The ideological content of the comedy Woe from Wit. The idea of the comedy "Woe from Wit"

Ideological concept of comedy and its composition.

Griboyedov came up with the idea for the comedy Woe from Wit at a time when in Russia, in response to the strengthening of the government reaction, secret political societies. The clash of a man of Decembrist views with the reactionary mass of the nobility was laid by Griboyedov at the foundation of his comedy; this gave it a socio-political character. Griboyedov's comedy reflected the ever-increasing struggle in Russian society between the Decembrists and serf-owners. This struggle is the main driving force of the play. But Chatsky's speech against the Famus society is complicated by his love drama. The personal and social drama of Chatsky are internally connected, develop until the end of the comedy, not replacing one another, but intertwining and complicating each other.

Griboyedov's mastery, shown by him in the construction of comedy, is especially pronounced in the fact that all the images given in it, down to the most insignificant, play important role in the development of the plot, especially in the implementation of the main ideological concept- give in comedy big picture modern Russian reality, to show the collision of the "current century" with the "past century".

The ideological and thematic content of the comedy "Woe from Wit"

In his comedy, Griboyedov very sharply posed a number of the most important problems for his time: the problem of serfdom and the relationship between the noble landlords and the serf peasantry, the problem of service in feudal-serf Russia, education and culture, the connection of the intelligentsia with the people, false and true patriotism. This issue gave the comedy a sharp political character, making it a work that, even before it was printed, was distributed in thousands of handwritten copies not only in the capitals, but also in provincial cities.

But the very title of the comedy indicates that the author included another problem in the content of Woe from Wit. Griboyedov shows the grief of an intelligent person who is forced to live in a serf-owning society, where intelligence, love, a person’s desire for creativity, in general, all the best human qualities perish.

The cause of Chatsky's tragedy is his advanced views, intelligence and noble aspirations. All this is not only not valued in the Famus society, but is rejected, Furthermore- pursued by them. A person can be accepted in this noble society only by giving up his views in favor of the dominant ones, by submitting to the traditions of this society. Such a change occurred, for example, with Sophia and with former comrade Chatsky by military service Gorich.

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The comedy “Woe from Wit”, written by A. S. Griboyedov at the beginning of the 19th century, is also relevant for today's Russia. In this work, the author reveals with all depth the vices that struck Russian society the beginning of the last century. However, reading this work, we find in it the heroes of the present day.

Alexander Sergeevich Griboyedov is the creator of the brilliant comedy "Woe from Wit", scattered into hundreds of "winged" phrases and expressions, which has become, as it were, a collection of aphorisms. The author originally called the comedy "Woe to the mind", denoting main reason troubles of a person in modern society. Chatsky -- clever man, an ardent and passionate nature, looking for a real business, but not finding a use for itself; the mind that wants to serve "the cause, not the persons"...

But in the society where he is forced to live, the opposite is valued - pride, or rather, arrogance, reverence for the faces of only the rich, no matter how well-being was achieved.

Here everyone does not envy the mind, but luck, ranks; not meritorious to the fatherland - the main thing: you have to be "at the feeder", "be with the key yourself and deliver the key to your son."

Some kind of "very sophisticated" feeling dignity if it is valued in money. This is a corrupt society, everything here is bought and sold, everything has a price, only this bargaining is covered with beautiful and lofty phrases, but the essence is the same. When there is a person who calls everything by its proper name, who wants to be sincere and disinterested, who values science, friendship, love, then he will be instantly dubbed crazy.

The comedy of Alexander Sergeevich Griboyedov is a complex synthesis of three literary methods, a combination, on the one hand, of their individual features, and on the other, a holistic panorama of Russian life early XIX century.

That is why the play by A.S. Griboyedov "Woe from Wit" remains relevant in our time.

To better understand the ideological and artistic content of "Woe from Wit", the socio-political issues of comedy, let's recall characteristics historical era reflected in the play.

There are certain difficulties with the dating of Woe from Wit, primarily due to the fact that the author did not leave precise instructions about the start of work on the play.

Researchers name both 1816, and 1818, and 1821. Only the time when the work was completed is documented: 1824.

