990s has not been traced at all. Professor spiritually far from Slavophilism political sciences New York University A. Yanov, in his book “The Russian Idea and the Year 2000,” was one of the first to tackle the problem of the evolution of the “Russian idea” from early Slavophiles to modern national patriots. The scientist polemically sharply contrasts the Slavophil ideal of the nation - the family - with Western political values: “The Russian idea did not recognize the central postulate of the Western political thought about the separation of powers (as the institutional embodiment of the neutralization of vice by vice). She contrasted him with the principle of separation of functions between secular and spiritual authorities and the state, which protects the country from external enemy, and the Orthodox Church, which resolves the conflicts of the nation. She contrasted the misanthropic philosophy of Hobbes with a naive, but pure faith in love and goodness in the entire hierarchy of human groups that make up society - in the family, in the peasant community, in the monastery, in the church and in the nation. A nation-family, needing no parliaments, no political parties, no separation of powers, became her ideal. Like the family, the nation does not need legal guarantees or institutional limits on power. As in a family, the first place for a nation should not be the rights, but the responsibilities of its members. As in the family, the conflicts of a nation must be settled by spiritual authority and not by the constitution.” This ideal of the nation-family found its embodiment only in the Aksakov family. If in Europe there were communes of utopian socialists, then in Russia in the 19th century such a commune was the Aksakov family, which made a moral revolution in its attempts to return “home”, to its pure rural origins, to pre-Petrine Russia, which, in the opinion of its members, knew neither despotism, nor police terror, nor official state lies.

The eternal confrontation between Russia and the West as a cultural and historical problem and situation dates back to the 18th century. The process of Europeanization has affected, to one degree or another, many areas of life in our country: social, scientific, cultural. In the field of everyday culture, this process resulted in a spiritual split of the nation. Changing the norms of life of the nobility often led to complete oblivion of their own cultural traditions right down to the tongue. The “photocopy” of Western forms of life sometimes acquired an ugly form, which caused a sharp protest not only among Slavophiles, true citizens, but was also reflected in culture - the satirical literature of the 18th century is an example of this. We should not forget that opposition to Westernism began long before the formation of Slavophilism as an ideological, ethical, cultural, and other direction. If we talk about the national origins of Slavophilism, then the soil from which this philosophical, mental, pedagogical, literary movement, there was a cultural and ideological situation that developed in Russia in the 1830-1840s. As is known, Slavophilism, above all else, proclaimed the rights of its people to an original historical life, characteristic and belonging only to it. Let us recall that such an organization was a kind of response to the challenge posed by representatives of the opposite direction - the “Westerners”.

Speaking about the emergence and roots of Russian Slavophilism, it is necessary to remember that its uniqueness as a cultural and social movement is completely impossible to understand without realizing that it was based on Orthodox Christianity. The aesthetic and ethical basis of Slavophilism is Family, Home, Roots, Traditions. Propaganda and the intrinsic value of national spiritual experience, including in culture and literature, was a priority task for the thinking part of Russian society and for cultural figures. K.S. Aksakov, analyzing Russian literature of the 18th century and noting its entirely imitative character, devoid of any original principle (article 1849 “On the current state of literature. Letter 1. Literature of previous years”), wrote: “The Russian land found itself in a situation America: it had to be opened. There were Columbuses who said that it exists, the Russian Land. What laughter and reproach they were met with: the names of Slavophiles, Rusopetov, leavened patriots, accusations of retrograde rained down from all sides; but those in whom the conviction in the existence of the Russian land was born were not embarrassed... Such progressive people - Boltin, Shishkov and especially Griboyedov in their "Woe from Wit" - rebelled against imitation, pointed out the need for originality for us... These noble faces are a comforting a phenomenon among the era of slavish imitation.” Such “Columbus”, “advanced people”, “noble persons” were the Aksakovs themselves, whose life and works were an organic continuation of their theoretical views.

FOOTNOTES

• Aksakov S.T. Collection Op.: In 5 volumes. T.1. Family chronicle; The childhood years of Bagrov the grandson. – M.: Pravda, 1966.
• Blagova T.I. The founders of Slavophilism. Alexey Khomyakov and Ivan Kireevsky. M., 1995.
• Voitolovskaya E.L. Aksakov in the circle of classical writers: Document. essays. – L.: Det. lit., 1982.
• Gudkov G.F., Gudkova Z.I. S. T. Aksakov. Family and environment: Local history essays. – Ufa: Bashk. book publishing house, 1991.
• Dal V.I. Explanatory dictionary of the living Great Russian language. M., 1978. T.1.
• Dobrolyubov N.A. Fields. collection Op. T.1.
• Koshelev V.A. Time of the Aksakovs // Lit. at school – 1993. – No. 4.
• Koshelev V.A. Slavophiles and the official nationality // Slavophilism and modernity. – St. Petersburg, 1994.
• Kurilov A.S. Konstantin and Ivan Aksakov //Aksakov K.S., Aksakov I.S. Literary criticism / Comp., intro. article and comment. A.S. Kurilova. – M., 1981.
• Lobanov M.P. “A stronghold against enemies”: Lessons from the Aksakovs // Mol. guard. – 1995. -№1.
• Lobanov M.P. Sergei Timofeevich Aksakov. – M: Like. Guard, 1987. (Life of wonderful people. Ser. biogr). Vol. 3 (677).
• Lotman Yu.M. Conversations about Russian culture: Life and traditions of the Russian nobility (XVIII - early XIX centuries). – St. Petersburg: Art, 1994.
• Mann Yu, Half-blooded friends. – // Family and school. – 1988. – No. 9.
• Mashinsky S.I. S. T. Aksakov: Life and creativity. – 2nd ed., add. -M.: Hood. lit., 1973.
• Methodius (archimandrite). The word spoken on the day of the 50th anniversary of the death of the writer S.T. Aksakova, 1909 April 30 // Origins. – 1991. -№16.
• Nagibin Yu.M. Aksakov //Change. – 1987. – No. 6.
• Correspondence of N.V. Gogol in two volumes. M: 1988 T.2.
• Platonov AL. Childhood years of Bagrov the grandson: I Review by Aksakov // Platonov AL. Reader's reflections: articles. – M., 1970.
• Prishvin M.M. Eyes of the Earth; Ship thicket. - Chelyabinsk.
• Soloukhin V.A. Letters from the Russian Museum //Soloukhin V.A. Slavic notebook. – M., 1972
• Tsivyan T.V. House in the folklore model of the world (based on Balkan riddles) // Scientific notes of Tartu State University, vol. 464- Works on sign systems X. Semiotics of culture. Tartu, 1978

Slide 1

With the name AKSAKOVA
The Aksakov family in the history of the Samara region
Prepared by: Head. Library of the Samara Cadet Corps of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia N.N. Fuflygina

Slide 2

Samara and the Samara region are closely connected with the Aksakov family. The writer’s grandfather S. M. Aksakov lived in Samara, and the writer S. T. Aksakov himself visited, but the life of his sons, Grigory Sergeevich and Ivan Sergeevich Aksakov, is most closely connected with our city.
Sergei Timofeevich Aksakov
Grigory Sergeevich Aksakov
Ivan Sergeevich Aksakov

Slide 3

Sergei Timofeevich Aksakov (1791-1859) - an original Russian writer
Dedicated to the 165th anniversary of the Samara province
The writer’s personality is so significant in the history of both Russian and world culture that 1991, the year of the writer’s 100th anniversary, was declared by UNESCO as the year of Aksakov throughout the world

Slide 4

Dedicated to the 165th anniversary of the Samara province
“I may be a minor writer, but my brick already lies in the foundation of what will create a great writer.” (S.T. Aksakov)
His early years S.T. Aksakov spent time in Ufa and in his grandfather’s estate Novy Aksakov, Buguruslan district, Samara province (now Orenburg region). In Aksakov’s autobiographical works, this estate appears under the name New Bagrovo. Most famous works: “The Scarlet Flower”, “Family Chronicle”, “Childhood of Bagrov the Grandson”, “Notes of a Gun Hunter...”.

Slide 5

The Aksakov family on Samara land
The Aksakov family is directly related to Samara, leaving a bright mark on the history of our city. On Samara soil rest the ashes of the writer’s grandfather: Stepan Mikhailovich, the son of Grigory Sergeevich and the granddaughter of Olga Grigorievna Aksakov. In the Zheleznodorozhny district of Samara there is Aksakovskaya Street, named after the magnificent master of prose.
Dedicated to the 165th anniversary of the Samara province

Slide 6

Aksakov places Samara region
Aksakovsky places of the Samara region can be divided into northern and southern directions. Northern direction: Neklyudovo - Krotkovo - Abdul-zavod - Sergievsk - Red Settlement - further along the Simbirsk land... This is the road along which the Aksakovs traveled from the Orenburg estates to the Simbirsk ones. Southern direction - here are villages that are largely associated with the family of Grigory Sergeevich Aksakov, these are Samara - Borskoye - Strakhovo - Yazykovo.”
Dedicated to the 165th anniversary of the Samara province

Slide 7

Dedicated to the 165th anniversary of the Samara province
●The Aksakov family is one of the oldest in Russia. ●The Aksakov family are public figures, writers, poets and publicists. In total there were ten children in the family. Two representatives of this glorious family have birthdays in October. ●October 4 marked the 195th anniversary of the birth of one of the Samara governors, Grigory Aksakov, known in addition to the fame of his father, a writer, for many good deeds for the benefit of our region. ● October 8 is the birthday of the writer and public figure Ivan Aksakov, who wrote a lot about the nature of our region.

