Turgenev's works. I.S. Turgenev's novels

November 2018 marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev (1818-1883). At the presidential level, since 2015, a campaign has been announced to prepare for the All-Russian celebration of the bicentennial of the great Russian classic writer; the corresponding government program provides for the allocation of solid funds. It is assumed that one of the centers of the anniversary events will be Oryol, the birthplace of Turgenev.

About this, published below, a conversation with a regular author of the RNL, a well-known literary critic, Doctor of Philology Alla Anatolyevna Novikova-Stroganova. She penned a book “The Christian world by I.S. Turgenev "(Ryazan: Zerna-Slovo, 2015. - Approved for distribution by the Publishing Council of the Russian Orthodox Church). For this book, Alla Anatolyevna was awarded the Golden Diploma of the VI International Slavic Literary Forum "Golden Knight" (Stavropol, 2015). For a series of works on the work of F.M. Dostoevsky, she was awarded the "Bronze Knight" - award VIIInternational Slavic Literary Forum "Golden Knight" (Stavropol, 2016).

We will win

Your work is also published in many print and online publications.

Yes, in many cities of Russia, which, like Oryol, do not claim the title of "literary capitals", specialized literary periodicals are published. For example, "Moscow Literary", "Velikoross: Literaturno-istoricheskiy zhurnal", "Literatura v shkola", "Orthodox conversation" - a spiritual and educational magazine, "Homo Legens<Человек читающий>", (Moscow)," Neva "," Rodnaya Ladoga "," Eternal Call "(St. Petersburg)," Don: Russian Order of Friendship of Peoples Literary and Art Monthly Magazine "(Rostov-on-Don)," Orthodox Word: Publication of the Orthodox Educational Brotherhood at the Church of Saints Equal-to-the-Apostles Cyril and Methodius "(Kostroma)," New Yenisei writer "(Krasnoyarsk)," LiTERRA NOVA "(Saransk)," Heavenly Gates "(Minsk)," Brega Tavrida "(Crimea)," North ”(Karelia),“ Coast of Russia ”(Vladivostok) and many other publications (about five hundred in total) with which I cooperate. The geography is very extensive - it is all of Russia: from Kaliningrad in the west to Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk in the Far East, from Salekhard in the north to Sochi in the south, Sevastopol in the Crimea, as well as near and far abroad. Interest in the great Russian literature and the work of my illustrious compatriots - the Oryol classic writers, in the Christian component of their heritage - is invariably high everywhere. In our country and abroad, people need an honest and pure voice of outstanding Russian artists of the word for mental and spiritual growth.

But, paradoxically, in literary Oryol, apart from the newspaper Krasnaya Stroy with its acute socio-political orientation, there is practically not a single periodical left where it would be possible to publish articles and materials about the spiritual and moral content of Russian literature. A kind of print space for freedom - the heading "On the earthly and heavenly" in the "Red Line". It makes it possible to remind the reader of the trinity of the ideals of Good, Beauty and Truth. These genuine values ​​are eternal and unchanging, despite the fact that in Russia for more than a dozen years, with the connivance and permission of the "ruling regime", they are godlessly leveled, cunningly distorted, trampled upon, substituted with surrogates, forgeries, worship of the golden calf and other idols. The deceit and lies of corrupt, corrupt, mediocre officials are elevated to the rank of unspoken, obligatory rules of conduct with the people. A whole army of politically engaged corrupt media outlets, together with zombie TV channels and mass-market pulp fiction in all regions, are constantly stupid, stupefying, and spiritually devastating people.

St. John of Kronstadt spoke of such a misfortune at the beginning of the 20th century: "In many secular magazines and newspapers, the number of which has multiplied to the extreme, breathes an earthly spirit, often godless, while a Christian is a citizen not only of earth, but also of heaven." How this situation has worsened at the present time!

The former atheism of the communists has now been replaced by the satanism of oligarchic capitalism, which divides people into strata under the guise of the legend of democracy. The policy of "transparency" in fact turns into a "secret of lawlessness." A thick curtain is thrown over suffering Russia, under which one suffocates ...

All that remains is to rely only on God. As the early Christian spiritual writer Tertullian said, "the human soul is a Christian by nature." And she will stand, win, despite the obvious rampant devilry. According to F.M. Dostoevsky - the great Russian Christian writer, prophet, - "Truth, Good, Truth always win and triumph over vice and evil, we will win."

"Golden Knight"

Your works were awarded at the Golden Knight festival. Share your impressions.

This is the International Slavic Forum of Arts: literature, music, painting, cinematography, theater. The President of the Forum is People's Artist of Russia Nikolai Burlyaev. Honorary Chairman of the International Jury of the Literary Forum - writer Vladimir Krupin, co-chairman of the board of the Writers' Union of Russia.

According to the established tradition, the "Golden Knight" is held in Stavropol. The Literary Forum was attended by writers from Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Estonia, Kazakhstan, Bulgaria, Serbia. I am glad that Oryol is also included in the extensive list of countries and cities - the birthplace of a whole constellation of Russian classic writers. In 2015, my book "The Christian world of I. S. Turgenev" was awarded the Golden Diploma in the nomination "Literature on the history of Slavic peoples and Slavic literary criticism." In total, more than 100 works in different genres were presented to the creative competition-2015 dedicated to the Year of Literature in Russia, the 70th anniversary of the Great Victory and the 1000th anniversary of the repose of the Holy Prince Vladimir ...

The literary forum of the "Golden Knight" is a real holiday for the host Stavropol Territory. In different cities of the Stavropol Territory, concerts, recitals, meetings with writers and actors, master classes, film screenings are held as part of the program "Classics of Russian Literature on the Screen". Nikolai Burlyaev, Alexander Mikhailov, Sergey Shakurov, Larisa Golubkina, Lyudmila Chursina and other famous artists met with the audience. The atmosphere of the triumph of Slavic creativity reigns, inspired by the prophetic words of St. Sergius of Radonezh "We will be saved by love and unity."

"Put your soul,<...>and do not amuse with nonsense "

I thought about this. Why can't the Literary Forum accept Oryol - the city of Turgenev, Leskov, Fet, Bunin, Andreev? It would seem that the Oryol region - in relation to literature - is called upon to be a leader and an example for other regions of the country. But, as you can see, from pretentious projections about Orel as the "literary capital of Russia" and grandiloquent words stillborn by local pompous selfish officials, to the real thing is "a huge distance."

Turgenev in Oryol, neither before nor now, was devoted to spiritually significant significant events of a significant scale. It was difficult for the writer in his era to endure the grimaces of a hectic and hectic time - the "banking period". To such an extent that in the year of his 60th birthday, Turgenev announced his intention to leave literary activity.

Another remarkable Orlovets - Nikolay Semyonovich Leskov (1831-1895) - one of the articles in the cycle “Miracles and Signs. Observations, Experiments and Notes "(1878) dedicated to Turgenev precisely in that crucial period when the author "Fathers and Sons" made the decision to "put down the pen." In the jubilee year for Turgenev, Leskov pondered about this "highly respectable person, about his position, about his grievances and about his sad intentions" to put down the pen and not tackle it again. "

From Leskov's point of view, Turgenev's declared intention is so significant that the "vow of silence" he uttered "cannot be passed by in silence." The role of the writer in the life and development of Russia is so great that the activities of the mighty of this world cannot be compared: "his determination to" put down the pen "is not like the determination of some minister to resign."

Many Russian classics wrote about the feigned significance of "high" officials, who are important in appearance, but in fact worthless, unfit for a living cause, for selfless service to the Fatherland. The remarkable Russian fabulist I.A. Krylov claimed in his fable "A donkey":

In nature and in ranks, highness is good,

But what comes in her when the soul is low.

"Whoever got into the rank of a fox, he in the rank will be a wolf",- the poet V.A. Zhukovsky. Leskov named officials-puppets "Damn dolls". I remember, for example, such lines "Lullaby" ON. Nekrasov: "You will be an official in appearance / And a scoundrel in soul"...

Turgenev developed this theme in the novel "Nov": “In Russia, important civilians wheeze, important military men gag in the nose; and only the highest dignitaries both wheeze and gnaw at the same time. "

Leskov picked up and continued such an expressive characterization of "large-scale" people, who are called upon to take care of the good of the country by duty, but in fact constitute the "misfortune of Russia": in Turgenev's "last novel: these are either money fools or crooks who, having achieved generalship in the military service, "wheezing", and in civilian - "gundosyat". These are people with whom no one can agree on anything, because they do not want and do not know how to speak, but want to either "wheeze" or "goof". This is the boredom and misfortune of Russia ”. A truly universal portrait of the "nettle seed" - an ineradicable bureaucratic bureaucracy. The writer reveals its base zoological features: “we must begin to think in a human way and speak in a human way, and not grunt for two long, annoying and annoying tones.”

The local Oryol authorities outside the region invariably present Oryol as the "literary capital", the "literary center" of Russia. Such was the exposition of the Oryol region at the Sochi Olympics, accompanied by Turgenev's statements about his homeland. The torch of the Paralympic flame in Oryol was lit from a symbolic writing pen. At the international investment forum, they even built a rotunda gazebo with the names of fellow countrymen - Russian classics of world literature.

In fact, the great legacy of the Oryol writers is the only thing that the Oryol region can really be proud of, for which it is glorified in good fame all over the world. Only this has nothing to do with the activities of those in power, this is not at all their achievement and merit.

In the novel "At knives"(1870) Leskov exposed one of the common methods of centuries-old mass mimicry of the opponents of Christ, like the ex-nihilist "jack of all trades" Jew Tikhon Kishensky. People like him "need a pillar nobleman", including in order to sneak into leading positions under the cover of Russians, especially noble families, to occupy key positions in state, commercial, religious, public institutions of Russia in order to enslave, to decompose and destroy the indigenous population of the country, mocking their Christian ideals and the Orthodox faith; disguised as Russian names and signs; outside dressed in sheep skins, being wolves from the inside; Pharisaically hiding behind the good goals of good deeds, godlessly enriching, receiving profits, benefits, profits and superprofits, serving not God, but mammon.

In this regard, the most relevant are the words of Leskov, who, through the lips of his hero-lover of truth, Vasily Bogoslovsky, in the story "Musk ox" he addressed those “benefactors” of the people, whose word is at odds with their deeds: “But I see that everybody is meanly engaged in this business. Everyone goes out on paganism, but nobody goes to work. No, you do the deed, not the gaps.<...>eh, pagans! damned Pharisees!<...>They really believe this!<...>Put your soul in, so that they can see what kind of soul you have, and do not amuse you with shit. "

Literary eagle

How is the memory of Turgenev preserved in Oryol?

On the eve of the 200th anniversary of Turgenev, non-jubilee reflections are born.

It's time to say, paraphrasing Mikhail Bulgakov: “The darkness that came from the Dead Sea swallowed up the city hated by the Gentiles. The old Russian city has disappeared, as if it did not exist in the world. Everything was devoured by the darkness, which frightened all living things in the city and its environs. "

The great writer-Oryol, thanks to whom the provincial Oryol became famous for good fame in the entire civilized world, is now remembered by few in his homeland. Significant events associated with the name of the classic cannot make their way into a wide public space through the prison of cathedral parties, the imprisonment of backstage museum gatherings and dusty library exhibitions.

