Historical Epoch in the Fate of Russian Literature of the Golden Age. Historical eras in order: chronology Historical eras in chronological order

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But as a result, the Russian revolutionaries only hid, learned the art of conspiracy and began preparing for the coming upheavals. The revolutionary movement has long become an international phenomenon: in the late 1860s, the International organization arose, which coordinated the activities of labor movements in different countries. Hopes that internal Russian measures would be able to put out the world fire forever were naive. As for patriotic ideas, then in the reign Alexander III the fine line between healthy national feeling and morbid nationalism was often broken; Jewish pogroms broke out more than once in the south.

Important events also took place outside the European continent; one of the main ones is the American Civil War (1861–1865) between North and South. The southerners were in favor of maintaining the principles of slavery, the northerners were against it; meaning civil war there was a struggle for the path that America would take in the 20th century, the path of individual rights and civil liberties, or the path of slavery and racism ...

Such was the historical background of the literary achievements, the study of which we have to study.

What are the main events of the world and national history the first half of the 19th century predetermined the fate of Russian writers of the golden age? Name the main names, events, dates.

Culture and economy

Culture and economics seem to be opposite poles. As far as the first is "impractical", sublime, so the last is "mundane" and aimed at obtaining benefits. And yet they depend on each other and influence each other to the extent that economic development affects the destinies, psychology and views of people.

As early as the 16th century, Europe began to establish new type society based on private property and free enterprise, capitalism. By the end of the 18th century, capitalism led to a rapid growth in urban production and shook the foundations of feudalism. He destroyed the traditional forms of political and everyday life, accustomed a person to the idea that his fate depends not on his origin, not on the habits of previous generations, but above all on his own will, energy, individual qualities.

The only dependence that capitalism recognized was dependence on money. However, the social nature of wealth has also changed. Before wealth reinforced power, based on nobility and origin, surrounded her with an aura of luxury and omnipotence. Now wealth itself has become an instrument of power; money invaded politics, began gradually, imperceptibly to rule the world. And literature, which until now has been a haven of inspiration, free leisure of wealthy people - nobles, aristocrats - has turned, in the words of Pushkin, into "a significant branch of industry." Literary pursuits became an independent profession; writers felt dependent not only and not so much on the benevolence of a high patron, philanthropist, but on the reader's demand for their books.

Technical discoveries, without which it is impossible competition- the main mechanism of a market economy - followed one after another; the word "for the first time" has become a key word in late XVIII- the beginning of the 19th century. In 1783, the first balloon flight of the Montgolfier brothers was carried out, at the beginning of the 19th century the first paddle steamer was built, in 1825 the first Railway, in 1831, Michael Faraday discovered the phenomenon of electromagnetic induction ... round the world expeditions. In 1803-1806, the first Russian "circumnavigation" was carried out under the leadership of Ivan Fedorovich Kruzenshtern; in 1814-1821, Russian explorers and sailors first went to the shores of Antarctica...

In the second half of the 19th century, this process assumed an essentially irreversible character. Technological breakthroughs led to the rise of the economy, the rise of the economy led to technological breakthroughs. In 1863, the world's first subway line (London) was launched, five years later the subway was built in New York, then in Budapest, Vienna, Paris. In 1876, Scottish-American Alexander Bell received a patent for a practically usable telephone set; some ten or fifteen years will pass, and telephone lines will connect cities and countries. In 1897, the Russian physicist Alexander Popov, who improved the radio receiver, began work on the creation of a wireless telegraph. Which means information space Lands will narrow, distances will shrink: from now on, to transmit urgent information, it will take minutes, not days, weeks or months.

Almost simultaneously with Bell and Popov, the American Thomas Edison improved the telegraph (and then the telephone), invented the first phonograph (1879), that is, a device for recording and reproducing sound. And in the last years of the 19th century, the German engineer Rudolf Diesel created the internal combustion engine, and the German designer Count Zeppelin airship- an aeronautical instrument, a prototype of a modern aircraft. The world has come close to the automobile era and to the development of airspace.

A symbol of the technological achievements of mankind and at the same time an indication of that path technical progress, which the newest civilization has finally chosen for itself, will be the grandiose Eiffel Tower, 123 meters high and weighing 9 thousand tons, built according to the project of A. G. Eiffel in Paris for the World Exhibition of 1889.

Science did not stand still. Scientists made one after another grandiose discoveries in its different areas. In 1829–1830, the Kazan mathematician Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky published the results of his many years of work, which overturned ideas about the nature of space, which were considered unshakable for more than 2000 years, since the time of Euclid. In 1869, Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleev comprehended one of the basic laws of natural science - periodic law chemical elements. Frenchman Louis Pasteur, founder of modern microbiology, developed vaccines against anthrax (1881), rabies (1885). Pasteur vaccinations made it possible to defeat diseases that were previously considered incurable ...

Of course, these scientific and technological processes interacted with the processes taking place in art only indirectly. But there was one kind of art, to the creation of which artistic culture, technology, science, and economics went hand in hand. In 1895, the French inventor Louis Jean Lumiere, with the participation of his brother Auguste, created an apparatus for capturing and projecting "moving photographs". It was the first movie camera suitable for practical use. In the 20th century, cinema will become a new art form and at the same time a powerful industry, combining technological and creative discoveries of the 19th centuries.

These discoveries influenced both production and the very course of human life. If the man of the feudal era struggled to preserve the old ways that had been established over the centuries, then the man of the era of capitalism was forced to constantly change himself, changing everything around him. Even if he did not want it, even if he rebelled against unstoppable renewal, like the English Luddites of the late XVIII - early XIX century, wrathfully smashing cars that took people's jobs. Thus, the foundations of a centuries-old cultural tradition were gradually destroyed; her even, calm movement was blasted from within; the development of literature also accelerated.

