Why did Sumarokov start writing fables? A.P. Sumarokov - literary creativity and theatrical activities

The brightest representative of classicism was Alexander Sumarokov (1717 – 1777). However, already in his work there are differences from the high “calm” that he declared. He introduced elements of middle and even low style into “high tragedy.” The reason for this creative approach was that the playwright sought to give vitality to his creations, coming into conflict with the previous literary tradition.

The purpose of creativity and ideas of Sumarokov’s plays

Belonging to an ancient noble family and brought up on the ideals of nobility and honor, he believed that all nobles should meet this high standard. Studying in the Corps of Gentry, friendship and communication with other young idealistic nobles only strengthened this idea of ​​his. But reality did not live up to the dreams. The playwright encountered laziness and cowardice everywhere in high society, and was surrounded by intrigue and flattery. This made him very angry. The unbridled nature of the young talent often led the writer into conflicts with noble society. For example, Alexander could easily throw a heavy glass at a landowner, who enthusiastically talked about how he punished his serfs. But the future genius got away with a lot, since he gained fame as a court poet and enjoyed the patronage of monarchs.

A.P. Sumarokov, art. F. Rokotov

The goal of his creativity - both drama and poetry - Sumarokov considered the education of noble character traits among nobles. He even risked lecturing royalty because they did not live up to the ideal he had drawn. Gradually, the author’s mentorship began to irritate the court. If at the beginning of his career the playwright enjoyed special immunity, then at the end of his life the playwright lost the patronage even of Catherine II, who never forgave him for his malicious epigrams and messages. Alexander Petrovich died alone and in poverty at the age of 61.

His dramaturgy was frankly didactic in nature. But this does not mean that it was uninteresting or unoriginal. Sumarokov's plays are written in brilliant language. The playwright gained fame among his contemporaries

“northern Racine”, “Boileau’s confidant”, “Russian Molière”.

Of course, in these plays there is some imitation of Western classicists, but it was almost impossible to avoid this. Although Russian drama of the 18th century was deeply original, it could not help but use the best Western models to create Russian dramatic works

Tragedies of Sumarokov

Alexander Petrovich is the author of 9 tragedies. Literary scholars divide them into two groups.

The first includes tragedies written in 1740-1750.

These are “Horev” (1747), “Hamlet” (1748), “Sinav and Truvor” (1750), “Ariston” (1750), “Semira” (1751), “Dimiza” (1758).

The second group of tragedies was written after a 10-year break:

“Yaropolk and Dimiza” (1768) (revised “Dimiza” 1958) “Vysheslav” (1768), “Dimitri the Pretender” (1771), “Mstislav” (1774).

From tragedy to tragedy, the tyrannical pathos of the author's works increases. The heroes of tragedies, in accordance with aesthetics, are clearly divided into positive and negative. In tragedies there is practically a minimum of action. The bulk of the time is occupied by monologues of the main characters, often addressed to the viewer, and not to what is happening on stage. In monologues, the author, with his characteristic directness, sets out his moralizing thoughts and moral principles. Due to this, the tragedies play out in dynamics, but the essence of the play turns out to be contained not in the actions, but in the speeches of the characters.

The first play “Khorev” was written and staged by the playwright during his years of study in the gentry corps. She quickly gained recognition and popularity. Empress Elizaveta Petrovna herself loved to watch it. The action of the play is transferred to the era of Kievan Rus. But the “historicity” of the play is very conditional; it is just a screen for expressing thoughts that were completely modern for the playwright’s era. It is in this play that the author argues that the people were not created for the monarch, but the monarch exists for the people.

The tragedy embodies the conflict characteristic of Sumarokov between the personal and the public, between desire and duty. The main character of the play, the Kiev Tsar Kiy, is himself to blame for the tragic outcome of the conflict. Wanting to test the loyalty of his subject Khorev, he instructs him to oppose the father of his beloved Osmelda, Zavlokh, who was once expelled from Kyiv. The ending of the tragedy could have been happy (as in the free translation of Hamlet with a changed ending), but court intrigues ruin the lovers. According to Alexander Petrovich, the reason for this is the tsar’s despotism and arrogance.

The tyrant-fighting idea was most embodied in his last tragedy - “Dimitri the Pretender”. The play contains direct calls for the overthrow of the tsarist government, stated through the mouths of minor characters: Shuisky, Parmen, Ksenia, George. How much resonance the publication and production of the tragedy caused can be judged by the reaction of Catherine II, who read the work and said that it was “an extremely harmful little book.” At the same time, this tragedy was shown in theaters until the 20s of the 19th century.

Comedies by Sumarokov

The author's comedies, despite the fact that in their artistic features they are weaker than “high tragedies,” are of great importance in the formation and development of Russian drama. Like tragedies, his comedic plays are written with “educational” and educational goals and are distinguished by accusatory pathos. Comedies, unlike tragedies, are written in prose and are not very long in length (1-2, less often 3 acts). They often lack a clear plot; what happens in them looks like a farce. The characters in the playwright's comedies are people he saw in everyday life: priests, judges, peasants, soldiers, etc.

The greatest strength of comedies was their colorful and deeply original language. Despite the fact that the author spent much less time creating comedies than tragedies, he managed to convey the flavor of contemporary folk life. Of the 12 comedies he wrote, the most famous was the comedy called. “Cuckold by Imagination,” in which the playwright ridiculed the denseness and despotism of the landowners.

On the significance of the playwright’s activities in the creation and development of the Russian theater -

SUMAROKOV ALEXANDER PETROVICH
14.11.1717 – 1.10.1777

Alexander Petrovich was born on November 14, 1717, the second child in the family of lieutenant of the Vologda Dragoon Regiment Pyotr Pankratych Sumarokov (1693 - 1766) and his wife Praskovya Ivanovna nee Priklonskaya (1699 - 1784) in the Moscow family mansion in Bolshoi Chernyshevsky Lane (now Stankevich St. House 6). The family was quite rich for those times: in 1737, in six estates, Pyotr Pankratych owned 1,670 serfs.
Alexander had two brothers and six sisters: Vasily (1716 - 1767), Ivan (1729 - 1763), Praskovya (1720 - ?), Alexandra (1722 - ?), Elizaveta (1731 - 1759), Anna (1732 - 1767) , Maria (1741 – 1768), Fiona (?).

Alexander Petrovich received his primary education at home. Until 1727, his teacher was the Carpathian Rusyn from Hungary I.A. Zeiken (1670 - 1739), who at the same time gave lessons to the heir to the throne, the future Emperor Peter II. In connection with his coronation on May 7, 1727, Zeiken was removed from his position and A.I. took up the education of the young emperor. Osterman (1686 – 1747).
On May 30, 1732, Alexander Petrovich was admitted to the Land Noble Corps (Cadet Corps) together with his older brother Vasily. The official opening of the building took place on June 14, 1732 in the restored palace of A.D. Menshikov. (1673 – 1729). Six or seven people lived in one room, each of the cadets could have two servants, but only at their own expense, and it was recommended to have foreign servants for better mastery of foreign languages. During meals, courteous behavior was required, and for the useful use of time, reading articles, newspapers, regulations, decrees or fragments of history was prescribed.
Some cadets found pleasure in composing poems and songs; poetry and rhetoric were not included in the training program, and writing was not encouraged by the corps regulations, but was not prohibited either.
The first cadets were passionate about foreign languages ​​and poetic language.
Adam Olsufiev (1721 - 1784), wrote poems easily, but did not publish them, “because they were in the taste of Piron” (obviously, meaning Hephaestus). Classmates Olsufiev and Sumarokov will remain on friendly terms throughout their lives, sometimes out of old memory, sometimes due to the needs of the service. In 1765, Catherine II turned to Olsufiev to ban Sumarokov’s fable “Two Cooks.”
Mikhail Sobakin (1720 - 1773), who entered the corps a day later than Sumarokov, also rhymed words and put them into lines. To the general congratulations from the Corps for the New Year 1737, sixteen-year-old Mikhail Sobakin also added poems of his own composition - 24 lines of syllabic 12-syllable verse, glorifying the wise ruler Anna Ioannovna and the conquest of Azov in 1736. Sobakin highlighted parts of words in capital letters, from which other words, the most important ones, were easily formed, and the result was a text “on top” of the text: RUSSIA, ANNA, AZOV, CRIMEA, KHAN, THOUSAND, SEMSOT, TRITSA, SEMOY.
Sumarokov’s own printed debut took place at the end of 1739 with the publication of two odes for the New Year 1740 with the traditionally long title “To Her Imperial Majesty the Most Gracious Empress Anna Ioannovna Autocrat of the All-Russian Congratulatory Ode on the First Day of the New Year 1740, from the Cadet Corps Composed through Alexander Sumarokov.” It is noteworthy that Sumarokov does not write two separate odes, he creates an odic diptych, in the first part of which he speaks on behalf of the Corps (“Our Corps congratulates YOU through me, / On the fact that the new year is now coming”), in the second - on behalf of all of Russia . This form of congratulation “from two persons” already took place in complimentary poetry of that time. A similar panegyric by Adam Olsufiev and Gustav Rosen (1714 – 1779) was dedicated to Anna Ioannovna on January 20, 1735.

On April 14, 1740, Sumarokov was released from the Cadet Corps as an adjutant with the rank of lieutenant to the influential Field Marshal General Kh.A. Minich (1683 – 1767). His certificate noted in particular:
“ALEXANDER PETROV SON OF SUMAROKOV.
Maya joined the corps in 1732 for 30 days, and was released on April 14, 1740, as an adjutant, with the following certificate (sic!): in geometry he taught trigonometry, explicates and translates from German into French, in universal history he graduated from Russia and Poland, in geography taught the Gibner atlas, composes German letters and orations, listened to Wolf’s morality until Chapter III of the second part, has its beginning in the Italian language.”

In March 1741, the field marshal was removed from the court and Sumarokov was transferred as an adjutant to the service of Count M.G. Golovkin (1699 – 1754).

After Golovkin’s arrest and exile in July 1742, Alexander Petrovich was appointed adjutant to the favorite of Empress Elizabeth A.G. Razumovsky (1709 - 1771). On June 7, 1743 he was promoted to adjutant general with the rank of major.

