Job- one of the heroes of the Old Testament (Book of Job). Righteous, just, God-fearing, Job was, by the will of the Lord, tempted by Satan. Deprived of wealth, ill with leprosy and given over to reproach, Job remained devoted to God, continued to sing his praise. In the theological tradition, the long-suffering of Job (“The Lord gave, the Lord took”) is first of all famous; the wanderer Makar Dolgoruky (“The Teenager”), the elder Zosima (“The Brothers Karamazov”) perceive Job in the same spirit. From Kierkegaard to L. Shestov, a different interpretation of the Book of Job has developed: attention is riveted to Job's despair, daring, sharp questions, his “dispute” with God (this is how Ivan Karamazov perceives him). The writer expressed his attitude to the Book of Job in a letter to A.G. Dostoevskaya on July 10 (22), 1875: “I am reading the book of Job, and it brings me into painful delight<...>This book<...>strangely, this is one of the first things that struck me in my life, I was then still almost a baby! (29 2 ; 43). Dostoevsky got acquainted with the Book of Job through the book “One Hundred and Four Sacred Stories of the Old and New Testament”, beloved in their family. Job can be considered one of the "eternal" biblical images of late Dostoevsky. Echoes of the Book of Job are heard in the confession of Marmeladov and in the epilogue of "Crime and Punishment", the fate of Job was in the sphere of Dostoevsky's attention during the period of work on the novels "The Teenager", "The Brothers Karamazov", Makar Dolgoruky, Ivan Karamazov, the elder Zosima reflects on him. The theme of Job sounds especially sonorous in Dostoevsky's last novel. One of the cross-cutting religious and philosophical problems of Dostoevsky goes back to the Book of Job: human suffering and the presence of God in a suffering world (questions of theodicy). In Russian literature, the theme of Job was started by Avvakum in his Life, otherwise, in the spirit of the early Russian Enlightenment, it was comprehended by Lomonosov (“Ode chosen from Job”). The book of Job was revered by Russians (F. Glinka) and European Freemasons (J. Jung, Saint-Martin). The connection between Dostoevsky and the Russian tradition of artistic comprehension of this Book is not yet clear. Of his European predecessors, Dostoevsky took into account the experience of Goethe: in the Prologue to Faust, the situation of the exposition of the Book of Job is recreated. Through Goethe's Faust, this exposition was variably repeated in The Brothers Karamazov, where various heroes, with the sanction of a higher being, are given the right to experimentally test some godless, inhuman idea.

The theme of Job, according to Yu.M. Lotman, begins the tradition of depicting an "indignant person". Raskolnikov, Ippolit Terentyev, Kirillov, Versilov, Ivan Karamazov can be included in a number of such heroes, genetically ascending to the biblical book. Until recently, the theme of Job in Dostoevsky's work was rather stated than investigated. Its development began in recent years. Set and partially solved in relation to the novel The Brothers Karamazov, it has not yet been touched on in relation to other Dostoevsky novels, in which it is present in a latent form. A holistic reading of this topic is a matter for the future.

Ermilova G.G.

M. Gorky called Russian literature “the holy scripture of the Russian land” in the well-known Capri educational course on the history of Russian literature. The definition, like most of the historical and literary definitions of this work, has a metaphorical nature and means that the deep moral potential of Russian literature is as significant for the nation as the eternal book of wisdom - the Bible. But - whether the author wanted to say it then or not - his formula also has a rational historical and literary meaning, recalling that from time immemorial Russian writers - both believers, and theomachists, and atheists - made the Bible a source of inspiration, borrowing building material from its bowels for their artistic fantasies: themes, motifs, images.

Freeing the heroes of the Old and New Testaments from the strict framework of the canon, artists of different times gave them a new interpretation, a new life outside the Eternal Book, correlating them with the topical and urgent moral or even political demands of their time. More often, during such actions, a deep archetypal meaningful connection with the prototype of the Eternal Book was preserved. But there are many such examples when the artist entered into a daring contradiction with her, reinterpreting the very essence of the image. More often this happens in those cases when the writer borrows episodes of evangelical narratives and enters into rivalry with the canonical evangelists, claiming the role of the “thirteenth apostle”, who, after many centuries, truly understood the teachings of the Savior. Such, for example, is the position of the young God-fighter Mayakovsky, who spoke about himself in a poem that, only at the behest of spiritual censorship, was not published under its own title (“The Thirteenth Apostle”), but was embellished with the ridiculous formula “A Cloud in Pants”:

Each artist who turned to the Bible for inspiration and materials turned out to have his own passions and his “favorites of the ages”, but there are such plots and images that century after century, exciting the imagination, returned again and again in new artistic interpretations of writers and poets of different times. . For centuries, more than other New Testament biblical images, for example, the imagination of artists was struck by the sinister figure of Christ's disciple Judas, who for a small sum betrayed the Teacher to enemies for reproach and martyrdom. The legend about Judas and his, as Gorky once put it, "trading business" is recorded in four canonized texts of the Gospels with very minor discrepancies. Its general contours are as follows: one of the twelve disciples of Jesus, Judas Simonov, nicknamed Iscariot (originally from Kariot), before the Easter holiday, betrayed the teacher to enemies, the Jewish high priests, who feared his outrageous teachings. He betrayed - and received for this, as we would say now, a fee: the Evangelist Matthew even names his amount - thirty pieces of silver.

This black deed equally strikes the imagination of both the ancient evangelist and our contemporary: at all times and among all peoples, betrayal is considered a terrible sin, an inexcusable crime, and the name of Judas has become a household name for centuries. The great dreamer Dante, defining in the poem "Hell" the measure of retribution for human sins, appointed the most bitter torments to traitors. Many years later, the Russian poet Nekrasov postulated just as confidently:

God forgives everything, but Judas sin
does not forgive.

Another Russian writer, already on the verge of the 19th and 20th centuries, A. Remizov, in "Demonic Action" confirmed the categorical verdict. In his play, the infernal "administrator" Serpent, having dismissed sinners for the Easter holidays, only kept two with him: the traitor Judas and the child-killer Herod. At different times and among different peoples, artists who gravitated toward posing moral problems gave this image a new life. Having become interested in the topic, Gorky somehow tried to build an impressive series of world masterpieces, where the biblical myth of Judas found a new life. It included: Dante, Milton, Camões, Goethe, L. Tolstoy, Hugo, the daring Voltaire, Carducci and a long line of names that the world is proud of.

Describing the fact of betrayal and its gloomy consequences, the evangelists paid almost no attention to explaining the reasons for the monstrous act; they weren't interested. Mark simply stated a fact: he went and betrayed. Matthew hinted at the greed of Judas: "... said: whatever you give me, and I will betray him to you." Luke generally freed the traitor from personal responsibility for what he had done, shifting it to the eternal human enemy: "... Satan entered into Judas, nicknamed Iscariot." And only John tried to penetrate the secret of the traitor's soul. His story is a psychological story in its simplest form. He gives character sketches, his Judas is two-hearted and greedy: "He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief." In the logic of this character, there is also a reason for the act: Judas is annoyed by the extravagance of Christ: "... why was it not to sell this world for three hundred denarii?" The Holy Gospel from John is the first artistic treatment of the plot about Judas the traitor with hints of psychologism. It was followed by thousands of other increasingly complex literary interpretations, including Russian ones. We will select a few from their long row, arranging them on three floors in such a way that it can be seen how the biblical character, having turned into an artistic image, was actively introduced into the sphere of pressing social problems at different stages of Russian public life. We mark each historical episode with a quote that has a symbolic meaning.

Episode One.
In our restless and corrupt
And the doubting age, -
I will say: Judas is my paper
Already a harmless person.
P. Popov

In different epochs of the social development of our country, the myth of the traitor Judas attracted Russian writers with different aspects of its meaning. The classical literature of the 19th century, which was formed in the atmosphere of the formation, triumph and bankruptcy of capitalism, developed the gospel story primarily as a "trading business". In the age of the triumph of capital, when moral values ​​are measured in monetary terms, thirty pieces of silver came to the fore in ancient history: the words “betray” and “sell” were perceived as synonyms. This is how the “Jewish sin” of the criminal headman is explained in Nekrasov’s poem “Who in Russia should live well”:

Gleb - he was greedy - is tempted:
The will is burned!
For decades, until recently
Eight thousand souls were secured by the villain...
God forgives everything, but Judas sin
Doesn't forgive."

In the same light, the ancient myth penetrated into the structure of the famous novel by M. Saltykov-Shchedrin “Lord Golovlevs”: the hero-acquisitive Porfiry was nicknamed by the family “the Judas-blood-drinker”.

The concentration of the trend appeared in 1890 in the poem by Pavel Popov "Judas Iscariot". The whole story of the title character from the moment of conception, when his father, the "lender-Pharisee" blasphemed violently against God, and until his shameful death on an aspen, is a denunciation of the "restless and corrupt age" of the domination of capital:

In homes and families, Karyota
The Jews and Romans
One pressing concern;
Everyone is wrapped in Baal.
There are no prophets in Judea
In Rome, the gods - fell to dust;
And villains multiply...2

The divine curse for the sins of the father and the vicious upbringing of Judas are intertwined here in a chain of causes that shaped the betrayal, but the second reason clearly dominates. Presenting ancient history in a new light, the author of the poem admits that his hopes for the educational value of the ancient legend are small: the corrupt age daily gives rise to so many moral crimes on the basis of money-grubbing that the literary (“paper”) Judas seems almost harmless against this background. And yet I want to believe the poet, perhaps

... from evil, he will repel many
With its dark fate -
And this will be beneficial.

Thus, at the turning point from the depressive 80s of the last century to the decade illuminated by the revival of liberation illusions, the evangelical anti-hero was placed by literature at the service of the concept of “small deeds”, born of the despair of populist thought driven into a dead end.

Episode Two.
From the depths of faded centuries
You showed me, my misunderstood brother,
Your burning thorn in its victorious light.
A. Roslavlev

A new streak of interest in the ancient legend dates back to the time of the Stolypin reaction, when the socio-psychological problem of betrayal became topical in connection with mass renegade in the ranks of yesterday's adherents of the revolutionary dream. For a while, the biblical character became something of a hero of the day. “Judas – there are now more than a dozen original and translated ones in Russian literature,” Gorky wrote in 1912, summing up the fad. And in another place he recalled that in 1907, on the table of his office in Capri, they gathered at the same time - "someone's translation of Julius Veksel's tetralogy" Judas and Christ ", the translation of the story of Thor Gedberg and Golovanov's poem on the same topic"3.

The theme of Judas in the literature of those years received a different interpretation than in the anti-bourgeois art of the past century. Thirty pieces of silver, as a symbol of betrayal, faded, turned into an auxiliary accessory, giving way to more complex motifs. The main artistic task was the psychological motivation of the act4. The main question is how it could happen that an apostle, like-minded, disciple betrayed both Christ and his teaching.

Conventional wisdom teaches: "To understand is to forgive." That is why M. Gorky, in his article "On Modernity" (1912), violently rebelled against the "psychologization" of the Judas theme, believing it to be a path to the rehabilitation of betrayal. Indeed, such an action can be seen, for example, in the translated novel by Thor Gedberg "Judas, the story of one suffering", published in Russian in 1908. The translator characterized this work as an attempt with a sense of compassion to show the “complex and tortuous” mental process leading to betrayal5. The psychological background of A. Remizov's "The Tragedy of Judas, Prince Iscariot" (1908) is even more complicated, but the task of the drama is the same: "to understand - to forgive." A tragic collision (on the soul of Judas, a double involuntary sin - parricide and incest) determined a new role for him. He should become the forerunner of a prophet who has already stopped at a crossroads and “waits for another to come to him”: “... and such a one should come to him exhausted, finding no consolation anywhere, ready to take on the last and heaviest guilt in order to overwhelm with his last sin sin and sacrifice to open the way for Him ... 6 Betrayal ("last guilt") - the path to the light; the traitor Judas is the forerunner of the Redeemer. It was from such a shuffling of motives and consequences that the author of the article “On Modernity” was furious.

Some writers interpreted the eternal moral problem of "Judas of sin" at that time in the light of the alarming mass search for God, which replaced the revolutionary euphoria of the first decade of the century. In practice, this was an attempt to revise the very teachings of Christ, and Judas was assigned the role of the main opponent. It was precisely this meaning that the poem “Judas” (1907) by A. Roslavlev, which made a sensation at that time, had a sensational order. Here Judas is the “misunderstood brother”, a Protestant, an avenger for the age-old slavery of the people, not overcome by the “slavish, impoverished words” of a weak teacher:

Here he is crucified, but the face of his fate
Did not arouse a bloody thirst for revenge.
Slaves stand and look like slaves.
You cursed them...7

The same idea formed the basis of N. Golovanov's drama Iscariot (1905). Here, proud Judas - a patriot and a fighter for people's freedom - is severely disappointed in the Nazirite, whom he wanted to elevate to the crest of the impending coup. Seeing that the Nazirite can ruin the cause with indecision, he eliminates it by setting a humiliating price for it - the cost of a slave of average dignity - thirty denarii:

Whether he is sold like a slave, when to borrow
He did not know how to take the throne!

Judas here is not a criminal, but a victim of a tactical error: “How different is what I had the desire to do with what I did!”

Among the works of this series, a significant phenomenon was L. Andreev's sensational story "Judas Iscariot" (in the first edition - "Judas Iscariot and Others"), published in the collection of the publishing house "Knowledge" (1907, No. 16). Its author intended not to justify betrayal, but to flaunt other, not so obvious, but typical forms of it. It was the "others" who became the heroes of his story - the disciples of Christ, his apostles, who, like a "bunch of frightened lambs", crowded and fled in front of the soldiers who came to take the teacher. On the “day of revenge”, his last earthly day, Judas came to them to denounce and equate them with the cold murderers-high priests. This is how the main idea of ​​the story becomes clear: whoever did not stand up for the truth and failed to die for it is also a traitor.

