N.A. Nekrasov “Who Lives Well in Rus'”: description, characters, analysis of the poem
Chapters Nekrasov's poem "Who Lives Well in Rus'" not only do they reveal different aspects of Russian life: in each chapter we look at this life through the eyes of representatives of different classes. And the story of each of them, as the center, turns to the “kingdom of the peasants,” revealing different sides folk life- his life, work, revealing the people's soul, people's conscience, people's aspirations and aspirations. To use the expression of Nekrasov himself, we “measure” the peasant with different “standards” - both the “master’s” and his own. But in parallel, against the background of the majestic picture of the life of the Russian Empire created in the poem, the internal plot of the poem develops - the gradual growth of the heroes’ self-awareness, their spiritual awakening. Observing what is happening, talking with the most different people, men learn to distinguish true happiness from imaginary, illusory ones, they find the answer to the question, “who is the holy of all, who is the sinner of all.” It is characteristic that already in the first part the heroes act as judges, and it is they who have the right to determine: who of those who call themselves happy is truly happy. This is a complex moral task that requires a person to have his own ideals. But it is equally important to note that wanderers increasingly find themselves “lost” in the crowd of peasants: their voices seem to merge with the voices of residents of other provinces, the entire peasant “world.” And already the “world” has a weighty word in condemning or justifying the happy and unhappy, sinners and righteous.
Going on a journey, the peasants are looking for someone who “life is easy and fun in Rus'”. This formula probably presupposes freedom and idleness, inseparable for men with wealth and nobility. To the first of the possible lucky ones I met - ass they ask the question: “Tell us in a divine way: / Is the priest’s life sweet? / How are you living at ease, happily / Are you living, honest father?..” For them, a synonym for a “happy” life is “sweet” life. The priest contrasts this vague idea with his understanding of happiness, which men share: “What do you think happiness is? / Peace, wealth, honor - / Isn’t that right, dear friends?” / They said: so...” It can be assumed that the ellipsis (and not an exclamation mark or period) placed after the peasant words means a pause - the peasants think about the priest’s words, but also accept them. L.A. Evstigneeva writes that the definition of “peace, wealth, honor” is alien to the people’s idea of happiness. This is not entirely true: Nekrasov’s heroes really accepted this understanding of happiness, agreed with it internally: it is these three components - “peace, wealth, honor” that will be for them the basis for judging the priest and landowner, Ermil Girin, for choosing between numerous lucky people, which will appear in the chapter “Happy”. It is precisely because the priest’s life is devoid of peace, wealth, and honor that the men recognize him as unhappy. After listening to the priest’s complaints, they realized that his life was not “sweet” at all. They take out their frustration on Luka, who convinced everyone of the priest’s “happiness.” Scolding him, they remember all the arguments of Luke, who proved the priest’s happiness. Listening to their abuse, we understand what they set off on the journey with, what they considered a “good” life: for them it is a well-fed life:
What, did you take it? stubborn head!
Country club!
That's where the argument gets into!<...>
For three years I, little ones,
He lived with the priest as a worker,
Raspberries are not life!
Popova porridge - with butter,
Popov pie - with filling,
Popov's cabbage soup - with smelt!<...>
Well, here's what you've praised,
A priest's life!
Already in the story one priest appeared important feature of the story. Talking about their lives, about personal troubles, every possible “candidate” for happiness that the men meet will paint a broad picture of Russian life. This creates the image of Russia - a single world in which the life of each class turns out to be dependent on the life of the entire country. Only against the backdrop of people's life, in close connection with it, does the troubles of the heroes themselves become understandable and explainable. In the priest's story, first of all, the dark sides of the peasant's life are revealed: the priest, confessing to the dying, becomes a witness to the most sorrowful moments in the peasant's life. From the priest we learn that both in years of rich harvest and in years of famine, the life of a peasant is never easy:
Our benefits are meager,
Sands, swamps, mosses,
The little beast goes from hand to mouth,
Bread will be born on its own,
And if it gets better
The damp earth is the nurse,
So a new problem:
There is nowhere to go with the bread!
There's a need - you'll sell it
For sheer trifle,
And there is a crop failure!
Then pay through the nose,
Sell the cattle!
It is pop that touches on one of the most tragic aspects of people's life - the most important topic poems: the sad position of the Russian peasant woman, “the sad woman, the nurse, the water-maid, the slave, the pilgrim and the eternal toiler.”
One can also note this feature of the narrative: at the heart of each story of the heroes about his life lies antithesis: past - present. At the same time, the heroes do not just compare different stages of their lives: human life, a person’s happiness and misfortune are always connected with those laws - social and moral, according to which the life of the country follows. Characters often make broad generalizations themselves. So, for example, a priest, depicting the current ruin of landowners’ estates, peasant life, and the lives of priests, says:
At a time not far away
Russian Empire
Noble estates
Was full<...>
What weddings were played there,
That children were born
On free bread!<...>
But now it’s not the same!
Like the tribe of Judah,
The landowners dispersed
Across distant foreign lands
And native to Rus'.
The same antithesis will be characteristic of the story Obolta-Oboldueva about the landowner’s life: “Now Rus' is not the same!” - he will say, drawing pictures of the past prosperity and current ruin of noble families. The same theme will be continued in “The Peasant Woman,” which begins with a description of a beautiful landowner’s estate being destroyed by courtyard workers. The past and present will also be contrasted in the story about Savely, the Holy Russian hero. “And there were blessed times / Such times” - this is the pathos of Savely’s own story about his youth and Korezhina’s former life.
But the author’s task is clearly not to glorify lost prosperity. Both in the story of the priest and in the story of the landowner, especially in the stories of Matryona Timofeevna, the leitmotif is the idea that the basis of well-being is great work, great patience of the people, the very “fortification” that brought so much grief to the people. “Free bread”, the bread of serfs that was given to landowners for free, is the source of well-being for Russia and all its classes - all except the peasant class.
The painful impression of the priest's story does not disappear even in the chapter describing the rural holiday. Chapter “Rural Fair” opens up new aspects of people's life. Through the eyes of peasants, we look at the simple joys of peasants, we see a motley and drunken crowd. “Blind people” - this Nekrasov definition from the poem “The Unhappy” fully conveys the essence of the picture of the national holiday drawn by the author. A crowd of peasants offering caps to tavern owners for a bottle of vodka, a drunken peasant who dumped a whole cartload of goods into a ditch, Vavilovushka who drank all his money, offen men buying “pictures” with important generals and books “about my stupid lord” for sale to the peasants - All these, both sad and funny scenes, testify to the moral blindness of the people, their ignorance. Perhaps, only one bright episode was noted by the author in this holiday: universal sympathy for the fate of Vavilushka, who drank away all the money and grieved that he would not bring his granddaughter the promised gift: “The people gathered, listened, / Don’t laugh, feel sorry; / If there had been work, some bread / They would have helped him, / But if you take out two two-kopeck pieces, / You’ll be left with nothing.” When the scholar-folklorist Veretennikov helps out the poor peasant, the peasants “were so comforted, / So glad, as if he had given each one / a ruble.” Compassion for someone else's misfortune and the ability to rejoice in someone else's joy - the spiritual responsiveness of the people - all this foreshadows future author's words about the people's golden heart.
Chapter "Drunken Night" continues the theme of the “great Orthodox thirst”, the immensity of “Russian hops” and paints a picture of wild revelry on the night after the fair. The basis of the chapter is numerous dialogues of different people invisible to either wanderers or readers. Wine made them frank, forced them to talk about the most painful and intimate things. Each dialogue could be expanded into the story of human life, as a rule, unhappy: poverty, hatred between the closest people in the family - that’s what these conversations reveal. This description, which gave rise to the reader’s feeling that “there is no measure for Russian hops,” originally ended the chapter. But it is no coincidence that the author writes a sequel, making the center of the chapter “Drunken Night” not these painful pictures, but an explanatory conversation Pavlushi Veretennikova, folklorist scientist, with peasant Yakim Nagim. It is also no coincidence that the author makes the interlocutor of the folklorist scholar not a “craftsman,” as was the case in the first drafts, but rather a peasant. It is not an outside observer, but the peasant himself who provides an explanation for what is happening. “Don’t measure a peasant by the master’s measure!” - the voice of the peasant Yakim Nagogo sounds in response to Veretennikov, who reproached the peasants for “drinking until they stupefy.” Yakim explains public drunkenness by the suffering that was inflicted on the peasants without measure:
There is no measure for Russian hops,
Have they measured our grief?
Is there a limit to the work?<...>
Why is it shameful for you to look,
Like drunk people lying around
So look,
Like being dragged out of a swamp
Peasants have wet hay,
Having mowed down, they drag:
Where horses can't get through
Where and without a burden on foot
It's dangerous to cross
There's a peasant horde there
By Kochs, by Zhorins
Crawling and crawling with whips, -
The peasant's navel is cracking!
The image used by Yakim Naga in defining the peasants is full of contradictions - the army-horde. The army is the army, the peasants are warriors-warriors, heroes - this image will run through the entire Nekrasov poem. Men, workers and sufferers, are interpreted by the author as defenders of Russia, the basis of its wealth and stability. But the peasants are also a “horde”, an unenlightened, spontaneous, blind force. And these dark sides in folk life are also revealed in the poem. Drunkenness saves the peasant from sorrowful thoughts and from the anger that has accumulated in the soul over many years of suffering and injustice. The soul of a peasant is a “black cloud” foreshadowing a “thunderstorm” - this motif will be picked up in the chapter “Peasant Woman”, in “A Feast for the Whole World”. But the soul is peasant and “kind”: its anger “ends in wine.”
The contradictions of the Russian soul are further revealed by the author. Myself Yakima image full of such contradictions. This peasant’s love for the “pictures” that he bought for his son explains a lot. The author does not detail what “pictures” Yakim admired. It may well be that the same important generals were depicted there as in the pictures described in “Rural Fair”. It is important for Nekrasov to emphasize only one thing: during a fire, when people save what is most precious, Yakim did not save the thirty-five rubles he had accumulated, but “pictures.” And his wife saved him - not money, but icons. What was dear to the peasant soul turned out to be more important than what was needed for the body.
When talking about his hero, the author does not seek to show the uniqueness or peculiarity of Yakima. On the contrary, by emphasizing natural images in the description of his hero, the author creates a portrait-symbol of the entire Russian peasantry - a plowman who has become close to the land over many years. This gives Yakim’s words special weight: we perceive his voice as the voice of the very land-breadwinner, of peasant Rus' itself, calling not for condemnation, but for compassion:
The chest is sunken, as if depressed
Stomach; at the eyes, at the mouth
Bends like cracks
On dry ground;
And to Mother Earth myself
He looks like: brown neck,
Like a layer cut off by a plow,
Brick face
Hand - tree bark.
And the hair is sand.
The chapter “Drunken Night” ends with songs in which the people’s soul was most strongly reflected. In one of them they sing “about Mother Volga, about valiant prowess, about maiden beauty.” The song about love and brave strength and will disturbed the peasants, passed “through the hearts of the peasants” with “fire-longing”, made women cry, and caused homesickness in the hearts of wanderers. Thus, the drunken, “cheerful and roaring” crowd of peasants is transformed before the eyes of the readers, and the longing for will and love, for happiness, suppressed by work and wine, opens in the hearts and souls of people.
Two years after the introduction of new reforms, Nikolai Nekrasov began work on a work that became the pinnacle of his creativity. For many years he worked on the text, and as a result, a poem was created in which the author was not only able to depict the people’s grief, but, together with his characters, sought to answer the following questions: “What is the happiness of the people?”, “How to achieve it?”, “Can an individual be happy in the midst of universal grief?” The analysis of “Who Lives Well in Rus'” is necessary in order to find out which images helped Nekrasov answer these difficult questions.
Concept
When starting the work, the author himself hardly knew the answer to these troubling questions. These were difficult times in the history of the Russian people. The abolition of serfdom did not make life easier for the peasantry. Nekrasov’s original idea was that wandering men would return home after a vain search. During the work, the storyline changed somewhat. The events in the poem were influenced by important social processes. Like his characters, he strives to answer the question: “Is it good to live in Rus'?” And if at the first stage of work on the poem the author does not find grounds for a positive answer, then later representatives of young people appear in society who really find their happiness in going “to the people.”
A striking example was a certain teacher who reported in a letter to Nekrasov that she was experiencing real surges of happiness in her work among the people. The poet planned to use the image of this girl in the development storyline. But I didn’t have time. He died without completing his work. Nekrasov wrote the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” before last days his life, but it remained unfinished.
Artistic style
Analysis of “Who Lives Well in Rus'” reveals the main artistic feature of the work. Since Nekrasov’s book is about the people, and first of all for them, in it he used folk speech in all its diversity. This poem is an epic, one of the purposes of which was to depict life as it is. Fairytale motifs play a significant role in the narrative.
Folklore basis
Nekrasov borrowed a lot from folk art. The analysis of “Who Lives Well in Rus'” allowed critics to identify epics, legends and proverbs that the author actively used in the text. Already in the prologue there are bright folklore motifs. A warbler, a self-assembled tablecloth, and many animalistic images of Russian folk tale. And the wandering men themselves resemble heroes of epics and fairy tales. The prologue also contains numbers that have sacred meaning: seven and three.
Plot
The men argued about who would live well in Rus'. Nekrasov, using this technique, reveals the main theme of the poem. The heroes offer several options for the “lucky” ones. Among them are five representatives of various strata of social society and the king himself. In order to answer such an alarming question, the wanderers go to long haul. But only the priest and the landowner have time to ask about happiness. As the poem progresses, general questions change to more specific ones. Men are already more interested in the happiness of the working people. And the idea of the story would be difficult to implement if ordinary men dared to visit the king himself with their philosophical problems.
Peasant images
The poem contains many peasant images. The author pays close attention to some, but talks about others only in passing. The most typical is the portrait of Yakim Nagogo. The appearance of this character symbolizes the hard labor existence that is typical of peasant life in Rus'. But despite the backbreaking work, Yakim did not harden his soul. The analysis of “Who Lives Well in Rus'” gives a clear idea of how Nekrasov saw or wanted to see representatives of the working people. Yakim, despite inhumane conditions, in which he is forced to exist, has not become hardened. He has been collecting pictures for his son all his life, admiring them and hanging them on the walls. And during a fire, he rushes into the fire to save, first of all, his favorite images. But Yakima's portrayal differs from more authentic characters. The meaning of his life is not limited to work and drinking. The contemplation of beauty is also of great importance to him.
Artistic techniques
IN Nekrasov's poem already from the first pages it uses symbolism. The names of the villages speak for themselves. Zaplatovo, Razutovo, Dyryavino are symbols of the lifestyle of their inhabitants. Truth-seekers meet different people during their journey, but the question of who can live well in Rus' remains open. The misfortunes of ordinary Russian people are revealed to the reader. In order to give liveliness and persuasiveness to the narrative, the author introduces direct speech. The priest, the landowner, the bricklayer Trofim, Matryona Timofeevna - all these characters talk about their lives, and from their stories a general bleak picture of Russian folk life emerges.
