Advanced Russian literature of the 10-30s of the XIX century
Advanced Russian literature of the 10-30s of the XIX century developed in the struggle against serfdom and autocracy, continuing the liberation traditions of the great Radishchev.
The time of the Decembrists and Pushkin was one of the essential stages of that long struggle against serfdom and autocracy, which unfolded with the greatest acuteness and in a new quality later, in the era of revolutionary democrats.
Raised in early XIX century, the struggle against the autocratic-serf system was due to new phenomena in the material life of Russian society. The intensification of the process of disintegration of feudal relations, the ever greater penetration of capitalist tendencies into the economy, the growth of exploitation of the peasantry, its further impoverishment - all this exacerbated social contradictions, contributed to the development of the class struggle, growth freedom movement in the country. For the progressive people of Russia, it became more and more obvious that the existing socio-economic system was an obstacle to the progress of the country in all areas of economic life and culture.
The activities of representatives of the noble period of the liberation movement turned out to be directed, to one degree or another, against the basis of feudalism - feudal ownership of land and against political institutions that corresponded to the interests of the feudal landowners, protecting their interests. Although the Decembrists, according to V. I. Lenin’s definition, were still “terribly far ... from the people,”1 but for all that, their movement in its best aspects reflected the hopes of the people for liberation from centuries of slavery.
The greatness, strength, talent, inexhaustible possibilities of the Russian people were revealed with particular brightness during the Patriotic War of 1812. Popular patriotism, which grew in Patriotic War, played a huge role in the development of the Decembrist movement.
The Decembrists represented the first generation of Russian revolutionaries, whom V. I. Lenin called "revolutionary nobles" or "noble revolutionaries." “In 1825 Russia saw for the first time a revolutionary movement against tsarism,” said V. I. Lenin in his Report on the Revolution of 1905.2
In the article “In Memory of Herzen,” V. I. Lenin cited Herzen’s characterization of the Decembrist movement: “The nobles gave Russia the Bironov and Arakcheevs, countless “drunk officers, bullies, card players, heroes of fairs, hounds, brawlers, sekunov, seralniks,” Yes, beautiful-hearted Manilovs. “And between them,” Herzen wrote, “people developed on December 14, a phalanx of heroes fed, like Romulus and Remus, with the milk of a wild beast ... These are some kind of heroes, forged from pure steel from head to toe, warriors-companions, who deliberately went out to obvious death in order to awaken the younger generation to a new life and purify children born in an environment of butchery and servility.’”1 V. I. Lenin emphasized the revolutionary significance of the Decembrist movement and its role for the further development of advanced social thought in Russia and with respectfully spoke about the republican ideas of the Decembrists.
IN AND. Lenin taught that under the conditions when the exploiting classes dominate, “there are two national cultures in every national culture.”2 The disintegration of the feudal-serf system was accompanied by the rapid development of advanced Russian national culture. In the first decades of the 19th century, it was a culture directed against the "culture" of the reactionary nobility, the culture of the Decembrists and Pushkin - the culture for which Belinsky and Herzen, Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov, representatives of a qualitatively new, revolutionary democratic stage of the Russian liberation movement.
During the years of the war with Napoleon, the Russian people not only defended their independence by defeating the hitherto invincible hordes of Napoleon, but also liberated other peoples of Europe from the Napoleonic yoke. The victory of Russia over Napoleon, being an event of world-historical significance, became a new and important step in the development of national self-consciousness. “It was not Russian journals that awakened the Russian nation to a new life—it was awakened by the glorious dangers of 1812,” asserted Chernyshevsky.3 The exceptional significance of 1812 in the historical life of Russia was also repeatedly emphasized by Belinsky.
“The time from 1812 to 1815 was a great epoch for Russia,” wrote Belinsky. “We mean here not only the outward grandeur and brilliance with which Russia covered herself in this great era for her, but also the internal success in citizenship and education, resulting from this era. It can be shown without exaggeration that Russia has lived longer and stepped further from 1812 to the present day than from the reign of Peter until 1812. On the one hand, the 12th year, having shaken all of Russia from end to end, awakened its dormant forces and discovered in it new, hitherto unknown sources of strength... the beginning of public opinion; in addition, the 12th year dealt a strong blow to the stagnant antiquity ... All this greatly contributed to the growth and strengthening of the emerging society.
With the development of the revolutionary movement of the Decembrists, with the advent of Pushkin, Russian literature entered a new period in its history, which Belinsky rightly called the Pushkin period. The patriotic and emancipatory ideas characteristic of the preceding advanced Russian literature were raised to a new, high level.
The best Russian writers “following Radishchev” sang of freedom, patriotic devotion to the motherland and people, angrily denounced the despotism of the autocracy, boldly revealed the essence of the feudal system and advocated for its destruction. While sharply criticizing the existing social order, advanced Russian literature at the same time created images of positive heroes, passionate patriots, inspired by the desire to devote their lives to the cause of liberating the motherland from the chains of absolutism and serfdom. Hostility to the entire system that existed at that time, ardent patriotism, exposure of the cosmopolitanism and nationalism of the reactionary nobility, a call for a decisive break in feudal-serf relations is the pathos of the work of the Decembrist poets, Griboedov, Pushkin and all progressive writers of this time.
The powerful upsurge of national self-consciousness, caused by 1812 and the development of the liberation movement, was an incentive for the further democratization of literature. Along with images the best people from the nobility fiction images of people from the lower social classes began to appear more and more often, embodying the remarkable features of the Russian national character. The pinnacle of this process is the creation by Pushkin in the 30s of the image of the leader of the peasant uprising Emelyan Pugachev. Pushkin, although not free from prejudice against the "merciless" methods of peasant reprisal against the landlords, nevertheless, following the truth of life, embodied in the image of Pugachev the charming features of an intelligent, fearless, devoted to the people leader of the peasant uprising.
The very process of establishing realism in Russian literature of the 1920s and 1930s was very complex and proceeded in a struggle that took sharp forms.
The beginning of the Pushkin period was marked by the emergence and development of progressive romanticism in literature, which was inspired by poets and writers of the Decembrist circle and headed by Pushkin. “Romanticism is the first word that announced the Pushkin period,” Belinsky wrote (I, 383), linking the struggle for the originality and popular character of literature, the pathos of love of freedom and public protest with the concept of romanticism. Progressive Russian romanticism was generated by the demands of life itself, reflected the struggle between the new and the old, and therefore was a kind of transitional stage on the road to realism (while the romantics of the reactionary trend were hostile to all realistic tendencies and advocated the feudal-serf order).
Pushkin, having led the direction of progressive romanticism and survived the romantic stage in his work, embodying the strongest aspects of this romanticism, unusually quickly overcame its weaknesses - the well-known abstractness of images, the lack of analysis of the contradictions of life - and turned to realism, the founder of which he became. The inner content of the Pushkin period of Russian literature was the process of preparing and establishing artistic realism, which grew on the basis of the socio-political struggle of the advanced forces of Russian society on the eve of the uprising of December 14, 1825 and in the post-December years. It is Pushkin who has the historical merit of the comprehensive development and implementation in artistic creativity by the principle of the realistic method, the principles of depicting typical characters in typical circumstances. The principles of realism laid down in Pushkin's work were developed by his great successors - Gogol and Lermontov, and then raised to an even higher level by revolutionary democrats and strengthened in the fight against all kinds of reactionary trends by a whole galaxy of progressive Russian writers. Pushkin's work embodies the foundations of the world significance of Russian literature, which grew with each new stage of its development.
In the same period, Pushkin achieved his great feat, transforming the Russian literary language, improving on the basis of the national language the structure of the Russian language, which, according to I. V. Stalin, “has been preserved in everything essential, as the basis of the modern Russian language.”1
In his work, Pushkin reflected the proud and joyful consciousness of the moral strength of the Russian people, who demonstrated their greatness and gigantic power to the whole world.