Griboyedov dreamed " prophetic dream”, the following dialogue took place in a dream:

“What do you want? - You know. - When should it be ready? “About a year later.” This event was the impetus for active work on comedy.

Griboyedov was personally acquainted with Grand Duke Nikolai Pavlovich, with the Governor-General of St. Petersburg Miloradovich, with Minister Lansky, with other prominent dignitaries. However, the playwright failed to print the comedy or put it on stage.

There was no cultural noble family, which would not have a list or copy of the comedy "Woe from Wit". This manuscript containing many blots, from which lists were compiled, scattered throughout the country, has also been preserved and has received the name "Gandre manuscript".

Unexpectedly, luck nevertheless smiled at Griboyedov: Bulgarin, who was friendly towards him, was going to publish the theatrical almanac "Russian Waist for 1825". At the end of 1824, the almanac was published and included the comedy "Woe from Wit" (in an incomplete form).

Traces of editing were preserved in the manuscript, which Griboedov, leaving for Persia in 1828, presented to Bulgarin. There is an inscription on it: “I entrust my grief to Bulgarin. True friend Griboyedov. June 5, 1828"

During the life of Griboyedov, the play was well known, but it was known only in handwritten lists, as it was published in full and was not staged in the theater. Comedy text that is famous modern reader and the viewer, compiled by the scientist - literary critic N.K. Piksanov based on a deep study of numerous author's manuscripts.

In comedy A.S. Griboyedov "Woe from Wit", the problem of the mind is one of the key. This, in fact, indicates the name. Therefore, this problem should be considered, perhaps, the very first, speaking about comedy, its themes and figurative system.

Above, the word "mind" was used quite often. But at first it is not entirely clear what is put into this concept by the author and his characters, it is necessary to specify it within the framework of the action of the comedy. And indeed, speaking about the fact that Chatsky is smart, we recall stupid, from his point of view, Maxim Petrovich, Uncle Famusov, and the words of his nephew: “Huh? how do you think? In our opinion - smart. " In this regard, relying on other images of the work (Molchalin, Sophia and others), we can conclude that Griboedov considered two types of mind: "intellectual" and "adaptability", also called "everyday" mind, which is often akin to stupidity.

So, "Woe from Wit", for all the complexity of the problem, gives us hope for "enlightenment at the end of the tunnel", so to speak, in the person of such smart and highly educated people as Chatsky. And the Famus society looks like something deathly pale and dying in its attempts to resist this.

The ideological meaning of the comedy lies in the opposition of two social forces, ways of life, worldviews: the old, feudal, and the new, progressive; in exposing everything backward and proclaiming the advanced ideas of that time. The struggle of the “current century” with the “past century” is the struggle of Chatsky, advanced man of his time, and the backward Famus society. Representatives of the Moscow nobility are deprived of any civic thoughts and interests. They see the meaning of life, first of all, in enrichment, they are careerists and envious people. They are in power, occupy a high social position.

Satirically denouncing the local and bureaucratic nobility, the entire feudal-serf system, A.S. Griboyedov clearly saw the positive social forces of his era, the emergence and growth of new, progressive aspirations and ideas.

In comedy, the conflict ends with the general recognition of Chatsky as crazy, and the love drama ends with the exposure love affair led by Molchalin. At the end of the play, Chatsky feels abandoned by everyone, the feeling of alienation from the society to which he once belonged intensifies in him. denouement love drama influences the main conflict: Chatsky leaves all contradictions unresolved and leaves Moscow. In collision with Famus Society Chatsky is defeated, but, losing, he remains undefeated, as he understands the need to fight against the "gone century", its norms, ideals, life position.

Depicting in the comedy "Woe from Wit" the socio-political struggle of the conservative and progressive camps, the public characters, customs and life of Moscow, Griboyedov reproduces the situation of the whole country. “Woe from Wit” is a mirror of feudal-serf Russia with its social contradictions, the struggle of the outgoing world and the new one, called to win.

The comedy "Woe from Wit" is located at the intersection of various artistic aesthetics. Classical tendencies are combined in it with elements of romanticism and realism. A similar synthesis of artistic models is also found in Western European dramaturgy. originality artistic experience Griboedov lies in the specifics of the conflict of the work, in the development of images, in the semantics of the title.

