Little man in the literature of the 20th century. The image of the "little man" in Russian literature

"Small man"- a type of literary hero that arose in Russian literature with the advent of realism, that is, in the 20-30s of the XIX century.

The theme of the "little man" is one of the cross-cutting themes of Russian literature, which was constantly addressed by writers of the 19th century. A.S. Pushkin was the first to mention it in the story “The Stationmaster”. The successors of this theme were N.V. Gogol, F.M. Dostoevsky, A.P. Chekhov and many others.

This person is small precisely in social terms, since he occupies one of the lower rungs of the hierarchical ladder. His place in society is little or completely invisible. A person is considered “small” also because the world of his spiritual life and claims is also extremely narrow, impoverished, filled with all sorts of prohibitions. For him there are no historical and philosophical problems. He lives in a narrow and closed circle of his vital interests.

The best humanistic traditions are associated with the theme of the "little man" in Russian literature. Writers invite people to think about the fact that every person has the right to happiness, to their own outlook on life.

Examples of "little people":

1) Yes, Gogol in the story "The Overcoat" characterizes the protagonist as a poor, ordinary, insignificant and inconspicuous person. In life, he was assigned the insignificant role of a copyist of departmental documents. Brought up in the sphere of subordination and execution of orders of superiors, Akaky Akakievich Bashmachkin not accustomed to reflect on the meaning of his work. That is why, when he is offered a task that requires the manifestation of elementary ingenuity, he begins to worry, worry, and in the end comes to the conclusion: “No, it’s better to let me rewrite something.”

The spiritual life of Bashmachkin is in tune with his inner aspirations. The accumulation of money to buy a new overcoat becomes for him the goal and meaning of life. The theft of a long-awaited new thing, which was acquired through hardship and suffering, becomes a disaster for him.

And yet Akaky Akakievich does not look like an empty, uninteresting person in the mind of the reader. We imagine that there were a great many such small, humiliated people. Gogol urged society to look at them with understanding and pity. This is indirectly demonstrated by the surname of the protagonist: diminutive suffix -chk-(Bashmachkin) gives it the appropriate shade. "Mother, save your poor son!" - the author will write.

Calling for justice the author raises the question of the need to punish the inhumanity of society. As compensation for the humiliation and insults suffered during his lifetime, Akaky Akakievich, who rose from the grave in the epilogue, comes through and takes away their overcoats and fur coats. He calms down only when he takes away the outer clothing of the "significant person" who played a tragic role in the life of the "little man". 2) In the story Chekhov "Death of an official" we see the slavish soul of an official whose understanding of the world is completely distorted. There is no need to talk about human dignity here. The author gives his hero a wonderful last name: Chervyakov. Describing the small, insignificant events of his life, Chekhov seems to look at the world with Chervyakov's eyes, and these events become huge. So, Chervyakov was at the performance and “felt on top of bliss. But suddenly ... sneezed. Looking around like a "polite person", the hero was horrified to find that he had sprayed a civilian general. Chervyakov begins to apologize, but this seemed not enough to him, and the hero asks for forgiveness again and again, day after day ... There are a lot of such little officials who know only their little world and it is not surprising that their experiences are made up of such small situations. The author conveys the whole essence of the official's soul, as if examining it under a microscope. Unable to bear the cry in response to the apology, Chervyakov goes home and dies. This terrible catastrophe of his life is the catastrophe of his limitations. 3) In addition to these writers, Dostoevsky also addressed the theme of the “little man” in his work. The main characters of the novel "Poor people" - Makar Devushkin- a half-impoverished official, crushed by grief, want and social lawlessness, and Varenka- a girl who has become a victim of social ill-being. Like Gogol in The Overcoat, Dostoevsky turned to the theme of the disenfranchised, immensely humiliated "little man" who lives his inner life in conditions that trample on the dignity of man. The author sympathizes with his poor heroes, shows the beauty of their soul. 4) Theme "poor people" develops as a writer in the novel "Crime and Punishment". One by one, the writer reveals before us pictures of terrible poverty, which humiliates the dignity of a person. The scene of the work becomes Petersburg, and the poorest district of the city. Dostoevsky creates a canvas of immeasurable human torment, suffering and grief, peers penetratingly into the soul of the “little man”, discovers in him deposits of enormous spiritual wealth. Family life unfolds before us Marmeladov. These are people crushed by reality. He drinks himself with grief and loses his human appearance official Marmeladov, who has "nowhere else to go." Exhausted by poverty, his wife Ekaterina Ivanovna dies of consumption. Sonya is released into the street to sell her body in order to save her family from starvation. The fate of the Raskolnikov family is also difficult. His sister Dunya, wanting to help her brother, is ready to sacrifice herself and marry the rich Luzhin, whom she feels disgusted with. Raskolnikov himself conceives a crime, the roots of which, in part, lie in the sphere of social relations in society. The images of “little people” created by Dostoevsky are imbued with the spirit of protest against social injustice, against the humiliation of people and faith in their high calling. The souls of the "poor" can be beautiful, full of spiritual generosity and beauty, but broken by the hardest conditions of life.

The Russian world in the prose of the 19th century.

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Depiction of reality in Russian literature of the 19th century.

Scenery. Functions and types.

Interior: detail problem.

The image of time in a literary text.

The motive of the road as a form of artistic development of the national picture of the world.

Scenery - not necessarily an image of nature, in literature it may involve a description of any open space. This definition corresponds to the semantics of the term. From French - country, area. In French art theory, the landscape description includes both the depiction of wildlife and the depiction of man-made objects.

The well-known typology of landscapes is based on the specifics of the functioning of this text component.

Firstly, landscapes stand out, which are the background of the story. These landscapes, as a rule, indicate the place and time against which the depicted events take place.

The second type of landscape- a landscape creating a lyrical background. Most often, when creating such a landscape, the artist pays attention to meteorological conditions, because this landscape should first of all influence the emotional state of the reader.

Third type- a landscape that creates/becomes a psychological background of existence and becomes one of the means of revealing the character's psychology.

Fourth type- a landscape that becomes a symbolic background, a means of symbolic reflection of the reality depicted in a literary text.

The landscape can be used as a means of depicting a particular artistic time or as a form of presence of the author.

This typology is not the only one. The landscape can be expositional, dual, etc. Modern critics isolate Goncharov's landscapes; it is believed that Goncharov used the landscape for an ideal representation of the world. For a person who writes, the evolution of the landscape skill of Russian writers is fundamentally important. There are two main periods:

pre-Pushkin, during this period, landscapes were characterized by the completeness and concreteness of the surrounding nature;

post-Pushkin period, the idea of ​​an ideal landscape has changed. It assumes the stinginess of details, the economy of the image and the accuracy of the selection of details. Accuracy, according to Pushkin, involves identifying the most significant feature perceived in a certain way by feelings. This idea of ​​Pushkin, then will be used by Bunin.

Second level. Interior - image of the interior. The main unit of the interior image is a detail (detail), attention to which was first demonstrated by Pushkin. The literary test of the 19th century did not show a clear boundary between the interior and the landscape.

Time in a literary text in the 19th century becomes discrete, intermittent. Heroes easily go into memories and whose fantasies rush into the future. There is a selectivity of the attitude to time, which is explained by the dynamics. Time in a literary text in the 19th century has a convention. The most conditional time in a lyrical work, with the predominance of the grammar of the present tense, for lyrics, the interaction of different time layers is especially characteristic. Artistic time is not necessarily concrete, it is abstract. In the 19th century, the image of historical color becomes a special means of concretizing artistic time.

One of the most effective means of depicting reality in the 19th century is the motif of the road, becoming part of the plot formula, a narrative unit. Initially, this motif dominated the travel genre. In the 11th-18th centuries, in the genre of travel, the motive of the road was used, first of all, to expand ideas about the surrounding space (cognitive function). In sentimentalist prose, the cognitive function of this motif is complicated by evaluativeness. Gogol uses travel to explore the surrounding space. The renewal of the functions of the road motif is associated with the name of Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov. "Silence" 1858

