Sobolev Lev. Abstract: Political views of S.P.

PSTGU Bulletin

IV: Pedagogy. Psychology

2007. Vol. 3. pp. 147-167

RUSSIAN'S VIEW ON MODERN EDUCATION

Europe S.P. Shevyrev

Readers are invited to publish a well-known article by S.P. Shevyrev “A Russian’s view of modern education in Europe.” Despite its fame and numerous references, the article, however, has not been published anywhere else (as far as the author of the publication knows), although it is of undoubted interest not only for a philologist, but also for the history of pedagogy.

The publication was prepared by Ph.D. ist. sciences, leading research fellow Institute of Theory and History of Pedagogy RAO L.N. Belenchuk.

Stepan Petrovich Shevyrev (1806-1864) - a major literary historian, professor at Moscow University, taught the history of literature, poetry, and other philology courses for over 20 years. Since 1851 S.P. Shevyrev simultaneously headed the Department of Pedagogy, established at Moscow University in the same year. Since 1852 he was an ordinary academician (highest rank) of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences.

Lectures by S.P. Shevyrev’s works invariably aroused great interest among listeners and enjoyed enormous popularity. His course of lectures “The History of Russian Literature” was famous, in which he drew public attention to the extensive ancient Russian literature, which had been little studied until that time. This course was a kind of response to the 1st “Philosophical Letter” of P. Chaadaev, in which he asserted the emptiness and insignificance of the ancient culture of Rus'.

His scientific articles on pedagogy about the influence family education on the moral state of society, moreover, on government structure, are widely known and more relevant than ever for our time. The main idea of ​​these articles - when the family is destroyed, both society and the state collapse - is only now receiving a real assessment, and his view of education as a process that continues throughout life has now been defined as “continuous (lifelong) education.” At the same time, S.P. Shevyrev emphasized that the process and quality of education are influenced by a variety of factors in the surrounding world. In almost all of his works, Shevyrev dealt with issues of education, into which he invested a broad meaning.

Of Shevyrev’s pedagogical works, the most famous is his lecture (and then article) “On the relationship of family education to state education. Speech delivered at the ceremonial meeting of the Imperial Moscow University on June 16, 1842.” (M., 1842). In it, Shevyrev defined the main goal of education (“By the name of education, one should understand the possible complete development of all the intimate, mental and spiritual abilities of a person, given to him by God, development consistent with his highest purpose and applied to the people and the state among which Providence has appointed him to act "; p. 4), its means, the role of the state, family and society in education, and also touched upon the topic of differences in education in Western Europe and Russia. 15 years earlier than N.I. Shevyrev called Pirogov the main issue of pedagogy “the education of a person” (“A student or a candidate comes out of the university; a man comes out of your hands - a title that is more important than all other titles”; p. 4). Arranging the correct transition from family to school is one of the main tasks of state education, he argued. The speech had a wide public response.

Article by S.P. Shevyrev “A Russian’s View of Modern Education in Europe” was published in the first issue of the magazine “Moskvityanin” (1841, No. 1, pp. 219-296) and, according to our data, was not published anywhere else, although its materials were used by the author in other works and courses of lectures, for example, in “The History of Poetry” (of which only one volume was published). Many researchers consider it to be software for Moskvityanin. indeed, it reflects all the main problems developed by Slavophilism, to which S.P. Shevyrev’s worldview was very close: the cultural principles of Europe and Russia, the origins of European culture and enlightenment, a comparative analysis of the cultures of its largest states, the place of Russia in the world universal culture. The content of the article at first glance seems much broader than stated in the title. However, this reflects the specific understanding of education by Shevyrev and his associates as the broad enlightenment of a person in all spheres of his life (and not just in educational institutions), as the formation of his worldview based on basic values. Therefore, the article does not devote much space to the problems of education itself in our today’s highly specialized understanding. but everything that constitutes the humanitarian aspect of a person’s culture is analyzed.

Let us draw the reader's attention to the brilliant knowledge of S.P. Shevyrev of Western European culture, its most diverse directions (few Westerners knew Western culture at that time!), respect and love for its highest achievements and best representatives. Only an essay devoted to the culture of France can be considered negatively critical. Maybe S.P. Shevyrev, ahead of his time, saw better than others the trends that originated in Europe and rapidly developed in the future. It is significant that in the early 1990s, the Pope, visiting France, exclaimed: “France, what have you done with your baptism!” (Quoted from: Kuraev A.

Why are the Orthodox like this?.. M., 2006. P. 173). So Shevyrev’s assessment, even if it seemed unfounded to his contemporaries, who revered France as a country of great culture, was, on the whole, completely fair. And it is absolutely surprising that Shevyrev’s critics do not pay attention to the fact that he was a believer, Orthodox person, and it was from these positions that he tried to find in every culture features close to his Christian well-being and worldview, and even in pagan France he looked for elements of its Christian past, and therefore hope for the future.

Like other Slavophiles, Shevyrev considered the basis of culture and education to be a person’s religion, his religious ideas, agreeing on this, in particular, with I.V. Kireevsky, who wrote: “...I have reached the conviction that the direction of philosophy (and therefore of all education based on it - L.B.) depends in its first beginning on the concept that we have about Holy Trinity"(Poln. sobr. soch. M., 1911, vol. 2, p. 281).

The article is published in the magazine “Moskvityanin” (1841, part 1, no. 1, p. 219-296). We took the liberty of slightly shortening the fragments of the article devoted to specific development problems. individual species art (painting, theater). Abbreviations are marked in the text with<...>Author's footnotes are given at the end of the page and are marked with *; our footnotes are marked with Arabic numerals and are given at the end of the text. The text of the article has been brought into line with modern norms of the Russian language (in words such as “debate”, “form”, “history”, “Russian”, “French”, “Englishman”, etc., capital letters have been replaced lowercase, unnecessary letters not used today have been removed, etc.). The article will be published in two issues of the PSTGU Bulletin: the first part includes an analysis of education in Italy and England, the second - in France and Germany.

There are moments in history when all of humanity is expressed by one all-consuming name! These are the names of Cyrus1, Alexander2, Caesar3, Charlemagne4, Gregory VII5, Charles V6. Napoleon was ready to put his name on modern humanity, but he met Russia!

There are eras in history when all the forces acting in it are resolved into two main ones, which, having absorbed everything extraneous, come face to face, measure each other with their eyes and come out for a decisive debate, like Achilles and Hector at the conclusion of the Iliad. Here are the famous martial arts of world history: Asia and Greece, Greece and Rome, Rome and the Germanic world.

In the ancient world, these martial arts were decided by material force: then force ruled the universe. In the Christian world the world-

new conquests have become impossible: we are called to a single combat of thought.

The drama of modern history is expressed by two names, one of which sounds sweet to our hearts! The West and Russia, Russia and the West - this is the result arising from everything previous; here is the last word of history, here are two given (as in the text - L.B.) for the future!

Napoleon (it was not for nothing that we started with him) contributed a lot to outline both words of this result. The instinct of the entire West was concentrated in the person of his gigantic genius - and moved towards Russia when he could. Let us repeat the words of the Poet:

Praise! He showed the Russian people a high lot1.

Yes, a great and decisive moment! The West and Russia stand in front of each other, face to face! Will he carry us away in his worldwide quest? Will he understand it? Shall we go in addition to his education? Shall we make some extra addition to his story? Or will we remain in our originality? Shall we form a special world, according to our own principles, and not the same European ones? Let's take a sixth of the world out of Europe... the seed for the future development of mankind?

Here is a question - a great question, which is not only heard here, but also echoes in the West. Solving it - for the benefit of Russia and humanity - is the work of our present and future generations. Everyone who has been called to any significant service in our Fatherland must begin by resolving this issue if he wants to connect his actions with the present moment of life. That's the reason why we start with it.

The question is not new: the millennium of Russian life, which our generation can celebrate in twenty-two years, offers a complete answer to it. But the meaning of the history of any people is a mystery hidden under the external clarity of events: everyone solves it in their own way. The question is not new; but in our time its importance has come to life and has become palpable to everyone.

Let us take a general look at the state of modern Europe and the attitude in which our Fatherland stands towards it. We eliminate here all political types and limit ourselves to only one picture of education, embracing religion, science, art8 and literature, the latter as the most complete expression of the entire human life of peoples. We will, of course, touch only on the main countries that act in the field of the European world.

Let us begin with those two whose influence reaches us least of all and which form the two extreme opposites of Europe.

We mean Italy and England. The first took for her share all the treasures of the ideal world of fantasy; almost completely alien to all the lures of modern luxury industry, she, in the miserable rags of poverty, sparkles with her fiery eyes, enchants with her sounds, sparkles with ageless beauty and is proud of her past. The second selfishly appropriated to itself all the essential benefits of the everyday world; drowning herself in the wealth of life, she wants to entangle the whole world with the bonds of her trade and industry.

The first place is for the one who, with noble selflessness, takes us from the world of selfish materiality to the world of pure pleasures. It used to be that the peoples of the north rushed through the Alps with weapons in their hands to fight for the southern beauty of European countries, which attracted their eyes. Now, every year, colonies of peaceful wanderers flow from the tops of Simplon, Mont Cenis, Col del Bormio, Schilugen and Brenner9, or from both seas: the Adriatic and Mediterranean, into beautiful gardens her, where she peacefully treats them with her sky, nature and art.

Almost alien to the new world, which is pushed away from it forever by the snow-capped Alps, Italy lives with the memories of antiquity and art. Through her we received the ancient world: she is still faithful to her work. All its soil is the grave of the past. Beneath the living world, another world is smoldering, an outdated world, but eternal. Its vineyards bloom on the ruins of the cities of the dead; its ivy entwines itself with the monuments of ancient grandeur; her laurels are not for the living, but for the dead.

There, at the foot of the smoking Vesuvius, the dead Pompey slowly shakes off his ashen shroud. Smothered by a fiery bogey at the full moment of her life and buried in the ground with all her treasures, she now reveals them in wonderful integrity so that we can finally unravel ancient life in all its details. New discoveries in the architecture, sculpture, and painting of the ancients change completely previous views and await a new Winkelm10, who would say a decisive word about them.

the ancient Forum of Rome lazily throws off its centuries-old mound, while Italian and German antiquarians idly argue about the names of its nameless and silent buildings.

The cities of Etruria11 open their tombs - and the treasures of times, perhaps Homeric (i.e. Homer - L.B.), faithfully preserved by the selfless earth, are brought to light into the halls of the Vatican.

Soon antiquity will be as accessible and clear to us as the life around us: man will not lose anything from his boundless

past - and everything noticeable in the life of all centuries will become the property of its every minute. The opportunity is now open to us to talk with ancient writers, as if with our contemporaries. Elegant antiquity with the beauty of its forms will ennoble and decorate the forms of our ordinary life. Everything that serves a person and for his everyday needs must be worthy of him and bear the imprint of his spiritual being. Italy continues to work on this matter, of course, which is not so important in the life of mankind, preserving all the luxury of noble antiquity.

Art, like faithful ivy, encircles the ruins of Italy. The former massacre of nations has now turned into a workshop for the whole world, where they no longer argue with a sword, but with a brush, a chisel and a compass. All her galleries are inhabited by crowds of artists who besiege the great works of genius, or by strolling wanderers who slavishly bow to her past. It is curious to see how Russian, French, German, English painters sit around one “Transfiguration” by Raphael12 and try in different ways to repeat the elusive images of the inimitable by anyone’s brush.

There was a time when Italy transmitted to all Western countries the graceful forms of its poetry: now it has done the same in relation to other arts. On the banks of the Isar, Rhine, Thames, Seine, Neva13 the fine forms of Italian art have been adopted by all educated nations. They change, depending on the special character of each, but in the main the Italian ideal is understood.<...>

Science in Italy has its representatives in some individual parts, but does not unite anything as a whole. The fragmentation of the political system is reflected in both science and literature. The scientists of Italy are islands floating separately on a sea of ​​ignorance. In the north, where there is more activity, annual congresses of scientists were conceived: Pisa14, the cradle of enlightenment in the new Italy, cast the first vote. Florence, Milan, Turin extended their hands to her. But the Pope, under pain of excommunication from the church, twice forbade Roman scientists from going to these congresses. Where are Nicholas V, Leo X, Julia II15?

Despite the circumstances unfavorable to the sciences, they are carried on by long-standing traditions. Even Naples came to life. And it publishes journals in which German philosophy reaches, and where aesthetic theories are expounded, hitherto unheard of on the shores of the wonderful bay.

So, Bianchi16, an archaeologist, of whom there are few in Europe, will lead you through the streets of Pompeii and with his lively story will resurrect before you the whole

life of the ancients; will inhabit these streets, temples, basilicas, forums, baths, houses. The imagination of the Italian will give color and life to the dry research of the scientist. In Rome, Angelo Mai,11 that last of Italy's gigantic philologists, continues to rummage through the Vatican codes; but it should be noted that since the purple mantle invested the philologist with the title of cardinal, his research is not as active as before. But in Rome there is another cardinal, a miracle of human memory, the glorious Menzofanti, who speaks 56 living languages. There, the learned Jesuit Marchi discovered traces of their colonization on the asses of 18 ancient cities of Italy and penetrated into the secrets of its ancient history. Nibbi, whose loss the eternal city had not yet mourned, recently lived in the Rome of the Republic and the Caesars and took his readers there with him. Canina20, an antiquarian and philologist, recreates the plan of ancient Rome with all its glorious buildings and streets - and you, reading ancient history, can imagine the scene of the event. In Pisa, Roselli21, having established the department of the Coptic language, resurrects the Alexandrian-Egyptian world in a new form. There Rosini22, leaving the pen of the novelist, an imitator of Manzoni23, studies the history of painting in Italy from monuments still unexplored. In Florence, Ciampi24 rummages through archives and libraries and looks for traces of Italian influence on Russia and Poland. The Roman Curia looks askance at his work and bans it in its areas: the reason is that Chiampi discovered many of the machinations of papism and the Jesuits against Russia. In Padua, a professor of world history, Menin, resurrects the historical readings of Thucydides in his lectures. Having the gift of words to the highest degree and having formed it classically, he paints with words the pictures of history so that all of it passes in the imagination of the listeners, like a living panorama of events. Count Litta25 in Milan publishes histories of all the most famous families in Italy, based on the most reliable documents and gleaned from the private archives that abound in its cities. Wonderful material for the history of the Middle Ages! Giulio Ferrari continues his enormous work there: he studies the external life of all the peoples of the world, ancient and new, their clothes, customs, holidays, arts, crafts, etc. and brings it all to life with drawings. His new aesthetic view of the life of mankind is remarkable. An important guide for artists!

This is the activity of Italian scientists. It has nothing whole, nothing total. It is focused more on what surrounds them, what is included in the world of antiquity or art.

The state of literature presents the same feudal aspect as science. Until now, the Italian government has not yet thought to ensure

protect literary property* and protect copyright rights. In some Italian states, authors are given privileges against reprinting; but there are no positively approved laws - and there is absolutely no reciprocity between states. An author who has published a somewhat remarkable work in Milan can be sure that it will immediately appear in Florence, Pisa, Lugano, Rome, Naples, and so on, and its price will be cheaper everywhere. That is why booksellers rarely buy the works or translations of writers, and this leaves only one poor means: to publish, resorting to subscription, or, in their technical term: per via di associazione26. Of course, genius is possible in all aspects of life; but means are needed to educate him and to stimulate his activity. Literature cannot consist of works of genius alone: ​​it must embrace all the phenomena of modern life.

