Chernyshevsky’s novel “What to do?” Problems, ideological meaning. genre originality. Ideals of utopian socialism. DI. Pisarev about the novel. “The novel “what to do?”. Evolution of the idea. The problem of the genre Moral problems in the novel what to do by Chernyshevsky

Composition

The highest ethical law for Chernyshevsky and his favorite heroes is simple. Happiness for one is impossible if it is built on the misfortune of another. This is how the concept of rational egoism arises, of calculating benefits: we must make sure that all people are happy and free. The heroes of the novel see their personal benefit in the struggle for the happiness of the entire people. They are guided by these same noble principles when they strive to rethink the difficult situation that has arisen in their personal lives. According to Chernyshevsky, the attitude of people in love, in the family is a test, a test of their social maturity, perseverance, integrity, readiness to fight for human rights in a broader sphere. And it is quite natural that the theme of love in the novel directly leads to Vera Pavlovna’s fourth dream, where we are talking about the future triumph of communism. For Chernyshevsky, communism is not just a palace made of cast iron and glass, aluminum furniture, machines that do almost everything for a person. This is a new nature of human relationships, and in particular, a new nature of love.

According to numerous memoirs of contemporaries, it is known that the novel was greeted with extraordinary enthusiasm by progressive youth, who perceived it as “a revelation and a program.” Chernyshevsky created his novel, guided by the basic aesthetic principles that were formulated in his famous dissertation. However, we must not forget that Chernyshevsky’s aesthetic views did not remain unchanged. They were refined in the process of his literary critical activity. The experience of directly working on a work of art, in turn, forced him to reconsider or rethink some ideas, the simplicity or clarity of which he no longer felt from the position of a theorist, but from the point of view of a practitioner.

System of images in romance. Ordinary people and a special person. The innovation of Chernyshevsky as a writer was manifested primarily in the creation of images of representatives of the revolutionary-democratic camp. These include Lopukhov, Kirsanov, Vera Pavlovna. These, according to the author’s description, are new people - “kind and strong, knowledgeable and able.”

Thus, for Chernyshevsky himself, “What to do?” is a novel, a full-fledged literary work associated with certain traditions in Russian and world literature (Diderot, Montesquieu, Voltaire, George Sand, Herzen) and polemically opposed to the theory and practice of a hostile aesthetic school. And in the text of the novel itself, Chernyshevsky persistently asserts his understanding of the principles of artistry. A dispute with an insightful reader was necessary for the author to discredit aesthetic theories alien to him, for an insightful reader not only embodies the philistine worldview, but belongs to the camp of “pure aesthetics”, expresses their established concepts and ideas.

Forms and techniques of psychological analysis in the novel “What is to be done?” are also internally polemical. The author and his heroes not only act, but, above all, think according to the laws of reason. Enlightenment rationalism takes on a new character in Chernyshevsky; it becomes an aesthetic category. The most complex feelings of heroes always lend themselves to rational interpretation. They don’t have any mental anguish or painful hesitation. They have such moral health, such stability in life, such optimism, which have not yet been found in Russian literature. The clarity and rationality of the feelings experienced by the heroes of “What is to be done?” contrasts with the irrationality of the inner world of Dostoevsky’s heroes.

The appearance on the pages of Sovremennik of Chernyshevsky’s novel, which was then located in the Peter and Paul Fortress, was an event of enormous importance both in terms of socio-political and literary. The fiery word of the writer was heard throughout Russia, calling for the struggle for a future socialist society, for a new life built on the principles of reason, for truly human relationships between people, for a new revolutionary humanism.

However, in the process of work, Chernyshevsky comes to the conclusion that he has the necessary data to create a work of art - a novel, and not a memoir, a documentary narrative “from the life” of the author’s good friends. A few months after the end of What Is To Be Done? Chernyshevsky summed up his thoughts about the artistic originality of his first novel: “...When I wrote “What is to be done?”, the thought began to appear in me: it may very well be that I have some creative power. I saw that I was not portraying my friends, I was not copying, that my faces were just as fictitious as Gogol’s faces...” These considerations of Chernyshevsky are extremely important not only as a self-characterization of the character of his own novel. They also have theoretical significance, helping, in particular, to judge a certain evolution in the aesthetic views of the author. Now he realizes the artistic nature of his work, pointing to the creative imagination manifested in it.

The difference between a special person and ordinary “new people” in the novel is not absolute, but relative. The heroes of the work can rise one step higher - and there is no end to this movement. This is the essence of plot development: life does not stand still, it develops, and the author’s favorite characters grow with it. A break with the old world was once fundamentally important and necessary for them. Now reality itself poses new challenges for them. The family and everyday plot naturally develops into a socio-political one. Therefore, Chernyshevsky does not end the novel with a picture of the serene happiness of the heroes. A new character appears - a lady in mourning with her tragic fate. Thus, in the plot, in the system of images, the author conveyed the concept of the laws of the historical development of Russian life in those years. The heroes go into revolution, although this portends not only joy, but also sadness, perhaps even mourning, not only victory, but also temporary defeats.

"What to do?" - a novel-sermon addressed to the masses of readers. Even in the article “Russian Man,” Chernyshevsky directly demanded: “What should I do now, let each of you say.” What to do? - this is the very life question that became the title of the novel. When? Now, immediately, now. And everyone must resolve this issue, understanding their personal responsibility for everything that happens around them. These words, which Chernyshevsky wrote back in 1857, contain the grain of his novel.

The novel “What to do?” polemical in relation to many phenomena of contemporary Russian literature. It is considered established in science that it was partly conceived as a kind of response to Turgenev’s novel “Fathers and Sons.” It can be added that Chernyshevsky consciously started from the creative experience of Goncharov (who, in turn, did not accept Chernyshevsky’s artistic method). Goncharov's world is predominantly static; Chernyshevsky's world, on the contrary, is dynamic. The reproduction of life in its movement and development directly follows from the main feature of the novel “What is to be done?” - the power of thought.

Chernyshevsky’s images of “new people” are presented in development. This structural originality of the work is most clearly manifested through the image of Rakhmetov, whom the author calls a special person. This is a professional revolutionary who consciously gave his life to serving the great cause of liberating the people from centuries-old oppression.

Other works on this work

NOVEL “WHAT TO DO?” ISSUES,
GENRE, COMPOSITION. "OLD WORLD"
IN THE IMAGE OF CHERNYSHEVSKY

Objectives: to introduce students to the creative history of the novel “What is to be done?”, to talk about the prototypes of the novel’s heroes; give an idea of ​​the subject matter, genre and composition of the work; find out what the attractive power of Chernyshevsky’s book was for his contemporaries, how the novel “What is to be done?” on ; name the heroes of the novel, convey the content of the most important episodes, dwell on the writer’s depiction of the “old world”.

During the classes

I. Conversation on the following issues:

1. Briefly describe the main stages of life and activity.

2. Can the life and work of a writer be called a feat?

3. What is the significance of Chernyshevsky’s dissertation for his time? What is relevant in it for our days?

II. Story by a teacher (or a trained student).

CREATIVE HISTORY OF THE NOVEL “WHAT TO DO?”.
PROTOTYPES OF THE NOVEL

Chernyshevsky’s most famous novel “What is to be done?” was written in the solitary confinement cell of the Alekseevsky ravelin fortress in the shortest possible time: started in 1862 and completed in 1863. The manuscript of the novel has passed. First of all, members of the investigative commission, and then the censor of Sovremennik, became acquainted with Chernyshevsky’s work. To say that the censors completely “overlooked” the novel is not entirely true. Przhetslavsky directly pointed out that “this work... turned out to be an apology for the way of thinking and actions of that category of the modern young generation, which is understood under the name “nihilists and materialists” and who call themselves “new people”. Another censor, seeing the commission’s seal on the manuscript, was “imbued with awe” and passed it through without reading it, for which he was fired.

The novel “What to do? From stories about new people” (this is the full title of Chernyshevsky’s work) caused a mixed reaction from readers. Progressive youth spoke with admiration about “What is to be done?” Fierce opponents of Chernyshevsky were forced to admit the “extraordinary power” of the novel’s influence on young people: “Young people followed Lopukhov and Kirsanov in a crowd, young girls became infected with the example of Vera Pavlovna... The minority found their ideal... in Rakhmetov.” Chernyshevsky's enemies, seeing the unprecedented success of the novel, demanded cruel reprisals against the author.

