Social program and literary-critical activity of the Pochvenniks. Russian literary-critical and philosophical thought of the second half of the 19th century. Social program and critical activity of the Pochvenniks.

Russian literary-critical and philosophical thought of the second half of the 19th century century

Yu.V. Lebedev

On the uniqueness of Russian literary criticism.

“As long as our poetry is alive and well, there is no reason to doubt the deep health of the Russian people,” wrote critic N. N. Strakhov, and his like-minded Apollo Grigoriev considered Russian literature “the only focus of all our highest interests.” V. G. Belinsky bequeathed to his friends to place in his coffin an issue of the magazine "Domestic Notes", and the classic of Russian satire M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin in farewell letter to his son he said: “Love above all native literature and prefer the title of writer to any other."

According to N.G. Chernyshevsky, our literature was elevated to the dignity of a national cause that united the most viable forces of Russian society. In the minds of the 19th century reader, literature was not only “fine literature”, but also the basis of the spiritual existence of the nation. The Russian writer treated his work in a special way: for him it was not a profession, but a ministry. Chernyshevsky called literature a “textbook of life,” and Leo Tolstoy was subsequently surprised that these words did not belong to him, but to his ideological opponent.

Artistic exploration of life in Russian classical literature never turned into strictly aesthetic activity, it always pursued a living spiritual and practical goal. “The word was perceived not as an empty sound, but as a deed - almost as “religiously” as the ancient Karelian singer Veinemeinen, who “made a boat singing.” Gogol also harbored this belief in the miraculous power of the word, dreaming of creating such a book that itself, by the power of the only and indisputably true thoughts expressed in it, should transform Russia,” notes modern literary critic G. D. Gachev.

Belief in an effective, world-transforming force artistic word determined the characteristics of Russian literary criticism. From literary problems she always rose to public problems that were directly related to the fate of the country, people, and nation. The Russian critic did not limit himself to discussions about artistic form, about the skill of a writer. Analyzing literary work, he addressed the questions that life posed to the writer and reader. The focus of criticism on a wide range of readers made it very popular: the authority of the critic in Russia was great and his articles were perceived as original works that enjoyed success on a par with literature.

Russian criticism of the second half of the 19th century developed more dramatically. The social life of the country at this time became unusually complicated, many political trends arose that argued with each other. The picture turned out to be colorful and multi-layered literary process. Therefore, criticism has become more diverse compared to the era of the 30s and 40s, when all the diversity of critical assessments was covered by the authoritative word of Belinsky. Like Pushkin in literature, Belinsky was a kind of universalist in criticism: he combined sociological, aesthetic, and stylistic approaches in evaluating works, covering the literary movement as a whole with a single gaze.

In the second half of the 19th century, Belinsky’s critical universalism turned out to be unique. Critical thought specialized in individual directions and schools. Even Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov, the most versatile critics with a broad social outlook, could no longer claim not only to embrace the literary movement in its entirety, but also to provide a holistic interpretation separate work. Sociological approaches predominated in their work. Literary development in general, and the place of an individual work in it was now revealed by the entire set of critical movements and schools. Apollo Grigoriev, for example, arguing with Dobrolyubov’s assessments of A. N. Ostrovsky, noticed facets in the playwright’s work that eluded Dobrolyubov. A critical understanding of the works of Turgenev or Leo Tolstoy cannot be reduced to the assessments of Dobrolyubov or Chernyshevsky. N. N. Strakhov’s works on “Fathers and Sons” and “War and Peace” significantly deepen and clarify them. The depth of understanding of I. A. Goncharov’s novel “Oblomov” is not exhausted by Dobrolyubov’s classic article “What is Oblomovism?”: A. V. Druzhinin introduces significant clarifications into the understanding of Oblomov’s character.

The main stages of the social struggle of the 60s.

The diversity of literary criticism in the second half of the 19th century was associated with growing social struggle. Since 1855 in public life two historical forces emerged, and by 1859, entered into an uncompromising struggle - revolutionary democracy and liberalism. The voice of the "peasant democrats", gaining strength on the pages of Nekrasov's magazine Sovremennik, begins to determine public opinion in the country.

The social movement of the 60s went through three stages in its development: from 1855 to 1858; from 1859 to 1861; from 1862 to 1869. At the first stage there is a demarcation of social forces, at the second there is an intense struggle between them, and at the third there is a sharp decline in the movement, ending with the onset of government reaction.

Liberal-Western Party. Russian liberals of the 60s advocated the art of “reforms without revolutions” and pinned their hopes on social changes “from above.” But in their circles, disagreements arise between Westerners and Slavophiles about the paths of the emerging reforms. Westerners start counting down historical development from the reforms of Peter I, whom Belinsky called “the father of the new Russia.” They are skeptical about pre-Petrine history. But, denying Russia the right to the “pre-Petrine” historical tradition, Westerners derive from this fact a paradoxical idea about our great advantage: a Russian person, free from the burden of historical traditions, may turn out to be “more progressive” than any European due to his “re-innovativeness.” The land, which does not conceal any of its own seeds, can be plowed boldly and deeply, and in case of failures, in the words of the Slavophile A.S. Khomyakov, “you can calm your conscience with the thought that no matter what you do, you will not make it worse than before.” “Why is it worse?” Westerners objected. “A young nation can easily borrow the latest and most advanced in the science and practice of Western Europe and, transplanting it onto Russian soil, make a dizzying leap forward.”

Mikhail Nikiforovich Katkov, on the pages of the liberal magazine “Russian Messenger”, founded by him in 1856 in Moscow, promotes the English ways of social and economic reforms: the liberation of peasants with land when it is purchased by the government, the provision of local and state government rights to the nobility following the example of the English lords.

Liberal Slavophile Party. The Slavophiles also denied the “unaccountable worship of past forms (*6) of our antiquity.” But they considered borrowing possible only if they were grafted onto the original historical root. If Westerners argued that the difference between the enlightenment of Europe and Russia existed only in degree, and not in character, then the Slavophiles believed that Russia, already in the first centuries of its history, with the adoption of Christianity, was educated no less than the West, but “the spirit and fundamental principles "Russian education differed significantly from Western European education.

Ivan Vasilyevich Kireevsky in his article “On the Nature of the Enlightenment of Europe and its Relation to the Education of Russia” highlighted three significant features of these differences: 1) Russia and the West have learned different types ancient culture, 2) Orthodoxy had pronounced distinctive features that distinguished it from Catholicism, 3) the historical conditions in which Western European and Russian statehood took shape were different.

Western Europe inherited ancient Roman education, which differed from ancient Greek formal rationality, admiration for the letter of legal law and disdain for the traditions of “common law,” which was based not on external legal decrees, but on traditions and habits.

Roman culture left its mark on Western European Christianity. The West sought to subordinate faith to the logical arguments of reason. The predominance of rational principles in Christianity led the Catholic Church first to the Reformation, and then to the complete triumph of self-deified reason. This liberation of reason from faith was completed in German classical philosophy and led to the creation of atheistic teachings.

Finally, the statehood of Western Europe arose as a result of the conquest of the indigenous inhabitants of the former Roman Empire by German tribes. Beginning with violence, European states were to develop through periodic revolutionary upheavals.

In Russia, many things turned out differently. She received a cultural inoculation not of formally rational Roman education, but of a more harmonious and integral Greek education. The fathers of the Eastern Church never fell into abstract rationality and cared primarily about the “correctness of the internal state of the thinking spirit.” What was in the foreground for them was not intelligence, not rationality, but the highest unity of the believing spirit.