One gets the impression that Turgenev and his work are not needed by anyone, not interesting. Only occasionally are over-organized "events" held, similar to the sham "Turgenev's holiday", which looks more like part of the many years of ongoing PR campaign of the deputy-official M.V. Vdovin, who is assisted in this by some zealous "cultural activists".

Since ancient times in Russia, the proverb is known: "Meli, Emelya, is your week", and in literature the writer-Orlovskiy Leskov has already artistically recreated a real-life character - Ivan Yakovlevich from a house for the mentally ill and "mournful", to whom narrow-minded people for ran with advice.

According to M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, Turgenev's prose contains "the beginning of love and light, in every line beating with a living key." After reading Turgenev's works, "it is easy to breathe, easy to believe, you feel warmth", "you clearly feel how the moral level in you rises, that you mentally bless and love the author." But where can the majority of our compatriots choose the time for harmonious prose in order to raise their moral level - other worries overcame: the clutches of "trade bondage" are tightened more and more tightly, "the slime of little things" is sucked into the stinking swamp, the soul floats in the body.

I love and remember the old Eagle - quiet, green, cozy. The one that, according to the famous words of Leskov, "gave drink to so many Russian writers on its shallow waters, how many no other Russian city has put them to the benefit of the Motherland."

The current city is not at all similar to the Oryol of my childhood and youth, and even more so to the "city of O." that is described by Turgenev in the novel "Noble Nest"(1858): “A spring, bright day was leaning towards evening; small pink clouds stood high in the clear sky and did not seem to float past, but went into the very depths of the azure. In front of the open window of a beautiful house, in one of the extreme streets of the provincial town of O ...<...>two women were sitting.<...>The house had a large garden; on one side, he went straight into the field, outside the city. "

Today's Eagle has irrevocably lost its former charm. The city is brutally disfigured by capitalist buildings on every profitable inch of land. Many ancient buildings - architectural monuments - were barbarously demolished. In their place, monsters rise: shopping centers, hotel and entertainment complexes, fitness clubs, drinking and entertainment establishments, and so on. On the outskirts, places are cleared for compacted buildings, groves are cut down - our "green lungs", which somehow saved from the stench, smog and exhaust of endless traffic jams. In the central city park - and without that wretched - trees are being destroyed. Old lindens, maples, chestnuts die under a chainsaw, and in their place there are new ugly monsters - ugly fast food eateries, coupled with dry closets. The townspeople have nowhere to walk and just breathe in the clean air.

The Turgenevsky Berezhok, named so back in the 19th century, is a significant place on the high bank of the Oka, where a monument to Turgenev is erected. Leskov pointed out this landmark at one time to his fellow Orlov residents: “From here,” wrote Nikolai Semyonovich, “the famous child first looked at the sky and the earth with his eyes, and maybe it would be nice to place a commemorative sign here with the designation that in Oryol Turgenev saw the light, awakening in his compatriots feelings of philanthropy and glorifying his homeland with good glory throughout the educated world. "

Now the background for the monument to the world-famous great Russian writer is the eye-catching inscription "COCA-COLA" on a bright red rag that dangles over the trade point, which has settled here - on the Turgenevsky Berezhka. The commercial contagion spread to the writer's homeland and to his works. In Oryol, their names serve as signs of commercial and profitable networks thrown over the townspeople that entwine the city like a giant spider web: "Turgenevsky", "Bezhin meadow", "Raspberry water" ...

You involuntarily ask yourself a question: why is the name "Turgenevsky" stuck to the shopping center? After all, Turgenev was not a huckster. He cannot stand up for himself now, so his bright name is leaning to the right and to the left - to cover up corruption, to lure buyers, especially visiting visitors to the homeland of the great Russian writer.

Wouldn't it be better to name the shopping center after some well-known modern merchant in the city or in honor of eminent merchants who lived in Orel: for example, "Serebrennikovsky". You can just "Silver". In this case, the name will remind of the eternal betrayer of Christ, Judas, who sold the Lord for the flour of the cross for thirty pieces of silver.

But in Oryol the opposite is true. Everything, as Leskov liked to repeat, is “topsy-turvy”: the regional department of culture is located in the former house of a merchant, merchant Serebrennikov, and trade outlets operate under glorious names stolen from the sphere of Russian spiritual culture. Leskov was right in asserting that in Russia, every step, there is a surprise, and, moreover, the most nasty one.

Also, Leskov, along with Turgenev, is being adapted to the needs of the sale: they got loose to the point that they slyly managed to trivialize the wondrous naming of his wonderful story - they built a hotel with a restaurant "The Enchanted Wanderer".

In my memory, there was something else creepy. In the 1990s, which are now commonly referred to as "the dashing nineties", blood-red wine with the label "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District" was sold in Oryol ...

And now the bronze figurines of the Oryol writers, hidden between the ugly masses of the buildings of the GRINN shopping and entertainment complex, serve as a kind of bait to attract buyers and clients.

Quite recently, on the site of "Liza Kalitina's house", local bureaucrats suggested building a drinking and entertainment establishment ... Would you call it like "good gentlemen"? Griboyedov? Or, perhaps, immediately without ceremony - "Turgenev"? And your lackeys weighing less will begin to serve in it "portioned zander and naturel" and will offer to "bite vodka with a mushroom"? And the "elite" and "bohemia" - atheists and devils in human skins, like the ever-memorable chairman of MASSOLIT Berlioz and the mediocre poet Homeless from a madhouse - will go to the Sabbath there. There are enough such narcissistic would-be writers who have galloped past the world's most Christian great Russian literature.

In the regional center, a huge number of pubs, wine-glasses and other hot spots have bred. There are, for example, drinking establishments that are a stone's throw from the temples. After a plentiful feast and drinks, you can go in to pray, arrange a rite of exorcism, as in Leskov's story "Chertogon".

Come to your senses before it's too late, unfortunate ones! Perhaps the Lord will take pity, for He is long-suffering and many-merciful, waiting for the sincere repentance of sinners.

The voice of people who are not indifferent to the appearance and fate of the city, given to be torn apart, for sale, is nothing more than "voice in the wilderness"... By the laws of the wild capitalist market, the citizens of Russia are plunged into a bestial struggle for existence. Many are below the poverty line, most people are absorbed in the elementary problems of survival: how to pay for the constantly growing numbers of tax notices and utility bills, how to save up to salaries, to a beggarly pension ... Is there literature here?

And yet, as Leskov said, resorting to evangelical imagery, "literature we have salt", and we must not allow it to "get salted", otherwise "How can you make it salty"(Matthew 5:13)?

There is no artistic truth without the truth of God

Have you had Orthodox teachers in literature?

During the years of study at the Faculty of Russian Language and Literature of the Oryol Pedagogical Institute (now - Oryol State University named after I.S. Turgenev), we were taught Russian classical literature by Doctor of Science, Professor G.B. Kurlyandskaya, who was considered the leading Turgenevologist of the Soviet Union, and other scientists came from the same scientific school.

Turgenev's work was analyzed, it would seem, thoroughly. At the lectures, the teachers talked about the method and style, about the ways and techniques of artistic expression of the author's consciousness, about traditions and innovation, about poetics and ethics, about genre organization and about the aesthetic situation - there is nothing to count. At the seminars, they were taught to distinguish in the structure of the text the author-narrator from the author himself, the lyrical hero from the hero of role-playing lyrics, the inner monologue from the inner speaking, etc.

But all these formalistic analyzes and analyzes hid the essential from us. No one ever said in those years that the most important thing in Russian literature in general and in particular in Turgenev's work - the most valuable component of Russian classics - is Christ, the Christian faith, inspired by Russian Orthodox asceticism. There can be no artistic truth without the truth of God. All Russian classics were created in the bosom of Orthodox life.

Subsequently, in the process of working on my candidate and doctoral dissertations, I was fortunate enough to get acquainted with the works of Christian philologists and philosophers. To the best of my ability, I develop the traditions of Orthodox literary criticism laid down by them.

OSU named after I.S. Turgenev

Not so long ago, Oryol State University was named after Turgenev. What changes have occurred in this regard?

This remarkable fact, it would seem, should have stirred up the public literary and educational work of the university, especially the philological faculty, the department of Russian literature.

The name of Turgenev for the university is not just a gift, but also a task: to show an example of understanding and teaching Turgenev's creativity to the entire educated world, to become the world's best center for scientific Turgenev studies, to popularize the work of classic writers in Orel, in Russia, and abroad. he devoted his life, including translating works of Russian literature, in order to acquaint Europe with it; founded the first Russian library in France. The personality and work of the writer shine on the whole world.

However, in this field, there is no special spiritual upsurge in OSU. Giving an educational institution the name of the great writer-fellow countryman remains a simple, albeit pompous, formality. The interior of the spacious rector's office was refreshed: a sculptural bust of Turgenev was placed on the executive table and a large portrait of the writer was erected on the wall ...

And the Faculty of Philology (under its present name - an institute), without which no classical university is inconceivable, is "dying out." Turgenev scholars - ardent propagandists of the writer's work - after the death of Associate Professor V.A. Gromov and Professor G.B. There is no Kurlyandskaya left at the faculty. There are few students, because the specialty began to be considered not prestigious - too unprofitable, unprepared. The small number of students leads to a lack of teaching load for teachers. Many are interrupted by private lessons, tutoring, coaching schoolchildren to take the OGE and the Unified State Exam (some terrible abbreviations, they still hurt the ear).

Teachers of literature need not just take places - they need a special service, spiritual burning. When “the soul demands, the conscience obliges, then there will be great power,” taught St. Theophan the Recluse, another great fellow countryman - a spiritual writer.

There are no classes at the Faculty of Philology and highly qualified specialists. Being a doctor of philological sciences, I heard from the rector of the university O.V. Pilipenko: "We have no place for you."

In such conditions, everyday work, which I have been doing over the past two decades: creating books, articles, speaking at conferences, educational activities, is regarded not as work that requires hard work of the mind, soul, a lot of time and physical strength, but as a kind of "Hobby" on enthusiasm and without pay.

On the other hand, such areas of education as trade, advertising, commodity science, hotel business, service and tourism are developing at the Turgenev University. Who is there to remember Turgenev? There is a sign - and that's enough ...

In our city there are other places associated with the name of the writer: street, theater, museum. The monument is on the banks of the Oka. The bust is in the protected area of ​​the Eagle "Noble's Nest", which has already been supplanted by the elite buildings of the local nouveau riche. But the living spirit of Turgenev and his blessed creativity is not felt. For most of the Oryol people, a writer is nothing more than a bronze figure on a pedestal or a worn, half-forgotten page of an unfinished and misunderstood school textbook.