Slide 8

Grigory Sergeevich Aksakov (1820-1891) - honorary citizen of the city of Samara

Slide 9

●Grigory Sergeevich Aksakov served in Samara as vice-governor, governor, and was elected provincial leader of the nobility three times. ●On January 20, 1867, G.S. Aksakov was transferred to the post of Samara governor. ●Thanks to his merits, a railway, a telegraph, a zemstvo hospital (now named after N.I. Pirogov), a cathedral church in the name of Christ the Savior appeared in our city, the illiterate peasantry was enlightened, and the city’s economy developed.
Dedicated to the 165th anniversary of the Samara province

Slide 10

●G. S. Aksakov actively participated in organizing assistance to the starving peasants of the Samara province, cared about the state of people's health and sobriety, morality and strengthening the family. ●He had many state awards. In 1873, for services to the city G.S. Aksakov was awarded the title of Honorary Citizen of Samara! ●Until his death G.S. Aksakov served our city. The people loved him very much. February 24 (old style) 1891 G.S. Aksakov died. The coffin with the body of the deceased was carried 18 miles by ordinary people in their arms!
Dedicated to the 165th anniversary of the Samara province

Slide 11

Dedicated to the 165th anniversary of the Samara province
In Samara G.S. Aksakov lived with his daughter Olga, whose grandfather S.T. Aksakov dedicated the world-famous fairy tale “The Scarlet Flower” in a modest house at the intersection of Saratovskaya and Alekseevskaya (now Frunze and Krasnoarmeyskaya) streets opposite famous house Kurlinykh.

Slide 12

Ivan Sergeevich Aksakov (1823-1886) - Russian publicist, poet, public figure
Dedicated to the 165th anniversary of the Samara province

Slide 13

Dedicated to the 165th anniversary of the Samara province
Several generations of the Aksakov family were associated with this place. Ivan Sergeevich Aksakov especially liked it, who wrote a lot about the nature of our region. “It’s fun to look at the clean, cold springs flowing from the mountain with such force along the white bottom. There are mountains all around... The view from there is excellent.” Ivan Aksakov liked everything at the resort. In addition to poems and articles about his Slavic brothers, Ivan Aksakov became known as a fiery fighter for the freedom of Crimea and the Balkans from Turkish rule and was even nominated for the Bulgarian throne.

Slide 14

Dedicated to the 165th anniversary of the Samara province
Some other representatives of the Aksakov family have interesting twists of fate. ● Olga, the writer’s granddaughter and the governor’s daughter, for whom the fairy tale “The Scarlet Flower” was written at one time, subsequently founded a koumiss treatment institution. ● Sergei is the grandson of Governor Grigory Aksakov; during the Civil War he served in Kolchak’s army, then emigrated, lived in Shanghai and returned to his homeland only at the end of his life, in the late 50s. There are no direct descendants of the Aksakovs left. The family line was interrupted - only the memory of the people who served the Fatherland with faith and truth remained

Slide 15

Dedicated to the 165th anniversary of the Samara province
The Aksakov family is a remarkable and unique, in its own way, phenomenon of Russian life. This was a rare case in Russian history when not one person, but an entire family was surrounded by universal respect. Contemporaries were attracted by the warmth and cordiality that reigned in this family, the purity of its moral atmosphere, the breadth of cultural interests, and the surprisingly strong connection between the older and younger generations.

Slide 16

In memory of the Aksakov family
It is planned to perpetuate the memory of the Aksakov family in Samara. At the intersection of Frunze and Krasnoarmeyskaya streets a park will be created with sculptural composition the Aksakov family sitting on a bench. In the center of the square there will be a sculpture “The Scarlet Flower” from the fairy tale of the same name, which was written down by the famous Russian writer Sergei Aksakov. Perhaps some kind of illumination and laser beams will be made for the flower - the project has not yet been developed in detail. Also in the park there will be a sculpture of a girl who, according to the plan, listens to a fairy tale. The square will also be decorated with five fountains. And on both sides it is planned to make a forged lattice in the Art Nouveau style and gates that will close at ten o’clock in the evening and open exactly twelve hours later.
Dedicated to the 165th anniversary of the Samara province

Slide 17

Dedicated to the 165th anniversary of the Samara province
Thank you for your attention

Russian writer, memoirist, literary and theater critic. Father of the Slavophiles I.S. Aksakov and K.S. Aksakov, memoirist V.S. Aksakova.

Born into a poor but ancient noble family. His father Timofey Stepanovich Aksakov served as the prosecutor of the Ufa Zemstvo Court. Mother, Maria Nikolaevna Zubova, was the daughter of an assistant to the Orenburg governor. Since childhood, Maria Nikolaevna encouraged her son to read books and instilled in him a love of literature, theater, and art. From his father, young Aksakov inherited a love of nature, a passion for hunting and fishing, and rare powers of observation. The future writer spent his childhood in Ufa and on the family estate Novo-Aksakovo.

S. T. Aksakov received further upbringing and education at the Kazan gymnasium (since 1799), which was soon transformed into Kazan University (1804), where he also continued to study. During his student years, S. T. Aksakov became interested in theater and took part in the activities of the Society of Lovers of Russian Literature. At the university, Sergei Timofeevich met mathematics teacher G.I. Kartashevsky, who influenced him big influence. Subsequently, Kartashevsky married Aksakov’s sister Natalya Timofeevna.

Without graduating from Kazan University, the future writer moved to St. Petersburg (1807), where he joined the Commission for Drafting Laws and the State Revenue Expedition until 1819.

In 1816, Aksakov married, out of great love, O. S. Zaplatina, the daughter of Suvorov’s general and the captured Turkish princess Igel-Syum. An intelligent and educated woman, Olga Semyonovna was Aksakov’s main adviser, first reader and literary critic all her life. The Aksakovs had a large, friendly family: four sons and six daughters.

In 1827-1832, Aksakov served in the Moscow Censorship Committee. In 1833-1838 he became an inspector and then director of the Konstantinovsky Land Survey Institute. During Aksakov's directorship, the institute became one of the exemplary educational institutions. The Moscow period of S. T. Aksakov’s life was marked by new activities and new acquaintances. Among them were the writer M. N. Zagoskin, poet and critic S. P. Shevyrev, journalist N. I. Nadezhdin, playwright A. A. Shakhovskoy, historian M. P. Pogodin. Aksakov himself during this period was fruitfully engaged in translations, literary and theater criticism, and collaborated with the magazines Athenaeum, Galatea, and Moskovsky Vestnik. Strong friendship connected during these years with S.T. Aksakov and the talented Russian actor M. S. Shchepkin.

In 1837, Aksakov became the heir to a large estate (850 serfs and several thousand acres of land) in the Orenburg province, where he visited only on visits. In 1839, Sergei Timofeevich retired due to poor health.

In 1843, the Aksakov family acquired the Abramtsevo estate near Moscow. There, on the banks of the picturesque Vori River, where S. T. Aksakov sat for hours with a fishing rod, his talent as a naturalist blossomed in a quiet, secluded estate. Having retired from official duties and settled in a rural corner dear to his heart, Sergei Timofeevich was actively involved in literary activities. This circumstance was also facilitated by the close communication of the writer with N.V., who returned from abroad. Gogol, with whom the Aksakov family had known since 1832.

Gogol insisted that Aksakov, who had a remarkable gift as a storyteller and reciter, take up the pen. The writer's debut turned out to be very successful and promising. In his first books: “Notes on Fishing” (1847), “Notes of a Gun Hunter of the Orenburg Province” (1852), “Stories and Memoirs of a Hunter about Various Hunts” (1855) - S. T. Aksakov showed himself as a subtle observer, soulful poet of Russian nature. Critics received the new writer very favorably. I. S. Turgenev, with whom Aksakov began correspondence and personal friendship, had a very high opinion of S. T. Aksakov’s “hunting” trilogy. His works were also appreciated by many Russian natural scientists, such as K. F. Roulier, V. M. Chernyaev.

However, Aksakov’s talent as a writer was most fully revealed in his autobiographical works: “Family Chronicle” (1856), “Childhood Years of Bagrov the Grandson” (1858) and “Memoirs” (1856), written by him on the basis of real life events and family legends. Based on the history of three generations of the Bagrov family, Aksakov recreated in them the spirit and life of the provincial noble family the end of the 18th century in its everyday life. In these works, the originality of Aksakov’s talent was manifested with particular force, which consisted in the character and style of his literary language, which absorbed the simplicity, colorfulness, expressiveness of living colloquial speech. The fairy tale “The Scarlet Flower” by S. T. Aksakov, which he placed in the appendix to the book “The Childhood Years of Bagrov the Grandson,” became widely known. The writer dedicated the fairy tale to his little granddaughter Olga Grigorievna Aksakova. This small, essentially independent work of the writer captivated readers with its magical colorful plot, bright, spontaneous characters of the main characters, and unusually melodious and figurative language.

Success autobiographical trilogy S. T. Aksakova was extraordinary. Readers and critics enthusiastically accepted the books of the new talented memoirist. In his declining years, S. T. Aksakov gained wide fame and recognition. However, writing was given to the writer with great effort. He almost lost his sight, and he had to dictate works to his loved ones, relying on their diligence and editorial talent.

In the spring of 1859, Aksakov, who had been seriously ill for a long time, died in Moscow. He left behind talented offspring, good memories and beautiful works that have become textbooks. Sergei Timofeevich Aksakov was buried in Moscow in the Simonov Monastery, and in Soviet times he was reburied at the Novodevichy Cemetery.

