Kapnist sneak analysis. "Yabeda" and "Little Growth": the Tradition of Prose High Comedy in a Poetic Variety of the Genre

20.06.2020

A new image in an old way Everything was just quiet in her

The Problem of Heroism: Arguments from Literature

08.03.2019

Vasily Vasilievich Kapnist (1757-1823). "Yabeda" - a satirical comedy - the end of the 18th century. Plot: the wealthy landowner Pravolov tries to take away the property from his neighbor, the landowner Pryamikov. Pravolov is a bastard, “he is an evil snitch; and that's all. " He bribes officials, he is even ready to intermarry with the chairman of the citizen for the sake of achieving his goal. chambers. Honest Straight. collides with a gang of robbers. Dobrov (an honest clerk) characterizes the chairman of the Criminal Chamber as "a true Judas and a traitor." "The laws are holy, But the executors are dashing adversaries." Pryamikov loves Sofia, the daughter of Krivosudov (chairman of the civil chamber). There is a song about the "need to take". Later it was used by Ostrovsky in "Profitable Place". In the end, virtue triumphs. It must be said that Kapnist's radicalism did not go further than the poetry of the noble enlightenment. The comedy is written according to the canons of classicism: preserved unity, the division of heroes into good and bad, 5 acts. It was first staged on stage in 1798, then it was banned until 1805.

Vasily Vasilievich Kapnist came from a wealthy noble family who settled in the Ukraine under Peter I; here in the village of Obukhovka, which he later glorified in verse, he was born in 1757.

About Kapnist

Years of study Kapnist passed in St. Petersburg, first in a boarding house, then in the school of the Izmailovsky regiment. By the time Kapnist was in the regiment, he became acquainted with N. A. Lvov. Moving to the Preobrazhensky regiment, he met Derzhavin. Since the 70s, Kapnist entered the literary circle of Derzhavin, with whom he was friends until his death. Service activity occupied an insignificant place in Kapnist's life. Until the end of his days, he remained a poet, an independent man, a landowner, alien to the desire for "the glory of this world." He spent most of his life in his Obukhovka, where he was buried (he died in 1823).

Satirical comedy " Yabed”, The main work of Kapnist, was completed by him no later than 1796, even during the reign of Catherine II, but then it was neither staged nor published. Paul's accession to the throne gave Kapnist some hope. His aspirations are reflected in the dedication preceded by the comedy:

He reigned with him ...

I painted vice with Thalia's brush;

Bribery, sneaks, exposed all the vileness,

And now I give it to the mockery of the light.

We are completely unharmed under Pavlov's shield ...

In 1798 Yabeda was published. On August 22 of the same year, she first appeared on stage. The comedy was a resounding success, but Kapnist's hopes for Paul's patronage did not materialize. After four performances of the play, on October 23, unexpectedly, there followed the highest order to prohibit it and withdraw printed copies from sale.

When writing his comedy, Kapnist used the material of the trial, which he himself had to conduct with the landowner Tarnovskaya, who illegally appropriated part of his brother's estate. Thus, Kapnist's direct acquaintance with the predatory practice of the Russian judicial apparatus formed the basis of the plot of the comedy, and Russian reality served as the material for satire. The theme of "Yabeda", that is, the arbitrariness of the bureaucratic apparatus, has long attracted the attention of advanced Russian thought and served as an object of satire (Sumarokov, Novikov, Fonvizin, Chemnitser, etc.). The success of the comedy could also be facilitated by the fact that in the comedy one could see hints of the circumstances of the court case of Kapnist himself. On the part of Kapnist, this was, as it were, an appeal to the advanced public opinion, which was negatively disposed towards the bureaucratic apparatus.

The motive of the court session on the stage is found even earlier in Racine's comedy "Sutiagi", in Sumarokov's comedy "Monsters", in Verevkin's play "It must be so", in "The Marriage of Figaro" by Beaumarchais.

In the comedy Beaumarchais reveals that the abuses of the court are based on its close connection with the entire system of government. Kapnist's comedy is also imbued with the awareness that judicial arbitrariness is not accidental, but inevitable, since it relies on the practice of power. At the end of the comedy, the Senate brings the guilty members of the Trial Chamber to justice in the Criminal Chamber. But all government agencies are bound by mutual responsibility. Investigator Dobrov consoles the guilty:

Really: he washes, he says, after all, a hand is a hand;

And with the criminal civil chamber

She often lives for her familiar;

Not so with a celebration already what it is

A manifesto has been moved under your mercy.

The "punishment of vice" and "the triumph of virtue" acquired an ironic connotation here.

The originality and power of Kapnist's comedy lay in portraying the abuse of the judiciary as typical phenomena of the Russian statehood of his time. This was its difference from Sudovshchikov's comedy "An Unheard of Business, or an Honest Secretary", which was in many ways similar to "Yabeda" and was written under her influence. The satirical element of Sudovshchikov's comedy comes down to exposing the greed of one person - Krivosudov, and not a whole group of people, not a system, as in Kapnist.

"Yabeda" is a "high" comedy; it is written, as it should be in this genre, in poetry. However, from the classic example of comedies of this kind - Moliere's "The Misanthrope", "Tartuffe" or the princess's "Bouncer" - "Yabeda" is significantly different in that there is no "hero" in it, there is no central negative character: its hero is a "sneak", the court , judicial orders, the entire system of the state apparatus of the Russian Empire.

The conventional form of high comedy with the observance of unity, with a six-foot Alexandrian verse, could not prevent the fact that internally, in the essence of the content, in "Yabeda" is more of a bourgeois drama than a comedy of the characters of classicism.

The traditional comedic motif, love that overcomes obstacles, recedes into the background in Kapnist's play, giving way to a harsh picture of litigation, fraud and robbery. All the circumstances of the case, the fraudulent tricks of the judges, bribery, erasure in cases, and finally, the ugly court session - all this takes place on the stage, and not hiding behind the scenes. Kapnist wanted to show and showed with his own eyes the state machine of despotism in action.

In "Yabeda" there are no individual characters, since each of the judicial officials in Kapnist is similar to the others in his social practice, in his attitude to the case, and the difference between them comes down only to certain personal habits that do not change the essence of the matter. In "Jabed" there are no personal comic characters, because Kapnist created not so much a comedy as a social satire, showing on the stage a single group picture of the environment of bribe-takers and law-breakers, the world of bureaucracy, sneaks in general.

In "Yabeda" there is more horror and scary than comic. The scene of the binge of officials in Act III turns from an outward-front buffoonery into a grotesquely symbolic depiction of a revelry of a gang of robbers and bribe-takers. And the song of the feasting:

Take it, there is no big science here;

Take what you can take.

Why are our hands hung on?

How not to take?

(Everyone repeats):

Take, take, take.

gives a bunch of drunken officials the character of a blasphemous rite, A. Pisarev, who read the "Praise of Words" to Kapnist in the Society of Lovers of Russian Literature in 1828, put "Yabeda" even higher than "Minor" and brought Kapnist's comedy closer to the comedies of Aristophanes. With this rapprochement, he undoubtedly wanted to emphasize the political character of Yabeda.

In his speech, he dwells on the accusations brought against Kapnist by his contemporaries. The main charge was that it was not a comedy, but "satire in action." Yabeda did not meet the basic requirement for classical comedy: the funny did not prevail in it. This was especially noted by contemporaries in relation to the bold drinking scene. A. Pisarev gave the following characterization of this scene: “After a drinking bout ... a gang of reckless men appears without a mask, and the very laughter that they excite brings some kind of horror to the viewer. Do you think to be present at the robbers' feast ... "

In "Yabeda" the life of Krivosudov and his family passes on stage: they play cards, receive guests, drink, do business. But the image of everyday life does not turn into an end in itself; the everyday external plan is always accompanied by another, internal, acutely satirical, the development of which determines the need for the introduction of certain moments of life. So, in Act III during a game of cards against the background of the players' remarks, the discussion of the possibility of choosing the right law in order to take away the property from the owner and hand it over to the lawyer Pravolov sounds especially ironic.

Vasily Kapnist

Comedy in five acts

To His Imperial Majesty the Emperor Paul I

Monarch! accepting the crown, you are the truth on the throne
He reigned with him: a nobleman in a magnificent share
And the slave who eats the daily bread in the sweat of his brow,
As before God, so before you are equal.
You are an unhypocritical image of the law for us:
Perun power there, from the exalted throne,
Villainy, slander, addiction you strike;
Here you invigorate innocence with the scepter of bounty,
You build up the truth, you reward merit
And so you attract all Ross to employees.
Sorry, monarch! that I, by the zeal of grief,
My labor is like a drop of water in the deep sea.
You know different obstinate people:
Others are not afraid of execution, but the evil one is afraid of glory.
I painted vice with Thalia's brush,
Bribery, sneaks exposed all the vileness
And I give now to the mockery of the light;
I am not vindictive from them, I am afraid of libel:
We are completely unharmed under Pavlov's shield;
But, being your companion to the best of your ability,
I dare to devote this weak work to you,
Yes, I crown his success with your name.

Loyal subject Vasily Kapnist

Characters

Pravolov, retired assessor.

Krivosudov, Chairman of the Civil Chamber.

Fekla, his wife.

Sofia, his daughter.

Pryamikov, lieutenant colonel employee.

Bulbulkin, Atuev, Radbyn, Passwordkin- members of the Civil Chamber.

Hvataiko, the prosecutor.

Kokhtin, Secretary of the Civil Chamber.

Dobrov, reporter

Anna, Sophia's maid

Naumych, attorney of Pravolov.

Arkhip, a servant of Pravolov.

The action takes place in the house of Krivosudov.

In the corner of the room is a table covered with red cloth. The room has three doors.

Act I

Phenomenon 1

Pryamikov and Dobrov.

Pryamikov

Dobrov

Why, sir, why have you wrapped yourself in this house?
Is it possible for sins to attack you
Or did the litigation, God bless, drag you into this mouth?

Pryamikov

So it is: the process was imposed on the neck;
I tried to get away from him in every possible way,
He put up, gave in, but lost all his work.
And so the district court and the upper zemstvo court
Pass, where my foe was not flattered,
The case has entered the Civil Chamber for you.

Dobrov

Pryamikov

My neighbor Pravolov has no idea where he grabbed ...

Dobrov

Who? Pravolov?

Pryamikov

Yes he. Why are you surprised?

Dobrov

I wonder, I'm right, as with a smart head
Could you have contacted such a plague, sir?

Pryamikov

The hustler is cunning, but not dangerous.

Dobrov

Who? He?

Pryamikov

Already in two courts his labor was in vain.

Dobrov

You do not know, sir, you are a fine fellow.
There is no other such daring person in the world.
In vain in two courts! Yes, they just take it apart,
But in Civic they suddenly decide and execute.
What a misfortune to him that they blame him for those;
Only for him there would be a harmony in the Chamber,
Then he will suddenly receive both the right and the property.
You and Pravolov to court? What audacity!

