What tradition of Russian literature began with Karamzin? Lesson type: learning new material and primary consolidation of knowledge. Travel to Europe

Pure, high glory of Karamzin
belongs to Russia.
A. S. Pushkin

Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin belongs to the century of Russian enlightenment, appearing before his contemporaries as a first-class poet, playwright, critic, translator, reformer, who laid the foundations of the modern literary language, journalist, and creator of magazines. The personality of Karamzin successfully merged the greatest master of artistic expression and a talented historian. Everywhere his activities are marked by the features of true innovation. He largely prepared the success of his younger contemporaries and followers - figures of the Pushkin period, the golden age of Russian literature.
N.M. Karamzin is a native of a steppe village in Simbirsk, the son of a landowner, a hereditary nobleman. The origins of the formation of the worldview of the future great writer and historian are Russian nature, the Russian word, and the traditional way of life. The caring tenderness of a loving mother, the love and respect of parents for each other, a hospitable home where the father’s friends gathered for a “voluble conversation.” From them Karamzin borrowed “Russian friendliness, ... gained the Russian spirit and noble noble pride.”
Initially he was educated at home. His first teacher was the village sexton, with his obligatory book of hours, with which the teaching of Russian literacy began then. Soon he began to read books left by his late mother, mastering several then popular adventure novels, which contributed to the development of imagination, broadening his horizons, and strengthening the belief that virtue always wins.
Having completed his home science course, N.M. Karamzin goes to Moscow to the boarding house of Moscow University professor Schaden, a wonderful teacher and erudite. Here he improves himself in foreign languages, domestic and world history, seriously studies literature, artistic and moral-philosophical, and turns to his first literary experiments, starting with translations.

N.M. Karamzin was inclined to receive further education in Germany, at the University of Leipzig, but at the insistence of his father he began to serve in St. Petersburg in the Preobrazhensky Guards Regiment. But military service and secular pleasures could not tear him away from literary studies. Moreover, relative N.M. Karamzina I.I. Dmitriev, a poet and prominent dignitary, introduces him to the circle of St. Petersburg writers.
Soon Karamzin retires and leaves for Simbirsk, where he has great success in local secular society, being equally skillful at whist and in ladies' society. Later he thought about this time with longing, as if it were lost. A sharp change in his life was brought about by a meeting with an old family acquaintance, a famous lover of antiquities and Russian literature, Ivan Petrovich Turgenev. Turgenev was N.I.’s closest friend. Novikov and shared his broad educational plans. He took young Karamzin to Moscow and invited N.I. to participate in educational and publishing activities. Novikova.
The beginning of his own literary activity dates back to this time: translations from Shakespeare, Lessing, etc., publishing debut in the magazine "Children's Reading", the first mature poetic works. Among them are the program poem “Poetry”, messages to Dmitriev, “War Song”, etc. We have preserved them in the collection “Karamzin and the Poets of His Time” (1936).

These works are important not only for revealing the origins of his work, they mark a qualitatively new step in the development of Russian poetry. A subtle connoisseur of 18th-century literature P.A. Vyazemsky wrote about N.M. Karamzine: “As a prose writer, he is much higher, but many of his poems are very remarkable. With them began our inner, homely, soulful poetry, the echoes of which were later heard so vividly and deeply in the strings of Zhukovsky, Batyushkov and Pushkin himself.”
Captivated by the idea of ​​self-improvement, having tested himself in translations and poetry, N.M. Karamzin realized that he would write without knowing what else. Therefore, he set off on a trip to Europe in order to add significance to future works through the acquired experience.
So, an ardent, sensitive, dreamy, educated young man, Karamzin sets off on a trip to Western Europe. In May 1789 - September 1790. he traveled around Germany, Switzerland, France, and England. He visited remarkable places, scientific meetings, theaters, museums, observed public life, got acquainted with local publications, met famous people - philosophers, scientists, writers, and compatriots who were abroad.
In Dresden, I visited the famous art gallery; in Leipzig, I enjoyed the many bookstores, public libraries, and people who needed books. But Karamzin the traveler was not a simple observer, sentimental and carefree. He persistently seeks meetings with interesting people, takes advantage of every available opportunity to talk with them about exciting moral issues. He visited Kant, although he had no letters of recommendation to the great philosopher. I talked with him for about three hours. But not every young traveler could speak as an equal with Kant himself! At a meeting with German professors, he talked about Russian literature and, to prove that the Russian language “is not disgusting to the ears,” he read Russian poetry to them. He recognized himself as an authorized representative of Russian literature.

Nikolai Mikhailovich really wanted to go to Switzerland, to the “land of freedom and prosperity.” He spent the winter in Geneva, admiring the magnificent Swiss nature and visiting places haunted by the memory of the great Jean-Jacques Rousseau, whose Confessions he had just read.
If Switzerland seemed to him the pinnacle of spiritual communication between man and nature, then France was the pinnacle of human civilization, the triumph of reason and art. To Paris N.M. Karamzin found himself in the midst of a revolution. Here he visited the National Assembly and revolutionary clubs, followed the press, and talked with prominent political figures. He met Robespierre and retained respect for his revolutionary conviction until the end of his life.
And how many surprises were hidden in the Parisian theaters! But most of all he was struck by the naive melodrama from Russian history - “Peter the Great”. He forgave the ignorance of the directors, the absurdity of the costumes, and the absurdity of the plot - a sentimental love story between an emperor and a peasant woman. I forgave him because after the end of the performance he “wiped away his tears” and was glad that he was Russian! And the excited spectators around him were talking about Russians...

