The personality of a doctor in literature. Doctors in Russian classical literature. The image of a doctor in Russian classics

Essay: "The image of a medical worker in Russian literature." AUTHOR'S NAME: Anastasia Aleksandrovna Chistova (supervisor S.V. Sanfirova) City of Naberezhnye Chelny, State Autonomous Educational Institution of Secondary Professional Education of the Republic of Tatarstan "Naberezhnye Chelny Medical College", specialty "Nursing", gr. 111, 1st year e-mail: [email protected]“The medical profession is a feat. It requires dedication, purity of soul and purity of thoughts.” A.P. Chekhov The symbolism of a medical worker is directly related to the Orthodox spirituality of Russian literature. The doctor in the highest sense is Christ, driving out the most ferocious ailments with his Word, moreover, conquering death. Among the parable images of Christ - the shepherd, the builder, the groom, the teacher - the doctor is also noted: “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick” (Matthew, 9, 12). It is precisely this context that gives rise to extreme demands on the “aesculapian”, and therefore at all times the attitude towards doctors is harsh and critical: someone who only knows how to bleed and treat all diseases with soda is too far from the Christian path if he does not become hostile to it (Christian Gibner - death Christ), but even the capabilities of the most capable doctor cannot compare with the miracle of Christ. “What is more important for a medical worker: kindness and sensitivity or professional skills?” We will get the answer to this question by tracing the images of doctors in Russian literature. Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin did not greatly favor the doctors of that time; the poet, as is known, at one time “ran away from Aesculapius, thin, shaved, but alive.” In "Eugene Onegin" he has only two lines about doctors, but how much is contained in them secret meaning and despair about the state of medicine and the professional level of doctors: “Everyone sends Onegin to the doctors, They in chorus send him to the waters...” And in “Dubrovsky” the “doctor, fortunately not a perfect ignorant” appears only once, but the reader will easily understand With what a sigh of relief did the Russian genius write these lines, they say, thank God, at least there is hope for someone. In Nikolai Gogol's "The Government Inspector" we meet the charlatan Christian Gibner and the "Grand Inquisitor" from "Notes of a Madman." Holy mothers, it’s scary to live for a sick person! It seems that the attitude of writers towards the doctor has reached its bottom. And here, like a beacon in a stormy sea of negativity, Mikhail Lermontov brings Werner (“Hero of Our Time”) to the literary stage, and Leo Tolstoy in “War and Peace” shows how a surgeon, after an operation, bends over a wounded patient to kiss him. This reveals the essence of the medical profession, close to the foundations and essences of existence: birth, life, suffering, compassion, decline, resurrection, torment and torment, and finally, death itself. These motives, of course, capture the personality of everyone, but it is in the doctor that they are concentrated as something for granted, as fate. This is why, by the way, a bad or false doctor is perceived so sharply: he is a charlatan of existence itself, and not just of his profession. A literary hero can be different: in one book he is a warrior who fought for the honor and glory of his people, in another book he is a pirate looking for adventure in the depths of the sea, and somewhere else he is a medic, yes, yes, a medic. After all, people simply do not notice how a medical worker feels when he saves a person, what he does for the sake of his recovery. What lengths is he willing to go to save hundreds of lives? Doctors are representatives of one of the most difficult professions. A person's life is in their hands. Not many people in Russian classical literature They took medicine and its setting into the genre: A. Solzhenitsyn “Cancer Ward”, A. Chekhov “Ward No. 6”, M. Bulgakov “Notes of a Young Doctor”, “Morphine”, etc. Moreover, a lot the most talented writers came to Russian literature from medicine: Chekhov, Veresaev, Bulgakov, etc. Literature and medicine are brought together by the deepest interest in the human personality, since it is a caring attitude towards a person that determines a true writer and a true doctor. The profession of a doctor is imprinted on all of Bulgakov’s works. But of particular interest are those works that depict the medical activity of the writer himself and the experiences associated with it, and these are, first of all, “Notes of a Young Doctor” and “Morphine.” These works "contain deep human problems contact between a doctor and a patient, the difficulty and importance of the first contacts of a practitioner, the complexity of his educational role in contact with the sick, suffering, frightened and helpless element of the population." M. A. Bulgakov is an interesting writer, with his own special creative destiny. It is worth noting that that initially Bulgakov was engaged in a completely different activity. He studied to be a doctor and. for a long time worked by profession. Therefore, many of his works contain a medical theme. Thus, Bulgakov creates a whole cycle of stories and novellas, united under the title “Notes of a Young Doctor.” They are connected by a single hero-narrator - the young Doctor Bomgard. It is through his eyes that we see all the events described. The story "Morphine" shows the gradual transformation of a person into a complete slave to the narcotic dope. This is especially scary because a doctor, a university friend of Dr. Bomgaard, Sergei Polyakov, becomes a drug addict. Doctor Polyakov left a warning to all people in his diary. This is the confession of a deeply sick person. The author gives us very reliable material precisely because he uses a diary form of writing. It shows the reverse development of man, from a normal state to the final enslavement of the soul by drugs." We see that Anton Pavlovich Chekhov paid great attention to both medical activities and writing, and believed that medical and natural science knowledge helped him avoid many mistakes in writing and helped to deeply reveal the world of feelings and experiences of the heroes of his works. I would like to dwell on the story “Ionych”, in which the author told the story of a young doctor who came to work in the province, and after years turned into an ordinary person living alone and boring. He became callous and indifferent to. to his patients. The image of Ionych is a warning to all young doctors embarking on the path of serving people: do not become indifferent, do not become callous, do not stop in your professional development, serve people faithfully and selflessly. main profession Chekhov wrote: “Medicine is as simple and as complex as life.” To summarize, we can say that the image of a medical worker in Russian literature is not only one of the most widespread, but also one of the deepest and filled with the number of problems and issues that it was intended to highlight and sharpen. This is a question of the social structure of the state, and questions of religion, morality and ethics. The image of a doctor often has great value, when the work deals with the basic modes of human existence: care, fear, determination, conscience. This is not surprising, since it is possible to penetrate to the very root of human existence only in such borderline situations as the physician often deals with: struggle, suffering, death. In Russian literature, the image of a doctor has gone through a long and interesting path from a charlatan to a romantic hero, from romantic hero to a down-to-earth materialist and from a materialist to a bearer of morality, a hero who knows the truth, who knows everything about life and death, who is responsible for others in the broadest sense. “Even being an ordinary average person, a physician still, by virtue of his profession itself, does more good and shows more selflessness than other people.” V. V. Veresaev