The apostle Thomas awkwardly justifies himself and others: “Think, if everyone died, who would tell about Jesus? Who would carry his teaching to people if everyone died - Peter, and John, and I? "-" And what is the truth itself in the mouths of traitors? "- Judas reasonably and angrily retorts. And menacingly prophesies the further history of the Christian doctrine, which is sinking deeper and deeper into lies: “Beloved disciple? Is it not from you that the race of traitors, the breed of cowards and liars, will begin? Blind, what have you done to the earth? You wanted to destroy her, you will soon be kissing the cross on which you crucified Jesus!“

Before others, having become acquainted with the story of a talented friend, Gorky predicted that he would make a “big noise” in society. The noise really got up. Defenders of religious thought actively took up arms against Andreev - from the master of theology A. Burgov to the philosopher V. Rozanov. The latter defined the resonance of this story as follows: “Roughly nothing should remain of the apostles. Only wet“10. Protesting against the distortion of the canonical plot, criticism did not want to admit how relevant Andreev's "heresy" was on the "night after the battle", reminding that not speaking out in defense of a lofty idea already means betraying it.

Having resolutely condemned the fad of a cardinal revision of the biblical legend in the inter-revolutionary period and seeing in it only an immoral tendency to justify betrayal, Gorky, perhaps, was too categorical. The wide interest of Russian writers in the "psychology of betrayal" was then caused by the desire to stop the elements of its development, and not to take it for granted. But Gorky was right about one thing. One flaw in this craze is now apparent. The myth that has developed in antiquity has its unshakable rights. He allows himself to be interpreted within the framework of a certain idea - and takes revenge for an attempt to destroy or distort it. The myth of the traitor Judas was formed on the basis of the unconditional acceptance of the truth of Christ. An attempt to revise this truth without going beyond the bounds of the myth, with the most highly moral intentions, objectively led to the justification of betrayal, about which Gorky never tired of repeating in his time.

Episode Three.
What did you think!
thirty coins
In our city a decent amount.
Yes for this price
I'll sell you not only a beggar,
And my own conscience.
Salvador Espriu

The further history of the "paper" Judas took into account this strict law: the original contours of the myth (the hero Christ - the antagonist Judas) were restored. In these contours, prompted by a new stage in the development of social thought, a new interpretation of the image has matured. Degraded from the misunderstood heroes, Judas in the literature of subsequent years did not rise to the former level of a sinister anti-hero, but rather became a non-hero, receded into the background, ceased to be a villain, but only an instrument of villainy. He gave way to “others”, but he himself took on the appearance of an ordinary inhabitant - without ideals, without principles, with a small, stable self-love at the heart of life philosophy. The reader met such a Judas in the complex structure of M. Bulgakov's novel The Master and Margarita, written in the difficult years for the country in the 30s and became the property of readers in the troubled 60s.

The gospel line of the four chapters of this novel is built in such a way that the Roman procurator Pilate, endowed with power and putting an innocent man to death out of fear of losing his power, gets into the spotlight. Judas in the game of major passions (conscience - fear) is a dummy figure, a modest pawn. A handsome dandy, prone to petty passions, he simply is in the service of the high priest Kaifa and, having thoughtlessly fulfilled the order, hurries to spend his thirty tetradrachms. “A fanatic?” Pontius asks the omniscient head of the secret police about him, and receives a contemptuous and quick answer: “Oh no, procurator!”11. Judas is a nonentity, a small cog in a well-oiled machine, and it is not for him to bear responsibility for centuries for the truth crucified on the cross.

Bringing the biblical image closer to the topic of the day, Bulgakov, in the modern satirical layer of the narrative, drew the newest double of Judas - the dirty trick Aloysius Mogarych, who made a false denunciation of the Master and received a fee in square meters of the vacant living space. The all-powerful Woland advises the Master, if he has exhausted the subject of Pilate, to deal with Aloysius. The master answered shortly: it is not interesting. The Master was mistaken, he underestimated the survivability of the phenomenon. But the writer himself, according to the widow, did not lose interest in him until his last breath and already on his deathbed dictated pages about the “strange” friendship of Aloysius with the Master.

The eighth decade of Russian literature of the 20th century gave the reader another splash of the ancient biblical theme. Once again, “something about the psychology of betrayal” was expressed in the story “The Lesser of the Brothers” by the modern writer G. Baklanov. The “great legend” about the eternal brothers Christ and Judas has become here the key to understanding the character of our contemporary, explaining his fate, guilt, misfortune. The hero of the story is a Soviet intellectual, scientist, in the past - a participant in the Patriotic War. He lives a busy working life that is usual for our days: lectures, scientific work, household chores. But this is on the surface of life, and its undercurrent is a long-begun and never-ending chain of small betrayals-compromises that he makes daily, sometimes without noticing how those around him do not notice either. Because they do the same thing every day.

In a difficult hour, he betrayed his teenage son, and this lay between them like a shadow forever. He betrayed his beloved woman, at the decisive moment, fearing life changes. He betrayed his sick brother and the memory of the front-line community. And every minute he betrays the ideals bequeathed by his father. Compromises, compromises .. And only somewhere in the distance, with a pre-war memory, a twinkle of memory of an older brother who died in the war flickers. "The main maximalist" in the family, he repeated tirelessly: "Judas must be destroyed everywhere, otherwise nothing will ever be good on earth."

Continuing the dispute with the deceased brother, the hero of the story opposes him with his "concept" of Judas. “I feel sorry for Judas,” he says.

He is despised, but who will understand his torment? He did not want to betray, did not want to take pieces of silver, but they forced him. Who forced? Some kind of "gray cardinal", always available to time and always taking over. How were you forced? Not in the twentieth century to ask about it. “The twentieth century, having collected the experience of all centuries, put the production of Judas on stream”12.

This is the main cry of Baklanov's story: Judas is on the stream! Compromise as a position in life, so common that people no longer notice its immorality. “The world is strange,” the hero philosophizes. And this is also a position: it is not he, the "Judas from the stream", who is to blame for his actions, but simply - this is how the world works. And, pitying him, or maybe despising him (who will understand a woman?), His beloved, devoted to him, says: “You are a gentle, kind person, but why are you not enough for good deeds?”. Baklanov's story is a harsh sentence for the small and quite respectable Judas of our day. Soft, kind, weak-willed, he, like colored stones, rolls somewhere in his mind noble, sometimes ironic and almost bold thoughts due to circumstances. But instead of good deeds, one after another, he commits a chain of small, quite “decent” betrayals.

Summing up a cursory review of the “other life” of the gospel hero in the native literature of the last two centuries, let us once again emphasize the general idea. Freed from the biblical canon, the anti-hero of the old legend helped Russian literature at different stages of its development to fulfill its social and educational role, intervening in the complex problems of changing social systems, the bankruptcy of religious foundations, sick tendencies of social psychology - in order to establish some absolute, universal moral foundations.

______________
Notes

1 Nekrasov N. Op. in 3 volumes - M., 1953. - S.216–217.
2 Popov P. Judas Iscariot: Poem.- St. Petersburg, 1890.- P.6.
3 Gorky and Leonid Andreev: Unpublished correspondence // Lit. heritage.- T.72.- M., 1965.- S. 338, 390. (The tetralogy of the Finnish poet Yu. in anticipation: “…here’s some candy for the street!” N. Golovanov’s “Iscariot” would be more correctly called not a poem, but a drama in verse).
4 L. Andreev qualified his story about Judas as “something in psychology, ethics and practice of betrayal”.
5 Gedberg Tor. Jude: The Story of a Suffering. Tale. Per. V. Spasskaya.- M., 1908.- S. 9–10.
6 Remizov A. Rusal actions // A. Remizov. Soch.- T.8.- St. Petersburg, 1912.- S. 168.
7 Roslavlev A. Jude // In the tower.- Book. I.- SPb., 1907.
8 Golovanov N. Iscariot.- M., 1905.
9 Andreev L. N. Tales and stories in 2 volumes - T.2. - M., 1971. - S. 59.
10 Burgov A. The story of L. Andreev “Judas Iscariot and others” (Psychology and history of the betrayal of Judas) .- Kharkov, 1911; Rozanov V. Russian "realist" about the gospel events and persons. - New time, 1907. No. 11260.
11 Bulgakov M. Novels.- L., 1978.- 723, 735.
12 Baklanov G. The smallest of the brothers // Friendship of peoples. - 1981, No. 6. - P. 31.

Yu. V. Babicheva
Professor, Vologda State Pedagogical University

Published: Russian culture on the threshold of the third millennium: Christianity and culture. - Vologda: "Legia". - 2001. - 300 pp. - Materials of the conference "Russian culture on the threshold of the third millennium: problems of preservation and development" (Vologda - Belozersk, 7 –9 July 2000)

It's paid, but interesting. As a bonus, here is one of the letters of the course.

This letter was written longer than the previous ones. The author had doubts about the need to include consideration of the spiritual odes of Lomonosov in the course. However, their importance is so great that it is impossible to bypass them. The spiritual odes of Lomonosov are important for us not only in themselves. The fact is, it is from them that Russian philosophical lyrics originate. We will focus on the following works:

• imitation of the psalms;
• "Ode selected from Job, chapters 38, 39, 40 and 41";
• "Evening meditation on the Majesty of God at the occasion of the great northern lights";
• "Morning Reflection on God's Majesty".

Lomonosov, doing astronomy, saw in a telescope the ball of the planet passing in the orbit of the Sun. And he wondered: is there life, intelligence on this ball? This alien people has its own history. Is it necessary to preach the gospel to aliens? He writes the work "The Appearance of Venus in the Sun", in which he speaks of two Books: nature and the Bible.

The Creator gave the human race two books. In one he showed his majesty, in the other - his will. The first is this visible world, created by him, so that a person, looking at the vastness, beauty and harmony of his buildings, recognizes the divine omnipotence, according to the bestowed concept. The second book is Holy Scripture. It shows the creator's benevolence towards our salvation. In these prophetic and apostolic inspired books, the interpreters and interpreters are the great church teachers. And in this book of the composition of this visible world, the essence of physicists, mathematicians, astronomers and other elucidators of divine, nature-influenced actions are such as are the prophets, apostles and church teachers in this book. A mathematician is unreasonable if he wants to measure the divine will with a compass. The teacher of theology is the same, if he thinks that astronomy or chemistry can be learned from the psalter.

Lomonosov, in fact, was the first Russian scientist who understood the interpenetration of science and faith, where one did not interfere with the other (“Truth and faith are two sisters, daughters of one supreme parent”). He refers to Basil the Great's Six Days - a commentary on the Book of Genesis about the six days of creation. Reading Lomonosov, we understand that he was not a materialist to the end. His understanding of the world was based on a deep understanding of the place of science in God's Providence.

Lomonosov's drawing for the work "The Phenomenon of Venus on the Sun"

A. S. Pushkin wrote: “Arrangements of psalms and other strong and close imitations of the high poetry of sacred books are his (Lomonosov's) best works. They will remain eternal monuments of Russian literature.” In his transcriptions of the psalms, Lomonosov reached a certain limit of clarity, simplicity and even intimacy, which are inherent in a secret conversation with God.

The Psalter is the biblical book of the Old Testament. It consists of 150 or 151 songs, which are called psalms.

Lomonosov selected those psalms that were associated with the feelings that agitated him. These psalms are associated with the poet with the most complex ethical and worldview problems. If in the odes we saw delight and excitement, then here one feels an extraordinary inner tension of thought and the depth of penetration into the mystery of the world. Following Lomonosov, Sumarokov and Derzhavin will turn to the biblical text, but Lomonosov is doing this for the first time. He is concerned about the issue that will become one of the central ones in the work of several generations of poets: the relationship between power and man. Here is a fragment from the transcription of Psalm 145:

Nobody trust forever
In vain the power of the princes of the earth:
The same people gave birth to them,
And there is no escape from them.

When the soul is separated
And their perishable flesh will fall to dust,
High thoughts will collapse
And their pride and power blow.

The meaning of this fragment becomes clearly clear only when it is correlated with the text of the Psalter, Psalm 145:

Do not rely on princes, on the sons of men, in whom there is no salvation. His spirit will go out and return to his own land. In that day all his thoughts will perish.

As you can see, Lomonosov not only imitates the psalm, but completes it, namely the last two lines. Note that the text of the psalm says nothing about the "pride" and "power" of the "princes of the earth." The meaning of the psalm is a reminder of the inevitability of the death of the spirit and thoughts. Under the pen of Lomonosov, this death receives a distinct characterization, and the “proud” existence of earthly kings is comprehended as a manifestation of evil rooted in the world order. Moreover, Lomonosov understands this evil in a social aspect, which is also not in the original text of the psalm.

In the transcription of Psalm 143, we also meet with the "ending" of the sacred text by the poet:

Happy is the life of my enemies!
But those brighter have fun
They are not afraid of storms or thunders,
Which is the highest cover itself.

Note that in the Psalter there is no theme of fun. Lomonosov adds the second line "from himself." The image of rejoicing enemies is important for him, because it is part of the fate of the poet, who felt lonely in his daily "struggle" for enlightenment. The theme of a lonely person, lost in the labyrinth of human passions, is revealed thanks to the autobiographical context of the psalms. Researcher D.K. Motolskaya first spoke about this in 1947. Lomonosov in the psalms asks God not to allow "enemies to rejoice" and triumph over his misfortunes.

Transcriptions of the psalms after Lomonosov will be handled by Trediakovsky, Sumarokov and many other poets. As we can see, already in Lomonosov these arrangements acquire a personal beginning, which forms an increment of new meanings.

Transcriptions of Psalms 34, 143, 145

Let's move on to the next work of Lomonosov - "Ode chosen from Job." It is also devoted to the transcription of the biblical text, but this time the focus of the author's attention was on the Book of Job.

Let us briefly recall the plot of this Book. This is the biblical story of the innocent martyr Job. He has huge wealth - everything you can dream of. And the angel argued with God about how unselfishly devoted to him the righteous Job was. So Job loses everything: home, property, relatives, health. The painting by Repin captures the moment when friends came to Job, sat silently and sat for three days.