Their magazines (Russkoe Slovo, Iskra) and others also spoke out in defense of the novel.

About prototypes. Literary scholars believe that the plotline is based on the life story of the Chernyshevsky family doctor, Pyotr Ivanovich Bokov. Bokov was the teacher of Maria Obrucheva, then, in order to free her from the oppression of her parents, he married her, but a few years later M. Obrucheva fell in love with another person - a scientist-physiologist. Thus, the prototypes of Lopukhov were Bokov, Vera Pavlovna - Obruchev, Kirsanov - Sechenov.

In the image of Rakhmetov, features of Bakhmetyev, a Saratov landowner, who transferred part of his fortune to Herzen for the publication of a magazine and revolutionary work, are seen. (There is an episode in the novel when Rakhmetov, while abroad, transfers money to Feuerbach for the publication of his works). In the image of Rakhmetov one can also see those character traits that were inherent in Chernyshevsky himself, as well as Dobrolyubov and Nekrasov.

The novel “What to do?” Chernyshevsky dedicated it to his wife Olga Sokratovna. In her memoirs, she wrote: “Verochka (Vera Pavlovna) - I, Lopukhov was taken from Bokov.”

The image of Vera Pavlovna captures the character traits of Olga Sokratovna Chernyshevskaya and Maria Obrucheva.

PROBLEMS OF THE NOVEL

In "What to do?" the author proposed the theme of a new public figure (mainly from commoners), discovered by Turgenev in “Fathers and Sons,” who replaced the type of “superfluous person.” E. Bazarov’s “nihilism” is opposed by the views of “new people”, his loneliness and tragic death - by their cohesion and resilience. “New people” are the main characters of the novel.

Problems of the novel: the appearance of “new people”; people of the “old world” and their social and moral vices; love and emancipation, love and family, love and revolution ().

About the composition of the novel. Chernyshevsky's novel is structured in such a way that life, reality, appears in it in three time dimensions: in the past, present and future. The past is the old world, existing, but already becoming obsolete; the present is the emerging positive principles of life, the activities of “new people”, the existence of new human relationships. The future is an approaching dream (“Vera Pavlovna’s Fourth Dream”). The composition of the novel conveys movement from past to present and future. The author not only dreams of a revolution in Russia, he sincerely believes in its implementation.

About the genre. There is no unanimous opinion on this issue. thinks “What should I do?” Chernyshevsky - a social-ideological novel, - a philosophical-utopian novel, created according to the laws typical of this genre. The compilers of the bio-bibliographic dictionary “Russian Writers” consider “What to do?” artistic and journalistic novel.

(There is an opinion that Chernyshevsky’s novel “What is to be done?” is family, detective, journalistic, intellectual, etc.)

IV. Conversation with students on the content of the novel.

1. Name the leading characters, convey the content of memorable episodes.

2. How does Chernyshevsky depict the old world?

3. Why did the prudent mother spend a lot of money on her daughter’s education? Were her expectations met?

4. What allows Verochka Rozalskaya to free herself from the oppressive influence of her family and become a “new person”?

6. Show how in the depiction of the “old world” Aesop’s speech is combined with an open expression of the author’s attitude towards what is depicted?

Chernyshevsky showed two social spheres of old life: noble and bourgeois.

Representatives of the nobility - the homeowner and playmaker Storeshnikov, his mother Anna Petrovna, Storeshnikov's friends with names in the French style - Jean, Serge, Julie. These are people who are not capable of work - egoists, “fans and slaves of their own well-being.”

The bourgeois world is represented by the images of Vera Pavlovna’s parents. Marya Alekseevna Rozalskaya is an energetic and enterprising woman. But she looks at her daughter and husband “from the angle of the income that can be extracted from them” ().

The writer condemns Marya Alekseevna for greed, selfishness, callousness and narrow-mindedness, but at the same time sympathizes with her, believing that life circumstances made her like this. Chernyshevsky introduces the chapter “A word of praise to Marya Alekseevna” into the novel.

Homework.

1. Read the novel to the end.

2. Messages from students about the main characters: Lopukhov, Kirsanov, Vera Pavlovna, Rakhmetov.

3. Individual messages (or report) on the topics:

1) What is “beautiful” in the life depicted by Chernyshevsky in “The Fourth Dream”?

2) Reflections on (“The future is bright and wonderful”).

3) Vera Pavlovna and her workshops.

The question of the “primary sources” of the work is of fundamental importance for understanding the artistic method of the author of “What is to be done?”, its genre and plot-compositional structure. What is the relationship between reality and the creative imagination of the artist-novelist?

What are the relationships between the real life of the young generation of commoners of the sixties and the worldview of the heroes of the novel, their educational practice and the socio-philosophical concept of the author-thinker?

How did the reorientation of genre criteria from a love-intimate novel to a social-philosophical novel take place?

How were the traditional plot solutions of predecessors used and revised, and on what paths was the original genre structure of the new narrative built?

Chernyshevsky believed that in life every minute there are “poetic events” that “in their development and denouement” often have “artistic completeness and completeness,” and “the prototype for a poetic person very often serves as a real person.”

It is no coincidence that actual events and the lives of people he knew aroused in him the need to comprehend them in an artistic diary essay (1848) and in the story “Theory and Practice” of 1849-1850. (events caused by the marriage of V.P. Lobodovsky, Chernyshevsky’s university friend), and the initial creative principle in the story “Understanding” (on which Chernyshevsky also worked during his university years) was historically existing persons (Louise, Goethe’s sister).

In the scientific literature, the prototypes of many literary characters from Chernyshevsky’s work have been quite convincingly established: V. A. Obruchev - for Alferyev (from the story of the same name), N. A. Dobrolyubov - for Levitsky, K. D. Kavelin - for Ryazantsev, S. I. Serakovsky - for Sokolovsky, N.A. Milyutin - for Savelov, and N.G. Chernyshevsky himself - for Volgin (novel “Prologue”).

All researchers of the novel “What is to be done?” they agree that the songs and additional explanations of the “lady in mourning,” especially when performing Walter Scott’s Scottish romance-ballad “The Robber,” reproduce in a disguised form the scene of Chernyshevsky’s explanation with his bride Olga Sokratovna Vasilyeva.

“Of course,” he clarifies the artist’s right to fiction, “I had to slightly alter these facts so that they wouldn’t point fingers at the people I’m talking about, that, they say, here she is, whom he renamed Vera Pavlovna, but for real This is her name, and her second husband, whom he transferred to the Medical Academy, is our famous scientist so-and-so, who serves in a different department, precisely in this department.”

Researchers have different points of view on the advisability of studying the prototypes of the heroes of “What is to be done?” For example, Academician M.V. Nechkina believes that “Rakhmetov’s type authorizes researchers to search for all prototypes, especially those indicated by the author himself.”

It should only be noted that the prototype will never be identical to the artistic image. In particular, despite a number of similar details in the behavior of Rakhmetov and P. A. Bakhmetov, about whom much has already been written, it is by no means possible to put an equal sign between them.

To a certain extent, real sources provide an opportunity to look into the writer’s creative laboratory. In this sense, such a parallel, for example, is curious. Rakhmetov's interest in Newton's commentary on the Apocalypse of St. John" as a "classical source on the issue of mixing madness with intelligence" echoes the work of the "landlord" N. I. Utin on an article on the Apocalypse for the "Encyclopedic Dictionary", published with the participation of P. L. Lavrov, and with the translation of the Bible carried out by V.I. Kelsiev and published in London (1860).

However, there are few such transparent hints about Rakhmetov’s connection with his prototypes in the novel. All data on the similarity of the “special person” with the most prominent figures of the period of the revolutionary situation (N.A. Dobrolyubov, P.D. Ballod, brothers N.A. and A.A. Serno-Solovyevich, etc.) are of a general nature. But even in this case, we can come to the conclusion that when working on the image of Rakhmetov (“I have met so far only eight examples of this breed (including two women)”), the writer artistically summarized the main thing in worldview and psychology, in personal and social practice of friends in the revolutionary underground.

