Realism is a trend in literature and art, truthfully and realistically reflecting the typical features of reality, in which there are no various distortions and exaggerations. This direction followed romanticism, and was the forerunner of symbolism.
This trend originated in the 30s of the 19th century and reached its peak by the middle of it. His followers sharply denied the use of any sophisticated techniques, mystical trends and idealization of characters in literary works. The main feature of this trend in literature is the artistic display real life with the help of ordinary and well-known readers of images that for them are part of their Everyday life(relatives, neighbors or acquaintances).
(Alexey Yakovlevich Voloskov "At the tea table")
The works of realist writers are distinguished by a life-affirming beginning, even if their plot is characterized by a tragic conflict. One of the main features of this genre is the authors' attempt to consider the surrounding reality in its development, to discover and describe new psychological, social and social relations.
Having replaced romanticism, realism has the characteristic features of art, seeking to find truth and justice, wishing to change the world for the better. The main characters in the works of realist authors make their discoveries and conclusions after much thought and deep introspection.
(Zhuravlev Firs Sergeevich "Before the wedding")
Critical realism is developing almost simultaneously in Russia and Europe (approximately 30-40s of the 19th century) and soon emerges as the leading trend in literature and art throughout the world.
In France, literary realism is primarily associated with the names of Balzac and Stendhal, in Russia with Pushkin and Gogol, in Germany with the names of Heine and Buchner. All of them experience the inevitable influence of romanticism in their literary work, but gradually move away from it, abandon the idealization of reality and move on to portraying a wider social background, where the life of the main characters takes place.
Realism in Russian literature of the 19th century
The main founder of Russian realism in the 19th century is Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin. In his works "The Captain's Daughter", "Eugene Onegin", "Tales of Belkin", "Boris Godunov", "The Bronze Horseman" he subtly captures and skillfully conveys the very essence of all important events in the life of Russian society, represented by his talented pen in all its diversity, colorfulness and inconsistency. Following Pushkin, many writers of that time came to the genre of realism, deepening the analysis of the emotional experiences of their heroes and depicting their complex inner world (“Hero of Our Time” by Lermontov, “Inspector General” and “ Dead Souls» Gogol).
(Pavel Fedotov "The Picky Bride")
The tense socio-political situation in Russia during the reign of Nicholas I aroused a keen interest in the life and fate of the common people among progressive public figures of that time. This is noted in the later works of Pushkin, Lermontov and Gogol, as well as in the poetic lines of Alexei Koltsov and the works of the authors of the so-called "natural school": I.S. Turgenev (a cycle of stories "Notes of a Hunter", stories "Fathers and Sons", "Rudin", "Asya"), F.M. Dostoevsky ("Poor People", "Crime and Punishment"), A.I. Herzen (“The Thieving Magpie”, “Who is to blame?”), I.A. Goncharova ("Ordinary History", "Oblomov"), A.S. Griboyedov "Woe from Wit", L.N. Tolstoy ("War and Peace", "Anna Karenina"), A.P. Chekhov (stories and plays "The Cherry Orchard", "Three Sisters", "Uncle Vanya").
Literary realism of the second half of the 19th century was called critical, the main task of his works was to highlight existing problems, to raise issues of interaction between a person and the society in which he lives.
Realism in Russian Literature of the 20th Century
(Nikolai Petrovich Bogdanov-Belsky "Evening")
The turning point in the fate of Russian realism was the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, when this trend was in crisis and a new phenomenon in culture, symbolism, loudly declared itself. Then a new updated aesthetics of Russian realism arose, in which the main environment that forms the personality of a person was now considered History itself and its global processes. The realism of the early 20th century revealed the full complexity of the formation of a person's personality, it was formed under the influence of not only social factors, history itself acted as the creator of typical circumstances, under the aggressive influence of which the main character fell.
(Boris Kustodiev "Portrait of D.F. Bogoslovsky")
There are four main currents in the realism of the early twentieth century:
- Critical: continues the tradition of classical realism of the mid-19th century. The works focus on the social nature of phenomena (creativity of A.P. Chekhov and L.N. Tolstoy);
- Socialist: displaying the historical and revolutionary development of real life, conducting an analysis of conflicts in the conditions of the class struggle, revealing the essence of the characters of the main characters and their actions committed for the benefit of others. (M. Gorky "Mother", "The Life of Klim Samgin", most of the works of Soviet authors).
- Mythological: reflection and rethinking of real life events through the prism of the plots of famous myths and legends (L.N. Andreev "Judas Iscariot");
- Naturalism: an extremely truthful, often unsightly, detailed depiction of reality (A.I. Kuprin "The Pit", V.V. Veresaev "Notes of a Doctor").
Realism in foreign literature of the 19th-20th centuries
The initial stage of the formation of critical realism in Europe in the middle of the 19th century is associated with the works of Balzac, Stendhal, Beranger, Flaubert, Maupassant. Merimee in France, Dickens, Thackeray, Brontë, Gaskell in England, the poetry of Heine and other revolutionary poets in Germany. In these countries, in the 30s of the 19th century, tension was growing between two irreconcilable class enemies: the bourgeoisie and the labor movement, there was a period of upsurge in various spheres of bourgeois culture, a number of discoveries were made in natural science and biology. In countries where a pre-revolutionary situation has developed (France, Germany, Hungary), the doctrine of scientific socialism of Marx and Engels arises and develops.
(Julien Dupre "Return from the fields")
As a result of a complex creative and theoretical debate with the followers of romanticism, critical realists took for themselves the best progressive ideas and traditions: interesting historical themes, democracy, trends of folklore, progressive critical pathos and humanistic ideals.
The realism of the early twentieth century, having survived the struggle of the best representatives of the "classics" of critical realism (Flaubert, Maupassant, France, Shaw, Rolland) with the trends of new unrealistic trends in literature and art (decadence, impressionism, naturalism, aestheticism, etc.) acquires new character traits. He refers to social phenomena real life, describes the social motivation of the human character, reveals the psychology of the individual, the fate of art. The modeling of artistic reality is based on philosophical ideas, the author's attitude is given, first of all, to the intellectually active perception of the work when reading it, and then to the emotional one. The classic example of an intellectual realistic novel is the works of the German writer Thomas Mann "The Magic Mountain" and "The Confession of the Adventurer Felix Krul", dramaturgy by Bertolt Brecht.
(Robert Kohler "Strike")
In the works of the realist author of the twentieth century, the dramatic line is strengthened and deepened, there is more tragedy (the work of the American writer Scott Fitzgerald "The Great Gatsby", "Tender is the Night"), there is a special interest in the inner world of man. Attempts to portray the conscious and unconscious life moments of a person lead to the emergence of a new literary device, close to modernism, called the “stream of consciousness” (works by Anna Zegers, V. Koeppen, Yu. O'Neill). Naturalistic elements appear in the work of American realist writers such as Theodore Dreiser and John Steinbeck.
The realism of the twentieth century has a bright life-affirming color, faith in man and his strength, this is noticeable in the works of American realist writers William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, Jack London, Mark Twain. The works of Romain Rolland, John Galsworthy, Bernard Shaw, Erich Maria Remarque enjoyed great popularity in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Realism continues to exist as a trend in modern literature and is one of the most important forms of democratic culture.
Before the emergence of realism as a literary movement, the approach to depicting a person in most writers was one-sided. The classicists portrayed a person mainly from the side of his duties to the state and had very little interest in him in his life, in family, private life. Sentimentalists, on the contrary, switched to depicting a person’s personal life, his spiritual feelings. Romantics were also interested mainly in the spiritual life of man, the world of his feelings and passions.
But they endowed their heroes with feelings and passions of exceptional strength, put them in unusual conditions.
