Beauty that will save the world. Famous aphorisms of Dostoevsky

They say that truly great people are great in everything. At first glance, such an assertion seems somehow incorrect. But if you think about how many catchphrases were invented by writers who became famous as the best masters of the pen, everything becomes clear.

Some people do not even think about where exactly this or that expression came from. After all, often catchphrases are so firmly embedded in people's lives that they simply forget whose they are, by whom and when they were invented.

In the article, we will consider an expression that has long since become winged. Moreover, even some foreigners are familiar with it. The author of this expression is a famous writer. Consider the full quote "Beauty will save the world."

Before we talk about why this phrase became winged, and what meaning was invested in it, let's get acquainted with the biography of the person who became its author. Fedor Mikhailovich was born on November 11, 1821.

His father was a priest who served in the parish church. Mother was the daughter of a merchant. However, despite the fact that the mother had a fortune, the family lived quite poorly. Dostoevsky's father believed that money brings evil with it. And so he taught children from childhood to decency and a modest life.

Since the father of the future writer was a priest, it is not at all difficult to assume that it was he who instilled in his children love for the Lord God. In particular, Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky was distinguished by this love. In his works, he repeatedly mentions religion.

As soon as Dostoevsky grew up a little, his father placed him in a boarding house. There he studied away from home, and after that, without any difficulties, he entered the Engineering School.

While studying at the school, the young man was completely in the grip of love for literature. Realizing this, the young man abandoned the intention to master any craft and joined the ranks of writers.

It was this decision that subsequently caused serious problems that became a real test for Dostoevsky. The words written by him reached not only the hearts of readers. The yard drew attention to him. And by the decision of the monarch, he was forced to go into exile.

Note! For four years the young man was in hard labor.

From the pen of the writer came out many works. And all of them found a response in the hearts of not only his contemporaries. Now the creations of this author continue to excite and excite thoughts.

After all, he raises very important questions in them. And some of them have not yet been answered. The most famous works written by Dostoevsky are:

• "Crime and Punishment";
• "Demons";
• "The Brothers Karamazov";
• "White Nights";
• "Idiot".

saving the world

"Beauty will save the world" - this expression belongs to one of the heroes of the aforementioned work called "The Idiot". But who said it? Hippolytus suffering from consumption. This is a minor character who literally pronounces this phrase, wanting to clarify whether Prince Myshkin really used such a strange expression.

It is noteworthy that the hero himself, to whom Hippolytus himself ascribes this expression, never used it. Only once did he use the word salvation, when he was asked if Nastasya Filippovna was really a kind woman: “Oh, if only she were kind! Everything would be saved!

And although the phrase was said by a book hero, it is not difficult to assume that the author of the work himself was thinking about this. If we consider this phrase in the context of the work, then one clarification must be made. The book is not only about external beauty. An example is Nastasya Filippovna, pleasant in all respects. But her beauty is more external. Prince Myshkin, in turn, appears as a model of inner beauty. And it is about the power of this inner beauty that the book speaks to a greater extent.

When Dostoevsky worked on this creation, he corresponded with Apollon Maikov, who was not only a poet, but also a well-known censor. In it, Fedor Mikhailovich mentioned that he wanted to recreate a certain image. It was the image of a beautiful person. The author wrote it down in detail.

It was the prince who tried on this image. Dostoevsky even made a note in his draft. It mentioned two examples of beauty. Thus, we can conclude that the statement about the different beauty of Myshkin and his beloved is true.

Pay attention to the nature of this entry. This idea is a kind of statement. However, any person who has read the work "The Idiot" will have a completely logical question: was it really a statement? After all, if you recall the content of the book, it becomes clear that neither inner nor outer beauty in the end could save not only the world, but even several people. Moreover, after reading some people, they even began to wonder if she had ruined these heroes?

Prince Myshkin: kindness and stupidity

The second most important question is: what killed Myshkin? Because the answer to it is an indicator of how beautiful a person is. It should be noted that finding the right answer to this question is really not easy. In some cases, the virtue of the prince borders on real stupidity.

Why do some people think the prince is stupid? Of course, not because of his ridiculous actions. The reason for this is excessive kindness and sensitivity. After all, in the end, his positive qualities became the cause of the tragedy that happened to him.

The man tried to see only the good in everything. With beauty, he could even justify some of the shortcomings. Perhaps that is why he considers Nastasya Filippovna a truly beautiful person. However, many may argue with this.

Whose beauty could save the heroes?

Whose beauty could save the heroes? This is the third question that readers ask themselves when they finish reading a book. After all, it seems that it is the answer to it that can make it possible to understand what was the cause of the tragedy. But, as it turned out, beauty was the cause of the tragedy described in the book. And in two ways.

As it was written above, the beauty of Nastasya Filippovna was external. And to a greater extent, it was she who ruined the woman. Because beauty always wants to possess. And in a world of cruel and powerful men, being beautiful is simply dangerous.