Thanks to his new position, Alexander Petrovich often visits the court, where he meets his future wife, the daughter of the mundkoch (cook), Johanna Christina Balior (1730 - 1769), who was called Balkova at court. Subsequently, in various memoirs, she turned into Johanna Christiana Balk (obviously this was somehow connected with Lieutenant General Fyodor Nikolaevich Balk, who was considered Johanna’s actual father at court).

On November 10, 1746, Alexander Petrovich and Johanna Christiana got married. The relationship between the spouses was complicated, and in 1758 Johanna Christiana left her husband.
In marriage, the couple had two daughters, Praskovya (1747 - 1784) and Ekaterina (1748 - 1797). There is a myth that Catherine continued the creative tradition of her father and was the first Russian poetess to appear in print. The basis for this legend was the fact that in the March magazine “Hardworking Bee” for 1759, an “Elegy” was published, signed “Katerina Sumarokova” (she was only 11 years old at that time):
O you who have always loved me,
And now I’ve forgotten everything forever!
You are still sweet to me, sweet in my eyes,
And without you I’m in groans and tears.
I walk around without memory, I don’t know what peace is.
I keep crying and feeling sad; It’s a property of my life.
How pleasant was that hour when I was with you,
But it died and disappeared from us.
However, I love you, I love you with all my heart,
And I will love you with all my heart forever,
Even though I parted ways with you, my dear,
Although I don’t see you in front of me.
Alas, why, why am I so unhappy!
Why, dear one, am I so passionate!
You took away everything from fate, you took away everything from evil fate,
I will forever moan when you are so cruel,
And after my kind separation,
I will not spend a moment without suffering.

As is clear from the text of the elegy, the Sumarokovs had already separated by this time and it can be assumed that the daughters remained with their father, therefore, addressing his wife through the magazine, Alexander Petrovich strengthens his appeal with the signature of his daughter, who obviously played a special role in their relationship.
The rupture in their relationship occurred, obviously, due to his wife’s affair, which ultimately resulted in a complete break in family relations. This novel began around 1756. In 1757, Sumarokov published a deeply lyrical poem in the German magazine “News of Fine Sciences,” the intimate lines of which suggested that it was dedicated to Johanna Christiana, in which Sumarokov reproaches his beloved for treason.
Among a number of researchers, there is an opinion that Sumarokov himself provoked his wife’s affair, being carried away by one of his serf girls, Vera Prokhorova (1743 - 1777), with whom he formalized the marriage only after the death of his first wife in 1770. Even if this affair took place, then It is unlikely that Alexander Petrovich had the same warm feelings for Vera as he did for Johanna, otherwise the elegy “Oh, you who have always loved me” would not have appeared in 1759.

The breakdown of family relations of the Sumarokovs surprisingly coincided with the discovery of the conspiracy of Chancellor A.P. Bestuzhev-Ryumina (1693 - 1768) in 1758. In the Bestuzhev case, as the husband of the maid of honor of Grand Duchess Ekaterina Alekseevna, Alexander Sumarokov was also interrogated, but, like his great-grandfather, steward Ivan Ignatievich Sumarokov (1660 - 1715), who at one time did not betrayed Peter I (in his conflict with his sister Sophia), and Alexander did not reveal to the secret chancellery the details of this conspiracy, the details of which he most likely knew.

At the end of October 1747, Sumarokov turned to the President of the Academy of Sciences, Kirill Grigorievich Razumovsky (1728 - 1803), the brother of his patron, with a request to print the tragedy “Khorev” at his own cost in the academic printing house:
“Most Excellent Count, Dear Sir! I intend to publish the tragedy “Horev” I composed. And yet, dear sir, the fulfillment of my desire depends on your person... to order it to be printed for my money... in the number of 1200 copies, with such a determination that in the future, against my will, this tragedy of mine will not be printed in other editions at the Academy; for what I have written, I, as the author of it, should publish my work more decently, and there can be no academic loss from it.”
The President allowed the tragedy to be printed, and it was successfully published in accordance with the will of the author.
Trediakovsky V.K. (1703 – 1769) Sumarokov had an extremely negative attitude towards this tragedy:
“I know that the Author will resort to many French Tragedies, in which an equal end is made to virtue. But I report back<…>you have to do it the way it’s supposed to be done, not the way it’s supposed to be. As many do. I call all those French Tragedies worthless, in which virtue perishes and anger has ultimate success; therefore, I also call this Author by the same name.”
The first performance of “Khorev” was performed by cadets of the Noble Corps in 1749, which was attended by the author of the tragedy. Expecting to see “children’s play,” Sumarokov was amazed at how his passionate poems about love, fidelity and betrayal suddenly came to life and turned into a genuine world of passions, filled with love, fidelity and betrayal. The performance was a success and on February 25, 1750, the tragedy was acted out by cadets in one of the halls of the Winter Palace for Empress Elizabeth Petrovna.
In 1752, “Khorev” was given on the stage of the German Theater by Yaroslavl residents, specially summoned to St. Petersburg: Khorev was played by A. Popov (1733 - 1799), Kiya - F. Volkov (1729 - 1763), Osnelda - young Ivan Dmitrevsky (1734 - 1821 ).

Immediately after the tragedy “Khorev”, Alexander Petrovich wrote an adaptation of Shakespeare’s tragedy “Hamlet” and published it in 1748 without mentioning its direct author under his own name.
When working on Hamlet, Alexander Petrovich used the French prose translation of the tragedy (1745) by P. A. de Laplace, but he also had an English version at hand, which he obviously used to clarify individual fragments of the text, since most likely spoke English poorly. Hamlet's famous soliloquy “To be or not to be?” (To be or not to be?) Sumarokov conveyed it in such a way that the reader could understand what choice the hero faced, what exactly was tormenting him at the crossroads in life:
“What should I do now? I don't know what to conceive.
It's easy to lose Ophelia forever!
Father! mistress! O names of dragia!
You were happiness to me in other times."
Sumarokov himself considered it necessary to note the adherence to the original source in only two episodes: “My Hamlet, except for the monologue at the end of the third act and Claudius falling to his knees, hardly resembles Shakespeare’s tragedy.”
With the production of Sumarokov's Hamlet on February 8, 1750 on the small stage of the Winter Palace, the triumphal procession of Shakespeare's masterpieces on the stages of Russian theaters began.
VC. Trediakovsky assessed Sumarokov’s “Hamlet” quite condescendingly: he spoke of the play as “quite fair,” but at the same time offered his own versions of some poetic lines. Sumarokov was clearly offended by Trediakovsky’s mentor’s criticism; in any case, he did not take advantage of the proposed options, and the tragedy was released almost in its original edition.
In his official review, M.V. Lomonosov (1711 – 1765) limited himself to a small reply, but there is an epigram written by him after reading the work, in which he sarcastically ridicules Sumarokov’s translation of the French word “toucher” as “touch” in a review of Gertrude (“And death does not touch a wife looked"):
Steele got married, an old man without urine,
On Stella, who is fifteen years old,
And without waiting for the first night,
Coughing, he left the light.
Here poor Stella sighed,
That death looked at the wife untouched.
No matter how funny the French “toucher” (to touch) in the meaning of “to touch” looked in the 18th century, it soon began to be freely used in the Russian poetic language, and in this Sumarokov turned out to be more perspicacious than his witty critic Lomonosov.

In 1750, after the success of the tragedy "Khorev", Alexander Petrovich experienced an extraordinary creative impulse: the comedy "Tresotinius" was written on January 12 - 13, 1750 and staged on the stage of the Winter Palace on May 30 of the same year; the tragedy “Sinav and Truvor”, the comedy “Monsters” (another name is “Court of Arbitration”) were presented on July 21, 1750 in the theater of the Peterhof Palace, “in the seaside courtyard”; the tragedy of “Artiston” was performed in October 1750 in the chambers of the Winter Palace; the comedy “An Empty Quarrel” was shown on December 1, 1750 after Lomonosov’s tragedy “Tamira and Selim” in the same place, in the rooms of the Winter Palace; On December 21, 1751, “Semira,” Sumarokov’s favorite tragedy, was shown.

In November 1754 G.F. Miller proposed publishing a monthly magazine.
The magazine was called “Monthly essays for the benefit and amusement of employees” (1755 - 1757), then the name changed to “Essays and translations for the benefit and amusement of employees” (1758 - 1762) and “Monthly essays and news about scientific affairs” (1763 - 1764 ). It was read throughout the decade from 1755 to 1764 and even after it ceased to exist. Old issues of the magazine were reprinted, bound into volumes and successfully sold.
Alexander Petrovich wrote and sent small works to the magazine, becoming one of the most published authors of the magazine - 98 poems and 11 translations for 1755 - 1758.

By 1756, Alexander Petrovich had already become a fairly famous Russian poet, so much so that, at the request of the Secretary of the Academy of Sciences G.F. Miller (1705 - 1783), academician, researcher of Russian history, receives an honorary diploma from the Leipzig Literary Society on August 7, 1756. At the same time, the famous German writer I.H. Gottsched (1700 – 1766), who signed this diploma, wrote:
“We must set this Russian poet as an example to our eternal translators of foreign works. Why can’t German poets find tragic heroes in our own history and bring them to the stage, while the Russian has found such in his history?”

