"History of the Russian State" - an essay by N.M. Karamzin. The idea for this work arose in 1802-1803, when Karamzin published the journal Vestnik Evropy, where his first historical experiments were published. In October 1803, thanks to the efforts of his patron M.N. Muravyov, Karamzin receives the title of a historiographer and an annual pension of 2,000 rubles in order to write a complete history of Russia. This work continued for 22 years until the death of the writer. The first eight volumes of "History ..." were printed in 1818, two years later their second edition was carried out. In 1821 the 9th volume was printed, in 1824 the 10th and 11th. On May 22, 1826, Karamzin died before he could complete the 12th volume (published by D.N. Bludov in the same 1826). During the life of the author, translations of the "History ..." into French, German, Italian and other languages ​​appeared.

Karamzin was not a historian, he did not have any particular predilection for archival research. The work of a historian in collecting and systematizing materials seemed to him "a heavy tribute brought by reliability". He does not accept the method of critical history, which was widely recognized at that time, and defines the task of his writing purely literary, purely artistic: "select, animate, color" Russian history and make it "something attractive." Karamzin believes that scholarship and thoughtfulness "in a historian do not replace the talent to portray actions." Karamzin's interest is entirely focused on the depiction and description of events. As for their study, in the writer's mind, it is fraught with "metaphysics" that imposes its own conclusions on history. This approach made the author dependent on historical literature which he used. The main manual for Karamzin was the "History of Russia from ancient times" by M.M. Shcherbatov, as well as "Russian History ..." V.N. Tatishchev.

Karamzin thought of his "History of the Russian State" not only as a historical, but also as a didactic work, written for the edification of contemporaries and posterity. The same goals were served by a number of journalistic works of the writer: "Historical eulogy to Empress Catherine II" (1801), in which the period of the reign of "mother" was presented in the form of a utopia, a "golden age" national history; "A note on the ancient and new Russia"(More precisely: "On ancient and new Russia, in its political and civil relations", 1810) - summary historiosophical concept of Karamzin.

Karamzin unconditionally accepts the postulate of official historiography about the causal connection of Russian history with the state of monarchical power. The weakening of the latter, according to Karamzin, turns into ruin and decline for the Russian state. This position evoked an evil epigram of the young Pushkin: "In his "history" elegance, simplicity / They prove to us, without any prejudice, / The need for autocracy / And the charms of the whip." The belonging of this text to Pushkin's pen was disputed by many scholars, but in any case, the epigram is indicative as a Jacobin-minded contemporary's look at Karamzin's work.

Russian historians of a later time found many flaws in Karamzin. However, the weaknesses of Karamzin the historian were covered by the strength of his artistic intuition, the brightness of his literary presentation. This explains the ambivalent perception of Karamzin's "History ...": on the one hand, a wary attitude in scientists, university circles, and, on the other hand, sympathetic reviews in the literary environment, an unprecedented reader success. Three thousand copies of the first edition of 1818 were sold out within 25 days.

The artistic aesthetics and style of Karamzin's research took shape in his works of the 1790-1800s, written on historical material: the stories "Natalia, boyar daughter”, “Marfa Posadnitsa”, the unfinished poem “Ilya Muromets”, etc. “History of the Russian State” is the work of a historiographer, not a professor-historian. Karamzin is the first of the Russian writers who managed to revive and spiritualize the historical narrative. In Karamzin, for the first time, the history of the fatherland appeared not in the alternation of events, but in living persons, as if acting on the stage of a gigantic historical stage.

Before Karamzin, in historical writings, the event prevailed over those who were its participants, witnesses, and even creators. Karamzin brought out historical figures as protagonists of time and epoch. A.S. Pushkin wrote that while working on the tragedy "Boris Godunov", he followed Karamzin "in the bright development of incidents." Indeed, in the "History of the Russian State" there appears a "development of incidents", reminiscent of the movement of a dramatic plot. Dramatization and personification of historical description was a great discovery of Karamzin the artist. Karamzin's work had a profound effect on Russian historical prose, beginning with Boris Godunov, which Pushkin dedicated to "the precious memory of Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin for Russians."

A. Venetsianov "Portrait of N.M. Karamzin"

"I was looking for the path to the truth,
I wanted to know the reason for everything ... "(N.M. Karamzin)

"History of the Russian State" was the last and unfinished work of the outstanding Russian historian N.M. Karamzin: a total of 12 volumes of research were written, Russian history was presented until 1612.

Interest in history appeared in Karamzin in his youth, but there was a long way to his vocation as a historian.

From the biography of N.M. Karamzin

Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin was born in 1766 in the family estate of Znamenskoye, Simbirsk district, Kazan province, in the family of a retired captain, a middle-class Simbirsk nobleman. Received home education. Studied at Moscow University. For a short time he served in the Preobrazhensky Guards Regiment of St. Petersburg, it was to this time that his first literary experiments date.

After retiring, he lived for some time in Simbirsk, and then moved to Moscow.

In 1789, Karamzin left for Europe, where in Koenigsberg he visited I. Kant, and in Paris he became a witness to the Great French Revolution. Returning to Russia, he publishes Letters from a Russian Traveler, which make him a famous writer.

Writer

"The influence of Karamzin on literature can be compared with the influence of Catherine on society: he made literature humane"(A.I. Herzen)

Creativity N.M. Karamzin developed in line with sentimentalism.

V. Tropinin "Portrait of N.M. Karamzin"

Literary direction sentimentalism(from fr.sentiment- feeling) was popular in Europe from the 20s to the 80s of the 18th century, and in Russia from the end of the 18th to the beginning of the 19th century. The ideologist of sentimentalism is J.-J. Ruso.

European sentimentalism entered Russia in the 1780s and early 1790s. thanks to translations of Goethe's Werther, novels by S. Richardson and J.-J. Rousseau, who were very popular in Russia:

She liked novels early on;

They replaced everything for her.

She fell in love with deceptions

And Richardson and Rousseau.

Pushkin is talking here about his heroine Tatyana, but all the girls of that time read sentimental novels.

The main feature of sentimentalism is that attention in them is primarily paid to the spiritual world of a person, in the first place are feelings, and not reason and great ideas. The heroes of the works of sentimentalism have an innate moral purity, integrity, they live in the bosom of nature, love it and are merged with it.

Such a heroine is Lisa from Karamzin's story " Poor Lisa» (1792). This story was a huge success with readers, followed by numerous imitations, but the main significance of sentimentalism and, in particular, Karamzin's story was that in such works the inner world of a simple person was revealed, which evoked in others the ability to empathize.

In poetry, Karamzin was also an innovator: the former poetry, represented by the odes of Lomonosov and Derzhavin, spoke the language of reason, and Karamzin's poems spoke the language of the heart.

N.M. Karamzin is a reformer of the Russian language

He enriched the Russian language with many words: “impression”, “love”, “influence”, “entertaining”, “touching”. Introduced the words "epoch", "concentrate", "scene", "moral", "aesthetic", "harmony", "future", "catastrophe", "charity", "free-thinking", "attraction", "responsibility" ”, “suspicion”, “industry”, “refinement”, “first-class”, “human”.

His language reforms aroused heated controversy: members of the Conversation of Russian Word Lovers society, headed by G. R. Derzhavin and A. S. Shishkov, adhered to conservative views and opposed the reform of the Russian language. In response to their activities, in 1815 the literary society "Arzamas" was formed (it included Batyushkov, Vyazemsky, Zhukovsky, Pushkin), which sneered at the authors of "Conversations" and parodied their works. Was won literary victory"Arzamas" over "Conversation", which also strengthened the victory of Karamzin's language changes.

Karamzin also introduced the letter Y into the alphabet. Prior to this, the words “tree”, “hedgehog” were written like this: “іolka”, “іozh”.

Karamzin also introduced a dash, one of the punctuation marks, into Russian writing.

Historian

In 1802 N.M. Karamzin wrote the historical story “Martha the Posadnitsa, or the Conquest of Novgorod”, and in 1803 Alexander I appointed him to the post of historiographer, thus, Karamzin devoted the rest of his life to writing “The History of the Russian State”, in fact, finishing with fiction.

Exploring manuscripts of the 16th century, Karamzin discovered and published in 1821 Afanasy Nikitin's Journey Beyond the Three Seas. In this regard, he wrote: “... while Vasco da Gamma was only thinking about the possibility of finding a way from Africa to Hindustan, our Tverite was already a merchant on the coast of Malabar”(historical region in South India). In addition, Karamzin was the initiator of the installation of a monument to K. M. Minin and D. M. Pozharsky on Red Square and took the initiative to erect monuments to prominent figures in Russian history.

"History of Russian Goverment"

Historical work of N.M. Karamzin

This is a multi-volume work by N. M. Karamzin, describing Russian history from ancient times to the reign of Ivan IV the Terrible and the Time of Troubles. The work of Karamzin was not the first in the description of the history of Russia, before him there were already historical works by V. N. Tatishchev and M. M. Shcherbatov.

But Karamzin's "History" had, in addition to historical, high literary merits, including due to the ease of writing, it attracted not only specialists to Russian history, but also simply educated people, which greatly contributed to the formation of national identity, interest in the past. A.S. Pushkin wrote that “everyone, even secular women, rushed to read the history of their fatherland, hitherto unknown to them. She was a new discovery for them. Ancient Russia seemed to be found by Karamzin, as America was found by Columbus.

It is believed that in this work Karamzin nevertheless showed himself more not as a historian, but as a writer: "History" is written in a beautiful literary language (by the way, Karamzin did not use the letter Y in it), but the historical value of his work is unconditional, because . the author used manuscripts that were first published by him and many of which have not survived to this day.

Working on "History" until the end of his life, Karamzin did not have time to finish it. The text of the manuscript breaks off at the chapter "Interregnum 1611-1612".

The work of N.M. Karamzin over the "History of the Russian State"

In 1804, Karamzin retired to the Ostafyevo estate, where he devoted himself entirely to writing the History.

Manor Ostafyevo

Ostafyevo- the estate near Moscow of Prince P. A. Vyazemsky. It was built in 1800-07. the poet's father, Prince A. I. Vyazemsky. The estate remained in the possession of the Vyazemskys until 1898, after which it passed into the possession of the Sheremetevs.

In 1804, A.I. Vyazemsky invited his son-in-law, N.M. Karamzin, who worked here on the History of the Russian State. In April 1807, after the death of his father, Pyotr Andreevich Vyazemsky became the owner of the estate, during which Ostafyevo became one of the symbols of the cultural life of Russia: Pushkin, Zhukovsky, Batyushkov, Denis Davydov, Griboyedov, Gogol, Adam Mickiewicz visited here many times.