But then a logical question arises: why the world, or at least the lives of the main characters, were not saved by Myshkin's inner beauty? Perfect inner beauty, which in reality is an absolute virtue, became the cause of the "blindness" of the prince. He refused to understand how dangerous darkness is in the soul of other people. To him they were all perfect. But his main stupidity was to pity even his offenders. This is what eventually turned him into an absolutely helpless and stupid person.

Important words of Terentyev

It is noteworthy that the question of who owns the phrase is decisive. But in this case, we are talking about the character of the book, and not about its author. After all, the phrase, which in reality is defining for the work, was uttered precisely by a minor character.

Moreover, he was distinguished by great stupidity and thought too narrowly. He often ridiculed the prince, considering him a low person, which he actually was.

In the first place for Terentyev are not feelings. Men are most interested in money. For the sake of well-being, he is ready for a lot. Appearance and position are also important to him. But he is ready even to close his eyes to these important “attributes” of a person. After all, if there is money, then everything else is unimportant.

Important! It is precisely in this that the symbolism of the fact that it is Hippolyte who pronounces this phrase, which later became winged, lies.

This character is in fact unable to appreciate not only the inner, but also the outer beauty. Although the latter is important for him. But he is not able to appreciate the beauty of a woman if she is not rich. And therefore it seems impossible to him that the world will be saved only because of someone's beauty.

Perhaps someday beauty will really play a decisive role in saving the world. But this will happen in the future. And now the important task of every person is to preserve this beauty. It is important to be not just a wonderful person, but also to be an image of wisdom and virtue. Indeed, using the example of Prince Myshkin, it became clear that kindness, full of sympathy, without wisdom can cause trouble.

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Summing up

It is extremely important to remember that kindness, which becomes limitless, can even destroy a person. Because he is unable to see in time the threat that comes from another individual. Perhaps this is what the greatest writer Dostoevsky was trying to convey to his readers. He showed how dangerous it can be to believe in something absolute. And Myshkin's faith in righteous love for Nastasya Filippovna became a fatal mistake for him.

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“... what is beauty and why do people deify it? Is she a vessel, in which there is emptiness, or fire, flickering in a vessel? So wrote the poet N. Zabolotsky in the poem "Beauty will save the world." And the catchphrase in the title is known to almost every person. She probably touched the ears of beautiful women and girls more than once, flying from the lips of men fascinated by their beauty.

This wonderful expression belongs to the famous Russian writer F. M. Dostoevsky. In his novel "The Idiot", the writer endows his hero, Prince Myshkin, with thoughts and reasoning about beauty and its essence. The work does not indicate how Myshkin himself says that beauty will save the world. These words belong to him, but they sound indirectly: “Is it true, prince,” Ippolit asks Myshkin, “that “beauty” will save the world? Gentlemen,” he shouted loudly to everyone, “the prince says that beauty will save the world!” Elsewhere in the novel, during the prince’s meeting with Aglaya, she tells him, as if warning him: “Listen, once for all, if you talk about something like the death penalty, or about the economic state of Russia, or that “beauty will save the world ", then ... I, of course, will rejoice and laugh very much, but ... I warn you in advance: do not appear before my eyes later! Listen: I'm serious! This time I'm being serious!"

How to understand the famous saying about beauty?

"Beauty will save the world." How is the statement? This question can be asked by a student of any age, regardless of the class in which he is studying. And each parent will answer this question in a completely different way, absolutely individually. Because beauty is perceived and seen differently for everyone.

Everyone probably knows the saying that you can look at objects together, but see them in completely different ways. After reading Dostoevsky's novel, a feeling of some ambiguity about what beauty is is formed inside. “Beauty will save the world,” Dostoevsky uttered these words on behalf of the hero as his own understanding of the way to save the fussy and mortal world. Nevertheless, the author gives the opportunity to answer this question to each reader independently. "Beauty" in the novel is presented as an unsolved riddle created by nature, and as a force that can drive you crazy. Prince Myshkin also sees the simplicity of beauty and its refined splendor, he says that there are many things in the world at every step so beautiful that even the most lost person can see their magnificence. He asks to look at the child, at the dawn, at the grass, into loving and looking at you eyes .... Indeed, it is difficult to imagine our modern world without mysterious and sudden natural phenomena, without the gaze of a loved one that attracts like a magnet, without the love of parents for children and children to their parents.

What then is worth living and where to draw your strength?

How to imagine the world without this enchanting beauty of every moment of life? It's just not possible. The existence of mankind is unthinkable without it. Almost every person, doing everyday work or any other burdensome business, has repeatedly thought that in the usual bustle of life, as if carelessly, almost without noticing, he missed something very important, did not have time to notice the beauty of moments. Nevertheless, beauty has a certain divine origin, it expresses the true essence of the Creator, giving everyone the opportunity to join Him and be like Him.

