NIKOL AY GAVRILOVICH CHERNYSHEVSKY-ROMANIST AND RUSSIAN DEMOCRATIC BELELETRICS OF THE 60S

The development of Russian realism in the 60s and 80s took place under the sign of the formation of a "sociological" (or social) trend, which replaced the "psychological" trend in the Russian literary and historical process. In Russian literary science, this conditional typological differentiation of concepts has been fixed, indicating the difference between the divine principles of embodiment in a literary work of the relationship between personality and environment. In this current, it is customary to single out the line, conventionally designated as social and ethical, in the direction of which the creativity of L. Tolstoy and F. Dostoevsky proceeded, and the revolutionary-democratic (or educational), which gave Russian literature the schools of Chernyshevsky, Nekrasov, Saltykov-Shchedrin.

Chernyshevsky went down in the history of Russian literature primarily as the author of the novel What Is to Be Done ?, which had a tremendous influence not only on the subsequent development of Russian realism, but also on the formation of the moral ideals of an entire generation. The traditions of Chernyshevsky as a novelist were most consistently embodied in democratic literature 60-80-ies of the XIX century., Which consolidated in its artistic practice the discovery in the field of psychology research "new" people from among the commoners, who became the heroes of the novel "What is to be done?

The creation of the novel was preceded by a significant stage in spiritual development N.G. Chernyshevsky, reflected in his journalistic and literary-critical activities, which was associated with the journal "Sovremennik". As a leading literary critic of the magazine (1853-1862), Chernyshevsky defended his dissertation for a master's degree in Russian literature ("Aesthetic relations of art to reality") in 1855, in which he acts as the successor to V.G. Belinsky, completing the work begun by the critic on the theoretical substantiation of realism, the problems of the nationality of art. The main subject of research in Chernyshevsky's dissertation was the central issue of aesthetics - the relationship of art to reality. The critic formulates the main aspects of the relationship between art and life: philosophical and epistemological ("the reproduction of life is a common characteristic feature of art", art is a "textbook of life") and socio-axiological ("works of art have another meaning - explanations of life ... and the sentence about the phenomena of life "). These aesthetic principles formed the basis of the theory

critical realism, gave a methodological key for scientific forecasting of the development of Russian literature.

Following the logic of the outlined principles of approach to art, Chernyshevsky formulated the aesthetic ideal of the beautiful, according to the concepts of “common people” (life “in contentment with a lot of work, which, however, does not come to exhaustion”), gave a characteristic of the revolutionary democratic interpretation of this ideal, providing for satisfaction material, mental and moral needs of man: "the noble aspirations for everything high and beautiful is recognized by science in man as essential as the need to eat and drink." For the first time in Chernyshevsky's aesthetics, the socialist ideal of man as a comprehensively developed personality was proclaimed.

Asserting that "practical life embraces not only material, but also mental and moral human activity," Chernyshevsky thereby expands the sphere of manifestation of lofty acts. According to Chernyshevsky, they can be performed not only by selected individuals, but also by representatives of the masses (“And there were always, everywhere, thousands of people, whose whole life was a continuous series of lofty feelings and deeds ... it depends on the person himself to what extent his life is filled beautiful and great. "In his literary-critical works, Chernyshevsky substantiates the program of the activity of a positively beautiful person. For example, in the review" Russian Man on Rendez-vous "(1858), dedicated to Turgenev's story" Asya ", the critic recreates the image of a hero of the new time depicting him as a public figure whose words do not diverge from deeds. The new hero, in his opinion, will not come from among the Enlightened aristocratic intelligentsia, who have lost their civic positions, but from among the democratic youth who will find effective ways of rapprochement with the people: the article “Not is the beginning of change? "(1861),

In a review of "Childhood and Adolescence" and war stories. L. Tolstoy "(1856) Chernyshevsky expresses his opinion about the originality of the talent of the young writer who came to literature. Considering the features of Tolstoy's psychological analysis, he points out that most of all Count Tolstoy is concerned with "the mental process itself, its forms, its laws, the dialectic of the soul, in order to be expressed in a definitive term." In the same article, Chernyshevsky draws the readers' attention to the fact that Tolstoy's work is marked by a keen interest in the "moral side" of the phenomena of reality, in socio-ethical problems.

Affirming the necessity of expressing the heroic in literature, Chernyshevsky persistently pursued the idea that at this historical stage in the development of literature, the most fruitful path is the "Gogol trend," a trend predominantly critical. In his work "Essays on the Gogol Period of Russian Literature" (1855-1856), he develops the theory of realistic art, arguing that his further path is a creative synthesis of life, politics, science and poetry. Chernyshevsky's aesthetic attitudes will be embodied in the novel What Is to Be Done? (1863), which was written by him in the Alekseevsky ravelin Peter and Paul Fortress.

The artistic method of Chernyshevsky the novelist

In a letter to N. Nekrasov dated November 5, 1856, Chernyshevsky wrote that he pinned special hopes on him as a poet, in whose work the “poetry of the heart” was harmoniously combined with the “poetry of thought” and that “the poetry of the heart has the same rights as and the poetry of thought. " Time has confirmed Chernyshevsky's forecast regarding Nekrasov, who opened a new page in the history of Russian poetry. Chernyshevsky himself artistically embodied the principles outlined by him in the novel "What is to be done?" In it, the author concretized the concept of "poetry of thought", understanding by this the poeticization of natural science, political, socialist ideas, acting in this case as an ideological supporter of A. Herzen. At the same time, the “poetry of the heart” engages the author no less: acting as the heir to the traditions of the Russian novel (first of all, the novel by I. Turgenev), Chernyshevsky rethinks it and presents this side of the life of his heroes in the light of the theory of “reasonable egoism” - ethics “ new "people, heroes of the new time.

In this case, the intellectual, rationalistic principle becomes poetic content and takes on an art form corresponding to it. The aesthetic substantiation of the new type of artistic thinking is associated with the name of V. Belinsky, who wrote in his article "A Look at Russian Literature of 1847": "Now the very limits of the novel and the story have moved apart," talent ", when" the thought element ... has merged even with the artistic one. "

Author of "What is to be done?" begins the narration by explaining the special aesthetic position of the narrator, who discusses his artistic tastes and concludes the dialogue with the “discerning” reader by admitting that he “does not have a shadow of artistic 370

Ayaznta ". This statement contains a clear allusion to the closeness of the narrative manner of the novel to the works of A. Herzen, noting the peculiarities of the style of which Belinsky wrote: “The power of thought is the main force of his talent; the artistic manner of correctly grasping the phenomena of reality is a secondary, auxiliary force of his talent "(" A Look at Russian Literature of 1847. This article is ").

Indeed, in the novel What Is to Be Done? scientific and sociological thought organizes the structure of the work, determines the features of its plot-compositional structure, the system of images of the work and stimulates the reader's aesthetic experiences. Having made philosophical and sociological thought a genre motivation for the work, Chernyshevsky thereby expanded the idea of ​​\ u200b \ u200bthe artistry of a work of realistic art.

"What to do?"

The studies devoted to the novel contain a significant number of versions explaining its complex architectonics. Attention was drawn to the "internal structure" of the work according to the "four belts", to the "double plot" (family-psychological and "secret", Aesopian), "multistage" and "cyclicality" of a series of closed plots (stories and chapters). Attempts have been made to prove that the peculiarity of the structure of the novel lies in the fact that the limbs are "a set of stories" united by the author's analysis of the social ideal and ethics of "new people".

Indeed, in the plot lines of the novel, one can note the adherence to certain traditions that were embodied in the works of Russian writers of the middle of the century. This is the motive of the girl's suffering in her own family, alien to her in spirit, and a meeting with a man of high civic ideals ("Rudin", "On the Eve", "Break"), the situation of a love triangle, from which a woman finds a way out ("Noble Nest", " Thunderstorm"). However, the nature of the combination of genetically derived schemes of the novel's situations demonstrates the author's innovative approach to solving this problem. The novel "What is to be done?" for all the seeming mosaic structure, it has a continuous narrative line. This is a story about the formation of a young generation of builders of a new life. Therefore, the story of Vera Pavlovna's life naturally (sometimes even contrary to traditional ideas about the "main" and "secondary" characters) includes stories about Dmitry Lopukhov and Alexander Kirsanov, Katya Polozova and Nastya Kryukova, Rakhmetov.

Originality of the genre novel consists in combining three content-structural elements in it: descriptions of the intimate and family life of heroes, analysis of the process of mastering a new ideology and morality, and characteristics of ways of realizing ideals in reality.

l The function of the author-narrator also gives artistic unity to the novel.

Chernyshevsky goes into conversation with a variety of readers. This is evidenced by the wide range of intonation means used by the narrator, which include and irony, and mockery, and sarcasm, and pathos. Ironically, words are sometimes heard characterizing the level of moral development of the "good" reading "public", still "illegible and slow-witted", which the novelist will have to win over to his side. Chernyshevsky uses the technique of a literary mask, thus veiling his own point of view. with tendencies ".

A special role in the structure of the novel belongs to Vera Pavlovna's “dreams”, which cannot be regarded as out-of-plot “inserts” necessary to mask revolutionary and socialist ideas. "Dreams" by Vera Pavlovna are an interpretation of the key elements of the event plot. In the first two dreams, Vera Pavlovna's relationship with the "vulgar people" of the old world is completed and her transition to the "society of pure people" is traced. The third dream psychologically substantiates the plot about the second marriage of the heroine, and the fourth presents the spiritual world of the developed personality of Vera Pavlovna and creates an image of a beautiful future.

Especially important role Vera Pavlovna's fourth dream plays in the artistic structure of the novel. It was in this dream that the qualitatively new facet of the realistic method of Chernyshevsky the novelist, who included “idyllic” pictures of a bright future, was most clearly manifested in his work. Based on the experience of the works of utopian socialists, in a special author's digression, the author asserts that “sheer nonsense that the idyll is inaccessible; it is not only a good thing for almost all people, but also possible, very possible. " Several years earlier, Chernyshevsky had substantiated the "idyllic" poetics of the future novel, characterizing the features of the works of the utopian socialists; “... the first manifestations of new social aspirations always have the character of enthusiasm, dreaminess, so that they are more like poetry than serious science. "

Note that Chernyshevsky departs from the "canon" adopted in utopian novels and conveys the function of narrating about the future heroine. The change in the “subject” of the narrative is a significant fact: Vera Pavlovna's “dream” is primarily the result of the “processing” of the experiences experienced by the individual psyche, therefore it characterizes the heroine's self-awareness at a certain stage of her life. Chernyshevsky was aware of the fact that the "idyllic" image of the coming communism created in the novel cannot be the fruit of pure fantasy, she "is not able to create for her paintings not a single element, except for those given to her by reality."

One of bright images"Sleep" - "crystal palace" in which people of the future live. His image goes back to the survey of "Paxton's palace", compiled by Chernyshevsky in 1854 and published in the August issue of "Notes of the Fatherland" (the area described in it is called Seidengam, and in the novel Seidengam). This palace was built in London's Gaid Park for the 1851 World's Fair, and then reopened three years later at Seidengham. From this description subsequently and

the poetics of the fourth "dream" of Vera Pavlovna is being formed. Such details of the image as "huge, magnificent halls" capable of accommodating a huge number of people during lunch and rest hours, greenhouses, glass, orchestras, magnificent table setting - all these "fantastic" elements of the life of ordinary people who know how to work and enjoy, undoubtedly, go back to the description of the real celebration of the opening of the Crystal Palace.

Between Vera Pavlovna's "dream" and the magazine review, there is a similarity of a different order. We can talk about the coincidence of compositional methods of unfolding the image of human history in both descriptions. In the description of the Crystal Palace, the reader got acquainted with the museum expositions of the Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Byzantine and so on chambers, the exhibits of which reflected the milestones in the history of mankind. In the novel, the movement of time in the understanding of the heroine is presented as a movement from the era, the symbol of which was the Phoenician goddess Astarte (slave woman), to the image of the Greek Aphrodite (queen-half-slave), to be replaced by the goddess of the Middle Ages - grieving Integrity, etc.