From 1756 to 1761, Alexander Petrovich served as director of the St. Petersburg Theater.
On August 30, 1756, Empress Elizaveta Petrovna ordered “to establish a Russian theater for the presentation of tragedies and comedies, for which the Golovkinsky stone house, which is on Vasilyevsky Island, near the Cadet House, should be given. And for this purpose, it was ordered to recruit actors and actresses: actors from the student singers and Yaroslavl students in the Cadet Corps, who will be needed, and in addition to them, actors from other non-service people, as well as a decent number of actresses. To determine the maintenance of this theater, according to the force of this Our Decree, counting from now on a sum of money of 5,000 rubles per year, which is always released from the State Office at the beginning of the year upon signing of Our Decree. To supervise the house, Alexey Dyakonov, who was awarded by We as an Army second lieutenant, was selected from the copyists of the Life Company, with a salary of 250 rubles per year from the amount allocated for the theater. Assign a decent guard to the house where the theater is established.
The management of that Russian theater is entrusted from Us to Brigadier Alexander Sumarokov, who is determined from the same amount, in addition to his Brigadier salary, ration and cash money per year of 1000 rubles and the salary he deserves according to the Brigadier rank from his promotion to that rank, in addition to the colonel's increase the salary and continue to provide the full annual brigadier salary; and his Brigadier Sumarokov should not be removed from the army list. And what kind of salary should be paid to both actors and actresses, and others at the theater, about that; Brigadier Sumarokov of the Dvor was given a register.”
Sumarokov shared the hardships, worries and troubles of the theater with Fyodor Volkov, who had not only acting talent, but also endurance, which the theater director so lacked. It was Volkov who united the troupe into a team, being “his own” in the acting environment.
Unrestrained, hot-tempered, demanding respect for himself both as a poet and as an aristocrat, Alexander Petrovich could not do without quarrels with bureaucrats, nobles, and court businessmen. A court official could scold him, could push him around. Sumarokov was irritated. He tossed about, fell into despair, did not know where to find support. An intellectual among the “barbarians,” he suffered deeply from his powerlessness, from the inability to realize his ideal. His indomitability and hysteria became proverbial. He jumped up, cursed, and ran away when he heard the landowners calling the serf servants “boorish tribe.” He loudly cursed arbitrariness, bribes, and the savagery of society. In response, the noble “society” took revenge on him, driving him crazy, mocking him.
Since January 1759, not only the economic and financial affairs of the Russian theater, but also creative issues, for example, repertoire, were under the leadership of the Court Office and Karl Sievers (1710 - 1774).
On June 13, 1761, an imperial decree was issued on the resignation of Alexander Petrovich from the post of director of the theater.

From 1755 to 1758, Alexander Petrovich actively participated in the work of the scientific and educational journal of Academician G.F. Miller "Monthly essays for the benefit and amusement of employees." According to the testimony of academician Y. Shtelin (1709 - 1785) “the foreman Sumarokov even made it a law for himself that without sending his poem not a single monthly book of the magazine would be published, which is why in each month, for several years in a row, you can find one or several his poems." But in 1758, Sumarokov had a quarrel with G.F. Miller, after which Alexander Petrovich decides to publish his own magazine.
In mid-December 1758, Sumarokov asked for permission to publish a magazine at his own expense and free from the supervision of others:
“TO THE CHANCELLER OF THE SPBURG IMPERIAL ACADEMY FROM BRIGADIER ALEXANDER SUMAROKOV.
I set out to publish a monthly magazine for the benefit of the people, for this reason I humbly ask that the academic printing house be ordered to print twelve hundred copies of my magazine without stopping on blank paper, and to collect money from me after every third; As for the consideration of publications, whether there is anything disgusting in them, this can be viewed, if it is favorable, by those people who look through academic journal publications, without touching the style of my publications.
I only humbly ask that the Chancellery of the Academy of Sciences deign to save me from insanity and difficulties in typing. And if I receive permission, I intend to begin these publications from the first day of January of the coming year. Brigadier Alexander Sumarokov."
Sumarokov turned through his former patron Alexei Razumovsky to the President of the Academy of Sciences Kirill Razumovsky, who had no difficulty in helping Sumarokov’s initiative by giving the order:
“Print in the academic printing house the magazine he publishes monthly and the plays included in it, before printing, read to Mr. Professor Popov, who, if he sees anything contrary in them, reminds the publisher about it; and so that everything happens decently in printing and that there is no stopping in academic affairs in the printing house, then a proper routine should be established in the Chancellery. After every third of it, Mr. Brigadier Sumarokov demand money” (order dated January 7, 1759).
It cost Sumarokov eight and a half kopecks for typing and printing with paper: one copy per month should have cost Sumarokov eight and a half kopecks, in four months - thirty-four and a little kopecks, and if for a year, then one ruble and three kopecks. The preliminary calculation of the future publisher of the magazine satisfied: “I am satisfied with this and undertake to pay the money regularly after every third; and eight hundred copies are needed.”
Sumarokov invited several like-minded people who knew their business to collaborate in the magazine. Nikolai Motonis (? – 1787) and Grigory Kozitsky (1724 – 1775), who had known each other since their studies at the Kiev-Mohyla Academy, participated in the creation of the first issue of “The Hard-Working Bee” together with Alexander Petrovich. In the article of the first issue “On the Benefits of Mythology,” Kozitsky pointed out the allegorical meaning of the title of the magazine: “... so that readers, learning and practicing it (mythology) in the likeness of hardworking bees, only collect from it that knowledge to increase them, moral teaching to give them and well-being may be their cause."
The first issue of the magazine was anticipated by an epigraph dedicated to Grand Duchess EKATERINA ALEXEEVNA:
With intelligence and beauty and grace, Goddess,
O enlightened GRAND DUCHESS!
GREAT PETER opened the door to science for Ross,
And HIS Wise DAUGHTER leads us into it,
With EKATHERINE, now becoming like PETER,
And giving a sample to PETER EKATHERINE:
Elevate this low work with her examples,
And be my protection, Minerva!

The censor of the magazine was professor of astronomy N.I. Popov (1720 - 1782), who drank without any restraint and in a drunken stupor tried to edit Sumarokov's texts. Alexander Petrovich bothered the Rozumovsky brothers with this and four months later other censors were assigned to him - 36-year-old mathematics professor S.K. Kotelnikov (1723 – 1806) and 25-year-old associate in astronomy S.Ya. Rumovsky (1734 - 1812), but Kotelnikov could not work well with Alexander Petrovich, and asked the leadership to be relieved of this responsibility.
In the July issue, Alexander Petrovich wanted to publish three parodies of Lomonosov’s odes, who, having learned about this, forbade the proofreader to type them. In fact, Lomonosov became Sumarokov's censor. The conflict flared up more and more. As a result, Sumarokov himself could not stand it and completed the publication of the magazine with the last, twelfth, issue of 1759.
The December issue of The Hardworking Bee included nine publications:
I. Speech on the usefulness and superiority of the liberal sciences.
II. Aeschines of the Socratic Philosopher on Virtue.
III. From Titus Livy.
IV. Dream.
V. From Holberg's letters.
VI. To the publisher of the Industrious Bee.
VII. About copyists.
VIII. To the senseless rhymers.
IX. Parting with the Muses.
On the last page of the magazine, between the poem “Parting with the Muses” and the traditional table of contents, there is written: “THE HARDWORKING BEE IS ENDED.”
With a heavy heart, Alexander Petrovich parted with his beloved brainchild:
For many reasons
The writer's name and rank disgust me;
I descend from Parnassus, I descend against my will,
During the height of the forest, I feel the heat,
And after death I will not ascend to heaven again;
The fate of my share.
Farewell muses forever!
I will never write again
(Parting with the Muses)

Throughout the autumn of 1762, coronation celebrations took place in Moscow. Sumarokov was sent to Moscow to participate in the preparation of an entertainment spectacle for the people, the culmination of which was the masquerade “Minerva Triumphant”
To create the masquerade, the greatest talents and “inventors” of the time were brought in: the actor and, as they said, the Empress’s secret adviser, Fyodor Grigorievich Volkov, Moscow University assessor Mikhail Matveevich Kheraskov (1733 – 1807) and the director of the Russian theater Alexander Petrovich Sumarokov.
Volkov owned the plan itself, the actions; Kheraskov composed poems - comments on the masquerade and monologues of its main characters; and Sumarokov - choruses for each action, which are addressed to the vices or pronounced by the vices themselves. The general management of the event was carried out by I.I. Betskoy (1704 – 1795). The masquerade lasted three days - January 31, February 1 and 2, 1763.

In 1764, Alexander Petrovich turned to Catherine II with a request to send him on a trip to Europe in order to describe its customs and geography, a direct native speaker of the Russian language, which no one had ever done before, and all the information about Europe was available only in the presentations of foreigners. His request was denied.
This project was able to be implemented only 25 years later by N.M. Karamzin (1766 - 1826), the result of which was the book “Letters of a Russian Traveler” (1791).

Until the end of his life, Alexander Petrovich’s relationship with Count Andrei Petrovich Shuvalov (1744 – 1789) did not develop, who, in an epitaph on the death of Lomonosov (1765), written in French and published in Paris, glorified Sumarokov’s poetic talent “all over Europe”, calling him “a reckless copyist of Racine’s defects, defaming the wondrous Muse of Northern Homer.”

In 1766, Alexander Petrovich finally broke off his relationship with his first wife Johanna Christianna, but there was no official divorce, and began to live in a civil marriage with the daughter of his coachman Vera Prokhorova (1743 - 1777).
In December of the same year, Alexander Petrovich's father died and he was drawn into an unpleasant litigation regarding the inheritance.
The husband of his late sister Elizabeth (1759), Arkady Ivanovich Buturlin (1700 - 1775), an actual chamberlain, decided to completely and completely “deprive” his son of his father’s inheritance, on the basis that Alexander Petrovich, who by that time had disdained the bonds of a church-sanctioned marriage, was in illicit relations with a serf. By the way, for the same reason Sumarokov could not stay at his home.
Alexander Petrovich’s mother, with whom he quarreled mercilessly about this, also spoke out on his son-in-law’s side. In this regard, Praskovya Ivanovna wrote to the Empress:
“... on the 9th day of September, he suddenly came home to me completely out of his mind with anger, and began to slander me to my face with such obscene and defamatory words that I now can’t even remember<...>And finally, running out into the yard and taking out his sword, he repeatedly ran to my people, although he wanted to stab them,<…>. His rage and mischief continued for several hours.”
Having sorted out the family conflict of the Sumarokovs on December 2, 1768, Catherine II writes to M.N. Volkonsky (1713 – 1788):
“I hear that the main instrument of displeasure against the mother of State Councilor Sumarokov against her son is their son-in-law Arkady Buturlin. For this reason, call him to you and announce in my name that I accept with great displeasure that even while I am trying to reconcile mother and son, he does not cease to create even greater discord and disagreement between them, and tell him to He henceforth abstained from such ungodly and depraved acts for fear of our anger.”

