Victor Hugo's house in Besançon. Victor Hugo - Realities of our life — LiveJournal
CitadelA UNESCO World Heritage Site masterpiece by Vauban, the Besancon Citadel is considered one of the most beautiful in France. It rises more than 100 meters above the old town and the river, offering beautiful panoramic views.
astronomical clock
Created by Augustine Lucian Truth between 1858 and 60, the Besançon astronomical clock has a complex and precise mechanism, consisting of over 30,000 parts and 11 moving parts.
Cathedral of St. Jean.
Cathedral of St. Jean has two different apses: a Romanesque choir and an ornate 18th-century choir. It is worth noting the large white marble altarpiece, the only French example of its kind, as well as the "Our Lady with Saints", painted in 1512 by Fra Bartolomeo. Nearby is the famous astronomical clock, which has intricately animated figures depicting the resurrection of Christ.
Working hours:
Summer 9 - 19, winter 9 - 18.
Birthplace of the Lumiere brothers
Auguste and Louis Lumiere
(1862-1954) (1864-1948)
The inventors of cinema, the Lumiere brothers, were born in Besançon, on Place Saint-Quentin (now Place Victor Hugo) at No. 1. Their father, Antoine (1840 - 1911), a photographer, kept his studio in the courtyard of No. Granges (former monastery).
"Black Gate", built around 175 AD. in honor of the emperor Marcus Aurelius.
Birthplace of Victor Hugo
On the house where Victor Hugo was once born, you can see a sign. She was hanged on February 26, 2002 as a reminder of the ideals of the 19th century, the political struggle of one of the most famous writers in France: "I want great people, I want a free man."
Address:
140 grande rue
25000 BESANCON
Place du theater
25000 BESANCON
A popular entertainment venue for resort guests, the Kursaal was built in 1892. At one time it housed a circus and a brewery.
Rue Megevand
25000 BESANCON
The city theater was built in 1778 according to the plan of the architect Claude Nicolas Ledoux in accordance with the design of the new time. Rooms were created in the amphitheater, seats in the stalls were created, and the first theater pit in the world was made. The theater corridor was destroyed by fire in 1958, then rebuilt.
Birth house of Jean-Charles Emmanuel Nodier
Jean-Charles Emmanuel Nodier
(1780-1844)
Journalist, writer, leader of the Romantics, Charles Nodier moved to Paris in 1813. Elected to the French Academy in 1833, he often mentions the delights of his native land in his works. He was born on April 29, 1780, probably in a now defunct house located on the Place Victor-Hugo (in the place of the current house number 7), and spent his childhood in the house of his grandfather, master contractor Joseph Nodier, at rue Neuve (now rue Charles -Nodier, No. 11).
Rue Charles Nodier
25000 BESANCON
This building is currently located in Du Prefecture. It was built in 1770 - 78 by order of Charles Lacour and served as a hotel for the manager of the region.
The general plan was created by the great Parisian architect Victor Louis, the construction work was headed by Nicolas Nicol. Adapting a traditional townhouse plan between a courtyard and a garden, the administration building has a courtyard-facing adorned with six ionic columns topped by a pediment, while the rear façade is designed in the form of a rotunda.
Rue Gabriel Plancon
25000 BESANCON
Simultaneously a business center and a communication centre, the Cité, designed by the architect Studio, symbolizes Besançon's discovery of new technologies.
18 rue de l'Orme de Chamars
25000 BESANCON
Built from 1739 to 1745, this chapel was designed by architect Nicholas Nicol. Formerly a monastery chapel, it was attached to the hospital of St. Jacques in 1802.
Open daily, including holidays, from 14:00 to 16:30. 
In 17802, the architect Bertrand proposed to build a new church on the royal square, continued by a number of neo-classical buildings. The church was made in the form of a Greek cross in the period 1782-86. The original project was interrupted by the French Revolution.
Place du 8 septembre
25000 BESANCON
On the main square of the city is the town hall, designed by mayor Richard Sarah. Its facade is made in the spirit of the Italian Renaissance palace. Above the porch of the town hall you can see an eagle with two columns, a reminder of the ancient past of the city.
Work on this masterpiece by the architect Nicolas Nicol began in 1746 and continued until the middle of the 18th century. The two towers were completed in 1830. Inside the sanctuary is divided into three naves, interspersed with columns. The architectural unity of the whole church is an example of religious architecture of the 18th century.
The church houses a museum that presents the history of the district over 5 centuries.
6 rue de la Madeleine
25000 BESANCON
Tel. : 03 81 81 12 09
Might take another half day. So it is better to lay at least 1 day to explore the city.
Among the main attractions of Besancon are, and. But just a walk through the old town and the river embankment will certainly bring pleasure!
All sights of Besançon:
A masterpiece by Vauban, included in the Citadel of Besancon, it is considered one of the most beautiful in France. It rises more than 100 meters above the old town and the river, offering beautiful panoramic views.
astronomical clock
Created by Augustine Lucian Truth between 1858 and 60, the Besançon astronomical clock has a complex and precise mechanism, consisting of over 30,000 parts and 11 moving parts.
Cathedral Saint-Jean
Cathedral of St. Jean has two different apses: a Romanesque choir and an ornate 18th-century choir. It is worth noting the large white marble altarpiece, the only French example of its kind, as well as the "Our Lady with Saints", painted in 1512 by Fra Bartolomeo. Nearby are the famous ones, in which complexly animated figures depict the resurrection of Christ.
- Working hours:
- Summer 9 - 19,
- winter 9 – 18.
Birthplace of the Lumiere Brothers
Auguste and Louis Lumière (1862-1954) (1864-1948)
The inventors of cinema, the Lumiere brothers, were born in Saint-Quentin (now Place Victor Hugo) at number 1. Their father, Antoine (1840 - 1911), a photographer, kept his studio in the courtyard of house number 59, Rue des Granges (former monastery).
Later, the brothers moved to the town, east of. It was there that they filmed their famous film, which became the beginning of cinema - "The Arrival of the Train at La Ciotat Station."
PORTE NOIRE
Porte Noire (French for "Black Gate") was built around 175 AD. in honor of the emperor Marcus Aurelius.
Birthplace of Victor Hugo
On the house where Victor Hugo was once born, you can see a sign. She was hanged on February 26, 2002 as a reminder of the ideals of the 19th century, the political struggle of one of the most famous writers in France: "I want great people, I want a free man."
Address:
140 grande rue
25000 BESANCON
Kursaal
Place du theater
25000 BESANCON
A popular entertainment venue for resort guests, the Kursaal was built in 1892. At one time it housed a circus and a brewery.
Theater of Besançon
Rue Megevand
25000 BESANCON
The city theater was built in 1778 according to the plan of the architect Claude Nicolas Ledoux in accordance with the design of the new time. Rooms were created in the amphitheater, seats in the stalls were created, and the first theater pit in the world was made. The theater corridor was destroyed by fire in 1958, then rebuilt.
House of Jean-Charles Emmanuel Nodier
Jean-Charles Emmanuel Nodier (1780-1844)
Journalist, writer, leader of the Romantics, Charles Nodier moved in in 1813. Elected to the French Academy in 1833, he often mentions the delights of his native land in his works. He was born on April 29, 1780, probably in a now defunct house located on the Place Victor-Hugo (in the place of the current house number 7), and spent his childhood in the house of his grandfather, master contractor Joseph Nodier, at rue Neuve (now rue Charles -Nodier, No. 11).
L'Intendance de Besancon
Rue Charles Nodier
25000 BESANCON
This building is currently located in Du Prefecture. It was built in 1770 - 78 by order of Charles Lacour and served as a hotel for the manager of the region.
The general plan was created by the great Parisian architect Victor Louis, the construction work was headed by Nicolas Nicol. Adapting a traditional townhouse plan between a courtyard and a garden, the administration building has a courtyard-facing adorned with six ionic columns topped by a pediment, while the rear façade is designed in the form of a rotunda.
Other attractions in Besançon:
Rue Gabriel Plancon 
Simultaneously a business center and a communication centre, the Cité, designed by the architect Studio, symbolizes Besançon's discovery of new technologies.
CHAPELLE NOTRE DAME DU REFUGE
18 rue de l'Orme de Chamars
25000 BESANCON
Built from 1739 to 1745, this chapel was designed by architect Nicholas Nicol. Formerly a monastery chapel, it was attached to the hospital of St. Jacques in 1802.
Open daily, including holidays, from 14:00 to 16:30. 
In 17802, the architect Bertrin proposed to build a new church on the royal place of Besançon, continued by a series of neo-classical buildings. The church was made in the form of a Greek cross in the period 1782-86. The original project was interrupted by the French Revolution.
Place du 8 septembre
25000 BESANCON
On the main square of Besançon is the town hall, designed by Mayor Richard Sar. Its facade is made in the spirit of the Italian Renaissance palace. Above the porch of the town hall you can see an eagle with two columns, a reminder of the ancient past of the city.
Work on this masterpiece by the architect Nicolas Nicol began in 1746 and continued until the middle of the 18th century. The two towers were completed in 1830. Inside the sanctuary is divided into three naves, interspersed with columns. The architectural unity of the whole church is an example of religious architecture of the 18th century.
The church is located, which presents the history of the district over 5 centuries.
6 rue de la Madeleine
25000 BESANCON
Tel. : 03 81 81 12 09
(ratings: 1
, average: 5,00
out of 5)
The brilliant poet, playwright and writer Victor Marie Hugo was born in Besancon on February 26, 1802 in the family of an officer. The married life of his parents did not work out, so the baby wandered between his father's and mother's houses. Perhaps it was because of this that little Hugo was an extremely sickly boy.
Victor was not yet twenty, when in October 1822 he became the legal spouse of Alede Fouquet, the girl whom he had loved since childhood. Their first child died after only a few months. After the tragic death of the firstborn, his wife gave Victor Hugo four more children - two daughters and two sons. The relationship between the spouses was full of love and understanding, thanks to which the writer's colleagues called the couple "the holy family."
The period of odes and novels gave way to a wave of plays at the turn of the 20-30s of the 19th century. More and more immersed in the theatrical environment, losing the sense of time at rehearsals, Hugo practically does not appear at home. The family idyll collapses, and on its shaky remnants rises the triumphal play "Ernani", bringing the family an unprecedented financial wealth.
At the beginning of 1831, the writer puts an end to the legendary novel and, at the same time, to a happy marriage. Adele had fallen out of love with Victor a long time ago - although he did not notice it - and life in this position became unbearable for a young creative man.
At this time, fate gives him a new ray of sunshine, the charming Parisian Juliette Drouet. The slender, black-eyed courtesan and Hugo seemed to be made for each other... A white streak begins in the writer's life again, and he, filled with inspiration, begins his literary activity with renewed vigor. By the way, unlike Adele, Juliette highly appreciated the work of her beloved and always kept his manuscripts. Victor's inspiration soon resulted in a collection of poems "Songs of Twilight".
Interestingly, in these relationships, Hugo proved to be more of a strict mentor than a sincere lover. With his light hand Juliette from a captivating courtesan has turned into a modest nun ... Meanwhile, the writer plunges headlong into social activities. Yes, in 1845 he became a peer of France - and this was not the ultimate dream.
In 1843, Hugo's eldest daughter, Leopoldina, tragically dies along with her husband. At the same time, the second (unofficial) marriage of the writer cracks: in addition to Juliette, many pretty courtesans and actresses begin to visit him. Only seven years later, the unfortunate woman learns about the "exploits" of her Casanova - and how she finds out, from the lips of her rival herself, who, in addition to her letter, also attached love correspondence with Hugo ...
In the 1950s, the French master became an exile, wandering between Brussels and the British Isles. Outside of France, he publishes the pamphlet "Napoleon the Small", which brings him unprecedented fame, after which he takes up creativity with renewed vigor. Luck smiled at him every now and then: for the fee for the collection of poetry "Contemplation" Hugo was able to build a whole house!
In the 60s, Les Misérables, Toilers of the Sea, Songs of the Streets and Forests appeared. The writer is not affected even by the death of his first love - Adele, as well as all his children. After all, the life of Victor Hugo now, in addition to Juliette, was brightened up by Marie, then Sarah, then Judith - all as one young, fresh, ardent. Even at the age of eighty, Hugo remained himself: two months before his death, he still made love dates.
On May 22, 1885, the world said goodbye to the great writer. Two million people followed Victor Hugo's coffin...
Victor Hugo, bibliography
All books by Victor Hugo:
Poetry
1822
"Odes and Poetic Experiences"
1823
"Odes"
1824
"New Odes"
1826
"Odes and Ballads"
1829
"Oriental motives"
1831
« Autumn leaves»
1835
"Songs of Twilight"
1837
"Inner Voices"
1840
"Rays and Shadows"
1853
"Retribution"
1856
"Contemplations"
1865
"Songs of the streets and forests"
1872
"Terrible Year"
1877
"The Art of Being a Grandfather"
1878
"Dad"
1880
"Revolution"
1881
"Four Winds of the Spirit"
1859, 1877, 1883
"Legend of Ages"
1886
"End of Satan"
1891
"God"
1888, 1893
"All the strings of the lyre"
1898
"Dark Years"
1902, 1941
"The Last Sheaf"
1942
"Ocean"
Dramaturgy
1819/1820
"Ines de Castro"
1827
"Cromwell"
1828
"Amy Robsart"
1829
"Marion Delorme"
1829
"Ernani"
1832
"King is having fun"
1833
"Lucretia Borgia"
1833
"Mary Tudor"
1835
"Angelo, Tyrant of Padua"
1838
"Ruy Blas"
1843
"Burgraves"
1882
"Torquemada"
1886
Free Theatre. Small pieces and fragments»
Novels
1823
"Gan the Icelander"
1826
"Byug-Zhargal"
1829
"The last day of the condemned to death"
1831
"Notre Dame Cathedral"
1834
"Claude Gue"
1862
"Les Misérables"
1866
"Toilers of the Sea"
1869
"The Man Who Laughs"
1874
"Ninety-Third Year"
Publicism and essay
1834
"Study of Mirabeau"
1834
"Literary and philosophical experiments"
1842
Rhine. Letters to a friend"
1852
"Napoleon the Small"
1855
"Letters to Louis Bonaparte"
1864
"William Shakespeare"
1867
"Paris"
1867
"Voice from Guernsey"
1875
"Before Exile"
1875
"During the exile"
1876, 1889
"After Exile"
1877-1878
There are quite a few such houses-museums in which famous writers once lived in France - about 120. George Sand, Alexandre Dumas, Jules Verne, Honore de Balzac, Victor Hugo .... You can climb the same stairs where they walked, touch with your hand objects that once belonged to them, and even imagine yourself in the place of their heroes.
Fame came to Victor Hugo quite early. He was only 20 years old when the king granted a pension to the novice writer after the publication of the first poems. This allowed him to marry the girl he had loved since childhood. The collection was followed by numerous plays and novels, fame and fortune came.
Place des Vosges (until 1799 - Place Royal), house number 6, an old mansion built at the very beginning of the 17th century. In 1831, the well-known writer Victor Hugo brought his family here: his wife (Adèle Fouché) and five children. They occupied apartments on the second floor of the building - 280 square meters and lived in them for about 16 years (1832-1848).
The best novels were written in this apartment - Lucrezia Borgia, Les Misérables, Twilight Song, Mary Tudor, Rays and Shadows. In 1841, Victor Hugo became a member of the French Academy, and somewhat later, in 1848, a member of the National Assembly. Many came here famous people Cast: Prosper Merimee, Honore de Balzac, Gioacchino Rossini, Alexandre Dumas, Franz Liszt. From this apartment, the writer married Leopoldina, his beloved daughter.
Attractions of the house-museum Hugo
In 1902, on the centenary of the birth of Victor Hugo, it was decided to open a house-museum in his former apartment. Why Paul Meris (friend and executor) bought the mansion and donated books, manuscripts, drawings, personal belongings of the writer, which became the basis of the museum composition.
Hallway or front room
The room is furnished in a restrained style. Near one of the walls there are two old chests on stands. Each of them is made in its own style and has a decorative painting on the lids and front walls. Opposite the entrance there is a pier-glass on which stands a bust. The lower part of the dressing table is made of expensive wood and decorated with carvings. A massive wide mirror rises almost to the very ceiling of the room. 
The walls are decorated with paintings by masters. Some canvases depict historical events from different eras. In other paintings and engravings, there are images of the family, children of close friends and acquaintances. place of honor among all the canvases, it occupies one with the image of Madame Hugo. All paintings are framed in heavy carved frames.
The front room is spacious enough but not big. An antique-style chandelier hangs from a high ceiling on a chain.
red room
From the hallway, the visitor immediately enters the red room. The entire room is decorated in red tones and furnished with expensive furniture in contrasting colors. From the wooden parquet floor to the ceiling, the walls are covered with burgundy wallpaper. Heavy red curtains hung from the windows, drawn with cords. At the same time, the room is quite bright and comfortable.
Along one wall are two coffee tables on carved gilded legs. On them are decorative figurines and busts depicting famous people from the time of Victor Hugo. In the center of the room there is a rare table, on which, under glass, some household items of the writer and his family are presented.
Two balcony exits on one side of the room have fully glazed double doors high to the ceiling. The balconies offer a beautiful view of the square. Between the doors, near the wall, there is a carved bedside table, on which there are two painted vases and a dish left over from the life of the famous writer.
On the walls, as in the previous room, paintings by masters are hung. Many of them depict famous people and family friends, the rest are historical moments from various periods. Also in the room are mirrors in elaborate gilded frames hanging on opposite walls.
Chinese living room
After the red room, made in the classical style, there is a room fully furnished with Chinese household items and art. In this room, you can appreciate the design talent of the writer.
One of the walls of the room is almost completely covered with shelves with painted Chinese porcelain plates. These racks were designed by Victor Hugo himself, painting and finishing by his friend. On the same side there is a chimney, the panels of which were painted by the master. The room is dominated by basic blacks, muted greens and burgundy tones. The drawings are made in gold, red and green paints.
The high ceilings are decorated with carved wood with ornate patterns. Each individual piece is a work of art. Hanging from the ceiling is a Chinese-style lamp with a lampshade.
There are chairs on both sides of the chimney, and not far from them is a Chinese secretary table, skillfully painted by a master hand. There were many letters and answers to correspondence written on this table. There is a fireplace in the room to heat the room.
From the room there is an exit to the balcony, made in the same style as in the previous room. All the walls are covered with painted wood panels depicting birds, butterflies, Chinese people and Chinese women. On the shelves are figurines depicting dragons and various Chinese dishes.
