Literary and historical notes of a young technician. Historical works of Karamzin

Karamzin Nikolay Mikhailovich
Aliases:
Date of Birth:
Place of Birth:	Znamenskoye, Kazan province, Russian Empire
Date of death:
A place of death:	St. Petersburg
Citizenship:	Russian empire
Occupation:	Historian, publicist, prose writer, poet and state councilor
Years of creativity:
Direction:	Sentimentalism
	« Children's reading for the heart and mind "- the first Russian magazine for children
	Honorary Member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences (1818)

Biography

Carier start

Trip to europe

Return and life in Russia

Karamzin - writer

Sentimentalism

Poetry of Karamzin

Works of Karamzin

Reform of the language of Karamzin

Karamzin - historian

Karamzin - translator

Works of N. M. Karamzin

(December 1, 1766, family estate Znamenskoye, Simbirsk district of Kazan province (according to other sources - the village of Mikhailovka (now Preobrazhenka), Buzuluk district, Kazan province) - May 22, 1826, St. Russian Stern.

Honorary member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences (1818), full member of the Imperial Russian Academy (1818). Creator of the "History of the Russian State" (volumes 1-12, 1803-1826) - one of the first generalizing works on the history of Russia. Editor of the "Moscow Journal" (1791-1792) and "Bulletin of Europe" (1802-1803).

Karamzin went down in history as a great reformer of the Russian language. His syllable is light in the Gaulish manner, but instead of directly borrowing Karamzin enriched the language with tracing words, such as "impression" and "influence", "falling in love", "touching" and "entertaining". It was he who introduced the words "industry", "concentrate", "moral", "aesthetic", "era", "scene", "harmony", "catastrophe", "future" into everyday life.

Biography

Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin was born on December 1 (12), 1766 near Simbirsk. He grew up in the estate of his father, retired captain Mikhail Yegorovich Karamzin (1724-1783), a middle-class Simbirsk nobleman, a descendant of the Tatar murza Kara-Murza. Received education at home. In 1778 he was sent to Moscow to the boarding school of Moscow University professor I. M. Shaden. At the same time attended in 1781-1782 the lectures of I. G. Schwartz at the University.

Carier start

In 1783, at the insistence of his father, he entered the service in the Preobrazhensky Guards Regiment of St. Petersburg, but soon retired. The first literary experiments date back to the time of military service. After his resignation, he lived for some time in Simbirsk, and then in Moscow. During his stay in Simbirsk, he joined the Masonic lodge of the "Golden Crown", and after arriving in Moscow for four years (1785-1789) was a member of the "Friendly Scientific Society".

In Moscow, Karamzin met with writers and writers: N. I. Novikov, A. M. Kutuzov, A. A. Petrov, participated in the publication of the first Russian magazine for children - "Children's reading for the heart and mind."

Trip to europe

In 1789-1790 he undertook a trip to Europe, during which he visited Immanuel Kant in Konigsberg, was in Paris during the Great French Revolution. As a result of this trip, the famous "Letters of a Russian Traveler" were written, the publication of which immediately made Karamzin a famous writer. Some philologists believe that it is from this book that modern Russian literature dates back to. Be that as it may, in the literature of Russian "travels" Karamzin really became a pioneer - quickly finding both imitators (V.V. Izmailov, P.I.Sumarokov, P.I. Shalikov) and worthy successors (A.A. Bestuzhev, N.A. Bestuzhev, F.N. Glinka, A.S. Griboyedov). Since then, Karamzin is considered one of the main literary figures Russia.

Return and life in Russia

Upon his return from a trip to Europe, Karamzin settled in Moscow and began his career as a professional writer and journalist, starting to publish the "Moscow Journal" 1791-1792 (the first Russian literary magazine, in which, among other works of Karamzin, appeared the story that strengthened his fame “ Poor Lisa"), Then published a number of collections and almanacs: Aglaya, Aonids, Pantheon of Foreign Literature, My Trinkets, which made sentimentalism the main literary movement in Russia, and Karamzin its recognized leader.

Emperor Alexander I, by a personal decree of October 31, 1803, bestowed the title of historiographer to Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin; 2 thousand rubles were added to the rank at the same time. annual salary. The title of historiographer in Russia was not renewed after Karamzin's death.

From the beginning of the 19th century, Karamzin gradually moved away from fiction, and from 1804, being appointed by Alexander I to the post of historiographer, he stopped all literary work, "taking his tonsure as a historian." In 1811, he wrote "A note on ancient and new Russia in its political and civil relations", which reflected the views of the conservative strata of society, dissatisfied with the liberal reforms of the emperor. As his task, Karamzin set out to prove that there was no need to carry out any reforms in the country.

"A note on ancient and new Russia in its political and civil relations" also played the role of sketches for the subsequent enormous work of Nikolai Mikhailovich on Russian history. In February 1818. Karamzin released the first eight volumes of the History of the Russian State for sale, the three thousandth circulation of which was sold within a month. In subsequent years, three more volumes of "History" were published, a number of translations of it into the main European languages ​​appeared. The coverage of the Russian historical process brought Karamzin closer to the court and the tsar, who settled him near him in Tsarskoye Selo. Karamzin's political views evolved gradually, and by the end of his life he was a staunch supporter of absolute monarchy.

The unfinished volume XII was published after his death.

Karamzin died on May 22 (June 3) 1826 in St. Petersburg. His death was the result of a cold received on December 14, 1825. On this day, Karamzin was at the Senate Square.

Buried at the Tikhvin cemetery of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra.

Karamzin - writer

Collected works of N.M. Karamzin in 11 volumes. in 1803-1815 was printed in the printing house of the Moscow book publisher Selivanovsky.

“The influence of Karamzin on literature can be compared with the influence of Catherine on society: he made literature humane,” wrote A. I. Herzen.

Sentimentalism

The publication of the Letters of a Russian Traveler by Karamzin (1791-1792) and the story Poor Liza (1792; separate edition 1796) opened the era of sentimentalism in Russia.

The dominant of "human nature" sentimentalism declared feeling, not reason, which distinguished it from classicism. Sentimentalism believed that the ideal of human activity was not a "rational" reorganization of the world, but the release and improvement of "natural" feelings. His hero is more individualized, his inner world is enriched with the ability to empathize, responsive to what is happening around him.

The publication of these works was a great success among the readers of that time, "Poor Liza" caused many imitations. Karamzin's sentimentalism had a great influence on the development of Russian literature: he was based on, among other things, Zhukovsky's romanticism, Pushkin's work.

Poetry of Karamzin

The poetry of Karamzin, which developed in the mainstream of European sentimentalism, was fundamentally different from the traditional poetry of his time, brought up on the odes of Lomonosov and Derzhavin. The most significant were the following differences:

Karamzin is not interested in the external, physical world, but in the internal, spiritual world person. His poems speak "in the language of the heart", not of the mind. The object of Karamzin's poetry is “ simple life”, And to describe it, he uses simple poetic forms - poor rhymes, avoids the abundance of metaphors and other tropes so popular in the poetry of his predecessors.

"Who is your dear?"

I am ashamed; it really hurts me

The strangeness of my feelings to open

And be the subject of jokes.

The heart in the choice is not free! ..

What to say? She ... she.

Oh! not at all important

And talents behind me

Doesn't have any;

The Strangeness of Love, or Insomnia (1793)

Another difference in Karamzin's poetics is that the world is fundamentally unknowable for him, the poet recognizes the presence of different points of view on the same subject:

Terrible in the grave, cold and dark!

The winds howl here, the coffins shake

Quiet in the grave, soft, calm.

The winds blow here; sleeping cool;

Herbs, flowers are growing.

Cemetery (1792)

Works of Karamzin

• "Eugene and Julia", story (1789)
• "Letters of a Russian Traveler" (1791-1792)
• Poor Liza, a story (1792)
• "Natalia, the boyar's daughter", a story (1792)
• "The Beautiful Princess and the Happy Karla" (1792)
• Sierra Morena, a story (1793)
• Bornholm Island (1793)
• Julia (1796)
• "Martha the Posadnitsa, or the Conquest of Novgorod", a story (1802)
• "My Confession", a letter to the publisher of the magazine (1802)
• Sensitive and Cold (1803)
• The Knight of Our Time (1803)
• "Autumn"

Reform of the language of Karamzin

The prose and poetry of Karamzin had a decisive influence on the development of the Russian literary language. Karamzin purposefully abandoned the use of Church Slavonic vocabulary and grammar, bringing the language of his works to the everyday language of his era and using the grammar and syntax of the French language as a model.

Karamzin introduced many new words into the Russian language - as neologisms ("charity", "falling in love", "free-thinking", "attraction", "responsibility", "suspicion", "industry", "sophistication", "first-class", "human ") And barbarism (" sidewalk "," coachman "). He was also one of the first to use the letter E.

The language changes proposed by Karamzin sparked intense controversy in the 1810s. The writer AS Shishkov, with the assistance of Derzhavin, founded in 1811 the society "Conversation of lovers of the Russian word", the purpose of which was to promote the "old" language, as well as criticize Karamzin, Zhukovsky and their followers. In response, in 1815, the literary society "Arzamas" was formed, which mocked the authors of the "Conversation" and parodied their works. Many poets of the new generation have become members of the society, including Batyushkov, Vyazemsky, Davydov, Zhukovsky, Pushkin. The literary victory of "Arzamas" over "Beseda" consolidated the victory of the language changes introduced by Karamzin.

Despite this, later there was a rapprochement between Karamzin and Shishkov, and, thanks to the latter's assistance, Karamzin was elected a member of the Russian Academy in 1818.

Karamzin - historian

Karamzin developed an interest in history in the mid-1790s. He wrote a story on historical theme- "Martha the Posadnitsa, or the Conquest of Novgorod" (published in 1803). In the same year, by decree of Alexander I, he was appointed to the post of historiographer, and until the end of his life he was writing “History of the Russian State”, practically stopping the activities of a journalist and writer.

"History" Karamzin was not the first description of the history of Russia, before him were the works of V. N. Tatishchev and M. M. Shcherbatov. But it was Karamzin who opened the history of Russia to the general educated public. According to A. Pushkin, “Everyone, even secular women, rushed to read the history of their fatherland, which was unknown to them before. She was a new discovery for them. Ancient Russia, it seemed, was found by Karamzin, as America - by Columbus ”. This work also caused a wave of imitations and oppositions (for example, "History of the Russian people" by N. A. Polevoy)

In his work, Karamzin acted more as a writer than a historian - describing historical facts, he cared about the beauty of the language, least of all trying to draw any conclusions from the events he described. Nevertheless, his comments, which contain many extracts from manuscripts, for the most part first published by Karamzin, are of high scientific value. Some of these manuscripts no longer exist.

In his "History" elegance, simplicity

They prove to us, without any addiction,

The need for autocracy

And the delights of the whip.

Karamzin initiated the organization of memorials and the establishment of monuments to outstanding figures national history, in particular, K.M. Minin and D. M. Pozharsky on Red Square (1818).

NM Karamzin discovered Afanasy Nikitin's Voyage across the Three Seas in a 16th century manuscript and published it in 1821. He wrote:

Karamzin - translator

In 1792-1793 N.M. Karamzin translated a wonderful monument Indian literature(from English) - the drama "Sakuntala", the author of which is Kalidasa. In the introduction to the translation, he wrote:

A family

N.M. Karamzin was married twice and had 10 children:

Memory

The following are named after the writer:

• Karamzin's passage in Moscow
• Regional clinical psychiatric hospital in Ulyanovsk.

In Ulyanovsk, a monument to N.M.Karamzin was erected, a memorial sign - in the Ostafyevo estate near Moscow.

In Veliky Novgorod on the monument "1000th anniversary of Russia" among 129 figures of the most outstanding personalities in Russian history (for 1862) there is a figure of N.M. Karamzin

The Karamzin public library in Simbirsk, created in honor of the famous fellow countryman, was opened to readers on April 18, 1848.

Addresses

St. Petersburg

• Spring 1816 - house of E. F. Muravyova - Fontanka river embankment, 25;
• spring 1816-1822 - Tsarskoe Selo, Sadovaya street, 12;
• 1818 - autumn 1823 - house of E. F. Muravyova - 25 Fontanka river embankment;
• autumn 1823-1826 - tenement house Mizueva - Mokhovaya street, 41;
• spring - 05/22/1826 - Tauride Palace - Voskresenskaya street, 47.

Moscow

• The Vyazemsky-Dolgorukovs' estate is the home of his second wife.
• The house on the corner of Tverskaya and Bryusov Lane, where he wrote "Poor Liza" - has not survived

Works of N. M. Karamzin

• History of the Russian State (12 volumes, until 1612, library of Maxim Moshkov)
• Poems
• Karamzin, Nikolay Mikhailovich in the library of Maxim Moshkov
• Nikolay Karamzin in the Anthology of Russian Poetry
• Karamzin, Nikolay Mikhailovich "Complete collection of poems". Library ImWerden.(See on this site and other works of N.M. Karamzin.)
• Karamzin N.M. Complete collection of poems / Vstup. Art., prepared. text and notes. Yu.M. Lotman. L., 1967.
• Karamzin, Nikolai Mikhailovich "Letters to Ivan Ivanovich Dmitriev" 1866 - facsimile reprint of the book
• "Vestnik Evropy", published by Karamzin, facsimile pdf reproduction of magazines.
• Karamzin N.M. Letters of the Russian Traveler / Ed. prepare Yu. M. Lotman, N. A. Marchenko, B. A. Uspensky. L., 1984.
• N. M. Karamzin. A note on ancient and new Russia in its political and civil relations
• N. M. Karamzin's letters. 1806-1825
• Karamzin N.M. Letters from N.M. Karamzin to Zhukovsky. (From Zhukovsky's papers) / Note. P. A. Vyazemsky // Russian Archive, 1868. - Ed. 2nd. - M., 1869. - Stb. 1827-1836.
• Karamzin N.M.Selected works in 2 volumes. M .; L., 1964.

(December 1, 1766, family estate Znamenskoye, Simbirsk district, Kazan province (according to other sources - the village of Mikhailovka (Preobrazhenskoye), Buzuluk district, Kazan province) - May 22, 1826, St. Petersburg)

Biography

Childhood, learning, environment

Born into the family of a middle-class landowner in the Simbirsk province, M. Ye. Karamzin. Lost his mother early. From the early childhood began reading books from his mother's library, French novels, Roman History by S. Rollin, the works of F. Emin and others. M. Schaden, where he studied languages ​​in 1779-1880; also attended lectures at Moscow University.

In 1781 he began service in the Preobrazhensky regiment in St. Petersburg, where he became friends with A. I. and I. I. Dmitrievs. This is a time not only for intense intellectual pursuits, but also for the pleasures of secular life. After the death of his father, Karamzin retired in 1784 as a lieutenant and never served again, which was perceived in the then society as a challenge. After a short stay in Simbirsk, where he joined the Masonic lodge, Karamzin moved to Moscow and was introduced to the circle of N.I. Novikov, settled in a house that belonged to the Novikov Friendship Scientific Society (1785).

1785-1789 - years of communication with Novikov, at the same time he also became close to the Pleshcheyev family, and with N.I. Pleshcheeva he had a tender platonic friendship for many years. Karamzin publishes his first translations and original works, which clearly show an interest in European and Russian history. Karamzin is the author and one of the publishers of the first children's magazine"Children's reading for the heart and mind" (1787-1789), founded by Novikov. Karamzin will retain a feeling of gratitude and deep respect for Novikov for life, speaking in his defense in subsequent years.

European travel, literary and publishing activities

Karamzin was not disposed to the mystical side of Freemasonry, remaining a supporter of its active educational direction. Perhaps the cooling to Freemasonry was one of the reasons for Karamzin's departure to Europe, in which he spent more than a year (1789-90), visiting Germany, Switzerland, France and England, where he met and talked (except for influential Freemasons) with the European “masters of minds” »: I. Kant, I. G. Herder, C. Bonnet, I. K. Lafather, J. F. Marmontel and others, visited museums, theaters, secular salons. In Paris, he listened to O. G. Mirabeau, M. Robespierre, and others at the National Assembly, saw many prominent political figures and was familiar with many. Apparently, revolutionary Paris showed Karamzin how strongly the word can influence a person: printed, when Parisians read pamphlets and leaflets, newspapers with keen interest; oral, when revolutionary speakers spoke and controversy arose (experience that could not be acquired in Russia).

Karamzin did not have a very enthusiastic opinion about English parliamentarism (perhaps, following in the footsteps of Rousseau), but he placed very high on the level of civilization at which English society as a whole was.

"Moscow Journal" and "Vestnik Evropy"

Returning to Moscow, Karamzin began publishing Moskovsky Zhurnal, in which he published the story Poor Liza (1792), which had an extraordinary success among readers, then Letters of a Russian Traveler (1791-92), which put Karamzin among the first Russian writers. In these works, as well as in literary-critical articles, the aesthetic program of sentimentalism was expressed with its interest in a person regardless of class, his feelings and experiences. In the 1890s, his interest in the history of Russia increased; he gets acquainted with historical works, the main published sources: chronicle monuments, notes of foreigners, etc.