Since the life of a peasant is inextricably linked with nature, its description is harmoniously woven into the poem. A typical everyday picture is created from many details.
The image of landowners
The landowner is undoubtedly the main enemy of the peasant. The first representative of this social stratum that the wanderers met gave a completely detailed answer to their question. Talking about the rich life of the landowners in the past, he claims that he himself always treated the peasants kindly. And everyone was happy, and no one experienced grief. Now everything has changed. The fields are desolate, the man is completely out of control. The 1861 reform is to blame. But the next living example of the “noble class” that appears on the path of the peasants has the image of an oppressor, tormentor and money-grubber. He leads a free life, he does not have to work. The dependent peasants do everything for him. Even the abolition of serfdom did not affect his idle life.
Grisha Dobrosklonov
The question posed by Nekrasov remains open. Life was hard for the peasant, and he dreamed of changes for the better. Not one of those who meet on the way of wanderers is a happy person. Serfdom cancelled, but still not completely resolved. With a strong blow reforms began both for the landowner class and for the working people. However, without suspecting it, the men found what they were looking for in the image of Grisha Dobrosklonov.
Why only a scoundrel and money-grubber can live well in Rus' becomes clear when this character appears in the poem. His fate is not easy, like the fate of other representatives of the working class. But, unlike other characters in Nekrasov’s work, Grisha is not characterized by submission to the prevailing circumstances.
Represents the revolutionary sentiments that began to appear in society in the second half of the 19th century. At the end of the poem, albeit unfinished, Nekrasov does not give an answer to the question in search of which the truth-seekers wandered for so long, but makes it clear that people's happiness is still possible. And not the least role in it will be played by the ideas of Grisha Dobrosklonov.
Analysis of the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'”
Plan
1. History of creation
2. Genre of the work, composition
3. Theme and idea of the work, characters, issues
4. Artistic media
5. Conclusion
On February 19, 1861, a long-awaited reform took place in Russia - the abolition of serfdom, which immediately shook up the entire society and caused a wave of new problems, the main of which can be expressed in a line from Nekrasov’s poem: “The people are liberated, but are the people happy?..”. The singer of folk life, Nekrasov did not stand aside this time either - in 1863 histhe poem “Who Lives Well in Rus',” which tells about life in post-reform Rus'. The work is considered the pinnacle of the writer’s work and to this day enjoys the well-deserved love of readers. At the same time, despite its seemingly simple and stylized fairy-tale plot, it is very difficult to understand. Therefore, we will analyze the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” in order to better understand its meaning and problems.
History of creation
Nekrasov created the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” from 1863 to 1877, and individual ideas, according to contemporaries, arose from the poet back in the 1850s.Nekrasov wanted to present in one work everything that, as he said, “I know about the people, everything that I happened to hear from their lips,” accumulated “by word” over 20 years of his life.
Unfortunately, due to the death of the author, the poem remained unfinished; only four parts of the poem and a prologue were published .
After the death of the author, the publishers of the poem were faced with the difficult task of determining in what sequence to publish the disparate parts of the work, becauseNekrasov did not have time to combine them into one whole. The problem was resolvedK. Chukovsky, who, relying on the writer’s archives, decided to print the parts in the order in which they are known to the modern reader: “ The Last One,” “The Peasant Woman,” “A Feast for the Whole World.”
Genre of the work, composition
There are many different genre definitions of “Who Lives Well in Rus'” - about itthey talk about it as a “travel poem”, “Russian Odyssey” ", even such a confusing definition is known as "the protocol of a kind of all-Russian peasant congress, an unrivaled transcript of the debate on a hot-button political issue.” However, there is alsoauthor's definition genre that most critics agree with:epic poem. An epic involves depicting the life of an entire people at some decisive moment in history, be it a war or other social upheaval. The author describes what is happening through the eyes of the people and often turns to folklore as a means of showing the people's vision of the problem. An epic, as a rule, does not have one hero - there are many heroes, and they play more of a connecting role than a plot-forming role. The poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” fits all these criteria and can safely be called an epic.
Theme and idea of the work, characters, issues
The plot of the poem is simple: “on a pillared path” seven men meet and argue about who has the best life in Rus'. To find out, they go on a journey.
In this regard, the theme of the work can be defined asa wide-ranging narrative about the life of peasants in Russia. Nekrasov covered almost all spheres of life - during his travels, the men would meet different people: a priest, a landowner, beggars, drunkards, merchants; the cycle of human destinies would pass before their eyes - from a wounded soldier to a once all-powerful prince. The fair, the prison, hard work for the master, death and birth, holidays, weddings, auctions and elections of the burgomaster - nothing was hidden from stare writer.
The question of who should be considered the main character of the poem is ambiguous. On the one hand, formally it hasseven main characters - men, wandering in search of a happy hour people Also stands outthe image of Grisha Dobrosklonov, in whose person the author portrays the future people's savior and educator. But besides this, the poem clearly showsthe image of the people as the image of the main character of the work . The people appear as a single whole in scenes of the fair, mass celebrations (“Drunken Night”, “Feast for the Whole World”), and haymaking.The whole world makes various decisions - from helping Ermila to the election of the burgomaster, even a sigh of relief after the death of the landowner escapes from everyone at the same time. The seven men are not individualized either - they are described as briefly as possible, do not have their own individual traits and characters, pursue the same goal and even speak, as a rule, all together . The secondary characters (servant Yakov, village headman, grandfather Saveliy) are described by the author in much more detail, which allows us to talk about the special creation of a conventionally allegorical image of the people with the help of seven wanderers .
The lives of the people are, in one way or another, affected by all the problems raised by Nekrasov in the poem.This is the problem of happiness, the problem of drunkenness and moral degradation, sin, the relationship between the old and new way of life, freedom and lack of freedom, rebellion and patience, as well as the problem of the Russian woman, characteristic of many of the poet’s works. The problem of happiness in the poem is fundamental, and is understood differently by different characters. . For the priest, the landowner and other characters endowed with power, happiness is represented in the form of personal well-being, “honor and wealth.” A man’s happiness consists of various misfortunes - a bear tried to kill him, but couldn’t, they beat him in the service, but didn’t kill him to death...But there are also characters for whom their own personal happiness does not exist separately from the happiness of the people. This is Yermil Girin, the honest burgomaster, and this is the seminarian Grisha Dobrosklonov who appears in the last chapter. In his soul, love for his poor mother outgrew and merged with love for his equally poor homeland, for the happiness and enlightenment of which Grisha plans to live .
From Grisha’s understanding of happiness arises the main idea of the work: true happiness is possible only for those who do not think about themselves and are ready to spend their whole life for the happiness of everyone. The call to love your people as they are and to fight for their happiness, without remaining indifferent to their problems, sounds clearly throughout the poem and finds its final embodiment in the image of Grisha.
Artistic media
An analysis of “Who Lives Well in Rus'” by Nekrasov cannot be considered complete without considering the means of artistic expression used in the poem. Basically it'suse of oral folk art - simultaneously both as an object of depiction, to create a more reliable picture of peasant life, and as an object of study (for the future people's protectora, Grisha Dobrosklonova).
Folklore is introduced into the textor directly, as stylization : stylization of the prologue as a fairy-tale beginning (the mythological number seven, the self-assembled tablecloth and other details speak eloquently about this),or indirectly - quotes from folk songs, references to various folklore stories (most often to epics ).
The speech of the poem itself is stylized as a folk song . Let's pay attention to the large numberdialectisms, diminutive suffixes, numerous repetitions and the use of stable constructions in descriptions . Thanks to this, “Who Lives Well in Rus'” can be perceived as folk art, and this is not accidental.In the 1860s, an increased interest in folk art arose. The study of folklore was perceived not only as scientific activity, but also as an open dialogue between the intelligentsia and the people, which, of course, was close to Nekrasov in ideological terms.
Conclusion
So, having examined Nekrasov’s work “Who Lives Well in Rus',” we can confidently conclude that, despite the fact that it remained unfinished, it is still of enormous literary value.The poem remains relevant to this day and can arouse interest not only among researchers, but also among ordinary readers interested in the history of problems of Russian life. “Who Lives Well in Rus'” has been repeatedly interpreted in other forms of art - in the form of a stage production, various illustrations (Sokolov, Gerasimov, Shcherbakova), as well as a popular print on this subject.
On February 19, 1861, a long-awaited reform took place in Russia - the abolition of serfdom, which immediately shook up the entire society and caused a wave of new problems, the main of which can be expressed in a line from Nekrasov’s poem: “The people are liberated, but are the people happy?..”. The singer of folk life, Nekrasov did not stand aside this time either - in 1863, his poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” began to be created, telling about life in post-reform Rus'. The work is considered the pinnacle of the writer’s work and to this day enjoys the well-deserved love of readers. At the same time, despite its seemingly simple and stylized fairy-tale plot, it is very difficult to understand. Therefore, we will analyze the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” in order to better understand its meaning and problems.
History of creation
Nekrasov created the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” from 1863 to 1877, and individual ideas, according to contemporaries, arose from the poet back in the 1850s. Nekrasov wanted to present in one work everything that, as he said, “I know about the people, everything that I happened to hear from their lips,” accumulated “by word” over 20 years of his life. Unfortunately, due to the death of the author, the poem remained unfinished; only four parts of the poem and a prologue were published.
After the death of the author, the publishers of the poem were faced with the difficult task of determining in what sequence to publish the disparate parts of the work, because Nekrasov did not have time to combine them into one whole. The problem was solved by K. Chukovsky, who, relying on the writer’s archives, decided to print the parts in the order in which they are known to the modern reader: “The Last One,” “The Peasant Woman,” “A Feast for the Whole World.”
Genre of the work, composition
There are many different genre definitions of “Who Lives Well in Rus'” - they talk about it as a “travel poem”, “Russian Odyssey”, even such a confusing definition is known as “the protocol of a kind of all-Russian peasant congress, an unrivaled transcript of debates on a pressing political issue " However, there is also the author’s definition of the genre, which most critics agree with: epic poem. An epic involves depicting the life of an entire people at some decisive moment in history, be it a war or other social upheaval. The author describes what is happening through the eyes of the people and often turns to folklore as a means of showing the people's vision of the problem. An epic, as a rule, does not have one hero - there are many heroes, and they play more of a connecting role than a plot-forming role. The poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” fits all these criteria and can safely be called an epic.
Theme and idea of the work, characters, issues
The plot of the poem is simple: “on a pillared path” seven men meet and argue about who has the best life in Rus'. To find out, they go on a journey. In this regard, the theme of the work can be defined as a large-scale narrative about the life of peasants in Russia. Nekrasov covered almost all spheres of life - during his travels, the men would meet different people: a priest, a landowner, beggars, drunkards, merchants; the cycle of human destinies would pass before their eyes - from a wounded soldier to a once all-powerful prince. The fair, the prison, hard work for the master, death and birth, holidays, weddings, auctions and elections of the burgomaster - nothing escaped the gaze of the writer.
The question of who should be considered the main character of the poem is ambiguous. On the one hand, formally it has seven main characters - men wandering in search of a happy man. The image of Grisha Dobrosklonov also stands out, in whose person the author portrays the future people's savior and educator. But besides this, the image of the people as the image of the main character of the work is clearly visible in the poem. The people appear as a single whole in scenes of the fair, mass celebrations (“Drunken Night”, “Feast for the Whole World”), and haymaking. The whole world makes various decisions - from the help of Yermil to the election of the burgomaster, even a sigh of relief after the death of the landowner escapes from everyone at the same time. The seven men are not individualized either - they are described as briefly as possible, do not have their own individual traits and characters, pursue the same goal and even speak, as a rule, all together. The secondary characters (the serf Yakov, the village headman, Savely) are described by the author in much more detail, which allows us to talk about the special creation of a conventionally allegorical image of the people with the help of seven wanderers.
The lives of the people are, in one way or another, affected by all the problems raised by Nekrasov in the poem. This is the problem of happiness, the problem of drunkenness and moral degradation, sin, the relationship between the old and new way of life, freedom and lack of freedom, rebellion and patience, as well as the problem of the Russian woman, characteristic of many of the poet’s works. The problem of happiness in the poem is fundamental, and is understood differently by different characters. For the priest, the landowner and other characters endowed with power, happiness is represented in the form of personal well-being, “honor and wealth.” A man's happiness consists of various misfortunes - a bear tried to kill him, but could not, they beat him in the service, but did not kill him to death... But there are also characters for whom there is no personal happiness separate from the happiness of the people. This is Yermil Girin, the honest burgomaster, and this is the seminarian Grisha Dobrosklonov who appears in the last chapter. In his soul, love for his poor mother outgrew and merged with love for his equally poor homeland, for the happiness and enlightenment of which Grisha plans to live.
From Grisha’s understanding of happiness arises the main idea of the work: true happiness is possible only for those who do not think about themselves, and are ready to spend their whole life for the happiness of everyone. The call to love your people as they are and to fight for their happiness, without remaining indifferent to their problems, sounds clearly throughout the poem, and finds its final embodiment in the image of Grisha.
Artistic media
An analysis of “Who Lives Well in Rus'” by Nekrasov cannot be considered complete without considering the means of artistic expression used in the poem. Basically, this is the use of oral folk art - both as an object of depiction, to create a more reliable picture of peasant life, and as an object of study (for the future people's intercessor, Grisha Dobrosklonov).
Folklore is introduced into the text either directly, as stylization: stylization of the prologue as a fairy-tale beginning (the mythological number seven, a self-assembled tablecloth and other details eloquently speak about this), or indirectly - quotes from folk songs, references to various folklore subjects (most often to epics).
The speech of the poem itself is stylized as a folk song. Let us pay attention to the large number of dialectisms, diminutive suffixes, numerous repetitions and the use of stable constructions in descriptions. Thanks to this, “Who Lives Well in Rus'” can be perceived as folk art, and this is not accidental. In the 1860s, an increased interest in folk art arose. The study of folklore was perceived not only as a scientific activity, but also as an open dialogue between the intelligentsia and the people, which, of course, was close to Nekrasov in ideological terms.
Conclusion
So, having examined Nekrasov’s work “Who Lives Well in Rus',” we can confidently conclude that, despite the fact that it remained unfinished, it is still of enormous literary value. The poem remains relevant to this day and can arouse interest not only among researchers, but also among ordinary readers interested in the history of problems of Russian life. “Who Lives Well in Rus'” has been repeatedly interpreted in other forms of art - in the form of a stage production, various illustrations (Sokolov, Gerasimov, Shcherbakova), as well as a popular print on this subject.
