Cherished words of D.S. Likhachev

(I) Russian classical literature is not just “first-class literature” and not, as it were, “exemplary” literature, which has become classically impeccable due to its high purely literary merits.(2) All these virtues, of course, are in Russian classical literature, but this is far from all. (H) This literature has its own special face, individuality, characteristics characteristic of its day. (4) And I would first of all note that the creators of Russian classical literature were authors who had enormous social responsibility. (5) Russian classical literature is not entertaining, although it is highly addictive. (6) This fascination is of a special nature: it is determined by the offer to the reader to solve complex moral and social problems - to solve together, both for the author and readers. (7) The best works of Russian classical literature never offer readers ready-made answers to the social and moral questions posed. (8) The authors do not moralize, but, as it were, appeal to readers: “Think about it!”, “Decide for yourself!”, “Look what happens in life!”, “Do not hide from responsibility for everything and for everyone!”. (9) Therefore, answers to questions are given by the author together with readers. (10) Russian classical literature is a grandiose dialogue with the people, with their intelligentsia in the first place. (11) This is an appeal to the conscience of readers. . (12) The moral and social issues with which Russian classical literature addresses its readers are not temporary, not momentary, although they were of particular importance for their time. (IZ) Thanks to their eternity, these questions were of such great importance to us and will be so for all subsequent generations. (14) Russian classical literature is eternally alive, it does not become history, only the history of literature. (15) She talks with us, her conversation is fascinating, elevates us both aesthetically and ethically, makes us wiser, increases our life experience, allows us to live ten lives together with her heroes, experience the experience of many generations and apply it in our own own life. (16) It gives us the opportunity to experience the happiness of living not only “for ourselves”, but also for many others - for the “humiliated and insulted”, for “little people”, for unknown heroes and for the moral triumph of the highest human qualities ... ( 17) The origins of this humanism of Russian literature are in its centuries-old development, when literature sometimes became the only voice of conscience, the only force that determined national identity Russian people - literature and folklore close to it. (18) It was at the time of feudal fragmentation, at the time of the foreign yoke, when literature, the Russian language were the only forces binding the people. (19) We must not lose anything from our great heritage. (20) Book reading and book veneration should preserve for us and for future generations its high purpose, its high place in our life, in shaping our life positions, in the choice of ethical and aesthetic values, in not allowing our consciousness to be littered with various kinds of "pulp" and meaningless, purely entertaining bad taste. (21) The essence of progress in literature is the expansion of the aesthetic and ideological possibilities of literature, which are created as a result of aesthetic accumulation, the accumulation of all kinds of literature experience and the expansion of its “memory”. (D. Likhachev)
1. Which statement contradicts the author's point of view? 1) Russian classical literature has become a fact of history. 2) Fascination is characteristic of Russian literature. 3) The moral and social questions of Russian literature are timeless. 4) In certain historical periods, Russian literature was the only force that determined the national identity of the Russian people. 2. Define the style and type of text. 1) art style; reasoning 2) scientific style; description 3) journalistic style with elements of popular science; reasoning 4) popular science style; reasoning 3. Which word contains a disparaging assessment of the phenomenon it expresses? 1) litter 2) reading 3) moralize 4) bad taste 4. How is the word formed? impeccable in sentence 1? 5. What part of speech is the word thanks to(proposition 13)? 6. From sentences 14 - 16 write out the phrase (s) with attributive relations, the dependent word of which (s) is connected with the main one by the type of adjunction. 7. Determine which part of the sentence is the infinitive been through(proposition 15). 1) predicate 2) addition 3) definition 4) circumstance 8. Among sentences 17-21, find a sentence with a separate definition that has homogeneous members. Write the number of this offer. 9. Among sentences 1 - 15, find complex sentences with a concessive clause. Write the numbers of these proposals. AT 7. Among sentences 1 - 10, find a sentence that is connected with the previous one using lexical repetition, pronouns. and introductory word. Write the number of this offer. (l) What a mirror of life is our language! (2) No, he is truly ugly

Current page: 11 (total book has 29 pages) [accessible reading excerpt: 20 pages]

We see the same thing in the "Word": everything is described in motion, in action. As in the Iliad, the battle is compared to a thunderstorm, to a downpour. As comparisons, cosmic phenomena are given (princes are compared with the sun, failure is predicted by an eclipse). Comparisons prevail with labor processes: harvesting, sowing, forging - and with images of hunting and hunting animals (pardus, falcons). The world of gods enters the world of people - as in the Iliad. And at the same time, The Tale of Igor's Campaign is not the Iliad.

The world of the Word is Big world easy, uncomplicated action, the world of rapidly occurring events unfolding in a vast space. The heroes of The Word move with fantastic speed and act almost effortlessly. The point of view from above dominates (cf. the “raised horizon” in ancient Russian miniatures and icons). The author sees the Russian land as if from a great height, covers vast spaces with his mind's eye, as if "flies with his mind under the clouds", "prowls through the fields to the mountains."

In this lightest of worlds, as soon as the horses begin to neigh behind Sula, the glory of victory is already ringing in Kyiv; the trumpets will only begin to sound in Novgorod-Seversky, as the banners are already in Putivl - the troops are ready to march. The girls sing on the Danube - their voices wind across the sea to Kyiv (the road from the Danube was sea). Heard in the distance and the ringing of bells. The author easily transfers the story from one area to another. He reaches Kyiv from Polotsk. And even the sound of a stirrup is heard in Chernigov from Tmutorokan. The speed with which the actors, animals and birds move is characteristic. They rush, jump, rush, fly over vast spaces. People move with extraordinary speed, they roam the fields like a wolf, they are transported, hanging on a cloud, they soar like eagles. As soon as you mount a horse, as you can already see the Don, there definitely does not exist a multi-day and laborious steppe transition through the waterless steppe. The prince can fly "from afar". He can soar high, spreading in the winds. His thunderstorms flow through the lands. Yaroslavna is compared with a bird and wants to fly over a bird. Warriors are light - like falcons and jackdaws. They are living shereshirs, arrows. Heroes not only move with ease, but effortlessly stab and cut enemies. They are strong as animals: tours, pardus, wolves. For Kuryans there is no difficulty and no effort. They gallop with strained bows (stretching a bow in a gallop is unusually difficult), their bodies are open and their sabers are sharp. They run through the field like gray wolves. They know the paths and the yarugas. Vsevolod's warriors can scatter the Volga with their oars and pour out the Don with their helmets.

People are not only strong, like animals, and light, like birds, - all actions are performed in the "Word" without much physical stress, without effort, as if by themselves. The winds easily carry arrows. As soon as fingers fall on the strings, they themselves rumble glory. In this atmosphere of ease of any action, the hyperbolic exploits of Vsevolod Bui Tur become possible.

The special dynamism of the Lay is also associated with this “light” space.

The author of The Lay prefers dynamic descriptions to static ones. It describes actions, not stationary states. Speaking of nature, he does not give landscapes, but describes the reaction of nature to events occurring in people. He describes the approaching thunderstorm, the help of nature in Igor's flight, the behavior of birds and animals, the sadness of nature or its joy. Nature in the Lay is not the background of events, not the scenery in which the action takes place - it is itself the protagonist, something like an ancient choir. Nature reacts to events as a kind of "narrator", expresses the author's opinion and author's emotions.

The "lightness" of space and environment in the "Word" is not in everything similar to the "lightness" of a fairy tale. She is closer to the icon. The space in the "Word" is artistically reduced, "grouped" and symbolized. People react to events in masses, peoples act as a single whole: Germans, Venetians, Greeks and Moravians sing the glory of Svyatoslav and the cabins of Prince Igor. As a single whole, like "coups" of people on the icons, gothic red maidens, Polovtsy, and a squad act in the "Word". As on icons, the actions of the princes are symbolic and emblematic. Igor disembarked from the golden saddle and moved into the saddle of Kashchei: this symbolizes his new state of captivity. On the river on Kayala, darkness covers the light, and this symbolizes defeat. Abstract concepts - grief, resentment, glory - are personified and materialized, acquiring the ability to act like people or living and inanimate nature. Resentment rises and enters the land of Troyan as a virgin, splashes with swan wings, lies awaken and are put to sleep, joy droops, the mind becomes tight, ascends the Russian land, strife is sown and grows, sadness flows, melancholy spills.

"Easy" space corresponds to humanity surrounding nature. Everything in space is interconnected not only physically, but also emotionally.

Nature sympathizes with the Russians. Animals, birds, plants, rivers, atmospheric phenomena (thunderstorms, winds, clouds) take part in the fate of Russian people. The sun shines for the prince, but the night groans for him, warning him of danger. Div shouts so that the Volga, Pomorye, Posulye, Surozh, Korsun and Tmutorokan can hear him. The grass droops, the tree bows to the ground with tightness. Even the walls of cities respond to events.

This method of characterizing events and expressing the author's attitude towards them is extremely characteristic of the Lay, giving it emotionality and, at the same time, a special persuasiveness of this emotionality. It is, as it were, an appeal to the environment: to people, nations, to nature itself. Emotionality, as it were, is not authorial, but objectively existing in the environment, “spilled” in space, flows in it.

Thus, emotionality does not come from the author, the “emotional perspective” is multifaceted, as in icons. Emotionality is, as it were, inherent in the events themselves and nature itself. It saturates the space. The author acts as a spokesman for the emotionality objectively existing outside of him.

All this is not in the fairy tale, but much is suggested here by the annals and other works of ancient Russian literature.

The only significant work of the XII century about the "offensive" campaign is "The Tale of Igor's Campaign", but we know that it was undertaken for defensive purposes "for the Russian land", and this is emphasized in every possible way in the "Lay".