Karamzin's response to the coup on March 11, 1801 and the accession to the throne of Alexander I was perceived as a collection of examples to the young monarch "Historical Praise to Catherine II" (1802), where Karamzin expressed his views on the essence of the monarchy in Russia and the duties of the monarch and his subjects.

Interest in world and domestic history, ancient and new, events today prevails in publications of the first in Russia socio-political and literary-artistic magazine "Vestnik Evropy", published by Karamzin in 1802-03. Here he also published several works on Russian medieval history ("Martha the Posadnitsa, or the Conquest of Novgorod", "The News of Martha the Posadnitsa, Taken from the Life of St. Zosima", "A Journey Around Moscow", "Historical Memories and Notes on the Way to the Trinity" and others), testifying to the intention of a large-scale historical work, and the readers of the magazine were offered its individual plots, which made it possible to study the reader's perception, improve the techniques and methods of research, which will then be used in the History of the Russian State.

Historical works

In 1801, Karamzin married E.I. Protasova, who died a year later. In his second marriage, Karamzin was married to P.A.Vyazemsky's half-sister, E.A.Kolyvanova (1804), with whom he lived happily until the end of his days, finding in her not only a devoted wife and caring mother, but also a friend and assistant in historical studies ...

In October 1803, Karamzin secured an appointment from Alexander I as a historiographer with a pension of 2,000 rubles. for composing Russian history. Libraries and archives were opened for him. Until the last day of his life, Karamzin was busy writing The History of the Russian State, which had a significant impact on Russian historical science and literature, making it possible to see in it one of the notable culturally forming phenomena not only of the entire 19th century, but also 20. Starting from ancient times and the first mention of the Slavs, Karamzin managed to bring "History" to the Time of Troubles. This amounted to 12 volumes of a text of high literary merit, accompanied by more than 6 thousand historical notes, in which historical sources, works of European and domestic authors were published and analyzed.

During the life of Karamzin, "History" managed to come out in two editions. Three thousand copies of the first 8 volumes of the first edition were sold out in less than a month - “the only example in our land,” according to Pushkin. After 1818 Karamzin published volumes 9-11, the last volume 12 came out after the death of the historiographer. History was published several times in the 19th century, and in the late 1980s and 1990s, more than ten modern editions were published.

Karamzin's view on the arrangement of Russia

In 1811, at the request of Grand Duchess Ekaterina Pavlovna, Karamzin wrote a note "On ancient and new Russia in its political and civil relations", in which he outlined his ideas about the ideal structure The Russian state and sharply criticized the policy of Alexander I and his closest predecessors: Paul I, Catherine II and Peter I. In the 19th century. this note was never published in its entirety and diverged in handwritten lists. In Soviet times, it was perceived as a reaction of the extremely conservative nobility to the reforms of M. M. Speransky, however, when the note was first published in full in 1988, Yu. M. Lotman revealed its deeper content. Karamzin in this document criticized unprepared bureaucratic reforms carried out from above. The note remains in Karamzin's work the most complete expression of his political views.

Karamzin had a hard time going through the death of Alexander I and especially the Decembrist uprising, which he witnessed. This took away the last of his vitality, and the slowly fading historiographer died in May 1826.

Karamzin is almost the only one in history national culture an example of a person about whom his contemporaries and descendants did not have any ambiguous memories. During his lifetime, the historiographer was perceived as the highest moral authority; this attitude towards him remains unchanged to this day.

Bibliography

Works of Karamzin

* "Bornholm Island" (1793)
* "Julia" (1796)
* "Martha the Posadnitsa, or the Conquest of Novgorod", a story (1802)



* "Autumn"

Memory

* The name of the writer is named:
* Passage of Karamzin in Moscow.
* Installed: Monument to N.M. Karamzin in Simbirsk / Ulyanovsk
* In Veliky Novgorod on the Monument "1000th Anniversary of Russia" among 129 figures of the most prominent personalities in Russian history (for 1862) there is a figure of N.M. Karamzin

Biography

Karamzin Nikolay Mikhailovich, famous writer and historian, was born on December 12, 1766 in Simbirsk. He grew up in the estate of his father, a middle-class Simbirsk nobleman, a descendant of the Tatar murza Kara-Murza. He studied with a rural deacon, later, at the age of 13, Karamzin was assigned to the Moscow boarding school of Professor Shaden. In parallel, he attended classes at the university, where he studied Russian, German, French.

After graduating from Shaden's boarding school, in 1781, Karamzin entered the service in the St. Petersburg guards regiment, but soon retired for lack of funds. The first literary experiments date back to the time of military service (translation of Gessner's idyll "Wooden Leg" (1783), etc.). In 1784 he joined the Masonic lodge and moved to Moscow, where he became close to Novikov's circle, collaborated in its publications. In 1789-1790 traveled to Western Europe; then he began to publish "Moscow Journal" (until 1792), which published "Letters of a Russian Traveler", "Poor Liza", which brought him fame. The collections published by Karamzin marked the beginning of the era of sentimentalism in Russian literature. Karamzin's early prose influenced the work of V. A. Zhukovsky, K. N. Batyushkov, young A. S. Pushkin. The defeat of Freemasonry by Catherine, as well as the brutal police regime of Pavlov's reign, forced Karamzin to curtail his literary activity, to confine himself to reprinting old editions. He greeted the accession of Alexander I with a laudatory ode.

In 1803, Karamzin was appointed an official historiographer. Alexander I instructs Karamzin to write the history of Russia. From that time until the end of his days, Nikolai Mikhailovich has been working on the main work of his life. Since 1804, he took up the compilation of the "History of the Russian State" (1816-1824). The twelfth volume was published after his death. Careful selection of sources (many were discovered by Karamzin himself) and critical notes give particular value to this work; rhetorical language and constant moralizing were already condemned by contemporaries, although they were liked by a large public. Karamzin at this time was inclined towards extreme conservatism.

A significant place in the heritage of Karamzin is occupied by works dedicated to the history and current state of Moscow. Many of them were the result of walks around Moscow and trips around its environs. Among them - the articles "Historical memories and remarks on the way to Trinity", "On the Moscow earthquake of 1802", "Notes of an old Moscow resident", "Travel around Moscow", "Russian antiquity", "On the light clothes of fashionable beauties of the ninth - hope century ". He died in Petersburg on June 3, 1826.

Biography

Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin was born near Simbirsk in the family of retired captain Mikhail Yegorovich Karamzin, a middle-rank nobleman, a descendant of the Crimean Tatar murza Kara-Murza. He was educated at home, from the age of fourteen he studied in Moscow at the boarding house of a professor at Moscow University of Shaden, while attending lectures at the University. In 1783, at the insistence of his father, he entered the service in the St. Petersburg guards regiment, but soon retired. The first literary experiments date back to this time.

In Moscow, Karamzin became close with writers and writers: N. I. Novikov, A. M. Kutuzov, A. A. Petrov, participated in the publication of the first Russian magazine for children - "Children's reading for the heart and mind", translated German and English sentimental authors: plays by W. Shakespeare and G.E. Lessing and others. For four years (1785-1789) he was a member of the Masonic lodge "Friendly Scientific Society". In 1789-1790 Karamzin made a trip to Western Europe, where he met many prominent representatives of the Enlightenment (Kant, Herder, Wieland, Lavater, etc.), was in Paris during the Great French Revolution. Upon his return to his homeland, Karamzin published "Letters of a Russian Traveler" (1791-1792), which immediately made him a famous writer. Before late XVII century Karamzin worked as a professional writer and journalist, published "Moscow Journal" 1791-1792 (the first Russian literary journal), published a number of collections and almanacs: "Aglaya", "Aonids", "Pantheon of Foreign Literature", "My trinkets" ... During this period he wrote many poems and stories, the most famous of which is: "Poor Liza". Karamzin's activities made sentimentalism the leading direction of Russian literature, and the writer himself - the called leader of this direction.

Gradually, Karamzin's interests shifted from the field of literature to the field of history. In 1803 he published the story "Martha Posadnitsa, or the Conquest of Novgorod" and as a result received the title of imperial historiographer. The following year, the writer practically ceases his literary activity, focusing on the creation of the fundamental work "History of the Russian State". Before the publication of the first 8 volumes, Karamzin lived in Moscow, from where he traveled only to Tver to the Grand Duchess Ekaterina Pavlovna and to Nizhny, during the occupation of Moscow by the French. He usually spent the summer in Ostafyev, the estate of Prince Andrei Ivanovich Vyazemsky, whose daughter, Ekaterina Andreevna, Karamzin married in 1804 (Karamzin's first wife, Elizaveta Ivanovna Protasova, died in 1802). The first eight volumes of "History of the Russian State" went on sale in February 1818, the three thousandth circulation was sold within a month. According to his contemporaries, Karamzin revealed to them the history of his native country, how Columbus discovered America to the world. A.S. Pushkin called his work not only the creation of a great writer, but also "a feat honest man". On his main work, Karamzin worked until the end of his life: the 9th volume of "History ..." was published in 1821, 10 and 11 - in 1824, and the last 12th - after the death of the writer (in 1829). The last 10 years of his life Karamzin spent in St. Petersburg and became close to the royal family. Karamzin died in St. Petersburg as a result of complications after suffering pneumonia. Buried at the Tikhvin cemetery of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra.

Interesting facts from life

Karamzin owns the most a brief description of public life in Russia. When, during his trip to Europe, Russian émigrés asked Karamzin what was happening in his homeland, the writer answered in one word: "They are stealing."

Some philologists believe that modern Russian literature dates back to Karamzin's book Letters of a Russian Traveler.

Writer Awards

Honorary member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences (1818), full member of the Imperial Russian Academy (1818). Chevalier of the Orders of St. Anna 1st degree and St. Vladimir 3rd degree /

Bibliography

Fiction
* Letters from a Russian traveler (1791-1792)
* Poor Lisa (1792)
* Natalia, boyar's daughter (1792)
* Sierra Morena (1793)
* Bornholm Island (1793)
* Julia (1796)
* My Confessions (1802)
* Knight of our time (1803)
Historical and historical-literary works
* Martha the Posadnitsa, or the Conquest of Novgorod (1802)
* Note on ancient and new Russia in its political and civil relations (1811)
* History of the Russian state (v. 1-8 - in 1816-1817, v. 9 - in 1821, v. 10-11 - in 1824, v. 12 - in 1829)

Screen adaptations of works, theatrical performances

* Poor Liza (USSR, 1978), cartoon puppet, dir. Garanin's idea
* Poor Lisa (USA, 2000) dir. Slava Zuckerman
* History of the Russian State (TV) (Ukraine, 2007) dir. Valery Babich [this tape on Kinoposke has a review from BookMix user Mikle_Pro]

Biography

Russian historian, writer, publicist, founder of Russian sentimentalism. Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin was born on December 12 (according to the old style - December 1), 1766 in the village of Mikhailovka, Simbirsk province (Orenburg region), into the family of a Simbirsk landowner. He knew German, French, English, Italian. Grew up in his father's village. At the age of 14, Karamzin was brought to Moscow and sent to the private boarding school of Moscow University professor I.M. Shaden, where he studied from 1775 to 1781. At the same time he attended lectures at the university.

In 1781 (some sources indicate 1783), at the insistence of his father, Karamzin was assigned to the Life Guards Preobrazhensky Regiment in St. Petersburg, where he was registered as a minor, but at the beginning of 1784 he retired and left for Simbirsk, where he joined the Masonic lodge of the Golden Crown ". On the advice of I.P. Turgenev, who was one of the founders of the lodge, at the end of 1784 Karamzin moved to Moscow, where he joined the Masonic "Friendly Scientific Society", of which N.I. Novikov, who had a great influence on the formation of the views of Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin. At the same time, he collaborated with Novikov's magazine "Children's reading". Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin was a member of the Masonic lodge until 1788 (1789). From May 1789 to September 1790 he traveled around Germany, Switzerland, France, England, visiting Berlin, Leipzig, Geneva, Paris, London. Returning to Moscow, he began to publish Moskovsky Zhurnal, which at that time had a very significant success: already in the first year it had 300 "sub-scribes". The magazine, which had no full-time employees and was filled by Karamzin himself, existed until December 1792. After the arrest of Novikov and the publication of the ode "To Mercy," Karamzin almost came under investigation on suspicion that Freemasons had sent him abroad. In 1793-1795 he spent most of his time in the countryside.

In 1802, Karamzin's first wife, Elizaveta Ivanovna Protasova, died. In 1802 he founded the first in Russia private literary and political journal Vestnik Evropy, for the editorial board of which he subscribed to 12 of the best foreign journals. Karamzin attracted G.R. Derzhavin, Kheraskov, Dmitrieva, V.L. Pushkin, brothers A.I. and N.I. Turgenev, A.F. Voeikova, V.A. Zhukovsky. Despite the large number of authors, Karamzin has to work a lot on his own and, so that his name does not flash before the eyes of readers so often, he invents a lot of pseudonyms. At the same time, he became the popularizer of Benjamin Franklin in Russia. Vestnik Evropy existed until 1803.

October 31, 1803, with the mediation of the Deputy Minister of Public Education M.N. Muravyov, by the decree of Emperor Alexander I, Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin was appointed an official historiographer with a salary of 2,000 rubles to write the complete history of Russia. In 1804, Karamzin married the bastard daughter of Prince A.I. Vyazemsky to Ekaterina Andreevna Kolyvanova and from that moment he settled in the Moscow house of the princes Vyazemsky, where he lived until 1810. From 1804 he began work on the "History of the Russian State", the compilation of which became his main occupation until the end of his life. In 1816 the first 8 volumes were published (the second edition was published in 1818-1819), in 1821 the 9th volume was printed, in 1824 - the 10th and 11th volume of "History ..." D.N. Bludov). Thanks to its literary form, The History of the Russian State became popular among readers and admirers of Karamzin as a writer, but even then it was depriving it of serious scientific significance. All 3000 copies of the first edition were sold in 25 days. For the science of that time, the extensive "Notes" to the text, containing many extracts from manuscripts, for the most part first published by Karamzin, were of much greater importance. Some of these manuscripts no longer exist. Karamzin received practically unlimited access to the archives of state institutions of the Russian Empire: materials were taken from the Moscow archive of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (at that time a collegium), from the Synodal depository, from the library of monasteries (Trinity Lavra, Volokolamsk monastery and others), from private collections of Musin's manuscripts. Pushkin, Chancellor Rumyantsev and A.I. Turgenev, who compiled a collection of documents from the papal archives. We used the Trinity, Laurentian, Ipatiev Chronicles, the Dvina Charter, the Code of Laws. Thanks to the "History of the Russian State", the readership became aware of "The Word about Igor's Campaign", "The Teaching of Monomakh" and many other literary works of ancient Russia. Despite this, already during the life of the writer, critical works appeared about his "History ...". The historical concept of Karamzin, who was a supporter of the Norman theory of the origin of the Russian state, became official and supported state power... At a later time, "History ..." was assessed positively by A.S. Pushkin, N.V. Gogol, Slavophiles, negatively - Decembrists, V.G. Belinsky, N.G. Chernyshevsky. Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin initiated the organization of memorials and the establishment of monuments to outstanding figures in Russian history, one of which was the monument to K.M. Minin and D.M. Pozharsky on Red Square in Moscow.

Before the publication of the first eight volumes, Karamzin lived in Moscow, from where he traveled only in 1810 to Tver to see the Grand Duchess Ekaterina Pavlovna in order to convey his note "On Ancient and New Russia" to the sovereign through her, and to Nizhny, when the French occupied Moscow. Summer Karamzin usually spent in Ostafyevo, the estate of his father-in-law - Prince Andrei Ivanovich Vyazemsky. In August 1812, Karamzin lived in the house of the commander-in-chief of Moscow, Count F.V. Rostopchin and left Moscow a few hours before the entry of the French. As a result of the Moscow fire, Karamzin's personal library, which he had collected for a quarter of a century, perished. In June 1813, after the family returned to Moscow, he settled in the house of the publisher S.A. Selivanovsky, and then - in the house of the Moscow theater-goer F.F. Kokoshkin. In 1816 Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin moved to St. Petersburg, where he spent the last 10 years of his life and became close to the royal family, although Emperor Alexander I, who did not like criticism of his actions, treated the writer with restraint from the time the "Note" was submitted. Following the wishes of Empresses Maria Feodorovna and Elizabeth Alekseevna, Nikolai Mikhailovich spent the summer in Tsarskoe Selo. In 1818 Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin was elected an honorary member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. In 1824 Karamzin became a full state councilor. The death of Emperor Alexander I shocked Karamzin and undermined his health; half ill, he visited the palace every day, talking with the Empress Maria Feodorovna. In the first months of 1826, Karamzin experienced pneumonia and decided, on the advice of doctors, to go to southern France and Italy in the spring, for which Emperor Nicholas gave him money and placed a frigate at his disposal. But Karamzin was already too weak to travel and on June 3 (according to the old style, May 22), 1826, died in St. Petersburg.

