From journalism to literary text, a journey through the works. On the question of the legal definition of the concept of "public morality. Moral and public issues with which Russian

19.06.2019

Characteristics of the hero from the comedy "Minor" D

Pyotr Andreevich Grinev, the main character of the story

The image and characteristics of svidrigailov in the novel crime and punishment dostoevsky composition

The image and characteristics of Mitrofanushka in Fonvizin's "The Minor": the description of Mitrofan Prostakov

And you need to make this communication easy and simple.

Old age makes people grumpier, more talkative (remember the saying: "The weather is rainy by autumn, and people are more talkative by old age"). It is not easy for the young to tolerate the deafness of the old. Old people do not hear, they will answer inappropriately, ask again. It is necessary, when talking to them, to raise your voice so that the old people can hear. And raising your voice, you involuntarily begin to get irritated (our feelings more often depend on our behavior than our behavior on feelings).

An old person is often offended (increased sensitivity is a property of old people). In a word, it is difficult not only to be old, but also difficult to be with the old.

And yet the young must understand: we will all be old. And we must also remember: the experience of the old can come in handy. And experience, and knowledge, and wisdom, and humor, and stories about the past, and moral teachings.

Let's remember Pushkin's Arina Rodionovna. A young man can say: "But my grandmother is not at all Arina Rodionovna!" And I am convinced of the opposite: any grandmother, if her grandchildren want, can be Arina Rodionovna. Not for everyone, Arina Rodionovna would have become what Pushkin made her for himself.

Arina Rodionovna showed signs of old age: for example, she fell asleep while working. Remember:
And the needles hesitate by the minute

In your wrinkled hands
What does the word "delay" mean? She did not always hesitate, but "every minute", from time to time, that is, as it happens with the old people who fall asleep from time to time. And Pushkin knew how to find cute features in Arina Rodionovna's old age weaknesses: charm and poetry.

Pay attention to the love and care with which Pushkin writes about the senile traits of his nanny:

Longing, premonitions, worries

It seems to you ...

The poems were left unfinished.

Arina Rodionovna became close to all of us precisely because Pushkin was next to her. If there were no Pushkin, she would have remained in the short memory of those around her as a talkative, constantly dozing and preoccupied old woman. But Pushkin found the best features in her, transformed her. Pushkin's muse was kind. People, communicating, create each other. Some people know how to awaken their best features in those around them. Others do not know how to do this and themselves become unpleasant, boring, irritable, dreary boring.

Old people are not only grumpy, but also kind, not only talkative, but also excellent storytellers, not only deaf, but have a good ear for old songs.

In almost every person, different traits are combined. Of course, some features prevail, others are hidden, suppressed. One must be able to awaken their best qualities in people and not notice minor flaws. Hurry to establish good relations with people. Almost always, good relationships are established from the very first words. Then it's harder.

How to be in old age? How to overcome its shortcomings? Old age is not just extinction, tranquility, a gradual transition to peace (I can say - to "eternal peace"), but just the opposite: it is a whirlpool of unforeseen, chaotic, destructive forces. This is a powerful element. A funnel that sucks in a person, from which he must swim, move away, get rid of, with which he must fight, overcome it.

Not just memory reduction, but distortion work of memory, not the extinction of creative possibilities, but their unforeseen, sometimes chaotic fragmentation, which should not be succumbed to. This is not a decrease in receptivity, but a distortion of ideas about the external world, as a result of which the old person begins to live in some special, his own world.

With old age, you cannot play giveaway; it must be attacked. It is necessary to mobilize all the intellectual forces in oneself so as not to go with the flow, but to be able to intuitively use zaotnost in order to move in the right direction. It is necessary to have a goal that is accessible to old age (considering both the shortening terms and the distortion of possibilities).

Old age sets "wolf pits" that should be avoided.
D. S. Likhachev "Russian classical literature"

Russian classical literature "is not just" first class literature "and not literature, as it were," exemplary ", which has become classically impeccable due to its high purely literary merits.

All these advantages, of course, are in Russian classical literature, but this is not all. This literature also has its own special "face", "individuality", characteristic features of it.

And I would first of all note that the creators of Russian classical literature were authors with enormous "social responsibility."

Russian classical literature is not entertaining, although its fascination is characteristic to a high degree. This fascination is of a special nature: it is determined by the invitation to the reader to solve complex moral and social problems - to solve together: both to the author and to the readers. The best works of Russian classical literature never offer readers ready-made answers to the social and moral questions posed. The authors do not moralize, but, as it were, address the readers: "Think!", "Decide for yourself!", "See what is happening in life!" Therefore, the answers to the questions are given by the author together with the readers.

Russian classical literature is a grandiose dialogue with the people, with their intelligentsia in the first place. This is an appeal to the conscience of the readers.

The moral and social issues with which Russian classical literature addresses its readers are not temporary, not momentary, although they were of particular importance for their time. Due to their "eternity", these questions are of such great importance to us and will have it for all future generations.

Russian classical literature is eternally alive, it does not become history, "the history of literature" only. She talks to us, her conversation is fascinating, uplifts us both aesthetically and ethically, makes us wiser, multiplies our life experience, allows us to experience “ten lives” with her heroes, experience the experience of many generations and apply it in our own life. It gives us the opportunity to experience the happiness of living not only “for ourselves”, but also for many others - for the “humiliated and insulted”, for “little people”, for unknown heroes and for the moral triumph of the highest human qualities ...

The origins of this humanism of Russian literature lie in its centuries-old development, when literature sometimes became the only voice of conscience, the only force that determined the national consciousness of the Russian people - literature and folklore close to it. This was at the time of feudal fragmentation; at the time of the foreign yoke, when literature, the Russian language were the only forces connecting the people.

Russian literature has always drew its enormous strength from Russian reality, from the social experience of the people, but foreign literatures also helped it; first Byzantine, Bulgarian, Czech, Serbian, Polish, antique literature, and from the Peter's era - all the literature of Western Europe.

The literature of our time has grown on the basis of Russian classical literature.

The assimilation of classical traditions is a characteristic and very important feature of modern literature. Without assimilating the best traditions, there can be no progress. It is only necessary that all that is most valuable in these traditions should not be overlooked, forgotten, simplified.

We must not lose anything from our great heritage.

"Reading books" and "reverence for books" should preserve for us and for future generations their high purpose, their high place in our life, in the formation of our positions in life, in the choice of ethical and aesthetic values, in order not to litter our consciousness various kinds of "reading" and empty, purely entertaining bad taste.

The essence of progress in literature is to expand the aesthetic and ideological "possibilities" of literature, which are created as a result of "aesthetic accumulation", the accumulation of all kinds of literary experience and the expansion of its "memory".
D. S. Likhachev "Russian culture"

Once I was returning from a trip to Astrakhan and back. The motor ship is modern, huge, comfortable; it has more than three hundred passengers.

But there was not a single one who would remain indifferent at the sight of the flooded forests and stripped architectural monuments on the banks. No sooner had one, once beautiful, building with a collapsed roof disappeared from sight, than another appeared in sight. And so all twenty-two days of travel. Trouble, trouble beats with swan wings!

And it was even more upsetting when we did not see the building at all, which had recently been towering on the shore, but mercilessly demolished under the pretext that its appearance had become ugly due to neglect and desolation.

This is blatant irresponsibility and mismanagement!

Is it really impossible to adapt the dying churches, old estates to the needs of the surrounding population, or leave them as monuments, signs of the past, covering only with solid roofs, preventing further destruction ?!

After all, almost all of them are quite beautiful, placed in the most prominent places.

They weep with the eye sockets of their empty windows, looking at the passing palaces of rest.

And it upset everyone. There was not a single person who was left indifferent by the sight of the outgoing culture.

We do not preserve the antiquity, not because there is a lot of it, not because there are few connoisseurs of the beauty of the past among us, who love our native history and native art, but because we are in too much of a hurry, we are too expecting an immediate return. But the monuments of antiquity educate, just as well-groomed forests educate a caring attitude to the surrounding nature.

We need to feel ourselves in history, to understand our significance in modern life, even if it is private, small, but still kind to those around us.

Everyone can do something good and leave a good memory for themselves.

To keep the memory of others is to leave a good memory of yourself.
D. S. Likhachev "Russian North"

Russian North! I find it hard to put into words my admiration, my admiration in front of this edge. When for the first time, as a boy of thirteen, I drove along the Barents and White Seas, along the Northern Dvina, visited the Pomors, in peasant huts, listened to songs and fairy tales, looked at these unusually beautiful people who behaved simply and with dignity, I was completely stunned. It seemed to me that this is the only way to live really: measuredly and easily, working and getting so much satisfaction from this work. In what a well-coordinated karbas I happened to swim (the Pomors would say “to go”), how magical fishing and hunting seemed to me. And what an extraordinary language, songs, stories ... But I was still just a boy and my stay in the North was very short - only a month - a summer month, the days are long, sunsets immediately turned into sunrises, colors changed on the water and in the sky every five minutes, but the magic remained the same. And now, many years later, I am ready to swear that I have not seen a better edge. I am fascinated by it for the rest of my days.

Why is that? In the Russian North there is an amazing combination of the present and the past, modernity and history (and what a Russian history! - the most significant, the most tragic in the past and the most "philosophical"), man and nature, the watercolor lyricism of water, earth, sky, the formidable power of stone, storms, cold snow and air.

Our northerners write a lot about the Russian North.

But they are northerners, many of them left the village (“left”, but to some extent they stayed), - they are embarrassed to write about their own. Sometimes they themselves think that if they praise their own, it will be perceived as bragging.

But I was born in Petersburg and all my life have lived only in these three cities: Petersburg, Petrograd, Leningrad, perhaps also in St. Petersburg - this is a special, working-class city that sprang out from Petersburg. It's not at all shy for me to write about my endless love for the Russian North ...

But the most important thing that the North cannot but touch the heart of every Russian is that he is the most Russian. He is not only mentally Russian, he is Russian in that he played an outstanding role in Russian culture.

He not only saved Russia in the most difficult times of Russian history - in the era of the Polish-Swedish intervention, in the era of the First Patriotic War and the Great, he saved us from oblivion Russian epics, Russian ancient customs, Russian wooden architecture, Russian musical culture, Russian great lyric element - song, verbal, Russian labor traditions - peasant, handicraft, sailing, fishing. From here came the remarkable Russian explorers and travelers, polar explorers and warriors of unparalleled stamina.

How can you tell us about everything that our North is rich and glorious with, what it is dear to us and why we should keep it like the apple of our eye, preventing mass relocations, or the loss of labor traditions, or the desolation of villages.

People come and will go here to experience the moral healing power of the North, as they do to Italy, to experience the healing power of the European South.

D. S. Likhachev "Russian language"

The greatest value of a people is its language - the language in which it writes, speaks, thinks. Thinks! This must be understood thoroughly, in all the ambiguity and significance of this fact. After all, this means that the entire conscious life of a person passes through his native language. Emotions, sensations - only color what we think, or push thought in some way, but our thoughts are all formulated in language.

The surest way to get to know a person - his mental development, his moral character, his character - is to listen to how he speaks.

If we notice a person's manner of behaving, his gait, his behavior, and by them we judge a person, sometimes, however, erroneously, then a person's language is a much more accurate indicator of his human qualities, his culture.

So, there is the language of the people, as an indicator of its culture, and the language of an individual person, as an indicator of his personal qualities, the qualities of a person who uses the language of the people.

I want to write not about Russian in general, but about how this or that person uses this language.

Much has been written about the Russian language as the language of the people. It is one of the most perfect languages in the world, a language that has developed over more than a millennium, giving in the 19th century the best literature and poetry in the world. Turgenev spoke about the Russian language - "... one cannot believe that such a language was not given to a great people!"

But it also happens that a person does not speak, but "spits with words." For every common concept, he has not ordinary words, but slang expressions. When such a person speaks with his spitting words, he reveals his cynical nature.

From the very beginning, the Russian language found itself in a happy position - from the moment of its existence together in the depths of a single East Slavic language, the language of Ancient Rus.