A very remarkable feature of the real literature of Italy: despite the fact that all works of French literature are read by Ausonian writers,27 their taste has remained completely pure from the corrupt influence of France. The novels of Hugo, Soulier, Sue and others, the offspring of French drama, did not give rise to anything similar in Italy. It would be unfair to leave such inviolable integrity of her taste to the care of the Italian censorship and think that this latter guards morality, decency and taste. No, that would be an added honor to her: the censorship in Milan would even allow obscenity in novels, in the hope of providing pleasant entertainment to the public. Moreover, outside Italy there is another, wandering, uncensored literature: Lugano, Paris and London print everything irresponsibly. Sometimes books with London's name are published in Florence itself and in other Italian cities. And yet here, where the gaze of neither Austrian, nor papal, nor Neapolitan censorship reaches, you will not find either corruption of taste or depravity of morals! No, the reasons for this phenomenon lie deeper; they are in the spirit and character of the Italian people.

The first of them is a religious feeling, deeply hidden in him. The Italian is faithful to him in all aspects of life. All wandering Italy, even among godless Paris, is nourished by Religion. The second reason is an aesthetic feeling, a sense of beauty. The immoral thing in poetry is disgusting to the Italian because it is ugly. Literature

* Recently there was news in the newspapers that the Austrian and Sardinian governments had agreed to establish a law of literary property on a mutual basis between both properties and that the Pope had expressed his consent to this.

Italy is in decline; but the taste for the elegant, nourished by the eternal models included in popular education, is supported by legend.

The sad relationship of literature to state life is especially visible in how little prolific those writers are, whose genius is recognized throughout Europe. Manzoni died alive. Since his “The Betrothed,” with which he surpassed the best novels of W. Scott, Manzoni has not written a single line. For several years now he has been promising to publish a new novel: “La Colonna infame” (“The Pillory”), the content of which seems to be taken from an episode of “The Betrothed.” This year a rumor spread in Italy that the novel was already being published in Turin, also per via di associazione; but still nothing comes of it.

Silvio Pellico28, after his “Dungeons and Duties,” published several poems; but his poems are weak after prose, nourished by a suffering life. Recently he told the story of how his “Dungeons” came into being. It is heard that he is going to write his autobiography. Who wouldn't eagerly read such a book? But it must be said that his life is too holy for our era and will seem like fiction. The confession of a sinner in the sense of our century would, of course, be more entertaining and, told with feeling, could have a stronger effect.

Among the novelists whose tribe continues unabated in Italy, Cesare Cantu,29 who worthily follows in the footsteps of Manzoni and Grossi, is now especially famous. His novel Margherita Pusterla, taken from 14th-century Milanese history, made a strong impression in Milan. The second edition was banned by the government.

In 1831, Italy lost the historian Colletta31, who wrote in the style of Tacitus32. We mention a writer who died long ago only because the ingratitude of his contemporaries, who know so little about him, is incomprehensible. In relation to the syllable, Collette absolutely occupies the first place among all historians of our time, and yet his name is hardly known among us! Botta33 is, of course, inferior to him in talent; but his name is known because he was talked about more in Paris. Among the new historians, Cesare Balbo34 appears on the scene: he recently published in Turin a biography of Dante, drawn with a hot pen.

Some poetic phenomena in Italy are remarkable: they flare up from time to time, like sparks in an extinct volcano. But here too there is misfortune: its brilliant poets either die a real death soon, or die alive. There is almost not a single one of them who would support his career until the end of his life. This is the most striking sign of decline in the people's spirit!

In 1857, Italy lost its glorious lyricist, who could have excelled not only in it, but also in Europe. His name is Giacomo Leopardi35. His Songs were filled with sorrow, as was his life. His lyre is reminiscent of the best creations of Petrarch and is imbued with a feeling even deeper than the songs of the Troubadour of Avignon36. Germany, which is now so rich in lyric poets, will yield, despite its Kerners and Uhlands,37 the palm in patriotic song to the lyric poetry of Italy, who wandered for a long time in exile, but died under the sky of Naples.

There is another lyricist, inferior to Leopardi in the depth of feeling, but possessing well-aimed arrows of satire, nourished not with mockery, but with sorrow. This is Giovanni Bersche. Others say that his name is fictitious. His works, for some political reasons, are strictly prohibited within Austria. Bershe38 lives outside of Italy.

Borghi in Florence is famous for its religious hymns. Belli in Rome, a satirical poet, owns a comic sonnet. His sonnets are pictures taken from ordinary life in Rome: this is Pinelli in verse. The best writings are in the Roman dialect. They go around in the mouths of the people. Printed ones are much weaker than those known orally.

The poets of Italy, gifted with a more lively and fiery talent, without being protected from literary property, embark on improvisation that takes listeners to the original times of poetry, when neither the pen nor the printing press cooled inspiration. We recently heard Giustiniani39 in Moscow: his instant improvisations aroused disbelief in some and seemed like miracles to many. His student, Regaldi, is famously following in the footsteps of his teacher in Paris.

Dante continues to be the subject of deep research by Italian writers and scientists. And in London, and in Paris, and in all the capitals and wonderful cities of Italy, there are people who devote themselves to studying the great Homer of the Middle Ages. New editions are published frequently. The last comment is from Tommaseo. They publish a lot, and yet even the most remarkable codes of the Divine Comedy have not yet been collated. This is work awaiting workers. Florence erected a monument to her exile in the Church of the Holy Cross, devoid of his ashes; and until now he will not make another literary monument to him - he will not publish his poem, collated according to all the best codes, at least of the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries. This is unlikely to happen while the Accademia della Crusca rules the scepter of language and literature of Tuscan and

ossified in his deep-rooted prejudices, against which there is no higher Areopagus in Italy40. The Tuscan Academy has still not understood that in ancient works neither language nor spelling should be changed. Not long ago she published a commentary on the Divine Comedy, supposedly contemporary with the work, but written in prose, which is in no way different from the prose of living and writing members of the Academy itself.

For some time now they have begun to study the poets who preceded Dante in Italy. The beginning of these works belongs to Count Pertikari, a famous philologist who was early stolen from Italy by death. Dante's appearance no longer seems as sudden in relation to language as it once seemed. Countless poets preceded him throughout all the cities of Italy. Of course, he managed to cover everyone with his name and fame. Thus, in England it was discovered that Shakespeare was surrounded by seventy dramatic poets. How do these two great events explain the riddle of Homer, who probably covered with his name all other names that were carried away forever by primeval antiquity?

Of the contemporary works on the literature that preceded Dante, the most remarkable is the work of Masi. He found in the Vatican Library a codex of poets of the 13th century, written at that time. Not a single learned philologist has so far paid attention to this code: one must hope that Mr. Mazi will soon publish it.

The dramatic literature of Italy produces nothing remarkable. Alfieri, Goldoni, Giraode, Nota41 - make up the national repertoire. But more abundant are the endless translations from French, as in all theaters in Europe except England. Speaking about drama in Italy, one cannot fail to mention the many folk theaters that exist there, for which completely unknown playwrights write. The material of these plays is the morals of the city in which the theater is located; their language is the vernacular. These are the most interesting performances in Italy, where the laughter does not fade away during the performance. Actors are always excellent: for the models are before their eyes. They themselves came out of the circle they represent. This folk drama could provide material for a future Ausonian Shakespeare, if one were possible.

England is the extreme opposite of Italy. There is complete insignificance and political powerlessness; here is the center and the power modern politics; there are the wonders of nature and the carelessness of human hands; here is the poverty of the first and the activity of the second;

there - poverty sincerely wanders along the main roads and streets; here it is hidden by external luxury and wealth; there is an ideal world of fantasy and art; here is a significant sphere of trade and industry; there is the lazy Tiber, on which you will occasionally see a fishing boat; here is the active Thames, which is crowded with steamships; there the sky is eternally bright and open; here fog and smoke forever hid the pure azure from human eyes; there are religious processions every day; here is the dryness of ritualless religion; there every Sunday is a noisy feast of walking people; It's Sunday here - dead silence on the streets; there - lightness, carelessness, fun; here is the important and stern thought of the north...

Isn’t this striking contrast between the two countries the reason why the English love Italy so much and populate it with colonies every year! It is natural for a person to love something in which he sees the other side of the life around him. With it he completes his being.

You are in awe of this country when you see with your own eyes the lasting prosperity that it has created for itself and so wisely and vigilantly supports. The islanders sometimes seem funny and strange when you get to know them on solid ground; but with involuntary respect you bow before them when you visit them and look at the miracles of their universal power, at the activity of their mighty will, at this great present of theirs, which with all its roots rests in the depths of a strictly guarded and respected past. Looking at the appearance of England, you think that this force is immortal, if only any earthly force can be immortal in a world where everything passes away!

This force contains two others, the mutual coupling of which confirms the unshakable strength of England. One of these forces strives outside, longs to embrace the whole world, to assimilate everything for itself; it is the insatiable colonial power that founded the United States, conquered the East Indies, laid hands on all the most glorious harbors of the world. But there is another force in England, an internal, sustaining force, which arranges everything, preserves everything, strengthens everything, and which feeds on what has flowed through.

These two forces not so long ago, before our eyes, were personified in two writers of England, after whose death it did not produce anything higher than them: these are Byron and W. Scott. It seems wonderful at first how these two geniuses, completely opposite in spirit and direction, could be contemporaries and even friends. The secret of this lies in the life of England itself, and even in the life of all of Europe.

Byron personifies for me the insatiable, stormy power of England, which foams all the seas, flutters flags on the winds of the whole world. Byron is the product of this endless thirst that plagues England, this eternal discontent that plagues it and drives it into the world. He expressed in himself the inexhaustible pride of her indomitable spirit!

V. Scott, on the contrary, is an exponent of its other power, which is built inside, preserves and observes. This is an unchanging faith in one’s great past; this is endless love for him, leading to reverence. W. Scott's poetry comes from the beginning that everything that is historically correct is already beautiful because it is sanctified by Russian tradition. V. Scott's novels are the artistic apotheosis of history.

When in London, walking along the vast docks, you observe ships ready to fly to all sorts of countries in the world, then it becomes clear how Byron’s insatiable, stormy spirit could be born and raised in such a land.

When you enter with reverence under the dark arches of Westminster Abbey42 or walk through the parks of Windsor, Hamptoncourt, Richmond43 and relax under the oak trees, born contemporary with Shakespeare, then you comprehend how on this soil of legend the vigilant genius of W. Scott could mature.

Both of these great literary phenomena of this century could not exist without the other. Not only England, but all of Europe expressed themselves in them. Byron's stormy spirit was reflected both in the state life of nations and in the private life of mankind; he was opposed by W. Scott's desire to preserve the past and sanctify every nationality.

How little significant are all the phenomena of English literature after these two, which to this day continue to have a dual influence on the entire writing world of Europe!

Of all the modern writers of England, E.L. is best known in Europe. Bulwer44. It is painful to think how English literature could descend to such mediocrity! It was difficult to choose a new path after the giants of English poetry. Bulwer decided to choose something in between, but it turned out to be neither one nor the other. His heroes do not have the ideality of Byron's heroes and are alien to the life that W. Scott gives to his own. Mediocrity always loves the colorless middle.

Bulverov's primacy, secured to him by the sheer mediocrity of modern English literature, will soon be taken away from him by Dickens, a fresh and national talent. Dickens's inspiration is the same English humor from which all the folk geniuses of England, starting with Shakespeare, drew. Dickens takes his characters from nature, but fashions them according to the model of English caricatures. Main sphere

his is that lowest region of calculation and industry that drowns out all human feelings. It was necessary to brand this vulgar world with satire, and Dickens answers the need of the time.

We might have imitators of Dickens if in this case Russia had not been ahead of England. Dickens has many similarities with Gogol, and if one could assume the influence of our literature on English literature, then we could proudly conclude that England is beginning to imitate Russia. It is a pity that our humorist’s satire will not take the society of our industrialists into its department, as it has already taken the society of officials.

It is said that in England many ladies appeared on the stage of literature. And in this case, isn’t England imitating us? Of the female poets, Miss Norton45 and Miss Brooke are especially famous. The first became famous recently for her poem “The Dream,” written in the style of Byronov.

In England, the same phenomenon occurs as in Italy in relation to modern French literature: this latter did not have any influence on the writers of England. French novels and dramas don’t even find translators there. In Italy we found two reasons for this: Religion and aesthetic feeling. In England there are also two: the traditions of its literature and public opinion. The literature of England always had a moral goal in mind, and each of its works, having appeared in the world, in addition to its aesthetic significance, had the significance of a moral act that was subjected to public judgment. This is how it should be in a well-organized state. Public opinion in England is also the power that puts obstacles in place to prevent the abuse of the personal freedom of a writer who, with his depraved imagination, would want to corrupt the people. In England, even the well-known correspondence of a child with Goethe* in translation could not succeed due to social relations: how could the novels of some Soulier appear with impunity?

But many translations from German are published in England. The Germans, who owe so much to the literature of Albion, in turn exert their influence on it. This, of course, involves the new generation of Englishmen, who often complete their education at German universities. The English have a special passion for translating Faust: many translations of it have been published that are of great merit.

Declining literatures, due to the lack of the present, usually resort to their great memories, to the study of their

* Goethe’s Briefwechsel mit einem Kinde (“Correspondence of Goethe with one child”).

past. England studies Shakespeare in detail, like Italy studies Dante, like Germany studies Goethe. For some time now, many works have been published in England on the part of Shakespeare alone: ​​now they are collected year after year richest materials to explain his works, materials that German criticism has not yet had time to make sufficient use of. The manifestation of a great genius always remains a heavenly mystery for humanity; but his upbringing, the gradualness of his maturation, the materials at his disposal, the century in which he lived, all this will be brought into transparent clarity over time. The history of the English stage before Shakespeare, Collier46 and Drekov’s essay: “Shakespeare and his century”*, these are still the best comments on the great

mu dramatika of England**.

Despite the fact that the English study so much Shakespeare, their critical way of looking at this writer has not changed at all. It is strange how all the research or aesthetic discoveries of Lessing47, Goethe, August Schlegel48 and Tieck49 are in vain for the English and are not accepted in any way on the basis of English criticism. It is worth reading Coleridge's lectures on Shakespeare, published not so long ago, and read by him after Schlegel's lectures, to be convinced of this. With the exception of a few observations, deep and sensible, Coleridge's criticism does not present any basis: it is unable to comprehend the ideas of the work; she doesn’t even ask herself the question. Western nations change so little with their discoveries in the field of science, and so each one habitually remains stagnant in its prejudices, which, according to legend, are passed on from generation to generation.

To see also how aesthetic criticism of Germany remained completely alien to English writers engaged in the study of works of literature, it is worth looking at Gallam’s essay50 “History of European Literature in the XV, XVI and XVII Centuries.” This is a collection made from the works of Tiraboschi, Gengenet, Sismondi, Buterwek51, Wharton52 and others, inanimate by any thought. Gallam's criticism is no higher than Wharton's: both are compilers.

* Here are the books awaiting translators or abridgers in Russia. It would be both more useful and more interesting than the many novels that seem to appear among us only to enrich the pages of journal bibliographies.

It is strange that the British have not yet published a complete library of all those contemporary books by Shakespeare from which he drew his dramas: it is necessary to collect all this raw material that served for his creations. Much has already been done in this area. But it’s strange how it still hasn’t occurred to anyone to collect a complete collection. Gollinshed's chronicle still costs about 800 rubles in England and is one of the bibliographic rarities; and without it all the dramas of Shakespeare, borrowed from English history, cannot be explained.