How did the development of science, economics, technology affect culture?

Art and literature

But, of course, the fate of Russian literature in the 19th century was most closely connected with processes that took place not in economics and politics, but in other forms of art. Without the musical creations of the German composer L. van Beethoven (1770–1827) with his heroic symphonism, without the refined lyrical etudes, nocturnes of the great Pole F. Chopin (1810–1849), without the operatic achievements of the brilliant Italian G. Verdi (1813–1901) and Because of the symphonic discoveries of the Frenchman G. Berlioz (1803–1869), European literature, including Russian, would never have made the qualitative breakthrough that it “decided” on at the beginning of the 19th century.

After all, artistic ideas generated by a major historical epoch never belong exclusively to any one type of art. They literally float in the air and are perceived in one way or another by every art. The internally torn and externally harmonious sound of Beethoven's tragic music, in which echoes of the revolutionary upheavals of that time were heard, echoed in the lyrics of F. Schiller (1759-1805), whose poem "Ode to Joy" formed the basis of Beethoven's 9th symphony. Chopin's attention to small forms, to unfinished fragments, to the nocturnal, mysterious atmosphere was transferred to the best lyricists of the first half of the century ... And the strange drawings, engravings and paintings of the Spanish artist F. Goya (1746–1828), full of inner horror before life, prepared the artistic ground for fantastic images of the best prose writers, including Gogol.

In the second half of the 19th century, completely different artistic ideas will triumph in European art: the world of aerial fantasy, the tragic experiences of an individual personality will be opposed by lifelike, realistic painting, epic music imbued with the spirit of the people. The time has come to descend from the sky-high heights to the sinful historical earth. The most popular Russian artists of the 1830s were K. Bryullov (1799–1852), the author of the monumental and tragic painting The Last Day of Pompeii (1830–1833), and A. Ivanov (1806–1858), who creative life put on the creation of the grandiose painting "The Appearance of Christ to the People" (1837-1857). And in the 1840s, the great everyday writer P. Fedotov (1815–1852) loudly declared himself, who became famous precisely for his attention to detail, to carefully written images from the life of insignificant people (“Fresh Cavalier”, 1846, “Major’s Matchmaking” , 1848). And the sweet epic P. Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) and one of the creators of the monumental tradition of Russian opera M. Mussorgsky (1839-1881) reigned in the musical world, who tried to breathe truly popular power into opera art. The writers of that time also felt a taste for depicting everyday life and social relationships.

Emphasized indifference to lofty topics, the desire for realistic, almost photographic accuracy, distinguished the movement itinerant artists. Their partnership was formed in 1870. The members of the society were the author of the famous "Unknown" I. Kramskoy (1837-1887), as well as I. Repin (1844-1930) - the creator of "Barge haulers on the Volga" and the ceremonial portrait of Alexander III, V. Surikov (1848-1916), who wrote "Boyar Morozova" and many other monumental canvases from Russian history. The bright painter V. Vasnetsov (1848-1926) was also associated with the movement of the Wanderers, who not only willingly worked with genre subjects, copied reality (the painting “From Apartment to Apartment”), but also created fantastic images of Russian folklore and even painted cathedrals. A much younger artist, the sad landscape painter I. Levitan (1860–1900), also considered himself a Wanderer, under whose brush the features of mournful biblical grandeur appeared in Central Russian nature.

Remember this when we study the works created by Russian writers of the second half of the 19th century. Writers, like artists and musicians, will pay tribute to the same artistic ideas. They will begin to look more closely at the surrounding life, they will begin to describe it in detail and almost scrupulously.

But art did not stand still. It moved on, opened up new horizons. At the beginning of the 19th century, musicians and painters were inspired by the realm of fantasy, the inner world of the artist himself was the main motive of European art. Then it was time to get to know the surrounding reality, to “ground” art. And by the end of the century, the next step was taken towards the unknown, the new, the unknown. In the 1860s, a new direction was born in French painting, and in the 1870s and 1880s, a new direction flourished. impressionism(from the word impression - impression). E. Manet, O. Renoir, E. Degas, P. Cezanne returned to pictorial art the freshness of the perception of life, they depicted instantaneous, seemingly random situations, the play of light and shadow. The main thing in their paintings is not reality itself, but the artist's impression of it. To do this, the Impressionists left the workshops and moved the easels to the open air, where colors change every second, where the air trembles and changes the outlines of objects. Impressionism was not limited to the sphere of painting. He influenced the work of sculptors (the brilliant Frenchman O. Rodin), composers (the Frenchmen C. Debussy, M. Ravel). Of course, his creative impulses also echoed in poetry. You will feel this when we talk about Russian lyrics of the very end of the 19th century.

And at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, artists began to search for a new direction. At its source was the powerful, slightly scary music of the composer and thinker R. Wagner (1813–1883), prone to hysterical mystery. Gradually, a trend was taking shape that would determine the fate of artists and musicians of the next generation. This current is called symbolism. You will talk about him in the next class; then you will find out what scientific ideas and doubts influenced the worldview of people at the end of the century and pushed art to search for new artistic ideas. In the meantime, you need to learn the fundamental thing: the new in art is born within the limits of the old, lives and develops in parallel with it. Yes, at the end school year we will read the realistic, life-like stories of Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, written in the 1880s and 1890s. But it was in 1890 that the outstanding Russian artist M. Vrubel (1856–1910) painted his main painting, The Demon, whose tense and almost painful symbolism is associated with the next era in the development of Russian art...