Slavophiles considered Russian statehood to be unique. Since in Russia there were no two warring tribes - the conquerors and the conquered, social relations in it were based not only on legislative and legal acts that constrained people's life, indifferent to the internal content of human connections. Our laws were more internal than external. “The sanctity of tradition” was preferred to the legal formula, morality to external benefit.

The Church has never tried to usurp secular power and replace the state with itself, as happened more than once in papal Rome. The basis of the original Russian organization was the communal structure, the grain of which was the peasant world: small rural communities merged into broader regional associations, from which the consent of the entire Russian land, headed by the Grand Duke, arose.

Peter's reform, which subordinated the church to the state, abruptly broke the natural course of Russian history.

In the Europeanization of Russia, the Slavophiles saw a threat to the very essence of Russian national existence. Therefore, they had a negative attitude towards Peter’s reforms and government bureaucracy, and were active opponents of serfdom. They stood up for freedom of speech, for the resolution of state issues at the Zemsky Sobor, consisting of representatives of all classes of Russian society. They objected to the introduction of forms of bourgeois parliamentary democracy in Russia, considering it necessary to preserve the autocracy, reformed in the spirit of the ideals of Russian “conciliarity.” The autocracy must take the path of voluntary cooperation with the “land”, and in its decisions rely on popular opinion, periodically convening the Zemsky Sobor. The sovereign is called upon to listen to the point of view of all classes, but to make the final decision alone, in accordance with the Christian spirit of goodness and truth. Not democracy with its voting and mechanical victory of the majority over the minority, but consent, leading to unanimous, “conciliar” submission to the sovereign will, which should be free from class limitations and serve the highest Christian values.

The literary-critical program of the Slavophiles was organically connected with their social views. This program was proclaimed by the “Russian Conversation” they published in Moscow: “The highest subject and task of the people’s word is not to say what is bad in famous people what he is sick with and what he does not have, but in the poetic (*8) recreation of what was given to him best for his historical purpose.”

Slavophiles did not accept social-analytical principles in Russian prose and poetry; sophisticated psychologism was alien to them, in which they saw the disease of the modern personality, “Europeanized”, cut off from the people’s soil, from traditions national culture. It is precisely this painful manner of “showing off unnecessary details” that K. S. Aksakov finds in early works L. N. Tolstoy with his “dialectics of the soul”, in the stories of I. S. Turgenev about the “superfluous man”.

Literary critical activity Westerners.

In contrast to the Slavophiles, who advocate for the social content of art in the spirit of their “Russian views,” Western liberals represented by P. V. Annenkov and A. V. Druzhinin defend the traditions of “pure art,” addressed to “eternal” issues, shunned by malice of the day and faithful to the “absolute laws of artistry.”

Alexander Vasilyevich Druzhinin in the article “Criticism of the Gogol period of Russian literature and our relationship to it” formulated two theoretical ideas about art: he called one “didactic” and the other “artistic”. Didactic poets "want to directly influence modern life, modern morals and modern man. They want to sing, teaching, and often achieve their goal, but their song, while gaining in an instructive sense, cannot but lose a lot in relation to eternal art."

True art has nothing to do with teaching. “Firmly believing that the interests of the moment are fleeting, that humanity, while constantly changing, does not change only in the ideas of eternal beauty, goodness and truth,” the poet-artist “sees his eternal anchor in selfless service to these ideas... He depicts people as He sees them, without ordering them to correct themselves, he does not give lessons to society, or if he gives them, he gives them unconsciously. He lives in the midst of his sublime world and descends to earth, as the Olympians once descended upon it, firmly remembering what he has. your home on high Olympus."

The indisputable advantage of liberal-Western criticism was its close attention to the specifics of literature, to its differences artistic language from the language of science, journalism, criticism. Also characteristic is an interest in the enduring and eternal in the works of classical Russian literature, in what determines their unfading (*9) life in time. But at the same time, attempts to distract the writer from the “everyday unrest” of our time, to muffle the author’s subjectivity, and distrust of works with a pronounced social orientation testified to liberal moderation and limitations public views these critics.

Community program and the literary-critical activity of the Pochvenniks.

Pochvenniki to some extent inherited the view of Russian national character, expressed by Belinsky in 1846. Belinsky wrote: “Russia has nothing to compare with the old states of Europe, whose history went diametrically opposite to ours and has long since given flower and fruit... It is known that the French, English, and Germans are so national, each in their own way, that they are not able to understand each other , while the sociality of a Frenchman, the practical activity of an Englishman, and the vague philosophy of a German are equally accessible to a Russian.”

Soil scientists spoke of “all-humanity” as characteristic feature Russian national consciousness, which was most deeply inherited in our literature by A. S. Pushkin. “This thought was expressed by Pushkin not as a mere indication, teaching or theory, not as a dream or prophecy, but fulfilled in reality, contained eternally in brilliant creatures him and proven by him,” wrote Dostoevsky. “He is a man ancient world, he is a German, he is an Englishman, deeply aware of his genius, the melancholy of his aspirations (“A Feast in the Time of Plague”), he is also a poet of the East. He told and declared to all these peoples that the Russian genius knows them, understood them, came into contact with them like a native, that he can reincarnate in them in its entirety, that only one Only the Russian spirit has been given universality, given the purpose in the future to comprehend and unite all the diversity of nationalities and remove all their contradictions."

Like the Slavophiles, the soil scientists believed that " Russian society must unite with the people's soil and absorb the people's element." But, unlike the Slavophiles, (*10) they did not deny the positive role of the reforms of Peter I and the "Europeanized" Russian intelligentsia, called upon to bring enlightenment and culture to the people, but only on the basis people's moral ideals. A. S. Pushkin was precisely such a Russian European in the eyes of the soil people.

According to A. Grigoriev, Pushkin is “the first and full representative” of “our social and moral sympathies.” “In Pushkin, for a long time, if not forever, our entire spiritual process, our “volume and measure”, was completed, outlined in a broad outline: all subsequent development of Russian literature is a deepening and artistic comprehension those elements that were reflected in Pushkin. The most organic expression of Pushkin's principles in modern literature was A. N. Ostrovsky. "Ostrovsky's new word is the oldest word - nationality." "Ostrovsky is as little an accuser as he is a little idealizer. Let us leave him to be what he is - a great national poet, the first and only exponent national essence in its diverse manifestations..."

N. N. Strakhov was the only deep interpreter of L. N. Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” in the history of Russian criticism of the second half of the 19th century. It is no coincidence that he called his work “a critical poem in four songs.” Leo Tolstoy himself, who considered Strakhov his friend, said: “One of the blessings for which I am grateful to fate is that there is N.N. Strakhov.”

Literary-critical activity of revolutionary democrats

The social, social-critical pathos of the articles of the late Belinsky with his socialist beliefs was picked up and developed in the sixties by the revolutionary democratic critics Nikolai Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky and Nikolai Aleksandrovich Dobrolyubov.

By 1859, when the government program and views of the liberal parties became clearer, when it became obvious that reform “from above” in any of its variants would be half-hearted, the democratic revolutionaries moved from a shaky alliance with liberalism to a severance of relations and an uncompromising fight against it. The literary-critical activity of N. A. Dobrolyubov falls on this second stage of the social movement of the 60s. He devotes a special satirical section of the Sovremennik magazine called “Whistle” to denouncing liberals. Here Dobrolyubov acts not only as a critic, but also as a satirical poet.

Criticism of liberalism then alerted A. I. Herzen, (*11) who, being in exile, unlike Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov, continued to hope for reforms “from above” and overestimated the radicalism of liberals until 1863.