By 1768, Alexander Petrovich became disillusioned with the reign of Catherine II, whose ascension to the throne he actively supported.
Re-publishing his tragedy “Khorev” in 1768, 21 years after the first publication, Sumarokov at the beginning of Act V replaced Kiya’s previous monologue related to the content of the play with a new one, completely unnecessary for the development of the plot and outlining the character of the hero, but representing an obvious, understandable an attack against Catherine: at this time, the Empress was especially proud of her Commission for drafting the New Code, which was supposed to give the country new laws, and Catherine’s personal life, her ongoing love affairs with her favorites were well known in St. Petersburg and beyond.

In March 1769, Sumarokov moved to Moscow permanently, having sold his own house in St. Petersburg, located on the ninth line of Vasilyevsky Island, and his entire extensive library through the bookseller Shkolary. In the same year, his first wife Johanna Christiannovna died.

In the middle of 1770, G. Belmonti staged the drama “Eugenie” (1767) by Beaumarchais (1732 – 1799) in his theater; This play did not belong to the classical repertoire and, being unfashionable, was not even successful in Paris. The St. Petersburg theater did not accept her either. “Eugenia” appeared in Moscow in a translation by the young writer N.O. Pushnikova (1745 - 1810), was a great success and made full preparations.
Sumarokov, seeing such a rare success, was indignant and wrote a letter to Voltaire. The philosopher answered Sumarokov in his tone. Reinforced by the words of Voltaire, Sumarokov resolutely rebelled against “Eugenia” and scolded Beaumarchais for what the world stands on.
But they didn’t listen to him. Belmonti still continued to give it in his theater, the Moscow public continued to fill the theater during performances and still applauded the “tearful bourgeois drama,” as Voltaire and Sumarokov and a company of classics called this new kind of plays. Then the indignant Sumarokov wrote not only a harsh, but even a daring article against the drama, and against the actors, and against the audience, deliberately calling the translator a “clerk” - he could not think of a worse name:
“We have introduced a new and nasty kind of tearful drama. Such stingy taste is indecent to the taste of Great Catherine... “Eugenia”, not daring to appear in St. Petersburg, crawled into Moscow, and no matter how stingily it is translated by some clerk, no matter how badly it is played, it is a success. The clerk became the judge of Parnassus and the approver of the taste of the Moscow public. Of course, the end of the world will soon take place. But would Moscow really believe the clerk rather than Mr. Voltaire and me?
At these words, both the entire Moscow society of that time, as well as the actors and the owner of the theater, were greatly offended and vowed to take revenge on Sumarokov for his antics. Sumarokov, sensing the approach of a thunderstorm, concluded a written agreement with Belmonti, according to which the latter undertook under no circumstances to perform his tragedies at his theater, pledging, otherwise, to pay for violation of the agreement with all the money collected for the performance.
But this did not stop Sumarokov’s enemies from carrying out their plan. They begged the Moscow governor P.S. Saltykov (1698 - 1772) to order Belmonti to stage “Sinava and Truvor”, because, as they said, this was the desire of all Moscow. Saltykov, not suspecting anything, ordered Belmonti to stage this tragedy. Belmonti, like the actors, was very happy to annoy Sumarokov and ordered the artists to distort the play as much as possible. On the appointed evening, the theater was filled with an audience hostile to Sumarokov, the curtain rose, and, as soon as the actors had time to deliberately pronounce a few words badly, whistles, shouts, kicking, curses and other outrages were heard, which lasted for quite a long time. No one listened to the tragedy; the public tried to fulfill everything that Sumarokov reproached them for. Men walked between the seats, looked into the boxes, talked loudly, laughed, slammed doors, gnawed nuts near the orchestra, and in the square, on the orders of the masters, servants made noise and coachmen fought. The scandal turned out to be colossal, Sumarokov became furious from all this action:
My annoyance has now surpassed all measures.
Go, furies! Get out of hell.
Gnaw greedily on my breast, suck my blood
At this hour, in which I am tormented, I cry out,
Now among Moscow "Sinava" is represented
And this is how the unfortunate author is tormented...
In the heat of the moment, Alexander Petrovich complains about Saltykov to Catherine II, but instead of support he received a rebuke:
“You should comply with the wishes of the first government dignitary in Moscow; and if he wished to order that the tragedy be played, then his will had to be carried out unquestioningly. I think that you know better than anyone what respect people who served with glory and turned gray are worthy of. That is why I advise you to avoid such bickering in the future. In this way you will maintain the peace of mind necessary for the works of your pen; and it will always be more pleasant for me to see the representation of passions in your dramas than in your letters.”
Moscow continued to savor the defeat of Alexander Petrovich, to which he responded with an epigram:
Instead of nightingales, cuckoos cuckoo here
And Diana’s mercy is interpreted with anger;
Although the cuckoo rumor spreads,
Can cuckoos understand the goddess’s words?..
The young poet Gavrila Derzhavin (1743 – 1816) was involved in the conflict, who countered Sumarkova with a caustic epigram:
What will a magpie tell a lie?
Then everything is reputed to be magpie nonsense.

In November 1770, a plague epidemic began in Moscow, killing more than 56,000 people in two years. In the face of possible death, Alexander Petrovich decides to legitimize his relationship with his common-law wife Vera Prokhorova and marries her in a village near Moscow, where he hid his new family from the plague epidemic.

In 1773, Alexander Petrovich returned to St. Petersburg with the hope of literary success and settled in the Anichkov Palace, which by this time had come into the possession of K.G. Razumovsky, the brother of his patron A.G. Razumovsky:
“At the end of his gentle age,
I live in a man's house,
Which is death to me
She drew currents of tears,
And remembering who, I can’t wipe them off.
You know whose death
In Moscow, he wanted to defeat me with this blow.
His dear brother owns this house,
Just like him, he is not angry and kind.”
(Letter to a friend in Moscow. January 8, 1774)

Sumarokov wrote his last tragedy, “Mstislav”, in 1774. In August of the same summer, Sumarokov’s young son Pavel was enrolled thanks to the patronage of Catherine II’s new favorite G.A. Potemkin (1739 – 1791) to the Preobrazhensky Regiment. On behalf of his son, Alexander Petrovich writes a laudatory stanza:
……
I am blessed to join this regiment by fate,
Who was PETER for future successes,
Under the name of his infant joy:
Potemkin! I see myself in the seventh regiment as you.
…….
In the same year, Alexander Petrovich, calling out Pugachev’s uprising, published “The Abridged Tale of Stenka Razin.”
The 14-page brochure was published in a circulation of 600 copies. “The Tale” is a retelling of the German anonymous pamphlet “Kurtze doch wahchafftige Erzchlung von der blutigen Rebettion in der Moscau angerichtet durch den groben Verrather und Betrieger “Stenko Razin, denischen Cosaken...” (1671). The author of this work was considered, perhaps erroneously, to be Jan Janszoon Struys (1630 - 1694), a traveler from the Netherlands, an eyewitness to the capture of Astrakhan by the Cossacks, who personally met with Ataman Stepan Razin.
Alexander Petrovich tries to express his craving for history in the collection “Solemn Odes,” published by him in 1774, in which Sumarokov arranged the works in historical sequence: the life and death of Peter I, the accession to the throne of Elizabeth, the Seven Years' War, the death of Elizabeth and the accession of Catherine, the development of trade in the eastern direction and Catherine’s journey along the Volga, the beginning of the war with Turkey and its main episodes, unrest in Moscow in the “plague” year of 1771, victory over Turkey.

Alexander Petrovich's hopes for literary success in St. Petersburg were not justified. In this regard, the editor of the magazine “Painter” N.I. Novikov (1744 – 1818) wrote:
«<…>Nowadays, many of the best books have been translated from various foreign languages ​​and published in Russian; but they don’t buy them even a tenth the price of novels.<…>As for our original books, they have never been in fashion and are not at all out of print; and who should buy them? Our enlightened gentlemen do not need them, and they are not at all suitable for the ignorant. Who in France would believe it if they said that Fairy Tales were sold more than the works of the Rasinovs? And here it is coming true: “The Thousand and One Nights” sold much more of Mr. Sumarokov’s works. And what London bookseller would not be horrified to hear that two hundred copies of a printed book in our country are sometimes sold out in ten years? O times! oh morals! Take heart, Russian writers! They will soon stop buying your works altogether.”
At the end of 1774, in debt and despair, Alexander Petrovich returned to Moscow. The final verdict on his literary career was issued by Catherine II on January 4, 1775:
«<…>the works of the actual state councilor and cavalier Count Sumarokov will no longer be published without censorship from the Academy of Sciences.”

From the letters of Alexander Petrovich it is clear that from now on he vegetated in poverty, in search of money to pay off debts and simply to live, in illness and in difficult worries about the fate of his wife, children and his creative heritage.
In a letter dated July 10, 1775, Alexander Petrovich wrote to Count Potemkin:
«<…>And tomorrow the house will be taken away from me, I don’t know by what right, because this year my house has already cost more than a thousand rubles after the addition; and it was valued at 900 rubles, although it cost me, besides furniture, too much for sixteen thousand. I owe Demidov only 2000 rubles, and he, angry with me for the rogue attorney of his, whom he himself knocked out of the yard, is now demanding interest and recambes, although he promised me not to think about it.<…>»
Twitched, impoverished, ridiculed by the nobility and its empress, Sumarokov began to drink and sank. Even the fame he enjoyed among writers did not console him:
….
But if I decorate Russian Parnassus
And in vain in my complaint to Fortune I cry,
It’s no better if you always see yourself in torment,
Would you rather die?
I have little joy that my glory will not fade,
Which the shadow will never feel.
What need do I have for my mind?
If only I carry crackers in my bag?
What an excellent writer I am honored for,
If there is nothing to drink or eat?
(“Complaint” 1775)

In May 1777, Alexander Petrovich's second wife died and in the same year he married for the third time to his other serf Ekaterina Gavrilovna (1750 - ?), the niece of his just deceased second wife, again neglecting the blessing of his mother.
In connection with the death of his second wife, Alexander Petrovich writes to the director of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences S.G. Domashneva (1743 - 1795): “I am writing to your honor in a coherent manner because I am very ill and I myself can neither read nor write, and especially since my wife died, I cried incessantly for twelve weeks.”
Two days before the death of Alexander Petrovich, his Moscow house “in a wooden structure and with a garden, and under the mansions with a stone foundation” was sold for 3,572 rubles. The house was purchased by merchant P.A. Demidov (1709 – 1786).
According to M.A. Dmitrieva (1796 - 1866): “Sumarokov was already given over to drunkenness without any caution. My uncle often saw him walking to a tavern across Kudrinskaya Square, wearing a white dressing gown and an Anne's ribbon over his camisole, over his shoulder. He was married to some of his cook and was no longer familiar with almost anyone...”

