About Pushkin's influence on Russian poetry, Gogol wrote: “Karamzin did not do the same in prose that he did in verse. Karamzin's imitators served as a pitiful caricature of himself and brought both the style and thoughts to sugar cloying. As for Pushkin, he was for all poets contemporary to him, like a poetic fire thrown from the sky, from which, like candles, other semi-precious poets were lit. A whole constellation of them suddenly formed around him ... "

Young poets, feeling the beneficial influence of Pushkin on their work, even sought his patronage. In 1817, V. I. Tumansky wrote to Pushkin: “Your connections, the people of your glory, your head ... everything gives you a flattering opportunity to act on the minds with much more extensive success against other writers. From the height of your position, you must watch everything, oversee everything, knock heads off stolen reputations and bring out modest talents into people who will hold on to you.

At the same time, the poets of the Pushkin circle not only followed Pushkin, but also entered into rivalry with him. Their evolution did not coincide in everything with the rapid development of the Russian genius, which was ahead of its time. Remaining romantics, Baratynsky or Yazykov could no longer appreciate his "novel in verse" "Eugene Onegin" and treated his realistic prose with distrust. Their closeness to Pushkin did not preclude dialogue with him.

Another regularity in the development of these poets was the special correlation of their creative achievements with the poetic world of Pushkin. The poets of Pushkin's time creatively embodied, and sometimes even developed and improved, only certain aspects of his poetic system. But Pushkin, with his universalism, remained a unique model for them.

The emergence of the "Pushkin galaxy" is associated with the times of the Lyceum and the first post-lyceum years, when a "union of poets" arose around Pushkin. It was a spiritual unity based on the commonality of aesthetic tastes and ideas about the nature and purpose of poetry. The cult of friendship here was painted with special colors: the “favorites of the eternal muses” were friends with each other, united in the “holy brotherhood” of poets, prophets, favorites of the gods, who treated the “crazy crowd” with contempt. There was already a new, romantic view of the poet as God's chosen one. At an early stage, Epicureanism dominated here, not devoid of open opposition to the forms of sanctimonious morality and sectarian piety accepted in the official world. Young poets followed the tradition of the early Batyushkov, reflected in his famous message "My Penates" and in a cycle of anthological poems.

Gradually, this alliance began to take the form of a mature opposition to the autocracy of the tsar, the reactionary regime of Arakcheev. At the same time, urgent problems arose for the further development and enrichment of the language of Russian poetry. The "School of Harmonic Accuracy", approved by the efforts of Zhukovsky and Batyushkov, seemed already archaic to the younger generation of poets: it held back the further development of poetry by strict forms of poetic thinking, stylistic smoothness of thought expression, thematic narrowness and one-sidedness.

Let us recall that Zhukovsky and Batyushkov, as well as civic poets, developed a whole language of poetic symbols, which then wandered from one poem to another and created a sense of harmony, the poetic loftiness of the language: “the flame of love”, “the cup of joy”, “the intoxication of the heart” , "heat of the heart", "coldness of the heart", "drink breath", "languid look", "fiery delight", "mysteries of charm", "maiden of love", "bed of luxury", "memory of the heart". The poets of Pushkin's pleiad strive in various ways to resist “the dematerialization of the poetic word - a natural phenomenon in the system of stable styles, which replaced the genre style in the 1810-1820s,” notes K. K. Buchmeyer. – The poetics of such styles was based on the fundamental repetition of poetic formulas (word-signals) designed to recognize and create certain associations (for example, in the national-historical style: chains, swords, slaves, dagger, revenge; in the elegiac style: tears, urns, joy, roses, golden days, etc.). However, the expressive possibilities of such a word in each given poetic context narrowed: being a sign of style, it became almost unambiguous, partially lost its objective meaning, and with it the power of direct impact. At a new stage in the development of Russian poetry, a need arose, without completely abandoning the achievements of its predecessors, to return to the poetic word its simple, “objective” content.

One of the ways to update the language was to turn to ancient poetry, already enriched by the experience of the people in its romantic understanding. The poets of Pushkin's circle, relying on the experience of the late Batyushkov, resolutely departed from the notion of ancient culture as a timeless standard for direct imitation. Antiquity appeared before them as a special world, historically conditioned and unique in modern times in its essential qualities. According to V. E. Vatsuro, “there was a discovery of that indisputable fact for us that a person of a different cultural era thought and felt in other forms, different from modern times, and that these forms have their own aesthetic value.”

And this value at the present stage of development of Russian poetry was first of all felt by Pushkin. Anthological and idyllic lyrics, according to his definition, “do not allow anything tense in feelings; thin, confused in thoughts; superfluous, unnatural in the descriptions. Behind the assessment of the idylls of A. A. Delvig, to which these words of Pushkin are addressed, one feels a hidden polemic with the Zhukovsky school, which achieved poetic success by muffling the objective meaning of the word and introducing subjective, associative semantic shades into it.

Delvig Anton Antonovich (1798-1831)

It is not by chance that Pushkin's favorite Anton Antonovich Delvig (1798-1831) is given the first place in the circle of poets of the "Pushkin galaxy". Once Pushkin gave him a statuette of a bronze sphinx, a half-man-half-lion known in ancient mythology, testing travelers with its riddles, and accompanied the gift with such a madrigal:

Who on the snow raised Theocrite's delicate roses? In the Iron Age, tell me, who guessed the golden one? Who is a young Slav, a Greek in spirit, and a German by birth? Here is my riddle: cunning Oedipus, solve it!

Delvig entered Russian literature as a master of the anthological idyllic genre. “What power of imagination must have,” wrote Pushkin about the idylls of Delvig, “in order to be so completely transported from the 19th century to the golden age, and what an extraordinary flair of the elegant, in order to guess Greek poetry in such a way.” Pushkin felt in Delvig's poetry the living breath of the past, historicism in the transfer of "the childhood of the human race."

In his experiments, Delvig came from N. I. Gnedich, who, in the preface to his own translation of Theocritus’s idyll “The Syracusan Woman” (1811), noted that “the kind of idyllic poetry, more than any other, requires folk, domestic content; not only shepherds, but all the states of people, close to nature by the nature of their lives, can be the subject of this poetry.

In his idylls, Delvig takes the reader to the "golden age" of antiquity, where man was not yet alienated from society and lived in harmonious union with nature. Everything here is fanned by the romantic dream of the poet about the simple and indecomposable values ​​of life that have been lost by modern civilization. The poet portrays antiquity as a unique era that retains its charm for modern man and gives rise to longing for what our world has lost.

His idylls are close to genre scenes, pictures depicting certain episodes from the life of ordinary villagers. These are heroes endowed with modest and simple virtues: they do not know how to pretend and lie, the dramas in their everyday life resemble peaceful family quarrels, which only strengthen the strength of community life. In his own way, a simple person lives, loves, makes friends and has fun, in his own way he meets death, fatal for modern romantics. Living in unity with nature, he does not feel the tragedy of the short duration of his existence.

But as soon as the microbe of deceit enters the world of these pure relationships, disaster ensues. In the idyll "The End of the Golden Age" (1828), the city youth Meletius seduces the shepherdess Amarilla, and then misfortune befalls the whole country. It drowns in the Amarilla River, the beauty of Arcadia fades, the coldness of the soul chills the hearts of the villagers, the harmony between man and nature is destroyed forever. This motif will live long in our literature. He will respond in a poem by a friend of Delvig Baratynsky "The Last Poet". It will come to life in the story "Cossacks" by L. N. Tolstoy. And then the "golden age" will disturb the imagination of the heroes of F. M. Dostoevsky, Versilov will respond in a dream from his novel "The Teenager".

Delvig's anthological theme, as one would expect, served as a kind of bridge to the depiction of Russian folk life. For the first time, N. I. Gnedich tried to combine Russian patriarchy with ancient in the idyll “Fishermen”. The anthological genre restored in Russian poetry not only a taste for the exact word, but also a sense of a living, patriarchal folk way of life. In the anthological plots, an understanding of the nationality as a historically determined community of people was formed. Following Gnedich, Delvig writes the "Russian idyll" "Retired Soldier" (1829). Its dramatic form in some way anticipates the folk dialogues in the poems of N. A. Nekrasov. A Russian cripple-soldier, wandering home from distant countries, comes out to the shepherds at the light:

Having warmed himself by a hospitable fire, having tasted simple shepherd's food, the soldier tells about the fire of Moscow, about the flight and death of the French:

They have gone far. On the road Frost grabbed them and made them wait Doomsday at the crime scene: At God's church, defiled by them, In a plundered hut, near the village, Burnt by their rampage!…

A special place in the creative heritage of Delvig was occupied by his "Russian songs". The poet listened attentively to the very spirit of the folk song, to its compositional structure and style. Although many reproached him for being literary, for the absence of a true nationality, these reproaches are incorrect, if we recall Pushkin's well-known advice to judge the poet according to the laws that he himself recognized over himself. Delvig did not imitate a folk song, as did his predecessors, including A. F. Merzlyakov. He approached Russian folk culture with the same standards of historicism with which he reproduced the spirit of antiquity. Delvig tried to penetrate from within into the spiritual and artistic world of folk song. “Even during the life of Delvig, they tried to oppose him to A.F. Merzlyakov, the author of the widely popular“ Russian songs ”,as a poet more closely connected with the elements of folk life,” notes V.E. Vatsuro. “Perhaps it was so, but Merzlyakov's songs are farther from genuine folk poetry than Delvig's songs. Delvig was able to catch those features of folklore poetics that the written literature of his time passed by: an atmosphere created not directly, but indirectly, restraint and strength of feeling, the characteristic symbolism of mean imagery. In folk songs, he looked for a national character and understood it, moreover, as a "naive" and patriarchal character. It was a kind of “anthology”, but based on Russian national material.” Here Delvig approached the method of mastering folklore, which A. V. Koltsov later came to.

“Russian Songs” by Delvig - “Oh, are you a night, a little night ...”, “Is my head, little head ...”, “What, a young beauty ...”, “It's boring, girls, to live alone in the spring ...”, “The little bird sang, sang ...”, “My nightingale, nightingale ...”, “Like a small village stands behind a river ...”, “And I will go out onto the porch ...”, “Orphan girl ...”, “Thunder clouds are walking across the sky ...”, “How are we roof…”, “I was walking in the garden in the evening, baby”, “Not a fine autumn rain…” - entered not only the salon, city, but also the folk repertoire. "The Nightingale" with its first four verses gained immortality in the romance of A. A. Alyabyev. M. Glinka set to music a song specially composed for him by Delvig "Not an autumn fine rain ...". There is no doubt that Delvig's "Russian songs" also influenced the development of A. V. Koltsov's talent.

Delvig's numerous elegiac poems also deserve attention, occupying an intermediate position between the classical dull elegy and a love romance. “When, soul, you asked…”, “The past days of charm…” (the poem “Disappointment”) are still heard in the melodies of M. L. Yakovlev and A. S. Dargomyzhsky. Delvig boldly introduces antique motifs into the elegy, just as he fills the romance with elegiac motifs. As a result, the elegy acquires plot dynamism and linguistic diversity, loses its characteristic features of static and stylistic monotony.

In Russian poetry, Delvig became famous as a master of the sonnet. He not only sought to give this form elegance and formal perfection, but also saturated it with a rich philosophical content. Such, for example, is his sonnet "Inspiration" (1822), where a romantic thought sounds about the purifying influence of inspiration, in the minutes of which God gives the poet's soul a feeling of immortality:

It's not often that inspiration flies to us, And for a brief moment it burns in the soul; But the favorite of the muses appreciates this moment, Like a martyr with the earth separation. Deception in friends, distrust in love And poison in everything that the heart cherishes, Forgotten by them: enthusiastic piit I have read my purpose. And contemptible, persecuted from people, Wandering alone under the sky He speaks to the ages to come; He puts honor above all honors, He avenges slander with his glory And shares immortality with the gods.

Delvig entered history as an organizer of literary life. He published one of the best almanacs of the 1820s, Northern Flowers, and then, in collaboration with A.S. in the early 1830s by brisk Petersburg journalists Bulgarin and Grech. Delvig's Literaturnaya Gazeta brought together the best, "aristocratic" literary forces in Russia at that time. But in 1830, in November, it was closed for the publication of a quatrain dedicated to the July Revolution in France. Delvig, having received a strict warning from Benckendorff himself, experienced a severe nervous shock, which finally undermined his already poor health. An accidental cold in January brought him to the grave on January 14 (26), 1831.

Vyazemsky Petr Andreevich (1792-1878)

Pyotr Andreevich Vyazemsky belonged to the number of elders in the circle of poets of the Pushkin galaxy. He was born in Moscow into a family of hereditary appanage princes, among the old feudal nobility. Although by the beginning of the 19th century it had become rather impoverished, it still retained the proud spirit of the noble fronde, which was treated with contempt by the unborn public that surrounded the royal throne. In 1805, his father placed his son in a St. Petersburg Jesuit boarding school, then Vyazemsky studied a little at a boarding school at the Pedagogical Institute, and in 1806, at the insistence of his father, concerned about his son’s free behavior, he returned to Moscow, where he supplemented his education with private lessons from professors at Moscow University. In 1807, his father died, leaving the fifteen-year-old boy a large fortune. A dispersed life began, young feasts, cards, until N. M. Karamzin, who had married Vyazemsky's half-sister Ekaterina Andreevna back in 1801, took him under his wing and replaced his early departed father.

In the terrible days of 1812, Vyazemsky joined the Moscow militia, participated in the Battle of Borodino, where under him one horse was killed and another was wounded. For bravery, he was awarded the Order of Stanislav 4th degree, but illness prevented him from participating in further hostilities. He leaves Moscow with the Karamzin family and reaches Yaroslavl, from where the Karamzins leave for Nizhny Novgorod, and Vyazemsky and his wife go to Vologda.

Vyazemsky's literary interests are remarkable for their extraordinary breadth and encyclopedism. This is a politician, and a thinker, and a journalist, and a critic-polemicist of a romantic direction, and the author of the most valuable "Notes", a memoirist who spoke with a description of the life and life of "pre-fire" Moscow, a poet and translator. Unlike his young friends, he felt all his life heir to the Age of Enlightenment, from childhood he had joined the works of French encyclopedists in his father's rich library.

But he begins his literary activity as a supporter of Karamzin and Dmitriev. In his Ostafyevo estate near Moscow, Russian writers and poets periodically gather, calling themselves the "Friendly Artel" - Denis Davydov, Alexander Turgenev, Vasily Zhukovsky, Konstantin Batyushkov, Vasily Pushkin, Dmitry Bludov - all future members of Arzamas. Vyazemsky then focuses on "light poetry", which is cultivated by young pre-romantics. The leading genre is the literary message, in which Vyazemsky shows originality in describing the delights of a solitary home life (“Message to Zhukovsky in the village”, “To my friends Zhukovsky, Batyushkov and Severin”, “To friends”, “To a friend”, “Message to Turgenev with pie"). They are adjoined by “Farewell to the Bathrobe”, “Charter of the Dining Room”, etc. The idea of ​​natural equality, characteristic of the Enlighteners and complicated by reasoning about the superiority of spiritual closeness over stiff nobility, is affirmed:

Hospitality - without ranks, Diversity in conversations In stories - frugality of words, Cold-blooded - in heated debates, Without cleverness - simplicity, Gaiety is the sober spirit of freedom, Without caustic bile - sharpness, Without buffoonery - the salt of a joke is frisky.

These are poems, free from any officiality and ostentation, cultivating independence, graceful "idleness", hostility to everything official. A feature of Vyazemsky's friendly messages is a paradoxical combination of poetic conventions with the realities of a specific, everyday situation. Everyday words, jokes, satirical sketches penetrate the messages. A narrative style is being worked out, close to an unpretentious friendly conversation, which will be reflected in Pushkin's novel "Eugene Onegin". In "Message to Turgenev with a Pie" Vyazemsky writes:

Or, laying aside the balusters of poetry, (You are your own rhetorician and ambassador) Go, pie, to Turgenev's table, A worthy gift and friendship and gluttony!

Following friendly messages, a series of epigrams, noels, fables, satirical verses is created, in which Vyazemsky's mocking mind penetrates the very essence of things, presenting them in a witty light. The subjects of accusations are the "Old Believers" from Shishkov's "Conversations ...", Karamzin's epigones, conservatives in politics. About Shakhovsky he will say:

You are cold in "Fur Coats" Shutovskaya, In "Waters" you are Shutovskaya dry.

Vyazemsky creates a murderous parody of the sentimental travel genre common at the beginning of the century - “An episodic excerpt from a journey in verse. Vozdykhalov's first rest":

He was all impromptu. While towards him from the shack A woman comes out; he came to life! To the sweet ideal of a shepherdess Lornet directs Celadon, He straightens his scarlet scarf, Sigh once, sigh twice And to her, squirming, draws He following words: "Greetings with a hundredfold prayer Gebeyu of this side! ”…

The well-known memoirist, Vyazemsky's colleague in Arzamas, Filipp Filippovich Vigel, recalling the literary life of the early 1810s, wrote: “At the same time, a small miracle appeared in Moscow. The underage boy Vyazemsky suddenly stepped forward both as Karamzin’s defender from the enemies, and as a thunderstorm of dirty men, who, hiding behind his name and banner, dishonored them ... Karamzin never liked satires, epigrams and literary quarrels in general, but he could not curb the swearing spirit in his pupil, love for him excited. And yet, what's the trouble? A young child, let him still amuse himself; and the child was far heavy on the arm! Like Ivan Tsarevich, it used to be that Prince Pyotr Andreevich took someone by the hand - hand away, someone by the head - head away. Striking right and left, Vyazemsky defines his aesthetic position, which does not coincide with the position of the “school of harmonic accuracy”.