Realist writers portray a person in many ways. They draw typical characters and at the same time show in what social conditions this or that hero of the work was formed.
This ability to give typical characters in typical circumstances is the main feature of realism.
We call typical those images in which the most vividly, fully and truthfully embodied the most important features characteristic of a particular historical period for one or another community group or phenomena (for example, the Prostakovs-Skotinins in Fonvizin's comedy are typical representatives of the Russian middle local nobility of the second half of the 18th century).
In typical images, the realist writer reflects not only those features that are most common at a certain time, but also those that are just beginning to appear and develop fully in the future.
The conflicts underlying the works of the classicists, sentimentalists, and romantics were also one-sided.
Classicist writers (especially in tragedies) depicted a clash in the hero's soul of the consciousness of the need to fulfill a duty to the state with personal feelings and inclinations. Among sentimentalists, the main conflict grew on the basis of the social inequality of heroes belonging to different classes. In romanticism, the basis of conflict is the gap between dream and reality. In realist writers, conflicts are as diverse as in life itself.
Krylov and Griboyedov played an important role in the formation of Russian realism at the beginning of the 19th century. Krylov became the creator of the Russian realistic fable. In Krylov's fables, the life of feudal Russia in its essential features is deeply truthfully depicted. The ideological content of his fables, democratic in their orientation, the perfection of their construction, wonderful verse and a lively colloquial language developed on a folk basis - all this was a major contribution to Russian realistic literature and had an impact on the development of the work of such writers as Griboyedov, Pushkin, Gogol and others.
Griboyedov, with his work Woe from Wit, gave an example of Russian realistic comedy.
But the true ancestor of Russian realistic literature, who gave perfect examples of realistic creativity in the most diverse literary genres, was the great folk poet Pushkin.
Realism- 19th - 20th century (from Latin realis- valid)
Realism can define heterogeneous phenomena united by the concept of the truth of life: the spontaneous realism of ancient literatures, the realism of the Renaissance, enlightenment realism, the "natural school" as First stage development of critical realism in the 19th century, realism of the 19th-20th centuries, "socialist realism"
- The main features of realism:
- Depiction of life in images corresponding to the essence of life phenomena, through the typification of the facts of reality;
- True reflection of the world, wide coverage of reality;
- historicism;
- Attitude to literature as a means of man's knowledge of himself and the world around him;
- Reflection of the relationship between man and the environment;
- Typification of characters and circumstances.
Realist writers in Russia. Representatives of realism in Russia: A. S. Pushkin, N. V. Gogol, A. N. Ostrovsky, I. A. Goncharov, N. A. Nekrasov, M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, I. S. Turgenev, F. M. Dostoevsky, L N. Tolstoy, A. P. Chekhov, I. A. Bunin and others.
Realism in literature is a direction, the main feature of which is a truthful depiction of reality and its typical features without any distortion or exaggeration. This originated in the 19th century, and its adherents sharply opposed the sophisticated forms of poetry and the use of various mystical concepts in the works.
signs directions
Realism in the literature of the 19th century can be distinguished by clear signs. The main one is the artistic depiction of reality in images familiar to the layman, which he regularly encounters in real life. Reality in the works is considered as a means of human cognition of the surrounding world and oneself, and the image of each literary character is worked out in such a way that the reader can recognize himself, a relative, colleague or acquaintance in it.
In the novels and short stories of realists, art remains life-affirming, even if the plot is characterized by a tragic conflict. Another sign of this genre is the desire of writers to consider the surrounding reality in its development, and each writer tries to detect the emergence of new psychological, social and social relations.
Features of this literary trend
Realism in literature, which replaced romanticism, has the characteristics of art that seeks and finds truth, seeking to transform reality.
In the works of realist writers, discoveries were made after much thought and dreams, after an analysis of subjective attitudes. This feature, which can be identified by the author's perception of time, determined features realistic literature of the early twentieth century from the traditional Russian classics.
Realism inXIX century
Such representatives of realism in literature as Balzac and Stendhal, Thackeray and Dickens, Jord Sand and Victor Hugo, in their works most clearly reveal the themes of good and evil, and avoid abstract concepts and show the real life of their contemporaries. These writers make it clear to readers that evil lies in the way of life of bourgeois society, capitalist reality, people's dependence on various material assets. For example, in Dickens' novel Dombey and Son, the owner of the company was callous and callous, not by nature. It’s just that such character traits appeared in him due to the presence big money and the ambition of the owner, for whom profit becomes the main life achievement.
Realism in literature is devoid of humor and sarcasm, and the images of the characters are no longer the ideal of the writer himself and do not embody his cherished dreams. From the works of the 19th century, the hero practically disappears, in the image of which the author's ideas are visible. This situation is especially clearly seen in the works of Gogol and Chekhov.
However, the most obvious literary direction manifests itself in the works of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, describing the world as they see it. This was also expressed in the image of characters with their own strengths and weaknesses, a description of mental anguish, a reminder to readers of the harsh reality that cannot be changed by one person.
As a rule, realism in literature also affected the fate of representatives of the Russian nobility, as can be seen from the works of I. A. Goncharov. So, the characters of the characters in his works remain contradictory. Oblomov is a sincere and gentle person, but because of his passivity, he is not capable of better. Another character in Russian literature possesses similar qualities - the weak-willed but gifted Boris Raysky. Goncharov managed to create the image of an "antihero" typical of the 19th century, which was noticed by critics. As a result, the concept of "Oblomovism" appeared, referring to all passive characters, the main features of which were laziness and lack of will.
Realism (lat. realis- real, real) - a direction in art, whose figures seek to understand and depict the interaction of a person with his environment, and the concept of the latter includes both spiritual and material components.
The art of realism is based on the creation of characters, understood as the result of the influence of social historical events, individually comprehended by the artist, as a result of which there is a living, unique and at the same time bearing generic features artistic image. "The cardinal problem of realism is the ratio credibility and artistic truth. The outward resemblance of an image to its prototypes is not, in fact, the only form of expression of truth for realism. More importantly, such similarity is not enough for true realism. Although verisimilitude is an important and most characteristic form of realization of artistic truth for realism, the latter is ultimately determined not by plausibility, but by fidelity in comprehension and transmission. entities life, the significance of the ideas expressed by the artist ". From what has been said, it does not follow that realist writers do not use fiction at all - without fiction, artistic creativity is generally impossible. Fiction is necessary already when selecting facts, grouping them, highlighting some heroes and briefly characterizing others etc.
The chronological boundaries of the realistic trend in the works of various researchers are defined differently.
Some see the beginnings of realism as early as antiquity, others attribute its emergence to the Renaissance, others date back to the 18th century, and others believe that realism as a trend in art arose no earlier than the first third of the 19th century.
For the first time in domestic criticism, the term "realism" was used by P. Annenkov in 1849, although without a detailed theoretical justification, and came into general use already in the 1860s. The French writers L. Duranty and Chanfleury were the first to make an attempt to comprehend the experience of Balzac and (in the field of painting) G. Courbet, giving their art a "realistic" definition. "Realism" is the title of a magazine published by Duranty in 1856-1857 and a collection of articles by Chanfleury (1857). However, their theory was largely contradictory and did not exhaust the complexity of the new artistic direction. What are the basic principles of the realistic trend in art?