Having lived only four months in his third marriage, on October 1, 1777, Alexander Petrovich Sumarokov died.

The creative legacy of Alexander Petrovich consisted of nine tragedies: “Khorev”, “Ariston”, “Semira”, “Dmitry the Pretender”, “Sinav and Truvor”, “Yaropolk and Demiza”, “Vysheslav”, “Mstislav”, “Hamlet” ; 12 comedies; 6 plays, as well as numerous translations, poetry, prose, journalism and criticism.

Complete lack of money and hostile relations with relatives led to the fact that Alexander Petrovich’s new wife did not even have money for his funeral. He was buried by the actors of the Moscow theater at their own expense. The money collected was so little that the actors had to carry his coffin in their arms from Kudrinskaya Square, where he died, to the Donskoy Monastery cemetery (6.3 km?!). None of Alexander Petrovich’s relatives were at the funeral.
Among the actors who took part in Sumarokov’s funeral was the Moscow theater actor Gavrila Druzherukov, whom Sumarokov insulted shortly before his death by mistakenly mistaking him for the author of caustic epigrams addressed to himself:
What will a magpie tell a lie?
Then everything is reputed to be magpie nonsense.
Signed with two letters “G.D.”
In fact, the author of this epigram was Gavrila Derzhavin, a complete stranger to Sumarokov at that time.
(N.P. Drobova, referring to Nikolai Struisky, considers F.G. Karin (1740 - 1800) the author of this epigram, but it was not possible to find data to confirm or refute this statement)
The brother of the unjustly slandered actor, an insignificant official of the office of the Moscow Governor General Alexei Druzherukov, nevertheless responded to the death of the great poet of his time in the poem “Conversation in the Kingdom of the Dead Lomonosov and Sumarokov” (1777) which, in particular, contains the following lines on behalf of Sumarokov:

Lying unconscious in a coffin
Nobody wanted to see it for the last time.
It’s natural to have no pity for me.
Arkharov and Yushkov only revealed that
After death, they kept love for me.
In actors I found sensitive hearts:
Having learned the death of Semirin the creator,
Moaning sorrowfully streams of tears were shed,
With pity, my ashes were hidden in the earthly womb.

Thus, in addition to the actors of the Moscow theater, the Moscow chief of police, Major General N.P. Arkharov, was present at the funeral of Alexander Petrovich. (1742 - 1814) and former (until 1773) Moscow civil governor I.I. Yushkov. (1710 – 1786). In addition to N.P. Arkharov and Yushkova I.I. This funeral was also attended by P.I. Strakhov, a young physicist and mathematician at the time, and later a professor and rector of Moscow University (1805 - 1807) and a corresponding member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences (from 1803).

It is believed that the grave of A.P. Sumarokov was abandoned and forgotten, so in 1836 Moscow University professor P.S. was buried in his grave. Shchepkin (1793 - 1836), where during the burial it turned out that this was the grave of A.P. Sumarokova.

Sumarokov Alexander Petrovich (1717 - 1777), poet, playwright. Born on November 14 (25 NS) in Moscow into an old noble family. Until the age of fifteen he was educated and raised at home.
In 1732 - 40 he studied at the Land Noble Corps, where he began to write poetry, imitating Trediakovsky. He served as an adjutant to Count G. Golovkin and Count A. Razumovsky and continued to write, at this time being strongly influenced by Lomonosov’s odes.
After some time, he found his own genre - love songs, which received public recognition and were widely distributed in lists. He develops poetic techniques for depicting mental life and psychological conflicts, which he later used in tragedies.
Sumarokov's lyrics were met with disapproval by Lomonosov, a supporter of civic issues. The controversy between Lomonosov and Sumarokov on issues of poetic style represented an important stage in the development of Russian classicism.
From love songs Sumarokov moves on to poetic tragedies - "Khorev" (1747), "Hamlet" (1748), "Sinav and Truvor" (1750). For the first time in the history of Russian theater, these works used the achievements of French and German educational drama. Sumarokov combined personal, love themes with social and philosophical issues. The appearance of tragedies served as an incentive for the creation of the Russian Theater, of which Sumarokov (1756 - 61) became the director.
In 1759 he published the first Russian literary magazine "The Hardworking Bee", which acted on the side of the court group, which was oriented toward the future Empress Catherine II.
At the beginning of the reign of Catherine II, Sumarokov's literary fame reached its zenith. Young satirists, grouped around N. Novikov and Fonvizin, support Sumarokov, who writes fables directed against bureaucratic tyranny, bribery, and inhumane treatment of serfs by landowners.
In 1770, after moving to Moscow, Sumarokov came into conflict with the Moscow commander-in-chief P. Saltykov. The Empress took Saltykov's side, to which Sumarokov responded with a mocking letter. All this worsened his social and literary position.
In the 1770s, he created his best comedies ("Cuckold by Imagination", "Crazy Woman", 1772) and tragedies "Dmitry the Pretender" (1771), "Mstislav" (1774). He participated as a director in the work of the theater at Moscow University, published the collections “Satires” (1774), “Elegies” (1774).
The last years of his life were marked by material deprivation and loss of popularity, which led to an addiction to alcoholic beverages. This was the cause of Sumarokov’s death on October 1 (12 n.s.) 1777 in Moscow.
Brief biography from the book: Russian writers and poets. Brief biographical dictionary. Moscow, 2000.

The creative range of Alexander Petrovich Sumarokov is very wide. He wrote odes, satires, fables, eclogues, songs, but the main thing with which he enriched the genre composition of Russian classicism was tragedy and comedy. Sumarokov’s worldview was formed under the influence of the ideas of Peter the Great’s time. But unlike Lomonosov, he focused on the role and responsibilities of the nobility. A hereditary nobleman, a graduate of the gentry corps, Sumarokov did not doubt the legality of noble privileges, but believed that high office and ownership of serfs must be confirmed by education and service useful to society. A nobleman should not humiliate the human dignity of a peasant or burden him with unbearable exactions. He sharply criticized the ignorance and greed of many members of the nobility in his satires, fables and comedies.

Sumarokov considered the monarchy to be the best form of government. But the high position of the monarch obliges him to be fair, generous, and able to suppress bad passions. In his tragedies, the poet depicted the disastrous consequences resulting from the monarchs’ forgetfulness of their civic duty.

In his philosophical views, Sumarokov was a rationalist and looked at his work as a kind of school of civic virtues. Therefore, they put moralistic functions in first place.

This course work is devoted to the study of the work of this outstanding Russian writer and publicist.

1. BRIEF BIOGRAPHY AND EARLY WORK OF SUMAROKOV

1.1 Brief biography of the writer

Alexander Petrovich Sumarokov was born on November 14 (25), 1717 in St. Petersburg into a noble family. Sumarokov's father was a major military man and official under Peter I and Catherine II. Sumarokov received a good education at home, his teacher was the teacher of the heir to the throne, the future Emperor Paul II. In 1732 he was sent to a special educational institution for children of the highest nobility - the Land Noble Corps, which was called the “Knight Academy”. By the time the corpus was completed (1740), two Odes of Sumarokov were published, in which the poet sang the praises of Empress Anna Ioannovna. The students of the Land Noble Corps received a superficial education, but they were assured of a brilliant career. Sumarokov was no exception, who was released from the corps as an aide-de-camp to Vice-Chancellor Count M. Golovkin, and in 1741, after the accession of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna, he became an aide-de-camp to her favorite Count A. Razumovsky.

During this period, Sumarokov called himself a poet of “tender passion”: he composed fashionable love and pastoral songs (“Nowhere, in a small forest”, etc., about 150 in total), which were a great success, he also wrote pastoral idylls (7 in total) and eclogues (total 65). Describing Sumarokov’s eclogues, V.G. Belinsky wrote that the author “did not think of being seductive or indecent, but, on the contrary, he was concerned about morality.” The critic was based on the dedication written by Sumarokov to the collection of eclogues, in which the author wrote: “In my eclogues, tenderness and fidelity are proclaimed, and not indecent voluptuousness, and there are no such speeches that would be disgusting to the ear.”

Work in the eclogue genre contributed to the poet’s development of light, musical verse, close to the spoken language of that time. The main meter that Sumarokov used in his eclogues, elegies, satires, epistles and tragedies was iambic hexameter, a Russian variety of Alexandrian verse.

In the odes written in the 1740s, Sumarokov was guided by the models given in this genre by M.V. Lomonosov. This did not stop him from arguing with his teacher on literary and theoretical issues. Lomonosov and Sumarokov represented two trends of Russian classicism. Unlike Lomonosov, Sumarokov considered the main tasks of poetry not to pose national problems, but to serve the ideals of the nobility. Poetry, in his opinion, should not first of all be majestic, but “pleasant.” In the 1750s, Sumarokov performed parodies of Lomonosov’s odes in a genre that he himself called “nonsense odes.” These comic odes were, to a certain extent, self-parodies.

Sumarokov tried his hand at all genres of classicism, writing sapphic, Horatian, Anacreontic and other odes, stanzas, sonnets, etc. In addition, he opened the genre of poetic tragedy for Russian literature. Sumarokov began writing tragedies in the second half of the 1740s, creating 9 works of this genre: Khorev (1747), Sinav and Truvor (1750), Dimitri the Pretender (1771), etc. In tragedies written in accordance with the canons of classicism, in full Sumarokov's political views became apparent. Thus, the tragic ending of Khorev stemmed from the fact that the main character, the “ideal monarch,” indulged his own passions - suspicion and distrust. “A tyrant on the throne” becomes the cause of suffering for many people - this is the main idea of ​​the tragedy Demetrius the Pretender.