"Trade bondage"

At one time Leskov created the article "Trade Cabal". This title is a universal name for today's socio-economic relations, officially and openly named market ones. Haggling and venality became the "norm", a stable attribute, the main feature of our "banking" (in Leskov's word) period. The metastases of this marketplace have grown hypertrophied and have struck through and through the state and law, politics and economics, science, culture and art, education and health care - without exception, all spheres of life, including spiritual and moral.

The notorious all-pervading "market" grotesquely personified, turned into a kind of idol, a hellish monster. It swallows and devours people, grinds everything healthy and alive in its insatiable womb, and then vomits out and again feeds on the waste products of its vital activity in this endless stinking cycle.

Shopping centers, markets, shops, entertainment and drinking establishments with their indispensable "mochemordia" (an expressive word image used by Leskov) - multiply non-stop. To be the “owner” of: whether a store, a restaurant, or better - several, or at least a seedy little shop, but only to cash in and push others around - is the “ideal” of life, a modern fix idea. A person endowed by the Lord with the supreme gift of free spirituality is viewed in trade and market relations as "the enslaved servant of the owner, the lackey and the pusher".

Meanwhile, the attitude towards the "hucksters" in the Russian people was primordially negative. Remnants of such a popular denial of the spirit of merchanting are rare, but you can still find in the Russian countryside, in the very outback, where few old people live out their days. In one such village, hidden away from the roads among forest reserves, in a real "bear's corner" Vera Prokhorovna Kozicheva - a simple Russian peasant woman, a forester's widow, in her youth during the Great Patriotic War - a messenger of a partisan detachment - categorically did not want to take money from me for milk ... In response to my reasons that I had already bought homemade milk from a saleswoman in a village shop, grandmother Vera replied firmly: “I'm not a huckster! Don't equate me with her! "

Having grown rich in the "sphere of roguery and deceit" merchants - "dummies" - "profit-makers and companions" (as Leskov called them) - at the "vanity fair" become "the most petty and insatiable ambitious", climb into power and into the nobility: "the merchant constantly he climbs into the nobility, he is "rushing powerful forward" ".

This is the "model" to which they are taught to strive from an early age and in the current school, from which Russian literature is now being expelled - so much hatred in those in power for the honest, spiritualized word of Russian writers. Raising a voice in defense of children from the mercenary infection, Leskov, in his article, noted “the unjustified cruelty of other owners in relation to boys and extreme disregard for their needs and the purpose with which they were given to the shop by their parents or, in general, by persons managing the infant years of children, sticking out in front of shops and shops with the aim of calling out buyers. " Today we all too often meet them - often chilled and chilled - "sticking out in front of shops and shops with the purpose of calling buyers", handing out leaflets and brochures, darting around the entrances, trains, organizations - hoping to sell some petty product.

Leskov wrote with alarm and indignation about the anti-Christian relations of despotic suppression by some and the slavish enslavement of others. The heavy economic and personal dependence of the oppressed person, his servitude turn into spiritual slavery, inevitably lead to ignorance, spiritual and mental underdevelopment, depravity, cynicism, personality degradation. As a result of "serfdom", the writer noted in another article - "Russian public notes"(1870), people become victims of "impenetrable mental and moral darkness, where they wander groping, with remnants of good, without any solid fuel, without character, without the ability and even without the desire to fight with themselves and with circumstances."

"Trade bondage" was written almost on the eve of the abolition of serfdom - the Manifesto of February 19, 1861. In the modern anti-Christian legislation of the Russian Federation, built on ancient Roman enslaving formulas, it is time to introduce this supposedly "well-forgotten" new branch of law - serfdom - along with civil, family, administrative and other "law". "The surviving remnant of the enslaving servility of the ancient cabal times" in a modernized form has long and firmly been introduced into our life. Compatriots themselves did not notice how they became serf slaves, dragging out “life on loan”: if you cannot pay your debts, don’t you dare to move. Many have already found themselves and many will still find themselves in an indefinite debt trap, have been and will be entangled in the net of network trade and marketing, the trap of loans, mortgages, housing and communal services, housing and communal services, VAT, SNILS, TIN, UEC and other things - their number is legion and their name is darkness. .. "Mortgage for half a century" - one of such popular "banking products" of enslaving nature - is issued with a sly look of incredible benefit. The robbed "debtor", forced to submissively climb into a skillfully placed long-term trap for the sake of a roof over his head, sometimes does not even notice how this "roof" will turn into a coffin cover for him.

Leskov in his "farewell" story "Rabbit Heald" sees "civilization" in the satanic rotation of the "game with blockheads", social roles, masks: "Why do they all look with their eyes, but cackle with their lips, and change, like the moon, and worry, like Satan?" General hypocrisy, demonic hypocrisy, a closed vicious circle of deception is reflected in Peregudova's "grammar", which only outwardly seems to be the delirium of a madman: “I walk on the carpet, and I walk while I'm lying, and you walk, you'll tell, and he walks while he's lying, and we walk while we're lying, and they walk while they're lying...Have pity on everyone, Lord, have pity on! »

The newest peak of trade bondage, its terrifying culmination of apocalyptic nature: the "crown of creation", created in the image and likeness of God, should become a labeled commodity, become like a soulless object with its indispensable barcode or wordless branded cattle - accept a chip, a brand, a mark, a stroke -code in the form of satanic tracing of the number 666 on the forehead or hand: "And he will do what everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slaves, should have a mark on their right hand or on their forehead."(Rev. 13:16). Otherwise - imperious intimidation literally according to the Apocalypse: "No one will be allowed to buy or sell, except for the one who has this mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name"(Rev. 13: 16-17). And without this, we are assured today, normal life will supposedly stop. Those who do not agree to sell their souls to Satan will find themselves "outside the anti-Christian, electronic serfdom law"; will become persecuted outcasts expelled from the general trade turnover. The Lord, on the contrary, expelled the merchants from the temple, likening them to robbers: “And he entered the temple and began to drive out those selling and buying, saying to them: it is written:“ My house is a house of prayer ”; and you made it a den of robbers "(Luke 19: 45-46).

"Godless schools in Russia"

How many people in Russia now remember, know and - in particular - understand Turgenev's work? "Mu Mu"- in elementary school, "Bezhin lug"- in the middle link, "Fathers and Sons"- in high school. That's the whole set of superficial representations. Until now, schools teach mainly "A little, something and somehow".

Over the past post-perestroika decades, a savage policy of destruction and destruction of full-fledged education has been systematically pursued. The voices of the people who are really concerned about this problem remain the same. "By the voice of one crying in the wilderness." Society has the right to know on what basis certain educational standards are adopted, which actually influence the formation and outlook of entire generations. However, curricula are developed and imposed by some mysterious officials who are not controlled and accountable to society.

The already meager hours of the school curriculum devoted to the study of the Russian language and literature are being shamelessly cut from above. The barbaric oppression of Russian literature at school led to a catastrophic total illiteracy in all areas of activity, up to the highest power-bureaucratic spheres. This is a sign of our time, an indisputable fact. The monstrous thing is that in Russia few people are surprised at the widespread illiteracy and almost no one is ashamed of it.

Literature is hastily "passed" (in the literal sense: they pass by literature) as a boring obligation. Russian classics (including Turgenev's creativity) have not yet been read at school, its deep spiritual meaning is not brought by teachers to the minds and hearts of students, because often it does not even reach the half-educated or spiritually unspiritual teachers themselves. Russian literature is taught primitively, superficially, overview, without requiring the obligatory reading of the works of great Russian writers, limiting themselves to approximate, alphabetical retellings. This is how the desire to return to the treasury of Russian literature in the future, to reread and comprehend it at new levels of "understanding about the meaning of life", is forever discouraged.

At the same time, among all other academic subjects, literature is the only one, not so much a school subject as the formation of a human personality through the education of the soul. Russian classics, like the New Testament, are always new and relevant, making it possible to connect times.

However, the fear of education officials before the word of honor of Russian writers is so strong and so strong is the hatred of Russian literature and its "divine verbs" designed to "burn the hearts of people," most educational institutions in Russia. So they quite fit the definition given in Leskov's article of the same name about schools where the Law of God was not taught, "Godless schools in Russia".

The atheists form and relentlessly release the atheists from schools, here is the root of evil, and many troubles stem from this.

In the social sciences, Marxism-Leninism was abolished. However, since Soviet times and to this day, the global ideological theme of the origin of life and man is forcibly introduced into the unformed consciousness and fragile souls of students in the form of teaching the godless Darwin's theory as the only true and scientifically reasoned, although in fact it is not even a theory, but an unproven hypothesis.

Darwinism preaches natural selection, the struggle for survival, the evolution of species. With regard to public relations, to the conduct of business, these attitudes lead to extremely negative consequences. Thus, natural selection presupposes a ruthless and cruel attitude towards the weak, up to their destruction. Is it any wonder that the pseudo-theory and practice of "beast manhood" forms out of people beings who live according to animal laws: "The strongest survives," "Swallow others until you are swallowed," etc., which inevitably leads to the devaluation of moral values , trampling on the higher, Divine principle in a person, to the death of the soul as such, in the end - to the destruction of human society, which on this path can reach cannibalism, self-destruction?

The holy righteous John of Kronstadt asserted that "without Christ, all education is vain." To whom and why is it profitable to mold spiritually undeveloped self-loving atheists in “godless schools”, substituting false ideals and idols for “the eternal, from time immemorial ideal, to which man aspires and according to the law of nature” - Jesus Christ?

Turgenev in the light of the Christian ideal

It is not customary to speak of Turgenev as a Christian writer. For the most part, he is presented as an "atheist", "liberal", "Westerner", "Russian European".

Unfortunately, these are not only atheistic or non-religious interpretations that have been slyly planted like tares among wheat for many decades.

Leskov also wrote about how "we repeatedly, grossly and unworthily insult our noble writer" - "the representative and spokesman for the intellectual and moral growth of Russia." The venal liberals acted "rudely, impudently, and indiscriminately"; the conservatives "sickened him viciously." Leskov likened those and others, using the comparison of Victor Hugo, to predatory wolves, "which out of anger clutched at their own tail with their teeth." According to Leskov's remark, “you can ridicule everything, how everything can be vulgarized to a certain extent. With the light hand of Celsius, there were many masters who made such experiments even on the very Christian teaching, but this did not lose its significance. "

Some tutors are also ready to exclude Turgenev from the number of Christian writers, guided by their own standards: “How many times a year did you go to church? Did you take part in rituals? How often did you confess and receive communion? "

However, only God has the right to approach the human soul with such questions. It would be good to recall here the apostolic precept: "Do not judge in any way before the time, until the Lord comes"(1 Cor. 4: 5).

Only in the very last years of her life, Professor Kurlyandskaya (and she lived for almost a hundred years) could not but admit that Turgenev in his work took "certain steps on the path to Christianity." However, even in such a timid formulation, this thesis did not take root. Until now, both in professional literary criticism and in everyday consciousness, a misconception about Turgenev as an atheist has taken root. As arguments, some of Turgenev's statements, Jesuitically taken out of context, and a way of life - for the most part far from the homeland, "on the edge of someone else's nest," and even the circumstances of the writer's death, were shamelessly used.

