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Which of the critics of the revolutionary democratic direction. Russian literary-critical and philosophical thought of the second half of the 19th century

criticism of the second half of the 19th century by a deep interpreter of "War and Peace" by L. N. Tolstoy. It was not by chance that he called his work "a critical poem in four songs." Leo Tolstoy himself, who considered Strakhov his friend, said: "One of the happiness for which I am grateful to fate is that N.N. Strakhov exists."

Literary and critical activity of revolutionary democrats

The social, socially critical pathos of the articles of the late Belinsky with his socialist convictions was picked up and developed in the sixties by the revolutionary-democratic critics Nikolai Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky and Nikolai Aleksandrovich Dobrolyubov.

By 1859, when the government program and the views of the liberal parties became clear, when it became obvious that the reform "from above" in any of its variants would be half-hearted, the revolutionary democrats moved from a shaky alliance with liberalism to a break in relations and an uncompromising struggle against it. The literary-critical activity of N. A. Dobrolyubov falls on this, the second stage of the social movement of the 60s. He devotes a special satirical section of the Sovremennik magazine called Whistle to denouncing liberals. Here Dobrolyubov acts not only as a critic, but also as a satirical poet.

However, Herzen's warnings did not stop the revolutionary democrats of Sovremennik. Beginning in 1859, they began to carry out the idea of a peasant revolution in their articles. They considered the peasant community to be the core of the future socialist world order. Unlike the Slavophiles, Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov believed that the communal ownership of land rested not on the Christian, but on the revolutionary-liberation, socialist instincts of the Russian peasant.

Dobrolyubov became the founder of the original critical method. He saw that the majority of Russian writers do not share the revolutionary-democratic way of thinking, do not pronounce sentence on life from such radical positions. Dobrolyubov saw the task of his criticism in completing the work begun by the writer in his own way and formulating this sentence, based on real events and artistic images of the work. Dobrolyubov called his method of comprehending the work of the writer "real criticism".

Real criticism "analyzes whether such a person is possible and really; having found that it is true to reality, it proceeds to its own considerations about the reasons that gave rise to it, etc. If these reasons are indicated in the work of the author being analyzed, criticism uses them and thanks the author; if not, he does not stick to him with a knife to his throat - how, they say, he dared to draw such a face without explaining the reasons for its existence? In this case, the critic takes the initiative in his own hands: he explains the causes that gave rise to this or that phenomenon from revolutionary-democratic positions and then pronounces a sentence on him.

Dobrolyubov positively evaluates, for example, Goncharov's novel Oblomov, although the author "does not and, apparently, does not want to give any conclusions." It is enough that he "presents to you a living image and vouches only for its resemblance to reality." For Dobrolyubov, such authorial objectivity is quite acceptable and even desirable, since he takes the explanation and the verdict on himself.

Real criticism often led Dobrolyubov to a kind of reinterpretation of the writer's artistic images in a revolutionary democratic way. It turned out that the analysis of the work, which developed into an understanding of the acute problems of our time, led Dobrolyubov to such radical conclusions that the author himself did not in any way assume. On this basis, as we shall see later, there was a decisive break between Turgenev and the Sovremennik magazine, when Dobrolyubov's article on the novel "On the Eve" saw the light of day in it.

In Dobrolyubov's articles, the young, strong nature of a talented critic comes to life, sincerely believing in the people, in which he sees the embodiment of all his highest moral ideals, with whom he connects the only hope for the revival of society. "His passion is deep and stubborn, and obstacles do not frighten him when they need to be overcome in order to achieve the passionately desired and deeply conceived," Dobrolyubov writes about the Russian peasant in the article "Features for Characterizing the Russian Common People." All the activity of criticism was aimed at the struggle for the creation of "the party of the people in literature." He devoted four years of vigilant labor to this struggle, writing nine volumes of works in such a short time. Dobrolyubov literally burned himself on the ascetic journal work, which undermined his health. He died at the age of 25 on November 17, 1861. About the premature death of a young friend, Nekrasov said heartfeltly:

But your hour has struck too soon

And the prophetic feather fell from his hands.

What a lamp of reason has gone out!

What heart stopped beating!

The decline of the social movement of the 60s. Disputes between Sovremennik and Russkoe Slovo.

The situation is aggravated by a split within the revolutionary-democratic movement, the main reason for which was the disagreement in assessing the revolutionary-socialist possibilities of the peasantry. The activists of Russkoye Slovo, Dmitri Ivanovich Pisarev and Varfolomey Aleksandrovich Zaitsev, sharply criticized Sovremennik for (*13) its alleged idealization of the peasantry, for its exaggerated idea of the revolutionary instincts of the Russian muzhik.

Unlike Dobrolyubov and Chernyshevsky, Pisarev argued that the Russian peasant was not ready for a conscious struggle for freedom, that for the most part he was dark and downtrodden. Pisarev considered the "intellectual proletariat", revolutionary raznochintsev, carrying natural science knowledge to the people, as the revolutionary force of modernity. This knowledge not only destroys the foundations of official ideology (Orthodoxy, autocracy, nationality), but also opens the eyes of the people to the natural needs of human nature, which are based on the instinct of "social solidarity." Therefore, enlightening the people with the natural sciences can lead society to socialism not only in a revolutionary ("mechanical"), but also in an evolutionary ("chemical") way.

In order to make this "chemical" transition faster and more efficient, Pisarev suggested that Russian democracy be guided by the "principle of economy of forces." The "intellectual proletariat" must concentrate all its energy on destroying the spiritual foundations of the society that exists today by propagating the natural sciences among the people. In the name of the so-understood "spiritual liberation", Pisarev, like Turgenev's hero Yevgeny Bazarov, proposed to abandon art. He really believed that "a decent chemist is twenty times more useful than any poet," and recognized art only to the extent that it participates in the promotion of natural science knowledge and destroys the foundations of the existing system.

In the article "Bazarov" he glorified the triumphant nihilist, and in the article "Motives of Russian Drama" he "crushed" the heroine of A. N. Ostrovsky's drama "Thunderstorm" Katerina Kabanova, erected on a pedestal by Dobrolyubov. Destroying the idols of the "old" society, Pisarev published the infamous anti-Pushkin articles and the work The Destruction of Aesthetics. The fundamental disagreements that emerged in the course of the controversy between Sovremennik and Russkoye Slovo weakened the revolutionary camp and were a symptom of the decline of the social movement.