But the people, who overthrew the “idol weighing over the kingdoms” and hoped for liberation from feudal oppression, after the victorious war, remained in serf captivity as before. In the manifesto of August 30 of the year, which, in connection with the end of the war, granted various “mercies”, only the following was said about the peasants: “Peasants, our faithful people, may they receive their reward from God.” The people were deceived by the autocracy. The defeat of Napoleon ended with the triumph of reaction, which determined the entire international and domestic policy of Russian tsarism. In the autumn of 1815, the monarchs of Russia, Prussia and Austria formed the so-called Holy Alliance to fight national liberation and revolutionary movements in European countries. At congresses Holy Union which Marx and Engels called "bandit"2, measures were sought and discussed to combat the development of revolutionary ideas and national liberation movements.
The year 1820 - the year of Pushkin's expulsion from Petersburg - was especially rich in revolutionary events. These events unfolded in Spain, Italy and Portugal; a military conspiracy was uncovered in Paris; Petersburg, an armed uprising of the Semenovsky regiment broke out, accompanied by serious unrest in the entire royal guard. The revolutionary movement also spread to Greece, the Balkan Peninsula, Moldavia and Wallachia. The leading role played in the reactionary policy of the Holy Alliance by Alexander I, together with the Austrian Chancellor Metternich, made the name of the Russian Tsar synonymous with European reaction. The Decembrist M. Fonvizin wrote: “Alexander became the head of the monarchist reactionaries... After the deposition of Napoleon, the main subject of all the political actions of Emperor Alexander was the suppression of the spirit of freedom that had arisen everywhere and the strengthening of monarchical principles...”3 The revolutions in Spain and Portugal were suppressed. An attempt at an uprising in France ended in failure.
Domestic politics Alexander I over the last ten years of his reign was marked by a fierce struggle against all manifestations of opposition sentiment in the country and advanced public opinion. Peasant unrest became more and more stubborn, sometimes lasting for several years and pacified by military force. During the years from 1813 to 1825, at least 540 peasant unrest took place, while only 165 of them are known for the years 1801-1812. The largest mass unrest occurred on the Don in 1818-1820. “When there was serfdom,” writes V. I. Lenin, “the whole mass of peasants fought against their oppressors, against the class of landlords, who were guarded, protected and supported by the tsarist government. The peasants could not unite, the peasants were then completely crushed by darkness, the peasants had no helpers and brothers among the city workers, but the peasants still fought as best they could and as best they could.
The unrest that took place in individual army units was also connected with the mood of the serfs who fought with the landowners. The soldier's service lasted at that time for 25 years, and for the slightest misconduct, the soldier was doomed to indefinite life service. Cruel corporal punishment then raged in the army. The largest of the army unrest was the indignation of the Semyonovsky Life Guards Regiment in St. Petersburg, which was distinguished by its special unity and stamina. In the St. Petersburg barracks, revolutionary proclamations were found calling for a fight against the tsar and the nobles, declaring that the tsar "is none other than a strong robber." The indignation of the Semenovites was suppressed, the regiment was disbanded and replaced by a new staff, and the "instigators" of the indignation were subjected to the most severe punishment - driven through the ranks.
“... Monarchs,” writes V. I. Lenin, “at times flirted with liberalism, at other times they were the executioners of the Radishchevs and ‘let loose’ on the loyal subjects of the Arakcheevs ...”.2 During the existence of the Holy Alliance, flirting with liberalism was not needs and on loyal subjects, the rude and ignorant royal satrap Arakcheev, the organizer and chief boss military settlements, a special form of recruitment and maintenance of the army.
The introduction of military settlements was a new measure of serf oppression and was met with unrest by the peasants. However, Alexander I declared that "military settlements will be at all costs, even if the road from St. Petersburg to Chudov had to be laid with corpses."
The reaction also raged in the field of education, and the struggle against the revolutionary ideas that were spreading in the country was carried out through the expansion of religious and mystical propaganda. At the head of the Ministry of Public Education was placed the Chief Prosecutor of the Holy Synod, the reactionary Prince A. Golitsyn - "a servile soul" and a "destroyer of education", as Pushkin's epigram characterizes him. With the help of his officials Magnitsky and Runich, Golitsyn under the guise of a "revision" undertook a campaign against the universities. Many of the professors who made the reactionaries suspicious were removed from high school. The captiousness of censorship reached its extreme limits at that time. In the press, all discussions about the systems of the political system were forbidden. The country was covered with an extensive network of secret police.
Decembrist A. Bestuzhev in a letter from the Peter and Paul Fortress to Nicholas I, recalling last years the reign of Alexander I, noted: “The soldiers grumbled in languor with exercises, purges, guards; officers to the scarcity of salaries and exorbitant severity. Sailors to menial work doubled by abuse, naval officers to inaction. People with talents complained that they were barred from the road to the service, demanding only silent obedience; scholars to the fact that they are not allowed to teach, youth to obstacles in learning. In a word, dissatisfied faces were seen in all corners; they shrugged their shoulders in the streets, whispered everywhere - everyone said what would this lead to?
The years of the triumph of the Holy Alliance and the Arakcheevshchina were at the same time the years of the upsurge of revolutionary sentiment among the advanced nobility. During these years, secret societies of the future Decembrists were organized: the Union of Salvation, or the Society of True and Faithful Sons of the Fatherland (1816-1817), the Welfare Union (1818-1821), the Southern Society (1821-1825) headed by Pestel and S. Muravyov-Apostol, the Northern Society (1821-1825), and finally, the Society of United Slavs (1823-1825) - these are the most important associations of the future Decembrists. Despite all the variety of political programs, ardent love for the motherland and the struggle for human freedom were the main principles that united all the Decembrists. “Slavery of the vast, disenfranchised majority of Russians,” wrote the Decembrist M. Fonvizin, “cruel treatment of superiors with subordinates, all kinds of abuses of power, arbitrariness reigning everywhere, all this revolted and indignantly educated Russians and their patriotic feeling.” 2 M. Fonvizin emphasized that the sublime love for the fatherland, a sense of independence, first political, and later popular, inspired the Decembrists in their struggle.
All advanced Russian literature of the first third of the 19th century developed under the sign of the struggle against autocracy and serfdom. The creative work of Pushkin and Griboyedov is organically connected with the revolutionary movement of the Decembrists. Poets VF Raevsky, Ryleev, Kuchelbeker came out of the Decembrists themselves. Many other poets and writers were also involved in the orbit of the Decembrist ideological influence and influence.
According to Lenin's periodization historical process, there were three periods in the history of the Russian revolutionary movement: “... 1) the noble period, from about 1825 to 1861; 2) raznochinskiy or bourgeois-democratic, approximately from 1861 to 1895; 3) proletarian, from 1895 to the present.3 The Decembrists and Herzen were the main representatives of the first period. V. I. Lenin wrote: “... we clearly see three generations, three classes that acted in the Russian revolution. First - the nobles and landowners, the Decembrists and Herzen. The circle of these revolutionaries is narrow. They are terribly far from the people. But their work is not lost. The Decembrists woke up Herzen, Herzen launched a revolutionary agitation.”4
December 14, 1825 was a milestone in the socio-political and cultural life of Russia. After the defeat of the December uprising, a period of ever-increasing reaction began in the country. “The first years following 1825 were horrendous,” Herzen wrote. “It took at least ten years for one to come to oneself in this unfortunate atmosphere of enslavement and persecution. People were seized by deep hopelessness, a general decline in strength ... Only Pushkin's sonorous and wide song sounded in the valleys of slavery and torment; this song continued the past era, filled the present with courageous sounds and sent its voice to the distant future.