First, as the heir to the enlightenment culture of the 18th century, he invariably opposes the poetry of feeling to the poetry of thought. Secondly, he opposes the smoothness, weariness, and sophistication of the poetic style: “I love and appreciate the melodiousness of other people's poems very much, but in my verses I do not pursue this melodiousness at all. I will never sacrifice my thought to sound. In my verse I want to say what I want to say; I don’t care about the ears of my neighbor and don’t think ... My stubbornness, my rape sometimes give my poems a prosaic lethargy, sometimes pretentiousness. Avoiding poeticization, Vyazemsky went in line with the development of Russian poetry, which in the Pushkin era began to resolutely bring the bookish language closer to the oral language. The deviation from the style of "harmonic precision" led to some disharmony and stylistic diversity of his poetry:

My tongue is not always pure The taste is true, the syllable is pure, and the expression is precise.

From the mid-1810s, noticeable changes took place in the work of Vyazemsky. In February 1818, he was appointed to the civil service in Warsaw as an official for foreign correspondence under the imperial commissioner N. N. Novosiltsev. He knows that on the instructions of the sovereign, his immediate superior is working on a draft Russian constitution. Vyazemsky accompanies his entry into a responsible position with a large poem "Petersburg" (1818), in which, reviving the tradition of the Russian ode, he tries to influence the good undertakings of the sovereign. Like Pushkin in Stanzas, he reminds Alexander of the great deeds of Peter:

Se Peter is still alive in eloquent copper! Under him is the Poltava horse, the proud forerunner Bayonets of sparkling and waving banners. He reigns over the city he created, Falling him with a sovereign hand, Guard of the people's honor and mute fear of malice. Let the enemies dare, arming themselves with hell, Carry to your shores the bloody sword of war, Hero! You reflect them with a fixed gaze, Ready to fall on them with a daring toughness.

The image of the Bronze Horseman, created here by Vyazemsky, will later echo in Pushkin's poem of the same name. Singing after this the century of Catherine, the poet believes that one should not envy the past:

Our age is the age of glory, our king is the love of the universe!

Alluding to the liberation mission of Alexander I in Europe, Vyazemsky gives his lesson to the tsar in the finale:

Peter created subjects, you form citizens! Let the statutes be a gift and these guards - freedom. The promised shore of the great people, All pure virtues will spread the seeds. With reverence awaits, O king, your country, To give her happiness, give her the right to happiness! "The creator of people's misfortunes is blind autocracy" - From the dust of fallen kingdoms this voice rises. Passions criminal darkness penetrating deep, A vigilant eye over the kingdoms observes the law, Like Providence's unsleeping eye.

It seemed to Vyazemsky that his dreams of a constitutional monarchy in Russia, which completely coincided with the dreams of the Northern Society of the Decembrists, would soon become a reality. In a speech from the throne at the opening of the Polish Sejm in 1818, Alexander I said: "I intend to give a beneficial constitutional government to all peoples entrusted to me by providence." Vyazemsky knew at that time “more than the Decembrists themselves knew: he knew that the constitution of the Russian Empire had already been written and that it depended on one stroke of Alexander to bring it to life” (S. N. Durylin). However, Adam Czartoryski, who studied the character of Alexander well, wrote in his Memoirs: “The Emperor liked the external forms of freedom, as he likes beautiful spectacles; he liked that his government looked like a free government, and he boasted of it. But he needed only the appearance and form, and he did not allow them to be realized in reality. In a word, he would willingly agree to give freedom to the whole world, but on the condition that everyone would voluntarily submit exclusively to his will.

At a cordial meeting with the sovereign after the throne speech, Vyazemsky handed him a note from high-ranking and liberal-minded noble officials, in which they most humbly asked for permission to proceed to consider and resolve another important issue about the liberation of the peasants from serfdom. And in 1821, during his summer vacation, Vyazemsky received a letter from Novosiltsev, in which the sovereign forbade him to return to Warsaw. This exile offended Vyazemsky so much that he defiantly filed a petition to remove him from the rank of chamber junker of the court, worn since 1811.

The result of these events was the famous poem by Vyazemsky "Indignation" (1820). The nameless scammer wrote to Benckendorff: “Vyazemsky’s way of thinking can be adequately assessed from one of his poetic plays “Indignation”, which served as a catechism of the conspirators (Decembrists!).” Nikolai Kutanov (pseudonym of S. N. Durylin) in his long-standing work “A Decembrist Without December”, dedicated to Vyazemsky, wrote:

“A rare among the Decembrists can be found such a vivid attack on one of the foundations of the serf state - on the forcible squeezing of economic juices from the serf masses by taxes and extortions. Neither in Pushkin's "The Village" nor in "Woe from Wit" is there such an attack.

But Vyazemsky, driven by the Apollo of “indignation”, turned out in his poems not only to be a poet of Decembrism, which was Pushkin, but also a poet of December, which was Ryleev: the “catechism” ends with an appeal to Senate Square:

It will light up, day, day of celebration and execution, A day of joyful hopes, a day of sad fear! The song of victories will be heard to you, priests of truth, To you, friends of honor and freedom! You cry tombstone! you renegades of nature! You oppressors! you low flatterers!"

And yet Vyazemsky was not a member of the secret society of the Decembrists. In his Confession, written in 1829, he explained his non-participation in the Decembrist organizations, incomprehensible to the authorities: Good preparation for freedom, which begins with the enslavement of oneself!

As for his enemies, who caused a surge of indignation, Vyazemsky once said about them: “My only hope, my only consolation is the assurance that they will see in the next world how stupid, stupid, harmful they were here, how they were justly and severely evaluated by the general opinion, how they did not arouse any noble sympathy in the people, who with firmness, with self-sacrifice endured them as a temporary evil sent down by Providence in His inscrutable will. Hoping that someday they will come to their senses here, too, is reckless, and it shouldn't be. One thunderstorm might have brought them to their senses. Thunder will not strike, Russian people will not cross themselves. And politically, we must believe in the immortality of the soul and the Second Coming for the judgment of the living and the dead. Otherwise, political despair would take possession of the soul ”(record of 1844).

In artistic terms, "Indignation" is a complex fusion of high ode traditions with elegiac motifs, which sound especially bright in the introduction. All aspiring to the civil theme, Vyazemsky is not satisfied with either Karamzin's poetics or Zhukovsky's poetic system. He seriously advises the latter to turn to the civil theme: “It’s enough for you to bask in the clouds, descend to the ground, and at least let the horrors raging on it wake up the energy of your soul. Dedicate your flame to righteousness and give up the service of idols. Noble indignation is modern inspiration.”

Vyazemsky perceives Byron's romanticism in the same vein. The English poet is now becoming his idol. But it is not the poet of "world sorrow" that he sees in Byron, but a tyrant, a Protestant, a fighter for the freedom of Greece. Therefore, Vyazemsky's "colors of Byron's romanticism" merge with "political colors". In the ode “Despondency”, Vyazemsky depicts not so much the very psychological state of despondency as he reflects on the causes and facts of real life that give rise to it. The elegiac world of unfulfilled hopes and dreams is paired in the poem with the world of civic feelings, ideas and images, sustained in a declamatory-oratorical, archaic style. The genre of a sad elegy pushes its boundaries, personally coloring the “word-signals” of their poetic civil vocabulary. As a result, the poet's voice is sharply individualized, political reflections and emotions acquire only his, Vyazemsky's, characteristic intonation. The work includes historicism in the understanding of modern man, a lyrical hero.

At the same time, Vyazemsky the critic for the first time poses in his articles the romantic problem of nationality. It also applies to his own works. The poet insists that every nation has its own system, its own way of thinking, that a Russian thinks differently than a Frenchman. An important step towards the creative embodiment of the nationality was Vyazemsky's elegy "The First Snow" (1819), from which Pushkin took the epigraph to the first chapter of "Eugene Onegin" - "And he is in a hurry to live, and he is in a hurry to feel."

Romantics believed that the originality of the national character depends on the climate, on national history, on customs, beliefs, and language. And so Vyazemsky in his elegy merges a lyrical feeling with the specific details of Russian life and the Russian landscape. The harsh winter beauty corresponds to the character traits of a Russian person, morally pure, courageous, despising danger, patient with the blows of fate:

Despising frost anger and futile threats, Rosy cheeks of your fresh roses redden ...

Vyazemsky gives a picture of the Russian sledge track that fascinated Pushkin, who picked it up when describing the winter journey of Eugene Onegin:

Like a light blizzard, their winged run Snow breaks through with even reins And, waving with a bright cloud from the earth, Silvery dust covers them.

This theme grows and develops in the poetry of Vyazemsky and further in the poems “Winter Caricatures (Excerpts from the Journal of a Winter Trip in the Steppe Provinces)” (1828), “Road Thought” (1830), “Another Three” (1834), which became a popular romance, “Another Road Thought” (1841), “Shrovetide on a Foreign Side” (1853), etc. Vyazemsky discovers the charm in the boundless peace of the Russian snowy plains, feeling the connection with them of the expanse of the Russian soul, outwardly discreet, but internally deep.

“The proclamation of Vyazemsky's right to individuality of thought determined his place in the romantic movement,” notes I. M. Semenko. - Leaving the circle of Karamzin's concepts, Vyazemsky found his way to romanticism. Unlike the lyrical hero Davydov, the image of the author in Vyazemsky's poetry is purely intellectual. At the same time, the sharpness of the intellect in Vyazemsky's verses, just like Davydov's courage, seems to be a property of nature. Not a "universal" truth, comprehended by the mind, but the indefatigable intellectual temperament of the individual is the key to the emergence of a new thought.

Yazykov Nikolai Mikhailovich (1803-1846).

“Of all the poets of Pushkin's time, Yazykov separated most of all,” wrote N.V. Gogol. - With the appearance of his first verses, everyone heard a new lyre, revelry and violence of strength, the daring of any expression, the light of young delight and a language that, in such strength, perfection and strict subordination to the master, had not yet appeared in anyone. The name of the Languages ​​fell to him not without reason. He speaks the language, like an Arab with his wild horse, and also, as it were, boasts of his power. No matter where the period begins, whether from the head or from the tail, he will bring it out picturesquely, conclude and close it so that you stop amazed. Everything that expresses the strength of youth, not relaxed, but powerful, full of the future, suddenly became the subject of his poems. So youthful freshness splashes from everything he touches. ‹…› Everything that evokes courage in a young man - the sea, waves, storm, feasts and shifted bowls, fraternal alliance for work, faith in the future, firm as flint, readiness to stand up for the fatherland - is expressed in him with unnatural force. When his poems appeared as a separate book, Pushkin said with annoyance: “Why did he call them: “Poems of Yazykov!” They should have been called simply: “hops”! A man with ordinary powers will do nothing of the sort; a riot of strength is needed here. ” I vividly remember his delight at the time when he read Yazykov's poem to Davydov, published in a magazine. For the first time I saw tears on Pushkin's face (Pushkin never cried; he said about himself in a letter to Ovid: "Severe Slav, I did not shed tears, but I understand them"). I remember those stanzas that brought tears to his eyes: the first, where the poet, turning to Russia, which had already been recognized as powerless and weak, cries out like this:

Chu! the pipe rattled! Russia! you arrogant call! Remember how you met All invasions of enemies! Call from distant countries You are your heroes, steppes, from the wide plains, From great rivers, from high mountains, From your eight seas!

And then a stanza, which describes an unheard-of self-sacrifice - to set fire to your own capital with everything that is sacred to the whole earth in it:

Who does not shed tears after such stanzas? His verses are like vague hops; but a higher power is heard in the hop, forcing it to rise upwards. He has student feasts not out of drunkenness and drunkenness, but from the joy that there is power in hand and a field ahead, that they, students, will rush,

For noble service For the glory of honor and kindness.

“The pathos of Yazykov’s poetry,” says V. I. Korovin, a researcher of the poets of Pushkin’s time, “the pathos of the romantic freedom of the individual, who believed in the achievement of this freedom, and therefore joyfully and even sometimes thoughtlessly, accepted life with her whole being. Languages ​​rejoiced at life, its boiling, its boundless and diverse manifestations, not because such a view was due solely to his political, philosophical motives, but recklessly.

He did not analyze, did not try to understand and express in verse the inner causes of his life-loving world outlook. In his lyrics, the nature of man as a free and sovereign being spoke directly. And this feeling of freedom primarily concerned him, Yazykov, the personality and the environment closest to him - relatives, friends, women.

However, the origins of such freedom are not only in the crisis of the feudal system, as the researcher believes, but also in the rise of self-consciousness of the young nation that won the Patriotic War. On the wave of the life-giving unity of the Russian people in the face of a common danger, this feeling of absolute freedom and easy breathing just arose. Behind everything personal, intimate, and everyday, Yazykov had a majestic image of heroic Russia, a part of which he felt himself to be both as a person, as a student poet, and as a poet-historian.

Yazykov's student songs are a jubilant hymn to a free life with its sensual joys, with a heroic scope of feelings, youth, and health. Among these eternal, simple and indecomposable values ​​of life, the poet-student also has freethinking. The feeling typical of the lyrics of the Decembrists is humanized here, losing the scholastic touch of odic solemnity, landing in something, but also gaining a living breath:

What do we care about him! We drink, we feast and we sing Carefree, joyful and bold. Our August looks like September - What do we have to do with him? We are all equal, we are all free Our mind is not a slave of other people's minds, And our feelings are noble. Here there is no scepter, no shackles, We are all equal, we are all free. We will not get up from the glasses. Even if God strikes our table with thunder, We won't stop drinking. Come here at least the Russian Tsar, We will not get up from the glasses.

“Yazikov’s main merit in the field of solemn style,” notes K. K. Buchmeyer, “was the lively poetic delight that he managed to create instead of the majestic soaring poetry of classicism of the 18th century, and the ponderous rhetoric that fettered the thought and feeling of civil poets of the early 19th century.

The mechanism, the secret of this typically linguistic delight, which forced Gogol to assert that Yazykov was born for "dithyramb and hymn", lies primarily in the combination of swift, as if flying verse with the special structure of the poetic period, with a decisive renewal of the poetic vocabulary. ‹…› The omissions of rhythmic stresses on the first and third feet of the iambic tetrameter in a period conveying a continuous emotional increase create the impression of that passionate poetic “choking”, which is especially captivating in Yazykov.” And “the emotional growth brought to a climax is resolved by Yazykov, as a rule, with a spectacular aphoristic formula, which is the semantic center of gravity of the poetic period. Most often, these formulas are organized in a certain way in terms of sound, resounding like Derzhavin. Here, for example, is the classic period of Yazykov from the song "Bayan to the Russian Warrior under Dimitry Donskoy" (1823):

The hand of the free is stronger The hand, worn out by the yoke, So falling thunder from the sky Underground rumbles are louder, So the song of victory is louder The deaf rattle of chains!

“Yazykov's verse period,” the researcher continues, “turned out to be superbly adapted for conveying growing phenomena, whether it be a feeling overwhelming the poet or a developing natural phenomenon (for example, a thunderstorm in Trigorsky). It is not difficult to trace this in the messages, which, as a rule, acquire high-style colors from Yazykov (“To Wulf, Tyutchev and Shepelev”, 1826):

O! unlearn my hand Own the strings of inspiration I do not deserve a wreath In the beautiful temple of hymns, Cold wind of vanity Inflate and fly my sails Under the ocean of darkness In the course of the pale light, When it diminishes in me This heavenly gift is blessed, This flame is pure and sacred - Love to the native side!

The defeat of the Decembrist uprising Yazykov took it tragically. The verdict and execution of five comrades on August 7, 1826 tore out from the poet's chest the verses that are the pinnacle of his freedom-loving lyrics:

Are you not the decoration of our days, Fire sparks of freedom, - Ryleev died like a villain! - Oh, remember him, Russia, When you rise from the chains And you will move thunderous forces To the sovereignty of kings!

The poet never lost faith in the triumph of the freedom-loving impulses of the human spirit. In 1829, he wrote the poem "Swimmer" ("Our sea is unsociable ..."), which soon became one of the favorite songs of democratic youth. The strength of the mighty natural elements is opposed in this poem by the courage of brave swimmers striving for a common and bright goal:

Brave, brothers! The cloud will burst The mass of waters will boil, Above the angry shaft will rise, Deeper the abyss will fall! There, beyond the distance of bad weather, There is a blessed country: The vaults of the sky do not darken, There is no silence. But the waves carry Only a strong soul! ... Feel free, brothers, full of storms,

My sail is straight and strong.