The dining room in Victor Hugo's apartment is made in the Gothic style. In the center of the room is a massive wooden table and chairs. Along the walls along the perimeter there is furniture: benches, cupboards, dressing table, bedside tables. Everything is made of expensive and heavy wood and decorated with carvings.
It is noteworthy that all the decoration of the room was made from Renaissance furniture, which was purchased in different places.
With the help of designers and carpenters, a dining table was made from a heavy wooden door, and various chests of drawers turned into sideboards and benches. The walls in the dining room are lined with heavily framed paintings and photographs. On the shelves and the table are decorative figurines and depicting famous people.
Near one of the walls there is a large mirror, which, as it were, is recessed into a large wooden frame-cabinet with shelves and carved posts. The two windows let in the light well, despite the heavy curtains, made in the color of all the wallpapers and beautifully decorated. Hanging from the ceiling is a heavy chandelier made of metal in the style of the entire room.
Despite the fact that the room is furnished with heavy furniture, and the walls and curtains are dark in color, it is quite pleasant to look at and cozy. And the beauty of the furniture attracts the eye with its pretentiousness, on which the masters of that time worked.
small hall
It's really a small room. It is almost impossible to arrange massive furniture of the era in which Victor Hugo lived in it. Room made in modern style, walls and ceilings covered with wallpaper. There are no fancy benches or heavy chandeliers.
Today the premises are used as an exhibition room. Paintings, engravings, manuscripts and other similar works of art, and valuable historical specimens are hung on the walls. The exposition is constantly changing or closing. The reason for this is that some items are not allowed to be displayed permanently, as they may deteriorate.
The workshop is a place where a talented writer created and created his works. It was made in a green style, fashionable at that time.
The room is small, but quite spacious and bright, thanks to two balcony openings, which are completely open and not hung with heavy curtains. The floor is made of wooden parquet, but the lighting of that time has not been preserved. Now the room is illuminated by modern devices.
In the room there is an old chest of drawers with carved patterns, on which there is a large figurine. Next is a high pedestal, on which the bust of Leon Bonn is located. Opposite the balconies there is a high secretary on thin beautiful legs.
The writer’s desk is located in the room, on which samples of some of his manuscripts, an old book and various personal items are presented under glass. Paintings and portraits of his acquaintances, friends and a large portrait of his grandchildren Georges and Jeanne on the wall with balcony exits are hung on all the walls.
Through the workshop, the visitor enters the bedroom. Thanks to the grandchildren of Victor Hugo, the interior decoration and furniture of the room where the writer spent his last years of life has been preserved. The room has been completely restored and conveys the atmosphere of the room of that time.
In a small room there is a massive wooden bed with a roof, it was on it that he spent his last days, hours and minutes Victor Hugo. The head of the bed is carved and high. On four pillars along its perimeter there are carved supports, starting from the legs on which the roof rests.
To heat the room, a marble fireplace is provided, above which a large mirror rises to the very ceiling. There are two candlesticks with candles and an old clock on the fireplace. Near the bed there is a tall chest of drawers in the Gothic style, made of expensive wood and decorated by craftsmen.
The room also has a large cupboard, antique carved cabinets and chairs. Decorative figurines are placed on the shelves and cabinets. There are tall vases on the floor. There are also a couple of paintings on the walls that depict Victor Hugo on his bed in his final years.
The walls throughout the room are covered in red wallpaper, and sunlight comes in through the single window opposite the bed. On the ceiling is a stretched tapestry depicting nature. The window is covered with heavy red curtains hanging heavily from the ceiling.
How to get there
Address: 6 Place des Vosges, Paris 75004Telephone: +33 1 42 72 10 16
Website: maisonsvictorhugo.paris.fr
Metro: Saint-Paul, Bastille, Chemin-Vert
Working hours: 10:00-18:00 except Monday
Ticket price
- Adult: 7 €
- Reduced: 5 €
Biography (en.wikipedia.org)
Life and art
The father of the writer, Joseph Leopold Sigisber Hugo (fr.) Russian. (1773-1828), became a general of the Napoleonic army, his mother Sophie Trebuchet (1772-1821) - the daughter of a shipowner, was a royalist-Voltairian.
Hugo's early childhood takes place in Marseille, Corsica, Elba (1803-1805), Italy (1807), Madrid (1811), where his father's career takes place, and from where the family returns to Paris every time. Victor studied at the Madrid noble seminary, and they wanted to enroll him in the pages of the king. [source?] Travel left a deep impression in the soul of the future poet and prepared his romantic outlook. Hugo himself said later that Spain was for him "a magical spring, the waters of which intoxicated him forever." [source?] In 1813, Hugo's mother, Sophie Trebuchet, who had a love affair with General Lagory, divorced her husband and settled with her son in Paris.
In October 1822, Hugo married Adele Fouche, five children were born in this marriage:
* Leopold (1823-1823)
* Leopoldina (1824-1843)
* Charles (1826-1871)
* François-Victor (1828-1873)
* Adele (1830-1915).
In 1841 Hugo was elected to the French Academy, in 1848 - to the National Assembly.
Artworks
Like many young writers of his era, Hugo was greatly influenced by François Chateaubriand, a well-known figure in the literary movement of Romanticism and a prominent figure in France at the beginning of the 19th century. As a young man, Hugo decided to be "Chateaubriand or nothing" and that his life should match that of his predecessor. Like Chateaubriand, Hugo would promote the development of romanticism, have a significant place in politics as a leader of republicanism, and be exiled due to his political positions.
The early passion and eloquence of Hugo's early work brought him success and fame in his early years. His first collection of poems (Odes et poesies diverses) was published in 1822, when Hugo was only 20 years old. King Louis XVIII granted an annual allowance for the writer. Although Hugo's poems were admired for their spontaneous fervor and fluency, this collected work was followed by the Odes et Ballades written in 1826, four years after the first triumph. Odes et Ballades presented Hugo as a great poet, a true master of lyrics and song.
Victor Hugo's first mature work in the genre of fiction was written in 1829 and reflected the writer's keen social consciousness, which continued in his subsequent works. The story Le Dernier jour d'un condamne (The last day of the condemned to death) had a great influence on such writers as Albert Camus, Charles Dickens and F. M. Dostoevsky. Claude Gueux, a short documentary story about a real-life murderer who was executed in France, saw the light of day in 1834 and was later hailed by Hugo himself as a forerunner of his excellent work on social injustice, Les Misérables. But Hugo's first full novel would be the wildly successful Notre-Dame de Paris (Notre Dame), which was published in 1831 and quickly translated into many languages across Europe. One effect of the novel was to draw attention to the decrepit Notre Dame Cathedral, which began to attract thousands of tourists who read the popular novel. The book also contributed to a renewed respect for the old buildings, which immediately thereafter began to be actively preserved.
Last years
Hugo was buried in the Pantheon.
Interesting Facts
* A crater on Mercury is named after Hugo.
* "Hugo" is one of the socionic types in socionics.
* There is the following anecdote about Hugo:
“Once Victor Hugo went to Prussia.
- What do you do? - the gendarme asked him, filling out the questionnaire.
- Writing.
- I ask, how do you earn money for living?
- Feather.
- So let's write down: “Hugo. Feather Merchant."
Compositions
Poetry
* Odes and poetic experiences (Odes et poesies diverses, 1822).
* Odes (Odes, 1823).
* New odes (Nouvelles Odes, 1824).
* Odes and ballads (Odes et Ballades, 1826).
* Oriental motifs (Les Orientales, 1829).
* Autumn Leaves (Les Feuilles d'automne, 1831).
* Songs of Twilight (Les Chants du crepuscule, 1835).
* Internal voices (Les Voix interieures, 1837).
* Rays and shadows (Les Rayons et les ombres, 1840).
* Retribution (Les Chatiments, 1853).
* Contemplations (Les Contemplations, 1856).
* Songs of the streets and forests (Les Chansons des rues et des bois, 1865).
* Terrible year (L'Annee terrible, 1872).
* The art of being a grandfather (L'Art d "etre grand-pere, 1877).
* Dad (Le Pape, 1878).
* Revolution (L "Ane, 1880).
* The Four Winds of the Spirit (Les Quatres vents de l'esprit, 1881).
* Legend of the Ages (La Legende des siecles, 1859, 1877, 1883).
* The End of Satan (La fin de Satan, 1886).
* God (Dieu, 1891).
* All strings of the lyre (Toute la lyre, 1888, 1893).
* The Dark Years (Les annees funestes, 1898).
* The last sheaf (Derniere Gerbe, 1902, 1941).
* Ocean (Ocean. Tas de pierres, 1942).
Dramaturgy
* Cromwell (Cromwell, 1827).
* Amy Robsart (1828, published 1889).
* Hernani (Hernani, 1830).
* Marion Delorme (Marion Delorme, 1831).
* The king amuses himself (Le Roi s'amuse, 1832).
* Lucrece Borgia (Lucrece Borgia, 1833).
* Mary Tudor (Marie Tudor, 1833).
* Angelo, tyrant of Padua (Angelo, tyran de Padoue, 1835).
* Ruy Blas (Ruy Blas, 1838).
* Burgraves (Les Burgraves, 1843).
* Torquemada (Torquemada, 1882).
* Free theatre. Small Pieces and Fragments (Theatre en liberte, 1886).
Novels
* Han Icelander (Han d'Islande, 1823).
* Bug-Jargal (Bug-Jargal, 1826)
* The last day of the condemned to death (Le Dernier jour d'un condamne, 1829).
* Notre Dame Cathedral (Notre-Dame de Paris, 1831).
* Claude Gueux (1834).
* Les Misérables (Les Miserables, 1862).
* Workers of the sea (Les Travailleurs de la Mer, 1866).
* The Man Who Laughs (L'Homme qui rit, 1869).
* Ninety-third year (Quatrevingt-treize, 1874).
Publicism and essay
Selected bibliography
Collected works
* ?uvres completes de Victor Hugo, Edition definitive d'apres les manuscrits originaux - edition ne varietur, 48 vv., 1880-1889
* Collected works: In 15 volumes - M .: Goslitizdat, 1953-1956.
* Collected works: In 10 volumes - M .: Pravda, 1972.
* Collected works: In 6 volumes - M .: Pravda, 1988.
* Collected works: In 6 volumes - Tula: Santaks, 1993.
* Collected works: In 4 volumes - M .: Literature, 2001.
* Collected works: In 14 volumes - M .: Terra, 2001-2003.
Literature about Hugo
* Brahman S. R. "Les Misérables" by Victor Hugo. - M.: Hood. lit., 1968. - (Mass ist.-lit. b-ka)
* Evnina E. M. Victor Hugo. - M.: Nauka, 1976. - (From the history of world culture)
* Karelsky A. V. Hugo // History of World Literature. T. 6. M.: Nauka, 1989.
* Louis Aragon "Hugo the Realist Poet"
* Lukov V. A. Hugo // Foreign Writers: Bibliographic Dictionary. M.: Education, 1997.
* Meshkova I. V. The work of Victor Hugo. - Prince. 1 (1815-1824). - Saratov: Ed. Sar. un-ta, 1971.
* Minina T. N. The novel "The Ninety-Third Year": Probl. revolution in the work of Victor Hugo. - L .: Publishing house of Leningrad State University, 1978.
* Morua A. Olympio, or the Life of Victor Hugo. - Numerous editions.
* Muravyova N. I. Hugo. - 2nd ed. - M.: Mol. guard, 1961. - (ZhZL).
* Safronova N. N. Victor Hugo. - Biography of the writer. Moscow "Enlightenment". 1989.
* Treskunov M. S. V. Hugo. - L .: Enlightenment, 1969. - (B-ka wordsmith)
* Treskunov M. S. Victor Hugo: Essay on Creativity. - Ed. 2nd, add. - M.: Goslitizdat, 1961.
* Treskunov M.S. Victor Hugo's novel "The Ninety-Third Year". - M.: Hood. lit., 1981. - (Mass ist.-lit. b-ka)
* Hugo Adele. Victor Hugo Raconte par un Temoin de sa Vie, avec des Oeuvres Inedites, entre autres un Drame en Trois Actes: Inez de Castro, 1863
*Josephson Matthew. Victor Hugo, a Realistic Biography, 1942
* Maurois Andre. Olympio: La vie de Victor Hugo, 1954
* Pironue Georges. Victor Hugo Romancier; ou, Les Dessus de l'inconnu, 1964
* Houston John P. Victor Hugo, 1975
* Chauvel A.D. & Forestier M. Extraordinary House of Victor Hugo in Guernsey, 1975
* Richardson Joanna. Victor Hugo, 1976
* Brombert Victor. Victor Hugo and the Visionary Novel, 1984
* Ubersfeld Anne. Paroles de Hugo, 1985
* Guerlac Suzanne. The Impresonal Sublime, 1990
*Bloom Harold, ed. Victor Hugo, 1991
* Grossman Kathryn M. "Les Miserables": Conversion, Revolution, Redemption, 1996
* Robb Graham. Victor Hugo: A Biography, 1998
* Frey John A. Victor Hugo Encyclopedia, 1998
* Halsall Albert W. Victor Hugo and the Romantic Drama, 1998
* Hovasse Jean-Marc. Victor Hugo. Avant l'exil 1802-1851, 2002
*Kahn Jean-Francois. Victor Hugo, un revolutionnaire, 2002
* Martin Feller, Der Dichter in der Politik. Victor Hugo und der deutsch-franzosische Krieg von 1870/71. Untersuchungen zum franzosischen Deutschlandbild und zu Hugos Rezeption in Deutschland. Marburg 1988.
* Tonazzi Pascal, Florilege de Notre-Dame de Paris (anthologie), Editions Arlea, Paris, 2007, ISBN 2-86959-795-9
* Hovasse Jean-Marc, Victor Hugo II: 1851-1864, Fayard, Paris, 2008
Memory
* House Museum of Victor Hugo in Paris.
* Monument at the Sorbonne by Laurent Marquest.
* House Museum of Victor Hugo in Luxembourg. Bust of Hugo by Rodin.
* Monument to Hugo in the Hermitage. Author - Laurent Marquest. Gift of the City Hall of Paris to Moscow.
Hugo's works in other art forms
Screen adaptations and films based on works
* Quasimodo d'El Paris (1999) (novel "Notre Dame de Paris")
* Les miserables (1998) (novel)
* The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996) (novel "Notre Dame de Paris")
* Les miserables (1995) (novel)
* Mest shuta (1993) (novel "Le Roi s'Amuse")
* Les miserables (1988) (novel)
* Dias dificiles (1987) (novel)
* La conscience (1987) (short story)
* Le dernier jour d'un condamne (1985) (novel "Le dernier jour d'un condamne")
* Les miserables (1982) (novel)
* Rigoletto (1982) (play "Le roi s'amuse")
* Kozete (1977) (novel "Les Miserables")
* Le scomunicate di San Valentino (1974) (loosely inspired by a drama by)
* Sefiller (1967) (novel "Les Miserables")
* L'uomo che ride (1966) (novel "L'Homme qui rit") (uncredited in italian version)
* Jean Valjean (1961) (novel "Les Miserables")
* Les miserables (1958) (novel)
* La deroute (1957) (story)
* Nanbanji no semushi-otoko (1957) (novel "Notre Dame de Paris")
*Notre Dame de Paris (1956) (novel)
* Sea Devils (1953) (novel "Les Travailleurs de la mer")
* La Gioconda (1953) (novel "Angelo, tyran de Padoue")
* Les miserables (1952) (novel)
* Re mizeraburu: kami to jiyu no hata (1950) (novel)
* Re mizeraburu: kami to akuma (1950) (novel)
* Ruy Blas (1948) (play)
* I miserabili (1948) (novel "Les Miserables")
* Il tiranno di Padova (1946) (story)
* Rigoletto (1946) (novel)
* El rey se divierte (1944/I) (play)
* El boassa (1944) (novel "Les Miserables")
* Los miserables (1943) (novel)
* Il re si diverte (1941) (play)
* The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939) (novel)
* Les pauvres gens (1938) (writer)
* Gavrosh (1937) (novel "Les Miserables")
* Toilers of the Sea (1936) (novel "Les Travailleurs de la mer")
* Les miserables (1935) (novel)
* Les miserables (1934) (novel)
* Jean Valjean (1931) (novel "Les Miserables")
* Aa mujo: Kohen (1929) (novel)
* Aa mujo: Zempen (1929) (novel)
* The Bishop's Candlesticks (1929) (novel "Les Miserables")
* The Man Who Laughs (1928) (novel "L'Homme Qui Rit")
* Rigoletto (1927) (play "Le Roi s'Amuse")
* Les miserables (1925) (novel)
* The Spanish Dancer (1923) (novella)
* The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923/I) (novel "Notre-Dame de Paris")
* Toilers of the Sea (1923) (novel "Les Travailleurs de la mer")
* Aa mujo - Dai nihen: Shicho no maki (1923) (story)
* Aa mujo - Dai ippen: Horo no maki (1923) (story)
* The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923/II) (novel)
* Tense Moments with Great Authors (1922) (novel "Les Miserables") (segment "Miserables, Les")
* Tense Moments from Great Plays (1922) (novel "Notre Dame de Paris") (segment "Esmeralda")
* Esmeralda (1922) (novel "Notre Dame de Paris")
* Das grinsende Gesicht (1921) (novel "L'homme e qui rit")
* Der rote Henker (1920) (novel)
* Quatre-vingt-treize (1920) (novel)
* The Toilers (1919) (novel "Les Travailleurs de la mer")
* Marion de Lorme (1918) (play)
* Les travailleurs de la mer (1918) (novel)
* Der Konig amusiert sich (1918) (novel "Le Roi s'Amuse")
* Les miserables (1917) (novel)
* Marie Tudor (1917) (play)
* The Darling of Paris (1917) (novel "Notre Dame de Paris")
* Don Caesar de Bazan (1915) (novel "Ruy Blas")
* The Bishop's Candlesticks (1913) (novel "Les Miserables")
* Les miserables - Epoque 4: Cosette et Marius (1913) (novel)
* Les miserables - Epoque 3: Cosette (1913) (novel)
* Les miserables - Epoque 2: Fantine (1913) (novel)
* Les miserables - Epoque 1: Jean Valjean (1913) (novel)
* La tragedy di Pulcinella (1913) (play)
* Marion de Lorme (1912) (writer)
* Ruy-Blas (1912) (play)
* Notre Dame de Paris (1911) (novel "Notre Dame de Paris")
* Ernani (1911) (writer)
* Hugo the Hunchback (1910) (novel)
* Hernani (1910) (writer)
* Les miserables (1909) (novel)
* Rigoletto (1909/I) (writer)
* Les miserables (Part III) (1909) (novel "Les miserables")
* Le roi s'amuse (1909) (play)
* Les miserables (Part II) (1909) (novel)
* Les Miserables (Part I) (1909) (novel "Les Miserables")
* The Duke's Jester or A Fool's Revenge (1909) (novel "Le Roi s'Amuse")
* A Fool's Revenge (1909) (novel "Le Roi s'Amuse")
* Ruy Blas (1909) (play)
* Rigoletto (1909/II) (play)
* Esmeralda (1905) (novel "Notre Dame de Paris")
Musical Theatre
* 1836 - "Esmeralda" (opera), composer L. Bertin
* 1839 - "Esmeralda" (ballet), composer C. Pugni
* 1839 - "Esmeralda" (opera), composer A. Dargomyzhsky
* 1876 - "Angelo" (opera), composer C. Cui
* 1851 - "Rigoletto" (opera), composer G. Verdi
* 1844 - "Ernani" (opera), composer G. Verdi
* 1880 - La Gioconda (opera), composer A. Ponchielli
* 1914 - "Notre Dame" (ballet), composer F. Schmidt
* 2005 - Notre Dame de Paris (musical)
Biography
February 26, 1881, the seventy-ninth birthday of Victor Hugo, was celebrated by Paris and all of France as a national holiday. A triumphal arch was erected on Eylau Avenue. Through it, past Hugo's house, six hundred thousand Parisians and provincials marched. great person, standing with his grandchildren at the window, bowed and thanked his admirers. Six months later, Avenue Eylau was renamed Avenue Victor-Hugo. Hugo lived on his own street for another four years.