Among the works of Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin - critical articles, reviews of literary, theatrical, historical themes, letters, stories, odes, poems: "Eugene and Julia" (1789; story), "Letters of a Russian traveler" (1791-1795; separate edition - in 1801; letters written during a trip to Germany, Switzerland, France and England, and reflecting the life of Europe on the eve and during French revolution), "Liodor" (1791, story), "Poor Liza" (1792; story; published in the "Moscow Journal"), "Natalia, the boyar's daughter" (1792; story; published in the "Moscow Journal"), "By the mercy "(ode)," Aglaya "(1794-1795; almanac)," My trinkets "(1794; 2nd edition - in 1797, 3rd - in 1801; collection of articles published earlier in the" Moscow Journal "), "The Pantheon of Foreign Literature" (1798; a reader on foreign literature, which did not go through the censorship for a long time, which prohibited the printing of Demosthenes, Cicero, Sallust, since they were republicans), "Historical praise to Empress Catherine II" (1802), "Martha Posadnitsa, or the Conquest of Novgorod "(1803; published in the Bulletin of Europe; historical tale"), "Note on ancient and new Russia in its political and civil relations" (1811; criticism of projects of state reforms by M. M. Speransky), "Note about Moscow sights "(1818; the first cultural and historical guide to Moscow and its environs)," Knight of our time emeni "(an autobiography-story published in the" Bulletin of Europe ")," My Confession "(a story that exposed the secular education of the aristocracy)," History of the Russian State "(1816-1829: v. 1-8 - in 1816-1817, vol. 9 - in 1821, v. 10-11 - in 1824, v. 12 - in 1829; the first generalizing work on the history of Russia), letters from Karamzin to A.F. Malinovsky "(published in 1860), to I.I.Dmitriev (published in 1866), to N.I. Krivtsov, to Prince P.A.Vyazemsky (1810-1826; published in 1897), to A.I. Turgenev (1806 -1826; published in 1899), correspondence with Emperor Nikolai Pavlovich (published in 1906), "Historical memoirs and notes on the way to Trinity" (article), "On the Moscow earthquake of 1802" (article), "Notes of an old Moscow resident" (article), "Travel around Moscow" (article), "Russian antiquity" (article), "On the light clothes of fashionable beauties of the ninth century" (article).

Biography

Comes from a wealthy noble family, the son of a retired army officer.

In 1779-81 he studied at the Moscow boarding school of Shaden.

In 1782-83 he served in the Preobrazhensky Guards Regiment.

In 1784/1785 he settled in Moscow, where, as an author and translator, he became closely associated with the Masonic circle of satirist and publisher N. I. Novikov.

In 1785-89 - a member of the Moscow circle of N.I. Novikov. Masonic mentors Karamzin were I. S. Gamaleya and A. M. Kutuzov. After retiring and returning to Simbirsk, he met the freemason I. P. Turgenev.

In 1789-1790 traveled to Western Europe, where he met many prominent representatives of the Enlightenment (Kant, Herder, Wieland, Lafater, etc.). Influenced by the ideas of the first two thinkers, as well as Voltaire and Shaftesbury.

Upon his return to his homeland, he published Letters of a Russian Traveler (1791-1795) reflecting on the fate of European culture and founded the Moscow Journal (1791-1792), a literary and artistic periodical, where he published works by contemporary Western European and Russian authors. After the accession to the throne in 1801 of Emperor Alexander I, he undertook the publication of the journal Vestnik Evropy (1802-1803) (the motto of which was “Russia is Europe”), the first of the many Russian literary and political review magazines, where the tasks of forming national identity were set by Russia assimilating the civilizational experience of the West and, in particular, the experience of modern European philosophy (from F. Bacon and R. Descartes to I. Kant and J.-J. Rousseau).

Social progress Karamzin associated with the success of education, the development of civilization, the improvement of man. During this period, the writer, in general, being in the position of conservative Westernism, positively assessed the principles of the theory of social contract and natural law. He was a supporter of freedom of conscience and utopian ideas in the spirit of Plato and T. More, believed that in the name of harmony and equality, citizens can renounce personal freedom. As skepticism about utopian theories grew, Karamzin became increasingly convinced of the enduring value of individual and intellectual freedom.

The story "Poor Liza" (1792), which asserts the intrinsic value of the human person as such, regardless of class, brought Karamzin immediate recognition. In the 1790s, he was the head of Russian sentimentalism, as well as the inspirer of the movement for the emancipation of Russian prose, which was stylistically dependent on the Church Slavonic liturgical language. Gradually, his interests shifted from the field of literature to the field of history. In 1804 he resigned from the post of editor of the magazine, accepted the post of imperial historiographer and until his death was occupied almost exclusively with the essay "History of the Russian State", the first volume of which appeared in print in 1816. In 1810-1811, at the personal request of Alexander I, Karamzin compiled a "Note on Ancient and New Russia ”, where he sharply criticized Russian domestic and foreign policy from the conservative positions of the Moscow nobility. Karamzin died in St. Petersburg on May 22 (June 3) 1826.

K. called for the development of the European philosophical heritage in all its diversity - from R. Descartes to I. Kant and from F. Bacon to K. Helvetius.

In social philosophy, he was an admirer of J. Locke and J. J. Rousseau. He adhered to the conviction that philosophy, having got rid of scholastic dogmatism and speculative metaphysics, is capable of being "the science of nature and man." An adherent of empirical knowledge (experience "gatekeeper of wisdom"), he also believed in the power of reason, in the creative potential of human genius. Opposing philosophical pessimism and agnosticism, he believed that the mistakes of science are possible, but they "are, so to speak, outgrowths alien to it." On the whole, he is characterized by a religious and philosophical tolerance for other views: "He is for me a true philosopher who can live with everyone in the world; who loves those who disagree with his way of thinking."

Man is a social being ("we were born for society"), capable of communicating with others ("our" I "sees itself only in another" you "), therefore, to intellectual and moral improvement.

History, according to K., testifies that "the human race rises to spiritual perfection." The golden age of humanity is not behind, as Rousseau argued, who deified the ignorant savage, but ahead. T. More in his "Utopia" foresaw a lot, but nevertheless it is "a dream of a kind heart."

K. assigned an important role in improving human nature to art, which shows a person worthy ways and means of achieving happiness, as well as forms of intelligent enjoyment of life - through the elevation of the soul ("Something about the sciences, arts and enlightenment").

Observing the events of 1789 in Paris, listening to the speeches of O. Mirabeau at the Convention, talking with J. Condorcet and A. Lavoisier (it is possible that Karamzin visited M. Robespierre), plunging into the atmosphere of the revolution, he greeted it as a "victory of reason." However, he later denounced Sans-Culotte and Jacobin Terror as the collapse of the ideas of the Enlightenment.

In the ideas of the Enlightenment, Karamzin saw the final overcoming of the dogmatism and scholasticism of the Middle Ages. Critically assessing the extremes of empiricism and rationalism, he, at the same time, emphasized the cognitive value of each of these areas and resolutely rejected agnosticism and skepticism.

Upon his return from Europe, K. rethinks his philosophical and historical credo and turns to the problems of historical knowledge and the methodology of history. In "Letters of Melodor and Philalet" (1795), he discusses the fundamental decisions of two concepts of the philosophy of history - the theory of the historical cycle, coming from G. Vico, and the steady social ascent of mankind (progress) to a higher goal, to humanism, originating from I. G Herder, who was valued for his interest in the language and history of the Slavs, casts doubt on the idea of ​​automatic progress and comes to the conclusion that the hope for the steady progress of mankind is more shaky than it seemed to him before.

History appears to him as "an eternal confusion of truths with delusions and virtue with vice", "softening of morals, progress of reason and feeling", "spreading the spirit of the public", as only a distant prospect of mankind.

Initially, the writer was characterized by historical optimism and belief in the inevitability of social and spiritual progress, but since the late 1790s. the development of society Karamzin connects with the will of Providence. Since that time, he has been characterized by philosophical skepticism. The writer is increasingly inclined towards rational providentialism, seeking to reconcile it with the recognition of human free will.

Developing the idea of ​​unity from a humanistic standpoint historical path Russia and Europe, Karamzin at the same time gradually became convinced of the existence of a path of development that is special for each people, which led him to the idea of ​​justifying this position on the example of the history of Russia.

At the very beginning. XIX century. (1804) he embarks on the work of his entire life - systematic work in Russian. history, collecting materials, examining archives, comparing chronicles.

Karamzin brought the historical narrative to the beginning of the 17th century, while he used many primary sources that had previously been ignored (some did not reach us), and he managed to create an interesting story about the past of Russia.

The methodology of historical research was developed by him in previous works, in particular in the Discourse of a Philosopher, Historian and Citizen (1795), as well as in the Note on Ancient and New Russia (1810-1811). A reasonable interpretation of history, he believed, was based on respect for sources (in Russian historiography, on a conscientious study of, first of all, chronicles), but it was not reduced to a simple transposition of them.

"The historian is not a chronicler." It should be based on the explanation of the actions and psychology of the subjects of history, pursuing their own and class interests. The historian must strive to understand the internal logic of the events taking place, highlight the most essential and important in the events, describing them, “must rejoice and grieve with his people. be truthful above all. "

The main ideas of Karamzin from "History of the Russian State" (the book was published in 11 volumes in 1816-1824, the last - 12 volumes - in 1829 after the death of the author) can be called conservative - monarchical. They embodied the conservative-monarchist convictions of Karamzin as a historian, providentialism and his ethical determinism as a thinker, his traditional religious and moral consciousness. Karamzin focuses on the national characteristics of Russia, first of all, it is an autocracy, free from despotic extremes, where the sovereign must be guided by the law of God and conscience.

He saw the historical purpose of the Russian autocracy in maintaining public order and stability. From a paternalistic standpoint, the writer justified serfdom and social inequality in Russia.

Autocracy, according to Karamzin, being an extra-class power, is a "palladium" (keeper) of Russia ", the guarantor of the unity and well-being of the people. The strength of autocratic rule lies not in formal law and legality according to the Western model, but in conscience, in the" heart "of the monarch.

This is a paternal government. The autocracy must unswervingly follow the rules of such government, while the postulates of government are as follows: "Any news in the state order is evil, to which one must resort only to necessity." "We demand more protective wisdom than creative." "For the firmness of being a state, it is safer to enslave people than to give them freedom at the wrong time."

True patriotism, K. believed, obliges the citizen to love his fatherland, regardless of his delusion and imperfections. Cosmopolitan, according to K., "a metaphysical being."

Karamzin took an important place in the history of Russian culture due to the circumstances that developed successfully for him, as well as his personal charm and erudition. A true representative of the age of Catherine the Great, he combined Westernism and liberal aspirations with political conservatism. The historical consciousness of the Russian people owes a lot to Karamzin. Pushkin noted this, saying that "Ancient Russia seemed to be found by Karamzin, like America by Colombus."

Among the works of Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin - critical articles and reviews on literary, theatrical, historical themes;

Letters, stories, odes, poems:

* "Eugene and Julia" (1789; story),
* "Letters of a Russian Traveler" (1791-1795; a separate edition - in 1801;
* letters written during a trip to Germany, Switzerland, France and England, and reflecting the life of Europe on the eve and during the French Revolution),
* "Liodor" (1791, story),
* "Poor Liza" (1792; story; published in the "Moscow Journal"),
* "Natalia, the boyar's daughter" (1792; story; published in the "Moscow Journal"),
* "For mercy" (ode),
* "Aglaya" (1794-1795; almanac),
* "My trinkets" (1794; 2nd edition - in 1797, 3rd - in 1801; collection of articles published earlier in the "Moscow Journal"),
* "The Pantheon of Foreign Literature" (1798; a reader on foreign literature, which did not go through the censorship for a long time, which prohibited the printing of Demosthenes, Cicero, Sallust, since they were republicans).

Historical and literary works:

* "Historical words of praise to Empress Catherine II" (1802),
* "Martha Posadnitsa, or the Conquest of Novgorod" (1803; published in the "Bulletin of Europe; historical story"),
* "A note on ancient and new Russia in its political and civil relations" (1811; criticism of the projects of state reforms by M.M.Speransky),
* "Note on Moscow monuments" (1818; the first cultural and historical guide to Moscow and its environs),
* "The Knight of Our Time" (the autobiography story was published in the "Bulletin of Europe"),
* "My Confession" (a story that denounced the secular upbringing of the aristocracy),
* "History of the Russian State" (1816-1829: v. 1-8 - in 1816-1817, v. 9 - in 1821, v. 10-11 - in 1824, v. 12 - in 1829; the first generalizing work on history Russia).

Letters:

* Letters from Karamzin to A.F. Malinovsky "(published in 1860),
* to I.I. Dmitriev (published in 1866),
* to N.I. Krivtsov,
* to Prince P.A. Vyazemsky (1810-1826; published in 1897),
* to A.I. Turgenev (1806-1826; published in 1899),
* Correspondence with Emperor Nikolai Pavlovich (published in 1906).

Articles:

* "Historical Reminiscences and Notes on the Path to the Trinity" (article),
* "On the Moscow earthquake of 1802" (article),
* "Notes of an Old Moscow Resident" (article),
* "Travel around Moscow" (article),
* "Russian antiquity" (article),
* "About light clothes of fashionable beauties of the ninth - hope of the century" (article).

Sources:

* Ermakova T. Karamzin Nikolai Mikhailovich [Text] / T. Ermakova // Philosophical Encyclopedia: in 5 volumes. Vol.2 .: Disjunction - Comic / Institute of Philosophy of the USSR Academy of Sciences; scientific advice: A. P. Aleksandrov [and others]. - M .: Soviet encyclopedia, 1962. - S. 456;
* Malinin V. A. Karamzin Nikolai Mikhailovich [Text] / V. A. Malinin // Russian philosophy: dictionary / under total. ed. M. A. Maslina - M .: Republic, 1995 .-- S. 217 - 218.
* Khudushina IF Karamzin Nikolai Mikhailovich [Text] / IF Khudushina // New philosophical encyclopedia: in 4 volumes. Vol.2 .: E - M / Institute of philosophy Ros. acad. Sciences, Nat. societies. - scientific. fund; scientific-ed. advice .: V. S. Stepin [and others]. - M .: Mysl, 2001. - P.217 - 218;

Bibliography

Compositions:

* Works. Vol. 1-9. - 4th ed. - SPb., 1834-1835;
* Translations. Vol. 1-9. - 3rd ed. - SPb., 1835;
* Letters from N.M. Karamzin to I.I.Dmitriev. - SPb., 1866;
* Something about sciences, arts and education. - Odessa, 1880;.
* Letters from a Russian traveler. - L., 1987;
* A note about ancient and new Russia. - M., 1991.
* History of the Russian state, v. 1-4. - M, 1993;

Literature:

* Platonov S.F.N.M. Karamzin ... - SPb., 1912;
* Essays on the history of historical science in the USSR. T. 1. - M., 1955. - S. 277 - 87;
* Essays on the history of Russian journalism and criticism. T. 1. Ch. 5.-L., 1950;
* Belinsky V.G. Works by Alexander Pushkin. Art. 2. // Complete Works. T. 7. - M., 1955;
* Pogodin M.P. N.M. Karamzin, according to his writings, letters and reviews of his contemporaries. Ch. 1-2. - M., 1866;
* [Gukovsky GA] Karamzin // History of Russian Literature. T. 5. - M. - L., 1941. - S. 55-105;
* Lecabrists-critics of the "History of the Russian State" N.M. Karamzin // Literary heritage. T. 59. - M., 1954;
* Lotman Yu. Evolution of Karamzin's worldview // Scientific Notes of Tartu State University. - 1957. - Issue. 51. - (Proceedings of the Faculty of History and Philology);
* Mordovchenko N.I. Russian criticism of the first quarter of the 19th century. - M. - L., 1959. - p. 17-56;
* Storm G.P. New about Pushkin and Karamzin // News of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Dept. literature and language. - 1960. - T. 19. - Issue. 2;
* Predtechensky A.V. Social and political views of N.M. Karamzin in the 1790s // Problems of Russian education in the literature of the 18th century - M.-L., 1961;
* Makogonenko G. Karamzin's literary position in the 19th century, “Rus. Literature ", 1962, No. 1, p. 68-106;
* History of Philosophy in the USSR. T. 2. - M., 1968. - S. 154-157;
* Kislyagina L. G. Formation of social and political views of N. M. Karamzin (1785-1803). - M., 1976;
* Lotman Yu.M. Karamzin. - M., 1997.
* Wedel E. Radiśćev und Karamzin // Die Welt der Slaven. - 1959. - H. 1;
* Rothe H. Karamzin-studien // Z. slavische Philologie. - 1960. - Bd 29. - H. 1;
* Wissemann H. Wandlungen des Naturgefühls in der neuren russischen Literatur // ibid. - Bd 28 .-- H. 2.

Archives:

* RO IRLI, f. 93; RGALI, f. 248; RGIA, f. 951; OR RSL, f. 178; RORNB, f. 336.