Work test
Nekrasov’s creativity coincided with the heyday of native folkloristics. It was at that time, under the influence of social changes that took place in the fifties and sixties, that the people found themselves in the very center of attention of the reading masses.<...>Nekrasov himself constantly “visited Russian huts,” thanks to which both soldier and peasant speech became thoroughly known to him from childhood: not only from books, but also in practice, he studied the common language and from a young age became a great connoisseur of folk poetic images and folk forms thinking, folk aesthetics. He learned all this back in Greshnev, in his childhood, being in continuous communication with the peasants and constantly hearing the magnificent folk speech, which in the end... became his own speech.<...>
But, striving for the most complete and comprehensive study of the people, Nekrasov, naturally, could not limit himself to the data of his personal experience gleaned in two or three provinces.
He constantly tried to expand, strengthen, deepen this experience with the help of all literary sources available to him...
Precisely because Nekrasov was organically close to the people, folklore was never a fetish for him. The poet disposed of it completely freely, creatively subordinating it to his own - Nekrasov's - ideological tasks, his own - Nekrasov's style, for the sake of which he subjected it, if necessary, to a decisive and energetic transformation, rethinking it in a new way.<...>
First of all, let us establish that Nekrasov treated different materials of folklore differently... For the peasants did not seem to him like a continuous, homogeneous mass; he divided this mass into several different layers and treated each layer differently.
The poet's sympathies were only on the side of the peasant farmers - those who in his poems are called "plowmen":
But I wish I knew, dying,
That you are on the right path,
What is your plowman, sowing the fields,
Sees a bad day ahead.
In this vast mass of peasants - and only in this - Nekrasov saw glimpses of revolutionary anger and pinned all his hopes on it. Sometimes, not without a hint of familiar love, he called the plowmen “Vakhlaks”, “Vakhlaks”, “Vakhlachina”. "Drink, vahlachki, take a walk!" "Love for all things Vakhlachina." “But their Vakhlatsky joy was short-lived.”
When he wrote the word “people,” he always meant only them, this multimillion-dollar mass of the working peasantry.
But among the peasants there were also those towards whom he was hostile. First of all, these were courtyard servants cut off from the “arable land,” “people of servile rank,” hereditary landowner servants who, in the grip of many years of slavery, almost lost their human appearance. Many of them went through such a long school of servility that in the end they fell in love with it, became slaves by vocation, by passion, and even began to boast of their servility as valor.
Hence their arrogant attitude towards the “plowmen” who did not share their slavish emotions.
In the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus',” Nekrasov himself pointed out that the lordly servants create a different folklore and sing different songs than the working peasantry.<...>
Nekrasov depicts the irreconcilable enmity of the “men” and the courtyards in his poem, who, however, constantly emphasizes that the landowner’s “fortress” is to blame for the moral decay of the courtyards.<...>
Hence the principles of classification of native folklore used by Nekrasov, which were not used by any of the poets of his generation who tried to join folk art in one way or another.
When he encountered one or another folk song, proverb, or saying among folklore materials, he tried to imagine from which circles of the peasant masses it might come.
He saw that Russian folklore does not at all reflect the holistic range of views of a monolithic, continuous people.
For him, so to speak, there were several different folklore. There was folklore that expressed the thoughts and feelings of Yakim Nagogo, “saved in slavery,” and there was folklore of Klimka Lavin or that old village woman who sang her “ugly” song to Eremushka. Nekrasov treated each of these folklore differently.<...>
Hence the four techniques in his work on folk art materials, which were especially clearly reflected in the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'.”
Firstly, even in the most “well-intentioned” collections, Nekrasov carefully looked for muffled, rare, scattered on different pages manifestations of popular discontent and anger caused by the reality of that time (that is, those elements of folklore that were fully consistent with the ideological positions of revolutionary democracy), and, almost without making any changes to them, he concentrated them in his epic.
Secondly, he took those folklore texts that, while decorating and sweetening reality, were in blatant contradiction with its real facts, and either changed these texts, reworking them so that they truthfully reflected reality, or immediately polemicized with them, refuting their facts of the opposite kind.
Thirdly, he took folklore images that might seem neutral, since they did not clearly reflect the class assessment of reality, and modified these images so that they could serve the goals of the revolutionary struggle.
Fourthly, he, relying not on the letter of folklore, but on its spirit, his style, himself created brilliant folk songs, imbued with a feeling of enmity towards the existing order of things and calling for revolutionary action (“Song of a Wretched Wanderer”, “About Two Great Sinners” ").
S.A. Andreevsky
He brought the anapest, abandoned on Olympus, out of oblivion and for many years made this heavy but flexible meter as common as the airy and melodious iambic had remained from the time of Pushkin to Nekrasov. This rhythm, favored by Nekrasov, reminiscent of the rotational movement of a barrel organ, allowed him to stay on the borders of poetry and prose, joke around with the crowd, speak smoothly and vulgarly, insert a funny and cruel joke, express bitter truths and imperceptibly, slowing down the beat, in more solemn words, move into floridity. Most of Nekrasov’s works were written in this meter, starting with the introductory play “Virtues Decorate You,” and that is why he was given the nickname Nekrasov meter. In this way, Nekrasov retained attention to poetry in his difficult time, and at least for this alone, the aestheticians who suffered so many blood grievances from him should say a big thank you to him. Then the sad dactyls also came to Nekrasov’s heart: he also took a liking to them and turned them to his advantage. He began to combine them into separate couplets and wrote the whole poem “Sasha” with such unique and beautiful music. Some purism that was held in relation to folk speech Koltsov and Nikitin, was completely rejected by Nekrasov: he threw it entirely into poetry. With this sometimes very tough material, he could do miracles. In “Who Lives Well in Rus',” the melodiousness of this completely unrefined folk speech sometimes flows out in Nekrasov with such force that chips and debris completely disappear in the rapid flow of the melody. In rhymes in general, Nekrasov was skillful and rich; but he achieved particular wealth in popular motives.
(Source: Article "About Nekrasov")
F.M. Dostoevsky
I. FINAL EXPLANATION OF ONE PREVIOUS FACT
Concluding the two-year edition of the Diary with the current last, December issue, I find it necessary to say once again one word about one matter about which I have already spoken too much. I decided to talk about this back in May, but left it then for special reasons, precisely until this last issue. This is all again about that stepmother, Kornilova, who, in anger at her husband, threw her six-year-old stepdaughter out the window, and she, falling from a five-foot height, remained alive. As you know, the criminal was tried, convicted, then the verdict was overturned, and, finally, she was finally acquitted at a secondary trial on April 22 of this year. (See "A Writer's Diary" October 1876 and April 1877.)
I happened to take some part in this matter. The chairman of the court, and then the prosecutor, in the courtroom itself, announced publicly that the first sentence accusing Kornilov had been overturned, precisely as a result of the idea I had in the Diary that “didn’t her pregnant state influence the criminal’s action?” I carried out this idea and developed it as a result of extraordinary and strange mental characteristics, which themselves irresistibly caught my eye and stopped my attention when reading the details of the crime committed. However, readers already know all this. It is also known, perhaps, that after the most rigorous investigation and the most persistent and insistent arguments of the prosecutor, the jury nevertheless acquitted Kornilov, having spent no more than ten minutes in the deliberation room, and the public dispersed, warmly sympathizing with the acquittal. And so, nevertheless, then, on the same day, the thought occurred to me that in such an important matter, where the highest motives of civil and spiritual life are affected, it would be most desirable that everything could be explained to the very last possible opportunity. so that no doubts, hesitations or regrets remain either in society or in the souls of the jury who acquitted them that the undoubted criminal was released without punishment. Here children are touched upon, children's fate (often terrible in our Rus' and especially in the poor class), the child's question - and now, with the sympathy of the public, the child's killer is justified! And I myself partly contributed to this (according to the testimony of the court itself)! I acted out of conviction, but after the verdict was pronounced, doubt suddenly began to torment me: was there any discontent, bewilderment, disbelief in the court, or even indignation left in society? Our press said little about this justification for Kornilova - they were busy with the wrong things at the time; they had a presentiment of war. But in Severny Vestnik, a newly born newspaper at that time, I just read an article full of indignation at the acquittal and even anger at my participation in this matter. This article was written in an undignified tone, and I was not the only one who was then subjected to the indignation of "Sev<ерного>Vestnik"; Leo Tolstoy was also subjected to evil and unworthy ridicule for "Anna Karenina". I personally would not have responded to the author, but in this article I saw exactly what I feared from a certain part of our society, that is, a confused impression, bewilderment , indignation at the verdict. And so I decided to wait all eight months, so that during this period I could convince myself, as definitively as possible, that the verdict did not have a bad effect on the defendant, that, on the contrary, the mercy of the court, like a good seed, fell on good ground, that the defendant was really worthy of pity and mercy, that the impulses of inexplicable, fantastic almost violence, in the fit of which she committed her crime, did not return and cannot return to her at all and never again, that she is precisely kind and meek soul, and not a destroyer and murderer (of which I was convinced throughout the entire trial), and that indeed the crime of this unfortunate woman had to be explained by some special accidental circumstance, pain, “affect” - precisely those painful attacks that happen quite often (with a combination of other, of course, unfavorable conditions and circumstances) in pregnant women during a certain period of pregnancy - and that, finally, neither the jury, nor society, nor the public who were in the courtroom and listened to the verdict with warm sympathy , - there was no longer any point in doubting such a sentence, in its expediency, and in repenting of one’s mercy.
And now, after these eight months, I am in a position to say something and add something to this matter, which, however, may have already become too boring for everyone. I will answer precisely as it were to society, that is, to that part of it that, according to my assumption, could disagree with the verdict that was completed, doubt it and be indignant at it - if, however, such a part of the dissatisfied was in our society. And since of all these dissatisfied people I know (not personally, however) only that one “Observer” who wrote a formidable article in the “Northern Bulletin”, then I will respond to this Observer. What is most certain is that I will not influence him at all with any arguments, but perhaps I will be clear to the readers.
The observer, having touched upon the Kornilova case in his article, attached the highest importance to this case from the first line: he indignantly pointed to the fate of children, defenseless children, and regretted that the defendant was not executed with the strictest sentence. The matter, therefore, was about Siberia, about the exile of a twenty-year-old woman with a child born in prison in her arms (and who, therefore, was also exiled to Siberia with her), about the destruction of a young family. In this case, it seems that the first step would be to take a careful, serious and impartial approach to the accomplished facts being discussed. And now, will they believe: this Observer does not know the case he is judging, speaks at random, invents unprecedented circumstances from his head and throws them directly at the head of the former defendant; Obviously, he was not in the courtroom, did not listen to the debate, was not present at the verdict - and despite all this - he fiercely and embitteredly demands the execution of a person! But this is about the fate of humans, even several creatures at a time, oh Tom is coming, to tear human life in half, mercilessly, with blood. Suppose the unfortunate woman had already been acquitted when the Observer came out with his article, but such attacks influence society, the court, public opinion, they will respond to the future similar defendant, they, finally, offend the acquitted woman, since she is from the dark people , and therefore defenseless. Here, however, is this article, that is, the entire place relating to the Kornilova case; I make the most essential extracts and exclude very little.
II. EXTRACT
It is much more difficult for jurors to imagine themselves in the position of a pregnant woman; and even more difficult - in the position six year old girl , which this woman threw out of a fourth floor window. One must have all that power of imagination, which, as we know, distinguishes Mr. Dostoevsky among all of us, in order to fully enter into the position of a woman and understand for oneself all the irresistibility of the affects of pregnancy. He really entered into this situation, went to see one lady in prison, was struck by her humility, and in several issues of his “Diary” acted as her ardent defender. But Mr. Dostoevsky is too impressionable, and, moreover, “painful manifestations of will” are exactly the part of the author of “Demons”, “The Idiot”, etc., he can be forgiven for having a weakness for them. I look at the matter more simply and argue that after such examples as the justification of cruelty to children, this treatment, which in Russia, as in England, very often, will no longer have a shadow of deterrence. In how many cases of child cruelty does one go to trial? There are children whose whole life, morning, noon and evening of every day is nothing more than a series of sufferings. These are innocent creatures suffering a fate in comparison with which the work of parricides in the mines is bliss, with rest, with the absence of eternal, inexorable fear, with complete peace of mind, as long as it is not disturbed by conscience. Out of ten thousand, and probably out of a hundred thousand, cases of child cruelty, one comes to the surface of the court; one, any, for some reason the most noticed. For example, the stepmother is forever beating (?) the unfortunate six-year-old creature and finally throwing him out of the fourth floor; when she finds out that the child she hates was not killed, she exclaims, “Well, she’s tenacious.” There is no sudden manifestation of hatred towards the child, no repentance after committing the murder; everything is whole, everything is logical in the manifestation of the same evil will. And this woman is acquitted. If in such cases, which are clear to the point of obviousness, cruelty to children is justified in our country, then what can we expect in other cases, less drastic, more complex? Excuses, of course, excuses and excuses. In England, in the rough classes of urban roughs, cases of cruelty to children are not uncommon, as I have already noted. But I wish I could be shown one example of such an acquittal by an English jury. Oh, when a schismatic appears before our jury, speaking ill of the church dome, then it’s a different matter. In England he wouldn’t even be called to trial; here he wouldn’t expect an acquittal. But cruelty to a girl - is it worth ruining a young woman for this! After all, she is still a stepmother, that is, almost the mother of the victim; anyway, he drinks and feeds her and beats her even more. But you won’t surprise a Russian person with this last one. A friend told me that the other day he was riding in a cab, and he kept whipping the horse. When asked about this, the driver replied: “This is her position! She should be beaten forever and mercilessly.”
Your destiny, throughout the centuries, Russian man! After all, maybe the stepmother was beaten in childhood; and so you come into this and say - God bless her! But don't do that. Have pity on the little ones; They won’t beat you now, and don’t justify cruelty against someone who was no longer born a slave.
They will tell me: you are attacking the institution of the jury, when it’s already there... and so on. I do not attack the institute, and I have no intention of attacking it, it is good, it is infinitely better than that a trial in which public conscience was not involved. But I am talking with this conscience about such and such its manifestation...
But beating a child for a year and then throwing him away to certain death is a different matter. “The husband of the acquitted woman,” writes Mr. Dostoevsky in his “Diary,” which was published the other day, “took her that same evening, already at the eleventh hour, to his home, and she, happy, entered her house again.” How touching. But woe to the poor child if he remained in the house where the “happy one” entered; woe to him if he ever gets to his father's house.
“Pregnancy affect” - well, a new pathetic word has been invented. No matter how strong this affect was, the woman, under its influence, did not rush either at her husband or at the neighboring residents. All her affect was exclusively intended for that defenseless girl whom she had tyrannized for a whole year without any affect. What did the jury base their acquittal on? On the fact that one psychiatrist recognized the defendant’s “morbid state of mind” at the time of the crime; three other psychiatrists stated only that the pregnant woman's painful condition could have influenced the commission of the crime; and one obstetrician, Professor Florinsky, who is perhaps better aware of all the manifestations of the state of pregnancy, expressed direct disagreement with such opinions. Consequently, four out of five experts did not admit that in this case the crime was positively committed in a state of “pregnancy affect” and then insanity. But the jury acquitted him. Eck, it’s a great thing: after all, the child didn’t kill himself; and that they beat him, because “that’s his position.”