The content of Karamzin's "History of the Russian State"

N. M. Karamzin "History of the Russian State"

In the course of his work, Karamzin found the Ipatiev Chronicle, it was from here that the historian drew many details and details, but did not clutter up the text of the narrative with them, but put them in a separate volume of notes that are of particular historical significance.

In his work, Karamzin describes the peoples who inhabited the territory modern Russia, the origins of the Slavs, their conflict with the Varangians, tells about the origin of the first princes of Russia, their reign, describes in detail everything important events Russian history until 1612

The value of N.M. Karamzin

Already the first publications of the "History" shocked contemporaries. They read it excitedly, discovering the past of their country. Writers used many plots in the future for works of art. For example, Pushkin took material from History for his tragedy Boris Godunov, which he dedicated to Karamzin.

But, as always, there were critics. Basically, liberals contemporary to Karamzin objected to the etatist picture of the world expressed in the work of the historian, and his belief in the effectiveness of the autocracy.

Statism- this is a worldview and ideology that absolutizes the role of the state in society and promotes the maximum subordination of the interests of individuals and groups to the interests of the state; a policy of active state intervention in all spheres of public and private life.

Statism regards the state as the most supreme institute, standing above all other institutions, although its goal is to create real opportunities for the comprehensive development of the individual and the state.

The liberals reproached Karamzin for following in his work only the development of the supreme power, which gradually took on the forms of autocracy contemporary to him, but neglected the history of the Russian people themselves.

There is even an epigram attributed to Pushkin:

In his "History" elegance, simplicity
They prove to us without prejudice
The need for autocracy
And the charms of the whip.

Indeed, by the end of his life, Karamzin was a staunch supporter of absolute monarchy. He did not share the views of the majority thinking people on the serfdom, was not an ardent supporter of its abolition.

He died in 1826 in St. Petersburg and was buried at the Tikhvin cemetery of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra.

Monument to N.M. Karamzin in Ostafyevo

The tragic figure of the close tsar Ivan the Terrible and his son Fyodor Boris Godunov is glorified not only by historical, but also works of art. The tragic figure of Godunov became because of his unfortunate reign, which, thanks to the personality of the ruler himself, could become brilliant, but was a prologue to the first Russian Troubles.

Tsar Boris could not hold on to power both in view of the many terrible unforeseen circumstances of that time, such as mass famine, and due to the fact that the rest of the boyar families did not want to endure the rule of a tsar who did not belong to the dynasty of the founders of Russia.

According to many historians, the people did not recognize the new tsar because of the rumors that Boris was involved in the murder of the young Tsarevich Dmitry in 1591 in Uglich. So far, rumors and popular rumors that have not been objectively confirmed by anything, were taken seriously by one of the first popularizers of Russian history in the imperial period, the author of the famous "History of the Russian State" Nikolai Karamzin.

Describing Godunov as a clear customer of Dmitry's murder, the historian prolonged the failures of this tsar even after his death, fixing his image in the mass consciousness as the image of the murderer of a child.

The circumstances of the death of Tsarevich Dmitry

The son of Ivan the Terrible Dmitry, born in 1582, was brought up surrounded by his mother Maria Nagoya and her relatives. On May 15, 1591, in Uglich, while playing with a knife, "in a poke", under unknown circumstances, he died.

The tsarevich's mother and her relatives spread rumors that the tsarevich had been killed by "servicemen" from Moscow. A riot broke out in Uglich, as a result of which servicemen Osip Volokhov, Nikita Kachalov and Danila Bityagovsky were killed. The commission of inquiry, formed to clarify the circumstances of Dmitry's death, established that the prince, who suffered from epileptic attacks while playing with a knife, accidentally hit himself in the throat.

It is known that in the end, popular rumor did not believe the conclusions of the commission and, whether due to rumors spread by Godunov's opponents, or in itself, attributed Dmitry's murder to the future Tsar Boris.

The death of Dmitry by Karamzin

In his historical work, Karamzin painted a rather colorful and dramatic picture of how Godunov and his entourage offered to take on the terrible murder of their various minions.

Ultimately, according to the historian, just torn to pieces by the crowd in Uglich, Volokhov, Kachalov and Bityagovsky, as well as the “mother” of the prince, the noblewoman Vasilisa Volokhov, took up the implementation of this matter.

Nikolai Karamzin, evaluating the figure of Godunov, pays tribute to his managerial talents, however, in dark colors he draws the moral side of his personality, attributing to him the murder of Dmitry, the curse for which fell on Tsar Boris.

According to Karamzin, Godunov doomed himself to misfortune by usurping the throne by killing the rightful heir. The theme of the "villainous murder" of Dmitry was also picked up by the poet Pushkin in the tragedy "Boris Godunov". However, despite the power of art and popular rumor, there is no unanimity among most historians on this issue.

For example, the well-known historian of the 20th century Skrynnikov points out that Tsarevich Dmitry, the son of Ivan the Terrible from his last marriage, firstly, did not receive the blessing of the church as an heir, and secondly, after his death, the possibility of Tsar Fedor himself having children inheriting throne.

Boris Godunov replaced Fedor only in 1598, 7 years after Dmitry's death, during which time the tsar could acquire an heir to the throne, which means that Boris Godunov, if he had already hatched plans for the kingdom, this crime would not bring special benefits.

Skrynnikov also points to the position of the future Tsar Vasily Shuisky, who headed the commission investigating the death of the prince. Shuisky, even being a political opponent of Godunov, initially admitted the version of the accident, however, later, when circumstances changed, being already the king, he approved the "official version" of the murder.

What dictated the position of Karamzin

To understand the position of Nikolai Karamzin, it should be noted that in many ways, he was not the most objective historian, which was indicated even by the very style of his presentation of historical events - a dramatic, personalized, colorful story, and not a dry presentation of facts and various points vision.

Thanks to this style, a great deal of popularization of history was done, however, this style did not contribute to an objective consideration of historical events. Karamzin worked in certain historical conditions, fulfilling the "social order" of the then acting authorities. And this was the power of the imperial house of the Romanovs.

Emperor Alexander the First patronized Karamzin: the publication of the first eight volumes of the History of the Russian State was financed by him personally. Many contemporaries openly hinted to the historian at the ordered nature of his works. Even if Karamzin was not dominated by censorship and direct instructions, it would be enough to take into account the author's own ideological position - a supporter of precisely the Romanov autocracy, the enlightened autocracy of sovereigns, the political heirs of Peter the Great.

The role of the Romanov clan in the events of the Time of Troubles is far from unambiguous, as well as their subsequent occupation of the throne. Describing the events of the Time of Troubles, Karamzin could well "exaggerate" around one of the main potential competitors of the Romanovs at that time. From the ideological positions of that time, he, as a court historian, could not describe the reign of Boris Godunov from a positive point of view.

The reason for Karamzin’s bias on this issue may lie either in the social order to create a certain version of history, or in the author’s excessive inclination to dramatize history, to create a colorful picture of events in which all further misfortunes of Godunov were attributed to punishment from above for his “criminal deeds”.

The historical views of Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin were formed, improved in accordance with the whole structure of his life, with his gifted, well-balanced nature and his colossal historical intuition, artistic writing talent, which helped him to penetrate into the essence of the era and the characters of historical figures.

Having already embarked on the path of a scientist, having given himself entirely to the history of Russia, Karamzin was guided by the great goal - to unfold before the people his own great story. It was this understanding of the great goal, the great general useful work that N.M. Karamzin throughout the creation of his "History". He returns to this thought on its pages repeatedly.

And the very meaning of his historical concept, expressed in the twelve volumes of "History" and "Note on Ancient and New Russia", in which he quite fully expounded his view of the historical process, consists in the movement of Russia from historical non-existence through thorns to the heights of the organization of the state system and, on the basis of this, to the heights of civilization, as N.M. understood them. Karamzin.

The account “from the great” is also visible in his maxim that “nothing great is done for money,” expressed in the Note. And the entire "Note" with its conceptual assessment of the history of Russia, with its passionate criticism of modern imperfections, and even criminal violations in the Russian state system by N.M. Karamzin, clearly testifies to the depth of the historian's civic interest in Russia's movement along the path of progress, again in his, Karamzin's, understanding.

N.M. Karamzin - this convinced monarchist, a supporter of the autocratic power of the tsar as a guarantee of the prosperity of Russia, its subjects, each person individually, lashes out with fierce criticism at the existing vices of governance in the country, which remove the country from true greatness.

He sharply criticizes the financial policy of the government, the squandering of the treasury, inflation associated with foreign trade problems after the conclusion of the Tilsit peace.

N.M. Karamzin accomplished the feat of a loner, but this does not mean at all that he was alone in his work. Firstly, the work that he conceived had fertile ground under it in the form of world historiography and Russian historical writings that preceded it, and secondly, everyone who purely and sincerely loved the history of the Fatherland, who was devoted to scientific its reading, which N.M. actually claimed. Karamzin, gave him moral and material support, sympathy, sincerely helped him.

And yet N.M. Karamzin did not repeat his predecessors in anything. He did not repeat them, first of all, according to his plan, the scope of the problem. His "History", although not finished, cut short by the illness and death of the historiographer on the events of the "interregnum", the misfortunes of Russia during the period of "troubles", embraces almost more than two thousand years and begins with the first ancient mentions of Roman and Greek writers about the peoples, living on the territory of Russia. In combination with the "Note", which, albeit in a compressed, but conceptually complete form, brings the history of Russia to the beginning of the 19th century, N.M. Karamzin gave his reader the opportunity to imagine the whole path of the country as a whole.

He did not repeat them in the historical and philosophical orientation of his work. N.M. Karamzin wrote truly at a turning point for Russia, and indeed for all of Europe, time. And his work itself was a response to the questions posed by the era. In the first phrases of the Notes, he speaks of this quite definitely: " The present is a consequence of the past. To judge the former, one must remember the latter. One is complemented by the other, so to speak, and in connection appears clearer to thoughts.".

The same thoughts are expressed by him in the first lines of his "History"; " History is, in a certain sense, the sacred book of nations: the main, necessary; a mirror of their being and activity; the tablet of revelations and rules; the covenant of ancestors to posterity; addition, explanation of the present and an example of the future"; history, according to N.M. Karamzin," imagining a series of centuries with their passions, customs, deeds, expands the limits of our own being; By its creative power we live with people of all times, we see and hear them, we love and hate them, without even thinking about the benefits, we already enjoy the contemplation of diverse cases and characters that occupy the mind and nourish the sensitivity".