Here he is in England, “in that land that in his childhood he loved with such fervor.” And he likes a lot here: cute English women, English cuisine, roads, crowds and order everywhere. Here the artisan reads Hume, the maid reads Stern and Richardson, the shopkeeper talks about the trade benefits of his fatherland, newspapers and magazines are of interest not only to city dwellers, but also to villagers. They are all proud of their constitution and somehow impress Karamzin more than all other Europeans.
Nikolai Mikhailovich’s natural powers of observation are striking, allowing him to grasp the characteristic features of everyday life, notice little things, and create general characteristics of the Parisian crowd, the French, and the English. His love for nature, interest in the sciences and arts, deep respect for European culture and its outstanding representatives - all this speaks of the high talent of a person and a writer.
His journey lasted a year and a half, and all this time N.M. Karamzin remembered the dear fatherland he had left behind and thought about its historical destinies, and was sad about his friends who remained at home. Having returned, he began to publish “Letters of a Russian Traveler” in the “Moscow Journal” he created. Subsequently, they were compiled into a book the likes of which Russian literature has never known before. A hero came into it, endowed with a high consciousness of his personal and national dignity. The book also reflected the noble personality of the author, and the depth and independence of his judgments earned him fame, the love of readers, and recognition in Russian literature for a long time. He himself said about his book: “Here is the mirror of my soul for eighteen months!”
“Letters of a Russian Traveler” was a huge success among readers, based on the entertaining content and light, elegant language. They became a kind of encyclopedia of knowledge about Western Europe and for more than fifty years were considered one of the most fascinating books in the Russian language, going through several editions.
Our library preserves the first volume of “Letters,” published by A.S. Suvorin in 1900 in the series “Cheap Library”.

It is known that this was a publicly available series, the need for which was felt by Russian society throughout the second half of the 19th century. More than 500 books by Russian and foreign authors were published here, which were published in mass editions and cost no more than 40 kopecks. Among them are A. Griboedov, N. Gogol, A. Pushkin, D. Davydov, E. Baratynsky, F. Dostoevsky, V. Shakespeare, G. Hauptmann.
In our copy of “Letters of a Russian Traveler” you can see unique materials taken from the Leipzig edition of the book in 1799, translated by I. Richter, who was a friend of the author and did his translation before his eyes in Moscow. N.M. Karamzin, as stated in Richter’s preface, reviewed this translation himself. Its peculiarity lies in the fact that it is accompanied by several copper engravings depicting some scenes described on the journey - genre pictures of a good-natured comic nature. And since Richter’s translation was published not without the assistance of Karamzin, we can assume his participation in the selection of subjects for illustrations. Our edition includes accurate photographs of these engravings, a portrait of the author, and a copy of the title page of Part I of the separate 1797 edition of the Letters. We placed them in the text of the story.
We have a copy of “Letters”, published in the “Russian Classroom Library” series, published under the editorship of the famous philologist and educator A.N. Chudinova. It was printed in St. Petersburg, in the printing house of I. Glazunov in 1892.

This manual is a selection from the works of N.M. Karamzin places, the most important and significant, according to the publishers. Since this publication is educational, it is equipped with numerous and detailed comments and footnotes to help the teacher of Russian literature.

Meanwhile, Nikolai Mikhailovich is trying his hand at prose, looking for himself in various literary genres: sentimental, romantic, historical stories. The fame of the best fiction writer in Russia comes to him. For the first time, the public, brought up on foreign literature, reads with such lively interest and sympathy a Russian author. Popularity of N.M. Karamzin grows both in the circle of provincial nobles and in the merchant-philistine environment.

He is rightfully considered one of the transformers of the Russian language. Of course, he had predecessors. D. Kantemir, V. Trediakovsky, D. Fonvizin, as I. Dmitriev noted, “attempted to bring the book language closer to that used in societies,” but this task was fully solved by N.M. Karamzin, who “began to write in a language suitable to the spoken language, when parents with children, Russians with Russians, were not ashamed to speak their natural language.”

He is concerned about issues of education, dissemination of knowledge, education, and moral education. In the article “On the book trade and the love of reading in Russia” (Works of Karamzin. T. 7. M., 1803. pp. 342-352), he reflects on the role of reading, which “has an influence on the mind, without which no heart can survive.” feels, nor imagination imagines,” and asserts that “novels...contribute in some way to enlightenment...whoever reads them will speak better and more coherently...learn both geography and natural history. In a word, it’s good that our public reads novels.”

N.M. Karamzin introduced into Russian literature both a new understanding of man and new genres, later so brilliantly mastered by K. Batyushkov, V. Zhukovsky, A. Pushkin. He enriched the poetic language with new images and phrases that made it possible to express the complexity of a person’s spiritual life, his subtle feelings and tragic experiences.
But interest in history and a great desire to study only it have always dominated. That's why he left fine literature, turning to history. N.M. Karamzin is sure that “history, in a sense, is the sacred book of peoples: the main, necessary; a mirror of their existence and activity; the tablet of revelations and rules; the covenant of ancestors to posterity; addition, explanation of the present and example of the future..."
So, work ahead on the creation of the largest historical canvas - “History of the Russian State”. In 1803, Nikolai Mikhailovich received a decree signed by Emperor Alexander I, which stated that, approving his desire in such a commendable undertaking as the composition of a complete history of our Fatherland, the emperor appoints him a historiographer, court adviser and grants him an annual pension. Now he could devote all his energy to the implementation of his plan.
Pushkin noted that Karamzin retired “to his study room during the most flattering successes” and devoted several years of his life to “silent and tireless labors.” Nikolai Mikhailovich is working especially intensively on the composition of “History” in Ostafyevo, the estate of the Vyazemsky princes near Moscow. He was married for the second time to the daughter of Prince A.I. Vyazemsky, Ekaterina Andreevna. In her person he found a reliable friend, an intelligent, well-educated assistant. She helped in rewriting completed chapters and corrected the first edition of the History. And most importantly, she provided that peace of mind and conditions for creativity, without which her husband’s enormous work would simply be impossible. Karamzin usually got up at nine o'clock and began the day, in any weather, with an hour's walk or horseback ride. After breakfast, he went into his office, where he worked until three or four o’clock, sitting over manuscripts for months and years.