III. DISTORTIONS AND FALSE AND - IT COSTS US NOTHING
Here is the extract, here is the accusation, there is a lot of indignation against me. But now I will ask the Observer: how could you distort the facts in such an important accusation to such an extent and present everything in such a false and unprecedented form? But when did the beating happen, the systematic beating of the stepmother? You write directly and precisely:
"The stepmother always beats the unfortunate six-year-old creature and finally throws him out of the fourth floor..."
After:
“But to beat a child for a year and then throw him away to certain death...”
You exclaim about the child:
"Woe to him if he ever gets to his father's house."
And finally, you put a brutal phrase into the mouths of the jury:
“Eh, it’s a big deal: after all, the child didn’t kill himself, but they beat him, so after all, this is his position.”
In a word, you changed all the facts and presented the whole case in such a way that the crime, in your opinion, occurred solely from the stepmother’s hatred of the child, whom she tortured and beat for a year and ended by throwing him out of the window. You deliberately presented the defendant as a beast, an insatiably evil stepmother, solely in order to justify your article and arouse public indignation at the merciful verdict of the jury. And we have the right to conclude that you made this substitution solely for this purpose, which I have just indicated - because you have the right, because you could not and did not have the right not to learn in more detail the circumstances of such a case, in which you yourself take upon yourself to pronounce the verdict and demand execution .
Meanwhile, the beast, the brutal stepmother who hates the child and is insatiable to torture him, never existed at all. And this was positively confirmed by the investigation. Initially, the idea was really put forward that the stepmother was torturing the child and, out of hatred for him, decided to kill him. But subsequently the prosecution completely abandoned this idea: it became too clear that the crime was committed for completely different motives than hatred of the child, for reasons that were completely explained at the trial and in which the child had nothing to do with it. In addition, there were no witnesses at the trial who could confirm the cruelty of the stepmother - the stepmother's beating. There was only one testimony from one woman, who lived right there in the corridor nearby (where many people live), that she had whipped a child, they say, very painfully, but this testimony was later revealed by the defense as “corridor gossip” - nothing more. It happened what usually happens in this kind of families, given their degree of education and development, that is, both father and stepmother actually punished the child for pranks, but sometimes only, that is, very rarely, and not inhumanly, but “fatherly.” ", as they express themselves, that is, exactly as they still do it, unfortunately, in all such Russian families throughout Rus', and at the same time, however, loving children deeply and caring for them (and quite often) much stronger and more than this happens in other intelligent and wealthy, European-developed Russian families. This is just ineptitude, not cruelty. Kornilova was even a very good stepmother, she went and watched the child. The child's punishment was cruel only once: his stepmother whipped him once in the morning when he woke up because he did not know how to ask for help at night. There was no hatred towards him here. When I noticed to her that this cannot be punished, that the build of children and their nature are different, that a six-year-old child is still too small to always be able to ask, she replied: “But they told me that this should be done in order to wean him off, and that You can’t wean him off otherwise.” This time she hit the child with a scourge “six” times, but so that scars appeared - and it was these scars that the woman saw in the corridor, the only witness to the only case of cruelty, and testified about them in court. For these same scars, the husband, returning from work, immediately punished his wife, that is, he beat her. This is a strict, direct, honest and unwavering person, first of all, although, as you see, partly with the customs of former times. He rarely beat his wife and not inhumanely (as she herself says), but solely out of the principle of husband’s power - this is according to his character. He loves his child (although more often than not he punished the stepmother and the girl himself for pranks), but he is not the kind of person to give a child needlessly as an insult, even to his wife. So, the only case severe punishment(to the point of scars), revealed at the trial, was turned by the prosecutor of the Northern Messenger into a systematic, brutal, stepmother's beating for a whole year, into stepmother's hatred, which, growing more and more, ended with the child being thrown out the window. And she didn’t even think about the child five minutes before committing her terrible crime.
You, Mr. Observer, will laugh and say: isn’t punishment with canes to the point of welts cruelty, not a stepmother’s beating? Yes, punishment to the point of scarring is an atrocity, that’s true, but this case (its singularity was confirmed in court, but for me it is now positively confirmed), I repeat this, is not a systematic, constant, brutal beating of a stepmother for an entire year, it’s only a case that arose from inability to educate, from a false understanding of how a child should be taught, and not at all from hatred of him or because “this is his position.” Thus, your portrayal of this woman as an evil stepmother, and the person who was determined at the trial from the actual facts, is a complete difference. Yes, she threw out the child, a terrible and brutal crime, but she didn’t do it like an evil stepmother - that’s what the question is primarily about in response to your unfounded accusation. Why do you support such a cruel accusation if you yourself know that it cannot be proven, that it was abandoned at the trial and that there were no witnesses at all to confirm it. Is it really for literary effect alone? After all, by exposing and proving that this was done by the stepmother, who with this murder concluded a whole year of torture of the child (unprecedented at all), you thereby distort the impression of the reader who has little knowledge of this matter, wringing from his soul regret and mercy, which he inevitably cannot feel , having read your article, to the monster stepmother; whereas, if in his eyes this stepmother had not been presented by you as a tormentor of a child, she might have deserved at least a little condescension in his heart, as a sick woman, as a painfully shocked, irritated pregnant woman, which is clear from the fantastic, wild and mysterious details of the event. Is it fair to do this? public figure, is it humane?
But that's not what you're saying either. You wrote, and again firmly and precisely, as an observer who has studied the whole matter to the smallest detail:
“Pregnancy affect” - well, a new pathetic word has been invented. No matter how strong this affect was, the woman, under its influence, did not rush at her husband or the neighboring residents. All her affect was exclusively intended for the defenseless girl, whom she tyrannized for a whole year without any affect. What did the jury base their acquittal on?
But what did you base yourself on, Observer, to construct such a complete distortion of the matter? “I didn’t throw myself at my husband!” But all that was said at the trial was that her quarrels with her husband finally (and only in the last few days, however) reached the point of rage, to a frenzy, which led to the crime. The quarrels were not at all about the child, because the child literally had nothing to do with it, she didn’t even think about him at all these days. “I didn’t need it at all then,” as she herself put it. Not for you, but for my readers, I will try to outline both of these characters, the quarreling husband and wife, the way I understood them before, before the verdict, and how they became clearer to me even more after the verdict, with my closest observation. There cannot be too much immodesty on my part regarding these two persons: much has already been announced at the trial. Yes, and I do this actually to justify them. So here's the thing. The husband, first of all, is a firm, straightforward, honest and kind person (that is, even generous, as he later proved), but he is somewhat too puritanical, too naive and even harsh in following the once and for all accepted view and belief. There is also some difference in age with his wife, he is much older, and then there is the fact that he is a widower. He is a man who works all day, and although he wears German dress and looks like an “educated” person, he is a man who has not received any special education. I will also note that in his appearance there is an undeniable air of dignity. I will add that he is not very talkative, not very cheerful or funny, perhaps even his address is somewhat difficult. He took her in when he was still very young. She was an honest girl, a seamstress by trade, who earned decent money from her craft.
I don’t know how they got together. She married him out of pleasure, “out of love.” But very soon discord began, and although it did not reach extremes for a long time, bewilderment, separation and even, finally, embitterment grew on both sides, albeit slowly, but firmly and steadily. The point is, and maybe this is the whole reason, that both, despite their growing bitterness, loved each other even too passionately and so until the very end. Love hardened the demands on both sides, strengthened them, and added irritation to them. And that’s just her character. This character is quite closed and somewhat proud. There are such people, both among women and among men, who, although they harbor even the most ardent feelings in their hearts, are always somehow shy to reveal them; there is little affection in them, they have little affectionate words, hugs, jumping on the neck. If for this they are called heartless, insensitive, then they will withdraw into themselves even more. When making accusations, they rarely try to explain the matter themselves; on the contrary, they leave this concern to the accuser: “Guess it yourself, they say; if you love, you should find out that I’m right.” And if he doesn’t find out and becomes more and more embittered, then she becomes more and more embittered. And from the very beginning this husband began to harshly (though not at all cruelly) reproach her, read instructions to her, teach her, reproach her with his former wife, which was especially difficult for her. Everything, however, did not go particularly badly, but it always began to turn out that with reproaches and accusations on his part, quarrels and angry speeches began on her part, and not a desire to explain herself, to end the bewilderment somehow with a final explanation, an indication of the reasons . They even forgot about it at last. It ended with gloomy feelings, disappointment instead of love, beginning in her heart (hers first, not her husband’s). And all this grew rather unconsciously - here life is working, hard, and there is no time to think too much about feelings. He goes to work, she does the housework, cooks, even washes the floors. They have small rooms along a long corridor in a government building, one for each family of married workers in this government establishment. It so happened that, with her husband’s permission, she went away on her name day, family home, to that master from whom she spent her entire childhood and adolescence learning her craft and with whom both she and her husband continued to be acquainted. The husband, busy with work, stayed at home this time. The name day turned out to be a lot of fun, there were a lot of guests, food, and dancing began. They drank until the morning. The young woman, accustomed to her husband’s rather boring life in one cramped room and to eternal work, apparently remembered her life as a girl and had fun at the ball for so long that she forgot about the term for which she was released. They ended up persuading her to spend the night at a party, and besides, it was very far to return home. This is where the husband got angry, spending the night without his wife for the first time. And he became very angry: the next day, quitting work, he went after her to the guests, found her and immediately punished her in front of the guests. They returned home in silence and for two days and two nights then they did not speak to each other at all and did not eat together. I learned all this in fragments, but she herself explained little to me, despite my questions, about her state of mind at that time. “I don’t remember what I was thinking about then, all those two days, but I kept thinking. I didn’t look at her (the girl) at all then. I still remember how it happened, but how I did it, I don’t I know how to say it." And so, on the third day in the morning, the husband left early for work, the girl was still sleeping. The stepmother is fiddling with the stove. The girl finally wakes up; the stepmother mechanically, as usual, washes her, puts on her shoes, dresses her and sits her down for coffee... - “and I don’t think about her at all.” The child sits, drinks his cup, eats, “and then suddenly I looked at her...”
IV. EVIL PSYCHOLOGISTS. OBSTETRIC PSYCHIATRISTS
Listen, Observer, you affirm firmly and accurately that the whole thing happened without hesitation, deliberately, calmly, beat, they say, for a whole year, finally thought it over, calmly made a decision and threw the baby out the window: “No sudden manifestation of hatred towards the child,” you write you are indignant - there is no remorse after committing the murder, everything is whole, everything is logical in the manifestation of the same evil will. And this woman is acquitted.” These are your own words. But the prosecutor himself refused the charge of premeditation of the crime, did you know this, Observer - he refused publicly, openly, solemnly, at the most fateful moment of the trial. The prosecutor, however, accused the criminal with cruel persistence. How can you, Observer, assert after the prosecutor’s retreat that there was no surprise, but, on the contrary, everything was integral and logical in the manifestation of the same evil will? Complete and logical! Therefore, deliberately, therefore, deliberately. I’ll remember everything again in quick strokes: she tells the girl to stand on the windowsill and look out the window, and when the girl looked outside the window, she lifted her by her legs and threw her out from a height of 5 1/2 fathoms. Then she locked the window, got dressed and went to the police station to denounce herself. Tell me, is this really wholesome and logical, and not fantastic? And firstly, why water and feed the child, if the matter was planned long ago in her mind, why wait until she drinks coffee and eats her bread? How is it possible (and is it natural) not to even look outside the window, having already thrown the girl away? And excuse me, why inform on yourself? After all, if everything came out of anger, out of hatred for the girl, “whom she beat for a whole year,” then why, having killed this girl, having finally thought up and carried out this long-standing and calmly planned murder, go and immediately denounce yourself? Let the hated girl die, but why should she ruin herself? In addition, if in addition to hatred for the child there was also a motive to kill him, that is, hatred of her husband, the desire to take revenge on her husband by the death of his child, then she could directly tell her husband that the naughty girl climbed into the window herself and fell out herself, because all the same, the goal would have been achieved, the father would have been amazed and shocked, and no one in the world would have been able to accuse her of premeditated murder, even though there might have been suspicion? Where is the evidence? Even if the girl remained alive, who could believe her babble? On the contrary, the murderer would have more surely and more fully achieved everything she strived for, that is, she would have been much angrier and more painful to her husband, who, even if he had suspected her of murder, would have been tormented all the more by her impunity, seeing that punishing her , that is, it is impossible to bring to justice. Having punished herself right there, having ruined her entire fate in prison, in Siberia, in hard labor, she thereby gave her husband satisfaction. What is all this for? And who dresses up, dresses up in this case, to go destroy himself? Oh, they will tell me, she didn’t just want to take revenge on her child and husband, she also wanted to break off her marriage with her husband: she’ll be sent to hard labor, the marriage is broken! But not to mention the fact that the breakup of the marriage could have been ordered and thought up differently than by ruining, at nineteen years old, his entire life and freedom - not to mention this, you will agree that a person who decides to destroy himself deliberately will throw himself into the abyss that opened under our feet without any backward glance, without the slightest hesitation - you must agree that in this human soul there must have been a terrible feeling at that moment, gloomy despair, an uncontrollable urge to death, a urge to rush and destroy oneself - and if so, then it is possible Is it possible to say, while maintaining common sense, that “there was no surprise, no repentance in the soul”! If there was no repentance, then there was darkness, damnation, madness. At least, one cannot say that everything was seamless, everything was logical, everything was premeditated, without surprise. You have to be in the “affect” yourself to assert this. If she had not gone to denounce herself, had stayed at home, lied to people and her husband that the child had killed himself - everything would have really been logical and complete, and without suddenness in the manifestation of evil will; but the destruction of oneself right there, not forced, but voluntary, of course, testifies, at least, to the terrible and indignant state of mind of the killer. This gloomy state of mind lasted for a long time, several days. The expression: “Well, tenacious” - was put forward by the defense expert (and not the prosecution), when he described before the court that gloomy, cold, as if deadened spiritual state of the defendant after she committed a crime, and not as an evil, cold, moral insensitivity with her sides. My whole trouble was that, having read the first verdict of the court and being struck by the strangeness and fantastic nature of all the details of the case and taking into account the fact reported in the same newspapers about her pregnancy, in the fifth month, at the time of the murder, I could not , completely involuntarily, not to think: could pregnancy have had an impact here, that is, as I wrote then, did it happen like this: “She looked at the child and thought in her anger: I wish I could throw her out the window? But being not pregnant, she thought Maybe, out of her malice, she wouldn’t have done it, she wouldn’t have thrown it away, but the pregnant woman took it and did it? “Well, my whole problem is that I thought so then and wrote so. But was it really just from these words alone that the verdict was passed and then the murderer was acquitted? You laugh, Observer, at the experts! You claim that only one out of five said , that the criminal was really in the affect of pregnancy, and that the three others only expressed that there could be an influence of pregnancy, but did not say positively that it really was. From this you conclude that only one expert acquitted the defendant positively, and four did not. after all, your reasoning is incorrect: you demand too much from human conscience. It is enough that the three experts, obviously, did not want to justify the defendant positively, that is, take it to heart, but the facts were so strong and obvious that these scientists. nevertheless they hesitated and the end result was that they could not say: no, directly and simply, but were forced to say that “there really could have been a painful influence at the time of the crime. Well, for the jury this is a verdict: if they could not.” not to say that “could have been” means, perhaps, it really was. Such strong doubts of the jury naturally could not but influence their decision, and this absolutely followed the highest truth: is it really possible to kill with a sentence the one whose complete guilt three experts clearly doubt, and the fourth, Dyukov, an expert specifically on mental illness, directly and firmly attributes the entire crime to the then upset state of mind of the criminal? But the Observer especially seized on Mr. Florinsky, the fifth expert, who did not agree with the opinion of the first four experts: he, they say, is an obstetrician, he should know more about women’s diseases than anyone else. Why should he know more about mental illness than the expert psychiatrists themselves? Because he is an obstetrician and does not deal with psychiatry, but with a completely different matter? Not entirely, and this is logical.