Pryamikov

Why is he so terrible to me? Please tell me.
I, serving in the army, could not know the neighbors.
As a result of my peace, I took leave of absence;
Only in the house - he fell on me with the process,
And then I learned from more than one,
That he was an evil snitch, and that was all.

You. You. Kapnist is a progressive, liberal-minded noble writer. Started lit. activity in 1780 " Ode to hope", In which civil, political motives are visible. V " Ode to slavery”, Which appeared after the decree on the enslavement of the peasants of some Ukrainian governorships (K. was a Ukrainian), expressed anti-serfdom ideas. Tears, grief, tirades against tyranny. When Catherine issued a decree, where she allowed not a "slave" to sign on official papers, but a "loyal subject" (a big deal), K. wrote "Ode to the extermination of the title of slave in Russia", where he praised Catherine in every possible way.

Was included in friendly circle of Lviv together with Chemnitser, Derzhavin. The motives of the poetry of the members of the circle are also characteristic of the poetry of Kiev: the glorification of peace, silence, solitude, the joy of communication with family and friends.

In the most significant work " Yabed"K. denounces legal proceedings, petty-making, bribery and other social vices. K. managed to reveal this social evil as a phenomenon typical... Lawlessness is the system of the entire bureaucratic state. Rampant arbitrariness and robbery of officials is the theme of "I." K. himself had to deal with judicial orders, which gave the comedy a life-like character.

The wealthy landowner Pravolov, an "evil snitch", is trying to take away the property from his neighbor, the landowner Pryamikov. Pravolov bribes officials of the Civil Chamber, preparing even in the interests of the cause to become related to its chairman. Landlord type Pravolov characteristic for Russian landowners. Honest Pryamikov faces an organized and domineering gang of robbers. It seems that there is no downfall on bribe-takers, for in other institutions of Russia the same order reigns.

"I AM." amazed with her vital truthfulness... K.'s public indignation is especially evident in the scenes of the binge of officials and the court session. At the end of the comedy, vice is punished - although this does not inspire bright hopes. The comedy is highly praised Belinsky.

"I AM." written according to the rules classicism: 5 acts, unity, strictly + and - characters, speaking surnames (Khvataiko, Krivosudov, drunkard Bulbulkin). Iambic verse and lively colloquial speech, aphorism, sayings. Realistic tendencies: satirical orientation and typically generalized images, language.

"I AM." staged in 1798, but after 4 performances it was "imperially" prohibited.

Brief retelling of "Yabeda"

This stupid "Yabeda" was found only in a slightly abbreviated version in the anthology, but excuse me. It is not in full form either in the library or in the internet. Here half is my retelling, half is a rewritten retelling of their anthology (just the missed actions).

Actors: Pravolov (retired assessor), Krivosudov (chairman of the Civil Chamber), Fekla - his wife, Sofia - his daughter, Pryamikov (lieutenant colonel, employee), Bulbulkin, Atuev, Radbyn - members of the Civil Chamber, Passwordkin, Khvataikin (prosecutor), Kokhtin (Secretary of the State Party), Dobrov (povtchik), Anna (Sophia's servant), Naumych (trust Pravolov), Arkhip (Pravolov's servant).

Everything happens in the house of Krivosudov. Pryamikov and Dobrov meet. Pryamikov tells Dobrov that he came to this house because of his neighbor, Pravolov, who, when Pryamikov returned from the army, started a lawsuit with him. Pravolov has already lost in two courts, and now he has come to Civil. And Dobrov tells him everything: that Pravolov is an evil snitch, a swindler, a selfish scoundrel who knows who needs to be paid and given a bribe to get his way. Krivosudov is a bribe-taker and he is also a bastard. The members of the council are all drunkards, assessors are gamblers, the prosecutor - "to tell me in rhyme, the most essential thief." The secretary is also from their gang; he “steals” any document. Pryamikov says that, they say, the law is his shield, and Dobrov says: “the laws are holy, but the performers are dashing adversaries” (in general, I must say, the aphoristic and pleasant language in the work).

Dobrov reports that Krivosudov has a double holiday today: his name day and his daughter's conspiracy. Pryamikov says that he met Sophia and fell in love with her before leaving for the army, with his aunt in Moscow, where she was brought up. Pryamikov asks Krivosudov for the hand of his daughter, but receives an evasive answer.

Krivosudov and Dobrov are talking. K. says that he wants to find a groom for his daughter so that he can earn money, and he already has someone in mind. Dobrov says that three cases in three years have not been resolved: the neighbors took possession of his snake and burned the house of one of them, the landowner wrote down some of the inhabitants of the land in the capitation salary, and another one was beaten in the landowner's yard for a land dispute; Krivosudov excuses himself in the spirit that, they say, they themselves have gone.

Pravolov with Naumych hands over gifts to Krivosudov; Pravolov is invited to dinner. Naumych starts talking about the "rival" - Pryamikov, who loves Sofia; Pravolov replies, considering the presents, that he has everything under control.

Then, bribed by Pravolov, the marshal of the chamber, officials, and the prosecutor, while drinking, decide to take away the estate from Pryamikov on a false claim from Pravolov. The next morning, Pryamikov comes to Krivosudov to warn him about the impending disaster for the Civil Chamber for the previous cases that were wrongly decided in favor of the snatcher Pravolov. However, Fyokla, who decided to marry Sophia for Pravolov, kicks Pryamikov out of the house. The assembled officials sign the wrong verdict.

Pravolov is brought the sent order: the Senate decided to take Pravolov into custody for robbery-robbery-disorderly conduct, and to arrange a strict search in all places of office, and to escort all the rest of the villains to the chamber of presence. He runs away in horror. Then others read this document and are also horrified (only Dobrov is happy, he is kind). Then Fyokla finds out about this and is indignant for a long time - they say, "Is there only one court here that thieves have settled?" And then Pryamikov comes and says - you know, in spite of all this situation, I have not fallen out of love with Sofia and I want to marry her. Feka and Krivsudov are already in full favor. Happy end - the guilty are punished, everyone gets married, but it is clear that in general nothing will happen to the scammers.

HIGH COMEDY POETICS: "YABEDA" V. V. KAPNIST (1757 - 1823)

With all the external difference in the evolutionary paths and genetic foundations of the prose and poetic comedy of the 18th century. their inner striving for one and the same genre model of a nationally unique "truly social" comedy is evident in the final points of these paths. Before Fonvizin created his high comedy "The Minor", in the Russian comedy of the 18th century. the main complex of structural elements of this genre was formed. The comedy of V. V. Kapnist "Yabeda", created in 1796, at the end of the century, inherits the tradition of national drama in its entirety.

In both comedies, the heroine was brought up in an environment far from the material life of the Prostakov estate and the Krivosudov house, only the family ties were turned upside down: the Fonvizinsky Milon met Sophia in her native Moscow house and found her distant relatives Prostakovs again on the estate; Kapnistov's Pryamikov met his love "In Moscow with his aunt, where she was brought up" (342). If the heroine Kapnist does not have a noble stage uncle Starodum involved in her upbringing, then she nevertheless owes her moral character, which sharply distinguishes her from the environment of her native family, non-stage and, apparently, as noble as Starodum, to her aunt. Both in "Minor" and in "Yabeda" the heroine is threatened with a forced marriage out of selfish motives of the groom's family or her own:

Milon. Perhaps it is now in the hands of some self-interested people (II, 1); Krivosudov. I want to find such a son-in-law for myself, // Who would be able to make money with what he had acquired (350).

Finally, in both comedies, the lovers owe their final happiness to the intervention of an external force: letters about custody in Nedoroslya, Senate decrees on the arrest of Pravolov and the trial of the Civil Chamber in Yabeda. But this obvious plot similarity is by no means the main aspect of the fundamental similarity between the poetics of the prosaic "Minor" and the poetic "Yabeda". In The Minor, the key to the genre structure of the comedy was the pun, which lies at the root of the doubling of its world image into everyday and everyday versions. And with the same key, an outwardly unified everyday world image of "Yabeda" is revealed, in which the volumes given to virtue are reduced to the last possible extent, and the image of vice expansively extends to all actions. With all the visible thematic discrepancy between the pictures of the tyrant-landowner's everyday tyranny in Nedoroslya and the judicial official in Yabeda, it is the pun intended to become the main means of differentiating the image system and the artistic method of recreating the same world image, split into ideas and things, which we already had a case of. to observe in the "Minor".

But if for Fonvizin in the comedy of power "Nedoroslya" the main instrument of analysis at all levels of poetics from the pun to the double material-ideal world image was the aesthetically significant category of quality, then for Kapnist in the comedy of the law "Yabede" the category of quantity is of paramount importance: another innovation in the pun intended structure of the word "Yabedy", introduced by Kapnist into the traditional method. The word "Yabedy" not only in Fonvizin has two different meanings; it is also quite original, in a Kapnist way, and can in the plural mean something directly opposite to the meaning of its initial form (singular). The dilution of the meanings of a word in its quantitative variants is especially clearly manifested, first of all, in the conceptual structure of the "Yabeda" action. The root concept underlying her world image is "law", and in its singular and plural numbers it is by no means identical with itself. The word "law" in the singular in "Yabeda" is practically synonymous with the concept of "good" in the highest sense (goodness, justice, justice):

Pryamikov. No, nothing will darken my right. // I am not afraid: the law of support to me and the shield (340); Kind. The law wishes us all direct good<...>// And with the righteousness of the judges as far as can be reconciled (341).

It is no accident that in this quantitative version the word "law" belongs to the speech of virtuous characters associated with the existential sphere of the spirit. Their antagonists operate with "laws" in the plural:

Krivosudov. We, according to the laws, must do everything (347); Thekla. There are so many laws!<...>A million decrees!<...>The whole bulk is right! (360); Kokhtin. I looked for new laws // And, it seems, smoothly combined with the case (372); Kokhtin. I drew a preliminary journal, // I agreed with its laws and with the case, // Most importantly, sir, with yesterday's general opinion (429).

Already in these remarks, where the concept of "law" is transformed into the plural of the word "laws", the opposition of meanings is obvious: the clear unambiguousness of the law - and the endless variability of laws, turning them into a plastic mass obedient to the subjective arbitrariness of a selfish official. With particular clarity, the antonymy of "laws" to "law" is manifested precisely in those cases when the word "law" in the singular is used by people-things, the embodiment of everyday vice:

Krivosudov. Mad! It is necessary to clean up such a law, // So that we can justify the guilty one (361); Thekla. Who was ruined not by the words of the law? (423).