Already the Old Russian language (the language of Ancient Rus) joined the richness of other languages - first of all, the literary Old Bulgarian, then Greek (through the Old Bulgarian and in direct relations), Scandinavian, Turkic, Finno-Ugric, West Slavic, etc. He not only enriched lexically and grammatically , he became flexible and receptive as such.
Due to the fact that the literary language was created from the combination of the Old Bulgarian with the folk colloquial, business, legal, "literary" language of folklore (the language of folklore is also not just colloquial), many synonyms with their shades of meaning and emotional expressiveness have been created in it.
The language expressed the "inner strength" of the people - its tendency to emotionality, the variety of characters and types of attitude to the world in it. If it is true that the language of a people reflects its national character (and this is certainly true), then the national character of the Russian people is extremely internally diverse, rich, contradictory. And all this had to be reflected in the language.
Already from the previous it is clear that language does not develop alone, but it also possesses linguistic memory. It is facilitated by the existence of a thousand-year-old literature, writing. And here there are so many genres, types of literary language, a variety of literary experience: chronicles (by no means the same in nature), "The Lay of Igor's Campaign", "The Prayer of Daniel Zatochnik", sermons of Kirill Turovsky, "Kiev-Pechersk Patericon" with its charm "Simplicity and inventions", and then - the works of Ivan the Terrible, various works about the Troubles, the first recordings of folklore and ... Simeon of Polotsk, and at the opposite end from Simeon Archpriest Avvakum. In the 18th century, Lomonosov, Derzhavin, Fonvizin, then Krylov, Karamzin, Zhukovsky and ... Pushkin. I will not list all the writers of the 19th and early 20th centuries, I will pay attention only to such virtuosos of the language as Leskov and Bunin. They are all extraordinarily different. Likewise, they write in different languages. But poetry develops language most of all. This is why the prose of the poets is so significant.

What an important task is to compose dictionaries of the language of Russian writers from the earliest times!

SPIRITUAL AND MORAL EDUCATION OF STUDENTS IN LITERATURE LESSONS BY MEANS OF HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL VALUES AND TRADITIONS OF THE NATIVE LAND.
Ageeva O.A., teacher
OBOU SPO "KATK"
"Love for the native land, knowledge of its history is the basis on which only the growth of the spiritual culture of the whole society can take place."
(D.S. Likhachev, historian of Russian culture)
In our time, society is going through a state of deep spiritual crisis: the values of the family, respect for the past of the native country have been largely lost. Only a society united by its traditions, spiritually strong and morally stable, is able to withstand any problems, solve specific problems and be viable. I would like to believe that the revival of the spiritual and cultural traditions of our people in all spheres of the life of society is possible and feasible.
It is impossible to study the history of a country without knowing the history of its individual regions. Knowing his small homeland, a person realizes belonging to the country, to its past, present and future.
Literature, as one of the leading humanitarian academic subjects in the Russian school, contributes to the formation of a diversified, harmonious personality, the education of a citizen, a patriot. An introduction to the humanistic values of culture and the development of creative abilities is a necessary condition for the formation of a person who is emotionally rich and intellectually developed, capable of constructively and at the same time critically treating himself and the world around him.
Studying the historical and cultural values and traditions, we expand and enrich the knowledge of students about their native places, awaken interest and love for their native land and its history, help to more fully feel and realize the connection between literature and life, activate and enrich the existing knowledge of Russian literature, take care of cultural monuments of the region.
The study of the literature of the Kursk Territory is extremely interesting and fruitful. Our land is rich in its literary traditions. The names of A.A. are associated with it. Feta, K.D. Vorobieva, N. N. Aseeva, E. I. Nosov, V. Ovechkin and many others. We believe that acquaintance with the life and work of writers in the local history aspect will help students to feel the originality of Russian literature, to better understand the artistic reliability of works, the uniqueness of the writing language and artistic images.
On November 6, 2009, the greatest event took place in our city - in the historical center of Kursk on Sadovaya Street, the Literary Museum, a branch of the Kursk Regional Museum of Local Lore, was opened. From that day on, in the nightingale region of indigenous Russia, a literary memorable book of the kuryans began to be written. The museum has become a blessing and joy for everyone: it reveals to us something new, important in the fate of fellow countrymen, who managed to leave their own mark on the earth, thanks not only to natural talent, but also to courage, perseverance, honesty, hard work, boundless love and loyalty. your edge.
We are frequent visitors to this museum, which displays about 120 names of Kurian writers. The pages of their works allow us to hear their voices and forever make each of the authors, no matter how long he has lived, our contemporary.
The life and work of many writers and poets in one way or another was associated with our land! In literature lessons, I definitely mention this fact. So, for example, studying the work of Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev, I tell that he was a frequent visitor to the Kursk region. In the village of Semyonovka, Shchigrovsky district, the estate of his brother Nikolai was located, and the writer loved to visit it in order to hunt game.
Kursk provided many prototypes of characters for the works of Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy. In Chapter XV of the first volume of War and Peace, he introduces into the novel Maria Dmitrievna Akhrosimova, "a lady famous not for her wealth, not for her honors, but for her directness of mind and frank directness of her address." Maria Dmitrievna knew the royal surname, knew all of Moscow and all of Petersburg, and both cities, surprised by her, secretly laughed at her rudeness, told jokes about her, nevertheless, everyone, without exception, respected and feared her. The prototype of Akhrosimova was Natalya Dmitrievna Ofrosimova, whose estate was in the village of Shtevets, Shchigrovsky district, and with whom Lev Nikolaevich was personally acquainted.
In 2013, the guys and I decided to create a project dedicated to little Kurdish people who stood up to defend their small homeland. Materials for this project were collected from almost different parts of our region. We spent not a single hour in the Local History Museum of the city of Kursk, in the Local History Museum in the city of Lgov, in the Kursk Regional Library named after N.N. Aseeva (in the local history department), in the museum "Young defenders of the Motherland", some children brought memories of their grandparents. The result of our work is the handwritten book "Little defenders of the native land", which became the winner in the "IX regional literary and art competition" Grenadiers, forward! " in 2013.
In this book, we tried to show the fate of children and adolescents, for whom it was already a feat to be saved and survived, and they also fought, showing miracles of courage, fortitude and heroism. 4.5 thousand teenagers from Kursk did not return home from the front, their names are forever entered in the Memory Books.
Every year, as part of the celebration of the Victory on the Kursk Bulge, the guys and I visit the Museum of Young Defenders of the Motherland, the expositions of which show the full depth of the tragedy of the war through the fate of children and adolescents.
From the photographs that have turned yellow from time to time, boys and girls are looking at us - in tunics and famously wrinkled caps. Others have awards on their chests - like adults who have gone through the heat of World War II. Masha Borovichenko received the Star of the Hero of the Soviet Union at the age of 17. The girl fought valiantly as part of the 13th Infantry Division and died at the Kursk Bulge. And the youngest participant in the Battle of Kursk, pilot Arkady Kamanin, received three high awards during the war. As a 15-year-old teenager, he was awarded two Orders of the Red Star and the Order of the Red Banner. The youngest soldier, Seryozha Aleshkov, was only 7 years old.
War is cruel in its essence; it does not spare anyone. Kursk search engines, excavating at the battle sites, where soldiers remained unburied since those ancient times, find, it happens, remains, according to which one cannot be mistaken with the conclusion - this is a dead child. How could he find himself in a combat situation? Perhaps a village boy volunteered to become a guide of a military unit, or maybe this is the son of a regiment? Unfortunately, the veil of time hid many secrets of the bloodiest war in the world.
These children are young defenders of the Motherland, sons of regiments, partisans and participants in the Great Patriotic War. The only museum in Russia carefully preserves their photographs and their stories !!!
Every year, on May 9, on the Great Victory Day, our college participates in the solemn laying of wreaths at the Kursk War Memorial. In literature lessons, summing up this event, I tell that there is also the grave of 11-year-old Stas Merkulov. The boy defended Kursk together with his father - he brought shells, loaded machine-gun belts. When his father died, Stas took his place at the gun. But he was mortally wounded by an automatic burst - bullets hit the stomach. “Sometimes the Germans took pictures against the background of their victims (they say, these are the heroes we are), but not in this case,” says Lyudmila Vasilievna. “As eyewitnesses of those events told, the fascists, having seen the mutilated body of a child near a machine gun, took off their helmets as a sign of respect.”
Also, extracurricular, extracurricular activities with students are aimed at studying the historical and cultural values and traditions of our region! Students should draw up all the information they find in the form of a project and be sure to protect it! I draw their attention to the fact that no one except you will be able to better know the history of their family, will not be able to tell more vividly how your fellow countrymen lived, what songs they sang, what crafts they did, what they thought and dreamed of. No one except you can tell about the medals of your great-grandfather, about how hard life was for your great-grandmother during the war years, etc.
The education system today is one of the main social structures that forms and develops the value-normative basis of self-awareness. A person brought up in a new Russian school must accept the fate of the Fatherland as his own, realize responsibility for the present and future of his country, rooted in the spiritual and cultural traditions of the Russian people. We must design a model of a graduate, enriched not only with scientific knowledge and ideas, but with formed value ideals, landmarks, basic worldview concepts rooted in the cultural and historical past of their small homeland, their country.
And in conclusion, I would like to quote the words of His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Russia. These words became the motto of our teachers: (I quote) “The time has come to unite the efforts of those who feel an acute concern for the younger generation. If we do not immediately take up the painstaking work of mentors and teachers of young people together, we will lose the country. " (end of quote)
Let me wish you success in your difficult task - educating worthy citizens of our country!
Note:
Kursk region during the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union 1941-1945. (collection of documents and materials) Volume 1 - Kursk book publishing house, 1960
Museum "Young defenders of the Motherland" (a branch of the Kursk region. Regional Museum) // Museums of Russia.– M., 1993.– Ch. 3.– P.165-166.
http://standart.edu.ru
http://region46.info Archive number No. 17 (418) of 04/27/2010
onb.kursk.ru

Landscape- general view of the area.

The story- the genre of narrative literature.

Journalism- a type of literature and journalism, covering issues of politics and public life.

Story- a narrative work of small size.

Reputation- general opinion about someone.

Sculpture- 1. The art of creating voluminous works of art by carving, molding and casting, forging, embossing. 2. Works of such art. Sculpture can be easel (statues, portraits, genre scenes) and monumental (monuments, decorative sculpture in gardens and parks, reliefs on buildings, memorial ensembles).

Comparison- a word or expression containing the assimilation of one object to another.

Epigraph- quotes placed in front of the text, revealing the artistic intent of the author.

Epistolary form- letter, message.

Epithet- a definition that gives the expression imagery and emotionality.

Application

D. S. Likhachev "The Earth is our home"

Once (about two dozen years ago) the following image occurred to me: the Earth is our tiny house, flying in an immensely large space. Then I discovered that this image simultaneously came to mind of dozens of publicists on its own.

It is so obvious that it is already born hackneyed, stereotyped, although this does not lose its strength and persuasiveness.

Our house!

But the Earth is the home of billions and billions of people who lived before us!

This is a museum flying defenselessly in a colossal space, a collection of hundreds of thousands of museums, a close accumulation of works of hundreds of thousands of geniuses (oh, if only to count roughly how many there were only some recognized geniuses on earth!).

And not only works of geniuses!

How many customs, lovely traditions.

How much has been accumulated, saved. How many possibilities.

The earth is all covered with diamonds, and under them how many diamonds are still waiting to be cut, made into diamonds.

This is something unimaginable in value.

And most importantly: there is no second other life in the Universe!

This can be easily proved mathematically.

It was necessary for millions of almost incredible conditions to converge in order to create a great human culture.

And what is there in front of this incredible value of all our national ambitions, quarrels, personal and state revenge ("retaliatory actions")!

The globe is literally "stuffed" with cultural values.

This is billions of times (I repeat, billions of times) enlarged Hermitage, which has grown in all areas of the spirit.

And this incredible global jewel rushes at an insane speed in the black space of the Universe.

The Hermitage rushing through outer space! Scary for him.

The Pre-Raphaelites compiled the "List of Immortals", it includes: Jesus Christ, the author of the book Job, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Chaucer, Leonardo da Vinci, Goethe, Keith, Shelley, Alfred the Great, Landor, Tekke-rey, Washington, Mrs. Browning, Raphael, Patmore, Longfellow, Stories after Nature author, Tennyson, Boccaccio, Fra Angelico, Isaiah, Phidias, early Gothic architects, Gibertti, Spencer, Hogarth, Co-styushko, Byron, Wordsworth, Cervantes, Jeanne d'Arcs Columbus, Giorgione, Titian, Poussin, Milton, Bacon, Newton, Poe. Everything!

Isn't it curious?

How nice (interesting) it would be if such lists of immortals were compiled more often: in different countries and in different eras.

For Russians of that time, he would have been completely different, and especially in our time.

But someone would have remained unchanged in these lists: Shakespeare and Dante, for example.

And someone would be added to everyone: L. Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, for example, in comparison with the above list of Pre-Raphaelites.
D. S. Likhachev "How the Earth Cries"

The Earth, the Universe has its own sorrow, its grief "But the Earth does not cry with tears - drunkards, freaks, underdeveloped children, unkempt, abandoned old people, crippled, sick ... And she also cries uselessly cut down forests, landslides of banks in reservoirs overflowing with Earth's tears, flooded lands, meadows that have ceased to nurture herds and serve as hayfields, asphalt yards with stinking tanks, between which children play. The earth is shyly covered with yellow "industrial" smokes, sour rains, all living things, recorded in red funeral books, are forever hidden. The Earth is becoming a pitiful "biosphere".

