The Problem of "Untimely Thoughts"

Gorky puts forward a number of problems that he is trying to comprehend and solve. One of the most significant among them is the historical fate of the Russian people.

Relying on all his previous experience and on his many deeds, a confirmed reputation as a defender of the enslaved and humiliated, Gorky declares: “I have the right to speak an insulting and bitter truth about the people, and I am convinced that it will be better for the people if I tell this truth about them. first, and not those enemies of the people who are now silent and accumulate revenge and anger in order ... to spit anger in the face of the people ... "

The difference in views on the people between Gorky and the Bolsheviks is fundamental. Gorky refuses to "half-adore the people", he argues with those who, out of the best, democratic motives, earnestly believed "in the exceptional qualities of our Karataevs."

Beginning his book with the message that the revolution gave freedom of speech, Gorky announces to his people “ pure truth", I.e. one that is above personal and group preferences. He believes that he illuminates the horrors and absurdities of the time so that the people see themselves from the outside and try to change in better side... In his opinion, the people themselves are to blame for their plight.

Gorky accuses the people of being passively involved in the state development of the country. Everyone is to blame: in war, people kill each other; fighting, they destroy what is built; in battles, people become bitter, go berserk, lowering the level of culture: theft, lynching, and debauchery are becoming more frequent. According to the writer, Russia is not threatened by class danger, but by the possibility of savagery, lack of culture. Everyone blames each other, Gorky notes with bitterness, instead of "resisting the storm of emotions with the power of reason." Peering into his people, Gorky notes that "he is passive, but cruel when power falls into his hands, that the glorified kindness of his soul is Karamaz sentimentalism, that he is terribly immune to the suggestions of humanism and culture."

Let us analyze the article devoted to the "drama of July 4" - the dispersal of the demonstration in Petrograd. In the center of the article, a picture of the demonstration itself and its dispersal is reproduced (exactly reproduced, not retold). And then the author's reflection on what he saw with his own eyes follows, ending with a final generalization. The credibility of the reportage and the immediacy of the author's impressions serve as the basis for the emotional impact on the reader. And what happened, and reflections - everything happens as if in front of the reader's eyes, therefore, obviously, the conclusions sound so convincing, as if they were born not only in the author's brain, but also in our consciousness. We see the participants in the July demonstration: armed and unarmed people, a "truck-car" closely packed with motley representatives of the "revolutionary army" that rushes "like a mad pig." (Further, the image of a truck evokes no less expressive associations: "a thundering monster," "an absurd cart." she shook his ashes from her feet. " Before the eyes of the observer, a "disgusting picture of madness" appears: the crowd, at the sound of chaotic shots, behaved like a "herd of sheep", turned into "heaps of meat, mad with fear."

Gorky is looking for the cause of what happened. Unlike the absolute majority, who blamed everything on the "Leninists", Germans or outright counter-revolutionaries, he calls the main reason the misfortune that happened "grievous Russian stupidity", "lack of culture, lack of historical flair."

A.M. Gorky writes: “While blaming our people for their tendency towards anarchism, their dislike for work, for all their savagery and ignorance, I remember: it could not have been otherwise. The conditions among which he lived could not instill in him either respect for the individual, or consciousness of the rights of a citizen, or a sense of justice — these were conditions of complete lawlessness, oppression of man, shameless lies and brutal cruelty. "

Another issue that attracts Gorky's close attention is the proletariat as the creator of revolution and culture.

The writer, in his very first essays, warns the working class, “that miracles do not really happen, that hunger awaits him, complete breakdown of industry, destruction of transport, prolonged bloody anarchy ... pike command to make 85% of the country's peasant population socialist ”.

Gorky invites the proletariat to thoughtfully check its attitude towards the government, to be careful about its activities: “My opinion is this: People's Commissars are destroying and destroying the working class of Russia, they terribly and absurdly complicate the labor movement, create irresistibly difficult conditions for the whole future work the proletariat and for all the progress of the country. "

To the opponent's objections that workers are included in the government, Gorky replies: "From the fact that the working class prevails in the government, it does not yet follow that the working class understands everything that the government is doing." According to Gorky, "People's Commissars regard Russia as a material for experience, the Russian people for them is the horse that bacteriologists inoculate with typhus so that the horse develops anti-typhoid serum in its blood." "Bolshevik demagoguery, heating up the peasant's egoistic instincts, extinguishes the embryos of his social conscience, so the Soviet government spends its energy on inciting anger, hatred and malevolence."

According to Gorky's deep conviction, the proletariat must avoid contributing to the crushing mission of the Bolsheviks, its purpose is different: it must become "the aristocracy among democracy in our peasant country."

“The best thing that the revolution has created,” Gorky believes, “is a class-conscious, revolutionary-minded worker. And if the Bolsheviks carry him away with robbery, he will perish, which will cause a long and gloomy reaction in Russia. "

The salvation of the proletariat, according to Gorky, lies in its unity with the "class of the working intelligentsia", for "the working intelligentsia is one of the detachments of the great class of the modern proletariat, one of the members of the great working-class family." Gorky appeals to the reason and conscience of the workers' intelligentsia, hoping that their union will contribute to the development of Russian culture.

"The proletariat is the creator of a new culture, - these words contain a wonderful dream of the triumph of justice, reason and beauty." The task of the proletarian intelligentsia is to unite all the intellectual forces of the country on the basis of cultural work. "But for the success of this work, one should abandon party sectarianism," the writer reflects.

The third problematic link of "Untimely Thoughts", closely related to the first two, were articles on the relationship between revolution and culture. This is the core problem of Gorky's journalism of 1917-1918. It is no coincidence that publishing their own " Untimely thoughts"As a separate book, the writer gave the subtitle" Notes on the Revolution and Culture ".