At the same time, none of the supporters of such a graceless position has shown in his own life high standards of either holiness, or asceticism, or righteousness, or outstanding talent. Philosophy teaches: "He who forbids his lips to condemn, he keeps his heart from passions, he watches God hourly."... Apparently, the "accusers" who "contemplate" the life and work of the writer are far removed from Christianity and the Gospel commandments of non-condemnation: "Judge not lest ye be judged; For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with what measure you mete, it will be measured to you also "(Matt. 7: 1-2).

Will everyone manage to be honored in due time "Christian death of our belly, painless, shameless, peaceful, and a kind response at the Last Judgment of Christ" What is the Church praying for? What will happen to each of us after leaving the "leather robe" worn on the ground? The soul cannot help but freeze before these questions. But the answer is only "at the Last Judgment we will find out," as the Christian writer Sergei Nilus liked to repeat.

In God, who announced: "I am the Truth, and the Way, and the Life"(John 14: 6) is the only true approach to any phenomenon of life. " Who teaches otherwise- says the apostle Paul, - and does not follow the words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the doctrine of piety, he is proud, does not know anything, but is infected with a passion for contests and phrases, from which envy, strife, slander, crafty suspicions, empty arguments between people of a damaged mind, alien to the truth arise "(1 Tim. 6: 3-5).

The Lord gives everyone his talents and his cross - on the shoulders and on the strength. So it is impossible to load all the crosses with an unbearable burden on one person. Everyone has their own cross. As our contemporary wrote, the brutally murdered poet Nikolai Melnikov in the poem "Russian cross":

Put the cross on your shoulders

It's heavy, but you go

Whatever the path is marked,

Whatever lies ahead!

What is my cross? Who knows?

There is only one fear in my soul!

The Lord determines everything

Every sign is in His hands.

Turgenev had enough of his own cross to glorify his Fatherland with good glory throughout the world. In the year of Turgenev's death, his friend, poet Ya.P. Polonsky said: "And one story of his" Living Relics ", even if he hadn't even written anything else, tells me that only a great writer could understand the Russian honest believing soul and express it all this way."

According to the memoirs of the French writer Henri Troyes, Turgenev found himself “unable to write a novel, a story, the protagonists of which would not be Russian people. For this it was necessary to change the soul, if not the body. " “To work,” he will say to Edmond de Goncourt, “I need winter, the cold that we have in Russia, the frost breathtaking when the trees are covered with frost crystals ... the earth is resilient, and the air smells like wine ... "Edmond de Goncourt concluded:" Without finishing the sentence, Turgenev only pressed his hands to his chest, and this gesture eloquently expressed that spiritual ecstasy and pleasure at work, which he experienced in a lost corner old Russia ".

Turgenev was never a cosmopolitan and never traded his homeland. Wherever the writer lived: in capitals or abroad, he invariably strove with his soul to his family estate Spasskoye-Lutovinovo, Mtsensk district, Oryol province. Here always before his gaze was the ancient family image of the Savior Not Made by Hands.

It is impossible to read the lines of Turgenev's letter to Zh.A. Polonskaya dated August 10, 1882 - a year before his death: “Selling Spassky would be tantamount to me making a final decision never to return to Russia, and despite my illness, I cherish the hope of spending the whole next summer in Spassky and returning to Russia. during the winter. Selling Spasskoye means for me - to lie in a coffin, and I still want to live, no matter how red life is for me at the present time. "

In his artistic work, Turgenev portrayed life in the light of the Christian ideal. But all the rough layering of textbook gloss, vulgar-ideological interpretations (including directorial-staged) and conjectures often do not allow the modern reader to break through to the true meaning of the writer's heritage, to devote an in-depth, conscious reading to it. To penetrate into the works of Turgenev anew, to comprehend his work from a Christian standpoint is an important and beneficial task. This is what my book is about.

"Rothschild is far from this man"

The writer showed that it is precisely the spiritual, ideal content that is the basis of the human personality; advocated the restoration of the image and likeness of God in man. From this, the mystery of Turgenev's poetics, his marvelous artistic images, is woven in many respects.

Among them are the "truly reverend" righteous woman and martyr Lukerya ( "Alive power "). The heroine's flesh is mortified, but her spirit grows. “Therefore, we do not lose heart,- teaches the apostle Paul, - but if our outer man smolders, then the inner one is renewed from day to day "(2 Cor. 4:16). “Lukerya's body turned black, and his soul brightened and acquired a special sensitivity in perceiving the world and truth of a higher, supra-worldly being,” the outstanding theologian of the 20th century, Archbishop John of San Francisco (Shakhovskoy), justly noted. This Turgenev heroine, almost incorporeal, opens up the higher spheres of the spirit, which are not expressed in the earthly word. And not only to her, but above all to the writer who created her image. As well as the "quietest" image of the true Orthodox Christian Liza Kalitina - meek and selfless, gentle and courageous - the main heroine of the novel "Noble Nest".

This whole novel is covered with prayer pathos. The source of special prayer stems not only from the private misfortune of the main characters - Liza and Lavretsky, but from the common centuries-old suffering of the Russian land, the Russian people-passion-bearer. It is no coincidence that the Christian writer B.K. Zaitsev united Turgenev's heroines - the prayer book Liza and the sufferer Lukerya - with a real peasant girl-martyr, equally regarding them all in the all-Russian Orthodox sense as "intercessors" before God for Russia, for the Russian people: "Lukerya is the same intercessor for Russia and all of us, as humble Agashenka - slave and martyr of Varvara Petrovna<матери Тургенева>like Lisa. "

Poem in prose "Two rich men" shows the immeasurable spiritual superiority of the Russian people from the people, tortured and robbed by oppressors of all stripes, over the richest Jewish banker in the world.

Rothschild has the ability, without labor and damage to his capital, to pinch off pieces for charity from the super profits earned by predatory usurious machinations. Russian peasant, having nothing, lays down his soul for his neighbor, literally following the commandment of Christ "There is no more that love, as if someone lay down his soul for his friends"(John 15:13). What a huge sense in Turgenev's tiny text:

“When in my presence they extol the rich man Rothschild, who out of his enormous income devotes thousands to the upbringing of children, to the treatment of the sick, to the care of the old, I praise and am moved.

But, both praising and touching, I cannot help but remember one poor peasant family who adopted an orphan-niece into their ruined little house.

We will take Katka, - said the woman, - our last pennies will go to her, - there will be nothing to get salt, salt soup ...

And we her ... and not salty, - answered the man, her husband.

Rothschild is far from this man! "

Each heartfelt line of Turgenev, who possessed the ability to combine prose with poetry, "real" with "ideal", is fanned with spiritualized lyricism and heartfelt warmth, undoubtedly coming from "The living God"(2 Cor. 6:16), "In Whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge"(Col. 2: 3), "For all are of Him, by Him and to Him"(Rom. 11:36).

There is no prophet in his homeland

Your book about Turgenev was published in Ryazan. Why not in Oryol?

Someone may be surprised that the book of the Oryol author about the great Oryol writer was published in Ryazan. In my hometown - in the homeland of Turgenev - on the eve of his 200th anniversary, and besides in the Year of Literature (2015), Oryol publishing houses were not interested in this project, which does not promise large profits. The powers that be, to whom I spoke: the then governor and chairman of the government V.V. Potomsky, as well as high-ranking officials: First Deputy Governor A.Yu. Budarin, Chairman of the Regional Council of People's Deputies L.S. Muzalevsky and his first deputy M.V. Vdovin, former head of the regional department of culture A.Yu. Egorova, - according to the established bureaucratic custom, they limited themselves to empty replies with refusals, without even reading the manuscript, without delving into the essence of the topic. In the last official response to my proposal to publish a book about Turgenev, the department of culture kicked me off (forgive me for the vernacular, but you can't say more precisely in this situation) into the department of physical culture and sports. I confess that I didn’t go there anymore.

To this day, the book has not been published in the Oryol region. It is not on the bookshelves of libraries either in schools or universities, where Turgenev's work is still presented from an atheistic standpoint. I don’t want to go bowing to the officials who cover up their lack of spirituality with official positions. It has already been said many times. "He who has ears, let him hear." Why, only they don't care ...

While in Stavropol in October 2016, the president of the International Slavic Forum "Golden Knight" Nikolai Burlyaev presented me with an award - a nominal statuette of "Knight"; when many Russian media outlets responded about this event with the information "Eagle maintains the glory of the third literary capital ...", officials of the Oryol Regional Council cut my modest position as a consultant-linguist. And, having returned from Stavropol to Oryol with joy and a high international award, I only received from M.Yu. Bernikov, the then chief of staff of the regional council, in the not distant past - the ever-memorable ex-football player-city manager Orel - a dismissal warning, literally forcibly thrust into my hands in the gloomy corridor of the "gray house".

The regional council was left without a highly qualified linguistic expert, despite the fact that officials do not know Russian as the state language of the Russian Federation to the proper extent, as required by the federal law on the civil service, sometimes demonstrating blatant illiteracy in oral and written speech.

Thus, in modern times and in new circumstances, Leskov's words were confirmed, who in his article about Turgenev in the year of his 60th birthday painfully acknowledged the bitter biblical truth about the fate of the prophet in his Fatherland: “In Russia, a world-famous writer must share the share of the prophet, who has no honor in his Fatherland ”. When Turgenev's works were read and translated all over the world, in his homeland in Oryol, provincial officials showed disdain for the world-famous author, forced him to wait for a long time in the waiting room, boasted to each other, which made him "asazhe". The Oryol governor once received Turgenev, but extremely coldly, severely, did not even offer to sit down and refused the writer his request. On this occasion, Leskov remarked: "the kind-hearted Turgenev" at home, in his homeland, receives "the shish and contempt of fools, worthy contempt."

In the city of Ryazan, in the Orthodox publishing house "Zerna-Slovo", like-minded people, true, admirers and connoisseurs of Turgenev's creativity met. Here in 2015 my book was published. I express my sincere gratitude to all the staff of the publishing house who worked on its creation, and especially to the art editor of the book and my spouse Yevgeny Viktorovich Stroganov. The book was published with love, with great artistic taste, the illustrations are wonderfully selected, the portrait of Turgenev on the cover is made as if the appearance of the writer continues to shine with its spiritual light through the centuries.

I dare to believe that this book will serve for the benefit of the reader, will help to further comprehend from the standpoint of the Orthodox faith, Turgenev's work, full of love and light, which "And shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend him"(John 1: 5).

Studying the biography of the writer makes it possible to reveal the richness of the writer's artistic world, to enter his creative laboratory.

In the classroom, you need to create a special emotional and moral atmosphere that arouses empathy and contemplation with the author and literary heroes. Therefore, it is important to think over not only the logic of the presentation of the material, but also the very forms of emotional impact on students.

The first lessons are devoted to the biography of Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev and a review of his work, the task was given to read stories from the collection "Notes of a Hunter", the novels "Rudin", "Fathers and Sons".