But how many works appear on purely “defensive” topics, especially in connection with the Batu invasion, the invasions of the Swedes and the Livonian knights: “Tales of the Battle of Kalka”, “The Life of Alexander Nevsky”, “The Word of the Death of the Russian Land”, chronicle stories about the defense of Vladimir , Kiev, Kozelsk, the story of the death of Mikhail Chernigovsky, Vasilko Rostov (in the annals of Princess Maria), "The Tale of the Devastation of Ryazan", etc. The end of the XIV and XV centuries are again covered by a whole wreath of stories about the defense of cities: about the Battle of Kulikovo, Tamerlane, about Tokhtamysh, about Edigey, a number of stories about the defense against Lithuania. A new chain of stories about courageous defense, but not about courageous campaigns - in the 16th century. The main one is about the defense of Pskov from Stefan Batory.

It cannot be said that there is a lack of offensive themes for literature in historical reality. Only one Livonian war, waged with varying success, in which outstanding victories were won, would give many opportunities in this direction.

The only exception is the Kazan History, most of which is devoted to Russian campaigns against Kazan. The same continues in the XVIII and XIX centuries. None of the great victories over the Turks in the XVIII century gave great work, nor trips to the Caucasus and Central Asia. But " caucasian theme”, as well as “Kazan History”, led to a kind of idealization Caucasian peoples- right up to the Caucasian army itself, dressed by order of Yermolov in the clothes of the Caucasian highlanders.

Only a defensive war gave food to the creative imagination great writers: Patriotic War 1812 and the Sevastopol defense. It is remarkable that "War and Peace" does not refer to the foreign campaign of the Russian army. "War and Peace" ends at the borders of Russia. And this is very revealing.

I don't think this is a feature specific to Russian literature. Let us recall the "Song of Roland" and other works of the Middle Ages. Let's remember the works of the New Age.

The heroism of the defenders has always attracted the attention of writers more than the heroism of the attackers: even in Napoleonic history. The most profound works are devoted to the Battle of Waterloo, the Hundred Days of Napoleon, the campaign against Moscow - or rather, the retreat of Napoleon.

Immediately after World War II, in his lectures at the Sorbonne on the history of Russian literature, A. Mazon said: “Russians have always savored their defeats and portrayed them as victories”; he meant the Battle of Kulikovo, Borodino, Sevastopol. He was wrong in his emotional, hostile to all Russian assessment of defense topics. But he was right that the people are peace-loving and write more readily about defense than about offensive, and heroism, the victory of the spirit, sees in the heroic defense of their cities, country, and not in the capture of another country, the capture of foreign cities.

The psychology of defenders is deeper, deeper patriotism can be shown precisely on defense. The people and the culture of the people are essentially peaceful, and this can be seen with complete clarity in the wide scope of the topics of literature.

There can be no recurrence of a scientific dispute about the antiquity of the Lay, but there are enough dilettantes of various kinds, and you can never vouch for them ... The Lay, like any well-known glorified monuments, is a favorite object to "show oneself". Lovers are another matter. Those who love the "Word" can discover many new things, can enter into science. But amateurs and dilettantes are different categories of people.

Documents have always been part of the annals. Let us recall the treaties with the Greeks of 911 and 941, the texts of which are included in the Tale of Bygone Years. And in the future, along with literary materials (historical stories, military stories, lives of saints and sermons), written documents very often got into the annals, not to mention “oral” documents - speeches of princes at a veche, before a campaign or before a battle, on princely photographs: they were also transmitted, if possible, with documentary accuracy. However, only in the 16th century did the chronicle itself begin to be fully realized as a document - exposing or justifying, giving rights or taking them away. And this leaves an imprint on the style of the chronicle: responsibility makes the presentation of the chronicle more magnificent and sublime. Chronicle adjoins the style of the second monumentalism. And this pretentious style is a kind of fusion of oratory with state office work.

Both developed to a high degree in the 16th century and intertwined with each other at the peaks, that is, in literary works.

But the chronicle - is it the pinnacle of literary art? This is a very important phenomenon in Russian culture, but, from our point of view, it seems to be the least literary. However, raised on the columns of oratory monumentalism and documentary monumentalism, the chronicle ascended to the very heights. literary creativity. It has become the art of artificiality.

As instructions in relation to the rulers of states, not only the “Secret of the Secret”, “Stephanit and Ikhnilat”, “The Tale of Queen Dinara”, many works of Maxim the Greek, the messages of the elder Philotheus and “The Tale of the Princes of Vladimir” - the latter with a statement of theories ( not always similar) the rights of Russian sovereigns to the throne and their role in world history, but also chronographs and chronicles, annals and chroniclers. State power, interpreted in different ways, is nevertheless always placed high, the authority of the sovereign is affirmed everywhere, the responsibility of sovereigns to the country, subjects and world history, the right to interfere in the fate of the world is affirmed everywhere. On the one hand, this destroyed the old ideas about the Grand Duke as a simple owner of people and lands, but on the other hand, elevating the power of the sovereign to the sole representative and defender of Orthodoxy after the fall of the independence of all Orthodox states, created the prerequisites for the Moscow sovereigns to be confident in their complete infallibility and the right to interfere even in every little detail of private life.

Teachings, instructions, advice, concepts of the origin of the clan and power of the Moscow sovereigns not only put power under the control of the public, but at the same time inspired the Moscow sovereigns with the idea of ​​their complete lack of control, created the ideological prerequisites for the future despotism of Ivan the Terrible.

On the “softness of the voice” of ancient Russian literature. This is not at all a reproach to her. The volume sometimes gets in the way, annoying. She is obsessive, unceremonious. I have always preferred "quiet poetry". And about the beauty of the ancient Russian "quietness" I remember the following case. At one of the conferences of the sector of ancient Russian literature of the Pushkin House, where there were reports on ancient Russian music, Ivan Nikiforovich Zavoloko, now deceased, spoke. He was an Old Believer, graduated from Charles University in Prague, knew languages ​​​​and classical European music, the manner of performing vocal works. But he also loved ancient Russian singing, he knew it, he sang it himself. And so he showed how to sing on the hooks. And it was necessary not to stand out in the choir, to sing in an undertone. And, standing on the pulpit, he sang several works of the XVI-XVII centuries. He sang alone, but as a member of the choir. Quiet, calm, secluded. It was a lively contrast to the manner of performance Old Russian works some of the choirs now.

And in literature, the authors knew how to restrain themselves. It doesn't take long to see such beauty. Remember the story "The Tale of Bygone Years" about the death of Oleg, the story of the capture of Ryazan by Batu, "The Tale of Peter and Fevronia of Murom." And how many more of these modest, "quiet" stories that had such a strong effect on their readers!

As for Avvakum, it is on the verge of modern times.

Strikingly "empathy" Archpriest Avvakum. Regarding the loss of the son of the noblewoman Morozova, Avvakum writes to her: “It’s already uncomfortable for you to whip with a rosary and it’s not comfortable to look at how he rides horses and stroke his head - do you remember how it used to be?” The feeling of the absence of a son is clearly conveyed to physiology: there is no one to pat on the head! Here you can see Avvakum the artist.

The literature of modern times has adopted (partly imperceptibly to itself) many features and peculiarities of ancient literature. First of all, her consciousness of responsibility to the country, her teaching, moral and state character, her susceptibility to the literatures of other peoples, her respect and interest in the fate of other peoples who entered the orbit of the Russian state, her individual topics and moral approach to these topics.

“Russian classical literature” is not just “first-class literature” and is not, as it were, “exemplary” literature, which has become classically impeccable due to its high purely literary merits.

All these virtues, of course, are in Russian classical literature, but this is by no means all. This literature also has its own special “face”, “individuality”, and its characteristic features.

And I would first of all note that the creators of Russian classical literature were authors who had enormous “public responsibility”.

Russian classical literature is not entertaining, although fascination is highly characteristic of it. This is the fascination of a special nature: it is determined by the offer to the reader to solve complex moral and social problems - to solve together: both the author and the readers.

The best works of Russian classical literature never offer readers ready-made answers to the social and moral questions posed. The authors do not moralize, but seem to address the readers: “Think about it!”, “Decide for yourself!”, “Look what happens in life!”, “Do not hide from responsibility for everything and everyone!” Therefore, answers to questions are given by the author together with the readers.

Russian classical literature is a grandiose dialogue with the people, with their intelligentsia in the first place. This is an appeal to the conscience of readers.

The moral and social issues with which Russian classical literature addresses its readers are not temporary, not momentary, although they were of particular importance for their time. Due to their "eternity" these questions are of such great importance for us and will be so for all subsequent generations.

Russian classical literature is eternally alive, it does not become history, only “history of literature”. She talks to us, her conversation is fascinating, elevates us both aesthetically and ethically, makes us wiser, increases our life experience, allows us to experience “ten lives” together with her heroes, experience the experience of many generations and apply it in our own lives. It gives us the opportunity to experience the happiness of living not only “for ourselves”, but also for many others - for the “humiliated and insulted”, for “little people”, for unknown heroes and for the moral triumph of the highest human qualities ...

The origins of this humanism in Russian literature lie in its centuries-old development, when literature sometimes became the only voice of conscience, the only force that determined the national self-consciousness of the Russian people - literature and folklore close to it. It was at the time of feudal fragmentation, at the time of the foreign yoke, when literature, the Russian language were the only forces binding the people.

Russian literature has always drawn its huge forces in Russian reality, in the social experience of the people, but foreign literature also served as a help to it; first Byzantine, Bulgarian, Czech, Serbian, Polish, ancient literature, and from the Petrine era - all the literature of Western Europe.

The literature of our time has grown on the basis of Russian classical literature.

The assimilation of classical traditions is a characteristic and very important feature of modern literature. Without assimilation of the best traditions there can be no progress. It is only necessary that everything most valuable should not be missed, forgotten, simplified in these traditions.

We must not lose anything from our great heritage.