That was the era, the main event of which was the Great French Revolution, which overturned the foundations of feudalism and absolutism and opened the way for new bourgeois social relations. The developing bourgeois way of life had its impact on all aspects of Russian life, including the spiritual sphere. Enlightenment views of Novikov, radicalism of Radishchev, the emergence of the future Decembrist ideology indirectly reflected these changes, on the one hand.

On the other hand, the tsarist government, renewed by the conspiracy of 1801, headed by an intelligent monarch, who was also shocked by the murder of his father, tried, as is often the case at the beginning of any new government, with a few liberal steps without a radical breakdown of the system to calm the minds, to bring rapidly dilapidated autocratic temple in some accordance with the socio-economic requirements of the time. The government was criticized "from the left" and "from the right". It seemed to both of them that life was changing, but it was going "in the wrong direction" at all, and only they were destined to give it a truly right direction.

Widely educated, well-read, having traveled half of Europe N.M. Karamzin found himself in the whirlpool of all these new European and Russian tendencies. He vigilantly peered into life, compared modern events with the movement of world history, and its modern heroes with the heroes of the past, painfully reflected on current affairs, sought, using the experience of history, to determine the path of Russia in the coming years. This was partly reflected in his Letters of a Russian Traveler, but in full measure in the History of the Russian State.

Having set about his monumental work, the historian sought to comprehend the entire course of Russian history, to illuminate its course from the standpoint of his time. And in this sense, the present dictated to him the ways of understanding the past, just as the past came to help in understanding the present. It was a completely new, conceptual history, glimpses of which only flickered in the writings of previous historians.

But it would be wrong to think that we are facing an ordinary "propagandist" who is trying to squeeze his ideas into the Procrustean bed of history, push it apart, adapt it for his ideological manipulations. This is not true. The era and his own talent as a scientist and artist, able to penetrate the essence of a social phenomenon, only dictated to N.M. Karamzin's depth, the scale of approaches to the historical past, helped to see the retrospection of the process.

He worked out the instrument of this knowledge, comprehended it in accordance with the level of historical knowledge and indefatigably improved it, created it anew in many respects, and in this sense taught future generations of scientists a truly research lesson, which alone can justify a historian who takes up a learned pen. It was in this sense that his historical vision was relevant, modern, he assessed history from the height of the tasks set by society and created a toolkit of knowledge that corresponded to these tasks.

A.S. Pushkin called N.M. Karamzin "the last chronicler". This figurative characterization, given by a genius, turned out to be as brilliant as it was erroneous. It was not such only in the sense that N.M. Karamzin was indeed "the last" in time of those scientists who tried to recreate the history of the country. But the author of the "History" and "Notes" can least of all be awarded the title of an archaic, industrious chronicler.

N.M. Karamzin himself protests against identifying him with the chronicler: "The reader will notice that I do not describe the deeds separately (italics by the author - A.S.), by years and days, but I copulate them for the most convenient impression in memory. The historian is not a chronicler: the latter looks only at time, and the former at the property and connection of deeds; may make a mistake in the distribution of places, but must indicate their place to everything". So, it is not the time-based description of events that interests him primarily, but their "property and connection." And in this sense, N.M. Karamzin should not be called the "last chronicler", but the first truly genuine researcher of the history of his Fatherland.

He himself carefully explains to the reader what he understands by the words "property and connection". In essence, this whole scientific program, which sometimes does not interfere with a closer look and those who today claim to high rank historian of his people. Of course, we will not find in it those methodological and logical heights that came into the world along with the discoveries in the field of social science of the second half of XIX- the beginning of the XX century.

It is all the more surprising that at the beginning of the XIX century. N.M. Karamzin, relying on the world scientific potential achieved by that time, reflecting a lot on the experience of the past, guided by his colossal research and artistic intuition, formulated a number of research principles that are sometimes unresolved for the historian even today.

To the fore N.M. Karamzin certainly exposes love for the Fatherland, but he can hardly be suspected of leavened patriotism - it was not the same intellect, not the same artistic taste. He understands this love as a heightened interest in the history of his people, which is part of world history, as a quivering experience for all the ups and downs sent down to Russia. He does not oppose this love to interest in the history of other peoples and states.

On the contrary, they complement and enrich each other. " If any history, - he writes, - even if unskillfully written, is pleasant, as Pliny says, all the more domestic ... We are all citizens, in Europe and in India, in Mexico and in Abyssinia; the personality of each is closely connected with the fatherland: we love it, because we love ourselves. Let the Greeks, the Romans captivate the imagination; they belong to the family of the human race, and are not strangers to us in their virtues and weaknesses, glory and disasters; but the Russian name has a special charm for us: my heart beats even stronger for Pozharsky than for Themistocles or Scipio"; for the historian, - N.M. Karamzin is sure, - " love for the fatherland gives his brush heat, strength, charm. Where there is no love, there is no soul".

His other principle is to follow the truth of history, no matter how bitter it is.. "History is not a novel and the world is not a garden where everything should be pleasant, N.M. Karamzin - she depicts the real world". What do we sometimes see in history?" the author asks. the bloody feast of the violent Romans", and the "monster of tyranny", "mistakes and robberies" - and all this is by no means just an unpleasant privilege Western history. We read something similar on the tablets of our Fatherland. There are "difficult pages" in the history of every nation - such is the thought of N.M. Karamzin.

Such a research principle of a historian as the desire to comprehend events from the inside, to look at them not from the height of centuries, not to look at them with the detached superiority of descendants, but to see through the eyes of a contemporary, is extremely important. " We must see for ourselves the actions and the actors: then we know the History", - writes N.M. Karamzin.

N.M. Karamzin understands limited opportunities historian in the matter of comprehending historical truth, as in history, " as in human affairs, it can be straighter than a lie; however, the character of truth is always more or less preserved; and this is enough for us to compose for ourselves general concept about people and deeds. The historian can and should create from the material that he has, he cannot produce "gold from copper, but he must also purify copper; he must know the price and property of everything; discover the great where it is hidden, and not give the small the rights of the great" .

So self-critically and rather modestly he evaluates his research capabilities, believing that the main thing for a historian is to correctly grasp the “general concept” and, if the material allows him to complete the rest, depicting “what is or was, and not what could be” . Scientific clarity and conscientiousness are the leitmotif that constantly sounds restlessly throughout Karamzin's "History".

N.M. Karamzin proclaimed as one of his principles the creation of the history of society as a whole, a description of everything that is "a part of the civil existence of people: the successes of the mind, art, customs, laws, industry", and sought to "combine what has been passed down to us for centuries into a system This complex approach to history, permeated with the concept of the unity of the historical process, revealing cause-and-effect relationships of events, is the core of the historical concept of N.M. Karamzin.

He highly appreciated N.M. Karamzin conscientiousness in the approach to historical material. His notes are, according to the author himself, "a painful sacrifice" of authenticity.

And, finally, it is impossible not to say that in his "History" N.M. Karamzin also posed the problem of the artistic embodiment of the country's history. The artistic manner of writing was chosen by the historian not by chance, and the point here is not that his literary talent clearly predisposed to this. The artistry of presentation, as an indispensable law of historical narration, was deliberately proclaimed by the historian, who believed that "to see actions and actors", to strive to ensure that historical figures live in memory "not with one dry name, but with some moral physiognomy" - it means knowing and feeling history.

He considered power, the state, to be the driving force of the historical process. which, on the one hand, concentrates the various efforts of society, and on the other hand, is itself a powerful stimulus to the social movement. And the entire Russian historical process, according to Karamzin, was essentially a struggle between the beginnings of the autocrats and other manifestations of power - people's rule, oligarchic or aristocratic rule, specific tendencies. The formation of first unity, and then autocracy, became the pivot on which, according to the historian, all public life Russia.

The whole history of Russia is divided, in his opinion, into "the most ancient" (from Rurik to Ivan III), "middle" (from Ivan III to Peter I) and "new" (from Peter I to Alexander I). The main feature of the first period was the system of appanages, the second - autocracy and the third - "change of civil customs". What is the reason for such a great stability of the "state" approach to history? It is very simple and lies in the fact that it is in the political sphere, as the most vividly expressing the socio-economic, material interests of people, classes, estates, that the historical process itself is sublimated. On the surface remains the problem of power, reflecting these material interests.

Karamzin absolutely correctly caught the external, superficial outline of events. He convincingly determined that in those periods of its history, when Russia relied on a strong central government, it achieved great success both in the organization inner life as well as in the field of foreign policy.

The destruction of autocracy led to anarchy, internecine strife, bloody struggle, ruining the people's forces, and in the external sphere - to defeat and loss of independence; and only a new revival of autocracy brought salvation to the country. From European countries Perhaps no other country survived such a long, such a monstrous specific civil strife, which ended with the loss of independence by Russia, the establishment of two hundred and forty years of foreign yoke and another two hundred years of constant pressure from the Polish-Lithuanian state in the West, constant raids by hostile Kazan rulers and Crimeans to the southern and southeastern borders of the country.

These events, which determined the course of Russia's development for hundreds of years, struck the imagination of any researcher who touched them. They struck N.M. Karamzin with their connection with the problem of a unified statehood. The people's misfortune put pressure on the consciousness of Russia for too long, and this found indirect expression in the concept of N.M. Karamzin, for whom, as we have already seen, love for the Fatherland with all its ups and downs, successes and failures, joys and tragedies was sacred.

And here is the general result, which brings N.M. Karamzin: "What, besides unlimited autocracy, can produce unity of action in this colossus?" "Russia was founded by victories and unity of command, perished from discord, but was saved by autocracy."

Essentially, the line of struggle between two principles in the history of Russia - centralization and decentralization - he conducted brilliantly, vividly personified it, gave it an artistic and psychological coloring, which made it even more vital, real. To deny this line just because there are no other, deeper grounds behind it is, perhaps, hardly expedient. And this richness of the palette of the political history of the country returns to us together with the "History" of N.M. Karamzin.

In our minds, as already noted, the image of Karamzin has long and firmly developed as an ardent monarchist, an unconditional supporter of autocracy, a man who, as was said in the epigram of that time (repeated with pleasure now) for "the need for autocracy and the charms of the whip" ( although, as recent research shows, A. S. Pushkin, to whom this epigram is attributed, did not at all consider Karamzin a champion of serfdom). It was also said that love for the Fatherland for him meant, first of all, love for autocracy, that he failed to be a true patriot, because he denied his people freedom and liberties.

It seems to me that such assessments are one of those numerous stereotypes not backed up by scientific research, one of those "ideologisms" on which our social thought has been based for so long and thoughtlessly.

