Russian literature of the late XIX - early XX centuries. The Literary Process of the Late 19th - Early 20th Century Russian Writers on Creativity and Artistic Perception

The last decade of the 19th century opens a new stage in Russian, and in world culture. Major fundamental discoveries in the natural sciences, including Albert Einstein's theory of relativity, dramatically shook the previous ideas about the structure of the world, formed in the traditions of the European Enlightenment and based on judgments about unambiguous regularities, on the fundamental principle of the predictability of a natural phenomenon. The repeatability and predictability of processes were considered as generic properties of causality in general. On this basis, formed positivist principles of thinking, dominating world science in the 19th century. These principles also extended to the social sphere: human life was understood as completely determined by external circumstances, by one or another chain of effective causes. Although not everything in human life could be satisfactorily explained, it was assumed that science would someday achieve universal omniscience, be able to understand and subordinate the whole world to human reason. New discoveries sharply contradicted ideas about the structural completeness of the world. What once seemed stable turned into instability and endless mobility. It turned out that any explanation is not universal and requires additions - this is ideological consequence of the complementarity principle, born in the mainstream of theoretical physics. Moreover, the idea of ​​the knowability of the world, which was previously considered an axiom, turned out to be in doubt.

The complication of ideas about the physical picture of the world was accompanied by reassessment of the principles of understanding history. The previously unshakable model of historical progress, based on the concept of a linear relationship between causes and effects, was replaced by an understanding of the conventionality and approximateness of any historiosophical logic. The crisis of historical ideas was expressed, first of all, in the loss of a universal starting point, one or another worldview foundation. A variety of social development theories have emerged. In particular, widespread Marxism, who relied on the development of industry and the emergence of a new revolutionary class - the proletariat, free from property, united by the conditions of common labor in a team and ready to actively fight for social justice. In the political sphere, this meant the rejection of the enlightenment of the early and the terrorism of the late populists and the transition to the organized struggle of the masses - up to the violent overthrow of the system and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat over all other classes.

At the turn of the XIX-XX centuries. the idea of ​​a man not only rebellious, but also capable of remaking the era, creating history, in addition to the philosophy of Marxism, is developed in the work of M. Gorky and his followers, who persistently brought to the fore the Man with a capital letter, the owner of the earth. Gorky's favorite heroes were the semi-legendary Novgorod merchant Vaska Buslaev and the biblical character Job, who challenged God himself. Gorky believed that revolutionary activity to rebuild the world transforms and enriches the inner world of a person. So, the heroine of his novel "Mother" (1907), Pelageya Nilovpa, becoming a member of the revolutionary movement, feels a maternal feeling of love not only for her son, but also for all oppressed and disenfranchised people.

The rebellious beginning sounded more anarchic in the early poetry of V.V. Mayakovsky, in the poems and poems of V. Khlebnikov, A.N. Kruchenykh, D.D. industrial utopias.

Another large group of writers, convinced after the tragic events of March 1, 1881 (the assassination of the Tsar-Liberator) and especially after the defeat of the revolution of 1905 in the futility of violent methods of influencing society, came to the idea of ​​spiritual transformation, albeit a slow but consistent improvement of the inner world person. The guiding worldview star for them was Pushkin's idea of ​​the inner harmony of man. They considered close to themselves in spirit the writers of the post-Pushkin era - N. V. Gogol, M. Yu. Lermontov, F. I. Tyutchev, F. M. Dostoevsky, who felt the tragedy of the destruction of world harmony, but longed for it and foresaw its restoration in the future .

It was these writers who saw in the Pushkin era golden age national culture and taking into account the fundamental changes in the socio-cultural context, they sought to develop its traditions, nevertheless realizing the dramatic complexity of such a task. And although the culture of the turn of the century is much more contradictory and internally conflicted than the culture of the first half of the 19th century, the new literary era will later receive (in the memoirs, literary criticism and journalism of the Russian emigration of the 1920s-1930s) a bright appraisal name - "Silver Age ". This historical and literary metaphor, linking the literature of the beginning of the century with the literature of the 19th century, in the second half of the 20th century. will acquire a terminological status and will be extended, in fact, to the entire literature of the turn of the century: this is how it is customary to call the era of M. Gorky and A. A. Blok, I. I. Bunin and A. A. Akhmatova in our time. Although these writers looked at the world and the place of man in it very differently, there was something that united them: an awareness of the crisis, the transition of an era that was supposed to lead Russian society to new horizons of life.