I. E. Repin "Job and his friends" (1869)

And then Job cried out, cursing the day he was born. For many years he was taught that adversity is God's punishment. But why is he suffering now - an innocent person? The wife says to Job, "Curse God and you will die." But Job stands firm in his faith. But at this moment, when friends come to him, Job cannot stand it. In his understanding, God cannot be unjust. Job shouts in an argument that he does not want to hear anyone, that life is disgusting around him, that there is no justice, that dishonest and evil people rule over the righteous, that a person is mortal, and his life is incredibly difficult. Job reaches such a point of incandescence that he calls God to judgment. And so, everyone is dying. The voice of God is heard: “Who is this who darkens Providence with words without meaning? Gird up your loins now like a man: I will ask you, and you explain to Me: where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me if you know” (Job 38:2-4). Then there are poetic lines describing nature, animals, after which God asks Job: “Can you send lightning, and will they go and say to you: here we are? Who put wisdom into the heart, or who gave meaning to the mind?” (Job 38:35-36). God asks him how he can take it upon himself to solve the mysteries of providence? And Job says, “Yes, I spoke of things that I did not understand, of things wonderful to me, which I did not know” (Job 42:3). He has no more questions. He touched God. God, convinced of Job's faith, returns to him what was lost: Job lived "full days" - 140 years of life. Before us is the denouement of the Book of Job.

"Ode Chosen from Job" is a poetic interpretation of the biblical Book. Lomonosov, taking this ancient plot as a basis, follows the logic of God's speech.

Oh you, that in sorrow in vain
You grumble at God, man,
Pay attention, if jealousy is terrible
He is to Job from a cloud of rivers!

In fact, Lomonosov's ode is a monologue of God. If the Bible gives us Job's dialogue with the Lord, then the poet omits his words. Calling God to judgment and rebelling against him, does Job know how this earth was created and how it is arranged?

Where were you, as in front of me
Countless darkness of new stars,
My kindled suddenly hand
In the vastness of immeasurable places,
My Majesty broadcast;
When they shone from the sun
Everywhere new rays
When did the moon rise in the night?

Doubt about the goodness of the Creator for Job turns into doubt about the goodness of the world order. This theme would then excite Derzhavin in the ode "Calmened disbelief" (1779). Before us is theodicy: the ode paints a picture of a world in which there is no place for the devil, in which everything is subject to the creative will of God, who is the embodiment of reason. Its laws cannot be violated by the indignant will of earthly man:

This, O mortal, reasoning,
Imagine the building power
Honoring the holy will
Have your part in patience.
He builds everything for our benefit,
Executes someone or rests.
Bear the burden in hope
And ask without grumbling.

Gradually, God's monologue develops into a justification of goodness, an attempt to see the world built according to a higher idea.

One of the dazzling works devoted to the study of the "Ode chosen from Job" is the article by Yu. M. Lotman. In it, he correlates the text of the ode with the historical and cultural context, as a result, coming to unexpected conclusions. We advise you to read this work.

“Evening meditation on the Majesty of God in the event of the great northern lights” is one of the first pictures of the cosmic world order in Russian literature. In fact, we have before us the origins of the philosophy of cosmism, which will declare itself with all its might in the 20th century. Lomonosov creates an image of nature that has meaning, reflects the rationality and wisdom of its Creator:

The day hides its face;
The fields were covered with gloomy night;
A black shadow ascended the mountains;
The rays from us leaned away;
The abyss of stars has opened up full;
The stars have no number, the abyss of the bottom.

A grain of sand, like in the waves of the sea,
How small is the spark in the eternal ice,
Like dust in a strong whirlwind,
In fire as fierce as a feather,
So I, deepened in this abyss,
I'm lost, I'm tired of thoughts!

"Reflection ..." Lomonosov is based on oppositions: a grain of sand - the sea; spark - ice; fire - pen. The infinity of the process of cognition and the doubts encountered on this path confirm the greatness of the Creator. If medieval thinking believed that the truth is open only to the Creator, then Lomonosov says the opposite: about the ability of man to penetrate the secrets of nature, to see the meaning of the universe. Comprehending the world, he comprehends God's plan for man.

One of the acts of this understanding of the world in "Reflection ..." are scientific hypotheses about the nature of the northern lights, inherent in the time of Lomonosov:

There argues oily haze with water;
Or the rays of the sun shine,
Leaning through the thick air towards us;
Or the tops of fat mountains are burning;
Or the marshmallow stopped blowing into the sea,
And smooth waves beat into the air.

Northern Lights can occur due to the effects of electricity (Lomonosov's theory); evaporation of the earth; ether. These three theories are united in "Meditation...". Their meaning can only be understood taking into account the dialogue of this poem with the scientific heritage of Lomonosov, namely with his work “A word about aerial phenomena, from electric force occurring” (1753). In this article, he explores the nature of the northern lights and gives a detailed picture of their appearance:

Above the gloomy abyss a white arc shone, above which, behind the blue stripe of the sky, another arc appeared of the same center from the bottom, scarlet in color, very pure. From the horizon, which is to the summer west, a pillar of the same color rose and extended close to the zenith. Meanwhile, the whole sky burned with bright stripes. But as I looked at noon, I saw an equal arc on the opposite side of the north with such a difference that on the scarlet upper strip pink pillars rose, which at first in the east, then in the west were more numerous.

Lomonosov M.V. Full coll. op. T. 3. Works on physics 1753-1754. M.: Publishing House of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, 1952. S. 87-89.

Types of northern lights: drawings by Lomonosov

Watching the northern lights makes a person feel the “abyss”: as if something great is hanging over him. This is Cosmos, bottomless space, which suddenly appeared in the poet's imagination as an "abyss". Lomonosov's sense of the cosmos is associated with a special understanding of the Earth as a Home. His thoughts are directed beyond the boundaries of this house: to the knowledge of what is not yet understood by man, but will certainly be known. In fact, we have before us a “drawing” of a space exploration program:

Your answer is full of doubt
About what is around nearby places.
Tell me, how vast is the light?
And what about the smallest distant stars?
The ignorant creatures are the end of you?
Tell me, how great is the creator?

Almost a century later, in 1857, A. Fet in the poem "On a haystack at southern night ..." will continue this tradition, coming from Lomonosov:

I rushed to the midnight abyss,
Or hosts of stars rushed to me?
It seemed as if in a powerful hand
Above this abyss I hung.

And with fading and confusion
I measured the depth with my eyes,
In which with every moment I
Everything is irrevocable.

F. Tyutchev in the poem "Day and Night" (1839) also refers to the image of the abyss:

But the day fades - the night has come;
Came - and from the fatal world
The fabric of the fertile cover
Tearing off, throwing away...
And the abyss is naked to us
With your fears and darkness
And there are no barriers between her and us -
That's why we are afraid of the night!

Not only Russian poetry, but also prose, dramaturgy will return to the image of the abyss, each time finding new semantic facets in it.

For example, in A. N. Ostrovsky’s Thunderstorm, the inventor Kuligin will quote Lomonosov’s spiritual ode, and this soul-stirring quote will show his loneliness and desperate opposition to the ugly world: “KULIGIN. Very well, sir, take a walk now. Silence, the air is excellent, because of the Volga, the meadows smell of flowers, the sky is clear ...

The abyss of stars has opened up,
The stars have no number, the abyss is the bottom” (action 3, phenomenon 3).

"Morning Reflection on the Majesty of God" also draws a scientifically conditioned picture of the world before the reader. This time, the poet's attention is interested in the processes taking place in the sun:

There, the shafts of fire strive
And they do not find shores;
There whirlwinds are fiery spinning,
Struggling for many centuries;
There stones, like water, boil,
The rains are burning there.

The poet-scientist, looking at the sun, involuntarily asks questions: why does it shine? What happens in the sun? Reflecting on these questions, Lomonosov resorts to the medieval metaphor of the sun as the light of faith. However, under the pen of Lomonosov, this metaphor is transformed into the light of knowledge.

The closeness of the poet's artistic thinking to the Christian worldview is beyond doubt. Surprisingly, he combines scientific and deeply religious views on the world. Cognition and divine revelation merge into one:

Creator! covered in darkness
Stretch out the rays of wisdom
And anything in front of you
Always learn to create...

It seems that Alexander Men, a Russian philosopher, theologian and preacher, was right when he wrote about Lomonosov:

For him, the spectacle of nature, as a revelation of God's wisdom, cleansed the soul, elevated, and a person in the bosom of nature, in front of the starry sky and in front of the wonders of the universe, forgot about his grief, about his little earthly grief. He suddenly felt the grandeur of the universe, and against this background he breathed easier and more spacious. Eternity sounded here. This is the special experience of a scientist, this is the experience of other scientists who drew their religious enthusiasm from the contemplation of nature.

Men A. World spiritual culture. Christianity. Church. M., 1995. S. 278.

Lomonosov, with his spiritual odes, began a serious tradition that will be inherited by Russian philosophical lyrics - the work of A. S. Pushkin, I. A. Bunin, A. A. Blok and other poets of the XIX-XX centuries.

Subscribe to receive such informative letters once a week and understand more in Russian literature, and not only. And most importantly, don't stop reading.

Andrey Zvyagintsev's cinematography arouses more and more interest in me. Each of his films is not only a complete independent work, but also a serious reflection on the pressing issues of our time. It is important that this reflection in his creations is not a monologue, but an invitation to an intense dialogue, or rather a real challenge. Leviathan (2014) was no exception.

The plot is built on the stages of the gradual loss by the main character Nikolai of the most important supports, without which a full-fledged human life and a person in general are unthinkable: home, family, wife, friends and, finally, freedom. The external reason for these losses is incredibly familiar to the majority of Russian people: those in power mercilessly erase “little” people from their path, regardless of either legal or moral laws. More precisely, these laws are simply unfamiliar to them. In Zvyagintsev, the mayor of the city appears almost in animal form. He had long forgotten about what compassion, understanding and attention to a person and his difficult fate are. Everything seems to be really familiar. But the picture is not so much about the fate of the Russian people and about social problems-cataclysms, although they occupy a very serious place in Leviathan, but about a person as such. And the first signal of the philosophical depth of the film is already its title.

In fact, we have before us a modern version of the plot of the biblical Job, if he lived in our time. The biblical story is organically "interspersed" in everyday life, I would even say blackish. There are many reasons for such associations in the film. The action takes place at the "end of the world": in an unknown and forgotten town by the sea. Here, the built ships and their wreckage are drowning; only ruins remained of the church, among which local children gather around the fire, resembling more than the first pagan people; people exist among hopeless dirt, drunkenness, oblivion, fear, in many ways reminiscent of all the same wild and distant times for thousands of years. The legendary Leviathan himself appears three times: as a skeleton of an unknown monster on the shore, as if forgotten here since ancient times; flickering in the expanses of water with its dark contours; in the speech of a priest buying bread in a shop. This priest reproduces a fragment of the biblical legend about Job.

Nicholas, like Job, loses absolutely everything in his life. Strictly following the biblical text, Zvyagintsev shows his hero as an innocent victim: he did not commit a sin, and even more than that, with incredible efforts he is trying to achieve justice in preserving his native home, which is not only a roof over his head for him and his family, but also personifies ancestral memory. Why does the modern Job suffer? Does he have the right to complain about the divine will, which unjustly deprived him of well-being? Finally, can he doubt this will and challenge it, as the hero of the biblical text did in his time? There are many questions here.

The state is doomed to become a monster-Leviathan for a person already because it imagines itself to be in power over its fate. Heavy waves break on the stone shore. The apocalypse is about to happen. In fact, it's already coming. The outwardly successful story about the construction of a church on the site of a ruthlessly demolished family home also marks the inner apocalypse of each of the characters. Wife Lilia dies. The fate of Nikolai is shattered. His son is doomed. A false sermon is being preached in the new church. Hidden behind the priest's face is a serpent's face. Such a movie shocks and provokes at the same time: everything that can be returned to as a support collapses.

But it is precisely in this unjust deprivation that the test to which Satan subjects man lies. Do we believe in God just because our life is prosperous? And will a person lose his faith when he is faced with an unjust punishment, to which fate dooms him, an innocent one? Here lies the test of the devil, which can give rise in a person to hatred of the will of God. Job survived terrible calamities, but did not renounce God, for which he rewarded him twice. Modern man, according to Zvyagintsev, discovers an abyss between his own life, full of hardships and injustice, and biblical patience, in its extreme exhaustion close to humility. Therefore, the director, offering the viewer a variant of the legend about Job, does not hide the guilt of the man himself.

Can you draw Leviathan with a fishhook and grab hold of his tongue with a rope? Will you put a ring in his nostrils? Will you pierce his jaw with a needle? will he beseech you much, and will he speak meekly to you?<...>There is no one like him on earth; he is made fearless; looks boldly at everything high; he is king over all the sons of pride.

Job. 40:20-22; 40:25-26

If Job humbled himself when he heard the terrifying Voice of God, then the hero of our time behaves differently. Nicholas, heartbroken, says: “Where is your merciful God? If I put candles and bowed, would everything be different for me? This difference between the ancient and modern plot sheds light on the meaning of the fate of the protagonist: a miracle does not happen, there is no deliverance, the monster mercilessly absorbs the last strongholds of life. Life opens up into an endless abyss.

In the film, the impossibility of the new Job is interpreted as an "ulcer" of modernity, which affects everyone. The social conflict (the clash between the mayor and Nikolai) only complements, but does not define, this impossibility. The mayor is a "miraculous builder" only in the literal sense when he builds a false church; he is also a “proud idol”, whose will rises above the hero and destroys everything that hinders it. But Nikolay turns out to be no less proud, although he has moral grounds for it. On his TV, there are stories that promote the state's concern for spirituality. One of them is the story with Pussy Riot. But the image of power in the film is different: it is a fat mayor, ministers who please him in everything, a priest who blesses him for criminal deeds, faceless judges monotonously reading sentences (it is no coincidence that this reading occurs twice in the film: at the beginning and at the end). The state, taking on the functions of God, is doomed from the very beginning. And in this doom, caused by internal decay, close to self-destruction, the government turns out to be similar to its "slaves" - residents.

"Leviathan" mercilessly predicted the approaching end of the world, in which everyone is guilty. This idea required Zvyagintsev to turn to the biblical myth, a tense dialogue with which brought the picture to a serious artistic level. Obviously, the film deserved the awards it received (Cannes Film Festival winner, Golden Eagle, Golden Globe).