Believing that “the original already has a general meaning in its individuality,” Chernyshevsky saw the writer’s task as understanding “the essence of character in a real person,” to understand “how this person would act and speak in the circumstances among which he would be delivered by the poet,” “to convey it as the poet understands it.”

This was the artistic and transformative function of the novelist, preventing the danger of illustrativeness and naturalism.

It is noteworthy that democratic writers of the 60s and 70s. XIX century, continuing the traditions of Chernyshevsky, they relied in their creative practice on actual historical events of their time, artistically transforming them. It is quite likely that N. Bazhin, while working on the story “Stepan Rulev” (1864), became acquainted with the first steps of the revolutionary organization N. A. Ishutin - I. A. Khudyakov (1863-1866).

In any case, one of the characters in his story, Ilya Kudryakov, Stepan Rulev’s “best friend and comrade-in-arms,” resembles the greatest revolutionary figure Ivan Khudyakov (similarity of surnames: Khudyakov - Kudryakov; lameness of both as a result of injury suffered from a horse in childhood; spiritual kinship and a similar method of educational activity of folklorists and booksellers wandering through villages).

I. Kushchevsky in the novel “Nikolai Negorev, or the Prosperous Russian” (1870) responded to the events of the first revolutionary situation, spoke about the activities of the sixties, who organized revolutionary “societies” and “branches” and decided “not to miss the favorable opportunity to announce the decree on the liberation of the peasants” for a popular uprising.

With great warmth, the author writes about a member of this “branch” Andrei Negorev, who distributed brochures and proclamations, who later became a political emigrant, about Overin, who, under the influence of these proclamations, rushed “into the abyss” and led a peasant uprising.

Kushchevsky deliberately brings Overin’s feat closer to the revolutionary activities of Chernyshevsky, when in the description of Overin’s civil execution he historically accurately reproduces the place, circumstances and details of the government abuse of Nikolai Gavrilovich (the bouquet of flowers thrown from the crowd to the “criminal in the pillory” is not forgotten!).

The novel by V. Bervi-Flerovsky “For Life and Death” (1877), in its first part is largely correlated with the social events of the 60s; the title character of this part, Pavlush Skripitsyn, even meets Chernyshevsky himself!

The second part of Flerovsky’s work “Disciples” corresponds to the time and circumstances of the propaganda activities of the “Chaikovites” and “Dolgushinites” in workers’ circles (early 70s), and the third part (“New Religion”) is devoted to the events of “going to the people” 1874— 1875 This novel combines all the key problems that occupied advanced Russian society for a long period of time (40-70s of the 19th century).

A participant in the revolutionary underground, S. Stepnyak-Kravchinsky captured in his works (“Underground Russia”, 1881; “Andrei Kozhukhov”, 1889, etc.) the mood and circumstances of the heroic struggle against tsarism of his comrades from the era of “going to the people” (Peter Kropotkin , Dmitry Lizogub, Vera Zasulich, Dmitry Klements) and the “People's Will” period (Sofya Perovskaya, Stepan Khalturin, Alexander Mikhailov).

Some researchers of the novel “What is to be done?” believe that Chernyshevsky expanded the range of literary sources by turning to the method of thought experiment adopted in the exact sciences, when “a scientist, based on the data of his theory, creates a model of an experiment that in reality cannot be produced at a given technical level, and thus proves the fundamental correctness ideas."

“The method of hypothetical simplification of situations and conflicts” is transferred in this case to the structure of a utopian novel, which “is, as it were, a description of the “mental” implementation of an idea into life.

This experience is “described” as real, and the novel is often perceived by readers as a scientific description.” The hypothetical research method of Chernyshevsky the novelist is seen primarily in the story of Vera Pavlovna’s organization of a sewing workshop-commune and in the description of socialist society (“Vera Pavlovna’s Fourth Dream”) as a historically already emerged and inevitably growing process of social reorganization.

These observations undoubtedly help clarify the origins of social psychology and the worldview of the characters in the novel. They allow us to concretely imagine the internal “mechanism” of the artistic embodiment of real people’s dreams of a bright future.

However, when deciding the relationship between reality and fiction, there is no reason to “translate” Chernyshevsky’s entire novel from a realistic work into the category of utopian novels, to reduce the “first cases” of personal and social activity of “new people” who have “historical interest” only to “imitation of experience "

A work that imitates objectivity and accuracy of description, achieving verisimilitude and fascination in the narrative in the name of proving some author’s postulate, will have nothing in common with realistic art and, at best, will perform an illustrative function.

Contemporaries perceived the novel “What is to be done?” otherwise. Prominent figure in the revolutionary movement of the 60s. N. I. Utin (who later became one of the organizers of the Russian section of the First International) wrote on February 22, 1864 to N. P. Ogarev about Chernyshevsky’s work: “I in no way agree that his goal is fantastic, because he doesn’t even think of talking that everything is achievable this very minute, on the contrary, he shows that you need to go step by step, and then says: this is what will happen at the end of your labors and aspirations, this is how you can live. And therefore, “work and work.”

The principles of the socialist organization of labor associations have already become accessible to the best part of the mixed intelligentsia of the 60s. XIX century The socialist ideal in the worldview of the “sixties” (even in a utopian version!) is reality, not fantasy.

A hypothetical calculation of the profits that each seamstress receives from the workshop, their benefits from living together and a common household - this is the operation of “real”, “living” people who know what to do, in the name of what to live. Therefore, Chernyshevsky writes about workshop-communes as labor associations that actually exist in life.

Were there really sources for a realistic description of Vera Pavlovna’s sewing workshop?

Chernyshevsky, talking about the work of Vera Pavlovna’s workshop, sought to somehow respond to the aspirations of women of the 60s. improve your working conditions. According to statistical data from 1860, it is known that in St. Petersburg “4,713 artisans were content with a salary of 2-3-5 rubles. per month on the master's table and tea. Those who worked at home, living with their husbands or relatives, earned 2-3 rubles a month on gloves and agramant, and even less on stockings.”

The circle of Maria Vasilyevna Trubnikova carried out energetic work to improve the lives of women in need. In 1859, he founded the “Society for Cheap Apartments and Other Benefits for Needy Residents” of St. Petersburg. The society first rented apartments for its clients in different parts of the city, but then, with the money raised from the lottery, a large house was bought, into which all the poor were transferred.

“At the same time, the Society had the opportunity to begin fulfilling its cherished desire - the establishment of a school for children and a sewing workshop, where residents could receive and perform work and where outside seamstresses could also come and do their own work on the sewing machines provided to them free of charge.

N.V. Stasova worked especially energetically in the workshop, through whose efforts she soon received a large order from the commissariat, which provided her with work for a long time. The school was taught first by members of the community, and then by teachers invited for this purpose.” However, we do not yet see the embodiment of socialist principles in the work of the workshop.

The same memoirs state that M. V. Trubnikova’s circle, having begun its social activities with philanthropy, then “evolved, reflecting the influence of other, often more radical circles, for example, Chernyshevsky’s circle (the “Land and Freedom” society), with whom Maria personally Vasilievna was directly connected through her friends, the brothers Nikolai and Alexander Serno-Solovievich, and to whom she was drawn by her own democratic and anti-monarchist tendencies.”

It is interesting to recall another attempt by M.V. Trubnikova’s circle - to create a “Women’s Labor Society”. Information about him expands our understanding of the era of the 60s. and once again testify to the great difficulties facing enthusiasts of the women's movement.

The society was conceived with broad plans. It should have the right to establish various workshops: sewing, bookbinding, translation offices and publishing children's and scientific books. P. L. Lavrov took part in drawing up its charter in 1863.

Only part of this program was implemented. At the beginning of 1863, it was possible to organize a women's artel or society of translators and publishers, which included 36 people (M. V. Trubnikova, N. V. Stasova, A. N. Engelgardt, N. A. Belozerskaya, M. A. Menzhinskaya , A. P. Filosofova, V. V. Ivasheva, E. A. Stackenschneider, etc.). The bookbinding and binding of books published by the society were carried out by a women's bookbinding artel founded by V. A. Inostrantseva. Illustrations and engravings were also done by women.