The very score of the character's behavior illustrated the ideas of the Decembrists, who believed that it was necessary to express progressive views everywhere: both at the ball and in the assembly of the nobility. The public character, the publicity of the hero's monologues, his subversive pathos social position were subtracted from the image of disagreement enclosed in the surname: Chatsky - fuming, expressing seditious ideas.

The thesis-theme included in the title is applicable to all characters and is illustrated by the existential forms of their self-realization. The category of mind so popular in literature XVIII century, is rethought by Griboedov in the context of changed ethical and aesthetic priorities and issues relevant to the beginning of the 19th century. In comedy, two types of "reasonable" behavior are contrasted: the first is purely protective in nature; the second involves the destruction of archaic dogmas.

Formally, the author decides conflict situation in favor of the Famus society, but the philosophical correctness of the ideological position belongs to Chatsky. Such a denouement demonstrates the triumph of a personified idea over a world subject to the dictates of outdated morality.

The realistic character of comedy lies in the creation of a special artistic world, in which each hero experiences his "woe from wit". Famusov is depicted as a noble gentleman, to whom all of Moscow gathers, but in the finale of the play he is afraid of becoming a universal laughing stock and the second meaning of his surname (from the Latin fama - “rumor”) is revealed in the character’s remark: “Ah! My God! what will Princess Marya Alekseevna say! The character of Sophia is set in accordance with the images of the positive heroines of previous literature, but in comedy her wisdom extends to the idealization of an unborn lover and the desire to match the romantic ideals that she comprehended from French books.

The plot of the comedy reflects life in Famusov's house. Each guest represents certain type behavior raised by the author to the level of sociocultural generalization. Repetilov embodies the idea of profanation of high ideals.

Griboyedov's innovation also lies in the creation of a new genre for Russian literature. "Woe from Wit" can be attributed to the type of love comedy, but the dramatic pathos that permeates the conflict does not allow limiting the genre nature of the work by pointing out the experiences of the protagonist and his misunderstanding by the surrounding society. The presence of two intrigues destroys the usual classicist structure known from Molière's comedies, introduces parallel storylines. Composite elements dramatic conflict- love-everyday and socio-political - coincide in the plot and denouement. The socio-political intrigue culminates in Chatsky's monologue, in which the hero lashes out with invectives against the obsequious attitude of Famus society towards everything foreign.

What is the ideological style originality comedy? Let's look at the conflict first. Against the backdrop of traditional classic dramas, vaudeville, sharp comedies of Shakhovsky, the conflict of Griboyedov's comedy is distinguished by psychological and philosophical novelty and depth.

The originality of the conflict dictates the originality of the genre. household comedy, comedy of manners, satire - all these definitions are clearly not enough to define the genre of "Woe from Wit". If you wish, you can find farcical elements in comedy, which, in general, were not an innovation in those days. For example, the replicas of Skalozub, the princess, the appearance of Repetilov. In Griboyedov's play, all this is combined in a peculiar way with Chatsky's romantic sublimity. But this is not a tragedy and romantic drama for reading.

Distrust of life avenges itself, and the development of both personal and social intrigues leads the smartest Chatsky to disaster and disappointment in life.

Thus, we can call Griboyedov's product philosophical drama, the main conflict of which is the conflict between living life and our abstract concepts of it.

Considering genre originality play, you can not help but refer to her style features. Griboyedov's innovative play combines features of classicism and realism. Creating a play, Griboyedov worked out a special, new poetics. “I live as I write, freely and freely,” Griboyedov says in a letter to Katenin.

Take, for example, brand new speech characteristics heroes. The language in which the heroes of the comedy communicate contributes to their individualization and at the same time typification. “A mixture of French and Nizhny Novgorod”, the saturation of the colloquial elements of the language used by the Famus society clearly shows us who we are dealing with.

An almost onomatopoeic depiction of the speech of secular young ladies (for example, Natalia Dmitrievna’s “satin tulle”), Skalozub’s clear dry speech, Khlestova’s well-aimed, biting words, Chatsky’s aphoristic statement - all this allows us to agree with Pushkin’s words: “... about poetry, I don’t I say: half will go into proverbs. Let us recall only a few of them: “Blessed is he who believes, he is warm in the world”, “an intelligent person cannot but be a rogue”, “nowadays they love the dumb”, “ happy hours do not observe, gossips worse than a gun” and many, many others.