“The History of the Russian State” was created on the basis of a critical study of all previous literature and the development of various sources stored in archives and libraries. In addition to the state ones, Karamzin used the private collections of Musin-Pushkin, the Rumyantsevs, the Turgenevs, the Muravyovs, Tolstoy, Uvarov, and the collections of the university and synodal libraries. This allowed him to introduce into scientific use a huge amount of historical material and, above all, archival primary sources, famous chronicles, the work of Daniil Zatochnik, the Code of Law of Ivan III, many embassy affairs, from which he drew the high patriotic idea of ​​power, the indestructibility of the Russian land while it is united.
Nikolai Mikhailovich often complained about how difficult and slow progress “is my only business and main pleasure.” And the work was truly gigantic! He divided the text into two parts. The upper, main, “for the public” - artistically processed, figurative speech, where events unfold, where historical figures act in carefully reconstructed specific circumstances, where their speech is heard, the roar of battles of Russian knights with enemies who attacked cities and towns with a sword and fire. From volume to volume Karamzin describes not only wars, but also all civil institutions, legislation, morals, customs, and the character of our ancestors.

But, in addition to the main text, there are numerous notes (“notes”, “notes”, as the author called them), which provided comparisons of various chronicle texts, contained critical judgments about the work of predecessors, and provided additional data not included in the main text. Of course, scientific research of this level required a lot of time. When starting work on creating “History,” Nikolai Mikhailovich intended to complete it in five years. But in all this time he only reached 1611.

Work on “The History of the Russian State” took the last 23 years of N.M.’s life. Karamzin. In 1816, he brought the first eight volumes to St. Petersburg, they began to be printed in three printing houses at once - Senate, medical and military. They went on sale at the beginning of 1818 and were a stunning success.
Its first 3,000 copies sold out in one month. They eagerly awaited the release of new volumes, read them with lightning speed, argued and wrote about them. A.S. Pushkin recalled: “Everyone, even secular women, rushed to read the history of their fatherland, hitherto unknown to them, it was a new discovery for them...” He admitted that he himself read the History with “greed and attention.”

“The History of the Russian State” was not the first book about Russian history, but it was the first book about Russian history that could be read easily and with interest, the story of which was memorable. Before Karamzin, this information was distributed only to a narrow circle of specialists. Even the Russian intelligentsia knew almost nothing about the country's past. Karamzin made a whole revolution in this regard. He opened Russian history for Russian culture. For the first time, the enormous material studied by the writer was presented systematically, vividly and entertainingly. The bright, full of contrasts, spectacular stories in his “History” made a huge impression and were read like a novel. The artistic talent of N.M. was also revealed in the historical work. Karamzin. All readers admired the historiographer’s language. According to V. Belinsky, this is “a marvelous carving on copper and marble, which neither time nor envy will destroy.”

“The History of the Russian State” has been published several times in the past. During the historian’s lifetime, it managed to be published in two editions. The unfinished 12th volume was published posthumously.
A number of translations have appeared into major European languages. The author himself did the proofreading of the first two editions. Nikolai Mikhailovich made many clarifications and additions to the second edition. All subsequent ones were based on it. The most famous publishers republished it several times. “History” was repeatedly published as supplements to popular magazines.

To this day, “The History of the Russian State” remains a valuable historical source and is read with great interest.
Fiction, journalism, publishing, history, language - these are the areas of Russian culture that were enriched as a result of the activities of this talented person.
Following Pushkin, one can repeat now: “The pure, high glory of Karamzin belongs to Russia, and not a single writer with true talent, not a single truly learned person, even among those who were his opponents, refused him tribute of respect and gratitude.”
We hope that our material will help bring Karamzin’s era closer to the modern reader and provide an opportunity to feel the full power of the talent of the Russian enlightener.

List of works by N.M. Karamzina,
mentioned in the review:

Karamzin, Nikolai Mikhailovich Translations of Karamzin: in 9 volumes - 4th ed. – St. Petersburg: Printing house of A. Smirdin, 1835.
T. 9: Pantheon of Foreign Literature: [Ch. 3]. – 1835. – , 270 p. R1 K21 M323025 KH(RF)

Karamzin, Nikolai Mikhailovich. History of the Russian State: in 12 volumes / N. M. Karamzin. – Second edition, revised. – St. Petersburg: In the printing house of N. Grech: Dependent on the Slenin brothers, 1818–1829.
T. 2. – 1818. – 260, p. 9(C)1 K21 29930 KH(RF)
T. 12 – 1829. – VII, , 330, , 243, p. 9S(1) K21 27368 KH(RF)

Karamzin and the poets of his time: poems / art., ed. and note. A. Kucherov, A. Maksimovich and B. Tomashevsky. - [Moscow] ; [Leningrad]: Soviet writer, 1936. – 493 pp.; l. portrait ; 13X8 cm. – (Poet's Library. Small series; No. 7) R1 K21 M42761 KH (RF).