The Old Testament book of Job in the works of f. m. dostoevsky

As a manuscript

Ionina Marina Anatolievna

OLD TESTAMENT BOOK OF JOB

IN THE WORKS OF F. M. DOSTOYEVSKY

dissertations for a degree

candidate of philological sciences

Tomsk - 2007

The work was carried out at the Department of Russian Language and Literature of the Institute of Language Communication of the Tomsk Polytechnic University.

supervisor: doctor of philological sciences, professor Novikova Elena Georgievna

Official Opponents: Doctor of Philology, Professor Mednis Nina Eliseevna Candidate of Philology, Associate Professor Semykina Roza Nikolaevna

Lead organization: GOU VPO "Kemerovo State University"

The defense of the dissertation will take place on February 14, 2007 at the meeting of the dissertation council D 212.267.05 for the award of the degree of Doctor of Philology at the State Educational Institution of Higher Professional Education "Tomsk State University" at the address: 634050, Tomsk, Lenin Ave., 36 .

The dissertation can be found in the Scientific Library of Tomsk State University.

Scientific secretary of the dissertation council, candidate of philological sciences, professor L.A. Zakharova

GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF WORK

In recent decades, the general course of development of Russian culture and literature has been marked by a particularly increased interest in spiritual and moral issues. One of the priority areas of modern literary criticism is the study of Russian literature in religious and religious-philosophical aspects. Particular attention is paid here to the literature of the 19th century, which cannot be adequately comprehended outside of Christianity.

This problem has been studied for a long time. A significant contribution to its study was made by Russian religious and philosophical aesthetics of the late 19th - first half of the 20th centuries. However, due to historical reasons, work in this direction was continued by Russian literary criticism only at the turn of the 20th – 21st centuries.

Creativity F.M. Dostoevsky, considered in the religious and philosophical aspect, is in the center of attention of such modern researchers as N.T. Ashimbaeva, V.V. Borisova, N.F. Budanova, V.E. Vetlovskaya, A.P. Vlaskin, A.G. Gacheva, M.M. Dunaev, V.V. Dudkin, G.G. Ermilova, I.A. Esaulov, V.N. Zakharov, V.V. Ivanov, K.G. Isupov, T.A. Kasatkina, I. Kirillova, V.A. Kotelnikov, A.B. Krinitsyn, A.E. Kunilsky, N.G. Mikhnovets, E.G. Novikova, N.M. Perlina, O. V. Pichugina, S. Salvestroni, L.I. Saraskina, N.N. Solomina-Minichen, K.A. Stepanyan, V.N. Suzi, S.V. Syzranov, B.N. Tarasov, B.N. Tikhomirov, G.K. Shchennikov, O.Yu. Yurieva, I. D. Yakubovich and others.

Formulation of the problem. Until recently, most studies have focused on the study of Russian literature in the context of the books of the New Testament, primarily the Gospels. The traditions of the Old Testament in Russian literature is a less studied topic, despite the fact that Russian writers of the 18th-19th centuries. actively turned in their work to the Old Testament. However, this problem is only now becoming truly relevant.

In his research, I.D. Yakubovich fundamentally emphasizes that the analysis of Dostoevsky's poetics allows us to speak about the presence of the traditions of the Old Testament in his work. “Although Dostoevsky does not have works directly on the biblical subjects of the Old Testament, his religious imagery is an aesthetic form for the writer, which is associated with the world cultural tradition”1.

One of the well-known and fundamentally significant for Dostoevsky's work is the Book of Job - the canonical book of the Old Testament, which is part of the Teacher's Books, one of the very first masterpieces of the philosophical poetry of the ancient Jews. She has long attracted and attracts Jakubovich I.D. Poetics of Old Testament Quotations and Allusions in Dostoevsky's Works: Existence and Context // XII Symposium International Dostoievski. – Geneve. 2004. - S. 152.

the attention of many philosophers, biblical scholars, literary critics, artists and poets of different times and peoples.

Of considerable research interest is the question of the origin and historical accuracy of the book. The attention of researchers is also attracted by the content and composition of the Old Testament book. Interest in it was already shown in the patristic commentaries of St. Gregory the Great, blj. Augustine, Rev. Ephraim the Syrian, St. John Chrysostom.

The problem of theodicy posed in the biblical book is one of the topical issues of the spiritual consciousness of mankind throughout history. In the era of the last centuries, especially in the 19th-20th centuries, the Book of Job has been subjected to various interpretations. There are a number of studies devoted to the study of the Book of Job, both from a literary and philosophical and religious point of view. These are the works of such thinkers and scientists as S. Kierkegaard, Lev Shestov, S.S. Averintsev, A.M. Bukharev, N.A. Eleonsky, A.V. Petrovsky, M.I. Rizhsky, D.V. Shchedrovitsky, S. Terrien, A. Maceina, P. Dumoulin and others.

Yu.M. Lotman in his article “On the “Ode Chosen from Job” by Lomonosov” fundamentally raised the question of the existence of the Book of Job in Russian culture and literature.

Recently, the theme of the biblical Job has become relevant in Dostoevsky studies as well. First of all, these are the works of I.D. Yakubovich, L.A. Levina, N. Efimova, N.V. Balashova, T.A. Kasatkina, A.N. Hots. However, in modern science about the writer, it is recognized that the theme of Job is now “rather stated than investigated”3.

Thus, the relevance of the study is due to the deep interest of modern science in the spiritual foundations of culture in the aspect of the reception of the books of Holy Scripture.

Modern culture is characterized by a deep interest in its original origins. Therefore, the appeal to the Old Testament, to the traditions of the Old Testament in Russian culture and literature meets the essential needs of the culture of the beginning of the 21st century.

The nature of the existence of the Book of Job in Dostoevsky's work goes back, first of all, to the religious and philosophical problems of theodicy. The question of the existence of God, which the writer “was tormented consciously and unconsciously all [his] life”4 (291; 117), His presence in the world, are Lotman Yu.M. Selected articles: In 3 vols. - Tallinn, 1992. - Vol. 2. - P. 266–278.

Ermilova. G.G. Dostoevsky: Aesthetics and Poetics: Dictionary-Reference / Comp. G.K. Shchennikov, A.A. Alekseev; scientific ed. G.K. Shchennikov; ChelGU. - Chelyabinsk: Metal, 1997. - P. 90.

All Dostoevsky's texts are cited from: Dostoevsky F.M. Full coll. op. and letters: In 30 volumes. - L .: Science, 1072-1990. When quoting in brackets, Arabic numerals separated by a semicolon indicate the volume and page, for volumes 28-30 - also the number of the semi-volume. Dostoevsky's text is given in italics, emphasis in citations belonging to the author of the dissertation is in bold.

key points of the ideological and artistic specificity of the writer's novels, which also determined their relevance and modernity.

Scientific novelty The work consists in the fact that in it 1) an attempt was made for the first time to study the existence of the Book of Job in the works of Dostoevsky;

2) the material of all currently known references of the writer to the Old Testament book is systematized;

3) the dynamics of the existence of the biblical book in the writer's work is traced;

4) new fragments of Dostoevsky's appeals to the Book of Job were revealed.

The subject of the dissertation is the reception of the Old Testament Book of Job in the work of Dostoevsky.

The material of the study was the creative heritage of Dostoevsky, in particular, those works of the writer, in which the presence of motives, images, ideas of the biblical Book of Job is recorded.

Textologically, Dostoevsky refers to the Book of Job in the novels "Demons", "The Teenager", "The Brothers Karamazov". Mentions of the biblical book take place in the notebook for the "Diary of a writer" in 1875 - gg. and in a letter to A.G. Dostoevskaya on June 10 (22), 1875. Genetically motives of the Old Testament book are present in Notes from the House of the Dead and in the novel Crime and Punishment. The analysis of works is based on working with draft and white versions of the text.

aim The work is a frontal study of the existence of the Old Testament Book of Job in the works of F.M. Dostoevsky.

The goal set determined the range of research tasks:

1) collect and consider all the fragments of the existence of the Book of Job in the author's text;

2) to explore the versions of translations of the biblical book into Russian that existed at that time and to identify the translation that was most relevant for Dostoevsky at the stage of his work on novels in the 1870s;

3) establish the nature of the existence of the Book of Job in the work of the writer of the 1860s - 1870s;

4) to consider the principles of existence of the biblical book in the materials of the novel "Teenager";

5) explore the specifics of the existence of the Book of Job in the novel "The Brothers Karamazov".

The methodological basis of the study is determined by the cultural-historical and historical-literary approaches developed in the works of M.M. Bakhtin, S.S. Averintseva, V.N. Toporova. Subject and tasks research required an appeal to the works of Yu.M. Lotman, N.O. Lossky, G. Florovsky, R. Lauth, P. Dumoulin and others.

Provisions for defense.

1. The book of Job is one of the books of the Old Testament, which had a significant impact on the problems and poetics of Dostoevsky's work.

2. The first reminiscences from the biblical book appear in Notes from the House of the Dead and in the novel Crime and Punishment.

3. The first direct introduction of the Old Testament book into the author's text was made in the novel "Demons".

4. The most abundant textological introduction of the Book of Job is recorded in the preparatory materials for the novel The Teenager, as well as in its canonical text.

5. The book of Job in the novel "The Brothers Karamazov" is the climax in the process of existence of the Old Testament book in the writer's work as a whole.

6. In the course of work on the novels "Teenager" and "The Brothers Karamazov"

Dostoevsky relied on the Russian translation of the Book of Job, made by Bishop. Agafangel (A.F. Solovyov).

The theoretical significance of the work lies in a more in-depth and holistic understanding of the foundations of Dostoevsky's spiritual heritage in terms of the reception of the Old Testament Book of Job, as well as in the revealed dynamics of the influence of the biblical book on the nature of the writer's work.

Practical significance work. The obtained scientific results can be applied in the development of general and special courses on the history of Russian literature of the 19th century. and in traditional practice.

Approbation of work. Key points the studies are presented in the form of reports at the International Scientific and Practical Conference dedicated to the 10th anniversary of the Department of Russian Language and Literature “Applied Philology: Language. Text. Communication” (Tomsk, 2002);

Thirteenth Spiritual and Historical Readings in memory of Cyril and Methodius Equal-to-the-Apostles "Orthodoxy and the dialogue of cultures as the basis of Russian identity" (Tomsk, 2003); V All-Russian conference of young scientists "Actual problems of linguistics, literary criticism and journalism" (Tomsk, 2004); IV All-Russian scientific-practical conference of students and young scientists "Communicative aspects of language and culture" (Tomsk, 2004); XIV Spiritual and Historical Readings in memory of Cyril and Methodius Equal-to-the-Apostles "Orthodoxy and the Development of Russian Spiritual Culture in Siberia" (Tomsk, 2004), VI All-Russian Conference of Young Scientists "Actual Problems of Linguistics and Literary Studies" (Tomsk, 2005); XV Spiritual and Historical Readings in memory of Cyril and Methodius Equal-to-the-Apostles "Challenges of the time and Orthodox traditions" (Tomsk, 2005); V All-Russian scientific and practical conference of students and young scientists "Communicative aspect of language and culture" (Tomsk, 2005); VII All-Russian Conference of Young Scientists "Actual Problems of Linguistics and Literary Studies" (Tomsk, 2006); XVI Spiritual and Historical Readings in memory of the Holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Cyril and Methodius "Days of Slavic writing and culture" (Tomsk, 2006); VIII International Scientific Conference of Young Philologists (Tallinn, 2006). The main content of the work

reflected in 10 publications.

Structure and scope of work. The dissertation consists of an introduction, four chapters, a conclusion and a list of references, including 229 titles.

BASIC THE CONTENT OF THE WORK

The Introduction indicates the subject of study, the degree of its research, substantiates the relevance and scientific novelty of the work, formulates its goals, objectives and methodological basis, determines the provisions submitted for defense.

In the first chapter“The Book of Job in the works of F.M. Dostoevsky in the 1860s - the first half of the 1870s: from "Notes from the House of the Dead" to "Notes to the "Diary of a Writer" in 1876" reveals the dynamics of perception and reception of the Book of Job by Dostoevsky in the period of the 1860s - the first half of the 1870s gg. on the material of "Notes from the House of the Dead", the novels "Crime and Punishment" and "Demons", letters to A.G. Dostoevskaya dated June 10 (22), 1875 and "Notebooks for the Writer's Diary, 1876". The chapter consists of five sections.

In section 1.1. "Notes from the House of the Dead" considers the very first, yet indirect, introduction of the Book of Job into the writer's artistic world.

"Notes from the House of the Dead" is a work that occupies a special place in the writer's work, due to the revolution in the religious views of the Dostoevsky period of Siberian penal servitude. In the artistic world of the writer, this took shape in certain Christian motifs.

Recalling life in prison in Notes from the House of the Dead, the author describes, in particular, his impressions of the Lenten fast before the Easter holiday. In "Notes from the House of the Dead", as well as in further works of the writer, the motives of spring, Great Lent and the Easter holiday shape the key issues of spiritual renewal and healing of a person:

“Spring also had an effect on me with its influence .. And therefore spring, the specter of freedom, the general fun in nature, also affected me somehow sadly and irritably. At the end of the fast, I think in the sixth week, I had to fast. I really enjoyed the week of shit.

The Lenten service, so familiar from early childhood, in the parental home, solemn prayers, bows to the ground - all this stirred up in my soul the distant, distant past, reminiscent of the impressions of my childhood years. In the church, we became a tight bunch at the very door, in the very last place. I recalled how, even in childhood, standing in church, I sometimes looked at the common people, densely crowding at the entrance. There, at the entrance, it seemed to me then, and they prayed something differently from ours, they prayed humbly, zealously, earthly and with some kind of complete consciousness of their humiliation.

Now I had to stand in the same places, even not in these; we were chained and defame; everyone shunned us” (4;

As you know, the Book of Job is read in the temple on the last week of Lent. Dostoevsky's first impressions of the Book of Job are connected precisely with his childhood memories of the Lenten service.

Later, in the novel The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky will describe in detail this own childhood spiritual experience in the story of the elder Zosima about his childhood.

This point seems to be of particular importance. In "Notes from the House of the Dead" the context of the existence of the Book of Job in the consciousness and in the work of the writer is updated, first of all, as the context of the Great Lenten Service.