Until the first third of the 19th century, literature created artistically one-sided images. In antiquity, this is the ideal world of gods and heroes and the limitations of earthly existence opposed to it, the division of characters into “positive” and “negative” (echoes of such a gradation still make themselves felt in primitive aesthetic thinking). With some changes, this principle continues to exist in the Middle Ages, and in the period of classicism and romanticism. Only Shakespeare was far ahead of his time, creating "diverse and multifaceted characters" (A. Pushkin). It was precisely in overcoming the one-sidedness of the image of a person and his social relations that the most important shift in the aesthetics of European art consisted. Writers are beginning to realize that the thoughts and actions of characters often cannot be dictated by the author's will alone, since they depend on specific historical circumstances.
The organic religiosity of society under the influence of the ideas of the Enlightenment, which proclaimed the human mind the supreme judge of all that exists, was replaced during the 19th century by such a social model in which the place of God was gradually occupied by supposedly omnipotent productive forces and class struggle. The process of forming such a worldview was long and complex, and its supporters, declaratively rejecting the aesthetic achievements of previous generations, relied heavily on them in their artistic practice.
The share of England and France at the end of the 18th - beginning of the 19th centuries had especially many social upheavals, and a stormy change political systems and psychological states allowed the artists of these countries to realize more clearly than others that each era leaves its own unique imprint on the feelings, thoughts and actions of people.
For writers and artists of the Renaissance and classicism, biblical or ancient characters were only mouthpieces for the ideas of modernity. No one was surprised that the apostles and prophets in the paintings of the 17th century were dressed in the fashion of this century. Only at the beginning of the 19th century did painters and writers begin to follow the correspondence of all everyday details of the depicted time, coming to the understanding that both the psychology of the heroes of ancient times and their actions cannot be fully adequate in the present. It was precisely in capturing the "spirit of the times" that the first achievement of art at the beginning of the 19th century consisted.
The ancestor of literature, in which the course was comprehended historical development society, was the English writer W. Scott. His merit is not so much in the accurate depiction of the details of the life of past times, but in the fact that, according to V. Belinsky, he gave "the historical direction to the art of the 19th century" and depicted it as an indivisible common individual and all-human. The heroes of W. Scott, involved in the epicenter of turbulent historical events, are endowed with memorable characters and at the same time are representatives of their class, with its social and national characteristics, although in general he perceives the world from a romantic position. The outstanding English novelist also managed to find in his work that edge that reproduces the linguistic flavor of the past years, but does not literally copy archaic speech.
Another discovery of the realists was the discovery of social contradictions caused not only by the passions or ideas of "heroes", but also by the antagonistic aspirations of estates and classes. The Christian ideal dictated sympathy for the downtrodden and destitute. Realistic art is also based on this principle, but the main thing in realism is the study and analysis of social relations and the very structure of society. In other words, the main conflict in a realistic work lies in the struggle between "humanity" and "inhumanity", which is due to a number of social patterns.
The psychological content of human characters is also explained by social causes. When depicting a plebeian who does not want to accept the fate destined for him from birth ("Red and Black", 1831), Stendhal renounces romantic subjectivism and analyzes the psychology of the hero seeking a place in the sun, mainly in the social aspect. Balzac in the cycle of novels and short stories "The Human Comedy" (1829-1848) sets a grandiose goal to recreate the multi-figured panorama of modern society in its various modifications. Approaching his task as a scientist describing a complex and dynamic phenomenon, the writer traces the fate of individuals over a number of years, discovering significant adjustments that the "zeitgeist" makes to the original qualities of the characters. At the same time, Balzac focuses on those socio-psychological problems that remain almost unchanged, despite the change in political and economic formations (the power of money, the moral decline of an outstanding personality who pursued success at any cost, the disintegration of family ties that were not sealed with love and mutual respect, and etc.). At the same time, Stendhal and Balzac reveal truly high feelings only among inconspicuous honest workers.
The moral superiority of the poor over the "high society" is also proved in the novels of C. Dickens. The writer was not at all inclined to portray the "high society" as a bunch of scoundrels and moral freaks. “But all the evil is,” wrote Dickens, “that this pampered world lives as if in a jewel case ... and therefore does not hear the noise of larger worlds, does not see how they revolve around the sun. This is a dying world, and the generation it is painful, because there is nothing to breathe in it. In the work of the English novelist, psychological authenticity, along with somewhat sentimental conflict resolution, is combined with gentle humor, sometimes developing into sharp social satire. Dickens outlined the main pain points of contemporary capitalism (the impoverishment of the working people, their ignorance, lawlessness and the spiritual crisis of the upper classes). No wonder L. Tolstoy was sure: "Sift the world's prose, Dickens will remain."
The main spiritualizing force of realism are the ideas of individual freedom and universal social equality. Everything that hinders the free development of the individual, the realist writers denounced, seeing the root of evil in the unfair arrangement of social and economic institutions.
At the same time, most writers believed in the inevitability of scientific and social progress, which would gradually destroy the oppression of man by man and reveal its initially positive inclinations. This mood is typical for European and Russian literature, especially for the latter. So, Belinsky sincerely envied the "grandchildren and great-grandchildren" who would live in 1940. Dickens wrote in 1850: “We strive to bring out of the seething world around us under the roofs of countless houses the announcement of a multitude of social miracles - both beneficial and harmful, but those that do not detract from our conviction and perseverance, indulgence towards each other, loyalty to the progress of mankind. and gratitude for the honor that has fallen to us to live in the summer dawn of time. N. Chernyshevsky in "What is to be done?" (1863) painted pictures of a wonderful future, when everyone will have the opportunity to become a harmonious personality. Even Chekhov's heroes, who belong to an era in which social optimism has already noticeably diminished, believe that they will see "the sky in diamonds."
And yet, first of all, a new direction in art focuses on criticizing the existing order. The realism of the 19th century in Russian literary criticism of the 1930s - early 1980s was commonly called critical realism(definition proposed M. Gorky). However, this term does not cover all aspects of the phenomenon being defined, since, as already noted, the realism of the 19th century was by no means devoid of affirming pathos. In addition, the definition of realism as predominantly critical "is not entirely accurate in the sense that, emphasizing the specific historical significance of the work, its connection with social tasks moment, it leaves in the shade the philosophical content and universal significance of the masterpieces of realistic art.
A person in realistic art, in contrast to romantic art, is not seen as an autonomously existing individuality, interesting precisely because of its uniqueness. In realism, especially at the first stage of its development, it is important to demonstrate the impact on the personality social environment; at the same time, realist writers strive to depict the way of thinking and feelings of characters that change over time (Oblomov and Ordinary History by I. Goncharov). Thus, along with historicism, at the origins of which stood V. Scott (transfer of the color of place and time and the realization of the fact that the ancestors saw the world differently than the author himself), the rejection of static, the image of the inner world of the characters, depending on the conditions of their life and made the most important discoveries of realistic art.
No less significant for its time was the general movement towards the nationality of art. For the first time, the problem of nationality was touched upon by the Romantics, who understood national identity as national identity, which was expressed in the transfer of customs, features of life and habits of the people. But Gogol already noticed that a truly folk poet remains so even when he looks at a "completely different world" through the eyes of his people (for example, England is depicted from the position of a Russian artisan from the provinces - "Lefty" N. Leskov, 1883).
In Russian literature, the problem of nationality has played a particularly important role. This problem was substantiated in most detail in the works of Belinsky. The sample is authentic folk art the critic saw Pushkin's Eugene Onegin, where "folk" paintings as such take up little space, but the moral atmosphere in the society of the first third of the 19th century is recreated.