Gorky is ready to survive the revolution for the sake of the wonderful results cruel days 1917: “We, Russians, a people who have not yet worked freely, have not had time to develop all our strength, all abilities, and when I think that the revolution will give us the opportunity to work freely, all-round creativity, my heart is filled with great hope and joy even in these accursed days, drenched in blood and wine. "

He welcomes the revolution because "it is better to burn out in the fire of the revolution than slowly rot in the garbage dump of the monarchy." These days, according to Gorky, is born new person who, finally, will throw off the accumulated dirt of our life for centuries, kill our Slavic laziness, enter the universal work of organizing our planet as a bold, talented Worker. The publicist calls on everyone to bring into the revolution “all the best that is in our hearts,” or at least to reduce the cruelty and anger that intoxicate and defame the revolutionary worker.

These romantic motives are interrupted in a cycle by biting truthful fragments: “Our revolution has given full scope to all evil and brutal instincts ... we see that among the ministers Soviet power every now and then they catch bribes, speculators, swindlers, and honest ones, who know how to work so as not to die of hunger, sell newspapers on the streets. " "The half-starved beggars deceive and rob each other - this is the filling of the current day." Gorky warns the working class that the revolutionary working class will be responsible for all the atrocities, filth, meanness, blood: "The working class will have to pay for the mistakes and crimes of its leaders - with thousands of lives, streams of blood."

According to Gorky, one of the most paramount tasks of the social revolution is to purify human souls - to get rid of "the painful oppression of hatred", in "softening cruelty", "recreating morals", "ennobling relations." To accomplish this task, there is only one way - the way of cultural education.

What is the main idea behind Untimely Thoughts? main idea Gorky is still very topical today: he is convinced that only by learning to work with love, only by understanding the paramount importance of labor for the development of culture, the people will be able to really create their own history.

He calls to heal the swamps of ignorance, because it will not take root on rotten soil new culture... Gorky suggests, in his opinion, efficient way transformations: “We treat labor as if it is the curse of our life, because we do not understand the great meaning of labor, we cannot love it. It is possible to lighten working conditions, reduce its quantity, make work easy and enjoyable only with the help of science ... Only in the love of work will we achieve the great goal of life. "

Higher manifestation historical creativity the writer sees in overcoming the elements of nature, in the ability to control nature with the help of science: “Let us believe that a person will feel the cultural significance of labor and will love it. Labor done with love becomes creativity. "

Science will help to facilitate human labor and make it happy, according to Gorky: “We Russians especially need to organize our highest mind - science. The broader and deeper the tasks of science, the more abundant are the practical fruits of its research. "

He sees a way out of crisis situations in respectful attitude to the cultural heritage of the country and the people, in the rallying of workers in science and culture in the development of industry, in the spiritual re-education of the masses.

These are the ideas that form a single book "Untimely Thoughts", a book of topical problems of revolution and culture.

Composition

I came into this world to disagree.
M. Gorky

A special place in Gorky's legacy is occupied by articles published in the newspaper “ New life", Which was published in Petrograd from April 1917 to June 1918. After the victory of October, Novaya Zhizn castigated the costs of the revolution, its “shadow sides” (robberies, lynching, executions). For this she was sharply criticized by the party press. In addition, the newspaper was suspended twice, and in June 1918 it was completely closed.

Gorky was the first to say that one should not think that the revolution itself "spiritually crippled or enriched Russia." Only now is the "process of intellectual enrichment of the country - an extremely slow process" beginning. Therefore, the revolution must create such conditions, institutions, organizations that would help the development of the intellectual forces of Russia. Gorky believed that the people who had lived in slavery for centuries should instill culture, give the proletariat systematic knowledge, a clear understanding of their rights and responsibilities, and teach the rudiments of democracy.

During the period of the struggle against the Provisional Government and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat, when blood was shed everywhere, Gorky fought for the awakening of souls good feelings with the help of art: “For the proletariat, the gifts of art and science should have the highest value, for him it is not an idle amusement, but a way to delve into the secrets of life. It is strange for me to see that the proletariat, in the person of its thinking and acting body, the Council of Workers 'and Soldiers' Deputies, is so indifferent to the sending to the front, to the slaughterhouse, soldier musicians, artists, drama actors and other people necessary for its soul. After all, sending its talents to the slaughter, the country exhausts its heart, the people tear off the best pieces from their flesh ”. If politics divides people into sharply hostile groups, then art reveals the universal in a person: "Nothing straightens a person's soul so easily and quickly as the influence of art and science."

Gorky remembered the irreconcilability of the interests of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. But with the victory of the proletariat, the development of Russia had to follow the democratic path! And for this it was necessary, first of all, to end the predatory war (on this Gorky agreed with the Bolsheviks). The writer sees a threat to democracy not only in the activities of the Provisional Government, in the armed struggle, but also in the behavior of the peasant masses with their ancient "dark instincts." These instincts resulted in pogroms in Minsk, Samara and other cities, in lynching over thieves, when people were killed right on the streets: "During wine pogroms, people are shot like wolves, gradually accustoming them to calm extermination of their neighbors ..."

In Untimely Thoughts, Gorky approached the revolution from a moral and ethical standpoint, fearing unjustified bloodshed. He understood that with a radical break social order armed clashes cannot be avoided, but at the same time he spoke out against senseless cruelty, against the triumph of an unbridled mass, which resembles an animal that smells blood.