Thus, there is every reason to believe that in the story about Vera Pavlovna’s work activity, Chernyshevsky relied on actual life facts. There have already been attempts to find new forms of organizing labor, organizing everyday life and educating workers.

The description of the revolutionary educational work of Lopukhov, Kirsanov and Mertsalov among the sewing workshop workers has a vital basis. We know about the existence of Sunday schools for adults, organized by “landers”. And yet, actual facts from life were not enough to realize Chernyshevsky’s artistic vision.

In the novel, Vera Pavlovna’s workshop did not resemble an enterprise organized by Trubnikova’s circle. Therefore, the writer wrote in the draft version of the novel: “There is one more feature in the story that I invented: this is a workshop. In fact, Vera Pavlovna was not busy setting up a workshop; and I did not know such workshops as I described: they do not exist in our dear fatherland. She was actually [working on] something like Sunday school<...>not for children, but for adults."

Chernyshevsky had to, to a certain extent, “invent” Vera Pavlovna’s workshop. In this sense, the “hypothetical method of research” of Chernyshevsky the economist was really useful to Chernyshevsky the novelist as an additional, auxiliary way of artistic motivation for Vera Pavlovna’s plan to organize workshops according to the models proposed by “kind and smart people” who wrote “many books about how to live on light, so that everyone can feel good.”

However, it should be clarified that in this case the method of thought experiment has already been removed from the author and has become the property of Vera Pavlovna (“These are my thoughts”), a real sign of the intellectual achievements of the “new people.”

Subsequently, the reader of the novel learns that it turned out to be impossible to realize the socialist ideal in a country of autocratic despotism. As we know from the novel, after Kirsanov’s visit to the “enlightened husband” (a representative of the authorities) and conversation with him (XVII section of the fourth chapter), there was “nothing to think about the development of the enterprise, which was just asking to go forward.” The path to a new life in socialist labor associations lies only through revolution.

Chernyshevsky already had a theoretical justification for the difference between the dream of idle fantasy, divorced from reality, and the dream of a bright future, conducive to social progress. In the concept of reality, he included “not only the present, but also the past, as far as it is expressed in action, and the future, as far as it is prepared by the present.” This connection of the future with the present determines the artistic “compatibility” of realism and romanticism in “What is to be done?”

The fate of the works of utopian writers, who were forced to construct the elements of a new society from their own heads, because these elements were not yet clearly visible to everyone in the depths of the old society, depended on the great theoretical preparation and artistic tact of the author, on his ability to correctly reveal the historical patterns of the development of society .

The danger of “arbitrary regulation of details, and precisely those details for the prediction and depiction of which reality does not yet provide sufficient data,” lay in wait, according to M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, and the author of “What is to be done?” However, Chernyshevsky largely (as confirmed by the practice of the developed socialist society that has come to fruition in our time) avoided this danger.

As far as it was possible for him, when working on the novel, he used the achievements of science and technology of his time in order to more vividly, artistically recreate the picture of the future (the construction of canals and irrigation systems that had already begun at that time, the discovery of electricity, the use of aluminum in industry and in the home). everyday life, experience in growing fruit in greenhouses, architectural achievements).

However, all this is just a “hint” for the writer, an impetus for recreating a more sublime picture, but without this “hint” it was impossible to achieve a concrete emotional perception of the pictures of the future. For example, such a “hint” of the huge “crystal palace” that Vera Pavlovna sees in her dream was the Crystal Palace on Sydenham Hill in England. Chernyshevsky first described the “Paxton Palace” in the August issue of Sovremennik magazine for 1854.

Thus, the utopian pictures in Chernyshevsky’s novel, with many of their artistic details, were rooted in reality, and this prevented the danger of abstract schematism. Romantic solemnity and elation in the description of a bright and wonderful future corresponded to the laws of romantic art and their individual manifestation in the artistic form of dreams.

The latter, in turn, did not allow the reader to forget that he was touching the worldview and innermost dream of the real heroine - his contemporary.

Thus, in the complex relationship between historical reality and utopia, the real and the romantic, events from the lives of familiar people and “mental”, “hypothetical” situations and conflicts, the original artistic structure of Chernyshevsky’s novel is recreated, in which the first - realistic - link is both in its original sources and in its art form is leading.

“Chernyshevsky relies on realism, which stems from knowledge of life and has rich colors,” A. V. Lunacharsky asserted authoritatively. As for the romantic tendencies in fiction about “new people,” they, manifested in an increased craving for “idealization,” arise where “an aesthetically conscious need to make up for the lack of real life material with lyricism and authorial conviction” is acutely felt.

The “first cases” of production activity of the heroes of “What is to be done?”, which have “historical interest”, are noteworthy in another respect. Talking about the organization of a sewing workshop-commune and Lopukhov’s educational activities among workers, Chernyshevsky essentially opened a new plot-organizing center for future novels about “new people.”

Sewing workshops, Sunday schools, educational readings for workers, and savings and loan banks were strongholds of propaganda activity for the raznochintsy revolutionaries and, naturally, were reflected in literature, laying solid foundations for the new plot and compositional structure of the work (N. Bazhin, “Stepan Rulev ", "The story of one partnership"; I. Omulevsky, "Step by step"; K. Stanyukovich, "Without outcome"; P. Zasodimsky, "Chronicle of the village of Smurin", etc.).

In Chernyshevsky’s novel “What is to be done?” For the first time in literature, the idea of ​​​​an artistic depiction of a socialist labor association was realized, the leader of collective production from among the heterodox intelligentsia was shown, and ways were outlined to increase the general culture and political consciousness of the “common people” through Sunday schools. Chernyshevsky foresaw the need to study the experience of the revolutionary labor movement in the West (the trip abroad of Rakhmetov and Lopukhov).

In N. Bazhin’s story “Stepan Rulev” the influence of the novel “What is to be done?” is reinforced by impressions of the efforts of the Ishutin residents to set up a plant on an artisanal basis. The meaning of the main “enterprise” of Rulev and Walter is precisely the preparation of an artisanal plant in the Urals.

The works of I. Omulevsky “Step by Step” (1870) and K. Stanyukovich “No Exodus” (1873) continue to artistically develop the theme of propaganda among workers through Sunday schools, introducing the difficulties of the legal activities of these schools. Svetlov, the first of the “new people” in democratic literature, had to become acquainted with a spontaneous strike of workers and exert a still timid influence on its development within legal limits. G. Uspensky noticed in the worker Mikhail Ivanovich a stable tendency towards rebellion, towards protest against “squeezing” (“Ravage”, 1869).

In the context of the rise of the social movement at the turn of the 60-70s, the organization of the Russian section of the First International and the activities of the Great Propaganda Society in workers' circles, the populist propagandists themselves demanded that writers reflect the contacts of Russian revolutionaries with the labor movement of Western Europe (V. Troshchansky, "Ideals of our public figures").

M. Kovalsky welcomes Svetlov’s activities. L. Shchegolev is developing a plan for a literary work from the life of workers, A. Obodovskaya is writing a story about the fate of a freedom-loving village boy who went through a school of social education at a factory (“Neustrashimko”). However, the creative embodiment of the working theme in literature was complicated by the underdevelopment of the proletarian movement in Russia.

In the early 70s. The artistic development of the “labor question” and the connections of Russian “enlightenment” with the revolutionary West was complicated by Bakunin-Nechaev propaganda, adventurism and the dictatorship of anarchists. S. Smirnova’s (Sazonova) novel “The Salt of the Earth” (1872) crossed the contradictory trends of the early 70s: on the one hand, for the first time in literature, the colorful image of the worker-agitator Levka Trezvov was recreated, combining the strength and skill of a hammer worker with talent a revolutionary propagandist who clearly explains to workers the need for social solidarity in the struggle for their rights; on the other hand, the image of Levka reflected the weaknesses of Nechaevism (demagoguery and ambition, “the desire to play a role,” adherence to the rule: “the end justifies the means”).