The pluralism of political and philosophical views, shared by different writers, led to a radical change in the overall picture of artistic trends and trends. The former smooth stadiality, when, for example, classicism in literature gave way to sentimentalism, and that, in turn, was replaced by romanticism; when at each stage of the history of literature a dominant position was occupied by some one direction, such a stage-by-stage nature is a thing of the past. Now different aesthetic systems existed at the same time.

In parallel and, as a rule, in struggle with each other, realism and modernism, the largest literary movements, developed, while realism was not a homogeneous formation in terms of style, but was a complex complex of several "realisms" (each variety requires an additional definitions). Modernism, in turn, was characterized by extreme internal instability: various currents and groupings were continuously transformed, emerged and disintegrated, united and differentiated. The new situation created the ground for the most unexpected combinations and interactions: stylistically intermediate works appeared, short-lived associations arose, trying to combine the principles of realism and modernism in their artistic practice. That is why, in relation to the art of the beginning of the 20th century. the classification of phenomena on the basis of "directions" and "currents" is obviously conditional, non-absolute.

I. Early 1890s - 1905 1892 The code of laws of the Russian Empire: "the duty of complete obedience to the tsar", whose power was declared "autocratic and unlimited" Industrial production is developing rapidly. The social consciousness of the new class, the proletariat, is growing. The first political strike of the Orekhovo-Zuevskaya manufactory. The court recognized the workers' demands as fair. Emperor Nicholas II. The first political parties were formed: 1898 - Social Democrats, 1905 - Constitutional Democrats, 1901 - Social Revolutionaries

Genre - novel and short story. Weakened storyline. Interested in the subconscious, and not the "dialetics of the soul", the dark, instinctive sides of the personality, elemental feelings that are not understood by the person himself. The image of the author comes to the fore, the task is to show his own, subjective perception of life. There is no direct author's position - everything goes into the subtext (philosophical, ideological) The role of the detail increases. Poetic devices pass into prose. Realism (neorealism)

Modernism. Symbolism of the year. In D.S. Merezhkovsky's article "On the Causes of the Decline and New Trends in Modern Russian Literature", modernism receives a theoretical justification. The older generation of symbolists: Merezhkovsky, Gippius, Bryusov, Balmont, Fyodor Sologub. The Young Symbolists: Blok, A. Bely The World of Art Journal, Ed. Princess M. K. Tenisheva and S. I. Mamontov, eds. S. P. Diaghilev, A. N. Benois (Petersburg) K. Balmont V. Bryusov Merezhkovsky D

Symbolism Focused mainly through the symbol of intuitively comprehended entities and ideas, vague feelings and visions; The desire to penetrate the secrets of being and consciousness, to see through the visible reality the supertemporal ideal essence of the world and its Beauty. Eternal Femininity World Soul “Mirror to mirror, compare two reflections, and put a candle between them. Two depths without a bottom, colored by the flame of a candle, will deepen themselves, mutually deepen one another, enrich the flame of the candle and merge into one. This is the image of the verse. (K. Balmont) Dear friend, don't you see that everything we see is only a reflection, only shadows From invisible eyes? Dear friend, do you not hear That the noise of life is crackling - Only a distorted response Of triumphant consonances (Soloviev) Pale young man with burning eyes, Now I give you three testaments: First accept: do not live in the present, Only the future is the domain of the poet. Remember the second: do not sympathize with anyone, Love yourself infinitely. Keep the third: worship art, Only him, undividedly, aimlessly (Bryusov)

1905 - one of the key years in the history of Russia. This year a revolution took place, which began with "Bloody Sunday" on January 9, the first tsarist manifesto was published, limiting the power of the monarchy in favor of subjects, proclaiming the Duma as the legislative authorities, approving civil liberties, creating a council of ministers in led by Witte, the armed uprising in Moscow, which was the peak of the revolution, the uprising in Sevastopol, etc.