It is surprising that in his freedom-loving poems, Yazykov sometimes turns out to be both bolder and more straightforward than the Decembrists. After all, the poet did not join any secret societies and was not involved in the political programs of the Decembrists. The secret is that Yazykov's poetry stubbornly makes its way to the direct author's word, not burdened with traditional cultural and poetic halos. In general, he considered the properties of human nature to be innate and did not show much attention to the educational heritage. In his lyrics there are no direct associative links with the culture on which the poetry of the Decembrists was strengthened, as well as the poetry of Batyushkov, Zhukovsky, Vyazemsky, Pushkin. His love of freedom is spontaneous: it reflects the freedom-loving temperament of the poet, striving for the utmost sincerity in the manifestation of feelings.

As K. K. Buchmeyer notes, Yazykov acts with the pure colors of the spectrum: the richest associativity of romantic metaphor does not attract him. On the other hand, he creates his own “autocratic” combinations, which most often have a pathetic, but sometimes ironic effect: his “lights of love” are “wandering”, “love dreams” - “pretty nonsense”, “predatory virgins”, “outrageous eyes”. Having created an unexpected image, Yazykov repeatedly returns to it - “slopes of shoulders”, “slopes of virgin breasts”, “glasses kissed loudly”. And in the patriotic vocabulary - "Orthodox", "praiseworthy", "memorable". He also has his own auto-formations: “dancers”, “bright laughter”, “water runner”, “cool”, “melt”, “mysterious”. He is prone to bright, daring metaphors, bold and unexpected: “riotous wreath”, “pinching with verse”, “boiling water of delight”, “fire sparks of freedom”. He often paints with words, creating vivid language images: “dances of fiery dancers”, “our young years have passed”.

The "Pushkin" quality of Yazykov's romanticism was especially fully revealed during the period of friendly communication between the poet and Pushkin in Trigorsky and Mikhailovsky in the summer months of 1826. The result of it was a wonderful cycle of poems about Pushkin (“A. S. Pushkin: O you, whose friendship is dearer to me ...”, 1826; “P. A. Osipova”, 1826; “Trigorskoye”, 1826; “To Pushkin’s nanny”, 1827). Here Yazykov acted as a master of landscape painting, able to depict nature in increasing movement, such as, for example, sunrise in Trigorskoye:

It used to be in royal peace, Great luminary of the day Following the early morning day, As a fireball rises And heaven, like purple, Will cast its glow; His rays will play Lakes living mirrors; Fields, hills are fragrant; They fly off with a white tablecloth And the dream, and the morning haze ...

By the end of the 1830s - the beginning of the 1840s, freedom-loving motives in Yazykov's lyrics fell silent, giving way to other, patriotic ones. At that time, he became close to the Slavophiles and took the most active part in the struggle against the Westernizing wing of Russian social thought. Possessing a combat verse, Yazykov creates murderous pamphlets “To not ours”, “N. V. Gogol”, “To Chaadaev”, which in the Soviet period were regarded as reactionary. It was generally accepted that the Slavophile trend killed the poet's talent.

All this is far from the truth. Vyazemsky, who all his life considered himself a Westerner, responded to Yazykov's early death in this way: “Russian poetry suffered a sensitive loss with the death of Yazykov. The last star of the Pushkin constellation died out in it, with it the last echoes of Pushkin's lyre were forever silenced. Pushkin, Delvig, Baratynsky, Yazykov, not only by their modernity, but also by their poetic correlation, by some kind of family common expression, form an inseparable phenomenon for us. They personify the last period of our poetry; they, at least until now, close its gradual development, originally marked by the names of Lomonosov, Petrov, Derzhavin, after Karamzin and Dmitriev, later Zhukovsky and Batyushkov ... Outside the names that we have calculated, there are no names that personify, characterize the era ... This loss of topics for us it is more sensitive that we must mourn in Yazykovo not only the poet we already had, but even more so the poet whom he promised us. His talent has lately matured remarkably, cleared up, balanced and matured.

Baratynsky Evgeny Abramovich (1800-1844)

Evgeny Abramovich Baratynsky was born on the estate of Mara in the Tambov province into a poor noble family. In 1808, the Baratynskys moved to Moscow, but in 1810 the father of the family died, and the mother was forced to send her son to state support in St. Petersburg, in the Corps of Pages. In 1816, for a boyish prank, Baratynsky was expelled from the corps without the right to enter service, except for the military, and then only as a private. This event played a dramatic role in the life of the poet.

After a two-year break, in 1818, he was forced to decide to serve as a soldier in the Life Guards Chasseurs Regiment stationed in St. Petersburg. Here Baratynsky becomes close to the poets of the lyceum circle - Delvig, Kuchelbecker, Pushkin. But on January 4, 1820, he was promoted to non-commissioned officer and transferred to the Neishlot Infantry Regiment, located in Finland, three hundred miles from St. Petersburg. There he served for four and a half years under the command of N. M. Konshin, a prominent poet in those years, who became a true friend of Baratynsky. The poet visits St. Petersburg from time to time. Here Delvig especially takes care of him, seeing in him the second “exiled” poet after Pushkin. In 1821, Baratynsky became a full member of the Free Society of Lovers of Russian Literature, adjoining its left wing. Here he becomes close to K. Ryleev and A. Bestuzhev, is published in the almanac "Polar Star" and even trusts the publishers of the almanac in 1823 to prepare and publish the first book of his poems.

But his early work, from the point of view of the Decembrist friends, is too intimate and intimate, too burdened with the traditions of French classicism. So in the circle of romantics, he is known as a "marquis" and "classic". Even his youthful poem "Feasts", adjoining the tradition of Batyushkov and the poets of the lyceum circle, stands out sharply against the general background of Epicurean poetry with too obvious notes of skepticism:

“What to indulge in a sad dream, - You screamed. - Drink smarter! Cheer up, dear comrade, Live for us, forget about her!” Sighing, distractedly obedient, I drank with an indifferent smile; Gloomy dream brightened The crowd hid sorrows, And trembling lips "God bless her!" babbled indistinctly.

"The singer of feasts and languid sadness" - this is how Pushkin defined the essence of Baratynsky's early work, noting in it what was not typical for the feasts of the lyceum brotherhood - "languid sadness." The fact is that this "marquis" and "classic" was more acute than many of his friends experienced the crisis of the ideals of the Enlightenment, which did not lose their power over the poets of the 1820s. Belief in the unchanging good nature of man cracked as early as Baratynsky's youth.

In April 1825, he received an officer's rank, took a four-month vacation, left for Moscow, on June 9, 1826, married Anastasia Lvovna Engelhardt, the daughter of a landowner near Moscow, and on January 31, 1826, resigned and settled in his mother's house in Moscow. The release of Baratynsky is accompanied by tragic events in St. Petersburg: the collapse of the uprising on December 14 and the investigation into the Decembrists' case. Baratynsky responds to these sad news in the poem "Stans" (1827):

For the good ardent aspiration It was given to me from heaven; But did it find division, But did it bear fruit? I knew the brothers; but the dreams are young Connected us for a moment: Others are in misery, And there are no others in the world.

According to I. M. Semenko, Baratynsky’s work “not only developed within the framework of the literature of Pushkin’s time, but was also chronologically and essentially its peculiar completion.” This concerned, first of all, the nature of the poetic self-disclosure of Baratynsky the lyricist. All the poets of the Pushkin circle believed that the reader should be approached "not with one's own hopelessness, but with an ideal and faith." K. Batyushkov thought so, and A. Pushkin thought so too:

Then blessed is he who firmly rules by word And keeps his thought on his leash, Who in the heart lulls or crushes Instantly hissing snake...

"House in Kolomna"

“In the intellectual sphere, Baratynsky brought lyrical self-disclosure to the limit. Baratynsky removed the prohibitions of poetics that existed for the lyrical expression of an abstract thought. In this he is the offspring of romanticism, or rather, a consequence of romanticism. He stepped far beyond its borders and opened the way for unlimited freedom of expression, not so much of feelings as of thoughts in lyrics. He never put to sleep "an instantaneously hissing snake." Baratynsky early became a poet of "reassurance".

Enlighteners believed in the omnipotence of the human mind, capable of controlling feelings and leading life to absolute perfection, to complete harmony of the mind with the natural, initially good nature of man. Baratynsky doubted this omnipotence. At the center of his love and meditative elegies is an unfettered, "feeling mind." In this capacity, he appears as a deeply national poet, following, perhaps unconsciously, the thousand-year tradition of Russian thought. Orthodoxy taught the Russian man not an abstract, but a “cordial” mind. Baratynsky lets his "heart" mind go to complete freedom and sadly observes that this mind, left to itself, is imperfect and that in its imperfection the contradictory, disharmonic nature of man is revealed. His elegies condense the artistic energy of future Russian novels. His lyrical hero experiences dramas, falls into collisions close to the heroes of F. M. Dostoevsky, I. S. Turgenev, L. N. Tolstoy.

Baratynsky, following the Russian tradition, does not oppose reason to feeling. Any movement of the heart is spiritualized from the inside by a reasonable (not to be confused with a rational!) beginning. Hence, in his lyrics, a conscious opposition of elementary sensuality and spiritualized feeling, noticed by V.I. Korovin, arises:

Let imaginary happiness for the world we are miserable, The lucky ones are poorer than us, and the righteous gods They were given sensibility, and feelings were given to us.

The spiritualized feeling in Baratynsky's lyrics is always direct, deep and strong, but it always turns out to be inferior, "deception" constantly creeps into it. And the reason for this lies not in external circumstances that undercut the fullness of this feeling, but in this feeling itself, which carries within itself the features of universal human inferiority.

Let's take a closer look at one of Baratynsky's classic elegies "Confession" (1823):

Do not demand feigned tenderness from me, I will not hide the sadness of my heart. You're right, it no longer has a beautiful fire My original love. In vain I reminded myself And your sweet image and former dreams: My memories are lifeless I swore an oath, but I gave them beyond my strength. I am not captivated by another beauty, Dreams jealous from the heart of prowess; But long years have passed in separation, But in the storms of life, I amuse my soul. You already lived as an unfaithful shadow in her; Already I called out to you rarely, forcibly, And my flame, gradually weakening, He himself went out in my soul. Believe me, I'm pathetic alone. The soul of love desires But I will not love again; Again I will not forget: it completely intoxicates We are only first love. I'm sad; but sadness also passes, signifying Fate complete victory over me; Who knows? opinion I merge with the crowd; Girlfriend, without love - who knows? - I will choose. For a thoughtful marriage, I will give her a hand And in the temple I will stand next to her, Innocent, devoted, perhaps to the best dreams, And I will call her mine; And the news will come to you, but do not envy us: There will be no exchange of secret thoughts between us, We will not give free rein to spiritual whims, We are not hearts under marriage crowns - We will join our lots. Goodbye! We walked along the same road for a long time; I have chosen a new path, choose a new path; Sorrow barren mind pacify And do not enter, I pray, into a vain judgment with me. We are powerless in ourselves And, in our young years, We make hasty vows Funny, maybe all-seeing fate.

What distinguishes Baratynsky's elegy from his predecessors in this genre? Let us recall Batyushkov's elegy "My Genius". The main thing in it is a flexible, smooth, harmonious language, rich in emotional nuances, as well as the picturesque and plastic image of the beloved, stored in the memory of the heart and given in one emotional key: "I remember the voice ... eyes ... cheeks ... golden hair." Baratynsky is different. He seeks first to show the movement of feeling in all its dramatic complexity - from the rise to the decline and death. In essence, the outline of a whole love story is given in dramatic tension and a dialogue of feelings between two loving hearts. Baratynsky is primarily interested in transitional phenomena in the state of mind of a person, feelings in his elegies are always given in motion and development. At the same time, the poet depicts not a feeling as such, in its living concreteness and completeness, as Zhukovsky or Pushkin does, but a feeling thought analyzing itself. Moreover, the love theme receives both psychological and philosophical comprehension in his elegy: “the sad coldness of the heart”, which took possession of the hero, is associated not only with the ups and downs of “life storms” that muffled love, but also with the nature of love, initially tragic and in its tragedy fickle. Later, in the elegy "Love" (1824), Baratynsky will directly say this:

We drink sweet poison in love; But we drink all the poison in it, And we pay for a short joy To her the joylessness of long days. The fire of love is a life-giving fire, Everyone says; but what do we see? Devastating, destructive He is the soul embraced by him!

The tragedy of the elegy "Recognition" lies in the contrast between beautiful ideals and their predetermined death. The hero is both languishing with a thirst for happiness, and sadly realizes the disappearance of the "beautiful fire of original love." This fire is a short-term illusion of youth, inevitably leading to cooling. The very course of time extinguishes the flame of love, and a person is powerless before this, "without power in himself." "The All-Seeing Destiny" convinces the hero that in this life under the marriage crown, lots can be joined, but hearts can never be joined.

“The “Recognition” manifested Baratynsky’s desire for poetry built on the exact word, not “casting” the true meaning, as it was in the poetics of Zhukovsky and Batyushkov, but strictly corresponding to the phenomenon that it denotes,” writes L. G. Frizman. – This explains the introduction of epithets that are unexpected from the point of view of elegiac word usage, sharply “limiting” traditional elegiac concepts and giving them realistic concreteness (“feigned tenderness”, “original love”, “lifeless memories”, “barren sadness”), and the use of not elegiac words taken from the language of everyday prose (“considered marriage”, “spiritual whim”)”. The psychological variety of lyrical experiences available to the poet is captured even in the titles of his elegies: “Hopelessness”, “Consolation”, “Despondency”, “Recovery”, “Disassurance”, “Farewell”, “Parting”, “Tiff”, “Justification” , "Confession", "Murmur", "Vigil", "Guess".

In "Disbelief" (1821), an elegy that became a well-known romance to the music of M. Glinka, the poet already directly proclaims his disbelief in love:

Don't tempt me unnecessarily The return of your tenderness: Alien to the disappointed All the delusions of the old days! I don't believe in assurances I don't believe in love And I can't surrender again Once changed dreams! Do not multiply my blind longing, Don't talk about the old And, a caring friend, sick Do not disturb him in his slumber! I sleep, sleep is sweet to me; Forget old dreams In my soul there is one excitement, And you will not awaken love.

A tragic collision is depicted, which does not depend on the will of people. The hero refuses love not because his former lover cheated on him. On the contrary, she wholeheartedly returns him to his former tenderness. The hopelessness of the situation is that the hero has lost faith in love: from the once strong feeling, only a “dream” remains in his soul. A loving heart is only capable of "blind longing." The loss of the ability to love is like a fatal, incurable disease, from which no one can escape and into which, as in a “sweet sleep”, a numb soul plunges.

In all this, Baratynsky sees one, common source for all - the tragic inferiority of a person, most strongly expressed by him in the poem “Babe” (1833):

I'm from the spirit tribe But not a resident of the Empyrean, And, barely up to the clouds Rising, falling, weakening. What do i do? I am small and bad; I know: paradise behind their waves, And I wear, winged breath, Between earth and heaven...

Let us recall that the Romantics proclaimed the power of the human spirit, in its highest ascents, coming into contact with God. Baratynsky emphasizes the insanity of man as a restless and superfluous creature in the Universe. His impulses into the realm of Divine freedom are powerless, he is alien and is not needed by either the earth or the sky: “I see the world as in darkness; / The harp of the heavenly echo / Weakly hear ... ”In the context of the poem, Baratynsky’s orientation to Derzhavin’s ode“ God ”is felt:“ Placed, it seems to me, in the venerable / Middle of nature I am the one, / Where you ended the bodily creatures, / Where you began the spirits of heaven / And the chain of beings connected with me. This “middleness”, according to Derzhavin, not only does not diminish, but elevates a person. For Baratynsky, it is a sign of human insignificance, human “prematurity”. Not only enlightenment ideals, but also romantic religious hopes are in doubt.

Stronger than any of the poets and writers of the first half of the 19th century, Baratynsky expressed the drama of God-forsakenness of modern man. In the poem "Achilles" (1841), he compared our unbelief with the vulnerable heel of Achilles: "And with one fifth of yours / You are unharmed, if you have become it / On the living Faith!"

“The poet wants to find a good meaning in the general order of life and often speaks of the justification of the Creator. Theodicy occupies him, - writes the Silver Age critic Julius Aikhenvald. – But it is in this question, inasmuch as it finds a poetic reflection, that the uncertainty and weakness of our thinker shows itself. ‹…› In relation to the Truth, Baratynsky remains the same timid bastard, and he does not dare to contain it. He does not deny the Deity his trust, but his prayer is pale. He lacks genius and pathos neither for cursing nor for blessing... In the poem “On the death of Goethe”, he calmly speaks of two possibilities: either the Creator has limited our age to earthly life, or the afterlife has been given to us. The question of whether a person inherits the “non-urgent spring” of immortality remains open ... In order to believe, Baratynsky needs to assure himself, you need to refer, as in the Fragment, to the truthfulness of God. "Fragment" (1831) is a dialogue between a believing lover and a hero of little faith. She assures her beloved that there is life beyond the grave. “We will be calm: there is no doubt, / We will move on to another life, / Where we will not be separated, / Where all earthly fears / Shake off the earthly dust. / Ah! how to love without this faith!” In response to her assurances, the hero says:

So, Almighty without her We would be tempted beyond measure; So, there is another existence! ‹…› What does light show? The feast is out of order! The despicable rules; worthy Wilted by the persecuted head; Unhappy good, happy evil. ‹…› Not! We are in the vale of testing And there is an abode of retribution; There, beyond the grave, The day is shining And the invisible one will be justified Before our heart and mind.

