"Novel" what to do? Evolution of the idea. The problem of genre

NIKOL AI GAVRILOVICH CHERNYSHEVSKY-NOVELIST AND RUSSIAN DEMOCRATIC FICTION OF THE 60S

The development of Russian realism in the 60-80s took place under the sign of the formation of a “sociological” (or social) movement, which replaced the “psychological” movement in the Russian historical and literary process. In Russian literary science, this conditional typological distinction of concepts has been established, indicating the difference in the divine principles of embodiment in a literary work of the relationship between the individual and the environment. In this movement, it is customary to distinguish a line conventionally designated as socio-ethical, in the mainstream of which the work of L. Tolstoy and F. Dostoevsky flowed, and revolutionary-democratic (or educational), which gave the schools of Chernyshevsky, Nekrasov, Saltykov-Shchedrin to Russian literature.

Chernyshevsky entered the history of Russian literature primarily as the author of the novel “What is to be done?”, which had a tremendous influence not only on the subsequent development of Russian realism, but also on the formation of the moral ideals of an entire generation. The traditions of Chernyshevsky as a novelist were most consistently embodied in the democratic literature of the 60-80s of the 19th century, which consolidated in its artistic practice the discovery in the field of psychological research of “new” people from among commoners, who became the heroes of the novel “What is to be done?

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

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

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

Arguing that “practical life embraces not only the material, but also the mental and moral activity of a person,” Chernyshevsky thereby expands the sphere of manifestation of sublime actions. According to Chernyshevsky, they can be performed not only by selected individuals, but also by representatives of the masses (“And there were always, everywhere thousands of people, whose whole life was a continuous series of sublime feelings and deeds... it depends on the person himself to what extent his life is filled beautiful and great." In his literary critical works, Chernyshevsky substantiates the program of activity of a positively beautiful person. Thus, in the review “Russian man on rendez-vous” (1858), dedicated to Turgenev’s story “Asya,” the critic recreates the image of a hero of modern times, portraying him as a public figure whose words do not differ from his deeds. New hero, in his opinion, will come not from among the Enlightened noble intelligentsia, who have lost their civic positions, but from among democratic youth, who will find effective ways to get closer to the people: the article “Isn’t this the beginning of change?” (1861),

In a review of “Childhood and Adolescence” and war stories. L. Tolstoy" (1856) Chernyshevsky expresses a judgment about the originality of the talent of the young writer who came to literature. Considering the features of Tolstoy’s psychological analysis, he points out that most of all Count Tolstoy is interested in “the mental process itself, its forms, its laws, the dialectics of the soul, to put it in a definitive term.” In the same article, Chernyshevsky draws readers’ attention to the fact that Tolstoy’s work is marked by a keen interest in the “moral side” of the phenomena of reality, in social and ethical problems.

Asserting the need to express the heroic in literature, Chernyshevsky persistently pursued the idea that at this historical stage in the development of literature, the most fruitful path is the “Gogolian direction,” a predominantly critical direction. In his work “Essays on the Gogol period of Russian literature” (1855-1856), he develops the theory of realistic art, arguing that his future path is a creative synthesis of life, politics, science and poetry. Chernyshevsky’s aesthetic principles will be embodied in the novel “What is to be done?” (1863), which was written by him in the Alekseevsky ravelin of the Peter and Paul Fortress.

The artistic method of Chernyshevsky the novelist

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

In this case, the intellectual, rationalistic principle becomes poetic content and takes on an artistic form corresponding to it. The aesthetic justification for a new type of artistic thinking is associated with the name of V. Belinsky, who wrote in the article “A Look at Russian Literature of 1847”: “Now the very limits of the novel and story have expanded,” therefore “the novel and story give full scope to the writer in relation to the prevailing properties of his talent" when "the mental element... even merged with the artistic."

Author of “What to do?” begins the narrative with an explanation of the special aesthetic position of the narrator, who talks about his artistic tastes and ends the dialogue with the “insightful” reader with the admission that he “does not have a shadow of artistic 370

Ayazntha." This statement contains a clear hint at the similarity of the novel’s narrative style to the works of A. Herzen, noting the features of whose style Belinsky wrote: “The power of thought is the main strength of his talent; the artistic manner of correctly grasping the phenomena of reality is a secondary, auxiliary strength of his talent” (“A Look at Russian Literature of 1847. Article 2”).

Indeed, in the novel “What is to be done?” scientific and sociological thought organizes the structure of a work, determines the features of its plot and compositional structure, the system of images of the work, and stimulates the reader’s aesthetic experiences. By making philosophical and sociological thought the genre motivation of the work, Chernyshevsky thereby expanded the idea of ​​​​the artistry of a work of realistic art.

"What to do?"

Studies devoted to the novel contain a significant number of versions explaining its complex architectonics. Attention was drawn to the “internal structure” of the work along the “four zones”, to the “double plot” (family-psychological and “secret”, Aesopian), “multi-stage” and “cyclical” series of closed plots (stories and chapters). Attempts have been made to prove that the peculiarity of the novel’s structure lies in the fact that the front is a “set of stories” united by the author’s analysis of the social ideal and ethics of the “new people”.

Indeed, in the plot lines of the novel one can note the following of certain traditions that were embodied in the works of Russian writers of the mid-century. This is the motive of a girl’s suffering in her own family, alien to her in spirit, and a meeting with a person of high civic ideals (“Rudin”, “On the Eve”, “Cliff”), the situation of a love triangle, from which a woman finds a way out (“ Noble nest", "Storm"). However, the nature of the combination of situations in the novel that are genetically derived from certain types of plot schemes demonstrates the author’s innovative approach to solving the problem. The novel “What to do?” for all the apparent mosaic of its construction, it has a through line of storytelling. This is a story about the formation of a young generation of builders of a new life. Therefore, stories about Dmitry Lopukhov and Alexander Kirsanov, Katya Polozova and Nastya Kryukova, Rakhmetov are naturally included in the narrative about the life of Vera Pavlovna (sometimes even contrary to traditional ideas about “main” and “minor” characters).

Originality of the genre novel consists in combining three content-structural elements in it: a description of the intimate family life of the characters, an analysis of the process of their mastery of a new ideology and morality, and a description of the ways of realizing ideals in reality.

l The artistic unity of the novel is also given by the function of the author-narrator.

Chernyshevsky goes out to talk with a variety of readers. This is evidenced by the wide range of intonation means used by the narrator, which include and irony, and mockery, and sarcasm, and pathos. The words that characterize the level of moral development of the “good” reading “public”, still “unintelligible and slow-witted”, which the novelist must win over, sometimes sound ironic. Chernyshevsky uses the technique of a literary mask, veiling his own point of view in this way. The author-narrator substantiates “the main requirements of artistic With tvennosti".

A special role in the structure of the novel belongs to Vera Pavlovna’s “dreams,” which cannot be considered as extra-plot “insertions” necessary to disguise revolutionary and socialist ideas. “Dreams” by Vera Pavlovna are an interpretation of the key elements of the event plot. In the first two dreams, Vera Pavlovna’s relationship with the “vulgar people” of the old world is completed and her transition into the “society of pure people” is traced. The third dream psychologically substantiates the plot of the heroine’s second marriage, and in the fourth the spiritual world of Vera Pavlovna’s developed personality is presented and an image of a wonderful future is created.

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

Note that Chernyshevsky deviates from the “canon” adopted in utopian novels and transfers the function of narration about the future heroine. The change in the “subject” of the narrative is a significant fact: Vera Pavlovna’s “dream” is, first of all, the result of “processing” by the individual psyche of the impressions of the experience, and therefore characterizes the heroine’s self-awareness at a certain stage of her life. Chernyshevsky was aware that the “idyllic” image of the future communism created in the novel cannot be the fruit of pure fantasy; she “is not able to create for her paintings a single element other than those given to her by reality.”