The main idea of ​​"Untimely Thoughts" is the indissolubility of politics and morality. The proletariat must be magnanimous both as a victor and as a bearer of the lofty ideals of socialism. Gorky protests against the arrests of students and various public figures (Countess Panina, the publisher Sytin, Prince Dolgorukov, etc.), against the reprisals against the cadets who were killed in prison by sailors: “There is no poison more vile than power over people, we must remember this, so that the authorities did not poison us, turning us into cannibals even more disgusting than those against whom we fought all our life. " Gorky's articles did not remain unanswered: the Bolsheviks conducted investigations and punished those responsible. Like everyone real writer, Gorky was in opposition to the authorities, on the side of those who this moment was bad. Arguing against the Bolsheviks, Gorky nevertheless called on cultural figures to cooperate with them, because only in this way could the intelligentsia fulfill its mission of enlightening the people: “I know that they are producing the most cruel scientific experience over the living body of Russia, I know how to hate, but I want to be fair. "

Gorky called his articles "untimely", but his struggle for genuine democracy was launched on time. Another thing is that new government very soon the presence of any opposition ceased to be satisfied. The newspaper was closed. The intelligentsia (including Gorky) was allowed to leave Russia. The people very soon fell into a new slavery, covered with socialist slogans and words about the welfare of ordinary people. Gorky was deprived of the right to speak openly for a long time. But what he managed to publish - the collection "Untimely Thoughts" - will remain an invaluable lesson in civic courage. They contain the writer's sincere pain for his people, painful shame for everything that happens in Russia, and faith in its future, despite the bloody horror of history and the "dark instincts" of the masses, and the eternal appeal: "Be more human in these days of universal brutality! "

Send your good work in the knowledge base is simple. Use the form below

Students, graduate students, young scientists who use the knowledge base in their studies and work will be very grateful to you.

ESSAY

in the discipline "Culturology"

“Untimely Thoughts” by A.M. Gorky

• Introduction
• 1. "Untimely Thoughts" as the pinnacle of publicistic creativity of M. Gorky
• 2. The problem of "untimely thoughts"
• Conclusion
• Literature
• Introduction
• This work analyzes the cycle of essays by A. M. Gorky "Untimely Thoughts". The interest in Untimely Thoughts is not accidental. As you know, this book was banned until "perestroika". Meanwhile, she, without intermediaries, represents the position of the artist on the eve and during the October Revolution. These years were marked by the special drama of the relationship between the writer and the authorities, the extreme severity of the literary struggle, in which Gorky played an important role. In the coverage of this period of Gorky's life and work, not only is there no unanimity among researchers, moreover, extreme subjectivism in assessments prevails here. In literary studies Soviet era Gorky appeared to be infallible and monumental. If you believe the latest publications about the writer, the cast body of the monument is full of voids, filled with myths and legends.
• In this work, the following tasks were set:
• · To reveal the essence of the discrepancies between Gorky's ideas about the revolution, culture, personality, people and the realities of Russian life in 1917-1918;
• · Substantiate the timeliness of "Untimely Thoughts" at the time of publication and their relevance in our time.
• 1. "Untimely thoughts" as the pinnacle of journalistic yourRhonor of M. Gorky
• According to Gorky himself, "from the fall of 16th to winter of 22nd" he "did not write a single line." works of art... All his thoughts were associated with the turbulent events that shook the country. All his energy was directed to direct participation in public life: he intervened in the political struggle, tried to rescue innocent people from the dungeons of the Cheka, sought rations for scientists and artists dying of hunger, started cheap editions of the masterpieces of world literature ... For him, journalism was one of the forms of direct social action.

Gorky returned from Italy on the eve of the First World War. He saw how Russia had changed during his absence, how "to the mind-blowing mind" simple people". In difficult days for the country, the writer defended the “planetary significance of the foundations Western European culture"Spoke out against ethnic hatred, criticized the murderous spirit of the war.

Gorky was wary of rampant anarchy, the death of culture, and the victory of the Germans. And he began to create a number of journalistic articles, where he proved his point of view.

Untimely Thoughts is a series of 58 articles that were published in the newspaper Novaya Zhizn, the organ of the Social Democratic group. The newspaper existed for just over a year - from April 1917 to July 1918, when it was closed by the authorities as an opposition press organ.

Gorky's journalism contradicted V.I. Lenin, therefore the book fell into a closed collection of literature and was not republished until 1988. Soviet literary criticism, starting from Lenin's definition of "Gorky is not a politician," interpreted journalism as a deviation from the truth of Bolshevism.

The title of AM Gorky's book sounds paradoxical, because thought always reveals something, explains, follows from the activity of the personality itself, which is already timely. But our society was accustomed to a clear division of thoughts into “timely” and “untimely”, referring the latter to the “general line” of ideology.

The policy of suppressing thought is known from the old Russian monarchy. Gorky's reasoning about the development of science and culture did not pretend to be a revolutionary upheaval, however, in conditions of political confrontation, they began to be perceived as being said "out of place." Gorky himself understood this well.

Studying works of art and journalistic works written by A.M. Gorky in the years 1890-1910 can first of all note what great expectations he associated with the revolution. Gorky also speaks about them in his "Untimely Thoughts": the revolution will become the act thanks to which the people will take "conscious participation in the creation of their history", will acquire a "sense of homeland", the revolution must "revive spirituality" among the people. But soon after the October coup (in an article dated December 7, 1917), already anticipating a different course of the revolution than he had anticipated, Gorky anxiously asks: “What will the revolution give new, how will it change the animal life of Russia, how much light does it bring into darkness folk life?»

Gorky, after the publication of "Song of the Petrel" was called "the singer of the revolution." However, having seen the revolution in the process of its evolution, faced with fratricidal war, Gorky was horrified and no longer mentioned the words spoken on the eve of 1905: "Let the storm break out stronger."

He realized how dangerous it is to call people to a destructive storm, to incite hatred of "loons", "stupid penguins" and so on. It became quite obvious that the intensifying struggle between the parties kindles the base instincts of the crowd, creates a real threat to human life.

Gorky mastered the difficult path between the bourgeois and socialist revolutions independently. Writing on the pages of Novaya Zhizn, he tried to work out his own position. "Untimely Thoughts" in many ways develop the previous reflections of the writer. In the cycle, as in his early works, the writer upholds the ideals of "heroism of the spirit", "a man passionately in love with his dream", the proletariat, pouring "into life the great and blissful idea of ​​a new culture, the idea of ​​world brotherhood." But there are also new intonations: the rampant anarchy is angrily condemned, the revolutionary authorities are denounced for the prohibition of freedom of speech, for the inability to "heal and organize" the spirituality of the proletariat.