The requirement for the Creator to justify himself to a person for earthly “disorders” embarrasses the hero’s girlfriend: “The wisdom of the Creator from above / It is not for us to investigate and measure; / One must believe in humility of the heart / And patiently wait for the end. / Let's go to; I'm really sad, / And from your rebellious words, / I confess that until now / My heart trembling has not subsided. “So between humility and protest, between faith and denial, without grief and without burning, without the martyrdom of faith, without the martyrdom of unbelief, Baratynsky wanders. This is what did not make him great, ”concludes Yu. Aikhenwald.

But the boundaries of what is permitted to man by nature, the boundaries of freedom for the human mind, Baratynsky showed with fearlessness unknown to him in Russian literature. Such is his philosophical elegy "The Last Death" (1827) - a sharp rebuke to the inquisitive mind of the enlighteners. Here Baratynsky prophesies about the final fate of all living things at the moment of the complete triumph of the human mind on earth. At first, the world seems to him a wondrous garden: a person completely subjugated nature, surrounded himself with unprecedented comfort, learned to control the climate (“Oratai called at will / Winds, rains, heat and cold ...”). It would seem that the Enlighteners' dream of the omnipotence of the human mind, capable of creating paradise on earth with its own efforts, has completely triumphed ("Here, I thought, seduced by a wondrous age, / Here is a magnificent feast of reason! / To his enemies both in shame and in teaching, / That's how much Enlightenment has come!").

But... centuries have passed, and what happened to intelligent people who imagined themselves to be gods on earth, who achieved everything material and got the opportunity for spiritual self-improvement? – “Accustomed to an abundance of good things, / They calmly looked at everything, / What fuss gave birth to in their fathers, / What their thoughts, what their passions used to be, / Attracted by the all-powerful attraction. / Forgetting earthly desires, / Avoiding their rude attraction, / Soul dreams, lofty dreams, the call / They replaced other motives, / And in its full possession / Fantasy took their being. ‹…› / But they walked the earth with difficulty, / And their marriages remained fruitless. This vision ends with a picture of the “last death”, the death of all mankind. But the earth does not even notice his disappearance, nature continues its life, as if confirming the restlessness of a misbegotten person, his accident in the world of created beings:

Still life-giving nature, The light of day has risen into the sky, But on earth nothing to his sunrise Couldn't say hello. One fog above her, turning blue, curled And smoked as a sacrifice of purgatory.

Baratynsky will symbolically name the last collection of his poems "Twilight" (1842) and open it with the poem "The Last Poet" (1835):

Age walks its iron path, In the hearts of self-interest, and a common dream Hour by hour urgent and useful Clearly, shamelessly busy. Disappeared in the light of enlightenment Poetry childish dreams, And generations are not bothering about it, They are devoted to industrial concerns.

Anxiety about the fate of poetry then arose in Baratynsky not from scratch. By the 1830s, time had changed in many respects, and the reader himself had changed. In literary life, the so-called "commercial direction" began to assert itself more and more decisively and boldly. The editor of the "Library for Reading" O. I. Senkovsky directly stated that "poetry is a disease of the kind of nervous diseases." “Why write poetry if their time has passed for us?” - N. Polevoy echoed him.

In the spring of 1834, A. S. Pushkin wrote to the historian M. P. Pogodin: “There was a time, literature was a noble, aristocratic field. Now it's a lousy market." In the 1830s, a bourgeois ideology was formed in Russia. And the writers of Pushkin's circle were horrified that this ideology, penetrating the sphere of journalism and literature, threatened to crush the foundations of art and culture, based on the principle of disinterestedness.

In order to combat commercial journalism, a group of Moscow writers - "lyubomudrov" (I. V. Kireevsky, A. I. Koshelev, N. A. Melgunov, N. F. Pavlov, M. P. Pogodin, A. S. Khomyakov, S. P. Shevyrev, N. Ya. Yazykov, D. N. Sverbeev) begins to publish the journal Moscow Observer. In his first book in 1835, S.P. Shevyrev presents the program article “Literature and Trade”: “... Trade now controls our literature - and everything obeyed its calculations; all works of the verbal world are calculated on the basis of trade; a course has been set on thoughts and forms!... The inspiration of our poets has ceased. Poetry alone does not succumb to speculation. In that happy time, when every verse is regarded as a gold piece, the verses will not come!... In vain the bookseller pours ringing, shining gold pieces before the poet's gaze: his eyes do not light up with inspiration, Phoebus does not heed the sound of metal... Why is poetry silent in the midst of this autumn fair? Because only her inspiration does not obey calculation: it is free, like a thought, like a soul.

It is no coincidence that Baratynsky placed his poem "The Last Poet" in the same book of the "Moscow Observer" in which this article by Shevyrev was published. In Moscow, the poet met with a circle of writers who were fascinated by German classical philosophy, who studied Schelling, who entered the history of Russian literature and social thought as a generation of “wise men”. Baratynsky was a classic in his upbringing, but in Schelling's philosophy he could not help but be attracted by a lofty view of the nature and purpose of poetry. Echoes of the Schellingian influence can be heard in Baratynsky's poems "A sick spirit heals the chant" (1843), included in the collection "Twilight":

The aching spirit heals the song. Harmony mysterious power Heavy atone for delusion And tame the raging passion.

"Twilight" is not a random selection of recent poems, but a deeply thought-out poetic cycle, organized by a single thought. And this thought remains with Baratynsky sad and tragic. We are talking about the twilight of the human race, approaching the final end. This motive, running through the entire artistic field of the cycle, is concentrated in one of the most significant works of the poet - in the elegy "Autumn" (1836-1837).

The last, sixteenth stanza of "Autumn" sums up the bleak conclusion of the life of all mankind: "All the images of the former year / Will be leveled under the snowy veil / Covering them uniformly - / From now on, such is the light before you, / But there is no coming harvest for you in it!" Thus Baratynsky parted with enlightenment and romantic illusions, summing up a whole stage in the history of Russian poetry.

Baratynsky was the last poet of the Pushkin galaxy and an original creator in the leading genre of that time - elegy. The unusual nature of his love elegies was noticed by his contemporaries. Pushkin in the article "Baratynsky" said: "He is original with us, because he thinks. He would be original everywhere, because he thinks in his own way, correctly and independently, while he feels strongly and deeply. <...> Time for him to take the degree that belongs to him, and become near Zhukovsky and above the singer of Penates and Taurida. P. A. Pletnev wrote to Pushkin: “Before Baratynsky, Batyushkov and Zhukovsky, especially you, showed almost all the best elegiac forms, so that every new poet had to become someone’s imitator in this way, and Baratynsky emerged from this fiery rivers - and that's what especially surprises me in it.

“As a result of the peculiar development of Russian literature, which did not know the Renaissance, in the 1820s and 1830s, thanks to romanticism, the elegy became a genre that made it possible to express the worldview of a person as a whole,” V. I. Korovin perceptively and accurately notes. - What in Western literature was expressed partly in lyrics, partly in a series of short stories and which later became the starting point for the tragedy of the high and late Renaissance, in Russian literature, at another round of socio-literary historical development, manifested itself with the greatest force precisely in lyrics, in its the leading lyrical form is the elegy. It was in it that a beautiful, harmoniously developed person became the norm of an ideal idea of ​​a human personality. In this sense, the significance of the Russian elegy in Russian literature is underestimated, because the image of a person that has developed in it has had a decisive influence on all other genres of literature and on the very nature of the approach to a person both in a poem and in a drama, and, most importantly, in prose."

Sources and aids

Baratynsky E. A. Poln. coll. poems. - L., 1957. - ("The poet's library". / Large series);

Baratynsky E. A. Poems, poems, prose, letters. - / M., 1951;

Davydov Denis. Op. - M., 1962;

Davydov D. V. Full. coll. poems. - L., 1933. - ("The poet's library". Large series);

Yazykov N.M. Full. coll. / poems. - L., 1934;

Yazykov N.M. Poems. Fairy tales. Poems. dramatic scenes. Letters. – M.; L., 1959;

Delvig A. A. Poln. coll. poems. - L., 1959. - ("The poet's library". Large series);

Vyazemsky P. A. Poems. - L., 1958. - ("The poet's library". Large series);

Vyazemsky P. A. Notebooks: 1813-1848. - M., 1963. - (Ser. "Literary monuments");

Vyazemsky P. A. Aesthetics and literary criticism. - M., 1984;

Nikolay Kutanov. Decembrist without December // Decembrists and their time. - M., 1932. - T. 2; History of Russian poetry. In 2 vols. - L., 1968. - T. 1;

Ginzburg L. About lyrics. - L., 1974;

Frizman L. G. Baratynsky's creative path. - M., 1966;

Hoffman M. L. Poetry of Baratynsky. - Pg., 1915;

Orlov VN Yazykov // Ways and fates. - L., 1971;

Skvoznikov V. D. Realism of lyric poetry: The formation of realism in Russian lyrics. - M., 1975. - Ch. III-V;

Semenko I. M. Poets of Pushkin's time. - M., 1970;

Korovin V. I. Poets of Pushkin's time. - M., 1980;

Vatsuro V. E. Lyrics of Pushkin's time. "Elegiac School". - St. Petersburg, 1994.

(See also the accompanying articles and notes to the above editions of the texts.)

To lesson number 13

Eugene Delacroix.

"Polar Star Report"

To lesson number 13

Information about the almanac "Polar Star".

"POLAR STAR" (

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"Lesson 13"

8th grade

Program of G.S. Merkin

Lesson number 13.

Topic. Poets of the Pushkin circle. Predecessors and contemporaries. Romanticism.

Target:

to recreate the atmosphere of the era of the beginning of the 19th century, the phenomena of social and literary life, the features of romanticism as a literary trend;

to form the skill of working with a textbook, composing questions for an article, constructing a dialogue, lexical work, working with reproductions of paintings by artists;

to develop the moral and aesthetic ideas of students in the process of identifying the lexical meaning of the word "romantic".

Equipment: literature textbooks and workbooks for grade 8, multimedia presentation.

DURING THE CLASSES.

I. Checking homework.

1. Filling in the second part of the table “From the literature of the 19th century” (task 1 of the workbook, p. 40, part 1).

From 19th century literature
Phenomena of public life in Russia at the beginning of the 19th century	Interest in the personality of Napoleon, politics, the opening of the Lyceum, the need for reforms, the fight against serfdom, the Patriotic War of 1812 (“Philosophical Letters” by P. Chaadaev; the emergence of secret societies, the uprising of December 14, 1825)
Events and phenomena in the literary life of the XIX century	The emergence of new literary magazines and almanacs, the emergence of the Russian reader, the formation of public opinion. The interest of writers in the historical events of the past: to the times of Ivan the Terrible, the movement of Stepan Razin, the rebellion of Emelyan Pugachev. The emergence of new trends in literature - sentimentalism and romanticism. The struggle of trends, styles, literary genres. The desire of A.S. Pushkin to be free in creativity "from the tsar and from the people."

II. Learning new material.

1. Identification of the topic, purpose, lesson plan.

2. Work on the topic of the lesson.

2.1. Teacher's word.

Listen to the lines of Igor Severyanin:

There are names like the sun! Names

Like music! Like an apple tree in bloom!

I'm talking about Pushkin, the poet

Valid at all times.

In 1859, the remarkable Russian critic Apollon Grigoriev uttered a phrase that later became popular: "Pushkin is our everything ...". But in posing and solving the most important problems in the literature of the early 19th century, Pushkin was not alone. A whole galaxy of remarkable writers acted along with him and around him: here are older poets, from whom Pushkin perceived and learned a lot, here are his peers, and quite young men like Dmitry Venevitinov. Before we get to know the poets of Pushkin's entourage, let's first find out what kind of time it is - the era of Pushkin's time, let's listen to a historical background.

2.2. Historical background (slide film)

“The time when A.S. Pushkin lived and worked was a difficult time. This is a time of gigantic social upheavals, when the feudal-medieval world collapsed and the capitalist system arose and asserted itself on its ruins. This is the time of still stable serfdom, this is the time of the Patriotic War of 1812. Napoleon. Kutuzov. Moscow is on fire. This is the time of the birth of secret political societies, the time of the defeat of the December uprising of 1825, this is the time of the terrible reaction of Nikolaev Russia.

And at the same time, the first third of the 19th century was a bright period in the heyday of Russian poetry. A whole firework of names gave this era to Russian literature. The classicists are still writing their strict, lofty odes, sentimentalism has reached its peak, young romantics are entering the literary scene, and the first fruits of realism are appearing. It was at this time that literary salons arose. The most popular was the salon of Zinaida Volkonskaya, where the whole color of Moscow literature gathered.

Let's imagine that we are in such a literary salon and see who is its regular.

... The bell rings at the door. The butler comes out.

- Hello, gentlemen! Princess Volkonskaya is waiting for you!

- And who will be today?

- Don't you know, they are waiting for Pushkin!

So, Pushkin appears, long-awaited, respected, always unpredictable, captivating everyone with his violent temperament ... And after him ... However, try to guess who we are talking about. The founder of Russian romanticism, translator, teacher, mentor of Pushkin and the future Tsar Alexander II, singer Svetlana, Pushkin's lines are dedicated to him: "The captivating sweetness of his poems // Envious distance will pass for centuries ...". So who can we meet in the literary salon of Princess Volkonskaya next to Pushkin?

(Vasily Andreevich Zhukovsky)

At the same time, the great Russian fabulist, revered by everyone, stout, in gray whiskers, who began his literary activity in the 18th century, was still writing his witty fables ... Ivan Andreevich Krylov

And the next name, probably, you will hear today for the first time: get acquainted, prince Pyotr Andreevich Vyazemsky- a caustic intellectual, a master of epigrams, madrigals, friendly messages, a close friend of Pushkin and a colleague in magazine fights.

We continue to travel through the literary salon of Princess Volkonskaya. This remarkable writer should also be included among Pushkin's older contemporaries. But first, answer the question, do you recognize the piece of music? (Application), which is the background of our lesson? Yes, this is “Griboedov’s Waltz”, “Ah, this Griboyedov’s waltz ... How much music, feelings, tenderness, life ...” is in it. This is what the poet's contemporaries said. Surprisingly, even in the 21st century, this waltz continues to enchant, bewitch, excite ... Just listen. (Alexander Sergeevich Griboyedov)

The next name in the circle of older contemporaries of the great poet should be the name Konstantin Nikolaevich Batyushkov.

2.3. Report on the emergence of Decembrism (based on the textbook article "For you, inquisitive!").

2.3 Reference to the illustration in the textbook. Cover of the almanac "Polar Star" (1824,1825).

2.4. Lexical work : almanac.

Almanac- a kind of serial publication, an ongoing collection of literary and artistic and / or popular science works, united according to any sign (thematic, genre, ideological and artistic, etc.).

Unlike a magazine, it is usually published once a year, not always with the same frequency, or is a non-periodical collection containing information from various areas of social activity, usually indicating literary novelties, scientific achievements, legislative changes, etc. approaching the type of reference calendars. In accordance with GOST 7.60-2003, an almanac is a collection containing literary and artistic and (or) popular science works, united according to a certain attribute.

2.5. Information about the almanac "Polar Star".

"POLAR STAR" ( "Polar Star. A pocket book for lovers and lovers of Russian literature") - a literary almanac published by A. A. Bestuzhev and K. F. Ryleev in St. Petersburg in 1823-1825. 3 issues were published - for 1823, 1824 and 1825. "Polyarnaya Zvezda" stands out among the periodicals of the Decembrist orientation with a combination of a distinctly expressed ideological and political orientation with the desire to unite all the advanced literary forces of the era, natural in the pre-revolutionary years. A. S. Pushkin, A. S. Griboyedov, I. A. Krylov, V. A. Zhukovsky, E. A. Baratynsky, P. A. Vyazemsky, A. A. Delvig, N. M. Yazykov were published in the almanac F. V. Bulgarin, N. I. Greek O. I. Senkovsky, who were then, in accordance with the spirit of the times, liberals.

A wide range of authors involved in the almanac gave rise to Pushkin's epigram about the "Petersburg flood" of 1824, during which "both people and cattle were saved in a beneficent ark." The diversity of the authors of the Polar Star was associated with the desire to subordinate heterogeneous literary phenomena to the general task of moral and political education of readers. Bestuzhev's annual critical reviews ("A look at the old and new literature in Russia", etc.), which had a significant impact on the development of Russian criticism, served as an ideological guide. The continuation of the "Polar Star" in 1826 was to serve as the almanac "Star", the printed copies of which were seized along with the papers of Bestuzhev and Ryleev during their arrest, and subsequently destroyed.

2.6. Building a dialogue based on the textbook article “Poets of the Pushkin Circle. Predecessors and Contemporaries".

What are the names of the poets of the golden age of Russian literature.

What are the features of literary life in Moscow and St. Petersburg?

What played the most important role in the growth of public consciousness?

What are the names of the writers who took the most active part in the war of 1812.

What theme became the main one in the works of these writers?

What role in the fate of V.K. Kuchelbeker, A.A. Delvig, A.S. Pushkin, M. Yu. Lermontov, F. I. Tyutchev were played by N. M. Karamzin, V. A. Zhukovsky, S. E. Raich?

Define romanticism.