By the middle of this century, nationality in the aesthetic program of most Russian writers becomes the central point in determining the social and artistic significance of a work. I. Turgenev, D. Grigorovich, A. Potekhin strive not only to reproduce and study various aspects of folk (i.e., peasant) life, but also directly address the people themselves. In the 60s, the same D. Grigorovich, V. Dal, V. Odoevsky, N. Shcherbina and many others published books for popular reading, published magazines and brochures designed for a person who was just starting to read. As a rule, these attempts were not very successful, because the cultural level of the lower strata of society and its educated minority was too different, which is why writers looked at the peasant as a "little brother" who should be taught to reason. Only A. Pisemsky ("The Carpenter's Artel", "Pitershchik", "Leshy" 1852-1855) and N. Uspensky (novels and short stories of 1858-1860) managed to show the true peasant life in its original simplicity and rudeness, but most writers preferred to sing the folk "soul of life".
In the post-reform era, the people and "nationality" in Russian literature turn into a kind of fetish. L. Tolstoy sees in Platon Karataev the focus of all the best human qualities. Dostoevsky calls to learn worldly wisdom and spiritual sensitivity from the "kufelny peasant". Folk life is idealized in the works of N. Zlatovratsky and other writers of the 1870s–1880s.
Gradually, nationality, understood as an appeal to the problems of people's life from the point of view of the people themselves, becomes a dead canon, which nevertheless remained unshakable for many decades. Only I. Bunin and A. Chekhov allowed themselves to doubt the object of worship of more than one generation of Russian writers.
By the middle of the 19th century, another feature of realistic literature was also defined - tendentiousness, that is, the expression of the moral and ideological position of the author. Previously, artists in one way or another revealed their attitude towards their heroes, but basically they didactically preached the harmfulness of universal human vices, independent of the place and time of their manifestation. Realist writers make their social and moral-ideological predilections integral part artistic idea gradually leading the reader to understand his position.
Tendentiousness gives rise in Russian literature to a delimitation into two antagonistic camps: for the first, the so-called revolutionary-democratic, criticism was most important political system, the second defiantly declared political indifference, proved the primacy of "artistic" over the "topics of the day" ("pure art"). The prevailing public mood - the decay of the feudal system and its morality was obvious - and the active offensive actions of the revolutionary democrats formed in the public the idea of those writers who did not agree with the need for an immediate breakdown of all "foundations", as anti-patriots and obscurants. In the 1860s and 1870s, the “civic position” of a writer was valued more than his talent: this can be seen in the example of A. Pisemsky, P. Melnikov-Pechersky, N. Leskov, whose work was negatively regarded or hushed up by revolutionary democratic criticism.
This approach to art was formulated by Belinsky. “And I need poetry and artistry no more than enough for the story to be true ... - he said in a letter to V. Botkin in 1847. - The main thing is that it raises questions, makes a moral impression on society. If it reaches this goal and without poetry and creativity at all - it is for me However interesting..." Two decades later, this criterion became fundamental in revolutionary democratic criticism (N. Chernyshevsky, N. Dobrolyubov, M. Antonovich, D. Pisarev). a fierce uncompromising attitude, a desire to "destroy" dissenters.6-7 more decades will pass, and in the era of the dominance of socialist realism, this trend is realized in the literal sense.
However, all this is still far ahead. In the meantime, new thinking is being developed in realism, a search is underway for new themes, images and style. The focus of realistic literature alternately "little man", "superfluous" and "new" people, folk types. The "little man" with his sorrows and joys, having first appeared in the works of A. Pushkin ("The Stationmaster") and N. Gogol ("The Overcoat"), became an object of sympathy in Russian literature for a long time. social humiliation" little man" redeemed all the narrowness of his interests. The property of the "little man" that, under favorable circumstances, was barely outlined in "The Overcoat" to turn into a predator (in the finale of the story a ghost appears, robbing any passerby without regard to rank and condition) was noted only by F. Dostoevsky ("Double" ) and A. Chekhov ("The Triumph of the Winner", "Two in One"), but in general it remained uncovered in the literature. Only in the 20th century will M. Bulgakov devote a whole story to this problem ("Heart of a Dog").
Following the "small" in Russian literature came the "extra person", the "smart uselessness" of Russian life, not yet ready to accept new social and philosophical ideas ("Rudin" by I. Turgenev, "Who is to blame?" A. Herzen, "Hero of our time" M. Lermontov and others). "Superfluous people" have mentally outgrown their environment and time, but due to their upbringing and property status they are not capable of daily work and can only denounce self-satisfied vulgarity.
As a result of reflections on the possibilities of the nation, a gallery of images of "new people" appears, most vividly presented in "Fathers and Sons" by I. Turgenev and "What is to be done?" N. Chernyshevsky. Characters of this type are presented as resolute overthrowers of outdated morality and the state system and are an example of honest work and devotion to the "common cause". These are, as their contemporaries called them, "nihilists", whose authority among the younger generation was very high.
In contrast to the works about "nihilists" there is also an "anti-nihilist" literature. In works of both types, standard characters and situations are easily found. In the first category, the hero thinks independently and provides for himself. intellectual labor, his bold speeches and deeds make young people want to imitate authority, he is close to populace and knows how to change her life for the better; Traditionally, the connection between "nihilists" and "Polish rebels" was noted, etc.
There were not so many works about the "new people", while among their opponents were such writers as F. Dostoevsky, L. Tolstoy, N. Leskov, A. Pisemsky, I. Goncharov, although it should be recognized that, for with the exception of "Demons" and "Cliff", their books are not among the best creations of these artists - and the reason for this is their pointed tendentiousness.
Deprived of the opportunity to openly discuss the pressing problems of our time in representative public institutions Russian society concentrates his mental life in literature and journalism. The writer's word becomes very weighty and often serves as an impulse for making vital decisions. The hero of Dostoevsky's novel "The Teenager" admits that he went to the village in order to make life easier for the peasants under the influence of D. Grigorovich's "Anton Goremyka". The sewing workshops described in What Is to Be Done? have spawned many similar establishments in real life.
At the same time, it is noteworthy that Russian literature practically did not create the image of an active and energetic person, engaged in a specific business, but not thinking about a radical reorganization of the political system. Attempts in this direction (Kostanzhoglo and Murazov in "Dead Souls", Stolz in "Oblomov") were regarded by modern critics as groundless. And if the "dark kingdom" of A. Ostrovsky aroused keen interest among the public and critics, then subsequently the playwright's desire to draw portraits of entrepreneurs of a new formation did not find such a response in society.
The solution in literature and art of the "damned questions" of its time required a detailed justification of a whole range of problems that could only be solved in prose (due to its ability to touch on political, philosophical, moral and aesthetic problems at the same time). In prose, priority is given to the novel, this "epos of modern times" (V. Belinsky), a genre that made it possible to create broad and multifaceted pictures of the life of various social strata. The realistic novel turned out to be incompatible with the plot situations that had already turned into clichés, which the romantics so willingly exploited - the secret of the hero's birth, fatal passions, extraordinary situations and exotic scenes in which the will and courage of the hero are tested, etc.
Now writers are looking for plots in the everyday existence of ordinary people, which becomes the object of close study in all details (interior, clothing, professional activities, etc.). Since the authors strive to give the most objective picture of reality, the emotional narrator either goes into the shadows or uses the mask of one of the characters.
Poetry, which has receded into the background, is largely oriented towards prose: poets master some features of prose narration (citizenship, plot, description of everyday details), as was the case, for example, in the poetry of I. Turgenev, N. Nekrasov, N. Ogarev.
Realistic portraiture also tends to be detailed, as was also the case with the Romantics, but now it carries a different psychological burden. “By examining facial features, the writer seeks out the “main idea” of the physiognomy and conveys it in all its fullness and universality of the inner life of a person. A realistic portrait, as a rule, is analytical, there is no artificiality in it; everything in it is natural and conditioned by character.” At the same time, the so-called "material characteristic" of the character (costume, home decoration) plays an important role, which also contributes to an in-depth disclosure of the psychology of the characters. Such are the portraits of Sobakevich, Manilov, Plyushkin in Dead Souls. In the future, the enumeration of details is replaced by some detail that gives scope to the reader's imagination, calling him to "co-authorship" when familiarizing himself with the work.