Believers comprehend beauty through communication through prayers with the Lord, through the contemplation of the world created by Him and through the improvement of their human essence. Of course, a Christian's understanding and vision of beauty will differ from the usual ideas of people who profess another religion. But somewhere between these ideological contradictions, there is still that thin thread that connects everyone into one whole. In this divine unity, too, lies the silent beauty of harmony.

Tolstoy on beauty

Beauty will save the world... Tolstoy Lev Nikolaevich expressed his opinion on this matter in the work "War and Peace". All phenomena and objects present in the world around us, the writer mentally divides into two main categories: this is content or form. The division occurs depending on the greater predominance of objects and phenomena of these elements in nature.

The writer does not give preference to phenomena and people with the presence of the main thing in them in the form of form. Therefore, in his novel, he so clearly demonstrates his dislike for the high society with its forever established norms and rules of life and the lack of sympathy for Helen Bezukhova, who, according to the text of the work, everyone considered unusually beautiful.

Society and public opinion do not have any influence on his personal attitude towards people and life. The writer looks at the content. This is important for his perception, and it is this that awakens interest in his heart. He does not recognize the lack of movement and life in the shell of luxury, but he endlessly admires the imperfection of Natasha Rostova and the ugliness of Maria Bolkonskaya. Based on the opinion of the great writer, is it possible to assert that beauty will save the world?

Lord Byron on the splendor of beauty

For another famous, true, Lord Byron, beauty is seen as a pernicious gift. He considers her as capable of seducing, intoxicating and committing atrocity with a person. But this is not entirely true, beauty has a dual nature. And it is better for us, people, to notice not its perniciousness and deceit, but a life-giving force capable of healing our heart, mind and body. Indeed, in many respects our health and correct perception of the picture of the world develops as a result of our direct mental attitude to things.

And yet, will beauty save the world?

Our modern world, in which there are so many social contradictions and heterogeneities... A world in which there are rich and poor, healthy and sick, happy and unhappy, free and dependent... And that, despite all the hardships, beauty will save the world? Maybe you are right. But beauty should not be understood literally, not as an external expression of a bright natural individuality or grooming, but as an opportunity to do beautiful noble deeds, helping these other people, and how to look not at a person, but at his beautiful and rich inner world. Very often in our lives we pronounce the usual words “beauty”, “beautiful”, or simply “beautiful”.

Beauty as an evaluation material of the surrounding world. How to understand: "Beauty will save the world" - what is the meaning of the statement?

All interpretations of the word “beauty”, which is the original source for other words derived from it, endow the speaker with an unusual ability to evaluate the phenomena of the world around us in an almost simplest way, the ability to admire works of literature, art, music; the desire to compliment the other person. So many pleasant moments hidden in only one word of seven letters!

Everyone has their own definition of beauty.

Of course, beauty is understood by each individual in his own way, and each generation has its own criteria for beauty. There is nothing wrong. Everyone has long known that thanks to the contradictions and disputes between people, generations and nations, only truth can be born. People by nature are absolutely different in terms of attitude and worldview. For one, it is good and beautiful when he is simply neatly and fashionably dressed, for another it is bad to go in cycles only in appearance, he prefers to develop his own and increase his intellectual level. Everything that somehow relates to the understanding of beauty sounds from the lips of everyone, based on his personal perception of the surrounding reality. Romantic and sensual natures most often admire the phenomena and objects created by nature. The freshness of the air after the rain, the autumn leaf that has fallen from the branches, the fire of the fire and the clear mountain stream - all this is a beauty that is worth constantly enjoying. For more practical natures, based on objects and phenomena of the material world, beauty can be the result, for example, of an important deal concluded or the completion of a certain series of construction works. A child will be unspeakably pleased with beautiful and bright toys, a woman will be delighted with a beautiful piece of jewelry, and a man will see beauty in new alloy wheels on his car. It seems like one word, but how many concepts, how many different perceptions!

The depth of the simple word "beauty"

Beauty can also be viewed from a deep point of view. “Beauty will save the world” - an essay on this topic can be written by everyone in completely different ways. And there will be a lot of opinions about the beauty of life.

Some people really believe that the world rests on beauty, while others will say: “Beauty will save the world? Who told you such nonsense?" You will answer: “Like who? The great Russian writer Dostoevsky in his famous literary work "The Idiot"! And in response to you: “Well, so what, maybe then beauty saved the world, but now the main thing is different!” And, perhaps, they will even name what is most important for them. And that's all - it makes no sense to prove your idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthe beautiful. Because you can, you see it, and your interlocutor, due to his education, social status, age, gender or other racial affiliation, never noticed or thought about the presence of beauty in this or that object or phenomenon.