In a polemical fervor, the author also expresses a number of provisions that cause conflicting assessments. For example, the Russian people, unlike all other peoples of Europe, are painted only in black colors. Another position of Gorky also raises doubts: “I consider the class a powerful cultural force in our dark peasant country. Everything that the peasant produces, he eats and eats, his energy is completely absorbed by the earth, while the work of the worker remains on the earth, decorating it. " Gorky suspects the peasantry of grave sins and opposes the working class to it, admonishing: “Do not forget that you live in a country where 85% of the population are peasants, and that you are a small island in the middle of the ocean among them. You are alone, a long and hard struggle awaits you. " Gorky does not count on the peasantry, because they are "greedy for property, will receive land and will turn their backs, tearing Zhelyabov's banner with it .... The peasants slaughtered the Paris commune — this is what the worker needs to remember." This is one of Gorky's mistakes. Not knowing the Russian peasant well enough, he did not understand that the land for the peasant is not a means of profit, but a form of existence.

Gorky had the opportunity to see the backwardness of Russia from European states, felt the separation of the Russian intelligentsia from the people and the distrust of the peasants in the intelligentsia. In a series of essays, he tries to understand everything that is happening in Russia, he admits contradictions in his judgments.

2. Problem of "Untimely Thoughts"

Gorky puts forward a number of problems that he is trying to comprehend and solve. One of the most significant among them is the historical fate of the Russian people.

Relying on all his previous experience and on his many deeds, a confirmed reputation as a defender of the enslaved and humiliated, Gorky declares: “I have the right to speak an insulting and bitter truth about the people, and I am convinced that it will be better for the people if I tell this truth about them. first, and not those enemies of the people who are now silent and accumulate revenge and anger in order ... to spit anger in the face of the people ... "

The difference in views on the people between Gorky and the Bolsheviks is fundamental. Gorky refuses to "half-adore the people", he argues with those who, out of the best, democratic motives, earnestly believed "in the exceptional qualities of our Karataevs."

Beginning his book with the message that the revolution gave freedom to speech, Gorky proclaims to his people "pure truth", that is, one that is above personal and group preferences. He believes that he illuminates the horrors and absurdities of the time so that the people see themselves from the outside and try to change for the better. In his opinion, the people themselves are to blame for their plight.

Gorky accuses the people of being passively involved in the state development of the country. Everyone is to blame: in war, people kill each other; fighting, they destroy what is built; in battles, people become bitter, go berserk, lowering the level of culture: theft, lynching, and debauchery are becoming more frequent. According to the writer, Russia is not threatened by class danger, but by the possibility of savagery, lack of culture. Everyone blames each other, Gorky notes with bitterness, instead of "resisting the storm of emotions with the power of reason." Peering into his people, Gorky notes that "he is passive, but cruel when power falls into his hands, that the glorified kindness of his soul is Karamaz sentimentalism, that he is terribly immune to the suggestions of humanism and culture."

Let us analyze the article devoted to the "drama of July 4" - the dispersal of the demonstration in Petrograd. In the center of the article, a picture of the demonstration itself and its dispersal is reproduced (exactly reproduced, not retold). And then the author's reflection on what he saw with his own eyes follows, ending with a final generalization. The credibility of the reportage and the immediacy of the author's impressions serve as the basis for the emotional impact on the reader. And what happened, and reflections - everything happens as if in front of the reader's eyes, therefore, obviously, the conclusions sound so convincing, as if they were born not only in the author's brain, but also in our consciousness. We see the participants in the July demonstration: armed and unarmed people, a "truck-car" closely packed with motley representatives of the "revolutionary army" that rushes "like a mad pig." (Further, the image of a truck evokes no less expressive associations: "a thundering monster," "an absurd cart." she shook his ashes from her feet. " Before the eyes of the observer, a "disgusting picture of madness" appears: the crowd, at the sound of chaotic shots, behaved like a "herd of sheep", turned into "heaps of meat, mad with fear."

Gorky is looking for the cause of what happened. Unlike the absolute majority, who blamed "Leninists", Germans or outright counter-revolutionaries for everything, he calls the main reason for the misfortune "gross Russian stupidity", "lack of culture, lack of historical flair."

A.M. Gorky writes: “While blaming our people for their tendency towards anarchism, their dislike for work, for all their savagery and ignorance, I remember: it could not have been otherwise. The conditions among which he lived could not instill in him either respect for the individual, or consciousness of the rights of a citizen, or a sense of justice — these were conditions of complete lawlessness, oppression of man, shameless lies and brutal cruelty. "

Another issue that attracts Gorky's close attention is the proletariat as the creator of revolution and culture.

In his very first essays, the writer warns the working class, "that miracles do not actually happen, that hunger awaits it, complete breakdown of industry, destruction of transport, prolonged bloody anarchy ... for you cannot make 85% of the country's peasant population socialist at the behest of a pike."

Gorky invites the proletariat to carefully check its attitude towards the government, to treat its activities with caution: “My opinion is this: People's Commissars are destroying and destroying the working class of Russia, they terribly and absurdly complicate the labor movement, create irresistibly difficult conditions for all future work of the proletariat and for of all the progress of the country ”.

To the opponent's objections that workers are included in the government, Gorky replies: "From the fact that the working class prevails in the government, it does not yet follow that the working class understands everything that the government is doing." According to Gorky, "People's Commissars regard Russia as a material for experience, the Russian people for them is the horse that bacteriologists inoculate with typhus so that the horse develops anti-typhoid serum in its blood." "Bolshevik demagoguery, heating up the peasant's egoistic instincts, extinguishes the embryos of his social conscience, so the Soviet government spends its energy on inciting anger, hatred and malevolence."

According to Gorky's deep conviction, the proletariat must avoid contributing to the crushing mission of the Bolsheviks, its purpose is different: it must become "the aristocracy among democracy in our peasant country."