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on the topic: The image of a doctor in Russian fiction

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Shevchenko Galina

Doctors are representatives of one of the most difficult professions. A person's life is in their hands. The essence of the medical profession is most clearly revealed in works of classical literature. Writers different eras often made doctors the heroes of their works. Moreover, many talented writers came to literature from medicine: Chekhov, Veresaev, Bulgakov. Literature and medicine are brought together by the deepest interest in the human personality, since it is a caring attitude towards a person that determines a true writer and a true doctor. Since ancient times, the main commandment of a doctor is “do no harm.”

The image-profession of a doctor in Russian classics has an increased semantic load, even when it appears fleetingly in a work, in a short episode. Let us recall Astafiev’s work “Lyudochka”. In one of the episodes we meet a guy dying in the hospital. The boy caught a cold at the cutting site, and a boil appeared on his temple. The inexperienced paramedic scolded him for treating him over trifles, disgustedly crushed the abscess with her fingers, and a day later she accompanied the guy, who had fallen unconscious, to the regional hospital. Perhaps, during the examination, the paramedic herself provoked a breakthrough of the abscess, and it began to have its destructive effect.

In medicine, this phenomenon is called “iatrogenic” - a negative impact of a medical worker on a patient, leading to adverse consequences.

For comparison, I would like to cite Bulgakov’s story “Towel with a Rooster.” After graduating from medical university, a young doctor ended up in a provincial hospital. He is worried about his lack of professional experience, but he scolds himself for his fear, because the hospital medical staff should not doubt his medical competence. He experiences a real shock when a dying girl with a crushed leg appears on the operating table. He has never carried out amputations, but there is no one else to help the girl. Despite the fact that the hero of the story is no stranger to human weaknesses, like any of us, all personal experiences, all personal experiences, recede before the consciousness of medical duty. It is thanks to this that he saves human life.

In my opinion, the doctor’s fate is most complete, with all its life's vicissitudes and troubles, with the search for one’s own “I”, we can find in the works of A.P. Chekhov (“Ward No. 6”, “Case from Practice”, “Ionych”, etc.).

M.A. Bulgakov can be called a continuer of the tradition that has developed in Russian literature, which can be conventionally designated as a “writer-doctor.” A writer of this type does not simply depict the professional work of a doctor, he addresses the spiritual side of healing.

In “Notes of a Young Doctor,” Bulgakov draws a parallel, quite traditional for Russian literature, between the concepts of “doctor” and “man,” trying to show us that one is inconceivable without the other. Also, the stories of Bulgakov’s cycle reflected the main features of this situation: the loneliness of the doctor, his existence outside of history, outside the family, an indication of his closeness to foreigners (the doctor’s last name is Bomgard, his best “friends” are the books of the German Doderlein, his predecessor, about whom he remembers with gratitude, also a German - Leopold Leopoldovich). A young doctor during his professional activity finds himself on the brink of life and death, performing the functions of a healer not only of the body, but also of the soul.