However, Herzen's warnings did not stop the revolutionary democrats of Sovremennik. Beginning in 1859, they began to pursue the idea of a peasant revolution in their articles. They considered the peasant community to be the core of the future socialist world order. Unlike the Slavophiles, Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov believed that communal ownership of land rested not on Christian, but on the revolutionary-liberation, socialist instincts of the Russian peasant.

Dobrolyubov became the founder of the original critical method. He saw that the majority of Russian writers do not share the revolutionary-democratic way of thinking and do not pronounce judgment on life from such radical positions. Dobrolyubov saw the task of his criticism as completing in his own way the work begun by the writer and formulating this verdict, based on real events And artistic images works. Dobrolyubov called his method of understanding the writer’s work “real criticism.”

Real criticism “examines whether such a person is possible and real; having found that it is true to reality, it moves on to its own considerations about the reasons that gave rise to it, etc. If these reasons are indicated in the work of the author being analyzed, criticism uses them and thanks the author; if not, does not pester him with a knife to his throat - how, they say, did he dare to draw such a face without explaining the reasons for its existence? In this case, the critic takes the initiative into his own hands: he explains the reasons that gave rise to this or that phenomenon from a revolutionary-democratic position and then pronounces a verdict on it.

Dobrolyubov positively evaluates, for example, Goncharov’s novel “Oblomov,” although the author “does not and, apparently, does not want to give any conclusions.” It is enough that he “presents you with a living image and vouches only for its resemblance to reality.” For Dobrolyubov, such authorial objectivity is quite acceptable and even desirable, since he takes upon himself the explanation and the verdict.

Real criticism often led Dobrolyubov to a peculiar reinterpretation of the writer’s artistic images in a revolutionary-democratic manner. It turned out that the analysis of the work, which developed into an understanding of the pressing problems of our time, led Dobrolyubov to such radical conclusions that the author himself had never expected. On this basis, as we will see later, Turgenev’s decisive break with the Sovremennik magazine occurred when Dobrolyubov’s article about the novel “On the Eve” was published in it.

In Dobrolyubov’s articles, the young, strong nature of a talented critic comes to life, sincerely believing in the people, in whom he sees the embodiment of all his highest moral ideals, with whom he connects the only hope for the revival of society. “His passion is deep and persistent, and obstacles do not frighten him when they need to be overcome to achieve something passionately desired and deeply conceived,” writes Dobrolyubov about the Russian peasant in the article “Traits for Characterizing the Russian Common People.” All the critic’s activities were aimed at the struggle for the creation of a “party of the people in literature.” He devoted four years of tireless work to this struggle, writing nine volumes of essays in such a short time. Dobrolyubov literally burned himself out in his selfless journal work, which undermined his health. He died at the age of 25 on November 17, 1861. Nekrasov said soulfully about the premature death of his young friend:

But your hour struck too soon

And the prophetic pen fell from his hands.

What a lamp of reason has gone out!

What heart has stopped beating!

The decline of the social movement of the 60s. Disputes between Sovremennik and Russian Word.

At the end of the 60s, dramatic changes took place in Russian social life and critical thought. The manifesto of February 19, 1861 on the liberation of the peasants not only did not soften, but further aggravated the contradictions. In response to the rise of the revolutionary democratic movement, the government launched an open attack on progressive thought: Chernyshevsky and D.I. Pisarev were arrested, and the publication of the Sovremennik magazine was suspended for eight months.

The situation is aggravated by a split within the revolutionary democratic movement, the main reason for which was disagreement in the assessment of the revolutionary socialist capabilities of the peasantry. Activists of the "Russian Word" Dmitry Ivanovich Pisarev and Varfolomey Aleksandrovich Zaitsev sharply criticized Sovremennik for (*13) its alleged idealization of the peasantry, for an exaggerated idea of the revolutionary instincts of the Russian peasant.

Unlike Dobrolyubov and Chernyshevsky, Pisarev argued that the Russian peasant is not ready for a conscious struggle for freedom, that for the most part he is dark and downtrodden. Pisarev considered the revolutionary force of modern times to be the “mental proletariat,” the common revolutionaries who bring natural science knowledge to the people. This knowledge not only destroys the foundations of the official ideology (Orthodoxy, autocracy, nationality), but also opens the people’s eyes to natural needs human nature, which are based on the instinct of “social solidarity”. Therefore, enlightening the people with natural sciences can lead society to socialism not only by a revolutionary (“mechanical”), but also by an evolutionary (“chemical”) path.

In order for this “chemical” transition to take place faster and more efficiently, Pisarev proposed that Russian democracy be guided by the “principle of economy of force.” The “mental proletariat” must concentrate all its energy on destroying the spiritual foundations of the existing society through propaganda of natural sciences among the people. In the name of so-understood “spiritual liberation,” Pisarev, like Turgenev’s hero Yevgeny Bazarov, proposed abandoning art. He really believed that “a decent chemist is twenty times more useful than any poet,” and recognized art only to the extent that it participates in the propaganda of natural science and destroys the foundations of the existing system.

In the article “Bazarov” he glorified the triumphant nihilist, and in the article “Motives of Russian Drama” he “crushed” the heroine of A. N. Ostrovsky’s drama “The Thunderstorm”, erected on a pedestal by Dobrolyubov. Destroying the idols of the “old” society, Pisarev published the infamous anti-Pushkin articles and the work “Destruction of Aesthetics.” The fundamental differences that emerged during the polemics between Sovremennik and Russian Word weakened the revolutionary camp and were a symptom of the decline of the social movement.

The social upsurge of the 70s.

By the beginning of the 70s, the first signs of a new social upsurge associated with the activities of the revolutionary populists were visible in Russia. The second generation of democratic revolutionaries, who made a heroic attempt to rouse the peasants to (*14) revolution by “going to the people,” had their own ideologists who, in new historical conditions, developed the ideas of Herzen, Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov. “Faith in a special way of life, in the communal system of Russian life; hence faith in the possibility of a peasant socialist revolution - this is what animated them, raised tens and hundreds of people to heroic struggle against the government,” V. I. Lenin wrote about the populists of the seventies . This faith, to one degree or another, permeated all the works of the leaders and mentors of the new movement - P. L. Lavrov, N. K. Mikhailovsky, M. A. Bakunin, P. N. Tkachev.

The mass “going to the people” ended in 1874 with the arrest of several thousand people and the subsequent trials of 193 and 50. In 1879, at a congress in Voronezh, the populist organization "Land and Freedom" split: "politicians" who shared Tkachev's ideas organized their own party "People's Will", proclaiming the main goal of the movement to be a political coup and terrorist forms of struggle against the government. In the summer of 1880, Narodnaya Volya organized an explosion in the Winter Palace, and Alexander II miraculously escaped death. This event causes shock and confusion in the government: it decides to make concessions by appointing the liberal Loris-Melikov as plenipotentiary ruler and appealing to the liberal public of the country for support. In response, the sovereign receives notes from Russian liberals, which propose to immediately convene an independent assembly of representatives of zemstvos to participate in governing the country “with the aim of developing guarantees and individual rights, freedom of thought and speech.” It seemed that Russia was on the verge of adopting a parliamentary form of government. But on March 1, 1881, an irreparable mistake was made. After multiple assassination attempts, the Narodnaya Volya members kill Alexander II, and after this, a government reaction occurs in the country.

Conservative ideology of the 80s.

These years in the history of the Russian public are characterized by the flourishing of conservative ideology. It was defended, in particular, by Konstantin Nikolaevich Leontiev in the books “East, Russia and the Slavs” and “Our “New Christians” F. M. Dostoevsky and Count Leo Tolstoy.” Leontiev believes that the culture of each civilization goes through three stages of development: 1) primary simplicity, 2) blossoming complexity, 3) secondary mixed simplification. Leontyev considers the main sign of decline and entry into the third stage to be the spread of liberal and socialist ideas with their cult (*15) of equality and general prosperity. Leontyev contrasted liberalism and socialism with “Byzantism” - strong monarchical power and strict ecclesiasticalism.