Biography (Catholic Encyclopedia. EdwART. 2011, K. Yablokov)

He grew up in the village of his father, a Simbirsk landowner. Elementary education got home. In 1773-76 he studied in Simbirsk at the Fauvel boarding house, then in 1780-83 - at the boarding house of prof. Moscow University of Shaden in Moscow. During his studies, he also attended lectures at Moscow University. In 1781 he entered the service in the Preobrazhensky regiment. In 1785, after his resignation, he became close to the Masonic circle of N.I. Novikov. During this period, the formation of a worldview and lit. views K. was greatly influenced by the philosophy of the Enlightenment, as well as the work of the English. and it. sentimental writers. First lit. K.'s experience is associated with Novikov's journal Children's reading for the heart and mind, where in 1787-90 he published his numerous. translations, as well as the story of Eugene and Julia (1789).

In 1789, K. broke with the Freemasons. In 1789-90 he traveled to Zap. Europe, visited Germany, Switzerland, France and England, met with I. Kant and I.G. Herder. The impressions of the trip became the basis of his op. Letters from a Russian traveler (1791-92), in which, in particular, K. expressed his attitude to the French Revolution, which he considered one of the key events of the 18th century. The period of the Jacobin dictatorship (1793-94) disappointed him, and in the reprint of Letters ... (1801) a story about the events of Franz. K. accompanied the revolution with a comment about the disastrous for the state of any violent upheaval.

After returning to Russia, K. published the Moscow magazine, in which he also published his own artists. works (the main part of the Letters of the Russian Traveler, the stories of Liodor, Poor Liza, Natalia, the boyar's daughter, poems Poetry, To the mercy, etc.), as well as critical. articles and lit. and theater reviews promoting the aesthetic principles of Rus. sentimentalism.

After the forced silence during the reign of the imp. Paul I, K. again acted as a publicist, substantiating the program of moderate conservatism in the new journal Vestnik Evropy. His ist was published here. the story of Martha Posadnitsa, or the Conquest of Novgorod (1803), which asserted the inevitability of the victory of autocracy over a free city.

Lit. K.'s activities played a large role in improving the artist. means of the image int. the world of man, in the development of Russian. lit. language. In particular, K.'s early prose influenced the work of V.A. Zhukovsky, K.N. Batyushkov, young A.S. Pushkin.

From ser. In 1790, K.'s interest in the problems of the methodology of history was determined. One of the main. theses of K .: "The historian is not a chronicler", he is obliged to strive to understand the internal. the logic of the events taking place must be "truthful", and no preferences and notions can serve as an excuse for distorting the truth. facts.

In 1803, K. was appointed to the position of court historiographer, after which he began work on his ch. work - the History of the Russian State (v. 1-8, 1816-17; v. 9, 1821; v. 10-11, 1824; v. 12, 1829), which became not only significant historical. labor, but also a major phenomenon of Russian. artist prose and the most important source for Russian. ist. dramaturgy starting with Pushkin's Boris Godunov.

When working on the History of the Russian State, K. used not only practically all available in his time lists of Russian. chronicles (more than 200) and ed. monuments of ancient Rus. rights and literature, but also numerous. handwritten and printed Western Europe. sources. A story about each period of Russian history. state-va is accompanied by many references and quotes from Op. Europ. authors, and not only who wrote about Russia itself (like Herberstein or Kozma Prazhsky), but also other historians, geographers, chroniclers (from ancient to K.'s contemporaries). In addition, History ... contains many important for Russian. reader of information on the history of the Church (from the Church Fathers to the Church Annals of Barony), as well as quotes from papal bulls and other documents of the Holy See. One of the main. concepts of work K. was criticism ist. sources according to the methods of Enlightenment historians. History ... K. helped to increase interest in Russian history in various layers of Russian. society. East. K.'s concept became an official. concept supported by the state. power.

K.'s views, expressed in the History of the Russian State, are based on a rationalistic view of the course of societies. development: the history of mankind is the history of world progress, the basis of which is the struggle of reason against error, enlightenment against ignorance. Ch. driving force ist. process K. considered the power, the state, identifying the history of the country with the history of the state, and the history of the state - with the history of autocracy.

A decisive role in history, according to K., is played by individuals ("History is the sacred book of kings and peoples"). Psychological analysis of actions ist. personal is for K. main. by the method of explanation ist. events. The purpose of history, according to K., is to regulate societies. and cult. activities of people. Ch. the institution for maintaining order in Russia is autocracy, the strengthening of monarchical power in the state allows the cult to be preserved. and ist. values. The church should interact with the government, but not obey it, because this leads to a weakening of the authority of the Church and faith in the state, and the devaluation of rel. values ​​- to the destruction of the institute of the monarchy. The spheres of activity of the state and the Church, in the understanding of K., cannot overlap, but in order to preserve the unity of the state, their efforts must be combined.

K. was a supporter of Rel. tolerance, however, in his opinion, each country should adhere to the chosen religion, therefore in Russia it is important to preserve and support Orthodoxy. Church. K. viewed the Catholic Church as a constant enemy of Russia, who sought to "plant" a new faith. In his opinion, contacts with the Catholic Church only damaged the cult. identity of Russia. K. subjected the Jesuits to the greatest criticism, in particular for their interference in the internal. Russian policy during the Time of Troubles beginning. XVII century

In 1810-11, K. drew up a Note on Ancient and New Russia, where from a conservative standpoint he criticized internal. and ext. grew up. policy, in particular projects of state. transformations of M.M. Speransky. In the Note ... K. departed from his original views on the East. development of mankind, arguing that there is a special path of development, characteristic of each nation.

Cit .: Works. SPb., 1848.3 t .; Compositions. L., 1984.2 t .; Complete collection of poems. M.-L., 1966; History of Russian Goverment. SPb., 1842-44. 4 books; Letters from a Russian traveler. L., 1984; History of Russian Goverment. M., 1989-98. 6 volumes (ed. Not completed); A note on ancient and new Russia in its political and civil relations. M., 1991.

Lit.: Pogodin M.P. Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin based on his writings, letters and reviews of his contemporaries. M., 1866.2 hours; Eidelman N.Ya. The last chronicler. M., 1983; E. I. Osetrov Three lives of Karamzin. M., 1985; Vatsuro V.E., Gillelson M.I. Through mental dams. M., 1986; V.P. Kozlov "History of the Russian State" N.M. Karamzin in the assessments of contemporaries. M., 1989; Lotman Yu.M. Creation of Karamzin. M., 1997.

On some of Pushkin's references to the journalism and prose of N.M. Karamzin (L.A. Mesenyashina (Chelyabinsk))

Speaking about the contribution of N.M. Karamzin into Russian culture, Yu.M. Lotman notes that, among other things, N.M. Karamzin created “two more important figures in the history of culture: the Russian Reader and the Russian Reader” [Lotman, Yu.M. Creation of Karamzin [Text] / Yu.M. Lotman. - M .: Kniga, 1987. S. 316]. At the same time, when we turn to such a textbook Russian reading as "Eugene Onegin", sometimes it becomes noticeable that the modern Russian reader lacks precisely "reading qualifications." It is primarily about the ability to see the intertextual connections of the novel. Almost all researchers of Pushkin's work pointed out the importance of the role of “someone else's word” in the novel “Eugene Onegin”. Yu.M. Lotman, who gave a detailed classification of the forms of representation of "someone else's speech" in "Eugene Onegin", notes, with reference to the works of Z.G. Mints, G. Levinton and others that “quotations and reminiscences constitute one of the main structure-forming elements in the very fabric of the novel's narration in Pushkin's verses” [Lotman, Yu.M. Roman A.S. Pushkin "Eugene Onegin" [Text] / Yu.M. Lotman // Lotman, Yu.M. Pushkin. - St. Petersburg: Art-SPB, 1995. S. 414]. Among the various functions of the quotation, Yu.M. Lotman pays special attention to the so-called. “Hidden quotations”, the highlighting of which “is achieved not by graphics and typographic signs, but by identifying certain places in the text of Onegin with the texts stored in the memory of readers” [Ibid.]. Such "hidden quotes", in language modern theory advertising, carry out “audience segmentation”, with “a multi-stage system of approaching the reader to the text” [Ibid.]. And further: “... Quotations, actualizing certain extra-textual connections, create a certain“ image of the audience ”of the given text, which indirectly characterizes the text itself” [Ibid, p. 416]. The abundance of proper names (Yu.M. Lotman numbers about 150) "poets, artists, cultural figures, politicians, historical figures, as well as the names of works of art and the names of literary heroes" (ibid.) Turns the novel, in a sense, into a secular a conversation about mutual acquaintances ("Onegin is" my good friend ").

Special attention of Yu.M. Lotman devotes to the roll call of Pushkin's novel with the texts of N.M. Karamzin, pointing out, in particular, that to the collision "Tatyana Larina's mother -" Grandison "(" guard sergeant ") - Dmitry Larin" the closest is the situation from "The Knight of Our Time" N.M. Karamzin [Lotman, Yu.M. Roman A.S. Pushkin "Eugene Onegin" [Text] / Yu.M. Lotman // Lotman, Yu.M. Pushkin. - St. Petersburg: Art-SPB, 1995. S. 391 - 762]. Moreover, in this context it turns out awesome fact unnoticed by researchers of yet another "hidden quotation", or rather an allusion in the XXX stanza of the second chapter of "Eugene Onegin". Under the allusion, following A.S. Evseev, we will understand “a reference to a previously known fact (protosystem) taken in its singularity, accompanied by a paradigmatic increment of the metasystem” (a semiotic system containing a representative of allusion) [Evseev, A.S. Fundamentals of the theory of allusion [Text]: author. dis. ... Cand. philol. Sciences: 10.02.01 / Evseev Aleksandr Sergeevich. - Moscow, 1990. S. 3].

Let us recall that, characterizing the well-known liberalism of Tatyana's parents in relation to the circle of her reading, Pushkin motivated him, in particular, by the fact that Tatyana's mother “was mad about Richardson herself.” And then comes the textbook:

"She loved Richardson
Not because I read
Not because Grandison
She preferred to Lovlas ... "

A.S. himself Pushkin, in a footnote to these lines, indicates: "Grandison and Lovlas, heroes of two glorious novels" [Pushkin, A.S. Selected works [Text]: in 2 volumes / A.S. Pushkin. - M .: Fiction, 1980. - Vol. 2. P. 154]. In the commentary to the novel “Eugene Onegin” by Yu. M. Lotman, which has become no less textbook, in the notes to this stanza, in addition to the above-mentioned Pushkin's note, it is added: “The first is the hero of impeccable virtue, the second is insidious but charming evil. Their names became common nouns ”[Lotman, Yu.M. Roman A.S. Pushkin "Eugene Onegin" [Text] / Yu.M. Lotman // Lotman, Yu.M. Pushkin. - St. Petersburg: Art-SPB, 1995. S. 605].

The parsimony of such a commentary would be entirely justified if one could forget about the "segmental role" of allusions in this novel. According to the classification of Yu.M. Lotman, from among those readers who can "correlate the quotation contained in Pushkin's text with a certain external text and extract the meanings arising from this comparison" [Ibid. P. 414], only the narrowest, friendly circle knows the "home semantics" of this or that quotation.

For a correct understanding of this quatrain, Pushkin's contemporaries did not at all need to enter the narrowest circle. It was enough to coincide with him in the reading circle, and for this it was enough to be familiar with the texts of Richardson and Russo, first of all, and N.M. Karamzin, secondly. Because anyone for whom these conditions are met will easily notice in this quatrain the polemical, but almost word-for-word quotation of a fragment of the Letters of a Russian Traveler. So, in a letter marked "London, July ... 1790" N.M. Karamzin describes a certain girl Jenny, a servant in the rooms where the hero of "Letters" stayed, who managed to tell him " secret history her heart ":" At eight o'clock in the morning she brings me tea with breadcrumbs and talks to me about the Filingov and Richardson novels. Her taste is strange: for example, Lovelace seems to her incomparably more amiable than Grandison ”…. Such are the London maids! " [Karamzin, N.M. Knight of our time [Text]: Poetry, prose. Journalism / N.M. Karamzin. - M.: Parade, 2007. S. 520].

Another significant circumstance also indicates that this is not an accidental coincidence. Recall that this quatrain in Pushkin is preceded by the stanza

“She [Tatiana] liked novels early;
They replaced everything for her ... ".

For our contemporaries, this characteristic only means the heroine's quite commendable love for reading. Meanwhile, Pushkin emphasizes that this is not a love of reading in general, but of reading novels, which is not the same thing. The fact that the love of reading novels on the part of a young noble girl is by no means unambiguous positive characteristic, evidenced by a very characteristic passage from the article by N.M. Karamzin "On the book trade and love of reading in Russia" (1802): "It is in vain to think that novels can be harmful to the heart ..." [Ibid. P. 769], "In a word, it's good that our audience reads novels too!" [Ibid. S. 770]. The very need for this kind of argumentation testifies to the presence of a directly opposite belief in public opinion, and it is not unreasonable if we take into account the theme and the very language of European novels of the Enlightenment era. Indeed, even with the most ardent defense of N.M. Karamzin nowhere claims that this reading is the most suitable for young girls, for the Enlightenment of the latter in some spheres, at least in the eyes of Russian society of that time, bordered on direct corruption. And the fact that Pushkin calls the next volume of the novel under Tatyana's pillow "secret" is not accidental.

True, Pushkin emphasizes that there was no need for Tatyana to hide the “secret volume”, since her father, “a simple and kind gentleman,” “read books as an empty toy,” and his wife, despite all her previous claims, and as a girl read less than an English maid.

Thus, the discovery of the Karamzin lines, to which the XXX Pushkin stanza refers us, adds a new bright shade to the understanding of this novel as a whole. The image of the "enlightened Russian lady" in general and the author's attitude towards him in particular becomes clearer to us. The image of Tatiana also receives new colors in this context. If Tatyana grows up in such a family, then this is really outstanding personality... On the other hand, it is in such a family that an “enlightened” (overly enlightened?) Young lady can remain a “Russian soul”. It immediately becomes clear to us that the lines from her letter: "Imagine: I am here alone ..." is not only a romantic cliché, but also a harsh reality, and the letter itself is not only a willingness to follow novel precedents, but also a desperate act aimed at finding a close soul Outside the circle outlined in a predetermined pattern.

So, we see that Pushkin's novel is a truly holistic artistic system, each element of it “works” for the final design, the intertextuality of the novel is the most important component of this system, and that is why none of the intertextual connections of the novel should be overlooked. At the same time, the risk of losing understanding of these relations increases as the time gap between the author and the reader grows, so the restoration of the intertextuality of Pushkin's novel remains an urgent task.

Biography (K.V. Ryzhov)

Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin was born in December 1766 in the village of Mikhailovka, Simbirsk province, into the family of an average nobleman. He received his education at home and in private boarding schools. In 1783 the young Karamzin went to St. Petersburg, where for some time he served as a ensign in the Preobrazhensky Guards Regiment. Military service, however, was of little interest to him. In 1784, upon learning of his father's death, he retired, settled in Moscow and plunged headlong into literary life. Its center at that time was the famous book publisher Novikov. Despite his youth, Karamzin soon became one of his most active collaborators and worked hard on translations.

Constantly reading and translating European classics, Karamzin passionately dreamed of visiting Europe himself. His wish came true in 1789. Having saved up money, he went abroad and traveled around different countries for almost a year and a half. This is a pilgrimage to cultural centers Europe had great value in the formation of Karamzin as a writer. He returned to Moscow with many plans. First of all, he founded the "Moscow Journal", with the help of which he intended to acquaint compatriots with Russian and foreign literature instilling a taste for the best examples of poetry and prose, presenting "critical reviews" of published books, reporting on theatrical premieres and everything else that is associated with literary life in Russia and Europe. The first issue was published in January 1791. It contained the beginning of the "Letters of a Russian Traveler", written based on the impressions of a trip abroad and representing an interesting travel diary in the form of letters to friends. This essay was a huge success among the reading public, who admired not only the fascinating description of life European nations, but also in the light, pleasant style of the author. Before Karamzin, a firm conviction was widespread in Russian society that books are written and published for some "scientists" and therefore their content should be as important and practical as possible. In fact, this led to the fact that the prose turned out to be heavy and boring, and its language - cumbersome and eloquent. In fiction, many Old Church Slavonic words, long out of use. Karamzin was the first Russian prose writer to change the tone of his works from solemn and instructive to sincerely disposed. He also completely abandoned the bombastic pretentious style and began to use a lively and natural language close to colloquial speech. Instead of dense Slavicisms, he boldly introduced into literary circulation many new borrowed words, previously used only in oral speech European educated people. It was a reform of great importance - one might say that our modern literary language first appeared on the pages of Karamzin's magazine. Well-written and interestingly written, he successfully instilled a taste for reading and became the publication around which the reading public first united. Moskovskiy Zhurnal has become a significant event for many other reasons. In addition to his own works and the works of famous Russian writers, in addition to a critical analysis of the works that were widely heard, Karamzin placed in it extensive and detailed articles about famous European classics: Shakespeare, Lessing, Boileau, Thomas More, Goldoni, Voltaire, Stern, Richardson ... He also became the ancestor of theater criticism. Analysis of plays, performances, acting - all this was an unheard-of innovation in Russian periodicals. According to Belinsky, Karamzin was the first to give the Russian public a truly journalistic reading. Moreover, everywhere and in everything he was not only a transformer, but also a creator.