English drama is in decline: it is unable to produce anything like the works of Shakespeare. But with what splendor his dramas are now performed at the Coventgarden Theater53! What if the playwright of the famous Globe54, a theater that had, instead of decorations, labels with the inscription of what the stage should represent, had risen from the grave? What if he stood up and saw this pomp of the present situation, the wonders of the scenery that deceives the eye, the splendor of the costumes, the siege of the city on stage in the faces? How surprised he would be, on the one hand, but how sorry he would be, on the other! Why did the English of the 16th century, who did not know the wonders of modern stage mechanics, have Shakespeare? Why do the English of the 19th century have Macready*, who brought the stage performance of Shakespeare's drama to the highest degree of luxury, and not have Shakespeare? Is it really determined for humanity not to connect one with the other? Is it really destined in our time for England to only perform a magnificent funeral feast for Shakespeare with the wonderful setting of his dramas on the stage of Coventgarden?

Although we limited ourselves to the fine literature of England; but we cannot help but cite the name of a historical writer who is now making a great influence in his homeland and will, of course, arouse sympathy throughout Europe when they become more familiar with him: this is Thomas Carlyle55, the author of the “History of the French Revolution,” written with a satirical pen. He alone knew how to rise above this event and tell the impartial and bitter truth about it. His imagination and style are brought up by Germany and resonate with strangeness. Despite the fact, Carlyle finds many imitators in England.

We will conclude a brief sketch of the literary development of modern England with the words of one of the wittiest French critics, who has every means to closely observe the literature of the neighboring state. These words will also serve as a transition for us to the real question, from which we have so far been distracted by episodes. This is how Filaret Shal concludes his review of modern English literature, published in the first November book “Revue des deux mondes”56:

“In vain, with some feeling of trust and hope, we try to reject the fatal truth. The decline of literature, resulting from the decline of minds, is an event that cannot be denied. Everyone sees that we, the European peoples, as if by unanimous consent, are descending to some kind of semi-Chinese insignificance, to some kind of universal and inevitable weakness, which the author of these observations predicted.

* Actor and director of the Coventgarden Theater in London.

lasts for fifteen years and for which he does not find a healing remedy. This descent, this dark path, which someday will lead us to a flat level in mental development, to the fragmentation of forces, to the destruction of the creative genius, is accomplished in different ways, depending on the degree of weakening of the various tribes of Europe. The southern peoples are the first to descend: first of all they received life and light, first of all the night of insignificance befalls them. The northern ones will follow them: the strength of the vital juices of the world has found refuge in them. The Italians, a noble tribe, are already there, in the depths, calm, quiet, blessed by their climate and alas! intoxicated with the happiness of powerlessness - this is the last disaster of nations. The Spaniards, the second children of the new Europe, torment their insides with their hands and gnaw at themselves, like Ugolino, before entering this deep silence of Italy, this fullness of death. On the same slope down, but with more vitality, other peoples are worried: they still hope, they still sing, enjoy, make noise and think that with railways and schools they will revive the flame of public life, trembling with the last light. England itself, deprived of its Saxon energy, its Puritan ardor, having lost its literary strength, having buried its Byrons and W. Scotts, what will it be in a hundred years? God knows!

But even if the signs proclaimed by the philosophers were true; if in that vast galvanic flow of destruction and re-creation, which is called History, all of Europe for one thousand two hundred years, with its laws, rights, principles, thoughts, with its double past, Teutonic and Roman, with its pride, moral life, physical power, with her literature, should have slowly become exhausted and fallen into eternal sleep, why be surprised? If she were destined to experience the same lot that once befell the Greek world, then the Roman world, both smaller in space and time than our Christian Europe; if the fragments of the old vessel, in turn, were to serve to create a new, fresh vessel - can we complain about that? Did this civilization, which we call European, last a little? And aren’t there fresh, young countries on earth that will accept and are already accepting our inheritance, just as our fathers once accepted the heritage of Rome, when Rome fulfilled its destiny? Are America and Russia not here? Both are hungry for glory to go on stage, like two young actors thirsting for applause; both equally burn with patriotism and strive for possession. One of them, the only heir to the Anglo-Saxon genius: the other, with her Slovenian mind, immensely flexible, patiently learns from the peoples

New Romans and wants to continue their latest traditions. And beyond Russia and America, aren’t there other lands that, for millions of years, will continue, if necessary, this eternal work of human education?

There is no need to despair for humanity and for its future, even if we, the peoples of the West, had to fall asleep - fall asleep in the sleep of ancient tribes, immersed in the lethargy of vigil, in living death, in fruitless activity, in the abundance of half-baked things that the dying Byzantium suffered for so long. I'm afraid that we won't live to see the same thing. The literature is filled with delirium of fever. A material person, a worker in the body, a mason, an engineer, an architect, a chemist, can deny my opinion; but the evidence is clear. Discover at least 12,000 new acids; direct the balloons using an electric machine; invent a means of killing 60,000 people in one second: despite all this, the moral world of Europe will still be what it already is: dying, if not completely dead. From the heights of his secluded observatory, flying through the dark spaces and foggy waves of the future and the past, the philosopher, obliged to strike the clock of modern history and report on the changes taking place in the life of peoples, is all forced to repeat his ominous cry: Europe is dying!

These cries of despair are often heard now from Western writers, contemporary to us. By calling us to the heritage of European life, they could flatter our pride; but, of course, it would be ignoble of us to rejoice at such terrible screams. No, we will accept them only as a lesson for the future, as a warning in our modern relations with the exhausted West.

England and Italy never had a direct literary influence on Russia. Our artists move across the Alps and study art in Raphael’s homeland; industrialists from England visit us and instruct us in their business. But we still learned the literature of Italy and England through France and Germany. Byron and W. Scott influenced the best minds of our literature through French translations. The Germans introduced us to the treasures of Shakespeare. For some time now, we have begun, bypassing intermediaries, to recognize the riches of southern and northern literature, but we still look at them through German glasses. We must hope that the spread of foreign languages ​​will lead us to a more independent view. But where is the reason that England and Italy have not had a direct influence on us in intellectual and literary terms so far?

nia? They are screened from Russia by two countries to which we now turn.

(Publication to be continued in the next issue of the Bulletin) Notes

1 Cyrus - Persian king, conqueror of the East in the 6th century. BC e.

2 This refers to Alexander the Great (356-323 BC), king, creator of a huge empire from Greece to the Indus.

3 Caesar, Gaius Julius (100-44 BC) - first emperor Ancient Rome, expanding its borders to the territories of Europe, Asia and Africa.

4 Charlemagne - king of the Franks who founded the empire (688-741).

5 Gregory VII - Pope of Rome (1073-1085), who approved the primacy of papal power over secular power, the infallibility of the pope, as well as the vow of celibacy for the Roman clergy.

6 Charles V - king of Spain (1500-1558), who reunited many Spanish lands and led the reconquista (liberation of Spanish territories from the Arabs).

7 Lines from the poem by A.S. Pushkin "Napoleon".

8 Sections of the article devoted to art (painting and theater) are abbreviated.

9 The mountain peaks of the Alps that separate Italy from the rest of Europe.

10 Winckelmann, Johann Joachim (1717-1768) - historian, art critic, archaeologist, one of the first to show the importance of ancient art.

11 The country of central Italy, later Tuscany. The Etruscans are considered the ancestors of the Romans.

12 Raphael (Santi, 1483-1520) - great Italian artist of the Renaissance. “The Transfiguration” is his last painting painted for the Vatican.

13 Rivers on which major capitals of world culture are located: Munich, Dusseldorf, London, Paris, St. Petersburg.

14 Pisa is a major scientific and cultural center of Italy, the capital of Tuscany. It has an ancient university, an academy, and famous architectural monuments, including the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

15 Popes are reformers, patrons of the arts, science and culture.

16 Name unknown.

17 May, Angelo (1782-1832) - Jesuit, philologist, literary historian, publisher of ancient works.

18 Ass - coin of ancient Rome.

19 Name unknown.

20 Canina, Luigi (1795-1856) - archaeologist, architect and writer, led excavations of the Forum in Rome.

21 Rosellini (1800-1843) - Egyptologist, assistant to Champollion. Professor of Oriental Languages ​​at the University of Pisa.

22 Rosini (1748-1836) - archaeologist, led excavations at Herculaneum.

23 Manzoni (Manzoni), Alessandro (1785-1873) - poet and writer.

24 Ciampi (1769-1847) - historian, priest. Studied ancient Roman manuscripts.

25 Litta, Pompeo (1781-1852) - historian who studied 75 of the most prominent families in Italy, his work was then continued by his followers.

26 via subscription (English).

27 The poetic name of Italy, derived from the name of the ancient Auzone people.

28 Pellico, Silvio (1789-1851) - writer, who was imprisoned for sympathizing with the Carbonari. One of his famous works is “Francesca da Rimini”.

29 Historian and fiction writer (1807-?). The child’s prayer for the Fatherland from the novel “Margarita Pusterla” has become truly popular in Italy.

30 Grossi, Tomaso (1791-1853) - poet, famous for his satires.

31 Colletta, Pietro (1775-1839) - historian and statesman. Minister of War of Naples.

32 Tacitus (155-120) - ancient Roman historian, the most important source on the history of the Roman and Germanic peoples.

33 Botta, Carlo Giuseppe (1766-1837) - historian and poet, participant in the French Revolution.

34 Balbo, Cesare (1789-1863) - statesman and historian. Supporter of Italian unification.

35 Leopardi, Giacomo (1798-1837) - lyric poet.

36 This refers to Petrarch, who lived in Avignon and its environs.

37 Kerner's father is Christian Gottfried (1756-1831), a friend of Schiller. Kerner's son - Karl Theodor (1791-1813), died in the war, wrote patriotic poems. Uhland, Ludwig (1787-1862) - philologist, literary historian and poet.

38 Bersche, Giovanni (1783-1851) - romantic poet.

39 Giustiniani is an Italian family famous for poets and historians.

40 That is judgment seat (lat.).

41 Italian playwrights, of whom the most popular are Carlo Goldoni (comedies) and Vittorio Alfieri (tragedies).

42 Cathedral of St. Peter's, the place of coronation and burial of English kings and other great men of England.

43 Green spaces in and around London.

44 Bulwer, Edward George (1803-1873) - writer and political figure.

45 Poetess, granddaughter of the poet Sheridan (1808-1877).

46 Collier, John Pen (1789-1883) - English literary historian, Shakespearean scholar.

47 Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim (1728-1781) - German writer, esthetician.

48 Schlegel, August Wilhelm (1767-1845) - German critic, Orientalist, poet, literary and art historian.

49 Tieck, Ludwig (1778-1853) - critic, poet and writer, one of the founders of the romantic school in Germany.

51 Tiraboschi, Giralamo (1731-1794) - Italian literary historian; Gengenet, Pierre-Louis (1748-1816) - French literary historian and poet; Sismondi, Jean Charles Leonard (1773-1842) - French economist and historian; Buterweck, Friedrich (1766-1828) - German esthetician and philosopher, professor at the University of Göttingen.

52 Name not identified.

53 Exists since 1732. Now - an opera house, in the first half of the 19th century. There were various performances there.

54 Globe - theater (1599-1644), where Shakespeare's plays were staged.

55 Carlyle, Thomas (1795-1881) - philologist, historian, publicist, apologist for Bismarck.

56 A reputable French magazine.

The publication was prepared by a candidate of historical sciences, leading researcher at the Institute of Theory and History of Pedagogy of the Russian Academy of Education

L.N. BELENCHUK

A RUSSIAN VIEW ON TODAY’S EDUCATION

A well-known article by S.P. Shevyrev entitled A Russian View on Today’s Education in Europe’ is published. As far as the author of the present publication knows, this article has never been reprinted despite its fame and numerous references to it, and also despite the fact that it is undoubtedly of interest to philologists as well as to historians of pedagogics.

This publication has been prepared by L.N. Belenchuk, Ph.D. in History, a leading researcher at the Institute of Theory and History of Pedagogics of the Russian Academy of Science.