Finally

Beauty will save the world, and we, in turn, must be able to save it. The main thing is not to destroy, but to preserve the beauty of the world, its objects and phenomena given by the Creator. Enjoy every moment and the opportunity to see and feel the beauty as if it were your last moment of life. And then you won’t even have a question: “Why will beauty save the world?” The answer will be clear as a matter of course.

"Beauty will save the world...":

algorithm of the process of salvation in the works of Dostoevsky

Let's start talking about the famous quote from Dostoevsky's novel The Idiot by analyzing a quote from The Brothers Karamazov, which is also quite famous and dedicated to beauty. After all, the phrase of Dostoevsky, which became the title of this work, in contrast to the phrase of Vl. Solovyov, is dedicated not to beauty, but saving the world, which we have already found out by joint efforts ...

So, what Dostoevsky is dedicated to beauty itself: “Beauty is a terrible and terrible thing! Terrible, because it is indefinable, but it is impossible to determine because God asked only riddles. Here the banks converge, here all the contradictions live together. I, brother, am very uneducated, but I have thought about it a lot. So many mysteries! Too many riddles oppress man on earth. Guess how you know and get out dry from the water. Beauty! Moreover, I cannot bear the fact that another person, even higher in heart and with a loftier mind, begins with the ideal of the Madonna, and ends with the ideal of Sodom. It is even more terrible, who already with the ideal of Sodom in his soul does not deny the ideal of the Madonna, and his heart burns from him and truly, truly burns, as in his youthful immaculate years. No, the man is wide, too wide, I would narrow it down. The devil knows what it even is, that's what! What appears to the mind as a disgrace, then to the heart is entirely beauty. Is there beauty in Sodom? Believe that in Sodom she sits for the vast majority of people - did you know this secret or not? The terrible thing is that beauty is not only a terrible, but also a mysterious thing. Here the devil is fighting with God, and the battlefield is the hearts of people. And by the way, what hurts someone, he talks about it ”(14, 100).

Note that in Dostoevsky the word "Sodom" was always written with a capital letter, directly referring us to the biblical story.

Almost all Russian philosophers who analyzed this passage, were confident that Dostoevsky's hero was talking about two types of beauty. In a recent study contained in a just-published collection, the author is convinced of the same thing: "In these reflections, Dmitry opposes two types of beauty: the ideal of the Madonna and the ideal of Sodom." It was argued that Dostoevsky, through the mouth of the hero (the writer quite often redirected this statement), speaks of beauty and its imitation, fake; about a woman clothed in the sun, and a harlot on a beast, etc., that is, they picked up and, in fact, substituted a pair of (seemingly similar) metaphors in the text to explain it. At the same time, the text itself was perceived as a series of metaphors, since philosophers hastened to begin interpreting the text without honoring it with a real reading, that is, philological analysis, due in any philosophical reflection on artistic text precede philosophical analysis. They perceived the text as talking about something they already knew. Meanwhile, this text requires precise, mathematical, reading, and, having read it in this way, we will see that Dostoevsky, through the lips of the hero, is telling us here about something completely different than all the philosophers who talked about him.

First of all, it should be noted that beauty defined here in terms of antonyms: terrible, terrible thing.

Further - in the text answers the question: why is it terrible? - because indefinable(and, by the way, the definition through antonyms brilliantly emphasizes indefinability this thing).

That is, in relation to the beauty in question, it is precisely the operation of allegorization (rigidly defining, we note, the operation) that philosophers performed that is impossible. The only symbol corresponding to this beauty that fits the description of Dostoevsky's hero is the famous Isis under the veil - terrible and terrible, because it cannot be defined.

So there - All, in this beauty, all contradictions live together, the banks converge, - and this completeness being not defined in separators, in opposing parts of the whole, terms of good and evil. Beauty is terrible and terrible because it is thing from another world, contrary to all probability, present here, in this given and revealed world, is a thing world before the fall, the world before the beginning of analytical thought and the perception of good and evil.

But the "Ideal of Sodom" and "the ideal of the Madonna", which are further discussed by Dmitry Karamazov, are still for some reason stubbornly understood as two opposing types of beauty, selected in some absolutely unknown way from the fact that indefinitely(i.e. literally - has no limit - but therefore cannot be divided), from what is convergence, inseparable unity of all contradictions, a place where contradictions get along- that is, they cease to be contradictions ...

But this would be a violation of logic, completely uncharacteristic of such a strict thinker, what is Dostoevsky - and what, it should be noted, are his heroes: before us is not two distinct, opposing, beauties, but only ways of relating person to unified beauty. The “ideal of the Madonna” and the “ideal of Sodomsky” are in Dostoevsky - and there will be many confirmations of this in the novel - ways to look at beauty, perceive beauty, desire beauty.

The "ideal" is in the eye, head and heart of the upcoming beauty, and beauty is so defenselessly and selflessly given to the future that it allows it to shape its inherent indeterminacy in accordance with its "ideal". Lets see myself as coming able see.