Public upsurge in the 70s.

By the beginning of the 1970s, the first signs of a new social upsurge associated with the activities of the revolutionary Narodniks appeared in Russia. The second generation of democratic revolutionaries, who made a heroic attempt to raise the peasants to (*14) revolution by "going among the people," had their own ideologists, who developed the ideas of Herzen, Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov in the new historical conditions. "Faith in a special way, in the communal system of Russian life; hence the belief in the possibility of a peasant socialist revolution - that's what inspired them, raised tens and hundreds of people to the heroic struggle against the government," V. I. Lenin wrote about the populists of the seventies . This belief, to one degree or another, permeated all the works of the leaders and mentors of the new movement - P. L. Lavrov, N. K. Mikhailovsky, M. A. Bakunin, P. N. Tkachev.

Mass "going to the people" ended in 1874 with the arrest of several thousand people and the subsequent trials of the 193rd and 50th. In 1879, at a congress in Voronezh, the populist organization "Land and Freedom" split: "politicians" who shared Tkachev's ideas organized their own party, "Narodnaya Volya", proclaiming the main goal of the movement to be a political coup and terrorist forms of struggle against the government. In the summer of 1880, the Narodnaya Volya organized an explosion in the Winter Palace, and Alexander II miraculously escaped death. This event causes shock and confusion in the government: it decides to make concessions by appointing the liberal Loris-Melikov as a plenipotentiary ruler and appealing to the country's liberal public for support. In response, the sovereign receives notes from Russian liberals, in which it is proposed to immediately convene an independent assembly of representatives of the zemstvos to participate in the government of the country "in order to develop guarantees and individual rights, freedom of thought and speech." It seemed that Russia was on the verge of adopting a parliamentary form of government. But on March 1, 1881, an irreparable mistake is made. The Narodnaya Volya, after repeated assassination attempts, kill Alexander II, and after this, a government reaction sets in in the country.

Conservative ideology of the 80s.

These years in the history of the Russian public are characterized by the flourishing of conservative ideology. It was defended, in particular, by Konstantin Nikolaevich Leontiev in the books "The East, Russia and the Slavs" and "Our" New Christians "by F. M. Dostoevsky and Count Leo Tolstoy". Leontiev believes that the culture of each civilization goes through three stages of development: 1) primary simplicity, 2) flourishing complexity, 3) secondary mixing simplification. Leontiev considers the main sign of decline and entry into the third stage to be the spread of liberal and socialist ideas with their cult (*15) of equality and general welfare. Leontiev contrasted liberalism and socialism with "Byzantism" - strong monarchical power and strict ecclesiasticism.

Leontiev strongly criticized the religious and ethical views of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. He argued that both writers are influenced by the ideas of socialism, that they turn Christianity into a spiritual phenomenon, derived from earthly human feelings of brotherhood and love. Genuine Christianity, according to Leontiev, is mystical, tragic and terrible for a person, because it stands on the other side of earthly life and evaluates it as a life full of suffering and torment.

Leontiev is a consistent and principled opponent of the very idea of progress, which, according to his teaching, brings this or that nation closer to a mixture of simplification and death. To stop, delay progress and freeze Russia - this idea of Leontiev came to the court of the conservative policy of Alexander III.

Russian liberal populism of the 80-90s.

In the era of the 1980s, revolutionary populism was going through a deep crisis. The revolutionary idea is being replaced by the "theory of small deeds", which in the 1990s will take shape in the program of "state socialism". The transition of the government to the side of peasant interests can peacefully lead the people to socialism. The peasant community and the artel, handicrafts under the patronage of the zemstvos, the active cultural assistance of the intelligentsia and the government can withstand the onslaught of capitalism. At the dawn of the 20th century, the "theory of small deeds" quite successfully develops into a powerful cooperative movement.

Religious and philosophical thought of the 80-90s. The time of deep disappointment in the political and revolutionary forms of combating social evil made Tolstoy's preaching of moral self-improvement extremely topical. It was during this period that the religious and ethical program for the renewal of life in the work of the great writer was finally formed, and Tolstoyism became one of the popular social movements.

In the 1980s and 1990s, the teachings of the religious thinker Nikolai Fedorovich Fedorov began to gain popularity. At the heart of his "Philosophy of the Common Cause" lies the grandiose in its audacity idea of the great vocation of man to fully master the secrets of life, conquer death and achieve god-like power and power over the blind forces of nature. Mankind, according to Fedorov, by its own (*16) efforts can transform the entire bodily composition of a person, making him immortal, resurrect all the dead and at the same time achieve control over "solar and other star systems." "Born from the tiny earth, the spectator of boundless space, the spectator of the worlds of this space must become their inhabitant and ruler."

In the 80s, along with the democratic ideology of the "common cause", along with V. S. Solovyov's "Readings on God-manhood" and "Justification of the Good", the first sprouts of the philosophy and aesthetics of the future Russian decadence appeared. NM Minsky's book "In the Light of Conscience" is published, in which the author preaches extreme individualism. The influence of Nietzschean ideas is growing stronger, Max Stirner is being pulled out of oblivion and becoming almost an idol with his book "The Only One and His Own", in which frank egoism was proclaimed the alpha and omega of modernity...

Questions and tasks: What explains the diversity of trends in Russian criticism of the second half of the 19th century? What are the features of Russian criticism and how are they related to the specifics of our literature? Where did Westerners and Slavophiles see the weaknesses and advantages of Russian historical development? What, in your opinion, are the strengths and weaknesses of the public programs of Westernizers and Slavophiles? How does the program of the Pochvenniks differ from the Western and Slavophil programs? How did the Pochenniks determine the significance of Pushkin in the history of modern Russian literature? Describe the principles of Dobrolyubov's "real criticism". What is the originality of the social and literary-critical views of D. I. Pisarev? Give a description of the social and intellectual movement in Russia in the 80s - 90s.

Literature in the 19th century. The bourgeois reforms of the middle of the 19th century were a milestone in the socio-economic life of Russia and marked the beginning of the capitalist period in its history.