In the next issues of the magazine, in addition to "Letters", articles and translations, Karamzin published several of his poems, and in the July issue he placed the story "Poor Liza". This small essay, which took only a few pages, was a real discovery for our young literature and was the first recognized work of Russian sentimentalism. Life human heart, for the first time so brightly unfolded before the readers, was a stunning revelation for many of them. The simple, and in general, uncomplicated love story of a simple girl for a rich and frivolous nobleman, which ended in her tragic death, literally shocked her contemporaries, who were read to her to oblivion. Looking from the height of our today's literary experience, after Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy and Turgenev, we, of course, cannot fail to see many of the shortcomings of this story - its pretentiousness, excessive exaltation, tearfulness. However, it is important to note that it was here, for the first time in Russian literature, that the discovery of the spiritual world of man took place. It was still a timid, foggy and naive world, but it arose, and the entire further course of our literature went in the direction of comprehending it. Karamzin's innovation manifested itself in another area: in 1792 he published one of the first Russian historical stories "Natalia, the Boyar's Daughter", which serves as a bridge from "Letters of the Russian Traveler" and "Poor Liza" to the later works of Karamzin - "Martha Posadnitsa "and" History of the Russian State ". The plot of "Natalia", which unfolds against the background of the historical setting of the times of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, is distinguished by its romantic poignancy. There is everything here - sudden love, a secret wedding, flight, search, return and a happy life to the grave.

In 1792, Karamzin stopped publishing the magazine and left Moscow for the countryside. He returned to journalism again only in 1802, when he began to publish the "Bulletin of Europe". From the very first issues this magazine became the most popular periodical in Russia. The number of his subscribers in a few months exceeded 1000 people - at that time the figure was very impressive. The range of issues covered in the journal was very significant. In addition to literary and historical articles, Karamzin placed in his "Bulletin" political reviews, various information, messages from the field of science, art and education, as well as entertaining works of fine literature. In 1803, he published in it his best historical story "Martha the Posadnitsa, or the Conquest of Novgorod", which told about the great drama of the city humbled by the Russian autocracy, about freedom and disobedience, about a strong and domineering woman, whose greatness manifested itself in the most difficult days of her life ... In this thing creative manner Karamzina has reached classical maturity. The syllable of "Martha" is clear, restrained, strict. There is not even a trace of the tearfulness and tenderness of "Poor Liza" here. The characters' speeches are full of dignity and simplicity, their every word is weighty and meaningful. It is also important to emphasize that Russian antiquity was no longer just a background here, as in "Natalia" - it itself was the object of comprehension and image. It was evident that the author had been thoughtfully studying history for many years and deeply felt its tragic, contradictory course.

Indeed, it is known from many letters and references to Karamzin that at the turn of the century, Russian antiquity was drawing him more and more into its depths. He enthusiastically read chronicles and ancient acts, took out and studied rare manuscripts. In the fall of 1803, Karamzin finally came to the decision to shoulder a great burden - to take up the writing of a work on Russian history. This task is long overdue. By the beginning of the 19th century. Russia remained almost the only European country that still did not have a complete printed and publicly available account of its history. Of course, there were chronicles, but only specialists could read them. In addition, most of the chronicle lists remained unpublished. In the same way, many historical documents scattered across archives and private collections remained outside the scientific circulation and were completely inaccessible not only to the reading public, but also to historians. Karamzin had to bring together all this complex and heterogeneous material, critically comprehend it and present it in an easy modern language. Realizing well that the conceived business would require many years of research and full concentration, he asked for financial support from the emperor. In October 1803, Alexander I appointed Karamzin to the position of historiographer specially created for him, which granted free access to all Russian archives and libraries. By the same decree, he was given an annual pension of two thousand rubles. Although Vestnik Evropy gave Karamzin three times more, he did not hesitate to say goodbye to him and devoted himself entirely to work on his History of the Russian State. According to Prince Vyazemsky, from that time on, he "became a historian." Secular communication was over: Karamzin stopped appearing in drawing rooms and got rid of many not devoid of pleasantness, but annoying acquaintances. His life now passed in libraries, among the shelves and racks. Karamzin treated his work with the greatest conscientiousness. He compiled mountains of extracts, read catalogs, looked through books and sent letters of inquiry to all parts of the world. The amount of material he picked up and reviewed was enormous. It is safe to say that no one had ever before Karamzin plunged so deeply into the spirit and elements of Russian history.

The goal set for himself by the historian was complex and in many respects contradictory. He had to not only write an extensive scientific essay, painstakingly investigating each era under consideration, his goal was to create a national, social significant essay, which would not require special training for its understanding. In other words, it was not supposed to be a dry monograph, but a highly artistic literary work intended for the general public. Karamzin worked a lot on the style and syllable of "History", on artistic treatment images. Without adding anything to the documents he was laying out, he brightened up their dryness with his hot emotional comments. As a result, a bright and juicy work came out from under his pen, which could not leave indifferent any reader. Karamzin himself once called his work "a historical poem." Indeed, in terms of the strength of the syllable, the amusement of the story, the sonority of the language, this is undoubtedly the best creation of Russian prose of the first quarter of the 19th century.

But with all this "History" remained in the full sense of the "historical" work, although this was achieved to the detriment of its overall harmony. The desire to combine ease of presentation with its thoroughness forced Karamzin to provide almost every phrase with a special note. In these notes, he "hid" a huge number of extensive extracts, quotations from sources, retellings of documents, his polemics with the works of his predecessors. As a result, the "Notes" in terms of their volume actually became equal to the main text. The author himself was well aware of this abnormality. In the preface, he admitted: "The many notes and extracts I have made frighten me myself ..." But he could not think of any other way to acquaint the reader with the mass of valuable historical material. Thus, Karamzin's “History” is, as it were, divided into two parts - “fictional”, intended for easy reading, and “scholarly”, for a thoughtful and in-depth study of history.

Work on the "History of the Russian State" took up the last 23 years of Karamzin's life. In 1816, he took the first eight volumes of his work to St. Petersburg. In the spring of 1817, "History" began to be printed in three printing houses at once - military, senate and medical. However, proofreading was time-consuming. The first eight volumes did not appear on sale until the beginning of 1818 and generated an unheard of excitement. None of Karamzin's compositions had such tremendous success before. At the end of February, the first edition was already out of print. “Everyone,” Pushkin recalled, “even secular women, rushed to read the history of their fatherland, which they had never known before. She was a new discovery for them. Ancient Russia, it seemed, was found by Karamzin, as America was found by Columbus. For some time they did not talk about anything else ... "

Since that time, each new volume of the "History" has become a social and cultural event. The 9th volume, dedicated to the description of the era of Grozny, was published in 1821 and made a deafening impression on contemporaries. The tyranny of the cruel king and the horrors of the oprichnina were described here with such epic power that readers simply could not find words to express their feelings. Famous poet and the future Decembrist Kondraty Ryleev wrote in one of his letters: “Well, Grozny! Well, Karamzin! I don’t know what to be more surprised at, whether the tyranny of John or the gift of our Tacitus ”. The 10th and 11th volumes appeared in 1824. The era of Troubles described in them, in connection with the recently experienced French invasion and the fire of Moscow, was extremely interested in both Karamzin himself and his contemporaries. Many, not without reason, found this part of the History to be especially successful and powerful. The last 12th volume (the author was going to finish his "History" with the accession of Mikhail Romanov) Karamzin wrote already seriously ill. He did not have time to finish it.

The great writer and historian died in May 1826.

Biography (ru.wikipedia.org)

Honorary member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences (1818), full member of the Imperial Russian Academy (1818). Creator of the "History of the Russian State" (volumes 1-12, 1803-1826) - one of the first generalizing works on the history of Russia. Editor of the "Moscow Journal" (1791-1792) and "Bulletin of Europe" (1802-1803).

Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin was born on December 1 (12), 1766 near Simbirsk. He grew up in the estate of his father, retired captain Mikhail Yegorovich Karamzin (1724-1783), a middle-ranked Simbirsk nobleman. Received education at home. In 1778 he was sent to Moscow to the boarding school of Moscow University professor I. M. Shaden. At the same time attended in 1781-1782 the lectures of I. G. Schwartz at the University.

Carier start

In 1783, at the insistence of his father, he entered the service in the St. Petersburg guards regiment, but soon retired. The first literary experiments date back to the time of military service. After his resignation, he lived for some time in Simbirsk, and then in Moscow. During his stay in Simbirsk, he joined the Masonic lodge of the "Golden Crown", and after arriving in Moscow for four years (1785-1789) was a member of the "Friendly Scientific Society".

In Moscow, Karamzin met with writers and writers: N. I. Novikov, A. M. Kutuzov, A. A. Petrov, participated in the publication of the first Russian magazine for children - "Children's reading for the heart and mind."

Trip to europe In 1789-1790 he undertook a trip to Europe, during which he visited Immanuel Kant in Konigsberg, was in Paris during the Great French Revolution. As a result of this trip, the famous "Letters of a Russian Traveler" were written, the publication of which immediately made Karamzin a famous writer. Some philologists believe that it is from this book that modern Russian literature dates back to. Since then, he has been considered one of its main figures.

Return and life in Russia

Upon his return from a trip to Europe, Karamzin settled in Moscow and began his career as a professional writer and journalist, starting to publish the "Moscow Journal" 1791-1792 (the first Russian literary magazine, in which, among other works of Karamzin, appeared the story "Poor Liza "), then published a number of collections and almanacs: Aglaya, Aonids, Pantheon of Foreign Literature, My Trinkets, which made sentimentalism the main literary movement in Russia, and Karamzin its recognized leader.

Emperor Alexander I, by a personal decree of October 31, 1803, bestowed the title of historiographer to Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin; 2 thousand rubles were added to the rank at the same time. annual salary. The title of historiographer in Russia was not renewed after Karamzin's death.

From the beginning of the 19th century, Karamzin gradually moved away from fiction, and from 1804, being appointed by Alexander I to the post of historiographer, he stopped all literary work, "taking his tonsure as a historian." In 1811, he wrote "A note on ancient and new Russia in its political and civil relations", which reflected the views of the conservative strata of society, dissatisfied with the liberal reforms of the emperor. As his task, Karamzin set out to prove that there was no need to carry out any reforms in the country.

"A note on ancient and new Russia in its political and civil relations" also played the role of sketches for the subsequent enormous work of Nikolai Mikhailovich on Russian history. In February 1818, Karamzin released the first eight volumes of the History of the Russian State for sale, the three thousandth circulation of which was sold within a month. In subsequent years, three more volumes of "History" were published, a number of translations of it into the main European languages ​​appeared. The coverage of the Russian historical process brought Karamzin closer to the court and the tsar, who settled him near him in Tsarskoye Selo. Karamzin's political views evolved gradually, and by the end of his life he was a staunch supporter of absolute monarchy.

The unfinished volume XII was published after his death.

Karamzin died on May 22 (June 3) 1826 in St. Petersburg. His death was the result of a cold received on December 14, 1825. On this day, Karamzin was at Senate Square [source not specified 70 days]

Buried at the Tikhvin cemetery of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra.

Karamzin - writer

“The influence of Karamzin on literature can be compared with the influence of Catherine on society: he made literature humane,” wrote A. I. Herzen.

Sentimentalism

The publication of the Letters of a Russian Traveler by Karamzin (1791-1792) and the story Poor Liza (1792; separate edition 1796) opened the era of sentimentalism in Russia.
Lisa was surprised, dared to look at young man, - blushed even more and, looking down at the ground, told him that she would not take the ruble.
- For what?
- I don't need too much.
- I think that beautiful lilies of the valley, plucked by the hands of a beautiful girl, are worth a ruble. When you don’t take it, here’s five kopecks for you. I would like to always buy flowers from you; I would like you to rip them just for me.

The dominant of "human nature" sentimentalism declared feeling, not reason, which distinguished it from classicism. Sentimentalism believed that the ideal of human activity was not a "rational" reorganization of the world, but the release and improvement of "natural" feelings. His hero is more individualized, his inner world is enriched with the ability to empathize, responsive to what is happening around him.

The publication of these works was a great success among the readers of that time, "Poor Liza" caused many imitations. Sentimentalism Karamzin had a great influence on the development of Russian literature: he was repelled [source not specified 78 days], including the romanticism of Zhukovsky, the work of Pushkin.

Poetry of Karamzin

The poetry of Karamzin, which developed in the mainstream of European sentimentalism, was fundamentally different from the traditional poetry of his time, brought up on the odes of Lomonosov and Derzhavin. The most significant were the following differences:

Karamzin is not interested in the external, physical world, but in the internal, spiritual world of a person. His poems speak "in the language of the heart", not of the mind. The object of Karamzin's poetry is "simple life", and to describe it he uses simple poetic forms - poor rhymes, avoids the abundance of metaphors and other tropes so popular in the poetry of his predecessors.
"Who is your dear?"
I am ashamed; it really hurts me
The strangeness of my feelings to open
And be the subject of jokes.
The heart in the choice is not free! ..
What to say? She ... she.
Oh! not at all important
And talents behind me
Doesn't have any;
…
(The strangeness of love, or insomnia (1793))

Another difference in Karamzin's poetics is that the world is fundamentally unknowable for him, the poet recognizes the presence of different points of view on the same subject:
One voice
Terrible in the grave, cold and dark!
The winds howl here, the coffins shake
White bones are pounding.
Another voice
Quiet in the grave, soft, calm.
The winds blow here; sleeping cool;
Herbs, flowers are growing.
(Cemetery (1792))

Works of Karamzin

* "Eugene and Julia", story (1789)
* "Letters of a Russian Traveler" (1791-1792)
* "Poor Liza", a story (1792)
* "Natalia, the boyar's daughter", a story (1792)
* "The Beautiful Princess and the Happy Karla" (1792)
* "Sierra Morena", story (1793)
* "Bornholm Island" (1793)
* "Julia" (1796)
* "Martha the Posadnitsa, or the Conquest of Novgorod", a story (1802)
* "My Confession", a letter to the publisher of the magazine (1802)
* "Sensitive and cold" (1803)
* "Knight of Our Time" (1803)
* "Autumn"

Reform of the language of Karamzin

The prose and poetry of Karamzin had a decisive influence on the development of the Russian literary language. Karamzin purposefully abandoned the use of Church Slavonic vocabulary and grammar, bringing the language of his works to the everyday language of his era and using the grammar and syntax of the French language as a model.

Karamzin introduced many new words into the Russian language - as neologisms ("charity", "falling in love", "free-thinking", "attraction", "responsibility", "suspicion", "industry", "sophistication", "first-class", "human ") And barbarism (" sidewalk "," coachman "). He was also one of the first to use the letter E.

The language changes proposed by Karamzin sparked intense controversy in the 1810s. The writer AS Shishkov, with the assistance of Derzhavin, founded in 1811 the society "Conversation of lovers of the Russian word", the purpose of which was to promote the "old" language, as well as criticize Karamzin, Zhukovsky and their followers. In response, in 1815, the literary society "Arzamas" was formed, which mocked the authors of "Conversation" and parodied their works. Many poets of the new generation have become members of the society, including Batyushkov, Vyazemsky, Davydov, Zhukovsky, Pushkin. The literary victory of "Arzamas" over "Beseda" consolidated the victory of the language changes introduced by Karamzin.

Despite this, later there was a rapprochement between Karamzin and Shishkov, and, thanks to the latter's assistance, Karamzin was elected a member of the Russian Academy in 1818.

Karamzin - historian

Karamzin developed an interest in history in the mid-1790s. He wrote a story on a historical theme - "Martha the Posadnitsa, or the Conquest of Novgorod" (published in 1803). In the same year, by decree of Alexander I, he was appointed to the post of historiographer, and until the end of his life he was writing "History of the Russian State", practically stopping the activities of a journalist and writer.

"History" Karamzin was not the first description of the history of Russia, before him were the works of V. N. Tatishchev and M. M. Shcherbatov. But it was Karamzin who opened the history of Russia to the general educated public. According to A. Pushkin, “Everyone, even secular women, rushed to read the history of their fatherland, which was unknown to them before. She was a new discovery for them. Ancient Russia, it seemed, was found by Karamzin, as America was found by Columbus. " This work also caused a wave of imitations and oppositions (for example, "History of the Russian people" by N. A. Polevoy)

In his work, Karamzin acted more as a writer than a historian - describing historical facts, he cared about the beauty of the language, least of all trying to draw any conclusions from the events he described. Nevertheless, his comments, which contain many extracts from manuscripts, for the most part first published by Karamzin, are of high scientific value. Some of these manuscripts no longer exist.