The law that justifies the guilty and the law that ruins the right is no longer a law, but lawlessness. What is not an analogy to the "decree on the freedom of the nobility" in the interpretation of Mrs. Prostakova, about whom V.O. Klyuchevsky remarked: “She wanted to say that the law justifies her lawlessness. She said nonsense, and in this nonsense is the whole meaning of "Little Growth": without her it would be a comedy of nonsense. " Perhaps this judgment is applied to Yabeda with almost great success. Thus, the pun of Kapnist ultimately actualizes, first of all, the category of quantity, and with the erasure of the individual qualitative characteristics of all participants in the action, without exception, in the conditions of the unified poetic speech of all characters, Kapnist finally finds a purely effective and situational way of assimilating virtue and vice. Taking upon itself the main semantic load in the figurative system and the world image of "Yabeda", the category of quantitativeness, expressed by a pun on the word in its singular and plural, draws against the background of traditional poetics inherited from the "Minor", the prospect of the forthcoming sharp uniqueness of the figurative structures of "Woe from mind "and" The Inspector General ": there is only one opposition - everything. It is no coincidence that the quantitative opposition "one - many" has already been formed in "Yabeda" by the opposition of law-truth and laws-lie. This is a prerequisite for the next level of affinity. And if the role of Pryamikov, “a person from the outside” and a victim of malicious slander in a comedy intrigue, is saturated with self-valuable ideological speaking and at the same time deprives any partner of the same level, then in the future the role of Alexander Andreyevich Chatsky, “one” among “ others ”: for all its quantitative form, this conflict is, in essence, a qualitative characteristic, which was shrewdly emphasized by IA Goncharov. As for “all” who are mired in the abyss of everyday vices, the fate of this multitude will find its final embodiment in the fate of Gogol's officials, who were numb and petrified in the finale of The Inspector General. Starting with the Fonvizin heroes-ideologists, equal to their high word, which completely exhausts their stage images, in the Russian comedy of the 18th century. the potential associativity of such a hero to the Gospel Son of God, the incarnate Word, the Logos, the inalienable attribute of which is his good and its truth, is steadily growing: “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt with us, full of grace and truth” (John; 1.4). In its entirety, this associativity will be embodied in a whole network of sacred reminiscences associated with the image of Chatsky and so tangible that contemporaries dubbed "Woe from Wit" the "secular gospel." Of all the concrete incarnations of the role of the tall hero in the Russian comedy of the 18th century. this potential associativity is especially clearly manifested in the image of Pryamikov, in several verbal leitmotifs accompanying him in the action of the comedy. First of all, in "Yabeda" it is not known where Pryamikov came from to the settled life of the Krivosudov house; throughout the entire action this question torments his partners: “Sophia. Oh, where are you from?<...>Where have you been for a long time? " (345). Wed in the Gospel: “I know where I came from and where I am going; but you do not know where I am from and where I am going ”(John; VIII, 14). The only indication of the place from which Pryamikov came is rather metaphorical than concrete. Already the very first question of Anna Pryamikov: "Yes otkol // Did God bring you?" (343), supported by a similar question from Thekla: "Why did the Lord bring us into our house?" (422), hints at the predominantly mountainous areas of Pryamikov's habitation. So, the hero appears in the earthly abode of his antagonists, metaphorically speaking, from above ("You are from the lower, I He did not come of himself, but He sent Me "- John; VIII, 42). In Kapnist's comedy, this sacred meaning, accompanying the image of Pryamikov, is also emphasized by the literal meaning of his name: in its Greek (Fedot - Theodot) and Russian (Bogdan) versions, it means the same thing: God's gift, God-given (“Bulbulkin. Indeed, you can see , God has given you, brother, this Fedot "- 404). Further, the indissoluble attributiveness of the concept of "truth" to the image of Pryamikov is the most striking verbal leitmotif of his speech:

Pryamikov. But my business is so right, clearly so! (335); But I am used to writing everything with the truth, my friend, (339); I think I'm right (339); But you are not forbidden to reveal the truth<...>... When would you know the truth<...>... I rely on your judgment in my rightness (399); I do not sneak, but tell the truth<...>... Not abuse, but the truth ... (402).

In the combination of these two leitmotifs of the image of Pryamikov, truth and its higher origin, the subtle overtones of the sacred meaning that accompanies the hero becomes especially noticeable. A whole series of internally rhyming remarks and episodes of comedy throughout its entire action supports this sacred meaning: the very first characteristic that Dobrov gives to Krivosudova is associatively projected onto the evangelical situation of Judas' betrayal (“What the house lord, civil chairman, // There are real truths of Judas and traitor "- 335). It is worth noting here that the epithet “existing” does not refer to Krivosudov (a real traitor), but to the truth: the true truth is the Logos, the incarnate word (cf. the pervasive gospel formula “truly, truly, I say to you”, preceding the revelations of Christ). The “real truth” betrayed by Judas-Krivosudov in “Yabeda” is undoubtedly Bogdan Pryamikov, who embodies in his human form the pure idea of law and truth. The motive of the highest truth also arises in the characterization of Atuev (“With him with a pack of good dogs // And the truth that came down from heaven can be reached” - 336), in which each key word is deeply functional in action. “Truth descended from heaven” is the right-wing Bogdan Pryamikov, whom Pravolov is going to “get there” (“I’ll get this done now! "(" Pravolov (to Atuev, quietly). Those packs of Crimean? " - 383), in the finale of the comedy, where in the scene of the court decision on the suit of Pryamikov, the motive of desecration of the higher truth is especially distinct in the inversion of this concept applied to Pravolov's obvious lie ("Krivosudov. Here the truth is perceptible in all words"; "Atuev. Why the truth does not need many words "- 445), and is supplemented by the nominal murder of Pryamikov: deprivation of his name and property. I., of course, it is far from accidental that of all the comedies of the 18th century. it is Yabeda, with its disastrous finale, that comes closest to the formal and effective embodiment of the apocalyptic stage effect with which Gogol ended his Inspector General. In one of the intermediate versions of the text, "Yabeda" was supposed to end with a kind of "silent scene", allegorically depicting Justice. Thus, the rough version of the ending of Yabeda and the final result of Gogol's work on the text of The Inspector General in the same text (remark-description) and stage (live picture) forms convey the same idea of the inevitable total catastrophic outcome of the action, which realized in Russian comedy since the time of Sumarokov in associative projection onto the picture of general doom in the apocalyptic prophecy of the Last Judgment. Summing up the conversation about the Russian comedy of the 18th century, it can be noted that the memory of older genres functions in it in structures that accentuate or reduce the speaking character. For all its typological stability, it acts as an ethically variable and even, one might say, ambivalent aesthetic category. Already an evolutionary series of Russian comedy of the 18th century. demonstrates this fluctuation: from the highest odic take-off (noble reasoner, high ideologue, well-read Westernizer, "new man") to the lowest satirical fall (chatterbox-talker, everyday madcap, pettimeter-Galloman). The spoken structure of the odic ideal character correlates his image with the evangelical type of imagery: the Word made flesh and full of grace and truth. The plastic appearance of the punishable vice is correlated with the visual imagery of the Apocalypse, the spectacle of the last death of the sinful world on the day of the Last Judgment. And it is in Yabeda that the concept is found that expresses this ambivalence in a single word with two opposite meanings: the concept of "good" and the association of "good news" from which begins (Pryamikov's appearance) and which ends (Senate decrees) the action of the comedy, located between good-good and good-evil. Satirical journalism, lyric-epic burlesque poem, high comedy - each of these genres of Russian literature of the 1760-1780s. in his own way expressed the same regularity in the formation of new genre structures of Russian literature in the 18th century. Each time the emergence of a new genre was accomplished on the same aesthetic basis: namely, on the basis of the crossing and interpenetration of ideological and aesthetic attitudes and world images of the older genres of satire and ode. But perhaps most clearly this tendency towards the synthesis of the odic and satirical, ideological and everyday, conceptual and plastic world images was expressed in the lyrics, which are still especially clearly differentiated according to their genre characteristics. G.R.Derzhavin became the poet, in whose work the ode finally lost its oratorical potential, and satire got rid of everyday mundaneity.

Vasily Vasilievich Kapnist,

Vasily Vasilievich Kapnist b. 1757, d. in 1824. His literary activity began in 1774 with an ode on the occasion of the Kainardzhiyskogo peace of Russia with Turkey. Odes, small lyric works, epigrams and satire, full of liveliness and wit, as well as dramatic translations from French, acquired him a rather prominent place among literary figures of the late X VIII and early XIX century. But his most remarkable work is a five-act comedy called Yabeda.

Here is a story about its appearance in 1798, placed in No. 5 of the "Vilnius portfolio" (Teka Wilénska 1858 No. 5; translation into "Bibliography. Zap. " 1859, p. 47). “Kapnist in his comedy“ Yabed ”with beautiful language and living for its time features exposed all the corruption, all the trickery, lack of involvement and robbery of officials. When the play was put on the stage, the audience, seeing the characters so vividly captured from nature, triumphed with all their hearts, and noisily greeted the comedy, like people who still did not know the boundaries established by true education. But bureaucratic people of all ranks, ashamed, if only it could be such a picture, and seeing in it, as in a mirror, the image of his vices, he simply burst with annoyance. A report was drawn up. It is presented to the emperor that Kapnist gave a terrible pretext for temptation, that his impudence exaggerated reality; even a clear violation of the monarch's power was found in its nearest organs: in such expressions a whole mountain of false accusations was brought down on the writer. All this ended in humiliation with a petition about the protection of power, the prohibition of the song and about the approximate, for the future time, punishment of the malicious, not alienated author. Emperor Pavel, entrusting the report, ordered to immediately send Kapnist to Siberia. It was in the morning. The order was immediately executed. After dinner, the emperor's anger cooled down, he pondered and doubted the validity of his order. However, not believing his plan to anyone, he ordered that Yabeda be presented that very evening in his presence at the Hermitage Theater. The sovereign appeared in the theater only with the lead. Prince Alexander. There was no one else in the theater. After the first act, the emperor, incessantly applauding the play, sent the first courier who came to him to return Kapnist at once; granted the returned writer the rank of state councilor, bypassing the lowest ranks in the order of rank-making (Kapnist was at that time only a collegiate assessor), generously rewardedhe honored him with his favors until his death. "

By the time of the appearance of "Yabeda", the following documents, which first appear in print, also belong.

My dear sir, Yuri Adeksaidrovich! (To Neledinsky-Meletsky). The annoyance that I and many others have caused a sneak, the reason that I dared to ridicule her in a comedy; and the vigilant efforts of our truth-loving monarch to eradicate it in the courts, inspires me with the courage to devote my essay to His Imperial Majesty.

Forwarding it to your Excellency, like a lover of the Russian teacher, I humbly ask you to find out the highest will, whether my zeal will be pleasing to His Imperial Majesty, and Lyon deigns to honor me with the most gracious permission to decorate in print my work, already approved by the censorship, with his sacred name.

I have the honor to be and so on. Vasily Kapnist. St. Petersburg, April 30 days 1793

II.

M. my city, Dmitriy Nikolaevich (to Neplyuev). By the highest will of the sovereign the emperor, 1,211 copies of the comedy "Yabeda", I have the honor to escort you to your Excellency. However, Baron von der Pahlen will remain forever with true and perfect respect.

Message ... G.V. Esipov.