In the same novel, the idea of ​​a socialist-type industrial association is replaced by propaganda for the Lassallean plan for creating a credit and industrial partnership under the patronage of the authorities.

In the second half of the 70s - early 80s. There is a noticeable tendency in the literature to rethink the work of the “new people” with workers. In 1877, Bervi-Flerovsky turns to the early 70s. and the activities of agitators from the Great Propaganda Society in workers’ “cells” (“For Life and Death”).

In the second part of Bervy’s novel, artistic characteristics of different types of workers who went to the school of political education from Ispot and Anna Semyonovna are introduced, attention is drawn to the emergence of class-conscious workers with a “deeper and keener understanding of science than most educated young men”, interested in the life and struggle of the working class for border.

To the events of the early 70s. addressed in the novel “Two Brothers” (1880) by K. Stanyukovich. The hero of this novel, Mirzoev, has connections with Russian political emigration and gives lectures to workers.

Along with the populist interest in peasant revolts, Russian literature of the period of the second revolutionary situation showed attention to unrest among the workers (N. Zlatovratsky, “Golden Hearts,” 1877; A. Osipovich-Novodvorsky, “History,” 1882; O. Shapir, “One of many", 1879). Forest worker Abramov led a revolt of workers at a sugar factory; a technician at the Utyuzhinsky plant, Nezhinsky, who studied the experience of the proletarian movement in the West, systematically leads the workers’ struggle for their rights at four factories.

Not all works of democratic literature that recreate the artistic chronicle of the labor movement and the role of the various intelligentsia in it are given here.

However, the material presented is sufficient to convince oneself of the historical and literary prospects of the artistic discoveries of the author of “What is to be done?” when describing the organizational activities of “new people” in work collectives of a new type, which turned from a “thought experiment” of a semi-utopian nature into the real practice of propaganda work of the democratic intelligentsia in workers’ circles at the dawn of the proletarian movement in Russia. This is how new plot-organizing trends emerged in realistic literature, originating in Chernyshevsky’s first novel.

(It is noteworthy that in Chernyshevsky’s last (unfinished) novel “Reflections of Radiance,” written in Siberian exile (1879-1883), a story is introduced about Aurora Vasilievna’s organization of a labor gardening association and a factory on a collective basis).

History of Russian literature: in 4 volumes / Edited by N.I. Prutskov and others - L., 1980-1983.

The novel by N. G. Chernyshevsky “What to do?” created by him in a chamber of the Peter and Paul Fortress in the period from 12/14/1862 to 04/04/1863. in three and a half months. From January to April 1863, the manuscript was transferred in parts to the commission on the writer’s case for censorship. The censor did not find anything reprehensible and allowed publication. The oversight was soon discovered and censor Beketov was removed from office, but the novel was already published in the magazine Sovremennik (1863, No. 3-5). The bans on the magazine's issues led to nothing and the book was distributed throughout the country in samizdat.

In 1905, under Emperor Nicholas II, the ban on publication was lifted, and in 1906 the book was published in a separate edition. The reaction of readers to the novel is interesting; they are divided into two camps. Some supported the author, others considered the novel devoid of artistry.

Analysis of the work

1. Social and political renewal of society through revolution. In the book, due to censorship, the author could not expand on this topic in more detail. It is given in half-hints in the description of Rakhmetov’s life and in the 6th chapter of the novel.

2. Moral and psychological. That a person with the power of his mind is able to create in himself new specified moral qualities. The author describes the entire process from small (the fight against despotism in the family) to large-scale, that is, revolution.

3. Women's emancipation, family morality. This theme is revealed in the history of Vera’s family, in the relationships of three young people before Lopukhov’s alleged suicide, in Vera’s first 3 dreams.

4. Future socialist society. This is a dream of a beautiful and bright life, which the author unfolds in Vera Pavlovna’s 4th dream. Here is a vision of easier labor with the help of technical means, i.e., technogenic development of production.

(Chernyshevsky writes a novel in a cell at the Peter and Paul Fortress)

The pathos of the novel is the propaganda of the idea of ​​​​transforming the world through revolution, preparing minds and waiting for it. Moreover, the desire to actively participate in it. The main goal of the work is the development and implementation of a new method of revolutionary education, the creation of a textbook on the formation of a new worldview for every thinking person.

Story line

In the novel, it actually covers up the main idea of ​​the work. It’s not for nothing that at first even the censors considered the novel to be nothing more than a love story. The beginning of the work, deliberately entertaining, in the spirit of French novels, aimed to confuse the censorship and, at the same time, attract the attention of the majority of the reading public. The plot is based on a simple love story, behind which the social, philosophical and economic problems of the time are hidden. The Aesopian language of the narrative is thoroughly permeated with the ideas of the coming revolution.

The plot is like this. There is an ordinary girl Vera Pavlovna Rozalskaya, whom her selfish mother is trying in every possible way to pass off as a rich man. Trying to avoid this fate, the girl resorts to the help of her friend Dmitry Lopukhov and enters into a fictitious marriage with him. Thus, she gains freedom and leaves her parents' house. In search of income, Vera opens a sewing workshop. This is not an ordinary workshop. There is no hired labor here; female workers have their share of the profits, so they are interested in the prosperity of the enterprise.

Vera and Alexander Kirsanov are mutually in love. To free his imaginary wife from remorse, Lopukhov stages suicide (it is with the description of it that the whole action begins) and leaves for America. There he acquires a new name, Charles Beaumont, becomes an agent of an English company and, fulfilling its assignment, comes to Russia to purchase a stearine plant from the industrialist Polozov. Lopukhov meets Polozov’s daughter Katya at Polozov’s house. They fall in love with each other, the matter ends with a wedding. Now Dmitry appears in front of the Kirsanov family. Friendship between families begins, they settle in the same house. A circle of “new people” forms around them, wanting to arrange their own and social lives in a new way. Lopukhov-Beaumont's wife Ekaterina Vasilievna also joins the business and sets up a new sewing workshop. This is such a happy ending.

Main characters

The central character of the novel is Vera Rozalskaya. She is especially sociable and belongs to the type of “honest girls” who are not ready to compromise for the sake of a profitable marriage without love. The girl is romantic, but despite this, she is quite modern, with good administrative skills, as they would say today. Therefore, she was able to interest the girls and organize a sewing production and more.

Another character in the novel is Dmitry Sergeevich Lopukhov, a student at the Medical Academy. Somewhat withdrawn, prefers solitude. He is honest, decent and noble. It was these qualities that prompted him to help Vera in her difficult situation. For her sake, he quits his studies in his last year and begins private practice. Considered the official husband of Vera Pavlovna, he behaves towards her in the highest degree decent and noble. The apogee of his nobility is his decision to fake his own death in order to allow Kirsanov and Vera, who love each other, to unite their destinies. Just like Vera, it relates to the formation of new people. Smart, enterprising. This can be judged at least because the English company entrusted him with a very serious matter.

Kirsanov Alexander is the husband of Vera Pavlovna, Lopukhov’s best friend. I am very impressed by his attitude towards his wife. He not only loves her tenderly, but also looks for an activity for her in which she could realize herself. The author feels deep sympathy for him and speaks of him as a brave man who knows how to carry through to the end the work he has taken on. At the same time, he is an honest, deeply decent and noble person. Not knowing about the true relationship between Vera and Lopukhov, having fallen in love with Vera Pavlovna, he disappears from their house for a long time so as not to disturb the peace of the people he loves. Only Lopukhov’s illness forces him to appear to treat his friend. The fictitious husband, understanding the state of the lovers, imitates his death and makes room for Kirsanov next to Vera. Thus, lovers find happiness in family life.

(In the photo, the artist Karnovich-Valois in the role of Rakhmetov, the play "New People")

A close friend of Dmitry and Alexander, the revolutionary Rakhmetov, is the most significant hero of the novel, although he is given little space in the novel. In the ideological outline of the narrative, he played a special role and is devoted to a separate digression in chapter 29. An extraordinary man in every way. At the age of 16, he left university for three years and wandered around Russia in search of adventure and character development. This is a person with already formed principles in all spheres of life, material, physical and spiritual. At the same time, he has an ebullient nature. He sees his future life in serving people and prepares for this by tempering his spirit and body. He even refused the woman he loved, because love could limit his actions. He would like to live like most people, but he cannot afford it.