V. ONE CASE, IN MY opinion, EXPLAINS QUITE A LOT
Now I will tell you one case, which, in my opinion, can clarify something in this matter definitively and serve directly the purpose with which I undertook this article. On the third day after the acquittal of the defendant Kornilova (April 22, 1877), they, husband and wife, came to see me in the morning. Just the day before, they had both been at the orphanage, where the now injured girl (thrown out of the window) was now placed, and now, the next day, they were going there again. By the way, the child’s fate is now assured, and there is no need to exclaim: “Woe to the child now!..”, etc. The father, when his wife was taken to prison, himself placed the child in this orphanage, having no opportunity to look after him, leaving with morning to night for work. And upon the wife’s return, they decided to leave her there in the shelter, because she was very happy there. But on holidays they often take her to their home. She visited them recently at Christmas. Despite her work, from morning to night, and with an infant child (born in prison) in her arms, the stepmother sometimes finds time even now to escape and run to the orphanage to the girl, bring her a gift, and so on. When she was still in prison, remembering her sin before the child, she often dreamed of how to see him, to do at least something so that the child would forget about what happened. These fantasies were somehow strange from such a reserved, even slightly trusting woman as Kornilov was during the entire time on trial. But these fantasies were destined to come true. Before Christmas, about a month ago, having not seen the Kornilovs for six months, I went to their apartment, and Kornilov’s first word told me that the girl “jumps on her neck in joy and hugs her every time she comes to her shelter ". And when I left them, she suddenly told me: “She will forget...”.
So, they came to me in the morning on the third day after acquitting her... But I keep retreating, retreating and again for a minute. The observer makes humorous and evil jokes at me in his article for these visits to my Kornilova in prison. “He really got into this position” (that is, into the position of a pregnant woman), he says about me, “he went to see one lady in prison, was struck by her humility, and in several issues of the Diary he acted as her ardent defender.” First of all, why do we use the word “lady” here, why this bad form? After all, the Observer knows very well that this is not a lady, but a simple peasant woman, a worker from morning to night; she cooks, washes floors and sews for sale if she has time. I visited her prison exactly once a month, sat for 10 minutes, many a quarter of an hour, no more, most of the time in the common cell for defendant women with infants. If I looked at this woman with curiosity and tried to understand this character for myself, then what is bad about that, subject to ridicule and humor? But let's get back to my anecdote.
So, they came for a visit, they are sitting with me, both in some kind of profound, serious state of mind. I didn’t know my husband much until then. And suddenly he says to me: “On the third day, when we returned home - (this is after the acquittal, therefore, at one o’clock in the morning, and he gets up at five o’clock in the morning) - we immediately sat down at the table, I took out the Gospel and began read to her." I admit, when he said this, I suddenly thought, looking at him: “Yes, he couldn’t have done anything else, this is a type, a solid type, one could have guessed it.” In a word, he is a Puritan, a most honest, most serious man, undoubtedly kind and generous, but who will not give up anything of his character and will not give up anything of his convictions. This husband looks at marriage with all faith, precisely as a sacrament. This is one of those spouses, still preserved in Rus', who, according to the old Russian tradition and custom, having come from the crown and having already locked themselves with their newlywed wife in their bedroom, the first thing they do is throw themselves on their knees in front of the icon and pray for a long time, asking God for a blessing for your future. He did the same thing here: bringing his wife back into the house and renewing his marriage with her, which had been dissolved by a terrible crime, he first unfolded the Gospel and began to read it to her, not at all restrained in his courageous and serious determination, if only for the consideration that This woman is almost falling from fatigue, that she was terribly shocked, still preparing for the trial, and on this last fatal day of the trial she endured so many overwhelming impressions, moral and physical, that, of course, even such a strict Puritan would not have sinned , like him, to first give her at least a little rest and gather her courage, which would even be more consistent with the goal that he had in unfolding the Gospel before her. So this act of his seemed almost awkward to me - too straightforward, in the sense that he might not have achieved his goal. A soul that is too guilty, and especially if it itself already feels too guilty and has already endured a lot of torment because of it, should not be too clearly and hastily reproached for its guilt, because the opposite impression can be achieved, and especially if repentance and without that already in her soul. Here the man on whom she depends, who has risen above her in the highest halo of a judge, seems to have something merciless in her eyes, too autocratically intruding into her soul and severely repelling her repentance and rebirth in her good feelings: “It’s not rest, it’s not food, it’s not drink that someone like you needs, but sit down and listen to how you should live.” When they were already leaving, I managed to notice to him briefly that he would not take up this matter so strictly again, or, better to say, would not be in such a hurry, would not break so directly, and that perhaps this would be more correct. I expressed myself briefly and clearly, but still thought that perhaps he would not understand me. And he suddenly remarks to me about this: “And she told me right away, as soon as we entered the house and as soon as we began to read, how you taught her good things during your last visit, if only she had gone to Siberia.” exiled and advised how she should live in Siberia..."
And this is how it happened: indeed, exactly on the eve of the day of the trial, I stopped by her in prison. No one, neither me nor the lawyer, had any firm hope of acquittal. She does too. I found her looking rather firm, she was sitting and sewing something, her child was a little unwell. But she was not only sad, but rather depressed. There were several things going around in my head about her dark thoughts, and I just stopped by to say one word to her. We could only exile her, as we firmly hoped, for a settlement, and then a barely adult woman, with a child in her arms, would set off for Siberia. Marriage dissolved; on the other side, alone, defenseless and still pretty, so young - how could she resist temptation, I thought? It is truly her fate that is pushing her into debauchery; I know Siberia: there are a lot of hunters to seduce there; a lot of unmarried people, office workers and swindlers go there from Russia. It’s easy to fall, but Siberians, ordinary people and townspeople are the most ruthless people towards a fallen woman. They will not interfere with her, but once a woman has soiled her reputation, she will never restore it: eternal contempt for her, words of reproach, reproach, ridicule, and this until old age, until the grave. They will give you a special nickname. And her child (a girl) will be forced to inherit her mother’s career: she will not find a good and honest groom from a bad home. But it’s another matter if the exiled mother behaves honestly and strictly in Siberia: young woman A person who behaves honestly enjoys great respect. Everyone defends her, everyone wants to please her, everyone will take off his hat to her. She will probably find a home for her daughter. Even she herself may, over time, when they look at her and are confident in her, again enter into an honest marriage, into an honest family. (In Siberia, they don’t ask about the past, that is, why they were exiled, neither in prisons, nor wherever they were exiled to live, they are rarely curious. Perhaps this is even because almost all of Siberia, in these three centuries, came from exiles, was inhabited by them.) That’s all I decided to say to this young, barely legal woman. And even I deliberately chose to tell her this, precisely this last day before the trial: it will remain more characteristic in the memory, it will be more firmly imprinted on the soul, I thought. After listening to me how she should live in Siberia if she was exiled, she thanked me gloomily and seriously, without almost raising her eyes to me. And so, tired, exhausted, shocked by all this terrible many-hour impression of the trial, and at home sternly forced by her husband to listen to the Gospel, she did not then think to herself: “If only he had pity on me, if only he would put it off until tomorrow, and now he would feed me and let me rest.” ". She was not offended by the fact that they towered over her so much (NB. The most terrible criminal, the most conscious of his crime, and even the most repentant, can be offended by the fact that they tower over us too much) - but, on the contrary, she did not find that better for my husband to tell him as quickly as possible that people in prison taught her good things too, that this is how they taught her to live on a foreign side, honestly and strictly observing herself. And she clearly did this because she knew that telling a story about this would please her husband, would fall into his tone, would encourage him: “So she really repents, she really wants to live well,” he would think. That’s exactly what he thought, and in response to my advice: not to frighten her by being too hasty in being strict with her, he directly told me, of course, with joy in his soul: “There is no need to be afraid for her and be careful, she herself is glad to be honest...”
I don’t know, but it seems to me that all this is clear. Readers will understand why I am reporting this. At least now we can at least hope that the great mercy of the court did not spoil the criminal even more, but, on the contrary, it may even very well fall on good soil. After all, both before, and in prison, and now, she considers herself an undoubted criminal, and attributes her justification solely to the great mercy of the court. She herself does not understand the “effect of pregnancy.” And for sure, she is an undoubted criminal, she was in full memory When committing a crime, she remembers every moment, every detail of the crime committed, she just doesn’t know and even to herself she still can’t figure it out: “How could she do it then and decide to do it!” Yes, Mr. Observer, the court pardoned the real criminal, the real one, despite the now undoubted and fatal “affect of pregnancy”, so ridiculed by you, Mr. Observer, and of which I am now deeply and unshakably convinced. Well, now decide for yourself: if they broke up the marriage, tore her away from the man whom she undoubtedly loved and loves and who for her is her entire family, and a lonely, twenty-year-old, with a baby in her arms, helpless, exiled to Siberia - to debauchery, to shame (after all, this fall would probably have happened in Siberia) - say, what is the point in the fact that life would perish, decay, which now, it seems, has resumed again, returned to the truth in severe purification, in severe repentance and with renewed heart. Isn’t it better to correct, find and restore a person than to directly remove his head? It’s easy to cut off heads according to the letter of the law, but to disassemble them in truth, in a human, fatherly way, is always more difficult. Finally, you knew that together with the young, twenty-year-old mother, that is, inexperienced and probably a victim of want and debauchery, her baby is also exiled... But let me tell you a special word about babies.
VI. AM I THE ENEMY OF CHILDREN? ABOUT WHAT THE WORD “HAPPY” MEANS SOMETIMES
Your entire article, Mr. Observer, is a protest “against the justification of child abuse.” The fact that you stand up for children, of course, does you credit, but you treat me too arrogantly.
“You must have all that power of imagination,” (you are talking about me) “with which, as you know, Mr. Dostoevsky is distinguished among all of us, in order to fully enter into the position of a woman and understand for himself all the irresistibility of the affects of pregnancy... But Mr. n Dostoevsky is too impressionable, and besides, “diseases of manifestation of the will” are exactly the part of the author of “Demons”, “The Idiot”, etc., he can be forgiven for having a weakness for them. I look at the matter more simply and claim that after such examples. , as a justification for cruel treatment of children, this treatment, which in Russia, as in England, very often, will no longer have even a shadow of deterrence.” - Etc., etc.
Firstly, about “my weakness for painful manifestations of the will,” I will only tell you that I really, it seems, sometimes managed, in my novels and stories, to expose other people who consider themselves healthy and prove to them that they are sick. Do you know that very many people are sick precisely because of their health, that is, with an exorbitant confidence in their normality, and are thereby infected with terrible conceit, unscrupulous narcissism, sometimes reaching almost to the conviction of their infallibility. Well, these are the ones I happened to point out to my readers many times and even, perhaps, prove that these big guys are far from being as healthy as they think, but, on the contrary, are very sick, and that they need to go for treatment. Well, I don't see anything wrong with it, but Mr. Observer is too harsh on me, because his phrase about “justifying child abuse” directly applies to me; he only softens her “a little bit”: “He’s sorry.” His entire article was written directly to prove that in me, due to my addiction to “painful manifestations of the will,” my common sense has become so distorted that I am more likely to feel sorry for the torturer of a child, the beast-stepmother and murderer, rather than the tortured victim, not the weak one, a pathetic girl, beaten, scolded and finally killed. This offends me. In contrast to my illness, the Observer directly, hastily and openly points to himself, exposes his health: “I, they say, look at the matter more simply (than Mr. Dostoevsky) and claim that after such examples as justifications for child abuse” etc. etc. So, I justify child abuse - a terrible accusation! Let me, in this case, defend myself. I will not point to my previous thirty years of literary activity in order to resolve the question: am I a big enemy of children and a lover of cruelty to them, but I will only remind you of the last two years of my authorship, that is, the publication of the “Diary of a Writer.” During the Kroneberg trial, it happened to me, despite all my addiction to “painful manifestations of will,” to stand up for the child, for the victim, and not for the torturer. Consequently, I sometimes take the side of common sense, Mr. Observer. Now I even regret why you didn’t also speak out in defense of the child then, Mr. Observer; you probably would have written the hottest article. But I don’t remember a single hot article about the child back then. Consequently, you did not think to intercede then. Then, just recently, last summer, I happened to stand up for the young Dzhunkovsky children, who were also tortured in their parents’ home. You didn’t write anything about the Dzhunkovskys either; however, no one wrote, the matter is clear, everyone was busy with such important political issues. Finally, I could point out not even one, but several cases when, during these two years, in the “Diary” I spoke about children, about their upbringing, about their pitiful fate in our families, about criminal children in our families. institutions to correct them, even mentioned one boy at Christ’s Christmas tree - an incident, of course, false, but, however, not directly testifying to my insensitivity and indifference to children. I’ll tell you, Mr. Observer, this: when I read in the newspaper for the first time about Kornilova’s crime, about the inexorable sentence against her, and when I was involuntarily struck by the thought: that perhaps the criminal is not at all as criminal as she is it seems (note, Observer, that even then almost nothing was said about the “stepmother’s beating” in newspaper reports about the trial, and even then this accusation was no longer supported) - then I, having decided to write something in favor of Kornilova, understood too much then that’s what I decided on. I will admit this to you right now. I knew very well that I was writing an unsympathetic article, that I was standing up for the torturer, and against whom, against a small child. I foresaw that others would accuse me of insensitivity, of conceit, of “morbidity,” even: “He’s standing up for the stepmother who killed the child!” I too anticipated this “straightforwardness” of the accusation from some judges, like from you, for example, Mr. Observer, so I even hesitated for some time, but in the end I finally decided: “If I believe that there is truth here, is it worth serving a lie for the sake of seeking popularity?” - that's what I settled on in the end. In addition, I was encouraged by faith in my readers: “They will finally understand,” I thought, “that I cannot be accused of wanting to justify the torture of children, and if I stand up for the murderer, exposing my suspicion that she is in a sick and crazy state in time she committed a crime, then I am not thereby standing up for the crime itself, and I am not glad that the child was beaten and killed, but on the contrary, perhaps I felt very, very sorry for the child, no less than anyone else ... " .