III.

"Yabeda", a comedy by Kapnist.

Kapnist's comedy "Yabeda", as you know, at the end of the XVIII v. the multitude of rumors, displeasure and fears, which brought about the fierce persecution of the author, were published for the first time only during the reign of Emperor Paul in 1798. We have a copy of that publication, which has become a bibliographic rarity 1). Our copy belonged to one of the best Russian actors of the beginning of this century, Shchenikov, whose benefit performance "Yabeda" was on September 2, 1814, with amendments made by the author. All changes have been made to the book by Shchenikov.

Printed:

This verse is replaced by another:

The following verses are crossed out:

Dobrov .

1 ) Here is the title: “Yabeda, a comedy in five acts. With the permission of the St. Petersburg censorship. In St. Petersburg, 1798, printed in the imperial printing house. Subsidiary of the city of Krutitskago. " (In a small eagle, 8 and 66 pages). The author's surname is indicated on the dedication to Emperor Paul I.

Pryamikov.

Between the verses:

The following is inserted:

Fixed:

Corrected:

In the first edition of "Yabed" (1798) there is an allegorical picture engraved on copper: the rays of the sun illuminate the monogram of the emperor, emitting a thunderous arrow at the sneak. Have at the foot of the pedestal, on which the monogram is placed, a woman (Truth) sits, pointing to the inscription: “I will set up a righteous judgment by you.” (Lomonosov, 2nd ode).

Message S. I. Turbin.

Vasily Vasilievich Kapnist came from a wealthy noble family who settled in the Ukraine under Peter I; here in the village of Obukhovka, which he later glorified in verse, he was born in 1757.

About Kapnist

Monarch! accepting the crown, you are the truth on the throne

He reigned with him ...

I painted vice with Thalia's brush;

Bribery, sneaks, exposed all the vileness,

And now I give it to the mockery of the light.

I am not vindictive from them, I am afraid of libel:

We are completely unharmed under Pavlov's shield ...

Really: he washes, he says, after all, a hand is a hand;

And with the criminal civil chamber

She often lives for her familiar;

Not so with a celebration already what it is

A manifesto has been moved under your mercy.

The "punishment of vice" and "the triumph of virtue" acquired an ironic connotation here.

Take it, there is no big science here;

Take what you can take.

Why are our hands hung on?

How not to take?

(Everyone repeats):

Take, take, take.

Nick. Smirnov-Sokolsky

Arrested comedy

Nick. Smirnov-Sokolsky. Stories about books. Fifth edition
M., "Book", 1983
OCR M. N. Bychkov

In 1798, during the time of Paul I, the comedy of the famous poet and playwright Vasily Vasilyevich Kapnist "Yabeda" was published. The plot of "Yabeda" was suggested to V. Kapnist by his personal experiences and misadventures at his own trial, which he lost in the Saratov Civil Chamber over some estate.
Kapnist's Yabeda occupies a significant place in the history of Russian drama.
One of the first accusatory comedies on our stage, it was the predecessor of Griboyedov's Woe from Wit and Gogol's Inspector General.
Kapnist himself was under the direct influence of the "Minor" Fonvizin.
The evil comedy exposed the arbitrariness and bribery that reigned in the courts of that time. Already the names of the characters spoke for themselves: Krivosudov, Khvataiko, Kokhtev ...
One of the heroes of the comedy, the chairman of the Krivosudov court, sings, for example, the following verses:

Take it! Big in that there is no science.
Take what you can take
Why are our hands hung
How not to take! Take! Take!

The comedy was written in 1793-1794, even during the reign of Catherine II, but these years were such that the author did not dare to perform with it in front of the audience and readers. It was only under Paul I, on August 22, 1798, that it was first presented in St. Petersburg.
The comedy was a huge success with the audience. A number of phrases from "Yabeda" were immediately picked up, and some of them became proverbs. "The laws are holy, but the performers are dashing adversaries," they repeated later for many years.
Later V.G.Belinsky, who had a low opinion of Kapnist's poetic talent, wrote about his comedy that it "belongs to the historically important phenomena of Russian literature as a bold and decisive attack of satire on chicanery, sneakiness and covetousness, which so terribly tormented the society of the past. "2.
Simultaneously with the staging of the comedy on stage, Kapnist decided to publish it, for which he turned to the court poet Yu.A. Neledinsky-Meletsky with the following letter:
"My dear sir, Yuri Alexandrovich!
The annoyance that the snitch caused to me and many others, the reason that I decided to ridicule her in a comedy; and the vigilant efforts of our truth-loving monarch to eradicate it in the courts inspires me with the courage to devote my essay to His Imperial Majesty. In transmitting this to your Excellency, like a lover of the Russian word, I humbly ask you to know the highest will, whether the zeal of E. and I. v. and does he deign to deign to me with the most merciful permission to adorn in print my work, already approved by the censorship, with his sacred name?

I have the honor to be and so on. V. Kapnist.
SPb. April 30 days 1798 "3.

Although the censorship allowed comedy, it mutilated it very thoroughly, throwing out about an eighth of the text altogether. The following response from Neledinsky-Meletsky followed V. Kapnist's letter:
"His Imperial Majesty, Condescending to your desire, most mercifully allows the comedy you have composed called" Yabeda "to be printed with an inscription on the dedication of this work to the august name of His Majesty. -Meletsky. In Pavlovsk, June 29, 1798 "
Having received permission, Kapnist presented the right to print the comedy to the actor he liked A.M. Krutitsky, who played the role of Krivosudov in the comedy.
In the same 1798, the actor Krutitsky very quickly managed to print a comedy in the amount of more than 1200 copies. In addition, Krutitsky printed several copies as "trays" on special paper. In addition to the engraved frontispiece and the dedication of the comedy to Paul I, he added pages to these copies, as well as to some part of the general circulation, on which the above letter from Neledinsky-Meletsky to Kapnist and a letter from Kapnist himself to the actor Krutitsky, the publisher of Yabeda, were printed. This letter is as follows:
"My dear sir, Anton Mikhailovich! While presenting to you my comedy" Iabeda ", I ask you to humbly accept from me the right to publish it in your favor. to your gifts I feel, and hope that my work will also be favorably received from you by the readers, as the audience was accepted. I am with true respect, etc. V. Kapnist. 1798 September 30th day. "

I am citing the text of these curious letters because the "special" copies of Yabeda, in which they are printed, are of great bibliographic rarity. Almost all bibliographers indicate the number of pages in it 135, that is, they describe "ordinary" copies, without the above letters, while in "special" copies of pages 138. The last two letters indicated were printed on the additional pages.
The appearance of "Yabeda" on the stage, aroused the delight of one part of the audience, aroused anger and indignation in another. This second part included large bureaucrats-officials who saw their own portraits in comedy images. Denunciations fell on the author, addressed to Paul I. Hurried in his decisions, Pavel immediately ordered the comedy to be banned, printed copies to be arrested, and the author immediately sent to Siberia.
The comedy took place in the theater only four times. Published by this time in print copies of it in the amount of 1211 were immediately arrested. On this occasion, an interesting document with the following content has been preserved:

"Dear sir, Dmitry Nikolaevich (Neplyuev. - N. S.-S.)!
By the highest will of the sovereign-emperor, I have selected 1211 copies of the comedy "Yabedy" by me from Mr. Krutitsky, dependent on him, and I have the honor to transmit it to your Excellency. Baron von der Palen "4.