Years. Russo-Japanese War

III - 1920s

Crisis of Symbolism. Article by A. Blok "On the current state of Russian symbolism" 1911. The most radical direction appears, denying all previous culture, the avant-garde - futurism. In Khlebnikov, V. Mayakovsky, I. Severyanin.

Futurism is the desire to create "the art of the future", the denial of the heritage of the "past" - the traditions of culture. language experimentation "zaum" Manor at night, Genghis Khan! Make some noise, blue birches. Dawn of the night, zaratustr! And the sky is blue, mozart! And, dusk clouds, be Goya! You are at night, cloud, roops!

A slap in the face of public taste Reading our New First Unexpected. Only we are the face of our Time. The horn of time blows us in verbal art. The past is tight. The Academy and Pushkin are more incomprehensible than hieroglyphs. Throw Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy and so on. from the steamer of modern times. Whoever does not forget his first love will not recognize his last. Who, gullible, will turn the last Love to the perfumery fornication of Balmont? Does it reflect the courageous soul of today? Who, cowardly, will be afraid to steal paper armor from the black tailcoat of Bryusov's warrior? Or are they the dawn of unknown beauties? Wash your hands that have touched the filthy slime of the books written by those innumerable Leonid Andreevs. To all these Maxim Gorky, Kuprin, Blok, Sollogub, Remizov, Averchenko, Cherny, Kuzmin, Bunin and so on. and so on. All you need is a cottage on the river. Such an award is given by fate to tailors. From the height of skyscrapers, we look at their insignificance! ... We order to honor the rights of poets: 1. To increase the vocabulary in its volume with arbitrary and derivative words (Word-innovation). 2. An irresistible hatred for the language that existed before them. 3. With horror, remove from your proud forehead from bath brooms the Wreath of penny glory you made. 4. To stand on a block of the word "we" in the midst of a sea of ​​whistling and indignation. And if the dirty stigmas of your “common sense” and “good taste” still remain in our lines, then for the first time the Lightning Lightnings of the New Coming Beauty of the Self-valuable (self-sufficient) Word are already trembling on them. D. Burliuk, Alexander Kruchenykh, V. Mayakovsky, Viktor Khlebnikov Moscow December

Features of the "Silver Age" 1. Elitism of literature, designed for a narrow circle of readers. Reminiscences and allusions. 2. The development of literature is connected with other types of art: 1. Theater: its own direction in the world theater - Stanislavsky, Meyerhold, Vakhtangov, M. Chekhov, Tairov 2. Painting: futurism (Malevich), symbolism (Vrubel), realism (Serov), acmeism (“World of Art”) 3. Huge influence of philosophy, many new world trends: N. Berdyaev, P. Florensky, S. Bulgakov, V. Solovyov; Nietzsche, Schopenhauer. 4. Discovery in psychology - Freud's theory of the subconscious. 5. Predominant development of poetry. Opening in the field of verse. - The musical sound of the verse. – Revival of genres – sonnet, madrigal, ballad, etc. 6. Innovation in prose: novel-symphony (A. Bely), modernist novel (F. Sollogub) 7. Isoteric teachings (spiritualism, occultism) – elements of mysticism in literature.

Konstantin Sergeevich Stanislavsky The key concepts of his famous system: the stages of the artist's work on the role, the method of transforming into a character, playing "ensembles" under the direction of the director, who performs a "role" similar to that of a conductor in an orchestra, a troupe as a living organism passing through different stages of development; and most importantly, the theory of cause-and-effect relationships of character An actor, entering the stage, performs a certain task within the logic of his character. But at the same time, each character exists in the general logic of the work, laid down by the author. The author created the work in accordance with some purpose, having some main idea. And the actor, in addition to performing a specific task associated with the character, should strive to convey the main idea to the viewer, try to achieve the main goal. The main idea of ​​the work or its main goal is the most important task. Acting is divided into three technologies: - craft (based on the use of ready-made stamps, by which the viewer can clearly understand what emotions the actor has in mind), - performance (in the process of long rehearsals, the actor experiences genuine experiences that automatically create a form of manifestation of these experiences , but at the performance itself the actor does not experience these feelings, but only reproduces the form, the finished external drawing of the role). -experience (the actor in the process of playing experiences genuine experiences, and this gives rise to the life of the image on stage).