Leontyev strongly criticized the religious and ethical views of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. He argued that both writers were influenced by the ideas of socialism, that they turned Christianity into a spiritual phenomenon, derived from earthly human feelings of brotherhood and love. Genuine Christianity, according to Leontyev, is mystical, tragic and terrible for a person, for it stands on the other side of earthly life and evaluates it as a life full of suffering and torment.

Leontyev is a consistent and principled opponent of the very idea of progress, which, according to his teachings, brings one or another people closer to mixed simplification and death. To stop, delay progress and freeze Russia - this idea of Leontyev suited the conservative policy of Alexander III.

Russian liberal populism of the 80-90s.

In the era of the 80s, revolutionary populism was experiencing a deep crisis. The revolutionary idea is being replaced by the “theory of small affairs,” which in the 90s will take shape in the program of “state socialism.” The government's transition to the side of peasant interests can peacefully lead the people to socialism. The peasant community and artel, handicrafts with the patronage of zemstvos, active cultural assistance from the intelligentsia and the government can withstand the onslaught of capitalism. At the dawn of the 20th century, the “theory of small affairs” quite successfully developed into a powerful cooperative movement.

Religious and philosophical thought of the 80-90s. The time of deep disappointment in political and revolutionary forms of struggle against social evil made Tolstoy’s preaching of moral self-improvement extremely relevant. It was during this period that the religious and ethical program for the renewal of life in the work of the great writer finally took shape and Tolstoyism became one of the popular social movements.

In the 80-90s, the teachings of the religious thinker Nikolai Fedorovich Fedorov began to gain fame. At the heart of his “Philosophy of the Common Cause” is the idea, grandiose in its audacity, of the great calling of man to completely master the secrets of life, defeat death and achieve god-like power and control over the blind forces of nature. Humanity, according to Fedorov, through its own (*16) efforts can transform the entire bodily composition of a person, making him immortal, resurrect all the dead and at the same time achieve control of “solar and other stellar systems.” “Born from the tiny earth, the viewer of immeasurable space, the viewer of the worlds of this space must become their inhabitant and ruler.”

In the 80s, along with the democratic ideology of the “common cause”, along with “Readings on God-Humanity” and “The Justification of Good” by V. S. Solovyov, the first shoots of the philosophy and aesthetics of the future Russian decadence appeared. N.M. Minsky’s book “In the Light of Conscience” is published, in which the author preaches extreme individualism. The influence of Nietzschean ideas is increasing, Max Stirner is being pulled out of oblivion and becoming almost an idol with his book “The One and His Property,” in which outright egoism was proclaimed the alpha and omega of modernity...

Questions and assignments: What explains the diversity of trends in Russian criticism of the second half of the 19th century? What are the features of Russian criticism and how are they related to the specifics of our literature? What did Westerners and Slavophiles see as the weaknesses and advantages of Russian historical development? What, in your opinion, are the strengths and weaknesses of the social programs of Westerners and Slavophiles? How does the program of the Pochvenniks differ from the Westernizing and Slavophile ones? How did the soil scientists determine the significance of Pushkin in the history of new Russian literature? Describe the principles of “real criticism” of Dobrolyubov. What is unique about the social and literary-critical views of D. I. Pisarev? Give a description of the social and intellectual movement in Russia in the 80s - 90s.