One and a half hundred years has been interpreted by criticism " immortal comedy» Alexander Sergeevich Griboyedov. It would seem that everything was said about “Woe for Wit” back in the 19th century. The images of the heroes are considered from all sides, the thought and pathos are interpreted for every taste. The entire color of Russian literature and criticism of all directions spoke about Woe from Wit - from Belinsky to Apollon Grigoriev, from Pushkin to Dostoevsky. The range of assessments was so wide that Chatsky appeared either as a pathological clever man, or as a pathological fool, or as a pure Westernizer, or as a Slavophile.

Blok called "Woe from Wit" a work "unsurpassed, the only one in world literature, unsolved to the end, symbolic in true sense this word…” Such an assessment of the artist, whose scale and whose influence on the Russian culture of the 20th century is enormous and whose references to comedy in own creativity are so frank, it gives the right and obliges to carefully read the familiar text “Woe from Wit” again and again - this is the key to interpreting the meaning of many subsequent literary works- and look in this text for new answers to painful questions of Russian history.

The ideological meaning of the comedy "Woe from Wit" is to depict the clash of two socio-political camps. The conflict of the play reveals the typical features, socio-historical essence, strength and weakness of the noble liberation movement.
Chatsky's drama was a reflection of an even broader pan-European phenomenon. He suffers grief from his mind, which is deep in its critical attitude towards the egoistic and the world of famous and pufferfish, but still weak in determining the correct ways to fight for the transformation of reality.

He was a true representative of the Age of Enlightenment and saw the reasons for the ugliness of life and the unreasonableness of society. He believed that the fortress system can be changed and corrected by the influence of noble humane ideas. Life dealt a terrible blow to these hopes and dreams, revealing the idealistic character of an enlightening understanding of reality complicated by romantic dreams. Thus, the weakness of the noble liberation movement was reflected in the social drama of Chatsky. At the same time, Griboyedov, to a certain extent, captured an important historic moment V spiritual development the peoples of Europe - the crisis of the rationalist philosophy of the Enlightenment.

The pathos of comedy is optimistic. Woe from the mind is experienced not only by Chatsky. The Chatskys deal a terrible blow with their denunciations of Famus and Silence. The calm and carefree existence of the Famus society is over. His parasitic egotism was denounced, his philosophy of life was condemned, and he was rebelled against. If the Chatskys are still weak in their struggle, then the Famusovs are also powerless to stop the development of enlightenment and advanced ideas. The struggle against the Famusovs did not end in comedy. She was just beginning in Russian life. The Decembrists and the spokesman for their ideas, Chatsky, were representatives of the first early stage Russian liberation movement.

In world literature, you can not find many works that, like the comedy of A. S. Griboedov, in short term would have won such a loud nationwide fame. At the same time, contemporaries fully felt the socio-political relevance of comedy, perceiving it as a topical work of a new literature that was emerging in Russia, which set as its main task the development of “own wealth” (that is, material national history and modern Russian life) and their own, original, non-borrowed funds. The plot basis of "Woe from Wit" was a dramatic conflict: a clash of an intelligent, noble and freedom-loving hero with the inert environment of reactionaries surrounding him. This conflict depicted by Griboedov was vitally truthful, historically reliable. WITH young years revolving in the circle of advanced Russian people who embarked on the path of struggle against the world of autocracy and serfdom, living in the interests of these people, sharing their views and convictions, Griboedov had the opportunity to closely and daily observe the most important, characteristic and exciting phenomenon public life of its time - the struggle of two worldviews, two ideologies, two ways of life, two generations.

After Patriotic War, during the years of the formation and rise of the socio-political and general cultural movement of the noble Decembrist revolutionaries, the struggle of the new - emerging and developing - with the old - obsolete and hindering progress - was most sharply expressed in the form of just such an open clash between the young heralds" free life”and the militant guardians of the Old Testament, reactionary orders, as depicted in “Woe from Wit”. Griboedov himself, in a widely known, constantly quoted letter to P. A. Katenin (January 1825), with the utmost clarity, revealed the content and ideological meaning the dramatic collision underlying the comedy: “... in my comedy there are 25 fools per sane person; and this man, of course, is in contradiction with the society surrounding him, no one understands him, no one wants to forgive him, why is he a little higher than the others.