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The 19th century is called the "Golden Age" of Russian poetry and the century of Russian literature on a global scale. It should not be forgotten that the literary leap that took place in the 19th century was prepared by the entire course of the literary process of the 17th and 18th centuries. The 19th century is the time of the formation of the Russian literary language, which took shape largely thanks to A.S. Pushkin. But the 19th century began with the heyday of sentimentalism and the formation of romanticism. These literary trends found expression primarily in poetry. Poetic works of poets E.A. Baratynsky, K.N. Batyushkova, V.A. Zhukovsky, A.A. Feta, D.V. Davydova, N.M. Yazykov. Creativity F.I. Tyutchev's "Golden Age" of Russian poetry was completed. However, the central figure of this time was Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin. A.S. Pushkin began his ascent to the literary Olympus with the poem "Ruslan and Lyudmila" in 1920. And his novel in verse "Eugene Onegin" was called an encyclopedia of Russian life. Romantic poems by A.S. Pushkin's "The Bronze Horseman" (1833), "The Fountain of Bakhchisaray", "Gypsies" opened the era of Russian romanticism. Many poets and writers considered A. S. Pushkin their teacher and continued the traditions of creating literary works laid down by him. One of these poets was M.Yu. Lermontov. Known for his romantic poem "Mtsyri", poetic story "Demon", a lot of romantic poems. Interestingly, Russian poetry of the 19th century was closely connectedwith the social and political life of the country. Poets tried to comprehend the idea of ​​their special purpose. The poet in Russia was considered a conductor of divine truth, a prophet. The poets urged the authorities to listen to their words. Vivid examples of understanding the role of the poet and influence on the political life of the country are the poems of A.S. Pushkin "Prophet", ode "Liberty", "The Poet and the Crowd", a poem by M.Yu. Lermontov "On the Death of a Poet" and many others. The prose writers of the beginning of the century were influenced by the English historical novels of W. Scott, whose translations were very popular. The development of Russian prose of the 19th century began with the prose works of A.S. Pushkin and N.V. Gogol. Pushkin, influenced by English historical novels, creates story "The Captain's Daughter" where the action takes place against the backdrop of grandiose historical events: during the Pugachev rebellion. A.S. Pushkin did an enormous job, exploring this historical period. This work was largely political in nature and was directed to those in power. A.S. Pushkin and N.V. Gogol identified the main artistic types that would be developed by writers throughout the 19th century. This is the artistic type of the “superfluous person”, an example of which is Eugene Onegin in the novel by A.S. Pushkin, and the so-called type of "little man", which is shown by N.V. Gogol in his story "The Overcoat", as well as A.S. Pushkin in the story "The Stationmaster". Literature inherited its publicism and satirical character from the 18th century. In a prose poem N.V. Gogol "Dead Souls" the writer in a sharp satirical manner shows a swindler who buys up dead souls, various types of landowners who are the embodiment of various human vices(the influence of classicism affects). Comedy is in the same vein. "Inspector". The works of A. S. Pushkin are also full of satirical images. Literature continues to satirically depict Russian reality. The tendency to depict the vices and shortcomings of Russian society is a characteristic feature of all Russian classical literature.. It can be traced in the works of almost all writers of the 19th century. At the same time, many writers implement the satirical trend in a grotesque form. Examples of grotesque satire are the works of N.V. Gogol "The Nose", M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin "Gentlemen Golovlevs", "History of one city". Since the middle of the 19th century, Russian realistic literature has been developing, which is created against the background of the tense socio-political situation that developed in Russia during the reign of Nicholas I. The crisis of the feudal system is brewing, the contradictions between the authorities and the common people are strong. There is a need to create a realistic literature that sharply reacts to the socio-political situation in the country. Literary critic V.G. Belinsky marks a new realistic trend in literature. His position is being developed by N.A. Dobrolyubov, N.G. Chernyshevsky. A dispute arises between Westernizers and Slavophiles about the paths of Russia's historical development. Writers address to the socio-political problems of Russian reality. The genre of the realistic novel is developing. Their works are created by I.S. Turgenev, F.M. Dostoevsky, L.N. Tolstoy, I.A. Goncharov. Socio-political and philosophical problems prevail. Literature is distinguished by a special psychologism. people. The literary process of the late 19th century discovered the names of N. S. Leskov, A.N. Ostrovsky A.P. Chekhov. The latter proved to be a master of a small literary genre - a story, as well as an excellent playwright. Competitor A.P. Chekhov was Maxim Gorky. The end of the 19th century was marked by the formation of pre-revolutionary sentiments. The realist tradition was beginning to fade. It was replaced by the so-called decadent literature, the hallmarks of which were mysticism, religiosity, as well as a premonition of changes in the socio-political life of the country. Subsequently, decadence grew into symbolism. This opens a new page in the history of Russian literature.

7. Literary situation at the end of the 19th century.

Realism

The second half of the 19th century is characterized by the undivided dominance of the realistic trend in Russian literature. basis realism as an artistic method is socio-historical and psychological determinism. The personality and fate of the depicted person appears as the result of the interaction of his character (or, more deeply, universal human nature) with the circumstances and laws of social life (or, more broadly, history, culture - as can be observed in the work of A.S. Pushkin).

Realism of the 2nd half of the 19th century. often call critical, or socially accusatory. Recently, in modern literary criticism, there have been more and more attempts to abandon such a definition. It is both too wide and too narrow; it levels out the individual characteristics of the writers' work. The founder of critical realism is often called N.V. Gogol, however, in Gogol's work, social life, the history of the human soul is often correlated with such categories as eternity, supreme justice, the providential mission of Russia, the kingdom of God on earth. Gogol's tradition to one degree or another in the second half of the 19th century. picked up by L. Tolstoy, F. Dostoevsky, partly N.S. Leskov - it is no coincidence that in their work (especially later) there is a craving for such pre-realistic forms of comprehension of reality as a sermon, a religious and philosophical utopia, a myth, a life. No wonder M. Gorky expressed the idea of ​​the synthetic nature of Russian classical realism, about its non-delimitation from the romantic direction. At the end of XIX - beginning of XX century. the realism of Russian literature not only opposes, but also interacts in its own way with the emerging symbolism. The realism of the Russian classics is universal, it is not limited to the reproduction of empirical reality, it includes a universal content, a “mystical plan”, which brings realists closer to the search for romantics and symbolists.

Socially accusatory pathos in its purest form appears most in the work of writers of the second row - F.M. Reshetnikova, V.A. Sleptsova, G.I. Uspensky; even N.A. Nekrasov and M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, with all their closeness to the aesthetics of revolutionary democracy, are not limited in their work posing purely social, topical issues. Nevertheless, a critical orientation towards any form of social and spiritual enslavement of a person unites all realist writers of the second half of the 19th century.

XIX century revealed the main aesthetic principles and typological properties of realism. In Russian literature of the second half of the XIX century. It is conditionally possible to single out several directions within the framework of realism.

1. The work of realist writers who strive for the artistic recreation of life in the "forms of life itself." The image often acquires such a degree of reliability that literary heroes are spoken of as living people. I.S. belong to this direction. Turgenev, I.A. Goncharov, partly N.A. Nekrasov, A.N. Ostrovsky, partly L.N. Tolstoy, A.P. Chekhov.

2. Bright in the 60s and 70s the philosophical-religious, ethical-psychological direction in Russian literature is outlined(L.N. Tolstoy, F.M. Dostoevsky). Dostoevsky and Tolstoy have amazing pictures of social reality, depicted in the "forms of life itself." But at the same time, writers always start from certain religious and philosophical doctrines.

3. Satirical, grotesque realism(in the 1st half of the 19th century, it was partly represented in the works of N.V. Gogol, in the 60-70s it unfolded in full force in the prose of M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin). The grotesque does not act as hyperbole or fantasy, it characterizes the writer's method; it combines in images, types, plots what is unnatural, and is absent in life, but is possible in the world created by the creative imagination of the artist; similar grotesque, hyperbolic images emphasize certain patterns that prevail in life.

4. Completely unique realism, "hearted" (Belinsky's word) by humanistic thought, presented in art A.I. Herzen. Belinsky noted the “Voltaireian” warehouse of his talent: “talent went into the mind”, which turns out to be a generator of images, details, plots, biographies of a person.

Along with the dominant realistic trend in Russian literature of the second half of the 19th century. the direction of the so-called "pure art" also developed - it is both romantic and realistic. Its representatives eschewed "damned questions" (What to do? Who is to blame?), but not reality, by which they meant the world of nature and the subjective feeling of a person, the life of his heart. They were excited by the beauty of life itself, the fate of the world. A.A. Fet and F.I. Tyutchev can be directly comparable with I.S. Turgenev, L.N. Tolstoy and F.M. Dostoevsky. The poetry of Fet and Tyutchev had a direct influence on the work of Tolstoy in the era of Anna Karenina. It is no coincidence that Nekrasov discovered F.I. Tyutchev to the Russian public as a great poet in 1850.

Problematics and Poetics

Russian prose, with all the flourishing of poetry and dramaturgy (A.N. Ostrovsky), occupies a central place in the literary process of the second half of the 19th century. It develops in line with the realistic trend, preparing in the variety of genre searches of Russian writers an artistic synthesis - the novel, the pinnacle of the world literary development of the 19th century.

The search for new artistic techniques images of a person in his connections with the world appeared not only in the genres story, story or novel (I.S. Turgenev, F.M. Dostoevsky, L.N. Tolstoy, A.F. Pisemsky, M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, D. Grigorovich). Striving for an accurate recreation of life in the literature of the late 40s and 50s begins to look for a way out in memoir-autobiographical genres, with their installation on documentary. At this time, they begin to work on the creation of their autobiographical books. A.I. Herzen and S.T. Aksakov; the trilogy partly adjoins this genre tradition. L.N. Tolstoy ("Childhood", "Adolescence", "Youth").

Another documentary genre goes back to the aesthetics of the "natural school", it is - feature article. In its purest form, it is presented in the works of democratic writers N.V. Uspensky, V.A. Sleptsova, A.I. Levitova, N.G. Pomyalovsky (“Essays on Bursa”); in a revised and largely transformed form - in Turgenev's Notes of a Hunter and Saltykov-Shchedrin's Provincial Essays, Dostoevsky's Notes from the House of the Dead. Here, a complex interpenetration of artistic and documentary elements is observed, fundamentally new forms of narrative prose are created that combine the features of a novel , essay, autobiographical notes.