Original here Stepan Petrovich Shevyrev (1806-1864) is one of the few significant critics of the 19th century whose articles were never republished in the 20th century. Poet, translator, philologist, he studied at the Moscow Noble Boarding School; At the age of seventeen (in 1823) he entered the service of the Moscow Archive of the Collegium of Foreign Affairs, and was a member of the literary circle of S.E. Raicha, attended meetings of the “lyubomudrov”, Russian Schellingians. Participates in the publication of the Moskovsky Vestnik magazine; from 1829 to 1832 he lived abroad, mainly in Italy - he worked on a book about Dante, and translated a lot from Italian. Returning to Russia, he taught literature at Moscow University, published in the Moscow Observer magazine, and since 1841 became the leading critic of the Moskvityanin magazine, published by M.P. Pogodin. In his poetic practice (see: Poems. Leningrad, 1939) and in his critical views, he was a supporter of the “poetry of thought” - in the opinion of Shevyrev and his like-minded people, it should have replaced Pushkin’s “school of harmonic precision”; the most significant contemporary poets for Shevyrev were V.G. Benediktov, A.S. Khomyakov and N.M. Languages. In the programmatic article “A Russian’s View of the Education of Europe” (Moskvityanin, 1841, No. 1), Shevyrev wrote about two forces that came face to face in “modern history” - the West and Russia. “Will he captivate us in his worldwide endeavor? Will he assimilate us to himself?<...>Or will we maintain our originality?" - these are the questions that the critic of the new magazine wants to answer. Reviewing the current state of culture in Italy, England, France and Germany, Shevyrev sees decline everywhere. In literature, only “great memories” remain - Shakespeare, Dante, Goethe, in France “chatty magazines” cater to the “corrupted imagination and taste of the people”, “talking about every exquisite crime, about every trial that disgraces the history of human morality, about every execution, which with a colorful story can only give rise to a new victim in the reader” . In Germany, the “depravity of thought” was expressed in the fact that philosophy moved away from religion - this is the “Achilles heel” of the “moral and spiritual being” of Germany. In contrast to the West, the Russians “kept pure in themselves three fundamental feelings, in which the seed and guarantee of our future development" is an "ancient religious feeling", a "sense of state unity", a connection between "the king and the people", and "the consciousness of our nationality". These "three feelings" make up the famous formula of S. Uvarov ("Orthodoxy, autocracy and nationality "), born in 1832 and defining the state ideology for a long time. Shevyrev had a friendship with Gogol; he is one of the recipients of “Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends”, the author of two articles about “Dead Souls”; After the death of the writer, Shevyrev sorted out his papers and published (in 1855) “The Works of Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol, Found After His Death” (including the chapters of the second volume of “Dead Souls”). Shevyrev’s correspondence with Gogol was partially published in the publication: Correspondence of N.V. Gogol in two volumes. M., 1988. T. II. Gogol, in a letter dated October 31 (November 12), 1842, thanked Shevyrev for his articles on “Dead Souls” and agreed with his comments. We are publishing two articles by Shevyrev about Lermontov, published during the poet’s lifetime. Articles are printed using modern spelling and punctuation (while retaining some features of the author's writing). Publication, introductory article and notes by L.I. Soboleva "Hero of our time" 1 After the death of Pushkin, not a single new name, of course, flashed as brightly on the horizon of our literature as the name of Mr. Lermontov. The talent is decisive and varied, mastering both verse and prose almost equally. It usually happens that poets begin with lyricism: their dream first floats in this vague ether of poetry, from which some then emerge into the living and varied world of epic, drama and novel, while others remain in it forever. Mr. Lermontov's talent was revealed from the very beginning in both ways: he is both an animated lyricist and a wonderful storyteller. Both worlds of poetry, our inner, spiritual, and outer, real, are equally accessible to him. It rarely happens that in such a young talent life and art appear in such an inextricable and close connection. Almost every work of Mr. Lermontov is an echo of some intensely lived moment. At the very beginning of the field, this keen observation, this ease, this skill with which the narrator grasps integral characters and reproduces them in art are remarkable. Experience cannot yet be so strong and rich in these years; but in gifted people it is replaced by some kind of premonition, with which they comprehend in advance the secrets of life. Fate, striking such a soul, which at its birth received the gift of predicting life, immediately opens in it the source of poetry: so lightning, accidentally falling into a rock containing a source of living water, reveals its outcome... and a new spring flows from the open womb . A true sense of life is in harmony in the new poet with a true sense of grace. His creative power easily conquers images taken from life and gives them a living personality. The stamp of strict taste is visible throughout the performance: there is no cloying sophistication, and from the first time one is especially struck by this sobriety, this completeness and brevity of expression, which are characteristic of more experienced talents, and in youth signify the power of an extraordinary gift. In the poet, in the poet, even more than in the narrator, we see a connection with his predecessors, we notice their influence, which is very understandable: for the new generation must begin where others left off; in poetry, for all the suddenness of its most brilliant phenomena, there must be a memory of tradition. A poet, no matter how original he may be, still has his teachers. But we will note with particular pleasure that the influences to which the new poet was subjected are varied, that he does not have exclusively any favorite teacher. This alone speaks in favor of its originality. But there are many works in which he himself is visible in style, his striking feature is noticeable. With special cordiality, we are ready, on the first pages of our criticism, to welcome fresh talent at its first appearance and willingly devote a detailed and sincere analysis to “A Hero of Our Time,” as one of the most remarkable works of our modern literature. After the English, as a people, on their ships, winged with steam, embracing all the lands of the world, of course, there is no other people who in their literary works could present such a rich variety of terrain as the Russians. In Germany, with the meager world of reality, you will inevitably, like Jean Paul 2 or Hoffmann, venture into the world of fantasy and with its creations replace the somewhat monotonous poverty of the essential everyday life of nature. But is that the case with us? All climates are at hand; so many peoples speaking in unknown languages ​​and storing untouched treasures of poetry; We have humanity in all the forms it has had from Homeric times to ours. Drive across the entire expanse of Russia at a certain time of the year - and you will pass through winter, autumn, spring and summer. Northern lights, nights of the hot south, fiery ice northern seas, midday sky blue, mountains in eternal snow, modern to the world; flat steppes without a single hillock, rivers-sea, smoothly flowing; rivers-waterfalls, nurseries of the mountains; swamps with only cranberries; vineyards, fields with lean grain; fields strewn with rice, St. Petersburg salons with all the panache and luxury of our century; yurts of nomadic peoples who have not yet become settled; Taglioni 3 on the stage of a magnificently lit theater, with the sounds of a European orchestra; heavy Kamchadal in front of the Yukaghirs 4, with the knocking of wild instruments... And we have all this at one time, in one minute of existence!.. And all of Europe is at hand... And seven days later we are now in Paris... And where we are not there?.. We are everywhere - on the ships of the Rhine, Danube, near the coast of Italy... We are everywhere, perhaps, except for our own Russia... Wonderful land!.. What if it were possible to fly above you, high, high, and suddenly take one look at you!.. Lomonosov dreamed about this 5, but we are already forgetting the old man. All our brilliant poets were aware of this magnificent diversity of the Russian terrain... Pushkin, after his first work, born in the pure realm of fantasy, nurtured by Ariost 6, began from the Caucasus to paint his first picture from real life... 7 Then Crimea, Odessa, Bessarabia, the interior of Russia, Petersburg, Moscow, the Urals alternately fed his riotous muse... It is remarkable that our new poet also begins with the Caucasus... It is not for nothing that the imagination of many of our writers was fascinated by this country. Here, in addition to the magnificent landscape of nature, which seduces the poet’s eyes, Europe and Asia converge in eternal irreconcilable enmity. Here Russia, civilly organized, puts up a fight against these ever-rushing streams of mountain peoples who do not know what a social contract is... Here is our eternal struggle, invisible to the giant of Russia... Here is a duel of two forces, educated and wild... Here is life !.. How can the poet’s imagination not rush here? What is attractive to him is this bright contrast between two peoples, of which the life of one is cut out according to European standards, bound by the conditions of accepted society, the life of the other is wild, unbridled and does not recognize anything but freedom. Here our artificial, sought-after passions, cooled by light, converge with the stormy natural passions of a person who has not submitted to any reasonable bridle. Here we encounter extremes that are curious and striking for an observer-psychologist. This world of the people, completely different from ours, is already poetry in itself: we do not love what is ordinary, what always surrounds us, what we have seen enough of and what we have heard enough of. From this we understand why the talent of the poet we are talking about was revealed so quickly and freshly at the sight of the Caucasus mountains. Pictures of majestic nature have a strong effect on the receptive soul, born for poetry, and it soon blossoms, like a rose when struck by the rays of the morning sun. The landscape was ready. The vivid images of the life of the mountaineers amazed the poet; Memories of metropolitan life mixed with them; secular society was instantly transported to the gorges of the Caucasus - and all this was revived by the artist’s thought. Having explained somewhat the possibility of the phenomenon of Caucasian stories, we will move on to the details. Let us pay attention in order to pictures of nature and terrain, to the characters of individuals, to the features of secular life, and then we will merge all this into the character of the hero of the story, in which, as in the center, we will try to grasp the author’s main idea. Marlinsky 8 taught us the brightness and variegation of colors with which he loved to paint pictures of the Caucasus. It seemed to Marlinsky’s ardent imagination that it was not enough just to obediently observe this magnificent nature and convey it in a faithful and apt word. He wanted to rape images and language; he threw paints from his palette in droves, at random, and thought: the more variegated and colorful it is, the more similar the list will be to the original. This is not how Pushkin painted: his brush was true to nature and at the same time ideally beautiful. In his “Prisoner of the Caucasus,” the landscape of snowy mountains and villages blocked or, better yet, suppressed the entire event: here are people for the landscape, as in Claudius Lorrain 9 , and not a landscape for people, as in Nicholas Poussin 10 or Dominikino 11 . But “Prisoner of the Caucasus” was almost forgotten by readers since “Ammalat-Bek” and “Mulla-Nur” caught their eyes with a motley of generously scattered colors. Therefore, with particular pleasure we can note in praise of the new Caucasian painter that he was not carried away by the variegation and brightness of colors, but, true to the taste of the elegant, he subdued his sober brush to pictures of nature and copied them without any exaggeration and cloying sophistication. The road through Gud Mountain and Krestovaya and the Kaishauri Valley are described correctly and vividly. Anyone who has not been to the Caucasus, but has seen the Alps, can guess that this must be true. But, however, it should be noted that the author does not like to dwell too much on pictures of nature, which flash through him only occasionally. He prefers people and hurries past the Caucasian gorges, past the stormy streams to a living person, to his passions, to his joys and sorrows, to his educated and nomadic way of life. It’s even better: this is a good sign in developing talent. Moreover, the pictures of the Caucasus have been described to us so often that it would not be a bad idea to repeat them in full detail. The author very skillfully placed them in the very distance - and they do not obscure the events. More interesting for us are the pictures of the very life of the mountaineers or the life of our society among magnificent nature. That's what the author did. In his two main stories - "Bela" and "Princess Mary" - he depicted two pictures, of which the first was taken more from the life of the Caucasian tribes, the second from the secular life of Russian society. There is a Circassian wedding, with its conventional rituals, dashing raids of sudden riders, terrible abreks, their and Cossack lassos, eternal danger, livestock trading, kidnappings, a sense of revenge, breaking oaths. There is Asia, which people, in the words of Maxim Maksimovich, “are like rivers: you can’t rely on it!..”. But most vividly, most strikingly, is the story of the abduction of the horse, Karagöz, which is part of the plot of the story... It is aptly captured from the life of the mountaineers. A horse is everything for a Circassian. In it, he is the king of the whole world and laughs at fate. Kazbich had a horse, Karagez, black as pitch, his legs were like strings, and his eyes were no worse than those of a Circassian horse. Kazbich is in love with Bela, but does not want her for the horse... Azamat, Bela's brother, betrays his sister, just to take the horse away from Kazbich... This whole story is taken directly from Circassian customs. In another picture you see Russian educated society. To these magnificent mountains, the nest of wild and free life, it brings with it its mental ailments, grafted onto it from others, and bodily ailments - the fruits of its artificial life. Here are empty, cold passions, here is the intricacy of mental depravity, here is skepticism, dreams, gossip, intrigue, a ball, a game, a duel... How shallow this whole world is at the foot of the Caucasus! People really seem like ants when you look at these passions of theirs from the heights of the mountains touching the sky. This whole world is a faithful snapshot of our living and empty reality. It is the same everywhere... in St. Petersburg and Moscow, on the waters of Kislovodsk and Ems. Everywhere he spreads his idle laziness, slander, and petty passions. To show the author that we followed all the details of his paintings with all due attention and compared them with reality, we take the liberty of making two comments that relate to our Moscow. The novelist, depicting faces borrowed from secular life, usually contains in them common features belonging to an entire class. By the way, he takes Princess Ligovskaya out of Moscow and characterizes her with the words: “She loves seductive anecdotes, and sometimes she herself says indecent things when her daughter is not in the room.” This feature is completely wrong and sins against the area. It is true that Princess Ligovskaya spent only the last half of her life in Moscow; but since she is 45 years old in the story, we think that at 22 and a half years old, the tone of Moscow society could have weaned her off this habit, even if she had acquired it somewhere. For some time now, it has become fashionable among our journalists and storytellers to attack Moscow and make terrible false accusations against it... Everything that supposedly cannot come true in another city is sent to Moscow... Moscow, under the pen of our storytellers, is not only some kind of... or China - for, thanks to travelers, we also have true news about China - no, it is rather some kind of Atlantis, a warehouse of fables, where our novelists take down everything that the whim of their wayward imagination creates... Even not so long ago (we will be sincere to the public) one of our most curious novelists, captivating readers with the wit and liveliness of the story, sometimes very accurately noting the mores of our society, came up with the idea that there was some illiterate poet in Moscow who came from the provinces to take a student’s exam and did not who withstood it, created such a turmoil in our society, such conversations, such a concourse of carriages, that it was as if the police had noticed it... 12 We, unfortunately, have, like everywhere else, illiterate people, poets, who are unable to pass the student exam... But when did they cause such unheard-of turmoil?.. When did the province send us such wondrous wonders?.. However, this fiction is at least good-natured... It even speaks in favor of our capital in its main idea. We have had examples that the arrival of a poet, of course not illiterate, but famous, was an event in the life of our society... Let us remember the first appearance of Pushkin, and we can be proud of such a memory... We still see how in all societies, at all the balls the first attention was directed to our guest, just as in the mazurka and cotillion our ladies constantly chose the poet... The reception from Moscow to Pushkin is one of the most remarkable pages of his biography 13 . But in other stories there are malicious slander against our capital. We readily think that the author of “A Hero of Our Time” stands above this, especially since he himself, in one of his remarkable poems, has already attacked these slander on behalf of the public. This is what he put into the mouth of the modern reader: And if you come across Stories in your native style, Then, most likely, they laugh at Moscow or scold officials 14. But in our author’s stories we encountered more than one slander against our princesses in the person of Princess Ligovskaya, who, however, may be an exception. No, here’s another epigram about the Moscow princesses, that they seem to look at young people with some contempt, that this is even a Moscow habit, that in Moscow they only feed on forty-year-old wits... All these remarks, however, were put into the doctor’s mouth Werner, who, however, according to the author, is distinguished by the keen eye of an observer, but not in this case... It is clear that he lived in Moscow for a short time, during his youth, and some case that was personally relevant to him was accepted behind general habit ... He noticed that Moscow young ladies indulge in learning - and adds: they do it well! - and we will very willingly add the same. To study literature does not mean to indulge in scholarship, but let the Moscow young ladies do this. What is better for writers and for society itself, which can only benefit from such activities of the fair sex? Isn’t this better than cards, than gossip, than tales, than gossip?.. But let’s return from the episode allowed by our local relations to the subject itself. From the sketch of the two main pictures from Caucasian and secular Russian life, let's move on to the characters. Let's start with the side stories, but not with the hero of the stories, about whom we must talk in more detail, because this is the main connection of the work with our life and the idea of ​​the author. Of the side personalities, we must, of course, give the first place to Maxim Maksimovich. What an integral character of the native Russian good-natured man, into whom the subtle infection of Western education has not penetrated, who, despite the imaginary outward coldness of a warrior who has seen enough of the dangers, retained all the ardor, the whole life of the soul; who loves nature internally, without admiring it, loves the music of the bullet, because his heart beats stronger at the same time... How he walks after the sick Belaya, how he consoles her! How impatiently he awaits his old acquaintance Pechorin upon hearing of his return! How sad he is that Bela did not remember him when she died! How heavy it was for his heart when Pechorin indifferently extended his cold hand to him! Fresh, untouched nature! A pure child's soul in an old warrior! This is the type of character in which our ancient Rus' echoes! And how high he is in his Christian humility when, denying all his qualities, he says: “What am I that I should be remembered before death?” For a long, long time we have not met in our literature with such a sweet and likable character, which is all the more pleasant for us because it is taken from the indigenous Russian way of life. We even complained somewhat about the author for the fact that he did not seem to share the noble indignation with Maxim Maksimovich at that moment when Pechorin, absent-mindedly or for some other reason, extended his hand to him when he wanted to throw himself on his neck. Maxim Maksimovich is followed by Grushnitsky. His personality is certainly unattractive. This is, in the full sense of the word, an empty fellow. He is vain... Having nothing to be proud of, he is proud of his gray cadet's overcoat. He loves without love. He plays the role of a disappointed one - and that’s why Pechorin doesn’t like him; this latter does not love Grushnitsky for the very feeling by which we tend to not love a person who imitates us and turns us into an empty mask, that there is a living essence in us. He doesn’t even have that feeling that distinguished our previous military men - a sense of honor. This is some kind of degenerate from society, capable of the most vile and black act. The author reconciles us somewhat with this creation of his shortly before his death, when Grushnitsky himself admits that he despises himself. Dr. Werner is a materialist and a skeptic, like many doctors of the new generation. Pechorin must have liked him because they both understand each other. The vivid description of his face especially remains in my memory. Both Circassians in "Bel", Kazbich and Azamat, are described by common features belonging to this tribe, in which a single difference in characters cannot yet reach such an extent as in a circle of society with a developed education. Let's pay attention to the women, especially the two heroines, who were both sacrificed to the hero. Bela and Princess Mary form two bright opposites among themselves, like the two societies from which each came, and belong to the number of the poet’s most remarkable creations, especially the first. Bela is a wild, timid child of nature, in whom the feeling of love develops simply, naturally and, once developed, becomes