In the famous epigram, whose authorship is attributed to A.S. Pushkin, Karamzin's coverage of the history of Russia is subject to criticism:
In his "History" elegance, simplicity
They prove to us, without any addiction,
The need for autocracy
And the delights of the whip.

Karamzin initiated the organization of memorials and the erection of monuments to outstanding figures of Russian history, in particular, K.M. Minin and D.M. Pozharsky on Red Square (1818).

NM Karamzin discovered Afanasy Nikitin's Voyage across the Three Seas in a 16th century manuscript and published it in 1821. He wrote:
“Until now, geographers did not know that the honor of one of the oldest described European travels to India belongs to Russia of the John century ... It (travel) proves that Russia in the 15th century had its Tavernier and Chardin (en: Jean Chardin), less enlightened, but equal brave and adventurous; that the Indians heard about it before Portugal, Holland, England. While Vasco da Gamma was only thinking about the possibility of finding a way from Africa to Hindustan, our Tver was already a merchant on the banks of the Malabar ... "

Karamzin - translator In 1792 N. M. Karamzin translated a remarkable monument of Indian literature (from English) - the drama "Sakuntala" ("Shakuntala"), the author of which is Kalidasa. In the introduction to the translation, he wrote:
“The creative spirit dwells not only in Europe; he is a citizen of the universe. Man is everywhere a man; everywhere he has a sensitive heart, and in the mirror of his imagination he contains heaven and earth. Everywhere, Natura is his mentor and the main source of his pleasures. I felt this very vividly when I read Sakontala, a drama written in the Indian language, 1900 years before this, the Asian poet Kalidas, and recently translated into English by William Jones, the Bengali judge ... "

A family

* Nikolay Mikhailovich Karamzin
*? 1. Elizaveta Ivanovna Protasova (d. 1802)
* Sophia (1802-56)
*? 2. Ekaterina Andreevna, nee. Kolyvanova (1780-1851), paternal sister of P.A.Vyazemsky
* Catherine (1806-1867)? Pyotr Ivanovich Meshchersky
* Vladimir (1839-1914)
* Andrew (1814-54)? Aurora Karlovna Demidova. Fornication: Evdokia Petrovna Sushkova (Rostopchina):
* Olga Andreevna Andreevskaya (Golokhvastova) (1840-1897)
* Alexander (1815-88)? Natalya Vasilievna Obolenskaya
* Vladimir (1819-79)? Alexandra Ilyinichna Duka
* Elizabeth (1821-91)

Memory

The following are named after the writer:
* Karamzin's passage in Moscow
* Regional clinical psychiatric hospital in Ulyanovsk.

A monument to N.M. Karamzin was erected in Ulyanovsk.
In Veliky Novgorod on the monument "1000th anniversary of Russia" among 129 figures of the most prominent personalities in Russian history (for 1862) there is a figure of N.M. Karamzin
The Karamzin public library in Simbirsk, created in honor of the famous fellow countryman, was opened to readers on April 18, 1848.

Addresses in St. Petersburg

* Spring 1816 - house of E. F. Muravyova - Fontanka river embankment, 25;
* spring 1816-1822 - Tsarskoe Selo, Sadovaya street, 12;
* 1818 - autumn 1823 - the house of E. F. Muravyova - 25 Fontanka river embankment;
* autumn 1823-1826 - Mizuev's tenement house - Mokhovaya street, 41;
* spring - 05/22/1826 - Tauride Palace - Voskresenskaya street, 47.

Introduced neologisms

industry, moral, aesthetic, era, scene, harmony, disaster, future, influence who or what, focus, touching, entertaining

Works of N. M. Karamzin

* History of the Russian state (12 volumes, until 1612, library of Maxim Moshkov) Poems

* Karamzin, Nikolai Mikhailovich in the library of Maxim Moshkov
* Nikolai Karamzin in the Anthology of Russian Poetry
* Karamzin, Nikolay Mikhailovich "Complete collection of poems". Library ImWerden. (See on this site and other works of N.M. Karamzin.)
* Karamzin, Nikolai Mikhailovich "Letters to Ivan Ivanovich Dmitriev" 1866 - facsimile reprint of the book
* "Vestnik Evropy", published by Karamzin, facsimile pdf reproduction of magazines.
* Nikolay Karamzin. Letters from a Russian traveler, M. "Zakharov", 2005, information about the edition ISBN 5-8159-0480-5
* N. M. Karamzin. A note on ancient and new Russia in its political and civil relations
* Letters from N.M. Karamzin. 1806-1825
* Karamzin N. M. Letters from N. M. Karamzin to Zhukovsky. (From Zhukovsky's papers) / Note. P. A. Vyazemsky // Russian Archive, 1868. - Ed. 2nd. - M., 1869. - Stb. 1827-1836.

Notes (edit)

1. Vengerov SA ABV // Critical-biographical dictionary of Russian writers and scientists (from the beginning of Russian education to the present day). - SPb .: Semenovskaya Typo-Lithography (I. Efron), 1889. - T. I. Issue. 1-21. A. - p. 7.
2. Wonderful pupils of Moscow University.
3. Karamzin Nikolay Mikhailovich
4. Eidelman N.Ya. The only example // The last chronicler. - M .: "Book", 1983. - 176 p. - 200,000 copies
5.http: //smalt.karelia.ru/~filolog/herzen/texts/htm/herzen07.htm
6. V. V. Odintsov. Linguistic paradoxes. Moscow. "Education", 1982.
7. The authorship of Pushkin is often questioned, the epigram is not included in all complete collections essays. For more details about the attribution of the epigram, see here: B.V. Tomashevsky. Pushkin's epigrams to Karamzin.
8. A. S. PUSHKIN AS A HISTORIAN | Great Russians | RUSSIAN HISTORY
9.N.M. Karamzin. History of the Russian State, vol. IV, ch. VII, 1842, pp. 226-228.
10.L.S. Gamayunov. From the history of the study of India in Russia / Essays on the history of Russian oriental studies (Collection of articles). M., Publishing house of East. Lit., 1956, p. 83.
11. Karamzin Nikolay Mikhailovich

Literature

* Karamzin Nikolay Mikhailovich // encyclopedic Dictionary Brockhaus and Efron: In 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - SPb., 1890-1907.
* Karamzin, Nikolai Mikhailovich - Biography. Bibliography. Statements
* Klyuchevsky V.O. Historical portraits (About Boltin, Karamzin, Solovyov). M., 1991.
* Yuri Mikhailovich Lotman. "Poetry of Karamzin"
* Zakharov N.V. At the origins of Russian Shakespeareism: A.P. Sumarokov, M.N.Muravyov, N.M. Karamzin (Shakespeare's studies XIII). - M .: Publishing house of the Moscow University for the Humanities, 2009.
* Eidelman N. Ya. The last chronicler. - M .: "Book", 1983. - 176 p. - 200,000 copies
* Pogodin MP My introduction to the historiographer. (Excerpt from notes). // Russian archive, 1866. - Issue. 11. - Stb. 1766-1770.
* Serbinovich K. S. Nikolay Mikhailovich Karamzin. Memories of KS Serbinovich // Russian antiquity, 1874. - T. 11. - No. 9. - P. 44-75; No. 10. - S. 236-272.
* Sipovsky V.V. About the ancestors of N.M. Karamzin // Russian antiquity, 1898. - T. 93. - No. 2. - P. 431-435.
* Smirnov A.F. Book-monograph "Nikolay Mikhailovich Karamzin" ("Rossiyskaya Gazeta, 2006")
* Smirnov A.F. introductory and concluding articles in the publication of 4 volumes of N. M. Karamzin "History of the Russian State" (1989)
* Sornikova M. Ya. "Genre model of the novel in" Letters of the Russian Traveler "N. M. Karamzin"
* Serman IZ Where and when were the "Letters of the Russian Traveler" by NM Karamzin created // XVIII century. SPb., 2004. Sat. 23.S. 194-210. pdf

December 12 (December 1 st. Style), 1766 Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin was born - Russian writer, poet, editor of the Moscow Journal (1791-1792) and the journal Vestnik Evropy (1802-1803), honorary member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences ( 1818), a full member of the Imperial Russian Academy, historian, the first and only court historiographer, one of the first reformers of the Russian literary language, the founding father of Russian historiography and Russian sentimentalism.

Contribution of N.M. Karamzin into Russian culture can hardly be overestimated. Remembering everything that this man managed to do in the short 59 years of his earthly existence, it is impossible to ignore the fact that it was Karamzin who largely determined the face of the Russian XIX century - the "golden" age of Russian poetry, literature, historiography, source studies and other humanitarian trends. scientific knowledge... Thanks to linguistic searches aimed at popularizing the literary language of poetry and prose, Karamzin presented Russian literature to his contemporaries. And if Pushkin is “our everything”, then Karamzin can be safely called “our Everything” with the capital letter. Without him, Vyazemsky, Pushkin, Baratynsky, Batyushkov and other poets of the so-called "Pushkin galaxy" would hardly have been possible.

“Anything you turn to in our literature - everything was started by Karamzin: journalism, criticism, a story, a novel, a historical story, publicism, the study of history,” V.G. Belinsky.

"History of the Russian State" N.M. Karamzina became not just the first Russian-language book on the history of Russia available to the general public. Karamzin gave the Russian people Fatherland in the full sense of the word. They say that, having closed the eighth and last volume, Count Fyodor Tolstoy, nicknamed the American, exclaimed: "It turns out that I have a Fatherland!" And he was not alone. All of his contemporaries suddenly learned that they live in a country with a thousand-year history and that they have something to be proud of. Before that, it was believed that before Peter I, who cut through the "window to Europe", there was nothing in Russia at all worthy of attention: dark ages backwardness and barbarism, boyar autocracy, native Russian laziness and bears on the streets ...

The multivolume work of Karamzin was not completed, but, having been published in the first quarter of the 19th century, he completely determined the historical identity of the nation for many years to come. All subsequent historiography was never able to generate anything more consistent with the "imperial" self-consciousness that developed under the influence of Karamzin. Karamzin's views left a deep, indelible mark on all areas of Russian culture in the 19th-20th centuries, forming the foundations of the national mentality, which ultimately determined the paths of development of Russian society and the state as a whole.

It is indicative that in the 20th century, the building of Russian great power, which had collapsed under the attacks of revolutionary internationalists, by the 1930s was revived again - under different slogans, with different leaders, in a different ideological package. but ... The very approach to the historiography of Russian history, both before 1917 and after, in many respects remained, in Karamzin's way, jingoistic and sentimental.

N.M. Karamzin - early years

N.M. Karamzin was born on December 12 (1st century), 1766 in the village of Mikhailovka of the Buzuluk district of the Kazan province (according to other sources - in the family estate of Znamenskoye, the Simbirsky district of the Kazan province). About him early years Little is known: there are no letters, no diaries, no memories of Karamzin himself about his childhood. He did not even know exactly his year of birth, and for almost his entire life he believed that he was born in 1765. Only in old age, having discovered documents, did he become “younger” by one year.

The future historiographer grew up in the estate of his father - retired captain Mikhail Yegorovich Karamzin (1724-1783), a middle-class Simbirsk nobleman. Received a good education at home. In 1778 he was sent to Moscow to the boarding school of Moscow University professor I.M. Shaden. At the same time he attended lectures at the university in 1781-1782.

After graduating from the boarding school, in 1783, Karamzin entered the service in the Preobrazhensky regiment in St. Petersburg, where he met the young poet and future employee of his "Moscow magazine" Dmitriev. At the same time he published his first translation of S. Gesner's idyll "Wooden leg".

In 1784, Karamzin retired as a lieutenant and never served again, which was perceived in the then society as a challenge. After a short stay in Simbirsk, where he joined the Masonic lodge of the "Golden Crown", Karamzin moved to Moscow and was introduced to the circle of N. I. Novikov. He settled in a house that belonged to Novikov's "Friendly Scientist Society", became the author and one of the publishers of the first children's magazine "Children's reading for the heart and mind" (1787-1789), founded by Novikov. At the same time, Karamzin became close to the Pleshcheev family. For many years he had a tender platonic friendship with N.I. Pleshcheyeva. In Moscow, Karamzin publishes his first translations, which clearly show interest in European and Russian history: Thomson's Seasons, Zhanlis's Village Nights, Julius Caesar's tragedy by W. Shakespeare, Lessing's tragedy Emilia Galotti.

In 1789, the first original story of Karamzin, "Eugene and Julia", appeared in the magazine "Children's reading ..." The reader hardly noticed her.

Travel to Europe

According to many biographers, Karamzin was not disposed towards the mystical side of Freemasonry, remaining a supporter of its active educational direction. To be more precise, by the end of the 1780s, Karamzin had already "been ill" with Masonic mysticism in its Russian version. Perhaps the cooling to Freemasonry was one of the reasons for his departure to Europe, in which he spent more than a year (1789-90), visiting Germany, Switzerland, France and England. In Europe, he met and talked (except for influential Masons) with the European "masters of minds": I. Kant, I. G. Herder, C. Bonnet, J. K. Lafather, J. F. Marmontel, visited museums, theaters, secular salons. In Paris, Karamzin listened to O. G. Mirabeau, M. Robespierre and other revolutionaries at the National Assembly, saw many prominent political figures and was familiar with many. Apparently, the revolutionary Paris of 1789 showed Karamzin how strongly a word can influence a person: in print, when Parisians read pamphlets and leaflets with lively interest; oral, when revolutionary speakers spoke and controversy arose (experience that could not be acquired at that time in Russia).

Karamzin did not have a very enthusiastic opinion about English parliamentarism (perhaps, following in the footsteps of Rousseau), but he placed very high on the level of civilization at which English society as a whole was.

Karamzin - journalist, publisher

In the fall of 1790, Karamzin returned to Moscow and soon organized the publication of the monthly Moskovsky Zhurnal (1790-1792), in which most of the Letters of the Russian Traveler was published, telling about the revolutionary events in France, the stories Liodor, Poor Liza , "Natalia, the boyar's daughter", "Flor Silin", essays, stories, critical articles and poems. To cooperate in the magazine Karamzin attracted all the literary elite of that time: his friends Dmitriev and Petrov, Kheraskov and Derzhavin, Lvov, Neledinsky-Meletsky, etc. Karamzin's articles affirmed a new literary direction- sentimentalism.

Moskovsky zhurnal had only 210 regular subscribers, but for the end of the 18th century, it’s the same as a hundred thousandth circulation in late XIX centuries. Moreover, the magazine was read by those who “made the weather” in the literary life of the country: students, officials, young officers, small employees of various state institutions (“archival youths”).

After Novikov's arrest, the authorities became seriously interested in the publisher of Moskovsky Zhurnal. During interrogations in the Secret Expedition, they ask: was it not Novikov who sent the “Russian traveler” abroad with a “special assignment”? Novikovtsy were people of high decency and, of course, Karamzin was fenced off, but because of these suspicions, the magazine had to be stopped.

In the 1790s, Karamzin published the first Russian almanacs - Aglaya (1794-1795) and Aonids (1796-1799). In 1793, when the Jacobin dictatorship was established at the third stage of the French Revolution, which shocked Karamzin with its cruelty, Nikolai Mikhailovich abandoned some of his previous views. The dictatorship aroused in him serious doubts about the possibility of humanity to achieve prosperity. He strongly condemned the revolution and all violent means of transforming society. The philosophy of despair and fatalism permeates his new works: the story "Bornholm Island" (1793); Sierra Morena (1795); poems "Melancholy", "Message to A. A. Pleshcheev", etc.

During this period, real literary fame came to Karamzin.

Fedor Glinka: "Out of 1200 cadets, rare did not repeat by heart any page from" Bornholm Island "".

The name Erast, previously completely unpopular, is increasingly found in noble lists... There are rumors of successful and unsuccessful suicides in the spirit of Poor Lisa. Poisonous memoirist Vigel recalls that important Moscow nobles have already begun to get along "Almost like an equal with a thirty-year retired lieutenant".

In July 1794, Karamzin's life almost ended: on the way to the estate, in the wilderness of the steppe, robbers attacked him. Karamzin miraculously escaped, having received two minor wounds.

In 1801 - he married Elizaveta Protasova, a neighbor on the estate, whom he had known since childhood - at the time of the wedding they had known each other for almost 13 years.

Reformer of the Russian literary language

Already in the early 1790s, Karamzin was seriously thinking about the present and future of Russian literature. He writes to a friend: “I am deprived of the pleasure of reading a lot on native language... We are still poor in writers. We have several poets worth reading. " Of course, there were and are Russian writers: Lomonosov, Sumarokov, Fonvizin, Derzhavin, but there are no more than a dozen significant names. Karamzin was one of the first to understand that it was not about talents - there are no fewer talents in Russia than in any other country. It's just that Russian literature cannot deviate from the long-obsolete traditions of classicism, laid down in the middle of the 18th century by the only theoretician M.V. Lomonosov.