Children:

Konstantin(1817-1860) - writer, historian and linguist, ideologist of Slavophilism; single

Gregory(1820-1891) - Ufa and Samara governor, privy councilor; married to Sofya Alexandrovna Shishkova.

Ivan(1823-1886) - writer, editor and publisher, ideologist of Slavophilism; married to maid of honor Anna Fedorovna Tyutcheva (daughter of the poet).

Michael(1824-1841) - student of the Corps of Pages.

Faith(1819-1864) - ascetic of the Slavophile movement, memoirist.

Olga(1821-1861), due to a nervous illness, lived under the supervision of doctors in Bashilovka at the dacha, followed a diet.

Hope(1829-1869), was known for singing Little Russian songs and playing the guitar.

Love(1830-1867) - amateur artist, buried next to her parents and brothers in the Simonov Monastery.

Maria(1831-1908) - wife of the collegiate assessor Yegor Antonovich Tomashevsky.

Anna(1831—?), died in childhood.

Sophia (1834—1885).

Memory

Currently, the Memorial House-Museum of S. T. Aksakov is located in Ufa.

At the State Historical, Art and Literary Museum "Abramtsevo" part of the exhibition of the Main Manor House is dedicated to the Aksakov family and the guests of their house.

In the village A monument to S. T. Aksakov was unveiled in Aksakovo, Buguruslan district, Orenburg region.

In the village A monument to Aksakov was unveiled in Nadezhdino, Belebeevsky district, Orenburg region.

A monument to S. T. Aksakov was unveiled in Ufa.

Aksakov Readings are held annually at the Abramtsevo Museum-Reserve.

Every year the All-Russian festival “The Scarlet Flower” is held there.

Every year since 1992, the International Aksakov Festival has been held in Ufa.

XX century Historical destinies of representatives of the Aksakov family

At the beginning of the 20th century, there were three branches of the ancient noble family of the Aksakovs: Ufa-Samara, Tula-Ryazan and Kaluga-Moscow.

The fates of the Aksakovs who remained in Russia were typical for most Russian nobles. In the first half of the 20th century, they suffered all the hardships of this difficult period in Russian history - war, emigration, and after the revolution - various oppressions, restrictions, and repressions.

UFA-SAMARA BRANCH

The Ufa-Samara branch of the family at the beginning of the 20th century was represented by the daughter of Grigory Sergeevich Aksakov, Olga Grigorievna Aksakova, as well as the family and descendants of his son, Sergei Grigorievich Aksakov.

Olga Grigorievna Aksakova

Olga Grigorievna Aksakova. Collection of the State Historical, Artistic and Literary Museum-Reserve "Abramtsevo".

Olga Grigorievna Aksakova was born on December 26, 1848 in Simbirsk. She was baptized in 1849 in the Spasovoznesensky Cathedral, the recipients were Nikolai Timofeevich Aksakov and lieutenant Ekaterina Vasilievna Krotkova.

Olga was the beloved granddaughter of the writer Sergei Timofeevich Aksakov; the book “The Childhood Years of Bagrov’s Grandson” and the fairy tale “The Scarlet Flower” are dedicated to her. She did not get married and devoted herself to social work. In 1889, near the city of Belebey, she founded a kumys treatment institution. On her estate, she started a “model” farm, from which dairy products, meat and vegetables were supplied to the kumiss clinic.

According to researchers, "". The archive, which was initially kept by her mother, was finally transferred to her after the division of property with her brother Sergei. Olga Grigorievna Aksakova not only kept the archive, but sorted and described the documents, and prepared them for publication in 1889.

Olga Grigorievna Aksakova. Memorial meeting house-museum S.T. Aksakov in Ufa. “Dad remembered Olga Grigorievna, his aunt and godmother. She is known to everyone as the beloved granddaughter of S.T. Aksakova. Dad was her favorite nephew, it was to him that she wanted to leave an inheritance. Dad recalled with humor her tight-fistedness, how she traveled to Strakhov on a train in third class.” From the memoirs of I.S. Aksakova.

The life of Olga Grigorievna Aksakova after 1917 attracted the attention of researchers back in the early 1960s. Journalist F.G. Popov collected several facts from local archives and learned from eyewitnesses about her last years of life.

In accordance with the paradigm accepted in Soviet historiography, the writer’s granddaughter was ranked among the “progressive figures.” that she supported “revolutionary change.” In particular, it was emphasized that when the teaching of the Law of God was canceled in schools, and parents stopped letting their children go to school, O.G. Aksakova gathered the peasants and, after talking with them, convinced them of the unreasonableness of such an act.

When in 1919, White Guard troops entered the village of Yazykovo, where the writer’s granddaughter lived, the peasants were accused of offending Olga Grigorievna Aksakova. “Having learned about this, Olga Grigorievna came to the village administration, where the Kolchakites were in charge, and categorically denied the accusation, saying, “.

One of the buildings of the kumiss clinic founded by O.G. Aksakova. Photo from the 1900s. Collection of the memorial house-museum of S.T. Aksakov in Ufa.

In the article by F.G. Popova also noted that “in friendly conversations with young people, she expressed confidence that our people will overcome the devastation in the country and achieve unprecedented success.” An example of caring for the writer’s granddaughter was the pension assigned in 1920 “by order of the district party committee of the Buzuluk executive committee.” Thus, one of the many myths was created that O.G. Aksakova unconditionally supported the Soviet government, and it, in turn, carefully took care of the elderly landowner.

However, the sources and, in particular, the report written by the famous historian, later academician M.N. Tikhomirov, about the removal of the Aksakov archive from the village of Yazykova, makes significant adjustments to the interpretation of the Soviet period.

Kitchen of the kumiss hospital.

M.N. Tikhomirov testified that the “amazingly good” attitude of the peasants towards Olga Grigorievna Aksakova did exist, but was determined not only by sympathy for her, but also by philistine reasons, since her estate was very small and was not of interest “for destruction”. The attitude of the local authorities, who considered the estate as the property of the volost, turned out to be different. The county authorities took measures to protect the estate and issued a safe conduct letter. O.G. Aksakova was appointed a “reserve teacher” with instructions to protect the family archive. However, such measures did not save her from excessive and inappropriate guardianship, as well as the rudeness of the authorities. In February 1920, the commissioner for the registration of valuables sent her a letter in which she tactlessly threatened to “bring her to legal responsibility” if the archive was not preserved intact. Such a reminder was unnecessary; Olga Grigorievna understood the historical value of the archive and took care of it even before this instruction.

In 1921, she became a research fellow at the Society of Archaeology, History and Ethnography at Samara University. Fulfilling his instructions, in the last months of her life, the writer’s beloved granddaughter made copies of the most valuable documents in the archive. At the request of the society (and not at the initiative of the district authorities, as indicated in Soviet works), O.G. Aksakova.

Caring for the estate and its values ​​turned out to be ostentatious and declarative. Despite Olga Grigorievna’s desperate protests, it was the local authorities who began to plunder the collection. In the spring of 1921, a commission came to the estate and seized several albums, drawings and an autographed copy of “Notes of a Hunter.” In the spring of the following year, Yazykovo was visited by representatives of the Mogutinsky volost executive committee, who selected several pieces of furniture and a “parrot lamp”. Then policeman Sermyagin appeared, conducted a search and seized two albums with blank sheets. He treated O.G. extremely rudely. Aksakova. In response to the protests, the policeman pushed an elderly woman elbow to the chest. It is quite possible that these events accelerated the death of the writer’s granddaughter, which followed on April 7, 1921 in the village of Yazykovo, Buzuluk district. The date of her death was unknown to emigrant genealogists. N.N. Mazaraki simply indicated that Olga Grigorievna Aksakova

After her death, the protection of the Aksakov archive was temporarily taken over by Khionia Semenovna Likhacheva, a former servant of O.G. Aksakova, who lived with her for more than 30 years. “It is to these two women that the Aksakov Archive mainly owes its salvation, almost miraculous, amid the general destruction landowners' estates", summed up. A local woman also took part in the fate of the archive. She traveled to Samara and attracted the attention of provincial authorities to the values ​​of the estate.

The question of transferring documents to some central repository was raised during the lifetime of Olga Grigorievna Aksakova. At the beginning of March 1921, the Society of Archaeology, History and Ethnography accepted the proposal of its chairman A.S. Bashkirov and sent M.N. Tikhomirov in Yazykovo to agree with Olga Grigorievna on the transfer of materials from Sergei Timofeevich Aksakov to Samara. However, while he was getting ready, the writer’s granddaughter died. M.N. Tikhomirov fulfilled the order and removed the most valuable memorial items, leaving “only things of relatively minor importance.” In the report, the historian listed in detail the exported property: furniture, manuscripts, photographs, portraits, . He developed measures to preserve the memorial site: transfer the estate to the jurisdiction of the Samara branch of the Main Science or the Society of Archaeology, History and Ethnography, entrust the management and protection of the house to Kh.S. Likhacheva, to express gratitude to Kh.S. Likhacheva and A.G. Smaragdova for saving the Aksakov archive.

Sergey Grigorievich Aksakov

Sergei Grigorievich Aksakov, born in Ufa. He was baptized in the City-Ufa Trinity Church, the recipients were the actual state councilor Pyotr Ivanovich Bulgakov and his sister.

Like his father, Sergei Grigorievich served in the system of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, starting his career in 1887 in one of its most significant divisions - the Zemstvo Department.