Alexander Yakovlevich Tairov The idea of ​​the Free Theatre, which was supposed to combine tragedy and operetta, drama and farce, opera and pantomime The actor had to be a true creator, not constrained by either other people's thoughts or other people's words. The principle of "emotional gesture" instead of a pictorial or worldly authentic gesture. The performance should not follow the play in everything, because the performance itself is “a valuable work of art”. The main task of the director is to give the performer the opportunity to be liberated, to free the actor from everyday life. An eternal holiday should reign in the theater, it doesn’t matter if it’s a tragedy or comedy holiday, if only not to let the routine into the theater - “theatricalization of the theater”

Vsevolod Emilievich Meyerhold Craving for line, pattern, for a kind of visualization of music, turning the acting into a phantasmogorical symphony of lines and colors. "Biomechanics seeks to experimentally establish the laws of the actor's movement on the stage, working out the training exercises of the actor's game based on the norms of human behavior." (the psychological concept of W. James (about the primacy of the physical reaction in relation to the emotional reaction), on the reflexology of V. M. Bekhterev and the experiments of I. P. Pavlov.

Evgeny Bagrationovich Vakhtangov search for "modern ways to resolve the performance in a form that would sound theatrical" the idea of ​​the inseparable unity of the ethical and aesthetic purpose of the theater, the unity of the artist and the people, a keen sense of modernity, corresponding to the content of a dramatic work, its artistic features, defining a unique stage form

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, all aspects of Russian life were radically transformed: politics, economics, science, technology, culture, and art. There are various, sometimes directly opposite, assessments of the socio-economic and cultural prospects for the development of the country. The general feeling is the onset of a new era, which brings a change in the political situation and a reassessment of the old spiritual and aesthetic ideals. Literature could not but respond to the fundamental changes in the life of the country. There is a revision of artistic guidelines, a radical renewal of literary techniques. At this time, Russian poetry is developing especially dynamically. A little later, this period will be called the "poetic renaissance" or the Silver Age of Russian literature.

Realism in the early 20th century

Realism does not disappear, it continues to develop. L.N. is also actively working. Tolstoy, A.P. Chekhov and V.G. Korolenko, M. Gorky, I.A. Bunin, A.I. Kuprin ... Within the framework of the aesthetics of realism, the creative individualities of the writers of the 19th century found a vivid manifestation, their civic position and moral ideals - realism equally reflected the views of authors who share a Christian, primarily Orthodox, worldview - from F.M. Dostoevsky to I.A. Bunin, and those for whom this worldview was alien - from V.G. Belinsky to M. Gorky.

However, at the beginning of the 20th century, many writers were no longer satisfied with the aesthetics of realism - new aesthetic schools began to emerge. Writers unite in various groups, put forward creative principles, participate in polemics - literary movements are affirmed: symbolism, acmeism, futurism, imaginism, etc.

Symbolism in the early 20th century

Russian symbolism, the largest of the modernist movements, was born not only as a literary phenomenon, but also as a special worldview that combines artistic, philosophical and religious principles. The date of the emergence of a new aesthetic system is considered to be 1892, when D.S. Merezhkovsky made a report "On the Causes of the Decline and New Trends in Modern Russian Literature". It proclaimed the main principles of the future symbolists: "mystical content, symbols and the expansion of artistic impressionability." The central place in the aesthetics of symbolism was given to a symbol, an image that has a potential inexhaustibility of meaning.

To the rational cognition of the world, the Symbolists opposed the construction of the world in creativity, the cognition of the environment through art, which V. Bryusov defined as "comprehension of the world in other, non-rational ways." In the mythology of different peoples, the Symbolists found universal philosophical models with the help of which it is possible to comprehend the deep foundations of the human soul and solve the spiritual problems of our time. Representatives of this trend also paid special attention to the heritage of Russian classical literature - new interpretations of the work of Pushkin, Gogol, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Tyutchev were reflected in the works and articles of the Symbolists. Symbolism gave culture the names of outstanding writers - D. Merezhkovsky, A. Blok, Andrei Bely, V. Bryusov; the aesthetics of symbolism had a huge impact on many representatives of other literary movements.