The reform of the literary language carried out by Lomonosov, like the theory of the "three calmness" he created, met the tasks transition period from ancient to new literature. A complete rejection of the use of the usual Church Slavs in the language was then still premature and inappropriate. But the evolution of the language, which began under Catherine II, continued actively. The "Three Calms" proposed by Lomonosov were based not on lively colloquial speech, but on the witty thought of a theoretical writer. And this theory often put the authors in a difficult position: they had to use heavy, outdated Slavic expressions where in spoken language they have long been replaced by others, softer and more graceful. The reader sometimes could not "wade" through the heap of outdated Slavicisms used in church books and records in order to understand the essence of this or that secular work.

Karamzin decided to bring the literary language closer to the spoken language. Therefore, one of his main goals was the further liberation of literature from Church Slavism. In the preface to the second book of the almanac "Aonida" he wrote: "One thunder of words only deafens us and never reaches the heart."

The second feature of Karamzin's "new syllable" consisted in the simplification of syntactic constructions. The writer abandoned lengthy periods. In the Pantheon of Russian Writers, he decisively stated: "Lomonosov's prose cannot serve as a model for us at all: its long periods are tiresome, the arrangement of words is not always consistent with the flow of thoughts."

Unlike Lomonosov, Karamzin strove to write in short, easily understandable sentences. This to this day is a model of good style and an example to follow in literature.

The third merit of Karamzin was the enrichment of the Russian language with a number of successful neologisms, which have become firmly established in the main vocabulary. Among the innovations proposed by Karamzin are such widely known in our time words as "industry", "development", "sophistication", "focus", "touching", "entertaining", "humanity", "public", " generally useful "," influence "and a number of others.

Creating neologisms, Karamzin mainly used the method of tracing French words: “interesting” from “interessant”, “refined” from “raffine”, “development” from “developpement”, “touching” from “touchant”.

We know that many foreign words appeared in the Russian language back in the Peter the Great's era, but for the most part they replaced the words that already existed in the Slavic language and were not necessary. In addition, these words were often taken in their raw form, therefore they were very heavy and awkward (“fortetia” instead of “fortress”, “victoria” instead of “victory”, etc.). Karamzin, on the contrary, tried to give foreign words Russian ending, adapting them to the requirements of Russian grammar: "serious", "moral", "aesthetic", "audience", "harmony", "enthusiasm", etc.

In his reform activities, Karamzin made an orientation toward the lively spoken language of educated people. And this was the key to the success of his work - he writes not scholarly treatises, but travel notes ("Letters of a Russian Traveler"), sentimental stories ("Bornholm Island", "Poor Lisa"), poems, articles, translates from French, English and German ...

"Arzamas" and "Conversation"

It is not surprising that most of the young men of letters, contemporary to Karamzin, accepted his transformations "with a bang" and willingly followed him. But, like any reformer, Karamzin had convinced opponents and worthy opponents.

At the head of the ideological opponents of Karamzin was A.S. Shishkov (1774-1841) - admiral, patriot, famous statesman that time. Starover, an admirer of Lomonosov's language, Shishkov, at first glance, was a classicist. But this point of view needs substantial reservations. In contrast to Karamzin's Europeanism, Shishkov put forward the idea of ​​the nationality of literature - the most important sign of a romantic outlook that is far from classicism. It turns out that Shishkov also adjoined romantics, but not progressive, but conservative. His views can be recognized as a kind of forerunner of later Slavophilism and soil development.

In 1803, Shishkov presented his Discourse on the Old and New Syllables of the Russian Language. He reproached the "Karamzinists" for succumbing to the temptation of European revolutionary false doctrines and advocating the return of literature to oral folk art, to folk vernacular, to Orthodox Church Slavonic book-writing.

Shishkov was not a philologist. He dealt with the problems of literature and the Russian language, rather, as an amateur, so the attacks of Admiral Shishkov on Karamzin and his supporters-writers at times looked not so much scientifically substantiated as unsubstantiated ideological. The language reform of Karamzin seemed to Shishkov, a warrior and defender of the Fatherland, unpatriotic and anti-religious: “Language is the soul of the people, the mirror of morals, the correct indicator of enlightenment, the unceasing witness of deeds. Where there is no faith in the hearts, there is no godliness in the language. Where there is no love for the fatherland, the language does not express native feelings ".

Shishkov reproached Karamzin for the immoderate use of barbarisms ("era", "harmony", "catastrophe"), he hated neologisms ("coup" as a translation of the word "revolution"), cut his ear with artificial words: "future", "well-read" and etc.

And I must admit that sometimes his criticism was accurate and accurate.

The evasiveness and aesthetic pretentiousness of the speech of the "Karamzinists" very soon became obsolete and fell out of literary use. This is the future that Shishkov predicted for them, believing that instead of the expression “when travel became the need of my soul”, one can simply say: “when I fell in love with traveling”; exquisite and full of paraphrases speech "colorful crowds of rural oraads mingle with swarthy gangs of reptiles of the pharaonids" can be replaced by an all-understandable expression "gypsies are coming towards village girls" and so on.

Shishkov and his supporters took the first steps in the study of the monuments Old Russian writing, enthusiastically studied "The Lay of Igor's Campaign", studied folklore, advocated a rapprochement between Russia and the Slavic world and recognized the need to bring the "Slovenian" syllable closer to the common language.

In a dispute with the translator Karamzin, Shishkov put forward a weighty argument about the “idiomatic” nature of each language, about the unique originality of its phraseological systems, making it impossible to literally translate thoughts or true semantic meaning from one language into another. For example, when literally translated into French, the expression "old horseradish" loses its figurative meaning and "only means the thing itself, but in the metaphysical sense it has no circle of signification."

In opposition to Karamzin, Shishkov proposed his own reform of the Russian language. The concepts and feelings that are missing in our everyday life, he proposed to designate with new words, formed from the roots not of French, but of Russian and Old Slavonic languages. Instead of Karamzin's "influence", he suggested "inspiration", instead of "development" - "vegetation", instead of "actor" - "actor", instead of "individuality" - "egg", "wet feet" instead of "galoshes" and "wandering" instead of "Maze". Most of his innovations in the Russian language did not take root.

One cannot but admit Shishkov's ardent love for the Russian language; it must be admitted that the fascination with everything foreign, especially French, has gone too far in Russia. Ultimately, this led to the fact that the language of the common people, the peasant began to differ greatly from the language of the cultural classes. But one cannot dismiss the fact that the natural process of the incipient evolution of the language could not be stopped. It was impossible to forcibly return into use the expressions that were already outdated at that time, which Shishkov proposed: "zane", "ubo", "ilk", "yako" and others.

Karamzin did not even respond to the accusations of Shishkov and his supporters, knowing firmly that they were guided by exclusively pious and patriotic feelings. Subsequently, Karamzin himself and his most talented supporters (Vyazemsky, Pushkin, Batyushkov) followed the very valuable instruction of the "Shishkovites" to the need to "return to their roots" and examples of their own history. But then they could not understand each other.

The pathos and ardent patriotism of A.S. Shishkov aroused sympathy among many writers. And when Shishkov, together with G.R.Derzhavin, founded the literary society "Conversation of lovers of the Russian word" (1811) with its charter and its own magazine, P.A.Katenin, I.A.Krylov, and later V.K. Küchelbecker and A. S. Griboyedov. One of the active participants in Conversations, the prolific playwright A. A. Shakhovskoy, in the comedy New Stern, spitefully ridiculed Karamzin, and in the comedy A Lesson to Coquettes, or Lipetsk Waters, represented by the ballad man Fialkin, he created a parody image of V. A Zhukovsky.

This caused a unanimous rebuff from the youth who supported Karamzin's literary authority. D. V. Dashkov, P. A. Vyazemsky, D. N. Bludov composed several witty pamphlets addressed to Shakhovsky and other members of "Conversations ...". In "Vision in the Arzamas tavern" Bludov gave the circle of young defenders of Karamzin and Zhukovsky the name "Society of obscure Arzamas writers" or simply "Arzamas".

V organizational structure of this society, founded in the fall of 1815, a cheerful spirit of parody of the serious "Conversation ..." reigned. In contrast to the official bombast, simplicity, naturalness, openness prevailed here, a great place was given to jokes and games.

Parodying the official ritual "Conversations ...", upon joining "Arzamas", everyone had to read the "eulogy" to their "deceased" predecessor from among the now living members of "Conversations ..." or the Russian Academy of Sciences (Count D.I. Khvostov, S.A. Shirinsky-Shikhmatov, A.S. Shishkov himself, and others). "Funeral speeches" were a form of literary struggle: they parodied high genres, ridiculed the stylistic archaism of the poetic works of "talkers". At meetings of the society, humorous genres of Russian poetry were honed, a bold and decisive struggle was waged against all kinds of officialdom, the type of an independent Russian writer, free from the pressure of any ideological conventions, was formed. And although P. A. Vyazemsky - one of the organizers and active participants of society - in his mature years condemned the youthful mischief and intransigence of his like-minded people (in particular - the rites of "funeral service" of living literary opponents), he rightly called "Arzamas" the school of "literary partnership" and mutual creative learning. The Arzamas and Beseda societies soon became centers of literary life and social struggle in the first quarter of the 19th century. Arzamas included such famous people as Zhukovsky (pseudonym - Svetlana), Vyazemsky (Asmodey), Pushkin (Sverchok), Batyushkov (Achilles) and others.

Beseda broke up after Derzhavin's death in 1816; Arzamas, having lost its main opponent, ceased to exist by 1818.

Thus, by the mid-1790s, Karamzin became the recognized head of Russian sentimentalism, which opened not just a new page in Russian literature, but Russian fiction in general. Russian readers, who had previously absorbed only French novels and the works of enlighteners, enthusiastically accepted Letters of a Russian Traveler and Poor Liza, and Russian writers and poets (both “conversationalists” and “Arzamas”) realized that it was possible must write in the native language.

Karamzin and Alexander I: a symphony with power?

In 1802 - 1803, Karamzin published the journal Vestnik Evropy, which was dominated by literature and politics. Largely due to the confrontation with Shishkov, a new aesthetic program for the formation of Russian literature as a nationally distinctive one appeared in Karamzin's critical articles. Unlike Shishkov, Karamzin saw the key to the originality of Russian culture not so much in adherence to ritual antiquity and religiosity, but in the events of Russian history. The most striking illustration of his views was the story "Martha the Posadnitsa or the Conquest of Novgorod".

In his political articles of 1802-1803, Karamzin, as a rule, made recommendations to the government, the main one of which was the enlightenment of the nation for the sake of the autocratic state's prosperity.

These ideas were generally close to Emperor Alexander I - the grandson of Catherine the Great, who at one time also dreamed of an "enlightened monarchy" and a complete symphony between the government and a European educated society. Karamzin's response to the coup on March 11, 1801 and the accession to the throne of Alexander I was "Historical Praise to Catherine II" (1802), where Karamzin expressed his views on the essence of the monarchy in Russia, as well as the duties of the monarch and his subjects. The "word of praise" was approved by the sovereign as a collection of examples for the young monarch and was favorably received by him. Alexander I, obviously, was interested in the historical research of Karamzin, and the emperor rightly decided that a great country simply needed to remember its no less great past. And if you don't remember, then at least create anew ...

In 1803, through the tsarist educator M.N. Muravyov, a poet, historian, teacher, one of the most educated people of that time - N.M. Karamzin received the official title of court historiographer with a pension of 2,000 rubles. (A pension of 2,000 rubles a year was then assigned to officials who, according to the Table of Ranks, had ranks not lower than those of generals). Later, IV Kireevsky, referring to Karamzin himself, wrote about Muravyov: “Who knows, perhaps without his thoughtful and warm assistance Karamzin would not have had the means to accomplish his great deed”.

In 1804, Karamzin practically abandoned literary and publishing activities and began to create a "History of the Russian State", on which he worked until the end of his days. M.N. Muravyov made available to the historian many of the previously unknown and even "secret" materials, opened libraries and archives for him. Modern historians can only dream of such favorable conditions for work. Therefore, in our opinion, to speak of the "History of the Russian State" as a "scientific feat" of N.M. Karamzin, is not entirely fair. The court historiographer was in the service, conscientiously performed the work for which he was paid money. Accordingly, he had to write a story that was needed at the moment by the customer, namely, Tsar Alexander I, who at the first stage of his reign showed sympathy for European liberalism.

However, under the influence of studies in Russian history, by 1810, Karamzin had become a consistent conservative. During this period, the system of his political views was finally formed. Karamzin's statements that he is a "republican at heart" can be adequately interpreted only if we consider that we are talking about the "Platonic Republic of the Wise Men", an ideal social order based on state virtue, strict regulation and the rejection of personal freedom ... At the beginning of 1810, through his relative Count FV Rostopchin, Karamzin met in Moscow the leader of the "Conservative Party" at the court - Grand Duchess Ekaterina Pavlovna (sister of Alexander I) and began to constantly visit her residence in Tver. The salon of the Grand Duchess was the center of conservative opposition to the liberal-Westernist course personified by the figure of M.M.Speransky. In this salon, Karamzin read excerpts from his "History ...", then he met the Dowager Empress Maria Fedorovna, who became one of his patrons.

In 1811, at the request of Grand Duchess Ekaterina Pavlovna, Karamzin wrote a note "On ancient and new Russia in its political and civil relations", in which he outlined his ideas about the ideal structure of the Russian state and sharply criticized the policies of Alexander I and his closest predecessors: Paul I , Catherine II and Peter I. In the 19th century, the note was never published in full and diverged only in handwritten copies. In Soviet times, the thoughts outlined by Karamzin in his message were perceived as a reaction of the extremely conservative nobility to the reforms of M. M. Speransky. The author himself was branded a "reactionary", an opponent of the emancipation of the peasantry and other liberal steps of the government of Alexander I.

However, at the first full publication of the note in 1988, Yu. M. Lotman revealed its deeper content. In this document, Karamzin made a well-founded criticism of unprepared bureaucratic reforms carried out from above. Praising Alexander I, the author of the note at the same time attacks his advisers, meaning, of course, Speransky, who stood for constitutional reforms. Karamzin takes the liberty of proving the tsar in detail, with references to historical examples, that Russia is not ready either historically or politically to abolish serfdom and limit the autocratic monarchy by the constitution (following the example of European powers). Some of his arguments (for example, about the futility of emancipating the peasants without land, the impossibility of constitutional democracy in Russia) still look quite convincing and historically correct.

Along with an overview of Russian history and criticism of the political course of Emperor Alexander I, the note contained an integral, original and very complex in its theoretical content concept of autocracy as a special, distinctive Russian type of power closely associated with Orthodoxy.

At the same time, Karamzin refused to equate "true autocracy" with despotism, tyranny or arbitrariness. He believed that such deviations from the norms were due to chance (Ivan IV the Terrible, Paul I) and were quickly eliminated by the inertia of the tradition of "wise" and "virtuous" monarchical rule. In cases of a sharp weakening and even complete absence of the supreme state and ecclesiastical authority(for example, during the Time of Troubles), this powerful tradition led for a short historical period to the restoration of autocracy. Autocracy was the "palladium of Russia", the main reason for its power and prosperity. Therefore, the basic principles of monarchical rule in Russia, according to Karamzin, should have been preserved in the future. They should have been supplemented only with a proper policy in the field of legislation and education, which would not lead to undermining the autocracy, but to its maximum strengthening. With this understanding of autocracy, any attempt to limit it would be a crime against Russian history and the Russian people.

Initially, Karamzin's note only provoked the irritation of the young emperor, who did not like criticism of his actions. In this note, the historiographer showed himself to be a plus royaliste que le roi (a greater royalist than the king himself). However, subsequently Karamzin's brilliant "anthem to the Russian autocracy" undoubtedly had its effect. After the war of 1812, the winner of Napoleon, Alexander I, curtailed many of his liberal projects: Speransky's reforms were not completed, the constitution and the very idea of ​​limiting autocracy remained only in the minds of the future Decembrists. And already in the 1830s, Karamzin's concept actually formed the basis of the ideology of the Russian Empire, designated by the "theory of official nationality" of Count S. Uvarov (Orthodoxy-Autocracy-Nationality).

Before the publication of the first 8 volumes of "History ..." Karamzin lived in Moscow, from where he traveled only to Tver to the Grand Duchess Ekaterina Pavlovna and to Nizhny Novgorod, during the occupation of Moscow by the French. He usually spent the summer in Ostafiev, the estate of Prince Andrei Ivanovich Vyazemsky, on illegitimate daughter whom, Ekaterina Andreevna, Karamzin married in 1804. (Karamzin's first wife, Elizaveta Ivanovna Protasova, died in 1802).

In the last 10 years of his life, which Karamzin spent in St. Petersburg, he became very close to the royal family. Although Emperor Alexander I, from the time the "Note" was submitted, treated Karamzin with restraint, Karamzin often spent the summer in Tsarskoe Selo. At the request of the empresses (Maria Feodorovna and Elizaveta Alekseevna), he repeatedly conducted frank political conversations with Emperor Alexander, in which he spoke as an expression of the opinion of opponents of drastic liberal reforms. In 1819-1825, Karamzin rebelled with ardor against the sovereign's intentions regarding Poland (he submitted a note "The Opinion of a Russian Citizen"), the sovereign's strange choice of some of the most important dignitaries (for example, Arakcheev) spoke about the need to reduce the internal troops, about the imaginary repair of roads, so painful for the people and constantly pointed out the need to have solid laws, civil and state.