Therefore, take care of youth to a ripe old age. Appreciate all the good things that you acquired in your youth, do not waste the wealth of your youth. Nothing acquired in youth goes unnoticed. Habits brought up in youth persist for life. Work skills, too. Accustomed to work - and work will always bring joy. And how important it is for human happiness! There is no more unfortunate person who is lazy, eternally avoiding work, efforts ...

Both in youth and old age. Good habits of youth will make life easier, bad habits will complicate and complicate it.

And further. There is a Russian proverb: "Take care of your honor from your youth." All actions committed in youth remain in the memory. The good ones will delight, the bad ones will keep you awake!

D. S. Likhachev "On Russian nature"

Nature has its own culture. Chaos is not at all a natural state of nature. On the contrary, chaos (if only it exists at all) is an unnatural state of nature. How is the culture of nature expressed? Let's talk about wildlife. First of all, she lives in a society, a community. There are "plant associations": trees do not live mixed up, and certain species are combined with others, but not all. Pines, for example, have certain lichens, mosses, mushrooms, bushes, etc. as neighbors. Every mushroom picker knows this. The well-known rules of behavior are characteristic not only of animals (all dog breeders, cat lovers, even those living outside nature, in the city, are familiar with this), but also plants. Trees are drawn to the sun in different ways - sometimes with caps so as not to interfere with each other, and sometimes spread out to cover and protect another species of trees that begins to grow under their cover. A pine tree grows under the cover of alder. The pine tree grows, and then the alder that has done its job dies off. I observed this long-term process near Leningrad, in Toksovo, where during the First World War all the pines were cut down and pine forests were replaced by thickets of alder, which then nourished young pines under its branches. Now there are pines again. Nature is "social" in its own way. Its "sociality" also lies in the fact that it can live next to a person, neighbors with him, if he, in turn, is social and intellectual himself, protects her, does not cause irreparable damage to her, does not cut down forests to the end, does not litter rivers. .. The Russian peasant, with his centuries-old labor, created the beauty of Russian nature. He plowed the land and thus gave it certain dimensions. He laid a measure on his arable land, passing through it with a plow. The boundaries in Russian nature are commensurate with the work of a man and his horse, his ability to walk with a horse behind a plow or plow, before turning back, and then forward again. Smoothing the ground, a person removed all sharp edges, bumps, stones in it. Russian nature is soft, it is groomed by the peasant in his own way. The peasant's walking behind the plow, plow, harrow not only created rye stripes, but evened out the boundaries of the forest, formed its edges, created smooth transitions from forest to field, from field to river. The poetry of the transformation of nature by the labor of a plowman is well conveyed by A. Koltsov in "The Plowman's Song", which begins with the prodding of a plowman:

Well! dragging along, sivka,

Arable land, tithes.

Bleach iron

Oh damp earth.

The Russian landscape was mainly created by the efforts of two great cultures: the culture of man, which softened the harshness of nature, and the culture of nature, which in turn softened all imbalances that man unwittingly introduced into it. The landscape was created, on the one hand, by nature, ready to master and cover everything that a person violated in one way or another, and on the other, by a person who softened the earth with his labor and softened the landscape. Both cultures seemed to correct each other and create her humanity and freedom.

The nature of the East European Plain is mild, without high mountains, but not powerlessly flat, with a network of rivers ready to be “communication routes”, and with a sky not obscured by dense forests, with sloping hills and endless roads smoothly flowing around all the hills.

And with what care the man stroked the hills, descents and ascents! Here the experience of a plowman created the aesthetics of parallel lines - lines going in unison with each other and with nature, like voices in ancient Russian chants. The plowman laid the furrow to the furrow - as he combed, as he laid a hair to a hair. This is how a log is put to a log in a hut, a block to a block, in a hedge - a pole to a pole, and they themselves line up in a rhythmic row over the river or along the road - like a herd that went out to drink.

Therefore, the relationship between nature and man is a relationship between two cultures, each of which in its own way is "social", co-operative, has its own "rules of behavior." And their meeting is based on a kind of moral foundation. Both cultures are the fruit of historical development, and the development of human culture has been under the influence of nature for a long time (since humanity has existed), and the development of nature with its multimillion-year existence is relatively recent and not everywhere under the influence of human culture. One (culture of nature) can exist without the other (human), and the other (human) cannot. But still, for many centuries past, there was a balance between nature and man. It would seem that it had to leave both parts equal, pass somewhere in the middle. But no, balance is everywhere its own and everywhere on some kind of its own, special basis, with its own axis. In the north in Russia there was more "nature", and the further south and closer to the steppe, the more "man".

Anyone who has been to Kizhi probably saw how a stone ridge stretches along the entire island, like the ridge of a giant animal. A road runs along this ridge. The ridge has been forming for centuries. The peasants freed their fields from stones - boulders and cobblestones - and dumped them here, by the road. The well-groomed relief of the large island was formed. The whole spirit of this relief is permeated with the feeling of centuries. And it is not for nothing that the family of the Ryabinin storytellers lived here from generation to generation, from whom many epics were written.

The landscape of Russia throughout its heroic space seems to pulsate, it is discharged and becomes more natural, then it thickens in villages, graveyards and cities, becomes more human. In the village and in the city, the same rhythm of parallel lines continues, which begins with arable land. Furrow to furrow, log to log, street to street. Large rhythmic divisions are combined with small, fractional ones. One smoothly passes to the other. The old Russian city is not opposed to nature. He goes to nature through the suburbs. “Suburb” is a word purposely created to combine the idea of the city and nature. The suburb is in the city, but it is in nature. The suburb is a village with trees, with wooden semi-rural houses. Hundreds of years ago, with vegetable gardens and orchards, he clung to the walls of the city, to the rampart and ditch, he clung to the surrounding fields and forests, taking away from them some trees, some vegetable gardens, some water into his ponds and wells. And all this is in the ebb and flow of hidden and explicit rhythms - beds, streets, houses, logs, blocks of pavements and bridges. For Russians, nature has always been freedom, will, freedom. Listen to the language: take a walk in the wild, go free. Will is the absence of worries about tomorrow, it is carelessness, blissful immersion in the present. Remember Koltsov:

Oh you, my steppe,

Free steppe,

You are wide, steppe,

I spread out,

To the Black Sea

Has moved!

Koltsov has the same admiration for the vastness of the freedom.

A wide space has always ruled the hearts of Russians. It poured into concepts and concepts that are not found in other languages. How, for example, is the difference between will and freedom? The fact that free will is freedom, combined with space, with nothing blocked by space. And the concept of longing, on the contrary, is combined with the concept of crampedness, deprivation of a person's space. Oppressing a person is to deprive him of space in the literal and figurative sense of the word.

Free will! Even the barge haulers, who walked along the line, harnessed to a strap, like horses, and sometimes together with horses, felt this will. We walked along a rope, a narrow coastal path, and there was will for them all around. Bonded labor, and nature is free all around. And man needed nature large, open, with a huge outlook. That is why the pole-field is so beloved in the folk song. Will is large spaces through which you can walk and walk, wander, swim with the flow of large rivers and long distances, breathe free air, the air of open places, breathe in the wind widely with your chest, feel the sky over your head, be able to move in different directions - as you like.

What is free will is well defined in Russian lyric songs, especially robber songs, which, however, were created and sung not by robbers, but by peasants yearning for free will and a better life. In these predatory songs, the peasant dreamed of carelessness and retribution to his offenders.

The Russian concept of courage is bravery, and bravery is bravery in a broad movement. It is courage multiplied by the scope to bring out that courage. You cannot be daring, sitting bravely in a fortified place. The word "daring" is very difficult to translate into foreign languages. Courage still in the first half of the 19th century was incomprehensible. Griboyedov laughs at Skalozub, putting into his mouth the following answer to Famusov's question, for which he has a “medal in his buttonhole”: “For the third of August; we sat down in a trench: it was given to him with a bow, around my neck. " It's funny how you can "sit down", and even in a "trench", where you really can't move at all, and get a military award for it?

Yes, and at the root of the word “feat” movement is also “stuck”: “in-motion”, that is, what is done by movement is prompted by the desire to move something motionless.

I remember in my childhood a Russian dance on the Volga steamer of the "Caucasus and Mercury" company. The loader was dancing (they called them hookers). He danced, throwing out his arms and legs in different directions, and in excitement tore off the cap from his head, throwing it far into the crowded spectators, and shouted: “I will tear! I will tear! Oh, I'll break it! " He tried to take as much space as possible with his body.

Russian lyrical lingering song - it also has a longing for space. And it is sung best outside the home, in the wild, in the field.

The bell ringing had to be heard as far away as possible. And when a new bell was hung on the bell tower, people were deliberately sent to listen to how many miles it could be heard.

Driving fast is also striving for space.

But the same special attitude to space and space is seen in the epics. Mikula Selyaninovich follows the plow from end to end of the field. Volga has to catch up with him for three days on young Bukhara stallions.
They heard a plowman in pure poly,

Plowman-plowman.

They drove through the day in pure poly,

The plowman did not run over,

And on the next day we drove from morning to evening.

The plowman did not run over,

And on the third day we drove from morning to evening,

The plowman and drove over.

There is a sense of space in the beginnings to the epics describing Russian nature, there is also in the desires of the heroes, Volga, for example:
Volga wanted a lot of wisdom:

Volga's pike-fish walk in blue waters,

Volga fly like a bird-falcon under the clouds.

Like a wolf and prowl through open fields.

Or in the beginning of the epic "About the Nightingale Budimirovich":
"Whether the height, the height of heaven,

Deep, deep akyan-sea,

Wide expanse throughout the land.

Deep whirlpools of the Dnieper ...

Even the description of the towers that the "brave squad" of Nightingale Budimirovich builds in the garden near Zabava Putyatichna contains the same admiration for the immensity of nature.
Well decorated in the towers:

The sun is in the sky - the sun is in the mansion;

There is a month in the sky - a month in the mansion;

There are stars in the sky - stars in the mansion;

Dawn in the sky - dawn in the mansion

And all the beauty is heavenly.

Delight for the vastness is already present in ancient Russian literature - in the Primary Chronicle, in the "Lay of Igor's Host", in the "Lay of the Death of the Russian Land", in the "Life of Alexander Nevsky", and in almost every work of the most ancient period of the 11th-13th centuries ... Everywhere events either cover huge areas, as in "The Lay of Igor's Campaign", or take place among huge spaces with responses in distant countries, as in "The Life of Alexander Nevsky". Since olden times, Russian culture has considered freedom and spaciousness to be the greatest aesthetic and ethical blessing for man.
D. S. Likhachev "About old age"

Dealing with old people is not easy. It is clear. But you need to communicate, and you need to make this communication easy and simple.

An old person is often offended (increased sensitivity is a property of old people). In a word, it is difficult not only to be old, but also difficult to be with the old.

Arina Rodionovna showed signs of old age: for example, she fell asleep while working. Remember:
And the needles hesitate by the minute

In your wrinkled hands

What does the word "delay" mean? She did not always hesitate, but "every minute", from time to time, that is, as it happens with the old people who fall asleep from time to time. And Pushkin knew how to find cute features in Arina Rodionovna's old age weaknesses: charm and poetry.

Pay attention to the love and care with which Pushkin writes about the senile traits of his nanny:

Longing, premonitions, worries

They are crowding your chest all the time,

It seems to you ...

The poems were left unfinished.

Old people are not only grumpy, but also kind, not only talkative, but also excellent storytellers, not only deaf, but have a good ear for old songs.

Old age sets "wolf pits" that should be avoided.
D. S. Likhachev "Russian classical literature"

Russian classical literature "is not just" first class literature "and not literature, as it were," exemplary ", which has become classically impeccable due to its high purely literary merits.

All these advantages, of course, are in Russian classical literature, but this is not all. This literature also has its own special "face", "individuality", characteristic features of it.

And I would first of all note that the creators of Russian classical literature were authors with enormous "social responsibility."

Russian classical literature is a grandiose dialogue with the people, with their intelligentsia in the first place. This is an appeal to the conscience of the readers.

The literature of our time has grown on the basis of Russian classical literature.

We must not lose anything from our great heritage.

Once I was returning from a trip to Astrakhan and back. The motor ship is modern, huge, comfortable; it has more than three hundred passengers.

This is blatant irresponsibility and mismanagement!

After all, almost all of them are quite beautiful, placed in the most prominent places.

They weep with the eye sockets of their empty windows, looking at the passing palaces of rest.

And it upset everyone. There was not a single person who was left indifferent by the sight of the outgoing culture.

We need to feel ourselves in history, to understand our significance in modern life, even if it is private, small, but still kind to those around us.

Everyone can do something good and leave a good memory for themselves.

To keep the memory of others is to leave a good memory of yourself.