The spread of radical aspirations among young people, in connection with the Polish uprising and the fires in St. Petersburg in 1862, made a strong impression both on the leading spheres and on a part of society. The reaction starts.

Grigoriev created his aesthetics under the influence of the idealist philosophers F. Schelling and T. Carlyle. The main pathos of Grigoriev's "organic criticism" is the defense in art of the "thought of the heart", the synthesis of the artist's thought and soul.

Directions of Russian social thought under Alexander II. Questions of philosophy, religion; new youth. Chernyshevsky about these questions.

"Sovremennik" - a magazine published from the beginning of 1847 to the middle of 1866 by Nekrasov and Panaev (since 1863 - by one Nekrasov), bought from Pletnev.

Creator of the "History of the Russian State" (vols. 1-12, 1816-29), one of the most significant works in Russian historiography. The founder of Russian sentimentalism ("Letters of a Russian Traveler", "Poor Lisa", etc.).

The scientific study of the history of Russian literature dates back to Belinsky. Belinsky for the first time clearly established the specificity of literature as an ideological phenomenon, Belinsky showed the regularity of the literary process.

The main theme of Lermontov is the personality in the process of self-knowledge and self-embodiment, that is, development. The nature of most of his poems of the early period is very indicative: these are lyrical sketches, excerpts from a diary.

Creative heritage and features of the artistic style of Turgenev Turgenev's influence on writers of the later period (Chernyshevsky, Dostoevsky). Turgenev is the creator of the socio-psychological novel.

Under this title, in 1818 and 1819 two collections were published in St. Petersburg, published by P. P. Svinin and dedicated to Ch. image of Russian "nuggets", people from the people.

Oblomovshchina is a phenomenon of the landlord system of the era of the collapse of serfdom in Russia, reflected by Goncharov. In a number of its features, Oblomovism also characterized the post-reform reality.

The question that invariably worried enlightened Russian society was the attitude towards religion. In the 1940s, the idea of socialism entered Russian humanistic thought, which followed the path of secularization, that is, isolation from religion and the Church.

On the role of artistic detail in works of literature. Artistic detail in the work of Gogol. On the creation of artistic images in Turgenev's novels. Display of the crisis era for Russia in the novel "Fathers and Sons".

It seems to me that without the writer Saltykov-Shchedrin it is impossible to understand the political life of the second half of the 19th century. The significance of his satirical works for the history of Russia is enormous.

Chaadaev about the past and present of Russia. The future of Russia according to "Philosophical letters", "Apology of a madman". The concept of the history of the development of the Russian people.

Literary dreams, critic and public, "Molva" and "Telescope".

Source: Guralnik U.A. Revolutionary-democratic aesthetics and criticism of the 60s. Chernyshevsky, Dobrolyubov // History of World Literature: in 9 volumes / USSR Academy of Sciences; Institute of world literature. them. A. M. Gorky. Moscow: Nauka, 1983-1994. T. 7. 1991. S. 29-33.

REVOLUTIONARY-DEMOCRATIC
AESTHETICS AND CRITIQUE OF THE 60s.
CHERNYSHEVSKY, DOBROLUBOV

The authority and effectiveness of literary criticism especially increased on the eve of the peasant reform, in the early 60s, at a time when indignation against the feudal-serf system reached its climax in the country. For the revolutionaries, great publicists and critics of the sixties Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov, aesthetic questions were truly a "battlefield". V. I. Lenin emphasized that N. G. Chernyshevsky (1828-1889) “knew how to influence all the political events of his era in a revolutionary spirit, passing through the obstacles and slingshots of censorship the idea of a peasant revolution, the idea of the struggle of the masses to overthrow all the old authorities" ( Lenin V.I. Full coll. op. T. 20. S. 175). The same can rightly be said about his colleague - N. A. Dobrolyubov (1836-1861).

Nikolai Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky (like Nikolai Aleksandrovich Dobrolyubov) was born into the family of a clergyman. Both studied in theological seminaries. Chernyshevsky, after graduating from St. Petersburg University (1850), served as a teacher of literature at the Saratov gymnasium. Having defended in 1855 the dissertation “Aesthetic

relationship of art to reality”, collaborated in the Nekrasov magazine “Sovremennik”, soon becoming its leading author and de facto editor. In 1862 he was arrested and sentenced to hard labor and life imprisonment in Siberia, where he spent over 20 years.

Dobrolyubov graduated in 1857 from the St. Petersburg Main Pedagogical Institute. Since 1856, he actively participated in Sovremennik. As editor of the criticism and bibliography department, along with Chernyshevsky, he determined the direction of the journal, which at that time became the tribune of Russian revolutionary democracy. In 1860 he went abroad to be treated for tuberculosis, lived in Germany, Switzerland, France, Italy, intensively continued his literary-critical and journalistic activities. He returned to Russia and died in 1861 at the age of twenty-five.

Materialistic aesthetics served as a theoretical springboard for democratic criticism. Its cornerstone provisions were developed by Chernyshevsky in his master's thesis "Aesthetic Relations of Art to Reality". In it, in the language of "abstract" aesthetic categories, the idea was carried out of the need for a radical reorganization of social life, bringing it into line with the ideal.

Defending the ideas of materialistic aesthetics (and she saw the source of poetry in life itself), Chernyshevsky put new content into the concept of the essence of beauty, which was put forward by Schelling and Hegel, but did not deny continuity with the classical aesthetics of the past - Russian and Western European, primarily German . Following Belinsky, he established the closest connection between the aesthetic ideal of a person, his ideas about beauty, all his artistic activity with other areas of spiritual, physical and social life. Aesthetics as a science stood on solid earthly soil. The beautiful is life, Chernyshevsky insisted, the highest beauty is precisely the beauty born from the world of reality.