2.7. Lexical work : romance.

Romanticism- a literary movement that emerged in the early 19th century. The fundamental principle for romanticism was the principle of romantic duality, which implies a sharp opposition of the hero, his ideal, to the world around him. The incompatibility of the ideal and reality was expressed in the departure of romantics from modern topics to the world of history, traditions and legends, dreams, dreams, fantasies, exotic countries. Romanticism has a particular interest in the individual. The romantic hero is characterized by proud loneliness, disappointment, a tragic attitude and at the same time rebelliousness and rebelliousness.

Why words romanticism, romantic can refer not only to literary phenomena, but also to our daily life? Who do we call a romantic and how is this related to the aesthetic trend?

Name the writers, poets and romantic artists.

George Don Byron, Adam Mickiewicz, Eugene Delacroix and Karl Bryullov, Orestes Kiprensky.

Message about romanticism in painting.

The era of Romanticism was reflected in the canvases of artists who expose inner fears, impulses, love and hate in clear contrasts of light, shadow and halftones. The bleached bodies of G.I. the depths of the centuries of Gothic and Renaissance to the surface what was previously so skillfully masked by generally accepted canons.

Romanticism allowed a glimpse into a world different from the real.

To convey passions, the artists resorted to the use of rich colors, bright strokes and saturation of the paintings with “special effects”. The painting of the romantic movement developed most consistently in France. Her school was based on the principles of uniting all participants in the plot, including inanimate ones, into a single moving ball with dynamics and amplitude. As a vivid example, E. Delacroix.

Russia became famous for the maritime theme of I. Aivazovsky, who saturated the world of art with the beauty of salt water - from the "Global Flood" to the "Rainbow". As well as the works of the wonderful Russian portrait painters V.A. Tropinin, O. Kiprensky, Orlovsky, Shchedrin

Eugene Delacroix. Liberty Leading the People (Liberty at the Barricades) 1830 260x325 cm Louvre, Paris

“I chose a modern subject, a scene at the barricades. ... If I didn’t fight for the freedom of the fatherland, then at least I should glorify this freedom, ”Delacroix informed his brother, referring to the painting“ Freedom Leading the People ”(we also know it under the name“ Freedom on the Barricades "). The call contained in it to fight against tyranny was heard and enthusiastically accepted by contemporaries.

Svoboda, bare-chested, walks over the corpses of the fallen revolutionaries, calling for the rebels to follow. In her raised hand, she holds the tricolor Republican flag, and its colors - red, white and blue - echo throughout the canvas. In his masterpiece, Delacroix combined the seemingly incompatible - the protocol realism of reportage with the sublime fabric of poetic allegory. He gave a timeless, epic sound to a small episode of street fighting. The central character of the canvas is Liberty, which combined the majestic posture of Aphrodite de Milo with the features that Auguste Barbier endowed Liberty with: “This is a strong woman with powerful breasts, with a hoarse voice, with fire in her eyes, fast, with a wide step.”

Delacroix himself did not take part in the "three glorious days", watching what was happening from the windows of his workshop, but after the fall of the Bourbon monarchy, he decided to perpetuate the image of the Revolution.

Return to homework. Fill in the second part of the table "Romanticism" (task 3 of the workbook, p. 41).

Features of romanticism
Cause	The need to fight against the canons of classicism and create an original national art, the desire for freedom, the fight against European reaction
	Ideal feelings. Romantic duality. The ability to experience various kinds of strong passions, most often associated with a thirst for harmony, with the desire to get away from the vulgarity of life
Central problems of the works of romantic writers	Contrasting the world of the ordinary and the world of the imaginary. Affirmation of romantic values ​​(freedom, struggle, love, nature)
Source of strength, justice, spiritual health	Striving for the ideal, ideas about their own fictional world, built according to their own laws. Turning to national history and folk art as sources of inspiration
Ideal characters and relationships	A lonely individualist and rebel, a man of strong feelings and actions, rebelling against social phenomena and God himself, sacrificing his life for the sake of the crowd and despising the crowd
hostile forces	Crowd, conceited mediocrity
	Ballad and romantic poem, fairy tale and short story. Mixing high and low, comic and tragic, synthesis of various genres, their interaction, creation of new genre forms (historical novel, lyrical epic poem, fantastic story-tale, etc.)
Features of the poetics of works	Depiction of unusual circumstances, vibrant lush nature

Reading the textbook article “For you, inquisitive!”

III. Summing up the lesson.

What is the peculiarity of romanticism in comparison with classicism and sentimentalism?

IV. Homework.

1. Learn by heart a poem by N.M. Yazykov "Swimmer", p.170, part 1.

2. Compose questions for the textbook article (pp. 118-122, part 1) dedicated to V.A. Zhukovsky (task 1 workbook, p. 42, part 1).

View presentation content
"Presentation"

Poets

Pushkin circle. predecessors

and contemporaries.

Romanticism.

Presentation

teachers of Russian language and literature

MKOU "Zabolotovskaya secondary school"

Olkhovatsky district of the Voronezh region

Burlutskoy E.A.

Petr Vyazemsky

Ivan Krylov

Alexander Griboyedov

Vasily Zhukovsky

Denis Davydov

Konstantin Batyushkov

Evgeny Baratynsky

Vladimir Volkhovsky

Anton Delvig

Wilhelm Küchelbecker

Ivan Krylov

Petr Vyazemsky

Alexander Griboyedov

Vasily Zhukovsky

Denis Davydov

Konstantin Batyushkov

Evgeny Baratynsky

Vladimir Volkhovsky

Anton Delvig

Wilhelm Küchelbecker

"POLAR STAR" ( "Polar Star. A pocket book for lovers and lovers of Russian literature" ) - a literary almanac published by A. A. Bestuzhev and K. F. Ryleev in St. Petersburg in 1823-1825. 3 issues were published - for 1823, 1824 and 1825.

Romanticism as a literary movement

Romanticism - a literary movement that emerged in the early 19th century. The fundamental principle for romanticism was the principle of romantic duality, which implies a sharp opposition of the hero, his ideal, to the world around him. The incompatibility of the ideal and reality was expressed in the departure of romantics from modern topics to the world of history, traditions and legends, dreams, dreams, fantasies, exotic countries. Romanticism has a particular interest in the individual. The romantic hero is characterized by proud loneliness, disappointment, a tragic attitude and at the same time rebelliousness and rebelliousness.

Eugene Delacroix. Freedom Leading the People

Features of romanticism

Cause

The need to fight against the canons of classicism and create an original national art, the desire for freedom, the fight against European reaction

Ideal feelings. Romantic duality. The ability to experience various kinds of strong passions, most often associated with a thirst for harmony, with the desire to get away from the vulgarity of life

Central problems of the works of romantic writers

Contrasting the world of the ordinary and the world of the imaginary. Affirmation of romantic values ​​(freedom, struggle, love, nature)

Source of strength, justice, spiritual health

Striving for the ideal, ideas about their own fictional world, built according to their own laws. Turning to national history and folk art as sources of inspiration

Ideal characters and relationships

A lonely individualist and rebel, a man of strong feelings and actions, rebelling against social phenomena and God himself, sacrificing his life for the sake of the crowd and despising the crowd

hostile forces

Crowd, conceited mediocrity

Genres

Features of the poetics of works

Ballad and romantic poem, fairy tale and short story. Mixing high and low, comic and tragic, synthesis of various genres, their interaction, creation of new genre forms (historical novel, lyrical epic poem, fantastic story-tale, etc.)

Depiction of unusual circumstances, vibrant lush nature

The 19th century was the golden age of Russian literature. Its first third was marked by the flourishing of poetry. I.A. Krylov, V.A. Zhukovsky, K.N. Batyushkov, A.A. Bestuzhev, K.F. Ryleev, F.N. Glinka, D.V. Davydov, E.A. Baratynsky, P.A. Vyazemsky, N.M. Yazykov, A.A. Delvig, A.V. Koltsov, D.V. Venevitinov, F.I. Tyutchev, A.A. Fet - this is a far from complete list of outstanding Russian poets, whose work was the glory of not only Russian, but also world culture.

Literary life in the capitals - Moscow and St. Petersburg was unusually lively. In addition to purely literary issues, political and social problems were also discussed here. What a few years ago it was dangerous to speak out loud: any publicly expressed thought that did not coincide with the position of the government was punished, has now become possible.

Russia has taken its rightful place among the enlightened European countries. The most important role in the growth of public consciousness was played by Russia's participation in the wars against Napoleon, and above all the victory in the Patriotic War of 1812. Many writers took the most active part in it; among them: V.A. Zhukovsky, poet-artizan D.V. Davydov, writer, the first female officer in the Russian army N.A. Durova, future Decembrists F.N. Glinka, A.A. Bestuzhev, K.F. Ryleev, V.F. Raevsky.

They were in the camp of the victors, they experienced a feeling of upliftment, national pride, common to all, and at the same time realized with pain and bitterness that the people who defended and defended the country from the Napoleonic invasion, the hero people, the victorious people, live worse than people in defeated country.

Serfdom was not abolished; after battles and victories, the Russian peasant again returned to captivity, to the humiliating position of a serf. The theme of victory and slavery appears in the work of many poets of this period.

And at that time, new talents were already entering literature, who did not happen to be on the battlefields, but who also dreamed of exploits and glory. Wilhelm Küchelbecker, Anton Delvig and, of course, Alexander Pushkin were already aware of their destiny, they were already “burning with desire” to respond with a poetic word to “The Invocation of the Fatherland”.

The "senior" were exacting, demanding, but supportive. They noticed the young, they rejoiced at this young talented growth, they hurried to give them a way into life.

Many years after the lyceum exam, Pushkin gratefully recalled: “Old man Derzhavin noticed us / And, descending into the coffin, blessed ...” In fact, other great Russian writers, including N.M. Karamzin and V.A. Zhukovsky. Lyceum student Pushkin was warmly received and supported in the Karamzins' house; in his journal Vestnik Evropy published poems by the beginning poet. Thanks to V.A. Zhukovsky Alexander Pushkin was accepted into the literary society "Arzamas". Zhukovsky was next to Pushkin for almost his entire life. He repeatedly stood up for Pushkin before the tsar and was at the bedside of the mortally wounded poet in his last apartment in St. Petersburg, on the embankment of the Moika River, in house 12.

A significant role in the fate of F.I. Tyutchev and M.Yu. Lermontov was played by the poet, translator, publisher, teacher Semyon Yegorovich Raich. In the boarding school at Moscow University, Raich supervised the first poetic experiments of Mikhail Lermontov. Together with him, young Tyutchev attended lectures at Moscow University; under the guidance of a teacher, he completed his translation of the "Message of Horace to the Maecenas" and was accepted into the Society of Lovers of Russian Literature. In his almanac "Northern Lyre" in 1827, next to the poems of famous poets, Raich published the poems of the young Tyutchev.

The merit of the writers of the older generation was not only the creation of outstanding works. Their talent was also manifested in the fact that they were able to find, appreciate and support others - young and talented. This was a great gift from the brilliant "old men" of the beginning century.

For you curious

Decembrism as a social movement appeared long before 1825.

At the beginning of the century, even before the war of 1812, organizations began to emerge whose members discussed not only literary events, but also political issues: the Society of Lovers of Russian Literature, the Green Lamp, and Arzamas.

After "Drone" and "Picturesque" - magazines N.I. Novikov, where the publisher allowed himself to publicly argue with Empress Catherine II, magazines and almanacs appeared in which freedom-loving ideas sounded with increasing force. Such was the almanac "Polar Star", published by L.L. Bestuzhev and K.F. Ryleev in 1823-1825 - during the period of the most active preparation for the uprising;

Works directly calling for the overthrow of the autocracy, telling about the plight and oppression of people, were distributed secretly. These were the propaganda songs of A.A. Bestuzhev and K.F. Ryleeva. A satirical song-parody at this time is a common phenomenon.

Covers of the almanac "Polar Star" 1824 and 1825

The idea of ​​overthrowing serfdom captured the minds of young Russian officers and became the main goal and meaning of life for many of them.

About Pushkin's influence on Russian poetry, Gogol wrote: “Karamzin did not do the same in prose that he did in verse. Karamzin's imitators served as a pitiful caricature of himself and brought both the style and thoughts to sugar cloying. As for Pushkin, he was for all poets contemporary to him, like a poetic fire thrown from the sky, from which, like candles, other semi-precious poets were lit. A whole constellation of them suddenly formed around him ... "

Young poets, feeling the beneficial influence of Pushkin on their work, even sought his patronage. In 1817, V. I. Tumansky wrote to Pushkin: “Your connections, the people of your glory, your head ... everything gives you a flattering opportunity to act on the minds with much more extensive success against other writers. From the height of your position, you must watch everything, oversee everything, knock heads off stolen reputations and bring out modest talents into people who will hold on to you.

At the same time, the poets of the Pushkin circle not only followed Pushkin, but also entered into rivalry with him. Their evolution did not coincide in everything with the rapid development of the Russian genius, which was ahead of its time. Remaining romantics, Baratynsky or Yazykov could no longer appreciate his "novel in verse" "Eugene Onegin" and treated his realistic prose with distrust. Their closeness to Pushkin did not preclude dialogue with him.

Another regularity in the development of these poets was the special correlation of their creative achievements with the poetic world of Pushkin. The poets of Pushkin's time creatively embodied, and sometimes even developed and improved, only certain aspects of his poetic system. But Pushkin, with his universalism, remained a unique model for them.

The emergence of the "Pushkin galaxy" is associated with the times of the Lyceum and the first post-lyceum years, when a "union of poets" arose around Pushkin. It was a spiritual unity based on the commonality of aesthetic tastes and ideas about the nature and purpose of poetry. The cult of friendship here was painted with special colors: the “favorites of the eternal muses” were friends with each other, united in the “holy brotherhood” of poets, prophets, favorites of the gods, who treated the “crazy crowd” with contempt. There was already a new, romantic view of the poet as God's chosen one. At an early stage, Epicureanism dominated here, not devoid of open opposition to the forms of sanctimonious morality and sectarian piety accepted in the official world. Young poets followed the tradition of the early Batyushkov, reflected in his famous message "My Penates" and in a cycle of anthological poems.

Gradually, this alliance began to take the form of a mature opposition to the autocracy of the tsar, the reactionary regime of Arakcheev. At the same time, urgent problems arose for the further development and enrichment of the language of Russian poetry. The "School of Harmonic Accuracy", approved by the efforts of Zhukovsky and Batyushkov, seemed already archaic to the younger generation of poets: it held back the further development of poetry by strict forms of poetic thinking, stylistic smoothness of thought expression, thematic narrowness and one-sidedness.

Let us recall that Zhukovsky and Batyushkov, as well as civic poets, developed a whole language of poetic symbols, which then wandered from one poem to another and created a sense of harmony, the poetic loftiness of the language: “the flame of love”, “the cup of joy”, “the intoxication of the heart” , "heat of the heart", "coldness of the heart", "drink breath", "languid look", "fiery delight", "mysteries of charm", "maiden of love", "bed of luxury", "memory of the heart". The poets of Pushkin's pleiad strive in various ways to resist “the dematerialization of the poetic word - a natural phenomenon in the system of stable styles, which replaced the genre style in the 1810-1820s,” notes K. K. Buchmeyer. – The poetics of such styles was based on the fundamental repetition of poetic formulas (word-signals) designed to recognize and create certain associations (for example, in the national-historical style: chains, swords, slaves, dagger, revenge; in the elegiac style: tears, urns, joy, roses, golden days, etc.). However, the expressive possibilities of such a word in each given poetic context narrowed: being a sign of style, it became almost unambiguous, partially lost its objective meaning, and with it the power of direct impact. At a new stage in the development of Russian poetry, a need arose, without completely abandoning the achievements of its predecessors, to return to the poetic word its simple, “objective” content.

One of the ways to update the language was to turn to ancient poetry, already enriched by the experience of the people in its romantic understanding. The poets of Pushkin's circle, relying on the experience of the late Batyushkov, resolutely departed from the notion of ancient culture as a timeless standard for direct imitation. Antiquity appeared before them as a special world, historically conditioned and unique in modern times in its essential qualities. According to V. E. Vatsuro, “there was a discovery of that indisputable fact for us that a person of a different cultural era thought and felt in other forms, different from modern times, and that these forms have their own aesthetic value.”

And this value at the present stage of development of Russian poetry was first of all felt by Pushkin. Anthological and idyllic lyrics, according to his definition, “do not allow anything tense in feelings; thin, confused in thoughts; superfluous, unnatural in the descriptions. Behind the assessment of the idylls of A. A. Delvig, to which these words of Pushkin are addressed, one feels a hidden polemic with the Zhukovsky school, which achieved poetic success by muffling the objective meaning of the word and introducing subjective, associative semantic shades into it.

Delvig Anton Antonovich (1798-1831)

It is not by chance that Pushkin's favorite Anton Antonovich Delvig (1798-1831) is given the first place in the circle of poets of the "Pushkin galaxy". Once Pushkin gave him a statuette of a bronze sphinx, a half-man-half-lion known in ancient mythology, testing travelers with its riddles, and accompanied the gift with such a madrigal:

Who on the snow raised Theocrite's delicate roses?

In the Iron Age, tell me, who guessed the golden one?

Who is a young Slav, a Greek in spirit, and a German by birth?