471 Such statements place Ostrovsky in close proximity to Belinsky. However, doubts are still possible here. The well-known legitimacy and naturalness of the accusatory tendency in Russian literature was also recognized in their own way by the Slavophiles. The great importance of Gogol for the entire literary movement of the 1940s was also not denied in a certain sense by the Slavophiles. What is important is the content of the principles that served to substantiate these admissions. The comparison of the ideas of Belinsky and Ostrovsky must be continued.

In particular, Ostrovsky's emphasis on the moral sphere as the closest and most important area of creative artistic reproduction calls for special attention. Where did he get this emphasized and persistent elevation of literary tasks to questions of morality?

It should be noted that Ostrovsky, speaking about the social function of literature, especially often and persistently uses the term "moral". The connection between art and social life, in his views, is realized in the fact that "the moral life of society, passing through various forms, gives art one type or another, one or another task." Russian literature, according to him, is distinguished from all others by its "moral, accusatory character." Further, speaking about the fact that a true artistic image helps to overcome the previous, imperfect forms of life and makes us look for the best, Ostrovsky adds: "... in a word, it makes you be more moral." And further all the development of thoughts about the importance of incriminating content in literature, he ends with the remark: "This incriminating direction of our literature can be called a moral and social direction" 443 *. In a well-known letter dated April 26, 1850 to V. I. Nazimov about the comedy "Our people - we will be numbered" Ostrovsky writes: form, I had to write a comedy or write nothing ”444 *. In his article about the comedy 472 A. Zhemchuzhnikov "Strange Night", speaking about the social role of comedy, Ostrovsky calls the entire modern trend in literature "moral and accusatory" 445 *. (Italics mine. - A.S.).

One would think that such persistent use of words and a reminder of the moral functions and tasks of art was inspired on Ostrovsky by the specifics of the Moskvityanin magazine, with the well-known predilections of this circle for questions of moral perfection. However, this is not at all the case. Ostrovsky's entire system of thought suggests that in this case, too, he followed Belinsky.

The issues of public morality in the progressive thought of the 40s had tremendous practical meaning. Instead of romantic or Slavophil constructions of abstract ethical "ideals", Belinsky and Herzen directed their interest to what exists in the moral sphere as a force acting in everyday life, in genuine practical relations between people. The evil of feudal reality was revealed not only in the forms of state and social relations, but also in the everyday common interests of people, in their concepts of what should be, in their ideas of their own dignity, in the peculiarities of everyday communication and in those moral and everyday "rules" that practically, in the course of life itself, are developed and implemented in the mass, affecting in constant "everyday relationships" (Belinsky's expression).

Belinsky's calls for the study and portrayal of "everyday life" were in many ways calls for a revision of serf traditions in the field of everyday practical morality. Coming to the consideration of the novel “Eugene Onegin”, Belinsky wrote: “In order to correctly portray any society, one must first comprehend its essence, its peculiarity; and this cannot be done otherwise than by actually learning and evaluating philosophically the sum of the rules by which society is kept. Every nation has two philosophies: one is scholarly, bookish, solemn and festive, the other is daily, domestic, everyday. Both of these philosophies are often more or less closely related to each other; and who wants to portray society, he needs to get acquainted with both, but the latter is especially necessary to study. So exactly, who wants to get to know some people, he must first of all study it - in his family, home life ”446 *.

From an abstract moral point of view, Belinsky's assessment of the significance of vice was resolutely transferred to the social plane. Belinsky considered moral outlook or the usual code of "rules" not in a closed manner, not in an individual-moral characterization, not in an abstract-theoretical relationship with an arbitrarily understood "ideal", but in its practical consequences, manifested in living, everyday relations between people. “Since the sphere of morality,” he wrote, “is predominantly a practical sphere, and the practical sphere is formed mainly from the mutual relations of people to each other, then here, in these relations, - nowhere else, - one should look for signs of moral or immoral person, and not in how a person talks about morality, or what system, what teaching and what category of morality he adheres to ”(VII, 392).

For various reasons Belinsky dwelled on the elucidation of the practical and vital role of moral concepts, on their dependence on the conditions of the social environment and on the general state of culture. The progressive growth of the moral public outlook was seen as the guarantee of a better future. “Evil is hidden not in man, but in society; since societies, taken in the sense of the form of human development, have not yet reached their ideal, it is not surprising that in them alone you see a lot of crimes. This also explains why what was considered criminal in the ancient world is considered legal in the new, and vice versa: why every nation and every century has its own concepts of morality, legal and criminal ”(VII, 466).

In the tasks that were posed to literature, Belinsky singled out social and educational goals.

474 In defining the positive role of literature in the life of society, he pointed to its morally uplifting significance. “Literature,” wrote Belinsky, “was for our society a living source of even practical moral ideas” (IX, 434). Literature acts "not only on education, but also on the moral improvement of society ... All our moral interests, our entire spiritual life was concentrated ... exclusively in literature: it is a living source from which all human feelings and concepts seep into society" (IX, 435 - 436).

In the interpretation of social vices, Belinsky, first of all, considered it important to reveal their rootedness in moral "rules" that were developed and adopted in this environment according to the conditions of life. He credited the artist with his ability to reveal and point out a vice where he does not notice himself.

Belinsky saw a positive feature of the satire of Cantemir and its successors in the fact that it revealed the shortcomings of Russian life, “which she found in the old society not as vices, but as rules of life, as moral convictions” (IX, 434).

Speaking about Gogol, Belinsky singled out his merit in depicting vice not as an atrocity, but as a consequence of the general moral convictions and moods of the corresponding environment. The denunciation was thus directed at the general customary and common moral norms that were engendered and instilled in the entire everyday life of serfdom. “But notice that this is not debauchery in him,” he wrote about the governor, “but his moral development, his highest concept of his objective duties: he is a husband, therefore, he is obliged to maintain his wife decently; he is a father, therefore, must give a good dowry for his daughter, in order to deliver her a good party and, thus arranging her well-being, to fulfill the sacred duty of a father. He knows that his means to achieve this goal are sinful before God, but he knows this in an abstract way, with his head, not with his heart, and he justifies himself with the simple rule of all vulgar people: “I’m not the first, not the last, everyone does this.” This practical rule of life is so deeply rooted in him that it turned into a rule of morality ”(III, 453).

Depravity is defined by Belinsky not so much by the degree of bad moral attitude of its bearer, 475 but by the degree of harm caused by the practical behavior of a person, it does not matter with what moral attitude this behavior is combined. “Now we are convinced,” writes Belinsky, “that it is equally harmful to be hypocritical and unhypocritically to love a lie, that to deliberately oppose the truth and unintentionally persecute it is the same evil. It is even difficult to decide why society loses more: whether from the anger of evil people or from indifference, stupidity, clumsiness, one-sidedness, misconceptions of people who are by nature good, who are neither fish nor flesh ”447 *.

Elsewhere about the novels of Walter Scott, Belinsky wrote: “In his novels you see villains, but you understand why they are villains, and sometimes you are interested in their fate. For the most part, in his novels, you meet petty rogues, from whom all the troubles in novels occur, as it happens in life itself. Heroes of good and evil are very rare in life; the real masters in it are the people of the middle, neither this nor that ”(VI, 35).

In the review of the novel "Who is to blame?" Belinsky emphasized that the faces deduced by the author "are not evil people, even mostly kind, who torment and persecute themselves and others more often with good rather than bad intentions, more out of ignorance than out of anger" (X, 325).

In the very moral concepts, for the majority of the familiar and harmless, formed under the conditions of a long tradition of serfdom, Belinsky and Herzen pointed out endless sources of crimes against the individual. The meaning of the novel "Who is to blame?" Belinsky defined it as "suffering, illness at the sight of unrecognized human dignity, insulted with intent, and even more without intent ..." (X, 323).

In the article "Whims and Reflections", sympathetically quoted by Belinsky, Herzen wrote: "The kindest man in the world who does not find cruelty in his soul to kill a mosquito, with great pleasure tore apart the good name of a neighbor on the basis of morality, according to which he himself does not act ... "," A bourgeois in the nobility was very surprised to learn that he had been speaking prose for forty years — we laugh at him; and for many forty years they did atrocities 476 and died about eighty years without knowing this, because their atrocities did not fit under any paragraph of the code ”448 *.

Herzen invited to introduce the microscope into the moral world, "to examine thread by thread the web of daily relationships", "to think that<люди>do at home ”, about“ everyday relationships, about all the little things that include family secrets, household affairs, relationships with relatives, friends, relatives, servants ”, look at the tears of wives and daughters who sacrifice themselves for an accepted moral obligation.

All this called for the study of everyday everyday morality, which fills and in its own way regulates the life of a huge mass of people; all this demanded from literature a lively intervention in current moral ideas in order to serve to correct and elevate them, to illuminate the serf untruth with the demands of justice and reason.

In his literary and theoretical views and in his own artistic practice, Ostrovsky follows this call.

To justify the accusatory and social-educational trend in literature, Ostrovsky dwells on the changeability of moral ideals, pointing out at the same time the consistent improvement of moral ideas, depending on the general progress in the culture of mankind. Ostrovsky correlates ideas about greatness and heroism or about the baseness and weakness of a person with the moral concepts of a certain historical time. The evaluatively uplifting or condemning light in which human qualities appear in various literary works in Ostrovsky's understanding is the result of the moral outlook and the moral level of the era and environment. His attention is drawn to such facts of literary history, where the changeability of moral-evaluative concepts appears most clearly and where the insufficiency of moral concepts determined by time is compensated by their further historical growth and rise.

477 Ostrovsky recalls that the heroes of Greek antiquity, Achilles and Odysseus, for the next time, largely lose their halo. On the other hand, the greatness of Socrates, indisputable for modern times, was not understood by his contemporaries and was ridiculed by Aristophanes. The valor of the medieval knight in its moral level for the subsequent time turned out to be unacceptable, but in its practical inapplicability it became ridiculous and eventually caused the comic image of Don Quixote.

“Antiquity,” writes Ostrovsky, “hoped to see a person in Achilles and Odysseus and was satisfied with these types, seeing in them a complete and elegant combination of those definitions that were then developed for a person and more than which the ancient world had not yet noticed anything in a person; on the other hand, the easy and graceful life of the Athenian, considering Socrates at its own yardstick, found him comical. The medieval hero was a knight, and the art of that time managed to gracefully combine Christian virtues in the perception of man with brutal bitterness against one's neighbor. The medieval hero walks with a sword in his hands to plant the meek truths of the Gospel; for him the holiday is not complete if, among the divine hymns, the screams of the innocent victims of fanaticism are not heard from the blazing fires. With a different view, the same hero fights with rams and mills ”449 *.

The idea of the historical relativity of moral concepts, the view of the literary type as a reflection of the ideological spirit of the era, the assessment of various ethical ideals in the light of their historical affiliation - all this echoes with Belinsky. It should be noted that the examples that Ostrovsky draws from the literature of the past, Achilles and Odysseus, Socrates and Aristophanes, medieval chivalry and Don Quixote, were also for Belinsky constant examples of the general idea of changing moral ideals in the history of mankind.

For their time, wrote Belinsky, Achilles and Odysseus, together with other heroes of the Iliad and Odyssey, were “full representatives of the national spirit” of Ancient Greece. Achilles is "a hero par excellence, 478 drenched from head to foot with an intolerable splendor of glory, a full representative of all sides of the spirit of Greece, a worthy son of a goddess" (V, 38). “Odysseus is the representative of wisdom in the sense of politics” (V, 38; cf. V, 325 - 326; VI, 20; VI, 589). With the views of modern times, the intrinsic value of their heroism has fallen. According to new concepts, the heroic merits of Achilles are already reduced by the fact that he performs his feats only thanks to the miraculous help of the goddess Athena, although, according to the concepts of his time, for Achilles there was nothing belittling about this (X, 388 - 389). The very content of Achilles' moral inspiration in many ways would not seem high to a modern person. “If,” wrote Belinsky, “in our time some warrior began to avenge his friend or brother who fell in an honest battle, slaughtering captured enemies on his grave, it would be a disgusting, soul-revolting atrocity; and in Achilles, who touches the shadow of Patroclus by killing disarmed enemies, this revenge is valor, for it came out of the mores and religious concepts of the society of his time ”(VI, 589).

The same is about Odysseus as a hero. “Odysseus is the apotheosis of human wisdom; but what is his wisdom? In cunning, often crude and flat, in what in our prosaic language is called "cheating." And yet, in the eyes of the infant people, this cunning could not but seem to be an extreme degree of possible wisdom ”(V, 34).