Autocracy was for N.M. Karamzin not by a primitive understanding of power, intended to "drag and not let go", suppress "serfs" and support the nobility, but was the personification of the high human idea of ​​\u200b\u200border, the safety of subjects, their well-being, the guarantor of revealing all the best human qualities, civil and personal.

In the best traditions of enlightenment, in the spirit of enlightened absolutism, he drew for himself an ideal image of such a government, which was hardly ever and anywhere possible at all. His autocracy is a wonderful utopia of a noble intellectual, which itself was shattered to smithereens by the cruelty of the country's past history and real contemporary life.

First of all, autocracy for N.M. Karamzin is the supreme arbiter of society, a force that balances between the tendencies of the rule of the people, the aristocracy, and between different estates. The main goal of a strong government is to create conditions for the maximum disclosure of human abilities - a farmer, a writer, a scientist; it is this state of society that leads to true progress not only of individual peoples, but of all mankind.

This is possible only if enlightenment reigns in society, if the monarch leads the people in this direction. N.M. Karam-zin considered the suppression of the oligarchy, whose "torment" for Russia was "the most dangerous and most intolerable", to be a particularly important task of the autocracy. “It is easier to hide from one,” he wrote, not at all idealizing the real monarchical power, “than from twenty persecutors.”

Of particular importance is N.M. Karamzin to the fulfillment by the monarch of his high duties of leading the country; its main duty is to "watch over the happiness of the people", and where there is duty, there is law, "autocracy is not the absence of laws." "The sovereign, no less than his subjects, must fulfill his sacred duties." Not personality traits the autocrat is concerned with the historian, and the expression of state plans by him. Autocracy in this sense for N.M. Karamzin is the "image of the Fatherland", since all authorities are united in it, while enlightenment is the basis of the prosperity of the Fatherland.

Defending the idea of ​​autocracy in its humanistic and enlightened expression, standing up for the ideal, N.M. Karamzin did not spare the real bearers of this idea. He denounced Yaroslav the Wise for introducing a system of appanages, leaving no stone unturned from petty possessive self-lovers of the "specific" period. He frankly wrote about the deceit, cruelty, envy of Yuri Dolgoruky, did not spare the first Moscow princes, in particular the son of Alexander Nevsky, Yuri Alexandrovich, for "vile intrigues" in the Horde. Gets from him and his beloved hero - Dmitry Donskoy.

He reproaches him for cowardice, shown in repelling the raid of Tokhtamysh in 1382. Speaking about the personal qualities of the ruler, he, as applied to Dmitry Donskoy, allows himself to make the following remark: "But the virtues of the sovereign, contrary to the strength, security, tranquility of the state, are not virtue." Highly placing the state abilities of Ivan III, he nevertheless denounces his cowardice during the period of the struggle with Akhmat, in particular, the departure of the grand-ducal family to the north of the country, where the retinue of Sophia Vitovtovna mocked the villagers.

He frankly writes about the cruelty of Ivan III, who threw his grandson Dmitry into prison, where he died already in the time of Vasily III. The unfortunate Dmitry, according to N.M. Karamzin, became "one of the touching victims of a fierce policy," and this policy was aimed at establishing "autocracy." And this is not about some unknown rulers, but about the pillars of Russia - Ivan III and Vasily III.

Using the example of Ivan the Terrible, the historian shows how a monarch should not be. The description of his reign after the death of Anastasia is essentially a terrible martyrology, an endless chain of villainies against all strata of Russian society, a description of some kind of monsters. "Tyranny is only an abuse of autocracy," he convinces. But it was about a bright representative of the Rurik house, who did a lot to establish the autocratic power, so dear to N.M. Karamzin. And it is no coincidence that Metropolitan Filaret of St. Petersburg, having attended a public reading at the Russian Academy of Sciences of excerpts from the "History" dedicated to the time of Ivan the Terrible, said that it was hard for him to see the "gloomy features" that the historian "put" "in the name of the Russian Tsar" .

A derogatory characterization is given by Karamzin and Boris Godunov, who sacrificed state interests to his ambition, and Shuisky. And along the way, he vividly, figuratively, juicy draws the ulcers of autocratic rule, despotic arbitrariness, favoritism, abuses of the tsarist administration, careerism, the emerging bureaucracy and the consequences of this process that are deadly for Russia, the luxury of those in power.

Peter I N.M. Karamzin estimates very contradictory. On the one hand, this is a sovereign who has done a lot for the greatness of Russia, strengthening autocracy in it, and on the other, he went for such a “perfect appropriation of European customs, which caused enormous damage to the country. Passion for the new in his actions crossed all boundaries." Everything Russian, special, was eradicated, "the higher ones separated from the lower ones" (this observation, which bears social character). “We have become citizens of the world, but in some cases we have ceased to be citizens of Russia,” Peter is to blame.

As you know, his "History" N.M. Karamzin prefaced the "dedication" to Alexander I, which, both in the past and now, surprises readers with loyal rhetoric. At the end of this monument to court acting, which, perhaps, freed the "History" from censorship and gave it the stamp of the king, N.M. Karamzin even declares: "The history of the people belongs to the tsar."

At one time, the historian M.P. Pogodin called "Dedication" "sub-carrier". But even here N.M. Karamzin managed to give his assessment of the reign and recommend to Alexander I steps in the spirit of the concept of enlightened absolutism. Noting that with the victory over Napoleon a “new era” began in Russia, in which the majority of thinking society then believed, N.M. Karamzin further emphasizes that peace is necessary for the sovereign in order to "rule for the benefit of people, for the success of morality, virtue, sciences, civil arts, public and private welfare." The program is outlined; again N.M. Karamzin returns to his favorite, but, alas, utopian idea of ​​autocracy as a power that exists for the sake of the prosperity of society and the well-being of man.

Domestic history under the pen of N.M. Karamzin moves along with the history of Europe and Asia, they are inseparable from each other. He tells in detail, using eastern sources, about the creation of the power of Genghis Khan and the beginning of his military enterprises; and turning to the invasion of the Tatar-Mongols on Russian lands, he acquaints the reader not only with their internal situation, but also with the state of the western borders - the relationship of Russia with Hungary, Sweden, the Order, Lithuania.

The reader gets acquainted with the discovery of America, the history of the "split Luther", the invention of printing, and other remarkable events in world history. With each period, the complexity and multi-layeredness of national history grows in the presentation of N.M. Karamzin, more and more new lines are included, due to the development of the country, the events taking place in neighboring countries.

Organic integral part national history is in N.M. Karamzin people. Of course, he does not stand at the forefront of history like the great princes, kings, famous generals, church hierarchs, but his invisible presence is felt everywhere. This presence of the people in history, it seems, was laid down in the narrative by the author of our famous chronicle "The Tale of Bygone Years" and since then this tradition, enriched, has gone from chronicle to chronicle, from one historical work to another.

The people are seen and heard in the descriptions rural life, crafts; the historian conveys to his reader pictures of the hard work of the plowman and artisan, the feat of arms of ordinary people in numerous wars. The people are visible on the fortress walls during the defense of Russian cities from foreign invaders and during the internecine battles of Russian princes. His formidable voice is heard during numerous riots since the days of Kievan Rus. N.M. Karamzin practically does not bypass any major popular performances of antiquity.

Increasingly, his pen turns to pages describing popular unrest during the construction of the Muscovite kingdom and its further strengthening in the 16th century. "Moscow was agitated," began the "murmur of the people" - this refrain is very constant in the "History", dedicated to the period of the creation of the Russian centralized state. We cannot give up the idea that all the big politics of the royal palace, the intrigues of the boyars, the struggle of the ancient princely and boyar clans took place against the backdrop of the tireless activity of the masses, their interest in this or that political enterprise.

And to the same people, as N.M. Karamzin, one often has to pay a high price for the manifestation of certain political sympathies and antipathies. People's blood flows like a river on the pages of the "History of the Russian State".

Creating "History", N.M. Karamzin cast his mind's eye not only on the entire movement of Russian society, but also constantly kept in mind the history of Russia, as part of European and global history. It was not an artificial Europeanism of a Westerner or a tribute to the comparative-historical method of presentation. For him, the entire history of the continent - and more broadly: the entire history of Eurasia - was a single whole, only manifested in the specifics of individual countries. It was also the political approach of a mature, deep mind, free both from the tendencies of pro-Western nihilism and Russophile isolationism.

The very appearance in the East of Europe of a large East Slavic state N.M. Karamzin considers it as a natural phenomenon that followed the fall of the Roman Empire and the emergence of new states on its ruins. Russia, he writes, entered " common system"European peoples after Rome" weakened in bliss and fell, crushed by the muscle of the northern barbarians. "Until the middle of the 11th century, according to the historian, Russia was in no way inferior in strength and civil education to the first European powers .. ., having the same character, the same laws, customs, state charters ..., appeared in the new political system of Europe with substantial rights to celebrity and with the important advantage of being under the influence of Greece, the only power unconquered by the barbarians.

What we slowly approached with great hesitation, discussions, bursts of nihilism only very recently, N.M. Karamzin tried to substantiate already at the beginning of the 19th century.

From a pan-European perspective, N.M. Karamzin and the onset of the period feudal fragmentation. The disintegration into destinies, he writes, is a "general ulcer" of that time, characteristic of all of Europe. It was here that Russia's lagging behind the West began. In the course of the "partition" and "internecine wars" "we stood or moved slowly when Europe aspired to enlightenment." Russia experienced the blow of the Tatar-Mongolian hordes, which "overthrew" her. When the West, parting with "slavery", developed enlightenment, opened universities, Russia "strained its forces solely in order not to disappear."

The further centralization of the Russian state under Ivan III is assessed by him in the same way as a manifestation of pan-European trends: Ivan III appeared when "a new state system, together with the new power of sovereigns, arose in the whole of Europe." Together with Ivan III, in his opinion, Russia again joined the host of European powers, from which it was knocked out by the Tatar-Mongol invasion. The return of Russia to Europe actively continued in the 17th century, but especially rapidly under Peter I.

Even in personal characteristics, believing that over the centuries "people have not changed in their main properties," he seeks to find common patterns. Ivan IV N.M. Karamzin compares with Caligula, Nero, Louis XI, Godunov reminds him of Cromwell's mind.

This is how N.M. Karamzin general connection of Russia with European history.

In our historiography, it has been repeatedly noted that N.M. Karamzin not only used a magnificent corpus of sources for his time, but also the fact that he discovered many of the historical materials himself thanks to his work in the archives, with manuscripts that were sent to him for work by friends and kind people. So he first introduced into scientific circulation the Laurentian and Trinity Chronicles, the Sudebnik of 1497, the works of Cyril of Turov, Daniil Zatochnik, and many act and diplomatic materials.