One of the wedding photographs of Sergei Grigorievich and Serafima Ivanovna Aksakov. Personal collection of I.S. Aksakova. The city of Lobnya, Moscow region. Russia

Subsequently, he was transferred to the Warsaw province, was the commissar for peasant affairs of the Wroclaw district, then returned to serve in his homeland, became the zemstvo chief of the Buzuluk district, where he owned an estate - the village of Strakhov. According to information preserved by his descendants, Sergei Grigorievich played the violin beautifully and suffered from epilepsy.

Sergei Grigorievich Aksakov died on November 8, 1910 in St. Petersburg and was buried on November 14 in the Strakhovo estate.

Sergei Grigorievich Aksakov married on April 29, 1884 in St. Petersburg to Serafima Ivanovna Sveshnikova (1860 - ca. 1919), daughter of captain 1st rank, then rear admiral Ivan Ivanovich Sveshnikov and his wife Elizaveta Nikolaevna

Sergei Grigorievich Aksakov had five children - three sons (Nikolai, Sergei and Konstantin) and two daughters (Maria and Elizaveta).

Serafima Ivanovna Aksakova (née Sveshnikova). Collection of the State Historical, Artistic and Literary Museum - Reserve "Abramtsevo".

The youngest daughter Elizaveta was born in 1886, died on March 24, 1888, and was buried in the Novodevichy Convent in St. Petersburg along with her grandmother.

Maria Sergeevna Aksakova

She was married to a famous ophthalmologist, Doctor of Medicine. During the Second World War, Associate Professor A.A. Gastev lectured at the department of the St. Petersburg State Medical Academy named after. I.I. Mechnikov. From 1938 to 1945 held the position of dean of the Faculty of Surgery, created by order of the People's Commissariat of Health of October 19, 1936 No. 95. Brother of A.A. Gasteva Vladimir was married to cousin Maria Sergeevna - Kira, daughter of privat-docent Mitrofan Ivanovich Sveshnikov.

The niece of Maria Sergeevna Aksakova (married to Gasteva) has an old photograph of a soldier from the First World War, on the reverse side of which words of sincere gratitude to Maria Sergeevna are poorly written for her attention “to the wounded soldiers.” Personal collection of I.S. Aksakova. The city of Lobnya, Moscow region. Russia.

A.A. died Gastev ok. 1968, buried in Leningrad at the Okhtinsky cemetery (according to information from I.S. Aksakova, Maria Sergeevna’s niece).

During the First World War, Maria Sergeevna voluntarily began working in the hospital as a nurse. In the family archive of Irina Sergeevna Aksakova there is a photograph of one of the soldiers, Alexander Alekseevich Ivanov, whom Maria Sergeevna looked after after being wounded. On the reverse side of the photo are semi-grammatically written touching words thanks addressed to M.S. Aksakova, and the date was set to April 23, 1915.

Konstantin Sergeevich Aksakov. Photo from the beginning of the twentieth century. Personal collection of I.S. Aksakova. The city of Lobnya, Moscow region. Russia.

It was to his elder sister Maria that her brother, composer Sergei Sergeevich Aksakov, left family heirlooms (books and things) for safekeeping when, in troubled times, his family set off on a long journey to China through the territory occupied by the armies of A.V. Kolchak.

There were no children in the Gastev family. Maria Sergeevna Aksakova died on December 25, 1922 and was buried in.

Konstantin Sergeevich Aksakov

Together with his brother Sergei, he studied at the prestigious Polivanovskaya Gymnasium in Moscow. He suffered from infantile paralysis, which he jokingly attributed to his poor control of his legs and arms. Despite his physical handicap, he loved to dance, and a pronounced stutter did not prevent him from performing recitations literary works. Tatyana Aleksandrovna Aksakova recalled that because of his poor diction, she did not appreciate him in her youth. At the beginning of the 20th century, Konstantin Sergeevich Aksakov led his own private theater.

After the revolution, he lived with his brother Sergei Sergeevich Aksakov in Harbin, and after 1928 in Shanghai. Konstantin Sergeevich Aksakov died in Shanghai, was cremated, and his ashes were buried.

Sergey Sergeevich Aksakov

Sergei Sergeevich Aksakov, later a famous Russian - Soviet composer born December 24, 1890 in Samara. His fate and the fate of his descendants are described in Chapter III, “The Aksakovs in Emigration.”

Konstantin Sergeevich (left) with his brother Sergei Sergeevich (right) before a bike ride. Photo from the beginning of the twentieth century. Personal collection of I.S. Aksakova. The city of Lobnya, Moscow region. Russia.

TULA-RYAZAN BRANCH

The Tula-Ryazan branch of the family at the beginning of the 20th century was represented by the children of Pyotr Nikolaevich Aksakov, Nikolai, Alexander and Vasily.

Of these, two especially stood out - Nikolai Petrovich and Alexander Petrovich, who distinguished themselves in the field social activities and literature.

Nikolai Petrovich Aksakov

The famous poet and publicist Nikolai Petrovich Aksakov was born. He was educated at home, then studied at universities in Germany and France. In 1868, in Hesse, he defended his dissertation “The Idea of ​​Divinity,” for which he received the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

Since 1868 he lived in Moscow, since 1895 - in St. Petersburg. Showed particular interest in history Slavic peoples. He was the secretary of the Society of Amateurs Russian literature and chairman of the Aksakov Society. In terms of social views, he aligned himself with the Slavophiles, but criticized certain provisions of their theory, in particular -.

In April 1893, Nikolai Petrovich Aksakov entered the service of the State Control, was sent to the Department of Railway Reporting, where he served for about , but did not have a rank.

Nikolai Petrovich Aksakov died on April 5, 1909 in St. Petersburg. There is no information about the marriage and offspring of Nikolai Petrovich Aksakov in the sources known to us.

Alexander Petrovich Aksakov

He entered the service in 1877 in the Ministry of State Property, since 1892 - collegiate registrar, served in local authorities Tver, Novgorod, Yaroslavl provinces, mainly in provincial statistical committees.

During the general population census Russian Empire In 1897 he was a member of the Yaroslavl provincial census commission. In 1901 he was assigned to the Ministry, since 1904 - junior auditor of the Department of Military and Naval Accounting of the State Control with the rank of collegiate assessor, then - court adviser.

Alexander Petrovich Aksakov developed a theory about ways to correct criminals, considering the main thing to be work for the benefit of people and God. He proposed reforming the Russian prison system, but his projects were not implemented. He published the collection “Brotherly Life” (1910–1911) and the magazine “Zerna” (1916–1917). His brother Fyodor Petrovich and sister Praskovya Petrovna collaborated in the last edition, and edited the newspaper “Yuzhnoe Slovo”. He died in 1917, was single.

Vasily Petrovich Aksakov

Their younger brother Vasily Petrovich Aksakov elected military career. He was born on September 1, 1857 in the city of Serpukhov. He graduated from the II Military Konstantinovsky School and in 1880 was appointed as an ensign in the 6th reserve artillery brigade. In 1885 he was transferred to the 1st Grenadier Artillery Brigade, and in 1891 - to the Ivangorod Fortress Artillery. During his service he reached the rank of staff captain. Due to poor health, he was constantly sent to artillery units located in the southern part of the country: in 1896 - to the Sevastopol Fortress Artillery for 1 year, in 1900 - to the Caucasian District Artillery Directorate for the same period. In February 1902, Vasily Petrovich Aksakov was finally enlisted in the field foot reserve.

Vasily Petrovich Aksakov was married to the Moscow bourgeois Matryona His equal Zolotareva. Judging by the formal lists, they did not have children. Vasily Petrovich Aksakov died in 1908 and was buried in the village of Chashnikovo, Zubtsovsky district.

In the course of this research, it was not possible to find information about representatives of the Tula-Ryazan branch after 1917. It is possible that it was suppressed. This assumption is shared by the descendants of Praskovya Petrovna Kvashnina-Samarina (née Aksakova).

Stronghold. Aksakov family

In “The Childhood Years of Bagrov’s Grandson” by S.T. Aksakov there is amazing place when, on a road trip, the parents laid a seemingly terminally ill child on the grass of a forest clearing, and everything he saw, felt, heard around him, the singing of birds, the aroma of flowers, the breath of the forest - all this had such a healing effect on him that soon he felt healthy.

The same healing nature lives and has a healing effect on us in the writer’s works.

But the very appearance of Sergei Timofeevich has the same spiritual healthy effect on us. In his own words, his inclination towards “everything clear, transparent, easily and freely understood,” the native traditions he had absorbed with his mother’s milk turned him away from any spiritual werewolf presented under the guise of novelty.

While not yet a famous writer, he was already the person who attracted remarkable people of Russian art and science. Gogol, Turgenev, Nekrasov, Saltykov-Shchedrin, Tyutchev, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Apollo Grigoriev - they all deeply revered “old man Aksakov.” Under the influence of Gogol, who listened to Sergei Timofeevich’s oral stories about Trans-Volga life and persuaded his “elder friend” to write “the story of his life,” Aksakov began his autobiographical books and immediately entered Russian literature as its classic.

Sergei Timofeevich attracted his contemporaries as a wonderful family man, a hospitable owner of the house, where everything breathed greetings and goodwill. Aksakov's wife Olga Semyonovna, the daughter of a Suvorov general and a Turkish woman captured during the siege of Ochakov, was the true organizer of the inner harmony of family life. Belinsky’s words are well known: “Oh, if only we had more fathers in Russia like old man Aksakov.” In the family of ten children, mutual love and friendship reigned; even as adults, they called their father “otesenka” (from the word “father”).

Actually, Sergei Timofeevich’s life was centered around two principles: creating a family and autobiographical books, recreating family legends.