On June 1, 1885, a huge crowd accompanied his coffin from Star Square to the Pantheon. Guard of honor at the black hearse, adorned with nothing but two wreaths of white roses, stood twelve young poets. In his will, Hugo wrote: “I leave fifty thousand francs to the poor. I want to be taken to the cemetery in a poor man's hearse. I refuse the funeral service of any churches. I ask all souls to pray for me. I believe in God. Victor Hugo".
He was born in Besancon, according to the French revolutionary calendar - 7 vantoses of the 10th year of the Republic. His parents were Napoleonic officer Joseph Leopold Siguisbert Hugo and Madame Hugo, born Sophie Françoise Trebuchet de la Renaudiere. Soon the Hugos began to live apart.
Victor Marie with two older brothers was either with his father or with his mother, moving from one city to another, from France to Italy and Spain. From the age of five, Victor was assigned to his father's regiment and considered himself a soldier. In fact, at such a tender age, he happened to see the phenomena of war and death - on the way to Madrid, through all of Spain, desperately resisting the Napoleonic invasion.
In adolescence, Victor Hugo filled ten notebooks with poems and translations of Latin poets, which he burned, in the next he made a note: "I'm fifteen years old, it's badly written, I could write better." At that time, he studied and was brought up in Paris, in a boarding house on St. Margaret Street, and dreamed of literary glory. One of his pastorals, inspired by the works of Chateaubriand, was called "The Indian Woman of Canada Hanging Her Child's Cradle from the Branches of a Palm Tree". However, at the competition announced by the French Academy, young Hugo received an honorary diploma for a poem of three hundred and thirty-four lines. Toulouse Academy flower games awarded him the Golden Lily for the ode "Restoring the statue of Henry IV".
The Hugo brothers tried to publish a magazine - "Literary Conservative". For a year and a half, Victor published 112 articles and 22 poems in it under eleven pseudonyms. The eldest of the brothers, Abel, published Victor's first book, Odes and Other Poems, at his own expense. The twenty-year-old poet was convinced that poetry needed "a clear mind, a pure heart, a noble and exalted soul."
In the third decade of his life, Hugo became the author of the poetry collections Oriental Motifs and Autumn Leaves, the novel Gan the Icelander (in the manner of W. Scott and under the influence of the English Gothic novel), the story The Last Day of the Condemned to Death, the dramas Cromwell ”(the preface to it is considered a manifesto of romanticism), “Marion Delorme” (prohibited from being staged by censors) and “Ernani” (its premiere turned into a battle between romantics and classicists).
Hugo explained the essence of romanticism as "a strange confusion of the soul, never knowing peace, now jubilant, now groaning." In early 1831, he completed the novel Notre Dame Cathedral. Hugo said that this book was, first of all, “a fruit of the imagination, whims and fantasies,” although he collected materials about Paris in the 15th century for three years. He handed over the manuscript of the novel to the publisher on the deadline. Hugo already had a house and a family and hoped to earn literary work at least fifteen thousand francs a year. Soon he began to earn much more, but every evening he steadily counted all expenses, up to a centime.
Between the two French revolutions - July 1830 and February 1848 - Hugo wrote several new poetic cycles, a drama in verse "The King Amuses himself", three dramas in prose, a book of essays about Germany ("The Rhine") and set about creating the novel "Poverty" , later renamed "Les Misérables".
On January 7, 1841, Victor Hugo was elected to the Academy of the Immortals, and by royal ordinance of April 13, 1845, he was raised to the peerage of France.
In 1848, after the February events, this title was abolished. Hugo became mayor of the VIII Parisian arrondissement. In the Legislative Assembly, he delivered a speech against the President of the Republic, Prince Louis Bonaparte. When Louis Bonaparte staged a coup d'état to seize imperial power, Hugo, under threat of arrest, left Paris for Brussels with someone else's passport, and then went into long-term exile.
“If there are charming places of exile in the world, then Jersey must be attributed to their number ... I settled here in a white hut on the seashore. From my window I see France, ”Hugo lived for three years in Jersey, an island in the Norman archipelago, at the Villa Marine Terrace, figuratively referred to in this letter as a hut. Having been expelled from Jersey along with other French emigrants, he settled on the neighboring island of Guernsey, where he bought, rebuilt and furnished to his liking a house, Hauteville House, for the amount of the fee for the poetry collection "Contemplations".
Hugo adhered to a strict daily routine: he got up at dawn, doused himself with ice-cold water, drank black coffee, worked on manuscripts in a glass gazebo in the sunlight, had breakfast at noon, then walked around the island, worked until dusk, dined with family and guests, at ten in the evening went straight to bed. Every Monday he invited forty children of the local poor to dinner.
In Hauteville House, Hugo finished the novel Les Misérables, wrote many poems and poems for the planned grandiose epic Legend of the Ages and two new novels - Toilers of the Sea (about the fishermen of Guernsey) and The Man Who Laughs (drama and history simultaneously").
On September 5, 1870, as soon as the Republic was proclaimed in France, Hugo left for Paris. At the Gare du Nord, he was greeted by a crowd singing the Marseillaise and shouting “Long live France! Long live Hugo! He was elected to the National Assembly and stood for the Republic and Civilization, but against the Commune and revolutionary terror.
His last novel - "The Ninety-Third Year" - he still wrote in the "crystal room", returning to Guernsey for this, and after the publication of the novel, he rented an apartment in Paris for himself, his daughter-in-law and grandchildren. By this time he had outlived his wife, sons and eldest daughter. His youngest daughter was in a mental hospital. Hugo was very gentle with his grandchildren - Georges and Jeanne - and dedicated to them a collection of poems, The Art of Being a Grandfather.
According to the testimony of relatives, lying on his deathbed, he said: “There is a struggle between the light of day and the darkness of the night,” and just before the end: “I see a black light.”
Biography (S. Brahman. VICTOR HUGO (1802-1885))
RUNUP
On a spring day, February 26, 1802, in the city of Besançon, in a three-story house where Captain Leopold Sizhisbert Hugo then lived, a child was born - the third son in the family. The frail baby was, according to his mother, “no longer than a table knife,” but he was destined to grow into a man of powerful physical and spiritual health and live a long and glorious life.
Victor Hugo's childhood passed under the roar of Napoleonic drums, under a sky still lit by the lightning of the revolution. Together with his mother and brothers, he accompanied his father on campaigns, and the roads and cities of France, Italy, the Mediterranean islands, Spain, engulfed in a guerrilla war against the French invaders, flashed before the eyes of the child - and again Paris, a secluded house and an overgrown garden of the former convent of the Feuillants, where he lived and played with his brothers in the hours free from lessons - with what love he will later describe this garden in Les Misérables under the guise of Cosette's garden in the Rue Plumet!
But soon Hugo's childhood was overshadowed by family discord: his father, a native of the lower classes, advanced during the revolution, became an officer of the Republican army, and then a supporter of Napoleon and, finally, his general; mother, Sophie Trebuchet, daughter of a wealthy shipowner from Nantes, was a staunch royalist. By the time of the restoration (in 1814) on the French throne of the Bourbon dynasty, Victor Hugo's parents had separated, and the boy, who remained with his adored mother, fell under the influence of her monarchical views. His mother managed to convince him that the Bourbons were champions of freedom; but the dreams of the 18th century enlighteners about the ideal “enlightened monarch”, which Hugo learned about from the books he read, also played a significant role here. At the request of his father, Victor, along with his brother Eugene, had to prepare at the boarding school for admission to the Polytechnic School - the boy turned out to have great abilities in mathematics; but he preferred to translate Latin verses, read avidly everything that came to hand, and soon he himself began to compose - odes, poems and plays that he staged on the school stage (he also played the main roles in them). At the age of fourteen, he wrote in his diary: “I want to be Chateaubriand - or nothing!”, And a year later he sent an ode to the benefits of science to a literary competition and received a commendable review. The jury members could not believe that the author was only fifteen years old.
In the first years of the Restoration, Hugo appeared in literature as a well-meaning legitimist and Catholic, a supporter of the established literary traditions of classicism. The young poet attracted the favorable attention of the authorities with the ode “On the restoration of the statue of Henry IV” and, continuing to praise the Bourbon dynasty in “classical” poems, he soon received a number of literary prizes, cash incentives, and a few years later even a pension from the king. In 1819, together with his brother Abel, Victor Hugo began publishing the magazine "Literary Conservative". The collection "Ode" (1822) made him a recognized poet.
This success came in handy: deprived of the material support of his father for refusing a practical career, the young man lived in poverty in Parisian attics; he was passionately in love with his childhood friend Adele Fouche and dreamed of bringing the wedding day closer (Victor's mother was against this marriage; it was concluded only after her death, in 1822).
Subsequently, Hugo was ironic about his youthful politically well-intentioned writings. The legitimism of the young poet turned out to be as unstable as his adherence to the routine of classicism. Already in the early 1920s, Hugo became close to a circle of romantics and soon became a regular at their meetings with Charles Nodier, in the library of the Arsenal. During the years of heated debate around Stendhal's pamphlet "Racine and Shakespeare" (1823), where for the first time a sensitive blow was dealt to the aesthetics of classicism, Hugo is also fond of Shakespeare, is interested in Cervantes and Rabelais, writes with sympathy about Walter Scott (article of 1823) and Byron (1824 ).
A romantic wind also blew in Hugo's poetry: in 1826, republishing his Odes, he added to them a series of picturesque "ballads" in the spirit of the new school.
Next to the hymns to the counter-revolutionary Vendean uprising, to the "legitimate" kings, next to the image of the decline of ancient Rome, colorful pictures of the French Middle Ages appear, permeated with interest and love for national culture past: feudal castles, border towers, jousting tournaments, battles, hunting. The motifs of folk legends and fairy tales are woven into the ballads, “they are not only knights, troubadours and ladies, but also fairies, mermaids, dwarfs, giants.
sans attendre,
Sa, piquons!
L "osil bien tendre,
Attaquons
De nos selles
Roset belle's!
Aux balconies.
(... What are you waiting for?
Two pairs of spurs -
Under the balcony at full speed:
On clear-eyed beauties,
White-faced, rosy-cheeked
Let's take a look.)
(“THE TOURNAMENT OF KING JOHN.” Translated by L. May)
And when, a few months after “Ode and Ballades”, in 1827, the young poet, in a fit of patriotic protest against the humiliation of the French generals by the Austrian ambassador, sang Napoleon’s military victories in “Ode to the Vendome Column”, the Legitimist camp screamed about Hugo’s “treason” .
Two years later, a collection of poems "Oriental Poems" (1829) was published, where the medieval exoticism was replaced by the dazzling exoticism of the romantic East, with its luxury, cruelty and negligence, proud pashas and harem beauties. But the central place in the collection was occupied by poems in which the poet sang the heroes of the Greek liberation war of 1821-1829 against the yoke of Turkey. So Hugo's poetry comes closer and closer to the reality of the contemporary poet, events, colors, sounds of living life imperiously invade it.
The vague rumble of modernity penetrated into early prose Hugo. In 1824, the novel "Gan the Icelander" was published, in which "Gothic" horrors and "Scandinavian" exoticism were combined with a love story that largely reflected the relationship of the young author with his bride. Next to the romantic monster Gan the Icelander, the miners' uprising is depicted here, in which the noble young man Ordener, the alter ego of the author, takes part.
In 1826, Bugues Jargal appeared in print, a novel about an uprising of black slaves on the island of Haiti, in the French colony of Saint-Domingue (the first version of this thing was written in 1818, in two weeks, on a wager, by a sixteen-year-old schoolboy). Although there is still a lot of naivete in the novel, it is all imbued with the spirit of freethinking and humanity. In the center of it is the heroic image of the Negro rebel Byug Zhargal, whose courage and nobility create a striking contrast with the cruelty and cowardice of the white slave owners.
The drama "Cromwell" (1827) is Hugo's final break with the camp of political and literary reaction. The drama was written not according to the canons of classicism, but on the model of Shakespeare's historical chronicles and contained new ideas for the young Hugo. The personality of Cromwell, who, according to Engels, "united Robespierre and Napoleon in one person" (1), attracted many French writers in those years, Balzac and Mérimée began with dramas about Cromwell; the fate of the English politician was comprehended in the light of the historical experience (1. K. Marx and F. Engels, Works, vol. 2, p. 351.) of France. In the drama of Hugo, the ambitious Cromwell betrayed freedom, began to seek personal power, and therefore broke away from the people and lost ground under his feet - such is the fate of all despots. Realizing this, the hero Hugo renounces the crown at the last minute. The drama "Cromwell" was in many ways an innovative work, but it failed to conquer the stage for the romantics, where at that time the dramaturgy of the epigones of classicism reigned supreme; it was more of a historical drama to read; in addition, Hugo expected that the great Talma would play the title role, and after the death of the latter (in 1826), not seeing another worthy performer, he abandoned the idea of staging the drama and brought it to a huge size - up to six thousand verses.
FIRST HIT
Hugo dealt the first decisive blow to classicism with his famous Preface to Cromwell. “No matter how great the cedar and palm tree are, one cannot become great by eating only their juice,” no matter how beautiful the art of ancient antiquity, new literature cannot limit itself to imitating it - this is one of the main thoughts of the Preface, which opens a new stage in life and the work of the recent author of "Od". The time of vague impulses and searches was left behind, there was a harmonious system of views and principles in art, which Hugo solemnly proclaimed and began to defend with all the ardor of youth.
Art, Hugo said, changes and develops along with the development of mankind, and since it reflects life, each era has its own art. Hugo divided the history of mankind into three great epochs: the primitive one, which in art corresponds to the “ode” (that is, lyric poetry), the ancient one, to which the epic corresponds, and the new one, which gave rise to drama. The greatest examples of art from these three eras are biblical legends, Homer's poems and Shakespeare's works. Hugo declares Shakespeare the pinnacle of the art of modern times, by the word "drama" he understands not only the theatrical genre, but also art in general, reflecting the dramatic nature of the new era, the main features of which he seeks to define.
In contrast to the detached modern life epigone classicism with its aristocratic opposition of “noble” heroes to “ignoble”, “high” plots and “low” genres, Hugo demanded to expand the boundaries of art, to freely combine the tragic and the comic, the beautiful and the ugly, the sublime (sublime) and the grotesque (grotesque). ). The beautiful is monotonous, he wrote, it has one face; the ugly one has thousands of them. Therefore, the “characteristic” should be preferred to the beautiful. Hugo considered an important feature of the new art to be that it opened a wide road for the grotesque. Another important feature is the "antithesis" in art, designed to reflect the contrasts of reality itself, primarily the opposition and struggle of flesh and spirit, evil and good. Hugo demanded observance in the drama of historical plausibility - "local color" and fell upon the absurdity of "unities of place and time" - the inviolable canons of classicism. He solemnly proclaimed the freedom of art from all kinds of "rules": "The poet should consult only with nature, truth and his inspiration." Hugo declared real life and man to be the subject of contemporary art.
Written with brilliance and passion, full of daring thoughts and vivid images, “The Preface to Cromwell” made a huge impression on his contemporaries; its meaning went far beyond the theater: it was a fighting manifesto of a new literary trend - progressive romanticism. Now Hugo has largely parted ways with his former comrades in the romantic school of the 1920s. And for the younger generation of romantics, primarily for Hugo himself, the struggle for a new aesthetic was inseparable from the struggle for political freedom; The "hydra of powdered wigs" merged in their eyes with the "hydra of reaction". Subsequently, the poet himself assessed his activities in the 1920s as follows:
On the dense rows of Alexandrian feet
I directed the revolution autocratically,
A red cap was pulled over our decrepit dictionary.
There are no words-senators and words-plebeians! ..
(“The answer to the accusation.” Translation by E. Linetskaya)
By the end of the 1920s, Hugo had become the recognized leader and "prophet" of "bands of youths who fought for the ideal, poetry, and freedom of art." “The preface to Cromwell shone in our eyes like the tablets of the Covenant at Sinai,” admitted one of Hugo’s students and associates of those years, Theophile Gauthier.
From about 1827, on the street Notre-Dame-de-Champs, near the Champs Elysees, which at that time consisted of a single house in which the Hugo couple settled with their children, a new romantic circle began to gather - the "small Senacle". In a modest room, where there were not enough chairs and the debate was held standing, shaggy, bearded young people gathered, dressed in extravagant costumes, "to dumbfound the bourgeois", talented poets, artists, sculptors and hoarsely argued about the fate of national art. And on the way home, they frightened the townsfolk with a mysterious song: “We will make buzengo!” There were writers Sainte-Beuve, Alfred de Musset, Gerard de Nerval, Alexandre Dumas, artists Deveria and Delacroix, sculptor David d'Angers.