It should be noted the important role of poetic inclusions in "sleep". They serve several functions. They can be viewed as a lyrical version of the main theme of the novel - the theme of liberation, which sounded in the journalistic digressions of the author-narrator. Poetic inserts introduce into the novel the motive of an “inspired poet” who sings a hymn to the sun, light, and love. It is interesting that the fourth dream of Vera Pavlovna is preceded by lines from A. Koltsov's "Russian Song" quoted by Chernyshevsky from memory, which at the very beginning of the chapter "pick up" the lines from Goethe's "May Song" and Schiller's poem "Four Centuries". The symbolism of the unification of poets in the heroine's dream is unconditional: Chernyshevsky "erases" the temporal and stylistic difference in the manners of each of the poets, thereby pointing to the timeless nature of man's striving for freedom. At the same time, it can be assumed that in this way Chernyshevsky points to the "sources" of the moral state of the heroine, brought up on the educational ideas of Goethe, the romantic pathos of Schiller's poetry, the national poetry of Koltsov and Nekrasov.

Thus, the "utopia" of Chernyshevsky, created in the dream of Vera Pavlovna, is not the fruit of pure fiction of the author, just as the image of the heroine's workshop cannot be called the creation of the author's imagination. This is evidenced by a large number of documents confirming the existence of such public organizations (sewing, shoe workshops, artels of translators and binders, household - 374

0btx communes), which set themselves the goal of forming the public consciousness of the common people. In the novel itself, the fourth dream is compositionally located between the story of two workshops - Vera Pavlovna and Mertsalova - and immediately precedes the message about the construction of a new workshop and hopes that “in two years, instead of two sewing ones, there will be four, five, and there will soon be ten, and twenty ". But if for Chernyshevsky and his associates the communes were a sign of the future and their appearance inspired hope for the accomplishment of a social revolution, for such writers as F. Dostoevsky, N. Leskov, they were alien phenomena of Russian life. In "Crime and Punishment" F. Dostoevsky ridiculed the ideas of the commune, embodying his negative attitude towards them in the image of the morally unscrupulous Lebezyatnikov, and N. Leskov devoted his novel "Nowhere" to exposing the insolvency of the socialist "hostel", tracing the tragedy of people with pure souls - Lisa Bakhareva, Reiner, who tied themselves to the "new" people.

In his novel, Chernyshevsky introduced the reader to different types"New people", continuing the series begun by Turgenev's Bazarov. However, Chernyshevsky took a certain risk, undertaking to artistically substantiate the possibility of dividing "new people" into "ordinary" (Lopukhov, Kirsanov, Vera Pavlovna, Polozov, Mertsalov) and "special" (Rakhmetov). However, the image of Rakhmetov in the plot of the novel is motivated socially and psychologically: the need for change is ripe in society, so it has given rise to a new breed of man. Rakhmetov is almost devoid of individuality (a short biography of the hero, "breaking out" from his environment, is more a means of typing, rather than individualizing the hero). Grotesque is one of the central episodes, memorable to the reader, with the bed, studded with nails, the "romantic story" with the young widow is exaggerated. It is curious that the love story about Rakhmetov becomes known to the reader from the words of Kirsanov, who gives an appropriate assessment of his friend's behavior on "rendez-vous". This is a significant fact of the novel: it reflects Chernyshevsky's conviction that there is no insurmountable border between "ordinary" and "special" people. It is no coincidence that the author "trusts" Rakhmetov to explain Lopukhov's act and hand over a note from him to Vera Pavlovna. Chernyshevsky does not show a “special” hero in the sphere of practical activity, as it happens by “ordinary” people who conduct educational work among the people: Lopukhova and Mertsalova - with the girls in the workshop, Lopukhov - with students and factory workers. Imagining the personality traits of a professional

revolutionary, Chernyshevsky experienced some difficulties in to specifically portray Rakhmetov's “underground” activities. Apparently, this can be done explain by the fact that the image of Rakhmetov is known # degree "limited" its "feature": in case of victory or deathAffairsHe mustassimilate with "ordinary" people, accepting themimagelife. The second of named options and is being considered democratic fiction of the 60-70s, in which a complex public resulting situation collapse of hopes of an ambulance peasant revolution.

The plot and compositional side of the novel "What is to be done?" has long attracted researchers with its magnificent and complex architectonics. They tried to explain this complexity from different positions. Attention was drawn to the "internal structure" of the work (in four belts: vulgar people, new people, higher people and dreams), “double plot” (family-psychological and “secret”, “Aesopian”), “multistage” and “cyclicity” of a series of closed plots (stories, chapters), “aggregate of stories”, united by the author's analysis of the social ideal and ethics new people. The genesis of the plot lines novel, largely representing the contamination of several plots traditional for Russian literature of the middle of the century, carried out in the creative practice of I.S.Turgenev, I.A.Goncharov, A.V. Druzhinin and other authors (the oppression of a girl in her own family, alien to her in spirit , and a meeting with a man of high aspirations; a plot about the situation of a married woman and a family conflict, known as the "triangle"; plot of a biographical story). one

All these interesting observations help to comprehend the process of the formation of Chernyshevsky's novel on the path of cyclization of stories and novellas, to genetically reconstruct the typological genealogy of a number of its plot positions. Without them, the literary innovation of Chernyshevsky the novelist will look unconvincing. However, the genetic approach sometimes overshadowed the clarification of the nature of the qualitatively new plot situations “What is to be done?”, And the excessive “anatomy” of the work into a number of “closed”, “plug-in” plots hardly helped to reveal its plot-compositional integrity and solidity. Apparently, it is more expedient to talk not about "closed" plots and "double" centers, but about new and interconnected plot situations, integrated into a single artistic structure of the novel.

It contains a cross-cutting story of the formation of the young generation of builders of a new life that runs through the entire work, capturing its social, ethical-philosophical and moral-psychological aspects. In the narrative about the life of Vera Pavlovna, naturally and logically (sometimes even contrary to traditional ideas about the main, secondary and "inserted" characters), there are inscribed stories about Dmitry Lopukhov and Alexander Kirsanov, Katya Polozova and Nastya Kryukova, Rakhmetov and the young widow he saved, "the lady in mourning ”and“ a man of about thirty ”that appeared in the chapter“ Change of scenery ”. And this happened because the story of the formation and fate of a new woman absorbed not only the intimate and love experiences of the heroine, but also the whole process of her involvement in the great cause of restructuring the social, family, legal and moral and ethical foundations of society. The dream of personal happiness naturally grew into the socialist dream of the happiness of all people.

Structural unity "What is to be done?" is carried out primarily in the subjective form of manifestation of the author's position, when the image of the author-narrator is introduced into the novel. A wide range of intonation and stylistic means of the narrator, including good nature and frankness, mystification and insolence, irony and ridicule, sarcasm and contempt, gives grounds to speak of Chernyshevsky's intention to create in this image the impression of a literary mask, designed to effect the author's influence on heterogeneous readers of the book: “noble "The reader (friend), the" discerning "reader (the enemy) and that" kind "reading" public ", still" illegible and slow-witted ", which the novelist will have to win over to his side. Seeming at first glance "scissors" between the real author and the narrator, who does not have "not a shadow of artistic talent" (third section of the "Preface"), become less noticeable in the course of further narration. It is noteworthy that such a polysemantic stylistic manner, in which the serious was interspersed with jokes and irony, was typical in general for Chernyshevsky, who loved to mystify the interlocutor even in everyday situations.

Chernyshevsky and in other works written in the Peter and Paul Fortress, seeks to create the impression of objectivity of the narrative by introducing a narrator with a liberal orientation ("Alferyev") or even several narrators ("Tale in a Tale"). This manner will be typical for some works about “new people” by other authors (I. Kushchevsky, “Nikolai Negorev, or the Prosperous Russian”; A. Osipovich-Novodvorsky, “Episode from the life of neither a pea nor a crow,” 1877). However, in "What is to be done?" the functions of a conservative interlocutor have been transferred to the “discerning reader,” personifying the reactionary principle in political, moral, ethical and aesthetic terms. In relation to him, the narrator acts as an antagonist and irreconcilable polemicist. Compositionally, they are firmly "tied to each other" (XI, 263).

The call to devote oneself to the revolution, the glorification of the revolutionary - the "engine of the engines" of social progress, the socio-economic justification of the behavior and character of people, the propaganda of materialism and socialism, the struggle for women's equality, the establishment of new moral and ethical standards of human behavior - this is far from a complete set of social political and philosophical and moral problems that worried the author-storyteller in conversations with a reader who still has so much "confusion and nonsense in his head." Formulated in lyrical digressions, conversations and polemics with the "discerning reader", the author's "intervention" becomes a structural and organizing factor in the narrative. And here the author-storyteller himself substantiates “the main requirements of artistry”, new principles of plot formation, “without any tricks”, “mystery”, “showiness” and “embellishment”. The novelist's creative laboratory opens before readers when, in the narrator's digressions, he gets acquainted with the new principles of materialistic aesthetics that underlie the novel, with reflections on the relationship between fiction and life material, on different concepts of plot and composition, on outdated definitions of the main and secondary characters, etc. Thus, in the presence of the reader, a new poetics, an original artistic structure of a socio-philosophical novel was formed.

Let us consider how other forms of genre structural unity are realized in the novel "What is to be done?"

From the plot and compositional side, all the meetings of the heroine with other characters (including Rakhmetov and the "lady in mourning") are interconnected and enter into a cross-cutting event plot in which the "personal" and ideological are in an indissoluble artistic unity. To be convinced of this, it is necessary to abandon the outdated and misleading habit of viewing Vera Pavlovna's “dreams” as out-of-plot “inserts” and “episodes” needed only to mask dangerous revolutionary and socialist ideas.

"Dreams" by Vera Pavlovna represent an unusually bold artistic interpretation of the event plot at the key, critical stages of the heroine's spiritual life and are realized in two varieties. In one case, these are artistic and symbolic paintings, affirming the typological unity and interconnection of the heroine's personal liberation and the liberation of all girls in general from the "basement" ("Vera's first dream"), female emancipation and social renewal of all mankind ("Vera Pavlovna's fourth dream"); in the other - a retrospective and extremely "compressed" presentation of events that influenced the outlook and psychology of the heroine and predetermined new plot twists. It is through "The Second Dream of Vera Pavlovna" that the reader learns about the disputes in the Lopukhov circle about the natural science works of the German chemist Liebig (about the different growing conditions of a wheat ear, about the importance of drainage work), philosophical discussions about the real and fantastic desires of people, about the laws of historical progress and the American Civil War. In her home youth “university” Vera Pavlovna, having assimilated the idea that “life has work as its main element,” decided to organize a labor partnership of a new type.

Both varieties are artistically convincing and original because psychological impressions of people in a state of dreaming are used here (reflection of real events, conversations and impressions in fantastic grotesque images or in overlapping paintings, fancifully shifting the temporal and spatial boundaries of real "primary sources") ... Natural in the complex of dreams of the heroine look the symbolic images of the "Bride of her suitors", which first appeared as a bold artistic allegory of the revolution in Lopukhov's conversation with Vera Pavlovna during a quadrille (IV section of the first chapter), and her younger sister- "The Bright Beauty", personifying Love-Equality ("The Third Dream of Vera Pavlovna", the first part of her "Fourth Dream"). It is noteworthy that it is precisely in these summit plot moments that the structural unity of the novel, the relationship between the personal and the public, love and revolutionary activity, was especially clearly manifested.

Thus, the story of Vera Pavlovna's first and second marriages, about the love and happiness of a young woman, goes in sync with the story of her spiritual development, crowned with the organization of a labor commune and its leadership and the recognition of the sacredness of revolutionary feat. "Forget what I told you, Sasha, listen to her!" (XI, 335) - she whispers excitedly to her husband, shocked by the fate of the "lady in mourning" and her fiery appeals:

My darling, bolder

Trust in fate!

And even earlier, Rakhmetov will give her a lesson in humanity, moral fortitude and loyalty to social ideals (see XI, 210–223), who, from that memorable visit to her, unexpectedly for the reader, but naturally for the author and his heroine, the central character of the novel.