Characteristic for this episode of "Notes from the House of the Dead" is also the plot and semantic combination of Christian motives of Easter and spring renewal of nature with the theme of popular influence. The spiritual upheaval in the life of the writer was not the result of a sudden impact of any idea, but developed gradually in conditions of hard labor and under the influence of popular experience: “I know him: from him I again received Christ into my soul, whom I recognized in my parental home as a child and which he lost when he was transformed, in turn, into a “European liberal”” (26; 152). The need to find ways to unite the nobility and the people is one of the main conclusions that the writer drew from his experience of hard labor.

Therefore, it should immediately be emphasized that the appeal to the Book of Job in the future work of Dostoevsky will also be closely connected with the theme of the people.

Section 1.2. The novel "Crime and Punishment" is dedicated to the first novel of Dostoevsky's "Pentateuch", in which the problematics of theodicy is formulated in a new spiritual and Christian context for the writer.

In our opinion, in the final part of the novel, a certain influence of the Old Testament Book of Job is revealed. G.G. Yermilova also notes that “echoes of the Book of Job are heard in the epilogue of Crime and Punishment”5. The plot of the epilogue is set by the theme of spiritual transformation, “full Ermilov G.G. Dostoevsky: Aesthetics and Poetics: Dictionary-Reference / Comp. G.K. Shchennikov, A.A. Alekseev; scientific ed. G.K. Shchennikov; ChelGU. - Chelyabinsk: Metal, 1997. - P. 90.

resurrection into a new life” (6; 421) of the protagonist of the work. It seems that here we can talk about a certain ideological similarity between the images of Rodion Raskolnikov and the biblical Job.

Let's outline some of the most important points. Both heroes are in a situation of rebellion, confrontation, loneliness and misunderstanding. This is evidenced even by the semantics of their names and surnames. The surname "Raskolnikov" carries the semantics of a split, a break, a painful split. The name "Job" in Hebrew means "opposing", "partner in the struggle"6.

Job is not nearly as pious as it appears in the opening chapters of the biblical poem. Job's righteousness is dead, his piety is empty, because he lacks the fundamental virtue - love, that is, humility. (Dostoevsky will talk a lot about the meaning and power of humility as a Christian quality of the human soul in his later novels, especially in The Brothers Karamazov). Job questions the works of God, rebels against the Creator. The depiction of a “rebellious man”7 who plunged to the bottom of despair and loneliness, and then a man reborn, is the main subject of the biblical poem.

Raskolnikov, who considers himself a man "having the right" (6;

322), and Job, who arrogated to himself the right to judge the justice of God - both heroes are in a state of spiritual blindness, when "a hardened conscience did not find any particularly terrible guilt in the past" (6; 417). Both Raskolnikov and Job must go through the same path of spiritual transformation. The essence of the path lies in the internal reassessment of one's own worldview, in overcoming the gap with both God and human society, in the realization that Christian moral norms and principles of human existence exist independently of us. A person has the right to choose whether to obey them or reject them, but he does not have the right to change them. Thus, each of these two heroes is involved in a merciless war with himself and is forced to seek the true meaning of his existence, overcoming, surpassing his personal imaginary ideas about God and the moral laws of the world He created.

The healing and spiritual transformation of both heroes, the final rebirth to a new life for both Raskolnikov and Job takes place during a meeting with Love. In the text of Dostoevsky's novel, Love is embodied in the image of Sonya Marmeladova, who selflessly followed Raskolnikov to Siberia. In the biblical poem, this is the image of God himself, who is Love8.

Holy P. Dumoulin. Job: Suffering that bears fruit. - St. Petersburg: Publishing House of St. Petra, 2000. - S. 12.

Lotman Yu.M. Selected articles: In 3 vols. - Tallinn, 1992. - Vol. 2. - P. 266.

1. Last. In. 4: 8. The text of the Bible is quoted from the Synodal translation of the ed.: Bible Books of the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament. - Brussels: Publishing house "Life with God", 1983.

The plot situation of the epilogue of the novel "Crime and Punishment", which in many respects goes back to Dostoevsky's autobiographical memories of hard labor, is organized by the motifs of Great Lent, Easter, spring and morning awakening of nature that are significant for the existence of the Book of Job in the writer's work. The interaction of these motifs in Dostoevsky's literary text embodies the idea of ​​a harmonious relationship between the spiritual and material world, the idea of ​​the victory of life over death, light over darkness, and forms in the text the author's idea of ​​purification, spiritual healing through suffering.

In section 1.3. "The novel "Demons"" records the first textological introduction of the Book of Job into the artistic world of the writer's novels. It is carried out in the form of naming the book itself in one of the monologues of Stepan Trofimovich Verkhovensky:

“... En un mot, I just read that some deacon in one of our foreign churches - mais - c'est tre`s curieux - kicked out, that is, literally kicked out, from the church one wonderful English family, les dames charmantes, just before the beginning of the Lenten service, - vous savez ces chants et le livre e Job ... - solely under the pretext that "it is a disorder for foreigners to roam around Russian churches and that they should come at the indicated time ...", and brought him to a faint ... This deacon was in a fit of administrative delight” (10; 48).

The book of Job is named here in the context of the story of the Great Lenten Service. The Bible book is introduced into the author's text as the main characteristic feature of Lenten Divine Liturgy: "vous savez ces chants et le livre de Job"9. So in the novel "Demons" it was again revealed that the Lenten service is most directly associated in Dostoevsky with the Old Testament Book of Job.

The main theme of this fragment of the text, which included a reference to the biblical book, is the theme of socialism, which is specified as a disease of Russian society infected with European liberalism, as a separation of the Russian intelligentsia from the people, from Russian folk roots and from the "father's faith" (291; 145), which is embodied, in particular, in the image of Stepan Trofimovich, a liberal of the 1840s. In this regard, it is significant that the title of the Book of Job is framed here as a text in French.

The introduction of the biblical book was revealed only in the final version of the novel text "Demons", there is no mention of it in the draft notes, which may indicate that its inclusion in the novel is still quite optional.

You know these psalms and the book of Job (French).

Section 1.4. “Letter to A.G. Dostoevskaya dated 10 (22) June 1875" is devoted to a detailed analysis of F.M. Dostoevsky from Ems, addressed to the wife of A.G. Dostoevskaya. This is the most extensive special statement of the writer about the Book of Job known to date:

“I am reading about Ilya and Enoch (this is wonderful) and Bessonov's Our Century.

The lop-eared remarks and explanations of Bessonov, who cannot even speak Russian, infuriate me on every page.

I read the Book of Job, and it brings me into a painful delight: I quit reading and walk around for an hour in the room, almost crying, and if only it weren’t for the meanest notes of the translator, then maybe I would be happy.

This book, Anya, is strange - one of the first that struck me in my life, I was then still almost a baby ”(292; 43).

It is important that here Dostoevsky directly says that the Book of Job "struck" him when he was "still almost a baby." This letter is documentary evidence that the writer has vivid and strong childhood experiences associated with the Old Testament book.

However, the dynamics of perception of the Book of Job by Dostoevsky from the associative, emotional level associated with childhood impressions, to understanding it as a text both sacred and artistic, leading him to "painful delight" is also recorded here.

The Old Testament book is included in the reader's circle of interests of the writer.

It is significant that, along with the Book of Job, Dostoevsky in his letter mentions the Old Testament prophets Elijah and Enoch, as well as the collection Our Century in Russian Historical Songs, published by the Society of Lovers of Russian Literature, edited and with additions by P.A. Bessonov, Slavist and researcher of folk art (292; 214).

So the Book of Job in this letter of Dostoevsky is correlated with the theme of the Russian national character, with the theme of the Russian people and Russian folk art, as well as with the problems of the Apocalypse, since the Old Testament prophets Elijah and Enoch, according to the canonical interpretation of the Revelation of John the Theologian, will be called to prophesy at the end of the world about the defeat of the Antichrist.

In section 1.5. "Notes to the Writer's Diary, 1876" the reception of the Book of Job in the journalistic heritage of the writer is studied.

The theme of the Book of Job appears in the Notebooks 1875-1876.

The writer's appeal to the Old Testament book at this stage was recorded three times. In all three cases, it is represented here by the name of a biblical hero and once by a paraphrase of a biblical text.

In addition, the motives of the Book of Job arise in connection with the image of the devil (Satan), which is given special attention here. In particular, the introduction of the biblical poem into the author's text is carried out in connection with the development of the broadly understood theme of "spiritualism". Hence Dostoevsky's appeal to Goethe's Faust. As you know, the ideological and plot content of Faust's "Prologue in Heaven" is determined by the Book of Job. The name of Job is adjacent in the notes of Dostoevsky with the name of Mephistopheles.

Finally, in the context of references to Job and the devil (Satan), the theme of socialism arises and begins to develop.

In the second chapter“The Book of Job in the works of F.M. Dostoevsky in the 1870s and 1880s in the context of different translations of the Bible, a comparative analysis of the translations of the Book of Job into Russian existing during this period was carried out in accordance with the texts of the novels The Teenager and The Brothers Karamazov. The chapter consists of two sections.

In section 1.1. "Comparative analysis of the translations of the Book of Job on the basis of the novel "The Teenager"" a comparative analysis of the texts of the translations of the Old Testament book on the material of the novel "The Teenager" is carried out.

Section 1.2. “Comparative analysis of the translations of the Book of Job on the material of the novel “The Brothers Karamazov”” The study of the translations of the Book of Job is carried out on the basis of the novel “The Brothers Karamazov”.

Starting from the 1870s, the existence of the Book of Job in the works of the writer takes shape on a qualitatively new level: the Old Testament book is included in the novels The Teenager and The Brothers Karamazov as an independent text, as detailed and numerous quotations from the biblical text.

Therefore, in relation to the novels The Teenager and The Brothers Karamazov, the question of which translations of the Book of Job Dostoevsky relied on in the process of working on these novels becomes relevant.

The 19th century was marked by the rapid development of translation activity. In the field of religious education, this is a time of active translation of the books of Holy Scripture into Russian. Before the translation into Russian of the canonical books of the Holy Scriptures, approved by the Holy Synod, appeared, attempts were repeatedly made to translate individual books of the Bible into Russian by private individuals. By the first half of the 1870s. there were at least four translations of the Book of Job into Russian.

1. Translation undertaken by the professor of Jewish and Russian languages, Archpriest G. P. Pavsky in 1838-1839.

2. Translation undertaken in the 1840s. Archimandrite Macarius (Glukharev). This translation was published in the journal Orthodox Review (1861. No. 5).

3. Translation by Bishop Agafangel (A.F. Solovyov), published in Vyatka with extensive notes and comments by the translator.

4. Synodal translation of the Book of Job (St. Petersburg, 1872).

Supporters of the first version believe that in childhood Dostoevsky read the Book of Job in Church Slavonic, and later, in adulthood, in the French translation of Leroy.

Followers of the second version argue that the first book to read in the Dostoevsky family was Johannes Gibner's "One Hundred and Four Stories of the Old and New Testaments" translated by M. Sokolov. Later, Dostoevsky read The Book of Job in Russian Translation with Brief Explanations, which was published in Vyatka in two editions in 1860 and 1861.

In our work, a frontal comparative analysis of all quotations from the Book of Job in the novels "The Teenager" and "The Brothers Karamazov" was carried out.

with translations of Archimandrite Macarius, Bishop Agafangel and with the synodal translation of the Book of Job. As a result of the analysis, we came to the conclusion that Dostoevsky relied on the translation made by Bishop Agafangel (A.F. Solovyov) and published in Vyatka in 1860.

This was a textual confirmation of the second version.

In the third chapter"The Book of Job in F. M. Dostoevsky's novel "The Teenager"" examines the existence of the Book of Job in the novel "The Teenager".

The chapter consists of two sections, the first of which is subdivided into paragraphs.

In the course of the study, in the text of the novel "The Teenager", we identified new quotations from the Book of Job, which were not taken into account in the academic Complete Works and Letters of F. M. Dostoevsky in 30 volumes. For example:

“And also remember that the angels of God are not perfect, but only our God Jesus Christ is perfect, sinless, and angels serve him.” (13; 318).

Handwritten editions: “And the angels of God are imperfect, only our God Jesus Christ is perfect and sinless; even angels serve him” (16; 140, 403).

Job. 4:18: “Behold, he does not trust even his servants; and sees shortcomings in His angels.

“The elder must be pleased at all times, and he must die in the full bloom of his mind, blissfully and magnificently, having had his fill of days, sighing at his last hour and rejoicing, departing like an ear to a sheaf, and having filled his secret” (13; 287 ).

Handwritten editions: “And they die (blissfully and quietly), having had their fill of days” (16; 141).

Job. 42:17: "And Job died in old age, full of days."

“Today, after morning prayer, I had such a feeling in my heart that I would not leave here anymore; was said. So what, blessed be the name of the Lord; only you still want to see enough of everyone ”(13; 330).

Job. 1. 20 - 21: "20. Then Job got up and tore his outer garment, shaved off his head, and fell to the ground and bowed down”; 21. And he said, Naked I came out of my mother's womb, and naked I will return. The Lord gave, the Lord took; (as the Lord pleased, so it happened); May the name of the Lord be blessed!”

In section 3.1. "The Book of Job in hand-written editions of the novel "Teenager"" a study of the draft texts of the novel is being carried out.

In paragraph 3.1.1. “General characteristics of the fragments” examines the factors that determined the specifics of the existence of the biblical book in the text of handwritten editions, and also gives a general description of the characters, with the images of which the introduction of the Book of Job into the author's text is associated.

In the 1870s Dostoevsky again and again returns to understanding the themes of socialism and the people in their complex and contradictory interconnectedness. They are interpreted by him in the context of the Christian worldview. It is these themes that set the framework for self-determination for the young generation of Russia in the 1870s. in the writer's work, which found its expression in the novel "Teenager". The actualization of the Book of Job in the novel is connected with the artistic development of these themes.

Its existence in the text of the handwritten editions of the novel is carried out in two ways: citation, organized in two large text blocks, and the use of the image and name of Job in other fragments of the handwritten text.