One of the vivid images of the “dream” is the “crystal palace” in which people of the future live. His image goes back to the review of “Paxton's Palace” compiled by Chernyshevsky in 1854 and published in the August issue of Otechestvennye Zapiski (the area described in it is called Seidenham, and in the novel, Seidenham). This palace was built in London's Hyde Park for the 1851 World's Fair, and then an improved design was renewed three years later in Sadenham. From this description subsequently and

The poetics of Vera Pavlovna’s fourth “dream” is formed. Such details of the image as “huge, most magnificent halls” capable of accommodating a huge number of people during lunch and leisure hours, greenhouses, glass, orchestras, magnificent table settings - all these “fantastic” elements of the life of ordinary people who know how to work and enjoy, undoubtedly, go back to the description of the real opening ceremony of the Crystal Palace.

There is a similarity of a different order between Vera Pavlovna’s “dream” and the magazine review. We can talk about the coincidence of compositional techniques for developing the image of human history in both descriptions. In the description of the Crystal Palace, the reader became acquainted with museum exhibitions of Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Byzantine and so on chambers, the exhibits of which reflected the milestones of human history. In the novel, the movement of time in the understanding of the heroine is presented as a movement from the era, symbolized by the Phoenician goddess Astarte (a female slave), to the image of the Greek Aphrodite (a half-slave queen), replaced by the goddess of the Middle Ages - the mourning Purity, etc.

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

Thus, Chernyshevsky’s “utopia”, created in Vera Pavlovna’s dream, is not the fruit of the author’s pure imagination, just as the depiction of the heroine’s workshop cannot be called the creation of the author’s imagination. This is evidenced by a large number of documents confirming the existence of such public organizations (sewing, shoe workshops, artels of translators and bookbinders, everyday life - 374

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

In his novel, Chernyshevsky introduced the reader to different types of “new people”, continuing the series begun by Turgenev’s Bazarov. However, Chernyshevsky took a certain risk, undertaking to artistically substantiate the possibility of dividing “new people” into “ordinary” (Lopukhov, Kirsanov, Vera Pavlovna, Polozova, Mer - Tsalova) and “special” (Rakhmetov). However, the image of Rakhmetov in the plot of the novel is motivated socially and psychologically: the need for change has matured in society, so it has brought to life a new breed of man. Rakhmetov is almost devoid of individuality (a short biography of a hero who “breaks out” from his environment is rather a means of typification rather than individualization of the hero). One of the central, memorable episodes with a bed studded with nails turns out to be grotesque; the “romantic story” with a young widow is exaggerated. It is curious that the love story about Rakhmetov becomes known to the reader from the words of Kirsanov, who gives an appropriate assessment of his friend’s behavior at the “rendez-vous”. This is a significant fact of the novel: it reflects Chernyshevsky’s confidence that there is no insurmountable border between “ordinary” and “special” people. It is no coincidence that the author “trusts” Rakhmetov to explain Lopukhov’s act and convey a note from him to Vera Pavlovna. Chernyshevsky does not show a “special” hero in the field of practical activity, as happens with “ordinary” people who conduct educational work among the people: Lopukhov and Mertsalova - with girls in the workshop, Lopukhov - with students and factory workers. Imagining the personality traits of a professional

revolutionary, Chernyshevsky experienced some difficulties in in order to specifically depict Rakhmetov’s “underground” activities. Apparently it's possible explain by the fact that the image of Rakhmetov is known # degree "limited" its “feature”: in case of victory or deathaffairshe shouldassimilate with "ordinary" people, having accepted themimagelife. Second of the above options and is being considered democratic fiction of the 60-70s, in which depicts a complex social situation resulting from crushed hopes for an ambulance peasant revolution.

The plot and compositional side of the novel “What is to be done?” has long attracted researchers with its magnificent and complex architecture. This complexity has been sought to be explained from different perspectives. Attention was paid to the “internal structure” of the work (according to four zones: vulgar people, new people, higher people and dreams), “double plot” (family-psychological and “secret”, “Aesopian”), “multi-stage” and “cyclicality” a series of closed plots (stories, chapters), “a set of stories”, united by the author’s analysis of the social ideal and ethics of new people. Genesis clarified storylines novel, which in many ways represents a contamination of several plots traditional for Russian literature of the mid-century, carried out in the creative practice of I. S. Turgenev, I. A. Goncharov, A. V. Druzhinin and other authors (the oppression of a girl in her own family, alien to her in spirit , and a meeting with a person of high aspirations; a plot about the situation of a married woman and a family conflict, known as the “triangle”; 1

All these interesting observations help to comprehend the process of formation of Chernyshevsky’s novel along the paths of cyclization of stories and tales, and to genetically restore the typological pedigree of a number of its plot points. Without them, the literary innovation of Chernyshevsky the novelist will look unconvincing. However, the genetic approach sometimes relegated to the background the clarification of the nature of qualitatively new plot situations of “What is to be done?”, and the excessive “anatomization” of the work into a number of “closed”, “inserted” plots hardly helped to reveal its plot-compositional integrity and monolithicity. Apparently, it is more expedient to talk not about “closed” plots and “double” centers, but about new and interconnected plot situations integrated into the unified artistic structure of the novel.

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

Structural unity “What to do?” is carried out primarily in the subjective form of manifestation author's position when the image of the author-narrator is introduced into the novel. The wide range of intonation and stylistic means of the narrator, including good nature and frankness, mystification and audacity, irony and mockery, sarcasm and contempt, gives grounds to talk about Chernyshevsky’s intention to create in this image the impression of a literary mask, designed to carry out the author’s influence on the heterogeneous readers of the book: “noble “the reader (friend), the “insightful” reader (enemy) and that “kind” reading “public”, still “unintelligible and slow-witted”, which the novelist has to win over to his side. The “scissors” that seem at first glance between the real author and the narrator, who has “not a shadow of artistic talent” (third section of the “Preface”), become less noticeable in the course of the further narration. It is noteworthy that such a polysemantic stylistic manner, in which the serious was interspersed with jokes and irony, was generally characteristic of Chernyshevsky, who loved to mystify his interlocutor even in everyday situations.

Chernyshevsky, in other works written in the Peter and Paul Fortress, strives to create the impression of objectivity in the narrative by introducing into it a narrator with a liberal orientation (“Alferyev”) or even several narrators (“Tales within a Tale”). This manner will also be characteristic of some works about “new people” by other authors (I. Kushchevsky, “Nikolai Negorev, or the Prosperous Russian”; A. Osipovich-Novodvorsky, “An Episode from the Life of Neither a Peahen nor a Crow,” 1877). However, in “What to Do?” the functions of the conservative interlocutor are transferred to the “insightful reader,” personifying the reactionary principle in political, moral, ethical, and aesthetic terms. In relation to him, the narrator acts as an antagonist and an irreconcilable polemicist. Compositionally, they are tightly “attached to each other” (XI, 263).

The call to devote oneself to the revolution, the glorification of the revolutionary - the “engine of engines” of social progress, the socio-economic justification of the behavior and character of people, the propaganda of materialism and socialism, the struggle for women’s equality, the establishment of new moral and ethical standards of human behavior - this is not a complete complex of social political, philosophical and moral problems that worried the author-narrator in conversations with the reader, who still has so much “confusion and nonsense in his head.” Formulated in lyrical digressions, conversations and polemics with the “insightful reader,” the author’s “intervention” becomes a structural and organizing factor in the narrative. And here the author-storyteller himself substantiates the “main requirements of artistry,” new principles of plotting, “without any tricks,” “mystery,” “effectiveness,” and “embellishment.” The novelist’s creative laboratory opens before the readers when, in the narrator’s digressions, he becomes acquainted with the new principles of materialist aesthetics that underlie the novel, with reflections on the relationship between artistic fiction and vital material, about different concepts of plot and composition, about outdated definitions of main and secondary characters, etc. Thus, in the presence of the reader, a new poetics, an original artistic structure of a socio-philosophical novel, was formed.

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

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

Vera Pavlovna’s “Dreams” represent an unusually bold artistic interpretation of an event plot at key, turning points in the heroine’s spiritual life and are realized in two varieties. In one case, these are artistic and symbolic paintings that affirm the typological unity and interconnection of the heroine’s personal liberation and the liberation in general of all the girls from the “basement” (“Verochka’s First Dream”), women’s emancipation and social renewal of all humanity (“Vera Pavlovna’s Fourth Dream”); in the other - a retrospective and extremely “compressed” presentation of events that influenced the worldview and psychology of the heroine and predetermined new plot twists. It is through “The Second Dream of Vera Pavlovna” that the reader learns about the disputes in the Lopukhov circle about the natural science works of the German chemist Liebig (about different conditions for the growth of a wheat ear, about the importance of drainage work), philosophical discussions about the real and fantastic desires of people, about the laws of historical progress and civil war in America. At her home youth “university,” Vera Pavlovna, having internalized the idea that “life has labor as its main element,” decided to organize a labor partnership of a new type.