Listen to a fragment from Ludwig van Beethoven's 9th Symphony, then a fragment from Modest Mussorgsky's opera Boris Godunov. Compare the tonality, the general pathos of these musical works. Then compare two paintings - a portrait of A. S. Pushkin by the artist Orest Kiprensky of the 1820-1830s and Pavel Fedotov's "Fresh Cavalier". What is the fundamental difference in the attitude of these artists to life? In what direction did Russian art develop from the first to the second half of the 19th century?

Questions and tasks

1. What political event marked the beginning of the historical era that shaped the views of Russian writers of the 19th century?

2. What ideas inspired the people of that era?

3. What were the main events of Russian history at the end of the 18th-19th centuries?

4. How did the economy of that time influence the culture?

Arkhangelsky A.N. Alexander I. M., 2006 (ZhZL).

The book outlines the main facts of the life of the Russian Tsar; his political intentions and real deeds.

Decembrists: Selected Works: In 2 volumes / The publication was prepared by A. S. Nemzer, O. A. Proskurin. M., 1987.

Of all the anthologies of the literary heritage of the Decembrists, addressed to the general reader, this one is the best. Contains program documents of early and late Decembrist societies, works by P. A. Katenin, F. N. Glinka, K. F. Ryleev, A. A. Bestuzhev, A. O. Kornilovich, V. F. Raevsky, N. A. and M. A. Bestuzhevykh, I. I. Pushchin, V. K. Kuchelbeker, A. I. Odoevsky, G. S. Batenkov, I. D. Yakushkin. Brief but profound comments.

Ludwig E. Napoleon: Biography. M., 1998.

A master of psychological analysis, Emil Ludwig became famous for his biographies of great people. Marina Tsvetaeva considered his book about Napoleon to be the best of all dedicated to this historical figure.

Tarle E.V. Napoleon: Napoleon's Invasion of Russia // Tarle E. V. Collected Works. M., 1959. Vol. 7 (or any reprint).

The books of one of the most famous Soviet historians are written easily and extremely exciting. The essay on the life and work of Napoleon is not a popular biography, but a scientific and journalistic work, which, nevertheless, has become a favorite reading for several generations of Russians.

Tarle E.V. 1812. M., 1959 (or any reissue). A short popular essay on the great events of Russian history.

Troitsky N. A. 1812: The great year of Russia. M., 1988. Detailed, detailed presentation of the history of the Patriotic War of 1812.

Eidelman N. Ya.“The moment of glory is coming…”: Year 1789. L., 1989.

This book will help you navigate the main events of the French Revolution and learn about how it was perceived in Russia; it is specifically addressed to students.

Eidelman N. Ya. Edge of Ages. M., 2004.

Story palace coup, as a result of which Paul I died and his son, the future Alexander I, came to power; It tells in detail and vividly about the problems that Russia faced at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries.

Eidelman N. Ya. Your 19th century M., 1980. Popular essays on the fate of people Pushkin era addressed to high school students.

Encyclopedia for children: Art. T. 7. Music. Theatre. Movie. M., 2000.

A short review of the history of art, written especially for schoolchildren.

Sentimentalism. Origins of Russian prose

The crisis of the ideals of the Enlightenment

You already have some ideas about the Enlightenment, about classicism and sentimentalism as artistic methods, about classicist ideas and sentimental attitudes. Now we will try to trace these principles, ideas and sensations in development, in movement. The difference will be about the same as between a static photo and a dynamic film. Changes in European literature, as well as in culture as a whole, accumulated gradually, little by little, imperceptibly to the eyes, just as the face of a person imperceptibly changes throughout life.

Since the 17th century, and even then closer to its middle, different groups of writers have arisen who hold dissimilar views on art, on its tasks and forms of expression. Gradually emerges literary process, during which the usual forms of creativity change, there is a struggle of directions, a search for new artistic ideas ... The life of culture is becoming more diverse, more and more complex.

In Western European literature, these changes begin earlier than in Russia, just as much as earlier capitalism is established in Europe. Russia in the late 18th and early 19th centuries is a feudal country in which bourgeois relations are only in their infancy. Russian merchants, manufacturers, breeders do not yet play an independent political and cultural role - they are only accumulating strength for the next breakthrough. And Russian literature of the first half of the 19th century, which responsively accepted many trends in European culture, remained much more traditional, much more balanced, much more conservative (in a good sense of the word) than romantic literature. European countries. She combined all the power of tradition with the freedom of novelty - this is what predetermined her originality and her greatness.

What in Western European literature immediately preceded the rise of Russian culture? What example turned out to be "contagious" for Russian writers who prepared the golden age?

The main event in the intellectual life of Europe in the 18th century was, as you now know, the French Encyclopedia with its pathos of transforming life on reasonable grounds. But while there was a long-term work on it, a lot has changed. The ideas of the encyclopedists "descended" from sky-high intellectual heights to the bourgeois masses, became commonplace formulas, common places. In the meantime, in the quiet of the philosophical and writer's offices, intense mental work was going on. Just as the thinkers of the generation of Diderot and Voltaire became disillusioned with the old picture of the world, so the European intellectuals of the new generation gradually became disillusioned with the ideas of the Encyclopedists themselves. Lost hope and omnipotence human mind, which is given to every person from birth, and on the power of experience that a person accumulates during his life. Young thinkers believed less and less in the possibility of "remaking" modern world on rational grounds. Increasingly, they recalled the terrible earthquake of 1755 in the Portuguese capital of Lisbon, during which the beautiful city was three-quarters destroyed, and 60,000 of its inhabitants died. How then can one talk about a harmonious, reasonable world order? What to hope for, what to plan, if at any moment life itself can end? The ideals that inspired the people of the Enlightenment did not seem to stand the test of history.