“Book reading” and “reverence for books” must preserve for us and for future generations their high purpose, their high place in our lives, in shaping our life positions, in choosing ethical and aesthetic values, in preventing our consciousness from being littered various kinds of "pulp" and meaningless, purely entertaining bad taste.

The essence of progress in literature lies in the expansion of the aesthetic and ideological "possibilities" of literature, which are created as a result of "aesthetic accumulation", the accumulation of all kinds of literary experience and the expansion of its "memory".

Works of great art always admit of several explanations, equally correct. This is surprising and not always even clear. I will give examples.

The features of style and worldview reflected in the works can be simultaneously and fully explained, interpreted from the point of view of the writer's biography, from the point of view of the movement of literature (its "internal laws"), from the point of view of the development of verse (if it concerns poetry) and , finally, from the point of view of historical reality - not only taken at once, but "deployed in action." And this applies not only to literature. I noticed similar phenomena in the development of architecture and painting. It is a pity that I am new to music and the history of philosophy.

More limitedly, mainly in the ideological aspect, a literary work is explained in terms of the history of social thought (there are fewer explanations of the style of works). It is not enough to say that every work of art must be explained in the "context of culture." This is possible, this is correct, but not everything boils down to this. The fact is that the work can equally be explained in the "context of itself." In other words (and I'm not afraid to say it) - immanently, to be explained as a closed system. The fact is that the “external” explanation of a work of art (historical setting, the influence of the aesthetic views of its time, the history of literature - its position at the time the work was written, etc.) - to a certain extent, “dismembers” the work; commenting and explaining the work to some extent splits the work, loses attention to the whole. Even if we talk about the style of a work and at the same time understand the style in a limited way - within the limits of the form - then the stylistic explanation, losing sight of the whole, cannot give a complete explanation of the work as an aesthetic phenomenon.

Therefore, there is always a need to consider any work of art as a kind of unity, a manifestation of aesthetic and ideological consciousness.

In literature, forward movement takes place, as it were, in large brackets, covering a whole group of phenomena: ideas, stylistic features, themes, etc. The new enters along with the new life facts, but as a specific set. A new style, the style of the era, is often a new grouping of old elements included in new combinations. At the same time, phenomena that previously held secondary positions begin to occupy a dominant position, and what was previously considered paramount recedes into the shadows.

When a great poet writes about something, it is important not only what he writes and how, but also what he writes. The text is not indifferent to who wrote it, in what era, in what country, and even to the one who pronounces it and in what country. That is why the American "critical school" in literary criticism is extremely limited in its conclusions.

In the testament of St. Remigius to Clovis: “Incende quod adorasti. Adora quod incendisti. "Burn what you worshipped, bow down to what you burned." Wed V " noble nest» in the mouth of Mikhalevich:

And I burned everything I worshipped
He bowed to everything that he burned.

How did it get from Remigius to Turgenev? But without finding this out, you can’t even write about it in literary commentaries.

Topics of the books: reality as potential literature and literature as potential reality ( last topic requires scientific wit).

X.1. The difference between the sexes is a special gift of the Creator to the people He created. “And God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27). Being equally bearers of the image of God and human dignity, a man and a woman are created for integral unity with each other in love: “Therefore, a man will leave his father and his mother, and cling to his wife; and the two shall be one flesh” (Genesis 2:24). Embodying the original will of the Lord for creation, the marriage union blessed by Him becomes a means of continuation and multiplication human race: "And God blessed them, and God said to them: be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it" (Genesis 1:28). The characteristics of the sexes are not reduced to differences in bodily structure. Man and woman are two different ways of being in one humanity. They need communication and mutual replenishment. However, in a fallen world, gender relations can be perverted, ceasing to be an expression of God-given love and degenerating into a manifestation of a fallen person's sinful predilection for his "I".

Highly appreciating the feat of voluntary chaste celibacy, accepted for the sake of Christ and the Gospel, and recognizing the special role of monasticism in its history and modern life, the Church has never treated marriage with disdain and condemned those who, out of a falsely understood desire for purity, despised marital relations.

The Apostle Paul, who personally chose virginity for himself and called to imitate him in this (1 Cor. 7: 8), nevertheless condemns “the hypocrisy of false talkers, burned in their conscience, forbidding marriage” (1 Tim. 4: 2-3 ). The 51st Canon of the Apostles says: “If someone ... moves away from marriage ... not for the sake of the struggle of continence, but because of abhorrence, forgetting ... that God, creating man, husband and wife, created them, and thus, blaspheming slanders the creation - either let it be corrected, or let it be expelled from the sacred rank and rejected from the Church. It is developed by the 1st, 9th and 10th canons of the Gangra Council: “If anyone condemns marriage and abhors a faithful and pious wife who copulates with her husband, or condemns her as unable to enter the Kingdom [of God], let it be under an oath. If anyone is virginal or abstains, moving away from marriage, as one who abhors it, and not for the sake of the very beauty and holiness of virginity, let him be under an oath. If any of those who are virgins for the sake of the Lord exalt themselves over those who are married, let him be under an oath.” The Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church, in its decision of December 28, 1998, referring to these rules, pointed out "the inadmissibility of a negative or arrogant attitude towards marriage."

X.2. According to Roman law, which formed the basis of the civil codes of most modern states, marriage is an agreement between two free parties in their choice. The Church accepted this definition of marriage, comprehending it on the basis of the evidence of Holy Scripture.

The Roman jurist Modestin (3rd century) gave the following definition of marriage: “Marriage is the union of a man and a woman, the community of all life, participation in divine and human law.” In almost unchanged form, this definition was included in the canonical collections of the Orthodox Church, in particular, in the “Nomocanon” of Patriarch Photius (IX century), in the “Syntagma” of Matthew Blastar (XIV century) and in the “Prochiron” of Basil the Macedonian (IX century), included in the Slavic "Helding Book". The early Christian Fathers and Doctors of the Church also relied on Roman ideas about marriage. So, Athenagoras in his Apology to Emperor Marcus Aurelius (II century) writes: “Each of us considers his wife the woman to whom he is married according to the laws.” The Apostolic Ordinances, a 4th-century monument, exhort Christians to "marry in accordance with the law."

Christianity completed the pagan and Old Testament ideas about marriage with the sublime image of the union of Christ and the Church. “Wives, be subject to your husbands as to the Lord, because the husband is the head of the wife, just as Christ is the head of the Church, and He is the Savior of the body; but as the Church is subject to Christ, so are wives to their husbands in all things. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself up for her, to sanctify her, having cleansed her with a bath of water, through the word; to present her to Himself as a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or anything like that, but that she might be holy and blameless. Thus ought husbands to love their wives as their bodies: he who loves his wife loves himself. For no one has ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and warms it, just as the Lord does the Church; because we are members of his body, of his flesh and of his bones. Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife, and the two shall be one flesh. This mystery is great; I speak in relation to Christ and to the Church. So let each of you love his wife as himself; but let the wife be afraid of her husband” (Eph. 5:22-33).

For Christians, marriage has become not just a legal contract, a means of procreation and satisfaction of temporary natural needs, but, in the words of St. John Chrysostom, “the sacrament of love”, the eternal unity of spouses with each other in Christ. Initially, Christians sealed marriage with a church blessing and joint participation in the Eucharist, which was the oldest form of the Sacrament of Marriage.

“Those who marry and get married should enter into an alliance with the consent of the bishop, so that the marriage is about the Lord, and not out of lust,” wrote Hieromartyr Ignatius the God-bearer. According to Tertullian, marriage, “certified by the Church, confirmed by the sacrifice [of the Eucharist], is sealed with blessing and inscribed in heaven by angels.” “It is necessary to call upon the priests and with prayers and blessings confirm the spouses in their life together, so that... the spouses lead their lives in joy, united by the help of God,” said St. John Chrysostom. St. Ambrose of Milan pointed out that "marriage should be sanctified with a cover and a priestly blessing."

During the period of the Christianization of the Roman Empire, the legality of marriage was still communicated by civil registration. Consecrating marital unions with prayer and blessing, the Church nevertheless recognized the validity of a civil marriage in cases where church marriage was impossible, and did not subject the spouses to canonical prohibitions. The same practice is currently followed by the Russian Orthodox Church. At the same time, she cannot approve and bless marital unions, which are concluded, although in accordance with the current civil legislation, but in violation of canonical regulations (for example, fourth and subsequent marriages, marriages in unacceptable degrees of consanguinity or spiritual relationship).

According to the 74th short story of Justinian (538), a legal marriage could be concluded both by an ekdik (church notary) and a priest. A similar rule was contained in the eclogue of Emperor Leo III and his son Constantine V (740), as well as in the law of Basil I (879). The most important condition for marriage was the mutual consent of a man and a woman, confirmed before witnesses. The church did not protest against this practice. Only from 893, according to the 89th short story of Emperor Leo VI, free persons were obliged to enter into marriage according to the church rite, and in 1095 Emperor Alexy Komnenos extended this rule to slaves. The introduction of compulsory marriage according to the church rite (IX-XI centuries) meant that by the decision of the state power, all legal regulation of marriage relations was transferred exclusively to the jurisdiction of the Church. However, the widespread introduction of this practice should not be taken as the establishment of the Sacrament of Marriage, which has existed in the Church from time immemorial.

The order established in Byzantium was adopted in Russia in relation to persons of the Orthodox faith. However, with the adoption of the Decree on the Separation of the Church from the State (1918), marriage according to the church order lost its legal force; formally, believers were given the right to receive a church blessing after marriage was registered with state bodies. However, during a long period of state persecution of religion, the celebration of a solemn wedding in a church actually remained extremely difficult and dangerous.

On December 28, 1998, the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church noted with regret that “some confessors declare civil marriage illegal or demand the dissolution of a marriage between spouses who have lived together for many years, but due to certain circumstances did not perform a wedding in a church ... Some pastors -Confessors do not allow persons living in an “unmarried” marriage to receive communion, identifying such a marriage with fornication.” The definition adopted by the Synod states: “Insisting on the need for church marriage, remind pastors that the Orthodox Church respects civil marriage.”