an incurable wound of the heart. The princess is not like that - a product of an artificial society, in which the fantasy was revealed before the heart, who imagined the hero of the novel in advance and wants to forcibly embody him in one of her admirers. Bela very simply fell in love with the man who, although he kidnapped her from her parents’ house, did it out of passion for her, as she thinks: he first devoted himself entirely to her, he showered the child with gifts, he delights all her moments; seeing her coldness, he pretends to be desperate and ready for anything... The princess is not like that: all her natural feelings are suppressed by some kind of harmful daydreaming, some kind of artificial education. We love in her that heartfelt human movement that made her raise a glass to poor Grushnitsky when he, leaning on his crutch, tried in vain to lean towards him; we also understand that she blushed at that time; but we are annoyed with her when she looks back at the gallery, afraid that her mother will not notice her wonderful deed. We do not complain at all about the author: on the contrary, we give all justice to his observation, which skillfully captured the line of prejudice that does not bring honor to a society that calls itself Christian. We forgive the princess for the fact that she was carried away by his gray overcoat in Grushnitskoye and became an imaginary victim of the persecutions of fate. . Let us note in passing that this is not a new trait, taken from another princess, drawn to us by one of our best storytellers 15. But in Princess Mary this hardly stemmed from a natural feeling of compassion, which a Russian woman can be proud of like a pearl... No, in Princess Mary it was an outburst of sought-after feeling... This was later proven by her love for Pechorin. She fell in love with that extraordinary thing in him that she was looking for, that ghost of her imagination, which she was carried away so frivolously... Then the dream passed from the mind to the heart, for Princess Mary is also capable of natural feelings... Bela, with her terrible death, dearly atoned for the frivolity of memory about his deceased father. But the princess, through her fate, has just received what she deserves... A sharp lesson to all princesses whose nature of feeling is suppressed by artificial upbringing and whose heart is spoiled by fantasy! How sweet, how graceful this Bela is in her simplicity! How cloying Princess Mary is in the company of men, with all her calculated glances! Bela sings and dances because she wants to sing and dance and because she amuses her friend. Princess Mary sings to be listened to, and is annoyed when they do not listen. If it were possible to merge Bela and Mary into one person: this would be the ideal of a woman in whom nature would be preserved in all its charm, and secular education would be not just an external gloss, but something more essential in life. We do not consider it necessary to mention Vera, who is an interstitial face and not attractive in any way. This is one of the victims of the hero of the stories - and even more a victim of the author's need to confuse the intrigue. We also do not pay attention to two small sketches - "Taman" and "Fatalist" - despite the two most significant ones. They only serve as an addition to developing more of the character of the hero, especially the last story, where Pechorin’s fatalism is visible, consistent with all his other properties. But in “Taman” we cannot ignore this smuggler, a bizarre creature in which the airy uncertainty of the outline of Goeve’s Mignon 16, as hinted at by the author himself, and the graceful wildness of Hugo’s Esmeralda 17 partly merged. But all these events, all the characters and details are attached to the hero of the story, Pechorin, like the threads of a web, burdened with bright winged insects, are adjacent to a huge spider, which has entangled them in its web. Let us delve in detail into the character of the hero of the story - and in it we will reveal the main connection of the work with life, as well as the author’s thought. P Echorin is twenty-five years old. In appearance he is still a boy, you would give him no more than twenty-three, but, looking more closely, you, of course, will give him thirty. His face, although pale, is still fresh; After long observation, you will notice traces of wrinkles intersecting one another. His skin has a feminine tenderness, his fingers are pale and thin, and all his body movements show signs of nervous weakness. When he laughs, his eyes do not laugh... because the soul burns in his eyes, and the soul in Pechorin has already dried up. But what kind of dead man is this, twenty-five years old, withered before his time? What kind of boy is this, covered with wrinkles of age? What is the reason for such a wonderful metamorphosis? Where is the inner root of the disease that withered his soul and weakened his body? But let's listen to him himself. This is what he himself says about his youth. In his first youth, from the moment he left the care of his relatives, he began to madly enjoy all the pleasures that could be obtained for money, and, of course, these pleasures disgusted him. He set out into the big world: he was tired of society; he fell in love with secular beauties, was loved, but their love irritated only his imagination and pride, and his heart remained empty... He began to study, and he was tired of science. Then he became bored: in the Caucasus, he wanted to disperse his boredom with Chechen bullets, but he became even more bored. His soul, he says, is spoiled by the light, his imagination is restless, his heart is insatiable, everything is not enough for him, and his life becomes emptier day by day. There is a physical disease that the common people have the untidy name of canine old age: it is the eternal hunger of the body, which cannot be satisfied with anything. This physical illness corresponds to a mental illness - boredom, the eternal hunger of a depraved soul that seeks strong sensations and cannot get enough of them. This is the highest degree of apathy in a person, stemming from early disappointment, from a murdered or wasted youth. What is only apathy in souls born without energy rises to the level of hungry, insatiable boredom in strong souls called to action. The disease is the same, both in its root and in its character, but it differs only in the temperament that it attacks. This disease kills all human feelings, even compassion. Let us remember how happy Pechorin was once when he noticed this feeling in himself after separation from Vera. We do not believe that this living dead could retain the love for nature that the author attributes to him. We do not believe that he could be forgotten in her paintings. In this case, the author spoils the integrity of the character - and hardly ascribes his own feelings to his hero. Can a person who loves music only for digestion love nature? Evgeny Onegin, who participated somewhat in the birth of Pechorin, suffered from the same illness; but it remained in him at the lowest level of apathy, because Eugene Onegin was not gifted with spiritual energy, he did not suffer, beyond apathy, from the pride of spirit, the thirst for power, which the new hero suffers from. Pechorin was bored in St. Petersburg, bored in the Caucasus, and is going to Persia to be bored; but this boredom of him is not in vain for those who surround him. Next to her, an insurmountable pride of spirit was brought up in him, which knows no obstacles and which sacrifices everything that comes in the way of the bored hero, as long as he has fun. Pechorin wanted a boar at all costs - he would get it. He has an innate passion to contradict, like all people suffering from a lust for power of spirit. He is incapable of friendship because friendship requires concessions that are offensive to his pride. He looks at all occasions in his life as a means to find some antidote to the boredom that consumes him. His greatest joy is to disappoint others! It is an immense pleasure for him to pick a flower, breathe in it for a minute and throw it away! He himself admits that he feels this insatiable greed within himself, devouring everything that comes his way; he looks at the sufferings and joys of others only in relation to himself, as food that supports his spiritual strength. Ambition was suppressed in him by circumstances, but it manifested itself in another form, in the thirst for power, in the pleasure of subordinating everything that surrounds him to his will... Happiness itself, in his opinion, is only saturated pride... The first suffering gives him the concept of the pleasure of tormenting another... There are moments when he understands the vampire... Half of his soul has dried up, and the other remains, living only to kill everything around him... We merged into one all the features of this terrible character - and we became scary to see internal portrait Pechorina! Who did he attack in the outbursts of his indomitable lust for power? On whom does he feel the exorbitant pride of his soul? On poor women whom he despises. His glance at the fair sex reveals a materialist who has read the French novels of the new school. He notices breed in women, like in horses; all the signs that he likes in them relate only to bodily properties; he is interested in the right nose, or velvet eyes, or white teeth, or some subtle aroma... In his opinion, the first touch decides the whole matter of love. If a woman only makes him feel that he should marry her, forgive me, love! His heart turns to stone. One obstacle only irritates his imaginary feeling of tenderness... Let us remember how, with the possibility of losing Vera, she became dearest to him most of all... He rushed onto his horse and flew to her... The horse died on the way, and he cried like a child, because only that he could not achieve his goal, because his inviolable power seemed to be offended... But he recalls with annoyance this moment of weakness and says that anyone, looking at his tears, would turn away from him with contempt. How his inviolable pride can be heard in these words! This 25-year-old sensualist came across many more women on his way, but two were especially remarkable: Bela and Princess Mary. He corrupted the first one sensually and became carried away by feelings. He corrupted the second one mentally, because he could not corrupt him sensually; he joked without love and played with love, he sought entertainment for his boredom, he amused himself with the princess, like a well-fed cat amuses himself with a mouse... and here he did not escape boredom, because, as a man experienced in matters of love, as an expert in the female heart, he foresaw in advance the whole drama that he acted out on a whim... Having irritated the dream and heart of the unfortunate girl, he ended it all by telling her: I don’t love you. We don’t think that the past has a strong effect on Pechorin, so that he doesn’t forget anything, as he says in his journal. This trait does not follow from anything, and it again violates the integrity of this character. A person who, having buried Bela, could laugh that same day and, when Maxim Maksimovich reminded him of her, only turn slightly pale and turn away - such a person is incapable of subordinating himself to the power of the past. This is a strong, but callous soul, through which all impressions glide almost imperceptibly. This is a cold and calculating esprit fort (smart guy [ fr.]. -- L.S.), who cannot be capable of either changing by nature, which requires feeling, or storing in himself traces of the past, too heavy and delicate for his irritable self. These egoists usually take care of themselves and try to avoid unpleasant sensations. Let us remember how Pechorin closed his eyes, noticing between the crevices of the rocks the bloody corpse of Grushnitsky, whom he had killed... He did this then only to avoid an unpleasant impression. If the author attributes to Pechorin such power of the past over him, then this is hardly in order to somewhat justify the possibility of his journal. We think that people like Pechorin do not and cannot keep their notes - and this is the main mistake in relation to execution. It would be much better if the author told all these events on his own behalf: he would have done so more skillfully both in relation to the possibility of fiction and in the artistic sense, for with his personal participation as a storyteller he could somewhat soften the unpleasantness of the moral impression made by the hero of the story. This mistake led to another: Pechorin’s story does not differ at all from the story of the author himself - and, of course, the character of the first should have been reflected in a special way in the very style of his journal. AND Let us summarize in a few words everything that we have said about the character of the hero. Apathy, a consequence of depraved youth and all the vices of upbringing, gave rise to languid boredom in him, and boredom, combined with the exorbitant pride of a power-hungry spirit, produced a villain in Pechorin. The main root of all evil is Western education, alien to any sense of faith. Pechorin, as he himself says, is convinced of only one thing: that he was born on one terrible evening, that nothing worse than death can happen, and that death cannot be avoided. These words are the key to all his exploits: they are the key to his whole life. Meanwhile, this soul was a strong soul that could accomplish something lofty... He himself, in one place in his journal, recognizes this calling within himself, saying: “Why did I live? For what purpose was I born?.. But she is right.” existed, and a high destiny was true to me, therefore I feel strength in my soul... From the crucible [of empty and ungrateful passions] I emerged as hard and cold as iron, but I have forever lost the ardor of noble aspirations..." When you look at strength this lost soul, then we feel sorry for her, like one of the victims of a serious illness of the century... Having examined in detail the character of the hero of the story, in which all the events are concentrated, we come to two main questions, the resolution of which we will conclude our argument: 1) how is this character connected? with modern life? 2) is it possible in the world of fine art? But before we resolve these two questions, let us turn to the author himself and ask him: what does he himself think about Pechorin? Will he give us some hint of his thought and its connection with the life of his contemporary? On page 140 of the 1st part the author says: “Perhaps some readers will want to know my opinion about the character of Pechorin? - My answer is the title of this book. “Yes, this is evil irony,” they will say. - I don’t know ". So, according to the author, Pechorin is a hero of our time. This expresses both his view of contemporary life and the main idea of ​​the work. If this is so, then our age is seriously ill - and what is its main illness? If we judge by the patient with whom our poet’s fantasy debuts, then this illness of the century lies in the pride of the spirit and the baseness of a satiated body! And in fact, if we turn to the West, we will find that the author’s bitter irony is a painful truth. The age of proud philosophy, which with the human spirit thinks to comprehend all the secrets of the world, and the age of vain industry, which vies with all the whims of a body exhausted by pleasures - such an age, with these two extremes, expresses the illness that overcomes it. Is it not the pride of the human spirit that is visible in these abuses of personal freedom of will and reason, such as are noticeable in France and Germany? Depravity of morals, which degrades the body, is not an evil recognized as necessary by many peoples of the West and has become part of their customs? Between these two extremes, how can the soul not perish, how can the soul not dry up, without nourishing love, without faith and hope, which alone can support its earthly existence? Poetry also informed us about this terrible disease of the century. Penetrate with all the power of thought into the depths of her greatest works, in which she is always faithful to modern life and unravels all its innermost secrets. What did Goethe express in his Faust, this complete type of our century, if not the same illness? Doesn't Faust represent the pride of an unsatisfied spirit and voluptuousness united together? Byron's Manfred and Don Juan aren't these two halves merged into one in Faust, each of which appeared separately in Byron as a special hero? Isn't Manfred the pride of the human spirit? Isn't Don Juan the personification of voluptuousness? All these three heroes are three great ills of our century, three huge ideals in which poetry has combined everything that, in isolated features, represents the illness of modern humanity. These gigantic characters, which were created by the imagination of the two greatest poets of our century, feed for the most part all the poetry of the modern West, depicting in detail what in the works of Goethe and Byron appears in amazing and great integrity. But this is one of the many reasons for the decline of Western poetry: what is ideally great in Faust, Manfred and Don Juan, what in them has universal significance in relation to modern life, what is elevated to an artistic ideal , - is reduced in many French, English and other dramas, poems and stories to some kind of vulgar and low reality! Evil, being morally ugly in itself, can be admitted into the world of grace only under the condition of deep moral significance, which somewhat softens its in itself disgusting essence. Evil as the main subject of a work of art can only be depicted by large features of an ideal type. This is how she appears in Dante's Inferno, in Shakespeare's Macbeth, and, finally, in the three great works of our century. Poetry can choose the ailments of this latter as the main subjects of its creations, but only on a wide, significant scale; if she crushes them, delves into all the details of the decay of life little by little and here draws the main inspiration for her little creations, then she will humiliate her existence - both graceful and moral - and will descend below reality itself. Poetry sometimes allows evil as a hero into its world, but in the form of a Titan, not a Pygmy. That is why only genius poets of the first degree mastered the difficult task of portraying some Macbeth or Cain. We do not consider it necessary to add that, in addition, evil can be introduced everywhere episodically, for our life is not composed of good alone. The great malaise reflected in the great works of poetry of the century was in the West the result of those two diseases about which I have had occasion to speak, giving the readers my view of the modern education of Europe. But where, from what data could we develop the same illness that the West suffers from? What did we do to deserve it? If in our close acquaintance with him we could become infected with anything, then, of course, it would only be an imaginary illness, but not a real one. Let us express ourselves with an example: it sometimes happens to us, after long short relationships with a dangerously ill person, to imagine that we ourselves are suffering from the same disease. This, in our opinion, is where the key to creating the character that we are analyzing lies. Pechorin, of course, has nothing titanic in himself; he cannot have it; he belongs to those pygmies of evil that are now so abundant in the narrative and dramatic literature of the West. In these words, our answer to the second of the two questions proposed above, the aesthetic question. But this is not its main drawback. Pechorin has nothing significant in himself regarding purely Russian life, which could not spew out such a character from its past. Pechorin is only a ghost cast on us by the West, the shadow of his illness flickering in the imagination of our poets, un mirage de l'occident (Western ghost [French]. - L.S.) ... There he is the hero of the real world , we have only a hero of fantasy - and in this sense a hero of our time... This is a significant drawback of the work... With the same sincerity with which we first welcomed the brilliant talent of the author in creating many integral characters, in descriptions, in gift story, with the same sincerity we condemn the main idea of ​​​​the creation, personified in the character of the hero... Yes, and the magnificent landscape of the Caucasus, and wonderful sketches of mountain life, and the graceful and naive Bela, and the artificial princess, and the fantastic minx of Taman, and the glorious, kind Maxim Maksimovich, and even the empty little Grushnitsky, and all the subtle features of the secular society of Russia - everything, everything is chained in the stories to the ghost of the main character, who does not expire from this life, everything is sacrificed to him, and this is the main and significant drawback of the image. Despite the fact that the work of the new poet, even in its significant shortcomings, has deep significance in our Russian life. Our existence is divided, so to speak, into two sharp, almost opposite halves, one of which resides in the essential world, in the purely Russian world, the other in some abstract world of ghosts: we actually live our Russian life and think and dream still to live the life of the West, with which we have no contact in past history. In our indigenous, in our real Russian life, we store rich grain for future development, which, being flavored with only the beneficial fruits of Western education, without its harmful potions, can grow into a magnificent tree in our fresh soil; but in our dreamy life, which the West brings to us, we nervously, imaginarily suffer from its ailments and childishly try on our faces a mask of disappointment, which for us does not follow from anything. That is why in our dreams, in this terrible nightmare with which Mephistopheles the West strangles us, we seem to ourselves much worse than we really are. Apply this to the work you are analyzing - and it will be completely clear to you. All the content of Mr. Lermontov's stories, except for Pechorin, belongs to our essential life; but Pechorin himself, with the exception of his apathy, which was only the beginning of his moral illness, belongs to the dreamy world produced in us by the false reflection of the West. This is a ghost that only has substance in the world of our fantasy. And in this regard, Mr. Lermontov’s work carries deep truth and even moral importance. He gives us this ghost, which belongs not to him alone, but to many of the living generations, as something real - and we become scared, and this is the useful effect of his terrible picture. Poets who have received from nature such a gift for predicting life, like Mr. Lermontov, can be studied in their works with great benefit, in relation to the moral state of our society. In such poets, without their knowledge, life is reflected that is contemporary to them: they, like an airy harp, convey with their sounds those secret movements of the atmosphere that our dull sense cannot even notice. Let us put to good use the lesson offered by the poet. There are illnesses in a person that begin with the imagination and then, little by little, turn into reality. Let us warn ourselves so that the ghost of illness, powerfully depicted by the brush of fresh talent, does not pass for us from the world of idle dreams into the world of difficult reality.