The creation of dramatic works was not least facilitated by the fact that in 1756 Sumarokov was appointed the first director of the Russian Theater in St. Petersburg. The theater existed largely thanks to his energy.

During the reign of Catherine II, Sumarokov paid great attention to the creation of parables, satires, epigrams and pamphlet comedies in prose (Tresotinius, 1750, Guardian, 1765, Cuckold by Imagination, 1772, etc.).

According to his philosophical convictions, Sumarokov was a rationalist, formulated his views on the structure of human life as follows: “What is based on nature and truth can never change, and what has other foundations is boasted, blasphemed, introduced and withdrawn according to the will of each and every person.” without any reason." His ideal was enlightened noble patriotism, opposed to uncultured provincialism, metropolitan gallomania and bureaucratic corruption.

Simultaneously with the first tragedies, Sumarokov began to write literary and theoretical poetic works - epistles. In 1774 he published two of them - the Epistle on the Russian language and On poetry in one book, Instructions for those who want to be writers. One of the most important ideas in Sumarokov’s epistol was the idea of ​​the greatness of the Russian language. In his Epistle about the Russian language, he wrote: “Our beautiful language is capable of everything.” Sumarokov's language is much closer to the spoken language of the enlightened nobles than the language of his contemporaries Lomonosov and Trediakovsky.

What was important for him was not the reproduction of the color of the era, but political didactics, which the historical plot allowed for to be carried out to the masses. The difference was also that in the French tragedies the monarchical and republican mode of government were compared (in “Zinna” by Corneille, in “Brutus” and “Julius Caesar” by Voltaire), in the tragedies of Sumarokov there is no republican theme. As a convinced monarchist, he could oppose tyranny only with enlightened absolutism.

Sumarokov's tragedies represent a kind of school of civic virtues, designed not only for ordinary nobles, but also for monarchs. This is one of the reasons for the unkind attitude towards the playwright of Catherine II. Without encroaching on the political foundations of the monarchical state, Sumarokov touches on its moral values ​​in his plays. A conflict of duty and passion is born. Duty commands the heroes to strictly fulfill their civic duties, passions - love, suspicion, jealousy, despotic inclinations - prevent their implementation. In this regard, two types of heroes are presented in Sumarokov’s tragedies. The first of them, entering into a duel with passion that gripped them, eventually overcome their hesitation and honorably fulfill their civic duty. These include Khorev (the play “Khorev”), Hamlet (a character from the play of the same name, which is a free adaptation of Shakespeare’s tragedy), Truvor (the tragedy “Sinav and Truvor”) and a number of others.

The problem of curbing, overcoming personal “passionate” principles is emphasized in the remarks of the characters. “Overcome yourself and rise higher,” the Novgorod boyar Gostomysl teaches Truvor,

During Sumarokov's lifetime, a complete collection of his works was not published, although many collections of poetry, compiled according to genre, were published.

Sumarokov died in Moscow, 59 years old, and was buried in the Donskoy Monastery.

After the poet's death, Novikov twice published the Complete Collection of all Sumarokov's works (1781, 1787).

1.2 Sumarokov as the founder of the tragedy genre

Tragedies brought literary fame to Sumarokov. He was the first to introduce this genre into Russian literature. Admiring contemporaries called him “the northern Racine.” In total, he wrote nine tragedies. Six - from 1747 to 1758: “Khorev” (1747), “Hamlet” (1748), “Sinav and Truvor” (1750), “Artistona” (1750), “Semira” (1751), “Yaropolk and Demiza” ” (1758). Then, after a ten-year break, three more:

“Vysheslav” (1768), “Dmitry the Pretender” (1771) and “Mstislav” (1774).

Sumarokov widely used the experience of French playwrights of the 16th-18th centuries in his tragedies. - Corneille, Racine, Voltaire. But for all that, Sumarokov’s tragedies also had distinctive features. In the tragedies of Corneille and Racine, along with political ones, there were also purely psychological plays (“Cid” by Corneille, “Phaedra” by Racine). All of Sumarokov’s tragedies have a pronounced political overtones. The authors of French tragedies wrote plays based on ancient, Spanish and “oriental” subjects. Most of Sumarokov’s tragedies are based on domestic themes. In this case, an interesting pattern is observed. The playwright turned to the most distant eras of Russian history, of a legendary or semi-legendary nature, that “Take your love and master yourself” (Ch (3. P. 136), - his daughter Ilmena echoes Gostomysl.

Sumarokov decisively reworks one of Shakespeare's best tragedies, Hamlet, specifically emphasizing his disagreement with the author. “My Hamlet,” wrote Sumarokov, “barely resembles Shakespeare’s tragedy” (10. p. 117). Indeed, in Sumarokov’s play, Hamlet’s father is killed not by Claudius, but by Polonius. Carrying out retribution, Hamlet must become the murderer of the father of his beloved In this regard, Hamlet's famous monologue, which begins in Shakespeare with the words “To be or not to be?” changes beyond recognition:

What should I do now?

Don't know what to conceive? Is it easy to lose Ophelia forever!

Father! Mistress! Oh dear names...

Who will I be trespassing against? You are equally kind to me (3. P. 94 - 95).

The second type includes characters in whom passion triumphs over public debt. These are, first of all, persons vested with supreme power - princes, monarchs, i.e. those who, according to Sumarokov, must especially zealously fulfill their duties:

The monarch needs a lot of insight,

If he wants to wear the crown without reproach.

And if he wants to be strong in glory,

He must be righteous and strict and merciful (3. p. 47).

But, unfortunately, power often blinds rulers, and they, more easily than their subjects, turn out to be slaves to their feelings, which most sadly affects the fate of the people dependent on them. Thus, his brother and his brother’s fiancée, Osnelda (“Khorev”), become victims of Prince Kiy’s suspicion. Blinded by love passion, the Novgorod prince Sinav drives Truvor and his beloved Ilmena to suicide (“Sinav and Truvor”). The punishment for unreasonable rulers is most often repentance and pangs of conscience that come after a belated insight. However, in some cases, Sumarokov allows more formidable forms of retribution.

The most daring tragedy in this regard turned out to be the tragedy “Dmitry the Pretender” - the only one of Sumarokov’s plays based on reliable historical events. This is the first tyrant-fighting tragedy in Russia. In it, Sumarokov showed a ruler convinced of his right to be a despot and absolutely incapable of repentance. The Impostor declares his tyrannical inclinations so openly that it even harms the psychological persuasiveness of the image: “I am accustomed to horror, furious with villainy, //Filled with barbarity and stained with blood” (4. P. 74).

Sumarokov shares the educational idea of ​​the right of the people to overthrow a tyrant monarch. Of course, the people do not mean commoners, but nobles. In the play, this idea is realized in the form of an open performance of soldiers against the Pretender, who, in the face of imminent death, stabs himself with a dagger. It should be noted that the illegality of the reign of False Dmitry is motivated in the play not by impostor, but by the tyrannical rule of the hero: “Whenever you reigned in Russia maliciously, // Whether you are Dmitry or not, this is the same for the people” (4. P. 76).

Sumarokov’s merit to Russian drama is that he created a special type of tragedy, which turned out to be extremely stable throughout the 18th century. The constant hero of Sumarokov's tragedies is a ruler who has succumbed to some destructive passion - suspicion, ambition, jealousy - and as a result of this causes suffering to his subjects.

In order for the tyranny of the monarch to be revealed in the plot of the play, two lovers are introduced into it, whose happiness is prevented by the despotic will of the ruler. The behavior of lovers is determined by the struggle in their souls of duty and passion. However, in plays where the despotism of the monarch acquires destructive proportions, the struggle between duty and passion of lovers gives way to the struggle with the tyrant ruler. The outcome of tragedies can be not only sad, but also happy, as in “Dmitry the Pretender”. This indicates Sumarokov’s confidence in the possibility of curbing despotism.

The heroes of Sumarokov's plays are little individualized and correlate with the social role that they are assigned in the play: an unjust monarch, a cunning nobleman, a selfless military leader, etc. Lengthy monologues attract attention. The high structure of the tragedy corresponds to the Alexandrian verses (iambic hexameter with paired rhyme and caesura in the middle of the verse). Each tragedy consists of five acts. The unity of place, time and action is observed.

1.3 Comedies and satires

Sumarokov owns twelve comedies. According to the experience of French literature, a “correct” classical comedy should be written in verse and consist of five acts. But in his early experiments Sumarokov relied on another tradition - on interludes and commedia dell'arte, familiar to Russian audiences from the performances of visiting Italian artists. The plots of the plays are traditional: the matchmaking of several rivals to the heroine, which gives the author the opportunity to demonstrate their funny sides. The intrigue is usually complicated by the favor of the bride's parents towards the most unworthy of the applicants, which, however, does not interfere with a successful outcome. Sumarokov’s first three comedies “Tresotinius”, “An Empty Quarrel” and “Monsters”, consisting of one act, appeared in 1750. Their heroes repeat the characters of the comedy dellarte: a boastful warrior, a clever servant, a learned pedant, a greedy judge. The comic effect was achieved using primitive farcical techniques: fights, verbal altercations, dressing up.

So, in the comedy “Tresotinius”, the scientist Tresotinius and the boastful officer Bramarbas woo the daughter of Mr. Orontes, Clarice, Mr. Orontes is on the side of Tresotinius. Clarice herself loves Dorant. She feignedly agrees to submit to her father’s will, but secretly from him, she writes Dorant, not Tresotinius, into the marriage contract. Orontes is forced to come to terms with what has happened. The comedy “Tresotinius”, as we see, is still very much connected with foreign models, the heroes, the conclusion of the marriage contract - all this is taken from Italian plays. Russian reality is represented by satire on a specific person. The poet Trediakovsky is depicted in the image of Tresotinius. In the play, many arrows are aimed at Trediakovsky, even to the point of parodying his love songs.