He made extensive use of Greek chronicles, messages from Eastern authors, data from Western annals, domestic and foreign memoirs and epistolary literature. His "History" became a truly Russian encyclopedia of sources, it meant a serious step forward in the development of the research documentary base, pointed out controversial places, still existing gaps, called scientists to further advance in this area.

Sometimes the historian was reproached for a consumerist approach to the source, sometimes for "textual cunning", and the principle of strict adherence to the text of the source, checking it for authenticity, was put forward against him. There is no doubt that N.M. Karamzin understood these problems as well as his critics. Indeed, sometimes he relied on data that were not sufficiently verified by criticism, say, Stryikovsky's chronicle, Nikon's chronicle, a number of Iordan's messages. He can also be reproached for some enthusiasm for a certain type of sources. Thus, drawing the tyranny of Ivan the Terrible, his villainy, the historian mainly operated on foreign reports given by A. Kurbsky, the tendentiousness of which is largely obvious.

As for the consumer approach, it would be difficult to expect something different from a work designed for the mass reader. "History" N.M. Karamzin, as well as "History" by S.M. Solovyov, is a work as scientific as it is popular - a rare, alas, combination in Russian historiography. At the same time, N.M. Karamzin perfectly understood the scientific significance of the source, the need for a critical approach to it. One can cite as an example his attitude to the so-called Joachim Chronicle. In essence, he disavowed it, transferred the dispute over its authenticity to the Notes, and spoke out against using its data. He did the same on other occasions. On the other hand, he accepted a number of sources as reliable, and only later criticism revealed their inconsistency.

But the historian did not anticipate his age in everything: he was a son of the time both in terms of the general noble mood of his ideology, although ennobled by enlightenment ideas, and in terms of the general providentialist approach to history, despite the desire to reveal its everyday patterns, sometimes naive , purely idealistic assessments of the role of a particular person in history.

His providentialism is felt in the assessment of major historical turns. He sincerely believes that the appearance of False Dmitry I in the history of Russia was the hand of Providence, who punished Boris Godunov for his terrible sin - organizing the murder of Tsarevich Dmitry. N.M. Karamzin did not doubt for a minute that it was Godunov who was the true culprit in the death of the prince and his system of evidence cannot be discounted.

In any case, A.S. Pushkin, it seems, was completely convinced, and the historical instinct of our great poet was extremely developed. An equally providential approach is felt in assessing the role of Moscow in the unification of Russian lands and organizing the struggle against the Golden Horde. "The power of Providence" is constantly present on the pages of "History", giving bizarre outlines in many respects to historically accurate, spontaneously correctly understood by the historian, the processes of development of the country.

N.M. Karamzin masterfully draws the psychological conditionality of the actions of certain historical figures. It shows the throwing of Oleg Ryazansky on the eve of the Battle of Kulikovo, his fear of Mamai and hatred of Moscow, which crushes one Russian principality after another. He thinks a lot about the character of Ivan III, who "not being a tyrant like his grandson," nevertheless had natural cruelty in nature, "tempered in him by the power of reason."

N.M. Karamzin very subtly caught the psychological turn in the mood of Ivan IV after the illness and the hitch with the oath on the part of a group of boyars of allegiance to his son Dmitry, but especially after the death of Tsarina Anastasia; carefully assessed the role of the royal environment in various kinds of influences on the young Ivan IV. Perhaps the only one among historians, he identified the psychological turns in the various stages of the life of Boris Godunov and tried to interpret his policy, which largely proceeds from these turns.

“... The people who despised their

history, contemptuously: for

frivolous, the ancestors were

no worse than him"

N.M. Karamzin /13, p.160/

Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin - the master of the minds of Russia in the late 17th and early 19th centuries. The role of Karamzin in Russian culture is great and what he did for the good of the Motherland would be enough for more than one life. He embodied many best features of his century, appearing before his contemporaries as a first-class master of literature (poet, playwright, critic, translator), a reformer who laid the foundations of modern literary language, prominent journalist, publishing organizer, founder of wonderful magazines. A master of artistic expression and a talented historian merged in Karamzin's personality. In science, journalism, art, he left a noticeable mark. Karamzin largely prepared the success of younger contemporaries and followers - figures of the Pushkin period, the golden age of Russian literature. N.M. Karamzin was born on December 1, 1766. And in his fifty-nine years he lived an interesting and rich life full of dynamism and creativity. He received his education in a private boarding school in Simbirsk, then in the Moscow boarding school of Professor M.P. Shaden, then came to St. Petersburg for service and received the rank of non-commissioned officer. Then he works as a translator and editor in various magazines, and becomes close to many famous people of that time (M.M. Novikov, M.T. Turgenev). Then for more than a year (from May 1789 to September 1790) he travels around Europe; while traveling, he makes notes, after processing which the famous “Letters of a Russian Traveler” appear.

The knowledge of the past and present led Karamzin to break with the Freemasons, who were quite influential in Russia in late XVIII in. He returns to his homeland with a wide program of publishing and journalism, hoping to contribute to the enlightenment of the people. He created the "Moscow Journal" (1791-1792) and "Bulletin of Europe" (1802-1803), published two volumes of the almanac "Aglaya" (1794-1795) and the poetic almanac "Aonides". His creative way continues and completes the work "History of the Russian State", the work on which took many years, which became the main result of his work.

Karamzin approached the idea of ​​creating a large historical canvas for a long time. As evidence of the long-standing existence of such plans, Karamzin's message in "Letters from a Russian Traveler" is cited about a meeting in 1790 in Paris with P.-Sh. Level, the author of "Histoire de Russie, triee des chroniques originales, des pieces outertiques et des meillierus historiens de la nation" (only one volume was translated in Russia in 1797) /25, p.515/. Reflecting on the advantages and disadvantages of this work, the writer came to a disappointing conclusion: “It hurts, but it must be said in fairness that we still do not have a good Russian history” / 16, p. 252 /. He understood that such a work could not be written without free access to manuscripts and documents in official repositories. He turned to Emperor Alexander I through the mediation of M.M. Muravyov (trustee of the educational Moscow district). “The appeal was successful and on October 31, 1803 Karamzin was appointed historiographer and received an annual pension and access to archives” /14, p.251/. Imperial decrees provided the historiographer with optimal conditions for working on the "History ...".

Work on the "History of the Russian State" required self-denial, the rejection of the usual image and way of life. According to the figurative expression of P.A. Vyazemsky, Karamzin "cut his hair as a historian". And by the spring of 1818, the first eight volumes of the story appeared on bookstores. Three thousand copies of "History ..." were sold in twenty-five days. The recognition of compatriots inspired and encouraged the writer, especially after the relations between the historiographer and Alexander I deteriorated (after the release of the note “On Ancient and New Russia”, where Karamzin criticized Alexander I in a sense). The public and literary resonance of the first eight volumes of the "History ..." in Russia and abroad turned out to be so great that even Russian Academy, a longtime stronghold of Karamzin's opponents, was forced to recognize his merits.

The reader's success of the first eight volumes of the "History ..." gave the writer new strength for further work. In 1821, the ninth volume of his work saw the light of day. The death of Alexander I and the uprising of the Decembrists pushed back work on the "History ...". Having caught a cold in the street on the day of the uprising, the historiographer continued his work only in January 1826. But the doctors assured that only Italy could give a full recovery. Going to Italy and hoping to finish the last two chapters of the last volume there, Karamzin instructed D.N. Bludov all the cases on the future edition of the twelfth volume. But on May 22, 1826, without leaving Italy, Karamzin died. The twelfth volume was published only in 1828.

Picking up the work of N.M. Karamzin, we can only imagine how difficult the work of the historiographer was. The writer, the poet, the amateur historian, takes on a task of inconceivable complexity, requiring enormous special training. If he avoided serious, purely intelligent matter, but only vividly narrated about past times, “animating and coloring” - this would still be considered natural, but from the very beginning the volume is divided into two halves: in the first - a living story, and the one to whom this is enough, it may not look into the second section, where there are hundreds of notes, references to chronicles, Latin, Swedish, German sources. History is a very harsh science, even if we assume that the historian knows many languages, but in addition there are sources from Arabic, Hungarian, Jewish, Caucasian ... And even by the beginning of the 19th century. the science of history did not stand out sharply from literature, anyway, Karamzin the writer had to delve into paleography, philosophy, geography, archeography ... Tatishchev and Shcherbatov, however, combined history with serious state activity, but professionalism is constantly increasing; from the West, serious works of German and English scientists come; the ancient naive chronicle methods of historical writing are clearly dying out, and the question itself arises: when does Karamzin, a forty-year-old writer, master all the old and new wisdom? The answer to this question is given to us by N. Eidelman, who reports that “only in the third year Karamzin confesses to his close friends that he ceases to be afraid of the Schlozer ferula, that is, the rod with which a venerable German academician could flog a negligent student” / 70, p. 55/.

One historian alone cannot find and process such a large number of materials on the basis of which the "History of the Russian State" was written. It follows from this that N.M. Karamzin was helped by many of his friends. Of course, he went to the archive, but not too often: they searched for, selected, delivered ancient manuscripts directly to the historiographer's desk by several special employees, headed by the head of the Moscow Archive of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and an excellent connoisseur of antiquities Alexei Fedorovich Malinovsky. Archives and book collections of the foreign collegium of the Synod, the Hermitage, the Imperial Public Library, Moscow University, the Trinity-Sergius and Alexander Nevsky Lavra, Volokolamsk, Resurrection monasteries; moreover, dozens of private collections, finally, archives and libraries of Oxford, Paris, Copenhagen and others foreign centers. Among those who worked for Karamzin (from the very beginning and later) were several scientists who would be remarkable in the future, for example, Stroev, Kalaidovich ... They sent comments on already published volumes more than others.

In some modern works, Karamzin is reproached for the fact that he worked “not alone” /70, p.55/. But otherwise it would take him not 25 years to write the "History ...", but much more. Eidelman rightly objects to this: “it is dangerous for one to judge an era according to the rules of another” /70, p.55/.