Notes

1. For the first time - "Moskvityanin". 1841.H. I, No. 2 (as part of an analysis of several modern works in the “Criticism” section). We print based on the first publication. Lermontov, while studying at Moscow University, listened to Shevyrev’s lectures and, as the poet’s biographers write, treated him with respect. The 1829 poem "Romance" ("Dissatisfied with an insidious life...") is dedicated to Shevyrev. Nevertheless, Shevyrev became one of the most likely recipients of the “Preface,” published in the second edition (1841) and responding to critics of the novel. 2. Jean-Paul (Johann Paul Friedrich Richter) (1763-1825) - German writer; More details about it will be included. article by Al.V. Mikhailov to the editor: Jean-Paul. Preparatory school of aesthetics. M., 1981. 3. We can talk about either Philip Taglioni (1777-1871), choreographer, or Paul (1808-1884), Philip’s son, a famous dancer, or Maria, daughter of Philip (1804-1884), dancer , who left the stage in 1847. 4. Kamchadals and Yukaghirs are the peoples inhabiting Kamchatka and Yakutia. 5. A frequent motif in Lomonosov’s poems - cf., for example: “Fly above lightning, muse...” (“Ode on the arrival of... Elisaveta Petrovna from Moscow to St. Petersburg in 1742”). 6. This refers to the poem "Ruslan and Lyudmila", in which they saw the influence of the Italian poet Ludovico Ariosto (1477-1533), the author of the poem "Furious Roland", where knightly motifs are combined with magical and fairy tale ones. 7. It's about about the poem "Prisoner of the Caucasus" (1821). 8. Marlinsky (pseudonym of Alexander Alexandrovich Bestuzhev, 1797-1837) - author of romantic Caucasian stories, in particular those mentioned below "Ammalat-Bek" (1832) and "Mulla-Nur" (1836). 9. Lorraine Claude (real name Jelle; 1600-1682) - French painter, author of solemn landscapes (for example, the “Times of Day” series). 10. Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665) - French painter, author of paintings on mythological and religious themes, as well as paintings “Landscape with Polyphemus” and the “Seasons” series. 11. Dominicino (Domenichino, real name Domenico Zampieri; 1581-1641) - Italian painter, author of canvases with local color, ideal images, clear composition ("The Hunt of Diana"). 12. This refers to the story by A.F. Veltman "A Visitor from the District, or Turmoil in the Capital" ("Moscowite", 1841, part I). Latest edition: Alexander Veltman. Novels and stories. M., 1979. 13. We are talking about Pushkin’s arrival in Moscow in 1826, when he was taken with a courier from Mikhailovsky to Nicholas I and after a conversation with the Tsar (September 8) he was returned from exile. The poet read his works (including “Boris Godunov”) from S.A. Sobolevsky, D.V. Venevitinov, met M.P. Pogodin and S.P. Shevyrev; the poet was welcomed at the Bolshoi Theater. For more details, see: Chronicle of the life and work of Alexander Pushkin: In 4 volumes. M., 1999. T.II. 14. From the poem “Journalist, Reader and Writer” (1840). 15. This refers to the story by V.F. Odoevsky "Princess Zizi" (1839). 16. The heroine of the novel by I.V. Goethe "The School Years of Wilhelm Meister" (1777-1796). 17. The heroine of V. Hugo’s novel “Notre Dame de Paris” (1831).

Ermashov D. V.

Born on October 18 (30), 1806 in Saratov. Graduated from the Noble boarding school at Moscow University (1822). Since 1823, he served in the Moscow archive of the Collegium of Foreign Affairs, joining the circle of the so-called. “archival youths”, who later formed the backbone of the “Society of Philosophy” and were engaged in the study of the philosophical ideas of German romanticism, Schelling, etc. In 1827, he participated in the creation of the magazine “Moscow Bulletin”, with which A.S. also collaborated at first. Pushkin. In 1829, as a teacher of the prince’s son. BEHIND. Volkonskoy went abroad. He spent three years in Italy, devoting all his free time to studying European languages, classical philology and art history. Returning to Russia, at the suggestion of S.S. Uvarov took the place of adjunct in literature at Moscow University. To acquire the proper status, in 1834 he presented the essay “Dante and His Age”, two years later - his doctoral dissertation “The Theory of Poetry in its Historical Development among Ancient and Modern Peoples” and the study “The History of Poetry”, which earned a positive review from Pushkin. For 34 years he taught a number of courses on the history of Russian literature, the general history of poetry, the theory of literature and pedagogy. Professor at Moscow University (1837–1857), head of the department of history of Russian literature (since 1847), academician (since 1852). All these years he was actively engaged in journalistic activities. In 1827–1831 Shevyrev was an employee of the Moskovsky Vestnik, in 1835–1839 he was a leading critic of the Moscow Observer, from 1841 to 1856 he was M.P.’s closest associate. Pogodin according to the publication "Moskvityanin". Some time after leaving his position as a professor, he left for Europe in 1860, giving lectures on the history of Russian literature in Florence (1861) and Paris (1862).

Shevyrev was characterized by the desire to build his worldview on the foundation of Russian national identity, which, from his point of view, had deep historical roots. Considering literature as a reflection of the spiritual experience of the people, he tried to discover in it the sources of Russian identity and the foundations of national education. This topic is key in Shevyrev’s scientific and journalistic activities. He is credited with being the “discoverer” of ancient Russian fiction in general; he was one of the first to prove to the Russian reader the fact of its existence since the times Kievan Rus, introduced into scientific circulation many now well-known monuments of pre-Petrine Russian literature, attracted many novice scientists to the comparative study of domestic and foreign literature, etc. In a similar spirit, Shevyrev’s political views developed, the main motives of whose journalism were to assert Russian originality and criticism Westernism, which rejected it. From this point of view, Shevyrev was one of the most prominent ideologists of the so-called. theory of “official nationality” and at the same time one of its most prominent popularizers. During the period of cooperation in "Moskvityanin", which brought him a reputation as an ardent supporter of the official ideology, Shevyrev devoted his main efforts to developing one problem - proving the detrimental nature of European influence for Russia. A significant place among the thinker’s works on this topic is occupied by his article “A Russian’s View of Modern Education in Europe,” in which he postulated theses about the “rotting of the West,” its spiritual incurable disease, which later became widely known; about the need to counteract the “magical charm” with which the West still captivates the Russian people, and to realize their originality, putting an end to disbelief in their own strengths; about Russia’s calling to save and preserve in a higher synthesis all the spiritual healthy values ​​of Europe, etc., etc.

Essays:

A Russian’s view of modern education in Europe // Moskvityanin. 1941. No. 1.

Anthology of the world political thought. T. 3. M., 1997. pp. 717–724.

History of Russian literature, mainly ancient. M., 1846–1860.

About Russian literature. M., 2004.

Letters from M.P. Pogodina, S.P. Shevyrev and M.A. Maksimovich to Prince P.A. Vyazemsky. St. Petersburg, 1846.

Bibliography

Peskov A.M. At the origins of philosophizing in Russia: Russian idea S.P. Shevyreva // New literary review. 1994. No. 7. pp. 123–139.

Lyrics

A Russian's view of modern education in Europe (1)

There are moments in history when all of humanity is expressed by one all-consuming name! These are the names of Cyrus (2), Alexander (3), Caesar (4), Charlemagne (5), Gregory VII (6), Charles V (7). Napoleon was ready to put his name on modern humanity, but he met Russia.

There are eras in History when all the forces acting in it are resolved into two main ones, which, having absorbed everything extraneous, come face to face, measure each other with their eyes and come out for a decisive debate, like Achilles and Hector at the conclusion of the Iliad (8 ). - Here are the famous martial arts of world history: Asia and Greece, Greece and Rome, Rome and the German world.

In the ancient world, these martial arts were decided by material force: then force ruled the universe. In the Christian world, worldwide conquests have become impossible: we are called to the combat of thought.

The drama of modern history is expressed by two names, one of which sounds sweet to our hearts! The West and Russia, Russia and the West - this is the result arising from everything previous; here is the last word of history; here are two data for the future!

Napoleon (we didn’t start with him for nothing); contributed a lot to outline both words of this result. The instinct of the entire West was concentrated in the person of his gigantic genius - and moved to Russia when he could. Let us repeat the words of the Poet:

Praise! He is to the Russian people

the high lot indicated.(9)

Yes, a great and decisive moment. The West and Russia stand in front of each other, face to face! - Will he captivate us in his worldwide endeavor? Will he understand it? Shall we go in addition to his education? Shall we make some unnecessary additions to his story? - Or will we remain in our originality? Shall we form a special world, according to our own principles, and not the same European ones? Shall we take a sixth of the world out of Europe for the future development of humanity?

Here is a question - a great question, which is not only heard here, but also echoes in the West. Solving it - for the benefit of Russia and humanity - is the work of our present and future generations. Everyone who has been called to any significant service in our Fatherland must begin by resolving this issue if he wants to connect his actions with the present moment of life. That's the reason why we start with it.

The question is not new: the millennium of Russian life, which our generation can celebrate in twenty-two years, offers a complete answer to it. But the meaning of the history of any people is a mystery hidden under the external clarity of events: everyone unravels it in their own way. The question is not new; but in our time its importance has come to life and has become palpable to everyone.

Let us take a general look at the state of modern Europe and the attitude in which our Fatherland stands towards it. We eliminate here all political types and limit ourselves to only one picture of education, which embraces religion, science, art and literature, the latter as the most complete expression of the entire human life of peoples. We will, of course, touch only on the main countries that act in the field of European peace.

Let's start with those two whose influence reaches us least of all and which form the two extreme opposites of Europe. We mean Italy and England. The first took for her share all the treasures of the ideal world of fantasy; almost completely alien to all the lures of modern luxury industry, she, in the miserable rags of poverty, sparkles with her fiery eyes, enchants with her sounds, sparkles with ageless beauty and is proud of her past. The second selfishly appropriated to itself all the essential benefits of the everyday world; drowning herself in the wealth of life, she wants to entangle the whole world with the bonds of her trade and industry. […]

***

France and Germany are the two parties under whose influence we were directly and now are. In them, one might say, all of Europe is concentrated for us. There is no separating sea or obscuring Alps. Every book, every thought of France and Germany is more likely to resonate with us than in any other Western country. Previously, the French influence prevailed: in new generations the German influence prevails. All of educated Russia can be fairly divided into two halves: French and German, according to the influence of one or another education.

That is why it is especially important for us to delve into the current situation of these two countries and the attitude in which we stand towards them. Here we will boldly and sincerely express our opinion, knowing in advance that it will arouse many contradictions, offend many prides, stir up the prejudices of education and teaching, and violate traditions hitherto accepted. But in the issue we are deciding, the first condition is the sincerity of the conviction.

France and Germany were the scenes of two greatest events, to which the entire history of the new West leads, or more correctly: two turning points, corresponding to each other. These diseases were - the reformation in Germany (10), the revolution in France (11): the disease is the same, only in two different forms. Both were an inevitable consequence of Western development, which brought into itself the duality of principles and established this discord as a normal law of life. We think that these diseases have already ceased; that both countries, having experienced a turning point in their illness, returned to healthy and organic development. No, we are wrong. Diseases generated harmful juices, which now continue to act and which, in turn, have already produced organic damage in both countries, a sign of future self-destruction. Yes, in our sincere, friendly, close relations with the West, we do not notice that we seem to be dealing with a person who carries an evil, contagious illness within himself, surrounded by an atmosphere of dangerous breathing. We kiss him, we hug, we share the meal of thought, we drink the cup of feeling... and we do not notice the hidden poison in our careless communication, we do not smell in the fun of the feast the future corpse that he already smells of.

He captivated us with the luxury of his education; he takes us on his winged steamships, rides us along the railways; without our labor, he pleases all the whims of our sensuality, lavishes before us the wit of thought, the pleasures of art... We are glad that we came to the feast ready for such a rich host... We are intoxicated; It’s fun for us to taste for nothing what cost so much... But we don’t notice that in these dishes there is a juice that our fresh nature cannot bear... We do not foresee that the satiated host, having seduced us with all the delights of a magnificent feast, will corrupt our mind and heart; that we will leave him drunk beyond our years, with a heavy impression from an orgy incomprehensible to us...

But let us rest in faith in Providence, whose finger is evident in our history. Let’s delve deeper into the nature of both ailments and determine for ourselves a lesson in wise protection.

There is a country in which both changes occurred even earlier than in the entire West and thereby forestalled its development. This country is an island for Europe, both geographically and historically. Her secrets inner life have not yet been solved - and no one has decided why both coups that took place in it so early did not produce any, at least visible, organic damage.

In France, the great disease has given rise to the depravity of personal freedom, which threatens the entire state with complete disorganization. France is proud of having won political freedom; but let's see how she applied it to various sectors of her social development? What did she accomplish with this acquired instrument in the fields of religion, art, science and literature? We won't talk about politics and industry. Let us only add that the development of its industry is hindered year by year by the willfulness of the lower classes of the people, and that the monarchical and noble character of the luxury and splendor of its products does not in the least correspond to the direction of its popular spirit.

What is the present state of religion in France? - Religion has two manifestations: personal in individuals, as a matter of everyone’s conscience, and state, as the Church. Therefore, it is possible to consider the development of religion in any nation only from these two points of view. The development of state religion is obvious; it is in front of everyone; but it is difficult to penetrate into her personal, family development, hidden in the secret of people’s life. The latter can be seen either locally, or in literature, or in education.