And then Griboyedov shows how systematically and irresistibly, more and more aggravated, the "contradiction" of Chatsky with the Famus society is growing, how this society betrays Chatsky to an anathema, which is in the nature of a political denunciation - Chatsky is announced in public hearing as a troublemaker, carbonarius, a man who encroaches on the "legal" state and social order; finally like a voice universal hatred spreads vile gossip about the madness of Chats-kogo. At first he is cheerful, and this is a vice: “To joke and joke for a century, how will you become!” Slightly recounts the oddities of former acquaintances, but what to do if there is no noble feature in them! His taunts are not caustic for the time being,

but still: “I am glad to humiliate, prick, envious! Proud and gender! Does not tolerate meanness: “Ah! My God, he is a Carbonari. Someone out of anger you thought he was crazy. The voice of general unkindness even reaches him, and, moreover, the dislike for him of that girl for whom he was the only one in Moscow, is completely explained to him, he didn’t give a damn about her and everyone else and was like that. Griboyedov told in his comedy about what happened in a Moscow house in one day. But what breadth in this story! It has the spirit of the time, the spirit of history. Griboedov, as it were, pushed the walls apart famus house and showed all my life noble society of his era - with all the contradictions, the seething passions, the enmity of generations, the struggle of ideas. Within the framework of the dramatic picture of the hero’s encounter with the environment, Griboyedov included the huge socio-historical theme of a turning point that has become apparent in life - the theme of the boundary of two eras - the “current century” and the “past century”.

Hence the extraordinary richness of the ideological content of comedy. In one form or another and in one way or another, Griboedov touched in Woe from Wit many of the most serious issues of social life, morality and culture, which had the most relevant, most topical significance in the Decembrist era. These were questions about the situation of the Russian people, crushed by the yoke of serfdom, about further destinies Russia, Russian statehood and Russian culture, about the freedom and independence of the human person, about the public vocation of a person, about his patriotic and civic duty, about a new understanding of personal and civic honor, about strength human mind and knowledge about the tasks, ways and means of enlightenment and education. The genius of Griboyedov responded to all these questions, and this response was filled with such ardent civic-patriotic passion, such indomitable indignation, that the comedy could not help but make the deepest and most striking impression both in the advanced circles of Russian society and in the camp reactionaries.

Here, in this society, "noble scoundrels" and petty scoundrels, notorious swindlers and "sinister old women", bigots and scammers, united, as if by mutual responsibility, by irreconcilable hostility to "free life", to culture, to enlightenment flourish. to the slightest manifestation of independent thought and free feeling. In this world, without a shadow of embarrassment, serf slaves were exchanged for greyhounds, wealth and honors were obtained by obvious robbery, “poured into pipax and in extravagance”, and learning was considered a “plague”, a malicious and flammable invention of the “cursed Voltairians”. The people of this cruel world lived according to the covenants and legends " last century"-" Ages of obedience and fear. Their "morality" was based on groveling before the strong and on the oppression and humiliation of the weak. For them, the ideal of a person was a successful nobleman of blessed feudal times - such as Famusov's uncle Maxim Petrovich, who reached "known degrees" thanks to his shameless servility and buffoonery at court.

The most typical representative of this world is Famusov himself, a militant obscurantist, a hypocrite and a despot who threatens his slaves with Siberian penal servitude. To match Famusov, all his relatives, friends and guests.

In the image of Colonel Skalozub, Griboyedov recreated the type of Arakcheev, a stupid, narcissistic and ignorant "hero" of the parade parade exercises, stepping and stick drills, a sworn enemy of free thought. This “wheezy, strangled, bassoon, constellation of maneuvers and mazurkas”, chasing ranks, orders and a rich bride, embodies the spirit of reactionary “Prussianism”, which was artificially planted by tsarism in the Russian army and aroused hatred of the entire advanced officer corps, who kept the Suvorov and Kutuzov traditions (in the draft edition of Woe from Wit, Skalozub himself says about himself: “I am the school of Friedrich ...”).