The common faith of spouses who are members of the body of Christ is the most important condition for a truly Christian and church marriage. Only a family that is united in faith can become a “domestic church” (Rom. 16:5; Philm. 1:2), in which the husband and wife, together with their children, grow in spiritual perfection and the knowledge of God. Lack of unanimity poses a serious threat to the integrity of the marital union. That is why the Church considers it her duty to urge believers to marry “only in the Lord” (1 Cor. 7:39), that is, with those who share their Christian convictions.

The definition of the Holy Synod mentioned above also speaks of the respect of the Church “to such a marriage in which only one of the parties belongs to the Orthodox faith, in accordance with the words of the holy Apostle Paul: “An unbelieving husband is sanctified by a believing wife, and an unbelieving wife is sanctified by a believing husband” (1 Corinthians 7:14). The Fathers of the Council of Trullo also referred to this text of Holy Scripture, recognizing as valid the union between persons who, “while still in unbelief and not being counted among the flock of Orthodox, were united among themselves by legal marriage”, if later one of the spouses converted to the faith (rule 72 ). However, in the same rule and other canonical definitions (IV Vs. Sob. 14, Laod. 10, 31), as well as in the works of ancient Christian writers and Church fathers (Tertullian, St. Cyprian of Carthage, Blessed Theodoret and Blessed Augustine), it is forbidden marriages between Orthodox and followers of other religious traditions.

In accordance with the ancient canonical prescriptions, the Church today does not consecrate marriages between Orthodox and non-Christians, while simultaneously recognizing them as legal and not considering those who stay in them as being in fornication. Based on considerations of pastoral economy, the Russian Orthodox Church, both in the past and today, finds it possible for Orthodox Christians to marry Catholics, members of the Ancient Eastern Churches and Protestants who profess faith in the Triune God, subject to the blessing of marriage in the Orthodox Church and the upbringing of children in the Orthodox Church. faith. The same practice has been followed in most Orthodox Churches over the past centuries.

By the decree of the Holy Synod of June 23, 1721, marriages of Swedish captives in Siberia with Orthodox brides were allowed under the above conditions. On August 18 of the same year, this decision of the Synod received a detailed biblical and theological justification in a special Synodal Message. The Holy Synod also referred to this message later when resolving questions about mixed marriages in the provinces annexed from Poland, as well as in Finland (decrees of the Holy Synod of 1803 and 1811). In these areas, however, a more free determination of the confessional affiliation of children was allowed (temporarily, this practice sometimes extended to the Baltic provinces). Finally, the rules on mixed marriages for the entire Russian Empire were finally enshrined in the Charter of Spiritual Consistories (1883). An example of mixed marriages were many dynastic marriages, during which the transition of the non-Orthodox party to Orthodoxy was not mandatory (with the exception of the marriage of the heir to the Russian throne). Yes, venerable martyr grand duchess Elizabeth married Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, remaining a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, and only later, by her own will, accepted Orthodoxy.

X.3. The Church insists on the lifelong fidelity of spouses and the indissolubility of Orthodox marriage, based on the words of the Lord Jesus Christ: “What God has joined together, let no man separate ... Whoever divorces his wife not for adultery and marries another, he commits adultery; and he who marries a divorced woman commits adultery” (Matthew 19:6,9). Divorce is condemned by the Church as a sin, because it brings severe mental suffering to both spouses (at least one of them), and especially children. I am extremely worried about the current situation, in which a very significant part of marriages are being dissolved, especially among young people. What is happening is becoming a true tragedy for the individual and the people.

The only acceptable grounds for divorce the Lord called adultery, which defiles the sanctity of marriage and destroys the bond of marital fidelity. In cases of various conflicts between spouses, the Church sees its pastoral task in that by all means inherent in it (teaching, prayer, participation in the Sacraments) to protect the integrity of the marriage and prevent divorce. The clergy are also called upon to hold conversations with those wishing to marry, explaining to them the importance and responsibility of the step being taken.

Unfortunately, sometimes, due to sinful imperfection, spouses may be unable to preserve the gift of grace received by them in the Sacrament of Marriage and preserve the unity of the family. Desiring the salvation of sinners, the Church gives them the possibility of correction and is ready, after repentance, to again admit them to the Sacraments.

The laws of Byzantium, established by the Christian emperors and not condemned by the Church, allowed various grounds for divorce. In the Russian Empire, the dissolution of a marriage on the basis of existing laws was carried out in an ecclesiastical court.

In 1918, the Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church in the "Determination on the reasons for the termination of the marriage union, consecrated by the Church" recognized as such, except for adultery and the entry of one of the parties into new marriage, also falling away of a spouse from Orthodoxy, unnatural vices, inability to marital cohabitation that occurred before marriage or was the result of intentional self-mutilation, leprosy or syphilis, prolonged absence, condemnation to punishment, combined with the deprivation of all rights of state, encroachment on life or health of the spouse or children, sophistication, pandering, profiting from the indecency of the spouse, incurable severe mental illness and malicious abandonment of one spouse by another. Currently, this list of grounds for dissolution of marriage is supplemented by such reasons as AIDS, medically certified chronic alcoholism or drug addiction, abortion by the wife with her husband's disagreement.

In order to spiritually educate the spouses and help strengthen marital ties, priests are called upon to explain in detail to the bride and groom the idea of ​​the indissolubility of the church marriage union in the conversation preceding the celebration of the Sacrament of Marriage, emphasizing that divorce as an extreme measure can only take place if the spouses acts that are defined by the Church as grounds for divorce. Consent to the dissolution of a church marriage cannot be given for the sake of whimsy or to "confirm" a civil divorce. However, if the breakup of a marriage is a fait accompli - especially when the spouses live apart - and the restoration of the family is not recognized as possible, a church divorce is also allowed by pastoral indulgence. The Church does not encourage second marriage. However, after a legal ecclesiastical divorce, according to canon law, a second marriage is permitted to the innocent spouse. Persons whose first marriage broke up and was annulled through their fault are allowed to enter into a second marriage only on condition of repentance and fulfillment of the penance imposed in accordance with canonical rules. In those exceptional cases where a third marriage is allowed, the period of penance, in accordance with the rules of St. Basil the Great, is extended.

The Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church, in its Determination of December 28, 1998, condemned the actions of those confessors who “forbid their spiritual children from entering into a second marriage on the grounds that the second marriage is allegedly condemned by the Church; forbid couples divorce in the event that, due to certain circumstances, family life becomes impossible for the spouses. At the same time, the Holy Synod decided to “remind the pastors that in its attitude to the second marriage, the Orthodox Church is guided by the words of the Apostle Paul: “Are you united with your wife? Don't seek divorce. Did he leave without a wife? Don't look for a wife. However, even if you marry, you will not sin; and if a girl marries, she will not sin... A wife is bound by law as long as her husband lives; if her husband dies, she is free to marry whomever she wants, only in the Lord” (1 Cor. 7:27-28,39).

X.4. The special inner closeness of the family and the Church is already evident from the fact that in Holy Scripture Christ speaks of Himself as a bridegroom (Matt. 9:15; 25:1-13; Luke 12:35-36), and the Church is portrayed as His wives and brides (Eph. 5:24; Rev. 21:9). Clement of Alexandria calls the family, like the Church, the house of the Lord, and St. John Chrysostom calls the family a “small church.” “I will also say that,” writes the holy father, “that marriage is a mysterious image of the Church.” The home church is formed loving friend friend, a man and a woman, united in marriage and aspiring to Christ. The fruit of their love and community are children, the birth and upbringing of which, according to Orthodox teaching, is one of the most important goals of marriage.

“This is an inheritance from the Lord: children; the reward from Him is the fruit of the womb,” exclaims the Psalmist (Ps. 126:3). The Apostle Paul taught about the salutary nature of childbearing (1 Tim. 2:13). He also called on the fathers: “Do not provoke your children, but bring them up in the teaching and admonition of the Lord” (Eph. 6:4). “Children are not an accidental acquisition, we are responsible for their salvation... Negligence for children is the greatest of all sins, it leads to extreme impiety... We have no excuse if our children are corrupted,” instructs St. John Chrysostom. St. Ephraim the Syrian teaches: "Blessed is he who brings up children in a pleasing manner." “The true father is not the one who gave birth, but the one who raised and taught well,” writes St. Tikhon of Zadonsk. “Parents are primarily responsible for the upbringing of their children and cannot ascribe the blame for their bad upbringing to anyone but themselves,” preached Hieromartyr Vladimir, Metropolitan of Kiev. “Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long on earth,” says the fifth commandment (Ex. 20:12). In the Old Testament, disrespect towards parents was regarded as the greatest crime (Exodus 21:15-17; Proverbs 20:20; 30:17). New Testament also teaches children to obey their parents with love: “Children, be obedient to your parents in everything, for this is pleasing to the Lord” (Col. 3:20).

The family as a domestic church is a single organism whose members live and build their relationships on the basis of the law of love. The experience of family communication teaches a person to overcome sinful egoism and lays the foundations for healthy citizenship. It is in the family, as in a school of piety, that right attitude to their neighbors, and therefore to their people, to society as a whole. The living continuity of generations, starting in the family, finds its continuation in love for the ancestors and the fatherland, in a sense of belonging to history. Therefore, the destruction of traditional ties between parents and children is so dangerous, which, unfortunately, is largely facilitated by the way of life. modern society. Belittling the social significance of motherhood and fatherhood in comparison with the success of men and women in the professional field leads to the fact that children are perceived as an unnecessary burden; it also contributes to alienation and the development of antagonism between generations. The role of the family in the formation of the individual is exceptional; it cannot be replaced by others. social institutions. The destruction of family ties is inevitably associated with a disruption in the normal development of children and leaves a long, to a certain extent, indelible imprint on their entire subsequent life.