Since 1830, as is known, France has lost the unity of the state religion. The country, originally Roman Catholic, allowed free Protestantism both in the depths of its people and in the depths of the reigning family. Since 1830, all religious processions of the church, these solemn moments in which she appears as a servant of God before the eyes of the people, have been destroyed in the life of the French people. The most famous rite of the Western Church, the magnificent procession: corpus Domini(12), performed so brilliantly in all the countries of the Roman Catholic West, is never again performed on the streets of Paris. When a dying person calls upon himself the gifts of Christ before his death, the church sends them without any celebration, the priest brings them secretly, as if during the times of persecution of Christianity. Religion can perform its rituals only inside temples; she alone seems to be deprived of the right to publicity, while everyone in France uses it with impunity; the churches of France are like the catacombs of the original Christians, who did not dare to take outside the manifestations of their worship of God. [...]

All these phenomena in the current life of the French people do not show religious development in them. But how to solve the same question regarding the internal life of families in France? Literature brings us the saddest news, revealing pictures of this life in its tireless stories. At the same time, I remember the word I heard from the lips of one public mentor, who assured me that all religious morality can be contained in the rules of Arithmetic. [...]

Literature among the people is always the result of their cumulative development in all branches of human education. From the previous, the reasons for the decline of modern literature in France, the works of which, unfortunately, are too well known in our Fatherland, can now be clear. A people who, through the abuse of personal freedom, destroyed the feeling of Religion in themselves, despirited art and made science meaningless, had, of course, to bring the abuse of their freedom to the highest degree of extreme in literature, not curbed either by the laws of the state or the opinion of society. [...]

We will conclude the sad picture of France by pointing out one common feature that is clearly noticeable in almost all its contemporary writers. All of them themselves feel the painful state of their fatherland in all sectors of its development; they all unanimously point to the decline of his Religion, politics, education, sciences, and Literature itself, which is their own business. In any work concerning modern life, you will surely find several pages, several lines devoted to condemnation of the present. Their common voice can sufficiently cover and reinforce our own in this case. But here's what's strange! That feeling of apathy that is always accompanied by such censures, which have become a kind of habit among the writers of France, have become a fashion, have become a commonplace. Every ailment among the people is terrible, but even more terrible is the cold hopelessness with which those who, the first, should have thought about means to cure it, speak about it.

***

Let us cross the Rhine (13), into the country neighboring us, and try to delve into the mystery of its intangible development. Firstly, we are struck by the striking contrast with the land from which we have just emerged, this external improvement of Germany in everything that concerns its state, civil and social development. What order! how slim! You are amazed at the German prudence, which knew how to remove from itself all possible temptations of its rebellious Trans-Rhine neighbors and strictly confine itself to the sphere of its own life. The Germans even harbor a kind of open hatred or high contempt for the abuse of personal freedom that infects all parts of French society. The sympathy of some German writers for French self-will found almost no echo in prudent Germany and did not leave any harmful trace in its entire current life! This country, in its different parts, can present excellent examples of development in all branches of complex human education. Its state structure is based on the love of its Sovereigns for the good of its subjects and on the obedience and devotion of these latter to their rulers. Its civil structure rests on the laws of the purest and most frank justice, inscribed in the hearts of its rulers and in the minds of its subjects, called to the execution of civil affairs. Its universities are flourishing and spreading the treasures of learning throughout all the lower institutions entrusted with the education of the people. Art is developing in Germany in such a way that it now places it in worthy rivals with its mentor, Italy. Industry and domestic trade are making rapid progress. Everything that serves to facilitate relations between its various possessions, everything that modern civilization can be proud of in relation to the conveniences of life, such as mail, customs, roads, etc., all this is excellent in Germany and elevates it to the level of a country, preeminent in its external improvement on the solid ground of Europe. What does she seem to lack for her unshakable eternal prosperity?

But above this solid, happy, well-ordered appearance of Germany hovers another intangible, invisible world of thought, completely separate from its external world. Her main illness is there, in this abstract world, which has no contact with her political and civil structure. In the Germans, in a miraculous way, mental life is separated from external, social life. Because in the same German you

You can very often meet two people: external and internal. The first will be the most faithful, most obedient subject of his Sovereign, a truth-loving and zealous citizen of his fatherland, an excellent family man and unfailing friend, in a word, a zealous performer of all his external duties; but take the same man within, penetrate into his mental world: you can find in him the most complete corruption of thought - and in this world inaccessible to the eye, in this intangible mental sphere, the same German, meek, submissive, faithful in state, society and family - is violent, frantic, violating everything, not recognizing any other power over his thoughts... This is the same ancient unbridled ancestor of his, whom Tacitus (14) saw in all his native wildness emerging from his treasured forests , with the only difference that the new, educated one transferred his freedom from the external world to the mental world. Yes, depravity of thought is the invisible illness of Germany, generated in it by the Reformation and deeply hidden in its internal development. [...]

The direction that those two countries that have made and are making the strongest influence on us are now taking is so contrary to the beginning of our life, so inconsistent with everything that has happened to us, that we all internally, more or less, recognize the need to sever our further ties with the West in the literary sense. respect. I, of course, am not talking here about those glorious examples of his great past, which we must always study: they, as the property of all humanity, belong to us, and to us by right are the closest and direct heirs in the line of peoples entering the stage of the living and the current world. I am not talking about those modern writers who in the West, seeing for themselves the direction of humanity around them, arm themselves against it and oppose it: such writers sympathize with us a lot and even impatiently await our activities. They are, however, a small exception. Of course, I do not mean those scientists who work on certain individual parts of the sciences and gloriously cultivate their fields. No, I’m talking in general about the spirit of Western education, about its main thoughts and the movements of its new literature. Here we encounter phenomena that seem incomprehensible to us, which in our opinion do not follow from anything, which we are afraid of, and sometimes we pass by them indifferently, senselessly, or with a feeling of some kind of childish curiosity that irritates our eyes.

Russia, fortunately, has not experienced those two great ailments, which harmful extremes begin to act strongly there: hence the reason why the phenomena there are not clear to her and why she cannot connect them with anything of her own. Peacefully and prudently she contemplated the development of the West: taking it as a precautionary lesson for her life, she happily avoided the discord or duality of principles to which the West was subjected in its internal development, and preserved its cherished and all-powerful unity; she assimilated only that which could be appropriate for her in the sense of universal humanity and rejected the extraneous... And now, when the West, like Mephistopheles in the conclusion of Goethe's Faust, is preparing to open that fiery abyss where it strives, it appears to us and thunders its terrible: Komm ! Komm! (15) - Russia will not follow him: she did not give him any vow, did not connect her existence with his existence by any agreement: she did not share his ailments with him; it has retained its great unity, and in a fatal moment, perhaps, it was appointed by Providence to be His great instrument for the salvation of mankind.

Let us not hide the fact that our literature, in its relations with the West, has developed some shortcomings. We bring them to three. The first of them is a characteristic feature of our moment, there is indecision. It is clear from everything that has been said above. We cannot continue literary development together with the West, because we have no sympathy for its modern works: in ourselves we have not yet fully discovered the source of our own national development, although there have been some successful attempts. The magical charm of the West still has a strong effect on us, and we cannot suddenly abandon it. I believe this indecision is one of the main reasons for the stagnation that has continued for several years in our literature. We wait in vain for modern inspirations from where we previously drew them; The West sends us what our minds and hearts reject. We are now left to our own devices; we must, involuntarily, confine ourselves to the rich past of the West and look for our own in our ancient History.

The activity of new generations entering our field under the usual influence of the latest thoughts and phenomena of the modern West is involuntarily paralyzed by the impossibility of applying what is there to ours, and every young man seething with strength, if he looks into the depths of his soul, will see that all the ardent delight and all the inner his strength is constrained by a feeling of heavy and idle indecision. Yes, all of literary Russia is now playing Hercules, standing at a crossroads: the West is insidiously beckoning her along, but of course Providence has destined her to take a different path.

The second shortcoming in our literature, closely related to the previous one, is distrust of one’s own strengths. Until when, in any case, will the last book of the West, the last issue of a magazine, act on us with some kind of magical force and fetter all our own thoughts? How long will we greedily swallow only ready-made results, derived there from a way of thinking that is completely alien to us and does not agree with our traditions? Do we really not feel strong enough to take on the sources ourselves and discover within ourselves a new view of the entire History and Literature of the West? This is a necessity for us and a service for him, which even we owe to him: no one can be impartial in his work, and peoples, like poets, when creating their being, do not reach his consciousness, which is left to their heirs.

Finally, our third shortcoming, the most unpleasant, from which we suffer most in our Literature, is Russian apathy, a consequence of our friendly relations with the West. Plant a young, fresh plant under the shade of a hundred-year-old cedar or oak, which will cover its young existence with the old shadow of its wide branches, and only through them will feed it with the sun and cool it with heavenly dew, and will give little food to its fresh roots from the greedy, tired in that land their roots. You will see how a young plant will lose the colors of its youthful life and will suffer from the premature old age of its decrepit neighbor; but cut down the cedar, return the sun to its young tree, and it will find strength within itself, will rise vigorously and freshly, and with its strong and harmless youth will even be able to gratefully cover the new shoots of its fallen neighbor.

Assign an old nanny to a living, playful child: you will see how the ardor of age will disappear in him, and his seething life will be shackled by insensibility. Make friends with an ardent young man, full of all the hopes of life, with a mature, disappointed husband, who has squandered his life, who has lost both faith and hope with it: you will see how your ardent young man will change; disappointment will not stick to him; he did not deserve it by his past; but all his feelings are shrouded in the cold of inactive apathy; his fiery eyes will fade; he, like Freishitz(16), will begin to tremble his terrible guest; in front of him, he will be ashamed of both his blush and his ardent feelings, blush with his delight, and like a child, he will put on the mask of disappointment that is unbecoming to him.

Yes, the disappointment of the West has given rise to cold apathy in us. Don Juan (17) produced Eugene Onegin, one of the general Russian types, aptly captured by Pushkin’s brilliant thought from our modern life. This character is often repeated in our Literature: our narrators dream about it, and just recently, one of them, who brilliantly entered the field of the Poet, painted us the same Russian apathy, even more so, in the person of his hero, whom we, in our national feeling, We wouldn’t like to, but we must recognize him as a hero of our time.

The last shortcoming is, of course, the one with which we must struggle most of all in our modern lives. This apathy is the reason in us both for the laziness that overcomes our fresh youth, and for the inactivity of many writers and scientists who betray their high calling and are distracted from it by the cramped world of housekeeping or large types of all-consuming trade and industry; in this apathy is the germ of that worm of melancholy, which each of us more or less felt in our youth, sang in poetry and tired of our most supportive readers.

But even if we have endured some inevitable shortcomings from our relations with the West, we have kept three fundamental feelings pure within ourselves, in which are the seed and guarantee of our future development.

We have retained our ancient religious feeling. The Christian Cross laid its sign on our entire initial education, on all of Russian life. Our ancient mother Rus' blessed us with this cross and with it sent us on the dangerous road of the West. Let's express it in a parable. The boy grew up in the holy home of his parents, where everything breathed the fear of God; The face of his gray-haired father, kneeling before the holy icon, was imprinted on his first memory: he did not get up in the morning, did not go to bed without his parent’s blessing; Every day was sanctified by prayer, and before every holiday, his family’s house was a house of prayer. The boy left his parents' house early; cold people surrounded him and clouded his soul with doubt; evil books corrupted his thoughts and froze his feelings; he was visiting peoples who do not pray to God and think that they are happy... A stormy time of youth passed... The young man matured into a husband... His family surrounded him, and all the memories of his childhood rose, like bright Angels, from the bosom of his soul him... and the feeling of Religion awoke more vividly and stronger... and his entire being was sanctified again, and a proud thought dissolved in a pure prayer of humility... and a new world of life opened up to his eyes... The parable is clear to each of us: is it necessary interpret its meaning?

The second feeling with which Russia is strong and its future prosperity is ensured is the feeling of its state unity, which we also learned from our entire History. Of course, there is no country in Europe that could be proud of such harmony of its political existence as our Fatherland. In the West, almost everywhere, discord has begun to be recognized as the law of life, and the entire existence of peoples is accomplished in a difficult struggle. With us, only the Tsar and the people form one inseparable whole, which does not tolerate any barrier between them: this connection is based on a mutual feeling of love and faith and on the endless devotion of the people to their Tsar. This is the treasure that we brought from our ancient life, which the divided West looks at with particular envy, seeing in it an inexhaustible source of state power. He would like to take it away from us with everything he can; but now I can’t, because the previously accepted feeling of our unity, taken by us from our previous life, having gone through all the temptations of education, having passed all doubts, has risen in every educated Russian, who understands his history, to the level of a clear and lasting consciousness - and Now this conscious feeling will remain more than ever unshakable in our Fatherland.

Our third fundamental feeling is the consciousness of our nationality and the confidence that any education can only take down lasting roots in us when it is assimilated by our national feeling and expressed in popular thought and word. In this feeling lies the reason for our indecision to continue literary development with the exhausting West; in this feeling there is a powerful barrier to all his temptations; All the private, fruitless efforts of our compatriots to instill in us that which does not suit the Russian mind and the Russian heart are crushed by this feeling; this feeling is the measure of the lasting success of our writers in the history of Literature and education, it is the touchstone of their originality. It was expressed strongly in the best works of each of them: Lomonosov, Derzhavin, Karamzin, Zhukovsky, Krylov, Pushkin, and all those close to them, no matter how Latin, French, concluded, agreed and responded to each other. , German, English or other influence. This feeling now directs us to the study of our ancient Rus', which, of course, preserves the original pure image of our nation. The Government itself actively encourages us to do this. With this feeling, our two capitals are related and act for one thing, and what is planned in the north passes through Moscow, as through the heart of Russia, in order to turn into the blood and living juices of our people. Moscow is that faithful crucible in which the entire past from the West is burned out and receives the pure stamp of the Russian people.

With three fundamental feelings our Rus' is strong and its future is certain. The husband of the Royal Council, to whom the emerging generations are entrusted (18), has long ago expressed them in deep thought, and they form the basis for the education of the people.

The West, by some strange instinct, does not like these feelings in us, and especially now, having forgotten our former goodness, forgetting the sacrifices made to it from us, in any case expresses its dislike for us, even similar to some kind of hatred that is offensive to every Russian visiting his lands. This feeling, undeserved by us and senselessly contradicting our previous relations, can be explained in two ways: either the West in this case resembles a grumpy old man who, in the capricious impulses of his impotent age, is angry with his heir, who is inevitably called upon to take possession of his treasures over time; or another: he, knowing by instinct our direction, anticipates the gap that must inevitably follow between him and us, and he himself, with a gust of his unjust hatred, further accelerates the fatal moment.

In disastrous eras of turning points and destruction, such as the history of mankind represents, Providence sends in the person of other peoples a preserving and observing force: may Russia be such a force in relation to the West! May she preserve for the benefit of all mankind the treasures of his great past and may she prudently reject everything that serves to destruction and not to creation! may he find in himself and in his former life a source of his own people, in which everything alien, but humanly beautiful, will merge with the Russian spirit, the vast, universal, Christian spirit, the spirit of comprehensive tolerance and worldwide communication!

Notes

1. “A Russian’s view of modern education in Europe” - an article specially written by S.P. Shevyrev at the end of 1840 for the magazine “Moskvityanin”, published by M.P. Pogodin in 1841–1855, in the first issue of which it was published in January 1841. Here excerpts are published according to the edition: Shevyrev S.P. A Russian’s view of modern education in Europe // Moskvityanin. 1841. No. 1. pp. 219–221, 246–250, 252, 259, 267–270, 287–296.