This is how Chernyshevsky's book about love, socialism and revolution was created.

Drawing on traditional plot situations, contaminating and rethinking them, the author of "What is to be done?" in his artistic decisions, in fact, he laid the foundations of a new plot-compositional construction, which would later be used in other works about “new people”. This includes a fundamentally new version of solving the hero's situation on "rendez-vous", which was interpreted by Chernyshevsky's predecessors (for example, by Turgenev) as an impracticable opportunity for a thoughtful and seeking girl to find her happiness through meeting a man of lofty aspirations.

Chernyshevsky was optimistic about the possibility of a woman's ideological "conversion" under the influence of a man with concepts and views unusual for people in her circle. Even women from privileged circles of society (Katerina Vasilievna Polozova, a young widow rescued by Rakhmetov) found themselves in the sphere of such a spiritual revival. But the author undoubtedly saw the main reserve in replenishing the ranks of "new people" in the female democratic environment, even envisaging the possibility of a moral revival of the so-called "fallen woman" (Nastya Kryukova). The description of the relationship between Lopukhov and Vera Rozalskaya translated the traditional "rendez-vous" plot situation into a new plot version of the "conversion". The ideological and moral-ethical influence on the consciousness of the heroine was carried out through Lopukhov's educational conversations, reading the books recommended by him, socio-philosophical discussions taking place in the “society of pure people”. Plot-organizing factors in the history of Vera Pavlovna and Lopukhov, in its, so to speak, internal justification were the new moral and ethical views of the heroes (the theory of "reasonable egoism"), and in the external, event-driven manifestation - a fictitious marriage, which then became valid.

The “selfishness” of the characters in “What is to be done?”, Their “theory of calculating benefits” “reveals the true motives of life” (XI, 66). He is intelligent because he is subordinate to their natural desire for happiness and good. The personal benefit of a person must correspond to the general human interest, which Chernyshevsky identified with the interest of the working people. There is no lonely happiness, the happiness of one person depends on the happiness of other people, on the general welfare of society. That is why Lopukhov frees Vera from domestic oppression and forced marriage, and Kirsanov cures Katya Polozova and helps her free herself from the illusion of “happiness” with Zhan Solovtsov, a contender for her huge inheritance.

The new moral and ethical doctrine, which regulates in a new way the personal and social relationships of people, thus underlies the plot situations unusual for the literature of the middle of the century. This teaching also determines the optimistic solution to the tangled "triangle" (love married woman to a friend of her husband), over the resolution of which literature fought so unsuccessfully. Convinced that Vera Pavlovna loves Kirsanov, Lopukhov "leaves the stage." Subsequently, about his deed, he will write: "What a great pleasure - to feel yourself acting like a noble person ..." (XI, 236).

The plot situation of the "new conversion" has incorporated a whole complex of ideas of the novelist, including the process of forming a new person - a socialist, and the implementation of the idea of ​​women's emancipation, and the formation of a morally healthy family. Various versions of it were artistically tested by Chernyshevsky in the story "Alferiev" (the relationship of the hero with Serafima Antonovna Chekmazova is a negative version; with Lisa Dyatlova - an example of comradely norms in relations between a man and a woman, incomprehensible and suspicious for the older generation), in "Tales in a Story" (the story of Lizaveta Sergeevna Krylova), in the "Prologue" (Nivelzin and Lydia Vasilievna Savelova, Levitsky and Anyuta, Levitsky and Mary), in the "Story of a girl" (Liza Svilina).

In fiction about “new people”, the situation of the hero on “rendez-vous” in her new interpretation of the “new conversion” will be artistically presented in two typological solutions, coming from Turgenev and Goncharov, in one case, and from Chernyshevsky in the other. The Bazarov-Volokhov typological "model" (Evgeny Bazarov - Odintsova, Mark Volokhov - Vera), testifying to the difficulties of "converting" (complicated by the theory of "freedom of passions"), is seen in few novels. Of these, the works of 1879 stand out: N. Arnoldi ("Vasilisa") and O. Shapir ("One of the many"). The first of them tells the tragic story of Vasilisa Nikolaevna Zagorskaya, who courageously broke with the aristocratic environment, but failed to organically merge with the revolutionary environment and accept the new ideals of the Russian political émigré Sergei Borisov. Long lasting and complex romance The "new" man and woman who came out of privileged circles (Mikhail Nezhinsky and Eva Arkadyevna Simborskaya) in the work of O. Shapir also ends with the heroine's suicide.

The second version of the "conversion", coming from "What is to be done?", Was artistically refracted in a much larger group of works. Among them are "Difficult Time" by V. Sleptsov (Maria Nikolaevna Shchetinina - Ryazanov), "Step by Step" by I. Omulevsky (Lizaveta Mikhailovna Prozorova - Svetlov), "Roman" by A. Osipovich-Novodvorsky (Natalia Kirikova - Alyosha), " Andrey Kozhukhov "S. Stepnyak-Kravchinsky (Tanya Repina - Kozhukhov) and others. By the beginning of the new century, this process becomes common and widespread. In social democratic organizations, it has become common for girls to leave their privileged position in society. The ideas of socialism entered the consciousness of Natasha, Sasha, Sophia and Lyudmila (M. Gorky's story "Mother"), and they, in turn, pass them on to the working youth.

In the novel "What is to be done?" the differentiation of "new people" is clearly traced. It turned out to be extremely stable in the artistic practice of democratic literature for at least two decades.

Chernyshevsky's contemporaries understood very well the creative difficulties in depicting a new type of contemporary figure. “In general, we think that a modern young man cannot be chosen as a hero of the novel,” writes S. S. Rymarenko, a landowner, in a handwritten lecture on I. S. Turgenev’s novel Fathers and Sons in the spring of 1862. action is more subject to the jurisdiction of the III Department, rather than the artist of modern society. I think comments here are a superfluous matter, everyone understands what I want to say without them. " Rymarenko foresees only two possibilities for the writer: “One of two things - either talk about him in obscurity, or portray him in a completely different light against the present. Both are unenviable. " 2

Chernyshevsky followed the path of differentiating “new people” into “ordinary” (Lopukhov, Kirsanov, Vera Pavlovna, Mertsalov, Polozova) and “special” (Rakhmetov), ​​filling these concepts with a deep social and ideological meaning, while maintaining a high level of artistic impressionability. The conditional allocation of two types in the system of positive characters has its own philosophical and socio-historical grounds. Especially often mentioned in this connection is the influence of Chernyshevsky's philosophical and anthropological ideas when singling out “extraordinary people” into a “special breed” as having the right to this isolation due to the innate properties of their individual “nature”. This is the influence of anthropologism on the artistic method of the author "What is to be done?" it is often exaggerated, some critics of the novel with this approach tendentiously note in the image of Rakhmetov even "duality", "straightforwardness", "schematism" and other "shortcomings" and deviations from realism. Incorrect accents in defining the worldview, anthropological and artistic and aesthetic aspects in the typological structure of the “new people” are largely explained by the ignorance of the relationship between the novel and the revolutionary reality of the 1960s, on the one hand, and the underestimation of the artistic and logical means of complex recreation of the image of an intellectual figure - with another. The "circumstances" of life, social being, and not biologically given properties of human nature, determine the behavior and morals of "new people" - both "special" and "ordinary".

Differentiation of heroes "What is to be done?" is confirmed by the practice of "landowners" figures, which provides, in addition to organizing "underground", according to the name of that time, society, also forms of legal influence on social strata, to which, for example, one of the memoirists (M.N. Sleptsova) referred to the "publication of popular books , organization of reading rooms with very cheap fees, organization of a network of Sunday schools ”. 3

The author's foresight of Chernyshevsky lies in the fact that, sensitively grasping these two aspects in life social activities, he "transferred" them to the level of artistic typology. However, the novelist did not oppose “special people” to “ordinary people,” the leaders of the revolutionary underground, to ordinary leaders. liberation movement, but outlined the dialectical relationship between them, introducing as a transitional link the images of "a lady in mourning" and "a man of about thirty." In the future, the democratic literature of the 60-70s. will reflect the expansion of the relationship between the "exceptional" and the "ordinary", which will be observed in the history of several generations of revolutionary fighters.

In the sphere of activity of "ordinary" people, Chernyshevsky included legal educational work in Sunday schools (teaching Kirsanov and Mertsalov in a collective of workers of a sewing workshop), among the advanced part of the student body (Lopukhov could spend hours talking with students), at factory enterprises (classes in a factory office for Lopukhova - one of the ways to "influence the people of the whole plant" - XI, 193), in the scientific field. The name of Kirsanov is associated with a scientific and medical plot of the collision of a common doctor with the "aces" of a private St. Petersburg practice - in the episode of Katya Polozova's treatment; his experiments on the artificial production of albumen are hailed by Lopukhov as "a complete revolution of the whole question of food, of the entire life of mankind" (XI, 180).

But most of all, the readers of the novel were worried about the legendary figure of a "special" person. Under the conditions of the first revolutionary situation, the selection of "special people" - revolutionaries from the midst of the new heroes, the recognition of their central position in the general arrangement of the novel's characters was undoubtedly a civic and creative feat of the writer. Despite the fact that the writer did not have the opportunity to tell in detail about those aspects of life in which Rakhmanov (Rakhmetov's original surname in draft version novel) was the "protagonist" (XI, 729), he still managed to recreate the moral and psychological image of a professional revolutionary, acquaint him with social, ideological and moral ideas, trace the paths and conditions of the formation of a new hero of our time, even hint at some specific aspects of his practice.

Of course, all this is achieved by special ways of artistic generalization, in which historically specific names and events disappear, and allegory means serve as additional creative finds to recreate the mysterious “underground” activity of the Rakhmetovs, hidden from the eyes of “enlightened people”. The artistic influence on the reader was carried out using a whole complex of means, including the author's intervention (section XXXI - "Conversation with the discerning reader and his expulsion", etc.), the ambiguous use of artistic (event) time, the admission of two options for Rakhmetov's activities in the period from 1859 to 1861 (abroad and in Russian conditions), an artistic and symbolic comparison of the hero with the burlak leader Nikitushka Lomov. The novel introduces deliberately grotesque, at first glance "implausible" episodes from Rakhmetov's life: the famous "test" of the hero on a bed studded with nails (Rakhmetov prepares for possible torture and hardship), and the "romantic story" of his relationship with the young widow he saved ( the author's refusal to have a love affair when portraying a professional revolutionary). The narrator can suddenly move from the semi-legendary high style of stories and rumors about the master of a “very rare breed” to the everyday scene of a conversation between a now “cunning”, “sweet”, “cheerful person” with Vera Pavlovna (section XXX of the third chapter). In the entire section, a well-thought-out lexico-stylistic system of allegory was consistently carried out (Rakhmetov "was engaged in other people's affairs or, in particular, the affairs of others", "he had no personal affairs, everyone knew that", "Rakhmetov's fiery speeches, of course, not about love", etc.).

In the "Rakhmetov's" parts of the novel, new plot situations are presented for the first time, which will become pivotal in the structure of subsequent works about professional revolutionaries. The description of Rakhmetov's three-year wandering around Russia, introduced into the narrative as a private episode in the biography of the hero who achieved "respect and love of ordinary people", turned out to be unexpectedly popular among the readers of the novel, and then received creative development in many works based on the plot of "going to the people" and meetings of the hero with commoners. Suffice it to recall the observation of one memoirist who, in two or three phrases by Chernyshevsky about how Rakhmetov “pulled the strap” with the barge haulers, saw “the first hint of“ going to the people ””. 4 And at the end of the summer of 1874, in the midst of the historical “marching to the people”, D. M. Rogachev repeated the path of Rakhmetov, setting off with the barge haulers along the Volga. For two years of wandering, he was a barge haule, a loader and a laborer.