Before reading and discussing the works, at the beginning of the study of the section, you can conduct a composition lesson. The task is to penetrate the world of man and the writer, to understand the relationship with his contemporaries and the genre originality of Turgenev's work.

In order to present the atmosphere of communication between Turgenev's contemporaries, it is necessary to find not only interesting stories, memories of the writer, but also to present them in a "lightweight" form for oral retelling. Many details of the narrative, some expressions have to be changed, so direct quotes are not always given in the script.

Memories of contemporaries in the stage performance allow students to delve deeper into the essence of assessments and reflections on the life and work of the writer. Here the "live" speech of contemporaries sounds and their direct image is created.

Preparation for the lesson:

• together with the students, a lesson script is drawn up, roles are assigned;
• the task is given to present the atmosphere of the meeting and conversation of contemporaries about Turgenev, to create an interesting story about him, to read lyric and prose poems;
• small groups of students work on the production with the teacher;
• on the blackboard portraits of I.S. Turgenev, next to a table with books and literature about him, a zone of the stage is highlighted, where readers, reciters tell about Turgenev and fragments from the novels "Rudin", "Fathers and Sons" are staged;
• selected musical pieces accompanying the production itself.

Composition lesson script

Teacher. Today we will try to penetrate the world of Turgenev - a man and a writer, to reveal his joys and sorrows, to get acquainted with the memories of Turgenev. Let's listen to what his contemporaries say: P.A. Kropotkin, Guy de Maupassant, P.V. Annenkov, A. Fet.

One of Turgenev's favorite pieces of music, Glinka's Waltz-Fantasy, is played.

Reader 1(P.A.Kropotkin). Turgenev's appearance is well known. He was very handsome: tall, well built, with soft gray curls. His eyes shone with intelligence and were not devoid of a humorous twinkle, and his manners were distinguished by that simplicity and lack of affectation, which are characteristic of the best Russian writers.

Reader 2(Guy de Maupassant). I saw Ivan Turgenev for the first time at Gustave Flaubert's. The door opened. A giant entered. A giant with a silver head, as they would say in a fairy tale. He had long gray hair, thick gray eyebrows and a large gray beard that gleamed with silver, and in this sparkling snowy whiteness - a kind, calm face with slightly large features. Turgenev was tall, broad-shouldered, built solid, but not obese, a real colossus with the movements of a child, timid and careful.

Reader 1(P.A.Kropotkin). Turgenev's conversation was especially remarkable. He spoke, as he wrote, in images. Wanting to develop the idea, he explained it with some kind of scene, conveyed in such an artistic form, as if it had been taken from his story.

Reader 2(Guy de Maupassant). Turgenev's voice sounded very soft and a little sluggish ... He spoke wonderfully, imparting artistic value and a kind of amusement to the most insignificant fact, but he was loved not so much for his lofty mind as for some touching naivete and the ability to be surprised at everything.

Reader 3(P.V. Annenkov). After 1850, Turgenev's drawing room became a gathering place for people from all classes of society. Here the heroes of secular salons, attracted by his reputation as a fashionable writer, literary figures who prepared themselves to become leaders of public opinion, famous artists and actresses, who were under the irresistible effect of his beautiful figure and high understanding of art, met ...

No one noticed the melancholy tinge in Turgenev's life, but meanwhile he was an unhappy man in his own eyes: he lacked the female love and affection that he had been looking for from an early age. The call and search for the ideal woman helped him create that Olympus, which he inhabited with noble female creatures, great in their simplicity and in their aspirations. Turgenev himself suffered that he could not defeat the female soul and control her: he could only torture her.

It is remarkable that the real and best qualities of the heart were revealed in him with the greatest strength in the village. Whenever Turgenev broke away from Petersburg, he calmed down. There was no one to shine before, no one to invent scenes and think about staging them. The village played in his life the very role that later played by his frequent absences abroad - it precisely determined what he should think and do.

Reader 4(A. Fet). In those days, there was an abundance of swamp game, and if Turgenev and I went to his Topki estate, the main goal was to hunt, and not sort out economic affairs. On the next day of our arrival, Turgenev, anticipating that the peasants would come to him, agonized over the impending need to go out to them on the porch.

I watched this scene from the window. Beautiful and apparently well-to-do peasants surrounded the porch on which Turgenev stood. Some man asked for an additional land. No sooner had Ivan Sergeevich promised the land than similar needs appeared to everyone, and the matter ended with the distribution of all the landlords' land. Uncle Turgenev said later: “Are you, gentlemen, writers, all of you so stupid? You went to Topki and distributed all the land to the peasants, and now the same Ivan writes to me: "Uncle, how can I sell Topki?" What to sell when all the land remained distributed to the peasants? "

Teacher. Communication with the men was not in vain for Turgenev. He reflected his observations in the essay "Khor and Kalinich", published in the journal "Sovremennik". When the issue of the magazine reached the reader, everyone started talking about the author's talent. The success prompted Turgenev to work on the essays further. The book was soon translated into French. There were a lot of enthusiastic responses to it.

Reader 5(J. Sand). What a masterful painting! .. This is a new world in which you allowed us to penetrate: no historical monument can reveal Russia better than these images, so well studied by you, and this way of life, so well seen by you.

Teacher. Many believe that the life of writers, connected with literary work, flows calmly, serenely. This does not apply to Turgenev, who had a difficult relationship with his "fellow pen". He did not get along with I.A. Goncharov, broke off relations with N.A. Nekrasov. But one of the facts seems to be the most surprising in the life of I.S. Turgenev and L.N. Tolstoy. There was a quarrel between the two great writers that separated them for a long seventeen years.

Disciple 1. The quarrel occurred over Turgenev's daughter, Polina. Born from a "slave", the girl immediately turned out to be out of place. She was torn from her mother early. She knew little of her father. Although he did not regret anything for her, taught, brought up, hired governesses - this was considered a "duty". All worries about her are not warmed by anything. In essence, he doesn't need it.

Little Pauline became jealous of her father for Pauline Viardot. It annoyed him. Turgenev said about his daughter that she did not like music, poetry, nature, or dogs. And in general, there is little in common between him and Polina.

Student 2. In the spring of 1861 Tolstoy was visiting Turgenev. They decided to visit Fet. An argument flared up in the dining room between Turgenev and Tolstoy. It all started when Fet's wife asked Turgenev about his daughter. He began to praise her new governess, who took care of the girl and forced them to take the poor's linen home, to fix it and give it to the trampled.

Tolstoy asked ironically:

And do you think this is good?

Of course, this brings the philanthropist closer to an urgent need, - answered Turgenev.

In Tolstoy, a heavy stubbornness woke up, associated with disrespect for the interlocutor.

And I think that a discharged girl, holding dirty rags on her knees, is playing an insincere, theatrical scene.

Disciple 1. His tone was unbearable. Whether Turgenev loved or disliked his daughter was his business. Tolstoy, on the other hand, laughed at poor Polina, and at his father as well. This Turgenev could not bear.

After the exclamation:

I ask you not to talk about it!

And Tolstoy's answer:

Why should I not say what I am convinced of!

Turgenev shouted in complete fury:

So I will make you silent with an insult!

He grabbed his head with his hands and quickly left the room, but a second later he returned and apologized to the hostess.

Student 2. The two best Russian writers quarreled for seventeen years, exchanged insulting letters, the matter almost came to a duel ... Because of what? Polina stood between them. Turgenev outwardly turned out to be wrong, but his internal position is much better - he boiled, said unnecessary things and apologized. Tolstoy did not evoke sympathy. He offered Turgenev a duel "on guns" so that it would certainly end properly. But Turgenev agreed to a duel only on European terms. Then Tolstoy wrote him a rough letter, and in his diary he noted: "He is a perfect scoundrel, but I think that in time I will not be able to stand it and will forgive him."

Teacher. Such a strange story happened. Both writers were deeply worried, regretted what had happened ...

Turgenev tried his hand at different genres. He wrote the plays "Freeloader", "Breakfast at the Leader's", "A Month in the Country".

The young actress Savina staged "A Month in the Country" in her benefit performance. The performance was a huge success. “Savina was triumphant. She opened the play. She brought Turgenev to the public: the reflection of his glory fell on her too. "

Reader 6(M.G.Savina). The play was played - and it made a splash. Soon the writer arrived in Russia and was greeted with enthusiasm. I was invited to Ivan Sergeev's.

I was overcome with such excitement that I almost decided not to go. I remember that Turgenev's entire heroic figure breathed something warm, sweet, dear. He was such a cute, elegant "grandfather" that I immediately got used to it and started talking like an ordinary mortal.

I was in my twenty-fifth year, I had heard so often about my "cuteness" that I was convinced of it myself, but to hear the word "clever" from Turgenev! - it was happiness. I didn't say anything about his writing! This thought completely poisoned the whole impression. An hour later a friend of Turgenev appeared and said that Turgenev especially liked that I did not mention his works. "It's so corny and so annoying."

Beethoven's piano sonata is played.

Teacher. Poetic creativity of Turgenev is little known. Meanwhile, the writer began his literary activity with lyric works. The author himself spoke very restrainedly about his poems, believing that he did not have the gift of a poet. But his poems did not leave indifferent his contemporaries. Even Fet once said that he "admired the poetry ... of Turgenev." Delight in front of nature, a subtle understanding of its essence, a sense of its mystery - all this can be found in the poem "Autumn".

Reader 7. The poem "Autumn".

How sad I love autumn.
I walk on a foggy, quiet day
I often go to the forest and sit there -
I look at the white sky
Yes, to the tops of dark pines.
I love biting a sour leaf
With a smile lounging lazy,
Dream to tackle whimsical
Yes, listen to woodpeckers thin whistle.
The grass has withered all ... cold,
A calm shine spreads over it ...
And the sadness is quiet and free
I surrender my whole soul ...
What won't I remember? What kind
Dreams will not visit me?
And the pines bend like living ones,
And they make such a thoughtful noise ...
And, like a flock of huge birds,
Suddenly the wind will blow
And in twigs, tangled and dark
Impatiently hesitate.

Teacher. In the summer of 1855, in Spasskoye, Turgenev finished his novel Rudin, which, in the words of Boris Zaitsev, is, in a sense, a debut and brilliant thing. Turgenev put a lot of his own into the main character - Rudin. The novel, as expected, was read by friends, advised, praised, "pointed out the shortcomings." Now you will see a small scene from this novel: an explanation by Natalia Lasunskaya and Rudin.

Mozart's sonata-fantasy sounds.

Teacher. The accumulated observations and thoughts, the experiences of joy and suffering, the writer in his declining years expressed in a cycle of poems in prose. In Russian literature, they remained unsurpassed examples of poetic miniatures.

Turgenev's poems were translated into European languages ​​with the help of Pauline Viardot. The writer did not expect readers to receive them with interest and sympathy. Some pieces were set to music.

The title of the poem in prose "We will fight again!" evokes a joyful, cheerful feeling. Immediately you imagine the kind smile of a person who cherishes all living things, you feel the playful affection in his words about the sparrow: "Conqueror - and that's enough!"

Reader 8. Poem in prose "We will fight again!"