Acmeism in the early 20th century

Acmeism was born in the bosom of symbolism: a group of young poets first founded the literary association "Poets' Workshop", and then proclaimed themselves representatives of a new literary trend - acmeism (from the Greek akme - the highest degree of something, flourishing, peak). Its main representatives are N. Gumilyov, A. Akhmatova, S. Gorodetsky, O. Mandelstam. Unlike the symbolists, who seek to know the unknowable, to comprehend the higher essences, the acmeists again turned to the value of human life, the diversity of the bright earthly world. The main requirement for the artistic form of the works was the picturesque clarity of images, verified and precise composition, stylistic balance, and sharpness of details. The acmeists assigned the most important place in the aesthetic system of values ​​to memory - a category associated with the preservation of the best domestic traditions and world cultural heritage.

Futurism in the early 20th century

Derogatory reviews of previous and contemporary literature were given by representatives of another modernist trend - futurism (from Latin futurum - future). A necessary condition for the existence of this literary phenomenon, its representatives considered an atmosphere of outrageousness, a challenge to public taste, a literary scandal. The futurists' craving for mass theatrical performances with dressing up, painting faces and hands was caused by the idea that poetry should come out of books into the square, sound in front of spectators-listeners. Futurists (V. Mayakovsky, V. Khlebnikov, D. Burliuk, A. Kruchenykh, E. Guro, and others) put forward a program for transforming the world with the help of a new art that abandoned the heritage of its predecessors. At the same time, unlike representatives of other literary movements, in substantiating creativity, they relied on fundamental sciences - mathematics, physics, philology. The formal and stylistic features of the poetry of futurism were the renewal of the meaning of many words, word creation, the rejection of punctuation marks, the special graphic design of poetry, the depoetization of the language (the introduction of vulgarisms, technical terms, the destruction of the usual boundaries between "high" and "low").

Conclusion

Thus, in the history of Russian culture, the beginning of the 20th century is marked by the emergence of diverse literary movements, various aesthetic views and schools. However, original writers, true artists of the word overcame the narrow framework of declarations, created highly artistic works that survived their era and entered the treasury of Russian literature.

The most important feature of the beginning of the 20th century was the general craving for culture. Not to be at the premiere of a performance in the theater, not to attend the evening of an original and already sensational poet, in literary drawing rooms and salons, not to read a book of poetry just published was considered a sign of bad taste, outdated, not fashionable. When culture becomes a fashionable phenomenon, this is a good sign. “Fashion for culture” is not a new phenomenon for Russia. So it was in the days of V.A. Zhukovsky and A.S. Pushkin: let's remember the "Green Lamp" and "Arzamas", "The Society of Lovers of Russian Literature", etc. At the beginning of the new century, exactly one hundred years later, the situation practically repeated itself. The Silver Age came to replace the Golden Age, maintaining and maintaining the connection of times.

The period in the history of Russian literature, which began in the 90s. of the last century and ended in October 1917, received different names from literary critics: “the latest Russian literature”, “Russian literature of the 20th century”, “Russian literature of the late 19th - early 20th century.” But no matter how the literature of this period is called, it is clear that it was not just a continuation of the literature of the 19th century, but meant a special period, even an entire era of literary development, requiring special study.

How should this literature be evaluated? What are its main features, its main driving forces? These questions received and continue to receive far from the same answers, sometimes causing heated debate. It could not be otherwise: although the period under consideration covers only twenty-five years, it is extraordinarily complex and contradictory. First of all, the historical process itself, which determined the development of all forms of spiritual life, including literature, was complex and contradictory. On the one hand, at the beginning of the century Russia entered the era of imperialism, the last stage of capitalist society. Russian capitalism, barely having time to survive in the 90s. rapid economic rise, almost immediately found itself in a state of decay, and the Russian bourgeoisie, showing complete inability to play a revolutionary role, entered into an agreement with tsarism and with all the reactionary forces. On the other hand, in the 1990s a new, proletarian stage of the liberation struggle began in Russia, where the center of the entire world revolutionary movement moved, the era of three revolutions began, approached, according to the remarkable Russian poet A. A. Blok,

Unheard-of changes, Unseen revolts...