Later, when the author's personality of Karamzin develops, such a combination of a historiographer and junior collaborators will stand out that might seem delicate ... However, in the first years of the XIX. in such a combination seemed quite normal, and the doors of the archive would hardly have opened for the younger ones if there had not been an imperial decree on the elder. Karamzin himself, disinterested, with a heightened sense of honor, would never allow himself to become famous at the expense of his employees. Besides, was it only "the archival shelves worked for the Count of History"? /70, p.56/. It turns out that it doesn't. “Such great people as Derzhavin send him his thoughts on ancient Novgorod, young Alexander Turgenev brings the necessary books from Göttingen, D.I. promises to send old manuscripts. Yazykov, A.R. Vorontsov. Even more important is the participation of the main collectors: A.N. Musin-Pushkin, N.P. Rumyantsev; one of the future presidents of the Academy of Sciences A.N. Olenin sent Karamzin on July 12, 1806 the Ostromir Gospel of 1057.” /70, p.56/. But this does not mean that all the work of Karamzin was done for him by friends: he opened it himself and stimulated others to search for it with his work. Karamzin himself found the Ipatiev and Trinity Chronicles, the Sudebnik of Ivan the Terrible, "The Prayer of Daniil the Sharpener." For his "History ..." Karamzin used about forty chronicles (for comparison, let's say that Shcherbatov studied twenty-one chronicles). Also, the great merit of the historiographer is that he was not only able to bring all this material together, but also organize the de facto work of a real creative laboratory.

Work on "History ..." fell on a turning point in a sense, an era that influenced the worldview and methodology of the author. In the latest quarter XVIII. in Russia, the features of the decomposition of the feudal-serf system of the economy became more and more noticeable. Changes in the economic and social life of Russia and the development of bourgeois relations in Europe influenced internal politics autocracy. Time put before the ruling class of Russia the need to develop socio-political reforms that would ensure the preservation of the dominant position for the class of landowners and the power of the autocracy.

“The end of Karamzin’s ideological searches can be attributed to this time. He became the ideologist of the conservative part of the Russian nobility” /36, p.141/. The final formulation of his socio-political program, the objective content of which was the preservation of the autocratic-feudal system, falls on the second decade of the 19th century, that is, at the time of the creation of the Notes on Ancient and New Russia. The revolution in France and the post-revolutionary development of France played a decisive role in the design of Karamzin's conservative political program. “It seemed to Karamzin that the events in France in the late 18th and early 19th centuries historically confirmed his theoretical conclusions about the ways of human development. He considered the only acceptable and correct path of gradual evolutionary development, without any revolutionary explosions and within the framework of those public relations, the state structure that is characteristic of this people ” / 36, p. 145 /. Leaving in force the theory of the contractual origin of power, Karamzin now puts its forms in strict dependence on ancient traditions and folk character. Moreover, beliefs and customs are elevated to a kind of absolute, which determines the historical fate of the people. “The institutions of antiquity,” he wrote in the article “Remarkable views, hopes, and desires of the present time,” “have a magical power that cannot be replaced by any power of the mind” / 17, p. 215 /. Thus, historical tradition was opposed to revolutionary transformations. The socio-political system became directly dependent on it: the traditional ancient customs and institutions ultimately determined the political form of the state. This was very clearly seen in Karamzin's attitude towards the republic. The ideologist of autocracy, Karamzin, nevertheless, declared his sympathies for the republican system. His letter to P.A. is known. Vyazemsky dated 1820, in which he wrote: “I am a Republican in my soul and will die like that” /12, p.209/. Theoretically, Karamzin believed that a republic is a more modern form of government than a monarchy. But it can exist only if there are a number of conditions, and in their absence, the republic loses all meaning and right to exist. Karamzin recognized republics as a human form of organization of society, but made the possibility of the existence of a republic dependent on ancient customs and traditions, as well as on the moral state of society /36, p.151/.

Karamzin was a complex and controversial figure. As everyone who knew him noted, he was a man with great demands on himself and on those around him. As contemporaries noted, he was sincere in his actions and beliefs, had an independent way of thinking. Considering these qualities of the historiographer, the inconsistency of his character can be explained by the fact that he understood the outdatedness of the existing order in Russia, but the fear of the revolution, of peasant uprising forced him to cling to the old: for autocracy, for the feudal system, which, as he believed, ensured the progressive development of Russia for several centuries.

By the end of the XVIII century. Karamzin had a firm conviction that the monarchical form of government is most consistent with the existing level of development of morality and education in Russia. The historical situation in Russia at the beginning of the 19th century, the aggravation of class contradictions in the country, the growing consciousness in Russian society of the need for social transformations - all this caused Karamzin to strive to oppose the influence of the new with something that could withstand this pressure. Under these conditions, firm autocratic power seemed to him a reliable guarantee of peace and security. At the end of the XVIII century. Karamzin's interest in the history of Russia and in the political life of the country is growing. The question of the nature of autocratic power, its relationship with the people and, above all, with the nobility, the personality of the tsar and his duty to society were at the center of his attention when writing the History of the Russian State.

Autocracy Karamzin understood as "the sole power of the autocrat, not limited by any institutions." But autocracy, in the understanding of Karamzin, does not mean the arbitrariness of the ruler. It presupposes the existence of "firm statutes" - laws, according to which the autocrat governs the state, for civil society is where there are and are enforced laws, that is, in full compliance with the laws of rationalism of the 18th century. The autocrat acts in Karamzin as a legislator, the law adopted by him is obligatory not only for the subjects, but also for the autocrat himself /36, p.162/. Recognizing the monarchy as the only acceptable form of government for Russia, Karamzin naturally accepted the class division of society, since it lies in the very principle of the monarchical system. Karamzin considered such a division of society to be eternal and natural: "every estate had certain duties in relation to the state." Recognizing the importance and necessity of the two lower classes, Karamzin, in the spirit of the noble tradition, defended the right of the nobles to special privileges by the importance of their service to the state: “He considered the nobility as the main support of the throne” / 36, p. 176 /.

Thus, in the context of the beginning of the decomposition of the feudal-serf system of the economy, Karamzin came up with a program for its preservation in Russia. His socio-political program also included the education and enlightenment of the nobility. He hoped that the nobility in the future would begin to engage in art, science, literature and make them their professions. In this way it will strengthen its position by taking the apparatus of education into its hands.

Karamzin placed all his socio-political views in the "History of the Russian State" and with this work drew the line of all his activities.

Karamzin played a big role in the development of Russian culture. The complexity and inconsistency of his ideology reflects the falsity and inconsistency of the era itself, the complexity of the position of the noble class at a time when the feudal system had already lost its potential, and the nobility as a class was becoming a conservative and reactionary force.

"History of the Russian State" - the largest achievement of Russian and world historical science for its time, the first monographic description of Russian history from ancient times to early XVIII in.

Karamzin's work caused stormy and fruitful discussions for the development of historiography. In disputes with his concept, views on the historical process and events of the past, other ideas and generalizing historical studies arose - “The History of the Russian People” by M.A. Field, "History of Russia from ancient times" by S.M. Solovyov and other works. Losing its own scientific significance over the years, Karamzin's "History ..." retained its general cultural and historiographical significance; playwrights, artists and musicians drew plots from it. And therefore, this work of Karamzin is included “in the body of those classical texts, without the knowledge of which the history of Russian culture and historical science cannot be fully understood” /26, p.400/. But, unfortunately, after the October Revolution, the perception of "History ..." as a work of reactionary monarchy blocked its way to the reader for many decades. Since the mid-1980s, when a period of rethinking the historical path and the destruction of ideological stereotypes and oppressive ideas begins in society, a stream of new humanistic acquisitions, discoveries, the return to life of many creations of mankind, and with them a stream of new hopes and illusions. Along with these changes, N.M. returned to us. Karamzin with his immortal "History ...". What is the reason for this social and cultural phenomenon, the manifestation of which was the repeated publication of excerpts from the "History ...", its facsimile reproduction, reading of its individual parts on the radio, etc.? A.N. Sakharov suggested that "the reason for this lies in the enormous power of the spiritual impact on people of Karamzin's truly scientific and artistic talent" /58, p.416/. The author of this work fully shares this opinion - after all, years pass, and talent remains young. "History of the Russian State" revealed in Karamzin a true spirituality, which is based on the desire to answer the eternal questions that concern man and mankind - the questions of being and the purpose of life, the patterns of development of countries and peoples, the relationship between the individual, family and society, etc. N.M. Karamzin was just one of those who raised these issues, and tried, to the best of his ability, to solve them on the basis of national history. That is, we can say that this is a combination of scientific character and journalistic popularization in the spirit of historical works that are now fashionable, convenient for the reader's perception.

Since the publication of The History of the Russian State, historical science has come a long way. For many of Karamzin's contemporaries, the monarchical concept of the historiographer's work seemed strained, unproven, and even harmful. Russian Empire, his desire, sometimes with objective data, to subordinate the story of the Russian historical process from ancient times to the 17th century to this concept. And, nevertheless, interest in this work immediately after the release was huge.

Alexander I expected Karamzin to tell the history of the Russian Empire. He wanted "the pen of an enlightened and recognized writer to tell about his empire and his ancestors" /66, p.267/. It turned out differently. Karamzin was the first in Russian historiography to promise with his headline not the history of the "kingdom", as in G.F. Miller, not just “Russian history”, as in M.V. Lomonosov, V.N. Tatishcheva, M.M. Shcherbatov, and the history of the Russian state as "the dominion of heterogeneous Russian tribes" /39, p.17/. This purely outward difference between Karamzin's title and previous historical works was not accidental. Russia does not belong to either tsars or emperors. Back in the 18th century progressive historiography in the fight against the theological approach in the study of the past, defending the progressive development of mankind, began to consider the history of society as the history of the state. The state was proclaimed an instrument of progress, and progress was evaluated from the point of view of the state principle. Accordingly, the “subject of history” becomes “state sights”, defined signs of the state, which seemed to be the most significant in ensuring human happiness /29, p. 7/. For Karamzin, the development of state attractions is also a measure of progress. He, as it were, compares it with ideas about an ideal state, among the most important "attractions" of which were: independence, internal strength, the development of crafts, trade, science, art, and, most importantly, a solid political organization that ensures all this - a certain form of government determined by the territory state, historical traditions, rights, customs. The idea of ​​state attractions, as well as the importance that Karamzin attached to each of them in the progressive development of the state itself, was already reflected in the structure of his work, the completeness of his coverage of various aspects of the historical past. The historiographer pays the most attention to the history of the political organization of the Russian state - autocracy, as well as to the events of political history in general: wars, diplomatic relations, and the improvement of legislation. He does not consider history in special chapters, concluding the end of an important, from his point of view, historical period or reign, attempting some kind of synthesis of the development of fairly stable "state attractions": the limits of the state, "civil laws", "martial art", "success of the mind" and others..