Such things were done quickly under Paul I. The comedy was sealed with sealing wax in a censorship chest, and its author Kapnist, courier horses rushed to Siberia.
But in the evening of the same day, as some say, Paul wanted to suddenly check the correctness of his "command." He ordered to give a comedy that same evening in his "Hermitage" theater.
Trembling actors played a comedy, and there were only two spectators in the auditorium: Paul I himself and his heir Alexander.
The effect was completely unexpected. Pavel laughed like a madman, often applauded the actors, and ordered the first courier who caught his eye to gallop along the road to Siberia for the author.
Kapnist, who had returned from the road, was kind to him in every possible way, elevated to the rank of state councilor, and until his death he protected him5.
Whether it was so accurate or not, documents on this matter have not been preserved, but the fact that the published comedy was arrested, and the author almost ended up in Siberia, is true. It is also true that Paul I afterwards did indeed provide some patronage to Kapnist. “However, this“ patronage ”did not extend to the comedy“ Yabed. ”It was still not allowed for performance and for publication and saw the light of the footlights again only in 1805, far from immediately even after the death of Pavel I. copies of the comedy appeared on sale a little earlier, having received an "amnesty" in 1802. This is confirmed by the receipt of the actor Krutitsky, the publisher of the comedy, which is now kept in the Pushkin House. Excellencies Mr. Actual Privy Councilor and Senator Troshchinsky, the following copies of the comedy "Yabeda" by Kapnist, all 1211 in number, which I will subscribe to: Russian Court Theater, actor Anton Krutitsky "6.
The copy of "Yabeda" I have belongs to the number of "tray" ones, which were usually printed in the smallest quantity.
This copy contains, as mentioned above, a magnificent engraved frontispiece and an additional sheet with letters from Neledinsky-Meletsky and Kapnist. The entire book was printed on special thick paper. This made the copy of the comedy very massive, more than twice the thickness of all other copies of it. The book is bound in a sumptuous gold-embossed green Morocin with gold edging.
I have not seen such copies in any library and I have reason to think that if it is not unique, then in any case it is especially rare.
He came to me from the collection of the late bibliographer N. Yu. Ulyaninsky, who during his lifetime always gasped and groaned around this remarkable find of his.
The rest of the run of the comedy, in turn, was divided into two types:
a) Complete copies, with 138 pages, with good engraving prints. These copies differ from my "tray" only in the quality of the paper.
b) Copies on the worst paper (sometimes even of unequal color), with an engraving, printed poorly and blindly, obviously from a "tired" board. In many copies, this engraving is absent altogether. The number of pages in this part of the circulation is 135. There are no pages 137-138 with letters from Neledinsky-Meletsky and Kapnist.
Pre-revolutionary antiquaries knew this difference between the two types of comedy publication and valued "Yabeda" with 138 pages much more expensive, considering the book to be a great rarity, while ordinary copies, with 135 pages, valued from a ruble to three rubles, depending on the availability or lack of engraving. Such specimens were not considered a rarity.
In addition to the different number of pages, the quality of the paper and the quality of the print of the engraving, there is one more difference between the two indicated types of Yabeda's edition: some pages of the second type are retyped in the same font, with very minor discrepancies: in one case a typo was corrected, in the other a new one was made; in one case the end line is longer, in the other it is shorter, and so on.
Such a difference in the set of some pages of the same edition in the 18th and first half of the 19th centuries was by no means a rare occurrence.
We already know that it was considered in the custom to print some books without fail in several forms: a certain number of especially luxurious, or "tray" copies, then part of the circulation on good paper, "for amateurs and experts" and, finally, simple copies - - for sale.
"Tray" copies were sometimes printed with large margins, sometimes on silk or on paper of a different color.
Of course, each change of paper, change of margins, removal of engravings (if they were in the text) required a new dressing of the set, sometimes a re-layout. At the same time, partial changes could occur: the replacement of letters, decorations, and sometimes a complete change in the set of one or another page.
Bibliographers know, for example, that the book "Triumphant Minerva" of 1763 was printed in two sets at once, with some difference in decoration.
The set changed partially or completely in some books of the time of Peter I. This sometimes happened due to the significant circulation of books, at which the letters of the set "got tired", got confused.
But you never know, finally, what accidents could be in the process of printing the book? The technique was primitive, they printed without haste, with caution. We noticed a typo - we corrected it, noticed that the sheet began to give bad prints, - we stopped, changed the seasoning, sometimes the font. All this did not surprise anyone, and everyone considered the book, published under one title page, with the same printing date, to be one edition, not several.
The Kiev literary critic, associate professor A.I. Matsai reacted completely differently to these features of the typographic technique of the past. In a recently released study about "Yabed" by V. Kapnist, A. I. Matsai, based solely on small typographic "discrepancies" noticed by him in different copies of the comedy, made a conclusion not only about the existence of some simultaneous "second" edition of it, but and defined it as supposedly underground, illegal, which is "almost the first underground publication of a work of art in general in Russia" 7.
A. I. Matsai writes: “Copies of the comedy, which were sold by hand before taking away most of the circulation from Krutitsky, could not satisfy the huge demand for it. This gave rise to the idea of publishing Yabeda illegally, under the guise of the first sold out on the hands of the publication ".
AI Matsai does not provide any other evidence, except for the misprints and comma permutations noticed by him in copies of various types of "Yabeda", and therefore his assumption is unconvincing.
The huge demand for comedy cannot serve as a basis for such an assumption either, since, say, A. N. Radishchev's "Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow" was much more in demand, but, however, no one even spoke about the underground and illegal editions of his book. dare to think. At the time of Catherine II, and especially Paul I, they did not joke with such matters. They smelled not only of Siberia ...
The demand for Radishchev's book was satisfied by the numerous handwritten lists circulating around. It was thanks to them that "Radishchev, the enemy escaped censorship from slavery."
Kapnist's comedy "Yabeda" also avoided censorship. She, too, went from hand to hand in the lists, the more so because in its size it was much easier for correspondence than Radishchev's "Journey".
Everything that AI Matsai further informs in defense of his hypothesis is also unsubstantiated. According to him, "... Kapnist and Krutitsky, apparently, were participants in an illegal, underground publication ..."
Still further it is reported: "In order to carry out an illegal publication, the comedy had to be retyped in the same font as the first edition ..." - he was unable to carry out his completely unusual work, which requires a truly amazing vitreousness, with absolute precision. "
Therefore, according to A. I. Matsai, some minor discrepancies have turned out: the name of the publisher in one case is typed "Krutitsky", and in the other - "Krutitskago" - "shakes" and so on.
Defending his point of view, A. I. Matsai reports that he studied thirteen copies of "Yabeda", of which he considers five of the first, "legal" edition and eight allegedly of the second, "underground". Counting typographical discrepancies in them, which can only be found with a magnifying glass and a centimeter, A. I. Matsai for some reason passes over in silence the main discrepancy between the first and the second.
According to him, all the first five copies of the "legal" edition have 138 pages of text, while all eight copies of the "underground" - only 135.
So where is the "virtuosity" of the typesetter? Having managed to make a forgery in such a way that "two editions of Yabeda" were taken by experts as one whole century and a half, "the counterfeiter does not calmly type or print two pages of text at all, and no one notices this" mistake "of his?
It seems that there was no second, "underground" edition of "Yabeda". There was one, but printed, in the manner of that time, in three forms: several luxurious, "tray" copies, some - just good ones, "for amateurs and experts" and the rest - "ordinary" ones for sale.
In the copies of the first and second types, the publishers considered it necessary to attach pages with letters, and the third type was issued without them.
The researcher of "Yabeda" A. I. Matsai found in the libraries five copies belonging to the second type of publication, and eight - to the third. He did not come across the first, "luxurious" look.
The copies are "luxurious", as well as the copies of the second type of the edition of "Yabeda" in 1798, both in the number of pages and in the set are absolutely identical.
During the transfer of the printing press to the press of the third, "ordinary" type of publication, for some technical reason, some pages had to be retyped. That, in fact, is all.
Any other, more daring assumptions either need to be documented, or they remain only assumptions.
In general, two legends were created around Yabeda. One is that Paul I ordered to stage a comedy separately for himself, was pleased with it and ordered Kapnist, who had been exiled to Siberia, to be returned from the road.
Another legend tells about the existence of some second, allegedly "illegal", "underground" edition of "Yabeda".
It seems that the first legend deserves more credibility. Paul I was just that: crazy, impetuous, able to elevate his subject in a second or immediately plunge him into prison.
Whether a similar story happened to Kapnist or not, but it is very similar to the truth.
The second legend - about the "underground" edition of "Yabeda" - does not inspire confidence, primarily by the names of the persons participating in it. V. Kapnist was a very freedom-loving and courageous man. The author of the study "Yabeda" A. I. Matsai speaks of this correctly and convincingly.
But neither the creator of Yabeda, nor the more so the actor Krutitsky, were by no means the "overthrowers of the will of the monarch".
And this, I think, is the most effective argument against the existence of some second, "illegal and underground" edition of Yabeda.
To all this, I do not think it superfluous to add that in my collection there is, for example, a book of fables by my friend Sergei Vladimirovich Mikhalkov with drawings by E. Rachev, published in Moscow in 1957. This book is a gift from the author. It bears his autograph: "To the prospector-collector of rare and ordinary books, too - Nikolai Smirnov-Sokolsky from Sergei Mikhalkov." Next comes his humorous couplet:

Among the Krylovs and Zilovs
There is also room for the Mikhalkovs.

I am informing about this not to boast of my friendship with the writer (although I value this friendship very much), but because his copy of his book is not "ordinary" at all. This is one of the "signal" copies, slightly different from those that later went on sale. There are some typographical and other discrepancies between them, a bit similar to those that were in different forms of the same edition of Yabeda by Kapnist in 1798. As you can see, this happens now.

NOTES

1 Kapnist V. Yabeda, a comedy in five acts. With the permission of the St. Petersburg censorship. In St. Petersburg, 1798, printed in Imp. type of. Dependent of Mr. Krutitsky Engraving frontispiece, cap. l., 6 not num., 138 p. 8® (22x14 cm).
In ordinary copies - 135 p.; it is special, "tray".
2 Belinsky V.G. collection cit., t. 7.M., 1955, p. 121.
3 "Russian antiquity", 1873, book. 5, p. 714.
4 Ibid, p. 715.
5 First published in No. 5 of Vilensky Portfolio, 1858; reprinted in Bibliographic Notes, 1859, vol. 2, p. 47.
6 Pushkin House. Archive, fund 93, op. 3, No 556, fol. 5.
7 Matsai A. "Yabeda" Kapnista. Kiev: Publishing house of the Kiev University named after TG Shevchenko, 1958. Chapter "History of editions", p. 175.

Vasily Vasilievich Kapnist,

Vasily Vasilievich Kapnist b. 1757, d. in 1824. His literary activity began in 1774 with an ode on the occasion of the Kainardzhiyskogo peace of Russia with Turkey. Odes, small lyric works, epigrams and satire, full of liveliness and wit, as well as dramatic translations from French acquired him a rather prominent place among literary figures of the late X VIII and early XIX century. But his most remarkable work is a five-act comedy called Yabeda.

714

Here is a story about its appearance in 1798, placed in No. 5 of the "Vilensky portfolio"(Teka Wilénska 1858 No. 5; translation into "Bibliography. Zap. " 1859, p. 47). “Kapnist in his comedy“ Yabed ”with beautiful language and living for its time features exposed all the corruption, all the trickery, lack of involvement and robbery of officials. When the play was put on the stage, the audience, seeing the characters so vividly captured from nature, triumphed with all their hearts, and noisily greeted the comedy, like people who still did not know the boundaries established by true education. But bureaucratic people of all ranks, ashamed, if only it could be such a picture, and seeing in it, as in a mirror, the image of his vices, he simply burst with annoyance. A report was drawn up. It is presented to the emperor that Kapnist gave a terrible pretext for temptation, that his impudence exaggerated reality; even a clear violation of the monarch's power was found in its nearest organs: in such expressions a whole mountain of false accusations was brought down on the writer. All this ended in humiliation with a petition about the protection of power, the prohibition of the song and about the approximate, for the future time, punishment of the malicious, not alienated author. Emperor Pavel, entrusting the report, ordered to immediately send Kapnist to Siberia. It was in the morning. The order was immediately executed. After dinner, the emperor's anger cooled down, he pondered and doubted the validity of his order. However, not believing his plan to anyone, he ordered that Yabeda be presented that very evening in his presence at the Hermitage Theater. The sovereign appeared in the theater only with the lead. Prince Alexander. There was no one else in the theater. After the first act, the emperor, incessantly applauding the play, sent the first courier who came to him to return Kapnist at once; granted the returned writer the rank of state councilor, bypassing the lowest ranks in the order of rank-making (Kapnist was at that time only a collegiate assessor), generously rewardedhe honored him with his favors until his death. "

By the time of the appearance of "Yabeda", the following documents, which first appear in print, also belong.

I have the honor to be and so on. Vasily Kapnist. St. Petersburg, April 30 days 1793

715

II.

Message ... G.V. Esipov.

III.

"Yabeda", a comedy by Kapnist.

Kapnist's comedy "Yabeda", as you know, excited at the end Xviii v. the multitude of rumors, displeasure and fears, which brought about the fierce persecution of the author, were published for the first time only during the reign of Emperor Paul in 1798. We have a copy of that publication, which has become a bibliographic rarity 1). Our copy belonged to one of the best Russian actors of the beginning of this century, Shchenikov, whose benefit performance "Yabeda" was on September 2, 1814, with amendments made by the author. All changes have been made to the book by Shchenikov.

Printed:

This verse is replaced by another:

The following verses are crossed out:

Dobrov .

716

Pryamikov.

Between the verses:

The following is inserted:

Fixed:

Poetry:

Fixed:

Poetry:

Corrected:

Poetry:

Corrected:

Poetry:

Corrected:

Poem:

Corrected:

717

Message S. I. Turbin.