What an insignificant little thing can sometimes rebuild the whole person!
Full of thought, I once walked along the high road.
Heavy forebodings cramped my chest; melancholy took possession of me.
I raised my head ... In front of me, between two rows of tall poplars, the road went into the distance like an arrow.
And across it, across this very road, ten steps away from me, all gilded by the bright summer sun, a whole family of sparrows jumped in single file, jumped briskly, amusingly, arrogantly!
Especially one of them was pushing sideways, sideways, protruding goiter and impudently chirping, as if the devil is not his brother! Conqueror - and complete!
Meanwhile, a hawk circled high in the sky, which, perhaps, was destined to devour this very conqueror.
I looked, laughed, shook myself - and sad thoughts immediately flew away: courage, prowess, desire for life I felt.
And let my hawk circle above me ...
- We will fight again, damn it!

Teacher. An unusual phenomenon is poems in prose in terms of genre. Lyricism, brevity, emotionality of the narrative bring them closer to lyric poetry. However, unlike lyrics, feelings are expressed in a prosaic form. In the poem "Enemy and Friend" moral and ethical problems are solved - hostile and friendly relations between people, responsibility for the life of another person.

Reader 9. Poem in prose "Enemy and Friend".

Condemned to eternal confinement, the prisoner escaped from prison and began to flee headlong ... The pursuit rushed on his heels.
He fled with all his might ... The pursuers began to lag behind.
But here in front of him is a river with steep banks, a narrow but deep river ... But he cannot swim!
A thin rotten board is thrown from one bank to the other. The fugitive had already raised his foot on her ... But it so happened that right there near the river stood: his best friend and his most cruel enemy.
The enemy said nothing and only crossed his arms; but a friend screamed at the top of his lungs:
- Have mercy! What are you doing? Come to your senses, madman! Can't you see that the board is completely rotten? It will break under your weight - and you will inevitably perish!
- But there is no other crossing ... but do you hear the pursuit? - desperately groaned the unfortunate man and stepped onto the board.
- I will not allow! .. No, I will not allow you to perish! - cried a zealous friend and snatched a board from under the feet of the fugitive. He instantly plunged into stormy waves - and drowned.
The enemy laughed smugly - and walked away; and a friend sat down on the bank - and began to cry bitterly for his poor ... poor friend!
However, he did not think to blame himself for his death ... not for a moment.
- Didn't listen to me! I didn’t obey! he whispered dejectedly.
- But by the way! he said at last. - After all, he had to languish in a terrible prison all his life! At least he doesn't suffer now! Now it is easier for him! You know, he had such a share!
- But all the same it is a pity, for humanity!
And the kind soul continued to weep inconsolably for its unfortunate friend.

Teacher. In the work of Turgenev, the novel "Fathers and Sons" occupies a special place. This novel has evoked many different opinions and statements. The word "nihilist" was immediately picked up by thousands of voices. The author of the work experienced painful impressions. He noticed "coldness, reaching indignation", in many close people, received congratulations from enemies. It is difficult to imagine what was happening in the soul of the author. But he explained to the readers in the article "Concerning Fathers and Sons," noting that "a rather curious collection of letters and other documents has been compiled." Watch the scene of Bazarov's declaration of love from the novel "Fathers and Sons".

Dvorak's "Melody" is played.

Teacher. All his life, Turgenev strove for happiness, caught love and did not catch up. As we know, his love for Pauline Viardot did not bring him happiness.

Reader 10. The last summer in Bougival was terrible both for Turgenev and for Pauline Viardot, who looked after him. And in the hour of death, when he almost did not recognize anyone, he said to the same Polina:

Here is a queen of queens!

So he extolled Pauline Viardot, the only woman he loved all his life.

Turgenev died on August 22, 1833. There were no traces of suffering left on his face, but apart from the beauty that appeared in him in a new way, he was surprised by the expression of what was lacking in life: will, strength ...

Some time passed, and Pauline Viardot, in one of her letters to Ludwig Pitch, wrote that a man who had made up the whole world for her had passed away. A void has formed around, and no one will ever be able to fill it: "Only now I understood what this person meant to me."

F. Chopin's nocturne sounds.

Literature

1. Zaitsev B.K. The Life of Turgenev / Distant. - M., 1991.

2. Pustovoit P.G. Roman I.S. Turgenev "Fathers and Sons": Comments: Book. for the teacher. - M., 1991.

3. Russian literature: 10 cl. Reader of historical-lit. materials (Compiled by I.E. Kaplan, M.G. Pinaev). - M., 1993.

4. Turgenev I.S. Literary and everyday memories. - M., 1987.

5. Shestakova L.L. Poetic heritage of I.S. Turgenev. Triptych "Variations" / Russian language at school. - 1993. - No. 2.

Rudin (1856, other sources - 1855)

Turgenev's first novel is named after the main character.

Rudin is one of the best representatives of the cultural nobility. He was educated in Germany as Mikhail Bakunin, who served as his prototype, and as Ivan Turgenev himself. Rudin is endowed with eloquence. Appearing in the estate of the landowner Lasunskaya, he immediately captivates those present. But he speaks well only on abstract topics, carried away by the "flow of his own feelings", not noticing how his words affect the audience. The commoner teacher Basistov is captivated by his speeches, but Rudin does not appreciate the devotion of the young man: "It can be seen that he was only looking for pure and devoted souls in words." The hero also suffers defeat in the field of public service, although his plans are always pure and disinterested. His attempts to teach at the gymnasium, to manage the estates of one tyrant landowner, ended in failure.

He wins the love of the daughter of the landowner, Natalia Lasunskaya, but retreats before the first obstacle - the opposition of the mother. Rudin does not withstand the test of love - and this is how a person is tested in the artistic world of Turgenev.

Noble's Nest (1858)

A novel about the historical fate of the nobility in Russia.

The main character, Fyodor Ivanovich Lavretsky, falls into the love net of the cold and calculating egoist Varvara Pavlovna. He lives with her in France, until chance opens his eyes to his wife's infidelity. As if freeing himself from obsession, Lavretsky returns home and seems to see his native places anew, where life flows silently, "like water over marsh grasses." In this silence, where even the clouds seem to “know where and why they are floating,” he meets his true love - Liza Kalitina.

But this love was not destined to become happy, although the amazing music composed by the old eccentric Lemme, Lisa's teacher, promised happiness to the heroes. Varvara Pavlovna, who was considered dead, turned out to be alive, which means that the marriage of Fedor Ivanovich and Liza became impossible.

In the finale, Lisa goes to a monastery to atone for the sins of her father, who obtained wealth by dishonest means. Lavretsky is left alone to live out a bleak life.

The Eve (1859)

In the novel "On the Eve", the Bulgarian Dmitry Insarov, who is fighting for the independence of his homeland, is in love with the Russian girl Elena Strakhova. She is ready to share his difficult fate and follows him to the Balkans. But their love turns into cruelty towards Elena's parents, towards friends, leading her to a break with Russia.

In addition, the personal happiness of Insarov and Elena turned out to be incompatible with the struggle to which the hero wanted to devote himself without a trace. His death looks like retribution for happiness.

All of Turgenev's novels are about love, and everything is about the problems that worried the Russian public at that time. In the novel "On the Eve", social issues are in the foreground.

Dobrolyubov in his article "When will the real day come?" who believed in the possibility of peaceful reforms. The writer tried to persuade Nekrasov, who published Sovremennik, not to publish this article. Nekrasov refused. Then Turgenev broke with the magazine, with which he collaborated for many years.

Fathers and Sons (1861)

In the next novel, Fathers and Sons, the argument goes between liberals, such as Turgenev and his closest friends, and a revolutionary democrat such as Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov (Dobrolyubov partly served as the prototype for the protagonist of Bazarov).

Turgenev hoped that Fathers and Sons would serve to rally the social forces of Russia. However, the novel caused a real storm of controversy. Employees of Sovremennik saw in the image of Bazarov an evil caricature of the younger generation. The critic Pisarev, on the contrary, found in him the best and necessary features of the future revolutionary, who has no room for activity yet. Friends and associates accused Turgenev of currying favor with the "boys", the younger generation, of unjustified exaltation of Bazarov and belittling of the "fathers".

Offended by rude and tactless polemics, Turgenev went abroad. Two very unusual stories of these years, with which Turgenev then intended to complete his literary career, are permeated with deep sorrow - "Ghosts" (1864) and "Enough" (1865).

Smoke (1867)

The novel Smoke (1867) differs sharply from the novels of Turgenev that preceded it. The protagonist of "Smoke" Litvinov is not remarkable at all. In the center of the novel is not even he, but the meaningless life of a motley Russian society in the German resort of Baden-Baden. Everything seemed to be shrouded in the smoke of petty, false significance. At the end of the novel, a detailed metaphor for this smoke is given. who watches from the window of the carriage returning home Litvinov. "Everything suddenly seemed to him like smoke, everything, his own life, Russian life - everything human, especially everything Russian."

Turgenev's extreme Westernizing views were manifested in the novel. In the monologues of Potugin, one of the characters in the novel, there are many evil thoughts about the history and significance of Russia, whose only salvation is to tirelessly learn from the West. "Smoke" deepened the misunderstanding between Turgenev and the Russian public. Dostoevsky and his associates accused Turgenev of slandering Russia. The Democrats were unhappy with the pamphlet on the revolutionary emigration. Liberals - a satirical image of the "top".

Nov (1876)

Turgenev's last novel, Nov, is about the fate of populism. In the center of the work is the fate of the whole social movement, and not of its individual representatives. The characters' characters are no longer revealed in amorous twists and turns. The main thing in the novel is the clash of different parties and strata of Russian society, first of all - revolutionary agitators and peasants. Accordingly, the public sounding of the novel increases, its "topicality".

Poems in prose

Poems in Prose became the swan song of the aging writer (the first part of them appeared in 1882, the second was not published during his lifetime). In them, it was as if the thoughts and feelings that had dominated Turgenev throughout his entire career crystallized into lyrical miniatures: these are reflections about Russia, about love, about the insignificance of human existence, but at the same time about heroism, about sacrifice, about the meaningfulness and fruitfulness of suffering.

last years of life

In the last years of his life, Turgenev more and more yearned for his homeland. "I am not only drawn, vomited to Russia ..." - he wrote a year before his death. Ivan Sergeevich died in Bougival in the south of France. The body of the writer was transported to St. Petersburg and buried at the Volkov cemetery in front of a huge crowd of people. Above his coffin, fierce disputes ceased, which during his lifetime did not cease around his name and books. Turgenev's friend, the famous critic P.V. Annenkov wrote: "A whole generation came to his grave with words of affection and gratitude as to a writer and a person."

Homework

Prepare for the exchange of impressions about the novel "Fathers and Sons" and its hero.

Formulate in writing the questions that arose during the reading.