Already Karamzin's contemporaries, including numerous critics of his work, drew attention to the defining feature of the "History ...", incomparable with any of the previous historical works - its integrity. “The wholeness of Karamzin's work was given by the concept, in which the idea of ​​autocracy as the main factor in the historical process played a decisive role” /39, p.18/. This idea pervades all the pages of the "History ...", sometimes it is annoyingly annoying, sometimes it seems primitive. But even such irreconcilable critics of the autocracy as the Decembrists, disagreeing with Karamzin and easily proving his inconsistency, gave credit to the historiographer for his sincere devotion to this idea, the skill with which he carried it out in his work. The basis of Karamzin's concept goes back to Montesquieu's thesis that "a huge state can only have a monarchical form of government" /39, p.18/. Karamzin goes further: not only a monarchy, but also autocracy, that is, not only one-man hereditary rule, but also the unlimited power of a simple person who can even be elected to the throne. The main thing is that there should be "true autocracy" - the unlimited power of a person convicted of high powers, strictly and strictly observing the time-tested or thoughtfully adopted new laws, adhering to moral rules, caring for the welfare of his subjects. This ideal autocrat should embody "true autocracy" as the most important factor in state order and improvement. The Russian historical process, according to Karamzin, is a slow, sometimes zigzag, but steady movement towards “true autocracy.” and then the elimination by the autocracy of the traditions of ancient popular government. For Karamzin, the power of the aristocracy, the oligarchy, the specific princes and the power of the people are not only two irreconcilable, but also hostile to the prosperity of the state forces. In autocracy, he says, there is a force that subjugates the people, the aristocracy and the oligarchy in the interests of the state.

Karamzin already considers Vladimir I and Yaroslav the Wise to be autocratic sovereigns, that is, rulers with unlimited power. But after the death of the first, the autocratic power weakened and the state lost its independence. The subsequent history of Russia, according to Karamzin, is at first a difficult struggle with appanages, intensively ending with their liquidation under Vasily III, the son of Ivan III Vasilyevich, then the autocracy gradually overcomes all encroachments on power, and hence on the well-being of the state on the part of the boyars. During the reign of Vasily the Dark, “the number of sovereign princes decreased, and the power of the sovereign became unlimited in relation to the people” / 4, p. 219 /. The creator of true autocracy Karamzin draws Ivan III, who made the nobles and the people revere him” / 5, p. 214 /. Under Vasily III, princes, boyars and people became equal in relation to autocratic power. True, under the young Ivan IV, the autocracy was threatened by the oligarchy - the boyar council headed by Elena Glinskaya, and after her death - "the perfect aristocracy or the power of the boyars" / 7, p. 29 /. Blinded by ambitious encroachments on power, the boyars forgot the interests of the state, “they cared not about making the supreme power beneficial, but about establishing it in their own hands” / 7, p. 52 /. Only as an adult, Ivan IV was able to put an end to boyar rule. A new threat to autocratic power arose from the side of the boyars during the illness of Ivan IV in 1553. But Ivan the Terrible recovered, and suspicion of all dignitaries remained in his heart. From the point of view of Karamzin, Russian history of the 15th - early 17th centuries is a period of genuine national revival, hindered by the consequences of the incorrect economic policy of the Rurikovichs. Liberation from the Golden Horde yoke, strengthening of international trade relations and the international authority of Russia, wise legislation Basil III and Ivan the Terrible, the gradual provision by the autocracy of the basic legal and property guarantees of subjects. On the whole, Karamzin draws the path to this revival as a continuous progressive process, associated primarily with the development of true autocracy, which was only complicated by the negative personal qualities of the bearers of autocratic power: the immorality and cruelty of Vasily III, Ivan the Terrible, Boris Godunov, Vasily Shuisky, the weakness of Fyodor Ivanovich, the excessive kindness of Ivan III.

N.M. Karamzin in "The History of the Russian State" emphasizes three political forces characteristic of the historical path of Russia: autocracy based on the army, bureaucracy and clergy, aristocracy and oligarchy represented by the boyars and the people. What is the people in the understanding of N.M. Karamzin?

In the traditional sense, the "people" - the inhabitants of the country, the state - is found in the "History" quite often. But even more often Karamzin put a different meaning into it. In 1495, Ivan III arrived in Novgorod, where he was met by "hierarchs, clergy, officials, people" /5, p. 167/. In 1498, after the death of the eldest son Ivan III, "the court, the nobles and the people were concerned about the issue of succession to the throne" /5, p.170/. “The boyars, together with the people, expressed concern after the departure of Ivan the Terrible to Alexandrov Sloboda” / 8, p. 188 /. Boris Godunov is asked to become king by "the clergy, the synod, the people" /9, p.129/. These examples show that Karamzin included in the concept of “people” everything that did not belong to the clergy, the boyars, the army, and government officials. The "people" is present in the "History ..." as a spectator or a direct participant in the events. However, in a number of cases, this concept did not satisfy Karamzin, and he, trying to more accurately and deeply convey his ideas, used the terms "citizens", "Russians".

The historiographer introduces another concept of "rabble", not only as a common people, but also in an openly political sense - when describing the class protest movements of the oppressed masses: "the mob of Nizhny Novgorod, as a result of a rebellious veche, killed many boyars" / 3, p. 106 / in 1304, in 1584, during the uprising in Moscow, “armed people, mob, citizens, boyar children” rushed to the Kremlin / 9, p. 8 /.

In a dismissive sense, the concept of "rabble" reflects Karamzin's idea of ​​powerful class protest movements in feudal Russia as manifestations of anarchist tendencies. Karamzin believed that the desire for liberty, which is incompatible with state interests, is always inherent in the people. But, denying the progressive political significance of the people in national history, the historiographer makes them the highest bearer of assessments of the plans and activities of representatives of the autocratic power. In The History of the Russian State, the people sometimes become an impartial arbiter when it comes to the struggle of the autocracy against the aristocracy and oligarchy, then a passive but interested spectator and even participant when, by the will of historical fate, he himself finds himself face to face with the autocracy. In these cases, the presence in the "History ..." of the people becomes the most important creative technique of Karamzin, a means of expressing the author's attitude to the events described. The voice of the historian, merging with the “popular opinion” /39, p.21-22/, seems to burst into the narrative of the “History ...”.

In the History of the Russian State, Karamzin gives broad semantic meanings. First of all, people's feelings - from love to hatred for the autocrats. “There is no government that would not need the love of the people for its success,” proclaims the historiographer / 7, p. 12 /. The love of the people for the autocrat as the highest criterion for evaluating his actions and at the same time as a force capable of deciding the fate of the autocrat sounds especially strong in the last volumes of the History of the Russian State. Punished for a crime (the murder of Tsarevich Dmitry) by Providence, Godunov, despite all his efforts to win the love of the people, in the end finds himself without his support at a difficult moment for himself in the fight against False Dmitry. “Peoples are always grateful,” Karamzin writes, “leaving the sky to judge the secret of Borisov’s heart, the Russians sincerely praised the tsar, but, recognizing him as a tyrant, naturally hated him both for the present and for the past ...” / 8, p. 64 /. The situations in the historiographer's imagination are repeated both with False Dmitry, who, by his imprudence, contributed to the cooling of the people's love for him, and with Vasily Shuisky: equally important in the eyes of the people” /11, p.85/.

Thus, Karamzin, with the help of The History of the Russian State, told the whole of Russia about his views, ideas and statements.

By the time of writing the "History of the Russian State" Karamzin had passed long haul ideological, moral and literary searches, which left a deep imprint on the idea and process of creating the "History ...". The era was not imbued with the conviction that without understanding the past, searching for patterns of social and cultural development of mankind, it is impossible to assess the present and try to look into the future: “Karamzin was among those thinkers who began to develop new principles for understanding history, national identity, and the idea of ​​continuity in development. civilization and enlightenment” /48, p.28/.

“N.M. Karamzin wrote truly at a turning point for Russia, and for the whole of Europe, times” / 58, p. 421 /, the main events of which were the Great French Revolution, which overturned the foundations of feudalism and absolutism; the appearance of M.M. Speransky with his liberal projects, the Jacobin terror, Napoleon and his very work were the answer to the questions posed by the era.

A.S. Pushkin called Karamzin "the last chronicler". But the author himself “protests” against this: “The reader will notice that I am not describing the event separately, by years and days, but by combining them for the most convenient perception. The historian is not a chronicler: the latter looks only at the time, and the former at the quality and connection of deeds: he can make a mistake in the distribution of places, but he must indicate his place to everything ”/1, p.V/. So, it is not the time-based description of events that interests him primarily, but "their properties and connection." And in this sense, N.M. Karamzin should not be called the "last chronicler", but the first truly genuine researcher of his fatherland.

An important principle in writing "History ..." is the principle of following the truth of history, as he understands it, even if it was sometimes bitter. “History is not a novel, and the world is not a garden where everything should be pleasant. It depicts the real world” /1, p. VIII/ notes Karamzin. But he understands the historian's limited ability to achieve historical truth, since in history "as in human affairs, there is an admixture of lies, but the character of truth is always more or less preserved, and this is enough for us to compose ourselves general idea about people and deeds” /1, p. VIII/. Consequently, the historian can create from the material that he has and he cannot produce “gold from copper, but he must also purify copper, he must know the whole price and properties; to reveal the great where it is hidden, and not to give the small the rights of the great” /1, p. XI/. Scientific authenticity is the leitmotif that constantly sounds restlessly throughout Karamzin's "History ..."

Another major achievement of the "History ..." is that a new philosophy of history is clearly revealed here: the historicism of the "History ...", which has just begun to take shape. Historicism discovered the principles of constant change, development and improvement human society. He gave rise to an understanding of the place of each people in the history of mankind, the uniqueness of the culture of each science, the peculiarities of the national character. arts, customs, laws. Industry, moreover, Karamzin strives to “combine what has been handed down to us over the centuries into a clear system by harmonious convergence of parts” / 1, p. XI/. This comprehensive approach to history, imbued with the concept of the unity of the historical process, revealing the cause-and-effect relationships of events, forms the basis of Karamzin's historical concept.

But not in everything the historian was ahead of his time: “he was the son of the time both in the general noble mood of his ideology, although ennobled by enlightenment ideas and in the general providentialist approach to history, despite the desire to identify its everyday patterns, and sometimes naive attempts to assess the role of that or any other person in history. which fully corresponded to the spirit of that era” /58, p.452/.

His providentialism is felt in the assessment of major historical events. So, for example, he sincerely believes that the appearance of False Dmitry I in the history of Russia was a hand of conduct that punished Boris Godunov, in his opinion, for the murder of Tsarevich Dmitry

It is also impossible not to say that in his "History ..." Karamzin posed the problem of the artistic embodiment of the country's history. “Artistic presentation as an indispensable law of historical narrative was deliberately proclaimed by the historian” / 58, p. 428 /, who believed that: “to see the action of the actors”, to strive to ensure that historical figures live “not with one dry name ....” /1, p. III/. In the preface N.M. Karamzin lists: “order, clarity, strength, painting. He creates from the given substance…” /1, p. III/. Karamzin's "he" is a historian, and the authenticity of the material, the orderliness and clarity of presentation, the pictorial power of language - these are means of expression at his disposal.