In 1826 Nicholas I created special corps gendarmes and established the III Department of "His Majesty's Own Chancellery". III Section was obliged to pursue "state criminals", he was entrusted with "all orders and news on the affairs of the higher police." The Baltic German Count A. Kh. Benkendorf, an ignorant and mediocre martinet who enjoyed the boundless trust of Nicholas I, was appointed chief of the gendarmes and head of the III Department. Benkendorf became the strangler of every living thought, every living undertaking.
“On the surface of official Russia, the ‘facade empire’, only losses, a ferocious reaction, inhuman persecution, and the aggravation of despotism were visible. Nikolai was visible, surrounded by mediocrities, soldiers of parades, Baltic Germans and wild conservatives - himself distrustful, cold, stubborn, ruthless, with a soul inaccessible to high impulses, and mediocre, like his entourage.
In 1826, a new censorship charter was introduced, called "cast iron". This statute was directed against "free-thinking" writings "filled with the fruitless and pernicious sophistication of modern times."3 Two hundred and thirty paragraphs of the new statute opened up the widest scope for casuistry. According to this charter, which obligated to look for a double meaning in the work, it was possible, as one contemporary said, to reinterpret the Our Father in the Jacobin dialect.
In 1828, a new censorship charter was approved, somewhat softer. However, this statute also provided for the complete prohibition of any judgments about state structure and government policy. According to this statute, fiction was recommended to be censored with extreme strictness in relation to "morality". The Rules of 1828 marked the beginning of a multiplicity of censorship, which was extremely difficult for the press. Permission to print books and articles was made dependent on the consent of those departments to which these books and articles could relate in terms of content. After the revolutionary events in France and the Polish uprising, it was time for real censorship and police terror.
In July 1830 there was bourgeois revolution in France, and a month later the revolutionary events spread to the territory of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the Italian states. Nicholas I created plans for military intervention to suppress the revolution in Western Europe, but his plans were thwarted by an uprising in the Kingdom of Poland.
The time of the Polish uprising was marked by a strong upsurge of the mass movement in Russia. The so-called "cholera riots" broke out. In Staraya Russa, Novgorod province, 12 regiments of military settlers revolted. Serfdom continued to be a heavy burden on the popular masses of Russia and served as the main brake on the development of capitalist relations. In the first decade of the reign of Nicholas I, from 1826 to 1834, there were 145 peasant unrest, an average of 16 per year. In the years that followed, the peasant movement continued to grow in spite of severe persecution.
To maintain "calm" and "order" in the country, Nicholas I intensified the reactionary policy in every possible way. At the end of 1832, the theory of "official nationality" was declared, which determined the internal policy of the Nikolaev government. The author of this "theory" was S. Uvarov, "Minister of the Redemption and Obscuration of Education," as Belinsky called him. The essence of the theory was expressed in the formula: “Orthodoxy, autocracy and nationality”, and the last member of the formula, the most popular and popular, was also the main one for the reactionaries: demagogically distorting the meaning of the word “nationality”, they sought to establish serfdom as the main guarantee of the inviolability of church and state . S. Uvarov and other apologists for the "theory" of official nationality clearly understood that the historical fate of the autocratic system was predetermined by the fate of serfdom. “The question of serfdom,” said Uvarov, “is closely connected with the question of autocracy and even autocracy. “These are two parallel forces that have evolved together. Both have one historical beginning; their legitimacy is the same. - What we had before Peter I, then everything has passed, except for serfdom, which, therefore, cannot be touched without a general shock. manage to move Russia 50 years away from what theories are preparing for her, then I will fulfill my duty and die in peace. Uvarov carried out his program with strict consistency and perseverance: without exception, all areas of the state and public life were gradually subordinated to the system of the strictest government guardianship. Science and literature, journalism, and theater were also regulated accordingly. I. S. Turgenev later recalled that in the 1930s and 1940s, “the governmental sphere, especially in St. Petersburg, captured and conquered everything.”2
Never before has the autocracy oppressed society and the people so cruelly as in the time of Nikolaev. Yet persecution and persecution could not kill the freedom-loving thought. The revolutionary traditions of the Decembrists were inherited, expanded and deepened by a new generation of Russian revolutionaries - revolutionary democrats. The first of them was Belinsky, who, according to V. I. Lenin, was “the forerunner of the complete displacement of the nobles by the raznochintsy in our liberation movement.”3
Belinsky entered the public arena three years before Pushkin's death, and during these years the revolutionary-democratic worldview of the great critic had not yet taken shape. In the post-December era, Pushkin did not see and still could not see those social forces that could lead the fight against serfdom and autocracy. This is the main source of those difficulties and contradictions in the circle of which Pushkin's genius was destined to develop in the 1930s. However, Pushkin shrewdly guessed the new social forces that finally matured after his death. It is significant that in the last years of his life he carefully looked at the activities of the young Belinsky, spoke sympathetically about him, and quite shortly before his death decided to involve him in joint journal work in Sovremennik.
Pushkin was the first to guess a huge talent in Gogol and with his sympathetic review of "Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka" helped the young writer to believe in himself, in his literary vocation. Pushkin gave Gogol the idea for The Government Inspector and Dead Souls. In 1835, it was finally decided historical meaning Gogol: as a result of the publication of two of his new books - "Arabesques" and "Mirgorod" - Gogol gained fame as a great Russian writer, the true heir of Pushkin in the transformation of Russian literature. In the same 1835, Gogol created the first chapters of Dead Souls, begun on the advice of Pushkin, and a year later the Inspector General was published and put on stage - a brilliant comedy, which was an event of tremendous social significance. Another great successor of Pushkin, who continued the traditions of the liberation struggle under the conditions of the Nikolaev reaction, was Lermontov, who had already created his drama Masquerade and the image of Pechorin in Princess Ligovskaya during Pushkin's lifetime. Lermontov's wide popularity in Russian society began with his poem "The Death of a Poet", where he responded to the murderers of Pushkin, stigmatizing them with amazing power of artistic expression, with courage and directness.
Pushkin fell victim to the autocratic serf system, hunted down by the high-society court servants; he died, as Herzen later wrote, at the hands of “... one of those foreign brawlers who, like medieval mercenaries ..., give their sword for money to the services of any despotism. He fell in the full bloom of his strength, without finishing his songs, without saying what he had to say.
The death of Pushkin became a national grief. Several tens of thousands of people came to bow to his ashes. “It already looked like a popular demonstration, like public opinion suddenly awakening,” wrote a contemporary.2
After the defeat of the Decembrist uprising, Moscow University became one of the centers of progressive, independent thought. “Everything went back,” Herzen recalled, “blood rushed to the heart; activity, hidden outside, boiled, hidden inside. Moscow University resisted and began to be the first to cut out because of the general fog. The sovereign hated him ... But, despite this, the disgraced university grew in influence; into it, as into a common reservoir, the young forces of Russia poured in from all sides, from all strata; in its halls they were cleansed of prejudices captured at the hearth, came to the same level, fraternized among themselves and again spilled into all directions of Russia, into all its layers ... The motley youth, who came from above, below, from the south and north, quickly fused into a compact mass of partnership. Social distinctions did not have with us that offensive influence which we find in English schools and barracks ... A student who would take it into his head to show off his white bone or wealth among us would be excommunicated from “water and fire” ... ”(XII, 99, 100).
In the 1930s, Moscow University began to play an advanced social role not so much thanks to its professors and lecturers, but thanks to the youth it united. The ideological development of university youth proceeded mainly in student circles. The development of Belinsky, Herzen, Ogarev, Lermontov, Goncharov, as well as many others, whose names subsequently entered the history of Russian literature, science and social thought, was connected with participation in circles that arose among students of Moscow University. In the mid-1950s, Herzen recalled in Past and Thoughts that “thirty years ago, the Russia of the future existed exclusively between a few boys who had just come out of childhood ... and they had the legacy of December 14, the legacy of a universal science and purely folk Russia” (XIII, 28).
The “December 14 Legacy” was already developed at a new revolutionary-democratic stage of social thought, in the 40s, when Belinsky and Herzen worked together on the creation of Russian materialist philosophy, and Belinsky laid the foundations of realistic aesthetics and criticism in Russia.