The depiction of everyday life leads to the rejection of complex metaphorical constructions and refined style. More and more rights in literary speech are being won by vernacular, dialectal and professional speeches, which, as a rule, were used by classicists and romantics only to create a comic effect. In this regard, "Dead Souls", "Notes of a Hunter" and a number of other works by Russian writers of the 1840s-1850s are indicative.
The development of realism in Russia proceeded at a very rapid pace. In just less than two decades, Russian realism, starting with the "physiological essays" of the 1840s, gave the world such writers as Gogol, Turgenev, Pisemsky, L. Tolstoy, Dostoevsky ... Already in the middle of the 19th century, Russian literature became the focus of domestic social thoughts, going beyond the art of the word in a number of other arts. Literature "is imbued with moral and religious pathos, publicism and philosophy, complicated by meaningful subtext; masters the "Aesopian language", the spirit of opposition, protest; the burden of literature's responsibility to society, and its liberating, analytical, generalizing mission in the context of all culture, become fundamentally different. Literature becomes self-forming factor of culture, and above all, this circumstance (that is, cultural synthesis, functional universality, etc.) ultimately determined the universal significance of Russian classics (and not its direct relation to the revolutionary liberation movement, as Herzen tried to show, and after Lenin - almost all Soviet criticism and the science of literature).
Closely following the development of Russian literature, P. Merimee once said to Turgenev: "Your poetry seeks, first of all, truth, and then beauty appears by itself." Indeed, the mainstream of Russian classics is represented by characters who follow the path of moral quest, tormented by the consciousness that they did not fully use the opportunities provided by nature. Such are Pushkin's Onegin, Lermontov's Pechorin, Pierre Bezukhov and L. Tolstoy's Levin, Turgenev's Rudin, Dostoevsky's heroes. "The hero, who acquires moral self-determination on the paths given to man "from the ages", and thereby enriches his empirical nature, was exalted by Russian classic writers to the ideal of a person involved in Christian ontologism" . Is it not because the idea of a social utopia at the beginning of the 20th century found such an effective response in Russian society that the Christian (specifically Russian) search for the “promised city”, transformed in the popular consciousness into a communist “bright future”, which is already visible beyond the horizon, had in Russia has such long and deep roots?
Abroad, the inclination towards the ideal was expressed much weaker, despite the fact that the critical element in literature sounded no less weighty. Here the general trend of Protestantism, which considers prosperity in the business sphere as the fulfillment of the will of God, has affected. The heroes of European writers suffer from injustice and vulgarity, but first of all they think about own happiness, while Turgenev's Rudin, Nekrasov's Grisha Dobrosklonov, Chernyshevsky's Rakhmetov are concerned not with personal success, but with general prosperity.
Moral problems in Russian literature are inseparable from political problems and, directly or indirectly, are associated with Christian dogmas. Russian writers often take on a role similar to the role of the Old Testament prophets - teachers of life (Gogol, Chernyshevsky, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy). “Russian artists,” wrote N. Berdyaev, “will have a thirst to move from creativity works of art to creativity perfect life. The religious-metaphysical and religious-social theme torments all significant Russian writers.
Strengthening the role of fiction in public life entails the development of criticism. And here the palm also belongs to Pushkin, who moved from taste and normative assessments to the discovery general patterns contemporary literary process. Pushkin was the first to realize the need for a new way of depicting reality, "true romanticism", as he defined it. Belinsky was the first Russian critic who tried to create an integral historical and theoretical concept and periodization of Russian literature.
During the second half of XIX century, it was the activities of critics (N. Chernyshevsky, N. Dobrolyubov, D. Pisarev, K. Aksakov, A. Druzhinin, A. Grigoriev, etc.) that contributed to the development of the theory of realism and the formation of domestic literary criticism (P. Annenkov, A. Pypin, A. Veselovsky, A. Potebnya, D. Ovsyaniko-Kulikovskiy and others).
As you know, in art its main direction is laid by the achievements of outstanding artists, whose discoveries are used by "ordinary talents" (V. Belinsky). Let us characterize the main milestones in the formation and development of Russian realistic art, the conquests of which made it possible to call the second half of the century "the century of Russian literature."
At the origins of Russian realism are I. Krylov and A. Griboyedov. The great fabulist was the first in Russian literature to recreate the "Russian spirit" in his works. Live colloquial speech of Krylov's fable characters, his thorough knowledge of folk life, the use of folk common sense as a moral standard, they made Krylov the first truly "folk" writer. Griboyedov expanded the scope of Krylov's interests, focusing on the "drama of ideas" by which educated society lived in the first quarter of the century. His Chatsky in the fight against the "Old Believers" defends national interests from the same positions of "common sense" and popular morality. Krylov and Griboedov still use the dilapidated principles of classicism (Krylov's didactic fable genre, the "three unities" in Woe from Wit), but their creative power even within these outdated frameworks declares itself in full voice.
In the work of Pushkin, the main problems, the pathos, and the methodology of realism have already been outlined. Pushkin was the first to give the image of the "superfluous person" in "Eugene Onegin", he also outlined the character of the "little man" ("The Stationmaster"), he saw in the people that moral potential that determines the national character (" Captain's daughter"," Dubrovsky "). Under the poet's pen, for the first time, such a hero as Hermann ("The Queen of Spades"), a fanatic obsessed with one idea and not stopping for its implementation in front of any obstacles, also appeared; Pushkin also touched on the theme of emptiness and insignificance of the upper strata society.
All these problems and images were picked up and developed by Pushkin's contemporaries and subsequent generations of writers. "Superfluous people" and their possibilities are analyzed both in "A Hero of Our Time", and in "Dead Souls", and in "Who is to Blame?" Herzen, and in "Rudin" by Turgenev, and in "Oblomov" by Goncharov, depending on time and circumstances, acquiring new features and colors. The "Little Man" is described by Gogol ("The Overcoat"), Dostoevsky (Poor People"). Landowners-tyrants and "non-smokers" were portrayed by Gogol ("Dead Souls"), Turgenev ("Notes of a Hunter"), Saltykov-Shchedrin("Lord Golovlevs"), Melnikov-Pechersky ("Old Years"), Leskov ("Dumb Artist") and many others. Of course, such types were supplied by Russian reality itself, but it was Pushkin who identified them and developed the basic methods for their depiction. And folk types in their relationship between themselves and the masters arose in objective coverage precisely in the work of Pushkin, subsequently becoming the object of close study of Turgenev, Nekrasov, Pisemsky, L. Tolstoy, populist writers.
Having passed the period of romantic depiction of unusual characters in exceptional circumstances, Pushkin opened up for the reader the poetry of everyday life, in which the place of the hero was taken by an "ordinary", "small" person.
Pushkin rarely describes the inner world of characters, their psychology is more often revealed through actions or commented on by the author. The depicted characters are perceived as the result of exposure environment, but most often they are given not in development, but as some kind of already formed reality. The process of formation and transformation of the psychology of characters will be mastered in literature in the second half of the century.
Pushkin's role is also great in the development of norms and the expansion of the boundaries of literary speech. The colloquial element of the language, which clearly manifested itself in the work of Krylov and Griboyedov, still has not yet fully established its rights, it was not for nothing that Pushkin called for learning the language from Moscow prosvirens.
Simplicity and precision, "transparency" of Pushkin's style at first seemed to be a loss of the high aesthetic criteria of previous times. But later "the structure of Pushkin's prose, its style-forming principles were adopted by the writers who followed him - with all the individual originality of each of them" .