References

Slavophiles in their literary tastes and structures were conservative romantics and staunch opponents of critical realism. The new opponents of realism had been trained in German philosophy, and it was not easy to argue with them. They fought, one might say, with the same weapons as the adherents of realism.
Among the Slavophiles, two generations should be distinguished. The eldest, who founded the teaching itself, include I.V. Kireevsky, his brother P.V. Kireevsky, A.S. Khomyakov. TO to the younger generation, who did not take the doctrine intact - K. S. Aksakov, Yu. F. Samarin. I. S. Aksakov, who spoke later, was not, in fact, a literary critic.
Initially, Slavophiles collaborated in the journal of Pogodin and Shevyrev “Moskvityanin” (1841-1845). In 1845, they independently published the first three issues of this magazine under the editorship of I. Kireevsky, and then limited themselves only to the role of employees. This circumstance prevented readers from identifying in their minds a special Slavophile criticism: it merged into a kind of single “Muscovite criticism.” In 1846 and 1847, in order to isolate themselves, the Slavophiles published their two “Moscow Literary and Scientific Collections,” which, however, did not live up to their hopes for success. In 1852, a similar collection was banned by censors due to a sympathetic article about Gogol; censorship persecution of Slavophiles began. In the pre-reform era, the Slavophiles managed to achieve some freedoms for themselves: from 1856 to 1860, with long interruptions, they published, under the editorship of A. I. Koshelev, the magazine “Russian Conversation” - their main organ. But the “Russian Conversation” was not successful either; its direction was at odds with the social upsurge that had begun. Sovremennik waged a decisive struggle against Russian Conversation. From 1861 to 1865, I. Aksakov published the newspaper Den, which attacked nihilists and materialists, preaching anti-Polish, pan-Slavist ideas that merged with the chauvinism of Katkov’s Russky Vestnik and Moskovskiye Vedomosti.
The ideas of the Slavophiles could not create artistically valuable literature. Only individual poems Khomyakova, K. Aksakova, I. Aksakova. A trump card in competition with progressive realistic literature they had S. T. Aksakov (father of Konstantin and Ivan Aksakov). But S. T. Aksakov was not actually a Slavophile, and as a realist writer he even opposed them. He was a friend of Gogol, valued him as the author of “The Inspector General” and “ Dead souls" and condemned "Selected passages from correspondence with friends." Slavophiles clearly speculated on Gogol's name, using his friendly relations with the Aksakov house. Later, Slavophiles tried with little success to attract Ostrovsky as a writer of everyday life in Moscow antiquity. They tried to adapt Pisemsky’s “black earth truth” to themselves, especially since the writer himself shied away from advanced ideas and seemed to go towards such desires. They tried to interpret Turgenev’s “Notes of a Hunter” in their “folk” spirit. But all these writers did not go along with the Slavophiles.
Feeding not so much on their own positive literary experience, but rather on the fear of realistic revelations of Russian reality that would contribute to revolutions, the Slavophiles developed a special system of historical and aesthetic views, which from the methodological point of view can be qualified as conservative romanticism. The essence of the Slavophil doctrine was the idea of national unity of all Russian people in the bosom christian church without distinction of estates and classes, in preaching humility and submission to authorities. All this had a reactionary-romantic, utopian character. The preaching of the idea of a “Russian God-bearing people,” called upon to save the world from destruction and unite all the Slavs around themselves, coincided with the official pan-Slavist doctrine of Moscow as the “third Rome.”
But the Slavophiles also had feelings of dissatisfaction with the existing order. The tsarist government, in turn, could not tolerate attacks on its foundations even in the vague reasoning of the Slavophiles about the need for deliberative Zemsky Sobors, especially in statements about the need for personal liberation of peasants, in denunciations of an unfair trial, abuses of officials, alien to truly Christian morality. The Slavophiles were representatives of the liberal nobility, who far-sightedly began to look for a way out of the impasse in order to avoid revolutionary explosions in Russia on the Western model.
The opposition of the Slavophiles was limited. Realist writers and true democrats, who bore the brunt of the struggle against the autocracy, criticized them for false nationalism, a refined defense of the foundations of the existing system.
The Slavophiles tried to increase their prestige due to the fact that after 1848, Westerners, having experienced disappointment in bourgeois utopian socialism, began to develop the ideas of “Russian communal socialism.” An eloquent example for them was the emigrant Herzen. Slavophiles have long insisted that the spirit of genuine nationality and unity of class interests has been preserved in the peasant community. At a superficial glance, it turned out that the Westerners came to bow to the Slavophiles. It is known that later there were theorists who classified Chernyshevsky and the populists, who developed the ideas of the same peasant “communal socialism,” as Slavophiles. But the similarity is only apparent.
For Slavophiles, the community is a means of preserving patriarchy, a bulwark against revolutionary ferment, a means of keeping the peasant masses in obedience to the landowners, and instilling humility in them. And for revolutionary democrats and populists, the community is a form of transition to socialism, a prototype of the future of socialist labor and community life. Even if this doctrine was utopian, yet the essence of the community and its purpose were interpreted by the revolutionary democrats in the exact opposite sense compared to the Slavophiles.
Slavophiles loved to present themselves as genuine representatives of Russian identity and nationality. They collected folklore as an echo of the past they idealized in the life of the people. They claimed to create a special non-class Russian art to replace the Russian realism that already existed. All these were reactionary utopian-romantic abstractions. Slavophiles rejoiced at any manifestations of contradictions in the life of the West and tried to pass off Russia as a stronghold of moral principles, supposedly having a completely different history, not fraught with revolutionary upheavals.
Kireyevsky is one of the founders of Ivan Vasilyevich Slavophilism. From 1828 to 1834 he acted as a progressive thinker who was looking for a broad philosophical basis for Russian criticism. He published the magazine “European” (1832), which was closed by the government in its second issue due to the articles of the publisher himself “The Nineteenth Century” and “Woe from Wit” on the Moscow Stage.” In the first article, Kireyevsky argued that Western Europe had already exhausted the old forms of philosophy, civic consciousness, and social structure, while Russia had to develop its own new forms, using the experience of the West. At the end of the article, Kireevsky rhetorically invited the readers themselves to “draw conclusions” regarding the nature of education in Russia. This was enough for the tsar to suspect Kireyevsky of preaching the need for a constitution. The “European” was banned, and Kireyevsky was placed under surveillance.
Kireevsky in his youth wrote several remarkable critical articles: “Something about the character of Pushkin’s poetry” (“Moskovsky Vestnik”, 1828), “Review of Russian literature for 1829” (“Dennitsa”, 1830), the already mentioned “Woe from Wit” on Moskovskaya stage" and "The Nineteenth Century", as well as "S%o~z"ryoni? of Russian literature for 1831" ("European", 1832), "On Yazykov's poems" ("Telescope", 1834).
The articles revealed Kireyevsky's extraordinary critical talent. Pushkin was pleased with his substantive judgments. Belinsky borrowed several important formulations from him: about romanticism, about Pushkin as a “poet of reality.”
The thoughtful, calm tone of his articles was highly appreciated by Chernyshevsky. True to his principle, Kireyevsky taught Russian criticism to look for “a common color, one mark” in the work of the poet under analysis. And he himself masterfully found it in Pushkin, Venevitinov, Baratynsky, Delvig, Podolinsky, Yazykov.
Kireevsky established the periodization of the development of Pushkin’s creativity. The first period is characterized by the influence of the “Italian-French school” and Byron. Then came the “Byronic” period. Everyday scenes in Onegin, the images of Tatiana, Olga, the description of St. Petersburg, the village, the seasons, combined with the then published scene in the Miracle Monastery from Boris Godunov, according to Kireevsky, constitute the third, special, Russian-Pushkin period of poetry. Pushkin appeared before readers as a “great” phenomenon, the main quality of which is relevance to the times,” a living sense of modernity. Kireevsky further deepened the justification for the merits of this most meaningful period in Pushkin’s work in the article “Review of Russian Literature for 1831.”
In his review of Russian literature for 1829, Kireevsky already outlined the main periods of Russian literature: Lomonosov, Karamzin, Pushkin. The Pushkin period is characterized by “respect for reality”, the desire to “translate poetry into reality.”
This concept, permeated with the recognition of the growing elements of artistic truthfulness, was included in Kireevsky’s capacious concept of the “nineteenth century,” to the characteristics of which he devoted a special article.
But already in these articles, reasoning was mixed in, from which Kireyevsky’s Slavophil doctrine later grew. Here he began to think in an “absolute way”, alternatively, in mutually exclusive categories.