Of course, having such intercessors as both Empresses and the Grand Duchess Ekaterina Pavlovna behind them, one could criticize, and argue, and show civic courage, and try to instruct the monarch "on the true path." It is not without reason that Emperor Alexander I was called “the mysterious sphinx” by both contemporaries and subsequent historians of his reign. In words, the sovereign agreed with the criticisms of Karamzin regarding military settlements, recognized the need to "give the fundamental laws of Russia", as well as revise some aspects of domestic policy, but it so happened in our country that in fact, all the wise advice of state people remain "fruitless for dear Fatherland "...

Karamzin as a historian

Karamzin is our first historian and the last chronicler.
His criticism belongs to history,
innocence and apothegms - the chronicle.

A.S. Pushkin

Even from the point of view of contemporary historical science Karamzin, no one dared to name 12 volumes of his "History of the Russian State", in fact, a scientific work. Even then, it was clear to everyone that the honorary title of court historiographer could not make a writer a historian, give him the appropriate knowledge and proper training.

But, on the other hand, Karamzin did not initially set himself the task of taking on the role of a researcher. The newly minted historiographer was not going to write a scientific treatise and appropriate the laurels of his famous predecessors - Schlötser, Miller, Tatishchev, Shcherbatov, Boltin, etc.

Preliminary critical work over the sources for Karamzin - only "a heavy tribute, brought to reliability." He was, first of all, a writer, and therefore wanted to apply his literary talent to the ready-made material: “choose, animate, paint” and thus make from Russian history “something attractive, strong, worthy of attention not only of Russians, but also foreigners ". And he performed this task brilliantly.

Today it is impossible to disagree with the fact that at the beginning of the 19th century, source studies, paleography and other auxiliary historical disciplines were in their infancy. Therefore, demanding professional criticism from the writer Karamzin, as well as strict adherence to one or another method of working with historical sources, is simply ridiculous.

It is often possible to hear the opinion that Karamzin simply beautifully rewrote the "History of Russia since ancient times" written by Prince MM Shcherbatov, written for a long time outdated, difficult to read, contributed some of his thoughts from it, and thereby created a book for fans of fascinating reading in family circle. This is not true.

Naturally, when writing his "History ..." Karamzin actively used the experience and works of his predecessors - Schlötser and Shcherbatov. Shcherbatov helped Karamzin navigate the sources of Russian history, significantly influencing both the choice of material and its location in the text. Accidentally or not, but "History of the Russian State" was brought by Karamzin exactly to the same place as "History" of Shcherbatov. However, in addition to following the scheme already worked out by his predecessors, Karamzin gives in his essay a lot of references to the vast foreign historiography, almost unknown to the Russian reader. Working on his "History ...", he first introduced into scientific circulation a mass of unknown and previously unexplored sources. These are Byzantine and Livonian chronicles, information from foreigners about the population of ancient Russia, as well as a large number of Russian chronicles, which have not yet been touched by the hand of the historian. For comparison: M.M. In writing his work, Shcherbatov used only 21 Russian chronicles, Karamzin actively quotes more than 40. In addition to the chronicles, Karamzin drew on the study of monuments of Old Russian law and Old Russian fiction. A special chapter of "History ..." is devoted to "Russian Truth", and a number of pages - to the just opened "The Lay of Igor's Host."

Thanks to the diligent help of the directors of the Moscow archive of the ministry (collegium) of foreign affairs, N.N.Bantysh-Kamensky and A.F. Malinovsky, Karamzin was able to use those documents and materials that were not available to his predecessors. Many valuable manuscripts were provided by the Synodal Depository, libraries of monasteries (Trinity Lavra, Volokolamsk Monastery, and others), as well as private collections of manuscripts by Musin-Pushkin and N.P. Rumyantsev. Karamzin received especially many documents from Chancellor Rumyantsev, who collected historical materials in Russia and abroad through his numerous agents, as well as from A.I. Turgenev, who compiled a collection of documents from the papal archive.

Many of the sources used by Karamzin perished during the Moscow fire of 1812 and survived only in his "History ..." and extensive "Notes" to its text. Thus, to some extent, Karamzin's work itself acquired the status of a historical source, to which professional historians have every right to refer.

Among the main shortcomings of the "History of the Russian State" is traditionally noted a peculiar view of its author on the tasks of the historian. According to Karamzin, "knowledge" and "scholarship" in the historian "do not replace the talent for portraying actions." Before the artistic task of history, even the moral, which the patron of Karamzin, M.N. Muravyov. The characteristics of historical characters are given by Karamzin exclusively in a literary-romantic key, characteristic of the direction of Russian sentimentalism that he created. Karamzin's first Russian princes are distinguished by their "ardent romantic passion" for conquests, their squad - nobility and loyal spirit, the "mob" sometimes shows dissatisfaction, raising revolts, but ultimately agrees with the wisdom of noble rulers, etc., etc. NS.

Meanwhile, the previous generation of historians, under the influence of Schlözer, long ago developed the idea of ​​critical history, and among Karamzin's contemporaries, the demands for criticism of historical sources, despite the lack of a clear methodology, were generally recognized. And the next generation has already made a demand philosophical history- with the identification of the laws of development of the state and society, the recognition of the main driving forces and laws of the historical process. Therefore, Karamzin's excessively "literary" creation was immediately subjected to well-founded criticism.

According to the idea, firmly rooted in Russian and foreign historiography of the 17th - 18th centuries, the development of the historical process depends on the development of monarchical power. Karamzin does not deviate from this idea one iota: the monarchical power glorified Russia in the Kiev period; the division of power between the princes was a political mistake, which was corrected by the statesmanship of the Moscow princes - the collectors of Russia. At the same time, it was the princes who corrected its consequences - the fragmentation of Russia and the Tatar yoke.

But before reproaching Karamzin that he did not introduce anything new into the development of Russian historiography, it should be remembered that the author of the "History of the Russian State" did not set himself tasks at all philosophical understanding the historical process or blind imitation of the ideas of Western European romantics (F. Guizot, F. Minier, J. Meschlet), who already then started talking about the "class struggle" and the "spirit of the people" as the main driving force of history. Karamzin was not interested in historical criticism at all, and he deliberately denied the "philosophical" trend in history. The researcher's conclusions from historical material, as well as his subjective fabrications, seem to Karamzin to be "metaphysics" that is not suitable "for depicting action and character."

Thus, with his peculiar views on the tasks of the historian, Karamzin, by and large, remained outside the dominant currents of Russian and European historiography of the 19th and 20th centuries. Of course, he participated in its consistent development, but only as an object for constant criticism and the clearest example of how history does not need to be written.

The reaction of contemporaries

Karamzin's contemporaries - readers and admirers - enthusiastically accepted his new "historical" work. The first eight volumes of The History of the Russian State were published in 1816-1817 and went on sale in February 1818. The three thousandth circulation, huge for that time, was sold in 25 days. (And this is despite the solid price - 50 rubles). A second edition was immediately required, which was carried out in the years 1818-1819 by I.V.Slenin. In 1821 a new ninth volume was published, and in 1824 the next two. The author did not manage to finish the twelfth volume of his work, which was published in 1829, almost three years after his death.

"History ..." was admired by Karamzin's literary friends and a wide audience of non-specialist readers who suddenly discovered, like Count Tolstoy the American, that their Fatherland has a history. According to A.S. Pushkin, “everyone, even secular women, rushed to read the history of their fatherland, hitherto unknown to them. She was a new discovery for them. Ancient Russia, it seemed, was found by Karamzin, like America by Columbus. "

Liberal intellectual circles of the 1820s found Karamzin's History ... backward in general views and overly tendentious:

Specialists-researchers, as already mentioned, treated Karamzin's composition exactly as an essay, sometimes even belittling it. historical meaning... To many, the very enterprise of Karamzin seemed too risky - to undertake to write such an extensive work in the then state of Russian historical science.

Already during the life of Karamzin, critical analyzes of his "History ..." appeared, and soon after the death of the author, attempts were made to determine the general significance of this work in historiography. Lelevel pointed to an involuntary distortion of the truth, due to the patriotic, religious and political hobbies of Karamzin. Artsybashev showed to what extent they harm the writing of "history" literary techniques a non-professional historian. Pogodin summed up all the shortcomings of History, and N.A. Polevoy saw the common reason for these shortcomings in the fact that "Karamzin is a writer not of our time." All his points of view, both in literature and in philosophy, politics and history, became obsolete with the emergence of new influences in Russia. European romanticism... In contrast to Karamzin, Polevoy soon wrote his six-volume History of the Russian People, in which he completely surrendered himself to the ideas of Guizot and other Western European romantics. Contemporaries assessed this work as an "unworthy parody" of Karamzin, subjecting the author to rather vicious and not always deserved attacks.

In the 1830s, "History ..." by Karamzin became the official banner of the "Russian" trend. With the assistance of the same Pogodin, her scientific rehabilitation is carried out, which is fully consistent with the spirit of Uvarov's "theory of official nationality".

In the second half of the 19th century, on the basis of "History ...", a lot of popular science articles and other texts were written, forming the basis of well-known educational and teaching aids. Based on the historical plots of Karamzin, many works have been created for children and youth, the purpose of which for many years has been to foster patriotism, loyalty to civic duty, and responsibility. young generation for the fate of their homeland. This book, in our opinion, played a decisive role in shaping the views of more than one generation of Russian people, having a significant impact on the foundations of patriotic education of young people in the late 19th - early 20th centuries.

December 14. Final Karamzin.

The death of Emperor Alexander I and the December events of 1925 deeply shocked N.M. Karamzin and adversely affected his health.

On December 14, 1825, having received the news of the uprising, the historian goes out into the street: "I saw terrible faces, heard terrible words, five or six stones fell at my feet."

Karamzin, of course, regarded the performance of the nobility against their sovereign as a mutiny and a serious crime. But among the rebels there were so many acquaintances: the Muravyov brothers, Nikolai Turgenev, Bestuzhev, Ryleev, Kuchelbecker (he translated Karamzin's History into German).

In a few days, Karamzin will say about the Decembrists: "The delusions and crimes of these young people are the essence of the delusions and crimes of our century."

On December 14, during his travels around St. Petersburg, Karamzin caught a bad cold and fell ill with pneumonia. In the eyes of his contemporaries, he was another victim of this day: his idea of ​​the world collapsed, faith in the future was lost, and he ascended to the throne new king, very far from the ideal image of an enlightened monarch. Half sick, Karamzin visited the palace every day, where he talked with Empress Maria Feodorovna, from memories of the late Tsar Alexander, moving on to discussions about the tasks of the future reign.

Karamzin could no longer write. The XII volume of "History ..." froze at the interregnum of 1611 - 1612. The last words of the last volume are about a small Russian fortress: "Nut did not give up." The last thing that Karamzin actually managed to do in the spring of 1826 was, together with Zhukovsky, persuaded Nicholas I to return Pushkin from exile. A few years later, the emperor tried to pass on the baton of the first historiographer of Russia to the poet, but the "sun of Russian poetry" somehow did not fit into the role of the state ideologist and theorist ...

In the spring of 1826 N.M. Karamzin, on the advice of doctors, decided to go for treatment to southern France or Italy. Nicholas I agreed to sponsor his trip and kindly placed a frigate of the Imperial Navy at the disposal of the historiographer. But Karamzin was already too weak to travel. He died on May 22 (June 3) 1826 in St. Petersburg. Buried at the Tikhvin cemetery of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra.

Karamzin, Nikolai Mikhailovich famous Russian writer, journalist and historian. Born on December 1, 1766 in the Simbirsk province; grew up in the village of his father, a Simbirsk landowner. The first spiritual food of the 8-9 year old boy was old novels, ... ... Biographical Dictionary

Karamzin Nikolai Mikhailovich. Karamzin Nikolai Mikhailovich (1766 1826) Russian historian, writer. Aphorisms, quotes Karamzin Nikolai Mikhailovich. Biography As the fruit of the tree, life is sweetest before the beginning of withering. For… … Consolidated encyclopedia of aphorisms

Karamzin Nikolay Mikhailovich - .… … Dictionary of the Russian language of the 18th century

Russian writer, publicist and historian. The son of the landowner of the Simbirsk province. He received his education at home, then in Moscow - in a private boarding school (before ... Big Soviet encyclopedia

- (1766 1826), Russian. writer, critic, historian. V early work L. a certain influence of sentimentalists is noticeable, incl. and K. Most interesting stuff to compare with the manufacturer. L. contain "secular" stories by K. ("Julia", "Sensitive and ... ... Lermontov Encyclopedia

- (1766 1826) Russian historian, writer, honorary member of the Petersburg Academy of Sciences (1818). Creator of the History of the Russian State (v. 1 12, 1816 29), one of the most significant works in Russian historiography. The founder of Russian sentimentalism (... ... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary

The request "Karamzin" is redirected here. Cm. also other meanings. Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin Date of birth: December 1 (12) 1766 Place of birth: Mikhailovka, Russian Empire Date of death: May 22 (June 3) 1826 ... Wikipedia

Historiographer, b. December 1, 1766, d. May 22, 1826 He belonged to a noble family, descended from the Tatar Murza, named Kara Murza. His father, a landowner from Simbirsk, Mikhail Yegorovich, served in Orenburg under I.I.Neplyuev and ... Big biographical encyclopedia

- (1766 1826), historian, writer, critic; honorary member of the Petersburg Academy of Sciences (1818). Creator of the "History of the Russian State" (volumes 1 12, 1816 1829), one of the most significant works in Russian historiography. The founder of Russian sentimentalism ... ... encyclopedic Dictionary

Karamzin, Nikolay Mikhailovich- N.M. Karamzin. Portrait by A.G. Venetsianov. KARAMZIN Nikolai Mikhailovich (1766 1826), Russian writer, historian. The founder of Russian sentimentalism (Letters of a Russian Traveler, 1791 95; Poor Liza, 1792, etc.). Editor ... ... Illustrated Encyclopedic Dictionary

Karamzin Nikolay Mikhailovich; Russian Empire, St. Petersburg; 12/01/1766 - 05/22/1826

N. M. Karamzin practically needs no introduction. This historian, writer and poet made an impressive contribution to the creation of modern Russian literature, history and language. Karamzin's books are still one of the most authoritative sources on the history of Russia. And the writer's works in the field of improving the Russian language brought a lot of new words into it and contributed to its improvement after the writer's death.

Biography of Nikolai Karamzin

Nikolai Karamzin was born in 1766 into the family of Mikhail Yegorovich Karamzin, a middle-class nobleman from Simbirsk. Until the age of 12, he studied at his own estate in Simbirsk, and then was sent to study in Moscow. Here he entered the boarding school of I.M. Shaden and attended lectures by the philosopher I.G. Schwartz at Moscow University. In 1783 he was enrolled in the Preobrazhensky Guards Regiment in St. Petersburg, but then went back to Simbirsk. Here he joined the Golden Crown Masonic lodge, and upon his return to Moscow in 1785 was a member of the Friendly Scientific Society.

At 23, Karamzin went on a trip to Europe. The result of this was "" and a large number of followers of this journey. Upon his return to Moscow, Nikolai Karamzin completely absorbed literature. His first resounding success was the story "Poor Liza", which was enthusiastically received by critics and readers. Then there was a number of almanacs and collections from the writer, in which he paid more and more attention to the historical past of the country. According to the words, it made even secular women read the history of their state.

In 1804, Emperor Alexander I honored Karamzin with the title of historiographer, who was no longer not until after Karamzin. From that time on, Nikolai Mikhailovich began to work on one of the most important works of his life. Karamzin's History of the Russian State was published in 1818 and was literally swept off the bookshelves. Subsequently, 3 more volumes of Karamzin's book "History of the Russian State" were published, and after his death, the unfinished 12th volume of the work came out. The writer and historian died in 1826 in St. Petersburg from a cold.

Karamzin's books on the site Top books

Karamzin's books are still in demand today. In addition to "History of the Russian State" by Karamzin, the book "Poor Liza" is also popular. It was with her that the writer got into our rating. In addition, this work is presented in the rating best books Russian classics and, apparently, will get into the ratings of our site more than once.

Nikolay Karamzin list of books

1. Evgeny and Julia
2. A note on ancient and new Russia in its political and civil relations
3. Martha the Posadnitsa, or the Conquest of Novgorod
4. My confession
5. Natalia, boyar's daughter
6. About friendship
7. Autumn
8. Bornholm Island
9. Translation - retelling of "Words about Igor's Campaign"
10. Letters from a Russian traveler
11. Letters from a Russian traveler
12. Beautiful princess and happy karla
13. Knight of our time
14. Sierra Morena
15. Sensitive and cold