The first word in these disputes belonged to the owner. The poet Theophile Gauthier describes Victor Hugo from the time of the Senacle in this way: “In Victor Hugo, first of all, the forehead struck, truly majestic, crowning his calm and serious face, like a white marble pediment. True, he did not reach the dimensions that David d'Angers and other artists later gave him, who wanted to emphasize the poet's genius, but he was really superhumanly tall; there was enough space for the most grandiose thoughts on him, a golden or laurel crown was asked for him, as on the forehead of a god or Caesar. The stamp of power lay on him. Light brown hair framed his forehead and fell in fairly long strands. No beard, no mustache, no sideburns - a carefully shaven, very pale face, on which, as if piercing it, shone brown his eyes were like eagle's eyes. The outline of his mouth spoke of firmness and will, sinuous lips with raised corners, parted in a smile, revealed teeth of dazzling white. He wore a black coat, gray trousers, a shirt with a turn-down collar - the most severe and correct appearance. Right no one would have suspected in this impeccable gentleman the leader of a shaggy and bearded tribe - a thunderstorm of the beardless bourgeois. "Hugo's circle, on the one hand, rebelled against the reaction of the nobility, on the other hand, he challenged bourgeois mediocrity and prose, that spirit of self-interest, which became more and more noticeable in French society even under the Bourbons and won a complete victory under the "bourgeois king" Louis Philippe. It is from here that the romantics yearn for bright characters, strong passions, stormy events, which they were looking for under the blue sky of Spain, Italy or in the distant Middle Ages. Hence their predilection for the historical genre in literature.
BATTLE IN THE STREETS, BATTLE IN LITERATURE
The stormy summer of 1830 came. The "three glorious days" of the July Revolution crushed the Bourbon monarchy. The assault on the royal palace, the barricade battles on the streets of Paris, and popular heroism intoxicated Hugo. It seemed that the spirit of the great revolution of the end of the 18th century had risen, and France again put on the Phrygian cap. The poet enthusiastically welcomed the July revolution and did not immediately see that the bourgeoisie had taken advantage of the fruits of the people's victory. Speeches, articles, poetry of Hugo of those years are full of heroic images, tyrannical pathos. On the first anniversary of the revolution, during a folk festival in the Place de la Bastille, a hymn was sung to the words of Hugo, in which he sang the heroes of the July days:
We will sing glory to the fatherland
And those who dedicated their lives to her -
selfless fighters,
In whom liberties a flame burns,
Who yearns for a place in this temple
And who is ready to die himself!
(Translated by E. Polonskaya)
In the wake of the July Revolution, Hugo's dramaturgy grew, imbued with political freethinking and profound democracy. Between 1829 and 1842, he created eight romantic dramas, which constituted an important stage in the development of the French theater.
The first of these dramas, “Marion Delorme, or the Duel in the Age of Richelieu” (1829), was banned by the censors, who, not without reason, saw in the image of the feeble-minded Louis XIII a hint of the then reigning King Charles X, and saw the scene only after the overthrow of the Bourbons, in 1831 year. Therefore, the decisive role in the development of the romantic theater was played by the second drama - "Ernani". The staging of Hernani in the tense atmosphere on the eve of the revolution (February 25, 1830) could not be understood otherwise than as a political demonstration. In the preface to Hernani, Hugo openly declared his romanticism to be "liberalism in literature", and in the drama itself he portrayed a man outcast by society as a tragic hero and rival of the king. The appearance of such a play on the stage of the Comedie Francaise theater, consecrated by the age-old tradition of classicism, meant a daring challenge to public opinion in literary matters.
The premiere of "Ernani" turned into a general battle between "classics" and "romantics": the audience began to gather a few hours before the start of the performance, there was a terrible noise in the hall; the whistles of the hired claque of the play's enemies and the rapturous applause and cheers of her admirers prevented the actors from playing. This went on for all 32 performances, during which "Ernani" lasted on stage in 1830. The "Battle for Ernani" ended with the victory of romanticism - from now on, he received the right to exist in the theater.
Contemporaries were struck primarily by the external novelty of Hugo's dramas: instead of the usual antiquity - medieval France, Spain, Italy, England; instead of fizhma and wigs - "local color", historical costumes and furnishings, Spanish cloaks, wide-brimmed hats, "a table set in the style of the sixteenth century", a hall "in the semi-Flemish style of the time of Philip IV." Neglecting the "unity of place", Hugo boldly transfers the action from the courtesan's boudoir to the royal palace, from the art gallery to the grave crypt, lit by torches, to the smuggler's shack, to the gloomy dungeons of the Tower. The “unity of time” is just as boldly violated - the action sometimes covers whole months. Elements of tragedy and comedy, "high" and "low" style are mixed in both the plot and the language. The "classics" met with a storm of indignation a verse from "Ernani":
Est-il minuit?
- Minuit bientot (l),
because natural colloquial speech cut the ears, accustomed to grandiloquent paraphrases; the famous tragic actress Mademoiselle (1. “What time is it? - Nearly midnight.”) Mars, who played the role of Dona Sol, argued with Hugo to tears, considering her remark addressed to Ernani indecent:
Vous etes, mon lion, superbe et genereux (1).
But most of all, contemporaries were struck by that rebellious pathos, that atmosphere of struggle and courage, that breath of great passions, that humanism, which constitute the very soul of Hugo's dramaturgy.
Under the onslaught of new ideas, the old, classical form crumbled. Indeed, what kind of division into “high” and “low” genres can we talk about if the king competes with the “bandit”, the queen reciprocates the lackey in love with her, and the miserable jester tramples underfoot the imaginary corpse of a powerful monarch? If the positive heroes are plebeians without family or tribe, humiliated, outcast, thrown to the bottom of society: the foundling Didier, the courtesan Marion, the jester Triboulet, the artisan Gilbert, the footman Ruy Blas; if negative characters are a whole string of greedy, mediocre nobles and stupid, cruel, immoral kings?
The historical masquerade could not deceive anyone: contemporaries called Hugo's drama none other than “drame moderne (2), in contrast to the “classical” tragedy, far from life. The drama "The King Amuses" was a direct response to the republican uprising in Paris on June 5-6, 1832; during the premiere auditorium revolutionary songs were heard, Marseillaise and Carmagnola, the play was banned for half a century and resumed only in 1885. In the drama "Mary Tudor", which appeared in September 1833, between two popular uprisings (1832 and 1834), Hugo brought out as an ideal hero a worker, a blouse, a fellow of those who came out under the black banner of the Lyon weavers with the slogan; "Bread or death!"; in this drama, the rebellious people of London rebuff the queen. And in the drama Ruy Blas, the plebeian, who finds himself at the helm of the government, personifies the people, from whom alone one can expect salvation for a dying country.
Of course, in Hugo's dramas, the conventionality of classicism turned out to be replaced by another, romantic conventionality - from one of his plays to another, the same romantic hero, a noble rebel and a renegade, dressed now in picturesque rags, now in a blouse, now in a livery. The very idea of the writer about the people was idealistic. But it was important that the new genre of romantic drama, created by Hugo and consolidated in literature, was filled with topical political and social content.
Two days before the start of the July Revolution, on July 25, 1830, Victor Hugo began work on the novel Notre Dame Cathedral. The book was published on March 16, 1831, in the troubled days of the cholera riots and the destruction of the archiepiscopal palace by the people of Paris. Turbulent political events determined the character of the novel, which, like Hugo's dramas, was historical in form but deeply modern in ideas.
Paris at the end of the 15th century ... Gothic roofs, spiers and turrets of countless churches, gloomy royal castles, narrow streets and wide squares, where the freemen rustle during the festivities, (1. "You, my lion, are proud and generous." 2. "Modern drama.") riots and executions. Colorful figures of people from all strata of the medieval city - seigneurs and merchants, monks and schoolchildren, noble ladies in pointed headdresses and dressed up townswomen, royal warriors in sparkling armor, vagabonds and beggars in picturesque tatters, with real or fake ulcers and mutilations. The world of the oppressors - and the world of the oppressed. The royal castle of the Bastille, the noble house of Gondelorier - and the Parisian squares, the slums of the "Court of Miracles", where the outcasts live.
The royal power and its support - the Catholic Church - are shown in the novel as forces hostile to the people. The calculatingly cruel Louis XI is very close to the gallery of crowned criminals from Hugo's dramas. The image of the gloomy fanatic, the archdeacon Claude Frollo (created after the cardinal executioner from Marion Delorme) opens up Hugo's many years of struggle against the church, which will end in 1883 with the creation of the drama Torquemada (in this drama the Grand Inquisitor, wishing to repay good for good , sends a young couple who saved him from death to the fire). The feelings of Claude Frollo are perverted no less than those of Torquemada: love, paternal affection, a thirst for knowledge turn into selfishness and hatred in him. He fenced himself off from the life of the people with the walls of the cathedral and his laboratory, and therefore his soul is in the grip of dark and evil passions. The appearance of Claude Frollo is complemented by a chapter bearing the expressive title "Dislike of the People".
Outwardly brilliant, but in fact heartless and devastated high society is embodied in the image of Captain Phoebus de Chateauper, who, like the archdeacon, is not capable of selfless and selfless feeling. Spiritual greatness, high humanism are inherent only to outcast people from the lower classes of society, it is they who are the real heroes of the novel. The street dancer Esmeralda symbolizes the moral beauty of the common man, the deaf and ugly ringer Quasimodo symbolizes the ugliness of the social fate of the oppressed.
In the center of the novel is the Notre Dame Cathedral, a symbol of the spiritual life of the French people. The cathedral was built by the hands of hundreds of nameless masters, the religious framework in it is lost behind violent fantasy; the description of the cathedral becomes the occasion for an inspirational prose poem about French national architecture. The cathedral gives shelter to the folk heroes of the novel, their fate is closely connected with it, around the cathedral there is a living and fighting people.
At the same time, the cathedral is a symbol of the enslavement of the people, a symbol of feudal oppression, dark superstitions and prejudices that keep the souls of people captive. Not without reason, in the darkness of the cathedral, under its vaults, merging with bizarre stone chimeras, deafened by the roar of bells, Quasimodo lives alone, the “soul of the cathedral”, whose grotesque image personifies the Middle Ages. In contrast, the charming image of Esmeralda embodies the joy and beauty of earthly life, the harmony of body and soul, that is, the ideals of the Renaissance, which replaced the Middle Ages. The dancer Esmeralda lives among the Parisian crowd and gives the common people her art, fun, kindness.
The people in the understanding of Hugo is not just a passive victim; he is full of creative forces, the will to fight, the future belongs to him. The storming of the cathedral by the masses of the people of Paris is only a prelude to the storming of the Bastille in 1789, to the “hour of the people”, to the revolution that the Ghent hosiery Jacques Copenol predicts to King Louis XI: “- ... When the sounds of the alarm rush from this tower, when they rumble cannons, when the tower collapses with an infernal roar, when soldiers and townspeople rush at each other with a growl in mortal combat, then this hour will strike.
Hugo did not idealize the Middle Ages, he truthfully showed the dark sides of feudal society. At the same time, his book is deeply poetic, full of ardent patriotic love for France, for its history, for its art, in which, according to Hugo, the freedom-loving spirit and talent of the French people live.
The people, their fate, their sorrows and hopes in the 30s more and more excite the heart of Hugo the poet:
Yes, the muse must devote herself to the people.
And I forget love, family, nature,
And it appears, omnipotent and formidable,
The lyre has a brass, rattling string.
(Translated by E. Linetskaya)
Already in 1831, preparing for printing the collection of poems "Autumn Leaves," Hugo added a "copper string" to his lyre - he included political lyrics in the collection. It is not enough for a poet to sing of the beauty of spring, the beauty of his native fields and the first thrill of a young heart, he has another task:
I terribly send curses to the lords,
Immersed in robberies, in blood, in wild debauchery.
I know that the poet is their holy judge...
(Translated by E. Linetskaya)
Social reality invades the poems of the collection “Songs of Twilight” (1835), their heroes are people from the people, heroes of the July barricades, poor workers, homeless women and children. During these years, Hugo became close to utopian socialism; his works were published in the Saint-Simonist journal The Globe.
In one of his poems, Victor Hugo aptly called himself the "ringing echo" of his time. Indeed, he unusually sensitively responded to all changes in the political and social atmosphere of the era; by the end of the 30s, the decline of the democratic movement in France and the reaction that followed after that began to affect his work. The mood of reconciliation, disappointment, sadness take possession of the poet (poetry collections Inner Voices, 1837, and especially Rays and Shadows, 1840). These sentiments are exacerbated by painful events in Hugo's private life: in 1837, his beloved brother Eugene died; in 1843, under tragic circumstances, the eldest daughter of the writer, nineteen-year-old Leopoldina, drowned with her husband ... The death of his daughter deeply shocked Victor Hugo, his paternal grief, bouts of despair are captured in a whole cycle of poems, later included in the collection Contemplations (1856).
Now Hugo is moving away from radical political positions; in the book of travel sketches The Rhine (1843), he expresses completely “well-intentioned” thoughts, and in his last drama The Burgraves (1843), which failed on the stage, he draws a majestic image of the monarch. In the late 1940s, Hugo experienced an ideological and creative crisis.
Official circles appreciated the change in the views of the greatest poet of the era: in 1837, King Louis Philippe awarded Hugo with the Order of the Legion of Honor; The French Academy, which until recently wrote denunciations against Hugo, in 1841 elected him as its member; in 1845 he received the title of earl and was appointed peer of France by royal decree.
However, during these years, Hugo did not abandon humanistic ideals: he worked on a novel from folk life (which was then called "Poverty"); using his position as a peer, he defended the interests of oppressed Poland, in 1839 he achieved the abolition of the death sentence against the revolutionary Barbès. Hugo did not long remain a supporter of royal power and soon broke with her forever.
DURING THE "FIRST GREAT BATTLE"
The revolution of 1848 - "the first great battle", as Karl Marx called it, between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie - was the frontier for the entire 19th century and at the same time the frontier in the life of Victor Hugo. Soon after the victory of the February Revolution, he declared himself a republican and remained faithful to the bourgeois-democratic republic until the end of his life. He did not hesitate even when many of his former associates in romantic circles lost hope, retreated, or even went over to the side of political reaction. Hugo was sure that the establishment of a republic would solve all the social problems of bourgeois society, ensure freedom, equality and fraternity, for which the great enlighteners of the 18th century fought, and make all people happy. Therefore, he sought to take a personal part in the revolution of 1848. He put forward his candidacy for the Constituent Assembly and on June 4 was elected deputy for the Seine department. This was the most critical moment in the development of the revolution: the big bourgeoisie, which constituted the majority of the assembly, began a frantic activity, trying to take away from the workers the right to work won in the February battles, the question of closing the National Workshops, organized to eliminate unemployment, was discussed. The National Workshops Act was passed on 22 June; the next day an uprising broke out in Paris, during which, for the first time in history, the proletariat and the bourgeoisie - yesterday's allies in the struggle against royal power - found themselves on opposite sides of the barricades. Four days later, the workers' uprising was drowned in blood and all the democratic gains of the February revolution were liquidated one by one.
Victor Hugo did not understand the significance of the June days. He was not a shrewd statesman; above all, he spoke of a generous heart, sincere sympathy for the oppressed, and love for political freedom, which in his eyes the republic was the personification of. It seemed to him that by opposing the bourgeois-republican government, the people "came out against themselves." Blinded by faith in bourgeois democracy, Hugo resolutely dissociated himself from the executioners of the uprising, but condemned the rebels themselves. He declared that he stood for a "republic of civilization" against a "republic of terror" and unwittingly took the side of property and "order" against the working class.
But the fiery speeches of Deputy Hugo (subsequently collected in the book Deeds and Speeches) have always been a hymn to freedom and humanity. When a short, big-browed man climbed the podium, the audience was seized with excitement. Approving exclamations and applause rushed from the left benches; indignant cries and whistles were heard on the right benches. With captivating eloquence, Hugo demanded the destruction of popular poverty, glorified the heroism of ordinary people, defended the liberation movement in Italy; risking being accused of treason, he insisted on canceling the Roman expedition sent by France to help Pope Pius XI: in one of his most striking speeches, he rebelled against the church's attempt to establish supervision over public education and fell upon the obscurantism of the clerics.
Like many romantics, Hugo was under the spell of the personality of Napoleon I, so he warmly supported the candidacy of Louis Bonaparte, the commander's nephew, for the presidency of France. All the more alarming were the first signs of a conspiracy against the republic. Already on July 17, 1851, he made a brilliant speech in the Legislative Assembly, in which he warned against the attempt of the Bonapartists to revise the constitution. Amid a storm of shouts, protests and applause, Hugo declared: “France cannot be allowed to be taken by surprise and one fine day find that she has an emperor out of nowhere!”
But then the ominous day came on December 2, 1851. At eight o'clock in the morning, when Hugo had already woken up and was working in bed, one of his friends ran in to him in a terrible agitation and told him that a coup d'état had taken place during the night, fifteen Republican deputies had been arrested, Paris was crowded with troops, the Legislative Assembly was dissolved, and Hugo himself was in danger. . The writer got dressed and went into his wife's bedroom. - What do you want to do? she asked, turning pale. "Do your duty," he replied. His wife hugged him and said only one word: "Go." Hugo went outside.
From that moment on, his stubborn long-term struggle against Napoleon III, whom Hugo, in a speech on July 17, had devastatingly aptly dubbed "Napoleon the Little", did not stop. Herzen wrote about Hugo in Past and Thoughts: “On December 2, 1851, he stood up to his full height: in the form of bayonets and loaded guns, he called the people to revolt: under bullets, he protested against the coup d "etat [coup d'état] and left France, when there was nothing to do in it.
Hugo, together with five comrades, formed the republican "Committee of Resistance"; they went around the popular quarters of Paris, made speeches in the squares, issued proclamations, raising people to fight, and supervised the construction of barricades. Every minute, risking being captured and shot, changing housing several times a day, in the midst of the bloody massacre perpetrated by the Bonapartist military and police, Victor Hugo fearlessly and resolutely fulfilled his civic duty.
The reactionary newspapers slandered him, he was followed by spies, his head was valued at 25,000 francs, his sons were in prison. But only on December 11, when there was no doubt that a handful of republicans (there were only one and a half to two thousand of them) suffered a final defeat, Hugo fled to Belgium and on December 12, under a false name, arrived in Brussels. A nineteen-year period of exile began.
In the troubled years, when the social storm shook France and evoked the echo of workers' uprisings throughout Europe, the question of the historical fate of peoples agitated all outstanding minds. During these years, the romantic philosophy of Hugo, his views on nature and society, which formed the basis of all further work of the writer, finally took shape.