The motive of "walking", "wandering" and meetings underlies many works about "new people". Among them are “Stepan Rulev” by N. Bazhin, “An Episode from the Life of Neither a Pea or a Crow” by A. Osipovich-Novodvorsky, “Nov” by I. Turgenev, “Through Hills and Vesti” by P. Zasodimsky, and others. "Going to the people", mastered by democratic literature, plot twists of M. Gorky's story "Mother" in connection with the description of Rybin, Nilovna and Sophia's trips to villages and villages.

Attention of many readers "What is to be done?" attracted Rakhmetov's trips abroad. In an atmosphere of strengthening ties of revolutionaries with the Russian political emigration and, in particular, with the Russian section of the First International, Rakhmetov was perceived even as a propagandist of the "Western movement". 5 In the literature after Chernyshevsky, plot situations have become commonplace, reflecting the trips of "new people" abroad and the life of the Russian political emigration ("Step by Step" by I. Omulevsky, "Vasilis" by N. Arnoldi, "One of the Many" by O. Shapir, " Two Brothers "by K. Stanyukovich," Andrey Kozhukhov "by S. Stepnyak-Kravchinsky and others). Chernyshevsky returned to this plot in Siberian exile, telling in the novel "Reflections of Radiance" about the foreign wanderings of his new hero Vladimir Vasilyevich, a member of the Paris Commune.

No less (if not more) popular among the readers was the "erotic episode" from the life of Rakhmetov. Rakhmetov's rigorism in relation to women has noticeably influenced young people, for example, on the eve of mass going to the people. It was believed that family life with its joys was not created for revolutionaries doomed to death. It was suggested that the charters of some revolutionary circles "introduce celibacy as a requirement from the members." Rakhmetov's rigism was followed by the most prominent revolutionaries of the seventies - A. Mikhailov, D. Lizogub, S. Khalturin, M. Ashenbrenner and others.

It is difficult to overestimate the literary implications of the plot first told by Kirsanov about his extraordinary friend. Rakhmetov's version of "rendez-vous" is firmly rooted in works about professional revolutionaries, largely determining their plot and compositional structure. Stepan Rulev with N. Bazhin, Ryazanov with V. Sleptsov ("Difficult Time"), Teleniev with D. Girs ("Old and Young Russia"), Pavlusha Skripitsyn (in the first part of the novel by V. Bervi -Flerovsky "For life and death") and Anna Semenovna with her theory of celibacy (in the second part of the same work), Lena Zubova and Anna Vulich at S. Stepnyak-Kravchinsky ("Andrey Kozhukhov") and, finally, Pavel Vlasov at M Gorky ("Mother").

However, due to the active invasion of women in the revolutionary movement of the 70s. In the fiction about “new people”, another plot version was also developed, by the way, also provided for by Chernyshevsky in the tragic story of “a lady in mourning” and “a man of about thirty” as an alternative to Rakhmetov's attitude to marriage. It was embodied, for example, in the description of the relationship between Skripitsyn and Anyuta, Pavlov and Masha, Ispoti and Anna Semyonovna in the already mentioned novel by Bervy-Flerovsky, Zina Lomova and Boris Mayevsky, Tanya Repina and Andrei Kozhukhov - in the work of S. Stepnyak-Kravchinsky. These plot love-intimate situations usually ended tragically. Life has confirmed that in the absence of political freedoms, in an atmosphere of gendarme repression, a revolutionary is deprived of family happiness.

The Rakhmetov type of professional revolutionary, artistically discovered by Chernyshevsky, had a tremendous impact on the life and struggle of several generations of revolutionary fighters. Lenin saw the greatest merit of Chernyshevsky as a novelist in the fact that “he not only showed that every right-thinking and really decent person should be a revolutionary, but also something else, even more important: what should be a revolutionary, what should be his rules, how to reach his goal, he should go, what ways and means to achieve its implementation. " Artistic principles discovered by Chernyshevsky in the novel "What is to be done?" to recreate the heroic character of a professional revolutionary, proved to be extremely convincing for his followers, who set themselves the task of preserving the heroic ideal in life and in literature. A number of stable signs of a revolutionary were used:

refusal of noble privileges and material wealth (Vasily Teleniev, an army officer, retired and lives by lessons; Sergei Overin, being the heir of two hundred souls, "abandoned" the peasants, that is, abandoned them; Arkady Karamanov breaks with his father and gives up the land peasants);

tremendous physical strength and ability to endure hardships (Telenev is a good swimmer, he tests his physical strength in the fight against a rural strongman; Overin checks his endurance by plunging a lancet into the palm of his right hand; Stozharov can sleep on nails, like Rakhmetov, the author calls him a rigorist) ; refusal of love for a woman in the name of a great social goal (love is not included in Telenev's life calculations; Overin, admiring Liza's courageous behavior during arrest, is ready to marry her, but abandons his intention, having learned that Malinin loves her; Stozharov leaves his beloved girls - Vary Barmitinova; Svetlov declares to Khristina Zhilinskaya that he will never marry, and reads her a Circassian song from Lermontov's poem "Izmail-Bey", familiar to readers also from the novel "What to do?"; Seliverstov is unhappy in his personal life, but he has “There is a business, there is another love, greater, there is another happiness, more complete” - a common cause);

great theoretical training, ideological conviction and dedication to the cause of the people (Teleniev defends his theoretical positions in a dispute with Markinson, conducts propaganda work with the peasants, ranking himself among those educated people who wish the good to the peasants; Overin "calculates the range of historical events in Russia", creates a new science - "historical algebra", according to which the nobility is equal to zero; all this prepared him for a decisive step - to lead a peasant uprising; Svetlov promotes progressive ideas through the school of adults and does not hesitate to sympathize with the rebellious workers of the Yeltsin factory).

All these characteristic elements of the "Rakhmetov's" ideological and artistic structure with an emphasis on the "exclusivity" of the heroes make it possible to speak of the undoubted influence of Chernyshevsky on the works of democratic fiction.

Lecture 10 ROMAN N.G. CHERNYSHEVSKY "WHAT TO DO?" MAIN PROBLEM

The biggest milestone in the creative polemic of the "sixties" with their literary "fathers" is Chernyshevsky's (1828-1889) novel about "new people" (as they are called in his subtitle: "From stories about new people"), which gave rise to a number of related works ( “Stepan Rulev” by NF Bazhin, “Before Dawn” by NF Blagoveshchensky, “Nikolai Negorev, or a Prosperous Russian” by IA Kushchevsky, etc.).

Written in the Peter and Paul Fortress in four months of 1862 and published in the spring of 1863, he amazed his contemporaries with the unconventional nature of not only his heroes (in this regard, he was anticipated by the narrative dilogy "Bourgeois Happiness" and "Molotov" by N. Pomyalovsky, where it was not nobles, but commoners who acted , and Turgenev's novel "Fathers and Sons" with the positivist Bazarov as the main person), how many novel content and literary-fictional decisions that have caused diametrically opposite responses in criticism. While the radical youth of the 1860s read the novel, according to the testimony of the critic A. Skabichevsky, "almost kneeling, with such piety that does not allow the slightest smile on their lips," and saw in it almost a new Gospel, the same novel was no less unanimously rejected by all the major Russian artists of the word.

I. Turgenev denies him not only "art and beauty", but also the very efficiency. I. Goncharov calls the work "mediocre", revealing only the "precariousness of the beginnings" on which Chernyshevsky "built both his learned theories and the ghostly edifice of a new order in the conditions and methods of social life." NS. Leskov, calling the novel "What is to be done?" “A very daring phenomenon, very large and in known attitude very useful ”, nevertheless he concludes:“ The novel of Mr. Chernyshevsky from the side of art is below any criticism; he's just ridiculous. " Leo Tolstoy parodies both Chernyshevsky and his characters in the comedy Infected Family (1864), and Dostoevsky in Notes from the Underground (1864) criticizes the normative-rationalistic understanding of human nature promoted by the “new people”.

For Chernyshevsky himself, his novel was a positive response to disappointing life results heroes of such works of Russian literature as the story of A. Pisemsky "Is she to blame?" (1855), N. Pomyalovsky's story "Molotov" (1861), and especially on the tragic outlook of Turgenev, which was reflected in the fate of Turgenev's "plebeian" Yevgeny Bazarov.

Hence, in particular, the deliberate rolls of the novel "What is to be done?" with the novel "Fathers and Sons" in surnames its central characters: Dmitry Lopukhov, obviously, was “taken out” of that “burdock”, which, according to Bazarov, will grow out of him, who died; Alexander Kirsanov is named in the same way as the owners of the Maryino estate; the anthroponyms "Bazarov" and "Rakhmetov" are similar in their Turkic roots. There are rolls in biographies characters of Chernyshevsky and Turgenev: Lopukhov and Kirsanov, like Bazarov, studied at the St. Petersburg Medical-Surgical Academy, are adherents of natural science knowledge, experimenters and doctors.

Two most important new moments are first of all striking when comparing Chernyshevsky's novel with the works of Russian literature that preceded him and the novels of Turgenev and Goncharov. This is, firstly, fundamental optimism works. All conflicts that were previously unsolvable or resolved with the results unsatisfactory for the readers in "What is to be done?" are completely resolved. In general, according to the correct observation of Yu.M. Prozorova, Chernyshevsky's “new people” are “programmed as winners”, “doomed to happiness”.

Another unconventional feature of the novel is intrinsically related to optimism. We mean the unusually large place that took up in it abstract-speculative is actually a theoretical component, which is generally contraindicated in a fictional work. The matter is not limited to direct and indirect references of the reader to many scientists (Liebig, Newton, Claude Bernard, Virchow, Macaulay, Guizot, Thiers, Gervinus, etc.) or to the works of social utopians (V. Considerant, C. Fourier, R. Owen) and philosophers (Kant, Fichte, Hegel, Feuerbach, Auguste Comte). Chernyshevsky either explains his "theory of egoism" to the reader, then reproduces the "theoretical conversation" between Kirsanov and Lopukhov, and in the chapter "Hamlet's Trials" - Lopukhov and Vera

Pavlovna, then talks about labor as the "main element of reality" or about the "secret of world history", about the physiological superiority of the female body over the male, etc. etc.

And in all these and similar cases, he leaves the figurative and expressive means of the fiction writer for the abstract "language of philosophy" so much that once even the main heroine of the novel, Vera Pavlovna Rozalskaya, listening to the talk of her friends about "analogues, identities and anthropologisms", demanded: " Please, gentlemen, something else, so that I can participate in the conversation, or better let's play. "

It is very important to correctly understand the reason for such an extensive speculative component in Chernyshevsky's novel. It would be a mistake, following N. Leskov, to assume that Chernyshevsky in What Is To Be Done? remains a publicist, only using the form of the novel, in order to spread the "ideas of his school" more widely in this way. No, Chernyshevsky - and this is confirmed by his second novel "Prologue" (written in hard labor in 1867-1871, first published in 1877 in London), undoubtedly possessed certain fictional abilities, although he was not by nature of talent and perception of the world artist. He himself considered his "stories about new people" not fictionalized journalism, but a novel, and he had well-known reasons for this.

The theoretical (speculative) component in "What is to be done?" dictated by the very desire of Chernyshevsky for the first time positively to answer those fundamental questions of Russian and human life, which were posed by Herzen, Turgenev, Goncharov, and partly by Pomyalovsky, but whose solutions were unacceptable for the Russian public of the 1860s, especially for its radical youth part. Even with her sympathy for the heroes of Herzen's novel "Who is to blame?" and Turgenev's novels would not become her idols knowing Russia Vladimir Beltov and Dmitry Rudin, who did not preach public service owe at the cost of personal happiness Fedor Lavretsky, not even the "self-styled" and tragic Yevgeny Bazarov.

Goncharov's Andrei Stolts, whose family harmony still smacked of a certain declarativeness and looked self-absorbing, and therefore egostic, would not have suited her any more. Egor Molotov, the hero of N. Pomyalovsky's narrative dilogy, did not meet the aspirations of the young "sixties". Earlier, the "new people" of Chernyshevsky thought about the question what to do in order to “continue not the old life handed down by the fathers, but to create their own,” but ultimately reconciled with the existing Russian reality on the basis of “honest Chichikovism”, that is, individualistic everyday comfort and well-being.