In the process of forming his revolutionary-democratic views, which were determined by the growth of the liberation movement in the country and, in connection with this, the continuously escalating political struggle in Russian society, Belinsky launched a struggle for Pushkin's legacy. It can be said without any exaggeration that Pushkin's national and world fame was revealed to a large extent thanks to the work of Belinsky, thanks to the fact that Pushkin's work was illuminated by advanced revolutionary democratic theory. Belinsky defended Pushkin's heritage from reactionary and false interpretations, he waged an uncompromising struggle against all kinds of attempts to take Pushkin away from the Russian people, to distort and falsify his appearance. Belinsky stated with all certainty about his judgments about Pushkin that he considered these judgments far from final. Belinsky showed that the task of determining the historical and "undoubtedly artistic significance" of a poet like Pushkin "cannot be solved once and for all, on the basis of pure reason." “No,” Belinsky argued, “its solution must be the result of the historical movement of society” (XI, 189). And hence comes Belinsky's astonishing sense of historicism in the inevitable limitations of his own assessments of Pushkin's work. “Pushkin belongs to the ever-living and moving phenomena, which do not stop at the point at which their death found them, but continue to develop in the consciousness of society,” wrote Belinsky. “Each epoch pronounces its own judgment about them, and no matter how correctly it understands them, it will always leave the next epoch to say something new and more true ...” (VII, 32).
Belinsky's great historical merit lies in the fact that, realizing all of Pushkin's work in the prospects for the development of the liberation movement in the country, he revealed and approved Pushkin's significance as the founder of Russian advanced national literature, as a harbinger of the future perfect social order based on respect for man to man. Russian literature, beginning with Pushkin, reflected the global significance of the Russian historical process, steadily advancing towards the world's first victorious socialist revolution.
In 1902, in the work "What is to be done?" V. I. Lenin emphasized that Russian literature began to acquire its worldwide significance due to the fact that it was guided by advanced theory. V. I. Lenin wrote: “... only a party led by an advanced theory can fulfill the role of a leading fighter. And in order to at least somewhat concretely imagine what this means, let the reader remember such predecessors of Russian social democracy as Herzen, Belinsky, Chernyshevsky and the brilliant galaxy of revolutionaries of the 70s; let him think about the universal significance that Russian literature is now acquiring...”1
After the Great October Socialist Revolution, which opened a new era in world history, the world-historical significance of Russian literature and the world significance of Pushkin as its founder were fully revealed. Pushkin found new life in the hearts of millions Soviet people and all progressive mankind.
Topic: "The image of the hero of the 30s of the XIX century."
Purpose: to characterize the hero of the 30s of the XIX century based on the novel by M. Yu. Lermontov "A Hero of Our Time".
Lesson type: conversation
introduction:
After the defeat of the Decembrist uprising of 1825, the years of reaction began, when a person with advanced ideas could not find application for either his strength or abilities, when the established moral values were rejected, disbelief and doubt became the basis of the consciousness of the younger generation. Such a lack of ideas in society could not but be reflected in literature, in which a galaxy of "superfluous" people appears. Pechorin, the hero of M. Yu. Lermontov's novel "A Hero of Our Time", as well as Evgeny Onegin, the hero of A. S. Pushkin's novel "Eugene Onegin", Chatsky from the comedy of A. S. Griboyedov, can be safely called the most striking image of an "extra" person "Woe from Wit".
Let's make a literary portrait of the hero. Who is Pechorin?
- Pechorin - a native of a noble family, who received a typical upbringing and education for an aristocrat. He is no different from most of his contemporaries, standing with him on the same rung of the social ladder. Enjoys all the benefits of secular life, falls in love with secular beauties and is loved by them. However, he soon got tired of it all. We learn about this from his confession.
With what literary hero can we draw a parallel?
- By way of life, by the desire to “burn through” life, Pechorin in his youth reminds us of Eugene Onegin.
Eugene Onegin, when he got bored with the world, retired to the village, tried to read, engaged in science, carried out transformations. How does Pechorin act?
- Pechorin, like Onegin, is trying to do science, but he is tired of everything again, he breaks with secular society and goes to the Caucasus, unlike Onegin, who has come to terms with his life, Pechorin is looking for danger.
What is the character of Pechorin?
- Pechorin's character is contradictory. On the one hand, he is disappointed with life, on the other hand, he craves activity. This is a strong, strong-willed nature that does not find application for its abilities.
- In Pechorin, two principles are fighting: the mind and the heart. He is not capable of deep feelings, but he loves Vera, loves deeply and sincerely, but understands this only when he receives her last letter.
- Pechorin is capable of an act, a risk, but this is more a manifestation of his ambition or selfishness, and not a rush of heart ignited by an idea. We can judge this from the story with the smugglers, with Bela, from the duel with Grushnitsky.
- On the eve of the duel with Grushnitsky, a turning point comes in Pechorin's soul. He asks himself about the purpose of his existence: “Why did I live? for what purpose was he born? ... it’s true, I had a high appointment, because I feel immense strength in my soul ... ”But the turning point is not for rebirth, but, on the contrary, for the final extinction. I think that's why in the chapter "The Fatalist" he tries his luck, wants to understand whether something depends on a person or everything is predetermined.
Lermontov called Pechorin "a hero of his time", but he does not idealize his hero, does not make him a role model. It is a portrait made up of the vices of an entire generation in their full development.
30. Social movement in the 30s-50s of the 19th century
The social movement of the 30-50s had characteristic features:
> it developed in the conditions of political reaction (after the defeat of the Decembrists);
> revolutionary and governmental directions finally diverged;
> its participants were not able to realize their
ideas in practice.
Three areas of socio-political thought of this period can be distinguished:
> conservative (leader - Count S. S. Uvarov);
> Westerners and Slavophiles (ideologists - K. Kavelin, T. Granovsky, brothers K. and I. Aksakov, Yu. Samarin and others);
> revolutionary-democratic (ideologists - A. Herzen, N. Ogarev, M. Petrashevsky).
After the suppression of the Decembrist uprising, the question arises of the further ways of development of Russia, a long struggle of various currents is tied up around it. In resolving this issue, the main lines of delimitation of social groups are outlined.
In the early 1930s, the ideological substantiation of the reactionary policy of the autocracy was formalized - the theory of "official nationality" was born. Its principles were formulated by the Minister of Education S. S. Uvarov in the famous triad expressing the age-old foundations of Russian life: "Orthodoxy, autocracy, nationality." Autocracy was interpreted as a guarantor of inviolability. Slavophiles - representatives of the liberal-minded noble intelligentsia, advocated a fundamentally different path of development of Russia from the Western European one based on its imaginary identity (patriarchy, peasant community, Orthodoxy). In this, they seemed to be approaching representatives of the "official nationality", but they should not be confused in any way. Slavophilism was an opposition trend in Russian social thought. Slavophiles advocated the abolition of serfdom (from above), advocated the development of industry, trade, education, severely criticized the political system that existed in Russia, and advocated freedom of speech and the press. However, the main thesis of the Slavophiles boiled down to proving the original path of development of Russia, or rather, to the requirement "to follow this path." They idealized such "original", in their opinion, institutions as the peasant community and the Orthodox Church.
Westernism also arose at the turn of the 30s and 40s of the 19th century. The Westerners opposed themselves to the Slavophiles in disputes about the ways of Russia's development. They believed that Russia should follow the same historical path as all Western European countries, and criticized the Slavophil theory of the original path of Russia's development.
31. Bourgeois reforms of the 60s-70s of the 19th century
In November 1857, Alexander II instructed the governors of Vilna and St. Petersburg to establish provincial committees to prepare local projects for improving the life of landlord peasants. Thus, the reform began to be developed in an atmosphere of openness. All projects were submitted to the Main Committee, headed by Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich.