Chernyshevsky explained that from the standpoint of the materialist theory of knowledge, “the development of thinking in a person does not in the least destroy the aesthetic feeling in him,” that “abstract concepts alone are not enough for a living solution to the problems of life, because the human mind is not yet the whole person, but the whole person needs to live , and not by reason alone," that "true life is the life of the mind and heart." Considering fantasy as an inalienable quality of thinking, he emphasized that "fantasy really participates very much in the fact that we find a well-known object beautiful." A realist artist creates his works based on real life experiences. But the creative reproduction of nature is not its copying - fantasy, imagination are an important shaping factor in the creative process. "The essence of poetry is to concentrate the content." The generalizing power of art is its "superiority": the artist is given, by enlarging the real features of reality, typing its most essential manifestations, to reveal the objective logic of its development in life-specific images.

Based on these theoretical premises, Chernyshevsky, as a historian of literature and literary critic, evaluated a specific artistic practice. Analyzing the work of the greatest Russian writers, he proved, revealing the logic of the Russian historical and literary process of the 19th century, that the key to artistic development is the connection between art and life.

At that time, adherents of the theory of "pure art" were especially active in trying to use the name of Pushkin as their banner, declaring him a poet detached from worldly fuss, allegedly far from transient social interests. This largely explains the polemical one-sidedness of the initial assessments given by the critic to Pushkin.

But soon, following Belinsky, he recognized that "Eugene Onegin" forever affirmed an original national content in Russian poetry. From a narrow understanding of Pushkin as predominantly a "poet of form," the critic comes to recognize him as the first realist in Russian poetry.

Chernyshevsky's attitude to Gogol's work also evolved noticeably. In the period preceding the revolutionary situation in Russia, the critic passionately fought for the further development and purity of the traditions of the author of The Government Inspector and Dead Souls against his imaginary friends and heirs. Due to tragic circumstances, Gogol, according to Chernyshevsky, found himself in a camp alien to him. However, in conjunction with a deeply truthful, analytical depiction of the bearers of social evil, Gogol's "energy of indignation" acquired the force of an objectively revolutionary significance. The critic supported realist writers who developed the socio-critical trend of Gogol's work, fought for Turgenev, Pisemsky, Ostrovsky, Grigorovich against critics like Druzhinin

and Botkin, who were alien to the progressive traditions of the "Gogol school". He also spoke out against the epigones of the "natural school".

In the mid-1950s, at the time of the creation of Essays on the Gogol Period of Russian Literature and the work on Lessing, the critic believed that the Gogol trend in Russian literature had not yet said its last word, had not exhausted its potential. However, the work of many adherents of the Gogol trend no longer fully met the new requirements of life. He stated this already in an article on "Provincial Essays" (1857), pointing out the fundamental, from his point of view, difference between Gogol and Shchedrin, the qualitative differences in their satire. In the famous article “Is the Change Starting?” (1861), the critic calls on democratic writers to overcome the inertia of the literature of the past, to portray the people not as an object, but as the subject of history, not to idealize the patience and humility of the “little man”, but to call for a struggle for a decisive and radical change in social conditions that crippled and humiliated a person.

Opponents of revolutionary democratic criticism unfairly reproached it for inattention and indifference to the aesthetic nature of literary and artistic creativity. Meanwhile, both Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov, in their best works, demonstrated a phenomenal ability to predict the artistic process, the ability to reveal the aesthetic features of the largest creative individuals. In this regard, one of the masterpieces of critical thought is Chernyshevsky's article on Leo Tolstoy - a review of the early works of the great writer "Childhood", "Adolescence", "Military Tales", which appeared in 1856 in a separate edition.

Speaking about the rare mastery of Tolstoy as a narrator, the critic subtly defined the nature of his psychologism: “Psychological analysis can take on various manifestations; one poet is most occupied with the outlines of characters, another with the influence of social relations and everyday conflicts on characters, a third with the connection of feelings with actions, a fourth with the analysis of passions, Count Tolstoy is most concerned with the mental process itself, its forms, its laws, the dialectics of the soul, in order to be expressed in a certain term. Further, it was about the "image of the internal monologue", which, according to the critic, "must, without exaggeration, be called amazing." He argued that "the purity of moral feeling" is the force that gives Tolstoy's works "a very special dignity." Socio-ethical problems, questions of morality, the life of the human spirit in all its interweaving - this is one of the main "nerves" of the artistic and journalistic work of the mature Tolstoy. Chernyshevsky laid bare this “nerve” already at the initial stage of the ideological and artistic development of the brilliant writer.

N. G. Chernyshevsky

Photo

In "Essays on the Gogol Period of Russian Literature", in articles and reviews about Ostrovsky and Turgenev, Tolstoy, Shchedrin, N. Uspensky and others, Chernyshevsky developed and substantiated the integral concept of Russian realism. Historicism of thinking allowed him to “mount” modern literary phenomena in the general process of artistic development. Thus, uncompromisingly revealing the idealistic nature of the views of the romantics on reality, at the same time he did not take the position of nihilistic denial of the significance of this stage in the history of the aesthetic understanding of life.

Speaking about the aesthetic nature of realism, its originality, the difference from classicism and romanticism, from the didacticism of the Enlightenment, the critic first of all insisted on "objectivity"

realistic method. For, according to him, to pronounce a sentence on the phenomena of life does not mean to blame someone for something, but it means to understand the circumstances in which a person finds himself, to consider which combinations of living conditions are convenient for good actions, which are inconvenient. And in this regard, the problem of the relationship between truth and life and artistic truth, fact and fiction, typical and individual was posed.

Making a "revaluation of values", sometimes very severe, determining the place and significance of this or that phenomenon of art and literature in the history of national artistic culture, in the spiritual life of the nation, he was invariably guided by the requirements of the people. “The point of view of the people” is the main condition set by “real criticism”, its ideological inspirer and theoretician Chernyshevsky, to literature.

The main postulates of "real criticism" received their further, full development in the critical and journalistic work of Dobrolyubov. In its main provisions, the epistemological concept of Dobrolyubov, his aesthetic credo coincides with the teachings of Chernyshevsky: both critics fought hand in hand for the establishment of materialistic methodological principles in the approach to the phenomena of literature, in their analysis and evaluation. The main requirement of real criticism is the truth of life, without which no other artistic merit of a work is conceivable. Dobrolyubov judged the significance of a work of art, in accordance with his materialistic concept of knowledge, revolutionary and educational convictions, and belief in the socially transforming possibilities of art, by “how deeply the artist’s gaze penetrated into the very essence of the phenomenon, how widely he captured in his images various side of life." Only in this way can one decide how great the artist's talent is.