Sharp, typical features are also endowed with all the other characters of aristocratic Moscow, bred in Woe from Wit: the imperious bar-nya-serf woman old Khlestova, the Countess Khryumina, the Tugoukhovsky princely family, Zagoretsky - a secular cheat, a swindler and an informer, according to all sources - a secret agent of the political police, Repetilov - the "soul" of a noble society, a jester, a gossip and a windbag, wormed his way into the circle of some pseudo-liberal talkers in order to keep up with fashion, Platon Mikhailovich Gorich - in the past a friend of Chatsky, a man who lowered resigned, inert, internally reconciled with the Famus world.

How his "rootless" secretary of Famusov, Molchalin, is accepted in this world. In his face, Griboyedov created an exceptionally expressive generalized image of a scoundrel and a cynic, a "fan worshiper and a businessman", still a petty scoundrel, who, however, will be able to reach "known degrees". The whole lackey "philosophy of life" of this bureaucrat and sycophant who does not dare to "have his own opinion" is revealed in his famous confession: My father bequeathed to me:

First, to please all people without exception -The owner, where I happen to live, The boss, with whom I will serve, His servant, who cleans dresses, The porter, the janitor, to avoid evil, The dog of the janitor, so that she is affectionate.

The gallery of typical images of old-noble, lordly Moscow, created by Griboedov, includes those who do not directly act in the comedy, but are only mentioned in the cursory descriptions that the characters give them. Among them are such bright, embossed, finished images as the "black-and-dirty" frequenter of all balls and dinners, and the serf-theater, and the obscurantist member of the "Scientific Committee", and the deceased chamberlain Kuzma Petrovich, and the influential old woman Tatyana Yuryevna, and the impudent "Frenchman from Bordeaux", and Repetilov's club friends, and many others - up to Princess Marya Aleksvvna, the guardian of public opinion in the Famus world, in whose name the comedy ends significantly. All these faces do not appear on the stage, but nevertheless they are very important for revealing the content of Woe from Wit, and this is one of the innovative features comedy.

Griboedov's social criticism, deployed in Woe from Wit, was, in its very breadth and specificity, an exceptional phenomenon in the literature of the early 19th century. If the satirical-moralistic comedians, who wrote in the traditions of classicism, followed the conditional and abstract criteria legitimized by his aesthetics, and, as a rule, ridiculed any one, separately taken social “vice” or an abstract moral category (for example, only covetousness, only ignorance, only stinginess, only hypocrisy, etc.), then Griboyedov in his comedy touched and exposed in the spirit of the socio-political ideas of Decembrism wide circle absolutely concrete phenomena of the social life of feudal Russia.

The topical meaning of Griboyedov's criticism is, of course, not now felt with such acuteness as it was felt by Griboyedov's contemporaries. But at one time the comedy sounded, among other things, just topical. And questions of nobility education in “boarding houses, schools, lyceums”, and debates about the parliamentary system and the reform of judicial proceedings, and individual episodes of Russian public life in the period after the Napoleonic wars, reflected in the monologues of Chatsky and in the remarks of Famusov's guests - all this was of the most vital importance, in particular in the Decembrist environment, precisely in those years when Griboyedov wrote his comedy. The richness and concreteness of the social content embedded in Woe from Wit gives the comedy the meaning of a broad and complete picture Russian public life of the late 1810s - early 1820s, depicted in all its historical accuracy and reliability.

At one time (in 1865), D. I. Pisarev drew attention to this significance of comedy, who argued that “Griboedov, in his analysis of Russian life, reached that extreme limit beyond which a poet cannot go without ceasing to be a poet and without turning into a scientific researcher. And in this regard, the critic quite rightly noted that in order for a writer, a poet to be able to paint such a reliable and accurate historical picture, he “must be not only an attentive observer, but also, besides, a wonderful thinker; it is necessary to choose from the surrounding ... the diversity of faces, thoughts, words, joys, sorrows, stupidities and meannesses exactly what concentrates the whole meaning of this era, which leaves its mark on the whole mass of secondary phenomena that squeezes into its framework and modifies with its influence all other branches of private and public life. Such a huge task was indeed accomplished for Russia in the 1920s by Griboyedov.