I think this will seem unconvincing - we have accustomed ourselves too much to the fact that it is not our ways of perception that oppose each other, but precisely the types of beauty, for example, the "blond blue-eyed angel" and the "fire-eyed demoness" replicated by the romantics.

But if, defining what the “Sodom ideal” is, we turn to the source texts, never mentioned in vain by Dostoevsky, we will see that it was not libertines and seducers, not demons who came to Sodom: they came to Sodom angels, receptacles and prototypes of the Lord, - and it was them that the Sodomites rushed to “know” with the whole city.

Yes, and the Mother of God - remember the "Song of Songs" - "terrible, like regiments with banners", "protector", "indestructible wall" - is not at all reducible to "one type" of beauty. Her completeness, her ability to contain "all contradictions" is emphasized by the abundance of different types, renditions, and plots of icons that reflect different aspects of Her beauty that acts in the world and transforms the world.

Mitino is extremely characteristic: “Is there beauty in Sodom? Believe that she is in Sodom and is sitting for the vast majority of people. ”That is, it is characteristic precisely from the point of view of the language used by the hero of the words. Beauty is not "acquired", is not "located" in Sodom. And Sodom does not "constitute" beauty. Beauty in Sodom "sits" - that is, planted, locked up in Sodom as in a prison, as in a dungeon human eyes. It is in this secret, communicated by Mitya to Alyosha, that the clue to Dostoevsky's attraction to the heroine is the saint harlot. "All contradictions live together." Beauty, prisoner in Sodom, and cannot appear in any other form.

The essential thing here is this: in Dostoevsky the word "Sodom" appears both in the novel "Crime and Punishment" and in the novel "The Idiot" - and in the most characteristic places. Marmeladov says, describing the place of residence of his family: “Sodom, sir, the ugliest ... hm ... yes” (6, 16), - exactly anticipating the story of Sonya's transformation into a prostitute. We can say that the beginning of this transformation is the settlement of the family in Sodom.

In The Idiot, General repeats: "This is Sodom, Sodom!" (8, 143) - when Nastasya Filippovna, in order to prove to the prince that she is not worth him, for the first time takes money from the person selling her. But before this exclamation, from the words of Nastasya Filippovna, it turns out for the general that Aglaya Yepanchina is also participating in the auction - although she majestically refuses this at the beginning of the novel, forcing the prince to write to Ghana in the album: "I do not enter into auctions." If they don’t trade with her, then they trade with her - and this is also the beginning of her placement in Sodom: “And you, Ganechka, overlooked Aglaya Epanchin, did you know this? If you hadn't bargained with her, she would certainly have married you! That's how you all are: either with dishonorable or honest women to know - one choice! And then you will certainly get confused ... ”(8, 143). On XII At the Youthful April Dostoevsky Readings, one speaker characteristically expressed herself about Nastasya Filippovna: “She is vicious, because everyone sells it." I think it because- very accurate.

A woman - the bearer of beauty in Dostoevsky - is terrible - and striking - precisely by her indefinability. Nastasya Filippovna with the prince, who did not trade her, is "not like that", but with Rogozhin, who traded her, suspecting her - "exactly like that." These "such - not such" will be the main definitions given in the novel by Nastasya Filippovna - the embodied beauty ... and they will depend solely on the gaze of the beholder. Let us note to ourselves the complete indeterminacy and indefinability of these so-called definitions.

Beauty is defenseless before the beholder in the sense that it is he who shapes its concrete manifestation (after all, beauty does not appear without the beholder). What a man sees a woman, so she is for him. “A man can insult a prostitute, a ruble woman, with cynicism,” Dostoevsky was convinced. Svidrigailov is kindled precisely by the chastity of the innocent Dunya. Fyodor Pavlovich feels lust when he first sees his last wife, who looks like Madonna: ““These innocent eyes slashed my soul like a razor then,” he used to say later, giggling nastily in his own way” (14, 13). Here, it turns out, what is terrible about the preserved ideal of the Madonna, when the Sodom ideal already triumphs in the soul: the ideal of the Madonna becomes the object of voluptuous attraction par excellence.

But when Madonna's ideal hinders voluptuous attraction - then he becomes the object of direct denial and abuse, and in this sense the scene retold by Fyodor Pavlovich to Alyosha and Ivan acquires the meaning of a huge symbol: “But God, Alyosha, I never offended my hymn! Once, only once, even in the first year: she prayed very much then, especially observed the Mother of God feasts and then she drove me from herself to the office. I think, let me knock this mystic out of her! “You see, I say, you see, here is yours image, here it is, here I'll take it off ( let's pay attention - Fyodor Pavlovich speaks as if he is removing her true image from Sophia at this moment, undresses her from her image ... - T.K.). Look, you consider him miraculous, and now I’ll spit on him in your presence, and I won’t get anything for it! then suddenly covered her face with her hands as if trying to obscure the defiled image - T.K.), all trembled and fell to the floor ... and sank ”(14, 126).