The foundations of Western civilization, Kireyevsky said, were determined by three conditions: Christianity, barbarian conquests and classical traditions. Russia received Christianity from the hands of Orthodox Byzantium, and not from the hands of depraved, heretical Rome; The Tatars did not destroy Russia and did not instill in it their morals, and the lack of classical traditions was filled by Peter I.
Kireevsky has so far spoken about the differences between Russian civilization and Western European civilization, but later he will consider them advantages. He already spoke here about the “Chinese wall” separating Russia and Western Europe, about the importance for us of “the concept that we have about the relationship of Russian enlightenment to the enlightenment of the rest of Europe.”
The Slavophil theory itself was born in the dispute between I. Kireevsky and Khomyakov in 1839. Khomyakov orally read in salons his article “On the Old and the New,” in which he posed the question bluntly: was there a former, pre-Petrine Rus'? better than Russia Europeanized? If it was, then we should return to its previous order. Kireevsky, in a special “Response to A.S. Khomyakov,” disputed the categorical nature of such a formulation of the question: “If the old was better than the present, it does not follow from this that it was better now.” Kireevsky has a more subtle formulation of the question. But still he was inclined to the old.
Articles “Response to A. S. Khomyakov”, “Review current state literature" ("Moskvityanin", 1845), " Public lectures prof. Shevyrev on the history of Russian literature" (ibid., 1846) form the Slavophile period of Kireyevsky’s activity. Here the features of his programmatic Slavophilism and more sharply his dislike for the realistic direction, the “natural school” and Belinsky became clearer. In theoretical and historical-literary terms, this period is lower than the previous one. Talk about philosophical criticism, about the unity and breadth of literary concepts almost lost their meaning in Kireevsky, because all these concepts now received a narrow, utilitarian, anti-realistic focus.
Kireyevsky declared in advance uninteresting, although historically inevitable, all that part of Russian literature that in one way or another was a “repetition” of Western European literature. It is important only for us, students, and not for the world social consciousness. Negative-rationalistic direction, i.e. critical realism, came to us from the West. It is much more important to understand the “positive” direction. Here Russia can really be original, not imitate anyone and show up at its full potential. All this was reminiscent of Shevyrev’s division of literature into “black” and “light”. Kireevsky's sympathies were completely determined in favor of his own, Russian. The West provides only formal development of the mind, and only in this sense can it be used in developing original content.
Kireyevsky imagined that he was fighting in Russia on two fronts. He does not accept Western rationalism, Otechestvennye zapiski, Belinsky’s criticism, the “natural school” and the “positive” official patriotism of the Mayak magazine. Against the background of such contrasts, the Slavophiles stood out favorably. If Mayak vulgarly praises everything, then Otechestvennye zapiski undeservedly “seeks to humiliate all our fame, trying to reduce the literary reputation of Derzhavin, Karamzin, Zhukovsky, Baratynsky, Yazykov, Khomyakov...”. Who did Belinsky put in their place? It turns out: I. Turgenev, A. Maykov and Lermontov. But Belinsky would not have made any mistake even if he had done so. And it was precisely at this time, in “Pushkin’s articles,” that he rated Derzhavin, Karamzin, and Zhukovsky highly and truly. Belinsky had previously criticized Yazykov and Khomyakov as militant heralds of Slavophilism. But that's a completely different question.
The last years of activity of Kireevsky the Slavophile include the articles: “On the nature of the enlightenment of Europe and its relationship to the enlightenment of Russia” (“Moscow literary and scientific collection for 1852”), “On the need and possibility of new beginnings for philosophy” (“Russian conversation” ", 1856). These articles continued to abstractly interpret the concepts of “enlightenment,” “Russian,” “French,” and “German.” The totality of Kireevsky’s categories, their “romanticism” makes itself felt at every step. Again he recalls the three elements of civilization: barbarism, Christianity and classical heritage, but somewhat varies his “triad”, what is now important to him is: the special form through which Christianity penetrated into Russia, the special form in which the ancient classical inheritance passed on to it, and, finally, the special forms of statehood. The last, clearly “loyal” element was not previously in the “triad”. The Russian land supposedly did not know conquerors and conquered, the violence of power, all classes of the population were imbued with the same spirit, there were no embarrassing advantages and “dreamy equality” (about which socialists are busy. - V.K.). Only in the West has a class and hierarchical pyramid developed, but in Russia everything is based on community spirit, beliefs and opinions, and not on law and laws. But the idyll painted by Kireyevsky only confirmed the generally accepted opinion about dominance in Tsarist Russia lawlessness, the absence of any guarantees for the individual, complete arbitrariness of power. Belinsky wrote about this in his famous letter to Gogol.
In his last article - “On the New Beginnings of Philosophy” - Kireevsky openly signed his commitment to the teachings of the church fathers, no longer believing in any of them. philosophical systems. “It’s a miserable job to compose a faith for yourself,” said Kireyevsky, but he still composed it. Slavophiles voluntarily joined the church, resigned themselves to power, having lost all battles with their opponents.
Alexey Stepanovich Khomyakov (1804-1860). Khomyakov stood further from literary criticism than I. Kireevsky. Khomyakov wrote poems, plays, and occasionally critical reviews, but his main works concerned philosophical issues, land relations in Russia, problems of reform, inter-Slavic solidarity, and Slavophil teaching about the original ways of Russia.
In the article “On the Old and the New” (1839), Khomyakov expressed the foundations of his teaching in the most dramatic form. Without at all hiding the backwardness of Russia, the author believed that the reason for this was Peter’s reforms, which tore Russia away from its past and changed its original path of development. Now is the time to remember this, because western paths Khomyakov considers it passed: the West is on the eve of a catastrophe.
Two articles by Khomyakov are permeated with resentment towards Russian self-deprecation and Western arrogance: “The Opinion of Foreigners about Russia” (“Moskvityanin”, 1845) and “The Opinion of Russians about Foreigners” (“Moscow Collection for 1846”). For him, England was an exemplary country that knew how to preserve patriarchy (“Letter about England”, 1848). Khomyakov visited England in 1847, and he fell in love with it for its “Tory” spirit: “here are the peaks, but here are the roots.” Khomyakov even finds similarities between Moscow and London: “in both, historical life is still ahead.” However, Khomyakov went too far: he believed that the very word “English” comes from the Slavic “Uglichane”.
In the programmatic preface to the first issue of Russian Conversation in 1856, having learned nothing from the experience of defeat in the Crimean War, Khomyakov again and again called for “reconsidering all those provisions, all those conclusions made by Western science, which we believed so unconditionally.”
Many times, on various occasions, Khomyakov returned to the assessment of German philosophy from Kant to Feuerbach and came to the same conclusions as I. Kireevsky: this is an extreme expression of Western “rationalism” and “analysis”, a “rational” school that has reached a dead end. One of the crimes was that Hegel himself prepared the transition to philosophical materialism, i.e., according to Khomyakov, the elimination of philosophy altogether. Khomyakov manages to note several real stretches in Hegel: his “unlimited arbitrariness of a scientific taxonomist,” when “the formula of a fact is recognized as its cause.” But the whole point is that Khomyakov does not accept Hegel’s teachings about causality and necessity. Schelling himself, for whom he clearly had sympathy as the “recreator of the integral spirit” who came to the “philosophy of faith,” is reproached that he, Schelling, is too rational a philosopher. The Slavophiles reproached Hegel and the materialists, in particular Feuerbach, for the liquidation of philosophy, but they themselves actually liquidated it, for where faith begins, there ends all trust in to the human mind, to philosophy. Philosophy becomes the handmaiden of theology. Khomyakov said so: “...there is the possibility of a more complete and deep philosophy, the roots of which lie in the knowledge of the faith of Orthodoxy.”
As a literary critic, Khomyakov always spoke with one “eternal” topic: is a Russian art school possible? The question itself arose as if in the heat of polemics with the “natural school.” One school wanted to oppose another school. But where could you find “your” school? Khomyakov denied the “natural school” as a result of Western influence.
In a special article “On the possibility of Russian art school"("Moscow collection for 1847") Khomyakov stated that there can be no Russian school while "the vital principle has been lost by us" due to "instilled false half-knowledge." Khomyakov spoke about the “Russian school” in general, about “reason” in general, about the “life principle” in general, about “nationality” in general in this article.