Orphanhood with living parents has become a glaring misfortune of modern society. Thousands of abandoned children who fill shelters and sometimes end up on the streets testify to the deep ill health of society. Providing such children with spiritual and material assistance, taking care of their involvement in spiritual and social life, the Church simultaneously sees its most important duty in strengthening the family and in the awareness of parents of their vocation, which would exclude the tragedy of an abandoned child.

X.5. In the pre-Christian world, there was an idea of ​​a woman as a being of a lower order in comparison with a man. The Church of Christ revealed in its entirety the dignity and calling of a woman, giving them a deep religious justification, the apex of which is the veneration Holy Mother of God. According to Orthodox teaching, the blessed Mary, blessed among women (Luke 1:28), revealed by herself that highest degree of moral purity, spiritual perfection and holiness, to which humanity was able to rise and which surpasses the dignity of angelic ranks. Motherhood is sanctified in Her face and the importance of feminine. With the participation of the Mother of God, the mystery of the Incarnation is accomplished; thus She becomes involved in the salvation and rebirth of mankind. The Church highly venerates the gospel myrrh-bearing women, as well as numerous faces of Christian women, glorified by the exploits of martyrdom, confession and righteousness. From the very beginning of the existence of the church community, a woman actively participates in its dispensation, in liturgical life, in the labors of the mission, preaching, education, and charity.

Highly appreciating the social role of women and welcoming their political, cultural and social equality with men, the Church simultaneously opposes the tendency to diminish the role of women as spouses and mothers. The fundamental equality of the dignity of the sexes does not abolish their natural difference and does not mean the identity of their vocations both in the family and in society. In particular, the Church cannot misinterpret the words of the Apostle Paul about the special responsibility of the husband, who is called to be “the head of the wife,” who loves her, as Christ loves His Church, and also about the calling of the wife to obey her husband, as the Church obeys Christ (Eph. 5. 22-23; Col. 3:18). In these words, of course, we are not talking about the despotism of a husband or the enslavement of a wife, but about primacy in responsibility, care and love; we should also not forget that all Christians are called to mutual "obedience to one another in the fear of God" (Eph. 5:21). Therefore, “neither a husband without a wife, nor a wife without a husband, in the Lord. For as the wife is from the husband, so is the husband through the wife; yet it is from God” (1 Corinthians 11:11-12).

Representatives of some social movements tend to belittle, and sometimes even completely deny the importance of marriage and the institution of the family, focusing on the socially significant activities of women, including those incompatible or little compatible with female nature (for example, work associated with heavy physical labor). There are frequent calls for an artificial equalization of the participation of women and men in every area human activity. The Church, however, sees the appointment of a woman not in a simple imitation of a man and not in competition with him, but in the development of all the abilities granted to her by the Lord, including those inherent only in her nature. Without focusing only on the system of distribution of social functions, Christian anthropology assigns a woman a much higher place than modern non-religious ideas. The desire to destroy or reduce to a minimum the natural divisions in the public sphere is not characteristic of the ecclesiastical mind. Gender differences, like social and ethnic differences, do not impede access to the salvation that Christ brought for all people: “There is neither Jew nor Gentile; there is no slave nor free; there is neither male nor female: for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28). However, this soteriological statement does not mean an artificial impoverishment of human diversity and should not be mechanically transferred to any social relations.

X.6. The virtue of chastity, preached by the Church, is the basis internal unity human personality, which must be in a state of harmony of mental and bodily forces. Fornication inevitably destroys the harmony and integrity of a person's life, causing heavy damage to his spiritual health. Debauchery dulls the spiritual sight and hardens the heart, making it incapable of true love. Happiness full-blooded family life becomes inaccessible to the fornicator. Thus, the sin against chastity entails negative social consequences. In conditions spiritual crisis In human society, the mass media and works of the so-called mass culture often become instruments of moral corruption, glorifying and extolling sexual licentiousness, all kinds of sexual perversions, and other sinful passions. Pornography, which is the exploitation of sexual desire for commercial, political or ideological purposes, contributes to the suppression of the spiritual and moral principles, thereby reducing a person to the level of an animal guided only by instinct.

The propaganda of vice inflicts particular harm on the unasserted souls of children and youth. In books, movies and other videos, in the media, and in some educational programs, adolescents are often taught a concept of sexuality that is highly degrading to human dignity, as it has no place for the notions of chastity, marital fidelity, and selfless love. Intimate relations between a man and a woman are not only exposed and put on display, offending the natural feeling of shame, but also presented as an act of purely bodily satisfaction, not associated with a deep inner community and any moral obligations. The Church calls on believers, in cooperation with all morally healthy forces, to fight the spread of this devilish temptation, which, contributing to the destruction of the family, undermines the foundations of society.

“Everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart,” says the Lord Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:28). “Desire… having conceived, gives birth to sin, but the committed sin gives birth to death,” warns the Apostle James (James 1:15). “Fornicators...the Kingdom of God will not inherit,” says the Apostle Paul (1 Cor. 6:9-10). These words fully apply both to consumers and, to an even greater extent, to manufacturers of pornographic products. The words of Christ are also applicable to the latter: “Whoever offends one of these little ones who believe in Me, it would be better for him if they hung a millstone around his neck and drowned him in the depths of the sea ... Woe to that person through whom the temptation comes” (Matthew 18:6-7). “Fornication is a poison that mortifies the soul... Whoever commits fornication renounces Christ,” taught St. Tikhon of Zadonsk. St. Demetrius of Rostov wrote: “The body of every Christian is not his, but Christ's, according to the words of the Scripture: “You are the body of Christ, and separately you are the members” (1 Cor. 12:27). And it is not befitting for you to defile the body of Christ with carnal, voluptuous deeds, except for legal matrimony. For you are the house of Christ, according to the words of the apostle: “The temple of God is holy; and this temple is you” (1 Cor. 3:17)”. The ancient Church, in the writings of its fathers and teachers (such as Clement of Alexandria, St. Gregory of Nyssa, and St. John Chrysostom), invariably condemned obscene theatrical scenes and images. Under pain of excommunication from the Church, Canon 100 of the Council of Trullo forbids the production of "images that...corrupt the mind and ignite impure pleasures."

The human body is a marvelous creation of God and is destined to become the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 6:19-20). Condemning pornography and fornication, the Church by no means calls to abhor the body or sexual intimacy as such, for the bodily relations of a man and a woman are blessed by God in marriage, where they become a source of continuation of the human race and express chaste love, complete community, “unanimity of souls and bodies” of spouses for which the Church prays in the rite of marriage. On the contrary, the transformation of these pure and divinely worthy relationships, as well as the human body itself, into an object of humiliating exploitation and trade, designed to extract selfish, impersonal, loveless and perverted satisfaction, deserves condemnation. For the same reason, the Church invariably condemns prostitution and the preaching of the so-called free love which completely separates bodily intimacy from personal and spiritual community, from sacrifice and total responsibility for each other, which are feasible only in lifelong marital fidelity.

Understanding that the school, along with the family, should provide children and adolescents with knowledge about gender relations and about the bodily nature of a person, the Church cannot support those “sex education” programs that recognize premarital relationships as the norm, and even more so various perversions. The imposition of such programs on students is completely unacceptable. The school is called upon to resist the vice that destroys the integrity of the individual, to educate chastity, to prepare youth for the creation of strong family based on loyalty and purity.

Moral questions on the pages of Russian classical literature

Gushchina T.V.,

teacher of Russian language and literature

GBOU NPO №35

Reading Russian classical literature can be considered a means of moral education of people, especially young people. In any case, Russian writers of the 19th century saw a lofty mission in their work. "In our time, when human society comes out of childhood and noticeably matures when science, crafts, industry take serious steps, art cannot lag behind them. It also has a serious task - to complete the upbringing and improve a person, ”I.A. Goncharov argued. " public importance writer (and what other meaning can he have?) This is exactly what it is, to shed a ray of light on all sorts of moral and mental troubles, to refresh all kinds of stuffiness with the spirit of the ideal, ”considered N.M. Saltykov-Shchedrin .

The significance of posing moral questions in the works of Russian writers of the 19th century has not been lost even today, because. many of the eternal questions still arise in the minds of today's young people, and classical literature offers answers to them, sometimes in contrast to the surrounding reality. In addition, Russian classical literature has an amazing ability to call a spade a spade: good - good, and evil - evil, which helps people navigate the moral concepts in the modern world.

And how is the very word "morality" interpreted in modern Russian? Dictionary Ozhegova offers the following definition of this word: “Morality is the internal spiritual qualities that guide a person, ethical norms; rules of conduct determined by these qualities. It is curious that one modern young man gave the following definition of morality: "Something ephemeral, which does not happen in life."

First of all, let's pay attention to the works in which the young hero questions the rules instilled in him by the older generation. So, for example, Alexander Andreyich Chatsky from A. S. Griboedov’s comedy “Woe from Wit” rejects the rules of life of Moscow society, criticizing its immoral aspects. “I would be glad to serve, it’s sickening to serve”, “It was a direct age of humility and fear”, “I go to women, but not for this”, “When I’m in business, I hide from fun, when I’m fooling around, I’m fooling around, but mix these two crafts are a multitude of craftsmen, I am not one of them" and other statements by Chatsky reveal to readers the image of a positively intelligent, as Pushkin said, a hero who was not afraid to compromise, but to conflict with the whole society, defending his moral convictions, and remaining in loneliness. Chatsky is a real hero.

The novel by I.S. Turgenev “Fathers and Sons” shows the clash of people not only of different ages, but also of different classes. Each of them: the aristocrat P.P. Kirsanov and the commoner E.V. Bazarov - has its own truth. Of course, in denying the culture created by the nobles, Bazarov goes too far, because he is a nihilist. But Bazarov is able to admit his mistakes.