“The best thing that the revolution has created,” Gorky believes, “is a class-conscious, revolutionary-minded worker. And if the Bolsheviks carry him away with robbery, he will perish, which will cause a long and gloomy reaction in Russia. "

The salvation of the proletariat, according to Gorky, lies in its unity with the "class of the working intelligentsia", for "the working intelligentsia is one of the detachments of the great class of the modern proletariat, one of the members of the great working-class family." Gorky appeals to the reason and conscience of the workers' intelligentsia, hoping that their union will contribute to the development of Russian culture.

"The proletariat is the creator of a new culture, - these words contain a wonderful dream of the triumph of justice, reason and beauty." The task of the proletarian intelligentsia is to unite all the intellectual forces of the country on the basis of cultural work. "But for the success of this work, one should abandon party sectarianism," the writer reflects.

The third problematic link of "Untimely Thoughts", closely related to the first two, were articles on the relationship between revolution and culture. This is the core problem of Gorky's journalism of 1917-1918. It is not by chance that, publishing his "Untimely Thoughts" as a separate book, the writer gave the subtitle "Notes on Revolution and Culture."

For the sake of the wonderful results of the revolution, Gorky is ready to endure the cruel days of 1917: “We, Russians, are a people who have not yet worked freely, who have not had time to develop all their strength, all abilities, and when I think that the revolution will give us the opportunity to work freely, all-round creativity, - my heart is filled with great hope and joy even in these accursed days, bathed in blood and wine. "

He welcomes the revolution because "it is better to burn out in the fire of the revolution than slowly rot in the garbage dump of the monarchy." In these days, according to Gorky's conviction, a new Man is being born, who will finally throw off the accumulated dirt of our life for centuries, kill our Slavic laziness, and enter the universal work of organizing our planet as a bold, talented Worker. The publicist calls on everyone to bring into the revolution “all the best that is in our hearts,” or at least to reduce the cruelty and anger that intoxicate and defame the revolutionary worker.

These romantic motives are interrupted in a cycle by biting truthful fragments: “Our revolution gave full scope to all evil and atrocious instincts ... we see starve to death, sell newspapers on the streets. " "The half-starved beggars deceive and rob each other - this is the filling of the current day." Gorky warns the working class that the revolutionary working class will be responsible for all the atrocities, filth, meanness, blood: "The working class will have to pay for the mistakes and crimes of its leaders - with thousands of lives, streams of blood."

According to Gorky, one of the most paramount tasks of the social revolution is to purify human souls - to get rid of "the painful oppression of hatred", in "softening cruelty", "recreating morals", "ennobling relations." To accomplish this task, there is only one way - the way of cultural education.

What is the main idea behind Untimely Thoughts? Gorky's main idea is still very topical today: he is convinced that only by learning to work with love, only by understanding the paramount importance of labor for the development of culture, the people will be able to really create their own history.

He calls for the healing of the swamps of ignorance, because a new culture will not take root on the rotten soil. Gorky offers, in his opinion, an effective way of transformations: “We relate to labor, as if it is the curse of our life, because we do not understand the great meaning of labor, we cannot love it. It is possible to lighten working conditions, reduce its quantity, make work easy and enjoyable only with the help of science ... Only in the love of work will we achieve the great goal of life. "

The writer sees the highest manifestation of historical creativity in overcoming the elements of nature, in the ability to control nature with the help of science: “Let us believe that a person will feel the cultural significance of labor and will love it. Labor done with love becomes creativity. "

Science will help to facilitate human labor and make it happy, according to Gorky: “We Russians especially need to organize our highest mind - science. The broader and deeper the tasks of science, the more abundant are the practical fruits of its research. "

He sees a way out of crisis situations in a careful attitude to the cultural heritage of the country and the people, in the rallying of workers in science and culture in the development of industry, in the spiritual re-education of the masses.

These are the ideas that form a single book "Untimely Thoughts", a book of topical problems of revolution and culture.

Conclusion

"Untimely thoughts" evoke mixed feelings, probably, as did the Russian revolution itself and the days that followed. This is also the recognition of Gorky's timeliness and talented expressiveness. He possessed great sincerity, insight, and civic courage. M. Gorky's unfriendly look at the history of the country helps our contemporaries to evaluate in a new way the works of writers of the 20-30s, the truth of their images, details, historical events, bitter forebodings.

The book "Untimely Thoughts" has remained a monument to its time. She captured the judgments of Gorky, which he expressed at the very beginning of the revolution and which turned out to be prophetic. And regardless of how the views of their author subsequently changed, these thoughts turned out to be the highest degree timely for all who have experienced hopes and disappointments in a series of upheavals that befell Russia in the twentieth century.

Literature

1. Gorky M. Untimely thoughts. M .: 1991

2. Paramonov B. Bitter, white spot. // October. 1992-№5.

3. P'yanykh M. To comprehend the "Russian structure of the soul" in revolutionary era.// Star. 1991 - No. 7.

4. Reznikov L. About the book of M. Gorky "Untimely thoughts". // Neva. 1988-№1.

5. Shklovsky V. Success and defeat of M. Gorky. M .: 1926

Similar documents

The depiction of the revolution in the epic "The Sun of the Dead" by I. Shmelev. Personality and Revolution in Publicism M. Gorky ("Untimely Thoughts"). Comparison of the skill of depicting revolution in works as an apocalypse, worst catastrophe of the Russian world.

term paper, added 12/10/2012


The study creative path Gorky, including the elucidation of the reasons for his formation as a writer, as a revolutionary and as a popular favorite. The relationship between Gorky and Leo Tolstoy. Gorky's attitude to the book as to a great miracle created by mankind.

presentation added on 11/16/2010


Study of Russian realistic literature late XIX- the beginning of the XX century. The value of the work of the writer, publicist and public figure M. Gorky in the literature of the era of realism. Determination of the features of the problem and genre originality the play "At the Bottom".

term paper added 03/11/2011


Modern interpretation creative heritage of M. Gorky. Start literary activity a writer. Traditions and innovations of Gorky the playwright. Traditions and innovation of Gorky's poetry. Analysis of "Song of the Falcon" and "Song of the Petrel".