But he sought, following Shevyrev, at least in pieces, at the cost of exaggeration, to assemble some semblance of the emerging Russian school in art. This is evident from his tendentious and only sometimes fair analyzes of works different types arts: Glinka’s opera “A Life for the Tsar” (“Ivan Susanin”), A. Ivanov’s painting “The Appearance of Christ to the People,” reviews of Gogol, Venevitinov, S. Aksakov, L. Tolstoy. With pathos, Khomyakov argued that for truly Russian artists it is necessary to be “completely Russian” and “live a completely Russian life.” Khomyakov is seduced by the pathetic finale of Glinka’s opera, “with the brass of bells from forty forty” glorifying the unity of the Russian land, as the good news of the future all-human brotherhood. The distant plan on which Ivanov placed the figure of Christ is a manifestation of purely Byzantine-Russian flat iconography, which avoided the volumetric sensuality of Catholic art. “Never has a material image,” says Khomyakov about Ivanov’s painting, “encapsulated so transparently the mystery of Christian thought...” Contemplating Ivanov’s painting is not only a pleasure, “it is an incident in life.”
Naturally, Khomyakov did not agree with the theory of “pure art”; he stood for tendentious art in the spirit of the Slavophiles and therefore executed Pisemsky’s one-sided drama “Bitter Fate”, which was one-sidedly negative in spirit, rejected the traditional praise of critics to S. T. Aksakov for “objectivity” "of his creativity. The essence of this writer, Khomyakov explained, is not at all in objectivity, which is generally “inaccessible to man.” The essence of Aksakov’s work is that “he was the first of our writers to look at our life from a positive rather than a negative point of view.” Positivity, according to Khomyakov, is characterized by the absence of satire. This is the essence of the “Russian” school in art. Khomyakov recognized the right of art to social exposure, but limited it only to satire on “types of vices” and not on “private individuals.” In this sense, he praised the accusatory spirit of L. Tolstoy’s story “Three Deaths.”
The sound idea of the “Russian school” in art was distorted by Khomyakov to the point of absurdity and died without finding its progressive justification. But in reality there was a school - a school of realism, but it aroused hostility in Khomyakov.
Konstantin Aksakov was rightly considered “the foremost fighter of Slavophilism” (S. A. Vengerov). Contemporaries remembered his youthful friendship with Belinsky in Stankevich’s circle and then his sharp break with him. A particularly violent clash between them occurred in 1842 over “Dead Souls.”
K. Aksakov wrote a brochure for the release of “Dead Souls” “A few words about Gogol’s poem “The Adventures of Chichikov, or Dead Souls- (1842). Belinsky, who also responded (in Otechestvennye zapiski) to Gogol’s work, then wrote a review of Aksakov’s pamphlet full of bewilderment. Aksakov responded to Belinsky in the article. “Explanation about Gogol’s poem “The Adventures of Chichikov, or Dead Souls” (“Moskvityanin”). Belinsky, in turn, wrote a merciless analysis of Aksakov’s answer in an article entitled “An explanation for an explanation regarding Gogol’s poem “The Adventures of Chichikov, or Dead Souls.” Obfuscating the significance of realism and satire in Gogol’s work, Aksakov focused on the subtext of the work, its genre designation as a “poem,” and the writer’s prophetic promises to depict joyful pictures of Russian life. Aksakov built an entire concept in which, in essence, Gogol was declared the Homer of Russian society, and the pathos of his work was seen not in the denial of existing reality, but in its affirmation. Aksakov clearly wanted to adapt Gogol to the Slavophil doctrine, that is, to turn him into a singer of the “positive principles”, the “bright side” of reality.
In the subsequent history of European literature, the Homeric epic lost its important features and became shallow, “descending to novels and, finally, to the extreme degree of its humiliation, to the French story.” And suddenly, Aksakov continues, an epic appears with all the depth and simple grandeur, like that of the ancients - Gogol’s “poem” appears. The same deeply penetrating and all-seeing epic gaze, the same all-encompassing epic contemplation. In vain then, in polemics, Aksakov argued that he did not have a direct likening of Gogol to Homer. It exists, and it is very natural for Slavophiles. It was not for nothing that in the 40s they advertised Zhukovsky’s translation of Homer’s “Odyssey,” supposedly as a healthy counterbalance to the modern “natural school,” mired in criticism.
Aksakov pointed to the internal quality of Gogol’s own talent, which strives to connect all the impressions of Russian life into harmonious, harmonious pictures. We know that Gogol had such a subjective desire and, abstractly speaking, Slavophil criticism correctly pointed to it. But this observation was immediately devalued by them completely, since such “unity” or such “epic harmony” of Gogol’s talent was intended in their eyes to destroy Gogol the realist. Epicness killed the satirist in Gogol - the exposer of life. Aksakov is ready to look for “human movements” in Korobochka, Manilov, Sobakevich and thereby ennoble them as temporarily lost people. The carriers of the Russian substance turned out to be primitive serfs, Selifan and Petrushka.
Belinsky ridiculed all these stretches and desires to liken the heroes of “Dead Souls” to the heroes of Homer. According to the logic set by Aksakov himself, Belinsky sarcastically drew obvious parallels between the characters: “If so, then, of course, why shouldn’t Chichikov be the Achilles of the Russian “Iliad”, Sobakevich - the frantic Ajax (especially during dinner), Manilov - Alexander Paris, To Plyushkin - Nestor, to Selifan - Automedon, to the police chief, father and benefactor of the city - Agamemnon, and to the policeman with a pleasant blush and in patent leather boots - Hermes?..”
Slavophiles have always claimed a special, as it seemed to them, the most profound understanding of Gogol. They emphasized that they knew Gogol “from the inside”, they saw behind the mask of a humorist and satirist that “second” Gogol, who eludes the gaze of the uninitiated and is true. Belinsky, who saw the main thing in Gogol, that is, a realist, indeed, before the release of “Dead Souls” and even, more precisely, before the controversy with K. Aksakov, did not ask the question of Gogol’s “duality” and left the preaching “manners” of the writer in the shadows. True, “Rome,” as his letter to Gogol dated April 20, 1842 shows, i.e. a month before the publication of “Dead Souls,” alerted Belinsky - he wished the writer “spiritual clarity.” Let us also add that only Chernyshevsky later, relying on published letters and the second volume of Dead Souls, deeply understood Gogol’s contradictions. But the Slavophiles have nothing to do with it, they missed the main thing from the very beginning - they denied social significance and the realism of Gogol's work. They attached decisive importance to the inner desire to glorify the “countless riches” of the Russian spirit that Gogol had.
To make the comparison between Gogol and Homer not look too odious, Aksakov invented similarities between them “by the act of creation.” At the same time, he put Shakespeare on an equal footing with them. But what is the “act of creation”, “the act of creativity”? This is a far-fetched, purely a priori category, the purpose of which is to confuse the issue. Who will measure this act and how? Belinsky proposed returning to the category of content: it is this, content, that should be the source material when comparing one poet with another. But it has already been proven that Gogol has nothing in common with Homer in the area of content.
At the height of a new round of polemics between the Slavophiles and the “natural school” in 1847, Aksakov spoke with “Three critical articles"in the "Moscow Literary and Scientific Collection" under the pseudonym "Imrek".
Aksakov critically analyzed the “Petersburg Collection” published by Nekrasov. Aksakov’s biased opinions shine through in every paragraph. Dostoevsky’s novel “Poor People” is called a work imitative of Gogol, “not artistic,” “devoid of sincerity,” and spoiled by a philanthropic tendency. The impression from the novel “Poor People,” says Aksakov, is “difficult,” Dostoevsky “is not an artist and will not be one.”
Aksakov began to look for cracks in “ natural school" Perhaps, due to personal Moscow salon sympathies, not yet understanding the true spirit of his thoughts, Aksakov spoke very favorably of Iskander (Herzen), the author of “Whims and Reflections.” And this thing itself did not yet completely betray Herzen’s anti-Slavophilism. Scolded for “The Landowner,” Turgenev was also treated kindly by Aksakov in a special note in which he responded to the appearance of the story “Khor and Kalinich” in Sovremennik. “This is what it means to touch the land and the people! - Aksakov exclaimed, in his own way pleased with this story, “strength is given in an instant!.. May God grant Turgenev to continue along this road.” Aksakov tried in vain to bring him closer folk stories Turgenev to Slavophilism.