In Russian literature, Rakhmetov became the first practical revolutionary. Opinions about him were completely opposite, from indignation to admiration. This is the ideal image of a revolutionary hero. But today, from the position of knowledge of history, such a person could only evoke sympathy, since we know how accurately history has proven the truth of the words of the Emperor of France Napoleon Bonaparte: “Revolutions are conceived by heroes, carried out by fools, and scoundrels enjoy their fruits.” Perhaps the voiced opinion does not quite fit into the framework of the image and characteristics of Rakhmetov formed over decades, but this is indeed the case. The above does not in any way detract from Rakhmetov’s quality, because he is a hero of his time.

According to Chernyshevsky, using the example of Vera, Lopukhov and Kirsanov, he wanted to show ordinary people of the new generation, of whom there are thousands. But without the image of Rakhmetov, the reader might have formed a misleading opinion about the main characters of the novel. According to the writer, all people should be like these three heroes, but the highest ideal that all people should strive for is the image of Rakhmetov. And I completely agree with this.

Publication of the novel “What to do?” in the 3rd, 4th and 5th issues of Sovremennik in 1863 literally shocked reading Russia. The camp of direct and hidden serf owners, the reactionary and liberal press received the novel extremely unkindly. The reactionary “Northern Bee”, “Moskovskie Vedomosti”, “Home Conversation”, the Slavophile “Den”, as well as other protective publications, attacked the novel and its author in different ways, but with the same degree of rejection and hatred.

Progressive-minded circles, especially young people, read the novel with intense attention and delight.

Against slanderous attacks on “What is to be done?” V. Kurochkin, D. Pisarev, M. Saltykov-Shchedrin, A. Herzen and other prominent figures of Russian literature spoke. “Chernyshevsky created a highly original and extremely remarkable work,” noted D. Pisarev. M. Saltykov-Shchedrin wrote: “...“What to do?” - a serious novel, conveying the idea of ​​the need for new life foundations."

Even enemies were forced to admit that the novel was an extraordinary phenomenon. Censor Beketov, removed from his post for such a rude review, testified: “I rose up in dismay when they saw that something extraordinary was happening between young people of both sexes under the impression of this work.”

Issues of Sovremennik containing Chernyshevsky's novel were strictly prohibited by the government. But a significant part of the circulation has already been distributed throughout the country. Hundreds of copies of “What to do?” copied by hand. Not a single work of art in Russia in the 19th century had such a public resonance or had such a direct impact on the formation of revolutionary generations. This was emphasized by prominent populists P. Kropotkin and P. Tkachev. G. Plekhanov wrote about this emotionally and excitedly: “Who has not read and re-read this famous work? Who has not been carried away by it, who has not become purer, better, more cheerful and courageous under its beneficial influence? Who hasn’t been struck by the moral purity of the main characters? Who, after reading this novel, has not thought about his own life, has not subjected his own aspirations and inclinations to a strict examination? We all drew from him moral strength and faith in a better future.”

Soon after its resounding success in Russia, Chernyshevsky’s novel was translated into English, French, German, Italian and many other languages ​​of the world, published and read widely, recruiting more and more volunteers for the revolutionary cause far from Russia.

The influence of Chernyshevsky and his novel “What is to be done?” recognized by such famous figures of the international liberation and labor movement as A. Bebel, X. Botev, J. Guesde, G. Dimitrov, V. Kolarov, K. Zetkin. The founders of scientific communism, K. Marx and F. Engels, highly valued the revolutionary and literary feat of Nikolai Gavrilovich, calling him a great Russian writer, a socialist Lessing.

What is the secret of the unfading longevity of N. G. Chernyshevsky’s book? Why does each new generation of socialists and revolutionaries see again and again in the novel “What is to be done?” “an old but formidable weapon”? Why do we, people of the late 20th century, the period of developed socialism, read it with such excitement?

Perhaps, first of all, because N. G. Chernyshevsky was the first in the history of world literature to show that the high ideas of socialism and the enlightened morality of the future golden age are not the lot of celestials and supermen, but the everyday life of completely understandable, tangible “ordinary new people”, whom he saw in life and whose characters he made the subject of artistic research.

The undeniable merit of the writer is the naturalness of that ascent to the heights of the human spirit and action - from the dirt and immobility of the bourgeois world of “old people” - which he forces the reader-friend to go through step by step along with his heroine Verochka Rozalskaya - Vera Pavlovna Lopukhova-Kirsanova.

Let us remember the very beginning of his unexpected “Preface,” which boldly invaded the semi-detective beginning of the novel: “The content of the story is love, the main character is a woman...

I. It’s true, I say,” the author states.

Yes it's true! The novel “What to do?” a book about the love of people and about the love for people that inevitably comes, which must be established on earth.

Vera Pavlovna’s love for the “new man” Lopukhov gradually led her to the idea that “all people need to be happy, and that we need to help this come sooner... this is one thing natural, one thing humane...” N G. Chernyshevsky was deeply convinced that among the “new people”, whose main features he considered activity, human decency, courage and confidence in achieving a once chosen high goal, the ethics of socialism and revolution can and should grow from relationships in love, in. family, in a circle of associates, like-minded people.

He left evidence of this conviction for us not only in the novel, masterfully showing in it the development and enrichment (from the particular to the general) of Vera Pavlovna’s living feelings. In one of his letters to his sons from far away in Siberia, many years later, he wrote: “No one can think about millions, tens, hundreds of millions of people as well as they should. And you can't. But still, part of the rational thoughts inspired in you by love for your father inevitably extends to many, many other people. And at least a little bit these thoughts are transferred to the concept of “man” - to everyone, to all people.”

Many pages of the novel are a true hymn to the love of “new people,” which is the result and crown of the moral development of humanity. Only real equality of lovers, only their joint service to a beautiful goal will help us enter the kingdom of the “Bright Beauty” - that is, into the kingdom of such Love that a hundred times exceeds the love of the times of Astarte, Aphrodite, the Queen of Purity.

These pages were read by many in Russia and abroad. For example, I. E. Repin wrote about them with delight in his book of memoirs “Distant Close”. They were singled out from the entire novel by August Bebel, “... the pearl among all the episodes seems to me to be the comparative description of love in different historical eras... This comparison is perhaps the best that the 19th century has so far said about love,” he emphasized.

It is also true that, being a novel about love, “What is to be done?” - a book about the revolution, about its moral principles, about ways to achieve a better future for humanity. With the entire structure of his work, the specific lives of his specific heroes, Chernyshevsky showed that a wonderful future cannot come by itself, that a persistent and long struggle is needed for it. The dark forces of evil, which are so concretely “humanized” in the characters of “old people” - from Marya Alekseevna, Storeshnikov and the “insightful reader”, many-faced in his vile vulgarity, to the barely identified persecutors of Vera Pavlovna’s workshop, behind whom one can discern police ranks, prohibition, prisons and the entire arsenal of violence accumulated over centuries - are not at all going to voluntarily give way to the future.

A world hostile to true morality and love must be swept away by the spring flood of revolutionary renewal, which must be expected, but which must be actively prepared. It is for this purpose that life puts forward and reveals to the reader Chernyshevsky a “special person.” Creating the image of Rakhmetov - a professional revolutionary, conspirator, herald, and possibly the leader of a future popular uprising - is a literary feat of Nikolai Gavrilovich. The art of the novelist and the height of the “Aesopian possibilities” of the author, who knew how to “educate real revolutionaries” even under censored conditions, allowed him to say a lot more about Rakhmetov than was said in the chapter “A Special Person.”

Once found and awakened to a new life by Kirsanov, Rakhmetov actively influences the inner world of all the main characters: Lopukhov, Kirsanov, Vera Pavlovna, and their friends. He is the catalyst and inner spring of their actions, as, indeed, the inner spring of the novel itself. The “discerning reader” does not and cannot see this. But the author constantly invites the like-minded reader to take part in this extra-plot line of the novel.