Karamzin, Nikolai Mikhailovich. Letters from a Russian traveler: from a portrait. auto and rice / N. M. Karamzin. – 4th ed. – St. Petersburg: Edition of A. S. Suvorin, . – (Cheap Library; No. 45).
T. 1. – . – XXXII, 325 p., l. portrait, l. ill. R1 K21 M119257KH(RF)

Karamzin, Nikolai Mikhailovich. Selected works: [in 2 hours] / N. M. Karamzin. - St. Petersburg: Publishing house I. Glazunov, 1892. - (Russian classroom library: a guide to the study of Russian literature / edited by A. N. Chudinov; issue IX).
Part 2: Letters from a Russian traveler: with notes. - 1892. - , VIII, 272 pp., front. (portrait).R1 K21 M12512 KH (RF)

Karamzin, Nikolai Mikhailovich. Works of Karamzin: in 8 volumes - Moscow: In the printing house of S. Selivanovsky, 1803. - .
T. 7. – 1803. – , 416, p. R1 K21 M15819 KH(RF)

Karamzin, Nikolai Mikhailovich. History of the Russian State: in 12 volumes / N. M. Karamzin. – 3rd ed. – St. Petersburg: Dependent on bookseller Smirdin, 1830–1831.
T. 1 – 1830. – XXXVI, 197, , 156, 1 p. kart. 9(S)1 K21 M12459 KH(RF)

Karamzin, Nikolai Mikhailovich. History of the Russian State / Op. N. M. Karamzin: in 3 books. containing 12 volumes, with full notes, decorations. portrait auto., grav. on steel in London. – 5th ed. – St. Petersburg: Publishing house. I. Einerlinga: In type. Eduard Pratz, 1842–1844.
Book 1 (volumes 1, 2, 3, 4) – 1842. – XVII, 156, 192, 174, 186, 150, 171, 138, 162, stb., 1 l. kart. (9(C)1 K21 F3213 KH(RF)

Karamzin, Nikolai Mikhailovich. History of the Russian State: in 12 volumes / Op. N. M. Karamzina - Moscow: Publishing house. A. A. Petrovich: Typo-lithogr. Comrade N. Kushnerev and Co., 1903.

T. 5–8. – 1903. – 198, 179, 112, 150 pp. 9(C)1 K21 M15872 KH

Karamzin, Nikolai Mikhailovich. History of the Russian State / N. M. Karamzin; oven under the supervision of prof. P. N. Polevoy. T. 1–12. – St. Petersburg: Type. E. A. Evdokimova, 1892.

T. 1 – 1892. – 172, 144 pp., front. (portrait, fax), 5 l. ill. : ill. (Library of the North). 9(C)1 K21 29963

List of used literature:

Lotman Yu. M. The Creation of Karamzin / Yu. M. Lotman; preface B. Egorova. – Moscow: Book, 1987. – 336 p. : ill. – (Writers about writers). 83.3(2=Rus)1 L80 420655-KH

Muravyov V.B. Karamzin: / V. Muravyov. – Moscow: Young Guard, 2014. – 476, p. : l. ill., portrait 83.3(2=Rus)1 M91 606675-KH

Smirnov A. F. Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin / A. F. Smirnov. – Moscow: Rossiyskaya Gazeta, 2005. – 560 p. : ill. 63.3(2) S50 575851-KH

Eidelman N. Ya. The last chronicler / N. Ya. Eidelman. – Moscow: Vagrius, 2004. – 254 p. 63.1(2)4 E30 554585-KH
Tsurikova G. “Here is the mirror of my soul...” / G. Tsurikova, I. Kuzmichev // Aurora. – 1982. – No. 6. – P. 131-141.

Head sector of rare and valuable books
Karaseva N.B

1. The formation of literary activity.
2. The beginning of Russian sentimental-romantic prose and poetry.
3. Karamzin’s innovation and its significance for Russian literature.

N. M. Karamzin was born into the family of a Simbirsk nobleman and spent his childhood in a village located on the banks of the Volga. The future literary figure received an excellent education at the boarding school of Schaden, a professor at Moscow University. While still a student, the young man showed interest in Russian literature, moreover, he tried himself in prose and poetry. However, Karamzin for a long time cannot set a goal for himself, determine his purpose in this life. He is helped in this by I. S. Turgenev, a meeting with whom turned the young man’s whole life upside down. Nikolai Mikhailovich moves to Moscow and becomes a visitor to I. A. Novikov’s circle.

Soon attention is paid to the young man. Novikov instructs Karamzin and A.A. Petrov to edit the magazine “Children's Reading for the Heart and Mind.” This literary activity undoubtedly brings great benefits to the young writer. Gradually, in his works, Karamzin abandons complex, overloaded syntactic structures and high lexical means. His worldview is greatly influenced by two things: enlightenment and Freemasonry. Moreover, in the latter case, the Freemasons’ desire for self-knowledge and interest in the inner life of a person played no small role. It is human character, personal experiences, soul and heart that the writer puts at the head of the table in his works. He is interested in everything that is in any way connected with the inner world of people. On the other hand, all of Nikolai Mikhailovich’s work is marked by a peculiar attitude towards the order established in Russia: “I am a republican at heart. And I will die like this... I do not demand a constitution or representatives, but in my feelings I will remain a republican, and, moreover, a loyal subject of the Russian Tsar: this is a contradiction, not only an imaginary one! At the same time, Karamzin can be called the founder of Russian sentimental-romantic literature. Despite the fact that the literary heritage of this talented person is relatively small, it has never been fully collected. There remain many diary entries and private letters containing new ideas for the development of Russian literature that have not yet been published.

Karamzin's first literary steps have already attracted the attention of the entire literary community. To some extent, the great Russian commander A.M. Kutuzov predicted his future: “The French Revolution took place in him... but years and experiences will once cool his imagination, and he will look at everything with different eyes.” The commander's assumptions were confirmed. In one of his poems Nikolai Mikhailovich writes:

But time and experience destroy
Castle in the air of youth;
The beauty of magic disappears...
Now I see a different light, -

Karamzin's poetic works constantly touch upon, reveal, expose the essence of man, his soul and heart. In his article “What does an author need?” the poet directly states that any writer “paints a portrait of his soul and heart.” Since his student years, the talented young man has shown interest in poets of the sentimental and pre-romantic movements. He speaks enthusiastically of Shakespeare due to his lack of selectivity in the object of his work. The great playwright of the past, according to Karamzin, opposed the classicists and approached the romantics. His ability to penetrate into “human nature” delighted the poet: “...for every thought he finds an image, for every sensation an expression, for every movement of the soul the best turn.”