The world seemed to Victor Hugo the arena of a fierce struggle, the struggle of two eternal principles - good and evil, light and darkness. The outcome of this struggle is predetermined by the good will of providence, to which everything in the universe is subject - from the cycle of the stars to the smallest movement of the human soul; evil is doomed, good will prevail. The life of mankind, like the life of the universe, is a powerful upward movement, from evil to good, from darkness to light, from a terrible past to a beautiful future: “Progress is nothing but a fact of gravity. Who could have stopped him? O despots, I challenge you, stop the falling stone, stop the flood, stop the avalanche, stop Italy, stop the year 1789, stop the world that God is striving towards the light” (Speech of 1860).
The paths of history are inscribed by providence, social catastrophes, wars, revolutions - these are only stages on the path of mankind to the ideal. The reaction is like a barge sailing against the current: it is unable to turn back the mighty movement of the waters.
But how will happiness reign on earth? Answering this question, Hugo followed in the footsteps of utopian socialism: a new era will come as a result of the moral improvement of mankind, as a result of the victory of the ideas of justice, mercy, brotherly love. Hugo, the son of the heroic era of bourgeois revolutions, a student of the Enlightenment, wholeheartedly believed in the transformative power of ideas. He considered himself an educator and leader of the people, he said that the writer is a “prophet”, “messiah”, “a beacon of mankind”, designed to show the people the way to a brighter future. Hugo, along with his heart, gave each page of his creations to people.
After the monarchical coup of 1851, Hugo declared himself a socialist. But it was naive and superficial "socialism". He limited himself to demanding political equality and democratic reforms: universal suffrage, freedom of speech, free education, abolition of the death penalty. It seemed to the writer that if the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen proclaimed back in 1789 could be implemented, then this would already be the beginning of "socialism". Hugo did not recognize any other socialism and did not understand at all the significance of private property; he only wanted "every citizen, without exception, to be the owner," so that "no one be the master," and innocently called for "restricting digestive socialism" for the sake of "ideal socialism."
However, Hugo was close to the utopian socialists with his fiery faith in progress, in endless possibilities the human spirit, into the liberating role of knowledge, science, technology: man has already tamed the three terrible chimeras of antiquity by creating a steamboat, a locomotive and a hot air balloon; someday he will subjugate all the forces of nature, and only then will he be freed to the end!
But could Hugo, who called for the violent overthrow of Napoleon III, confine himself to a hymn to peaceful progress? After 1851, the writer increasingly stubbornly reflects on issues of social struggle. He claims that universal peace will be achieved by the last war, glorifies the “divine monster - the revolution” and, calling the revolution “an abyss” in one of his speeches, immediately adds: “But there are beneficial abysses - those into which evil falls” (“Speech about Voltaire).
Until the end of his days, Hugo tried to combine Christian mercy and revolutionary violence, hesitated between denial and recognition of the revolutionary path. This left an indelible imprint on all his mature work.
VICTOR HUGO AGAINST LOUIS BONAPARTE
Once outside the homeland, Hugo did not think to stop the fight, but now the pen has become a formidable weapon for him. The day after his arrival in Brussels, he began writing a book about the December 2 coup d'état, which he emphatically titled "The Story of a Crime." Hugo published this book only in 1877, when the republican system in France was again under threat, and the writer wanted to prevent its repetition by a reminder of the past. But already in July 1852, another pamphlet appeared in print - "Napoleon the Small", which thundered throughout Europe and forever nailed Louis Bonaparte to the pillory.
With all his political temperament, with all the strength of his talent, Hugo fell upon the usurper of the freedom of France. He recounts indignantly how Louis Bonaparte solemnly swore to defend the republic, and then trampled on this oath. Step by step, the path of betrayal, bribery and crimes by which Napoleon the Small came to power is revealed to the reader, a terrible spectacle of bloody murders, the execution of random passers-by, tyranny and lawlessness arises. With sarcastic contempt, Hugo draws a portrait of the "hero" of the coup d'etat, who appears in a double guise - a bandit and a petty swindler.
“He appeared, this rogue without a past, without a future, gifted with neither genius nor glory, either a prince or an adventurer. All his virtues are his hands full of money, bank notes, railway shares, places, orders, sinecures, and the ability to remain silent about his criminal plans. Sitting on the throne, he tries to intimidate the people with atrocities. “Kill, what is there to argue! Kill anyone, chop, shoot with grapeshot, choke, trample, intimidate this disgusting Paris to death! streams from him, but he takes it for purple and demands an empire for himself.
But, passionately indignant at the reactionary upheaval in France, Victor Hugo did not understand the true roots of Bonapartism - this was hindered by his idealistic conception of history. He places all responsibility for the coup personally on Louis Bonaparte. “On the one hand, a whole nation, the first of nations, on the other hand, one person, the last of people; and this is what this man has done to this nation.”
As Karl Marx wittily noted, who highly appreciated Hugo's pamphlet at the time of its appearance, the writer, declaring Napoleon the Small the sole culprit of all the shameful events of 1851-1852, instead of belittling, involuntarily exalted his enemy, attributing to him unheard-of personal power, while in fact in fact, he was only a pathetic figurehead, used by the reactionary circles of France for their own purposes. But the bold denunciation of a gang of political adventurers, the fiery civic pathos of Hugo's book played an enormous role in the struggle against reaction. Until now, it is impossible to read without deep emotion the pages of The History of a Crime and Napoleon the Small, which paint terrible pictures of the massacre of the Napoleonic clique over the Parisian people, one cannot but admire the sacrificial greatness of the Republicans who died on the barricades for freedom. For contemporaries, the book was a formidable warning and a call to fight. It was smuggled into France, was a huge success, and went through ten editions.
After the publication of Napoleon the Small, Louis Bonaparte succeeded in expelling Hugo from Belgium. To do this, the Belgian government had to issue a special law that allowed to violate the right of asylum for political emigrants. The writer was forced to leave Brussels. He stayed in London for several days, and then moved with his whole family to the island of Jersey, which belonged to England, in the English Channel; terribly homesick, full of indignation and pain for her fate, Hugo again took up his pen and already in 1853 published in Brussels a collection of civil lyrics "Retribution", in which huge force cursed the Second Empire.
Since the time of Agrippa d'Aubigne's Tragic Poems, the voice of anger has not thundered so powerfully over France, political poetry has not risen to such heights. "Retribution" is essentially a whole poem, united by one thought and a harmonious composition. Each of its seven books ironically titled one of the false declarations of Napoleon III (“Society saved”, “Order restored”, etc.), but the content of the poems each time refutes the title. political crooks, perjurers and renegades, swindlers and robbers, “altar jesters” and corrupt judges, adventurers and greedy businessmen. historical roots bonapartism; it speaks mainly of the offended feeling of the citizen and patriot; He regards the Second Empire as a sinister parody of the First Empire, as a historical and moral "retribution" to Napoleon I for having strangled the revolution. The victory of Napoleon III for Hugo is a temporary victory of Evil over Good, Lies over Truth. And he appeals to his compatriots, to the working people of France, with an appeal to wake up, gather all their strength and crush Evil:
Are you unarmed? Nonsense! What about pitchforks?
And the hammer, the worker's friend?
Take the stones! Enough power
It's hard to pull the hook out of the door!
And stand, handing the spirit to hope,
Greater France, as before,
Become free Paris again!
Performing righteous vengeance,
Spare yourself the contempt
Wash away dirt and blood from your homeland!
(“Sleeping”. Translation by G. Shengeli)
Hugo used in "Retribution" all poetic means, colors and forms: here and deadly sarcasm and enthusiastic dreams of the future; formidable oratorical tirades are interspersed with gentle lyricism, terrible descriptions of murders and violence coexist with bright pictures of nature. The poet turns to the literary images of the past, to the images of the Bible, antiquity, to the fable and folk song - everything is put at the service of one task: to open the eyes of the people, to raise them to fight. The poet passionately believes in the final victory of good and light over darkness and injustice, in the future of France. "Retribution" opens with the chapter "Mox" ("Night") and ends with the chapter "Lux" ("Light").
In "Retribution" Hugo first appeared as a revolutionary poet, as a staunch defender of the motherland, democracy, and progress. According to Romain Rolland, he showed his contemporaries "an example of a hero who said his resolute "no" in response to the crimes of the state and became the living embodiment of the indignant consciousness of the people, who were gagged." Hugo's poem had a huge impact on his contemporaries. Having received lightning-fast distribution in Europe, it also penetrated into France - in its entirety, in fragments, in the form of proclamations; she was transported across the border either in a sardine box, or sewn into a woman's dress or into the sole of a boot. The fiery lines of the patriot poet became a formidable weapon in the struggle for the freedom of his homeland. “Retribution” remains to this day one of the pinnacles of French civil lyrics, despite the fact that the poem is not free from rhetoric, “naive pomposity”, as V. I. Lenin said, according to the memoirs of N. K. Krupskaya. He loved this poem by Hugo and forgave its shortcomings, because "the spirit of the revolution" was felt in it.
After the release of Retribution, Victor Hugo had to leave Jersey. He moved to the neighboring island of Guernsey, where he lived until the fall of the Second Empire. In 1859, Hugo refused an amnesty, which he did not want to accept from the hands of the political criminal Louis Bonaparte. In a letter to the usurper, the poet declared with dignity: "When freedom returns, I will return."
"ROCK OF EXILES"
Day and night, the surf beats on the harsh rocks of Guernsey, seagulls rush over the white foam with screams, fishing boats filled the picturesque harbor of St. , the boundless expanse of the sea opens up, and the vague outlines of the coast of France seem to be on the horizon. Victor Hugo had been standing all morning at the music stand on this veranda, in a fever of work; now he lays down his pen. He descends the stairs, passes through the rooms, which he himself decorated with paintings, carvings, paintings, draperies, through the garden, where, together with his family, he dug up flower beds, planted flowers, and, bypassing the streets of a fishing town, goes out to the sea. Along a narrow path, he climbs the coastal cliff - "Cliff of the Exiles", as the poet's friends called it - and sits for a long time on a ledge that looks like a stone chair, meditating to the sound of the waves.
On a cliff lost in the sea, Hugo feels like on a battlefield - he is still the same indomitable fighter for freedom and justice, moreover, he is a friend of all peoples and an enemy of all kinds of despots. Here, in Guernsey, hundreds of letters fly from all over the world, from prominent politicians, writers, artists, from ordinary people - from those who value their homeland, human dignity, and the happiness of their people. Hugo corresponds with Lajos Kossuth and Giuseppe Mazzini, with the revolutionary Barbès and the future communard Flourens; the national hero of Italy, Giuseppe Garibaldi, asks for his help in raising funds to arm the Italian patriots; A. I. Herzen calls him "great brother" and invites him to cooperate in the "Bell". From his Guernsey cliff, Hugo responds to the liberation struggle in all corners of the globe: in 1854 he wrote an open letter to the British Foreign Minister, Lord Palmerston, demanding the abolition of the death penalty; in 1859, he delivered a message to the United States of America, in which he angrily protested against the death sentence against John Brown, the leader of the insurgent Negroes in Virginia. “It is possible that the execution of Brown will strengthen slavery in Virginia, but it will undoubtedly shake all the foundations of American democracy. You save your shame and kill your glory,” wrote Hugo. In 1860, he welcomed the independence of Haiti; opposed the English military expedition to China; in connection with the Polish uprising of 1863, he wrote an appeal to the Russian army, which Herzen placed on the pages of Kolokol; Hugo raised his voice in defense of Mexico against the French interventionists sent there by Napoleon III in 1863; supported the struggle of the island of Crete against the Turkish yoke; protested against the execution of Irish Fenian patriots. He ardently supported in 1868 the struggle for a republic in Spain, and when the people of Cuba rose in revolt against the Spanish colonialists, Hugo spoke out for the freedom of Cuba.
Hugo witnessed the beginning of the aggression of the big capitalist powers against the weaker peoples; one of the first in Europe, he began the fight against wars. Hugo was the initiator and chairman of the first Congress of Friends of the World in Paris as early as 1849, in 1869 he took part in the Peace Congress in Lausanne, where he was also elected chairman. At the opening of the congress, Hugo delivered an inspirational speech: “We want peace, we want it passionately ... But what kind of peace do we want? Peace at any cost? World without any effort? No! We do not want a world in which the bowed would not dare to raise their foreheads; we don’t want peace under the yoke of despotism, we don’t want peace under the stick, we don’t want peace under the scepter!” And, declaring that "the first condition of peace is liberation", that to achieve it "it will require a revolution, the most amazing of all revolutions, and, perhaps - alas! - war, the last of all wars", Hugo ended his speech with the words: "Our goal is freedom! Freedom will bring peace!”
The courageous struggle of the poet expelled from the borders of his homeland, his indestructible spirit, his noble dreams of universal happiness won him immense popularity. A whole generation of progressive youth experienced the irresistible charm of the personality and creativity of Victor Hugo. According to Emile Zola, to his twenty-year-old peers, Hugo seemed to be a supernatural being, "a colossus singing in the midst of a storm", some kind of new Prometheus.
During the years of exile, Hugo's powerful literary talent also reached its peak. He creates beautiful lyrics (the collections "Contemplation", book two; "Songs of the streets and forests"), works on the grandiose poetic cycle "Legend of the Ages" (1859-1883). In this vast epic, the reader passes through the entire history of mankind, dressed in romantic images, colored with all the colors of violent fantasy; history is a cruel struggle of peoples against bloody despots, it is full of suffering, disasters and injustice; but the hour will come, Evil will be defeated, and Good will triumph. In the finale, a vision of a happy future rises before the poet's spiritual gaze. In exile, Hugo also wrote his great social novels.
EPIC OF PEOPLE'S LIFE
On a dark night, a hunted man roams the sleeping streets; once he stole bread because he was deprived of the opportunity to earn it, all the doors slammed in front of him, even the yard dog chases him out of his kennel ... A young woman, in the old days beautiful and cheerful, but now toothless, shorn, sick, goes out into the street in the last desperate hope to feed his child... A barefoot hungry child, trembling with fear of beatings, straining, drags a heavy bucket...
These are people from the people, "outcasts", the heroes of the new novel by Hugo, published in 1862. The writer gave thirty years of work and thought to this work, which was the result of a whole period of his life and glorified him throughout the world. The idea of a book about the tragic fate of the masses of the people, whom the absurd structure of bourgeois society made "outcast", was hatched by Hugo from the end of the 20s; the contours of its plot appeared in the stories "The Last Day of the Condemned to Death" (1828) and "Claude Gue" (1834), and in many poems of the 30s; the theme of national grief, which deeply worried the writer, arose both in Notre Dame Cathedral and in dramas. But only in "Les Misérables" is the folk life shown directly, without romantic allegories. From Spanish castles, medieval temples, Hugo boldly transferred his heroes to modern paris, raised flashy social questions, showed typical destinies and characters; the life of the common people and the bourgeoisie, the life of the Parisian slums, the desperate struggle of the poor for a piece of bread, the enmity between the worker and the manufacturer, the popular uprising - all this is in Hugo's book.
Hugo wrote Les Misérables in defense of the people; he explicitly stated this in the preface: “As long as there is a social curse by the force of laws and mores, which, in the midst of the flowering of civilization, artificially creates hell and aggravates fate, which depends on God, with fatal human predestination ... as long as there will be need and ignorance reign on earth, books like this one will perhaps not be useless.
Three insoluble problems of bourgeois society - unemployment, prostitution, homelessness - were, according to the original plan, to be revealed on the examples of the fate of the three heroes of the book: Jean Valjean, Fantine and Cosette.
Hugo called on all the power of talent, all his love for people to shake the hearts of readers with the spectacle of the disasters of his heroes. It is impossible to read with indifference the story of Jean Valjean, “a poor good beast driven by a whole hound of society” (in the words of A. I. Herzen), the story of Fantine, her outraged love, tragic motherhood and, finally, her death in a prison infirmary; The pages that depict the "sinister domestic slavery" in the Thenardier's house of little Cosette, whom "fear has made false, and poverty ugly," breathe with cruel truth. Around these central characters- a whole crowd of others: homeless old people and children, hungry teenagers, residents of gloomy slums and thieves' dens - in a word, those whom the author called "outcasts". How to help these people, how to alleviate their plight? This is the question that Victor Hugo wanted to answer; he set himself a double goal: to condemn social evil and show the way to overcome it. “A society that does not want to be criticized would be like a sick person who does not allow himself to be treated,” Hugo wrote in one of the many drafts of the preface to Les Misérables. Like the utopian socialists, he sought to find a recipe for healing bourgeois society. Hugo attached special importance to his book, considering it a practical weapon in the struggle for the future; he even called it "the new gospel."
The novels of the mature Hugo differ greatly from the classical form of the social novel of the Balzac type. These are epic novels. Concrete life questions, living images of people, a fascinating plot - only one side of them; Behind this is always the question of the fate of the people, humanity, moral and philosophical problems, general questions of being. And if there is no merciless social analysis and ingenious insight of Balzac in Les Misérables, then the unique originality of this work lies in epic majesty, in fiery humanism, which colors every page with lyrical excitement, gives special significance to each image and raises the picture of folk life to high romance. The author himself wrote: “... the proportions here are huge, because the giant Man fits entirely into this work. From here - wide horizons opening in all directions. There must be air around the mountain.”
It is no coincidence that Hugo sought to combine his works into large cycles; in the 60s he began to consider Les Misérables as the second part of a trilogy, the first book of which was to be Notre Dame Cathedral, and the last - Toilers of the Sea. According to the author, these three works show the struggle of man against fate in its triple guise: religious superstition, social injustice and unconquered nature. In the light of such a plan, it is understandable why Hugo included in Les Misérables all new author's digressions, reflections on the past and future, on peaceful progress and revolution, on monasteries and religion, and even was going to write a philosophical introduction in two parts - "God" and "Soul ". As in The Legend of the Ages, Hugo sees the life of his era through the prism of a romantically understood history; images of Dante and Homer, images of biblical and ancient myths appear through the pictures of the bitter life of the Parisian people and stand behind the images of folk heroes. More than anywhere else, the main characters of "Les Miserables" are the bearers of the author's ideas, a kind of symbols.
In the center of the book is the image of Jean Valjean, personifying the oppressed people. “Often the whole nation is completely embodied in these imperceptible and great beings trampled underfoot. Often the one who is the ant in material world turns out to be a giant in the moral world,” Hugo wrote in rough drafts for the novel. Such "moral giants" are all Hugo's favorite folk heroes: the peasant Jean Valjean, the seamstress Fantine, the street boy Gavroche.