Speaking about Socrates, Belinsky especially put forward the idea that his fate had developed so sadly not from the particularly bad qualities of his enemies, but from those backward concepts that the wisdom of Socrates encountered and which were a common feature of the time. "His executioners, the Athenians," wrote Belinsky, "were not in the least dishonest or depraved, although they ruined Socrates." In particular, Aristophanes, who ridiculed Socrates in the comedy "Clouds", was not at all below the level of morality of his time. "Let's leave aside our kind and innocent textbooks and say frankly that the concept of the noblest and most moral person should be combined with the concept of Aristophanes." He was only to blame for the fact that he shared the general prejudices of his time and, seeing "the fall of the poetic beliefs of Homeric Greece," the motive action of Socrates ”(XIII, 132). Backward and incorrect concepts that hinder progress, for Belinsky, were more terrible than the evil will of individual people.

In the same relative non-coincidence of the old and the new, Belinsky also illuminated the image of Don Quixote. Don Quixote "is ridiculous precisely because he is an anachronism." The chivalry of the Middle Ages "with its enthusiastic concepts of honor, the dignity of privileged blood, love, courage, generosity, with its fanatical and superstitious religiosity" turned out to be inapplicable to the conditions of modern times and provoked a reaction against itself in the person of Don Quixote (VI , 613). “What is Don Quixote? “A man, generally intelligent, noble, with a lively and active nature, but who imagined that it would cost nothing to become a knight of the 12th century in the 16th century — you just have to want to” (VII, 123; cf. VI, 33-34).

In the progressive development of moral concepts, the moral transformative significance of literature for both Belinsky and Ostrovsky was thought to be that it helps to replace old dilapidated ideas with new ones, broader and more worthy of man as a rational being. “The public expects from art,” wrote Ostrovsky, “to be clothed in a lively, graceful form of its judgment over life, awaits the combination in full images of modern vices and shortcomings noticed in the century ... And art gives the public such images and thereby supports in it aversion from everything sharply defined, does not allow her to return to the old, already condemned forms, but forces ... to be more moral ”450 *.

The appeal to the depiction of reality, the recognition of public denunciatory and educational goals of art, the desire for everyday truth, the desire to understand and show a person in typical circumstances and conditions of his environment, attention to moral concepts that exist in practical everyday relations between people - all this is in many ways explains and characterizes the work of Ostrovsky in his ideological proximity to Belinsky. But all this still concerns only general premises and does not reveal the immediate problematic interest of the writer, the interest that sees the exciting contradictions of life, reveals the collision of opposing forces or aspirations, gives rise to anger, regret or joy, distributes the evaluative light over all facts and in the end determines the composition of the play in its conflict and movement.

This main, central defining and guiding interest in Ostrovsky consisted in his constant attention to the human personality, constrained in satisfying his natural light and best needs.

The revision of everyday relations from the point of view of the highest humanity to the greatest extent includes Ostrovsky in the ideological specifics of the 40s, linking him with the line of progressive thought that was created by Belinsky and Herzen.

In contrast to serf enslavement, the personality of a person was proclaimed by Belinsky and Herzen as the main criterion for all assessments. In the name of the individual in the field of philosophy, a protest was declared against Hegel's fatalism, which subordinates the individual to an abstract universal "objective spirit". In the name of personality, all moral norms were reassessed. In the name of the personality of the serf peasant, the manor landlord orders were subjected to trial. The revision of oppressive traditions in family morals and criticism of all forms of bureaucratic subordination were also carried out in the name of the individual.

The question of oppression was raised everywhere. In the progressive ideological movement of these years, the tasks summarized by Belinsky in a letter to V. Botkin dated January 15, 1841 were revealed and developed: “In general, all social foundations of our time require the strictest revision and radical restructuring, which will happen sooner or later. It is time to free the human personality, already unhappy, from the vile shackles of unreasonable reality ”(XII, 13).

In fiction, criticism of reality 481 was directed in defense of the oppressed "little man." The evil of serf life was everywhere reproduced by examples of the sad fate of an oppressed and suffering individual. This was the main ideological innovation of the progressive literature of the 40s. In Pushkin's "Station Keeper", in Gogol's "Overcoat", this was only the beginning of this. This theme could have received wide development only in the 40s as a result of the general anti-serfdom ideological movement, expressed in the protection of the rights of the oppressed individual.

In depicting the vicious sides of Russian reality, the center of gravity was shifted from the internal anatomy of the vice itself to its effective results and consequences for others. In "Village" and "Anton Goremyk", in the stories of Turgenev and poems by Nekrasov, in the novel "Who is to blame?" and the story "The Thief Forty" by Herzen, Saltykov's "Confused Case" depicts not only emptiness, spiritual limitation, well-fed, bored lordship, but also the fate of people who depend and suffer from them. Manifestations of spiritual limitation, vulgarity, moral stupidity and petty selfishness in any environment arouse interest in their effect on the life and human dignity of offended people. The entire literary outlook changed in this direction.

In connection with the development of the peasant liberation movement in the progressive thought of the 40s, much in Russian reality that existed before becomes visible and noticeable for the first time.

A new principle of criticism of reality is established. Observation of life is regulated by a new emphasis of creative attention in accordance with a different general cognitive and practical task. Develops susceptibility to all forms of oppression of the individual, including those serf moral ideas that contained the sources and justification of violence and neglect of man.

In the above-mentioned article by Herzen, "Whims and Reflections," there is an etude that perfectly shows a new initial principle in the observation of life, when in the very process of observation, the student's interest from the carriers of the vice moves to their victims. Having said about the necessity and importance of studying “family relations,” about the savagery and stupidity of domestic morals, 482 about the darkness and criminality of everyday moral concepts, Herzen concludes this as follows: “When I walk the streets, especially late in the evening, when everything is quiet, gloomy, and only here and there a night light is shining, a dying lamp, a dying candle - horror comes to me: behind every wall I see drama, behind every wall I can see hot tears - tears that no one knows about, tears of disappointed hopes - tears with which flow away not only youthful beliefs, but all human beliefs, and sometimes life itself. There are, of course, houses in which they eat and drink prosperously all day, grow obese and sleep soundly all night, and in such a house there will be at least some niece, oppressed, crushed, even a maid or a janitor, and certainly someone so salty live "451 *.

What was said about the viciousness of Russian life by Gogol did not in the least lose its relevance, but with new tasks it required replenishment.

Gogol was continued, developed, sharpened and clarified in what he had unclear or unsaid in humanistic conclusions.

Belinsky started Gogol's narration in this direction. Belinsky was fully aware of the "reticence" of Gogol's satire and sometimes, as much as possible under the conditions of censorship, he revealed that long-term plan, in which not only comic figures of vice, but also its tragic victims were supposed to be conceived.

In his review of Sovremennik, Nos. 11 and 12 (1838), Belinsky, explaining the importance of vivid, artistically typical details, gives the following example. “Do you remember,” he asks the reader, “how Major Kovalev rode in a cab on a newspaper expedition and, without ceasing to punch him in the back, said:“ Hurry, you scoundrel! hurry up, swindler! " And do you remember the short answer and objection of the cabman to these proddings: "Eh, sir!" - the words that he uttered, shaking his head and whipping his horse with the reins? the attitude of the cabbies towards the majors Kovalevs is quite expressed ”(III, 53).

483 In his article on Woe from Wit (1840), revealing the essence of the comic in The Inspector General, Belinsky did not forget to mention what tragic possibilities are contained in the ridiculous passions of the characters in this play.

On the basis of the comic dreams of the Gogol governor of the generals, Belinsky indicated what consequences could arise from such commanding inclinations. “Comedy has its passions, the source of which is ridiculous, but the results can be dire. According to the concept of our governor, to be a general means to see before oneself the humiliation and meanness of the lower ones, to oppress all non-generals with his arrogance and arrogance: to take horses from a person of an innocent or lesser rank, who has an equal right to them on his way; say brother and you to the one who speaks to him, your excellency and you, and so on. Become our governor general - and when he lives in a district town, woe to the little man if he, considering himself “not having the honor of being acquainted with Mr. General,” does not bow to him or at the ball does not give up his place, even this little man was preparing to be a great man! .. Then a tragedy for the "Little Man" could have emerged from the comedy "(III, 468).

Opposing the idyllic interpretation of Dead Souls by the Slavophiles, Belinsky wrote: “Konstantin Aksakov is ready to find all the heroes depicted in it as wonderful people ... This, in his opinion, means to understand Gogol's humor ... his brochure shows that he sees the Russian Iliad in Dead Souls 44. It means to understand Gogol's poem completely inside out. All these Manilovs and others like them are amusing only in the book, in reality, God forbid to meet with them - and not to meet with them, because they are enough in reality, therefore, they are representatives of some part of it. " Further, Belinsky formulates the general meaning of "Dead Souls" in his own understanding: "... true criticism should reveal the pathos of the poem, which consists in the contradiction of social forms of Russian life with its deep substantive beginning ..." the comic fact of the poem, suggests the tragic aspects of Russian life, which are suggested by this fact: "Why was the beautiful blonde woman smashed to tears when she did not even understand why she was being scolded" and so on. And then he finishes: “Many such questions can be asked. We know that most will regard them as petty. This is why the creation of "Dead Souls" is great, that in it life is hidden and dissected to the smallest detail, and a general meaning is attached to these trifles. Of course, some Ivan Antonovich, a jug snout, is very funny in Gogol's book and a very minor phenomenon in life; but if you happen to have something to do with him, then you will lose the desire to laugh at him, and you will not find him for small ones ... Why may he seem so important to you in life - that is the question! " (VI, 430 - 431).

General comments on ethical content articles published last year. - An article by Mr. Zavitnevich about the highest principle of public morality. - Mr. Shchukin's attempt to agree with the fashionable theory of aestheticism. - About the so-called. “Ascetic ailments” about Mr. Skabichevsky's article.

When reviewing articles of ethical content that have appeared in Russian journals over the past year, two observations suggest themselves. Firstly, one cannot fail to note the modernity of issues and topics that are in one way or another raised by both the secular and the spiritual press: most of the articles have a direct or indirect relationship to subjects that are, so to speak, of topical interest: capitalism and the labor question in the West (article Zavitnevich "On the highest beginning of public morality. Wanderer, August - September), modern social trends in the Russian intelligentsia (Russkaya Mysl, October - November, Art. Skabichevsky" Ascetic ailments in our modern progressive intelligentsia "), and socialism (article by arch Plato in the 11th book of the Proceedings of the Kiev Theological Academy) the question of war (Faith and Church, April, Art. Priest Galakhov "Christianity and War") about patriotism (Christian Reading, May, article by Prof. Bronzov, "Is patriotism reprehensible “), Modern pessimism (Faith and Church, article by priest Arseniev“ The main reason for modern pessimism ”), an attempt to reconcile Christianity and aestheticism (Faith and Church, 8 –10, V. Shchukin "Fundamentals of Christian aesthetic life"), essays on the moral views of just dead Russian thinkers - Vl. S. Soloviev and N. Ya. Grot (in Christian Reading, for November, an article by Prof. Bronzov "In memory of V. S. Soloviev. - A few words about his ethical views"; in Questions of Philosophy and Psychology, for January - February, article Eichenwald "Sketch of the ethical views of N. Ya. Groth"), polemic with anti-church morality gr. L. Tolstoy (in the Wanderer, for October and November, Borisovsky's article "Dogmatic Foundations of Christian Love") and Nietzsche's anti-Christian morality (ibid., For October, Nikolin's article, "On Humility" and in Christian Reading, for February - March, article Prof. Bronzova on the same subject) - these are the topics to which most of the articles are devoted. There remain relatively few of those who have no special relation to contemporary phenomena and interests; these are the articles: Archimandrite Sergius "On morality in general" (Christian Reading, December), Mirtov's "Moral ideal according to presentation" (ibid., April) prof. Bronzova "Several data for characterizing the moral worldview of the Monk Macarius of Egypt" (ibid., October), Voliva "Critical analysis of Spencer's ethical views" (Faith and Reason, Nos. 14 and 15), Lavrov "On the free will of man from a moral point of view" (ibid., no. 12-13) Theological "Teaching about conscience" - history and literature of the issue (Orthodox Interlocutor, September), Egorova "Christian moral teaching according to Martensen in comparison with Christian moral teaching according to Bishop Theophan" (ibid., February), prof. ... Chelpanov. "The moral system of utilitarianism, presentation and criticism" (Peace of God, October - November) and several articles standing in the middle between scientific, ethical and edifying literature. - Another fact, which is already striking in the list we have already made, is that in the development of ethical issues, spiritual journalism decisively holds the palm in comparison with secular journalism: meanwhile, in all secular magazines over the past year we will find only 2-3 articles on morality, almost every book of a theological journal contains one or even several articles that have, if not directly, then indirectly, to do with ethics. Of course, not all of them testify to the brilliant state of scientific research in this area, but the fact in itself testifies to the importance of ethical interests in the consciousness of the environment whose organs are spiritual journals. If we are not mistaken in this, then we think that the readers of The Theological Herald will not be uninteresting to dwell with us on some of the issues discussed in the periodical press.