In paragraph 3.1.2. Biblical book quoting is a study of biblical book quoting in handwritten materials of the novel, represented by two extensive fragments.

First of all, the very fact of the abundant citation of the Old Testament book attracts attention. It is organized in separate semantic blocks and is associated with the disclosure of such topics as sin and suffering, death and immortality of the soul, the frailty of human thoughts and glory, in the aspect of the problems of the Russian national character.

Noteworthy is the way Dostoevsky works with the biblical text.

Firstly, the principle of selection of biblical verses: Dostoevsky chooses for quoting the text of the initial chapters of the second part of the poem, in which Job is discussed with friends, which develops the problems of theodicy. He then introduces the Bible verses of the final chapter of the book.

The remaining parts of the biblical poem remain outside the attention of the writer.

Secondly, between fragments of quotations in his own author's text, Dostoevsky, in fact, enters into a dialogue and polemic with biblical heroes, offering his own arguments and ideas of justifying God. Thus, in the draft editions of the novel The Teenager, the citation of the Book of Job, in general, is subject to the problems of theodicy.

In paragraph 3.1.3. "The name and image of the biblical hero" is considered the second significant part of the manuscript editions.

In the process of working on a draft version of the novel, Dostoevsky periodically returns to understanding the very image of Job, mentioning the name of the biblical hero or pointing out certain features of the personality and character of this biblical character.

The Biblical righteous man becomes one of the constant heroes of the manuscript editions of the novel in the context of such themes as socialism (godlessness or belief in the immortality of the soul) and the fall (free will). In addition, the writer's attention is focused on the motif of the "former" and "new" children of Job.

So, in the text of the handwritten editions of the novel "The Teenager", the existence of the Book of Job is manifested in the following form: a quote - a name - an image of a biblical hero.

Moreover, all of them are connected with the development of the image of the wanderer Makar Ivanovich. Biblical verses are used as preparations for Makar Ivanovich's speech, and the image of the Old Testament Job becomes an element of work on the image of the wanderer. In connection with the image of Makar Ivanovich and with the help of the Book of Job, the author's text introduces an understanding of a certain range of religious and moral concepts: "freedom", "suffering", "sin", "death", "goodness".

Section 3.2. “Existence of the Book of Job in the novel “Teenager”: The Image of Makar Ivanovich” presents an analysis of the existence of the Old Testament book in the final version of the novel.

Forms of existence: quote and paraphrase of the biblical text, the image of Job.

The inclusion of the Book of Job in the final text of the novel in all cases is associated with the image of the wanderer Makar Ivanovich and is subject to the writer's desire to express in this image the best features of the Russian folk character, shaped by centuries of experience of suffering.

The principle of selection of biblical verses and the characteristic features of the image of the wanderer allow us to talk about the formation in the text of a certain range of motifs associated with the Book of Job. The themes of humility, socialism/future world order, faith in the immortality of the soul and moral rebirth become the plot-forming ones.

The sequence of ways of designing the Old Testament book in the author's text seems significant: text (quote) - idea (image, individual elements of the image of Job) - theme (suffering + mystery => patience, humility). This specificity of the organization of the author's text allows us to speak about a certain dynamics of the principles of the existence of the Book of Job in the writer's artistic world.

In the fourth chapter "The Book of Job in the novel by F. M. Dostoevsky "The Brothers Karamazov"" the analysis of the existence of the Old Testament book in the novel "The Brothers Karamazov" is carried out. The chapter consists of five sections.

Section 4.1. "The Book of Job as one of the components of the general idea of ​​the novel" offers a general description of the novel in terms of the reception of the biblical book.

As you know, Dostoevsky's last novel is a kind of result of his work. The ideological concept of the writer, the complex composition and the very synthetic genre of The Brothers Karamazov became the fruit of his long reflections and led to the creation of an encyclopedic work, expressing, in particular, the idea of ​​“restoring a dead person” (15; 400).

In this context, it is fundamentally important for the writer to turn to world spiritual and artistic experience, to such works as Dante's Divine Comedy, Hugo's Les Misérables, Goethe's Faust, medieval mysteries and apocrypha, works of the Church Fathers. A special place in this series is occupied by Holy Scripture, the Old Testament Book of Job, in particular. It is obvious that the writer introduces his characters into a wide literary and historical-cultural context. Therefore, the existence of the biblical book in the artistic world of The Brothers Karamazov is of particular significance.

Questions of the existence of God, the meaning of suffering and the future world order, in a word, the problems of theodicy determine the entire artistic structure of this novel. Therefore, the existence of the Book of Job in the novel "The Brothers Karamazov" became the climax of Dostoevsky's appeal to it.

Section 4.2. “The Book of Job in Handwritten Editions of the Novel The Brothers Karamazov” is devoted to the analysis of the draft materials of the novel.

In the process of working on the novel, the Book of Job turns out to be in demand by Dostoevsky both as an independent literary text, with a unique plot peculiar only to him, and as a sacred text, in which the principles of Christian theodicy are expressed.

The role of the biblical book in the text of handwritten editions is multifunctional: from outlines of general problems and the general development of the plot to a detailed description of individual heroes.

In the text of handwritten editions, first of all, the prologue and epilogue of the poem are updated. The writer's circle of interest includes all three heroes: God, Job, Satan. Dostoevsky's attention is periodically focused on each of them.

Righteousness and humility are marked in the image of Job. God is represented as a cruel tyrant. Satan is portrayed as an innocent, petty, but crafty creature, supposedly wishing everyone well and at the same time constantly remaining misunderstood. This interpretation of biblical images is conditioned by the task of designing in the text such topics as atheism and belief in the immortality of the soul. The theme of children and the death of children present here, the theme of suffering are developed by Dostoevsky in the context of the problems of Christian socialism and the Russian folk character.

All the themes and motifs outlined earlier in Dostoevsky's work in connection with the Book of Job found their most integral spiritual and artistic embodiment in the canonical text of the novel The Brothers Karamazov.

Section 4.3. “The first introduction of the Book of Job into the text of the novel “The Brothers Karamazov”: “Loved the Book of Job”” considers the first case of referring to the Book of Job in the novel. As recorded in the title of the section, the form of introducing the Old Testament book into the author's text is naming:

“According to Marfa Ignatievna, he (servant Grigory. - M.I.), from that very grave, began to predominantly engage in “divine”, read the Cheti-Minei, more silently and alone, each time putting on his large silver round glasses. I rarely read aloud, except during Great Lent. He loved the Book of Job, obtained from somewhere a list of words and sermons of “our God-bearing father Isaac the Syrian”, read it stubbornly and for many years, understood almost nothing in it, but for this, perhaps, he most appreciated and loved this book. (14; 89).

Indicative of the entire history of the existence of the Book of Job in Dostoevsky's work, this fragment reveals the principle of a deep connection between Great Lent (Lenten Service) and the Book of Job: “I rarely read aloud, except during Great Lent. Loved the Book of Job.

It should also be emphasized that the second motif, after the motive of the Great Lenten Service, which is essential for the existence of the Book of Job in the artistic world of Dostoevsky, is clearly expressed here - the motive of the death of a child. The image of the old man Gregory is organized here by the description of the loss of the "old" (native) child and the acquisition of the "new" (tossed by Smerdyakov). The theme of the death of children in Dostoevsky's perception turns out to be closely connected with the Book of Job, where the situation of losing children and gaining new children, where the theme of Job's "new children" is meaningful.

This fragment can be considered as preparatory to the next fragment - the most complete and detailed existence of the Book of Job both in the text of the novel and in Dostoevsky's work as a whole.

Section 4.4. "The climax of the existence of the Book of Job in the novel "The Brothers Karamazov":" On the Holy Scripture in the life of Father Zosima"" the existence of the biblical book in the fifth and sixth books of the novel, which in the author's intention are his "culminating point" (301; 63, 105 ).

It should be noted that in the original intention of the author, these books were planned as a single whole. The main idea of ​​these books is “the depiction of extreme blasphemy and the grain of the idea of ​​the destruction of our time in Russia, among young people divorced from reality, and next to blasphemy and anarchism, their refutation” (301; 63).

This ideological setting of the writer determines, in particular, the specifics of the existence of the Book of Job in the novel.

The preliminary introduction into the semantic field of the novel of such Christian meanings as redemption and the moral rebirth of a person led to the creation of a certain range of motifs: “Easter holiday”, “Lenten service”, “temple”. Thus, the whole complex of themes and motives, revealed earlier in connection with the Book of Job, is manifested.

First, the existence of the Book of Job on the ideological and content level is manifested in a fragment of the “spiritual acquaintance” of the two brothers Karamazov – Ivan and Alexei (chapters “Brothers Acquaintance”, “Riot”, “Grand Inquisitor”). Then - in a fragment of the "farewell conversation" of the elder Zosima, where he talks about himself, about his childhood memories and about "death" experiences. At this stage, the Book of Job enters the text of the novel in its most expanded version.

It seems fundamentally significant that, in describing Zosima's childhood and "senile" impressions, Dostoevsky turns to a detailed introduction to the text of the novel of the biblical book. The book of Job takes shape in the artistic world of the novel as an integral, independent work, with its own plot about a specific person, about his relationship with God.

The breadth of the range of reference to the Book of Job in this part of the novel and in the novel The Brothers Karamazov as a whole is due to the fact that it is associated with such images as the elder Zosima and Ivan Karamazov at the same time.

The key theme is the acceptance of the existence of God and the denial of the world created by Him, in other words, the theme of theodicy and moral freedom of man. The disclosure of this topic is closely connected with the anti-Christian idea of ​​denying the three fundamental truths of Divine revelation: the fall, redemption, eternal retribution - “three mystical acts”10, as V.V. Rozanov.

The essence of Ivan Karamazov's position is most clearly expressed in the poem "The Grand Inquisitor", where Ivan questions the act of the fall:

“About the big ones, they also have retribution: they ate an apple and knew good and evil. But the little children have not eaten anything and are not yet guilty of anything.

It is impossible for an innocent person to suffer for another, and even for such an innocent one! (14; 216-217). Here, Ivan’s exclamation completely rejects the act of eternal retribution for good and evil: “I don’t want harmony (manufactured by suffering), I don’t want it because of love for humanity, I need retribution Rozanov V.V. Legend of the Grand Inquisitor by F. M. Dostoevsky. The experience of critical commentary // Rozanov VV Incompatible contrasts of life. Literary and aesthetic works of different years. - M.: Art, 1990. - S. 111.

And retribution is not in infinity somewhere, but here, already on earth.

(14; 222-223). The discord generated in the human soul by rebellion against God's principles of the world order, against the consequences of original sin, and the simultaneous awareness of the limitations of human understanding gives rise to a daring denial of the cardinal truth of Christian doctrine - the mystery of redemption. Ivan, through the mouth of his Inquisitor, makes attempts to "correct the feat"11 of Christ, justifying them with his "more perfect" love for humanity.

It is obvious that Ivan is following the "human-divine"12 path, the final outcome of which was predetermined at the dawn of the creation of mankind. Ivan's fragmentary vision of God's world is deceptive, it is akin to the diabolical, because it gives rise to rebellion against the power of God, against God's vision and Divine Providence. Man, as a created being, different from the Creator, due to the limitations of his mind and abilities, is not able to assess the situation in its true integrity. Therefore, the highest wisdom of man is to trust the will of God, who “so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.”13

Therefore, the further intention of the novel is aimed at recreating the image of a “pure, ideal Christian” in the image of the elder Zosima (301; 68) and in this artistic image to embody the path of the “God-human”14. Section II of chapter six of the novel "On the Holy Scriptures in the Life of Father Zosima" includes the most detailed text of the Book of Job.

Here, in the novel The Brothers Karamazov, we also found a citation of the Book of Job, which was not fully taken into account in the academic Complete Works and Letters of Dostoevsky:

“There was a man in the land of Uz, truthful and pious, and he had so much wealth. And God betrayed His righteous man, so beloved by Him, to the devil, and the devil struck down his children, and his cattle, and scattered his wealth, all of a sudden, as with God's thunder, and Job tore his clothes, and threw himself on the ground, and cried out: “Nag I came out of my mother's womb, naked and I will return to the earth, God gave, God took. May the name of the Lord be blessed from now on and forever! (14; 264).

Job. 1. 20 - 21: "20. Then Job got up and tore his outer garment, shaved off his head, and fell to the ground and bowed down”; 21. And he said: naked Rozanov V.V. Legend of the Grand Inquisitor by F. M. Dostoevsky. The experience of critical commentary // Rozanov VV Incompatible contrasts of life. Literary and aesthetic works of different years. - M .: Art, 1990. - S. 124.

Grigoriev. D. St. Ambrose and the Elder Zosima Dostoevsky // Dostoevsky: Materials and Research. - SPb., 2000. - S. 157.

I came out of my mother's womb, naked and I will return. The Lord gave, the Lord took; (as the Lord pleased, so it happened); May the name of the Lord be blessed!”

Many of the ideas expressed by Zosima were close to Dostoevsky himself. The image of the old man is based on the idea of ​​the moral rebirth of the individual. The plot situation of the fragment under study is again built in the context of the theme of love for one's neighbor, understood, however, in a completely different way than in Ivan's poem "The Grand Inquisitor".

The basis of the very fragment about the elder Zosima is the writer's autobiographical memoirs about how he "for the first time in his life received into his soul the first seed of the word of God meaningfully" (14; 264). The episode is organized by a combination of various forms of introducing the Book of Job into the author's text: citation, paraphrase, paraphrase.

The influence of the Old Testament book here is given, first of all, quantitatively by the large volume of quoted and paraphrased text. The book of Job is revealed here in the fullness of the author's contemplation of Dostoevsky both as a sacred text and as an artistic text. The author's retelling determines the integral and complete inclusion of the poem in the literary text of the novel. At the climax of the story, the author reveals the key meanings of his theodicy - the idea of ​​justifying God and the world of God.

The writer uses the image of Job as confirmation of his understanding of the problems of theodicy. The author's special attention to the image of Job is evidenced by the variety of ways he works with the image of the biblical hero. We can say that all the themes and motifs identified and identified by us earlier, related to the Book of Job, turned out to be concentrated in this fragment in the image of Job.