From this family came two remarkable figures of Russian culture and public life: the Slavophiles Konstantin Aksakov and Ivan Aksakov.

The family has always been a prototype of folk life in Russian literature: Pushkin’s Grinevs, Turgenev’s Kalitins, Tolstoy’s Rostovs, to Sholokhov’s Melekhovs, Platonov’s Ivanovs. The Bagrov family occupies a special place among them, because behind it stands the Aksakov family themselves.

Family - not only your children, but also family tradition, parents, ancestors. The famous philosopher-theologian P. Florensky wrote: “To be without a feeling of a living connection with one’s grandfathers and great-grandfathers means not to have a foothold in history. But I would like to be able to determine for myself exactly what exactly I did and where exactly I was I am in each of the historical moments of our Motherland and the whole world - I, of course, in the person of my ancestors.

In his two main books, “Family Chronicle” and “Childhood of Bagrov the Grandson,” Sergei Timofeevich, based on the stories of his parents, reproduced a family legend, the story of three generations of the Aksakov family (Aksakov is replaced in the narrative by the fictitious surname Bagrov). In the "Family Chronicle" the first and second generations of the Bagrov family are depicted - the grandfather and parents of little Seryozha, and the childhood of Seryozha, who continues the Bagrov family in the third generation, is dedicated to the "Childhood Years of Bagrov the Grandson". The entire "Family Chronicle" consists of five relatively small passages, the book is modest in size, but there remains a feeling of completeness, embracing a variety of events and many people, whole historical era. There are real people behind literary characters, but this does not mean that we see photographs of them. No, these are, first of all, artistic images that contain something more than just private, personal. And before in Aksakov a large artist - already in his “Buran”, then in “Notes on Fishing”, “Notes of a Gun Hunter”, “Memoirs” (written almost simultaneously with the last chapters of the “Family Chronicle”), but then the author seemed to restrain his graphic power, but here, in “Family Chronicle”, gave it complete freedom, and now there was a breath of such genuine life, behind which art is no longer noticed. This is the first excerpt from the Family Chronicle, the chapter “Good Day to Stepan Mikhailovich” (later included in the famous “Russian Reader” by A. Galakhov, which was published in dozens of editions in pre-revolutionary Russia). What would seem remarkable is the day spent by the narrator’s grandfather, a provincial landowner, but how many lovingly conveyed details of everyday life, domestic life, from Bagrov’s business life with Bagrov’s trip to the field, examining the blooming rye there, visiting the mill, talking with the men, dinner, sitting on the porch before going to bed, “crossed himself once or twice at the starry sky and lay down to rest.” Epic passage of day, time. One day in the life of the hero, but it is perceived as a whole complete cycle of existence, so it’s all large and holistic.

The author does not idealize his hero, or more precisely, his grandfather. Old man Bagrov is marked with the stamp of time and serfdom. Moving from the Simbirsk province to the Ufa governorship, four hundred miles away, to the newly purchased lands, he removes his peasants and the entire village from their place, and “the poor migrants began their journey, shedding bitter tears, forever saying goodbye to the old days, to the church in which they were baptized and got married." Stepan Mikhailovich is cool and autocratic in a family where they are so afraid of his anger, which turns this essentially kind-hearted person into a “wild beast” (nothing can inflame him more than untruths and lies).

In Bagrov, as in a large character, both shortcomings and advantages are large. For all his contradictions in his actions, this personality is monolithic, integral in its moral basis. And this foundation is indestructible, and the wisdom of his everyday rules is based on it. He is firm in his word, “his promise was stronger and holier than any spiritual and civil acts.” Just as a powerful chest, unusually broad shoulders, sinewy arms, and muscular body revealed a strong man in this short man, just as his face with large dark blue eyes had an open and honest expression, so his constant help to others, mediation in disputes and litigation of neighbors, zealous devotion to the truth in any case testified to his moral height.

Sofya Nikolaevna, daughter-in-law, quickly comprehended “all his quirks” and made “a deep and subtle assessment of his high qualities.” So a proud, educated woman, who despised everything rustic and rude, bowed down before this seemingly rude old man, intuitively sensing in him those qualities that elevated him above all others.

In Bagrov, practical qualities are balanced by moral ones, and this is the peculiarity of his nature. He is a practical person, active, capable of great entrepreneurial endeavors, but this is not bare business, not knowing any moral obstacles for the sake of profit. Such people have a developed moral consciousness that does not leave them in practical activities, sometimes may come into severe contradiction with it, but will never justify in itself the unrighteousness of the act and thereby already excludes unlimited predation in itself.

But the fact of the matter is that such a character as Bagrov was not only “a legend of ancient times.” Almost simultaneously with Bagrov, Rusakov appeared in Ostrovsky’s play “Don’t Get in Your Sleigh,” and later Chapurin in Melnikov-Pechersky’s novels “In the Forests” and “On the Mountains”; Both of these heroes are similar in character to Bagrov.

The image of old Bagrov can be placed among the epic images of world literature. Even in the last century, immediately after the publication of “The Family Chronicle,” criticism, wanting to praise the author, saw in him “a similarity with Walter Scott,” in particular, in the understanding of the “historical necessity” of past customs, in the structure of Bagrov’s thoughts “in accordance with the spirit of the times.” “(Russian literature, apparently, was not yet authoritative enough for criticism to be able to deduce this “historical necessity” from it itself). The power to generalize the same image of Bagrov could only be born from such a family chronicle, where not the narrow framework of family life is presented, but the whole of Russia in its main qualities (and this was the case, especially later, when already in the family of Sergei Timofeevich with its spiritual and social interests Russia was constantly present in the conversations and thoughts of the father and children).

And it is not only the image of old Bagrov that is distinguished by such amazingly powerful artistic generalization. In "Family Chronicle" Kurolesov is depicted with no less, perhaps only negative, force. In the portrait of the hero that S.T. draws. Aksakov, in the seemingly absence of analysis (in the manner in which, by decomposing the whole into its component parts, Dostoevsky and Tolstoy “turn inside out” a person for us, expose the hidden corners of his soul and consciousness), with all the integrity of the picture, one is struck by the image of Kurolesov psychological depth. Some critics saw Kurolesovo as a kind of everyday villain, which seems to be confirmed by the very outline of the plot: the story of the hero’s marriage; cheating on your wife; the truth she learned about her husband’s true way of life, when she, having heard about it, decides to go to the estate where he lived, and with her own eyes ascertains the truth of the rumors about his depraved life and tyranny; the villainy of Kurolesov, who was convinced that his wife would not forgive him and he was threatened with deprivation of his power of attorney to manage the estate, beating his wife and locking her in a stone basement; release of the captive by Stepan Mikhailovich, etc.

But behind this almost adventure story, not only everyday features are hidden, but also the metaphysical secrets of the hero’s character. It is said about one of them: “Spoiled by the fear and humility of all the people around him, he soon forgot himself and ceased to know the limits of his frantic self-will.” This, it turns out, is what can inflame “willfulness,” “cruelty,” “bloodthirstiness” and everything else - and not only in the case of Kurolesov, and not only in his time. From other “oral” remarks of the narrator, seemingly abandoned on the fly, Dostoevsky could, it seems, extract material for a chain psychological reaction. Kurolesov named three villages, which he populated with peasants transferred from old places, names that made up the first, patronymic and surname of his wife. “This romantic idea in such a person as Mikhail Maksimovich would later appear has always surprised me.”

Having reached the highest degree of depravity and cruelty, Kurolesov zealously began building a stone church in Parashin. These “abyss” in the character of the hero, the “phenomenon” of his bloodthirstiness, the contradictory nature of his actions so deeply affected something “inexplicable” in “human nature”, which gave Apollo Grigoriev the basis to draw the following conclusion: “These types of the last times of our literature, who abandoned unexpectedly and suddenly a light on our historical types - this Kurolesov, for example, in the "Family Chronicle", with many of his features better than the theories of Messrs. Solovyov and Kavelin, explaining to us the figure of the Terrible Ivan..." Such is the power of the artist's psychological generalization, allowing us to see behind the drawn face a whole historical type, forcing us to think about phenomena not limited by time and place of action.

Maybe nowhere at S.T. Aksakov's artistic attention and completeness are not manifested in the same way as in the image of his mother, especially in “The Childhood Years of Bagrov the Grandson.” “This image was carried in her soul by the same filial love that had previously cherished her son at the mother’s breast,” one of the writer’s contemporaries rightly wrote. Indeed, the mother’s ardent love and the child’s passionate attachment to her form an inseparable whole. “The constant presence of my mother merges with my every memory,” says the author at the very beginning of his “Childhood Years of Bagrov the Grandson.” “Her image is inextricably linked with my existence.” The sick child seemed doomed to death and only miraculously survived. And one of these miraculous forces that healed him was selfless, boundless maternal love, about which it is said this way: “My mother did not allow the dying lamp of life to go out in me; as soon as it began to fade, she fed it with a magnetic outpouring own life, one's own breath." The entire narrative is illuminated by the image of a mother, infinitely dear, loving, ready to make any sacrifice, any feat for the sake of her Serezhenka. The maternal feeling psychologically seems to be inexhaustible: how many experiences, how many emotional shades. The mother, lost in an anxious sleep, hears the voice of the patient her little son. “The mother jumped up, frightened at first, and then rejoiced, listening to my strong voice and looking at my refreshed face. How she caressed me, what names she called me, how joyfully she cried... you can’t tell me!” This is just one moment of her state of mind, and, in fact, her whole life is in this “boundless feeling of maternal love” lying deep in her soul, as the narrator himself says. From the first to the last page of the book, in every episode where the mother is shown, in the most diverse manifestations - sometimes passionate, sometimes anxiously desperate, sometimes joyful, sometimes lightly sad - this amazing feeling lives, revealing to us hidden from the world of the secrets of a mother's heart.