Both varieties are artistically convincing and original because they use the psychological impressions of people in a dream state (reflection real events, conversations and impressions in fantastic grotesque images or in pictures layered on top of each other, bizarrely shifting the temporal and spatial boundaries of real “primary sources”). The symbolic images of “The Bride of Her Grooms,” which first appeared as a bold artistic allegory of the revolution in Lopukhov’s conversation with Vera Pavlovna during a quadrille (IV section of the first chapter), and her younger sister, the “Bright Beauty,” personifying Love, look natural in the complex of dreams of the heroine. Equality (“The Third Dream of Vera Pavlovna”, the first part of her “Fourth Dream”). It is noteworthy that it was precisely in these apex plot moments that the structural unity of the novel, the relationship between the personal and the public, love and revolutionary activity, was especially clearly manifested.

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

My darling, be brave

Trust yourself to fate!

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

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

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

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

The “selfishness” of the heroes of “What is to be done?”, their “theory of calculation of benefits” “reveals the true motives of life” (XI, 66). He is reasonable because he is subordinate to their natural desire for happiness and goodness. A person’s personal benefit must correspond to the universal human interest, which Chernyshevsky identified with the interest of the working people. There is no solitary happiness, the happiness of one person depends on the happiness of other people, on the general well-being of society. That is why Lopukhov frees Verochka from domestic oppression and forced marriage, and Kirsanov cures Katya Polozova and helps her free herself from the illusion of “happiness” with Zhan Solovtsov, a contender for her huge inheritance.

A new moral and ethical teaching, regulating personal and social relationships between people in a new way, thus underlies plot situations that are unusual for mid-century literature. This teaching also determines the optimistic denouement of the tangled “triangle” (the love of a married woman for her husband’s friend), the resolution of which literature has struggled so unsuccessfully. Convinced that Vera Pavlovna loves Kirsanov, Lopukhov “leaves the stage.” Subsequently, regarding his action, he will write: “What a great pleasure it is to feel like you are acting like a noble man...” (XI, 236).

The plot situation of the “new convert” absorbed a whole complex of the novelist’s plans, including the process of forming a new person – a socialist, and the implementation of the idea of ​​​​the emancipation of women, and the formation of a morally healthy family. Its various variants were artistically tested by Chernyshevsky in the story “Alferyev” (the hero’s relationship with Serafima Antonovna Chekmazova is a negative version; with Liza Dyatlova - an example of comradely norms in relations between a man and a woman, incomprehensible and suspicious for the older generation), in “Tales within a Tale” (the story of Lizaveta Sergeevna Krylova), in the “Prologue” (Nivelzin and Lydia Vasilievna Savelova, Levitsky and Anyuta, Levitsky and Mary), in “The Story of One Girl” (Liza Svilina).

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

The second version of the “new appeal”, coming from “What is to be done?”, was artistically refracted in a much larger group of works. Among them, “Difficult Time” by V. Sleptsov (Maria Nikolaevna Shchetinina - Ryazanov), “Step by Step” by I. Omulevsky (Lizaveta Mikhailovna Prozorova - Svetlov), “Novel” by A. Osipovich-Novodvorsky (Natalia Kirikova - Alyosha), “ Andrey Kozhukhov” by S. Stepnyak-Kravchinsky (Tanya Repina – Kozhukhov), etc. By the beginning of the new century, this process is becoming common and widespread. In social democratic organizations, it has become common for girls to appear who have given up their privileged position in society. The ideas of socialism entered the consciousness of Natasha, Sashenka, Sophia and Lyudmila (M. Gorky’s story “Mother”), and they, in turn, pass them on to working youth.

In the novel “What to do?” the differentiation of “new people” is clearly visible. It turned out to be extremely stable in the artistic practice of democratic literature, at least for two decades.

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

Chernyshevsky followed the path of differentiating “new people” into “ordinary” (Lopukhov, Kirsanov, Vera Pavlovna, Mertsalov, Polozova) and “special” (Rakhmetov), ​​filling these concepts with a deep socio-ideological meaning, while maintaining a high level of artistic impressiveness. The conditional identification of two types in the system of positive characters has its own philosophical and socio-historical justifications. Particularly often mentioned in this regard is the influence of Chernyshevsky’s philosophical and anthropological ideas when distinguishing “extraordinary people” into a “special breed”, as having the right to this isolation due to the innate properties of their individual “nature”. This is the influence of anthropology on the artistic method of the author of “What is to be done?” is often exaggerated; with this approach, some critics of the novel tendentiously note in the image of Rakhmetov even “duality,” “straightforwardness,” “schematism” and other “shortcomings” and deviations from realism. The incorrect emphasis in determining ideological, anthropological and artistic-aesthetic aspects in the typological structure of the “new people” is largely explained by ignoring the connections of the novel with the revolutionary reality of the 60s, on the one hand, and underestimating the artistic and logical means of comprehensively recreating the appearance of an intellectual figure - on the other. The “circumstances” of life, social existence, and not the biologically given properties of human nature determine the behavior and morality of “new people” - both “special” and “ordinary”.

Differentiation of heroes “What to do?” is confirmed by the practice of “landlord” figures, which provide, in addition to the organization of the “underground”, by the name of that time, society, also forms of legal influence on social strata, to which, for example, one of the memoirists (M. N. Sleptsova) included “the publication of popular books , the organization of reading rooms with very cheap fees, the establishment of a network of Sunday schools.” 3

Chernyshevsky’s author’s foresight lies in the fact that, having sensitively grasped these two aspects in life social activities, he “translated” them to the level of artistic typology. However, the novelist did not contrast “special people” with “ordinary people”, the leaders of the revolutionary underground with ordinary figures of the liberation movement, but outlined a dialectical relationship between them, introducing the images of “a lady in mourning” and “a man of about thirty” as a transitional link. Subsequently, democratic literature of the 60–70s. will reflect the expansion of the relationship between the “exceptional” and the “ordinary”, which will be observed in the history of several generations of revolutionary fighters.

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

But most of all, the readers of the novel were worried about the legendary figure of a “special” person. In the conditions of the first revolutionary situation, identifying “special people” - revolutionaries - from among the new heroes, recognizing their central position in the general arrangement of novel characters was undoubtedly a civic and creative feat of the writer. Despite the fact that the writer did not have the opportunity to talk in detail about those aspects of life in which Rakhmanov (the original surname of Rakhmetov in the draft version of the novel) was “the main character” (XI, 729), he still managed to recreate the moral and psychological image of a professional revolutionary, introduce him to his social, ideological and moral ideas, trace the paths and conditions for the formation of a new hero of our time, even hint at some specific aspects of his practical activity.

Of course, all this is achieved through special ways of artistic generalization, in which historically specific names and events disappear, and the means of allegory serve as additional creative finds for recreating the mysterious, hidden from the eyes of “enlightened people” “underground” activities of the Rakhmetovs. The artistic influence on the reader was carried out using a whole complex of means, including the author’s intervention (section XXXI - “Conversation with the insightful reader and expelling him”, etc.), the ambiguous use of artistic (event) time, the assumption of two options for Rakhmetov’s activity during the period 1859 to 1861 (abroad and in Russian conditions), an artistic and symbolic comparison of the hero with the Burlatsky leader Nikitushka Lomov. The novel contains deliberately grotesque, at first glance “implausible” episodes from Rakhmetov’s life: the hero’s famous “test” on a bed studded with nails (Rakhmetov is preparing for possible torture and deprivation), and the “romantic story” of his relationship with the young widow he saved ( the author's refusal of love intrigue when depicting a professional revolutionary). The narrator can unexpectedly move from the semi-legendary high style of stories and rumors about a gentleman of “a very rare breed” to the everyday scene of a conversation between a now “cunning”, “sweet”, “cheerful man” with Vera Pavlovna (section XXX of the third chapter). Throughout the entire section, a well-thought-out lexical-stylistic system of allegory is consistently carried out (Rakhmetov “was busy with other people’s affairs or no one’s affairs in particular”, “he had no personal affairs, everyone knew that”, “Rakhmetov’s fiery speeches, of course, were not about love”, etc. .d.).