The desire for epicness is a characteristic feature of the Russian literary process of the 1860s; it captures both poetry (N. Nekrasov) and dramaturgy (A.N. Ostrovsky).

The epic picture of the world as a deep subtext is felt in novels I.A. Goncharova(1812-1891) “Oblomov” and “Cliff”. Thus, in the novel “Oblomov”, the description of typical character traits and way of life subtly turns into the image of the universal content of life, its eternal states, collisions, situations. , which has firmly entered the Russian public consciousness under the name "Oblomovism", Goncharov contrasts it with the preaching of the deed (the image of the Russian German Andrei Stolz) - and at the same time shows the limitations of this sermon. Oblomov's inertia appears in unity with genuine humanity. The composition of the "Oblomovism" also includes the poetry of a noble estate, the generosity of Russian hospitality, the touchingness of Russian holidays, the beauty of Central Russian nature - Goncharov traces the primordial connection of noble culture, noble consciousness with folk soil. The very inertia of Oblomov's existence is rooted in the depths of centuries, in the distant corners of our national memory. Ilya Oblomov is somewhat akin to Ilya Muromets, who sat on the stove for 30 years, or the fabulous simpleton Emelya, who achieved his goals without applying his own efforts - "at the behest of the pike, at my will." "Oblomovism" is a phenomenon of not just noble, but Russian national culture, and as such it is not idealized by Goncharov at all - the artist explores both its strengths and weaknesses. In the same way, purely European pragmatism, opposed to Russian Oblomovism, reveals strong and weak features. In the novel, on a philosophical level, the inferiority, insufficiency of both opposites and the impossibility of their harmonious combination are revealed.

In the literature of the 1870s, the same prose genres dominate as in the literature of the previous century, but new trends appear in them. The epic tendencies in narrative literature are weakening, there is an outflow of literary forces from the novel, to small genres - a story, an essay, a story. Dissatisfaction with the traditional novel was a characteristic phenomenon in literature and criticism in the 1870s. It would be wrong, however, to assume that the genre of the novel entered a period of crisis during these years. The work of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Saltykov-Shchedrin serves as an eloquent refutation of this opinion. However, in the 1970s, the novel underwent an internal restructuring: the tragic beginning sharply intensified; this trend is associated with a heightened interest in the spiritual problems of the individual and its internal conflicts. Novelists pay special attention to a personality that has reached its full development, but is put face to face with the fundamental problems of being, deprived of support, experiencing deep discord with people and with itself (“Anna Karenina” by L. Tolstoy, “Demons” and “The Brothers Karamazov” by Dostoevsky ).

In the short prose of the 1870s, a craving for allegorical and parable forms is revealed. Particularly indicative in this regard is the prose of N.S. Leskov, the flowering of his work falls precisely on this decade. He acted as an innovative artist, combining the principles of realistic writing into a single whole with the conventions of traditional folk poetic techniques, with an appeal to the style and genres of ancient Russian literature. Leskov's skill was compared with icon painting and ancient architecture, the writer was called an "isographer" - and for good reason. Gorky called the gallery of original folk types painted by Leskov "the iconostasis of the righteous and saints" of Russia. Leskov introduced into the sphere of artistic representation such layers of folk life that had hardly been touched upon in Russian literature before him (the life of the clergy, the bourgeoisie, the Old Believers and other layers of the Russian provinces). In the depiction of various social strata, Leskov masterfully used the forms of a tale, whimsically mixing the author's and folk points of view.

The literary movement of the 1870s, important changes in the style and poetics of prose genres, necessarily prepared a new period in the development of Russian realistic prose.

The 1880s are a strange, intermediate time in the history of Russian literature and Russian social thought. On the one hand, they were marked by a complete crisis of the populist ideology and the mood of pessimism that it caused, the absence of a common idea; “Sleep and darkness reigned in the hearts” - as A.A. Blok in the poem "Retribution". However, it was precisely the exhaustion of the revolutionary ideology of the 1860s and 1870s that led to the formation of a new attitude towards reality. The 1980s was a time of radical reassessment of the history and culture of the past. Fundamentally new for Russian culture was the orientation towards the calm, peaceful development of society; for the first time, conservatism became an important part of the national consciousness. In society, an attitude began to take shape not to remake the world (which prevailed in the 1860s and 70s), but to change (self-change) a person (F.M. Dostoevsky and L.N. Tolstoy, Vl.S. Solovyov and K. N. Leontiev, N. S. Leskov and V. M. Garshin, V. G. Korolenko and A. P. Chekhov).

The 1880s were perceived by contemporaries as an independent period, opposed in their minds to the sixties and seventies. The specificity of the period was associated with the idea of ​​the end of the era of the Russian "classics", with a sense of the boundary, the transition of time. The eighties sum up the development of Russian classical realism. The end of the period does not coincide with 1889, but rather should be attributed to the mid-1890s, when a new generation of writers announced itself and trends associated with the emergence of symbolism appeared. As a literary event that ended the 1880s, one can consider the publication in 1893 of a brochure by D.S. Merezhkovsky "On the Causes of the Decline and New Trends in Modern Russian Literature", which became the program document of literature and criticism at the turn of the century. At the same time, this document is the starting point of a new era in the history of Russian literature. We can say that Russian literature of the XIX century. ends in 1893, its last period chronologically covers the years 1880-1893.

Russian literature of the 1880s is the literature of realism, but qualitatively changed. Classical realism of the 1830-70s strove for a synthesis in artistic research and depiction of life, focused on the knowledge of the whole, the universe in all its diversity and inconsistency. Realism in the 1980s was unable to give a clear and meaningful picture of being from the point of view of some general universal idea. But at the same time in Russian literature there is an intense search for a new generalized view of life. Russian literature of the 1880s interacts with religious-philosophical and ethical concepts; writers appear in whose work philosophical ideas find their expression in artistic, literary form (Vl. Soloviev, K.N. Leontiev, early V.V. Rozanov). The realistic setting in the work of the classics of Russian realism is changing; prose by I.S. Turgenev is saturated with mysterious, irrational motives; in the work of L.N. Tolstoy's realism is gradually but steadily transforming into realism of a different kind, densely surrounded by moralistic and preachy journalism. The most characteristic feature of the literary process of the 80-90s is the almost complete disappearance of the genre form of the novel and the flourishing of small epic genres: story, essay, story. The novel assumes a generalizing view of life, and in the 1980s life empiricism, a fact of reality, comes to the fore. Hence the emergence of naturalistic tendencies in Russian prose - in the work of second-line fiction writers (P.D. Boborykin, D.N. Mamin-Sibiryak), partly even A.P. Chekhov, who is included in the literature of the 1880s as the author of humorous stories, skits and parodies. Chekhov, perhaps more acutely than any of the artists, feels the exhaustion of the old artistic forms - and subsequently it is he who is destined to become a true innovator in the field of new means of artistic expression.

Simultaneously with the naturalistic tendencies in the prose of the 1880s, the desire for expressiveness, for the search for more capacious forms of artistic expression, is intensifying. The desire for expressiveness leads to the predominance of the subjective principle not only in lyric poetry, which is experiencing a new flowering in the 80-90s, but also in narrative prose genres (V.M. Garshin, V.G. Korolenko). A distinctive feature of the prose of the 80s is the vigorous development of mass fiction and mass dramaturgy. However, in the same years, A.N. Ostrovsky: "sad" comedies "Slaves", "Talents and Admirers", "Handsome Man", "Guilty Without Guilt" and L.N. Tolstoy (folk drama "The Power of Darkness", satirical comedy "The Fruits of Enlightenment"). Finally, at the end of the 1880s, Chekhov began to reform the dramatic genre (the plays Ivanov, Leshy, later reworked into the play Uncle Vanya).

The poetry of the 80s occupies a more modest place in the general literary process than prose and dramaturgy. It is dominated by pessimistic or even tragic notes. However, it is in the poetry of the 80s that the artistic tendencies of the new era, leading to the formation of the aesthetics of symbolism, most clearly appear.

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Ivan Alekseevich Bunin (1870-1953) is the last Russian classic, but new Russian literature begins with him.

Received the Pushkin Prize for translating the text of the Song of Goyate.

"Antonov apples" 1900, "Mr. from San Francisco", "Easy breathing" - Bunin's trilogy about the meaning of being. Innovation is determined by the fact that the artist moves away from the study of class contradictions. The focus is on the civilizational conflict, the world of people in general. Bunin believed that in "Antonov apples" he presented new principles for creating a literary image. The ideological and artistic space allows us to pose completely different problems. "Antonov apples" are expressed:

plotless plot;

in this story, Bunin has the opportunity to describe the "crystal" silence; a special subject of study was the state of sadness, "great and hopeless";

the unique rhythm of Bunin's prose;

"brocade" language.

Bunin connected the secret of life with the motive of love and with the motive of death, but he sees the ideal solution to the problems of love and death in the past (peace, harmony, when a person felt himself a part of nature).