Rakhmetov is truly a special person, one of those few who, according to the author, are “the salt of the earth,” “the engines of the engines.” He is the knight of the plan, the knight of that Bright beauty who appears in Vera Pavlovna’s beautiful dreams. But no matter how the author distinguishes Rakhmetov from his other favorite heroes, he still does not separate them with an impassable abyss. And at times he makes it clear that under certain circumstances “ordinary decent people” can turn into “special” people. This happened in the time of Chernyshevsky, and we see even more examples in subsequent history, when modest soldiers of the revolution became its true knights, leaders of millions of misses.”

Volumes have been written about the famous dreams of Vera Pavlovna, about the retrospective allegories and insights into the future in them during the existence of the novel. Additional interpretations are hardly needed. Of course, specific pictures of the socialist distance, a kind of utopia painted with a bold brush by the author of “What is to be done?” seem naive to us today, but they made a strong impression on the reader of the last century. By the way, N.G. Chernyshevsky himself was skeptical about the possibility of “clearly describing for others, or at least imagining for oneself, a different social structure that would be based on a higher ideal.”

But today’s reader of the novel cannot help but be captivated by that reverent faith, that inescapable conviction, that historical optimism with which more than one hundred and twenty years ago the prisoner from “number eleven” of the Peter and Paul Fortress looked into the future of his people and humanity. Without waiting for the verdict that the world of autocracy and serfdom, the world of “old people” already doomed by history, was preparing for him, N. G. Chernyshevsky himself pronounced his verdict on this world, prophetically proclaiming the inevitability of the onset of the world of socialism and labor.

Chernyshevsky finished “What to do?” shortly before his 35th birthday. He came to literature as a man of comprehensive erudition, a strong materialistic worldview, serious life experience and almost incredible knowledge in the field of philology. Nikolai Gavrilovich was aware of this himself. In one of the versions of the preface to the novel “Tales within a Tale,” written shortly after the publication of “What is to be done?”, he says: “I have thought so much about life, read so much and thought about what I read, that a little poetic talent is enough for me to to be a wonderful poet." It is hardly necessary to give here other considerations about his possible place in literature as a novelist. They, as the reader of “What is to be done?” remembers well, are full of ironic self-criticism, but, by and large, they contain a restrained assessment of their capabilities, without self-deprecation.

Of course, Chernyshevsky’s enormous talent as a fiction writer could not reveal itself to its full potential. The heavy pressure of censorship and the ban on even his very name from 1863 almost until the revolution of 1905 is one of the most vile crimes of tsarism against the Russian people and world literature. The reader of the 19th century practically never recognized a single new work by a writer buried alive. However, “What is to be done?”, the incomparable literary fate of N. G. Chernyshevsky’s first novel, gives a convincing idea of ​​the scope and depth of his literary talent.

The noticeable influence of Chernyshevsky’s novel on the future fate of Russian literature is generally recognized in Soviet literary criticism. It can be traced even in the works of such outstanding artists as JI. Tolstoy, F. Dostoevsky, N. Leskov, who could not avoid the power of influence of many ideas “What is to be done?” - even when they built some of their works taking into account their rejection or direct polemics with them.

Chernyshevsky’s book “What to do?” brought to literature not only the vast world of ideas, not only a new genre of intellectual novel. Having absorbed much from the innumerable treasures of the literary arsenal, the author enriched them, reworked them with the power of his talent, and sometimes he himself made discoveries both in the field of content and in the sense of equipping with literary devices, plot devices, the relaxedness of the visible author's participation in the fabric itself, the architectonics of the work .

Researchers rightly note, for example, that the origins of such a literary device as Vera Pavlovna’s dreams should be seen in Radishchev’s Pryamovzor from the chapter “Spasskaya Cavity” of the famous “Travel...”. “The sister of her sisters and the bride of her grooms” is a talented continuation of the image of the one who, by the will of Alexander Radishchev, removed the eyesore from seeing the reality of true life. Of course, Chernyshevsky took into account the experience of “Eugene Onegin” and “Dead Souls” when he boldly introduced into the novel not just individual author’s digressions, lyrical reflections, but the author himself in flesh, character, the power of sarcasm or respect for the many-sided reader, who himself often turns out to be a hero and a participant in the story.

L n Chernyshevsky’s ability to create visible, “culturally tangible types of “old people” - such as Verochka’s parents, or the hopelessly stupid Storeshnikov with the stupid maman, mired in class snares, or the monstrously bloated noble spider Chaplin from “Prologue” - is it Don’t we see the talent of Shchedrin’s or Swift’s strength?

In the light of what has been said, the “What to do?” arguments that have now been refuted by more than a century of life and that arose in the first battle around the novel seem truly absurd.

about his lack of artistry. Unfortunately, this vile version turned out to be tenacious. Apparently, it was not in vain that the enemies of revolutionary literature worked so hard around it.

It is very significant that the controversy that once raged around the work of N. G. Chernyshevsky, around the novel “What is to be done?” have not been relegated to the field of archival literary criticism. Either dying down, then flaring up again, they did not stop either in the years preceding the Great October Revolution, or in the mid-twentieth century, or in our days. Fearing the impact of a revolutionary novel on the reading public, wanting at all costs to belittle the human feat of its author, bourgeois ideologists of all stripes, from Russian White emigrants to their today's ideological followers - literary scholars and Sovietologists, continue to fight to this day, as if with a living person. with Chernyshevsky.

In this sense, the picture of the “study” of Chernyshevsky’s work in the USA is of considerable interest. Some revival that emerged in the study of Russian revolutionary thought during the Second World War and the first post-war years gave way to calm. For a long time, the name of Chernyshevsky only occasionally appeared on the pages of American literary publications. In the 60-70s, due to a number of reasons: the aggravation of social contradictions, crisis phenomena in the economy, the growth of anti-war sentiment in the United States, the success of the peace initiatives of the USSR, the turn to international détente - interest in our country and its history began to grow. Certain intellectual circles in the United States sought to look at the “Russian question” and its origins with different eyes. It was at this time that the attention of American researchers to Russian revolutionary democrats, and especially to Chernyshevsky, increased.

New processes in the socio-political and intellectual atmosphere of those years were manifested to a large extent, for example, in the serious work of F. B. Randall - the first American monograph on Chernyshevsky, published in 1967. According to the author’s own statement, he set the task of discovering a new name in Russian literature of the 19th century for Western readers. He believes, and it is difficult to disagree with this, that the previous works of his colleagues did not give even an approximate idea of ​​the true scale and significance of Chernyshevsky in the history of literature and social thought in Russia.

Randall very convincingly shows the reader the stereotypes-“myths” that have developed in American and generally Western literature about Chernyshevsky. One of them is the “myth” of Chernyshevsky as a primitive utilitarian in the field of aesthetics and morality. Another “myth” is about the Russian thinker as an uncritical popularizer of crude vulgar materialistic theories borrowed from the West. The third "myth" -

about Chernyshevsky as a boring, ponderous writer, supposedly of no interest to the modern reader. Randall considers all these “myths” to be the product of incompetence, scientific dishonesty and even ignorance of scientific specialists, of whom, in his opinion, only every second person has barely read “What is to be done?” and at most one in twenty took the trouble to become acquainted with other works of the Russian author.

Well, the assessment is harsh, but perhaps not without foundation. Randall showed an enviable familiarity not only with the works of N. G. Chernyshevsky, but also with world (including Soviet) literature on these issues. For him, reading Chernyshevsky’s novel “What is to be done?” and other works - not a boring task at all. It gives “pleasure and genuine pleasure.” In his opinion, Chernyshevsky is a witty polemicist with exceptional advantages of style, integrity, unity of form and content. The American researcher is captivated by the high degree of persuasiveness of Chernyshevsky’s works, his faith in the bright future of humanity, in the correctness of his views. He admits with frank sadness and regret that such qualities are absent among the ideologists of the modern Western world.

Noting the undoubted merits and personal courage of Randall, who took upon himself the difficult burden of “rehabilitating” Chernyshevsky before the American reader, it should be said that he does not always fulfill this role. The burden of bourgeois “myths” is too heavy. The author himself sometimes engages in myth-making, accusing either Soviet researchers or Chernyshevsky himself of various kinds of sins. There is no shortage of contradictory arguments in the book, evidence of the influence of stereotypes of Western propaganda and bourgeois thinking, but still the appearance of such a monograph is an undoubted step by an American scientist along the path of comprehending the true Chernyshevsky, along the path of constructiveness and scientific integrity.