But only in F. M. Dostoevsky's novel "Crime and Punishment" the very necessity of the moral laws of life is called into question.

Firstly, we are shown pictures of the life of Russian society that are blatant in their immorality. These are, first of all, pictures of tremendous poverty. For example, such: “The unbearable stench from the taverns, of which there are a special number in this part of the city, and drunks, who came across every minute, despite the weekday hours, completed the disgusting and sad coloring of the picture.” The appearance of the hero also testifies to poverty: “He was so poorly dressed that another, even a familiar person, would be ashamed to go out into the street in such rags during the day. However, the quarter was such that it was difficult to surprise anyone here with a suit. The dwelling of the characters of the novel is also striking in its wretchedness: “This was a tiny cell, six paces long, which had the most miserable appearance with its yellowish, dusty wallpaper everywhere lagging behind the wall, and so low that it became creepy for a slightly tall person, and everything seemed like you were about to hit your head on the ceiling.

What do the heroes of Dostoevsky's novel live on? Sometimes their way of getting food (and you can’t dream of more!) is terrible. So, the Marmeladov family uses the funds obtained by Sonya. "Hey Sonya! What a well, however, they managed to dig and use! That's because they use it! And got used to it. We cried and we got used to it. A scoundrel-man gets used to everything, ”exclaims Raskolnikov.

It turns out that the very situation, "environment", pushes people to immoral acts. And dangerous thoughts arise in the minds of young people, for example, the question: is there any morality in life?

Well, if I lied, - he (Raskolnikov) exclaimed suddenly involuntarily, - if the person is really not a scoundrel, the whole in general, the whole family; that is, human, it means that the rest is all prejudice, only fears cast on, and there are no barriers, and this is how it should be!

“If we had sciences, then doctors, lawyers, philosophers could do the most precious research on St. Petersburg, each in his own specialty. Rarely where there are so many gloomy, harsh and strange influences on the soul of a person, as in St. Petersburg. What are some climatic influences worth! Svidrigailov says.

Not only Raskolnikov indulges in dangerous thoughts. For example, in a tavern, he witnesses a conversation between a student and a young officer.

Allow me, I want to ask you a serious question, - the student got excited, - I was joking now, of course, but look: on the one hand, a stupid, senseless, insignificant, evil, sick old woman, unnecessary to anyone and, on the contrary, harmful to everyone, who she herself does not know what she lives for, and which tomorrow will die of itself. Understand? Understand?...

Listen further. On the other hand, young, fresh forces that go to waste without support, and this is in the thousands, and this is everywhere! A hundred, a thousand deeds and undertakings that can be arranged and corrected for the old woman’s money doomed to a monastery! ... Kill her and take her money in order to devote yourself to the service of all mankind and the common cause with their help: what do you think Will not one tiny crime be atoned for by thousands of good deeds? In one life, thousands of lives saved from decay and decay. One death and a hundred lives in return - why, there is arithmetic here! And what does the life of this consumptive, stupid and evil old woman mean on the general scales? Nothing more than the life of a louse, a cockroach, and even that is not worth it, because the old woman is harmful. She eats someone else's life.

I would like to pay attention to the vocabulary of this statement, more precisely, how the choice of words demonstrates the monstrous confusion in the character’s head: “a tiny crime” (not even a crime, but a crime - killing a person!); "one death and a hundred lives" become the subject of arithmetic, and the life of a person, even if "a consumptive, stupid and evil old woman," is equal to "the life of a louse, a cockroach." It's amazing, but the definitions of "consumptive, stupid and evil" are equal to the accusation, but do not cause pity.

Raskolnikov justifies the crime in the name of a great goal: “In my opinion, if the Keplerian and Newtonian discoveries, due to some combinations, could in no way become famous people otherwise, with the sacrifice of the life of one, ten, a hundred, and so on, people who would interfere with this discovery or would stand in the way as an obstacle, then Newton would have the right, and even be obliged ... to eliminate these ten or a hundred people in order to make known his opening to all mankind.

Such and similar thoughts give rise to the theory of the inequality of people in Raskolnikov’s head: “I’m only in main idea I believe mine. It consists precisely in the fact that people, according to the law of nature, are generally divided into two categories, into lower (ordinary), i.e., so to speak, into material that serves only for the generation of their own kind, and actually into people, i.e. e. having the gift or talent to say a new word in their midst. These monstrous thoughts are pushing Raskolnikov to kill: “I guessed then, Sonya, ... that power is given only to those who dare to bend down and take it. There is only one thing, one thing: you just have to dare! ... I ... I wanted to dare and killed ... "

It is extremely important that the novel "Crime and Punishment" not only depicts aspects of the life of Russian society, but also evaluates them. Firstly, the retelling of Raskolnikov's theory by Porfiry Petrovich reveals the abnormality of such ideas: “The thing is that in their article all people are somehow divided into “ordinary” and “extraordinary”. Ordinary people must live in obedience and have no right to transgress the law, because, you see, they are ordinary. And the extraordinary have the right to commit all sorts of crimes and break the law in every possible way, in fact, because they are extraordinary. Secondly, Razumikhin's reaction to Raskolnikov's reasoning is indicative: “How? What's happened? The right to crime? But it’s not because “the environment is stuck”? Razumikhin inquired with some kind of fright. Thirdly, Porfiry Petrovich, with his questions, shows that this theory contradicts Christian concepts.

So you still believe in the New Jerusalem?

I believe, - firmly answered Raskolnikov ...

Do you believe in God?...

I believe, - repeated Raskolnikov.

And--and you believe in the resurrection of Lazarus?

I believe. Why do you need all this?

Do you literally believe?

Literally.

Razumikhin and Sonya prove the same to Raskolnikov. “After all, this permission of blood in conscience is ... this, in my opinion, is worse than official permission to shed blood, legal ...” - says Razumikhin. “You have departed from God. And God struck you, betrayed you to the devil! Sonya exclaims. A correct assessment of what happened is given by Porfiry Petrovich, saying: "your crime, like some kind of clouding, will present itself, therefore, in conscience, it is clouding."

The theme of obscuration as a result of the rejection of traditional norms of behavior is continued by other works. For example, the plot of M.A. Bulgakov’s novel The Master and Margarita can be considered an episode in which Ivan Bezdomny and Berlioz discuss Bezdomny’s anti-religious poem, including Berlioz’s phrase “Yes, we don’t believe in God, but we can talk about it quite freely ". If we don't believe in God, then we don't believe in God's laws. Everything that happens in the book is the result of this denial.

Artistic works of Russian classical literature are food for the mind and heart. They push their readers to reflect on the most important topics, to compare the past and the present, in a word, to think. One can only hope that young readers will turn to the classics more.

Bibliography

1. Russian writers of the 19th century about their works. Reader of historical and literary materials. Compiled by I.E.Kaplan. New school, M., 1995. P.69
2. Russian writers of the 19th century about their works. Reader of historical and literary materials. Compiled by I.E.Kaplan. New School, M., 1995. P. 126

471 Such statements put Ostrovsky in close proximity to Belinsky. However, doubts are still possible here. The certain legitimacy and naturalness of the accusatory trend in Russian literature was also recognized by the Slavophiles in their own way. The enormous significance of Gogol for the entire literary movement of the 1940s is also in a certain sense the Slavophiles did not deny it either. What is important is the content of the principles that served to substantiate these confessions. The comparison of the ideas of Belinsky and Ostrovsky must be continued.

In particular, Ostrovsky singled out the moral sphere as the closest and most important area of ​​creative artistic reproduction. Where did he get this emphatic and persistent raising of literary problems to questions of morality?

It is impossible not to notice that Ostrovsky, speaking of the social function of literature, especially often and persistently uses the term "moral". The connection of art with social life, according to his views, is carried out in the fact that "the moral life of society, passing through various forms, gives art certain types, certain tasks." Russian literature, according to him, is distinguished from all others by its "moral, accusatory character." Further, speaking of the fact that a truthful artistic image helps to overcome the former, imperfect forms of life and forces one to look for better ones, Ostrovsky adds: "... in a word, it makes one be more moral." And then he ends the entire development of thoughts on the importance of accusatory content in literature with the remark: “This accusatory trend in our literature can be called a moral-social trend”443*. In a well-known letter dated April 26, 1850 to V.I. Nazimov about the comedy “Our people - let's get along” Ostrovsky writes: “According to my concepts of grace, considering comedy the best form for achieving moral goals and recognizing in myself the ability to reproduce life mainly in this form, I had to write a comedy or write nothing. In an article about A. Zhemchuzhnikov's comedy "Strange Night", speaking about the social role of comedy, Ostrovsky calls the whole modern trend in literature "moral-accusatory"445*. (Italics mine. - A.S.).

One might think that such persistent use of words and a reminder of the moral functions and tasks of art was inspired by the specifics of the Moskvityanin magazine with the well-known addictions of this circle to questions of moral perfection. However, this is not at all the case. The whole system of Ostrovsky's thoughts suggests that in this case, too, he followed Belinsky.

Questions of public morality in the advanced thought of the 1940s had a great practical meaning. Instead of romantic or Slavophilic constructions of abstract ethical "ideals", Belinsky and Herzen directed their interest to what exists in the moral sphere as a force acting in everyday life, in genuine practical relations between people. The evil of feudal reality was revealed not only in the forms of state and social relations, but also in the everyday habitual interests of people, in their concepts of what was due, in their ideas of their own dignity, in the features of everyday communication and in those moral and everyday "rules" that practically, in the course of life itself, are worked out and implemented en masse, having an effect in the constant “everyday relations” (Belinsky’s expression).