1) V. Zavitnevich on the highest principle of public morality. (Wanderer, v. 8-9) The main task of the hostel, according to Mr. Zavitnevich, is the reconciliation of personal freedom and social unification of many individuals in a common life: a person is by nature freedom-loving and selfish, society, according to the very conditions of its existence, requires limiting individual aspirations. The history of society is the history of experiments - in one way or another to reconcile these two, apparently, fundamentally hostile principles. Eastern despotism solves the issue in a crudely simplified way, sacrificing personal freedom to the representative of social unity. Rome wants to achieve the required reconciliation through legal definitions that establish precise boundaries for personal freedom, leaving it inviolable within these boundaries. But even this solution to the question turned out to be illusory: “forced at every step of his life to cope with the form of the law, the Roman ceased to cope with the voice of his conscience”, as a result of which “internal freedom was replaced by external one”. In order for “a person, limited in their actions, to feel free, it is necessary that they set boundaries for themselves in the name of higher moral motives, resting on an absolute basis,” and not be limited only by outright legal prescriptions. This very condition is satisfied by the solution to the problem that it offers. Christianity considers the principle of love to be the basis of social relations, which equally satisfies both personal and social requirements. The charm of true love lies in the fact that it, demanding well-known sacrifices from a person, immediately rewards them with inner satisfaction. This eudemonistic element, “softening the severity of moral exploit,” makes it possible to reconcile egoism and altruism, individual and social principles in one and the same act. However, the two principles so approximated are not made equal and one of them is given preference over the other; it is not difficult to understand why this is happening: altruism is the principle that unites and creates, which determines the life of the whole; egoism, on the other hand, is the principle that dismembers and determines the life of the parts, of which the whole is composed. “In the life of a social organism, as well as in the life of a physical organism, the triumph of the egoistic beginning, the beginning of individualism, would entail the destruction of the whole, which is noticed every time this beginning triumphs."

This is the highest principle of social life. Turning to modern Western society, which gave rise to the author's reasoning, Mr. Zavitnevich states that it is not at all inclined to be guided by Christian principles in its life. Christian principles remain almost completely alien to the entire social development of Europe. The history of public life here begins with the boundless arbitrariness of the individual in the form of “fist law”; the latter is replaced, in the form of reaction, by monarchical absolutism, which in turn is giving way to revolution in the sphere of ecclesiastical and political; The democratic principles that triumphed in this way liberate the individual, but this freedom soon disappears under the pressure of capitalism and turns into the gravest slavery. The incredible economic progress of the last period, on the one hand, gave birth to a class of the rich, on the other, it bred poverty and hunger, lowering wages and depriving the mass of the working people of earnings; the boundless power of some, miserable vegetation and mass extinction of others - a position that is far from agreeing with the requirements of the well-being of society; The shamelessness of the first preaching the cynical morality of oppressing the weak under the banner of Darwin's scientific principles, the quite understandable irritation of the latter, aggravate relations, increase the criticality of the situation, and Europe is again ready to become the arena of a terrible struggle for the personal freedom of the majority oppressed by a more powerful minority. The horror of the situation is increasing, and in part is created by the fact that Europe is as far as possible from where the only way out of the difficulty lies - from the Christian principles of social life. Why does it depend?

Two historical facts lead the author to the answer he is looking for. In the era of troubled times, the Russian people, in order to restore state unity, turn to the Christian principles of unity, love and self-denial on a church-religious basis, as evidenced by the content of historical monuments. A similar situation was experienced by Germany in the era of the great interregnum (1254-1273), when the beginnings of legality apparently completely disappeared under the onslaught of the predatory instincts of the violent knights; however, the means of fighting evil turned out to be quite different here; it was “Holy Them”, for which a dagger and a rope served as symbols, and of which the folk tradition has preserved the most terrible memory; the restored imperial power also uses the same means. The difference is not accidental; it is rooted in the very character of peoples. The basic character of the two peoples was reflected even earlier in their adoption of Christianity in their epic people. The ideal of the Germans was expressed in their teaching about Valhalla - the palaces of Odin, where the souls of heroes flock after death. Here “every morning they go out, accompanied by Odin, to the battle, divide into parties and chop each other as long as they can; by evening, the severed limbs grow together, the wounds heal so that the next day you can do the same exercise again. " Thus, the ecstasy of battle, bloodshed - these are the national ideals of Germany. Meanwhile, the most ancient historical legends and epic legends testify to a completely opposite direction of the Slavic-Russian ideals. So the father of Ilya Muromets, letting his son go, gives him the following instructions:

I will give you a blessing for good deeds,

And there is no blessing for a poor deed.

You will go by the way and by the way

Do not think evil against the Tatar,

Do not kill a Christian in an open field.

The Russian person is peaceful by his very nature, while the German, on the contrary, is “by nature a robber”. This is the source of the struggle and violence that characterize the history of ecclesiastical, political, material and cultural life in the West. “Now it is easy to understand, the author concludes, why the law of Christian love could not become the guiding principle of the life of European society: this could not happen because the law of love was in direct conflict with the life principle of the German-national element, characterized by an exorbitant riot of a person who did not know how to believe limits to the arbitrariness of their egoism. "

Mr. Zavitnevich's article reveals undoubted signs of scientific and literary talent. But the favorable impression from her is largely weakened by the author's historical strains. The reader already from the above presentation could not help but notice that they are mainly conditioned by Slavophil tendencies. Only a one-sided enthusiasm can excuse the strange misunderstanding into which Mr. Zavitnevich falls, asserting that the Germans (West Europeans) are by their very nature thugs and robbers, and that Western Europe remained almost uninvolved with the Christian element in its social culture. Let us take into account that this is said about a society that for more than 1000 years has professed not only with its lips, but also with its heart, about the society that raised Sts. Francis and Vincent, Howard, Pestalotsi, Victor Hugo with his "Unhappy", Dunant, Jeanne Jugan, Father Damien, Gladstone, whole ranks of disinterested fighters for lofty Christian ideals, about a society whose entire historical development has so far tended to ensure that to come to the aid of the powerless, helpless and weak, in which a grandiose network of charitable institutions has long been formed and in our time sometimes the private charity of one city has the budget of an entire small state - about a society where almost every literary work speaks of Christian influence, where even opponents Christianity can rarely free itself from the power of Christian ideas and feelings. Of course, with all this, there remains the opportunity to regret that Western society is still very far from being completely Christian, that it has not realized Christian ideals even approximately - one can regret this, but not look here for reasons for our national self-esteem - and this is not even out of Christian humility, but simply because we do not have factual data, we have no right. According to Mr. Zavitnevich, our very national nature is destined for the better, in comparison with the West, the assimilation of Christian principles. If this is true, then it is all the worse for us that we are still burying our talents in the ground and have not done anything yet to carry out such a high mission: is it really possible, in fact, to give at least one serious proof that our social life far ahead of the West in the implementation of Christian ideals ?! And is the very idea of our special vocation, supposedly inherent in the very national character, really so firmly grounded? If the position that a German is by nature a "robber" and "cut-throat" does not even need refutation, then on the other hand, some special peacefulness of the Slavs in any case needs solid proof, although perhaps it should not be denied that that the Slav in general, and in particular the Russian, is somewhat more peaceful than the German. Let us recall the Baltic Slavs, who terrified the neighboring Germans with their ferocity and bloodthirstiness, which caused panic by the Slavs' raids on Byzantium), we recall the Novgorod volunteers, who considered robbery a noble occupation, the Novgorod massacres, which hitherto flourishing in many parts of our God-saved fatherland with human fist victims the lovely legacy of the pre-Petrine Russia so beloved by the Slavophiles, let us recall further that the dawn of history finds our Russia in the form of numerous clans and tribes constantly at war with each other, that with the establishment of a political system, this clan and tribal enmity is replaced by endless and bloody strife ... this, it seems, is quite enough to doubt the absolute opposition of the Germanic and Slavic-Russian national types. In view of this, it is not at all surprising if the ancient Western chroniclers characterize the Slavs with approximately the same features that some Russian historians attribute to the ancient Germans. So Helmold (XII century), enjoying a reputation as an observant and conscientious chronicler), writes: "The Slavs are innate insatiable indomitable ferocity, which inflicted death on the neighboring peoples on land and at sea." Í. Zavitnevich is touched by the fact that in a troubled era the Russian people united to defend against the enemy, and he contrasts this with a similar fact from the history of the West. But there is nothing too touching in the fact that only the consciousness of the common danger united Russia. If we look into the matter better, we will see that between the two facts there is no longer such a striking opposition as Mr. Zavitnevich finds. There is no doubt that in Germany in the interregnum, the consciousness of internal danger also united the friends of order and peace. The author complains that they fought the enemies of the world by means of a gallows and a dagger. But did the Russian people, united by the consciousness of danger, go against their enemy with open arms, and not with a spear and a sword ?! The methods of struggle, therefore, were the same, only some fought against external enemies, while others with internal ones, which, as Mr. Zavitnevich well knows, were in no way better than external ones. But did the restored imperial power treat the rioters very badly? As if the Russian authorities throughout our history did nothing but pat their opponents on the head affectionately! Should we blame the West in this case, when we have in our history the blessed memory of Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich, who left far behind him all the sovereigns of Western Europe in eradicating "sedition" - not real, but only imaginary? ! Despite all this, as we said above, perhaps one should not dispute the thoughts about the relative peacefulness of the Russian people. But the conditions for the assimilation and implementation of the Christian ideals of social life are not contained in peacefulness alone; Probably, for this we need other, more active qualities, and only when it is proved to us that in these qualities, Russia is superior to Western Europe, we, perhaps, will believe in our historical destiny, about which Mr. Zavitnevich speaks.

We have seen how the author's Slavophile inclinations prevent him from impartially evaluating historical facts. This, however, does not prevent us from treating with sincere sympathy such views of Mr. Zavitnevich, which remain correct regardless of one or another attitude to historical facts. For example, I will focus on the following judgments of the author about the relationship between Christian and state-legal principles. “In contrast to the state, which is based on a formal legal basis, there is a predominantly moral institution. A person who sincerely enters the Church renounces his selfishness in advance and expresses his readiness to voluntarily submit to the guidance of the Spirit of God, who lives in the unity of human convictions, in the unity of consciences. The Church does not rule out the possibility of disagreement; but she does not allow enmity because of this disagreement .... There is no room in the Church for violence, for the simple reason that violent measures with their action cannot penetrate into the area that the Church owns. In the sphere of the inner life of the spirit, by violence one can create hypocrisy, falsehood, deception; but one cannot create an honest, sincere conviction. That is why the use of violent measures in the religious sphere is an unmistakable sign that the purity of the Christian consciousness has begun to become cloudy, and the church principle has begun to give way to the state principle. The goal of the highest ideal aspirations of the Church in relation to the state is to assimilate it according to its own laws, to saturate it with its own spirit, that is, to replace the formal legal relations of its members with moral ones. Until the Church has achieved this, she, as far as possible, should stay away from the state, strictly observing the purity of her moral foundations. The penetration of the Church by the state principle is death for the Church “(The Wanderer, August, pp. 533-534). It would not hurt to remember this to those of our theologians who are striving to turn theology itself into ancilla civitatis. State-legal order is basically a consequence of the fact that society is not yet sufficiently imbued with Christian principles; they are the result of the limitation of Christian ideals by the insurmountable demands and conditions of historical life; therefore, whoever defends them in the name of Christian ideals is doing a very disservice to Christianity, because this cannot be achieved otherwise than through a systematic belittling of the lofty ideal of Christianity. A well-deserved punishment for this kind of morality of adaptation is the curious situation in which it puts itself, linking its fate with the transient fate of certain state-legal concepts and legalizations. So, for example, prof. Olesnitsky, in his system of Christian morality, says that women can be allowed to occupy positions - a national teacher, a teacher of some subjects in the lower grades of female gymnasiums, a children's and female doctor, telegraph operator and factory workers). But let us imagine that after three years women will be allowed to teach not only in the lower classes, but also in the upper grades of women's gymnasiums and not only some, but all subjects, and now Mr. Olesnitsky's moral "outlook" will become outdated. Of course, few theologians go so far as to adapt Christian morality to the existing order. However, many people run the risk of being in a similar position ...