Aksakov responded with hostility to Belinsky’s article “Thoughts and Notes on Russian Literature,” published in the Petersburg Collection, but was afraid to enter into a full-blown polemic. He only noted a contradiction in Belinsky: previously the critic had spoken about the untranslatability of Gogol’s extremely original style into foreign languages, but now he was glad that Gogol was translated in France. Aksakov was pleased by another statement by Belinsky - that in the future Russia, in addition to the “victorious sword,” will also put “Russian thought” on the scales of European life. But this statement by Belinsky had a completely different meaning than the Slavophil hopes for a special mission of Russia, their talk about “Russian thought”, “Russian science”, isolated from the whole world. Belinsky spoke about something else: about Russia's ability to contribute to the spiritual treasury of humanity. In Aksakov's critical method traces of the study of dialectics were felt; he, like the early Belinsky, first deduced the phenomenon “abstractly”, and then “applied” the theory to the facts. Unlike I. Kireevsky, who loved the moment of rest in dialectics, Aksakov loved the moment of movement, he believed that “one-sidedness is the lever of history,” that is, as Belinsky would say, “the idea of negation,” “the struggle of opposites” is the lever history. Aksakov applied this method in his monograph “M. V. Lomonosov in the history of Russian literature and the Russian language,” defended in 1847 as a master’s thesis. Here the method came into further conflict with the doctrine. After all, according to the Slavophiles, the reforms of Peter I distorted the Russian people. Consequently, Lomonosov, who introduced a new versification in Russia according to the German model, and began writing court odes, directed Russian literature along the wrong path. But Aksakov is first trying to build a dialectical “triad” and, in its light, evaluate the role of Lomonosov. According to this triad, the reforms of Peter I, for all their one-sidedness, were historically a “necessary moment” in the development of Russia. And “the appearance of Lomonosov in our literature is also a necessary moment.”
Subsequent critical speeches by K. Aksakov - “The Experience of Synonyms. The public is the people” (“Rumor”, 1851) and others were of little originality. In the “Review of Modern Literature” (“Russian Conversation”, 1857), “Review of Modern Journals” (“Molva”, 1857), and the article “Our Literature” (“Day”, 1861), he alternately praised Shchedrin’s “Provincial Sketches”, feeling there was some kind of “Russian spirit” in them, then he cursed them when he saw that Shchedrin was not at all the writer for whom he took him. IN recent years K. Aksakov promoted the “positive” direction of creativity of the less talented writer N. S. Kokhanovskaya (Sokhanovskaya). All this was done out of a desire to support the authority of Slavophilism at any cost.
The political meaning of the positions of Slavophilism was fully revealed in the “Note on the internal state of Russia”, presented by K. Aksakov to Emperor Alexander II in 1855 and published only in 1881 (in the newspaper “Rus”). K. Aksakov drew the attention of the new tsar to the “oppressive system” in Russia, bribery, and arbitrariness. Internal discord, covered up by the “shameless lies” of the government and the “higher-ups,” has separated them from the “people,” as a result of which the people have no “trust” in the government. We must “understand Russia,” Aksakov urged the young tsar, “and return to Russian foundations.” Russia has only one danger - “if it ceases to be Russia.”
Samarin was younger than the founders of Slavophilism and gave the impression of a man free in handling their doctrines. Of his numerous works, only two articles relate to the history of criticism: a review of V. A. Sollogub’s story “Tarantas” (“Moscow collection for 1846”) and “On the opinions of Sovremennik, historical and literary” (“Moscowite” ", 1847, No. 2). Both are signed with the letters “M.” Z.K.”
Samarin tried to assure that the Slavophiles do not at all demand a return to pre-Petrine Rus'; they do not at all deny the development of the principle of personality in Rus'. And under Alexei Mikhailovich there were already Western influences, and Ilya Muromets, and Churila Plenkovich - what are they not daredevils and not “personalities”. But Samarin’s pretense couldn’t convince anyone.
In his review of Sollogub’s “Tarantas,” he showed a sophistication of judgment, which forced Belinsky, who had previously also written about “Tarantas,” to call his article “intelligent in content and masterful presentation” (“A Look at Russian Literature of 1846”). In Samarin’s article, Belinsky might have liked the fact that the author did not try to exalt the Slavophile virtues of either of the heroes of Tarantas. And the steppe landowner Vasily Ivanovich is a too simplified example of the original Russian principles, and the Slavophile Ivan Vasilyevich, who had seen enough of Europe during his travels, turned out to be too unreliable, almost a parody of the propagandist of the Slavophile teaching. All this could seem to Belinsky like a cartoon, close to his own interpretation of Sollogubov’s “Tarantas”; after all, Belinsky transparently hinted that the hero Ivan Vasilyevich is Ivan Vasilyevich Kireevsky... But Samarin did not even think of looking for a parody in Tarantas, he simply seriously reproached the heroes of the story for worthlessness, and the author for a superficial attitude towards serious issues.
Belinsky no longer had any illusions regarding Samarin’s positions in the article “On the opinions of Sovremennik, historical and literary.” Samarin was an open opponent of the “natural school” and tried, unlike Khomyakov, to talk not about its impossibility, but about the internal contradictions between its “prophets”, about the contradictions between Gogol and his students. Samarin’s attack was all the more insidious because it seemed to be based on facts and was aimed at rehabilitating Gogol after the publication of the book “Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends.” Belinsky parried Samarin’s attack in the article “Response to the Moskvitian.” In a letter to K.D. Kavelin on November 22, 1847, Belinsky explained the harsh tone of his “Response to the Moskvitian”: “Believe me, in my eyes, Mr. Samarin is no better than Mr. Bulgarin, in his attitude to the natural school...”
What is the essence of Samarin’s attack? In the updated Sovremennik, which from January 1847 began to be published under the secret editorship of N. A. Nekrasov and I. I. Panaev, the main forces of the “natural school” were now concentrated, and Belinsky also collaborated here. But censorship did not allow Nekrasov and Panaev to publish Sovremennik under their own names. Then the editors had to compromise: they invited St. Petersburg University professor A.V. Nikitenko, who was not alien to literary interests and at the same time served on the censorship committee, as the executive editor. Nikitenko was known for his liberalism: it was he who allowed the publication of Gogol’s “Dead Souls” with some alterations. Nekrasov and Panaev intended to use Nikitenko as a screen.
In the first issue of Sovremennik for 1847, two programmatic articles were published: Belinsky’s article “A Look at Russian Literature of 1846” and Nikitenko’s article “On modern direction Russian literature". The articles contradicted each other not only in quality, but also in some attitudes. Samarin immediately noticed this and tried to use it in the fight against the “natural school”. By the way, Belinsky, only for tactical purposes in “Response to the Moskvityanin”, tried to gloss over his differences with Nikitenko, to take the responsible editor of Sovremennik under his protection. But contradictions were already brewing within the editorial office, and Nikitenko was soon forced to leave Sovremennik.
Samarin noted, not without satisfaction, that Nikitenko is a very ambiguous supporter of the “natural school,” although he nominally heads Sovremennik. Indeed, Nikitenko only repeated after Belinsky that literature must have a certain direction and that in modern Russian literature, although there are no talents equal to Gogol, nevertheless, “the vital principles of further development and activity have settled and settled down.” But Nikitenko expressed dissatisfaction with the fact that the “natural school” one-sidedly depicts Russian reality and violates the “eternal laws of art.” Completely in the spirit of the writings of the Slavophiles themselves, Nikitenko asserted: “If we have Nozdryovs, Sobakeviches, and Chichikovs, then next to them there are landowners, officials, expressing in their morals the wonderful hereditary qualities of their people with the concepts of the educated world accepted and assimilated by them... ."
Using reproaches to the “natural school” for being one-sided, Samarin sharpened some of Nikitenko’s thoughts on his own, selecting from his article many hidden and obvious attacks against the “natural school.”
Let us note in passing that it was Samarin who turned the designation of the “natural school” method into the term “naturalism,” while Belinsky had not yet used this term in such a wording, although he did not see in it a malicious distortion of the very concept of “natural image of life.” However, the term “naturalism” did not survive in the criticism of that time and arose later, in a completely different connection.
Samarin saw the main sin of the “natural school” in the fact that it adopted from Gogol only his one-sidedness, one content. It is based on “double imitation”: it takes its content not from life, but from Gogol, and even then not completely.
Since Slavophiles have already clashed with Belinsky more than once on the basis of the formula he expressed: “... we must reject everything national that does not contain humanity,” Samarin decided to fight here too. He asked: who will explain to us what this human thing actually consists of? For one it is in one thing, for another it is in another. “The debate has just begun with the question: what is universal and how to distinguish it from the national.” But Samarin did not answer the question posed, he only frightened him with the difficulties of solving it, but in fact he signed his sympathies for old Rus', which was no longer new. The essence of the long-begun struggle of the camps around this question was that they gave different answers to it. History has shown who was right. By humanity and the truth of relationships, the Slavophiles meant patriarchy, backward social forms, humility of the people and submission to prejudices, idealization of the church and government. This was their reactionary nature.
By humanity, Belinsky meant fundamental social changes in Russia, the essence of which he speaks about in all his articles and in “Letter to N.V. Gogol.” In speeches against the realistic trend, the conservatism of Slavophilism was fully revealed.