Belinsky's calls for the study and depiction of "ordinary" were in many ways calls for a revision of serf traditions in the field of everyday practical morality. Starting to consider the novel “Eugene Onegin”, Belinsky wrote: “In order to correctly depict any society, one must first comprehend its essence, its peculiarity; and this cannot be done otherwise than by actually knowing and appreciating philosophically the sum of the rules by which society is held. Every nation has two philosophies: one is scholarly, bookish, solemn and festive; the other is daily, domestic, everyday. Often these two philosophies are more or less in close relation to each other; and whoever wants to represent society needs to get to know both, but the latter is especially necessary to study. So, for sure, whoever wants to know some people, he must first of all study it - in its family, domestic life.

From the abstract moral point of view, Belinsky decisively transferred the assessment of the significance of vice to the social plane. The moral outlook or the habitual code of “rules” was considered by Belinsky not in a closed way, not in an individual moral characterization, not in an abstract theoretical relationship with an arbitrarily understood “ideal”, but in its practical consequences, manifested in living, everyday relations between people. “Since the sphere of morality,” he wrote, “is primarily a practical sphere, and the practical sphere is formed mainly from the mutual relations of people to each other, then here, in these relations, nowhere else, one must look for signs of moral or immoral of a person, and not in how a person argues about morality, or what system, what doctrine and what category of morality he holds” (VII, 392).

Belinsky, on various occasions, dwelled on clarifying the practical and vital role of moral concepts, on their dependence on the conditions of the social environment and on the general state of culture. The progressive growth of the moral public outlook was seen as a guarantee of a better future. “Evil hides not in man, but in society; since societies, taken in the sense of a form of human development, are still far from reaching their ideal, it is not surprising that in them alone one sees many crimes. This also explains why what was considered criminal in the ancient world is considered legal in the new, and vice versa: why every people and every age has its own concepts of morality, legal and criminal” (VII, 466).

In the tasks that were set for literature, Belinsky singled out social and educational goals.

474 In defining the positive role of literature in the life of society, he pointed to its morally uplifting significance. “Literature,” wrote Belinsky, “was for our society a living source of even practical moral ideas” (IX, 434). Literature acts “not only on education, but also on the moral improvement of society ... All our moral interests, our entire spiritual life was concentrated ... exclusively in literature: it is a living source from which all human feelings and concepts seep into society” (IX, 435 - 436).

In interpreting social vices, Belinsky, first of all, considered it important to reveal their rootedness in moral "rules" that, according to the conditions of life, were developed and accepted in a given environment. He credited the artist with his ability to discover and point out vice where he does not notice himself.

Belinsky saw a positive feature of the satire of Kantemir and his successors in that it revealed the shortcomings of Russian life, “which she found in the old society not as vices, but as rules of life, as moral convictions” (IX, 434).

Speaking about Gogol, Belinsky singled out his merit in depicting vice not as a crime, but as a consequence of the general moral convictions and moods of the corresponding environment. The denunciation was thus directed at the general customary and current moral norms that were generated and inspired by all the everyday life of feudal reality. “But note that in him this is not debauchery,” he wrote about the mayor, “but his moral development, his highest concept of his objective duties: he is a husband, therefore, he is obliged to decently support his wife; he is the father, therefore, he must give a good dowry for his daughter, in order to provide her with a good batch and, thereby arranging her well-being, to fulfill the sacred duty of a father. He knows that his means to achieve this goal are sinful before God, but he knows this abstractly, with his head, and not with his heart, and he justifies himself. simple rule of all vulgar people: "I'm not the first, I'm not the last, everyone does it." This practical rule of life is so deeply rooted in him that it has become a rule of morality” (III, 453).

Viciousness is defined by Belinsky not so much by the degree of bad moral disposition of its bearer, but rather by the degree of harm caused by a person's practical behavior, no matter what moral disposition this behavior is associated with. “Now we are convinced,” Belinsky writes, “that it is equally harmful to be hypocritical and unhypocritically to love a lie, that it is equally evil to deliberately oppose the truth and unintentionally pursue it. It is even difficult to decide why society loses more: from the malice of evil people or from indifference, stupidity, clumsiness, one-sidedness, crookedness of people who are by nature kind, who are neither fish nor fowl.

Elsewhere, regarding the novels of Walter Scott, Belinsky wrote: “In his novels you see villains, but you understand why they are villains, and sometimes you are interested in their fate. For the most part, in his novels, you meet petty rogues, from whom all the troubles in novels come, as it happens in life itself. Heroes of good and evil are very rare in life; the real masters in it are the people of the middle, neither this nor that” (VI, 35).

In a review of the novel "Who is to blame?" Belinsky emphasized that the faces drawn by the author “are not evil people, even mostly good ones, who torture and persecute themselves and others more often with good than with bad intentions, more out of ignorance than out of anger” (X, 325).

In the moral concepts themselves, for the majority of habitual and good-natured, formed in the conditions of a long tradition of serfdom, Belinsky and Herzen indicated the endless sources of crimes against the individual. The meaning of the novel "Who is to blame?" Belinsky defined it as “suffering, illness at the sight of unrecognized human dignity, insulted with intent, and even more without intent ...” (X, 323).

In the article “Caprices and Reflections”, sympathetically quoted by Belinsky, Herzen wrote: “The kindest person in the world, who does not find cruelty in his soul to kill a mosquito, with great pleasure will tear apart the good name of his neighbor on the basis of morality, according to which he himself does not act ... ”, “The tradesman in the nobility was very surprised to learn that he had been speaking prose for forty years - we laugh at him; and many forty years they did atrocities 476 and died eighty years without knowing it, because their atrocities did not fit under any paragraph of the code”448*.

Herzen invited us to introduce a microscope into the moral world, "to look thread by thread at the web of daily relationships", "to think about what<люди>do at home”, about “everyday relationships, about all the little things that include family secrets, economic affairs, relations with relatives, friends, relatives, servants”, look at the tears of wives and daughters who sacrifice themselves according to the accepted moral duty.

All this called for the study of everyday everyday morality, which fills and in its own way regulates the life of a huge mass of people; all this demanded from literature a living intervention in current moral ideas in order to serve to correct and elevate them, to shed light on feudal untruth with the demands of justice and reason.

In his literary-theoretical views and in his own artistic practice, Ostrovsky follows this call.

To justify the accusatory and socio-educational trend in literature, Ostrovsky dwells on the variability of moral ideals, while pointing out the consistent improvement of moral ideas depending on the general progress in the culture of mankind. Ostrovsky correlates ideas about greatness and heroism or about the meanness and weakness of a person with the moral concepts of a certain historical time. The evaluatively elevating or condemning light in which human qualities appear in various literary works, in Ostrovsky's understanding, is the result of the moral outlook and the moral level of the era and environment. His attention is drawn to such facts of literary history, where the changeability of moral and evaluative ideas comes out with the greatest clarity and where the insufficiency of moral concepts determined by time is compensated by their further historical growth and elevation.

477 Ostrovsky recalls that the heroes of Greek antiquity, Achilles and Odysseus, lose their halo in many respects for later times. On the other hand, the indisputable greatness of Socrates for modern times was not understood by his contemporaries and ridiculed by Aristophanes. The valor of a medieval knight, in terms of its moral level, turned out to be unacceptable for the subsequent time, and in its practical inapplicability, it became ridiculous and eventually evoked the comic image of Don Quixote.

“Antiquity,” writes Ostrovsky, “hoped to see a person in Achilles and Odysseus and was satisfied with these types, seeing in them a complete and elegant combination of those definitions that were then developed for a person and more than ancient world I haven't had time to notice anything in a person yet; on the other hand, the light and graceful Athenian life, estimating Socrates by its own arshin, found his face comical. The medieval hero was a knight, and the art of that time managed to elegantly combine Christian virtues with brutal bitterness against one's neighbor in the representation of man. The medieval hero goes with a sword in his hands to establish the meek gospel truths; for him, the celebration is not complete if, among the divine hymns, the cries of the innocent victims of fanaticism are not heard from the blazing fires. According to another view, the same hero fights with rams and mills.

The idea of ​​the historical relativity of moral concepts, the view of the literary type as a reflection of the ideological spirit of the era, the evaluation of various ethical ideals in the light of their historical belonging - all this echoes Belinsky. It is impossible not to notice that the examples that Ostrovsky draws from the literature of the past, Achilles and Odysseus, Socrates and Aristophanes, medieval chivalry and Don Quixote, were for Belinsky constant examples of the general idea of ​​changing moral ideals in the history of mankind.

For their time, Belinsky wrote, Achilles and Odysseus, along with other heroes of the Iliad and the Odyssey, were "complete representatives of the national spirit" of Ancient Greece. Achilles is "a hero par excellence, 478 drenched from head to toe in an unbearable brilliance of glory, a complete representative of all sides of the spirit of Greece, a worthy son of the goddess" (V, 38). "Odysseus is a representative of wisdom in the sense of politics" (V, 38; cf. V, 325-326; VI, 20; VI, 589). With the views of the new time, the intrinsic value of their heroism has fallen. According to new concepts, the heroic merits of Achilles are already reduced by the fact that he accomplishes his exploits only thanks to the miraculous help of the goddess Athena, although, according to the concepts of his time, for Achilles there was nothing detracting from this (X, 388 - 389). The very content of the moral inspiration of Achilles in many respects would not seem lofty to modern man. “If,” Belinsky wrote, “in our time, some warrior began to avenge a friend or brother who fell in an honest battle, slaughtering captured enemies on his grave, this would be a disgusting, soul-stirring atrocity; and in Achilles, who touches the shadow of Patroclus by killing unarmed enemies, this revenge is valor, for it came out of the mores and religious concepts of the society of his time ”(VI, 589).

The same is true of Odysseus as a hero. “Odysseus is the apotheosis of human wisdom; but what is his wisdom? In cunning, often crude and flat, in what in our prosaic language is called "swindle". And meanwhile, in the eyes of the infantile people, this cunning could not help but seem the extreme degree of possible wisdom ”(V, 34).