2. Cyrus the Great (year of birth unknown - died in 530 BC), king of ancient Persia in 558–530, became famous for his campaigns of conquest.

3. Alexander the Great (356–323 BC), king of Macedonia from 336, one of the outstanding commanders and statesmen of the ancient world.

4. Caesar Gaius Julius (102 or 100–44 BC), ancient Roman statesman and politician, commander, writer, lifelong dictator of Rome from 44 BC.

5. Charlemagne (742–814), king of the Franks from 768, emperor from 800. Charlemagne’s wars of conquest led to the creation for a short time in medieval Europe of the largest state, comparable in size to the Roman Empire. The Carolingian dynasty is named after him.

6. Gregory VII Hildebrand (between 1015 and 1020–1085), Pope from 1073. He was an active figure in the Cluny reform (aimed at strengthening the Catholic Church). The transformations he carried out contributed to the rise of the papacy. He developed the idea of ​​​​subordinating secular power to church power.

7. Charles V (1500–1558) from the Habsburg family. King of Spain 1516–1556. German king in 1519–1531. Emperor of the "Holy Roman Empire" in 1519–1556. He waged wars with the Ottoman Empire and led military actions against Protestants. For some time, his power extended over almost all of continental Europe.

8. The heroes of Homer’s epic poem (no later than the 8th century BC) “The Iliad,” whose duel, which ended in the death of Hector, is one of the popular images in world culture for metaphorically denoting an uncompromising and brutal fight.

9. Lines from the poem by A.S. Pushkin's "Napoleon" (1823).

10. Religious, social and ideological movement in Western Europe in the 16th century, directed against the Catholic Church and its teachings and which resulted in the formation of Protestant churches.

11. This refers to the Great French Revolution of 1789–1794, which overthrew the monarchy in France and, marking the beginning of the death of the feudal-absolutist system in Europe, cleared the ground for the development of bourgeois and democratic reforms.

12. Corpus Domini is the feast of the “Corpus of the Lord,” one of the most magnificent and solemn holidays of the Catholic Church.

13. The Rhine is a river in the West of Germany, in a cultural and historical sense it personifies the symbolic border between German and French territories.

14. Tacitus Publius Cornelius (about 58 –– after 117), famous Roman historical writer.

15. Komm! Komm! - Come, come (to me) (German) –– Mephistopheles’ words addressed to the choir of angels, in one of the final scenes of the tragedy “Faust” by the German poet and thinker Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749–1832).

16. The main character of the opera of the same name by Karl Weber (1786–1826) “Freischitz” (“The Magic Shooter”). In this case, it serves as a metaphor for timidity and excessive modesty.

17. We are talking about the main character of the unfinished poem of the same name by the English poet George Gordon Byron (1788–1824) Don Juan, a bored romantic traveler trying to fill the emptiness of his life by searching for adventures and new passions. Byron's image of Don Juan served A.S. Pushkin was one of the sources for creating the literary hero of the novel in verse "Eugene Onegin".

18. This refers to Sergei Semenovich Uvarov (1786–1855), Minister of Public Education (1833–1849), author of the famous triad “Orthodoxy. Autocracy. Nationality,” which formed the basis not only of Uvarov’s concept of education in Russia, but also of all politics and ideology of autocracy during the reign of Nicholas I.

Bulletin of PSTGU
IV: Pedagogy. Psychology
2007. Vol. 3. pp. 147-167
A RUSSIAN'S VIEW ON MODERN EDUCATION
EUROPE
S.P. SHEVYREV
Readers are invited to publish a well-known article
S.P. Shevyrev “A Russian’s view of modern education in Europe.”
Despite its fame and numerous references, the article, however,
less, it has not been published anywhere else (as far as the author knows
publications), although it is of undoubted interest not only for
philologist, but also for the history of pedagogy.
The publication was prepared by Ph.D. ist. sciences, leading scientific collaborators
nickname of the Institute of Theory and History of Pedagogy of the Russian Academy of Education L.N. Belenchuk.
Stepan Petrovich Shevyrev (1806–1864) – the largest literary historian
tours, professor at Moscow University, taught history for over 20 years
literature, poetry, and other courses in philology. Since 1851 S.P. Shevy-
Rev simultaneously headed the Department of Pedagogy, established in Moscow
University in the same year. Since 1852 he was an ordinary academician
(highest rank) of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences.
Lectures by S.P. Shevyrev invariably aroused great interest among listeners.
tel and enjoyed enormous popularity. His course of lectures was famous
tions “History of Russian Literature”, in which he drew the attention of the public
ownership of the vast ancient Russian literature, until that time there was little
studied. This course was a kind of response to the 1st “Philosophical
"letter" of P. Chaadaev, in which he asserted the vacuity and
the insignificance of the ancient culture of Rus'.
His scientific articles on pedagogy about the influence of family education on
moral state of society, moreover, on the state structure
ism, are widely known and more relevant than ever for our time.
The main idea of ​​these articles is that when a family is destroyed, both society and
state - is only now receiving a real assessment, and its view of the restoration
nutrition as a process that continues throughout life, received today
definition as “continuous (lifelong) education.” At the same time, S.P.
Shevyrev emphasized that the process and quality of education are influenced by the most
various environmental factors. In almost all of his works
Shevyrev touched upon issues of education, in which he invested widely
meaning.
147
Publications
Of Shevyrev’s pedagogical works, the most famous is his lecture
(and then the article) “On the relationship of family education to state
mu. Speech delivered at the ceremonial meeting of the Imperial
Moscow University June 16, 1842" (M., 1842). In it Shevyrev defined
shared the main goal of education (“By the name of education we must mean
full development of all intimate, mental and spiritual abilities is possible
of man, given to him by God, development consistent with his highest purpose -
we mean and applied to the people and the state, among which Providence is called
it began to act”; With. 4), its means, the role of the state, family and society
in education, and also touched upon the topic of differences in education in Western
Europe and Russia. 15 years earlier than N.I. Pirogov’s main question of pedagogy is
Shevyrev called gogics “the education of man” (“He leaves the university
student or candidate; out of your hands comes a person - a title, more important -
neck of all other ranks"; With. 4). Arranging a proper transition from family to
school is one of the main tasks of state education,
he asserted. The speech had a wide public response.
Article by S.P. Shevyrev “Russian’s view of modern education”
Europe" was published in the first issue of the magazine "Moskvityanin" (1841,
No. 1, p. 219–296) and, according to our data, was not published anywhere else, although
its materials were used by the author in other works and lecture courses,
for example, in the History of Poetry (of which only one was published
volume). Many researchers consider it to be software for Moskvityanin.
Indeed, it reflects all the main problems being developed
Slavophilism, to which S.P. Shevyrev's worldview was very
close: the cultural beginnings of Europe and Russia, the origins of European culture
and education, comparative analysis of the cultures of its largest states,
Russia's place in the world universal culture. Contents of the article on
At first glance it seems much broader than stated in the title. However this
reflects the specific understanding of Shevyrev and his associates of the image
knowledge as broad enlightenment of a person in all spheres of his life -
(and not just in educational institutions), as the formation of his worldview
tions based on core values. Therefore, in the article the problems themselves
education in our current, highly specialized understanding
Not much space is given. But everything that constitutes humanism is analyzed.
container aspect of personality culture.
Let us draw the reader's attention to the brilliant knowledge of S.P. Shevyrev
Western European culture, its most diverse directions (few of them
Westerners knew Western culture then!), respect and love for higher
its achievements and best representatives. Negatively critical
can be considered only an essay dedicated to the culture of France. May be,
S.P. Shevyrev, ahead of his time, saw better than others the trends that were emerging.
developed in Europe and received rapid development in the future. Banners-
It is significant that in the early 1990s, the Pope, visiting France, exclaimed
zero: “France, what have you done with your baptism!” (Quoted from: Kuraev A.

Reprinted with abbreviations from the first edition: Shevyrev S.P. A Russian’s view of modern education in Europe // Moskvityanin. 1841. Part 1. No. 1. P. 219-296. The author's spelling and punctuation have been preserved (with the exception of “yat”, “i” and “b”).

For the full text, see: Shevyrev S.P.

Selected works / Comp. K.V. Ryasentsev, A.A. Shirinyants; author entry, art. A.A. Shirinyants; authors of the comment. M.K. Kpryushina, K.V. Ryasentsev, A.A. Shirinyants. M.: Russian Political Encyclopedia (ROSSPEN), 2010. pp. 171-222. 1

Cyrus II the Great (ancient Persian Kurush) (? -530 BC) - king of Ancient Persia in 558-530. from the Achaemenid dynasty, founder of the Persian Empire.

Alexander the Great (356-323 BC) - King of Macedonia from 336, one of the outstanding commanders and statesmen of the Ancient World.

Gaius Julius Caesar (102 or 100-44 BC) - ancient Roman statesman and politician, commander, writer, lifelong dictator of Rome from 44

Charlemagne (Carolus Magnus) (742-814) - king of the Franks (from 768), creator of the Frankish state, was crowned in Rome by Pope Leo III with the imperial crown (800).

Gregory VII (Gregorius VII, in the world Hildebrand) (between 1015 and 1020-1085) - Pope (from 1073), reformer of the Catholic Church (decree on the election of the pope only by a conclave - a college of cardinals, which eliminated direct participation in the elections of secular authorities; a resolution against simony, against married clergy), fighter for papal theocracy.

Charles V (1500-1558) - from the Habsburg family, king of Spain in 1516-1556, German king in 1519-1531, Holy Roman Emperor in 1519-1556. He waged wars with the Ottoman Empire and led military actions against Protestants. For some time, his power extended over almost all of continental Europe.

Napoleon Bonaparte (Napoleon Bonaparte) - first consul of the French Republic (1799-1804), emperor of the French (1804-1814 and March-June 1815), through victorious wars managed to expand his empire and become for some time the de facto ruler of the entire Western (except for Great Britain) and Central Europe. 2

In Homer's Iliad, the duel between Achilles and Hector is made the central episode of the entire Trojan War. 3

S.P. Shevyrev quotes a poem by A.S. Pushkin, written by him on July 18, 1821, after the news of Napoleon’s death (May 5, 1821). 4

Winckelmann Johann Joachim (1717-1768) - German art critic, founder of modern ideas about ancient art. 5

“The Transfiguration” is a famous painting by Raphael Santi, kept in Rome, in the Vatican Pinacoteca, depicting Christ transfigured on Mount Tabor, at the foot of which eleven disciples await him (1518-1520). 6

pp. 229-234. 10

pp. 235-239. eleven

pp. 239-242. 12

Shawl (Chasles) Philaret Victor Efemion (1798-1873) - French writer and literary critic. 13

S.P. Shevyrev quotes the article: Chasles Phil.

Revue de la litterature anglaise // Revue des deux mondes. T. 24. Quatrieme serie. 1840.1-er Novembre. P. 348-364. 14

Corpus Domini is a Catholic holiday of the body of God, established in memory of the establishment of the sacrament of communion (Eucharist) by Jesus Christ, during which mass processions are organized through decorated streets with hymns of praise, with candles and banners in their hands and to the ringing of bells. 16

Concession a perpetuite - a place (in a cemetery) purchased or rented forever. 17

pp. 252-253. 18

pp. 254-255. 19

Cousin Victor (1792-1867) - French philosopher, educator and historian. 20

Lancaster method - the Lancastrian system, or the method of mutual teaching, invented by the English teacher Joseph Lancaster (Lancaster) (1778-1838), the essence of which was that knowledgeable students taught their weaker comrades under the guidance of a teacher. 21

Lerminier Jean-Louis-Eugene (1803-1859) - French lawyer, occupied the department of comparative history of legislation at the College de France, in 1849, under pressure from students, he was forced to give up teaching. 22

Lueppii - Thierry (Lhierry) Augustin (1795-1856) - French historian, one of the founders of the romantic movement in French historiography, and his brother Thierry (Lhierry) Amédée (1797-1873) - historian and writer. 23

Ampere Jean-Jacques (1800-1864) - literary historian, author of the work “History of French Literature up to the XII Century” (Histoire litteraire de la France avant leXIIe siecle. Lome 1-3 / Jean-Jacques Ampere. Paris: Hachette, 1839-1840). 24

The Montyon Prizes are annual prizes established by the French philanthropist Baron Antoine-Auger Montyon (1733-1820), one of which was awarded by the French Academy for achievements in the field of “virtue” (prix de vertu). 27

pp. 265-267. 28

Gemiith (German) - soul, soulfulness. 29

pp. 272-274. thirty

Schiller Johann Christoph Friedrich (1759-1805) - German educator, poet, playwright, art theorist, historian. 31

Hegel Leopr Wilhelm Friedrich (1770-1831) - German philosopher. 32

Euphorion is a beautiful young man in ancient Greek mythology, born from the union of Achilles and Helen, who were transferred after death to the islands of the blessed. The myth about him was used by I. LeTe in “Faust”, where Euphorion is the son of Faust and Helen. 33

pp. 276-277. 34

Klotitok (Klopstock) Friedrich Botlieb (1724-1803) - German poet.

Lessing Ezthold Ephraim (1729-1781) - German playwright, art theorist and literary critic, founder of German classical literature.

Wieland Christoph Martin (1733-1813) - German writer and poet.

Herder Johann Botfried (1744-1803) - German philosopher, humanist, cultural historian. 35

Schlegel August Wilhelm (1767-1845) - German literary historian, writer, and his brother Friedrich (1772-1829) - German philosopher, writer, linguist. 36

Neander (Neander, real name David Mendel) August (1789-1850) - German evangelical church historian, professor at the University of Berlin (since 1813). 38

Savigny (von Savigny) Friedrich-Karl (1779-1861) - German jurist and historian, professor at the University of Berlin (1810-1842). 39

Disjecta membra (lat.) - “disjointed members”, here: an allusion to Quintus Horace Flaccus (Satires. Book I, satire 4, art. 62). 40

Schelling Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph (1775-1854) - German philosopher. 43

Freischitz is the hero of the opera by the German composer K. Weber (1821) “The Free Shooter” or “The Magic Shooter”, the hero of which is a free shooter who was in alliance with the devil, who directed him every seventh bullet. 45

Pushkin Alexander Sergeevich (1799-1837) - Russian poet and writer, founder of new Russian literature, in particular the author of the famous novel in verse "Eugene Onegin" (1823-1831), created to some extent under the influence of Byron's poem "Don Juan". 46

Lomonosov Mikhail Vasilyevich (1711-1765) - encyclopedist scientist, the first Russian professor, naturalist, chemist, physicist, poet, who laid the foundations of the modern Russian literary language, artist, historian. Developed a project for the creation of Moscow State University.

Derzhavin Gabriel Romanovich (1743-1816) - Russian poet of the Enlightenment, representative of classicism, politician: in various years he held senior government positions: cabinet secretary of Catherine II (1791-1793), president of the Commerce Collegium (from 1794), minister of justice (1802-1803).

Karamzin Nikolai Mikhailovich (1766-1826) - Russian historian, historiographer, writer, poet, honorary member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences (1818). Creator of “History of the Russian State”. Editor of the Moscow Journal (1791-1792) and Vestnik Evropy (1802-1803).

Zhukovsky Vasily Andreevich (1783-1852) - poet and translator.

Krylov Ivan Andreevich (1769 (according to other sources, 1768) - 1844) - writer, fabulist. 47

Uvarov Sergei Semenovich (1786-1855) - count (1846), honorary member (1811) and president (1818-1855) of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. In 1833-1849. - Minister of Public Education, author of the formula “Orthodoxy, autocracy, nationality.”