As if anticipating this turn in the minds of contemporaries and far ahead of their time, some European writers of the Enlightenment, already from the 1730s, increasingly bitterly mocked the omnipotence of reason. While French philosophers were only pondering the ideas that would form the basis of the Encyclopedia, the English prose writer Jonathan Swift was already writing his immortal book Gulliver's Travels. And here, among other things, he talked about Gulliver's journey to the island of intelligent horses, who retained wise justice, calm kindness, connection with nature - everything that humanity has long lost ... So, the mind is given to man only as an opportunity, this opportunity can be used, or you can miss out.

Another English prose writer Henry Fielding in the novel "The Story of Tom Jones, the Foundling" (1749) told the story of two brothers. Tom always followed the "call of the heart", the natural predisposition of a person to goodness, and therefore, in the end, he became a person. Blyfil took from educators best knowledge, but did not educate his heart - and therefore the natural, natural rationality degenerated in him into petty prudence.

The conclusion was implicitly brewing: it is necessary to educate, enlighten not only the mind, but also the feelings, otherwise the fragile European civilization is in danger of catastrophe.

When did the crisis of the Enlightenment begin? What does it express?

Zhukovsky and Batyushkov opened up rich opportunities for expressing the inner world of the individual. At the same time, there were also negative sides style of Zhukovsky and Batyushkov. The poetic style shunned the direct and precise expression of feelings. For transmission psychological states stable verbal formulas were formed (“the best color”, “life's sweetness”, “past days”, for example, etc.), the danger of pretentious, cutesy, mannered language was identified. Instead of a simple, clear and energetic style, a metaphorical one took root.

Since the genres of elegies, messages, ballads, reflecting feelings, became central in the poetry of Zhukovsky and Batyushkov " inner man”, then public emotions were only partially affected by them. The task of artistic comprehension national character has not been resolved. This was immediately noticed by the Decembrist poets, who sought to rely not on European models, but on the traditions of Russian and Slavic verbal culture.

They contrasted the traditions of Karamzin, developed by Zhukovsky and Batyushkov, with the tradition of Lomonosov and Derzhavin, a smoothed, harmonious language - Slavicisms and archaisms borrowed from chronicles, Church Slavonic texts, vernacular and colloquial speech.

Polemic about poetic language opened Pavel Aleksandrovich Katenin(1792-1853) - a talented Decembrist poet, playwright and critic. Dissatisfied with the "Russian" ballads of Zhukovsky, he gave his samples - "Olga", "Natasha", "The Killer", "Leshy", etc. Katenin was attracted by Russian antiquity, national subjects.

Unlike Zhukovsky, Katenin brought to the fore the epic beginning - the national-historical characteristic of Olga's feelings. The poet strove to turn the ballad into a monumental genre, filling it with a serious national-historical content. He also stood up for the plausibility of feelings, for the popular nature of literature. Katenin was one of the first to feel that the reflection of national life in poetry rests on the problem of language, because neither national history nor national color could be conveyed, in his opinion, by the poetic style of Zhukovsky and Batyushkov. His position was subsequently supported by the Decembrist poet, critic and playwright VC. Küchelbecker(1797-1846). Kuchelbecker defends the archaic language traditionally prepared in Russian poetry to express high civic feelings.

Fiction in the eyes of the Decembrists was a powerful means of civic education. Many of them were outstanding poets themselves and possessed literary talent, which they forced to serve high public interests and, above all, to awaken a sense of freedom among the Russian nobility.

Kondraty Fyodorovich Ryleev(1795-1826) - the most prominent Decembrist poet. He wrote accusatory and civil odes, political elegies and epistles, "thoughts" and poems.

When Ryleev said about himself: “I am not a Poet, but a Citizen,” he did not mean at all the opposition of civil activity to the field of a poet or artist “ pure art”, on the one hand, and inspired by social ideas, on the other. According to Ryleev, the poet considers poetry to be his life's work, and this work is no worse than any other. For Ryleev himself, poetry is not art, but a direct expression of "living feelings", therefore, to arouse lofty patriotic feelings, to captivate contemporaries to heroic deeds, does not mean to be a poet. Poetry is only one of the means of eloquent manifestation of civic sentiments.

All Decembrists adhered to similar views with various deviations. But since they were nevertheless involved in art and understood perfectly well that social influence not least depends on art, on the skill of performance, and not only on noble public intentions, they were keenly interested in the problems of literary development. Moreover, purely literary tasks often found themselves in the thick of the ensuing ideological disputes.

The Decembrists were zealous supporters of romanticism and greatly contributed to its victory. They associated with the concept of romanticism the upbringing of civil, patriotic feelings. Therefore, unlike Zhukovsky, they put forward a national-historical and civil-heroic theme. At the same time, the true content of art for romantics is the soul, its impulses and feelings. For Zhukovsky, the world of the soul is the world of personal aspirations; for Zhukovsky, a person is mainly occupied with self-education. Zhukovsky, the poet, cares first of all about improving the moral potential of the individual, ennobling the person, instilling in him humane concepts and feelings.

Without denying the self-education of the individual, the Decembrists relied mainly on public education. High moral qualities man, they argued, are born in civil history. Intimate experiences, no matter how significant, are still too narrow. The betrayal of a beloved, the loss of a close friend, the death of a loved one, the experience of painful loneliness that gives rise to sadness are quite legitimate, but insufficient, because the essence of a person lies in his social deeds. That is why civil and patriotic passions, without ceasing to be personal experiences, according to the Decembrists, are much more worthy of expression in poetry than other passions.