Dobrolyubov began with the history of literature. His first article (1856) in Sovremennik was devoted to the book published by Catherine II in the 80s of the 18th century. magazine "Interlocutor of Lovers of the Russian Word". His other works were also of a research nature: “On the degree of participation of the people in the development of Russian literature” (1858), “Russian satire in the age of Catherine” (1859). However, turning to the past, he thought about the present, and in his historical and literary writings, with all the acuteness available in a censored edition, he raised questions about the social role of art and literature, was concerned about socio-political problems that were relevant for his time.

But, of course, this direction of his critical work was most obvious in articles and reviews devoted to contemporary literature. The classic example of "real criticism", demonstrating its undoubted power and revealing its specifics, was the analysis of Goncharov's novel "Oblomov" and Ostrovsky's drama "Thunderstorm". Dobrolyubov's interpretation of Oblomov and "Oblomovism" in the article "What is Oblomovism?" (1859), which struck even the creator of the novel with its depth and insight, joins Chernyshevsky's series of speeches against Russian liberalism and marks the beginning of a new stage in the ideological struggle of the era.

Analyzing Turgenev's "Asya" and the image of the hero of this story in the article "Russian man on rendez-vous", Chernyshevsky puts forward the problem of "superfluous people" in life and literature. The coming revolutionary situation exposed the weakness of yesterday's heroes. The writers of the sixties, primarily Chernyshevsky, tried to realistically embody the hero, not reflective, not "jammed" by the conservative environment, but actively influencing the world around him. They were not always able to overcome the well-known schematism, predeterminedness and speculation of the proposed solutions. But in principle this search was fruitful and, as the further development of the literature showed, promising. The "model" of the new hero was theoretically substantiated in the critical and theoretical works of Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov. A “positive person” was recognized as one who consciously rebuilds life, based on its internal laws.

In addition to the article on Oblomov, Dobrolyubov’s articles on Ostrovsky’s Thunderstorm, A Ray of Light in the Dark Kingdom (1860), on Turgenev’s story The Eve, “When will the real day come?” (1860). In them, "real criticism" demonstrated all the fruitfulness of its methodology, so that its opponents were forced to reckon with its experience in the future.

The article "Dark Kingdom" (1859) carefully analyzes the ideological and figurative content of Ostrovsky's plays, determines the life sources of his works. At the same time, we are talking about the initial principles of “real criticism”, a wide range of aesthetic problems is being developed: about the relationship between literature and life, about tendentiousness, folk art, the specifics of the artistic reflection of reality, about the typicality of the image, the dialectical unity of content and form.

Directly adjacent to the article "The Dark Kingdom", the article "A Ray of Light in the Dark Kingdom" -

a response to the drama "Thunderstorm" - gives a clear idea of the socio-political program and aesthetic views of Dobrolyubov on the eve of the era of reforms. The critic showed in her an amazing sensitivity to new trends in life and literature. He shrewdly assessed the image of the heroine of "Thunderstorm" Katerina as a sign of a spontaneous protest against violence and arbitrariness that has awakened in the midst of the masses, sometimes not yet realized. In aesthetic terms, Ostrovsky's drama is highly regarded as an expression of "the natural aspirations of a certain time and people" - it "designates several new stages of human development."

Just as consistently Dobrolyubov in the article “When will the real day come?” revealed the objective meaning of Turgenev's novel "On the Eve". Lenin argued that from the analysis of "On the Eve" the great revolutionary democrat made "a real revolutionary proclamation, so written that it is not forgotten to this day" (V. I. Lenin on Literature and Art. M., 1969. P. 655) . Highlighting the problem of the positive hero, Dobrolyubov was preoccupied with educating such a type of fighter and revolutionary figure who could lead the movement of the masses against autocratic police arbitrariness in the country. The pathos of the article is determined by the expectation of a peasant revolution and faith in its proximity. Hence the heightened interest of the critic in the “Russian Insarov”, a man of “real, serious heroism”, who, according to Dobrolyubov, had already appeared in Russian reality, but who still remained unnoticed by Turgenev.

Both Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov paid close attention to the history of Western European literatures, considering the development of Russian literature in the 19th century. in the context of the development of world literature. Thus, Chernyshevsky compared the special role of Russian literature and criticism in the development of society in his work “Lessing, his time, his life and work” (1856-1857) with the role of aesthetics, literature and criticism in the Enlightenment, as well as during the heyday of the German classical literature. literature.

The study of Lessing contains not only fundamentally important judgments about the outstanding German educator of the 18th century, including such a work of his on the theory of art as "Hamburg Dramaturgy". In Russian conditions on the eve of the reforms, this work acquired an urgent importance. Chernyshevsky in it substantiates and develops ideas about the active social role of artistic creativity, about the place of literature and art in the struggle of the people for radical social transformations.

In the literary activity of Lessing, Diderot, Rousseau, Godwin, the critic singled out features close to him as an educator and revolutionary democrat. Chernyshevsky made many profound judgments about Shakespeare, Balzac, J. Sand, Hugo, Thackeray and other writers of the West. Dobrolyubov wrote articles about the civil poetry of Beranger and Heine and their Russian translators.

Revolutionary-democratic criticism in the second stage of the liberation movement in Russia became the vanguard of the "party of the people in literature." The striving for the future, inherent in the ideologists of the revolutionary class, was also reflected in the requirement for literature to go "ahead of public consciousness", and not to plod along already laid paths.

From the literary-critical articles of Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov, one breathed the proximity of revolutionary upheavals, in the name of which the Russian writers of the sixties lived, fought and created - people of the era in whose ideology democracy and socialism merged into one inseparable whole.

By 1859, when the government program and the views of the liberal parties became clear, when it became obvious that the reform "from above" in any of its variants would be half-hearted, the revolutionary democrats moved from a shaky alliance with liberalism to a break in relations and an uncompromising struggle against it. The literary-critical activity of N. A. Dobrolyubov falls on this, the second stage of the social movement of the 60s. He dedicates a special satirical section of the Sovremennik magazine called Whistle to denouncing liberals. Here Dobrolyubov acts not only as a critic, but also as a satirical poet.