Karamzin was a preacher of a new aesthetics, which did not accept any dogmatic rules and clichés and did not at all interfere with the free imagination of a genius. In the poet’s understanding, it acted as a “science of taste.” In Russian literature, conditions have arisen that require new ways of depicting reality, ways based on sensitivity. That is why neither “low ideas” nor descriptions of terrible scenes could appear in a work of art. The writer’s first work, designed in a sentimental style, appeared on the pages of “Children’s Reading” and was called “Russian True Tale: Evgeny and Yulia.” It told about the life of Mrs. L. and her pupil Julia, who, “waking up with nature,” enjoyed the “pleasures of the morning” and read “the works of true philosophers.” However, the sentimental story ends tragically - the mutual love of Julia and Mrs. L.'s son Evgeniy does not save the young man from death. This work is not entirely typical of Karamzin, although it touches on some sentimental ideas. The work of Nikolai Mikhailovich is more characterized by a romantic vision of the world around him, as well as genre speciation. This is precisely what many poems of the talented writer, created in an elegiac tone, testify to:

My friend! Materiality is poor:
Play with your dreams in your soul,
Otherwise life will be boring.

Another famous work by Karamzin, “Letters of a Russian Traveler,” is a continuation of the tradition of travel, popular in those days in Russia thanks to the work of F. Delorme and K. F. Moritz. The writer turned to this genre not by chance. He was famous for his relaxed form of narration about everything that could come across the author’s path. In addition, in the process of travel, the character of the traveler himself is revealed in the best possible way. In his work, Karamzin pays great attention to the main character and narrator; it is his feelings and experiences that are fully manifested here. The traveler's state of mind is described in a sentimental manner, but the depiction of reality amazes the reader with its truthfulness and realism. Often the author uses a fictitious plot invented by a traveler, but immediately corrects himself, claiming that the artist should write everything as it was: “I wrote in the novel. That the evening was the most stormy; that the rain did not leave a dry thread on me... but in fact the evening turned out to be the quietest and clearest.” Thus, romance gives way to realism. In his work, the author is not an outside observer, but an active participant in everything that happens. He states the facts and gives an acceptable explanation of what happened. The focus of the work is the problem of the socio-political life of Russia and art. That is, again romance is closely intertwined with reality. The writer's sentimental style is manifested in melodiousness, in the absence of rude, colloquial expressions in the text, and in the predominance of words expressing various feelings.

Karamzin's poetic works are also filled with pre-romantic motifs, often characterized by moods of sadness, loneliness and melancholy. For the first time in Russian literature, the writer in his poetry turns to the otherworldly, bringing happiness and peace. This theme sounds especially clear in the poem “Cemetery”, constructed in the form of a dialogue between two voices. The first tells about the horror instilled in a person by thoughts of death, while the other sees only joy in death. In his lyrics, Karamzin achieves an amazing simplicity of style, abandoning vivid metaphors and unusual epithets.

In general, the literary work of Nikolai Mikhailovich played a big role in the development of Russian literature. V. G. Belinsky rightfully attributed to the poet the discovery of a new literary era, believing that this talented man “created an educated literary language in Rus',” which significantly helped “to make the Russian public eager to read Russian books.” Karamzin’s activities played a huge role in the development of such outstanding Russian writers as K. N. Batyushkov and V. A. Zhukovsky. From his very first literary experiments, Nikolai Mikhailovich showed innovative qualities, trying to find his own path in literature, revealing characters and themes in a new way, using stylistic means, in particular in terms of prose genres.

Karamzin himself characterizes his work in the best possible way, speaking about the activities of W. Shakespeare, however, following the same principles: “he did not want to observe the so-called unities, which our current dramatic authors so firmly adhere to. He did not want to put tight limits on his imagination. His spirit soared like an eagle and could not measure its soaring with the measure with which sparrows measure theirs.”

: journalism, criticism, story, novel, historical story, journalism, study of history. V.G. Belinsky

Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin is an outstanding reformer of the Russian language. He left a noticeable mark on science, art, and journalism, but an important result of Karamzin’s work in the 1790s was the reform of the language, which was based on the desire to bring the written language closer to the living spoken language of the educated layer of society. Thanks to Karamzin, the Russian reader began to think, feel and express himself somewhat differently.

In our speech we use many words introduced into colloquial circulation by Karamzin. But speech is always a reflection of a person’s intellect, culture, and spiritual maturity. After Peter's reforms in Russia, a gap arose between the spiritual needs of an enlightened society and the semantic structure of the Russian language. All educated people were forced to speak French, since in the Russian language there were no words and concepts to express many thoughts and feelings. In order to express in Russian the diversity of concepts and manifestations of the human soul, it was necessary to develop the Russian language, create a new speech culture, and bridge the gap between literature and life. By the way, at that time the French language really had a pan-European distribution; not only the Russian, but, for example, the German intelligentsia preferred it to their native language.

In an article of 1802 “On love for the Fatherland and national pride,” Karamzin wrote: “Our trouble is that we all want to speak French and do not think about working on mastering our own language; Is it any wonder that we don’t know how to explain to them some of the subtleties in conversation” - and called for giving the native language all the subtleties of the French language. At the end of the 18th century, Karamzin came to the conclusion that the Russian language was outdated and needed to be reformed. Karamzin was not a tsar, nor was he a minister. Therefore, Karamzin’s reform was expressed not in the fact that he issued some decrees and changed the norms of the language, but in the fact that he himself began to write his works in a new way and place translated works written in a new literary language in his almanacs.