The Decembrists countered psychological romanticism with a completely different range of topics, motives, and situations. Military glory, heroic feat for the good of the motherland, denunciation of tyrants poetic word, fidelity to public duty - these are the themes of their poetry. At the same time, the Decembrists, in the spirit of their ideas, rework the characteristic genres of romantic poetry. Thus, Ryleev, in his message to Vera Nikolaevna Stolypina, rethought the traditional genre of the elegiac message. The event that formed the basis of the message is tragic and sad: Stolypina, the daughter of N. S. Mordvinov, respected by the Decembrists, lost her husband, A. A. Stolypin, who sympathized with the advanced nobles. However, Ryleev does not write an elegiac message, but a civil catechism. He avoids elegiac meditations and fills the poem with "educational" pathos, a passionate appeal. He sees in the heroine not a beloved, struck by misfortune, not a friend separated from her beloved, but a mother of the family endowed with civic feelings. The poet appeals to the "sacred duty" of a woman. He deliberately rejects traditional elegiac feelings. In a moment of grief, he awakens public sentiments in the addressee of the poem:

sacred debt to you

To form wonderful children.

The heroine of the message appears as a convinced Decembrist, a like-minded poet, only temporarily desperate, but able to overcome misfortune. Therefore, instead of an elegiac message, Ryleev creates an invitingly pathetic poem with its inherent oratorical turns.

According to the civic lesson, the poetic vocabulary, usually inherent in an elegiac message, also changes: the poem widely includes socio-political vocabulary (“sacred duty”, “fellow citizens”), words and phrases of an unusual “high” style elegy (“chad”, “mouth” and etc.). At the same time, the personal character of the civic theme does not disappear.

The restructuring of the established genres also concerned the genre of love elegy. In the poem “You wished to visit, my friend ...” Ryleev deliberately recreates the typical situation of a love elegy: here is a “secluded corner”, and a soul exhausted “in the fight against a fatal disease”, and a romanticized image of a beloved (“Your dear look, your gaze is magical"), and the hero-sufferer. Here, characteristic elegiac formulas and intonations and even the rejection of happiness arise, although the hero and heroine feel mutual attraction.

However, the cause of this failed love is not the betrayal of the hero or heroine, not the disappointment of the hero in love or in his beloved, but the civic passion that has taken possession of him, in the name of which he rejects love in the days when "the fatherland suffers" and when "the soul ... one wants freedom."

Thus, a civil theme invades the love elegy, motivating the behavior of the hero. Thus, the Decembrists expanded the scope of traditional genres, filling them with new content. The genre of elegy gained the opportunity to express not only intimate, but also civil feelings.

Among the Decembrists there was no common understanding of romanticism. Decembrist romanticism not only rejected the principles of lyrical subjectivism developed by Zhukovsky, but also adopted his achievements.

Ryleev, unlike Katenin, focused on the psychology of the national character, on the expression of civic passions that fill the soul. Therefore, in order to transmit them, he involuntarily turned to Zhukovsky, to his situations and vocabulary. In general, he uses the language introduced by the Karamzinists.

The historical epoch in which the creators of the early Russian classics happened to live and which in many ways shaped them was revolutionary, explosive, and heroic. Its meaning was the triumph of enterprise over nobility, individualism over class ethics, novelty over tradition. Ho, bringing hope for the renewal of society, the state and man, this era ended with a deep crisis, a general disappointment in the idea of progress.

As we have already said, it was preceded by the philosophical search of the encyclopedists. And the French Revolution of 1789-1793 laid the immediate start. Now, from our historical distance, it is difficult to understand how global the changes that she brought with her were. If you compare it with something, then not even with an earthquake, but with a grandiose volcanic eruption, after which everything starts to move, everything changes. Where once there were fertile lands, a scorched desert remains, and where there was a wasteland, the springs begin to beat and greenery appears; former peaks disappear, and new mountains are born. And if we switch to a dry, but more precise language of abstract concepts, then the revolution led to a sharp change in historical structures.

So what happened? From the course new history you know the details. And we will only briefly recall the events that had a decisive influence on the development of Russian literature in the first half of the 19th century (we will find mention of them in almost all the works that we will read together).

By the early 1790s, the French feudal-aristocratic state had exhausted its possibilities. It literally went bankrupt. King Louis XVI was forced to convene the Estates General, which until then had played no real role. The Estates General declared themselves first the National and then the Constituent Assembly, which was called upon to found a new state structure bourgeois France, bring the third estate to power. On July 14, 1789, in response to the king’s attempt to dismiss the deputies home, the elements spilled onto the streets: an uprising began, culminating in the capture of the Bastille prison-fortress and marking the beginning of a new, revolutionary era in the history of France, and indeed of all Europe.

And on August 26 of the same year, the “Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen” was adopted, proposing simple, clear and generally accessible formulas for a new way of life. “People are born and remain free and equal in rights”, property rights are unshakable and sacred, the personal freedom of a citizen is limited only by the rights of another person. Freedom of opinion was proclaimed, including political and religious, and the rule of law was declared over class privileges. These formulas took into account the postulates of the "Declaration of Independence" of the North American United States - a new state that was formed in 1776 on the site of former European colonies and for the first time challenged all generally accepted state traditions. What was happening in the North American States was followed with intense attention in different time and Goethe and Pushkin.

After the king and his wife Marie Antoinette were executed in January 1793, the revolution finally threw off the liberal mask. The Jacobins - that was the name of the political club whose members came to power in the Convention, an organ of revolutionary self-government - began to destroy their political opponents. Very soon, the dictatorship of the leader of the Jacobins, Robespierre, who eventually fell under the knife of the guillotine himself, led the country into a bloody dead end. She was unexpectedly led out of this impasse by the young Corsican general Napoleon Bonaparte, who took full power into his own hands and, step by step, made his way from a revolutionary dictator (1799) to consul for life (1802), and then crown emperor (1804).