Criticism of liberalism then alerted A. I. Herzen, (*11) who, being in exile, unlike Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov, continued to hope for reforms "from above" and overestimated the radicalism of the liberals until 1863. However, Herzen's warnings did not stop the revolutionary democrats of Sovremennik. Beginning in 1859, they began to carry out the idea of a peasant revolution in their articles. They considered the peasant community to be the core of the future socialist world order. Unlike the Slavophiles, Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov believed that the communal ownership of land rested not on the Christian, but on the revolutionary-liberation, socialist instincts of the Russian peasant.

Real criticism “analyzes whether such a person is possible and really; having found that it is true to reality, it proceeds to its own considerations about the reasons that gave rise to it, etc. If these reasons are indicated in the work of the author being analyzed, criticism uses them and thanks the author; if not, he doesn’t stick to him with a knife to his throat - how, they say, he dared to draw such a face without explaining the reasons for its existence? In this case, the critic takes the initiative in his own hands: he explains the causes that gave rise to this or that phenomenon from revolutionary-democratic positions and then pronounces a sentence on him.

Dobrolyubov positively assesses, for example, Goncharov's novel Oblomov, although the author "does not and, apparently, does not want to give any conclusions." It is enough that he "presents to you a living image and vouches only for its resemblance to reality." For Dobrolyubov, such authorial objectivity is quite acceptable and even desirable, since he takes the explanation and the verdict on himself.

In Dobrolyubov's articles, the young, strong nature of a talented critic comes to life, sincerely believing in the people, in which he sees the embodiment of all his highest moral ideals, with whom he connects the only hope for the revival of society. “His passion is deep and stubborn, and obstacles do not frighten him when they need to be overcome in order to achieve the passionately desired and deeply conceived,” Dobrolyubov writes about the Russian peasant in the article “Features for Characterizing the Russian Common People.” All the activities of the critic were aimed at the struggle for the creation of a "party of the people in literature." He devoted four years of vigilant labor to this struggle, writing nine volumes of works in such a short time. Dobrolyubov literally burned himself on the ascetic journal work, which undermined his health. He died at the age of 25 on November 17, 1861. About the premature death of a young friend, Nekrasov said heartfeltly:

But your hour has struck too soon
And the prophetic feather fell from his hands.
What a lamp of reason has gone out!
What heart stopped beating!

The decline of the social movement of the 60s. Disputes between Sovremennik and Russkoye Slovo

At the end of the 1960s, dramatic changes took place in Russian public life and critical thought. The Manifesto of February 19, 1861 on the emancipation of the peasants not only did not mitigate, but even more exacerbated the contradictions. In response to the upsurge of the revolutionary-democratic movement, the government launched an open offensive against progressive ideas: Chernyshevsky and D. I. Pisarev were arrested, and the publication of the Sovremennik magazine was suspended for eight months. The situation is aggravated by a split within the revolutionary-democratic movement, the main reason for which was the disagreement in assessing the revolutionary-socialist possibilities of the peasantry. The activists of the Russian Word, Dmitri Ivanovich Pisarev and Varfolomey Alexandrovich Zaitsev, sharply criticized Sovremennik for (*13) its alleged idealization of the peasantry, for its exaggerated idea of the revolutionary instincts of the Russian muzhik.

Unlike Dobrolyubov and Chernyshevsky, Pisarev argued that the Russian peasant was not ready for a conscious struggle for freedom, that for the most part he was dark and downtrodden. Pisarev considered the “intellectual proletariat”, revolutionary raznochintsev, who bring natural science knowledge to the people, to be the revolutionary force of modernity. This knowledge not only destroys the foundations of the official ideology (Orthodoxy, autocracy, nationality), but also opens the eyes of the people to the natural needs of human nature, which are based on the instinct of "social solidarity". Therefore, enlightening the people with the natural sciences can lead society to socialism not only in a revolutionary ("mechanical"), but also in an evolutionary ("chemical") way.

In order to make this "chemical" transition faster and more efficient, Pisarev suggested that Russian democracy be guided by the "principle of economy of forces." The "intellectual proletariat" must concentrate all its energy on destroying the spiritual foundations of the society that exists today by propagating the natural sciences among the people. In the name of the so-understood "spiritual liberation", Pisarev, like Turgenev's hero Yevgeny Bazarov, proposed to abandon art. He really believed that "a decent chemist is twenty times more useful than any poet," and recognized art only to the extent that it participates in the promotion of natural science and destroys the foundations of the existing system.

In the article "Bazarov" he glorified the triumphant nihilist, and in the article "Motives of Russian Drama" he "crushed" the heroine of A. N. Ostrovsky's drama "Thunderstorm" Katerina Kabanova, erected on a pedestal by Dobrolyubov. Destroying the idols of the "old" society, Pisarev published the infamous anti-Pushkin articles and the work "The Destruction of Aesthetics". The fundamental disagreements that emerged in the course of the controversy between Sovremennik and Russkoye Slovo weakened the revolutionary camp and were a symptom of the decline of the social movement.

Nov 29 2012

By 1859, when the government program and the views of the liberal parties became clear, when it became obvious that the reform "from above" in any of its variants would be half-hearted, the revolutionary democrats moved from a shaky alliance with liberalism to a break in relations and an uncompromising struggle against it. The literary-critical activity of N. A. Dobrolyubov falls on this, the second stage of the social movement of the 60s. He dedicates a special satirical section of the Sovremennik magazine called Whistle to denouncing liberals. Here Dobrolyubov acts not only as a critic, but also as a satirical poet.

Criticism of liberalism then alerted A. I. Herzen, (*11) who, being in exile, unlike Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov, continued to hope for reforms “from above” and overestimated the radicalism of the liberals until 1863. However, Herzen's warnings did not stop the revolutionary democrats of Sovremennik. Beginning in 1859, they began to carry out the idea of a peasant revolution in their articles. They considered the peasant community to be the core of the future socialist world order. Unlike the Slavophiles, Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov believed that the communal ownership of land rested not on the Christian, but on the revolutionary-liberation, socialist instincts of the Russian peasant.