2) V.V.Schukin. Foundations of Christian aesthetic life. (Faith and the Church, Vol. 8-10). Mr. Shchukin's article can be considered a sign of the times in the sense that the author, to a certain extent, adheres to the fashionable point of view of contemporary aestheticism. It is known that representatives of this trend, having thrown overboard the morality of serving their neighbors, which is unbearable for worn-out natures, are looking for the highest meaning of life in aesthetics, in enjoying the beautiful, in elegant taste, and in the center of attention, instead of neighbors, as the old social morality requires, is their own. I “- with his aesthetic sensations, delights and raptures. Thus, aestheticism naturally merges with individualism, which seeks to replace altruistic ethics. Of course, Mr. Shchukin is far from promoting aestheticism and individualism in the form preached by modern decadents and Nietzscheans, but in his article one cannot fail to recognize attempts to adapt fashionable points of view to Christianity. - The basis of human life and activity, argues Mr. Shchukin, is the pursuit of happiness. The problem of happiness is the main issue of religion, philosophy, science, aesthetics. It is clear that there is, first of all, a solution to the question of happiness. Assuming the highest bliss of man in union with God, which will come only in the future life, Christianity does not exclude the possibility of approaching future happiness already here on earth, but it does not indicate a definite path for this, giving only general principles with the help of which a Christian must “himself find and define the true meaning of a happy earthly life. " It is this task that Mr. Shchukin undertakes. There are supposedly two directions in the solution of this question - the idealistic and the materialistic; the first recommends to a person exclusively mental pleasures, the second - exclusively sensual, physiological (the author Nietzsche turns out to be its most typical representative! In general, Mr. Shchukin's historical classification is absolutely fantastic). But since none of these directions in their one-sidedness is capable of satisfying a person, both extremes lead him to pessimism, to disappointment in happiness. But “if two extreme paths - the path of increased tension of intellectual forces and one-sided satisfaction of the elemental needs of the body - lead a person to internal decay,” then “there remains a third, not negative, but positive way of reconciling them by combining intellectual and physical needs in a harmonious set of them. ... ... The area in which the intellectual and spontaneous, or physical, aspects of a human being must naturally balance and reconcile is the aesthetic area. " Thus, seeing in aesthetics the “only suitable” means for achieving positive happiness, the author analyzes aesthetic contemplation and aesthetic creativity, discovering in them the elements of the highest spiritual satisfaction and bliss. It is precisely this aesthetic bliss that the author wants to make the focal point of a Christian's life, putting art and aesthetics in connection with the religious Christian life and showing that the highest and complete aesthetic pleasure is possible only on the basis of a Christian mood. Aesthetic contemplation and aesthetic creativity demand from a person a detachment from selfishness and from worldly vanity, require spiritual purification and self-absorption - all this is precisely what Christianity requires. With the assistance of the latter, the author wants to make a person's entire life a continuous aesthetic pleasure. But in order to become the highest principle of life, aesthetics must have its basis in religious Christian metaphysics. Therefore, the author tries to establish a parallel between the aesthetic life of man and the life of the Divine Himself. According to Mr. Shchukin, contemplation and creativity serve equally as signs of both the aesthetic life of a person and an absolute divine life (in confirmation of the latter, the biblical sayings are cited: “God create heaven and earth”, “and see God all, create the tree: and behold good is exceedingly "), and its basis both in the Divine and in man is love for oneself," expressed in self-delight in one's own perfection. " The conclusion from this is very clear: only in the aesthetic life does man live the life of the Divine Himself.

In some places, Mr. Shchukin's psychological analysis can be called rather subtle and successful, and his private thoughts, especially where he speaks about the significance of the Christian mood for aesthetic life, deserve full attention. But the sad impression is produced by the fact that the author's article, as already mentioned, is to a large extent a reflection of a decomposing, antisocial decadent fad. To place the focus of attention on aesthetic self-gratification, in any subtle form, is to sin against the vital social and practical ideals of genuine Christianity, instead of healthy and normal activities, to preach a supposedly Christian, sugary and unhealthy opinion. The tendency in the fashionable directions of our time to put feeling in the place of activity is the result of spiritual fatigue or degeneration, worn out nerves, in general practical unsuitability, and it is sad to see how this sick atmosphere begins to penetrate even the theological press. No one, of course, will deny the importance of art in human life, but trying to fill our whole life with it without a trace is like as if we decided to make a dinner of nothing but cakes; this would be a perversion of the normal meaning and purpose of aesthetics. Aesthetic delight is a great thing, because it refreshes spiritual forces, raises energy, inspires high deeds; This meaning is fully consistent with the fleetingness of the aesthetic impressions that so sadden Mr. Shchukin, and which he wants to reduce to the abnormality and depravity of human nature, while the real abnormality lies not at all in this fleetingness of aesthetic delight, but in the desire to artificially stretch it over the entire a life that can give rise to nothing but a painful anguish. It must be remembered that feeling, whatever it may be, is only a companion of activity and should never leave this role; therefore, as soon as they begin to assign an independent place to it, as a result of the distortion of the normal relationship of the elements of life, the latter inevitably receives an ugly direction.

3) A. M. Skabichevsky, Ascetic ailments in our modern progressive intelligentsia (Russian Thought, book X-XI). An article by Mr. Skabichevsky was written about three novels previously published in Russian magazines (Letkova's "Dead Swell" - in Rus. Thoughts for 1897, Yeltsova's "In another's nest" - in Novy Slovo for 1897 and Barvenkova"Expanse" - in Russian Bogatstvo for 1900); but by its content and character it does not at all belong to the number of bibliographic reviews, and is of broader and more general interest than an occasional literary critical review. The author devotes half of the article to revealing and substantiating his views on asceticism, which he then tries to confirm by analyzing these novels. Even without sharing the views of the author, one cannot but recognize them as interesting and deserving full attention from people interested in ethical issues. Moreover, in spite of their one-sidedness, they do not at all represent a continuous delusion, but are only the fruit of an incorrect generalization, extending the signs of one part of a certain kind of phenomena to their entire area.

According to modern usage, shared by the majority, the words asceticism and ascetic indicate a monk indulging in religious ecstasy and exploits of self-destruction. This kind of understanding of asceticism, according to Mr. Skabichevsky, is very narrow and is accepted only by tradition, without an independent analysis of the phenomena of life. A deeper look at the matter leads to the conviction that asceticism is not an exclusive and inalienable belonging to any religion, philosophical school, or a certain degree of spiritual development; he is nothing more than a special kind of mental illness, inherent in people of the most varied degrees of development, the most diverse views, beliefs and convictions. With its periodic nature, it resembles an intermittent fever, or better yet, drunkenness. It is very possible that hard drinking is precisely the lowest degree of asceticism. Healthy people always treat wine in the same way, they always love it or dislike it in the same way: on the contrary, among drunken drunkards, an irresistible desire for wine is replaced by an irresistible disgust for it. “We notice the same change of two periods in people subject to asceticism: spiritual ecstasies are correctly replaced by sensual ones, and in both cases we are not dealing with normal moods that healthy and balanced people experience, but with ecstasies that sometimes reach complete insanity. " Approaching drunken drunkenness in its symptoms, asceticism also has reasons in common with binge: “the majority of ascetic diseases are rooted in dissatisfaction with life, oppression of any kind ... if at the same time all hopes and bright illusions are still being lost. and there is a consciousness of the hopelessness of the situation. " In a word, these are the same reasons that, with less culture, give rise to a tendency to binge. This also shows that all asceticism is invariably associated with pessimism. Ascetic diseases arising on the basis of pessimistic attitudes are not limited to sporadic cases, but very often take on an epidemic character, covering entire countries and nations; it depends on the general conditions of life, conducive to a gloomy pessimistic mood. It was in such conditions that Russia was from the very beginning of its existence. The whole nature of our country in general - harsh, dull and meager - disposed to a gloomy outlook on life; besides, Byzantium turned out to be our enlightener too, with its complete disintegration of the entire social order, the predominance of monasticism and gloomy ascetic ideals. It is not surprising, therefore, that Russia became “the nursery of every kind of asceticism,” which preached renunciation of all the fleeting joys of life and sinful temptations. The extreme alienation from Europe even more asserted the ascetic ideals in the minds of the Russian people, finally bringing them to a panic fear of the slightest manifestation of merriment, joy, enjoyment of the gifts of life. So, for example, by decrees of 1648, it was forbidden, under the threat of exile to distant cities, to sing songs, not only in the streets and in the fields, but also at home; it was forbidden to laugh, joke and idle talk; to converge on any show, games and dances, to play cards and chess, etc. This ascetic trend prevailed in Russia right up to the Peter's reforms, when a reaction comes against the extremes of asceticism. That is why the Peter's era is characterized by an unprecedented explosion of cheerfulness and revelry of flesh. The government no longer forbids amusement; it even prescribes them under the threat of fines, disgrace and shameful ridicule: feasts and assemblies with incessant dances and all kinds of madness, masquerades, popular festivities with music, merry-go-rounds, fireworks, noisy street processions of a satirical-comic or Bacchic nature, “the most ridiculous cathedral and “Led by Peter himself - all this was an inevitable reaction against the ascetic fanaticism, suspecting“ evil and death in every innocent smile of a young life ”. But caused by social illness, this outburst of merriment was not itself a healthy phenomenon; it was a febrile seizure, which was to be replaced by a depression of mood again; the ascetic trend was too deeply rooted in Russian national life, entered the flesh and blood of the Russian people and therefore could not be eradicated at once. The subsequent history of the Russian people gives the best confirmation of this, representing a constant change of two moods: ascetic-pessimistic and cheerful, falling on reactionary and progressive epochs. A new and mighty stream of fun that burst into the reign of Catherine is replaced by the gloomy reaction of Pavlov's reign. The era of Alexander I sharply splits into two periods: the light and cheerful period of Speransky and the gloomy and ascetic period of Arakcheev. During the reign of the imp. Nicholas I, asceticism and mysticism finally take possession of the public mood. The end of the 50s and 60s was characterized by the rise of social consciousness again, expressed in general jubilation and merriment. But in the 70s and 80s this mood is again replaced by ascetic despondency, repentant motives, enslavement of the flesh to the spirit; repentant nobles, puny, dull, nervously unscrewed, who thought about themselves a lot, but in fact turned out to be incapable of anything, imposed on themselves unbearable epithemias for the sins of their fathers and paying the debt to the people. ... Young men appeared, leaving universities along with the hateful science and, like the missionaries of the first centuries of Christianity, set off to preach advanced European ideas among the dark and illiterate working masses. A different kind of young men and even elders appeared, who put on a peasant's dress, studied agricultural work, and, denying urban culture, science and art, decided to devote their whole lives to agriculture, and for this purpose they were hired as farm laborers to wealthy peasants. " In the 90s, the opposite trend begins again: our intelligentsia is tired of worrying about our lower brothers, about paying an unpaid debt, sacrificing themselves for unrealizable ideas, dressing in a sermyag and bast shoes and depriving themselves of all the joys of life. An irrepressible, purely spontaneous desire to take a break from the painful tension of the nerves arose, and now the young intelligentsia embarked on careerism, sportsmanship, selfless burning of life; young people, by their very age inclined to love and self-sacrifice, are carried away by the same callousness as by the controversial doctrine of Marxism, the children of people-lovers begin to worship Nietzsche's inhuman aristocratic ideas.