The revolution has returned to the point it left; the republic again gave way to the empire. But it was already another empire, another monarchy. Napoleon seemed to be redirecting revolutionary energy in a new direction. He began the redistribution and conquest of the world; the Napoleonic Wars, which reshaped political map Europe, struck the imagination of contemporaries. It seemed to them that one person could not do this, that Napoleon had some kind of mystical, supernatural power; many directly called him the Antichrist. One way or another, but in 1811 most of Europe was part of France.

These events took place in the very center Western Europe. And what was happening in Russia at the same time?

At the end of the 18th century, she tried to fence herself off from revolutionary storms. Last years the reign of Catherine II the Great (after the suppression of the Pugachev uprising in 1774) was a time of golden blissful stagnation; never before and never after Russian nobility did not feel so calm and confident. At the same time, the empress herself was well aware that serious changes in the state and public life it is no longer possible to avoid. Reassuring the nobility, endowing them with more and more privileges, she secretly considered legislative reforms that would have to overtake the imminent revolution, produce it "from above".

Catherine II pinned her special hopes on her grandson, the future Emperor Alexander I Pavlovich; her plans, however, were destroyed by a sudden death in 1796. Paul I, who reigned after her, could not find mutual language with the nobility, and eventually fell victim to a conspiracy in 1801. Having become an unwitting participant in parricide, Alexander I at the beginning of his reign tried to clear the historical rubble, prepare the ground for serious reforms, but stopped halfway.

There are many reasons for this. One of them is that Alexandrov's Russia from the very beginning entered into a confrontation with Napoleonic France and was forced to spend precious forces on a series of military conflicts of 1805-1807. They ended with the Tilsit peace treaty, humiliating for Russia. Ho by 1812, when Napoleon announced to her new war, Russia managed to accumulate moral and military forces for victory; Patriotic War became one of the main events of Russian history. The dates and names of the main battles of 1812 have forever entered Russian cultural use: August 4-5 - the battle for Smolensk, August 26 - the Battle of Borodino, September 1 - council in Fili, September 4-6 - fire in Moscow, November 14-16 - battle near the Berezina River, December 14 - the final exile " great army from Russia and the beginning of the war for the liberation of Europe.

Young officers, who returned from the European campaign and inspired by the victory, hoped that Alexander I would finally fulfill Catherine's dream, start the revolution "from above". But the time allotted by history for peaceful reforms was wasted by the Russian authorities; a series of national liberation uprisings in Europe and Asia Minor in the early 1820s forced Alexander to “freeze” reforms until better times, which, alas, never came.

Young Russian nobles, not waiting for the renewal of the country from the monarchy, began to unite in secret anti-government societies, the ultimate goal of which was to adopt a constitution and limit autocracy. (Some relied on a republican form of government, others on a constitutional monarchy.) Early organizations - the "Union of Salvation" (1816-1817) and the "Union of Welfare" (1818-1821) were transformed into the Northern and Southern Societies, which on December 14, 1825 organized an armed performance at Senate Square St. Petersburg. Blood spilled; the performance was suppressed by troops who remained loyal to the new Tsar Nicholas I.

The reign of Nicholas I, which began tragically, with the suppression of the uprising and the execution of five Decembrists, became one of the most controversial eras in modern Russian history. Possessing a sound mind and a strong character, Nicholas did everything to correct the mistakes of the previous reign. In the second half of the 1820s he waged successful wars in the east of the empire; energetically ruled the country, rigidly defended its interests (as he understood them). But already in 1830-1831 there was a series of military-political upheavals, from which Russia emerged internally weakened and bitter.

In November 1830, an uprising for the independence of Poland broke out in Warsaw, which by the summer of 1831 was brutally suppressed. Russian army. At the same time, peasant riots took place in military settlements; relations with Europe sharply worsened, especially with France. Having inherited a number of insoluble problems from his elder brother Alexander I, Nicholas I hastened to change internal politics Russia, having dealt with the emerging public opinion, tightened censorship, and strengthened the power of the state bureaucracy.

The emperor did not delve into the problems facing the thinking part of the non-governmental intelligentsia, he drove social diseases inside. The policy of isolation from the "dangerous" West, infected with revolutionary ideas, ultimately led Russia to a dead end. And the main problem of a multi-million country is serfdom- has not been resolved. The sad result of the reign of Nicholas was shameful for the Russian Empire Crimean War (1853-1856).

The social atmosphere that formed the next generation of Russian classics, from Ivan Goncharov to Anton Chekhov, was completely different from the atmosphere of the era that fell to the lot of Karamzin, Pushkin, Gogol. In the 1840s, Russian society (at least the educated part of it) was seized by feelings of disappointment and social apathy; many actual problems it was impossible to discuss aloud - and the writers worked out the Aesopian language, learned to talk about painful things with the help of hints, allegorically. Something similar happened in the West.

A series of social upheavals in France (1830, 1848) eventually led to the restoration of the monarchy: the grandson of Napoleon I Bonaparte, more than conservative Napoleon III, came to power. With the accession of Queen Victoria (1837-1901), a long and magnificent Victorian era- the time of the triumph of traditional values that have proven their resistance to the onslaught of social movements. The Poles' dream of national independence did not come true, the Germans' hopes for the creation of united state from scattered kingdoms. (Only Prince Bismarck, who in 1871 will become Chancellor of Germany, will be able to solve this problem.) Slavic and Finno-Ugric peoples - Serbs, Czechs, Bulgarians, Magyars, Finns - under the influence of romantic ideas and military-political upheavals of the 19th century, realized themselves as full-fledged nations . That is, historical communities of people who are united not only by historical roots, but also state borders, and literary language, and cultural traditions. However, they never managed to free themselves from foreign domination, did not gain the long-awaited state independence from powerful empires: the Ottoman ports (present-day Turkey), Austria-Hungary, and Russia.