The peculiarity of the series “Notes of a Young Doctor” is that we are given a unique opportunity to follow the professional growth of a doctor. The “young” doctor, making the journey from death to life together with the patient, acquires not only new knowledge, but also new status in society.

In this regard, the image of Doctor Werner from the novel by M.Yu. is especially interesting. Lermontov's "Hero of Our Time", who is partly a romantic and partly a realistic hero. On the one hand, “he is a skeptic and a materialist, like almost all doctors,” and on the other, “the irregularities of his skull would strike any phrenologist with a strange interweaving of opposing inclinations,” and “the youth nicknamed him Mephistopheles.” In this character it is equally easy to detect both demonic traits and his extraordinary humanity and even naivety. For example, Werner had a great understanding of people and their character traits, but “he never knew how to use his knowledge,” “he mocked his patients,” but “he cried over a dying soldier.”

This character indicated the direction in which the image of a doctor developed in Russian literature, from Dr. A.I. Krupov. Herzen to Bazarov I.S. Turgenev.

A well-known image of a doctor in the second half of the 19th century is the image of medical student Bazarov from the novel by I.S. Turgenev "Fathers and Sons". In my opinion, this image is very different from the image of Dr. Krupov. Bazarov’s belonging to doctors does not have such a deeply symbolic meaning as Herzen’s. Throughout the novel, Bazarov’s profession remains, as it were, on the periphery; his confidence in his own knowledge of life and people comes to the fore, but in reality - his complete inability to resolve even his own everyday and ideological contradictions; he knows and poorly understands even himself, That’s why many of his thoughts, feelings, and actions turn out to be so unexpected for him.

However, the theme of the connection between diseases and the structure of society is not ignored in this work. Bazarov, who is prone to simplifications, says: “Moral illnesses... come from the ugly state of society. Correct society and there will be no diseases.” Many of Bazarov’s statements sound quite bold, but these are more likely hints of actions than the activity itself. literature character story

Doctors are heroes of many literary works. This is due to the fact that the importance of human health in our lives is enormous. Accordingly, the role of the healer of the suffering is great. Literature is an artistic reinterpretation of real life situations. As M.M. said Zhvanetsky: “Any medical history is already a plot.” I will not delve into deep antiquity, although works of literature about healers can be found in ancient Egyptian papyri. Russian classical literature is very rich in works where the main character is a doctor. Among the Russian writers themselves, there is a large proportion of doctors (A.P. Chekhov, V.V. Veresaev, M.A. Bulgakov, Vladimir Dal, V.P. Aksyonov, etc.).

Perhaps this phenomenon can be explained by the fact that not every thinker is a doctor, but every doctor is a thinker.

Herzen in the story “Boredom for the Sake” speaks of “patrocracy”, of the utopian management of society by doctors, calling them “the general of the medical empire.” This is a completely “serious” utopia - a “state of doctors”, after all, the hero of the story rejects irony: “Laugh as much as you like... But the coming of the kingdom of medicine is far away, and you have to treat continuously.” The hero of the story is not an ordinary doctor, but a socialist, a humanist by conviction (“I am by profession for treatment, not murder”), like Herzen himself.

As we see, the writer wants the doctor to take up a broader field: he will become a wise ruler of the world, he has dreams of a magnanimous king-father of this world. The utopianism of this character in the story “Boredom for the Sake” is obvious, although very light for Herzen.

Having analyzed these works that I had read earlier, I identified the qualities that a real doctor should have: dedication, dedication, humanity. You must be a true professional and take your work responsibly, otherwise the consequences could be tragic. In any conditions, the main thing for a doctor is to save human life, overcoming fatigue and fear. This is precisely what the great words of the Hippocratic Oath are about.

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Doctor writers

Many Russian classics had a second profession, often unrelated to literature. We collected the stories of writer-doctors: why they received medical education, how they found time for writing and medical practice, and what they ultimately chose - read the publication of the Kultura.RF portal.

Vladimir Dal

Vasily Perov. Portrait of Vladimir Dahl (fragment). 1872. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

In 1826 - after serving on Black Sea Fleet- midshipman Vladimir Dal entered the medical faculty of the University of Dorpat (today the University of Tartu). As surgeon Nikolai Pirogov said, “Dal re-saddled from sailors to doctors”. He was one of best students, even during his studies he excelled in surgery.