In the 20th century, Bunin in The Gentleman from San Francisco reveals the theme of death, which he began to think about from childhood. I express the idea that money gives only the illusion of life.

8. The literary situation of the early twentieth century.

Modern (The general name for various trends in art of the late 19th - early 20th centuries, which proclaimed a break with realism, the rejection of old forms and the search for new aesthetic principles.) - the interpretation of being

Lyric poetry (Sensitivity in feelings, in moods; softness and subtlety of the emotional beginning)

The idea of ​​art synthesis

Russian literature of the late XIX - early XX centuries. (1893 -1917) - rather short, but a very important period, independent in its meaning, in the history of Russian literature. In October 1917 Russian culture has undergone a tragic cataclysm. The literary process of that time is characterized by unprecedented tension, inconsistency, and the clash of the most diverse artistic tendencies. Not only in Russia, but throughout the world culture, a new modernist aesthetics, which sharply contrasted its philosophical and artistic program, its new worldview with the aesthetics of the past, which included essentially all the classical heritage of world culture.

A distinctive feature of the culture of the 1st quarter of the 20th century is unprecedented since Pushkin's time. flowering of poetry and above all - lyric poetry, development of a completely new poetic language, new artistic imagery. The very concept of the "Silver Age" owes its origin to the new rise of poetic art. This rise is a direct consequence of the general process associated with search for more capacious means of artistic expression. The literature of the beginning of the century as a whole is characterized by the element of lyricism. At the turn of the century, lyricism becomes one of the most effective means of revealing the worldview of the author and the man of modern times portrayed by him. The flowering of poetry in this period is a natural consequence of deep processes in the history of Russian literature and culture, it is associated primarily with modernism as the leading artistic direction of the era.

Article by V.I. Lenin "Party Organization and Party Literature" (1905) with the thesis that that literary work should be part of the general proletarian cause- followed from the principles proclaimed by "real criticism" and carried to its logical end. The article provoked a sharp rebuff in the literary and philosophical thought of Russia at the beginning of the 20th century; Lenin's opponents were D. Merezhkovsky, D. Filosofov, N. Berdyaev, V. Bryusov, who was one of the first to react with the article "Freedom of Speech", which appeared at the same time in November 1905 in the journal "Scales". V. Bryusov defended the already established in the decadent environment beliefs about the autonomy of literature as the art of speech and the freedom of artistic creativity.

The literature of the turn of the century entered into close relationships with religion, philosophy, and other forms of art, which also experienced a revival at that time: with painting, theater, and music. No wonder the idea of ​​the synthesis of arts occupied the minds of poets and artists, composers and philosophers. These are the most general trends in the development of literature and culture in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

During the late XIX - XX centuries. Russian literature includes a group of young writers who continue high traditions of classical realism. This is V.G. Korolenko, A.I. Kuprin, M. Gorky,I.A. Bunin,B. Zaitsev, I. Shmelev, V. Veresaev, L. Andreev. In the works of these writers, it is peculiar reflected the interaction of the realistic method with the new trends of the era . The bright and clear talent of V.G. Korolenko was distinguished by his attraction to romantic motifs, plots, and images. The prose and dramaturgy of Leonid Andreev more and more experienced the influence of expressionist poetics. The lyrical prose of B. Zaitsev, his plotless miniatures gave critics reason to talk about impressionistic features in his creative method. Fame I.A. Bunin was brought first of all by his story "The Village", in which he gave a harsh image of modern folk life, sharply arguing with the poeticization of the peasantry, coming from the Turgenev tradition. At the same time, the metaphorical figurativeness of Bunin's prose, the associative connection of details and motifs, bring it closer to the poetics of symbolism. Early work M. Gorky connected with the romantic tradition. Revealing the life of Russia, the acutely dramatic spiritual state of modern man, Gorky created a picture of life common with Kuprin, Bunin, Remizov, Sergeev-Tsynsky.

Modernist and avant-garde movements

The word "modernism" comes from the French. moderne - "newest". The aesthetics of realism meant reflection of the surrounding reality in the works of the artist in its typical features ; aesthetics of modernism brought to the fore the creative will of the artist, the possibility of creating many subjective interpretations of being. Avant-gardism is a private and extreme manifestation of modernist culture; The motto of the avant-garde could be the words of Pablo Picasso: "I depict the world not as I see it, but as I think it." The avant-garde believed that vital material can be deformed by the artist to the ground. Avant-garde art meant first of all a fundamental break with the traditions of the XIX century. Avant-gardism in Russian culture reflected in poetry futurists and in similar searches in the field of painting (K.Malevich, N.Goncharova) and theater (V.Meyerhold).