You laughed evilly at me, Mr. Observer, for one phrase in my article about the acquittal of the defendant Kornilova:
“The husband of the acquitted woman,” writes Mr. Dostoevsky in the “Diary” that was published the other day (you say), “took her that same evening, already at the eleventh hour, to his home, and she, happy, entered her house again.” . How touching (you add), but woe to the poor child, etc., etc.
It seems to me that I cannot write such nonsense. True, you quote my phrase exactly, but what did you do: you cut it in half and put an end where there was nothing. The meaning came out to be the one you wanted to present. I don’t have a full stop at this point, the phrase continues, there is another half of it, and I think that together with this other half, which you discarded, the phrase is not at all as stupid and “touching” as it seems. This phrase is mine, but in its entirety, without exceptions.
“The husband of the acquitted woman took her that same evening, already at the eleventh hour, to his home, and she, happy, entered her house again after almost a year’s absence, with the impression of a huge lesson she had learned for the rest of her life and the clear finger of God in all this in fact, - at least only starting with the miraculous salvation of the child..."
You see, Mr. Observer, I am even ready to make a reservation and apologize to you in the reproach just expressed to you for cutting my sentence in two. Indeed, I myself notice now that the phrase may not be as clear as I had hoped, and that one can be mistaken in its meaning. It needs some clarification, and I will do it now. The whole point here is how I understand the word “happy”. I put the happiness of the acquitted woman not only in the fact that she was released, but in the fact that she “entered her house with the impression of a huge lesson she had learned for the rest of her life and with a presentiment of the obvious finger of God upon her.” After all, there is no higher happiness than to be confident in the mercy of people and in their love for each other. After all, this is faith, a whole faith, for the rest of your life! What happiness is higher than faith? Can this former criminal now ever doubt people, people as humanity and its whole, great purposeful and holy purpose? To enter into one's home for a perishing, lost person, with such a powerful impression of a new great faith, is the greatest happiness that can be. We know that some of the most noble and lofty minds quite often suffered throughout their lives from disbelief in the expediency of the great purpose of people, in their kindness, in their ideals, in their divine origin, and died in sad disappointment. You, of course, will smile at me and say, perhaps, that I am fantasizing here too, and that dark, coarse Kornilova, who came from the rabble and was deprived of education, cannot have such disappointments or such tenderness in her soul. Oh, that's not true! Only they, these dark people, do not know how to name it all in our way and explain it in our language, but they often feel as deeply as we, “educated people,” and perceive their feelings with the same happiness or with the same sadness and pain as we do.
Disappointment in people, lack of faith in them happens to them just as it does to us. If Kornilov had been exiled to Siberia and she had fallen and died there, do you really think that at some bitter moment in her life she would not have felt all the horror of her fall and would not have carried it in her heart, perhaps to the point of embitterment? all the more bitter because it would be pointless for her, for she could not blame anyone but herself, because, I repeat this to you, she is quite sure, and to this day, that she is an undoubted criminal, and only does not know how did this happen to her then? Now, feeling that she is a criminal, and considering herself such, and suddenly forgiven by people, favored and pardoned, how could she not feel renewal and rebirth into a new and already higher old life? She wasn’t the only one who forgave her, but everyone had mercy on her, the court, the jury, the whole society, therefore. How could she, after that, not bear in her soul the feeling of a huge debt henceforth for the rest of her life, to everyone who pitied her, that is, to all the people in the world. Every great happiness also contains some suffering, for it awakens in us a higher consciousness. Grief rarely awakens in us such clarity of consciousness as great happiness. Great, that is, the highest happiness obliges the soul. (I repeat: there is no higher happiness than to believe in the kindness of people and in their love for each other.) When it was said to the great sinner condemned to be stoned: “Go to your home and do not sin,” did she really return home to sin? ? Therefore, the whole question in the Kornilova case is only this: on what soil did the seed fall? That is why it seemed necessary to me to write this article now. Having read your attack on me seven months ago, Mr. Observer, I decided to wait to answer you in order to supplement my information. And so, it seems to me that from some of the features I have collected, I could now unmistakably say that the seed fell on good soil, that the person was resurrected, that it did no harm to anyone, that the soul of the criminal was suppressed by both repentance and an eternal beneficial impression the boundless mercy of people and that it is now difficult for her heart to become evil, having experienced so much kindness and love. With the undoubted “affect of pregnancy”, which so outrages you, Mr. Observer, I repeat this to you, she does not think of making excuses at all. In a word, it seemed to me not at all superfluous to notify about this, except you, Mr. Observer, and all my readers and all those merciful people who then acquitted her. And don’t worry about the girl, Mr. Observer, either, and don’t exclaim about her: “Woe to the child!” Her fate is also now quite well settled and - “she will forget”, there is serious hope for this too.
CHAPTER TWO
I. NEKRASOV'S DEATH. ABOUT WHAT WAS SAID ON HIS GRAVE
Nekrasov died. I saw him for the last time a month before his death. He seemed almost like a corpse then, so it was strange to even see such a corpse talking and moving his lips. But he not only spoke, but also retained all the clarity of his mind. It seems that he still did not believe in the possibility of imminent death. A week before his death, he had paralysis on the right side of his body, and on the morning of the 28th I learned that Nekrasov had died the day before, on the 27th, at 8 o’clock in the evening. That same day I went to see him. His face, terribly exhausted by suffering and distorted, somehow especially struck him. As I was leaving, I heard the psalmist read clearly and drawn out over the deceased: “There is no man who sins not.” Returning home, I could no longer sit down to work; I took all three volumes of Nekrasov and began reading from the first page. I sat up all night until six o’clock in the morning, and it was as if I had lived all these thirty years again. These first four poems, which begin the first volume of his poems, appeared in the “Petersburg Collection”, in which my first story appeared. Then, as I read (and I read in a row), it was as if my whole life flashed before me. I recognized and remembered those of his poems that I first read in Siberia, when, after leaving my four-year imprisonment in prison, I finally achieved the right to pick up a book. I also remembered the impression of that time. In short, that night I reread almost two-thirds of everything that Nekrasov wrote, and literally for the first time I realized to myself: how many places Nekrasov, as a poet, occupied in all these thirty years in my life! As a poet, of course. Personally, we met little and rarely, and only once with a completely selfless, ardent feeling, precisely at the very beginning of our acquaintance, in 1945, during the era of “Poor People.” But I already talked about this. Then there were a few moments between us, in which, once for all, this mysterious man the most essential and most hidden side of your spirit. This, as I immediately felt then, was a heart wounded at the very beginning of his life, and this wound, which never healed, was the beginning and source of all his passionate, suffering poetry for the rest of his life. He spoke to me then with tears about his childhood, about ugly life, who tormented him in his parents' house, about his mother - and the way he spoke about his mother, the power of tenderness with which he remembered her, even then gave rise to a premonition that if there was something holy in his life, but something that could save him and serve him as a beacon, a guiding star even in the darkest and fateful moments of his fate, then, of course, only this initial childhood impression of children’s tears, children’s sobs together, hugging, somewhere furtively, so that they would not see (as he told me) with his martyr mother, with the creature who loved him so much. I think that not a single attachment in his life could have influenced and powerfully influenced his will and other dark, uncontrollable desires of his spirit that haunted him all his life. And the dark impulses of the spirit were already evident then. Then, I remember, we somehow separated, and quite soon; Our intimacy with each other lasted no more than a few months. Misunderstandings, external circumstances, and kind people helped. Then, many years later, when I had already returned from Siberia, although we did not meet often, but, despite the difference in beliefs that had already begun then, when we met, we sometimes even said strange things to each other - as if in reality something continued in our lives, which began in our youth, back in 1945, and no matter how it wanted and could not stop, even though we had not met each other for years. So one day in sixty-three, it seems, when he gave me a volume of his poems, he pointed me to one poem, “The Unhappy,” and said impressively: “I was thinking about you when I wrote this” (that is, about my life in Siberia ), "this is written about you." And finally, also recently, we began to see each other sometimes again, when I published my novel “The Teenager” in his magazine...
Several thousand of his admirers gathered at Nekrasov's funeral. There were a lot of young students. The removal procession began at 9 a.m. and left the cemetery at dusk. Many speeches were said at his coffin, but few were spoken by literary figures. By the way, someone’s wonderful poems were read. Deeply impressed, I pressed my way to his still open grave, littered with flowers and wreaths, and in my weak voice uttered a few words after the others. I started with the fact that it was a wounded heart, once for the rest of his life, and this unclosed wound was the source of all his poetry, all of this man’s passionate to the point of tormenting love for everything that suffers from violence, from the cruelty of unbridled will that oppresses our Russian woman, our child in a Russian family, our commoner in his bitter, so often, lot. He also expressed my conviction that in our poetry Nekrasov included a number of those poets who came with their “new word”. In fact (eliminating any question about the artistic power of his poetry and its dimensions), Nekrasov, indeed, was highly original and, indeed, came with a “new word.” For example, in his time there was a poet Tyutchev, a poet more expansive and more artistic than him, and, however, Tyutchev will never occupy such a prominent and memorable place in our literature as Nekrasov will undoubtedly remain. In this sense, among the poets (that is, those who came with a “new word”), he should stand directly behind Pushkin and Lermontov. When I expressed this thought out loud, one small episode occurred: one voice from the crowd shouted that Nekrasov was higher than Pushkin and Lermontov and that they were just “Byronists.” Several voices chimed in and shouted, “Yes, higher!” I am, however, talking about height and comparative sizes three poets and did not think to speak out. But here’s what happened later: in “Birzhevye Vedomosti,” Mr. Skabichevsky, in his message to young people about the significance of Nekrasov, said that when someone (that is, me), at Nekrasov’s grave, “decided to compare his name with the names of Pushkin and Lermontov, you all (that is, all the student youth) shouted in one voice in unison: “He was taller, taller than them.” I dare to assure Mr. Skabichevsky that this was not what was conveyed to him and that I firmly remember (I hope I am not mistaken) that at first only one voice shouted: “Higher, higher than them,” and immediately added that Pushkin and Lermontov were “ Byronists" - an addition that is much more characteristic and natural of one voice and opinion than of everyone at the same moment, that is, a chorus of thousands - so this fact testifies, of course, rather in favor of my testimony about how it was this is the case. And then, now after the first voice, several more voices shouted, but only a few, I did not hear a chorus of thousands, I repeat this and hope that I am not mistaken in this.
I insist on this so much because I would still be sensitive to see that all our youth are falling into such a mistake. Gratitude to the great departed names should be inherent in a young heart. Without a doubt, the ironic cry about the Byronists and the exclamations: “Higher, higher,” did not at all come from the desire to start a literary dispute over the open grave of the dear deceased, which would be inappropriate, but that there was simply a hot impulse to express as strongly as possible everything that had accumulated in the heart is a feeling of tenderness, gratitude and admiration for the great poet who worried us so much, and who, although in the grave, is still so close to us (well, those great old men are already so far away!). But this whole episode then, on the spot, kindled in me the intention to explain my thought more clearly in the future issue of “Diary” and to express in more detail how I look at such a wonderful and extraordinary phenomenon in our life and in our poetry, which was Nekrasov, and What exactly, in my opinion, is the essence and meaning of this phenomenon.
II. PUSHKIN, LERMONTOV AND NEKRASOV
And firstly, the word “Byronist” cannot be used as a bad word. Although Byronism was momentary, it was a great, holy and necessary phenomenon in the life of European humanity, and almost in the life of all humanity. Byronism appeared in a moment of terrible melancholy of people, their disappointment and almost despair. After the ecstatic raptures of a new faith in new ideals, proclaimed at the end of the last century in France, in the then leading nation of European humanity there came an outcome so different from what was expected, so deceiving the faith of the people, that perhaps never before in history Western Europe is in such a sad moment. And not only from external (political) reasons did the newly erected idols fall for a moment, but also from their internal failure, which was clearly seen by all perspicacious hearts and progressive minds. The new outcome had not yet been indicated, the new valve had not opened, and everything was suffocating under the terribly lowered and narrowed former horizon over humanity. Old idols lay broken. And at that very moment a great and powerful genius, a passionate poet, appeared. Its sounds echoed the then melancholy of humanity and its gloomy disappointment in its destiny and in the ideals that deceived it. It was a new and unheard-of muse of revenge and sadness, curse and despair. The spirit of Byronism suddenly swept through all of humanity, and all of it responded to it. It was precisely like an open valve; at least, among the universal and muffled groans, even mostly unconscious, it was precisely that mighty cry in which all the cries and groans of humanity united and agreed. How could we not respond to it, especially to such a great, brilliant and guiding mind as Pushkin? Every strong mind and every generous heart could not escape Byronism in our country then. And not just out of sympathy for Europe and for European humanity from afar, but because both here and in Russia, just at that time, too many new, unresolved and painful questions had emerged, and too many old disappointments. .. But the greatness of Pushkin, as a leading genius, consisted precisely in the fact that he so quickly, and surrounded by people who almost did not understand him, found a solid path, found a great and desired outcome for us Russians, and pointed to it. This outcome was nationality, admiration for the truth of the Russian people. "Pushkin was a great, extraordinary phenomenon." Pushkin was “not only a Russian man, but also the first Russian man.” Not understanding Russian Pushkin means not having the right to be called Russian. He understood the Russian people and comprehended their purpose in such depth and in such vastness as never before. Not to mention the fact that he, with the pan-humanity of his genius and the ability to respond to all the diverse spiritual aspects of European humanity and almost reincarnate in the genius of foreign peoples and nationalities, testified to the pan-humanity and comprehensiveness of the Russian spirit and thus, as it were, announced the future purpose of genius Russia in all humanity, as an all-unifying, all-reconciling and all-reviving principle in it. I won’t even say that Pushkin was the first among us, in his anguish and in his prophetic foresight, to exclaim:
Will I see the people liberated?
And slavery, which fell due to the king’s mania!
I will only speak now about Pushkin’s love for the Russian people. It was an all-encompassing love, the kind of love that no one had ever shown before. “Don’t love me, but love what’s mine” - that’s what people will always tell you if they want to be sure of the sincerity of your love for them.