Meanwhile, under the cover of political reaction, both in the West and in Russia, processes that were important and very dangerous for the fate of mankind were taking place. Just as in the second half of the 18th century the third estate, the bourgeois, entered the historical stage, so in the second half of the 19th century the proletariat, the poorest and least qualified part of the working class, declared its claims to a special role in history. The clever and firm leaders of the revolutionary movement took advantage of this. First of all, the outstanding German political economist and philosopher, author of the monumental work Capital, Karl Marx. The idea of social justice took possession of the minds, and under the slogan of protecting the professional rights of workers, the "Union of Communists" (1847) was created, for which Marx, together with the publicist Friedrich Engels, wrote the "Manifesto of the Communist Party" (1848).

In this Manifesto, for the first time, the task of the revolutionary destruction of the old world order was clearly and clearly stated and a superhistorical goal was proclaimed: the creation of a new civilization, a utopian kingdom of proletarian happiness. Humanity will pay for this dream in the 20th century with tens of millions of innocent lives, bloody upheavals, but already in the 19th century, under the influence of revolutionary ideas, a new phenomenon arose, destructive and not recognizing national borders - terrorism.

Secret terrorist organizations were formed in Russia as well. One of them, Narodnaya Volya, passed judgment on Emperor Alexander II (he ruled the country from 1855 to 1881). Meanwhile, the king sought to renew the country, rid it of long-term and even centuries-old, chronic diseases. He not only spent a great Peasant reform 1861, abolishing serfdom, but also introduced a system local government(it was called Zemstvo), reformed the court, the army. After the suppression of the second Polish uprising (1863-1864), Alexander II somewhat slowed down the course of reforms, fearing the growth of radical sentiments. And all the same: it was he who prepared Russia for the new realities of political, economic, intellectual life, which she had to face in late XIX and the beginning of the 20th century.

Ho revolutionary terrorists little worried about the future of the country; they demanded to change the present - and immediately; the gradual improvement of the Russian order did not suit them, they were steadily pushing Russia towards chaos. Therefore, a number of attempts were made on the life of Alexander II (1866, 1867); since 1879, the secret terrorist organization "Narodnaya Volya" began to hunt for him - and on March 1, 1881, the emperor died at the hands of terrorists. Moreover, according to legend, the tsar was mortally wounded on the very day when he decided to set in motion the constitutional project, which was supposed to introduce constitutional-monarchical rule in autocratic Russia, that is, to change it radically.

So the Russian revolutionaries stopped the peaceful process of state evolution. The next ruler of the country, Alexander III (reign: 1881-1894), recoiled in horror from political reforms, which in his mind were firmly associated with the growth of revolutionary unrest. He managed for some time to "freeze" the revolutionary ferment in Russian society and redirected his state energy from the political to the economic plane. However, having chosen a policy of counter-reforms, strengthening the role of the police, local and central bureaucracy, the tsar involuntarily repeated the mistake of the late Nicholas I: he did not heal the state, but drove the disease inside.

Being a talented and large-scale leader of the country, he hoped that the rapid growth of industry (the successes of Alexander III and his administration were very impressive in this area) by itself, without political reforms, would pull Russia up, eliminate the social ground of anti-government mentality. The tsar wanted to raise the patriotic spirit of the population, relying on officers, merchants, prosperous peasants, merchants ...

But as a result, the Russian revolutionaries only hid, learned the art of conspiracy and began preparing for the coming upheavals. The revolutionary movement has long become an international phenomenon: in the late 1860s, the International organization arose, which coordinated the activities of labor movements in different countries. Hopes that internal Russian measures would be able to put out the world fire forever were naive. As for patriotic ideas, during the reign of Alexander III the fine line between healthy national feeling and morbid nationalism was often broken; Jewish pogroms broke out more than once in the south.

Important events also took place outside the European continent; one of the main ones is the US Civil War (1861-1865) between North and South. The southerners were in favor of maintaining the principles of slavery, the northerners were against it; the meaning of the Civil War was the struggle for the path that America will take in the 20th century, the path of individual rights and civil liberties or the path of slavery and racism ...

Such was the historical background of the literary achievements, the study of which we have to study.

4. Main events of political history

The political history of the Seleucids was determined by the main factors mentioned above. Already Antiochus I had to conduct military operations both in Asia Minor and in southern Syria. In Asia Minor, he defeated the Galatians (278-277 BC), for which he received the title of "Savior" (Soter). War elephants played the most important role in this victory. Less successful was his war with the Ptolemies (First Syrian War -274-271 BC). Although Antiochus's ally, the Macedonian king Antigonus Gonat, managed to neutralize the actions of the powerful Egyptian fleet, Antiochus, who waged a land war, failed to achieve any serious success. Ptolemy II retained all his possessions in southern Syria and even expanded his zone of influence in Asia Minor. By the end of the reign of Antiochus I, Pergamum became completely independent.

In the reign of Antiochus II - the successor of Antiochus I - the Second Syrian War broke out. Information about her in the sources is extremely fragmentary. Antiochus II managed to somewhat expand the boundaries of his possessions in Asia Minor and South Syria. At this time, the situation in the East changed dramatically. Around 250 BC e. there is a falling away from the central government of Bactria and Parthia. The reasons for this lie in the change common line Seleucid policies. Seleucus I and Antiochus I paid great attention to these areas. New cities were actively built here, the borders were strengthened, for example, a wall was built that surrounded the entire Merv oasis. However, in the future, the center of gravity of the Seleucid policy shifted to the West and the eastern satrapies began to be considered by the government only as an object of exploitation, obtaining funds for conducting an active policy in the West. The Greek and Macedonian population of these satrapies could not come to terms with this, since the situation here was also quite complicated (the threat of nomadic invasions, the growth of discontent among the local population), and further continuation of the short-sighted, from their point of view, policy of draining money and human resources could lead to disaster - the fall of the power of the Greek-Macedonians in these satrapies. The fate of the fallen satrapies develops in different ways. An independent kingdom is created on the territory of Bactria, which is usually called Greco-Bactria. In Parthia, the development of the political situation was sharply complicated by the intervention of the nomads of the Parnian confederation. Parns led by Arshak invaded Parthia. In the ensuing struggle, the satrap Andragora died, and the satrapy came under the rule of Arshak. Thus, two independent states appeared on the eastern territories that previously belonged to the Seleucids.