A continuation of the emerging trend of serious interest in the life and work of Chernyshevsky in American scientific literature should be considered the monograph by Professor William Werlin, “Chernyshevsky - a Man and a Journalist,” published at Harvard University in 1971. And this author freely uses the works of Chernyshevsky himself, the literature about him of his predecessors in the West, and a wide range of names of Soviet researchers. The book contains many correct conclusions and observations about the personality, philosophical, and economic views of Chernyshevsky. But in assessing his aesthetics and literary positions, Werlin remains in the snares of popular bourgeois ideas. He was unable to understand the dialectical depth of the aesthetic views of the great democrat; his assessment of the novel “What is to be done?” is rather primitive. According to Werlin, Chernyshevsky “salted his novel with heroes who embody abstract vices and virtues.” But the author does not deny the wide popularity of the novel and the fact that the “new people” were perceived by Russian youth as an example to follow, and Rakhmetov became “an example of a professional revolutionary” for many years.

However, even timid inclinations towards truth and objectivity in matters of studying Russian literature and the history of social thought alarmed the guardians of the “true” bourgeois mores from science. Sovietologists of all stripes tried to “play it back.” Randall's unusual book did not go unnoticed. In the very first review by a certain C. A. Moser, it was criticized for breaking with “generally accepted” concepts. N. G. Pereira, first in articles and then in a special monograph, hastened not only to restore the former “myths”, but also to go further than others in his slanderous accusations against Chernyshevsky.

In 1975, new names joined the war against Chernyshevsky. Among them, Rufus Mathewson, a professor at Columbia (New York) University, particularly “distinguished himself.” He came out with a libelous book called “A Positive Hero in Russian Literature”2. One of the many chapters, entitled “The Salt of the Salt of the Earth,” is specifically devoted to Chernyshevsky, his aesthetics and literary practice. Nikolai Gavrilovich is directly charged (which for some reason seems terrible to the aesthetic professor) that “he created a consistent and integral doctrine of literature in the service of society” and thereby became the theoretical forerunner of the Soviet literature so hated by Mathewson. “The full extent of his (Chernyshevsky - Yu. M.) influence on Soviet thought has yet to be assessed,” the bellicose professor warns threateningly. After all, the positive hero of Soviet literature “agrees to all sorts of restrictions on his life’s needs in order to become, like Chernyshevsky’s Rakhmetov, an instrument of history.”

For a bourgeois researcher, the very idea that art is a reflection of life’s reality seems blasphemous. What this bourgeois philistine does not attribute to Chernyshevsky: both the fact that he “completely denies the creative functions of the artist” and the fact that he wrote “What is to be done?” from a “radical utilitarian position”, and what “denies artistic imagination”, and, finally, even what the Soviet five-year plans foresaw.

"What to do?" arouses Mathewson's literally pathological hatred, since the novel is the implementation of the aesthetic principles developed by Chernyshevsky in his dissertation. He sees many sins in the novel and is even ready to forgive both the author’s inexperience and his supposed indifference to literary traditions, but he cannot forgive what is most terrible for him - “errors stemming from the basic doctrines of radical literature, formulated then and still in effect now.” Mathewson “criticizes” Chernyshevsky precisely from the position of a bourgeois, frightened by the possibility of an organized struggle of working people for their future. He is clearly not satisfied with the author’s call “What to do?” to the reader - to see a better future and fight for it. He is trying to reject a wonderful novel, to condemn it precisely for its effectiveness, for its revolutionary meaning.

Reading and thinking about this today, one cannot help but be surprised at how far-sighted Chernyshevsky was when, on December 14, 1862, he conceived a work that carries an intellectual charge of such explosive power, against which to this day the ideological defenders of the passing world so unsuccessfully wave their hands. old people."

For more than a century of active work, Chernyshevsky’s novel “What is to be done?” in the bright field of the struggle for socialism, shows even more clearly the undoubted rightness of V.I. Lenin, who so highly regarded Chernyshevsky himself, and the artistic and ideological-political merits of his novel “What is to be done?” Already in the post-war years, additional materials about this became known from the book of memoirs of the former Menshevik N. Valentinov “Meetings with Lenin”. Such a stroke is typical. When in 1904, during Lenin’s conversation with Vorovsky and Valentinov, the latter began to denounce the novel “What is to be done?”, Vladimir Ilyich ardently stood up for Chernyshevsky. “Are you aware of what you are saying? - he asked me. “How can a monstrous, absurd idea come into one’s head to call the work of Chernyshevsky, the greatest and most talented representative of socialism before Marx, primitive, mediocre?.. I declare: it is unacceptable to call “What is to be done?” primitive and mediocre. Under his influence, hundreds of people became revolutionaries. Could this have happened if Chernyshevsky had written incompetently and primitively? For example, he captivated my brother, and he captivated me too. He plowed me all deep. When did you read What to Do? It is useless to read it if the milk on your lips has not dried. Chernyshevsky's novel is too complex and full of thoughts to be understood and appreciated at an early age. I tried to read it myself, I think, at the age of 14. It was a worthless, superficial reading. But after my brother’s execution, knowing that Chernyshevsky’s novel was one of his most beloved works, I took up real reading and sat over it not for several days, but for weeks. Only then did I understand the depth. This is something that gives you a charge for life.”

In 1928, during the celebration of the 100th anniversary of Chernyshevsky’s birth, A.V. Lunacharsky said with considerable irony: “The following attitude has been established towards Chernyshevsky: he is, of course, a weak artist; his fictional works are something like a fable; morality is important in them...” Lunacharsky ridiculed such reasoning, showed their superficiality and complete inconsistency, he emphasized that for the purpose of communist education of young people, it is fundamentally important to acquaint them with Chernyshevsky’s novels. He called on literary scholarship to study these works more deeply and rightly believed that studying the experience of the great democrat could help the development of young Soviet literature. More than half a century has passed since then. Much has changed in our ideas about Chernyshevsky, we have learned a lot about him and his work. But Lunacharsky’s conclusions and advice on the significance of human and literary feats II. G. Chernyshevsky, about the importance of distributing his books for our life and literature seem very relevant today.

In October 1862, during the birth of the idea “What to do?”, Nikolai Gavrilovich wrote to Olga Sokratovna the following proud and prophetic lines: “...our life with you belongs to history; Hundreds of years will pass, and our names will still be dear to people; and they will remember us with gratitude when they have already forgotten almost everyone who lived at the same time as us. So we must not lose ourselves in terms of cheerfulness of character in front of people who will study our life.”

And Chernyshevsky did not lose himself either during the civil execution, or in the Nerchinsk mines, or in the monstrous Vilyui exile. With more than three years of fortress, hard labor, and exile for every year of work at Sovremennik, tsarism took revenge on its dangerous enemy. But his will was unyielding. When in 1874, with promises of imminent freedom, the authorities tried to persuade an exhausted prisoner to submit a request for pardon to the “highest name,” a short and firm answer followed: “I read. I refuse to submit the petition. Nikolai Chernyshevsky."

“Relief” occurred only in 1883, when, almost under the Arctic Circle, Chernyshevsky was secretly transferred to the semi-desert heat of the then Astrakhan. At the end of June 1889, after much trouble with the family, Chernyshevsky moved to Saratov. The meeting with my family was wonderful, but short. The health of the great fighter and martyr was undermined. On October 29, 1889, Chernyshevsky passed away.

A century and a half has passed since the day when the great democrat and writer was born in a modest house in Saratov, on the high bank of the Volga. Life on the banks of his beloved river changed, the wind of the revolutionary storm he predicted turned the history of Russia sharply. Already more than a third of humanity and pillboxes are on the way to building a new, socialist world. Guided by the truth of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, progressive people of the world know today what to do to save and decorate planet Earth. And in all this there is a considerable share of the work, talent, courage and time of Nikolai Chernyshevsky, who loved people and wanted them to be happy.

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