On February 19, 1861, in the State Council, Alexander II signed the "Regulations on the Reform" (they included 17 legislative acts) and the "Manifesto on the abolition of serfdom." These documents were published in print on March 5, 1861.
According to the Manifesto, the peasant immediately received personal freedom. The “Regulations” regulated the issues of allocating land to the peasants. From now on, the former serfs received personal freedom and independence from the landowners. Elective peasant self-government was introduced. The second part of the reform regulated land relations. The law recognized the landowner's right to private ownership of the entire land of the estate, including peasant allotment land. Under the reform, the peasants received an established allotment of land (for redemption). The territory of Russia was divided into chernozem, non-chernozem and steppe. When endowed, the landowner provided the peasants with the worst lands. To become the owner of the land, the peasant had to redeem his allotment from the landowner. The owner of the land was a community, from which the peasant could not leave until the ransom was paid. The abolition of serfdom led to the need for bourgeois reforms in other areas of public life. The autocratic monarchy was turning into a bourgeois monarchy.
In 1864, Alexander II (on the advice of the liberals) carried out a zemstvo reform. The “Regulations on provincial and district zemstvo institutions” were published, according to which non-estate elected bodies of local self-government, zemstvos, were created. They were called upon to involve all segments of the population in solving local problems, and on the other hand, partially compensate the nobles for the loss of their former power.
At the insistence of the public, in 1864 the government carried out a judicial reform, which was developed by progressive jurists. Before the reform, the court in Russia was class, secret, without the participation of the parties, corporal punishment was widely used. The court depended on the administration and the police.
In 1864 Russia received a new court based on the principles of bourgeois law. It was a classless, transparent, adversarial, independent court, the election of some judicial bodies was envisaged.
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Describing the era of the 40s of the 19th century, Herzen wrote: “About the 40s, life began to break through more strongly from under the tightly pressed valves.” 74 The change, noticed by the attentive gaze of the writer, was expressed in the emergence of new trends in Russian social thought. One of them was formed on the basis of the Moscow circle of A. V. Stankevich, which arose in the early 30s. Stankevich, his friends N. P. Klyushnikov and V. I. Krasov, as well as V. G. Belinsky, V. P. Botkin, K. S. Aksakov, M. N. Katkov, M. A. Bakunin, carried away by German philosophy, jointly studied the works of Schelling, Fichte, Kant, Hegel, and then Feuerbach. In these philosophical and ethical systems, the ideas of the dialectical development of society, the problem of the spiritual independence of the human personality, etc., acquired special significance for them. These ideas, addressed to the reality around them, gave rise to a critical attitude towards Russian life in the 30s. In Aksakov's words, Stankevich's circle developed "a new view of Russia, mostly negative." Simultaneously with the circle of Stankevich, a circle of A. I. Herzen and his university friends N. P. Ogarev, N. Kh. Ketcher, V. V. Passek, I. M. -Simone.
The ideas of German and French philosophers had a direct impact on young Russian thinkers. Herzen wrote that Stankevich's philosophical ideas, his "look - on art, on poetry and on its attitude to life - grew in Belinsky's articles into that powerful criticism, into that new outlook on the world, on life, which struck everything thinking in Russia and made all pedants and doctrinaires recoil in horror from Belinsky. 75
The basis of this new trend was anti-serfdom aspirations, liberation ideology and literary realism.
Under the influence of public sentiments, social topics are increasingly covered in literature, and the democratic stream becomes more tangible. In the work of leading Russian writers, the desire for truthfulness in the depiction of Russian life and especially the position of the lower strata of society is being strengthened. A circle headed by V. G. Belinsky played an important role in strengthening this trend and gathering progressive writers.
In the autumn of 1839, V. G. Belinsky, having moved from Moscow to St. Petersburg, was invited by A. Kraevsky to head the literary-critical department of Otechestvennye Zapiski. Already the first articles of the young critic caused a great public outcry: without yet creating a new literary direction, they created a new reader. Young people in the capital and provinces, among the nobility and raznochintsy, began to systematically follow the department of criticism and bibliography, which contained an analysis and evaluation of each book that had appeared in the recent past. Belinsky introduced into literature the intensity of ethical quest, intellectualism, and a thirst for knowledge.
These qualities made him the ideological leader of the circle, which gathered at the apartment of I. I. Panaev. The owner's nephew recalled this: “It was not so much the mind and logic that determined him (Belinsky - N. Ya.) strength, how much their combination with moral qualities. It was a knight fighting for truth and truth. He was the executioner of everything artificial, made, false, insincere, all compromises and all untruth ... At the same time, he possessed tremendous talent, a sharp aesthetic sense, passionate energy, enthusiasm and a warm, delicate and responsive heart. 76
People who knew Belinsky closely noted his enormous moral influence on the members of the circle: “He had a charming effect on me and on all of us. It was something much more than an assessment of intelligence, charm, talent - no, it was the action of a person who not only went far ahead of us with a clear understanding of the aspirations and needs of that thinking minority to which we belonged, not only illuminating and showing us the way, but all He lived with his being for those ideas and aspirations that lived in all of us, gave himself to them passionately, filled his life with them. Add to this civic, political and all sorts of impeccability, ruthlessness towards oneself ... and you will understand why this man reigned autocratically in our circle. 77
Belinsky proclaimed "sociality" as the motto of his literary-critical activity. “Sociality, sociality - or death! This is my motto, - he wrote to V. G. Botkin in September 1841. - My heart bleeds and convulsively shudders when looking at the crowd and its representatives. Grief, heavy grief seizes me at the sight of barefoot boys playing money in the street, and ragged beggars, and a drunk cab driver, and a soldier coming from a divorce, and an official running with a briefcase under his arm. 78 Members of Belinsky's friendly circle shared these new social interests, began to turn in their work to depicting the plight of the Petersburg lower classes, and were increasingly imbued with the pathos of "sociality". In the early 1940s, on the basis of this grouping of writers, the so-called "natural school" arose, uniting a number of realist writers. The appearance of Gogol's "Dead Souls" in 1842, which, according to Herzen, "shook the whole of Russia" and caused a galaxy of imitations, contributed to the design of this realistic trend. The new school took shape during 1842-1845; V. G. Belinsky, I. S. Turgenev, I. I. Panaev, D. V. Grigorovich, N. A. Nekrasov, I. A. Goncharov were joined by a part of writers - members of the Petrashevsky circle: S. F. Durov, A. I. Pleshcheev, M. E. Saltykov, V. N. Maikov, F. M. Dostoevsky, who shared the views of Belinsky and his friends. Dostoevsky enthusiastically recalled his meeting with the great critic:
“I left him in rapture. I stopped at the corner of his house, looked at the sky, at the bright day, at the people passing by, and with all my being, with all my being, I felt that a solemn moment had occurred in my life, a turning point forever, that something completely new had begun, but something that I did not even imagine then in my most passionate dreams. 79
Writers natural school were not united in their social and political views. Some of them were already taking the position of revolutionary democracy - Belinsky, Nekrasov, Saltykov. Others - Turgenev, Goncharov, Grigorovich, Annenkov - professed more moderate views. But the common thing for all of them - hatred for the serfdom and conviction in the need to destroy it - became a link in joint activities.
In artistic terms, the writers of the natural school were united by the desire for truthfulness, honest observations of the life of the people. The manifesto of the new direction was the collections of short stories - "Petersburg Collection" and "Physiology of Petersburg". Their participants set themselves the task of showing the capital of the Russian Empire not from the official front side, but from the backstage, to depict the common life of the city's slums and nooks and crannies. Passion for "physiological" tasks led the participants of the new collections to a thorough study of individual social strata, individual parts of the city and their way of life.
Deep interest in the fate of representatives of the lower classes was shown not only by Nekrasov, who knew the life of the working people well - from his own experience, not only endowed with the gift of a linguist and ethnographer Dal, but also by the noble youths Turgenev and Grigorovich.