Poetics of the poetic high comedy: "Yabed" by V. V. Kapnist (1757-1823)

"Yabeda" and "Little Growth": the Tradition of Prose High Comedy in a Poetic Variety of the Genre

Of all the comic texts of the 18th century. none of them demonstrates in their poetics such a deep closeness to the poetics of the "Minor" as "Yabed" by Vasily Vasilyevich Kapnist. It is no coincidence that Yabeda is the only text of the 18th century besides Ignorant that is specifically associated with the mirror of life in the minds of close contemporaries: presented; it is a mirror in which many will see themselves as soon as they want to look into it. "

Generic identification of theater and drama with a mirror by the end of the 18th century. became an indispensable reality of the emerging aesthetics and theater criticism. Wed, for example, in the "Mail of Spirits" by I. A. Krylov: "Theater <..." is a school of morals, a mirror of passions, a judgment of delusions and a game of reason ", as well as in the article by P. A. Plavilshchikov" Theater ":" Property comedy to tear the mask off vice, so that the one who sees himself in this funny mirror of moralizing, during the performance would laugh at himself and return home with an impression that arouses some inner judgment in him. And, paying attention to the fact that the motive of the theater-mirror and the comedy-mirror is invariably accompanied by the motive of the court, we will understand that it is the comedy "Yabeda", with its court plot, perceived by contemporaries as a mirror of Russian morals, has become a kind of semantic focus of Russian high comedy XVIII century In terms of Kapnist's inheritance of the Fonvizin dramatic tradition, it is obvious, first of all, that the love line of Yabeda is close to the corresponding plot motif of The Minor. In both comedies, the heroine, bearing the same name, Sophia, is loved by the officer (Milon and Pryamikov), who was separated from her by the circumstances of the service:

Milon. <…> I have not heard anything about her all this time. Often, attributing the silence to her coldness, I was tormented by grief (II, 1); Pryamikov. ‹…› I wrote to her, and tea, // One hundred letters, but imagine, not a single one from her // I have not been given an answer by tuning. // I was in despair ‹…› (344).

In both comedies, the heroine was brought up in an environment far from the material life of the Prostakov estate and Krivosudov's house, only the family ties were turned upside down: the Fonvizinsky Milon met Sophia in her native Moscow house and found her distant relatives Prostakovs again on the estate; Kapnist's Pryamikov met his love "In Moscow with his aunt, where she was brought up" (342). If the heroine Kapnist does not have a noble stage uncle Starodum involved in her upbringing, then she nevertheless owes her moral character, which sharply distinguishes her from the environment of her family, non-stage and, apparently, as noble as Starodum, to her aunt. Both in "Minor" and in "Yabeda" the heroine is threatened with a forced marriage out of selfish motives of the groom's family or her own:

Milon. Maybe she is now in the hands of some self-interested people (II, 1); Krivosudov. I want to find such a son-in-law for myself, // Who would be able to make money from what he acquired (350).

Finally, in both comedies, the lovers owe their final happiness to the intervention of an external force: letters about custody in Nedoroslya, Senate decrees on the arrest of Pravolov and the trial of the Civil Chamber in Yabeda. But this obvious plot similarity is by no means the main aspect of the fundamental similarity between the poetics of the prosaic "Minor" and the poetic "Yabeda". In The Minor, the key to the genre structure of the comedy was the pun, which lies at the root of the doubling of its world image into everyday and everyday versions. And with the same key, an outwardly unified everyday world image of "Yabeda" is opened, in which the volumes given to virtue are reduced to the last possible extent, and the image of vice expansively extends to all actions. With all the visible thematic discrepancy between the pictures of the tyrant-landowner's everyday tyranny in Nedoroslya and the judicial official in Yabeda, it is the pun intended to become the main means of differentiating the image system and the artistic method of recreating the same world image, split into an idea and a thing, which we already had the case to observe in the "Minor".

Functions of the pun in the comedy "Yabeda": characterological, effective, genre-forming, world-modeling

The word in Yabeda begins to play with meanings literally from the title page of the text and: the playbill. Just as the word "undergrowth" is a pun with two meanings, so the word "sneak" is involved in this kind of verbal play by its internal form, which presupposes the ability to self-disclose that "social disaster" which means: "Yabeda" - "I - trouble. " Thus, the very name of the comedy marks the playful nature of its verbal plan, forcing thereby to see the main action of the comedy in it: as I.A. "Action in the word", "play in the language", requiring "the same artistic execution of the language as the execution of the action."

However, the pun in "Yabeda" has not so much a playful (in the sense of a laughing technique) as a functional purpose: it differentiates the figurative system of comedy just like the pun of "Minor", and the first level at which it manifests its activity is characterology. From the very first appearance of comedy in the dialogue between Dobrov and Pryamikov, two types of artistic imagery that are already familiar to us are designated: a person-concept and a person-thing, identified by the main pun word “Yabedy”, the word “good” in its spiritual-conceptual (virtue) and thing- objective (material wealth) values.

Two levels of meaning of the word “good” emerge in one of the first cases of its use: characterizing Fyokla Krivosudova, Dobrov notes: “Edible, drink - there is no stranger in front of her, // And just repeats: giving is every good” (336). A quote from the Epistle of the Apostle James ("Every good gift and every perfect gift descends from above, from the Father of Lights" - James; I, 17), which means purely spiritual perfection ("<..." from God, by His very nature, only good and perfect occurs; therefore, He cannot be the culprit or the cause of temptations leading a person to sin and death "), when applied to" food "and" drink ", emphasizes precisely the everyday, material perversion of the spiritual concept of" good ". And since it is equally used by all the characters of the comedy, its meaning in a given speech characteristic becomes the main device of the general characterization of the character.

The meaningful surname "Dobrov", formed from the Russian synonym for Old Slavism "good", is directly related to the spiritual properties of the person wearing it:

You are a good man, I am sorry, sir, you have become!

Your late father was my benefactor,

I have not forgotten his favors (334).

This motivation of sympathy for Dobrov Pryamikov, evoking a similar response from the latter: "Thank you very much, my friend!" (334), brings both Dobrov and Pryamikov beyond the real meaning of the concept of “good”. The pure spirituality of “good” in the understanding of Dobrov and Pryamikov is also emphasized by the fact that the word “gratitude” in their mouths is invariably preceded by an epithet denoting emotion: “sensitively thank you,” “with admiration, sir, thank you” (349), and that only episode of the comedy when at least some thing is in the hands of the heroes of this plan. It is very symptomatic that this thing is a purse, which in Fonvizin could still be not only a thing, but also a symbol, and in Yabed, thanks to its material world image, it is able to symbolize only one thing: self-interest, incompatible with the dignity of a human concept:

Pryamikov (gives him a wallet).

Please, my friend! ‹…›

Dobrov (not accepting).

No way, thank you (338).

From that moment on, the disinterestedness of Pryamikov, his fundamental externality to the material and material aspect of the plot about the litigation for the hereditary estate, becomes the leitmotif of his image: for Pryamikov, the main thing in the litigation is not the material good (property), but the spiritual good - right and love:

Pryamikov. I think that I will darken my righteousness, // When I pay for it in coin (339); But the point is aside; I have a need for you, // The process of any and all litigation is alien (348); I will endure all the tricksters, and the sneaks, // But if in this house you dare to love your daughter <…> (403); Let all possessions take away 'take possession of them' // But let your heart leave (420).

Thus, the concept of "good" in a high spiritual sense determines the literal meaning of each Pryamikov's replica that is functionally significant in characterology. However, the same concept in the pun-played word "thank" is no less, if not more, functional and in the characterization of the Praamikov antagonists, who use it almost more often.

The level of meaning at which Krivosudov and Co. operate with the concept of "good" reveals again the first case of word usage. Pryamikov's gratitude to Krivosudov for allowing him to meet with Sophia: ("I thank you with admiration, sir, thank you" - 349) calls forth Krivosudov's response: "Good, you only appear to the secretary," which clarifies the meaning of the words "good" and "gratitude" in the mouth of a judicial official, firstly, by the misunderstanding of Pryamikov (“Why go to the secretary?” - 349), and secondly, by the previous voluntary characteristic of the secretary Kokhtin:

Pryamikov.

What about the secretary?

Fool who spends the word.

Even if the goal is like a palm, it will grab something (337).

And further throughout the comedic action of the word blessing, thank, gratitude they rigorously frame those episodes in which the process of giving a bribe to Pravolov is deployed in a stage action. After Dobrov congratulates Krivosudov on our name: ("I wish new blessings for every day and hour" - 346), Naumych and Arkhip (attorney and servant of Pravolov) appear on the stage, burdened with a specific boon in the form of wine ("in bottles the Hermitage "), Food (" Swiss cheese "and" sagging fish ") and clothes (" there is a shaggy marigold on the caftan "," on the robron atlas "," the fleur of the colored bride on the furo ") intended for bribes. Receipt of a cash bribe is preceded by Fekla's hint to resolve the litigation in favor of Pravolov: (“We owe you twice // Thank you: in the morning you did not forget us” - 375). The birthday party in Krivosudov's house is opened by the following exchange of remarks:

May God send down darkness of blessings for you every hour.

Krivosudov.

Thank you friends! Wife, ask to sit down (382).

During the binge, it turns out that Pravolov managed to bribe all the members of the Civil Chamber ("Hungarian Antal" Bulbulkina, "pack of Crimean" Atuev, "carriage" Khvataiko, "pearl watch" Parolkin, general loss of cards to all members of the chamber). And this episode ends with Pravolov's gratitude in response to the promise to settle the case in his favor: “Pravolov. Thank you all ”(408).

Thus, we have to admit that for this group of characters "good" and "good" are tangible material things, and the word "thank" means literally "to give good" - to give a bribe with food, clothing, money and material values - for Pravolov and to give material goods for material goods, that is, to award the latter a disputed estate ("And the case is in a hundred thousand" - 454) - for judicial officials.

As you can see, in its characterological function, Kapnist's pun performs the same role as Fonvizin's pun: he divides the characters of the comedy according to the level of meaning that each of them uses, unites them with synonymous connections and opposes them in antonymic ones, securing a certain position for each group in the hierarchy of reality: being and being. However, something new appears in the pun of "Yabeda" in comparison with "The Minor": he has the ability to turn from a purely verbal comic and semantic device into a direct stage effect. The whole phenomena of "Yabeda" are built on a pun-roll call of a replica with a stage physical action:

Atuev (almost falling out of drunkenness). Rely on me as on the Kremlin wall ‹…› Parolokin (holding a glass and pouring punch on his hand. "). Let my hand dry if I don’t sign <…> Khvataiko. Let them swag, but I'll let it go. (Drinks a glass)(415-416); Dobrov (is reading[protocol]). And he did not give the plaintiff all these estates ... // (Meanwhile, the members, finding bottles under the table, took one from there, and Bulbulkin did not give it to Atuev).// Krivosudov. Note: I did not. Bulbulkin (hidden bottle). Well, he didn't, obviously (443).

This is how Kapnist's pun reveals a new property of this extremely meaningful and multifunctional laughing device of Russian comedy. The pun of "Yabeda" not only collides two different-quality meanings in one word, forcing it (the word) to fluctuate on their verge, but also emphasizes two functional aspects in it, speech and effective. Both of them are covered by the same verbal form, but the word means one thing, but the deed it designates looks completely different, and the word “good” turns out to be especially expressive in this particular type of pun. By its nature, the word "good" is enantiosemic, that is, it has opposite meanings. In high style, the word "good" is synonymous with the word "good", in common parlance - the word "evil" (cf. modern modifications "whim", "blessed"). This is his property and becomes the basis of the pun for the meanings in the comedy "Yabeda".