“I felt the need for thorough learning, for education, in order to be a useful person in the world.”
Vladimir Dal

At the beginning Russian-Turkish War Dahl graduated from the medical faculty ahead of schedule with the highest rank of doctor of the 1st department. He was sent to the army, where future writer served as a resident of a mobile hospital.

After the war, Vladimir Dal worked at the St. Petersburg military land hospital. He became a famous surgeon: he performed more than 40 cataract operations. In 1837, Dahl, along with several other doctors, tried to treat the dying Alexander Pushkin, and he also declared his death. Last days The doctor described the life of the poet and the results of the autopsy in the article “The Death of A.S. Pushkin."

“I ate my teeth and turned gray over the art of medicine”, - Vladimir Dal wrote about himself. His knowledge of medicine was highly valued by the St. Petersburg medical elite - even after Dahl left surgery. In the 1850s, he headed a circle of city doctors, wrote articles about a healthy lifestyle, traditional medicine, and spoke in favor of homeopathy. Until the end of his life, Vladimir Dal did not stop practicing medicine. In the four-volume " Explanatory dictionary living Russian language" he explained the meaning of some medical concepts.

Anton Chekhov

Osip Braz. Portrait of Anton Chekhov (fragment). 1898. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

Anton Chekhov began studying at the medical faculty of Moscow University named after I.M. Sechenov in 1879. During these years, Chekhov did not give up literature - he also managed to study medical practice, and write books.

The young doctor completed his internship at the hospital in Voskresensk near Moscow (today the city of Istra). He later described this time in the works “Dead Body”, “Rural Aesculapians”, “Surgery”. Chekhov said that medical and natural science knowledge helped him reveal the feelings and experiences of literary heroes.

“Medicine is my lawful wife, and literature is my mistress. When I get tired of one, I spend the night with the other. Although this is disorderly, it is not so boring, and besides, both of them lose absolutely nothing from my treachery ... "
Anton Chekhov

In Zvenigorod, Anton Chekhov was in charge of the hospital. He saw 40 patients a day, performed autopsies, and acted as an expert in courts. But the peak of his medical career came during the years of his life in Melikhovo, near Moscow. The domain of the local doctor included 25 villages, 4 factories and a monastery.

“Medicine is progressing little by little. I fly and fly. I have a lot of friends, and therefore a lot of sick people. Half have to be treated for nothing, while the other half pays me five and three rubles.”
From a letter to brother Mikhail

The work of a doctor took a lot of time, and sometimes Anton Chekhov could not concentrate on his books. He wrote about this more than once to his publisher Alexei Suvorin: “I am alone, because everything cholera is alien to my soul, and work that requires constant travel, conversations and petty worries is tiring for me. No time to write. Literature has long been abandoned, and I am poor and miserable..." Only in 1898 did Chekhov leave medical practice, but continued to follow medical advances.

Vikenty Veresaev

Sergey Malyutin. Portrait of Vikenty Veresaev. 1919. State literary museum, Moscow

Vikenty Veresaev defended his PhD at the Faculty of History and Philology at St. Petersburg University (today the Institute of History of St. Petersburg State University), and then entered the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Dorpat.

“My dream was to become a writer, and for this it seemed necessary to know the biological side of man, his physiology and pathology; In addition, the specialty of a doctor made it possible to get close to people of the most diverse backgrounds and lifestyles.”
From the autobiography of Vikenty Veresaev

The doctor began practicing in 1894 in his native Tula. However, after two years he returned to St. Petersburg: he worked as a resident, headed the library at the Botkin hospital and wrote scientific articles, which were highly valued by the capital’s medical community.

In 1901, Vikenty Veresaev published the famous “Notes of a Doctor.” In the work, he described cases from his medical practice, observations, experiences and thoughts of the young doctor. However, colleagues greeted the book with rejection: such revelations could turn readers hostile against medicine.

During the Russo-Japanese War, Veresaev was mobilized to the front. He treated the wounded on the front line, and at the same time made sketches of future works. Later, the doctor-writer published the books “At War” and “Stories about the Japanese War.”

“People do not have even the most remote idea about the life of their body, or about the powers and means of medical science. This is the source of most misunderstandings, this is the reason for both blind faith in the omnipotence of medicine and blind disbelief in it. And both equally make themselves known with very serious consequences.”
Vikenty Veresaev

Mikhail Bulgakov

In 1909, after graduating from high school, Mikhail Bulgakov entered the medical faculty of Kyiv University. There were already doctors in the family: one uncle of Bulgakov treated Patriarch Tikhon, and the second was a famous doctor in Moscow.