Here is my riddle: cunning Oedipus, solve it!

Delvig entered Russian literature as a master of the anthological idyllic genre. “What power of imagination must have,” wrote Pushkin about the idylls of Delvig, “in order to be so completely transported from the 19th century to the golden age, and what an extraordinary flair of the elegant, in order to guess Greek poetry in such a way.” Pushkin felt in Delvig's poetry the living breath of the past, historicism in the transfer of "the childhood of the human race."

In his experiments, Delvig came from N. I. Gnedich, who, in the preface to his own translation of Theocritus’s idyll “The Syracusan Woman” (1811), noted that “the kind of idyllic poetry, more than any other, requires folk, domestic content; not only shepherds, but all the states of people, close to nature by the nature of their lives, can be the subject of this poetry.

In his idylls, Delvig takes the reader to the "golden age" of antiquity, where man was not yet alienated from society and lived in harmonious union with nature. Everything here is fanned by the romantic dream of the poet about the simple and indecomposable values ​​of life that have been lost by modern civilization. The poet portrays antiquity as a unique era that retains its charm for modern man and gives rise to longing for what our world has lost.

His idylls are close to genre scenes, pictures depicting certain episodes from the life of ordinary villagers. These are heroes endowed with modest and simple virtues: they do not know how to pretend and lie, the dramas in their everyday life resemble peaceful family quarrels, which only strengthen the strength of community life. In his own way, a simple person lives, loves, makes friends and has fun, in his own way he meets death, fatal for modern romantics. Living in unity with nature, he does not feel the tragedy of the short duration of his existence.

But as soon as the microbe of deceit enters the world of these pure relationships, disaster ensues. In the idyll "The End of the Golden Age" (1828), the city youth Meletius seduces the shepherdess Amarilla, and then misfortune befalls the whole country. It drowns in the Amarilla River, the beauty of Arcadia fades, the coldness of the soul chills the hearts of the villagers, the harmony between man and nature is destroyed forever. This motif will live long in our literature. He will respond in a poem by a friend of Delvig Baratynsky "The Last Poet". It will come to life in the story "Cossacks" by L. N. Tolstoy. And then the "golden age" will disturb the imagination of the heroes of F. M. Dostoevsky, Versilov will respond in a dream from his novel "The Teenager".

Delvig's anthological theme, as one would expect, served as a kind of bridge to the depiction of Russian folk life. For the first time, N. I. Gnedich tried to combine Russian patriarchy with ancient in the idyll “Fishermen”. The anthological genre restored in Russian poetry not only a taste for the exact word, but also a sense of a living, patriarchal folk way of life. In the anthological plots, an understanding of the nationality as a historically determined community of people was formed. Following Gnedich, Delvig writes the "Russian idyll" "Retired Soldier" (1829). Its dramatic form in some way anticipates the folk dialogues in the poems of N. A. Nekrasov. A Russian cripple-soldier, wandering home from distant countries, comes out to the shepherds at the light:

Ah, brothers! What kind of heaven on earth do you have

Near Kursk! This evening is like a miracle

I rejuvenated, breathing in plenty

Healing warmth and smell! Ljubo,

It's easy for me in my native air, like a fish

In the icy river!…

Having warmed himself by a hospitable fire, having tasted simple shepherd's food, the soldier tells about the fire of Moscow, about the flight and death of the French:

They have gone far. On the road

Frost grabbed them and made them wait

Doomsday at the crime scene:

At God's church, defiled by them,

In a plundered hut, near the village,

Burnt by their rampage!…

A special place in the creative heritage of Delvig was occupied by his "Russian songs". The poet listened attentively to the very spirit of the folk song, to its compositional structure and style. Although many reproached him for being literary, for the absence of a true nationality, these reproaches are incorrect, if we recall Pushkin's well-known advice to judge the poet according to the laws that he himself recognized over himself. Delvig did not imitate a folk song, as did his predecessors, including A. F. Merzlyakov. He approached Russian folk culture with the same standards of historicism with which he reproduced the spirit of antiquity. Delvig tried to penetrate from within into the spiritual and artistic world of folk song. “Even during the life of Delvig, they tried to oppose him to A.F. Merzlyakov, the author of the widely popular“ Russian songs ”,as a poet more closely connected with the elements of folk life,” notes V.E. Vatsuro. “Perhaps it was so, but Merzlyakov's songs are farther from genuine folk poetry than Delvig's songs. Delvig was able to catch those features of folklore poetics that the written literature of his time passed by: an atmosphere created not directly, but indirectly, restraint and strength of feeling, the characteristic symbolism of mean imagery. In folk songs, he looked for a national character and understood it, moreover, as a "naive" and patriarchal character. It was a kind of “anthology”, but based on Russian national material.” Here Delvig approached the method of mastering folklore, which A. V. Koltsov later came to.

“Russian Songs” by Delvig - “Oh, are you a night, a little night ...”, “Is my head, little head ...”, “What, a young beauty ...”, “It's boring, girls, to live alone in the spring ...”, “The little bird sang, sang ...”, “My nightingale, nightingale ...”, “Like a small village stands behind a river ...”, “And I will go out onto the porch ...”, “Orphan girl ...”, “Thunder clouds are walking across the sky ...”, “How are we roof…”, “I was walking in the garden in the evening, baby”, “Not a fine autumn rain…” - entered not only the salon, city, but also the folk repertoire. "The Nightingale" with its first four verses gained immortality in the romance of A. A. Alyabyev. M. Glinka set to music a song specially composed for him by Delvig "Not an autumn fine rain ...". There is no doubt that Delvig's "Russian songs" also influenced the development of A. V. Koltsov's talent.

Delvig's numerous elegiac poems also deserve attention, occupying an intermediate position between the classical dull elegy and a love romance. “When, soul, you asked…”, “The past days of charm…” (the poem “Disappointment”) are still heard in the melodies of M. L. Yakovlev and A. S. Dargomyzhsky. Delvig boldly introduces antique motifs into the elegy, just as he fills the romance with elegiac motifs. As a result, the elegy acquires plot dynamism and linguistic diversity, loses its characteristic features of static and stylistic monotony.

In Russian poetry, Delvig became famous as a master of the sonnet. He not only sought to give this form elegance and formal perfection, but also saturated it with a rich philosophical content. Such, for example, is his sonnet "Inspiration" (1822), where a romantic thought sounds about the purifying influence of inspiration, in the minutes of which God gives the poet's soul a feeling of immortality:

It's not often that inspiration flies to us,

And for a brief moment it burns in the soul;

But the favorite of the muses appreciates this moment,

Like a martyr with the earth separation.

Deception in friends, distrust in love

And poison in everything that the heart cherishes,

Forgotten by them: enthusiastic piit

I have read my purpose.

And contemptible, persecuted from people,

Wandering alone under the sky

He speaks to the ages to come;

He puts honor above all honors,

He avenges slander with his glory

And shares immortality with the gods.

Delvig entered history as an organizer of literary life. He published one of the best almanacs of the 1820s, Northern Flowers, and then, in collaboration with A.S. in the early 1830s by brisk Petersburg journalists Bulgarin and Grech. Delvig's Literaturnaya Gazeta brought together the best, "aristocratic" literary forces in Russia at that time. But in 1830, in November, it was closed for the publication of a quatrain dedicated to the July Revolution in France. Delvig, having received a strict warning from Benckendorff himself, experienced a severe nervous shock, which finally undermined his already poor health. An accidental cold in January brought him to the grave on January 14 (26), 1831.

Vyazemsky Petr Andreevich (1792-1878)

Pyotr Andreevich Vyazemsky belonged to the number of elders in the circle of poets of the Pushkin galaxy. He was born in Moscow into a family of hereditary appanage princes, among the old feudal nobility. Although by the beginning of the 19th century it had become rather impoverished, it still retained the proud spirit of the noble fronde, which was treated with contempt by the unborn public that surrounded the royal throne. In 1805, his father placed his son in a St. Petersburg Jesuit boarding school, then Vyazemsky studied a little at a boarding school at the Pedagogical Institute, and in 1806, at the insistence of his father, concerned about his son’s free behavior, he returned to Moscow, where he supplemented his education with private lessons from professors at Moscow University. In 1807, his father died, leaving the fifteen-year-old boy a large fortune. A dispersed life began, young feasts, cards, until N. M. Karamzin, who had married Vyazemsky's half-sister Ekaterina Andreevna back in 1801, took him under his wing and replaced his early departed father.

In the terrible days of 1812, Vyazemsky joined the Moscow militia, participated in the Battle of Borodino, where under him one horse was killed and another was wounded. For bravery, he was awarded the Order of Stanislav 4th degree, but illness prevented him from participating in further hostilities. He leaves Moscow with the Karamzin family and reaches Yaroslavl, from where the Karamzins leave for Nizhny Novgorod, and Vyazemsky and his wife go to Vologda.

Vyazemsky's literary interests are remarkable for their extraordinary breadth and encyclopedism. This is a politician, and a thinker, and a journalist, and a critic-polemicist of a romantic direction, and the author of the most valuable "Notes", a memoirist who spoke with a description of the life and life of "pre-fire" Moscow, a poet and translator. Unlike his young friends, he felt all his life heir to the Age of Enlightenment, from childhood he had joined the works of French encyclopedists in his father's rich library.

But he begins his literary activity as a supporter of Karamzin and Dmitriev. In his Ostafyevo estate near Moscow, Russian writers and poets periodically gather, calling themselves the "Friendly Artel" - Denis Davydov, Alexander Turgenev, Vasily Zhukovsky, Konstantin Batyushkov, Vasily Pushkin, Dmitry Bludov - all future members of Arzamas. Vyazemsky then focuses on "light poetry", which is cultivated by young pre-romantics. The leading genre is the literary message, in which Vyazemsky shows originality in describing the delights of a solitary home life (“Message to Zhukovsky in the village”, “To my friends Zhukovsky, Batyushkov and Severin”, “To friends”, “To a friend”, “Message to Turgenev with pie"). They are adjoined by “Farewell to the Bathrobe”, “Charter of the Dining Room”, etc. The idea of ​​natural equality, characteristic of the Enlighteners and complicated by reasoning about the superiority of spiritual closeness over stiff nobility, is affirmed:

Hospitality - without ranks,

Diversity in conversations

In stories - frugality of words,

Cold-blooded - in heated debates,

Without cleverness - simplicity,

Gaiety is the sober spirit of freedom,

Without caustic bile - sharpness,

Without buffoonery - the salt of a joke is frisky.

These are poems, free from any officiality and ostentation, cultivating independence, graceful "idleness", hostility to everything official. A feature of Vyazemsky's friendly messages is a paradoxical combination of poetic conventions with the realities of a specific, everyday situation. Everyday words, jokes, satirical sketches penetrate the messages. A narrative style is being worked out, close to an unpretentious friendly conversation, which will be reflected in Pushkin's novel "Eugene Onegin". In "Message to Turgenev with a Pie" Vyazemsky writes:

Or, laying aside the balusters of poetry,

(You are your own rhetorician and ambassador)

Go, pie, to Turgenev's table,

A worthy gift and friendship and gluttony!

Following friendly messages, a series of epigrams, noels, fables, satirical verses is created, in which Vyazemsky's mocking mind penetrates the very essence of things, presenting them in a witty light. The subjects of accusations are the "Old Believers" from Shishkov's "Conversations ...", Karamzin's epigones, conservatives in politics. About Shakhovsky he will say:

You are cold in "Fur Coats" Shutovskaya,

In "Waters" you are Shutovskaya dry.

Vyazemsky creates a murderous parody of the sentimental travel genre common at the beginning of the century - “An episodic excerpt from a journey in verse. Vozdykhalov's first rest":

He was all impromptu.

While towards him from the shack

A woman comes out; he came to life!

To the sweet ideal of a shepherdess

Lornet directs Celadon,

He straightens his scarlet scarf,

Sigh once, sigh twice

And to her, squirming, draws

He following words:

"Greetings with a hundredfold prayer

Gebeyu of this side! ”…

The well-known memoirist, Vyazemsky's colleague in Arzamas, Filipp Filippovich Vigel, recalling the literary life of the early 1810s, wrote: “At the same time, a small miracle appeared in Moscow. The underage boy Vyazemsky suddenly stepped forward both as Karamzin’s defender from the enemies, and as a thunderstorm of dirty men, who, hiding behind his name and banner, dishonored them ... Karamzin never liked satires, epigrams and literary quarrels in general, but he could not curb the swearing spirit in his pupil, love for him excited. And yet, what's the trouble? A young child, let him still amuse himself; and the child was far heavy on the arm! Like Ivan Tsarevich, it used to be that Prince Pyotr Andreevich took someone by the hand - hand away, someone by the head - head away. Striking right and left, Vyazemsky defines his aesthetic position, which does not coincide with the position of the “school of harmonic accuracy”.

First, as the heir to the enlightenment culture of the 18th century, he invariably opposes the poetry of feeling to the poetry of thought. Secondly, he opposes the smoothness, weariness, and sophistication of the poetic style: “I love and appreciate the melodiousness of other people's poems very much, but in my verses I do not pursue this melodiousness at all. I will never sacrifice my thought to sound. In my verse I want to say what I want to say; I don’t care about the ears of my neighbor and don’t think ... My stubbornness, my rape sometimes give my poems a prosaic lethargy, sometimes pretentiousness. Avoiding poeticization, Vyazemsky went in line with the development of Russian poetry, which in the Pushkin era began to resolutely bring the bookish language closer to the oral language. The deviation from the style of "harmonic precision" led to some disharmony and stylistic diversity of his poetry:

My tongue is not always pure

The taste is true, the syllable is pure, and the expression is precise.

From the mid-1810s, noticeable changes took place in the work of Vyazemsky. In February 1818, he was appointed to the civil service in Warsaw as an official for foreign correspondence under the imperial commissioner N. N. Novosiltsev. He knows that on the instructions of the sovereign, his immediate superior is working on a draft Russian constitution. Vyazemsky accompanies his entry into a responsible position with a large poem "Petersburg" (1818), in which, reviving the tradition of the Russian ode, he tries to influence the good undertakings of the sovereign. Like Pushkin in Stanzas, he reminds Alexander of the great deeds of Peter:

Se Peter is still alive in eloquent copper!

Under him is the Poltava horse, the proud forerunner

Bayonets of sparkling and waving banners.

He reigns over the city he created,

Falling him with a sovereign hand,

Guard of the people's honor and mute fear of malice.

Let the enemies dare, arming themselves with hell,

Carry to your shores the bloody sword of war,

Hero! You reflect them with a fixed gaze,

Ready to fall on them with a daring toughness.

The image of the Bronze Horseman, created here by Vyazemsky, will later echo in Pushkin's poem of the same name. Singing after this the century of Catherine, the poet believes that one should not envy the past:

Our age is the age of glory, our king is the love of the universe!

Alluding to the liberation mission of Alexander I in Europe, Vyazemsky gives his lesson to the tsar in the finale:

Peter created subjects, you form citizens!

Let the statutes be a gift and these guards - freedom.

The promised shore of the great people,

All pure virtues will spread the seeds.

With reverence awaits, O king, your country,

To give her happiness, give her the right to happiness!

"The creator of people's misfortunes is blind autocracy" -

Passions criminal darkness penetrating deep,

A vigilant eye over the kingdoms observes the law,

Like Providence's unsleeping eye.

It seemed to Vyazemsky that his dreams of a constitutional monarchy in Russia, which completely coincided with the dreams of the Northern Society of the Decembrists, would soon become a reality. In a speech from the throne at the opening of the Polish Sejm in 1818, Alexander I said: "I intend to give a beneficial constitutional government to all peoples entrusted to me by providence." Vyazemsky knew at that time “more than the Decembrists themselves knew: he knew that the constitution of the Russian Empire had already been written and that it depended on one stroke of Alexander to bring it to life” (S. N. Durylin). However, Adam Czartoryski, who studied the character of Alexander well, wrote in his Memoirs: “The Emperor liked the external forms of freedom, as he likes beautiful spectacles; he liked that his government looked like a free government, and he boasted of it. But he needed only the appearance and form, and he did not allow them to be realized in reality. In a word, he would willingly agree to give freedom to the whole world, but on the condition that everyone would voluntarily submit exclusively to his will.

At a cordial meeting with the sovereign after the throne speech, Vyazemsky handed him a note from high-ranking and liberal-minded noble officials, in which they most humbly asked for permission to proceed to consider and resolve another important issue about the liberation of the peasants from serfdom. And in 1821, during his summer vacation, Vyazemsky received a letter from Novosiltsev, in which the sovereign forbade him to return to Warsaw. This exile offended Vyazemsky so much that he defiantly filed a petition to remove him from the rank of chamber junker of the court, worn since 1811.

The result of these events was the famous poem by Vyazemsky "Indignation" (1820). The nameless scammer wrote to Benckendorff: “Vyazemsky’s way of thinking can be adequately assessed from one of his poetic plays “Indignation”, which served as a catechism of the conspirators (Decembrists!).” Nikolai Kutanov (pseudonym of S. N. Durylin) in his long-standing work “A Decembrist Without December”, dedicated to Vyazemsky, wrote:

“A rare among the Decembrists can be found such a vivid attack on one of the foundations of the serf state - on the forcible squeezing of economic juices from the serf masses by taxes and extortions. Neither in Pushkin's "The Village" nor in "Woe from Wit" is there such an attack.