Dobrolyubov became the founder of the original critical method. He saw that the majority of Russian writers did not share revolutionary-democratic thoughts, did not pronounce sentence on life from such radical positions. Dobrolyubov saw the task of his criticism in completing the work begun by the writer in his own way and formulating this sentence, based on real events and artistic images of the work. Dobrolyubov called his method of comprehending the work of the writer “real criticism”.

The real “analyzes whether such a person is possible and really; having found that it is true to reality, it proceeds to its own considerations about the reasons that gave rise to it, etc. If these reasons are indicated in the work of the author being analyzed, criticism uses them and thanks the author; if not, does not stick to him with a knife to his throat - how, they say, he dared to bring out such a face without explaining the reasons for its existence? In this case, the critic takes the initiative in his own hands: he explains the causes that gave rise to this or that phenomenon from revolutionary-democratic positions and then pronounces a sentence on him.

Dobrolyubov positively evaluates, for example, Goncharov's "Oblomov", although "he does not give and, apparently, does not want to give any conclusions." It is enough that he "presents to you a living image and vouches only for its resemblance to reality." For Dobrolyubov, such authorial objectivity is quite acceptable and even desirable, since he takes the explanation and the verdict on himself.

Real criticism often led Dobrolyubov to a kind of reinterpretation of the writer's artistic images in a revolutionary democratic way. It turned out that the analysis of the work, which developed into an understanding of the acute problems of our time, led Dobrolyubov to such radical conclusions that the author himself did not in any way assume. On this basis, as we shall see later, there was a decisive break between Turgenev and the journal Sovremennik, when Dobrolyubov's article on the novel On the Eve saw the light of day in it.

In Dobrolyubov's articles, the young, strong nature of a talented critic comes to life, sincerely believing in the people, in which he sees the embodiment of all his highest moral ideals, with whom he connects the only hope for the revival of society. “His passion is deep and stubborn, and obstacles do not frighten him when they need to be overcome in order to achieve the passionately desired and deeply conceived,” Dobrolyubov writes about the Russian peasant in the article “Features for Characterizing the Russian Common People.” All the activities of the critic were aimed at the struggle for the creation of the "People's Party". He devoted four years of vigilant labor to this struggle, writing nine volumes of works in such a short time. Dobrolyubov literally burned himself on the ascetic journal work, which undermined his health. He died at the age of 25 on November 17, 1861. About the premature death of a young friend, Nekrasov said heartfeltly:

But your hour has struck too soon

And the prophetic feather fell from his hands.

What a lamp of reason has gone out!

What heart stopped beating!

Need a cheat sheet? Then save -» Literary-critical activity of revolutionary democrats. Literary writings!

February 5 marks the 175th anniversary (1836) of the birth of Nikolai Aleksandrovich Dobrolyubov, the great Russian democratic revolutionary, an outstanding literary critic, publicist and materialist philosopher, N.G. Chernyshevsky's closest friend and colleague.

Dobrolyubov belongs to the glorious galaxy of great Russian revolutionary democrats - Belinsky, Chernyshevsky, Herzen, who waged a bold, decisive struggle against autocracy and serfdom, for the liberation of the working people from serfdom. Dobrolyubov occupied an advanced, prominent place in the history of Russian literary criticism and journalism of the 19th century. Following Belinsky, together with Chernyshevsky, Nekrasov and other employees of the combat organ of the revolutionary democracy Sovremennik, Dobrolyubov defended the ideological, realistic trend in fiction, materialistic principles in philosophy, aesthetics, and art theory.

Dobrolyubov was born in Nizhny Novgorod in the family of a priest. In 1847 - 1853. Dobrolyubov - a student of the Nizhny Novgorod Theological School and the Theological Seminary, then, in 1853 - 1857. - Student of the Main Pedagogical Institute. From the moment Dobrolyubov first met Chernyshevsky, when a close personal friendship between them began, in the spring of 1856, his work began in the Sovremennik magazine, which continued until November 17, 1861, when the fiery heart of a talented art critic and a real revolutionary stopped beating.

« He was only 25 years old. But for 4 years now he has stood at the head of Russian literature - no, not only Russian literature - at the head of the entire development of Russian thought, – wrote in an obituary on the death of Dobrolyubov Chernyshevsky. “His loss is irreplaceable for the people, for whom he burned with love and burned so early. Oh, how he loved you people! His word did not reach you, but when you become what he wanted to see you, you will know how much this brilliant young man, the best of your sons, did for you.».

« The Russian people lost their best defender in him ", Chernyshevsky wrote later.

The true flowering of the creative literary activity of the revolutionary democrat Dobrolyubov refers to the years of work in Sovremennik, i.e. to the last, very short period of his life (1857 - 1861). During this period, Dobrolyubov wrote works that created him worldwide fame. Dobrolyubov headed the literary-critical department of Sovremennik. According to Chernyshevsky, starting from the end of 1858, there was no longer a single person in literary circles who would not say that Dobrolyubov - “ the strongest talent in Sovremennik ". Dobrolyubov did not take care of himself at all and devoted himself entirely to social activities. " Sometimes he promised to rest, but he was never able to refrain from passionate work. And could he take care of himself? He felt that his labors powerfully accelerated the course of our development, and he hurried, hurried time ... » ( Chernyshevsky).

Russian literature of that time was a platform from which the burning questions of the social life of Russia were pronounced and put before the readers. Dobrolyubov entered the field of public activity in the conditions of that sharp class, political struggle that took place in Russia in the 50-60s. XIX century, especially around the issue of the liberation of the peasants from serfdom. A confrontation flared up between two hostile camps - the revolutionary-democratic camp, led by Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov, on the one hand, and the autocratic-landowner and liberal-bourgeois, i.e. the reactionary camp, on the other.

The revolutionary activity of Dobrolyubov, who is still quite young, his ardent, simple and truthful ideas and aspirations are the most attractive for us, young communists, consonant today with our struggle, our aspirations.