Literary scholars, who proceeded only from the fact that Russia had entered the era of imperialism, believed that the processes of disintegration, namely the disintegration of the most advanced trend in literature of the 19th century - critical realism, became decisive in literature as well. It seemed to them that anti-realist currents began to play the main role in literature, which some define as “decadence” (which means “decline”), others as “modernism” (which means “the latest, contemporary art”). Literary scholars, who had a broader and deeper understanding of reality, emphasized the leading role of proletarian literature and the new, socialist realism that arose on its basis. But the victory of the new realism did not mean the death of the old, critical realism. The new realism did not reject or "blow up" the old one, but helped it, as its ally, overcome the onslaught of decadence and retain its importance as a spokesman for the thoughts and feelings of broad democratic strata.

Reflecting on the fate of critical realism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, one must remember that such great representatives of it as L. N. Tolstoy and A. P. Chekhov still lived and worked. Their work during this period experienced significant changes, reflecting a new historical era. V. I. Lenin had in mind mainly the last works of L. N. Tolstoy, especially the novel "Resurrection", when he called Tolstoy "the mirror of the Russian revolution" - a mirror of the mood of the broad peasant masses. As for A.P. Chekhov, it was in the 90s. he made those artistic discoveries that put him, along with Tolstoy, at the head of Russian and world literature. Continued to create new artistic values ​​and such realist writers of the older generation as V. G. Korolenko, D. N. Mamin-Sibiryak and others, and in the late 80s - early 90s. realistic literature was replenished with a new generation of major artists of the word - V. V. Veresaev, A. S. Serafimovich, M. Gorky, N. G. Garin-Mikhailovsky, A. I. Kuprin, I. A. Bunin, L. N. Andreev and others. All these writers played a big role in the spiritual preparation of the first Russian revolution of 1905-1907 with their truthful, full of sympathy for the oppressed works. It is true that after the defeat of the revolution, in the dark time of reaction, some of them went through a period of hesitation or even completely departed from the progressive literary camp. However, in the 10s, during the period of a new revolutionary upsurge, some of them created new talented works of art. In addition, outstanding realist writers of the next generation came to literature - A. N. Tolstoy, S. N. Sergeev-Tsensky, M. M. Prishvin and others. Not without reason one of the articles on literature, which appeared in 1914 on the pages of the Bolshevik Pravda, had a significant title: "The Revival of Realism."

The most important feature of Russian literature of the early XX century. was the birth of socialist realism, the founder of which was Maxim Gorky, who had a huge impact on the development of all world literature. Already in the work of the writer of the 90s, which reflected the growing protest of the young Russian proletariat, there was a lot of originality. In it, with all its deep realism, romantic notes sounded, expressing the dream of the coming freedom and glorifying "the madness of the brave."

At the beginning of the XX century. Gorky in the plays "Petty Bourgeois" and "Enemies", in the novel "Mother" and other works for the first time showed proletarian revolutionaries as representatives of a class not only suffering, but also struggling, realizing its purpose - the liberation of the entire people from exploitation and oppression.

Socialist realism created new possibilities for depicting all aspects of reality. Gorky in his brilliant works “At the Bottom”, the cycle “Across Rus'”, an autobiographical trilogy and others, as well as A. S. Serafimovich and Demyan Bedny, who followed him on the path of socialist realism, showed life with no less fearless truthfulness than their great predecessors in the literature of the 19th century, mercilessly exposing the oppressors of the people. But at the same time, they reflected life in its revolutionary development, believed in the triumph of socialist ideals. They portrayed a person not only as a victim of life, but also as a creator of history. This was expressed in the famous Gorky sayings: “Man is the truth!”, “Man! .. It sounds ... proud!”, “Everything in a Man is everything for a Man” (“At the bottom”), “Excellent position - to be a man on earth ”(“ The Birth of Man ”). If it were necessary to briefly answer the question "What was the most important thing in the work of M. Gorky?" and to another question, “Which side of Gorky’s heritage has become especially important today, in the light of the main tasks of our day?”, then the answer to both of these questions would be the same: a hymn to Man.