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

The motif of “walking,” “wandering,” and meetings underlies many works about “new people.” Among them are “Stepan Rulev” by N. Bazhin, “An Episode from the Life of Neither Peahen nor Crow” by A. Osipovich-Novodvorsky, “New” by I. Turgenev, “By Towns and Villages” by P. Zasodimsky, etc. Genetically they go back to the episodes “going to the people”, mastered by democratic literature, plot twists in M. Gorky’s story “Mother” in connection with the description of the trips of Rybin, Nilovna and Sophia to villages and villages.

The attention of many readers “What to do?” attracted Rakhmetov's trips abroad. In an atmosphere of strengthening ties between the revolutionaries and the Russian political emigration and, in particular, with the Russian section of the First International, Rakhmetov was even perceived as a propagandist of the “Western Movement”. 5 In literature after Chernyshevsky, plot situations reflecting the trips of “new people” abroad and the life of Russian political emigration became common (“Step by Step” by I. Omulevsky, “Vasilisa” by N. Arnoldi, “One of Many” by O. Shapir, “ Two Brothers” by K. Stanyukovich, “Andrei Kozhukhov” by S. Stepnyak-Kravchinsky, etc.). Chernyshevsky returned to this plot in Siberian exile, telling in the novel “Reflections of Radiance” about the foreign wanderings of his new hero Vladimir Vasilyevich, a participant in the Paris Commune.

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

It is difficult to overestimate the literary consequences of the plot first told by Kirsanov about his extraordinary friend. Rakhmetov’s version of “rendez-vous” is firmly rooted in works about professional revolutionaries, largely determining their plot and compositional structure. Stepan Rulev with N. Bazhin, Ryazanov with V. Sleptsov (“Hard Time”), Telenyev with D. Giers (“Old and Young Russia”), Pavlusha Skripitsyn (in the first part of the novel by V. Bervi) build their personal lives in a Rakhmetov style -Flerovsky “For Life and Death”) and Anna Semyonovna with her theory of celibacy (in the second part of the same work), Lena Zubova and Anna Vulich in S. Stepnyak-Kravchinsky (“Andrei Kozhukhov”) and, finally, Pavel Vlasov in M . Gorky (“Mother”).

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

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

renunciation of noble privileges and material benefits (Vasily Telenyev, an army officer, retired and lives by lessons; Sergei Overin, finding himself the heir of two hundred souls, “abandoned” the peasants, that is, abandoned them; Arkady Karamanov breaks with his father and gives up the land peasants);

enormous physical strength and ability to endure hardships (Telenyev is a good swimmer, he tests his physical strength in a fight with a rural strongman; Overin tests his endurance by plunging a lancet into the palm of his right hand; Stozharov can sleep on nails, like Rakhmetov, the author calls him a rigorist) ; renunciation of love for a woman in the name of a great social goal (love is not included in Telenyev’s life plans; Overin, admiring Lisa’s courageous behavior during the arrest, is ready to marry her, but abandons his intention upon learning that Malinin loves her; Stozharov leaves his beloved girls - Varya Barmitinova; Svetlov declares to Khristina Zhilinskaya that he will never marry, and reads to her a Circassian song from Lermontov’s poem “Ishmael Bey”, also familiar to readers from the novel “What to Do?”; “there is a matter, there is another love, greater, there is another happiness, more complete” - a common cause);

great theoretical training, ideological conviction and dedication to the cause of the people (Telenyev defends his theoretical positions in a dispute with Markinson, conducts propaganda work with the peasants, counting himself among those educated people who wish the best for the peasants; Overin “calculates the circle of historical events in Russia”, creates a new science - “historical algebra”, according to which the nobility is equal to zero; all this prepared him for the decisive step - to lead the peasant uprising; Svetlov promotes advanced ideas through the school of adults and without hesitation sympathizes with the rebel workers of the Yeltsin factory).

All these characteristic elements of the “Rakhmetov” ideological and artistic structure with an emphasis on the “exclusivity” of the heroes allow us to speak about the undoubted influence of Chernyshevsky on the works of democratic fiction.

Lecture 10 NOVEL N.G. CHERNYSHEVSKY “WHAT TO DO?” MAIN ISSUES

The biggest milestone in the creative polemics of the “sixties” with their literary “fathers” was Chernyshevsky’s (1828-1889) novel about “new people” (as they are called in its subtitle: “From stories about new people”), which gave rise to a number of related works ( “Stepan Rulev” by N.F. Bazhin, “Before Dawn” by N.F. Blagoveshchensky, “Nikolai Negorev, or the Prosperous Russian” by I.A.

Written in the Peter and Paul Fortress in four months of 1862 and published in the spring of 1863, it struck contemporaries with the unconventionality of not only its heroes (in this regard, it was anticipated by the narrative duology “Philistine Happiness” and “Molotov” by N. Pomyalovsky, where the actors were not nobles, but commoners , and Turgenev’s novel “Fathers and Sons” with the positivist Bazarov as the main character), as well as the novelty of the substantive and literary-fictional solutions, which caused diametrically opposed reviews in criticism. While the radical youth of the 1860s read the novel, according to the critic A. Skabichevsky, “almost kneeling, with such piety that does not allow the slightest smile on their lips,” and saw in it almost a new Gospel, the same novel was no less unanimously rejected by all the major Russian literary artists.

I. Turgenev denies him not only “art and beauty,” but also efficiency itself. I. Goncharov calls the work “mediocre”, which revealed only the “shaky principles” on which Chernyshevsky “built both his scientific theories and the ghostly building of some new order in conditions and methods public life" N.S. Leskov, calling the novel “What to do?” “a very bold, very large and in a certain respect very useful phenomenon,” nevertheless, he concludes: “Mr. Chernyshevsky’s novel from the point of view of art is below any criticism; he's just funny." Leo Tolstoy parodies Chernyshevsky himself and his heroes in the comedy “The Infected Family” (1864), and Dostoevsky in “Notes from the Underground” (1864) subjected to crushing criticism the normative-rationalistic understanding of human nature propagated by the “new people”.

For Chernyshevsky himself, his novel was a positive response to disappointing life outcomes heroes of such works of Russian literature as A. Pisemsky’s story “Is She Guilty?” (1855), N. Pomyalovsky’s story “Molotov” (1861), and especially on Turgenev’s tragic worldview, which was reflected in the fate of Turgenev’s “plebeian” Evgeniy Bazarov.

Hence, in particular, the deliberate echoes of the novel “What is to be done?” with the novel "Fathers and Sons" in surnames its central characters: Dmitry Lopukhov, obviously, “bred” from that “burdock”, which, according to Bazarov, will grow from him, the deceased; Alexander Kirsanov has the same name as the owners of the Maryino estate; The anthroponyms “Bazarov” and “Rakhmetov” are similar in their Turkic roots. There are also roll calls in biographies characters of Chernyshevsky and Turgenev: Lopukhov and Kirsanov, like Bazarov, studied at the St. Petersburg Medical-Surgical Academy, are adherents of natural science, experimenters and doctors.

Two most important new points are primarily striking when comparing Chernyshevsky’s novel with the works of Russian literature that preceded it and the novels of Turgenev and Goncharov. This is, firstly, fundamental optimism works. All conflicts that were previously unresolvable or were resolved with results that did not satisfy readers, in “What is to be done?” are completely resolved. In general, according to the correct observation of Yu.M. Prozorov, Chernyshevsky’s “new people” are “programmed as winners,” “doomed to happiness.”