Thus, the Book of Job enters the artistic world of the novel as an answer to the question of man's relationship to God, as a justification for Dostoevsky's theodicy.

Section 4.5. “The last introduction of the Book of Job into the text of The Brothers Karamazov: “Damn. The Nightmare of Ivan Fedorovich” analyzes the final fragment of the existence of the Book of Job in the novel. The originality of the fragment under study is due to the specifics of this chapter as a whole. Due to the fact that it was not provided for by the author's original plan, the fragment itself is seen in the general structure of the life of the biblical book as a kind of addition to what has already been said.

The fragment, like the chapter as a whole, is devoted to the development of the image of Satan.

This factor determines the introduction of the Book of Job into the author's text.

Here the main function of the devil is clearly distinguished - to deceive, destroy and destroy. His role as an adversary and a rebel is marked.

In the Conclusion, the results of the study are summarized and its future prospects are outlined.

The Old Testament Book of Job is an unusual phenomenon: it is a sacred biblical text, telling in vivid artistic form about a man who loved God and rebelled against Him. This biblical poem entered world culture a long time ago and still does not cease to attract the attention of scientists, writers, artists, theologians and ordinary readers.

In the history of Russian culture and literature, the Book of Job has been subjected to various, often opposite, interpretations. However, against this background, Dostoevsky's work is as specific as the biblical book itself, due to the general nature of their attitude to the problems of theodicy: an understanding of rebellion and denial of the world of God - and a humble contemplation of the great mystery of God.

MAIN PROVISIONS WORKS

REFLECTED IN THE FOLLOWING PUBLICATIONS:

1. Ionina M.A. The book of Job in the works of F.M. Dostoevsky: general religious and philosophical problems // Theoretical and applied aspects of philology: Sat. scientific paper dedicated to the 10th anniversary of the Department of Russian Language and Literature of the Institute of Language Communication of the Tomsk Polytechnic University. - Tomsk, 2003. - S. 302-303.

2. Ionina M.A. The book of Job in the novels of F.M. Dostoevsky's "Teenager" and "The Brothers Karamazov" // Dostoevsky and time: Sat. articles / Ed. E.G. Novikova, A.A. Kazakov. - Issue. 1. - Tomsk: Publishing House of TSU, 2004. - P. 48–63.

4. Ionina M.A. The book of Job in the novels of F.M. Dostoevsky // Orthodoxy and the development of Russian spiritual culture in Siberia (to the 400th anniversary of the city of Tomsk and the 200th anniversary of the Tomsk province): Materials of Spiritual and Historical Readings in honor of Saints Equal-to-the-Apostles Cyril and Methodius / Ed. Hegumen Siluan (Vyurov), prof. T.A. Kostyukova:

In 2 vols. - Tomsk: Publishing House of the Tomsk CNTI, 2004. - Vol. 2. - P. 125–131.

5. Ionina M.A. The book of Job in the novel by F.M. Dostoevsky "Teenager" // Actual problems of linguistics, literary criticism and journalism: Sat. works of young scientists / Ed. A.A. Kazakov. - Issue. 5. - Ch.

1: Literary criticism. - Tomsk: Publishing House of TSU, 2004. - S. 62–65.

6. Ionina M.A. Old Testament culture in the text of the novel by F.M. Dostoevsky "The Brothers Karamazov" // Communicative Aspects of Language and Culture: Sat. materials V All-Russian. scientific-practical. conf. students, graduate students and young scientists. - Tomsk: TPU, 2005. - S. 246-248.

7. Ionina M.A. Different translations of the Bible in the work of F.M. Dostoevsky 1870-1880 // Challenges of the Time and Orthodox Traditions: Materials of the XV Spiritual and Historical Readings in Honor of Saints Cyril and Methodius Equal-to-the-Apostles / Ed. Hegumen Siluan (Vyurov), prof.

T.A. Kostyukova. - Tomsk: Publishing house of the Tomsk CNTI, 2005. - S. 17–20.

8. Ionina M.A. The book of Job in the novel by F.M. Dostoevsky "The Brothers Karamazov" // Actual problems of linguistics and literary criticism: Matly VI Vseros. scientific-practical. conf. young scientists April 22-23, 2005 / Ed. A.A. Kazakov. - Issue. 6. - Part 2: Literary criticism. – Tomsk:

Publishing House of TSU, 2005. - P.88–91.

9. Ionina M.A. Different translations of the Bible in the work of F.M. Dostoevsky 1870-1880 // Dostoevsky and world culture. Almanac. - St. Petersburg, 2006. - No. 21. - S. 211-222.

10. Ionina M. A. The book of Job in F. M. Dostoevsky’s novel “The Brothers Karamazov”: ideological and artistic climax // Vestn. Volume. state university:

“Berezhnykh Elena Yuryevna COLOR DESIGNATIONS AND THEIR SYMBOLS IN RUSSIAN AND SPANISH 10.02.20 – Comparative-historical, typological and comparative linguistics Abstract of the dissertation for the degree of candidate of philological sciences Kazan – 2009 State University named after V.I. Ulyanov-Lenina Supervisor: Doctor of Philology Professor Gennady...»

"GEVORGYAN IRINA ARTSRUNOVNA EXPANDED METAPHOR IN THE WORKS OF MODERN BRITISH WRITERS AND WAYS OF ITS TRANSFER INTO RUSSIAN LANGUAGE Specialty: 10.02.20 - Comparative-Historical, Comparative and Typological Linguistics AUTHOR'S ABSTRACT of the dissertation for the degree of Candidate of Foreign Languages0 Kazan - Department of Philology1 and intercultural communication of a federal state autonomous educational institution...”

“TBOEVA ZARINA ELBRUSOVNA MEANS OF REPRESENTATION OF SATIRE J. SWIFT (based on a comparative analysis of the novel Gulliver's Travels and its translations into Russian) Specialty 10.02.20 - comparative historical, typological and comparative linguistics ABSTRACT of the dissertation for the degree of candidate of philological sciences Vladikavkaz 2011 North Ossetian...»

“KOBELEV VLADIMIR ALEKSANDROVICH FORMATION OF THE ROOT declension IN THE OLD GERMANIC LANGUAGES IN THE LIGHT OF INDO-EUROPEANISTIC DATA 10.02.20 Comparative-historical, typological and comparative linguistics ABSTRACT of the dissertation for the degree of candidate of philological sciences Tomsk - 2006 3 university at the department of languages ​​of peoples ... "

«GUSAROV Dmitry Aleksandrovich LINGUISTIC EXPRESSION OF MEANING UNDER THE CONDITIONS OF THE LINGUISTIC-ETHNIC BARRIER (pragmatic aspect of German-Russian and English-Russian translations) Specialty: 10.02.20 – Comparative historical, typological and comparative linguistics ABSTRACT of the dissertation for the degree of candidate of philological sciences Moscow 2013 The work is done at the Department of General and Russian Linguistics of the Faculty of Philology of the Peoples' Friendship University of Russia ... "

"ALFEROVA Dinara Adlevna MODULAR TRAINING IN THE TRANSLATION OF SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL TEXTS USING INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES Specialty: 13.00.02 - theory and methods of training and education (foreign language, level of vocational education) Abstract of the dissertation for the degree of candidate of pedagogical sciences Moscow 2010 The work was done at the department foreign languages ​​of the Faculty of Philology of the Peoples' Friendship University of Russia Supervisor:...»

«PAPULINOVA Irina Evgenievna LANGUAGE MANIFESTATION OF HAND GESTURES IN DIALOGICAL DISCOURSE (BY THE MATERIAL OF RUSSIAN, GERMAN AND ENGLISH LANGUAGES) 10.02.19 – Theory of language (philological sciences and) ABSTRACT of the dissertation for the degree of Candidate of Foreign Sciences in Philology Tambov – 2003 The work was done at the Department of Languages Tambov State Technical University. Candidate of Philological Sciences, Supervisor Associate Professor Grigoryeva Valentina Sergeevna...»

"Polesyuk Raisa Samoilovna TEACHING FOREIGN LANGUAGE POLILOGICAL COMMUNICATION TO STUDENTS OF LINGUISTIC SPECIALTIES (English as a second foreign, language university) 13.00.02 - theory and methods of teaching and education (foreign languages) Abstract of the dissertation for the degree of candidate of pedagogical sciences Tomsk - 2007 The work was done on Department of Methods of Teaching Foreign Languages ​​of the Institute of Engineering Pedagogy of Tomsk Polytechnic University Scientific ... "

"NAZAROVA NIGINA SAIDUMAROVNA STRUCTURAL-SEMANTIC ANALYSIS OF THE TERMS OF INTERNATIONAL LAW IN THE ENGLISH AND TAJIK LANGUAGES Specialty: 10.02.20 - comparative historical, typological and comparative linguistics Slavic) University of the Republic of Tajikistan Supervisor: Doctor...»

“Kovalchuk Lidiya Petrovna CONCEPTUAL INTEGRATION OF THE ORIGINAL SPACE A WOMAN IN THE FAIRY-FAIRY DISCOURSE (based on Russian and English folk tales) Specialty 10.02.20 – Comparative-historical, typological and comparative linguistics AUTHOR'S ABSTRACT of the dissertation for the degree of candidate of philological sciences Chelyabinsk – 2012 The work was done at the department theory and practice of the English language FGBOU VPO Chelyabinsk State University PhD...»

«Kaverina Oksana Anatolyevna MODUS CATEGORIZATION OF REALITY IN STATEMENTS WITH AS IF / AS THOUGH UNIONS Specialty 10.02.04 – Germanic languages ​​ABSTRACT of the dissertation for the degree of candidate of philological sciences Irkutsk – 2013 Irkutsk State Linguistic University Doctor...»

ZHELEZNOVA YULIA VLADIMIROVNA LINGUO-COGNITIVE AND LINGUO-CULTURAL RESEARCH OF THE CONCEPT FAMILY specialty 10.02.19 – theory of language ABSTRACT of the dissertation for the degree of candidate of philological sciences Izhevsk – 2009 : associate professor Merzlyakova Alfiya Khamitovna ... "

«Musbakhova Victoria Talgatovna COMPARATIVE HISTORICAL STUDY OF THE TEXT AND THE PROBLEM OF AUTHORSHIP (based on the tragedy Prometheus Bound) Specialties Comparative-historical, typological and comparative linguistics 10.02.14 – Classical philology, Byzantine and modern Greek philology Petersburg 2010 The dissertation was completed on...»

“UDK 803.0-853=03(07) Kondrashova Natalia Vladimirovna Teaching senior students to translate in the faculty of fine arts of a pedagogical university (on the material of the German language) Specialty 13.00.02 – theory and methodology of training and education (foreign language, level of vocational education) ABSTRACT of the dissertation for the degree of candidate of pedagogical sciences St. Petersburg 2002 The work was done at the department of teaching methods ... "

"SHEVCHENKO Alexey Sergeevich THEATER DISCOURSE: STRUCTURE, GENRES, FEATURES OF LINGUISTIC REPRESENTATION (on the example of Russian, English, Buryat languages) Specialty 10.02.19 - Theory of language Abstract of the dissertation for the degree of candidate of philological sciences St. Petersburg-2012 The work was done in the Federal State budgetary educational institution of higher professional education St. Petersburg State University ... "

“MOSKALENKO DARIA NIKOLAEVNA THE PHENOMENON OF FREEDOM IN THE SOCIO-CULTURAL SPACE OF A TRANSFORMING SOCIETY 09.00.11 – Social Philosophy ABSTRACT of the dissertation for the degree of Candidate of Philosophical Sciences Stavropol – 2014 , Professor Volova ... "

“LEBEDEVA TATYANA OLEGOVNA Pragmaphonetic study of word stress in American English Specialty 10.02.04 – Germanic languages ​​Abstract of the dissertation for the degree of candidate of philological sciences Moscow - 2009 M.V. Lomonosov. Supervisor: Doctor of Philology Professor Irina Markovna Magidova,...»

“Tezekbayeva Gulzhan Amangeldinovna PRAGMATICS OF INDICATIONS IN RUSSIAN AND ENGLISH 10.02.01 – Russian language 10.02.20 – Comparative-historical, typological and comparative linguistics Abstract of the dissertation for the degree of candidate of philological sciences Tobolsk - 2011 The work was done in the State Higher Professional Educational Institution Tobolsk State Socio-Pedagogical Academy. DI. Mendeleev ... "

“Brattseva Viktoriya Vladimirovna PHRASEOLOGICAL PREPOSITIONS IN THE SCIENTIFIC TEXT OF THE RUSSIAN AND GERMAN LANGUAGES Specialty 10.02.20 – Comparative-historical, typological and comparative linguistics ABSTRACT of the dissertation for the degree of candidate of philological sciences Chelyabinsk – 2009 VPO Chelyabinsk State Pedagogical University Supervisor: Doctor...»

WORLD SPIRITUAL CULTURE

THE BIBLE AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE OF THE XIX CENTURY

Conversation two

The second half of the 19th century was marked by the work of many great Russian writers. We cannot cover them all in one lecture. Today I would like to focus on three main names in the literature of this period: Fyodor Dostoevsky, Leo Tolstoy and Vladimir Solovyov.

Many people underestimate his religious quest. They are undoubtedly deeply sincere, painful, but the fact that a man who for almost thirty years considered himself a preacher of the Gospel found himself in conflict with Christianity, even excommunicated from the Church, shows that Tolstoy was a very complex figure, tragic and disharmonic. He, who sang such powerful harmonious characters, was himself a man suffering from a deep spiritual crisis.

Those of you who are at least a little familiar with his biography should remember the horror that he experienced in Arzamas. It was the horror of death, and even worse than the horror of death. At first, when he turned to the Holy Scriptures, he, like Dostoevsky, was captivated by the epic power of the Bible. He wrote, in particular, in his article "Yasnopolyanskaya school" that for children to read the Holy Scriptures is a sacred thing, because it is a book of humanity's childhood. Since this article is little known, I will give you a few lines. “It seems to me,” he writes, “that the book of the childhood of the human race will always be the best book of the childhood of any person, it seems to me impossible to replace this book, to change and shorten it, as they do in Sonntag’s textbooks and so on, it seems to me harmful. Everything, every word in it seems to me fair, like revelation, fair, like art. Read from the Bible about the creation of the world and from a brief Sacred History, and the alteration of the Bible in Sacred History will seem completely incomprehensible to you. According to Sacred history it is impossible otherwise, when you learn by heart, according to the Bible, a child is presented with a living majestic picture, which he will never forget╩. An interesting thought, although in all ages people still tried to transcribe the Bible, in particular, for children.