Literature

Vladimir Korovin. Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev. // Encyclopedias for children "Avanta +". Volume 9. Russian literature. Part one. M., 1999

N.I. Yakushin. I.S. Turgenev in life and work. M .: Russian word, 1998

L.M. Lotman. I.S. Turgenev. History of Russian Literature. Volume three. Leningrad: Nauka, 1982.S. 120 - 160

Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev considered himself a writer of the “transitional era”. He entered the literary path when Pushkin and Lermontov were no longer there, became famous when Gogol fell silent, Dostoevsky was in hard labor, and Leo Tolstoy was still an aspiring writer and Turgenev took care of him.

His youth fell on the 40s of the XIX century - a time when a whole generation of Russian intelligentsia was formed, to which Turgenev ranked himself. Literature did not pass by this generation and, following the images of Onegin and Pechorin, captured another type of Russian life - “a man of the 40s”. Turgenev saw in himself the traits of this type, both good and bad, and paid tribute to him with his stories and novels.

These years were not a time of action, but of ideological disputes. It was then that two currents of Russian social thought took shape - Slavophilism and Westernism. The dispute between them was about the way in which Russia should develop. That is, both of them believed that the current state of the country and the people was ugly. But how to get out of this state?

The Slavophiles believed that all the troubles of Russia began with Peter I, who forcibly turned Russia onto the western path of development. At the same time, he mutilated what constituted the strength of the Russian nation: the spiritual authority of the Orthodox Church, the communal nature of work and life, the peasant type of thinking.

Westerners believed that the reforms of Peter I were caused by the general crisis of Ancient Russia, its backwardness, and all current troubles stem from the fact that Peter's work was not completed. They argued that there was no need to invent some "special" Russian way, when there is already a ready, beaten path of progress and civilization by Western Europe, with its respect for freedom and individual rights.

Despite theoretical disagreements, Westernizers and Slavophiles agreed in criticism of the existing order of things, and the history of Russia went beyond their disputes. Turgenev himself was well aware of the limitations of any "system of views." But he tried to see the truth of each side: Westerners, Slavophiles, and a new, radically minded generation. Turgenev considered himself a Westerner. However, it was the Westernizer Turgenev who discovered folk Russia for Russian literature, and Russian literature itself for Europe.

The world "fictional" by Turgenev

At the end of his life, the writer created a series of works, which he called "Poems in Prose". These are small sketches of a lyrical, philosophical, everyday character. In them, like in a drop of water, the universe of the writer is reflected. They clearly showed the motives, style and author's concept of the world, that is, the writer's idea of ​​what a person is and what is his place and purpose in society and on earth, what is truth, goodness and beauty in art and life.

"Only ... life keeps and moves with love"

Turgenev could not fail to know the lines of Nekrasov: "That heart will not learn to love, which is tired of hating." This position was always alien to Turgenev, although he could respect people who saw hatred as an indispensable companion of love. Among them were many of his personal friends, like the same Nekrasov, people who for him personified the honesty and sincerity of youth in the struggle against the outmoded order. But "preaching love with the hostile word of denial" was impossible for him. His ideal was Pushkin's attitude to life, in which love is the highest manifestation of the tragic beauty of the world.

"Noble nests"

The favorite place of action in Turgenev's works is the "noble nests" with the atmosphere of sublime experiences reigning in them. At the same time, the "noble nest" is a model of Russian society, here the fate of a person and the fate of Russia is decided. The noble estate is the knot in which the life of the peasantry and the educated class, antiquity and novelty are connected, here the views of "fathers" and "children" collide. Finally, the life of the estate is closely connected with the life of nature and obeys its rhythm: spring is a time of hopes, summer is a time of trials, autumn is gains and losses, and winter personifies death. Turgenev's novels also obey this rhythm. The action of the novel "Fathers and Sons" begins in spring and ends in winter.

"Nest" is one of the key words in the artistic world of Turgenev. Speaking about "noble nests", we used the name of one of Turgenev's novels. The "nest" is a home. Homelessness is a misfortune. Turgenev himself experienced it himself, bitterly saying that he lived "on the edge of someone else's nest," that is, he was forced to spend his life next to the family of the singer and actress Pauline Viardot, whose love was his happiness and drama. Turgenev's "nest" is a symbol of a family where the link between generations is not interrupted. The hero of "Fathers and Sons", having learned about the upcoming marriage of his friend, advises to study the jackdaws, because the jackdaw is "the most respectable, family bird" ... "The parent's nest" is a place of birth and rest, it closes the life cycle, like this happened to Bazarov.

"Love ... is stronger than death and fear of death"

Unlike Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, Turgenev lacks a motive for resurrection. Death in Turgenev is absolute, it is the abolition of earthly existence, it is the irrevocable dissolution of the soul in nature. Therefore, the death situation of Turgenev's hero is in a sense more tragic than that of the great contemporary writers. Gogol dreamed of reviving Chichikov and Plyushkin to spiritual life. Rodion Raskolnikov is experiencing spiritual death and resurrection. Death becomes a gateway to another world for Tolstoy's heroes. Turgenev's physical death is forever. And only the memory of love retains the irretrievably gone image of a person. Confirmation of this is the ending of the novel "Fathers and Sons".

Turgenev's "Notes of a Hunter", which appeared in 1852 as a separate edition, anticipated the pathos of Russian literature of the 1860s, a special role in the artistic consciousness of the era of "popular thought". And the writer's novels turned into a kind of chronicle of the change of different mental currents in the cultural stratum of Russian society: the idealist-dreamer, the "extra man" of the 1930s-1940s in the novel "Rudin"; the nobleman Lavretsky striving for merging with the people in the "Noble nest"; A “new man”, a commoner revolutionary - first Dmitry Insarov in “On the Eve”, and then Yevgeny Bazarov in “Fathers and Children”; the era of ideological impassability in "Smoke"; a new wave of social upsurge in the 70s in Novi.

Novels in the work of Turgenev represent a special variety (as opposed to stories). Turgenev created a very recognizable type of novel, endowed with stable features characteristic of 5 of his novels. First of all, there is stable composition, in the center plot always young woman, which is characterized by discreet beauty, development(which does not always mean that she is smart and educated), moral strength(she is always stronger than a man). A hero with a horse in a woman's pocket is a very Turgenev move. In addition, a whole is always lined up gallery of applicants for her hand, she chooses one and this one - the main character novel, at the same time this is the type who most important for Turgenev and For Russia... This hero himself is built on connecting two spheres and two ways to assess his personality and his actions: one sphere - historical, the other is universal... Turgenev builds the image in such a way that none of this dominates. The hero and the heroine, as expected, fall in love with each other, but there is always some obstacle on the way to their happiness that prevents them from immediately throwing themselves into each other's arms. In the course of the development of the plot, these obstacles are removed, but at the moment when everything seemed to be fine, another fatal obstacle arises, because of which they cannot be together.

Turgenev's first novel "Rudin" scandalous circumstances of creation: the prototype of the protagonist is Bakunin. In the first version of the novel, which has not reached us, Bakunin was brought out more satirically. In the image of Rudin, Turgenev portrayed a Hegelian, in the sense that Turgenev represented him .. On the one hand, he is an intelligent person, a good orator, capable of subduing minds, but at the same time, it was close people who felt that there was nothing behind this - behind all the ideas there is no genuine faith. How to respond to his preaching is an important question. And Dostoevsky, in the form of Stavrogin, will portray the hyperbolized Rudin. According to Dostoevsky, we should not trust these ideas. Turgenev has a different position: it does not matter who is speaking, it is important whether you believe with your mind, and even if the person is weak and unable to translate his own words. Turgenev has a secular - European type - consciousness that relies on the independence of a person who is able to draw conclusions independently. Turgenev was worried about the question of what a noble hero can do in modern conditions, when concrete practical questions arose before society.

At first the novel was called "Genius Nature". By "genius" Turgenev understood the ability to enlightenment, a versatile mind and broad education, and by "nature" - firmness of will, a keen sense of the urgent needs of social development, the ability to translate words into deeds. As he worked on the novel, this title ceased to satisfy Turgenev. It turned out that in relation to Rudin, the definition of "genius nature" sounds ironic: he has "genius", but no "nature", there is a talent to awaken the minds and hearts of people, but there is no strength and ability to lead them. Pandalevsky is a ghost man without social, national and family roots. The traits of groundlessness in Pandalevsky are absurd, but symbolic in their own way. With his presence in the novel, he sets off the ghostly existence of some of the wealthy nobility.

Years of abstract philosophical work have dried up living sources of heart and soul in Rudin. The predominance of the head over the heart is especially evident in the scene of love confession. The receding steps of Natalya have not yet echoed, and Rudin indulges in reflections: "I am happy," he said in an undertone. "Yes, I am happy," he repeated, as if wishing to convince himself. " In love, Rudin clearly lacks "nature". The hero does not stand the test, revealing his human, and, consequently, social inferiority, inability to move from words to deeds.

But at the same time, the love affair between Rudin and Natalya is not limited to exposing the social inferiority of the “superfluous person”: there is a deep artistic meaning in the hidden parallel that exists in the novel between the morning of Natalya's life and Rudin's bleak morning by the dried-up Avdyukhin pond.

After a love catastrophe, Rudin is trying to find a worthy job for himself. And then it turns out that the "extra person" is guilty not only through his own fault. Of course, not content with little, the romantic enthusiast is aiming at something that is obviously impossible: to rebuild the entire teaching system in the gymnasium alone, to make a navigable river, regardless of the interests of hundreds of owners of small mills on it. But the tragedy of Rudin as a practitioner is also in something else: he is not able to be a Stolz, he does not know how and does not want to adapt and dodge.

In Rudin's novel there is an antipode - Lezhnev, struck by the same disease of time, but only in a different version: if Rudin soars in the clouds, then Lezhnev hugs the ground. Turgenev sympathizes with this hero, recognizes the legitimacy of his practical interests, but does not hide their limitations.

Yet Rudin's life is not barren. In the novel, a kind of transfer of the baton takes place. The enthusiastic speeches of Rudin are eagerly caught by the young commoner Basistov, in whom the young generation of "new people", the future Dobrolyubovs and Chernyshevskys, is guessed. Rudin's sermon bears fruit: "He still sows a good seed." And by his death, despite its apparent meaninglessness, Rudin defends the high value of the eternal search for truth, the indestructibility of heroic impulses. Rudin may not be a hero of the new era, but he did everything possible in his position for these heroes to appear. This is the final result of the socio-historical assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the "superfluous person", a cultural nobleman of the era of the 30s - early 40s.

« Noble Nest"(1859 was received warmly, everyone liked it. The pathos is that a person renounces the claims of Rudinsky scale. Hence the very image of a noble estate somewhat in the Pushkin spirit. The belief that a noble family binds a person to the earth and gives a sense of duty to his country , a duty that is higher than personal passions. Lavretsky is a hero who combines the best qualities of the patriotic and democratic-minded part of the liberal nobility. He is not included in the novel alone: ​​the prehistory of a whole noble family stretches behind him. Turgenev introduces her into the novel not only in order to explain the character of the protagonist. The prehistory enlarges the problems of the novel, creates the necessary epic background. It is not only about the personal fate of Lavretsky, but about the historical fate of the whole estate, the last offspring of which is the hero. sharply criticizes the noble groundlessness, the isolation of this class from their native culture, from Russian x roots, from the people. The best pages of the novel are devoted to how the prodigal son regains his lost sense of homeland. The devastated soul of Lavretsky greedily absorbs forgotten impressions: long frontiers overgrown with Chernobyl, wormwood and field ash, fresh steppe debris and wilderness, long hills, ravines, gray villages, a dilapidated master's house with closed shutters and a crooked porch, a garden with weeds and burrows , gooseberries and raspberries.