term paper added 12/16/2012


New era in Russian literature in the XIX-XX centuries. "Bossyatskaya" theme in the works of M. Gorky, which he takes outside the framework of ethnography and everyday life. The writer's struggle against decadence and the reflection of this in his work. Gorky's struggle with "consolation".

test, added 03/10/2009


Chronology of the life and work of the writer. Publication of his first story "Makar Chudra". The first story "Foma Gordeev". Premiere of the play "At the Bottom". The secret of the exceptional success of young Gorky. Creation of a passionate and sublime anthem to the glory of man.

presentation added on 10/30/2012


Creativity of M. Gorky in the historical and literary context. Peculiarities artistic disclosure the variety of types of Russian life in the cycle of stories "Across Russia". Leitmotif images, their character and ideological and aesthetic role. Analysis of literature programs.

thesis, added 09/03/2013


Analysis of ideological, moral searches of the writer, assessment of the complexity of his path. Philosophical plot in the drama "At the Bottom". Heroes of the novel "Mother". The theme of human freedom or lack of freedom in the work of Gorky. " Small man"Gorky in stories" about tramps. "

abstract, added 06/21/2010


Definition of creativity M. Gorky as the founder of children's literature. Analysis of M. Gorky's fairy tales "Sparrow", "Samovar", "The Case of Yevseyka". Evaluation of the writer's ability to talk "amusingly" with children about serious issues, knowledge of their interests and needs.

term paper, added 09/29/2011


A brief outline of the life and creative path of the famous Russian writer Maxim Gorky, an analysis of his most striking works. Analysis of the spirit of romanticism in the stories of Gorky. Transformation romantic tradition in the work of various masters.

The book Cursed Days, built on diary entries from the period of the revolution and the civil war, was published in the West in 1935, and in Russia 60 years later. Some critics of the 1980s wrote about it only as a reflection of the author's hatred of the Bolshevik regime: “There is neither Russia, nor its people in the days of the revolution, nor the former Bunin the artist. There is only a person obsessed with hatred.

"Repentance" is an unworthy life in sin. Akatkin (philological notes) finds in the book not only anger, but also pity, emphasizes the writer's intransigence to acting: “robberies, Jewish pogroms, executions, wild anger are everywhere, but they write about this with delight:“ the people are enveloped in the music of the revolution ”.

"Cursed Days" are of great interest in several ways at once. Firstly, in historical and cultural terms, "Cursed Days" reflect, sometimes with photographic accuracy, the era of revolution and civil war and are evidence of the perception, feelings and thoughts of the Russian writer-intellectual of this time.

Secondly, in terms of history and literature, "Cursed Days" is a vivid example of the rapidly developing documentary literature since the beginning of the 20th century. The complex interaction of social thought, aesthetic and philosophical searches and the political situation has led to the fact that diaries, memoirs and works based directly on real events have taken a prominent place in the work of various authors and ceased to be, in the terminology of Yu. N. Tynyanov, " the fact of everyday life ", turning into a" literary fact ".

Third, from the point of view creative biography IA Bunin's "Cursed Days" are an important part of the writer's legacy, without which a full-fledged study of his work is impossible.

"Cursed Days" was first published with long breaks in 1925-1927. in the Parisian newspaper "Vozrozhdenie", created with the money of the oil industrialist A.O. Gukasov and conceived "as an organ of national thought."

In his diary, entitled "Cursed Days", Ivan Alekseevich Bunin expressed his sharply negative attitude towards the revolution that took place in Russia in October 1917.

He wanted to " Cursed days"To collide the autumnal, fading beauty of the past and the tragic formlessness of the present time. The writer sees how "Pushkin bows his head mournfully and low under a cloudy sky with gleams, as if he is again saying:" God, how sad is my Russia! " This unattractive new world, as an example of outgoing beauty, is presented new world: “Again it bears with wet snow. Gymnasium students walk, plastered with it - beauty and joy ... blue eyes from under a fur muff raised to their face ... What awaits this youth? " Bunin was afraid that the fate of beauty and youth in Soviet Russia will be unenviable.

"Cursed days" are colored by the sadness of the upcoming parting with the Motherland. Looking at the orphaned Odessa port, the author recalls his departure from here to Honeymoon to Palestine and exclaims with bitterness: “Our children and grandchildren will not be able to even imagine the Russia in which we once (that is, yesterday) lived, which we did not value, did not understand - all this power, wealth, happiness ... "Behind the collapse of the Russian pre-revolutionary life Bunin guesses the disintegration of world harmony. He sees the only consolation in religion. And it's no coincidence that "Cursed Days" are coming to an end in the following words: “We often go to church, and every time singing, the bows of the priests, the censing, all this beauty, decency, the peace of all that good and merciful, where with such tenderness is comforted and relieved with such tenderness, all earthly suffering, embraces with rapture to tears. And just to think that before people of the milieu to which I partly belonged, they were in church only at funerals! .. And in the church there was always one thought, one dream: to go out on the porch to smoke. And the deceased? God, how there was no connection between all of his past life and these funeral prayers, this whisk on the Bone lemon forehead! " The writer felt his responsibility “to a place with a significant part of the intelligentsia for the fact that, as it seemed to him, a cultural catastrophe had taken place in the country. He reproached himself and others for their past indifference to religious affairs, believing that thanks to this, by the time of the revolution, people's soul... Bunin thought it deeply symbolic that Russian intellectuals had been in church before the revolution only at funerals. So I had to bury as a result Russian empire with all its centuries-old culture! The author of "The Cursed: Days" remarked very correctly; “Scary to say, but true; do not be popular disasters (in pre-revolutionary Russia... - BS), thousands of intellectuals would be downright unfortunate people. How, then, to sit, protest, what to shout about and write about? And without this, life was not a reality. " Too many in RUSSIA needed a protest against social injustice only for the sake of the protest itself * only so that life would not be boring.