On this verge of a pun-deed word, directly in the relationship between the speech and the effective aspects of the drama, the same irreparable split of Russian reality into an existential good in the highest sense word and an everyday good, but in the sense of a vernacular thing, which constitutes the analytically reconstructed "higher content" "Minor"; only in "Yabeda" this subtext of the Fonvizin double world image becomes an open text.

The semantic leitmotif of Kapnist's comedy - the opposition of the concepts “word” and “deed” - is realized in stage action, which confronts these two levels of Russian reality in direct stage opposition and dramatic conflict. And if in "Minor", realizing this conflict only in the final analysis, the verbal action, preceding the stage and directing it, nevertheless coincided with it in its content, then in Yabeda "word" and "deed" are absolutely opposite: the right word Pryamikov and Pravolov's deceit run through the whole comedy with a seeming rhyme: "the right is holy" - "the matter is not good enough."

The pun intended meaning of the opposition of the main verbal leitmotifs of "Yabeda" clarifies the central concept of this opposition: the antagonistically opposing "word" and "deed" unite the concept of "paper" (and the synonymous concept of "letter" in the meaning of "written document") with its double meaning, constantly arising between "word" and "deed", since as a text, letter and paper embody the "word", as judicial reality they are "deed".

The plot of "Yabeda" is based on a trial, and therefore the concept of "case" immediately appears in comedy in its two lexical meanings: action-deed ("Pryamikov. That I do not know how to get down to business" - 334) and legal proceedings ("Good. In business, sir, he himself is beyond the power of the devil" - 334). As for Pryamikov, in his understanding, a court case can be resolved by verbal action, that is, by explaining his circumstances in words. And the main stage activity of Pryamikov lies precisely in his incessant attempts to verbally explain his court case:

Pryamikov. Let me about the case ‹…› // But I wanted, sir, to explain to you first ... (347); We can explain the matter to you in words (399); Then in short words ... (400).

However, throughout the comedy, these attempts run up against a blank wall of irrevocability of the pure word in the material environment of the Krivosudov house-court, where the material embodiment of the word in a written document or paper is preferable. The quoted remarks of Pryamikov are interspersed with the following remarks of Krivosudov:

Krivosudov. We can clearly see the case in writing (347); But we cannot judge verbal deeds (399); Yes, on paper we ... (400).

This is how the next stage of character differentiation is carried out: after the pun, a speech characteristic, a pun comes into play - an action that assimilates them according to the method of scenic, effective manifestation: if for Pryamikov, "business" in all possible meanings of this concept is, first of all, the right word , then for Pravolov and the judges "case" and "word" are intelligible only in their professional meaning and purely material embodiment:

Pravolov.

You can't explain things to me in words,

But if you please find everything on paper.

Krivosudov.

Ying on paper we will see everything as it should (380).

And just as the Fonvizin line of pun intended in "Minor" created the impression of the absurdity of reality, equally determined by the opposite meanings of one word, the absolutely incompatible "word" and "deed" of Yabeda combined in "paper" create an equally absurd image using punctuation marks that do not coincide with the semantic boundaries of the phrase:

By the peace of the train. -

Returning to my father's house

I learned that a sneak was intertwined with his relatives

Among the dead: for a long time his moorings

And his exact legacy; sold (447).

It is obvious that such a withdrawal of a word from his dear ideal sphere of lofty concepts and placing it (the word) in the grossly material real world of a judicial case can only compromise it: materialized, and not embodied, as in "Minor", the word "Yabedy" finally loses its identity with the subject and reveals a tendency to aggressively spread to those volumes of action that have so far been occupied by the embodied word, that is, the speaking character: it is no coincidence that there are practically no such characters in Yabeda. One cannot consider Pryamikov, who is not allowed to speak, to speak, or Dobrov, who, having talked in the comedy exposition, disappears from the action right up to its finale.

The process of reification of the word is clearly developed in two phenomena of the first, exposition act of comedy. In the 6th javl. Dobrov is trying to persuade Krivosudov to solve three cases that have been in the Civil Chamber for a long time, while appealing to the well-known Krivosudov's adherence to paper and the written word:

But the written argument here clearly speaks. ‹…›

But the letter is pretty clear (352).

These are the very arguments on the basis of which the lawsuit between Pravolov and Pryamikov will be resolved in the first finale of the comedy: having rejected Pryamikov's word of honor and the oath of twenty of his witnesses, the judges will prefer the paper:

Dobrov (is reading).

And how where are the written documents,

Oaths should not be in effect there ... (444).

However, Krivosudov, who had just refused to listen to Pryamikov, suddenly rejects the voluntary reference to a written document:

Krivosudov.

Required - do you hear? oral translation. ‹…›

But the matter is in the letter, even if it hits the table, silently (352).

Krivosudov's unexpected passion for the spoken word does not at all contradict the poetics of comedy: it is necessary in order to actualize the meaning of the concept "word" in the mouths of this group of characters, which is what happens in the 8th javl. Act I, an episode when Pravolov gave a bribe through his attorney Naumych. The purpose of Naumych's visit was formulated by him as follows: “I have two words about the matter // I wanted to say it to you” (355). However, all his further remarks, these very "two words" about the case, are nothing more than a listing of the material composition of the bribe sent to Krivosudov as a birthday present: "The Hermitage in bottles", "there are sausages", "on the robron atlas", “On the caftan here velvety, shaggy” - not only resurrect in Yabeda the plasticity of the everyday satirical world image of the Russian literary tradition, but also reveal the property of the word to be a real tangible thing: after all, in wines, sausages, cheeses and manufactory it is important, first of all, that they are in this case, they are an argument in favor of Pravolov's rightness. The same reification of the word is repeated in the 5th manifest. II act with a bribe:

Krivosudov. Dear buddy! // Perhaps speak with an open soul to me (376);

Pravolov. I can serve you: I have exactly this amount // I have, and I have nowhere to put it (379).

Thus, we have to admit that the word intelligible to Krivosudov in the "oral translation" of the case turns out, upon closer examination, not to be a word or even a word with an objective meaning, but simply a thing as such. This meaning is expressed with the utmost obviousness in three successive remarks of Naumych in the 8th yavl. Act I:

And you say, sir, do not believe <…>;

In fact, sir, we prove clearly <…>;

A word for us - champagne red (356).

As for Pryamikov, the bearer of the word - the idea of law, the leitmotif of the "empty word", the disembodied sound that is not materialized in any objective reality, is associated with him in the comedy: this is how Pryamikov's desire to prove his right through purely verbal actions:

Krivosudov.

You see, there are only empty stories,

Confused speech and swear words ‹…›

Bulbulkin.

You know, the pompous words turned their heads (449).

The leitmotif of a purely verbal action-deed, accompanying the image of Pryamikov, is especially obvious at the beginning of Act IV, where the hero himself qualifies his word as an action:

Pryamikov.

I can do a service important to them,

And with that he came.

It is impossible for me to act by sim

I have not acquired even the slightest affection for them (420).

But the news brought by Pryamikov to the house of Krivosudov ("Senate, // According to various complaints against you, entered the report" - 421) - was perceived as an "empty word" by his antagonists and continues to remain an "empty word" until its final materialization in paper two Senate decrees:

Thekla. What nonsense! Did you get the news? (421); Thekla. To make you terrified of his empty ravings (425); Kokhtin. How? this formidable news from this empty // lie to you brought? (427); Dobrov (carries two packages and gives them to Krivosudov)(454).

The materiallessness of a pure word - sound and meaning - is also emphasized by Fekla's pun, once again opposing the idiomatically abstract word of Pryamikov (“And if you, sir, delay to take measures” - 421) and the word-thing in the environment of the Krivosudov house (“What measures to take, arshins il fathoms? "- 422). As a result, the entire world image of comedy is so filled with things-objects and words-things that there is practically no space left for a pure word: it is no coincidence that the role of Pryamikov, a potentially speaking hero, in speaking is not realized in any way - he is dumb. Word-paper and word-thing expel from their midst a pure word, and this is the main tragedy of Yabeda.

Features of the denouement and typology of the hero-ideologist in Russian high comedy

Like so many Russian comedies that preceded and inherited it, Yabeda has a double denouement: the first is internal, emanating from the action of the comedy, the second is external, provoked by forces invading the comedic world image from outside it. The first denouement of "Yabeda" - the decision of the Civil Chamber in the Pryamikov-Pravolov case (2nd episode of Act V) is typically tragic in its depth. In the verbal and talkative matter of the Russian drama, deprivation of a name is tantamount to murder, and this is precisely what happens to Pryamikov in a court ruling, on paper; moreover, the deprivation of a name is supplemented by the deprivation of property:

Dobrov. (is reading) From now on, Bogdan must be banned by order // It is no longer allowed to wear someone else's nickname (445); Krivosudov. So you agree to acquit Pravolov? // Bulbulkin and Passwordkin. Agree. Atuev. And quite. Radbyn. That’s how it’s going to be (450).

Thus, by the decision of the Civil Chamber, Pryamikov were deleted from two spheres of reality of the 18th century at once: ideal, where a person is identical to his name, and material, where he is the owner of his estate; consequently, Bogdan Pryamikov was declared non-existent, which is functionally equivalent to a violent death.

The second denouement of "Yabeda" has long and rightly raised doubts among researchers about its well-being. The Senate court, despite its traditional suddenness ("Krivosudov. But how is it with him suddenly, unhappily" - 456) and thunderousness ("Krivosudov. I was bruised like thunder" - 456), in the dense material environment of "Yabeda ", Not rarefied, as in" The Little Growth, "an independent world image of a pure existential word-sound, is also nothing more than an" empty word "without visible consequences:

Krivosudov. <…> They condemned us without any trial. // Well, if only for some denunciations of slanderous (458);

Thekla. How? as? on empty words // Senate was sure? Is the Senate accusing us? (458).

And although the two Senate decrees seem to restore the trampled justice in the finale of the comedy, the illusion of this harmony is not only palpable, as in the finale of The Minor, a latent doubt about the effectiveness of the inactive decree on guardianship is perceptible, but expressed in plain text, and even through the lips of the virtuous reasoner of the comedy:

And with the Criminal Civil Chamber

She-she, a fellow man often lives;

Not so with a celebration already what it is

A manifesto has been pushed under your mercy (462).

This is a full realization of the possibility of a by no means a comedic outcome of the action, which was casually outlined already in the finale of The Minor: “Ms. Prostakova. Isn't it possible somehow to cancel the decree? Are all decrees being implemented? (V, 5) ".