In literature, love is usually poeticized before family life; with its beginning, it is as if the curtain falls romantic story and the prose of everyday life begins. Perhaps none of the Russian writers reveals family life with such poetic content as S.T. Aksakov in his “Family Chronicle” and “The Childhood Years of Bagrov the Grandson” in particular. And this is far from a harmonious union between the spouses (remember that Sofya Nikolaevna did not marry for love). But there is so much richness of feelings in mother’s love, so much spiritual engagement,” that this alone makes a woman’s life deeply meaningful, giving her great moral satisfaction, and the little son feels the mother’s “moral power” over him. Such maternal “one-love” was apparently the same phenomenon of Russian life as the constancy of Pushkin’s Tatiana with her: “But I was given to another and I will be faithful to him forever.”

It is amazing that this maternal feeling in all its originality and purity was conveyed to us by the sixty-five-year-old artist, as if there were no burdens chilling the soul life experience, not even another mother, when with the marriage of her son she changed so much in her feelings for him, jealous of his family: nothing turned out to have power over the power of that childish filial love that became the shrine of his soul. As if instinctively feeling what he owes to his mother, who more than once snatched him, it seemed, from the embrace of death, Seryozha responds to her with passionate filial affection, which at times literally shakes his childish soul. He experiences such shocks during his mother’s illness, coming into childish horror at the mere thought that she might die. “The thought of my mother’s death did not enter my head, and I think that my concepts began to become confused and that this was the beginning of some kind of insanity.”

S.T. Aksakov, apparently, conveyed something very characteristic of child psychology in general. Here is the confession of the famous Russian physicist S.I. Vavilova: “I always loved my mother deeply and, I remember, as a boy I imagined with horror that suddenly my mother would die, which seemed tantamount to the end of the world.”

In this horror of being left without a mother, there is some kind of elemental fear of orphanhood, not only filial, but orphanhood in general on earth, and the mother here is like that closest and most accessible support to the child’s consciousness, without which he is so afraid in the world. What numbness the mother’s illness strikes a child’s soul and what light the world is illuminated with her recovery. “Finally, everything gradually calmed down, and first of all I saw that the room was brightly light from the morning dawn, and then I realized that my mother was alive and would be healthy - and a feeling of inexpressible happiness filled my soul! This happened on June 4, on dawn before sunrise, therefore very early."

Love for his mother reveals Seryozha himself more deeply. He was so absorbed in the impressions of the awakening spring nature, so (“like a madman”) absorbed in his own affairs and worries - to listen, to see what was going on in the grove, how the leaves unfurled, all the living creatures came to life, how the birds nested - that he forgot about everything. the world and even about his mother. And his mother reproachfully reminded him of this. It was as if a scale had fallen from his eyes: he really didn’t think much about her. Sharp repentance pricked him in the very heart, he felt how guilty he was before his mother, and asked her forgiveness. The mother could not contain her feelings: “My mother and I indulged in fiery outpourings of mutual repentance and enthusiastic love; the distance of years and relationships disappeared between us, we both cried frantically and sobbed loudly. I repented that I loved my mother little; she - that she valued such little son and insulted him with a reproach."

The boy's moral development itself is largely influenced by the knowledge of maternal love. He especially, “in all its strength,” begins to understand and feel this love during his illness. “The excruciating fear she experienced is understandable; the delight when the danger was over is also understandable. I was already older and was able to understand this delight, to understand the love of my mother. This week enlightened me a lot, developed a lot, and my attachment to my mother, more conscious, grew much more.” taller than my years." Thoughts about the mother, arousing an “anxious state” in the son, force him to be “in a struggle with himself.” And his very “imagination, developed beyond his years,” is also largely explained by his ardent attachment to his mother, the fear of losing her. Thus, in child psychology, the image of the mother gives rise to something like a “process of feelings”, a “struggle with oneself” - a phenomenon that seems even unexpected given the established opinion about the “lack of analysis” of psychologism in S.T. Aksakova.

And it is not only through the mother that the child’s soul grows. How this child’s soul shudders when grandfather dies, what fear, what horror seizes it, how the child’s imagination is inflamed by thoughts of death! In terms of the power of psychological expressiveness, this fear is truly the embryo of the fear of death that will rush around in the minds of Tolstoy’s heroes, and this same fear of death, recognized so early, almost from infancy, by Sergei Timofeevich, apparently could not help but leave a mark in his later life, perhaps , lurked in his soul, drowned out by those “passions” that the writer himself spoke about, meaning his family concerns, attachment to nature, and so on. And next to the death of his grandfather is the birth of a tiny brother, who evokes some special caring feelings in Seryozha. “In a small nursery there hung a beautiful cradle on a copper ring, screwed into the ceiling. The late grandfather Zubin gave this cradle when my eldest sister was born, who soon died; both me and my second sister swung in it. They put up a chair, I climbed onto it, and, opening the green silk cover, he saw a sleeping swaddled baby and only noticed that he had black hairs on his head. They took the sister in her arms, and she also looked at her sleeping brother - and we were very pleased... Alena Maksimovna, seeing that "We are such smart children, we walk on tiptoe and speak in a low voice, she promised to let us see our brother every day, just when she would wash him. Delighted by such pleasant hopes, we happily went for a walk and ran first around the yard, and then through the garden." . The family feeling, as if branching out, enters the boy’s soul, permeates his entire being, gives him a feeling of completeness and confidence in his existence. He is happy to know that he is from the same family as his father and grandfather. “I was alone with my father; they also hugged and kissed me, and I felt some kind of pride that I was the grandson of my grandfather. I was no longer surprised that all the peasants loved my father and me so much; I was convinced that this was certainly so it must be: my father is the son, and I am the grandson of Stepan Mikhailovich."

The family principle became the leading one, determining the narrative. This is reflected in the titles of the books themselves: “Family Chronicle”, “Childhood Years of Bagrov the Grandson”. Well said about the books by S.T. Aksakov Andrei Platonov, who saw their “immortal essence” “in the child’s relationship to his parents and to his homeland.” According to Andrei Platonov, “Aksakov’s books instill patriotism in readers and reveal the primary source of patriotism - the family,” because “a person initially learns this feeling of the Motherland and love for it, patriotism, through the feeling of mother and father, that is, in the family.” And Aksakov’s very love for nature “is only a continuation, development, spread of those feelings that arose in him when he clung to his mother in infancy, and those ideas when his father first took his son with him fishing and gun hunting and showed him a big, bright world, where he would then have to exist for a long time. And the child accepts this world with trust and tenderness, because he was introduced into it by the hand of his father."

Nature is the second, after the parental, cradle that truly nourished and cherished the artist’s childhood. One of the very first and most intimate “fragmentary memories” of the author of “The Childhood Years of Bagrov the Grandson” is an illness and recovery in infancy. “Dear, quite early in the morning, I felt so ill, I was so weak that they were forced to stop; they took me out of the carriage, made a bed in the tall grass of a forest clearing, in the shade of trees, and laid me down almost lifeless. I saw and understood everything, what they were doing around me. I heard how my father cried and consoled my desperate mother, how fervently they prayed, raising their hands to the sky. I heard everything and saw clearly, and could not say a single word, could not move - and suddenly I woke up and felt I felt better, stronger than usual. I liked the forest, the shade, the flowers, the fragrant air so much that I begged them not to move me from my place. So we stood there until the evening. The horses were unharnessed and put out on the grass not far from me, and I was pleased with that ... I didn’t sleep, but I felt extraordinary cheerfulness and some kind of inner pleasure and calmness, or, rather, I didn’t understand what I felt, but I felt good... The next day in the morning I also felt fresher and better against the usual." “Twelve hours of lying in the grass in a forest clearing gave the first beneficial impetus to my physically relaxed body.” Nature had such a healing effect on the child, and from then on he fell in love with her to the point of oblivion.

One of the contemporaries of S.T. Aksakova, a hunter-writer, jokingly said that his dog does a stand in front of “Notes of a Gun Hunter,” there is so much life and truth in them. The same can be said with regard to the description of nature in “The Family Chronicle” and “The Childhood Years of Bagrov the Grandson”: there is so much life and truth here that you forget all literature and, together with the author, are immersed in the world of nature itself.

A healthy sense of nature brought Aksakov and a landscape artist of such power as I.I. in common. Shishkin, who called Sergei Timofeevich his favorite writer.

It has a healing effect even on us, the readers of Aksakov’s books, and what can we say about Seryozha, who lives in it. For him, she is an inexhaustible source of joy and pleasure. How many secrets, how many exciting details are revealed to him everywhere in it, right behind the house where the Buguruslan flows and the rook grove begins: while fishing; on the road, still the same, from Ufa to Bagrov, and always excitingly new; overnight in the steppe under the open sky; in the spring frenzy of nightingales at the fading dawn. And all this, and much more, all the voices, flowers, aromas, “the beauty of nature” (the writer’s favorite expression) seem to flow into the child’s soul, caress it, delight it, expand it, make it happy. And just like in love for a mother, the whole gamut of feelings and experiences manifests itself. little hero, so in a passionate attachment to nature, perhaps no less rich life of a child’s soul is revealed.