In the "Noble Nest" for the first time embodied the ideal image of Turgenev's Russia, which constantly lived in his soul and largely determined his value orientation in the era of the 60-70s. This image is recreated in the novel with tender, filial love. He is implicitly polemic against the extremes of liberal Westernism and revolutionary maximalism. Turgenev warns: do not rush to reshape Russia in a new way, stop,

shut up, listen. Learn from the Russian plowman to do the historical work of renewal slowly, without fuss and chatter, without rash, rash steps. To match this majestic, unhurried life, flowing inaudibly, "like water on marsh grasses," the best characters of people from the nobility and peasants who grew up on its soil. Such is Marfa Timofeevna, the old patriarchal noblewoman, Liza Kalitina's aunt. The living personification of the homeland, people's Russia is the central heroine of the novel, Liza Kalitina.

The catastrophe of the love story between Liza and Lavretsky is not perceived as a fatal accident. In it, the hero sees retribution for the neglect of public duty, for the life of his father, grandfathers and great-grandfathers, for the past of Lavretsky himself. As retribution, Liza accepts what happened, deciding to go to a monastery, thereby performing a moral feat.

In a letter to I.S.Aksakov in November 1859, Turgenev said so about the idea of ​​the novel "On the eve":"My story is based on the idea of ​​the need for consciously heroic natures in order for things to move forward." The social and everyday plot of the novel has a symbolic connotation. Young Elena personifies young Russia "on the eve" of the upcoming changes. Who needs it most of all now: people of science, people of art, honest officials or consciously heroic natures, people of civil feat? Elena Insarova's choice gives an unambiguous answer to this question. The artistic description of Insarov's strengths and weaknesses is completed by a key episode with two statuettes of the hero, which Shubin sculpted. On the first of them, Insarov was represented as a hero, and on the second - a ram, rising on its hind legs and bowing its horns to strike.

Alongside the social plot, partly growing out of it, partly towering over it, a philosophical plot unfolds in the novel. The novel opens with a dispute between Shubin and Bersenev about happiness and duty. “Each of us desires happiness for himself,” argues Bersenev, “but is this a word:“ happiness ”that united, would inflame both of us, make us shake hands with each other? Is it not selfish, I mean, is it not a divisive word. " The words unite people: "homeland, science, freedom, justice." And - love, if it is not "love-pleasure", but "love-sacrifice."

The novel "On the Eve" is Turgenev's weakest novel, it is the most schematic. In Insarov, Turgenev wanted to deduce a type of chela that has no discrepancy between words and actions. Apparently, making the main character a Bulgarian, he wanted to say that he does not see such types in Russia. The finale is the most interesting, where the influence of Schopenhauer was felt. Venice was not chosen for nothing: a very beautiful city (for some it is the embodiment of beauty) and this terrible senseless evil is being committed here. Here Schopenhauer's ideas were reflected: he taught that at the heart of the world is evil, some kind of hostile irrational will that turns a person's life into a series of suffering, and the only thing that reconciles us with life is the beauty of this world, which is something like a veil. According to Sh. It is important that this veil, on the one hand, separates us from evil, and on the other, it is an expression of this evil.

In the novel "Fathers and Sons" the unity of the living forces of national life explodes with social conflict. In the eyes of the radical Bazarov, Arkady is a slob, a soft liberal barich. Bazarov does not want to accept and admit that the kindness of Arkady and the dovish meekness of Nikolai Petrovich are also a consequence of the artistic talent of their poetic, dreamy, sensitive natures to music and poetry. Turgenev considered these qualities to be deeply Russian, he endowed Kalinich, Kasyan, Kostya, famous singers from the Pritynny tavern with them. They are as organically connected with the substance of the life of the people as the impulses of Bazarov's negation. But in Fathers and Children, the unity between them disappeared, a tragic discord emerged, affecting not only political and social convictions, but also enduring cultural values. Turgenev now saw not only a great advantage, but also the danger of breaking the connection of times in the ability of a Russian person to easily break himself. Therefore, he gave a broad national-historical coverage to the social struggle of the revolutionary democrats with the liberals. It was about cultural continuity in the course of the historical succession of one generation to another.

The conflict of the novel "Fathers and Sons" in family spheres, of course, does not close, but its tragic depth is verified by the violation of "nepotism", in the connections between generations, between opposite social trends. The contradictions went so deep that they touched the natural foundations of being.

"Smoke" differs in many respects from Turgenev's novels. First of all, it lacks the typical hero around whom the plot is organized. Litvinov is far from his predecessors - Rudin, Lavretsky, Insarov and Bazarov. This person is not outstanding, does not pretend to be a public figure of the first magnitude. He strives for a modest and quiet economic activity in one of the remote corners of Russia. We meet him abroad, where he improved his agronomic and economic knowledge, preparing to become a competent landowner. This novel touched a lot of people. In the person of Potugin, an extreme Westerner was brought out, Fet is considered one of the prototypes. “If Russia disappeared from the world map tomorrow, no one would notice,” Potugin’s most famous maxim. Finally, the novel lacks the typical Turgenev heroine, capable of deep and strong love, prone to selflessness and self-sacrifice. Irina is corrupted by secular society and deeply unhappy: she despises the life of people of her circle, but at the same time cannot free herself from it.

The novel is also unusual in its basic tone. In it, satirical motives, not very characteristic of Turgenev, play a significant role. In the tones of a pamphlet, Smoke depicts a broad picture of the life of the Russian revolutionary emigration. The author devotes many pages to a satirical depiction of the ruling elite of Russian society in the scene of the generals' picnic in Baden-Baden.

The plot of the novel "Smoke" is also unusual. The satirical pictures that have grown in him, at first glance, stray into digressions, weakly connected with Litvinov's storyline. And the Potuginsky

episodes seem to fall out of the main plot of the novel.

In the novel, the single storyline is indeed weakened. Several artistic branches scatter from her in different directions: Gubarev's circle, the generals' picnic, Potugin's story and his "Westernizing" monologues. But this plot looseness is meaningful in its own way. Seemingly stepping aside, Turgenev achieves a broad coverage of life in the novel. The unity of the book is based not on the plot, but on the internal roll-overs of different plot motives. Everywhere there is a key image of "smoke", a way of life that has lost its meaning.

Only after 10 years does the novel come out "New". Here the populists became the central types. The epigraph expresses the main idea best of all. Nov is uncultivated soil. "New must be lifted not with a surface plow, but with a deep-picking plow." It differs from other novels in that the main character commits suicide. The action of “Novi” is related to the very beginning of “going to the people”. Turgenev shows that the populist movement did not arise by accident. The peasant reform disappointed expectations, the situation of the people after February 19, 1861, not only did not improve, but sharply deteriorated. The novel depicts a tragicomic picture of the populist revolutionary propaganda led by Nezhdanov. Of course, Nezhdanov is not the only one to blame for the failures of this kind of "propaganda". Turgenev shows another thing - the darkness of the people in matters of civil and political. But one way or another between the revolutionary intelligentsia and the people a blank wall of incomprehension rises. That is why “going to the people” is portrayed by Turgenev as walking in agony, where heavy defeats and bitter disappointments await the Russian revolutionary at every step. Finally, in the center of the novel "Nov" are not so much the individual fates of individual representatives of the era, as the fate of an entire social movement - populism. The breadth of coverage of reality is growing, the public sound of the novel is sharpened. The love theme no longer occupies a central position in Novi and is not a key one in revealing the character of Nezhdanov.

"The physiognomy of Russian people of the cultural stratum" in the era of Turgenev changed very quickly - and this brought a special shade of drama to the writer's novels, characterized by a swift set-up and unexpected denouement, "usually tragic endings." Turgenev's novels are strictly confined to a narrow period of historical time, exact chronology plays an essential role in them. The life of Turgenev's hero is extremely limited in comparison with the heroes of the novels of Pushkin, Lermontov, Goncharov. The characters of Onegin, Pechorin, Oblomov "reflected the century", in Rudin, Lavretsky or Bazarov - the mental currents of several years. The life of Turgenev's heroes is like a brightly flashing, but rapidly fading spark. History, in its inexorable movement, measures out to them a tense, but too short in time, fate. All Turgenev's novels obey the cruel rhythm of the annual natural cycle. The action in them begins, as a rule, in early spring, culminates in the sultry days of summer, and ends with the "whistle of the autumn wind" or "in the cloudless silence of January frosts." Turgenev shows his heroes in the happy moments of maximum recovery and the prime of their vitality. But these minutes turn out to be tragic: Rudin dies on the Parisian barricades, on a heroic take-off, the life of Insarov suddenly ends, and then Bazarov, Nezhdanov.

With Turgenev, the poetic image of the companion of the Russian hero, the Turgenev girl - Natalia Lasunskaya, Liza Kalitina, Elena Stakhova, Marianna, entered not only into literature, but also into life. The writer depicts in his novels and stories the most flourishing period in a woman's life, when a woman's soul blossoms in anticipation of the chosen one, all her potential possibilities awaken for a temporary triumph.

Together with the image of the Turgenev girl, the image of "Turgenev's love" is included in the writer's work. This feeling is akin to revolution: “... the monotonously correct order of the established life is broken and destroyed in an instant, youth stands on the barricade, its bright banner hovers high, and no matter what lies ahead of it - death or a new life, - it’s all sends his enthusiastic greetings. " All Turgenev's heroes undergo a test of love - a kind of test for vitality not only in intimate, but also in public beliefs.

A loving hero is beautiful, spiritually inspired, but the higher he soars on the wings of love, the closer the tragic denouement and fall. Love, according to Turgenev, is tragic because both a weak and a strong person are defenseless before its spontaneous power. Wayward, fatal, uncontrollable, love whimsically disposes of human destiny. This feeling is also tragic because the ideal dream that a soul in love gives itself to cannot be fully realized within the earthly natural circle.

And yet, the dramatic notes in Turgenev's work are not the result of fatigue or disappointment in the sense of life and history. Quite the opposite. They are generated by a passionate love for life, reaching the desire for immortality, to the desire so that the human individuality does not fade away, so that the beauty of the phenomenon turns into an imperishable beauty eternally on earth. Momentary events, vivid characters and conflicts are revealed in the novels and stories of Turgenev in the face of eternity. The philosophical background enlarges the characters and brings the problematics of the works beyond the limits of narrow-minded interests. A tense dialogical relationship is established between the philosophical reasoning of the writer and the direct portrayal of the heroes of the time at the climax of their lives. Turgenev likes to lock moments into eternity and give interest and meaning to a transitory phenomenon.