The very concept of "little man" appears in literature before the very type of hero is formed. Initially, this is the designation of people of the third estate, which became of interest to writers due to the democratization of literature. In the 19th century, the image of the "little man" becomes one of the cross-cutting themes of literature. The concept of "little man" was introduced by V.G. Belinsky in his 1840 article "Woe from Wit". Initially, it meant a "simple" person. With the development of psychologism in Russian literature, this image acquires a more complex psychological portrait and becomes the most popular character in democratic works of the second half of the 19th century. The history of literature has shown that the type of little man turned out to be very flexible, capable of modification. With a change in the social, political, cultural structure, under the influence of the philosophical ideas of various thinkers, the type of “little man” also evolves in literature, its various variants appear. The difficult time of the turn of the century gave rise to existential moods: the “little man” is no longer only a social type of the flawed and defenseless, it is a person in general. This is a person who is weak and defenseless against cataclysms, fractures, fate, fate, the Universe. But different writers of the turn of the century placed different accents in developing the theme of the “little man”. M. Gorky (Matryona "Spouses of the Orlovs", Nikita "The Artamonov Case", Arina "Boredom"). Like no other Russian writer, Gorky saw in ordinary people crushed by life a rich and multifaceted inner world, lofty thoughts and great demands, reflections not only on a piece of bread, but also on the structure of the world, a slow but steady growth of people's consciousness. In serious, socially significant conflicts, bright, complex characters, different beliefs collide. Gorky not only and not so much pitied the "little man", "humiliated and insulted", as he demanded from this man that he ceased to be "little", but became a Man with a capital letter, did not allow himself to be humiliated and insulted. ("Man - it sounds proud", Satin, "At the bottom"). Gorky believed in the spiritual, creative powers of man, in the fact that a man, even a "small" one, would defeat the reigning evil. Ultimately, this was due to the maturation of the revolution in the country, and Gorky's works turned out to be in tune with the feelings, thoughts, and moods of the people of those years. Gorky tried to find a bright beginning in the "perished creatures", on behalf of himself and his heroes he opposed attempts to humiliate and insult the "little man", which was especially clearly manifested in the terrible story "Boredom for the sake of". But as an artist, especially in the early period of creativity, Gorky did not escape Nietzsche's aestheticism, which includes admiring force as an "extra-moral" phenomenon. He contrasts "little people" with physically strong, beautiful people and sympathizes with the latter. This is clearly seen in such stories as "Makar Chudra", "On Rafts", "Mallow" and some others. Chelkash gives money to Gavrila not because he pities the unfortunate guy. He is disgusted by his humiliation, he is aesthetically "unpleasant". I.A. Bunin insisted on the irrational nature of human actions. In the stories "Ignat", "Cricket" and others, Bunin claims that "little people" lack a sense of moral consciousness, there are no concepts of good and evil. In his stories, the happiness of the "little man" does not depend on following moral standards. E. Zamyatin in the story "Uyezdnoye" has the main character - "the little man", Anfim Baryba, who is close to Gogol's Bashmachkin. But Gogol defends in Bashmachkin the Man, his brother, and Zamyatin sees in his hero a serious social and moral danger. This is a socially dangerous, malicious variety of the "little man". F. Sologub, on the one hand, inherits the features of Russian classical prose, on the other hand, the author deliberately departs from it. By the nature of his work, Sologub is close to Chekhov, Saltykov - Shchedrin (that is, the “little man” is to blame for his misfortunes, ridicules the “little man”). Like Chekhov, Sologub feel the vulgarity of the surrounding life in its most subtle manifestations. In the novel The Petty Demon, its main character Peredonov is all woven from allusions associated with his predecessors, with all those “small and humiliated”, unprotected, but this is a different variation of a person of a “case” type, a “little man”. Peredonov is an insignificant creature bursting with ambition, the embodiment of an ordinary demon, the reverse side of life, an immoral and unspiritual person, the focus of evil. Thus, in the work of Sologub, the “little man” is transformed into a “petty demon”. The coveted rank of inspector is the transformation of Akaky Akakievich's overcoat, the only valuable thing in life. But unlike the "little people" of 19th-century literature, Peredonov imagines himself important, significant, revels in his significance, but at the same time considers servility, sycophancy in front of superiors not shameful. Peredonov "little man" precisely in the meaning of "small, crushed, vile degenerate, low, insignificant in his malice". This is the embodiment of the social and moral bottom. In this Peredonov is close to Baryba Zamyatin. In the story “The Little Man”, Sologub openly declares the continuation of the tradition: Saranin, unsightly in appearance (small in stature), serves in the department. The hero, having inadvertently drunk drops intended for his wife (to reduce her stoutness and give her the same height as her husband), began to become catastrophically smaller. In the literal sense of the word. The metaphorical name of the historical and literary type of the hero "little man" is read and developed literally by Sologub. But the component of the conflict remains traditional, Sologub speaks directly about this: "the traditions of Akaky Akakievich's colleagues are tenacious." Saranin's colleagues despise him for his small stature, his superiors demand that he return to his previous size, threaten him with dismissal, his wife ceases to consider him a person at all, no one hears the "mosquito squeak" of a small man, he becomes a toy, a puppet in the hands of "the powers that be". Lacking the strength to resist them, the "little man" is forced to submit to the cruel power of capital. “Small people can talk, but their squeak is not heard by people of large sizes,” the author sums up. "Little Man" in the works of A.I. Kuprin (Yeltkov "Garnet Bracelet", Romashov, Khlebnikov "Duel", Sashka "Gambrinus") carries a sense of hopelessness of life, a complete loss of the possibilities of existence. Dispossessed characters in Kuprin's stories often live in an atmosphere of suffering and sorrow. The more striking are their "complex feelings", "bright impulses". Kuprin depicts the originality of the nature of the "little man", which is manifested in his actions. His behavior is accompanied by such a "set of spiritual movements" that there is no reason to doubt the "wonderful gift" of the "little man". One of the manifestations of such a gift is love. Continuing the traditions of Pushkin and Dostoevsky, Kuprin sympathizes with the “little man”, reveals his spiritual qualities as opposed to decadent writers, although he sees his inherent weaknesses, which he sometimes portrays with friendly irony. On the eve of the revolution and during its years, the theme of “the little man was one of the main ones in the work of Kuprin. The attention of the writer to the "little man", the defense of his ability to feel, love, suffer is quite in the spirit of Dostoevsky and Gogol. Let us recall at least Zheltkov from the Garnet Bracelet. Quiet, timid and inconspicuous, causing pity for Vera and her husband, he not only grows into a tragic hero, but by the power of his love rises above petty fuss, life's conveniences, decency. The “little man” Zheltkov turns out to be a man who is in no way inferior in nobility, in the ability to love aristocrats. With the greatest brightness and artistic power, the growth of consciousness of the "little man" so beloved by Kuprin in the era of the first Russian revolution is reflected in the famous story "Gambrinus" - one of the best works of the writer. The poor Jewish violinist Sashka from the port tavern "Gambrinus" refuses to perform the monarchist anthem during the days of rampant reaction, boldly throws the word "murderer" in the face of the tsar's guard and hits him - this Sashka is perhaps the most courageous of all the "little people" of Kuprin, unlike on everyone else. The inspiring atmosphere of the days of the first Russian revolution, beautifully conveyed in the story, made him so. The brotherly, "Gogolian" attitude towards the "little man", compassion, sadness about his useless life, we see in the story "Duel". “Who, finally, will arrange the fate of the downtrodden Khlebnikov, feed him, teach him and tell him: “Give me your hand, brother.” At the same time, his “little” hero (Romashov, Zheltkov) is indecisive, romantically disposed, cannot stand the duel with harsh reality, turns out to be unviable, dies physically, having no moral strength to resist the circumstances. The traditionally realistic theme of the “little man” takes on a different color with L.N. Andreeva. Man is a helpless being in the face of sinister forces, infinitely lonely and suffering. It should be noted Leonid Andreev's close attention to everything connected with moral shock: the presence or absence of fear, overcoming it. At the center of his stories is the fear of death and the fear of life, and it is no less terrible than death. The "little man" is experiencing a panicky horror of the universe. In Andreev's early prose, contemporaries immediately saw Chekhov's tradition in the depiction of the "little man". According to the choice of the hero, the degree of his deprivation, the democratism of the author's position, such Andreev's stories as "Bargamot and Garaska", "Petka in the country", "Angel", "Once upon a time there were" are quite comparable with Chekhov's. But Andreev everywhere singled out the terrible state of the world for himself - the complete disunity, mutual misunderstanding of people. In the Easter meeting between the townsman Bargamot and the tramp Haraska, well known to each other, each of them suddenly does not recognize the other: "Bargamot was amazed," "continued to be perplexed"; Garaska experienced "even some kind of awkwardness: Bargamot was painfully wonderful!" However, even having discovered something unknown pleasant in their interlocutor, both cannot, do not know how to establish relations between themselves. Garaska only utters a "plaintive and rude howl", and Bargamot "less than Garaska understands what his cloth tongue is fussing about." In "Petka in the Country" and "Angelochka" - an even darker motive: the natural ties between children and parents are broken . And the little heroes themselves do not understand what they need. Petka "wanted to go somewhere else." Sasha "wanted to stop doing what is called life." The dream does not shrink, it does not even perish (as in the works of Chekhov, Gogol), it does not arise, only indifference or anger remains. Revealing the theme of the "little man", L.N. Andreev affirms the value of every human life. That is why the main theme of his early work is the theme of achieving community between people. The writer seeks to realize the importance of those universal values ​​that unite people, make them related, regardless of any social factors. It should also be noted that the theme of the "little man" in the work of L. Andreev has evolved. At first, it was painted in tones of sympathy and compassion for disadvantaged people, but soon the writer became interested not so much in the “little man”, suffering from humiliation and material poverty (although this was not forgotten), but in the “little man”, oppressed by the consciousness of pettiness and everyday life. of his personality. Starting from the first stories, in the work of Leonid Andreev, a persistently pursuing doubt arises in the possibility of an adequate comprehension of the nature of the world and man, which determines the originality of the poetics of his works: in this respect he experiences either timid hope or deep pessimism. None of these approaches to life ever manage to find complete victory in his writings. In this distinctive feature of his worldview, we see the fundamental feature of his work. "Little Man" by N. Teffi is quite close to Chekhov's hero. Subtle irony, hidden psychologism, Chekhov's elegance of language distinguished her stories from the huge stream of humorous literature that hit Russia in the "days of freedom" and subsequent years. The story "Gift Horse" by N. Teffi is very close to Chekhov's work "The Death of an Official". Like A.P. Chekhov, N. Teffi's laughter is quite distant, but more sarcastic than that of the classic. Her hero is not exceptional, but ordinary. The comedy of the story is closely related to the psychological overtones. In the center of the story is the story of the "little man" Nikolai Ivanovich Utkin. There is no doubt that it is a “little man” before us, since at the very beginning of the story the author defiantly emphasizes the origin of the hero - “a small excise official of a small county town”. For the protagonist of the story, the “happy” win - the horse is a symbol of ambitious dreams, the pitiful claims of the “little man” for some other life, reminiscent of the life of an aristocrat. Utkin's funny actions, his desire to stand out from the crowd, are typical for a petty provincial official. The comic of the story is based on the deep exposure of the psychology of a worthless person, but claiming a higher status, so laughter is colored with notes of sadness. This makes N. Teffi also related to N.V. Gogol. The “little man” in the image of N. Teffi, his true essence, is so adapted and harmonious in the reality surrounding him, which has a permanent modal assessment of the author, which seems to be a worthy product and a semantic continuation of the environment that brought him up, but hostile to him. And if the hero A.P. Chekhov can count on the reader's compassion due to the dramatic situation in which he finds himself, then the character of N. Teffi is placed in the situation of an episode that constitutes the content of the "society-individual" relationship as permanently antonymous. And therefore, faceless, insignificant characters in N. Teffi's short prose constitute an integral part of the environment, their internal and external content in the author's image acquires a harsher interpretation than the image of A.P. Chekhov, although both authors use irony as a way of seeing the world.

Introduction…………………………………………………………………………...3

Chapter 2

2.1. "Little Man" in the works of A.S. Griboedova…………………9

2.2. The development of the image of the “little man” by N.V. Gogol………………..10

2.3. The theme of the "little man" in the work of M.Yu. Lermontov…………..10

2.4. F.M. Dostoevsky, as a successor to the theme of the "little man" ....11

2.5. Vision of the image of the "little man" L.N. Tolstoy…………………..13

2.6. The theme of the "little man" in the works of N.S. Leskova……………16

2.7. A.P. Chekhov and the "little man" in his stories………………………17

2.8. Creation of the image of the “little man” by Maxim Gorky…………..20

2.9. "Little Man" in "Garnet Bracelet" by A.I. Kuprin…………21

2.10. The theme of "Little Man" by A.N. Ostrovsky……………………...21

Conclusion………………………………………………………………………….23

List of literature sources………………………………………………...25

Definition "small man" applied to the category of literary heroes of the era realism, usually occupying a rather low place in the social hierarchy: a petty official, a tradesman, or even a poor nobleman. The image of the "little man" turned out to be all the more relevant, the more democratic literature became. The very concept of "little man" is most likely in use introduced Belinsky(Article 1840 "Woe from Wit"). The theme of the "little man" is raised by many writers. It has always been relevant, because its task is reflect the life of a simple person with all its experiences, problems, troubles and small joys. The writer takes on the hard work of showing and explaining the lives of ordinary people. "The little man is the representative of the whole people. And each writer represents him in his own way.

In world literature, one can single out a novel-parable Franz Kafka“A castle that reveals the tragic impotence of a little man and his unwillingness to reconcile with fate.