The question of how one should act in order to eliminate the primordial contradiction between man and existing social reality, as well as man and the universe, and what is business, which, according to Pomyalovsky, will allow everyone to live “with all the soul, with all the pores of the body,” that is, to become a full-blooded and whole, free and creative person, naturally combining his own interests (“happiness”) with the interests of “all people together” (Herzen), remained painfully unclear.

And, obviously, for his decision he needed something qualitatively different from those that preceded it, holistic the concept of man, his nature, behavioral stimuli and earthly destiny itself.

This is what Chernyshevsky proposes in the novel What Is to Be Done? But in the form of a concept ("idea") not strictly artistic, which the non-artist Chernyshevsky was not capable of, but as a complex of abstract-speculative ideas, combining the positions of anthropological (Ludwig Feuerbach) and natural-scientific (L. Büchner, K. Focht , J. Moleshotg, K. Bernard) materialism, english utilitarian ethics(Jeremiah Bentham, J. Stuart Mill) and European utopian socialism(V. Considerant, Robert Owen, C. Fourier).

The owners of the above-mentioned ideological complex in the novel "What is to be done?" are his goodies - Dmitry Lopukhov, Alexander Kirsanov, Dmitry Rakhmetov, Vera Pavlovna and their like-minded people. The true, according to Chernyshevsky, worldview, which they are guided by, not only correctly orientates them in private life situations, but guarantees a fruitful resolution of the fundamental problems of human existence.

Which ones?

Here is the first and most common of them - the attitude in a person's life freedom and external the need(dependencies).

We remember how it looks in Turgenev, for example, in the story "A Trip to Polesie". Man is powerless and helpless before nature, indifferent to him and the same universe, to which he, as a mortal being, insignificant in time and space, is initially disproportionate. Ultimately, he is not an equal partner in any way, but only a victim of the "deaf and dumb laws" of the Universe that are not subject to him, which the writer calls the Unknown or Fate. The more inevitably they execute their merciless sentence on a person, the sooner he dares to wish not ordinary, but "immortal happiness." “History has deceived” says, summing up his life, the hero-author of Herzen's Past and Thoughts; “Life has deceived” is echoed by the best of Turgenev's characters, bitterly recognizing with this exclamation the irresistible superiority of external necessity over them.

And here is how the named problem is interpreted in that chapter of the novel "What is to be done?" ("Hamlet's test"), where the young Vera Pavlovna and student Dmitry Lopukhov, who recently met, discuss a book (apparently, "The Social Fate" of Victor Considerant), which Lopukhov delivered to the girl. Note: the resolution of it by these heroes of Chernyshevsky precedes even their recognition of mutual sympathy, which predetermined their imminent marriage.

“Your book,” we hear the voice of Vera Pavlovna, “says: a person acts out of necessity. But there are times when it seems that from my arbitrariness depends on doing one way or another. For example: I play and turn pages of music; I turn them over sometimes with my left hand, sometimes with my right. Suppose now I turned over with the right: couldn't I turn over with the left? Doesn't this depend on my arbitrariness? " (italics mine .- V.N.).“No, Vera Pavlovna,” Lopukhov replies, “if you turn over, not thinking about which hand to turn with, you turn over with the hand that is more convenient, there is no arbitrariness; if you thought: “let me turn it over right hand"- you will turn over under the influence of this thought, but this thought did not come from your arbitrariness; she necessary was born from others ... "(my italics. - V.N.).

In his article "The Anthropological Principle in Philosophy" (1861), Chernyshevsky, asking what determines which foot a person gets out of bed with in the morning, argued that even here the matter is decided not by his free desire, but by a set of objective reasons.

So in human life dependence and necessity prevail, not freedom. As an atheist, Chernyshevsky replaces the religious-Christian free will human materialistic determinism, which became one of the postulates and positivism. According to him, human behavior, the very fate of life - is a consequence, first of all, of objective conditions and circumstances, biological, historical, social and everyday life, of his birth and existence.

However, fully recognizing the power of necessity, the heroes of "What is to be done?" in their actions are guided only by own desires and motives, not recognizing any outside coercion and violence. For example, the following statement of Vera Pavlovna in her conversation with the Frenchwoman Julie is permeated with the pathos of complete freedom of behavior: “You call me a dreamer, you ask, what do I want from life?<...>I want be independent and live in my own way, what I need myself, I’m ready for that; what I don’t need, that I don’t want and don’t want ”.<...>“... I only know that I don’t want to give in to anyone, I want to be free ... "(italics mine .- V.N.).

From the once and for all accepted “rule: against the will of a person one should not do anything for him; freedom is above everything, even life ”comes, saving Katya Polozova and Alexander Kirsanov from severe depression. Only his own free desire dictated the decisions of Dmitry Lopukhov when he leaves his studies at the Medical and Surgical Academy in order to free Vera Pavlovna from parental captivity, or when, imitating suicide, he leaves Russia. The professional revolutionary Rakhmetov never forces himself to do anything.

As we can see, the recognition of the power of necessity does not in the least entail the rejection of their freedom among the heroes of Chernyshevsky. There is no insoluble contradiction between necessity and freedom in their behavior and life. Why is that?

To answer this question, one must turn to the general philosophical foundations of Chernyshevsky's concept of man and the world. Unlike the idealists Turgenev and Goncharov, Chernyshevsky in his ideological premises is an active follower, as already mentioned, of anthropological materialism, partly shared by a number of French enlighteners of the 18th century, by the utopian socialists of the 19th century, but raised to a great ideological height by Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-1872) in his works "The Essence of Christianity" (1841), "The Essence of Religion" (1853).

In the interpretation of a person (in Greek, a person - antropos, hence - anthropological) its essence is as follows. Man is not a creation of God (the World Spirit, the Absolute Idea), but of earthly nature, a part of which is his own nature ("organization"). Formed in the prehistoric period of human existence, it consists of the following basic principles or "elements": by nature, each person, firstly, reasonable(homo sapiens), secondly, being active, worker (homo faber), thirdly, a creature public(collective), and not individualistic (social animal est homo or, according to Aristotle, - "zoon politicon" - "political animal"), fourthly, he - egoist, those. strives for happiness, which is quite natural.

All these principles of generic human nature are directly or indirectly named in the novel "What is to be done?" that song "yes ira" ("it will go"), which the "young lady" sings at the beginning of the novel in her dacha on Kamenny Island.

The differences between individuals are determined by the unequal development in them of these common elements of human nature: someone is more intelligent than active, the other is active and not stupid, but a purely individualist, etc. A person achieves his “ideal” (or natural norm) in the presence in him of all the named elements in their equally high development and interconnection - the complementarity of each with all the others, as well as vice versa. In this case, a normal person or natural person, according to Chernyshevsky, is formed - and a genius, for a genius, according to the anthropological “principle,” differs from ordinary people only in that human nature in him is not distorted in any way.

The anthropological materialism of Chernyshevsky logically led him to a revolutionary conclusion: in order to preserve human nature in its purity and natural striving for human good, it is necessary to eliminate the social order unnatural to man (and those people, class groups by which it is supported). “Eliminate,” says the writer in the article “The Anthropological Principle in Philosophy,“ the pernicious circumstances, and the mind of a person will quickly brighten and his character will be ennobled ”.

Anthropological materialism is supplemented in Chernyshevsky's worldview with natural-scientific materialism, based on the conclusions of natural scientists of the 19th century, who, in turn, acquired from the author "What is to be done?" deep optimistic interpretation.

Chernyshevsky was mistaken when, following the so-called "materialistic triumvirate" of German doctors and physiologists Ludwig Büchner, Jacob Moleschott and Karl Focht, he denied the principal qualitative boundary between simple and complex forms of life, man and the plant-animal world of nature on the grounds that they all consist of the general chemical elements and are full of similar chemical processes. And - when he limited the differences between them only to a dissimilar combination of chemical elements and different intensity of chemical processes inherent in man "and the animal-vegetable world of nature.

However, the very idea that man and nature (the universe), as well as the spiritual and bodily-physical aspects of man are basically one and obey the same laws, supported the optimistic outlook of the author and the heroes of "What is to be done?" After all, thanks to her, between the finite person and eternal nature(and at the same time between the spiritual and bodily aspirations and capabilities of the individual) that insurmountable abyss disappeared, which strengthened the tragic worldview of I. Turgenev, which was directly reflected in the stories "A Trip to Polesie" and "Enough".

Let us return to the Chernyshevsky's interpretation of the relationship between freedom and necessity and its reflection in the novel "What is to be done?"

If the essence of a person is determined by his generic nature, then in order to preserve it, it is enough for him to correctly understand the main components of this nature and accurately fulfill all their orders: to be not just an egoist, but to combine his egoism with considerations of reason and labor (activity), and labor with his social -collective focus. In other words, a person should submit(to come in into dependence), however, not outside forces to him (Destiny, God, an artificially arranged state), but own.

But what is dependence on oneself, if not the same freedom? So the eternal contradiction between freedom and necessity in Chernyshevsky is transformed into their actual identity. After all, as Dmitry Lopukhov notes, "it is easy when the duty is the attraction of one's own nature."

"New People" of the novel "What Is to Be Done?" first of all, they differ from people "Old"(they are represented by the father and mother of Vera Pavlovna, Mikhail Streshnikov, Jean Solovtsov, aristocrat Serge, Frenchwoman Julie, merchant Polozov) that, being able to resist the bad influence of the dominant society, they perfectly understand the beginnings and requirements of their generic nature and are guided by them in their behavior. They are helped in this: 1) the natural instinct itself is the voice of nature (from birth it is strong, for example, in Vera Pavlovna, who very soon felt that her concern for her own independence and happiness was inseparable from her concern for the freedom and happiness of other women, people generally); 2) knowledge gleaned from modern thinkers (first of all - Ludwig Feuerbach), who explained their true interests to contemporaries.

Following the attitude of freedom and necessity, the central characters of What Is to Be Done? positively resolve the conflict of interests personal(their) and common(strangers), or, according to Turgenev's categories, "happiness" and "duty". Let us remember how the attempts to combine the former with the latter in Turgenev's prose and in Goncharov's novel "trilogy" ended.

It is necessary to renounce the thirst for personal happiness, sacrifice it, putting on the "iron chains of duty" - otherwise the pursuit of happiness will only lead to self-deception (as in the case of the hero of "Correspondence", who took his passion for a sensual Italian dancer for true love ) or to the drama (as in the case of the heroes of "Asi") - this is the conclusion of Turgenev. Hence the end-to-end motive cross in Turgenev's stories and in the novel "Fathers and Sons". Goncharov, describing the happy Crimean life of Stoltsev, speaks of its "harmony", that is, the achieved unity in her personal with the general. But even this, like the happiness of these heroes, is not devoid of declarativeness.

With Chernyshevsky, none of his "new people" renounces personal happiness. "Man," wrote the author of "What is to be done?" in the article "The Anthropological Principle in Philosophy" - loves himself first of all "; at the heart of human actions, even those that seem disinterested, "lies the thought of their own, personal benefit." The positive characters of his novel think so too. “I don’t love anyone but myself,” says Alexander Kirsanov without any reservations.

All "new people" are against sacrifice. Everything they do is done by them for themselves, for reasons of personal benefit, personal benefit. For example, Dmitry Lopukhov rescues from the "basement", that is, family prison, Vera Pavlovna, from where she opened the only way to be sold under the guise of marriage. For the success of this business, he had to give up his career as a scientist, i.e. donate it. But he says: “And I didn't think to sacrifice. Wasn't still stupid enough to make sacrifices<...>... Yes, they do not exist, no one brings; this is a false concept: the victim is soft-boiled boots. As pleasant as it is, you act like that "(italics mine .- V.N.). Here Kirsanov, who for three years hid his love for Lopukhov's wife, explains that he acted in this way for his own sake. So Vera Pavlovna, setting up a sewing workshop for herself without personal self-interest, explains to young workers that this only answers her personal preference: “... You know that different people have different preferences<...>, some have an addiction to balls, others - to outfits and cards, and all such people are even ready to go broke for their addiction, and many go broke, and no one is surprised at this that their addictions to them more valuable than money... And I am addicted to what I will try to do with you, and I<...>I am glad to do it without income for myself. "

None of the positive heroes of Chernyshevsky, unlike those of Turgenev or Goncharov, considers himself to owe something to someone. They reject the traditional religious and ethical category of “duty” in the same way as the Christian concept of “sacrifice”.