Another unconventional feature of the novel is internally connected with optimism. We mean the unusually large place occupied in it abstractly speculative, the actual theoretical component, is generally contraindicated for a work of fiction. The matter is not limited to direct and indirect references of the reader to many scientists (Liebig, Newton, Claude Bernard, Virchow, Macaulay, Guizot, Thiers, Gervinus, etc.) or to the works of social utopians (V. Considerant, C. Fourier, R. Owen) and philosophers (Kant, Fichte, Hegel, Feuerbach, Auguste Comte). Chernyshevsky either explains to the reader his “theory of egoism”, then reproduces the “theoretical conversation” of Kirsanov and Lopukhov, and in the chapter “Hamlet’s trials” - Lopukhov and Vera

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

And in all these and similar cases he leaves pictorial and means of expression fiction writer for the abstract “language of philosophy” so much so that one day even main character novel - Vera Pavlovna Rozalskaya, listening to her friends talk about “analogues, identities and anthropologisms,” demanded: “Please, gentlemen, something else so that I can participate in the conversation, or better yet, let’s play.”

It is very important to correctly understand the reason for such an extensive speculative component in Chernyshevsky’s novel. It would be a mistake to follow N. Leskov in thinking that Chernyshevsky in “What is to be done?” remains a publicist, only using the form of a novel in order to disseminate “the ideas of his school” more widely. No, Chernyshevsky - and this is confirmed by his second novel “Prologue” (written at hard labor in 1867-1871, first published in 1877 in London) - without a doubt, had certain literary abilities, although he was not by type of talent And worldview an artist. He himself considered his “stories about new people” not fictionalized journalism, but a novel, and he had well-known reasons for this.

The theoretical (speculative) component in “What to do?” was dictated by Chernyshevsky’s very desire for the first time positively to answer those fundamental questions of Russian and universal human existence that were posed by Herzen, Turgenev, Goncharov, and partly Pomyalovsky, but whose solutions were unacceptable for the Russian public of the 1860s, especially for its radical youth. Even with her sympathy for the heroes of Herzen’s novel “Who is to Blame?” and Turgenev’s novels, neither Vladimir Beltov and Dmitry Rudin, who knew Russia poorly, nor who preached service to the public, would have become her idols debt at the cost of personal happiness Fyodor Lavretsky, not even the “self-deluded” and tragic Evgeny Bazarov.

Goncharov's Andrei Stolts would have suited her no more, whose family harmony still smacked of some declarativeness and looked self-sufficient, and therefore egoistic. The hero of N. Pomyalovsky’s novella dilogy, Yegor Molotov, who had previously thought about the question before Chernyshevsky’s “new people”, did not meet the aspirations of the young “sixties” what to do in order to “not continue the old life handed down by our fathers, but to create our own,” but ultimately reconciled with the existing Russian reality on the basis of “honest Chichikovism,” i.e. individualistic everyday comfort and well-being.

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

And, obviously, for its solution it needed something qualitatively different from those that preceded it, holistic concepts of man, his nature, behavioral stimuli and earthly destiny itself.

This is what Chernyshevsky proposes in the novel “What is to be done?” But in the form of a concept (“idea”) not strictly artistic, which the non-artist Chernyshevsky was unable to do, but as a complex of abstract and speculative ideas, combining the principles of the anthropological (Ludwig Feuerbach) and natural science (L. Buchner, K. Vocht , J. Moleshotg, C. Bernard) materialism, English utilitarian ethics(Jeremiah Bentham, J. Stuart Mill) and European utopian socialism(V. Considerant, Robert Owen, S. Fourier).

The owners of the named ideological complex in the novel “What is to be done?” are his positive heroes - Dmitry Lopukhov, Alexander Kirsanov, Dmitry Rakhmetov, Vera Pavlovna and their like-minded people. The true, according to Chernyshevsky, worldview that they are guided by not only correctly orients them in particular life situations, but guarantees a fruitful resolution of the fundamental problems of human existence.

Which ones exactly?

Here is the first and most general of them - the attitude in a person’s life freedom and external necessity(dependencies).

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

But how the named problem is conceptualized in that chapter of the novel “What to do?” (“Hamlet’s Test”), where young Vera Pavlovna and student Dmitry Lopukhov, who recently met, discuss a book (apparently, “Social Destiny” by Victor Considerant), which Lopukhov delivered to the girl. Note: the resolution of it by these Chernyshevsky heroes precedes even their recognition of mutual sympathy, which predetermined their quick marriage.

“Your book,” we hear Vera Pavlovna’s voice, “says: a person acts out of necessity. But there are cases when it seems that from my arbitrariness depends on doing it one way or another. For example: I play and turn pages of notes; I sometimes turn them over with my left hand, sometimes with my right. Suppose now I turned it over with my right: couldn’t I turn it over with my left? Doesn’t this depend on my arbitrariness?” (italics mine. - V.N.).“No, Vera Pavlovna,” Lopukhov replies, “if you turn over without thinking anything about which hand to turn over with, you turn over with the hand that is more convenient, there is no arbitrariness; if you thought: “Let me turn it over with my right hand,” you will turn it over under the influence of this thought, but this thought did not appear from your volition; she necessary was born from others...” (italics mine. - V.N.).

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

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

However, fully recognizing the power of necessity, the heroes of “What is to be done?” their actions are guided only by own desires and motives, without recognizing any third-party coercion and violence. The pathos of complete freedom of behavior is imbued, for example, with the following statement by Vera Pavlovna in her conversation with the French woman Julie: “You call me a dreamer, you ask what I want from life?<...>I want be independent and live in my own way, whatever I need myself, I’m ready for; what I don’t need, I don’t want and don’t want.”<...>“... I only know that I don’t want to give in to anyone, I want to be free..."(italics mine. - V.N.).

From the once and for all accepted “rule: nothing should be done for him against the will of a person; freedom is above everything, even life” comes, saving Katya Polozova and Alexander Kirsanov from severe depression. Only his own free desire dictates the decisions of Dmitry Lopukhov when he leaves his studies at the Medical-Surgical Academy in order to free Vera Pavlovna from parental captivity, or when, imitating suicide, he leaves Russia. The professional revolutionary Rakhmetov never forces himself into anything.

As we see, the recognition of necessity by power does not in any way entail for Chernyshevsky’s heroes a renunciation of their freedom. There is no insoluble contradiction between necessity and freedom in their behavior and life. Why?

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

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

All these principles of generic human nature are directly or indirectly named in the novel “What is to be done?” that song “da ira” (“this will do”), which at the beginning of the novel is sung by the “young lady” in her dacha on Kamenny Island.

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

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

Anthropological materialism is supplemented in Chernyshevsky’s worldview by natural scientific materialism, based on the conclusions of naturalists of the 19th century, who in turn received from the author “What is to be done?” deep optimistic interpretation.

Chernyshevsky was mistaken when, following the so-called “materialist triumvirate” of German doctors and physiologists Ludwig Büchner, Jakob Moleschott and Karl Vocht, he denied the fundamental qualitative boundary between simple and complex forms of life, man and the plant-animal world of nature on the basis that they all consist from common chemical elements and carry out similar chemical processes. And - when he limited the differences between them only by the dissimilar combination of chemical elements and the different intensity of chemical processes inherent in man and the animal and plant world of nature.

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

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

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

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

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

Following the relationship of freedom and necessity central characters"What to do?" conflicts of interests are also resolved positively personal(their own) and general(strangers), or, according to Turgenev’s categories, “happiness” and “duty”. Let us remember how the attempts to combine the first and second in Turgenev’s prose and in Goncharov’s novel “trilogy” ended.

One must renounce the thirst for personal happiness, sacrifice it, putting on the “iron chains of duty” - otherwise the pursuit of happiness will only lead to self-deception (as in the case of the hero of “Correspondence”, who mistook his passion for a sensual Italian dancer for true love ) or to drama (as in the case of the heroes of “Asi”) - this is Turgenev’s conclusion. Hence the cross-cutting motive cross in Turgenev's stories and in the novel "Fathers and Sons". Goncharov, depicting the happy Crimean life of the Stoltsevs, speaks of its “harmony,” i.e. the achieved unity in it of the personal with the general. But it, like the happiness of these heroes, is not without declarativeness.

In Chernyshevsky, none of his “new people” renounce personal happiness. “Man,” the author himself wrote “What to do?” in the article “Anthropological principle in philosophy,” he loves himself first of all”; at the heart of human actions, even those that seem disinterested, “is the thought of one’s own, personal benefit.” The positive heroes of his novel also think so. “I don’t love anyone but myself,” Alexander Kirsanov declares without any reservations.