Readers became acquainted with these books and learned new principles of literary speech, which were focused on the norms of the French language (these principles were called the “new syllable”). Karamzin’s initial task was for Russians to begin to write as they speak, and for noble society to begin to speak as they write. It was these two tasks that determined the essence of the writer’s stylistic reform. In order to bring the literary language closer to the spoken language, first of all, it was necessary to free literature from Church Slavonicisms (heavy, outdated Slavic expressions, which in the spoken language had already been replaced by others, softer, more elegant).

Outdated Old Church Slavonicisms such as: abiye, byakhu, koliko, ponezhe, ubo, etc. have become undesirable. Karamzin’s statements are known: “To do, instead of to do, cannot be said in conversation, and especially to a young girl.” But Karamzin could not completely abandon Old Church Slavonicisms: this would cause enormous harm to the Russian literary language. Therefore, it was allowed to use Old Church Slavonicisms, which: a) in the Russian language retained a high, poetic character (“sitting under the shade of trees”, “on the gates of the temple I look at the image of miracles”, “this memory shook her soul”, “his hand kindled only a single sun on firmament"); b) can be used for artistic purposes (“a golden ray of hope, a ray of consolation illuminated the darkness of her sorrow”, “no one will throw a stone at a tree if there is no fruit on it”); c) being abstract nouns, they are capable of changing their meaning in new contexts (“there were great singers in Rus', whose creations were buried for centuries”); d) can act as a means of historical stylization (“I listen to the dull groan of the times,” “Nikon resigned his supreme rank and ... spent his days dedicated to God and soul-saving labors”). The second step in reforming the language was the simplification of syntactic structures. Karamzin resolutely abandoned the heavy German-Latin syntactic construction introduced by Lomonosov, which was not in keeping with the spirit of the Russian language. Instead of long and incomprehensible periods, Karamzin began to write in clear and concise phrases, using light, elegant and logically harmonious French prose as a model.

In the “Pantheon of Russian Writers” he decisively declared: “Lomonosov’s prose cannot serve as a model for us at all: his long periods are tiresome, the arrangement of words is not always consistent with the flow of thoughts.” Unlike Lomonosov, Karamzin strove to write in short, easily understandable sentences. In addition, Karamzin replaces the Old Slavonic conjunctions yako, paki, zane, koliko, etc. with Russian conjunctions and allied words that, so that, when, how, which, where, because (“Liza demanded that Erast often visit her mother “,” “Lisa said where she lives, said and went.”) Rows of subordinating conjunctions give way to non-conjunction and coordinating constructions with conjunctions a, and, but, yes, or, etc.: “Liza fixed her gaze on him and thought. .”, “Liza followed him with her eyes, and her mother sat in thought,” “She already wanted to run after Erast, but the thought: “I have a mother!” stopped her."

Karamzin uses a direct word order, which seemed to him more natural and consistent with the train of thought and movement of a person’s feelings: “One day Lisa had to go to Moscow,” “The next day Lisa picked the best lilies of the valley and again went with them to the city,” “Erast jumped out onto the shore and approached Lisa.” The third stage of Karamzin’s language program was the enrichment of the Russian language with a number of neologisms, which were firmly included in the main vocabulary. Among the innovations proposed by the writer are the words known in our time: industry, development, sophistication, concentrate, touching, entertaining, humanity, public, generally useful, influence, future, love, need, etc., some of them have not taken root in Russian language (realness, infantile, etc.) We know that even in the era of Peter the Great, many foreign words appeared in the Russian language, but they mostly replaced words that already existed in the Slavic language and were not a necessity; in addition, these words were taken in their raw form, and therefore were very heavy and clumsy (“fortecia” instead of “fortress”, “victory” instead of “victory”).

Karamzin, on the contrary, tried to give foreign words a Russian ending, adapting them to the requirements of Russian grammar, for example, “serious”, “moral”, “aesthetic”, “audience”, “harmony”, “enthusiasm”. Karamzin and his supporters preferred words that expressed feelings and experiences, creating “pleasantness”; for this they often used diminutive suffixes (horn, shepherd, brook, mother, villages, path, bank, etc.). Words that create “beauty” were also introduced into the context (flowers, dove, kiss, lilies, esters, curl, etc.). Proper names, naming ancient gods, European artists, heroes of ancient and Western European literature, were also used by Karamzinists in order to give the story a sublime tone.

The beauty of speech was created with the help of syntactic constructions close to phraseological combinations (the luminary of the day - the sun; the bards of singing - the poet; the gentle friend of our life - hope; the cypresses of conjugal love - family life, marriage; to move to the heavenly abodes - to die, etc. ). Among Karamzin’s other introductions, one can note the creation of the letter E. The letter E is the youngest letter of the modern Russian alphabet. It was introduced by Karamzin in 1797. One can say even more precisely: the letter E was introduced by Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin in 1797, in the almanac “Aonids”, in the word “tears”. Before this, instead of the letter E in Russia, they wrote the digraph io (introduced around the middle of the 18th century), and even earlier they wrote the usual letter E. In the first decade of the 19th century, the Karamzin reform of the literary language was greeted with enthusiasm and gave rise to keen public interest in the problems of literary norms. Most of the young writers contemporary to Karamzin accepted his transformations and followed him.

But not all his contemporaries agreed with him; many did not want to accept his innovations and rebelled against Karamzin as a dangerous and harmful reformer. Such opponents of Karamzin were led by Shishkov, a famous statesman of that time. Shishkov was an ardent patriot, but was not a philologist, so his attacks on Karamzin were not philologically justified and were rather of a moral, patriotic, and sometimes even political nature. Shishkov accused Karamzin of corrupting his native language, of being anti-national, of dangerous freethinking, and even of corrupting morals. Shishkov said that only purely Slavic words can express pious feelings, feelings of love for the fatherland. Foreign words, in his opinion, distort rather than enrich the language: “The ancient Slavic language, the father of many dialects, is the root and beginning of the Russian language, which itself was abundant and rich; it does not need enrichment with French words.”