During the First World War, Mikhail Bulgakov went to the front: he served for several months in front-line hospitals in Kamenets-Podolsk, Chernivtsi, and Kyiv. His first wife, Tatyana Lappa, went with him and became a sister of mercy. Directly from the front, Bulgakov was sent to the Smolensk province to manage a hospital, where his wife helped him. Bulgakov received 50 patients a day; in a year more than 15 thousand patients came out. He later wrote an autobiographical series “Notes of a Young Doctor” about this period of his life.

“A doctor’s duty is what primarily determines his attitude towards patients. He treats them with truly human feeling. He deeply pities the suffering person and passionately wants to help him, no matter what the cost. In life, Bulgakov was keenly observant, impetuous, resourceful and courageous, he had an outstanding memory. These qualities define him as a doctor; they helped him in his medical work. He made diagnoses quickly, was able to immediately grasp the characteristic features of the disease, and rarely made mistakes in diagnoses. Courage helped him decide on difficult operations.”
Nadezhda Zemskaya, sister of Mikhail Bulgakov

Certificate of Approval “to the degree of doctor with honors with all the rights and benefits, laws Russian Empire awarded this degree" the young doctor received it only in 1916.

In 1918, Mikhail Bulgakov returned to Kyiv, and a year later he left medicine to become a writer. He wrote plays, stories, articles for metropolitan newspapers and magazines.

Vasily Aksenov

The writer Vasily Aksenov worked as a doctor for only a short time. He graduated from the Leningrad Medical Institute (today the First St. Petersburg State Medical University named after Academician I.P. Pavlov) in 1956.

“The medical path was accidental. Until the 8th grade, I studied in Kazan, then, in the 9th and 10th grades, I completed my studies in Magadan. Mom left the camp in 1947 and remained an exile in this city. It was in Magadan that I started writing poems. I imagined myself as a poet. But he entered the medical faculty. My mother and stepfather persuaded me: “It’s easier for doctors in the camps.”
From an interview with Continent magazine, 1981

Aksenov dreamed of getting a job as a medic on long-distance ships and seeing the world. There was such a prospect in the Baltic Shipping Company, but due to the political convictions of his parents - Vasily Aksenov’s mother Evgenia Ginzburg was repressed - he was not given a visa.

For a year Aksenov worked as a therapist at the quarantine station of the Leningrad seaport, then he was transferred to the position of chief physician at the hospital of the water department. There Vasily Aksenov began writing his first story - “Colleagues”.

"As for the material for literary works, then they lie precisely in the thick of life, and not in the traveler’s window. It was at the doctor's station that you could get the most valuable material for a novel, story, story. “Notes of a Russian Traveler” is an obsolete genre. “You’re unlikely to write the frigate Pallada.”
From a letter from mother Evgenia Ginzburg to her son, 1956

When he returned to Moscow in 1958, two of his stories were published in the magazine Yunost. In 1961, the stories “Colleagues” and “Star Ticket” were first published. After this, Vasily Aksenov left medicine forever.

The image of a doctor in Russian literature is a topic little touched upon in literary criticism, but its significance for culture is very great. The motives of illness and healing, in literal and symbolic meanings, permeate folklore, religion, and any form of art in every nation, since they “permeate” life itself. Literature provides an aesthetic, not everyday, but deeply vital slice of life, so here we are not talking about professional information itself, here they do not learn any craft, but only understanding, vision of the world: every profession has its own, special angle of view. And we can talk specifically about the artistic, including semantic, significance of the depicted case. The task of the history of medicine is to show how both the appearance of the doctor and his professional qualities. Literature will touch on this indirectly, only to the extent that it reflects life: what the artist sees in the medical field and what aspects of life are open to the doctor’s eyes.

Literature is also a kind of medicine - spiritual. Poetry has come a long way from, perhaps, the first appeals of words to the work of healing: in their own way, poetic incantations and spells were designed for genuine healing from ailments. Now such a goal is seen only in symbolic meaning: “Each verse of mine heals the soul of the beast” (S. Yesenin). Therefore, in classical literature we focus on the hero-doctor, and not the author-doctor (shaman, medicine man, etc.). And in order to comprehend our topic, its antiquity, which goes back in different variations to the pre-literate word, should lead to some caution in the analysis. One should not be deluded by easy and decisive generalizations, such as the fact that it is writers and doctors who speak about medicine, because in general, in almost every classic novel there is at least a cameo figure of a doctor. On the other hand, the perspective of the topic suggests non-traditional interpretations of familiar works.