Any gentleman, especially those who are humane and enlightened in Europe, can fall in love, that is, feel sorry for the people for their needs, poverty, and suffering. But the people need to be loved not for their suffering alone, but to be loved for themselves. What does it mean to love him? “And if you love what I love, you are almost what I honor” - that’s what it means and that’s how the people will answer you, otherwise they will never recognize you as one of their own, no matter how much you grieve about them. He will also always see through the falseness, no matter how pitiful words you seduce him. Pushkin loved the people exactly as the people demand it, and he did not guess how to love the people, did not prepare, did not study: he himself suddenly turned out to be the people. He bowed before the people's truth, he recognized the people's truth as his truth. Despite all the vices of the people and many of their stinking habits, he was able to discern the great essence of their spirit when almost no one looked at the people like that, and accepted this essence of the people into his soul as his ideal. And this was when the most humane and European-developed lovers of the Russian people openly regretted that our people were so low that they could not rise to the level of the Parisian street crowd. In essence, these amateurs have always despised the people. They believed, most importantly, that he was a slave. Slavery was used as an excuse for his fall, but they could not love a slave; the slave was still disgusting. Pushkin was the first to declare that Russian people are not slaves and never have been, despite centuries of slavery. There was slavery, but there were no slaves (in general, of course, in general, not in particular exceptions) - this is Pushkin’s thesis. Even by his appearance, by the gait of a Russian peasant, he concluded that this was not a slave and could not be a slave (although he was a slave) - a trait that testifies in Pushkin to a deep, immediate love for the people. He also recognized the high sense of self-worth in our people (again, in general, apart from the usual and irresistible exceptions), he foresaw the calm dignity with which our people would accept their liberation from serfdom - which, for example, the most remarkable people did not understand educated Russian Europeans were much later than Pushkin and expected something completely different from our people. Oh, they loved the people sincerely and ardently, but in their own way, that is, in a European way. They shouted about the bestial state of the people, about their bestial position in serfdom, but they also believed with all their hearts that our people were truly a beast. And suddenly this people found themselves free with such courageous dignity, without the slightest urge to insult their former rulers: “You are on your own, and I am on my own, if you want, come to me, for your goodness I will always honor you from me.” Yes, for many our peasant upon his liberation was a strange bewilderment. Many even decided that this was due to underdevelopment and stupidity, remnants of former slavery. And now, what happened in the time of Pushkin? Wasn’t it I who heard myself, in my youth, from progressive and “competent” people, that the image of Pushkin’s Savelich in “The Captain’s Daughter”, a slave of the Grinev landowners, who fell at the feet of Pugachev and asked him to spare the little baron, and “for the sake of example and fear, to hang better than him, the old man,” - that this image is not only the image of a slave, but also the apotheosis of Russian slavery!
Pushkin loved the people not only for their suffering. People regret their suffering, and regret so often goes hand in hand with contempt. Pushkin loved everything that these people loved, honored everything that they honored. He loved Russian nature to the point of passion, to the point of tenderness, he loved the Russian village. This was not a gentleman, merciful and humane, pitying the peasant for his bitter fate, this was a man who himself had reincarnated with his heart into a commoner, into his essence, almost into his image. The belittling of Pushkin as a poet who was more historically, more archaically devoted to the people than in reality is erroneous and does not even make sense. In these historical and archaic motifs one can hear such love and such an appreciation of the people, which belongs to the people forever, always, now and in the future, and not just in some long-past historical people. Our people love their history, the main thing is that in it they find unshakable the same sacred thing in which they have retained their faith even now, despite all their suffering and ordeal. Starting from the majestic, huge figure of the chronicler in "Boris Godunov", to the image of Pugachev's companions - all of this in Pushkin is the people in its deepest manifestations, and all of this is understandable to the people, as their own essence. Is this the same thing? The Russian spirit is diffused in Pushkin’s works, the Russian vein beats everywhere. In the great, inimitable, incomparable songs of the supposedly Western Slavs, but which are clearly the product of the great Russian spirit, the whole Russian view of the Slavic brothers was poured out, the whole Russian heart was poured out, the whole worldview of the people was revealed, preserved to this day in their songs, epics, legends, legends, everything that the people love and honor was expressed, their ideals of heroes, kings, people's defenders and mourners, images of courage, humility, love and sacrifice were expressed. And such charming jokes of Pushkin, such as the chatter of two drunken men, or the Legend of the bear whose mother was killed, are already something loving, something sweet and touching in his contemplation of the people. If Pushkin had lived longer, he would have left us such artistic treasures for understanding the people, which, through their influence, would probably have shortened the time and period of transition of our entire intelligentsia, so towering over the people in the pride of their Europeanism, to the people's truth. , to people's strength and to the consciousness of people's purpose. It is this worship of the truth of the people that I see in part (alas, perhaps I am alone among all his admirers) - and in Nekrasov, in his strongest works. It is dear, very dear to me that he is a “sorrower of the people’s grief” and that he spoke so much and passionately about the people’s grief, but what is even more dear to me about him is that in the great, painful and enthusiastic moments of his life, he, despite all the opposite influence and even on his own convictions, he bowed to the people's truth with his whole being, which he testified to in his best creations. It is in this sense that I put him as having come after Pushkin and Lermontov with the same partly new word as those (because Pushkin’s “word” is still a new word for us. And not only new, but also unrecognized, undisassembled, considered to be the oldest rubbish).
Before I move on to Nekrasov, I’ll say two words about Lermontov in order to justify why I also named him as someone who believed in the people’s truth. Lermontov, of course, was a Byronist, but due to his great unique poetic power, he was also a special Byronist - somehow mocking, capricious and grumpy, always disbelieving even in his own inspiration, in his own Byronism. But if he had stopped tinkering with the sick personality of the Russian intelligent man, tormented by his Europeanism, he would probably have ended up finding the outcome, like Pushkin, in admiration of the people's truth, and there are large and precise indications of this. But death again got in the way. In fact, in all his poems he is gloomy, capricious, he wants to tell the truth, but more often he lies and he himself knows about it and is tormented by the fact that he lies, but as soon as he touches the people, then he is bright and clear. He loves the Russian soldier, the Cossack, he honors the people. And so he once writes an immortal song about how the young merchant Kalashnikov, having killed the sovereign's guardsman Kiribeevich for his dishonor and summoned by Tsar Ivan before his menacing eyes, answers him that he killed the sovereign's servant Kiribeevich "with his free will, and not unwillingly." Do you remember, gentlemen, “slave Shibanov”? Slave Shibanov was the slave of Prince Kurbsky, a Russian emigrant of the 16th century, who also wrote his oppositional and almost abusive letters to Tsar Ivan from abroad, where he was safely sheltered. Having written one letter, he called his slave Shibanov and ordered him to take the letter to Moscow and give it to the Tsar personally. This is what slave Shibanov did. On Kremlin Square, he stopped the Tsar, surrounded by his minions, as he was leaving the cathedral, and gave him a message from his master, Prince Kurbsky. The king raised his staff with a sharp tip, thrust it into Shibanov’s leg with a flourish, leaned on the staff and began to read the message. Shibanov, with his punctured leg, did not move. And the tsar, when he later began to respond with a letter to Prince Kurbsky, wrote, among other things: “Be ashamed of your servant Shibanov.” This meant that he himself was ashamed of slave Shibanov. This image of the Russian "slave" must have struck Lermontov's soul. His Kalashnikov tells the tsar without reproach, without reproach for Kiribeevich, he says, knowing about the certain execution awaiting him, he tells the tsar “the whole true truth” that he killed his favorite “of his free will, and not reluctantly.” I repeat, if Lermontov had remained alive, we would have had a great poet who also recognized the people’s truth, and perhaps a true “sorrower of the people’s grief.” But this name went to Nekrasov...
Again, I do not equate Nekrasov with Pushkin, I do not measure by the yardstick who is higher and who is lower, because there can be no comparison or even a question about him. Pushkin, in the vastness and depth of his Russian genius, is still like the sun above our entire Russian intelligent worldview. He is a great and still misunderstood forerunner. Nekrasov is only a small point in comparison with him, a small planet, but one that emerged from the same great sun. And regardless of all measures: who is higher, who is lower, Nekrasov remains immortality, which he fully deserved, and I have already said why - for his admiration for the people's truth, which happened in him not out of some kind of imitation, not even entirely out of consciousness, but a need, an unstoppable force. And this is all the more remarkable about Nekrasov because all his life he was under the influence of people, although they loved the people, although they grieved for them, perhaps very sincerely, but never recognized the truth in the people and always put their European enlightenment incomparably above the truth spirit of the people. Without delving into the Russian soul and not knowing what it was waiting for and asking for, they often happened to wish for our people, with all their love for them, what could directly lead to their misfortune. Is it not they who in the Russian popular movement, over the past two years, have not recognized almost at all the height of the rise of the people’s spirit, which it, perhaps for the first time, is showing in such completeness and strength and thereby testifies to its sound, powerful and unshakable hitherto living unity in one and the same great thought and almost foreknows his own future destiny. And not only do they not recognize the truth of the people’s movement, but they also consider it almost retrograde, something testifying to an impenetrable unconsciousness, about the centuries-old underdevelopment of the Russian people. Nekrasov, despite his wonderful, extremely strong mind, was, however, deprived of a serious education, at least his education was small. He did not leave certain influences throughout his life, and he did not have the strength to leave. But he had his own, unique strength in his soul, which never left him - this is a true, passionate, and most importantly, direct love for the people. He ached for his suffering with all his soul, but saw in him not only an image humiliated by slavery, an animal likeness, but was able, by the power of his love, to comprehend almost unconsciously the beauty of the people, and his strength, and his intelligence, and his suffering meekness, and even partially believe and its future purpose. Oh, Nekrasov could have deliberately made mistakes in many ways. He could exclaim in his impromptu recently published for the first time, contemplating with alarming reproach the people already liberated from serfdom:
But are the people happy?
The great instinct of his heart told him the grief of the people, but if he had been asked, “What should I wish for the people and how to do it?”, then perhaps he would have given a very erroneous, even disastrous answer. And, of course, you can't blame him: political meaning We still have remarkably little, and Nekrasov, I repeat, was under the influence of others all his life. But with his heart, and with his great poetic inspiration, he irresistibly joined, in his other great poems, to the very essence of the people. In this sense, he was a people's poet. Anyone coming out of the people, even with the smallest education, will already understand a lot from Nekrasov. But only with education. The question of whether the entire Russian people will now understand Nekrasov is, without a doubt, a clearly unthinkable question. What will the “common people” understand in his masterpieces: “A Knight for an Hour”, “Silence”, “Russian Women”? Even in his great “Vlas”, which may be understandable to the people (but will not inspire the people at all, for all this is poetry that has long since left immediate life), the people will probably recognize two or three false strokes. What will the people understand in one of their most powerful and most calling poems, “On the Volga”? This is the true spirit and tone of Byron. No, Nekrasov is still only a poet of the Russian intelligentsia, who spoke with love and passion about the people and the suffering of their same Russian intelligentsia. I’m not saying in the future, but in the future people will celebrate Nekrasov. He will then understand that there was once such a kind Russian master who cried mournful tears about his people's grief and could not think of anything better than how, running away from his wealth and from the sinful temptations of his master's life, to come to his very difficult moments to him, to the people, and in uncontrollable love for him to cleanse his tormented heart - for Nekrasov’s love for the people was only the outcome of his own grief in itself...
But before I explain how I understand this “own grief” of the dear deceased poet in himself, I cannot help but draw attention to one characteristic and curious circumstance that has appeared in almost all of our newspaper press now after the death of Nekrasov, in almost all articles who talked about him.
III. POET AND CITIZEN. GENERAL TALK ABOUT NEKRASOV AS A PERSON
All the newspapers, as soon as they started talking about Nekrasov, about his death and funeral, as soon as they began to define his significance, they immediately added, without exception, some considerations about some kind of “practicality” of Nekrasov, about some of his shortcomings. , vices even, about some kind of duality in the image that he left us of himself. Some newspapers only hinted at this topic a little, in just two lines, but the important thing is that they did hint, apparently out of some kind of necessity that they could not avoid. In other publications, which spoke more extensively about Nekrasov, things came out even stranger. In fact: without formulating the accusations in detail and, as if avoiding it, out of deep and sincere respect for the deceased, they nevertheless began... to justify him, so that it turned out even more incomprehensible. “What are you justifying?” the question involuntarily burst out; “if you know what, then there is nothing to hide, but we want to know whether he still needs your justifications?” That's the question that ignited. But they didn’t want to formulate it, but hurried with excuses and reservations, as if wanting to quickly warn someone, and, most importantly, again, as if they couldn’t avoid it in any way, even though they might have wanted to. In general, an extremely interesting case, but if you delve into it, then you and everyone, no matter who you are, will undoubtedly come to the conclusion, as soon as you think about it, that this case is completely normal, that, having started talking about Nekrasov as a poet, there really is no way you can’t avoid talking about him as a person, because in Nekrasov the poet and the citizen are so connected, so inexplicable are both of them without the other, and taken together explain each other so much, that when you start talking about him as a poet, you even involuntarily go to a citizen and feel that you are forced and have to do it and cannot avoid it.
But what can we say and what exactly do we see? The word “practicality” is uttered, that is, the ability to manage one’s affairs, but that’s all, and then they rush with excuses: “He suffered, he was eaten up by the environment since childhood,” he endured a lot of grief as a young man in St. Petersburg, homeless, abandoned , and consequently, he became “practical” (that is, as if he could not help but become so). Others go even further and hint that without this “practicality” Nekrasov, perhaps, would not have accomplished such obviously useful things for the common good, for example, he coped with the publication of a magazine, etc., etc. So, why justify bad means for good purposes? And this is speaking about Nekrasov, a man who shook hearts, aroused delight and tenderness for the good and beautiful with his poems. Of course, all this is said to apologize, but it seems to me that Nekrasov does not need such an apology. Apologies on such a topic always seem to contain something derogatory, and it is as if the image of the person being apologized is obscured and diminished almost to vulgar proportions. In fact, as soon as I begin to excuse the “dualism and practicality” of the person, I seem to insist that this duality is even natural under certain circumstances, almost necessary. And if so, then we absolutely have to come to terms with the image of a person who today beats against the slabs of his native church, repents, shouts: “I fell, I fell.” And this is in the immortal beauty of the poems that he will write down that same night, and the next day, as soon as the night has passed and the tears have dried, he will again take up “practicality,” because, apart from everything else, it is necessary. But what then will these groans and cries, clothed in poetry, mean? Art for art’s sake is nothing more, and even in its most vulgar meaning, because he himself praises these poems, admires them himself, is completely satisfied with them, prints them, counts on them: they will, they say, add shine to the publication, excite young hearts. No, if we justify all this without explaining it, then we risk falling into a big mistake and give rise to bewilderment, and to the question: “Who are you burying?” - we, who accompanied his coffin, would have been forced to answer that we were burying “the brightest representative of art for art’s sake that there can be.” Well, was it so? No, truly this was not so, but we were truly burying the “sorrower of the people’s grief” and the eternal sufferer about himself, eternal, tireless, who could never calm himself down, and who himself rejected cheap reconciliation with disgust and self-flagellation.
It is necessary to find out the matter, find out sincerely and impartially, and what turns out to be accepted, then accept it as it is, regardless of any person and no further considerations. Here it is necessary to find out the whole essence as much as possible, in order to extract as accurately as possible from the clarifications the figure of the deceased, his face; this is what our hearts demand, so that we do not have the slightest bewilderment about him, which involuntarily darkens the memory, often leaving high image unworthy shadow.