All “new people” are against sacrifice. Everything they do is done for themselves, for reasons of personal benefit, personal gain. For example, Dmitry Lopukhov rescues from the “basement”, i.e. family prison, Vera Pavlovna, from where the only way open to her is to be sold under the guise of marriage. For the success of this business, he had to give up his career as a scientist, i.e. sacrifice it. But he claims: “I didn’t think about sacrificing. Until now I was not so stupid as to make sacrifices<...>. Yes, they don’t exist, no one brings them; This is a false concept: the victim is soft-boiled boots. Whatever is more pleasant is what you do.”(italics mine. - V.N.). Here Kirsanov, who for three years hid his love for Lopukhov’s wife, explains that he acted in this way for his own sake. So Vera Pavlovna, setting up a sewing workshop for herself without personal gain, explains to the young workers that this is only in response to personal preferences: “...You know that different people have different preferences<...>, some have passions for balls, others for clothes and cards, and all such people are even ready to go broke for their passion, and many go bankrupt, and no one is surprised at this, that their passions are more valuable to them than money. And I’m addicted to what to do, I’ll try it with you, and I<...>I’m glad to do it without any income for myself.”

None of goodies Chernyshevsky, unlike Turgenev's or Goncharov's, does not consider himself to owe anything to anyone. They reject the traditional religious and ethical category of “duty” just as they reject the Christian concept of “sacrifice.”

But here’s the strange thing: everything that the “new people” do is out of personal benefit, out of selfishness, turns out to be primarily useful and beneficial to the people around them. Egoism and their self-love do not oppose duty, but presuppose it and naturally turn around altruism. Why?

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

The concept of “reasonable egoism” was taken by Chernyshevsky from the English utilitarian ethics of Jeremy Bentham (mentioned by Pushkin in “Eugene Onegin” in connection with the remark about a “different” society lady who “reads Say and Bentham”) and John Stuart Mill. Both thinkers addressed this ethical principle to the ruling classes of Britain, recommending that, in the interests of their own material well-being, they should share part of their wealth with the poor in the form of voluntary philanthropy, so that they would not want to organize their violent (revolutionary) redistribution. It is wiser to give away a little of your wealth than to wait for the uprising of the lower classes and lose it entirely. “Reasonable egoism” was thus the principle public ethics that regulates relations within the entire national society.

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

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

Reason tells a person: you will find more benefit and happiness for yourself if you fulfill not one of the dictates of your generic nature, but the simultaneous demands of all its principles in their unity. Then it will turn out that between the desire for benefit and happiness for oneself and for other people, in essence, there is no insurmountable contradiction, or it is generated by an “artificially” structured society. A person who has intelligently understood his selfish motives, i.e. whoever learns to satisfy them in the process of his generally useful work will be truly happy to the extent that he makes other people happy.

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

A certain discrepancy between their personal benefit (happiness) and the benefit (happiness) of other people can, however, also arise among the positive heroes of the novel “What is to be done?” Vera Pavlovna once found herself in this situation when, having left St. Petersburg after Lopukhov’s suicide (in fact, it was imaginary, which the heroine learns about later) she left fifty workers of her sewing workshop to the mercy of fate, for which she would receive a “suggestion” from Rakhmetov.

According to the novelist, such situations are possible if one of the “new people” incorrectly calculated his benefit and made an actual intellectual mistake. It is necessary, the writer tells his heroes and readers, not to forget that there is more - whole or part of it, the command of all human nature or just one of its components. Proceed from the requirements of all nature - human nature, and you can always refuse less for the sake of greater human satisfaction, neglect your whim in the name of being true to yourself as a whole.

Reason also points to the need for man to preserve his nature constantly. labor. After all, labor is the next main component after reason. As stated in Vera Pavlovna’s second dream, work “is represented in anthropological analysis as the fundamental form of movement, giving the basis to all other forms: entertainment, rest, fun, fun; without previous labor they have no reality. And without movement there is no life...”

Faith in the morally reviving and generally humanizing power of labor accompanied not only Chernyshevsky, but also all writers who loved the people. “The will and labor of man / They create wondrous wonders,” says N. Nekrasov in the poem “Grandfather,” in another place bequeathing to his contemporary

Unbridled, wild enmity towards the oppressors and great trust towards selfless work (“Song to Eremushka”).

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

The possibility of a certain revival is not closed to such people as Vera Pavlovna’s mother Marya Alekseevna, since in her life there was work, although not tempted by reason and generally self-interested. Hence the appearance on the pages of “What to do?” “A word of praise from Maria Alekseevna” from the author. Public Wednesday(in the novel she is called “dirt” for censorship reasons), represented by Vera Pavlova’s mother, also has a chance of recovery and is therefore called “real” by the novelist. Marya Alekseevna herself is a person, compared to people natural (normal) “bad”, but not " trashy" After all, in Russian the definition bad can mean not only “bad”, but, coming from “fool”, also “unreasonable”.

On the contrary, the previously named representatives of the ruling classes of Russia - the aristocrat Serge, the officer Storeshnikov, looking for a rich dowry Jean Solovtsov - people, according to the author of the novel, unconditionally trashy, for, having grown up and existing in an environment of eternal idleness (Chernyshevsky calls it “fantastic dirt”), they have hopelessly degraded in their natural principles. This environment, the novelist makes clear, cannot be revived in any way; it must be cut off from the national body with the sword of revolutionary violence.

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

The fact is that Rakhmetov is a descendant of many generations of well-born and wealthy boyars and nobles, in a word, people, according to Chernyshevsky, who lived not on their own, but on the labor of others. It follows from this that Rakhmetov inherited from them a very unhealthy nature. But he managed, having discovered for himself the modern teaching about human nature (he began with the works of L. Feuerbach) and turning his life into constant generally useful (including, like the people, physical) work, not just to improve his health, but to transform the inherited nature so much, that he actually identified his interests (good and happiness) with those of the people, thereby earning great respect from other positive characters in the novel. Rejecting religion as a materialist, in his devotion to the mission of the new enlightener and liberator of the homeland and all humanity, Chernyshevsky’s work is comparable to the Christian apostles and Christ himself.

Along with the peasant revolution, the author of “What is to be done?” promotes and peaceful a method of recovery (“naturalization”) of that part urban Russian society, which lives by its own labor. This is an organization reasonable work, those. labor in its unity with other components of human nature: collectivism and reasonable egoism.

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

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

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

Sewing workshops with communal living conditions for their workers in the novel “What is to be done?” - this is also a prototype, in the eyes of Chernyshevsky, of a socialist society. After all, he thought of socialism as a community of society, organized in strict accordance with the “anthropological” interpretation of human nature and according to the latter’s model. And therefore, in contrast to the existing “fantastic” Russian order, it seemed to be the most natural (“natural”) social system. Workshops are islands of a humanized environment in the life world of Russia. By multiplying and expanding them, the entire country can be gradually transformed.

Another sample future harmonious society became in the novel “What is to be done?” the famous "huge house" from the fourth sleep Vera Pavlovna - with huge mirrors and “metal furniture”, as well as technical miracles like a large conveyor in the dining room. Or - “Crystal Palace” (“Pales cristale”), as by analogy with the huge palace of this name, erected in London for the World Exhibition of 1851, Dostoevsky would ironically call it in his “Notes from Underground” (1864). The earlier prototype of the “huge house,” however, was undoubtedly the high-rise phalanstery building from the utopian system of Charles Fourier, although Chernyshevsky modernized it taking into account the achievements of technical progress of recent decades.

In Chernyshevsky’s phalanstery house, collective work reigns on the basis of public property and with the use of machines performing hard work, rationalization of life, and a certain harmony with the surrounding nature. Fundamentally new feature of this society is the absence of its members suffering, having ontological status in the Christian concept of human existence. According to Chernyshevsky (formerly L. Feuerbach), suffering does not exist in human nature, therefore, it should not exist in a society organized according to its model (according to Chernyshevsky, a person was endowed with suffering, as well as evil, by an “artificial” social order).