But Vyazemsky, driven by the Apollo of “indignation”, turned out in his poems not only to be a poet of Decembrism, which was Pushkin, but also a poet of December, which was Ryleev: the “catechism” ends with an appeal to Senate Square:

It will light up, day, day of celebration and execution,

A day of joyful hopes, a day of sad fear!

The song of victories will be heard to you, priests of truth,

To you, friends of honor and freedom!

You cry tombstone! you renegades of nature!

You oppressors! you low flatterers!"

And yet Vyazemsky was not a member of the secret society of the Decembrists. In his Confession, written in 1829, he explained his non-participation in the Decembrist organizations, incomprehensible to the authorities: Good preparation for freedom, which begins with the enslavement of oneself!

As for his enemies, who caused a surge of indignation, Vyazemsky once said about them: “My only hope, my only consolation is the assurance that they will see in the next world how stupid, stupid, harmful they were here, how they were justly and severely evaluated by the general opinion, how they did not arouse any noble sympathy in the people, who with firmness, with self-sacrifice endured them as a temporary evil sent down by Providence in His inscrutable will. Hoping that someday they will come to their senses here, too, is reckless, and it shouldn't be. One thunderstorm might have brought them to their senses. Thunder will not strike, Russian people will not cross themselves. And politically, we must believe in the immortality of the soul and the Second Coming for the judgment of the living and the dead. Otherwise, political despair would take possession of the soul ”(record of 1844).

In artistic terms, "Indignation" is a complex fusion of high ode traditions with elegiac motifs, which sound especially bright in the introduction. All aspiring to the civil theme, Vyazemsky is not satisfied with either Karamzin's poetics or Zhukovsky's poetic system. He seriously advises the latter to turn to the civil theme: “It’s enough for you to bask in the clouds, descend to the ground, and at least let the horrors raging on it wake up the energy of your soul. Dedicate your flame to righteousness and give up the service of idols. Noble indignation is modern inspiration.”

Vyazemsky perceives Byron's romanticism in the same vein. The English poet is now becoming his idol. But it is not the poet of "world sorrow" that he sees in Byron, but a tyrant, a Protestant, a fighter for the freedom of Greece. Therefore, Vyazemsky's "colors of Byron's romanticism" merge with "political colors". In the ode “Despondency”, Vyazemsky depicts not so much the very psychological state of despondency as he reflects on the causes and facts of real life that give rise to it. The elegiac world of unfulfilled hopes and dreams is paired in the poem with the world of civic feelings, ideas and images, sustained in a declamatory-oratorical, archaic style. The genre of a sad elegy pushes its boundaries, personally coloring the “word-signals” of their poetic civil vocabulary. As a result, the poet's voice is sharply individualized, political reflections and emotions acquire only his, Vyazemsky's, characteristic intonation. The work includes historicism in the understanding of modern man, a lyrical hero.

At the same time, Vyazemsky the critic for the first time poses in his articles the romantic problem of nationality. It also applies to his own works. The poet insists that every nation has its own system, its own way of thinking, that a Russian thinks differently than a Frenchman. An important step towards the creative embodiment of the nationality was Vyazemsky's elegy "The First Snow" (1819), from which Pushkin took the epigraph to the first chapter of "Eugene Onegin" - "And he is in a hurry to live, and he is in a hurry to feel."

Romantics believed that the originality of the national character depends on the climate, on national history, on customs, beliefs, and language. And so Vyazemsky in his elegy merges a lyrical feeling with the specific details of Russian life and the Russian landscape. The harsh winter beauty corresponds to the character traits of a Russian person, morally pure, courageous, despising danger, patient with the blows of fate:

Despising frost anger and futile threats,

Rosy cheeks of your fresh roses redden ...

Vyazemsky gives a picture of the Russian sledge track that fascinated Pushkin, who picked it up when describing the winter journey of Eugene Onegin:

Like a light blizzard, their winged run

Snow breaks through with even reins

And, waving with a bright cloud from the earth,

Silvery dust covers them.

This theme grows and develops in the poetry of Vyazemsky and further in the poems “Winter Caricatures (Excerpts from the Journal of a Winter Trip in the Steppe Provinces)” (1828), “Road Thought” (1830), “Another Three” (1834), which became a popular romance, “Another Road Thought” (1841), “Shrovetide on a Foreign Side” (1853), etc. Vyazemsky discovers the charm in the boundless peace of the Russian snowy plains, feeling the connection with them of the expanse of the Russian soul, outwardly discreet, but internally deep.

“The proclamation of Vyazemsky's right to individuality of thought determined his place in the romantic movement,” notes I. M. Semenko. - Leaving the circle of Karamzin's concepts, Vyazemsky found his way to romanticism. Unlike the lyrical hero Davydov, the image of the author in Vyazemsky's poetry is purely intellectual. At the same time, the sharpness of the intellect in Vyazemsky's verses, just like Davydov's courage, seems to be a property of nature. Not a "universal" truth, comprehended by the mind, but the indefatigable intellectual temperament of the individual is the key to the emergence of a new thought.

End of work -

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By the universality of the coverage of life by poetry, by the completeness and integrity of the perception of the world, Russian literature of the 19th century puzzled Western European contemporary writers. She reminded them of the creators of the epic

Problems of periodization of Russian literature of the 19th century
The extraordinary intensity of the formation and development of Russian literature of the 19th century, the complexity of its artistic and aesthetic foundations create many difficulties in the problem of periodization. During the Soviet period

Mezier A. V. Russian literature from the 11th to the 19th centuries inclusive. - Part 2. - St. Petersburg, 1902; Vladislavlev I. V. Russian writers of the XIX-XX centuries. The experience of a bibliographic manual on the latest

General works
History of Russian literature of the XIX century. / Ed. D. N. Ovsyannikov-Kulikovsky. - M., 1908-1910. - T. 1-5 .; History of Russian literature. – M.; L., 1941-1956. - T. 1 - 10; History of Russian

On the National Identity and Spiritual Foundations of Russian Literature
Skaftymov A.P. Moral searches of Russian writers. - M., 1972; Berkovsky N. Ya. On the world significance of Russian literature. - L., 1975; Kupreyanova E. N., Makogonenko G. P. Natsion

Russian Literary and Social Thought in the First Quarter of the 19th Century
The leading literary trend in the countries of Western Europe at the beginning of the 19th century is romanticism, which replaced classicism, enlightenment realism and sentimentalism. Russian literature respond

The dispute between the "Karamzinists" and the "Shishkovists"
The beginning of the 19th century in the history of Russian literature was marked by disputes over language. It was a dispute between "archaists" and "innovators" - "Shishkovists" with "Karamzinists". In the face of Admiral and Russian patriot A. S. Shishk

Literary societies and journals of the first quarter of the 19th century
Starting with the publication of the Moscow Journal (1791-1792; the second edition unchanged: 1801-1803), Karamzin appeared before Russian public opinion as the first professional writer and magazine.

Russian poetry 1800-1810s
Russian poetry of the 1800-1810s was not a single trend. Already at the beginning of the century, it was divided into the psychological pre-romanticism of the school of N. M. Karamzin and civil pre-romanticism

Prose of the first quarter of the 19th century
The prose of the first quarter of the 19th century developed more dramatically than poetry, which for thirty years, right up to Pushkin's "Belkin's Tales" and Gogol's prose, occupied a leading position in

Dramaturgy of the early 19th century
Dramaturgy at the beginning of the 19th century developed in line with the general transitional processes of the pre-romantic movement in Russian literature of that time. The traditions of the high tragedy of classicism were developed by a very popular

History of Russian literature. In 10 tons - M.; L., 1941. - T. 5; History of Russian literature. In 3 volumes - M.; L., 1963. - T. 2; History of Russian literature. In 4 vols. - L., 1981. - T. 2;

Zhukovsky on the nature of romantic poetry
In a letter to N. V. Gogol, "The words of the poet - the deeds of the poet" (1848), Zhukovsky systematically outlined his view of the nature and purpose of romantic poetry. “... What is the business of a poet, what is a poet or

Zhukovsky's childhood and youth
Vasily Andreevich Zhukovsky was born on January 29 (February 9), 1783 in the village of Mishenskoye, Belevsky district, Tula province. He was the illegitimate son of the landowner Afanasy Ivanovich Bunin. his mother

The elegiac genre in the poetry of Zhukovsky-romantic
Elegy has become one of the leading genres in Zhukovsky's poetic work. It was in tune with the interest of sentimentalists and romantics in the dramatic content of a person's inner life. At the same time

Theon and Aeschines" (1814)
“This poem,” Belinsky wrote, “can be viewed as a program for all of Zhukovsky’s poetry, as a statement of the basic principles of its content.” The poem juxtaposes different

Love lyrics by Zhukovsky
In 1805, an event occurred that was destined to play an important role in the life of Zhukovsky and in its own way affect the fate of all domestic literature, on the Russian understanding of the spiritual nature of people.

Zhukovsky's civil lyrics
In the early summer of 1812, Napoleon's troops crossed the Neman and invaded Russian borders. In August, Zhukovsky left his native land as a lieutenant of the Moscow militia. He spent the night of August 26 in

Ballad creativity of Zhukovsky
From 1808 to 1833, Zhukovsky created 39 ballads and received the playful nickname "balladnik" in literary circles. These are mainly translations of German and English poets (Burger, Schiller, Goethe, Uhland,

Zhukovsky as a teacher and educator of the heir
Since 1817, a sharp turn began in the life of Zhukovsky, forcing him to postpone his poetic work for a long time in the name of another, no less, and perhaps even more significant in his head.

Zhukovsky's poems
During these years, he was mainly busy with translations of the epic of European and Eastern peoples, among which the main place is occupied by the unsurpassed translation of Homer's Odyssey. At the center of translation

Zhukovsky V. A. Full. coll. op. In 12 volumes - St. Petersburg, 1902; Zhukovsky V. A. Sobr. op. In 4 volumes - M.; L., 1959-1960; Zhukovsky V.A. lyrics

On the originality of Batyushkov's artistic world
“The history of literature, like any history of organic development, knows no leaps and always creates links between individual brilliant figures,” wrote literary critic S. A. Vengerov. – Ba

The formation of Batyushkov the poet
He was born on May 18 (29), 1787 in Vologda in the family of an impoverished but well-born nobleman Nikolai Lvovich Batyushkov. His mother, Alexandra Grigorievna, descended from the Vologda nobles Berdyaev

The first period of Batyushkov's work
In the autumn of 1809, Batyushkov created the satire Vision on the Banks of Lethe, the resounding success of which opens the mature stage of the poet's work. In Lethe, the mythological river, whose waters bring oblivion to earthly life

The second period of Batyushkov's work
But the black shadows of a big story were already approaching the "small" world of the cheerful Batyushkov's poetry. The storm of the Patriotic War broke out over Russia. In August 1812, Batyushkov went to the besieged enemy.

Batyushkov K. Ya. Works / Ed. L. Ya. Maykov, with the participation of V. I. Saitov. - St. Petersburg, 1885-1887. - T. 1-3; Batyushkov K. N. Full. coll. poems / Enter, Art., prepared. text and notes.

The Phenomenon of Decembrism in Russian Culture in the 1820s
Russian and especially Soviet science has made great efforts to study the Decembrist movement. Abundant source materials have been found and published, the class origins of Decembrism have been studied,

Poetic quest of the Decembrists
Dreaming, like all romantics, of beneficial moral and spiritual changes in their Fatherland, the Decembrists believed that it was these changes that would lead to the healing of age-old social ulcers, among which

Poetry and letters of the Decembrists / Comp., Introduce, Art., Note. S. A. Fomicheva - Gorky, 1984; Decembrist poets. Poems. / Enter, art. N. Ya. Eidelman, comp., biographies, references N. G.

Artistic world of Krylov
On February 2, 1838, the anniversary of Krylov was solemnly celebrated in St. Petersburg. It was, according to the fair remark of V. A. Zhukovsky, “a national holiday; when it was possible to invite all of Russia to it,

Life and career of Krylov
Ivan Andreevich Krylov was born on February 2 (13), 1769 in Moscow and came from chief officer children, whose fathers sometimes achieved a noble rank at the cost of hard field service. Andrey Prokhoro

Worldview origins of Krylov's realism
Krylov came to the fable in his mature years, having gone through the difficult path of creative search known to us in line with the educational ideology of the 18th century and having experienced its deep crisis at the turn of the century. The essence of this crisis

Poetics of Krylov's fables
Turning to the fable genre, Krylov decisively modified it. Before Krylov, the fable was understood as a moralizing work, resorting to an allegorical illustration of moral truths. Predecessor

Krylov I. A. Full. coll. op. / Ed. D. Poor. - M., 1945-1946. - T. 1-3; Krylov I. A. Fables. - M., 1958; Belinsky V. G. Ivan Andreevich Krylov // Collected. op. - M., 1955. - T

Griboedov's personality
Often, both lovers of Russian literature and professional connoisseurs of it, a perplexed question arises: why such a gifted person, it would seem, a great writer - in essence and by vocation - created

Griboedov's childhood and youth
Alexander Sergeevich Griboedov was born on January 4 (15), 1795 (according to other sources - 1794) in Moscow into a well-born, but impoverished noble family. His father, a weak-willed man, participates in household chores

Griboyedov and the Decembrists
By the autumn of 1824, he was finishing work on a comedy and experiencing unheard-of literary success. The manuscript of "Woe from Wit" is being torn to pieces. At Odoevsky's apartment, his Decembrist friends, with the help of a nan

Woe from Wit" in Russian criticism
What did Griboedov's contemporary critics write about Woe from Wit, how did they understand the main conflict of the comedy, how did they evaluate the central image of Chatsky in it? The first negative review about "Woe from Wit",

Famusovsky world
The people of the Famus society are not simple patriarchal nobles like the Rostovs of L. N. Tolstoy or the Larins of A. S. Pushkin. This representatives of the service class, government officials, and their way of life

Drama Chatsky
It is here that the weakness inherent in the entire generation of young people of the stormy and uniquely peculiar time that preceded the Decembrist uprising is revealed. "They were filled with heroic

Drama Sophia
Was it not the Repetilovism that flourished in Famusov's Moscow during Chatsky's travels that caused Sophia to cool off towards him? After all, this girl is smart, independent and observant. She rises

Poetics of the comedy "Woe from Wit"
As the first realistic comedy in new Russian literature, Woe from Wit bears the signs of a bright artistic originality. At first glance, it has a tangible connection with the traditions of classicism,

Repetilov
Chimeras. The verse has acquired an extraordinary flexibility, capable of conveying both the intense oratorical pathos of Chatsky's monologues, and subtle humor, and a lively, involuntary dialogue between the characters: he became in

The idea of ​​a work about the Patriotic War of 1812
At the end of Woe from Wit, Griboyedov drew up a detailed plan of a folk tragedy in verse, or, as some researchers believe, a dramatic poem about the Patriotic War of 1812. "Saved

The death of Griboyedov
"Woe from Wit" was a work nurtured by the author for many years. After the completion of the work, a period of mental fatigue set in. Participation in the Russian-Persian war took a lot of strength,

Griboyedov A.S. Full. coll. op. In 3 volumes / Ed. N. K. Piksanova - Pg., 1911-1917; Griboyedov A.S. Op. In 2 volumes / Under the general. ed. M. P. Eremina. - M., 1971; Griboyedov A. S. Izbranne

The artistic phenomenon of Pushkin
As we have already noted, a necessary condition for the entry of new Russian literature into the mature phase of its development was the formation of a literary language. Until the middle of the 17th century, such a language in Russia would

Lyceum lyrics by Pushkin
Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin was born in Moscow on May 26 (June 6), 1799, on the day of the bright feast of the Ascension of the Lord. “This information about the place and time of Pushkin’s birth can be regarded as some

Youth. Petersburg period
In the summer of 1817, the first graduation of the pupils of the Lyceum took place. At first, Pushkin hesitated in choosing a path in life, he wanted to enter the military service. But friends dissuaded him, and he decided to be an official

Ruslan and Ludmila"
Youthful liberty and freedom found a full-blooded artistic embodiment in the last work of the St. Petersburg period - in the poem "Ruslan and Lyudmila". Working on it, Pushkin entered into a competitive

Youth. Southern period. Romantic poems and lyrics
Pushkin left Petersburg at a difficult period in his life, connected not only with the irresistible grievances that he had to endure. There was a natural age-related turning point - a crisis of transition from youth

Elegy "The light of the day went out ..."
On the night of August 19, 1820, on the way to Gurzuf on the military brig "Mingrelia", Pushkin wrote the elegy "The luminary of the day went out ...", opening the romantic (Byronic) period of his work in the years of the southern

Poem "Prisoner of the Caucasus" (1820-1821)
Pushkin “almost immediately feels the need to go beyond narrowly personal limits, to see and show in personal the general, inherent not to him alone, but to a whole generation, he wants to put before readers instead of St.