Shishkov proposed replacing already established foreign expressions with old Slavic ones; for example, replace “actor” with “actor”, “heroism” with “valiant soul”, “audience” with “listening”, “review” with “review of books”. It is impossible not to recognize Shishkov’s ardent love for the Russian language; One cannot help but admit that the passion for everything foreign, especially French, has gone too far in Russia and has led to the fact that the common people's, peasant language has become very different from the language of the cultural classes; but it is also impossible not to admit that it was impossible to stop the naturally occurring evolution of language; it was impossible to forcefully return into use the already outdated expressions that Shishkov proposed (“zane”, “ugo”, “izhe”, “yako” and others). In this language dispute, history has shown a convincing victory for Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin and his followers. And mastering his lessons helped Pushkin complete the formation of the language of new Russian literature.

Literature

1. Vinogradov V.V. Language and style of Russian writers: from Karamzin to Gogol. -M., 2007, 390 p.

2. Voilova K.A., Ledeneva V.V. History of the Russian literary language: a textbook for universities. M.: Bustard, 2009. - 495 p. 3. Lotman Yu.M. The Creation of Karamzin. - M., 1998, 382 p. 4. Electronic resource // sbiblio.com: Russian Humanitarian Internet University. - 2002.

N.V. Smirnova

03.19.-03.20.2020, Thursday-Friday: Mikhail Nebogatov. I AM MYSELF. Part two (continued) I offer the text of the autobiography, most likely dating back to 1962, when Nebogatov had not yet been accepted as a member of the Union of Writers of the USSR and when a collection of poems about nature “Native Country Roads” was being prepared, which was published in 1963. (By the nature of the text, one can judge that it was compiled according to some kind of model, where the author had to answer a certain range of questions, as in a questionnaire. - Note by N. Inyakina). I will attach the manuscript with photographs. Shall we read it? Autobiography Born on October 5, 1921 in the city. Guryevsk, Kemerovo region (formerly Novosibirsk) in the family of an employee (father was an accountant at a metallurgical plant, mother was a housewife). He graduated from seven classes and, due to financial insecurity, was forced to leave school. From 1938 to April 1941 he worked as an inventory technician in Kemerovo. In April 1941 he was drafted into the army. Before the war, he served in the city of Brody, Lviv region, then in the active army. Participated in battles. Was wounded twice. In November 1943, he was demobilized due to injury and returned to Kemerovo. He worked as a military instructor in a vocational school, and as a cultural worker in a woodworking artel. For two years he was an employee of the regional newspaper "Kuzbass", and for the same amount of time - an employee of the regional radio. Most recently, from 1953 to 1957, he worked as an editor of the fiction department in a regional book publishing house. Since September 1957 I have not been a member of the staff anywhere; I live by literary work. He began publishing in 1945, mainly in the Kuzbass newspaper, as well as in the local almanac, in the Siberian Lights magazine and in various collections. He published five books of poetry: “Sunny Days” (1952), “On the Banks of the Tom” (1953), “To Young Friends” (1957), “To My Countrymen” (1958), “Lyrics” ( 1961). Recently I proposed a new collection to a local publishing house - poems about nature. Non-partisan. Married. I have three children. Wife, Maria Ivanovna Nebogatova – born in 1925; children: Svetlana - since 1947, Alexander - since 1949, Vladimir - since 1950. Home address: Kemerovo, Sovetsky Prospekt, 67, apt. 52. _______________ (signature) Nebogatov Mikhail Alexandrovich. And here is what M. Nebogatov writes in the story “About Myself,” published in the collection “May Snow” (1966). I take this story from Svetlana Nebogatova’s book “Mikhail Nebogatov. POET. Diary entries from different years." – Kemerovo, 2006. – 300 pp.: ill. (see pp. 5-6): ABOUT MYSELF “I was born on October 5, 1921 in Guryevsk, Kemerovo region. My father, Alexander Alekseevich, was an accountant at a metallurgical plant. All I remember about him is that he was a very tall and very broad-shouldered man with kind eyes. He died, as they say, overnight, having gone to the forest in winter to get firewood. This happened when I was not even five years old. A great burden fell on the shoulders of my mother, Klavdia Stepanovna. Besides me, the youngest, she had two other minor children with her, and it was not easy for the housewife-mother to feed and clothe us. The need was so desperate that I sometimes did not go to school for weeks: I had no shoes. Everyday hardships were brightened up by friendship in the family, kindness and affection of the mother. An illiterate woman, she nevertheless had an extraordinary mind, had a good sense of the living poetic word, and knew many poems by heart (especially Nekrasov and Koltsov). Her speech was full of proverbs and sayings, and some neighbors were even afraid of her sharp tongue. I think that the love for literature and in particular poetry was instilled in me by her, my mother. I started writing poetry as a child. My first work was born like this: I read Nekrasov’s poem “Orina, Mother of a Soldier” and translated it in my own way, in my own words. He distorted Nekrasov, of course, shamelessly, but he did not recognize his experience as a failure, he was very proud of it in his soul. For a long time, my love for poetry coexisted with my passion for drawing. I made copies of various pictures quite successfully: they took not the last place at school exhibitions. In 1937, the family moved to Kemerovo. Soon I was forced to leave my studies and begin an independent career in an inventory bureau, as an inventory technician. My older brother and sister had started families by this time, and her youngest son became the mother’s breadwinner. (Mikhail is the thirteenth child in the family. – Ed.). In April 1941 I was drafted into the army, and in June