In German literature, the image of the "little man" gravitated Gerhart Hauptmann in his dramas Before Sunrise and The Lonely. The wealth of images of the "little man" in the works of Hauptmann gives rise to many different options (from a poorly educated carter to a subtle intellectual). Continued the tradition of Hauptmann Hans Fallada.

In Russian literature of the 19th century, the image of the image of a small man became especially popular. Worked on it Pushkin, Lermontov, Gogol, Gribodoev, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Leo Tolstoy and many other writers.

The idea of ​​a "little man" changed throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries. Each writer also had his own personal views on this hero. But since the second third of the 20th century, this image has disappeared from the pages of literary works, since the method of socialist realism does not imply such a hero.

Chapter 1. The image of the "little man" in the works of A.S.

Pushkin

The greatest poet of the 19th century, A.S. Pushkin, also did not leave unnoticed the theme of the “little man”, only he turned his gaze not to the image of a kneeling man, but to the fate of an unfortunate person, showing us his pure soul, unspoiled by wealth and prosperity, who knows how to rejoice, love , suffer. This is a story "Station Master" included in the cycle Belkin's Tale. Pushkin sympathizes with his hero.

Initially, his life is not easy.

"Who did not curse the stationmasters, who did not scold them? Who, in a moment of anger, did not demand from them a fatal book in order to write in it their useless complaint of oppression, rudeness and malfunction? Who does not consider them monsters of the human race, equal to the deceased let's be fair, let's try to understand their position, and maybe we'll judge them much more leniently. not always ... Peace, day or night. All the annoyance accumulated during a boring ride, the traveler vents on the caretaker. The weather is unbearable, the road is bad, the coachman is stubborn, the horses are not driven - and the caretaker is to blame. Entering his poor dwelling, the traveler looks at him as an enemy; well, if he soon manages to get rid of the uninvited guest; but if there are no horses? God! what curses, what threats will fall on his catch! In rain and sleet he is forced to run around the yards; in the storm, in the Epiphany frost, he goes into the canopy, so that only for a moment can he rest from the screams and pushes of the irritated guest ... Let us delve into all this carefully, and instead of indignation, our heart will be filled with sincere compassion.

But the hero of the story Samson Vyrin, remains a happy and calm person. He is accustomed to his service and has a good assistant daughter.

He dreams of simple happiness, grandchildren, a large family, but fate disposes differently. Hussar Minsky, while passing by, takes his daughter Dunya with him. After an unsuccessful attempt to return his daughter, when the hussar "with a strong hand, grabbing the old man by the collar, pushed him onto the stairs," Vyrin was no longer able to fight. And the unfortunate old man dies of longing, grieving about her possible deplorable fate.

Eugene, the hero of The Bronze Horseman, looks like Samson Vyrin.
Our hero lives in Kolomna, serves somewhere, shy of nobles. He does not make great plans for the future, he is satisfied with a quiet, inconspicuous life.

He also hopes for his personal, albeit small, but family happiness that he needs so much.

But all his dreams are in vain, because evil fate breaks into his life: the element destroys his beloved. Eugene cannot resist fate, he quietly worries about his loss. And only in a state of madness does he threaten the Bronze Horseman, considering the man who built the city on this dead place to be the culprit of his misfortune. Pushkin looks at his heroes from the side. They do not stand out either in intelligence or in their position in society, but they are kind and decent people, and therefore worthy of respect and sympathy. In the novel "Captain's daughter" the category of "little people" includes Petr Andreevich Grinev And captain Mironov. They are distinguished by the same qualities: kindness, justice, decency, the ability to love and respect people. But they have another very good quality - to remain faithful to the given word. Pushkin took out the saying in the epigraph: "Take care of honor from a young age." They saved their honor. And just as dear to A.S. Pushkin, as are the heroes of his previously named works.

Pushkin puts forward a democratic theme in them
little man (the story "The Stationmaster"), anticipating Gogol's "Overcoat".

Here is what he writes in his critical article "Pushkin's Artistic Prose" literary critic S.M. Petrov:

"Tales of Belkin" appeared in print first realistic work Russian prose. Along with the traditional themes from the life of the nobility ("The Young Lady-Peasant Woman"), Pushkin puts forward in them democratic theme of the little man(the story "The Stationmaster"), anticipating Gogol's "Overcoat".

Belkin's Tales was Pushkin's polemical response to the main currents of contemporary Russian prose. the truthfulness of the image, deep insight into human nature, the absence of any didacticism "Station master" Pushkin put an end to influence
sentimental and didactic story about a little man like "Poor Liza" Karamzin. Idealized images, plot situations of a sentimental story deliberately created for didactic purposes are replaced by real types and everyday pictures, depicting the true joys and sorrows of life.

deep humanism Pushkin's story is opposed to the abstract sensitivity of the sentimental story. The mannered language of the sentimental story, falling into moralistic rhetoric, gives way to a simple and unsophisticated narrative, like the story of the old caretaker about his Dun. Realism replaces sentimentalism in Russian prose.

D. Blagoy considers the image of the “little man”, the unpretentious “college registrar”, to be the crown of Pushkin’s realism, its consistent completion, even going so far as to directly identify the life ideals of Eugene (“The Bronze Horseman”), the most typical of a series of such heroes, with the aspirations of the poet himself.

“In reality, Pushkin of the 1930s, who more than once sympathetically depicted the life and life of “little people”, endowed the latter with warm human feelings, at the same time could not help but see the limitations, the paucity of the spiritual needs of a petty official, tradesman, impoverished nobleman. Pitying the "little man", Pushkin at the same time shows the petty-bourgeois narrowness of his requests.

How typical is the type of French teacher in Dubrovsky:

“I have an old mother, I will send half of my salary to her for food, from the rest of the money in five years I can save up a small capital - sufficient for my future independence, and then bonsoir, I’m going to Paris and embarking on a commercial turn.” - Emphasizes A. Grushkin in article "The Image of a Folk Hero in the Works of Pushkin in the 1930s".

Sometimes little man image at Alexander Sergeevich go into the description of the folk hero. Let us turn to a fragment of the same article by Grushkin:

“In the Songs of the Western Slavs, he found this hero. The latter, it would seem, is endowed with all the features of a “little man”. At first glance, we have before us an undemanding, simple person, whose way of life is primitive to the extreme. What, for example, would you like to tell the old father, who is already “beyond the grave”, the hero of the “Funeral Song?”

Have you noticed how the course of history affects the literary process? How, with changes in real life, the emergence of new laws, a change of power, scientific and technical development, various problems arise before the writer, the solutions to which are dictated, again, by the political situation in the country?

One of the eternal problems of literature in general and Russian literature in particular is the problem of the “little” person. Small not by biological parameters: he didn’t grow up, he doesn’t reach the others, but because he occupies a certain social position that does not allow him to become someone more than what he is.

We can already see individual touches of such images in Pushkin's work. Let's remember the "Station Master": a poor, unfortunate old man, from whom his own daughter was taken away by deceit - why not an example of a "little" person? But this is still only a sketch, an echo of the real image of the “little” person.

Dear reader, do not reproach the author of this essay if you catch Chernyshevsky in taking the position on Russian literature of the middle of the 19th century, because it is difficult to disagree with Nikolai Grigorievich that the emergence of a national character, and with it the “little” person, is connected with the work of N. Gogol. A textbook example in this regard is Gogol's story "The Overcoat". Here we already see something different, a different author's position, the famous "laughter through tears", when a person is both ridiculous and terrifying in his absurdity. But it's a pity for him - so defenseless. By the way, we note that this image is also relevant for our century: it is no coincidence that Yu. Nornshtein has been creating an animated film based on the story for more than a year.

The image of a “little” person receives the next round of development already in the work of F. Dostoevsky. We open the pages of "Poor People" - before us is Makar Devushkin, a typical representative of the "humiliated and insulted." But what does he say about Gogol's "Overcoat" mentioned above?

“I would, for example, do this; and what is special about him, what is good about him? So, some empty example from everyday, vile life. And how did you decide to send me such a book, my dear. Why, this is a malicious book, Varenka; it is simply implausible, because it cannot happen that there is such an official. Why, after such a thing, one must complain, Varenka, formally complain.

A “small” person rebels, “works out his own style”, he does not agree with his position, does not agree that anyone has the right to humiliate him

It has. And this is not accidental, because it was at this time that there appeared in philosophy, and at the same time in literature, provisions on the self-worth of each person, on individuality. But where will this "individuality" lead? Is it not to the Raskolnikovs, who ask themselves the question “Am I a trembling creature or do I have a right?”? ...

From the middle to the end of the century, the work of many writers is filled with descriptions of the life of “little” people: these are the works of Nekrasov, and Garshin, and Herzen, and Chekhov, etc. And the characters are representatives of different social strata, occupying different social positions - actresses, peasants, military...