But here's the strangeness: everything that the "new people" do out of personal gain-benefit, out of selfishness, turns out to be primarily useful, beneficial to the people around them. Selfishness, their self-love do not oppose duty, but presuppose it and naturally turn around altruism. Why?

It's all about new ethics heroes of Chernyshevsky. They are not just selfish, but reasonable egoists.

The concept of "reasonable egoism" was taken by Chernyshevsky from the English utilitarian ethics of Jeremiah Bentama (mentioned by Pushkin in Eugene Onegin in connection with the remark about "another" woman of the world that "reads Sey and Bentham") and John Stuart Mill. Both thinkers addressed this ethical principle to the ruling classes of Britain, recommending them - in the interests of their own material well-being- to share in the form of voluntary philanthropy a part of their wealth with the poor, so that they do not wish to arrange their violent (revolutionary) redistribution. It is wiser to give away a fraction of your wealth than, after waiting for the uprising of the lower classes, to lose it entirely. "Reasonable selfishness" was thus the principle public ethics that regulates relations within the whole national society.

Chernyshevsky modifies it, transforming it into an ethical norm of an individual and his individual behavior, and, moreover, endows with reasonable egoism not representatives of the upper circles of Russian society, but its raznochin-democratic part, to which, with the exception of Rakhmetov, also belong the “new people” from the novel “ What to do?".

All of them are rational egoists in the sense that their egoism is organically linked with reason and is enlightened by it. After all, this, according to Chernyshevsky, is quite natural ( naturally), since human nature itself is not at all exhausted by egoism.

Reason tells a person: you will gain more benefit, happiness for yourself, if you fulfill not one of the dictates of your generic nature, but the simultaneous requirements of all its origins in their unity. Then it turns out that between the desire for benefit and happiness for oneself and - for other people, in essence, there is no insurmountable contradiction, or it is generated by an "artificial" society. A person who has reasonably understood his selfish motives, i.e. who has learned to satisfy them in the process of his generally useful work, will be truly happy, to the extent that he makes other people happy.

In the article "Anthropological principle in philosophy", which became a kind of theoretical introduction to the novel "What is to be done?", Chernyshevsky referred, justifying his ethics of rational egoism, to the behavior of a mother, who for the sake of her children denies herself everything, and sometimes follows them to death. But, he said, she does it for herself, for such is her nature. And she is happy with her altruistic act. “I was embarrassed by your calmness. I leave the stage. Don't be sorry; I love both of you so much that very much happy with her determination, ”writes Dmitry Lopukhov to Vera Pavlovna and Alexander Kirsanov, voluntarily giving freedom to his wife, making sure that she fell in love with his friend and is loved by him.

The well-known discrepancy between their personal benefit (happiness) and the benefit (happiness) of other people can, however, also arise in the positive characters of the novel "What is to be done?" Vera Pavlovna once found herself in this situation, when, after leaving after Lopukhov's suicide (in fact, imaginary, which the heroine learns about, however, later) from Petersburg, she left fifty workers in her sewing workshop to fend for themselves, for which she would receive "suggestion" from Rakhmetov.

According to the novelist, such situations are possible if one of the “new people” miscalculated his own benefit, made his own intellectual mistake. It is necessary, the writer says to his heroes and readers, not to forget that there is more - whole or part of it, the dictates of the entire human nature or only one of its components. Proceed from the requirement of all nature - human nature, and you can always refuse for the sake of greater human satisfaction from less, neglect your whim in the name of loyalty to yourself as a whole.

Reason also indicates the need for a person to preserve his nature constant labor. After all, labor is its main component after reason. As it is said in Vera Pavlovna's second dream, labor “appears in anthropological analysis as a fundamental form of movement, which gives a foundation to all other forms: entertainment, rest, fun, fun; they have no reality without prior labor. And without movement there is no life ... ".

Belief in the morally revitalizing and generally humanizing power of labor was accompanied not only by Chernyshevsky, but also by all writers who love the people. "The will and labor of man / Marvelous divas create," says N. Nekrasov in the poem "Grandfather", bequeathing to his contemporary

Unbridled, wild hostility To the oppressors And great power of attorney To disinterested labor ("Song of Eremushka").

If a person works, his nature is healthy, or at least can withstand the distorting effects of an unnatural social order. In modern Russian society, such is the people (peasantry), whose life is spent in constant and, moreover, generally useful work. For the same reason, the people are that part of the Russian nation in which its human nature is preserved in the greatest purity and completeness. This conviction becomes the main reason not only for sympathy and pity for the people (for, according to Dostoevsky's insightful remark, pity itself does not exclude contempt), but deep reverence for the people and love to him from the side of Chernyshevsky and his "new people".

The possibility of a certain revival is not closed for such people as the mother of Vera Pavlovna Marya Alekseevna, since in her life there was work, although not tempted by reason and, on the whole, self-serving. Hence the appearance on the pages of "What is to be done?" "Laudable words of Maria Alekseevna" by the author. Public Wednesday(in the novel, for censorship reasons, it is called "dirt"), represented by Vera Pavlova's mother, also has a chance of recovery and is therefore called "real" by the novelist. Marya Alekseevna herself is a person, compared to people natural (normal) "bad", but not " trashy". Indeed, in Russian, the definition bad can mean not only "bad", but, coming from "fool", and - "unreasonable".

On the contrary, the previously named representatives of the ruling estates of Russia - the aristocrat Serge, the officer Storeshnikov, looking for a rich dowry Jean Solovtsov - people, according to the author of the novel, unconditionally trashy because, having grown up and existing in an environment of eternal idleness (Chernyshevsky calls it "fantastic mud"), they hopelessly degraded in their natural principles. This environment, the novelist makes clear, no matter how impossible it is to revive, it must be cut off from the national organism with the sword of revolutionary violence.

This is how the novel substantiates the legitimacy of the people's-peasant revolution in Russia as a means of saving the living parts of society, the nation and the whole country. "New people" are waiting and preparing it, conducting, like Alexander Kirsanov in particular, propaganda among the "artisans". There is also a professional revolutionary here - Rakhmetov - “ special person ”, He is a new, but atheistic messiah.

The fact is that Rakhmetov is a descendant of many generations of well-born and wealthy boyars and nobles, in a word, people, according to Chernyshevsky, who lived at the expense of not their own, but someone else's labor. From this it follows that Rakhmetov inherited from them a very unhealthy nature. But he managed, having discovered for himself the modern doctrine of human nature (he began with the works of L. Feuerbach) and turned his life into permanent, generally useful (including, like the people, physical) labor, not simply to heal, but to transform the inherited nature so much, that he actually identified his interests (goodness and happiness) with those of the whole people, thus earning enormous respect from other positive heroes of the novel. Rejecting religion as a materialist, in his devotion to the mission of a new enlightener and liberator of the homeland and of all mankind, in Chernyshevsky's work, he is comparable to the Christian apostles and Christ himself.

Along with the peasant revolution, the author of What Is to Be Done? promotes and peaceful the way of recovery ("naturalization") of that part urban Russian society, which lives by its own labor. This is an organization reasonable labor, those. labor in its unity with other components of human nature: collectivism and rational egoism.

Such is collective labor on the basis of common ownership of the means of production, material justice and rational organization, as well as the unity of the work and life of workers. His example in the novel is the sewing workshops of Vera Pavlovna and Katya Polozova, organized following the example of the labor associations of the French socialist Victor Considerant (1808-1893). V. Considerant did not confine himself to just the theory of fair labor. In the 1850s, he founded the socialist colony "Reunion" in Texas in America, which ceased to exist due to destruction during the civil war between the North and South.

The workshops of Vera Pavlovna earned the praise of another utopian socialist, the founder of the famous spinning mill-commune in New Lanark (Scotland) - Robert Owen (1771-1858).

Depicting the activities of an innovative sewing workshop in detail, with detailed accounting calculations, Chernyshevsky pays special attention to showing how in the process of collective and fairly paid labor its participants are morally straightened and spiritually grown. The theme of the salutary impact of such labor on a person is directly developed in the detailed history of a former prostitute Nastya Kryukova. This is a variation on new way the gospel legend about Christ and the sinner.

Sewing workshops with a communal form of residence for their workers in the novel "What is to be done?" - this is also a prototype, in the eyes of Chernyshevsky, of a socialist society. After all, socialism was conceived by him as a community, arranged in strict accordance with the "anthropological" interpretation of human nature and according to the model of the latter. And therefore, in contrast to the existing "fantastic" Russian order, the most natural ("natural") public system... Workshops are islands of a humanized environment in the life world of Russia. By multiplying and expanding them, you can gradually transform the entire country.

Another sample the future harmonious society became in the novel "What is to be done?" famous "huge house" from the fourth sleep Vera Pavlovna - with huge mirrors and "metal furniture", as well as technical wonders like a large conveyor in the dining room. Or - "Crystal Palace" ("Pales cristale"), as by analogy with the huge palace of this name, erected in London for the World Exhibition of 1851, Dostoevsky will ironically call it in his "Notes from the Underground" (1864). An earlier prototype of the "huge house", however, no doubt, served as a high-rise house-phalanster from the utopian system of Charles Fourier, although Chernyshevsky modernized it taking into account the conquests technical progress the last decades.

In the house-phalanster of Chernyshevsky, collective labor reigns on the basis of public property and with the use of performing hard work machines, rationalization of everyday life, a certain harmony with the surrounding nature. Fundamentally new feature this society is the absence of its members suffering, having an ontological status in the Christian concept of human existence. According to Chernyshevsky (formerly L. Feuerbach), there is no suffering in human nature, therefore, there should not be in a society organized according to its model (according to Chernyshevsky, a person was endowed with an "artificial" social order).

And one more significant sign distinguishes what is drawn in "What is to be done?" society of the future. Already Herzen, not without admiration for the author's audacity, noted that the ideal hostel depicted in this novel surprisingly looks like a brothel. The same idea was later expressed in his novel "The Gift" by Vladimir Nabokov. "Chernyshevsky's 'Crystal Palace', - writes the contemporary figure of our church M. Dunaev, - is nothing more than a romanticized brothel."

The fact is that, completely eliminating suffering in the lives of future people, the author of "What is to be done?" considered it the basis, meaning and purpose of happiness not in the form of a harmonious family (the children of the inhabitants of the "huge house" are brought up not by their parents, but, as in ancient Sparta, society), but the mutual physical pleasure of women and men with each other.

We focused on four problematic aspects of Chernyshevsky's novel: 1) philosophical - this is anthropological and natural-scientific materialism; 2) ethical - this is "reasonable egoism"; 3) socio-political - this is the preaching of the people's and peasants' revolution and labor on a collectively rational basis; 4) futurological - this is the image of the society of the future. But in "What is to be done?" there is also a fifth aspect that determined its main storyline. This is an image of love and family of "new people" and, in particular, the "woman's question".

As the main plot-compositional bond of the novel, his love story weaves all the other problems of the work together, giving them the concreteness and vital warmth necessary in fiction. What's new in it?

Love, poetry of the heart were not at all alien to Chernyshevsky, a wonderful family man who passionately and devotedly loved his wife Olga Sokratovna Vasiliev (nee). But in the novel "What is to be done?" Chernyshevsky - a rationalist in the understanding of man - deprives love of its Turgenev spontaneity (remember: love for Turgenev's heroes appears "like a thunderstorm," "cholera or fever," in a word, a spontaneous force). It ceases to be an element beyond the control of man and loses its inevitable tragedy.

In the novel "What is to be done?" there is an episode, most likely deliberately compared by Chernyshevsky with the situation in which the hero of Turgenev's "Correspondence" found himself falling in love with an Italian dancer. The same thing happened once with Dmitry Lopukhov. But if the hero of Turgenev was never able to overcome his attraction to a woman whom he really did not respect, then Lopukhov's passion for the visiting dancer who carried him away after some time, without any drama, was resolved to the mutual pleasure of erotic partners.