Bunin was extremely skeptical about the work of those writers who, to one degree or another, accepted the revolution. In "Cursed Days", he too categorically asserted: "Russian literature has been corrupted for recent decades unusually. Street, the crowd began to play very big role... Everything - even literature especially - goes out into the street, associates with it and falls under its influence. And the street corrupts, makes you nervous for at least one reason that it is terribly immoderate in its praises, if it pleases. There are only "geniuses" in Russian literature now. Amazing harvest! The genius Bryusov, the genius Gorky, the genius Igor Severyanin, Blok, Bely. How can you be calm when you can jump out as a genius so easily and quickly? And everyone strives to push forward with his shoulder, stun, draw attention to himself. " The writer was convinced that the passion for social and political life had a detrimental effect on the aesthetic side of creativity. The revolution, which proclaimed the primacy of political goals over general cultural ones, in his opinion, contributed to the further destruction of Russian literature. Bunin associated the beginning of this process with the decadent and modernist currents of the late XIX - early XX centuries and considered it far

It is no coincidence that writers of the corresponding trend ended up in the revolutionary camp.

The writer understood that the consequences of the coup were already irreversible, but he did not want to accept and accept them. Bunin cites in "Cursed Days" a typical dialogue between an old man from a "former" with a worker: "Of course, you have nothing left now, neither God, nor conscience," says the old man. "Yes, not left." - "You shot the fifth civilian people." - “Oh, you! And how did you shoot for three hundred years? " The horrors of the revolution were perceived by the people as just retribution for three hundred years of oppression during the reign of the Romanov dynasty. Bunin saw it. And the writer also saw that the Bolsheviks "for the sake of the destruction of the" accursed past "are ready for the destruction of at least half of the Russian people." That is why such darkness blows from the pages of the Bunin diary.

Bunin characterizes the revolution as the beginning of the unconditional death of Russia as a great state, as the unleashing of the most base and savage instincts, as a bloody prologue to the innumerable calamities that await the intelligentsia, working people, country.

Meanwhile, with all the accumulation of “anger, rage, rage” in it, and maybe that's why, the book is written unusually strong, temperamental, “personal”. He is extremely subjective, tendentious, this artistic diary of 1918-1919, with a retreat in the pre-revolutionary period and in the days of the February Revolution. Political assessments in him breathe hostility, even hatred coefficient of Bolshevism and its leaders.

The book of curses, retribution and revenge, albeit verbal, it has nothing in temperament, bile, rage in the “sick” and bitter white journalism. Because even in anger, passion, almost frenzy, Bunin remains an artist: and in great one-sidedness - an artist. It is only his pain, his torment, which he took with him into exile.

Defense of culture after the victory of the revolution, M. Gorky boldly spoke out in the press against the power of the Bolsheviks, he challenged the new regime. This book was banned until “perestroika”. Meanwhile, she, without intermediaries, represents the position of the artist on the eve and during the October Revolution. It is one of the most striking documents of the period of the Great October Revolution, its consequences and the establishment of a new Bolshevik government.

Untimely Thoughts is a series of 58 articles that were published in the newspaper Novaya Zhizn, the organ of the Social Democratic group. The newspaper existed for just over a year - from April 1917 to July 1918, when it was closed by the authorities as an opposition press organ.

Studying the works of Gorky in the 1890-1910s, one can note the presence of high hopes in them, which he associated with the revolution. Gorky also speaks about them in his "Untimely Thoughts": the revolution will become that act, thanks to which the people will take "conscious participation in the creation of their history", will acquire a "sense of homeland", the revolution was called upon to "revive spirituality" among the people.

But soon after the October events (in an article dated December 7, 1917), already anticipating a different course of the revolution than he had anticipated, Gorky anxiously asks: “What will the revolution give new, how will it change the animal life of Russia, how much light does it bring into the darkness of the life of the people? " These questions were addressed to the victorious proletariat, which officially rose to power and "received the opportunity to create freely."

The main goal of the revolution, according to Gorky, is moral - to turn yesterday's slave into a personality. But in reality, as the author of "Untimely Thoughts" notes with bitterness, the October events and the Civil War not only did they not carry “the signs of a person's spiritual rebirth”, but, on the contrary, provoked the “ejection” of the darkest, most base - “zoological” - instincts. "The atmosphere of unpunished crimes", which removes the differences between "the bestial psychology of the monarchy" and the psychology of the "mutinous" masses, does not contribute to the education of a citizen, the writer asserts.

"For each of our heads we will take a hundred heads of the bourgeoisie." The identity of these statements testifies to the fact that the cruelty of the sailors was sanctioned by the authorities themselves, supported by “fanatical intransigence people's commissars”. This, says Gorky, "is not a cry of justice, but a wild roar of unbridled and cowardly animals."

WITH The leading fundamental divergence between Gorky and the Bolsheviks lies in the views on the people and in the attitude towards them. This question has several facets.

First of all, Gorky refuses to "half-adore the people", he argues with those who, out of the best, democratic motives, earnestly believed "in the exceptional qualities of our Karataevs." Looking at his people, Gorky notes that "he is passive, but cruel when power falls into his hands, that the glorified kindness of his soul is Karamaz sentimentalism, that he is terribly immune to the suggestions of humanism and culture." But it is important for the writer to understand why the people are like this: “The conditions among which he lived could not cultivate in him either respect for the individual, or consciousness of the rights of a citizen, or a sense of justice. brutal cruelty ”. Consequently, that bad and terrible thing that emerged in the spontaneous actions of the masses during the days of the revolution is, according to Gorky, a consequence of the existence that for centuries killed dignity and sense of personality in Russian people. So the revolution was needed! But how can the need for a liberation revolution be reconciled with the bloody bacchanalia that accompanies the revolution? “This people must work hard in order to acquire the consciousness of their personality, their human dignity, this people must be calcined and cleansed from slavery, nurtured in them, by the slow fire of culture ”.

What is the essence of the differences between M. Gorky and the Bolsheviks on the question of the people.