And one more indicative sign distinguishes what is drawn in “What to do?” society of the future. Already Herzen, not without admiration for the author’s audacity, noted that the ideal hostel depicted in this novel surprisingly resembles a brothel. The same idea was later expressed by Vladimir Nabokov in his novel “The Gift”. “Chernyshevsky’s “Crystal Palace,” writes contemporary leader of our church M. Dunaev, “is nothing more than a romanticized brothel.”

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

We focused on four problematic aspects of Chernyshevsky’s novel: 1) philosophical - this is anthropological and natural scientific materialism; 2) ethical - this is “reasonable egoism”; 3) socio-political - this is the preaching of the people's peasant revolution and labor on a collectively rational basis; 4) futurological - this is an image of the society of the future. But in “What to do?” There is a fifth aspect that determines his main storyline. It is a depiction of love and family of the "new people" and, in particular, the "women's question".

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

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

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

Love, according to Chernyshevsky, can and should be controlled by the mind, and go alongside it. This, for example, is Dmitry Lopukhov’s feeling for Vera Pavlovna Rozalskaya from the very beginning: it is tempted by the hero’s observation of the girl’s actions, their analysis. There is no blindness here. Moreover, a love drama and an unresolvable erotic conflict, believes the author of “Who is to Blame?”, only arise when the minds of the lovers are undeveloped or have made a mistake and fallen asleep.

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

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

This is the optimistic answer of the author of “What to do?” to one of the fundamental universal human questions that faces every person. And he cannot be denied considerable fruitfulness both for the writer’s contemporaries and for people of subsequent eras.

At the same time, one cannot help but see rationalistic limitations in his decision.

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

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

As a rationalist in his psychological make-up and worldview, Chernyshevsky wrongfully absolutized the role of reason, human consciousness (and knowledge) in the relationships between people and the matter of improving the individual and society, making reason the guarantor of morality and conscience itself. Like Goncharov’s Pyotr Ivanovich Aduev (“ An ordinary story"), he is unaware of the failure of reason in the face of the complexity of a real person and social reality. So, first of all, his society of the future is built on reasonable and rational principles. Meanwhile, as Dostoevsky predicted and the practice of the Soviet society created according to the abstract theory showed, “there is only reason, science and realism (i.e. positivism. - V.N.) can only create an anthill, and not a social harmony in which a person could get along.” “It is clear and understandable,” Dostoevsky will say in another place, “that evil lurks deeper in humanity than socialist doctors assume, that in no social structure can you escape evil, that the human soul will remain the same, that abnormality and sin come from it itself and that, finally, the laws of the human spirit are still so unknown, so unknown to science, so uncertain and so mysterious that there are not and cannot yet be either doctors or even judges final..."

In the novel “What to do?” the young student Lopukhov easily outplays the worldly experienced Marya Alekseevna, and Alexander Kirsanov gains the upper hand over Katya Polozova’s wise and strong-willed father. However, in “War and Peace” by L. Tolstoy, the stupid but cunning manager of the Kyiv estates, Pierre Bezukhov, continually leads his smart, but naive and gullible master by the nose.

In real life, everything is a hundred times more complicated than what happens and how it happens in Chernyshevsky’s novel. This is indicated in his “Precipice”, where there is a hidden and direct polemic with “What to do?”, Goncharov, in the novel “Nowhere to Go” (1864) - N. Leskov, in “The Infected Family” by L. Tolstoy and especially Dostoevsky - in Notes from Underground, and then in five subsequent novels.

At the same time, in the eyes of the opposition to the dominant Russian society and his philosophical, ethical, aesthetic foundations of the youth of the 1860s, Chernyshevsky’s novel became, as stated at the beginning of this lecture, genuine Good News. It seemed that all the contradictions had been resolved, all the mysteries had been solved. It seemed that for the first time, light flashed in the dead ends of Russian life, a way out of its tragedy or vulgarity opened up. It seemed that the possibility of genuine humanization (“perestroika”) of both social circumstances and reality itself had emerged.

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

Taken together, this would be the saving grace for Russia business, which Chernyshevsky offered to the Russians and the motive of which runs through his entire novel. Hence his phenomenal success, witnessed by many contemporaries. “They talked about Chernyshevsky’s novel,” wrote N. Leskov, “not in a whisper, not quietly, but at the top of their lungs in the halls, on the porches, at Madame Milbert’s table and in the basement pub of the Stenbokov Passage.” “For Russian youth,” recalled Prince P.A. Kropotkin, “the story was a kind of revelation and turned into a program... None of Turgenev’s stories, no work of Tolstoy or any other writer had such a wide and deep influence on Russian youth as this story of Chernyshevsky.” And here is what Professor P. Tsitovich, a vehement opponent of Chernyshevsky’s novel, says: “During my 16 years at the university, I have not been able to meet a student who would not have read the famous novel back in the gymnasium... In this regard, the works of, for example, Turgenev or Goncharov, are not not to mention Gogol and Pushkin, they are far inferior to the novel “What is to be done?”

The novel was written in a fortress and was intended for friends, for new people, with whom Chernyshevsky was looking for communication. The critic gave the main task of the novel in the title. This novel was extremely relevant for its time and develops what is said in fiction to Chernyshevsky. (“Who is to blame?”) The second title of the novel is also important: “From stories about new people.”

This work is multi-problematic. The novel's problematics include the following questions:

1. The main thing is Problem About personal happiness and about the paths to general happiness (revolution, socialism).

2. The problem of love between a man and a woman and the problem of love for people (as the basis of a revolutionary worldview).

3. About the choice of profession, about one’s work and about the emancipation of labor, about work as the basis for the development of society, about forms of work.

4. The problem of the past, present and future of Russia. About reality in the broad sense of the word.

There are 4 belts and 4 types of people in the novel.

Vulgar people who should soon depart, antediluvian people. (Rozalskaya)

New people, new ordinary people. (Lopukhov, Kirsanov, Vera Pavlovna)

Associated with the second superior people, special new people. (Rakhmetov)

People of the future. (4th dream of Vera Pavlovna)

New people are not loners, they do not feel random. New people are a whole group, an environment. They are given not in a foreign environment, but in their own environment. Chernyshevsky talks about a group of new people and shows what unites them.

These are people contemporary with Chernyshevsky, modern normal people. They showed the movement of time. They are a sign of the times. The characters of these people are created by labor combined with knowledge. Labor made them strong. Chernyshevsky emphasizes activity, sobriety, reality in new people.

Chernyshevsky, believing that the time must come when the companions of good will not be weakness, but strength. For Pechorin, for example, a lofty dream was combined with impracticality; for Chernyshevsky, on the contrary, good people- weak, and evil - strong. Chernyshevsky does not romanticize his heroes; his new people are active and reasonable. Chernyshevsky trusted human nature and reason too much. Therefore, his heroes have great faith in their own minds. Chernyshevsky reveals the history of his heroes. They are gradually rising to a revolutionary worldview. Chernyshevsky dwells on the morality of his heroes. Their Ethics He calls it “reasonable egoism.” The ethics of Chernyshevsky’s heroes are based on the following principles:

1. Without freedom there is no happiness.

2. Pleasure is to act honestly.

3. There is no lonely happiness.

Chernyshevsky explains that this theory is only for developed people, for whom acting honestly is a pleasure. Such morality requires only internal development, when the personal and the general inextricably merge. Chernyshevsky tried to illustrate personal relationships. The desire to communicate is inherent in human nature itself. Chernyshevsky wanted to derive high morality from human nature itself. This is not opposed to the Christian interpretation.

Chernyshevsky's innovation in depicting new people was of a fundamental nature - not only socio-political, but also literary and creative. After all, in real life There were still few people like the heroes of the novel “What is to be done?” Goncharov was convinced that artistic Type consists of long and many repetitions, layers of phenomena and persons, and that from that time on it becomes a type when it was repeated many times and became familiar to everyone. Chernyshevsky defended the right to write about those phenomena that were just emerging in life, although they had not yet become a mass phenomenon.

Thus, in the novel, primary attention is paid to new people - kind and strong, knowledgeable and capable. (Lopukhov, Kirsanov, Vera Pavlovna) But besides them, there is also a special person - Rakhmetov.