Along with realism, there were modernist movements like symbolism, acmeism, futurism. They defended the "absolute freedom" of artistic creativity, but in reality this meant the desire to get away from the political struggle. Among the modernists there were many talented artists who did not fit into the framework of their currents, and sometimes completely broke with them.

The complexity of the historical process, the sharpness of social contradictions, the succession of periods of revolutionary upsurge by periods of reaction - all this influenced the fate of writers in different ways. Some major realist writers deviated towards decadence, as happened, for example, with L. N. Andreev. And the greatest poets of symbolism c. Y. Bryusov and A. A. Blok came to the revolution. Blok created one of the first outstanding works of the Soviet era - the poem "The Twelve". V. V. Mayakovsky, who from the very beginning was cramped within the framework of individualistic rebellion and formal experiments of the futurists, already in the pre-October years, created bright anti-capitalist and anti-militarist works.

The development of world literature today preserves the correlation of forces that first took shape in Russian literature of the late 19th and early 20th centuries: the correlation of socialist realism, critical realism and modernism. This alone lends great value to the experience of Russian pre-October literature.

This experience is also valuable because in the pre-October years, advanced literature received a theoretical, aesthetic program in the speeches of M. Gorky and Marxist critics G. V. Plekhanov, V. V. Vorovsky, A. V. Lunacharsky and others. The speeches of V. I. Lenin were of great importance: his articles on L. N. Tolstoy and A. I. Herzen, which revealed the enduring significance of the traditions of classical literature; his assessments of M. Gorky's work, which shed light on the birth of a new, proletarian, socialist literature; the article "Party Organization and Party Literature" (1905), which, in contrast to the principle of the imaginary "absolute freedom" of creativity, put forward the principle of the party spirit of literature - the open connection of literature with the advanced class and advanced ideals as the only real condition for its true freedom.

The poetry of the late 19th century was called the "poetic renaissance" or the "silver age".

Gradually, the term "Silver Age" began to refer to that part of the artistic culture of Russia, which was associated with symbolism, acmeism, "neo-peasant" and partly futuristic literature.

Literary directions:

1. Realism - continues to develop (L. Tolstoy, Chekhov, Gorky, etc.)

2.Modernism - from fr. the words "newest, modern." Modernists believed in the divine transformative creative role of art.

Symbolism is a literary artistic movement that considered the goal of art to be an intuitive comprehension of world unity through symbols.

This is the first and largest trend of modernism. The beginning of self-determination was laid by D.S. Merezhkovsky (1892). He called the mystical content, symbols and the expansion of artistic impressionability.

V. Bryusov became the leader of symbolism. But symbolism turned out to be a heterogeneous trend, several independent groups took shape within it. In Russian symbolism, it is customary to distinguish 2 main groups of poets: "senior" symbolists (Bryusov, Balmont, Sologub, Kuzmin, Merlikovskiy, Gippius) and "younger" symbolists (Blok, Bely, Ivanov).

In the publishing life of the Symbolists, there were two groups: St. Petersburg and Moscow. This turned into a conflict.

The Moscow group (Liber Bryusov) considered the main principle of literature to be "art for art's sake".

Petersburg (Merezhkovsky, Zippius) defended the priority of religious and philosophical searches in symbolism. They considered themselves genuine symbolists and considered their opponents decadents.

Characteristic:

ambiguity

the full significance of the subject plan of the image

concentration of the absolute in the singular

Music: the second most important aesthetic category of symbolism

The relationship between the poet and his audience: the poet did not address everyone, but the reader-creator.

Acmeism is a modernist trend (from the Greek point, peak, highest degree, pronounced qualities). This trend declared specifically the sensory perception of the outside world, the return to the word of its original non-symbolic meaning.

At the beginning of their journey, the Acmeists were close to the Symbolists, then associations appeared: 1911 - the Workshop of Poets.