As a truly great national and folk writer, Griboyedov set and resolved in his work the main, critical issues associated with the life and fate of the Russian people. Griboedov's comedy "Woe from Wit" played an outstanding role in the socio-political and moral education several generations of Russian people. It armed them to fight against violence and arbitrariness, meanness and ignorance in the name of freedom and reason, in the name of the triumph of advanced ideas and genuine culture.

The brilliant mind of the author, embodied in Alexander Andreevich Chatsky, the main character of comedies, is merciless to the stupid and fat inhabitants of the Moscow "light", mired in lazy idleness and nostalgia "for the times of Ochakov and the conquest of the Crimea." But at the deafly closed doors of mansions, where "prejudices are old," the "current age" is knocking authoritatively, bearing advanced ideas love of freedom, enlightenment, humanism. Its representative is Chatsky, who for the first time in our literature challenged the society of feudal lords and conservatives. So, on the one hand, a person who is democratically minded, dedicating "high impulses of soul" to the Fatherland, to his people, who in "skinny slavery" has reached the limit, and on the other - "wild nobility."

The action of Griboyedov's play develops rapidly. Chosen for the plot.classic" love triangle and saving traditional form comedy (the action takes place in one place - Famusov's mansion for one day. and the circle actors constant). Griboedov immediately makes us understand: personal intrigue is giving way to a conflict of a different kind - social. Nevertheless, Sophia's "secret" is revealed to Chatsky only in the finale, until which he still hopes for something. Who knows, if not for this hope, he would have clashed with Famusov. Skalozub and the like. would have expressed what he thinks about them? .. But he did it. True, his monologues are still warnings, they are still only words, but what words!

The conflict develops all the more interesting, since a trifle that is purely external at first glance (a remark of an irritated Sophia is a typical reaction of a spoiled creature) is immediately picked up by others and blown up to social proportions. Chatsky's madness is convenient, beneficial to society, because it gives its representatives some chance for their justification. "Dangerous dreamers" like Chatsky too unceremoniously tear off the masks of hypocritical well-being. And now Famusov is gone. respected officer and loving father, not a hospitable and hospitable host, but a ruthless feudal lord, an enemy of enlightenment. The owner of a brilliant colonel's uniform, Skalozub is a stupid martinet, "wit" Repetilov is an empty talker, and Zagoretsky, who is always needed by everyone, is an impudent swindler. And around them are crowds of ghosts like the countess-grandmother and the Tugoukhovsky princes ...

Chatsky is the only living person in the comedy, according to the apt remark of I. A. Goncharov. Let's agree: not every contemporary of the author and his hero could become the prototype of Chatsky, directly entering into battle with his ideological and spiritual opponents. It is clear that Griboedov idealizes his hero, whose sincere monologues are somewhat long, and their wit frightens rather than convinces the listeners gathered at Famusov's. But after all, the words of Chatsky were actually heard in our literature for the first time! And not just boldly, ardently, but cleverly, deeply, subtly, the hero analyzed society, passing a fair sentence on him:

Aren't these. rich in robbery?

They found protection from court in friends, kinship,

Magnificent chambers.

Where spilled in feasts and extravagance

And where foreign clients will not resurrect

The meanest traits of the past life...

How does the conflict between the advanced personality and the Famus society end? Remember? "I don't come here anymore..." Really This is admission defeat? No. by no means! Goncharov was right when he said: "Chatsky is broken by the quantity of the old force, inflicting on it, in turn, a blow with the quality of the new..." than convincing. After all, the faithful sons of Russia returned as winners ...

At all times there were, are and. probably will have their own Griboedovs, Chatskys. Vazir-Mukhtars, who, first of all, thanks to their brilliant and far-sighted mind, become prophets in their homeland. As a rule, this violates the established social order, the "natural" course of things, and society comes into conflict with the individual. True, the very recent history of our country did not bring grandfather to conflict: fortunately, there were more mines than under Nicholas I. But for true prophets there is and cannot be any other way than the way forward - "for the honor of the fatherland, for convictions, for Love".

And what would we do without them?.. The answer is obvious. After all, prophets are always poets. And poets, if you remember Joseph Brodsky, "always come back"...