Love, according to Chernyshevsky, can and should be controlled by the mind, go along with it. This, for example, is from the very beginning Dmitry Lopukhov's feeling for Vera Pavlovna Rozalskaya: it is tempted by observing the hero's actions, analyzing them. There is no blindness here. Moreover, a love drama and an insoluble erotic conflict only then, the author of “Who is to blame?” Believes, and arise when the mind of those who love is undeveloped or has blundered, fell asleep.

What is needed to make love, as “new people” understand it, to be happy? First of all, you need to correctly "calculate" your love needs ("benefits"). For the positive characters of Chernyshevsky, the goal of their love, as well as the highest satisfaction in it, is the happiness of a loved one. This is what you should always take care of.

And for this, firstly, one must always recognize the right of a loved one to freedom his reciprocal feelings, do not allow any violence against him, trust him and respect him. This is how Vera Pavlovna and Dmitry Lopukhov build their relationship; Vera Pavlovna and Alexander Kirsanov; Lopukhov (Charles Beaumont) and Katya Polozova. Secondly, you need to reinforce the freedom of your feelings for your loved ones and spouses. and material equality (independence) with them, which requires the work of not one man, but also a woman. Goodies "What is to be done?" They voluntarily follow this ethical principle: Vera Pavlovna first arranges and runs a sewing workshop, then studies to become a doctor.

This is the optimistic answer of the author of "What is to be done?" to one of the fundamental human issues that arise before every person. And he cannot be denied considerable fruitfulness both for the writer's contemporaries and for people of subsequent eras.

At the same time, one cannot fail to see and rationalistic limitation in his decision.

Chernyshevsky's novel is the pinnacle of Russian literary rationalism. This is the guarantee of its special, almost mathematical, internal consistency and attractiveness for people of a rationalistic mind, especially young people. But the same is the reason for the palpable schematism, abstractness (or, conversely, empirical naturalism) of his characters in comparison with the full-blooded heroes of Turgenev, Goncharov, L. Tolstoy or Dostoevsky.

Following his teachers, Western European theorists (L. Feuerbach, I. Bentham, J. St. Mill, V. Considerant), Chernyshevsky a priori declared the composition of human nature and the “normal” (more precisely, normative) needs (“benefits”) , groundlessly rejecting the religious-Christian concept of man, according to which the principles of both the divine and the devil, the light and the dark, the good and the evil, live in man, and the outcome of the struggle between them is far from a foregone conclusion. "Man is a mystery," says eighteen-year-old F. Dostoevsky, and he will be right.

As a rationalist in terms of his psychological makeup and worldview, Chernyshevsky illegally absolutized the role of reason, human consciousness (and knowledge) in human relationships and in improving the individual and society, making reason the guarantor of morality and conscience itself. Like Goncharovsky Pyotr Ivanovich Aduev ("An Ordinary History"), he is unaware of the inconsistency of reason before the complexity real person and social reality. So, first of all, on a rationally rational basis, his society of the future is being built. Meanwhile, as Dostoevsky predicted and the practice of the Soviet society created on the basis of an abstract theory has shown, “one mind, science and realism (that is, positivism. - V.N.) can only create an anthill, and not social harmony in which a person could get along. " “It is clear and understandable,” Dostoevsky will say elsewhere, “that evil lurks deeper in humanity than the socialist healer supposes, that in no society will you avoid evil, that the human soul will remain the same, that abnormality and sin emanate from it itself and that, finally, the laws of the human spirit are so still unknown, so unknown to science, so vague and so mysterious, that there are no doctors or even judges final ... ".

In the novel "What is to be done?" a young student Lopukhov easily outplays the worldly experienced Marya Alekseevna, and Alexander Kirsanov takes over the wise practical life, the strong-willed father of Katya Polozova. However, in "War and Peace" by L. Tolstoy, the stupid but cunning manager of the Kiev estates of Pierre Bezukhov now and then leads his clever, but naive and trusting master by the nose.

In living life, everything is a hundredfold harder than that, what and how happens in the novel by Chernyshevsky. This will be indicated in his "Cliff", where there is a hidden and direct polemic with "What is to be done?", Goncharov, in the novel "Nowhere" (1864) - N. Leskov, in "Infected Family" L. Tolstoy and especially Dostoevsky - in Notes from the Underground, and then in five subsequent novels.

At the same time, in the eyes of the opposition to the dominant Russian society and its philosophical, ethical, aesthetic foundations of the youth of the 1860s, Chernyshevsky's novel became, as it was said at the beginning of this lecture, a genuine Good News. It seemed that all the contradictions had been resolved, all the riddles had been solved. It seemed that for the first time in the dead ends of Russian life a light flashed, a way out of its tragedy or vulgarity was revealed. It seemed that there was a possibility of genuine humanization ("perestroika") and social circumstances and reality itself.

For this, Chernyshevsky's contemporaries had to: 1) acquire genuine knowledge (“truth”) about their human nature and become rational egoists ”; 2) to organize labor reasonably; 3) with the surgical sword of the revolution to cut off the "trashy" people who interfere with humanizing society; 4) build gender relations on the basis of mutual emotional and erotic freedom, trust and material independence from each other.

Taken together, this would be the life-saving for Russia. business, which Chernyshevsky offered the Russians and whose motive runs through his entire novel. Hence his phenomenal success, attested by many of his contemporaries. "They talked about Chernyshevsky's novel," wrote N. Leskov, "not in a whisper, not quietly, but at full throat in the halls, at the entrances, at Mrs. Milbert's table and in the basement pub of Stenbok's passage." “For Russian youth,” recalled prince P.A. Kropotkin, - the story was a kind of revelation and turned into a program ... None of Turgenev's stories, no work of Tolstoy or any other writer had such a wide and deep influence on Russian youth as this story of Chernyshevsky. " And here is what Professor P. Tsitovich, a fierce opponent of Chernyshevsky’s novel, says: “During my 16 years at the university, I didn’t manage to meet a student who hadn’t read the famous novel while still at the gymnasium ... In this respect, the works of, for example, Turgenev or Goncharov, are not to speak of Gogol and Pushkin, they are far inferior to the novel What Is To Be Done? ”.

History of creation

Chernyshevsky himself called these people a type that "was recently born and is rapidly disintegrating," is a product and a sign of the times.

These heroes are characterized by a special revolutionary morality, based on the educational theory of the 18th century, the so-called "theory of reasonable egoism." This theory is that a person can be happy if his personal interests coincide with public ones.

Vera Pavlovna is the main character of the novel. Her prototypes are Chernyshevsky's wife Olga Sokratovna and Marya Aleksandrovna Bokova-Sechenova, who fictitiously married her teacher, and then became the wife of the physiologist Sechenov.

Vera Pavlovna managed to escape from the circumstances that surrounded her since childhood. Her character was tempered in a family where her father was indifferent to her, and for her mother she was just a profitable commodity.

Vera is as entrepreneurial as her mother, thanks to which she manages to create sewing workshops that give good profits. Vera Pavlovna is smart and educated, balanced and kind to her husband and girls. She is not a prude, not hypocritical and smart. Chernyshevsky admires Vera Pavlovna's desire to break outdated moral foundations.

Chernyshevsky emphasizes the similarity between Lopukhov and Kirsanov. Both doctors, engaged in science, both from poor families and achieved everything with hard work. For the sake of helping an unfamiliar girl, Lopukhov refuses a scientific career. He is more rational than Kirsanov. This is evidenced by the plan of the alleged suicide. But Kirsanov is capable of any sacrifice for the sake of friendship and love, avoids communication with a friend and beloved in order to forget her. Kirsanov is more sensitive and charismatic. Rakhmetov believes him, embarking on the path of improvement.

But the main character the novel (not according to the plot, but in theory) is not just a "new man", but a "special man" the revolutionary Rakhmetov. He generally refuses egoism as such, from happiness for himself. A revolutionary must sacrifice himself, give his life for those he loves, live like the whole people.

He is an aristocrat by birth, but has broken with the past. Rakhmetov earned money as a simple carpenter, a barge haule. He had the nickname "Nikita Lomov", like a hero-barge haule. All funds Rakhmetov invested in the cause of the revolution. He led the most ascetic lifestyle. If the new people are called the Chernyshevsky salt of the earth, then revolutionaries like Rakhmetov are called “the color the best people, engines of engines, salt of salt of the earth ”. The image of Rakhmetov is covered with an aura of mystery and understatement, since not everything Chernyshevsky could say directly.

Rakhmetov had several prototypes. One of them is the landowner Bakhmetev, who in London transferred almost all his fortune to Herzen for the cause of Russian propaganda. Rakhmetov's image is collective.

Rakhmetov's image is far from ideal. Chernyshevsky warns readers against admiration for such heroes, because their service is unrequited.

Stylistic features

Chernyshevsky makes extensive use of two means artistic expression- allegory and silence. Vera Pavlovna's dreams are full of allegories. The dark basement in the first dream is an allegory of the lack of freedom of women. Lopukhov's bride is great love to people, the dirt is real and fantastic from the second dream - the circumstances in which the poor and the rich live. The huge glass house in the last dream is an allegory of the communist happy future, which, according to Chernyshevsky, will definitely come and give joy to everyone without exception. The silence is associated with censorship prohibitions. But a certain mystery of images or plot lines does not spoil the pleasure of reading at all: "I know more about Rakhmetov than I say." The meaning of the ending of the novel remains vague, which is interpreted in different ways, the image of a lady in mourning. All songs and toasts of the fun picnic are allegorical.

In the last tiny chapter, "A Change of Scenery," the lady is no longer in mourning, but in smart clothes. In a young man of about 30, the liberated Rakhmetov is guessed. This chapter depicts the future, albeit the near future.

Complete analysis of the novel "What is to be done?"

The novel was written from the end of 1862 to April 1863, that is, it was written in 3.5 months in the 35th year of the author's life. divided readers into two opposite camps. Supporters of the book were Pisarev, Shchedrin, Plekhanov, Lenin. But artists like , Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Leskov believed that the novel was devoid of true artistry. To answer the question "What to do?" raises and solves the following burning problems from a revolutionary and socialist position:

1. The socio-political problem of reorganizing society in a revolutionary way, that is, through the physical collision of two worlds. This problem is given by hints in the history of life and in the last, 6th chapter "Change of scenery". Due to censorship, Chernyshevsky could not expand on this problem in detail.

2. Moral and psychological. This is a question about the internal restructuring of a person who, in the process of fighting with the old power of his mind, can cultivate new moral qualities in himself. The author traces this process from its initial forms (the struggle against family despotism) to preparation for a change of scenery, that is, for a revolution. This problem is revealed in relation to Lopukhov and Kirsanov, in the theory of rational egoism, as well as in the author's conversations with readers and with heroes. This problem also includes a detailed story about sewing workshops, that is, about the importance of labor in people's lives.

3. The problem of the emancipation of women, as well as the norms of the new family morality. This moral problem is revealed in the life story of Vera Pavlovna, in the relationship of the participants in the love triangle (Lopukhov, Vera Pavlovna, ), as well as in the first 3 dreams of Vera Pavlovna.

4. Socio-utopian. The problem of the future socialist society. It is deployed in the 4th dream of Vera Pavlovna as a dream of a beautiful and bright life. This also includes the emancipation of labor, that is, the technical machine equipment of production.

The main pathos of the book is a passionate enthusiastic propaganda of the idea of ​​a revolutionary transformation of the world.

The main desire of the author was the desire to convince the reader that everyone, provided they work on themselves, can become a "new person", the desire to expand the circle of their like-minded people. The main task was to develop a new methodology for the education of revolutionary consciousness and "honest feelings". The novel was intended to become a life textbook for everyone. thinking man... The main mood of the book is an acute joyful expectation of a revolutionary upheaval and a thirst to take part in it.

Which reader is the novel addressed to?