Jean Valjean, personifying the people, is opposed by the innkeeper Thenardier, the embodiment of predatory selfishness, misanthropy and hypocrisy, on which the bourgeois order hostile to the people rests. Equally hostile to the people is the bourgeois state with its soulless and inhuman legislation, embodied in the image of the police warden Javert, the watchdog of bourgeois society. Spiritual resurrection for Jean Valjean is brought not by the peace officer Javert, but by Bishop Miriel, who, according to Hugo's plan, embodies the idea of humanity, brotherly love and mercy, called to save society. True, the author failed to rid the image of the bishop of falsehood, and progressive criticism, especially in Russia, noted this immediately after the book was published.
In the 40s, Hugo was still under the influence of "Christian socialism" and believed that it was enough to convince people of the injustice of the then social order and set an example of humanity and love - in other words, to replace Javert with a bishop - and social evil would disappear. But returning to the novel in exile, Hugo could no longer be satisfied with preaching moral perfection; now Les Misérables includes the theme of the revolutionary struggle against evil. The writer adds new chapters, depicts with ardent sympathy the republican uprising in Paris in 1832, creates an ideal image of the "priest of the revolution" Enjolras and his comrades from the republican secret society "Friends of the ABC" and, finally, gathers all the goodies at the barricade.
As a result, an irreconcilable contradiction formed in the novel; it was impossible to combine the ideas of Christian humility and the glorification of the revolution - this was contrary to artistic truth. Hugo himself could not decide what was dearer to him, abstract humanity or an active revolutionary struggle for the future. But the readers of the novel are strongly impressed by the exciting picture of the people's battle for freedom, drawn with romantic pathos, elevating the Epic of the Rue Saint-Denis to the heroic images of Homer's poems.
Unforgettable is the death of little Gavroche, "the marvelous Gavroche," in the words of Maurice Thorez; Gavroche is one of Hugo's best creations, a favorite of readers of all countries. This cheerful mischievous, impudent and simple-hearted, cynical and childishly naive, speaks in thieves' jargon, hangs out with thieves, but gives the last piece of bread to the hungry and protects the weak; he despises authority, hates the bourgeoisie, fears neither god nor devil, and greets death with a mocking song. Like Esmeralda, Gavroche is completely immersed in folk life. He dies for the cause of the people. Gavroche - "the soul of Paris" - embodies the best national traits of the French people, its "Gallic spirit" - indestructible cheerfulness, generosity and love of freedom.
The publication of Les Misérables aroused great interest not only in France, but all over the world; for several years the book was published in translations in England, Germany, Italy, America, Japan, India; in Russia, the novel was published simultaneously in three magazines, including Nekrasov's Sovremennik, already in the very year of publication in France, and was immediately subjected to tsarist censorship. The initiative to fight against Hugo belonged to Alexander II himself. Minister of National Education Golovnin wrote in April 1862 to the St. Petersburg censorship committee: “The sovereign would like that, in the case of the translation of Victor Hugo’s novel Les Miserables, censorship strictly considers the meaning of various incidents described by an author with great talent and therefore strongly influencing the reader.”
The publication of the novel was banned. Upon learning of this, Herzen wrote indignantly in The Bell: “Imagine that our miserables banned Hugo's novel. What a pitiful and vile barbarism!”
MAN AGAINST CHAOS
No matter how longing for his homeland, no matter how he was immersed in the political struggle and hard work, every day he succumbed more and more to the charm of the unique nature surrounding him. He fell asleep and woke up to the roar of the sea, the sea rolled billows outside his window, shook the glass walls of his terrace with storms, or gently splashed at his feet; the life of the Guernsey fishermen, which took place before the eyes of the writer, entirely depended on the sea. During the hours of rest, Hugo took boat trips, admired the bizarre cliffs of Dover, wandered around the rocky islet of Serk, climbed into caves and grottoes - in one of them he saw the octopus for the first time with disgust ... The music of the sea, its iridescent colors, its contrasts and secrets, the grandeur of the elements and the grandeur of man's courageous struggle with it captured Hugo's creative imagination. Magnificent pictures of the sea appear in his poetry ("Oceano Nox", "Poor People", "Infanta's Rose"); more and more often before his mind's eye rises the image of a man - the tamer of the ocean. By 1865, he completes a new novel - "Toilers of the Sea".
Again in the center of attention of Hugo is a man from the people; but in Les Misérables he was brought face to face with the "social element" hostile to him, but now man stood before the formidable element of nature. There a popular uprising thundered, here, in the words of Maurice Thorez, from every page "the mad roar of the sea waves came."
In Toilers of the Sea, as well as in Les Misérables, it is easy to distinguish two sides, two narrative planes: a lively, sometimes sympathetic, sometimes ironic story about the life of the islanders and a sublime poem about a man - the conqueror of nature. The scale of what is happening on the shore and what is happening at sea is incomparable. On the island - a provincial petty-bourgeois little world, a cast from bourgeois England: greed, covered with hypocrisy, caste isolation, ostentatious piety. The proprietorial morality of this society is expressed in the image of Captain Kluben, who for ten years wore a mask of incorruptible honesty in order to rob his master at a convenient moment; the ruler of souls here is Pastor Erod, who sanctimoniously covers the oppression of peoples and the slave trade with the authority of the Christian religion. In the ocean, man wages a heroic struggle, free from bourgeois self-interest.
All the greatness, all the poetry of this struggle is connected for Victor Hugo with those who work. In the novel "Toilers of the Sea" there is no branched, masterfully constructed intrigue, as in "Les Miserables", there is no string of folk heroes either. The plot of the novel is simple, and all the "workers" are summarized in one image - the Norman fisherman Gilliat. Gillyat is the embodiment of all the best that is in a person: he has a brave soul, strong muscles, a clear mind, a pure heart. In spiritual and moral terms, he is so much higher than a possessive society that he causes hostility and distrust of those around him, who awarded him the nickname Zhilyat Lukavets. Gilliatt is a kind of "outcast", a romantic renegade. He bears on his shoulders the whole burden of labor necessary for society, but is not understood and not recognized by this society.
For the first time in Hugo's work, it is labor that exalts the hero, makes his image poetic. Jean Valjean personified the suffering of an oppressed people; Gillyat absorbed labor experience, talent, knowledge accumulated over the centuries by people of labor - he is a jack of all trades: a sailor, a blacksmith, a self-taught mechanic, a doctor and a musician, a gardener and a carpenter.
The main thing in the novel is the labor feat of Gilliat, who threw down a daring challenge to the elements and alone, without any help, armed with the simplest tools, surrounded by a raging ocean, amidst unheard of difficulties and countless dangers, he removed from a distant reef and brought to the shore the car of a broken steamer. It is the worker, the simple man, "an ant in the material world, but a giant in the moral world" that appears before the writer as the builder of the future and the owner of the earth. Gilliat's struggle to save the machine, his martial arts with the ocean take on titanic outlines and become a poetic personification of the eternal struggle waged, according to the author, by humanity against nature: “A man works, arranging his house, and his house is the earth. He moves, displaces, abolishes, demolishes, discards, crushes, digs, digs, breaks, explodes, crumbles, wipes one thing off the face of the earth, destroys another, and, destroying, creates a new one. No hesitation before anything: neither before the thickness of the earth, nor before a mountain range, nor before the power of matter that emits light, nor before the greatness of nature ... Submit, earth, to your ant!
This human activity expresses the movement from evil to good, the victory of the spirit over inert matter. The Toilers of the Sea show the clash of a dark, evil element - nature with the good will and mind of man. Nature is full of contrasts and surprises, fabulous beauties and unimaginable horrors, sometimes it is friendly to man, sometimes it is hostile to him. The mirror sea suddenly begins to “growl deafly”, a thundercloud with violent squalls suddenly appears from a tiny cloud, deadly reefs hide in a peaceful backwater, a disgusting “lump of mucus endowed with will” lives in a shining underwater chamber - a giant octopus.
The romantic imagination of the writer spiritualizes the elements; with “almost magical pictorial power, he recreates on the pages of the novel a picture of a majestic, formidable, every second changing, seething, breathing ocean. From reality, the reader is easily transferred to the atmosphere of myth, fairy tale. Zhiliatna his rock is like a hero of the ancients folk tales, repelling the attack of fantastic monsters, hydras and dragons: he fights with insidious clouds, angrily hissing waves, whirlwinds distraught with rage, many-headed lightning; in the end, he endures a completely fabulous duel with an octopus. In "Les Misérables", depicting the sorrowful life of little Cosette and the righteous life of Bishop Miriel, Hugo used the tale of Cinderella, the evil Makhech and the sisters and the tale of the good old man and the robbers; in "Toilers of the Sea" he again calls on the poetic imagination of the people to help, in order to reveal all the greatness of Gilliat's martial arts with nature. The magnificent symphony of labor and struggle that sounds on the pages of the novel cannot be drowned out by the melodramatic finale, in which the author, contrary to the truth of art, imposed Christian self-denial and humility before fate on the conqueror of the elements, the national hero Gilliat. The reader does not want to believe that before him is the same Gilliat.
A novel about a modest Guernsian fisherman for readers all over the world is a heroic epic in which the glory of a man-fighter, worker and creator is sung. And this is the originality and strength of Hugo's book, unlike any other work of French literature of the mid-19th century.
TERRIBLE LAUGHTER
Persistently striving to understand the patterns of history, almost simultaneously with the "Toilers of the Sea" Hugo conceives a new trilogy: aristocracy - monarchy - republic. The first part, The Man Who Laughs, was published in 1869;
In form, The Man Who Laughs is a historical novel, but, as usual with Hugo, it is all turned towards the present. The action takes place in England at the beginning of the 18th century, and Hugo once again demonstrates the brilliant mastery of historical painting. Royal Palace - and London slums; sinister dungeons of the Tower - and aristocratic clubs; crowds of vagabonds, deprived of shelter and work, and swaggering, stupid lords; the time-honored parliamentary ritual - and the gallows with tarred corpses on creaking chains - such is the backdrop against which an exciting plot unfolds. In the heyday of the realistic social novel, when Flaubert's main books had already been published and Zola began to write, Hugo came up with a work that shimmered with all the colors of romantic art. The reader faces a romantic world full of horrors, secrets, spectacular contrasts, unexpected coincidences: a buffoon turns out to be a lord, a duchess has fun in the company of mob, a bottle thrown into the sea concludes the fate of a nobleman, monstrous criminals are tortured in secret dungeons, a blind beauty loves a freak. Gloomy mysteries, malicious deceit, violent passions surround the hero, who bravely rushes into battle for his happiness, but dies in an unequal struggle.
In the novel "The Man Who Laughs", as in "The Cathedral", two worlds oppose: the outwardly brilliant, but essentially vicious and heartless world of the upper classes, the personification of which is the fatal beauty with a black soul, the Duchess Josiana, and the world of goodness and humanity , embodied in the images of folk heroes: the wandering philosopher Ureus, the public jester Gwynplaine and the blind girl Dei.
Romantic antithesis, romantic symbolism permeate the entire fabric of the novel: next to the demonic Josiana, the figure of the insidious spy and envious Barkilfedro, a hypocrite, like Klubin from Toilers of the Sea, grows; the symbol of social evil is also the traffickers of children - comprachikos. On the other hand, good exists only outside the official society. On a cold winter night, an abandoned child shows mercy to an even weaker and helpless baby; in front of him, half-frozen and hungry, all doors are locked, as once before Jean Valjean; he finds shelter in the van of a poor man like himself, a man alien to the bestial laws of society, although he bears the name of a bear (Latin Ursus) and considers a wolf to be his friend.
Gwynplaine, like Quasimodo, is also a symbol of people's suffering; behind an ugly mask of laughter, he hides a bright soul. But the social meaning of this image is deeper: Quasimodo is just a monstrous whim of nature, while Gwynplaine's life, as well as his face, are mutilated by people and society for selfish purposes. The struggle between good and evil finds expression in Gwynplaine's hesitation between the brilliant fate of an aristocrat and the modest lot of a common man, between passion for the Duchess Josiana and pure love for Daya. Guimplain soon becomes convinced that true happiness cannot be found in gilded chambers, and he returns, though too late, to the popular soil from which he was so suddenly cut off.
The writer's deep faith in the doom of evil prompted him to devote an entire part of the novel ("The Sea and the Night") to the story of how the comprachicos died in the depths of the sea - this is moral retribution for the crimes of society. But the beloved heroes of Hugo, Gwynplaine and Day are also dying, for evil is still stronger than good. Nevertheless, Gwynplaine, who has rejected the world of hypocrisy and violence, wins a moral victory. The tragic figure of Gwynplaine is the image of an oppressed people who begin to straighten their shoulders, ready at last to revolt against their enslavers. The novel was written on the eve of the fall of the Second Empire and is all imbued with a premonition of the coming social storm. In a brief moment of his fantastic elevation, having found himself, by a whim of fate, on the bench of parliament, the miserable jester, yesterday's plebeian, throws menacing and prophetic words into the faces of the laughing and howling lords:
“- Bishops, peers and princes, know that the people are a great sufferer who laughs through tears. My lords, people - it's me ... Tremble! The inexorable hour of reckoning is approaching, cut off claws grow back, tongues torn out turn into tongues of flame, they soar upwards, caught by a violent wind, and cry out in the darkness, hungry gnash their teeth ... This is the people coming, I tell you, this is a man rising; it's coming to an end; this is the crimson dawn of a catastrophe - that is what lies in the laughter that you mock!
And although this speech makes the lords freeze with horror only for a minute, the revolutionary-romantic spirit of Hugo's book is expressed with great force.
TERRIBLE YEAR
In less than two years, the premonitions of the author of the book about Gwynplaine came true. The empire of Napoleon the Small collapsed. The fate of Hugo was closely connected with the fate of his country, and this political event turned his entire personal life into a new direction - the exiled poet returned to his homeland. On September 5, the day after the proclamation of the Third Republic, almost a seventy-year-old man, the great writer of France set foot on French soil for the first time in nineteen years ... Seized by deep excitement, he could not hold back his tears.
Hugo remained true to his word: he returned with the Republic. But freedom - did the French people find freedom? Hugo Okoryu was convinced that this was not the case. In a difficult hour for France, the exile returned to his native country. The adventuristic war started by Napoleon III with Prussia led France to disaster: on September 2, defeated in the battle of Sedan, the emperor, together with a hundred thousandth army, surrendered to the Germans; enemy troops launched an attack on Paris; the new republican government of "national defence" that came to power on September 4, soon pursued such a treacherous policy that it earned the shameful nickname "government of national treason" - it feared the people armed against the enemies of France more than the victory of the Prussians. The siege of Paris, famine, epidemic, betrayal of the generals, a two-fold uprising against the government and a bloody reprisal against its participants ... Finally, on January 28, 1871, Paris fell. The workers responded to the betrayal and provocations of the bourgeoisie with an armed uprising on March 18. On March 28, the Paris Commune was solemnly proclaimed.
All these turbulent events shocked and captured Victor Hugo. Already two weeks after his return, he found himself in besieged Paris; having shared with the people the disasters of war, he wrote patriotic proclamations; elected to the National Assembly, which met in the city of Bordeaux, called from its rostrum to defend the homeland and denounced the traitors who tried to drown out his speeches with angry cries and howls. Ten days before the Commune, the reactionary majority of the assembly deprived the Italian revolutionary Garibaldi, an old comrade of Hugo, who at that time was fighting in the ranks of the French army, from his parliamentary mandate. Outraged by this, Deputy Hugo resigned.
The thoughts and feelings of the writer of that time were reflected in the remarkable collection of political lyrics The Terrible Year (1872). This is a kind of poetic diary that Hugo kept from day to day, from August 1870 to August 1871. The poet proudly depicts the steadfastness and courage of the Parisian people in the difficult days of the siege, cold and famine, turns fiery lines to France - his “mother, glory and only love”, calls for the continuation of the struggle and showers bitter reproaches on the government that agreed to surrender.
But great poet remained completely alien to any chauvinism. Immediately upon his arrival in France, he wrote a proclamation to the German soldiers, urging them to stop the war; in the verses of The Terrible Year, he lays responsibility for the bloodshed not on the peoples, but on the rulers and calls Napoleon III and Wilhelm I bandits, "worthy of each other." In another poem, a lion and a tiger are released into the arena of the Roman Colosseum to squabble for the amusement of Nero, and the lion says: "We would have done smarter if we had torn the emperor to pieces."
Hugo's patriotic poems, the glorification of national heroism, the appeals to the francs-tireurs and soldiers of 1871 sounded with renewed vigor in our days, during the years of the Nazi invasion of the poet's homeland; they were adopted by the faithful sons of France, published in the underground press of the French Resistance and poured faith in victory into the souls of the fighters.
The pain for the fate of the motherland, which tormented Hugo's heart, was soon joined by a heavy personal grief: the writer's beloved son, Charles, died.
On the historic day of March 18, 1871, a mourning carriage slowly moved through the streets of Paris, engulfed in a revolutionary storm. A grey-haired old man followed her with bowed head. Shots rang out all around, barricades kept blocking his path, and the Communards dismantled the cobblestones in order to let the funeral procession through ...
Victor Hugo had to leave for Brussels because of his deceased son's affairs; the whole heroic tragedy of the Paris Commune played out without him. But could an old man, weighed down by the prejudices of his time, correctly judge from afar the significance and scale of events, information about which he drew mainly from bourgeois newspapers? It so happened that Victor Hugo, a sincere fighter for the happiness of the oppressed, did not understand and did not accept the Paris Commune. The singer of the bourgeois-democratic revolution could not find a common language with the broad masses at the moment of the first attempt in history of a proletarian revolution. Just before the emergence of the Commune, in the Red Clubs of Paris, among which was the International Association of Workers (International), during meetings, verses from "Retribution" were reverently recited, but the author of these verses welcomed the Commune only in the first days; soon he was frightened by the radical breakdown of the entire state machine of the bourgeois republic, which he still considered ideal political form despite the sad experience of the “terrible year”. Besides, the old humanist could sing of the past revolutions as much as he liked; when he came across the revolutionary terror of the Commune in practice, it turned out that he was unable to agree with it.
Most of the poems in the collection The Terrible Year are dedicated to the Paris Commune. Its emergence is marked by the enthusiastic poem "Burial" (we are talking about the death of the old world), but after that the poet falls upon the Communards with a whole stream of poems in which he demands an end to repressions; Hugo believed the reactionary fabrications about the cruelty of the Communards. However, when the Commune fell and the bloody week of May began, the same Victor Hugo, with all his ardor and energy, rushed to defend the defeated Communards from the executioners of Versailles. Risking his life, he offered asylum to the Communards in his Brussels house and then for many years fought courageously for a complete amnesty for the members of the Commune (under pressure public opinion amnesty was granted only in 1880). His speeches and articles of those years are collected in the book Deeds and Speeches. After exile." The reactionaries did not limit themselves to slinging mud at Hugo in the press; one evening, a brutal gang attacked his house, knocked out the windows with stones, and the cobblestone flew right at the very temple of the writer, who was trying to shield his little grandson.