Speaking of Socrates, Belinsky especially put forward the idea that his fate was so sad not because of the particularly bad qualities of his enemies, but because of those backward concepts that the wisdom of Socrates encountered and which were the common property of the time. “His executioners, the Athenians,” wrote Belinsky, “were not at all dishonorable or depraved, although they killed Socrates.” In particular, Aristophanes, who ridiculed Socrates in the comedy "Clouds", was not at all below the level of morality of his time. “Let us leave aside our good and innocent textbooks and say frankly that the concept of Aristophanes must be combined with the concept of the noblest and most most moral personality". He was only to blame for the fact that he shared the general prejudices of his time and, seeing "the fall of the poetic beliefs of Homeric Hellas", "thought to help 479 grief, defending the old against the new, condemning the new in the name of the old and adopting a protective, oppositional position in relation to the moving action of Socrates” (XIII, 132). For Belinsky, backward and incorrect concepts hindering progress were more terrible than the evil will of individual people.

In the same correlative discrepancy between the old and the new, Belinsky also illuminated the image of Don Quixote. Don Quixote is "ridiculous precisely because he is an anachronism." The chivalry of the Middle Ages "with its enthusiastic notions of honor, the dignity of privileged blood, love, courage, generosity, with its fanatical and superstitious religiosity" turned out to be inapplicable to the conditions of the new time and provoked a reaction against itself in the person of Don Quixote (VI , 613). “What is Don Quixote? - A man, in general, smart, noble, with a lively and active nature, but who imagined that it would not cost anything in the 16th century to become a knight of the 12th century - you just have to want to ”(VII, 123; cf. VI, 33 - 34).

In the progressive development of moral concepts, the morally transformative significance of literature for both Belinsky and Ostrovsky was conceived in the fact that it helps to replace old decrepit ideas with new, broader and more worthy of man as a rational being. “The public expects from art,” wrote Ostrovsky, “clothing in a living, elegant form of its judgment on life, waiting for the combination in full images of the modern vices and shortcomings noticed in the century ... And art gives the public such images and thereby maintains in it an aversion to everything sharply defined, does not allow it to return to the old, already condemned forms, but forces ... to be more moral.

Appeal to the depiction of reality, recognition of the social accusatory and educational goals of art, the desire for everyday truth, the desire to understand and show a person in typical circumstances and conditions of his environment, attention to moral concepts that exist in practical everyday relations between people - all this is largely explains and characterizes the work of Ostrovsky in his ideological proximity to Belinsky. But all this still concerns only general premises and does not reveal the immediate problematic interest of the writer, that interest that sees the exciting contradictions of life, reveals the clash of opposing forces or aspirations, gives rise to anger, regret or joy, distributes evaluative light over all facts, and in the end determines the composition of the play in its conflict and movement.

This main, central, defining and guiding interest in Ostrovsky consisted in his constant attention to the human personality, constrained in satisfying his natural bright and best needs.

The revision of domestic relations from the point of view of the highest humanity to the greatest extent includes Ostrovsky in the ideological specificity of the 40s, linking him with the line of advanced thought that was created by Belinsky and Herzen.

In contrast to feudal enslavement, the personality of a person was proclaimed by Belinsky and Herzen as the main measure of all assessments. In the name of the individual in the field of philosophy, a protest was made against Hegelian fatalism, which subordinates the individual to an abstract universal "objective spirit". In the name of the individual, all moral norms were reassessed. In the name of the personality of the serf peasant, the manor landowner orders were subjected to trial. Revision of oppressive traditions in family mores and criticism of all forms of bureaucratic subordination were also carried out in the name of the individual.

Everywhere the question of oppression was raised. In the progressive ideological movement of these years, the tasks summarized by Belinsky in a letter to V. Botkin dated January 15, 1841 were revealed and developed: “In general, all the social foundations of our time require the strictest revision and radical restructuring, which will happen sooner or later. It is time to free the human personality, already unhappy, from the vile shackles of unreasonable reality” (XII, 13).

In fiction, criticism of reality 481 was directed in defense of the oppressed "little man." The evil of serf life was reproduced everywhere in the sad fate of the oppressed and suffering individual. This was the main ideological innovation of the advanced literature of the 1940s. In Pushkin's "The Stationmaster" and Gogol's "Overcoat" this was just the beginning. This theme could be widely developed only in the 40s as a result of the general anti-serfdom ideological movement, expressed in the defense of the rights of the oppressed individual.

In depicting the vicious aspects of Russian reality, the center of gravity was shifted from the internal anatomy of the vice itself to its effective results and consequences for others. In "The Village" and "Anton Goremyk", in Turgenev's stories and Nekrasov's poems, in the novel "Who is to blame?" and the story “The Thieving Magpie” by Herzen, in “The Tangled Case” by Saltykov, not only emptiness, spiritual limitations, well-fed, bored lordliness are depicted, but also the fate of people who depend on and suffer from them. Manifestations of spiritual narrow-mindedness, vulgarity, moral stupidity and petty selfishness in any environment arouse interest in their effect on the life and human dignity of offended people. In this direction, the whole writer's outlook changed.

In connection with the development of the peasant liberation movement in the progressive thought of the 1940s, much in Russian reality, which existed before, becomes visible and noticeable for the first time.

A new principle of reality criticism is being established. The observation of life is regulated by a new emphasis of creative attention in accordance with a different general cognitive and practical task. Susceptibility develops to all forms of oppression of the individual, including those feudal moral ideas that contained the sources and justification of violence and neglect of a person.

In the above-mentioned article by Herzen "Caprices and Reflections" there is a sketch that perfectly shows the new initial principle in observations of life, when, in the very process of observation, the studying interest from the bearers of vice moves to their victims. Having spoken of the necessity and importance of studying "family relations", of the savagery and stupidity of domestic customs, 482 of the darkness and criminality of everyday moral concepts, Herzen concludes this as follows: "When I walk the streets, especially late at night, when everything is quiet, gloomy and only here and there a night light is lit, an extinguished lamp, a dying candle - horror comes over me: behind every wall I see drama, behind every wall I see hot tears - tears that no one knows about, tears of deceived hopes, - tears with which flow away not only youthful beliefs, but all human beliefs, and sometimes even life itself. There are, of course, houses in which they eat and drink prosperously all day long, grow fat and sleep soundly all night long, and even in such a house there will be at least some niece, oppressed, crushed, even a maid or a janitor, and certainly someone will feel salty. to live"451*.

What was said about the depravity of Russian life by Gogol did not lose its relevance in the least, but with new tasks it required replenishment.

Gogol was continued, developed, sharpened and clarified in what was unclear or unsaid in his humanistic conclusions.

Gogol's proof in this direction was begun by Belinsky. Belinsky was fully aware of the "reticence" of Gogol's satire and sometimes, as far as possible under the conditions of censorship, he slightly opened up that perspective plan in which not only the comic figures of vice, but also its tragic victims were to be conceived.

In a review of Sovremennik, Nos. 11 and 12 (1838), Belinsky, explaining the importance of vivid, artistically typical details, gives the following example. “Do you remember,” he asks the reader with a question, “how Major Kovalev rode in a cab on a newspaper expedition and, without ceasing to beat him with his fist in the back, said: “Hurry, scoundrel! Hurry, swindler!" And do you remember the short answer and the cabman's objection to these proddings: "Oh, sir!" - the words that he uttered, shaking his head and whipping his horse with the reins? .. With these proddings and these two words “Oh, master!” the attitude of the cabbies towards the majors Kovalev is quite pronounced” (III, 53).

483 In an article about Woe from Wit (1840), revealing the essence of the comic in The Inspector General, Belinsky did not forget to mention what tragic possibilities lie in funny passions. actors this play.

On the basis of Gogol's mayor's comic dreams about the generalship, Belinsky pointed out what consequences could arise from such bossy encroachments. “Comedy has its passions, the source of which is ridiculous, but the results can be terrible. According to the concept of our mayor, to be a general means to see humiliation and meanness from the lower ones in front of you, to persecute all non-generals with your swagger and arrogance: to take away horses from a person of an unofficial or lower rank, who, according to his road, has an equal right to them; say brother and you to the one who says to him your excellency and you, and so on. Become our governor a general - and when he lives in a county town, grief little man if he, considering himself “not having the honor of being acquainted with Mr. General”, does not bow to him or does not give way at the ball, even if this little man is preparing to be a great man! .. Then a tragedy for “Little man” (III, 468).

Objecting to the idyllic interpretation of "Dead Souls" by the Slavophiles, Belinsky wrote: "Konstantin Aksakov is ready to find all the heroes depicted in it beautiful people ... This, in his opinion, means understanding Gogol's humor ... Whatever he says, but out of tone and out of everything in his pamphlet shows that he sees the Russian Iliad in Dead Souls44. This means understanding Gogol's poem completely upside down. All these Manilovs and others like them are funny only in a book, but in reality, God forbid, to meet with them - and you can’t not meet with them, because they are still quite enough in reality, therefore, they are representatives of some part of it. Further, Belinsky formulates the general meaning of "Dead Souls" in his own understanding: "... true criticism should reveal the pathos of the poem, which consists in the contradiction of the social forms of Russian life with its deep substantive beginning..." comic fact of the poem, suggests the tragic aspects of Russian life, which are suggested by this fact: “Why was the beautiful blonde scolded to tears, when she did not even understand why she was scolded” and so on. And then he finishes: “Many such questions can be raised. We know that most will consider them petty. That is why the creation of “Dead Souls” is great, that life is hidden and dissected in it to the smallest detail, and these trifles are given a general significance. Of course, some Ivan Antonovich, a pitcher snout, is very ridiculous in Gogol's book and a very small phenomenon in life; but if you have something to do with him, then you will lose the desire to laugh at him, and you won’t find him small ... Why can he seem so important to you in life - that’s the question! (VI, 430-431).