It is necessary to note one more feature of Pushkin's genius - his universalism. Poetry and prose, dramaturgy, journalism and historical studies - there was no genre in which he would not say a weighty word. The subsequent generations of artists, no matter how great their talent, still basically gravitate towards any one kind.
The development of Russian realism was not, of course, a straightforward and unambiguous process, during which romanticism was consistently and inevitably supplanted by realistic art. On the example of the work of M. Lermontov, this can be seen especially clearly.
In his early works, Lermontov creates romantic images, coming to the conclusion in "A Hero of Our Time" that "the history of the human soul, at least the smallest soul almost more curious and more useful than the history of a whole people ... ". Not only the hero, Pechorin, becomes the object of close attention in the novel. With no less care, the author peers into the experiences of "ordinary" people (Maxim Maksimych, Grushnitsky). The method of studying the psychology of Pechorin - confession - is associated with a romantic worldview, however, the general author's attitude to the objective depiction of characters determines the constant comparison of Pechorin with other characters, which makes it possible to convincingly motivate those actions of the hero that the romantic would have remained only declared.In different situations and in collisions with different people Pechorin opens up from new sides every time, revealing strength and effeminacy, determination and apathy, disinterestedness and selfishness ... Pechorin, like a romantic hero, experienced everything, lost faith in everything, but the author is not inclined to either blame or justify his hero - a position for romantic artist is unacceptable.
In A Hero of Our Time, the dynamism of the plot, which would be quite appropriate in the adventure genre, is combined with a deep psychological analysis. This is how the romantic attitude of Lermontov, who embarked on the path of realism, manifested itself here. And having created "The Hero of Our Time", the poet did not completely part with the poetics of romanticism. The heroes of "Mtsyri" and "Demon", in essence, solve the same problems as Pechorin (achieving independence, freedom), only in the poems the experiment is set up, as they say, in its purest form. Almost everything is available to the demon, Mtsyri sacrifices everything for the sake of freedom, but the realist artist sums up the sad result of the desire for an absolute ideal in these works.
Lermontov completed "... begun by G. R. Derzhavin and continued by Pushkin, the process of eliminating genre boundaries in poetry. Most of his poetic texts are "poems" in general, often synthesizing the features of different genres."
And Gogol began as a romantic ("Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka"), however, even after "Dead Souls", his most mature realistic creation, romantic situations and characters do not cease to attract the writer ("Rome", the second edition of "Portrait").
At the same time, Gogol refuses the romantic style. Like Pushkin, he prefers to convey the inner world of the characters not through their monologues or "confessions". Gogol's characters certify themselves through deeds or by means of "proper" characteristics. Gogol's narrator plays the role of a commentator, which makes it possible to reveal shades of feelings or details of events. But the writer is not limited only to the visible side of what is happening. For him, what is hidden behind is much more important. outer shell- "soul". True, Gogol, like Pushkin, basically portrays already established characters.
Gogol laid the foundation for the revival of the religious and instructive trend in Russian literature. Already in the romantic "Evenings" dark forces, devilry, retreat before kindness and religious firmness of spirit. Taras Bulba is animated by the idea of a direct defense of Orthodoxy. And "Dead Souls", inhabited by characters who neglected their spiritual development, were supposed to show the way to the revival of fallen man, according to the author's intention. The appointment of a writer in Russia for Gogol at the end of his creative way becomes inseparable from the spiritual service to God and people who cannot be limited only by material interests. Gogol's "Reflections on the Divine Liturgy" and "Selected passages from correspondence with friends" are dictated by a sincere desire to educate oneself in the spirit of highly moral Christianity. However, it was the last book, even by Gogol's admirers, that was perceived as a creative failure, since social progress, as it seemed to many then, was incompatible with religious "prejudices."
The writers of the "natural school" also did not accept this side of Gogol's creativity, having assimilated only its critical pathos, which in Gogol serves to affirm the spiritual ideal. The "natural school" limited itself, so to speak, to the "material sphere" of the writer's interests.
And subsequently, the realistic trend in literature makes the fidelity of the depiction of reality reproduced "in the forms of life itself" the main criterion of artistry. For its time, this was a huge achievement, since it made it possible to achieve such a degree of lifelikeness in the art of the word that literary characters begin to be perceived as real. existing people and become an integral part of national and even world culture (Onegin, Pechorin, Khlestakov, Manilov, Oblomov, Tartarin, Madame Bovary, Mr. Dombey, Raskolnikov, etc.).
As already noted, high degree Lifelikeness in literature by no means excludes fiction and fantasy. For example, in Gogol's famous story "The Overcoat", from which, according to Dostoevsky, all Russian literature of the 19th century came out, there is a fantastic story of a ghost that terrifies passers-by. Realism does not renounce the grotesque, symbol, allegory, etc., although all these pictorial means do not determine the main tone of the work. In those cases where the work is based on fantastic assumptions ("History of a City" by M. Saltykov-Shchedrin), they have no place for the irrational principle, without which romanticism cannot do.
The fact orientation was strong point realism, but, as you know, "our shortcomings are a continuation of our virtues." In the 1870s and 1890s, a trend emerged within European realism called "naturalism". Influenced by success natural sciences and positivism (the philosophical doctrine of O. Comte), writers want to achieve complete objectivity of the reproduced reality. “I don’t want, like Balzac, to decide what the structure of human life should be, to be a politician, philosopher, moralist ... The picture I paint is a simple analysis of a piece of reality, such as it is,” said one of the ideologists of “naturalism” E. Zola.
Despite internal contradictions, the group of French naturalist writers that developed around Zola (brothers E. and J. Goncourt, Ch. Huysmans and others) professed a common view on the task of art: the image of the inevitability and invincibility of rough social reality and cruel human instincts that everyone is drawn in a stormy and chaotic "stream of life" into the abyss of passions and actions that are unpredictable in their consequences.
The human psychology of "naturalists" is rigidly determined by the environment. Hence the attention to the smallest details of life, fixed with the dispassionateness of the camera, and at the same time, the biological predestination of the fate of the characters is emphasized. In an effort to write "according to the dictation of life", naturalists tried to erase any manifestation of the subjective vision of the problems and objects of the image. At the same time, pictures of the most unattractive aspects of reality appear in their works. The writer, naturalists argued, like the doctor, has no right to ignore any phenomenon, no matter how disgusting it may be. With such an attitude, the biological principle involuntarily began to look more important than the social. The books of naturalists shocked adherents of traditional aesthetics, but nevertheless, later writers (S. Crane, F. Norris, G. Hauptman and others) used individual discoveries of naturalism - primarily the expansion of the field of vision of art.
In Russia, naturalism has not received much development. We can only talk about some naturalistic tendencies in the work of A. Pisemsky and D. Mamin-Sibiryak. The only Russian writer who declaratively professed the principles of French naturalism was P. Boborykin.
The literature and journalism of the post-reform era gave rise in the thinking part of Russian society to the conviction that the revolutionary reorganization of society would immediately lead to the flowering of all the best aspects of the individual, since there would be no oppression and lies. Very few did not share this confidence, and first of all F. Dostoevsky.
The author of "Poor People" was aware that the rejection of the norms of traditional morality and the precepts of Christianity would lead to anarchy and a bloody war of all against all. As a Christian, Dostoevsky knew that in every human soul can prevail
God or the devil, and that it depends on each one to whom he will give preference. But the path to God is not easy. To get closer to him, you need to be imbued with the suffering of others. Without understanding and empathy for others, no one will be able to become a full-fledged person. With all his work, Dostoevsky proved: “A person on the surface of the earth has no right to turn away and ignore what is happening on earth, and there are higher moral reasons for it."