One could talk a lot about the significance of the native corner, nature in the creative fate of S.T. Aksakov, in particular, about the uniqueness in Russian literature, and not only, apparently, in Russian, but also in the world - such a phenomenon when the modest framework of an event - childhood spent in an Orenburg village - under the artist’s pen is suddenly filled with such vital authenticity, content, significance, that we involuntarily think about the inexhaustibility of existence even in the smallest “corners of the earth.” However, this should not surprise us; let us remember, for example, what this corner of the earth meant for Pushkin, how his two-year stay in Mikhailovsky enriched him, what poetry, what depths of folk life were revealed to him - through the fairy tales of Arina Rodionovna, the stories of peasants, the songs of blind men on fairs; It was from here, from this “corner of the earth” that Pushkin’s comprehension of Russian history, the era of “Boris Godunov” (created here), and the nation itself began. And every great Russian artist had his own “corner of the earth” that connected him with the world.

From here, from this “corner of the earth,” the writer’s language originates. “Family Chronicle” and “Childhood of Bagrov the Grandson” absorbed the language of Aksakov’s homeland, just as they absorbed the fragrance of the surrounding nature. The nationality of the language of S.T. Aksakov not only in purely popular words, but also in the very truth of the expression of people's life, which he knows well. Living speech seems to cover everything it touches, every phenomenon, every object, every everyday detail, imbued with that elusive Russian meaning that is given by the most immediate life in the national element. The oral liveliness of speech is combined with the amazing plasticity of the image, with such visibility and tangibility of paintings, especially of nature, that we seem to enter into them, as if into the real world. Not a single false tone, everything is simple and true. The language itself has a cleansing effect on the reader not only aesthetically, but also morally. The imprint of the elder’s wisdom, spiritual clarity, and moral insight is visible in the syllable. The artist invested all the treasure of his soul in this syllable, in this majesty of the Russian word, which is why the beauty and truth of this amazing Aksakovian language, which has given us a wonderful Iliad of the childhood of Russian life, does not diminish with time.

“Family Chronicle” and “Childhood of Bagrov the Grandson” immediately after their release evoked rave reviews from contemporaries. And what is surprising is that these unanimous praises belonged to people of different convictions, such as Khomyakov and Turgenev, Tolstoy and Herzen, Shevyrev and Shchedrin, Pogodin and Chernyshevsky, Annenkov and Dobrolyubov, etc. True, there were different reasons for praise. Thus, Dobrolyubov (in his article “The Village Life of a Landowner in the Old Years, Reflected in the “Childhood Years of Bagrov the Grandson”) noted as the most important thing in S.T. Aksakov’s book, everything that is connected with the description of the “old order”, with the "arbitrariness" of the landowner in " family relationships“, with the invasion of serf relations into his village life. “In the end,” writes Dobrolyubov, “the whole reason again comes down to the same main source of all our internal disasters - serfdom of people.”

“The underdevelopment of moral feelings, the distortion of natural concepts, rudeness, lies, ignorance, aversion to work, self-will, unrestrained by anything, appears to us at every step in this past, now strange, incomprehensible to us and, let’s say with joy, irrevocable.” .

For Tolstoy, in “The Childhood Years of Bagrov the Grandson,” “the evenly sweet poetry of nature is spread throughout everything, as a result of which it may sometimes seem boring, but it is unusually soothing and amazingly clear, faithful and proportionate in its reflection.”

Shchedrin admitted that he was strongly influenced by the “wonderful works” of S.T. Aksakov, and therefore dedicated one of the cycles of “Provincial Sketches” to him in a magazine publication - “Pilgrims, Wanderers and Travelers.” Aksakov's epic enlightenment touched such a mercilessly caustic satirist as Shchedrin was. And much later, in his “Poshekhon Antiquity” in the chapter “Moral Education”, it is told how the hero (with the autobiographical features of the author himself), already over thirty years old, first became “almost with envy” acquainted with “The Childhood Years of Bagrov the Grandson” and took away indelible impressions from this reading. He highly regarded the books of S.T. Aksakov Dostoevsky, noting in them the truth of a national character. Polemicizing with Westerners, he wrote: “You claim that as soon as the people show activity, now they are kulaks. This is shameless. This is not true. Nanny, the crossing of the Volga in the “Family Chronicle” and a hundred million other facts, selfless, generous activity.”

Each of S.T.’s famous contemporaries Aksakov had his own view on his books, but everyone agreed on one thing: the recognition of outstanding artistic merit these books, the rare talent of their author. Sergei Timofeevich himself, sincerely surprised by his resounding success as an author, with his characteristic “lack of arrogance” of pride, explained the matter simply: “I lived my life, retained the warmth and vividness of my imagination, and that’s why ordinary talent produces an extraordinary effect.”

Having been published, “The Childhood Years of Bagrov the Grandson” immediately became a textbook classic work. Thus, Mamin-Sibiryak (born in 1852, six years before the publication of Sergei Timofeevich’s book) wrote in his autobiography how in his early childhood he “listened to” reading “The Childhood Years of Bagrov the Grandson.” And later, another future writer (as Gorky himself will tell about in the story “In People”) will remember forever how Turgenev’s “Family Chronicle”, “Notes of a Hunter” and other works of Russian literature “washed” his soul: “I felt what good is book, and understood its necessity for me. From these books, a strong confidence calmly formed in my soul: I am not alone on earth and I will not be lost! "

Books ST. The descendants of the writer will always “listen” to Aksakov, finding in them as wise folk legends, always alive, deeply modern and eternal meaning.

The names of the Aksakovs - Konstantin and Ivan - are associated with that direction of Russian social thought, which was called Slavophilism. But a reservation should be made: justifying this name (love for the Slavs), advocating for the unity of the Slavs, ardently supporting the cause of the liberation of the southern Slavs from the Turkish yoke ( special role here Ivan Aksakov), the Slavophiles themselves said that the most important, hidden thing in their ideas is the Russian people, Russia. Konstantin Aksakov (born in 1817), although he was much younger than Khomyakov (1804) and Kireyevsky (1806), together with them belongs to the generation of older Slavophiles, and Ivan Aksakov is their successor in the new post-reform era. The acquaintance of young Konstantin Aksakov with Khomyakov produced a revolution in his beliefs, which will be discussed below.

Since Alexey Stepanovich Khomyakov and Ivan Vasilyevich Kireevsky are “founding fathers”, pillars of Slavophilism, let us briefly dwell on their teaching. Deeply educated, fantastically gifted in many fields of knowledge, fluent in French, English, and German, Khomyakov embodied the spiritual heights of Russian national self-awareness. The idea of ​​an original Russian philosophy arose in his youth, in the twenties, in a circle of wise men, the focus of which was his friend, poet and thinker D. Venevitinov, who showed great promise and died so early in 1827, at the age of only twenty-two . The first ideological students of Alexei Stepanovich were young Konstantin Aksakov and his friend Yuri Samarin. In 1840, a meeting took place that had a decisive influence on their lives. Alexey Stepanovich Khomyakov was significantly older than each of them: he was thirty-six years old, a man who was comprehensively educated philosophically, with a worldview that had long been established. But not only in spiritual experience and maturity of thought did he surpass his young comrades. What was separate in each of them - creativity and analytical power - united in him in complete harmony, constituting the integrity of his nature. Therefore, it seemed that the young friends should have each found their own, their own point of support in Khomyakov, but at first this did not happen. For both, as already mentioned, Hegel was their idol, and it was not so easy for them to part with him. Khomyakov, who had studied Hegel perfectly, and was himself a rare dialectician, due to his high tolerance, did not suppress the opinions of young people, but only steadfastly adhered to his “stone” - Russian history, its spiritual, cultural, and everyday characteristics. This was the main thing for him, and then Hegel and the “Hegelates” (as he said), “Hegelism”, valued by him, but still indirectly related in his eyes to the “Russian principle” (like all German, rationalistic in general). at its core, philosophy). Friends and opponents turned out to be quite tough nuts to crack and not easy to deal with. Konstantin Aksakov, whom Khomyakov nicknamed the “fierce lamb” who combined ideological fury with childishness of heart, was especially persistent in standing for Hegel. Believing in the strength of the main thing in Konstantin Aksakov, Khomyakov told him: “I agree with you more than you yourself.” And things moved forward, the reverence of Khomyakov’s opponents for Hegel as the all-encompassing absolute principle of knowledge faded. According to younger brother Ivan, the liberation of Konstantin Aksakov from the shackles of Hegel was complete: “Hegel seemed to drown in his love for the Russian people.” Subsequently, Konstantin Sergeevich himself admitted: “The living voice of the people freed me from philosophical abstraction. Thanks to him.”

The unknown, the exciting, entered the consciousness of the friends when they began to read monuments of ancient Russian literature, study chronicles, old charters and acts. The whole world, previously completely unknown to them, with its spiritual treasures, visible and not yet explored, with the originality of people's life and everyday life, was revealed to them. A kind of earthiness suddenly felt under my feet after an unsteady wandering in Hegel’s “phenomenology of spirit.”