At the same time, the ideological orientation of the essays demonstrates the close proximity to the views of Belinsky. Thus, the collection "Physiology of St. Petersburg" is preceded by an article by a critic in which he compared Moscow and St. Petersburg. Belinsky considers the preservation of the traditions of feudal life to be the defining feature of Moscow society: “everyone lives at home and fences himself off from his neighbor,” while in St. Petersburg he sees the center of government administration and the Europeanization of the country. The following works by various authors illustrate or develop the thoughts expressed by Belinsky. The critic, for example, writes that in "Moscow, janitors are rare," since each house represents a family nest, not disposed to communicate with outside world, in Petersburg, where each house is inhabited by the most different people, the janitor is an obligatory and important figure. This topic is continued by Dahl's essay "Petersburg Janitor" in the collection, which tells about the work, life, views of yesterday's peasant, who became a prominent person in St. Petersburg tenement houses.
The work of writers of this trend was not limited to the depiction of the inhabitants of the St. Petersburg outskirts. Their works also reflected the life of the serfs. In the poems of Nekrasov, in the story of Grigorovich “Anton Goremyk” and Herzen “The Thieving Magpie”, serfs appear as the main characters. This theme was further embodied in Turgenev's stories and Dostoevsky's novels. The new era, of course, gave birth to a new democratic hero in the work of realist writers. The enlightened nobleman was replaced by a “little man” in Russian literature - a craftsman, a petty official, a serf.
Sometimes, carried away by the depiction of the psychological or speech characteristics of the characters depicted, the authors fell into naturalism. But with all these extremes, the works of writers of the natural school were a new phenomenon in Russian literature.
Belinsky wrote about this in the introduction to the collection “Physiology of Petersburg”, in an article devoted to the review of the “Petersburg Collection”, and in the work “A Look at Russian Literature of 1846”. They said that for the normal development of literature, not only geniuses are necessary, but also talents; along with "Eugene Onegin" and " Dead souls"There should be journalistic and fiction works that, in a form accessible to readers, would sharply and timely respond to the topic of the day and would strengthen realistic traditions. In this regard, as Belinsky believed, the natural school stood in the forefront of Russian literature. 80 So, from individual outstanding realistic works to the realistic school, this is the path that was traversed by Russian literature from the mid-1920s to the mid-1940s. In addition, the collections of the natural school returned Russian literature to the militant principled "Polar Star" by Ryleev and Bestuzhev. But in contrast to the civic-romantic orientation of the Decembrist almanac, the collections of the "natural school" proclaimed the tasks of democracy and realism.
The successes of the "natural school" provoked fierce criticism from its opponents, and above all from reactionary journalists such as Bulgarin and Grech. Under the pretext of defending "pure art", Bulgarin accuses the supporters of the "natural school" of being addicted to the rough, low sides of life, of striving to depict nature without embellishment. “But we,” he wrote, “kept to the rules ... Nature is only good when it is washed and combed.” N. Polevoi, now collaborating with Bulgarin, and Professor of Moscow University Shevyrev, who contributed to the Slavophile magazine Moskvityanin, became an active opponent of the "natural school". Then, broader literary and artistic circles joined the hostile polemic against the "natural school". Refining themselves in accusations against the "naturalists", this press in every possible way emphasized the "meanness" of the subject, the "dirt of reality" in the work of young writers. In one of the publications, a caricature of Grigorovich was even placed, depicting him rummaging through the garbage. However, emphasizing the "unaesthetic" artistic manner of the "natural school", its opponents did not mention a word about the veracity of the depicted picture, about the fact that the writers of this school illuminate the life of the people, the life of the oppressed sections of the population. Ignoring by the opponents of the social aspect in the work of the writers of the "natural school" showed that the struggle was not so much because of creative principles, but because of the socio-political position.
Russian literature during the first half of the 19th century went through a long and difficult path of artistic and ideological development: from classicism to sentimentalism, progressive romanticism, and then to critical realism; from enlightenment - through the ideas of Decembrism - to the ideas of democracy. The outstanding successes of Russian literature of this period were due to its close connection with the socio-historical development of the country, the life of the people, and the social movement. She was the spokeswoman for the most humane and progressive ideas of her era. A modern researcher of the history of Russian culture assessed the importance of literature in this way: "The main stabilizing and creative role in Russian culture of the 19th-20th centuries was played by literature - in its highest, most perfect, "classical" phenomena." 81 Advanced Russian literature, which has become the moral vector of its era, is increasingly beginning to focus on a wide readership. In the 1830s, this trend was only in its infancy, but by the 1840s and 50s it manifested itself quite clearly. Literature “was no longer satisfied with handwritten notebooks as editions, private letters as journalism, elegant toys - almanacs as a press. It was noisy now, addressed to the crowd; she created thick magazines, she also gave real power to Belinsky's magazine battles. 82
The process of democratization of Russian literature is also stimulated by the appearance of the first raznochintsev writers. The nationality of Russian literature increases with each new stage of the liberation movement.
As a result, the public prestige has increased enormously. literary creativity, the influence of literature on various sections of readers who saw in it a progressive social force. “Questions of literature,” a contemporary wrote, “became questions of life, behind the difficulty of questions from other spheres of human activity. The entire educated part of society threw itself into the bookish world, in which alone a real protest was made against mental stagnation, against lies and duplicity. 83
The defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo and the subsequent restoration of the Bourbons brought disappointment to the best minds of France in the possible reorganization of society, which was still so passionately dreamed of by the enlighteners of the eighteenth century. With the collapse of social ideals, the foundations of classic art were also destroyed. The school of David was increasingly reproached. A new powerful trend was born in French fine art - romanticism.
Romantic literature of France: first Chateaubriand with his programmatic work of the aesthetics of romanticism "The Genius of Christianity" (1800-1802), then the most advanced wing - Lamartin, Victor Hugo, Stendhal, Musset, in early work- Flaubert, Theophile Gauthier, Baudelaire, like the English romantics, especially Byron and Shelley, had a tremendous influence on the artistic culture of all of Europe. But not only literature. The fine arts of France during the Romantic era produced such great masters who determined the dominant influence of the French school throughout the 19th century. Romantic painting in France arises as an opposition to the classic school of David, academic art, referred to as the "School" in general. But this must be understood in a broader sense: it was opposition to the official ideology of the reactionary epoch, a protest against its petty-bourgeois limitations. Hence the pathetic nature of romantic works, their nervous excitement, attraction to exotic motifs, to historical and literary plots, to everything that can lead away from the "dim everyday life", hence this play of imagination, and sometimes, on the contrary, dreaminess and a complete lack of activity. The ideal of romantics is vague, divorced from reality, but always sublime and noble. The world in their imagination (and, accordingly, the image) appears in continuous motion. Even the motif of ancient ruins, beloved by the classicists, interpreted by them as a symbol of the perpetuity of eternity, turns into a symbol of the endless flow of time among the romantics, as it is subtly noted.
Representatives of the "School", academicians, rebelled primarily against the language of the romantics: their excited hot color, their modeling of the form, not the one familiar to the "classics", statuary-plastic, but built on strong contrasts of color spots, their expressive drawing, deliberately refusing to precision and classic refinement; their bold, sometimes chaotic composition, devoid of majesty and unshakable calm. Ingres, the implacable enemy of the romantics, until the end of his life said that Delacroix "writes with a mad broom", and Delacroix accused Ingres and all the artists of the "School" of coldness, rationality, lack of movement, that they do not write, but "paint" their paintings. But this was not a simple clash of two bright, completely different personalities, it was a struggle between two different artistic worldviews.
This struggle lasted for almost half a century, romanticism in art did not win easily and not immediately, and the first artist of this trend was Theodore Gericault (1791-1824) - a master of heroic monumental forms, who combined in his work both classicistic features and features of romanticism itself, and, finally, a powerful realistic beginning, which had a huge impact on the art of realism mid-nineteenth v. But during his lifetime he was appreciated only by a few close friends.