Tolstoy immerses himself in the Old Testament, even studying the Hebrew language in order to read it in the original, then he gives up all this. He refers only to the New Testament. The Old Testament for him, it turns out, is just one of the ancient religions. But even in the New Testament there are many things that do not satisfy him. The Apostle Paul and his Epistles seem to him an ecclesiastical perversion of the truth, and he comes to the four Gospels. But even here, it turns out, everything is not right for him, and he goes, as it were, on a cone, reducing and reducing everything valuable that is in the Bible. First, He throws out everything miraculous, supernatural from the Gospel, and then - not only this, but also the highest theological concept: "In the beginning was the Word", the Word as the divine cosmic Mind. Tolstoy said: "In the beginning was understanding." The glory of Christ, that is, a reflection of eternity and the personality of Christ, for him was the Teaching of Christ.

Why did it happen that he distorted the gospel text in a strange way? There is only one reason. Even in his youth, he wrote in his diary: "I have a goal, the most important goal, to which I am ready to devote my whole life: to create a new religion that would have a practical character and would promise good here on earth." And the gospel turned out to be just a confirmation of his own religious conception. What was it?

Of course, there is some mysterious higher power. It can hardly be considered personal: most likely, it is impersonal, because a person is something limited. Note that Tolstoy, who created magnificent images of a person, who himself was the brightest personality on a global scale, was a principled impersonalist, that is, he did not recognize the value of the individual. Hence his ideas about the insignificant role of the individual in history, you remember how all this was reflected in ╚War and Peace╩. So, according to Tolstoy, this is a kind of higher principle, which in some incomprehensible way encourages a person to be kind.

╚Do I believe in God? Tolstoy wrote in 1900. - I do not know, but I believe that one must be kind and this is the highest will╩. ╚Goodness towards people is a commandment of all beliefs from ancient times╩, - he wrote. Of course, he was right about something. But this is not only in Christianity, but also in Buddhism, and in general everywhere.

According to Tolstoy, Christ preached a reasonable healthy life: it is reasonable to be kind to people, it is reasonable to cast aside the burden of civilization that oppresses a person, it is reasonable to work with one's own hands. “Christ teaches us,” he writes, “not to do stupid things.” This phrase of Tolstoy (I am not saying that it is so primitive, no) shows clearly that he wanted to say that only common sense is the basis of the Gospel. This phrase in the book "What is my faith?" that Christ taught not to do stupid things is radically different from the Gospel. That's not the point at all. Christ comes to us to reveal His heart, and through him the whole world, to reveal the personal mystery of the Godhead, which is reflected in the infinite valuable personality of each of us. That is why it is said all the time in all the Gospels: He came to save everyone, so that everyone who believes in Him may have eternal life. Not some collective humanity, not some faceless mass, but everyone. "I stand at the door and knock," says Christ. He stands at the door of every man's heart! This profound personalism of the Gospel was alien to Tolstoy's mental world (although as an artist he portrayed it).

And so Tolstoy writes his Gospel. Many of you, perhaps for the first time, became acquainted with the Gospel through Tolstoy's transcription. You must remember that this is, firstly, a paraphrase, that is, a completely free presentation. Secondly, a paraphrase deliberately distorting the meaning in the spirit of Tolstoy's teachings. Thirdly, this is not the gospel, but these are fragments of the gospel, compiled into a kind of coherent text, from which almost all the moments describing the person of Jesus Christ are expelled. There is only teaching. No wonder Maxim Gorky, after meeting with Tolstoy, wrote that he speaks of Buddha loftily, but about Christ somehow sentimentally, it was clear that he did not love Him, although he might admire him. And this can be verified by looking at the uncropped editions of Tolstoy's philosophical works: he often speaks of the Savior in a rude, vulgar, even blasphemous manner. So he would not say about an expensive being, for example, about his own mother.

Tolstoy tried to present his Gospel as true Christianity. Meanwhile, it was a religion closer to Stoicism or Confucianism. It is connected with the philosophical tradition from Lao Tzu to Jean Jacques Rousseau, whose portrait Tolstoy wore around his neck instead of a cross from a young age. Rousseau was convinced that all evil came from civilization, he thought that the savage was better than us. Life has shown that both the civilized savage and the uncivilized are equal to each other: a man is always a man. It's not about civilization, we needlessly reproach it. Guilty man. In those tragedies, environmental, say, which today torment the whole world, only he is to blame. If people had a different attitude to nature and to each other, and to the earth, then technology would not be so homicidal.

Tolstoy saw difficulties in family life, and just as with civilization, he dealt with it severely. In fact, he denied love, marriage, gender - he, a man who, up to gray hair, could write with rapture about love and passion. Remember ╚Resurrection╩. It is boring in places - a didactic book, but the pages of Nekhlyudov's love are written in such a way that one cannot even imagine that an old man wrote it - it was as if a young man wrote them!

Of course, now you have a question: was the Synod right in excommunicating him? Still, he was right. Firstly, it must be said right away that these sentimental stories about how Tolstoy was anathematized, or how a certain deacon had to proclaim an anathema to him, but instead cried out: "Many years" - idle speculation. It was simply that a very brief and, in fact, restrained in terms of expressions, text of the Definition of the Synod was published, which stated that Leo Tolstoy, the world-famous writer, teaches a certain religion, which he passes off as Christianity, and at the same time conducts violent attacks on the Church. By the way, he, a supporter of non-resistance and love, was extremely rude and unrestrained, even fierce, I would say, he crossed all boundaries. The definition said that this person was considered to be outside the Church, which was true. Tolstoy himself in his pamphlet 'An Answer to the Synod' wrote: Yes, it is quite right that I have fallen away from the Church, which considers itself Orthodox. It was a statement of fact. It never occurred to anyone to excommunicate non-Christians, say, Buddhists living in Russia, or Muslims, of which there were a lot. Because they were not Christians. Tolstoy claimed that he professed Christianity, and the Synod had to say publicly that his Christianity did not coincide with the Christianity of the Gospel and the Church.

Although Tolstoy said that in the Gospel the mystical side is superficial and a distortion, we must remember that this side was the main one in the Church even before the Gospels were written. No overlays! First, the mystery of Christ was revealed, shocking everyone. Not teaching! There were a lot of arguments on the topic of morality among a variety of philosophers and sages - Jewish, Greek, Roman, whatever you want. The mystery of Christ was completely different - through Him eternity spoke to man. And then people began to write down His moral teachings. There is a huge distance here.

And yet we can say that Tolstoy was right about something, because he drew the attention of Christian society to the neglect of some important elements of the teachings of Christ. He drew attention to the indifference of the public. Shortly after his death, the prominent theologian S. N. Bulgakov wrote that Tolstoy preached in an era of spiritual crisis and was called upon to stir up the conscience of society. Therefore, despite the distortions to which the Bible has been subjected in his teaching, Tolstoy's serious approach to the Gospel commands not only respect, but also deserves to be learned from him.

They argued a lot with Vladimir Solovyov, then a young philosopher. One of the eyewitnesses tells how Solovyov and Tolstoy argued. Usually Tolstoy won in disputes, but then the scythe found a stone. Solovyov, clad in the armor of philosophical dialectics, attacked Lev Nikolaevich in such a way that everyone felt somehow embarrassed, because for the first time Tolstoy did not triumph and was forced to surrender. True, he did not admit defeat, but it was clear to everyone that he did not know what to object.

For Vladimir Solovyov, who was born later than Tolstoy, and died earlier (1853-1900), the Holy Scripture was the basis of all his infinitely diverse work - poetic, philosophical, theological, journalistic.

I think that many of you have already heard about Vladimir Solovyov, others have read his works, but I would like to draw your attention to a few lines that have never been published in our country at all. Vladimir Solovyov said this: my faith in the divine-human character of Scripture has greatly improved in consciousness and clarity thanks to my acquaintance with the latest criticism, mostly of the negative school. That is, he said that the scientific criticism of the Bible not only did not confuse him, but also helped him to come deeper into the Scriptures.

Solovyov, after Khomyakov, was one of the first to apply the main Christian dogma of God-manhood to the Bible. In Christ, the real Man, lives the real God. So it is in Scripture - the author retains his human characteristics, although the Spirit of God acts on him. “Just as in the living Logos,” Soloviev writes, “the Divine is inseparably and inseparably united with humanity, so are the divine and human elements inseparably and indivisibly united in the written Word of God. And just as in Christ human nature is represented not only by appearances, so in Holy Scripture the human element consists not only of external material, language, writing, but extends to all content, embracing the very soul and mind of Scripture╩.

Vladimir Solovyov wrote a peculiar interpretation of the Old and New Testaments. This is the book ╚History and Future of Theocracy╩. He interpreted according to the original. He knew the Greek language well from his youth, was a translator of Plato, but he also studied the Hebrew language and cited all quotations from the Bible in his own translation from the original.

Solovyov considered biblical history as the history of the affirmation of divine principles not only in human souls, not only in personal life, but also in society. Theocracy means divine power as the highest ideal, so that the sacred idea of ​​solidarity, brotherhood, spirituality penetrates into society, because without spirituality society will degrade.

The Bible inspired Solovyov with a number of poems and partly with the "Tale of the Antichrist". Dying on the eve of the 20th century, foreseeing, like a prophet, the coming catastrophes that awaited our troubled age, in his book "Three Conversations" he created "The Tale of the Antichrist", a kind of anti-utopia, where the universal dictator is ready to preserve Christianity, but only the purely external, without Christ. Monuments, icons, art, scientific, theological opinions, but - without Christ. All the realities of this story are taken from the Apocalypse of the Apostle John. Thus ended Solovyov's work through the reflection of the Bible.

If we take Solovyov's poetry, there are two poems to which I would like to draw your attention in conclusion. One poem is called ╚Idol of Nebukadnetzar╩. (He, as a philologist, pronounced the name of Nebuchadnezzar as Nebukadnezzar. That's right - that's what they called him in ancient times. Nebuchadnezzar is the Greek form of the name). According to the biblical story, Nebuchadnezzar (he lived in the 6th century BC) made a reform of worship so that everyone would see the idol and fall on their faces before it. But the Bible, talking about the worship of this idol, does not stop at any historical realities. There were many events, religious reforms, but it was important for Solovyov that this was a symbol of the rebellion of man against heaven.

He was big, heavy and terrible,

From the face like a bull, back - a dragon,

Over a pile of sacrificial brashen

Surrounded by censer smoke.

And before the idol on the throne,

Holding the sacred ball in my hand

And in a seven-tiered crown

Nebukadnezzar appeared.

He said: “My peoples!

I am the king of kings, I am the God of the earth.

Everywhere I trampled the banner of freedom,

The earth fell silent before me.

But I saw that boldly

Others you pray to the gods,

Forgetting that only the God of the Universe

Could give gods to his slaves.

Now a new God is given to you!

My royal sword sanctified him,

And ready for the disobedient

Crosses and fiery furnace╩.

And across the plain with a wild groan

The cry went up: "You are the God of gods!"

Merging with the musky ringing

And with the voice of quivering priests.

In this day of madness and shame

I called hard to the Lord,

And louder than the vile choir

And from the heights of Naharaim

Breathed in a stormy winter,

Like the flame of the altar, visible,

The firmament parted above me.

And snow-white blizzards

Mixed with hail and rain

Dressed in icy bark

Plain Durskaya all around.

He fell in a great fall

And the overturned lay,

And from him in wild confusion

Frightened people fled...

Where did the lord of the world live yesterday,

Today I saw shepherds:

They are the creator of that idol

grazed among his cattle.

The uprising against tyranny, against cults - for Solovyov this was a very important topic. It is reflected in the poem with which I will conclude our meeting today. Solovyov saw in the Bible a combination of East and West. The East is, on the one hand, a cruel despotism, and on the other, the light of the Star of Bethlehem, the star of Christ. The West is human activity, courage, citizenship, democracy, freedom. They clashed five centuries before our era, when the troops of the Iranian despot Xerxes invaded the Balkans, trying to subdue democratic Athens. Huge armies of mercenaries moved and met the defense at the Thermopylae Gorge. Only three hundred people, led by King Leonidas, repelled a huge army in a narrow mountain pass.

For Solovyov, this ancient historical event became an image of how freedom, citizenship, courage and democracy oppose tyranny and Asian despotism. The poem is called ╚Ex oriente "ux╩ (╚Light from the East╩).

╚Light from the East, strength from the East!╩

And, ready for omnipotence,

Iranian king under Thermopylae

Caught up with herds of his slaves.

But not in vain Prometheus

Hellas has been given a heavenly gift.

Crowds of slaves run, turning pale,

Before a handful of valiant citizens.

And who is from the Indus to the Ganges

Walked the glorious path?

That is the Macedonian phalanx,

That is Rome's royal eagle.

And by the power of reason and law -

Universal beginnings -

The power of the West has risen,

And Rome gave unity to the world.

What else was missing?

Why is the whole dispute again in the blood?

The soul of the universe yearned

About the spirit of faith and love!

And the prophetic word is not false,

And the light from the East shone

And what was impossible

He announced and promised.

(Meaning the light of the Star of Bethlehem - A. M.)

And spreading wide

Full of signs and powers

That light that came from the East,

The West reconciled with the East.

Oh Rus! in anticipation high

You are busy with a proud thought,

What kind of East do you want to be:

Orient of Xerxes or Christ?

This question was very important for Solovyov, because he believed that biblical history is not over, that the struggle between light and darkness continues, that in the history of peoples not only economic interests, not only political passions, but genuine spiritual polarities collide. Therefore, it is so important that individuals and spiritual movements, and entire nations take part in the formation of the spirit, in its struggle against enslavement, inertness, indifference, lack of spirituality, death, blackness in all life. For the Spirit to walk like a wrestler!