Chernyshevsky was an enlightener who believed in the struggle of the masses themselves, therefore the novel is addressed to broad strata of the diverse democratic intelligentsia, which in the 60s became the leading force of the liberation movement in Russia.

Artistic techniques, with the help of which the author conveys his thoughts to the reader:

Method 1: the title of each chapter is given a family and household character with a predominant interest in love intrigue, which quite accurately conveys the plot plot, but hides the true content. For example, chapter one "The Life of Vera Pavlovna in the parental family", chapter two "First love and legal marriage", chapter three "Marriage and second love", chapter four "Second marriage", etc. These names breathe traditionally and imperceptibly what is truly new, namely the new character of human relations.

Method 2: application of plot inversion - moving 2 introductory chapters from the center to the beginning of the book. The scene of the mysterious, almost detective disappearance of Lopukhov diverted the attention of the censorship from the true ideological orientation of the novel, that is, from what was later given the main attention of the author.

Method 3: the use of numerous hints and allegories, called Aesop speech.

Examples: "golden age", "new order" is socialism; "Business" is revolutionary work; A “special person” is a person of revolutionary convictions; The "scene" is life; "Change of scenery" - a new life after the victory of the revolution; The "bride" is a revolution; "Light beauty" is freedom. All of these techniques are designed for the reader's intuition and intelligence.

The novel was written from the end of 1862 to April 1863, that is, it was written in 3.5 months in the 35th year of the author's life. The novel divided the readers into two opposite camps. Supporters of the book were Pisarev, Shchedrin, Plekhanov, Lenin. But such artists as Turgenev, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Leskov believed that the novel was devoid of true artistry. To answer the question "What to do?" Chernyshevsky raises and resolves the following burning problems from a revolutionary and socialist position:

1. The socio-political problem of reorganizing society in a revolutionary way, that is, through the physical collision of two worlds. This problem is given in hints in the history of Rakhmetov's life and in the last, 6th chapter "Change of scenery". Due to censorship, Chernyshevsky could not expand on this problem in detail.

2. Moral and psychological. This is a question about the internal restructuring of a person who, in the process of fighting with the old power of his mind, can cultivate new moral qualities in himself. The author traces this process from its initial forms (the struggle against family despotism) to preparation for a change of scenery, that is, for a revolution. This problem is revealed in relation to Lopukhov and Kirsanov, in the theory of rational egoism, as well as in the author's conversations with readers and with heroes. This problem also includes a detailed story about sewing workshops, that is, about the importance of labor in people's lives.

3. The problem of the emancipation of women, as well as the norms of the new family morality. This moral problem is revealed in the history of Vera Pavlovna's life, in the relationships of the participants in the love triangle (Lopukhov, Vera Pavlovna, Kirsanov), as well as in the first 3 dreams of Vera Pavlovna.

4. Socio-utopian. The problem of the future socialist society. It is deployed in the 4th dream of Vera Pavlovna as a dream of a beautiful and bright life. This also includes the topic of labor emancipation, that is, the technical machine equipment of production.

The main pathos of the book is a passionate enthusiastic propaganda of the idea of ​​a revolutionary transformation of the world.

The main desire of the author was the desire to convince the reader that everyone, provided they work on themselves, can become a "new person", the desire to expand the circle of their like-minded people. The main task was to develop a new methodology for the education of revolutionary consciousness and "honest feelings". The novel was intended to become a life textbook for every thinking person. The main mood of the book is an acute joyful expectation of a revolutionary upheaval and a thirst to take part in it.

Which reader is the novel addressed to?

Chernyshevsky was an enlightener who believed in the struggle of the masses themselves, therefore the novel is addressed to broad strata of the diverse democratic intelligentsia, which in the 60s became the leading force of the liberation movement in Russia.

Artistic techniques with the help of which the author conveys his thoughts to the reader:

Method 1: the title of each chapter is given a family and household character with a predominant interest in love intrigue, which quite accurately conveys the plot plot, but hides the true content. For example, chapter one "The Life of Vera Pavlovna in the parental family", chapter two "First love and legal marriage", chapter three "Marriage and second love", chapter four "Second marriage", etc. These names breathe traditionally and imperceptibly what is truly new, namely the new character of human relations.

Method 2: application of plot inversion - moving 2 introductory chapters from the center to the beginning of the book. The scene of the mysterious, almost detective disappearance of Lopukhov diverted the attention of the censorship from the true ideological orientation of the novel, that is, from what was later given the main attention of the author.

Method 3: the use of numerous hints and allegories, called Aesop speech.

Examples: "golden age", "new order" is socialism; "Business" is revolutionary work; A “special person” is a person of revolutionary convictions; The "scene" is life; "Change of scenery" - a new life after the victory of the revolution; The "bride" is a revolution; "Light beauty" is freedom. All of these techniques are designed for the reader's intuition and intelligence.

Famous novel Chernyshevsky "What is to be done?" was deliberately focused on the tradition of world utopian literature. The author consistently expounds his point of view on the socialist ideal. The utopia created by the author acts as a model. We have before us, as it were, an experiment that has already been done, which gives positive results.

Among the famous utopian works, the novel stands out for the fact that the author draws not only a picture of a brighter future, but also the ways to approach it. People who have reached the ideal are also depicted. The subtitle of the novel "From Stories of New People" itself indicates their exceptional role.

Chernyshevsky constantly emphasizes the typology of "new people", talks about the whole group... "These people, among others, are as if there are several European people among the Chinese who cannot be distinguished from one another by the Chinese." Each hero has the traits common to the group - courage, the ability to get down to business, honesty.

It is extremely important for a writer to show the development of "new people", their difference from the general mass. The only hero whose past is examined in great detail is Vera. What allows her to free herself from the environment of "vulgar people"? According to Chernyshevsky, it is labor and education. "We are poor, but we are working people, we have healthy hands. Let us learn - knowledge will free us, we will work - work will enrich us." Vera is fluent in French and German, which gives her unlimited opportunities for self-education.

Such heroes as Kirsanov, Lopukhov and Mertsalov are already established people in the novel. It is characteristic that doctors appear in the novel during the writing of a dissertation. Thus, labor and education merge together. In addition, the author makes it clear that if both Lopukhov and Kirsanov come from poor and ignorant families, then they probably have poverty and work behind them, without which education is impossible. This early exposure to labor gives the "new person" an edge over other people.

The marriage of Vera Pavlovna is not an epilogue, but only the beginning of the novel. And this is very important. It is emphasized that in addition to the family, Verochka is able to create a wider association of people. This is where the long-standing utopian idea of ​​the commune - the phalanster - appears.

Labor gives "new people", first of all, personal independence, but in addition, it is also an active help to other people. Any deviation from selfless service to labor is condemned by the author. Suffice it to recall the moment when Vera is going to follow Lopukhov, leaving the workshop. Once upon a time labor was necessary for "new people" to receive education, but now the heroes are trying to educate people in the process of labor. This is connected with another important philosophical idea the author's portrayal of "new people" - their educational activities.

We know Lopukhov as an active promoter of new ideas among young people, public figure... Students call him "one of the best heads in St. Petersburg." Lopukhov himself considered the work in the office at the factory very important. "The conversation (with the students) had a practical, useful goal - to promote the development of mental life, nobility and energy in my young friends," Lopukhov writes to his wife. Naturally, such a person could not limit himself to literacy training. The author himself alludes to revolutionary work among the workers at the factory.

The mention of Sunday workers' schools meant a lot to the readers of that time. The fact is that they were closed by a special government decree in the summer of 1862. The government feared the revolutionary work that was being done in these schools for adults, workers, revolutionary democrats... It was originally intended to direct the work in these schools in a religious spirit. It was prescribed to study in them the Law of God, reading, writing and the beginnings of arithmetic. Each school was to have a priest to monitor the teachers' good intentions.

It was such a priest in Vera Pavlovna's "lyceum of all kinds of knowledge" that Mertsalov was supposed to be, who, however, was preparing to read the forbidden Russian and universal history. The literacy, which Lopukhov and other "new people" were going to teach the worker-listeners, was also peculiar. There are known examples when progressive-minded students explained in the classroom the meanings of the words "liberal", "revolution", "despotism". Educational activities"new people" - the real approach of the future.

I must say about the relationship between "new" and "vulgar" people. In Marya Alekseevna and Polozov, the author sees not only, in the words of Dobrolyubov, "tyrants", but also practically gifted, active people who, under other circumstances, are able to benefit society. Therefore, you can find features of their similarity with children. Lopukhov very quickly enters into the confidence of Rozalskaya, she respects his business qualities (first of all, the intention to marry a rich bride). However, the complete opposition of the aspirations, interests and views of the "new" and "vulgar" people is clearly visible. And the theory of rational egoism gives an indisputable advantage to the "new people".

The novel often speaks of selfishness as the inner stimulus of a person's actions. The author considers the selfishness of Marya Alekseevna to be the most primitive, who does no good to anyone without a monetary calculation. The selfishness of wealthy people is much more terrible. It grows on "fantastic" soil - on the desire for excesses and idleness. An example of such selfishness is Solovyov, playing a love for Katya Polozova because of her inheritance.

The selfishness of the "new people" is also based on the calculation and benefit of one person. “Everyone thinks most of all about himself,” says Lopukhov to Vera Pavlovna. But this is a fundamentally new moral code. Its essence is that the happiness of one person is inseparable from the happiness of other people. The benefit, the happiness of a "reasonable egoist" depends on the state of his loved ones, society as a whole. Lopukhov frees Vera from a forced marriage, and when he is convinced that she loves Kirsanov, he leaves the stage. Kirsanov helps Katya Polozova, Vera organizes a workshop. For the heroes, following the theory of reasonable egoism means taking into account the interests of another person with each of their actions. Reason comes first for the hero, a person is forced to constantly turn to introspection, to give an objective assessment of his feelings and position.

As you can see, the "reasonable egoism" of Chernyshevsky's heroes has nothing to do with selfishness, self-interest. Why is this still the theory of "egoism"? The Latin root of this word "ego" - "I" indicates that Chernyshevsky places a person at the center of his theory. In this case, the theory of rational egoism becomes the development of the anthropological principle, which Chernyshevsky put as the basis of his philosophical idea.

In one of the conversations with Vera Pavlovna, the author says: "... I feel joy and happiness" - which means, "I want all people to be happy," - humanly, Vera, these two thoughts are the same. " Chernyshevsky declares that the creation of favorable conditions for the life of an individual is inseparable from the improvement of the existence of all people, which reflects the undoubted revolutionary nature of Chernyshevsky's views.

The moral principles of the "new people" are revealed in their attitude to the problem of love and marriage. For them, man, his freedom is the main thing. vital value... Love and humane friendship form the basis of the relationship between Lopukhov and Vera Pavlovna. Even a declaration of love takes place during a discussion of Vera's position in her mother's family and the search for a way to liberation. Thus, the feeling of love only adapts to the situation that has arisen. It should be noted that such a statement entered into controversy with many works of XIX century.

The problem of women's emancipation is also being solved in a peculiar way by the "new people". Although only ecclesiastical marriage is recognized, the woman must remain financially and spiritually independent of her husband in the marriage. The creation of a family is only one of the milestones on the way to approaching the ideal.

The theme of the rebirth of a fallen woman is also dealt with in the novel. Meeting with Kirsanov gives Nastya Kryukova strength to rise from the bottom. Julie, who lives among "vulgar people", does not have such an opportunity. In addition, a two-way connection is visible: people who are reborn thanks to the support of "new people" themselves join their ranks.

Only children make a woman happy, according to Chernyshevsky. It is with the upbringing of children and their future that the author connects Vera Pavlovna's second marriage. It becomes a real bridge to the future.

The heroes of Chernyshevsky's novel "What is to be done?" - these are commoners, new heroes of literature. Underestimating the role of the working class, Chernyshevsky predicts victory for the revolutionary democrats, the commoners, and the approach of the future.

35. Anti-nihilistic novel of the 60s. ("The Cliff" by IA Goncharov, "Smoke" by IS Turgenev, "The Turbulent Sea" by AF Pisemsky). Problems, images of "nihilists", ways author's characteristics, style features. On the example of 2 novels.