The poem "The Fountain of Bakhchisarai"
In the next poem, The Fountain of Bakhchisarai, Pushkin used Crimean impressions - a local legend about Khan Giray's unrequited love for the Polish princess Maria, captivated by him. Especially successful in the poem of the eye

Lyrics of the southern period. Pushkin and the Decembrists
From the Crimea, in September 1820, Pushkin arrived in Chisinau, where Inzov was transferred as governor of Bessarabia. Pushkin treated his official duties carelessly, and the good-natured Inzov looked at

Robber brothers "(1821-1822)
As always with Pushkin, any extreme is counterweighted, so this time too. Doubts among the people are balanced by work on a historical theme. Pushkin creates a poem-ballad "The Song of the Prophetic Oleg

Pushkin in Mikhailovsky. creative maturity
“Who is the creator of this inhuman murder? Do those who have drawn the authorities into this measure realize that there is exile in the countryside in Russia? One must definitely be a spiritual hero in order to stand against this

Count Nulin"
Pushkin finished Boris Godunov in November 1825, about a month before the Decembrist uprising. In this tragedy, he showed the well-known naivety of the romantic view of the course of history, according to which

Pushkin on the appointment of the poet and poetry
The tragedy of "Boris Godunov" ended Pushkin's self-determination as the first mature national poet in the history of Russian literature. It is no coincidence that it is from the Mikhailov period that it opens on TV

Pushkin's love lyrics
V. G. Belinsky believed that Pushkin’s love feeling is “not just a feeling of a person, but a feeling of a person-artist, a person-artist. There is always something especially noble, meek, tender, bl

Liberation. Poet and king
On November 19, 1825, Alexander 1 suddenly died in Taganrog. The news of his death reached Mikhailovsky around December 10. Pushkin had a hope for release. He decided, using the perio

Poem "Poltava"
In 1827, Pushkin began work on the historical novel Peter the Great's Moor, based on family legends about his maternal great-grandfather - a pet, "godson" and great helper.

Pushkin's lyrics of the late 1820s-1830s
In Pushkin's late lyrics, philosophical motifs, thoughts about life and death, repentant moods, forebodings of new storms and worries are rapidly growing: Again the clouds gathered over me

The creative history of the novel by A. S. Pushkin "Eugene Onegin"
In the draft papers of Pushkin during the Boldino autumn of 1830, a sketch of the scheme "Eugene Onegin" was preserved, visibly representing the creative history of the novel: "Onegin"

Historicism and encyclopedism of the novel
“In Onegin,” Belinsky wrote, “we see a poetically reproduced picture of Russian society, taken at one of the most interesting moments in its development. From this point of view, "Eugene Onegin" is

Onegin stanza
A huge role here was played by the soul found by Pushkin, the primary element of the organic and living world of this novel, the “Onegin stanza”. From a purely technical, poetic organization, this is fourteen

The realism of the novel. Individual and typical in the character of Eugene Onegin
The character of Onegin in the first part of the novel is revealed in a complex dialogic relationship between the hero and the author. Pushkin both enters Onegin's way of life and rises above him into another, wider

Onegin and Lensky
With the release of the action beyond the granite embankments of the Neva, beyond the St. Petersburg outposts to the expanses of provincial Russia, Pushkin's novel takes on a deep epic breath. Finally, his one-hero overcomes

Onegin and Tatyana
The relationship between Onegin and Tatiana is based on the principle of antithesis, opposition. But at the heart of this confrontation lies a potential commonality. Like two oppositely charged poles of a magnet, Onegi

Boldinskaya autumn of 1830. "Little Tragedies" "Tales of Belkin"
In 1830, Pushkin received a blessing to marry Natalia Nikolaevna Goncharova. The chores and preparations for the wedding began. Pushkin had to urgently go to the village of Boldino, Nizhny Novgorod province.

Realistic prose style
The style of Pushkin's realistic prose is marked by laconicism, precision, ascetic stinginess of special artistic means. It differs from Karamzin's prose, which makes extensive use of poetic techniques.

Historical Theme in Pushkin's Works in the 1830s
On February 18, 1831, Pushkin married N. N. Goncharova in Moscow, in the Church of the Great Ascension on Nikitskaya. The young couple spent the spring and summer in Tsarskoye Selo, and in the autumn Pushkins moved

Historical story "The Captain's Daughter"
Just as The Bronze Horseman is connected with The History of Peter, Pushkin's The Captain's Daughter grows out of The History of Pugachev. Pushkin the artist in the mature period of his work relies on his own history.

Duel and death of Pushkin
On January 1, 1834, Pushkin wrote in his diary: "On the third day I was granted the rank of chamber junker - which is rather indecent for my age." Such a court position was indeed given to people more

Pushkin A. S. Full. coll. op. – M.; L., 1937-1959. - T. I-XVII; Brodsky Ya. L. A. S. Pushkin. Biography. - M., 1937; Vinogradov V. V. The language of Pushkin / Pushkin. History of Russian literature

Yazykov Nikolai Mikhailovich (1803-1846)
“Of all the poets of Pushkin's time, Yazykov separated most of all,” wrote N.V. Gogol. - With the appearance of his first verses, everyone heard a new lyre, revelry and violence of forces, the boldness of any expression, light

Baratynsky E. A. Poln. coll. poems. - L., 1957. - ("The poet's library". / Large series); Baratynsky E. A. Poems, poems, prose, letters. - / M., 1951; Davydov Denis. Op

Socio-political situation
The uprising of December 14, 1825 led to the isolation from social and literary life of a significant part of the already thin cultural stratum of the Russian nobility. After removing it from the literary

Journalism of the second half of the 1820-1830s
In a situation where the activities of writers' associations and literary societies were officially terminated, magazines became the organizers of the literary forces in Russia. Belinsky then noticed that

Moscow Bulletin" (1827-1830)
The result of Pushkin’s rapprochement with the “archival youths” was the appearance of the journal Moskovsky Vestnik under the editorship of Pogodin. Pushkin published excerpts from "Boris Godunov", "Eugene Onegin", "G

Moscow observer "(1835-1840)
But the “wise-minded” do not lose hope in their printed organ. In 1835 they united around the Moscow Observer magazine. The literary department in it is headed by S. P. Shevyrev. The magazine attracts Pushkin

Telescope" (1831-1836)
After the closure of the journal Polevoy in 1834, the journal of Nikolai Ivanovich Nadezhdin (1804-1856) "Telescope" and its supplement, the newspaper "Molva", came to the fore in the literary life of the 1830s. Nadia

Contemporary" (1836-1866)
This magazine was founded by Pushkin. He wanted to oppose it to the growing strength of "trade" journalism and maintain the high artistic level of literature achieved by him and the writers of his circle. K co

Poetry of the second half of the 1820-1830s
In the development of Russian poetry, this period is associated with attempts to overcome the "school of harmonic accuracy" of the 1810s-1820s. Opposition to it manifested itself already in the article by V.K.

Prose of the second half of the 1820-1830s
The prose of the second half of the 1820s-1830s most fully realizes its creative potential in the genres of the story: historical (Russian), philosophical (fantastic), secular, Caucasian and everyday. On the

secular story
The movement towards a secular story began already in the early works of A. A. Bestuzhev-Marlinsky: “Evening at the Bivouac” (1823), which influenced Pushkin’s story “The Shot”, and “A Novel in Seven Letters”, in which

Ya. I. Nadezhdin. Literary Criticism: Aesthetics. - M., 1972; Polevoi N. A Polevoi Ks. A. Literary criticism / Comp., enter, articles and comments. V. Berezina and I. Sukhikh. - L., 1990;

Artistic world of Lermontov
The predominant motive of M. Yu. Lermontov's work is fearless introspection and the heightened sense of personality associated with it, the denial of any restrictions, any encroachments on its freedom. Exactly t

Lermontov's childhood
Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov was born on October 3 (15), 1814 in the family of army captain Yuri Petrovich Lermontov and Maria Mikhailovna Lermontova (nee Arsenyeva). Russian branch of the Lermontov family

Years of study in Moscow. Youthful lyrics
In 1827, his grandmother brought him from Tarkhan to Moscow to continue his education. After excellent home preparation in 1828, Lermontov was accepted immediately into the IV class of the Moscow University Bl.

romantic poems
Lermontov began to create romantic poems at a young age, and they develop in parallel and in strict accordance with the main themes and motives of his lyrics. It was the time when Pushkin

The last free Slav!
A new stage in the formation and development of Lermontov's poetic epic is associated with the cycle of Caucasian poems of 1830-1833: "Kalli", "Aul Bastunji", "Izmail Bey" and "Khadzhi-Abrek". Here the poet is freed about

Experiences of a realistic poem
The creative path of Lermontov clearly shows the complexity of the Russian historical and literary process, which cannot be reduced to the traditional scheme for Western European literature “from romanticism to realism”.

Dramaturgy Lermontov
Even as a teenager, Lermontov began to try his hand at dramaturgy, in the center of which is the fate of a noble, romantically minded young man who enters into a sharp, irreconcilable conflict with

Lermontov's first prose experiments. The novels "Vadim" and "Princess Ligovskaya"
Lermontov began writing the novel Vadim in 1832. This work is left unfinished. Even the name was given to him by the publisher of Lermontov's literary legacy, after the name of the central character

Historical views of Lermontov
During the Petersburg period, Lermontov's public convictions and his views on the historical fate of Russia were finally formed. They gravitate toward the Slavophilism that was emerging towards the end of the 1830s. Lehr

Death of a Poet" and Lermontov's first link to the Caucasus
Literary fame Lermontov brought the poem "Death of the Poet", after which repeated what happened with Pushkin, but only in an even more accelerated rhythm. The motif of God's judgment sounds in

Lyrics by Lermontov 1838-1840
In late November - early December 1837, the grandmother's efforts were crowned with success. Lermontov was first transferred to the Grodno Life Guards Hussar Regiment in Novgorod, and in the spring of 1838 - in the place of the old

Love in Lermontov's lyrics
Loneliness, disbelief in the possibility of mutual understanding and spiritual kinship gives special drama to Lermontov's love lyrics. It is tinged with drama unknown to him in Russian poetry. He has almost

Lermontov's poems about the appointment of the poet and poetry
In the Petersburg period of 1838-1840, Lermontov turned to poems about the appointment of the poet and poetry. In the poem "The Poet" (1838), he compares poetry to a military weapon, a reliable defender of truth and

Duel and second exile to the Caucasus
This time the circle of literary acquaintances of Lermontov in St. Petersburg expanded even more. He became a frequent visitor to the house of E. A. Karamzina, the widow of the writer, became close friends with the famous prose writer, critic and writer.

Lyrics of Lermontov 1840-1841
And June 1840, Lermontov arrived in Stavropol, where the headquarters of the Russian troops was located. And on June 18 he was sent to the left flank of the Caucasian line. During the assault on the blockages on the Valerik River (

The creative history of the novel "A Hero of Our Time
Lermontov began work on the novel on the basis of his first exile to the Caucasus. In 1839, two stories appeared in the journal Otechestvennye Zapiski - Bela and Fatalist, in the beginning of 1840

The composition of the novel and its meaningful meaning
Did Lermontov accidentally abandon the chronological principle in the arrangement of the stories included in the novel, from the order of their initial publication? Why is The Fatalist at the end of the novel? Why by

Spiritual journey of Pechorin
The spiritual journey of Pechorin, a man with a romantic mindset and character, takes Lermontov through those worlds of Russian life that have long been mastered in romantic novels and short stories.

The significance of Lermontov's work in the history of Russian literature
In his lyrics, Lermontov opened up space for introspection, self-deepening, for the dialectics of the soul. These discoveries would later be used by Russian poetry and prose. It was Lermontov who solved the problem of "poetry we

Lermontov M. Yu. Op. In 6 volumes - M.; L., 1954-1957; M. Yu. Lermontov in the memoirs of his contemporaries. - M., 1972; Belinsky V. G. 1) A hero of our time. Composition by M. Lermontov. 2) St

The formation of creative talent and the life fate of Koltsov
By the will of fate, Koltsov spent his whole life wandering around the villages, villages and "slobodushki" of the Voronezh Territory, absorbing the poetry of folk life with a receptive soul. Alexey Vasilyevich Koltsov was born on 3 (1

Russian songs" Koltsova
In 1846, the first posthumous edition of Koltsov's poems, prepared by Belinsky, was published. In the introductory article that accompanied him on the life and writings of the poet, Belinsky shares the poem

Thoughts of Koltsov
The songful, cosmic-natural view of the world is transformed and complicated in Koltsov's philosophical "thoughts", which, as a rule, were underestimated by democratic criticism. In "thoughts" Koltsov appears samob

Koltsov in the history of Russian culture
Contemporaries saw something prophetic in Koltsov's poetry. V. Maikov wrote: "He was more a poet of the possible and the future than a poet of the real and the present." And Nekrasov called Koltsov's songs "ve

Koltsov A. V. Full. coll. op. / Enter, art. and note. L. A. Plotkina / Prepared. text by M. I. Malova and L. A. Plotkin. - L., 1958. - ("Library of the poet". B. Ser. - 2nd ed.); Koltsov A.V.

The originality of Gogol's realism
Gogol's work marked a new phase in the development of Russian realism. First Belinsky, and then Chernyshevsky began to assert that this writer was the ancestor of the "Gogol period" in our

Gogol's childhood and youth
Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol was born on March 20 (April 1), 1809 in the town of Velikie Sorochintsy, Mirgorod district, Poltava province, in the family of a poor Ukrainian landowner Vasily Afanasyevich Gog

The beginning of the creative path. "Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka"
In June 1828, Gogol graduated from the course at the Nizhyn Gymnasium, and at the end of the year, having secured letters of recommendation from influential relatives, he went to St. Petersburg. He went to the capital with the most

Collection of short stories "Mirgorod"
The success of "Evenings ..." dramatically changed the position of Gogol in St. Petersburg. Delvig, Pletnev and Zhukovsky take a heartfelt part in his fate. Pletnev, who at that time was an inspector of the Patriotic Institute

Gogol the historian
The signs of Gogol's historicism noted back in "Evenings ..." are further developed in the collection "Mirgorod". And this is no coincidence. Work on it coincided with the writer's serious passion for historical

Petersburg Tales of Gogol
In the first half of 1835, Gogol published the collection "Arabesques", which, along with historical and journalistic articles, included three stories: "Nevsky Prospekt", "Portrait" and "Notes

Dramaturgy of Gogol. Comedy "Inspector"
Back in the period of Mirgorod and Arabesques, Gogol felt the need to express his understanding and appreciation of contemporary reality in comedy. On February 20, 1833, he informed M.P. Pogodin: “I did not write

The creative history of Gogol's poem "Dead Souls"
The plot of the poem was suggested to Gogol by Pushkin, who witnessed fraudulent transactions with "dead souls" during his exile in Chisinau. At the beginning of the 19th century, people fled to the south of Russia, to Bessarabia, from different ends.

roads and their symbolic meaning
The poem opens with the entrance to the provincial town NN of a spring cart. Acquaintance with the main character is preceded by a conversation between “two Russian men” about the possibilities of this britzka: “Look at you,” said one friend

Manilov and Chichikov
Let us note that Chichikov peers into the "dead souls" of the landlords as if into a distorting mirror. These people represent fragments of his own soul taken to the extreme and overflowing. That is why with

Korobochka and Chichikov
The box, to which Chichikov was brought by chance, is the exact opposite of Manilov's daydreaming, soaring in a blue void. This is one of those "small landowners who cry for crop failures, losses

Nozdrev and Chichikov
Nozdryov, with whom another "accident" brings Chichikov, is an example of an ugly broad Russian nature. Dostoevsky would later say of such people: "If there is no God, then everything is permitted." Nozdryov has God

Sobakevich and Chichikov
The talent of depicting a person through his everyday environment reaches Gogol's triumph in the story of the meeting between Chichikov and Sobakevich. This landowner does not have his head in the clouds, he stands on the ground with both feet,

Plushkin and Chichikov
In the gallery of landowners presented by Gogol to general shame and ridicule, there is one remarkable feature: in the replacement of one hero by another, a feeling of vulgarity grows, into the terrible mud of which one plunges

The Path of Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov
Chichikov - a living embodiment of the movement of Russian life in the 19th century - is given in a poem with a widely expanded biography. Compared with the determined and relatively frozen characters of the Russian landowner

Dead Souls" in Russian criticism
Dead Souls was published in 1842 and, willy-nilly, found itself at the center of the ongoing epoch-making split in Russian thought of the 19th century into Slavophile and Westernist directions. Slavophiles otry

The story "Overcoat"
Halfway from the first volume of "Dead Souls" to the second is Gogol's last St.

Selected places from correspondence with friends»
Work on the second volume of Dead Souls is slow and difficult. The long-term stay in Rome, the separation of Gogol from living Russian impressions, is having an effect. His letters of this period are filled with appeals

Belinsky's letter to Gogol
In the autumn of 1847, Gogol received an angry letter from Belinsky, which deeply wounded both the talent and noble intentions of the writer. “Russia,” Belinsky argued, “sees its salvation not in mysticism, not in

The second volume of Dead Souls. Creative drama of Gogol
From the second volume, only a few fragments have survived, indicating a significant creative evolution of the writer. He dreamed of creating a positive hero who "would be able to say the almighty word:"

Gogol N. V. Full. coll. op. - M., 1937-1952. - T. 1-14; Gogol N. V. Sobr. op. In 9 volumes - M., 1994; N. V. Gogol in Russian criticism and memoirs of contemporaries. - M., 1959;