It is characteristic that Fedor Pavlovich does not consider other insults to be insults, although the story of his marriage to his wife Sophia is literally the story of the imprisonment of beauty in Sodom. And here Dostoevsky shows how external imprisonment becomes internal imprisonment - how out of abuse grows a disease that distorts both the body and the spirit of the bearer of beauty. “Having not taken any remuneration, Fyodor Pavlovich did not stand on ceremony with his wife and, taking advantage of the fact that she, so to speak, was“ guilty ”to him and that he almost“ took her off the noose, ”using, in addition, her phenomenal unresponsiveness, even trampled underfoot the most ordinary marriage propriety. In the house, right there with his wife, bad women gathered and organized orgies.<…>Subsequently, with the unfortunate young woman, frightened from childhood, something like a nervous female disease occurred, most often found among the common people among village women, who are called hysterics for this disease. From this illness, with terrible hysterical fits, the patient at times even lost her mind ”(14, 13). The very first attack of this disease, as we have seen, occurred precisely when the image of the Madonna was defiled ... By virtue of what has been described, we will not be able to separate this embodiment of the “ideal of the Madonna” in the novel either from the hysterical women perceived as possessed, or from the senseless Lizaveta Sterdyashchaya. We will not be able to separate him from Grushenka, the “queen of impudence”, the main “infernal” of the novel, who once sobbed at night, remembering her offender, thin, sixteen years old ...

But if the story of Sophia is the story of the imprisonment of beauty in Sodom, then the story of Grushenka is the story of bringing beauty out of Sodom! The evolution of perception of Mitya Grushenka, the epithets and definitions he gives her is characteristic. It all starts with the fact that she is a creature, a beast, "the bend at the rogue", an infernal, a tiger, "it is not enough to kill." Next - the moment of the trip to Wet: a sweet creature, the queen of my soul (and in general names that are directly related to the Madonna). But then something absolutely fantastic appears at all - “brother Grushenka”.

So, I repeat: beauty lies outside the area from which the division into good and evil begins - in beauty there is still an unsplit, whole world. The world before the fall. It is by manifesting this primordial world that one who sees true beauty saves the world.

Beauty in Mitya's statement is just as one and all-powerful and indivisible, like God, with whom the devil fights, but Who Himself does not fight with the devil ... God abides, the devil attacks. God creates - the devil tries to take away what has been created. But he himself did not create anything, which means that everything created is good. It can only - like beauty - be planted in Sodom...

The phrase from Dostoevsky's novel "The Idiot" - I mean the phrase that is the title for this work - was remembered in a different form, the one that Vladimir Solovyov gave it: "Beauty will save the world." And this change is somehow very similar to the changes that the philosophers of the turn of the century made with the phrase: "Here the devil is fighting God." It was said: “Here the devil is with Godutsya ", and even -" Here God is fighting the devil.

Meanwhile, Dostoevsky says differently: "Beauty will save the world."

Perhaps the easiest way to understand what Dostoevsky wanted to say is to compare these two phrases and realize that in how lies their difference.

What does the change of seme and rheme bring us on a semantic level? In Solovyov's phrase, the salvation of the world is a property inherent in beauty. beauty is saving says this phrase.

Nothing of the kind is said in Dostoevsky's phrase.

Here, rather, it is said that the world will be saved by beauty as one of its inherent properties of the world. Beauty does not tend to save the world, but beauty tends to abide in it indestructibly. And this indestructible presence of beauty in it is the only hope of the world.

That is, beauty is not something victoriously approaching the world with the function of salvation, no, but beauty is something already present in it, and due to this presence of beauty in it, the world will be saved.

Beauty, like God, does not fight, but abides. The salvation of the world will come from the gaze of a man who has seen beauty in all things. Ceased to conclude, imprison her in Sodom.

Elder Zosima in drafts for a novel about such a sojourn of beauty in the world: “The world is paradise, we have the keys” (15, 245). And he will also say, also in drafts: “All around man is the mystery of God, the great mystery of order and harmony” (15, 246).

The transforming effect of beauty can be described as follows: the realized beauty of a person, as it were, gives an impetus to the personalities around her to reveal themselves in their own beauty (this is what the heroine of the novel “The Idiot” means when she says about Nastasya Filippovna: “Such beauty is strength,<…>With such beauty, you can turn the world upside down! (8, 69)). Harmony (aka: paradise - the perfect state of the world - the beauty of the whole) - is both the result and the starting point of this mutual transformation. The realized beauty of the person, in accordance with the meaning in the Greek language of beauty as validity, is the acquisition of personality your place. But if at least one finds its place, a chain reaction of restoring others in their places begins (because this one who has found his place will become an additional indicator for them and a determinant of their place - like in a puzzle - if the place of one piece is found - then everything is already much easier) - and not symbolic, but really the temple of the transfigured world will be rapidly built. This is exactly what Seraphim of Sarov said when he said: save yourself - and thousands around you will be saved ... This is actually the mechanism for saving the world with beauty. Because - once again - everyone is beautiful in place. You want to be near such people and you want to follow them ... And here you can make a mistake trying to follow in their rut, while the only true way to follow them is to find its own ruts.