Precisely because of its literary nature, "History ..." was criticized by contemporaries and historians of subsequent years. So, “Karamzin’s desire to turn a historical presentation into an entertaining story that has a moral impact on the reader did not meet the ideas of S.M. Solovyov on the tasks of historical science. He writes that Karamzin looks at his history from the side of art” /67, p.18/. N.M. Tikhomirov accuses N.M. Karamzin's tendency "sometimes even to deviate somewhat from the source, just to present vivid pictures, vivid characters" /66, p.284/. Yes, we have fundamental works created by powerful research teams, but very few fascinating books on Russian history. The writer can deliberately complicate his style of presentation, complicate the language, create a multifaceted plot. And on the other hand, he can bring the reader closer to his work, make him a participant in the events, make the historical image real, which Karamzin did and his “History ...” was read with great pleasure. So is it possible to accuse a historian only of the fact that his manner of presentation is interesting to the reader?

“Karamzin got the opportunity to test his understanding of the reasons for the development of the historical process, his creative principles in practice. For us, this is especially interesting, since from the standpoint of modern scientific methodology, we clearly understand all the historical limitations of Karamzin's views” / 58, p. 429 /. But I think that the historian should not be judged from the heights of historical and dialectical materialism, but from the positions of those scientific possibilities that he had at his disposal.

So, driving force historical process Karamzin considered power, the state. And the whole Russian historical process appeared to him as a struggle between the autocratic principles and other manifestations of power - democracy, oligarchic and aristocratic rule, specific tendencies. The formation of autocracy, and then autocracy, became the pivot on which, according to Karamzin, the entire social life of Russia was strung. In connection with this approach, Karamzin created a tradition of Russian history, entirely dependent on the history of the autocracy. The structure and text of The History of the Russian State make it possible to quite accurately establish the specific periodization of history used by Karamzin. Briefly, it will look like this:

· The first period - from the calling of the Varangian princes (from the "first Russian autocrat" / 2, p. 7 /) to Svyatopolk Vladimirovich, who divided the states into destinies.

· The second period - from Svyatopolk Vladimirovich to Yaroslav II Vsevolodovich, who restored the unity of the state.

· The third period - from Yaroslav II Vsevolodovich to Ivan III (the time of the fall of the Russian state).

· The fourth period - the time of the reign of Ivan III and Vasily III (the process of eliminating feudal fragmentation was completed).

Fifth period - the reign of Ivan the Terrible and Fedor Ivanovich (aristocratic form of government)

The sixth period covers Time of Troubles, which begins with the accession of Boris Godunov

Thus, the history of Russia according to Karamzin is a struggle of autocracy and fragmentation. The first person who brought autocracy to Russia was the Varangian Rurik, and the author of "History ..." is a consistent supporter of the Norman theory of the origin of the Russian state. Karamzin writes that the Varangians "should have been more educated than the Slavs", /2, p68/ and that the Varangians "legislators of our ancestors, were their mentors in the art of war... in the art of navigation" /2, p.145-146/. The rule of the Normans was noted by the author as "profitable and calm" /2, p.68/.

Along with this, Karamzin argues that the history of mankind is the history of world progress, the basis of which is the spiritual improvement of people, and that the history of mankind is made by great people. And, based on this, it is not accidental that the author built his work according to the following principle: each chapter contains a description of the life of an individual prince and is named after this ruler.

Our historiography has long and firmly established the image of Karamzin as an ardent monarchist, an unconditional supporter of autocracy. It was said that his love for the fatherland is just a love for autocracy. But today we can say that such assessments are a scientific stereotype of the past years, one of the ideologies on which historical science and historiography have been built for so long. There is no need to rehabilitate or justify Karamzin in any way. He was and remains a prominent spokesman for autocracy in Russia, a noble historiographer. But autocracy was not for him a primitive understanding of power, intended to suppress the "serfs" and raise the nobility, but was the personification of the high human idea of ​​\u200b\u200border, the safety of subjects, their well-being, the guarantor of the disclosure of all the best human qualities, civil and personal; public arbiter /58, p.434/. And he painted the ideal image of such a government.

“The main goal of strong government is to create conditions for the maximum disclosure of human abilities - a farmer, a writer, a scientist; it is this state of society that leads to true progress not only individual peoples, but the whole of humanity” /45, p.43/.

And this is possible if the society is ruled by an enlightened monarch. The great merit of Karamzin as a historian is that he not only used a magnificent corpus of sources for his time, but also the fact that he discovered many of the historical materials himself thanks to his work in archives with manuscripts. The source base of his work was unprecedented for that time. He was the first to introduce into scientific circulation the Laurentian and Trinity Chronicles, the Sudebnik of 1497, the writings of Cyril of Turov, and many diplomatic documents. He made extensive use of Greek chronicles and messages from Eastern authors, domestic and foreign epistolary and memoir literature. His story has become a truly Russian historical encyclopedia.

In a contradictory stream of opinions of contemporaries and later readers of the History of the Russian State, which eventually gave rise to many years of fierce controversy. One can easily find interesting feature- no matter how enthusiastic or harsh reviews of Karamzin's work were, on the whole they were unanimous in their high assessment of that part of the History of the Russian State, which Karamzin himself called "Notes". The “Notes”, as it were, were taken out of the framework of the main text of the “History ...” and significantly exceeded its volume, already outwardly made the work of the historiographer different from the historical writings of the previous and subsequent times. Through the "Notes" Karamzin offered his readers a historical essay on two levels: artistic and scientific. They opened to the reader the possibility of an alternative view of Karamzin's view of the events of the past. "Notes" contain extensive extracts, quotations from sources, retelling of documents (often they are presented in their entirety), references to the historical writings of predecessors and contemporaries. Karamzin, to one degree or another, attracted all domestic publications about the events of national history until the beginning of the 17th century. and a number of foreign publications. As new volumes were being prepared, the number, and most importantly, the value of such materials, increased. And Karamzin decides to take a bold step - he expands their publication in the Notes. “If all the materials,” he wrote, “were collected, published, and purified by criticism, then I would only have to refer; but when most of them are in manuscript, in the dark; when hardly anything has been processed, explained, agreed upon, then one must arm oneself with patience” /1, p. XIII/. Therefore, the Notes became an important collection of sources introduced into scientific circulation for the first time.

In essence, "Notes" is the first and most complete anthology of sources on Russian history up to the beginning of the 17th century. At the same time, this is the scientific part of the "History of the Russian State", in which Karamzin sought to confirm the story of the fatherland's past, analyzed the opinions of his predecessors, argued with them, and proved his own correctness.

Karamzin deliberately or forcedly turned his "Notes" into a kind of compromise between the requirements of scientific knowledge about the past and the consumer use of historical material, that is, selective, based on the desire to select sources and facts that correspond to his design. For example, when talking about the accession of Boris Godunov, the historiographer does not conceal artistic means to depict the general popular enthusiasm, following the Approved Charter of the Zemsky Sobor in 1598. But Karamzin was also aware of another source, which he placed in the Notes, telling that the “delight” was explained by rude coercion on the part of Boris Godunov’s minions.

However, when publishing sources in Notes, Karamzin did not always accurately reproduce the texts. Here, there is a modernization of spelling, and semantic additions, and the omission of entire phrases. As a result, in the "Notes" it was as if a text that never existed was created. An example of this is the publication of "The Tale of Understanding Prince Andrei Ivanovich Staritsky" /7, p.16/. Quite often, the historiographer published in notes those parts of the texts of the sources that corresponded to his narrative, excluding places that contradicted this.

All of the above makes us treat with caution the texts placed in the Notes. And this is not surprising. "Notes" for Karamzin is a proof not only of how it was, but also a confirmation of his views on how it was. The initial position of this approach was expressed by the historiographer as follows: “But history, they say, is filled with lies; let's say rather that in it, as in human affairs, there is an admixture of falsehood, but the character of truth is always more or less preserved; and this is enough for us to form a general concept of people and deeds” /1, p.12/. The historiographer's contentment with the "character of the truth" about the past, in essence, meant for him to follow those sources that corresponded to his historical concept.

The ambiguity of assessments of the “History of the Russian State”, creativity and personality of N.M. Karamzin are characteristic from the time of the publication of the first volume of the "History of the Russian State" up to the present day. But everyone is unanimous in the fact that this is the rarest example in the history of world culture, when a monument of historical thought would be perceived by descendants of contemporaries as the pinnacle work of fiction.

Karamzin in history is characterized by strict solemnity, a clear and, as it were, slowed down rhythm of presentation, a more bookish language. Noticeably deliberate stylistic property in the descriptions of deeds and characters, a clear drawing of particulars. The controversy of scientists and publicists of the late 1810s - early 1830s. in connection with the appearance of volumes of Karamzin's "History ...", reflections and responses of the first readers, especially the Decembrists and Pushkin, in relation to the legacy of Karamzin of the next generations, knowledge of the "History of the Russian State" in the development of historical science, literature, the Russian language - topics that have long attracted Attention. However, Karamzin's "History ..." as a phenomenon of scientific life has not yet been studied enough. Meanwhile, this work left a sensual imprint on the ideas of Russian people about the past of their fatherland, and indeed, about history. For almost a century there was no other historical work in Russia. And there was no other historical work that, having lost its former significance in the eyes of scientists, would have remained so long in the everyday life of the so-called culture. general public.

"History of the Russian State" continued to be taken for granted national culture even when the knowledge about Ancient Russia and new concepts began to dominate historical development Russia and the historical process as a whole. Without knowledge of Karamzin's "History ...", it was unthinkable to be called an educated person in Russia. And, probably, V.O. Klyuchevsky found the correct explanation for this, noting that "Karamzin's view of history ... was based on moral and psychological aesthetics" / 37, p. 134 /. Figurative perception precedes logical perception, and these first images are retained in consciousness longer than logical constructions, which are supplanted later by more solid concepts.

Historical knowledge is the most important part of our cultural life. Education in history is inseparable from moral education, from the formation of socio-political views, even aesthetic ideas. The publication of the "History of the Russian State", and in its entirety, helps to see not only the origins of the most important phenomena in the history of Russian science, literature, language, but also facilitates the study of historical psychology, history public consciousness. Therefore, the work of N.M. Karamzin for a long time became a model of approaches to the study of the main plots of Russian history.