The Seleucid state experienced very severe upheavals at the very end of the reign of Antiochus II. When the king, at the end of the Second Syrian War, concluded a peace treaty with Egypt, as a guarantee of friendship between the two states, a marriage was concluded between Antiochus and Ptolemy's daughter Berenice. In order to marry an Egyptian princess, Antiochus had to divorce his first wife, Laodice, with whom he already had two sons. After the death of Antiochus II, a fierce dynastic struggle begins between the supporters of Laodice and Berenice. Berenice and her newly born son were killed, and Laodice's son Seleucus II had no rivals. However, Ptolemy intervenes in this struggle and the so-called Third Syrian War, or "War of Laodice", begins. Taking advantage of the dynastic strife that reigned in the Seleucid state, Ptolemy captures all the most important cities in Syria, including the capital of the state, Antioch on the Orontes. Seleucus II (246-225 BC) with great difficulty managed to restore his power. Based on an alliance with the rulers of Pontus and Cappadocia, he recaptured most of the cities captured by Egypt. However, he failed to return Seleucia in Pieria - the main base of the Seleucid fleet - and the port of Antioch on the Orontes. The further reign of Seleucus II was filled with a struggle with his younger brother Antiochus Hierax ("vulture"), who claimed power in the state. In the end, Hierax was killed by his own mercenaries, and Seleucus II soon died.

After brief reign Seleucus III the throne passed to the youngest son of Seleucus II - Antiochus III (223-187 BC). The time of his reign is the time of the highest rise of the Seleucid state, but at the same time the beginning of its fall. The political situation in the first years of the reign of Antiochus III was very difficult. In Asia Minor, power belonged to Achaeus, a relative of Antiochus, who apparently had some reason to claim the royal title. He, however, ceded the throne to Antiochus without a fight, receiving in return power over Asia Minor, which he ruled as an independent ruler. In the East, the satrap of Media Molon and his brother Alexander, the satrap of Persia, rebelled against the central government.

Having suppressed the rebellion of Molon, Antiochus III was able to act in the south, the Fourth Syrian War (219-217 BC) began. The Seleucid army returned Seleucia to Pieria, military operations were successfully deployed in Phoenicia and Palestine. However, in a decisive battle at Raphia (217 BC), the Seleucid army was completely defeated. As a result, Antiochus III lost all acquisitions in Syria, with the exception of Seleucia in Pieria.

In the years that followed, Antiochus III led military operations in Asia Minor, where he eventually succeeded in crushing the power of Achaea. Achaeus himself was captured during the siege of Sardis and put to a painful execution. Having thus consolidated his power, Antiochus III launched the famous eastern campaign (212-205 BC), the purpose of which was to restore the power of the Seleucids over the lost eastern provinces. Media served as the base for this campaign. To obtain money, on the orders of Antiochus, the temple of Anahita in Ecbatana was robbed, which gave a huge amount of 4,000 talents. The result of the campaign was the conquest of Parthia and Greco-Bactria, which, however, retained their statehood as vassal kingdoms in relation to the Seleucids. Then the army of Antiochus crossed the Hindu Kush and invaded India; an agreement was concluded with the local king Sophagasen, according to which Antiochus received Indian war elephants. The Seleucid army made its way back through the territory of Southern Iran. Antiochus strengthened the position of his state in the Persian Gulf, from Persia he carried out an expedition to Arabia. Antiochus himself attached such great importance to this campaign that after its completion he took the title of "Great".

After the end of this campaign, Antiochus III again returned to the problem of relations with the Ptolemies. Based on an alliance with Macedonia, Antiochus was able to capture southern Syria, Phoenicia and Palestine, and somewhat later a number of cities belonging to the Ptolemies in Asia Minor.

It was at this time that Antiochus III encountered Rome. Before that, he had already captured Thrace and supported all those in Greece who were dissatisfied with the Roman power. The Romans began, in turn, to prepare for a confrontation with Antiochus. A period of diplomatic and propagandistic confrontation lasted for some time. Roman diplomacy turned out to be more successful: Pergamon, Rhodes and, most importantly, Macedonia, which had recently been defeated by the Romans, and Antiochus especially counted on its support, became allies of Rome. In 192 BC. e. direct military clashes began. They took place on the territory of Greece, where the Seleucid army landed. However, miscalculations in the policy of Antiochus III led to the fact that only the Aetolians became his allies. The army of Antiochus III was defeated at Thermopylae. The war was moved to Asia Minor. Here Antiochus was finally defeated at the Battle of Magnesia on Maeander (190 BC). Unable to resist further, he accepted the conditions dictated by the Romans: he renounced almost all Seleucid possessions in Asia Minor, Rome was given all warships(except 10) and war elephants. In addition, within 12 years it was necessary to pay Rome a huge indemnity of 15 thousand talents.

Experiencing extreme financial difficulties, Antiochus III decided to remedy the situation in an already tried and tested way: to rob the local temples in Elimande, which caused an uprising of the local population, during which Antiochus himself died. The disintegration of the state recreated by Antiochus III began immediately. Greco-Bactria and Parthia again separated from the Seleucid state, Persis fell away, unrest began in many areas.

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