The author makes it a kind of standard, with the help of which the real significance of ordinary decent people is established. What marks it? He is a professional revolutionary who consciously gave his life for the liberation of the people.

The image is to some extent autobiographical, but this does not relate to the origin of the hero, but to fortitude, inner conviction, dedication and moral fortitude.

Not everyone can be like Rakhmetov, but like Lopukhov, Kirsanov, Vera Pavlovna - all people can really be kind and decent. “No sacrifices are required, no hardships are asked. Want to be happy - that’s all you need.

History of creation

Chernyshevsky himself called these people a type that “has recently been born and is quickly breeding,” is a product and a sign of the times.

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

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

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

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

Chernyshevsky emphasizes the similarities between Lopukhov and Kirsanov. Both are doctors, engaged in science, both from poor families and achieved everything through hard work. For the sake of helping an unfamiliar girl, Lopukhov gives up his scientific career. He is more rational than Kirsanov. This is also evidenced by the idea of ​​imaginary suicide. But Kirsanov is capable of any sacrifice for the sake of friendship and love, avoids communication with his friend and lover in order to forget her. Kirsanov is more sensitive and charismatic. Rakhmetov believes him, embarking on the path of improvement.

But main character novel (not in plot, but in idea) - not just “ new person“, but a “special person” is the revolutionary Rakhmetov. He generally renounces egoism as such, and happiness for himself. A revolutionary must sacrifice himself, give his life for those he loves, live like the rest of the people.

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

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

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

Stylistic features

Chernyshevsky widely uses two means artistic expression- allegory and omission. Vera Pavlovna's dreams are full of allegories. The dark basement in the first dream is an allegory of women’s lack of freedom. Lopukhov's bride is great love to people, real and fantastic dirt from the second dream - the circumstances in which the poor and the rich live. The huge glass house in the last dream is an allegory of a communist happy future, which, according to Chernyshevsky, will definitely come and give joy to everyone without exception. The silence is due to censorship restrictions. But some mystery of the images or plot lines in no way spoils the pleasure of reading: “I know more about Rakhmetov than I say.” The meaning of the ending of the novel, which is interpreted differently, remains vague, the image of a lady in mourning. All the songs and toasts of a cheerful picnic are allegorical.

In the last tiny chapter, “Change of Scenery,” the lady is no longer in mourning, but in elegant clothes. In a young man of about 30, one can discern the released Rakhmetov. This chapter depicts the future, albeit a short one.

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

1. The socio-political problem of reorganizing society in a revolutionary way, that is, through a physical collision of two worlds. This problem is given hints in the life story of Rakhmetov and in the last, 6th chapter, “Change of scenery.” Due to censorship, Chernyshevsky was unable to expand on this problem in detail.

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

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

4. Social-utopian. The problem of the future socialist society. It is unfolded in Vera Pavlovna’s 4th dream as a dream of a beautiful and bright life. This also includes the topic of liberation of labor, i.e., technical and machine equipment for production.

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

The main desire of the author was the desire to convince the reader that everyone, if they work on themselves, can become a “new person”, the desire to expand the circle of like-minded people. The main task was to develop new technique nurturing revolutionary consciousness and “honest feelings”. The novel was intended to become a textbook of life for every thinking person. The main mood of the book is the acute joyful anticipation of a revolutionary upheaval and the desire to take part in it.

What reader is the novel addressed to?

Chernyshevsky was an educator who believed in the struggle of the masses themselves, so the novel is addressed to broad layers of the mixed-democratic intelligentsia, which became the leading force in the liberation movement in Russia in the 60s.

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

1st technique: the title of each chapter is given a family-everyday character with a primary interest in love intrigue, which quite accurately conveys the plot plot, but hides the true content. For example, chapter one “The Life of Vera Pavlovna in the Family of Parents”, chapter two “First Love and Legal Marriage”, chapter three “Marriage and Second Love”, chapter four “Second Marriage”, etc. These names reek of traditionalism and imperceptibly what is truly new, namely new character relationships between people.

Method 2: using plot inversion - moving 2 introductory chapters from the center to the beginning of the book. The scene of Lopukhov’s mysterious, almost detective-like disappearance distracted the censor’s attention from the true ideological orientation of the novel, i.e., from what the author’s main attention was subsequently paid to.

3rd technique: the use of numerous hints and allegories, called Aesopian speech.

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

Chernyshevsky’s famous novel “What is to be done?” was consciously oriented towards the tradition of world utopian literature. The author consistently sets out his point of view on the socialist ideal. The utopia created by the author acts as a model. It is as if we have already completed an experiment that gives positive results.

Among the famous utopian works, the novel stands out in that the author paints not only a picture of a bright future, but also ways to approach it. People who have achieved the ideal are also depicted. The very subtitle of the novel, “From Stories about New People,” indicates their exceptional role.

Chernyshevsky constantly emphasizes the typology of “new people” and talks about the whole group. “These people among others are as if among the Chinese there are several Europeans whom the Chinese cannot distinguish one from another.” Each hero has common traits for the group - courage, ability to get down to business, honesty.

It is extremely important for a writer to show the development of “new people”, their difference from total mass. The only character whose past is examined in careful detail is Verochka. What allows her to free herself from the environment of “vulgar people”? According to Chernyshevsky, labor and education. “We are poor, but we are working people, we have healthy hands. If we study, knowledge will free us; if we work, labor will enrich us.” Vera is fluent in French and German languages, which gives her unlimited opportunities for self-education.

Heroes such as Kirsanov, Lopukhov and Mertsalov enter the novel as already established people. It is characteristic that doctors appear in the novel while writing a dissertation. Thus, work and education merge into one. In addition, the author makes it clear that if both Lopukhov and Kirsanov come from poor and humble families, then they probably have behind them poverty and labor, without which education is impossible. This early exposure hardly gives the "new person" an advantage over other people.

The marriage of Vera Pavlovna is not an epilogue, but only the beginning of the novel. And this is very important. It is emphasized that in addition to the family, Verochka is capable of creating a wider association of people. Here the old utopian idea of ​​the commune appears - the phalanstery.

Work gives “new people”, first of all, personal independence, but in addition, it is also active help to other people. The author condemns any deviation from selfless service to work. Suffice it to remember the moment when Verochka is about to go after Lopukhov, leaving the workshop. Once upon a time, labor was necessary for “new people” to receive an education, but now the heroes are trying to educate people in the process of labor. Connected with this is another important philosophical idea of ​​the author in depicting the “new people” - their educational activities.

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

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

It was precisely such a priest in Vera Pavlovna’s “lyceum of all kinds of knowledge” that Mertsalov should have been, who, however, was preparing to read the forbidden Russian and world history. The literacy that Lopukhov and other “new people” were going to teach to the worker listeners was also unique. There are examples when progressively minded students explained in class the meaning of the words “liberal,” “revolution,” and “despotism.” The educational activities of the “new people” are a real approach to the future.

It is necessary to say something about the relationship between “new” and “vulgar” people. In Marya Alekseevna and Polozov, the author sees not only, in Dobrolyubov’s words, “tyrants,” but also practically gifted, active people who, under other circumstances, are capable of benefiting society. Therefore, you can find features of their similarities with children. Lopukhov very quickly gains confidence in Rozalskaya; she respects his business qualities (primarily his intention to marry a rich bride). However, the complete opposite of the aspirations, interests and views of the “new” and “vulgar” people is clearly visible. And the theory of rational egoism gives the “new people” an undeniable advantage.

The novel often talks about selfishness as an internal motivator of human actions. The author considers the most primitive thing to be the selfishness of Marya Alekseevna, who does no good to anyone without monetary payment. The selfishness of wealthy people is much more terrible. He grows on “fantastic” soil - on the desire for excess and idleness. An example of such egoism is Soloviev, who plays out his love for Katya Polozova because of her inheritance.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

35. Anti-nihilistic novel of the 60s. (“Cliff” by I.A. Goncharov, “Smoke” by I.S. Turgenev, “The Turmoil Sea” by A.F. Pisemsky). Problems, images of “nihilists”, methods of author’s characterization, stylistic features. Using the example of 2 novels.