I myself knew little about the “practical life” of the deceased, and therefore I cannot begin the anecdotal part of this matter, but even if I could, I would not want to, because I would plunge directly into what I myself recognize as gossip. For I am firmly convinced (and used to be sure) that of everything that was said about the deceased, at least half, and maybe all three quarters, are pure lies. Lies, nonsense and gossip. Such a characteristic and remarkable person as Nekrasov could not but have enemies. And what really happened, what actually happened, could not help but be exaggerated at times. But having accepted this, we will still see that something still remains. What is it? Something gloomy, dark and painful is undeniable, because - what then do these groans, these screams, these tears of his, these confessions that “he fell,” this passionate confession before the shadow of his mother mean? Self-flagellation here, execution here? Again, I won’t go into the anecdotal side of the matter, but I think that the essence of that dark and painful half of our poet’s life was, as it were, predicted by himself, even at the dawn of his days, in one of his very first poems, sketched, it seems, even before meeting Belinsky (and then later processed and given the form in which they appeared in print). These are the verses:
The evening lights were lit,
The wind howled and the rain poured down,
When from Poltava province
I entered the capital city.
There was a very long stick in his hands,
The knapsack is empty on her,
On the shoulders is a sheepskin coat,
Fifteen pennies in my pocket.
No money, no title, no tribe,
Small in stature and funny in appearance,
Yes, forty years have passed, -
There's a million in my pocket.
A million - that's Nekrasov's demon! Well, did he love gold, luxury, pleasures so much and, in order to have them, indulged in “practicalities”? No, rather it was a demon of a different nature; it was the darkest and most humiliating demon. It was a demon of pride, the thirst for self-sufficiency, the need to protect yourself from people with a solid wall and independently, calmly look at their anger, at their threats. I think this demon latched onto the heart of a child, a fifteen-year-old child who found himself on the St. Petersburg pavement, almost running away from his father. The timid and proud young soul was amazed and wounded, she did not want to look for patrons, she did not want to enter into an agreement with this alien crowd of people. It’s not that disbelief in people crept into his heart so early, but rather a skeptical and too early (and therefore erroneous) feeling towards them. Let them not be evil, let them not be as terrible as they say about them (he probably thought), but they are still weak and timid trash, and therefore they will destroy without anger, as soon as their interest comes. It was then that, perhaps, Nekrasov’s dreams began, perhaps, and then the poems took shape on the street: “There is a million in my pocket.”
It was a thirst for gloomy, gloomy, isolated self-sufficiency, so as to no longer depend on anyone. I think that I am not mistaken, I remember something from my very first acquaintance with him. At least that’s how it seemed to me throughout my life. But this demon was still a low demon. Could Nekrasov’s soul have craved such self-sufficiency, this soul, capable of so responding to everything holy and not abandoning faith in him. Do such gifted souls protect themselves with such self-sufficiency? Such people set out on the road barefoot and empty-handed, and their hearts are clear and light. Their self-sufficiency does not lie in gold. Gold - rudeness, violence, despotism! Gold may seem to provide security for precisely that weak and timid crowd that Nekrasov himself despised. Could pictures of violence and then the thirst for voluptuousness and debauchery really coexist in such a heart, in the heart of a person who himself could cry out to someone else: “Drop everything, take your staff and follow me.”
Lead me to the camp of the lost
For a great cause of love.
But the demon overpowered him, and the man remained in place and did not go anywhere.
For this he paid with suffering, the suffering of his entire life. In fact, we only know poetry, but what do we know about his internal struggle with his demon, a struggle that was undoubtedly painful and lasted all his life? I’m not even talking about Nekrasov’s good deeds: he did not publish about them, but they undoubtedly existed, people are already beginning to testify to the humanity and tenderness of this “practical” soul. Mr. Suvorin has already published something, I am sure that much more good evidence will come to light, it cannot be otherwise. “Oh, they will tell me, you also justify it, and even cheaper than ours.” No, I do not justify, I only explain and have achieved the point that I can raise the question - the question is final and all-resolving.
IV. WITNESS IN FAVOR OF NEKRASOV
Hamlet also marveled at the tears of the actor, who was reciting his role and crying about some Hecuba: “What does Hecuba matter to him?” - asked Hamlet. The question is straightforward: was our Nekrasov the same actor, that is, capable of sincerely crying for himself and for that spiritual shrine of which he had deprived himself, then pouring out his sorrow (real sorrow!) in immortal beauty verses and the next day being able to truly be consoled ... this beauty of poetry. The beauty of poetry and nothing more. Moreover: look at this beauty of poetry as a “practical” thing, capable of bringing profit, money, fame, and use this thing in this sense? Or, on the contrary, the poet’s grief did not go away even after the poems, and was not satisfied with them; their beauty, the power expressed in them, oppressed and tormented him, and if, unable to cope with his eternal demon, with the passions that defeated him for the rest of his life, he fell again, did he calmly reconcile himself with his fall? did not his groans and cries resume even more strongly in secret holy moments of repentance - did they repeat themselves, did they intensify in his heart each time so that he himself could finally see clearly what his demon was costing him and how dearly he had paid for the benefits that he received from him. In a word, if he could instantly reconcile with his demon and even could begin to justify his “practicality” in conversations with people, then did such reconciliation and calmness remain forever or, on the contrary, fly away instantly from the heart, leaving behind even more burning pain , shame and remorse? Then, if only this issue could be resolved, then what would remain for us? It would only remain to condemn him for the fact that, being unable to control his temptations, he did not commit suicide, for example, like that ancient Pechersk long-sufferer, who, also unable to control the serpent of passion that tormented him, buried himself waist-deep into the ground and died, if not by expelling his demon, then, of course, by defeating him. In this case, we ourselves, that is, each of us, would find ourselves in a humiliating and comical position if we dared to take on the role of judges pronouncing such sentences. Nevertheless, the poet who wrote about himself:
You may not be a poet
But you have to be a citizen
thereby, as it were, he recognized the judgment of people as “citizens” over himself. As individuals, we would, of course, be ashamed to judge him. What are we like, each of us? We just don’t talk only about ourselves out loud and hide our abomination, which we completely put up with, inside ourselves. The poet cried, perhaps, about his deeds, which we would not even wince at if we had done them. After all, we know about his falls, about his demon from his own poems. If it weren’t for these verses, which in his repentant sincerity he was not afraid to publish, then everything that was said about him as a person, about his “practicality” and so on - all this would have died by itself and would have been erased from people’s memory , would have descended straight to gossip, so that any justification for him would have been completely unnecessary for him. Let me note by the way that for a practical man who knew how to manage his affairs, it was really impractical to voice his repentant groans and cries, and therefore, he, perhaps, was not at all as practical as others claim about him. Nevertheless, I repeat, he must go to the court of citizens, because he himself recognized this court. Thus, if we were to ask the question that was posed above: was the poet satisfied with his poems, in which he clothed his tears, and was he reconciled with himself to the point of calmness, which again allowed him to indulge in “practicality” with a light heart, or , on the contrary, - there were only instant reconciliations, so that he himself despised himself, perhaps for their shame, then he suffered even more bitterly and more, and so on throughout his life - if only this question, I repeat, could have been resolved in favor of the second assumption, then, of course, then we could immediately reconcile with “citizen” Nekrasov, for his own suffering would completely clear our memory of him. Of course, now there is an objection: if you are not able to resolve such a question (and who can resolve it?), then there was no need to raise it. But the fact of the matter is that it can be resolved. There is a witness who can resolve it. This witness is the people.
That is, his love for the people! And, firstly, why would a “practical” person be so carried away by love for the people. Everyone is busy with his own business: one with practicality, the other with grief for the people. Well, let’s say it’s a whim, but I played and fell behind. But Nekrasov did not lag behind throughout his life. They will say: the people for him are the same “Hecuba”, the subject of tears, clothed in poetry and providing income. But I’m not even talking about the fact that it’s difficult to fake such sincerity of love as one can hear in Nekrasov’s poems (the debate about this could be endless), but I’ll just say that it’s clear to me why Nekrasov loved the people so much, why he so drawn to him in difficult moments of life, why he went to him and what he found from him. Because, as I said above, Nekrasov’s love for the people was, as it were, the outcome of his own grief in itself. Put this, accept it - and the whole of Nekrasov is clear to you, both as a poet and as a citizen. In serving his people with his heart and talent, he found all his purification before himself. The people were his real inner need, not just for poetry. He found his justification in his love for him. With his feelings for the people, he elevated his spirit. But what is most important is that he did not find the object of his love among the people around him, or in what these people honor and what they bow to. On the contrary, he broke away from these people and went to the offended, to the suffering, to the simple-minded, to the humiliated, when he was attacked by disgust for the life to which he had weak-heartedly and viciously surrendered for minutes; he walked and hit the slabs of his poor rural native temple and received healing. He would not have chosen such an outcome if he had not believed in it. In love for the people, he found something unshakable, some kind of unshakable and holy outcome to everything that tormented him. And if so, then, therefore, I did not find anything more holy, unshakable, truer than to bow to. He couldn’t rely on all self-justification only in poems about the people. And if so, then it follows that he bowed before the people’s truth. If I did not find anything in my life more worthy of love than the people, then, therefore, I recognized both the people’s truth and the truth among the people, and that truth exists and is preserved only among the people. If he did not admit it completely consciously, not in conviction, then he recognized it in his heart, irresistibly, irresistibly. In this vicious peasant, whose humiliated and humiliating image tormented him so much, he found, therefore, something true and sacred, which he could not help but honor, to which he could not help but respond with all his heart. In this sense, I put him, speaking above about his literary significance, also in the category of those who recognized the people's truth. The eternal search for this truth, the eternal thirst, the eternal desire for it clearly testify, I repeat this, that he was drawn to the people by an inner need, the highest need of all, and that, therefore, this need cannot but testify to an inner, his everlasting, eternal melancholy, a melancholy that never ceased, not quenched by any cunning arguments of temptation, no paradoxes, no practical justifications. And if so, then he, therefore, suffered all his life... And what kind of judges are we after that? If they are judges, they are not prosecutors.
Nekrasov is a Russian historical type, one of the major examples of the lengths to which contradictions and divisions, in the area of morality and in the area of convictions, a Russian person can reach in our sad, transitional time. But this man remained in our heart. The impulses of love of this poet were so often sincere, pure and simple-hearted! His desire for the people is so high that it puts him in the highest place as a poet. As for the man, the citizen, then, again, through his love for the people and suffering for them, he justified himself and redeemed a lot, if there really was anything to redeem...
V. TO THE READERS
The December and final issue of the Diary was so late for two reasons: due to my ill condition throughout December and due to an unforeseen transfer to another printing house from the previous one, which had ceased its activities. In a new unusual place, the matter inevitably dragged on. In any case, I take the blame upon myself and ask for all the indulgence of the readers.
To numerous questions from my subscribers and readers about whether I can at least from time to time publish issues of the “Diary” in the future 1878, without constraining myself with a monthly deadline, I hasten to answer that, for many reasons, this is impossible for me. Maybe I’ll decide to publish one issue and talk to my readers again. After all, I published my leaflet as much for others as for myself, out of an irrepressible need to speak out in our curious and so characteristic times. If I publish at least one issue, I will announce it in the newspapers. I don’t think I will write in other publications. In other publications I can only publish a story or a novel. In this year of rest from the urgent publication, I will actually take up one artistic work that developed in these two years of publishing the Diary, inconspicuously and involuntarily. But I firmly hope to resume The Diary in a year. From the bottom of my heart I thank everyone who so warmly expressed their sympathy to me. To those who wrote to me that I am leaving my publication at the hottest time, I note that in a year the time will come, perhaps even hotter, even more characteristic, and then we will serve together again good deed.
I write: together, because I directly consider my numerous correspondents to be my employees. Their messages, comments, advice and the sincerity with which everyone addressed me helped me a lot. How I regret that I could not answer so many due to lack of time and health. I again ask everyone to whom I have not answered until now, their kind, complacent indulgence. I am especially guilty of many of those who have written to me in the last three months. To the person who wrote “about the melancholy of the poor boys and that she does not know what to say to them” (who wrote probably recognizes herself from these expressions), I now take the last opportunity to say that I was deeply and with all my heart interested in her letter. If only it had been possible, I would have published my response to her letter in the Diary, and only because I abandoned my idea because I found it impossible to reprint her entire letter. Meanwhile, it so clearly testifies to the ardent, noble mood of the majority of our youth, to their sincere desire to serve every good deed for the common good. I will tell this correspondent only one thing: maybe a Russian woman will save us all, our entire society, with the new energy revived in her, with the most noble desire to do something, and this is to the point of sacrifice, to feat. She will shame the inactivity of other forces and draw them along with her, and turn those who have lost their way onto the true path. But enough; I am answering the esteemed correspondent here in the Diary, just in case, since I suspect that the previous address she gave her could no longer serve.
For so many correspondents, I could not answer their questions because such important, such live topics in which they are so interested cannot be answered in letters. Here you need to write articles, even whole books, not letters. A letter cannot but contain omissions and bewilderments. It is absolutely forbidden to correspond about other topics.
To the person who asked me to state in the Diary that I had received her letter about her brother, who was killed in the current war, I hasten to inform that I was sincerely touched and shocked by her grief for her lost friend and brother, and at the same time her delight that her brother had served a wonderful cause. With pleasure I hasten to inform this person that I met here one young man, who knew the deceased personally and confirmed everything that she wrote to me about him.
To the correspondent who wrote me a long letter (on 5 pages) about the Red Cross, I sympathetically shake his hand, sincerely thank him and ask him not to leave correspondence in the future. I will certainly send him what he asked for.
I will certainly give a special answer to several correspondents who recently asked me point by point, as well as to the one who asked: “Who is Stryutsky?” (I hope the correspondents recognize themselves by these expressions.) I especially ask the correspondents from Minsk and Vitebsk to forgive me for being so slow in answering them. Having rested, I’ll get to work on the answers and answer everyone as best I can. So, let them not complain and let them wait on me.
My address remains the same, I just ask you to indicate the house and the street, and not address it to the editor of the “Diary of a Writer”.
Thank you all again. Maybe until a close and happy date. The time is now glorious, but difficult and fatal. How much is hanging in the balance right now, and somehow we’ll talk about all this in a year!
R. S. Publisher of one new book that has just appeared: "The Eastern Question, Past and Present. Defense of Russia. SIR T. SINCLAIR, Baronet, Member English Parliament. Translation from English" - asked me to place an advertisement about this book in this issue of the Diary. But after looking through it and getting acquainted with it, instead of an ordinary newspaper advertisement, I wished to personally recommend it to readers. It is difficult to write a more popular, more interesting and more a more practical book than this one. We now have such a need for such a book, and there are so few people knowledgeable in history. Eastern Question. Meanwhile, everyone now needs to know about this issue. It is necessary and necessary. Sinclair is a defender of Russian interests. In Europe he has long been known as a political writer. A thick volume of 350 printed pages costs only one ruble (with postage 1 ruble 20 kopecks); sold in all bookstores.
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