However, it is possible to err even more radically. The impulse given to those around by a beautiful personality, causing wish beauty, striving for beauty, can lead (and, alas, so often leads) not to a reciprocal disclosure of beauty in yourself, work beauty from within myself- that is - to the transformation of oneself, but to the desire to seize in a spring way into the property this already manifested others, beauty. That is, the desire that harmonizes the world and man give its beauty to the world in this case turns into a selfish desire assign beauty of the world. This leads to destruction, the destruction of any harmony, to confrontation and struggle. This is the ending of The Idiot. I want to emphasize once again that the so-called "infernals" of Dostoevsky's works are not guns hell, and prisoners hell, and they are imprisoned in this hell by those who, instead of their own self-giving in response to the inevitable and inevitable self-giving of beauty (since self-giving, according to Dostoevsky, is the way beauty exists in the world), seeks to realize capture beauty into their own property, entering on this path into the inevitable fierce struggle with the same invaders.

Self-revelation of personalities in their beauty in response to the manifestation of beauty is the path of abundance, the path of turning a person into a source of grace to the world; the desire to appropriate the beauty revealed to others is the path of poverty, lack, the path of turning a person into a black hole that sucks grace from the universe.

Self-disclosure of personalities in their beauty is, according to Dostoevsky, the ability give it all. In the “Diary of a Writer” for 1877, it is precisely along the rift between the principles “to give everything” and “you can’t give everything away” that for him there will be a rift between humanity being transformed and stagnant in its untransformed state.

But even much earlier, in “Winter Notes on Summer Impressions,” he wrote: “Understand me: the self-willed, completely conscious and forced self-sacrifice of oneself for the benefit of everyone is, in my opinion, a sign of the highest development of the personality, its highest power, the highest self-control, the highest freedom of one's own will. To voluntarily lay down one's stomach for everyone, to go to the cross, to the fire for everyone, can only be done with the strongest development of personality. A highly developed personality, fully confident in its right to be a personality, no longer having any fear for itself, can do nothing else out of its personality, that is, there is no other use than to give it all to everyone, so that everyone else would be exactly the same self-righteous and happy individuals. This is the law of nature; a normal person is drawn to this” (5, 79).

The principle of building harmony, restoring paradise for Dostoevsky is not to renounce something with the aim of fit in into EVERYTHING, and not to keep your everything, insisting on the fullness of self-acceptance - but to give all without conditions- and then EVERYTHING will return its personality All, which includes for the first time blossomed in true fullness given All personality.

Here is how Dostoevsky describes the process of realizing the harmony of nations: “We will be the first to announce to the world that we do not want to achieve our own prosperity through the suppression of the personalities of nationalities foreign to us, but, on the contrary, we see it only in the freest and most independent development of all other nations and in fraternal unity with them. , replenishing one another, grafting their organic features to themselves and giving them and from themselves branches for grafting, communicating with them in soul and spirit, learning from them and teaching them, and so on until humanity, having been replenished by the world communication of peoples to universal unity, like a great and magnificent tree, will overshadow a happy land” (25, 100).

I want to draw your attention to the fact that this apparently poetic description is actually very technologically. It describes in detail and technically precisely the process of gathering the body of Christ (“entirely included in humanity”, according to Dostoevsky) from its disparate and often opposing aspects of it - individuals and peoples. I suspect, however, that such are all truly poetic descriptions.

A person who has realized his beauty, being surrounded by failed yet, who have not become beautiful personalities, turns out to be crucified on the cross of their imperfection; freely crucified in the impulse to realize the self-giving of beauty. But - at the same time - she seems to be locked in a cage by their impenetrable boundaries, limited in her own self-giving (she gives - but they cannot receive), which makes the suffering on the cross unbearable.

Thus, in the first approximation, we can say that Dostoevsky draws us a single process of transforming the world, consisting of two interdependent steps that are repeated many times in this process, capturing more and more new levels of the universe: the realized beauty of the members that make up the community makes harmony possible, the realized harmony of the whole unleashes beauty...

beauty will save the world

From the novel The Idiot (1868) by F. M. Dostoevsky (1821 - 1881).

As a rule, it is understood literally: contrary to the author's interpretation of the concept of "beauty".

In the novel (part 3, ch. V), these words are spoken by an 18-year-old youth, Ippolit Terentyev, referring to the words of Prince Myshkin transmitted to him by Nikolai Ivolgin and ironically over the latter: "? Gentlemen, - he shouted loudly to everyone, - the prince claims that beauty will save the world! And I say that he has such playful thoughts because he is now in love.