Gericault was educated in the workshop of Carl Berne, and then an excellent teacher of the classicist direction Guerin, where he learned strong drawing and composition - the foundations of professionalism that the academic school gave. Caravaggio, Salvator Rosa, Titian, Rembrandt, Velazquez - masters of powerful and wide colorism attracted Gericault. From contemporaries greatest influence in the early period, Gro had it on him.
In the Salon of 1812, Gericault declares himself with a large portrait canvas called "Officer of the Horse Rangers of the Imperial Guard, Going on the Attack." This is a fast paced, dynamic composition. On a rearing horse, with his corps turned towards the viewer, an officer is shown with a saber, calling the soldiers behind him. The romance of the Napoleonic era, as imagined by the artist's contemporaries, is expressed here with all the temperament of a twenty-year-old youth. The picture was a success, Gericault received a gold medal, but it was not acquired by the state.
T. Gericault. An officer of the Imperial Guard mounted chasseurs going on the attack. Paris, Louvre
On the other hand, the next great work - “The Wounded Cuirassier Leaving the Battlefield” (1814) failed completely, because many saw in the figure of a warrior, with difficulty descending from the slope and barely holding his horse, a certain political meaning - a hint at the defeat of Napoleon in Russia, an expression of that disappointment in the policies of Napoleon, which was experienced by the French youth.
Gericault spends 1817 in Italy, where he studies the art of antiquity and the Renaissance, before which he bows and which, as the artist himself admitted, even suppress with their greatness. Géricault brought many things closer to the classics and classicism. It is significant that it was not Ingres, David's favorite student, who visited the latter in exile, but the artist of a completely different ideological camp, other aesthetic positions - Géricault: in 1820, he went to Brussels especially to meet with the head of the classicist school. For, as one of the researchers of Gericault's work correctly wrote, both (Gericault and David.- T. I.) were spokesmen for revolutionary tendencies, and this brought them closer. But they were the spokesmen for these tendencies in different epochs, and this determined the difference in their ideological and artistic aspirations. An accurate drawing, a clear contour, plasticity of forms modeled by chiaroscuro, and most importantly, an attraction to monumental, epic, to images of a wide public sounding made Gericault related to David.
Gericault persistently seeks heroic images in modern times. The events that took place with the French ship "Medusa" in the summer of 1816 gave Gericault a plot full of drama and attracted public attention. The frigate "Medusa" was wrecked off the coast of Senegal. Of the 140 people who landed on the raft, only 15 half-dead men were picked up by the Argus brig on the twelfth day. The cause of death was seen in the unprofessionalism of the captain, who received this place under patronage. The public, opposed to the government, accused the latter of corruption. As a result of long work, Gericault creates a gigantic canvas 7x5 m, which depicts the few people left on the raft at the moment when they saw the ship on the horizon. Among them are the dead, the mad, the half-dead, and those who, in mad hope, peer into this distant, barely distinguishable point. From the corpse, whose head is already in the water, the viewer’s gaze moves on to the young man, who has fallen face down on the boards of the raft (Delacroix served as Gericault’s nature), to the father, holding the dead son on his knees and completely detachedly looking into the distance, and then to a more active group - looking to the horizon, crowned with the figure of a Negro with a red handkerchief in his hand. Among these people are authentic portrait images - the engineer Correar, pointing to the ship, doctor Savigny standing at the mast (both are surviving eyewitnesses of the disaster).
Gericault's painting is written in a harsh, even gloomy range, broken by rare flashes of red and green spots. The drawing is accurate, generalized, chiaroscuro is sharp, the sculptural form speaks of strong classicist traditions. But the modern theme itself, revealed on a stormy dramatic conflict, which makes it possible to show the change of different psychological states and moods brought to extreme tension, the construction of the composition along the diagonal, which enhances the dynamic nature of the depicted - all these are features of future romantic works. Five years after Gericault's death, the term "romanticism" was applied to this painting.
Criticism took the picture with restraint. The passions around her were purely political: some saw the artist's choice of this theme as a manifestation of civic courage, others as a slander of reality. But one way or another, Gericault was in the center of attention, among people who were opposed to the existing state order, and attracted the attention of progressive artistic youth.
Like the previous ones, this painting was not acquired by the state. Gericault went to England. In England, he showed his painting with great success, first in London, then in Dublin and Edinburgh. In England, Gericault creates a series of lithographs on everyday topics (lithography was an absolutely new technique, which had a great future in the 19th century), makes many drawings of beggars, vagabonds, peasants, blacksmiths, coal miners, and always conveys them with a great sense of dignity and personal respect for them (a series of lithographs "The Great English Suite", 1821). As a painter, Géricault learns the lessons of colorism from English landscape painters, especially Constable. Finally, in England, he finds the subject of his last large painting, "Epsom Races" ("The Epsom Derby", 1821-1823), the simplest and, in our opinion, the most pictorial work of his, in which he created his favorite image of flying, like birds, above the land of horses. The impression of swiftness is further enhanced by a certain technique: the horses and jockeys are written very carefully, and the background is wide.
Last works Gericault, upon his return to France in 1822, portraits of the madmen whom he observed in the clinic of his psychiatrist friend Georges (1822-1823). Of these, five are known: a portrait of a crazy old woman, called "Hyena Salpetriera", "Kleptomaniac", "Crazy, addicted to gambling", "Thief of children", "Insane, imagining himself a commander." Romantics in general were characterized by an interest in people with a sharpened psyche, the desire to portray the tragedy of a broken soul. But Gericault works from nature, his portraits eventually turn into documentary images. At the same time, coming out from under the brush of a great artist, they are, as it were, the personification of human destinies. In their tragically sharp characterization one can feel the bitter sympathy of the artist himself. Gericault writes portraits of crazy people already mortally ill. For the last eleven months of his life, he was bedridden and died in January 1824, at the age of 33 (due to an unfortunate fall from a horse).
Gericault was undoubtedly the forerunner and even the first representative of romanticism. This is evidenced by all his great works, and the themes of the exotic East, and illustrations for Byron and Shelley, and his "Hunting for Lions", and a portrait of the 20-year-old Delacroix, and, finally, his acceptance of Delacroix himself, then just beginning his journey , but already completely alien to the direction of the "School". The coloristic searches of Géricault were the impetus for the coloristic revolution of Delacroix, Corot and Daumier. But such works as Epsom Races, or portraits of madmen, or English lithographs, draw straight lines from Géricault to realism. Géricault's place in art is, as it were, at the intersection of such important paths - and makes his figure especially significant in the history of art. This also explains his tragic loneliness.
E. Delacroix. Rook Dante. Paris, Louvre
E. Delacroix. Chios massacre. Paris, Louvre
E. Delacroix. Chopin's portrait. Paris, Louvre
The artist who was to become the true leader of romanticism was Eugene Delacroix (1798-1863). The son of a former member of the revolutionary Convention, a prominent political figure from the times of the Directory, Delacroix grew up in an atmosphere of art and political salons, at the age of nineteen he ended up in the workshop of the classicist Guerin and from his youth experienced the influence of Gros, but most of all - Géricault. Goya and Rubens were idols for him all his life. Undoubtedly, his first works "Dante's Boat" and "Massacre of Chios" were written - while maintaining independence - primarily under the stylistic influence of Géricault. Living an intense spiritual life, the images of Shakespeare, Byron, Dante, Cervantes, Goethe, Delacroix quite naturally refers to the plot of the great creation of the Italian genius. He wrote Dante's Lady (Dante's Barca, Dante and Virgil, 1822) in two and a half months (painting size 2x2.5 m), provoked criticism, but was enthusiastically received by Géricault and Gros. Subsequently, Manet and Cezanne copied this early work by Delacroix.