Particularly interesting in this regard is A. Chekhov at an early stage of his career with his humorous and sarcastic jokes. A whole kaleidoscope of stories in which the main character is a "small" person - "Thick and Thin", "Chameleon", "Unter Prishibey" - allows us to understand the author's attitude towards people of a similar warehouse. All of them are insignificant, timid, and therefore grovel before people who are higher than them on the social ladder. Chekhov despises such characters. This is no longer Gogol's "laughter through tears" - this is bitter despair at the impoverishment of the moral spirit in a person. It is understandable: the crisis era of the end of the century is coming, the end, the withering away of all traditional moral foundations and the expectation of something new, still unknown and terrible in its uncertainty (not accidentally terrible, if we remember what history has prepared for Russia at the beginning of the twentieth century).

One century changes for another, a person changes, his place in literature changes. And it will be so as long as there is literature, and people, and the movement of history.

References:

1. Chernyshevsky N.G. Essays on the Gogol period of Russian literature [Electronic resource] URL : http://az.lib.ru/c/chernyshewskij_n_g/text_0210.shtml - 20.05.18

The image of the "little man" in Russian literature

The very concept of "little man" appears in literature before the very type of hero is formed. Initially, this is the designation of people of the third estate, which became of interest to writers due to the democratization of literature.

In the 19th century, the image of the "little man" becomes one of the cross-cutting themes of literature. The concept of "little man" was introduced by V.G. Belinsky in his 1840 article "Woe from Wit". Initially, it meant a "simple" person. With the development of psychologism in Russian literature, this image acquires a more complex psychological portrait and becomes the most popular character in the democratic works of the second half. XIX century.

Literary encyclopedia:

"Little Man" is a number of diverse characters in Russian literature of the 19th century, united by common features: a low position in the social hierarchy, poverty, insecurity, which determines the peculiarities of their psychology and plot role - victims of social injustice and a soulless state mechanism, often personified in the image "significant person". They are characterized by fear of life, humiliation, meekness, which, however, can be combined with a sense of the injustice of the existing order of things, with wounded pride and even a short-term rebellious impulse, which, as a rule, does not lead to a change in the current situation. The type of "little man", discovered by A. S. Pushkin ("The Bronze Horseman", "The Stationmaster") and N. V. Gogol ("The Overcoat", "Notes of a Madman"), creatively, and sometimes polemically in relation to tradition , rethought by F. M. Dostoevsky (Makar Devushkin, Golyadkin, Marmeladov), A. N. Ostrovsky (Balzaminov, Kuligin), A. P. Chekhov (Chervyakov from "The Death of an Official", the hero of "Tolstoy and Thin"), M. A. Bulgakov (Korotkov from the Diaboliad), M. M. Zoshchenko and other Russian writers of the 19th-20th centuries.

“Little man” is a type of hero in literature, most often it is a poor, inconspicuous official who occupies a small position, his fate is tragic.

The theme of the "little man" is a "cross-cutting theme" of Russian literature. The appearance of this image is due to the Russian career ladder of fourteen steps, on the lower of which small officials worked and suffered from poverty, lack of rights and insults, poorly educated, often lonely or burdened with families, worthy of human understanding, each with his own misfortune.

Little people are not rich, invisible, their fate is tragic, they are defenseless.

Pushkin "The Stationmaster" Samson Vyrin.

Hard worker. Weak person. He loses his daughter - she is taken away by the rich hussar Minsky. social conflict. Humiliated. Can't take care of himself. Got drunk. Samson is lost in life.

Pushkin was one of the first to put forward the democratic theme of the “little man” in literature. In Belkin's Tales, completed in 1830, the writer not only draws pictures of the life of the nobility and county ("The Young Lady-Peasant Woman"), but also draws the attention of readers to the fate of the "little man".

The fate of the "little man" is shown here realistically for the first time, without sentimental tearfulness, without romantic exaggeration, as a result of certain historical conditions, the injustice of social relations.

In the very plot of The Stationmaster, a typical social conflict is conveyed, a broad generalization of reality is expressed, revealed in the individual case of the tragic fate of an ordinary man Samson Vyrin.

There is a small postal station somewhere at the crossroads of carriageways. The 14th grade official Samson Vyrin and his daughter Dunya live here - the only joy that brightens up the hard life of the caretaker, full of shouting and cursing passing people. But the hero of the story - Samson Vyrin - is quite happy and calm, he has long adapted to the conditions of service, the beautiful daughter Dunya helps him run a simple household. He dreams of simple human happiness, hoping to babysit his grandchildren, spend his old age with his family. But fate prepares a difficult test for him. The passing hussar Minsky takes away Dunya, not thinking about the consequences of his act.

The worst thing is that Dunya left with the hussar of her own free will. Having crossed the threshold of a new, rich life, she abandoned her father. Samson Vyrin goes to St. Petersburg to "return the lost lamb", but he is kicked out of Dunya's house. The hussar "with a strong hand, grabbing the old man by the collar, pushed him onto the stairs." Unhappy father! Where can he compete with a rich hussar! In the end, for his daughter, he receives several banknotes. “Tears again welled up in his eyes, tears of indignation! He squeezed the papers into a ball, threw them on the ground, stamped them with his heel and went ... "

Vyrin was no longer able to fight. He "thought, waved his hand and decided to retreat." Samson, after the loss of his beloved daughter, got lost in life, drank himself and died in longing for his daughter, grieving about her possible deplorable fate.

About people like him, Pushkin writes at the beginning of the story: “Let us, however, be fair, we will try to enter into their position and, perhaps, we will judge them much more condescendingly.”

Life truth, sympathy for the "little man", insulted at every step by the bosses, standing higher in rank and position - that's what we feel when reading the story. Pushkin cherishes this "little man" who lives in grief and need. The story is imbued with democracy and humanity, so realistically depicting the “little man”.

Pushkin "The Bronze Horseman". Eugene

Eugene is a "little man". The city played a fatal role in fate. During the flood, he loses his bride. All his dreams and hopes for happiness perished. Lost my mind. In sick madness, he challenges the "idol on a bronze horse" Nightmare: the threat of death under bronze hooves.

The image of Eugene embodies the idea of ​​confrontation between the common man and the state.

"The poor man was not afraid for himself." "The blood boiled." “A flame ran through the heart”, “Already for you!”. Yevgeny's protest is an instant impulse, but stronger than that of Samson Vyrin.

The image of a shining, lively, magnificent city is replaced in the first part of the poem by a picture of a terrible, destructive flood, expressive images of a raging element over which a person has no power. Among those whose lives were destroyed by the flood is Eugene, whose peaceful cares the author speaks at the beginning of the first part of the poem. Eugene is an “ordinary man” (“small” man): he has neither money nor ranks, he “serves somewhere” and dreams of making himself a “humble and simple shelter” in order to marry his beloved girl and go through life with her.

…Our hero

Lives in Kolomna, serves somewhere,

The nobles shy away…

He does not make great plans for the future, he is satisfied with a quiet, inconspicuous life.

What was he thinking about? About,

That he was poor, that he labored

He had to deliver

And independence, and honor;

What could God add to him

Mind and money.

The poem does not indicate either the hero's surname or his age, nothing is said about Yevgeny's past, his appearance, character traits. By depriving Yevgeny of individual features, the author turns him into an ordinary, typical person from the crowd. However, in an extreme, critical situation, Eugene seems to wake up from a dream, and throws off the guise of "insignificance" and opposes the "copper idol". In a state of madness, he threatens the Bronze Horseman, considering the man who built the city on this dead place to be the culprit of his misfortune.

Pushkin looks at his heroes from the side. They do not stand out either in intelligence or in their position in society, but they are kind and decent people, and therefore worthy of respect and sympathy.

Conflict

Pushkin for the first time in Russian literature showed all the tragedy and insolubility of the conflict between the state and state interests and the interests of the private individual.

The plot of the poem is completed, the hero died, but the central conflict remained and was transferred to the readers, not resolved and in reality itself, the antagonism of the “tops” and “bottoms”, the autocratic power and the destitute people remained. The symbolic victory of the Bronze Horseman over Eugene is a victory of strength, but not of justice.

Gogol "Overcoat" Akaki Akikievich Bashmachkin

"Eternal titular adviser". Resignedly takes down the ridicule of colleagues, timid and lonely. poor spiritual life. Irony and compassion of the author. The image of the city, which is terrible for the hero. Social conflict: "little man" and soulless representative of the authorities "significant person". The element of fantasy (casting) is the motive of rebellion and retribution.

Gogol opens the reader to the world of "little people", officials in his "Petersburg Tales". The story "The Overcoat" is especially significant for the disclosure of this topic, Gogol had a great influence on the further movement of Russian literature, "responding" in the work of its most diverse figures from Dostoevsky and Shchedrin to Bulgakov and Sholokhov. “We all came out of Gogol's overcoat,” wrote Dostoevsky.

Akaky Akakievich Bashmachkin - "eternal titular adviser." He resignedly endures the ridicule of his colleagues, he is timid and lonely. The senseless clerical service killed every living thought in him. His spiritual life is poor. The only pleasure he finds in the correspondence of papers. He lovingly drew the letters in a clean, even handwriting and completely immersed himself in work, forgetting the insults caused to him by his colleagues, and the need, and worries about food and comfort. Even at home, he only thought that "God will send something to rewrite tomorrow."