Relying on all his previous experience and on his many deeds, a confirmed reputation as a defender of the enslaved and humiliated, Gorky declares: “I have the right to speak an insulting and bitter truth about the people, and I am convinced that it will be better for the people if I tell this truth about them. first, and not those enemies of the people who are now silent and accumulate revenge and anger in order ... to spit anger in the face of the people ... ”.

Let us consider one of the most fundamental differences between Gorky and the ideology and politics of the “people's commissars” - the dispute over culture.

This is the core problem of Gorky's journalism of 1917-1918. It is not by chance that, publishing his "Untimely Thoughts" as a separate book, the writer gave the subtitle "Notes on Revolution and Culture." This is the paradox, the “untimely” position of Gorky's position in the context of time. The priority that he attaches to culture in the revolutionary transformation of Russia might have seemed overly exaggerated to many of his contemporaries. In a country undermined by war, torn by social contradictions, burdened by national and religious oppression, the most paramount tasks of the revolution were the implementation of the slogans: "Bread for the hungry", "Land for the peasants", "Factories and factories for workers." And according to Gorky, one of the most paramount tasks of the social revolution is the purification of human souls - to get rid of "the painful oppression of hatred", "mitigate cruelty", "re-create morals", "ennoble relations." To accomplish this task, there is only one way - the way of cultural education.

However, the writer observed something exactly the opposite, namely: "chaos of excited instincts", bitterness of political confrontation, boorish trampling on the dignity of the individual, destruction of artistic and cultural masterpieces. For all this, the author blames, first of all, the new authorities, which not only did not interfere with the revelry of the crowd, but even provoked it. A revolution is “fruitless” if it is “incapable of ... developing an intense cultural construction in the country,” warns the author of Untimely Thoughts. And by analogy with the widespread slogan "Fatherland is in danger!" Gorky puts forward his slogan: “Citizens! Culture is in danger! ”

In Untimely Thoughts, Gorky sharply criticizes the leaders of the revolution: V. I. Lenin, L. D. Trotsky, Zinoviev, A. V. Lunacharsky and others. And the writer considers it necessary to address the proletariat directly over the head of his omnipotent opponents with an alarming warning: “You are being led to destruction, you are being used as material for inhuman experience, in the eyes of your leaders you are still not a man!”.

Life has shown that these warnings were not heeded. And with Russia, and with its people, what happened against which the author of "Untimely Thoughts" warned. In fairness, it must be said that Gorky himself did not remain consistent in his views on the revolutionary breakdown taking place in the country.

Untimely thoughts

Untimely thoughts
The title of the book by the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900).
In Russia, the expression became widely known thanks to the writer Maxim Gorky, who also named a series of his publicistic articles written in the first months after the October coup of 1917 and published in the newspaper Novaya Zhizn (December 1917 - July 1918). In the summer of 1918, the newspaper was closed by the new authorities. Gorky's "Untimely Thoughts" was published in 1919. separate edition and were no longer reprinted in the USSR, until 1990.
In his articles, the writer condemned the "socialist revolution" undertaken by the Bolsheviks:
“Our revolution gave scope to all the evil and brutal instincts that had accumulated under the lead roof of the monarchy, and, at the same time, it threw aside from itself all the intellectual forces of democracy, all the moral energy of the country ... People's Commissars treat Russia as a material for experience ...
The reformers from Smolny do not care about Russia, they coolly condemn it to their dream of a world or European revolution. "
Jokingly ironically: about an opinion that was expressed inappropriately, not at the time when the society (audience) is not yet ready to perceive and appreciate it.

encyclopedic Dictionary winged words and expressions. - M .: "Lokid-Press"... Vadim Serov. 2003.

See what "Untimely Thoughts" is in other dictionaries:

- (Latin intelligentia, intellegentia understanding, cognitive power, knowledge; from intelligens, intellegens intelligent, knowing, thinking, understanding) in the modern generally accepted (everyday) representation of the social stratum educated people … Encyclopedia of Cultural Studies

Request "Gorky" is redirected here; see also other meanings. This term has other meanings, see Maxim Gorky (disambiguation). Maxim Gorky ... Wikipedia

BITTER- Maxim (real name Alexey Maksimovich Peshkov) (03/16/1868, N. Novgorod 06/18/1936, Gorki, near Moscow), writer, playwright, public figure. Genus. in the family of a cabinetmaker, lost his parents early, was brought up by his grandfather, the owner ... ... Orthodox encyclopedia

Alias famous writer Alexey Maksimovich Peshkov (see). (Brockhaus) Gorky, Maxim (real fam. Peshkov, Alexey Maxim.), Famous fiction writer, b. March 14, 1869 at Nizhny Novgorod. Novgorod, with. an upholsterer, an apprentice in a paint shop. (Vengerov) ... ... Big biographical encyclopedia

Wikipedia has articles about other people with this surname, see Ganieva. Alisa Ganieva Aliases ... Wikipedia

Joseph Schumpeter Joseph Schumpeter Date of birth: 8 February 1883 (1883 02 08) Me ... Wikipedia

Maxim (1868) is the pseudonym of the modern Russian writer Alexei Maksimovich Peshkov. R. in a bourgeois family of a Nizhny Novgorod upholsterer. He lost his father when he was four years old. “For seven years (we read in G.'s autobiography) I was sent to school, where I studied for five ... ... Literary encyclopedia

Joseph Schumpeter Austrian economist Date of birth: 8 February 1883 ... Wikipedia

Schumpeter, Joseph Joseph Schumpeter Joseph Schumpeter Date of birth: 8 February 1883 (1883 02 08) Place of birth: Tresti, Moravia Date of death ... Wikipedia

Joseph Schumpeter Joseph Schumpeter Austrian economist Date of birth: 8 February 1883 ... Wikipedia

Books

• Untimely Thoughts, Gorky Maxim. Maxim Gorky (1868-1936) - founder socialist realism, one of the writers who defined the image of Russian literature of the XX century. In prose, drama and memoirs, Gorky ...