The canvas of Delacroix is full of disturbing and even tragic mood. The shadow of Virgil accompanies Dante in the circle of hell. Sinners cling to the barge. Their figures in splashes of water against the background of the hellish glow of fires are classically correct in drawing and plasticity. But they have such inner tension, such extraordinary power, gloominess and painful doom, which were impossible for the ideas of the artist of the "School".
Delacroix rejected the title of romantic given to him. This is clear. Romanticism as a new aesthetic trend, as an opposition to classicism, had very vague definitions. He was considered “independent of the correct art”, accused of carelessness in drawing and composition, lack of style and taste, imitation of rough and random nature, etc. It is difficult to draw a clear line between classicism and romanticism. In Gericault, the pictorial beginning did not prevail over the linear, color - over the drawing, but his work is associated with romanticism. Romantics in the visual arts did not have a specific program, the only thing that made them related to each other was their attitude to reality, a common worldview, worldview, hatred for the philistines, for the dull everyday life, the desire to escape from it; reverie and at the same time the uncertainty of these dreams, the fragility inner world, bright individualism, a feeling of loneliness, rejection of the unification of art. It is no coincidence that Charles Baudelaire said that romanticism is "not a style, not a pictorial manner, but a certain emotional structure."
The absence of a program did not prevent, however, romanticism from becoming a powerful artistic movement, and Delacroix - its leader, faithful to romanticism until the end of his days. He becomes a true leader when at the Salon of 1824 he exhibits the painting "Massacre on Chios" ("Massacre of Chios").
The picture was preceded by intense preparatory work, a lot of drawings, sketches, watercolors. The appearance of the painting in the Salon provoked attacks from critics (researchers write that the artist was scolded worse than a thief and a murderer), but enthusiastic worship of the young before the civic directness and courage of the painter. The picture also caused complete confusion in the camp of the classics. Not without reason, we recall, it was in this Salon that Ingres was first recognized. In the face of the danger posed to Delacroix's "School", Ingres, of course, became a pillar of classicism and it was no longer possible not to recognize him. “A meteor that fell into a swamp” (T. Gauthier), “a fiery genius” - such reviews of the “Chios massacre” were side by side with the expressions: “This is a massacre of painting” (Gros), “... half-painted blue corpses” (Stendhal! ). Delacroix's work is full of true, amazing drama. The composition was formed by the artist right away: groups of dying and still full of strength men and women of different ages, from an ideally beautiful young couple in the center to the figure of a half-mad old woman expressing the ultimate nervous tension, and a young mother dying next to her with a baby at her breast - on the right. In the background - a Turk, trampling and chopping people, a young Greek woman tied to the croup of his horse. And all this unfolds against the backdrop of a gloomy, but serene landscape. Nature is indifferent to the massacre, violence, madness of mankind. And man, in turn, is insignificant before this nature. I recall the words of Delacroix from the "Diary": "... I thought about my insignificance in the face of these worlds hanging in space."
The coloring of the picture underwent changes in contrast to the immediately formed composition: it gradually brightened up. Undoubtedly, Delacroix's acquaintance with Constable's painting played a huge role here. The light and at the same time very sonorous scale of the "Chios Massacre" - turquoise and olive tones in the figures of a young Greek and a Greek woman (left), blue-green and wine-red spots of the clothes of a crazy old woman (right) - served as the starting point for the subsequent coloristic searches of artists . So, in a storm of indignation and enthusiastic assessments, in battles and polemics, a new school painting, new artistic thinking - romanticism with 26-year-old Delacroix at the head.
Following Gericault, Delacroix also travels to England. English literature from Shakespeare to Walter Scott, the English theatre, the portrait school and the landscape, but above all the poetry of Byron, were already immensely popular on the Continent. Upon returning to his homeland, Delacroix becomes close to the best representatives of the French romantically inclined intelligentsia: Hugo, Merimee, Stendhal, Dumas, George Sand, Chopin, Musset. He lives in English literary images and the English theater, makes lithographs for Hamlet, portrays Byron's Giaour, but also writes Tasso in the Lunatic's House, depicts Faust. At the Salon of 1827, he exhibits his new large canvas, The Death of Sardanapalus, inspired by Byron's tragedy. Depicting the suicide of the Assyrian king, he goes further than Byron: not only the king himself and his treasures are doomed, but also concubines, slaves, servants, horses - everything living and dead. Criticism fell upon Delacroix for overloading the composition, for piling up figures and objects, for breaking the balance. Most likely, this was done consciously, to enhance the feeling of general chaos, the end of being. The artist achieves the greatest expressiveness with color. The general confusion, extreme passions and endless loneliness of the Assyrian king are expressed primarily by the color of extraordinary strength and drama. Delacroix's painting was booed both literally and figuratively in the press. (The Louvre only bought the painting in 1921). The failure of "Sardanapal" once again underlined the ever-increasing conflict between the creative individual and society.
The next stage of Delacroix's work is associated with the July events of 1830. He embodies the revolution of 1830 in the allegorical image of "Freedom on the Barricades" (other names are "Liberty Leading the People", "La Marseillaise" or "July 28, 1830"). A female figure in a Phrygian cap and with a tricolor banner leads the rebellious crowd through the powder smoke over the corpses of the fallen. The right-wing critics scolded the artist for the excessive democratism of the images, calling “Freedom” itself “a barefoot girl who escaped from prison”, the left-wing critics reproached him for the compromise expressed in the combination of such real images - a gamen (reminding us of Gavroche), a student with a gun in his hands (in in which Delacroix depicted himself), the worker and others - with the allegorical figure of Liberty. However, images taken from life appear in the picture as symbols of the main forces of the revolution. Quite rightly, researchers see in the strict drawing and plastic clarity of "Freedom on the Barricades" proximity to David's "Marat", the best picture revolutionary classicism.
Trips to Morocco and Algiers in late 1831-1832, to exotic countries, enriched Delacroix's palette and brought to life two of his famous paintings: "Algerian women in their chambers" (1834) and "Jewish wedding in Morocco" (circa 1841) . The coloristic gift of Delacroix is manifested here in full force. With color, the artist first of all creates a certain mood. The Moroccan theme will occupy Delacroix for a long time to come.
During these years, he was often inspired by literary subjects, primarily Byron (“The Collapse of Don Juan”), writes “The Capture of Constantinople by the Crusaders” (1840) by Torquato Tasso, returns to the images of Faust and Hamlet. Always passionately, expressively (learning this from his idol Rubens), he paints hunting scenes, portraits of his favorite musicians - Paganini (circa 1831), Chopin (1838), in later years he performs several decorative works (the dome of the library of the Luxembourg Palace (1845-1847) and Apollo Gallery in the Louvre (1850-1851), St. Angels Chapel in the Cathedral of San Sulpice, 1849-1861), still lifes, landscapes. Some marinas precede the finds of the Impressionists; it was not for nothing that Delacroix was the only one of the recognized artists in the 60s who was ready to support this new generation. In 1863 Delacroix dies.
Delacroix's entourage - Horace Berne, Arp Schaeffer, Eugene Deveria, Paul Delaroche, in fact, did not represent a truly romantic direction, and none of these artists was Delacroix's equal in talent.
Of the sculptural works of the romantic direction, first of all, Rud's Marseillaise (1784-1855) should be noted - a relief on the arch of the Place des Stars (now Place de Gaulle) in Paris (architect Chalgrin), executed in 1833-1836. Its theme is inspired by the mood of the July Revolution. The relief depicts the volunteers of 1792 being carried forward by the allegorical figure of Liberty. Her image is full of extraordinary power, dynamism, passion and indomitability.
In bronze, the fluidity of which easily conveys the dynamics of the struggle or attack depicted in the plot, the animal sculptor Antoine Bari (1795-1875) worked, skillfully conveying the plasticity of wild animals in the wild, in natural conditions of existence.
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