How convenient it would be to focus only on A.P. Chekhov!.. Use famous aphorism about the “wife-medicine” and “literature-mistress”... Here the word “for the first time”, so beloved by literary scholars, could appear: for the first time in Chekhov’s literature, literature fully reflected the appearance of a domestic physician, his asceticism, his tragedy, etc. Then Veresaev and Bulgakov came. Indeed, it was as if, thanks to Chekhov, literature looked at life through the eyes of a doctor, and not a patient. But there were doctors-writers before Chekhov, and it would be more accurate to say: it’s not about the author’s biography; V XIX literature century, a rapprochement with medicine was prepared. Is this why literature cried out too loudly to doctors, constantly complaining about hemorrhoids, catarrhs, or “windy skin problems”? Not joking, it is clear that no profession has been perceived as meaningfully as the position of a physician. Was it really important whether the hero of literature was a count or a prince, an artilleryman or an infantryman, a chemist or a botanist, an official or even a teacher? A doctor is a different matter; such an image-profession is always not only meaningful, but symbolic. In one of his letters, Chekhov said that “he cannot come to terms with such professions as prisoners, officers, priests” (8, 11, 193). But there are specialties that the writer recognizes as a “genre” (Chekhov’s expression), and it is the doctor who always carries such a genre, i.e. increased semantic load, even when it appears fleetingly in a work, in a short episode, in one line. For example, in Pushkin’s “Eugene Onegin” it is enough to appear in the lines “everyone is sending Onegin to the doctors, They in chorus send him to the waters,” and the flavor of the genre is obvious. Just as in “Dubrovsky,” where only once will one encounter “a doctor, fortunately not a complete ignorant”: the profession of Deforge’s “teacher” hardly carries a semantic emphasis, while the doctor clearly contains the intonation of the author, who, as is known, in his time "ran away from Aesculapius, thin, shaved, but alive." Deeply symbolic of the image of the doctor in Gogol - from the charlatan Christian Gibner ("The Inspector General") to the "Grand Inquisitor" in "Notes of a Madman." Werner is important to Lermontov precisely as a doctor. Tolstoy will show how a surgeon, after an operation, kisses a wounded patient on the lips (“War and Peace”), and behind all this there is the unconditional presence of a symbolic coloring of the profession: the doctor’s position is close to the foundations and essences of existence: birth, life, suffering, compassion, decline , resurrection, torment and torment, and finally, death itself (Cf.: “I am convinced of only one thing... That... one fine morning I will die” - the words of Werner from “A Hero of Our Time”). These motives, of course, capture the personality of everyone, but it is in the doctor that they are concentrated as something for granted, as fate. This is why, by the way, a bad or false doctor is perceived so sharply: he is a charlatan of existence itself, and not just of his profession. The perception of medicine as a purely physical matter in Russian literature also has a negative connotation. Turgenev's Bazarov only on the threshold of his death realizes that a person is involved in the struggle of spiritual entities: “She denies you, and that’s it!” - he will say about death as acting person a life drama, not a medical fatality. The symbolism of the doctor is directly related to the Orthodox spirituality of Russian literature. The doctor in the highest sense is Christ, driving out the most ferocious ailments with his Word, moreover, conquering death. Among the parable images of Christ - shepherd, builder, groom, teacher, etc. - a doctor is also noted: “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick” (Matthew, 9, 12). It is precisely this context that gives rise to extreme demands on the “aesculapian”, and therefore even Chekhov’s attitude towards the doctor is harsh and critical: someone who only knows how to draw blood and treat all illnesses with soda is too far from the Christian path, if he does not become hostile to it (cf. Gogol : Christian Gibner - the death of Christ), but even the capabilities of the most capable doctor cannot compare with the miracle of Christ.

A.P. Chekhov, of course, will be at the center of our topic, but it is impossible not to note several authors who preceded him, at least who gave doctors in Russian literature as the leading characters of their works. And these will be Doctor Krupov from Herzen’s works and Turgenev’s Bazarov. Of course, Dr. Werner from A Hero of Our Time meant a lot. So, already before Chekhov, a certain tradition arose, so some seemingly purely Chekhovian discoveries will most likely turn out to be unconscious, but variations of his predecessors. For example, it would be typical for Chekhov to show the hero’s choice of one of two paths: either a doctor or a priest (“Belated Flowers,” “Ward No. 6,” letters), but this motif will already be found in Herzen; Chekhov's hero has long conversations with a mentally ill person - and this is also the motive of Herzen's "Damaged"; Chekhov will talk about getting used to the pain of others - Herzen will also say the same thing (“It’s hard to surprise our brother... From a young age we get used to death, our nerves get stronger, they become dull in hospitals,” 1, I, 496, “Doctor, dying and the dead"). In a word, the favorite “for the first time” must be used with caution, and so far we have only touched upon the particulars as an example, and not the perception of the medical field itself.