The next six comedies - “The Dowry by Deception”, “The Guardian”, “The Covetous Man”, “Three Brothers Together”, “Poisonous”, “Narcissus” - were written in the period from 1764 to 1768. These are the so-called comedies of character. The main character in them is given a close-up. His “vice” - narcissism (“Narcissus”), evil-tonguing (“Poisonous”), stinginess (“The Covetous”) - becomes the object of satirical ridicule.

The plot of some of Sumarokov’s character comedies was influenced by the “philistine” tearful drama; it usually depicted virtuous heroes who were financially dependent on “vicious” characters. A major role in the denouement of tearful dramas was played by the motive of recognition, the appearance of unexpected witnesses, and the intervention of representatives of the law. The most typical play for character comedies is “The Guardian” (1765). Its hero is the Stranger - a type of miser. But unlike the comic versions of this character, Sumarokov’s miser is scary and disgusting. As the guardian of several orphans, he appropriates their fortune. He keeps some of them - Nisa, Pasquin - in the position of servants. Sostrate is prevented from marrying her loved one. At the end of the play, the intrigues of the Stranger are exposed, and he must stand trial.

The “everyday” comedies date back to 1772: “Mother is a Daughter’s Companion,” “The Screwtape” and “Cuckold by Imagination.” The last of them was influenced by Fonvizin’s play “The Brigadier”. In “The Cuckold,” two types of nobles are contrasted with each other: the educated, endowed with subtle feelings Florisa and Count Cassander - and the ignorant, rude, primitive landowner Vikul and his wife Khavronya. This couple eats a lot, sleeps a lot, and plays cards out of boredom.

One of the scenes picturesquely conveys the features of the life of these landowners. On the occasion of the arrival of Count Cassandra, Khavronya orders a festive dinner from the butler.

This is done with passion, inspiration, and knowledge of the matter. An extensive list of dishes colorfully characterizes the uterine interests of village gourmets. Here are pork legs with sour cream and horseradish, a stuffed stomach, pies with salted milk mushrooms, “frucasse” of pork with prunes and porridge “smear” in a “murlen” pot, which, for the sake of the noble guest, is ordered to be covered with “Venice” (Venetian) plate.

Khavronya’s story about her visit to the St. Petersburg theater, where she watched Sumarokov’s tragedy “Khorev” is funny. She took everything she saw on stage as a real incident and after Khorev’s suicide she decided to leave the theater as soon as possible. “Cuckold by Imagination” is a step forward in Sumarokov’s dramaturgy. Unlike previous plays, the writer here avoids too straightforward condemnation of the characters. In essence, Vikul and Khavronya are not bad people. They are good-natured, hospitable, touchingly attached to each other. Their trouble is that they did not receive proper upbringing and education.

Sumarokov owns ten satyrs. The best of them - “On Nobility” - is close in content to Kantemir’s satire “Filaret and Eugene”, but differs from it in laconicism and civic passion. The theme of the work is true and imaginary nobility. The nobleman Sumarokov is hurt and ashamed for his fellow classmates who, taking advantage of the benefits of their position, forgot about their responsibilities. True nobility lies in deeds useful to society:

The antiquity of the family, from the point of view of the poet, is a very dubious advantage, since the ancestor of all humanity, according to the Bible, was Adam. The right to high positions is given only by enlightenment. A nobleman, a slacker nobleman, cannot lay claim to nobility:

And if I am not fit for any position, -

My ancestor is a nobleman, but I am not noble (4.P. 191).

In his other satires, Sumarokov ridicules mediocre but ambitious writers (“About bad rhymers”), ignorant and self-interested judicial officials (“About bad judges”), and gallomaniac nobles who mutilate Russian speech (“About the French language”). Most of Sumarokov's satires are written in Alexandrian verses in the form of a monologue, replete with rhetorical questions, appeals, and exclamations.

“A Chorus to the Perverse Light” occupies a special place among Sumarokov’s satirical works. The word “perverted” here means “different”, “other”, “opposite”. “The Choir” was commissioned by Sumarokov in 1762 for the public masquerade “Minerva Triumphant” on the occasion of the coronation of Catherine II in Moscow. According to the plan of the organizers of the masquerade, it was supposed to ridicule the vices of the previous reign. But Sumarokov violated the boundaries proposed to him and started talking about the general shortcomings of Russian society. “Chorus” begins with the story of a “tit”, who flew in from across the “midnight” sea, about the ideal orders that she saw in a foreign (“perverted”) kingdom and which are sharply different from everything that she encounters in her homeland. The “perverse” kingdom itself has a utopian, speculative character in Sumarokov. But this purely satirical device helps him expose bribery, the injustice of clerks, the nobles’ disdain for science, and their passion for everything “foreign.” The most daring were the poems about the fate of the peasants: “They don’t skin the peasants there, // They don’t put villages on the cards there, // They don’t trade people overseas” (6. P. 280).

2. POETRY AND PUBLICISTICS BY A.P. SUMAROKOVA

2.1 Poetic creativity

Sumarokov's poetic creativity is extremely diverse. He wrote odes, satires, eclogues, elegies, epistles, and epigrams. His parables and love songs were especially popular among his contemporaries.

The writer used this word, denoting a short edifying story, to call his fables. Sumarokov can be considered the founder of the fable genre in Russian literature. He turned to it throughout his creative life and created 374 fables. Contemporaries spoke highly of them. “His parables are revered as the treasures of Russian Parnassus,” N.I. Novikov pointed out in his “Experience in a Historical Dictionary of Russian Writers.” Sumarokov's parables reflect the most diverse aspects of Russian life of that time. By topic they can be divided into three main groups.

Sumarokov was the first in Russian literature to introduce multi-foot verse into the fable genre and thereby sharply increased its expressive capabilities. Not content with allegorical images from the animal and plant world, the poet often turned to specific everyday material and based on it created expressive genre scenes (“The Solicitor,” “The Minx,” “The Man and the Nag,” “Kiselnik”). In his parables, which, according to the poetic gradation of classicists, belong to low genres, Sumarokov was guided by Russian folklore - a fairy tale, a proverb, an anecdote with their rough humor and picturesque colloquial language. In Sumarokov one can find such expressions as “and she licked the molasses” (“Beetles and Bees”), “his grumbling in her ear tickled her” (“The Legless Soldier”), “neither milk, nor wool” (“Loaf”), “ and spat in the eyes” (“Wrangler”), “what nonsense you are weaving” (“Mischief”). Sumarokov coarsens the language of his fables. He sees in the very selection of vulgar words one of the means to humiliate and ridicule the phenomena of private and public life that he rejects. This feature sharply distinguishes Sumarokov's parables from the gallant, refined fables of La Fontaine. In the field of fables, Sumarokov is one of Krylov’s predecessors.

Love poetry in Sumarokov’s works is represented by eclogues and songs. His eclogues, as a rule, are created according to the same plan. First, a landscape picture appears: a meadow, grove, stream or river; heroes and heroines - idyllic shepherds and shepherdesses with the ancient names Damon, Clarice, etc. Their love longings, complaints, and confessions are depicted. The eclogues end with a happy denouement of an erotic, sometimes quite frank, nature.

Sumarokov's songs, especially love ones, enjoyed great success among his contemporaries. In total, he wrote over 150 songs. The feelings expressed in them are extremely varied, but most often they convey suffering, the pangs of love. Here is the bitterness of unrequited passion, and jealousy, and melancholy caused by separation from a loved one. Sumarokov's love lyrics are completely freed from all kinds of realities. We do not know the names of the heroes, nor their social status, nor the place where they live, nor the reasons that caused their separation. Feelings detached from the everyday life and social relations of the characters express universal human experiences. This is one of the features of the “classicism” of Sumarokov’s poetry.

Some of the songs are stylized in the spirit of folk poetry. These include: “The girls were walking in the grove” with the characteristic refrain “Is it my viburnum, is it my raspberry”; “Wherever I walk, I don’t go” with a description of folk festivities. This category includes songs with military and satirical content: “Oh, you, strong, strong Bendergrad” and “Savushka is a sinner.” Sumarokov's songs are distinguished by their exceptional rhythmic richness. He wrote them in two- and three-syllable sizes and even in long divisions. Their strophic patterns are just as varied. The popularity of Sumarokov’s songs is evidenced by the inclusion of many of them in printed and handwritten songbooks of the 18th century, often without the name of the author.

Sumarokov wrote the first elegies in Russian literature. This genre was known in ancient poetry, and later became a pan-European property. The content of the elegies were usually sad reflections caused by unhappy love: separation from a loved one, betrayal, etc. Later, especially in the 19th century, the elegies were filled with philosophical and civil themes. In the 18th century elegies were usually written in Alexandrian verse.

In Sumarokov’s work, the use of this genre was to a certain extent prepared by his own tragedies, where the monologues of the heroes often represented a kind of small elegies. The most traditional in Sumarokov’s poetry are elegies with love themes, such as “Playing and laughter have already left us,” “For others, a sad verse gives birth to poetry.”

A unique cycle is formed by elegies related to the author’s theatrical activities. Two of them (“On the death of F. G. Volkov” and “On the death of Tatyana Mikhailovna Troepolskaya”) were caused by the premature death of the leading artists of the St. Petersburg court theater - the best performers of tragic roles in Sumarokov’s plays. The other two elegies - “Suffer the sorrowful spirit, my breast is tormented” and “My vexation has now surpassed all measures” - reflected dramatic episodes of the poet’s own theatrical activity. In the first of them, he complains about the machinations of his enemies who deprived him of his director’s position. The second is caused by a gross violation of copyright. Sumarokov categorically objected to the performance of the role of Ilmena in his play “Sinav and Truvor” by the mediocre actress Ivanova, whom the Moscow commander-in-chief Saltykov sympathized with.