Khomyakov became a regular guest in the Aksakovs’ house, just as he himself was glad to see them visiting himself, in the house on the Dog Playground. He began to visit them especially often after the death of his thirty-five-year-old wife Katerina Mikhailovna (she was the sister of the poet Yazykov), who left five children in his arms. He endured the terrible grief with difficulty, although courageously, tried not to reveal his condition, and in public forced himself to be the same as before. One day, a guest who stayed overnight in Khomyakov’s house accidentally witnessed a stunning scene. Khomyakov late at night stood on his knees and sobbed muffledly, and in the morning, as usual, he came out to the guests, smiling good-naturedly and calm. The death of his wife was a test of his seemingly unshakable faith. After all, he wrote this in his essay “The Church is One”:

"He who lives on earth, who has completed his earthly journey, is not created for earthly path(like angels), who have not yet begun their earthly journey (future generations), are all united in one Church - in one Grace of God." Both of them - she and he always lived in the Church and in her, in her eternal bosom of grace, continue to live with Katya and with her departure from this life. He believed in this, but such a longing for his dead wife tormented him that at times he lost heart. And one day in a dream he heard her voice: “Don’t despair!” And he felt better. She never ceases to be with him, with the children, strengthens his strength for the feat of life. Previously carefree regarding the “written word”, preferring the “oral” word to him, he now began to write more, as if knowing the short earthly term allotted to him, he hurried to put it on paper in the depths of his soul, thoughts and feelings that had been ripening for many years, dear to him. In the Aksakovs’ house, he rested mentally, himself, like a good, now single-parent family man, deeply felt the good of the family circle. As in everything else in life, he remained in the family whole person. And in his philosophy, he found not abstract, logistically dead formulas for the family, but living, heartfelt words, saying that the family is the circle in which love “passes from an abstract concept and powerless aspiration into a living and real manifestation.”

Deeply loving Sergei Timofeevich, Khomyakov valued his works primarily for the fact that the writer “lives in them, affects the reader with all his wonderful spiritual qualities,” as he said, “the secret of his art is in the secret of a soul filled with love.” In the fifties, after the death of his wife, Khomyakov went into the depths of theology and knowledge of the essence of the Church. In his articles and letters, written for some reasons in French and English, Khomyakov develops the idea of ​​conciliarity. The strength of the Church lies not in its external structure, not in its hierarchy, but in its conciliarity, in the unity of love of the entire church people, in its invincibility as the Body of Christ. The unity of the Church is created by the continuous action of the Spirit of God in it. Every action of the Church is directed by the Holy Spirit, the spirit of life and truth. The Spirit of God in the Church is not accessible to rationalistic consciousness, but only to the holistic spirit. Unlike the Eastern Orthodox Church with its conciliarity in love for the West, Catholicism asserts itself on the pride of the individual mind.

Great Russian literature is deeply imbued with conciliarism. What happened in the 20th century was what the Orthodox thinker, a faithful son of the Russian Church, Khomyakov, called the emergence of his theological ideas “on the world stage.”

Another outstanding Russian thinker, Ivan Vasilyevich Kireevsky, was also spiritually close to the Aksakov family. Let's turn to his philosophical views, without this, the presentation of the mental and spiritual environment that surrounded the Aksakovs will not be complete.

Ivan Kireevsky occupied an important place in it. Even in an article written in 1830, “Review of Russian Literature for 1829,” he says: “But other people’s thoughts are useful only for the development of our own. German philosophy cannot take root among us. Our philosophy must develop from our life, be created from current issues , from the dominant interests of our national and private life." Listening to Hegel’s lectures at the University of Berlin in 1830, and then Schelling’s lectures at the University of Munich, did not have a special effect on Ivan Kireevsky, and the “way of thinking” itself did not evoke sympathy in him. German philosophers, even Schelling, who is closer to him in spirit. Perhaps, what gave him more was his personal acquaintance with Hegel and, through his younger brother Pyotr Vasilyevich (who had previously arrived in Munich), with Schelling, who, by the way, in a conversation with the Kireyevskys, expressed the opinion that Russia is destined for a great destiny (the same idea, apparently, under Hegel also expressed the influence of Russia’s victory over Napoleon in 1812 to one of the young Russians who listened to his lectures). From a distance, he could more clearly examine the huge thing that represented his Fatherland. Without denying the instructiveness of the experience of Western Europe, Ivan Kireyevsky believed that any foreign experience cannot be mechanically transferred to the historical soil of another people, that philosophy and education in the same way cannot be externally adopted, but are born from the depths of national life. This is especially true of “original Russian philosophy,” which, according to his conviction, should have gone far beyond the limits of national significance and acquired a global role.

In the creation of such a philosophy, Ivan Vasilyevich saw his calling, the task of his service to the Fatherland and, in fact, lived by this single-mindedness. He did not develop a system, like the German philosophers, but developed a number of provisions that formed the basis of Slavophil philosophy. The essence of these provisions is briefly as follows.

Historically, the enlightenment of Europe and Russia was based on different elements, different principles. As for Europe, these principles in its enlightenment were Christianity, which penetrated there through the Roman Church, ancient Roman education and the statehood of the barbarians, which arose from the violence of conquest. As can be seen from this, the role of Rome and Roman education was decisive in the fate of the enlightenment of European peoples. Meanwhile, there was also the Greek enlightenment, which in its pure form almost did not penetrate into Europe until the 15th century, until the capture of Constantinople by the Turks (when Greek exiles appeared in the West with their “precious manuscripts”). But this was already a belated acquaintance, which could not change the underlying mindset and life. The dominant spirit of Roman education, Roman laws and the Roman structure left an imperious stamp on the entire history and way of life of European peoples, from private life to religion. If we talk about the main feature of the “Roman mind,” then it will be the predominance in it of external rationality over the internal essence. This character of rational education marked all manifestations of social, religious, and family life in Ancient Rome, inherited by Western Europe.

If in the West Christianity was introduced through the Roman Church, then in Russia it was through the Eastern Church. In contrast to Western theology, which is rationalistic at its core, the theology of the Eastern Church, without being carried away into the one-sidedness of syllogisms, constantly adhered to the completeness and integrity of speculation. Eastern thinkers are concerned primarily with the correctness of the internal state of the thinking spirit; Western - more about external communications concepts. Eastern writers, according to Ivan Kireyevsky, are looking for the inner integrity of the mind, that concentration of mental forces where all the individual activities of the spirit merge into one living and highest unity; Westerners, on the contrary, believe that the achievement of complete truth is possible even for divided forces, for a fragmented spirit, that with one feeling one can understand the moral, with another - the graceful, with a third - personal pleasure, etc.

This integrity of the spirit, of being itself as a heritage of Eastern Christianity and Orthodoxy, distinguished, says Kireyevsky, ancient Russian enlightenment, everyday life ancient Russian man and now it has not yet been lost among the common people, among the Russian peasantry. Kireevsky considered the need for such integrity of spirit, integrity of worldview and life to be the central task of Russian philosophy, regardless of time and historical circumstances. Moreover, he called for following not the letter, but the spirit of this provision, bringing it into line with modern, including scientific, requirements, absolutely not allowing any elements of archaism.

So, the main thing, according to Kireyevsky, is that the integrity of existence, which distinguished ancient Russian education and which was preserved among the people, should forever be the lot of the present and future Russia. But Ivan Kireyevsky sees this not as a narrow national task, but as Russia’s global calling, its historical role in the destinies of Europe. Those who consider the Slavophiles to be some kind of provincials who would like to once again board up the “window to Europe”, isolate themselves from it, isolate themselves within their own national framework (almost appanage Rus') and walk around in murmurs and blouses are mistaken. The question of their relationship to Europe is much deeper and has nothing to do with this caricature.

The thought of Ivan Kiresky was this: the historical life of Russia was devoid of the classical element, and since it was a direct heir Ancient world is Europe, then we should adopt this classical element from it - through the best features of Western education. Having assimilated all the best in the culture of the West, enriched by it, thus giving universal significance to Russian enlightenment, one can more successfully influence the West with it, bringing into its life, into its consciousness the unity of spiritual being that it lacks. The essence of Kireyevsky’s worldview was the requirement of integrity, inseparability of belief and way of life. Even in his youth, he set as his goal “to elevate the purity of life above the purity of style.” This was the motto of all his friends - his brother Pyotr Vasilyevich, Khomyakov, Konstantin and Ivan Aksakov, Yuri Samarin and others. The “purity of life” and the moral height of the Slavophiles left an imprint on their “style”, the style of their creations, about which V.V. Rozanov, who, due to his inconstancy, wrote different things about them, sometimes the exact opposite, could ultimately say that their creations “come from an unusually high mood of the soul, from some sacred delight of it, addressed to the Russian land, but not to it alone, but and to other things... Whatever they touched on, Europe, religion, Christianity, paganism, the ancient world, everywhere their speech flowed with the gold of the most sublime system of thought, the most passionate deepening into the subject, the greatest competence in judgments about it" (Article "I.V. Kireevsky and Herzen").

The integrity that Ivan Kireevsky strove for did not come down to purely personal self-knowledge for him. The moral integrity of an individual can have a great impact on people and become the focus of their like-mindedness and spiritual community. Ivan Kireyevsky knew what a person’s moral height means to other people, what an inspiring and attracting collective force it is.

As a philosophy that is not speculative, but practical, vital, the philosophy of integrity of Ivan Kireevsky absorbed his everyday impressions and could not, of course, fail to absorb his impressions from communication with the Aksakov family, which was well known to him and close to him. Sergei Timofeevich, not having a penchant for philosophizing, might not delve into all the nuances of Ivan Vasilyevich’s views, but he had a similar understanding of human life in the unity, inseparability of his thoughts and behavior. And in his work, this integrity became the basis for that amazing truth of the narrative, which has such a powerful effect on the reader, and not only aesthetically, but also morally.

Stronghold of Christianity? Armed Forces of the Order of the HospitalWhen public opinion in the West expressed doubt that the Hospitallers were of any use; the latter referred to their actions against the Turks and Mamelukes. However, these military actions alternated with long