It is not difficult to notice that the typologically related denouements of the "Uneducated" and Yabeda "are crowned with similarly related conceptual structures of action. If in Nedorosly a fleeting final doubt about the omnipotence of an ideal law coexists with the systematic discrediting of the Russian supreme power in its everyday incarnation (tyrant-landowner), then in Yabeda there is an equally fleeting final doubt about the justice of the supreme power (“merciful manifesto” to criminals ) in Kapnist's work he emphasizes the systematic discrediting of Russian legality in its everyday embodiment (a judicial official) and the laws that he manipulates, transforming the common good into everyday personal well-being.

Thus. Fonvizin and Kapnist, each from their own point of view, but in the same genre form of "truly social comedy" dissect one of the components of the dual source of Russian social ill-being: the highest good of power and law, which in its everyday interpretation turns into its own pun antonym : by the whim of tyrannical arbitrariness and judicial lawlessness. Such a metamorphosis strictly corresponds to the style attached to two meanings of the word "good": positive - to high style, negative - to low everyday vernacular. This extreme closeness of ideology and comedy of the 18th century. Vyazemsky felt keenly, remarking in passing in his monograph "Fon-Vizin":

The main springs of our comedy were the abuse of judges and domestic, that is, landlord's, power. And in this respect it is, in a sense, a political comedy, if you need to designate it in some special way.

The dilution of the meanings of a word in its quantitative variants is especially clearly manifested, first of all, in the conceptual structure of the "Yabeda" action. The root concept underlying her world image is "law", and in its singular and plural numbers it is by no means identical with itself. The word "law" in the singular in "Yabeda" is practically synonymous with the concept of "good" in the highest sense (goodness, justice, justice):

Pryamikov. No, nothing will darken my right. // I am not afraid: the law of support to me and the shield (340); Kind. The law wishes us direct good to all <...

Krivosudov. We, according to the laws, must do everything (347); Thekla. There are so many laws! ‹…› One million decrees! ‹…› The whole bulk is right! (360); Kokhtin. Then I looked for new laws // And, it seems, smoothly combined with the case (372); Kokhtin. I drew a preliminary journal, // With its laws and with the deed, // Most importantly, sir, with yesterday's general opinion (429).

Already in these remarks, where the concept of "law" is transformed into the plural of the word "laws", the opposition of meanings is obvious: the clear unambiguousness of the law and the endless variability of laws, turning them into a plastic mass obedient to the subjective arbitrariness of a selfish official. With particular clarity, the antonymy of "laws" to "law" is manifested precisely in those cases when the word "law" in the singular is used by people-things, the embodiment of everyday vice:

Krivosudov. Mad! It is necessary to clean up such a law, // So that we can justify the guilty one (361);

Thekla. Who was ruined not by the words of the law? (423).

Thus, the pun of Kapnist ultimately actualizes, first of all, the category of quantity, and with the erasure of the individual qualitative characteristics of all participants in the action, without exception, in the conditions of the unified poetic speech of all characters, Kapnist finally finds a purely effective and situational way of assimilating virtue and vice. Taking upon itself the main semantic load in the figurative system and the world image of "Yabeda", the category of quantitativeness, expressed by a pun on the word in its singular and plural, draws against the background of traditional poetics inherited from "Minor", the prospect of the forthcoming sharp uniqueness of the figurative structures of "Woe from mind "and" The Inspector General ": there is one opposition - everything.

It is no coincidence that the quantitative opposition "one - many" has already been formed in "Yabed" by the opposition of law-truth and laws-lie. This is a prerequisite for the next level of affinity. And if the role of Pryamikov, “a person from the outside” and a victim of malicious slander in a comedy intrigue, is saturated with self-valuable ideological speaking and at the same time deprives any partner of the same level, then in the future the role of Alexander Andreyevich Chatsky, “one” among “ others ”: for all its quantitative form, this conflict is, in essence, a qualitative characteristic, which was shrewdly emphasized by IA Goncharov. As for “all” who are mired in the abyss of everyday vices, the fate of this multitude will find its final embodiment in the fate of Gogol's officials, who were numb and petrified in the finale of The Inspector General.

Starting with the Fonvizin heroes-ideologists, equal to their high word, which completely exhausts their stage images, in the Russian comedy of the 18th century. the potential associativity of such a hero to the Gospel Son of God, the incarnate Word, the Logos, whose integral attribute is his good and its truth, is steadily growing: “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt with us, full of grace and truth” (John; 1.4). In its full extent, this associativity will be embodied in a whole network of sacred reminiscences associated with the image of Chatsky and so tangible that contemporaries dubbed "Woe from Wit" the "secular gospel." Of all the concrete incarnations of the role of the tall hero in the Russian comedy of the 18th century. this potential associativity is especially clearly manifested in the image of Pryamikov, in several verbal leitmotifs accompanying him in the action of the comedy.

First of all, in "Yabeda" it is not known where Pryamikov came from to the settled life of the Krivosudov house; throughout the entire action this question torments his partners: “Sophia. Oh, where are you from? ‹…› Where have you been for a long time? " (345). Wed in the Gospel: “I know where I came from and where I am going; but you do not know where I am from and where I am going ”(John; VIII, 14).

The only indication of the place from which Pryamikov came is rather metaphorical than concrete. Already the very first question of Anna Pryamikov: "Yes otkol // Did God bring you?" (343), supported by a similar question from Thekla: "Why did the Lord bring us into our house?" (422), hints at the predominantly mountainous areas of Pryamikov's habitation. So, the hero appears in the earthly dwelling of his antagonists, metaphorically speaking, from above ("You are from the lower ones, I He did not come of himself, but He sent Me "- John; VIII, 42). In Kapnist's comedy, this sacred meaning, accompanying the image of Pryamikov, is also emphasized by the literal meaning of his name: in its Greek (Fedot - Theodot) and Russian (Bogdan) versions it means the same thing: God's gift, God-given (“Bulbulkin. Indeed, one can see , God gave you, brother, this Fedot "- 404).

Pryamikov. But my business is so right, clearly so! (335); But I am used to writing everything with the truth, my friend, (339); I think I'm right (339); But you are not forbidden to reveal the truth <…>. When would you know the truth <…>. I rely on your judgment in my rightness (399); I do not sneak, but tell the truth <…>. Not abuse, but the truth ... (402).

The motive of the highest truth also arises in the characteristic of Atuev (“With him with a pack of good dogs // And the truth that came down from heaven can be reached” - 336), in which each key word is deeply functional in action. “Truth descended from heaven” is the right-wing Bogdan Pryamikov, whom Pravolov is going to “get there” (“I’ll get this done now! "(" Pravolov (to Atuev, quietly). Those packs of Crimean? " - 383), in the finale of the comedy, where in the scene of the court decision on the suit of Pryamikov the motive of desecration of the higher truth is especially distinct in the inversion of this concept applied to Pravolov's obvious lie ("Krivosudov. Here the truth is perceptible in all words"; "Atuev. Why the truth does not need many words "- 445), and is supplemented by the nominal murder of Pryamikov: deprivation of his name and property.

I., of course, it is far from accidental that of all the comedies of the 18th century. it is Yabeda, with its disastrous finale, that comes closest to the formal and effective embodiment of the apocalyptic stage effect with which Gogol ended his Inspector General. In one of the intermediate versions of the text, "Yabeda" was supposed to end with a kind of "silent scene", allegorically depicting Justice. Thus, the rough version of the ending of Yabeda and the final result of Gogol's work on the text of The Inspector General in the same text (remark-description) and stage (live picture) forms convey the same idea of the inevitable total catastrophic outcome of the action, which realized in Russian comedy since the time of Sumarokov in associative projection onto the picture of general doom in the apocalyptic prophecy of the Last Judgment.

Summing up the conversation about the Russian comedy of the 18th century, it can be noted that the memory of older genres functions in it in structures that accentuate or reduce the speaking character. For all its typological stability, it acts as an ethically variable and even, one might say, ambivalent aesthetic category. Already an evolutionary series of Russian comedy of the 18th century. demonstrates this fluctuation: from the highest odic take-off (noble reasoner, high ideologue, well-read Westernizer, "new man") to the lowest satirical fall (chatterbox-talker, everyday madcap, pettimeter-Galloman). The spoken structure of the odic ideal character correlates his image with the evangelical type of imagery: the Word made flesh and full of grace and truth. We correlate the plastic appearance of the punishable vice with the visual imagery of the Apocalypse, the spectacle of the last death of the sinful world on the day of the Last Judgment. And it was in Yabeda that the concept was found that expresses this ambivalence in a single word with two opposite meanings: the concept of "good" and the association of "good news" with which the action of the comedy begins (Pryamikov's appearance) and which ends (Senate decrees), located between good-good and good-evil.

Satirical journalism, lyric-epic burlesque poem, high comedy - each of these genres of Russian literature of the 1760-1780s. in his own way expressed the same regularity in the formation of new genre structures of Russian literature in the 18th century. Each time the emergence of a new genre was accomplished on the same aesthetic basis: namely, on the basis of the crossing and interpenetration of ideological and aesthetic attitudes and world images of the older genres of satire and ode. But perhaps most clearly this tendency towards the synthesis of the odic and satirical, ideological and everyday, conceptual and plastic world images was expressed in the lyrics, which are still especially clearly differentiated according to their genre characteristics. G.R.Derzhavin became the poet, in whose work the ode finally lost its oratorical potential, and satire got rid of everyday mundaneity.

Notes (edit)

137. Northern Bulletin. 1805.4.6. No. 6. P. 374.

138. Krylov I. A. Poly. collection cit .: In 2 volumes, M., 1944. T. I. C. 250.

139. Smelters P. A. Works. SPb., 1816. 4.4. P. 71.

140. Kapnist V. V. Selected works. L., 1973. S. 344. Further references to this edition are given in the text in brackets.

141. The word "sneak" in the XVIII-XIX centuries. used in the meanings "abuse of judicial power", "slander".

142. Goncharov I. A. Sobr. cit .: In 8 volumes. M., 1980. T. 8, pp. 46-47.

143. Explanatory Bible, or commentary on all the books of the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. SPb., 1912. T. 10 (3). P. 226.

144. Bitner G. V. Kapnist // History of Russian Literature. M .; L., 1947.T. 4. 4.2. S. 489; Berkov P.N.The history of Russian comedy of the 18th century. L., 1977.S. 360.

145. Vyazemsky P. A. Fon-Vizin. P. 203.

146. Klyuchevsky VO Literary portraits. M., 1991. P. 8.

147. “Chatsky is broken by the amount of old power, inflicting a mortal blow on it with the quality of fresh power” - Goncharov IA Sobr. cit .: In 8 volumes, Moscow, 1980.Vol. 8, p. 42.

148. A. S. Griboyedov in the memoirs of his contemporaries. M., 1980. P. 235.

149. See about this in more detail: Lebedeva OB Russian high comedy of the 18th century: Genesis and poetics of the genre. Tomsk, 1996. Ch. 5. § 3, 5.

Kapnist sneak analysis. "Yabeda" and "Little Growth": the Tradition of Prose High Comedy in a Poetic Variety of the Genre

Read also