The author complained about Saltykov’s arbitrariness to the empress, but received a mocking and insulting letter in response. Sumarokov's works significantly expanded the genre composition of Russian classic literature. “...He was the first of the Russians,” wrote N.I. Novikov, “to begin writing tragedies according to all the rules of theatrical art, but he succeeded so much in them that he earned the name “northern Racine.” (8. P. 36)

2.1 Journalism and dramaturgy

Sumarokov was also an outstanding journalist; he was acutely aware of the purely artistic tasks that faced Russian literature. He outlined his thoughts on these issues in two epistles: “On the Russian Language” and “On Poetry.” Subsequently, he combined them in one work entitled “Instruction for those who want to be writers” (1774). The model for the “Instruction” was Boileau’s treatise “The Art of Poetry,” but in Sumarokov’s work there is an independent position dictated by the urgent needs of Russian literature. Boileau's treatise does not raise the question of creating a national language, since in France in the 17th century. this problem has already been resolved. Sumarokov begins his “Instructions” precisely with this: “We need a language like the Greeks had, // Like the Romans had, And following them in that // As Italy and Rome now speak” (1. p. 360) .

The main place in the “Instructions” is given to the characteristics of genres new to Russian literature: idylls, odes, poems, tragedies, comedies, satires, fables. Most of the recommendations are related to the choice of style for each of them: “In poetry, know the difference between genders // And what you start, look for decent words for it” (1. P. 365). But Boileau and Sumarokov’s attitude towards individual genres does not always coincide. Boileau speaks very highly of the poem. He puts it even above tragedy. Sumarokov says less about her, content with only characterizing her style. He never wrote a single poem in his entire life. His talent was revealed in tragedy and comedy. Boileau is quite tolerant of small genres - the ballad, rondo, madrigal. Sumarokov in the epistle “On Poetry” calls them “trinkets,” but in “Instructions” he passes over them in complete silence.

At the end of the reign of Empress Elizabeth, Sumarokov opposed the established way of government. He was outraged that the nobles did not correspond to the ideal image of “sons of the fatherland”, that bribery flourished. In 1759, he began publishing the magazine “Hardworking Bee,” dedicated to the wife of the heir to the throne, the future Empress Catherine II, with whom he pinned his hopes on organizing his life according to truly moral principles. The magazine contained attacks on nobles and clerks, which is why it was closed a year after its founding.

Sumarokov's opposition was based not least on his difficult, irritable character. Everyday and literary conflicts - in particular, the conflict with Lomonosov - are also partly explained by this circumstance. The rise of Catherine II to power disappointed Sumarokov in that a handful of her favorites primarily took up the task of satisfying their personal needs rather than serving the common good.

Sumarokov’s extremely proud and obstinate disposition served as a source of endless quarrels and clashes, even with his closest relatives. His enemies cannot undermine Sumarokov’s literary authority.

succeeded, but in the attitude of many people from the highest and literary circles towards him there was a lot of unfairness. The nobles teased him and made fun of his rage; Lomonosov and Tretyakovsky pestered him with ridicule and epigrams. They brutally attacked I.P. Elagin when he, in his “satire on petimeter and coquettes,” addressed Sumarokov in the following terms:

Confidant Bualov, our Russian Racine,

Defender of truth, persecutor, scourge of vices. (5. P. 34)

Sumarokov, for his part, did not remain in debt: in his absurd odes, he parodied Lomonosov’s pompous stanzas, and portrayed Tredyakovsky in “Tressotinius”, in the person of a stupid pedant, either reading clumsy and funny poems from which everyone runs, or talking about which is “solidly” correct - whether it has three legs or one. Sumarokov’s opponents in the literary field were also Emin and Lukin, but Kheraskov, Maikov, Knyazhnin, Ablesimov bowed to his authority and were his friends.

Sumarokov waged a constant struggle with censorship. In most cases, Sumarokov’s intransigence was explained by his relentless pursuit of the truth, as he understood it. With the strongest nobles of his time, Sumarokov argued and got excited just as much as with his fellow writers, and he could not be either a jester or a flatterer among them; in kind. Sumarokov’s relationship with I.I. Shuvalov was imbued with sincere and deep respect.

Sumarokov did not manage the theater for particularly long: due to some completely unknown clashes with artists and misunderstandings, or rather intrigues, Sumarokov was dismissed from the title of director of the theater in 1761. Although this did not cool his passion for writing, he was very upset and greeted the accession of Catherine II with particular joy. In a eulogy written on this occasion, he attacked in strong terms ignorance, strengthened by partiality and force, as the source of untruth in life; he begged the empress to fulfill what death prevented Peter the Great from doing - to create a “magnificent temple of inviolable justice.” Empress Catherine knew and appreciated Sumarokov and, despite the need to sometimes make suggestions to this “hot head,” she did not deprive him of her favor. All his works were published at the expense of the Cabinet.

It is interesting both for characterizing the time and morals, and for determining the mutual relations of Sumarokov and the empress, his affair with the owner of the Moscow Belmonti Theater, whom he forbade to play his works. Belmonti turned to the Commander-in-Chief of Moscow, Field Marshal Gr. P.S. Saltykov, and he, without thoroughly delving into the matter, allowed him to play Sumarokov’s works.

CONCLUSION

Sumarokov's work had a great influence on contemporary Russian literature. The enlightener N. Novikov took epigraphs for his anti-Catherine satirical magazines from Sumarokov’s parables: “They work, but you eat away their labor,” “Strict instruction is dangerous, / Where there is a lot of atrocity and madness,” etc. Radishchev called Sumarokov a great man. Pushkin considered his main merit to be that “Sumarokov demanded respect for poetry at a time of disdain for literature.”

Racine and Voltaire served as models for Sumarokov. His tragedies are distinguished by all the external properties of false-classical French tragedy - its conventionality, lack of live action, one-sided portrayal of characters, etc. Sumarokov not only reworked, but directly borrowed from French tragedies the plan, ideas, character, even entire scenes and monologues. His Sinavis and Truvors, Rostislavs and Mstislavs were only pale copies of the Hippolytes, Britannicas and Brutuses of French tragedies.

Contemporaries liked Sumarokov's tragedies for the idealization of characters and passions, the solemnity of monologues, external effects, the bright contrast between virtuous and vicious persons; They established the pseudo-classical repertoire on the Russian stage for a long time. Being deprived of national and historical flavor, Sumarokov’s tragedies had an educational value for the public in the sense that the lofty ideas about honor, duty, love for the fatherland that were dominant at that time in European literature were put into the mouths of the characters, and images of passions were clothed in an ennobled and refined form .

Sumarokov's comedies were less successful than his tragedies. And they, for the most part, are alterations and imitations of foreign models; but they have much more of a satirical element addressed to Russian reality. In this regard, Sumarokov’s comedies, of which the best is “The Guardian,” along with satires, fables and some eclogues, provide rich material for studying the spirit of the era and society. The purpose of Sumarokov's comedy.

In difficult moments, Sumarokov’s soul was overcome by a religious feeling, and he sought consolation from sorrows in the psalms; he translated the psalter into poetry and wrote spiritual works, but there is as little poetry in them as in his spiritual odes. His critical articles and discussions in prose currently have only historical significance.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL LIST

1. Aldanov, M.S. Russian literature in the era of classicism. / M.S. Aldanov.M., 1992. 468 p.

2. Arend, X.V. The formation of Russian classical literature./ Kh.V. Rent. M., 1996. 539 p.

3. Bulich, N.P. Sumarokov and contemporary criticism./ N.P. Bulich. St. Petersburg, 1954. 351 p.

4. Gardzhiev K.S. Introduction to literary criticism. -M.: Logos Publishing Corporation, 1997.

5. Mekarevich E. Legal revolution/UDialog.1999. - No. 10-12.

6. Sumarokov A.P. Poly. collection all op. Part 4.

7. Novikov N.I. Selected works M., Leningrad, 1951.

8. Pushkin, A.S. Collected works./ A.S. Pushkin. M., 1987. 639 p.

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Alexander Petrovich Sumarokov (1717-1777) - Russian poet, writer and playwright of the 18th century.

Born into a noble family on November 14 (25), 1717 in St. Petersburg. He studied at home, continued his education in the Land Noble Corps, where he began to engage in literary work, translating psalms into verse, composing “congratulatory odes” to Empress Anna on behalf of the cadets, and songs modeled on French poets and V.K. Trediakovsky (Tredyakovsky). After graduating from the corps in 1740, he was enlisted first in the military campaign office of Count Minich, then as an adjutant to Count A. G. Razumovsky.

Polyphony is characteristic of human feeblemindedness.

Sumarokov Alexander Petrovich

His first tragedy, Horev, was published in 1747 and performed at court and brought him fame. His plays were performed at court by F. G. Volkov's troupe, which was contracted from Yaroslavl.

When a permanent theater was established in 1756, Sumarokov was appointed director of this theater and for a long time he remained the main “supplier” of the repertoire. Horeb was followed by eight tragedies, twelve comedies and three opera librettos.

At the same time, Sumarokov, who worked extremely quickly, developed in other areas of literature. In 1755-1758, he was an active contributor to the academic journal “Monthly Works,” and in 1759 he published his own satirical and moralizing journal, “The Hardworking Bee” (the first private magazine in Russia). Collections of his fables were published in 1762-1769, and a number of collections of his poems were published from 1769 to 1774.

Despite his proximity to the court, the patronage of nobles, and the praise of admirers, Sumarokov did not feel appreciated and constantly complained about the lack of attention, censorship and ignorance of the public. In 1761 he lost control of the theater. Later, in 1769, he moved to Moscow. Here, abandoned by his patrons, bankrupt and drunk, he died on October 1 (12), 1777. He was buried at the Donskoye Cemetery in Moscow.

Sumarokov's work develops within the framework of classicism, in the form it took in France in the 17th - early 17th century. XVIII centuries Modern admirers therefore more than once proclaimed Sumarokov “Boileau’s confidant”, “northern Racine”, “Molière”, “Russian Lafontaine”.

Sumarokov’s literary activity attracts attention with its external diversity. He tried all genres: odes (solemn, spiritual, philosophical, anacreontic), epistles (epistles), satires, elegies, songs, epigrams, madrigals, epitaphs; In his poetic technique, he used all the meters that existed at that time, made experiments in the field of rhyme, and used a variety of strophic structures.