But even in this downtrodden official, a man woke up when the goal of life appeared - a new overcoat. In the story, the development of the image is observed. “He became somehow more alive, even firmer in character. Doubt, indecision disappeared by itself from his face and from his actions ... ”Bashmachkin does not part with his dream for a single day. He thinks about it, as another person thinks about love, about family. Here he orders a new overcoat for himself, “... his existence has become somehow fuller ...” The description of Akaky Akakievich’s life is permeated with irony, but there is both pity and sadness in it. Introducing us into the spiritual world of the hero, describing his feelings, thoughts, dreams, joys and sorrows, the author makes it clear what happiness it was for Bashmachkin to acquire an overcoat and what a disaster its loss turns into.

There was no happier person than Akaky Akakievich when the tailor brought him an overcoat. But his joy was short-lived. When he returned home at night, he was robbed. And none of those around him takes part in his fate. In vain Bashmachkin sought help from a "significant person." He was even accused of rebellion against superiors and "higher". Frustrated Akaki Akakievich catches a cold and dies.

In the finale, a small, timid man, driven to despair by the world of the strong, protests against this world. Dying, he "badly blasphemes", utters the most terrible words that followed the words "your excellency." It was a riot, albeit in a deathbed delirium.

It is not because of the overcoat that the “little man” dies. He becomes a victim of bureaucratic "inhumanity" and "ferocious rudeness", which, according to Gogol, lurks under the guise of "refined, educated secularism." This is the deepest meaning of the story.

The theme of rebellion finds expression in the fantastic image of a ghost that appears on the streets of St. Petersburg after the death of Akaky Akakievich and takes off his overcoats from offenders.

N.V. Gogol, who in his story "The Overcoat" for the first time shows the spiritual stinginess, squalor of poor people, but also draws attention to the ability of the "little man" to rebel and for this he introduces elements of fantasy into his work.

N. V. Gogol deepens the social conflict: the writer showed not only the life of the “little man”, but also his protest against injustice. Let this "rebellion" be timid, almost fantastic, but the hero stands up for his rights, against the foundations of the existing order.

Dostoevsky "Crime and Punishment" Marmeladov

The writer himself remarked: "We all came out of Gogol's Overcoat."

Dostoevsky's novel is imbued with the spirit of Gogol's "Overcoat" "Poor people And". This is a story about the fate of the same "little man", crushed by grief, despair and social lawlessness. The correspondence of the poor official Makar Devushkin with Varenka, who lost her parents and is persecuted by a procuress, reveals the deep drama of the life of these people. Makar and Varenka are ready for each other for any hardships. Makar, living in extreme need, helps Varya. And Varya, having learned about the situation of Makar, comes to his aid. But the heroes of the novel are defenseless. Their rebellion is "rebellion on their knees." Nobody can help them. Varya is taken away to certain death, and Makar is left alone with his grief. Broken, crippled life of two wonderful people, broken by cruel reality.

Dostoevsky reveals the deep and strong experiences of "little people".

It is curious to note that Makar Devushkin reads Pushkin's The Stationmaster and Gogol's The Overcoat. He is sympathetic to Samson Vyrin and hostile to Bashmachkin. Probably because he sees his future in him.

F.M. told about the fate of the “little man” Semyon Semyonovich Marmeladov. Dostoevsky on the pages of the novel "Crime and Punishment". One by one, the writer reveals before us pictures of hopeless poverty. Dostoevsky chose the dirtiest part of strictly St. Petersburg as the scene of action. Against the background of this landscape, the life of the Marmeladov family unfolds before us.

If Chekhov's characters are humiliated, do not realize their insignificance, then Dostoevsky's drunken retired official fully understands his uselessness, uselessness. He is a drunkard, insignificant, from his point of view, a person who wants to improve, but cannot. He understands that he has condemned his family, and especially his daughter, to suffering, worries about this, despises himself, but cannot help himself. “Pity! Why pity me!” Marmeladov suddenly yelled, standing up with his hand outstretched… “Yes! There’s nothing to pity me for! Crucify me on the cross, and don’t pity me!

Dostoevsky creates the image of a real fallen person: Marmelad's importunate sweetness, clumsy ornate speech - the property of a beer tribune and a jester at the same time. Awareness of his baseness (“I am a born cattle”) only strengthens his bravado. He is disgusting and pitiful at the same time, this drunkard Marmeladov with his ornate speech and important bureaucratic posture.

The state of mind of this petty official is much more complex and subtle than that of his literary predecessors - Pushkin's Samson Vyrin and Gogol's Bashmachkin. They do not have the power of introspection, which the hero of Dostoevsky achieved. Marmeladov not only suffers, but also analyzes his state of mind, he, as a doctor, makes a merciless diagnosis of the disease - the degradation of his own personality. Here is how he confesses in his first meeting with Raskolnikov: “Dear Sir, poverty is not a vice, it is the truth. But ... poverty is a vice - p. In poverty, you still retain all the nobility of innate feelings, but in poverty, never anyone ... for in poverty I myself am the first ready to offend myself.

A person not only perishes from poverty, but understands how he is spiritually devastated: he begins to despise himself, but does not see anything around him to cling to, which would keep him from the decay of his personality. The finale of Marmeladov's life fate is tragic: on the street he was crushed by a dandy gentleman's carriage drawn by a pair of horses. Throwing himself under their feet, this man himself found the outcome of his life.

Under the pen of the writer Marmeladov becomes a tragic way. Marmelad's cry - "after all, it is necessary that every person could at least go somewhere" - expresses the last degree of despair of a dehumanized person and reflects the essence of his life drama: there is nowhere to go and no one to go to.

In the novel, Raskolnikov sympathizes with Marmeladov. Meeting with Marmeladov in a tavern, his feverish, as if delirious, confession gave the protagonist of the novel Raskolnikov one of the last proofs of the correctness of the “Napoleonic idea”. But not only Raskolnikov sympathizes with Marmeladov. “More than once they have already pitied me,” says Marmeladov to Raskolnikov. The good general Ivan Afanasyevich also took pity on him, and again accepted him into the service. But Marmeladov could not stand the test, he took to drink again, drank all his salary, drank everything, and in return received a tattered tailcoat with a single button. Marmeladov in his behavior reached the point of losing the last human qualities. He is already so humiliated that he does not feel like a man, but only dreams of being a man among people. Sonya Marmeladova understands and forgives her father, who is able to help her neighbor, to sympathize with those who so need compassion

Dostoevsky makes us feel sorry for the unworthy of pity, to feel compassion for the unworthy of compassion. "Compassion is the most important and, perhaps, the only law of human existence," said Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky.

Chekhov "Death of an official", "Thick and thin"

Later, Chekhov would sum up a peculiar result in the development of the theme, he doubted the virtues traditionally sung by Russian literature - the high moral merits of the "little man" - a petty official. Chekhov. If Chekhov “exposed” something in people, then, first of all, it was their ability and readiness to be “small”. A person should not, does not dare to make himself "small" - this is Chekhov's main idea in his interpretation of the "little man" theme. Summing up all that has been said, we can conclude that the theme of the "little man" reveals the most important qualities of Russian literature. XIX century - democracy and humanism.

Over time, the "little man", deprived of his own dignity, "humiliated and insulted", causes not only compassion, but also condemnation among progressive writers. “Your life is boring, gentlemen,” Chekhov said with his work to the “little man”, resigned to his position. With subtle humor, the writer ridicules the death of Ivan Chervyakov, from whose lips the lackey “Yourself” has not left his lips all his life.

In the same year as "The Death of an Official", the story "Thick and Thin" appears. Chekhov again opposes philistinism, servility. The collegiate servant Porfiry giggles, "like a Chinese", bowing in an obsequious bow, having met his former friend, who has a high rank. The feeling of friendship that connected these two people is forgotten.

Kuprin "Garnet bracelet".Zheltkov

In AI Kuprin's "Garnet Bracelet" Zheltkov is a "little man". Once again, the hero belongs to the lower class. But he loves, and he loves in a way that many of the highest society are not capable of. Zheltkov fell in love with a girl and for the rest of his life he loved only her alone. He understood that love is a sublime feeling, it is a chance given to him by fate, and it should not be missed. His love is his life, his hope. Zheltkov commits suicide. But after the death of the hero, the woman realizes that no one loved her as much as he did. The hero of Kuprin is a man of an extraordinary soul, capable of self-sacrifice, able to truly love, and such a gift is a rarity. Therefore, the "little man" Zheltkov appears as a figure towering above those around him.

Thus, the theme of the "little man" underwent significant changes in the work of writers. Drawing images of "little people", writers usually emphasized their weak protest, downtroddenness, which subsequently leads the "little man" to degradation. But each of these heroes has something in life that helps him endure existence: Samson Vyrin has a daughter, the joy of life, Akaky Akakievich has an overcoat, Makar Devushkin and Varenka have their love and care for each other. Having lost this goal, they die, unable to survive the loss.

In conclusion, I would like to say that a person should not be small. In one of his letters to his sister, Chekhov exclaimed: “My God, how rich Russia is in good people!”

In XX century, the theme was developed in the images of the heroes of I. Bunin, A. Kuprin, M. Gorky, and even at the end XX century, you can find its reflection in the work of V. Shukshin, V. Rasputin and other writers.