Unlike his predecessors, Dostoevsky strove not to capture established, typical, forms of life and psychology, but to capture and designate emerging social conflicts and types. His works are always dominated by crisis situations and characters outlined in large, sharp strokes. In his novels, "dramas of ideas", intellectual and psychological fights of characters are brought to the fore, moreover, the individual is inseparable from the universal, behind a single fact are "world issues".
Detecting the loss of moral guidelines in modern society, impotence and fear of the individual in the grip of an unspiritual reality, Dostoevsky did not believe that a person should capitulate to "external circumstances". He, according to Dostoevsky, can and must overcome "chaos" - and then, as a result of the common efforts of everyone, "world harmony" will reign, based on overcoming unbelief, selfishness and anarchic self-will. A person who has embarked on the thorny path of self-improvement will face material deprivation, moral suffering, and misunderstanding of others ("Idiot"). The most difficult thing is not to become a "superman", like Raskolnikov, and, seeing others only as "rags", to indulge any desire, but to learn to forgive and love without demanding a reward, like Prince Myshkin or Alyosha Karamazov.
Like no other leading artist of his time, Dostoevsky is close to the spirit of Christianity. In his work, the problem of the original sinfulness of man is analyzed in various aspects ("Demons", "Teenager", "The Dream of a Ridiculous Man", "The Brothers Karamazov"). According to the writer, the result of the original fall is a world evil that gives rise to one of the most acute social problems- the problem of theomachism. "Atheistic expressions of unprecedented power" are contained in the images of Stavrogin, Versilov, Ivan Karamazov, but their throwing does not prove the victory of evil and pride. This is the way to God through His initial denial, the proof of God's existence by way of contradiction. The ideal hero in Dostoevsky must inevitably take as a model the life and teachings of the One who for the writer is the only moral guide in the world of doubt and hesitation (Prince Myshkin, Alyosha Karamazov).
With the ingenious instinct of the artist, Dostoevsky felt that socialism, under the banner of which many honest and smart people, is the result of the decline of religion ("Demons"). The writer predicted that on the path of social progress humanity would face severe upheavals, and directly connected them with the loss of faith and its replacement by socialist doctrine. The depth of Dostoevsky's insight was confirmed in the 20th century by S. Bulgakov, who already had reason to assert: "... Socialism today acts not only as a neutral area social policy, but, usually, and as a religion based on atheism and man-godism, on the self-deification of man and human labor and on the recognition of the elemental forces of nature and social life as the only building principle of history ". In the USSR, all this was realized in practice. All means of propaganda and agitation, among which literature played one of the leading roles, they introduced into the consciousness of the masses that the proletariat, always led by the leader and the party, always right in any undertakings, and creative labor are forces designed to transform the world and create a society of universal happiness (a kind of Kingdom of God on earth). The only thing Dostoevsky was mistaken about was his assumption that the moral crisis and the subsequent spiritual and social cataclysms would erupt primarily in Europe.
Along with "eternal questions", Dostoevsky the realist is also characterized by attention to the most ordinary and at the same time hidden from the mass consciousness facts of modernity. Together with the author, these problems are given to the heroes of the writer's works, and comprehension of the truth is very difficult for them. The struggle of the individual with the social environment and with himself determines the special polyphonic form of Dostoevsky's novels.
The author-narrator takes part in the action on the rights of an equal, and even a minor character ("chronicler" in "Demons"). The hero of Dostoevsky not only has an inner secret world that the reader will have to know; he, according to M. Bakhtin’s definition, “most of all thinks about what others think and can think about him, he strives to get ahead of someone else’s consciousness, every other thought about him, every point of view on him. With all his own moments of his confessions, he tries to anticipate the possible definition and evaluation of him by others, to guess these possible other people's words about him, interrupting his speech with imaginary other people's remarks. In an effort to guess other people's opinions and arguing with them in advance, Dostoevsky's heroes, as it were, call to life their doubles, in whose speeches and actions the reader receives a justification or denial of the position of the characters (Raskolnikov - Luzhin and Svidrigailov in "Crime and Punishment", Stavrogin - Shatov and Kirillov in "Demons").
The dramatic intensity of the action in Dostoevsky's novels is also due to the fact that he brings events as close as possible to the "topics of the day", sometimes drawing plots from newspaper notes. Almost always in the center of Dostoevsky's work is a crime. However, behind the sharp, almost detective plot, there is not a desire to solve an ingenious logical task. Criminal events and motives are elevated by the writer to the level of capacious philosophical symbols ("Crime and Punishment", "Demons", "The Brothers Karamazov").
The scene of Dostoevsky's novels is Russia, and often only its capital, and at the same time, the writer received worldwide recognition, because for many decades he anticipated the general interest in global problems for the 20th century ("superman" and the rest of the mass, "man of the crowd" and state machine, faith and spiritual anarchy, etc.). The writer created a world inhabited by complex, contradictory characters, saturated with dramatic conflicts, for the solution of which there are no and cannot be simple recipes - one of the reasons that in Soviet times Dostoevsky's work was either declared reactionary or hushed up.
Dostoevsky's work outlined the main direction of literature and culture of the 20th century. Dostoevsky inspired Z. Freud in many ways, A. Einstein, T. Mann, W. Faulkner, F. Fellini, A. Camus, Akutagawa and other outstanding thinkers and artists spoke about the enormous influence on them of the works of the Russian writer.
L. Tolstoy also made a huge contribution to the development of Russian literature. Already in his first published story "Childhood" (1852), Tolstoy acted as an innovative artist.
The detail and clarity of his description of everyday life are combined with a microanalysis of the complex and mobile psychology of the child.
Tolstoy uses his own method of depiction human psyche, observing the "dialectics of the soul". The writer seeks to trace the formation of character and does not emphasize its "positive" and "negative" sides. He argued that it makes no sense to talk about some "defining trait" of the character. "... In my life I have never met an evil, proud, kind, or intelligent person. In humility I always find a suppressed desire for pride, in the smartest book I find stupidity, in the conversation of the stupidest person I find smart things, etc. etc., etc.".
The writer was sure that if people learn to understand the multi-layered thoughts and feelings of others, then most psychological and social conflicts will lose their sharpness. The task of the writer, according to Tolstoy, is to teach others to understand. And for this it is necessary that truth in all its manifestations become the hero of literature. This goal is already declared in the "Sevastopol Tales" (1855-1856), which combines the documentary accuracy of what is depicted and the depth of psychological analysis.
The tendentiousness of art promoted by Chernyshevsky and his supporters turned out to be unacceptable for Tolstoy, if only because the a priori idea that determines the selection of facts and the angle of view was put at the forefront in the work. The writer almost demonstratively adjoins the camp of "pure art", which rejects all "didactics". But the position "above the fight" turned out to be unacceptable for him. In 1864, he wrote the play "Infected Family" (it was not printed and staged in the theater), in which he expressed his sharp rejection of "nihilism". In the future, all of Tolstoy's work is devoted to the overthrow of hypocritical bourgeois morality and social inequality, although he did not adhere to any specific political doctrine.
Already at the beginning of his creative path, having lost faith in the possibility of changing social orders, especially by violent means, the writer is looking for at least personal happiness in the family circle ("Roman of the Russian Landowner", 1859), however, having constructed his ideal of a woman capable of selflessness in the name of her husband and children, comes to the conclusion that this ideal is also unrealizable.