Lermontov's Werner, in turn, was clearly a reference point for Herzen. A number of scenes in the novel "Who is to Blame?" generally have something in common with “Hero of Our Time,” but we note that it is Herzen, perhaps due to his biography (cruel illnesses and death in his family), who is especially attached to the image of a doctor (see: “Who is to blame?”, “Doctor Krupov” , "Aphorismata" - associated with the common hero Semyon Krupov, then "For the sake of boredom", "Damaged", "Doctor, the Dying and the Dead" - i.e. all the main ones. works of art, except for "The Thieving Magpie"). And yet, everywhere there is a strong presence of just an episodic Lermontov doctor: a gloomy and ironic state, the constant presence of death in thoughts, aversion to everyday worries and even to family, a feeling of being chosen and superior among people, tense and impenetrable inner world, finally, Werner’s black clothes, which deliberately “get worse” in Herzen: his hero is dressed in “two black frock coats: one all buttoned up, the other all unbuttoned” (1, 8, 448). Let us recall Werner’s condensed summary: “he is a skeptic and a materialist, like almost all doctors, and at the same time a poet, and in earnest - a poet in practice always and often in words, although he never wrote two poems in his life. He studied everything the living strings of the human heart, as they study the veins of a corpse, but he never knew how to use his knowledge... Werner secretly mocked his patients; but... he cried over the dying soldier... the irregularities of his skull would strike a phrenologist with a strange interweaving of opposites. inclinations. His small black eyes, always restless, tried to penetrate your thoughts... The youth nicknamed him Mephistopheles... it (nickname - A.A.) flattered his pride" (6, 74). As is customary in Pechorin’s journal, Werner only confirms this characterization. Moreover, his character is the imprint of his profession, as can be seen from the text, and not just a play of nature. Let’s add or highlight the inability to use knowledge of life, unsettled personal destinies, which is emphasized by the doctor’s usual familylessness (“I’m incapable of this,” Werner), but often does not exclude the ability to deeply influence women. In a word, there is some demonism in the doctor, but also hidden humanity, and even naivety in anticipation of good (this can be seen with Werner’s participation in the duel). Spiritual development makes Werner have a condescending attitude towards both the sick person and the possibilities of medicine: a person exaggerates suffering, and medicine gets off with simple means like sour-sulfur baths, or even promises that he will heal before the wedding (this is how one can understand from Werner's advice).

Herzen generally develops Werner’s character, his “genesis”. If Chekhov’s doctor Ragin from “Ward No. 6” wanted to be a priest, but due to the influence of his father, as if involuntarily, he became a doctor, then for Krupov, the choice of the medical field was not coercion, but a passionate dream: born in the family of a deacon, he had to become a minister of the church , but wins - and in spite of his father - a vague but powerful attraction to initially mysterious medicine, that is, as we understand, the desire for real humanity, embodied mercy and healing of one's neighbor wins in a spiritually excited person. But the origin of character is not accidental: religious spiritual heights move onto a real path, and it is expected that it is medicine that will satisfy spiritual quests, and in dreams it may turn out to be the material reverse side of religion. Not the least role here is played by the unsightly, according to Herzen, church environment, which repels the hero; here people “are struck by an excess of flesh, so that they rather resemble the image and likeness of pancakes than the Lord God” (1, I, 361). However, real medicine, not in the dreams of a young man, influences Krupov in its own way: in the medical field, the “behind-the-scenes side of life”, hidden from many, is revealed to him; Krupov is shocked by the revealed pathology of man and even existence itself, youthful faith in beauty natural man is replaced by a vision of illness in everything, the morbidity of consciousness is especially acutely experienced. Again, as will later be in the spirit of Chekhov, Krupov spends everything, even holiday time, in a mental hospital, and a disgust for life matures in him. Let’s compare Pushkin’s: the famous precept “morality is in the nature of things,” i.e. a person is by nature moral, reasonable, and beautiful. For Krupov, a person is not " homo sapiens", and "homo insanus" (8.435) or "homo ferus" (1, 177): a mad man and a wild man. And yet Krupov speaks more definitely than Werner about love for this "sick" man: "I I love children, and I love people in general" (1, I, 240). Krupov, not only in his profession, but also in his everyday life, strives to heal people, and in Herzen this motive is close to his own pathos as a revolutionary-minded publicist: to heal a sick society. In In the story “Doctor Krupov,” Herzen with an obsessive pretension presents the essentially shallow and not even witty “ideas” of Krupov, who views the whole world, all history as madness, and the origins of the madness of history are in the always sick human consciousness: for Krupov there is no healthy human brain, as there is nothing pure in nature mathematical pendulum (1, 8, 434).