the Great Patriotic War broke out. At first I was an ordinary Red Army soldier, then - in the spring of 1943 - I attended a three-month course at a military school, from where I graduated with the rank of junior lieutenant. Participated in battles in the Smolensk and Voroshilovgrad regions. In the fall of the same year, 1943, he was demobilized due to injury and returned to Kemerovo. During my military service, I wrote less than a dozen poems. Frankly speaking, I envy those poets who, even in a combat situation, in the most unsuitable conditions for creativity, continued to create. Both at the front and at first after returning home, I did not at all think that literature would one day become my profession; I studied poetry in an amateurish way, casually. I consider 1945 to be the beginning of serious creative work, when my poems began to appear frequently in the regional newspaper Kuzbass. After the army, for the first time he worked as a military commander, a cultural worker, then he was invited to the editorial office of the Kuzbass newspaper as a literary employee. He was also a radio correspondent and editor of the fiction department at the Kemerovo book publishing house. In 1952, my first collection of poems, Sunny Days, was published. Then books of poetry were published: “On the Banks of the Tom” (1953), “To Young Friends” (1957), “To My Countrymen” (1958), “Lyrics” (1961), “Native Country Roads” (1963). In 1962 he was admitted to the Union of Writers of the USSR. My favorite contemporary poet is Alexander Tvardovsky. I consider him my teacher." [In the book: May snow. – Kemerovo Book Publishing House, 1966. – P. 82-84] I’ll show you the cover of the collection and remind you. We will better recognize and understand the poet Nebogatov by reading his answers to the Questionnaire (for this, let us again turn to the book by Svetlana Nebogatova, mentioned above, p. 299. I will give Nebogatov’s answers in capital letters). QUESTIONNAIRE IN “Lit. Russia" published a material entitled "Unusual Questionnaire" (from the archive of Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev). Twice in his life he was asked the same questions (in 1869 and 1880), to which, with two exceptions, he gave completely different answers. These are the exceptions, that is, exactly the same answers (after nineteen years). To the question: what is your distinctive character trait? – answered: laziness. And the second question: who are your favorite poets? First answer: Homer, Shakespeare, Goethe, Pushkin. Second: the same. I wanted to do the same experiment for myself: try to answer the questions asked to Turgenev as if someone had asked them to me. In other words, try to understand yourself. Ivan Sergeevich probably answered without thinking, impromptu, but every question forces me to think for a long time, and then, perhaps, I won’t be able to answer something like him, briefly, in one or two words. And yet it’s interesting to understand yourself, although no one, it seems to me, can fully understand themselves. The complexity of this experiment is in one thing: I could answer some questions with exactly the same definitions, they coincide completely - Turgenev’s and mine, but here it is necessary, apparently, to add something, to answer in more detail, in order not just to repeat the classic, but to say something... then yours. So, someone's questions and my answers. – What is your favorite virtue? – SINCERENESS, HEARTfulness. (Turgenev has sincerity in the first case, youth in the second). – What is your favorite quality in a man? – STRENGTH OF CHARACTER, GENERALITY. – What is your favorite quality in a woman? – DEVOTION, CHARM OF FEMININITY. – What is your distinctive character trait? – MEEKNESS OPPOSITE TO ITSELF. – How do you imagine happiness? – INHINEATE GOOD TALENT, ABILITY TO TAKE CARE OF IT, HARDWORK. – How do you imagine misfortune? – LOSS OF HEALTHY MENTALITY FOR A PERSON, WAR – FOR THE PEOPLE. – What are your favorite colors and flowers? – SCARLET, BLUE. LIGHTS, Cornflowers. – If you weren’t you, who would you like to be? – JUST A GOOD, KIND PERSON. – Who are your favorite prose writers? – CHEKHOV, BUNIN, SHOLOKHOV, SHUKSHIN. – Who are your favorite poets? – PUSHKIN, LERMONTOV, NEKRASOV, YESENIN, TVARDOVSKY, ISAKOVSKY, VASHENKIN, BUNIN. – Who are your favorite artists and composers? – LEVITAN, STRAUSS. – Who is your favorite hero in history? – LENIN, STALIN, GAGARIN. – What are your favorite heroines in history? - TERESHKOVA. – What are your favorite characters in the novel? – IN THE NOVEL – MAKAR NAGULNOV, IN THE POEM – VASILY TERKIN. – What are your favorite heroines in the novel? – ANNA KARENINA, AKSINYA. – What is your favorite food? – CHET CAVIAR. BUT SHE IS NOT. – What are your favorite names? – ALEXANDER, VLADIMIR, IVAN, MARIA, NINA, SVETLANA, ANNA. – What do you hate most? – TO THE LIKE OF POWER, TO UNNATURALITY, TO FALSE, TO BETRAYING IN FRIENDSHIP, TO HEARING. – Which historical figures do you despise most? – BULGARIN, DANTES, HITLER. – What is your current state of mind? – UNBALANCED. THEN IT SEEMES TO ME THAT POETRY IS MY CALLING, THEN I START TO DOUBT: WAS IT NOT IN VAIN THAT I DEVOTED MY WHOLE LIFE TO IT? – For what vice do you have more indulgence than me? (In Turgenev, in the first case: to drunkenness, in the second - to everyone). I also answer: – TO EVERYONE, BECAUSE THERE ARE NO IMPACTABLE PEOPLE. WE ARE ALL, AS THEY SAY, SINNERS. I don’t know if my poems reflect the essence of these answers - my human essence - but all of them - answers - are extremely sincere. But they are hardly exhaustive, because - alas - it is difficult to say about something briefly and concisely. Only the great can do this. In the third and final part, I will give several poems in which, in addition to autobiographical information, we will also find some information about what kind of person the poet Nebogatov was. I’m talking about those verses in which we will encounter the pronoun “I”, and in which we will see some additional touches to the portrait. As they say on TV: “Stay with us! Don't switch!" THE END TO FOLLOWS... In the photo: the cover of the book “Mikhail Nebogatov. POET. Diary entries from different years"