In the verses of The Terrible Year, Hugo sang the heroism of the Communards and painted stunning pictures of the atrocities of the White Terror. Widely known in France and abroad, the poem “Here is a captive being led ...”, which tells how graceful ladies with the tips of lace umbrellas open the wounds of a captive communard, has gained wide popularity. The poet says:
I'm sorry unfortunate
I hate these dogs
Gnawing at the chest of a wounded she-wolf!
(Translated by G. Shengeli)
In another famous poem (“At the Barricade”), a Communard boy, a worthy brother of Gavroche, having the opportunity to escape from the executioners, voluntarily returns to the place of execution to die along with his comrades in arms.
Angrily denouncing the cruelty of the victorious bourgeoisie, the poet exclaims: "You judge the crimes of the dawn!" The last poems of the collection are imbued with recognition of the historical correctness of the cause of the Commune. The poet sings of the revolutionary capital - the mother of a bright future; the whole city is wounded by reaction, but Paris is the sun, and the executioners will see with horror how rays of freedom will spurt from its wounds. The “Terrible Year” ends with a majestic allegory: the sea wave rises to the stronghold of the old world, threatening to swallow it, and answers the cry for help:
You thought I was the tide - and I am the flood of the world!
(Translated by I. Antokolsky)
TWO POLES OF TRUTH
Under the influence of the events of the Commune, the long-planned novel "The Ninety-Third Year" was finally cast and in many ways rethought. It was the writer's direct response to the Commune, the result of his long-term reflections on the historical paths of mankind and the revolutionary struggle. Hugo began writing on December 16, 1872 and finished on June 9, 1873. In 1874, the work saw the light. It came out at a time of acute political struggle, when yesterday's executioners of the Commune tried to betray the bourgeois republic, and, frightened by the recent revolution, entered into an agreement with extremely reactionary forces, secretly preparing a new monarchist coup.
In his novel, as well as in the speeches delivered at that time in the National Assembly, Hugo resolutely defended the democratic gains of the people. Drawing the French Revolution at the end of the 18th century, he also has in mind the Commune of 1871 and looks at the past through the prism of the present. All the moral and political problems that arise in the novel are for him the issues of today, they burn his heart. Does the people have a moral right to shed the blood of their oppressors in the struggle for freedom? How to reconcile love for man and for humanity, the personal happiness of each and the need to make sacrifices for the common good in the future? How to reconcile the two sides of the revolution - its humanistic ideals and violent methods?
Hugo unconditionally takes the side of the revolution against reaction both in the past and in the present. He rightly assesses the bourgeois-democratic revolution of 1789-1794 as a heroic page in national history, as one of the greatest milestones on the path of progress of all mankind. In his book, he sought, above all, to convey the heroism of the revolution. One episode serves as the immediate theme of the novel: the struggle of the Jacobin Convention against the counter-revolutionary rebellion raised by the French feudal lords among the backward peasants of the Vendée with the support of the troops of royal England. This is one of the most acute moments of the revolution, when its fate was being decided, and this is revealed with great force in the novel. With deep patriotic emotion, Hugo describes the fearlessness and courage of the French people. In the pictures of the civil war in the Vendée, in the story of the activities of the Convention, one can feel an excellent knowledge of history. But a specific historical episode, under the pen of a great romantic, is transformed into a titanic battle between the Past and the Future, Good and Evil, Light and Darkness. The whole picture of complex events and turbulent passions of the era is reduced to a clash of two "eternal" and mutually hostile moral forces; it acquires simplified and grandiose outlines, characteristic of the images of the folk epic.
"The Ninety-Third Year" is a book about heroes, about the heroic struggle of an entire people. The author does not try to take the point of view of a participant in the events, a contemporary of the revolution; like an epic poet, he, as it were, casts a glance at the past from afar, allowing him to cover the entire era, appreciate the greatness of events and highlight the main thing in them. From the pages of the novel rises a harsh and tragic image of the revolution, written in powerful, broad strokes, in gloomy and fiery colors.
The main forces of the revolution are personified for the writer in the images of its leaders. But true to his artistic principle - "to illuminate the true facts through fictional characters", Hugo does not make Danton, Marat and Robespierre the heroes of the novel, portraits of the great figures of the revolution of 1789-1794 appear in only one episode - in the scene of their conversation in a Parisian tavern, and the image Marat is distorted under the influence of bourgeois historians; the main characters of the novel are Lantenac, Cimourdain and Rovin.
The Marquis de Lantenac, the leader of the counter-revolutionary Vendéan gangs, the "murderer of the fatherland", who is ready to sell France to the British in order to restore the monarchy, surrounded by insignificant emigrant nobles, is a symbol of reaction, of the past; he is opposed by the revolution, personified in two images: the stern republican Cimourdain and the generous dreamer Gauvin. Cimourdain, the embodiment of reason and justice, a supporter of the "republic of swords", demanding the unswerving fulfillment of revolutionary duty, merciless reprisals against enemies - this is the present day of the revolution; Roven, who dreams of a "republic of the ideal", of universal brotherhood, peace and happiness, is a bright future. Both of them confront Lantenac, as Jean Valjean and Enjolras confronted Javert; these are the "two poles of truth" directed against the lies of the past.
The whole novel is structured in such a way as to emphasize the deep meaning of the contrast between these characters. Lantenac acts against the backdrop of the picturesque landscapes of Brittany at the end of the 18th century, where semi-wild, dark, but fanatically stubborn peasants in their struggle for a wrong cause hide in gloomy forests. A majestic picture of revolutionary Paris grows around Cimourdain, enthusiastic crowds come to life, “offering their lives to their homeland”, and stormy meetings of the Convention. Symbolic meaning in the novel is acquired not only by the images of heroes: Paris and Brittany are the same mortal enemies as Cimourdin and Lantenac; feudal violence, embodied in the Turg tower, is opposed by revolutionary violence, embodied in the guillotine.
Hugo recognizes the justice of the people's revenge for centuries of suffering and oppression: "Turg is a duty, the guillotine is retribution", "Turg is a criminal story, the guillotine is a punishing story." He is even ready to admit that the Jacobin terror of 1793 was caused by historical necessity, but for reasons of abstract humanity he rejects all violence in principle, just as he rejected both the white terror of the executioners of Versailles and the red terror of the Commune. Rowan, striving to conquer the old world with generosity and mercy, is the brightest image of the novel. And the people are on his side: Sergeant Radub and all the republican soldiers sincerely sympathize with the act of Govin, who released the captive enemy Lantenac, as he once released Javert Valjean. And the same soldiers unanimously condemn the inflexibility of Cimourdain, who sent Gauvin to the chopping block. Yes, and Cimourdain himself gives in to the humane ideals of his pupil, and this leads him to suicide.
Sooner or later, for most of Hugo's heroes, there comes a moment when, according to the writer's deep conviction, good, dormant in every human soul, wins over evil at least for a moment. Jean Valjean experienced such a spiritual crisis when he met the bishop, Javert, saved by his enemy, Lantenac, who put the king's cause and his own life at stake for the sake of saving three peasant children from the fire. In Gauvin's eyes, Lantenac performs an irrelevant act of kindness, which is why he responds to mercy with mercy. However, in the novel "The Ninety-Third Year" Hugo is forced for the first time to admit that abstract humanity, humanity in itself, which does not take into account the requirements of life, can bring not good, but harm to people. Shaken by Valjean's mercy, Javert threw himself into the Seine; Lantenac, set free by Gauvin, again becomes a vicious and dangerous enemy of the motherland and the revolution.
At the end of the novel, assessing his fatal act, committed in a fit of generosity, Gauvin says: “I forgot the burned villages, trampled fields, brutally finished captives, finished off the wounded, shot women; I forgot about France, which was betrayed by England; I gave freedom to the executioner of the motherland. I am guilty".
The logic of revolutionary events, the logic of facts in the novel are stronger than abstract moral principles. And it is no coincidence that instead of a ladder, which should decide the victory, Gauvin is brought a guillotine, on which he is soon destined to lay down his head.
But this does not mean that Hugo abandons the generous dream of brotherhood and peace between people and fully accepts the merciless severity of Cimourdain. This is the tragedy of the novel, that each of the characters is right in his own way. The writer never managed to find an answer to the painful questions of the present in the heroic past. He was unable to comprehend the dialectic of the revolution, to unite the "two poles of truth"; this was prevented by the weaknesses of his worldview. The novel "The Ninety-Third Year" remained a monument of revolutionary romanticism with all its advantages and disadvantages - a vague idea of the historical process, hatred of tyranny and heroic ideals. But in his last novel, Hugo rose to an artistic insight, which revealed to him the tragedy of history.
Hugo's masterpiece amazed progressive contemporaries: he called for a courageous struggle for the future, aroused lofty and noble feelings. Precisely because - as the official newspaper La Presse wrote at the time - "the spirit of social demands", "not a white and tricolor, but a red banner" blew over the book, reactionary criticism met it with hostility. From now on, in the eyes of his ideological enemies, Hugo became primarily the author of this book, and they dubbed him "The Ninety-Third Year in Literature" - a nickname that Victor Hugo was rightly proud of.
SUNSET
The nineteenth century was drawing to a close, and with it the life of Viktor Gyugs was waning. Behind was a bright spring, a stormy summer, now a clear autumn has come. Deep old age covered Hugo's face with wrinkles, whitened his head with gray hair, but could not extinguish the fire of his heart, his civil and creative burning. At eighty years old, he still stood at the music stand in his office for several hours a day, still showered angry sarcasms on monarchists, the military, the Catholic Church, still raised his voice in defense of everyone who fought for justice, whether it was a rebel Serbia (1876), Russian Narodnaya Volya member Yakov Hartman, whose extradition was demanded from France by the tsar (1880), heroes of the Commune languishing in hard labor or Lyon weavers thrown out into the street by manufacturers (1877).
The aged poet retained the freshness of his feelings, created youthful ardent lyric poems, wrote a charming book of poems about his favorite little grandchildren Georges and Jeanne (“The Art of Being a Grandfather”), he also retained a selfless faith in the future, the radiant vision of which increasingly arises in his later poems. and poems.
Truly, in the soul of Victor Hugo, until the end of his days, “All the Strings of the Lyre” sounded in a powerful and discordant chorus - this is the name of one of his last poetry collections.
The death of Victor Hugo on May 22, 1885 was perceived by the French people as an event of national importance. National mourning was declared across the country. More than a million people walked behind the coffin of the writer, gathered from all over France and Europe to spend in last way knight of democracy. Veterans of the Paris Commune addressed through the Parisian newspapers with an appeal to all their comrades-in-arms, inviting them to take part in the funeral of Victor Hugo, who courageously defended them during his lifetime.
Victor Hugo was buried in the Pantheon, next to the tomb of another defender of the oppressed, Jean Jacques Rousseau.
It is impossible to imagine the spiritual history of mankind in XIX century without Victor Hugo. His personality and creativity left an indelible mark on the minds of his contemporaries and subsequent generations. A poet of humanity and justice, an ardent patriot, a tireless fighter against social and national oppression, a defender of democracy, he expressed the noblest thoughts and feelings of his era, its heroic ideals and historical delusions with great talent. His work was an expression and, as it were, the result of an era of bourgeois-democratic revolutions.
Hugo was the brightest figure of French progressive romanticism and remained a romantic until the end of his days. In the last decades of the 19th century, at the time of the decline of bourgeois culture and the dominance of decadence, he was, according to Saltykov-Shchedrin, the living embodiment of "ideological, heroic literature", which "ignited hearts and agitated minds", resurrected this tendentious time, when not only people, but also stones cried out for heroism and ideals.
Hugo's word is addressed not to a narrow circle of connoisseurs of literature, but always to a large audience, to the people, to humanity. He has something to say to people, and he speaks with a full voice, broadcasts so that it can be heard in all ends of the earth. His inexhaustible imagination suggests to him the most grandiose images, the most dazzling colors, the sharpest contrasts. A. N. Tolstoy found that Hugo's brush is more like a broom. And with this broom, he dispersed the ghosts of the past and sought to clear the way for humanity to the future.
“A tribune and a poet, he thundered over the world like a hurricane, bringing to life everything that is beautiful in the human soul. He taught all people to love life, beauty, truth and France,” Maxim Gorky wrote about Hugo. It is in this - considered the great romanticist - that his duty to the people consists.
Victor Hugo: ethical-intuitive extrovert (Evgenia Gorenko)
Evgenia Gorenko:
A physicist by education, currently working as a journalist. In socionics, she is known for her book (under the literary editorship of V. Tolstikov) and a number of publications (some of them co-authored with her sister). Shows great interest in other currents in psychology, such as psychotherapy and transpersonal psychology.
Email address: [email protected]
Website: http://ncuxo.narod.ru
Victor Hugo, who to this day remains the unsurpassed romantic poet of France, came into poetry when romanticism was already winning back the last fortifications of classicism. All his creations are imbued with either a passionate desire for the ideal, in the mountainous mountains, or tragic disappointment, or joyful exaltation, or sadness due to the inexorable passage of time ...
If you had to learn only from the verses of lovers,
Suffering, joy and passion scorched ...
If you were not tormented by jealousy or torment,
Seeing your dear hand in someone else's hands,
The mouth of an opponent on a rosy cheek,
If you did not follow with gloomy tension
For a waltz with a slow and sensual whirling,
Tearing off fragrant petals from flowers ...
How irretrievably everything is carried away by oblivion,
Nature's clear face is changeable without end,
And how easy it is with his touch
Breaks the secret ties that bind hearts! ..
All passions with age go away inevitably,
Another with a mask, and that clutching a knife - Like a motley crowd of actors serenely
Leaves with the songs, you can't bring them back.
There is no other way for my grief:
Dream, run into the woods and believe in miracles...
In the work of Victor Hugo, the quivering of feelings is clearly visible - unrepressed intuition, coupled with strong emotionality:
Today's sunset is shrouded in clouds
And tomorrow there will be a thunderstorm. And again the wind, the night;
Then again the dawn with transparent vapors,
And again nights, days - time goes away.
Every dreamer (and Victor Hugo likes to call himself a Dreamer) carries within himself an imaginary world: for some it is dreams, for others it is madness. “This somnambulism is peculiar to man. Some predisposition of the mind to madness, short or partial, is by no means a rare phenomenon... This intrusion into the realm of darkness is not without danger. Dreaming has victims - crazy ones. Disasters happen in the depths of the soul. Firedamp explosions... Don't forget the rules: the dreamer must be stronger than the dream. Otherwise, he is in danger. Every dream is a struggle. The possible always approaches the real with a kind of mysterious anger…”
In life, Victor Hugo makes a slightly different impression - not so reverent, due to his belonging to the Beta Quadra - the quadra of the military aristocracy.
From the gloomy fire burning in his soul, not a single flash breaks out. Everyone who knew Victor Hugo in the first months of his marriage noticed his triumphant look, as if he had "a cavalry officer who has captured an enemy post." This was due to the consciousness of his strength, generated by his victories, the intoxicating joy of possessing his chosen one, and in addition, after drawing closer to his father, he developed pride in his father's military exploits, in which, oddly enough, he considered himself involved. Admirers who saw him for the first time were struck by the serious expression of his face and were surprised with what dignity, somewhat stern, this young man received them on his “tower”, imbued with naive nobility and dressed in black cloth.
Because of the bad review in the article, he becomes furious. He seems to consider himself invested with high powers. Imagine, he was so furious over a few unpleasant words in an article published in La Cotidienne that he threatened to beat the critic with a stick.
There are two, and the war in poetry, apparently, should be no less fierce than the furious social war. The two camps seem to be more eager to fight than to negotiate... Inside their clan they speak orders, but outside they issue the cry of war... Prudent mediators have come out between the two battle fronts, calling for reconciliation. Perhaps they will be the first victims, but so be it ... (Foreword by Victor Hugo to his collection New Odes and Ballads).
Everything related to the “introverted sensory” aspect is either almost absent in Victor Hugo, hiding behind intuitively exalted fogs, or has a negative connotation. So, in the novel "Notre Dame Cathedral" only characters not awarded the author's respect can afford to blurt out something white-sensory.
Some of the thoughts of the still young Victor are also quite amusing: “I would consider as an ordinary woman (that is, a rather insignificant creature) that young girl who married a young man, not being convinced both by his principles, known to her, and by his character, that he is not only a prudent person, but - I will use the words here in the full sense - that he is a virgin, how virgin she herself is ... ”; “... In sublime intimate conversations, we both prepared for holy intimacy in marriage ... How sweet it would be for me to wander alone with you in the evening twilight, away from any noise under the trees, among the lawns. After all, at such moments the soul opens up feelings unknown to most people! (from letters to the bride Adele Fouche).
“How much torment! He even had a thought in the spirit of Werther: could he not marry Adele, be her husband for only one night, and commit suicide the next morning? “No one could blame you. After all, you would be my widow ... One day of happiness is worth paying for with a life full of misfortunes ... ”Adele did not want to follow him along the path of such sublime suffering and returned him to thoughts of neighborly gossip about them.”
... To rush about, and moan, and shed tears bitterly ...
Frankly speaking, ethical-intuitive extroverts are not lucky in socionics. Historically, the characteristics of other TIMs were tightly layered on the formation of the idea of this TIM. Thus, by projecting onto the EIE the image of a reflexive, constantly introspective and limitedly capable of action, the Prince of Denmark, socionics strongly offended the real representatives of this type - purposeful, passionately and recklessly striving to occupy such a social position that gives power over other people. In power beta quadra, the question "To be or not to be?" it is simply not put, because it is already clear: “BE!” Hesitations and doubts are possible only in the question "What to beat?"
Making an attempt to isolate the common that is characteristic of all EIE, and carefully discarding everything personal, social, situational, one inevitably comes to the same semantic image. In its content, the central place is occupied by the confidence of each EIE that he personally is something like a "chosen one", "divinely inspired", that some "higher powers" chose him - one of the whole crowd - to fulfill his lofty and fatal mission. “The liberated and restless spirit of Hamlet demands God's blessing. Most likely, it is for the possession of it that the forces of good and evil are fighting. Unfortunately, with varying success” (saying of one EIE).