G. Skabichevsky understands asceticism so broadly that the reader may wonder whether the author does not deny in principle any self-denial, whether he declares any deeds of love a painful phenomenon, replacing them with the cult of personal pleasure and fun. The author himself, however, foresaw this bewilderment and is trying to prevent it; according to him, he is far from calling any altruism and unselfish enthusiasm for the idea as asceticism. You cannot call an ascetic enthusiast who, surrendering to certain disinterested inclinations, does not at all believe that such hobbies contain the whole goal, the entire content of life, and does not consider all the other needs of human nature, “like love for a wife and children, enjoying music, theatrical performances , conversations with friends over a bottle of wine, etc. for something so reprehensible, criminal, from which a person who does not want to destroy his soul should be abandoned once and for all. " So the author rises to defend the trampled rights of pleasure, joy and happiness, and precisely personal egoistic happiness, sensual pleasures. The author mentions with amusing indignation that Konstantin Aksakov died a virgin, with a sad look he speaks of the small number of cafes-shantans and barrel-organ in modern Petersburg and with sincere enthusiasm describes the bir-galle of the 60s “with vast halls that could accommodate thousands of crowds, with billiards, skittles, roulettes, bingo, dominoes "and the then St. Petersburg streets, on which" organ organs howled everywhere, sometimes with drums, monkeys, bagpipes creaked, harmonicas groaned, wandering orchestras thundered in the courtyards, rakemen showed the city of Paris, behind striped screens he carried children and adults to hell, to the delight of children and adults, and acrobats in shiny tights showed their somersaults on the carpets spread over the pavement. " All these pictures, a little over the edge of the tavern's merriment, captivate Mr. Skabichevsky immeasurably more than that holy spirit, that noble, and certainly not always painful, enthusiasm with which, until recently, masses of young people went to serve the lesser brethren. But here we must remind Mr. Skabichevsky that he is carried away to the detriment of his own theory: after all, those outbursts of merriment that he likes so much, according to his theory, are only a painful reaction, this is one of the alternating paroxysms; why such injustice - such condescension to one paroxysm and harsh condemnation of another? G. Skabichevsky demands equal rights of physical and spiritual pleasures, selfishness and altruism, although it is not entirely clear where exactly his ideal is - in the vulgar bourgeois happiness that awaited Freda with Pierre (in Barvenkova's novel "Expanse"), about which he speaks in such a sympathetic tone , whether in miserable mediocrity, which so knows how to be balanced, or in those historical personalities who "equally strongly colossally" manifest themselves, "both in great exploits of an altruistic nature, and in the satisfaction of egoistic passions" (book. X, p. 32). If the former, then it is too insulting for humanity; if the latter, then how is it healthier and better than the alternating ascetic paroxysms so condemned by Mr. Skabichevsky? But no matter how one understands this equality of sensuality and spirit, not a single noble moral worldview will ever reconcile with it: personal and in particular even sensual joys can be of great importance if they support the energy and vigor of spiritual forces, but give them an independent place in life means endangering what the best part of humanity has always seen as the only task truly and fully worthy of man - his spiritual aspirations and ideals. It goes without saying that among these worldviews it takes the first place; therefore, it is extremely strange to see Mr. Skabichevsky's confidence that Christ preached precisely his ideals. According to Mr. Skabichevsky, the attitude of Christ's teaching to the joys and pleasures of life is excellently portrayed by the words of Arsenoi in Merezhkovsky's novel The Outcast: “Those who torment their flesh and soul in the desert, she says, are far from the meek son of Mary. He loved children and freedom, and the merriment of feasts, and lush white lilies. " It is quite true that Christ was not a persecutor of joy and beauty, but if Mr. Skabichevsky, apparently sympathetic to the teaching of Christ, wants to impose on Him his idea of the equality of sensibility and spirit, selfishness and altruism, then this only shows that Christ's teaching is for him terra incognita; Mr. Skabichevsky either does not know or forgets that the teaching of Christ, for all its cheerfulness, is the preaching of cross-bearing and self-denial, and not of selfish and sensual pleasures, that the same Christ who loved lilies and feasts, however, called upon "to destroy his soul" for the sake of higher spiritual tasks. G. Skabichevsky opposes to asceticism the Christian teaching of love, peace, meekness, humility, gentleness, etc. (Book X, p. 22). But was everything that Mr. Skabichevsky mercilessly condemns under the name of asceticism alien to this spirit of love, peace, gentleness, etc.? Was not, for example, the Monk Sergius filled more than anyone else with humility, love and gentleness? Was it not love that inspired the majority of the Narodniks in the service of the lesser brethren? Is it not love that prompts Maria Pavlovna into the novel by gr. Tolstoy's "Resurrection" completely go into charity, forgetting about personal happiness? It is clear by itself that all this does not in the least interfere with cheerfulness: true satisfaction is achieved by a person not by the pursuit of pleasures and pleasures, and least of all for physical pleasures, but by selfless love. Therefore, self-denial, if it is not a fit of diseased nerves (that this actually happens, is beyond doubt), it is not a sign of decay, but of its strength, a wealth of inner content, which is cramped within the narrow framework of egoism, and which therefore seeks to pour out through towards known objective goals. But in Mr. Skabichevsky's opinion, the satisfaction that arises on this basis is suspicious, dangerous, because it always threatens to turn into a paroxysm of unbridled sensuality. This, of course, should be the way according to the theory of Mr. Skabichevsky, but is this always the case in reality? In order to answer this, let us turn to the facts with the help of which Mr. Skabichevsky wants to prove his theory.

According to Mr. Skabichevsky, the characteristic symptom of asceticism is the correct alternation of spiritual and sensual ecstasy. His reference to the history of Russian social life, to a certain extent, can apparently serve as a confirmation of this view. But first, we will find fluctuations in public sentiment everywhere and always; therefore, it is rather risky to see in such fluctuations a sign of intermittent illness. Moreover, social psychopathology is too little developed to make such decisive and bold diagnoses in this area as Mr. Skabichevsky makes. Therefore, to test his views, it is best to turn to the individual facts that he cites. In this case, the only example that unconditionally confirms his theory will be John the Terrible, who periodically switched “from unbridled orgies of drunkenness and debauchery to tearful repentance, when, together with his entourage, he locked himself in some monastery and there, dressed in monastic vestments, put earthly bows ... and indulged in all kinds of torture of the flesh. " There is no doubt that Ivan the Terrible was a typical representative of that very morbid asceticism, about which Mr. Skabichevsky speaks; but on the grounds that this undoubtedly morally upset man was a sick ascetic, to suspect illness of any renunciation of joy and happiness in the name of higher ideals is the same as recognizing all religiosity as a sign of mental illness just because some epileptics are prone to bouts of morbid religiosity. G. Skabichevsky is also right that the striving for ascetic deprivation for their own sake, without any higher practical goals, if not always, then very often characterizes a well-known nervous defect, which then threatens to manifest itself in an unexpected reaction, but he is in vain everywhere looking for this it is a pathological phenomenon when a matter is explained and apart from it from motives that do not contain anything painful. Of course, there is something abnormal in the fact that Zina Chernova (in Yeltsova's novel In Another's Nest), for some unknown reason and in the name of what, exhausts her flesh, in order to then throw herself into the arms of the first rogue; but if it were not for this aimless exhaustion of the flesh, if it were not for the painful exaltation visible in her, then we would not have the right to see the “ascetic ailment” neither in the fact that she is carried away by dreams of self-sacrifice, nor even in the fact that she gives herself up vulgar heartthrob; the latter, of course, is sad, but in itself does not yet belong to the field of pathology. We think, finally, that even for Zina Chernova, for all the exaltation of her nature, this life lesson will not be in vain, so that her moral revival, about which Ms. Yeltsova speaks, does not threaten a new "ascetic ailment" at all. But if Zina Chernova to some extent speaks in favor of Mr. Skabichevsky, then Letkova's novel Dead Swell is no longer suitable for him. The representative of the "ascetic ailment" here turns out to be Lyolya - the main heroine of the novel, on whose behalf, in the form of her diary, the whole story is being kept. Raised by a populist mother in the ascetic ideals of self-sacrifice and service to the people, Lyolya falls in love with a handsome, somewhat limited, but kind officer - Vladimir Barmin, who does not know any lofty questions, and marries him, despite the protests of her mother; soon, however, Lyolya begins to feel bored with her husband, who does not satisfy her spiritual needs; here the shabby esthete Lvov turns up with his beautiful and pseudo-original phrases, with the cult of beauty and higher individuality, I Lelia, carried away by him, leaves my husband; but soon, however, this new happiness with a loved one, who, moreover, discovered himself from the most repulsive sides, begins to weigh on the heroine, and she, having comprehended the emptiness and unsatisfactoriness of a purely personal, egoistic existence, returns to the ideals of her mother. True, this short retelling can give the impression that Lyolya confirms Mr. Skabichevsky's theory in the best possible way, but upon a closer look at the matter it turns out that it has nothing to do with this theory. Raised in the ideals of self-sacrifice and herself taking some part in “serving the people,” Lelia falls in love with a handsome officer - this is the first manifestation of an ascetic ailment. But in order for the fact to be able to confirm the views of Mr. Skabichevsky, it would be necessary to show that we are dealing with two alternating ecstasies, yet we do not find this main feature here. Quite the opposite: Lyolya never completely, with all her soul, devoted herself to the “paroxysm” of self-sacrifice; Serving the people and, in general, her mother's cause did not satisfy her from the very beginning, and she always felt in herself a thirst for personal happiness, which at the first opportunity was reflected in the fact that Lyolya fell in love with a handsome and healthy officer without high spiritual aspirations. All this is so common, simple and normal that excursions into the field of psychopathology would apparently be completely inappropriate here. But let's go further. A few years later, Lele gets bored with her husband, who is completely unable to understand her, and she leaves with the decadent Lvov; it turns out that here again there is a "ascetic ailment": in this case, odd as this terminology is, we can rightfully blame any betrayal of a wife on her husband, and vice versa, on an ascetic illness. The husband does not satisfy the spiritual needs of his wife, and she leaves with another, who captivates her with the cult of beauty, graceful phrases, refined taste - this is an “ascetic ailment”. If it happened the other way around, that is, if the sophistication of taste was on the side of the husband, and the advantages of healthy physical beauty on the side of Lvov, then Lyolya's betrayal could again be interpreted as a manifestation of an ascetic ailment. Since, further, all adultery in marriage already in itself testifies to the lack of complete satisfaction of one of the spouses with the other, we get a mathematically accurate conclusion - that all adultery comes from an "ascetic ailment". How little this fact from Lyolya's biography fits the views of Mr. Skabichevsky, it is easy to understand, of course, from the fact that there is no change of physical and spiritual paroxysms, but only one physical attraction is replaced by another, also physical: Lvov only managed to touch Lyolya's sensibility from a new side and they themselves eventually come to realize that their attraction was based on physiology. But maybe, finally, the ascetic ailment affected, at least, in the fact that Lyolya returns to the mother's ideals, forgotten for some time? From what we saw above, it is already possible to understand how correct it is to apply the data of psychiatry to the case. We know that in Löhl there have always been two opposite inclinations: the desire for self-sacrifice and the thirst for personal happiness; according to her own explanation, she inherited the first from her mother, the last from her father. This means that she did not suffer from intermittent painful paroxysms, and the whole point is that her life turned out in such a way that she could not reconcile these two needs at once, and one can hope that, having finally tasted all the bitterness of the so-called. personal happiness, she will no longer renounce altruistic ideals, but will be able to merge them into one whole with a purely personal life. Are there many people who immediately find their true path in life, who do not suffer from dichotomy, from the struggle of opposing impulses? To search everywhere for traits of pathology in this means to recognize as normal only the equilibrium of a well-built machine and in it to find the highest ideal of man. - So, “Lyolya turned out to be completely unsuitable for the theory of Mr. Skabichevsky; however, this is only half of the failure. In the same novel, he has to reckon with a direct refutation of his theory, which he quite sensibly ignores. It seems rather strange, in fact, that Mr. Skabichevsky stops his attention on a heroine, which in essence has nothing to do with his views, and completely forgets about a typical ascetic from his point of view, such as Lyolya's mother, who has completely gone into the service of the people and has forgotten about personal happiness. It would seem that, if somewhere, then it is here that we must look for intermittent paroxysms; a certain purely female narrowness inherent in Nastasya Petrovna, which manifests itself in excessive pedantry, severity and sometimes even a little comic reasoning, it would seem from the point of view of Mr. Skabichevsky, should have exacerbated the transitions to rampant sensual passions. However, do we see anything like this? We see only the following: Lyolya's mother lived all her life for others, according to the heroine of the novel: first for her husband, then for her daughter, finally, she completely went into the service of her neighbors; we see that the holy spirit never leaves Nastasya Petrovna for a minute, and she, even in spite of the murderously upsetting behavior of her daughter, in spite of complete bodily exhaustion, remains vigorous and full of spiritual strength, as Lelia herself repeatedly says with surprise. So, we see how difficult it is to prove that asceticism in Mr. Skabichevsky's terminology, that is, a complete renunciation of personal happiness and personal joys, is a painful phenomenon.

Apart from the extremes just indicated, we do not deny the truth in what Mr. Skabichevsky says. He is right that one-sided asceticism often degenerates into painful and ugly forms, that ascetic tendencies often grow not on the basis of healthy aspirations of the spirit, but on the basis of nervous decay and soreness, which makes itself felt in subsequent reactions; he is right that asceticism for the sake of asceticism, without any further fruitful goal, the view of the joys of life as something sinful in itself — all these are abnormal and undesirable phenomena. But for the sake of this, to see an ascetic ailment in every selfless self-denial, forgetting about oneself and their joys, in every rejection of happiness for the sake of higher goals, in any opposition to sensuality that threatens to swallow a spiritual personality, is to draw the same ugly conclusion as if someone- if only on the grounds that many of those who call themselves Spanish kings turned out to be simply crazy, I would argue that all real Spanish kings are no more than crazy. The tattered or painful asceticism of which Mr. Skabichevsky speaks can often be the result of ill-calculated personal forces. Therefore, in self-denial, and especially in the suppression of sensuality, a certain kind of caution is needed. But there are people with such a happy nature that self-denial and self-restraint for them is not at all associated with dangers and only increases their spiritual strength. It is here that Mr. Skabichevsky feels the "stench of degeneration." Meanwhile, just here it would not hurt for him to recall, if we are not mistaken, the highly revered image of Christ, who, for all his "cheerfulness", perfectly dominated sensuality and did not have "where to lay his head."

From journalism to literary text, a journey through the works. On the question of the legal definition of the concept of "public morality. Moral and public issues with which Russian

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