Dobrolyubov is a revolutionary, he is imbued with an ardent desire to turn words into deeds, to enter the wide road of practical activity that requires great effort and struggle. . Dobrolyubov noted that in many works of the best Russian writers the image of " extra people"Oblomov type: Onegin, Beltov, Rudin, Pechorin and others. All of them, Dobrolyubov notes, are people of a phrase, and meanwhile the phrase has already lost its meaning, there was a burning “need for a cause, a living cause”, “people of a cause are needed” ; they are all full of "higher aspirations", but only want, suffer and resent; they are incapable of doing business and therefore useless. « “Less words, more deeds” was his real motto and his dying testament to his close fellow workers. ", - the poet Nekrasov spoke about Dobrolyubov.

Dobrolyubov urged the revolutionary to apply his knowledge, convictions and strengths, first of all, in his homeland, since " here it is his real business, on which he can be most useful ».

With contrition, sadness, Dobrolyubov admits that there are still few people in Rus' who would selflessly, without fear and doubt, without loud and beautiful phrases, but in fact would give all their strength to the common cause of struggle. Dobrolyubov asks anxiously - where in Russia people capable of doing something “that would be a vital necessity for them, a heart shrine, a religion that would organically grow together with them, so that taking it away from them would mean depriving them of their life” ?

Dobrolyubov was perfectly aware of the then unfavorable conditions for a wide manifestation of popular activity. However, Dobrolyubov fought against those who fell into despondency and, waving his hand at everything, spread pessimistic moods, losing all faith in the people. Dobrolyubov in his reasoning came " not to despair in the vitality of the people, not to the conviction of the infinity of their apathy and inability to engage in public affairs, but to conclusions completely opposite ».

« There is no such thing – Dobrolyubov argued, - which could be bent and pulled endlessly: having reached a certain limit, it would certainly break or break. So it is certain that there is no person in the world and there is no society that could not be brought out of patience. Eternal apathy cannot be assumed in a living being; lethargy must be followed by either death or awakening to active life. Therefore, if it is true that our people are completely indifferent to public affairs, then the question follows: should this be considered a sign of the imminent death of the nation, or should we expect an early awakening? Pessimists are ready, perhaps, to condemn the whole Slavic tribe to a slow death; but, in our deep conviction, they are extremely unfair».

A long lethargy or death of the “Slavic tribe” is impossible, the awakening of the Russian people is inevitable, i.e. powerful and organized uprising, revolution Dobrolyubov was deeply convinced. Dobrolyubov, following Belinsky and Chernyshevsky, was a revolutionary democrat and herald of the peasant revolution. "... It is necessary, in order to destroy evil, to begin not from the top and side parts, but from the base. ”, wrote Dobrolyubov.

Dobrolyubov was true to himself to the end, believing that only a revolution would bring the Russian peasantry a just liberation from the feudal lords, which should not be postponed, on the contrary, it must be prepared and implemented in practice. Annoyed at Herzen, who spoke out against Sovremennik in 1859, Dobrolyubov wrote in his diary for June 5, 1859: “... However, our advanced people are good! They have already succeeded in knocking down the flair in themselves, which they used to smell the call to revolution, wherever it was heard and in whatever forms it was not. Now they have in mind peaceful progress, initiated from above, under the cover of legality! ».

The revolutionary democrat Dobrolyubov is a supporter, following Chernyshevsky, of utopian socialism. On the question of the role and significance of the Russian community, Dobrolyubov generally joined Chernyshevsky. Lenin pointed out that the utopian socialist Chernyshevsky, who dreamed of a transition to socialism through the old semi-feudal peasant community, did not and could not see in Russia in the 1860s, that only the development of capitalism and the proletariat could create the material conditions and social strength for the realization socialism. This also applies to Dobrolyubov. It should be noted that the Western European utopian socialists were the creators of reformist utopian socialism, and Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov were representatives revolutionary utopian socialism.

A distinctive feature of the political views of the revolutionary democrat Dobrolyubov is that they are imbued with honest, sincere and militant patriotism. He was a man who passionately, selflessly loving his homeland and the Russian people. Dobrolyubov, speaking in his own words, exalted " to understand the good of the motherland inseparably from one's own happiness, and not to understand happiness for oneself otherwise than in the prosperity of the motherland ».

Dobrolyubov was an implacable opponent of both those who preached the domination of some nations over others, and those who consigned to oblivion the feeling of national pride, honor and dignity. The source of Dobrolyubov's patriotism was the struggle of the masses against their oppressors, an ardent desire to see their homeland powerful, cultured and free from forced labor.

In the 50s of the XIX century, especially during the Crimean War, on the eve of the peasant reform of 1861, the word "patriotism" did not leave the lips of representatives of the most diverse segments of the population of Russia. On the topic of "patriotism" the liberals chatted with particular zeal. Evil Dobrolyubov ridiculed these pseudo-patriots, their official "leavened patriotism." " In fact, of course, there are no traces of patriotism among these gentlemen, so tirelessly proclaimed by them in words. They are ready to exploit, as much as possible, their compatriot, no less, if not more, than a foreigner; they are even ready to easily deceive him, to destroy him for the sake of their personal views, they are ready to do all sorts of nasty things that are harmful to society, harmful, perhaps, to the whole country, but beneficial to them personally ... If they get the opportunity to show their power even on a small piece of land in their own country, they will rule over this piece of land, as in a conquered land ... But they will still shout about the glory and greatness of the fatherland ... And that is why they are pseudo-patriots! .. »

Dobrolyubov, with his ebullient, lively and active nature, was eager for practical struggle, but his life was cut short very early. Dobrolyubov did not have time to do a lot of what he passionately desired and actively strived for. Back in May 1859, Dobrolyubov wrote in a letter to one of his friends that there are still interests in life that “ are not in rank, not in comfort, not in a woman, not even in science, but in social activity ... We must create this activity; all forces must be directed to its creation, no matter how many there are in our nature ... We are still clean, fresh and young, we have a lot of strength; there are still two-thirds of life ahead ... We can master the present and hold onto the future. Nothing to lose heart and sleep ...»

Dobrolyubov burned in his work, he could not imagine his life without that selfless struggle to which he devoted his whole life, all his thoughts and actions, without that " real activity - not with the tongue, but with the head, heart and hands together ". For us, Dobrolyubov is a living example of how one should work, what one should strive for, how one should be able to cherish one's convictions, love one's people, believe in them and fight for their happiness.

Grigory Paveliev

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