It has long been noted that EIE is the most mystically tuned TIM in the socion. We can say that people of this type feel closest to the "higher" throne. Victor Hugo himself more than once inspired the Duke of Orleans with the idea that “a poet is an interpreter of the Lord God assigned to princes”; Naturally, by this poet, meaning none other than himself. “Gott mit uns”, the predestination of human destiny in Calvinism, religious fanaticism, the Nietzsche statement “God is dead” - all this clearly shows: since it happened to be closer to God, it means that you will know more about God than everyone else.
Figuratively speaking, EIE feels like a link between God and people, and while passionately convincing others that all people are “God's servants,” he does not consider himself a slave at all! He is above all people! He alone has the right to speak on behalf of God and judge in his name... And no one has the right to judge him - this is an attempt to encroach on the power of a higher power!
Naturally, far from all EIE reach real actions dictated by this confidence: the environment “levels” most people, adjusts them to an average level, and they live and act as if with a “blurred” TIM. But if a person manages to “bend the changing world under himself”, his TIM “strengthens” along with him. And what in a person used to be latently dozing and barely warm, becomes a real force.
The broad concept of "FATE" runs like a red thread through the worldview of the EIE. The author somehow came across a leaflet distributed by the German command in the occupied territories. It was called the "Mission of the Fuhrer" and contained praise of Goering, Himmler and others like him. Here are some quotes:
“People do not have enough words to pay tribute to the enormous work that our Fuhrer has done in these years. Providence, sending Adolf Hitler to our people, called the German people to a great future and blessed them”;
"... When our people were in the greatest need, fate sent us the Fuhrer";
"Never in its history has the German nation felt so united in thought and will as now: to serve the Fuhrer and carry out his orders."
"Fate" begins and "Notre Dame Cathedral" by Victor Hugo.
Several years ago, while inspecting Notre Dame Cathedral, or, to be more precise, examining it, the author of this book found in a dark corner of one of the towers the following word inscribed on the wall:
ANAGKN
These Greek letters, darkened from time to time and quite deeply embedded in stone, some signs characteristic of Gothic writing, imprinted in the shape and arrangement of the letters, as if indicated that they were drawn by the hand of a man of the Middle Ages, and in particular a gloomy and fatal meaning, in these concluded, deeply struck the author.
He asked himself, he tried to comprehend, whose suffering soul did not want to leave this world without leaving this stigma of crime or misfortune on the forehead of the ancient church.
Later, this wall (I don’t even remember exactly which one) was either scraped off or painted over, and the inscription disappeared. This is exactly what has been done with the wonderful churches of the Middle Ages for two hundred years now. They will be mutilated in any way - both inside and out. The priest repaints them, the architect scrapes them; then people come and destroy them.
And now nothing remains of either the mysterious word carved into the wall of the gloomy tower of the cathedral, or of that unknown fate that this word so sadly denoted - nothing but the fragile memory that the author of this book dedicates to them. A few centuries ago, the person who wrote this word on the wall disappeared from among the living; in turn, the word itself disappeared from the wall of the cathedral; perhaps the cathedral itself will soon disappear from the face of the earth.
This is the preface. The novel itself begins with the words "Three hundred and forty-eight years, six months and nineteen days ago ...".
Let's try to identify some general IMT properties and behavioral reactions of EIE, arising from their model A and the content of supervalue.
Developed self-esteem. “At the Academy, Hugo kept a serious, important look, looked with a stern look; a steep chin gave him a courageous and solemn air; sometimes he argued and resented, but he never lost his dignity.
EIE are extremely scrupulous. Adele Hugo, in her declining years, wrote about her husband during his fiancé:
“One pin less than my scarf is stabbed - and he is already angry. The very freedom in the language jars him. And you can imagine what "liberties" these were in the chaste atmosphere that reigned in our house; Mother would never allow a married woman to have lovers—she did not believe it! And Victor saw danger for me everywhere, saw evil in a multitude of all sorts of little things in which I did not notice anything bad. His suspicions went far, and I could not foresee everything ... ".
Frankly, EIE as a type is not very respectful of other people (in the sense that they do not always consider others as their equal). So, the words "arrogance" and "cattle" are of Polish (ITIM EIE) origin. “I am always above everything. I love We, Nicholas II. And this should not seem arrogant, most likely the opposite is true.
Aristocracy of behavior and appearance.
Occupying such an important place in the universe, EIE simply cannot afford to appear in public in an inappropriate form. EIE men often prefer formal (often black) suits, white shirts and frilly ties: this style is perceived by many (mostly Intuitives) as elegant and highly up to date. The white sensors imperceptibly turn away and wrinkle a little.
Craving for esotericism, mysticism, religion.
Researchers note a strange interest in Victor Hugo's imagination, his penchant for dark fantasy. This can probably be said about each of the EIE. They like to find fatal coincidences in different life situations, they tend to show a serious interest in magic. EIE may doubt the existence of God - but it seems that he is more sure of the existence of the devil.
“She loved when Hugo said that one must hope in God, she loved when her lover became a preacher.
Suffering, my angel, is given to us for sins.
And you pray, pray! And maybe the Creator
Blessing the saints - and sinners at the same time -
And you and I will finally let go of our sins!
Unambiguity and tendentiousness of moral and ethical judgments. For the self-confident eighth function, only one opinion is correct - your own. So the EIE are sure that only they can accurately assess the situation and especially people (linked with in Ida). They make their (practically always indignant) judgments “about current morals” in a peremptory tone that does not brook objections.
The tendentiousness of the EIE is also manifested in the fact that they usually present the situation from only one, negative, side, silently ignoring its positive aspects. Just like in the joke: “Evening. The TV is on. Sergei Dorenko appears on the screen and says: .
By the way, on the example of Dorenko, you can see another typical feature - their bulldog grip: if the EIE has grabbed someone, he seems to never let him go.
“In assessing the past, Hugo showed a sarcastic cynicism generated by the paintings of that time: “The Roman Senate declares that he will not give a ransom for prisoners. What does this prove? That the Senate had no money. The Senate went out to meet Varro, who had fled from the battlefield, and thanked him for not losing hope in the Republic. What does this prove? The fact that the group that forced the appointment of Varro as a commander was still strong enough to prevent his punishment ... "
The ability to be in the center of events, stormy and abrupt () changes. “Revolutionary” events can be brewing for a long time, under the invisible direction of the EIE - but the closer the “H time” is, the closer it is to them, until at one fine moment (chosen and prepared by it) the EIE will be at their epicenter. The ability to wait is one of the strengths of EIE. In this way, he accumulates energy, and then skillfully and accurately directs it to his target.
This can be seen in everyday, everyday cases. In any, even an unfamiliar company, EIE easily becomes the center of attention and admiration of the surrounding people. In his society, it is difficult not to pay attention to him and go about your business if he wants to impress: "Hamlet recognizes the right to an exceptional feeling only for himself."
Unsinkability.
No matter how the situation develops, EIE always tries to have a loophole in reserve - like a fox has an emergency exit from its hole. “I often find myself in extreme situations. This is generally a separate issue. The ability to what is called finding adventure out of the blue is my characteristic feature. You won't get bored with Hamlet. Most likely, in the conduct of hostilities, the best thing is to send him to reconnaissance. I have an innate ability to get out of any, even the most stalemate situation. This is the key to success even in the wildest situation. Feeling responsible for the comrades who are nearby and vitally united by the task, Hamlet will do everything so that everyone comes back. For him, this will always be the main thing, because he most appreciates only the person who risks with him. Hamlet is a good comrade, he will not sell out in trouble. According to the horoscope of the Druids, the most typical sign for Hamlet is hazel. This proves even more convincingly what was said above.
Weakness of rational logic.
For all its (strategic) consistency and purposefulness, EIE is capable of (tactical) illogical and unreasonable actions: “Hamlet is a rather contradictory personality. Having achieved something, he can easily remember that he forgot something somewhere and come back. Or swim to some distant shore, suddenly return back, if this is dictated by some even the most insignificant, but significant for Hamlet, emotion. Hamlet's feelings can be determined solely by the sign "infinity".
This is not particularly pleasant for the EIE, but, perhaps, none of their own attempts to correct the situation give anything special. EIE is able to control the situation, to control other people - but not himself!
EIE often have a wide, but superficial and not systematized erudition. Morois condescendingly called Victor Hugo's erudition "imaginary" - and despite the fact that the latter received a good education for his time, was a cultured person, and read a lot. Such weakness does not come from a lack of awareness, but from a typical inability to build an integral and internally consistent system of knowledge based on disparate facts.
The desire to establish a dictatorship in one's family. One word - beta!
“And so an amazing life began, which a woman who was by no means bound by monastic vows would not agree to lead. Victor Hugo promised to forgive and forget the past, but set certain and very harsh conditions for this. Juliette, who yesterday still belonged to the number of well-groomed Parisian beauties, all in lace and jewels, now had to live only for him, leave the house somewhere only with him, renounce all coquetry, all luxury - in a word, impose a penance on herself . She accepted the condition and fulfilled it with the mystical delight of a sinner who longed for a "rebirth in love." Her master and lover gave her every month in small amounts about eight hundred francs, and she ... kept a record of expenses, which her master carefully checked every night.
“Once ... the conversation turned to adultery, and then real ferocity sounded in Victor's words. He argued that a deceived husband should kill or commit suicide."
But along with the “dominant husband”, the definition of “idyllic father of the family” also fits EIE. EIEs usually treat their children much more gently and give them more freedom.
1 Biographical information about Victor Hugo is taken from the book by A. Morois "Olympio, or the Life of Victor Hugo"
2 Emphasis in bold here and below is mine - E.G., emphasis in italics - the text of V. Hugo himself
3 Victor Hugo. Oh be young...
4 Victor Hugo. Sadness Olympio
5 Victor Hugo. Paternity
6 Victor Hugo. Hope for God.
7 Rock (Greek)
8 This is typical, in general, of all men of this type.
Biography (E. D. Murashkintseva)
Victor Hugo (1802-85) - French romantic writer. V. Hugo was born on February 26, 1802, in Besançon. He died May 22, 1885, in Paris. Zodiac sign - Pisces.
Preface to the drama "Cromwell" (1827) - a manifesto of the French romantics. The plays Hernani (1829), Marion Delorme (1831), Ruy Blas (1838) are the embodiment of rebellious ideas. In the historical novel Notre Dame Cathedral (1831), anti-clerical tendencies are strong. After the coup d'état, Louis Napoleon Bonaparte (1851) emigrated, published the political pamphlet "Napoleon the Small" (1852) and a collection of satirical poems "Retribution" (1853).
The novels Les Misérables (1862), Toilers of the Sea (1866), The Man Who Laughs (1869), depicting the life of different sections of French society, are imbued with democratic, humanistic ideals. Collections of poems "Oriental Motifs" (1829), "Legend of the Ages" (vols. 1-3, 1859-83); novel about the French Revolution "93rd year" (1874).
Leader of the Romantic movement
Victor Hugo was the third son of a captain (later general) in the Napoleonic army. His parents often parted and eventually received official permission on February 3, 1818 to live separately. Victor was brought up under the strong influence of his mother, whose royalist and Voltairian views left a deep imprint on him. The father managed to win the love and admiration of his son after the death of his wife in 1821. For a long time, Hugo's education was haphazard. Only in 1814 did he enter the Cordier boarding school, from where he moved to the Lyceum of Louis the Great. After graduating from the lyceum, Victor Hugo, together with his brothers, undertook the publication of the two-week magazine Conservative Literer, where he published his early poems and the first version of the melodramatic novel Bug Jargal (1821). He became interested in his childhood friend Adele Fouche, but met with the strong disapproval of his mother, and only after her death did his father allow the lovers to meet.
The young poet's first collection, Odes and Miscellaneous Poems (1822), won the approval of King Louis XVIII: Victor Hugo was awarded an annual annuity of 1,200 francs, which allowed him to marry Adele. In 1823 he published his second novel, Gan the Icelander, written in the "Gothic" tradition. This meant a rapprochement with romanticism, which was reflected in literary connections: Hugo's friends were Alfred de Vigny, Charles Nodier, Emile Deschamps and Alphonse de Lamartine. Soon they formed the Senacle group at the Muses Francaise magazine, which had a pronounced romantic orientation. Especially warm were the relations between Hugo and Charles Sainte-Beuve, who published in another romantic publication - the Globe magazine - a laudatory review of Odes and Ballads (1826).
In 1827, Victor Hugo produced the play Cromwell, which turned out to be too long to be staged, but its famous Preface was the culmination of all the disputes about the principles of dramatic art that were boiling in France. Giving enthusiastic praise to Shakespeare's theater, Hugo attacked the classicist unities of time, place and action, defended the combination of the sublime with the grotesque and put forward the demand for a more flexible system of versification, abandoning the Alexandrian twelve-syllable. This manifesto of romantic drama in France, as well as the story “The Last Day of the Condemned” (1829) imbued with humanistic ideas, and the poetic collection “Oriental Motives” (1829) brought Hugo great fame.
The period from 1829 to 1843 turned out to be for Hugo in the highest degree productive. In 1829, the play Marion Delorme appeared, which was banned by censors because of the unflattering portrayal of Louis XIII. In less than a month, Victor Hugo wrote his second drama, Ernani. The scandalous production on February 25, 1830 was followed by others equally noisy. The “Battle for Ernani” ended not only with the triumph of the author of the play, but also with the final victory of romanticism: the “Bastille of Classicism” in the sphere of dramaturgy was destroyed. Subsequent plays had no less resonance, in particular, The King Amuses himself (1832) and Ruy Blas (1838).
Notre Dame Cathedral (1831) occupies a special place in the work of Victor Hugo, since here he first demonstrated his magnificent abilities in prose. As in the dramas of this period, the characters of the novel are depicted by means of romantic symbolism: they are exceptional characters in extraordinary circumstances; emotional ties arise between them instantly, and their death is due to fate, which serves as a way of knowing reality, because it reflects the unnaturalness of the "old system", hostile human personality. In the same period, Hugo's poetic gift also reaches full maturity.
Collections of lyrical poems by Victor Hugo - "Autumn Leaves" (1831), "Songs of Twilight" (1835), "Inner Voices" (1837), "Rays and Shadows" (1840) - arose largely due to personal experiences. At this time in the life of Hugo there were important events: Sainte-Beuve fell in love with his wife, and he himself was imbued with a passion for the actress Juliette Drouet. In 1841, Hugo's literary achievements were finally recognized by the French Academy, where he was elected after several unsuccessful attempts.
In 1842, Victor Hugo published a book of travel notes, The Rhine (1842), in which he outlined his program of international policy, calling for cooperation between France and Germany. Shortly thereafter, the poet experienced a terrible tragedy: in 1843, his beloved daughter Leopoldina and her husband Charles Vacri drowned during a shipwreck on the Seine. Having retired from society for a while, Hugo began to think over a plan for a large social novel under the conditional name "Troubles". Work on the book was interrupted by the revolution of 1848: Hugo entered the sphere of active politics and was elected to the National Assembly.
Exile and triumph
After the coup d'etat on December 2, 1851, the writer fled to Brussels, from there he moved to the island of Jersey, where he spent three years, and in 1855 to the island of Guernsey. During his long exile, Victor Hugo produced some of his greatest works. In 1852, the publicistic book Napoleon the Small was published, and in 1853 Retributions appeared - the pinnacle of Hugo's political lyrics, a brilliant poetic satire with devastating criticism of Napoleon III and all his minions.
In 1856, the collection "Contemplations" was published - a masterpiece of Hugo's lyric poetry, and in 1859 the first two volumes of "Legends of the Ages" were published, which confirmed his fame as a great epic poet. In 1860-1861, Victor again turned to the novel The Adversity, significantly reworking and expanding it. The book was published in 1862 under the title Les Misérables. Such characters of this illustrious novel received worldwide fame as the noble convict Jean Valjean, convicted of stealing a loaf of bread, turned into a beast and reborn to a new life thanks to the mercy of a kind bishop; Inspector Javert, who pursues a former criminal and embodies a soulless justice; the greedy innkeeper Thenardier and his wife, torturing the orphan Cosette; Marius, a young Republican enthusiast who is in love with Cosette; the Parisian tomboy Gavroche, who died heroically on the barricades.
During his stay in Guernsey, Victor Hugo published the book "William Shakespeare" (1864), a collection of poems "Songs of the streets and forests" (1865), as well as two novels - "Toilers of the Sea" (1866) and "The Man Who Laughs" ( 1869). The first of them reflects V. Hugo's stay in the Channel Islands: the protagonist of the book, endowed with the best features of a national character, shows extraordinary stamina and perseverance in the fight against the ocean elements. In the second novel, Hugo turned to the history of England during the reign of Queen Anne. The plot is based on the story of a lord who was sold to human traffickers (comprachos) in early childhood, who turned his face into an eternal mask of laughter. He travels around the country as a wandering actor, along with the old man who sheltered him and the blind beauty, and when the title is returned to him, he speaks in the House of Lords with a fiery speech in defense of the destitute under the mocking laughter of aristocrats. Having left the world alien to him, he decides to return to his former wandering life, but the death of his beloved leads him to despair, and he throws himself into the sea.
After the collapse of the regime of Napoleon III in 1870, at the very beginning of the Franco-Prussian War, Victor Hugo returns to Paris, accompanied by the faithful Juliette. For many years, he embodied the opposition to the empire and became a living symbol of the republic. His reward was a deafening solemn meeting. Having the opportunity to leave the capital before the onset of enemy troops, he chose to stay in the besieged city.
Elected to the National Assembly in 1871, Hugo soon resigned as a deputy in protest against the policy of the conservative majority. In 1872, Victor published the collection The Terrible Year, testifying to the loss of illusions about Germany, with which he had called on France for an alliance since 1842.
In 1874, Hugo, completely indifferent to the new trends in prose, again turned to the historical novel, writing "The Ninety-Third Year". Despite a lot of accurate information about revolutionary France, romantic symbolization triumphs again in the novel: one of the characters embodies ruthlessness towards counter-revolutionaries, and the second - mercy, which is above all civil strife; the writer calls the revolution a “cleansing crucible”, where the sprouts of a new civilization make their way through chaos and darkness.
At the age of 75, Victor Hugo published not only the second part of the "Legends of the Ages", but also the collection "The Art of Being a Grandfather", which was inspired by his grandchildren Georges and Anna. The final part of the "Legend of the Ages" was published in 1883. In the same year, Juliette Drouet died of cancer, and this loss crippled Hugo's strength.
After his death, Victor Hugo received a state funeral, and his remains were placed in the Pantheon - next to Voltaire and Rousseau.
Date of publication on the site: February 18, 2011.
Content update: July 20, 2012.