Such a “flight” of Krupov’s mournful thought in this story seems unexpected for readers of the novel “Who is to Blame?”, where the doctor is shown, in any case, outside of world-historical generalizations, which seemed more artistically correct. There, Herzen showed that in a provincial environment, Krupov turns into a resonating man in the street: “the inspector (Krupov - A.A.) was a man who had become lazy in provincial life, but nevertheless a man” (1, 1, 144). In later works, the image of the doctor begins to claim something grandiose. Thus, Herzen sees the ideal vocation of a doctor as unusually broad. But... broadly in concept, and not in artistic embodiment, in the outline of a great scheme, and not in the philosophy of a doctor. Here the pretensions of the revolutionary take precedence over the capabilities of the artist in Herzen. The writer is primarily concerned with the “disease” of society, which is why Krupov is already in the novel “Who is to Blame?” He doesn’t so much heal as he thinks about everyday things and arranges the fates of the Krutsiferskys, Beltov and others. His purely medical skills are given at a distance, they are “told” about them, but they are not “shown”. Thus, the capacious phrase that Krupov “belongs to his patients all day long” (1, 1, 176) remains only a phrase for a novel, although, of course, Herzen’s doctor is not only not a charlatan, but the most sincere a devotee of his cause - a cause, however, located in the shadows artistic design. What is important to Herzen is precisely the humanity and worldview in a doctor: without being a charlatan, his hero must reflect Herzen’s understanding of the influence of medicine on the doctor’s personality. For example, in the episode when Krupov neglected the demands of an arrogant nobleman, did not immediately respond to his capricious call, but ended up delivering a child to the cook, the social rather than the actual medical perspective is much more significant.

And here Herzen, in the story “For the Sake of Boredom,” speaks of “patrocracy,” i.e. about the utopian management of the affairs of society by none other than doctors, ironically calling them “the general staff archiarchs of the medical empire.” And, despite the irony, this is a completely “serious” utopia - a “state of doctors” - after all, the hero of the story rejects irony: “Laugh as much as you want... But the coming of the kingdom of medicine is far away, and we have to treat continuously” (1, 8, 459). The hero of the story is not just a doctor, but a socialist, a humanist by conviction (“I am by profession for treatment, not murder” 1, 8, 449), as if brought up on the journalism of Herzen himself. As we see, literature persistently wants the doctor to take up a broader field: he is a potentially wise ruler of this world, he contains dreams of an earthly god or a benevolent king-father of this world. However, the utopianism of this character in the story “Boredom for the Sake” is obvious, although for the author it is very light. The hero, on the one hand, often finds himself at a dead end in the face of ordinary everyday vicissitudes, on the other hand, he treats the idea of the “medical kingdom” with bitterness: “If people actually start to correct themselves, the moralists will be the first to be left in the fools, then who will be corrected?” (1, 8.469). And Titus Leviathansky from “Aphorismata” even hopefully objects to Krupov in the sense that madness will not disappear, will never be cured, and the story ends with a hymn to “the great and patronizing madness” (1, 8, 438)... So, the doctor remains eternal a reasoner, and his practice itself gives him a quick series of observations and - caustic, ironic "recipes".

Finally, let us touch upon the last feature of Herzen’s hero-doctor in this case. The doctor, even if utopian, lays claim to many things; he is a universe (“a real doctor must be a cook, a confessor, and a judge,” 1, 8, 453), and he does not need religion, he is emphatically anti-religious. The idea of the kingdom of God is his spiritual rival, and he disparages both the church and religion in every possible way (“The so-called light, about which, in my studies in the autopsy room, I least of all had the opportunity to make any observations,” 1, 8, 434 ). The point is not at all in the notorious materialism of the doctor’s consciousness: with his field he wants to replace all authorities with the most good purpose; "Patrocracy" - in one word. In “Damaged” the hero is already talking about the future overcoming of death (this closest rival for the doctor) precisely thanks to medicine (“people will be treated for death”, 1, I, 461). True, the utopian side of Herzen is everywhere associated with self-irony, but this is rather coquetry next to what seems to be such a bold idea. In a word, here too, with the invasion of the motive of immortality into medicine, Herzen predetermined a lot in the heroic doctors of Chekhov and in Turgenev’s Bazarov, to whom we will now move on: the doctor Bazarov will be spiritually broken in the fight against death; Dr. Ragin will turn away from medicine and from life in general, since immortality is unattainable.