Tolstoy longed to find a model of life in which there would be no place at all for any artificiality, any falsehood. For a while, he believed that one could be happy among simple, undemanding people close to nature. It is only necessary to completely share their way of life and be content with the few that form the basis of the "correct" being (free labor, love, duty, family ties - "Cossacks", 1863). And Tolstoy also strives in real life to be imbued with the interests of the people, but his direct contacts with the peasants and the work of the 1860s and 1870s reveal an ever-deepening gulf between the peasant and the master.
Tolstoy also tries to discover the meaning of modernity, which eludes him, by delving into the historical past, by returning to the origins of the national worldview. He came up with the idea of a huge epic canvas, in which the most significant moments of the life of Russia would be reflected and comprehended. In War and Peace (1863-1869), Tolstoy's heroes painfully strive to comprehend the meaning of life and, together with the author, are imbued with the conviction that it is possible to comprehend the thoughts and feelings of people only at the cost of renouncing one's own egoistic desires and gaining the experience of suffering. Some, like Andrei Bolkonsky, learn this truth before they die; others - Pierre Bezukhov - find it, rejecting skepticism and defeating the power of the flesh with the power of reason, find themselves in high love; the third - Platon Karataev - this truth is given from birth, because they embody "simplicity" and "truth". According to the author, Karataev's life "as he himself looked at it, did not make sense as a separate life. It made sense only as a particle of the whole, which he constantly felt." This moral position is also illustrated by the example of Napoleon and Kutuzov. The gigantic will and passions of the French emperor succumb to the actions of the Russian commander, devoid of external effect, for the latter expresses the will of the entire nation, united in the face of formidable danger.
In his work and in life, Tolstoy strove for harmony of thought and feeling, which could be achieved with a general understanding of individual particulars and the general picture of the universe. The path to such harmony is long and thorny, but it is impossible to shorten it. Tolstoy, like Dostoyevsky, did not accept the revolutionary doctrine. Paying tribute to the unselfishness of the faith of the "socialists", the writer nevertheless saw salvation not in the revolutionary demolition of the state system, but in the unswerving adherence to the gospel commandments, both simple and just as difficult to fulfill. He was sure that one should not "invent life and demand its implementation."
But the restless soul and mind of Tolstoy could not fully accept the Christian doctrine either. At the end of the 19th century, the writer opposes the official church, which is largely related to the state bureaucracy, and tries to correct Christianity, create his own doctrine, which, despite numerous followers ("Tolstoyism"), had no future prospects.
In his declining years, having become a "teacher of life" for millions in his homeland and far beyond its borders, Tolstoy still constantly had doubts about his own rightness. Only in one thing he was unshakable: the custodian of the highest truth is the people, with its simplicity and naturalness. The interest of the decadents in the gloomy and hidden twists of the human psyche for the writer meant a departure from art, which actively serves humanistic ideals. True, in last years During his life, Tolstoy was inclined to think that art is a luxury that not everyone needs: first of all, society needs to comprehend the simplest moral truths, the strict observance of which would eliminate many "damned questions".
And one more name cannot be dispensed with when speaking about the evolution of Russian realism. This is A. Chekhov. He refuses to recognize the complete dependence of the individual on the environment. "Dramatically conflicting positions in Chekhov do not consist in opposing the volitional orientation of different sides, but in objectively caused contradictions, before which the individual will is powerless" . In other words, the writer finds those pain points human nature, which will later be explained by congenital complexes, genetic programming, etc. Chekhov also refuses to study the possibilities and desires of the "little man", the object of his study is an "average" person in all respects. Like the characters of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, Chekhov's heroes are also woven from contradictions; their thought also aspires to the knowledge of the Truth, but they do not succeed well, and almost none of them thinks about God.
Chekhov discovers a new type of personality born of Russian reality - the type of an honest but limited doctrinaire who firmly believes in the power of social "progress" and judges living life using socio-literary templates (Dr. Lvov in Ivanov, Lida in Dom with a mezzanine, etc.). Such people talk a lot and willingly about duty and the need for honest work, about virtue, although it is clear that behind all their tirades there is a lack of genuine feeling - their tireless activity is akin to mechanical.
Those characters, with whom Chekhov sympathizes, do not like big words and meaningful gestures, even if they experience a real drama. Tragic in the understanding of the writer is not something exceptional. In modern times, it is everyday and ordinary. A person gets used to the fact that there is no other life and cannot be, and this, according to Chekhov, is the most terrible social ailment. At the same time, the tragic in Chekhov is inseparable from the funny, satire is merged with lyrics, vulgarity coexists with the sublime, as a result of which an "undercurrent" appears in Chekhov's works, the subtext becomes no less significant than the text.
Dealing with the "little things" of life, Chekhov gravitates towards an almost plotless narrative ("Ionych", "Steppe", "The Cherry Orchard"), towards an imaginary incompleteness of the action. The center of gravity in his works is transferred to the story of the spiritual hardening of the character ("Gooseberry", "The Man in the Case") or, on the contrary, his awakening ("The Bride", "Duel").
Chekhov invites the reader to empathy, not saying everything that is known to the author, but pointing to the direction of the "search" only in separate details, which he often grows into symbols (a dead bird in "The Seagull", a berry in "Gooseberry"). "Both symbols and subtext, combining opposite aesthetic properties (of a concrete image and an abstract generalization, a real text and an "inner" thought in the subtext), reflect the general trend of realism, which has intensified in Chekhov's work, towards the interpenetration of heterogeneous artistic elements."
By the end of the 19th century, Russian literature had accumulated a huge aesthetic and ethical experience, which won world recognition. And yet, for many writers, this experience already seemed dead. Some (V. Korolenko, M. Gorky) tend to merge realism with romance, others (K. Balmont, F. Sologub, V. Bryusov and others) believe that "copying" reality has become obsolete.
The loss of clear criteria in aesthetics is accompanied by a "crisis of consciousness" in the philosophical and social spheres. D. Merezhkovsky in the pamphlet "On the Causes of the Decline and New Trends in Modern Russian Literature" (1893) concludes that the crisis in Russian literature is due to an excessive enthusiasm for the ideals of revolutionary democracy, which requires art, above all, civic sharpness. The obvious failure of the precepts of the sixties gave rise to public pessimism and a tendency towards individualism. Merezhkovsky wrote: “The latest theory of knowledge has erected an indestructible dam that forever separated the solid earth accessible to people from the boundless and dark ocean that lies beyond the limits of our knowledge. And the waves of this ocean can no longer invade the inhabited earth, the realm of exact knowledge. .. Never before has the boundary line of science and faith been so sharp and inexorable... Wherever we go, no matter how we hide behind the dam of scientific criticism, with our whole being we feel the proximity of mystery, the proximity of the ocean. alone! No enslaved mysticism of past ages can compare with this horror. Never before have people felt the need to believe so much and so understood the impossibility of believing with reason. L. Tolstoy also spoke about the crisis of art in a somewhat different way: "Literature was a blank sheet, and now it is all written over. We must turn it over or get another one."
Reached highest point the heyday of realism seemed to many to have finally exhausted its possibilities. Symbolism, which originated in France, claimed a new word in art.
Russian symbolism, like all previous trends in art, dissociated itself from the old tradition. Yet Russian symbolists grew up on the ground prepared by such giants as Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy and Chekhov, and could not ignore their experience and artistic discoveries. "... Symbolic prose actively involved the ideas, themes, images, techniques of the great Russian realists in its own art world, forming by this constant juxtaposition one of the defining properties of symbolic art and thus giving many themes a realistic literature XIX century, the second reflected life in the art of the 20th century ". And later, "critical" realism, which was declared abolished in Soviet times, continued to nourish the aesthetics of L. Leonov, M. Sholokhov, V. Grossman, V. Belov, V. Rasputin, F. Abramov and many other writers.