Gentlemen, the prince is in love; just now, as soon as he entered, I was convinced of this. Don't blush, prince, I'll feel sorry for you. What beauty will save the world. Kolya told me this... Are you a zealous Christian? Kolya says that you call yourself a Christian.

The prince examined him attentively and did not answer him. F. M. Dostoevsky was far from strictly aesthetic judgments - he wrote about spiritual beauty, about the beauty of the soul. This corresponds to the main idea of ​​the novel - to create the image of a "positively beautiful person." Therefore, in his drafts, the author calls Myshkin "Prince Christ", thereby reminding himself that Prince Myshkin should be as similar as possible to Christ - kindness, philanthropy, meekness, a complete lack of selfishness, the ability to sympathize with human misfortunes and misfortunes. Therefore, the “beauty” that the prince (and F. M. Dostoevsky himself) speaks of is the sum of the moral qualities of a “positively beautiful person”.

Such a purely personal interpretation of beauty is characteristic of the writer. He believed that "people can be beautiful and happy" not only in the afterlife. They can be like this and "without losing the ability to live on earth." To do this, they must agree with the idea that Evil “cannot be the normal state of people”, that everyone is able to get rid of it. And then, when people will be guided by the best that is in their soul, memory and intentions (Good), then they will be truly beautiful. And the world will be saved, and it is precisely such “beauty” (that is, the best that is in people) that will save it.

Of course, this will not happen overnight - spiritual work, trials and even suffering are needed, after which a person renounces Evil and turns to Good, begins to appreciate it. The writer speaks of this in many of his works, including in the novel The Idiot. For example (Part 1, Chapter VII):

“For some time, the general, silently and with a certain tinge of disdain, examined the portrait of Nastasya Filippovna, which she held in front of her in her outstretched hand, extremely and effectively moving away from her eyes.

Yes, she's good," she finally said, "very good indeed. I saw her twice, only from a distance. So you appreciate such and such beauty? she suddenly turned to the prince.

Yes ... such ... - answered the prince with some effort.

That is, exactly like this?

Just such

There is a lot of suffering in this face ... - the prince said, as if involuntarily, as if speaking to himself, and not answering a question.

You, however, may be delusional, ”the general’s wife decided and with an arrogant gesture threw the portrait on the table about herself.”

The writer in his interpretation of beauty acts as a supporter of the German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), who spoke about the “moral law within us”, that “beauty is a symbol of moral goodness”. F. M. Dostoevsky develops the same idea in his other works. So, if in the novel “The Idiot” he writes that beauty will save the world, then in the novel “Demons” (1872) he logically concludes that “ugliness (malice, indifference, selfishness. - Comp.) will kill ... "

There is some impracticality in the very concept of beauty. Indeed, in today's rational times, more utilitarian values ​​often come to the fore: power, prosperity, material well-being. For beauty, sometimes there is no place at all. And only truly romantic natures seek harmony in aesthetic pleasures. Beauty has entered culture for a long time, but from epoch to epoch the content of this concept has changed, moving away from material objects and acquiring the features of spirituality. Archaeologists still find during excavations of ancient settlements stylized images of primitive beauties, distinguished by the splendor of forms and simplicity of images. During the Renaissance, the standards of beauty changed, being reflected in the artistic canvases of eminent painters who struck the imagination of contemporaries. Today, ideas about human beauty are formed under the influence of mass culture, which imposes rigid canons of beauty and ugliness in art. Times go by, beauty invitingly looks at viewers from TV screens and computers, but does it save the world? Sometimes one gets the impression that the glossy beauty that has become familiar to a greater extent does not so much keep the world in harmony as it requires more and more new victims. When Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky put into the mouth of one of the heroes of the novel The Idiot the words that beauty would save the world, he, of course, did not mean physical beauty. The great Russian writer, apparently, was also far from abstract aesthetic discussions about beauty, since Dostoevsky was always interested in beauty, the spiritual, moral component of the human soul. That beauty, which, according to the writer's idea, should lead the world to salvation, is more related to religious values. So Prince Myshkin, in his qualities, is very reminiscent of the textbook image of Christ, full of meekness, philanthropy and kindness. The hero of Dostoevsky's novel cannot in any way be reproached for selfishness, and the prince's ability to sympathize with human grief often goes beyond the boundaries of understanding on the part of a simple man in the street. According to Dostoevsky, it is this image that embodies that spiritual beauty, which in essence is the totality of the moral properties of a positive and beautiful person. There is no point in arguing with the author, since this would have to question the value system of a very large number of people who hold similar views on the means of saving the world. One can only add that no beauty - neither physical nor spiritual - is able to transform this world if it is not supported by real deeds. Good-heartedness turns into virtue only when it is active and accompanied by no less beautiful deeds. It is this beauty that saves the world.